BlogaLog

Russian Spy is back!

2009-05-01T10:32:00.002+01:00

I landed back at Heathrow earlier this morning, and once I've sorted a few things out, I'll write a post to wrap this blog up. But for now, I was just going through my emails as I couldn't always gain access, and can't believe what I've found. Back in early April it would seem I got an email from 'Russian Spy' whom I met on the train in January (for anyone who's forgotten, check out the 'Plans for World Domination' post). Complete with picture on the right, it reads as follows;

'hello Nicola! I'm sure u remember me. that crazy russian in the train to Irkutsk early in spring. honestly speaking I'm not that sort of people. how was your journey? succesfully? P.S. request for maintenace a friendship. if your response is negative- please send a blank message. my name is Alex(ay)'

Any ideas what my response should be?

I'm on my way home

2009-04-30T11:44:00.000+01:00

Look how high the mountain was

2009-04-29T04:33:00.009+01:00

When flying across from Sandakan back to Kota Kinabalu, most of the group who were sitting on the righthand side of the plane were treated to the sight of Mount Kinabalu, from really close distance. I'm assured that mountain was actually equally as high as the altitude of the aircraft, which I found hard to believe until from the airport, I took a picture of the mountain in the distance. It is quite high.

Anyway, thought you'd be pleased to know that I managed to get my flight to Singapore successfully in time. It was a tricky flight, that called by Kuching in Sarawak, Borneo. I thought I may have messed up when 5 minute after stepping off the plane for the 45minute stop, urgent calls for me came across the loud speakers, but when I responded to them, nobody seemed to care. I waited nervously for the flight to board and I think the ploblem was that I'd forgotten to pick up a new boarding pass, I found it creased up on a table near the gate.

I'll miss Borneo, it was a really interesting country, and my two weeks flew by. Tourism isn't too high there at the minute, but guess it'll soon take off. As a result, the locals seem genuinely pleased to see you and keen to help, rather than viewing you as a source of money to be exploited, which can often feel the case in many other places I've visited.

It's made for sitting on

2009-04-29T04:32:00.003+01:00

I like the idea that there are people well travelled enough to be staying in a hostel in Kota Kinabalu, yet still won't have encountered the western toilet system.

Bad Monkey

2009-04-29T04:29:00.003+01:00

Camera Shy

2009-04-29T04:27:00.003+01:00

Wildlife of Borneo

2009-04-28T17:56:00.008+01:00

The main reason I wanted to visit Borneo for so long, was to see Orang Utans in the wild. During my jungle time we did manage to make the most of a dry morning and get out for a dawn boat ride, and fortunately succeeded in spotting one in some trees. We also saw a big family of Probiscus monkeys too, and plenty of long tailed monkeys along with lots of other interesting creatures. But after packing down our muddy camp and leaving without a trace, we moved on to Sandakan, where, from there we got into a another boat and set off for Turtle Island. This is a collection of three real desert islands type places, surrounded entirely by bright yellow sand in the clear blue waters just off from the Phillipines border. These islands are a protected conservation area for the survival of the turtles. Every night up to 80 of the animals crawl ashore to lay 40-120 eggs in the beach before covering them over and returning back to the sea.

Only one of the islands is open to visitors, and during the day there isn't much to do other than snorkel or relax of the beach. But in the evening, every visitor (only about 25 of them) waits in the canteen for the call of 'Turtle Time!'. Then from there, be it 9pm, 3am, or anything in between, we drop everything and go out to watch the process as one of the turtles lays her eggs as the ranger sneakily steals them whilst she looks the other way, before they get buried somewhere else safe from lizzards and other preditors. Finally we're able to watch as a freshly hatched batch of eggs from two months prior get realeased into sea.

The eggs are buried in a pen filled with mesh cylinders, one batch of eggs lie below each cylinder. During the day there's not much to see, just sand, but once the sun goes down, up to 30 of this cylinders fill with mini turtles who'd just clawed their way to the surface. For me, that was the best bit of the evening. One minute there's nothing, then all of a sudden there are hundereds of turtles everywhere. Most pop up with their mesh pen, and a ranger gathers them into washing baskets. I saw him fill three right to the top. He doesn't wash them though, just carries them to the water. Apparently the survival rate of baby turtles is incredibly low, 1% or something even less maybe, and I can see why, some hatchlings were reappearing back up the beach after mistaking the lights of the main lodge for the moon...good luck little ones, you're going to need it!

After turtle island, it was another really early start to get oursleves back over to main land Borneo and to Sepilok Orang Utan Rehibilitation Center to catch the morning feeding time. Only three Orang Utans came for their breakfast of bananas and milk, but it was cool to see them clamber their way out of the trees as they slowly get closer. The Center is good, mostly rainforest with one viewing area, so when the Orang Utans feel ready, they can venture further out into the woodlands and fend entirely for themselves. I like Orang Utans, I think they would be my favourite, but I also took the opportunity to visit a Probiscus Monkey Sanctuary and see the big-nosed creatures a bit closer up. This sanctuary was good too, as again the monkeys were free to roam the rainforest, but 3 families and group of batchelers decided to stay closer by. It was intersting and clear to see how the four groups interacted and the hirachy of importance between not just them as collectives, but between the individuals with in their circles too.

As much as I liked all the creatures mentioned in this post, I've decided to head it up with a picture of a generic pest of a monkey.

To the Jungle

2009-04-28T16:43:00.008+01:00

Reunited with my washing, the time came to set off for the Jungle. Due to a flat tyres that couldn't be fixed until a driver vs. mechanic game of chess had been played, and heavy ran that eventually worked it's way through the seals of the bus for an internal downpour, we arrived very late and were forced to write off any plans of jungle stays that night. Instead we were split up and distributed around various villages and spent the night in the houses of local families. Not expecting us until the following night, most households were caught by surprise, mine weren't even home when I arrived. The stay was good, but maybe not as productive as it could have been. For the best part of the evening we were back at main base for dinner and a cultural performance, then when we returned 'home', were advised to rest. The next half day with the family was largly the same. We did spend time talking to the family, but attempts to help with household chores or meals found us sat waiting for food whilst watching Asian X-Factor after being told once more to rest. My family were lovely though, and they did live a very remote and traditional life, it just would have been nice to help out more.

By the early afternoon the next day, we'd all moved out of our houses and reconviened ready for our jungle time. Armed mainly with waterproofs and hammocks, the boats were loaded, and after a couple of little stops along the Kinabatangan River, we climbed ashore to hang our beds before the usual afternoon downpour struck. After a quick lesson, we all managed to get hammocks, mozzie nets and shelters up in good time, and I think all passed the weight tolerance test, eventually.

The rain did arrive as expected and forced boat trips and night hikes to be called off, leaving us sat around all evening playing cards, drinking Milo and chatting. We all were on high leach alert so had everything tucked into everything, and daren't look down incase we caught site of one of the Jungle Superbugs about our person withing the light our headtorches. It's probably the most still I've sat for a long time.

Bed time soon rolled around and it was discovered that although the hammocks were up, not everyone managed to get the water-proof shelter in place as effectively as it perhaps needed to be! Anyway the guides donated their beds to those with unsleepable situations, leaving one of them a comfy spot on the camp table. Since being in the rainforest, I've seen giant versions of most regular bugs, so didn't envy that Jungle dude.

The Hammocks were great, quite enclosed with the net and all, a little coffin like and claustraphobic maybe, but if you don't mind that and are short enough, then it's really quite comfy. The rest of the group were taller and didn't like it, but I personally (after listening to the Jungle Book for effect) had a great nights sleep. One thing I did learn about my group however was, as nice and helpful as they all are, if you find a big bug in your little hanging tent, no matter how pathetic and desperate your cries for help may be, once safely and stable in their beds, no-one will dare risk moving to help. Instead it would appear to be more productive to laugh. Cheers for that!

No boiling eggs...

2009-04-26T20:06:00.003+01:00

...whilst in the hot springs. And don't wash your towel in there either...maybe feet are also banned, I'm not sure.

Jungle Bugs

2009-04-26T11:37:00.004+01:00

After completing our stroll up the mountain it was time to chill in Poring and enjoy the hot springs that it had to offer. In need of the oportunity to soak in some hot water (cold showers tend to be the norm) after a few aching muscles, the hot springs didn't quite manage to live up to expectations. The springs aren't as natural as you may expect and although the water is hot, it is actually to be enjoyed within one of the many outdoor bath tubs that take a good hour to fill. It's a funny place though, being a popular stop for those that climbed Mt. Kinabalu the day previous, the villagers of Poring must think that all tourists walk with a limp and grimace!

Still keen to make the make the most of the grounds of the Poring Hot Springs area, and determined to loosen my leg muscles off some how, I set off alone on the 3.5km walk to what was promised to be a spectacular waterfall. Most of the group had decided to spend their day doing anything but walking, apart from two others who'd set of much earlier for the same waterfall.

By the end of my water-logged decent of the mountain, my boots had puddles in them so were out to dry. My clothes were also dripping, so to take the presure off me drying the stuff, I splashed out on the local laundry service (as run by an 8-year-old). Anyway, this left me with just shorts, T-Shirt and flipflops to walk in. This was fine until the rain started...again. I didn't think to much of it, just an annoyingly wet walk through some woods. The route seemed to lead me to edge around river rocks and wade across smaller waterfall pools before disappearing into the trees. I realised this wasn't as an obviouse path as I'd expected and a few times found myself confused which way to go. It's only then I realised I'd not informed anyone of whereabouts as I'd supposed to, so wondered what I would do if I didn't pick the right directons on my way back. I wasn't the only one. When reaching a section of fallen canopy, the deep bramble appearence with armies of ants on patrol created a difficult barrier for me, and looking down a I found a note left by the two other group members. Apparently they too were concerned about getting lost forever so left themselves a paper trail for a rescue party to find.

It was then that it started and I realised I was in a jungle. As I moved for a closer look at the note I spied a problem, it was an attack of the Leeches! They're horrible. Freaked out, I went to brush the first off, but it was still there, stuck fast. Eventually I detached it and turned my attention to the rest of my legs when next I caught one crawling up the soul of my footwear towards my toes...fast. It wasn't quite there yet so I just wiped the edge of my flipflop on the ground and was stressed to see it was still hanging on, crawling nearer to reaching me. It was like some sort of super bug, everytime I brushed it off, it got knocked off balance a little, but quickly steadied itself and wriggled on. I scraped the soul on the ground, a fallen tree and used a twig (which consiquently snapped) whilst all the time shouting at it, and still it just rolled a bit then climbed up more. I did eventually win the battle, and in celebration decided I'd seen waterfalls before so best I be getting back...quickly. My walk was more of a fast march to minimise the time each foot was on the ground, thus preventing leeches getting docking time onto feet - I didn't want a repeat of the last fight. When walking through long grassy sections, I even comtemplated ways to stop both legs brushing through the wet greenary and being subject to high leech risk, but excepted hopping wasn't going to help matters.

It was a funny walk back. I saw things like giant earth worms (like small snakes) and giant milipedes. I was torn between taking a picture of these rare sights to me or getting quickly to a safe zone, so found my self marching back and forth as I battled with my decisions. Eventually the camera always won over and I marched stupidly on the spot until I was ready to shoot, stopped to avoid camera shake, then began my enthusiatic steps the second the shutter clicked. I stopped for regular leech spot checks on my walk back and caught further seven in the act. I wasn't happy.

Making it back alive, the one thing I learnt was why you must always where long pants in the jungle, and as we were headed there for the night the next day, I was harassed to discover my (and only my) laundry had gone missing. So I'm leech-hating and trouserless. All that I can buy in this tiny, tiny village are braceletts or t-shirts, which aren't going to help, at this rate I'll be jungle trekking in my PJ bottoms, which I guess is the SE Asia way, but not ideal. After asking everyone I met in the village if they'd seen my clothes, eventually the owner came home from school and put her homework to one side and finally found my stuff under the cabinate or something! That was a happy moment, and to be fair my clothes were smelling the best they have since I left in January, just like mum had washed them.

Monkey Mountain

2009-04-25T07:27:00.002+01:00

Not Monkey Mountain but Mt. Kinabalu. However, the rocks on the pyramid shape in the early morning light look to me like the face of a monkey.

The Mountain

2009-04-25T04:47:00.008+01:00

Before we all knew it, we were in a lodge right at the base of the mountain packing our bags ready for the 2 day climb. The were two possible routes to take, the most common and shorter Summit trail, or as myself and 3 others opted for, the 8km Mesilau trail. With the two kilometers extra to walk, it wasn't appealing to most but as we would all decend via the Summit trail, I fancied the change of scenary. It was a good walk, but after heading 'up' for 1km, heading straight back down was demoralising, but soon it was back to the uphill struggle again! Actually it was mostly enjoyable, passing waterfalls and over streams (where I momentarily lost Sparticus the walking stick to the water...thank you mountain guide for jumping in a recuing it!). The trail was pretty narrow and consisted of rocks as steps up nearly the entire way, but at more delapidated sections, ladders type structures had been placed. It was a long plod, but it was interesting to see how the scenary varied greatly along the way as our altitude increased.

The final 2km on that first day were the worst. Rain was starting to put in an apperence and the trail got more taxing. I found my energy suddenly just drained completely, concerned it was the altitude doing it's thing, I was relieved to find that a packet of biscuits worked wonders! As a group we'd spread out now, we all just had to get up to the lodge at our own pace, and finally we all did by about 5pm. Here we were all to refuel and rest for some hours before getting up at 2am for the final push to summit in time for sunrise. I was happy to see my insomnia had kicked in as soon as my head hit the pillow. 2 minutes previous I couldn't have kept my eyes open.

When 2am came around I realised this was the earliest I'd awoken for sunrise, and hoped it would be my last for this trip. I think only about 100 people each day are allowed on the trail, so everyone gathered for an early breakfast before, in the cold, a snake of headlamps set off for the summit. Things were instatly tougher with many really had to fight the effects of altitude sickness, a fair few needed to turn back. I was fortunate not get any so just kept making my way onwards and upwards. The route across sheets of granite was marked out by white ropes, some for guidence, some to be used to pull ourselves up. In a few places it looked as if falling would be a bad future plan, but after the worst of it, the gradients calmed down and the main aim was not to get lost as clouds quickly float in obscuring vision of any reasonable distance. Fortunately it was a pretty clear night and all the clouds were a long way below. I counted down each half kilometer to complete the 2k to the summit and was gutted to find when I got there, the final peak was another kilometer yet, damn mountain guides lying to me! Nearing the top I realised I'd lost the group, but looking back I could only see a dotted line of white lights disappearing into the distance, so continued on. The final bit was the most difficult as a scramble needing both hands was required to make it up and over huge boulders to fianlly reach Low's peak at 4095m (13,432ft). Here I found a jaggedy rock to sit precariously on and wrapped up warm whilst I awaited the sun and the rest of the group.

The summit was interesting, nothing there but a signpost, flimsy wire fence intended to encourage people not to fall over the side, and a handful of other climbers. Up there the air was really thin, the temperature had dropped to around zero and most interestingly to me, anything in a packet had bloated to it's maximum and was ready burst.

The descent was easier, maybe because we were all keen to just get this challange over with already, but also because we stopped having to fight gravity and the air continially got more comfortable to breathe in. The sun was bright and hot, and illuminated all that we'd encountered on the way up, some of it quite frightening. My clumsy ways struck and I fell on my way down, but only a meter or so, which was good for my health (excelpt my leg), but bad because it just meant I still had a long way to go the conventional the way.

Back at the hut we got a second breakfast (it's now 9am) before packing up and setting off back down the the base. I think I hated every 6km of it. The rain suddenly just came down (as it often does in these parts) and didn't stop all day. Within about 20mins the trail was more of a stream rushing down hill and no amount of waterproofing could keep me or my stuff dry. Finally reaching the bottom we had lunch and sat dazed waiting for the group to become complete before moving on!

I’m Supingi, your Mountain Guide

2009-04-25T04:22:00.005+01:00

I’ve just left Borneo and now I’m not up a mountain or in the jungle, I thought it’s about time I stopped making excuses and updated things on here.

One of the things I’ve been most looking forward to on this trip was the climb up to the summit of Mount Kinabalu, the highest mountain in South East Asia (although this has been disputed), and the first few days of the trip were dominated by the challenge ahead. I know I had underestimated the seriousness of the inpending hike, and it’s fair to say I wasn’t alone. I knew it would be tough, and I knew altitude would probably play a part, but after having 2 meetings a day in preparation leading up to the ‘big day’, it became apparent that it was going to be tougher than a long, steep trek.

So it all started at first meal in Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia’s Sabah region of Borneo, where we were given an overview of the upcoming two weeks, but talk of the mountain lingered longer, and everyone quickly began to doubt what they‘d signed up to. We got ourselves to bed early that night and the next day made a start by gathering the necessary supplies before heading to Kiau, a small and remote village shadowed by the mountain itself. Here we were given beds for the night in the local church and introduced to ‘Supingi, your mountain guide’ (his favourite phrase) and his gang of helpers at rice wine fueled house party. Supingi continued to build the mountain nerves before proceeding to introduce us to home made rice wine, to which strict rules to his drinking game we all had to abide.

