G'day readers. I know you're probably all terribly sick of hearing about Bundaberg and the like but I have some time on the internet and I know you're all missing me so much...! I have a new job. One that doesn't involve having to wake up at stupid o'clock and break my back in the heat. I'm working in a packing shed lifting boxes all day long, a bit like setting up a giant version of Jenga, but you're not allowed to pull it down... unfortunately. It is mightily dull but I'm making a bit more money and I'm not tired all the time now. It can get really depressing too since no one there talks. I don't think it's against the rules or anything but we just listen to the radio all day long. Any of you who have heard Australian radio you'll know it's not a particularly good thing. Lot's of faces have left the hostel now, meaning that Me, Andy and Briony are possibly the longest serving hostel members. This means that we could apply for the night managers position! The job is simply clean the kitchen and lock the doors at 9pm. We get one persons free rent so every third week I don't pay rent.
Some exciting times to share as well. Lee and Amy - remember, the couple we met in Russia who were on the train with us - rocked up in Bundy a few weeks ago. They were only passing through but they stayed a couple of nights and it was awesome to catch up and share traveling stories as well. We had no idea they were coming here and they didn't know we were in Bundaberg either, so it was quite exciting. Also, at the same time, Phil - remember, Phil, the guy who was on the Halong Bay trip with us in 'Nam - also showed up! He stayed for a week but got offered a job up in Melbourne so decided to take that up instead of boring farm work here.
I still don't know what my Christmas and New Years plans are. It'll certainly be strange to have Christmas in Australia. I may still be here. I have decided that I don't want to save money for ages to go and blow it all in a week on booze and expensive accommodation. I'm still having fun here. Works okay. Playing football and basketball all the time is cool. Some of you may have heard that me and Andy are looking into going to South Africa for the World Cup. We havn't got any real plans for what's going to follow Bundaberg but we are hoping that if we get tickets to a game or two, the decision will be made for us. Otherwise we might see more Oz or NZ, or go back to Asia. It's all pipeline stuff for now. We have a mental list of what we want to do and see, so eventually, when we have money, these things may come to fruition. For the meantime, sit tight. Keep following the blog. If you aren't too bored obviously. I hope you are all keeping warm in the harsh weather (for the record I don't think the weathers changed a bit since I got here... in winter! Seriously, it may have got slightly warmer and a bit windier but that's it!) One last thing: I started putting some pictures on Facebook, only done the first month or so but I'll get them all up soon.
I miss and love you all. Especially you.
About Me
Monday 9 November 2009
Wednesday 7 October 2009
Bundaberg Backpackers
Still rocking it out here in Bundy and thought I'd give a quick update. I've finally started making some money by being a world class zucchini picker. So much so that in fact the hostel wont move me to a better job because they are scared off pissing off the farmer since I am "his best picker". My hard work is apparently my own demise. Never mind though since I plan on staying here a while and I am making money - last week alone I earned AU$718! So I'll stick it out and when the job eventually ends I will try and get something slightly less back breaking. I think working from a hostel you often find that people constantly complain. When you havn't got work in a place like this you get bored and frustrated. Yet a lot of people expect to get work and make lot's of money quickly, without having to put much effort in... and when they find themselves on a massive farm where you can't even see the end of the patch of zucchinis you are supposed to be picking, they find the work too hard and quit. It's quite funny really. The place is full of people who simply don't know what it's like to do a hard days work.
Last week was particularly hard. I was working from about 5.15am until 2.30pm every day. I bet none of you believe I am fine with getting up at 4.10am every morning either! Bed by nine... who'd have thought. It's starting to get very hot here, though the evenings/mornings are still pretty cold. I also have the responsibility of driving everyone to work in the mornings. I drive a 10 person trooper with dodgy brakes, terrible steering allignment and a choke so old I have to hold down what they call here a glow plug for 20 seconds before it'll start.
The other thing about this hostel is falling into patterns and rhythms day by day. Obviously when working it's a case of up early, breakfast, work, home, lunch, tv, dinner, bed. But we've got a few others thrown in too:
- Tuesday was 'Cheap Pizza Day' and has no evolved into 'Pizza and Horror Movie Evening'.
- Four o'clock in the afternoon is time to go to Coles and find what's on offer (normally donuts and cakes).
- Saturday afternoon we play football.
- A day off will often account to going to the swimming pool, especially if it's a weekend and the inflatables are up.
- Drinking copious amounts of tea.
- Queueing up for the internet (took me the best part of an hour to get on this morning).
As mentioned previously, between all this we bitch and complain about work, bosses, hostel management, sleep deprivation, Bundaberg, locals, prices, crap beer, heat, internet unavailability, etc, etc.
Congratulations are due to Paul and his friends for flying out to India. I am really looking forward to meeting up in Australia. I have finally remembered to sort out my medicare and now have free health care! This is lucky since it coincides with the running out of my travel insurance. Only other news is that I received a parcel from mum with some excellent presents! There aren't any pictures to show you from Bundaberg as we don't have a camera. To be honest there's not an awful lot to see. The beach is nice, but I've still only been there once.
I guess that's all for today. Sorry it's not very exciting. Check out Paul's blog, it's pretty good (though an obvious attempt at plagiarism... hehe). If anyone wants me to ring them, send me your phone numbers and a good time to call. Or just come out to Australia and find me. Take care. x
Last week was particularly hard. I was working from about 5.15am until 2.30pm every day. I bet none of you believe I am fine with getting up at 4.10am every morning either! Bed by nine... who'd have thought. It's starting to get very hot here, though the evenings/mornings are still pretty cold. I also have the responsibility of driving everyone to work in the mornings. I drive a 10 person trooper with dodgy brakes, terrible steering allignment and a choke so old I have to hold down what they call here a glow plug for 20 seconds before it'll start.
The other thing about this hostel is falling into patterns and rhythms day by day. Obviously when working it's a case of up early, breakfast, work, home, lunch, tv, dinner, bed. But we've got a few others thrown in too:
- Tuesday was 'Cheap Pizza Day' and has no evolved into 'Pizza and Horror Movie Evening'.
- Four o'clock in the afternoon is time to go to Coles and find what's on offer (normally donuts and cakes).
- Saturday afternoon we play football.
- A day off will often account to going to the swimming pool, especially if it's a weekend and the inflatables are up.
- Drinking copious amounts of tea.
- Queueing up for the internet (took me the best part of an hour to get on this morning).
As mentioned previously, between all this we bitch and complain about work, bosses, hostel management, sleep deprivation, Bundaberg, locals, prices, crap beer, heat, internet unavailability, etc, etc.
Congratulations are due to Paul and his friends for flying out to India. I am really looking forward to meeting up in Australia. I have finally remembered to sort out my medicare and now have free health care! This is lucky since it coincides with the running out of my travel insurance. Only other news is that I received a parcel from mum with some excellent presents! There aren't any pictures to show you from Bundaberg as we don't have a camera. To be honest there's not an awful lot to see. The beach is nice, but I've still only been there once.
I guess that's all for today. Sorry it's not very exciting. Check out Paul's blog, it's pretty good (though an obvious attempt at plagiarism... hehe). If anyone wants me to ring them, send me your phone numbers and a good time to call. Or just come out to Australia and find me. Take care. x
Friday 4 September 2009
Brisbane and Bundy, Australia
It has been a while since I've posted anything so sorry for all the avid fans who are crying in desperation to hear the next chapter in the adventures of travels and beyond. I'm sure you've found other ways to amuse yourselves in my absence. So Australia is nice. It's full of Australians though. Never mind.
Flight from BKK to KL to OOL was uneventful. Never been so nervous before a flight before. It didn't help that every day I checked the news another plane somewhere had crashed. When I arrived in Coolangatta airport I got a taste of the overboard customs Australia are known for. They even cleaned my walking shoes! Brilliant. Coolangatta - what a stupid name. Australia is full of stupid names. I swear they just grab 3 or four consonants at random and roll a couple of dice to see how many vowels it needs. Whether you're headed up Yeerongpilli or Moorooka or Wooloowin (real places around Brisbane, check if you don't believe me) you get the feeling that naming places is a bit of a joke to Australians. A very unfunny joke. At the airport we met a man who desperately needed to get to Brisbane so took a taxi for an astronomical price, we told him we'd taxi share if we pay the same as we would if we took the train. It was pretty handy since we got there 2 hours earlier than we would have.
Brisbane is a nice city. It was incredibly sunny and felt like an English summer day. Being as it was winter gives some impression as to how different the weather patterns are over here! We constructed a plan of action: job, car, accomm. This changed to: accomm, job, car, which in turn changed to: job, accomm, train/bus. Eventually we stopped at around plan r1.v2.327a which was to get a train to Bundaberg, find accommodation, stick with it until we find work. After contemplating staying in Brisbane, heading south, heading north, heading inland, and just about every other possible scenario- we had a night out and drunkenly settled on Bundy.
So we got the train there and as we arrived at such a late hour... 7.30pm... nothing was open. It was upon arrival we realised that this town is a little backward and on a Tuesday night, with nothing open except for one hostel, we could be in for a bit of trouble. So we stayed a night in a place called Cell Block. An old converted prison, with a swimming pool. Everyone was absolutely wasted and it didn't take long for us to decide that we didn't want to stay here if we are trying to save money. So in the morning we walked over to another backpacker hostel, which sounded very encouraging the the work line. He told us that soon there's going to be too many jobs for the number of people staying there. This turned out to be a lie.
The hostel is nice enough but there's not a lot to do both there and in town. Things get pretty boring when you aren't working. It took 6 days before I got my first job. During that time I went out on standby a few nights. Going out on standby means waking up in the very early hours of the morning (usually around 3am) to wait until the buses arrive to take people to work. If a farm needs any extra people, or if people don't turn up for work, you get a job. It's freezing bloody cold in the evenings though! I didn't get my first job on standby but being out there does show your intentions and you're more likely to get a job before other people who don't go out. My first job was 2, 9 hour days lifting heavy planks of wood onto a tractor. The work was incredibly tough but at $17.60 an hour was very much worth it. You are so tired and worn out in the evenings that it doesn't matter that Bundy is so boring - you don't have the energy to do anything anyway.
A day off and then my second job, planting courgettes - they call them zucchinis over here. Much easier job but that only lasted one day. My third job was picking zuchhinis, which lasted 2 days and after that I was bucket boy for zucchinis. Bucket boy is a great job because picking is awful. There's not an awful lot to pick at the moment so you get more money being on an hourly rate. It's $2.50 per bucket or $17.60 per hour, so it works out good for me. I did 3 days of bucket boy but then they gave me 4 days off! Not very good seeing as the shifts are really short anyway so not earning very much if it's just 3 days a week.
I've met some great people at the hostel as well. It's crazy just how many backpackers are in Bundy, and funny just how much all the locals hate us! Most of them are on the doll and refuse to work, however some are known to start fights with backpackers. It's best just to stay the hell away from them. So it's been nearly a month since I came to Australia and I am yet to see any popular sights. The beach round here is nice though I've only been once, and I do get to play football here. I bought this laptop to give me a bit more entertainment, so hopefully I wont get too bored being here. I just hope the work picks up a bit.
I miss you all and hope that you are all doing well and that you have had an excellent summer! I'll try and write more frequently though I doubt I'll have much to say at this rate... working... not working... bored... having fun... etc. xx
Flight from BKK to KL to OOL was uneventful. Never been so nervous before a flight before. It didn't help that every day I checked the news another plane somewhere had crashed. When I arrived in Coolangatta airport I got a taste of the overboard customs Australia are known for. They even cleaned my walking shoes! Brilliant. Coolangatta - what a stupid name. Australia is full of stupid names. I swear they just grab 3 or four consonants at random and roll a couple of dice to see how many vowels it needs. Whether you're headed up Yeerongpilli or Moorooka or Wooloowin (real places around Brisbane, check if you don't believe me) you get the feeling that naming places is a bit of a joke to Australians. A very unfunny joke. At the airport we met a man who desperately needed to get to Brisbane so took a taxi for an astronomical price, we told him we'd taxi share if we pay the same as we would if we took the train. It was pretty handy since we got there 2 hours earlier than we would have.
Brisbane is a nice city. It was incredibly sunny and felt like an English summer day. Being as it was winter gives some impression as to how different the weather patterns are over here! We constructed a plan of action: job, car, accomm. This changed to: accomm, job, car, which in turn changed to: job, accomm, train/bus. Eventually we stopped at around plan r1.v2.327a which was to get a train to Bundaberg, find accommodation, stick with it until we find work. After contemplating staying in Brisbane, heading south, heading north, heading inland, and just about every other possible scenario- we had a night out and drunkenly settled on Bundy.
So we got the train there and as we arrived at such a late hour... 7.30pm... nothing was open. It was upon arrival we realised that this town is a little backward and on a Tuesday night, with nothing open except for one hostel, we could be in for a bit of trouble. So we stayed a night in a place called Cell Block. An old converted prison, with a swimming pool. Everyone was absolutely wasted and it didn't take long for us to decide that we didn't want to stay here if we are trying to save money. So in the morning we walked over to another backpacker hostel, which sounded very encouraging the the work line. He told us that soon there's going to be too many jobs for the number of people staying there. This turned out to be a lie.
The hostel is nice enough but there's not a lot to do both there and in town. Things get pretty boring when you aren't working. It took 6 days before I got my first job. During that time I went out on standby a few nights. Going out on standby means waking up in the very early hours of the morning (usually around 3am) to wait until the buses arrive to take people to work. If a farm needs any extra people, or if people don't turn up for work, you get a job. It's freezing bloody cold in the evenings though! I didn't get my first job on standby but being out there does show your intentions and you're more likely to get a job before other people who don't go out. My first job was 2, 9 hour days lifting heavy planks of wood onto a tractor. The work was incredibly tough but at $17.60 an hour was very much worth it. You are so tired and worn out in the evenings that it doesn't matter that Bundy is so boring - you don't have the energy to do anything anyway.
A day off and then my second job, planting courgettes - they call them zucchinis over here. Much easier job but that only lasted one day. My third job was picking zuchhinis, which lasted 2 days and after that I was bucket boy for zucchinis. Bucket boy is a great job because picking is awful. There's not an awful lot to pick at the moment so you get more money being on an hourly rate. It's $2.50 per bucket or $17.60 per hour, so it works out good for me. I did 3 days of bucket boy but then they gave me 4 days off! Not very good seeing as the shifts are really short anyway so not earning very much if it's just 3 days a week.
I've met some great people at the hostel as well. It's crazy just how many backpackers are in Bundy, and funny just how much all the locals hate us! Most of them are on the doll and refuse to work, however some are known to start fights with backpackers. It's best just to stay the hell away from them. So it's been nearly a month since I came to Australia and I am yet to see any popular sights. The beach round here is nice though I've only been once, and I do get to play football here. I bought this laptop to give me a bit more entertainment, so hopefully I wont get too bored being here. I just hope the work picks up a bit.
I miss you all and hope that you are all doing well and that you have had an excellent summer! I'll try and write more frequently though I doubt I'll have much to say at this rate... working... not working... bored... having fun... etc. xx
Sunday 9 August 2009
Full Moon
After wasting a day in Bangkok walking around and generally doing nothing, I got my bus and boat to Koh Phangan the following afternoon around 1pm, 4 hours after I was due to arrive! Since I didn't know where the others were and we'd made a plan to meet later that evening, I had a stroll down the beach and a beer or more. The place is a bit like Vang Vieng (Laos) wherein everywhere there are many - mostly naked - people running about drinking and every restaurant/bar is playing either Family Guy, Friends, or The Simpsons. That evening was Pre-Full Moon and it turned out to be incredible. There were some 15,000 people on the beach in preparation for one of the worlds biggest raves. I had an excellent night though drank far too much.
Hence the following day I was very hungover. I consolidated this by eating a big greasy fry-up and spending the day watching the above programs. That evening was the actual Full Moon party, and although I was still feeling pretty rough I stayed out playing drinking games until 12am and stayed at the beach until 3am. However, as soon as I got back to the room, I fell fast asleep! The party was incredible, and I am very glad I came down for it.
The next day I was lucky not to be feeling ill at all, so Me, Briony and Annie got a taxi-boat along the island to a secluded beach to do some snorkeling. It was great fun and really nice to get off the Haad Rin beach since after a week of party's it got kinda scummy. After a few hours a storm started to kick up, so out boat driver took us back over to Haad Rin. It was a cool way to spend an afternoon, and nice since it was so quiet too. We got the bus back last night and arrived this morning around 6am. I've caught a few hours sleep and I am now sorting out some accommodation for Brisbane.
Tomorrow we fly to Kuala Lumpar and then change a few hours later to arrive at the Gold Coast the following morning. I am really, really excited to get to Australia now. Looking for work may be difficult, but I'm hoping for a speedy solution.
So next time I blog, I'll be in Australia!!! Speak soon. x
Hence the following day I was very hungover. I consolidated this by eating a big greasy fry-up and spending the day watching the above programs. That evening was the actual Full Moon party, and although I was still feeling pretty rough I stayed out playing drinking games until 12am and stayed at the beach until 3am. However, as soon as I got back to the room, I fell fast asleep! The party was incredible, and I am very glad I came down for it.
The next day I was lucky not to be feeling ill at all, so Me, Briony and Annie got a taxi-boat along the island to a secluded beach to do some snorkeling. It was great fun and really nice to get off the Haad Rin beach since after a week of party's it got kinda scummy. After a few hours a storm started to kick up, so out boat driver took us back over to Haad Rin. It was a cool way to spend an afternoon, and nice since it was so quiet too. We got the bus back last night and arrived this morning around 6am. I've caught a few hours sleep and I am now sorting out some accommodation for Brisbane.
Tomorrow we fly to Kuala Lumpar and then change a few hours later to arrive at the Gold Coast the following morning. I am really, really excited to get to Australia now. Looking for work may be difficult, but I'm hoping for a speedy solution.
So next time I blog, I'll be in Australia!!! Speak soon. x
Tuesday 4 August 2009
Chang Mai
I've had an amazing time in Chang Mai. It's a relatively quiet place and most of the bars, etc, close around 12ish. It's such good fun just walking around the city - mostly getting lost! - and just stopping here and there for a coffee or beer. Obviously its main attractions are outside of Chang Mai. I didn't get a chance to do a trek but I have good reasons. Firstly, the trek seems exactly the same as what I did in Kachanaburi with the walk/elephant ride/bamboo raft, so it didn't seem worth forking out the money for. Secondly, from what I've heard about the trek, you can do a 1, 2, or 3 day outing, which apparently are all exactly the same just spread out over more days or compacted into one. It wasn't cheap either. There were loads of other things I'd have liked to do in Chang Mai had I the chance. You can rock climb, white water raft, bungee jump, all sorts. Also, everyone in Chang Mai is either Dutch or French (or French-Canadian but that's the same thing really).
