CHILE, Patagonia, Monday 1st October
It is easy, when travelling, to become a little nonchalant about your destinations after a while. You are constantly on the move and constantly being impressed. You can take it for granted. Touching down in Patagonia, however, brought home to me the true magnitude of my trip. From deserts to ice bergs. I had made it to Patagonia! I was beside myself with excitement and trundled along the long, deserted road from Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales grinning stupidly out at the greyish-brown expanse of scrubby nothingness, dotted with the occasional sheep. I felt extremely pleased with myself.
Puerto Natales is a small, boxy town with pastel corrugated tin houses. It has been forced to scrub up its act since it became the last port of call for hikers on their way to Parque National Torres del Paine. The streets are a gortex and fleece hub of trekkers, tour shops and equipment rentals. I knew I wanted to see Torres del Paine but wasn´t sure how I was supposed to go about it; so I did what I normally do and just turned up.
I checked into a cosy hostel and spent the remainder of the day quizzing the owner and other hikers re. suggested routes, stocking up on dried fruit, nuts and chocolate and generally readying myself for the off the next day. In the evening I went out for dinner with 2 nice Chileans and a Cambridge boy, ate an huge amount of lamb and went early to bed.
The following morning, after a hearty breakfast, our bus picked us up and took us off to Torres del Paine. It was a spectacular drive through the valleys, the giant, craggy Torres looming above us, past grazing herds of lamas and along breath-taking turquoise lakes of icy glacier water. This looked promising.
I had adopted 2 boys (are there no female travellers in South America?) who were doing a similar route to me and so, laden with gear, we set off in the direction of our first ´refugio´ set on the banks of Largo Pehoe. The sun was shining but the wind was brutal. Leaning into it we struggled through open grass land, along rivers and up hills, stopping every so often to refuel on chocolate. Our last couple of hours were spent traversing the hillside that overlooked the lake, which was stunning. I have never seen water that blue, almost luminous. Apparently it has something to do with the fine sediment that reflects the light in a certain way... Whatever, it is beautiful.
We arrived at the refugio late in the afternoon to find it expensive, cold and seriously lacking in hot water. It was very smart though, with big windows over looking the lake, just not quite up and running yet being so early in the season. Shared hardship united us hikers and we all snuggled around the fire, swapping stories and comparing notes, blisters and muscle ache. Quite a little comunity.
We were up early the next day and soon swish-swishing in our waterproofs through a damp, grey morning towards Largo Grey and the Glacier. It was a long day walking through woods and scrambling up and down stoney mountain sides, the peaks of which where hidden from us in thick grey cloud. Still, it was worth it. The Glacier lay there enticingly in the distance, appearing closer than it was due to sheer size. Like a great white tongue pertruding down the mountain side, its ragged edges glowing blue like the crystals we used to make in science class. We scrambled about by the waters edge, posing for photos and attempting arty shots before the long walk back to the refugio. We returned to find that there had been an uprising among the guests and we had all been bribed into silence with a free dinner. Splendid. So we all ate a hearty 3 course meal, rounded off by a much applauded chocolate flan from one of the hikers (who received almost celeb status for this generous act) and followed by stretching lessons from an Adonis-like Italian physiotherapist. Very amusing.
Up again at an early hour and our longest walk yet to refugio Las Torres, 24kms away. It was a beautiful day and we spent most of it walking alongside Largo Nordenskjold. We had sparkling blue water to our right and snow capped mountains above us to our left. In the sunshine it was hot and we ambled along in t-shirts, stopping to take photos, eat toffee and fill up our water bottles from the icy, pure mountain streams.
Exhausted we arrived at the refugio which was in better working order. We chatted to a nice couple who assured us that the Torres, our final venture and climax of our trip was beautiful and well worth the pain of getting there. It turned out that the guy is my friend´s boss in London (small world) so we gossiped about him (sorry Alan!) while waiting for dinner. Another 3 course meal and another early night.
At 5.50am I was shaken awake and we bleerily stepped into a grey, drizzally morning. We had to catch a shuttle back to town at 2.00 so we had to haul ass up Las Torres in order to make it back down on tie. Half awake and with indignant, overworked muscles screaming at us, we plodded doggedly uphill for 2 hours. It was hard workd and our energy was at a very low ebb. That is why people climb Las Torres first, they have the strength... But it was the weather that did it. Driving, slanted rain, fierce winds and no sign of Las Torres buried deeply in the clounds. The path took us along a narrow ledge over a gorge and the wind was such that I was worried that I would get blown off. Half way up we sheltered in the doorway of a closed refugio and took stock. We were cold, wet and exhausted. The weather was relentless and unchanging so we took an executive desicion to return to base where it was warm. There was tea and the liklihood of being whisked off a mountain by a gust of wind was more remote. We laboured back down to the refugio dissppointed but a little relieved. I tucked myself into a corner by the fire and thawed out. Nevermind. Next time.
Back in Puerto Natales for laundry, internet and another good dinner. We bumped into a few of our fellow hikers and had a nice evening drinking well deserved beer.
What a wonderful few days. I am much appriciative of my 2 escorts Matt and Mike, who kept me going on bribes of toffee, made sure I was heading in the right direction (thankfully) and pulled me out of bogs. I hope that the photos and endless stream of entertainment I provided made it all worhtwhile...
I am now back in Puerto Montt and awaiting a pick up that will take me back in the direction of Santiago. Goodbye Southern Chile and Patagonia, it has been an adventure.
Monday, October 01, 2007
Monday, September 24, 2007
CHILE, Santiago down to Puerto Montt, Monday 24th September
Jumping off cliffs or climbing active smoking volcanoes and sticking your head into them... I do wonder at the lemming-type impulses that overcome us sometimes. Coughing from the sulphur gasses, legs burning from over-exertion, an ice-pick in hand, I pondered this as I watched spurts of molten hot magma and hoped that whoever was responsible for monitoring the activity of Volcano Vallaricca was doing their job. More adventures in South America...
I returned to Santiago just under a week ago, via a stunning drive through the Andes, zebra-striped with melting snow and found myself in a ghost town. Ah yes, the National Holiday. There go my plans for changing travellers cheques, doing laundry and generally sorting myself before I head south. Plenty of backpackers where at a loose end so I made lots of new friends, drank lots of beer and played lots of card games.
On Thursday 20th I was scooped up by our guide Nico and swept off, along with Jen, Eric and Paul on our trip down South.
Out of Santiago and through field after field of blossoming fruit trees, stopping for a quick empanada lunch at Pomarie before arriving at Pichilemu on the coast. Jen and I went riding on the beach while the boys sipped beer. It was a beautiful afternoon but our enjoyment of the ride was hampered slightly by the oddness of our escort, a strange young boy who ogled shamelessly, muttered to himself and mooed provocatively at cows, hmmmm. We watched the sunset on the headland and had a good BBQ dinner at our nice, if cold, hostel.
Up early the following morning for cold showers (something I can´t get used to) and a long day on the bus. We stopped briefly at Santa Cruz to visit a museum displaying a collection of things from rocks, to cars and some indigenous artefacts thrown in for good measure. The museum is owned by an arms dealer who ticked off the FBI by dealing Iraq and is consequently not allowed to leave Chile. Still, he seems to have a keen appreciation for his native country and its heritage...
That night we arrived in Pucon, a small, touristy town set beside Lake Villaricca and under the disconcerting shadow of the afore mentioned volcano, named the same. Our plan was to climb the volcano the following morning so we got kitted out by bossy Frenchmen, ate dinner and went to bed early in anticipation of our 6.30am start.
Rain, however, put a dampener on that idea so we had a lie in and then visited Huerquehe National Park. Gorgeous lakes surrounded by snow capped mountains, icy waterfalls to hunt for... Just the job for a girl who loves to go hiking inappropriately attired. Trainers + snow = soggy feet but I discovered that the slipping can be controlled into a sort of skiing motion if armed with a couple of sticks. Needless to say, the cause of much amusement for the rest of the group.
On our return Nico was waiting for us with the news that the weather for tomorrow was forecasted to be beautiful and would we like to forgo the drive around the lakes for one more shot at the volcano? Well, lakes we have seen, active volcanoes we have not so the decision was not a hard one. That evening Nico took us to some hot springs where we spent a blissful couple of hours floating about in steaming hot water under the stars, sipping beer. Wonderful.
At 6.30 yesterday morning then, we were up, kitted out with waterproofs, wind-breakers, climbing boots, helmets and ice-picks and we set off on, I think, the hardest physical endeavour I have ever attempted. The sky was blue and cloudless and the volcano we´d seen glowing the night before was white with snow and smoking gently. We laboured uphill, one heavy step after another, through the deep snow, hypnotised by the boots of the person in front and the steady crunch of our ice-picks as we dug them into the mountain for support and balance, climbing gradually higher and higher until the snow became peppered with ash and the sulphur made our throats sting. It took us 6 long, tough hours. I´m not usually one to moan but I confess I began to whimper. Jen, Paul and Eric pressed cheerily onwards seeming hardly to be braking a sweat. Just as I was about to collapse in a heap and beg for mercy, we arrived at the crater, a huge gaping hole breathing smoke and belching sprays of lava. Incredible. That, and the breathtaking view, made all the pain worthwile. Delerious with happiness, and exhaustion, we posed for photos (although I was lothe to turn my back on a very obviously active volcano, meaning that I look a little nervous in most of the shots) and made our merry way back down the mountain mostly by way of sliding on our arses. Much more fun.
I don´t think a beer (drank on a chair lift) has ever tasted so good, nor a burger, neither do I think I have slept as deeply as I did last night.
This afternoon I sadly parted company with the others and am in Puerto Monnt for the night before I can catch a flight down to Patigonia. I am armed with all kinds of clothing fashioned from lama wool and so I hope I am prepared for the cold...
Jumping off cliffs or climbing active smoking volcanoes and sticking your head into them... I do wonder at the lemming-type impulses that overcome us sometimes. Coughing from the sulphur gasses, legs burning from over-exertion, an ice-pick in hand, I pondered this as I watched spurts of molten hot magma and hoped that whoever was responsible for monitoring the activity of Volcano Vallaricca was doing their job. More adventures in South America...
I returned to Santiago just under a week ago, via a stunning drive through the Andes, zebra-striped with melting snow and found myself in a ghost town. Ah yes, the National Holiday. There go my plans for changing travellers cheques, doing laundry and generally sorting myself before I head south. Plenty of backpackers where at a loose end so I made lots of new friends, drank lots of beer and played lots of card games.
On Thursday 20th I was scooped up by our guide Nico and swept off, along with Jen, Eric and Paul on our trip down South.
Out of Santiago and through field after field of blossoming fruit trees, stopping for a quick empanada lunch at Pomarie before arriving at Pichilemu on the coast. Jen and I went riding on the beach while the boys sipped beer. It was a beautiful afternoon but our enjoyment of the ride was hampered slightly by the oddness of our escort, a strange young boy who ogled shamelessly, muttered to himself and mooed provocatively at cows, hmmmm. We watched the sunset on the headland and had a good BBQ dinner at our nice, if cold, hostel.
Up early the following morning for cold showers (something I can´t get used to) and a long day on the bus. We stopped briefly at Santa Cruz to visit a museum displaying a collection of things from rocks, to cars and some indigenous artefacts thrown in for good measure. The museum is owned by an arms dealer who ticked off the FBI by dealing Iraq and is consequently not allowed to leave Chile. Still, he seems to have a keen appreciation for his native country and its heritage...
That night we arrived in Pucon, a small, touristy town set beside Lake Villaricca and under the disconcerting shadow of the afore mentioned volcano, named the same. Our plan was to climb the volcano the following morning so we got kitted out by bossy Frenchmen, ate dinner and went to bed early in anticipation of our 6.30am start.
Rain, however, put a dampener on that idea so we had a lie in and then visited Huerquehe National Park. Gorgeous lakes surrounded by snow capped mountains, icy waterfalls to hunt for... Just the job for a girl who loves to go hiking inappropriately attired. Trainers + snow = soggy feet but I discovered that the slipping can be controlled into a sort of skiing motion if armed with a couple of sticks. Needless to say, the cause of much amusement for the rest of the group.
On our return Nico was waiting for us with the news that the weather for tomorrow was forecasted to be beautiful and would we like to forgo the drive around the lakes for one more shot at the volcano? Well, lakes we have seen, active volcanoes we have not so the decision was not a hard one. That evening Nico took us to some hot springs where we spent a blissful couple of hours floating about in steaming hot water under the stars, sipping beer. Wonderful.
At 6.30 yesterday morning then, we were up, kitted out with waterproofs, wind-breakers, climbing boots, helmets and ice-picks and we set off on, I think, the hardest physical endeavour I have ever attempted. The sky was blue and cloudless and the volcano we´d seen glowing the night before was white with snow and smoking gently. We laboured uphill, one heavy step after another, through the deep snow, hypnotised by the boots of the person in front and the steady crunch of our ice-picks as we dug them into the mountain for support and balance, climbing gradually higher and higher until the snow became peppered with ash and the sulphur made our throats sting. It took us 6 long, tough hours. I´m not usually one to moan but I confess I began to whimper. Jen, Paul and Eric pressed cheerily onwards seeming hardly to be braking a sweat. Just as I was about to collapse in a heap and beg for mercy, we arrived at the crater, a huge gaping hole breathing smoke and belching sprays of lava. Incredible. That, and the breathtaking view, made all the pain worthwile. Delerious with happiness, and exhaustion, we posed for photos (although I was lothe to turn my back on a very obviously active volcano, meaning that I look a little nervous in most of the shots) and made our merry way back down the mountain mostly by way of sliding on our arses. Much more fun.
I don´t think a beer (drank on a chair lift) has ever tasted so good, nor a burger, neither do I think I have slept as deeply as I did last night.
This afternoon I sadly parted company with the others and am in Puerto Monnt for the night before I can catch a flight down to Patigonia. I am armed with all kinds of clothing fashioned from lama wool and so I hope I am prepared for the cold...
Monday, September 17, 2007
ARGENTINA, Mendoza, 17th September (See below for last week with Posy in Buenos Aires)
"Is, erm, no normale to fly with the condors"
"I´ll say", I thought as I surveyed the distant ground that was swinging to and fro beneath my dangling feet, not a normal occurrence for me at all. Two condors were sweeping above our heads riding the same thermal pockets as we were. I think another "wow" might be in order.
Paragliding over Mendoza, truly amazing. Once, that is, you have got over the initial butterflies made only more acute, I think, in the simplicity of the instruction: "Just run." Right, yes, just run off the cliff? Sure, no problem. That doesn´t in any way go against all my instinctive reactions when perched on top of a mountian at all... However, once strapped in you don´t really have much choice so you do Just Run. I was particularly lucky, we were able to get swept up in one of the air currents and climbed higher and higher where as the others glided in an elegant but swift decent. My instructor was as excited as I was and the other´s hurried to shake my hand on landing so that they might have similar luck next time.
The view, as you might imagine, was staggering. Just floating above the Andes at 2000 ft drifting in the air currents. The closest, I´d imagine to how it really feels to fly. I have literally just landed and am gabbling like a maniac. Needless to say, I´m still rather excited.
It is partially thanks to 2 slightly lost Swedish girls that adopted me on arrival to Mendoza. They had no where to stay so thought they´d check out the hostel I´d booked into. One of them mentioned wanting to Paraglide and I thought "¿Per que no?"
Now, I think it might be time for a celebratory glass of wine. Tomorrow morning I am off on the bus over the Andes back into Chile arriving in Santiago tomorrow evening. A day to sort myself out and then the journey down to Patagonia begins...
La le le la!
"Is, erm, no normale to fly with the condors"
"I´ll say", I thought as I surveyed the distant ground that was swinging to and fro beneath my dangling feet, not a normal occurrence for me at all. Two condors were sweeping above our heads riding the same thermal pockets as we were. I think another "wow" might be in order.
