A year in the life

South Island II

2006-09-26T10:30:00.000+12:00

It was a while ago now but I'll continue from where I left off in my last entry, asssuming I can remember the stuff we did by now! So after the sperm whale exploits of my last entry, there was a southern right whale with calf swimming along the seashore in Kaikura's bay the next day! We meandered along the pebbly beach keeping up with the whale's progress for quite a long time, fantastic, it wasn't that far offshore at all either. Easy to see why this place is famous for its whales now! Many of the buildings in the town are decorated either with large paintings of whales on the walls or with big tail fins on their roof making it look like a whale is diving into the building.

Eventually we tore ourselves away from those whales to continue to our next destination, which we still hadn't decided on at the time; the choice between Christchurch, or a stretch further down the coast to Omaru where penguins lurk. We ended up in Omaru finally via a quick stop for lunch in Christchurch and a look around the city centre. We decided to press onwards immediately, not that Christchurch wasn't nice at all - just different priorities in limited time.

There are 2 colonies of the birds in Omaru apparently, blue penguins and rarer yellow-eyed penguins. I was dissapointed to find you have to pay to watch the blue penguins (not mentioned in our Lonely Planet), its a bit like having to pay to see pigeons in Edinburgh or Komodo dragons in Indonesia - Oh wait I did have to pay for those! Apparently the penguins were regarded as a nuisance before they became a tourist attraction. There is a viewing stand facing the colony where you can observe blue penguins coming back ashore in the evening. We would have gone to see them anyway if we hadn't been misinformed by our motel owner telling us the wrong best time to see them. (Early evening is the best time, not too late. Grr) We were lucky to find a couple of yellow eyed penguins the next morning tho, huddled up in a cranny at the base of a cliff on this lovely beach nearby the town. By the time we retraced our way back along the beach they had gone, waddled off to the sea for a spot of fishing presumably.

Not having enough time for the famed Milford Sound and Fiordland thing, we went inland to Wanaka in the mountains next. The drive through the mountains of the Southern Alps was awesome with its moutain views. And the serene beauty across lake Wanaka was captivating. We sat and gazed at the lake as the sun set, mesmerised by the changing light and reflections.

We also had our first encounter with Kea's, nearby at the at the triple cone ski resort. These large alpine parrots - keas, definately live up to their reputation, very cheeky, bags of character. Maria had been dying to see them ever since we arrived in New Zealand. They were hopping around and squawking their 'kea' call looking like they were up to no good, reminding me of naughty disney vultures.

Our next port of call was the isolated West coast and the glaciers. There are two main glaciers, the Frans Josef and the Fox Glacier, both of them snaking all the way down the mountains to quite low altitudes. You really have to see these things to appreciate the immensity of them I think. They held my fascination in a similar way to that of volcanoes, with that capablity of transforming and shaping the landscape. I was dying to walk right up to the glacier face and put my ear to it. I wanted to hear if it creaks and groans the way I imagine it to. It was from here that you get the amazing views of Aoraki too (the highest mountain in Australasia).

At night in Fox Glacier town Maria and I went to the forest to see gloworms. Its really strange you are in pitch darkness except you see bright constellations of pinpoint lights shining like stars, all around you. When you shine your torch on one you reveal it to be a thin wormy, caterpillar type thing with a glowing dot in its tail.

Heading up the west coast there is plenty of rainforest, it looks amazing the dense foilage of ferns, as Beck said, its a bit like tropical jungle. There are some pretty savage biting insects (sandflies I think), the bites take ages to go, I still have mine now. Its a lovely place to drive tho, the roads are very remote and quiet. There are several long, single track bridges to negotiate, a couple of which are shared with the train aswell. There didnt appear to be a way to tell if a train was coming either so you just have to put your foot down and leather it while hoping for the best.

Comin to the end of our trip we went into relaxation mode. As we headed back inland we stopped in Hamner springs for a couple of nights. You can bathe in volcanic hot springs surrounded by snowcapped mountain views. Ahhh nice! Great for relaxing and recuperating. The only annoyance was we couldn't go back for our second session we'd been looking forward because of a power cut in the town.

As we passed through Kaikura again on route to the ferry, Maria suggested another look down at the seafront. The southern right whales were back (or still there)!!! :-) Not only that but they were very exhubriant this time, leaping half out the water and making big splashes - breaching I think they call it. Nice birthday pressie for me. Our final activity on route back to Picton and the ferry was a bit of wine tasting and a tour of one of the big winearies in a town called Blenheim. Maria had a few gripes (not grapes) with the 'new world' way of doing things but the wine over here is pretty dam good, I'm a fan anyway. We took away a few bottles for later consumption.

Anyway thats me signing off this blog --- for real this time I reckon.

Adios y besitos

South Island

2006-09-08T19:19:00.000+12:00

I was sure this blog ended ages ago. oh well! This one has been prompted by our explorations into New Zealand's South Island. My contract working in parliament has now ended, my new full time job is still over a week away... leaving time for another trip. Plenty of time for the drudgery of work later.

We arrived to Picton, which is in the north of the south island yesterday on the interislander ferry. the crossing is about 3 hours from Wellington and is beautiful and scenic. Especially as you come into South Island waters, you travel up this long channel, the water suddenly eery calm and surrounded by stark remote hillsides.

Armed with our trusty lonely planet guidebook, (generously donated by Beck and Dan, with all the highlights already studiously highlighted for us), we have begun heading South down the west coast and arrived in Kaikoura which is famous for whales. The pacific ocean here seems a wonderful vivid blue, there are huge long grey beaches of small pebbles and a gorgeous snowy mountain backdrop (which has stubbornly remained hidden in clouds so far, except for a tantalizing glimpse we got at the end of our whale watching trip).

We've already been ticking many of our boxes and its only day one. After stopping on the side of the road for a bite to eat at a picnic stop I decided to have a look at the seashore and almost stood right on top of a large fur seal! It was chilling out rather far away from the sea shore on the grass near the car park. So tick, fur seals done. Actually there were loads of fur seals when we looked closer, many rocks not rocks at all but yet more fur seals. All looking cute, yawning and scratching themselves and stuff.

We went on the whale spotting trip at Kaikura, its not exactly cheap ($125 each) but worth it I reckon mainly because you are contributing to the idea of whales being better value alive rather than hunted. And part of the money also goes to the Maoris (its a tribal run organisation) and part goes to the research of whales aswell. Of course you get to see whales too and they are amazing.

We saw two huge sperm whales doing their spouting and stuff. The higlight is when they dive down to the black depths of this huge submerged canyon just off the coast here (over a km and a half down) and battle with giant squid no Nims - I never saw any actual giant squid battles - only the whale starting off its dive.. Their tales rising into the air before finally sinking under the waves, it's quite a sight.

We also saw a few majestic wandering albatrosses (with a wingspan up to 4m). Remember that monty python sketch 'Albatross. Albatross', erm anyway that was our catch phrase of the moment.

2006-09-06T00:31:00.000+12:00

Just want to pay my respects to Steve Irwin 'the crocodile hunter'. I'm in shock and deeply saddened by the news of his death. His love of animals was infectious and very inspiring.

Beautiful New Zealand

2006-09-01T22:17:00.000+12:00

It seems I can't stop blogging but I thought, hell another one last one might be in order. We have finally managed to see a bit of New Zealand, or a fair chunk of the North Island at least, on our tour with Beck and Dan recently. We had a great time, it was absolutely lovely to see my rapidly expanding lil sis. She is pregnant for those who don't yet know. We actually had the honour of being present when Lygurgus first kicked hard enough for Beck to feel it.

So here are some photos of New Zealand's North Island.

Going from top to bottom, photos are: A snow capped Mount Taranaki looking majestic rising as it does from nowhere. (Worth looking at on google earth too). Dan planning our next move as Beck looks on. Scenery from the 'forgotten highway', where it seems they forgot to put petrol stations too! Tree ferns in abundance near the road. Our cable ride on Mount Ruapahu in the Tongariro national park and finally Ruapahu's jagged crater rim.

Gorgeous scenery in the Togoriro National park, aka Mordor from Lord of the Rings

From left to right: Me being a monkey on the climbing wall at Extreme backpackers in Torangi. A hostel we would all highly recommend by the way. The Craters of the moon, thermal springs with Beck and Dan looking on. Maria and I being tourists in front of the Lady Knox geyser.

Above: The champagne pool, a very beautiful body of clear water soaked in minerals, streams of fizzy bubbles rising up and with a surface temperture of 70 deg C.

Left: Us at the Cathedral Cove. Right: On a local ferry with two nutters on the Cormandal Peninsular.

Breaking news

2006-08-11T18:44:00.000+12:00

Well my retirement from blog writing didn't last long did it? I've been prompted to return for one last entry due to some dramatic news events unfolding right now. Jin the otter didn't escape from Auckland Zoo. Yes unbelievably its true, Jin the otter never escaped at all. Jana the otter was actually the escapee, it was Jana leaving poor Jin to cop all the flak. In a final twist to the story, staff are trying to cover up this dreadfull mess by renaming Jana to Jin! But I can reveal the truth exclusively on this blog that Jana the otter was the one terrorising New Zealanders these past weeks.

Its the final entry

2006-08-01T17:04:00.000+12:00

Yes its finally arrived to that time - the time to bring this blog to a close. It was never really intended to cover anything other than the trip really, the extension into New Zealand recently wasn't planned in the first instance. It will be a bit odd though - not broadcasting my all my trivia on the internet, I wonder if I'll get withdrawl symtoms? Maybe I could get tempted by Seb's idea of creating a domestic blog in which I'd discuss the merits of draft-excluders... or I could start by discussing humane mouse traps, and if they actually work?

I wrote this blog to try and provide my personal record of all the countries we passed through, and capture some of my thoughts, memories, the frustrations and the highlights of this 'once in a lifetime' (or maybe twice) journey all the way across the world to New Zealand, and to share with whoever may be interested in reading it. I think my blog has mostly accomplished that but also there is so much that has slipped through the net and didn't make it to the blog too.

In the end the route was roughly how we first imagined it. The most notable absence being Laos, though if you examine South East Asia on a map its so easy to find millions of amazing looking places that we never made it to aside from Laos. The world is really a big place. India was the odd one out I suppose, we could have gone from China through Tibet, Nepal and into India that way, or been really adventureous and try to sneak/bribe our way through Myanmar. In some ways its a shame we didn't go completely over land and sea, by the end we were plane hopping a bit. The essence of the overland idea remained though I think.

What would my top three highlights be I hear you asking? There are so many contenders; galloping across the mongolian steppe on horseback is right up there. There are loads of snorkleing/diving possibilities but I'd say snorkelling with around a dozen Manta Rays is another, or maybe the shark adventure, or maybe the sea snakes, though I don't want to put too many underwater ones. Just being in Varanasi again and for so long is probably the another, studying yoga and living with monkeys, dodging cows, all that. But then that missed out the trans siberian rail trip. I could think of a completely different top three very easily in fact.

Any regrets? Maybe just that we had to miss so many other places I'd like to have seen, especially at the end in Indonesia which we only took in such a small part. I'd have loved to see Papua too. However, since I'm now based on this side of the world maybe I will get there at some point in the next few years. Theres lots of places from here that would be great to explore, like the pacific islands, fiji, samoa...

So as for my latest news... I've finally got a job! :-D I start tomorrow in fact. Well actually its only a short term contract helping out with parliment's new website. Its a tentative dipping of my toe in the water of work, which will do for now. Maria has started doing a few hours back at work too, recovering well from the appendix shananigans. We've splashed out on some furniture gradually phasing out the cardboard. The flat is much more homely now; we have some couches (3 seater and a 2 seater), a futon, computer desk and chair, wireless router, you know the essentials. I suppose this means that we are officially settled now, or at least in my case, I certainly feel much less transient.

Just to prove that cardboard chic is still alive though I have made a rather nice cardboard coffee table consisting of the box our computer chair came in and the box our oil-filled heater came in stacked on top of each other.

We are looking forward to our first visitors very soon. Second cousin Lucy gets the honour of being the first visitor, arriving on thursday, closely followed by Beck n Dan who are following hot on her heels a couple of days later. Can't wait!

Just to finish off I'd like to say thanks especially to everyone who commented on my blog and those who enjoyed reading it. And best wishes to all those other travellers we met on the road, we hope to see some of you in New Zealand some time.

Lots of love from Ade

caged tigers, mice and kiwis

2006-07-23T16:10:00.003+12:00

Um what is there to blog about lately? Unexcitingly its largely about job hunting and not working, hence the lack of recent entries. Maria's mostly at home, still recovering from her appendix removal, I'm still at home, due to continuing unemployment. We've been going crazy cooped up in the flat with shit weather keeping us indoors, at each others throats more than any point in the trip, except perhaps the times we quit smoking. However blockbuster video shop must love us, surely we've been their best customers of late. Still things seem to be picking up, I've had a couple of interviews, might have an IT contract coming up this week - fingers crossed it does, it better do cos I turned down some temping work this week for it. Another application has progressed to a second interview. Just gotta keep at it, the jobs are there.

Also the weather has been lovely the last couple of days, today was fairly hot, bright and sunny. You only notice after leaving our chilly refridgerated flat though. I think its fair to say we won't be keen to renew our lease on this flat once the 6 months term is up. It never sees sunshine! From our large condensation dripping windows we can see the sun tantalisingly beaming down on the houses below us, while we stubbornly remain in the shade, from dawn until dusk. Water gushes from the gutter above splashing all around the glass doors at our bedroom, lovely for mould and fungus, not so great for us.

We have a lickle mouse sharing our living room too. A situation I've sometimes wondered about what might happen between Maria and I in this eventuality coming to pass. I say this because I have a history of being overly soft with these pests, to the extent of befriending the critters and leaving little piles of crumbs for them to scoff late at night, whereas Maria is adamant that they are vermon and definately not welcome. I don't have the heart to kill the little guy, its hard enough resisting the temptation to try an befriend it. We could try those humane traps that catch them alive I suppose, and then give it back its freedom down the hill near a nice sunny house. Maybe we should get a cat to do the dirty work? It'd be a good excuse to get a pet, one which the landlord would be hard pressed to deny. Another advantage of getting a cat is it might help eradicate those dreadful little flightless kiwi birds that scurry around the undergrowth in our garden. Only joking, they are actually fictional, like haggises.

So, some things I like about New Zealand... The lichens on the pavement. I sprinkled lichen spores around Hataitai after we arrived and already many of them have taken, some have grown to bigger than a two pound coin already. Lichens are a great indicator of pure air quality - something that grabbed me when I took my first lungfuls of air when we arrived in Wellington. Really fresh and clean antarctic air here.

Recycling - I was horrified when I found out that the council will only remove specific yellow rubbish bags from the street, they cost like 10 bucks for five bags which is a fair bit. However I was converted when I discovered they also collect normal carrier bags full of paper and cardboard, or full of squashed tins and cans or glass and plastic bottles, from the pavement for recycling. Our vegetable waste goes on a compost heap I've started in the garden. After recycling all that stuff theres hardly any left to go in the big yellow bags, so good value after all one yellow rubbish bag virtually never fills up.

Carrier bags in supermarkets - they don't give you any. Well you can ask for some but I think you have to pay and its assumed you won't use them. Instead you can use cardboard boxes reused from the original deliveries. Or you can buy big reuseable bags made from nice environmentally favorable textiles instead of horrible oil wasting plastics. This is something I whole heartedly agree with. I have long thought that plastic bags and plastic bottles should be banned outright, when we were travelling I saw many examples of the scourge of plastic spoiling otherwise pristine environments. Also I was unhappy at the thought of how many plastic bottles we were personally responsible for during the trip. People are ingenious, we can learn to live without them, refilling and reusing is the way forward.

One thing I don't like here, in common with all New Zealanders I think, is this size of the loose change. It is massive, a 50 cents coin, (worth maybe 15 pence) is bigger than a 2 pound coin. The 20 cents coin is not much smaller, not to mention the 10 and the 5, all massively oversized. Normally I carry change around, here I daren't. apparently New Zealand's coins are about the biggest in the world. However I won't have to tolerate them very long, they are going to be phased out in about one weeks time to be replaced with much friendlier smaller coins.

Almost forgot - how could I? We are now counting down days until Beck, Dan and the foetus, arrive in New Zealand. Crikey its only 10 days in fact, but we won't see them until they get from Auckland to Wellington, so around 13 days time I think, and counting - Eeeeee

Jin the otter found!

2006-07-10T19:07:00.000+12:00

Yes Jin has been found and unlike Bruno the bear in Germany, was captured alive. Reports say her coat is not very glossy, she has a few cuts and bruises and she's lost about a third of her bodyweight but otherwise she seems fine after her incredible bid for freedom and journey of hundreds of miles.. "I feel a bit traumatised after my holiday and subsequant recapture" she told reporters telepathically, "now I just want to go home to the zoo and see all the other otters". However she'll have to wait for her homecoming, she is due to stay in quarantine for 30 days.

Ade y Maria vs New Zealand

2006-07-06T23:51:00.000+12:00

Its been a month already, our dream of living in New Zealand is officially turning into a huge struggle and the gloves are off. The weather has been shit for as long as I can remember, by that I mean very cold, windy and pissing it down almost constantly. Upgrading the climate was supposed to be one of our big gains, instead we've got the coldest winter for 30 years, parts of Wellington are flooded. Maria celebrated her 30th birthday in an operating theatre at the hospital! Yeah! We considered our options but didn't go for a trip up north to see volcanic springs and geysers, we didn't take a trip to the south island to go whale spotting, instead deciding, lets go to 'accidents and emergencies' at Wellington hospital. She is fine, in case you are getting worried at this point. It turned out to be appendicitus which they had to operate on straight way. She is getting better daily now but obviously still recuperating and I'm not supposed to make her laugh. On top of that I have an absolutely rotten cold complete with aching muscles, pain behind my eyes, difficulty breathing, I'm coughing constantly. Mental note: I have to stop describing pain graphically in my blog. What else? We are haemorraging cash with our bank account trapped in a plummeting downward spiral. Every job I apply for, they go yeah your cv looks great we'd like to interview you, but then you wait for ever for the interview to come! - an example of laid back kiwi culture perhaps. A policeman appeared at our door earlier telling us someone tried to break into the neighbours upstairs flat!!! I dunno it just feels like the planets are opposing us just now. By the way Jin the otter is still at large as far as I know, probably freezing his little nuts off.

random ramblings

2006-06-29T02:06:00.000+12:00

with a sense of trepidation I start this blog, because I don't know how far I'll go with it, ie will it present a normal facade of optimism or reveal some brutal pessimism? Maybe I'll just leave some veiled hints about my world, pretend I've gone for the former option when in fact I went for the latter. or maybe not, who knowsh? As I madly type away on the keyboard the result will be revealed. Probly just more of my inane ramblings in fact, as I'm starting to do now already. I wonder if this blog has served its purpose and should die gracefully now rather than fade away? Its already getting dangerously close to the point of no new news to tell... um watched corrie this evening, what else?

Yep they do have coranation street on telly here, they do it in huge feature length long +2 hours episodes and advertise it beforehand like its a hollywood film or something. Eastenders is on too, we've joined the story at roughly the exact point we left it in the UK, not that either of us actually watch it, or admit to it at least. In fact they really seem to like british tv here, i think we get more of that than New Zealand programs. At the moment they seem to advertise season 3 of 'to the manor born' on DVD a lot.

gold kiwi fruits, I lied in an earlier blog when I said they were green, not intentionally though, they are green, until you open one, then they turn out to indeed be a sparkley gold colour, or at least a yellowish. they taste different too, quite nice, but I prefer the normal green ones. You can buy yams here and I am tempted but how do you cook them? Does anyone know? I'd quite like to try them. in the supermarket courgettes are labeled as courgettes but with zuchinni in brackets, that appeals to me because it shows that they are not completely dominated by ozzie culture. They call shallots shallots too unlike aussies who have a severe spring onion shallot, fresh onion confusion. Also kiwis call rugby rugby not footy as the Australians do. Although they do call footy soccer, which is annoying. I've even started doing it too which is really annoying.

Staying on the subject of veggies though being in such a remote place as New Zealand makes you take note of the value of fruit and veggies, for example don't buy asparagus imported from california, cos it costs a fortune. Brocclii also is dead expensive. Whats going on? I need to reevaluate my veggie eating habits for budgetary reasons. Strawberries don't even think of buying them.

I lied when I went on about efficient waste recycling and thermal heat exchangers and stuff being all the rage too in an earlier blog. That hostel we arrived at is a definate one off but full marks to it for pointing the way forward!!! If you actually look at Wellington through an infrared camera from a helicopter you'd see huge supernovae blazes of light coming from every house as heat pours out of its poorly insulated walls and windows. I wonder if they've heard of double glazing? Maybe thats what I should do, become a double glazier.

As we open bank accounts, sign a lease on the flat, and as we buy things like tellies and fridges and shit like that, we get more and more tied down, the more tied down we get the more it snowballs into you have to get tied down more! its like shit now we need a tv stand and a dvd recorder, and a blender and a couch and a bed settee and a bed and and and ... a job! before you know it you're back where you started except thousands of miles from home and you can't fit it all in your rucksack and just up and leave. The freedom we had as backpackers is already disappearing like an elusive thin mist in the morning sun.

Maybe its time to head back to Europe via Maria's favored route. We'd have to do a runner from the flat, sell our washing machines and fridges and stuff on 'trademe' (the kiwi version of ebay). Pack the rucksacks up and head from here to south america on a plane, plough on up all the way up from the southern tip of that continent through central america, maybe catch a bit of scuba diving round there, then up through north america to Greenland. Island hop down to Iceland, Faroes, Shetland, Orkney to Caithness. Mam could put the kettle on for our arrival in roughly another year or so's time, and do one of those spreads with quiche and baked potatoes and carrot sticks to dip in hummus. Why not?

Except we haven't even seen New Zealand yet, only Wellington and a couple of suburbs. This weekend we are gonna blow the budget and do some sight seeing in New Zealand. I wonder where the nearest volcanoe is. Its Marias 30th birthday, and she as the weekend off work, so thats how we'll celebrate. Yes shes working in a cafe - you can imagine how she feels about that, its not her preferred career shall we say. Or I could buy her a ticket for the bungee in Wellington, they have one in the street in the city centre.

Well its late I'm gonna go to bedski and I'll wish you all good morning, except its morning here now, the world cup has made me nocturnal (i'll blame the world cup for now), so it must be afernoon in Europe. Its too confusing. g'night.

Jin the otter

2006-06-22T21:27:00.000+12:00

Its a bit wierd perched here in the comfort of our own flat to write a blog. I'm supposed to be sweating in an internet cafe with geckos running around the walls when I do this. I have to use that word loosely though, comfort. First off its bloody cold ere. I think its finally dawning on me that I'm in for a winter, the winter that we escaped when we left has caught up. The south island is covered in snow so there are some fabulous photos of snow covered volcanoes in the papers but there are lots of people there who've had no power for days, also our flat is drafty and hard to keep heated, those lovely big windows pour heat away like theres no tomorrow, as the antarctic winds blast in. It is wild here, lots of wind and rain. It feels cold. Secondly we are lacking in furniture, its a funny thing, bringing one rucksack of belongings each when you move into an unfurnished flat. You empty your stuff onto the floor and go um now what? Five large empty rooms and a little pile of grubby clothes, shells and bits of lava in the corner of one of them.

Theres a tv program starting that Marias watching called 'tourettes camp' in which a group of international 'tourettes' teenagers are all lumped together. I shouldn't laugh I didnt mean to honest. Theyre all shouting 'f*ck off' and stuff in the background, quite distracting actually!

Anyway going back to the subject of our new flat, we are making inroads into getting it more homely having bought some essentials such as tv (how can you live without it) which is now sitting on top of the same box we bought it in, the box saves money on buying a tv stand and looks cool in an ultra hip minimilist way. Our new laptop is similarly positioned except on a pile of 3 boxes; one a starter pack of crockery, one was the laptop box and the other was for a home cooking set of pans. To sit on we have two deckchair things which are quite comfy unless you are sitting trying to type on the computer, in which case the frame begins to cut off he ciculation in your legs.

The narrator has just said that the tourettes people tend to set each other off when they're grouped together, they're now shouting about the twin towers to an american tourettes kid. Actually they seem not far removed from normal awful teenagers to me.

