Sunday 9 May 2010

Surf Camp and Byron Bay

Early Monday morning I was greeted by the way-to-cheerful, hyped up on caffine Carly and JJ who were to be our guides, drivers and occasional surf instructors for the next five days. Once on the bus they had us introduce ourselves. There was about twenty of us and I was the only English girl. There was another English guy, an Irish guy, a couple of Danish girls, lots of Germans, a Swedish couple and a group of Norweigen girls. We were a mixed bunch! They then proceeded to get us into the mood by playing surfing films of guys who to say 'made it look easy' would be an understatement. By the end of the week, we all assumed we'd be doing that.

We were wrong.

Our first camp was at Crescent Head and we were there from Monday to Wednesday afternoon. The camp was a couple of huts in the middle of the bush. Across a dirst track was some more bush where the 'humpy' was: a small clearing with a camp fire for parties; and just beyond that was the beach. A huge expanse of deserted sand and breaking waves. It was incredible.

We arrived there around 1pm and as soon as we'd signed in and dumped our bags it was into our swimmers and wetsuits and off down to the beach for our first lesson. It soon became apparent that we were not going to be surfing like Kelly Slater any time soon. What all those wonderful movies fail to show is that surfing is hard. And not just in terms of trying to stand up, or stay up, or even just paddling (which trust me is tiring). But even just getting out the back, past all the breaking waves (which is where you want to be if you want to look cool; #1 rule of surf camp) is frickin' hard work. At times almost impossible. The first few lessons weren't that bad for that. We were all happy to stay close to the shore trying to stand up in the white water. Despite spending most of my first lesson underwater I had managed to stand a couple of times and not drown completely. I was comforted by the fact that I didn't get sea sick... unlike one unnamed person!

Tuesday and Wednesday morning was spent on the beach at Crescent Head. To prepare us for our morning sessions one of the instructors - who also happened to be a yoga teacher and who never bothered to learn names (I was, for the whole duration of the trip, "Pommie") - decided we all needed some loosening up. So we had 'lovely' yoga lessons, on the beach, in wetsuits. I have no idea how he managed it. While he was incredibly flexible and didn't seem to have any problems managing some of the very difficult yoga poses, I kept being chocked by my wetsuit just trying to touch my toes!

The Tuesday morning sessions I spotted some dolphins as we were paddling out and Carly said I must have good eyes. I couldn't confess that the real reason I'd seen them was because I'd been nervously scanning the waves for any signs of sharks. We didn't see any. Thank goodness. But on the final day one of the guys found out that the week before two large hammerhead sharks had been spotted off the beach one south from the on we were surfing. Yikes!

Evenings at Crescent Head were spent at the humpy, sitting around the camp fire drinking 'goon' (boxed wine - classy) and chatting. There may have been some dancing. Getting to and from the site was made more interesting by having to walk through the woods on a narrow, unlit path. It was pitch black and we only survived with luck and a lot a of giggling. And hugging trees. Returning to the camp on Tuesday night I was sitting with Carly and some of the guys in the kitchen area eating a sneaky midnight snack of nachos and dip when I found a little black leech on my foot. It bled a lot but came off easily and I wasn't as creeped out as I thought I would be. Still was pretty icky.

We left Crescent Head on Wednesday after our morning surf and lunch. Our second camp was at Spot X (Arawatta Beach, just north of Coff's Harbour). This was very different to Crescent Head as the site is bigger and caters for the Oz Experience and other tour groups, not just the Mojo Crew. We arrived in time for dinner which, like all the meals on the trip, was brilliant. They certainly don't scrimp on food. Huge servings with lots of salad to help yourself to. While at Crescent Head we had to wash our own dishes - the dishwater chosen by group competitions that included Jenga and an 'Aussie relay race' (down a can of beer - blow up a balloon 'til it pops - eat a dry weet-bix covered in vegemite: I had to eat the vegemite. Yum) - at Spot X we were spoilt as the staff did them for us.

Thursday and Friday morning was spent out in the waves and those of us that had the basics down now wanted to head out the back and try our hand at the green waves. Easier said than done as first you had to get out there. At times it was like walking against a brick wall. For every metre gained you'd be swept back about five. It was very fustrating and a couple of times I had to give up and go back to shore to take deep breaths, count to ten, that sort of thing, to calm down before attempting it again. The trick was to wait for a gap between sets and then paddle out as hard as you could. Get it right and you could get out without getting your hair wet. Get it wrong and things got... interesting. I tended to get it wrong. The second best thing to heading out between sets was to 'eskimo roll' under the biggest waves. Simply you take a deep breath as the wave is about to break on your head, flip the board overand hold on underneth it; the idea being the wave passes stright over you and you flip over and paddle quickly once it's gone. It didn't work for me. Not until someone finally told me I had to make sure the nose of the board was under water as well. I'd just been clinging on and still being dragged back towards the shore. I'd just saved the waves the trouble of pulling me under.

Once I was finally out the back it was nice to relax but if you wanted a green wave you had to work for it and paddling fast enough to catch one is hard work. Not only that, if you get things wrong the wipe outs are that much more spectacular - and painful. Did I mention surfing hurts? By the end of the five days I'd notched up a pretty long list of injuries: one pulled shoulder from trying to hang onto the board it was ripped from me by a wave; numerous bruises, the best being a perfect line across my stomach from where I wiped out and landed on the rail of my board; damaged big toe from landing on it funny; grazed knees from a really scratchy board; sore inside arms from my wetsuit; and the most impressive of all - my hands that were rubbed and blistered from trying to hang on to my board. By midweek I was having to tape my hands up with silver duct tape. I looked like a robot!

I loved surfing though, especially when you catch a green wave and just sail stright down it. It feels like flying. Of course, more often than not I got something slightly wrong and ended up in a washing machine effect - being rolled around and around by the waves until they finally spit you out looking like a drowned rat. Mostly these were caused by not standing up quickly enough and there are few things scarier than nose diving. You find yourself practically vertical, looking straight down into the wave and at that point you know you're about to go head over heels so it's not much surprise when you do. Doesn't make it any more fun though.

After lunch with the kookaburras on Friday we boarded the bus for the final leg up to Bryon Bay. We'd all booked into the same hostel and that night we went out for a last meal at a really nice pizza restaurant that gave us free beer. I had a pumpkin pizza. Different but very good. It was a good evening but we were all quite tired.

Byron Bay is lovely. Very chilled out and cool. Spending time wandering around the little boutique shops and then sitting on the beach watching the surfers. The temptation to join them was huge, but my hands protested and sadly I only had a couple of hours there on the Saturday before my aunt and uncle arrived from Brisbane to collect me. It was a fantastic week and I definitely hoping to surf again before I return to the UK.

Sydney

... and around.

My train ride to Sydney was pretty unremarkable, though luckily so many people got off at Broken Hill I ended up with two seats to myself so I could curl up quite happily. I woke up as we were passing through the Blue Mountains the next morning but you couldn't see all that much from the train. Just a lot of trees, and a couple of grey kangaroos. I arrived in Sydney Central station and my train was met by Harry and Jeannette - my Grandad's brother and his wife who have lived out here since the 60s. Thankfully they recognised me as I'd only seen them once before, back in '97 and I couldn't really remember them. They are both absolutely lovely and I had the most amazing week with them as they took me around Sydney and the surrounding area. They live in the Liverpool suburb, about a 40min train ride out, in a bungalow they built themselves with their dog, Jack, who's a kelpie (Australian sheep dog). We often sat out in the garden and watched the local birds - lots of brightly coloured lorrakeets that are so noisy as well as a couple of sulpher-crested cockatoos who were so friendly you could literally get them to eat out of your hand. The first night I was there we had a barbie which was delicious and a sign for all the lovely food I got to eat that week. Yep, even vegetables and salads! I have a new-found addiction to butternut pumpkin (butternut squash).

Our first trip out was to the northern beaches - up as far as Palm Beach which is where the super rich live, and is also where Home and Away is filmed. It was a lovely drive and we came back via the city and Sydney Harbour Bridge. The view over the harbour with the Opera House was just breathtaking. Definitely one of those 'oh wow, I'm really here' moments. During the week we also visited the Blue Mountains, Sydney and the southern beaches.

The Blue Mountains were incredible. The wind up there was really icy at the lookout point for the Three Sisters - three stacks of rock on the edge of the immense Jamison Valley. Words cannot describe how big this thing is, and old too. They say it was already fully formed as you see it today when the river that became the Grand Canyon was only a trickle! We had a look at the Scenic Railway: a cable car and bizarre rail line that goes over the edge of the cliffs to the bottom of the valley. There are a few walking trails down there but you have to make sure you know where you're going as it's very easy to get lost and not find your way out. Some British backpacker got lost in there for three days recently and was lucky to be found alive. We had a picnic in a park and then Jeannette and I took a walk to look at a waterfall. You could see where it meets the valley and just falls down over the ledge. There were some hikers about three quarters of the way down it messing about on the edge of a very high drop-off. I was just waiting for one of them to fall but luckily they didn't.

On the Wednesday we went into Sydney proper via the RiverCat. We dropped the car off at the Olympic Village and caught the cat (a catamaran ferry) into Circular Quay, under the Harbour Bridge and passed the Opera House. After a coffee we walked up to and around the Opera House, which was really odd to see it in real life. It's a beautiful building though and an amazing feat of architecture and engineering. We had lunch around the opposite side of Circular Quay in The Rocks area - the oldest part of Sydney. I had my first real experience of an Aussie hamburger. Absolutely massive and came with bacon, cheese, egg, salad and beetroot (my other Aussie addiction. Mmmm beetroot). We took a walk under Harbour Bridge and then caught the cat around the corner to Darling Harbour. It was gorgeous but filled with very expensive restaurants. We were in time for the 3.30pm ferry back to the Olympic Village but as it was the Easter holidays there were so many people wanting to get on it was full and the next one wasn't for an hour and a half. They hadn't thought to put on any extras. Smart people. We had a drink in a bar before managing to get on the later one and getting back around 7pm. It was a very long day!