After a couple of hours the locals of the village had clambered up the hill to the house and joined us, wholey intoxicated from a full days drinking, and introduced themselves (more than several times) before continuing with their astounding levels of drunkeness. A couple of the guys performed with a guitar and drum kit made from spoons and bottles. It proved to be a good bonding experience for the group that had only met the previous evening, as we all worked to defend each other from the inappropriateness of the locals, particulary Jackson whom appeared to have arrived to the house a swamp. At the end of the evening a few of us held back for a couple more rice wines (that had severely deteriated in quality as the evening went on) and watched as the locals couldn’t take anymore and passed out in quick succession. Calling it a night, we found and lead the way back to the church as our supposed escorts followed behind oblivious to everything!

The next morning, whilst the locals emmerged still very drunk from the night before, Supingi met us at the church and insisted we were to put the mountain out of our minds and not think about it…as he pointed it out to us high up in the clouds. Thanks Supingi!

Borneo Buddies

2009-04-21T15:15:00.003+01:00

It's been a while since I've had an oportunity to 'blog up', so now, as I'm reaching the end of my tour of Malaysian Borneo, I'm going to start the next series of posts. It's going to take a while as the past week or so has been pretty intense, but I'll start by introducing the group I've been spending my time with. Here we all are prior to tackling Mt. Kinabalu that rises behind us...we didn't look so happy the next day when it was finally all over!

I'll be fine

2009-04-12T03:47:00.002+01:00

I'm off to tackle the mountain over the next few days, and after that I'm into the jungle. In an attempt to reassure, the guide kindly told us the deadliest thing out here was...The Mosquito!

I'm not worried at all!

Broadening my culinary horizons

2009-04-11T04:32:00.003+01:00

Later I'm off to meet my a new group, with who I'll make my way through the jumgle, spend some time with Orangutans and climb Mt. Kinabalu. I don't expect to get loads of WiFi during this so thought I'd share with you now the fact that I've finally broken away from my travelling staple of chicken fried rice! This meal of fish, chosen by me (sorry fish! Although it was already dead) got BBQ'd and served up along the harber front for less than 2 pounds. If you like fresh seafood, this is a great place to visit, but a bad place to come if you're a fish.

Friendly Malaysia

2009-04-11T03:34:00.003+01:00

I've not been in Malaysia long but my first impressions of the people are great. Ready to speak in a mix of basic Malay words and broken English, everyone here speaks my home language fantastically, which is great, and helps earn me major brownie points when I do attempt a bit of Malaysian anyway. On top of that, everyone just seems really nice.

In my first hour out I met a guy in the street who started convosation as I walked past. With it being late and on a quiet road in a big new place I was naturally suspicious as he rattled off questions like he'd rehearsed them, as I tried to make a polite exit. Seeing I wanted to get away, he said he could see I was an independant person and wished me all the best. I said thank you and began to turn. He then said 'What do you do at home?' making convosation again. I said I was a student (nobody wants to waste their time mugging a student, they're always skint). Apparently he was a lecturer of art so asked what I studied. I didn't want to make common ground so decided to stay away from courses of a creative nature, which was hard, but I stuttered a bit and then said physiotherapy. He again acknowledged I was keen to walk on and bid me farewell once more as I turned to go. But, then again struck up convostation 'When's your birthday?'. 'Err...I don't know...December' I'm really distracted and looking for the danger, is he keeping me occupied for someone to run past and take my camera? Will he take it? Or is he just really nice? He then rattles off a load of stuff and I think he's manner is why I was cautious. He spoke like Derren Brown, saying line after line, jumping from topic to topic in a very calm and collected way. Having a bad initial gut instinct, I've been taught to listen to that and assume somethings no right, so got convinced he was trying to hypnotise me! He went on...'My birthday is on the 5th, the same as the King's, yours is the 14th, see how that works, 1 and 4 equals 5, the numbers always work in patterns, just now I've been watching that fountain over there, it's beautiful isn't it, can you see it there, actually I've just done a lecture in the Hilton, I say Hilton of course, it's not called that anymore, and you study physiotherapy, how does that work, I met a swedish girl earler who does the same....' It was late, 10 or11pm maybe, and for someone just walking past, to me it was weird, especially as he knew I didn't want to stop. He had such a definite, educated and rehearsed manner about him that I was beginning to think he'd have me willingly handing over my stuff and not realising it til an hour or so later. As odd as it was, I reckon maybe he was just super nice, and I just really tired and nervous, although he honestly shouldn't be stopping girls in the street for small talk at that time!

Apart from that, everyone has been really friendly and helpful (apparently too helpful here, they'll tell you what you want to hear so as not to disappoint, so be careful when asking about busses for example. They might say one is going where you want to go, it may well not be). In the hotel at breakfast the head guy singled me out. 'How is everything?' I agreed it was good. 'And the food?' I told him it was very nice. Then went on with 'And how about my staff, are they ok? And your room? Is the standard ok?' He's listing everything about the hotel, the services, facilities, housekeeping etc. I'm just saying 'Yeah, yeah, all is very good thank you...Yeah that's good too...Yep and that...Everything is fine' Apparently if there's anything I need, I'm to let him know. I watched him for a bit as he wandered the rest of restaurant but he didn't approach anyone else for an impromptu survey...I think he liked my accent, it seems to be the cause of most unwanted conversations!

Seriously though the people are really nice. Nobody hassles you and everyone smiles and says hello. A friend of a friend even very kindly came to to take me out at short notice and picked my up from my hotel. She took me to a really nice bar too. One 34 floors up complete with open air areas, swimming pool and fantastic views of the Patronas towers. But with my time in KL done, I've headed over to Sabah, Malaysian Borneo and wonder whether there'll be the same atmosphere here too, it feels like a different country altogether.

A big thank you to BMB back home!

2009-04-11T03:02:00.003+01:00

One other thing about having the Marriott planned was having a known address for somewhere, allowing, should anyone have felt the need to, things to be sent to me.

It was a great to get an envelope from the guys and girls back at work, although I don't mean to sound ungreatful, but I only got the picture, you forgot to put the actual straightners in!

Seriuosly though, thank you very much (particulary to Damian who I suspect instigated it), it really made my day and made me laugh and smile lots. Your messages were all great although most I can't repeat on here! It was a fantastic surprise (particulary after arriving into a big city all on my own!) and I feel very lucky to have you all on my side, miss you all!

Cheers! x

Not where I'm staying...for a change

2009-04-10T17:02:00.003+01:00

I've been enjoying my past couple of days in Kuala Lumpur. The city is nice with some interesting architecture, but better than that, my parents very kindly gave me some Marriott vouchers to use somewhere along my way. I've forgotten what normal hotel rooms are like, and here at the JW Marriott in Kuala Lumpur, it's a luxurious reminder.

Firstly, it was nice not to have to get a bus that inevitably terminates at the drivers guesthouse, staying somewhere established meant an official airport bus went straight to the door. It was then nice to not have to walk around looking for somewhere cheap enough for the night, inspect the room, decide it's a little dubious, then just stay there anyway.

Doing my best to fit in on arrival, I kept my backpack in it's slightly colourful flightbag to appear a little less backpackery, although the lime green sausage shaped luggage I was left with didn't help much. Anyway, I feel completly spoilt, I've free tea and everything! And a sperate shower (that works) rather than usual bathroom/shower cubical in one that always does something unexpected. I've got a bath too, and lots and lots of hot water, amazing. The bed is super comfy, and as the room is sealed, unlike my usual standard, I'm not under mozzie attack all the time, meaning no need to position my sleeping bag sized net over a double bed, held up with duck-tape and weighed down with water bottles. Being able to skip that along with my other anti-mosquito rituals and 'rat patrol' duties, bed time is much simpler! The only thing I was missing was a little line of marching ants, I've grown quite fond of them. I'm not carrying my own aet around in my bag anymore, I encouraged them to move out back in the Mekong Delta (they'll like it there).

Anyway, up on the 19th floor, with a view of the Patronas Towers, think I wanted to spend my entire 2 Kuala Lumpur days in the hotel enjoying comforts I'd forgotten. I even planed to get to bed a little earlier so I can fit a nap on the sofa in...simple pleasures!

KL confirmed

2009-04-09T15:23:00.010+01:00

After the suspiciously short flight, once in the city, I started by tracking down the Patronas Towers to confirm and reassure to myself that the pilot did actually fly us to Kuala Lumpur and not somewhere 'same same, but different'.

Holiday Monks

2009-04-09T15:06:00.005+01:00

Designated Monk seating area at Krabi Airport. Must be low season.

Why I prefer trains...

2009-04-09T14:51:00.004+01:00

It was finally time for me to leave Thailand for the last time (on this trip) and get myself to Kuala Lumpur. With the Orient Express very slightly out of my price range, and a 24 hour bus not sounding appealing (especially with knowledge of a few overnight crashes recently and awkward overland border crossing points), I found myself a cheap flight. Already running into problems as I'd booked it for the wrong day (due to my confussion over my KL to Borneo flight), I struggled to convince the lady at my guesthouse that there are buses that go to the airport from Krabi town...I just need to know where to meet it. She insisted that I had to be driven by her son until I managed to prove the exsistance of the shuttle bus (there is also a public bus, but to get her to agree to that was asking too much). Suddenly she remembered there was a shuttle service afterall, and instantly knew the number to call off the top of her head!

I surprised myself when I got to the airport with plenty of time, so found a quiet corner in the departure lounge to listen to some music. One time I looked up to see the room full, the next it was entirely empty. I thought it strange that everyone would have gone, and having watch troubles, I hurridly worked to confirm the time to myself. Putting it down to it the fact it was a whole hour till my flight, and Krabi being only a small airport, I assumed people tend to leave themselves less time here, and will start arriving soon.

Bording time soon rolls round, and looking about now, I can see that still not a soul has arrived, and even the people working at the gift counter and coffee bar have left. Certain this isn't right and slightly concerned that still I'm there on the wrong day, I go for an explore. A confused AirAsia assistant spies me and hurries over. Turns out I was in the Domestic Lounge, not the International Lounge. I hadn't even cleared immegration! The International Lounge was reassuringly busier...and bording fast when I arrived.

Pleased to be on the plane, I reflect on how many flights I've come close to missing...Hong Kong-Bangkok, Krabi-KL and KL-Borneo. I was pretty late for my St London-Petersburg flight too, leaving only my Hanoi-Bangkok flight (which I booked the day before) and Bangkok-Krabi flight (which I was already at the airport for) that have gone smoothly. I also reflect on the only other time I've flown on my own somewhere, and remember how 30mins prior to take-off, instead of being at London City Airport bound for Edingburgh, I was sat outside Tate & Lyle Sugar factory after getting on the wrong shuttle bus from Canning Town. I'm beginning to not like planes and think I have a mental block towards them. Next time I'll get the train.

Anyway, it's a three hour flight so I use the last of my Thai Baht to get an expensively cheap meal. Hated doing it, but I'd be hungry later otherwise, and it's rubbish trying to find your way into a big city feeling weak. I was really baffled when we touched down just 40 minutes after take-off. Took me ages to confirm I'd gotten on the right plane and was in the correct city! If I hadn't already nearly made it to the end of my trip, I'd think my travelling future was bleak.

Has anyone seen...

2009-04-09T14:21:00.002+01:00

...my other flipflop?

Whilst sitting with my head down cowering from some rain, I noticed my flipflops didn't match as they once did. After some closer inspection I could then see that they were in fact different in colour, with different detailing and logos, and even different in size. I'm not sure how I hadn't noticed before. I have no idea when the switch could have happened, but almost certainly it was within the last week.

If by any chance someone has stumbled across this site, that is wandering around with odd footwear, and has recently been in Southern Thailand...get in touch if you want to swap back right feet! Cheers!

Swim (and kiss) with the fishes

2009-04-07T19:45:00.004+01:00

Naturally High

2009-04-07T19:16:00.004+01:00

In true dedication to this blog, whilst in Phi Phi, I took the the time to find a vertical cliff face to scale, to get you a picture of the best view I could find. I hope you appreciate the effort.

Actually I climbed a bit in Krabi too, where the bays in Railay are considered to be one of the premier areas for it in the world, and although the views there were stunning too, I left my camera safely at the bottom. The only reason I took it up in Phi Phi was because my climbing partner seemed to prefer taking pictures than keeping both hands on the rope that kept me safe. Thought it best to take it away from him.

Holiday over, back to work!

2009-04-07T17:19:00.006+01:00

I've reached the end of my weeks holiday from travelling, which I spent hanging around the Andaman coast in Thailand. I had a few days in Krabi, and then on to Ko Lanta. Ko Lanta was too sleepy for me, and even though my intention was to just chill out for a few days, after a few hours of hammock time whilst sheltering from the rain in the porch of my own personal £5 beach hut (complete with ants as standard), I was bored and decided was time to leave for Ko Phi Phi asap.

Ko Phi Phi is certainly livelier and had more to keep me occupied. One of the main things I did with my time was a snorkling trip, which wasn't without it's mishaps. Getting a good distance away from land on the way to bamboo island, our propella fell off, leaving us little else to do but float about and wait for a passing boat to tow us. Continuing this arrangement for some time, a new boat eventually caught up with us at another bay. The moment the switch was made, the boat that had previously been doing all the towing, instantly suffered the same propella fate as us, and the tow tables turned as we tied our boats together once more, this time in reverse.

Anyway that's my free time over with, back to the job of travelling for my final few weeks. I had hoped for a bit of time in Phuket, but being notoriously bad with dates where trips are concerned, my calendar confusion struck again. Convinced my flight from Kuala Lumpa to Borneo was Saturday, I'm lucky my parents are on the ball enough to send me a panicked email and inform me it was actually Friday (this is exactly why I give out copies of my itinary, I can't be trusted). It's slightly annoying as I'd resultantly booked other flights and accomodation incorrectly, but with everything put right now (at cost), I'm back on track.

Back in the Land of Thai

2009-04-03T08:56:00.000+01:00

From Hanoi, I flew down to Krabi to spend some time in the Thai islands for a holiday before I make my away across to Borneo. Mourning the loss of the group, I was back hunting for my own accommodation once more, and found quite a nice little place with the obligatory ant colony in the corner, and lack of roof across the bathroom. It's great being a backpacker again!

Bike of burden

2009-04-02T19:28:00.003+01:00

In South East Asia, the only limit to what can be carried on the back of a bike is the number of bungee ties you have.

Last 'nam post

2009-04-02T19:13:00.003+01:00

Before reaching the end point on our Reunification Express route in Hanoi, we made a brief stop at Hue, but as this isn’t a place that impressed me half as much as the others, I’ll gloss over it. I think my main memory from there would be having a bad moped driver who nearly wrote me off…twice. So straight to Hanoi then.

My time in Hanoi was pretty short but I was there long enough to visit the Hanoi Hilton, a name given to a prison used to house American pilots shot down during the Vietnam/American war, and gain my hat trick of dead, communist world leaders, this time Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh’s Museleum was far more reminiscent of the Russian’s Lenin version than it was of China’s, although I think that’s because the links are close. So close in fact that Ho Chi Minhs body has an annual month long holiday to Russia every November for maintenance. And speaking of dead people, the train delivered us into Hanoi early enough to witness the city zombies take to the streets, their routine the same as the quieter town zombies. Something that was more odd about a Hanoi morning was at about 7am, megaphone style loud speakers began talking (shouting) to the streets below before eventually breaking into patriotic song some time later, nobody responded to it though.

Hanoi was mostly about parting with the group, which is always a shame, stocking up on propaganda posters and planning a couple of days at Halong Bay, to which actually three other members of the group joined me on. Halong Bay is beautiful, a protected area of around 2000 Karst mountains and rocks rising from the sea. We stayed on our boat for the night and enjoyed the views as the sun set and atmosphere changed. The captain of our boat invited us to join him and his sea friends for drinks, (vodka disguised as tea, mildly mixed with coke and housed in a pot), whilst a floating corner store style boat (that stocked little more than vodka, beer, Oreos, Pringles and coke) circled demanding ’Buy something!’. The next morning was good as we took to kayaks to explore caves and find monkeys, which was easy, before sailing back and returning to Hanoi where we, as the remaining four of the group said our goodbyes and all went separate ways.

Fine Vietnamese Cuisine

2009-04-01T04:50:00.002+01:00

After not seing Special K on a shelf anywhere for nealy 3 months, this was a big occasion!

