Sam Takes On The World

Volcano Climbing to Haka Dancing...

2009-03-27T20:50:00.000-07:00

Day 19, Friday 20th March 2009: Christchurch – Wellington

Taking advantage of the library’s free wifi to catch up on the world and what’s been going on while I’ve been living in Angie killed most of the few hours left in Christchurch before catching the late afternoon flight to Wellington. The remainder was spent wandering around the Cathedral Square market and listening to the Discworld Wizard pontificating from his stepladder and enjoying the cheap lunchtime fish and chips.

The flight itself was ridiculously short. No sooner had we set off and the seatbelt sign flashed off then the pilot was announcing we were about to descend and to put our seatbelts back on. Supposedly a 45 minute trip I doubt we were in the air any longer than 30 minutes. Still I was most relieved not to be taking the torturous ferry trip from Picton which we worked out was over double the cost in comparison to our flight tickets. The journey, brief as it was, was enlightened by the most humorous cabin crew I have had the pleasure to fly with. The hostess in charge started off the safety drill by introducing herself her crew as Sandy, Candy and Mandy and herself as Randy...she then proceeded to mix up her spiel with hilarious commentary mostly pointing to the ridiculousness of all the obvious things she was compelled to say. She had the whole aeroplane in stitches as we tried to work out whether she had one too many to drink before boarding or whether this was her style!

A Super-shuttle took us from Wellington airport directly to the door of the hostel we had booked, Worldwide Backpackers. Set on The Terrace, just off the main square of the city, it was primarily a long term backpackers stay with most of its inhabitants having been there several weeks at least and we were met with a garden full of young people gearing up for their Friday night. We had encountered real difficulties trying to book anywhere for the night and were fortunate to have got just a four bed dorm at this hostel which we shared with two girls.

It was a case of dumping the bags and heading out to explore and make the most of the one night we had in the capital. Wellington didn’t disappoint! The buzziest, liveliest most city-like city I have come across in New Zealand yet we had a great night exploring the main hub of the city dining out at Leuven’s on posh gastro food and enjoying the multiple drinks offers in the many bars which ended up with us drinking 2-4-1 Bubbles by the end of the night.....

Day 20, Saturday 21st March 2009: Wellington – Greytown

Turns out that the only room we could find available in Wellington happened to be the one next to the kitchen in the hostel so even though we didn’t get to bed until well after midnight sleep was another couple of hours arriving given that every single person in the hostel seemed to congregate in the kitchen...

Generous portions taken of the free breakfast set us up well to begin exploring the city by daylight. Due to pick up our new Escape campervan at the railway station at 11am we fitted in a ride on the creaky, quaint red cable car up to the Botanic Gardens and then walked back down through the grounds.

Having spied many Escape vans during our southern island tour we had been trying to guess what would be sign written onto the side of ours. I had joked that a big fat cake would perhaps be most appropriate given the frequency of our patisserie visits so it was hilarious to find that on one side of our new van was an Alice and Wonderland faced tea party with a jolly eyed slab of chocolate cake and comic teapot and cups! This was countered on the other side by a giant ashtray filled with pixie faced cigarettes bathing next to some pointy-nosed take away coffee cups....

Downsizing from our previous hi-tops I was a bit wary of the smaller sized van but in actuality it was just as large but without the added height. It also had more basic kitchen facilities with a one gas bottle stove that you have to cook on outside of the van with the back door open and a tiny pump water sink and an eski as opposed to a fridge. It will involve a certain amount of readjustment but once we had packed everything away and filled up with a New World shop it was fine.

Our first stop in the van was to the house that Katherine Mansfield was born in. A contemporary of the Bloomsbury sect and counting Virginia Woolf as her only female friend in the world I was keen to visit as she was instrumental in shaping the modernist technique of writing and her short stories were crafted with this design in mind. The house had been restored by the Katherine Mansfield Society and where it had once been a picturesque detached building now lies in the centre of a triangle of busy highways. A self-guided tour takes you around the building pointing out all the literary references it held in the works of KM (as she liked to call herself). As a Kiwi who left her native country for good aged 21 (after several years spent in London led to her describing her brief return to New Zealand as a type of provincial imprisonment in which she felt friendless and without hope) her writings are filled with a combination of nostalgia and fondness that increasingly intrudes upon her material as she gets older. Having not known anything about KM’s circumstances I found the tour and house fascinating though I wasn’t allowed to stay for the documentary much to the sadness of the ladies who ran the house and reminded me of my favourite Oxford librarians!

Lunch in town at the Kapai salad bar was followed by an afternoon spent at the brilliant Te Papa museum. The walk from the car park to the museum along the waterfront was feted out for a dragon boat racing charity competition which we watched en route. The museum is so large that you could easily lose a whole day. Restricted, as ever, by time I chose to explore the fourth floor where the exhibitions took you through a history of Maori occupation before the shameful land-stealing of western colonisers that was only recently restored in the 1990s after 150 years and several generations of campaigning.

We left Wellington in the late afternoon just as the infamous wind brought rain to the city and stopped an hour’s drive north at Greytown where we enjoyed our first night in our van, which we discovered was appropriately named Rehab, at a very cheap campsite situated in the grounds of a War Memorial run by an elderly couple who popped over several times just to see how we were doing! Befriending a couple on their 20th wedding anniversary celebration in the shared kitchen we saw out the rain which had been drumming down on the tin roof of Rehab before retreating for the night.

Day 21, Sunday 22nd March 2009: Greytown – Napier

A 250km drive saw us leave the cold and rain behind for the promised sun and blue sky of the eastern coast landing in Napier in the late afternoon after passing through a series of unremarkable identikit towns on the way. Fortunately Napier provided a much needed antidote to these drab conurbations. Destroyed almost completely in a 7.9 Richter scale earthquake in 1931 it was rebuilt under the enthusiastic influence of the Auckland Art Deco architecture. With the sea-levels having dropped two metres after the earthquake enough land had been reclaimed to link the then island of Napier with the mainland. Today the rebuilt town is a mass of zigzags, sunbursts and streamlined strokes that make it stand out from any other place in the country, and according to the natives’ proud boasts the rest of the world. We enjoyed a short documentary movement outlining the history of the earthquake and chartering the birth and development of the subsequent Art Deco restoration that enabled us to wander about the city spotting and pointing out all the things we had learned about. The residents retain a proud sense of their artistic heritage so that most of the succeeding architecture has kept with the style whilst updating it so that even the shopping centre and beachfront maintain the trend. Once a year they have an Art Deco festival where all the locals dress up and bring out the vintage cars and have a good old boogie!

We camped for the night at another cheap campsite, Westshore Holiday Park, just north of the city where we perfected the formation of a day bed inside Rehab for reading and film watching!

Day 22, Monday 23rd March 2009: Napier – Tongariro

A big day of driving took us from the campsite in Napier up to Lake Taupo in the Central Plateau in time for a lunchtime waterfront picnic. Checking in at the I-site for a weather update in Tongariro in advance of our trekking we headed on to the National Park and grabbed a spot at the Whakapapa Village Campsite. The village itself is a protected Department of Conservation site that has prevented greedy real estate moguls building on tourist demand and expanding the facilities and permits only the original buildings meaning that every overnight guest stays in the holiday park at the end of the road, the grand Chateau Hotel or our complex which guarantees a community feel of whether you want or not with everyone either listening to intrepid tales from people who have just finished the walk or seeking solace with other nervous walkers with similarly insufficient walking gear...In the hour or so it had taken for us to drive the official weather forecast had changed warning of rain and high winds that might prevent the walk from happening altogether. A little disillusioned and stuck in the middle of the National Park we hope for the best and stodged up on a big pasta meal in wishful preparation for our hike.

Day 23, Tuesday 24th March 2009: Tongariro Alpine Crossing

The dreaded early start saw me up at the Office at 7.30am for the most recent official forecast that determines whether the walk is open to the public to be greeted with the news that a fine day was expected after all! Another stodgeful meal of porridge and we were in the minibus to take us to the start of our self-guided 20km walk described as one of the best one day walks in the world.

Dropped off at 9.30am we were given a lecture on the dangers of missing the last minibus back and told to notify someone responsible of our “intentions” so that they could call out emergency services if we failed to let them know we had returned we set off.

The first section wound through the flat land surrounding the volcano for several kilometres before we began ascending towards the crater. It was a steep climb up to the rim but offered a fantastic view into the red crater with bubbling sulphur clouds adding to the atmosphere. I somehow ended up in the middle of a huge school group where it was hug-a-tourist moment as we stopped for photographing opportunities. We had to walk in the smooth paths carved out by the last lava flow and were so close that you could see where it had bubbled over the edge and run down the mountain. From our vantage point we were able to gain an overview of the ground we had already covered which looked like a post-Apocalyptic wasteland of endless dust and fallen boulders surrounded by the far-off green of the forest. Declining the opportunity to climb to the main tor of Tongariro which was used as Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy we followed the crater rim round to the emerald lakes – tiny, startingly green pockets of water sitting in bowls carved out by previous eruptions – and through the rest of the locations used for Mordor and the Orc camp.

By this point we were 1900m high and the sharp descent back towards the plateau involved sliding down the ashen laden walls of the volcano where the only thing to stop your descent was the remnants of scree peppered in the dust. We had to pick our way through the rotten egg smelling sulphuric acids that burned ominously either side of our crater rim. By the time we had climbed down the steepest part of the volcano we were well overdue lunch and climbed out of the path of the bitterly icy Southerly wind rushing over the top of the crater into a sheltered dig-out by another lake.

The descent from this point was the long 11km stretch of winding pathways that brought us to the finish point at about 3.30pm where we waited in the much welcome sun for our pick up bus to take us back to Rehab where we scoffed a pack of Hot Cross buns as a reward. Our plan to dine out in style at the Chateau – a giant red brick (Philbeach-esque!) mansion with burlesque lounge and staff at every doorway – was scuppered when popping into the lounge foyer to view the menu in board shorts and flip flops we were greeted by an embarrassed doorman, younger than us!, who said that the lounge served guests in dress shirt and trousers and that we might perhaps find the late night cafe in the adjoining wing more to our taste! Humbled indeed we made a graceful retreat back to Rehab to finish off last night’s carbonara...

Day 24, Wednesday 25th March 2009: Tongariro – Taupo

With aching muscles bid a fond farewell to the National Park and arrived in Taupo by late morning. Parking up the nicely named Spa Roa we went on a gentle stroll from the car park full with a community service team to the Huka Falls, one of the country’s most visited tourist attractions. The walk to the falls involved an undulating path that wound up and down and caused my stretched muscles no end of problems as it followed the crystal clear blue river through its course. The Falls themselves were a spectacular show of brute power ending in a crescendo of thundering blue and pure white water which provides 65% of the North Island’s power alone.

On the same path back we stopped off at the natural thermal springs for a quick dip given that while in neighbouring Rotorua you pay through the roof to enjoy this natural pleasure here we were able to take advantage of it for free. The volcanic heated waters were so hot that I could barely dip my toe in to start with but as you accustom to the temperature you slip through the boulders into the little rock pools and shower under the little waterfalls. Alternating between the spa and the cooler waters of the river we lost track of the time and ended up spending a couple of hours in the sun at the springs.

It was fortunate that we made the most of the relaxation because a short trip to the cash machine when we got back into town realised that our accounts were several hundreds of dollars down and I was left with less than $300 to see me through the next ten days...The phone call to the bank brought no explanation as they said that nothing would show on their systems until midnight. Trying not to worry where $1000 each had disappeared to we checked into the All Seasons Holiday Park and enjoyed their free thermal spa and a giant barbeque to distract our minds...

Day 25, Thursday 26th March 2009: Taupo – Roturua

A morning wasted on the phone and internet eventually uncovered the mystery of the missing $1000 when we discovered that Escape Rentals had mysteriously deducted the extra amount from us. Much firm talking and refusing to take spluttering excuses led them to admit they were in the wrong and as well as reimbursing us they gave us an extra night in the van for free which meant that we could stay in it until we had to return it on Monday morning.
Finally able to set off it was a short 80km drive north to the sulphuric city of Rotorua. Our first stop was the gigantic I-site office where we located a cheap campsite and booked our hangi and cultural concert for the evening getting and continuing the day of unexpected freebies got given a complimentary entrance to the Hell’s Gate mud baths. However, checking into the brilliant Kiwi Paka hostel (the best accommodation I’ve stayed in during our month in New Zealand owing to a combination of cheap rates, brilliant staff and a cute yet kooky site with all the facilities you could want from your usual amenities to a cheap all day cafe, late night bar and thermal pool!) we discovered we had been ‘done.’ The $100 package paid for at the I-site for the hangi was 75% the price at our hostel and with no refund option we were forced to accept we had been swindled.

Trying to make the most of the situation we headed out in Rehab to the Hell’s Gate mud baths consoling ourselves that considering this was about $30 we had actually got it for free by buying our hangi ticket at the I-site. I should have known better! When we arrived at Hell’s Gate we were informed that our ticket only covered the entrance and that if we wanted to use the mud baths that was an extra $85! Contenting ourselves to walking around the site we explored the range of natural bubbling mud baths, some with a PH1 acidity and a 600 degree temperature, so named by George Bernard Shaw who on visiting the site as a committed atheist reasoned that this must be his bridgeway to Hell. It is well named and having transferred from the Kitchen to the Gate I am not sure whether I am entering further in or moving closer to escaping...

We returned to Kiwi Paka to enjoy the afternoon sun before being picked up by the shuttle bus to take us to the Mitai Village for our hangi – the traditional Maori meal. Seated in a giant marquee housing about 150 other tourists we made friends with our South African and Cambridgeshire neighbours until our host arrived and introduced us to some basic Maori etiquette before taking us out to see our dinner cooking nicely wrapped in foil in the earth. We then had to select a ‘chief’ from our group which was unfortunately on behalf of the nineteen nations gathered in the marquee a drunken idiot from Somerset who represented all the worst qualities of his nation, snobbery, arrogance and an endearing sense of self-superiority, that left me cringing. Following our chief we were led to the Mitai’s sacred river where we watched members of the family sail down on a canoe chanting before being taken to their recreated traditional village. The highlight of the night was then being treated to an hour long Cultural Show where the family and members of other tribes performed a range of songs and dances interspersed with displays of weaponry and strength. This combined with the Mitai Haka which we had to join in with sticking out our tongues widening our eyes and shaking our limbs!

By this point we were ready for dinner and were led to the marquee where the hangi had been taken from the earth and placed on buffet tables for us to help ourselves. A simple spread of chicken, lamb, kumara (sweet potato) and salads including a delicious cauliflower and sesame seed dish, I managed two gigantic plates before topping it off with a less traditional dessert of trifle and fresh fruit!

By the time we came to the glow-worm tour I was barely able to walk but managed to stumble back down to the river where the luminous maggots were glowing a pale blue on the river banks and hillside before tumbling back into the bus and sleeping off the hearty dinner back in Rehab.

Day 26, Friday 27th March 2009: Rotorua – Mount Maunganui

A quick morning walk around the city assisting some poor geography students with their surveys on tourists was spent before leaving the rotten egg smelling city for the Bay of Plenty so named because it receives the most hours of sunshine in New Zealand.

Tauranga is the principal city but we opted to drive through it and stop in the peninsula beyond it where Mount Maunganui pokes its little tor out of the sea. Climbing to the top of the steep mountain I realised that for the first time I had forgotten to take my camera and was robbed of the opportunity of capturing the glorious views it afforded. To one side lay the busy port of Tauranga and stretching from it was a desolated island with golden sandy beaches while to the other, stretching south from the mountain lay a strip of land bordered by similarly beautiful beaches all surrounded by a rich turquoise ocean unspoilt by boats.

In preparation for acclimatising myself to a week in the Cook Islands the afternoon was spent taking advantage of this long strip of beach in the sun. After nearly a month of frantic touring it was lovely just to take a break and doze away an afternoon in a beautiful area which remained undisturbed by the mass tourism that the drone of campervans are normally attracted to.
The evening was spent on the beachside caravan park at the very tip of the peninsula where aperitifs (Pringles and cider!) was served on the beach before being followed by a barbeque with the legendary Bentley burgers.

Day 27, Saturday 28th March 2009: Mount Maunganui

A lazy day hanging by the beach and eating up the remnants of our shopping. Tomorrow we head to Auckland and then early Monday morning head to the Cook Islands for a week to top up the tan before heading to LA for a few days and coming home just in time for Easter. Probably the last blog and email contact till then.

Reacclimatising for Blighty...

2009-03-19T16:23:00.000-07:00

Day 10, Wednesday 11th March 2009: Queenstown – Lake Gunn, Milford Sound

After a freezing cold night wrapped up in clothes and under a blanket and woollen rug all seven minutes of the hot shower were savoured as I attempted to shake off the cold that seemed to have settled into bones unused to such temperatures during the past eleven months.
While it was no longer raining the sub-freezing temperatures and the still persisting saggy grey mist combined to deter me from doing the hang-gliding that I had been looking forward to and instead decided it was best to cut our losses and head on down the coast in search of warmer climes. Before we left the Holiday Park we bumped into a fellow Explore More campervan rental and exchanged our free DVDs, a staple to passing the cold nights when freedom camping in this country!

Another trip to Patagonia to take advantage of the pots of Earl Grey tea and free wifi delayed our departure but eventually we set off down the highway towards Te Anau. The journey was marked by torrential rain and the persistence of the cold to clamber through every nook and cranny and seep into your bones which we combated with the dual armoury of the van’s heaters turned up full blast and an oversized bag of New World pic’n’mix!

We spent an age hoping the weather might provide us with a break for lunch but with the clouds showing no signs of dissipating and stomachs growling we pulled over in a sodden lay-by in Mosstown where we indulged in some home-made bacon butties and pumpkin soup and then had to wee out of the door because it was too wet to even attempt to maintain some dignity...
When we finally did arrive in Te Anau the rain had abated and there was even a glimmer of some clear sky. We checked into the DOC site for advice about camping and picked up some essential sandfly repellent as the wet fjorldands offer the perfect breeding ground for the little blighters.

The route from Te Anau to Milford Sound is a 100km highway that provides postcard perfect scenery everywhere you look and our settlement was interrupted by numerous photo shoots and assessment of DOC campsites. Without realising we had neared the end of the highway and so stopped at the final DOC site, a beautiful lakeside clearing at the start of the fjordland inlet. Pulling up at about 6pm the tiny campsite was already quite full and we had to perform some interesting manoeuvres to squeeze into a self-made space with the back window looking out over the mirror-like lake. We were however by no means the last to arrive and to our amusement (and horror) more and more latecomers filled up so that we were hemmed in at every angle, quite comedically, by fellow campervanners. With the setting of the sun and the return of the ice-cold temperature there was little opportunity for campfire singing and such jollity as we all hastily locked ourselves in and tried our best to use the heating from our cooking to keep ourselves warm...

Day 11, Thursday 12th March 2009: Lake Gunn – Curio Bay

Exploiting the prime lunchtime tourist the boat cruises at Milford Sound escalate in price from the first early morning trip and so we awoke early and quickly drove the final 25km from where we had camped to the boat terminal in order to take advantage of the cheaper and less busy cruises.

This final leg is one of those winding hairpin roads that crawl around the mountains but in doing so offer a languorous enjoyment of the fjordlands which open up as you pass over the crest of the mountain range. In order to do so we had to drive Angie through a tiny tunnel hewn out of the mountain, much like the passing at Samphire Hoe. In the winter, when it is embossed with snow and ice, it creates an incredible vista and I found myself holding my breath as we pushed on underneath hoping that the lights at the opposite end were working as the last thing we wanted to encounter inside it was one of the gigantic shuttle coaches.

Aside from several leaks pouring through the uncovered earthen roof the tunnel crossing was perfectly safe and we arrived at the terminal to take advantage of our 2-for1 ticket that we had received as part of the Explore More package. Served by an extremely dour and unhelpful Scotsman we were so desperate to escape him that we managed to leave our tickets on the desk as we hastened to the cafe to wait for our cruise departure. The forty-five minute interlude was filled by an informative pamphlet on sandflies which besides the horror warnings that you can be bitten up to a thousand times in one hour informed us that the Maoris tell the story that one of their demi-goddesses unleashed the plague on this particular part of the country in order to keep it safe and untouched from the bludgeoning of human activity. New Zealand tourism authorities perpetually and proudly joke that it this ferocious insect that has ensured the survival of their country’s natural beauty as they prevent tourists tramping about spoiling the natural habitat! The pamphlet also explained that it is only the female sandflies that bite and that the docile males are perfectly harmless...shocking!

Pleading with the dour Scotsman to reinstate our tickets we were allowed to board the Scenic cruiser and took immediate advantage of the free hot beverages. Despite the warning of our fellow Explore More DVD borrower that the tour was a disappointment we enjoyed a brilliant morning on the water sidling in and out of the main fjorldand inlet. This was mainly due to the fact after all the rain and poor visibility of the previous days we were visited by clear skies and sunshine that showed off the mountain ranges in all their gigantic glory and revealed the numerous natural phenomenon and wildlife that reside in its ubiquitous crevices.

Perched permanently on the top deck we wound up next to gigantic waterfalls, some of which are three times the size of the Niagara Falls but are still dwarfed by the sheer rock faces they dribble down, and were treated to colonies of dozing sea lions. My Mr-Goodfellow enthused A-level geography came creaking back as we toured around the enormous U-shaped valleys cut into the rocks and followed the glacial movement over millions of years through the fjorlands to the entrance of the inlet that Captain Cook entered and discovered the country through – he stayed long enough to describe his disgust for the local sandflies which he also has the honour of naming.

I made my most tenuous friendship of this travel yet when posing for photos with my finger puppet (Marley the alpaca) I discovered that two American visitors were doing the same thing with their friend, Mr Monkey. All four of us realised what we were doing at the same time and bonded over joint photo opportunities with Marley, Mr Monkey and Rich’s Geoff the Giraffe while the rest of the boat’s passengers continue in their earnest photographing of the geological wonders being pointed out by the tour leader’s narrative.

When we arrived back at the terminal it was swarming with hundreds of visitors newly arrived on their coach tour packages. Our cruiser with a several hundred person capacity and had only carried about fifty of us was now packed to the decks with tourists hemmed in at the elbows vindicating our decision to get up early and catch the early worm.

Sadly as we departed the fjordlands and headed deeper south the all too familiar driving rain brought on by the prevailing south-westerly winds returned, physically buffeting the van as I struggled to keep it on the road. The winds were so strong that even the powerful eagles were struggling in the sky and one unfortunate flock of small birds were splattered against the windscreen as taking off from the tarmac found themselves unable to beat the down-pressing current and unable to steer the van out of their course became guilty of taking out several of its members...We were kept amused by the hilarity of the local radio which alongside reporting the double bookings of the tennis courts also posted advertisements for the reproductive services of the best breeding sheep in the area!

For the first time in New Zealand we got lost...attempting to leave the grey, dull lattice of Invercargill for the pretty Catlin coastal area the road signs disappeared and became replaced by symbols completely confusing the foreign map-readers! After an incredibly circuitous drive we managed to get back on track and pulled into Curio Bay at dusk. With no possibility of freedom camping we were forced to stake a claim in the extremely primitive Curio Bay Campsite in the still abysmal weather. This, however, was all forgotten when stepping out to explore our surroundings we came face to face with a sea lion! A large colony nestle on the beach and frequently lollop into the campsite for the shelter of the tall grasses. There were signs dotted around the campsite warning about not camping in certain places as the extremely territorial sea lions will not hesitate in attacking tents or humans treading on their habitat! After reading these warnings and continuing to explore the craggy coast we both jumped out of our skins when we saw an unruly male charging straight at us at a pace that belied its ungainly stature. Along with the sheep we bolted clearing its path towards the sea and decided we had enjoyed enough adventure for one day and safely locked ourselves into the van.

Day 12, Friday 13th March 2009: Curio Bay – Dunedin

It was up bright and early to take advantage of the low tide and spy on the local wildlife. A couple of sea lions fighting in the shallows of the surf and an achingly wild and rugged coastline revealed by clearer skies were our reward and after all the grumbling about the rain and lack of signage the previous day we were glad that we had persisted in visiting this truly desolate part of the country that very few backpackers attempt.

With the sun continuing to shine we enjoyed a very lazy day’s drive wiggling along the coastline. Our first stop off was at the Niagara Falls cafe, a tongue-in-cheek named enterprise that served up delicious bumblebee cakes (tightly dough balled macaroons with currants) in a gorgeous little garden eatery that also doubled up as a local gallery. Our second stop was at the eccentrically unrivalled Lost Gypsy Gallery in Papatowai. The artist had driven a bus onto his front lawn and turned it into an experimental workshop transforming watch parts and kitchen utensils into twisted sculptures such as the wind-up Sound of One Hand Clapping toy that you couldn’t resist turning even though you knew no sound would be made. The walls and ceiling were covered in a truly eclectic mix of paraphernalia from upside down circuit boards to wry newspaper articles.
The artist had also taken five years to build a Garden of Thoughts which took the same approach but on a much grander scale. If I had had the money and space I would have bought amongst many other things the male-whale. As a fellow hoarder it was a dream home so cleverly designed and so resourcefully crafted that on my return Angie felt sterile and barren by comparison...

Afterwards we detoured via Nugget Point and went rambling on the coastal path to the desolate lighthouse that was built back in 1898. The view offered fantastic views across the emerald green sea and was littered with raucous packs of barking sea lions.

We arrived in Dunedin in good time and after ten days in rural New Zealand were glad to be back in a city. Parking up in the Leith Valley Holiday Park we decided to treat ourselves to a night out in the student town and ended up residing in The Hog where the bizarrely named Irish band, Catgut and Steel were playing.

Day 13, Saturday 14th March 2009: Dunedin

For the first time in our stay we spent two nights in the same place and this afforded us the luxury of a lie-in! It was nice to indulge in a completely lazy day with no driving and no tourist pressures upon us. A potter to the farmers’ market in the morning to stock up on the week ahead’s food was followed by a languid day wandering around the town centre (and finally discovering K-Mart!) before settling back into Angie for an evening game of The Game of Life and making full use of the communal oven to have an early-Sunday roast!

Day 14, Sunday 15th March 2009: Dunedin – Trotters Gorge (Palmerston)

We arrived in the Otago Peninsula, directly to the east of Dunedin, at lunchtime ready to explore the rugged headline and keen to spot the endangered native yellow eyed penguins that live here. Our first stop was to the infamously titled Sandfly Bay that fortunately bore no resemblance to its namesake. We had to pick our way through the sunbathing sealions splattered across the sandy beach to reach the penguin hide at the far end but went unrewarded as our early afternoon viewing coincided with their prime feeding time out at sea.

On the way back to the car Rich managed to get a bumblebee stuck in the Velcro of his board short flies which resulted in him stripping naked and running away while I tried to prise the poor bee from the trappings of the Velcro. It was like some sort of warped Carry On scene with Rich trying to hide his nakedness from the other walkers on the path while I tried to explain why I was prodding at a pair of shorts with a very long stick!

We headed up to the chasm lookout at the top of the cliffs for lunch and enjoyed a quick walk to the gorge before lunching on a picnic bench at the car park overlooking the headland and only a few hundred metres from where the local paragliders where setting off for their Sunday afternoon flight.

We were on our way to Tairora Head, the furthermost tip of the peninsula, when we pulled up at a mangled t-junction to decipher the fallen signs and an equally battered car pulled up alongside us from the opposite direction. Worried that we had performed some foreigner’s faux pas or screwed up the strange New Zealand driving etiquette we politely wound down the window. The driver of the other car was an elderly gentleman who looked like he had suffered some kind of stroke and took several attempts at speaking before he could communicate with us. Somehow in this odd conversation we had ended up agreeing to be taken to Allan’s Beach to go penguin-spotting with him and as he tore off down a little dirt track in the direction opposite to where we were heading found our British sense of manners forcing us to tear down after him. The road became more and more desolate and both of us began to wonder where we were heading...Eventually we pulled up at the beach and were immediately directed into a parking space by the gentleman clearly impatient with our slow driving and watched him clamber over the stile on his way to the beach. Sadly our penguin hunting was not confined to the safe, sandy shore of the beautiful beach and while Rich remained on the flat compelled by a sense of obligation I followed the gentleman up the fallen rocks into the caves dug into the cliff face.

There were a number of times when the gentleman seemed to be wobbling precariously tiptoed on the point of a rock destined to fall and slide down the cliff face but managed to save himself at the very last second. All my excitement about perhaps seeing one of the penguins gave way to relief that we managed to ascend the rocks in one piece and while he keenly showed me the stoat traps and the nesting boxes and footprints all I could worry about was how we were going to get down...Somehow we did and despite his persistence in wanting to check the other end of the beach we made our polite excuses and managed to escape before any awkward emergency services had to be called.

I have to say I am looking forward to the conversations when I return about what adrenaline-filled activities I embarked upon during my travels only to say that I eschewed the sky-diving and bungy-jumping for card games in retirement villages and pensioner rock-climbing! It’s as if I have some in-built magnet carried with me from all my years in Hythe that sees me getting myself into these situations!

After successfully extricating myself from that situation we eventually found Tairora Head and fearful of any further advances confined our viewings of the albatrosses to a very short walk before heading back towards Dunedin and beginning the final leg North back to Christchurch.

A disgustingly cheap ice-cream at the local gelato in Palmerston restored my nerves before we located the nearest DOC site at the Trotters Gorge Reserve. 18km off the highway it was truly remote; a small, sheltered campsite situated in the ox-bow bend of a small stream. To enter the reserve we had to pass by an overgrown field pasted with posters about the owner’s Pet Wild Pig urging us not to shoot him should we see him wandering about! Thinking this was perhaps some small town South Island peculiarity on arrival at the Reserve we were met with our first Guns Permitted sign which led us to a very careful inspection of each of our grey-haired neighbours for the night!

Day 15, 16th March 2009: Trotters Gorge – Akaroa

Unbeknownst to us we had chosen a DOC site shrouded by the geological phenomena of the Morecki Boulders. Keen to embrace a rare historic moment we raced to the beach to witness the rocks only to discover a few nicely spherical pebbles lumped in one corner. Our fellow tourists who had also trekked down the shore to view this important sight were doing their best to make the most of the situation with some comic poses but with the edge of the southerly still snapping at our flip-flopped feet we gave up any pretence and headed straight back to the car and continued our way up the coastline.

Sadly the south-east of New Zealand, perhaps suffering from comparison, really doesn’t hold much of interest. The gentle rolling hills are like English countryside and the coast is lacking in beaches and there is a general absence of atmosphere between the spaced out, enclosed tiny communities. We stopped first at Oamaru because it is the self-proclaimed Penguin Capital of the country but asides from this Happy Feet pandemic is a drab, grey town. Monopolising the tourism industry on penguin tours and charging exorbitant fees we decided against embarking on any of them and with little else to hold us carried on up the coast. Our second stop was at the more bustling conurbation, Timeru, where we lunched at Caroline Bay, a forlorn beachside park trying its best to ignore the huge industrial port spoiling the vista. It didn’t stop one elderly couple, the gent in a thong and his wife a two-piece bikini, laying down their towels on the ugly beach and soaking up the few rays of sun that peered over the tops of the pollutant emitting funnels which at least provided us with a hilarious photograph!

Having planned to spend a day pottering about this part of the country we gave up and bumped up the itinerary making it to Akaroa by the evening. Another small peninsula for weekenders from Christchurch we made it as far as Little River where we discovered a small clearing by a lake to camp for the evening. The lake was covered with a flock of black swans that silhouetted brilliantly against the sinking sun while we adopted the chickens and ducks that popped over to visit their new neighbours and enjoyed a very peaceful evening meal by the lake without any sandflies!

Day 16, Tuesday 17th March 2009: Akaroa

Only 50km from our final destination of Christchurch we were able to indulge in a very lazy day beginning with a long lie-in in our undisturbed camping spot. We then wound our way through the crinkled volcanic crater countryside of the peninsula towards the main town of Akaroa set on the lip of the biggest inlet. Akaroa is a charming French-influenced town set on the water with a brilliant range of cafes and patisseries that centre around its primary tourist attraction of swimming with the tiny Hector dolphins.

A walk around the town and part of the inlet prepared us for lunch and then as the sun came out we headed to Le Bons Bay for a quick swim. The beach was completely deserted and we had it to ourselves which was fortunate as we took advantage of the free showering opportunity before heading back to Akaroa for a late afternoon high tea in Jove.

Confined by the selection of dinner ingredients from the tiny supermarket we decided to head back to our free camping spot and were joined once again by our feathered neighbours.

Days 17-18, Wednesday 18th – Thursday 19th March 2009: Akaroa – Christchurch

A little detour via Lyttleton en route to Christchurch turned out to be more little than detour as the attractive village written in the guidebook turned out to be a stinking port town. The briefest of stops by the waterfront was all that was permitted and so we found ourselves arriving in Christchurch much sooner than anticipated. It meant we were able to check in quickly to the conveniently situated Stonehurst Park and enjoy a lazy couple of days soaking up the low-key city life.

I enjoyed having access to a bit of culture wandering around the Cathedral and the beautiful Botanic Gardens whilst the Christchurch Art Gallery was a brilliant find and the punting on the river of the Oxford Terrace made me nostalgic for summer days as a student! The Cathedral Square was only a short stroll from Stonehurst so not only did I get to see the infamous wizard (man dressed up as a wizard preaching to whoever will listen and has been doing so for the past 40 years!) but also some of the great street entertainers who all seemed to be Scottish....

We finally parted with Angie – only after having to fill out a mile of forms about the tiny accident – and celebrated moving from a van into a proper room by dining out at the cosy Turkish restaurant Topkapi where I sampled my first ever shish kebab and apple tea!

New Zealand

2009-03-10T16:47:00.000-07:00

Day 1, Monday 2nd March: Sydney – Auckland

After two months of living the high life in Sydney the realisation that we were about to trade our spa and Harbour view for life on the road inside a 6x4m tin sunk in as we ate the remainder of our home-baked goods in the airport lounge before the highly vicious Sydney Customs team could confiscate them. The transition was momentarily forgotten during the three hour Air New Zealand flight in which I managed to split my viewing time on the in-flight entertainment system between the newly crowned Oscar winning Slumdog Millionaire and everyone’s favourite tonsillitis recuperating sequel Madagascar 2. The Air New Zealand service was fantastic though this is probably largely down to the fact that you could start using the entertainment system as soon as you boarded the plane instead of having to wait until you were in the air and that they served an incredible roast chicken and potato salad lunch.

Arriving at Auckland airport we were transported two hours into the future of New Zealand’s timeline and caught the shuttle bus into town. The journey was a tad bizarre as every time the bus stopped at traffic lights the female driver would get out of her seat and start fiddling about with various parts of the bus until the cars behind beeped to let her know the lights had changed back to green again. Apart from that we were dropped off almost outside the hostel I had booked and were upgraded as they had lost the reservation in their system and so we ended up with a private ensuite room with a television. On the downside it had no windows and the graffiti on the bed slats about the oven like sweating of the cell rang true...We tried to spend as little time as possible in the room heading downstairs to make the most of the free evening meal included in our booking – a welcome plate of nachos and chilli – before exploring the town in the fading light of dusk. The city, as we had been pre-warned, held little of attraction except its charming harbour which was moored with some historic looking sail boats and looked out over the city bridge. We ended up in a robust pub off one of the Queen Street side streets to celebrate the next stage of our adventures and then had to muster all our will power to resist one of the burgers from the White Lady burger truck parked outside our hostel: a vintage carriage towed into position by a small train and lit up in neon fairy lights!

Day 2, Tuesday 3rd March: Auckland – (Christchurch) – Kaikoura

Waiting to catch our connecting flight to Christchurch the morning was spent sorting out the remaining details of our New Zealand travels in which we discovered that you can’t buy a local sim for less than $35 unless you are staying for longer than six months in which case you can only get a local one by signing up to their twelve month package and that if you are willing to take the risk of booking your campervan when you get to New Zealand you can get some great deals!

While we had been diligent in our research and booked a campervan well in advance for our south island travels we had experienced lots of problems in finding any company that would provide us with a van in Wellington to drive to Auckland without charging an extortionate relocation fee to first drive the van down to Wellington for us to pick up. The prices we had been quoted were almost as much for the cost of our south island van but for less than half the duration. Stumbling around the Auckland depots we eventually managed to locate a company who had a couple of vans loitering in Wellington desperate for someone to drive them back to Auckland and so we gamely signed up waiving any relocation fee and bartering a $25/day reduction into the cost!

It was a relief to board the self check-in flight to Christchurch knowing that everything was sorted and the forty-five minute flight soon whizzed by and we were in Christchurch airport ringing Explore More and being picked up and deposited at their extremely busy depot. Having got the dates slightly wrong and booked the van for pick up a day later than we wanted it we had to speak to several personnel before they grudgingly agreed to change the dates and provide the van on our arrival so that we didn’t have to waste a day waiting to start our travels.
We were introduced to the boringly named Andy H as our new home for the next three weeks and after completing all the routine checks, securing our free DVD player and DVDs and making the most of the discounted shopping vouchers at the New World shopping centre we were allowed to go! Driving through Christchurch’s suburbs was like driving through a typical English suburban town both in architecture and climate and it was only as the highway began wounding its way in between the eastern mountain range and the sea that we felt like we had entered a new country. The road along the coastline revealed New Zealand in all its rugged glory and we followed the train tracks through the tiny holes in the mountains until we arrived in Kaikoura just as night was setting in.

We had been told that New Zealand has a liberal policy towards free camping and as long as there are no obvious prohibited signs you can camp overnight where you please. Keen to take advantage of not having to pay the extraneous Campervan Park fees and embrace the true hippie lifestyle of unclipped travelling we parked up in the Whale Watch seaside carpark and enjoyed our first night overlooking the waters that we were about to carve through on our search for sperm whales!

Day 3, Wednesday 4th March 2009: Kaikoura – Picton

To mark the first proper day of our New Zealand adventure I woke up early, just as the sun was breaking above the horizon of the water in the cloudless sky, and booked us into the whale watching tour. A couple of sea-sickness pills popped later and we had boarded a small catamaran and were bouncing along the waves out into the ocean. We had to sail out to where the ocean bed drops to 800metres deep and the lone male sperm whales, who have left their pod and are waiting for full sexual maturity before they return, feed and graze in the deeper waters. The early tours are usually best to catch sight of the whales and were extremely lucky spotting four sperm whales in the first forty minutes and being drawn alongside to watch them resting at the top of the water before performing a spectacular tail turn and diving down to feed for between 45-60 minutes. Because they have collapsible lungs that allow them to descend up to 3000m for as long as two hours the average sighting per trip is 1.2 whales so to see four we were incredibly lucky that the whales were not preparing for or already on any deep water feeding while we were there. In fact, the hardest thing was not spotting the whales but fighting the pensioners to get out of the carriage and onto the deck. While the catamaran was moving we all had to sit down in the seats on the lower carriage until the signal was given that we could get out and progress either to the side of the boats or up onto the deck for a better vantage. There was always more than enough time for everyone to get into position and have 5-10 minutes viewing time but as soon as the signal was given the pensioners had their sharpened elbows and booted feet ready to trample you and push you out of the way so that they could get up first. I felt like I was back at primary school rushing to be the first out into the playground! I admit that when the first whale was sighted I was in prime competitive mood to get up and out first, though not to the detriment of black-eyeing my fellow seamen, but once you realise that there is ample space and time and that you won’t miss out on anything by being last out I realised there was no need for pushing and shoving but even after the routine had been well worn our grey haired companions were still ready to push you overboard lest you dare step out before them!

After the whales we travelled back closer to the shore line and found a 200 strong pod of playful dusky dolphins who as soon as they saw our boat came racing to check us out in dizzying somersaults. The promiscuous mammals mate three-four times a day with whoever they can find and have to keep half their brain alert all the time just to remind them to breathe! We were soon surrounded by the dolphins and became extremely envious of the small boat of tourists who had paid to come swimming with them. The final stage of the tour whisked us over to the white rocks where the seal colony was resting and we were able to watch the baby pups taking their first swimming lessons in the natural pool carved out at the base of the rock.

I had been a bit wary of going on the whale watch, a combination of apprehension towards mass-tourist engineered projects and a wariness of having inherited my father’s sea-legs, but it was worth all $140 and was the perfect way to start the trip demarcating the transition from Australia and throwing us back headfirst into the travellers’ mindset.

Back on unmoving land we embarked upon the well reputed Kaikoura Peninsula walk, a three hour loop that took us across the rugged clifftops with spectacular views of the many sheltered turquoise bays and wound back through the historic sites of the old whalers town including Fyffe’s House, the last remaining cottage of the town’s formerly bustling whaling industry. Famous for its crayfish I couldn’t resist the shack bar serving up fresh seafood on the route back and indulged in a bargain platter of crayfish fritter before getting back inside the van and driving northwards along the coast.

By late afternoon we had reached Blenheim, a rather ugly town but situated in the centre of the Marlborough Wine-making region. Passing by a huge hillside fire in Seddon that was reminiscent of the bushfires we had just left behind in Australia we stopped off first at Montana’s for a wine-tasting session before progressing to Lawson’s Dry Hills where getting in at the end of the day’s tasting seemed to take full advantage of the taster’s proclivity for her wares sampling the full range and ending up with a hugely discounted Pinot Noir to take back to Andy H!
We ended the day in Picton a small picturesque village nestled in a valley between two mountain ranges on the waterfront that harbours the ferry that shuttles between the north and south islands. Taking the next step of the free camping we bathed in the marina much to the amusement of the locals sat on the lawns and then went off to find somewhere to camp. Following the signs for the Victoria Domain lookout we wound up one of the hillsides and emerged into the clearing looking down on the waterfront town. With the sun setting over the opposite hillside we had dinner overlooking this incredible vista shared only with two girls in their van at the other end of the clearing.

Day 4, Thursday 5th March 2009: Picton – Abel Tasman

Our scenic night time location had become filled with keen ferry snappers when we awoke and poor Andy H was surrounded by the nautical equivalent of trainspotters flashing their extra long SLR lens cameras while we attempted to retain some dignity breakfasting from our vantage spot.

Leaving Picton we took the wiggly Queen Charlotte Drive road along the northern coast to Nelson. While not for the faint-hearted it offered further stunning vistas of rural New Zealand although my enjoyment of these were distracted by the numerous crosses erected on virtually every hairpin bend in memory of fallen drivers.

Nelson had been sold as the artsy, cultural capital of New Zealand and so I was looking forward to reaching it but failed to remember that what is “bustling” and “vibrant” in New Zealand speak is often parochial and introspective in comparison to the same adjectives used for Australia or the UK. Nelson was actually disappointing in the fulfilment of its expectations and an afternoon of wandering around the mock-Gothic Anglican cathedral (with its brilliant Hot Topics newsletters each exploring a different current issue within the framework of the Anglican teaching from Pacific Island climate change to the war in Darfur), perusing the second hand bookshops that doubled up as bohemian clothes shops, eating cake and purchasing woollen blankets we decided not to spend the night and instead try and push onto the Abel Tasman region so that we might be able to get in a full day’s walking.

Reaching Abel Tasman was not actually difficult and in spite of the weather was a pleasant drive passing through the fresh fruit and veg roadside vendors of Motueka and then winding up via the golden beaches of Kaiteriteri. Unfortunately reaching the wilderness of this National Park in the very north-western corner of the island we entered the captive tourist market in which the strict No Camping prohibitions meant that in spite of our best efforts we eventually had to check into a Campervan Park in Marahu for the night which at least provided the consolation of my first shower in four days! The sleeting rain that had been falling all day grew to a crescendo as it crashed down on the roof of the van throughout the night leaving us with little hope of being able to tramp the following day.