Going back to our furniture; an airbed, fridge freezer and washing machine completes the list. We've been like little ants scurrying back and forward on the bus to the shops carrying armfuls of things. So, I think this style of furnishing should be called 'cardboard chic'. It could catch on. Unfortunately until we get jobs and stuff we can't really justify buying much more stuff for the flat. Which means job hunting is now a big priority, if it wasn't already. I've already had a couple of interviews but its gonna take time. The outlook seems hopeful for me though, there are supposed to be lots of jobs in my line of work, a skills shortage they say. Maria isn't so optimistic for her line of work - helping homeless alcohol and drug addicts, I suppose she'll write about this in her own blog if she wants. She'll be able to go to Uni if she wants tho which is a plus.

So Jin the otter is missing. It been in all the news here for days. An otter has escaped from the zoo. People have spotted this otter here and there but it is still at large. Its amazing here in new zealand the way the news is presented. What would be a small light hearted finishing piece in the UK, here is a major item of national interest that gets followed for ages. Another popular story is the streaker who ran on the pitch for the all blacks vs Ireland game and the subsequent court case, followed by the revelation she then sold her bikini for more than the cost of the fine, with the latest being a copycat streaker at a high school rugby game! The light hearted bit at the end tends to be something about how weird soccer.

So with the dramatic news that this furry fugitive is still on the run (the otter) I'm gonna go just now.

wet n windy in Wellington

2006-06-13T17:20:00.000+12:00

Hellooo again. Yup still blogging, at least for now, quite a few people seem interested in how we are getting on so I'll spraff a bit in my usual style... pretty well is the short answer, we've found a nice 2 bedroom flat in a place called Hataitai now, its 5 mins from the city on a steep hillside on Mount Victoria overlooking the sea and near a viewpoint. Any of our family or friends are very welcome to come visit of course :-) The views from our flat are going to be amazing. We'll be able to watch howling gales blasting horizontal rain across the city whenever we want.

Actually I don't want to complain about the weather too much it did rain yesterday but today it is dry, and when we first arrived it was bright and sunny for almost the entire week, i was even wandering around the town in a t-shirt, ah those halcyon days of last week. We are finding it cold today though, at least compared to the local kiwis seem to, maybe its cos we're still adjusting from tropical heat to temperate winter. None of the shops seem to be stocked up on warm clothes. In fact it looks like spring fashions are all the rage. Is kiwi winter fashion the same as spring in the UK? Or is this an example of hemisphereism? whereby huge global chains dominated by North American and European markets dictate what clothes go into the shops? Many locals are wearing shorts. None of the windows are double glazed and no storm doors like you get in Scotland.

I think they are just tough here. Thats why they don't like football (soccer as they call it) only rugby. Honestly you can hardly tell there is a world cup on at all. I've only seen one game so far, not including some highlights the next day - Engerlands famous victory over Paraguay. We watched it in a late opening cafe/bar in which there were a few curious but mainly disinterested Kiwis, some quite reserved English fans and a large group of very enthusiastic Japanese who were supporting England quite loudly, especially whenever Beckham got the ball. Tommorrow we'll go and cheer on Spain versus the Ukraine.

new life new zealand

2006-06-07T19:36:00.000+12:00

We've made it! NZ! New Zealand! Amazing to think we are here after all this time and distance. It feels great to be here I can honestly say, we sidestepped Auckland at the last minute and mystifyingly are in Wellington instead. Don't know why? it was always Auckland being targeted throughout our entire trip. Its like a little voice directed us here instead. You gotta listen to those little voices.

The strict customs checks for bits of wood and shells, bits of lava and dirt on your shoes and all that was similar to entering Australia but thankfully (and sensibly) went much smoother and quicker this time around, and I was able to keep all my stuff too. One of the things that first grabbed me when we left the airport was the feel of the air on my face; clean, fresh and invigorating, really nice. Probably drifted straight up from Antartica that air. The weather has been beautiful so far (day 2 now), blue skies and lots of sunshine, it is a bit chilly - need a jacket, but no danger of snow, except sometimes on the nearby mountaintops we've been told, which makes the place look even more scenic than it already is. Considering its winter just now it's great. Local people have assured us that the weather can get a bit boisterous though and there is a sign on our hostel which says 'keep the doors closed due to the wind'. I suppose we'll become aquainted with the wind soon enough.

Just for a bit of random info we've discovered there are different types of kiwi fruit, normal ones but also 'gold' kiwi fruits. The gold ones are completely misnamed though cos they are of course green but not very hairy. There are bits of chewing gum all over the pavements which is very reminiscent of home ('old' home I should say). You can buy wine in the supermarket too like 'old' home which is a relief, in Australia you have to look for bottle shops which always seem to be closed when you want one. But in general here there seems to be a very healthy attitude to life. In our hostel almost all waste gets recycled or reused seperatly including vegetable waste for compost. And the heat from the showers waste water goes through a heat exchanger to help heat up the fresh water. The supermarket has lots of healthy food too, like bins full of dried fruits and stuff like that. All these types of things really appeal to me.

So now we are busy doing all the stuff that you do when you arrive to a new place, opening new bank accounts, browsing through job sections in news papers, looking for a place to live, looking for a place to watch the world cup matches - they will be at a very unsociable hour of the early morning over on this side of the world. Looking for nice places to relax with a coffee. Its a unpaid full time job with overtime doing all this, but good fun too. And now I'm becoming a kiwi, i've learned how to say 'fush and chups' but the way I know I'm becomming a kiwi was on the airplane headphones an ozzie comic was taking the 'pus' out of New Zealand and I was getting indignant.

Theres no IKEA. Sorry to leave with a bombshell like that. How will we furnish?

sunshine coast

2006-05-31T13:05:00.000+12:00

G'day moite. We've put quite a few miles on the campervan now, just thought I'd write a bit more from this expensive internet cafe in Rockhampton we are in (5 bucks for an hour). Rockhampton is the number one place in Australia for cattle apparently. Its funny the way all these towns we've been passing through are so proud of their slender achievments; "Welcome to Queenslands friendliest town" or "The Northern Territories tidiest town of 1986 and 1991". One town called Dingo proclaims itself the number one place, in the world, for trapping dingos - I think thats what it said as we zoomed through the place, probably never to return.

Back to the outback, there are some things I want to mention that I forgot in my last blog, the night sky is amazing. I mean completely fantastic, so vivid that the milky way looks like clouds in a completely cloudless sky. The fact that it is so unfamiliar to a northern hemisphere guy like me just adds to it, about the only constellation I recognise is the southern cross, and thats probably because its on the ozzie flag. There are other things I vaguely remember from star charts like the large magelanic cloud. Also there is a dark patch under the southern cross which if I remember right is a dust cloud called the coal sack. You can see Ursa Major hanging very low on the horizon but that too will disappear soon as we head further south. At the moment we are right on the tropical boundary where the tropic of capricorn is. We've been travelling along that line on the capricorn highway for the last couple of days.

I forgot to mention the tree frogs in the northern territory, how could I? They were so cool, lots of different types too. Eventually I'll upload some photos. I had one sharing the shower with me, I don't mean like the others that just stick to the wall, this one was hopping around my feet under the stream of water, I turned the temperature down to make sure wasn't too hot for the little bugger.

So, only a few more days in which to head down to Brisbane before our flight to New Zealand. Its amazing and very wierd to think the journeys end is so close.

Australia photo sets - click links below

Darwin photos
Kakadu National Park
Outback
The devil's marbles
Road
Camping
Brisbane

A land down under

2006-05-29T11:41:00.000+12:00

Sorry about going on about my ear so much in the last blog, it was that sore tho. Almost back to normal now thankfully. Well we are in Oz-tralia now, campervaning it through the outback with all other campervaning OAPs, makes a change from the twentysomething backpackers we normally see.

Our welcome to Australia was very nice, I think they had a special red carpet out for me in fact. I'm not going to tell the full story on my blog but in essense they scrutinised every sqare centimeter of my rucksack, my day bag, my wallet, everything I possess in fact. (Quite brave delving into all that grubbiness, though they did take the precaution of wearing rubber gloves to handle my stuff - But also incredibly invasive and downright rude I thought). With glee they produced all sorts of things I hadn't declared on my customs form, wooden bead braclet, wooden handle on a fan ... They held me for ages because I didn't have a prescription for my anti malaria pills, they also told me there were illegal ingrediants in our paracetamol that we bought in Bangkok. Honestly, I expected that kind of treatment from authorities in Russia or maybe even in China on this trip, I should have expected it here instead looking with hindsight. Australia likes to portray itself as a laidback country full of laidback people but is it hell? more like a facist police state in my opinion!

Anyway that was then, I'm beginning to forgive the place its bitter welcome and enjoying it anyway now. We hung about Darwin at the 'top end' for a day or two while I suffered with my ear and we tried to plan how to get to Brisbane, (where we fly out to Wellington). Our next shock was how much things cost! When you are used to Asia, it is frigtening how quickly you use your money and how little it goes. Eventually we chose the campervan option which though not cheap, does give you lots of freedom.

On the subject of shocks at western culture. How f**king fat is everyone here? Honestly its looks disgustingly obese seen through the eyes of someone whos been in Asia for almost a year. I'm sure the UK is the same in that regard. But the portions of food here... one plateful would feed a whole family for the whole day in Asia. They mount it on the plate in a huge pile with a layer of chips on the bottom and then burgers or steaks plonked on top, no wonder people are so fat. So another myth about the ozzies broken, maybe not quite as outdoory as you'd have thought, unless you count sitting on your arse in a 4x4.

Anyway, campervaning it has been amazing, we started by travelling through a huge national park, Kakadu, in which the scenery was amazing, huge towering termite hills, savannah type grasses and bush with many billabongs and creeks full of crocodiles presumably. You can't really get anywhere near the crocs as any road leading to a creek is 'seasonally' closed. We took a boat cruise on the yellow waters though, part of a river aptly named 'crocodile river' and saw loads of crocs there, which made me very happy obviously, they are such beatiful animals. There were ozzie fishermen in quite flimsy looking boats surrounded by hungry crocs, braver than me, those ozzies. I suppose the ozzies learn how to wrestle them at a young age or something.

Since Kakadu its been endless roads, first through bush for day after day, later grasslands with cattle, mostly flat and mostly with the road stretching to the horizon in front and to the horizon behind with no bends. You get these trucks that pull a train of trailers - road trains, which are about 50m long, huge monsters.

In the campsites when you wake in the morning theres been some cool animals hanging around, wallabies and kangaroos, dingos, parrots and stuff. Unfortunately most the kangaroos I've seen have been dead ones on the roadside, being pecked at by kites. There are loads of kites here. We've seen a few living kangaroos though thankfully, they are quite a sight bounding across the landscape.

Now we are in a quiet little outback town called Winton in Queensland. This internet is in the library. Apparently this place is famous for 'waltzing Matilda'. We haven't been to the Waltzing Matilda museum so I still don't know what the hell its all about, someone camping by a billabong and losing there legs or something? Its also famous for a fossilised dinosaur stampede, the footprints preserved in fossilised mud. I'd love to go and check it out but think I have to miss, our rental agreement doesn't let me go on unsealed roads. I'd have to do about 70km there and 70km back on a dirt road to see it. shall I? shan't I? These outback towns are funny, so quite, such wide roads. Nothing opens until 9:30am here, now that I like, I think that is very civilised.

acute pain in Indonesia

2006-05-18T18:31:00.000+12:00

instead of looking for reassurance about my blog like I normaly do, I've decided to try and get some sympathy for the acute pain in my ear in this one. My ear has pain that cannot be comprehended, a real sharp pain that starts from a baseline of complete agony but with waves of more intense pain yet riding on top of that, cutting right into my brain like a blunt knife, prodding repeatedly. There is little or no hearing on my right side and crusty fluids leaking out the ear hole. Also my ear pops a lot of the time but brings no relief when it pops. Or sometimes I have to pop it manually because it won't pop but then straight after it is the same. It feels like liquid is trapped somewhere that cannot be released. Also it hurts when I chew, like the pain is so intense that it can't all be stored in my ear and some of it has to be stored in my jaw ligaments too. Sometimes my ear drum throbs agonisingly with its own pulse, like its going to detach itself and make a new life of its own. I haven't really slept for the past two nights due to the excruciating agony. Anyway I have acquired some antibiotic ear drops which should sort it out. Must have caught this ear infection from diving or snorkeling, hell its worth it though.

The other day, our last on Gili Trawangan, we were snorkelling on the fantastic reef just in front of our hotel. I was busy with the camera taking a video of a jelly fish pulsating away happily when Maria shouted - snake! Battling the strong current I made it over to where she was to see this huge (2m+) deadly poisinous snake swimming up near her to gulp a breath of air from the surface. Amazing. It was longer than her, coloured in beautiful dark and light bands. Although dangerous in theory these creatures have little or no reputation for aggression, this one didn't seem that bothered about us at least, so we felt quite safe following it up the reef, watching it snaking around the bottom hunting in all the nooks and crannies for food, and occasionally coming up for a breath. My only hairy moment was when it came up for air a bit closer to me than I intended and seemed to observe me curiously as if to say - what are you still here? To which I backed away - no sir I'm off.

snorkelling that reef is like drift snorkelling, you plop into the water and the current just takes you, very difficult to fight it most of the time, especially without fins as we were, so you just go with it instead. It starts as shallow reef, but as you glide along you hit this cliff just off shore which drops down to over 40m depth. You can see all the way down too, the water so clear, real vertigo situation. Amazing to freedive as far as you can manage and then like superman woosh past all the fish with the current propelling you forward. Really like flying. I was doing that most of our time on the Gilis, there are so many turtles there too. Gonna miss that. They do this nice thing there where they look after young turtles and then release them once they are big enough to have a better chance of survival on their own. You can see them in a tank swimming around looking extremely cute.

Today is our last day in Indonesia, we are back in Bali now, or is it Australia already, there are so many surf boards around its easy to get confused. Maria heard that another bomb attempt was made here just the other day but thwarted, is there truth in that rumour? It does worry you though, that thought, becuase of all this islamic fundametalist terrorism on bali recently I had a completely different idea of what Indonesia would be like before coming here. It turns out to be really nice, open and friendly mainly, once you get past the annoying hawkers trying to sell you things and the islamic fundamentalist terrorists, you can find a multi-religous and seemingly tolerant place. The people really friendly - well the people who are not trying to rip you off and throw you off their bemo (small bus). Its been a place of contrast I suppose.

So at around 3am we'll be boarding our flight and heading for Oz, last stop before New Zealand. However I have a date lined up with a big salt water croc before then.

Indonesia photosets

Bali
Flores
Komodo National Park
Flores diving
Flores more diving
Gili islands
Gili diving
Gili snorkelling

dreams at a cost

2006-05-14T01:37:00.000+12:00

Well I'm blogging again, finally. We've not had any internet access for a while, I mean none, it must be about the first time on the trip that has happened. - I suppose we've been 'off the beaten track'- or probably not really off the beaten track but more like heading along a track that is beginning to grow over a bit from lack of recent use. Anyway, we've been exploring Nusa Tenegara which is a string of volcanic islands stretching from Java towards Australia, very beautiful as you can probably imagine. First flying from Bali to Flores (near the fabled Komodo dragons - which can kill you with their breath or by touching them :-p) and then backtracking across the islands of Sumbaya then Lombok and finally Bali where we fly out to Darwin.

So we are still in Indonesia on the small island of Gili Trangwangasa just off the coast of Lombok as I write this. It is lovely here I can honestly say, comparing favorably well with any other of the tropical islands I've raved about in Thailand or Malaysia. Today has been a great day in fact, nice early rise from our cheap, spacious and clean room and a lovely cup of Lombok coffee, then snorkelling with a large hawksbill turtle and other abundant fish life, great sunset over the volcanoe on Bali later on, great full moon moonrise over the volcanoe on Lombok, nice romantic meal by the moonlit beach with my wife just now, good news from home. It really has been nice today... which oh my god we needed, I'll elaborate on the frustrations of travelling in this country in a bit.

So Flores, the flight there was awesome, we had a small plane flying fairly low over the volcanoe dotted landscape and tropical islands, some jungle covered and some quite arid, which surprised me - the arid ones. Really nice, the trip only took about an hour and a half and there was a meal provided, it wasn't that expensive either. Contrast that with the return journey over by bus and ferry which we've now completed as far as Lombok. We had people insisting our bus wouldn't run so we had to buy their ticket instead. Or worst, at one point we were actually threatened with being thrown off the bus in the middle of the jungle in Sumbaya in the middle of the night because we wouldn't pay for a ticket (it had been paid for and was included in our combined ticket as we had earlier been assured) so quite ugly scenes where I had someone jabbing their finger at me calling me 'a stupid person' and me replying 'how can you sleep at night?'. In the end we held our nerve and didn't pay and got to our destination. The journey taking about 28 hours to get back as far as Lombok. Think I prefered the flight in a way.

Flores itself was really nice the only real problem being no tourists, this goes for Indonesia as a whole that we've experienced, not surprising I suppose because most governments are advising people 'don't go' or 'if you are there consider leaving', which isn't surprising after the last Bali bomb which was in November I think. It is really beginning to bite tho, the lack of tourists, you can see the infrastructure there lots of restaurants, guesthouses but all empty. The result for the nutters who do go here is that you are treated like a morsel of food in a sharks feeding frenzy, that is how it feels a lot of the time and is unpleasant. Hence the title of my blog, the stress of the travel here is the cost.

There are the dreams to compensate though. The diving has been fantastic, pristine coral in the Komodo national park, amazing sea life, I've been diving and snorkelling with turtles, sea snakes, manta rays, all of which are real boyhood dreams of mine of the Willard Price variety. Of course the dragons too. I don't have time to explain how everyone is up in arms about the park, which has just been taken over by a private firm and entry fees are sky high. To cut a long story short tho we saw the dragons on Rinca (the other island they exist on in the Komodo park). I had an amazing encounter with one in particular where it was prowling around in front of me, with me nervously huddling amongst a group of Inodonesians on a raised platform right at the jetty. It actually ran at one of the indonesians who was late climbing up for cover. My heart was honestly pounding, they are big and fast and something about the look in their eye when they observe you, like they are hungry. It is decieving cos they can move fast but look half asleep a lot of the time.

East Java to Bali

2006-05-04T17:31:00.000+12:00

hey only time to write a tiny bit. We finally made it to Indonesia (against consulate advice but hey you only live once). Impressions are very mixed, the indonesian people are very beautiful and smiley. Cant shake the feeling that we are being over charged for everything constantly though. We've seen volcanoes everywhere and had an amazing trip to Bromo on Java, setting off in the middle of the night to see it at dawn. Eery, flashes of lightening, smoke and mist, smells of sulphur. Anyway knackered after all that and epic journey to Bali yesterday. Trying hard to find our route out of here to NZ... wheres all the travel agents? Why is this internet so slow? So many questions. Anyway gotta go.

Bromo in pics

Click here for full photoset

KL

2006-04-25T23:36:00.000+12:00

Alright I'll write a bit about KL! (Its funny how I can delude myself that people are sitting anxiously in front of computers in their homes or office workplaces waiting to hear more about our trip, with very little evidence for the fact.) Anyway... KL (Kuala Lumpar by the way), seems like a typical big asian city to me, a bit of a cross between Singapore and Bangkok, which it lies geographically inbetween. There are lots of big sky scrapers (which always impress me, being a brit I don't normally see many of these). Some of the sky scrapers have some character too, with unusual curved surfaces or designed in a style resembling mosques or what have you. The most impressive are the petronis towers that you can see from all over the place, they are huge, but more than that they look really cool. We still haven't climbed up to the bridge that links them together, maybe tommorrow. We did climb the KL tower, which is a high telecomms tower. We did this while Naomi was here, it afforded us an amazing view of the city and included the Petronis towers and is higher than the viewpoint actually on the petronis towers.

One thing about KL, it's not designed with pedestrians in mind. Hardly any pedestrian crossings and when you do find them, the green man is animated walking turning to a run, getting quicker and quicker - causing you to anxiously start running quicker and quicker too - the green cross code man wouldn't like that. Maria curses and swears while crossing roads like somebody with tourettes syndrome - considering the way cars appear at high speed from nowhere I can understand it. It can be traumatic crossing the road. Another example, when we were walking to the Indonesian embassy today we reached a point where the only way to get further was to wander along the side of a busy motorway, actually on the motorway, no pavement, quite scary with cars hurtling past.

The embassy was mobbed when we got there incidently, loads of people clutching passports, bits of paper, huge queues to negotiate. Not like any embassy we've so far negotiated and the end result nada, no visa, 'oh is ok you get visa on arrival' we were gleefully informed finally, but after a bit more questioning 'oh yes you need onward ticket' which puts a spanner in the works. We don't have onward ticket, onward ticket costs a bleeding fortune from here. Dam. Do you know that song by 'the streets' where after failing to get loads of things done he says, i should have just stayed in bed like i know how?... " Today was like that... so i failed on the psp, couldn't get any visa, or a cheap flight to Australia, or Auckland". (Yeah I'm still on about psps). In all honesty we are feeling a bit lost, getting too low on time, enthusiasm levels pretty low as well. I still harbour dreams of island hopping all over Indonesia, particularly getting over to Borneo, Flores, Sulawiesi and Papua (formerly Irian Jaya). Papua particularly is a holy grail for me but seems impossible to reach, maybe we'll find the way as we get closer. but time is running, clock ticking. Maybe can have short holidays in Indonesia after we've settled in NZ, who knowsh?

At least I am beginning to really look forward to seeing New Zealand too. Sometimes people email us thinking we've been in New Zealand for ages by now and wondering how we are getting on. Obviously not staying current with our blogs then. But it is reaching that point of you know what I'm actually looking forward to home making, cooking things in my own kitchen, even getting a job!!! Crazy I know.

last blog continued sort of

2006-04-22T22:56:00.000+12:00

Lots of time and places have slipped past since my last blog entry so I don't know from which point to continue. Part of the reason for that is because we've been fitting in a lot of things to see with Naomi during the all to brief time she was with us... since the last blog we've been in the perhentians for about 5 or 6 days, Kuala Lumper and now Melacca. Also, partly because the internet on the perhentian islands is still too expensive for tight budgeting backpackers like us to sit writing blogs, and partly other things that I can't think of just now.

DSCN8428.JPG
Originally uploaded by meemal.

So, yes shes gone already - Naomi has left us earlier today, we are abandoned. Goodbyes really don't get easier! Its a horrible thought that every time I see family or friends in the forseeable future it'll end with one of these emotional goodbyes. How will I cope with that? I still feel emotionally raw even now, after watching a film (Ice age2) and eating a pizza since she left. It was great having her with us and very sad letting her go.

Anyway to solve the problem of what to write i'm gonna quote a couple of Naomi's emails instead. This saves me bothering my arse to write something myself.... She told me that would be ok to do that anyway, so here is...

Nims in the jungle

Arrived at the Taman Negara National park today via a 2 hour boat ride.... it was just beautiful. The boat driver was really nice and stopped the boat when he spotted any bits of wildlife ... like a king fisher, a couple of big monitor lizards swimming past, a troop of monkeys, water buffalo.... Its almost too much to take it!!! Ade was lamenting wishing mam could see this! She would love all the wildlife! Ih yeh, and we saw a massive black scorpion at the jetty.... a local had a pair of pincers ready to snip its sting off... as you can imagine ade and maria stepped in to save its little sting! The guy thought that they didn';t understand that it was a stinging arachnid and was doing sharade of it stinging and their arm swelling up! Ade reckons once we left he'd have been straight on it with the pincers!

We've found a niceish chalet for the three of us for about 2 quid a night and took a little walk into the jungle today .... tomorrow we're going to do a big jungle walk and stay in a hut on stalks about 10 k in... eeek!! I'm actually really looking forward to it. I saw an enormous spider today just above the chalet reception on a tree and was surprisingly un-freaked out! Which is a good omen with considering where I'll be sleeping tomorrow!!!

The jungle is so dramatic, there was constant rumbling of thunder for about 2 hours, gigantic creepers and roots, and as Ade puts it, vegetation, growing on vegetation, growing on vegetation!!! there;s so much to look at and smell and feel, its almost hard to take it all in! Think I maybe was a little jet lagged after all as I had a massive two hour nap earllier and feel much better for it now. All ready to take on the jungle properly tomorrow!! Thankfully there's not the blanket of leeches that Ade was describing in advance... phew!

Ade is the same as ever, and was swinging from the creepers in tarzan stylee.... grubbing about for insects and as Maria puts it, endlessly shit talking !!! Its great to see him and Maria again. They are both looking well and totally travellery! They seem really in the swing, and are really laid back and looking after me well!!! I feel like such a pasty travellery newbie in comparison!!!