The Friday I was there we drove down to Shellharbour where their son Russel lives with his wife and children. We drove through some of the national parks, stopping for an ice cream at a place on the cliffs and watched the hang gliders and paragliders taking off. We'd brought Jack with us and he was very very excited to get out the car and have a look around. We got down to Kiama where there's a blow hole in the cliffs - basically a where the roof of a cave has fallen in and now shoots up water when the waves hit underneath it. We had a late lunch down in the little harbour and then drove to Shellharbour beach but as Jack wasn't allowed on the beach we drove slightly up the coast to where he was allowed to have a run. We had dinner with Russ and Shauna and left soon after as the children had to go to bed. Mind you, I was so tired I was nodding off in the car on the way back also!

Saturday morning Harry and Jeannette came with me to Circular Quay and said goodbye as I caught the ferry across to Manly. There son Stewart had said he'd take me around that day and I'd crash at his before he'd drop me into the city on Sunday. He met me at Manly ferry port and we had a look around the town and got an ice cream from Cold Rock - white chocolate, cookie dough and marshmallows. Mmmm. His house, which he shares with two mates, is gorgeous. Up on the hill overlooking a beach. I've never seen so many surfboards in one house in my life! I was staying in the spare room which was basically a surfboard storage room! It might be paranoia but I did check the room for spiders. Stewart got bitten by a red back in his own bed and while one bite doesn't kill you they do make you pretty ill. Stewart's been surfing for years and he was more than happy to tell me some 'horror stories' in preparation for my surfing trip next week. The one that stuck with me most was the one about his friend who was surfing in Hawaii. The guy was on the beach watching a couple of his friends out in the water when suddenly one of them was fired about 13ft into the air and came crashing down. Great white shark had attacked him. They hit you from underneath at about 60mph and stun you. They found the guys body two days later. Great. Just what I needed to hear. At least that was in Hawaii... At least, I think it was....

Anyway we went out that night. Met a couple of his friends at the Newport Yacht club where they'd spent the day sailing and then we went to a bar near the beach for food and drinks. We left when the bar shut (no idea what time it was) and had to walk up the [very] steep hill back to the house. The next morning we were all feeling a little tender and so went for a swim in the sea to wake up. The sea was lovely but there were quite a few big waves and I got bowled under quite a few times. Dried off in the sun and then went back up to the house to get my stuff together and get ready to go. We drove into Sydney to try and find Bondi Beach, as I figured I couldn't come all this way and not see it. We passed through the infamous Kings Cross area looking all innocent in the daylight. It's the club scene of Sydney and is renowned for drug dealing and gangs, and has now been dramatised in the Aussie tv show Underbelly: The Golden Mile (which is actually quite a good series). Finally we found Bondi and went for some food as we were starving before having a walk down the beach. There were a lot of surfers out and it was interesting to see the lifeguard tower where the documentary series Bondi Rescue (another of my Aussie tv addictions) is filmed. Stewart then dropped me off at the Wake Up! hostel in the city where I was going to stay that night as my surf trip leaves from outside it early the next morning. Checked in and asked if they were going to be showing the Grand Prix anywhere in the hostel. They said they weren't, but instead there was a free gig that evening in Hyde Park so I wandered down there to check it out as guess who was playing live? The Stereophonics!!!! They were awesome! I joined about 5000 other people just sitting on the grass listening to them. I had an amazing view and they were brilliant live. Feeling very happy I wandered back to my hostel to get ready for the week ahead. Surf surf surf!

Monday 3 May 2010

Melbourne

The train to Melbourne was long and dull. Unlike the Indian Pacific and the Ghan, who despite being longer they were also overnight so you could sleep, I didn't enjoy this one at all. It left Adelaide at 7am and didn't get in to Melbourne until 5pm. I had to put my watch forward by half an hour (yes, there is a half-hour time difference between Adelaide and the East Coast. Why? How? Not a clue. Crazy country) and then catch the metro to the stop nearest my hostel. The area I was staying in was called Fitzroy and my first impressions were not favourable. The whole area looked run down and a little bit rough, with deserted shops and a lot a graffiti. But the hostel was lovely, when I finally found it that is. It's quite an old house, with a courtyard area and balconies tucked away inside. And a couple of huge fat cats lolling around the place. Very homely. The people staying there were nice, but apart from one German girl (Jana) and the English night manager, they all seemed a little distant. I joined them for breakfasts and dinners at the most amazing vegetarian restaurant about a 15min walk from the hostel. It was called "Lentils as Anything" and you ordered breakfast (I had the best sweet French toast ever! And they had something called a Sri Lankan Farmer's breakfast which was sort of like a pancake filled with curried potatos) while dinner was a buffet, often themed. And the best part? No fixed prices. You paid whatever you thought the food was worth, or however much you could afford. There was just a donation box to put money in. It was incredible. But apart from these meals and a Sunday watching free comedy in Federation Square I didn't really hang out with anyone from the hostel.

My first full day was spent finding out how to get a tram into the CBD, getting a tram into the CBD and having a look around the central part of Melbourne. It was definitely the busiest city I have been in since reaching Australia and has a very European feel about it, with lots of little lanes and cafes. It was also quite cold while I was there (less than 20 degrees some days *shock*). I actually wore jeans, but still did the Aussie thing of keep wearing my thongs. I think Melbourne considers itself the cultural centre of Australia and to be honest it does live up to its name. There always seems to be some festival going on and there's a lot of theatres, street performers and music concerts. The big event while I was there was the Melbourne Comedy Festival with literally hundreds of stand-up comedians, sketch shows, musical comedy... anything funny you could think of on display. So of course I had to go to at least one! The first one was the promisingly titled "Accidents are Prohibited on the Road" by a guy called Russell McGilton, said to be 'comic travels tales on a road less travelled'. I thought it might be appropriate. Sadly, while it had its funny moments it wasn't the best stand-up I've ever seen and some of his stories were just boring rather than funny. However my second venture to a gig was 100% better. I went to see Sarah Millican (off Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow and Live at the Apollo) and she was hilarious! Her show was called "Typical Woman" (here's a clip of it from the Melbourne Gala) and there was only about 40 people in the audience so it was very 'up close'. Everyone was practically crying with laughter the whole time and we all came out with a big grin on our faces.

On my third day in Melbourne I managed to meet up with the guys at the Melbourne Shorinji Kempo Club for a wonderful training session. It was nice to do some proper exercise again, as just walking around really doesn't count (even if I've done a lot of walking. Two of my days were spent exploring the city centre with Simon, a guy I knew it the OTC who is working over here. It was a nice surprise to find someone I knew here and we had a fun couple of days watching bizarre/depressing short films by Adam Elliot (director/writer of "Mary and Max"), taking photos of Batman (John Batman, founder of Melbourne. Yes, this really is a city founded by Batman!), eating French crepes and trying to visit the Immigration Museum on one of the two days of the year it's shut. Oops. I also met up with three of the four girls I met in Halong Bay and we had a lovely afternoon in the Dandenongs (the hills just outside the city). We took a small walk through the bush to a viewpoint to get an amazing, if hazy, look over the whole of Melbourne (it's huge!) and then stopped off in a little village for coffee.

On my final full day in Melbourne Jana and I caught the tram to St. Kilda, the 'beach resort' area of Melbourne. We stopped into a McDonalds as we both had a McFlurry craving and I got a bit of a surprise when I bumped into Sven - the Swiss guy I'd spent an afternoon walking around Singapore with. Small world! We went and sat on the beach with him and his friends from his hostel for a bit until the rest of the German girls from my hostel arrived and we went to see them. After chilling out in the sun for a bit we caught the tram back to near our hostel so we could go to the $4 pizza night at a place called Bimbos. I had a halloumi and green olive pizza which was different but really nice.

I was up at 6am the next morning to catch a tram to the train station, arriving in plenty of time to get the Overland back to Adelaide. Another insanely long and dull train ride but it was nice to get back to Sunny's Hostel (where I was in the same room and same bed again - just like coming home!) I had my first taste of Campbell's Tomato Soup that night and it was no Heinz, I can say that. Ugh, not nice.

My final two days in Adelaide were spent seeing the rest of the 'sights' that I hadn't seen already. Namely the Botanical Gardens, the Japanese (Himeji) Garden and a tour of Haigh's Chocolate Factory (that was actually pretty rubbish and they didn't give us chocolate! Well, a tiny bit but I was disappointed). I made sure I had enough snacks and food (mostly a whole heap of peanut butter sandwiches) for my final 'big' train ride of Australia: The Indian Pacific to Sydney. I said my final goodbyes to the lovely people at Sunny's and left for the train station on a really wet and rainy Friday morning. Next stop Sydney!

Tuesday 27 April 2010

Alice Springs and Uluru

The Ghan up to Alice Springs was nice but quiet. I ended up sitting next to a German guy called Frederik who comes from Detmold, Germany. It's a small world. We arrived in Alice at 3pm and it was only a 5min walk to my hostel from the train station, but it was very very hot! After checking in and chilling in the wonderful air con I ventured out to the supermarket for food and got a slight culture shock as Alice Springs probably has one of the highest populations of Aboriginal people in Australia. It was... different. I spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing by the pool in the hostel and then having a minor drama with a bug in the shower. Luckily no spiders!

The next day I'd booked myself onto a one day tour to Uluru. I'd been planning on sort of finding my own way there, but though Alice Springs is the closest town to Uluru the rock is actually 500km away! My tour was "Emu Run" and was one of the best tours I've done. Scotty and Nick were our guides and they were both incredibly knowledgeable, enthusiastic and very funny, calling us all 'possoms' and 'vegemites'. I was picked up from my hostel at 6am to be transfered to the main bus. And guess who was on it? Frederik from The Ghan! Very funny. We were given breakfast and I dozed most of the way to Uluru but when I was awake I kept my eyes peeled for roos (as there's meant to be about 40 million of them in Oz) and saw... none. None at all. And the Red Centre was green as they've had so much rain there recently! Typical; I go to one of the driest places on earth just after they've had a record-breaking amount of rainfall - 300ml since January and until then a record year had been 250ml! Ah well.