Day 5, Friday 6th March 2009: Abel Tasman – Murchison

In spite of my fears about the weather which was continuing when I woke up as much as it had when I had gone to bed by the time we had showered and breakfasted it had remarkably come to a halt and so we decided to risk the still greying sky and venture out into the National Park.
The Abel Tasman Coastal Track is one of the most famous walks in New Zealand which takes between 3-5 days to complete and involves complicated tidal calculations in order to be able to pass all its incoming waters at the right time. With Rich not keen on the idea of tackling the whole loop and camping overnight we opted for the one day tramp which took us all the way up to Stilwell Bay and back down the coast.

The 14km walk took us about 4 ½ hours and was well worth braving the showers that broke and threatened to turn into deluges before departing as quickly as they broke and leaving bright sunlight to mop them up. The path wound its way across the cliffs underneath a jungle canopied track that offered enticing peeps at the paradisical turquoise waters and sandy bays that popped out through various clearings and offered breathtaking views across the Tasman Sea.

We reached Stilwell Bay in time for lunch and enjoyed an isolated home-packed picnic on the beach that fortified us for the return journey that saw us arrive back in Maharu a couple of hours later and in the usual spirit of our travels saw us reward our hard work with a couple of cakes that we ate with homemade tea on a bench overlooking the sea.

A little sweaty from the walk and without showering facilities we drove back via Kaiteriteri in order to take a more natural hygienic bathing in the sea. The beach was quite busy and those sunning themselves on the sand were treated to the spectacle of an oversized campervan pulling up by the water and unleashing two British guys who ran from their seats into the water and then two minutes later dove back into the comforts of the van to towel themselves down and reverse out as quickly as they had arrived!

Driving back through Motueka to pick up dinner I experienced the first successful, strange New Zealand driving manoeuvre that we had been warned of when we picked up the van. If you are pulling left out of a T-junction you must give way to the person opposite you pulling out right into the same lane. This bizarre legislation has seen me pull up at every junction in confusion waiting for the guidance of my fellow drivers to beep or flash their lights at me until I acted according to their rules but finally on day five in this country I mastered it!

With daylight savings still in force and providing the grace of a good couple of hours of evening driving we carried on towards the West Coast. To do this we entered the Gowan Valley which was the first place that truly reminded me of the Lord of the Rings trilogy! Plunging through the valley with steep, craggy mountains soaring up to the sky, their tors hidden in the mist of low-sliding cloud mist, I could just imagine Frodo and Samwise trekking their way through the terrain!

As night fell we managed to locate a picnic spot nestled into the plateaus of one of the mountain ranges and set up camp for the night trying to avoid plague of hungry sandflies circling our van...

Day 6, Saturday 7th March 2009: Murchison – Lake Mahinapua

Woke up today to find that I had been massacred by the sandflies. While I seem to have remained impervious to the attacks of the mosquitoes as in Belize I well and truly fell prey to these vicious mobsters, barely able to see a part of my lower legs, ankles or feet that wasn’t swollen in the red bumps of their fang marks or smeared in the blood squashed from their full bellies where I had managed to swot them.

The distraction of the itching was taken away as we passed through the Buller Gorge and entered the true wilderness of New Zealand’s rugged beauty. A quick petrol top up in Westport to see us through the fuelless roads of the upper West Coast and we tackled what the Lonely Planet has described as one of the Top 10 drives in the world.

The hype failed to disappoint as the highway gripped the edge of the clifftops battered by the full weight of the ocean throwing its foaming mass against the granite boulders. The recession of the land was clear in the wastrel of isolated stacks and stumps littering the shallows of the shores like the fallen soliders of a retreating army engaged in a slow, bloodied war of attrition that they knew they were destined to lose but fight every step of the way. Similar in landscape to the Twelve Apostles in Australia but even more feral and untamed it was a breathtaking drive that provided plenty of photo opportunities due to the enforced snail pace imposed by the treacherously winding roads.

We stopped off at the Pancake Rocks for lunch and were enjoying a homemade Ploughman’s in the safety of our van when a Japanese couple in their monstrous Winnebago tore into the back of us whilst attempting to squeeze into the narrow parking berth adjacent to us. Fortunately, given that we were stationary and they were only trying to park the damage was limited to a broken back light and a nasty rip in the bumper and rear left panel, but which came accompanied with that awful grating metallic gnashing that sounds far worse. We had to get out of our car and direct the Japanese driver back out because his attempted reversal out of the berth would have ploughed straight back into us. When we finally extricated him from it he jumped out of his car and started pulling desperately on a cigarette while his wife gave us their insurance details. It was only the second day of their holiday and they were both quite shaken by the accident but it was all perfectly amicable and we ended up wandering around the Pancake Rocks with them exchanging travel news! It was a relief to us to only be hiring the van and fully insured so that after reporting the accident to the company we did not have to worry about anything else unlike the many histrionics of Andy H’s great-grandfather, Stubby!

The Pancake Rocks are named so because the rivets in their granite formation make them look like a pile of stacked pancakes. They were beautifully set out in a small coastal park that took you around the cliffs through a series of bridges and tracks that offered perfect panoramas of the coastline. The park also incorporated the blowholes into its layout but given that these perform only at high tides (which on the day of our tour were as far as they could possibly be from our lunchtime visit at early dawn and very late evening!) we were unable to see them in action.

Trying our best to leave the Pancake Rocks well after the Japanese couple had departed we headed on down the coast towards Greymouth where the ocean became more manageable and less petulant as it reigned in its aggression. Disappointingly Greymouth seemed to have followed suit offering a drab city that aptly suited the dull description of its name and not wasting any more time gave up on the supposedly impressive flood walls and headed for its more colourful sibling further south.

Hokitika is best known for hosting the annual Wild Foods Festival every year which we were sadly one week too early for as I would have enjoyed sampling some of the more weird and wonderful New Zealand dishes! Instead we pottered around the cafe looking longingly into the closed patisseries and marvelling the eccentric arts-house cinema before deciding to push on and end our night at somewhere we could camp for free.

In the end, after many unsuccessful diversions, we opted to spend the night at Lake Mahinapua. I had endured enough anxious moments on the bottleneck single lane bridges that are unsighted at one end and force you to have to guess whether there might be any oncoming vehicles. This wouldn’t be so bad if the bridges didn’t also traffic the trains and offered no supervision of access or warning of impending carriages! I suffered nightmares of making it halfway down the bridge only to see a train approaching and having split seconds to jump out of the doors and plunge into the rivers while Andy H and all my worldly belongings were smashed to smithereens.
The campsite is part of the Department of Conversation (DOC) set up that provides beautiful pieces of land for very cheap prices for travellers. For $6 each (the equivalent of two British pounds) we were able to park our campervan anywhere within the grounds along the stunning lake and enjoy the facilities on offer (no shower – that’s why the lake’s there, it even has a cove named Swimmers Bay!) and stroll along the many paths that bordered the water in the evening dusk and watch the sun set.

We made friends with an elderly gentleman parked up in his campervan who had embarked on a driving tour of the country with his wife when he was younger. She had passed away three years previously and he had forced himself to get the van out again and follow the route they had taken revisiting all the places they had stayed at. He said it was the hardest thing he had ever had to do but that he was enjoying the memories that it was bringing back. As well as imparting several tips about where to head next (he was driving up the coast while we were heading down) he was also able to explain the strange phenomena of helicopters passing overhead with what looked like garrotted executions swinging from ropes attached to their undertows. Apparently these are local hunters who go out in their helicopters shooting deer and then tie them up and bring them back home flailing through the sky. It is certainly a unique take on hunting and one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen passing through the sky!

Day 7, Sunday 8th March 2009: Lake Mahinapua - Haast Beach

As we carried on down the West Coast the full force of the climatic geography hit us. Receiving over 3300mm of rain annually that is deposited when the clouds passing over the sea hit the coastal mountain range we were treated to a good few of those millimetres with slating rain falling throughout the day without any respite.

Undeterred we stopped off at the Franz Josef glacier and donning my full rain prevention attire (Dad’s outdated rainwear, a cheap and disturbingly named “spray” jacket bought in Australia in anticipation and my umbrella which had been impaled by an explosion of melted chewing gum) ventured out. With one hand gripping the stem of my brolley and the other taking photos of the blue-iced glacier we managed to stumble across the shore of granite boulders, avoiding the tributaries of milky water rushing through, to as close as we were possibly allowed for further photographic excellence before admitting we were sodden through and stumbling back.
A quick stop in the Full of Beans cafe, where I was restored to life and warmth by a miraculous piping chicken and mushroom pie next to a table of professional travel writers who I watched with envy, and we were back on the road. Wisely we ignored the Fox Glacier and continued driving along the coast until we hit the tiny settlement of Haast that is bizarrely divvied up into three sections: beach, pass and the archaically named township.

Finding a secluded bay by the beach we pulled up for the night. The shore was reminiscent of a wasted post-apocalyptic cinematic scene with greying sand and gnarled and charred pieces of wood embedded into its floor while a rainbow tore between the threatening grey clouds and the struggling sunset. We were cheered up by the folly of a fellow campervan following us into our hideway and then getting themselves stuck in the sand as they attempted a more ambitious park! They had dug themselves out before we came back to our van and slept alongside us in awkward nonchalance!

Day 8, Monday 9th March 2009: Haast Beach – Queenstown

It isn’t far from Haast to Queenstown and so we enjoyed a lazy start to the day and an unrushed drive that took us to Wanaka for a late afternoon lunch. The highway took us on a spectacular drive that passed through the mountains first via the unnaturally blue Lake Hawea and then Lake Wanaka before arriving at the little town where we parked up by the waters and went off tramping round the lake in search of a waterfall that eluded us. Defeated we returned to the van and in vain tried to dry out our still soaking glacial clothes in the sun. Lunch revolved around a main course of wholemeal raspberry and coconut muffin followed by a dessert of orange cream muffin at the brilliant Cafe Tango.

We opted to take the shorter and more dangerous Crown Range road from Wanaka to Queenstown via Cardrona rather than the much longer highway loop. This involved negotiating the many tight hairpin bends and dodging the landslides that had caved in on several sections of the road but was rewarded by fantastic views across the valley as we wound up the mountain and then back down it.

We detoured via the historic town of Arrowtown which still retains most of its original buildings in a quaint charming National Trust environment but were unable to find anywhere to camp for the night and so had to continue on to Queenstown for the night. Passing right through the town we eventually found a DOC site on the road to Glenorchy perched right on the tip of the lake and secured our most picturesque camping spot yet parked by the water with the sun setting behind the mountains – even the festival style toilets were spotlessly clean though the water was far too cold for my ambitious showering hopes.

Day 9, Tuesday 10th March 2009: Queenstown

Having decided to check into our first campervan park we wanted to make the most of it so woke early and drove into Queenstown and booked into the Lakeview Holiday Park up near the gondola. With temperatures plummeting and a biting wind whistling through the mountains the first luxury was to indulge in the one dollar coin operated hot showers! We then plugged into the mains and charged our much used cameras and much maligned telephones.

Eventually we dragged ourselves out of the park and set off to explore Queenstown which is the adrenaline capital of New Zealand with more nosedives and bungee jumps than you can shake a stick at. I was keen to do the hang-gliding but the inclement weather conditions meant it wasn’t feasible and so I settled into one of the many coffee shops and whiled away an afternoon on the lakeside from behind the comfort of glassed windows and accompanied by a bottomless pot of Earl Grey tea!

Treating ourselves to a night out, away from the stove, we opted to dine at @Thai where I indulged in a chicken, pineapple and coconut curry that warmed my chilled bones before heading to one of the many bars for late night happy hours with live music before returning to our frozen van and being eternally grateful for the woollen blankets we had bought in Nelson!

Out with the old, in with the new.

2009-01-19T22:40:00.001-08:00

After a nomadic nine month existence involving river-tubing, near-death volcanic experiences and a twenty-five year old campervan called Stubby, 2009 has seen an attempt at returning to civilisation and embracing the sensible adult somewhere within me.

In the short space of a few days of the new year I found myself with an apartment (and its fortnightly rent that could well afford another six months accomodation in south-east Asia), a job that required me to pack away the board shorts and flip-flops and purchase a pair of trousers and proper shoes and sit in an office instead of on the beach and a happy French couple wishing to buy Stubby.

The transition was far from seamless with Stubby deciding to blow a hole in his muffler twenty metres after we had handed over the keys to his new owners and requiring us to spend our first weekend in Sydney finding a mechanic who could and would fix an ancient van without trying to steal all our rent money. In the meantime we had to negotiate the hell that is Sydney parking where you cannot park your vehicle for any longer than two hours in one place and spent the weekend taking it in turns to move him from one spot to another until 10pm when the traffic wardens went to bed. In this brief period my extreme sadness to be parting with him changed to a relief to be finally shot of him though the tears did return when I finally saw him trundle off into the horizon with his new owners.

Similarly, the search for more permanent housing was eventually successful though not without the joys of sifting through the dregs of options beforehand. The first place we looked at, in a quiet residential suburb, was met with the sound of screaming. Opening the door into the apartment we discovered the sound to be coming from a sobbing Chinese girl whose non-Englisht speaking parents had just arrived from overseas and were sitting awkwardly in the lounge. Politely greeting us they sat back down on the sofa while the girl continued her argument with the husband as he showed us around the spare room pretending she wasn't there. This served to be a good indicator of the standard of rooms available on our budget which also included apartments where the communal lounge areas had been divided into sleeping areas for travellers passing through and windowless cells rented out by unashamed drug dealers conducting their business admist showing us their non-powdered wares.

Despairing of ever finding anything vaguely liveable we then scored a coup landing the apartment of the guy whose New Year's Eve party we had been invited to. Working away up the east coast with business he needed some flat mates and we were more than happy to oblige taking up residence in the apartment block squatted firmly on the boundary of Kings Cross and Darlinghurst with a 23rd double balcony view overlooking the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. In addition, we gained free use of the gym, spa, pool and billiards room and had a concierge tripping over themselves to assist us in any possible way. Located just ten minutes walk from the CBD it is incredibly central for all transport, shopping and entertainment while its neighbouring suburb of Paddington is a delightful area brimming with al fresco dining and drinking options.

There wasn't much time to indulge in the new pad as I landed a researcher's job for an independent production company on a brand new rescue documentary series and started work almost straight away. Having spent the Christmas period resigned to signing up to temping agencies for data input work and handing out CVs to the local restaurants for waitering opportunities I was extremely lucky to gain a job in my profession for the limited period I was available in Australia. Having now been there for a few weeks I realise how even luckier I have been in securing a researcher's position that is the most journalistic role I have had yet in television on a show that does not stitch people up or expose them and has a far higher salary than in the UK. Furthermore I am enjoying working in a smaller company of only ten-fifteen office staff where it feels like the grinding rotations of my little cog are churning far more emphatic propulsions than in the machinery of a vast corporate, commercial, network. The nature of my work has so far seen me hunting down shark attack victims and crocodile bounty hunters amongst many of my stories. Frequently it is quite sobering and most phone calls end in tears or some kind of trauma but it has been a great show to work on. I have thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of getting to grips with the mechanics, infrastructure and foibles of the country in a professional capacity and have found on numerous occasions that my jollies around Australia in Stubby have taught me more than I knew about this island in a way that has helped me in my work and in the understanding of my new home.

So, after nine months I have finally unpacked my trusty backpack and am luxuriating in having a base for longer than a couple of days. Simple delights such as owning an oven and a washing machine seem to keep me domestically amused for hours at a time, not to mention a giant television on which to watch the Australian Open! Weekly shops are actually quite thrilling as I discover whole new aisles of foods that have previously been disclosed and having a bed big enough to spread-eagle upon in a room where the walls don't let in every creak of the neighbours floorboards have proved to be most entertaining. The Sydney Festival is currently on and so every night there is something different on which is a great way to explore the city's less obvious jewels and with a wide residue of friends, old and new, around the city it has certainly become a home away from a home.

To temper the perenially aching itch of my little feet I am traveling down to Melbourne this weekend to go and see the tennis but am otherwise, for the next five weeks, perfectly content to enjoy my new home and lap up the joys of a summer in Sydney and ignore the headlines about physical and economical bleakness back in the UK before I pack the bag one final time and begin to wend my way home.

A Holiday Away From A Holiday

2009-01-08T20:49:00.000-08:00

After becoming accustomed to driving for ten hours during a day and completing only a third of your journey we were mightily surprised when only a couple of hours after having left Sydney we arrived at our first destination along the East Coast. Port Stephens is a poky coastal headland formed around an inlet of water and formed by a cluster of small towns that are renowned for producing the best pies in the country – which in the Australian book constitutes being the best pies in the world. Having stopped for the obligatory sample we proceeded to Nelson’s Head, the most bustling of the conurbations, before tracing our steps to locate the beautiful and unspoiled beaches nestled way beyond view behind the ridges of the dunes. Eschewing the offer of camping in what seemed to be an eco-commune, despite the lure of its resident joey bouncing around the grounds, we decided we had seen all that Port Stephens had to offer and to take advantage of these shorter distances and continue up the coast. As a result our first night was spent in Taree which served only to dispel the illusion that strange caravan park residents are confined to the western states and prompted an unusual early morning start the following day.
Having had my notion of a sunshine laden Australian climate ruined by pouring rains, freezing temperatures and self-perpetuated storms the rumours of blue skies and blazing beaches promised by the eastern coasts offered a potential redemption for my tattered dreams. That day two of our travels were remarkable only because of the persistence of the rain and grey of the clouds hovering above us did little to undo this damage. The conditions were so bad that rounding a bend we had to stop to offer help to three Irishmen who had spun off the road and down the verge. One of the guys was trapped in the car while the other two had shakily called an ambulance and with nothing we could do we carried on breaking up our journey with stops at Coffs Harbour and a fantastic farm shop to stock up for the fortnight.
Eventually the rain cleared and we reached Byron Bay just as evening arrived and in true advent style there was no room at the inn for poor Stubby. We had been warned that we were travelling towards destinations favoured by schoolies (school leavers) for their month of decadence, self-indulgence and teen-angst shenanigans and true to the word every hostel and caravan park was packed with hordes of scantily clad youngsters abundant in alcohol, hormones and swagger that made me realise how long ago my own schoolies week to Faliraki was....After exhausting all central locations we found a field leased as an overspill for late arrivals and suffered the indignity of parking in a grassless plain of cow pats.
For the second morning in a row we were up early and sniffing around the town parks for the scent of departure and for our efforts nabbed ourselves a glorious spot in the First Sun Caravan Park right on Main Beach, the principal shore. Epitomising the anti-establishment attitude of the town (which in my mind deserves award for Town Of The World for its altruistic campaign by locals to prevent McDonalds building an outlet) we shunned the trimmed and tanned surf bodies packed together like battery hens and set off to the sleepier, more chilled Belongil Beach. Inhabiting a good half mile of golden sand and surftastic turquoise waves to ourselves we noticed a bevy of naked bathers playing around us and realised we had discovered the nudist beach. As they say “when in Rome...”
The evening was spent exploring the small hub of the town’s centre which in continuation of the anti-McDonalds stance is constituted of independently owned boutiques and quirky cafes with not a single chain (excepting a lonely Subway) in sight. The inhabitants wander around barefooted and it is a haven for hippies with impromptu jamming sessions forming around every street corner. This was just one of the many contradictions of the town which traditionally a base for non-conformists is now the major attraction for schoolies just as the residents despise tourists and do everything they can to resist them yet their whole economy is completely dependent upon the holiday income. Similarly our night began with cheap scooners in a backpackers’ favourite but ended with a picnic on the beach sat clustered on the sand with the wash of the lighthouse beam passing over us every few seconds.
Renowned for its surf the rest of our time in Byron Bay was spent brushing up on our board skills where you could hire a board for a twenty-four hour period that allowed us to surf all day and then get up early and catch the morning surf as well before we had to return it. This proved to be incredibly successful except for one small incident where I was so immersed in holding onto the wave I had caught that it wasn’t until I had ridden it all the way into the shore that I discovered that in the process my shorts had ended up around my ankles and the whole (packed) beach had been treated to a full frontal display....
We were reluctant to leave Byron Bay but wanted to explore further north as well and so set off for Surfers’ Paradise which only on arriving we discovered is to Ozzies what Magaluf is to Brits. It has a beautiful beach but this is framed by ugly sky-rise apartment blocks that stretch the length of the shore and destroy the natural attraction of the coastline. The centre itself is like any generic European 18-30s magnet with a plethora of tacky Irish bars, cheesy clubs and fast-food diners so we decided to camp outside of the city in a swanky caravan park on the northern beaches. The disappointment of having given up Byron Bay for this was represented in the sympathetic fallacy of the weather which turned from sunshine to pouring rain as soon as we stepped onto the beach and continued for the rest of the day forcing us to hole up in Stubby with our books and newly acquired Retirement Village card games.
The second day saw little improvement in the weather so we explored the city enjoying the wares of Chinatown and the hundreds of Gelatos before having to hide from the crazy man running amok in our amenities block. We took it as the final sign to move on and enjoyed our final morning on the beach where entertainment was provided in the homoerotic physical conditioning of the university rugby team and a highly competitive surf competition. We were all set to leave when Stubby decided not to start...once again our RAC cover proved its worth and we were visited by a true Kath-&-Kim ‘Sharon’ who turned up in her dungarees after having been water-skiing. We had in fact been flooding the engine when we started it and so she showed us how we had to start Stubby to prevent this and so a little red-faced we fled the campsite and headed to Brisbane.
Described as the most loveable city in Australia Brisbane is unique in that it is not set on the coast but inland on a water inlet. Characterised by the tropical climate of Queensland it is lush and green and we secured a cute little campsite on the fringes of the city and caught the bus into the centre. The main shopping arcades and markets were comparable to all the other Australian cities we had been to but the South Bank stood out as its most distinguishing feature. Walking over the bridge it felt like I was crossing tower bridge and entering London and this effect was compounded by the collection of galleries, libraries and museums clustered along its waterfront. We had a brilliant afternoon exploring the weekend market, sampling the frozen yoghurt from the New Zealand Natural shop that I had been longing for for months and taking pride in the inferior Eye they had erected over the river as we sunk a scooner in one of the many live music bars in the evening sun. The day was rounded off by stumbling upon the Queensland Police Carol Concert in the Suncorp Piazza which we duly queued to get in lured by the sound of brass, red felt hats and reindeer antlers! I had been searching for a good carol concert to attend as I felt I was missing out on the traditional Christmas build-up back home and it certainly didn’t disappoint! Primarily a family affair it drew together the collective talent of the state with a mixture of angelic voiced sopranos to local choirs and school groups all supported by the Youth Orchestra. By no means a polished affair I loved the amateur-dramatics nature of the concert with everyone chipping in to celebrate from staid police officers performing the YMCA to their re-written version of XMAS to the cheesy father and son compeer act. As it was a family show we were also treated to a small pantomime of adult-sized koala bears (called Klancy), emus, frogs and a beat-boxing kangaroo calling on the crowd to help them locate Santa who then distributed sweets amongst the crowds. The police chaplain delivered a brilliant story about the wombat who wanted to take part in the nativity but was continually ignored for each part he auditioned for because of a variety of reasons until he was cast as the sleeping babe and we were also introduced to the Ozzie versions of Jingle Bells and the Twelve Days of Christmas which involved a menagerie of dancing dingoes and leaping kangaroos which the poor signer nearly collapsed trying to keep up with the translation of for the deaf children in the audience. Even though we were all in shorts and still dripping with sweat as we chimed in for the first time I felt for the first time that I had entered into the Christmas spirit.
The following day I went to the local church where mass was celebrated by one of the most bizarre priests I had seen who looked like Jesus, acted like Johnny Depp and alternated from deeply religious silences and prayers to unabashed intellectual contempt for his parishioners in a manner that suggested he loathed having to be amongst such inferiors! We then headed straight back to the South Bank for a picnic lunch in the gardens and then hired roller blades and had the most hilarious afternoon exploring the city by in-line wheels. Unfortunately neither of us could really brake properly and there were many an occasion where caught by a slight incline we ended up hurtling into bushes and hedgerows to break our fall. The climax came when we tried to cross the beach. Drenched and exhausted blading up to the peak of the bridge the only way to negotiate the downhill half was to cling to the rail and haul lower ourselves down much to the laughter of everyone else crossing the bridge. We rewarded our weary muscles by taking a dip in the Street Beach, a brilliantly innovative man-made beach next to the river which is so shrouded in palm trees and comes complete with Surf Rescue and sunbathing spots that you forget you’re in the middle of a city so much so that I ended up taking the bus home in my sarong and wife-beater!
We left Brisbane the next day to enjoy our last couple of days of the trip back in Byron Bay where the prices had suddenly hiked up for the arrival of the Australian holidayers who traditionally leave for their vacation just before Christmas and only return home at the end of January. The First Sun Holiday Park was packed with the most elaborate vans and tents with families bringing along their whole fridge-freezer unit for the month. We spent most of our time back on Belongil Beach burning inappropriately and enjoying our new cocktail of whisky and pineapple and mango crush.
We arrived back in time to wave Paul and Sindy off and found ourselves in charge of a multi-million pad with swimming pool, spa, home gym, theatre room and bar which proved most distracting when we should have been spending our time hunting for jobs and a place of our own. In return we had to feed the cat, Tashie, a half-Begal male, and Bubby, a cross between a red setter and a spaniel female who was a rescue dog. Having grown up together they play-fought like cat and dog with Bubby taking Tashie’s head in her mouth and dragging her all round the house until Tashie escaped and climbed onto a sofa or table to pounce, claws out, on Bubby. When I wasn’t picking up broken ornaments from their fights I managed to get another interview for an independent production company making a Rescue show for Channel 9 which went as well as it could have with the Executive Producer telling me that she would love to hire me but was concerned about my lack of local knowledge and so would think about it over the holiday period and let me know. The rest of our time was spent by the pool or taking advantage of the luxury of having an oven!!! Continuing the pursuit of the festive spirit we had one night with the Carols from The Domain playing on the television while we baked two Christmas puddings (from Granji’s restaurant), thirty mince pies, a platter of Florentines, a vat of mulled wine and personalised gingerbread men as Christmas presents!
For Christmas we ended up driving to Melbourne, which at a mere 850km each way seemed like a doddle, and spent it with Rich’s family. They closed their restaurant on Christmas Eve for three weeks and brought home literally mountains of leftover food that they share amongst their family and friends in a big Christmas Day extravaganza. Trying to maintain as much of the English tradition as possible we opened stockings in the morning and then went to church only to discover the church I had found had been burnt down and the replacement service was on the other side of the town which b we opened stockings in the morning and then went to church only to discover the church I had found had been burnt down and the replacement service was on the other side of the town which when we finally got there entered just in time to hear the closing blessing...Undeterred we ended up driving into central Melbourne and catching a 4pm service at St Francis’ church which was beautiful. This had no impact on the family celebrations which owing to the daughter having to work at the Customs Dog Centre all day had been strictly postponed until 6pm which meant we all arrived back at the same time. Dinner was had outside and began with traditional sea-food platter which was followed by a bizarre concoction of deep-fried left-overs before finishing with trifles, pavlovas and our Christmas puds! Boxing Day, far from running around in the mud and cool, was spent chillaxing in the spa before we headed back to Sydney the following day.
Arriving back to Paul and Sindy’s the first thing we saw was a pea-green pool...the second thing we saw was two bedrooms full of dog pooh! Flooding the pool with a gallon of chlorine and shovelling away the dog pooh we realised that our invitation to stay might not be extended when they returned and so began our own house search. Unfortunately this was just a dire sequence of apartments ranging from hosting screaming matches between a Chinese husband and wife couple while their newly arrived parents sat politely on the sofa to grunge pits where mattresses on the lounge floor served as bedrooms. Suffice to say we were pretty disgruntled and spent all our time flitting between viewing houses and meeting potential buyers for Stubby who we had with much reluctance put up for sale as soon as we arrived.
Fortunately we had the distraction of being taken up to Palm Beach and dining in the Burger Shack by family friends of Rich’s first and then New Year to provide some respite and with Rich’s friend, Isobel, visiting from Melbourne, and my old primary school friend Felicity started the day off in style in the spa before progressing to the slide on a variety of inflatables and enjoying a BBQ in the sunshine. We then headed into town where we had been invited to champagne drinks at a friend’s apartment before heading onto a fancy dress wig and sunglasses party at another apartment overlooking the harbour bridge where we stayed for the 9pm fireworks display before moving once again to an even better location on the north side of the city in a flat virtually sitting on the bridge where we crowded onto the balcony at midnight for an unrivalled view of the breathtaking fireworks. Getting home was slightly more traumatic as we caught a train to Chatswood and then spent half an hour fighting for prime taxi-hailing spots before eventually persuading a lovely Chinese dude to take us back to Forestville!

Adventures of Stubby Part III

2008-12-22T03:19:00.001-08:00

Days 27–36 – Saturday 8th – Monday 17th November 2008
WA
Our first day in Fremantle was welcomed by glorious sunshine and so we decided to take the 3km route along the notoriously beautiful western coastal beaches into town where we were overtaken by several other overzealous tourists zooming past in mini motorised scoots.
Freo, as it’s colloquially known, is an uber-trendy town that manages to attract backpackers and the too-cool-for-school Perth suburbia just south of the city. Our first stop was Cappuccino Strip, the road littered with coffee shops replete with fresh patisseries and all the weekend papers so that sitting down on the roadside tables to catch up on the world (we had been stranded in the midst of the Nullarbor during the American Presidential election and so had plenty to be filled in on) we actually ended up getting sunburnt...Gorged myself on a fabulous raspberry and white chocolate cake at the Merchant Tea Room and caught up on all the gossip from the election and then went to explore the arcades and little side streets for the rest of the afternoon. It wasn’t long before I had sniffed out the second-hand bookshop, Magpies, a true relic with creaky floorboards, books piled in haphazard columns wherever there was space and a little old white-haired lady sat in a chair in one of the nooks overseeing proceedings. Having just blown my day’s spending money on cakes and hoodies from Target I had to restrain myself to just looking before we wound our way back to the caravan site for dinner. The park congregates all the campers together into a separate unit with a brand new block of amenities including pristine bathrooms, a giant kitchen and communal area plus an outside verandah with seats, chairs and a spanking gas BBQ that we decided to get to know for our first meal. After sating ourselves we burned the calories straight off by walking back into town to test the nightlife out and were hit by a full-on Saturday night crowd, queuing around the blocks to get into the bars on Cappucino Street. Eventually we found a couple of more low-key bars that didn’t require us to be dressed up and settled into the vibe with (very expensive) scooners.
Sunday morning was spent at the newly renovated Basilica before meeting Rich’s Uncle and Aunt outside the electric bagpipe player regaled in a leather bondage outfit with pleated black kilt, giant platform boots and sporting a bleach-blond Mohican. They spent the next few days taking us around the various Shires of Western Australia visiting Perth City Centre on train, the luxurious canal town of Mandurah, the beautiful King’s Park Gardens where you can view the whole city and picnic in the beautifully maintained grounds and the trendy marina in super-cool Sorrento where we were treated to the most spectacular gelatino ice-cream. Taking a day trip to Perth by ourselves we hung out at the Western Australia Art Gallery and the Contemporary Arts Institute where outside was displayed samples from the viewfromabove.com, a collection of aerial photographs from around the world taking in natural and human sites of wonder and snapshots of daily life in its myriad geographical locations. We finished our day off with a draught beer (a rarity in Australian breweries) in Northbridge, the entertainment district of the city.
Rich’s Uncle and Aunt live in one of the many retirement villages set up in Australia where people of a certain age purchase the lease of a unit in one of the ‘villages’ that entitles them to full and exclusive access of all the amenities on offer within the complex, ranging from bowling green to swimming pool to pitch and putt golf, a community hall with a class in every possible hobby you could want to take up including separate rooms for dancing, quilting, crafts as well as a bar and kitchen where outside catering companies come in once a fortnight to provide cheap meals and a workshop for the men. The village is staffed by a full time manager and maintenance team but all the activities are organised and arranged by various committees made up solely of residents so that to all intents and purposes they maintain their independence. If they go away on holiday their units are checked daily and looked after while they’re away and should they fall ill there is an onsite nursing home to which they can be admitted as part of their contract for the eventuality that one partner may need to move into the home while the other stays in the unit but the two are located within the same grounds. The residents range from people still working wanting to safeguard their future to the very frail. Rich’s Uncle and Aunt happen to be President and Kitchen Manager respectively and subsequently involved in every level of village activities and so we were immediately integrated into village life which suited us perfectly as everywhere we went we were invited in for cups of tea and biscuits and village gossip while we could quite happily join the bowls or golf teams should we want, potter down to the workshop or take advantage of happy hour. In return we shared our computer knowledge with the technophobic generation and earned our keep moving various pieces of furniture about the complex. We integrated so well that we were invited to play the lottery with the villagers and having never played it before in my life thought it would be fun to give it a go and ended up getting three numbers and winning, albeit the princely sum of $12.30, much to the disgust of our newfound friends who have been playing for months without a win! The concept o the village is a fantastic idea and set-up for the elderly or those who want to protect against the onset of age and although fifty years younger than most of the residents, sadly fitted in all too easily!
After a week of being Grandads we decided we had to strike out as the independent young travellers we were and so checked back into the Fremantle Caravan Park in time for the weekend festival. It started off with a beach reggae party on the Saturday and culminated in a carnival parade on Sunday which then turned into a huge Bhangra street party. We made the procession just in time and had a great couple of hours watching the various local groups and communities trot by dressed up to the hilt and dipped in and out of the various street stalls which sold everything from great trilby hats to local honey. We checked into the upstairs bar at The Sail and Anchor just in time for the music to start and after much wiggling managed to wangle a prime view on the balcony above the stage. A few scooners later and we had relocated to the street and were joining in with the strange hippie dancing exhausting ourselves so that we barely had enough energy to drag ourselves back to Stubby for the night.
Our final day was spent in the Caravan Park taking advantage of the free wifi to start the dreaded job hunt...sadly, the job I had been offered on the Australian version of Who Do You Think You Are, had, due to the economic crunch been delayed indefinitely and so not wanting to hang around for what could be weeks or months made the decision to head back to the eastern states and try our luck in the more metropolitan and media-populated cities.
Day 37 – Tuesday 18th November 2008
Fremantle – Margaret River, 200km
We could easily have stayed weeks in Fremantle lounging around in our lovely caravan park, sunbathing on the beach just a stone’s throw from Stubby and wandering into town and lazing the day away in the old arcades or dining al fresco on Cappuccino Strip but we had to start the leg back to the east at some point and so reluctantly wrenched ourselves away. Instead of driving directly back to Norseman on the Freeway we decided to take the longer and more scenic coastal route through south-west Australia and our first stop was 200km south at Margaret River, a famous surfing haunt and popular with backpackers.
The town has a little high street with lots of great eateries and to our excitement a Target Country so we stopped off and had a little nose while we were checking out the Information Centre. Unsure whether to situate ourselves in the caravan park near town (so we could dine out) or near the beach (so we could surf) we took Stubby on a little recce of them both. Ending up at Prevelly Beach we watched the kite-boarders literally surfing through the breaks at Surfer’s Point where the mouth of the river hits the sea, taking on some spectacular waves that were a bit too hardcore for our liking. Moving further down the coastline to Gnarabup Beach we took out our Balinese sarongs and dozed on the beach of the tiny bay where we were sheltered from the fierce winds. When the people next to us started oohing and aahing we sat up and saw beyond the break these huge figures lurching in and out of the water and realised we had finally caught up with the whales. One mad couple took out a canoe and started paddling furiously towards the two playful whales but even from where we sat we had a fantastic view of them without any need to get closer. As we were looking out towards the break we suddenly saw what looked to be a small black fin lurking in the shallows next to an innocent bather...our minds filled with all the scare stories of shark attacks we were on the point of calling out when on further inspection we saw that we thought was a fin was actually the wing of a large stingray munching near the shoreline and so in one view we had both whales and rays to entertain us.
Owing to the signposts warning about dangerous rips we decided that the surf might be a bit too dangerous for beginners on this beach and so set up camp in the caravan park near town, managed by a cranky older lady who threatened to chuck us out of her site if we made so much as a peep after 9.30pm. As we very rarely eat out we decided to treat ourselves and splashed out on pizza and chocolate mud cake at the very swanky Goodfellas, a film buff’s cafe located on an upstairs verandah overlooking the town and still managed to keep the two course meal with drinks to budget. It was nice to have a break from cooking and even more enjoyable to leave the washing up to someone else!

Day 38 – Wednesday 19th November 2008
Margaret River – Denmark, 411km
It’s amazing what you can achieve in a single day with a well behaved Stubby! Started off with a quick dip into The Fudge Factory in Margaret River (the free samples of Cointreau and Cherry were divine!) before recovering from our gluttony with a bit of sloth, sunbathing back in the beautiful Gnarabup beach. Then it was back in the van and winding our way through the luxurious wine regions, the road carving its way through the furrowed orchards, stopping off at The Cidery in Bridgetown where we sampled the locally produced ciders and unable to decide on a favourite bought half a crate so we had a little of everything! With the clinking of glass bottles in the back we set off for Denmark but were slowed on our way by a swarm of flying ants for about 50km who in kamikaze style flung themselves against our brand new windscreen and exploded on the glass so that after just a few minutes of their onslaught we were barely able to see beyond our roo bars. Progress was slow and with the windows wound up made even more frustrating by the sticky heat inside the tin can. The persistent blighters then found a way to enter through the air vents so with wipers and washers on full blast attempting to clear a path through we also had to battle on a second front trying to block the vents and terminate the lives of those that had broken through and were attempting to feast on the reward of the fresh meat inside...Fortunately when we arrived at the beautiful caravan park in Denmark, situated on the rivermouth with colony upon colony of pelicans, the heavens opened and gave Stubby’s face a proper wash as with the heavy water restrictions we had no means of removing the ant carcasses from his eyes! This was then followed by a spectacular series of thunderbursts and lightning strikes that felt as if they were hitting the roof and managed to illuminate the whole interior of the campervan.

Day 39 – Thursday 20th November 2008
Denmark – Albany
Taking advantage of the lax enforcement of checking out we enjoyed a lazy morning before trundling into town, a shabby intersection of chic boutiques with bare-footed hippies wandering around, and pottering for a couple of hours. The Odyssey Second Hand Bookshop emptied the pockets whilst a trip to the local IGA bought several meals with the change and getting hand of the discount fuel system also provided a docket for the petrol station up the road though the enticing 4cents per litre offer only worked out at an 84cent total...
After a put together lunch in Stubby along the riverfront sheltering from the rain we set off for the Pentland Alpaca Stud Farm and turning up in the by then cascading waterfall discovered we were the only visitors for the day. We were given a free bag of pellets to share amongst Beryl the pig, Tyson the Byson, Kimba the Camel and Zabel the Donkey not to mention the herds of jumpy alpacas, greedy goats and steely-eyed kangaroos. My personal favourite however was clambering inside the guinea-pig and rabbit cage and finding myself covered in dozens of bunnies chewing at the tags on my sodden combats. It was a throwback to the golden days of Flip Flap and her many broods and I had to be forcibly stopped from buying a campervan pet. We also timed it so that we were there for the 3pm bottle feeding session and got to help distribute the milk to the guzzling two week old goat kids and were then shown into the koala enclosure where we were allowed to stroke the doped up bearsJ
Leaving the stud farm (without managing to stow away any rabbits...) we headed to Albany for the night and with the weather remaining as miserable as it had been all day contented ourselves with driving around the beachside attractions of what was a surprisingly large conurbation. Striking off for home at the Happy Days Caravan Park we made it to within 300metres of the site when the continual stop-starting in the torrential rain finally provided too much for Stubby and he ground to a halt at the roadside and refused to start. Time to take advantage of the breakdown cover we had stumped out for! Unable to define where exactly we were owing to limited maps and being told that simply saying we were on Highway 1, the circular road that runs the whole perimeter of the country, was insufficient we were pleasantly surprised by the speedy response of the local RAC. As luck would have it as soon as he turned the ignition Stubby decided to spark back into life...and so after checking the engine out, and informing us that the Z20 was the best possible motor to travel the country in, and cleaning up our squeaky fanbelt we were given the ok to go and tumbled into the park which situated on the gentle bend of the river provided one of the best locations we had yet stayed in.
The persistent rain failed to dampen the mood as I received an unexpected phone call from Kane telling me that Amanda was pregnant and then managed to get through to Auntie and congratulate her on her 99th before tucking up in the camper and turning the music up full blast to drown out the sound of the rain on the roof.

Day 40 - Friday 21st November 2008
Albany – Norseman, 902 - km
We aborted our plans to potter through The Great Southern and explore the beaches in Esperance, voted the best in the country, after a second successive day of non-stop rain...Anxious for Stubby not to falter any more the priority was to keep the engine going so that even when he began stuttering in rain that was so thick it felt like boulders smashing against the windscreen we pushed him on even if it meant revving him in second gear all the way. We had a couple of hairy moments where parts of the coastal road had flooded and we had to drive him through the deluge like a 4x4 but by the time we reached Norseman, the beginning of the Nullarbor, the climate was considerably more favourable towards our little antique. Never thought I would have welcomed a desert but after passing through that without any problems last time it almost felt like coming home after the days of torrential rain and subsequent mechanical problems. Just hope I won’t be eating my words over the next couple of days of desert crossing...!

Day 41 – Saturday 22nd November 2008
Norseman - Border Village, 743 km
Back onto the long straight drive across the treeless plain divvied up into manageable 100km legs with plenty of tea stops and conducted under the welcomed cover of the clouds that to our chagrin have been tracking us for the past couple of days but which now were welcomed for they staved off the remorseless beating of the sun. Apart from the wandering emus the only other distraction was the delightful entertainment provided at the gas stations. It must take a special kind of person to work hundreds of kilometres from civilisation and another type to undertake such work in a petrol fuelage where the only visitors are cocky backpackers and strange, introverted Aussie campervans. Our 750km of road today required three petrol stops (and $140 worth of petrol...) of which the first was manned by a young girl with slash marks up both arms and who burst into tears when the cash register failed to work for the customer before me at the till, the second plagued by a gang of bikers who were terrorising the hapless female assistant and the third staffed by another young girl who kept disappearing into the kitchen to eat in between serving the giant queue trailing out of her shop. Needless to say these pitstops are conducted with Lewis Hamilton speed with lightning toilet breaks, quick food replenishments and the minimal amount of time possible actually spent interacting with your fellow travellers and cashiers!
Today I also made the startling discovery that because this particular stretch of road is so flat, and tantamount to taking a train ride, I could actually read when I was the passenger (and arguably also when driving along the 146.6km stretch of straight road!) and so continued to devour Wilbur Smith’s Elephant Song with great gusto after finally finishing Dickens’ ‘Dombey and Son’ which was bought in Nepal and left in storage in Thailand while I wandered about the continent before finally being started on the shores of Indonesia and completed on the west coast of Australia! Bet old Charlie boy never envisaged that it would transcend so many borders with one solitary reader when he was writing it!

Day 42 – Sunday 23rd November 2008
Border Village – Kimba, 844km
Our longest day of driving so far was unremarkable until we hit Ceduna when instead of following the reverse route we had taken to Perth we took the more direct road to Adelaide and cut across the top of the Peninsular following the giant water pipe along the Freeway. As with other Sunday crossings we drove through town after town after town in which everything was closed and evidence of civilisation was non-existent. Well versed we had ample food supplies but came a cropper when using up all our petrol and reserve Gerry can and unable to find any fuel station were forced to halt our plans and camp at the token and unsightly caravan park attached to Kimba’s petrol station which was again served by that unique species of Fuel Proprietors, this time three female generations who tried their utmost not to give us, two young males, keys to the toilet block because we could not provide them with the $10 dollar cash deposit...