Tonight we are going for a night safari in a jeep, which is aparently a great way to see lots of wildlife. Aprently they get startled in the bright light so you get a good squiz. Wish I could remember the way they worded that on the leaflet cause it was really funny!!!

The food is amazing here. I can't get over how cheap it is... like about 60p for a full lovely meal! Mmmm, just about to head off for some dinner soon actually, wish you were all here too!!!

Nims in the perhentians

Today I went for two scuba dives....they were "discover scuba" dives - meaning with an instructor. The only thing the instructor failed to mention was that he would be holding onto my tank the whole time to direct and adjust my floatation.... As the beginner dive in Cyprus I did 4 years ago gave you loads of freedom to swim off on your own and look at things I asumed it would be the same. I was wondering why I kept banging into the instructor, and whenever I was trying to adjust my boyancy it was acting unexpectedly!!! The poor intructor, he must have thought he had a right one there. With me trying to get away from him, swim in other directions and letting air in an out of my boyancy coat to try and adjust it myself!!! The second dive I had the little misunderstanding cleared up an it was a lot more relaxing.. really I was just a passenger eyeing up all the gorgeous sea life. It was marginally frustrating as I'm used to being so free under water, . It didn;t etract from all the beatiful sites, spawning coral... a cleaner fish nibbling my mozzie bite!!! radiant angel fish, blue spotted stingrays... and nemo? wow, he was in every sea anenome. A right wee feisty bugger. It doesn't matter that you are 1000 times his size... go go near his anenome and he comes out and darts at you to see you off!!! So the sea life is amazing here. I'm gonna have a day snorkelling as my last day on the island tomorrow (sigh).

Then its off to Kuala Lumpar for a night, and then to malacca to traing with Master Loh's brother for an evening. Singapore the next day and then home again. This holiday has really flow in. Its been so beautiful out here. A real eye opener to the backpacker lifestyle. Take this island for example.... its stunning, crystal clear water, hardly any development, guaranteed good weather (as long as you dont mind the odd thunderstorm), incredible snorkelling really close by, jungle... all that and the accommodation we stay in works out as under 3 pounds per night. I took out about 1.50 with me today, had a big bottle of water, plate of noodles, coffee an still came home with change!!!! I just never really thought that places like this could exist! And if they did I thought only for the rich! This place is full of budget backpackers though. Probably half the people who work here are travellers who can't bear to leave. This place is sch a little gem!

DSCN8372.JPG
Originally uploaded by meemal.

A highlight of the perhentians, the humphead parrotfish, sighted at coral bay.

perhentians revisited with a nims and KL

2006-04-21T03:29:00.000+12:00

Its well due time for an entry in me blog again but cos its late and i'm knackered and only have a few minutes b4 my hour expires it'll be very short one....

DSCN7909.JPG
Originally uploaded by meemal

First Taman Negara, ah the jungle, as you probably gathered from my last blog I loved it there. We all did in fact. We did the canopy walk which was really cool and a bit scary if you don't like heights. I confess to being a bit afraid myself as we teetered along a flimsy bouncing rope construction, hundreds of feet in the air. But corageously I continued and ultimately overcame my fear of plummiting downwards to my death, my bloody body bouncing hard off huge branches all the way down to the forest floor, if it had happened, to be consumed by leeches, hypothetically.... Anyway coming back to reality, I was very happy when I saw a flying lizard which was airborne at the time I spotted it, gliding through the air and then landing on a tree trunk. On that subject (flying), today leaving the perhentians i saw a flying fish go a good hundred meters through the air, flapping its big wingy fins before plopping back into the sea. Which reminds me again, I saw a marlin leap out the water returning from a dive trip a little while back, a fact that didn't get reported in my blog at the time. Man this blog is wandering in a very haphazard and incoherent way. I do have the excuse of being tired though and I'll stick with that excuse for now. So we are actually in Kuala Lumpar just now after flying south from Kota Bharu. In fact, fortunately for you, I'm out of time already, I'll have to write more later.

jungle

2006-04-12T23:16:00.000+12:00

So we've bombed up the penninsular of Malaysia in the jungle train yesterday, and now are 'infesting' the ancient jungle of Taman Negara. The nature here is awe inspiring, I mean I've been in some impressive temples and mosques in this trip but this rainforest is the most holiest of churches for me. Amazingly beautiful place, some of the smells halt you dead in your tracks while you pause to drink in the aromas of the plants. The life is everywhere, things growing on things growing, and things crawling on those things, and things eating those crawling things. There are huge solitary ants, and big armies of nasty looking ones. Insects that look like a leaf until the moment they suddenly fly up, and gorgeous butterflies, large and gracefull. Some moments the forest looks empty but you hear the life around and sometimes you feel the eyes of creatures on you while you unaware of them. We went for a first walk this afternoon, which Maria and Nims departed early from leaving me alone in the jungle for a couple of hours. As soon as they were gone, i was walking as quite as poss and animals started coming out. First a tiny weeny deer, i think its called a mouse deer, then a lickle red squirrel, cuteness. But then the skies darkened, there was a rising crescendo of some insect as if it was building up to what happened next. A tree crashed down really close to me! so close i was looking wildly around to see which direction i should flee to. didn't see the tree fall tho, maybe the sound carried more than it seemed.

While waiting for the boat we took to the park, at the jetty, two ozzie girls making there way down the river bank squealed in fright. A huge scorpian was crossing the path in front of them, which I naturally examined in huge delight. A malaysian man came over and was about to chop it's sting clean off with some wire cutters... to my intense horror. Instinctively Maria and I both shouted 'no!' to which he started gesturing how dangerous it was and how its sting would make your arm swell up like a balloon if it got you on the finger. I didn't know how to gesture back, 'leave it be, it needs its sting to survive, it has a right to defend itself or hunt or protect its babies, its a beautiful animal, it doesn't mean any harm'. i just hope to goodness that he left the creature alone after we left on the boat.

sibling capers

2006-04-11T01:53:00.000+12:00

Hey Naomi's here with us right now! direct from a long scottish winter. My gosh shes pasty white! I'd almost forgotten how white white can be. The asians must love her given the way they desire to be white themselves... that is judging by the amount of 'whitening' cosmetics they sell in the pharmacies in this part of the world. Its about as bizzare as the way westerners try to darken their skin with fake tanning products when you think about it.

I have to admit that being with Nims really has made me realise how much we are slumming it on this trip. Although she didn't say much about the dirtyness of the hotel we are in (a typical south east asian effort and probably not that bad at all compared to some we've been in), I was really feeling apologetic about it as if its my own home, "excuse the mess Naomi, the stains on the walls and sheets, and the musty smell, and the puddles of urine on the bathroom floor, I didn't have time to tidy up you see". Its not just the hotel either, but all the clothes in my backpack seem to be more grubby and smelly now that I'm imagining how they appear from Naomi's viewpoint.

Naomis intro to toilets here was like, "what's the hose for?" and then after we told her that you wash your arse with it after a shit, "yeuch so all the shitty water goes all over the floor then" she wondered.

Dammit we just realised we've forgotten to take our maleria tablets (yet again). I am heartly sick of taking those things I can honestly say. Oh well, only 2 more months of it.

So we've been shopping around Singapore today, and almost bought expensive Nikon D70 cameras (in Naomi and Maria's cases), almost bought a play station portable, PSP, in my case. In the end we didn't buy these gadgets not because we saw reason and realised we couldn't afford it but more because we got fed up with the sales people telling us utter bullshit and changing the prices and generally being insulting to our intelligence. I still quite fancy a portable games console tho, got no idea what the games are like but they must be good, anyone recommend any? but it looks like a cool thing to me tho, good for passing time on long journeys i would have thought (I'm still rabbiting on about by the psp by the way). I've also been dragged around quite a few bra shops today, one of the draw backs about being out numbered by girls now i suppose.

We also went around the botanical gardens today. Its cool seeing all the plants growing out doors here that back in Scotland would be in big heated glasshouses. Loads of turtles and terrapins in the pond there too.

Anyway, thats about it just now, we are off to Malaysia on the jungle train tommorrow.

2006-04-08T19:42:00.000+12:00

well we've arrived in Singapore, a bit tired and grumpy, from lack of sleep on the sleeper train I suppose. Our beds were right next to the automatic door in the corridor which kept opening and closing constantly it seemed like.

We are staying in a hostel, in a dorm. Singapore seems very expensive compared to what we are used to, for accomadation at least, try and find something better before Naomi gets here, tommorrow. I think there are bargains to be had with other kinds of shopping tho, i dare say we'll have a look and see. Hmm do I want an ipod or a gameboy advance or a 3d telly? or save it for more diving probly?

perhentians

2006-04-07T19:38:00.000+12:00

The perhentian islands are geat lush. Lush as in loads of wild jungle and abundant coral reefs, aswell as lush in other senses of the word. There are no roads here and not even a pier in fact, you just get dumped at the beach and have to paddle ashore with your rucksack, if you want to go anywhere else on the island you have to hire a little boat to take you. Actually there are some paths through the jungle to the other side of the island we were on (the smaller of the two), which makes a great walk, as long as you can bear the freakin mozzies which are a plague... in fact i have bites on my bites now, its like a whole second layer of mozzie bites.

its refreshing to find a place like this that seems content to stay roughly as it is instead of rushing to build more hotels, dive shops, discos, roads, piers and other human things. Actually i think it has to stay as it is due to being a protected marine park..? Also, as correctly mentioned in a brochure i looked at, there are no stray dogs there and no people badgering you to buy things, makes a nice change. malaysian people seem very friendly and chilled out - i think i already said that. Did i mention that the sea is lovely and very clear too with a very comfortable 30 deg C temperature and the sand a nice white powder?

one of the main things i liked was the wildlife - of course. Those big tokay geckos were everywhere, and unlike in koh tao where we mostly heard them and never saw them, here they are in your face and impossible to miss. We had three of them hunting on our balcony each night which i had great fun watching. normally they pay you very little attention (unless you happen to be a bug), but last night i was painting a picture of one and im sure it wasn't my imagination that they started watching what i was doing, they didnt look that impressed tho! And the shared shower where we stayed (moonlight resort) was swarming in them (geckos), i mean sometimes like a dozen of them, mature ones and juviniles, in the rafters and little clutches of what i assume were gecko eggs up there too. Also in the shower there appeared now and again the most amazing tree frogs, quite big, bright yellow and very sticky looking. if you ventured into the jungle you'd regularly see small monitor lizards, only about a couple of meters long or something like that, (when i say small i mean compared to komodo dragons :-p ). i spent ages trying to get some good photos of the monitors the other day, whilst getting eaten alive by bastard mozzies, not easy, they dont like you getting too close, in the end i caught quite a nice little video snip of two of these beasts having a scuffle in the undergrowth.

We also did a fair bit of fun diving while we there too with Sunlight divers. or when not diving i was mostly snorkelling. The diving was good, cheaper than Thailand and most other places weve been, with plenty of interesting things to see; like bamboo sharks, one or two of those black tip reef sharks, big rays of the blue spotted and giant lagoon ray types (didnt see a manta yet), and most of the other usual suspects of south east asian reefs. Quite a few of those titan triggerfish again which can give you a bit of a rush, they can be total agro and are definately intimidating, at least we didnt actually get attacked here like we did in koh tao when our dive group was split up by a big nasty trigger attacking our dive guide. one interesting dive was 'sugar wreck' which was my first wreck diving, the visability was rubbish but in a way i think that added more to the gloomy atmosphere of the sunken boat. my favorite fish on the sugar wreck site was this adorable bat fish which hung around with us on our ascent both times there.

i freaked myself out with sea urchins when snorkelling last night by the way. They are horrible animals when you look closely* What i really dont like is the way they have a big eye on a stalk looking at you and they aim their spines towards you when you get anywhere near them. maybe its just me but they repulse me. We saw a whole load of them devouring a dead bamboo shark on one dive. i also saw one fighting with a big conch shell on another dive, come on the conch!

Anyway, now we are in kota bharu killing some time before our sleeper train through the jungle to Singapore. Cant beleive im gonna see my wee sister in less than 2 days. eeee!

* horrible though of course deserving of respect like all animals.

malaysia truely asia

2006-03-31T23:50:00.000+12:00

malaysia truely asia as the marketing blurb goes. so we are in malaysia now. First impressions of malaysia were like, woah people are staring at me, why? We stayed in the small border town we crossed from Thailand last night and were definately objects of curiosity. i suppose they don't get many tourists there, or at least toursits who stay longer than a few minutes to jump onto a bus or taxi, or maybe it was because i was wearing shorts and thus showing off my pale hairy twiglike legs. or maybe its because we are in fact exotic and special! Actually i can remember if i cast my mind back to arriving in Thailand after India, being annoyed that nobody, ie none of the Thais, were paying us attention, "pay attention to us, we are exotic, stare at us with your mouth hanging open!" we thought. Thai people are very used to white european tourists though, no wonder when you see how many 'farangs', as they call us, they get. malaysia is refreshingly different, in some ways resembling india on first impressions. here in kota bharu we've seen a few rickshaw men and weve seen beetlenut wrapped in a leaf for sale, also there has been indian type of music playing in the shops, non of the hassling of india though. The malaysian people are quite chilled out, and friendly. Two girls very shyly plucked up courage to interview us today for school homework, and other people have stopped us just for a chat and to ask where we're from and stuff.

Just a bit more on the beasties in our hut back in koh lanta now. There were in fact three of those snakes the next night when i peered down the crack, using a torch. Three!!! only one of them was out and about where you could see it easily though. And there was shed skin stuck all over the corner of the door, how did we miss those clues when we first went into the room? Then when i was packing my rucksack there was a massive spider sitting amongst my clothes which i inadvertantly picked up in my hand, it was big enough to give me a thrill of fear anyway. i didnt make a big thing of that one, knowing that maria has a thing about spiders, just telling her "oh yeah i saw a spider earlier but its gone now" not mentioning, "its gone somewhere near your side of the bed". my sister Beck was wondering how i could sleep with those snakes in the room, i have to admit it was a bit tricky, not just the snakes but all the other beasties too, and then getting jumped by horny little toads whenever you left the hut. Well the last bits an exageration.

2006-03-29T21:33:00.000+12:00

snake snake woah a snake! badger badger badger badger.... Better stop that people won't know what I'm on about. Unless I provide this link that is.

last night we discovered we have a room mate, a bloody snake! It has decided the most comfy place to crash is just behind my rucksack, in a crack between the floor and the wall. Or is it us that are crashing in its favorite room? I'm gonna put a photo of it here as soon as I can, its a very beautiful animal, less than a meter long i'd say with a fairly dark colour and some redish markings. Maybe someone knows if its venemous or what type.. Marcus? Anyway it seems non threatening to me. As with almost all animals in my experience it much prefers to avoid confrontation with humans and seems pretty happy if left alone. But I was so happy when I found it, telling Maria "wow I'd have paid extra for the room if they'd told me it had a snake in it". Hats off to Maria who took it's presence in our room with a sigh of resignation (after her initial disbelief). She could have easily gone mental.

Now we are wondering what else is sharing our room. The most likely culprit is another of those large geckos we had in Cambodia. Whatever it was it was crashing about on our ceiling in the middle of the night and this morning there is a pile of gecko droppings? on our mosquitoe net.

amorous amphibians

2006-03-28T21:03:00.000+12:00

The other day we had huge electric storms and immense rain here on Koh Lanta. I was wandering around the town in my swimming trunks earlier on when it started, no point getting all my clothes wet. It was like being in a shower. Then the sky was pitch dark with huge clouds still looming over, brightly lit up every few seconds with flashes of lightening and loud rumbles of thunder. Party time for amphibians! They were all out croaking away like mad, almost even drowning out the thunder. I could imagine them saying to each other "lovely weather isn't it, gets me right in the mood, fancy a bit?". When we left the restaurant we'd had some dinner at, this little toad hopped over right towards my foot, even when I pulled my foot away it wasn't deterred and continued with plenty of vigour, grabbing hold of my big toe. Really tickly the way it was scrabbling about for a better grip. I've always known that my big toe has oozes sex appeal, heres the proof.

Earlier that day we did some diving on a small island group of which the name escapes me - diving photoset It was about 2 hours away by boat. We were told that divers earlier that day had seen a whale shark, but also told that could have been a ploy by the rival dive operators to get us to a different site leaving their choice nice and quiet. So we didn't see any whale shark but the diving was great though. There was a huge marine turtle (its shell about a meter long) on one of the dives, which we hovered over for about 10 minutes watching it muching around on the sea bed munching on something or other. The visability seemed a bit better and the variety of fish maybe a bit better than on the gulf side of Thailand were we had been diving on Koh Tao. But not better enough to justify all the claims of divers over here that it is far better in my opinion.

In between dives we did some snorkeling too during which I had a beautiful encounter with a large porcupine fish. It swam right up to me and after making sure it had my full attention it bizzarley proceeded to eat a tiny bubble that had escaped from my mouth. Unbelievably cute the way it did it. Then it hung around me so close that it seemed natural to pet it. There were also some squid around who I gave chase too but they were fast and kept a good distance. The down side for me was that there were thai fisherman with fishing rods off the boat and snorkelling with spears. This is NOT allowed at the protected marine site we were at, I hope they get reported. You don't want to sit watching a beautiful fish suddenly getting impaled as you admire it. Especially when they have so little fear of humans there, like the porcupine fish I was just on about. The dive guide said he'd never seen fishermen there before. At least its not as bad as Nah Trang in Vietnam, when we dove there people were actually dynamite fishing in the 'protected' coral reefs.

So today the weather has been much nicer and we've been exploring the island by motorbike. Its a great place to ride with quiet roads and a good surface too. We saw a lovely snake on the road at one point, which we had to do an emergency stop to avoid running over. not to mention lots of eagles (I think they were eagles) swooping around, they had a white body and head with darker wings.

They do have a cheek here though, the Thai people, the way they charge money for everything. When you stop at a viewpoint you find its actually a restaurant and you can't look at the view unless you buy a drink! Then the cave we wanted to look at requires you hire a guide to take you along the path from the car park. Its not cheap either.

Only 12 days until we see Naomi in Singapore

Paradise lost

2006-03-25T20:43:00.000+12:00

Ah well we've left Koh Tao, finally tore ourselves away. Its been a great place for us, lots of nice people to socialise and drink with, lots of annoying swedish people like Patrick and Stefan, lots of diving, (maybe too many divers is one minor annoyance though). Lots of very noisey insects, frogs, geckos and monkeys singing (at least I think they were monkeys, never saw them though). Sharks to snorkel with of course. There were moments on that island where I thought yes maybe this is my paradise.

Now we are further south on the Andaman sea side of Thailand on another island Ko Lanta. Its a different feel, I don't know how much is down to the tsunami, they did get hit here. I believe trees absorbed the worst of the impact here though. I find myself sometimes looking out to the sea and imagining that huge wave. Scary. In the reception of our latest beach hut resort (Lanta Dunsit Resort - bit basic but pretty cheap) there is a guide of what to do in a tsunami, one tip was don't stand there looking at it, as in the captioned photo where a man was doing just that. I'd be running me.

The island that we've seen so far seems less developed, bigger and more spread apart than Ko Tao. Our beach looks nice, i might run and jump into the beautiful sea in a minute in fact. The diving is supposed to be much better herre than Koh Tao, we'll find out tommorrow though. There is promise of big manta rays, turtles and whale sharks (again). I'd love to see a whale shark, did I mention that?

Eeee Naomi is going to come out and meet us in Malaysia in the next week or two :-D :-D :-D

shark adventure

2006-03-21T19:42:00.000+12:00

chapter 1

There is a beach about 10 minutes walk from our resort (JP Resort) called Shark Bay. Very aptly named, I've been there snorkelling a few times now, and yes there are sharks, lots. The other day I was out there with a couple of other guys, Paul, Cristian and Lisa who wanted me to show them where to find the critters, I had been out the previous day and seen a couple of small ones. This time Paul had gone back to the shore already, I was lagging behind absorbed by a school of colourful tropical fish and Cristian and Lisa were quite a way further out when this shark loomed towards me, it was HUGE, ie longer than me and maybe twice the mass of me and it had those cleaner fish attached to it that huge fish have. I almost crapped myself and there was no-one close by me. Firstly I had no idea that these reef sharks grow so huge, I had always thought they were small things like a meter long at most, also I hadn't been able to spot the black tip on its dorsal fin and so recognise it. I jumped to the conclusion that it must be a maneater of some description, getting carried away thinking of that scene in 'the beach' were some swedish guys get eaten by a shark.

I took out my snorkel and gurgled a warning to Cristian and Lisa, which they couldn't hear, so bravely I swam out to them nice and slowly. Concentrating on not thrashing around in such a way as to attract attention of the shark, trying to minimise the electic sgnals being sent through the water by my body. All the time aware of this 'maneater' in the water which was now swimming out towards them. Eventually I was close enough babble to them 'huge shark, bigger than me, I'm going back to shore' and with that i proceeded back, the distance seeming huge but at least I'd warned them. On the way back to shore a bloody trigger fish threatened me too, they are big fish and unlike the sharks they are aggressive. I think its because this is their nesting time of year.

So I sat on the beach waiting anxiously for the other guys to come back, struggling to see where they were hidden behind waves. Of course they came back later really happy with all the shark spotting. It turned out they knew a lot more about these reef sharks than me.

chapter 2

The next day Maria and I went out, again, shark bay. This time, having consulted with various divers at the dive club, I was confident in the knowledge that yes, they are huge and scary looking but not interested in eating people. What an amount of sharks though. First it was, oh look, theres one. Then woah thats two huge ones together, then my god there are two behind us aswell. Eventually without exaggerating they were all around us, some even swimming directly at us before turning away at the last moment. We were trying to take photos or videos but with pretty poor results, the best time of day is around sunset when the light in the water is beginning to fade.

excellent diving on Koh Tau

2006-03-15T03:11:00.000+13:00

only gonna write a quick one, cos the internet is way too much money here, I think it is a monopoly situation on this island. We have hopped from Koh Samui to Koh Tau, another island a bit further north. Great move, this place is much nicer by far. I've had about 4 dives here in the past couple of days, during which we've been attacked by titan trigger fish, but got away unscathed. Today was particularly amazing, it felt like swiming in a gigantic aquarium while as we explored undeerwater pinnacles about 26 meters down, covered in beds of large sea anenomes while schools of small barracuda amongst much else circled around us. We are going to stick around longer in the hope of seeing whale sharks which are due any time now seasonally, or maybe I'll get lucky and find a sea snake too.

Our accomadation is a huge step up from the beach hut we were on in Koh Samui but for only one hundred bhat extra (400 instead of 300 for the hut). This one has a huge double bed and lovely spotless bathroom. there is a balcony too overlooking nice gardens. Cries of Gecko Gecko Gecko ring out constantly too :-D Sometimes the cicadas drown out everything, even electricity generators.

As an update on the rabies scare I did the sensible thing and took a motorbike to a nearby clinic and asked their advice. They have recommended I get some more rabies shots. I get my second and last one tommorrow and then everything should be fine, hopefully the frothing at the mouth will improve then. Mind you I always used to do that anyway. By the way the dogs name was 'Saddam' I later discovered, that figures!

NEW --- Diving photosets
Diving at Red Rock
Diving for our second time at Chumpon pinnacle, a fantastic dive site
Diving further afield at sail rock, not the best vis this day unfortunately

rabid

2006-03-11T03:06:00.000+13:00

I'd been wondering what to make my next blog about, i was planning maybe to be a blog about how maybe unfair my comments in my last entry to go on about the litter on Lamai. We woke up this morning to find the wind had changed, no litter anywhere, the sea crystal clear(ish) and the snorkelling, which I have been doing most of the day, fabulous.

Then I thought nah maybe it should be a blog where i talk about cucumbers and how I didn't know they can be bitter. And how I didn't know you can cut the end off them and rub the bitterness out as a vile oozing creamy liquid. Did you know that? I'm sure that never happens in the uk. Interestingly while I was going to be on the subject of cucumbers I was then going to say, there are lots of sea cucumbers here and that, did you know the chinese eat them? Also there are a type of fish that live up a sea cucumbers ass! ( I haven't personally seen that) What a wierd world we live in.

