Author Archive
Well, to continue where Philippa unexpectedly finished off…
…(whe)n we arrived, the driver and his wife were happy to accept our US$10.00 note and were half way down the street with it before we explained we expected some change, man we are stingy!
We were finally able to change some currency at the hotel which was a big relief; it is really scary not even being able to purchase a bottle of water. The rooms were nice and clean, and I got excited about having 35+ channels on the TV – even though 34 of them are in Mandarin (and the 35th one is only in English occasionally).
China (well, Kunming) is really scary at first. Philippa and I have done a little bit of travel, and this is the first place that has really freaked us out. The trusty Lonely Planet guide informs us that Kunming is a sleepy, slow city as far as China is concerned… WHAT!! This is the maddest place I have ever been to…
Initially we just thought everyone was rude, but we now believe the problem is the water – they are putting speed or red-bull or something in the water! Everyone, the traffic, the cats a dogs, crying babies – everything is running at 210%. Hmmmm, I’m a little scared about our imminent trip to Shanghai!
Other than running around the local shops (including Wal*Mart — which is another blog altogether), we went off to the Bamboo Temple today. This was a very different Buddhist temple, especially the “surfing” Buddha’s (google it) which were awesome. Apparently the guy who created them “went missing” (seems to happen a lot in China) afterwards!
We are flying off to Zhongdian tomorrow (heading towards Tibet), and than working our way back to Kunming by bus for our final flight to Shanghai! Not sure what Internet facilities are further up north, so this might be the last you hear from us for a while (although I’m sure some enterprising nerd ha managed to work something out).
Finally, hope my washing is now dry – we paid some little old lady Y10 per KG to wash them two days ago, and it keeps raining, and therefore never ready! I’m now officially out of undies!!
HELP! This is an urgent SOS from the Laos/Thai border! Come save me (you can leave Philippa behind)!
Just kidding, well, not really… but, we are surviving, I’m just complaining, again!
We arrived yesterday afternoon in Houi Xai, a little border town in Laos, just across the Mekong river from Thailand (with it’s alluring neon lights, fireworks and, if I squint hard a 7-11 and maybe even a McDonalds). More about Houi Sai later (I will need to de-breif).
Prior to our arrival yesterday, the past two days have been lovely… floating down (or up, or something) the Mekong from Luang Prabang. We spoilt ourselves and decided to go for the super luxary “slow boat” trip. Now, when I say slow boat – I really mean it. According to the GPS – the trip was about 320kms and over 18 hours travel time. The alternitive was the “fast boat”, which the secular Lonley Planet advises you “pray” before departure.
Starting bright and early on Saturday, we woke up at sunrise to see the daily monk parade. Luang Prabang is famous for their 70 or so Wat’s (temples) – 30 of which are still active. Every sunrise, Monks from these active Wat’s walk down the main street collecting food offerings from the local beleivers (and some visiting sleepy tourists). We have seen this procession elsewhere before, however due to the shere number of Monks in Luang Prabang – it was really impressive. Towards the end of the offering line were a group of beggers, and it was really touching to see the Monk’s give back some of ther supplies to those less fortunate.
Following the parade, we negotiated a rather expensive Jumbo (Tuk-Tuk) ride to the jetty where our boat was moored. We spent the following two days traveling rather slowly through some of the most beutiful countryside I have ever seen (will get the photo’s up sometime soon, hopefully). We stopped a couple of times at some minority villages and a small cave which was nice, however the majority of the trip consisted of chatting with the other tourists on our boat and waving to kids playing in the river along the way!
Upon arrival in Houi Xai, we nearly lost our bags as they were loaded onto a boat to Thailand with all the other tourists bags. Luckilly Philippa saw her bag on someones back heading towards the boat and managed to intervene after a quick sprint down the road. The locals all thought it was very funny (Hah hah, who on earth would stay here!!).
As it turns out, we stuffed up our airline tickets by a day – and we are stuck here for two nights.
Seriously though, the place isn’t all that bad. I just enjoy complaining, besides – I think we have been a little soft with this 3 star trip of ours! We managed to get some nice Indian last night and also managed to recover our lost mobile phone – I couldn’t beleive how honest the kid was who returned it!
I have developed a pretty serious heat rash on my arms, and managed diagnose and prescribe my own medication from the local chemist – 20 cents for some antihistimine (or sugar concrete, not sure). I haven’t died yet and I think the rash is going!
Back to Vientiane tommorow morning, we are flying – no more SLOW boats for us! Than we fly to Kumning in China! I can’t wait!
What an exciting day… After three prompts to get out of bed by Philippa, we were nearly too late for breakfast (Scrambled or “Sunny”); We than headed to the Laos version of the Arc de Triomphe, described as a “…big lump of concrete” (on it’s official plaque!!) – it was a little better than that, with great views from the top!
The most exciting part however was the discovery of a Swedish Pizza Shop for lunch! For those who haven’t tried one,… well,… let me put it this way – it’s almost worth flying to Sweden for! I will have to give you all a bite-by-bite account of the experiance some other time!
Off to the travel agent now, we are going to book some tix up north. Starting to miss some of you now! Oh, we managed to get a local SIM, however nobody has replied, so we don’t know if it works! Probably not!
After transisting in Bangkok, we have finally arrived in humid Laos (pronounced Lao, we confirmed it!!).
Unfortunately we don’t have a great deal to report, as we only arrived this morning (and spent most of today sleeping); Briefly though – the weather is great, the food is cheap (and we haven’t been sick yet) and the locals are SUPER friendly.