Day 43 – Monday 24th November 2008
Kimba – Glenelg, Adelaide, 471km
When your daily and weekly and monthly structures simply revert to packing up the bed in the back and turning it into a two-piece sofa and table dining/living area, hopping in the driver’s seat, putting your right foot on the gas pedal and keeping it there it’s very easy to lose track of time and date. This has been further complicated by the crossing of state borders and working out firstly how many hours to put your watch back and secondly whether they observe daylight savings and thirdly whether to apply the daylight savings to the time alteration. Heading west it wasn’t so much of a problem as with the clocks always going forward we found we had ‘more’ time than we thought but now going back to the east we have been caught out a few times by unexpected setting suns playing havoc with scheduled driving routes - when it gets to dusk you do not want to be driving on the roads because of the susceptibility of nervy kangaroos hopping out in front of you and writing off your twenty-five year old camper. Having ended up in the middle of nowhere at dusk the previous night and forced to drive in the dark for several more kilometres before finding somewhere to camp – with the passenger being on kangaroo spotting alert while the driver dealt with irksome road train drivers - we were again caught out by the time this morning having not adjusted our clocks and finding ourselves waking up at 11am.
A scramble to get on the road and make up time meant that after a heavy few days of driving today’s lighter route had to be tackled in one stretch in order to reach Adelaide before dark again. Rounding the corner of Port Augusta and heading south we hit civilisation again and even found we had to veer off the road onto the dust verge to avoid a convoy of police cars escorting lorries transporting houses across the country!
Treated ourselves to a quick Afternoon Tea stop off in Port Wakefield where we had enjoyed a break on our previous route through at a fantastic bakery. Choosing a fruity rock cake that reminded me of Mum’s home baking and a custard slice we did not have enough money to pay and demoralised by the prospect of having to relinquish one the kindly cashier asked if we were travellers and upon affirming were told that she had done a lot of that herself in her youth and knew what it was like and told us just to hand over what shrapnel we had and call it quits! In one fell swoop she undid all our reservations concerning previous customer service outlets on our journey!
Arrived in Adelaide by the late afternoon and decided this time to avoid the city centre and instead head to the beaches in order to experience a different area. Glenelg is a very new and flash marina that is to Adelaide what Freo is to Perth: young, cool and trendy it appeals to backpackers and the wealthy locals with its sparkling harbour, vast array of al fresco bars and restaurants and a giant sandy beach with every conceivable sport, water and sand based, being conducted. The huge jetty was filled with Asian crabbers and we enjoyed a couple of hours wandering about the town and watching the world pass by.
Our caravan site was a giant, sprawling resort just a couple of kilometres north of Glenelg with tennis courts, swimming pools, bouncy castles and every amenity you could conceive of. As part of the Big 4 chain it also held the same shower blocks being pumped with 80s music that we had loved when staying at one in Melbourne. Situated on the same glorious beachfront as Glenelg we set up Stubby for the night and went for a long barefooted walk along the coast before returning and taking advantage of the flash BBQ apparatus to enjoy a late night meat feast.

Day 44 – Tuesday 25th November 2008
Glenelg – Grampians, 547km
Turns out that driving bare-footed is not such a great idea after all...On big driving days where all you are doing is following one deserted road through desert/scrubland we had taken to driving bare-footed as your feet get very sweaty very quickly in socks and shoes and driving in ‘thongs’ is hazardous. Unfortunately, the arch of the foot required to press down on the gas pedal for hours at a time seemed to have strained the side of my foot which had been exacerbated by last night’s long walk and so I woke up not being able to put any weight on it and hobbling around. This was problematic for the driving as even with the support of shoes I could only drive for a few kilometres without being in too much pain and so poor Rich took the brunt of the driving today.
An uneventful and much shorter drive saw us arrive at the Grampians again. Even though we knew what to expect this time we were still both blown away again as seemingly out of nowhere these gigantic, gnarled mountains rose up onto our horizon and soon engulfed us in their twisting narrow roads. With hundreds of kangaroos lining the roadsides progress was slow but eventually we reached the Halls Gap Caravan Park where an invasion of flying ants at the BBQ hut forced us to finish off cooking in Stubby before heading to the one bar in the mountains and toasting a successful completion back and forth across the Nullarbor with an ice-cold beer!

Day 45 - Wednesday 26th November 2008
Grampians, 0km!
After several days of heavy driving and with the unfortunately all too imminent joys of job and flat hunting nearly upon us we decided to spend a day in the Grampians, nestled in the valley of the craggy mountains soaking up the sun and making the most of our last full day of ‘holidaying’ before the serious stuff kicks in.
Normally because we only spend one night in a place we have to check out by mid-morning so it was a luxury not to have any alarm clock and simply wake when the sun warmed Stubby’s belly! A lazy day of reading, writing and sunbathing restored our batteries and helped clear the plans for our three-pronged assault on getting work, residence and selling our beloved camper. After a hard day’s graft a little hobble took us to the ice-creamery where we indulged in a couple of Stairways To Heaven (white chocolate ice-cream with chocolate chip and caramel pieces) which did nothing for the newly self-imposed dieting. Forty days sitting in a camper eating patisseries and Allen sweets has done nothing for the figure and with hordes of exercisers getting into beach-shape everywhere we go it is time to hit the salad and running shoes (healed foot permitting...) and burn off the middle tyre. Using the excuse that I am travelling and experiencing all the culinary delights of my pursuits I no longer have a scapegoat and what with getting back to the real world decided it was best just to coincide all one’s miseries at once!

Day 46 – Thursday 27th November 2008
Grampians – Melbourne, km
Back into the hustle and bustle of city life we headed straight to St Kilda’s for the combination of beaches and backpacker ambience. Sadly the water was not the cleanest and so we decided to have a nose around prospective living areas getting better acquainted with the patisseries on Acland Street, the coffee shops on Fitzroy Street, the beaches of Elwood and the frantic pace of Prahan’s Chapel Street.
We met up with a friend we had made on our first trip to Melbourne and sat in a coffee shop catching up when the sun disappeared under a storm of golf-ball style hail, typical of the sudden and dramatic Melbournian meteorological schizophrenia. Invited to stay the night for free in the hostel she worked in we were introduced to her room-mate who worked at a cafe called Banff and took advantage of the friends-of-friends perk with mates rates pizzas and free wine. While they went to work we checked in to the funky George Cinema and watched the new Bond film before returning to Banff and meeting the rest of the hostel crew over several pitchers and enjoying a private lock-in. The party continued back at the hostel until the wee hours of the morning with free Banff sparkling wine and where amongst many others we met a German whose campervan had exploded in Darwin and who had lost everything in the fire only a month previously and made us feel guilty for abandoning poor Stubby to the secret free-parking road outside for the first time since acquiring him.

Day 47 – Friday 28th November 2008
St Kilda’s – Greenvale (Melbourne)
After the adventures of last night it was a bleary-eyed start to the day compounded by the realisation that we had promised to host breakfast in Stubby to our newfound friends. With no-one backing down from the deal we found ourselves in the supermarket shopping for food and wondering how we would fit everyone in the campervan. With a bit of creative tidying we managed to squeeze everyone in and served up a breakfast of bacon and egg sarnies with tomato and avocado salad and an impressive range of bevies to suit everyone at the less than impressive time of 1pm...
The rest of the afternoon was spent exploring the northern suburbs as potential residential areas before meeting up again with Rich’s former Nanny and her family where as the only non-drinker of the night ended up having to drive them home from Chartreuse in their automatic 4x4!

Day 48-49 – Saturday 29th – Sunday 30th November 2008
Melbourne
A relaxing weekend spent chilling from the drive and having a celebratory BBQ in the family friend’s home that we had help move.

Day 50 – Monday 31st November 2008
Goulburn
After a lazier morning than planned we were unable to get to Sydney by the end of the day and ended up spending a night in a completely characterless caravan park devouring the precious crumbs of our last remaining stock and avoiding another supermarket splurge.

Day 51-55 – Tuesday 1st – Sunday 6th December
Forestville, Sydney
Arrived in Sydney just in time for Braedon and Tandia to open their Advent Calendars and then the following day helped Paul, reluctantly, celebrate his birthday which culminated in a family meal at the local Chinese restaurant where we provided a Warringah Mall baked chocolate cake as our contribution before retiring to Paul’s bar and becoming acquainted with his vast stock of whiskey.
Before we could plan the next stage of our adventures we had to check Stubby into Paul’s local garage as he was beginning to drag in the higher gears. We were informed that the universals on our driveshaft had gone (?) and sadly had to leave him on the operating table for the day as they fixed him and billed us with a triple figured sum that winded our well-worn wallets.
Fortunately this blow was softened slightly by the prospects of employment as after all the resumes I sent out I finally received some calls. The first one was with a lady called Shelley who is a best-selling author and travel presenter who runs her own independent production company, called Happy TV. I turned up at her house for the interview and was hit by a two-hour hurricane of Shelley-world which involved holding twenty-seven conversations at once which invariably spawned a whole host of speculative ideas that were discussed in the same haphazard style punctuated by a series of celeb anecdotes and name-droppings. To compound the bizarre nature of the interview her disabled son sat in on the ‘meeting’ grilling me about my film choices and somehow amidst this tangle of conversation, that I was unable to unravel from one breath to another, she offered me the spare room in her penthouse flat (complete with use of the multiple swimming pools, tennis courts and gyms in the complex) while I found myself a flat in the city. Eventually I managed to extricate myself from the interview where I was promptly offered the job of working for Happy TV as apparently I had secured the position simply on the phone call prior to arriving...A fledgling company with a 27 part travel series was enticing but the hyper-smiley enthusiasm was exhausting and so I managed to politely say that I would have to think about it. The second interview, on the other hand, could not have been more different. For a start the show was a home-renovation show for people in financial distress who, as part of the package, would additionally receive advice on how to climb out of their debt. Secondly it was held in the office of the Series Producer of the huge show over here called Domestic Blitz who did not smile once and whose interview technique involved probing questions that someone on the back of an eight-month jolly had forgotten how to respond to. The nail in the coffin was sealed when he delivered his parting comment that it was a “good time to be looking for jobs as the television industry was in the most commissionable state he had seen in the past five years and there were plenty of opportunities...”
Seeking an anaesthetic for this disaster we ventured out to Manly for the day where a day of sun, sea and surf would be sure to eradicate the all too non-distant memory. Unfortunately some of the negative connotations must have been picked up by Stubby as we tried to park. After suffering the horrific labyrinth of toll roads (and running up a hefty fine that we had enormous difficulty trying to pay as you have to ring up each individual toll road which as a visitor to the city is often difficult to work out where you are let alone what roads you have been on!) in the previous days of travelling to interviews he spat all of his dummies from the pram as we tried to find a parking space. In Australia you have to park facing the direction you are travelling in so after finally spotting a space on the opposite side of the road I jumped out to stand in it and hold it while Rich drove round the roundabout at the end. As he did so the passenger door flung open and because Stubby is so wide he was unable to reach across and close it and spun round the circle of wide-eyed al fresco cafe customers trying to grab everything that was flying out of the door. Once this drama had subsided, and we claimed our spot and walked down the other way of the road to avoid the accusing glares, I began to recall the days we had spent here when staying in Sydney previously in 2002: from the action of the Surf Rescue team saving a father and daughter from the rips to the invasion of bluebottle jellyfish that Mike and I got attacked by as the tannoy system boomed across the beach for all swimmers to get out of the sea. A most peaceful day was spent and followed up by a wander around the buzzing town which was reminiscent of the happy times spent in Fremantle before returning back to Forestville and the question of what to do next.
With the Domestic Blitz pilot spin-off a clear no-no and having deferred Shelley until the New Year we were suddenly faced with an unexpected free couple of weeks and a choice between sensibly spending them trawling for jobs and flats or postponing the onset of reality and continuing on in Stubby up the east coast. Strangely our decision was settled by Paul who said that if we did go off travelling again but returned by the 19th December we could house-sit for them over the Christmas period while they went on their summer holiday for a fortnight. With the prospect of having a multi-million dollar pad (complete with swimming pool, spa, bar and home theatre room) for a couple of weeks for free and as a base from which to scour the city for employment and accommodation the inner travel-bug reared its head whispering innocuously in our heads and we were soon packing Stubby up for an unexpected adventure in the east.

The Adventures of Stubby - Part II

2008-11-10T22:23:00.000-08:00

Day 14 – Sunday 27th October 2008
Greenvale, Melbourne – Torquay, 75km
Our intention to depart on the Saturday was scuppered by an impromptu afternoon spent in the spa with the eski which turned into a BBQ party when the family decided to call in sick to the restaurant and instead spent the night on the decking around the spa with a bottle of JD and Port drinking their restaurant stock dry.
So it wasn’t until the Sunday that we actually left, tearing ourselves away from the luxury we had got accustomed to and setting back on the road where we gave up Chartreuse fry-ups, patisseries and evening dining for our two gas rings and cupboard of tinned and packaged Safeway basics.
To break ourselves back in gently to living in a two metre squared living area we only drove 75km from Melbourne to Torquay (passing through the satellite of Geelong) to where the Great Ocean Road begins. Torquay is famous as the surfing capital of the region and is well known for its great beaches as an urban escape for Melbourne residents owing to its easy commute from the city. We set up camp for the night in the Torquay Caravan Park in a site on the beachfront and immediately went to explore enjoying a walk along the sandy shores in the dusk with a cloud of pesky flies for company before easily slipping back into our routine of dinner and DVD as night set in.

Day 15 - Monday 27th October 2008
Torquay – Warrnambool, 163km
Was as if we woke up in England today! The sky was grey and sullen, the winds snarling and attacking our poor flimsy pop top and our fisherman chairs had been coated in a layer of dirty mud from the rainfall through the blossom trees. We were only just able to recline the pop top when the morning rain arrived, aborting our plans to spend the day exploring the beaches and surf of Torquay, and instead hastened our embracement of the Great Ocean Road.
In spite of the British weather which lingered all day like a wet March Monday the Great Ocean Road proved to be as spectacular as everything we had heard about it. The road literally hugs the coastline from Torquay to Warrnambool, following the stitches of the golden yellow sand and turquoise foaming sea. We had to alternate the driving more frequently than usual so that we could take it in turns to ooh and aah at the scenery and taking motion pictures while the other person grappled with pulling Stubby up u-bend gradients at 25kph with a trail of angry drivers queuing up behind itching to overtake owing to his refusal to climb anything in more than third gear. It was also a novelty to find that we had entered the category of “slower” vehicles and had to pull into the purpose built lay-bys on the sides of the road to allow the nippier and younger cars to pass us by!
We stopped off in Lorne, supposedly the most chic place on the route, for a cake break at The Ovenhouse and struggled with a Blueberry Turnover, which even by my experienced patisserie standards was too big for a single eating, before passing through Apollo Bay (‘Paradise By The Sea’) and the Otway National Park marvelling at the bubbles of surf, deserted beaches and greenery that provided a stark contrast to the heavily water-restricted Melbourne.
We didn’t stop then until we reached the Twelve Apostles. It was one of the recommendations that Dad had given me before leaving and which had stuck in my mind. It was a place he had visited on his travels around Australia with Nic and said I should visit and it was strange to stand on the cliffs and think that this is what they had done when they were about my age. Owing to the awful weather we would have probably driven past it unless I had insisted we stop and it was worth braving the icy cold. The Twelve Apostles are a dozen gigantic rocks off the Port Campbell coast which stick out of the water being battered by an ocean that stretches into the horizon and gives credence to the flat-earth theory. Formerly named the Sow and Piglets they are being eroded at a rate of 2cm/year so that some of the Apostles are little more than underwater stumps, but those that remain visible are an impressive phenomenon that drew in the clouds even on the most intemperate day we had yet endured.
From the Twelve Apostles it wasn’t far winding through the Bay of Islands (littered with poor man’s Apostles) through Port Campbell and ending up in Warrnambool where it seemed impossible to find a campsite for under $30 a night until we ended up in a tiny plot that seemed to be the owner’s converted back garden with a suspiciously lush lawn!
Day 16 – Tuesday 28th October 2008
Warrnambool – Grampian Mountains, 225km
With the whale nursery being sadly out of season our explorations of Warrnambool, an industrial satellite, were confined to our two favourite shops: The Salvation Army and Aldi’s! A pit-stop at the former was required to pick up replacement bowls, the first casualty of over-manning in a confined space, while the latter saw, what was supposed to be a quick stock up on staples, us emerge with a $5 bottle of port, pack of yoghurt and apricot muesli bars and several other unforeseen luxuries...A quick, and reluctant stop at McDonalds, to use the wireless internet was the final detour before we hit the road heading north from the coast for the first time to reach the Grampian Mountains.
Lunch was one of those disappointing Australian venues which according to the map looked like a buzzing hub with plenty of potential for picnic spots but turned out to be little more than an intersection with a handful of shops, requiring us to park up on the main road and make lunch on the pavement. Suffice to say, Dunkeld, held little to captivate and only hurried up our arrival at the Grampians which we reached, by our standards, in good time, ie, turning up only five minutes after the information centre had closed but with our winning smiles persuading them to unlock the doors, let us in and advise us on where to camp.
The Grampian National Park is one of Victoria’s most outstanding natural features with its arches of rugged mountain ranges and forests full of a rich diversity of flora and fauna and was in complete contrast to the open coastal route. Poor Stubby wheezed and huffed his way up the narrow roads as taking advantage of arriving in sunlight we headed to our campsite via two spectacular lookouts. Boroka Lookout is like a real-life Pride Rock with a natural jut out ledge that soars above the valley in which Lake Wartook is sunk and provides a vista of jagged mountain tors as far as you can see whereas Reid Lookout faces the other way and sits in the perfect position to catch sunset.
Dragging ourselves away from the Lookouts we persuaded Stubby to take one more journey before allowing him to collapse in the Smith Mill campsite, a small enclosed clearing in the middle of the forest with a hole in the floor taking place as its amenities block. However, this was compensated for by the sighting of our first emu loitering in the trees surrounding the entrance to our campsite and which looked like a strange hybrid of peacock head and neck upon an ostrich’s body. It was certainly our most remote and adventurous site yet and when the sun disappeared we were cast into utter blackness with a handful of other campers that afforded a sky studded with stars and the necessity of the comedic head torch to provide the most basic of functions in or out of the camper.
Day 17 – Wednesday 29th October 2008
Grampian Mountains
Somehow we managed to sleep in so late that by the time we woke up all but one of our fellow campers had departed so that when Stubby, in protest of being dragged up innumerable vertical climbs the previous day, refused to start we were forced to push him up the incline in the clearing, let him roll and hope that he started. Fortunately, and perhaps sensing the downwards advantage of gravitational pull, he spluttered back into life and passed the seventeen kilometres back to Halls Gap, the ‘hub’ of the Grampians, without any further tantrums.
Treating ourselves to the luxury of showers and electricity we were more than happy to pass the afternoon in the bowels of the mountains enjoying our first proper day of sunshine. With the awning up and fisherman chairs out it was a chance to plough through the sheaves of reading material I had accumulated during our roadtrip and which was threatening to sink poor Stubby. The problem that has emerged is that our daily routine has followed a pretty set pattern of getting up and having breakfast before spending all day driving to our next destination and spending whatever precious daytime (and warmth) remains exploring our new home before locking ourselves back in Stubby when night falls and using the fading light of dusk to cook dinner so that by the time the washing up is done we are cast into pitch black and pass our nights watching a dvd on the laptop. With no time in the day and no light in the evening my reading has sadly fallen by the wayside and so on top of the library of accumulated books I also have an impressive array of magazines, newspapers, cut-out crosswords/su dokus and information desk freebies from three cities and several smaller towns. So it was a most enjoyable evening spent reading outdated Time magazines and The Age newspapers and working out how much my poor saved pounds are devaluing on this trip.
When the sun began to cool we set off for an evening walk doing a lovely loop around the foothills of the brilliantly named mountains (Mt Difficult, Mt Abrupt, Mt Zero) that took us through the botanic gardens, Venus Baths and Splitter Falls. Emerging at the top of the waterfall on the precipice of the black granite rock in the depths of a huge crevice surrounded by giant rising cliffs of rock it was as if setting foot in Jurassic Park such was the archaic desolation and I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a horde of velociraptors emerge out of the bush. On our return the kangaroos had come out to play in the campsite and we spotted our first joey, a fat little whippersnapper who was somehow upside down in his mother’s pouch so that at first we could only see his hoppers before he performed a well-practised 180 and obligingly popped his snout out.
Somehow during our absence our new campsite had been taken over by a horde of OAPs who had commandeered the open BBQ and sunk several gallons of wine and forced us to revert to our speciality of turning yesterday’s carefully saved leftovers into a succulent brand new meal. Sadly, we were deprived of lettuce with our tacos as during the process of removing it from its bag a black spider sprung from the heart causing mayhem in the dark as we tried to figure out where it had gone (and whether it could get back into the camper) and secondly whether it was one of the poisonous redbacks we had been shown during house removals. We also experienced our first theft when a guy passing by our camper asked for a cigarette and somehow in the dark managed to steal our saucepan, sieve and odd bits of cutlery stacked ready for washing up. When it came to do the washing up and we couldn’t find these items it wasn’t until we had hunted everywhere with the torch in the dark that we worked out what had happened and tracing the guy back to his camper to claim them back found them stacked outside his door while he was busy with his girlfriend stole them back and quickly locked ourselves away in the protection of Stubby!
Day 18 – Thursday 30th October 2008
Grampians – Mt Gambier, 243km
Realised today that I have started to develop campervan snobbery! Sat outside having breakfast this morning the comments regarding the neighbouring vans that had arrived or departed overnight just kept falling out of my mouth. Colour (Stubby is the only cream van I have seen yet!), model, accessories, cleanliness all came under surveillance though the biggest culprits were the big, glossy, spick ‘n’ span rented vehicles. After a couple of weeks under the protection of Stubby I have suddenly become contemptible of those less hardy ‘tourists’ who have opted for virtual Winnebago models with complete mechanical and breakdown cover in their hefty rental payments. In contrast we are hardcore travellers rattling around in our vintage van with various parts dropping off in each place we pass through. Commending myself on opting for the “full experience” package I received the inevitable egg on the face when Stubby once again woke up disgruntled and with a flat battery and only when we both pushed him down a hill and our mad Aussie neighbour jumped in the front did to start him did he whirr into action though for a horrible moment it looked like the driver was heading straight for the boom gate of the caravan park and only missed it with a last moment swerve that took him hurtling into the main road where fortunately there was no traffic and we were able to catch up and take over the reins.
Not wanting to stop lest our battery deflate again it was a solid journey through to Mount Gambier which was unremarkable except for crossing over the border into Southern Australia. Spotting the heavy quarantine warning signs we pulled over 2km prior to the border and taking an impromptu lunch, not wanting to waste valuable reserves, devoured all the fruit and veg we had on board except for the last remaining carrots...
Our entrance into South Australia was bizarrely paved through plantations of dark green pine trees, not something you automatically associate with the arid, scorched bushland of a desert state, and Mount Gambier being the first major town across the border we weren’t long driving. Having discovered the campers trick of getting up early and arriving at your destination early enough to make the most of the day we had a leisurely afternoon exploring the electric blue (almost purple) volcanic crater lake that is its feature point (complete with monument built to a local depressive who jumped horses up and down the crater for kicks before throwing himself off into the waters one day) and then a more ramshackled walk around the town looking at the less aesthetically grabbing, though supposedly equally infamous, caves. Overgrown and cut-off to tourists they stand as gaping caverns in the middle of high streets and residential suburbia that are neither particularly interesting to look at or well maintained. Still, it was our first proper exploration of small town Australia with its ancient high street of niche retail outlets, snail-pace atmosphere and genetically odd-looking locals. Its charm did begin to grow as we accustomed to the hum-drum ambience and nestled in a delicious cafe sampling the local beef pies before heading back to our genial caravan site for reading and yoga.

Day 19 – Friday 31st October 2008
Mt Gambier – Adelaide, 450km
Stubby might have cracked the egg on my face yesterday but today he bought a baker’s dozen and smeared them all over until the yolk was pouring back out of my eyes...For the third successive day he refused to start and once again calling upon the unqualified helpfulness of our fellow campers had to push him down a hill to get going. When he finally did decide to start it was with a big red warning light around the brake sign...Concerned about our imminent crossing of the Nullarbor Desert we decided we couldn’t keep risking it and pulled into the garage on the opposite side of the road to get it checked out. A top up of brake fluid banished the red light but while we were there we decided to test the battery: the reading came back a quarter of the strength it should be and so a week after replacing the weekend we had to kit Stubby out with a new battery (which fortunately was on super special offer and didn’t dent our pockets too much).
Two and a half hours and 200metres since we left the caravan site we were able to get on the road. The 450km journey was the longest we had undertaken yet and required multiple swapping overs of driver and passenger to prevent boredom on the long Roman roads cut straight through the Coorong National Park. Lunch was endured by the pelican observatory just past Salt Creek with no pelicans and an overpowering salty-swamp smell that permeated the van even with all the doors and windows closed. In fact little remarkable can be said about this particular route boring through miles and miles of scrubland spruced up with the occasional roadkill carcasses at various states of decomposition providing an detailed anatomy of the kangaroo and explicit governmental (road signs warning against drowsy driving with a myriad slogans, fonts and pictures to put you off ever wanting to drive with the slightest fatigue. As with all Australian campaigns (smoking, obesity etc) the advertisements are overzealous in both their graphic depiction and warmongering attitude which is leant a bit of humour by the unusual sponsorship – a tad hypocritical that McDonalds fund warnings about roadkill whilst pumping people full of cholesterol packed, artery choking goodness...?
The only other point of note was the unseemly weather. I will never tolerate listening to an Aussie criticise the British weather again after weeks of miserable, cold, wet days since leaving Sydney. Back in the full regalia of trousers, hoody and hat with the heating turned up it could easily have been a typical winter day back in the UK. Where yesterday the cross winds were so powerful that every time a lorry passed on the opposite side Stubby got sucked in and then spat back out by the vacuum effect today it was the perpetual showers that burst out of nowhere and smeared the windscreen and were especially problematic while trying to change the battery in the garage forecourt.
It was a relief to get to Adelaide and fortunately having rung ahead to book a spot, the last site, in the city’s most central caravan park we avoided the frustration of having to find somewhere to spend the night. It meant we had plenty of time to unwind and make dinner before having a night out in north Adelaide on the buzzy Melbourne Street strip. Taking advantage of the special offer $5 schooners in a deserted sports bar we then headed to a chic and trendy bar at the other end of the strip gaining an insight into both ends of the spectrum.
Day 20 - Saturday 1st November 2008
Adelaide
Warnings from the scary woman at the Adelaide Caravan Park had us up and early and raring to go without even taking into account the extra half hour gained by crossing a state border that we had been oblivious to. Parking in the city we set out on foot to explore, rummaging around Rundell Mall, the main shopping precinct, snoozing in the afternoon sun (which after all my grumblings yesterday was shining in full bloom) and stopping for lunch in the bustling Central Market where I sampled my first “delight” – fruit juice served with natural yoghurt.
My only knowledge of Adelaide prior to visiting it was that it is the birthplace of the indomitable Lleyton Hewitt but a night and a day spent and I had fallen in love with it, gaining a homely attachment that I hadn’t yet felt in Australia. I don’t quite know why that was but a combination of warm sun, quirky shops and cafes with student prices and a good balance of concrete and greenery probably had something to do with it. Such was the attachment that we aborted our plans to depart today and instead returned to the caravan park to linger for another night.
Dinner was hand on the swanky Gouger Street in a fantastic little Chinese restaurant with giant portions for dwarfish prices and a cheap and cheerful selection of wine carafes. Trying to find some of the live music that the city is renowned for we ended up stumbling into a student packed night at The Astral where there were generous servings of beer pitchers and club remixes. Because of its compact size we were able to walk everywhere throughout the night taking in the different sectors and discovering that Adelaide is a city without the big city frustrations.
Day 21 - Sunday 2nd November 2008
Adelaide – Port Augusta, 325km
Mass in the St Francis Xavier Cathedral was replete with the Viennese Choral Society which was a pleasant start to the day before packing back into the Stubster and heading north-west although only after having had the unique privilege of discovering that private newsagents add an extra fee onto the sale of newspapers; buying a $2 The Australian Weekend I was charged $2.40 and when I pointed to the printed fee on the front page strapline the woman simply shrugged her shoulders and said they had to make their money somewhere!
Arrived at Port Augusta in the evening and were duly entertained by a pair of kite-surfers with their combi van on the lake outside our site. Sadly this was all by way of entertainment that the campsite, lauded in our guide book, could provide as even the Great Flying Doctors base seemed to have disappeared since it was last updated. Having read up about the great BBQ facilities we treated ourselves to Coles’ finest selection of reduced meats before closing time, our latest budget-saving lightbulb, only to find ourselves cooking in a swath of swirling red dust blown up by the vicious winds in a dodgy BBQ machine that only took one dollar pieces and ate our last one without even turning the sausages brown. Finishing off the meal in the frying pan back in Stubby we were forced inside by a combination of the weather and the screaming couple next door having a domestic through the wafer-thin canvas of their tent.

Day 22 - Monday 3rd November 2008
Port Augusta – Mikkira Station, 393km
Given the impending crossing of the Nullarbor which will require relentless driving we decided to treat ourselves to a few more days grace and pootle up and down the Eyre Peninsula rather than cut across the top and hit the desert directly. Named after the 1841 expedition by John Eyre who completed the first overland crossing between south and west Australia it is aAtriangular mass of National Parks, rugged landscapes, gorgeous beaches and the whole caboodle of Australian flora and fauna the Peninsular combined everything we were looking for in our roadtrip.
Our first stop was at Whyalla, the state’s second biggest town, which isn’t saying much as apart from its hideous steelworks it had all the buzz of Oaklands Grandstand on a Tuesday night though it did give us a taste of what to expect crossing the desert as the farmland gave way to a landscape as afar as the eye could see of red dust broken up only by the occasional stubborn small bush. This was more than compensated for by a lunchbreak at Port Neill, a true smalltown Australian village in every sense. With a long jetty jutting out over the white sand and turquoise sea and a scattering of bungalows along the coast it was both picturesque and relaxing.
Following the coast all the way down to the tip we reached the more bustling Port Lincoln which is famous for its annual January Tunarama festival where locals do everything possible to the abundant shoal of tuna from caber-style tossing to fancy dress... We only stopped for chocolate gateaux and coffee before heading to the Mikkira Koala Sanctuary to camp. Our plan had been to spend the night in the National Park but this was advised against by the friendly Sheila in the Tourist Information Shop as the Park is designed for 4x4 rather than twenty-five year old collectible campervans...So instead we opted for the far more intriguing prospect of sleeping with the koalas! Not knowing what to expect we had to follow a run of unsignposted dirt tracks leading away from the Park and into the ubiquitous scrubland so that for kilometres we were unsure whether we were even lost or heading in the right direction. All of a sudden a signpost popped out from behind a gum tree and letting ourselves in through the gates we entered the sanctuary. Formerly a homestead for the shepherds to look after the land’s sheep the area has been privately owned by the Theakstone family since the 1920s who in the late 1960s took in two koalas from Kangaroo Island and now have a thriving wild population of 150 which acts as a massive tourist attraction for those people who want to see them in a wild and natural environment and be able to camp amongst them. With no-one being in the tiny little office we signed ourselves into the permit book, left our money and took the map to try and find where we could camp. As we entered further and further into the sanctuary we realised that we were the only residents that night and ended up, somewhat eerily, parking Stubby in the middle of a grassy field surrounded by gum trees. Fortunately, the current owner, a glamorous granny called Bett, was on her way back from the sheep pens with her dog Emma lolling on the back of her truck and stopped to have a chat and advise us. As soon as we had set up camp we went for a stroll and within minutes had spotted our first dozy koala. Once you knew where to look you seemed to find them in every tree; from grumpy Grandads annoyed at being photographed to greedy guzzlers propped up on the flimsiest of boughs stretching out for the eucalypt leaves not yet munched to mothers with babies clinging to their backs. We completely lost track of the time wandering around the field, following the nature trail and walking down to the old homestead and windmill and not once losing enthusiasm for the spotting of every koala. Having spent all day driving it made every minute of the journey worthwhile and completely vindicated our choice of route. There was something magical about this forest of gum trees with their guardian bears with tufty ears, stick-on noses and big fat bottoms nestled in crooks of trees in the fading light. Combined with the olde worlde feel of the sanctuary, which was an antidote to the polished cities we have mainly spent our time in and the fantastic Bett who single handedly manages the whole sanctuary it was one of the best days I had enjoyed yet since touching down in Australia.

Day 23 - Tuesday 4th November
Mikkira – Streaky Bay, 363km
The cuteness of the koalas had slightly lost its appeal after their pig-like grunting throughout the night had made us feel like we had spent a night surrounded by wild rutting boars but jumping back out in the daylight and going on another koala watch they were soon redeemed. The weather had changed and rough winds picked up so that the poor things were clinging on for dear life in the nippy gusts.
It was sad to have to say goodbye to Bett and her sanctuary but continuing our Attenborough pursuits we were aiming to drive up the west coast of the Peninsular to where the only Australian sealion colony lives.
This route wound up the opposite coastline and unfortunately our planned lunchbreak in the tiny little village of Elliston was marred by a gigantic thunderstorm. Venturing out only to the bakery for dessert we were suitably scared by the strange spaced out look of all the locals who eyed us warily and quickly carried on our way. As we took the turn-off to Point Labatt, home of the sealions, we left behind the tarmac and vague notion of traffic for gravel dirt tracks and only the occasional squashed lizard for company. Stopping off to visit the spectacular 1500 million years old Ingelstone rocks hewn out of pink granite we found ourselves plunging further down the off-piste paths as a full tropical storm broke out with bolts of lightning crashing down seemingly on top of poor Stubby. As we reached the crossroads that divided us between Port Labatt and Streaky Bay, our intended night stop, we realised we had less than a sixth of a tank full of petrol with no spare canister on board. With the storms still threatening and evening catching up we reluctantly had to give the sealions a miss and hope we had enough fuel left to get us to the nearest town. Gambling on taking a small detour to Sceala Bay where a pump was listed in the guide book our hearts fell when we turned up to see an ‘Out of Service’ sign nailed above it. With no other choice but to head back into the maze of dirt paths and try and navigate our way back to Streaky Bay we turned poor Stubby around. As mobile network failed to appear and the constant hammering of the uneven roads bounced various screws out of their holdings (so that I spent 20km holding onto the clock that fell out of the ceiling and was smashing against the windscreen by its dangling bare wires) we were prepared to have to sleep the night out in the middle of nowhere and hope to hail down a friendly local the following day when with the last ounces of petrol we rolled into Streaky Bay!
Sadly we had arrived so late that the famous streaks of seaweed for which it is named weren’t apparent though the appearance of a flock of pelicans helped compensate for the absence of sealions and we enjoyed a lovely evening walk along the beach under the stars before turning in for a well earned rest!

Day 24 – Wednesday 5th November 2008
Streaky Bay – Border Village, 611km
Stubby embarked on his most gruelling test yet as not only did we tackle our longest kilometrage yet but we also left behind the Eyre Peninsula and with it all semblance of civilisation, amenities and aid as we set out into the Nullarbor Plains.
The first leg to Ceduna was still within the remit of the Eyre Peninsula and was a good chance to test Stubby out as in spite of his new battery he had refused to start again in the morning... Stopping off to stock on all the essentials for crossing the desert (including a brand new petrol cap as Rich had somehow forgotten to put it back on at the last petrol station...) it was a relief to hear him start without a grumble and so with tyres pumped, water tank filled and petrol tank full, plus a jerry can containing a spare 20 litres of petrol, we set out.
On our way out of the koala sanctuary we met a seasoned Aussie caravaner who, admittedly in his super-duper deluxe caravan with extension, 4x4 and boat, advised us not to rush the Nullarbor as it was a beautiful attraction in its own right. This was in stark contrast to every comment from other Aussies we had received when mentioning our plan to drive across it and as we started out we realised he had been right. Known as the treeless plain (null arbors) the landscape suddenly gave way to a flat plain of scrubland with a tarmac road running straight through towards the horizon. To be able to look as far as the eye can see in every possible direction is an incredible opportunity, especially compared to the claustrophobia of London, and instead of being bored by the route we both found that it passed much quicker than anticipated and were astonished that when we stopped for the night we had travelled over 600km. Just before we reached our nightstop we pulled over to the clifftops running almost parallel to the road and picking our way through the dusky thickets of gorse-like bushes almost fell down onto the beach. It was one of the most spectacular views I have ever experienced. As we looked towards the setting sun we could see it drowning in a plume of magenta nestling against the silhouetted bays and crashing seas. I felt as if I was seeing a land that no human had ever touched such was its perfection as looking in one direction provided this incredible sunset the other stretched out across the acres of flat blue sea stretching to the seeming end of the world.
It was a lovely way to finish our first day which instead of being the trial and danger everyone had scared us into believing had actually afforded a beautiful panorama of a unique landscape that in itself offered that rare opportunity to think without distraction. Pulling up into Border Village (marking the boundary between South and Western states) we set about making a gigantic burritos mix of all our vegetables before quarantine confiscates them tomorrow that will also fuel us for day two of the crossing!

Day 25 – Thursday 6th November 2008
Border Village – Norseman, 741km
Stubby made it! We made it! After nearly 750km of driving through the barren scrubland of the desert we emerged back into civilisation unscathed and actually having quite enjoyed this part of the journey.
It began early in the morning as we hopped from the Border Village campsite to quarantine where we passed with flying colours and a bellyful of fresh fruit salad breakfast and then sallied on into the plains. I thought we had encountered some straight roads on our travels but they really aren’t joking when they say that the crossing to Western Australia is one big road across the desert. With barely a deviation of curvature to break the seemingly neverending stretch of tarmac we relied instead upon the creative entertainments provided by previous travellers in the form of dead roadside trees decorated with either various garments of underwear or bric-a-brac. We also adopted the Nullarbor road of etiquette by madly waving at every other vehicle passing by in the opposite direction and being particularly pleased by reciprocate gestures from Ironman cyclists crossing the plains with their haversacks strapped across the back wheel. Our adventures could have been spiced up by picking up the over-bearded hitch-hiker found at various points along the road as we overtook and were overtaken by him on his innumerable carriages but sadly I’ve watched far too many horror slash-flicks to indulge in such generosity and so our amusement came instead from the smalltown Australian banter experienced at the roadside pitstops we made. Stranded in the absolute middle of nowhere the attendants all verged on the edge of eccentric from the unfortunate appearance of being inbred to the desperation at seeing new faces outside of their regular passing-through truckkies. Suffice to say two random British guys pulling up seemed to be the highlight of their day and without knowing they also acted as a much welcomed distraction.
The actual journey itself was one of those incredible once-in-a-lifetime opportunities where your surroundings are so unbelievable that you cannot quite believe what you are seeing and experiencing. It felt as if the $36 million road was an insignificant tributary traced onto the sprawling red rock and scorched gorse scenery that at times looked hallucinogenic or like the landscape of a video game such was its surreal quality. This was enhanced by the mirage effect of the heat which at times turned the end of the visible road into the same colour as the sky so that it felt if we continued we were going to soar into the sky a la Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Factor in a couple of gigantic eagles feasting on kangaroo steak and the bulbous kamikaze lizards dragging themselves across the road and the day had ended before we had even realised it had begun. Even my leg, which included the indomitable 150km line of tarmac that proudly announces itself as the country’s longest straight road, seemed to defuse the physics of time and space continuums as the vast swathes of the fearsome Nullarbor were soon behind us and we were tucked up into the Norseman Caravan Park making the most of the extra hour and a half sleep gained by crossing the state border.

Day 26 – Friday 7th November 2008
Norseman – Fremantle, 763
Twenty-six days after leaving Sydney we completed our coast to coast route with one final gruelling leg of driving taking us all the way to the setting sun just south of Perth. We left the desert behind for lusher climates though the warnings about wild camels crossing the road prevailed. The camels were brought over by the Afghans during the goldmining rush and when they realised they were too expensive to take back home set them wild in the desert so that they now serve as hazards for motor vehicles droning down the highways. We stopped off in Southern Cross which was typical of one of the many ghost towns built up during the gold craze and now stands desolate with only its archaic mine shafts providing any point of focus for drivers passing through.
In the car all day for the third day in a road by the end of the afternoon we had become a bit blasé about it all to the extent that when we pulled off after an exchange of drivers we drove for several minutes down the highway before realising the side door was wide open and all our worldly belongings perilously close to tipping out onto the road! Suffice to say, landing in Fremantle couldn’t arrive sooner and so when we finally reached the Fremantle Village caravan park it was a relief to finally stop and even the office’s failure to register our prior booking by phone didn’t matter as we collapsed into our swanky campervan site.

The Adventures of Stubby!