We arrived at Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park around 12pm and, after a quick toilet break at Yulara (Ayre's Rock Resort - the only place nearby to stay and so is incredibly expensive), we headed to Kata Tjuta, known in English as The Olgas. En route we were given our lunch and then went for a walk down the Windy Gorge, which was very pretty and had a stream with some tadpoles in it. From there we drove to the Cultural Centre, with a brief stop to look at some camels that were wandering around happily. Australia has the largest population of wild camels in the world - about 1 million of them. They have become a bit of a pest. But the farmers like them because they eat a plant which is a natural antibiotic (hence why they're so healthy) and then they drink from the same water as the cattle and so pass on the protection. The cattle here are very healthy and also free range! Scotty told us there were two types of cattle in the Outback: the Australian and the Scottish. It's very easy to tell the difference he said, "The Scottish cow has a pair of bagpipes between its back legs while the Australian one has a didgeridoo hanging down from its stomach"... Yes yes, very funny.

The Cultural Centre was nice to walk around as it told a lot of the Aboriginal 'dream time' (or 'creation') stories of the area, such as the one about Kuniya and Liru (python and poisonous snake) and of the Mala tribe. All of them are stories the Anangu (Aboriginals) tell to their children as they don't consider foreigners 'mature' enough to be told the true ones. From the Cultural Centre we drove to the base of Uluru and Scotty took us on the first of two short walks to see some of the areas mentioned in the dream time stories. There were areas along the trail that we could not enter or photograph because they are sacred to the Anangu. But we did see some wall paintings and a waterhole. It's one of the reasons Uluru (which means "meeting place") is so special to the Anangu - because in the desert it's one of the few places they could be almost guaranteed to find water. One the way to the last viewpoint, Scotty stopped the bus so he could grab a thorny devil (lizard) from the road and show it to us all. It was very spiky! Our final stop was for a BBQ complete with champagne while we watched the sunset at Uluru. The sun actually sets behind us so what we were watching was the colour change on the rock - from orangey red, to pink, to purple. It was beautiful and we had a perfect evening for it too. No clouds just clear sky. In fact, the whole day had been lovely: sunny and 36 degrees! Once the sun set we all piled onto the coach and set off for Alice. I didn't get back to my hostel until 12.30am but it was worth it!

I had a full day in Alice the next day and as my attempt at a lie-in failed I ended up wandering around the town. First stop was to climb Anzac Hill to have a look at the war memorial and get some good views of the countryside. It was so hot and the path I took to get up there didn't look as if many people used it. There were grasshoppers everywhere, hundreds that kept flying up at me every time I moved and I was scared a snake would jump out at me. It looked like the right area for them and I was only wearing my 'thongs' (flip flops to all us normal people). But I saw nothing and survived the walk up and back down. I found the main street in Alice after that and had a look around some of the shops. It was a little strange walking around as there were groups of Aboriginals sitting everywhere and they were a little intimidating as they'd stare at you as you walked passed. But I smiled at them and they smiled back so I never felt threatened. Just don't try and get into a conversation about them with a white Aussie... Well, some white Aussies anyway. Eventually I was too hot and tired to do much else and escaped back to my lovely air conditioned hostel to eat and pack for the train back down to Adelaide the next morning.

I had enough time the next morning to run to the supermarket and get some supplies for the train (I've learnt my lesson with train food. It may seem fairly cheap but you don't get nearly enough for a meal!) before walking to the station. I was determined not to be late this time so I arrived an hour and a half early! But most other people had the same idea so the station was pretty packed. I was next to a window this time and as the train was fairly empty I ended up with two seats to myself - and a nutter sitting behind me! His name was Joel and he was a street magician from Sydney. He said hello from somewhere behind my head and then came and sat next to me to chat and I couldn't get rid of him! I confess in the end he just got one-word answers from me and as soon as he got up I spread my stuff over the seat to prevent a return. I wasn't the only one though. I think he was definitely a few sandwiches short of a picnic and was a little distracting at night because he kept talking to himself! Seriously! Very odd. We finally arrived back in Adelaide that afternoon and when I got back to my hostel the owner gave me a free nights accommodation because of the time I stayed there before (they do a 'stay 6 nights get the 7th free' but I thought it all had to be in one go. Not this one). I was in the same room and the same bed as before and bumped into the Irish guys pretty much as soon as I got off the bus.

That evening two of the Irish guys and I went to our first Aussie Rules match at the Richmond Oval - the North Adelaide "Roosters" vs. the West Adelaide "Bloods". It was South Australian league game rather than an AFL match but even so there was about four thousand people there. The game wasn't very close (80 to 20 or something like that - the Bloods won by a huge margin which was good as we were apparently supporting them that night. According to one of the Irish guys workmates anyway.) and I couldn't figure out what was happening in the middle of the pitch but I did get my head around scoring pretty easily. During the quarter breaks everyone could go down onto the pitch and have a kick around or listen in to the team talks which was very strange but a good laugh. The next day saw me and the Kiwi guy go on a disastrous hunt for an Australian SIM card for my mobile. Having spent ages looking I finally found a really good one only to discover my phone was locked. Typical. Knew I should have checked it before I left. Never mind. That afternoon we watched the Melbourne F1 qualifiers and sat out the back with a couple of beers. I had a go at Hurling (yep, the Irish game. The guys have a couple of hurls over with them so we had a 'puck around'. Thank you Niamh for teaching me so I didn't make a complete fool out of myself!) and then we went to watch the football in a sports bar - at 2am because it was live. I'd forgotten my ID and was wearing two things forbidden on the bars dress code but the bouncer still let me in to the disbelief of the guys! When the games ended we left, mostly because the English guy that was with us was too drunk to walk properly! Getting him back to the hostel was quite amusing. As a result everyone had a nice quiet day the next day. We watched the Grand Prix and then went to an Indian restaurant in the evening which was lovely. But I got an early night because I was off on another train journey in the morning. Woo, more trains!

Adelaide

My first day in Adelaide was spent with Esther just walking around the city. Adelaide is small and green. The Central Business District (CBD) is surrounded by parks in a sort of square shape. The main shopping area of Rundell Mall had a tourist information centre where we could pick up some maps and leaflets and then went on a little walk the lady had recommended - across the bridge to the northern part of the city, passed the Adelaide Oval up to a viewing point and then back down along the river. It was really nice and chilled out, not feeling like a big city in the slightest. We decided it was too hot to go into the Adelaide Zoo today so made plans to meet up again later in the week before I headed back to the hostel to meet the locals.

My hostel was amazing. It was tiny and homely, with most of the residents having lived there at least a month if not longer. They gave us a free breakfast of fresh-made pancakes every morning!! Everyone was very friendly and my first afternoon I went down to West Beach with two Irish guys and two English guys for a swim and a kick around. Had a mild heart-attack after seeing black fins in the water but thankfully they were just dolphins. The difference? Dolphins go up-and-down while sharks just go straight (and you'll probably never see the shark until it bites you - isn't that comforting?!).

The next day was St. Patricks Day and with a strong Irish presence at the hostel it was also an interesting day! A group of us tried to get to the beach with four of us squeezed in the back of a car only to be pulled over by the police and escorted back to the hostel before we'd even driven five minutes! With that plan scuttled we ended up sitting out the back of the hostel with a couple of beers until going on to an Irish Pub that evening. The Australians do love their St. Paddy's Day here! The place was packed with people dressed in green and drinking Guinness. It was a fun evening.

On the Thursday I met up with Esther again and we went to the Zoo. They've just going two pandas in - Wang Wang and Funi - who are incredibly popular and have been made into cartoon characters. Got creeped out in the reptile house (nice to see all the lovely things that can kill you) and tried to spot the tigers but they were hiding. The monkeys were pretty funny though and there was the tiniest baby meercat ever! Talk about aw! The following day the two of us caught the tram out to Glenelg - the beach town near Adelaide. The weather was overcast but still warm, even if the breeze had a slight chill to it. We swam in the sea and snoozed on the beach - lovely and relaxing! For lunch we had a Nandos. Yes, they do have them here. Wasn't as good as the UK though but still pretty tasty. That night Transformers was on tv. It's based on a true story, y'know. Or at least, that's what we tried to tell the Kiwi guy. The guys ended up having a big night that night, proved when we woke up the next morning to find the Kiwi passed out on the sofa hugging a bottle of scotch, with no trousers on. We laughed at him. A lot.

For those of us sober/not hungover (two German girls and a couple of English guys) it was back to the beach. We cycled there as Adelaide City Council does free bike hire. They were bizarre bikes - old fashioned looking black ones with a basket on the front and to brake you had to pedal backwards. But we got down to Glenelg fine and all of us fell asleep on the beach! On the way back one of the girls got a flat tyre so we had to walk over the half the way but it wasn't too bad. Just very hot. That night everyone in the hostel (practically) went out for a pub crawl led by the Aussie guy that was staying there. It was a fun evening which ended with a few of us in 'Hungry Jacks' - basically Burger King but there was already a brand out here by that name and they refused to sell to the American company. We were in bed by 3am.

The next morning I had breakfast before being dropped off at the train station by Monty, one of the Irish lads, to catch The Ghan up to Alice Springs. Was a little late but made it! Woo, another overnight train journey begins.

Sunday 4 April 2010

Perth and the Indian Pacific to Adelaide

I touched down in Australia at 2pm after a lovely flight that had involved me watching both "The Blind Side" and "Up In The Air" while chatting to the English lady next to me. She was called Chris and had been living in Perth for the past four years and was surprised to find I was travelling by myself. She asked me how I was getting from the airport to the city, as it's quite far out, and I had to confess I had no idea! I think she felt sorry for me as she offered me a lift. Or rather, insisted on giving me a lift! We got through passport control, passed the sniffer dogs to collect our luggage. I was convinced I was going to be searched because, after answering one immigration officers questions another one sidled up to me as he'd overheard I'd been in Vietnam and was very curious. But they just waved me straight through without even x-raying my bag again. We met Chris' husband and I was dropped off outside my hostel in the city centre. They were really lovely!

The hostel I was staying at was "The Old Swan Barracks" and is basically an old army barracks, complete with Victorian-era facade. Looked quite cool and was so big! It has a kitchen. I think the emphasis on Australia is that you cook in hostels. Oh dear. I have to feed myself again. Good job there was a BBQ at the hostel that evening! Yum yum.