Or then, maybe I thought I should mention my mate back in Edinburgh, Scotty G, who I dreamt about last night, and who, I think he's my mate still, though he never answers emails, being fish mad would love the snorkelling I am doing here, And is getting married to the lovely Barb any day now. I sincerely can say I wish you both all the best for the wedding and of course in the future together, Scott and Barb! :-D

But, 20 minutes or so ago something happened and has left me shocked and stunned and still pumped full of adrenaline and feeling queasy as I write this. There is this dog at our beach huts, an old kind of warrior dog which, to be fair, does have a warning glint in its eye. However, this dog happily let me pet it the other day as I gave him a thorough grooming. So, I was petting it another time just now, and scratching its ears and the dog was tilting its head back in what I assumed was a feeling of pleasure or even ecstacy. I'm good with dogs. As I continued petting it, the dog started making a wierd low growl and then also showing its teeth, more and more, eventually with slaver dripping down (like the alien mouth on the film 'alien'). 'Wierd' I thought to myself, 'this dog sure looks really threatening when it shows pleasure'. Suddenly it turned on me and BITE!!! I've never been bitten by a dog before, ever. Now I have. there are puncture marks on both sides of my right wrist to proove it, and I can't help wondering things like, when we left to come travelling didin't they say go straight to hospital if you get bitten, or even if you get licked on broken skin?? Is this queer feeling in my stomach the result of shock only? Anyway I'll be fine, no worries. I just kinda feel stupid for not reading an obvious warning.

2006-03-10T03:55:00.000+13:00

Lamai beach, lamai beach, lamai beach. The swedish couple in the hut next to ours are describing it as 'paradise'. Maybe its a bit different when you've just arrived from winter in northern europe. The litter on the beach is getting to us now though, its not just that is unsightly, I've seen an alarming amount of broken glass shards and lightbulbs in the sand. Also I mentioned before that it is not too touristy, that is until you wander into the town a bit and find nothing but bars, prostitution, bars, massage places (a mix of legit ones and brothels), more bars with english flags hanging on the walls as tasteful decor, money changers, shops selling overpriced flip flops and bikinis. Still enjoying the coral reef tho. However, maybe we'll take our chances and split to the next island.

Our beach hut with own coral reef in front ...

2006-03-09T02:38:00.000+13:00

... just beyond the sewage outflow. Hey ya'll. Welcome to a blog entry from the island of Koh Samui where we are at now. Koh Samui is off the east coast of penninsuar Thailand (the non-tsunami affected side), heading south from Bangkok. So we arrived yesterday after an all nighter on the bus followed by a couple of hours by boat to get here. A very comfortable coach it was, it has to be said, lots of leg room, nice reclining seat, didn't sleep much though but at least it was comfy. We arrived knackered and ever since, we've been trying to work out how much we like this beach we are on - lamai beach.

Lamai beach has a coral reef, which lies just out front of our hut which is really good, there are lots of cool fish, I saw a vividly blue marked ray earlier, not to mention many other colourful tropical fish which is really good, but frustratingly the visablity is pretty poor so far - gets better when you dive below the shimmering heat haze layer though. Our hut is next to a kind of river which we are pretty sure has raw sewage in, which is bad. There are lots of palm trees and coconuts, lots of sunshine, bars with cheap drinks and things which are all good. It IS tourist ville, but not too touristy compared to how we thought it might be, which is good. There is rather a lot of litter on the sand which is bad. Its not easy to just jump in and swim in the sea, because its all rocky and shallow in front of the coral reef and you don't want to cut your knees. Jet skiers come too close for comfort when you are snorkelling on the reef. The sand is a bit too coarse, am I being too picky now? Yeah on the whole I reckon we like it.

So thats it just now, we'll chill here for a bit, maybe arrange a dive (there is a marine park on a nearby island group), or we might wait, then go north to Koh Tao where all the diving happens anyway. Maybe hire motorbikes and explore the island more, or maybe just chill out here longer.

Bangkok growing on me

2006-03-04T04:33:00.000+13:00

Well, we've touched down in Thailand again. The flight here was pretty fab, has anyone else noticed how vivid the stars are from an aeroplane? I sat peering through the window with my blanket stuffed around the edge of the glass and over my head to block out all the interior light and felt myself floating through space, watching dark dust clouds blocking out the thick milky band of stars behind as shooting stars flew by. A couple of Rum and cokes and whatever else I could scrounge from the thai stewardesses probably enhanced the experience somewhat.

So Bangkok is growing on me... found it quite depressing last time if truth be told. We are still staying in Khao San Road which is still as depressingly mad as ever but this time we have extended our tendrils and discovered a new way to get around the city, by skytrain, and we have got the hang of the buses (or one of them at least) and we found a cool shopping mall. We learned about this in Jazzytraveller's blog, Jaz is someone we bumped into several times ever since Datong in China) Its massive and very high tech, the shopping mall. You can tell it's high tech by the tv screens all over the place showing 3d ads, where credit cards or cans of guiness shoot out of the telly and float infront of it. I wonder if one day all tv will be in 3d? Its got to happen.

There were many reasons to love this mall though, one of which I'm sure Maria will wax lyrical about in her own blog was when we found jamon serano (spanish cured ham) for sale. In fact we have all the ingredients available for her to make a bocadillo... fresh baguettes, tommato, olive oil, jamon, spanish cheese (michego), rioja wine(though the wine is incredibly expensive). If you only knew how often I have to listen to her going "mmm i wish i could have a bocadillo right now" you'd know what this means. I swear I saw tears of happiness in her eyes as she gazed at the meat. So tommorrow we are planning to go back there, buy all those things and then have a picnic in a nearby park.

There is also a cinema multi-plex in this mall, the first cinema I've been to since god knows when, Edinburgh probably. We watched 'the matador', a Pierce Brosnan film which I enjoyed immensly. Won't say too much about it in case you haven't seen it. One wierd moment was just after the trailers before the film when the screen came up with a message in English and Thai asking us to stand up for the national anthem. Everyone did, so we did too. It just goes to show how much the Thais love their king (there are pictures of him all over the streets). If that happened in the UK people would be throwing popcorn at the screen.

my decline into decrepitude

2006-03-01T02:59:00.000+13:00

It all started one bright and sunny morning in Kerala when I woke up full of optimism and wondering what the day may bring when SNAP, a muscle in my neck suddenly spasmed and went into agony leaving me unable to turn my head at all to the right. Maria blamed it on the cold night air up there in the mountains. A few days later, and back down on the swelteringly hot and humid coast, I awoke up with some of the joys of spring despite the pain which was still in my neck and a new slightly queasy sensation in my stomach, which worsened throughout the day. Eventually all i could do was lie on the bed, feverish, with waves of nausea besetting me. Sometimes dragging myself up and staggering to the toilet to splash luke warm water onto my sweltering body to try and cool down, no cold water here, or else doing yet another scary liquid number2 before slumping back onto the bed dripping wet, unable to find a sleeping posture due to muscular pain in the neck. I merely existed, and wondered why I had to even do that. The thought of a 12 hour train ride to Chennai and then a midnight flight to Thailand the day after that terrified me. Luckily like a warrior I am now on the mend, sitting in a cyber cafe in Chennai, having survived the 12 hour train ride unscathed and feeling like the flight may be bearable. Did have an incident earlier today which explains my adeypoop nickname though, but the less on that subject the better. I'll get through this debilitating illness somehow.

So we are leaving India, I echo Maria's opinion on this (see her blog), India is so in your face, you can only love it or hate it. I haven't even left yet and already I am nostalgic about the place. I'm in the love it camp if you hadn't guessed. Things I will miss, monkeys running around rooftops stealing your fruit. Cows wandering around the streets. Mongooses wandering around the streets, Chipmonks wandering around the streets... Maybe I should just generalise to animals wandering around the streets. That cool sideyways head waggling gesture the indians do, especially in the south, Maria and I even started doing that waggle too from time to time. The vegetarian curries. And just the indian people in general, they are very curteous, friendly and polite. I love the way they give directions too, an elaborate hand wave which leaves you none the wiser. There is of course a flip side too though, I won't miss immensly strong whiffs of piss and excrement on street corners, or indian people who try to rip you off, rickshaw men especially bad for that.

Grrrrr thwarted by project tiger

2006-02-23T21:06:00.000+13:00

Man! Lured by chance for some guided hiking through the jungle to hunt down tigers, we've arrived at Kumily in the south of India, near the periyar national park. (Obviously by hunt I mean to track and locate these rare animals in order to admire their majesty rather than the alternative method of blasting holes in them to sell their penises to the chinese for medicine.) So here we are in close proximity to the park but not wandering through the jungle, not tracking tigers. Why? Project tiger is busy doing a tiger census until the end of the month, it is a nationwide thing, and means we can't go :-(

They say we can do a 2 hour boat ride in the park instead, or perhaps tour around some of the spice plantations around here (We passed through beautiful cardamon plantations on the way here). Neither of which we've done so far.. what can I say? I needed a lie in today. I'm trying to imagine what the boat ride might be like, in my imagination there are several large groups of indian and foreign tourists crowded onto a small boat, being very loud and frigtening away all the wildlife, maybe except for the elephants which probably view us tourists as unthreatening puny animals. I was reading in a book just there about indian wildlife, aparently they have caecilians here. Despite the fact that caecilians resemble overgrown worms, I think seeing one of them would be almost more exciting to me than seeing a tiger. Wonder how you go about finding caecilians though?

Dam I'm running out of time here. What else? We've been to a beautiful place further north before coming here, a place called Munnar, which is in the western ghats, which are some pretty high mountains which stretch all the way down the south of india. The whole area is covred in amazingly scenic tea plantaions. You'll see what i mean if i get around to putting some of the photos we took. We walked for miles, I think it was about 10 miles when we calculated it. Gets really cold at night though, which is strange after Cochin where the sweat was just dripping off.

Red banannas and beer in a Tea pot

2006-02-20T00:32:00.000+13:00

Actually here in Kerala they have little yellow bannanas, and big long (looking a bit unripe but actually not) green bannanas, aside from the red ones I mentioned in the title. Its like an entire traffic light of bannanas! You don't see many traffic lights here in India mind.

When we were driving back from a day trip today there were some Germans in our car who complained very loudly about the lack of seatbelts in the back. I guess they haven't been here in India long. It made me realise how much I must be aclimatised to asia though. I hardly bat an eyelid as the car swerves round blind bends on the other side of the road overtaking buses. Seatbelts! What are they? I haven't even thought of them in months.

Our day trip was out in the backwaters cruising around on a boat. Very nice. Very relaxing. The whole area inland is kind of watery, for want of a better description. There are lakes, rivers, canals and streams all connected to each other that stretch for miles and miles and a whole load of boats that cruise around them. Lots of lovely lush foilage, and very pretty little water plants. Nice and quiet too, we only saw one boat that had a motor all day. The rest were all propelled by men with long sticks of bamboo pushing the boat along. We also saw how locals make ropes from coconut husks and lime from shells. Lunch was a nice big veggie curry served on a bannana leaf and eaten the indian way, with no cutlery, just fingers. I love the way they use a leaf as a plate in the south.

My vegitarianism has been shattered recently by the way, last night we went to look at the fisherman. Its really cool in fact, they have these huge big nets on the shore on a big pivot and weights dangling off the back, like some huge medieval catapult or something. The whole thing can swing up and down into and out of the water, which you can sit and watch while sipping a pinapple juice. So what you can do is you can buy the freshly caught sea fish and pay someone to cook it up for you. We had a red snapper fish and something like a kilo of tiger prawns, which was pretty tasty. Have to say though that Maria's mum cooks it up much better. The beer comes descretely hidden in a tea pot with a cup to pour in! Its a bit wierd, made me feel bad drinking a beer.

Raining coconuts

2006-02-16T21:34:00.000+13:00

We were woken up this morning by the crashing of huge palm fronds and coconuts falling on us, or at least on our hut and surrounding area. There were men scampering up and down the trees and hacking bits off with machetes. Really agile the way they climb the trees. And quite a crop of cocunuts they took too.

Sad tho today we are leaving this beach. Its been a real dilemma wether to stay on longer or move south to Kerala as in our original plan. Its been so relaxing you wouldn't believe, very tempting to stay. Swimming whenever the fancy takes, letting the warm water support your weight as you just float there, or body surfing into the shore. The waves are lovely and gentle but stretch the whole length of the beach as they roll in and break. Nice place for valentines! The romantic sunset walks and all that is straight off a paradise postcard.

Got around to trying some snorkeling the other day. There is a scenic island at the end of the beach, which joins to our beach at low tide. I took the snorkel mask out there but the visability was rubbish, could hardly see my hand in front of my face. Didn't mind too much though, there is a beautiful little mud flat ecosystem there too which really compensates. It is really beautiful and absorbing, especially the little crabs which inhabit in these huge colonies there. There was one which didn't have a hole to scurry into, it looked terrified as I loomed over it and crouched into a crabby fetal position. In a moment of inspiration I proded my finger into the mud to make it a hole. The crab sized up its new home for a moment and then ran and jumped in, immediately beginning to organise the interior with little balls of sand. That has to be good for my karma surely.

Tired but happy in Goa

2006-02-12T04:57:00.000+13:00

Its another of those, wha-hey I'm on a tropical beach type of a blog I'm happy to say. So yeah we survived the 27 hour journey. Predictably it was actually more like 29 hours which wasn't as bad a delay as I thought beforehand, being only a couple of hours. The journey itself was alright, the indian people sharing our carraige were very relaxed and friendly - from the south of india, Kerala, which is our next stop after Goa. Although they didn't speak much english we bonded in that old traditional way of offering each other bits of food to snack on. They had some quite nice nutty things that were more like peas when you got them open and oranges. We had Lays crisps (Walkers in the UK, Lays everywere else) and pakora to munch on.

So, Goa is well renowned as a party destination, particularly the northern beaches in which there is an abundance of drugs and rave type parties, especially during christmas. It is also a package holiday destination from the west. We have aimed for a bit of a quieter scene though, the part of Goa we are in is in the south of the state, a place called Palolem, which the guidebook describes as arguably the most idylic beach in Goa. I can't say if it is or not but it is beautiful from my first impressions. We arrived just as a gorgeous sun set hung over the bay. There is a kind of cocunut trees forest along the coast in which there are many beach huts and restraunts. We have based ourselves in one of these (flimsy) beach huts, which is on stilts. It is cheap and should suit our needs great I reckon.

I have to say this place is very much developed for the tourists though, maybe not as much as in the north, I can't say, but there are plenty of places to drink beers and cocktails, and many internet cafes. We have just had a couple of beers in actual fact, my first since hogmany which isn't too bad. Also shops selling all the usual things westerners seem to desperately need, like bog rolls and cookies... mmm choconut cookies. Sometimes a bit of that is just what you need though. I for one am quite looking forward to a bit of a break in the form of sunbathing and swimming in the sea, and that kind of stuff.

Pushy Bastardin Pushkarians

2006-02-09T20:42:00.000+13:00

Can you tell I'm hacked off with this place? Glad to be leaving Pushkar, we have a bus back to Jaipur in a couple of hours and then tommorrow a 27 hour train journey south to Goa. (27 hours if the train is not delayed, some chance!) Why am I so hacked off with this place, which only the other day in my previous blog I described as delightful? After we checked out the hotel I was already midly irked by the hotel man, a big scary rajhastany man with a big scary mustach, trying to charge us an extra night, then asking for a tip, then trying to raise the price that we had agreed per night when we arrived, then saying he'll charge us for leaving our rucksack for a couple of hours, which nobody else does in other hotels. All of this was in a jokey but irritating manner. You could tell he was really trying to rip us off and then passing it as jokes when it failed.

The thing that pushed it too far though was just after that outside the hotel where some little shit bag was trying to make us throw flowers into the holy water. People try this on us everyday, and are always pushy about it but this guy took it too far, telling us that we were not respecting the holy town and we have to do this to get our 'Pushkar passport' (a bit of ribbon on your wrist) or go back and stay inside our hotel! His persistance was overwhelming. When we still refused to take the flowers he was saying we should 'get lost to Pakistan!'. So we are not respecting his holy pond, what about him respecting us? What if we decide, nah i don't want to throw flowers into the water and then pay you money? In fact fuck right off, or do something worthwile that I can respect.

Anyway... Its a shame that leaving here has left a sour taste. I suppose this place is maybe spoiled by too many tourists with fat wallets and a lust for souvenirs and handicrafts (of which there is an enourmous choice). The people of Rajhastan are a different breed though too it seems like, very money obsessed, always wanting tips or backsheesh, I mean even more than other parts of India. Last night we sat near the lake watching the sunset (my attempts at seeing sunrises a complete failure) and the procession of people badgering us was unbelievable.

In fairness the other tourists too were unbelevable and also worth a mention. There is a sign near the holy lake which says something along the lines of 'Attention Toursists Please respect the Indian Culture. Do not use narcotics near the lake, do not take photos of the ghats, dress modestly, don't embrace (or whatever)...' and things like that. 10 feet away from the sign people were smoking joints, pointing huge telescopic lenses on their cameras at the ghats, wearing skimpy dresses, in fact flaunting everything the sign requested. Despite all that however, none of the indians around about seemed in the slightest bit bothered about any of that. I dunno. Many in fact were cashing in by selling chai and drinks to the people who were sitting around.

Goodbye Pushkar

Pushkar

2006-02-07T03:03:00.000+13:00

Yeah another blog, I'm putting on a bit of a spurt recently hey? Its been a hectic last couple of days, especially yesterday in which we made a valient effort to get to Pushkar (where we are now) but in the end stayed in nearby Ajmer cos it was too late to go onwards by that time. Trains in India rarely arrive on time and yesterday was no exception. So after starting our trip to Pushkar before dawn yesterday, we finally made it here earlier today.

On the way here we passed through Jaipur, which is the Rhajastan state capital, and as I said above Ajmer too. Both of which were quite noisy and dirty with traffic. But not without a certain charm too though. In Jaipur (should I admit it...?) we went to a Pizza Hut establishment. The first we've seen in India, no sign of McDonalds or KFC so far either which is quite refreshing. On the subject of food I've been vegetarian quite effortlessly in India for the last couple of months. I really wish it was as easy back home.

Pushkar is one of those places where westerner tourists seem to almost outnumber the locals. The unfortunate side effect of that is that there is a lot of hassling and badgering from the indians to go into their rickshaws/hotels/shops/restaurants and spend all your rupees. It strikes me as odd that rickshaw men can start negotiating a price before they even know where you want to go! The other thing that strikes me about all the tourists here, or in India in general, is that they seem to all have transformed into hippies. It would be interesting to try to capture this transformation from normal westerner person to hippie on timelapse photography I think.

Aside from the above minor annoyance about hassling, Pushkar is a delightful place. I particularly like the langur monkeys here. There were many hanging around near our guesthouse today. They are a different species to the ones in Varanasi. These ones have a very long tail and a very cute black face, with quite long eyebrows. I saw a baby swinging on its mums tail earlier which was an unimaginably cute scene. They have a very nice temperament too, you can't imagine these ones mugging you to steal your fruit the way the Varanassi types do. We have been watching their athletic feats with some awe the way they leap from building to tree to building without breaking stride is fantastic.

What else? Pushkar is another very holy places for hindus. We seem to be on a holy pilgramage ourselves, thinking about it, having been to Puri, and Varanasi before here. This place is so holy that there is no meat on any menus in the town. In fact there is no eggs even, or alcohol either. You could easily get a bhang lassi though I would imagine. Pushkar has a holy lake in the middle of it which is surrounded by ghats, bathing ghats and suchlike, reminiscent of the ghats on the Ganges in Varanasi in fact.

We've just got back from a lovely walk up a nearby hill. From up there you can really see a fantastic view, the town looking like an oasis. We saw a lovely sunset over the surrounding desert (or semi-desert maybe, it is pretty arid though with lots of sand though, so I'm gonna call it desert). In the mornings the sunrise would be on the other side over the town, maybe I'll try and catch one of those sunrises. Though I haven't really mentioned it I'm currently on a quest to become a morning person, those who know me might understand the difficulty of such an aim.

Anyways I'm gonna go in a min cos the time is almost up.

rock pythons

2006-02-04T21:32:00.000+13:00

ey-oop everyone! You might be wondering why 2 blogs have appeared at once. I actually wrote the last one in agra and saved it in draft form, but only got around to publishjing it just now. So where are we now? I'll tell you where, we are in the state of Rajhastan, having finally left Uttar Pradesh. We are in a small dusty town called Bharatpur which is famous due to its amazing bird sanctuary nearby.

The day we arrived (around 3 days ago) we looked around the town, there is a pretty impressive fort here, which many rajhastany towns and cities have. The Bristish had to attack it 4 times before they finally took this place so our leaflets say. It was quite a funny place to walk around though, I don't think they get enough tourists in the town itself. Everywhere we went we were greeted by a chorus of 'hellos' and 'your country?' questions etc. Huge groups of school kids swarmed around us wanting to shake our hands. It was actaually really good fun. When you are in the mood it can be good for the old ego being the focus of attention wherever you go. On the other hand it can get very tiring too, especially when it doesn't feel good humoured.

So the last 2 days after that juant we've been frequenting the bird park, which is convieniently close to our guesthouse. Did I say birds? Yeah there are many many beautiful birds, but for me the attraction is the big huge pythons they have :-) Some of the biggest get to about 16 feet long apparently, thats like 3 times longer than me. On my first visit here a few years back, I got a brief glimpse of one python (a little bit of its mid-section down a hole). This time we got a guide (of 22 years experience) to show us. That was a wise desicion, we'd have never found the beast places to look. At one point we actually climbed a wall to get out the park where he knew of pythons. In the end we had seen several and Maria and I were very satisfied. Usually they hang around their porcupine hole. (I wasn't sure wether they eat the porcupine first or live with it or what they do to get the hole but anyway...) The best one we found had finished basking and was actually slithering around the foresty undergrowth.

It wasn't just about pythons though, we saw up close many jackals, deer and antelopes, giant turtles (which grow up to 40kg apparently) and of course the birds. I'm running out of time to write more about this unfortunatley.

byeee

movin on, Taj Mahal

2006-02-02T01:35:00.000+13:00

Big news, we are on the move again! Feels a bit strange to me. Varanasi was rapidly becoming a home from home. (If we have a home to say home from?) After over a month in the one place we were beginning to know lots of the people in the alleys and on the ghats around about. I felt quite sad saying goodbye to Anil, Poppy and Mamma and Papa, Choi and the other Koreans, from our 'homey' guesthouse and their cows who I used to throw apple cores to, and the goodbye to our (very honest) shopkeeper where we used to buy our bog roll, water and choco-nut cookies (mmmm choco-nut cookies) And then saying goodbye to the man in 'Spicy Bites' restraunt in the alley (Spicky bites as I like to call it), not to mention the nice chap in the german bakery. I think I'm even missing the blatent rip off merchants in my rosey glow of nostalgia. Ah Varanasi!

Neither Maria or I regret staying so long in the one place, I for one am sure I'll go back there - to Varanasi. It would be ideal to go for a couple of months each year for the yoga.

I guess I haven't said much more about the yoga recently, we both eased up on it a bit latterly but still practising a fair bit. I can't tell you the satisfaction you get when you attain the final position for the first time in an assana that you previously couldnt do. I guess the challenge is to keep going with the yoga for the rest of the trip and in New Zealand. I'm keen to keep it going, if nothing else it keeps your body in tune. Its quite good being able to levitate and stuff like that aswell.

So, now we are in Agra which isn't really that nice a place to be honest. The guidebook is full of warnings about dodgyness and scams. One of the worst being deliberate food poisonings, where they then get a cut from the doctor on health insurance. However Agra does have the Taj Mahal, which is why we are here. Its been a dream of Maria's since she was very wee to see the Taj.

bouncing puppies and other ramblings

2006-01-28T19:30:00.000+13:00

Nomaste is used a lot in India to mean 'hello', and often 'goodbye' too. Actually nomaste means 'peace', I think that is really cool, I'm sure John Lennon would approve anyhow. India is such a lovely place, I am really appreciating it on this trip. It is where I'm supposed to be just now, I reckon.

By the way, I feel I have to apologise for the nafness of my blog. Last time I looked over it I was struck by how crap it is. However, stubbornly I will press on regardless. Also its been a bit tricky to get photos onto the internet from here, usually because they restrict a lot what you can do on the computers rather than because the connections are slow. Anyway I'm sure I'll get some more uploaded soon. For now you can make do with the one or two photos I uploaded the other day.

There is a fruit guy that I can see in the alley just beside me. He's been picking seeds out of pomegranets for the last age and putting them all onto a plate. That seems a typically Indian thing to do. I think they have an attitude of work is god or something and will keep working in this case peeling all their fruit all day until the end of the day. Then because its all been peeled they have to throw most of it out cos it doesn't keep.

Its quite hard to describe India or Varanasi in a blog. It seems like everything is done slightly different. Usually a way that makes something easy to do turn out more difficult - like when my mam mows the lawn without using the forward gear. Or sometimes just to be different for the hell of it I think. Like not having flushes on the toilets, instead having to fill a bucket of water and throw that down the drain. Or having a time difference half an hour different from most of the rest of the world. Or having cows and buffaloe wandering around the streets.