2008-10-25T22:26:00.000-07:00

The “second half” of my adventures began in style with a trip on the new double decker A380 plane courtesy of Singapore Airlines to Sydney. The plane was so gigantic that it didn’t even bear thinking how it might get off the ground so I immersed myself in the library entertainment system catching up on some good old British classics that passed the night journey.
We arrived at 6am having not had much sleep and encountered our first obstacle when hauled up at customs for our dodgy looking spice collection that was summarily confiscated but met Rich’s uncle without any problems and were soon catching up on sleep in their house in Kensington.
As we were homeless, jobless and penniless upon arrival the first couple of weeks in Sydney were spent putting in the elbow grease to find flats, jobs and a campervan to begin the first leg of our travels around the country.
In spite of this we managed to explore the city taking in the typical tourist attractions of the Opera House, Darling Harbour (which was far too smart to accept my traveller scruff attire in the evenings), Coogee and Bondi beaches (where the water was colder than Hythe beachfront), National Gallery (attending a brilliant Tibetan film exhibition), Cathedral, shopping malls, The Great British Sweet Shop, casino and theatre to see the hilarious ‘Priscilla: Queen of the Desert ‘ musical which was an ominous introduction to driving across Australia!
In between we managed to suss out a few potential areas to live and fired our CVs to every prospective channel but the main emphasis of our efforts was directed to finding a campervan as we had reversed our decision to work before travelling owing to the disinclination to drive across 40 degree Australia in a can over the height of summer. This required strict monitoring of gumtree and the skulky lower basement Kings Cross Car Market where shabby travellers returning from months in the outback were desperate to flog their clapped out vans at extortionate prices. After much searching we found a beautiful specimen called Daisy who had just carried a family around the east coast and so was in much better condition than the backpacker equivalents and came equipped with every luxury you could need. Making a gentelman’s deal with the Kiwi owner we thought we could relax until we got the money to him but in the interim his mother-in-law fell down a bus, cracked her hip and then suffered severe complications during the emergency operation and so we had to start all over again.
Eventually we managed to track down another van we both agreed on in the town of Wollongong, about 100km south of the city and took the train along the coast to inspect it. Stubby is a 1983 cream Nissan Urvan poptop campervan owned by Gordon Blow, a 75 year old man who was only the second owner of the vehicle and had bought Stubby as a retirement treat so he and his wife could travel the country. As a consequence it was immaculately looked after and the cleanest car we had seen throughout our trawling; it also had a long rego (which helped us get round the extremely difficult problem of registering a vehicle when you are not a resident), personalised numberplate and a reliable motoring history backed up with the paperwork. On the flipside it lacked most of the necessary interior extras , was at the very top of our budget and hadn’t been on a long drive for eighteen years – Gordon having just ticked over the necessary mileage per year to keep it roadworthy – which left us dubious about whether it would survive our epic plans!
Whilst not our preferred choice, with time running out and reaching the end of our tether with the gruelling daily search process, we compromised and knocking a $1000 dollars off the asking price (and also gaining some bedding courtesy of pandering to the wife) found ourselves the proud owner of a new van. With a two ring gas stove and grill, large fridge, pull out awning with fisherman chairs, two man tent, storage box on the back, sink with pumped water and two sofas that pulled out into a giant double bed we had everything on board, it was just a question of working out how it all fitted. The irony should not be lost that I have never owned or bought a car in my life and all of a sudden found myself the father of an ancient campervan on the other side of the world...
Without insurance or a map our first adventure required us managing to drive back to Sydney from Wollongong, tackling the highways and city centre! Whilst getting heavily lost once in the CBD sector of town Stubby passed every test and was soon parked outside Rich’s uncle’s house without any mechanical problems. A thorough spring clean, quick shop to the Salvation Army to kit Stubby out with all the kitchen and living accessories and personalisation with Buddhist prayer flags and Balinese sarongs and it felt less like an old Grandpa’s van and more like our home on wheels for the next couple of months!
Before we could set out from Sydney I had to go and pick up my new bank card that mum had posted to Paul and Sindy which saw Stubby traverse the Sydney Harbour Bridge and enter the northern suburbs. Arriving at Forestville later than planned and chinwagging over a pile of chocolate muffins and hobnobs Paul and Sindy invited us to stay the night and ended up finding themselves submerged by a mound of secondhand crockery to be put through the dishwasher, a pile of dirty washing for laundry and a gigantic Nissan Urvan in their driveway whose faulty tail lights perplexed even Paul’s garage of gadgets.
We were thoroughly spoiled during our stay while Paul was in his element tinkering around with the mechanics in his workshop garage (ie, showing us how it worked!) while Sindy was more than happy to empty her old linen cupboard into the van. It gave us a couple of days to ransack the Warringah Mall for ipod adaptor, laptop, fridge and inverter to properly kit Stubby out for the long haul though this wasn’t without its problems as my card having not been used for over a month was suddenly stopped as I attempted to pay for our electronic goods because of suspected fraud! Only ringing Nationwide for the millionth time was I able to convince them that I was the purchaser though this took so long to authorise that the shop had closed by the time I came off the phone and we were sadly forced to spend another night in Paul’s bar/cinema.
It was lovely to see Tandia and Braedon, though their method of waking us up in the morning by throwing their entire collection of stuffed animals until we got out of bed was less desirable. Went to watch Braedon play a football match and was eerily taken aback by the uncanny similarities to Dom at that age; the nippy speediness, fearlessness in tackling boys twice his size and complete obsession with the ball to the exclusion of absolutely everything else.
Dropping Tandia and Braedon off at school on the Monday we continued back to the Warringah Shopping Mall and completed our shopping. Dropping into the NRMA store to buy our insurance and road assistance policy we were served by the indomitable Christine who in between setting up our details relayed her life story, argued with her bank over the phone about their poor customer service, gossiped about her regular customers who popped in to say hello and pulled her poor colleague Leisha into every conversation. She informed us that she was sorry to say that since the shop had installed CCTV cameras she was no longer able to give away freebies like she used to do (freebies being camp books worth $80!) but then disappeared into the back office and emerged with a couple of drinks bottles and $70 of maps saying it was “all she could find.” She rounded off our experience by then taking advantage of a loophole in her computer system to guarantee us a way of not having to pay the cancellation fee should we wish to stop our yearly insurance policy!
By the time we got back to Paul and Sindy’s laden with shopping and sorted out my laptop it was mid-afternoon. Paul, having just had an operation and restricted to crutches, was more than happy to let us stay for as long as we wanted as we were able to help out with the more mobile tasks around the house but before we could get too comfy we knew we had to force ourselves to get on the road and so reluctantly bade them farewell to begin our adventures!

Day 1 – Monday 13th October 2008
Forestville, Sydney to Mittagong – 100km
Having survived the test run from Wollongong back to the city without any apparent mishaps Stubby was deemed roadworthy and began his adventures in true style by making his first proper journey over the Sydney Harbour Bridge as we departed Kensington to find Paul and Sindy (and retrieve my new bank card) with a little detour via the vast warehouse stock of the Salvation Army to kit out our new abode with an artillery of kitchen utensils!
Coming back over the Bridge into central Sydney our first task was to navigate the e-tagging system of bridge and motorway tolls whilst negotiating the post-work rush hour traffic. Circumnavigating the airport we finally hit the Hume Freeway and with an hour of daylight left drove as far as we could south towards Canberra before having to pull over. Heading for one of the many campsites signed on the freeway we found ourselves in a caravan park inhabited by permanent scowled residents complete with their nightly bottles of whisky and making as swift a u-turn as possible in a 5 metre van disappeared down an avenue of trees before popping out in the town of Mittengong. It took the services of the friendly petrol station cashier to direct us to the town’s campsite and arriving out of hours we had to buzz for someone to show us how to pitch our virginal first night. Erecting our awning, hooking up our electricity to the mains and cooking on our two ring gas stove were all groundbreaking experiences that even the swirling wind could not prevent us from enjoying as we sat in our fisherman chairs outside Stubby washing our tuna pasta down with vats of tea. The only slight imposition on our night was the intrusion of one of the park’s “residents” who invited himself under our awning with his laundry and in spite of much awkward polite chit chat and less than polite hints for him to leave seemed to have lodged himself for the night. It was only when we both physically retreated into the van itself that he eventually left and we quickly snook out to do our washing up and made a hasty return before we could be caught again.

Day 2 – Tuesday 14th October 2008
Mittagong to Canberra- 180km
Our first full day in the campervan was, to everyone’s surprise, a triumph. This was largely in part to the fact that navigation was reduced to finding our way back onto the Hume Freeway and following it directly to Canberra. There had been a bit of umming and ahhing about whether we should take the prettier, more winding coastal route and avoid the capital but was decided against by a combination of anticipating similar sights on the Great Ocean Road and a desire to visit a city that seemed in our small experience to have been castigated by an overwhelming majority of its country’s inhabitants.
In fact the only excitement saw me take the wheel of Stubby and begin to learn how to manoeuvre our beast on wheels which involved some hairy attempts at hitting third gear and general cultural difficulties in encountering a gear stick on the side of the steering wheel, indicators on the right hand side of the wheel and a wiper button virtually in the passenger’s glove compartment. I felt like I was driving a truck, albeit one with the horsepower of a Shetland Pony, and fifth gear is so far out of my reach that I physically have to clamber over the steering wheel to slot it into place. My first foray was not helped by the epidemic of bright yellow signposts indicating a whole host of kangaroos, wombats and “native wildlife” were preparing kamikaze rushes in front of me for 20km stretches at a time.
Irrespective of these obstacles, literary and literal, we arrived in Canberra by mid afternoon affording ourselves the luxury of exploring the capital while tearfully leaving Stubby on his own for the first time. Our plans were thwarted by the architectural aesthetics of Walter Burley Griffin, the designer who won the lucrative prize to design the capital, as we discovered Canberra is a city not accessible to the pedestrian especially in consideration of the geography of its principal tourist attractions. Venturing out from the car park at the University we had to duck across motorways and clamber over walls in order to reach the pretty lakeside path, replete with blossom floating in the breeze and an army of KiKi cockatoos, that wound around to the National Museum positioned on the peninsular of land tantalisingly close to Capital Hill but frustratingly on the wrong side of the water inlet forcing us to have to trace our footsteps back around the lake towards parliament. The circular road system that surrounds Capital Hill requiring continual dodging of rush hour traffic across the highways meant that we eventually abandoned our attempts to reach the parliament buildings by foot and return to Stubby. The exploration was a not complete waste however as the National Museum provided plenty of entertainment with its revolving postmodern fractured theatre screen and bizarre multicoloured tarmaced Garden of Dreams. Though as far as I could make out from the museum’s hagiography Australia has only four segments of history: the arrival of convicts from England in the eighteenth century, the Gold Rush in the nineteenth century, the establishment of independence at the turn of the twentieth century and then the appalling travesty of the fight for equal rights for the indigenous Aborigines. But the resounding message from the museum seemed to be who needs a history when your country has spawned the world’s greatest and most eclectic collection of animals?! And this was backed up by the giant collection of stuffed platypuses, kangaroos, possums, wombats, koala’s and the world’s last Tasmanian tiger.
Stopping off at the over-friendly Information Centre we were directed to a campsite in the fading dusk and it was only once we had set the van up for the night that we realised we were sandwiched between a race course and the outer perimeter fence of the Canberra Juvenile Prison...So instead of lurking about outside Stubby it was tacos night with a DVD run off the laptop newly charged by our swanky inverter!

Day 3 – Wednesday 15th October 2008
Canberra to Cann River – 293km
Resolved to visit the impressive parliament buildings before we left Canberra we combined our departure through the city with a stop-off at Capital Hill and were glad we hadn’t been deterred by the previous day’s frustration as the building, though an ugly pillared grey from the outside, was a revelation inside. From the Aboriginal 90 000 piece mosaic outside the entrance (symbolising the original meaning of ‘Kamberra’ as ”meeting place”) to the rooftop lawn with double-decker bus sized national flag to one of only four copies of the Magna Carta the building was the perfect combination of old and new, mixing regal stateliness with the traditional Aussie relaxed atmosphere. We were able to access the building for free and it was championed by a militia of staff keen to enable every query thrown at them and even the politicians conducted their wheeling and dealing at the bottom of the staircase without batting an eye as to who was listening. The best find was however the Queen Terrace with to my now finely honed budget eyes Australia’s cheapest food, though sadly we could only scrape together our collective shrapnel to afford a solitary apple and cinnamon muffin which was impossibly light. Well versed in the Forsdike camping tradition of helping oneself to “free” sacheted condiments it was also a coup to pocket a couple of government stamped salts and peppers that sit so well with the Supabarn meals in our twenty-five year old van...
As a consequence of our parliamentarian dalliance it was an afternoon on the road as we aimed for the south coast. The Monaro Highway is fortunately a gorgeous route ploughing through the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales and over the border to the forest-lined valleys of Victoria. The problem with the perennial straight roads and unwavering flat gas pedal is that when you do come across a road marking you either forget completely what it means, ignore it or are thrown into such a panic by its sudden appearance that you tend to overrun any danger it signifies. But the counter blessing of these roads is that the sparseness of traffic means that even when this happens there’s virtually no chance of it being witnessed by anyone else and you can easily conduct your ninety-point turn and get back on track!
Having congratulated ourselves on the brilliance of our navigation and speed we ambitiously decided that once we hit Cann River we would continue on through the Peachtree Creek Reserve to the little campsite perched on the end of the inlet at Furnell Landing. Stubby withstood an additional 20km of winding hairpin bends through the peachtree-less Creek but when we took a wrong turning and ended up on a dirt track designed for 4x4 he began to whimper and with night fast approaching we sheepishly had to head back to the petrol station we had stopped off at on the main road to ask the same attendant where the nearest campsite was and have it pointed out to us a whopping 400m down the road...Delighted to be back in civilisation we even welcomed the usual redneck permanent residents with out-stretched arms as we were finally able to pitch for the night, safe from any Wolf Creek style scenarios...

Day 4 – Thursday 16th October 2008
Cann River to Wilson’s Promontory – 410km
Designated driving day...left Cann River at midday and drove continuously along the Princes Highway taking it in legs with a stop in the clapped out shopping centre of Sale to buy sausages for a simple bangers ‘n’ mash dinner. A pretty drive through the Lakes Entrance with its sparkling blue creeks and waterways and we had emerged into Wilson’s Promontory National Park, Australia’s most popular National Park. We arrived just before dusk and managed to set up the van at Yanakie Caravan Park and enjoy a stroll along the wetlands of the Tidal River entrance where the black swans were sailing along the edges before settling down to our hearty English tea.

Day 5 – Friday 17th October 2008
Wilson’s Promontory National Park
After four days on the road and having covered over 400km yesterday we were both in agreement that we needed a stop-off day out of the van just to explore the country that we were hurtling through (at all of 55mph...) I had particularly suffered with the long driving as prior to Stubby I had probably completed about five two-hour drives in my life and to suddenly find myself tearing up 200km a day was beginning to take its toll. It also meant we could set up the van with the pop-top and awning and establish it as our “home” rather than just our mode of transport. The plan was thwarted first by a flat battery, we presume caused by putting the headlights on to do a spot of midnight washing up, and then secondly by a dwindling of petrol which forced us to detour back towards Foster in order to pick up some more fuel. Finally we made our way into the park and set up base along the beachfront in the organically partitioned individual camp sites. Our first port of call in exploring the park was Norman Beach, one of only a handful of places East Australians can see the sunset, which was only a hop, step and a skip from our van. Sharing the plains of white golden sand in a bay frowned upon by craggy mountain ranges with only two other tourists we were more than spoiled and followed the shore round to the Lilly Pilly Gully walk which wound us through the wetlands and hills up to the Tidal River lookout tor affording an incredible vista of the whole park. On our way up to the vantage point we also came across our first live (and wild) kangaroo who looked most perturbed to have been disturbed but posed eloquently for photos before disappearing off into the scrubland. On descending the viewpoint we continued the walk round to the neighbouring bay of Squeaky Beach, so named for the sound produced by walking on the sand barefoot. Another gorgeous, and eerily desolated beach, was spoiled only by the sounding of the emergency siren which caused us to quicken our pace away from potential bushfires towards the water before it stopped almost as inexplicably as it had begun.
Back to Stubby before dark we cooked up a feast of chicken in tomato, onion, mushroom and garlic sauce with sautéed potatoes, pushing the limits of our kitchen and culinary skills as well as racing against nightfall as we were pitched in a non-powered site so that as soon as the sun set our light (and heat) sources disappeared. As we were hurriedly clearing away the debris to go to bed we noticed a wombat snuffling about just feet from our tent doubling our tally of native wildlife spotted.

Day 6 - Saturday 18th October 2008
Wilson’s Promontory to Melbourne – 250km
Our hallowed spot of isolation became invaded overnight by cars full of families taking advantage of the unseasonably hot weather for a weekend break so while we were reluctant to leave the Park in such good weather the influx of visitors reassured us we had made the right decision as we hit the Princes Highway again. Apart from a brief lunchbreak at a petrol station it was another heavy drive all the way into Melbourne where we managed to drive straight into the centre to find directions to a campsite at Federation Square and then straight back out to the Big 4 Caravan Park in Coburn just in time to shower and change into less sweaty clothes for dinner with Rich’s former nanny at her cafe, Chartreuse, where we ate and drank like kings as their guests!
Day 7-15: Sunday 19th – Sunday 26th October 2008
Greenvale, Melbourne
Under the strict instructions of Rich’s Nanny we were ordered to leave the caravan park and settle ourselves into their guest room where we ended up basing ourselves for a week while we explored Melbourne and continued the job hunt as we spread our baskets of eggs around the television world. The family were lovely and we were made to feel like extended relatives as we joined them for the youngest son’s 17th birthday and helped their best friend move into her brand new house in an attempt to earn our keep alongside helping them open the cafe in the morning for which we were treated to full English breakfasts! We also went to visit the customs office where the daughter works and trains the dogs and were allowed to go into the puppies pens and play with puppies ranging from a few days to a few months old.
Melbourne has far more character than Sydney and is also shabbier and more homely and it was fun enough just to potter about the streets sampling the hundreds of coffee houses (and their mountains of pastries!) and catching postmodern film exhibitions on the moat or wandering through the casino and watching the OAPs flicking the handles or the Vietnamese screaming in the poker room! The foyer also contained an incredible dancing water fountain that spat globules and fans of water out in time to the music.
It would have been rude whilst in Melbourne not to have visited the home of Neighbours and in true clichéd British style we drove Stubby to Pinoak Court aka, Ramsey Street, pulled up outside the Kennedys, put the kettle on the gas ring and sat down for a cup of tea and biscuit with the Ramsey Street cat and security guard before posing for the most ridiculous photos we could muster. Sadly we didn’t manage to make it to the Neighbours themed night where various cast members turn up to an organised club night and allow you to take their photo for vast cover fees and will have to make do with the Busted jump in front of the Bishops’.

The Adventures of Stubby

2008-10-23T23:57:00.000-07:00

Belated tales from Indonesia...

2008-10-22T08:26:00.000-07:00

Just to tidy up loose ends from the previous post Mike and I ended up back in Kuala Lumpur for three days where we opted not to stay in backpacker central and after traipsing around some more homely hostels found ourselves lodging at Pondok Hotel (nothing to do with being situated above a bar with Guiness draught!) a large building with bare rooms but gigantic, relaxing common rooms and a free breakkie:) It later turned out to also have bedbugs, requiring pesticide spray machines, and rats running about the common rooms... It was a peaceful few days spent pottering around the markets, sorting out the next legs of our differing ventures, exploring the Golden Triangle area (and taking comic "boy" photos of the Twin Towers) and indulging in some western fancies, combining giant plasma coverage of the premiership with proper battered cod and chips washed down by a draught pint and topped off with apple crumble and custard. We parted ways at the train station with Mike taking the shuttle off to the airport while I caught an overnight train to Singapore. The train station at Singapore is little bigger than Sandling and surprisingly unconnected to the airport so I had to wander through the city to find an underground station and take two lines before I arrived. At least this afforded me the briefest of glimpses into the city though my limited observations were confined to the startling obedience to traffic lights in which hordes of people line up politely, almost in formation, on the pavement edge and don't twitch a single muscle until the green man appears. Now bred a Londoner who knows that you will never get anywhere in the city without suicidal forays onto the roads to forcibly halt traffic it was a strange experience. My second observation also derives from the cultural difference between two supercities as after getting lost in finding the underground and then spending another ten minutes trying to locate an attendant who could help me make sense of the ticket machines when I finally did get on the train and prepare myself for the fourteen stops to my destination I was ravenous and tore open the breakfast I had picked up and began devouring it only to realise I was attracting a number of disdainful looks which had nothing to do with my frenzied gobbling but the $500 dollar fine for being caught eating or drinking on their spotless trains... Having not been particularly keen to stay in a city almost expensive as London my fleeting experience of Singapore did nothing to make me rue my decision and I was more than happy to have reached the airport, meet Rich and catch our connecting flight to Bali without any problems. We reached Denpasar later in the afternoon and found ourselves queuing for visas only to realise that I had left half of my stash of dollars in my checked in luggage as part of my security checks and didn't have enough to pay the extremely irritated attendant...it meant losing our place in the huge queue, being escorted out of the visa checkpoints to an atm and withdrawing the Indonesian equivalent before returning and queuing up again. Having eventually passed through we headed straight to Kuta, the intensely touristy part of the island, and managed to find a room at Kedin's Inn which though on the pricey side had the luxury of a bath and a swimming pool and slap up breakfast included in the price. We spent three days in Kuta mainly on the surfer's beach and wandering around the labyrinthical back passages of the Poppies Lanes checking out the cheap shopping. On the first night we headed north up the coast to Legian and ended up in the legendary Engine Room and stumbling out realised we were so lost amongst the maze of alleys that we didn't know how to get by. It's a sad indication of the commercialism of Kuta that we were only able to signpost our location by the McDonalds, Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts outlets though even these weren't enough and to our shame we had to hail down a taxi (the urgency enhanced by being physically accosted by ladyboy prostitutes) and take the poor driver down every alley until we eventually reached Kedin's... Tearing ourselves away from the sun, and hundreds of aggressively minded touts, we booked the cheap Perama bus to the central island highlands determined to do some less touristy and commercial activities. Most people opt to head to the Gurung Volcano but we went even more off-piste and headed to the mountain top village of Munduk. Taking a bus to a tiny village halfway between Kuta and Munduk we found ourselves and bags bundled off and informed there was no way we could reach our destination unless we hired the extortionate private taxi as the roads were too small for the bemos. Reluctanly, we agreed to the rip-off which turned out to be the best option as we plunged down roads cut seemingly on a knife point into the mountains that only a local taxi driver would have dared! We stopped off on a plateau to look at the two giant lakes filling the valley caused by the mountains en route to our beautiful homestay. Run by the softest spoken staff in the world who met us with ice-cold orange squash we were shown to our vast room and taken to lunch on the balcony terrace overlooking the spectacular drop into the mountains. It was so peaceful in contrast to the hustle and bustle of Kuta that we were perfectly content to lounge about the homestay and just soak up the incredible vistas. We did finally stir and explore the little village, gaining looks of consternation from the locals unused to seeing tourists invading their sanctuary which turned into looks of incredulity when eschewing the option of motorbikes decided to walk to the waterfall. This involved an almost sheer vertical climb back up the mountainside which had us drenched in sweat within minutes before leaving the road behind and tumbling into the lush rainforest. Following the little dirt tracks we eventually found one, and fortunately largest, of the four waterfalls and then embarked upon finding the remaining three on the circuit. Sadly our every twist and turn was thwarted by my old travel nemesis...wild dogs!! Once we had to run back up a clifftop to escape two ferocious dogs and on another occasion found ourselves blockaded between two territorial sets of dogs having to wait (a long time) for the arrival of local children passing on the track who beat the dogs away and allowed us to follow in their wake! Sadly this prevented us from finding the other waterfalls or the beautiful paddy fields we could espy from our balcony and so had to settle instead for glorious sunsets drowning in a miasma of golden smoke in the valley. After a few days of retreat it was time to reimmerse ourselves into the tourist scene and we headed south-east to Ubud, the cultural capital of the island. A sprawling town with art galleries everywhere you look and a vibrant cafe-coffee culture it was the perfect way to ease ourselves back into the hustle and bustle of Bali. The transition was made easier by our Hanging Gardens of Babylon hostel, Sania's, which came complete with pagodas, Hindu shrine, swimming pool and a menagerie of pets wandering about the grounds. Every morning we woke up to find a thermos of tea on our verandah and then would sit out and order breakfast. Rich had brought over some squeezy tube marmite from the UK as I had been complaining about withdrawal symptoms so we used to ask for an extra plate of toast with our brekkie to lather the marmite on but became so predictable that on the last day the staff brought out a plate stacked high with toast before we had even asked - was like being at the Ritz! Our first stop was to the Monkey Forest Sanctuary, a sacred forest filled with crumbling temples and now heavily populated by tribes of monkeys protected by the sanctity of their Hindu environment. Turned into a tourist venture you pay a small entrance fee and can wander around the temples clad in the traditional green and yellow sarongs and buy a bunch of bananas to feed the monkeys. However, you have to be extremely quick as the monkeys are well practised in the art of de-bananing and as soon as they espy them emerge from nowhere in there hundreds to swarm you - we saw one girl who was sadly too slow and had her top removed by one particularly laviscious ape. Even when you don't have any food the monkeys still play up to their mischievous tag pouncing on you from the trees and there was one temple ruin accessible only by a stone bridge upon which hid one of the monkeys who waited until you had crossed the bridge then sprung you from behind the pillar and pushed you down the staircase; we had to wait until one unseeing Japanese photographer was being attacked before we could run back across the bridge without being caught!
Our second stop was to go walking along the Campian Ridge and explore the area surrounding the urban centre of the town. This involved trekking through elephant grass that completely submerged me and carving our way through rice fields and remote villages on the very outskirts of the border that revealed a completely different side to the town. On returning to the centre we rewarded ourselves with chocolate cake and library books at my favourite cafe, Rendezvousdous, before heading onto happy hour mojitos and thus undoing all the hard work of our physical exercise.

In fact because of all the culture on offer we had no choice but to gorge ourselves in true Balinese style during our stay in Ubud. Every night there was different live music on in the cafes and bars from ultra cool funk-reggae to karaoke-esque air-guitar rock to rhythm jazz that had everyone dancing. Every other building was some kind of pastry selling cafe so that all we seemed to do was roll from one venue to another snacking on all this incredible food including a superb tapas restaurant that served up all the Balinese delicacies on a deceptively small plate but which were so rich and filling we had to waddle home.

Leaving Ubud provided the complete contrast as we endured the public bus to the coast and then sat on the public ferry to cross to Lombok during which my sea legs completely gave out as our lumbering pile of rust lunged back and forth in the middle of lurching waves that rocked us from one side to another and left me pinned to the deck trying to think about everything but the spinning world around me. A route that takes four hours to do 20km took six and a half hours, with the additional two and a half hours coming sat at the port on the other side queuing to dock at the one ricketty port to the extent that locals row up to the ferries and for astronomical fees offer to whizz you over to land as long as you are willing to jump through the windows onto their boat! We refused, in spite of my need for solid land beneath my feet, and had such sensibility punished as disembarking from the ferry we realised that in spite of all our militant security consciousness we had somehow been fleeced of our wallets and bank cards during the journey by one of the many aggressive touts who had been cornering us on our desks where pinned by our huge backs we were completely at their mercy. Fortunately we had spares hidden away in secret places but spent the evening frantically trying to cancel our cards in the town of Sengiggi which was best comparable to the location in the League of Gentleman and suffice to say as equally unhelpful and unfriendly. Instead of progressing with our trip we were unfortunately confined to Sengiggi for another day as our insurance policy required a police note from the scene of the crime and so we spent all afternoon in the local police station with the one officer who vaguely spoke English running to and from our prison-cell themed hostel in the scorching heat of the day to fetch the various bits of paperwork he kept forgetting to ask us for. To heap insult to injury at the end of this debacle in which the officer had tried his best in his broken English to console us by appearing to be our friend he charged us a "fee" to process the note he had made; completely at his mercy as he had copies of all our documents and fearing we had entered one of those towns where the eradication of our existence would not be blinked at by anyone we reluctantly gave into the bribe and angrily gave up the remaining hard cash we had.

It should have been an indication that we were meant not to leave the joys of Bali behind and that we should have stayed in the land of indulgence rather than trying to be intrepid travellers as things went from bad to worse. Finally escaping Sengiggi we were able to start our trek up Mount Rinjani, a beautiful active volcano that had only recently been reopened to the public and was the sole purpose of our excursion to this island. The trek started well, albeit with difficulty, as we marched for eight hours up the crater ascending 2600metres on the first day. The journey was made lighter by the accompaniment of a Swiss-South African couple who were far more hopelessly prepared for the climb in spite of their brand new sparkling climbing gear and our two shared guides, Adi and Andre, who with the porters cooked all our food and kept us entertained with their anecdotes, clean and filthy....The last hour was really difficult as though only about a 500metre path was covered in volcanic ash that imposed a one step forward two steps backwards style of climbing that had everyone slipping and covered in dust. It was however well worth it as reaching the edge of the rim, above the cloud cover, we camped for the night looking down the crater which afforded a view akin to feeling like you were standing on the periphery of heaven looking down on the world. It was so warm in the evening sun that we all, alongside the twenty or so other trekkers camping for the night, ended up stripping off and lying on the grass soaking up the rays. By the time dinner was ready the wind was picking up and swirling the dust around so that instead of sitting around the campfire we had to retreat into our tents which we didn't mind as we were all exhausted. Unfortunately the worst storm in six years brewed that night and we didn't sleep a wink. The wind was so fierce it ripped two of our walls so that we were protected only by the mosquito mesh on two sides and prevented us from being able to step outside as it bent the poles and flattened the roof against our faces, suffocating us. We could hear each squall brewing up in the valley and then gaining in velocity and sound as it gathered momentum before smashing us perched on the rim. It was all we could do with the weight of two bodies and bags to keep ourselves from being blown over and within an hour or so we were caked in inches of dust blown through the mesh. It got so cold that in spite of three layers of clothes and a sleeping bag we were frozen to the bone. When the storm finally disappeared with the morning sun and we were able to get out of the tent without fear of being blown away we realised that we had in fact been the luckiest in our group; every other tent had had their poles smashed and canvas blown down the crater. No-one had slept and everyone had been petrified. The guides quickly packed up our tents and insisted we headed straight back down rather than continue over the crater edge into the hot springs as we had planned but perhaps because of the sleep-deprived madness we all insisted that being only a few minutes away from the very tip of the volcano that at the very least after everything we had been through we wanted to see the crater lake that was the focus vista of the whole trip. Eventually we persuaded our guides and picking our way through the wreckage climbed the final part of the ascent and were rewarded with an indescribable view of the shimmering blue volcanic lake and the burnt ash cone through which the lava is pummeled as it erupts before we very, very quickly headed back down to lower and safer climates.

Just when we thought we had endured everything that could be thrown at us in the last 48 hours our up until then overly friendly guide told us that there was no refund for the loss of the trip and we were out of pocket for two days budget to compound the bank-cardless state of our finances. That was enough for me and while everyone else swallowed it I called up the manager to complain that while we didn't blame them for the weather neither should we expect to be punished and after much wrangling got him to agree to put us up at a hotel he knew for free for the next couple of days as a partial recompense. While not fully placated it was enough to gain a mere concession and when we arrived at the hotel we realised we were staying at somewhere far more luxurious than we would normally pay for and were receiving what we had lost on the trip in the accomodation and free breakfasts provided which felt like some kind of moral justification.

After all the traumas we spent no time hanging around in Sengiggi and headed straight for the Gili Islands to collapse and lick our wounds. The Gili Islands comprise of three separate land masses, each only a mile or so in length and width, so small that there is no motorised transport, only old-fashioned horse and carts! They are famed for their pristine white sand Robinson Crusoe tropical beaches, turquoise water with reefs for snorkelling and little thatched huts on the beach that ensure you feel as if you have left the real world truly behind. Each one has its own character: Gili Air is the family friendly island with lots of beachside restaurants where you lounge the days away under the cabana thatched roofs eating, drinking and sunbathing; Gili Trawangan (or Gili T ai it's lazily known) is the party island with lots of beachside bars and clubs, where the alcohol is insanely cheaper than the food; Gili Meno is the honeymooners paradise, the smallest, most remote and most untouched. We started off on Air and treated ourselves to the luxury of a two-tiered "bungalow" complete with a daybed and hammock downstairs next to the bathroom and a verandah overlooking the sea upstairs. While our lungs, muscles and minds recovered we did nothing but move from the bungalow to the beach hut to the beach and when it got too hot the water. Eventually we plucked up enough energy to go snorkelling, which for a pound a day was a veritable bargain as the reef only a couple of metres from the shoreline was packed with marine flora and fauna. We spent most of our time hanging out with a hilariously London yuppie couple who helped us sample the many cheap restaurants and when we finally felt young again took the narrow longboat to "hop" across to Gili T. The crossing was derailed by the appearance of a 6ft long seasnake on the jetty which sent the female contingent running while I amongst all the men fought to take the best pictures of the serpent! It was perhaps a symbol of our arrival on Gili T which in many ways was like being back in the Thai party islands in the sense that there wasn't much to do except walk down the main strip and drink through the long, long happy hours. Having geared ourselves up for the first night I ended up devouring a salad with peanut sauce, throwing up in the toilet and being in bed by 9pm...After the peace and beauty of Gili Air it felt a bit marred as we were surrounded by ghastly British property developers, lads-abroad holidayers and gap yearers with more of mummy and daddy's money to frolic with than sense to use it. To be fair it was nice to go out and party and meet lots of people our age and I loved the sunset bar where we watched the sun disappearing behind the volcano at night causing a fantastic silhouette of peak and horizon in a burning orange sky. However we did feel like we were turning into grandpas with our complaining about loud music and all-night partying neighbours so we escaped to the idyllic and remote Gili Meno which was stacked at over-hyped honeymooner prices which meant we could only afford to spend one night (because the islands have no atms or banks you have to take all your money with you before you go and ours was rapidly dwindling...) and so decided to see out our time back at Gili Air where we had so enjoyed ourselves. Due to the dwindling finances it was a downgrade to just the one floor cabin though by then we had sussed out the cheapest eateries and gave up nights of table dancing to make the most of the free DVD booths with dinner, eat Devil's Rings doughnuts stuffed with Bailey's ice-cream on the island peninsular in front of sunset and order the cheapest fish on the huge open air barbeques lining the beach.

Having planned a week on the Gili Islands we had made our money stretch to ten days and would have seen out the rest of our visa here had the rupiah not disappeared so quickly from our pockets....so it was with great reluctance we endured the horrific journey back to Kuta which began with a longboat from the Gilis to Lombok, a mini-bus down the coast to the port, the awful ferry journey back to Bali and another bus to Kuta, eating up a whole precious day of our time.

The last few days in Kuta were spent shopping down the Poppies Lanes where I bought an unprecedented number of ripped off DVDs for an obscene price (having been deprived of TV for half a year) as well as kitting out our anticipated campervan by buying lots of cheap brightly coloured sarongs to upholster any unsightly travel-worn material...We ended up staying in a wicked hostel next to two Canadian girls and a Scottish lass who took us out surfing and taught us for free and in return we treated them to a moustache-themed party with Geoff the Giraffe (our travel mascot) at the Engine Room. We also found the mall with a pick'n'mix bakery that tasted like manna and managed to explore the nearby resorts of Legian and Seminyak though everywhere was so heavily security-conscious with the anniversary of the two Bali bombings approaching the end of our stay that we didn't want to pry any further than we were allowed.

As we returned to the airport I actually felt a bit sad to be leaving Asia behind me. Sure, at times it's been difficult, hassle-filled, frustrating, confusing, and nonsensical but as well as being part of its charm after six months that had all begun to feel like normal. I was actually feeling a tad apprehensive about immersing myself in western culture again and the prospect of having to plan my life by more than just at which bakery I wanted to eat at for brunch or which country I wanted to wake up in. However with a job, home and campervan to find I'm sure there's going to be little time to miss anything...

Postscript from the Elusive One...

2008-08-30T02:20:00.000-07:00

PS: Mike is alive for now, if you ever want to see him again make payable a worthy sum into his account. He'll see that I get it but for now I shall remain nameless. He has only the following message; 'Don't worry about me guys I'm sure I'll be fine just do as he says. Apart from the chilli spiked meals and assaults from ladyboys I remain unscathed. But who's to say how long these torments will be kept at bay for! I fear Sam is an insider, after unknowingly spiking my drink on my Bday and conspiring with the barman to make me powerless and vulnerable. My memory is vague after that. I attempted a get away on a motorbike in the Philippines but was thwarted by a cactus and tree combined as well as my own incapabilities. I shall attempt to slip Sam at the KL train station and head for America. If Iam successful you shall have word from me soon, if not I fear this may be my last contact.' Enough of his whining - just remember what I've said. Cooperate and no harm will come to him. I await your answer!

6/7107

2008-08-30T02:19:00.000-07:00

As with most of my south-east Asian adventures so far the Philippines began in Bangkok, my final visit to a city I have grown to have a hate-love relationship with. This time around it verged more on the love edge of the spectrum mostly due to staying in the brilliant My House hostel tucked round the corner of Rambuttri Street which not only requires navigating a pathway lined with rotis but having accomplished this permits you to snooze in the great little chilled lounge downstairs showing films on the big screen which offered a more relaxing alternative to the boozing of Khao San Road. Such downtime was required after the heart attack of shipping home 14kg of acquired goods leaving my bag considerably lighter and easier to haul around the archipelagic Philippines.We had a quick flight down to Kuala Lumpur staying in a room that literally had room only for a double bed to the extent that we couldn't open the door properly and had to squeeze our bags through the chink of space offered. Arriving at 10pm and leaving at 3.30am it wasn't the most plentiful of sleeps especially when we had to be at our most alert whilst loitering in the depths of the bus station basement defending ourselves from dog-sized rats...Four hours later we touched down in Clark - the cheap AirAsia airport two hours north of Manila and famous for little else than its prolific red-light district - catching a bus featuring Step Up on its screens (!) into the capital. We had heard lots of negative things about Manila, one being the extortionate prices, and this was in evidence when checking into a dorm room that cost us more for our solitary beds than we'd paid together anywhere in Laos! Having said this Friendly Guest House more than compensated with a fantastic rooftop lounge, huge selection of DVDs and books to play on the TV, internet by the sofas and a giant kitchen complete with mammoth fridge where we could indulge in the rare luxury of making our own food.Asides from the appalling traffic there is actually little justification to the disservice that all our prior reports had delivered in anticipation of our visit to Manila. Staying in Malate we were halfway between the old historic Spanish quarter of Intramurros and the thriving cheap cafe night life and so being good tourists we trawled around the museums and parks during the day and saw out the nights in some incredible bars.Manila, and indeed the Philippines, is most famous for, and most indebted to, Josef Rizal, a young revolutionary doctor who lived at the end of the nineteenth century and resisted the corruption of the colonial Spanish. Whilst never advocating violence or uprisings his publications were highly inflammatory to the extent that the Spanish decided to execute him to cease the uproar he was causing amongst the locals only to find this backfired when the said masses decided to revolt after learning of his execution. This is probably the most celebrated moment in the country's history and as a result most of the historic tributes refer to this. The huge Rizal gardens offer an oasis of peace and quiet amongst the snarling multi-laned roads with their serenic Japanese gardens, fountains and grassy areas littered with young dance troupes in earnest practise. It also includes a gigantic monument of Rizal and a newly formed commemorating garden to his legend which features gigantic metal sculptures of his execution where he was shot by a firing squad overseen by the priests.Continuing through the Intramurros you reach Fort Santiago at the opposite end. This historic castle has been the site of most of the military battles for the city and country and was where Rizal was imprisoned before his execution. The room he was kept in has been mocked up as it would have been, complete with the alcohol lamp that he stashed his famous poem to the Filipino people, 'My Last Farewell,' urging them to continue to remain true to their nation and not give into the corruption and oppression of the Spanish. This lamp was left to his sister and the officials not realising what was hidden in it handed it to her without question only for her to release it and cause an American supported rebellion that eventually saw the Spanish driven out and many, many years later the current Philippines established. While we were visiting the fort a group of school children were re-enacting the scenes of execution for a film project and dressed up in the traditional clothes performed the whole process from the dungeon to the spot of execution which has been marked by the authorities with a path of golden footsteps that signify the final route taken by Rizal.Asides from the testaments to Rizal we also managed to visit the National Museum which hoards an archive of relics recovered from the sunken 16th century San Diego boat and details the history of the Filipino people. It was heartbreaking to read that American intervention was not provided to establish their independence but win a colony that even in the twentieth century the Americans had the audacity to buy for $20million from the vanquished Spaniards before the atrocities suffered in the Second World War eventually led to them finally being granted their independence in 1946. Since then the country has lurched from crisis to crisis, mostly due to a national tendency to elect charismatic personalities rather than policies or philosophies to lead their country. They have elected either a series of good-looking, yet clueless, actors or voted with their emotions electing widows of previous Presidents with just as alarming consequences best summed up by the shoe-loving Imelda Marcos who with her husband have driven the country into bankruptcy but she can still be seen swanning around the capital in her soft-top car apparently with no sense of guilt!The museum also hosted on the top floor the National Artists' competition winners and runners-up and we had a brilliant time looking around the gallery of sixty odd entrants, though sadly the winners had been taken down and shipped to the ASEAN competition so we were unable to offer our highly esteemed opinion of whether they were justified!Our days of culture ended with a hilarious moment in the Cathedral. Having been closed during the day, on our way back to our hostel we discovered a side entrance that was open and snook in to take a peek. There was a bit of commotion going on near the alter with lights and musicians and we thought some kind of concert must be going on as the church filled up with important looking well-dressed people. Only as the band played out Canon In D to which lines of red satin clothed women were escorted up the aisle did we realise to our horror that we had gatecrashed an important wedding! As everyone had been fussing around apart from a few contemptuous looks which we attributed to wearing shorts and sweaty t-shirts in a shirt we had had no idea of what was going on. We then suffered the embarrassment of being caught on camera by the roving cameramen as we were seated in the pew opposite where they decided to set up and film the entrance of all the distinguished guests. By the time Robbie Williams' 'Angels' was belted out and the bride delivered by her father we were completely stuck and only once all the cameras had backtracked to the altar for the ceremony did we have an escape exit and leaving through the main doors found ourselves accosted by many ordinary well-wishers peering in through the windows trying to get a glimpse of the action. Goodness knows what they thought but we managed a swift get-away, abandoning the traditional horse and cart taxis for a less conspicuous exit!Our nights were spent alternating between the cinema (watched the fantastic, very black, 'Dark Knight') and the great live music scene centred around the main square in Malate. We flitted from the salsa at Havanna's to the jam -rock sessions at The Penguin to some incredibly corny karaoke in a dingy bar down the side streets. I had never associated live music with the Philppines but every bar and cafe offered something and there was too much to choose from to even begin to sate our whetted appetites.Slightly worse for wear we had a flight the following day to Caticlan on a tiny little plane complete with airstaff who wore khaki shorts and flowery shirts in lieu of a uniform, enjoying a lively taxi journey with a Canadian from our hostel who took great comic outrage in arguing with the driver who professed to not know where we had asked to go when confronted with the fact that he was driving the opposite way to the airport.... Touching down we then had the circus of catching a ferry to the small party island of Borocay which necessitated having to buy three separate tickets for the boat, terminal and environmental fee! Combined, this 10 minute boat ride, was nearly as expensive as the whole flight!While Manila did not match up to the reports we had been given, Borocay lived up to every praise uttered in its name. Basically a 7 km expanse of sand known imaginatively as White Beach with stacks of bars, restaurants and water sport ventures there is enough to keep you here for weeks. We started with the intention of spending a few days in order to do my kiteboarding course but the first few days were perfect sun, cloudless skies and no winds and so the course kept getting deferred meaning we had the unfortunate imposition of lying on the beach, gorging ourselves on the all-you-can-eat buffets (with strict penalty fines for not finishing our plates!) and indulging in the ridiculously cheap local San Miguel beers from our balconied room in La Isla Bonita, a hop, skip and jump from the aforementioned beach!