The downhill/cross-country mountain biking was fricking awesome! It was a lot lot harder than I anticipated and I fell over many a time. We were first grouped up for the different routes. There was one easy route that was being taken by the French family that showed up. This filled me confidence because they were kids, so I was sure I'd be fine on an intermediate level. I can ride a bike! So I met all the Dutch people on my group and the one other English guy,,and we got a tuk tuk to the top of the mountain. We all got on really well, though I was getting a bit worried when I found out all of them had at least some experience in the sport. When we got to the top we had a lengthy safety session and a talk about the technique behind downhill mountain biking - put your arse back as far as you can! We set off on the 'Smokey Hill Route', which was a road to start off with. It was quite slippery but all downhill so we whizzed through that bit. We got onto the first downhill bit and I found it really easy, picking up loads of speed and throwing my bike over fallen branches and rocks, it was so cool.
Then we stopped off at an amazing viewpoint where there's a little hut which grows and sells its own coffee. After a quick coffee break we started a cross country bit. It started off okay then the rain hit us - hard. It got so slippery that you couldn't get any grip trying to go uphill at all so I and most of the others had to push our bikes up. When the downhill started again I found it much harder. It was single track, which basically means no space whatsoever. With all the rocks, tree routes, and slippery mud I was falling over every 10 minutes! Most of the time it was a simple "Ah shit, BAIL!" and I was fine. At the end I was so tired and had managed to twist my ankle, was covered in cuts and bruises, and was still pumping with adrenaline. The end of the ride was at a big lake that had some awesome scenery around it. We were caked in mud so, fully clothed, dived straight into the lake to cool off.
It turned out I had sprained my ankle and by the next morning I was finding it really difficult to walk. I was supposed to be doing a motorbike ride of the north but decided not to risk it. Instead I chose to leave for Koh Phangan to find Briony and Andy for the full moon party. Arrived in Bangkok this morning. I forgot how much it smells. It has a sort of rank, stale, piss and vomit smell pretty much all over the city. I decided to waste most of the morning going on a long walk, which was cool but its so hot.
I think I'll get a massage this afternoon.
The downhill/cross-country mountain biking was fricking awesome! It was a lot lot harder than I anticipated and I fell over many a time. We were first grouped up for the different routes. There was one easy route that was being taken by the French family that showed up. This filled me confidence because they were kids, so I was sure I'd be fine on an intermediate level. I can ride a bike! So I met all the Dutch people on my group and the one other English guy,,and we got a tuk tuk to the top of the mountain. We all got on really well, though I was getting a bit worried when I found out all of them had at least some experience in the sport. When we got to the top we had a lengthy safety session and a talk about the technique behind downhill mountain biking - put your arse back as far as you can! We set off on the 'Smokey Hill Route', which was a road to start off with. It was quite slippery but all downhill so we whizzed through that bit. We got onto the first downhill bit and I found it really easy, picking up loads of speed and throwing my bike over fallen branches and rocks, it was so cool.
Then we stopped off at an amazing viewpoint where there's a little hut which grows and sells its own coffee. After a quick coffee break we started a cross country bit. It started off okay then the rain hit us - hard. It got so slippery that you couldn't get any grip trying to go uphill at all so I and most of the others had to push our bikes up. When the downhill started again I found it much harder. It was single track, which basically means no space whatsoever. With all the rocks, tree routes, and slippery mud I was falling over every 10 minutes! Most of the time it was a simple "Ah shit, BAIL!" and I was fine. At the end I was so tired and had managed to twist my ankle, was covered in cuts and bruises, and was still pumping with adrenaline. The end of the ride was at a big lake that had some awesome scenery around it. We were caked in mud so, fully clothed, dived straight into the lake to cool off.
It turned out I had sprained my ankle and by the next morning I was finding it really difficult to walk. I was supposed to be doing a motorbike ride of the north but decided not to risk it. Instead I chose to leave for Koh Phangan to find Briony and Andy for the full moon party. Arrived in Bangkok this morning. I forgot how much it smells. It has a sort of rank, stale, piss and vomit smell pretty much all over the city. I decided to waste most of the morning going on a long walk, which was cool but its so hot.
I think I'll get a massage this afternoon.
Friday 31 July 2009
Central Thailand
Hello again. Thanks for reading still after all this time. Over four months have elapsed since I flew from Gatwick to Poland and I'm still having such a brilliant and exciting time. For anyone worried about me traveling alone: you have nothing to worry about. I've met some fantastic people and it's really pushed me to try new things. For instance tomorrow I'm trying a downhill mountain bike trip in one of the toughest places in the world! Should get the heart pumping.
Enough of north Thailand and let me tell you about my time in central. As you may be aware I spent a couple of days in the quiet and history enriched town of Kachanaburi. During this time I put myself on a tour of the surrounding places. Firstly we went to the Erawan national park to see it's famous 7-tiered waterfall. We only had 2 and a half hours there and was told it would take around an hour or so to reach the summit. So me and Roman (Ukrainian guy) paced it to the top as quick as we could, reaching it in about 45 minutes. The waterfall was awesome but the walk was hard. It was a sort of mix between the waterfall at Luang Prabang (Laos) (what with the tiers) and the hike up from the river at Tiger Leaping Gorge (China) (what with the ladders going up parts too steep to climb). It was excellent fun and on the way back we had some time to jump off waterfalls, swim around, and get bitten by the fish. The fish are weird. They sort of nibble at your toes. It's kinda funny.
After the waterfall we headed to the elephant park. Me and Roman were on the biggest elephant there as we trekked through the jungle. The rider appeared to have a really good relationship with Pet (the elephant) and upon instruction could get him to roar. I was really quite surprised at how loud elephants can roar. It's quite incredible. The trek was really cool and we went through a camp of the local people who take care of the elephants. When we got back to the elephant camp I was taken aback with how many elephants they keep. And breed. I didn't expect to see so many in one place. They seem quite well looked after, though you can never really tell.
From there we took a bamboo raft down river for about 20 minutes. It was really peaceful and a pleasant experience though I have been on many boats in the last few months so nothing new to spot. We then took the minibus over to a famous spot on the death railway, aptly named due to the number of deaths of the original workers on the site. Some 70% died and were treated or buried in a nearby cave that stank pretty bad. The scenery around was quite spectacular and after a short while our train showed up taking us through the country side to the bridge over the river Kwai. We walked down it and back and went around the nearby museum. I'm interested to watch the movie about it now where it was bombed in WW2. We got back on the minibus to go to the guest house and booked ourselves to go to Ayathaya the following day. We had a few drinks and although we've spotted, and been approached by, many prostitutes in Thailand, I never thought I'd see anything so blatant as the bars around there. Every bar is desolate and all the girls that work their are quite literally throwing themselves at the Westerners. Needless to say I didn't accept their illustrious offers.
So we went to Ayathaya, Thailands ancient capital before Burma came and ruined it. It's ruins are one of the most popular attractions though I didn't think they were particularly exciting. The night we got there we looked around a ruin in the dark with some big lights on it. This was pretty cool but I realized the next day the temples aren't that ancient or even extravagant. They are all extremely similar and all made of red brick with the stone and plaster being burned off. What also didn't help is that the night before some Thai's plied me with lots of Chang and Samsong whilst I tried to drunkenly teach them English and me Thai! So other than having a hangover in the intense heat and being bored by the "ancient" temples I didn't really do an awful lot. However, I took an amazing boat trip. Ayathaya is set on an island since a river runs all the way around it and along the river are some fantastic temples. The first we saw was an active monastery, one of the biggest I've seen. We watched the women there making the monks robes and watched the monks meditate and study in different rooms around the monastery. It also housed a huge golden Buddha.
The second and third weren't quite as amazing but still a whole lot better than the ruins held within the city. It was a really nice boat trip and I was glad that I managed to leave Ayathaya satisfied that evening. I left Roman in Ayathaya as I went up to Chang Mai on the train at 9.30pm. I arrived at 10.30am today and met a Dutch guy, Ruud, who is going to do this mountain biking thing tomorrow. Should be good if not incredibly tiring!
Enough of north Thailand and let me tell you about my time in central. As you may be aware I spent a couple of days in the quiet and history enriched town of Kachanaburi. During this time I put myself on a tour of the surrounding places. Firstly we went to the Erawan national park to see it's famous 7-tiered waterfall. We only had 2 and a half hours there and was told it would take around an hour or so to reach the summit. So me and Roman (Ukrainian guy) paced it to the top as quick as we could, reaching it in about 45 minutes. The waterfall was awesome but the walk was hard. It was a sort of mix between the waterfall at Luang Prabang (Laos) (what with the tiers) and the hike up from the river at Tiger Leaping Gorge (China) (what with the ladders going up parts too steep to climb). It was excellent fun and on the way back we had some time to jump off waterfalls, swim around, and get bitten by the fish. The fish are weird. They sort of nibble at your toes. It's kinda funny.
After the waterfall we headed to the elephant park. Me and Roman were on the biggest elephant there as we trekked through the jungle. The rider appeared to have a really good relationship with Pet (the elephant) and upon instruction could get him to roar. I was really quite surprised at how loud elephants can roar. It's quite incredible. The trek was really cool and we went through a camp of the local people who take care of the elephants. When we got back to the elephant camp I was taken aback with how many elephants they keep. And breed. I didn't expect to see so many in one place. They seem quite well looked after, though you can never really tell.
From there we took a bamboo raft down river for about 20 minutes. It was really peaceful and a pleasant experience though I have been on many boats in the last few months so nothing new to spot. We then took the minibus over to a famous spot on the death railway, aptly named due to the number of deaths of the original workers on the site. Some 70% died and were treated or buried in a nearby cave that stank pretty bad. The scenery around was quite spectacular and after a short while our train showed up taking us through the country side to the bridge over the river Kwai. We walked down it and back and went around the nearby museum. I'm interested to watch the movie about it now where it was bombed in WW2. We got back on the minibus to go to the guest house and booked ourselves to go to Ayathaya the following day. We had a few drinks and although we've spotted, and been approached by, many prostitutes in Thailand, I never thought I'd see anything so blatant as the bars around there. Every bar is desolate and all the girls that work their are quite literally throwing themselves at the Westerners. Needless to say I didn't accept their illustrious offers.
So we went to Ayathaya, Thailands ancient capital before Burma came and ruined it. It's ruins are one of the most popular attractions though I didn't think they were particularly exciting. The night we got there we looked around a ruin in the dark with some big lights on it. This was pretty cool but I realized the next day the temples aren't that ancient or even extravagant. They are all extremely similar and all made of red brick with the stone and plaster being burned off. What also didn't help is that the night before some Thai's plied me with lots of Chang and Samsong whilst I tried to drunkenly teach them English and me Thai! So other than having a hangover in the intense heat and being bored by the "ancient" temples I didn't really do an awful lot. However, I took an amazing boat trip. Ayathaya is set on an island since a river runs all the way around it and along the river are some fantastic temples. The first we saw was an active monastery, one of the biggest I've seen. We watched the women there making the monks robes and watched the monks meditate and study in different rooms around the monastery. It also housed a huge golden Buddha.
The second and third weren't quite as amazing but still a whole lot better than the ruins held within the city. It was a really nice boat trip and I was glad that I managed to leave Ayathaya satisfied that evening. I left Roman in Ayathaya as I went up to Chang Mai on the train at 9.30pm. I arrived at 10.30am today and met a Dutch guy, Ruud, who is going to do this mountain biking thing tomorrow. Should be good if not incredibly tiring!
Sunday 26 July 2009
Thai Fun
Firstly, very sorry I havn't posted in such a long time. It's not even that I havn't been online so I have no excuse. Please forgive me and I'll tell you about my time in Thailand from Bangkok.
The "sleeper" bus from Bangkok coupled with a boat got us to the island of Koh Samui around midday. The girls had arrived their a couple of days before us and we had no idea where they were. The most recent message we received went something like this: "this beach is really quiet so we're heading to another beach called chakeng, i think!". Later we found that there is a beach on Koh Samui called Chaweng Beach Resort so we threw in our cards and headed there. We found an expensive guest house (I only say expensive in relation to what we paid in the rest of SE Asia) and threw down our stuff. After we got some food we went on a mission to find the girls and, as expected, they were chilling on the beach.
Koh Samui was a nice island but there wasn't an awful lot to do there other than the beach. So we relaxed and just enjoyed a bit of worry-free time. Next we caught the boat to Koh Tao. It's a much smaller island than Samui and is well known for its prestigious diving at cheap prices. I was very much tempted to put myself in debt with my credit card and fork out to get an Open Water PADI. In the end I decided that when I have more time somewhere to dive, I'll get my PADI. Maybe in Australia if I have time and money. We had 4 nights in Koh Tao and we were blessed with some pretty good weather too. Since it's wet season at the moment it's quite difficult to determine the weather and sometimes it gets so muggy you're praying for a massive storm to hit - inevitably it does! We had time in Koh Tao to try some real Thai food (though I'm lost for their names right now) and have some nice walks up along the beach. We stayed in a small bungalow right near the beach, which after a day was covered in sand and smelt of eggs. (The eggy smell could be explained what with a stream right outside extruding the same smell... or it could have just been me drinking too much coffee and eating eggs again!!) The sea in Koh Tao (or at least our beach) was a bit disappointing. It was incredibly shallow, even when the tide is in and simply isn't as fun to mess around in. AND, and, there are no waves! Booring.
So when you are chilling out at a nice beach resort and soaking up the sun the last thing you'd expect, especially considering all the stuff we've done in the last 4 months, is a bad accident. We rented some motorbikes and drove north to a beach with some spectacular views and great snorkeling. We got there in good time, though the hills were a little scary. After a drink at the bar we went down to the rocky beach, accessible by a rickety bridge made of twigs and the like. The rocks were quite spike so I lowered myself in slowly. Andy standing atop a boulder about 6' above the water asked me how deep it was. I told him it was just deeper than me and should be fine to jump in so long as he clears the rocks below. Don't know what happened next except that following a pin drop into that water and a hard landing of the sea's surface, Andy had cut his foot open in two places and had to go to hospital to get stitched up!
So that was... fun (sorry Mum's). We all went back to Bangkok and had our last day with Alice before she had to fly home. We arrived in Khao San at 4am with the road a rife with prostitutes and lady-boys, so we went to one of the few 24hr places in Bangkok... McDonalds! We waited until 5am for breakfast to start and after some food went out looking for cheap guest houses that had opened early. By 7am we got ourselves in a room and I figured that instead of going to sleep I'd stay up and try and get an early night that evening since we were getting up at 4am to take Alice to the airport. It was a nice day, though a very tiring one, and it became very difficult to sleep even with the fatigue setting in. Since we stayed actually on Khao San road this time, and above a club at that, it was incredibly noisy.
It was time for Alice to go to the airport. We took a minibus there and stayed with her until the last minute to say our farewells. She wasn't as upset as I thought she'd be, but there was one moment after Briony went to find her friend who'd just landed in Bangkok where Alice didn't want to go up the escalator back to the departures area. Eventually we got her up and after saying our prolonged goodbyes she left us to leave our world of traveling and back to England. It was very sad and I really miss having Alice around. So Briony's friend, Alice's replacement, Annie had been drafted in. She was knackered after her flight from England and she pretty much passed out as soon as we got her to the room. We also met up with a friend from uni, Phoebe and her friend Manda who also just arrived in Bangkok that day. We decided to meet up to have some drinks and then to head off to a Ping Pong show. Although I don't regret going, I will never, EVER, go again. It's hard to describe without leaving out any gory details but I can just say that I didn't realize so much could fit up there... seriously. They were pulling out colourful sting with bells attached to it for a long long time. And the noise of that banana being fired 10' in the air will stay with me for the rest of my life.
The next day I went out to visit the Royal Palace and the Emerald Buddha. It is a fantastic and huge complex that's extremely bright. We had the sun out all day and it lit up the golden spires and colourful mosaic glass amazingly. It took a long time to walk around and it wasn't as busy as I thought it would be. I'd heard it was comparable to the Forbidden City in Beijing, but it definitely wasn't as ridiculous as that! Also went around the National Museum, which was really interesting in relation to all the dynasty's and kings the country has had in the last several hundred years, but dragged a bit toward the end with ceramics and pottery. We also read about a king who had completed many great feats. One of which was he dreamed he was victorious in defeating a crocodile - his astrologer made the connection that he would in fact defeat the Burmese. There was a lot of random captions like that!
Next day I visited Wat Pho. A slightly less busy temple renowned for it's 75m long reclining Buddha. Picturing that in your mind isn't as easy as just "Yeah, another big Buddha". 75m is funking huge!! My camera screen is still bust but I tried to take as many pictures as possible so as to give some image of how big this thing was. The rest of the temple was really nice, though not quite as spectacular as the Royal Palace. It was, though, a lot cheaper to visit, and I didn't have to wear long trousers.
That afternoon an incredible thing happened. Mother of all that is random... we happened to bump into Owen, another friend from uni!!! It was really, really weird. I remember reading on Facebook a couple of months ago that he'd come to Thailand but by now had completely forgotten about that. So after a reunion we all went to the weekend market to buy some tat. We went out for some drinks, mostly reminiscing uni times and talking utter crap. We went out to a bar with a live cover band, which played an odd mix of songs ranging from You Spin Me Right Round to Bohemian Rhapsody to Killing in the Name of (RATM). It was very strange.
I didn't want to get too drunk though since the next day (today) I caught a minibus to Kachanaburi, a couple of hours north of Bangkok. Andy remained in Bangkok since he can't really walk on his foot and is yet to see a lot of the sights in Bangkok and Briony and Annie caught a train this afternoon to Chang Mai. So I'm here on my own for the first time since coming away. At first it was a little daunting, but actually it's really exciting. I was chatting to a Ukrainian bloke in the minibus and we decided to go tomorrow on a tour which includes Elephant riding and trekking and walking up a 7-tiered waterfall (one of the best in Thailand apparently) followed by a visit to some caves and a trip along the famous Death Railway, which goes over the 'Bridge Over the River Kwae' (let me know if you've seen the film). So I'm looking forward to tomorrow and I promise I begin posting more regularly now.
Sorry again. I miss you all and wish you all the best!
The "sleeper" bus from Bangkok coupled with a boat got us to the island of Koh Samui around midday. The girls had arrived their a couple of days before us and we had no idea where they were. The most recent message we received went something like this: "this beach is really quiet so we're heading to another beach called chakeng, i think!". Later we found that there is a beach on Koh Samui called Chaweng Beach Resort so we threw in our cards and headed there. We found an expensive guest house (I only say expensive in relation to what we paid in the rest of SE Asia) and threw down our stuff. After we got some food we went on a mission to find the girls and, as expected, they were chilling on the beach.