At the moment as I'm typing an old beggar just came up and begged through the window at me, another normal moment in India.

The first time I came to India I remember being a bit intimidated by swarms of rickshaw men badgering me or indian people staring at me. This time I am dealing with it much better I think. Rather than saying 'no no no thanks no, not today, no no' and so on like that, I am finding that I can speak and they listen. A bit like a channel of communication is open that wasn't there before.

So I bet you all want to know what the bouncing puppies story is? Its a painful thing for me to recall but I'll try anyway. Picture the scene of around 8 or 10 newborn, gorgeous, vunerable, black puppies, suckling milk from their mother on the steps of the ghat near my yoga school. This is what I saw on the way back earlier this morning. Pausing to admire the scene, imagine my horror as one fell off the step onto the step below and started shrieking in pain. Quite a big fall for such a tiny creature. Then it fell again like a slinky onto the next step. As I picked it up by the ruff of its neck, another one started falling and squealing in agony throughout! It went on like that, I don't know how many times. Finally I got them balanced roughly on the step with their mum and legged it.

swiss couple

2006-01-21T04:11:00.000+13:00

Yes thats right the swiss couple are here in Varanasi, right here, right now. Ah but I can hear you wondering, "what the hell is he on about? Which swiss couple?"
A few minutes ago we just met the couple who shared our carriage on the trans siberian express train for 6 days and nights, or however long it was? In fact I should add some exageration by now so um, yeah the swiss couple who were on the same train as us for weeks and weeks on end through the endless, harsh and bleak, siberian landscape. In which we had to survive at one point by huddling in a circle with flaming torches lighting up the darkness as a pack of siberian wolves closed in on us, ever closer and closer. But thats another story. So the swiss couple are here in Varanasi which links our trip quite neatly right back on its beginning. It makes me wonder what Karin and Huub are up to (thats the dutch couple), feel like we should be bumping into them too now.

There is a monkey who frequents our rooftops who looks like gollum. I first saw it the other day and thought, oh my god what in hell is that? It gave me a bit of a fright, looking like some kind of demon or gargoyle from the underworld. i suppose the explanation is that the creature has a skin complaint or something, no hair at all and its skin is red. Happily though it doesn't seem to cause it any social problems with the other monkeys. One wierd thing about it that Maria pointed out is how remarkably similar it's arm and hands are to a humans when not covered in fur.

I'm still in love the monkeys here. They got a bit intimidating the other day though. We gave some of them a couple of bits of fruit and they started getting bolder and trying to get into the bedrooms. That wasn't too much problem though you just wave a stick at them and they take the hint. You can also aim at them with a pretend catapult which sometimes works in deterring them. Clever that they understand catapults if you ask me. One of them barred its teeth at Maria in a threat display after another monkey had threatened to steal it's fruit. I think Maria is a bit more wary of them after that.

My favorite monkey moments are when you are sitting there on the rooftop and monkeys just come and sit in companionable silence with you, quite easy in your company and you in its. Those are nice moments. In my experience these moments ususally last until an indian comes along and starts throwing stones at them or waving the stick. I guess I can understand the indian persective of discouraging them but it is annoying for me sometimes when I want to get closer to them.

Maria is ill today, and I think I may be getting it too worse luck, getting a bit of a runny nose. Its funny when writing a blog how you just advertise all of your lifes trivia as if its big news. Anyway time is almost up and I know from past experience that in this internet cafe you get charged for going one minute over the hour. Byee just now

River Ganga

2006-01-15T21:36:00.000+13:00

I saw a monkey crawling along the edge of a straight razor. Thats my dream, thats my nightmare. Not really, I actually can't remember many of my dreams recently. Maria has been trying to make me give up 'crap talking' as she calls it when I just open my mouth and, well, talk crap. Which to be fair happens quite a lot. Except in the case of blog writing I suppose a better description would be 'crap writing'.

Well we are still in Varanasi, still watching monkeys being monkeys, or sunbathing on the rooftops between yoga classes. Or wandering along by the ghats along the river looking at snake charmers, pilgrims, boat men, people playing cricket and the many other colourful types who frequent the ghats. One of the funniest of these is the people who approach you asking if you want a shave. When you tell them 'no thanks' they offer you their hand as if to shake hands. At this point most newcomers to Varanasi will take the offered hand, and then something unexpected happens. Note: It is not easy to refuse someone to shake their hands because it is so deeply ingrained in western culture. Anyway what happens then is that they won't let go of your hand. Keeping as tight a grip as possible they just hang onto their hapless victim. The next move is they start massaging your hand, then arm and head, neck shoulders and presumably full body if you haven't managed to get them off by that point. Its a bit like how I imagine being eaten by a snake might feel. The final result is that they demand a fair bit of money for the massage. I think on my first visit they got to my head before I managed to free myself. On this visit, knowing better I have been refusing the handshake instead putting my hands in the prayer position or something like that. Except one day where I took the hand, purely to remind me what it is like to do so. Wow the grip is strong, I managed to get free quite quick but almost dislocating my fingers to do so.

I think I mentioned something about the kite flying festival the other day. Well it was in full swing yesterday. We spent most of the day sitting on the rooftops observing it. I think most of the city were also on the rooftops. There were kites everywhere, as far as you could see, swooping around and engaging in kite combat. The kites twirl around each other and the stronger string cuts the other, a bit like conkers I guess. Kids run around collecting all the kites that have fallen and recycling them. It looked like great fun for the kids.

Hatha Yoga

2006-01-11T21:57:00.000+13:00

If anyone is interested in the yoga we are doing I'll mention a bit about it just now. Our variety of yoga is called Hatha Yoga, from the Bihar school of yoga. It involves assuming different postures called asanas which have to be maintained, usually for as long as possible or at least a few minutes at a time. Some of these I can say are quite agonising. Maria was quite chuffed in last nights class, she stayed a bit later and managed to get her foot into her armpit. Actually today I have taken the day off, my first day without a yoga class since I started it. My muscles were aching all over yesterday but after missing this morning class feeling a bit better now thankfully. We have been doing 2hour duration classes of asanas daily.

The famous foot in the armpit pose

Unlike yoga as it is taught in the UK (as far as I know), this yoga is a lot more than just a way to keep fit and keep the body in good health, though it does those things too, it is also combined with other practises to aid mental and spiritual progression too. Seemingly miraculous achievments can be attained by expert practitioners of this yoga so it is said. For example surviving for weeks without food or water or attaining psychic abilites. I think I've already noticed that Maria and I are getting better at surviving without food, sometimes not eating anything at all until around lunch time. The ultimate aim is really to achieve moksha which is similar to the bhuddist idea of enlightenment as I understand it.

The other aspects of this yoga, aside from the asanas are pranayama, bhandas and mhudras. We have also started taking pranayama classes (incorporating bhandas and mhudras too) a few times a week in addition to the asanas. Pranayama mainly involves control of the breathing with the result of channeling universal life energy, prana, around the body. Some of the exercises are quite interesting, one of which you exhale and then let the vacumn suck up all your internal organs. Well, i'm not very good at describing it. As I said these exercises work on more than just the body, the effect on the mind is reputedly even greater. Removing blocks, mental and physical. Maria and I have both had emotional moments after practising the yoga.

oops sorry I'm out of time, better go just now.

holy cow

2006-01-08T21:36:00.000+13:00

why aye man, hows it ganin hinny? Just thought I'd start my blog in geordie for a nice change. Its appropriate in my mind because hinny is a bit like hindi. Actually I don't know what I'm rambling on about, but at least its got me writing something. Its a bit wierd staying in the same place for so long, like here in Varanasi, as far as blog writing goes.

So I'll try and describe Varanasi a bit more. Beck you're correct, it's the place where they dump bodies in the river. On some of the ghats by the river there are funeral pyers which reduce most of the body to ash which is then dumped in the river. Some bodies are just dumped straight in apparently, I haven't seen any floating in the water myself though. Its quite normal to see hindu funeral processions in the streets which are very colourful, and the corpse isn't hidden at all, they throw red powder around liberally too. Its amazing here the way death and birth are so easy to observe and so taken as natural in daily life. The other day we sat on the ghats at the river and watched new born goats taking their first steps, whereas i've also seen a dying cow by the river and a dying rat in the alley, not to mention all the funeral pyres burning merrily away.

Right now I am sitting in a little wee alley in the old town, near our guesthouse (the homey paying guesthouse) which runs parallel and quite close to the river Ganges. It is pretty much the main alley in a maze of many wee alleys, all thankfully far too narrow for cars or rickshaws and so reletively peaceful. There are shops lining both sides, if you can call them shops, none of them have a front as such, they are more like a shelf in which products are layed out and the owner sits there, usually trying to beckon you to buy whatever it is they have.

Cows and bulls wander past regularly or stand there eating the rubbish like plastic bags and stuff, usually they take up most of the alley. Care has to be taken when passing these beasts as they sometimes get stroppy and swing their head at you and its a big head with horns on it! A few minutes ago I saw a big bare red bum of a monkey just outside the cafe dissapearing along the balcony opposite, closely followed by a baby. This is a very common occurance here.

Our room in our guesthouse is a rooftop room. Our rooftop is frequented every day by monkeys, some of whom I am learning to recognise, like one of the red alpha males, who has no tail. I'm exactly like that woman with the chimps, Jane Goodall or whatever she's called, except I mix in a bit of the Steve Erwin crocodile hunter type of approach by pulling their tails and then going 'ooo look this little fella is really angry'. Actually that last bits not true, I wouldn't want to harrase those buggers. But it is fantastic in the afternoon to relax with the newspaper, sitting on the rooftop and watching the monkeys going by their daily lives. I have been known to sometimes sing to them so that they'll relax in my presence. Mind you, you don't want them too close, they'll start stealing things if they can and can be a nuisance. One of them was spying into our neighbors room yesterday. We've been told that if you piss them off, they'll remember and bear a grudge. Sometimes they have a little bit of a shag in a very exhibitionist way, I think that is when they feel particularly comfortable in your presence or something.

Well since I wrote the beginning of this blog several hours have now passed and the area where we are is in power cut (this place has electricity due to a generator in the street). The power cuts are pretty frequent and can be a pain when you are trying to read yoga books or walk home in the evening... imagine dark narrow alleys inhabited by bulls and stray dogs, rats and monkeys not to mention shadowy silloettes of people moving past, and then theres the really dark bits with steps hidden in the shadows. I shall have to remember to buy some torch batteries. On the bonus side though it is pretty cool sitting by candle lights on our rooftop chatting to Anil (another guy staying in the guesthouse) or just gazing at the stars.

Just a bit more about the animals here... I get the feeling that India influences all life here somehow. Many animals seem to be far braver than other places in the world. For example sparrows will stand their ground and even twitter at you to move if you are in thier way. Another example is a fly which landed on my face and when I went to swat it only moved a couple of cenimeters still on my face. It kept doing that about half a dozen times until it finally got the message, I was going nuts. There are some animals that I don't know what they are, they look like ferrets or something, you see them in the alleys.

At the moment the rooftops are also good for kite flying. Our rooftop is usually full of people with kites. It seems to be a national obsession. I believe there is a kind of kite festival due to start which would explain all the kiting.

I was going to write a bit about the yoga too just now, but I think I'll go and retire to the hotel instead as its getting late. Its really good though, the yoga. I feel like its working wonders on my body, mind and spirit. I'll write about that in a future blog probably.

Varanasi

2006-01-04T22:22:00.000+13:00

Time for a bit of a catch up on the old blog I suppose. Its funny how time is just slipping by in India. Unlike the last time I was here I'm finding it mostly very relaxing this time. Maybe its something to do with the style of travel we are taking is much slower now by comparison to the trip earlier across China and South East Asia which was really a whirlwind of 'lonely planet' highlights. We've been in Varanasi since just before new year and plan to stay put for a while, probably weeks rather than months though. The range of things to do here is immense, yoga, meditations, sculpting, art, learning classic indian musical instruments. You can do it all it seems like. We have opted for some yoga. I'm off to my third lesson in a bit, Maria is off to a different yoga class to compare which is better. My body feels like its been used as a punch bag after the first two lessons, but I suppose it must be benefiting me?

Varanasi is an amazing city. Not everyones cup of tea though, it is a bit crazy and many people will rip you off if they get half a chance. The crazyness is what I like though, where else could things like this happen routinely? Monkeys throwing things at you in the street, or a cow leading you right into the yoga class! That seriously happened, we were asking the poor guy who lived there on the ground floor, "Is that your cow?" as it leapt up onto his table, to which he responded "No" and frantically chased it out again. There is music and chanting throughout the evening and a thick atmospheric mist lies over the river Ganges at night, the stars overhead shining brightly.

New year was pretty cool. We had just arrived and found a friend from Puri who also went to Bodhgaya with us, Joe. He was supposed to be leaving but changed his plan to stay in Varanasi. The 3 of us managed to find somewhere to sell us booze (which is harder to get here than most other drugs it seems like), and celebrated with some others on our guesthouse rooftop. After a nice curry (of course) and some live Indian music beforehand. At midnight there were fireworks going off all over the city, which we watched from the highest vantage point on the rooftop.

Christmas in the Z Hotel

2005-12-30T03:36:00.000+13:00

Merry xmas to all! Hope you had a really good one wherever you spent it. Our christmas was obviously a bit different from the normal this year with us being in India and all that. We've both been missing our families a bit, which is to be expected at this time of year I suppose. Christmas for me has always been first and foremost a time to be with the family. Thankfully we've had lots of emails from them and a rare chat on the phone which was really really nice and made me feel much closer to the fun at home.

Anyway we managed to still have a great time in India though too. We were staying in a fabulous hotel, the Z-Hotel in Puri. Its worth going to Puri just to stay in the hotel in my opinion. It has a lovely big garden where you can sit in the sun eating your breakfast and reading the India newspapers which are all about cricket. Or you can go to one of any of many communal areas, the balconies, the roof terrace, the huge dining table room or the TV room (wide screen, surround sound) and sit chatting or drinking bhang lassis or whatever you fancy. The lonely planet says it used to be a residence of a maharaja, which I could easily beleive. The staff are all very friendly and willing to run and grab you a coffee at the drop of a hat. I hesitate to say it's almost how I imagine being British in the time of the empire might have felt.

For christmas eve they laid on a huge curry, admittedly fairly expensive but still cheap though - if that makes sense. They had also gone to a big effort to hang christmas decorations up all over the place too. The owner of the hotel who is a big knob around these parts, being an MP and the owner of the local newspaper made a guest appearence, along with his gorgeous Bollywood actress wife. As a bloke I can say the wife was extremely hot - hopefully Maria won't read that bit.

In the garden had been lit a bonfire and put on extremely loud techno rave type music which the owner and his wife were really getting into, dancing like mad around the bonfire. Meanwhile the rest of us sat around drinking beer, smoking things, chatting and that. The music was coming from his car which was parked in the garden with the windows and doors all open. I tried some of the Indian beer, unbelievably my first beer in weeks. It tasted like tenants super strength. Then Maria and I sneaked away for a while after midnight for our presents giving. Christmas day itself was quite subdued after the excess of the night before. I can't even remember what I did really, think I just watched a bit of telly and did a bit of painting or something.

Just remembered another thing I liked about th Z-Hotel, the ravens or crows or whatever they are are incredible there. There is a huge community of them in the tree tops of the garden. In the evenings they congregate for a huge big chat. You can hear them squawking away their greetings and news for hours. Squawk squak, SQUAWRRK, Squawk squak. I almost began to understand their language. Later in the evening when the crows have finished catching up all their gossip the dogs begin their own story telling sessions, last nights was a tragic tales of woe in which the story teller barked and yapped and whined away for ages until finally the climax of the tale where all the dogs from miles around began howling.

I haven't even written about where we are now. We are now in Bodhgaya which is the number one place in the world for buddhists. This is because the original buddah became enlightend while sitting under a tree here after he'd first sat in a nearby cave for 6 years. This all happened here, which is quite a thought. Maria and I have been looking for a place to learn some meditation. There seem to be plenty of options here but not the right one for us as yet. Its been a bit of a dilemma though. Instead of formal meditating we've been soaking up the atmosphere of the town. Its really nice, the huge temple especially atmospheric.

I'd like to write a lot more but I've been sat here for ages now, so maybe later.

Hope you all have a great New Year :-)

Stranded in Puri

2005-12-20T23:48:00.000+13:00

Yesterday Maria and I queued in the train station for a couple of hours only to find that the trains to Gaya are fully booked several days in advance. With no plan B at hand we left the station defeated. So now we have extended our stay here until after christmas. Its funny because there is no outward sign of christmas at all as far as I've seen, but its impact on rail travel seems huge. Lots of people are on holiday and on the move apparently with noone able to get tickets out easily. Trains south are not running due to a cyclone that is hitting Chennai, our second near miss with tropical storms on this trip! Anyway, its not too bad a place to stay put for a while, very tranquil by indian standards and also Puri is in festival just now, so there is plenty to look at.

We took a rickshaw last night to try and find the dance festival. That was a bit of a wierd experience, Maria and I had agreed beforehand to try and look for a rickshaw man who looked nice. Somewhere along the way we forgot that and picked someone who had drool dripping out his mouth and looked completely out of it instead. He was laughing hysterically for most of the way, sometimes looking around at us and then laughing again, wobbling all over the road due to his mirth. When we managed to escape the rickshaw we were nowhere near the dance festival but he still wanted double money - some chance. So we were defeated by the dance festival too, we gave up after that and went for a nice curry instead.

The mosquitoes here are a plague incidently. The toilet and shower especially always swarms in them. I know I always go on about respecting life and all that, but these mosquitoes bring out a mad killing impulse in me. If it wasn't for the risk of Maleria or whatever other diseases abound I'm sure I would be more tolerant... instead of lighting mosquitoe coils, spraying deet around liberally and leaping around swatting them in an orgy of violence. The horror, the horror.

So, the bhang shop we looked at was interesting, not sure how legit it was though. The bhang shop was really just a room with a table with some scales on top and a couple of seats. We were shown the bhang - 70 Rupees for 10 gramms (70 Rupees is less than a pound). Also it turned out that hidden in the electric fuse box was some opium too, the first time I've ever seen or smelled it.

Bhang

2005-12-18T22:16:00.000+13:00

According to that old travelling gospel 'the lonely planet' Puri is one of the four holiest dhams in all India, a dham being a place of Hindu pilgrimage. So what does this mean? Well for one thing it means useage or smoking of bhang is allowed here, apparently it's use is associated with Shiva, one of the main Hindu gods. There is a government bhang shop in the town whereas in most places in India bhang is classed as an illegal drug. For those who may not know or haven't guessed, bhang is another word for weed or pot or grass.

I don't know about the religious connection but in real terms it seems to mean that everyone does it. Last night in our hotel most the residents were either drinking green bhang lassi's, and or passing around numerous joints, whilst we watched a film which was a simple tale of a poor muslim boy who lost his sister's shoes. Everyone around the room were captivated and sympathising with the boy, Ali. One ozzie guy repeatedly exclaiming 'Aw poor liddle Ali'. The whole scenario seemed quite funny, to me at least.

Earlier today one of the rickshaw men, who I am sure was completely wasted, chased Maria and I down the street. After we had spent some time refusing to go for a ride, he changed tac and began dangling a lump of hash in front of us instead urging us to 'smell it' or 'eat it' and telling us, 'its good' with us replying 'no thanks', 'we don't smoke' etc to try and shake him off. Another rickshaw man has been pestering us to let him take us to the bhang shop. For the sake of curiosity we may well have a look at that legit bhang shop later on ....

Chennai to Puri

2005-12-18T00:37:00.000+13:00

So we've touched down in India. It became quite obvious we'd arrived minutes after leaving the airport. As we crossed a road to find the train to the city, a cow wandered across the busy lanes of traffic nearby. Quite handy in fact, it gave us a gap in the traffic to cross ourselves. Then after buying our train ticket we counted our change and found it short, after pointing this out to the ticket guy he handed over the difference without any question, "Its a fair cop". Yeah, welcome to India.

We landed in Chennai, or Madras as I like to call it. I was very apprehensive due to a chicken curry I had eaten on the plane, worried about history repeating itself I think. Last time I flew from Bangkok to India about 6 years ago I also had chicken curry on the plane only to find myself shitting and vomiting simultaneosly that whole first night of arrival. Thankfully there was no repeat this time. I think the maleria medication (doxycycline) we are on is really helping with this by the way, we havn't had the runs yet (at least not seriously), that must be something of a miricle after 3 months on the road in Asia. I guess I was also apprehensive just in general, India is a world away from the easy sanitised travelling of South East Asia, Thailand in particular. I think Maria was feeling the same. As we climbed onto the local train to the city, jam packed with indians hanging out the doors and windows I was thinking am I ready for this? A big crow really close to me, croaking at me seemed like an omen but I couldn't decide wether good or bad.

The street we were on in Chennai was a filthy muddy lane with huge puddles from recent monsoon rain, but there where lots of hotels. In actual fact I was reminded quickly how I think the whole of India is filthy and grimey, I expect I'll get used to it again soon enough. Unusually in our street, there were very few if any westerners and no internet cafes to be seen, wierd. There was however a choice of 2 toilets in our hotel room, just for variety you could go on squat or western style as the mood took you. I've decided I prefer making my number 2's on the squats actually, it seems a better posture, at least it works for me. When we arrived at the hotel and they showed us the room they said we'd have to hold on while they cleaned it. 10 minutes later they let us into the room and ... no difference, the same dirt on the floor and grimey stains on the sheets. I think they use a wierd tantric form of cleaning here or something.

On the first day we did a bit of sightseeing in Chennai using the aforementioned local train to get around. First got off at a stop called 'Chennai Beach' thinking to ourselves it might be nice to find the beach. Strangely we could find no beach at Chennai Beach, in the end we gave up and had a look around the streets of Georgetown instead. Then we thought 'Fort' might be a good stop, so we could look at the fort. When we found it, it was was of the least forty-looking forts I've ever seen.

So then we bought tickets for the train to Bhubanaswar near Puri (where we are now). It was a sleeper train with some really friendly Indian guys and another traveller in our compartment. One of the indians next to us generously gave us his train timetable and helped us look at possible routes. After sleeping, we roused ourselves at 4:30 am, half an hour before due to arrive, wish I hadn't bothered, the train eventually rolled into our stop about 2 hours late. Sometime around that time Maria got hassled by a sleazy indian guy claiming to be a reporter for ESPN. I suppose the train journey exhibited quite vividly why travel in India is so good and so dam infuriating also. One thing I noticed that has changed since I was last here is that the people selling Chai (spicy, milky, sweet tea) are now just about outnumbered by coffee sellers. I suppose the coffee culture has caught on here like everywhere else.

AT Bhubanaswar we decided to get the hell out straightaway. Being tired and not in the mood I was getting quite irritable with the rickshaw men. Its not easy to keep a nice facade when they are swarming around like vultures asking where you are going, what hotel you want, where are you from, endlessly. After a fair bit of walking we found a bus with the least leg room yet, even worse than China, and payed double what the locals pay for the priviledge. I just grinned and beared it, the journey only being an hour long was not too bad really. Lots of nice loud indian dancing and singing on the telly on the bus.

So now we are in Puri. Its a bit early to say how the place is, we only arrived this morning. It seems fairly relaxed (reletively), lots of cows wandering the streets of course. There is a beach too which is apparently a bit dangerous to swim in with dangerous currents. Our room overlooks it in fact, well you can see a little bit of the sea at least, the bay of bengal. We just had a nice dhal curry in the 'micky mouse restraunt' next to our hotel. And now I'm going to have a look and see where Maria has got to. Byee

India awaiting

2005-12-14T00:03:00.000+13:00

Halloo, sorry I haven't updated my blog for a bit. Not sure why, maybe just not inspired or something. Khao San becomes very tired quickly, we stayed too long last week before finally buggering off for a few days in Kanchanaburi, which was very enjoyable. Anyway, we are just about to leave this internet cafe, and then go and collect our passports, all being well with fresh India visas inserted into them. Tommorrow we fly to Chennai (formerly known as Madras).