Somewhat ironic given the number of times I've been on a tennis court, or about to step on one, praying for the wind to disappear and when I finally want it I'm faced with a sea as flat as the pancakes I'm comfort-eating to pass the time. Finally on our fourth day there, and fourth day of traipsing all the way up the beach from our room to the kiteboarding venue..., there was enough wind to begin and I promptly spent most of the afternoon wrestling with stunt kites, failing to get the hang of the dual arm pumping motion and sending my kite crashing into the sand over and over again, thus ensuring I got my money's worth from the guys who race out of the huts to launch the fallen kites. Once I finally got the hang of it I progressed to the fourteen metre kite proper having to somewhat scarily harness myself into what can only be described as a steel nappy which when the wind catches your kite rides up as the most uncomfortable wedgie that causes the most spectacular bruising. I was a tad nervous when my instructor left me to play with the kite by myself and instantly forgot everything I learned and sent the latex monstrosity hurtling to the sand and with incredible precision managed to wrap it twice round a fellow learner staring innocently out to the sea garrotting him with my hundreds of strings...It was fast becoming one of those activities that I thought I would love but in reality finding I had no aptitude was wishing it would come to an end. Ending day one a bit disillusioned I was tempted to cut it short and claim my money back but my instructor, a German-Filipino called Maurice, who had the patience of a severly martyred saint encouraged me back and sure enough when I turned up the next day I was like a different person. Having spent the whole of the first day just trying to grapple with the basics they came instantly to hand and soon I was in the sea upwind and downwind dragging and in complete control of my kite so that Maurice was able to retreat to the safety of the beach without having to spend every five minutes picking my fallen kite up and relaunching it by hand (as by then I had perfected the solo launch:)). I spent about four hours in the water with my kite that day in what was the hardest workout I have ever endured. Not only do you have to constantly look up at your kite, giving you the stiffest neck the following day, but in having to hold your position in the moving sand and against the buffeting waves which crash over your head (allowing you only to think about keeping the kite up before wondering how and when you might breathe again) as well as being whipped through the waters when your kite unexpectedly catches a tornado of wind you develop a perfect six pack (though by the end of the second day I could barely traipse back to our accomodation!) The final day saw me tackling the kiteboard and putting the two together. After about an hour I had worked the board and was about to practise riding it with my kite when the snarling wind, with absolutely no forewarning, disappeared and we were forced back onto the beach hoping, along with every other kiteboarder for a returning wind. By 6pm, and after three hours of lying on the beach, there was no wind and having to leave the island the next day I was begging Maurice to go back out on the waters in the falling dusk just so I could at least ride on the board once and managed to talk him into taking me in the light breeze. What Maurice hadn't told me was that the strange cloud formations signalled the arrival of a squall which he believed once it had whipped through would have enough of a drag for us to catch and use to ride. Ignorant of the impending catastrophe I hooked my feet into the board, readied my kite and on his count pushed up into the wind and onto the water succeeding, finally, in riding my first kiteboard. It lasted all of a few seconds as I toppled headfirst over my board and into the sea. Coming up spluttering I saw my kite nosediving towards the water and desperate not to land it in the sea used all my strength to hook it back up the following direction towards the sky. When you do this you enter the most powerful part of the wind window and you have to be careful to steady it so you don't go shooting off the other side. Unfortunately, belly down in the water with my hands submerged and trapped I was in no real position to prevent it being caught by the squall that broke just at that moment and the next thing I knew my kite was rocketing towards the beach with me harnessed into it lying flat and facedown into the water completely out of control. It was only when we reached the shallows that my feet pushed up on the sand and righted me into an upright position that I could see what was happening, but this same motion gave my kite that final bit of power to pull me clean out of the water and a couple of metres into the sky heading straight towards the forest of palm trees. Maurice had seen what was happening and had luckily already been sprinting towards me on the beach so that with his 6'5 frame jumping into the air he managed to catch me just before I got splattered against the trees and haul me down to safety. A tad shaken and very, very bruised by my steel nappy we abandoned the kite and dived to the shelter only for us to be greeted with sheer derision by all the pros huddled inside for attempting to ride in a squall!!! Was a dramatic end to the day and the course but I was delighted to have ridden my board and to have thrown in a bit of flying for free!!!

We celebrated that evening with a gorgeous Mexican meal, watching Arsenal on the big screen and Mike's ladyboy stalker once again managing to pick him out of the crowds as we made our way home;)

We were both really sad to leave Borocay as the island is a brilliant place to stay with so much going on as well as having the best beach either of us had seen. It was probably also partly due to the fact that we had spent a whole week there (because of waiting for winds) which had allowed us the illusion of beginning to settle in one place, unpacking our bags, singling out our favourite eaterie and drinkeries and getting to know the area and its inhabitants. But it was back on the ferry to Caticlan and then a five hour bus round the coast of Panay to Ilolio where we boarded another ferry to the island of Negos and eventually stopped off for the night in Bacolod. Having only seen the grime of Manila and the beach of Borocay this multi-vesselled journey offered us a glimpse of non-touristy Philippines as we drove through jungled rainforests and tiny villages of corrugated iron huts with children playing out in the dust as their parents tugged away in the ricefields lining the road.

We were so tired we saw nothing of Bacolod except the hotel we stayed in (and conveniently caught the Olympic Tennis finals!) and rose so early to catch our bus that I wouldn't even know where we stayed if we had to go back again. It was another epic journey that morning as we caught another bus to Sipalay, an 18km tricycle ride and then an extortionate longboat that sailed us around the spit and into the secret, secluded cove of Sugar Beach - a gorgeous stretch of beach and jungle reminiscent of Robinson Crusoe adventures. It only has a couple of buildings and we opted to stay in the cute, cabana style huts at Driftwood Village set up and owned by Swissman Peter and his Filipino wife Daisy who were the perfect hosts. In addition, the rest of the staff are made up of Daisy's large family who all are christened with names beginning with 'D' so that we were well looked after variously by Divines, Dorothys, Dinas and Delilahs!

We spent a gloriously lazy couple of days lounging in our bungalow (Cockatoo Hut), swinging in the hammocks, lapping up the sun and swimming in the sea. This was exactly what I needed after the injuries suffered from my three days kiteboarding as in addition to my steel nappy bruises and aching abs my feet had been sliced open on the coral when my kite would catch a gust of wind and drag you through the water before you reigned it in. Given the packed tourism of Borocay it was the perfect antidote with its absence of tourists and secluded hideaway location. On top of that Peter knows exactly how to keep his guests at the Beach having hired in a top Thai chef to teach his clan of girls (who he calls the chicken coop owing to their striking ability to crow the same things at the same time so that when you order a meal or ask for a towel you are greeted with a perfect chorus of five voices that materialise out of nowhere!) how to cook so that we were treated to round-the-clock food cooked to perfection. The nights were spent either huddled around the huge bonfire built on the beach engaging in Flo Rida dance-offs with the staff or in the quirky games room where again visitors could take on the staff at pool, darts and fusball, invoking severe penalties if you lost.

When we had recovered and were able to tear ourselves away from the peace and quiet and delicious food it was another longboat and two buses around the coast of Negros to reach the port of Dumaguette for another night's stop-off. We were traveling at this time with an Irish lifeguard called Steven who in bolstering our numbers warned off the touts and reduced prices of shared costs such as taxis and accomodation which was an added bonus. Dumaguette is described in the books as a genial campus city with a great student feel so were looking forward to a chilled night, but having been cocooned in the haven of Sugar Beach were completely unprepared for the snarl of jeepneys and tricycle dust that seemed to ensnare the whole town. We eventually found a cool little restaurant on the seafront called WhyNots where we ate and waited for the promise of live music that never came before having to give up on the town and head back to the spooky Vintage Inn which seemed to be modelled on a WWII hospital (with a shopping centre running straight through it...)

The following day introduced us to the joys of Filipino ferries! We had been relatively lucky up to that point in that huge tourist areas like Borocay have very regular ferries operating every 15 minutes or so. In untouristy Philippines we were faced with the usual lottery of ferry operation whereby no such thing as a timetable exists and companies only operate as and when they feel like. Having got up early to get the 11am ferry and get to our next destination before dark we found billboards with 'cancelled' signs run through them, and every succeeding ferry after that until mid-afternoon. There's nothing you can do except offer the typical Filipino smile and resign yourself to an unpleasant few hours in the heat of the sun stranded at the port and hope, against hope, that the promised afternoon service won't cancel. Fortunately it wasn't and we were able to get across to Siquijor just before dark and haggle a tricycle for the three of us and all our bags (!) to take us to the northern coast where we settled in to a beached cottage at the aptly named Islanders' Paradise resort which is host to the annual turtle egg-laying invasion. Still caked in the sweat from loitering at the ferry terminal all day Mike and I couldn't resist the turquoise sea lapping at our door in the evening dusk and ran into the sea only to find to our immense disappointment that as far as we waded the water never rose above our calves! As we progressed further we had to negotiate huge coral beds and banks of weeds that halted our advance and reluctantly turned back. It was only then that we noticed the coral and weeds we had carelessly charged through in our haste to get to the sea were littered with huge black spiky urchins. How we hadn't stepped on one was a miracle, but according to Steven we made a great sight tip-toeing back through the water as the sun faded clutching to each other!

Islanders' Paradise is run by an old English guy from Croydon called Brian and his considerably younger Filipion wife, Iffi, as a pet project that allows them to come back to the Philippines for some sun and fun a couple of months a year. The resort is staffed by Iffi's family and friends and has that lacksadaiscal feel to it which was best exemplified in the kitchen; boasting a giant menu that offered a rainbow selection of food we would order from it only for the woman behind the counter to run into the kitchen to confer with her colleagues and emerge to tell us that that particular dish wasn't available. After several conferences and polite apologies and an inability to convey to them our request to find out what was available we asked them simply to surprise us!

Siquijor is famous for its witches, shamans and alternative health doctors who congregate in the three days between Good Friday and the Resurrection when the absence of God allows them to practise their crafts. For the rest of the year they go 'underground' on the island so that it is impossible even for Brian and Iffi to know who is and isn't a witch - even the owner of the resort next to ours was a professed witch! This isn't dark magic but more of an animistic, spiritual folklore. While the Philippines is officially predominantly Catholic most of the rural Filipinos on islands without churches or priests declare themselves as Catholic but actually practise a combination of Christianity and traditional folk beliefs so that it is common to find money hidden in hollows of trees as offerings from the locals to the spirits of the forests.

We had planned to take a motorbike around the small island and explore it for ourselves but having hired the bike and decided to practise it before taking it on the road Mike ended up hitting a cactus bush and then when changing gear careered into a tree that sent the bike crashing to the floor and him hurtling off the side. The staff rushed to check the bike was intact and mortified to discover a tiny scratch in the paintwork while Mike was left to pick himself up off the floor - I was far too busy bent double laughing to offer any help! After witnessing this Brian said he would give us a tour in his jeepney instead - an altogether much safer means of circumnavigating the roads full of darting chickens and dogs - though I suspect he wanted to be out of the house as his son received his A-level results by post!

As well as being able to show us all the spots of the island that we would never have found by ourselves Brian threw in a free tourguide in the shape of the cook who as a local knew the island like the back of her hand! We wound our way around the coast and then drove inland to the mountain that rises out of the centre. Brian and the chef waited at the bottom trying to unearth the mysterious rattling while Mike and I climbed the mound which doubles up as the Stations of the Cross route so that at every flattening out of the path was featured one of the stations locked away into a wooden cross with a glass window so that we felt as if were doing a pilgrimage! At the top lie the three crosses of the crucifixion and then above them a rusty watchtower which despite climbing had our view of the island hidden by the canopy of the unpruned trees!

Returning to Islanders' Paradise we left Brian to deal with the fallout between his wife and son and crept down the steep incline to the beach to catch sunset and the army of metallic blue crabs scuttling across the sand. I have never been to a beach that is so still, both of us agreed that it was almost eerie. In the two nights we spent on the beach there wasn't even so much as a ripple across the flatness of the water; even the miniscule waves that broke on the sand were like a whisper. It was as if we were standing in a huge vacuum where every sound, even our voices, got sucked into the void. It was as I imagine standing on the edge of the world would feel like.

Having seen all we wanted and deterred by the invasion of ants into every line and crack of our hut we left Siquijor and took a ferry via Dumaguette again onto the island of Bohol. Navigating a tricycle from the port to the bus terminal and then one of those public buses that I have come to love and loathe we got dropped off at the entrance to Nuts Huts. In the midday sun we had a 1km walk with all our bags on a tiny path cut into the rainforest; even when we thought we had arrived we were faced with a steep drop into which 276 steps were hewn before we even reached the reception. Bohol is famous for its rainforest jungle and the brave owners of Nuts Huts have created a small retreat in the middle of the jungle for hardy backpackers with a spectacular lounge/restaurant/games floor cut into the side of the hill overlooking the emerald green Loboc river that makes the difficulty of getting to the resort worth every penny. They have cleverly even turned the steps to their advantage, incorporating them into the healthy-lifestyle ethos supplemented by their health foods menu, ideas for exercise and herbal sauna that they describe as exotic and erotic! We dropped our bags off in treehouse Casablanca and then lounged the afternoon away in the hammocks, playing tabletennis and enjoying watching the passing party boats chugging away miles below us.

Bohol is famous for two things: the chocolate hills and tarsier monkey, and in true tourist style we did both during our stay. The chocolate hills are a series of 1200 conical mounds in almost the exact same shape and height that protrude out of the valley floor. Formely coral deposits that formed under the sea, when the waters receded they were left as this bizarre quirk of nature. Locals are quick to romanticise them describing the myth of the heartbroken giant whose tears fell to the ground and crystallised when they hit the floor as these chocolate drops (so called because in the burnt out dry season become browned and do look exactly like giant chocolates!) However, if you speak to those locals not bothered about wooing tourists you will hear the alternative explanation that they exited the opposite end of the giant....Having scorned the tourist package Mike and I had made our way to the hills by ourselves and whilst indulging in the photo opportunities offered by the watchtower on the highest of the chocolate hills then hired a motorbike (and driver after our previous experience!) and scurried in and out of the drops, stopping off to climb them and being introduced to The Triplets, The Nipples and the Eight Sisters by our driver who also took us into his home village and allowed us to stop off and meet some of the locals who live in the shadows of these giant molehills.

The following day we took a jeepney (like a squashed minibus - with no ac!) to the Tarsier sanctuary in Loboc established in the 90s to protect the Tarsier of which this particular species is native only to the Philippines. There a guide took us around the sanctuary which is their natural habitat in a huge wired pen, and showed us about five or six little Tarsiers, weird Gollumesque creatures about five inches big with a huge hairless rat's tail, large saucer eyes and knobbly knuckled fingers and toes with which it clutches to branches. You could hardly call these animals cute but they are certainly eye-catching! I was being all David Attenborough and getting up close to take pictures of these poor nocturnal animals whose yellow eyes grew and grew as my camera got closer and closer! The resident star of the sanctuary is Charlie, the little Tarsier who popped out to welcome the Prince of Charles when he visited the Philippines, in lieu of his angry parents who stayed hidden away in their cage! There are only about ten in the sanctuary (including a mother and baby that we spotted) but it is doing sterling work in protecting this endangered species who has suffered from having its natural habitat destroyed by deforestation and the epidemic of cats to the islands that feast on the poor mites and it was a privilege to be able to see such a rare animal at such close and natural quarters.

After leaving Nuts Huts we had to get a jeepney back to Tagbilaran where we were due to fly back to Manila. Like Dumaguette or Bacolod there wasn't much to recommend it and we ended up spending the evening there watching the new X-Files movie in the mall for just over a pound! We did however discover the fantastic Garden Cafe, a project set up to provide work for thirty deaf people in the city. With Mike's knowledge of sign language we were firm favourites and rewarded with one of the best meals I have had in the Philippines, a perfectly toasted chicken quesadilla followed by a blueberry pie!

Arriving back in Manila was like coming home as we checked into Friendly's, dined at Dematisse and enjoyed one final night's celebration before having to catch the bus to Clark where we were to fly out of. Clark is a former American air base (former as in the Americans fled the base in the early 90s when a potent volcano erupted and nearly destroyed a whole city dependent on the employment and economy the air industry had provided them with...) and is now famous only for its rife prostitution - we lost count of the number of pot-bellied, middle aged European men trumpeting young girls on their arms...We were saved fortuitously by a typhoon that hit the city almost as we checked into our hotel and was so fierce that we could do nothing but watch HBO in our rooms and eat in the restaurant.

It was sad finally having to say goodbye to the Philippines as considering it was a last minute decision proved to be one of the best places I have visited. Its people are unbelievably friendly and so laidback, it offers a complete diversity of natural wonders with great tourist opportunities for adventures and watersports and serves an incredible array of food (and not to mention the cheapest beers I have ever found!) With 7107 islands we only managed to get our way around six of them and I left this country, unlike any others on my travels so far, with the feeling that I have only barely scraped the surface.... BEST PLACE: La Isla Bonita, Borocay - beach on our doorstep, giant room with sea-facing balcony and a whole strip of incredible restaurants and bars within stumbling distance!
BEST FOOD: Red Horse tinnies - especially when supped on a balcony, Mister Donut, Garden Cafe quesadilla. All the food was so good that Mike has a new friend called Winston who sits on his belly.

WHAT I'M GOING TO MISS: Kiteboarding! 30p beers! Island hopping. Tarsier monkeys

WORST PLACE: Many of the port towns are just grimy, dirty places that seem to know they're only useful for stopping over

WORST FOOD: Tried to love the national dish of adobo but far too spicy and tomatoey...

MOST BIZARRE: Having spent weeks trying to cultivate a Chris-Turnbullesque beard I eventually had to give in to the comments that I looked more trampish than distinguished and hack it off in Manila only to have a conversation with one of the girls in our dorm who we had got friendly with to discover that she thought I was a newcomer who had just arrived until I informed her it was still me...Mike's incredible talent to attract ladyboys no matter which island we were on!
BOOKS:'The Woman In White' - Wilkie Collins (So good to read a classic again, and this was an absolute ripper, supposedly the first ever Crime book), 'The Kitchen God's Wife' - Amy Tan (Beautiful story of the struggle of a Chinese mother and her American daughter to communicate, where language is only the smallest of barriers when compared to the horrors suffered in the war), 'The Good German' - Josef Kanon (The story itself is neither here nor there but Kanon's attention to detail of what life was like in the war, and more pertinently in the immediate aftermath of war, reminds you of the full horrors that were suffered and meted out in WWII), 'Tooth and Nail; - Ian Rankin (Bowing once again to Mike's choice and realising that Rankin is selling out a bit as this book is clearly written with one foot in the TV series and royalty cheques...), 'Papillion' - Henri Charriere (Incredible true life story of one French prisoner condemned to labour camps in the Caribbean and his determination to escape to the point that you can barely believe what he had to endure), 'Tesseract' - Alex Garland (One of the BEST modern novels I have read, written in the fragmented postmodernist style of interweaving stories but set in the Philippines which having traveled through as I read added another dimesion to its potency). 'Age of Innocence' - Edith Wharton (Saved by its incredibly sad ending that finally justifies the sacrifices offered by two people who love each other but cannot be together because of the people it would hurt), 'Manual of the Warrior of Light' - Paulo Coehlo (Didactic tails on how to live your life with enough gems in them to stave off the drone of the repeating messages); 'The Seven Dials' - Agatha Christie (Been ages since I read Ms Christie and while this isn't a Poirot genius, the tongue-in-cheek parody offers a humour I'd never found before in her books)

BEST QUOTES: "Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service" and "'This is a matter of curiosity; and you have got a woman for your ally. Under such conditions success is certain'" ('Woman In White' - Wilkie Collins); "It had never happened that way, but he had a memory of it all the same" ('Tooth and Nail' - Ian Rankin); "We have too much technological progress, life is too hectic, and our society has only one goal: to invent still more technological marvels to make life even easier and better. The craving for new scientific discovery breeds a hunger for greater comfort and the constant struggle to achieve it. All that kills the soul, kills compassion, understanding, nobility. It leaves no time for caring what happens to other people" ('Papillon' - Henri Charriere); "Although I have been through all that I have, I do not regret the many hardships I met; because it was they who brought me to the place I wished to reach...I carry with me the marks and scars of battles - they are the witnesses of what I suffered and the rewards of what I conquered." (Bunyan); "...the warrior knows that intuition is God's alphabet and he continues listening to the wind and talking to the stars", "A warrior knows that an angel and a devil are both competing for his sword hand. The devil says 'You will weaken. You will not know exactly when. You are afraid.' The angel says 'You will weaken. You will not know exactly when. You are afraid.' The warrior is suprised. Both angel and devil have said the same thing. Then the devil goes on: 'Let me help you.' And the angel says: 'I will help you.' At that moment the warrior understands the difference. The words may be the same, but these two allies are completely different. And he chooses the angel's hand." ('Manual of the Warrior of Light' - Paulo Coehlo)

Sabaidee!

2008-08-06T20:58:00.000-07:00

So Mike and I christened our south-east Asian adventures with a swift pint in the Bangkok bar, much window shopping on the Khao San road and then a fully blown shopping trip in the Chatuchak market, a market so ginormous that if you turn round two alley corners you become forever lost amidst stalls of cactuses, printed t-shirts and beads. Sadly, getting lost means asking stall owners for directions and in true Auntie Wainwright style escaping (with unhelpful navigational hand gestures) with a grateful plastic bag or two...so after a full day's shopping we were glad to escape back to the Khao San Road to catch our night bus into Laos. We arrived in the capital, Vientiane, later the following morning and true to the heavily prophesised relaxation of the country had the unusual problem of being greeted by no taxi drivers and had to stumble about the central fountain until managing to check in to Kipps' Guest House, a little ramshackled hostel just off the main road but with a brilliant people watching balcony. In keeping with the chilled vibe of the country we slowly sautnered to the much lauded Scandinavian bakery and recuperated with several doughnuts and cookies. It's crazy to think that Vientiane is the capital of Laos. As we sat in the cafe barely a tuk-tuk rambled past, in fact we barely saw another person except for the table full of crazy French tourists. Even in the evening when we located the riverside restaurants we had our pick of the cushioned floor tables and viewpoints with only a handful of other foreigners to compete against. Oaklands Park seems to see more action than this capital city! As much as we could have luxuriated in the never-ending rest that the locals seem to indulge in we decided to inject a bit of purpose into our Lao ventures and the following day hit the culture trail turning up at the National Museum gates before they had barely even opened. As with most of my knowledge about this part of the world before I arrived I had only the sketchiest idea of Laos' history and so it was brilliant to spend the morning in the fantastically curated museum filling in those huge blank holes. It also makes it even more difficult to understand how a country which was ruled by a successful monarchy, had established progressive trade links with the Dutch and existed fully independently and successfully has been decimated by colonialism and Western wars. The French colonial rule served only to drive corrupt segregations in the ruling elite and then the American bombings during the Vietnam war (justifying them by Laos' permission of Ho Chi Minh to traffic goods through their country) wiped out many innocent civilians in a war that their country was not technically part of and has now left them as the most heavily landmined country in the world, to such an extent that they have been forced to concede that they will probably never locate all the landmines and so a nation is left in fear every footstep it takes... Laos has only been independent for just 35 years and while not having suffered the atrocities of its neightbours Vietnam and Cambodia through war and genocide it is still an incredibly green and undeveloped country that, ignoring the poverty barrier, only seems to enhance it as a place renowned for its friendliness, hospitality and unrivalled relaxed attitude to life. In the afternoon we successfully navigated the local bus service which is modelled on the transportation of battery chickens and found our way to the incredible Buddha Park: a smally grassy enclosure in the middle of the nowhere that houses one crazy man's love of sculpted Buddha's, with over fifty gigantic stone statues of various Hindu and Buddhist gods carved in every position, from the beautiful to the comedic. It was like being seven years old again and running havoc in a National Trust estate with Mike, posing amongst the statues, many of which you can climb in, on and through - something that would cause heart attacks amongst most of the NT faithful. Ignoring the traditional traveler's route to Vang Vieng we took another night bus and drove all the way to Luang Prabang, the ancient capital and in consequence of its heritage has far more of an ambience to it than its southern rival. Unfortunately, these two days were marked by the most continual rain I have ever witnessed (and before I get hauled up on my grammatical failings, yes, continual is the only word that can describe it;for 72 hours it never varied in pace or volume, just one perpeptual, drab drizzle) and which forced us back into the cafes (including the terrifically conceived Books and Tea shop that combines two of my favourite pasttimes where you can sit and pay to borrow books to read in their cafe with gigantic pots of tea!) aborting our planned trips and opting to outrun the rain by the third day and head early to Luang Nam Tha.

Because of the landmines Laos only has one major artery road that runs the length of the country and as Nam Tha is rarely frequented the only means of getting to it was via public bus where ac is provided by open windows and you simply have to pray that your bag won't get soaked strapped to the roof of the bus. Having taken a couple of these buses elsewhere I urged Mike on early to save us a seat while I oversaw the bag loading and this proved to be extremely providential as once having filled all the seats on the bus they then shoved a row of plastic, backless stools down the aisle and proceeded to place people on these for the duration of the thirteen hour journey. I spent most of the night with a Laos man snoring away on my shoulder who having valiantly resisted the urge for the first part of the journey eventually had his resistance broken and with nothing to lean on but me (to be fair he was also supporting his son in front of him) had a comfy night's sleep on my shoulder!s the mecca of ecotourism. The town itself is little more than a few shops and guest houses alongside the main road as most people only come to visit to take part in the treks, mountain bike tours and white water kayaking that weave through the incredible jungle countryside just a few minutes eitherside of the main road. Having done several treks already (and Mike naturally choosing the most dangerous options...) we opted for a one day mountain biking trip and a one day white water kayaking adventure. The biking consisted of 30km wending through local villages (where stopping off at the Lan Tan village we were presented with lovely handwoven bags by the chief's wife, which went some way to compensating for the fact that the cute guinea pigs we saw playing in one of the huts were being fattened up for food later on in the rainy season...), temples housing the Buddhist monks now embarking upon their three month Lent period and gigantic fields full of rice paddy fields in which children run to the tracks to wave and shout "sabaidee" as if we were A-listers rather than mud-spattered, red-faced blustering failing bicyclists.... Owing to the previous rain most of the biking was conducted through thick mud that made it feel like we were cycling double the distance and not helped by our friendly guide's insistence each time we approached another hill that this was the last one....Fortunately, we had a really good group of people which included a pair of young physios on a six month sabbatical only three years into their profession and who speaking to further discovered that the guy, Ben, worked in the William Harvey Hospital and said that he knew Dad from his days at the Royal Vic in Folkestone. I was a bit sceptical about this connection but when Ben elaborated on a conversation he had Dad had shared with him that the NHS was full of bureaucracy and red tape and that it was best to stay out of management and with the patients I knew that he had his man! The second day I had developed a bit of a cold and was not looking forward to the kayaking. This apprehension was doubled by the discovery that not only were we booked into white water rapid kayaking (where I had naively presumed a leisurely float down a congenial stream...) but that I had to share a vessel with Mike, the world's most incorrigble daredevil, who seeks out danger like iron filings to a magnet. I was told that I would be in the back seat as the power came from the front which put Mike well out of my shouting range and increasingly ignored my navigational steering around the rapids to propell us into the rapids....Having survived all the rapids, including one going backwards where Mike typically ignored the command of the steer that comes from the person in the back to try and drive into the foam, I was mightily relieved to learn we were nearly at the finish when our boat suddenly swerved towards the bank and several overhanging branches. In true sacrificial older brother style I managed to turn the boat so that the front missed the branches but was not quick enough to save my half clattering into them; twigs and boughs gave way, grazing against my face, and I thought I was going to be lucky when the last, somewhat stouter branch, clotheslined me straight out of the boat and into the river. Having swallowed most of the water through my surprised open mouth I came up spluttering only to see Mike in absolute hysterics, unable to swing the boat back towards me because he was doubled up with laughter. When he did finally get to me we hit another tree and I ricocheted off back into the rapids only to be rescued by the guide and haul my soaking body back into the boat. According to the other two boats it was the most comic falling out of the day as apparently when the branch hit me I went flyings spreadeagled, arms and legs akimbo, in true starfish style into the water. These are the trials and tribulations of being an older brother. When Mike signalled his interest in the more exhausting and dangerous options I had no choice but to wearily accompany him. This is nothing to do with competitivism or fear of being out done by a younger sibling, I long ago abandoned that the day in France when not wishing to show I was scared agreed to traverse the cliffs with Mike and emerging only with my life and pride intact by the thinnest of webs vowed never to agree to such foolishness again and revel in my role as the mature, wise senior brother who sagely avoided all such unnecessary traumas. No, my decision to join him was made out of that unbreakable bond forged in childhood when assigned to look after younger brothers, "Now just keep an eye on them while I pop into the kitchen," "You should never have let them do that!" and "I thought I told you that you were in charge of them and responsible for them?" Once an older brother always an older brother and so with heavy heart and dramatic sighs I end up agreeing to these things still worried that if I don't some travesty will occur which in my role as protector I would never be able to endure the guilt of having permitted. However, Mike does know when some lines were crossed and so huddled up in the towel in the tuk tuk back to our hostel it was agreed, without demure, that we would be leaving Nam Tha the following day and heading back to the safety of Luang Prabang's cafes. I did have my revenge though when our kayaking guide (who despite his contact and involvement with the tourism industry maintained his ambition was to become the chief of his tribe, the bigwig who sorts out all the village problems and is held in esteem and revered by the villagers without question, which was refreshing after the many natives you see succumbing to the lure of Western materialism) mistook Mike for a girl asking me how my sister was which was all the more poignant as Mike had just been proudly boasting of the stubble he was beginning to grow! In fact, there was sadly little cafe chilling to be done in Luang Prabang because we arrived back in glorious sunshine, an environmental miracle that seemed to transform the city, lulling citizens and tourists out onto the streets. This gave us a chance to visit the Kuang Si waterfall which is the most incredible one I've seen in all my travels. In true Laos style there is virtually no health and safety issues and so working your way up the hill past the black bear and tiger enclosures (rescued animals, there is a huge illegal trade in bear bile) you reach a series of idyllic small pools where you can jump from the trees and ridges of the mini waterfalls into their bowls or just lounge by the side watching the bravado (no, I did jump in!) When you reach the main falls you can't see anything because of the spray and there is one shaky handrail to guide you. As you climb higher and higher up the muddy path gives way to a knee high stream that is so powerful it nearly knocks you over - the French guy behind us lost his footwear climbing up because of the water...It is worth every minute though because the view from the top is breathtaking and the adventure in getting there is half the glory. Our second day was taken up by the fabulous Three Elephants' Cafe cookery course. We began with a delicious egg-fried noodle dish and progressed through the day to the Laos specialities of Chicken Laap, Pork and Chilli casserole and Pork and Eggplant. The chefs would demonstrate at the main station and then with our little guidebook we would collect our ingredients and begin cooking! The course was great in that there is a huge flexibility in how much of each ingredient you use, so while you are given the outline you can vary it as you like to your own tastes which caused several slightly heated debates with Mike's preference for peanuts and chilli versus mine for salt and salad! Saying that though we developed a great little routine that sped us through the day reproducing some amazing dishes and learning how to cook the much coveted sticky rice that we were becoming addicted to. Both the waterfall and the cookery course meant we had a long walk from our riverside guesthouse through town and the fabulous night market which is as cheap as chips and sells local, authentic goods from hand-stitched bedding to woven lanterns. Inevitably we were unable to pass through each time without accumulating bags of goodies (and presents, I hasten to add!) with Mike indulging in the local artists' paintings on bamboo paper and I stocked up on all the luxuries I will need for when I get my own place....! Half the fun, and battle, is haggling with the vendors. You always get floored when they send in the cute, innocent-looking little daughter who seems about to cry making you feel guilty for trying to knock off another 10 000 kip and somewhat taken aback when the stout granny snorts with derision at your initial starting price. In addition our trips back were always further bogged down with me having to stop off at the bakery and Mike making intimate friends with the female baguette vendors.... It was really sad to leave Luang Prabang as we had brilliant accomodation, the most fantastic hosts, a fascinating city and a whole host of activities to be tried but with Mike's birthday looming we had to make it in time to Vang Vieng, the party capital of the country! Having had my birthday plans to go tubing down the river in Vang Vieng villaniously scuppered at the very last minute it was great to carry them out, via proxy, through Mike's birthday which we turned into a dual celebration given that 'we' hadn't celebrated mine together! Having met several travellers coming from the opposite direction who had been unable to tube due to high waters and a death we were fortunate to be blessed with blue sky and scorching sun and we hired our tubes (gigantic tractor tyre inner tubings, hence the name...) and perched on the edge of the tuk tuk were delivered up to the top of the hill to be sacrificed to the waters. The journey itself only takes a couple of hours but there are several bars dug into the riverbanks along the way with little children who spear you with bamboo poles and drag you in. Each bar is different in characteristic. The first one is determined to sink all your inhibitions and get you to know your fellow tubers with plenty of mud and water pistols around. It also has a gigantic swing that everyone goes up on and spectacularly falls off on their first go to the delights of those watching but always emerges with a smile and clambers back up until they are able to perfect a double backflip and enter the water like a bullet! The second bar has chilled lofts to sit in and survey the riverside with volleyball and football pitches for everyone to take part in mass games with no rules! It also has a huge swing and a zip wire which when you hit the end sends you flying uncontrollably across the water - Mike landed a spectacular sideways bomb that left his back red with impact:) The third bar is marked with a free shot of some disgusting local spirit (I suspect the evil rice wine...) and blasts out reggae music with everyone sitting cross-legged on little thatched floors elevated upon stilts. The fourth bar is heaving with people, dancing on the tables and benches if not taking part in the giant mechanical swing...In true birthday style we never made the fifth or sixth bars somehow ending up in the final group due to leave and discovering that our tubes were being hauled onto a tuk tuk and we unceremoniously herded into a longboat to be sped down to the finishing line passing flailing tubers in the pitch black completely unaware of where they were or how to get out! Unfortunately the day was marred slightly by a disagreement with the tubing company who on returning to without our tubes tried to fine us in spite of the fact that the guy who had brought our tubes back was standing in the vicinity. When I pointed to him he denied all knowledge and it wasn't until I threatened to report them to the Lonely Planet (a trick that always works when wee foreigners are dared to be taken advantage of by unscrupulous locals;)) that we were allowed to leave and later discover this is a typical ruse used against stragglers to try and squeeze a bit more money...In spite of this mishap it was a brilliant day, the most fun-filled I've had on my travels and a great way to celebrate our birthdays in a style I don't think either of us will forget!! Apart from the tubing Vang Vieng is notable only for its plethora of 'F.R.I.E.N.D.S' bars - an invention I believe deserves Nobel prize worth accolades. Whether you are tired from just arriving in the town, slightly worse for wear from the previous day's tubing or waiting for your bus out of the town, they are the best way to spend a few hours chilling. The seats are all lowered so you slump into a mound of pillows, with the table drawn up onto your treat replete with a veritable banquet of Laos goodies and Western guilty pleasures within chomping distance of minimal effort and huge screens dropping from the ceiling that play the FRIENDS dvds all day long; think about it, no adverts, just one episode after another. Whole afternoons can be lost to the second half of series three without even realising you haven't moved for five hours! It's also a brilliant communal ploy, uniting newbies, oldies and recoverees in a melee of theme-tune clapping and uninhibited laughter that transcends language. Having passed through all of Monica and Chandler's getting together up to the wedding, Ross and Rachel's wedding and Rachel and Joey's engagement it was time to move on with a day of travelling which included three buses through Vientiane and Pakse until arriving in the 4000 islands right in the southern tip at the Cambodian border (requiring another minivan and boat). We nearly didn't make it when changing buses in Pakse we were assured by the bus inspector that the bus we had loaded our bags onto was the one to the islands only to be told, only as the bus was about to leave that he had got it wrong and our bus was on the other side of the station. At this point, even though neither Mike or I were boarded, the bus with our bags on pulled out of the station causing Mike to run after it waving his arms to stop it and rescue our bags!

When we did safely arrive we stayed in Don Det which has no electricity and is truly back to basics with gorgeous stilted bungalows lapping in the river with hammocks strung outside in which you can pass whole days reading from the brilliant library at Mr Tho's. Impressed by Laos' chilled out attitude, this was taken to a whole other level. A bungalow for 60p a day, a bike rented for another 60p a day in which you can traverse the island's criss-crossing network of paths that take you by the biggest waterfall (in terms of volume) in the country, dirt cheap meals at the riverside restaurants and a menagerie of animals that would make Dr Doolittle blush - what more could you want!? Our guest house owner had a litter of tiny kittens who would come running out every morning when we emerged to play, there was an unrivalled panorama of the gorgeous sunsets at a brilliant restaurant on the western tip of the island and an undiscovered beach on the eastern side to lounge upon in the sun. Don Det is attached to Don Khon by the only bridge that the French built in their entire occupation of Laos and for a nominal fee allows you to explore an island larger and more diverse. One day we ended up on a typical Mike mountain bike expedition in the middle of a jungle where we had to carry our bikes over a rickety railway track high above the river not knowing where we are and the heavens opening while another we fulfilled a long held ambition of mine to take a boat out into the delta and watch the rare Irriwaddy dolphins. Having failed to find orang utans in Borneo I was beginning to worry my David Attenborough days were being numbered before my pre-pubescent fledgling TV career had developed time to even emerge from its pupae but was saved by a whole afternoon of watching the glorious snub-nosed, round-headed sperm-whale looky-likes diving in and out of the waters. Apart from a struggle one night when after it had gone pitch black we had to hold hands to try and walk back from the sunset restaurant to our hostel in mud and rain it was a fantastic ending and complete testament to our time in this incredible country. Everyone says Laos is going to be the new Thailand with its untapped natural resources, hospitable nation of people and combination of fun and relaxation and it was a pleasure to be able to see it before this, sadly inevitable, transformation. Having feared that Mancunian last minute panic had ruined my chances of visiting this country it has been absolutely brilliant to experience this with a brother who has helped me explore every edge (willingly or not!) and who epitomises the laidback ambience to a T! As well as exploring the many faucets of the country we have also made a lot of time to relax and take things easy; with our artillery of books and notepads it has also been a creatively productive time, which after three months of non-stop jet-setting has been much needed. It is sad to bid farewell to this country and its beautiful people. It has been my favourite place to visit so far with its balance of fun and relaxation, adventure and rest, natural beauties and true parties - not to mention the innumerable pastries and fantastic eateries. Sadly, it was back to Bangkok briefly to sort out flights and post stuff home as I was carrying about four extra bags. But we quickly escaped to the island of Ko Chang to "decompress" which essentially involved staying in a treehouse on Lonely Beach and lying in the sun reading, swimming, dangling in hammocks and chilling out in the brilliant open air bar at night listening to the brilliant house band and eating ourselves silly. So now we're recharged it's a marathon haul to the Philippines for three weeks as we get back on the traveling bandwagon! FAVOURITE PLACE: Luang Prabang - the perfect cluster of everything that epitomises the country within easy access and shared by incredibly kind people/ FAVOURITE ACCOMODATION: Cold River Guest House (Luang Prabang). Embarrassingly cheap prices for a real homely feel, complete with a surrogate family who adopt you completely during your stay whether it be the uncle loaning you the tuk-tuk or the grandmother cooking you parcels of sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves for your next bus journey. FAVOURITE FOOD: Joma's Bakery wins a very tight contest with its superb apple pie and unrivalled chocolate cake! (I would say our own cooking at The Three Elephants but that would just be egotistical...and setting me up for a fall when it's demanded I cook a Laos dish...!) WORST PLACE: The bottom of the Nam Tha river.... WORST FOOD: Could eat Laos food forever! MOST BIZARRE: Mike collapsing the hammock in the 4000 islands, which after his laughing at me in the river I had every misfortune to miss...Everyone competing for other people to join their tours in Nam Tha to bring the cost down...the tourists become the touts! The minivan driver deciding to leave the late French tourists behind at the Khang Si waterfall because they hadn't arrived at the time due to leave (tantamount to Laos hypocrisy - they don't believe in anything running on time as that requires a schedule that contradicts their relaxed, to the point of horizontal, attitude to life!) condemning them to a night in the jungle with the bears and tigers only to be stopped on our insistence! The annoying yapping dog at The Three Elephants Cafe which attacks everyone that walks through the gate but defended by a sign hanging from the gate of warning you of its grumpiness and that if you get bitten it is your own fault, as testified by an Ozzie on our course who had her toe bitten when she tried to go to the toilet! I wonder if this dog perhaps enbodies the grumpiness of the whole nation...?!; the Lan Tan tribe tradition of women shaving their eyebrows off to signify they are of marrying age and avoid the awkward confusion of wondering if they are "legitimate' WHAT I'M GOING TO MISS: If you hadn't guessed by now, the chilled atmosphere! Lazing in hammocks. Tubing down the river:) The brilliant nightbuses with their Casino Royales playing and proper reclining seats, not to mention the freebie biscuits and fruit! WHAT I'M NOT GOING TO MISS: Having to leave Laos? BOOKS READ: 'Zorro' - Isabelle Allende (a departure from the mysticism of the Chilean's usual canon for a ripping swashbuckling yarn); 'Exit Music' - Ian Rankin (decided to try a Rankin, especially as Mike loves him, but having chosen the final book think I missed out on the supposed brilliance of the relationship that develops over the 16 previous books between the curmudgeonly Rebus and his deputy that deprived me of fully enjoying it, that and the lame 'surprise' solving of the case...); 'The Wild Sheep Chase' - Haruki Murikami (utterly bizarre as ever though not anywhere near as superb as 'Kafka On The Shore'); 'Stay Alive, My Son' - Pin Yathay (I cried at the end of this as the more I find out about the Cambodian genocide the more extreme it seems to get. This was different from 'First They Killed My Father' in that it is written from the perspective of an adult suffering the cruelties and interestingly seems to lay more blame on American withdrawal and the shameful absence of the rest of the world to intervene. A MUST READ); 'Eleven Minutes' - Pablo Coehlo (as the author admits in the Preface as he's lighting a candle at Lourdes, couldn't be any more different from the book that made him famous but nonetheless revealing of the human psyche); 'Amsterdam' - Ian McEwan (at the risk of repeating myself, brilliant poetic prose language but a farcical story that verges on Ben Elton incredulity without, I fear the consciousness of being so sharply satirical); 'The God Delusion' - Richard Dawkins (brilliant to get my teeth into something intellectual again, though philosophy remains a troubling ache to my poor brain...makes a lot of good points but essentially if you are going to disprove something it is better to make a case of your own rather than pick and choose what parts of that thing you don't like in an attempt to disavow it - anyone can do that!)

QUOTES: "There is no such thing as absolute truth...everything passes through the filter of the observer. Memory is fragile and capricious; each of us remembers and forgets according to what is convenient. The past is a notebook with many leaves on which we jot down our lives with ink that changes according to the state of our mind." ('Zorro' - Isabele Allende); "We know so little about each other. We lie mostly submerged, like ice floes, with our visible selves projecting only cool and white." ('Amsterdam' - Ian McEwan); "He is a man. He is an artist. He should know that the great aim of every human being is to understand the meaning of total love. Love is not to be found in someone else, but in ourselves; we simply awaken it. But in order to do that, we need the other person, The universe only makes sense when we have someone to share our feelings with." "Really important meetings are planned by souls long before the bodeis see each other. Generally, these meetings occure when reach a limit, when we need to die and be reborn emotionally. These meetings are waiting for us, bur more often than not we avoid them happening. If we are desperate, though, if we have nothing to lose, or if we are full of enthusiasm for life, then the unknown reveals itself, and our universe changes direction." ('11 Minutes' - Pablo Coehlo)

The Culture Vulture Is Dead....