I went for a walk into town the next morning and bumped into a guy staying at my hostel - a South African called Alwyn who is currently in the British Army. We had a look around and then headed off to the beach for the afternoon as it was 40 degrees and I wanted a swim. Stopped off at a Woolworths - here it's a supermarket - and grabbed some sandwich-making stuff for a picknic and caught the train to Cottesloe. The beach is beautiful. White sand and the clear blue Indian Ocean. Gorgeous! We met a couple of English girls there and chatted to them before all going to get an ice cream :D Cottesloe has an art exhibition on at the moment called "Sculptures by the Sea" so there was very odd art installations everywhere that just made the beach that bit more interesting. We stayed to watch the sun set over the ocean before heading back to the hostel and spending the evening sitting outside with a group of people just chatting away.

My second full day in the land of down under I visited Fremantle (or Freo as it's known locally) because I'd heard so much about it. While it was a nice place I must confess I was a little disappointed by it, as it didn't appear to be anything special. Perhaps it was because the weather was overcast and it all looked a little gray... I stayed long enough to have a look around the markets and to get come Cold Rock ice cream (design your own basically - I went for honeycombe ice cream with added cookie dough! Mmmmm) before returning to Cottesloe for lunch and then falling asleep on the beach. Ooops. That evening was spent once again sitting outside of the hostel eating carrots and chatting to a Maori guy that played professional rugby league for a French team. The hostel is nice but area it's in is a little rough (as proved the previous night by a Scottish guy getting into a fight with a Kenyan right outside the front door - two hospitalisations and three arrests followed). As we were sitting there a rather drunk Irishman stumbled passed singing loudly and handed us all a bread roll. Random, and highly amusing.

Having only spent three days in Perth I felt it was long enough and was glad I'd booked myself on the Indian Pacific to leave that Sunday morning. Finding my way to the station didn't prove too difficult and I actually got really excited when I arrived to see the gleaming silver Indian Pacific sitting happily at the platform. I checked my backpack into the luggage compartment and then settled in to the seat that would be my 'home' for the next three days. There was a lot of leg room and luckily it reclines quite a way, but it was quite narrow so sleeping proved to be interesting. I was next to the window so I was extra happy. There was no one next to me for the first part of the journey and I got talking to a lovely English girl across the aisle from me, Esther. We had dinner that evening in the dining cart and were joined by a girl called Jo, from Scotland. The food isn't as expensive as I was expecting, but most of it is microwaved meals and small portions. We watched the sunset from the dining cart and saw lots of emus! But no kangaroos. At 10.30pm we had a couple of hours stop in Kalgoolie, a famous mining town in the bush. We had a quick walk around but at this time of night it was mostly deserted. The only places open were the bars and suffice to say, as fully clothed women, we would not really have been welcome in them! When we returned to the train the seat next to me had been filled by a lady from Kalgoolie who is completely mad, and more than a little strange. Luckily she didn't talk much that evening and I managed to curl up and sleep.

The whole of the Monday was spent on the train. Most of the morning Esther, Jo and I sat in the dining cart trying to spot kangaroos. We only saw three and were very disappointed. Jo said she wanted to see wild camels, and no sooner had she said that than some appeared out of the window. We spent the rest of the morning camel-spotting, much to the amusement of some of the other guests. We were travelling through the Nullarbor along the longest straight stretch of railway in the world. 478kms without a bend. Not even a little one! At lunchtime we stopped at a 'town' called Cook. It isn't really a town. Mostly it's desert. It has a population of five (not to mention five billion flies) and we had a walk around the school - which isn't in use - and the souviner shop which must rely solely on these twice weekly tourist trains. Very odd place. Mind you, it wasn't any odder than some of the people I met on the train! Apart from my lady from Kalgoolie (who said she emphasised with the women from the film 'Misery', yes, the one who broke the guy's ankles), there was a bikie from Melbourne who was part of the Comancheros biker gang (and if you think biker gangs are just groups of guys who happen to ride around on motorbikes think again - they're basically the criminal gangs that run mostly Melbourne and are a big issue down here!) who tried to assure me that while he'd been in Perth for 'bikie business' it had been completely legal... And a part-Scilian, part-Lebanese guy from Sydney with half a metal jaw due to a rigged boxing fight who definitely had been part of Sydney's criminal underworld. He offered me a place to stay in Sydney and was lovely, even if he did have a bit of a dodgy past. Oh dear.

We arrived in Adelaide at 7am the next morning, literally with the sunrise, and stumbled off the train to try and find our way to the hostels. Esther and I were staying quite near each other so we dropped our bags off before heading out to explore Adelaide.

Tuesday 30 March 2010

Singapore

The flight to Singapore was uneventful and I landed safely at Changi Airport at 10.30am. On landing the stewardess made the usual announcements and then came out with "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a serious announcement: drug trafficking is a illegal in Singapore and carries a mandatory death sentence"... Well that's good to know! I got through passport control ok but then got stopped at customs as my razor blade in my wash bag confused the x-ray machine (your bags get x-rayed on the way out of the airport as well as in). Took a while for them to figure out what it was but finally they let me out!

I caught the train (MRT) from Changi to Aljuied where my hostel was. The ticket system was sooo cool (well, it amused me). You pay for the ticket and the price includes a $1 deposit. The ticket is actually a card, like an Oyster card which you swipe to get through the barriers. Once you get to your destination you then put the ticket back in the ticket machine and it gives you a dollar back! Yeah I know, little things please little minds...

Got slightly lost trying to find my hostel before realising it was through an unmarked door into basically a block of flats. They'd converted one flat into a hostel so you had a proper living room and kitchen with some small bedrooms.

In my room I met a Swiss guy called Sven who had also just arrived so the two of us caught the MRT and then a bus to the infamous Changi Prison where the Japanese had kept POWs during World War II. The prison is still in use but has been modernised and the old structues are no longer there. All that's there for tourists to see is a small museum just about life in the prison and Singapore during the Japanese occupation. It was quite interesting but very small and not what I was expecting. From there we caught a bus into the city centre and found somewhere to eat. Then jumped on the tourist "hop-on, hop-off" buses for a tour of the city. It was a really good way to get an overview of Singapore, especially as I only had the afternoon there. We saw the Singapore Eye (5m bigger than the London Eye), the F1 racetrack, Little India, China Town and the old colonial buildings as well as driving down a really posh street full of expensive houses and the famous Orchard Road with all the designer shops and malls. We got off at the super-posh Raffles Hotel which looked like something out of the 1900s colonial era (which is actually was but it was so glamorous!). From there we went to the Bugis indoor market for a nosey around before grabbing a drink. After that I headed back to the hostel to finish packing and get an early night.

Singapore was very bizarre. It's definitely not an 'Asian' city, but nor is it really European or American. I'd definitely say it's unique. I couldn't make up my mind whether I liked it or not. I don't know if more time there would have helped, or if my one afternoon was actually enough. Odd.

Had a panic attack the next morning as I realised I hadn't changed the time on my phone so when I thought it was 6am it was actually 7am and I had to rush out to catch the MRT back to Changi Airport. The train felt like it took forwever and I rushed to the check-in desk only to be told it was ok, I had pleant of time. Panic over, I got through security and then remembered I hadn't found out the address of my hostel in Perth. Luckily they had free internet so I could quickly look it up before boarding my flight to Australia!!!! :D

Thailand Part 2

Part 2 of my Thai adventures:

The road to Pai has seven hundred and sixty two bends in it. And in the back of a minibus I felt every single one. I was a little queasy, though there were many people worse than me. I don't think there was a single person on the minibus that didn't feel sick and we were all relieved when we arrived in Pai - it only took three hours!

Pai is tiny. Very rural with only three main streets and it has a really laid back, 'hippie' atmosphere. We stayed at a place Tash's friend had recommended: Baan Pai Riverside. It was wonderful! To get to it we had to cross the the river on the rickitiest bamboo bridge ever. Did not feel safe but we made it and our reward was our own little hut on the river side. It was made out of bamboo on little stilts and though incredibly basic was wonderful. Feeling hungry we went to find food only to bump into Tash's enthusiastic mad/lovely friend Lucy, who took us to a cafe called 'The Good Life' which was full of wheatgrass! I had my first ever taste of kombucha (fermented tea - really nice) as well as tofu and rice. We met a Texan called Ray who wanted to show us around in his jeep but we were too tired for today. We spent that afternoon having a gentle walk around the town and then chilling out at our hut, and also at the lounge built over the river. We met Lucy that evening and fitted all of us onto her scooter so we could go to a restaurant called 'Charlie and Lek's' where I had some delicious fried rice. Thai food is really really good :D

I got up early the next morning to go on a two hour elephant trek. We fed the elephants bananas before getting aboard - via their trunk! I had no seat, just a blanket spread over their back. My elephant was called Ot and she was lovely, if a little uncomfortable and did like backing into trees. We had a trek around a 'mountain' - just a big hill really - before heading for the river. Ot seemed very keen to get in the water and even keener to get us in the water! Apart from the usual thing of spraying us with water we did 'elephant rodeo' where she basically just shook us off. The water was cold but at least the sun was out. It was so much fun but I was drenched!

I got back to Pai early that afternoon and met Tash and Texan Ray for lunch before we hopped in the back of Ray's rusty, 1960s Thai army jeep to go to a local waterfall. The top pool was packed with kids so we went to the quieter bottom one, where we met two Japanese guys with their Thai friend. The conversation was... interesting to say the least. They'd never seen a belly button piercing in real life (only 'online') and couldn't understand why we wanted a sun tan. They were really interested in our cultural differences so it was a funny talk. After the waterfall we drove through a local Tribal village before looking at the river and a temple. We ended up at the hot springs which, surprise surprise, were really hot! It was nice to relax in them, though we couldn't stay in the water too long. We had dinner at a place called 'Farmers Village' where we were served by another grumpy ladyboy(!) but the meal was worth it.

That evening after meeting a tattooist called Newton and a dog called Lola (long story - no tattoos involved!) we went to a bar which has little fire pits everywhere where you could just crash out on cushions around an open fire. It was really nice and they had fire-poi performers showing off their stuff.

I had to head back to Chiang Mai the next day to catch my overnight bus back to Bangkok so Tash and I had a lazy, food-filled morning before saying goodbye *sadness*. On the minibus back to Chiang Mai I met an aging hippie originally from California but who had lived in Thailand for the past fourteen years. It made for another interesting conversation. Once we arrived in Chiang Mai I went back to the Green Tulip House to wait for my bus. Stella was so happy to see me! She made me a banana pancake with a heart on it drawn in chocolate. So funny. I still had three slices left when the songtaew came to take me to the bus so they put them in a bag for me to take along. The overnight bus was dull and long, but livened up by the movie Avatar shown on the little tv and the fact that it felt we were traveling through some sort of war zone. There were so many police checkpoints along the route - because of all the planned political protests!