Koh Samui was a nice island but there wasn't an awful lot to do there other than the beach. So we relaxed and just enjoyed a bit of worry-free time. Next we caught the boat to Koh Tao. It's a much smaller island than Samui and is well known for its prestigious diving at cheap prices. I was very much tempted to put myself in debt with my credit card and fork out to get an Open Water PADI. In the end I decided that when I have more time somewhere to dive, I'll get my PADI. Maybe in Australia if I have time and money. We had 4 nights in Koh Tao and we were blessed with some pretty good weather too. Since it's wet season at the moment it's quite difficult to determine the weather and sometimes it gets so muggy you're praying for a massive storm to hit - inevitably it does! We had time in Koh Tao to try some real Thai food (though I'm lost for their names right now) and have some nice walks up along the beach. We stayed in a small bungalow right near the beach, which after a day was covered in sand and smelt of eggs. (The eggy smell could be explained what with a stream right outside extruding the same smell... or it could have just been me drinking too much coffee and eating eggs again!!) The sea in Koh Tao (or at least our beach) was a bit disappointing. It was incredibly shallow, even when the tide is in and simply isn't as fun to mess around in. AND, and, there are no waves! Booring.
So when you are chilling out at a nice beach resort and soaking up the sun the last thing you'd expect, especially considering all the stuff we've done in the last 4 months, is a bad accident. We rented some motorbikes and drove north to a beach with some spectacular views and great snorkeling. We got there in good time, though the hills were a little scary. After a drink at the bar we went down to the rocky beach, accessible by a rickety bridge made of twigs and the like. The rocks were quite spike so I lowered myself in slowly. Andy standing atop a boulder about 6' above the water asked me how deep it was. I told him it was just deeper than me and should be fine to jump in so long as he clears the rocks below. Don't know what happened next except that following a pin drop into that water and a hard landing of the sea's surface, Andy had cut his foot open in two places and had to go to hospital to get stitched up!
So that was... fun (sorry Mum's). We all went back to Bangkok and had our last day with Alice before she had to fly home. We arrived in Khao San at 4am with the road a rife with prostitutes and lady-boys, so we went to one of the few 24hr places in Bangkok... McDonalds! We waited until 5am for breakfast to start and after some food went out looking for cheap guest houses that had opened early. By 7am we got ourselves in a room and I figured that instead of going to sleep I'd stay up and try and get an early night that evening since we were getting up at 4am to take Alice to the airport. It was a nice day, though a very tiring one, and it became very difficult to sleep even with the fatigue setting in. Since we stayed actually on Khao San road this time, and above a club at that, it was incredibly noisy.
It was time for Alice to go to the airport. We took a minibus there and stayed with her until the last minute to say our farewells. She wasn't as upset as I thought she'd be, but there was one moment after Briony went to find her friend who'd just landed in Bangkok where Alice didn't want to go up the escalator back to the departures area. Eventually we got her up and after saying our prolonged goodbyes she left us to leave our world of traveling and back to England. It was very sad and I really miss having Alice around. So Briony's friend, Alice's replacement, Annie had been drafted in. She was knackered after her flight from England and she pretty much passed out as soon as we got her to the room. We also met up with a friend from uni, Phoebe and her friend Manda who also just arrived in Bangkok that day. We decided to meet up to have some drinks and then to head off to a Ping Pong show. Although I don't regret going, I will never, EVER, go again. It's hard to describe without leaving out any gory details but I can just say that I didn't realize so much could fit up there... seriously. They were pulling out colourful sting with bells attached to it for a long long time. And the noise of that banana being fired 10' in the air will stay with me for the rest of my life.
The next day I went out to visit the Royal Palace and the Emerald Buddha. It is a fantastic and huge complex that's extremely bright. We had the sun out all day and it lit up the golden spires and colourful mosaic glass amazingly. It took a long time to walk around and it wasn't as busy as I thought it would be. I'd heard it was comparable to the Forbidden City in Beijing, but it definitely wasn't as ridiculous as that! Also went around the National Museum, which was really interesting in relation to all the dynasty's and kings the country has had in the last several hundred years, but dragged a bit toward the end with ceramics and pottery. We also read about a king who had completed many great feats. One of which was he dreamed he was victorious in defeating a crocodile - his astrologer made the connection that he would in fact defeat the Burmese. There was a lot of random captions like that!
Next day I visited Wat Pho. A slightly less busy temple renowned for it's 75m long reclining Buddha. Picturing that in your mind isn't as easy as just "Yeah, another big Buddha". 75m is funking huge!! My camera screen is still bust but I tried to take as many pictures as possible so as to give some image of how big this thing was. The rest of the temple was really nice, though not quite as spectacular as the Royal Palace. It was, though, a lot cheaper to visit, and I didn't have to wear long trousers.
That afternoon an incredible thing happened. Mother of all that is random... we happened to bump into Owen, another friend from uni!!! It was really, really weird. I remember reading on Facebook a couple of months ago that he'd come to Thailand but by now had completely forgotten about that. So after a reunion we all went to the weekend market to buy some tat. We went out for some drinks, mostly reminiscing uni times and talking utter crap. We went out to a bar with a live cover band, which played an odd mix of songs ranging from You Spin Me Right Round to Bohemian Rhapsody to Killing in the Name of (RATM). It was very strange.
I didn't want to get too drunk though since the next day (today) I caught a minibus to Kachanaburi, a couple of hours north of Bangkok. Andy remained in Bangkok since he can't really walk on his foot and is yet to see a lot of the sights in Bangkok and Briony and Annie caught a train this afternoon to Chang Mai. So I'm here on my own for the first time since coming away. At first it was a little daunting, but actually it's really exciting. I was chatting to a Ukrainian bloke in the minibus and we decided to go tomorrow on a tour which includes Elephant riding and trekking and walking up a 7-tiered waterfall (one of the best in Thailand apparently) followed by a visit to some caves and a trip along the famous Death Railway, which goes over the 'Bridge Over the River Kwae' (let me know if you've seen the film). So I'm looking forward to tomorrow and I promise I begin posting more regularly now.
Sorry again. I miss you all and wish you all the best!
Monday 13 July 2009
Stuff happens in Cambodia
Plans went a little wayward from what I mentioned in the last entry. We figured we'd spend a week in the south, a week in the east and a week in the west allowing days here and there and head to Thailand at the end of the month. It changed from that to arriving in Bangkok yesterday, 12th July. All I can say is that things change and stuff happens, and stuff changes and things happen. Arriving in Kampot at the south of Cambodia we found out that Alice had been robbed on the bus, losing her camera, phone and some money. (I am now the only person who still has a camera). Basically our plans changed a bit and we decided to stick together instead of spending more time in Cambodia. Unfortunetly this meant that me and Andy didn't really see or do anything in the south and had to miss out the east entirely.
Anyway, first night in Kampot, I had a little accident involving a push bike, a broken chain and some tarmac, all with a little help from our friend gravity. I started picking up some speed on this rubbish bike and the chain completely snapped, throwing me and the bike to the ground and skidding along a little way. I tore up some of my arm, bashed in my knee, and took off a chunk of a big toe! The bike was in worse condition than I was. I bent it back into shape and walked back to the guest house. I forgot how much antiseptic wipes hurt as well. So there's me dancing around the room looking like I'd just had a fight with an electric sander. I was fine though, just walked like a cripple for a few days. Also I realised after that I had my camera in my pocket, of which the screen is now completely bust. (Now I'm the only person who has a camera... and that camera is broken!). Plus for some unknown reason my first aid kit Debbie made for me has completely dissapeared! Very frustrating, I was looking forward to finally using my Mr. Bump antiseptic wipes.
So we stayed with the girls as I mentioned before, relaxing for a couple of days in Sihanoukville. It was a cool place, though it doesn't really have much more to it than a nice beach and unfortunetly being as we're in the middle of wet season, it was a bit wet. We caught the bus back to Phnom Penh and being as we were now all together for Alices birthday we went for a nice meal, and even found a cake and a candle to sing happy birthday with. We were staying in a nicer area than last time too, right near the central market and the Royal Palace. The next day the girls left for Siem Riep whilst me and Andy stayed behind since we needed to get Thai visas and they take a few days to process. Not that I minded since it gave us some time in Phnom Penh to do what we missed out on before. We walked around the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda, which were absolutely stunning. The buildings looked incredible. We also had a walk around the art streets and went over to the market. The weather was really good as well. We also worked out what the difference between Phnom Penh and other capital cities is (other than it's a small city): it's very green and not very built up. I really like Phnom Penh.
When we got our visas we jumped on a bus to Siem Riep to catch up with the girls. We didn't have the Lonely Planet and therefore couldn't research what we were going to do there. All we knew was that we wanted to see Angkor Wat and some of the other temples around. So the following day we got a guide from the guest house (I think he was called Suret) to take us round the temples. It was a fantastic day. We got up at 4am so we could get to Angkor Wat in time to see the sun rise. We got our spot by a small lake in the main complex and got some excellent pictures (at least I hope they're excellent. I can't actually tell now on my camera!). We got somer breakfast and spent a while walking around and inside the biggest religious building in the world and the mother of all temples. It was spectacular. A really unbelievable place. Next stop was Bayon. Bayon was quite run down, which was what I liked about it. There was no real temple feel to it. It is quite hard to explain. It's a sort of big building with steps going up to the top with loads of faces carved into the rock. There's tons of them and some are absolutely huge. We saw some more temples that were outside Bayon that were pretty cool but I can't remember their names.
We had enough time to go around the 'Tomb Raider' temple. I think it's real name is Ta Phrom or something. It's the place where they filmed part of the first Tomb Raider film. It's surrounded by jungle and is a really run down place with huge tree's literally growing through the remains of this temple. At the end of the day we got a sight of the last temple, which was also mostly in ruins. We had a guide for this one though not by choice. He just sort of jumped us and we couldn't stop him talking. It was good that we did though because we learnt a lot about this one. For instance it is filled with phallic symbols, that we would have otherwise not noticed, or noticed and thought it childishly funny and not knowing what they were actually there for. Also we found out it was built in the late 12th century, one fo the oldest temples in the Angkor area and in the 13th century the king there was Hundu and ordered all the Buddha symbols and statues to be removed. We paid the guy $2, which I think he was a little pissed about, but we didn't actually have any money on us. Mostly because we just bought more artwork that we'll struggle to carry around.
It was a really cool day but we came back absolutely knackered. We got some food and fell pretty much straight to sleep! We left for Bangkok the following day (yesterday) and once we'd sorted out a room we went out for food and a beer. A beer quickly turned into many beers and we stumbled back into our room around 2am, good night! So I'm feeling pretty hungover today. The girls went off to Koh Samui last night and we were going to head off tonight to catch them up but we kind of slept in too late. So we're gonna head off tomorrow instead. We have about a month in Thailand now, which should be great fun!!
Anyway, first night in Kampot, I had a little accident involving a push bike, a broken chain and some tarmac, all with a little help from our friend gravity. I started picking up some speed on this rubbish bike and the chain completely snapped, throwing me and the bike to the ground and skidding along a little way. I tore up some of my arm, bashed in my knee, and took off a chunk of a big toe! The bike was in worse condition than I was. I bent it back into shape and walked back to the guest house. I forgot how much antiseptic wipes hurt as well. So there's me dancing around the room looking like I'd just had a fight with an electric sander. I was fine though, just walked like a cripple for a few days. Also I realised after that I had my camera in my pocket, of which the screen is now completely bust. (Now I'm the only person who has a camera... and that camera is broken!). Plus for some unknown reason my first aid kit Debbie made for me has completely dissapeared! Very frustrating, I was looking forward to finally using my Mr. Bump antiseptic wipes.
So we stayed with the girls as I mentioned before, relaxing for a couple of days in Sihanoukville. It was a cool place, though it doesn't really have much more to it than a nice beach and unfortunetly being as we're in the middle of wet season, it was a bit wet. We caught the bus back to Phnom Penh and being as we were now all together for Alices birthday we went for a nice meal, and even found a cake and a candle to sing happy birthday with. We were staying in a nicer area than last time too, right near the central market and the Royal Palace. The next day the girls left for Siem Riep whilst me and Andy stayed behind since we needed to get Thai visas and they take a few days to process. Not that I minded since it gave us some time in Phnom Penh to do what we missed out on before. We walked around the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda, which were absolutely stunning. The buildings looked incredible. We also had a walk around the art streets and went over to the market. The weather was really good as well. We also worked out what the difference between Phnom Penh and other capital cities is (other than it's a small city): it's very green and not very built up. I really like Phnom Penh.
When we got our visas we jumped on a bus to Siem Riep to catch up with the girls. We didn't have the Lonely Planet and therefore couldn't research what we were going to do there. All we knew was that we wanted to see Angkor Wat and some of the other temples around. So the following day we got a guide from the guest house (I think he was called Suret) to take us round the temples. It was a fantastic day. We got up at 4am so we could get to Angkor Wat in time to see the sun rise. We got our spot by a small lake in the main complex and got some excellent pictures (at least I hope they're excellent. I can't actually tell now on my camera!). We got somer breakfast and spent a while walking around and inside the biggest religious building in the world and the mother of all temples. It was spectacular. A really unbelievable place. Next stop was Bayon. Bayon was quite run down, which was what I liked about it. There was no real temple feel to it. It is quite hard to explain. It's a sort of big building with steps going up to the top with loads of faces carved into the rock. There's tons of them and some are absolutely huge. We saw some more temples that were outside Bayon that were pretty cool but I can't remember their names.
We had enough time to go around the 'Tomb Raider' temple. I think it's real name is Ta Phrom or something. It's the place where they filmed part of the first Tomb Raider film. It's surrounded by jungle and is a really run down place with huge tree's literally growing through the remains of this temple. At the end of the day we got a sight of the last temple, which was also mostly in ruins. We had a guide for this one though not by choice. He just sort of jumped us and we couldn't stop him talking. It was good that we did though because we learnt a lot about this one. For instance it is filled with phallic symbols, that we would have otherwise not noticed, or noticed and thought it childishly funny and not knowing what they were actually there for. Also we found out it was built in the late 12th century, one fo the oldest temples in the Angkor area and in the 13th century the king there was Hundu and ordered all the Buddha symbols and statues to be removed. We paid the guy $2, which I think he was a little pissed about, but we didn't actually have any money on us. Mostly because we just bought more artwork that we'll struggle to carry around.
It was a really cool day but we came back absolutely knackered. We got some food and fell pretty much straight to sleep! We left for Bangkok the following day (yesterday) and once we'd sorted out a room we went out for food and a beer. A beer quickly turned into many beers and we stumbled back into our room around 2am, good night! So I'm feeling pretty hungover today. The girls went off to Koh Samui last night and we were going to head off tonight to catch them up but we kind of slept in too late. So we're gonna head off tomorrow instead. We have about a month in Thailand now, which should be great fun!!
Friday 3 July 2009
Viet Cong Tunnels to Cambodian Killing Fields
It's been a good few days of depressing cultural fun. Our last full day in 'Nam was to head to Cu Chi and see the tunnels. It is a massive set of complex tunnels the Viet Cong used in the American/Vietnam war. I went inside a couple to see the living conditions of thousands of Viet Cong for around 20 years! The tunnels were a great experience and seeing examples of the types of traps they used only further added to the gruesomeness of what happened. We had an interesting talk with our guide about the war as well. He sums up what the Vietnamese people think of the war now in two separate categories:
1. The war never happened. He means that a lot of younger generation (18 to 30) in Cambodia now aren't focusing on the war. They have adopted many Western ways of living and enjoy themselves selfishly.
and 2. The war never ended. His example came from his Dad, who fought in the war. He suffered from shell shock and found it difficult to talk about his time there. He, as expected, holds many grudges and although he can see great change in his country; he still lives as he did the majority of his life, in a war.
It was really interesting and insightful not only to hear about what they think of the war now, but also what they think of us as Westerners. We learnt a lot of the Vietnamese way of living and it was a thoroughly enjoyable day out.
The following day we caught the bus to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, the 10th country we've visited so far. We arrived mid-afternoon and set about finding a cheap place to stay. We got a room for the four of us for $10 with air con. Next day we had ourselves another cultural day. We went to a museum (can't remember it's name) that used to be a school, which was transformed into the infamous Prison S-21. The museum had an hour long documentary which we watched first. It was very powerful and told the story of a husband and wife who'd been split up and were forced to work in labour camps as slaves. It was very insightful and gave us a great introduction to the rest of the museum. We saw the different cells that were used. Tiny cupboards of rooms where prisoners were chained to the floor. There was an exhibit of skulls that were unearthed from the nearby Killing Fields and pictures of all the known victims. Another exhibition showed pictures from a Swedish tourist who came to Cambodia in 1978 under Pol Pot's regime, which turned out to be propaganda for the rest of the world. It was interesting to see his pictures captioned with thoughts at the time and thoughts now. He was clearly deeply sorry to be part of the propaganda and seeing what we saw that day, it's easy to see why. Obviously we know know that under Pol Pot's regime 2 million people were killed, but at the time very little was actually known of what went on. A lot of the pictures the Swedish man thought were staged for their benefit, such as schools and hospitals.
I really enjoyed the museum but with left with a massive sense of forboding but we decided to go out and see the Killing Fields. It's about 10km's out of town so we got a tuk tuk. The Killing Fields where were the men, women, and children of the work camps were brought for execution. The mass graves had been dug up with a huge collection of skulls, many with teeth still intact, were on open display. Walking around the dug up trenches I nearly trod on what I originally assumed was a rock and realised afterwards was actually a bone protruding from the ground. There was a tree with a sign next to it simply saying "This was where children were beated and executed" and had a pile of bones at its base. It was incredibly sad and upsetting.
We relaxed for the rest of the day, shocked at the days proceedings. That evening we chilled out at a bar which had an open live acoustic thing going on. This one guy was exceptionally talented on his guitar and another girl was exceptionally talented at singing. It made for a really relaxed and enjoyable evening.
The next day we celebrated Alice's birthday. We have decided to go our separate ways since the girls want to spend more time in Thailand and we want to spend more time in Cambodia. So in our last full day together we decided to have an early birthday day for Alice. We went out to the water park... it was pretty rubbish but we had a right laugh. Playing about on the slides and in the pool was a lot of fun. We had some lunch and for dessert bought Alice some chocolate from the Chocolate Shop and gave her her pressies. We gave Alice her card which was blank on the front as we decided we'd draw picture of the days proceedings as the days went on. We got back to the room after buying some cheap and nasty looking vodka to play drinking games, namely ring of fire. Many hours and drinks later we headed out to a bar to have a few more before going to a club. I didn't enjoy the club so much. I felt really awkward and uncomfortable. It was mostly occupied by lots of young Cambodian girls not wearing an awful lot trying to through themselves at you. There were loads of old men who had gone there to pick up young Cambodian girls and I didn't enjoy watching the girls competing over men, presumably for money. Prostitution is a big problem in Phnom Penh and it was really obvious what this place was. Incredibly seedy.