I suppose this is where the idea of an overland journey to New Zealand becomes disjointed. It was always going to be a bit artificial to fit India in though. Unless we had taken the Tibet to Nepal to India route I suppose, or we could have tried to wing it through Myanmar but theres no guarantees with that.

khao san road

2005-12-07T05:46:00.000+13:00

Thought I'd put another entry together, just a wee one. Mainly because I want to brag about eating insects again. Maria just won't listen to my tales of squidgy maggots and crispy locusts. No fun at all, so I'm going to wax lyrical about it all here instead. I bought a bag of them and er so yeh the maggots or actually I think they were silk worm chrysallises, deep fried, were quite squidgy and the locustss were er you know crispy. I genuinally like them though, its not all about brag value, they are quite tasty, though you do find bits of legs and wings stuck in your teeth after. I prefer the crispy ones to the squidgy ones if I'm honest. You can get quite a variety of insect cuisine here on Khao San, like big buggy cockroach things, mealworms, and some non isects too, for example scorpians, I haven't seen the big tarantula spiders here that they had in Cambodia yet though. I also haven't seen anywhere where you can drink snake blood, like on the film 'The Beach' where Leonardo Di Caprio drinks it on this same street. It wouldn't surprise mw if you can find it here though. Alternatively you can just plump for pad thai instead, if you prefer which is fried noodles with some egg and peanut and chillies.

We visited the Bangkok snake farm today, in which they put on a show of venemous snakes which are used to colect venom for the developemnt of anti-venom. I've been before but it was new to Maria. At the end of the show they ask if anyone wanted to hold this big python they had. Maria was just about the first one up to volunteer and afterwards complained that she wanted longer with the snake. I also had a shot holding it, they are such beautiful animals, I want one as a pet. We had also been impressed with the cobras which were on display, theatrically raising their hoods and hissing and striking at the handlers. Maria later confessed she wanted to hold the cobras too!

Its really odd to think that Christmas is in full build up at home. Virtually no sign of it here. I think I am quite liking getting away from all the hype this year.

Same same but different

2005-12-06T05:20:00.000+13:00

Well we've said goodbye to Cambodia and now we are in Thailand. After a ferry to the border in which we met up with some friendly Irish and a Welsh guy, then a couple of shared taxis and also a night in Trat. Then a comfy bus ride - yes thats right, I did say comfy. (They drive on the left here too, which is the proper way to do it, whatever crazy dutch people might try and tell you) So we are now in that massive noisy sprawling city of Bangkok. Same same as last time, I was here a few years ago.

We are in the Khao San Road area of the city in which multitudes of tourists abound, like sheep. I make that sheep reference after one westerner tourist called me and Maria sheep when we arrived. This put me out slightly, I don't know what he thinks he is then, er another sheep too possibly. On the other hand I can see his point aswell, there are swarms of tourists here who do all look the same (I'm including myself), with their T-Shirts bearing slogans like 'same same' on the front and 'but different' on the back, I find that particularly ironic that one. One T-shirt that amused me has 'Fuck you' on the front and 'You fucking fuck' on the back!!!! I'm sure my granny Hilda would have something to say about that one if she were here, she used to turn my offensive heavy metal T-Shirts inside out when she'd hung them on the clothes line.

When we arrived we looked at loads of guest houses eventually finding one equally as sparten, dirty and expensive as all the others we had looked at but took it anyway being sick of trooping about with our rucksacks. The next day we looked at several more guesthouses and finally found another one just off Khau San Road called Dio which seemed a bit better to us, at least we now have a bathroom where the urine doesn't run out along the floor when you go for a piss.

Customer service here is worth a mention. It is the worst yet, or at least the worst since Russia. We went around a few travel agents yesterday, looking for an India visa and flights prices etc. The girls would sit watching TV, only vaugely interested in answering your questions and very distracted by the telly.

Theres something about the Thai beer that really hits you by the way, I feel absolutely rough as hell today. I suppose that's what happens when you go out drinking with a couple of Irish and a Welsh as we did last night. It was the same in Trat too, hard to keep up with those guys.

It looks like we have to wait quite a while here to get our India Visa, it takes 5 working days, and today desn't count because it is the King's birthday today and therefore a holiday for the Thais. I reckon that after a week in Khao San we are both going to end up covered in tatoos and wearing dreadlocks.

Gecko family

2005-12-01T21:58:00.000+13:00

I know I said no more about geckos but since so many people are begging via millions of emails to hear more Ok then, reluctantly though. Actually that was a downright lie but who cares.

So it turns out the huge Gecko in our hut the other night was only the lickle baby one! The last couple of nights have seen the addition of 2 even bigger ones accompanying it. They seem to hunt together almost as if they are cooperating, maybe I'm imagining it I suppose. Their presence explains a few odd things around our hut too in actual fact. Those mysterious squidgy brown things all over the bathroom floor and all over our mosquitoe net are actually gecko shit.

Incidently I consider myself very lucky to have a wife like Maria who shares my enthusiasm for these creatures. I could imagine lots of other women wouldn't be impressed at all with huge lizards crawling all over the hut and shitting everywhere. We have gone the other way if anything going to any lengths to accomodate them, letting them have priority over which lights are on or off for them to hunt by, keeping our voices low to avoid disturbing them etc. I suppose they pay their way by eating lots of insects who'd be otherwise trying to eat my wife and I.

Anyway thats about it just now, tommorrow we'll be making our way into Thailand via a ferry to Trat. But I'll miss those geckos who let us stay in their hut with them for a few days.

Still beachin

2005-11-29T22:50:00.000+13:00

Ah well, another day another blog. As you can probably guess by the title we are still on our beach, feeling obliged to bathe in the sun, drink the odd coke, and swim in warm clear water and stuff. I'm getting quite a decent tan now - though Maria reckons I look more like a prawn than a bronzed god.

Actually, today we changed the routine slightly and hired a motorbike (a gas guzzling beast of a machine at least 75cc) and roared around the town. It was my first tentative step into driving in Asia (I'm not counting another time I hired a bike in Thailand about 6 years ago because that was so long ago). I was quite chuffed to quickly get the hang of not indicating when crossing lanes of traffic to turn, and tooting the horn randomly and all that. I did let myself down a bit by checking sometimes what traffic was coming up behind (something the cambodians don't bother to do, none of the bikes having wing mirrors, also I suppose you want to keep your eyes in front as much as possible here to avoid the big pot holes in the road.) It was awesome fun though, only 3 dollars for a one day hire, and no need to show a licence or wear a helmet or any annoying details like that. There is also the bonus of when being on a bike, you don't have people constantly asking, "do you want motorbike?"

Our exploration by bike took us to another beach on the other side of town - Ochheutial beach. Don't ask what that means, I've got no idea. It was much longer than our beach (Victory beach) and facing a slightly different direction but otherwise much the same deal. Various services are offered on the beach. There are the usual sellers of fruit, jewelery and sunglasses, (I bought some nice ray ban sunglasses for only 3 dollars yesterday, to replace the ones I lost on the boat). But there are also manicures, massage and getting hairs pulled out by a twisting action on a bit of twine. One of these latter people latched onto Maria's legs this afternoon, using the twine with great glee to start plucking hairs, telling her "this hair not good". Only leaving very very reluctantly after several minutes of us saying no in as many different ways as we could think of. Maria was especially put out at the jibes of leg hairyness coming from this woman considering she had hairier legs than Maria!

We ate our lunch today at a beachside cafe and whilst scanning over the menu noticed many of the meals had an option of a happy version costing an extra 2 dollars. After my inquiry, we found out the happy version is the one which has marajuana added as an extra ingredient. We decided not to go happy on this occasion, being aware that I had to drive back later on. While on the subject it seems pretty easy to get weed here, there are plenty of offers in any case.

Last night there was an epic struggle between a huge gecko and a gargantuan moth in our hut. ("Oh god" I can hear you all saying, "not geckos and animals again, its even more boring than hearing about uncomfy bus rides") To add to the drama there was a massive electrical storm in progress too. These things were crashing around all over the place, the moth in a huge struggle to survive and the gecko in a huge impulse to have dinner. I think the moth survived finally, unless it was another one sitting in our hut today. Those storms are something else though, regular as clockwork, huge rumbles of thunder and sheets of rain throughout each evening and then another bright sunny day the next day.

Something else I just remembered about geckos (sorry to keep on about them). They are vocal animals, lots of the geckos here make these kind of chirping noises, which I was already familiar with from my last travel in South East Asia. What has surprised me is the other noise they make - GHE'KO. Thats where they get the name from apparently, its the noise they make. It is such a wierd sound, I am going to try and record a sample of it if I can.

Anyway, tommorrow we are going to take a boat ride out to a nearby island for a barbacue lunch and some snorkling action under the waves, looking forward to that very much. I'll try and think of some none gecko related news for my next blog :-) Stay cool all.

Hot off the press - click here for our first underwater photos!

Life on a tropical beach

2005-11-28T01:29:00.000+13:00

Sipping juice from fresh coconuts, lying back on fine white sand in the shade of palm trees. The warm clear waters of the gulf of Thailand stretching out to the horizon. Wandering down to the water for an occasional dip to cool down before heading back to the sun to dry off... Thats us right now!!! Think I'll do the same thing tomorrow aswell. Hope its not too icy and snowy back home. :-P

So we've headed South, still in Cambodia but we're now on the south coast in a nice little place called, er Siankhville or something like that. Our plan is to chill out for a bit here and later catch a ferry to Thailand. We are staying in a really nice beach hut which has decent ammenities like lights and a bathroom and a mosquitoe net around the bed. Along with a bar showing the Newcastle vs Everton game in about half an hour, and this internet cafe that Maria and I are sitting in right now. But best of all is a hammock on our balcony that is great for relaxing in. So not bad at all. It costs us 5 US dollars a day to stay here.

Actually its not ALL been as idylic as it might sound. In truth Maria and I have been grouchy as hell with each other recently having both quit cigarettes about 5 days ago. We came close to travelling our seperate ways at one particularly nasty point.

So anyway, aside from that, we've been asking about the diving around here. It costs about double what we payed in Vietnam for the same kind of thing ($70 instead of $30) so we are going to skip that and save our hard earned money for dives in Thailand instead. By the way, Cambodia is even worse for using US dollars than Vietnam was, everything is priced in dollars, they only use Riel for small change.

I've been having the odd little snorkel around though, theres some nice sea weed patches to the left of the beach with fish and crabs to look at. We finally tried out our underwater housing for the digital camera today and glad to say it worked really well. At least the camera stayed dry. Still have to work out how to get the fish to stay still though! On the beach there are these on cute little crabs that scatter in all directions in front of you as you walk, running into their little holes. You can almost hear them screaming and shouting in panic as they dash for their little lives. Two seconds later they are out again, has he gone? is it safe? Aaaaargh no he's still there!

Temples in the jungle at Angkor

2005-11-25T20:31:00.000+13:00

We are in Siem Reap getting a large overdose of temples at Angkor just now. This place is in the North of Cambodia, we've arrived from Phnom Penh via another boat on the Mekong (er or ones of its tributaries actually I think). This boat was nothing like the nice slow relaxed one we had been on to cross from Vietnam into Cambodia previously. This one was fast with a capital F, resembling an airplane in fact. You could go out and climb up onto the roof, which I did briefly, didn't stay long because my sunglasses instantly got blasted into the water by the wind and I couldn't see much in any case with the wind buffeting my eyelids so much. An interesting part of the journey was where the river turned into a huge lake. It was so big it actually resembled the sea in places. If you look on a map it it unmissable, the huge lake in the middle of Cambodia, we are at the North end of that just now, Siem Reap.

The big thing here is of course the temples in the jungle nearby at Angkor. you pay for a 1 day, 3 days or an entire weeks ticket giving you access. Maria and I settled for just the one day and yesterday we went in search of the fabled lost city of Angkor. Actually it was pretty easy to find, we just hired a driver with a tuk tuk and voila. Beginners luck probably.

Ankor Wat was the first temple we visited and probably the most pristine and impressive out of the ones around here. Very tall and a much grander scale of temple than any I've seen before now in my life, like a labyrinth inside, and it just kept going up multi level, really steeply in places, with bats roosting in some of the caverns. Couldn't help but be amazed by it. We'll have to go easy uploading photos we took literally hundreds.

Fark its just started peeing down, the street is turning into a river outside...

Anyway I digress, after that we discovered another lost temple of similar style called Ankor Thom which had some really impressive faces carved into the bricks. My favorite was the temple we went to after that called Ta Prohm. This one is still the way it was when victorian explorers found it. Ie the jungle is rampantly attacking it, with tree roots growing through the walls, reminding me of sabre wulf (for those of you who know what the hell that is). An amazing place to lose yourself for a few hours. I spent much of my time looking at the jungle life too finding long lines of big red ants endlessly fascinating, especially when prodded with a twig, not to mention the huge 8incher long millipedes, frogs, tadpoles, fresh water crabs and lizards etc.

Maria and I had been delighted that same day when we saw our first wild monkeys of this trip. There were a couple of them ahead as we walked along. I explained monkey body language to Maria and how we should avoid staring at them so as not to frighten them and approach slowely and all that and then we were really happy to get very close to them, within a few feet. The effect was ruined a minute later when we noticed loads of them across the street sitting on peoples heads and stuff. Oh well, still, I love monkeys.

I'm not going to bother writing more just now. Hope Vals party is lots of fun, sorry we won't be there.

Mekong Delta journey to Cambodia, Phnom Penh

2005-11-23T21:24:00.000+13:00

Thought I should fill in a few of the blanks between Siagon and the killing fields near Phnom Penh of my last entry... which started with one of the worst bus rides yet and that is saying something. I know I always bang on about this stuff, but let me elaborate anyway - Feel free to skip this though if you are heartily sick of reading about uncomfy bus rides.

So a taxi took us to the companies 'bus station', for that read back street garage. As we waited for our bus one of the staff started shouting and waving his arms angrily after he had seen our rucksacks?! The reason soon became clear when we saw the bus pull in, no luggage space, none. Isn't it crazy, these white forigners, I mean imagine taking luggage!

Well actually there was one tiny compartment in the rear of the bus... no joy there though, when they opened it a whole load of stuff which had been crammed in, spilled out onto the street. Hmm lets see, no luggage rack inside the bus, no spare seats. No damn aisle in the bus. Oh yes hang on there is a space after all, at our feet. So, the driver kicked Maria's rucksack until it was wedged into our tiny footspace, mine followed and we sat with our legs up around our necks. The other (all vietnamese) passengers laughed unkindly at our fate, I got revenge by taking a photo of them which will soon be posted on this blog.

At least the journey was only going to be a couple of hours I mused to myself...

Several hours later, at sometime after 5am we pulled into our destination, the driver grunted and shoved us off the bus unceremoniously, throwing our bags behind us onto a dark street. The roads in this part of the world (the mekong delta) had not really been the best for sleeping, very bumpy and some very fragile looking bridges to negotiate. At one point the bus had driven onto a ferry which took us across yet another part of the delta.

Finally at our destination (the place we were to catch our boat), an elderly vietnamese person opened what appeared to be a garage door and beckoned us into the pitch darkness inside. Maria who seemed to have more energy than me trustingly went in and tried to drag me in also. Staggering around with knackerdness and grumpiness I just wanted to lie on the street. I eventually decided to leave the street into the mysterious dark room after some severe nagging from Maria.

It turned out we were in some kind of restraunt. And there were other people sleeping somewhere amongst the tables and chairs, meanwhile zillions of mosquitoes began feasting heartily on me. An old lady kindly gave me a blanket to lie on, so I put on some mosquito repellant, unpacked my sarong to use as a sheet, put my jumper down as a pillow, closed my eyes and thought to myself ah blissfull sleep awaits. Two seconds later a cockeral started crowing outside! Seriously I'm not exagerating. Quickly, people started making the tables up, stepping around my 'trying to sleep' body. When they opened the door letting the suddenly bright daylight in I gave up. Oh well, sleep had been a nice idea.

Things looked up considerably after that though. Energized by some breakfast and a nice strong coffee, we made our way to the boat. Our trip up the river on boat turning out to be much more comfortable than the bus before it. It appeared we had joined the end of some kind of tour, as we first stopped to look at a fish farm, then a floating village with people weaving textiles. On the boat I spent some happy time sunbathing on the deck and waving merrily at all the locals who lined the entire way in their floating houses and fish farms.

The border crossing was pretty uneventfull really, had to change boats and get our passports stamped and all that. I did notice that on the cambodian side there were a lot less river people around. Eventually I gave into a blissfull sleep most of the rest of the journey.

So we reached Phom Pehn and booked into a shamefully expensive and luxurious hotel. 10 dollars a night! Well worth it considering how knackered we were. Determined to be lazy we did nothing at all most of the time except watching films on cable tv. The next day we took a tour of the killing fields (which I've already talked oubout in my last blog) and also took in some other sights around the city. At one of the markets we found some english guy eating a fried spider (tarantula type sized thing), generously he gave me a couple of legs to try, which were quite crispy and not bad. Then I went to the same stall and bought a small bag of deep fried locusty cockroachy type things and ate them. They very crispy and not bad at all actually, I would eat them again no problem. Maria wouldn't go near me for the rest of the evening, refusing to kiss me until I had finally brushed my teeth.

Killing fields horror in Cambodia

2005-11-22T04:10:00.000+13:00

Hard to put into words how it felt, visiting the killing fields and genocide museum today. At the killing fields I just wanted to crumple up and cry. How do people do that kind of thing against each other? There were thousands of skulls at the fields, most with visible breaks and fractures. They had been clubbed to death, Khmer Rouge didnt want to waste bullets. Its beyond me, not like its a one off either, how many times has genocide happened in the last hundred years? Is it happening today somewhere in Africa? I don't know. Isn't it easy to have blissful ignorance when its not you? I remember as a school child when there were vietnamese and cambodian refugees at my school, I never understood their plight. The museum was gruseome, first a school, then a death camp of indiscriminate torture before becoming a museum. I think I went from shock, to horror, to anger during my visit there.

Grilled chameleon

2005-11-19T01:59:00.000+13:00

Hello to everyone out there, hope you are well wherever you are. Was planning to chat on messenger just now but its not working properly in this cafe, so time for another blog update instead :-)

Maria and i are killing our last couple of hours in Saigon right now, our last evening in Vietnam in fact. Shortly we begin our journey into deepest Cambodia by bus and boat up the Meekong river. Not sure what to expect with that we haven't been able to obtain much information about it. The bus part will get us to the river near the border by the early hours of the morning, 1am or something. The boat doesn't leave until 8am I think, no idea where or how we are supposed to sleep between that. Time will tell.

Today has been a bit of a repeat of yesterday, another wander to the Cambodia consulate to collect our visas which we applied for yesterday. More dramatic lightening and thunder, some rumbles extremely close sounding, a bit too close for me. Except this time the threat of rain really delivered, enough even to impress Maria. It pished down in great monsoon style. Waterfalls and rivers appeared from nowhere on the streets and tumbling off the rooftops. As we took shelter under a balcony, we noticed one particular stream of water gushing down beside us was originating from a light socket! We moved to a different shelter spot after noticing that one. The rain was actually very refreshing, yeah we were drenched through, but also relieved of the very hot sticky heat. As we trudged along we started jumping in puddles and singing in the rain.

Later, with our visas, we took shelter in a nearby eatery to escape the rain which was still falling but a bit less so. As we perused the menu we were shocked to find it specialised in such items as curried snapper turtle, grilled chameleon, sautee king cobra and the like, page after page of reptile dishes, various types of lizards, snakes and turtles. Less than one minute after coming to the chameleon page of delecacies we thanked the staff and beat our hasty retreat. Niether of us keen at all to eat these animals. I might be wrong but I'm sure many of these are protected. Its a bit like the snake whiskey you see everywhere here, usually the bottle contains one cobra with its hood extended, and one small green snake or sometimes one scorpion dangling from the cobra's mouth. The bigger bottles also have what looks like ginsing root or something immersed in it too. This drink is supposed to be great for the guys virility. Um, yeah whatever I'm not convinced, even if it does work, I think I'll pass on that.

By the way Maria is working away on a new home for her blog here www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/marietacano/. It is planned to be bilingual between Spanish and English. Her old links will be phased out, ie not updated any more.

Cheers all

Saigon

2005-11-18T00:12:00.000+13:00

Saigon! - this word has to be pronounced in a USA accent full of emotion, the voice cracking with shellshocked memories, at least I reckon that. The name Ho Chi Min city doesn't really do it for me. Doesn't do it for many locals too who still seem to call the place Saigon, so for the rest of this blog entry I'll be refering to HCMC as Saigon (said in an american accent). For me the difference between Saigon and North Vietnam is pretty clear here. Big american influence compared to in the North with americano style coffees, american breakfasts (whatever that is), (I think its an English breakfast that they've just claimed their own, maybe with a tad less cholesterol), and burgers and westernised bars. Actually not that easy to find vietnamese food in these parts. I suppose I can sum it up by saying it seems more 'capitalisty' here than other parts of Vietnam we've been in.

We are as usual staying in a kind of backpacker hangout, ghetto type area. This backpacker zone has narrow streets (not as narrow as in Hannoi's old quarter though), wall to wall hotels and internet cafes, and all the usual persistant sales pitch from street sellers. These street sellers want you to buy a baffling choice of things like razors, nailclippers, kleenex, postcards, or whatever else they are convinced that all westerners desperatley need. You have to smile and say no to each item as it is offered, one 'no' at the beginning rarely suffices. The same ritual occurs at a frequency of once or twice every couple of yards down the street and usually with identical items for sale. Others want you to hop onto a motorcycle or cyclo for a ride somewhere, even better if it is a ride 'everywhere' and they'll be your guide. Swarms of them appear as if by magic if you make the mistake of looking at a map publically.

Again we arrived (yesterday) absolutely knackered from an overnighter on a bus from Nha Trang. Sometimes I wonder why we torture ourselves like that, a damned exhausting experience every time. And this time no different. We had to sit on the back seat with an asian guy falling asleep next to us battling for arse space, first against me and later against Maria who gallently swapped seats with me in the middle of the night. The seat in front was broken and permanently reclined right up into our footspace. Anyway enough of that, I feel like I'm endlessly complaining about foot space and buses in my blog. I suppose it has been a cheap way to travel, that much can be said.

We've spent this afternoon wandering the streets with the primary aim of hunting down the Cambodia consulate for our next visa and a secondary aim of just exploring the place randomly. We have been told by various people that we can get the visa at the Cambodia border, but have decided to play it safe and make sure we have it in our passports first. No harm in being prepared, and at least this mission got us out of the hotel room where we have been glued watching 'the worlds funniest animals home videos' on cable tv and out exploring the city. Actually I was tormentedly limbering up covered in sweat in front of a big fan before looking at my reflection in the bathroom mirror and then smashing it, waiting for something, anything to happen, while Maria chilled out. We are planning to cross the border into Cambodia by boat, travelling up the Mekong river. Its more hassle and more expensive than just getting a bus, but this way I can fuel my fantasies of a classified mission into Cambodia just like on the film Apocolypse Now in fact.

This afternoon there were dark oppressive skies, flashes of lightening and rumbles of thunder from the sky which lasted a couple of hours but not the downpour which was threatened. Well it rained a bit but not enough to impress Maria who is used to Spanish downpours. So we took shelter in quite a pricey bar in a nicer part of town, away from our backpacker zone and drank a beer there. Big difference on that side of town, nice big streets, a cathedral, some parks, shopping centers and shiney things like that, quite nice.

We have just finished our dinner in which I had a vegetable curry and some carrot, apple and ginger juice. Mmm nice, washed down by a bottle of Saigon beer naturally. Sitting on a balcony overlooking the street we played a game of spot the geckos, seeing who could spot one the furthest away, and we discussed our lethargy that seems to be taking hold. I don't think its down to the heat, this lethargy, I dunno it's a bit hard motivating or planning where we want to go at the moment. Maybe we have been on the trail moving on to fast, or maybe we are just getting saturated and a bit blasey about it all. It's like "Oh another world famous heritage site, er nice, what next?"

Beaches and Diving in Nha Trang

2005-11-13T23:55:00.000+13:00

We've been in Nha Trang for the last few days. Its kind of a beach town but not really a resort as such, I don't think the beach resort concept has kicked off in Vietnam. Quite a nice place to take a breather. Our hotel here is not bad $6 for a night and it has a balcony and tv and all that. I've been catching up on the sport, they show premiership footy in Vietnam constantly, more than in the UK and last night I saw England beat Argentina in a friendly match, was glad I stayed awake for the last 5 minutes! :)

The beach here is about 6km long lined with coconut palm trees and you can see small islands dotted around in the distance. It is slightly spolied by a fair bit of litter on the shoreline, mainly things like chewed sweetcorn cobs and fruit peels and things which are at least organic but a little offputting all the same. Nha Trang had a typhoon the other week so I guess that's why the waters a bit murkey in the bay aswell. Hasn't stopped me having a few dips in the water though, sea is about 27 deg C, quite a nice temperature for a swim I think. And the sun has been out most of the time too.