Good Morning Vietnam...again

2009-04-01T04:30:00.005+01:00

By staying up late so much in this country I was able to witness a typical Vietnamese morning. At about 5am, a few zombie like charactors start to appear walking the streets slowly. Within about 10mins there's 20 more, then 20 more than that, until within no time at all, there's litterally hundreds of half asleep locals wondering around. All of them are walking by barely lifting their feet and swinging both arms in unison, none of them communicate, but some clap. By 5.30am it's like being in 28 Days Later as everywhere you look, zombiefied people stagger about in the dark, now roughly all heading in the same direction. At 6am the sun suddenly appears and every single person instantly snaps out of their sleepy state to line up by the river to take part in an early morning keep-fit class for an hour.

Moped taxi drivers however, prefer to sleep like normal people...well almost.

Hoi An

2009-04-01T03:48:00.004+01:00

Hoi An was easily my favourite place in Vietnam, and is the place to go if you want anything made. The streets are narrow and filled with traditional fronted tailor shops. Trying on clothes here leaves you needing a very good excuse not buy, as within a couple of hours they'll make you a new item of clothing that fits you perfectly, in the colours you want and deliver it direct to your hotel for you. All for next to nothing. I think the the entire group had clothes made whilst here and I like the principal of being able to design your own stuff, go away for swim and a smoothie before cycling back a few hours later for a fitting as they work complete your order by the next morning.

I think the funniest (fuuny-weird) thing that happened here was after having a great day, a few of us hit a cool local bar before most headed home. The remaining two aimed to jump on our bikes and find somewhere else and succeeded easily enough. Things changed when two women asked if they could join us and then sat either side. My women, from Belgium, managed to offend me instantly by responding to my short introductory sentance with 'You have a problem with the way you speak'. A little taken back I explained I had a slight lisp but people generally don't notice. 'Oh, they notice! They just don't tell you.' She very kindly replied. Apparently I sound like I have marbles in mouth. What happened to my Queens English? Last I heard I had a melody to my voice! Keen to stay polite, I joked about my speech inpediment until she tried to make ammends. She asked if impediment meant disability, like when you lose a leg, and with me agreeing somewhat she explained she too had an impedimant of sorts. It's near 3am and there's no one else about now really but it's too late to abort the convosation so have to crack on. I guess that maybe she has only 9 toes, but I was wrong. 8 toes? 7 toes? 6? I really don't know what to say so continue to count down until she steps in with 'I have a disease of the blood'. I can hazard a guess at what this is, the women is pretty pale and skinny, so attempt to agree it's a rubbish topic of chat anyway, lets find a new one. She wispers in my ear that she's HIV anyway. Great, what can I say to that? I tell her that I now like have marbles in my mouth and am thinking of getting some more.

Feeling quite awkward, I turn to my Irish counterpart to see if he can bail me out of this grave conversation. I was upset to see his new friend, although Kiwi, is actually part Irish and a fantastic singer, and between them they're jollily belting out 'It's a Long Way to Tipperary'. I turn back to to my Belgium 'friend' to continue our discusion on deadly illnesses.

Back on the train

2009-04-01T03:14:00.005+01:00

Saigon to Nha Trang marked the first night on a sleeper train for a while, and the beggining of another country long journey. Determined to 'Russian' it up a bit, the way all long train trips should be, I stopped messing about with the whisky and turned back to the vodka for this leg of my route. It has to be said, the Vietnamese people seemed to live up to the Russian stereotype more and a visit to restaurant cart had us welcomed open arms for a change whilst a very merry crowd of locals drank the night away. We didn't stop with them but did the same in our own cabin, and got to bed in time to grab ourselves 20 mins sleep. It's shame the first thing we had to do after getting off was get on a boat! It was ok, I soon adjusted and it turned out to be the perfect place to recover. But I've learnt that not only does South East Asia have Jungle Bugs, it also has Sea Fleas. Don't know what they were, but everytime we jumped into the water we came under attack from some sort of tiny, biting mite!

Fully recovered and rested, the next day was excellent. Before some group bonding at a near by mud bath, we took a motorcycle tour to a local orphanage and had a great time with the kids. To pose for the picture and the see the results was like the most fun they'd ever had. And despite them all looking as happy as can be, we all couldn't help but feel really sad for them. It was a great place though, and once everyone had managed to shake the kids off their backs and retrieve their cameras back off them, some followed us out to say good-bye. It seemed very Long Way Down for a moment, except Charley Boorman and Ewan McGregor never rode away on the back of a mopeds!

Saigon

2009-04-01T02:31:00.005+01:00

Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon as it is still most commonly known, is another city that I actually enjoyed being in. Finding somewhere to stay for the 2 nights until I joined my new group was easier than I expected too. Accomodation was instantly more pricey than I'd gotten used to, but walking down the main backpackers haunt, you'll be amazed at how many crazy ladies will attempt to drag you into their homes. Still not that strong, I find myself saying "No I don't need a room thank you, I was just going to check this place out..." All the while getting dragged down an allyway and led up some stairs as the lady declares "Same same". Same same is the best phrase ever, it applies to everything that isn't actually the same but they are trying to pass off otherwise! I hear it at least 6 times a day and have successfully managed to include it effortlessly in to my vocabulary.

The first lady led me into her tiny front from and I felt quite guilty to be there. Her son was sprawled out across the floor with severe MS and the husband was kicked into action to show me about after the lady successfully caught and brought me back. I made some excuses and left in search of somewhere more obvious, but found resistance to these determined women futile, and stayed with one down the road, again walking through the living area and having other family members put to work upon my arrival. It was actually a really nice little place even if the sons sitting around beating their shins with baseball bats (in preparation for boxing matches I assume) did seem unnerving.

After joining the tour however, I was back to an far higher level accommodation comfort, right up to 2 whole stars. It was great to have hot water, be able to keep my shoes on inside and not have to sit up on rat patrol all night.

I'd heard the people of Vietnam were mostly out to scam you, and although I found this somewhat true whilst on my own in the Mekong Delta, once in a group I was sheltered from it all. Infact I found everyone to be very nice, apart if you make the mistake to stand in front of someones fruit stall for too long not buying. Expect a mango to be thrown at you as encouragement to move along!

Time is Saigon was focussed around the Vietnam/American War. Just about everywhere I visited here was connected to it, from the Reunification Palace, War Remnants Museum and Cu Chi Tunnles (a little way out of town). Like Cambodia, Vietnam has a shocking and disturbing history, and the people today still suffer immensly for it, this time more with the horrific chemicals that the US drowned the area in. The Cu Chi tunnles were the highlight of Saigon for me, and it was facinating to see how inventive the people of this country were at fighting the Americans. Moving their whole life underground they devised a series of tunnles, inventions and traps that made it impossible for the US to take them over. Our leader Ngon spoke about the people of the tunnles in first person a lot, and although she denies being in the Viet Cong, we think otherwise and wonder how many Americans she captured back in the day!

Look both ways, then walk anyway

2009-03-30T19:32:00.004+01:00

After finally making back onto the worn trail of Vietnam, I think the first thing everyone noticed about was the impossibility of crossing the road. The are litterally nearly as many bikes as there are people in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, and it seems at rush hour every single one of them is out and on the same stretch of road as the one you want to make it over.

Crossing is easier than it looks though, but it is worth noting that rather than brakes, Vietnamese bikers prefer to use the horn instead. Essentially you edge nearer to the band of traffic as you prepare mentally to step out. Then before you've taken the plunge, one bike will career round the back of you followed by several more and before you've stepped anywhere, you're in the middle of the traffic. There's not much left to do now but keep walking slowly and only stop for cars and busses, the bikes will always mangae to dodge you...you hope. Upon reaching the halfway mark it's time to rapidly switch you attention to the other direction and continue forward. Never ever go back. Nearing the other side, don't celebrate making it alive until you're actually on the pavement. No matter how near to it you are, one stray bike will always cut infront of you and encourage others to do the same, putting you back in the middle of the traffic once more.

If you can bare to take your eyes off the rows on 10 strong mopeds coming at you, it is advisable to try and look both ways. You wouldn't expect anything to be coming at you from the left with a herd of bikes speeding forward from the right, but there will be at least 5 bikes going the wrong way in the wrong lane. Nobody gets hurt though, organised chaos just seems to work here.

Good Morning Vietnam!

2009-03-30T15:42:00.006+01:00

Sorry, had to start at least one post with this title. I'd been concious that it's been a few days or so since I updated this blog, but signing in now I realise it's been more like two weeks. Vietnam is that good my 13 days between Saigon and Hanoi have felt like a weekend break. Normally I update this when I can, and when travelling with people it's harder to find time, meaning I just have to do it during the night when the others are sleeping. But I've been lucky to have some great company whilst in a fantastic country, that when everyone's asleep, even the last of the Aussies, the remaining Brits didn't let the side down making the most of just about every hour in each place. I honestly averaged about 2 hours sleep a night and got less on a couple of occasions. Peddling around the streets is great fun, even better night, especially when motoped taxi's accept you don't need a ride so cruise along beside you offering noodle soup instead!

As I always seem to end up saying about each new country I visit, Vietnam has to be the best place I've been so far (not counting Russia of course), but this time I think I'll stick to it, it's really going to take some beating. I hope there's more to my praise for 'Nam than just the fact that everywhere I look there's red, yellow, stars, hammers and sickles...I love that! It makes me feel a little like being back in Russia, just a tad warmer. I've been away quite a while now and lost touch with current events back home, so fingers crossed the UK have adopted an entirly red version of the Union Jack and maybe even got themselves a little gold star and hammer & sickle to put on there somewhere too!

Meet the group

2009-03-30T09:02:00.003+01:00

Let me introduce my new travel buddies that joined me, or I them, on Vietnam's Reunificationh Express. From left to right, top to bottom, Joe, Kirk, Me, Lynn, Phil, Jo, Erin, Susen (the rock), Natasha, Sarah and Ngon (the group leader). I’ll give an honourable mention to Joe as the only other UK representative in a group that otherwise hails entirely from Australia. Out-numbered for a change!

I'll also give a special mention to Susen. She doesn’t exist, although it took everyone, including our leader, a good few hours on the first day to deduce this. In her place we retrieved a head shaped rock from an island off Nha Trang, gave it a face and lovingly carried the new ‘Susen’ everywhere we went from then on. With the tour over, Susen will travel back south with our Ngon and her next group until she reaches her resting place back on the island.

And last but not least, there is one missing member of the group from this picture, but I think he deserves his own post.

I do love trains

2009-03-18T18:30:00.005Z

It's been a while since a did a train journey of any reasonable distance, but right now I'm happy because I'm at the start of Vietnam's Reunification Express railway in Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon as it's more commonly known here. I'll get a few nights on the train as it makes it's way north to Hanoi. And I must be getting bored of myself because I decided to find a tour to join for the 10 day trip to gain myself some consistant companionship. The group of 10 is great and I think it's fair to say that in the 24 hours I've spent with them, they've not been a bad influence in the slightest...oh, apart from the AK47 I shot yesterday (which broke whilst in my control)!

Plucked

2009-03-17T04:15:00.005Z

I think this chicken doesn't have the brightest of futures.

The Road to Vietnam

2009-03-17T04:13:00.011Z

I'm getting so acustomed to the moped way that it has suddenly become my first mode of transport, and even sitting side-saddle through the middle of a busy free-for-all junction doesn't seem dangerous anymore. Admittedly however, I was a little nervous before my first experience and, like I was his mother or something, gave my driver a pre-departure talking to. "Now you don't go too fast. And we both wear helmets Ok? And I want you to pick a side of the road and stick to it. And absolutely no crazy overtaking. Do you understand? Don't just smile and nod at me...I'm serious, do you understand?" But with a couple of trips under my belt, it was time for to embark on the road to Vietnam. I'm assured, and can full well believe, that a 5-seat taxi will be filled with at least eight other paople, so really the only way to get myself from the sleepy Cambodian town of Kampot, across the border into Vietnam, is by moped. I'm skeptical on how ideal it is having my big bag with me as well as my daypack, but this is never going to be a problem to a true South-East Asian, so moped it is. Besides, it's the only fitting way to arrive into the land of scooter.

After a little less than two hour trip along roads that were laking in the 'flat' department, I did manage to enter Vietnam without any real issue, but getting to where I wanted to be after took more effort. To start with, this is the quietest border I've seen. Newly opened last year, I was the only tourist switching coutries when I arrived, and probably the first for days if the amount of time it took the official to scroll through the dates on his stamp is anything to go by. On the otherside I'm met by a new moped driver and a hotel owner from the near by Ha Tien, who's been waiting patiently for some pray to arrive (that's me). A further 30 minutes on the bike got me into the town where it's still laking in a Western moral support for me. I seemed to have two options, one is stay at the guys hotel and get the morning bus out, the other is pay the same guy to drive me to a town where I can catch a lunch time bus to my chosen destination. I'm sure there are more busses that he's not telling me about, but what can I do?! Having two minutes to myself to explore or think isn't an option so I just opt to leave immediately on a further hours bike ride to a lovely coastal area with plenty of scenic views of Southern Vietnam.

The town isn't so captivating though. Apparently the caves are beautiful, but the 'Vegas' style neon lit buddhas inside did little to enhance their surroundings. The people in Vietnam however, so far are lovely. The second I crossed the border I'm happy to see everyone is wearing comical (conical...I mean conical) hats and amazed at almost how instatly the scenery has changed. The people are so lovely in fact, that whilst waiting for my bus at the offical clearing under the big tree, a group of locals are more than welcoming for me to join them as they strap blades to chicken's legs before commencing with the cock fight itself. Not keen to watch, they brought to show me the deceased bird, which was actually a nice, if not unwanted, gesture.

My (mini)bus arrives and on I got for what I'm certain was a hugely inflated price, with a pile more Vietnamese than what will comfortably fit. Still far from the beaten path they are curious by me, and even I am now. How did I end up here? It doesn't matter, in five hours I should be at Can Tho, the heart of the Mekong Delta, I hope. Shattered, I attempt to sleep but am suddenly snapped back to conciousness by a sharp and loud buzzing sound. My eyes open to see the iron age fan close above my head to the left, and to the right, a vietnamese women looking horrified at her now slightly mangled finger. What did she just do and why was her hand there anyway?! Hearing the sound of obstructions in the fan blade, everyone in the bus is looking at me and saying stuff I don't understand. The women continues to stare dazed at her finger. Soon lots of shrill voices are discussing something very loudly and gestures are made at me towards the fan. Seeing some loose wires I contemplate the possibility of the women having got electrocuted maybe. The vietnamese continue to look at me hopefully and pointing to the fan and I think maybe they want me to switch it off so I reach out to discover whether the button in the middle is a switch or bolt. This is met with screams and yells as they all shake they're arms as ALL communicate 'no'! But still they look at me and then the point to the fan expectantly whilst my neighbour continuse to gaze at her bloody finger baffled, but I don't know what they want from me so minme my hand getting severed before closing my eyes and going back to sleep.

Sleep isn't long lived as nearing the Mekong Delta the roads conditions demonstrate that this bus really has no suspension. Litterally being lifted quite high of my seat, I still hold the possibility of getting electricuted in my mind and just an overal fear of the fan, that I wide eyed I sit doing my best to wedge myself down and avoid hitting my head on the 'windmill of death' that is getting dangerously close...much to the amusement of the other passengers! Absolutely done in by my long day the mini bus collides with something before I'm dropped off and taken to my heotel on one last moped ride.

The mission was worth it I guess, I achieved another 4am start (in a powercut) to make it to the floating markets before sunrise. The markets are cool, boats generally specialise in one product and fill their boat to overfill with it. They then hang one product high on a mast so shoppers can identify the floating stalls they require. The rest of the water ways are beautiful too, really what I'd imagine floating through narrower parts of the Amazon to be like, very junglefied. The water trails are the center of life here and it's nice to see how families work and dependend on such natural resources. The people continue to be as friendly as ever and all appear welcoming as the whole way, various kids appear and run along side waving for short distances.

You know you're a backpacker when...

2009-03-16T13:28:00.004Z

...just having bread for dinner seems excessive, you find yourself 'borrowing' toilet roll from your last hotel, loosing track of $5 is devastating, and you discover you're not the only one living out of your backpack.

I guess I'm off to by some insect killer now, I feel like the Pied Piper of ants!

I need a holiday

2009-03-16T06:42:00.001Z

I suspect this post won't generate me much sympathy, but travelling is actually really hard work. So before tackling Vietnam, I decided a day or two of nothing was in order and headed for Cambodia's beaches at Sihanoukville. I heard it can't compare to the those of Southern Thailand, but it'll have to do.

Women Rule

2009-03-16T06:33:00.006Z

I was in Cambodia for Women's Day, and the lady that ran my guesthouse seemed really excited by it, but when I asked what happens on such a great day, she said "nothing". Good, I'll look forward to that then!