2008-07-12T05:23:00.000-07:00

After near on three months of rocketing around the continent taking in the museums, galleries, architecture, a couple of Natural Wonders of the world and an indecent amount of pastries it was time to pluck the feathers of my favourite culture vulture and give in to the sun, sand, sea and 18-30s gallavanting of the Thai islands and what better company to do it in than that of the boys with whom I weaned myself on Wednesday imbibations and cheesey clubs for three years. Having met the boys in Bangkok after a long bus ride from Battambang it was straight out to the Khao San Road for some catch-up drinks and rite-of-passage street food (prompting dubious looks from the ever-sceptic DS Adams...) for the uninitiated travelers to our group before heading to the club virtually in our room at the Four Sons Place...Taking environmental and financial objections to the planned flight from Bangkok to Phuket I made my way down to the south of the country via another psychedelic night bus, this one complete with a downstairs 'lounge' and TV that made sleep near to impossible. Exchanging a bus for a boat I actually beat the boys in arriving in Ko Phi Phi, a small island about 35 km off the Phuket peninsula which was virtually wiped out by the Boxing Day tsunami. Now it is a teeming hotspot for party-goers combining a gorgeous bay of white sand beach and turquoise waters with a hub of bars and clubs in the centre of the island that offer Full Moon parties, Half-Moon parties, Black Moon parties...get the picture?!It's much pricier than anywhere else but we got a good room in the PP Princess Resort which is just off the main road and away from the paths of vomit and Bryan Adams looped soundtracks and instead backs directly onto the beach. Four days were spent lying on the beach, reading and paddling in the ridiculously shallow water spiked with rocks that prevent you being able to get any deeper than knee height resulting in you resorting to sitting in the water to try and cool off while the nights were spent indulging in the multitude of bars offering free buckets (and/or Wimbledon coverage on the big screens!) and beach parties where fire-limboing and dancing in the sea were the norm. It was both the much-needed blow out from a very packed agenda over the past few months and also, for various reasons, the perfect time just to chill out and relax on the beach and take stock of what I've done and where I'm going. Resisting the urge to become a complete bum Hiren and I resurrected our boating muscles and managed a two hour kayak ride out of the bay and into the ocean to traverse the island, a somewhat more indomitable trek than the mere pond in Pokhara! The following day we took a boat out to Maya Beach, the location where they filmed The Beach (and which blasted out All Saints' 'Pure Shores' as we approached it...) which included one of the best snorkeling trips I've been on and a chance to see the incredible evening sunset. Due to the many rocks in the low waters we had to anchor some distance away in the sea and swim to The Beach during which unsurprisingly virtually everyone managed to cut themselves on the low-lying rocks turning the turquoise sea a bloody red...It also marked the beginning of a very patient lesson from Dave in how to use my camera properly, prompted by his exasperation that someone who has filmed for television broadcast cannot deal with over-exposure on his cheap camera and promptly cued many a moody silhouetted backdrop shot! The last night was somewhat bizarre as I randomly bumped into an old friend from school in an art shop on the beach. We spent seven years catching the 10A to and from school and formed part of the back seat possy along with Matt, FK and some other undesirables from the outer echelons of Saltwood and Sellindge so there was plenty to reminsce upon as we saw the night out at the Sunset Beach Bar where it seemed like a good idea to try and learn how to fire-eat and prove that I could do the fire-limbo.... We eventually forced ourselves off Phi Phi and headed to Phuket for a night. The town itself is an ugly, industrial site but going a little beyond to Kata we discovered a gorgeous beach where we could surf and stayed in a fantastic little villa apartment overlooking the sea. The stay was made memorable by lunching in The Dino restaurant, a place dedicated to dinosaurs with a mini-volcano blazing all night, giant fossils for children to climb in and out of and waiters and waitresses dressed as the Flintstones! From Phuket it was (begrudgingly on my behalf...!) a flight to Kuala Lumpur where the pristine beaches and sun gave way to a bulging metropolis of skyscapers and spiralling alleys. We managed to check in to the very bizarre Wheelers guesthouse with its art-deco murals, cages of birds and giant fish tanks (not to mention rooftop restaurant with sun-loungers so you can breathe in the smog better) and got to go up the Menara Kuala Lumpur (telecommunications) Tower for sunset where getting a lift up 271 metres we were able to sit in the observation tower as day turned to dusk and the city burst into a kaleidoscope of flickering electricity. Walking back to our hostel we headed via chinatown and some brilliant streetfood and then pottered around the market (finally managing to replace the sunglasses I left on the Mekong Delta boat). Begrudingly it was back to the airport and another budget AirAsia flight and we had landed in Sandakan. Formerly the home to the largest proportion of millionaires in the world it now looks like a battered and derelict east London council estate complete with the requisite yoofs supping from bottles on the seafront. There wasn't much to do to entertain ourselves in the evening and so having discovered the Catholic church on the hill (again advertising mass times that bore no relation to real time...), been deterred from climbing the hundred steps hill by the proliferation of rabid dogs and dined at the Tomato which had none of my first three preferences, it was back to the May Bank hotel and our ginormous TV to watch the Wimbledon final! In spite of knowing I had orang-utans to trek the following day I stayed up and with them until 5am, huddled in the dark of the room with the volume muted so as not to disturb the boys who had flaked out several rain breaks ago, and watched in torturously enraptured silence.

Nothing to do with my having stayed up most of the night we annoyingly missed the initial orang-utan feeding session at the rehabilitation centre and had to content ourselves with the all-you-can-eat amazing buffet until transferred via taxi and boat to Uncle Tan's stilted cabins submerged under the floods of the Borneo jungle river. I think it was impossible to be any more remote, a fact made apparent by that night's boat trek where under the canopy of the most immaculately star-studded sky (which was worth the price of the whole expedition alone) we fished for monkeys, reptiles and birds amidst the drowned trees with only flickering torchlights - Granji, you would have loved the kingfishers, which transfixed by the light, allowed us to sail to within spitting distance of their perch.

The following day, by now already smelling permanently of deet, divided into our three separate groups (we were the fearsomely known Tarantulas) we had two jungle treks, clad in wellies plunging through knee-high mud and picking the leeches from our skin, and another boat trip where we saw a plentitude of monkeys, more birds and a crocodile or two. Bizarrely, it was back at camp where we saw most of the action with monkeys swooping into the dining area to swipe the glass bottles of jam and monitor lizards circling the huts and making us all wary of having to wade through the water to our boats.

I opted out of the final night trek as it coincided with the timing of Michele's funeral and wishing I could be there I wanted instead to spend the hour alone; it was extremely peaceful to be in camp completely by myself, lying on the bench of our hut and looking up into the stars and saying my own private goodbye knowing that thousands of miles away she was being given a proper send-off back in Hythe by everyone else.

The last day was spent hopefully in camp with a platter of banana fritters looking out for orang-utans. My disappointment in not seeing my own King Louis would have been less had it not been for the videographic evidence of the previous group's sighting of the gingered apes the previous day which served only to rub salt into the wounds. But it was not to be and soon we had been whisked back to Sandakan where a delayed flight scuppered our arrival back in Kuala Lumpur compensated for by Dave's refusal to slum it any more and book us into a hotel which on sight with its huge bedrooms, bath and kitchen looked fantastic but proved less adept at flushing heavier objects down its u-bend and an immovable air-conditioning that caused us to sleep with shirts, trousers and two blankets!

Sadly it was time to part with the boys who were off for one final frolic in Singapore while I headed in the opposite direction back to Bangkok to meet Mike. Refuting the airlines again I bravely tackled the route by bus, all 35 hours of...There's something romantically whimsical about trains which whisk through the gorgeous countrysides (as opposed to the tarmaced hells favoured by buses) that give you a real insight into a country as you bypass its labourers in the fields and children playing in the parks (as opposed to the sterile coffin nature of being huddled in an aeroplane). In my opinion, as long as you have a good stack of books, fully charged ipod and bag of snacks it is the best way to travel: privileged with beautiful sights (and sunsets), the opportunity to meet new people and strike up friendships over shared food and card games and an open window letting the hair whip through your long traveler-accumulated hair.

Having negotiated theborder crossing at Hat Yai and then the public bus in Bangkok and inability of the Four Sons staff I eventually found Mike and now have seven weeks traveling Laos and the Philippines with him. Rumour has it he may even prove his existence to certain fretful friends and relatives by appearing on this blog!!

FAVOURITE PLACE: Being in the middle of nowhere in Uncle Tan's quaint cabin huts.

FAVOURITE FOOD: The huge buffets and mountainous pancakes laid on at Uncle Tan's

WHAT I'M GOING TO MISS: The stars in the jungle; lounging on Phi Phi beach; hunting for orang-utans

WORST PLACE: Wheeler's - stained walls and sheets, ricketty bunkbeds, no sheets and a bathroom half a mile away....WHAT I'M NOT GOING TO MISS: Taking half an hour to haul our kayak out to deep enough waters to sail and having to pick our way through the landmine of rocks that lacerated our feet under the deception of the water's shallows; people embarking upon their gap years and making me feel a million years old; deet MOST BIZARRE: Bumping into Alex! Being warned to be vigilant against the food-thieving monkeys who promptly as soon as I put my t-shirt over my head had swooped down and nabbed the pancake from the plate literally under my chin! There ensued a moment of staring out in where cowed by the monkey's resilient prepared-to-fight-to-the-death glare for the pancake (and wariness that no helicopters could pervade the Borneo jungle to airlift me to hospital) I conceded my batter to the jungle and took another fresh one from the pile! The train showing Alien vs Predator on the overnight journey to Hat Yai which caused repeated nightmares throughout the rest of the journey to the three small girls seated behind me... BOOKS I'VE READ: 'Saturday', Ian McEwan (A 'Mrs Dalloway' style 24 hour account of the day of the London Iraq protest march; as always, found his writing style brilliant, inspirational and so creative though sadly showing how poor his narrative plotting is by comparison with wildly unrealistic events opportunely designed in order for him to expostulate on the chosen 'theme' selected for that novel); 'Bitter Fame', Anne Stevenson (Not having read any of Sylvia Plath it was interesting to read a biography deliberately written to refute the hard, put upon, subjected wife line that is usually propounded by Hughes' enemies. It was also interesting to compare, inevitably, against the biography of Woolf who I do know about, though more difficult to resist generalised summaries lumping the two together. Must now read the Ariel poems and 'The Bell Jar.'); 'Time-Traveller's Wife', Anne Niffenegger (fantastic concept and must have been a logistical nightmare to plot! easy read and very addictive, with a bittersweet ending that had me...) QUOTES: "How I long to write on my own again! When I'm describing Henry James' use of metaphor to make emotional states vivid and concrete, I'm dying to be making up my own metaphors...I feel like throwing up my books and writing my own bad prose and bad stories and living outside the neat, gray secondary air of the university. I don't like talking about D H Lawrence and about critics' views of him. I like reading selfishly for an influence on my own life and my own writing." (Sylvia Plath - I know exactly how you feel!!!!); "...in general, the human disposition is to believe. And when proved wrong, shift ground. Or have faith, and go on believing." (Ian McEwan, 'Saturday')

To The Land of Fried Tarantulas!

2008-06-28T01:58:00.000-07:00

We decided to wave goodbye to Vietnman and usher in Cambodia via the Mekong Delta which winds its way through the continent and in many places acts as an concrete border for an area that has spent much of its time disputing the more malleable ones. Not only was this a more scenic route but having endured buses for the last three weeks we were keen to avoid another one and were glad to see our little chugger pull up in the dirty brown water.

Two days, three boats, one ferry and three taxis later we eventually arrived in Phnom Penh. It was a somewhat gruelling journey but included several interesting stop-offs at a local Cham village (that tricks tourists with the perception of its riverside shacks and shanty town image but several metres walk through reveals a bustling town!), rice-paper and fish plantations, a coconut production chain that turns coconuts into everything imaginable and a rather limited bike ride around rural Vietnam - all designed to provide toilet stop-offs that aren't a hole in the boat and an opportunity for the locals to sell us their wares. It was a budget package and we got what we paid for which included a free hotel stay-over on the first night which required a three hour taxi journey (including a brief ferry ride) with a driver who spoke no English and drove off while Liz and Kristy were going to the toilet while I frantically tried to explain to him the absence in the back seat. We were looking forward to the free dinner being laid on at the hotel but when we discovered this amounted to one bowl of soup or one bowl of rice or one bowl of vegetables we ended up dining at a local cafe over the road and gorging ourselves on spring rolls.

The second day was a long and complicated way of getting through Vietnamese and Cambodian visa officials which required multiple stop-offs at different agencies who all did different things rather than one collective office which added to the intensity of the cushionless seven hour boat ride meant we were well and truly exhausted by the time we arrived late in the evening in Phnom Penh. However, we did share the final taxi ride with a brilliant American family who kept us entertained as they regaled us with their stories of being present in Tiananmen Square during the massacre and their work as geo-physicists which had taken them around the world.

We took the easy option of staying at the hotel advertised by the package that we had bought as it included a free pick-up from our random drop-off point on the other side of the river and ended up with the most gigantic room at The King Guest House which had four beds in it and meant that I had to shout from the west wing in order for Kristy to hear me in the east wing! We had been hanging out with two guys we met in Saigon (Kev and Luke) and escaped to Lorenzos, a fabulous Philippino restaurant to celebrate our arrival and then topped it off with a bakery stop in what has become almost a tradition of our travels!

Phnom Penh is famous predominantly as a reminder of the horrific genocide incurred under Pol Pot's reign which massacred nearly 2 million people, a quarter of the population. I had read a couple of books prior to our arrival in Cambodia and so was somewhat prepared for the atrocities but even as we walked the streets it was almost unimaginable to conceive how only thirty odd years ago the Khmer Rouge had managed to evacuate the whole city after their takeover, sending everyone into the countryside to form their perfect classless, moneyless agrarian society.

What remained in Phnom Penh was Tuel Sleng, the prison where suspected enemies of the regime were incarcerated, tortured and killed. Horrifically, before the Khmer Rouge took over it was the city's high school and so the classrooms were turned into torture chambers and the playground into an execution pit. Inevitably it draws parallels with the Nazi crimes at Auschwitz but whereas the sheer size and remoteness of the gas chambers brings you to tears in Phnom Penh it is the incredulity of stumbling upon the Prison known as S-21 in a small sidestreet surrounded by houses and walking around the innocent foundations of a school that has been contorted into a death camp.

After a couple of hours in this haunted building we escaped to The Boddhi Tree, a small cafe almost next to S-21 but which in the spirit of Cambodian eateries offers outreach and charitable programmes, where not only do some of the profits go to those less off but they also offer free schemes to train young people to become chefs. I think we had several of the new recruits while we were there as none of our orders arrived as planned but we were more than happy to let this go just to sit in the leafy garden and feel that in the tiniest way we were giving something to a country that has been so badly mutilated.

With the history, logistics and purpose of S-21 spelled out by our visit to the museum we proceeded to Cheeung Ek, or The Killing Fields, which are exactly as they sound, an out of town set of fields where those who were not killed in S-21 were murdered: ordinary, every day people who had been or were suspected to be former Lol Non supporters and/or enemies of the Communist regime, dragged from their villages, trussed up and marched out to the Killing Fields where they were brutally executed. Driving to the site in a roaring tuk-tuk it is a churning sensataion to follow the road signs marked simply Killing Fields.

The site is commemorated by a gigantic white stupa with transparent walls that reveal the thousands of skulls recovered and housed inside. It is both a macabre and heart-breaking testament to the people whose lives were lost but serves the purpose of drilling home the scale of the massacre. it also offers relief to the Cambodian people who believe that if you are not ceremoniously buried then your spirit cannot locate its former body in the afterlife and therefore those killed in the fields are doomed to an eternal limbo until their bodies are recovered. Walking around the fields is a queasy task. Huts have been erected over excavated pits to mark where mass graves were but even the very paths linking these huts that you hav to tread reveal protruding bones and clothes of people still buried under the ground. The huge trees that stand in the Fields all have labels detailing who was killed against them so that even the most innocent of things are tarnished by the bloodshed.

After such a brutal day we hooked up with Kevin and Luke and took a tuk-tuk to the riverside, the prominent bar and restaurant area and managed to get a table at the reputed Khmer Borane where we tucked into a feast of traditional Cambodian dishes including Lok Lak beef, Amok, Cambodian sausages and crispy rice washed down with the local beer.

There was just time in the morning before our bus to Siem Reap arrived to get to the bakery and stock up for the six hour ride which remarkably, given the Vietnamese adventures, passed extremely smoothly. The bus driver warned us all as we approached Siem Reap that when we got off we would be hassled by the locals so we had to follow him straight into the office and wait for our pick-ups. As hardened travellers used to the demanding touts we sniffed at this suggestion but as soon as we stepped off the bus it was like being viciously mobbed. About eight small children grabbed one of my bags and tried to tear it open and it required all my strength to drag it into the safety of the office where there seemed to be an invisible line that prevented them from barging in and properly pilfering us. We were also faced with another problem in that on the journey we had decided that we did not want to stay at the sister hotel of King's where we had a pick-up already pre-arranged and so spent our time in the cafe pretending we did not know who this Kristy was that all the drivers were looking for before we could safely escape.

Given it was late in the evening and we didn't have a prior booking we couldn't settle for any of our first choices and ended up at the Siem Reap Riverside which seemed a great idea as we sat in the lofty first floor of The Soup Dragon having dinner but turned out to be a complete disaster. Seeing we were tired and not having much luck in finding a place the hotelier lured us in with the promise of free breakfast and internet only for us to find in the morning that they were not only charging us an extra $5 to stay but were also charging us each $5 for breakfast, limiting us to 30 minutes of the slowest internet connection and had given us a room without a working shower. Fuming we left and managed to check in to the much better Garden Village although by then we were really late for our trip to the Angkor Temples.

Doing our bit for ethical tourism we eschewed the formal trips and instead hired our tuk-tuk driver. Savouen, to give us a guided tour of the temples and ended with him inviting us to his cousin's party! This required two full days though the amount of temples there are you could easily take a week. Our first day was spent jigging around in the tuk-tuk on the bumpy 65km ride to Beng Mealea, a huge abandoned temple sunk in the middle of the jungle that not many people go to visit because of the distance but which was worth every numb bumcheek as an introduction to these magical lost worlds. On the way back we stopped off at Bakong, a five-tiered sandstone pyramid dedicated to Shiva, which we weren't allowed in until after 5.30pm when the guards had gone so that our guide could sneak us in without paying an entrance fee....

The second day began with the famous Angkor Wat which is a colossus. How they built such a gigantic temple, so intricately carved and which has withstood thousands of years without the technology available to us today is mind-blowing. It was built by Suryavarman II to honour Vishnu and also become his funerary temple but also represents the spatial universe with the long bridge over the moat representing the crossing of the mortal world and the huge tower reaching up to the heavens. My favourite part of the Temple however was the exquisite bas-reliefs etched into the wall celebrating the Churning of the Ocean Milk, a mythical scene whereby the gods are pulling on a cord against the devil-serpents and the friction produced churns the waters to produce the elixir of immortality.

We then proceeded on to Bayon which was my favourite Temple because of its 216 gargantuan faces built into the many towers rising from the building so that you feel as if you are being continually watched, an apt represenation of godly omniscience.

We drove through the rest of Angkor Thom without stopping off, passing the Terrace of Elephants and feeding the pot-bellied monkeys that gorge on the tourists' weaknesses before heading to Preah Khan, Banteay Srei and Ta Prohm. The latter was the setting of Tomb Raider and is marked by enormous trees whose tentacle-like roots strangle what is left of the Temple.

We celebrated our last night together with a feast of street food which was so cheap and tasty it makes you wonder why you would ever want to eat at any of the restaurants before visiting the the Night Market and seeing out the day in the fantastic roof-top terrace of the Garden Village which not only has dirt-cheap beer and a brilliant soundtrack but also streams Wimbledon so that I was able to watch Djokovic's horror exit!

It was sad to part with the girls. Liz and I travelled for a month together and managed to accomplish so much in that time and then teaming up with Kristy (a fellow pastry-addict) we formed a great little threesome with an incredible pool of books and ipods!! But they had to head to Ko Chang and I wanted to go to Battambang before I met back up with Hiren and the boys so we said our goodbyes and I endured the most bumpy journey of my travels so far as we crashed along the cratered road from Siem Reap whose singular trunk reveals the horrors of the landmine-potted countryside which is still yet to be cleared and restricts the Cambodians to such little safe land space.

Battambang ( translated as the town where you leave behind your bamboo!) is the second biggest city in Cambodia though you would never guess. It has a sleepy French riviera feel to it and in my first day I managed to explore the complete width and breadth of its perimeters taking in the brilliant fresh food market, earmarking the best cafe for cookies and brownies and finding the tiny Catholic church.

My main purpose for visiting Battambang was to do the legendary Smokin' Pot cookery course. Cambodian delicacies include embryo eggs, fried tarantulas and grasshoppers so I was a little apprehensive as to what to expect but ended up being delighted as I saw my two favourite dishes, Amok (a fish curry wrapped in banana leaf) and Lok Lak beef on the menu. The course is run by a fantastic Khmer chef who took us to the market to show us what we need to buy, what to look out for in our ingredients and most importantly how to haggle! We then headed back to the restaurant and sat outside under the awning grinding our pastes and frying our meats under his careful eye. The amok I made was delicious and though my Lok Lak was a bit too peppery for my liking this I at least know how to make it. The only disappointment was the mango salad as there is no amount of convincing me that adding smoked fish meat to mango shards, shallots, onions and chilis is going to taste eatable! We graduated and were presented with a great little cook book to use when we get back home - so be prepared!

Cambodia has unfortunately owing to the tightness of my schedule been all too fleeting. While I have not missed out anything I wanted to see (with perhaps the acception of lounging on Serendipity Beach in Siankhouville) I could easily have spent much more time in each place; Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and Battambang could all take a week, but I have to meet the boys and so once again, it is back on the bus!

FAVOURITE PLACE: Garden Village - bargain price for a delightful, homely hostel with a great communal area and fantastic vibe.

FAVOURITE FOOD: I am officially a Lok Lak fan - obviously the one I cooked! Siem Reap street food! Sunrise Coffee House cookies!

WHAT I'M GOING TO MISS: The Cambodian children are the most friendly people I have met yet; everywhere they greet you with beaming smiles, stubby fingers waved in the air and complete delight on their faces when you say hello back and offer a generation of hope for the brutalities suffered by their parents and grandparents. The philanthrophy of Cambodian organisations determined to make up for the past.

WORST PLACE: Siem Reap Riverside - first time I've encountered unfriendly staff...

WORST FOOD: Mango salad with fish?!?!!? The Cambodian penchant for peanuts...in everything!

WHAT I'M NOT GOING TO MISS: Bumpy roads; the visible signs of the Khmer Rouge's legacy etched into the scars and deformations of a generation of Cambodians....

BOOKS I'VE READ: 'My Sister's Keeper' and 'Change of Heart', Jodi Picoult (As Kristy is a big fan she lent me a book and persuaded me to buy another. I think I've now got the Picoult formula! She explores interesting ethical themes and is perfect for a good holiday read!; 'War on Asia', Noam Chomsky (Startling how prophetic a book this is considering it was written during the Vietnamese war and lambasts American foreign policy and stands fast as a representation of and argument against the war in Iraq forty years later. Sadly, has anything changed?)

QUOTES: "There are only two ways to live your life. One is though nothing is a miracle. The other is though everything is a miracle." (Albert Einstein); "Humans are tuned for relationship. The eyes, the skin, the tongue, ears and nostril are all gates where our body receives the nourishment of otherness. This landscape of shadowed voices, these feathered bodies and antlers and tumbling streams - these breathing shapes are our familyu, the beings with whom we are engaged, with whom we struggle and suffer and celebrate" (http://www.boddhitree.com/ - on the back of their menu); Kristy - "The only person I have ever met who spells their name the same way as me was a huge black guy from France" Liz - "oh, that must be Linford then!"

Scar Tissue

2008-06-23T08:14:00.000-07:00

We were sad to leave the comparative luxuries of Hoi An behind us and throw the bags back on our bags to continue our travels but made the most of our last day of being able to veg out guilt-free. While Liz went off to do a Vietnamese cookery course on the other side of the river, Kristy and I took it upon ourselves to sample the rest of Tam Tam's patisserie shelves and lazily sauntered into town and set up camp in the bohemian cafe room of Tam Tam and worked our way through the rest of the pastries we hadn't tried which came accompanied with actual pots of tea:) Kristy and Liz then went to pick up all the tailor-made items they had ordered (which included breaking into a shoe shop after discovering the guy had done a runner with their money and help themselves to the shoes they were owed!) while I lounged by the pool engrossed in my Anthony Keidis autobiography. We all met up for a brilliant farewell meal at Tu Do, a small cafe run by the highly eccentric Mr Dong who insisted upon us trying the local beer before we left which we accompanied with a shared set menu of Hoi An delights including White Rose dumplings, special wonton noodles and a dish known as Cao La which is some kind of fried vegetable and meat parcel. After the ordeal of the previous bus journey we were hoping for something less traumatic but I should have known better. This was a different type of bus that was half seated and half double-bed sleeper berths so while Kristy and Liz snuggled up in their temporary boudoir I found to my horror that I was sharing with an eighty year old Vietnamese woman who was already changed into her silk pyjamas and lying down with a dirty toothless grin when I boarded. The rest of the bus found it hilarious as struggling with my bags I had to straddle the Old Woman to get to my half of the bed. Trying to make the best of a bad situation I ended up on the phone back home to wish Dad a happy Father's Day when all of a sudden the Old Woman sits up and starts smoking a cigarette! The girls behind complained to the bus driver who stopped the bus and wandered up towards the back to investigate at which point the Old Woman hid the cigarette under her hand as if she had no idea what the commotion is all about until the bus driver pulled the cigarette from its hiding place and angrily threw it out of the window forcing her to lie back down and start up a mock coughing fit in protest. When the lights were turned off and everyone settled down for sleep I plugged my ipod in and turned to face the window out of decency. Several minutes later when I decided to turn back over to avoid the dazzle of the street lights burning through the thin curtains I found the Old Woman had comandeered 75% of our double bed and ended up choking on her outstretched elbow. No amount of polite aheming or gentle prods would move her and so I spent most of the rest of the night wide awake trying to avoid suffocating on her elbows and clawing back whatever space I could when the bus hurtled round the corner sending us both flying towards the aisle only to lose it back again every time the bus hurtled in the opposite direction causing the highly unpleasant situation of finding myself squashed between the window and the smoky breath of my aged bed companion... Suffice to say not much sleep was had that night so we checked in at the first hotel we came to in Nha Trang and then went to explore the town. Nha Trang is one of the best beaches in Vietnam and a welcome stop off point on the arduous journey between Hoi An and Saigon but is not a common tourist destination and consequently not really set up to accomodate the backpacker which suited us perfectly fine as we were more than happy to settle into a bit of "real" Vietnam. Our first experience was locating a patisserie for a spot of brunch which was housed shelf after shelf of fresh pastries at dirt cheap prices but with no English menu anywhere, so there was nothing left to do but buy as many as we could between us and sit down to work out which ones were worth buying again! After gorging ourselves we headed straight for the beach, a golden-white sandy shore that stretches around the whole bay, and spent the afternoon sunbathing, swimming and reading, eradicating the memories of the Old Woman on the bus amidst a blur of Frou Frou and Regina Spektor. Our first day ended up being quite food-orientated as later on we stumbled upon the first supermarket I have seen on my travels (excluding the ubiquity of the corner shop style Seven Elevens in Thailand) and our joy was uncontained as we strolled up and down the aisles able to purchase products we had only come to dream of. Having packed three huge baskets we had a fantastic homemade dinner of fresh bread, butter, jam and cheese washed down with a couple of bottles of red wine and finished off with yoghurt and chocolate - hardly an Emperor's feast I know but having not been able to find most of the said products in the last couple of months it was fit for three travellers! Our second day in Nha Trang saw us hit the Hot Mineral Springs and Mud Baths which was hilarious. Traveling with two girls has opened my eyes to a whole new world, not least one in which there is a product that will soothe and solve every situation, and so a day of pampering was obviously the next logical step. In an attempt to justify this indulgence we decided to walk the 5km from our hotel to the Springs which offered a completely different perspective to the chilled, beachy facade that had been revealed to us on the first day. Leaving the beach and its patisseries behind we ended up in the local market and bought a breakfast of fresh fruit before stumbling upon the meat section which was quite horrific as the birds were being plucked live by the market vendors for their customers. After escaping that barbaric scene we had to trek through the slums and less well off parts of the town; huge shanty villages built on stilts on the river beds and streets of houses that bared open their fronts onto the dusty pavements revealing lounges doubling up as hairdressers or motorbike garages while the naked children ran about the streets with the stray dogs. It was a bit of a shock as up until then Vietnam had seemed quite a progressive country, especially in comparison to where we had already visited, but on further reflection made sense as to why the Vietnamese government were not pushing the beautiful beaches of Nha Trang onto the tourists as we had expected but were instead trying to conceal this aspect from the boasts that they will achieve the status of a developed country by 2020. It was a relief to finally reach the Springs having lathered up a nice sticky sweat from our walk and we plunged straight into the mud bath. The stench was somewhat nauseating but the feel of the warm mud was strangely relaxing and with the aid of the coconut bucket we ended up covering ourselves from head to toe in the dark greeny-grey clay which you have to rub into your skin to receive all the benefits of its exfoliation. After a good half an hour in the "tub" we progressed to the sunbeds where you have to sun yourself until the mud is nearly caked on your skin. I was a bit dubious about this as I recalled the painful waxing of the caked mud on the hairs of my legs from Glastonbury so I was the first to dive into the hot Mineral Spring showers to wash it off. Having extracted the gloop from seeming every pore and stitch of my trunks we had to walk through a piston jet water spray which was like being sliced open with razors before we could relax in the hot tubs which was like stepping into a bath of valium. When we emerged we could barely speak; it felt like we were floating through the complex having been purged inside and outside of every conceivable stain. We had just enough energy to grab some dinner at the poolside cafe before collapsing on the loungers into a stupor that lasted the rest of the most relaxing afternoon of my trip so far!
Unfortunately the bus saga continued as it materialised we had been conned out of a sleeper bus to Saigon and had to waste a precious day aboard a bus traveling there from Nha Trang, arriving in the pouring rain which leaked through the air conditioning vents...Arriving late in the evening we were fortunate to get a room at MyMy Art Hostel (with its manical manager!) and had only energy enough to explore the local area which was almost metropolis-like with its heaving neon streets and international restaurants and bars and a huge shock from even the smaller, less developed Hanoi.

In our couple of days there we managed to fit in a tour of the Reunification Palacae (an awful Catz-esque concrete building that conversely offered a much more interesting tour inside), a Cadoist Temple (a religion set up by three prophets including Victor Hugo that incorporates elements from Buddhism, Christianity and Taoism and defined by a huge Temple in which we were permitted to enter to witness a ceremony that involved monks of different coloured robes representing the different religions and a host of white tunic clad nuns) and the War Remnants museum which is quite possibly the most horrific museum I have ever been to with its photographic archive of disasters wreaked by the Vietnam war with America. I was ashamed by my complete ignorance of the Agent Orange dioxin horrors which have mutilated a whole generation of Vietnamese and the barbaric massacres of whole villages by the Americans who suspected women and children of harbouring Viet Cong. In the light of the war against Iraq it was eerie how many parallels could be drawn between the two events and makes you wonder what kind of atrocities have and are being committed in the name of pre-emptive justification...

It was a sentiment that was reinforced by visiting the Cu Chi Tunnels just outside of Saigon on our last day. This incredible network of tunnels spanning 250km housed 16 000 Viet Cong forces during the war. The simplicity of this tactic confounded all the technology of the Americans who were bayoneted every time they tried to attack the Vietnamese forces in their tunnel and is a tribute to the persistence of these forces and the sheer difficulty of their lives underground. Many of the tunnels remain open and I was allowed to slide down one particular entrance and cover myself while hovering in the bunker below it and it was absolutely terrifying. What was also striking was the minute dimensions and claustrophobia of these tunnels which I could barely even sit in...they had a special tourist tunnel network which was twice the size but petrifying to crawl under as we descended 10 metres underground - there was no room to turn around and two of the girls in our group had a panic attack though the mad 60 year old Malaysian grandmother was having a whale of a time!

It was a sobering end to an absolutely fascinating country that has offered mountains, remote hill tribes, a gorgeous archipelago, amazing food, beaches, long stretches of paddy fields and the hustle and bustle of motorcycle-inhabited cities. Having experienced the friendliness and hospitality of all the other countries I have visited so far the Vietnamese in comparison were cold, perhaps a legacy of distrust towards foreigners still lingers? Their relationship towards tourists is completely functional: they want the money and the industry but do not share the passion of the Indians, Neplaese or Thais who want you to fall in love with their country and never leave, but instead want to take your money and push you over their border.

They seem to be a country that is determined to become a developed power that will never allow them to have such atrocities as the American war visited upon them again but at the same time have had their psyche moulded by such traumas to the extent that they seem, rightly or wrongly, unable to let go of them.

FAVOURITE PLACE: MyMy Art Hostel

FAVOURITE FOOD: Fresh pineapple and rambutan

WORST PLACE: Bus to Nha Trang....

WORST FOOD: Now the lunar moon has come to fruition dog is back on the menu as a luxury for the second half of the month....

WHAT I'M GOING TO MISS: Patisseries, mud baths!!

WHAT I'M NOT GOING TO MISS: Sleeper buses and the non-stop motorbike traffic...

MOST BIZARRE: The Vietnamese womens' penchant for covering every bit of their skin from the sun with face masks, scarves and gloves even in the blistering heat and then hiding themselves under brollies and opened newspapers while we walk about trying to expose every bit of skin and soak up every last ray!; Kristy ordering a "freshly squeezed orange juice"from Romy's homemade ice-cream only to pass the time while Liz and I tucked into their goodies to discover she had accidentally ordered a full continental breakfast, at 9.30pm....

BOOKS I'VE READ: 'Scar Tissue,' Anthony Kiedi (how he is still alive I have no idea? A tortured soul who has reached salvation:)) 'First They Killed My Father'' Loung Ung ( a heartbreaking first person narrative of a little girl who lived through the Pol Pot massacre bringing to life the atrocities the Cambodian people suffered and will bring the most hardened person to tears); 'Cambodia Year Zero' (an historical account of the formation and workings of S-21 that reveals the horrific tortures suffered by all those who entered the prison)

Back in the 'Nam

2008-06-14T05:26:00.000-07:00

It's strange how traveling for a year does not actually leave enough time to visit everywhere you want. Having emerged from the birthday celebrations in Halong Bay we spent half a day traveling back to Hanoi only to stop long enough to grab a baguette, book our ongoing bus tickets to Hue and then jump on an overnight sleeper train to Sapa in north-west Vietnam, the mountainous centre of trekking. Again because of time constraints our initial plan to sort the trek ourselves was abandoned in favour of booking a three day package as recommended by a brilliant couple from Brighton we met on our way back from Halong Bay who told us of a really good company that offered cheap deals. Given that the package included trains and pick ups there and back as well as two different treks all our accomodation and food for the three days it seemed a no-brainer not to take it as to organise all those things individually would have taken an additional day not to mention the added cost. The sleeper train was like stepping into an Agatha Christie carriage with its old-fashioned lamps and provided a remarkably comfortable night's sleep despite having to share it with a rude Vietnamese couple who turned off the shared lights at 9.30pm in spite of the fact that I was still visibly reading. The arrival at 5.30am was slightly less comfortable but reassured us that we had made the right decision as trying to find a taxi and then negotiate a hotel at that time of the morning with our huge packs would not have been fun. We were booked into the Sapa Summit Hotel which true to its name sat in the hilltop overlooking the valley dreamily fogged with low clouds and more importantly served five-course meals for lunch AND dinner. We had a morning to settle in and then began our day-trek to the village tribe of Cat Cat situated at the foot of the valley's waterfall. It was a long winding road that led us from the hotel down into the bowels of the valley and through the heart of the village where locals in traditional dress were carrying out their daily routines: men and women (with babies strapped to their backs) in the innummerable paddy fields while the mischievous youngsters ran in and out of our group with their many puppies. We stopped off at a local shop for our Thai companions to buy a tiger's claw. I have never seen three people so excited by such an awful object. They had been looking for somewhere that would allow them to take one back into their country for ages and it was as much as I could do to bite my tongue and hold back from telling them that they should not be supporting the illegal trade that was running tigers into extinction. The outing wasn't so much a trek as a light amble that lasted only as long as it did because we had to keep stopping to take pictures of the villagers who were dressed in traditional attire. We had wanted something a bit more demanding and so on the return uphill to the hotel Liz and I marched on at a pace that rather worryingly our wisp of a guide was unable to keep up with and so were forced to wait for her to catch us up. After a long couple of days of travelling it was in retrospect nice to have a more gentle introduction as it gave us a chance to wander around the Sunday market when we got back and then grab a five course meal before finally having time to start uploading the vast number of photos we had accrued. The following day we left at 9.30am and fortunately had managed to switch groups (leaving behind our Thai photography fanatics and ailing tour guide) so that we teamed up with a group of snowboard instructors, two Americans called Lacey and Laura and one Aussie girl, Mirjiana, to commence the two-day overnight trek to Lao Chai, another, more remote, tribal village. We were led by the indomitable Khu, an irrepressibly cheeky girl from Lao Chai who thoroughly enjoyed the fact she was leading a group of all girls and one guy...She was dressed in the traditional garments which included velvet leg warmers (even in the heat of the day) and a long shirt with stitched patterns that buttoned up over her day clothes. She also brought along many of the women from her tribe, ranging from old ladies with hands stained purple from the hemp of the indigo that grows in abundance in the hills, to the younger, more timid girls who looked up with shy smiles and weaved us wreathes of bracken as they accompanied us on our trek. The walk wound its way through the paddy fields that dominate the landscape and into the heart of the village where we stopped off for lunch by the river. We then followed the river along through Lao Chai to another village, Ta Van, where we were staying overnight. There are many homestays in these villages to accomodate the trekkers and the five of us along with two other Aussies shared the upstairs loft of what looked to be a converted barn. We had made good time and so were allowed to spend the rest of the afternoon wandering around the village and speaking to the locals who were all keen to chat to us (and attempt to sell us embroidered knitwear!) before regrouping for dinner at our homestay. It was a lovely traditional homemade meal of rice and stirfrys and steamed vegetables but the main course was saved for after eating... Having sated more than our fill we were prepared to see the night out genially chatting and playing cards when our host brought out a bottle of rice wine. Earlier in the day at lunchtime I had again been accosted by a group of Vietnamese guys who wanted to speak to me about soccer and insisted upon rewarding my knowledge with a shot of rice wine so I was well aware of the potency of the drink. Given we were nicely exhausted from our trek and still had another day to go we accepted the round of shots thinking it would be rude to decline little knowing that our host had three bottles of the stuff that she would demand we finish before the night went out. This was easily instilled by a strict penalty of drinking if you did not perform certain dares, the first being to sing a song to the group. For some reason I opted for God Save The Queen (!) and Liz opted for Postman Pat! Suffice to say we flouted virtually every village rule from having to be asleep before 10pm to not exposing certain body parts...Given the layout of the beds which were all in one long line in the loft with me, the sole guy, being at the end, the night, almost inevitably, culminated in me, as the only guy, being what the girls hilariously describe as "steamrolled" ie, being ambushed and rolled up and down over in the pitch black. A few hours later and with rice-wine fugged heads we were faced with the prospect of another day's walk with the sun deciding to unleash its full potency. We were saved only by the arrival of a mountain of stacked pancakes complete with bananas, local honey and sugar for breakfast that provided enough temporary energy to navigate our way back up to the hotel through the bamboo forests with a fantastic break for sunbathing at the top of the waterfall where I, being the only one in trunks, was able to paddle around in the pool overlooking the sudden drop:) We had just enough time at the hotel to have our first shower for forty-eight hours and pop down to the local French patisserie and pick up a box of cakes to share on the journey back to Hanoi before catching the overnight train.

Sadly the promised pick-up from the bus station in Hanoi back to our hotel did not materialise which meant being ripped off by a taxi that then proceeded to drop us off in the middle of nowhere at 5.30am, exhausted from our trek and travels and carrying our huge sweaty bags. The upshot of this was that we did get to see the bizarre sight of sunrise inducing aged Vietnamese out of their houses and onto the street pavements to perform their daily exercises on the spot; they were still all clad in their pyjamas and remained completely oblivious to us as we wound our way in and out of them not daring to break their concentration to try and ask where we might be.

Fortuitously we bumped into a rep from the Central Stars Hotel who escorted us back to the hotel where we managed to wangle a free room for the morning in order to shower and clean up and then we embarked on our one-day mission around Hanoi.

This started off with a trip to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and surrounding complex of museums dedicated towards his memory which is probably, to date, the strangest thing I have been to on these travels. For a start the mausoleum is only open from 8-11 am which suited our early rise but then you have to queue up along the perimeter of this stark communist building rising out of the barren concrete grounds surrounding the whole complex and wait to be escorted along a red carpet into the mausoleum by a fully armed, white uniformed military soldier. Every five metres along the red carpet is another armoured soldier but you continue to be escorted by the initial soldier as you are hushed into the gloomy heart of the mausoleum never given even a second's respite to pause as you are marched around in complete silence. The room in which HCM resides is as you would expect stark and devoid of everything except a single glass prison in which HCM lies with his head eerily propped up on a pillow as if looking up at you. Apparently the body goes on a little three month holiday every year for maintenance, this fact only serving to compound to the whole grotesque atmosphere surrounding the mausoleum with its persistent air conditioning seeming to drain any warmth from inside its folds. Sadly, escaping into the museums which maintain his former house, garage and workplace did little to ameliorate this disquiet. Again, we were marched around the buildings in almost military style with whistle-blowing and gun-clad soldiers ready to chase us back into line lest we linger to take any photographs. There isn't much to see as all the interiors remain as stark as the Communist values they propound and even the peaceful, well-manicured gardens lose some of their value due to the sterile aridity of their empty environment, the red flag with its yellow star being the only drop of colour. The complex is a huge attraction for schoolgroups on propagandist trips to pay homage to the country's saviour and we were glad to finally escape the whole area and return to the bustling, vibrancy of the heart of the city where life is celebrated in all its noisy, dirty, haphazard glory.

After a quick walk past Lenin Park (another horrible empty concrete ground with a solitary statue of the Russian in its midst) we stopped at a refreshingly Capitalist coffee house to revive our flagging spirits and then hailed a cyclo to take us to the Temple of Literature. (There is a marked difference to Vietnamese cyclos though: the carriage is strapped onto the front of the bike and looks like a big digger in which you are scooped up into the paddle of its arm and sit precariously balanced until you are ungainly spooned out at the end of your trip. A novel way to travel though no hope of retaining any grace or dignity!)

The Temple of Literature couldn't have been any more contrasting from our early morning activity if we had chosen it. A thousand year old university, the crumbling ruins are in debt to the Chinese influence of Confuscius, and I felt I had landed in my spiritual home:) From the moment you walk through the entrance gates, which kindly ask you to step down from your horse, before continuing to the exam hall where the King would have been the invigilator orally quizzing the best students in the royal exam for acceptance to the court, it is gloriously quirky, homely and meditative and obligingly we grabbed a crumbled seat and sat down to write our postcards and read our books as we soaked up a millennium of cultivated learning:)

A quick detour to pick up our bus tickets and we were back in the Old Quarter to have lunch at our favourite lakeside patisserie before catching the afternoon's first Water Puppet show at the grand colonial theatre. The show is unique to Vietnam, and Hanoi the host of the queen of performances, and we were treated to (or horrified by in Liz's case) twenty-one scenes enacting important legends and stories of Vietnam's history.

The whirlwind day ended as it had begun with overnight transport, exchanging the luxuries of the train for the basics of the bus...
Vietnam has a brilliant open-ticket bus service which allows you to travel from tip to tip stopping off wherever you want for seventeen pounds (the same amount it costs me for one single from Hythe to London...) and so we thought that we had cracked a brilliant way of combining travel with overnight sleeping that would save us the cost of accomodation and time wasted in spending days traveling...Ha! As the last passengers to board we had no choice of beds and had to make do with the two top-tiered berths. I nobly took the centre bed which had no supporting side walls and stowed myself away in a bunker that does not leave enough room even for my miniscule pins to turn your legs in the night so that every time I tried I would crack my knees on the inside of the bunker and wake myself up which in addition to being slammed against the railings every time you turn a corner leaves you somewhat black and blue after thirteen hours...However, the climax of this journey occured just after I had managed to wiggle myself into a position that offered maximum security from being bumped out of or against certain parts of the bed, had snuggled up under my blanket and closed my eyes to listen to my ipod. At this point the bus driver decided to take an "off-road" short cut at exactly the same moment the woman behind me chose to open her 1.5 litre bottle of water resulting in the surreal combination of being awoken to what felt like an earthquake tremoring below us (and which had shaken some people out of their beds) and a torrent of water drowning me from on high. My startled face was apparently a picture, so much so that the woman behind me instead of being mortified by the combination of events collapsed into hysteria before offering to exchange bedding and Liz, who was clinging to the rails on her bed was offered a moment of light relief from a situation in which she later admitted she thought she was going to die in...