The hotel we ended up at is simple, but nice. We had trouble checking in though as we were told the “reception staff are up a tree”. Philippa tricked me however, this place doesn’t have a TV (let alone satellite TV which was my stipulation) !!
Better run, this is 300kip a minute, and we’re not sure how much that is in Aussie dollars – don’t miss any of you yet!
Wow, time really does fly when you are having fun!
Looking at the history of our blog, it has been nearly 5 months since my last post! Whoops!
Where have I been you ask? Well, for the most part I have been sitting on my bum watching telly. We have had a few small trips thrown in here and there (which Philippa has updated you all on), and the past two-three months have seen me in my Vietnamese suits (well, sort of) working with Fujifilm in their support department (well, when I say support – I mean call logging – easy mistake to make). Tomorrow will be my last day, and I have really been lucky to not only score a decent temp job for the past few months, learn heaps about mini-lab equipment (and print off all our trip pics), but also more importantly to meet some really great locals,… of course locals being a few Brits, an Irish and an American gal!
OK… Just to wind back a little bit. After a brief visit from my brother Simon sometime in mid-August, we packed our wonderful little Rover up with food, clothing, camping gear and what seemed like the kitchen sink and headed down south to Dover where we caught a ferry to France. Following a brief stopover overnight in Antwerp, Belgium – we found ourselves in Eindhoven, Holland about 11 hours later. It was quite an experience stopping for petrol early in the afternoon and ordering in English, filling up again a few hours later and ordering in French and than the following morning ordering Petrol in Flemish and than Dutch! Well, if the truth be know – these smarty-pants Europeans can all speak English better than us Aussies, but that is besides the point – we did try!
Upon arrival at our swish Holiday Inn hotel (Mum and Dad’s shout) in Eindhoven, it crossed my mind that I should have listened to Philippa when she suggested (nay, insisted) we purchase the international AA (like RACV/Q) membership. Steam was pouring out of the poor little Rover and the needle on the temperature gage had nearly done a 360.
Thankfully the whole family was there to meet us at the hotel, and Dad, tired from all his own travel, was strait back into his fatherly routine by looking at the car and assuring me that no damage had been done as the car had simply overheated! The wonderful hotel staff managed to track down a local Rover mechanic for us and finally managed to book the sick girl in to the shop. Thankfully the only problem was a fan sensor, which caused the fan to stop when it shouldn’t have (at least I think that’s what the invoice says).
The real reason we all (that’s me, Philippa, Simon, Mum and Dad) met up in Eindhoven was to see the town Neunen (about 30 KMs out of Eindhoven) where Dad was born and spent the first 6 years of his life. It was a sweet, definitely off the tourist trail, little town. We saw the house where Dad lived and the surrounding area. He was even lucky enough to get invited inside for a few minutes – soon learning that he knew more Dutch then he originally thought! It was truly a magical and special day!
After a few more days pottering about Eindhoven (and dipping down to Belgium for the day) we all parted ways, picking up in Germany and Philippa’s blog from a while ago :) I had better run as I’m at work, and writing this between calls!
Off to Venice this weekend for our Aniversary, Miss you all!
Wow! An entire month since our last post; bit pathetic really, sorry to anyone who has been checking to see if there are any updates! We promise to write a little more often, especially as we now have a few more trips planned (and not just talking about boring old Bedford).
Well,… At 3.00AM on Friday the 1st July, Philippa and I set off for our little trip to France and Spain. We had earlier decided that as it was only a week, it would be a great idea to drive to Luton airport and stay in long term parking. After driving around in circles for what seemed like hours looking for the cheap “off-site” (they weren’t kidding) parking, we finally found the place up some side road in the middle of nowhere. After checking the car in, we boarded an overcrowded shuttle bus to the airport which took another 15 minutes. Finally arriving at Luton airport, we checked in with minutes to spare and finally boarded our easyJet flight to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris!
Being a budget flight, the easyJet plane pretty well landed in a paddock and we had to catch yet another bus to the terminal. After passing through immigration and customs we flagged down what we believed was our shuttle bus (we were told by the shuttle bus company to flag down the “grey” mini bus); in broken “Frenglish”, we were informed that it wasn’t our bus – we flagged down another two shuttle busses until we found the correct one! Our driver was an interesting young guy, who had no problems having an argument on his mobile (in Hindi) and swerving in and out of lanes (in many respects, it was worse driving than in most of Asia). At one point he pointed out a young couple being rather “intimate”… driving down the freeway – he explained that sex while driving is one of the biggest causes of road accidents in France (second only to arguing on a mobile phone)!!. The trip into Paris took over two hours, apparently (according to our informative driver) we had arrived into Paris on the second day of their yearly sale! People were coming into Paris from all over France and the rest of Europe to get their hands on the latest designer labels – some up to 90% off! Wow, did we time our trip right!
The shuttle bus finally pulled up at our hotel, and we were immediately greeted by Liz, Kristy and Andy (some great mates from back home in Melbourne) who had only arrived moments earlier from Kuala Lumpa – Paris was the second stop on their big trip! After checking in and unpacking, we went on a walking mission to find some breakfast; it wasn’t long until we found a traditional Vietnamese (French) bakery where we were able to stuff ourselves on cheap baguettes and croissants. Next was Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris – the amazingly decadent Catholic church constructed in about 1345. Standing in this magnificent active church, with priceless artwork and furniture – it made me wonder if the congregation or even the vatican had ever considered selling it and moving to a warehouse out in the suburbs; the millions, if not billions they would get for the church could probably end world hunger! The rest of the afternoon involved tracking down the gelato shop recommended in the Lonely Planet guide to Paris, a long coffee in a cafe and than an afternoon snooze (we did wake up at 3.00AM)!