Paragliding over Mendoza, truly amazing. Once, that is, you have got over the initial butterflies made only more acute, I think, in the simplicity of the instruction: "Just run." Right, yes, just run off the cliff? Sure, no problem. That doesn´t in any way go against all my instinctive reactions when perched on top of a mountian at all... However, once strapped in you don´t really have much choice so you do Just Run. I was particularly lucky, we were able to get swept up in one of the air currents and climbed higher and higher where as the others glided in an elegant but swift decent. My instructor was as excited as I was and the other´s hurried to shake my hand on landing so that they might have similar luck next time.
The view, as you might imagine, was staggering. Just floating above the Andes at 2000 ft drifting in the air currents. The closest, I´d imagine to how it really feels to fly. I have literally just landed and am gabbling like a maniac. Needless to say, I´m still rather excited.
It is partially thanks to 2 slightly lost Swedish girls that adopted me on arrival to Mendoza. They had no where to stay so thought they´d check out the hostel I´d booked into. One of them mentioned wanting to Paraglide and I thought "¿Per que no?"
Now, I think it might be time for a celebratory glass of wine. Tomorrow morning I am off on the bus over the Andes back into Chile arriving in Santiago tomorrow evening. A day to sort myself out and then the journey down to Patagonia begins...
La le le la!
Saturday, September 15, 2007
ARGENTINA, Buenos Aires, 13th September
¨Ok, two forward, one sideways? Hang on, what was that she just did? Slow slow quick-quick slow? Now I´m confused. Sorry, is that your foot? Why do we seem to be going in the opposite direction to everyone else?!¨
Ah, the romance of the first tango lesson. Posy and I were quickly adopted by 2 guys as useless as us and so giggling, but with grim perseverance, we bumped our way around the room until one of the instructors, tutting with dispair, would grab one of us girls and sweep us around the floor in a flawless tango, depositing us back to our partners exhilarated but none the wiser. I rapidly came to the conclusion that men ought to learn the steps so that we just have to follow. Much easier.
Our lesson came to an end and we slunk to the side, leaving the floor to the experts, and watched in awe as the young slinky couples stepped up and did their stuff, competing with each other and trying out new steps while Posy and I speculated which of the couples actually were couples. My my, what a sexy dance!
The tango hall itself was everything I´d hoped for. High ceilings with bare rafters, walls seeped in damp and covered in pictures (Che Guevara lurking on a wall by the bar). There were wires everywhere due to the crude stage lights rigged around the dance floor that cast a pool of light, leaving the rest of the room in a sultry gloom where onlookers could lurk and lovers smooch. Perfect.
So Posy and I finally managed to leave Cafeyate and head back down to BA. We awoke on the bus as it trundled into a service station to a bleak, grey morning, the rain pattering on the window. This was a far cry from the blue skies and scorching sun of up north! Buenos Aires was doused in cloud and rain as we pulled in and we made our way through gloom to our hostel in the barrio Palermo (the young trendy one). Still, it was lovely to be back in a big city and we spent Posy´s last few days making the most of it. Tango lessons, clubbing, sipping cocktails in beautiful ´twinkly´bars and eating as much Asian food as we could. After a stint in rural Argentina we were desperate for something other than meat, cheese and bread. Never thought I say it.
As seemed fitting with the weather, we visited the Cementerio de la Recoleta where Eva Peron is buried. An amazing place, more like a little city than a grave yard with some very grand family tombs, all standing at a storey high, shadowy staircases leading into the crypts below...
We spent a happy hour or so spooking ourselves out wandering along the ´streets´. I snapped away at everything and became entranced by the fact that every grave seemed to have its own cat. Imaginations worked overtime.
The following day we visited the barrio of La Boca. Set around the docks, it is the working-class barrio of Buenos Aires and, we were warned, a little more unsavoury. La Boca made up for being a little rough around the edges by being totally gorgeous. The houses are all painted in blocks of bold primary colours and even on a grey day the place seemed sunny. There was a wonderful market and brightly painted shop fronts offering cheery souvenirs and tango shows. We ate lunch in a wonderful cosy little restaurant, the walls covered in black and white photos and dark polished wood. Everything a little scruffy but beautiful.
Too soon it was Posy´s last night. We celebrated and commiserated with a Buenos Aires clubbing experience. Club 69, transvestites, raunchy police women and break dancers, what more could 2 girls want?
And then goodbye Posy! What a wonderful 2 and a half weeks we´ve had. I was extremely sorry to see her go, I´d rather got used to having some company and a good friend to talk endlessly with on topics of varying importance over bottles of Argentinean wine. Still, onwards onwards for me too. I left BA the following evening in the direction of Mendoza.¨
¨Ok, two forward, one sideways? Hang on, what was that she just did? Slow slow quick-quick slow? Now I´m confused. Sorry, is that your foot? Why do we seem to be going in the opposite direction to everyone else?!¨
Ah, the romance of the first tango lesson. Posy and I were quickly adopted by 2 guys as useless as us and so giggling, but with grim perseverance, we bumped our way around the room until one of the instructors, tutting with dispair, would grab one of us girls and sweep us around the floor in a flawless tango, depositing us back to our partners exhilarated but none the wiser. I rapidly came to the conclusion that men ought to learn the steps so that we just have to follow. Much easier.
Our lesson came to an end and we slunk to the side, leaving the floor to the experts, and watched in awe as the young slinky couples stepped up and did their stuff, competing with each other and trying out new steps while Posy and I speculated which of the couples actually were couples. My my, what a sexy dance!
The tango hall itself was everything I´d hoped for. High ceilings with bare rafters, walls seeped in damp and covered in pictures (Che Guevara lurking on a wall by the bar). There were wires everywhere due to the crude stage lights rigged around the dance floor that cast a pool of light, leaving the rest of the room in a sultry gloom where onlookers could lurk and lovers smooch. Perfect.
So Posy and I finally managed to leave Cafeyate and head back down to BA. We awoke on the bus as it trundled into a service station to a bleak, grey morning, the rain pattering on the window. This was a far cry from the blue skies and scorching sun of up north! Buenos Aires was doused in cloud and rain as we pulled in and we made our way through gloom to our hostel in the barrio Palermo (the young trendy one). Still, it was lovely to be back in a big city and we spent Posy´s last few days making the most of it. Tango lessons, clubbing, sipping cocktails in beautiful ´twinkly´bars and eating as much Asian food as we could. After a stint in rural Argentina we were desperate for something other than meat, cheese and bread. Never thought I say it.
As seemed fitting with the weather, we visited the Cementerio de la Recoleta where Eva Peron is buried. An amazing place, more like a little city than a grave yard with some very grand family tombs, all standing at a storey high, shadowy staircases leading into the crypts below...
We spent a happy hour or so spooking ourselves out wandering along the ´streets´. I snapped away at everything and became entranced by the fact that every grave seemed to have its own cat. Imaginations worked overtime.
The following day we visited the barrio of La Boca. Set around the docks, it is the working-class barrio of Buenos Aires and, we were warned, a little more unsavoury. La Boca made up for being a little rough around the edges by being totally gorgeous. The houses are all painted in blocks of bold primary colours and even on a grey day the place seemed sunny. There was a wonderful market and brightly painted shop fronts offering cheery souvenirs and tango shows. We ate lunch in a wonderful cosy little restaurant, the walls covered in black and white photos and dark polished wood. Everything a little scruffy but beautiful.
Too soon it was Posy´s last night. We celebrated and commiserated with a Buenos Aires clubbing experience. Club 69, transvestites, raunchy police women and break dancers, what more could 2 girls want?
And then goodbye Posy! What a wonderful 2 and a half weeks we´ve had. I was extremely sorry to see her go, I´d rather got used to having some company and a good friend to talk endlessly with on topics of varying importance over bottles of Argentinean wine. Still, onwards onwards for me too. I left BA the following evening in the direction of Mendoza.¨
Saturday, September 08, 2007
ARGENTINA, Cafeyate (yes, still) Saturday 8th September
Goat dung has to be mellowed for one year before it can be put on the fields as a fertiliser. Before then it is too potent for the soil, kid goats are allowed to remain with their mummies for 45 days and the nannies are played classical music during milking in order to relax them.
It might be fair to say that Posy and I know more about goats than either of us ever deemed necessary, but it was worth it for the cheese. Whilst slurping away at surprisingly yummy (and potent) wine ice cream, we wandered off along a dirt track to a goat farm in hunt of, well, goats. We were greeted by a friendly woman who showed us round the maternity wards, nurseries and daunting-looking milking apparatus. No wonder the goats need to be soothed whilst plugged into those things! The whole farm was a-bleat with baby goats frolicking around. Very sweet, we both decided we ought to eat goat before we left. True carnivores we are. We bought far too much cheese and took it back to our balcony, opened a bottle of local wine and enjoyed another blissful sunset.
Yesterday, in a sudden spirit of activity, we set off to explore the local natural wonders. It is moments like this that adjectives desert me and I am left saying "wow" a lot. I am not a geologist and my Spanish wasn´t good enough to follow the explanations of our guide, other than what Posy was kind enough to translate for me, so I will stick to the aesthetics.
We walked through dusty valleys, waded through shallow rivers, traversed narrow, earthy peaks and climbed into gorges in a strange, rocky landscape of staggering size and colour. Bright reds, yellow and green, multicoloured stripes, the size of which made us feel like ants. Vast, earthy and deserted with only the odd cactus and shrubby trees for company. How am I doing? I took about 1000 photos so that might help, although I doubt my little camera could capture the scale. Suffice to say that it was wonderful. I was reminded of Texas and also those huge David Hockney landscapes but it was altogether different too. Our insignificance by sheer size was magnified by the age of this landscape. We are a tiny spec, both physically and with time-wise. Very humbling. An amazing afternoon.
We are still in Cafeyate at the moment. Poor Posy is feeling less than brilliant after suffering a nasty bout of food poisoning (she should have opted for grilled goat like me) and we´ve put off leaving until she feels better. We have a lovely big room and will doubtless have to down grade when we move on. Great for me though, I have been lulled into the lazy contentment that a small town, friendly (and by now familiar) locals, and all the goat´s cheese I can eat, can induce. I´m in no hurry. But we will have to head off at some point. Posy leaves me in just under a week and we are keen to get back to Buenos Aries for a few days R&R (and some serious partying) before we sadly part company.
Goat dung has to be mellowed for one year before it can be put on the fields as a fertiliser. Before then it is too potent for the soil, kid goats are allowed to remain with their mummies for 45 days and the nannies are played classical music during milking in order to relax them.
It might be fair to say that Posy and I know more about goats than either of us ever deemed necessary, but it was worth it for the cheese. Whilst slurping away at surprisingly yummy (and potent) wine ice cream, we wandered off along a dirt track to a goat farm in hunt of, well, goats. We were greeted by a friendly woman who showed us round the maternity wards, nurseries and daunting-looking milking apparatus. No wonder the goats need to be soothed whilst plugged into those things! The whole farm was a-bleat with baby goats frolicking around. Very sweet, we both decided we ought to eat goat before we left. True carnivores we are. We bought far too much cheese and took it back to our balcony, opened a bottle of local wine and enjoyed another blissful sunset.
Yesterday, in a sudden spirit of activity, we set off to explore the local natural wonders. It is moments like this that adjectives desert me and I am left saying "wow" a lot. I am not a geologist and my Spanish wasn´t good enough to follow the explanations of our guide, other than what Posy was kind enough to translate for me, so I will stick to the aesthetics.
We walked through dusty valleys, waded through shallow rivers, traversed narrow, earthy peaks and climbed into gorges in a strange, rocky landscape of staggering size and colour. Bright reds, yellow and green, multicoloured stripes, the size of which made us feel like ants. Vast, earthy and deserted with only the odd cactus and shrubby trees for company. How am I doing? I took about 1000 photos so that might help, although I doubt my little camera could capture the scale. Suffice to say that it was wonderful. I was reminded of Texas and also those huge David Hockney landscapes but it was altogether different too. Our insignificance by sheer size was magnified by the age of this landscape. We are a tiny spec, both physically and with time-wise. Very humbling. An amazing afternoon.
We are still in Cafeyate at the moment. Poor Posy is feeling less than brilliant after suffering a nasty bout of food poisoning (she should have opted for grilled goat like me) and we´ve put off leaving until she feels better. We have a lovely big room and will doubtless have to down grade when we move on. Great for me though, I have been lulled into the lazy contentment that a small town, friendly (and by now familiar) locals, and all the goat´s cheese I can eat, can induce. I´m in no hurry. But we will have to head off at some point. Posy leaves me in just under a week and we are keen to get back to Buenos Aries for a few days R&R (and some serious partying) before we sadly part company.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
ARGENTINA, The North West, Thursday 6th September (see entry below for Buenos Aires)
Destination selected we set off for our first stop: Rosario. Rossario is the second largest city in Argentina and famous for being the birth place of Che Guevara. It is a smaller version of Buenos Aires but also has the nice relaxed feel of being a student town. We arrived in time for lunch and strolled along the banks of the Rio Parana, lined with lounging students, enjoying the notably warmer temperature. We idled around a few sights in the late afternoon sunshine, through pretty plazas and down streets heaving with young people in outside bars winding down at the end of the week. As instructed by our guidebooks we ate river fish for dinner and sampled a touch of the famous night life before retiring. We had a long way to go still.
The following day we were back on a bus to Cordoba. The landscape continued to be vast and flat, its hugeness rendering the odd tree dotted about as insignificant as a matchstick in the massive brown expanses of empty space. Every now and then a farm would appear but aside from that the emptiness was eerie.
In 2006 Cordoba was named Cultural Capital of the Americas. Quite a claim. We both promptly fell in love with the place and were disappointed to discover that (all geared up for a Saturday night out in another famously fun town) everything was closing at 12 that night due to the regional elections taking place there following day. Humph.
Oh well, back to English Time then. I had grown rather used to the ´drinks at 9, dinner not before 10´ way of life. We sauntered out to see what kind of life we could find before 12 and stumbled across a beautiful little restaurant to have a delicious dinner in before settling ourselves in a lively outside bar. Were soon adopted by a group containing 3 Argentineans, 1 Swede and an English guy, all of whom equally unwilling to adhere to the suggested curfew so we went and had a mini fiesta in one of their flats.
We spent a couple of days exploring the little streets, plazas and attempted to visit their abundant and very beautiful churches only always finding them shut. We went out with the Brit and the Swede, an unlikely but very amusing duo, to an incredible steak house where the fillets came the size of our heads and cut like butter. Wow. We had a lovely evening laughing at our double-act entertainment after which Posy (not feeling so good) had an early night and I went bowling. As you do.
After another day of cafe crawling we took a obscenely luxurious night bus to Tucuman. Our plan was to head up to Cafeyate in the heart of the wine region, surrounded by dramatic, rocky landscape, perhaps with a waterfall or two...
Stupidly it had not occurred to either of us to check the time of our connecting bus from Tucuman and were told, as we tumbled off the bus at 6.30am, that the bus to Cafeyate had just left and the next was not until 2.00pm, getting in at 8.30pm. Damn.
Still, not to be discouraged, we took the opportunity for more chatting and 7 hours passed surprisingly fast.
It was the bus ride, however, that completely salvaged our spirits. After the endless stretches of impossibly straight roads it was exhilarating to suddenly be on hair-pin-bend roads that twisted up into the mountains, higher and higher between steep, scrubby hillsides, dripping with with bizarre trees dangling foliage like chandeliers, over-hanging deep ravines in which wound narrow, low rivers. Then we emerged into wide yellow-brown valleys dotted with distant farms and settlements, enclosed by barren, reddish mountains. Now this is Argentina. We both felt that we had finally left Spain behind and entered something far older. The complexions of our fellow passengers darkened and we were surrounded by more and more indigenous faces, our own fairness growing increasingly incongruous.