The Pyjama People

2009-03-16T06:09:00.004Z

Everywhere I've been going recently, particulary in Cambodia, the women all seem to wear mostly PJs. Often with the obligatory kiddy style patterns that I'm getting to know so well (don't think I've stayed in a room yet over the past 4 weeks that didn't somewhere have kids cartoon charactors adorned on either the sheets, blankets or curtains). I have no idea why, although a late night walk through Phnom Penh demonstrated that those who work on the streets, such as venders and drivers, all sleep there two. Around most posts and trees on even the main roads, you'll find a hammock. I even saw a moped driver having a lovely sleep whilst balanced precariously across the top of his bike. But anyway, I don't think this is the reason for the jim-jams.

(The picture isn't great but as a quick snap works well enough. There were three pyjama clad women in the shot and I was made up to see a forth had zoomed into frame from the left!)

Phnom Penh

2009-03-16T03:21:00.009Z

Following my time in Siem Reap, I had to keep moving so made Cambodia's capitol, Phnom Penh my next stop. The journey there was one of the best so far. In the public bus, a little girl's ticket had positioned her next to me, with her mother and toddler sister in the seats behind. Having my valuables with me in a backpack, I was hopeful the local family would move and spread out as soon as the bus got going so I could take my heavy bag off my lap. Instead, both little girls thought they'd actually quite like to squeeze in next to me for the 5 hour ride, which was lovely, incredibly comfortable and not at all annoying to see the rest of the bus was more than half empty. I also certainly didn't find it at all unnerving to have the two girls stare at me the whole way and give the occasional, gentle poke to my leg or arm! The trip only improved when another family got on, a man with two kids of similar ages, and sat in front of me. The older of the two, the girl, leant over the back of her chair to have a look at regular intervals whilst the un-nappied little boy found he couldn't wait any longer and the bus quickly filled with a horrific smell and a terrible mess appeared. Joy!

Pleased to arrive, I was of course was unable to reason with any tuk-tuk driver to take me anywhere but a guesthouse they were affiliated with, so fast gave up the fight and went to check it out. Actually it was nice, a rustic, stilted set of huts and outdoor lounge area perfectly positioned to watch the sunset across the city's lake. A place to rival some of the higher level of accomodations, only let down by having to sit up most of the night in my room on rat patrol. I could hear them directly under my floorboards and one in particular that was determined to gain entry to my bathroom via the drain. Still, at just $4 a night, it's a small price to pay.

Phnom Penh is the first capital I've been to for a long time that I've actually been pleased to see. It could be that Cambodia is still so far from developed that it just doesn't feel like a city, but I think it's more than that. The atmosphere is good, calm and welcoming, somehow more than anywhere else. It's hard not to be happy being here. What is amazing is that for a place that's so positive, it probably has the worst recent history of anywhere I know of. Cambodia, still littered with US landmines will suffer for many years to come as result. Walking off the path out of the towns poses a very real danger you finding (and detonating) one for yourself. You won't need to be in the country long before realise amputies are a surprisingly regular sight. But on top of that, now in the capitol, I can learn more about more tremendous suffering to the Khmer people at the hands of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.

I find it hard to comprehend how things like the Holocaust could happen in an era in history so close to the lifetime of my parents. Learning more about what happened with the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, very nearly in my lifetime, is something that to me is almost impossible to understand. I won't give a fall rundown of the history, but essentially Pol Pot lead his people to take control of Cambodia, killing (not before torturing) millions as he went, clearing the city of Phnom Penh. Anyone from large towns or cities were considered to be affected by the modern world and were likely to face a brutal end. Only those that were convincing as low in intelligence might survive, but would be classed lower than the peasent workers from the fields that were felt to be 'pure' in mind. All would be sent to the countryside as slaves to produce an impossible quoter of rice intended for world trade. Even doctors and nurses were believed too intelligent to be spared and the Khmer Rouge to gave the roles of medical practitioners to the illiterate, untrained peasents.

This reign of terror lasted four years until the Vietnamese invaded, although amazingly, the Khmer Rouge still had a hold of regions until 1998. Anyway, something that makes this history even more remarkable is that with a quater of the population dieing at the hands of this movement, any Cambodian over 30 will undoubtably have been seriously affected by this time, some were the victims, others were the Khmer Rouge, and all have to live side by side seamlessly.

I took a trip to the Choeung Ek (The Killing fields), the most notorious of many that can be found across Cambodia. Here, 131 mass graves of the 200,000 (and counting) across the country have been found. Victims were regulary delivered to this site by truck from places such as Toul Sleng Security Prison 21, a 're-education center' that existed for interrigation and torture. Many bodies, men, women and children, were found beheaded, naked or tied up. The whole area was silent, unlike the mausoleum of Lenin or Mao, visitors here are genuninely sobered by the experience as the walk between deep recesses of excuvated graves, past 'killing trees' against which people were beaten, and step over rags of disguarded clothes that appear out of the dirt paths. The bones of excuvated bodies have been piled within a white tower to stand as a monument to all that lost their lives here.

Thinking it best to have one depressing day rather than split it across two, I headed back into Phnom Penh center to see the Toul Sleng Security Prison 21 (S21) that now operates as a genocide museum. Once a primary school in a quiet neibourhood, it was taken over April 17th, 1975 at the start of Khmer Rouge's reign of terror, and was transformed into a primitive prison and house of torture. Now it stands almost exactly as it was, with the 14 disfigured bodies found left in rooms after the guards fled, now burried in the front courtyard. Walking through 4 3-story buildings, I saw classrooms and hurridly built cells, all full of evidence of unimaginable tortures. It's a surprisingly big place that takes several hours to take in, again full of silence. It's only made worse by walking past other fully functioning schools in the area, and realising aside from a distinct lake of barbed wire coating, it looks no different to S21, and makes me wonder what this scene would have looked like 30 years ago had it undergone the same transformation.

Trust no-one

2009-03-16T03:08:00.002Z

Forgot to mention, at Angkor, even the monks want a piece of the action. This one here took money off me unjustly after leading me to a dark temple corner. Not knowing whether dodgy monks have 'heavies', I assumed it best to pay up. And it wasn't because I took a picture of him. I took the picture because I knew he was about to make me part with cash. I think he's a bad monk.

Natural born sellers

2009-03-13T18:49:00.004Z

One of the few downsides to Cambodia is the constant harassment by the local kids selling stuff, particulary at the Angkor temples. Each and every time anyone emerges from a ruins they are met buy anything from 1 to 6 kids heading towards them fast. Instantly they go for the kill and you'll soon find yourself surrounded with handfulls of bracelets, books and postcards blocking your vision with the constant calls of "One dollar, one dollar. You want? One dollar, one dollar" going through you head. A simple no thanks and speedy direct walk away will not be enough to detere them either, they're hard little people to shake. I heard of one couple buying something so the kids would leave them alone, but actually it just made the rest more determined and even attracted more. Driving away in their tuk-tuk, the only way the extra children could think to get the couples attention was run after them throwing things at their vehicle, no doubt shouting "One dollar, one dollar" as they did!

Match that with the adults sales technique. Whilst the kids are spread out doing their thing, the mums are based at their bamboo shack stalls. Approaching a row of stalls you'll enjoy silence before getting within a 10 metre radius of a women will snap her into action. "Lady! You want cold drink?! One dollar lady!". A few more steps and you enter into the action zone of the next stall and the two voices begin drilling into you. Continue walking and easily you can set 10 women off all at once. It's only worse when you do actually need a drink and have to face them. They all compete to practically put the water in your hand and take your money before you understand what's just happened. Indeed, walking past a food area, I'm instantly surrounded and handed about 5 menus all at once. I feel like a teacher grading each one, asking who's it is and feeling as though I should make a positive comment about it before returning it. "Who's is this one? It's very good. And this one? Who's is this? Very nice..." Stupid thing being I didn't even want food, just was in the wrong place at the wrong time. One lady knew exactly how to deal with the sleepy sunrise tourists. Somehow she'd got me to agree something I liked in theory, then instatlty put the shout through to the cook. I'm left conpletely dazed sat at a table waiting for a breakfast I didn't realise I'd ordered or want. Other tourists smiled with empathy as they sat eating meals they probably hadn't planned on either.

The kids however are something else. Having woken up a bit I'm ready for them, and on the most part the hassle I get doesn't last too long per child. But every now and then one will surprise me. Asked if I want a bracelet, then postcards and then cold drinks, I respond 'no thank you' each time. "So you want nothing?" she says, and I agree wholeheartedly. "Nothing costs 10 dollars". Damn it! She made me laugh so now I'm in trouble. She reals me off a pile of facts about London that I didn't know. Things like the population and such. I'm holding steady though and am not happy to enter into a repour with her, it's a trick. Next she hands me a bracelet that I refuse over and over insisting I have no plans to buy from her. "If you don't take it, it means you don't like me". Damn it again! She's tugged on the heartstrings and now I have to take it. Finally she leaves me be for half hour on the agreement that if suddenly I do feel the need for postcards, bracelets or cold drinks, she's the first person I'll go see.

Unfortuantly, my attempts to sneak back to my tuk-tuk are scarpered as she spies me. She turns up the sales patter and I'm left apologising again and again for not wanting anything. It was horrible, she really guilt tripped me with "Sorry isn't going to help me go to school" and insisted she understood that I didn't need a drink so encouraged me to by for my driver. I'm walking away as fast as I can making pathetic excuses to the 10 year old like "my driver's waiting for me" rather than being strong enough to just be blunt. She hits back with "He can wait. You're paying him". Damn it once more! She's right. I'm nearly running by the end as she accepts I don't want postcards but tells me to buy for my friends. Eventually I escape but feel terrible about myself. I'm a bad person because tomorrow she won't go to school (but she will, she's smarter than me already), I didn't get my driver a drink (but I was already paying him too much and I gave him half a pack of cookies) and because my friends don't mean enough to me for me to buy them a few postcards (but my friends don't want postcards...I don't think). Anyway, that girl was good.

In the city their tact is simpler. In a cafe, they'll just pull up a chair right next to and repeat over and over and over "Buy a book. Buy a book. Buy a book. Buy a book and I'll go away. Buy a book..." whilst sometimes squeezing your arm with each repeat. This is followed by them personally reccomending each book in their basket before getting frustrated and not excepting that simply not wanting a book is a valid excuse, unless they do, in which case they switch to "Buy me food. Buy me food. Buy me food." Grrrrrrrrrr!

Temple'd out

2009-03-13T15:22:00.007Z

As you'll have gathered, I made it to Cambodia, and first stop was Siem Reap. Despite a shakey start in the country, I actually reaaly like Cambodia. I don't think it can be compared to Russia, they're a world away from each other, but otherwise certainly has had the best impression on me so far. Siem Reap was a lovely place and everything seems all good, although it is another country with a currency to mess with my head. I'm now dealing in Riel, which again works in stupidly high denominations, 4000r to 1US Dollar. Not that this matters much, all transactions are quoted and made in dollars, and cash machines dispense nothing else. Generally, but not always, riel only comes into play for amounts less than the dollar and change will be provided in the form of a mix of both currencies which is always fun. The weirdest thing about money here is no-one ever has change, no matter how little an amount is owed, the tender will always have to run off next door to gather more funds. I've also found a note of $20 or more is nearly always impossible to use, which makes it annoying when ATMs here happily dish out bills of $50s and $100s.

Accomodation here has improved significantly too compared to the cells of Bangkok where I was lucky if I could find something as simple as a power outlet in my room. Now $5 a night will sort me out with somewhere with a bit of charactor, a private bathroom, cable TV and free internet. And although the living quarters were still real basic, the attached bar was one of the best. A barn style shell filled with railingless open platforms of seating and hammock areas scattered upto 3 stories high. At the bottom there's a crocodile pit. I read there were ducks there too, but I didn't see any, I think maybe the crocodiles could be to blame. This isn't a safe place to get drunk, but an amazing place to drink.

Aside from arriving to a very nice change from Bangkok and enjoying a small layed back town full of inviting restaurants/bars/cafes, and finding every local super friendly (eating at one family run pavement cafe, we were unable to leave until we all hi-fived the family's young boy and waved back to them all down the street until we'd turned a corner), I was here mostly to see the temples of Angkor. I feel I should say something about them, but I'm not sure what. Feeling templed-out after having them in my life since mongolia, the grandure of Angkor couldn't disappoint, even after a straight 8 hour stint there(and a painful early morning). With my own personal tuk-tuk driver (and tuk-tuk) for the day, I must have visited more than 10 of the temples and although feeling done by the end, I could have seen more. Each temple was different, from the world renowned image of Angkor Wat to the Lara Croft setting of the tree ridden Ta Phrom. Legend has it, there is another temple out there that everyone knows exsists, but no-one quite knows where. I think the idea is that the only people to ever find it have died trying thanks to Cambodia being the most densely landmined country in the world.

Wat horse?

2009-03-12T18:12:00.005Z

In my attempts to get the perfect(ish) picture of Angkor Wat at dawn, in the low light with my eye to the viewfinder, I wasn't at all caught off-guard to suddenly see this untethered horse skipping straight at me.

Angkor Wat?

2009-03-12T18:01:00.003Z

I’m using this post to highlight the pride in myself for managing another 4am start to complete one more sun-rise mission, this time to Angkor Wat. Going it alone, with no morale support encouraging me to be awake that early, I hoped not to be able to find transport leaving me no option but to just go back to bed. Unfortunately I did manage to find myself a tuk-tuk driver asleep at the handlebars and for just 8 US dollars and half a packet of cookies, he was mine for the day.

Welcome to Cambodia…no pressure

2009-03-12T16:45:00.004Z

I’ve left Thailand again for a few weeks, and after a smooth start to the day, stepping over the border into Cambodia changed everything. The plan was simple, bus it from Bangkok to the border, get visa, walk across and get on a new waiting bus to Siem Reap. There are four others making this long but straight forward journey with me, two Chinese girls and two Japanese guys.

Admittedly I probably made a mistake booking myself on this journey at Bangkok’s Khao San Road, an area apparently renowned for the 'scam bus' to Cambodia. The idea being that they leave very early, make you buy your visa through them at an inflated price 100 yards down the road from the border and then take you round in circles most of the rest of the way so that by the time you arrive it’s very late, and you’re too exhausted to look about for accommodation anyway that you just stay at the drivers guest house where he just happens to complete the drive. Luckily I didn't fall fowl to it that too much, but I'm sure there is a scam in my journey somewhere, no one makes it through without being ripped off at least once.

The trouble starts the moment I clear the border. I’m told to sit and wait for the others who are only going to be just a matter of minutes behind, but the moment I do take a seat, one of the two Cambodians that meets me then tells me to get into a waiting minibus. Figuring we’d wait there for the others, I found it odd when the driver sets off straight away with just the two of us. The Cambodian is nice enough and uses the 20 minute journey to tell me a few introductory facts about the country and politely informs about the 2 hour wait for my next bus which is scheduled to leave at 3pm. He explains that he feels it’s his duty to let me know that if I wished, I could get a taxi for 200 Thai Baht (4quid) that would go straight to Siem Reap, afteral, the 3 hour bus ride always has the potential to be held up. No pressure, entirely up to me.

On arriving at the bus terminal, which is more of a desolate and surreal aircraft hanger than a hub of transport, there’s not another soul in there, just some orange chairs dotted about and a large disused bar styled thing in the centre. Looking closely enough at the plain white walls of this sterile looking building could reveal a window and some people behind it. Apparently it is the last Thai Bank to be encountered whilst in the country so I'm encouraged to use it...don‘t know why. It doesn’t look very bank-like to me, and fortunately, as with all the best backpackers, I’ve no money to change anyway. The Cambodian reminds me about the taxi and that I should think about sharing with the others to make it cheaper. No pressure, up to me. The others do arrive not far behind and after a hassled and hot border crossing (not helped by a sudden turn up in the heat here. Bangkok was really starting to hit me, but now just blinking would seem to be enough to break into a sweat) we sound out the taxi but opt to stay with the bus when suddenly we can’t split the cost anymore. Communication isn’t easy between myself and the rest of today’s group, but the Japanese two and I decide to stick to the motion that we’ve already payed for a bus, so will take a bus. The Chinese two plan to do whatever I do.

Sitting happily in our seats both Cambodians took it in turns to approach us and try to convince us that we really do want a taxi, each time adding an hour on to the bus’s journey and making it sound more and more cramped and uncomfortable. Meanwhile, the taxi is getting faster and faster and sounding more and more enjoyable. The two even changed the tones in their voices to corrispond with the happiness of taxi compared to despair of the bus, and I think at one point they even referred to them only as ‘nice comfy taxi‘ and ‘hot cramped bus‘. They were making a good, if not shifty argument though. By the time they were done, the 3 hour journey will now almost certainly take at least 6 hours and realistically most probably won’t get us there till midnight (which would be 9 hours) by bus. The taxi however, will breeze it in less than 2 hours. The bus will be cramped and hot despite there still being a severe lack of people at this terminal to even get on it, whilst the taxi will be comfortable and cool even though they are proposing 5 of us, plus luggage and driver, should all squeeze into one slightly battered Toyota Corola.