After waking up a little later in the evening than planned, we sussed out a local brasserie (pub) for dinner and than headed to the Musée du Louvre; unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to go inside as they were closing up, but we did get a look through some of the windows and spent a good hour or so admiring I.M. Pei’s famous pyramid in the courtyard. Some people were setting up equipment for a film shoot outside the front (although we have no idea what the film was, my guess is The da Vinci Code – as according to IMDB, they are currently filming and the Musée du Louvre is listed as one of the filming locations). After a short stroll back to the hotel, we all went strait to sleep – and trust me, I slept! These fit girls who have no concept of taxis wore me out!
Saturday morning found us up at the train station, attempting to organise train tickets for our onward journey(s); it is incredible how far you can get in France by only knowing the words Bonjour and Merci – we all found the French (in general) to be friendly if you at least attempted to speak in their language and the arrogance everyone has heard about seemed to only apply to the American tourists who refused to even try! Next we learnt to use the Paris Metro and made our way to Luxumburg Park for a nice, relaxing picnic lunch in the sun. Unfortunately lunch was cut short as a police officer scolded the girls for sitting on the grass and made them move along. I had already determined that sitting on the grass was a no-no and managed to avoid being reprimanded by sitting on a park bench on the path!
Somehow we made our way to The Arc de Triomphe and spent the next few hours navigating around the crowds trying to find a bargain in the expensive shops located in that area. The Arc de Triomphe was an impressive monument come round-about; however, other than a war memorial – I don’t know what purpose it stood (perhaps thats all it is)? Phew! The day was still young and we again navigated the Paris Metro to Sacre-Coeur, another impressive church – situated atop a mountain – offering the most incredible view over Paris. Although Sacre-Coeur is somewhat smaller than Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris, the charm and view more than made up for it’s size. Sitting on the grass outside the church, enjoying the view – an old friend from School, Sonja happened to walk past – it was all a little surreal that she happened to be at the same place at the same time as us on the other side of the world! It was really great to quickly catch up with her and hear all the gossip from back home – I didn’t feel so far from home at that point!
A gentle stroll down from this majestic holy place was the notorious Moulin Rouge, unsurprisingly – once the romance of the movie dissapears, the Moulin Rouge is just another strip club in a street full of sleaze. We obviously didn’t see the show (the girl’s wouldn’t let me), but it was fun to see the famous wind-mill. After taking obligatory photos in front of the wind-mill, we quickly made a bee-line to the closest Paris Metro station as we wanted to get out of that part of town ASAP and headed to the Eifel Tower. The Eifel Tower is amazing! Postcards and documentaries do not do it ANY justice whatsoever! Unfortunately we arrived just a few minutes too late (we spent too long eating dinner, and filling up water bottles in the toilet), and were not able to go up to see the view! Following a stroll along the Le Seine river, we caught another train back to the hotel and slept, and slept, and slept. Seriously, I don’t know where these girls got all there energy from.
On sunday morning, we made our way by train to Château de Versailles, which started it’s life as a ‘hunting lodge, a little gentleman’s chateau’ in 1623. The ‘hunting lodge’ soon grew into an incredible palace by 1770, with the most unbelievable gardens I have ever seen. We spent the majority of the afternoon enjoying the sun (with the rest of France) by the Grand Cannel which stretches for 7KMs. The Château de Versailles is by far the most opulent estate I have ever seen, anywhere and if you are ever getting to Paris – it is an absolute *must see*. After a bit of a mix up with trying to work out which train to catch, we eventually ended up back at the Eifel Tower for our second attempt to get up to the top; unfortunately we missed the deadline, AGAIN!! Perhaps next time I get to Paris I will get to see the top! Miserable, we made our way back to the Hotel (via a shop that sold crepes). Monday morning we tearily said good-bye to the girls, and made our way by train to the wine city Bordeaux.
Phew! What a busy couple of days! I had an absolute blast, and have decided that France is by far my favorite European country (so far). Philippa will fill you in (hopefully) tomorrow on the rest of our trip through Bordeaux, Biarritz and Spain!
After a quick look at the auctions on Saturday we jumped in the Rover and headed on a road trip to Manchester to see Philippa’s uni mate Ang and her partner Warwick. The car handled the four hour trip without any problems, although it did struggle to keep up with the speeding BMWs on the M1.
Ang and Warwick kindly put us up in their spare room and prepared a marvelous seafood dinner on our first night. I was initially apprehensive about eating fish (as I usually hate it), however it was absolutely delicious. Following dinner we headed into the city to see the Chemical Brothers, live in their home town.
The concert was absolutely awesome! Starting with “Hey Boy, Hey Girl” they played a mix set, covering all their albums. “Piku” was everything I had hoped for live, you could literally feel the base vibrating through your bones and messing with your t-cells (perhaps that’s what did it?? – it was that same song that blew up my speakers in the Sikma). I was a little disappointed that they skipped “Setting Sun” and the final encore absolutely ruined the show – they played what appeared to be random noise for at least 20 minutes at full blast, annoying everyone around us (some people even walked out); what where they thinking? The video and lighting where brilliant and really enhanced the show (gives you something to look at other than a couple of nerds pressing buttons and tweaking knobs). Overall we all had a great night, I think they went the extra mile for their home town crowd.