At 8.30pm and by now deep in the middle of what seemed to be no where we came to Cafeyate, a welcome oasis from the endless blackness on either side of the narrow road. A friendly girl from our hostel greeted us at the little bus station and led us through neat, well-lit streets to our digs and checked us into a beautiful room complete with 2 beds, onsuite and a balcony. We bot decied that it might be an idea if we came to a standstill for a day or two, having travelled for 22 hours by this point.
After a much needed sleep we awoke to bright, hot sunshine, blue skies and the sould of bustle from the street below. The weather had become steadily warmer on our jouney north and by now I was delighted to be back in linin trousers, flip flops and vest tops once again. We wandered around the main plaza for a late breakfast and set out to explore.
Once again Spanish influence was everywhere in the pretty, ordered streets and tidy little plaza, overlooked by a freshly painted church and lined with little umbrelled cafes. Souvenier shops sell alpaca gloves, scarves and ponchos, unthinkable in this heat, and Argentinean tourists flock by the bus load on day trips from Salta, streaming into Bodegas and emmerging laden with wine boxes. Posy and I hunted out a Bodega just outside of town, the oldest, and managed to get some wine tasting in between the bus loads.
In the evening we made our way, with chilled wine and goats cheese, out of town, past simple, sturdy little bungalows and children skipping on the sidewalk, up a little hill to watch the setting sun cast its pinky light on the surrounding mountains and felt extremely smug to have found ourselves somewhere so beautiful.
In the next day or two (no rush) we will head up to Salta. But in the mean time we have some hard core lounging, a little more wine sipping and some exploring to do. What lucky girls we are...
Destination selected we set off for our first stop: Rosario. Rossario is the second largest city in Argentina and famous for being the birth place of Che Guevara. It is a smaller version of Buenos Aires but also has the nice relaxed feel of being a student town. We arrived in time for lunch and strolled along the banks of the Rio Parana, lined with lounging students, enjoying the notably warmer temperature. We idled around a few sights in the late afternoon sunshine, through pretty plazas and down streets heaving with young people in outside bars winding down at the end of the week. As instructed by our guidebooks we ate river fish for dinner and sampled a touch of the famous night life before retiring. We had a long way to go still.
The following day we were back on a bus to Cordoba. The landscape continued to be vast and flat, its hugeness rendering the odd tree dotted about as insignificant as a matchstick in the massive brown expanses of empty space. Every now and then a farm would appear but aside from that the emptiness was eerie.
In 2006 Cordoba was named Cultural Capital of the Americas. Quite a claim. We both promptly fell in love with the place and were disappointed to discover that (all geared up for a Saturday night out in another famously fun town) everything was closing at 12 that night due to the regional elections taking place there following day. Humph.
Oh well, back to English Time then. I had grown rather used to the ´drinks at 9, dinner not before 10´ way of life. We sauntered out to see what kind of life we could find before 12 and stumbled across a beautiful little restaurant to have a delicious dinner in before settling ourselves in a lively outside bar. Were soon adopted by a group containing 3 Argentineans, 1 Swede and an English guy, all of whom equally unwilling to adhere to the suggested curfew so we went and had a mini fiesta in one of their flats.
We spent a couple of days exploring the little streets, plazas and attempted to visit their abundant and very beautiful churches only always finding them shut. We went out with the Brit and the Swede, an unlikely but very amusing duo, to an incredible steak house where the fillets came the size of our heads and cut like butter. Wow. We had a lovely evening laughing at our double-act entertainment after which Posy (not feeling so good) had an early night and I went bowling. As you do.
After another day of cafe crawling we took a obscenely luxurious night bus to Tucuman. Our plan was to head up to Cafeyate in the heart of the wine region, surrounded by dramatic, rocky landscape, perhaps with a waterfall or two...
Stupidly it had not occurred to either of us to check the time of our connecting bus from Tucuman and were told, as we tumbled off the bus at 6.30am, that the bus to Cafeyate had just left and the next was not until 2.00pm, getting in at 8.30pm. Damn.
Still, not to be discouraged, we took the opportunity for more chatting and 7 hours passed surprisingly fast.
It was the bus ride, however, that completely salvaged our spirits. After the endless stretches of impossibly straight roads it was exhilarating to suddenly be on hair-pin-bend roads that twisted up into the mountains, higher and higher between steep, scrubby hillsides, dripping with with bizarre trees dangling foliage like chandeliers, over-hanging deep ravines in which wound narrow, low rivers. Then we emerged into wide yellow-brown valleys dotted with distant farms and settlements, enclosed by barren, reddish mountains. Now this is Argentina. We both felt that we had finally left Spain behind and entered something far older. The complexions of our fellow passengers darkened and we were surrounded by more and more indigenous faces, our own fairness growing increasingly incongruous.
At 8.30pm and by now deep in the middle of what seemed to be no where we came to Cafeyate, a welcome oasis from the endless blackness on either side of the narrow road. A friendly girl from our hostel greeted us at the little bus station and led us through neat, well-lit streets to our digs and checked us into a beautiful room complete with 2 beds, onsuite and a balcony. We bot decied that it might be an idea if we came to a standstill for a day or two, having travelled for 22 hours by this point.
After a much needed sleep we awoke to bright, hot sunshine, blue skies and the sould of bustle from the street below. The weather had become steadily warmer on our jouney north and by now I was delighted to be back in linin trousers, flip flops and vest tops once again. We wandered around the main plaza for a late breakfast and set out to explore.
Once again Spanish influence was everywhere in the pretty, ordered streets and tidy little plaza, overlooked by a freshly painted church and lined with little umbrelled cafes. Souvenier shops sell alpaca gloves, scarves and ponchos, unthinkable in this heat, and Argentinean tourists flock by the bus load on day trips from Salta, streaming into Bodegas and emmerging laden with wine boxes. Posy and I hunted out a Bodega just outside of town, the oldest, and managed to get some wine tasting in between the bus loads.
In the evening we made our way, with chilled wine and goats cheese, out of town, past simple, sturdy little bungalows and children skipping on the sidewalk, up a little hill to watch the setting sun cast its pinky light on the surrounding mountains and felt extremely smug to have found ourselves somewhere so beautiful.
In the next day or two (no rush) we will head up to Salta. But in the mean time we have some hard core lounging, a little more wine sipping and some exploring to do. What lucky girls we are...
ARGENTINA, Buenos Aires, Thursday, 6th September
The lifting of the clouds and bright sunshine pouring through the window the following morning was enough to prise me away from my cosy TV marathon and go and explore the city that was taking on a much more attractive shape in the sunshine. I spent the day wandering around this dauntingly large city, getting my barings and investigating other Barrios which might be more appropriate for Posy and I than the rather soul-less centre in which I was staying.
The city is supposed to be the most vibrant, classy, sexy city of South America and I spent a happy day adjusting myself to the rhythm of of its streets teaming with elegantly dressed, extremely good-looking Argentineans. I walked up wide boulevards jam-packed with testosterone driven cars honking and jostling with each other, through grand plazas and through heaving pedestrianised shopping streets before arriving in San Telmo an altogether quieter corner of the city with cobbled streets, cheerfully painted houses and plenty of bars, cafes and restaurants in which I could envisage Posy and I sitting for many a happy hour. Perfect.
The following day she arrived beaming and announcing that her taxi driver looked like Antonio Banderas. Bienvenido a Argentina!
We were so happy to see one another after so long that it might come as a surprise to some of you to learn that we talked non-stop for 16 hours after that. Posy was delighted with San Telmo, the hostel, and was sufficiently impressed at the poshness of the bathrooms, of which I was particularly proud.
We set about doing some hard core catch up over a long lunch which was soon followed by a long dinner. So lovely to have her with me.
We continued in that manner for the following 3 days in Buenos Aires, strutting around in the icy winter sunshine, Posy cheerfully translating the endless appreciative whoops from our local admirers who found the sight of 2 blondes hard to ignore. We visited the Museo de las Bellas Artes, ate life changing steak in a buzzy, chaotic local Parrilla, got fussed about by endless waiters, drank delicious wine and generally had A Good Time.
By our 3rd day, however we thought we´d better go and see some more of the country before we got totally imbedded in the city and considered taking up permanent residence. The only problem was where to go, the country being so vast and Posy having such little time. Most people, we discovered, head up North East from Buenos Aires to the staggering Iguazu Falls which, at a length of 3kms and a cascade of over 70 deafening metres are promised to reduce the onlooker to ´giggling, shrieking messes´(according to the Lonley Planet). Given my apparent passion for the odd cascada and seeming willingness to go to great lengths to see them, you might think that I´d be on that bus before you could say "splash." We did have to take into consideration, however that the journey was over 20 hours both ways, which is pushing it even for me. It wouldn´t have been so bad if either of our guide books could promise us much more than a succession of uninteresting towns, landscapes of burned palm trees and toad infestations on route. Hmmmm.
So we began to look to the North West ´off the beaten track´ via buzzy little student towns, pretty, remote villages, gorgeous countryside up to the foothills of the Andes and into wine country. Ah ha... One town even promised that we could combine wine and walking. Splendid.
The lifting of the clouds and bright sunshine pouring through the window the following morning was enough to prise me away from my cosy TV marathon and go and explore the city that was taking on a much more attractive shape in the sunshine. I spent the day wandering around this dauntingly large city, getting my barings and investigating other Barrios which might be more appropriate for Posy and I than the rather soul-less centre in which I was staying.
The city is supposed to be the most vibrant, classy, sexy city of South America and I spent a happy day adjusting myself to the rhythm of of its streets teaming with elegantly dressed, extremely good-looking Argentineans. I walked up wide boulevards jam-packed with testosterone driven cars honking and jostling with each other, through grand plazas and through heaving pedestrianised shopping streets before arriving in San Telmo an altogether quieter corner of the city with cobbled streets, cheerfully painted houses and plenty of bars, cafes and restaurants in which I could envisage Posy and I sitting for many a happy hour. Perfect.
The following day she arrived beaming and announcing that her taxi driver looked like Antonio Banderas. Bienvenido a Argentina!
We were so happy to see one another after so long that it might come as a surprise to some of you to learn that we talked non-stop for 16 hours after that. Posy was delighted with San Telmo, the hostel, and was sufficiently impressed at the poshness of the bathrooms, of which I was particularly proud.
We set about doing some hard core catch up over a long lunch which was soon followed by a long dinner. So lovely to have her with me.
We continued in that manner for the following 3 days in Buenos Aires, strutting around in the icy winter sunshine, Posy cheerfully translating the endless appreciative whoops from our local admirers who found the sight of 2 blondes hard to ignore. We visited the Museo de las Bellas Artes, ate life changing steak in a buzzy, chaotic local Parrilla, got fussed about by endless waiters, drank delicious wine and generally had A Good Time.
By our 3rd day, however we thought we´d better go and see some more of the country before we got totally imbedded in the city and considered taking up permanent residence. The only problem was where to go, the country being so vast and Posy having such little time. Most people, we discovered, head up North East from Buenos Aires to the staggering Iguazu Falls which, at a length of 3kms and a cascade of over 70 deafening metres are promised to reduce the onlooker to ´giggling, shrieking messes´(according to the Lonley Planet). Given my apparent passion for the odd cascada and seeming willingness to go to great lengths to see them, you might think that I´d be on that bus before you could say "splash." We did have to take into consideration, however that the journey was over 20 hours both ways, which is pushing it even for me. It wouldn´t have been so bad if either of our guide books could promise us much more than a succession of uninteresting towns, landscapes of burned palm trees and toad infestations on route. Hmmmm.
So we began to look to the North West ´off the beaten track´ via buzzy little student towns, pretty, remote villages, gorgeous countryside up to the foothills of the Andes and into wine country. Ah ha... One town even promised that we could combine wine and walking. Splendid.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
CHILE, Santiago/Valpariso, Saturday 25th August
South America, what have a learned so far? Well all those Spanish lessons weren't for nothing, Pisco Sours are delicious, Chilean buses are very luxurious and when the Lonely Planet warns me that I might get mugged I ought to listen...
I'm not sure if being mugged by 10 year olds makes it better or worse. Obviously it doesn't do much for the old pride but 20 year olds might have made more of an impact, so to speak.
It was a miserable rainy day in Santiago so I thought I'd try out the weather in Valpariso. The town is a humming port and also generally accepted as the cultural capital of Chile. Most of its buildings are heritage listed and it came highly recommended by guide books and fellow travellers so I went to check it out.
As soon as we left the valley in which Santiago sits, the clouds lifted and sun shone. We drove along through valleys between the foothills of the Andes, past huge vineyards and arrived in Valpariso 2 hours later. Easy peasy.
Whilst sipping a cafe con leche and watching people bustling about on the docks I consulted my good friend the Lonely Planet which suggested a circular walk that took in the best sights. As some of you may know, the Lonely Planet is an indispensable guide but their maps leave much to be desired.
I huffed and puffed my way up several steep hills away from the crowds and down pretty, if scruffy, cobbled streets lined with shabby houses painted bright colours. There were some good views of the harbour, the weather was beautiful and all was well with the world. After a time though I began to feel I'd wandered a little off pist. There were no cars whistling at me any longer - yes their cars actually have a horn that wolf whistles, very clever - and not many people either. Hmmm. A young guy approached me and said in broken English
'Please, round here much steal, be careful.' Yes yes I know that's what everyone's told me, I'm not stupid, I thought, thanked him, turned a corner and bash! 3 kids hurled themselves at me. I was on a fairly steep hill and they had me over pretty easily. A grim tug of war ensued over my camera, which was strapped to me. They won leaving me sitting on the road forlornly clutching the strap that I had wrapped around my hand in the struggle. I was less than impressed, as you can imagine but my only thought really was that I still had my bag and I suspected I was in an area where the saying 'lightning never strikes the same place twice' rule did not apply. I hot-footed it back down the main road to the harbour, took a steep lift up to another gorgeous part of town and licked my wounds in a friendly cafe. I felt a little shaken and extremely foolish.
I spent the rest of the day pottering around this safer, more touristy area. Neat, cheerfully painted little houses, steep cobbled streets, I would up load some photos but, well...
So there is my wake up call I guess. Day 3, pretty impressive, well done Kate. Still, I've learned my lesson and promise to be much more careful from now on.
Mugging aside though I am having a great time here in Chile so far. Santiago is a nice town, especially the Barrio Brazil where I am staying, lots of old colonial mansions, slightly derelict but picturesquely so, friendly little cafes full of locals and some buzzy bars.
I climbed the Convent-come-Military Bastion: Cerro Santa Lucia, which winds its way in a chaotic manner past the neo-classical Terrazzo Neptune (fountains a-squirting), along crenulated archways and up steep steps cut into the rock, right up to the pinnacle on which sits a rather sombre church and any number of courting couples lurking in grottos and between rocks. The view ought to be spectacular, being the highest point in Santiago, but the smog blocked out anything that might have resembled a mountain and merely gave a view of Santiago´s uninteresting skyline. I picked my way down around the lovers and teenage pot smokers and left them to it.
Yesterday a fellow backpacker and I went to have a look at what Santiago had to offer in the way of its art collection. Housed in a very grand building are some bored-looking Spanish colonial ladies and, as promised by the Lonely Planet, some bleak landscapes and a whole load of contemporary stuff which was lost on us as we really needed to be able to read the explanations. Still, it was fun poking around and having a good guess.
I had my 1st South American steak at a fantastic local restaurant, full to bursting with gabbling chileans slurping yummy wine and eating steak that bled satifactoraly all over the plates. Huge chunks of meat! I look forward to more of that...
Two of my companions were very keen to, ahem, ´commune´ with the locals and so the rest of went along for the ride and followed pretty Chilean girls to Santiago hotspots where we danced until the early hours to latin beats.