More unsuspecting travellers start arriving after being ferried here and looking confused by the destination start wondering around asking where the hell they are and what happened to the actual local bus station. I can even see the odd small group having the taxi argument that I’m still in the middle of. Every time we settle to read our books or write diaries completely unphased by the wait, one of the Cambodians runs over with a new argument and a new pro and con for the two modes of transport and are getting really quite angry with us. Eventually, each time they run over they slash the taxi’s price by half until it’s free (which makes me super suspicious) and in a tone of despairation ask us why we would do this to them like itt's a personal insult. “Why do you insist on the uncomfortable hot bus when we’ve arranged the nice cool taxi? We’re trying to help you.” But no pressure though. Sometimes they’d attempt to call our bluff and leave us to it, but when we didn’t run after them changing our minds, they come storming back even more annoyed with a new suggestion. I’m made key corrospondant and begged to use my better understanding of the English language to reason with the other four, but I’m on their side and certainly don’t trust these two Cambodian’s, there‘s a scam in here somewhere. Things reach boiling point until the parting comment from these guys comes in the form of the shouted words “If you must know, I just want to go see my girlfriend, but now because of you I can’t, so there! Get the bus if you really want, We're going!”, they then actually just sat outside for 20 minutes. Welcome to Cambodia then! None of us want to stand in the way of true love, but if his job is to wait until we’re on the bus then that’s not our fault. The bus left at 2.30pm (not 3pm as promised), was half full, did have air con, and only took the 3 hours claimed despite the 40min toilet break at the driver’s mates restaurant on route and encountering plenty of dodgy or nonexistent roads.

Initially relieved to be on the bus I was then gutted when the friendly chatty coach owner was met with severe hostility from a French a guy near the front creating a mountain of tension. This situation was only going to throw a spanner in works of us ever leaving for Siem Reap anytime soon. Turns out the French guy had been scammed on his journey about 3 times over today so is lacking in patience. Anyway, finally on the way, it would seem our friendly coach owner has a guest house. No pressure, he's just mentioning it. And of course the bus stop happened too be the driveway of his place. And wanting to keep the pressure off, he only mentioned his guesthouse and it’s benefits another fifty times prior to pulling up. Obviously by the time we arrived we were met by a gang of his staff and the invite to look at a room if we were interested became more of a frogmarch around the place with any attempts to leave met with resistance. But still no pressure, up to us. Having now lost the Chinese and Japanese travellers (probably to the guesthouse) I found some others on the bus that shared my desire to find an escape route. We succeeded in finding ourselves a guesthouse of our choice.

Almost Famous

2009-03-08T04:03:00.003Z

As I cross the tracks and approach the train to take my seat in preparation for my Death Railway Experience, a group of children on the platform a giggling and appear to be taking photos of me. At my seat, with the big window pulled down, all the children are two sets of tracks away, but directly opposite. Now I notice unmistakably that the pink uniformed children, aged around 10, are engrossed in me, most with cameras and finding the situation really amusing. One particular group of girls are more interested than the rest and encourage each other to edge closer to my window, and eventually actually step on board to take photos at point blank range before dashing off. I can’t get my camera out quick enough to snap them in the act.

I’ve not experienced any of this since China, and this is something else anyway, a lot jollier and more upfront. So, feeling kind of like a goldfish, I decide that I'd best wave to them, who are all now back on the platform comparing shots or poised for another Kodak moment in my direction. They love this and cheer, and one girl immediately runs over and tells me I’m beautiful, which I realise will just be a phrase the teacher has told the excited child would be nice to say to me, but it's quite sweet all the same. And as it’s my story, I’ll say they'll all have mistaken me for an A-list celebrity or something, but actually I can guess that with all their cameras they’re probably on a school trip and probably from a town that rarely gets to see real live Westerners in the flesh, only in the movies.

Well this one girl has just been taught another phrase and runs over to ask me my name. The other kids, maybe 50 of them, all watch in anticipation. I introduce myself and reach out to shake her hand. The other kids all cheer. Feeling a little braver, a couple more run other and want to shake hands too. The girl learns another question or two so I feel it’s about time I got my trusty phrase book out, but steer clear of James Bond lines for a change. I love it when this happens! Things soon quieten down for a while but a few more tourists bored the train which keeps the children on edge.

Suddenly about 20 of the kids run over to me with their hands outstretched, so I lean out and shake every one of them, and enjoying it, the kids approach some of the other windows looking for more hands to shake. They're lovely and having a great time and I’m feeling pleased my train is so delayed on leaving. They’re keeping me so entertained that I think it’s only fair I make an effort and approach them for a change. The moment I appear at the train door they all jump up and begin to cheer and clap once more, and as I walk over they get louder and instantly all crowd around me before near on 30 cameras appear in my face. I manage to gather some for a picture, show them the result and shake some more hands before resuming back to my seat. Some of the others on the train look bemused by it all, but us outside have all been having fun so it doesn't matter. The kids pose some more on the platform for any lense they see until their train arrives and they wave goodbye. The End.

The Death Railway

2009-03-08T01:54:00.009Z

Ok, this post should bring me back in order. I know this sounds like it could be another of my Russian stories, but this one is based in Thailand. The morning Iain and Katrina left for the beaches, I headed 2 hours west to a place called Kanchanaburi. This town has some fantastic natural sights and beautiful waterfalls, but is most famed for being home to the bridge over the River Kwai, and I have come here to add to my list of memorable train rides. The Death Railway is a 415km stretch of PoW-built tracks under Japanese control during the early 1940’s to create a crucial link between Burma and Singapore. The terrain was unforgiving and conditions unlivable, and required over 260,000 men to work on it with little more than picks and shovels. Buy the time the job was complete, over 115,000 had lost their lives.

The afternoon before taking my seat aboard the train, I wondered along the river from the Jolly Frog Guest House, one of the nicer places I’ve had the pleasure of, to the Bridge Over the River Kwai. Many say they feel under whelmed by the construction when they first encounter it, but I enjoyed my visit. Maybe not knowing too much about it, or having seen the film (which was actually shot in Sri Lanka) helped me have no preconceived ideas or expectations. Whatever it was, I found it well worth the trip that wwas otherwise on the way to nowhere.

The bridge consists of train tracks, a solid sheet between them and plenty of places to fall through either side. The concrete pillars still hold scars of war whilst the iron bridge itself looks iconic enough. I spent some time trying to capture a good shot, then as got to the floor between the tracks (think I was experimenting with angles or something), I remembered that I believed this to be an operational line. There are no gates and people are roaming the bridge freely, so I except I was mistaken and decide I’ll find out the route of the train tomorrow when I’m actually on it. 20mins later a train does chug through afteral, but I’m not laying on the tracks anymore and all others that were about get themselves out of the way sharpish, so all's well that ends well.

The death railway was cool, but had a set of carriages that were entirely for tourists, which I’m not used to, all my other train rides have been fully operational local services. Anyway as a result, the atmosphere is different to what I’d prefer but it’s ok. The journey takes 2 hours, which to me felt like 10 minutes, does indeed thunder across the bridge, then squeeze through 90ft solid rock cuttings and cling to a cliff face on a 300 metre trestle bridge. The train only goes are far as Nam Tok where ideally I’d have taken a bus to Hellfire Pass for a 4km walk through one of seven further track rock cuttings that now exists as a memorial walk. Unfortuantly, like in the UK, the train was running 2 hours behind schedual only just allowing me time to make my return journey back to Kanchanaburi by bus in time for me to then get back to Bangkok to pick up a visa by the evening. I think the normal thing is to do is return back on the same train or have a transfer waiting for you at Nam Tok, as the quiet 20min walk through town in search of the bus stop seemed an unusual sight to the locals. Still, I’m proud of myself for managing to actually get off the beaten path, overcome the language barriers and join the confused Thais on the 90min ride back, which was also very late.

Angry Silky Shorts

2009-03-07T12:09:00.002Z

I decided that I can’t spend time in Bangkok without seeing one of those shows the city is famed for…by that I mean Thai Boxing of course. It was good, though very violent. Someone did get hurt in the making of this picture.

The secret of Laos whiskey

2009-03-07T12:02:00.008Z

I should have posted this one a little while back but nevermind. Sarah, this one's for you!

Who's bridge?

2009-03-07T11:52:00.001Z

BeerLao

2009-03-07T10:44:00.009Z

Apologies for that state of the next few posts. I probably need to rework this but am just giving to you as it stands. I’ve moved on a lot so just need to get myself up to date fast. This is about Laos which is a weeks journey I took prior to reaching Hillsy and Katrina in Bangkok.

Laos was excellent. I only allowed myself a week there which wasn’t enough. I’ve heard the southern parts are beautiful and further north I’d have liked to stuck around longer for some exploring through the country side, the only place that didn’t grab me was the capital, Vientiane. The Mekong aside, one of the first things you’ll notice about this place is BeerLao. Apparently (I, of course, didn't try it)it’s great because they can’t regulate the percentage of alcohol in each can, so your first drink may be quite weak, but the second could floor you (well it’s probably not that bad). Anyway, it’s everywhere and sponsors just about everything, even the BeerLao t-shirt was practically uniform, mostly with tourists but a fair amount of locals and their toddlers too wore them too.

After the yellow and green branding anywhere there’s life, the next thing I noticed were the monks. There’s been lots around these parts but nothing like the army of saffron orange robes that I’ve seen here, particulary in Louang Phabang. And to house these peaceful troops was a ‘Wat’ on nearly every street. Such sights really enhanced the character of Louang Phabang (the final stop on my slowboat voyage) along with the strong French influence that was still evident allowing a relaxed, traditional village and coffee shop culture to shine through. To set it all off finally, the main, and oldest part of town is positioned on a slice of land where the both the Mekong and Khan rivers run nearly parallell either side, hemming it in before finally meeting and joining at the end.

So in Louang Phabang, the mornings are colourful monk-style, and the days are relaxed, but the evenings were my favourite. There’s one main street that comes alive with a night market selling everything but the usual Weston based tat found nearly everywhere else. Chilled people wonder around in the hot evening and get their meals from one of the ‘village fete’ style street buffets, where I too did get my fix of rice and noodles, but mostly I developed a dependency on the fresh fruit smoothies that are readily available all around for next to nothing. The bars are lovely too, really mellow outdoor spaces that suffer one downside. At midnight everything has to shut down and literally the only place left to go is the bowling ally on the outskirts of town where drinks and music continues. And speaking of layed back, I’ll mention my unnecessary transfer to a boat that came in the form of a girl smaller than me peddling up the road on her bicycle with me on the back. I did feel guilty but couldn’t work out what was happening, but I don’t think this is normal anyway, people were laughing at us the whole way.

Next stop Vang Viang. Five hours on a very bumpy, windy and in places, unstable bus journey on one of Laos few main roads, I arrived in at 3am by the local airstrip.. Knowing that everything here in this tiny town also closes by midnight. Accommodation on my trip is nearly always a guesthouse these days, but between the hours of 11pm and 7am they close, many locking right up for the night. In the small hours of the night I’m a tad unsure how I’m going to find myself a bed. But strangely, Western stragglers are appearing out of the woodwork as I wonder through and all seem pleased to see new arrivals and all have a place to suggest. I’m reluctant to trust any of their ideas as the only reason I can only think they’re still wondering the streets is because they’re either locked-out themselves or have forgotten altogether where they belong. One guy says he knows the place we‘re aiming for, Pan‘s Place, and apparently Pan himself so urges us to follow him. It’s 3.30am now and he leads us down the road until he prises open a gate and guides us round the back and into the building. “Yo Pan, wake up! I’ve people to see you” he shouts. I’m thinking this isn’t a good situation. I already feel like I’m breaking and entering and am not keen on pissing off the owner. It all ends ok, a dazed and confused Pan’s wife appears and guy breaks into Thai language. They’ve no rooms anyway and our new friend doesn’t want to help anymore, but luckily a new straggler appears and thinks we should go to Tony’s. Well Tony didn’t look like a Tony but did foolishly leave a sign on his bedroom door inviting us knock if arriving late at night, which we did and all was good.

Anyway, Vang Viang. It’s famous for one thing really, and any traveller in Laos has to try it. Tubing. Tubing basically consists of floating down a 4km stretch of the river in a tractor inner tube, and for a very small section at the beginning, visiting as many of the riverside bars as you desire. The weather is gorgeous and when you’re ready, you cool off as you drift down the river before being pulled to the next bamboo bar a few meters along and welcomed with a shot of whisky and free bananas. Admittedly it sounds kind of dangerous, copious amounts of alcohol combined with extreme sun and carelessly floating unsupervised in potentially fast and rocky waters, but all the bars have gone to the effort to make things just a little more death defying. Each establishment has built, pretty high up, either a trapeze swing or zip wire to help you with your re-entry to the river. The drunker people get, the worse they land, and next day bruises are compared. I did my falls into the water early on whilst I was certain to still have my wits about me. No bruises here! Most don’t make it beyond the first few bars but I was determined to complete the whole 4km back into town, so I bought myself a whiskey bucket for the journey and set off. The majority of the route is actually just scenery with locals, animals and the odd kayaker along the way, and I reckon that was the most relaxing couple of hours I’ve ever had. At the end some chilled out bars begin to appear to tempt you back on dry land in hammock for a while. Although this really does sound like a boozy day out, I think it‘s not necessary so, anyone would really enjoy this, alcohol or not. All attitude’s are good and the atmosphere is amazing, everyone should try it once.

The next morning the perfect hangover cure for the worse for wear (not I) is some time in one of the many TV bars. There are no upright chairs but bed styled lounger seats for you to lay back and waste the day eating fry-ups and watching either Friends, Family Guy or The Simpsons (that’s all any of them ever played). I however had better plans involving cycling around in flipflops with a smoothie in one hand and a little basket at the front for my stuff whilst looking for a local cave without a care in the world, not even for other road users. That was happiness, I’ll have to do more of it when I’m home, but I doubt it’ll be the same. Anyway, in the cave, in the darkest corner of the cave in fact, I found this spider thing. It has long atenies and reckon probably had no eyes, because eyes are pointless in the dark.

My final stop was Vientiane, but as I already mentioned, didn’t make me feel I wanted to stay. I think after all that time in the countryside, probably as much 3 weeks if I count South China, Northern Thailand and all Laos, I just wasn’t interested in being in a city with not too much to offer. I left for Bangkok the very next day which was great because for the first time in a while I could take an overnight train again (busses are normally annoyingly cheaper and easier). Brilliant!

Happy Days!

2009-03-04T15:36:00.014Z

Yay...Hillsy and Katrina are here! And of all the places we could have met, they found a little spot called Annies Massage that’s opposite theirs, just like at work! Actually it wasn’t that bad as it sounds at all. We only stopped there for one before returning to their hotel to make the vodka/Special K exchange (and for them to boast about all the mod-cons, and even basic-cons, in their room that I’m just don’t get to see these days), they then let me raid their rooms fresh fruit supplies before, true to form, Iain lead me a stray and within an hour had me vodka drunk. At the end of the night, not ever really knowing exactly where my guest house was, I got myself dropped at the lively Khao San Road on the other side of the city, where from there I knew the way. That tipsy walk back hugging my box of Special K will be one of my happiest memories of the trip (that and meeting good friends in far away places of course).

It was really good to see and catch up with them both, it was a lovely evening and they treated me really well (I said I’d treat them to rice or noodles from the street but they felt they knew somewhere better). Feeling very uninspired by Bangkok and ready to leave as soon as I arrived (think it’s the fact that I’d gotten myself right into the laid back mentality of Laos that made this capital seem really unappealing, it‘s not Bangkok’s fault), seeing such friendly faces couldn’t have come at a better time. I enjoyed their company so much I skipped my morning bus out of there and stayed one more day to share with them some tuk-tuk based sightseeing fun. After a couple more drinks, and I don’t want to criticise Hillsy’s taste in bars, but there isn’t half as much flesh on show or middle-aged Peter Stringfellow look-a-likes over my side of town, we said our goodbyes. Convinced I’d feel low the next day, I’m actually feeling really good. Seeing them was the perfect break from travelling, and although I’m super jealous of their next stop straight to the Krabi beaches this morning, today I’ve found myself in a nice guest house on the river Kwai. It has floating lounge spaces, a nice bar, well kept lawn and right now I'm creating this post from a hammock, and even though I’m paying a whole 4pounds a night (I splashed out for a room with a bathroom sort of thing), I don't think it's going to compare to the luxury Iain and Katrina I know are now experiencing in Southern Thailand, but it’s close enough though...It was really great to see you both, thanks for the Special K, and more importantly, thanks for letting me gatecrash your holiday for a bit...enjoy the rest of your break!

2009-03-01T05:51:00.003Z

After a week in Laos I've arrived back in Thailand to consider my next move. I've still a post to write about Laos, but until I do I just wanted to share with you a couple of the first signs I saw upon crossing the Friendship bridge from Laos on to Thai turf. In the one above I like the way they've listed the punishments in order of severity, and in the second I think they've found a good approach in communicating Birdflu.