After waking up at some un-godly hour (or should that be after sleeping in for those who are actually working) on Sunday we meandered to the bus stop for the Ang and Warwick tour of Manchester. The city centre is a bizarre mixture of modern and classic architecture. The more recent buildings exist thanks to the clearing of land by Nazi and IRA bombing. We spent the majority of the afternoon looking at tents in all the camping stores as Philippa has decided (and I have begrudgingly agreed) to go camping, starting with Sherwood forest in Nottingham next weekend (I hope we look poor, as I don’t want to be robbed). We had a late lunch at “The old Wellington Inn”, a popular old pub; now, when I say old – I mean it – the building was built in 1548 and first licensed as an Inn in 1830. I was lucky enough to run into the renowned Manchester hospitality as I was exiting the pub; three drunk local giants blocking the exit refused to move – forcing me to navigate through the crowd to another exit. Later we met up with a couple of Ang’s friends who had come to visit for the weekend from London. After a game of hackey-sack and dinner we all retired early, still recovering from the night before.
The following morning we all loaded into our cars and headed for a short road trip to the Yorkshire Dales. After scoring a free parking ticket from another visitor who was leaving early, we had a lovely stroll through the Yorkshire Dales National Park. National Parks in England are somewhat different to home, there is no forest! We basically walked through a lovely bit of countryside, complete with lambing sheep, a flowing river and traditional stone fences. There was a beautiful active old church located in the middle of the national park, apparently it was built over 800 years ago! Lunch was beautiful in another old pub, once we managed to find a place that was open and had space for six people. Upon our return back to Ang and Warwick’s place we quickly ate dinner and headed off to a small pub to see Aussie singer Missy Higgins.
After waiting outside for what seemed like aaages for the doors to open, I proceeded to the bar to order a coke. I was finally served 45 minutes later (and was ready to start throwing punches at the girls trying to push in). Apparently everyone in the audience was familiar with Missy’s music, however when the support act started – I think a good 90% of the audience (myself included) thought it was her. I think she needs a little more publicity as nobody knew what she looked like! Unfortunately by the time Missy started to play, Philippa and I had to get going (as we had the long 4 hour trip home ahead of us) – we only managed to stay for 4 or 5 songs. Although I only knew a couple of her songs, the show was really fun and intimate – looking forward to hearing more of her music.
The long trip home was rather uneventful, except for winning £4.00 on the pokies at the road stop! Nearing Bedford, we got off the motorway and navigated our way through the small surrounding towns for about 30 miles – unfortunately due to the slow speed limits in the area, this section of the trip took us nearly an hour (Philippa found out from some colleagues the following day that the motorway goes all the way directly to Bedford and would have saved us probably 45 minutes), doh! Finally, walking in the door at about 2.00AM, we managed to set off the alarm – I slept till lunch time the following day! Phew, what a weekend – had a ball – thanks Ang and Warwick for the great time!
Phew! I Don’t know where to start! How about “I’m sorry for taking so long to write a post!” I have been sitting here for 10 minutes trying to come up with an excuse – unfortunately there isn’t one!
The past four weeks have been rather exciting, and boring at the same time! Although we haven’t seen any great sights or visited any exciting countries, it has been nice to unpack our suitcases and settle down for a while!
Well, following on from the previous post – we moved into “home” the following day. Somehow we have managed to score a three story, four bedroom semi-furnished terrace house right in the centre of town! At first we where a little worried about renting a place as all the real-estate agents didn’t want to know us (before they will rent out a place, they require proof that you have been a resident for two years); as luck would have it – the boss at Philippa’s job agency was looking for a tenant for their house and was happy for us to move in immediately without all the usual security checks! We had to share the place with a few girls who where studying at the local university for a few weeks (which was fine, except for the mess) – but now we have the place to ourselves! The only downside is the place is up for sale, and theoretically it could go at any time!
Philippa was offered the job she previously mentioned and has been working at the local hospital full time (about a 10 minute walk away) since. She seems to be enjoying it, although she is finding it hard to get back into work mode! That said, she is doing better than me – I have barely even looked for a job, let alone applied for any! I am a kept man!
Setting up the house has been fun! We have had to purchase sheets and doonas (duvets here), knifes, forks, pots and pans etc etc. We seem to purchase a new knick-knack every time we go down the shops (which is only 1 minute walk away). About two doors down is a huge auction house that holds a mixed auction every Saturday – we have been a regular attendee every week for the past four weeks and have managed to accumulate a TV (the big one previously mentioned was one of the girls), a broken portable phone (doh!), a push bike, an office gas lift chair, two really good portable phones and a box of 10 Kensington Locks (for laptops). I was really disappointed when the lot of 90 MP3 players and 37 packs of smokes went higher than I was prepared to pay! Next time, hey!
The rest of our spare time has been filled with watching Freeview Digital TV (so much better here, over 15 extra free channels – better than the Channel 7 test logo back home), eating out at the multitude of pubs within short walking distance, going to the movies etc. Philippa has also been attending some modern dance classes with Alie – she can really cut the rug now! Oh! I also got the internet/phone connected – ADSL 4MB Unlimited – W00T! Speaking of which, I have set up a VoIP phone which gives us a Melbourne (03) number here in England (therefore, if you are in Melbourne you can call us for the cost of a local call) – send us an email if you want the number (just don’t call when it’s the middle of the night here)!