Today a had a fantastic flight over the Andes, cloudless skys and breathtaking views of snowy peaks. And now I´m in Buenos Aries and it is cold and wet. I celebrated my arrival by finding a hostel, curling up in bed and watching Harry Potter. Not formost on the ´to do´ list for Buenos Aries I know but I am still sleep deprived due to jet lag and not keen to catch a cold just before Posy joins me.
Tomorrow I suppose I´d better go shopping for a new camera...
South America, what have a learned so far? Well all those Spanish lessons weren't for nothing, Pisco Sours are delicious, Chilean buses are very luxurious and when the Lonely Planet warns me that I might get mugged I ought to listen...
I'm not sure if being mugged by 10 year olds makes it better or worse. Obviously it doesn't do much for the old pride but 20 year olds might have made more of an impact, so to speak.
It was a miserable rainy day in Santiago so I thought I'd try out the weather in Valpariso. The town is a humming port and also generally accepted as the cultural capital of Chile. Most of its buildings are heritage listed and it came highly recommended by guide books and fellow travellers so I went to check it out.
As soon as we left the valley in which Santiago sits, the clouds lifted and sun shone. We drove along through valleys between the foothills of the Andes, past huge vineyards and arrived in Valpariso 2 hours later. Easy peasy.
Whilst sipping a cafe con leche and watching people bustling about on the docks I consulted my good friend the Lonely Planet which suggested a circular walk that took in the best sights. As some of you may know, the Lonely Planet is an indispensable guide but their maps leave much to be desired.
I huffed and puffed my way up several steep hills away from the crowds and down pretty, if scruffy, cobbled streets lined with shabby houses painted bright colours. There were some good views of the harbour, the weather was beautiful and all was well with the world. After a time though I began to feel I'd wandered a little off pist. There were no cars whistling at me any longer - yes their cars actually have a horn that wolf whistles, very clever - and not many people either. Hmmm. A young guy approached me and said in broken English
'Please, round here much steal, be careful.' Yes yes I know that's what everyone's told me, I'm not stupid, I thought, thanked him, turned a corner and bash! 3 kids hurled themselves at me. I was on a fairly steep hill and they had me over pretty easily. A grim tug of war ensued over my camera, which was strapped to me. They won leaving me sitting on the road forlornly clutching the strap that I had wrapped around my hand in the struggle. I was less than impressed, as you can imagine but my only thought really was that I still had my bag and I suspected I was in an area where the saying 'lightning never strikes the same place twice' rule did not apply. I hot-footed it back down the main road to the harbour, took a steep lift up to another gorgeous part of town and licked my wounds in a friendly cafe. I felt a little shaken and extremely foolish.
I spent the rest of the day pottering around this safer, more touristy area. Neat, cheerfully painted little houses, steep cobbled streets, I would up load some photos but, well...
So there is my wake up call I guess. Day 3, pretty impressive, well done Kate. Still, I've learned my lesson and promise to be much more careful from now on.
Mugging aside though I am having a great time here in Chile so far. Santiago is a nice town, especially the Barrio Brazil where I am staying, lots of old colonial mansions, slightly derelict but picturesquely so, friendly little cafes full of locals and some buzzy bars.
I climbed the Convent-come-Military Bastion: Cerro Santa Lucia, which winds its way in a chaotic manner past the neo-classical Terrazzo Neptune (fountains a-squirting), along crenulated archways and up steep steps cut into the rock, right up to the pinnacle on which sits a rather sombre church and any number of courting couples lurking in grottos and between rocks. The view ought to be spectacular, being the highest point in Santiago, but the smog blocked out anything that might have resembled a mountain and merely gave a view of Santiago´s uninteresting skyline. I picked my way down around the lovers and teenage pot smokers and left them to it.
Yesterday a fellow backpacker and I went to have a look at what Santiago had to offer in the way of its art collection. Housed in a very grand building are some bored-looking Spanish colonial ladies and, as promised by the Lonely Planet, some bleak landscapes and a whole load of contemporary stuff which was lost on us as we really needed to be able to read the explanations. Still, it was fun poking around and having a good guess.
I had my 1st South American steak at a fantastic local restaurant, full to bursting with gabbling chileans slurping yummy wine and eating steak that bled satifactoraly all over the plates. Huge chunks of meat! I look forward to more of that...
Two of my companions were very keen to, ahem, ´commune´ with the locals and so the rest of went along for the ride and followed pretty Chilean girls to Santiago hotspots where we danced until the early hours to latin beats.
Today a had a fantastic flight over the Andes, cloudless skys and breathtaking views of snowy peaks. And now I´m in Buenos Aries and it is cold and wet. I celebrated my arrival by finding a hostel, curling up in bed and watching Harry Potter. Not formost on the ´to do´ list for Buenos Aries I know but I am still sleep deprived due to jet lag and not keen to catch a cold just before Posy joins me.
Tomorrow I suppose I´d better go shopping for a new camera...
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
CHILE, Santiago, Wednesday 22nd August
So goodbye Australia and Buenos Dias LAN Air. Well, eventually. I was delayed for 3 hours. Between avoiding the advances of a persistent Philippino Film maker I found myself a quite corner and began to ponder on past and future adventures. 6 months into my travels, eek! That is worth pause for reflection I think...
Ok so camel riding in the Rajasthan desert, the Taj Mahal, I've been painted bright pink with 'playing Holi', stayed with Burmese hill tribes in the north of Thailand, boated, floated and swam down the Mekong, taught Cambodian children who to read 'The Flopsy Bunnies', sped around the highlands of Vietnam on the back of a honda and drunk rice wine with a village chief, I've danced the sun up on a beach covered in glow paint, seen an opera at the Sydney Opera House, chased a dingo (kinda) and cuddled a koala... It is really hard to imagine how I can top all that.
Well, finally we took off and landed a few hour later in Auckland where I wandered around inspecting numerous sheep-themed merchandise before re-boarding the plane for my longest flight yet. As if to set the scene my neighbour introduced himself and announced that he was a part of a dancing troupe touring the world performing, you've guessed it, the Argentinean Tango. Very appropriate. I was bourne into Santiago discussing Tango lessons in Buenos Aires and writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The scene for my South American adventure has been rather well set...
Once we landed, bemused and travel weary, we were bustled about taken to cash points and sorted into minivans where a cheerful driver handed out sweets and drove us to through the industrial clutter of the outer burbs, river lined with piles of rubbish, snow capped mountains appearing faintly through the smog on either side, into Santiago. We passed through narrow cobbled streets lined with Spanish colonial mansions, pizzas with parks and playgrounds and I began to feel that I was very much back in Europe. Much closer to home, in one way and in another even further removed. I find myself in a country where English is not the language of choice and I am a little uncertain of how and where to start. Having said that, when sitting in a little cafe drinking cafe con leche served to me by a moustached and smiling waiter, bouncy latino pop music thumping in the background I can't help feeling pleased to be here. So far, me gustsa.
So goodbye Australia and Buenos Dias LAN Air. Well, eventually. I was delayed for 3 hours. Between avoiding the advances of a persistent Philippino Film maker I found myself a quite corner and began to ponder on past and future adventures. 6 months into my travels, eek! That is worth pause for reflection I think...
Ok so camel riding in the Rajasthan desert, the Taj Mahal, I've been painted bright pink with 'playing Holi', stayed with Burmese hill tribes in the north of Thailand, boated, floated and swam down the Mekong, taught Cambodian children who to read 'The Flopsy Bunnies', sped around the highlands of Vietnam on the back of a honda and drunk rice wine with a village chief, I've danced the sun up on a beach covered in glow paint, seen an opera at the Sydney Opera House, chased a dingo (kinda) and cuddled a koala... It is really hard to imagine how I can top all that.
Well, finally we took off and landed a few hour later in Auckland where I wandered around inspecting numerous sheep-themed merchandise before re-boarding the plane for my longest flight yet. As if to set the scene my neighbour introduced himself and announced that he was a part of a dancing troupe touring the world performing, you've guessed it, the Argentinean Tango. Very appropriate. I was bourne into Santiago discussing Tango lessons in Buenos Aires and writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The scene for my South American adventure has been rather well set...
Once we landed, bemused and travel weary, we were bustled about taken to cash points and sorted into minivans where a cheerful driver handed out sweets and drove us to through the industrial clutter of the outer burbs, river lined with piles of rubbish, snow capped mountains appearing faintly through the smog on either side, into Santiago. We passed through narrow cobbled streets lined with Spanish colonial mansions, pizzas with parks and playgrounds and I began to feel that I was very much back in Europe. Much closer to home, in one way and in another even further removed. I find myself in a country where English is not the language of choice and I am a little uncertain of how and where to start. Having said that, when sitting in a little cafe drinking cafe con leche served to me by a moustached and smiling waiter, bouncy latino pop music thumping in the background I can't help feeling pleased to be here. So far, me gustsa.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
AUSTRALIA, Melbourne (see entry below for Sydney and the Blue Mountains)
If, like Charley, you are searching for some confirmation that you are in Australia and haven't, after 2 months in Asia, done a full circle and come back to England, Melbourne might not be the place to come. Especially in winter.
When I was suffering from similar concerns in Sydney, I was able to round a corner and come face to face with the Harbour or Opera House, which was reassuring. In Melbourne it is harder. There are no 'postcard' landmarks to remind you where you are. As you pull your coat round you, glance up at the grey sky and dive into a welcoming looking pub, complete with roaring fire, it can be tricky to convince yourself that you are anywhere other than England.
I do not mean this as a criticism by any means, merely an observation. I think Melbourne is a great city. It is not as picturesque as Sydney and does not have any 'show-stoppers' like the Opera House but it is a pleasing city to explore. It offers plenty of little bohemian nooks, crammed full of funky cafes, bars, vintage clothes shops and galleries, all pleasantly casual and some nicely scruffy. I can sit on a slightly fraying sofa in a cosy cafe, walls adorned with flyers for music gigs, fringe theater and alternative therapies, drinking good coffee and eating delicious food without parting with very much money. I can sit for hours over the same cup of tea without anyone batting an eyelid.
Generally the whole place feels much more laid back, just not so different from London. It even has its Arts Centre spread along South Bank...
In order to pinch myself, and reassert the ozziness of my location, I booked myself onto a 'Melbourne must' a trip along the Great Ocean Road.
At 7.30am I was scooped into a minibus by a very cheerful guide called Chris who enthusiastically welcomed us all abored and chatted merrily as he bore us West out of Melbourne.
We had a fantastic day, which seemed as long as 3 by the time I was deposited back at my hostel at 9.00 that night. Our first stop was morning coffee at Bells Beach, a world famous surfing mecca, supposedly featured in the film 'Point Break'(although actually filmed elsewhere). With the wind ripping around us we hugged our tea and marvelled at the surfers, tiny black specs amongst the swells being flipped about like bath toys, and wondered at their sanity.
A quick stop at the lighthouse where children's TV show 'Round the Twist' was filmed (some of you may remember it) and off onto the Great Ocean Road. It is a spectacular drive which winds its hair-pin way along the coast, up along cliffs and aside beautiful unspoiled bays, lined with steep green hillsides. Stunning.
We stopped for lunch at a little caravan park cafe where Chris said he'd eat his glasses if we didn't see any wild koalas. He was right. Up in the trees all around the site where little grey lumps of fur, mostly fast asleep. I was rather disappointed to have my rumour that they are constantly drunk on eucalyptus and sleepin it off (occasionally falling gout of a tree and killing someone as a result of their stupor) quashed. The boring fact is that the leaves they eat are so indigestible that they are forced to sleep for 20 hours a day in order for their bodies to break down the fibres of their diet. So to catch one awake is pretty lucky, to catch up away with a baby even luckier. We were lucky on both counts. Awwww
After lunch we drove inland and up into the rain forest where Chris took us for a walk through a lattice-work of prehistoric tree ferns, criss-crossing above our heads as we scuttled along the forest floor quietly fearful we may disturb a nearby snoozing TRex, or at least I was.
We all dozed for an hour on the bus while the tireless Chris drove, awakening us by giving us a history of The 12 Apostles.
The 12 Apostles are large rock stacks in the ocean. There were 12 but since then 3 have collapsed. They had originally been named 'The Sow and her Piglets' but the tourist board did not deem this name suitable for a popular tourist attraction and so they remaned it The 12 Apostles. The name has no religious reasons as such and, considering the unstable nature of the rocks, to call them The 12 Apostles leaves them potentially liable to claims of false advertising. I think the 1st name was better, if rather unromantic.
Anyway, none of it matter really because they were just a dramatically beautiful as all the guide books promised. The early evening light was just behind them, the turbulent water thundered beneath them and the effect was satisfactory to say the least.
We had one last stop to a shipwreck cove, the coastline around that stretch is extremely perilous and not one to sail around on a dark night... and then it was the 2 hour drive back to Melbourne. Few. Chris put a film on for us and chirpily dropped us off at our various hostels where we all came to rest exhausted.
The rest of my time in Melbourne past all too quickly hangin' out with Charley and before I knew it I was back on the 12 hour bus to Sydney where I received yet another lovely warm welcome from Roger and Co. My room waiting for me again. It will be hard to leave but I am looking forward to it too.
Next stop: South America!
If, like Charley, you are searching for some confirmation that you are in Australia and haven't, after 2 months in Asia, done a full circle and come back to England, Melbourne might not be the place to come. Especially in winter.
When I was suffering from similar concerns in Sydney, I was able to round a corner and come face to face with the Harbour or Opera House, which was reassuring. In Melbourne it is harder. There are no 'postcard' landmarks to remind you where you are. As you pull your coat round you, glance up at the grey sky and dive into a welcoming looking pub, complete with roaring fire, it can be tricky to convince yourself that you are anywhere other than England.
I do not mean this as a criticism by any means, merely an observation. I think Melbourne is a great city. It is not as picturesque as Sydney and does not have any 'show-stoppers' like the Opera House but it is a pleasing city to explore. It offers plenty of little bohemian nooks, crammed full of funky cafes, bars, vintage clothes shops and galleries, all pleasantly casual and some nicely scruffy. I can sit on a slightly fraying sofa in a cosy cafe, walls adorned with flyers for music gigs, fringe theater and alternative therapies, drinking good coffee and eating delicious food without parting with very much money. I can sit for hours over the same cup of tea without anyone batting an eyelid.
Generally the whole place feels much more laid back, just not so different from London. It even has its Arts Centre spread along South Bank...
In order to pinch myself, and reassert the ozziness of my location, I booked myself onto a 'Melbourne must' a trip along the Great Ocean Road.
At 7.30am I was scooped into a minibus by a very cheerful guide called Chris who enthusiastically welcomed us all abored and chatted merrily as he bore us West out of Melbourne.
We had a fantastic day, which seemed as long as 3 by the time I was deposited back at my hostel at 9.00 that night. Our first stop was morning coffee at Bells Beach, a world famous surfing mecca, supposedly featured in the film 'Point Break'(although actually filmed elsewhere). With the wind ripping around us we hugged our tea and marvelled at the surfers, tiny black specs amongst the swells being flipped about like bath toys, and wondered at their sanity.
A quick stop at the lighthouse where children's TV show 'Round the Twist' was filmed (some of you may remember it) and off onto the Great Ocean Road. It is a spectacular drive which winds its hair-pin way along the coast, up along cliffs and aside beautiful unspoiled bays, lined with steep green hillsides. Stunning.