Yesterday we took a boat trip out to a nearby island and had a couple of dives there - scuba diving that is. Its not the season for it apparently, so we were worried it would be a bit shit but turned out to be pretty good though (we had about 10m visability). It only cost $30 for the trip and equipment and everything, not bad value at all. There were some impressively big table corals and many other soft and hard corals, lots of colourful nudibraches (nudiwhats?), and a fair abundance of tropical fish. My first dive was slightly spoiled by my mask fogging up constantly, Marias second spoiled by an ear problem, but is good to be back diving again.

ps Forgot to mention another thing about the diving. Underwater explosions... What the Fu**?! Twice, bloody fishermen dynamiting the fish. Can't help wondering what the sea life would be like there if it was properly protected.

From Hue and the Demilitarized Zone and bird flu avoidance to Hoi An

2005-11-09T22:17:00.000+13:00

I'm in Hoi An now, in central Vietnam. The sun is out and is hot damn hot. We left Hanoi for Hue the other day on one of those overnight bus journeys that I enjoy so much. For $30 US you get all the way from Hanoi to Saigon (sorry Ho Chi Min City) stopping where you want on way, which was too good a deal for us to refuse. Comfortingly the bus was a coach not one of those things like we had in China like a minibus full of chain smokers and people throwing bits of pig trotters on the floor. None of that, and there was a seat empty next to me so I lay across the isle with my legs stretched right out. Ah luxury, for a minute or two until I got unbearable uncomfortable in that position. So didn't get much sleep in the end but it could have been worse.

In Hue there was a big citadel to visit which we did the same day we arrived despite being pretty knacked from the bus. The citadel had a 10km wall around it, was very reminiscent of the forbidden city in Bejiing except much better in terms of being a lot less crowded, more green and we were free to wander into some of the palace buildings.

Better than all that though, for me at least being a nature freak, in the citadel grounds we found a huge green iguana type lizard on one of the trees gripping the branch with its long tail hanging down and its beady eye watching my every move. I was cursing that the camera battry was flat so no pic. Also there were many beautiful little brown frogs hopping around on the grass camaflauged to resemble dry leaves. Growing all over the place like weeds, which would have been great interest to my cousin Aaron, are sensitive plants who's leaves fold up when you touch them. Another thing that has made me feel like we have finally reached the tropics are the geckos running around all the walls everywhere. I totally love those creatures.

The next day we took a tour to the demilitarized zone, so called because it was an area created during the time where Vietnam was split in two and the military couldn't go. You wouldn't think it though by all the bomb craters in the paddy fields, still visible from the American War. Some of the hillsides still bare of trees too from where the yanks where napalming the forest. An intresting place to visit was some tunnels (I forget the name) in which the Viet Cong used to hide underground. I had heard of these before but hadn't realised the extend of them, three levels underground, stretching for kilometers and carved through sheer rock. Families lived down there and even gave birth to children down there. Not a good place to visit if you are a claustrophobic.

We visited a small village later inhabited by people who came from Laos about 100 years ago, their houses on stilts. The coach dumped us there, a huge bus load of white westerners with big cameras while little children came out and begged and pigs ran around squealing. I didn't really enjoy the experience, it seemed a bit invasive to just waltz in and start looking around peoples houses. 'Oh this is where the poor people live'

Anyway, this morning we left Hue and like I said now we are in Hoi An, a bit further south. First impressions are nice. In the old part of the town, motorized vehicles are not permitted so it is quite refreshing to be able to wander the streets in relative quiet. I recognized a traveller this afternoon a bit different from the usual familiar faces you keep bumping into, I last met him in Airlie Beach in Australia about 6 years ago. I keep saying it but its a small world innit?

The big thing here is shopping, especially tailors shops. Around every corner they ask if you want a suit made. They seem quite surprised when you decline the offer. The clothes look very nice though it is tempting. I need to sort out a forwarding address in New Zealand so I can start buying things. My bulging rucksack wouldnt fit much more just now.

Tommorrow we are probably going to visit 'MySon' (or something like that) which is a world heritage collection of temples. Either that or we might chill out, I am tempted by the idea of hiring a motorbike and visiting the beach nearby instead.

Oh yeah bird flu, whats the deal? I keep seeing birds falling out of the sky and croaking their last breath with puss oozing out. Doesn't seem that bad does it? Anyway I'm staying clear of chickens just in case. So my parents and Seb can stop worrying ;-)

Byeee

Bucketfuls of rain in Halong Bay and Catba Island

2005-11-05T03:48:00.000+13:00

Gooooood morning Vietnam! I saw a slug crawling along the edge of a straight razor, Charlie don't surf etc etc. I'm in Hanoi with some time for a bit of a catch up on my travel blogshit, so here goes...

We are staying in the old quarter of the city at the moment having returned from a trip to the coast yesterday. It is very very warm and humid here just now. Like being in a greenhouse in the botanical gardens in the uk. There are many old narrow streets, which I find impossible to navigate around, all looking much the same to me. Luckily I have something better than a map and a compass called a Maria. The Maria is a strange instrument, human in form and fueled by chocolate but very effective.

What a din from the street just now, well all around and in this cafe too! Sheet metal workers banging away and motorbikes zooming past tooting horns, and kids on their day off school screaming and shouting, otherwise know as talking, along with a radio playing fairly loud tunes - A 'Woah we're going to Ibiza' remix is on at the moment. Actually, something that has been difficult for me getting used to is the Vietnamese daily routine. At about 6 in the morning the cacacphony begins. On our first morning it took the form of a really loud TV in the hotel lobby followed by a heated domestic argument which lasted hours. Not the best way to get a lie in after partying then travelling from Hong Kong the previous day. Yesterday morning it took the form of some kind of loudspeaker in the streets, again about 6am, which was apparently a communist broadcast that regularly occurs. Another novel way to make a racket is by banging bells to announce rubbish collection. On the other hand at night time they all settle down to sleep remarkably early. We've had to yield to this routine finally aswell.

I've already mentioned the ka'zillions of motorbikes zipping around the streets, which are still here. There are also many shops spilling out onto just about every pavement selling various silk garments, musical instruments, art, street-food, sheet metal things, well lots of stuff really. Other people seem to sit in the street in their cute pink jim jams watching the world go by. The funny thing is that in all the chaos I am not really feeling much of a culture shock. Must be well getting used to it now. Numerous men offer rides on their motorbikes and many women wander around selling delicious fruits or whatever. Some of them very persistantly. These women have the produce in two baskets dangling at each end of a long pole and they are usually wearing those conical shaped straw hats that are very evocative of Vietnam.

I am getting really partial to dragon fruits which you get here and I first tried in Hong Kong, and also another fruit which is a bit like a spikey lychee, don't know the name of that one though. Have to be very careful of getting overcharged though. We saw a couple of tourists pay almost $20 US for a little bag of fruit the other day.. The locals really try it on and hit the jackpot with newly arrived tourists now and again I suppose. That took the heat off me a bit as I had earlier paid over the odds for some fruit too, much to Maria's annoyance.

Its a bit wierd getting used to the currency. When we arrived I changed 40 quid into dong and became a millionaire! Its pretty cool being a millionaire, although because things cost like 14 grand for a bottle of beer it probably doesn't count. They use US dollars a lot aswell though, which I find annoying because if you ask to pay in dong the exchange rate seems to be plucked from thin air and bound to end up with you paying a fair bit more - So we need to get more US dollars when the banks open tommorrow.

As for our 3 day trip to the coast, Halong bay and the Catba island nature reserve. Really lovely scenic place, Halong Bay is quite similar to Yangshou in China in that it is full of limestone hills, the difference being that these hills are in fact islands because they are in the sea, around 3000 of them in fact. Amongst these islands you find floating vilages, with the houses on rafts and fish farms attached. We spent the first day cruising around by boat taking in the scenery and also visited a couple of impressive caves. There was actually a rock formation in one of the caves, highlighted with a red light. Our guide tactfully tried to describe it as looking like a finger. Rubbish, it was definately, well, a cock and balls. I'll have to upload the photo at some point.

We slept on the boat on the first night, as soon as the anchor went down I got changed and jumped in the sea for a swim. Fantastic, though it was raining and dark, the water was really nice. Until I started wondering about sharks that is. There were also three Germans (Christian, Jeorg, and Sven) who came into the water making jokes about there being tiger sharks in these waters, which didn't ease my fears much. They were pretty cool guys though, Maria and I enjoyed chatting and drinking a couple of beers with them in the evenings.

The next day we headed with our boat out to the Catba island nature reserve, covered in jungle, from where we did some hiking to the top of one of the mountains - while gallons of water fell on us from the sky. You wouldn't beleive the rain. I put it down to a typhoon that hit central Vietnam a day or so previously, reckon that we must have caught some of the weather on the edge of it. At the top you are supposed to get a wonderful view over all the islands but we got a view of about 6 feet into clouds. Was a nice climb though, on the way down Maria had a slip in some mud -'Jewel of the Nile Style' if you know that film, and got some nasty bruises. Thankfully, she is fine though apart from the bruises.

Later on we attached our boat to one of the floating raft fish farm house things from where we could go kyaking around the islands. In the fish farm I noticed some young 'tiger sharky looking' sharks circling around in one of the nets!

Myself, Jeorg and Christian went off kyaking with the guide who wasn't keen at all. I think he had just dryed off after the hike when we dragged him out. Every few minutes he would say 'its raining really hard we should go back'. We only made him suffer about half an hour. Lovely kyaking though. The last day was mainly just cruising back to Halong city on the boat, however the sun came out finally. I was fried within no time.

Anyway I've been on this internet for an age, better get myself off to see if I can find Maria who buggered off ages ago. Later this evening we are heading south to Hue in central Vietnam. Oh goody another overnight bus journey.

'Nam

2005-11-02T03:30:00.000+13:00

So we've made it to Vietnam now, we are currently in Hannoi specifically. We cheated a bit and got a flight from Hong Kong - Actually the flight was pretty nice, got a great arial view of the Hong Kong islands as we took off. Makes a nice change from overnight sleeper buses too.

So my first impressions - The food is delicious, I just love it. So many really fresh ingredients, fresh herbs, coriander, basil, everything I eat seems to be the tastiest thing I can remember, so far at least, hope that trend continues. The beer is very cheap too, like in china a fraction of a pound for a beer, which has to be good.

Hannoi is full of millions of motorbikes, every street has a constant procession of them whizzing around in all directions. Crossing the street involves this blind faith kind of tactic where you take a deep breath and start walking regardless of the traffic, no point waiting for a gap really. The motorbikes all swerve around you tooting their horns.

Thats about it just now, more later. Byee

Hong Kong in a blur

2005-11-01T23:38:00.000+13:00

After an overnight sleeper bus journey and taking account my first impressions of Hong Kong I expected it to be a bit of a blur and it totally was! Many of the specifics seem to have gone right now (I'm sitting in a cyber cafe in Hannoi), leaving a bunch of wierd memories or sensations: Like being dwarfed by dense thickets of concrete jungle. Having bacardi and red bull poured straight from the bottle into my mouth in the groovey mule pub. Streets full of witches, ghouls and monsters celebrating a wierd western festival called Halloween. The nightmarish vision of decapated fish heads in a market opening their mouths and looking at me and their own gutted bodies.The amazing city views - I think I spent half my time there gazing around with my mouth hanging open and a really dumb expression on my face.

So, yeah we had a fantastic time (which I'm still trying to recover from). Hugest thanks possible to Laura and Jimmy who made us so welcome letting us crash in their spare room, which is in a central Hong Kong flat on the 21st floor; Introduced us to their friends, and gave us a massivley enjoyable introduction to Hong Kong from a local persective. Was also great to catch up with another old friend of my family Roddy, who together with Laura took us to see many of the sights of Hong Kong, taking the star ferry to Kwoloon, browsing various markets and the like. All this catching up with familiar people made Hong Kong seem less like travelling and more like arriving. I'm sure I'll be back there for future visits.

Yangshuo days

2005-10-28T19:02:00.000+13:00

Hmm not sure what to write about in this entry, time appears to have stood still for the last few days that we've been here. Its actually quite hard to think of what we have done compared to what we haven't. One of the main plans we had was to hire bikes and cycle around the nearby paddy fields and countryside and we haven't done that, despite the fact that everywhere you walk locals offer you a bike to hire. Since we are leaving for Hong Kong later today I guess we won't be doing it finally.

We did take a trip to a nearby town Xingping the other day from where we did a boat cruise up the Li River. The scenery there, and here too, is very famous in China. It is very dramatic. In fact there is a picture of it on the back of the 20 yuan note, as the locals are fond of pointing out whenever they hand you a 20 in your change. The whole area for miles and miles around is dotted with really steep tree covered limestone hills, there are also many famous caves scattered around too, where you can bathe in mud and stuff like that - another thing we haven't done.

The paddy fields have all been harvested and are sitting dry just now. You sometimes see the farmers drying rice on the roads. There are also lots of fruit trees, many oranges and some that look like oversize pears which are at least 5 times bigger than you expect a pear to be. I think I'll buy one of them this afternoon come to think of it, another thing I've been meaning to do and not got around to yet.

Xingping was interesting as it is one of the only places in China I've been to which seems to still have an older traditional feel to it, that hasn't been faked. Old cobbly streets with lots of colouful buddhist flags hanging across. Old people whiling away the day playing cards and spitting, with a picture of chairman Mao hanging on the wall behind. A market selling stuff for locals not tourists.

Yangshou is quite a contrast with Xingping, one of the biggest streets is one they call the tourist street is lined with cafes, guesthouses and souviner shops down its whole length. Although that may sound tacky it has been a very nice place to kick back and relax. I've also started buying some of my christmas presents already, got something for Beck last night.

So next we are off to Hong Kong which I am looking forward to very much though we only have a couple of days there before our flight to Hannoi. We are going to stay with an old uni friend of mine, Laura (who incidently shares the same wedding anniversary as myself) and we can meet up with another friend Roddy and his new family aswell. Will be nice to catch up with some familiar faces.

24 hours by bus to Yangshuo

2005-10-24T20:11:00.000+13:00

Hello or Nihou from Yangshuo. We've arrived! We travelled by bus from Chengdu to Guilin on old tatty bus to get here. The journey which was supposed to be 24 hours journey ended up being nearer 28 hours. Those last 3 or 4 hours over are a killer when you've been counting down the hours expecting to arrive. To make the journey more fun, people sitting around us and the driver seemed to chain smoke cigarettes constantly throughout the entire journey. The atmosphere really thick and quite hard to breathe, we couldn't open a window either. Another thing I really dislike, sorry to sound like a whinger, is when the chinese cough up big lumps of spit and aim it at the bus floor... totally gross. Also our seats were angled forward just enough to ensure that no matter what position you started in, a few minutes later you ended up slouched forward with all you weight on the tailbone. This made the journey a bit of an endurance test. My prediction that I might grab half an hour sleep between the hours of 5am and 6am turned out to be not far off the mark.

The journey gave me a good chance to observe chinese driving though. Especially as Maria kept stealing the Harry Potter book I had bought to read. They love overtaking, especially if it is a blind bend. Then they start blasting the horn and jut pull out regardless. They won't wait behind anyone at all, just pull out blasting the horn like mad. The strangest thing of all is that it seems to work quite well. Don't thing I'll try it though.

At Guilin we were tempted to stay there for the night to recover and sleep and go to Yangshuo the next day. However in the end we thought, whats another couple of hours after that? So we got on the next bus to Yangshuo almost straight away. Thankfully a much cleaner and non-smoking bus. Why couldn't we have had that one for the 24hour bit? Anyway we arrivied here at about 8pm last night absolutely dog tired. When a really persistant hotel tout grabbed us we were too tired to resist and went to look at his hotel. We weren't really keen to stay there (more because of the tout than the hotel which is nice and clean), I think because of our desire to go elsewhere we ended up negotiating a rock bottom price, 40 yuan per night instead of the displayed price at the reception of 238 yuan per night.

Despite being tired we had a little look around the place last night and ate at this huge night time food market at the end of our street. This place turns out to have a lot of exotic food to try if you are brave enough. Snake meat is a speciality here, which I won't try out of my respect for snakes, not wanting to contribute to them being hunted. You can also get deep fried rats which I won't try for different reasons. Lots of stalls have bowls of live fish or eels wriggling around in front of them which presumably get slaughtered when you order your meal.

Today we are being lazy, and ambling around taking it in. Very nice. By day we can see all the limestone very steep hills that surround us in every direction. I'm looking forward very much to being lazy here for a few days. We are planning to hire bikes and cycle around the nearby countryside and paddie fields.

Big Buddha

2005-10-22T04:40:00.000+13:00

We took a day trip to Leshan today, about 2 hours bus ride away from Chengdu to see a famous buddha carved into the cliff on the banks of a river there. The biggest buddha in the world supposedly. The chinese were claiming it is as impressive as the sphynix in Egypt as far as stone carving goes. Have to admit it was quite impressive. The thing is 71 meters tall and can be seen from a big distance away. We first went to an island lying almost opposite the figure by local ferry to get a good view of the whole buddha. Then we went on a local bus to see the thing up close. You start at its head and can climb down the cliff to its feet there.

We were feeling quite proud of ourselves managing all the local transport ourselves instead of taking an arranged tour, until we went back to the bus station at about 7pm and found there where no more buses. Help. Eventually we managed to decipher enough hand signals and chinese english to figure out we might be able to get a bus from a different station on the other side of the town/city. When we got to the other station there was a mad rabble fighting for tickets to Chengdu. I was really proud of Maria elbowing her way in to the ticket booth and waving money at them. My contribution was by quoting things like 'stop pushing' and 'please two tickets' from our phrasebook in the general direction of the rabble. Don't know why they seemed reluctant to sell us the bus tickets, wierd but we got there in the end. Quite stressfull though, especially as we had to check out the hostel and had a bus to catch from Chengdu tommorrow.

My dinner was quite interesting tonight. Tried a house speciality in one of the restraunts in town which I expected would be like chow main. When it appeared it was actually a boiling soup into which the waiter plonked some raw fish, raw quails eggs (which ended up poached), raw meat, seaweed, fungus and a whole bunch of other stuff. He then covered it in a layer of white noodles (which I suppose acted like a lid letting it all cook up underneath). It was actually very tasty.

Our next destination - Guillan, by 24 hour coach ride... ouch.

Chengdu's Giant Pandas and Hotpots

2005-10-20T19:39:00.000+13:00

We've been here in Chengdu now for the last couple of days and I've finally succomed to a cold now, Maria is still coughing too. Part of the reason we came here was to try and reach a warmer climate but so far it seems a bit chilly here too. It's supposed to be sub-tropical. Chengdu seems like most chinese cities we have visited so far, ie lots of new high rise buildings, many still in construction, plenty of KFC and McDonalds (which I'm glad to say we are avoiding now), lots and lots of pollution. I am blaming the pollution and smog in part for this cold I've picked up. It is also very humid, the first few days was constant drizzle and light rain, though it seems to have dried up a bit now thankfully.

When we arrived here on the hard sleeper it was about 5am. Somebody at the station was trying to persuade us to try his hostel which was the one most recommended in our Lonely Planet guide book (Dragon Youth Hostel Guesthouse). Being so tired and with the offer of a free drop off at the hostel, we decided to give it a go despite the fact we had previously planned a different hostel.

The 'free' drop off turned out to be a taxi which we had to pay for! We were then dropped off at a very narrow, dark, muddy lane which had been dug up along the entire length. Along with a guy from Finland and a Canadian we ventured along the lane finding nothing really hostel like where the sign was. Eventually plucking up courage to venture further and crossing some deep holes on narrow wet muddy boards in the dark we found the hostel. It was not lit up at all and with the staff sleeping. Finally somebody woke up and told us we should wait until 9am when the reception opens.... So we waited outside in a courtyard thing in the darkness. At 9am they told us that there were no beds but if we waited until 11am or 12am then somebody would have checked out by then and we could probably get one of those beds...Fuck that. Leaving the Finn and the Canadian to continue to try there luck there Maria and I buggered off to this other hostel we are in now, Mix and Backpackers Guesthouse. It is really nice, much better than the one Lonely Planet was recommending and great for slobbing around watching DVDs, doing laundry, meeting other travellers and stuff. So happy in the end.

The other day we visited a giant panda breeding facility thing outside the city. It was really nice seeing these animals in the flesh, especially considering they are so endangered and all that. No wonder! Apparently in the wild they can wander around for years without seeing a mate and when they do they are quite often too choosy to actually mate with each other. The first time the mother has a cub she doesn't know what it is that has suddenly appeared and beats the crap out of it - so someone told me anyway. They are wonderful animals though, to me seeming quite ape like rather than bear like, their 6 finger hands can grasp the bamboo with great dextirity, and they are the ultimate in cuteness. The chinese call them bear cats, and I could see a cat like quality to them too. We had to get up at dawn to visit them because that is when they are most active apparently, chossing to sleep most of the rest of the time. There was also red pandas there too, also extremly cute, quite fox like / possum like thingys.

Another thing we have done recently is to try the local speciality of this region, the hotpot. Not sure what to expect we sat down at a hotpot restraunt nearby, and were joined by an Irish couple from our hostel. None us knew what to do or expect really. In the middle of the table was a hole into which they then put a big metal tub of stock, in the middle of that is another container of really spicy chilly stuff. They light a gas burner under these containers so it heats up and starts bubbling and boiling madly. You then choose what you want from the menu. My fish when it arrived was raw cat fish with their throats slit and covered in blood and gore. The others got raw beef and raw squid. The idea is you cook it all up in the hot pot yourself. It is a wierd idea, I wasn't that keen though, not liking the raw meats at the dinner table. Maybe I'm just too fussy. I was glad we didn't order any bullfrog though (It was on the menu 4 yuan for one). Interesting though.

Xi'an and the terracotta army

2005-10-15T02:13:00.000+13:00

Hellooo from Xi'an. Terracotta army awaiting us tomorrow. We have found the local bus that can take us to see the army so will save a bob or two instead of taking an expensive tour. For such an ancient place this city feels really new and modern a lot of the time, it supposedly predates Rome and Athens. We have just been chilling out today, Maria has a bit of a cold and we arrived quite knackered, so had a sleep and then a bit of an aimless wander. Have splashed out on a nice hotel but managed to bargain it down to a good price. Finally getting the hang of this haggling thing.. I think. I've noticed that sometimes if you just accept their price without negotiating they give you too nuch change back, they must feel sorry for you getting ripped off too easily or something! Have seen a few familiar faces from Datong in our hotel too, its funny how you keep bumping into the same travellers, I suppose it is a well trodden path we are on. Will probably have a couple of beers with them in the hotel lobby later on. Oh well not much more to write home about. Noticed England have qualified for the world cup :-) I think Owen is right surely noone is better except maybe brazil.

Killing some time in Tai Yuan

2005-10-13T20:00:00.000+13:00

Well we are still in Tai Juan, waiting for our sleeper train to Xi'an in a couple of hours. I have just been able to look at my blog for the first time in ages :-) Don't know why I havn't been able to view it since mongolia. I thought it was being blocked by a chinese firewall or something. I've noticed it's very lacking in photos just now. Hopefully in Hong Kong we'll be able to upload the hundreds of photos we have been taking and publish some on the blog. The connections have just been to slow for that recently.

So I've got time to mention a bit about the other places we have been to just now. Going back to Bejiing we visited the forbidden city, where the emporers used to live. To be honest it was a bit too crowded to be very enjoyable though, I guess because the chinese republic holiday that was raging at the time. Remember the swarms of chinese I remarked on in the Beijing blog. I would have liked to see more of the palace interiors, but we just got brief glimpses through the doors before being swept away by crowds.

The next day we took a tour to the Great Wall of China. Mindful of the crowds the previous day we decided to go to one of the less touristy sections of the wall which turned out to be a great desicion. We did a 10km hike along the wall from Janshanling to Sinutai. The views were incredible, everything I imagined it to be, with the wall snaking its way up and down the moutains far off into the distance, sometimes very steep. Some sections were quite newly restored, giving way to some older crumbling sections further on. Two chinese ladies 'generously' offered to follow us all the way (10km) so we could buy a book off them at the other end! but we managed to shake them off after a km or so. The wall gave me a chance to observe some of the flora and fauna of the countryside too. Things that took my interest were huge millipedes, huge grasshoppers, lots and lots of clumsy shield bugs. Very fighteningly an absolutely terrifying giant wasp, which chose to confront me just when I was contemplating jumping 8 feet down from a watch tower to the wall below.