Today I have a hangover. The girls have gone ahead of us to our next destination Kampot. We're going to go tomorrow. Since we have more time in Cambodia and the fact that they left at 6.30am (bearing in mind we didn't get back in until 4.30am), me and Andy decided to allow this day as a hangover day. We're going to meet the girls tomorrow afternoon when we arrive in Kampot, but it will most likely be for the last time. In other, less depressing news, Me, Andy and Briony have booked our flights to Australia!! We fly from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpar Aug 10th and then Kuala Lumpar to Brisbane that evening to arrive the following morning. Now we just need to get work, accommodation and a car. I also sorted out my Australian bank account so that's another think out of the way. I'm looking forward to the rest of my stay in Cambodia but I know I'm going to miss having the girls around.
1. The war never happened. He means that a lot of younger generation (18 to 30) in Cambodia now aren't focusing on the war. They have adopted many Western ways of living and enjoy themselves selfishly.
and 2. The war never ended. His example came from his Dad, who fought in the war. He suffered from shell shock and found it difficult to talk about his time there. He, as expected, holds many grudges and although he can see great change in his country; he still lives as he did the majority of his life, in a war.
It was really interesting and insightful not only to hear about what they think of the war now, but also what they think of us as Westerners. We learnt a lot of the Vietnamese way of living and it was a thoroughly enjoyable day out.
The following day we caught the bus to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, the 10th country we've visited so far. We arrived mid-afternoon and set about finding a cheap place to stay. We got a room for the four of us for $10 with air con. Next day we had ourselves another cultural day. We went to a museum (can't remember it's name) that used to be a school, which was transformed into the infamous Prison S-21. The museum had an hour long documentary which we watched first. It was very powerful and told the story of a husband and wife who'd been split up and were forced to work in labour camps as slaves. It was very insightful and gave us a great introduction to the rest of the museum. We saw the different cells that were used. Tiny cupboards of rooms where prisoners were chained to the floor. There was an exhibit of skulls that were unearthed from the nearby Killing Fields and pictures of all the known victims. Another exhibition showed pictures from a Swedish tourist who came to Cambodia in 1978 under Pol Pot's regime, which turned out to be propaganda for the rest of the world. It was interesting to see his pictures captioned with thoughts at the time and thoughts now. He was clearly deeply sorry to be part of the propaganda and seeing what we saw that day, it's easy to see why. Obviously we know know that under Pol Pot's regime 2 million people were killed, but at the time very little was actually known of what went on. A lot of the pictures the Swedish man thought were staged for their benefit, such as schools and hospitals.
I really enjoyed the museum but with left with a massive sense of forboding but we decided to go out and see the Killing Fields. It's about 10km's out of town so we got a tuk tuk. The Killing Fields where were the men, women, and children of the work camps were brought for execution. The mass graves had been dug up with a huge collection of skulls, many with teeth still intact, were on open display. Walking around the dug up trenches I nearly trod on what I originally assumed was a rock and realised afterwards was actually a bone protruding from the ground. There was a tree with a sign next to it simply saying "This was where children were beated and executed" and had a pile of bones at its base. It was incredibly sad and upsetting.
We relaxed for the rest of the day, shocked at the days proceedings. That evening we chilled out at a bar which had an open live acoustic thing going on. This one guy was exceptionally talented on his guitar and another girl was exceptionally talented at singing. It made for a really relaxed and enjoyable evening.
The next day we celebrated Alice's birthday. We have decided to go our separate ways since the girls want to spend more time in Thailand and we want to spend more time in Cambodia. So in our last full day together we decided to have an early birthday day for Alice. We went out to the water park... it was pretty rubbish but we had a right laugh. Playing about on the slides and in the pool was a lot of fun. We had some lunch and for dessert bought Alice some chocolate from the Chocolate Shop and gave her her pressies. We gave Alice her card which was blank on the front as we decided we'd draw picture of the days proceedings as the days went on. We got back to the room after buying some cheap and nasty looking vodka to play drinking games, namely ring of fire. Many hours and drinks later we headed out to a bar to have a few more before going to a club. I didn't enjoy the club so much. I felt really awkward and uncomfortable. It was mostly occupied by lots of young Cambodian girls not wearing an awful lot trying to through themselves at you. There were loads of old men who had gone there to pick up young Cambodian girls and I didn't enjoy watching the girls competing over men, presumably for money. Prostitution is a big problem in Phnom Penh and it was really obvious what this place was. Incredibly seedy.
Today I have a hangover. The girls have gone ahead of us to our next destination Kampot. We're going to go tomorrow. Since we have more time in Cambodia and the fact that they left at 6.30am (bearing in mind we didn't get back in until 4.30am), me and Andy decided to allow this day as a hangover day. We're going to meet the girls tomorrow afternoon when we arrive in Kampot, but it will most likely be for the last time. In other, less depressing news, Me, Andy and Briony have booked our flights to Australia!! We fly from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpar Aug 10th and then Kuala Lumpar to Brisbane that evening to arrive the following morning. Now we just need to get work, accommodation and a car. I also sorted out my Australian bank account so that's another think out of the way. I'm looking forward to the rest of my stay in Cambodia but I know I'm going to miss having the girls around.
Sunday 28 June 2009
Same Same But Different
'Same Same' is a phrase heard all of SE Asia and I only discovered its meaning whilst in Vietnam. 'Same Same But Different' is used by sellers of every description selling fake or forged stuff. It has transferred to everyday use and even when looking at a food menu if something is the same price it's always 'Same Same'. The town of Mui Ne is what I would describe as being 'Same Same But Boring'. There were beaches just like Nha Trang and Hoi An, but unlike Nha Trang and Hoi An it has absolutely no character. I was glad to only be their for one day to be honest.
So other than its nice beach, there's not an awful lot to say about Mui Ne (or myyy kneeeeeeee! as we called it) so I'll skip straight to Saigon. Ho Chi Minh city (or Saigon as it's called by everyone here) is a massive metropolis of a city. It's very noisy and not too expensive either. We spent 2 nights here giving us one full day to enjoy the city. Following the walking tour map offered in the Lonely Planet weset out to see the sights. There's a huge indoor market where I found myself buying more stuff I probably don't need, but it's so cheap!! We went into the best ice cream parlour in existance, Fanny's. Fanny's was brilliant! It cost a fair bit but you can get just about any ice cream combination ever. The fact that it was so hot was excuse enough to spend a ton on ice cream. We continued our walking tour and it took us over to a pagoda and on to the War Remnants Museum. You need a couple of hours to see the museum. It's not got a whole lot of information on the actual war itself it's mostly 'Look at what the nasty Americans did to us'. It was really interesting though and some of it really hard to take in. They showed a replica of the cages they kept war prisoners in and the torture methods they used, agent orange victims, the guns, bombs, and other weaponry used, and so on.
I've also started to get a strange hayfever type illness. In the war remnants museum my eyes were so red and puffy that it probably looked like I was crying, not that there wasn't cause not to! Piriton seems to have fixed me up though. That evening we went for some street food and it was back to the backpacker basics of point and hope with the menu. Worked pretty well. We walked around some of the markets for a couple of hours before heading home. Before we called it a day we organised ourselves for the remainder of our stay in Vietnam. We booked ourselves in for a trip to the famous Viet Cong tunnels (which we are going to tommorow) and booked our bus out of Vietnam and into Cambodia. We also arranged to get some motorbikes.
The following morning we had some breakfast, checked our map, got our motorbikes and drove out of the city. It's the same type of bike from before. 100cc manual fake (Same Same But Different) Honda. Driving out of one of the most densely populated areas in the country on motorbikes wasn't easy and we kept losing one another, but in the end we got out of town and started driving south. Once you get onto the open road and let loose it's so much fun. We didn't stick to the speed limits mainly because no one does since the speed limits are ludicrously low. 20km/hr in the towns and 40km/hr outside. We stopped a couple of times and it took a total of around 2 hours to get to our first destination My Tho. Arriving in the town we immediately saw the difference to everywhere else we've been to in 'Nam. No tour operators, no sun glasses salesmen/women, no tourists! Bliss!
We set down our bags (we only took our small bags for this expedition) and went for a traditional lunch of Pho. Pho is Vietnams speciality and is a noodle soup with lots of veg and meat, and it tastes amazing! We met our soon-to-be fried Truc who owned the cafe we were eating at. After lunch we drove outside of the town to the snake farm. We got a bit lost on the way but got there eventually. The farm has a lot of snakes, which we took pictures of whilst they got angry with us. It also had some bears they were nursing back to health, ostriches, otters, and loads of birds. After looking around we decided to stop there for dinner and try another Vietnamese speciality - snake! They guy didn't speak any English and we had a bit of fun miming snake actions to try and get some equal understanding. He went off and we sort of looked at each other, ready to just give up, until he came back with a massiv elive snake in his hands. He pointed at it and mimed eating. Me and Andy nodded ferverently getting really excited whilst Alice, who had gone completely white, and Briony, cowering on the other side of the table, stared at the snake. We saw our guy with the snake a few minutes later also in his hands a pint glass with some clear liquid in it, and a pair of scissors. We followed him round back and watched him snip off the snakes head and drain its blood into the pint glass!!
It took a long time for the snake to cook but it eventually came out chopped in neat slices in a sort of meaty broth dish. Our guy told us to put the noodles in our bowls and poul the broth on with some bits of snake meat. The snake meat was really nice. It tasted a bit like pork but a bit fishy. We also ate the snakes intestines and liver, which weren't so nice. The snake skin was really chewy and a bit sickly but it was okay. This was one of our most expensive dishes since we came away travelling but was definately worth it. It cost 500,000VND, around 17 pounds, so not too bad. It was dark by the time we finished so we had to drive home in the dark for the first time. We went slow and were fine. We went for a rooftop drink at a bar, which enjoyed playing a strange mix of music, dance and techno stuff. Bit strange in its setting.
We went back to Trucs the following morning for breakfast and agreed to take his boat tour of the neighbouring islands across the Mekong. We boarded his boat and he took us first to the island where he lives, Pheonix island. He took us through the island and we tasted some fruit picked from the source then and there. We also tried this strange leaf thing that tasted a lot like lemon! Out on the other side of the island our boat was waiting for us and it took us to Tortoise island. We tried some more fruit and visited the Coconut Candy factory. As far as factories go this has to be one of the most primative. It is simply and small machine for crushing coconuts and another small machine to mix it with sugar and other such ingredients. Next to that is a table with some women packing the finished sweets. Truc was a lot of fun and though we bought some, he decided to steal more off them!! We then drifted round some small rivers coming off the Mekong and it was absolutely incredible. It was like floating through the middle of a jungle. We stopped for lunch and enjoyed Elephant fish. The 1 and a half kilo fish came to us intact, but deep fried. A guy that worked there helped us with it. You take off the meat, put it in some rice paper with noodles and vegetables, roll it up and dip it in tamarind sauce. It was really good and the guy stayed with us chatting about his life. He'd learnt English by himself and wanted to practice it. He convinced us to stay there for the night.
It was a sort of homestay where the family lived there but they had another building with some rooms in it. It was basically a guest house but because it is in a really remote place (right on the Mekong and away from the city) they named it a homestay. It was great fun. We lay out on hammocks by the river until it got dark and then sat on a little bridge watching the bats swoop along eating mosquitoes.
Next day we hopped back on our bikes to Ben Tre. Again we got split up when we arrived but it didn't take too long to find each other. We had some food and went to a pagoda by the lake. There wasn't really much in Ben Tre and we had already decided to pay it a visit before heading out to Vinh Long. The Lonely Planet however had given turned us the wrong way. We went by the direction on the map in the book, which led us to no where! After 2 hours of scouring the rouds we saw no way to Vinh Long other than to go back to My Tho and take the highway from there. As we were driving randomly in a direction that we thought was to Ving Long we hit some roadworks. The roads were horrible and if you break on them the bike skids out really badly. Unfortunetly Briony and Alice did just that. Briony was driving with Alice on the back and they skidded out and the bike toppled. They were completely fine bar some grazed knee's but they were a bit shook up so we stopped for a drink.
Back to My Tho we went and by the time we got there there was little point in heading out again. So we scrapped Vinh Long and stayed another night in My Tho. Truc was happy to see us again and we were happy to see more Pho in front of us. Next morning was this morning and we got some breakfast before heading back to Saigon. The drive didn't seem to take as long as before though we were worried that when we got back they might notice the scratches on the side of Alice and Brionys bike - we had signed a contract of sorts to rent the bikes which stated they can charge us $500 dollars should anything happen to the bikes. As it was they didn't notice and everything was good.
So back in Saigon again and we are internetting to try and sort ourselves out for Australia. If anyone has any useful info on finding work or a place to stay let me know. I've just noticed this internet cafe is surrounded by fish tanks.
PS. Sorry Paul, I realised that it was the jacket and shirt I bought that cost $45. The suit and 2 shirts was $95 I think.
So other than its nice beach, there's not an awful lot to say about Mui Ne (or myyy kneeeeeeee! as we called it) so I'll skip straight to Saigon. Ho Chi Minh city (or Saigon as it's called by everyone here) is a massive metropolis of a city. It's very noisy and not too expensive either. We spent 2 nights here giving us one full day to enjoy the city. Following the walking tour map offered in the Lonely Planet weset out to see the sights. There's a huge indoor market where I found myself buying more stuff I probably don't need, but it's so cheap!! We went into the best ice cream parlour in existance, Fanny's. Fanny's was brilliant! It cost a fair bit but you can get just about any ice cream combination ever. The fact that it was so hot was excuse enough to spend a ton on ice cream. We continued our walking tour and it took us over to a pagoda and on to the War Remnants Museum. You need a couple of hours to see the museum. It's not got a whole lot of information on the actual war itself it's mostly 'Look at what the nasty Americans did to us'. It was really interesting though and some of it really hard to take in. They showed a replica of the cages they kept war prisoners in and the torture methods they used, agent orange victims, the guns, bombs, and other weaponry used, and so on.
I've also started to get a strange hayfever type illness. In the war remnants museum my eyes were so red and puffy that it probably looked like I was crying, not that there wasn't cause not to! Piriton seems to have fixed me up though. That evening we went for some street food and it was back to the backpacker basics of point and hope with the menu. Worked pretty well. We walked around some of the markets for a couple of hours before heading home. Before we called it a day we organised ourselves for the remainder of our stay in Vietnam. We booked ourselves in for a trip to the famous Viet Cong tunnels (which we are going to tommorow) and booked our bus out of Vietnam and into Cambodia. We also arranged to get some motorbikes.
The following morning we had some breakfast, checked our map, got our motorbikes and drove out of the city. It's the same type of bike from before. 100cc manual fake (Same Same But Different) Honda. Driving out of one of the most densely populated areas in the country on motorbikes wasn't easy and we kept losing one another, but in the end we got out of town and started driving south. Once you get onto the open road and let loose it's so much fun. We didn't stick to the speed limits mainly because no one does since the speed limits are ludicrously low. 20km/hr in the towns and 40km/hr outside. We stopped a couple of times and it took a total of around 2 hours to get to our first destination My Tho. Arriving in the town we immediately saw the difference to everywhere else we've been to in 'Nam. No tour operators, no sun glasses salesmen/women, no tourists! Bliss!
We set down our bags (we only took our small bags for this expedition) and went for a traditional lunch of Pho. Pho is Vietnams speciality and is a noodle soup with lots of veg and meat, and it tastes amazing! We met our soon-to-be fried Truc who owned the cafe we were eating at. After lunch we drove outside of the town to the snake farm. We got a bit lost on the way but got there eventually. The farm has a lot of snakes, which we took pictures of whilst they got angry with us. It also had some bears they were nursing back to health, ostriches, otters, and loads of birds. After looking around we decided to stop there for dinner and try another Vietnamese speciality - snake! They guy didn't speak any English and we had a bit of fun miming snake actions to try and get some equal understanding. He went off and we sort of looked at each other, ready to just give up, until he came back with a massiv elive snake in his hands. He pointed at it and mimed eating. Me and Andy nodded ferverently getting really excited whilst Alice, who had gone completely white, and Briony, cowering on the other side of the table, stared at the snake. We saw our guy with the snake a few minutes later also in his hands a pint glass with some clear liquid in it, and a pair of scissors. We followed him round back and watched him snip off the snakes head and drain its blood into the pint glass!!
It took a long time for the snake to cook but it eventually came out chopped in neat slices in a sort of meaty broth dish. Our guy told us to put the noodles in our bowls and poul the broth on with some bits of snake meat. The snake meat was really nice. It tasted a bit like pork but a bit fishy. We also ate the snakes intestines and liver, which weren't so nice. The snake skin was really chewy and a bit sickly but it was okay. This was one of our most expensive dishes since we came away travelling but was definately worth it. It cost 500,000VND, around 17 pounds, so not too bad. It was dark by the time we finished so we had to drive home in the dark for the first time. We went slow and were fine. We went for a rooftop drink at a bar, which enjoyed playing a strange mix of music, dance and techno stuff. Bit strange in its setting.
We went back to Trucs the following morning for breakfast and agreed to take his boat tour of the neighbouring islands across the Mekong. We boarded his boat and he took us first to the island where he lives, Pheonix island. He took us through the island and we tasted some fruit picked from the source then and there. We also tried this strange leaf thing that tasted a lot like lemon! Out on the other side of the island our boat was waiting for us and it took us to Tortoise island. We tried some more fruit and visited the Coconut Candy factory. As far as factories go this has to be one of the most primative. It is simply and small machine for crushing coconuts and another small machine to mix it with sugar and other such ingredients. Next to that is a table with some women packing the finished sweets. Truc was a lot of fun and though we bought some, he decided to steal more off them!! We then drifted round some small rivers coming off the Mekong and it was absolutely incredible. It was like floating through the middle of a jungle. We stopped for lunch and enjoyed Elephant fish. The 1 and a half kilo fish came to us intact, but deep fried. A guy that worked there helped us with it. You take off the meat, put it in some rice paper with noodles and vegetables, roll it up and dip it in tamarind sauce. It was really good and the guy stayed with us chatting about his life. He'd learnt English by himself and wanted to practice it. He convinced us to stay there for the night.