I arrived in Bangkok at 5am and walked to Khaosan Road. Nowhere was open except for a couple of clubs (complete with drunk all-nighters still playing pool). Finally found a little cafe to have some breakfast in before trying to get a room in the hotel I'd stayed at before. It was finally ready at 8am and I dumped my stuff and hurried out to book a bus to the airport for the next morning. Due to the time of my flight I had to get the 4am one. Gah! Ah well. That done, I went straight back to my hotel to sleep for quite a few hours, only getting up again in the afternoon. Did some last-minute shopping on Khaosan Road but it was so hot and sweaty I was only out a couple of hours before finding somewhere for dinner and then crawled back to bed.

Getting up the next morning wasn't too much of a challenge, but it was very odd walking down Khaosan Road at 3.30am with all my stuff while people were out partying and stumbling down the street. The bus office was closed so I sat outside and someone turned up to take me to the bus. There was an incredibly drunk Italian guy also getting on the bus. I was impressed he was still standing let alone had managed to get him and his stuff to the bus stop on time. We arrived at the airport at 4:30am and I found some breakfast after getting through all the security etc. The plane took off on time at 7am and I was off to Singapore...

Monday 29 March 2010

Thailand Part 1


I only spent a total of ten days in Thailand so I figured I could put all my adventures into two posts. Here's Part 1 (Bangkok and Chiang Mai)...

The bus to Bangkok was pretty dreadful. From Siem Reap to the Poi Pet border wasn't too bad, but the border crossing was manic! So busy. Luckily I had no issues in getting through immigration or in getting my Thai visa. I've heard so many horror stories of people going the other way, but as you don't have to pay for the Thai visa there's very little they can do to rip you off. Even so, the crossing took almost two hours due to the queues. Once we were across we were dumped at a little restaurant to wait for a minibus to take us to Bangkok - a four hour trip from where we were. It was packed. We were stuff in and as I was little I was at the back next to the bags (which looked as if they'd fall on me at any moment) and a sleeping Japanese man who kept nodding off onto my shoulder. The air con really didn't work and we had to yell at the driver to turn it up. He finally did - and then tried to turn it back down ten minutes later. Finally we arrived in Bangkok hot, sweaty and tired (and possibly ready to kill the driver).

I found a cheap hotel on Khaosan Road with some of the people off the bus and I was glad to have people around for my first introduction to the madness that was the backpacker district. Khaosan Road was just crazy! From people doing dreadlocks on the street to selling all those cheesy backpacker t-shirts to people selling all kinds of fake id to bars walking around with signs saying "Really Strong Cocktails - we never check id" (which kind of makes all the fake id's pointless...)!!! Had my first Pad Thai that evening which was lovely; tofu, egg and noodles.

I had almost a full day in Bangkok the next day as my bus to Chiang Mai (booked last minute) wasn't until 6pm. I spent it with two English girls I'd met on the bus the day before and we went to the Royal Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha (which is actually jade but shh!). It was nice, but really really ornate, all covered with gold and shiny bits so you couldn't look at it in the sunlight without it blinding you. The sun was also super-bright so that really didn't help. From there we got a tuk tuk to the Wat Pho temple, though one of the tuk tuk drivers told us it was closed as it was 'Buddha Day'. We turned up any way and surprise surprise - it was open. It was a nice temple and very interesting to see the diagrams of pressure points painted on the walls (it was and still is a massage school). Feeling very tired we tried to get a tuk tuk back to Khaosan Road which proved impossible. I really really dislike the tuk tuk drivers here. No where else in Asia have I met such a nasty, lying, unhelpful, rude group of men. Apart from the guy that tried to tell us the temple was shut (because he wanted to take us somewhere else), every time we asked a man to take us to Khaosan Road the instant response was "why you want to go there?" Well honestly, it's none of your business and no, it's not for the shopping it's because we want to go back to our hotel. We knew the price should be around 30-40 baht but were willing to pay 50b just to get back but no, they'd only agree to that price if: "one stop first, yes? factory". No. No, we don't want to go to a factory where your mates'll try and rip us off. We just want to go back to our hotel. "Fine, 150 baht". What? Seriously? We gave up and got a taxi in the end which cost 60 baht and was air conditioned and less likely to kill us in the traffic. I refused to get a tuk tuk in Bangkok after than because I was so thoroughly disgusted by them.

I caught my bus to Chiang Mai that evening and met two lovely people: an English guy called Rob and an Australian girl called Tash. When we arrived in Chaing Mai it was 6am and still dark. The three of us got a songtaew to a hostel I'd found on the internet - Green Tulip House - and were given a bed and just told we could sleep and sort everything out (money etc.) when we woke up. At 10am we went downstairs and met Stella, who runs the hostel. She is mad! Actually mad, but wonderful. So enthusiastic about everything. She turned to Rob and said "I like you, you brought beautiful women to my hotel" while at the same time giving us a huge pile of leaflets of things to do in Chiang Mai. Rob decided to hire a bike while Tash and I went for a walk around the city, mostly from temple to temple. The first two were beautiful - Wat Phan and Wat Chedi Luang. At Wat Chedi Luang we had a lovely chat with a monk just about Buddhism and his life etc. He was originally from Laos and had been in a monastery since he was nine years old. He'd joined for a week because he thought it would be cool to shave his hair and wear funny clothes, and fourteen years later he's still a monk! He was studying English at the Buddhist University at the temple and wants to be an English teacher when he stops being a monk. He told us lots of interesting stories, such as the time he'd accidentally eaten dog because it had been donated to him and you can't refuse a donation. I thought monks were vegetarians but apparently not, though there is three types of meat they cannot eat: 1) if they've heard the animal being killed; 2) if they've seen the animal being killed; 3) if they suspect the animal was killed especially for them. He also told us about the only time he'd eaten Western food. He'd been out at 5am in the morning collecting donations when he met a group of Westerners who hadn't been to bed yet and were still drunk. They took him and bought him breakfast and he said it was the best food he'd ever had. What was it? A McDonalds. Oh dear!

We talked to him for about an hour and then went for a coffee. I had an iced cappucino... yes, an iced frothed milk. I didn't ask how they managed it. After the coffee we walked to the Tha Phae Gate and out of the old city to the Wat Bupparam temple where there's lots of plastic animals outside, including a statue of Donald Duck! So random! We then went back into the old city to look for the Women's Prison (all will be explained!). After following directions from a policeman and getting lost we found a coffee shop and asked the lady in there if she knew where it was. She didn't speak English but phoned her sister and had Tash try and explain over the phone to her where we wanted to go. Forty minutes later (no joke!) understanding was reached and then her and her friend took us there on their motorbikes. It was five minutes around the corner, and the part we wanted was closed! So they took us back to our hostel. We couldn't believe how nice they'd been. Just amazing and lovely. When we got back to our hostel Stella yelled at us to run up to the roof and see the sunset (in fact, she practically chased us up there while waving a huge almost empty glass of red wine). That evening we went to the Night Market with a Welsh man called Brian for food and a look around. It got late and we decided we had to leave because we all felt we were going mad. I was convinced a lobster was still alive and had winked at me despite being pink and cooked on a BBQ, while Tash had bought an (awesome) dolphin watch that had one of those snap bands as a strap.

The next morning Tash and I had breakfast opposite the Wat Phra Sing temple and were served by a really moody ladyboy. After a banana pancake we had a look around the temple and I was confused by a meditating monk who, despite being assured was real and alive, I was still convinced was a statue. From there we walked to the Women's Prison for... a massage! Yes, that was the reason for going. It's part of the rehabilitation program of the prisoners. In their last three months they get trained up and are allowed to practice in a special facility until they're released, at which point they have a guaranteed three month job in another shop. The massage was lovely and also good for us to get as we'd signed up for a massage class for the following day, so it only seemed fair we knew what it felt like first (a good excuse for some relaxation anyway!). That evening Tash, Rob and I played jenga on the roof while watching the sunset, before heading out of the old city to the riverside for food. Found a lovely Thai curry restaurant and then walked back to our hostel via a bar with live music. The band were... good even if they did keep singing the wrong lyrics to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Kings of Leon etc. We also got very confused by the barmaids, as most of them were ladyboys but it wasn't always easy to tell which was which. Rob came up with a perfect tester: "The shorter the skirt the longer the..." (I think you can guess the last word in that :P ) After an strange old Thai man bought me a rose we made a quick escape and headed for bed.

The Thai massage class Tash and I did on the Friday was amazing! We started with some chanting, followed by meditation and then some yoga-like stretching to warm up, before spending the morning working on the legs. There was only Tash and I in the class so it was real, one-on-one teaching with us practicing on each other after being demonstrated on by the lady teaching us. Pretty intense but good. We had an hours break for lunch where Tash and I had burritos at a lovely Mexican, before continuing the afternoon's classes with the side (back), head and sitting positions. We were also given an illustrated book with all the positions in. We were back at the hostel at 4.30pm feeling tired but quite relaxed! That evening we went out with Rob and some of his friends. Found a tiny little street full of bars and didn't end up getting into bed until 5am. Ooops. Even bigger oops was Tash and mine's bus to Pai was leaving at 10am so we only had four hours sleep before attempting the infamous road to Pai...

To be continued!!!!

Wednesday 24 March 2010

ABC's + Rice

Well the last post was about all the touristy stuff I got up to in Siem Reap, while this one is about a different side to not only the city but to Cambodia in general. A couple of the photography students I met up in Halong Bay had given me contact details of a charity organisation - a school - they had visited while in Siem Reap so I decided to see if I could spend a couple of days also volunteering while I was here. I dropped the guy, Matt, an email and he got back to me saying that while I couldn't become a volunteer for their school (as they require a minimum of two weeks so as not to mess the children around) he would be more than happy to have a chat with me about their program and show me around.