So now I've a few days in Bangkok and am excited because from work Iain, aka Hillsy, and his better half Katrina arrive here too, so I'm really looking forwrd to seeing them (and the Special K they've promised to hand deliver in return for genuine Russian vodka). To mark this special occasion I may pretend not to be so much of a smelly backpacker and go get a shower! That's a joke, I don't smell.

Wish I was there?

2009-02-24T13:24:00.008Z

I wish I was back with you guys. I'm stuck here in the blazing sunshine and all I can do to cool off is jump into into this waterfall...gutted!

Have a good day at work all, i'll be thinking of you!

Slowly down the Mekong

2009-02-23T17:42:00.011Z

A few days ago I began the journey to cross the border into Laos and take the Slow Boat on it's two day, 4000km journey down the Mekong to Louang Phabang. It was a five hour bus journey, that emerged to be more like eight, to get me from Chiang Mai to Chiang Khong at the Thai border where I had stop for the night. I'd a pretty late night what with various moments guesthouse nuttyness and my own mosquito paranoia (they still keep getting me bad. Preparing myself and mosquito nets for bedtime is a full-on mission), so I wasn't quie ready for '10 people and all their luggage on the back of a pick-up' journey to the border, but breakfast looking out across the Mekong river to Laos soon got me in the mood.

After clearing Thai immigration, a small long-tail motor boat waiting at the bottom of the beach ferried travellers across the river to the Laos border, and that honestly has to be the best border crossing I've done yet and will take some beating. The Laos side is chaotic. Leaving bags by the side of the road, I join the crowd to apply for a visa, pick it up and pay for it at one window (plus a sunday overtime charge of one whole US dollar!), take it to the next to clear immigration and then on to the last window to clear passport control. After clearing all this in intense heat, you fall out of the crowd and cross the final passport check and gain official entry into Laos, only to realise you've left your bag back on the other side by the side of the road and have to go back.

There's one boat a day, and mine is nearly entirely travellers. As more people cross the border (luggage and all), we're all gathered until it's time for a pep talk. It's a strange chat that seems only designed to scare. Talk of the overnight stop in being a place where you don't want to be if you're female (I'd found myself a bodyguard for the journey so was ok), a place where most could be relieved of their possesions and just in general somewhere we'll regret being. They also made the Slow Boat itself sound like a terrible idea too and suggested various other means of transport to get us across the country. Many were scared off but I was there for no other reason so waited patiently for boarding.

Assured that the only way to survive the two days on a solid wooden bench in an overcrowded boat was to take your own cussion, everyone bought one from the various placesthey were available, but all looked much the same. Not as you'd expect with a simple or plain pattern, maybe even something to complement the boats colour scheme, but all with kids designs on. Bright colours with cartoon bears or bunnies plastered all over them and lots of happy words. Nobody knows why the only cussions produced for the trip made almost completely by adults are like this, but all of them are. Every passanger made their way to the boat looking like they were fresh out of nursary too scared to be parted from their childhood comfort blanket!

Anyway, the boat was overcrowed as promised and so many people were sitting in the ilse, but it wasn't half as bad I'd heard or expected. The journey was great and evryone on board was in good spirits. The Mekong is a beautiful river with huge layered rocks cutting out in all places the whole length of the way. The speed boat is another option for the river, but reports are they crash into the rocks more than frequently. I liked the Slow Boat though, but I guess that because I'm tending to prefer to take the painfully long route from A to B.

As schedualed, we did make our stop for a night at Pakbeng (the slow boats can't sail after dark), and although the arrival was a nightmare (mainly because trying to reunite 100+ people with 100+ bags in the dark with no organisation, whilst trying to get up a steep sand and rocky hill isn't easy), the place itself was ok, not anywhere near as bad as guide books or our pep talk had made out. The local people were all very friendly, although a little overwhelming when met but a crowd of them all fighting for our business the moment we docked. The town only exists to serve as stopover for passangers on the slowboat arriving at dusk and leaving again by 9am the following morning and is really only one short street of guesthouses and small restaurants. A 6pm, generators are switched on and the village has electricity for 4 hours. Enough time to power lights to assist travellers search for accomodation, a shower and some food. At 10 pm it's lights out and all electricity is cut until the the next boat arrives in the following evening.

It the morning we had a smaller boat and I think less passengers. Maybe some overslept, and maybe some sourced alternative transport after deciding they couldn't face another 7/8 hours crampted on there. I could, I loved it! Again, the sceneray didn't change much but I was always happy to see kids playing in the water, locals out fishing and bison standing around (there's also quite a few albino buffalow which look like giant pigs). The way the water created whirlpools and waves as it danced over rocks just below the surface was always facinating too. If you ever end up near here you should definitely do this, but bring a good book.

Louang Phabang is a great reward for the long trip and although I've not been here long, I really like it. I again don't think I'll sleep much during the next few days. The food seems loads better too, even though I did only buy rice from a street buffet thing. Moments into selecting my food the whole city get's struck by a power cut and everyone quickly switches to candle light for the next half hour until the problem is solved. Brilliant! All I have to do now is get my head round the currency, so 5,000kip is 20baht...which is about 4yuan...which is roughly 40 English pence...but often they're keen on US dollars, so what's that?. Where's my calculator?!

Northern Thailand

2009-02-23T16:32:00.009Z

On first arrival into Thailand I immediately headed north to Chiang Mai, a busy stop off point for many visitors making their way around South East Asia. It was good to arrive somewhere with no plan, and after getting off the bus at 5.30am, I wandered around a dark sleepy area that should be the hub of where I needed to be, in search of a guest house for the night. Really quickly I found many, but all were closed until a more socialable hour. Until that time came, I walked about some more and accidently disturbed a dog or two that inturn barked to wake all the other dogs in the area. Oops, sorry!

Straight away I can see the difference to how things are here compared to where I've been. I've come from a path less travelled and outside of peak times, into a well troden backpackers route at the hight of season. In Yangshou I'd started to get a feel for being somewhere more travel friendly but even there it was a quiet time for tourists. If I bumped into a westoner I probably already knew them, but now, more than every other person I pass on the street is just visiting. At the moment I like being in this place and just 'belonging' for a while, it's nice to feel familier to stuff after so long away (there's even a small Boots here just like at home). I hope however, that not every place I visit from now on has become focused and transformed by the strong backpacker trade, it'll be nice to see places as near to as they should be.

Chiang Mai is a lovely place to be though. I'm still getting used to the weather. The sun is always out and jumpers are a thing of the past (but I do keep one with me at times just to feel close to home). I'd caught the sun enough in South China to move up the tan scale to off-white, but here i'm making much faster progress and think I'm at beige already! The attitude is real laid back to and things move at a slower pace. Even at markets I'm not harrassed to buy something just because I walked past the stall. But what Chiang Mai is more commonly used for is being a base, either for people hiring bikes to explore more, or for going on treks further north in Thailand. I stopped here just long enough to go on a three day trek and do some washing upon my return.

The trek was was really good, don't think I've been in woodland as tropical as this before. The first day of walking was difficult, just a couple of hours but all of it was up. We were aiming to get to the Lahu hilltribe village before nightfall which is located 1000m above sea level apparently. Normally you may expect to be treated to a local cultural performance during the evening of arrival, but instead our guide performed classics such as Hotel California on his guitar complete with misheard/misunderstood English lyrics. Actually he was really good and the surroundings there were perfect. We shared a bamboo hut on stilts and hoped that we wouldn't fall through the floor as it constantly felt that we might.

The second day was far harder in the morning but after a swim in a waterfall and an interesting walk through bamboo filled jungle type terrain, things got a lot easier. I really like bamboo too, I've a lot of time for it. I heard in 24 hours it grows 1 meter, which I didn't get a chance to watch yet, but when I've a spare day I plan to varify this fact if I can. We crashed out in another stilted hut down by the river this time, and waited for the elephants to come home in the morning and do the walking for us for a while.

The elephants were really cool. I was nervous of this as I've heard tails of the animals being treated really badly for the sake of the tourists, but they did seem really happy. They wandered freely at night and in the morning came back to camp for a bath before we set off. Mine was called Banu, but I think Bananaphant is more appropriate. He loved bananas, every few steps he'd put his trunk back to me to feed him one, and then again for another before moving again, and he never even gave me a chance to peel one for him. When we passed the elephant convienience store (a banana shop on stilts) Banaphant insisted I buy him more. Dertermined to save him a couple as a treat at the end, he'd get the hump and let out a huge huff if I ever refused him his favourite food.

All that was followed by some white water rafting and then bamboo rafting before returning back to Chiang Mai. It was a nice really good and refreshing way to end a hard and hot couple of days, but on getting back I've got so much washing to do and a stupid amount of various bites to attend to. If I was a mosquito and saw someone had gone to the effort of coating themselves in Deet and sleeping under a net, I'd take the hint that they didn't want to be biten and leave them be. Shame the mosquitos and junhgle bugs here couldn't think in the same way.

That's all from China

2009-02-17T18:19:00.004Z

Phase 2 of my travels is complete, and less than 24 hours after arriving into Hong Kong, I flew out to Bangkok, and within an hour of reaching the city center I was on an overnight bus to Chiang Mai.

I'd prearranged to leave Hong Kong fast as I'd already spent some time there in the past, but on arrival I really regretted my plans of a swift exit. Getting there had been such an effort, overnight trains followed by crossing Chinese and Hong Kong borders on foot, and then mulitiple rammed subways trains before getting stuck in a station lift. It was also a shame because i'd forgotten what a great city Hong Kong is. But the biggest disappointment is the fact that I'm flying out. At the time of booking this adventure I hadn't thought too much about including the short flight, but now, having come so far overland it seems wrong to jump out of the route.

Still, it's done now and time for me to go it alone. I'm going to miss the last group a lot too. Having such a large group meant it took a little longer for us all bond as effectively, but I think we'd all gotten to know each other reasonably well by the end. I'm a little nervous of how well I'll make it round the continent on my own though, but think i'm doing ok considering yesterday morning all I knew was that my flight left Hong Kong at 17.00 with no other plans after that. Near to last minute I realise my flight was actually at 14.25. I managed to make it ok though, then almost immediately found a bus at the other end to get me all the way up to Chaing Mai and finally at 6am find somewhere to stay upon my arrival. This should be easy!

Apples and Pears

2009-02-17T18:15:00.003Z

Conker pose foiled

2009-02-17T14:07:00.005Z

Three of the four that did that extra sunrise hike at the Great Wall, also did the optional extra hike to the top of some terraces to overlook our village. It seemed only fitting we celebrated reaching another optional height with our classic conker pose. At somepoint between setting the timer, running to our chairs to take position (whilst others up there watched in amazement), one guy just didn't clock what was happening at all!

Rice Teraces

2009-02-17T14:01:00.010Z

Departing Chao Long early in the morning, we took a long old bus ride to first dump our big bags at Guilin train station for two nights, and then onwards to a village where after a short hike we could rest for the night ready for a five hour hike the following day on to another village high in the Longji Rice Terraces. First arrival was a little annoying. Like the ladies at Moon Hill, before we'd even got off the bus we were surounded by local ladies wanting to be porters. I understand me giving them business would pay them enough to eat for a few days, but once it's on my back and the straps are done up, it means I'm going to carry my bag myself. But still one will try to take it from me whilst the other points inside her empty basket. The ladies were really little and according to the guisness book of records, are from the first village alowed long hair. I don't know what that means but they all do have very long hair.

The hike itself was ok actually and it felt really good to get some decent exercise for a change. The second village was great. Our guesthouse had an outside seating area overlooking the terraces out the back. Getting myself up early in the morning for a walk, leaving out of the front was like entering a theme village. All the buildings sit perched precariously on the edge of the steep hills at different heights, and a few narrow slate trails weave a route from level to level. On the path from the hotel I can see across to the other hill edge and try to work out what route leads to where whilst making an effort to avoid the chickens all over the place. There's not much more to say about here apart from stuff like that which'll probably mean more to me than you. It's good though, you should visit.

Chao Long to the Moon

2009-02-17T13:58:00.008Z

Although we spent two nights here we only really had one complete day. It was a lovely place though, just 15mins down the road from Yangshou we were at a homestay style hostel, The Outside Inn, run dy a really nice Dutch family. It was like a series of farm houses and it was nice to just have a place where we all spend some time together without having to be a bar or someones room. It's still really hot here so it also felt really good to be able to sit outside for dinner again and although I think I wore a jumper I probably could have coped without. My room here was cool too. It had double wooden doors that padlock together from the outside, and they wedge locked from the inside by big wooden plank. I'm easily pleased. I did have a giant hairy caterpiller in my room when I arrived but he moved out during the night.

Given the short amount time we had, all I managed to do was cycle to Moon Hill in the morning (it took quite a while as friendly locals would helpfully point us in the right direction when we got lost...a lot. The right direction however, being not where we wanted to go but to their bamboo raft or restaurant instaed. We did eventually get there and the climb up was actually really tough. It felt harder than the great wall, I think because it was constantly steep and the weather was a lot hotter. We also had to contend with ladies following us up constantly offering us the chance to purchase water, and then staying with us at the top and offering it to us a lot more. They'd then suggest they're too old to carry the heavy bottles down and perhaps we should just buy them all to help out.

I took the opportunity to cycle into Yangshou on my way back and suddenly understood why the roads are so crazy out here. There are bikes of all shapes and sizes all over the place and many of the riders consistantly seem to misjudge what may be a safe load. Four of us quickly realised all you could do is go where you want to go and expect everyone to avoid you. There's no other way. Rules don't cater for half goings on in the road and it's best just to keep your eyes peeled and be ready to dodge!

Cooking up

2009-02-17T13:01:00.005Z

One other thing I managed to get done during my limited time in Yangshou was a cookery class, and despite a few 'ify' moments I was quite good. I even impressed myself enough to eat my arch enemy of the food world, The Onion, and also it's sidekick, The Mushroom. I've learn't three dishes, each will be difficult to recreate back home, but not impossible, so anyone coming to mine for dinner in the future can expect something more than my signature dish of Cheese on a Plate. Bring your own rice though, they didn't teach us that.

The purpose of this post is to tell you about the only downside I encountered in Yangshou. Our head chef, Panda, began the lesson by taking us to the local market to obtain the vegitable componants for our meals. Upon entry we're struck by how big the market turns out to be. After appearing as only a few stalls in an ally way, the whole area opens up to reveal a huge covered markert space that continues through to another. On sale here in the center are carefully laid out collections vegitables, nuts and fruits, whilst along the left are washing bowls filled with various water based meats such as fish, eels and bullfrogs. I was upset to see one frog with the left half of his skull missing, but both eyes still in place. Panda wonders if we're all ok to see dog meat, and thinking after you've seen chicken and beef, all meat looks much the same, we agree it's not ideal, but it shouldn't be a problem.

We continue forward into the second market area to be hit by horrific scenes of dead chickens and ducks. I've seen these animals dead before, infact they've been everywhere lately, mostly hanging off handle bars of scooters rushing by, but this is like nothing i've seen before. Along the edges of the market are open rooms fronted by tables. One the tables the birds layed out with their heads hanging backwards over the edge and blood still dripping. A glance to the back of the rooms presents a barral spilling with blood and birds in cages waiting their turn. Needing to look away, to my right I see the market is stacked full with more overfilled cages of chickens, ducks, rabbits and something else (can't remember what). It was like a really depressing pet shop, and like anyone else would have done, I considered the feesability of buying them all and releasing them somewhere safe, but of course it'd never work

Looking back to the rooms on the left, I saw a pig carcus hanging up, and that was ok, I've seen lots of butcher shops hanging their stock out in the streets lately. In my disturbed state of mind however, I was surprised to see pigs had paws. It took a good while for the penny to drop, but a another glance to the back of the room did the trick. Three big cages full dogs, the nice, light, fluffy labrador type ones, stand in waiting. Looking back at the carcus I realise that there's nothing pig-like about it at all really, and remember pigs have trotters anyway.

I, along with all the others, am just about done with it all and am heading for the nearest exit but not knowing where to look in the meantime. I don't want to witness anything meet it's maker although I am surrounded by the potential. I do get out but do tread on some intestines on the way, I'm grateful it hadn't occured to me to wear flipflops that morning.

It was a silent walk back to the kitchen as we all toyed with the idea of becoming vegitarian. Our first task at our counters was to prepare the meat, which we did quietly. Although to be fair our cooking was so good, by the time our meals were done we'd close to forgotten our plans never to eat meat again, and the shock of the dogs got replaced for a short while by the shock discovery of the ingrediants to sweet & sour pork.

Yangshou

2009-02-17T11:47:00.011Z

Long time no write but the past week or so have been really good at a little remote. I initially spent 2 nights in Yangshou which I loved. Being one of the first parts of China to open its doors to the tourist trade, it’s clear to see this focus here with one or two main pedestrianised streets and several more smaller ones branching off, all serving as Westoner friendly eats places, hostels, hotels, excursion operators, bars and shops. Aside from all that though, a matter of meters on from this small area and you’re back to Yangshou as a Chinese town.