I am woefully homesick and cannot wait to come home! I would love to be at the Star Wars premier with all my mates tomorrow – but I guess it won’t be long until we start traveling again! No ETA yet – but 12-18 months is what we have decided (well, Philippa decided :P).
Better run, Philippa just rang and is walking home from work – she wants to go to the market to get some veggies (today is pay day! Oh how we love the mighty £).
I love you all heaps and miss you a great deal! Make sure you e-mail or call or send a carrier pidgin or something soon!
Turns out I don’t have SARS (thanks for all the well wishes), just a bad head cold which has finally cleared up.
It was really sad saying goodbye to Hong Kong and our new friends. We had a really good time and felt at home in Honkers! I have a feeling that we may end up there for an extended stay sometime in the future (but don’t tell Philippa).
We woke up early in the morning to finish packing our bags and hurriedly ran downstairs to catch the shuttle bus (after a Macca’s breakfast of course) – after sitting around, complaining that the bus wasn’t getting ready, we soon learnt that the bus wasn’t running due to a public holiday. The hotel concierge quickly realised we where upset (as we had a flight to catch); he grabbed our bags and threw us into a taxi… which was nice of him!
We arrived at the train station 5 minutes later, checked our bags and boarded the train to the airport (how good is THAT… you can check in AT the train station!!!). 20 minutes later we arrived at the airport, boarding passes in hand with time to kill. After ummming an ahhhhhing for weeks, we finally decided to buy a few expensive electronic gadgets (figuring that duty free at the airport would be the way to go) – unfortunately the airport was a good AU$50.00 more expensive than the shops in Hong Kong city, so we decided to wait until we arrived in Holland – assuming you could purchase duty free goods there for a reasonable price (oh boy, where we wrong… more on that later).
Somehow we managed to be late for boarding; when we arrived at the gate, people where ready to usher us straight to our seats. Quite an experience, kind of felt like being a Munckton for a few minutes!
After the looooong flight over China and Russia (lucky we didn’t catch the train as first planned), we finally arrived in Amsterdam. What a grumpy bunch of buggers. Seriously,.. not a single welcome, hello or did you have a pleasant flight – all we got was “Passport”. We decided to get some food (yes Tommy… at Macca’s) – the staff there where just as unpleasant, not even “would you like fries with that”! Grumpy, grumpy, grumpy…, we guessed it’s because it is so bloody cold and they never see the sun! Give me Thailand any day!!
After Dinner (or was it breakfast??) we went to the duty free store at the airport to pick up our gadgets (after our mis-adventure in Hong Kong) only to learn that duty free once you arrive in the EU doesn’t exist (even though we hadn’t passed through customs)! The inc. tax price on the items we where looking at where over AU$200.00 more expensive than in Hong Kong. We decided we didn’t need an iPod after all. Note to anyone travelling to Europe – “The inflated prices at the airport in Hong Kong (or Singapore, or Bangkok) are CHEAPER than the cheap stores in Europe!”).
After exiting customs (no problems with the first use of my Dutch passport – except everyone spoke to me in Dutch), we caught the next train into town. Again, the staff at the information desk where less than helpful and it took us over an hour to work out which train to catch.
From our train stop, it was a short taxi ride to our Bed and Breakfast. We were on the third floor of a traditional Amsterdam flat and the room was lovely. Our host Anna Lynne was the first nice person in Holland we met; she gave us a quick run-down on what we could do and where the closest place for dinner was. We had a little snooze and than headed down to the local kebab shop! Mmmmm, Kebabs – just like at home.
Breakfast the following day was enormous; we couldn’t work out if it was for our entire five day stay in the B and B or just that morning. We found out the following morning that Anna Lynne expected us to eat two small loafs of bread, a block of cheese, a packet of ham, yoghurt, cake, hot cross buns etc every single day!
After recovering from breakfast, we made our way into town by foot. We passed the Anne Frank house, which was a real eye opener. It was a really odd feeling being in the same room (complete with her posters and stickers still on the walls) in which she wrote her diary. Unfortunately I couldn’t help comparing the Holocaust, which Anne endured with the atrocities that happened more recently in my lifetime in Cambodia.
As we were a little down about life after the Anne Frank house museum, we figured we should do something a little light hearted – so,… we went to the Sex Museum (we heard that as far the “sights” of Amsterdam went – this was the safest). Turns out it was quite interesting – the museum started with all sorts of antiques (lots of old master paintings and snuff boxes). Look if you want more details Tommy you can talk to me directly ☺ Afterwards we went to the tourist information, where not surprisingly they were very unhelpful. We passed up the 17 euro, two hour walking tour through the red light district as we figured that it was something that we could do ourselves. The rain started and we jumped on the number 17 tram home.
On route to the Van Gogh museum the next day, we passed a Cash Converters…it is exactly the same as at home…but so much cheaper, they know the true price of second hand goods over here. We had to elbow our way through the millions of school kids lining up to see the Van Gogh museum. It was good and all, but bah…I’ve seen and heard it all before – Cashies was the real highlight of the morning.
We walked around Amsterdam that afternoon and found more entertainment that this liberal society affords, an entire strip of Casinos. We were getting to the point where we were thinking “Is anything illegal in this town?”. The unhelpful, grumpy assistant at the “Cheapest internet café in Amsterdam” (which is false advertising by the way) would not give me change to buy a ticket “No change” he grunted, I had had enough of poor customer service by then so I grunted back at him “No Use!”.