I met up with him on the Sunday night and found out about the projects he is involved with. One of the main ones was the school and rice program "ABC's + Rice", which was set up by a Canadian woman called Tammy. It's quite simple: the parents of incredibly poor children sign a contract to say they will not send their child out to work and in exchange their child gets free education (in both Khmer and English) at their school and also get rice to take home on a regular basis to feed their family. Matt also teaches at another NGO school in the afternoons while Tammy teaches English in the mornings at a private school so she can earn enough money to keep the project running. Matt introduced me to Mr. Lao that evening and agreed to take me to visit the schools after a morning going around the temples.

So that's what happened! After my tiring day at the temples I visited first the school where Matt teaches in the afternoon and had some of the staff there show me around. They were particularly proud of their library, in particular the children's favourite books which were story books written in both Khmer and English. They only had about three or four of these and when I asked why I was told because they were too expensive - $1 each! From there I went to ABC's + Rice which has only been open fully a month and already has about one hundred children - fifty in the morning classes and fifty in the afternoons. At the moment the classrooms are just bamboo huts but there's a pump in the yard where they can have fresh, clean water and the children are in a safe environment. Almost as soon as I arrived (at playtime!) I was swamped by children. They were just lovely, very friendly and happy to show me their work and try out their English on me. Matt said he would be happy for me to visit again the next morning so Mr. Lao agreed to pick me up bright and early.

Before heading out to the school the next morning I visited one of the local bookshops and picked up three of the Khmer/English storybooks. They were $1 which doesn't seem like much to us but is a lot over here. I gave the books to Matt for ABC's + Rice and he said their library had been increased by 300% (yep, they'd only had one book up 'til then)! I spent the morning sitting in on the littlest kids class with them learning their vowels and numbers. A couple of girls attached themselves to me and kept trying to sit on the chair with me and show me their work. So cute! At the end of the morning they have assembly and this time the teachers turned to me and said "What would you like to do with them?"!!! Do? With fifty children? They wanted me to sing a song (ha ha, no!) so in the end I did a few minutes of star jumps and stuff. Got them very confused with trying to circle their arms different ways! I had lunch with Matt and Tammy and met the men that the two of them tutor in their lunchbreaks. After lunch Matt went to his afternoon classes while I stayed to chat to Tammy.

She is an incredible person! Having saved up for a couple of years to do a trip through Asia she lasted all of a few days on the tour before deciding to stay in Cambodia. She went home briefly to sell all her stuff - furniture, jewellery etc. - in order to move out here permently. She set up ABC's + Rice from scratch and is working almost every moment of the day to make sure it keeps running. She also runs a breakfast club for another school, for those children who are too poor to afford food. She took me for a look around the local village and then back to the school that afternoon so we could sing some songs for the children. Yes, I joined in. No, I wasn't laughed at! We also did the macarana! I spent that evening with Tammy and sat in with her on a meeting she had about the running of her NGO and about setting up a website. It was fascinating to see the behind-the-scenes as it were on just what's needed to work out here.

It was also an eye-opener into the much sadder, shady world of some of the projects out here. Especially in terms of volunteering and I'm very glad I never signed up to any of these 'pay-to-volunteer' companies. I won't go into the details but if you are thinking of doing something like volunteering make sure you sign up with a registered charity, as they are held accountable for any money they recieve so it does go to where it's meant to. A lot (not all) of gap year companies often do not pass the money they recieve from volunteers onto the organisations you volunteer at. But then again, this is Cambodia and corruption is so widespread here it shouldn't have come as much of a surprise.

Tammy offered to show me around another school she worked for the following afternoon and I agreed to meet her at her house. Found a moto driver to take me there, only we got lost! Luckily I found a nice lady who lent me her phone so I could let them know where I was and Matt met me at the market. Phew! I borrowed a bicycle off Tammy and we cycled back through the local market to the other school that she knows and arrived at break time - so complete madness. I got 'kidnapped' by a group of about five little girls who dragged me around the different classrooms and played some spinning game in the playground that left me very dizzy! I also met the loveliest twelve year old girl who sadly was only rescued two years ago from the sex trade. Looking at her it's hard to believe it but it's so sad. The children had to go back to their lessons so Tammy and I cycled back to Siem Reap for dinner.

We all met up again on the Saturday night and said our goodbyes. Tammy and Matt have said I can come back and volunteer whenever I want and Mr. Lao told me 'when' I do come back, he'll take me around and find me a paid job teaching English so I can afford to stay longer!

Sunday lunchtime was interesting. Charlie (boy), Charlie (girl) and me were sitting at one of the cafes on Pub Street when I recognised one of the street kids that came up trying to sell us stuff. His name is Phy and he attends one of the schools I visited. We got chatting and found that he works from 6am - 11pm on the weekends and, as he only takes home 25 cents from every dollar he makes he often doesn't eat. The rest of the money goes to his 'boss'. Well, we all felt exactly the same so we took him and one of his friends to a restaurant by the Old Market to buy them lunch. He ordered some chicken wings and I can honestly say I have never seen a plate cleared so thoroughly in my life. I even gave him the rest of my rice because he was absolutely starving. I wanted to feed all the kids that were hanging around but sadly I couldn't afford to :( There were quite a few I wanted to take home too but I didn't think I'd get them through customs.

I loved Siem Reap, both sides of it and though there's a lot of bad stuff happening there, there are also some really good people trying to make a difference. So just a word of warning - I am already considering raising money for ABC's + Rice when I return so I may be bugging you guys to donate/do stuff! :D

Tuesday 16 March 2010

Siem Reap


I've split my time in Siem Reap into two blogs because I saw two very different sides to the area. One was the normal, touristy stuff and the other was the charity and volunteering aspects. But first the tourist stuff!!

The hostel I was staying at cost me $1 a night for a bed, though that is a slight exaggeration. What I got was a matteress out the back on a wooden platform with a mozzie net. The locals also lived out there so I was woken every morning around 5-6am by either people leaving to get to the temples or by the locals waking up and getting on with their day, especially by the children playing around in my 'room'. There was also a lake out the back full of frogs that would hop out at me as I walked to the bathrooms each night. I thought I was going to have a heart attack the first few times but I did get used to them. There were many lovely people staying there, and a couple of nuts. One French-Iranian guy came up to me and, without an introduction, asked if I knew malaria. When I said yes, he asked "you have it?". Urm... no... He thought he had it but after sitting with him and going through the symptoms and where he'd been I told him it was very unlikely. Later on he said it wasn't malaria but dengue... His 'rash' was the fact his pores were open on his arms as it was so hot! That evening when I was in my mozzie net and him in the one next to me I hear, "hey you, you know any bedtime stories?"... I replied (grumpily as I wanted to sleep) that no I didn't... "shame, I know many beautiful ones". I can't remember exactly what I said to him but I think it was something along the lines of 'good for you, leave me alone, I'm asleep'. Bizzare.

Siem Reap isn't a large town but has two markets which are mad. I loved wandering around just looking at all the tourist rubbish on sale, but sadly everywhere I went I had people going "hey lade, buy something, lady, something?" It did get quite irriating. Especially the tuk tuks. By the end of the week I thought if I heard a guy say "lady, tuk tuk?" to me one more time I'd have hit someone! However, I did manage to pick up some Khmer so knowing how to say 'no thank you' (otay akhun) came in handy.

My first day in Siem Reap I met a girl called Jo from England so that evening we had a tuk tuk driver from the hostel take us to the temples for sunset. I wanted to be in Angkor Wat for the sunset but he insisted we walk up the hill to Phomn Bakheng instead. It was absoultely packed! People were sitting all over the temple and the sunset was nice until it hit the clouds, then it vanished. But we stayed up there for about an hour and the light went really wierd, all sort of red so quite pretty. Our tuk tuk driver seemed determined to take us around the temples the next day also, but I wasn't too happy about it as he wouldn't give us a price that evening. I got back to Siem Reap in time to meet Matt the Australian (will explain about him later) and he introduced me to a tuk tuk driver he gives English lessons to, Mr. Lao. He said he's take us around the temples for $15, which I knew was the average price, so I agreed to meet him outside our hostel at 5am(!) the next morning.

Had to be woken up by Jo at 5.15am as somehow I slept through my alarm - the only time I've ever done that! Oh dear. Had a slight hassle with the hostel's tuk tuk driver as he was still wanting to take us but we went with Mr. Lao. Arrived at the temples just before 6am and stood just inside Angkor Wat for sunrise. Despite the hundreds of people, it was still absolutely amazing. The sunrise over the towers was breath-taking and you hardly noticed anyone else. Most people disappeared for breakfast straight after sunrise anyway, so the temple itself was practically deserted. Walking around I was grabbed by an old man who tied a red bracelet onto my wrist. He was muttering and blowing over it and later I found it's meant to be a blessing and I'm to keep it on until it falls off. Angkor Wat is amazing; I cannot describe it properly in words but it is one of the most beautiful places I've been. We spent about an hour walking around it before finding Mr. Lao and going for breakfast.

We spent a total of seven hours around the temples. They were gorgeous but by the end I was feeling slightly 'templed out'. We visited: Bayon (the temple with all the heads - I got talking to some Japanese archaeologists that were working on it so very interesting), Baphuon, Terrace of the Elephants, Terrace of the Leper King, Chau Say Thevada, Thommanom, Ta Keo (so so many steps!), Ta Promh (Tomb Raider temple, the one with all the trees and almost definitely my favourite. I happily strayed off the path and went exploring but I didn't find any secret passages), Banteay Kdei and finally Pre Rup. So yes, just a few. But even after visiting all those we hadn't seen a fraction of the Angkor complex. There were lots of street kids hanging around trying to sell stuff and they are so hard to say no to. I did quite well until Banteay Kdei when a little girl just tried to give me a bracelet. I said no but she was adament I was to take it as a gift. I felt so bad I ended up buying another bracelet off her but it was only a dollar so...

Another day that week I was just sitting at the computer in the hostel fairly early in the morning when I was approached by a Dutch couple who asked if I wanted to join them on a trip to Kompong Phhluk - a village on the Tonle Sap lake. They needed four people to hire the boat so I agreed and the next thing I know I'm off on a 30km journey in a tuk tuk with the Dutch couple and an Italian girl. It was actually a really good day. Kompong Phhluk is, in the wet season, one of the 'floating villages'. In the dry season, the houses stand on stilts 10m or so above the ground. Our tuk tuk driver grew up there and his family run a small tourist restaurant where we had drinks. The road we took to the boat is normally 3m underwater and the lake itself is huge. Even in the dry season you couldn't see the other shore. It's pretty much an inland sea. We ended up sitting on a bamboo fish farm for a while just floating around, which was lovely. That evening the four of us went for dinner at the 'Raja Yoga Peace Cafe'. I looked into how much their yoga classes were but at $40 a session I decided to skip it. The food was good though!