With such a full day (and night!) when we arrived at our next destination our plans to see the city in a day disappeared as we headed to the first cafe to feed our faces and dry off!

Hue is the former capital of Vietnam, its significance stretching back through the grandeur of the Emperors' rule and culminating in it having become the heartlands of the civil war in which by virtue of lying in the centre of the country caused it to mark the border between communist North and American sanctioned south during the last century's war: a place unflatteringly now known as the DMZ, Demilitarised Zone and famous for its warfare rather than grandiose history. We decided to eschew its more recent fame and headed to the ancient citadel on the north side of the river. Sadly there's not much left of its crumbling ruins (though the impressive gatehouse offers a formidable sight and it contains the alluring Forbidden Purple Palace in which only eunuchs were allowed to enter as they were designated the only non-threat to the Emperor and his wife!) but it once was a huge palace and the grounds still provide an enormous site to wander around though the Asian distaste for curating museums prevailed making it almost impossible to navigate as there is little signage or explanation of any of the paths or ruins that leave you to guess romantically at what these bombed shells of crumbling stacks or haunting black and white photographs once were.

There was much more we could have done in Hue but owing to the strictness of our schedule we had to depart that afternoon for another four hour bus journey to Hoi An. The bus company always drops you off at the hotel belonging to their franchise and we had become accustomed to fending off the advances of their employees upon arrival but most fortunately this time the hotel on offer was the best accomodation we have seen (it even has a swimming pool!) and at a snippet of the price of the one we were preparing to hike to we gladly accepted the welcome of the An Phu Hotel.

Since arriving in Vietnam we have been on the go constantly taking in a three day tour of Halong Bay, three days trekking in Sapa, sightseeing days in Hanoi and Hue and three overnight sleeper journeys so there was no qualms in settling into the big duvets of our spacious room after a refreshing swim in the pool and settling down to watch a film on HBO. When Liz's friend, Kristy, arrived the following day the theme continued as we strolled around the river, visiting the fresh markets and hundreds of tailors' shops which are the mainstay of the city's attrations, treating ourselves to the Hoi An delicacies of White Rose dumplings and crashing by the pool with our collective of books and ipods. In a trip that doesn't offer many moments to catch your breath it has been necessary, and welcome break, to rejuvenate our batteries before hitting the party islands of Nha Trang and the much-hyped mania of Saigon!

FAVOURITE PLACE: An Phu Hotel, Hoi An

FAVOURITE FOOD: Lemon Meringue tarts at Tam Tam in Hoi An; chocolate orange eclairs from Sapa patisserie; five-course "free" meals at Sapa Summit, just because they were five courses:)

WHAT I'M GOING TO MISS: Bathing in the waterfalls in the gorgeous mountains of Sapa; the bizarre combination of modern Vietnam's Chinese and French fusion exemplified best in architecture and food (what could be better than a crispy beef noodle main washed down by a creamy, chocolate pastry?!)

WORST PLACE: The bus from Hanoi to Hue...

WORST FOOD: Rice wine (or at least the quantities of it drunk in Ta Van...)

WHAT I'M NOT GOING TO MISS: Riding double in a one-man cyclo round the citadel, when the second seat is a plank of wood strapped across the top of the seat...Karaoke sessions in Ta Van - the only time I have ever opted to sing over drink thanks to the fear of the rice wine! Angry vendors in Sapa who tear open packets to show you their contents and then try and charge you for having made them open the packets! The Thai insistency of taking self-shot photos of themselves against every possible background...

MOST BIZARRE: The boys riding buffalos that chased Liz down the mountain in Sapa!; being steamrolled in the middle of the night by a Croat-Australian; the velvet leg-warmers worn by the Lao Chai residents in the heat of the day; the influence of communism in Vietnam's shops so that evey vendor sells the same items for the same price so there is no variation or healthy competition...

FAVOURITE QUOTES: "It's worse for tall people to get drunk as they have longer chicken legs that make them fall" (Khu our guide to Mirjiana the tall whilst drinking rice wine!) "Back in the 'Nam!" (Lacey, Laura and Mirjiana)

Marking the monumental increment of wisdom...or turning the ripe old age of 24!

2008-06-10T17:18:00.000-07:00

As with all important ceremonies, and deciding that the embarking upon my 25th year merited such gravitas, a five day celebration was required to justify the significance of this date. As mum reminded me when she turned 24 she was already some way into a respectable vocation as a physiotherapist, had been married for over a year and was giving birth to her firstborn. So it seemed somewhat appropriate that I should spend mine unmarried, jobless, certainly nowhere near having children and spending the few pennies I own on a shamelessly self-indulgent trip around the world loosely veiled as providing me with more life experience and perhaps finding myself under a full moon in Thailand. The festivities began with a suitably debauched celebration on the Khao San Road that was in no way elegant or pretty but oodles of fun. Having met up with two Danes called Beavs (short for Beaver because that's what we thought his surname sounded when he first told us, I blame the Danish accent) and Rass (an infinitely preferable alternative to Erasmus in both length and snootiness!) the four of us decided to mark our last night in Thailand and beginning of my birthday with a couple of quiet drinks in the Bangkok Bar, a favourite haunt of ours that combines good food and drinks with the amusement of street side entertainment such as the zebra-clad Mr Thailand selling enchiladas! Several buckets of whiskey and coke from a cheap street bar on the Khao San Road that unfortunately happened to be frequented by two northern guys that give Brits Abroad their bad name and a rather portly man who was unable to place all his weight upon the tiny plastic stools and overspilled into many of our photos and the night had taken an unseemly turn that culminated in a club appropriately entitled Gulliver's Travels which was less about literary or expeditionary forays than cheap drinks, awful music and bars that turned into dancing podiums.... It perhaps wasn't the best idea given we had an early flight to Hanoi the following morning and awoke the morning after only when the bus that had come to pick us up from the hostel had departed which brought about a mighty scramble to find a taxi we could afford with the meagre remnants of our bruised wallets to race us to the airport just in time to catch our flight. We touched down in Hanoi two hours later and then had to take another taxi to cover the 29km from the out of town airport to the city centre. I had thought that the conical wicker hats associated with Vietnam were merely a touristy stereotype but everywhere we looked out of the windows people were wearing them. It was a convenient distraction to the flatness of a landscape that lends very little else to the imagination. In contrast Hanoi City was like reaching the oasis in the desert. It is a grand old French colonial style town with a huge cafe culture influenced greatly by the patisserie tradition, hurrah! We had no trouble in locating a superb lakeside cafe called Thuyts where we revived ourselves with a veritable feast of baguettes, pineapple caramel cakes (which I had been telling Liz how much I missed in the taxi journey) and tea, and I mean proper tea of the hot, unsickly variety WITH milk:) Hiren failed to meet us and so we checked into the Stars Hotel. This was the second big surprise thrown up by Vietnam. Having become accustomed to accomodation amounting to little more than a plank for a bed with a sheet for a cover it was a complete shock to be shown to a room with two grand beds, a city-facing balcony, an en-suite with shower, bath AND hot water that never ran out, not to mention a TV and kettle!!! It was certainly a joy to spend my birthday in such comfort and difficult to prise ourselves from the blankets (actual thick duvets you can nestle and hide away in!) but we went for a night time walk to familiarise ourselves with the city. We were staying in the quaint Old Quarter which is just north of the Lake, the liquid heart of the city, and home to a sprawling network of boutiques and food stalls. After the success of the Thai street food we were keen to sample the Vietnamese equivalent but where the Thais might charge one and a half times the price to a tourist (which is still dirt cheap by our standards and so you don't mind paying above) the Vietnamese are extortionate scammers usually quoting you a price 5-10 times its value so when we were quoted $10 for a bowl of soup each for a meal that probably costs 10cents to make we realised we would have to retreat to one of the numerous cafes and settle for crab soup and fresh spring rolls that you have to 'make' yourself. The following morning (my actual birthday!) we had an early start to leave our wonderful hotel room to take a two hour mini-bus ride to Halong Bay port where Liz bought me a Vietnamese hat with a most fetching pink ribbon chin strap that I was forced to wear for the duration of the day...Our boat, the Congnchia, was an old colonial junker with three decks and looked like something that had sailed right out of the Pirates of the Caribbean. The bottom deck housed our berths, the middle deck was the restaurant and 'living' area while the top deck was basically a glorified sun lounger! We trundled out of the Bay in what seemed to be a combination between dodgems and battleships as the junkers literally barged their way through each other and into the open water. The archipelago of 1900 islands is an incredible sight; everywhere you look are miniature Lost-esque islands rising up out of the green water. How you ever navigate your way around the islands is a complete mystery as if you were to drop us off in the middle I doubt we would ever be able to find our way back! Just sitting on the top of the boat soaking up the sun and the sights of this incredible archipelago which is being listed as one of the UNESCO Natural Wonders of the World could easily have taken us all day without getting bored but instead we had a couple of stop-offs to keep us busy. The first was to a gigantic cave hollowed out in what from the outside looks like an extremely large rock and which was the general consensus until 1993 when a fisherman took refuge in it from a storm and loved it so much took his girlfriend back there for a romantic frisson! It's quite impossible with words or the photos I've taken to convey the size of the cave and the extraordinary variety of stalagmites and stalagtites which have been illuminated by clever lighting to cast shadows of the most improbable things; those that spring to mind quickest are the married couple and the gigantic nipple which our guide took great delight in spotlighting to us with his torch! Unfortunately when we emerged from the depths of the caves the clouds had moved in and we got soaked making our way back to the junker, but when you get wet you can't get any wetter and so it was the pefect excuse to jump off the top deck into the sea! It was also ideal for our second stop-off which was to go kayaking around the islands. Liz and I had a two-man boat and much to her irritation the guide insisted the man take the back to steer, though my smugness was soon short-lived by the discovery that Liz assumed navigational control with directions as specific as "turn this way" without any indication as to what this way might be...Still, once we got the hang of it we were able to weave our way in and out of the islands, sailing up close to cave entrances and circling the stacks. It was amazing to get away from the big boat and feel as if you are just another tiny drop in the ocean of this labyrinthical archipelago and certainly helped us work up an appetite for dinner. Given it was my actual birthday we decided to go all out on a big celebratory meal, stopping off at a boathouse sea-fish farm where we were able to wander amongst the nets and pick our food fresh! The Vietnamese on our boat were able to help us with local tips and haggling the price (thanks Johnny and Qui!) so together with an American called Ninh we opted for: four conches, ten rock shrimps, three crabs and a kilogram of clams! The Congnchia's chef then let us into his kitchen and allow us to direct him as to how we liked the food to be prepared and a couple of hours later our feast was served as the sun dipped into the water leaving only the stars above to light us up anchored amidst the islands. The fish were also served with a variety of sides so that by the time we managed to clear the deck it was an effort to climb up to the top deck to star-gaze until my birthday faded away. The following day, after another gigantic breakfast in the sun, we had to say good bye to our junker and trade water for land as we moved into the only inhabitable island in the archipelago, Cat Ba where we began our trek into the National Park. Given that there was a seventy-year old lady in flipflops amongst our numbers we naively assumed that we would be ok to continue in our flipflops, which might have been true had the heavens not decided to open on the descent (somehow I seem to have accrued an incredible knack of choosing to trek in torrential rain...) The climb up was steep and involved plenty of rock-hugging and ladders across ravines and the peak itself was marked by an ugly, rusting watch tower designed by the navy to keep a lookout for invaders. Climbing the tower was way more terrifying than any other part of the trek but well worth the hike as it offered a beautiful panorama from the heart of the archipelago. Having safely negotiated our way back down in buffeting winds that seemed destined to whip the tower off the peak and begun our descent the rain came lashing down, washing away any footsteps and turning the path into a slide that our flipflopped feet stood no chance of gripping. At this point I would just like to state that the misleading figure of the seventy year old woman had left the trek as soon as it started to ascend to continue the gentler forest walk that would lead her to meeting us back at the starting point....We eventually emerged into a shelter covered from head to toe in mud where we waited out the storm before heading back to the bus to take us to our hotel. We had lunch provided in the hotel restaurant...next to a 30-strong group of Vietnamese who were clearly celebrating something which involved multiple shots of rice wine and much chanting while occasionally casting us bemused looks as to why we were amongst them. Later on when we returned for the night meal at the hotel and when the party had suitably quenched their thirst we became ingratiated into their group by the simple virtue of originating from a country that had, in their mind, produced the best football teams in the world. Every time I said the word Lampard or Ronaldo they would all cheer and toast me with rice wine!? We had a brief siesta before setting sail again to go to "Monkey Island" named funnily enough after its overpopulation of monkeys, who far from being cute and photographic are vicious and highly territorial. The island was small and we eschewed the golden sandy beach and green waters to opt for the rock climb to the highest point of the island. Having scaled the Cat Ba peak earlier in the day this hike looked like a doddle, the tor was barely a couple of hundred metres high and so we set off into the jungle enjoying the novelty of abseiling up the rocks and having to carry a monkey-beating stick, just in case...However our adventurous spirit seemed to get the better of us and instead of taking the languid, winding route we decided to forge our own way, directly up! Suddenly the rocks turned into jagged spikes that sliced open our hands as we held onto them and required the most acrobatic of contortions in order just to cling onto their faces and scrape our way around. Having ascended the peak which did provide incredible vistas the mountain claimed the life of one of Liz's flipflops making the descent almost impossible for her given the viciousness of the rocks. With the aid of two shoed Germans who stumbled upon us in our hour of need we did manage the de-scale with only the bare minimum of injuries.

When we finally got back to the beach with our lesson well and truly learned we gave in to our true tourist desires and flopped on the white sand and swam in the green sea before climbing back aboard our boat and being taken to the hotel. The birthday bonanza was rounded off with another ginormous seafood platter and a leisurely stroll around the illuminated harbour. It was the perfect birthday celebration combinig the party atmosphere of Bangkok with the beauty of one of the world's most incredible natural sights that hopefully marks the beginning of an eventful 25th year!

FAVOURITE PLACE: Congnchia boat!

FAVOURITE FOOD: The seafood extravangaza birthday meal that caused us to nearly sink the boat...Thuyt's pineapple caramel cake:)

WORST PLACE: Green House, with it's flooding showers and non-working ac....especially as Thai's don't believe in recompense or discounts...

WORST FOOD: Soup for breakfast...what?

WHAT I'M GOING TO MISS: Feeling like you're in the middle of nowhere when sitting on top of a junker in Halong Bay as the sun goes down and all you can see is the dusty islands fading into the gloom. Picking your dinner, fresh!

WHAT I'M NOT GOING TO MISS: Brits abroad on the Khao San Road - no wonder everyone hates us abroad! Whiskey buckets, enough said...Managing to trek in torrential rain, EVERY time...

MOST BIZARRE: The giant nipple stalagmite! The legend behind Hoam Kiem Lake in which the sword used by the 15th century Emperor to drive out the Chinese was swallowed by a giant gold tortoise that disappeared with it into the lake giving the water the name of Lake of the Restored Sword and leading to many people believing the waters still hold giant tortoises - the Vietmanese Nessy!

FAVOURITE QUOTES: Sam: "Liz, get up, we've missed the bus and our flight leaves in an hour", Liz: "Sorry, I can't, I've got to go to a museum."; "Mi scuzi!"; "He was still too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and that thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past." (Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez); "...human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves" (Love in the Time of Cholera)

BOOKS I'VE READ: The Quiet American, Graham Greene (Fell asleep during the film - remember ML?! - but when we arrived in Vietnam thought I should at least attempt to read it. Fortunately it was much better than the film but not quite the glimpse into the country I was hoping for; Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez (slightly odd reading a book about South America in Vietnam but a classic Marquez novel about an elegaic forbidden love story that only reaches fruition in the fingertips of death)

Up Close and Personal: From Massage to Tigers!

2008-06-07T20:09:00.000-07:00

So last time I wrote was just about to go for my massage course in Chiang Mai and it's taken me all this time to recover in order to be able to write again! Give me a three pair men's tennis match over Jangira massage any day, I swear it could make grown men cry. Was somewhat dubious about what I had booked myself into when I arrived at the centre and was shown to a dark room with a solitary mat in the middle and Jane (she later told me that was the name she gave herself to make it easier for students to pronounce) closed the door behind us and began stripping off with her colleague, Nin! I was slightly reassured when they both started bowing prostrate on the floor towards a small buddha shrine I hadn't yet noticed in the corner and something which I imagined wasn't entirely compatible with the more downtown "massage" parlours. Jangira, the particular form of massage I was learning, is a holisitic combination of massage techniques, meditation and breathing - in short it is mainly practised by Buddhists as a way of communing between masseur and massagee that identifies with the central principles of enlightenment. It was at this moment that I realised I should have perhaps read more seriously the introductory book on Karma I had been given when I booked my course in order to understand what I had let myself in for rather than flicking through it during the changeovers of the French Open first round. I proceeded to spend the next seven hours being contorted and contorting Jane and Nin. One of them would lie on the mat while the other demonstrated, then it would be my turn to lie on the mat and have it done to me (so that I was able to gauge strength of pressure and where the energy lines were) and then finally I would try it out on one of the women. We worked our way right through the body from feet to head. It was difficult not to be self-conscious, especially when some of the positions required of you to perform certain parts of the massage involve all sorts of combinations of bodily contortions I would never have thought possible with various limbs pressed up and wrapped around other limbs leading to the frequent comments by Jane that "I should relax" - something easier said than done when she is pinned between my straddled legs while I "palm circled" her chest! Bizarrely I found that I really enjoyed giving the foot massages - a lot of what was said really made sense with my innumerable experiences of foot injuries through tennis and I could feel how the stimulation of the blood and tendons was actively working on those parts of my feet that have been through the wars and I apparently had a natural aptitude for finding those parts on the foot - one of my more peculiar talents it has to be said! Conversely, I hated giving the head massages and was hopeless at finding the pressure points; about the only part I was any good at was the finger dotting whereby you randomly poke the person's face all over!! (And yes, it is actually quite relaxing!) It was surprisingly extremely hard work. Not only did some of the positions involve me hauling the person about and performing physically exerting positions but having inherited Dad's sublime suppleness I struggled even to sit myself on the mat with my legs folded under my bottom (the traditional position to best apply pressure - through the straight of your back rather than your arms should you be wondering!) without deadening my leg much to the amusement of my yoga-fiend instructors who kept urging me to bend them as far as I could despite my fears that I was about to snap them in half. It was also a bit like being at school as I had my workbook with all the diagrams that I had to annotate with extra notes as I went along and was continually spot-checked throughout the day, being tested on leg massages while simultaneously performing an abdominal massage! The girls did look after me though, making me lunch and letting me play with their house-rabbit who hopped about the sessions the whole time, while slipping in and out of playful teases and serious Buddhist philosophies so that I was frequently confused as to whether they were joking with me or telling me something I should be listening to with my most earnest face.... I was, suffice to say, thoroughly exhausted by the end of the day but it was worth every drop of sweat. They told me I had very good hands and a great instinct - perfect qualities for the job - and I did feel that with every instruction I was beginning to become attuned to how different bodies, and indeed body parts, respond to different actions - must have inherited some of those physiotherapy genes! It's all about the practise-makes-perfect application now, though I don't imagine Hiren will be willing to let me hurl him about a Thai beach while I pour over my little annotated book wondering if I'm applying the right pressure on the right line! Still, it gave me something to practise on myself as I took the nightbus from Chiang Mai back to Bangkok and ease my own weary muscles. I arrived back in Bangkok the following morning and met up with Liz who was bronzed and full of outrageous tales from her couple of weeks in the southern part of the country full-mooning it and hanging out on the shore where they filmed The Beach...Hiren had left unexpectedly for Hanoi and so Liz and I decided to see the sights of Bangkok for a couple of days before heading to Vietnam. Knowing what to expect from the city this time I wasn't so taken aback by the brashness of its touristy side and we actually managed to sidestep this scene and explore the more cultural parts. First off this required an afternoon in Chinatown (culinary forays are perhaps the most important aspect of being a culture vulture and definitely the most rewarding!) where we pottered about the various food stalls and street markets watching hapless little fish being barbecued into the most extraordinary dishes and needless to say gorging ourselves in the essential task of trying to sample from every conceivable vendor! The following day we decided to walk off our Chinese expedition and take in the Temple of the Emerald Buddha and the Royal Palace, abandoning the ubiquitous tuk-tuks for our trusty map and inbuilt compasses accompanied by the immortal line "we just need to follow the river"...Having tried to find the palace the previous day and been directed around the whole building, so large that by the time we reached the gates it had closed for the day, we weren't about to make the same mistake and got up bright and early to try and avoid the midday sun. Having been somewhat sated of temples it's a testament to the Emerald Buddha and Royal Palace that I was mightily impressed by these particular buildings which share the same grounds. They have the decadence and ornateness of medieval Europe combined with the meditative relaxation that seems to emanate from eastern architecture. The murals that told the story of the birth of the royal family (we think) were incredible in their pictorial mythologisation and the sheer grandeur of the golden bejewelled pagodas were as breathtaking as the prayerful scene inside the temple where you can simultaneously listen to the monks chant and watch the Buddhist tourists come in to offer their blessings was moving (unless that is you point your feet towards the Buddha - my inherited lack of suppleness stalling me for the second time in three days - whereby you are hauled up by the security guards for your blasphemy... - feet are the dirtiest part of the body and an offence therefore to direct at the Buddha icons) The Royal Palace was unfortunately closed as there was a state ceremony being performed; given that the King (to whom there are effigies everywhere in Bangkok: next to road signals, in the cinemas, on billboards) spends only a couple of weeks a year there we were extremely unlucky, but were consoled by being allowed to walk around the gardens and try to peek inside when the armed soldiers weren't looking:) On leaving the Palace and trying to negotiate a boat ride down the river we accidentally stumbled across the craziest flea market selling everything from (presumably) stolen trinkets to old postcards and dentures - I kid you not, there were at least two stalls devoted to secondhand dentures...It was a market for Thai people and we caused much amusement to the locals who didn't speak a word of English as we tried to outbarter each other for the most ridiculous item. Liz won with a collection of semi-nude postcards (apparently she bought them for artistic reasons though the grins of the market sellers seemed to beg to differ!) On our final day we booked into a day tour to get round all the sights we wanted to see that lie beyond the city edges in one fell swoop. A rude 7am start saw us herded into a minibus and driven to the Floating Market - a remarkable spectacle that seems to cross the food of Borough Market with the waterways of Venice in which you have to hire a punt and be navigated down the water alleys. Should you emerge with all your fingers intact you would have done well given the bumper-cars style of progression adopted by the punters (all for some reason middle aged women with Vietnamese hats) and the long hooked poles used by the vendors to literally haul you alongside their boat.

After the floating market we headed to the Death Railway, the track built by the WW2 POWs. The Japanese wanted a railway that would link Thailand to Burma and provide them with potential access to India and used their POWs to construct it. Not only was the process of building the track and bridge dangerous but the POWs suffered the additional threat of being bombed by the Allies who were trying to destroy the track. There were some heartbreaking stories of incidents where the Japanese knowing the Allies were approaching sent the POWs out onto the track and bridge in an attempt to stop the Allies dropping their bombs but under strict instructions to bomb regardless of the cirucumstances many POWs were killed by their own countrymen. These stories, told in their strange didatic Thai-English with overt moralistic conculusions, were far more moving than the museum itself which is a haphazard collection of artefacts from the war with little narrative and randomly lumped together in a building that doubled up as a worksman's yard! The bridge across the river was far more impressive: a wraught black iron construction that sticks out against the greenery of the countryside. Empty and barren it seems almost haunting in its legacy much like the hollowed out death camps at Auschwitz.

After that sobering experience and a quick lunch it was on towards the Tiger Temple. Liz's friends had recommended we visit the sanctuary whereby you can frolic with the tiggers and we were sold by their photos of hugging adorable cubs. The Temple is a monastic place of meditation but several years ago local villagers brought an injured boar to the monks who having no knowledge of animal care nursed it back to health and released it into the wild only for it to return to their temple with ten of its family the following day! Seen as a sign the villagers have continued to bring a variety of injured wild animals to the Temple's grounds so that boar mix with buffalo and peacocks with goats. Most recently some poorly tiger cubs were brought to the Temple and since these could not be released back into the jungle they remained with the monks who have seen their collection added to so that it totals nearly fifteen tigers and has become a major tourist attraction.

I confess I have a Life of Pi attitude towards tigers, verging between total fear and an almost hypnotic awe and respect and so found myself drawn to the Temple with a mix of trepidation and excitement. Although the tigers are chained in the grounds they have enough leeway to turn around and bite your head off should they choose so being escorted into their complex I was filled with visions of being mauled to death by the animals while the monks sat by insisting they were just playing with me. You are taken around the complex by a guide who positions you next to each tiger so that you can stroke and play with them while having your picture taken. While we were queuing up the guide told us that the tigers are pretty lethargic in the heat but tend to wake up and become more aggressive in the rain when it is cooler. As we got to about ten people from the front of the queue it began to rain....

No matter how many times we were assured that it was perfectly safe the first time you crouch down next to a half-ton beast and see the paws the size of your head and the rows of teeth as it yawns lazily there is no amount of reasoning to convince you and so it's down to a quick prayer to emerge unscathed with the promise you will never do something so reckless again!

There is something completely majestic and mesmerising about tigers and to be able to sit and lie with them is such a surreal experience. The older ones command such poise and grace combining immense strength with a dangerous charm while the younger playful cubs that grab your arms between their paws as they lie on their backs or snap at your ankles once your back are turned are completely adorable.

Having started out with so much apprehension I was dismayed to leave the complex, it felt like it had all passed in the blink of an eye when I could have easily passed the whole day with these incredible beasts. Fortunately this wasn't the end of the experience as because we were amongst the last visitors of the day we were given the privilege of "walking" one of the tigers back to their cage. Given that it took four burly guides to unchain the said tiger and marshall it into position with the instruction that the tiger will do what it wants regardless of your behaviour when they hand you the lead to patrol her up the hill towards its cage it's hard to imagine that the fragile chain of metal that separates you and the tiger will allow you to do much leading! It's even more alarming when the guides back away from you so that you can have your picture taken walking the animal and you're left trying to smile for a once-in-a-lifetime picture without revealing your innate terror.

Somehow Liz and I managed to arrive about 45 minutes late for our bus having dawdled far too long with our new striped friends and so were not the most popular people on the way back to Bangkok but given the experience of being allowed such intimate proximity with these animals it was well worth the glares and cold shoulderings!

FAVOURITE PLACE: Green House hostel - although we had to change rooms because our shower flooded and then the ac didn't work it had a great airy restaurant and a superb travel agency who sorted everything out for us.

FAVOURITE FOOD: The street markets are incredible. You can eat homemade, authentic Thai food for 50p, with huge portions cooked fresh before your eyes. We gorged ourselves on these every night usually followed by a banana roti for dessert:)

WHAT I'M GOING TO MISS: Street stalls and tiger cuddling!

WORST PLACE: The overnight bus from Chiang Mai to Bangkok where I made the fatal error of taking the back seat thinking I could lie across the seats only to have those seats taken by a Japanese couple midway through the night forcing me to sit up for the duration of the rest of the journey and rue not having taken one of the normal recliners where everyone else was happily snoozing....

WORST FOOD: Liz's bizarre addiction to dried peas....The revolting Guava juice in Chinatown

WHAT I'M NOT GOING TO MISS: Palace sentries that send you in the wrong direction to their own entrance gates, boozy Brits abroad on the Khao San Road...

MOST BIZARRE: Cuddling a tiger?!?! Second-hand denture markets!

FAVOURITE QUOTES: "I'm just going to have to sit it out" (Liz), "it" being her hunger! "Read not only books but man also" (Buddhist proverb in one of the Chiang Mai temples)

Lizard soup, why monks can never wrong and other tales from Thailand...

2008-05-29T02:29:00.000-07:00

After sating my fill of airports and trying to find comfy places to sleep within them it was a relief to finally get to Bangkok, not only because as I emerged from the airport tired and smelling most unfresh I was greeted by no less than three members of staff not wishing to tout me or rip me off but enable me to get to my destination the most efficient and cheapest way, but because I could at last lie down on something that resembled a bed. Having trusted Hiren to booking a room I found that he had hooked up with an Israeli dude in my absence and that the three of us were sharing a room; Hiren and I back to the doublebed routine with him as usual having the side with the easiest access to the toilet to alleviate his nightly bowel movements and lessen the disruption of my sleep by not having to clamber over me, leaving me to lie against the wall. Admittedly it was only noon but there was little chance of me making any kind of sense without a powernap so I settled down to snooze. I was about 10 minutes in to a delicious sleep when it sounded like someone on the other side of the wall I was propped up against was about to bulldoze right through it. In spite of the hammering and drilling the preference to lie there with a pillow over my head and pretend it wasn't happening was infinitely more seductive than having to get up from my horizontal position and so I managed to doze through it...until part of the wall caved in on my leg! The manager was brought up and told us that they were doing some work next door but it would only be for the afternoon so with much reluctance I resigned myself to extending the 36 hours of being awake by another couple of hours.

Fortunately, in comparison to every other place we have been Bangkok is a slick, Westernised city that doesn't require too much hassle or difficulty to navigate as long as you can cope with the humidity and avoid the more crowded parts. I had almost forgotten that traffic control devices existed and was further delighted when our tuk-tuk driver actually stopped to observe red lights and give way signs. It wasn't all plain sailing however as on the way back from our afternoon excursion we had the usual haggling with drivers thinking we had agreed a price with them only two minutes into the journey to find that they had upped it and weren't going to back down resulting in us being turfed out wherever the argument occured and requiring several tuk-tuks to actually getting us back to our hotel.

We stayed in a small, grubby place just off the Khao San Road, perfect for enjoying the delights of touristville with all its bustling street markets, cheap happy hour bars and indomitable ping-pong pushers...I don't know whether it was the tiredness or perhaps a distaste for big cities after the delights of the smaller Indian towns and Nepalese provinces that we had been journeying through but it was the first place on our travels I had a great indifference to, and one which only grew throughout the stay, albeit only a couple of days.

It was also the first marked difference between Hiren and I who was overjoyed to have left the Himalayas and dirt behind him. He was in his element sitting in the cinema at the top of MBK (the huge 7 storey tall shopping centre in Bangkok) eating his McDonalds whilst I was aggravated by the ubiquity of Western chains and the sterilised plasticated environment. Similarly, while Hiren revelled in the cheap bars packed full of Brits-abroad style holiday-makers the last thing I wanted to be doing was drinking English beer in a bar full of, if I can put it politely, people exemplifying the worst traits of being foreigners. I think there is also some truth in the fact that having lived quite fully the "London-lifestyle" for the past 18 months and immersing myself in everything that involves the travelling part of me that had willed this trip did not want to slip back into that way while living on the opposite side of the world with all the new opportunities it afforded.

I was hugely relieved to catch the sleeper train out of Bangkok to head to Chiang Mai, especially as it also meant we finally escaped the building work next door to us which lasted the duration of our stay rather than the one afternoon promised.

By contrast, Chiang Mai (known as the cultural capital of Thailand), was a complete revelation. It is one of those ancient cities small enough to be able to walk around but large enough so that every time you go out you discover a new road, temple or market. It is a bizarre hybrid of the ancient red brick Tha Pae Gate, dating back to 1296, and an ugly square concrete-channeled canal that borders the main square. Off the main square though are hundreds of little streets which you can spend whole days getting lost down, especially amidst the plethora of second-hand bookshops, exploring the various old and new town parts of the city whether that be strolling amongst the daily bazaars held on different roads for different days or emerging onto the neon-lit streets packed with bars and cafes designed for the farang.

The first day was dedicated to temple-exploring; Chiang Mai has the same number of temples as Bangkok but condensed into a much smaller space meaning that every corner you turn you can espy a huge gold-topped pagoda peaking out of the road. All the temples are free to get into (again, unlike Bangkok where they charge extortionate amounts) and are packed with no end of helpful people. Still suffering the hangover from India and Nepal whereby someone approaching you is tantamount to them demanding money and usually ending in raised voices when that money is not forthwith produced it took me a while to realise that when a Thai person approached me they genuinely wanted to help. They could show you things that ordinarily you would miss or not understand because there was no translation and were full of enormously helpful tips on where to go for the best meals, cheapest presents etc and it was such a relief and pleasure to be able to sit down in a leafy garden while the orange-robed monks passed by and just chat to them about their city and country.

Our stay in Chiang Mai was made even more enjoyable by the fantastic Julie's Guesthouse. Tucked away from the main square down a quiet alleyway it a large building with dorms and private rooms situated in the middle of a fantastic garden terrace; in the front there is a very cheap cafe, chilled music flowing from the stereo, pool table, library of books and numerous seats and chairs for everyone to sit in and swap stories (this communal area was something virtually every other place we have stayed in lacked and it was nice to be able to have a space to chill out in that wasn't where we slept!) while the back garden had sun loungers and in addition there was a late-night rooftop terrace for those that didn't want to sleep!

The other brilliant thing about Julie's was that they also organised everything else for us so that you didn't have to go hiking the streets to find the best price or worry about being ripped off - all you had to do was hand over your money. For 1500 of their finest baht (25 pounds) I booked myself into a three day trek through the jungles of the hill-tribe villages. Hiren pulled out at the last moment, scarred still from his nose-vomiting experiences in Pokhara and opted to do the Thai cookery school and so we parted ways for a few days.

The trek is the best thing I have done so far on our travels. There were eight of us from various hostels around Chiang Mai who were lumped into the back of the van to get to know each other, stopping off only at a local market to pick up supplies for the trek, before driving out of the city and being dropped off in Shan village.

The first stage of our trek involved an elephant ride. After the hilarities in Chitwan I was delighted to be reunited with my long-nosed friends but this was like being upgraded to first class on BA when you've travelled Easyjet! Firstly, instead of hauling myself up the trunk and performing an ungainly 180 degrees to pincer myself around its neck we had a sophistocated stage to climb up that placed us level with the elephant's back. Furthermore, a double-seated chair was strapped to the elephant so that in a simple step we were firmly balanced on top of our elephant without any need for worrying about falling off. I shared an elephant with Ben, a massage therapist from Seattle who had come to Thailand to do some more massage courses, and sadly we got lumbered with the greediest of the pack who would walk about two paces before stopping to devour a bush. At one point the guide cut down a small tree that our elephant carried in its trunk and ate along the way but this provided only a few minutes distraction before it was back to its old tricks of curling its trunk over its head towards us expecting the bananas we had first bought for it but which it had already devoured and then being disappointed deciding to go off-piste down sheer cliffs in search of trees!

Finishing the elephant ride we had to lock ourselves into a rusty cage on a zip wire that sent us across the main river and onto the edge of the jungle where we began our trek. The walking was not as demanding as in Pokhara as neither the incline or distance was as great but where in Nepal there were well-trodden tourist paths our trek involved river traversing, using fallen logs to climb across the river and swinging across tree roots and hugging rock faces to cirumnavigate corners! As a group we got on brilliantly and there was plenty of friendly banter batting across the eight of us and two guides so that every time you reached a new challenge that you couldn't possibly attempt as soon as you saw the English girls or the older German couple begin it you knew there was no way you could lose face and so found yourself performing the most hilariously, awkward manoeuvers in order to prevent yourself falling down a sheer rock face or being washed back to where the elephants were playing!

The first day ended with us being caught in another storm that absolutely drenched us for the last half hour and saw most of us taking one step up the mudslide path before slipping the equivalent of several steps back down (usually until you hit someone else to stop you!) When we reached our overnight stay, a small village where the Lahu tribe live, we then had to build and light a fire in (!) our bamboo thatched hut in order to be able to peel off our sodden garments and variously hang them over in order to try and dry them before we could even think about building another one to cook food!

Once the storm had passed though the skies were cleared for the perfect evening. We were etched into the hillside looking across the valley that the river ran through. When it got darker the sky remained cloudless and it felt like if we lifted our hands into the sky we could pluck the stars out they were so bright and seemingly so close. We sat out on the deck with the villagers who had a guitar and variously murdered horrendous karaoke tunes from a collective chorus of Bohemian Rhapsody to trying to learn local Thai songs! It was incredible to be away from any form of distraction and to make your necessities and entertainment simply out of what the environment afforded you. We were also privileged by the fact that our two leaders, Mr Big and Tong, were comedic geniuses: whenever we asked how long something would take the answer always ended in 9 minutes (how much longer to the next village? 59 minutes! how long until the rice is ready? 9 minutes!), their knowledge of Western tunes provided the most singularly awful collection of songs known to civilisation, especially when they confused mobile phone ads for genuine music....and at one point they started catching the bugs circling around the candles, so as not to be bitten we wrongly presumed, but to fry and crisp and offer round as snacks!

The second day we stopped off at an incredible waterfall which we attempted to stand up under, a challenge made difficult not only by the fact you felt the sky was crashing down on your head a la chicken-licken but also by the imperative of holding onto your swimming costume lest it be powered off you by the water.

Our overnight stay was in a mock-bamboo hut for tourist stop-overs which was disappointing after the previous authenticity but made up for in terms of drama by an outbreak of spiders above the mosquito nets that sent the girls into a permanent frenzy and the announcement that we were eating lizard soup for dinner at which point Mr Big pulled out a freshly killed lizard (the blood was still trickling out of its mouth!) To their credit they kept the joke up for a good length of time before announcing that they wouldn't be subjecting us to that, by which point we were almost indignant about at least trying some after spending most of the pre-dinner time playing cards and mentally preparing ourselves for eating it (we were famished after trekking all day!) - for the record, it tastes like squid, though apparently the tail is crunchier!!

The final day required only a brief 40 minute walk back to the river where we abandoned our bags and white water rafted back down to our bus! I've never white-water rafted before so was slightly nervous but got paired in a boat with Amos, Devon and Christina and the competitive streak (not only about winning, but who could bump the other boats the most and who could soak the other boats the most!) took over. Having practised for all eventualities of falling out, hitting your head etc they overlooked one small incident of when sitting in the back how to prevent yourself being shunted forward when hitting a rock and sliding your foot under the seat below at an angle that rendered the big toe nail from your actual toe. A traditional bit of British grin-and-bear it mentality and the promise of a traveller's war-wound saw me through it!

The final part of the journey allowed the raft guides to take over as we switched to bamboo rafts and they punted us down the river, ending the trek in style. Then it was back to Julie's garden to lie on the sun lounger and dry off before meeting up for reunion drinks in the evening in one of the awful neon bars along the canal!

The trek required a couple of days' recovery, principally exploring the huge night bazaar which alone could take several days just to negotiate yourself through the hilarious haggling methods of the stall-owners who begin by saying "I charge you x baht - how much you wanna pay?" and then pursue you down the alleys when you don't purchase it continually dropping their price until you reason you're being offered about the same as what they would charge the locals!

It was also the perfect opportunity to indulge myself in the second-hand bookshops, sitting in the sun-garden with an enormous pack of iced-gems from the biscuit store on the corner and a fruit shake. Although when I discovered the crazy old German owner of the Rose Restaurant at the end of the road was a tennis fanatic and addicted to the French Open I had to switch my allegiances. Due to the time difference the tennis starts at 4pm here, perfect timing for a cup of tea and the opener on Chatrier; then, perhaps a little wander to the food stalls to grab a ridiculously cheap pad thai and return for one of the later matches for a beer with the German guy. He would sink about five in the time it took me to nurse my one and there was always the danger that once he had too many he would fall asleep and his wife would steal the remote and switch over to some corny Thai soap, so my mission was to try and slow down the rate of drinks!

The last few days in Chiang Mai were frustrated by failing to get to go to the Buddhist overnight retreat at a temple out of town. Having booked it initially for the Tuesday evening I rang on Tuesday morning to ask where to get a tuk-tuk to and was greeted by a female voice with bad English who explained to me, and then the internet cafe operator when I didn't believe her, that there were problems today and the course had been put back to Wednesday. As a consequence I lost my room at Julie's and had to move down the street to Busy Bee (feeling like I was in playschool...) and called up the following day for the taxi to speak to a monk who asked why I hadn't come yesterday!! It's been the only instance of frustration I have experienced in Thailand so I can't grumble, but it's a real shame as I was looking forward to going and chatting to the monks to find out more about Buddhism. Having not known anything when I left England I have been reading quite a lot while travelling and am particularly intrigued by the challenge to reach enlightenment which has thrown up lots of questions. It seems from my understanding that to achieve enlightenment it is eventually necessary after many life cycles to abandon everything and seek nirvana in solitude. In principle I agree; it seems the only way to hold onto the precepts and strive to avoid all distraction and temptation - much like Christian monks or hermits do. But in reality, this appears more problematic. When you live in a society with multitudinal problems and can make some impact, however little, in alleviating some of those issues there seems to be a conflict between participating in and shirking social responsibility. When I stopped in at "monk chat" - a programme at one of the temples whereby foreigners are invited to sit down in the gardens and chat to the monks to find out more about their life - I was struck by the almost schoolboy naivety and innocence of these monks who have been living this life since children, and which in many ways has prevented them growing up (a good thing in that it stops them encountering the many corruptions that maturity provides) but also has left them somewhat bewildered by how the rest of society operates. When they walk in the mornings they are greeted by Buddhist women who give them food and water, yet for those people who aren't monks there is no such privilege and the monks seemed unable to conceive how people might be poor or starving unless through choice? Obviously there are many different strands and threads to this argument that I am ignorant of and require much more detailed knowledge but after observing, with great respect and admiration, the way these monks live, going away and thinking about the pragmatics of it threw up a range of questions that I wished I could speak to them about.

So to fill my day and questioning head I have instead booked myself onto a massage course! I have six hours with Jane, a most disappointing name for a Thai massage instructor it has to be said, tomorrow who has given me a whole book of mediative Buddhist thought to read before I begin - perhaps containing the answers to my earlier questions though currently infuriating me with examples of two people giving a loaf of bread, one unwittingly to a murderer and the second unwittingly to a monk, and the latter person being rewarded a 100 000 fold more than the first person for their donation!

After the massage course it's an overnight bus back to Bangkok to meet Liz and then flying out to Hanoi, a last minute change in plans after Hiren decided that he didn't want to get bitten again which he thought he would in Laos and has apparently nothing to do with the fact that when he got bitten in Chiang Mai he was sitting outside in the garden until 2.30 am without any repellant on...!

FAVOURITE PLACE: Julie's comes a surprise second to our bamboo hut in the Lahu tribal village in spite of the fact that every time someone turned over in the night the waves rolled through the floor forcing everyone else to roll over at the same time as well!

FAVOURITE FOOD: The roti stalls (pancakes with bananas cooked inside and chocolate sauce dribbled over...); the giant iced-gem-like biscuits they sell by the baht down the road; fruit plate in yoghurt at Julie's - fresh fruit AND yoghurt, what more could you want for brekkie!

WHAT I'M GOING TO MISS: Julie's! Showering in waterfalls, Mr Big and Tong, Thai people asking your name once and then remembering it forever more; the pet rabbits in Julie's!

WORST PLACE: Plaster-falling Rainbow hostel, Khao San

WORST FOOD: A dodgy street stall on Khao San Rd that left me wanting to puke during What Happens In Vegas, incidentally, nothing to do with the quality of the film....