So not to bore you too much more we also visited: Rebrandt’s house, hung out in Coffee Shops, went to the movies and had lots of croquets.
We went for a day trip the Hague before we left because Phil really wanted to see the World Court (geek). We were a little disappointed because we were wisked around on a bus (we felt like Japanese tourists), but in a way we didn’t mind because it was freezing outside, I don’t think that it got above eight degrees that day! We visited a huge model of Holland on the way home, which would have been a lot more fun if we didn’t loose circulation to our fingers, toes, nose…but it was really quite cool, they had working models of cannels, showing how 49% of Holland manages to stay dry, while below sea level. The airport in Holland is called Schipol which is literally Ships Hell, because when they were “reclaiming” the land (draining the land) they found many ship recks in this area. We went past a new housing estate on the way back to Amsterdam that they were building on recently “reclaimed land”, better watch out the Dutch might be knocking at our door soon ☺
We had wine and a long philosophical discussion with our lovely host Anna Lynne on the Saturday night before we boarded the plane to Copenhagen.
Vietnam is just like I remember it,… back at home! The smells, the food, the smiles and the crazy driving. I’m not trying to be funny, but I feel very much at home here in Ho Chi Minh City!
I should probably back-track a little bit. We last left you in Siem Reap, ready to board our plane back to Phnom Phen. The flight was rather uneventful, just your regular short trip (a 30 min flight sure beats the 6 hours drive on bad roads in a crowded bus) in a small Boeing. We did however get a free upgrade to business class – but so did the other 9 people on our flight! We arrived safely back in Phnom Phen and caught a taxi back to our hotel.
The following day we casually decided to take in a couple of tours – The Killing Fields and the S21 Prison (“the place where people go in but never come out”). It was very confronting seeing these sites and knowing that these atrocities had occurred in our life time. The S21 prison was mostly left in tact and of the 17,000 people that were imprisoned and tortured at S21, only 7 survived – the artists making busts of Pol Pot. We were dumb founded at Pol Pot’s cruelty and the measures that he took to ensure his power. Our guide informed us that 10 to 15 year old boys were used to perform the killing – this was viewed as an impressionable age where the superiors could mold the boys minds. We saw the mass graves and the bones that show up after every wet season as the topsoil is washed away (we accidentally stood on some loose teeth and exposed clothing). Shovels and axes were used to slaughter the people because bullets were too expensive. Any ideology that Pol Pot had worked to was lost by the time he reached power and his rein seemed to be purely about self preservation – even killing his own men when he suspected that they knew too much. Our taxi driver gave the best description of this man – “Pol Pot was a psychopath”. The killing field that we visited is one of 400 that have been discovered so far. Over Pol Pot’s rein, 3 million Khmer people died (with a total population of only 8 million) – from butchery, starvation and as a result of the American’s secret carpet bombing campaign. During this time rice and food production increased, however the Khmer people where only provided two bowls of watery rice soup – as the food was sold to China by the officials.
Being a little emotional, I decided that I had had enough of “roughing it”, and decided to fly to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and camp out in a nice hotel after Philippa and Rob made up there mind to “float” to Vietnam. Their trip took four days (mine took one hour), and from what I hear was a lot of fun (Phil/Rob will post a separate blog about their trip later).
While waiting for them to arrive, I did the usual… Watched a lot of TV, sussed out the local KFC (several times) and did a bit of a walking tour which resulted in me getting very lost. A friendly “Cyclo” driver offered to show me around,… I promptly instructed him to “head for the nearest McDonalds”. 10 minutes later, we arrived at KFC (again) – apparently KFC is the closest thing that HCMC has to a McDonalds. I thanked the Cyclo driver for the ride and asked him how much I owed him; the ride *should* have cost 5,000 Dong and I was not surprised when he said 50,000 Dong (all I heard was the “5″) – I promptly paid the man, and realised that I had been ripped off while chowing down another Zinger burger! Groan – all these different currencies are giving me the irrits.
Cambodia was again a real culture shock at first, however the beautiful people with their warm hearts have given me a real passion for the country and I suspect that we will be back sometime soon. Vietnam so far has been a lot of fun, and I am finally leaving the hotel now that Philippa has returned (God, I missed her). I think the next three weeks here will be great if the past few days are anything to judge the country by!
Now onto some serious news! Why the hell is Philippa getting 2-3 emails a day and none to me… Starting to think you buggers don’t love me! :P Miss you all sooo much and looking forward to getting home, sometime in the next couple of years!
Welcome, to Fantasy Island…
Well, after spending a few more days on the beach relaxing and reading (with one night of doof-doof and cheap beer) we caught our “speed” boat at the un-godly hour of 7.00AM to Koh Phangan, a slightly smaller island just north of Koh Samui.
After clamouring off the boat onto the pier (which was no easy feat as the tide was down, everyone else still on the boat got a good look at our bums), we were greeted by our pre-arranged “super cheap” taxi – turns out they were a whole 300 Baht more expensive with the average going rate being 100 Baht) which promptly took us to our hotel, the Phangan Cabana (at the Copa,… Copacabana).
Koh Phangan is fantastic! I recommend this place to just about everyone! The island itself is a lot less developed than Koh Samui and as such has everything that is nice (the beach, the food, the bikinis) without all the rubbish (the drunk Poms, the sex tourists, street pole-dancers, the crowd). Truly and amazing place!