It was a sort of homestay where the family lived there but they had another building with some rooms in it. It was basically a guest house but because it is in a really remote place (right on the Mekong and away from the city) they named it a homestay. It was great fun. We lay out on hammocks by the river until it got dark and then sat on a little bridge watching the bats swoop along eating mosquitoes.
Next day we hopped back on our bikes to Ben Tre. Again we got split up when we arrived but it didn't take too long to find each other. We had some food and went to a pagoda by the lake. There wasn't really much in Ben Tre and we had already decided to pay it a visit before heading out to Vinh Long. The Lonely Planet however had given turned us the wrong way. We went by the direction on the map in the book, which led us to no where! After 2 hours of scouring the rouds we saw no way to Vinh Long other than to go back to My Tho and take the highway from there. As we were driving randomly in a direction that we thought was to Ving Long we hit some roadworks. The roads were horrible and if you break on them the bike skids out really badly. Unfortunetly Briony and Alice did just that. Briony was driving with Alice on the back and they skidded out and the bike toppled. They were completely fine bar some grazed knee's but they were a bit shook up so we stopped for a drink.
Back to My Tho we went and by the time we got there there was little point in heading out again. So we scrapped Vinh Long and stayed another night in My Tho. Truc was happy to see us again and we were happy to see more Pho in front of us. Next morning was this morning and we got some breakfast before heading back to Saigon. The drive didn't seem to take as long as before though we were worried that when we got back they might notice the scratches on the side of Alice and Brionys bike - we had signed a contract of sorts to rent the bikes which stated they can charge us $500 dollars should anything happen to the bikes. As it was they didn't notice and everything was good.
So back in Saigon again and we are internetting to try and sort ourselves out for Australia. If anyone has any useful info on finding work or a place to stay let me know. I've just noticed this internet cafe is surrounded by fish tanks.
PS. Sorry Paul, I realised that it was the jacket and shirt I bought that cost $45. The suit and 2 shirts was $95 I think.
Sunday 21 June 2009
Touring Vietnam - Nha Trang & Dalat
Hi everybody. I'm having a fantastic time in Vietnam and I feel I'm getting deeper into its culture after every city I visit. The sleeper bus to Nha Trang was the best sleeper bus I've been on by far! There was enough room to stretch legs and I even got some sleep!! We arrived in Nha Trang early and spent about half an hour going around looking for a cheap place to stay. We got a really nice place for $9 a room, following a motorbike ride around Nha Trang trying to find room. Since we actaully slept on this sleeper bus we headed straight off. Briony managed to get some sand in her eye the day before (recurring theme) so we went to get that removed first. Luckily the hospital was just around the corner and Briony was absolutely fine after. We got some breakfast and went 'round some tour operators to sort out our time in Nha Trang. We booked ourselves in on a boat tour around the surrounding islands for the next day.
Today though we decided to spend a bit of time on the beach. Andy managed to anger a 12 year old beach seller (by that I mean a girl who walks around with a basket of tat and sweets) who chased him around the beach for a while. Meanwhile we went for a swim in the sea. The beach is beautiful and sea cool, and we didn't get mauled by the crazy jellyfish stingy things. A few hours later we got ourselves dry and I walked about town. I went into a really odd art gallery that I can't even begin to describe. The people were very friendly though and some of it was really cool.A walk down the beach later took us to what we considered to be an "expensive bar". It cost 60,000VND for a ltr of beer. That's 2 pounds. Which, yes is very expensive for Vietnam. But it was own brewed, and it was really good. Also, the bar had a swimming pool, which was ace. We went back, got dinner, had an early night.
Boat day! Early pick up at the hotel and a minibus ride to the dock. We boarded the boat with some other Western and Asian tourists to find our guide was completely mental. His introductions made him sound insane but he was a lot of fun. At the first stop we threw ourselves off the boat and got some snorkals. Snorkling was amazing! Me and Alice went out to the reef and saw loads of jellyfish, corals, and all sorts of colourful and strange fish. Back on the boat and our crazy guide and his merry companions got out some homemade drums, a guitar and some mic's. Listening to some pretty good Vietnamese versions of Western rock songs and all of us singing "We all live in a yellow submarine!" they invited everyone onto the stage to dance along. Alice and Briony duly obliged while I got a really good video of the two. We had some lunch, which was really good. Though some of the other Westerners didn't like it... more for us!! At the next stop was the... urm... free wine tasting. This involved our guide floating about in the water with a bar strapped to him pouring foul tasting wine into our cups. It was made even more foul tasting since we were just swimming about in the sea trying desperately (and in vain) to hold our drinks above the water. So basically everything tasted of sea water. Great fun! Next stop was our last before going back to the dock. Me and Andy got off the boat to visit the famed aquarium. It was surrounded by massive, gaudy looking stone statues of sharks and octupi, etc, etc. It also had a really odd layoutmaking it impossible to know where you were supposed to be going. It was really cool though. We saw sharks and giant turtles (not in the same tank), and loads of really cool fish. Some I recognised from Dad's fish tank and others I saw when I was snorkling.
Next morning we left for Dalat. My seat wasn't really attached to the bus, but it wasn't too much of a bother until we started coming into Dalat. It's sort of up a mountainso there are a lot of winding roads. We had a reception I wasn't expecting when we arrived in Dalat. We are used to arriving somewhere and being mobbed by hundreds of people trying to usher us into their hotels. Not Dalat. No one wanted us at all. They all make a hand signal we worked out later to mean simply "No!" So we walked around the town a bit until we eventually found someone to put us up - about 2 dozen guest houses and hotels later. So we got a room and it only costs us $3 a night each so that's pretty good. Dalat itself is really nice and so we're out on a mission to change the locals views on Westerners. Some people love us, but some just completely refuse to give any assistance whatsoever.
So day one Dalat and we did absolutely nothing! It was a relatively long bus ride and after the ordeal of finding a place to stay we just chilled out in our room, which, by the way, is in a basement. So we stayed in and watched Jurassic Park. Day two Dalat was a lot more exciting. We got up and after breakfast me and Andy rented motorbikes and Alice and Briony got on the back of bike taxi's and we drove off to a waterfall outside of town. Me and Andy immediately lost each other. It isn't particularly easy to learn how to use gears in Dalat. It's extremely hilly, full of one way streets, and there are other bikes everywhere!! We found each other at the petrol station and headed out to the waterfall... again. The waterfall itself was a massive dissapointment. You can't swim in it and it wasn't particularly exciting to see. There was, however, a rollercoaster... Although that was pretty rubbish too! Our excitment was driving around windy countryside roads on motorbikes. It was fantastic fun and when we got back to Dalat we took the girls for a spin around the big lake at the center of the city. We stopped and watched the kites. If anyone's read the book The Kite Runner, well it looked exactly how you imagine the hundreds of kites in that. We then drove to an attraction called 'Crazy House'. This 'Crazy House' is indeed crazy though I am yet to understand the point of it. It's a surreal, Alice-in-Wonderland-esque, expensive guest house. Complete with a giant kangeroo next to your bed with redlight bulbs for eyes. It was extremely odd, didn't give us an inkling of Vietnamese culture or any knowledge about it's people... but it was kinda fun! We got back to the hotel in time to watch the third installment of Jurassic Park - haha, we're so sad!
Day three Dalat was even MORE exciting than day two! Me and Andy got up super early to fo 'Canyoning'. Canyoning is basically abseiling... down canyons. It wasn't a long day out but in 4 hours we abseiled down 4 different cliffs, all completely different. The first was a 20mtr sheer cliff face, which means lots of lumping. The second was another cliff edge that ended in the river. The third was actually IN a waterfall - not a little one either, this was huge! - where at the end, which was still 6-7 mtrs up, the rope runs out and you jump off into the pool below. The final abseil took us down a cliff to hit the top of a waterfall that drags you around into the pool. Again the rope runs out and you have to just drop. (Don't worry Parents, we had life jackets and helmets!) The bits between all these amazing abseils were just as fun. Trekking trough the jungle where you wade waist deep in rivers was just incredible! Also we got to waterfall which was really smooth rock allowing us to slide into the pool below. At first sight it looks really dangerous and stupid... which it probably was, but it was brilliant fun! The other thing we did in this trip was launch ourselves over a cliff and waterfall 20mtrs high into the pool below! I was absolutely cacking myself and still can't work out why I did it... twice!!
We got back to the hotel earlier than we thought and rented bikes to race off and try to find the girls. We somehow bumped into them (not literally) about 10km's outside of the city going to a different waterfall. We all went off to another waterfall another 20km's away. My motorbike today wasn't as good as yesterday. The speedo didn't work, not did the gear indicator... but I got by okay. It is brilliant fun driving around Dalat because of all the hills and twisty roads. This other waterfall was again pretty lame. Well actually, the waterfall itself was really cool. It's just surrounded by rubbish crap. For example there's a huge stone elephant about 15' high supplying a rickety bridge to the otherside. You can also sit on an Elephant, though you can't go anywhere, and an Ostrich, which will take you around in a small circle. So we drove back to the hotel and now I am here writing this excessively long post!
Just a few thoughts I want to get down about Vietnam. It is a beautiful country and the people here are so nice. Everything is new and up-to-date, since everything else was blown apart by bombs and little of what remains of old Vietnam exists along the coast. What ruins Vietnam for me are the foreigners. It's no surprise no one in Dalat wants to give us a room. It's much more untouched and much less touristy than most of the other places we've been and it's perfectly understandable why they would want to keep it that way. I barely spotted a single person from England in China, but SE Asia is absolutely full of them. But they aren't travellers or backpackers. They are gap year louts who want an extended holiday. They don't care about the culture or what it is they are ruining. They just want to get drunk and do the Oz/SE Asia "route". As you can probably tell it does frustrate me, so I'll keep enjoying Vietnam and SE Asia in my own way and to anyone who wants to visit in the future, just think about what it is you want out of travelling... if you don't care about a country's culture or history then piss off back to Malaga!! End rant.
Another thing: Andy has put some photo's of Vietnam up on his Flikr account. You can get to this by clicking on the link top left of this page where it says "Picture and Videos from Andy". Hope everyone is doing okay and enjoying their summer! I can't begin to tell you how much I am enjoying mine!!
PS. Paul, I think my suit + 2 shirts was around $45. I spent a lot more than that though since I bought so much other stuff! I probably wouldn't have but loads of people gave me birthday money and I thought, what better thing to spend it on!? How long till you leave? Oh and could you give me you're e-mail address?
Today though we decided to spend a bit of time on the beach. Andy managed to anger a 12 year old beach seller (by that I mean a girl who walks around with a basket of tat and sweets) who chased him around the beach for a while. Meanwhile we went for a swim in the sea. The beach is beautiful and sea cool, and we didn't get mauled by the crazy jellyfish stingy things. A few hours later we got ourselves dry and I walked about town. I went into a really odd art gallery that I can't even begin to describe. The people were very friendly though and some of it was really cool.A walk down the beach later took us to what we considered to be an "expensive bar". It cost 60,000VND for a ltr of beer. That's 2 pounds. Which, yes is very expensive for Vietnam. But it was own brewed, and it was really good. Also, the bar had a swimming pool, which was ace. We went back, got dinner, had an early night.
Boat day! Early pick up at the hotel and a minibus ride to the dock. We boarded the boat with some other Western and Asian tourists to find our guide was completely mental. His introductions made him sound insane but he was a lot of fun. At the first stop we threw ourselves off the boat and got some snorkals. Snorkling was amazing! Me and Alice went out to the reef and saw loads of jellyfish, corals, and all sorts of colourful and strange fish. Back on the boat and our crazy guide and his merry companions got out some homemade drums, a guitar and some mic's. Listening to some pretty good Vietnamese versions of Western rock songs and all of us singing "We all live in a yellow submarine!" they invited everyone onto the stage to dance along. Alice and Briony duly obliged while I got a really good video of the two. We had some lunch, which was really good. Though some of the other Westerners didn't like it... more for us!! At the next stop was the... urm... free wine tasting. This involved our guide floating about in the water with a bar strapped to him pouring foul tasting wine into our cups. It was made even more foul tasting since we were just swimming about in the sea trying desperately (and in vain) to hold our drinks above the water. So basically everything tasted of sea water. Great fun! Next stop was our last before going back to the dock. Me and Andy got off the boat to visit the famed aquarium. It was surrounded by massive, gaudy looking stone statues of sharks and octupi, etc, etc. It also had a really odd layoutmaking it impossible to know where you were supposed to be going. It was really cool though. We saw sharks and giant turtles (not in the same tank), and loads of really cool fish. Some I recognised from Dad's fish tank and others I saw when I was snorkling.
Next morning we left for Dalat. My seat wasn't really attached to the bus, but it wasn't too much of a bother until we started coming into Dalat. It's sort of up a mountainso there are a lot of winding roads. We had a reception I wasn't expecting when we arrived in Dalat. We are used to arriving somewhere and being mobbed by hundreds of people trying to usher us into their hotels. Not Dalat. No one wanted us at all. They all make a hand signal we worked out later to mean simply "No!" So we walked around the town a bit until we eventually found someone to put us up - about 2 dozen guest houses and hotels later. So we got a room and it only costs us $3 a night each so that's pretty good. Dalat itself is really nice and so we're out on a mission to change the locals views on Westerners. Some people love us, but some just completely refuse to give any assistance whatsoever.
So day one Dalat and we did absolutely nothing! It was a relatively long bus ride and after the ordeal of finding a place to stay we just chilled out in our room, which, by the way, is in a basement. So we stayed in and watched Jurassic Park. Day two Dalat was a lot more exciting. We got up and after breakfast me and Andy rented motorbikes and Alice and Briony got on the back of bike taxi's and we drove off to a waterfall outside of town. Me and Andy immediately lost each other. It isn't particularly easy to learn how to use gears in Dalat. It's extremely hilly, full of one way streets, and there are other bikes everywhere!! We found each other at the petrol station and headed out to the waterfall... again. The waterfall itself was a massive dissapointment. You can't swim in it and it wasn't particularly exciting to see. There was, however, a rollercoaster... Although that was pretty rubbish too! Our excitment was driving around windy countryside roads on motorbikes. It was fantastic fun and when we got back to Dalat we took the girls for a spin around the big lake at the center of the city. We stopped and watched the kites. If anyone's read the book The Kite Runner, well it looked exactly how you imagine the hundreds of kites in that. We then drove to an attraction called 'Crazy House'. This 'Crazy House' is indeed crazy though I am yet to understand the point of it. It's a surreal, Alice-in-Wonderland-esque, expensive guest house. Complete with a giant kangeroo next to your bed with redlight bulbs for eyes. It was extremely odd, didn't give us an inkling of Vietnamese culture or any knowledge about it's people... but it was kinda fun! We got back to the hotel in time to watch the third installment of Jurassic Park - haha, we're so sad!
Day three Dalat was even MORE exciting than day two! Me and Andy got up super early to fo 'Canyoning'. Canyoning is basically abseiling... down canyons. It wasn't a long day out but in 4 hours we abseiled down 4 different cliffs, all completely different. The first was a 20mtr sheer cliff face, which means lots of lumping. The second was another cliff edge that ended in the river. The third was actually IN a waterfall - not a little one either, this was huge! - where at the end, which was still 6-7 mtrs up, the rope runs out and you jump off into the pool below. The final abseil took us down a cliff to hit the top of a waterfall that drags you around into the pool. Again the rope runs out and you have to just drop. (Don't worry Parents, we had life jackets and helmets!) The bits between all these amazing abseils were just as fun. Trekking trough the jungle where you wade waist deep in rivers was just incredible! Also we got to waterfall which was really smooth rock allowing us to slide into the pool below. At first sight it looks really dangerous and stupid... which it probably was, but it was brilliant fun! The other thing we did in this trip was launch ourselves over a cliff and waterfall 20mtrs high into the pool below! I was absolutely cacking myself and still can't work out why I did it... twice!!
We got back to the hotel earlier than we thought and rented bikes to race off and try to find the girls. We somehow bumped into them (not literally) about 10km's outside of the city going to a different waterfall. We all went off to another waterfall another 20km's away. My motorbike today wasn't as good as yesterday. The speedo didn't work, not did the gear indicator... but I got by okay. It is brilliant fun driving around Dalat because of all the hills and twisty roads. This other waterfall was again pretty lame. Well actually, the waterfall itself was really cool. It's just surrounded by rubbish crap. For example there's a huge stone elephant about 15' high supplying a rickety bridge to the otherside. You can also sit on an Elephant, though you can't go anywhere, and an Ostrich, which will take you around in a small circle. So we drove back to the hotel and now I am here writing this excessively long post!
Just a few thoughts I want to get down about Vietnam. It is a beautiful country and the people here are so nice. Everything is new and up-to-date, since everything else was blown apart by bombs and little of what remains of old Vietnam exists along the coast. What ruins Vietnam for me are the foreigners. It's no surprise no one in Dalat wants to give us a room. It's much more untouched and much less touristy than most of the other places we've been and it's perfectly understandable why they would want to keep it that way. I barely spotted a single person from England in China, but SE Asia is absolutely full of them. But they aren't travellers or backpackers. They are gap year louts who want an extended holiday. They don't care about the culture or what it is they are ruining. They just want to get drunk and do the Oz/SE Asia "route". As you can probably tell it does frustrate me, so I'll keep enjoying Vietnam and SE Asia in my own way and to anyone who wants to visit in the future, just think about what it is you want out of travelling... if you don't care about a country's culture or history then piss off back to Malaga!! End rant.
Another thing: Andy has put some photo's of Vietnam up on his Flikr account. You can get to this by clicking on the link top left of this page where it says "Picture and Videos from Andy". Hope everyone is doing okay and enjoying their summer! I can't begin to tell you how much I am enjoying mine!!
PS. Paul, I think my suit + 2 shirts was around $45. I spent a lot more than that though since I bought so much other stuff! I probably wouldn't have but loads of people gave me birthday money and I thought, what better thing to spend it on!? How long till you leave? Oh and could you give me you're e-mail address?
Tuesday 16 June 2009
Tailor Made EVERYTHING
Still in Hoi An and having an excellent time. It's a really cool city and I've managed to buy lots and lots of stuff with my birthday money. I'd been deliberating for a while as to whether or not I'll bother with a suit; since I don't need it while I'm away, I can't carry it while I'm away, and I have no idea when I am going to be home! However because so many people remembered my birthday and sent me money, I was able to spend it on buying the following:
# 1 suit jacket
# 1 suit trousers
# 2 formal shirts
# 2 casual shirts
# 1 pair of shoes
# 1 pair of sandals
# 1 smart jacket
# 3 tie/cufflink sets
All of it was custom and tailor made just for me!! It was great fun picking out materials, choosing designs and all that. I had no idea whether any of it would look any good at all, I didn't really know what I was doing. By a stroke of luck everything looks good (at least I think it looks good) and I have sent a HUGE package home containing all the above except for the casual shirts, sandals and jacket.