We stopped for lunch at a little caravan park cafe where Chris said he'd eat his glasses if we didn't see any wild koalas. He was right. Up in the trees all around the site where little grey lumps of fur, mostly fast asleep. I was rather disappointed to have my rumour that they are constantly drunk on eucalyptus and sleepin it off (occasionally falling gout of a tree and killing someone as a result of their stupor) quashed. The boring fact is that the leaves they eat are so indigestible that they are forced to sleep for 20 hours a day in order for their bodies to break down the fibres of their diet. So to catch one awake is pretty lucky, to catch up away with a baby even luckier. We were lucky on both counts. Awwww
After lunch we drove inland and up into the rain forest where Chris took us for a walk through a lattice-work of prehistoric tree ferns, criss-crossing above our heads as we scuttled along the forest floor quietly fearful we may disturb a nearby snoozing TRex, or at least I was.
We all dozed for an hour on the bus while the tireless Chris drove, awakening us by giving us a history of The 12 Apostles.
The 12 Apostles are large rock stacks in the ocean. There were 12 but since then 3 have collapsed. They had originally been named 'The Sow and her Piglets' but the tourist board did not deem this name suitable for a popular tourist attraction and so they remaned it The 12 Apostles. The name has no religious reasons as such and, considering the unstable nature of the rocks, to call them The 12 Apostles leaves them potentially liable to claims of false advertising. I think the 1st name was better, if rather unromantic.
Anyway, none of it matter really because they were just a dramatically beautiful as all the guide books promised. The early evening light was just behind them, the turbulent water thundered beneath them and the effect was satisfactory to say the least.
We had one last stop to a shipwreck cove, the coastline around that stretch is extremely perilous and not one to sail around on a dark night... and then it was the 2 hour drive back to Melbourne. Few. Chris put a film on for us and chirpily dropped us off at our various hostels where we all came to rest exhausted.
The rest of my time in Melbourne past all too quickly hangin' out with Charley and before I knew it I was back on the 12 hour bus to Sydney where I received yet another lovely warm welcome from Roger and Co. My room waiting for me again. It will be hard to leave but I am looking forward to it too.
Next stop: South America!
Sunday, July 29, 2007
AUSTRALIA, Sydney (written 31st July)
How hard it is to draw myself away from the luxuries of family living once again. Returning to Sydney was like coming home. Another warm welcome from Roger, Joanne, Sam, Alexi and James. They have made me feel so much a part of the family here, my little room was all ready for me and plans were quickly put in place for showing me the famouse Blue Mountains before I galloped off to Melbourne.
This morning I was up bright and early (remarkable considering lack of sleep after the inevitable Saturday night) and gliding along in Roger's cosy car out of Sydney and up into the Mountains. "They are not looking very blue today," lamented Joanne but they looked pretty damn blue to me and quite breathtaking. View points are dotted along the cliffs, jutting out on pinicals over huge valleys and canyons coated in thick bushland and they do indeed have a bluish tinge, a result of the rising vapours from the eucalyptus. The scale is what had me clutching to the railings of my overhang and breathing "wow". The space is truly emmense, over 1,000,000 hectares of sandstone peaks and deep-cut valleys, a proportion of it still unexplored. It makes you feel painfully small. Anyway, we 'did it' in a very civilised way for so cold a day, and with so short a time availble. We drove to the pretty little town of Leura for a delicious brunch and surveyed the Three Sisters from what Joanne assured me was the best vantage point, tourist-free. She was right, the town on the other side was a chaos of tour busses and jostling bodies all struggling to grab a peak. We sailed past happily to more remote cliff-tops and photo opps.
On our way back to Sydney we stopped at the home of late Norman Lindsay an artist, engraver and illustrator of the children's book series "The Magic Pudding" (familier to those growing up in Australia in the middle part of the last century). Along with his children's illustrations he spent most of his time paying a questionable tribute to the female form. Based New South Wales he created quite a storm with his daring potraials of wicked-looking nymphs and strumpets with spikey, deamon-like features, limbs akimbo. His large garden was full of buxom, betailed pan-like figures lurking in the undergrowth and frolicing around his huge Roman aphitheatre-style swimming pool. A workaholic and doubtless impossible man, his sucess could mainly be attributed to by his industrious second wife who got him organised and sold his work. In a moment of wavering wifly loyalty, she scarpered to America with a trunk load of his best pieces. On the train the box in which there were stowed caught fire. When faced with the singed images, the train porters where so horrifed that such 'filth' could be transported into their country that the merely fed the flames leaving nothing but a pile of ashes and a rather sheepish Mrs Lindsay who returned to Australia and broke the news to her husband.
"Nevermind," he said "I'll just have to start again." This, I think, goes to show a degree of patience that is bordering on saintly and must make up for his tricky artistic temprement. He painted well into his 80s.
So another wonderful week in Sydney...
And now off to Melbourne to lounge in arty cafes and catch up with Adam and Charley.
How hard it is to draw myself away from the luxuries of family living once again. Returning to Sydney was like coming home. Another warm welcome from Roger, Joanne, Sam, Alexi and James. They have made me feel so much a part of the family here, my little room was all ready for me and plans were quickly put in place for showing me the famouse Blue Mountains before I galloped off to Melbourne.
This morning I was up bright and early (remarkable considering lack of sleep after the inevitable Saturday night) and gliding along in Roger's cosy car out of Sydney and up into the Mountains. "They are not looking very blue today," lamented Joanne but they looked pretty damn blue to me and quite breathtaking. View points are dotted along the cliffs, jutting out on pinicals over huge valleys and canyons coated in thick bushland and they do indeed have a bluish tinge, a result of the rising vapours from the eucalyptus. The scale is what had me clutching to the railings of my overhang and breathing "wow". The space is truly emmense, over 1,000,000 hectares of sandstone peaks and deep-cut valleys, a proportion of it still unexplored. It makes you feel painfully small. Anyway, we 'did it' in a very civilised way for so cold a day, and with so short a time availble. We drove to the pretty little town of Leura for a delicious brunch and surveyed the Three Sisters from what Joanne assured me was the best vantage point, tourist-free. She was right, the town on the other side was a chaos of tour busses and jostling bodies all struggling to grab a peak. We sailed past happily to more remote cliff-tops and photo opps.
On our way back to Sydney we stopped at the home of late Norman Lindsay an artist, engraver and illustrator of the children's book series "The Magic Pudding" (familier to those growing up in Australia in the middle part of the last century). Along with his children's illustrations he spent most of his time paying a questionable tribute to the female form. Based New South Wales he created quite a storm with his daring potraials of wicked-looking nymphs and strumpets with spikey, deamon-like features, limbs akimbo. His large garden was full of buxom, betailed pan-like figures lurking in the undergrowth and frolicing around his huge Roman aphitheatre-style swimming pool. A workaholic and doubtless impossible man, his sucess could mainly be attributed to by his industrious second wife who got him organised and sold his work. In a moment of wavering wifly loyalty, she scarpered to America with a trunk load of his best pieces. On the train the box in which there were stowed caught fire. When faced with the singed images, the train porters where so horrifed that such 'filth' could be transported into their country that the merely fed the flames leaving nothing but a pile of ashes and a rather sheepish Mrs Lindsay who returned to Australia and broke the news to her husband.
"Nevermind," he said "I'll just have to start again." This, I think, goes to show a degree of patience that is bordering on saintly and must make up for his tricky artistic temprement. He painted well into his 80s.
So another wonderful week in Sydney...
And now off to Melbourne to lounge in arty cafes and catch up with Adam and Charley.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
AUSTRALIA, Queensland - New South Wales (see entry below for Fraser Island)
Back in Brizzy I was met off the bus bronzed and triumphant by Jonathan who took me out for a lunch of Vietnamese noodle soup, very welcome after 3 days of beef. I spent my last night in Bris-Vagas in a most bohemim way: Back in Jonathan's friend Don's Queenslander huddled in a corner by a heater sipping tea and watching the 'boys' play a very serious and totally incomprehensible game of cards.
And then farewell Queensland. Despite all my little quibbles with it I was sad to leave. I have had a great few weeks. It was lovely to spend time with my Grandfather and Kathy, who has had to put up with a constant stream of people traipsing through on a daily basis and has produced some wonderful meals, oh how I shall miss home cooking when I am back on the road again... Jeanie organised us all so well, I loved spending time with Jordie and Briony and it was great to see all three brothers: Jamie, Jonathan and Tim together for a change. Geography dictates that it was a rare family reunion.
My Grandfather and Kathy refused to let me take a bus into town with my heavy bag and Kathy kindly escorted me to the bus station in a taxi. We grabbed a quick coffee, snatching a brief moment to have a good chat before I charged off down the coast. I shall miss Mount Ommaney, not to mention the Centenary Shopping Centre...
Next stop: Byron Bay. I followed two fellow travellers to a beautiful guesthouse near the centre of town with small immaculate rooms and set off to see Australia's most easterly point, Cape Byron. In the golden evening light we climbed the headland and reached the summit and lighthouse just as the sun was setting. Byron Bay is a lovely stretch of beach and from our view point we surveyed the darkening swells of the ocean, the keen surfers little black dots amongst the waves and felt glad to be up on the hillside awash with orange sunlight absorbing the final warmth before the sun, and heat, vanished. Feeling extremely pleased with ourselves we descended back into town to sample a touch of the famous Byron nightlife. The town itself isn't pretty, just another beach town really but without the gaudy coloured high-rises of Surfer's Paradise and the Gold Coast and it has a pleasant laid-back feel. As for the evening's entertainments, well that was watching the scantily-clad girls strut and boys pose with decreasing finesse as the alcohol took control of their limbs and laughed at them from a safe distance.
I had been trying to meet up with Jazz so after a day pottering about in Byron and eating yummy sushi I was on a night bus headed for Foster, a coastal town a few hours north of Sydney where Jazz was lodged with a troublesome if charming 19 year old from Fulham...
Back in Brizzy I was met off the bus bronzed and triumphant by Jonathan who took me out for a lunch of Vietnamese noodle soup, very welcome after 3 days of beef. I spent my last night in Bris-Vagas in a most bohemim way: Back in Jonathan's friend Don's Queenslander huddled in a corner by a heater sipping tea and watching the 'boys' play a very serious and totally incomprehensible game of cards.
And then farewell Queensland. Despite all my little quibbles with it I was sad to leave. I have had a great few weeks. It was lovely to spend time with my Grandfather and Kathy, who has had to put up with a constant stream of people traipsing through on a daily basis and has produced some wonderful meals, oh how I shall miss home cooking when I am back on the road again... Jeanie organised us all so well, I loved spending time with Jordie and Briony and it was great to see all three brothers: Jamie, Jonathan and Tim together for a change. Geography dictates that it was a rare family reunion.
My Grandfather and Kathy refused to let me take a bus into town with my heavy bag and Kathy kindly escorted me to the bus station in a taxi. We grabbed a quick coffee, snatching a brief moment to have a good chat before I charged off down the coast. I shall miss Mount Ommaney, not to mention the Centenary Shopping Centre...
Next stop: Byron Bay. I followed two fellow travellers to a beautiful guesthouse near the centre of town with small immaculate rooms and set off to see Australia's most easterly point, Cape Byron. In the golden evening light we climbed the headland and reached the summit and lighthouse just as the sun was setting. Byron Bay is a lovely stretch of beach and from our view point we surveyed the darkening swells of the ocean, the keen surfers little black dots amongst the waves and felt glad to be up on the hillside awash with orange sunlight absorbing the final warmth before the sun, and heat, vanished. Feeling extremely pleased with ourselves we descended back into town to sample a touch of the famous Byron nightlife. The town itself isn't pretty, just another beach town really but without the gaudy coloured high-rises of Surfer's Paradise and the Gold Coast and it has a pleasant laid-back feel. As for the evening's entertainments, well that was watching the scantily-clad girls strut and boys pose with decreasing finesse as the alcohol took control of their limbs and laughed at them from a safe distance.
I had been trying to meet up with Jazz so after a day pottering about in Byron and eating yummy sushi I was on a night bus headed for Foster, a coastal town a few hours north of Sydney where Jazz was lodged with a troublesome if charming 19 year old from Fulham...
Monday, July 23, 2007
AUSTRALIA, Qeensland//Fraser Island 24th July
"Ok guys, don't drive into the ocean and don't feed the dingos. See you in three days"
One minute I am at a punk gig with my 3 uncles and a whole crew of aging rockers, (giggling at the bouncing bald patches of the fans as they bounced up and down in vigorous appreciation of The Saints) the next I am in a bright pink 4x4 with 6 people I've just met bouncing along a sandy track on the world's largest sand dune.
After a couple of weeks of hard core 'family stuff' and the luxury of not having to make any decisions I found myself once again adrift and directionless with only me as a guide. We had a lovely final dinner all together, Kathy cooking up quite a storm for the masses, and everyone began to scatter. My parents to Japan, Tim soon to Beijing, it was time too for me to get back on the road again.
With a few days to kill before I was due back to Sydney I thought I'd follow the enthusiastic recommendations and head over to Fraser Island. Within minutes of my arrival at Hervey Bay I had been recruited to fill the last place in a jeep that was to leave the following morning. Clutching our happy hour 'stubbies' we were all introduced, given a safety briefing, focusing mainly on the disadvantages of damaging the 4x4, and told to wrap up warm because it was going to be freezing.
Bright and early the following morning we elected a driver, piled in and set off for the ferry via a stop at the supermarket to stock up on 3 days worth of food and (yes of course) booze.
3 Koreans, 3 Germans, 2 Irish, 2 Canadians, 1 Italian, 1 American 1 girl from Taiwan and moi. Gears grinding we set off bunny-hopping along the narrow sandy tracks through the woodlanded interior of Fraser Island.
Our first day took us to Lake Wabby. Still, green waters, almost deserted, it was enclosed with forest on one side but had steep sand dunes sweeping down to its banks on the other, down which, if you were not afraid of the cold, could be sprinted to land you with a splash in the otherwise still, crocodile free (I'm promised) water. I was content to take photos and shout encouragement. Tides dictated much of our movements so we set off in good time to reach our camping spot in plenty of time and avoid attempting to erect tents in the sudden darkness that descended at 6.00. The drive to our campsite along the beach was across beautiful wet sands reflecting a sparkling mauve sunset, not surprisingly we set up tents feeling very jovial and a night of festivities commenced...
After a bitterly cold night (thank God I brought 2 sleeping bags) we were up early with the sun in order to pack up and get to the Champagne Pools - large rock pools up the coast - before the tide rose any further and we were stuck for the day. We climbed up Indian Head overlooking the sea and watched dolphins and whales cavorting in the serf. No sharks spotted but we had been assured that plenty were around and the water was very much no-go. So we frolicked (briefly) in the shark-free Champagne Pools and caught some rays before mosying back down the coast stopping to inspect the remains of a 70 year old abandoned ship and multicoloured sand canyons.
We had camping down to a fine art by now and we were set up and fed much more efficiently than the previous night. We were, however, camped in a lonelier spot and our cooking smells attracted some unwelcome guests. I am not proud to reveal that, when it comes to dingos, I am something of a wimp. When the boys were playing football and a hungry female came trotting into camp I am afraid that me and another girl sprang behind the jeep and cowered as the braver girls shooed it away. Throughout the night they became bolder and it took more and more to frighten them off although the camp was then manned by brave boys, happy to demonstrate their heroism.
We spent our final hours on Fraser Island lying on the banks of stunning Lake Mackenzie a huge, glass-like, blue water lake surrounded by fine white sand. Inspired by a tourist brochure we spent an entertaining hour building a cross-dressing sandman called Fred and then spread ourselves on the sand to luxuriate in the sunshine before it was time to catch the ferry back to the mainland.
We returned to our hostel elated and one piece, much relieved to find that we had not done any damage to the 4x4s and delighted to all pile into one rowdy dorm, have the hot showers we'd been fantasising about sleep in real beds under blankets. A wonderful 3 days.
"Ok guys, don't drive into the ocean and don't feed the dingos. See you in three days"
One minute I am at a punk gig with my 3 uncles and a whole crew of aging rockers, (giggling at the bouncing bald patches of the fans as they bounced up and down in vigorous appreciation of The Saints) the next I am in a bright pink 4x4 with 6 people I've just met bouncing along a sandy track on the world's largest sand dune.