The biggest disadvantage to a small island is the irregular power. Within our first few hours, there was a blackout! This wouldn’t usually be a problem – however, it occurred just after I had entered my PIN number into an ATM machine! Damnit – there’s a few hundred dollars lost! Luckily the security is a little looser – a bank clerk was able to crack open the ATM and retrieve my card!
The Phangan Cabana is a sweet little place, about 20 mins from the main city (the city being about the same size of say, Inverloch). The room is all pretty basic, not much bigger than the bed – we have aircon and they installed a CD player the day we arrived. We think that they are in cahoots with the guy next door who sells pirated CDs for 100baht, ($3.20) – we’ve already purchased two! I can’t believe however that they expect to run a respectable business without any television! Groan! We do have our own toilet and shower,… outside! One advantage of an outside shower is the wind on my bum when taking a shower in the heat of the day!
I’m getting pretty good at zipping through the streets on our rented scooter, a little 120cc Honda; it’s a shame nobody here knows any road rules! Philippa seems to trust me sitting on the back (silly, silly girl!). When we upload the photo’s, you will see how cool our helmets are (note: we are the *only* people on the entire island in jeans and wearing a helmet when on a bike).
It’s a little scary how much I miss all you buggers, keep up with the news from home and send off a prayer that we will get to Bangkok safely tomorrow (don’t want the boat to sink).
I’m officially sick of travelling! Lucky we are on the beach now for 7 days in Koh Samui :P
Our last day in Chiang Mai was rather un-evenful; Philppa got a Thai massage and than we saw a movie – Kung Fu Hustle (dubbed in Thai with English sub-titles). Was really bad,… yet really good (in a bad way) :P The sub-titles were sporatic at best, and our fellow movie-goers were laughing out of sequence with us! If it gets to Melbourne – a must see!
We boarded our 9.50PM sleeper train from Chaing Mai to Bangkok after an hour of arguing with the station master about getting our tickets chainged (we were originally going to get off before Bangkok). Finally he told Philippa that you could change them on the train and didn’t need to see him at all, groan! The crowd gathering behind Philippa wanting to purchase tickets were relieved to see her go!
The train trip was hot, smelly (gotta love the waste disposal system of the Thai trains – it all goes out the side, including the poop which gets caught in the wheels and stinks out the place) and full of killer bugs – somehow we ended up on a train without A/C (even though we paid for it)… someone asked us later if we were Americans (as we were whinging so much),… I replied with “hell no” and promptly shut up and enjoyed the rest of the trip :P
We arrived back in Bangkok about 15 hours later and promptly sought out the nearest fast food joint (which was KFC) – Speaking for KFC, its just not the same in Asia – kinda tastes like, ummm, Marathon Chicken (as dad once explained KFC in Asia to me)! McDonalds and Burger King is good though, its pretty much the same everywhere!!
We caught the next Tuk Tuk to Wat Po. When we got out of the Tuk Tuk we were promptly told by a man on the street that the temple was closed and that it would re-open in a few hours; he suggested that we visit his friends Suit Tailor shop to pass the time :P – we told him to go away and continued on to the very much open temple! Inside we saw the famous giant reclining Buddha which was, well, big and pretty impressive – apparently it is older than Bangkok as it was made in the 17th Centuary, well before the city was established – to date the oldest “thing” I have ever seen! Wow!
Next was a taxi ride with a friendly driver to an air-con shopping centre in Bangkok – he was realy nice untill we tried to pay with a 500 baht note (about AU$18.00) – he called us all sorts of names and got realy angry as we didnt have smaller notes (and was outraged at us thinking that he would be able to change it). The taxi fare was a little under AU$3.00 for over half an hour in the taxi; its a different world huh! We tipped him generously once we got change :P
We past the rest of the time, waiting for our next train to Koh Samui (due at 7.30PM) by watching another movie – Finding Neverland! Oh – here’s a travel trip for you, the toilets at nice shopping centres are greeeaaatt!! Much better than train stations or smelly trains! Heh – I went twice just for the fun of it!! :)
The train to Koh Samui was a little late, but was much nicer than the one from Chaing Mai – we at least had snooty, posh air-con this time! The trip was also somewhat shorter, our train arrived at its destination at about 7.00AM; we than caught a bus and a ferry boat to the Koh Samui island (sounds more exciting than it was, promise!)
We were ripped off as soon as we arrived; we paid at least double what we should have for a shuttle bus to our hotel – pffft, …and they made me get our bags off the roof of the bus! Mongrels!! :P
The hotel is great, the Samui Orchard – its also a zoo and bird park and everything, sleeping with tigers is great! The rest of the day was catching up on sleep and sitting on the beach, nice and relaxing!
That brings us to today, again, nothing exciting – we caught the hotel taxi into town and had lunch and jumped on a computer! Thats all folks – miss you all more than I would dare admit! — Matt
Puff,… what a week!
After tromping around Bangkok for 3 or 4 hours, we finally found a TAT (Tourism Authority of Thailand) Travel Agency who promptly booked us on some tours for the following few days and than a train to Chaing Mai.