Also Hoi An is great for its food. Everything is really really cheap and fresh. This afternoon I rented a motorbike and drove down to the beach 4km's away. It took a while to get used to the bike and I never really did get the hang of the gears... but I'm not dead or injured so I must have done okay! So at the beach we had our lunch at a restaurant and sitting outside on such a great day, smashing up a crab with a nutcracker, a fork, and a pair of chopsticks made for an excellent afternoon! The drive back was a bit scarier because it suddenly got really busy on the roads, but I pushed on. It cost 50,000VND to rent a bike for a day (that's not even two pounds) and 55,000VND to have a seafood lunch (that's just about two pounds!) I love Vietnam. Night life is also pretty cool. Last night I drank beer listening to rock music and watching football... something that doesn't sound so strange but it isn't too often that happens out here. The music is much more... ... ...
So thanks for my birthday present! I have sent it home this afternoon by air so it should arrive in about three weeks (fingers crossed), don't forget to show it off. Tonight I head for Nha Trang, another beachy place, and another 12 hours on a bus!!
# 1 suit jacket
# 1 suit trousers
# 2 formal shirts
# 2 casual shirts
# 1 pair of shoes
# 1 pair of sandals
# 1 smart jacket
# 3 tie/cufflink sets
All of it was custom and tailor made just for me!! It was great fun picking out materials, choosing designs and all that. I had no idea whether any of it would look any good at all, I didn't really know what I was doing. By a stroke of luck everything looks good (at least I think it looks good) and I have sent a HUGE package home containing all the above except for the casual shirts, sandals and jacket.
Also Hoi An is great for its food. Everything is really really cheap and fresh. This afternoon I rented a motorbike and drove down to the beach 4km's away. It took a while to get used to the bike and I never really did get the hang of the gears... but I'm not dead or injured so I must have done okay! So at the beach we had our lunch at a restaurant and sitting outside on such a great day, smashing up a crab with a nutcracker, a fork, and a pair of chopsticks made for an excellent afternoon! The drive back was a bit scarier because it suddenly got really busy on the roads, but I pushed on. It cost 50,000VND to rent a bike for a day (that's not even two pounds) and 55,000VND to have a seafood lunch (that's just about two pounds!) I love Vietnam. Night life is also pretty cool. Last night I drank beer listening to rock music and watching football... something that doesn't sound so strange but it isn't too often that happens out here. The music is much more... ... ...
So thanks for my birthday present! I have sent it home this afternoon by air so it should arrive in about three weeks (fingers crossed), don't forget to show it off. Tonight I head for Nha Trang, another beachy place, and another 12 hours on a bus!!
Saturday 13 June 2009
Good Morning Vietnam!
Thank you to everyone for my birthday messages!! I really appreciate that I am still remembered by so many people on the other side of the globe, and that of course you spend all your waking moments refreshing the blog to see if I've posted anything. Don't deny it. I had a fantastic birthday and if you care to read on I'll fill you in on some of my exploits... or at least the parts I remember!!
Hue (aka Wahaaaaay!) (aka Hawaii!)
We arrived in Hue after possibly the worst bus trip of the journey so far. It was 13 hours, no where near the longest I've done roaming around the world, on a sleeper bus, so there were beds. The problem wasn't the roads or the sharp corners or other people. The problem with this bus is that I was in a "bed" that was so small that even curled into some crazy feotal position there was no chance I was ever going to fit. The back half of the bed was raised at such an angled you just slide down if you try and lie on it. So I didn't actually sleep that night, which made it all the more fantastic to arrive in Hue. It made me terribly annoyed that I didn't stick to my original plan and buy a motorbike and drive down. Unfortunetly this wasn't to be since I can't afford it and my visa runs out at the end of the month, thus not giving us enough time to drive down. So I'm a bit disappointed about that, but I hope I can rent a motorbike in a few places and drive around.
We decided against having a sleep as we only had the day in Hue so we rented some bikes and went into the Imperial Palace enclosure. It's one of the few places in Vietnam where there are still some original bits of architecture that survived the American War. Although most of it did and still is rebuilt now. On the way there the chain came off my bike 3 times!! I got bored in the end and walked back to get a new bike. It was a bit dangerous on the roads since its a complete free for all. Plus we had to cross a huge bridge which isn't wide enough at all for the amount of traffic that runs through. It looked amazing though. Actually inside the complex we went for a really nice bike ride around the walls, although this was by accident because we missed the entrance. Still it was nice. Inside there is a huge a assembly hall and courtyard and I met an artist called Phong who showed me some of his work. I enjoy collecting art in different countries but the whole no-space-in-my-bag thing remains to be a problem.
We went for a nice lunch that was amazingly cheap and tried some of Hue's local beer. I enjoy that everywhere we go there is a local beer, love it. It was searingly hot so after another ride into the complex to see a really nice lake we went back to the hostel. Cooling down in the middle of the afternoon with some air con is always a good idea in 40 degree heat. A nice Vietnamese meal and a few drinks later we got an early night. For tomorrow we go to Hoi An and for tomorrow is my birthday!
Tomorrow
Got up early to get some free birthday breakfast and to listen to a remarkable rendition of 'Happy Birthday' performed in Vietnamese by Alice, Briony and Andy. Also I really need to learn how to specificy a black coffee with no sugar. Somehow I keep getting starved of the fantastic Vietnamese coffee by having it ruined with powdered or condensed milk or a ton of sugar! So we got the uneventful bus to Hoi An, which only took 4 hours, giving us the whole afternoon and evening to enjoy my birthday!I had a traditional Vietnamese lunch of Cao Lao and "Cauliflower" Beef with some locally brewed fresh beer that cost 4,000VND (that's 11.2p). We caught motorbike taxi's to the beach and spent a few hours resting on the beach. We tried to go in the sea but something was stinging us and it really hurt. We found out later that it was Phosphorensence (spelling?!), but we are yet to work out what that actually is.
Foolishly I agreed to go for 22 drinks in a day for my 22nd birthda. So after my 5th drink so far we started some drinking games and ordered some pizza up to our room. At about 9pm we left to find some bars and managed to get lost. Andy (mapbearer) forgot which way we left the hostle and took us in the wrong direction for 15 minutes. Eventually we found our way to the bar and had some more drinks whilst playing pool and fussball. When the bar shut we made our way by motorbike taxi to the beach bar (incidently on a beach) where we stripped off and threw our drunken selves into their swimming pool. Some more drinks on the beach and the hours seemed to drift by until suddently it started getting light (by this point I had succesfully imbibed 22 drinks!!) and we watched the sun come up. It was stunning. We taxi'd back to the hostel where we had a breakfast of noodles before passing out in bed, where we stayed until 3pm this afternoon!
I had a fantastic day and I thank everyone who reads this and who has sent me birthday messages/eCards. I'll try and get back to everyone but I'm running short of time. Oh, and GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!!!
PS. It's 5:45 in the afternoon... can I pretend I'm on England time and I'm jetlagged so that I can get away with saying it's still morning???
PSS. The spellchecker doesn't work on this and I'm too tired to proof read, sorry.
Hue (aka Wahaaaaay!) (aka Hawaii!)
We arrived in Hue after possibly the worst bus trip of the journey so far. It was 13 hours, no where near the longest I've done roaming around the world, on a sleeper bus, so there were beds. The problem wasn't the roads or the sharp corners or other people. The problem with this bus is that I was in a "bed" that was so small that even curled into some crazy feotal position there was no chance I was ever going to fit. The back half of the bed was raised at such an angled you just slide down if you try and lie on it. So I didn't actually sleep that night, which made it all the more fantastic to arrive in Hue. It made me terribly annoyed that I didn't stick to my original plan and buy a motorbike and drive down. Unfortunetly this wasn't to be since I can't afford it and my visa runs out at the end of the month, thus not giving us enough time to drive down. So I'm a bit disappointed about that, but I hope I can rent a motorbike in a few places and drive around.
We decided against having a sleep as we only had the day in Hue so we rented some bikes and went into the Imperial Palace enclosure. It's one of the few places in Vietnam where there are still some original bits of architecture that survived the American War. Although most of it did and still is rebuilt now. On the way there the chain came off my bike 3 times!! I got bored in the end and walked back to get a new bike. It was a bit dangerous on the roads since its a complete free for all. Plus we had to cross a huge bridge which isn't wide enough at all for the amount of traffic that runs through. It looked amazing though. Actually inside the complex we went for a really nice bike ride around the walls, although this was by accident because we missed the entrance. Still it was nice. Inside there is a huge a assembly hall and courtyard and I met an artist called Phong who showed me some of his work. I enjoy collecting art in different countries but the whole no-space-in-my-bag thing remains to be a problem.
We went for a nice lunch that was amazingly cheap and tried some of Hue's local beer. I enjoy that everywhere we go there is a local beer, love it. It was searingly hot so after another ride into the complex to see a really nice lake we went back to the hostel. Cooling down in the middle of the afternoon with some air con is always a good idea in 40 degree heat. A nice Vietnamese meal and a few drinks later we got an early night. For tomorrow we go to Hoi An and for tomorrow is my birthday!
Tomorrow
Got up early to get some free birthday breakfast and to listen to a remarkable rendition of 'Happy Birthday' performed in Vietnamese by Alice, Briony and Andy. Also I really need to learn how to specificy a black coffee with no sugar. Somehow I keep getting starved of the fantastic Vietnamese coffee by having it ruined with powdered or condensed milk or a ton of sugar! So we got the uneventful bus to Hoi An, which only took 4 hours, giving us the whole afternoon and evening to enjoy my birthday!I had a traditional Vietnamese lunch of Cao Lao and "Cauliflower" Beef with some locally brewed fresh beer that cost 4,000VND (that's 11.2p). We caught motorbike taxi's to the beach and spent a few hours resting on the beach. We tried to go in the sea but something was stinging us and it really hurt. We found out later that it was Phosphorensence (spelling?!), but we are yet to work out what that actually is.
Foolishly I agreed to go for 22 drinks in a day for my 22nd birthda. So after my 5th drink so far we started some drinking games and ordered some pizza up to our room. At about 9pm we left to find some bars and managed to get lost. Andy (mapbearer) forgot which way we left the hostle and took us in the wrong direction for 15 minutes. Eventually we found our way to the bar and had some more drinks whilst playing pool and fussball. When the bar shut we made our way by motorbike taxi to the beach bar (incidently on a beach) where we stripped off and threw our drunken selves into their swimming pool. Some more drinks on the beach and the hours seemed to drift by until suddently it started getting light (by this point I had succesfully imbibed 22 drinks!!) and we watched the sun come up. It was stunning. We taxi'd back to the hostel where we had a breakfast of noodles before passing out in bed, where we stayed until 3pm this afternoon!
I had a fantastic day and I thank everyone who reads this and who has sent me birthday messages/eCards. I'll try and get back to everyone but I'm running short of time. Oh, and GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!!!
PS. It's 5:45 in the afternoon... can I pretend I'm on England time and I'm jetlagged so that I can get away with saying it's still morning???
PSS. The spellchecker doesn't work on this and I'm too tired to proof read, sorry.
Wednesday 10 June 2009
Hanoi and Halong Bay "Trip of Lies!!!"
Firstly, I think I've been writing about Hanoi in completely the wrong way. After arriving a week ago it is arguable that we have done so much and/or so little. Let me explain: Hanoi is not a city where you set day to day activities. Yeah, we saw Ho Chi Minh's embalmed corpse (which to me looked a bit more like a wax model at Taussauds!) and got terrible confused by pretentious modern art at the Ho Chi Minh museum where we learned nothing about Ho Chi Minh or Vietnam! We've also spent time walking around the Ancient City and eating all kinds of amazing foods. But really it's just being in Hanoi and seeing how chilled out and relaxed its people are, which is an incredible achievement given how fast and loud the city is. There isn't so much of a pavement as it is a parking spot for motorbikes. The locals are well trained at dodging people meandering into and across roads. It's such a fun and vibrant city and I'll be sorry to leave tonight.
On Sunday morning we left our hostel for Halong Bay. We managed to get a tour for $45 each, which gave us 2 nights out in Halong. It's a 4 hour drive to Halong City and from there we boarded our boat to head out through the karst scenery in Halong. Remember how I described Yangshuo? Probably not, but it's like that only in water. There are roughly 2,000 islands coming out of the water. Some are massive tall limestone cliff edges. Others are small outcrops barely bigger than the boat. It also includes Cat Ba Island, a massive inhabited island with amazing natural beaches and some excellent trekking. Sunday afternoon was spent drifting lazily through the islands, viewing one of the worlds most beautiful natural settings. We then got a kayak and paddled around the islands for an hour. It was great fun and surprisingly flat considering we were in the sea! We then swam around the boat for a while, diving and flipping off it. That evening the boat went to some islands further out to see and we watched as the sun went down and the moon came up. It was absolutely incredible. The moon was nearly as bright as the sun!! When the boat anchored we sat on top of the boat having some drinks with the other people on our tour.
We quickly made friends with Philip, Emily and Andy and as the conversation slipped from discussing who was from where, what they do, where they've been, etc, etc, to talking about Channel 4's 101 worst sexual accidents, it became abundantly clear we made some new friends. Also on the boat were some girls we all became annoyed with after a short period of time. Fresh out of school they'd come out traveling for a massive piss up. As Philip pointed out the next day, you often find in SE Asia that you are lumped together on tours speaking to people you wouldn't associate with at all in England. We all got quite drunk and had a great time in the middle of the night throwing ourselves off the roof of the boat into the sea. The crew got a little annoyed with this but Andy (new Andy) "politely" explained to them that this is what we have paid for and we want to enjoy ourselves. It worked, and we really did enjoy ourselves!!
The following day we got up early to get some breakfast and before long we were in Cat Ba Island. We got dropped off at a completely different hotel to what we were told when we bought the tour but it didn't matter since we got a shower got some superb food and headed out. Me and Andy (Hodgson) decided to rent kayaks and go out into the sea hoping to find the beach that the others were heading to. This turned out to be a bit of a life risk as further out to sea the waves are incredible choppy and actually really scary. Never mind the fact that my oar broke in two while I was paddling! If we had separate kayaks it might have been disastrous, but me and Andy were in the same one so we just about got out okay. It was fun though and we did find out own little beach that you can't get to from roads or paths. There were massive chunks of fossilized coral that looked really cool.
We decided to drop the kayaks and the oars (or at least one oar and a half of another) back and got a motorbike to the beach. We spent a few hours chilling out at the beach which got extremely busy by the time we left to go back and get some food. After another excellent meal we played some pool and I decided to head up to bed. We spent the next day basically traveling back. Not that this was a problem since traveling through Halong is just incredible. We got back to the hostel at about 4pm yesterday and at 6 we met up with Andy, Phil and Emily to go get some dinner. This turned out to be a mission to get pizza. We faced restaurants not having pizza, pizza being to expensive and a power cut, cutting out power for pizza!! Eventually we got some pizza and by the time we were half way through the others had to rush off as they needed to get a train.
Today we relax and tonight we head to Hue. You may be wondering what the title "Trip of Lies!!!" entails. Basically we call it trip of lies since the tour operaters lied to us about a lot of things in this tour. It was supposed to be catered but they didn't supply water, nor were we allowed to bring our own. They said we'd have fans in our room but mine and Andy's didn't work and Alice and Briony didn't have one. They said we'd be in a hotel near the beach and it turned out we were in a completely different one. Not that this really matters but we are in the process of getting some money back from the tour operator. I need to check out so bye now!!!
On Sunday morning we left our hostel for Halong Bay. We managed to get a tour for $45 each, which gave us 2 nights out in Halong. It's a 4 hour drive to Halong City and from there we boarded our boat to head out through the karst scenery in Halong. Remember how I described Yangshuo? Probably not, but it's like that only in water. There are roughly 2,000 islands coming out of the water. Some are massive tall limestone cliff edges. Others are small outcrops barely bigger than the boat. It also includes Cat Ba Island, a massive inhabited island with amazing natural beaches and some excellent trekking. Sunday afternoon was spent drifting lazily through the islands, viewing one of the worlds most beautiful natural settings. We then got a kayak and paddled around the islands for an hour. It was great fun and surprisingly flat considering we were in the sea! We then swam around the boat for a while, diving and flipping off it. That evening the boat went to some islands further out to see and we watched as the sun went down and the moon came up. It was absolutely incredible. The moon was nearly as bright as the sun!! When the boat anchored we sat on top of the boat having some drinks with the other people on our tour.
We quickly made friends with Philip, Emily and Andy and as the conversation slipped from discussing who was from where, what they do, where they've been, etc, etc, to talking about Channel 4's 101 worst sexual accidents, it became abundantly clear we made some new friends. Also on the boat were some girls we all became annoyed with after a short period of time. Fresh out of school they'd come out traveling for a massive piss up. As Philip pointed out the next day, you often find in SE Asia that you are lumped together on tours speaking to people you wouldn't associate with at all in England. We all got quite drunk and had a great time in the middle of the night throwing ourselves off the roof of the boat into the sea. The crew got a little annoyed with this but Andy (new Andy) "politely" explained to them that this is what we have paid for and we want to enjoy ourselves. It worked, and we really did enjoy ourselves!!
The following day we got up early to get some breakfast and before long we were in Cat Ba Island. We got dropped off at a completely different hotel to what we were told when we bought the tour but it didn't matter since we got a shower got some superb food and headed out. Me and Andy (Hodgson) decided to rent kayaks and go out into the sea hoping to find the beach that the others were heading to. This turned out to be a bit of a life risk as further out to sea the waves are incredible choppy and actually really scary. Never mind the fact that my oar broke in two while I was paddling! If we had separate kayaks it might have been disastrous, but me and Andy were in the same one so we just about got out okay. It was fun though and we did find out own little beach that you can't get to from roads or paths. There were massive chunks of fossilized coral that looked really cool.
We decided to drop the kayaks and the oars (or at least one oar and a half of another) back and got a motorbike to the beach. We spent a few hours chilling out at the beach which got extremely busy by the time we left to go back and get some food. After another excellent meal we played some pool and I decided to head up to bed. We spent the next day basically traveling back. Not that this was a problem since traveling through Halong is just incredible. We got back to the hostel at about 4pm yesterday and at 6 we met up with Andy, Phil and Emily to go get some dinner. This turned out to be a mission to get pizza. We faced restaurants not having pizza, pizza being to expensive and a power cut, cutting out power for pizza!! Eventually we got some pizza and by the time we were half way through the others had to rush off as they needed to get a train.