After a couple of weeks of hard core 'family stuff' and the luxury of not having to make any decisions I found myself once again adrift and directionless with only me as a guide. We had a lovely final dinner all together, Kathy cooking up quite a storm for the masses, and everyone began to scatter. My parents to Japan, Tim soon to Beijing, it was time too for me to get back on the road again.
With a few days to kill before I was due back to Sydney I thought I'd follow the enthusiastic recommendations and head over to Fraser Island. Within minutes of my arrival at Hervey Bay I had been recruited to fill the last place in a jeep that was to leave the following morning. Clutching our happy hour 'stubbies' we were all introduced, given a safety briefing, focusing mainly on the disadvantages of damaging the 4x4, and told to wrap up warm because it was going to be freezing.
Bright and early the following morning we elected a driver, piled in and set off for the ferry via a stop at the supermarket to stock up on 3 days worth of food and (yes of course) booze.
3 Koreans, 3 Germans, 2 Irish, 2 Canadians, 1 Italian, 1 American 1 girl from Taiwan and moi. Gears grinding we set off bunny-hopping along the narrow sandy tracks through the woodlanded interior of Fraser Island.
Our first day took us to Lake Wabby. Still, green waters, almost deserted, it was enclosed with forest on one side but had steep sand dunes sweeping down to its banks on the other, down which, if you were not afraid of the cold, could be sprinted to land you with a splash in the otherwise still, crocodile free (I'm promised) water. I was content to take photos and shout encouragement. Tides dictated much of our movements so we set off in good time to reach our camping spot in plenty of time and avoid attempting to erect tents in the sudden darkness that descended at 6.00. The drive to our campsite along the beach was across beautiful wet sands reflecting a sparkling mauve sunset, not surprisingly we set up tents feeling very jovial and a night of festivities commenced...
After a bitterly cold night (thank God I brought 2 sleeping bags) we were up early with the sun in order to pack up and get to the Champagne Pools - large rock pools up the coast - before the tide rose any further and we were stuck for the day. We climbed up Indian Head overlooking the sea and watched dolphins and whales cavorting in the serf. No sharks spotted but we had been assured that plenty were around and the water was very much no-go. So we frolicked (briefly) in the shark-free Champagne Pools and caught some rays before mosying back down the coast stopping to inspect the remains of a 70 year old abandoned ship and multicoloured sand canyons.
We had camping down to a fine art by now and we were set up and fed much more efficiently than the previous night. We were, however, camped in a lonelier spot and our cooking smells attracted some unwelcome guests. I am not proud to reveal that, when it comes to dingos, I am something of a wimp. When the boys were playing football and a hungry female came trotting into camp I am afraid that me and another girl sprang behind the jeep and cowered as the braver girls shooed it away. Throughout the night they became bolder and it took more and more to frighten them off although the camp was then manned by brave boys, happy to demonstrate their heroism.
We spent our final hours on Fraser Island lying on the banks of stunning Lake Mackenzie a huge, glass-like, blue water lake surrounded by fine white sand. Inspired by a tourist brochure we spent an entertaining hour building a cross-dressing sandman called Fred and then spread ourselves on the sand to luxuriate in the sunshine before it was time to catch the ferry back to the mainland.
We returned to our hostel elated and one piece, much relieved to find that we had not done any damage to the 4x4s and delighted to all pile into one rowdy dorm, have the hot showers we'd been fantasising about sleep in real beds under blankets. A wonderful 3 days.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
AUSTRALIA, Brisbane/Queensland 11th July
I do wonder who it was who 1st looked out over the untamed mass of Australian bush, scorched by an unforgiving sun, ravished by bush fires, kangaroos bounding about in the foreground and thought to himself: "What I really feel like right now is a Devonshire Tea."
Well someone certainly thought it and it has caught on like, well,a bush fire. Picturesque view points around the Glasshouse mountains are, it would seem, incomplete without one and you just make damn sure that you sit nicely at the table and don't even think about trying to wander off in the direction of the wild kangaroos, to see them from a different perspective, you will get shouted at. And it is not just cream teas but Aunty Maureen's Fudge and Hot Meat Pies, their incongruity rendering them absurd but also rather endearing. Like wandering back into an Enid Blyton novel that's found itself in rather a surprising landscape.
All this I observed from the back seat of our hire car as we pootled up towards the fashionable beach town of Noosa, in a caravan of family-laden vehicles. In one car: my father driving, Jeannie, my oldest uncle Jamie's wife directing and me in the back with my 12 year old cousin Briony both plugged in and enjoying the ride. In the other car, leading the way is my uncle Jamie, my Grandfather, my mother and 14 year old cousin Jordie who is very certain which side of the back seat is his and will not be moved. In this merry manner we spent a happy day seeing some of the northern Queensland coastline. I glimpsed a few of the surviving 'Queenslanders' (fine wooden houses on stilts with beautiful wide verandas) and admired the gorgeous sweeping white-sanded Pacific beaches whilst struggling to ignore the concrete of the beach-side towns and villages looming over us which destroyed the effect somewhat. Surf culture has its draw-backs.
Back to Brisbane. My Sydney friends, a little dismissively, refer to Brisbane as "Bris-Vegas" due to its reputation for being tacky and full of, well, not much. My middle uncle Jonathan has done his damnedest to disprove this theory, displaying a patriotism that I found surprising for one who spends most of his time living in Valencia. After coffee at the 'bohemian West End' strolling around the pedestrianised shopping areas Down Town, tea in a beautiful old Queenslander, Saturday morning breakfast in the trendy Valley and a day exploring the Art Galleries of the smartly set out South Bank I am in a position to argue. To an extent.
The major downside, as far as I can see, to Brisbane is the manner in which it has been developed. Town planning failed tragically and the result is that the old and new live together awkwardly, unlike Sydney where the two have been married together nicely. Like an American town, Brisbane has sprawled, mile after mile of suburbs, wide, low rise concrete units, industrial estates, shopping centres and drive throughs. Amoungst this rubble beautiful streets containing surving Queenslanders cower, increasingly boxed in by the incessant development and throwing up of apartment blocks obscuring a once beautiful view of the river, the best view of which is from a highway which they have seen fit to build along its banks.
Having said all of that, however, I have been lucky enough to see some great parts of Brizzy too. The city centre has a nice buzz to it and the pleasing atmostphere of a city on the up. The South Bank has been very neatly put together and houses some good galleries. The Valley on a Saturday was heaving with young hungover folk catching up over eggs and bacon and perusing the markets in preparation for a night out at one of the many clubs and bars in the area. There is fun to be had, culture to be absorbed and to top it all off I am off to a Punk gig with Jonathan and his ageing rocker buddies in the campus of the Queensland University in a week. That will gather me some ammo for the Sydneyites... Perhaps.
Bisbane also has the huge advantage of being where my family are and there is a lot to be said for that. A family "barbie in the backyard" (for the real Ozzy 'experience') excursions with Jonathan, a good catch up with my now 90 year old Grandfather, and a chance to get to know my little cousins better. My parents and I have also been having some great evenings in in our little 'serviced apartment' eating much-missed home-cooked food and catching up properly before they head off to Japan (and typhoons... eek).
We had a family jaunt up to O'Rilies in the mountains along the south coast of Queensland over the weekend. Another spectacular drive through vast, sun-scorched plains, stunning views of golden valleys and into dense forest as we climbed.
An evening tree-top walk in the crisp, icy air on arrival and a beautiful sunset viewed from Jamie and Jeanie's jungle lodge sitting room with panoramic views (to be enjoyed inside sipping wine in warmth and comfort).
The following day I was straining at the leash to explore more jungle and find some waterfalls (can't resist them) so I set out with Jeanie, Jamie, Briony, Jordie, Jonathan and Dad as far as the 1st waterfall where a good-natured Jonathn and I split from the collective and embarked on an 18km hike. After Kao Sok the going was a doddle, clear paths, no leaches and waterfalls at every step, I counted 11 so even I couldn't miss them. We charged around and managed to be back in time for tea. All gathered again, Jonathan slunk off to catch his breath (discreetly, not one to outdone by his little niece) and the rest of us compared notes as we struggled to salvage cake and mini meat pies from the jaws of Jordie who gathers, devours and, if necessary, fights for food with the determination common to 14 year old boys mid growth-spurt.
Once again we huddled in front of the fire and enjoyed another sunset and cheerful baramundi dinner in celebration of Dad's exam results.
Then goodbye O'Rilies and off in different directions. One car to the airport to meet youngest uncle Tim off his flight from Beijing, the other home via Tamborine Mountain and the other car, including me, off to Dream World.
Briony was kind enough to include me in her birthday treat to the vast theme park so after a moderate breakfast (terrified about it reappearing) we drove off in the direction of an enormous tower which loomed over the motorway growing alarmly as we approached...
I now know how it feels to plummet 39 storeys and now understand the eerie silence in which its passengers ride the Giant Drop. you leave your scream at the top and are capable of not much more thn a whimper until you reach the bottom and get that gratifying rush of adrenline when you discover that you have survived after all. Most exhilerating. We had a great time being thrown around, turned upside down and being shot out of things at insane speeds and returned to the Family Fold full of excitment and gabbering about our adventures, to which our good natured family listend without comprehension.
I do wonder who it was who 1st looked out over the untamed mass of Australian bush, scorched by an unforgiving sun, ravished by bush fires, kangaroos bounding about in the foreground and thought to himself: "What I really feel like right now is a Devonshire Tea."
Well someone certainly thought it and it has caught on like, well,a bush fire. Picturesque view points around the Glasshouse mountains are, it would seem, incomplete without one and you just make damn sure that you sit nicely at the table and don't even think about trying to wander off in the direction of the wild kangaroos, to see them from a different perspective, you will get shouted at. And it is not just cream teas but Aunty Maureen's Fudge and Hot Meat Pies, their incongruity rendering them absurd but also rather endearing. Like wandering back into an Enid Blyton novel that's found itself in rather a surprising landscape.
All this I observed from the back seat of our hire car as we pootled up towards the fashionable beach town of Noosa, in a caravan of family-laden vehicles. In one car: my father driving, Jeannie, my oldest uncle Jamie's wife directing and me in the back with my 12 year old cousin Briony both plugged in and enjoying the ride. In the other car, leading the way is my uncle Jamie, my Grandfather, my mother and 14 year old cousin Jordie who is very certain which side of the back seat is his and will not be moved. In this merry manner we spent a happy day seeing some of the northern Queensland coastline. I glimpsed a few of the surviving 'Queenslanders' (fine wooden houses on stilts with beautiful wide verandas) and admired the gorgeous sweeping white-sanded Pacific beaches whilst struggling to ignore the concrete of the beach-side towns and villages looming over us which destroyed the effect somewhat. Surf culture has its draw-backs.
Back to Brisbane. My Sydney friends, a little dismissively, refer to Brisbane as "Bris-Vegas" due to its reputation for being tacky and full of, well, not much. My middle uncle Jonathan has done his damnedest to disprove this theory, displaying a patriotism that I found surprising for one who spends most of his time living in Valencia. After coffee at the 'bohemian West End' strolling around the pedestrianised shopping areas Down Town, tea in a beautiful old Queenslander, Saturday morning breakfast in the trendy Valley and a day exploring the Art Galleries of the smartly set out South Bank I am in a position to argue. To an extent.
The major downside, as far as I can see, to Brisbane is the manner in which it has been developed. Town planning failed tragically and the result is that the old and new live together awkwardly, unlike Sydney where the two have been married together nicely. Like an American town, Brisbane has sprawled, mile after mile of suburbs, wide, low rise concrete units, industrial estates, shopping centres and drive throughs. Amoungst this rubble beautiful streets containing surving Queenslanders cower, increasingly boxed in by the incessant development and throwing up of apartment blocks obscuring a once beautiful view of the river, the best view of which is from a highway which they have seen fit to build along its banks.
Having said all of that, however, I have been lucky enough to see some great parts of Brizzy too. The city centre has a nice buzz to it and the pleasing atmostphere of a city on the up. The South Bank has been very neatly put together and houses some good galleries. The Valley on a Saturday was heaving with young hungover folk catching up over eggs and bacon and perusing the markets in preparation for a night out at one of the many clubs and bars in the area. There is fun to be had, culture to be absorbed and to top it all off I am off to a Punk gig with Jonathan and his ageing rocker buddies in the campus of the Queensland University in a week. That will gather me some ammo for the Sydneyites... Perhaps.
Bisbane also has the huge advantage of being where my family are and there is a lot to be said for that. A family "barbie in the backyard" (for the real Ozzy 'experience') excursions with Jonathan, a good catch up with my now 90 year old Grandfather, and a chance to get to know my little cousins better. My parents and I have also been having some great evenings in in our little 'serviced apartment' eating much-missed home-cooked food and catching up properly before they head off to Japan (and typhoons... eek).
We had a family jaunt up to O'Rilies in the mountains along the south coast of Queensland over the weekend. Another spectacular drive through vast, sun-scorched plains, stunning views of golden valleys and into dense forest as we climbed.
An evening tree-top walk in the crisp, icy air on arrival and a beautiful sunset viewed from Jamie and Jeanie's jungle lodge sitting room with panoramic views (to be enjoyed inside sipping wine in warmth and comfort).
The following day I was straining at the leash to explore more jungle and find some waterfalls (can't resist them) so I set out with Jeanie, Jamie, Briony, Jordie, Jonathan and Dad as far as the 1st waterfall where a good-natured Jonathn and I split from the collective and embarked on an 18km hike. After Kao Sok the going was a doddle, clear paths, no leaches and waterfalls at every step, I counted 11 so even I couldn't miss them. We charged around and managed to be back in time for tea. All gathered again, Jonathan slunk off to catch his breath (discreetly, not one to outdone by his little niece) and the rest of us compared notes as we struggled to salvage cake and mini meat pies from the jaws of Jordie who gathers, devours and, if necessary, fights for food with the determination common to 14 year old boys mid growth-spurt.
Once again we huddled in front of the fire and enjoyed another sunset and cheerful baramundi dinner in celebration of Dad's exam results.
Then goodbye O'Rilies and off in different directions. One car to the airport to meet youngest uncle Tim off his flight from Beijing, the other home via Tamborine Mountain and the other car, including me, off to Dream World.
Briony was kind enough to include me in her birthday treat to the vast theme park so after a moderate breakfast (terrified about it reappearing) we drove off in the direction of an enormous tower which loomed over the motorway growing alarmly as we approached...
I now know how it feels to plummet 39 storeys and now understand the eerie silence in which its passengers ride the Giant Drop. you leave your scream at the top and are capable of not much more thn a whimper until you reach the bottom and get that gratifying rush of adrenline when you discover that you have survived after all. Most exhilerating. We had a great time being thrown around, turned upside down and being shot out of things at insane speeds and returned to the Family Fold full of excitment and gabbering about our adventures, to which our good natured family listend without comprehension.
Monday, June 25, 2007
AUSTRALIA - Sydney, 25th June
Wearing a jacket and tottering along, wincing from blisters induced by feet unaccustomed to shoes after 4 months, I walked through Hyde Park and down Oxford Street trying to shake the sensation that after my 4 months of adventures I was right back where I'd started: London. Then I'd turn a corner and be greeted by the stunning sparkling blue water of the harbour, the Opera House twinkling at me in the wintry sun light, a group of cockatoos strutting about, and be reassured that I was, in fact, on the other side of the world from home, although Australians have done their damdest to feverishly imitate it.
I was met at the airport and swept on a whistle-stop tour of the sites of Sydney by Roger and James, who were kind enough to wake up at 5am on a Friday morning to come and pick me up. I cruised in luxury through a beautiful, icy, winter morning thankful for comfortable seat and heating that was keeping my still flip-flopped toes warm.