There are so many reasons why I enjoyed my time here so much, but I think what really helped was the sudden arrival into summer (it’s so nice not to have to layer up all the time for a change) and the beauty of the area. Yangshou is surrounded by the Karst mountains, hundreds (I’m pretty sure hundreds, I did try to ‘wikipedia’ it for you but freedom of information sights don’t work so well in China) of pinicals and kind of mini-mountains. They looked like the stereotypical jagady mountains you might have drawn as a child. The view of one group of these peaks are distinctive enough to make it on to the 20yuan note. Then positioned in the flat areas between the peaks are the villages and crops which, after 3 weeks on the Chinese diet of fried, deep-fried or sugar coated everything, and an average view of snow, desert, concrete or smog, looked even more appealling to me with the lush fields of bright green dotted with the colours of fresh oranges and strawberries. The orange juice is good here too, the first place it’s actually has been fresh. Everywhere else it’s been more expensive than beer and artificial anyway with loads of sugar added. One glass could leave me buzzing for days!

I think I made the most of my time in Yangshou and probably managed to get a whole 8 hours sleep across my 2.5 day. Both mornings I succeeded in getting up at 6am to make it to the park by 7 for my master classes in two Chinese diciplines. The first being a non violent approach to kung-fu and then the second being an extremely non violent attempt at Tai Chi. Both consisted of learning a universal series of moves, so as far as kungfu is concerned, I reckon if I practice enough, I can defend myself ok just as long as I’m attacked in the right way, at the right time and according the sequence of my routine.

The park is nice though, positioned at the base of a mountain or two and separated from the town by a small stream, it gradually came alive between the hours of 7 and 8 in the morning. Men walked around a dirt court clapping as a warm up before embarking on a croquet style game a bit later. Meanwhile other groups of people gathered in clearings for their morning Tai Chi workout.

In the evening, the place really picked up for the lantern festival, which I think co-incides with end of Spring Festival (Chinese New Year). Riddles are set up for people to compete to solve whilst parades of dragons march to and from the town. Further into the crowds a variety of cultural acts are being performed on stage. Thinking this place existed mostly to serve the tourist I was reassured to see how wrong that impression was. The festival was rammed but with locals more than anyone else. The previous night, when we arrived, was a far quieter occasion. After some food we had the whole street to our selves to play that foot badmington game, and anybody that did happen to wonder by joined us for a few minutes before continuing on down the street. Even local bar staff played for the best part of the game and returned to their duties once they’d suitably shown us up and worn us out. Festival night was packed solid with people, games in the street just wouldn’t have worked.

I did some climbing here too (pictured), which was really good but a little sharp on my hands. I’ll admit I was pretty nervous on the first route up, but was forced to settle in to it quite fast and the team were soon forcing me to jump to the holds I couldn’t reach. I wish I was taller. I also took a bamboo raft along the River Li which was quite peaceful apart from the odd Cormick fisher who’d paddle over and do his best to get us to photograph him for money. At one point however, on dry land after wandering off to picture a bull eating the only bit of rubbish in the lush landscape, I was stealth like enough to snap the fisherman from afar as he spied out our group by the shore and paddled in.

I've found Summer

2009-02-09T11:34:00.002Z

I've made it to Yangshuo and am loving it here. The weather is really warm, not even I need anymore than a jumper, even at night. I'm all 'citied' out and haven't spent anytime anywhere out of a concrete jungle since Lake Baikal. It is a real backpacker area, which for now i'm enjoying. There's a great atmosphere and lot's of English words, which for a change is really nice to just understand what's happening. There's also lots to do here, so I'm not going to write much but go and do it. I'm only here for 2 days don't think I'll sleep at all, just want to make the most of it. I've already been taught Kung Fu by a master, sadly not on a hill (there was one behind though), but in a park 7am this morning. I think today is the end of Spring Festival so a bunch of dragons keep marching up and down the road outside my hotel, Fawlty Towers! Think I'm going to go join them now, bye!

Shanghai and the Great Tea Scam

2009-02-09T08:45:00.008Z

I'm rushing these posts alot because I've got so behind I just want them out the
way so I can go enjoy this new destination I'm in now, so I may not do Shanghai justice and give it the write up it deserves! I really liked it here, the favourie of all the cities I've been to on this trip. Many I have considered worth another a visit sometime, but Shanghai I could make a point of coming back to sooner rather than later.

One of the most noticable things first of all was the improvement in temperature, I was even able to pack away my big down coat for Siberia and down grade to two jumpers and lighter coat. Even on two occasions I went without gloves for half a day! There were trees and grass here too and the sudden reapperance of green in the streets made me realise how much I'd missed it. At one point the grass was being cut, and never before understanding why people say they love the smell of fresh cut grass, I developed a real appreciation for it. I've not seen real greenary for a long time, on this trip it's always been snow, dessert, concrete or smog.

Having a lot of time for New York, I liked the areas of Shanghai that they have tried to make reminisant of such a city. Although it's not quite there yet, as I discovered when I decided to walk down to the main square one night to get a shot of the lights, I arrive at 11.30pm to find they'd switched them all off and were hosing down the streets. It was still nice though. Everyone is really friendly too, even those that try to catch you out with the classic Tea Scam.

Three Chinese students, Tetra, Tiger and Sunshun, stopped me to get me to take a picture of them and very quickly befriended me thereafter. It was no time at all until I was being invited to a traditional tea ceremony, which is my que to run away! The tea scam is when you are befriended by a student wanting to spend some time with you to practice their English. They'll could stay with you for as long as a couple of hours before inviting you to experiance Chinese culture and sample many different teas, maybe up to 10 miniture cups or more all made and served by your own tea maid. At the end you'll get stung for a bill for up to a couple of hundred pounds. It happened to a couple from my VodkaTrain group so I was ready for it.

Anyway, I attempted to make my excuses, I was heading to a Propoganda Poster Museum, but they still seemed to not let me get away. They were being so friendly and polite that I had no choice but to do the same (I've been approached several times before by others, but always managed to make a smoother getaway). Every few steps I made my excuses again but was just met with 'You like tea' and 'You should just come for one'. I was physically lead (in a friendly way) across a busy road and up to a tea house that Tiger apparently knew. I ended up going along with it until I was sat within our own private room with the tea maid standing before us. Happy it'd gone far enough with me still being as nice as I could, and not wanting a single drop of tea to be poured in my direction, I muttered a few more excuses as I ran away!

Human Zoo

2009-02-09T08:10:00.004Z

Since I last documented my time racked up on the rails, I've made another three long distance journeys, clocking up 52 or so more hours. I'll probably talk about these another time, but in general, train experiences in China have been quite different to those from the great Russian route. Rather than spies and drunks, there are just lots of curious Chinese. As I may have already mentioned, as a Westoner I'm getting stared at a lot, but on the train it's far more intense.

Having more modern trains, but a lower standard of accomodation, we travelled from Beijing to Xi'an with six to a cabin (two triple bunks) and no door. This concentraion of Westoners in one place was too much for many locals on board to take and meant they had to just come to our cabin a look in...a lot. In the morning I opened my eyes to see one sitting out in the corridor just staring a me!

Anyway, I think this proves the demand for the Human Zoo. A place where natural habitats for people of all cultures around the world are created, and native families to each are placed to live an everyday life as they normally would. Such a place would then be opened to the public so all could learn about different people and cultures from all over our planet.

It is funny though, even in the heart of a city people are still amazed by us and many, especially kids will shout 'Hello, what's your name?' as they fly by on the back of a bike or walk past. Parents also watched us play cards at the station and then, after a while, sent their child over to have their picture taken with us. Others just gather to watch. I like it best when the surreptitious pictures are taken. In the corner of my eye I might see a camera raised in our direction when we're in the street, at a restaurant or anywhere really. Sometimes I even see a relative or friend is side-stepping closer to be in the shot too!

China, sponsored by McDonalds

2009-02-09T08:06:00.006Z

They are a few companies here that this country seems to love. Apart from the city based youth uniform brands of Micky Mouse and Nike (which certainly in Beijing can be bought nearly everywhere), McDonalds and KFC dominate the streets like nowhere else I've seen.

Old people playground

2009-02-09T08:01:00.007Z

More than I saw kids playgrounds I saw these, outdoor gyms for adults. I've heard about them before, in Germany I think, and they were placed to help the older generations keep more active. However, I'm sure they're actually intended for anyone who wants to use them to keep fit. Here, they did have every varient of gym equipment you could ask for including a treadmill, which consisted of conveyor belt type rollers and a couple of hand rails.

In the other image, I think the woman is trying to encourage the old man dressed as Santa to do his exercises. I took it as I walked past a hospital courtyard. I'm sharing it because I like it.

Chinese doing what they do best

2009-02-09T07:56:00.003Z

Guides with flags and the taking of group photos all rolled into one!

The Great Wall Dyslexic

2009-02-09T07:50:00.004Z

Upon the four of us reaching the top of our early morning Great Wall hike, one of us, Tom, suggested our triumphant group photo should be of the conquer pose...I got this confused with conker. We did it neither-the-less, so here we all are at stupid o'clock in the morning being conkers on string.

A great Wall in China

2009-02-04T03:57:00.007Z

I finally got out of Beijing (it's not that I didn't like it there, just think a week is too long especially when you're used to moving around a lot) and headed 3hours north to Simatai to spend some time with the Great Wall. For fear of being unoriginal, I'm just going to quote and confirm Lonely Planet's description of this line of bricks and rubble "...this 19k section is an invigorating stretch of watchtowers, precarious plunges and scrambling ascents. This rugged section of wall can be heart-thumpingly steep and the scenery exhilarating. The eastern section of wall at Simatai is the most treacherous."

On arrival the the staired climb up the mountain side to the wall was initially shock to the systems of many but once up there, the first few k was pretty easy going. The wall was in good condition and still had all it's brick sides to the path intact. It wasn't long however, until the sides had crumbled away soon followed by much of the path and steps. The reasonably flat level had also gone so the steep staircases and slopes made an appearence. Getting tougher under foot, afer 10k we made to our hostel at the wall just as the mountains started to do their worst. The hostel was is a great location at the bottom of a vally and a farmer prepared us dinner not too long after we arrived. The accomdation wasn't up to much but I guess finding the odd bug or two just about everywhere in the room didn't hurt anyone.

The next morning, 4 out of 16 of us decided it would be worth getting up at 4am to continue East to complete the last half of wall that was still passable, in time for sunrise. Anyone who knows me will be impressed to hear that I managed getting up that early and will perhaps see it as a greater acheivement than the climb itself. Whilst the others slept, we set off at 5am and were immediately stopped by 'security guard' that made us pay him but refused to give us a ticket or open the gate and just gestured that we went away as he walked off. undetered, we jumped over the fence in the pitch black and continued our assent with just one headtorch to guide the way.

Immediately after reaching the wall it was clearly going to be a completely different terrain to what we were dealing with yesterday, and now we couldn't see a thing. In the daylight, as the sections got steeper, all focus had to be placed upon my feet as each step was different. One as high as my knee, the next barely a step at all, and everything height in between. Often steps would barely be wide enough to fit my toes on, and even more often on this harder section, the steps weren't there at all.

Shining the torch up gave just enough light to present a skijump like ascent to the next tower that was perched way above us. After each tower that we thought should have surely been our last, another steep ascent waited. At no point did we walk on a level for more than a few meters and the path quickly closed in to be just a couple of meters in width with a close to vertical drop each side. There're aren't any side walls at all now.

The previous day there was barely anyone else there, and this morning there's even less, just a couple of lights in the distance going up and up. Near the end, parts of the wall had deteriated too much and we followed a rocky climb forwards and up around it until we could find where to rejoin. We made it to the end of the route by 6.30am before being forced to stop as the next sections were deemed too dangerous even by the Chinese! We messed about up there for a few group pictures, even one that nearly saw my SLR camera find the fastest route down (fortuanlty i'd tied it to the post with the strap of the headtorch), and then watched the sun come up before returning for beakfast. The journey down, now light was more terrifying as we could see how treacherous conditions were and how small a margin of error layed either side. Still not fully used to my boots, my heel would occasionally clip a step on the way down giving a few real heart-in-mouth moments, if I fell, these'd be nothing to break my fall anytime soon. The farmer cooked us breakfast.

New Group

2009-02-04T03:36:00.007Z

I'm still being a bit slack with my posts, so sorry if the next couple aren't the best on here. I was going to write a couple out last night but ended up doing the whole 'Lost In Translation' thing. I spent the evening with the others in our own private karaoke room high in a building overlooking the main road. It was shocking really, exactly how the movies make out. Every now and then a guy would come in and eagerly change the microphones over, not that we were really using them. The videos that accompanied the tracks were the best, completely unrelated to the songs themselves and created in the cheesiest 80's style i've ever seen. Drink was the only way through but I'm still being victimised for my dislike of beer, but i'm going to stand my ground on this one. Vodka was too expensive so I found refuge in JD and coke (I never thought I'd see the day!).

Anyway the group are nice, we've been together for just over a week now. Initially I took a little while to take to them. I was partly disappointed by the lack of diversity amoungst us (everyone is of similar age and all except one are from GB), and I think I also missed the old VodkaTrain group(s). The first few days I found I spent more time with other members of another group following us a couple of days later. One of these was an Australian who'd I'd met whilst crossing the road. General Western courtasy here is to acknowledge one another as we pass, but I was nervous she'd turn out to be German or Italian or something and I'd still end up in a dead end convosation. After a mad dash across the road avoiding everything and anything on wheels, it turned out we both spoke English and we were fine to communicate.

From the last group I'm not missing the jibes about my upset at lack of hair straightners, but I am missing borrowing some from Sarah! This new group is mostly girls so I think tonight on the train I might ask about to locate some more. Apart from that there isn't too much more to say about them, we've barely mixed as a whole as the group is really big, 16 of us in all, but we're all starting to see more of each other now and are getting on well.

Beijing

2009-01-30T15:13:00.013Z

I've been in Beijing for a while now, possibly too long, but am moving on first thing. Initially planning to use a few of these days here as base, I intended to take another long train trip north towards the Russian border to place called Harbin, where a spectactular ice festival is held every year. In the end I decided to pass on account of wanting to be in Beijing for new year, train tickets being hard to come by during Spring Festival and just wanting a rest from moving around so much. All that said, even though I have taken it easy for a couple of days, I've been a bit slack on my blog and haven't been preparing my posts pre-internet cafe. I'll say sorry as my lack of preparation will probably show.

I've enjoyed my time here and upon arrival it initially struck me as being the most familier place I've been to throughout the whole trip so far, but equally it's here that I've been most unaware of what's happening. In another set of contradictions, we're all starting to fit in more as the clothes we're wearing are similar to the majority of the others here, but in actual fact we stand out more for being western and get pointed at a lot. I think the boys from the group suffered most for all being so tall (especially Rolf at a lot over 6") and found themselves pulled aside for photos whether they liked it or not. Being in a big group also had a similar effect, and all 13 of us meeting for a New Years Meal meant the whole restaurant literrally stopped and stared at us whilst making comments amoungst each other.

Speaking of restaurants though, not traditionally a big fan of Chinese, more often than not i'm finding the food to be really good (with the odd exception) and cheap. The biggest problem is not being a beer drinker. It feels that if I don't want a beer then I don't want a drink. Attempts at a glass of wine have all failed so far. At one meal I was able to speak enough Mandarin to gain the attention of the waitress and order an orange juice, however my smugness wasn't long lived as a whole litre carton arrived!

I can't think what to say about it here without saying I'd visited all the usual places. Saw another dead world leader this morning. I think I was more interested to see the Chinese's reaction to such a man but was dissappointed to find that most of the Chinese here are tourists themselves and genually didn't have as much respect as I'd expected.

I've mostly been enjoying walking around and seeing things at my on pace and getting a feel for local culture. The Hutons are always interesting and often a surpirse, and the amount bikes that are used, and the variation in uses for them here is cool too. I'm not so keen on everyones desire to hawk up loudly and spit just about everywhere though.

Earlier today I went to Temple of Heaven Park which may be my favourite place in Beijing. It was like an older persons social club. Pensioners all sat on the walls playing cards, whilst in a far corner a couple of old guys were enjoying flying a kite with a few others practising they're tradional flutes and lutes near by. A bunch of ladies were practising some dancing together whilst another group were hitting themselves in the head and doing yoga. Everywhere I turned Grandparents were messing about doing something or other, but the kids were few and far between!

Oh yeah, and for once I've been feeling nearly warm. I think on a couple of occasions I didn't wear any gloves at all for at least an hour or two (despite what the facebook pictures suggest!)!

That's probably enough for this post. I've met a new group to travel for the next three weeks but I'll write something about them when I know more. All I know is that I've now got a Californian roommate who I've barely spoken to yet but have been annoying by keeping her awake by getting in late and getting up early.