On the Friday I met an English girl also called Charlie who was volunteering at a school so we had a walk around the markets and had a tradition Khmer massage which was just wonderful! And before anyone asks, they give you clothes to wear so it's not dodgy like some of the stories I heard about Bangkok! They also gave you free tea afterwards :D That evening we both went to a free hour-long introduction to meditation which was really good. Though at the start we wondered what we'd got ourselves into as it was taught by a really stereotypical American hippie and when he started taking about 'peace and love' Charlie and I couldn't look at each other in fear of laughing. I was actully biting my lip to stop myself giggling, but once we got into the mental exercises it was quite interesting.

Tammy (from ABC's+Rice - to be explained!) had lent me her bicycle so I thought I'd cycle to the West Baray lake for a swim on the Saturday morning. Bad idea. I almost died. It was about 40+ degrees and 70% humitiy at least. I passed the airport and stopped to see how far away I was as I'd been cycling for 40mins. I wasn't even halfway there! I confess I gave in and turned around to cycle the 40mins back, with a vague idea of finding a swimming pool. But by the time I got back to the hostel I was bright red, drenched and my legs had turned to jelly. I crashed out on my bed and woke up a good three hours later feeling shamefully unfit. Spent that afternoon drinking iced coffees (so so good - they do them with condensed milk over here and I think I'm becoming addicted) and watching Scrubs. But that evening a group of us decided we wanted to see Angkor Wat in the moonlight as it was a full moon so we cycled up there at around 6pm. Took us half an hour and when we got there police were everywhere. We'd had vague ideas of getting into Ta Phromh in the dark but the police soon put an end to those plans, basically not allowing us to get any further down the road than Angkok Wat. We tried! But they growled at us so we went and sat with the locals overlooking Angkor Wat until the police found us and told us to get lost. There wasn't even any moonlight >< Stupid clouds. We did see lightening in the distance though!

I'd thought of going to Bangkok the next morning but that evening I got an email from the boys I'd travelled through Vietnam with saying they were in Siem Reap. I'd just missed them in Saigon and Phomn Penh so we got to meet up that evening which was awesome! So nice to see them again and exchange misadventures. The next day was my last day in Siem Reap so Charlie girl and I met up with Charlie boy for lunch (yes, three Charlie's - it was confusing!) before Tom, Danny and Jimmy caught up with us. Had another lovely day hanging out with them before saying our proper goodbyes as they're heading into Laos (possibly with a chicken!) and I'm going to have left Asia before they get to Thailand.

I left Siem Reap at 6am the next morning, on a bus bound for Bangkok. But that journey's another story :D

Tuesday 23 February 2010

Phomn Penh


I arrived at the bus station in Phomn Penh at around 6pm and it was already quite dark. I'd met two English guys and three Swedish guys on the bus so we decided to find a place all together, which was a good thing because as soon as we got off the bus were practically mobbbed by guys going "tuk tuk, tuk tuk please". It was absolutely mad but we grabbed two tuk tuks (or rather the drivers grabbed us) and the one the Swedish lads had got insisted on taking them to his guest house so we just followed. Ended up at the Lakeside which is the real backpacker area of Phomn Penh and our guest house was called the 'Smile Lakeside' down a fairly dingy looking alley. It wasn't just on the lakeside, it was actually built over the lake. There was water beneath my room! The six of us sat out on the wooden deck for dinner and I was slightly put-off when they asked if I wanted my burger 'happy'. Oh yes, it was one of those places! I declined. The guest house's tuk tuk driver, Chang, drank a couple of beers with us and then passed out in a hammock which was hilarious.

I woke up insanely early the next morning so had breakfast with a lovely German lady who was also staying at Smile. She was 58 years old and stays here every time she comes to Phomn Penh. She's been travelling on and off ever since she was 18 so it was really fascinating to talk to her. The rest of the day was spent with Chang and the three Swedish guys (who's names I actually never caught and then was too embarrassed to ask as we'd been hanging around together too long!) around Phomn Penh. First we went to a shooting range because the guys wanted to fire some guns. There are lots of these rangers around run by the army so we turned up and they brought us a 'menu' of all the stuff we could use. It was insane. You could shoot anything from Colt 45.'s, AK47's, tommy guns, machine guns, RPG's, hand grenades, even a grenade launcher if you had $350 to spare. There are rumours you can buy a cow and blow it up, but thankfully that wasn't on the menu so how true it is I'm not sure. The guys opted for the AK's, but at $40 a go I was happy to just watch. Though 'happy' might be an overstatement as I was distinctly edgy the whole time. Too many weapons around for my liking! But I did get a photo of me with the AK. From there we started the proper tour where we were going to visit two of the most notorious places in Cambodia's history: the Killing Fields and the S21 Prison. We'd been warned they weren't nice but I think it was important to go and see them to understand some of this country's history. I'm glad I did it, but once is enough. I'm not sure I can put into words what these places were like but I'll try. Don't read the next paragraph if you don't want to know!

We headed out of the city to Choeung Ek (the 'Killing Fields') where thousands of people were executed under Pol Pot's communist regime between 1975-1979. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect but once I arrived through the main gates I saw a lovely Buddhist-style tower (the stupa) which I thought was really pretty, until I got closer and realised that there were hundreds of human skulls stored on the shelves staring out at me. These were the victims that had been exhumed from about ninety of the hundred and twenty mass graves in the early 1980s. But walking around you soon realise that the burials weren't limited to just the mass graves. There are bones just everywhere along with scraps of cloth - clothing remains. At one point I looked down and saw some remains just poking out of the ground. Quite disturbing and very very sad. I sort of wished I hadn't taken osteology at uni as I could have perhaps pretended they were just animal bone, but they were definitely human. It's been estimated that 1.7 million people (approximately one fifth of Cambodia's 1975 population) were either murdered, or died of malnutrition and disease under the Khmer Rouge. Anyone who was considered intelligent: doctors, lawyers, teachers, political opposition, even anyone who wore glasses (as that was a sign of cleverness apparently) and their families were imprisoned and killed. And one of the worst parts is that once they were ousted in 1979 the USA put a trade embargo on Cambodia as they would only recognise the Khmer Rouge as the official leaders of the country and gave them Cambodia's seat on the UN. How ridiculous! I have to say, between here and Saigon my opinion of the USA has gone down hill. From there it was even more depressing as we went to Tuol Sleng, also know as the S.21 Prison where the majority of the people executed at Choeung Ek were imprisoned and tortured. Again, not a very nice experience. All the cells were still there and some still had (I think) bloodstains on the floor. I can't think what else they'd be. Certainly not paint. >< There were hundreds of photographs of all the prisoners, including really young children, and they came with this statistic: of the 20,000 people known to have been held captive here only seven survived. Owch. I took some photos while walking around but I there are some I just cannot put online. I was so glad to leave to get back to the hostel for food.

All four of us needed some cheering up afterwards! Luckily Chang was quite funny. He's taken people around a lot so knew what we'd be like. I tried to chill out on the lakeside that afternoon but it was so humid. Just sitting there felt like I was melting. That evening the Swedish guys and me went to the Night Market. I got some food but I only picked at it as I wasn't particularly hungry. There were two little street kids hanging around and they were just about to be chased away by one of the stall owners so I gave them the rest of my food. Better them to have it than it to go to waste. They were so sweet! We ended up having a drink outside one of the cafes on the Riverside (the posher tourist area) and the funniest little boy selling books came to chat to us. His English was fantastic and he was really smart. He got one of the Swedish guys to buy a book off him and challenged another to a game of 'rock, paper, scissors'. If the Swedish guy won, the boy'd buy him a cake but if the boy won the guy had to buy him a cake. Well, it was the fastest game I've ever seen. The boy won in under ten seconds (best out of three) so he got a huge slice of chocolate cake. It was very funny. We watched 'Flags of our Fathers' back at the hostel later that night, which was a good movie but I was distracted by the gecko on the tv (it wanted to be in the film!) and the rat running across the walls!

I was up quite early the next morning to have a quick look around the city before I got my bus to Siem Reap. I visited the Wat Phomh temple (where there was an elephant!) and the nightmare that was Central Market. Ended up getting a motorbike taxi back to the hostel as I'd ended up walking miles! My bus was at 12.30pm and I thought I'd booked on the tourist bus... I was wrong. Ended up on the local bus and, apart from one Japanese man who used to live in Cambodia (he was an anthropologist from Kyoto University) I was the only foreigner on there! It wasn't the most comfortable of journeys - no air con, bumpy roads and it took almost seven hours. It kept stopping to drop people off and pick them up from the roadside. I arrived in Siem Reap in the dark and amazingly was not mobbed by tuk tuk drivers, possibly because I arrived on the local bus. Found one who knew where the hostel I wanted to stay at was thank goodness and, even though I had to swap tuk tuk's halfway there for some unknown reason, I did get to where I wanted to be!!

Saturday 20 February 2010

Saigon


... and the Moc Bai border crossing

I arrived in Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh City as it's meant to be known) at around 4pm on the 13th February (New Years Eve). The bus journey wasn't great although driving through the jungle was pretty awesome. I met an American girl on the bus called Katie so we chatted for a while at the lunch stop. The bus dropped us off outside their offices right in the backpacker district so it was only a very short walk to my hostel. Katie came with me but there was no room for her due to Tet. I was lucky to have booked ahead. We agreed to meet up for dinner and then I met my dorm-mates. Thank goodness the dorm has air conditioning as it's so hot and humid down here. It doesn't help our dorm is on the top floor and there's no lift... Owch! My leg muscles get a workout every time I want to get up to my room. A group of us went out for food that evening - two Americans (San Francisco and Detroit), a Canadian, a Dutch guy, two English guys and an Irish guy as well as a girl from the Netherlands. We found some food and then headed down towards the waterfront for the New Year fireworks. It was absolutely packed with hundreds if not thousands of people and motorbikes. One of the streets had been shut off for a flower display and that was as far down as we got as there was just too many people. The flowers were pretty and they'd turned off the street lights in favour of paper lanterns which were lovely. At midnight they set of the fireworks and they went on for ages! But although pretty we ended up showered in what I think must have been the gunpowder in them. Very gritty. The walk home was a nightmare as the roads were at a standstill, motorbikes packed in like a can of sardines so trying to the cross the roads was a mission.