In Sydney you get the impression that Australian has been chopped up and served to you in appealing bite-sized pieces, infused with longing references to Europe, particularly England. But Sydney remains its own city too. The Ozzy fashion is so cutting edge that my wallet has begun to bleed as I enthusiastically charge around glittering department stores 'cityfying' myself: Boots, hats, trousers and jackets replace flip-flops and Thai Fisherman Pants.
Asia is fading fast, alarmingly so, as I have plunged head first into the Sydney 'scene' laid open to me by obliging friends who 'know people' about town.
In the midst of the whirlwind, however, I have managed to find time to be reunited with my parents. In the reception of their very swanky hotel we bounced excitedly up and down, marvelling at the miles we have all travelled to enable this reunion on the other side of the world.
We had a happy few days together exploring Sydney, riding about on ferry boats, examining Australian Art at the Gallery of New South Wales and (in total abandonment of my backpacker status) an evening at the Opera House, where we saw a wonderful production of The Barber of Seville.
Yesterday, after yet another night on ze town, my parents tore me away from Sydney and marched me off to Brisbane for some hardcore family time and a bit of a detox...
I now find myself deep in the suburbs of Queensland. We are lodged in some 'serviced apartments' just opposite the Centenary Shopping Centre and I am once again reeling from culture shock. Some exploration of the coast to follow I think. I'm rather enjoying just going where I'm told...
Wearing a jacket and tottering along, wincing from blisters induced by feet unaccustomed to shoes after 4 months, I walked through Hyde Park and down Oxford Street trying to shake the sensation that after my 4 months of adventures I was right back where I'd started: London. Then I'd turn a corner and be greeted by the stunning sparkling blue water of the harbour, the Opera House twinkling at me in the wintry sun light, a group of cockatoos strutting about, and be reassured that I was, in fact, on the other side of the world from home, although Australians have done their damdest to feverishly imitate it.
I was met at the airport and swept on a whistle-stop tour of the sites of Sydney by Roger and James, who were kind enough to wake up at 5am on a Friday morning to come and pick me up. I cruised in luxury through a beautiful, icy, winter morning thankful for comfortable seat and heating that was keeping my still flip-flopped toes warm.
In Sydney you get the impression that Australian has been chopped up and served to you in appealing bite-sized pieces, infused with longing references to Europe, particularly England. But Sydney remains its own city too. The Ozzy fashion is so cutting edge that my wallet has begun to bleed as I enthusiastically charge around glittering department stores 'cityfying' myself: Boots, hats, trousers and jackets replace flip-flops and Thai Fisherman Pants.
Asia is fading fast, alarmingly so, as I have plunged head first into the Sydney 'scene' laid open to me by obliging friends who 'know people' about town.
In the midst of the whirlwind, however, I have managed to find time to be reunited with my parents. In the reception of their very swanky hotel we bounced excitedly up and down, marvelling at the miles we have all travelled to enable this reunion on the other side of the world.
We had a happy few days together exploring Sydney, riding about on ferry boats, examining Australian Art at the Gallery of New South Wales and (in total abandonment of my backpacker status) an evening at the Opera House, where we saw a wonderful production of The Barber of Seville.
Yesterday, after yet another night on ze town, my parents tore me away from Sydney and marched me off to Brisbane for some hardcore family time and a bit of a detox...
I now find myself deep in the suburbs of Queensland. We are lodged in some 'serviced apartments' just opposite the Centenary Shopping Centre and I am once again reeling from culture shock. Some exploration of the coast to follow I think. I'm rather enjoying just going where I'm told...
Sunday, June 24, 2007
THAILAND - Bangkok & Sukhothai Historical Park (16th - 20th June)
No one could be quite certain how long the bus from Khao Sok to Surat Thani would be, we were told anything from 1 1/2 hours to 4. Hmmm so we picked a time somewhere in the middle and still arrived with 6 hours to kill before our train to Bangkok. We passed it merrily enough by finding something that most resembled a bar and settling in. The our over-night train, with its dubious smells, and extremely welcome dining car, brought us into Bangkok where we dusted ourselves off, had breakfast and then left Kao San to the hippies and set off to see some more of the city, showing each other parts that the other hadn't explored yet. I showed Charley the spectacle of Lumpini Park at dusk, when they offer free aerobics classes to anyone and everyone. People come straight from work, solemnly set down their hand bags and proceed to have a coordinated seisure while trying to keep up with the lithe young instructor bouncing around on the stage. Cruelly we sat giggling by the sidelines taking photos.
By this time we had wandered, half intentionally, into Silom and towards Patpong, the famous Red Light District. It was time for a drink so we took a plunge, each of us emboldened by having the other as a body guard (Charley's need for one outweighing mine considerably). So in we went and did not re-emerge until we'd witnessed bored-looking girls doing rather alarming things with various props, had in-depth chats with pretty girls in bikinis with numbers stuck on their chest (I had a nice little dance with them) and it was 3am and enough was quite clearly enough. So we hailed an over-priced tuk-tuk and scampered back to the safety of Kao San content that we had 'done' that side of the Bangkok 'experience'.
By then we both felt that we'd exhausted Bangkok's attractions, I still had a few days before my flight to Sydney and so we decided to head up north to Sukhothai Historical Park, Central Thailand. A 7 hour bus journey through flat landscape and paddy fields and we were in the friendly but rather plain town of Sukhothai where we checked into a pretty little bungalow (Charley was relieved to find that the prices take a dramatic nose dive as you head up north).
Sukhothai was recognized as the first Thai kingdom and gained prominence and independence in 1238. Today all that remains of the city are the crumbling Wats and Buddhas that survived the fire that the Burmese used to destroy it. Now it is a picturesque woodland through which paths wind around trees and alongside lakes and moats with cows grazing around the ruins. Rather sad but very beautiful. We hired bikes and pottered around in the dripping heat trying to take interesting photos which did the old city justice.
Another night in our laid-back guesthouse and it was time to bid farewell to Charley as he took a bus up north to Chang Mai and I headed back down south to Bangkok and Kao San Road, for the last time, in readiness for my flight the following day to Sydney.
Farewell Asia! Rather sad to leave, it is the most crazy, beautiful, smelly, exhasperating, bewitching place and I have had an amazing 4 months.
Onwards now to the controlled order of Australia and a considerable drop in temperature...
No one could be quite certain how long the bus from Khao Sok to Surat Thani would be, we were told anything from 1 1/2 hours to 4. Hmmm so we picked a time somewhere in the middle and still arrived with 6 hours to kill before our train to Bangkok. We passed it merrily enough by finding something that most resembled a bar and settling in. The our over-night train, with its dubious smells, and extremely welcome dining car, brought us into Bangkok where we dusted ourselves off, had breakfast and then left Kao San to the hippies and set off to see some more of the city, showing each other parts that the other hadn't explored yet. I showed Charley the spectacle of Lumpini Park at dusk, when they offer free aerobics classes to anyone and everyone. People come straight from work, solemnly set down their hand bags and proceed to have a coordinated seisure while trying to keep up with the lithe young instructor bouncing around on the stage. Cruelly we sat giggling by the sidelines taking photos.
By this time we had wandered, half intentionally, into Silom and towards Patpong, the famous Red Light District. It was time for a drink so we took a plunge, each of us emboldened by having the other as a body guard (Charley's need for one outweighing mine considerably). So in we went and did not re-emerge until we'd witnessed bored-looking girls doing rather alarming things with various props, had in-depth chats with pretty girls in bikinis with numbers stuck on their chest (I had a nice little dance with them) and it was 3am and enough was quite clearly enough. So we hailed an over-priced tuk-tuk and scampered back to the safety of Kao San content that we had 'done' that side of the Bangkok 'experience'.
By then we both felt that we'd exhausted Bangkok's attractions, I still had a few days before my flight to Sydney and so we decided to head up north to Sukhothai Historical Park, Central Thailand. A 7 hour bus journey through flat landscape and paddy fields and we were in the friendly but rather plain town of Sukhothai where we checked into a pretty little bungalow (Charley was relieved to find that the prices take a dramatic nose dive as you head up north).
Sukhothai was recognized as the first Thai kingdom and gained prominence and independence in 1238. Today all that remains of the city are the crumbling Wats and Buddhas that survived the fire that the Burmese used to destroy it. Now it is a picturesque woodland through which paths wind around trees and alongside lakes and moats with cows grazing around the ruins. Rather sad but very beautiful. We hired bikes and pottered around in the dripping heat trying to take interesting photos which did the old city justice.
Another night in our laid-back guesthouse and it was time to bid farewell to Charley as he took a bus up north to Chang Mai and I headed back down south to Bangkok and Kao San Road, for the last time, in readiness for my flight the following day to Sydney.
Farewell Asia! Rather sad to leave, it is the most crazy, beautiful, smelly, exhasperating, bewitching place and I have had an amazing 4 months.
Onwards now to the controlled order of Australia and a considerable drop in temperature...
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
THAILAND - Khao Sok National Park (written from Bangkok, 20th June)
"The most beautiful National Park in Thailand" promised one website. Not much written about and rarely visited by the convoy of tourists that pass through it on route to Phuket and the islands, hard to resist really, especially with the promise of afore mentioned leeches. An adventure.
After consuming plenty of beer to ensure sleep, we hopped on the night ferry, an overloaded, rickety vessel that had us lying next to each other packed in tightly like sardines with a ceiling so low that you had to negotiate your way to the toilet on your hands and knees. Still, quite fun, or perhaps that was the beer. Apparently the boat went through a terrific storm in the night, the driver going at full pelt, the boat bouncing off huge waves. I say apparently because I slept soundly through the whole thing happily oblivious. Charley wasn't so lucky.
At 5.00am we staggered off the boat spent a few mysterious hours being shuffled on and off buses, driven in circles very slowly while being played loud pop music to stop us from nodding off until we were finally allowed onto the bus to Khao Sok.
After 2 weeks of beach life, the dense tangle of jungle, out of which rose high, craggy limestone cliffs, was so refreshing that we were not long installed in our pretty little jungle cabin (checked thoroughly by Charley of evidence of bugs or any other jungle life that might have crept in) before I was itching to explore. I dragged him, exhausted but good natured, into the jungle with those fatal words: "Let’s find that waterfall."
Any of you who might have read my previous entries might remember my other futile attempts at finding evasive waterfalls in South East Asia. My track record ain't great. With this in mind a 4km trek through thick and rather wild jungle might seem a little ambitious. But the path seemed sturdy enough and I was so exhilarated to be in a noisy, drippy rain forest (what is the difference between a rainforest and a jungle?) that we set off feeling optimistic, well I did, any misgivings that Charley had about the venture he kept to himself. 4km isn't that far after all...
No not that far, but baring in mind that it is 4km of track that became increasingly narrow and took us up and down into rivers, along deep ravines and through the undergrowth, stopping every few minutes to pick leeches off our unprotected flip-flop clad feet, you can see how it was slow going. We met some fellow jungle explorers coming the other way clad in the full regalia: Kaki shorts, long socks, walking sticks and thick boots. They eyed us with pitying contempt as we passed and revealed with some pride their blood-covered legs from giant leeches that they had had to burn off. Still, never to be defeated, even by darkening skies, rumbles of thunder and the threat that it wasn't that long before the sun would think about setting and we only had one liter of water between us that was running low, we pushed on. Dripping and exhausted we finally stumbled across the waterfall and had a well deserved dip in the icy water. We did not have long, however, because we still had the 4km trek back again. By now we were seasoned jungalists (not in the music sense) and made our way back to base without incident, our mutual leech checking becoming rather efficient. We stumbled into the open air gasping, gulped down bottles of water and collapsed exhausted, unused to such activity after the sleepiness of the islands. It had been a long day.
The following day we took things a little easier and followed nice wide tracks to the waterfalls and swimming holes closer to home. In the evening we sat by the fire in a deserted guest house talking to a chatting young guy who proudly told us that his jungle held tigers, wild elephants and bears. We were wondering what had left that alarmingly large pile of dung... We left him happily hunting frogs with a pitch fork and retired exhausted again and ready for another day of traveling.
"The most beautiful National Park in Thailand" promised one website. Not much written about and rarely visited by the convoy of tourists that pass through it on route to Phuket and the islands, hard to resist really, especially with the promise of afore mentioned leeches. An adventure.
After consuming plenty of beer to ensure sleep, we hopped on the night ferry, an overloaded, rickety vessel that had us lying next to each other packed in tightly like sardines with a ceiling so low that you had to negotiate your way to the toilet on your hands and knees. Still, quite fun, or perhaps that was the beer. Apparently the boat went through a terrific storm in the night, the driver going at full pelt, the boat bouncing off huge waves. I say apparently because I slept soundly through the whole thing happily oblivious. Charley wasn't so lucky.
At 5.00am we staggered off the boat spent a few mysterious hours being shuffled on and off buses, driven in circles very slowly while being played loud pop music to stop us from nodding off until we were finally allowed onto the bus to Khao Sok.
After 2 weeks of beach life, the dense tangle of jungle, out of which rose high, craggy limestone cliffs, was so refreshing that we were not long installed in our pretty little jungle cabin (checked thoroughly by Charley of evidence of bugs or any other jungle life that might have crept in) before I was itching to explore. I dragged him, exhausted but good natured, into the jungle with those fatal words: "Let’s find that waterfall."
Any of you who might have read my previous entries might remember my other futile attempts at finding evasive waterfalls in South East Asia. My track record ain't great. With this in mind a 4km trek through thick and rather wild jungle might seem a little ambitious. But the path seemed sturdy enough and I was so exhilarated to be in a noisy, drippy rain forest (what is the difference between a rainforest and a jungle?) that we set off feeling optimistic, well I did, any misgivings that Charley had about the venture he kept to himself. 4km isn't that far after all...
No not that far, but baring in mind that it is 4km of track that became increasingly narrow and took us up and down into rivers, along deep ravines and through the undergrowth, stopping every few minutes to pick leeches off our unprotected flip-flop clad feet, you can see how it was slow going. We met some fellow jungle explorers coming the other way clad in the full regalia: Kaki shorts, long socks, walking sticks and thick boots. They eyed us with pitying contempt as we passed and revealed with some pride their blood-covered legs from giant leeches that they had had to burn off. Still, never to be defeated, even by darkening skies, rumbles of thunder and the threat that it wasn't that long before the sun would think about setting and we only had one liter of water between us that was running low, we pushed on. Dripping and exhausted we finally stumbled across the waterfall and had a well deserved dip in the icy water. We did not have long, however, because we still had the 4km trek back again. By now we were seasoned jungalists (not in the music sense) and made our way back to base without incident, our mutual leech checking becoming rather efficient. We stumbled into the open air gasping, gulped down bottles of water and collapsed exhausted, unused to such activity after the sleepiness of the islands. It had been a long day.
The following day we took things a little easier and followed nice wide tracks to the waterfalls and swimming holes closer to home. In the evening we sat by the fire in a deserted guest house talking to a chatting young guy who proudly told us that his jungle held tigers, wild elephants and bears. We were wondering what had left that alarmingly large pile of dung... We left him happily hunting frogs with a pitch fork and retired exhausted again and ready for another day of traveling.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
THAILAND - Ko Pang Nang & Koh Tao, Monday 11th June
As no doubt most of you will have guessed, no news is generally good news, which would account for my silence over the last week or so. My silence can also be attributed to the general laid-backness of island life. One day blends into another with very little distiction and consequently not much to tell.
However, Jazz and I had a very happy time on Ko Pang Nang, sunning ourselves on the beach and bouncing around until the early hours as the season of Full Moon dictated. The only real shadow cast over our enjoyment was, I am ashamed to say, due to the conduct of my fellow countrymen. There is no escaping the fact that Ko Pang Nang is densly populated with highlighted and bronzed British rich-kids, somewhere between school and university. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if they weren't all behaving so badly.