Today we relax and tonight we head to Hue. You may be wondering what the title "Trip of Lies!!!" entails. Basically we call it trip of lies since the tour operaters lied to us about a lot of things in this tour. It was supposed to be catered but they didn't supply water, nor were we allowed to bring our own. They said we'd have fans in our room but mine and Andy's didn't work and Alice and Briony didn't have one. They said we'd be in a hotel near the beach and it turned out we were in a completely different one. Not that this really matters but we are in the process of getting some money back from the tour operator. I need to check out so bye now!!!
Friday 5 June 2009
A Tale of Two Capital Cities
Shortly after writing my last post I jumped into a coach and 4 hours later I was in Laos' capital city Vientiane. Vientiane is a great city. In some places it was like stepping straight back into the West but you could turn a corner and find massive gold statues and an arch going into one of the cities many temples. There are many French colonial buildings and establishments; including a rich tapestry of bakeries! On our first day we went and saw the Laos equivalent to the Arc De Triomphe. As Tom would say: "nice from afar, far from nice" - though that in a very different context! The monument itself is called Patuxai but is often known as the "vertical runway" since the US gave them the money to build an airport, hence Laos still doesn't have an international airport! After that we saw another major Laos symbol that's printed on most of their currency. It's a temple called Pha That Luang and is said to hold the Buddha's breastbone according to the Khmer. We struggled a bit walking around in the heat and decided to go back to the guest house to cool down a bit.
Second day we didn't do an awful lot. We did however go to the most amazing cafe and have the most amazing bagel ever! It was fun having an explore of the city. We had some dinner along the riverfront which looked pretty cool when the sun was setting.
As soon as the sun did set we were mobbed by mosquitoes but other than that it was nice. Also in Vientiane we tried renting motorbikes, but with no space and no where to practice it didn't go as well as planned. Have to try again in Hanoi. Me and Andy also went shooting. The guns were just crappy rifles that weren't particularly powerful but it was still a cool experience. We were shooting paper targets and had two go's, five shots each. First go I got a miserable score of 8 and the second I got a mildly respectable 32.
The Laos National Museum was interesting. And very anti American, though that isn't too much of a surprise. The museum was a bit odd since it wasn't very big and had a sort of round circuit of prehistoric, ancient history, and then working the way through 14th to 20th centuries. It was nice doing it in our own time and since everything was in English we didn't need a guide. Since we haven't seen too much of Laos, and barely anything rural, it was at least decent to get a grip on some of the Laos culture and history.
The ride from Vientiane to Hanoi wasn't particularly enjoyable. It took just under 24 hours but the roads weren't as bad as everyone made them out to be. I guess since going through Eastern Europe and China on public transport we're probably just used to it. We also had 2 seats each so we could at least stretch out a bit. We arrived late afternoon and got to the Hanoi Backpackers Hostel in the ancient town.
Hanoi is literally buzzing. This is because everywhere you look there are a million and 10 mopeds and motorbikes. Crossing the road can be a bit tricky since there aren't any traffic laws here. Or if there are you wouldn't know! We went for a walk around the ancient city yesterday. Every road is a massive stall of markets, it's really cool just wandering around, getting some eats and just exploring the place. We also saw the tortoise lake (that probably isn't its name) where as far as we are aware there aren't any tortoises but there's enclosure of the remains of a massive tortoise that was apparently in that lake... though that didn't look particularly real.
That's it for now. I'm looking forward to exploring Hanoi further and seeing some of its temples and museums. Until next time!!
Second day we didn't do an awful lot. We did however go to the most amazing cafe and have the most amazing bagel ever! It was fun having an explore of the city. We had some dinner along the riverfront which looked pretty cool when the sun was setting.
As soon as the sun did set we were mobbed by mosquitoes but other than that it was nice. Also in Vientiane we tried renting motorbikes, but with no space and no where to practice it didn't go as well as planned. Have to try again in Hanoi. Me and Andy also went shooting. The guns were just crappy rifles that weren't particularly powerful but it was still a cool experience. We were shooting paper targets and had two go's, five shots each. First go I got a miserable score of 8 and the second I got a mildly respectable 32.
The Laos National Museum was interesting. And very anti American, though that isn't too much of a surprise. The museum was a bit odd since it wasn't very big and had a sort of round circuit of prehistoric, ancient history, and then working the way through 14th to 20th centuries. It was nice doing it in our own time and since everything was in English we didn't need a guide. Since we haven't seen too much of Laos, and barely anything rural, it was at least decent to get a grip on some of the Laos culture and history.
The ride from Vientiane to Hanoi wasn't particularly enjoyable. It took just under 24 hours but the roads weren't as bad as everyone made them out to be. I guess since going through Eastern Europe and China on public transport we're probably just used to it. We also had 2 seats each so we could at least stretch out a bit. We arrived late afternoon and got to the Hanoi Backpackers Hostel in the ancient town.
Hanoi is literally buzzing. This is because everywhere you look there are a million and 10 mopeds and motorbikes. Crossing the road can be a bit tricky since there aren't any traffic laws here. Or if there are you wouldn't know! We went for a walk around the ancient city yesterday. Every road is a massive stall of markets, it's really cool just wandering around, getting some eats and just exploring the place. We also saw the tortoise lake (that probably isn't its name) where as far as we are aware there aren't any tortoises but there's enclosure of the remains of a massive tortoise that was apparently in that lake... though that didn't look particularly real.
That's it for now. I'm looking forward to exploring Hanoi further and seeing some of its temples and museums. Until next time!!
Friday 29 May 2009
Luang Prabang & Vang Vieng, Lao
Before I fill you in on my current Lao adventure there are a few landmarks I wish to note:
Number of Countries Visited: 8
Number of Books Read: 9
Number of Entries Written: 16
Distance Traveled: ???
Friends Met: Many
Beds Slept In: A Lot
Time Spent Abroad: 10 Weeks
So that was less successful as I imagined before writing but you get the gist (I hope). Anywho, I'm having a fantastic time at about the halfway point to my Eastern Europe and Asia travels and am looking forward to many more exciting times in the second half. If you can be bothered to read up on my last few days in Laos then by all means. If not you may find I've blocked your IP - if only that was possible.
Laos
So after a gruelling, sweaty, spitty (still can't get over how much the Chinese HAVE to spit constantly), long, and boring "sleeper" bus ride from Kunming, we finally arrived in Luang Prabang. We had a bit of a scare getting to the border as we realised that none of us had any money and it costs US$35 (or at least that's what the Lonely Planet told us). Between us we scraped $103 and 490 Yuan, which we managed to change into dollars for a decent exchange rate in Mohan (the border). We got across the border no problems at all, leaving us with $20 dollars to spare, whew! I thank Mama Naxi, who gave us those good luck, tea smelling, necklace things!
So Luang Prabang, as hard as it is to write and say, is a very pretty town and possibly the smallest place we've stopped in on our travels, despite being the provincial capital. We arrived late in the afternoon and struggled to find a place with dorms and settled for 2 double rooms (we wouldn't be sharing a double bed on this occasion though!). The room was one of the best we'd stayed in and at just 50,000 Kip (about 3 pounds) a night we got air con, free coffee, our own shower, some gecko's, the works! We went for a traditional Lao BBQ. It's a bit of a DIY jobbie, like that hot pot in Qingdao (Christ, that seems like a LONG time ago!) where you cook the veg in the soup stuff around the outside and fry the meat on the top bit. No crazy cray fish looking things though. After eats, we got ourselves some free Lao Lao Cocktails from the bar and proceeded to drink the bar dry. It happened to be the final games of the Premier League season and I watched the last 20 minutes of the Hull, Man U game with a Geordie fan. I felt a bit sorry for him, but it was funny.
I surprisingly remember a good majority of the night. Laos has a 12pm curfew for all foreign nationals in the country so at half 11 most bars had stopped serving. Except apparently the bar at a bowling alley! So bowling we went. It was a bizarre experience and my score went something like this: 7/1, 5/2, 0/1, 0/0, 0/0, 0/0, STRIKE, 0/0, 0/0...
Other than that its pretty much a haze of taking millions of pictures with our new friends Emily, Philip, Troy, Sam... and many more I have forgotten. The next day was mostly a write off but I managed to exchange a couple of my books and have a walk around town in the mid afternoon, 40 degree heat! It was awesome as well watching the locals setting up the night market too. It's the best night market I've been to so far. I found I couldn't stop buying stuff to fill the last recesses of my bag with, thus making it even heavier. But everything was so cheap! We apparently arranged to meet some people from the night before at the Lao Bar opposite our guest house - this we'd find out tomorrow!
So onto tomorrow and an amazingly fantastic day out! We arranged to meet up with Emily and Philip and head out to the Kuang Xi waterfall. We had read in the LP that it was very impressive, and so it was. Not only that but it was also a bear rescue center and a good one too. We arrived at the perfect time. There weren't many people there (it got busy later in the afternoon) and managed to spend our time in secluded waterfall pools swinging out on monkey ropes! It was something I had on my list of "Things I simply must do when I am away traveling and would be absolutely gutted to miss", this list is in my head, honest. After our swim in the brilliantly turquoise swimming pool, that looked so amazing there were times I thought I was either still drunk or it was fake, we walked to the top of the waterfall. It was a hard climb but so definitely worth it! We met a guy called Oz who was frantically trying to find this mystery hidden pool he'd heard about near the top of the waterfall. This pool it turned out was down a very difficult climb into a huge opening where the waterfall above crashed down onto rocks from 100' above and then into a pool that looked over the rest of the level of the waterfall.
I have done some pretty cool things on my travels so far, but diving into this pool is right up there with the best of them. We spent another couple of hours at the pool with the monkey rope but by this time it was busy and full of Falang (Westerners), which sort of took the edge off of how we saw it in the morning.
We met up with the people we were supposed to meet up with previously in the Lao Bar and accidentally ended back at the bowling alley! Whoops! We got some take away beers and took everyone back to our rooms where we eventually pissed off the owners who kicked everyone out at some time early morning. The next day we awoke and had some breakfast before heading to Vang Vieng. The journey took about 6/7 hours where we drove around mountains and some stunning scenery, watching the sun go down as we circled, climbed, and dropped on Rte 13 through Laos.
Vang Vieng is described in LP as "Love it or hate it" my first impression of Vang Vieng was actually the latter. After being here a couple of days I have changed this opinion to 'Love it and hate it'. It is full of stunning girls and massive muscly guys who are all out on the piss. Constantly. I barely saw any English people in the first 2 months of traveling and now I've seen more than there are in England. All shouting and being annoying, it's the kind of atmosphere I wanted to get away from. It was like being at the Union in Reading. I especially didn't want to spend all my money on alcohol since we have a budget to get to see as much as possible and not to ruin it by being hung over all the time. That and the fact that we got drunk twice in Luang Prabang.
Yesterday however, we embarked on a day at the river Song. This involved getting huge rubber rings - or tubes as they are otherwise called - and getting a tuk tuk to a part of the river filled with loud music, bars, alcohol, swings, more bars, and some more bars. As much as I didn't want to be a part of the party life of Corfu... sorry, Vang Vieng... this was brilliant fun. The laziness of it all was something I haven't done so far and blissfully gliding down a river to be pulled into shore for a free shot and some beer was a good laugh. The last km of the trip it was starting to get dark and I decided to head on by myself to enjoy a bit of peacefulness floating down stream.
It was a fun day, but I made a conscious decision that I wouldn't be spending all my money on boozing and cruising... after all, what the hell is the point in that when you can visit remote villages, learn new ways of life, meet locals, and all the other things I have enjoyed so much more on my travels. The food in Laos is really good and although I never got bored of Chinese food, it's great to try something a bit different.
Here's to the next two months of my trip, I hope it's as enjoyable as the first two! On another note - a huge happy 3rd birthday to Grace, I hope you enjoyed your present.
Number of Countries Visited: 8
Number of Books Read: 9
Number of Entries Written: 16
Distance Traveled: ???
Friends Met: Many
Beds Slept In: A Lot
Time Spent Abroad: 10 Weeks
So that was less successful as I imagined before writing but you get the gist (I hope). Anywho, I'm having a fantastic time at about the halfway point to my Eastern Europe and Asia travels and am looking forward to many more exciting times in the second half. If you can be bothered to read up on my last few days in Laos then by all means. If not you may find I've blocked your IP - if only that was possible.
Laos
So after a gruelling, sweaty, spitty (still can't get over how much the Chinese HAVE to spit constantly), long, and boring "sleeper" bus ride from Kunming, we finally arrived in Luang Prabang. We had a bit of a scare getting to the border as we realised that none of us had any money and it costs US$35 (or at least that's what the Lonely Planet told us). Between us we scraped $103 and 490 Yuan, which we managed to change into dollars for a decent exchange rate in Mohan (the border). We got across the border no problems at all, leaving us with $20 dollars to spare, whew! I thank Mama Naxi, who gave us those good luck, tea smelling, necklace things!
So Luang Prabang, as hard as it is to write and say, is a very pretty town and possibly the smallest place we've stopped in on our travels, despite being the provincial capital. We arrived late in the afternoon and struggled to find a place with dorms and settled for 2 double rooms (we wouldn't be sharing a double bed on this occasion though!). The room was one of the best we'd stayed in and at just 50,000 Kip (about 3 pounds) a night we got air con, free coffee, our own shower, some gecko's, the works! We went for a traditional Lao BBQ. It's a bit of a DIY jobbie, like that hot pot in Qingdao (Christ, that seems like a LONG time ago!) where you cook the veg in the soup stuff around the outside and fry the meat on the top bit. No crazy cray fish looking things though. After eats, we got ourselves some free Lao Lao Cocktails from the bar and proceeded to drink the bar dry. It happened to be the final games of the Premier League season and I watched the last 20 minutes of the Hull, Man U game with a Geordie fan. I felt a bit sorry for him, but it was funny.
I surprisingly remember a good majority of the night. Laos has a 12pm curfew for all foreign nationals in the country so at half 11 most bars had stopped serving. Except apparently the bar at a bowling alley! So bowling we went. It was a bizarre experience and my score went something like this: 7/1, 5/2, 0/1, 0/0, 0/0, 0/0, STRIKE, 0/0, 0/0...
Other than that its pretty much a haze of taking millions of pictures with our new friends Emily, Philip, Troy, Sam... and many more I have forgotten. The next day was mostly a write off but I managed to exchange a couple of my books and have a walk around town in the mid afternoon, 40 degree heat! It was awesome as well watching the locals setting up the night market too. It's the best night market I've been to so far. I found I couldn't stop buying stuff to fill the last recesses of my bag with, thus making it even heavier. But everything was so cheap! We apparently arranged to meet some people from the night before at the Lao Bar opposite our guest house - this we'd find out tomorrow!
So onto tomorrow and an amazingly fantastic day out! We arranged to meet up with Emily and Philip and head out to the Kuang Xi waterfall. We had read in the LP that it was very impressive, and so it was. Not only that but it was also a bear rescue center and a good one too. We arrived at the perfect time. There weren't many people there (it got busy later in the afternoon) and managed to spend our time in secluded waterfall pools swinging out on monkey ropes! It was something I had on my list of "Things I simply must do when I am away traveling and would be absolutely gutted to miss", this list is in my head, honest. After our swim in the brilliantly turquoise swimming pool, that looked so amazing there were times I thought I was either still drunk or it was fake, we walked to the top of the waterfall. It was a hard climb but so definitely worth it! We met a guy called Oz who was frantically trying to find this mystery hidden pool he'd heard about near the top of the waterfall. This pool it turned out was down a very difficult climb into a huge opening where the waterfall above crashed down onto rocks from 100' above and then into a pool that looked over the rest of the level of the waterfall.
I have done some pretty cool things on my travels so far, but diving into this pool is right up there with the best of them. We spent another couple of hours at the pool with the monkey rope but by this time it was busy and full of Falang (Westerners), which sort of took the edge off of how we saw it in the morning.
We met up with the people we were supposed to meet up with previously in the Lao Bar and accidentally ended back at the bowling alley! Whoops! We got some take away beers and took everyone back to our rooms where we eventually pissed off the owners who kicked everyone out at some time early morning. The next day we awoke and had some breakfast before heading to Vang Vieng. The journey took about 6/7 hours where we drove around mountains and some stunning scenery, watching the sun go down as we circled, climbed, and dropped on Rte 13 through Laos.
Vang Vieng is described in LP as "Love it or hate it" my first impression of Vang Vieng was actually the latter. After being here a couple of days I have changed this opinion to 'Love it and hate it'. It is full of stunning girls and massive muscly guys who are all out on the piss. Constantly. I barely saw any English people in the first 2 months of traveling and now I've seen more than there are in England. All shouting and being annoying, it's the kind of atmosphere I wanted to get away from. It was like being at the Union in Reading. I especially didn't want to spend all my money on alcohol since we have a budget to get to see as much as possible and not to ruin it by being hung over all the time. That and the fact that we got drunk twice in Luang Prabang.
Yesterday however, we embarked on a day at the river Song. This involved getting huge rubber rings - or tubes as they are otherwise called - and getting a tuk tuk to a part of the river filled with loud music, bars, alcohol, swings, more bars, and some more bars. As much as I didn't want to be a part of the party life of Corfu... sorry, Vang Vieng... this was brilliant fun. The laziness of it all was something I haven't done so far and blissfully gliding down a river to be pulled into shore for a free shot and some beer was a good laugh. The last km of the trip it was starting to get dark and I decided to head on by myself to enjoy a bit of peacefulness floating down stream.
It was a fun day, but I made a conscious decision that I wouldn't be spending all my money on boozing and cruising... after all, what the hell is the point in that when you can visit remote villages, learn new ways of life, meet locals, and all the other things I have enjoyed so much more on my travels. The food in Laos is really good and although I never got bored of Chinese food, it's great to try something a bit different.
Here's to the next two months of my trip, I hope it's as enjoyable as the first two! On another note - a huge happy 3rd birthday to Grace, I hope you enjoyed your present.
Friday 22 May 2009
Conquering Tiger Leaping Gorge
Arriving in Lejiang (the spelling continues to change every time I look it up) at about 10pm we phoned up our hostel and they came and picked us up, which was very nice of them. The place we were staying in was Mama Naxi's. We heard about it from some people in Wuhan and then again in Kunming. Mama Naxi is fucking crazy! She's so funny though. When we arrived she asked us if we were hungry and proceeded to make a ton of food, herself, which was absolutely amazing. She put us in 2 double rooms when we only paid for a dorm and organised for us to head off to Tiger Leaping Gorge in the morning, even looking after our bags for us for free.