The next morning I met Katie downstairs and four of us went for a walk around the city. We weren't too sure what would be open and most of the shops and restaurants were shut. The flower street however was packed with people all dressed up in their new clothes and taking photos of each other. Walked passed a posh hotel and they had a Chinese dragon dance going on so we snuck in and watched that in the air conditioning. Had a quick look at the Notre Dame Cathedral and the Post Office before going back to our hostel to hide from the heat. It is unbelievable. I though I was ok with hot weather but this is crazy. I think it's the humidity more than anything. That evening we had food in a little street kitchen and then went to the local bar where we sat on plastic stools in the road. We nicknamed a cockroach 'Frothy' and I got freaked out by a guy that had a little live snake through his mouth and up his nose. So so horrible. I went and stood on the other side of the street with Frothy until him and his snake was gone.

In the morning I went to the War Remnants Museum with French Julien and Swedish Linda. There were lots of American aircraft outside the building and inside the museum was very interesting if more than a little depressing. There were hundreds of photographs of the war, showing the fighting as well as the massacres and torture done by American soldiers. A lot of the photographers that took them also died in the conflict. There was an interesting but horrible exhibition on the use of a chemical called Agent Orange and its aftereffects, including a couple of preserved mutated foetus'. Really not nice. I have never been so glad not to be American in my whole life. Admittedly the museum is very biased with lots of propaganda on the brilliance of the Communists and the evils of the Americans without showing what the Viet Cong did back to them but it's still horrific. The museum shut at 12pm so we were kicked out and went back to the hostel. On the way we found a milkshake place that was really good and just what was needed as we were so hot. Got lunch from the bakery next to our hostel and retreated to our room to "chill" out. We were going to walk to the Ben Thanh market but it's still shut because of Tet. New Year here officially lasts from the 14th to the 16th but the rumours are it goes on for almost a week! Oh dear. That evening after watching Terminator 3 we went for food at a restaurant called Stella and gave in to the temptation of Western food.

Tuesday morning an Australian guy called Andy and I went to see the Revolutionary Museum and the Independence Palace. Both were interesting if a little random. The palace has been hardly touched since the 1970s so it still has all the old furniture and command post with maps in the basement. For lunch that day I had pancakes with bacon and maple syrup. Bad I know but they were needed! That afternoon Andy and I tried to find a tour for the next day to the Cu Chi tunnels. Despite all the tour agencies around it was actually harder than it seemed as a lot had put their prices up because of Tet (yeah, yeah, that old excuse!). One tried to charge us $12 for a tour that they normally run for $5. In the end we found one for $7 and signed up for it.

The tour left at 8.30am so it was a fairly early start to get breakfast first. Took us almost two hours to get to the tunnels but our guide was very interesting. He was in his 30s so he's lived under the proper Communist regime that didn't change until 1995 when the trade embargo with the USA was ended. His father had been a marine fighting for the South Vietnamese Government with the Americans. It was interesting to hear his views on the "American" war and how people think of it now. Arrived at the tunnels and watched a short, 1960s Vietnamese government propaganda film on the villagers of Cu Chi and then saw the booby traps for the dogs as well as humans. Not very nice at all. Lots of sharp spikes and that sort of thing. I fitted into one of the fox holes (very small - one larger man got stuck!) and saw the munition bunkers. Walked passed the shooting range where you could fire an AK47 but I didn't see the point. They then took us to the 'real' tunnels. They have some there that have been widened to allow tourists down them comfortably but they have kept some un-widened ones open also and those were the ones we went down. Andy went first so I followed second. It was really cramped, you had to squat or crawl to move along. And they weren't straight either, it turned and sloped down and then we came to a hole in the floor of the tunnel so we had to climb down further. It was really hot and there wasn't many lights so at some points it was pitch black. It was only 50m long but felt so much longer. Very claustrophobic but I managed not to freak out and arrived in the bunker at the other side. People used to live in these! For 20 years!!! All underground - there were hundreds of kilometers of these tunnels. It's amazing. I couldn't have done it. We were back in Saigon in time for lunch and I tried some tomato soup but it was more like tomato mush. Not good. Finally got to the Ben Thanh market and I bought some really cool chopsticks! I've got so used to using them now I figured I'd carry it on at home :D That evening we were going to go to Cholon (China Town) but it was too far away. Had a burger instead. Afterwards I booked my bus to go to Phomh Penh for the next day. Went for drinks at the local bar. It's 12.000 VD for a jug of bia hoa (local beer) which gives you four glasses! Isn't too bad either.

Had a final walk around the backpacker area with Andy the next morning before I got my bus to Phomh Penh. It was two and a half hours to the Moc Bai/Bavet border crossing and I refused to give the man on the bus my passport, insisting on getting my own visa at the border. He was saying that there would be huge queues and he'd get us the fast track visa for $25. I ignored him, but I was the only one. Arrived at the border and I went through immigration first with my bags. Walked across to the Cambodian border and I was the only person there! Straight to the visa man and filled out the form and paid... $20 :D Hee hee. Straight through passport control and then had to sit and wait on the other side for almost an hour for the rest of my bus to get through. So much for fast track! Was feeling quite smug actually. The Vietnamese lady that was sitting next to me on the bus also got through quite quickly so we sat together and she had a look at my passport. Once on the bus she insisted on feeding me fruit! She didn't speak any English so I've no idea what these things were. They were red and bell-shaped and very tasty. We arrived in Phomh Penh at 6pm absolutely exhausted. In Cambodia now! Woop!

Nha Trang and Da Lat


I cannot really say much about Nha Trang. The bus there was absolutely dreadful. Nothing like the one between Hanoi and Hue. It certainly didn't help that I was beginning to feel really ill and ended up throwing up as soon as we arrived. Were taxied to our hotel and I spend pretty much the whole day in my room. By the evening I was still no better so the lady at the front desk called a doctor for me and I had to go to a Vietnamese clinic. Not very nice but the doctor spoke good English and they were very good with me. I was very dehydrated so they stuck me on a drip - the most old-fashioned one I've ever seen! They ran some tests, including an ultrasound that was very bizarre and finally gave me some antibiotics. Heh fun times. The final verdict? Seriously bad food poisoning (something had got into my blood or something like that) >< Spent most of the next day running around sorting out insurance and my bus to Da Lat but I did make it onto the beach that afternoon for an hour or so just to relax. The boys moved hotel as our one was so far out of the centre it was ridiculous and they are staying in Nha Trang for Tet (New Year). There was no point me moving so I spent the evening with them before saying our goodbyes. My only impression of Nha Trang is as a beach resort. It's lovely, but it could be anywhere in the world. There was nothing particularly Vietnamese about it, even the food.

The next morning I caught the bus to the mountain town of Da Lat. The two British girls - Helen and Charlie - who I biked to Hoi An with were on the same bus which was a surprise! The bus broke down a couple of times and the road up the mountains was dreadful. Looks like they're trying to redo it but so far have only achieved in digging it up. We finally arrived in Da Lat to find the huge lake that's on all the photos was dried up! They dropped us off outside a fairly expensive hotel so Helen, Charlie and I grabbed our bags and walked into town. Despite warnings we wouldn't find anywhere (or at least, anywhere cheap) because of Tet we found a lovely little hotel that did us a three-person room for $9 a night. We went for lunch in the 'Peace Cafe' and met a guy on a motorbike who worked for the Da Lat EasyRiders. You get 'easyriders' everywhere but these guys are apparently the real ones. They had some very good recommendations so we agreed to do a day tour with them tomorrow. We took a walk to the market which was absolutely crazy and tried some aloe vera sweets (very odd). We walked back to the hotel via a lovely temple. We were the only ones there and just wandered about almost into the monks quarters! But they were very friendly. Tried to find food that evening and ended up at Tu Anh's restaurant, run by the craziest Vietnamese woman I've ever met. She was wonderful and so so funny. The food was also really delicious - chicken with cooked mango and rice.

The next day we met up with our EasyRider guides and jumped on the back of their bikes for a tour of the area surrounding Da Lat. Our first stop was at a gorgeous Buddhist temple, apparently the oldest pagoda in Da Lat. It had the most enormous dragon statue I've ever seen! My guide, Trung, had spent three years living in a pagoda so he gave us a Buddhist philosophy lesson! It felt like being back at school as he kept asking us questions, but it was incredibly interesting. Throughout the day he kept calling us girls the 'three princesses' and was very very flirty (which did begin to get a bit annoying). We also visited a flower farm, a coffee plantation and a rice wine making factory. They had us taste a little of the 65% proof stuff - it came out of what looked like a plastic jerry can! Our next stop was at Elephant waterfall which was amazing. Quite a difficult way down to it but was really worth it. Stood behind the water and had a nice shower :D After a look around another temple we had lunch with the guides and they ordered us some of the local foods. They also had us try some snake wine and I really wish they hadn't shown us the bottle first. It was a huge glass jar with at least three dead snakes curled up in it. I'm sure there were bits of dead snake floating in my glass so I only had the smallest sip but it was quite enough. Ew! Did not taste good at all, but at least the food was yummy. In the afternoon we went to a silk factory and an orchid farm before visiting the 'Crazy House'. It is almost impossible to describe this place in words - an Alice-in-Wonderland style tree house that could have easily belonged in Disneyland, albeit a Disneyland without health-and-safety! You could climb almost anywhere and some of the walkways were incredibly narrow, high up and with 'barriers' that only came up to mid-calf! Some of the stairs in the bedrooms were almost as bad - just high stepping stones. Mad, but it operates as a hotel so you can actually stay there in any of the ten themed rooms! We got back to the hotel at around 4pm exhausted but happy. All of the guides were lovely, very friendly, knowlegable and spoke fantastic English. Was definitely worth it. Ended back at Tu Anh's that evening as we couldn't find anywhere else and the meal was as hilarious and yummy as before. This time I tried the pineapple chicken and we tried her apple crumble. She was so proud of it and it was really good.

We left the next morning - the girls to Mui Ne and me to Saigon.