One of the things I was pleased to discover when we arrived in Bejiing is that the beer is only 2 yuans for something bigger than a pint and very nice to drink. 2 yuans is about 15 pence or something. We took advantage of that having some nice social evenings in the hostel we were in. There was a nice crowd of people there. We have been talking about a possible reunion in Thailand later with some of them.

After Bejiing we took a sleeper train to Datong. It was a polluted city and not much to write home about. It did give us a chance to see some amazing sights around the surrounding area though; a hanging temple balanced precariously on a cliff face to avoid floods and some amazing caves with buddhist carvings.

Click here for hanging temple and buddha caves photos

Heading south in China

2005-10-13T01:38:00.000+13:00

It's been quite difficult getting internet access recently so my blog has become a bit behind I'm afraid. In the last place we were at, Wutai Shan, it was difficult enough getting electricity, none before 7pm when the generators went on, and then it was lights only. Anyway, I'll try and fill in some of the blanks here.

Now we are in a heavily polluted, but seemingly nice city called Taiyuan which is some way south of Bejiing. By polluted I mean polluted, you can hardly peer across the street through the dense smog this evening. I'm beginning to understand why the chinese seem to be constantly coughing up big lumps and spitting it everywhere. Our hotel is near the train station in an area with Amsterdamesque windows with prostitues, many shops selling sex toys, the odd supermarket and when you look closely a couple of internet cafes too. This is just a brief pit stop before we head on to Xi'an (of terracota army fame) tomorrow on an overnight 'hard' sleeper. The hard sleeper train is actually not as bad as it sounds, the seats do have some kind of padding. Shamefully we ate at McDonalds this evening, I suppose there are times when only a burger, fries and coke will do. I'm getting a bit sick of all the fried insect larvae. I'll have to try the lemon chicken at some point though and report on it to my old work manager back in Scotland.

We took a bus here from Watai Shan earlier today. This 4 hour drive turned out to be nearer 8 hours after taking into account all the endless searching for passengers to keep the bus 'over' full. It seemed like every time someone got off, we'd have to hunt around for another person to cram in. Still this bus did have leg room unlike the previous bus which took us there in the first place, in which I just could not fit my legs into, was just physically impossible. The comfort factor further reduced by chinese people falling asleep on me with there elbows digging into my ribs.

Wutai Shan is a sacred mountain range, the village was nice and relaxed, making a welcome change from all bustling cities we have been in. The scenery was fantastic too, very beautifull, with many buddhist temples dotted around the mountainsides. The monks here were quite open and approachable too, in fact I was amazed at one point we were standing chatting to another westerner when a whole bunch of monks marched up and started shaking my hand vigerously, when I looked up there was another monk filming us on his nifty looking camcorder! The other westerner incidently, we had recognised from Ulaan Bataar in Mongolia, where we had sold him our spare china guide book, its a small world.

The downside to Wutai Shan was that it got very cold at night, I think we were at an altitude of more than 2000 meters at the lowest point when we were there. With very little light and no electricity in the evening and freezing in my sleeping bag, I found myself looking again at the guide book and planning to head to the southern tropics of China, there is a nice looking island at the bottom with nice beaches and monkeys too... On the other hand today, when the sun was out and the coldness forgotten Maria and I started mulling over an alternative route we might take, going to Tibet and then Nepal and into India that way. Its very tempting apart from the fact we already have flights from Hong Kong and visas lined up for Vietnam.

1039 days until Bejiing 2008

2005-10-04T02:21:00.000+13:00

Woah Bejiing! Its like totally full of chinese people! We have arrived bang in the middle of some kind of national chinese holiday and the streets are absolutely heaving. Swarms of chinese tourists everywhere. I've only seen it like that in the UK when leaving a big music concert or something like that but here its constant and everywhere. Some of the tourists are quite cute in a way, they ask you to pose in their photos, sometimes pushing their baby onto you first or something, I suppose because we are exotic white foreigners. Or they take photos descretely when they think you aren't looking.

Was quite a shock leaving the train station when we arrived, didn't even know what symbol shows the metro station, just millions of people, millions of neon signs flashing chinese symbols, many very new and shiny high rise buildings. On our map a walk down the street looks nothing but turns out to be a couple of kilometers. We had a bit of a job finding a place to stay, had to try three places before we found somewhere. The city seems very kind of modern, kind of like how I imagine Japan might be. When you go into some of the quieter streets (hutongs) though you can see a totally different side, bustling markets, people singing (screeching!), lovely cheap food stalls and the like.

We had previously arranged to meet the dutch couple who we befriended on the trans-siberian train, Huup and Karen, in Tienaman Square near the forbidden city at 6pm yesterday. Couldn't think of a worse place and time to try and find someone! There were vast swarms of people waiting while the sun was setting, at that exact time and at that exact place. They were waiting for the military to march out from the forbidden city and lower the flag. They raise it again at sunrise apparently. The way the people were all crushing to see this flag lowering bamboozled me a bit, didn't really see the attraction personally.

We've been here a few days now, the food is lovely, much nicer than chinese food back home in the UK. I saw some deep fried insect larvae last night but didn't find the courage to try that yet, maybe later. Maybe. I'm not going to eat sheeps spine soup or dog meat though. Not knowingly at least.

I'll probably write more and try and get some photos up later on. We are visiting the Great Wall tommorrow.

Mongolia & Ulaan Baatar

2005-10-01T23:03:00.000+12:00

So, already, this is now our last day in Mongolia. I'm glad to say that the majority of mongolian people have turned out to be really nice, unlike those traders on the train. We are already talking about coming back here at some point in the future. We would love to explore further into the Gobi desert and do more horse riding.

We had a mishap on the first night though. The hostel made us leave our boots at the door, providing us flip flops to wear around the hostel. However when I went later to go outside my boots were missing. Somebody had mistakenly taken them leaving me some similar but tatty size nines of the same brand. Far too small for my big feet. What dozy dip shit wears shoes that are two sizes too big! The guest house took no responsibility, and the owner was actually very rude to us when we complained. So our recommendation is don't go to the UB guest house if you are ever in Ulaan Baatar! The next morning when we were due to go horse trekking the boots still had not returned. We had to rush around madly looking for new footwear as my sandals, the only other footwear I had, were totally inadequate, especially as it gets really cold here as soon as the sun goes down. Anyway I checked the first hostel again today and they are still not there, an expensive pair of boots lost, and a blow to our tight budget buying new ones :-(

On the subject of mishaps, tonight we sat outside our new hostel on a colourful bench. To our dismay when we stood up our trousers had stuck, puzzled we realised that the bench had been freshly painted. So my trousers now have some nice yellow, red and blue stripes on the arse and Maria's some nice thick yellow stripes! Oh the joys of travelling. There was no warning sign on the bench, not even anything written in mongolian. You've got to laugh though.

Anyway, apart from the first and last night in UB we have been camping in the nearby countryside in a Ger camp. The Ger tents are those used traditionally by the nomads and are circular and insulated with felt. My dad would love the stove that is in the centre of the tent, which is used for heating and cooking. I was delighted with the scenery, we were surrounded by amazing rock formations in the hills. Nearby there were big plains of steppe countryside.

For the first 3 days we did horse trekking, using different horses hired from local nomads each day. My arse is still in agony. I totally enjoyed it though, is similar in some ways to camel trekking which I am a bit more familiar with. By the third day we were galloping our horses. On my first gallop my horse decided to head up an embankment towards a road. In horror I managed to bring the horse to a stop but it gave me a fright. By the end of that day we were loving the galloping and beginning to feel more confident, is very exhilerating with the wind whistling through your hair. There are no fences at all either so you can run for ever it seems like. Unfortunately at about that point Maria's saddle had started being loosed, it slipped and she fell, not her fault. Very luckily she survived the fall remarkably well, though shaken and a bit bruised. I was terrified she might have twisted her knee or something.

After that we spent the last day chilling out a bit more. I went for a hike with our guide, Badgetjar up a nearby hill. (Our guide was really cool guy, a medical student doing this to get extra cash. He was able to tell us loads about mongolian life and help translate conversations with nomads). Later on the last day we went ox carting, Maria didn't fancy riding understandably. The ox cart is what they use when they relocate (several times a year). It was very funny at one point we had about a dozen yaks following us, for whatever yak minded idea they had. Probably they wanted food or something.

Anyway, I feel like there is loads more to write about but time is running out for this entry. Next stop Bejiing.

Trans Siberia

2005-10-01T19:40:00.000+12:00

I'm actually in Ulaan Baatar just now in Mongolia, but thought I'd try and write a bit about the train through Siberia before I start waffling about my mongolian adventures.

The train itself was massive, a mongolian train, with mongolian staff. We had a compartment to ourselves with a dutch couple in the next and a swiss couple further down the carraige. We bonded well with them, sitting in the restraunt car in the evenings drinking beers. Sometimes standing in a nervous huddle on the platform looking bemused at each other as a full blown mongolian market would emerge from our train and start selling clothes to the locals. At one remote train station in Russia the announcements where signalled by 'de de diddle de de', to the tune of 'we wish you a merry christmas'. The announcements that followed sounded exactly like a normal 'in russian' conversation between a man and a woman!

It's really strange being on a train day after day, night after night. Sometimes on the brief stops standing on the platform you'd feel disoriented by not shaking side to side, the stillness of solid ground feeling quite bizzare. Many times you forget you are actually travelling somewhere at all, the motion of the train forgotten. Going through all those time zones meant we were constantly putting our watches forward an hour, making each day shorter than a 24 hour day. Sometimes it seemed a lottery trying to figure out what time it actually was.

The first days where through endless forests, mostly coniferous to begin with but gradually becoming more deciduous. The autumn colours absolutely beautiful. Later there where more vast grassy plains but still with patches of trees and the odd village. The weather which we had dreaded would be bitterly cold was not actually that bad, fairly warm, I think we must still have had just enough of the summer lingering. On the final day in Russia, we went past a huge lake. Lake Baikal. At one of the stops there we bought some of the local fish which was smoked and ate that on the train, it was quite nice and made a change from the endless noodles we had been eating.

I was surprised how little food options there where on the journey though. Most of what we ate had been bought in Moscow in a supermarket there. Thank god we thought to do that. I had imagined that there would be many choices of food sold on the platforms themselves.

The negative aspect of the journey was that some of the mongolian traders on the train were incredibly rude, telling us to shut up, mimmicing our laugh. One guy dropped a huge heavy bag of goods on me as I was getting off the train, nearly knocking me over. Astonished I looked around at him and then he shoved me again almost knocking me over. I shoved him back and told him where to go, after which he motioned that he was going to slit my throat. By now I was fuming, however I saw through the red mist and made a wise descision to bugger off at that point, he looked the size of an ox.

The border crossing was long and tedious from Russia into Mongolia, first on the Russian side and then on the mongolian side again. Particularly the Russians, they made us leave the cabin while they thoroughly searched it for undeclared goods. By the time we reached Ulaan Baatar I was quite glad to get off.

Still in Russia, ready to embark the train ...

2005-09-22T02:46:00.000+12:00

Had a severe fright today. Maria and I had gone to this bookshop, I think 6 days on a train requires something to read other than the guidebook. I picked up a copy of 'the da vinci code', which lots of people say is a good read, and I was pleased to find in English and went to pay. No wallet!!! I went into an immediate rant about how I'd been pickpocketed. (I was very surprised my pockets have zips on them. ) So we rushed off in a mad panic and a flap, ready to find a phone and cancel my bank and credit cards... We remembered I had bought some stamps earlier, which was the last time I had used my wallet and retraced our steps to the post office and it was there. Not a pickpocket, my own fault but PHEW!

Anyway, other than that we have found Moscow a fairly good place to relax. We didn't pay to go inside the Kremlim preferring instead to sit in a cafe and chill out on our last day. I think on the whole I preffered St Petersburg to Mosow though. It seemed to have more character. More Ladas and less BMWs. Later on we are going to stock up with plenty of supplies ready for our trans siberian train journey. The train leaves in a couple of hours.

Before I go I am going to share some of my own thoughts about Russians.
Customer Service - almost non existent. Sometimes when you go to pay for something they'll be reading a book. It seems like they finish the chapter first before looking up. After you pay they fling the change down often out of reach.
Tidyness - They clean up constantly it seems like, after every cigarette they come over and replace the old ashtray with a new one. I know the second point I've just mentioned contraticts the first, I suppose that is one of the universe's riddles. When you ask if they speak English they usually say "Of course I speak English", except for the times where they look blankly at you in total non comprehension, which happens fairly often.

By the way, there are now some photos of Russia linked by clicking the thumbnails, you can then select a slideshow if you want, will be much better with broadband connections. I was going to put more just now but this computer is not co-operating. I guess my next blog will probably be from Ulaan Baatar in Mongolia, several timezones further on. I am 3 hours ahead of the UK just now. Two of them passed on the Baltic Sea ferry. Byee

Moscow

2005-09-20T23:03:00.000+12:00

Moscow, the very name conjures up images in one's mind of er stuff. I'm getting good at this travel writing malarkey hey? Anyway, that is where we are now, the capital of Russia, Moscow. We arrived on the overnight sleeper from St Petersburg yesterday morning pretty early. My first impressions were not that great really, it just seemed like any big city anywhere. We left our luggage at the station and killed some time on the internet and some time feeding the sparrows and pigeons in a park with some of the stale bread which had been our breakfast on the sleeper. This was while waiting for the hotel check-in time.

Our hotel is massive one of four gigantic towers in the outer subsurbs of Moscow, easily reachable by the underground. The hotel seems to provoke a huge sleep urge in me though, I slept for 14 hours last night. I guess I must have needed it. And that was after having had an hour seista in the afternoon when we checked in too!

Then we went to the Red Square and, wow, that is when I think we really arrived in Moscow. Hard to describe really how the sight hits you. Especially that cathedral - St Basils, with all its colourfull twirly towers and spirret things. It really is the symbol of Russia I think. We went back there today with Amedio our faithfull travelling ape companion and took some photos of him in Red Square too. We have also had a look at the preserved body of Lenin. It looks like a wax work and does make you wonder if it is real. But why would they fake it you also have to ask.

Running out of time to write much more, I might do another post later on in the hotel if poss. By the way there is a link to Maria's log on the side of mine, have a look at her take on the journey there.

Byeee

From Russia with love

2005-09-19T01:43:00.000+12:00

After being in transit for the past couple of days we are now in St Petersburg. The ferry took about 2 days from Rostock in the North of Germany to here via a quick stop in Tallin in Estonia, and an inexplicable hour or so where we drifted at the whim of the baltic sea currents.

We are really on a tight budget just now trying to make up for overspending in Germany. So now here I am in an internet cafe in Russia (I apologise if any words dont have the 'm'character the bloody key is sticking which is quite frustrating. I wonder how any of the russians around about understand my cursing).

We are having to aclimatise to the the cold a bit now. It is strange to think that only just over a week ago I was lathering on sun cream and sunbathing on the beach in Valencia and swiming in the Mediteranean sea. The baltic sea was, well baltic. Actually I thought it seemed quite similar to the North sea. Yesterday it was sleeting here in St Petersburg. I'm not sure but I think this might be the furthest North Ive been in my life. If it is further north than Orkney, then it is. Later on when we hit Siberia and Mongolia in the continental interior I suppose we'll find out what really cold is!

Today we spent most of the day in the Hermatige museum, which was bloomin massive. I think only the louvre is bigger. It has a very impressive selection of immpressionist paintings amongst much else. It used to be a palace used by the tzars. Another impressive thing that has struck e about this place is the sheer scale of it. Everything seems very very big and grand, including the hotel we are in. The underground rail is the deepest in the world and it is really deep, you go on these escalators which seem to go on for ever. Although was actually 3 minutes when we timed it. The underground trains accelerate like mad and are quite noisy and the lights flicker off dramatically when you approach a station. It made quite a first immpression yesterday, getting a bit used to it now.

Being is Russia is a bit of a culture shock in some ways. I feel the language barrier very much here, alough there are many who do speak English. its wierd trying to read the writing because it looks like letters I should recognise but don't, unlike chinese or something where my brain just would'nt even try to bother. Maybe its like how illiterates percieve the world?

Striptease is a big thing here but Maria has been resisting my idea to go and check it out (for cultural reasons of course). There was a joint mentioned in a hotel leaflet in which you can eat your dinner, sat at a glass table while a naked women gyrates underneath.

I want to quote a bit from the same leaflet that was given to us by the hotel, a piece of safety information which made us laugh every time we remembered about it yesterday (Although it wouldn't be so funny if it happened I suppose).

... Despite having the reputation of being the crime capital of Russia, St Petersburg is no more dangerous than your average European city. The famed Russian mafia has bigger fish to fry than your average tourist, and, quite frankly, your're more likley to be robbed or beaten up by thugs ingeniously disguised as police officers.

Thanks, that really sets my ind at ease. In some other ways St P'berg is quite familiar, resembles European cities to a certain extent. It was odelled on Amsterdam apparently, by Peter the great or something. Er history is not really my thing as you might have guessed.

Tonight we are on an overnight train to Moscow where we will be for a day or two before hitting the Trans Siberean. The agency (or the rail company) made a
mistake and we have first class tickets instead of second :-) I suppose that akes up a bit for the ferry which was a lot cheaper it turned out than the price we paid.

Unfortunately no time to get photos online just now, will try and get that done in Moscow.

Chillin in Berlin

2005-09-14T07:47:00.000+12:00

It is safe to say I like Berlin a lot. The people seem friendly and many speak English really well. Lots of people drink beer openly on the street but you don't see many drunks at all. Lights swich on automatically as you walk along the hostel corridor, the urinal flushes when you wander away. Its a bit like that Honda advert where they prattle on about 'isn't it great when things just work'... Also they seem to organize things and stack stuff really well (except for the position of y and z on the keyboard). Being a virgo like me that all makes a lot of sense. I was wondering earlier if germans breed on mass, timing the spawning like on the great barrier reef to all produce their young around September time.

Maria is in the Hostel just now drinking beer and writing in her notebook. I am doing it the old fashioned way, on the internet. We have walked for miles and miles. Berlin was absolutely crawling with Police. There was some NATO gathering occuring or something like that. I think we have seen and taken photos of probably all the main buildings without having a scooby what they actually are. We didn't bother with the organised walking tour the hostel takes you on.

We are staying in a dorm of 8 people for cheapness. Most of them are ozzies. Its amazingh how ozzies get everywhere, like cockroaches. Its a good thing I actually really like Australians on the whole. They are a friendly bunch. Have to admit I am feeling a bit more age gap than the last time I went backpacking. Either they are getting younger or I am getting older, haven't worked out which yet.

Goodbyes and hello Berlin

2005-09-13T01:16:00.000+12:00

Wierd German computers! The instructions are 'Einsellungen' or 'Vorlage' or perhaps 'Veröffentlichen' none of which means much to me unfortunatelY. To make things a little more interesting the y and z are swapped around... Anyway hopefully this blog will work.

We are in Berlin now, flew in yesterday from Valencia. It is Maria's first time here and my second. I actually remember very little from the last time I was here though, it was a good 15 years ago last time. There is not much left of the wall compared to last time. Where it was has been marked on the ground with a line of bricks. The line passes right through some of the buildings that have sprang up since it came down.

I am sitting in an easyinternet cafe just now near that striking church that has half its steeple missing due to WW2 bombing. (Is wierd trying to think how I feel when I look at that, as it was us, ie the brits, that bombed the thing, they were asking for it though.) Germany still seems to have the shadow of the war a lot more than in UK. I suppose because the cold war and the wall and all that.

We are staying in a hostel which is located really centrally near a massive TV tower. Quite a handy landmark for navigating. I think it is on the east side becasue the pedestrian crosings nearby havbe the jaunty little red and green men who wear hats, quite cute.

Had a few nice large beers last night, not like those titchy things you get in Spain, which they have the gall to call doubles. They like there beer here in Germany... mmm beer. We'll be in Berlin for a couple more days before heading off to get our ferry ride to russia (on my birthday).

Not much really to say about the other goodbyes. It was lovely to see everyone. I was happy in the end to see so many of the family and friends too. You'll all be missed a great deal.

On the road

2005-08-17T01:31:00.000+12:00

We are on the road now in the UK. I'm feeling fine, though maybe a bit icky, I've just had the first of three vaccinations this morning for hepetitus B, rabies, and japanese enciphilitus in addition to drinking a yucky cholera drink. Pretty dam expensive aswell but I suppose it has to be done. We need two more apointments like that one before getting full immunity to a myriad of diseases.

It felt really strange saying goodbye to our flat in Edinburgh. I remember looking around at the rooms one last time just before we finished packing the hire car with the last of our things, trying to keep a memory of the place to hold onto. As soon as we left I felt uprooted and sort of disoriented.

So we've been on the road a fair bit lately. We stayed at Jimmys and Lindens in South Shields for a couple of days then went to Beck and Dan's. Had a lovely time seeing Grandma and Natty was there too. Now we are hanging around some nameless town near Manchester in the library were we could get some internet access. We will visit Lindsay tonight for a day or two.

Plans and Schemes

2005-07-20T07:16:00.000+12:00

Here is our plan as it stands right now. Obviously a lot can change between now and then. (-We have until the middle of June next year to arrive in New Zealand.)

We Start off with a tour in the UK to say goodbyes. Followed by a visit to Spain for more goodbyes on Maria's side. Not really looking forward to this part I hate goodbyes :-(

Next we fly to either Germany / Estonia / Finland or possibly somewhere else, to start our epic journey. We are still looking at many different various options. There were flights from London to Stockholm on the internet earlier for £0.19 !!! Crazy what you can find sometimes.

Next we catch a ferry accross the Baltic sea from one of the above places to St Petersberg. After a few days in St P'berg and Moscow, we'll hop onto the trans siberian train all the way across Russia and into Mongolia.

We'll stop for a week in Mongolia at Ulaan Baatar and will try and do some horse riding or camel treking or something like that.

After Mongolia we will continue on the trans siberian train to Beijing in China. We should have about a month to make our way down through China and then we'll cross into Laos or Vietnam and explore also Cambodia and Thailand before taking a flight to India.

India for around 2 and a half months then back to Thailand, down through Malaysia and into Indonesia.

Finally fly to New Zealand. phew!

Our house in the middle of our street

2005-07-18T11:32:00.000+12:00

We've sold it. Our house in the middle of our street, for the next 3 weeks only! Hard to believe it's finally happened. I wonder when it will really sink in? I handed in my notice at work on Monday :-)

Maria and I were beginning to doubt that it was all going to happen at all. The housing market has been really slow. Three houses that were for sale on our street went off the market again, unsold.

Maybe what finally sold it for us was our new look living room, one trip to IKEA and voila. We dropped the asking price too. So after thinking our trip might not even happen, now its game on.

Where is New Zealand?

2005-06-10T10:42:00.000+12:00

Are we actually getting any closer to New Zealand? It still seems an impossible dream right now. Our passports have been sent off to get the visas... BUT our Edinburgh flat has been on the market for four weeks now but still no buyer. I know I am impatient and these things take time but I am yearning for it to happen now. It is difficult to find the patience.

Last weekend on sky travel they had 'New Zealand' weekend. From what I saw of it every town or city over there has a terrible, hidden secret! For example Aukland, the most populated city in the north of the north island could erupt in a fury of volcanic activity at any given moment. Wellington, the capital is in one of the riskiest earthquake zones in the world. Napier was ravaged by earthquake and fire in the last century. Pretty much the whole place sits in the pacific 'ring of fire'.

I can't wait to go. High on my list of things to do when we get there is to explore some of these volcanic regions. I'm talking about volcanic bubbling mud springs and smoking crraters. Fantastic.

Anyone want to buy a flat in Edinburgh?

Walk through the meadows

2005-05-15T09:17:00.000+12:00

Edinburgh, The meadows. Click image for more.

On days like this wonder if I will miss Edinburgh more than I think. Ah sunny Edinburgh, those halcyon days.

The door has opened

2005-05-15T07:18:00.000+12:00

Yesterday we were told our application for New Zealand residency has been accepted, "The next big thing" it says in our application pack, "God's Country" according to Motor Cycle News. The door has been opened for us to go and live there... We are gonna be Kiwis!!!

I don't know exactly how I feel about this at the moment, it is quite a complex mix and still a very new feeling to get to grips with. I suppose the overriding emotion is excitement, the adventure, the possibilities, the discovery. I feel proud that we have been identified as worthy of this invite. Combined with this though there is the obvious fact that I will miss my family. They have been asking us how long we think we will be there (NZ) for. There is no answer to the question though.