We woke up the following morning nice and early and boarded a mini bus which took us to the Bridge on the River Kwai (go on, start whistling the tune). There was a small museum set up there which was absolutley facinating (however slightly unconventional – we weren’t entirely convienced that all the ehbits were what they claimed to be). We saw the final resting place of hundreds of Australian (and Dutch, English and US) soldiers and the now re-constructed bridge. Next was the Hell-Fire Pass, where another museum was set-up (this one was constructed by the Australian government and was realy slick) – we learnt about the role of the allied POW forces in constructing the infamous railway line and the horendus conditions they lived in (well, those that DID live). Seeing the actual cutting (which was a short walk away) actually brought a tear to my eye.
Than we saw some waterfall (more like a rapid), which was apparently beautiful :P
A local dinner followed on a raft-boat and then we were taken (by jet-boat) to our accomodation – which was nothing more than a shack floating on the river and a mattress on the floor with a door that would not shut properly, let alone lock! We nick named it the hotel California, because the host could not stop singing the song. We had a lot of fun chatting with the other tourists (mostly Dutch) and managed to get a few winks of sleep before we were whisked off to some more *wonderful* waterfalls! (7 actually – I only saw 4, but Philippa saw them all). We had a lot of fun on the tour, packed a lot into the two days. The most amusing part of the whole trip was a couple of French tourists (hippy backpackers) who where happy to try anything – even Cobra mixed with mull!! I’m sure that they will spend a lot of time in the loo on their trip :)
The trip back to Bangkok was long and uneventful; we were finally dropped off at the train station for our trip to Chaing Mai at about 6.00PM. We waited at the train station for what seemed like a month; I paid a total of 6 baht to use the toilet (2 baht each time) – I kept chickening out as they where that gross! We finally borded our overnight *express* train at about 10.00PM.
The train was clean, and turned out to be a relatively fun ride except for the fact the it seemed to stop at each station along the way; the train got lost and headed back the direction we come from for a few hours; the drunk brittish tourists (brickies) and of course – they only had squat toilets! We had a ball!!
We finally arrived in Chaing Mai and was greeted by our hotels driver, who was somewhat anoyed at the fact that the train was 2 and half hours late (and he had been waiting for us the whole time). We slept for the rest of the day, ready for a next set of tours the following day!
More to come soon…love all you guys and miss you heaps. Sorry about the spam on the comments site, we have kinda fixed the loophole.
We are sitting at the FREE Internet terminal at the Singapore airpot, about to board our plane for Thailand and I thought it was appropriate to write a quick blog about how wondeful Singapore is. The streets are clean, the people are wonderful and the services are exceptional – where else can you get FREE Internet access.
Yesterday we thought we better venture out a little beyond Orchard Road and the Sim Lim Square (more on Sim Lim Square later); we decided to go to Santosa Island — A little island just south of mainland Singapore (a bit like Phillip Island cross with an amusement park). Santosa was great, we caught the cable-car from the mainland and explored the island on the free mono-rail. Our first stop was the Santosa beach, with it’s beutiful sand and clear water – we decided to relax for a few hours in an outdoor recliner with a few beers as we watched the sun go down. Second stop was the amazing sound and light show (apprently it cost 4 million to produce) – it was truely incredible, I could just imagine my nieces screaming with delight at the show!
Sim Lim Square is one of the many IT shopping centres, 6 floors of IT goodness! There were litterally hundreds of shops selling every gadget you could possibly imagine. I was in heaven!! After about the 5th hour of window shopping, Philippa mentioned to me that if we stayed for another minute she would jump over the edge of the 4th floor. I guess I was a bit selfish :P
Our plane leaves in 20 mins, so I better scoot. Love you all heaps and will try and upload the pics of Santosa in Thailand!
I would like to make it clear that I’m not trying to claim that the Indonesian’s have developed a fantastic Time Machine hidden in a phone booth that can zoom us to any place or time in history, but where else in the world can you complain when you pay 40c for a bottle of coke (which is in a glass bottle, and requires a bottle opener to open) as it is to expensive. Bali is amazing, and not what I was expecting at all (pffft… Lonely Planet Guide… You SUCK!!).
Last night we were invited to a “special school function” by Jimi Hendrix himself. Apparently some of the local school kids had put together a show of local Balanise dancing and Kung Fu. We were offered a lift by Jimi and were told that there was no cost (which obviously made us VERY suspicious). At anyrate, fearing for our lives we agreed… but weighing up the pros and cons we realised that there was little chance of anything happening as we knew that other westerners would be attending and also the fact that Jimi was pretty well known around town – he is the barber, taxi driver and music club teacher; fortunately we accepted the offer – we had a great time watching the four and five year olds perform. I hope that the photos (when we get a chance to upload them) do the evening justice, so far the highlight of the trip!
I decided to follow my big brother Miks lead and get a hair cut the following morning,… how many people can say they got their hair cut by the one and only Jimi Hendrix!
At 11.00AM our lift arrived and we headed towards Ubud, the trendy arts district of Bali (a bit like Daylesford or Montville). Thr trip took about 5 hours via the famous Bali volcanic hotsprings (*yawn*), waterfall, water temple and monkey forrest (which was soooooo cool). Philippa won’t let me get a pet monkey ;(
Off to McDonalds, umm, I mean Singapore tommorow. Looking forward to the Gin Sling and will try not to get arrested for ashing in public :P Miss you all heaps and can’t wait for my first bloody email (you slackers)!!
Just a quick note to anyone who may checking here that we have arrived safely. We are sweltering in a dodgy little internet cafe here in Kuta that won’t let us check our email (the browser is too old). Will write again soon with a proper update and hopefully some photos! xxooxx