My natural habitat lies dangerously close to the Kings Road and so I am more accustomed to the ways of some of these kids: Their cheerful oblivion to any outside influences and their stubborn determination to keep it just so. Jazz, however, was unprepared and consequently mortified at the obvious snub that we recieved every time we attempted civilities. As she became increasingly upset, I became increasingly embarassed and endeveoured to try and redeam Britishness to this characteristically friendly Australian who was rapidly going off and entire nation. I did my best.
The best way to discribe the Full Moon Party is to resort back to my university analogy which is appropriate, especially if you take in mind the age group of my fellow islanders.
From Fresher's Week to the Freshers Ball. People and drinks being distributed with equal freeness, casualties of over-indulgence strewn about and naked flesh cavorting in merky swimming pools in the early hours. Amidst the chaos is Jazz and me dancing on a table with Borat and 4 ladyboys dressed as sailors. I am also told that there is video footage of us on a blacony dancing up the sunrise. I would have expected nothing less.
So all lots of good fun and general silliness. Our week on Ko Pang Nang passed in a leisurly blur of parties and sunbathing. We were more than ready to hop over to Koh Tao for some less nocturnal activities and a spot of snorkelling. Koh Tao is a beautiful island with palm tree-covered peaks sloping down to white sands and tourquise waters. We spent a rather exhilerating couple of days clinging on to the back of dirt bikes while our drivers (two obliging essex boys) navigated us off-road to remote beaches and view points, which were beautiful - when I could bring myself to open my eyes, my driver could be a little over zealous with the throttle and seemed to be enjoying himself a little too much.
On Wednesday I turned 25 and am less than impressed by my alarming marching of years. My day was chirped up however by an early start and trip to the ferry port to greet a long awaited and very familiar face. Charley arrived on Koh Tao exhausted after a nightmare journey and smarting slightly from the sever ripping off that he'd undergone on Kao San Road but happy to be on a remote island where everything is calmer. By this point we had gathered quite a little possie so I had a great birthday party.
Jazz and the boys left on Friday as the days are slipping by, I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that island life can be somewhat limited. Every self-indulgent whim is catered for, the setting is idylic but after my adventures over the last few months I find myself hankering for more. Fortunately Charley is about ready to leave the islands now too (with a little nudge). I fly to Sydney in just over a week which leaves me time for a few more adventures before I bid farewell to Asia...
We are heading over night back to the mainland where we make our way to Khoa Sok National Park for a couple of days (I could not resist the lure of waterfalls, lime stone cliffs and the promise of blood sucking leeches - Charley has his reservations). We then head up, through Bangkok again, to Sukhothai Historical Park where I shall ponder a few temples and a few last Wats before decending back to Bangkok and onwards to Oz.
I'll be busier so I promise I'll keep you updated.
As no doubt most of you will have guessed, no news is generally good news, which would account for my silence over the last week or so. My silence can also be attributed to the general laid-backness of island life. One day blends into another with very little distiction and consequently not much to tell.
However, Jazz and I had a very happy time on Ko Pang Nang, sunning ourselves on the beach and bouncing around until the early hours as the season of Full Moon dictated. The only real shadow cast over our enjoyment was, I am ashamed to say, due to the conduct of my fellow countrymen. There is no escaping the fact that Ko Pang Nang is densly populated with highlighted and bronzed British rich-kids, somewhere between school and university. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if they weren't all behaving so badly.
My natural habitat lies dangerously close to the Kings Road and so I am more accustomed to the ways of some of these kids: Their cheerful oblivion to any outside influences and their stubborn determination to keep it just so. Jazz, however, was unprepared and consequently mortified at the obvious snub that we recieved every time we attempted civilities. As she became increasingly upset, I became increasingly embarassed and endeveoured to try and redeam Britishness to this characteristically friendly Australian who was rapidly going off and entire nation. I did my best.
The best way to discribe the Full Moon Party is to resort back to my university analogy which is appropriate, especially if you take in mind the age group of my fellow islanders.
From Fresher's Week to the Freshers Ball. People and drinks being distributed with equal freeness, casualties of over-indulgence strewn about and naked flesh cavorting in merky swimming pools in the early hours. Amidst the chaos is Jazz and me dancing on a table with Borat and 4 ladyboys dressed as sailors. I am also told that there is video footage of us on a blacony dancing up the sunrise. I would have expected nothing less.
So all lots of good fun and general silliness. Our week on Ko Pang Nang passed in a leisurly blur of parties and sunbathing. We were more than ready to hop over to Koh Tao for some less nocturnal activities and a spot of snorkelling. Koh Tao is a beautiful island with palm tree-covered peaks sloping down to white sands and tourquise waters. We spent a rather exhilerating couple of days clinging on to the back of dirt bikes while our drivers (two obliging essex boys) navigated us off-road to remote beaches and view points, which were beautiful - when I could bring myself to open my eyes, my driver could be a little over zealous with the throttle and seemed to be enjoying himself a little too much.
On Wednesday I turned 25 and am less than impressed by my alarming marching of years. My day was chirped up however by an early start and trip to the ferry port to greet a long awaited and very familiar face. Charley arrived on Koh Tao exhausted after a nightmare journey and smarting slightly from the sever ripping off that he'd undergone on Kao San Road but happy to be on a remote island where everything is calmer. By this point we had gathered quite a little possie so I had a great birthday party.
Jazz and the boys left on Friday as the days are slipping by, I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that island life can be somewhat limited. Every self-indulgent whim is catered for, the setting is idylic but after my adventures over the last few months I find myself hankering for more. Fortunately Charley is about ready to leave the islands now too (with a little nudge). I fly to Sydney in just over a week which leaves me time for a few more adventures before I bid farewell to Asia...
We are heading over night back to the mainland where we make our way to Khoa Sok National Park for a couple of days (I could not resist the lure of waterfalls, lime stone cliffs and the promise of blood sucking leeches - Charley has his reservations). We then head up, through Bangkok again, to Sukhothai Historical Park where I shall ponder a few temples and a few last Wats before decending back to Bangkok and onwards to Oz.
I'll be busier so I promise I'll keep you updated.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
THAILAND - Bangkok, Thursday 4th May
Wow. I'm suffering from an acute, reverse culture shock. Yesterday a hair-raising taxi ride (mainly in the wrong lane, towards oncoming traffic) brought me to Hanoi airport, where a smooth Air Asia flight swept me off to Thailand. I glimpsed Bangkok, while crawling through heavy traffic in an air conditioned shuttle bus, and was deposited at The Kao San Road.
Alex Garland, author of 'The Beach', describes the the Kao San Road as a sort of decompression chamber between East and West. It is a jumping off point from which to explore South East Asia and is consequently full of beaded, dreaded Travellers (yes, with a capital 'T') shuffling around looking bleary and bewildered. There are the aging hippies, who seem to be stuck here, the fresh-from-school kids, who travel in packs, delirious with excitement (and too much Sang Som), and the rest of us South East Asia trampers milling about from bar to clothes shop to Internet cafe, trying to figure out how to get to our next destination and having to pinch ourselves to remind ourselves where we are.
Jazz and I, happily reunited, wandered around the neon-lit, thumping streets feeling like two out-of-towners, marvelling at the bright lights, pounding western music and abundance of (tanned) white faces.
Travelling has come to remind me of university: Starting impromptu conversations with strangers, forming brief but significant friendships and loosing track of week days. If that is so, the The Kao San Road is the culmination of Fresher's Week. Everything is arranged for our entertainment with the sole aim of parting us with our baht. Movies play on loop in cafes with sofas, tour offices sell trips to the islands, bars churn out cheap, lethal cocktails and tattoo parlours are literally a-buzz, taking advantage of travellers' sense of abandonment which comes from being so far from home.
After my last few months in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam I find this jolt back to 'the West' a little unnerving and I'm feeling a little misplaced. It is also rather exhilarating. I can see how easy it is to get swept up in this surreal bubble but it is disconcerting when you can so easily forget where you are.
I'd better get used to it, however, there is a definite Full Moon Party buzz about the place at the moment so I suspect I've just found my travel companions for the next week or so...
Still, if you can't beat em, join em.
Wow. I'm suffering from an acute, reverse culture shock. Yesterday a hair-raising taxi ride (mainly in the wrong lane, towards oncoming traffic) brought me to Hanoi airport, where a smooth Air Asia flight swept me off to Thailand. I glimpsed Bangkok, while crawling through heavy traffic in an air conditioned shuttle bus, and was deposited at The Kao San Road.
Alex Garland, author of 'The Beach', describes the the Kao San Road as a sort of decompression chamber between East and West. It is a jumping off point from which to explore South East Asia and is consequently full of beaded, dreaded Travellers (yes, with a capital 'T') shuffling around looking bleary and bewildered. There are the aging hippies, who seem to be stuck here, the fresh-from-school kids, who travel in packs, delirious with excitement (and too much Sang Som), and the rest of us South East Asia trampers milling about from bar to clothes shop to Internet cafe, trying to figure out how to get to our next destination and having to pinch ourselves to remind ourselves where we are.
Jazz and I, happily reunited, wandered around the neon-lit, thumping streets feeling like two out-of-towners, marvelling at the bright lights, pounding western music and abundance of (tanned) white faces.
Travelling has come to remind me of university: Starting impromptu conversations with strangers, forming brief but significant friendships and loosing track of week days. If that is so, the The Kao San Road is the culmination of Fresher's Week. Everything is arranged for our entertainment with the sole aim of parting us with our baht. Movies play on loop in cafes with sofas, tour offices sell trips to the islands, bars churn out cheap, lethal cocktails and tattoo parlours are literally a-buzz, taking advantage of travellers' sense of abandonment which comes from being so far from home.
After my last few months in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam I find this jolt back to 'the West' a little unnerving and I'm feeling a little misplaced. It is also rather exhilarating. I can see how easy it is to get swept up in this surreal bubble but it is disconcerting when you can so easily forget where you are.
I'd better get used to it, however, there is a definite Full Moon Party buzz about the place at the moment so I suspect I've just found my travel companions for the next week or so...
Still, if you can't beat em, join em.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
VIETNAM - Hanoi, Tuesday 22nd May
I awoke yesterday morning to a cheery wave from the little girl in the bunk opposite me as we rattled through lime green rice fields, tinny musac being piped at me from hidden speakers. It was 6.00am, but at least I'd had some sleep. The evening before, my fellow travellers and I journey down the train, past increasing uncomfortable-looking seats, stepping over bodies, to the 'dining car' (a couple of tables and some boxes) for some beers. It was soon bedtime for the staff though so we crept back to our compritively luxurious quaters and retired.
We arrived at Hanoi at around 11.30 and were swept into town by a hopeful hotelier. Slightly guiltily, I accepted a very smart room complete with shiny bathroom (the irony of the 'American Standard' wash basin, juxtaposed with the red flags a fluttering outside made me smile) and cable TV. Still, for the equivalent of 4 pounds, I thought I could manage it.
We spent the afternoon exploring the Old Quater: Narrow streets packed with motor bikes and shops spilling out onto the pavement. Each street has a theme, be it sunglasses, shoes or toys, and is named accordingly. Frustrating when you are looking for sunglasses but all you can find is pipe cleaners. In the evening we sat out on the street on little plastic stools and sipped very cheap beer from a keg and watched Hanoi bustle past. When in Rome...
Today my friends departed for Halong Bay, I had to forgo the trip as I'm running out of time - always a problem - and so I set solo off to see some of the sights. My trusty Lonely Planet firmly pointed me in the direction of the Museum of Ethnology and so I dutifully headed out of town to see what it was all about.
Aside from offering a welcome sanctury from the growlings of a dissappointed moto driver, who was determined to over charge me, it was rather wonderful. A huge modern building divided into sections dedicated to the different ethnic groups that make up South East Asia and the history of their migration from different parts of the world. Outside there sprawled several examples of different villages, packed full of artifacts. They must have invested a huge amount into the museum, you could spend days there.
I departed, however, to have another argument with a moto and headed to the Ho Chi Minh Museum. A massive Art Decco pile of concrete and marble containging an imposing hall with a gold Ho Chi Minh saluting me as I climbed the stairs. There were some bizzare, stylised displays of ideology, most of which, being in Vietnamese, was lost on me, but I got the jist.
The Old Quater is built around a lake. Futher inspection of the lake I found myself at this afternoon after being dumped by another moto (grrr) revealed that it was infact the wrong one. Still, it was very pretty and surrounded by little cafes so I explored the leafy streets of this more affluent area for a short while before taking my final moto back to the Old Quater for a cup of coffee and spot of re-grouping.
As I was on my way to visit a restored Chiese-style house I heard my name and turned to see some people that I met in my last night in Hoi An. So that is my how-shall-I-kill-this-evening problem sorted.
Tomorrow I fly to Bangkok to be reunited with one of my fellow volunteers and head south to the Islands for some Full Mooning. At this rate I'm going to be Oz before I know it...
I awoke yesterday morning to a cheery wave from the little girl in the bunk opposite me as we rattled through lime green rice fields, tinny musac being piped at me from hidden speakers. It was 6.00am, but at least I'd had some sleep. The evening before, my fellow travellers and I journey down the train, past increasing uncomfortable-looking seats, stepping over bodies, to the 'dining car' (a couple of tables and some boxes) for some beers. It was soon bedtime for the staff though so we crept back to our compritively luxurious quaters and retired.
We arrived at Hanoi at around 11.30 and were swept into town by a hopeful hotelier. Slightly guiltily, I accepted a very smart room complete with shiny bathroom (the irony of the 'American Standard' wash basin, juxtaposed with the red flags a fluttering outside made me smile) and cable TV. Still, for the equivalent of 4 pounds, I thought I could manage it.
We spent the afternoon exploring the Old Quater: Narrow streets packed with motor bikes and shops spilling out onto the pavement. Each street has a theme, be it sunglasses, shoes or toys, and is named accordingly. Frustrating when you are looking for sunglasses but all you can find is pipe cleaners. In the evening we sat out on the street on little plastic stools and sipped very cheap beer from a keg and watched Hanoi bustle past. When in Rome...
Today my friends departed for Halong Bay, I had to forgo the trip as I'm running out of time - always a problem - and so I set solo off to see some of the sights. My trusty Lonely Planet firmly pointed me in the direction of the Museum of Ethnology and so I dutifully headed out of town to see what it was all about.
Aside from offering a welcome sanctury from the growlings of a dissappointed moto driver, who was determined to over charge me, it was rather wonderful. A huge modern building divided into sections dedicated to the different ethnic groups that make up South East Asia and the history of their migration from different parts of the world. Outside there sprawled several examples of different villages, packed full of artifacts. They must have invested a huge amount into the museum, you could spend days there.
I departed, however, to have another argument with a moto and headed to the Ho Chi Minh Museum. A massive Art Decco pile of concrete and marble containging an imposing hall with a gold Ho Chi Minh saluting me as I climbed the stairs. There were some bizzare, stylised displays of ideology, most of which, being in Vietnamese, was lost on me, but I got the jist.
The Old Quater is built around a lake. Futher inspection of the lake I found myself at this afternoon after being dumped by another moto (grrr) revealed that it was infact the wrong one. Still, it was very pretty and surrounded by little cafes so I explored the leafy streets of this more affluent area for a short while before taking my final moto back to the Old Quater for a cup of coffee and spot of re-grouping.
As I was on my way to visit a restored Chiese-style house I heard my name and turned to see some people that I met in my last night in Hoi An. So that is my how-shall-I-kill-this-evening problem sorted.
Tomorrow I fly to Bangkok to be reunited with one of my fellow volunteers and head south to the Islands for some Full Mooning. At this rate I'm going to be Oz before I know it...
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