We got up for breakfast at half 7 and left at half 8. It took roughly 2/3 hours to get there in the back of a mini bus with some ball crunching bumps. We got to Jane's Guest House, where we never could tell if Jane was a man or a woman, and were given hand drawn maps of the gorge. Setting off at half 11 was a terrible idea. We were walking possibly the hardest part of the gorge in the searing mid day heat. Hiking along the path at some points was very precarious with massive cliff edge drops, gets your heart pumping! Alice opted to get on the back of a horse for the hardest part and frankly I felt a bit envious!
This hardest part had a name as well - 'The 28 Bends' - though there were many more than 28 and I lost count pretty quickly. As we went further and further up the view has getting more and more incredible. Even more so considering the hike was so difficult it felt very rewarding. The top of the 28 bends was some 2,670 mtrs above sea level (so we technically wouldn't have been covered on our travel insurance should anything have happened) and I saw possible the most stunning view of my life! You can see the gorge right from the thundering rapids at the bottom to the snow capped peaks at the top. We were being charged 8 Yuan to take a picture but we cunningly took about 50 behind his back (not of his back though, that would be stupid).
Climbing down from there took a few more hours and by half 6 we got to the midway point, staying at The Tea Horse. Another great guest house with good food, good beds, and some great banter. Away from the lights I lay down on my back and stared at the stars for a good hour or 2. Kinda lost track of time. It looked pretty incredible though. The next morning we got up early and set off to the end point. It only took another 4/5 hours of hiking to get there and on the way we walked through some stunning waterfalls against amazing landscapes. Oh, and loads of goats!
At Tina's we stopped for lunch and walked down to the rapids. It was a LONG way further than we anticipated but definitely worth it. At the bottom you really see just how quick the water is running. Torrents of millions of gallons of water launching over massive rocks. We went and sat on a rock right at the edge. The way back up was a lot harder than we anticipated. We went up possible the hardest route. It was incredibly steep and at some points even had ladders going up cliff faces that were barely attached to said cliff. Climbing up a 20 mtr ladder with no safety or even anyone around to help if anything went wrong was a bit daunting. Eventually, after sweating out every drop of water I've had in the last 10 years, we reached the top!
On the way back we had a bit of minibus and fire trouble. Being that our minibus was on fire. We waited around near the foot of the gorge with for our rescue which came nearly an hour later. In this time we had been lobbing stones down the cliff and may have inadvertently started a rock slide... oops. Back in Lejiang and we had more great food and a good nights sleep. Today we got a bit of a chance to see Lejiang and I wish I could have spent more time there as the ancient town is very pretty. We caught the bus back to Kunming and I'm writing this now at half 12 at night waiting for my washing to be clean (thought that'll take many a many a wash).
All in all I have to say that Tiger Leaping Gorge has been the hardest but most stunning part of my travelling so far. It's going to be really hard to top this and I would recommend anyone, who is fit enough, going to China to trek the gorge (that means you Paul). I massively look forward to Laos - a 22 hour bus ride leaving tomorrow - but will really miss China. So my next post will be written in Laos. As for China, Zaijian!
We got up for breakfast at half 7 and left at half 8. It took roughly 2/3 hours to get there in the back of a mini bus with some ball crunching bumps. We got to Jane's Guest House, where we never could tell if Jane was a man or a woman, and were given hand drawn maps of the gorge. Setting off at half 11 was a terrible idea. We were walking possibly the hardest part of the gorge in the searing mid day heat. Hiking along the path at some points was very precarious with massive cliff edge drops, gets your heart pumping! Alice opted to get on the back of a horse for the hardest part and frankly I felt a bit envious!
This hardest part had a name as well - 'The 28 Bends' - though there were many more than 28 and I lost count pretty quickly. As we went further and further up the view has getting more and more incredible. Even more so considering the hike was so difficult it felt very rewarding. The top of the 28 bends was some 2,670 mtrs above sea level (so we technically wouldn't have been covered on our travel insurance should anything have happened) and I saw possible the most stunning view of my life! You can see the gorge right from the thundering rapids at the bottom to the snow capped peaks at the top. We were being charged 8 Yuan to take a picture but we cunningly took about 50 behind his back (not of his back though, that would be stupid).
Climbing down from there took a few more hours and by half 6 we got to the midway point, staying at The Tea Horse. Another great guest house with good food, good beds, and some great banter. Away from the lights I lay down on my back and stared at the stars for a good hour or 2. Kinda lost track of time. It looked pretty incredible though. The next morning we got up early and set off to the end point. It only took another 4/5 hours of hiking to get there and on the way we walked through some stunning waterfalls against amazing landscapes. Oh, and loads of goats!
At Tina's we stopped for lunch and walked down to the rapids. It was a LONG way further than we anticipated but definitely worth it. At the bottom you really see just how quick the water is running. Torrents of millions of gallons of water launching over massive rocks. We went and sat on a rock right at the edge. The way back up was a lot harder than we anticipated. We went up possible the hardest route. It was incredibly steep and at some points even had ladders going up cliff faces that were barely attached to said cliff. Climbing up a 20 mtr ladder with no safety or even anyone around to help if anything went wrong was a bit daunting. Eventually, after sweating out every drop of water I've had in the last 10 years, we reached the top!
On the way back we had a bit of minibus and fire trouble. Being that our minibus was on fire. We waited around near the foot of the gorge with for our rescue which came nearly an hour later. In this time we had been lobbing stones down the cliff and may have inadvertently started a rock slide... oops. Back in Lejiang and we had more great food and a good nights sleep. Today we got a bit of a chance to see Lejiang and I wish I could have spent more time there as the ancient town is very pretty. We caught the bus back to Kunming and I'm writing this now at half 12 at night waiting for my washing to be clean (thought that'll take many a many a wash).
All in all I have to say that Tiger Leaping Gorge has been the hardest but most stunning part of my travelling so far. It's going to be really hard to top this and I would recommend anyone, who is fit enough, going to China to trek the gorge (that means you Paul). I massively look forward to Laos - a 22 hour bus ride leaving tomorrow - but will really miss China. So my next post will be written in Laos. As for China, Zaijian!
Monday 18 May 2009
Mud...? Rain...? Perfection!
After such a superb day out yesterday in Yangshuo we've decided on setting aside today to go to the caves. It was about a one hour bike ride through rice paddy's and some incredible mountainous scenery. First stop was the Big Ban Yan tree. Having never heard of a Ban Yan tree I was mildly interested. From a distance my first thought was 'That tree isn't very big... this is rubbish!!' however up close you could see it was actually pretty cool. The tree itself has roots that come up as other trees and are attached to the branches of the tree itself. No idea how it's happened (maybe Myles can enlighten us). Next stop was Moon Hill. It was given its name as the huge rock outcrop at the top of the hill is round and looks like its namesake. It was awesome from the side and to get to the top it was some 1,200 steps... we didn't count because we didn't go! We went up about half way followed by 2 women trying to sell us drinks all the way up. We stopped at a place for lunch and ended up buying a couple of beers from them just to get them to go away! We went back to the bottom, got on our bikes and went to the centre attraction of the day, the Water Cave.
The Water Cave is a huge cave, by huge I mean that it stretches up to 130mtrs high in some places. To get in though you have to practically lie down in a boat since the entrance to the cave is so small. We had a bit of fun with 'Driver' as we affectionately named him and when we had a bit of fun scaring Alice and Briony before left him for our guide to take us round. The guide was rubbish. We kept stopping at places so she could tell us what a certain rock looked like. A lot of it was very much clutching straws: "Hmm, yes... I see how that could look like a monkey" we lied. Further into the cave we finally got to the mud baths. This was great fun. A huge bath of mud, ace! After swimming, floating, diving, wrestling and sliding in mud we quickly washed ourselves off and bathed in the natural hot springs. Bliss. The only downside is that Andy wasn't able to join us. Unfortunately he's come down with a stomach (shitting) problem and although we may have been able to hide it in mud baths it would have been a bit of a problem everywhere else.
Next day we went to Guilin to catch our sleeper train to Kunming. Tomorrow we head out to Lejiang where we stay the night before our trek around Tiger Leaping Gorge. Can't wait! Posting in China has now become quite difficult. Since the Chinese government aren't too liberal with the Internet I will not be able to go on Blogspot myself. Any posts I make I'll e-mail to my Dad to upload for me, until I reach Laos that is.
The Water Cave is a huge cave, by huge I mean that it stretches up to 130mtrs high in some places. To get in though you have to practically lie down in a boat since the entrance to the cave is so small. We had a bit of fun with 'Driver' as we affectionately named him and when we had a bit of fun scaring Alice and Briony before left him for our guide to take us round. The guide was rubbish. We kept stopping at places so she could tell us what a certain rock looked like. A lot of it was very much clutching straws: "Hmm, yes... I see how that could look like a monkey" we lied. Further into the cave we finally got to the mud baths. This was great fun. A huge bath of mud, ace! After swimming, floating, diving, wrestling and sliding in mud we quickly washed ourselves off and bathed in the natural hot springs. Bliss. The only downside is that Andy wasn't able to join us. Unfortunately he's come down with a stomach (shitting) problem and although we may have been able to hide it in mud baths it would have been a bit of a problem everywhere else.
Next day we went to Guilin to catch our sleeper train to Kunming. Tomorrow we head out to Lejiang where we stay the night before our trek around Tiger Leaping Gorge. Can't wait! Posting in China has now become quite difficult. Since the Chinese government aren't too liberal with the Internet I will not be able to go on Blogspot myself. Any posts I make I'll e-mail to my Dad to upload for me, until I reach Laos that is.
Thursday 14 May 2009
HK to Yangshuo
On our last day in Hong Kong, Briony's birthday, we got up early and headed for the ferry to the Lamma island. The day started cloudy but by the time we got to Lamma it was bright and sunny for us! It was great to get out of the city a bit and visit a place that's so quiet (though that could have just been because we were very lucky). Compare this place to HK and you can be utterly bewildered that it's only half an hour by boat. There are no cars allowed so everyone is on mopeds and bikes. No skyscrapers clawing their way toward the sky. And, above all, we had an entire mountain walk to ourselves!
The walk was about 2 hours, where we took a couple of stops for beaches, vantage points and photo opportunities and it was a very nice epitome of China. Mountains and beach alcoves that were stunning stretches around a huge bay... where at the end is a massive power station! If you ignore that bit where China seem to want to try and mess up a view an any way possible (at least this time there were no annoying tannoys or thousands of red, blue, green and white capped tourists). We couldn't have chosen a more perfect day though. At the end of the walk we were hearing some music and it turns out we arrive just in time for the ceremony of the Gods (or something along that title). We had an excellent table by the sea and were served possible the best seafood dinner I have ever had! Prawns in soy and chili sauce, bamboo clams, steamed fish, deep fried calamari... 'twas a dream come true!
We stayed for the rest of the ceremony and when it was done got back to Hong Kong island by ferry. We went back to the hostel and by this time it was about time we should start getting some drinks down us. It was Briony's birthday and we wanted to give her an amazing night out in HK. It turns out it was brilliant. Or so I've been told. I remember up until a point then it goes a bit hazy. We found a bar with a big walk in freezer at the back and had some vodka wearing huge fur coats and hats. We found a bar and met some Chinese locals who kept buying us Jagermeister, and so the story goes. Great night.
Hungover the next day we moped about in the park near our hostel for a while and proceeded to find some lunch and head to the bus station. Caught the sleeper bus to Yangshuo, dubbed backpackers paradise. I can't ascertain why it is called a sleeper bus though, the beds were way to small to sleep in. It is basically a coach with 3 rows of 3 tier bunk beds. I happened to be in the middle row on the top and couldn't shake the feeling all night I was going to topple. However, to keep us entertained we were hit by a massive storm. Constant lightning. Thunder so booming your ears are pounding to the noise like the worlds biggest base drum. And the rain. I got caught in it running to the toilet on a short stop and i was drenched head to toe wearing t-shirt, shorts, and flip flops where the water came up to my ankles!
Arriving in Yangshuo at 5.30am and we walked to our hostel. This town is very cool. It's not huge, though not much is coming out of Honk Kong. There are mountain outcrops wherever you look though. It's crazy. Awesome views everywhere. This afternoon/evening we have been on a 3 hour cooking course. It's our first so far and we want to do one in every country we go to. I'm hoping I can show of my culinary expertise of Asia when I eventually arrive home. Today we cooked Beer Fish (a local favourite), Gong Buo Chicken, and Vegetable Dumplings. It was fantastic, if I do say so myself! I'm really looking forward to the rest of my stay in Yangshuo, it's a fantastic town and there seems to be so much to do here. I think some people are waiting for the Internet and I'm tired so that's it for now!
The walk was about 2 hours, where we took a couple of stops for beaches, vantage points and photo opportunities and it was a very nice epitome of China. Mountains and beach alcoves that were stunning stretches around a huge bay... where at the end is a massive power station! If you ignore that bit where China seem to want to try and mess up a view an any way possible (at least this time there were no annoying tannoys or thousands of red, blue, green and white capped tourists). We couldn't have chosen a more perfect day though. At the end of the walk we were hearing some music and it turns out we arrive just in time for the ceremony of the Gods (or something along that title). We had an excellent table by the sea and were served possible the best seafood dinner I have ever had! Prawns in soy and chili sauce, bamboo clams, steamed fish, deep fried calamari... 'twas a dream come true!
We stayed for the rest of the ceremony and when it was done got back to Hong Kong island by ferry. We went back to the hostel and by this time it was about time we should start getting some drinks down us. It was Briony's birthday and we wanted to give her an amazing night out in HK. It turns out it was brilliant. Or so I've been told. I remember up until a point then it goes a bit hazy. We found a bar with a big walk in freezer at the back and had some vodka wearing huge fur coats and hats. We found a bar and met some Chinese locals who kept buying us Jagermeister, and so the story goes. Great night.
Hungover the next day we moped about in the park near our hostel for a while and proceeded to find some lunch and head to the bus station. Caught the sleeper bus to Yangshuo, dubbed backpackers paradise. I can't ascertain why it is called a sleeper bus though, the beds were way to small to sleep in. It is basically a coach with 3 rows of 3 tier bunk beds. I happened to be in the middle row on the top and couldn't shake the feeling all night I was going to topple. However, to keep us entertained we were hit by a massive storm. Constant lightning. Thunder so booming your ears are pounding to the noise like the worlds biggest base drum. And the rain. I got caught in it running to the toilet on a short stop and i was drenched head to toe wearing t-shirt, shorts, and flip flops where the water came up to my ankles!
Arriving in Yangshuo at 5.30am and we walked to our hostel. This town is very cool. It's not huge, though not much is coming out of Honk Kong. There are mountain outcrops wherever you look though. It's crazy. Awesome views everywhere. This afternoon/evening we have been on a 3 hour cooking course. It's our first so far and we want to do one in every country we go to. I'm hoping I can show of my culinary expertise of Asia when I eventually arrive home. Today we cooked Beer Fish (a local favourite), Gong Buo Chicken, and Vegetable Dumplings. It was fantastic, if I do say so myself! I'm really looking forward to the rest of my stay in Yangshuo, it's a fantastic town and there seems to be so much to do here. I think some people are waiting for the Internet and I'm tired so that's it for now!
Monday 11 May 2009
Hong Kong
I am the massive metropolis that is Hong Kong city! It is bloody huge. Not just area-wise but it's so very high up. It's also rather expensive, more so than Beijing. We've been here a few days now and have been around the islands, visited the (wait for the title) worlds largest, outside, seated, bronze statue of Buddha. It was very large and we even did the wisdom path... ooooh. It was an awesome day out though, mostly due to how we got there. We went on a long cable car ride over two mountain peaks where you can also see Hong Kong airport (on its own island as well) and you are as high as the planes taking off and landing! Cable car there and cable car back wasn't too expensive and they had a sort of vegetarian food thing going on at the top. It was really really good though it did mean two Indian meals in a row for us!
Food-wise, it's a lot harder here in Hong Kong than it has been in the rest of China. You really have to look hard for some cheap eats, and even then it's not particularly cheap. It is good fun though and although we are staying in the cheap, rubbish hostel, we are enjoying ourselves. We decided to get our visas sorted out here too. We heard that some places might be tightening up so we gave the embassies a little visit. Laos said we're cool to drop in and pay on the border. However Vietnam wanted HK$500 for theirs! Oh well, it will most assuredly be worth it!
Today we got a chance to view the best vantage point of Hong Kong. You take a tram which is absolutely ridiculous. It goes up the side of the mountain at a very acute angle that makes you feel you're going up a roller coaster. At the top you go through a load of escalators to the view point which is absolutely incredible. There was a fair amount of mist but for me that only added to the awesome night time view of the city and its lights. As we have found a few times it is very easy to get lost in Hong Kong, and at times it's also easy to forget you are even in China. It is very much like you have entered a completely different country (especially what with the whole customs and border crossing nonsense you go through to get in), everyone drives on the left, and no-one ever jaywalks!
All in all Hong Kong is great fun and there's so much more I'd like to see. We are going to another island tomorrow (for Briony's birthday!!!) for seafood lunch, but it feels we have missed out a lot. However, if we stay any longer I'm afraid I'll blow my entire budget here! I'm looking forward to Yangshuo and the rice terraces there too. Oh, and it was Mothers Day in China yesterday, so happy Mothers Day... again!!
Food-wise, it's a lot harder here in Hong Kong than it has been in the rest of China. You really have to look hard for some cheap eats, and even then it's not particularly cheap. It is good fun though and although we are staying in the cheap, rubbish hostel, we are enjoying ourselves. We decided to get our visas sorted out here too. We heard that some places might be tightening up so we gave the embassies a little visit. Laos said we're cool to drop in and pay on the border. However Vietnam wanted HK$500 for theirs! Oh well, it will most assuredly be worth it!
Today we got a chance to view the best vantage point of Hong Kong. You take a tram which is absolutely ridiculous. It goes up the side of the mountain at a very acute angle that makes you feel you're going up a roller coaster. At the top you go through a load of escalators to the view point which is absolutely incredible. There was a fair amount of mist but for me that only added to the awesome night time view of the city and its lights. As we have found a few times it is very easy to get lost in Hong Kong, and at times it's also easy to forget you are even in China. It is very much like you have entered a completely different country (especially what with the whole customs and border crossing nonsense you go through to get in), everyone drives on the left, and no-one ever jaywalks!
All in all Hong Kong is great fun and there's so much more I'd like to see. We are going to another island tomorrow (for Briony's birthday!!!) for seafood lunch, but it feels we have missed out a lot. However, if we stay any longer I'm afraid I'll blow my entire budget here! I'm looking forward to Yangshuo and the rice terraces there too. Oh, and it was Mothers Day in China yesterday, so happy Mothers Day... again!!
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