WHAT I'M NOT GOING TO MISS: The miserable ping-pong girls promising you a good time; the number of fat, lardy western walruses sitting with ping-pong girls; the mosquito gas machine that comes once a week at Julie's to vaporise the building during which I slept through after a particularly heavy night until waking up to find my room filled with green smoke and everyone else having been evacuated!

MOST BIZARRE: Meeting Phil the dreadlocked Aussie with the newly studded chin telling me he is funding his trip around the world by signing up to medical experiments in each country he goes to....

FAVOURITE QUOTE: "You can just meet me in Hanoi or Siem Reap, whichever" (Hiren trying to plan a route that didn't include Laos)

BOOKS I'VE READ: Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky (a re-read, but so much better second time round - in terms of the birth of interior character psychology the post-modernist movement in England were light years behind...); The Lifes and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, Bill Bryson (classic Bryson reliving his childhood in the 50s where everyone was happy and life was easy - where did it all go wrong I think is the point of the book, that and some hilarious childhood anecdotes that you have snorting out loud in Julie's and consequently becoming the recipient of many strange looks...!) Sorrow of War, Bao Ninh (BUY THIS BOOK! - a truly haunting account of the repercussions of the Vietnam war on two young lovers whose lives were ruined written in a brilliant shifting temporal narrative. The back of the book says the Wilfred Owen of the East and you can't disagree, won't forget this in a hurry); Nineteen Minutes, Jodi Piccoult (written by a woman for women, relatively interesting story about a high-school shooting but just a joy to be able to read without feeling guilty about slacking off on the middle English poetry!)

Mr Sam meets Mr Mike!

2008-05-16T07:54:00.000-07:00

Following another delightful and hair-raising bus ride we left behind the serenity and rurality of Pokhara for the dust and fumes of Narayangard, the reluctance for departing tempered only by the excitement of getting to see Mike in action at school! The transition was completed by checking in to the highly inappropriately named Royal Rest House - I still bear the bedbug scars...

After a day of rediscovering the joys of TV ( the guilty pleasures of The OC eased our adjustment...) we set off for the Chitwan National Park, slightly apprehensive as our guidebook was filled with stories of parties of tourists being attacked by tigers and charged by rhinos. Suffice to say the phrase "health and safety" hasn't yet reached Nepal.

Where everyone else from Pokhara had bought a package deal that saw them dropped off from the bus into the heart of the park and then ferried around from restaurant to canoe to jeep, Hiren and I proudly arranged everything by ourselves, much to the shock of our fellow trekkers from Pokhara who were aghast when we alighted from the bus in the middle of Narayangard while they sallied on towards the park - we're getting the hang of this travelling lark! For a few moments we nearly regreted the decision to be fully independent as spoilt by the luxuries of Pokhara which is geared up fully for tourists we found ourselves plunged into a town where virtually no-one speaks English; all the signs were in Hindi and the locals stared in amazement to see a white person walking down the street. After locating our hotel and negotiating an upgrade room (yes, bedbugs was an upgrade, as was the change in faeces and blood on the sheets in the dungeon they initially placed us in to merely being smeared across the walls in our final room...) we then caught a local bus to Saurath much to the amusement of the daily travellers and then hired a rickshaw to take us to the park entrance (this did however involve jumping off the cardboard carpeted and walled rickshaw every time there was a slight incline and pushing the contraption until the driver stopped wheezing!)

However, once in the park we resorted back to being shameless tourists immediately booking into the elephant bathing and safari jeep activities. When the elephant turned up to 'pick' us up we weren't quite prepared for the lurching amble through the town to get to the waterhole. Hiren pointblank refused to get on leaving me to negotiate the bambino alone...this required stretching my arms as wide as their little armspan reaches and grabbing hold of the elephant's ears and dragging them together across its eyes, then tapping its trunk with my foot at which sign it rolled its trunk out for me and I staggered up its nozzle using its ears to pull myself up its trunk and over its head and then performing a highly inelegant 180 degree manoeuvre so that I was sat astride its neck with my feet behind its ears. Our elephant had no "saddle" so I was forced to grip on with pincer like groins as I rolled from one side to the other with the guide holding onto me before I got the hang of it while Hiren smirked with laughter on the ground below especially when the elephant decided to raise its trunk and sneeze all over me....

We got to the waterhole (eventually) and then I had one of the most bizarre and incredible experiences whereby the guide directed the elephant into the water and before I knew what was happening had rolled over crushing me between its body and the bottom of the river! I managed to escape and then helped join in the "bathing" in order to keep the elephant cool - pretty difficult to keep the whole surface area of a several tonned beast continually wet! The guide then proceeded to begin a game of raising the elephant to its legs and then making it flop onto its side into the water - without fail, I guessed wrongly each time the elephant fell so that while the guide remained astride of her upturned belly I was gasping to pry myself from being crushed into the riverbed while simultaneously trying to avoid the boulder like elephant poohs that were drifting about in the water. Apparently the aim of the 'game' is to roll yourself across the elephant as it falls so that you move from a seated position on its neck to standing on its belly - an achievement I finally managed right at the end. The whole time this is going on the elephant fills its trunk with water and douses you as it sprays it over its head so that you can't see a thing. I spent about 20 minutes in the waterhole with my guide and the elephant while Hiren remained on terra firma and the crowd of tourists watched in amusement and cheered my struggles! The size and yet gentility of the elephant is impossible to comprehend and she certainly knew what she was doing when she dropped me in the water and sprayed me with her trunk. It was an immense bonding session and I was most upset at the end when we had to get out and say goodbye to her...

Just about had enough time to grab some lunch before our safari jeep which filled me with more anxiety than the elephant given Mike had told me the previous day that he had to climb a tree to escape an rhinocerous when he had been the previous weekend. Fortunately the only rhino we say was quite content in its mudbath, the crocodiles were being hand-reared in the breeding centre for release back into the wild and the only tiger was safely penned in after its man-eating mother had been captured, though the canoe-crossing of the river added an otherwordly feel to the excursion, as if you are leaving behind all civilisation and entering a lost world. The ride was a four hour trek through the forest, carving our way through grass twice the height of the jeep so that I felt like I was in Jurassic Park and that at any moment a T-rex would burst out of the undergrowth and start chasing our vehicle.

We got back so late from the safari that the only mode of transport home was a motorbike with the driver, Hiren and I all squashed onto the saddle tearing down a road that makes Orchard Valley look like a steamrolled Centre Court clinging on for dear life - my groins took 3 days to recover before I could walk as if I didn't have a barrel between my legs.

Because we are with different airlines Hiren left Narayangard earlier and as he made his way to Bangkok I was invited to stay with Mike's host family. It's strange to think that all those years ago when Matt, The Ginge, Fk and I were at school and would meet up in The Swan and chat to the new Gurkha barman that I would end up staying in the barman's parents' house! Purna and Padar are absolutely lovely and live in a beautiful three storey pagoda type building a million miles in all senses from the Royal Rest House so that I felt like I was royalty during my stay. They are unbelievably philanthropic assisting in every part of the community and are proud founding members of the local Lions branch and have even "donated" the bottom floor of their house to several families, including two incredibly cheeky boys called Lucky and Baba who wreak havoc, stopping only when Padar gives them the glare!

It was brilliant to see Mike again and on his behalf and in his defence to all those who have written/emailed wondering whether they would ever hear from him he works six days a week and on his day off and evenings is fought over by the locals about who will host him so that he hasn't had a chance to get to the internet cafe or the post office (which is highly dodgy, though he has received his banana boxer shorts Pomme - hilariously, the package arrived at the house and Purna brought into the school and gave it to Mike as he was having a meeting with the Principal who insisted he opened it there and then and was apparently taken aback by what Mike unearthed which we have been joking is similar to the "rock" present in A Bug's Life so that the Nepalese probably think it's some kind of quaint English custom!) However, I can reassure everyone that he is fine and absolutely loving his time. I haven't seen him so chirpy and enthused since Newmarket and he is literally adored by the whole community. The Principal defers to him on every matter to the extent that Mike interviews all prospective teachers for the school and on his recommendation or not they are given the job! He also sits in to observe other lessons given by teachers to provide feedback and as well as teaching his own classes has to give the teachers lessons in English pronunciation! The teachers are all similar in age to him and there's a great camaraderie between them all and plenty of socialising. In addition, Purna's home is an open house to the community (and Purna a leading figure who sits on every committee) and so every spare second Mike is being whisked away by visitors to have the honour of feeding him in their house.

I was invited for one day into the school where I sat in on Mike's lessons. He has been assigned teaching of the exquisitely named "English Delights" class! As in Belize, English is divided into Grammar and Creative classes though in Nepal they call the creative side Delights! Mike takes the 11-14 year olds in preparation for their exams and has to get them to read, write and discuss poems and short stories. While I was there he had them in stitches with his chalkboard drawings and theatrical mimes of the Wizard of Oz and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! Even the other teachers on their free periods sit in on his classes to learn.

Having said all that the school is demanding; it's extremely hot and long hours six days a week - Mike is dragged in before and kept in after school as well by the Principal who seeks his opinion on everything. But Mike is enjoying the promotion in responsibility from being a TA to planning his classes and marking work and really feels like he's making a difference. I was really proud to see how brilliant he was in the school and how he is looked up to by everyone - he can even converse in Nepalese! My sole contribution however seemed to serve as a distraction as the kids mobbed me unable to comprehend how I could be older yet smaller than my brother and why I was not yet married at the ancient age of 23!

Purna has a fantastic all round balcony on the top floor of his house so we spent the evenings sitting up on the verandah watching the sun set, eating dal bhat and catching up on all the news while planning our trip around the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand when he has finished at the school.

On my last night we were taken on a surprise visit (on Purna's motorbicyle, by which time I had mastered the art of clinging on when squashed together!) by Purna and the Principal to the Grace Church orphanage school . It's a tiny little builidng, home to about 20 children, who we were introduced to and taken to their church. They sat us down and we listened to them singing hymns, one of which was one we sang back in Belize which wrenched the nostalgia up several more gears! It was such a shock to suddenly come across a Christian church and was one of those special moments where you see the children lighting up as they sing and encourage you to join in and clap along and make you feel at home. After weeks of being away from such an environment both of us were really glad of the opportunity to stay awhile with them in their little church. They also, bizarrely, have a drum kit and so Mike, inititally worried that he might have "lost it" was soon in his element thumping away!!

The following day I assumed I was being given a lift to the Kathmandu bus station by Purna only to find our van hijacked by the local members of his Lions' Club and that Mike and I were being whisked away to the inaugural opening of a new village daycare centre as guests of honour! The project has been managed by an incredible Dutch lady called Reinike who has singlehandedly seen the erection of the building despite all the difficulties of trying to establish something in a country where apathy rules and who burst into tears when the ribbon was cut and she was asked to make a speech. She said dealing with the disinterest and politics of the Nepalese way of life (whereby the men hadn't lifted a finger to build the centre for the women and babies of this village yet flocked to the opening ceremony and pompously delivered speech after speech) that to see what she had begun to think was an impossible dream finally realised was almost too much for her. This centre will allow the babies of the community to stay there from 10-3 and thereby allow the women to go out into the fields and help with the farming, thus improving the money made on the plots of land and increasing the quality of living in this remote village. The children were gorgeous and loved the balloons and lollies provided them and we happily passed away a lunchtime playing with them and meeting the mothers. It was the perfect way to leave Narayangard.

I then caught a bus to Kathmandu where I had one night spent wandering around the brilliant Thamel district window shopping, eating pastries again and listening to the live music in all the bars. The following morning I forced myself up at 6.30am to do a three-hour walking tour of the city to catch all the sights before I left. Somehow, I managed to navigate my way around in spite of the map I had bearing no resemblance to the labyrinth of alleyways that make up the city. Kathmandu is a bizarre mix of amazing temples and shrines around every corner which are centuries old yet used to dry washing and hang fruit to be sold! I was fortunate to conduct my tour on a Saturday, the holy day of the week, and found myself packed down narrow walkways with women carrying plates of incense and spices to lay at the temples and spent many a quiet moment lingering outside various temple steps listening to the chanting prayers. Kathmandu is unique in that Hindus and Buddhists worship at and in the same temples; this religious tolerance is remarkably refreshing after having encountered many of the less desirable attributes of religious practices since I've been here.

Made it back to my hot-waterless room at the Marco Polo Guest House, stopping off to buy some earphones for my ipod (an omission in the package sent via Mike!) before catching the plane to Singapore and sleeping overnight in the airport waiting for my connecting flight to Thailand to meet up with Hiren in Bangkok and resume our adventures!!

Nepal is an incredibly beautiful country (the schoolchildren are all patriotically taught how their country proudly hosts the world's largest mountain range, reciting the eight of the ten highest peaks that reside in Nepal with beaming smiles) and its people are a happy, smiling, peaceful nation who don't have much but offer it all. Residing in Pokhara and Kathmandu it is easy to forget that 80% of the country live in rural, mostly hillside villages, far below the poverty line. Nepal has the world's third highest infant mortality rate and the highest rate of maternal deaths, principally because the remote villages have no medical, or educative, personnel. I read a despairing article in the Himalayan Times whereby the journalist successfully argued that all of the country's educated people work either in the two main cities, enticed by the luxuries of regular electricity and hot water, or go abroad to work in order to send money home leaving the vast majority of the country's rural population without the most basic necessities and existing in a cycle that shows no signs of change. Fortunately, many of these hillside villages are now getting together to install their own hydroelectricity (the government shows no interest in instilling electricity for them in the hills) and are getting together to form co-operative farming efforts which is boosting sales and efficiency and so with the newly elected government, and the work of Mike!!!, perhaps there is some hope after all.

FAVOURITE PLACE: Purna and Padar's house!! Sitting on top of my elephant!
FAVOURITE FOOD: Fresh cucumbers, hurrah, and the small, sweet bananas.
WHAT I'M GOING TO MISS: The cheeky children at the school that wandered into our room at all hours of the day; hanging out with Mike on the verandah as the sun sets and putting the world to rights!; watching the locals playing finger-snooker, caroun, outside their shopfronts in the heat of the day.
WHAT I'M NOT GOING TO MISS: The way all drivers use their horns for every possible occasion, whether to signify their presence on the road, their plan to overtake or their communication with other drivers...especially at 5 in the morning!; Chicken biryani's packed with cashew nuts; bedbugs...
MOST BIZARRE: Purna's father-in-law asking Mike and I if our mother had been drinking when pregnant with Mike and that's why he had pointed ears and webbed toes?
WHAT I'VE READ: 'Closing Time' by Joseph Heller (a weighty tome and disappointing sequel to Catch 22 that has forever ruined my love for Yossarian and is sadly devoid of the brilliant one-liners and hilarious events that leap from every page of its prequel...)
FAVOURITE QUOTEs: "Man without imagination is like a bird without wings", "A man without books is like a body without a soul" (Cicero)

Namaste!

2008-05-08T04:52:00.000-07:00

After an horrific 28 hour round journey from Varanasi we eventually arrived in Nepal, though given the hassle of the route you would think that they would never want anyone to arrive in their country!

We took a sleeper train from Varanasi to Gorakpuhr which was four hours late and meant we arrived in the heat of the mid-40s sun trying to haggle with touts for the cheapest (and safest!) way of getting to the border. This involved negotiating an astronomical price for a jeep ride only to sit in the jeep for 40 minutes and watch as they packed more and more people into it. We then got out and demanded our own ride as we had paid for and after much arguing they put us in a taxi for even more money. Sitting in the taxi ready to leave and the driver bundles three "friends" in with us! Cue a massive argument which resulted only in him finally getting rid of one of them and forcing the other two in the front seat so we had the back to ourselves. He then had the cheek to pull up at a petrol station and demand we pay for the petrol as we had no money...we refused and he then "found" some money in his pocket!

Got to Sounali early afternoon and went through the laborious visa process and then had the joys of crossing the border and trying to negotiate a bus to Pokhara. Probably shouldn't write too much about the 8 hour overnight bus route as mum will probably have kittens; suffice to say that it involved knife-edge thin "roads" winding up and around the mountains avoiding oncoming vehicles which we were lucky if they had their lights on! I had to close my window (only form of ac...) as I kept falling asleep and then waking up halfway out of the window looking down a several thousand metre crevice....

Finally arrived at 4am and fortunately got picked up and taken to our hotel, Hotel Dharma Inn, where we promptly collapsed, waking up only to enjoy the cold shower!

The journey was, however, well worth the trial. I have fallen in love with Pokhara, a beautiful lakeside town situated at the base of the Himalayan mountains with a gorgeous lake and a strip of shops running round one side with every possible type of food and furthermore every 5th shop is a secondhand book shop!! It was like I had died and gone to heaven:) We spent the remainder of the day pottering around and getting our bearings before ending up in Boomerang's cafe garden watching a glorious sun set into the mountains above the lake.

Unfortunately it was then Hiren's turn to be struck down by the good old food poisoning, this time the culprit was a dodgy enchilada...While he alternated between bed and bathroom I spent the next couple of days, in between nursing for him attentively of course, exploring Pokhara.

On my first solo day, wanting to hike up to the Peace Pagoda to gain a view of the surrounding area but being advised not to as tourists are frequently mugged on the way up the mountain by guerrilla Nepalese residing in the forest, I instead decided to take a 3 mile walk in the sun to the Devi Waterfalls. This is apparently named after a guy called David plunged to his death down the rockface managing to take his girlfriend with him and being in the hottest part of their season was sadly little more than a dribble. However, exploring the foot of the waterfalls via the Gupteshwor Mahadev caves was incredible. There's virtually no light and only a sheer rockface dripping with water to slide down to get to the foot where you see the water cascading into the pool through the slimmest chink of light.

After emerging from the darkness, taking an alternative tunnel which found me stuck in a small hollowed out cave with a man and a garishly decorated cow touting for money, I headed for the Tibetan Refugee camp where I was kindly invited into the village and allowed to sit in the temple as the hundreds of monks, some as young as 4-5, were in the middle of their chanting. The poverty of the village certainly brought home the plight of the Tibetans, something that seemed only a bit too distant and detached from news reports and TV bulletins.

The following day, having explored fully the damside of Fewa lake, I headed north, declining the bicycle for a pair of feet and set off alone armed only with the ever present water bottle and my camera. The walk was spectacular as once leaving the touristy lakeside strip you enter into the remote village communities. The local inhabitants were so friendly, inviting me in to see their houses and farms and teaching me the Nepalese words for all their possessions and allowing me just to sit with them and take in the view of their everyday life. The style of living is so different in Nepal where everything is much more relaxed than the chaos of India. Families live in small communities and villages funded by small self-sufficient farms of corn predominantly and selling snacks in little shacks next to their homes to passerbys. They believe only in having to provide enough money to ensure the security of the family and when the day is done will settle round for a communal meal of dal bhat. The Nepalese never seem to stop smiling and are unbelievably welcoming; they take each day as it comes and believe in a mutual respect that ensures everyone looks out for everyone, with a heavy emphasis on the importance of family. This emphasis is so important that there is a reputed endemic of suicides amongst marriageless and childless Nepalese....

Having enjoyed enough culture I took advantage of Hiren's recovery and long levers to hire a boat for the day and row around the lake. Oxford missed a trick or two by not getting us in for the boat race as after a wobbly start which involved us taking a good half hour to try and steer past the temple island just off the mooring point we soon got into a good rhythm and had hit the opposite side in no time. We lay on the little shore recovering and relishing the peace and solitude of the foot of the mountains before getting back in the boat and exploring more of the coves. Having worked up a sweat I dived into the lake and had a good old swim while Hiren, not a fan of the water - remember Swansea?! - stayed firmly in the boat. We ended the day sitting back in Boomerangs watching the "cultural show" where a troupe of all singing and dancing Nepalese performed a series of songs, dances and mimes (one involving a bizarre routine involving a guy in a motorcycle helmet and torn clothes running manically around the stage...!) while we had dinner.

This was our last dayof relaxing before heading up the hills and starting our trek, which neither of us had a clue about what we were letting ourselves in for...

It involved a 7am start and meeting our guide, a Pokhara based chap called Bhurat, and then taking another infamous bus route to the small town of Nayapul where having our permits verified we set off after Bhurat into the mountains...The first day was completely uphill and a shock to the system after several days of languid lounging about by the lakeside devouring slabs of apple crumble and banana chocolate cake and took us five hours to reach Hille where we were to spend the first night. We arrived at 3pm and sopping wet from sweat I dived into the shower, a small outhouse several metres away from the main teahouse (as the accomodation is affectionately known!) The light wasn't working and above the din of the shower I didn't hear the sudden storm erupt so opening the door of the shower I was shocked by what were literally sheets of rain crashing down. I had to wait in the showerroom for half an hour, in the dark, before the rain let up even the tiniest bit to allow me to run back into the teahouse! This was much to the amusement of the three Germans also staying at the teahouse and who I stayed up with chatting, and swapping scare stories about the trek, before heading to a well deserved sleep.

Slightly worried about the mountain rain we got up early the following morning to get a good headstart - plus a determination to ensure some male pride in beating the two female Germans to the next village. Should have known things were going to go wrong when having been assured the muesli had no nuts I promptly had a reaction after two mouthfuls and had to hastily wolf down an omelette to stave off the vomiting. But I was the lucky one. About 100m into our walk Hiren complained of feeling ill and when we stopped for a break he promptly began vomiting, through his nose!! We're not quite sure what it was but it meant the whole morning was spent in 20 second bursts of walking up an incredibly steep incline before he had to sit down to wretch - and included the awful scenario of being overtaken by the girls....! Our guide was so worried that he didn't think we would make the next base and began planning an alternative route but after taking over 5 hours to complete a 2 hour trek we had a proper lunch and that seemed to right Hiren. Buoyed by not vomiting and spurred on by the fear of rain boulders we made extremely good time and reached Gorepani 10 hours after having set off (overtaking, and consequently, eating the Germans in the process:))

Staying in the teahouse at Gorepani we met many more trekkers and got to know people from all walks of life with different motivations for doing the walk. There were 4 older Aussie men, best friends, who had decided to do something different for a holiday and made a pact to go to Base Camp and who were panicking as they were struggling to cope with the early stages, plus one of them had discovered he had vertigo! There was a solo Korean girl who had the most hilarious guide who sang, joked and laughed the whole route. He would have us all in stitches as he mimicked the poor Korean girl's accent and started singing his songs and getting her to join in. These two were doing the same route as us for a couple of days and more than kept us amused as we shared some friendly banter about who was going to overtake who. There was another group of pensioner Koreans who were wound up like Duracell bunnies and never stopped, shaming us with their fitness. Fortunatley we had the German girls and a young Japanese couple trailing after us the whole route to make us feel better.

Having survived the night Hiren decided against the 4am start to trek up to Poon Hill (3200m) to watch the sunrise, so I went alone with Bhurat, picking our way up the mountain with our torches! It was a hefty 40 minute ascent climbing 500m but well worth the asthmatic lung workout. We reached the top and having been warned that there was no visibility the previous day were disappointed to see the surrounding peaks shrouded in clouds. We huddled around the watchtower with the 50 or so other trekkers and then miraculously the sun burst through the clouds and a huge cheer went up in what was a truly Wordsworthian Prelude moment of awe as the peaks one by one peeked through the gloom.

I virtually skipped back down the hill and don't think Hiren shared my enthusiasm as I woke him up eager to start the next part of our trip. Ironically, having thought he had opted out of the ascent Hiren was confronted with the news that we had to scale 3500m to get to the next village before we could get down. Having left at 8 we didn't arrive until 3, 7 hours of almost solid trekking. This was the hardest and most demanding part of the trek as knackered from having done Poon Hill earlier in the day when at 2.30pm the heavens opened again we had to make our way up a steep incline to reach our teahouse. The rain landing on me felt like being stoned and pummelled into the ground; the water washed down the hill obscuring the track and reaching ankle-deep levels and carrying boulders that smashed into our shoes. We had raincoats on and desperately tried to protect the contents of our bags being drenched but the only escape was to keep climbing. I sprinted ahead so quickly that the guide couldn't catch me and ended up reaching the wrong hotel. When he eventually found me, having nicely dried off, and beckoned me back out into the rain I felt like crying at the thought of further hiking...fortunately our teahouse was only across the road and I was saved the nightmare!

Having climbed two peaks and suffered being caught in a tropical storm I thought I had successfully escaped any disaster for the day only to be felled in yet another outdoor shower, slipping on the tiles and going feet over bum and cracking my head on the step to the great amusement of all the guides! There has definitely been a mutual dislike in the hills between myself and the outdoor showers....

We woke up on the fourth day to breakfast on the terrace sat right in front of the glacier mountains - the best way to start the day:) A snippet of a two hour trek later and we had arrived at Tadapani where after sleeping for a few hours were then given a tour of the village by our guide who was intent on collecting peas to take home and setting us up with some nice village girls! The walk was beautiful, carving through the forests of rhododendrons whose fallen trumpet heads lined the path, trodden underfoot and attracting a plethora of ladybirds that added a bizarre polkadot effect.

The trek ended on the fifth day with a 5 hour slog down the hill which I found far worse than climbing. The old war wound of my rickety ankle started playing up and it was a relief to hit Nayapal before the rain started again and snooze on the bus back home, though perversely with a great sadness to think that it had come to an end.

It was one of the most gruelling, but yet because of that rewarding, experiences of my life. The view was stunning, we were blessed with a guide who provided us with incredible insights into the nature of the mountains and its people and who looked after us throughout (stealing extra blankets for us in Gorepani and carrying Hiren's bag as well as his own when Hiren was too ill) and met so many trekkers along the way with different experiences and stories to share. Special mention has to go to the porters who carry trekkers luggage up the moutain strapped to a single band that is wrapped around their head - how they manage it I have no idea! Hiren and I carried our own stuff but still got embarrassed every time we sat down panting and gasping for water and were overtaken by a group of porters carrying nearly half their body weight on their backs and not even pausing for breath! Definitely think there's a tv show in Celebrity Sherpas - just imagine Jordan et co hiking up the Himalayas with their tents o their back being forced to sleep on the mountainside amongst the leopards with squat style toilets ! Genius!

Since coming back we have been sleeping and lounging about by the lake as we recover, usually occupying our favourite haunt in Boomerang's cafe garden in order to try out the full range of their patisserie! We have also been sampling the many restaurants, enjoying Sha Bakley (meat pies) at Lhasa Tibetan restaurant and Grilled Buffalo at Laxman's! We took our guide out to Caffe Concerto on the day we got back by way of thanking him and having downed one Everest beer each (our first of the trip!) combined with 5 days of accumulated exhaustion had to stumble home together!

Tomorrow we're catching an early bus to Narayangard and am going to see Mike and find out how he's been getting on in his school. Really looking forward to catching up with him and spending the week chilling, or being dragged in as part of his show and tell project!

Sam

x

PS The photos are now up on facebook for you to check!

FAVOURITE PLACE: Hotel Dharma Inn - run by a guy we have adopted as Namaste through his clockwork like greetings of us every time he sees us. Shame about the 2065 New Year festival next door and the screaming cleaners at 6 in the morning but has a lovely ramshackle homely feel and have had everything taken care of for us which is a relief after the hassle of India.
FAVOURITE EATERIE: Toughie - Boomerangs for its garden and apple crumble, Lhasa for their meat pies. Also the abundance of fresh fruit places has been a Godsend after the greasy foods we've had so far. The roast chicken on the last night of the trek was also a high point after 4 days of being a vegetarian!
WHAT I'M GOING TO MISS: Smiling Nepalese people, lounging around in the cafe gardens, the patisseries and cheap restaurants ($3 for a meal and drink!) and the ubiquitous bookshops (my bag is now twice as heavy as when I arrived...!)
WHAT I'M NOT GOING TO MISS: lacings of cinnamon and other spices in the warm milk they add to ruin your tea, after an eight hour trek summing up enough strength in your screaming legs to squat over the hole in the floor to relieve yourself
MOST BIZARRE: The man who dresses up as an eagle (in genuine eagle feathers) and cycles down the road
BOOKS I'VE READ: Area of Darkness by V.S. Naipul (glad to see my opinions of India are shared with him even over the gap of 40 years!); The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond (one of Hiren's biological books on evolution of man which I read on the trek, fascinating stuff though some of it dubious and never thought I'd say I enjoyed reading a science book - some weird reversal seems to have happened as Hiren is now reading Crime and Punishment!); Freefall by William Golding (great until about halfway in when the outsider coming of age story enters bizarre Gestapo torture territory); Wilt on High by Tom Sharpe (a great Catch 22 satire that had me laughing out loud at the hapless hero and wishing to read more of the tales of Henry Wilt)

FAVOURITE QUOTE : "Please do not put hands on the shinning (sic) stones. Necessary action will be taken on the offenders" (Sign in the caves , ie Nepalese conservation with a twist!)

The World Strikes Back....

2008-04-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

In a quite literally vicious below the belt move, unprovoked, the world made its move and bestowed on me the full joys of Delhi-belly: 12 hours toilet-hugging, cramping dry -retches, 36 hours of no eating and in the midst the most unpleasant 6 hour train ride I've experienced...Fortunatley Hiren "Florence Nightingale" Naik came to my rescue perhaps remembering the days I nursed him attentively through mumps or perhaps because he was fed up of being kept awake by my vomiting...At least now though I can honestly say I've had the true Indian experience and fortunately it came on the last night in the city and so didn't make too much of an indent into our plans.

Before being struck down we had the most amazing day visiting the Swaminarayan temple, this huge, intricately carved buiding which was architecturally and spiritually breathtaking. It was so peaceful and calming that I almost forgot I was in India. Swaminarayan was a young boy who left home at 11 and became one of the greatest Hindu spiritual leaders and took Hinduism back to its original concepts of peace, meditation and good deeds after it had become lost amongst pedantic rituals that seemed to distract from the principles of the faith. It was a fascinating tour and the most impressive place I have visited in India.

I tried to hold onto these calming feelings during the horrendous Delhi-belly plagued train to Jaipur which unfortunately wiped me out for the day I was there so stayed in bed all day emerging only to enjoy my first bit of food in a couple of days from the gorgeous rooftop terraced restaurant at our hostel, The Pearl Palace, and then going for an evening walk being invited somewhat randomly to a wedding by the rickshaw drivers that had brought us from the station!

The following day we made the 10 hour round trip to Agra, principally to visit the Taj Mahal - pretty gruelling journey but you can't visit India and not "do" the Taj! It was definitely impressive and again extremely peaceful but much smaller than I imagined and most certainly not worth the extortionate entrance fee they charge which has increased from 15Rs to 750Rs in one of the biggest tourist scams considering its pretty much a garden and a mausoleum. Still, I found it interesting that the mausoleum was built by the Prince to hold his beloved wife who died giving birth to his 16th child. For 16 children she got 20 000 workers, 21 years and marble imported from all over the world to create her resting place, not a bad way to ensure you're remembered!

On the way back from the Taj we got "carjacked" by two rogue drivers who instead of taking us to the station took us all over the city to visit shops in order to buy something to gain their commission from the shopkeepers. Every time we asked to go to the station they took us to another shop and every time we entered it was like stepping inside Auntie Wainwright's shop in Last of the Summer Wine where you can't escape without coming away with something, however undesirable it is to you! Hiren and I are now well-versed in the language of no and so made the most of the journey and actually quite enjoyed being taken to the textiles and marble workhouses and being given tours by the shopowners with explanations on how the hand-knotted rugs are weaved by runners on these gigantic looms at lightning-finger pace and the painstaking process of creating a mosaic marble table. How any of the owners, taking a look at us, thought we had money to afford on purchasing a 20ft rug or a five seater marble table and chairs was beyond us but it was fun watching them try to haggle the price down in hundreds of pounds!

In a way the carjack was a blessing in disguise as our train was delayed by 6 hours so not getting to the station earlier meant we reduced the amount of time we waited on the platform trying to avoid the almost continuous rain of birdpooh coming from where all the feathered monsters had come to roost for the night. At about 2am we finally got our train and arrived in Varanasi absolutely exhausted and then had to wander around in the heat of the day trying to find a hostel....

Varanasi is the most sacred place in India as it sits on the banks of the Ganges which Hindus believe if you bathe in guarantees you entrance to heaven and ends the cycle of rebirth. It's also smaller and quieter than the big cities we've been to though the temperature has been 42 degrees for the duration of our stay!

Being a non-Hindu I am considered a pollutant so was not allowed to enter the Golden Temple which annoyed me. I wasn't as irritated as Hiren though who when he came out had been fleeced out of 2000Rs by brahmins claiming he couldn't pray at each individual shrine without paying any money. These kind of attitudes were in complete contrast to the welcoming given to both of us at Swaminarayan and added to the level of discomfort I have felt at times with the attitudes of many Hindus who seem to value making money and personal prestige ahead of the values of their religion. This is a somewhat sweeping statement that does not reflect their faith at all but does perhaps reveal the problems with a decentralised religion that varies from village to village and is easily manipulated by corrupt brahmins with no outlet for objective redresssal and the caste system which still taints their religion as well as attitudes to non-Hindus.

This experience was a shame especially as I have been enjoying the daily arati at dusk on the riverbanks where brahmins lead devotional and prayer sequences for believers that involves an elaborate process of circumambulating spices, petals, candles and a whole host of other objects amongst the clanging of bells, drums, clapping and chanting. Sitting facing the river while this goes on is an extremely meditative opportunity (as long as you ignore the touts trying to get you to buy little floating leaves of petals and candles to place on the river for good luck) irrespective of your religion. It also in no way tarnishes my admiration for the energy of the Indian people who are busy getting on with life and who value the family - its seems a sharp contrast to the sanitised lifestyle in the West where pleasure and enjoyment are far too often sought in stimulants and artificial artifacts or putting aside the joy of what is known here as "spontaneous happiness" in favour of a greener pastured future that is perpetually put off.

Another highlight of our stay in Varanasi was doing the 5am boat trip along the river to see the sunrise. In itself it is a beautiful sight but even more so when you take into consideration the many people who come to bathe in the waters and even more disturbingly send dead bodies into the water (again believing in the purifying qualities it possesses as a gateway to heaven) alongside these people washing themselves and drinking from it!

Initially we stayed in a non-ac guesthouse to try and economise but after nearly melting in the night we moved out of La-Ra India and descended into the labyrinth back alleys before settling on a cooler option at Ganga Fuji complete with a great restaurant in which the owner guides you through the menu (particularly helpful with nut allergies and a newly gained post-Delhi-belly wariness!) to the tune of live, traditional Indian musicians.

We spent our last day taking a daytrip to Sarnath, the birthplace of Buddhism. The temple is still standing and marks the spot where the Buddha gave his first sermon. Subsequently, many other temples were erected and each country now has its own though most are dilapidated and in ruins which is a shame. Still sat under a bodhi tree and tried to find enlightenment in the very peaceful gardens that will help us cope with our train and two buses into Nepal over the next 48 hours.

India has been fast, frenetic, crazy, hot, indescribable, perplexing and hits you like a brick wall. I'm glad we've visited it first as it's pretty energy-sapping and we've really zoomed around taking in everything, so looking forward to a bit of lakeside chilling in Pokhara before hitting up our trek!

Favourite Place: Swaminarayan Temple - peaceful, inspiring and meditative
Favourite Accomodation: Pearl Palace - the rooftop terrace is the closest we'll get to luxury
Favourite Food: Lassis and pineapple raita
Most Bizarre: Cows might be sacred but when you have to vault them during the blackout power-cuts to get back to your hostel you wish they were in fields rather than given keys to the city
What I'm Going To Miss: Sitting in a cafe watching the mad, crazy world go by in all its colours and smells, friendly strangers who sit and chat with you on the riverside or offer you rooms in their houses or to take you to strange parties!
What I'm Not Going To Miss: Hiren pimping out my white-boy skin to flag down rickshaws, bicycle rickshaws (quick way to the pearly gates...), touts that dupe you or call you a "roastbeef" when you refuse their wares, beggars (no matter how many you see you can't ever get used to it), the Indian national disregard for spatial awareness...
Books I Read: A Spot of Bother, Mark Haddon (not a patch on Curious Incident but reclined on a sofa was a good way to pass a day post-vomiting), On Beauty, Zadie Smith (not at all what I expected from her but once I got into it was a good read, albeit inspiring nostalgia for being a student not that anything that happens in Wellington is anyway reminiscent of my time at uni! As always though, when all the characters are so wholeheartedly dislikeable found myself slightly detached and not caring enough for them to make it any more enjoyable than a good holiday read)
Favourite Quote: "(God)...is the atheism of the atheist"

2008-04-19T07:33:00.000-07:00

Finally, after years of living vicariously through the worlds of Suitable Boys, Midnight Children and Fine Balances I have arrived in India and the sights, sounds and smells have truly been brought to life! It would be very easy to descend into cliches about the culture shock but I want to try and avoid those as the main purpose of this blog is to record my own impressions of my visits to this part of the world.

It was however a proper baptism of fire (cliche number one already...!) when having arrived two hours late at Bombay airport I met Hiren to catch the train back to the apartment we were staying at. Somewhat tired and a bit disorientated I didn't quite cotton onto the fact that we were taking the commuter train from the south of the city all the way to the north which emphasised the tourist motto that Bombay is a city to "survive"...

The commuter train makes the underground at peak time on the hottest day of the year look like flying BA first class. When the train arrives there is a mad rugby-scrum to get on board for the 15-20 seconds the train remains stationary at the platform in a manner that brings proper meaning to survival of the fittest. This Herculean task isn't helped by the fact that everyone wants to cling onto the open doors as this is the best ventilation. If you manage to get through to the door from the platform and then negotiate the hardened Indian travelers you're faced with what is best described as a game of Gladiators' Hang Tough in which you have to swing through the sea of sweating bodies using the tiny hand rail loops dangling from the ceiling. When the train stops you have to hold on as tight as you can as the commuters fight their way to the door using whatever weapon springs to hand. The best way seems to be sitting on the roof, though I haven't quite mastered this one yet.

Tourists never get this train and I received the strangest stares as I barged my way onto the coach. Little did I know that this train would be our only form of transport into the city and if it wasn't for the fact that our stop was at the end of the line and that our destination stop in the city was at the end of the line I'd probably still be somewhere on that train trying to get off! Add to this rickshaws that have lining on the ceiling to protect against the bumps (and crashes from cows, rickshaws, cars, buses, cyclists and angry pedestrians) and you might get the picture of transport in India!

Asides from the train journey our stay in Bombay was fantastic. We were put up by Hiren's family friends who insisted on being called Auntie and Uncle and who, despite having suffered more personal tragedy than one family should, went out of their way to make our stay as comfortable and interesting as possible.

On our first proper day we took a leisurely ferry trip from the impressive Gateway of India (mock Arc de Triomphe only several times bigger erected solely to commemorate the visit of King George in the early 20th century at the height of colonialism) to Elephanta Island which is home to huge caves containing sculptures of Siva. It is considered a holy place for Hindus and is also a fantastic piece of architecture. It was also relaxing to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city and take amusing photos of monkeys!

Given the humidity of Bombay and the constant hassle as tourists - Hiren was constantly stopped by bemused Indians trying to discern whether he was native or not while I simply got offered hash... - we treated ourselves to a meal in the luxurious Taj Hotel right on the seafront enjoying air conditioning, space and cleanliness!

It was also a chance for me to get some food that definitely didn't have nuts in it. India has definitely been a trial for someone with a nut allergy...virtually every dish is cooked either in nut oil or with nuts! Trying to tell waiters that I have an allergy has resulted in some hilarious consequences and meant that being safer rather than sorry I have been indulging in a range of vegetable kormas and French fries...

Luckily Uncle and Auntie took us out to a local restaurant, Cholaas, and treated us to a meal which they could ensure was nut free. Not quite realising eating protocol I stuffed myself on the food that came thinking that the series of chapatis and various dishes were the main course only to find out that it was the main. Not wanting to be impolite to our hosts (!) I forced the arrival of the second round of food down my throat so that when we got back to the apartment I was unable to do much but lie on my bed and groan.

In hindsight it was extremely fortunate as the following day we took the 17 hour sleeper train to Delhi. I still can't quite get over how the size of places on the map does in no way do justice to the vastness of spaces between cities. It was an early evening train and so for the couple of hours of dusk I was able to doze in the evening sun as we passed through wasteland and field with tiny shanty villages built close to the railway and able to watch as nomadic and settled communities carried on with the way of life they have been living for generations. The one thing I haven't been able to get over is how much litter there is in India - on the ferry other passengers just chucked their food and drink wrappers into the sea - everywhere you go there are just mounds upon mounds of festering litter and this was evident all the way along the rail line up to Delhi.

We shared the sleeper train with an actor called Vik who was able to give us some useful tips on coping with Delhi so that when we stumbled off at 9am in the morning we weren't completely unprepared for the heat and hassle!

Everywhere we went we were accosted by touts trying to force things on us. Hiren eventually discovered a useful tactic of getting rid of them by telling them that God was watching them and wouldn't be happy if He could see them lying to us which soon sent them scuttling! We had the name of the hostel we wanted to stay in but no-one would take us there and after two rickshaws dropped us off in the middle of nowhere we eventually got to our destination. We're staying in Raj's Cozy Inn which is cosy in the sense of cheap and empty (!) which lies just off the Main Bazaar - a street that is packed with ordinary Delhi life: cars, rickshaws, bikes and cows competing for the tiny pedestrian walkway, bulging street shops and homemade food stalls, tourists, touts and locals thronged together avoiding the spitting of paan coming from every direction. It's an experience to be in the midst of this and you could quite easily stay on the rooftop terrace of the appropriately named Sam's Cafe all day sipping Lassis and watching the world bubble by.

We didn't as Hiren was on a mission to find the shopping mall, to get a new manbag. After a long rickshaw ride (I don't think that however many I take I am ever going to get used to the life-or-death driving in India...) we arrived at a mall that was spotless, quiet and chic, perhaps a great indication of the contrary and contradictory polar opposites of India's psyche. Sadly everything was out of our price range so we came back with just a couple of second hand National Geographics....

We were proper tourists on our second day in the capital by booking into a city bus tour! Given the whistlestop nature of our trip where we're only spending a few days in each city it just isn't possible to fit in everything we want to do so we're doing it the good old traditional way of package sightseeing!

This trip was particularly interesting as we turned up to find our ac bus with english tour guide was neither ac (unless you count opened windows) nor had an English speaking guide...Still, apart from that it was the best way to see all the sights. We visited the temples, Indira Gandhi museum/memorial house, Parliament, Lotus Temple, Gandhi Memorial, sari-textiles shop, the Qutvminar Tower and Red Fort. I've realised that my sketchy knowledge of eastern religion and politics is hugely missing so did the only thing a tourist can do and bought Gandhi's Autobiography....Somehow I'm not sure this is going to help me work out whether Indira was the great leader as portrayed by the legend of her museum or the author of the horrors of the Emergency as viciously depicted by Rohinton Mistry but it's gone someway to getting me going again in immersing myself in the culture and finding these things out for myself.

India has been totally undescribable, it has been everything I hoped for plus more and what I had hoped wouldn't be. It somehow gets under your skin in every sense of the way so that even when you are trying to fend off a persistent tout you can't help but stop and wonder at the world carrying on around you. A Fine Balance is my favourite book of all time and I think Rohinton Mistry got it right in the title: India is indeed a fine balance, a tiny teetering line on which complete opposites exist, tipping over and causing chaos when they frequently cross the line and co-existing in bizarre synthesis when finely balanced.

We have a couple more days in Delhi (visiting some more temples tomorrow) before setting off to Jaipur, Agra (Taj Mahal) and then a spiritual pilgrimage to Varanasi to bathe in the Ganges. We probably won't get to a computer now to Nepal but looking forward to reporting on our trek and how Mike's getting on!

Sam

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