(this internet is painfully slow tonight so I'll add a couple of other pictures in a few days)

Happy New Year (again)

2009-01-30T14:12:00.015Z

January 25th saw my third New Year in a month. But being in Beijing for the Chinese New Year meant that it was a far bigger affair than the sparklers we were given one the train for the Russian one. There's been non-stop explosions right across the city since I arrived and they're not even letting up now, in fact this evening they've picked up. But no other day has come close to New Years itself.

From the moment I got up, the whole city sounded like it was under seige. Normally illegal in the city center, just for the Spring Festival any form of high explosives seem to be allowed. Everywhere you turned fire crackers and fireworks were being set off in roads and on pavements with no real clearence zone inforced, and at times they were litterally flying at you from all angles, even out of windows. Heading to our favourite street for drinks, a narrow ally type road, the ground was on fire and every few meters a group of people were detonating everything they had. Cars continued to appear out of the glow and smoke of the otherwise dark street. Upon reaching an exploding box of fireworks, the cars would take as wide a birth as they could, sometimes as much a half a meter.

Seeing a couple of cars, including police drive straight over what they hadn't realised to be a lit box of fireworks, we expected to see one blown into the air anytime soon, and was always amazed to see even cyclists appear unharmed from both directions through the bonfire like haze. The whole evening you are rained upon by the remnants from the explosions in the sky, and wading through the red paper left by the ones on the ground.

Every now and then we would be startled (or have the life scared out of us) by a new creation we hadn't yet encountered. One in particular would be like a nuclear bomb going off (or I can only imagine), literally shaking the ground and bleaching everything in white light for a moment. I did my best to capture one of these on camera in a way that isn't just a bright white image (see above).

Always making new friends

2009-01-27T04:48:00.011Z

The internet cafe I've found here to use is very different to the previous cafes i've used over the past three weeks. Instead of being a small back street room that doesn't really work and is only used to check emails, this is a huge place where locals spend a lot of time. To my left some girls have logged on to play a typical chinese dance type game whilst on my right a guy is killing himself laughing at some TV show.

When I was in here last there was a girl next to me who I'd noticed was spending a lot of time translating Chinese to English and glancing my on occasions. Assuming she was talking to a pen friend I didn't think too much of it, but when I came to leave she pulled my attention to her screen. She only really knew how to say 'Pleased to meet you' but was very keen to get my mobile number so we could meet up during my stay (again, how would we ever communicate?!). I made my excuses, not that she understood them, and left, but I took a picture of the screen before I did. (The pic isn't great but I think it's clear enough to read her words if you click on it, comment if not and I'll transcibe it)

Saw this and thought of BMB

2009-01-27T04:46:00.005Z

Chevrolet, the first advertisements I saw upon arrival in Beijing. I'm dedicating this picture to everyone back at work. Hope you're all well and thanks for the post on your blog (blog.bmb.uk.com) but not sure what i've done to deserve the age related digs, I thought I was the youngest out of all of you.

End of the line

2009-01-27T03:32:00.010Z

162 train hours and couple of days into Beijing officially saw the end of my Trans Siberian journey. After settling all our debts with each other (there were loans all over the place thanks to cloned cards (not mine for a change), scams and general innability to access funds in remote places) we went our seperate ways. The only debt I had to honour was a promise to the Ozzie to drink a whole beer, and on Autralia Day I did, in an Australian bar. It wasn't enjoyable and an event i'll not be repeating. Anyway, it's sad to say goodbye as we've gotten used to the idea of travelling together (and bailing each other out). Agreeing we'd all meet again sometime in the future, we did that very night, and again the following two nights.

More than anything however, I'll miss the the journey itself. I loved every minute of it, even the times when I was looking for the quickest exit from a situation. I'm already seriously considering my next route (Vladivostok to Moscow anyone?). It's facinating to watch how much places and cultures change throughout the journey. St Petersburg feels to be a million miles away from the world of Beijing.

A good example of this is the food. In Russia the food is generally something in a pancake or pie and usually they'll sneak cabbage onto the menu of options in an unexpected place. If it's not that then it's potato stacked and baked upon something, sometimes chicken or lamb but regulary just onto another potato. In Mongolia the dish is nearly always burger meat and they can create about 100 different meals with this. Steamed in dumplings, fried in dumplings, battered, flattened, rolled, in a pie, out of a pie, crispy etc. etc. And now we're in China I'm finding that if they can put it on a stick it becomes food. Snake, starfish, strawberry, seahorse, octopus leg, pineapple, scorpion and bugs were all offered to me yesterday in quick sucession. They'd learnt just enough English to shout 'HELLO...CENTIPEDE' in my direction as a walked past. Anything that won't go on a stick, such as ice cream, cream and egg, and gets deep fried.

Two other things I'll miss about the train is trying to fill out strict customs forms in different languages and never really knowing the time. Getting on the train at Irkutsk for example, meant going back 5 hours to Moscow time the second we stepped on board and then jumping forward several hours the moment we entered Mongolia as the timetable switched timezones. We had to be at the ready to jump off at all times just in case!

For nostalgia reasons I've addd a few more pictures from the trip, but for now, after being with the group nearly 24-7 for the past three weeks, I'm enjoying some time to myself. Tomorrow I'll meet a new group and I'll start to continue my journey down through China in a few days.

Outer Mongolia

2009-01-23T15:16:00.006Z

I've only included this post so I can title it as I did (sorry). But it's true, I am outer there, and after another 30 hours on a train i've arrived in Beijing.

The border crossing into China was smoother than our arrival into Mongolia a few days ago, but was certainly more tense. Having two cabin attendants that were intent on stressing us out, they made sure we were perminantely on edge for the 5-6 hours we were between countries.

Constantly being very precious about a corridor carpet they repetedly layed out, changed, took back in or straightened for unknown reasons, they regimented us to all sit at the bottom of our cabins uncomfortably for 5 hours and wait for nothing to happen. With all this build up, we were certain of another, if not far worse set of cabin searches than before. All that happened was a dominatrix style woman, heavily made-up, appeared in our doorway larger than life with a uniform that didn't look real, mini skirt and knee high boots. She looked at us intensly, took our passports and disappeared.

Eventually the train went into the shed, with us on, and got it's wheels changed ready for the wider tracks of China. Miss Dominatrix returned, gave us our passports and we continued across the last of the Gobi Desert towatds Beijing. I arrived safely but not before clashing with the cabin attendants over a pillow case. The story is as stupid as it sounds so I won't bother telling it, but I suspect no invites to summer boat trips for these two!

6 more aboard the VodkaTrain

2009-01-21T15:31:00.004Z

Our last night at the Ger camp saw the arrival of another group traveling with VodkaTrain, like us. Setting off a week later than us, they've embarked on a faster version of trip missing out St Petersburg and Lake Baikal, and caught up with us in the middle of nowhere. They're all really nice, which is good news as we got on the same train to Beijing yesterday. Meeting at the bonfire, we amused them with our train stories and they had a tale or two themselves about rapping Mongolian smugglers with maniquins!

Now this really is the coldest I've ever been!

2009-01-21T15:11:00.003Z

I think now I can assure you that this is the last time I ever say that! Whilst out in the coldest climes that i'm due to encounter on this trip (i'm only heading south from now on), we were all advised to put on all the clothes we had with us at camp. I clocked up two pairs of warm socks and boots, leg thermals, trousers and sallopets, longsleeved thermal top, vest top, long sleeved t-shirt, t-shirt, shirt, another shirt, fleece, hoodie and coat, skimask, buff and scarf, silk gloves, fleece gloves and ski gloves and two hats. All I had left was one more pair of socks which I rejected in favour of putting my boots on easily...I wish I'd tried harder! In fact it was soooo cold here, whilst enjoying a few drinks around a bonfire in blizzard like weather, all our drinks froze in our hands within about half hour!

Inner Mongolia

2009-01-21T14:25:00.011Z

After a very early arrival into Ulaan Baatar, it didn't take long for me to conclude that 'UB' is essentially just a health and safety nightmare! Pavements are either icey or dirk tracks, always with unexpected craters or obsticles and several manhole covers missing without warning. And as for the roads, they are fast and ruless, making crossing very difficult (they do have zebra stripes painted on them in places, but they don't make much difference, I think they're only there to localise the points of pedestrian accidents). Sticking close to the Honcho to make the most of her road-wise experience, we found her leading us out into the middle calmly and then shouting 'RUN!' as cars approached rapidly form multiple directions. One positive to the roads here is that every car is potentially a cab. Just standing by the road and raising your arm will cause up to three cars to pull over on they're way to wherever, even if there's only two of you!

Life hazards aside, UB is an interesting city that grew on me in time. I think I was probably frustrated on arrival by the confusing shop signs that led me into many a laundrette, market or pharmacy when I was in search of internet or cash machines. Although I wouldn't rush back here I feel the rest of Mongolia needs a lot more exploring. Heading 90mins East of UB, I spent a couple days doing just that when we were taking into the Mongolian Steppes to spend some time in a traditional Ger camp. Again, not wanting to bore you with the details, this place is stunning and could surpass Lake Baikal already (I feel so fickle).

Expecting to all be huddled together in one of these circular tents in sleeping bags, we were surprised and pleased to find we were split across two Gers, clomplete with beds and coal fire. Even though the temperature out in the country is getting down to beyond -30, The Ger is toasty inside and every three hours, even through the night, a lady literally sneaks in to keep the fire going. The fire is in the center of this relatively small space so see her everytime! Regulating the fire is difficult, freshly lit the room temperature soars to an unbarable level luring us into a false sense of security, and then, particulary during the night, within a couple of hours things drop to near freezing leaving us laying in the dark hoping the fire lady will be on her sneaky rounds soon!

Apart from walking and hiking to the top of the rocky back drop of our camp, we spent some time horse riding, and although ours weren't the most obedient or speedy of creatures, a nice morning out was had all the same. Skaramoosh (the honary 2-hour name for my horse) seemed to like to lead the group and kick any that tried to overtake. An afternoon was also spent visiting a local family in their Ger where, at the end of the visit, it's custom to sing a traditional song from our culture. Being put on the spot and haveing a couple of other nationalities with us, the best we could think of that we all knew and was somewhat British was Yellow Submarine. That's very shameful but the wife seemed to like it regardless. She then sang us a song and the dog howled. The husband prefered to watch the Sumo wrestling on TV which was odd to see considering we were in a tent in the middle nowhere.

Close, but still no Special K

2009-01-21T14:24:00.003Z

Ever get the feeling you've been abandoned in Mongolia?

2009-01-18T04:23:00.008Z

When we left Irkutsk we were in the middle of a very long train. After a lengthy border control and several cabin searches (8 or more hours stood still in all) I got a chance to step off the train to find every other carriage had gone along with the train that pulled us!

(And yes that is the back end of a Mongolian ghost dog in the bottom left hand corner. He came to harass me whilst I took the picture. I couldn't do another because he wouldn't go away).

PYEY DA DNA

2009-01-18T04:19:00.007Z

'Drink to the bottom' as the Russians say! All this for just 8 pounds. Brilliant!

Travelling companions

2009-01-18T04:00:00.008Z

Left to right - Rolf, Adam, Hew, John, Sarah, Me, and Adam. This was taken at Moscow station before we boarded the train. We'll be together until Beijing.

Back to the Lake

2009-01-18T03:39:00.010Z

Listvyanka, a small town by Lake Baikal was the perfect reward for our mamouth journey. An hours bus ride away from Irkutsk we're taken to the picturesque and seemingly abandoned town. Like the train, being here feels like i've gone a long way back into the past. The wooden houses have been torn apart by harsh weathers and their delapidation looks beyond repair. A fantastic place to visit, but probably not live.

The sky here during the day is very blue, and bright with stars at night, but when the wind kicks up it's pretty bitter (maybe the coldest I've ever been!). A hike to the top of a huge hill demonstrates the scale of the lake (the worlds largest and deepest), with mountains becoming visible across the sea like expanse if you look hard enough.

Then a trail back down took us all to the water front. I don't want to bore you with the details, but this could be my favourite place on earth. It's hard not to be struck by the beauty of this natural occurrence. Huge layers of thick ice had been pushed to the edge and rippled over and under one another to create a sort of ice sculpture. The near edges were certainly thick enough to walk on, but I didn't push my luck and venture further out.

The Russian sauna was an experience too. Essentially a toga party in a room nearly as hot as our old train cabin, that on regular intervals required us step out into the -15 temperatures and even lay in the snow. Our Honcho also insisted that it was custom to hit us with pine tree twigs. We were dubious of it, but after the past 4 days of torture on the rails it didn't seem so bad so we went along with it.

Finally, I took the opportunity to drive my own dog sled. It was a lot of fun but I wasn't quite heavy enough to steer effectively so had to ride quite close to the trees mostly (fortunately i'm quite short so didn't have too far to duck).

Lake Baikal

2009-01-16T08:52:00.003Z

This is Lake Baikal. I have to go and catch another train now. I'll say more about this place when I get to Mongolia hopefully (but I promise not as much as the last two posts!). Sorry for not replying to any emails or comments, I'll catch up with it all soon. Also I'm very sorry for the length of the last post, I'll get some pictures on here at my next stop to brake it up a bit! Hope everyone is well with you all. x

Plans for world domination

2009-01-16T06:14:00.009Z

ONLY READ IF YOU'RE SERIOUSLY BORED. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO CONDENSE THIS DOWN WITHOUT CONFUSING THINGS. YOU PROBABLY HAD TO BE THERE ANYWAY!

This is the story of my last night on the Trans Siberian Railway, Moscow to Irkutsk section. I'll write it as clear as I can but it gets really confusing and quite weird. It's probably best I start by introducing the main characters...

Bad Russian - He was our cabin neighbour and I first met him the previous night when keen to practise my Russian (which, by the way, is going pretty well) I joined a member of our group struggling to communicate with him in the corridor. Quickly Bad Russian's attention turned souly to me and I was offended by an innapropriate proposition and him touching my face. I retreated to back to cabin fast and stayed there. After this Bad Russian found himself receiving angry words from the cabin attendants for generally just being very drunk and pissing all the other carriage dwellers off. In the end we were forced to shelter in our cabin whilst we made a very long unschedualed stop. After lots of violent crashing around next door, he was locked in and we all waited hopingly for the police, army or old KGB to come storming onto the train. No such luck. Things went quiet and we set off again, but now with added security guard.

Next is Alex-A, or Russian Spy as i'll call him. He tracked us down on the last night after hearing romours we were on board. Apparently he is a military man on a peace mission to far Eastern Siberia to translate for some Burmese. They will communicate by talking in English. This is concerning as his english is pretty bad, the worst English speaking Russian we'd met. If you hear of a major misunderstanding between those two countries, he'll be why! We never did work out what the Burmese doing there anyway. He wanted to talk to us for a while so we could grade him (A,B or C) on his English. He also spent quite a lot of his time insisting he wasn't a Spy, which was odd as none of us has ever said or thought it.

Finally the cabin attendants and Yulia. The cabin attendants were nice but we didn't have too much to do with them. They spoke no English but seemed to appreciate the groups politeness and my attempts at their language. Generally though I assumed we were really just an annoyence to them. Yulia was lovely. A fourteen year old who spoke fantastic English and liked talking to us, and us to her. She was in the cabin at the end travelling with her family on the seven day journey to see her grandparents.

So the story begins with a couple of us looking out the window (obviously) when Russian Spy tracks us down. In Russian I introduce myself and the others in the cabin but then have to switch back to English to answer his questions. Amusingly to us all, when I speak he claims not hear a word I say for being distracted by the amazing meldody voice and Queens English accent! However he is less impressed by accents of the clearly spoken South Londoners whose sounded entirely different apparently.

In no time at all he is settled into our cabin with beers, which the boys dutifully drank when forced. After a short while he asks me to practice my Russian some more, and thinking that demonstrating my ability to order tea or vodka wouldn't be the best choice of phrase, I say 'Your plans for world domination are sadly mistaken'. This was where I went wrong, but it's not my fault, it was in the James Bond - From Russia With Love section of my phrase book. I thought he'd like it! He didn't and was upset to hear the English believe that Russia are planning to take over the world. He suggested it was more appropriate to refer it to the US and we agreed enthusiastically. His mood was difficult to read so we continued to sit holding our breath and laughed on que only when he did. The beers were finished and we succeeded in getting rid of him. We had a very early morning arrival to Irkutsk so felt some sleep was in order.

Taking the opportunity to spend just 10 more minutes looking out of the window before winding down, Bad Russian is about. He's learnt the word sorry, and as I appreciated he was very drunk the night before I persavered with his attempts to join our group in the corridor. It didn't go brilliently but actually it was working a bit. I can say stuff to him, but not understand his response. Yulia appears and joins us and does some translating. At one point, demonstrating my language skills to Bad Russian I play it safe with my choice of phrase and show him how I can order tea (15 minutes later I have some tea!) Not long later I am feeling uncomfortable around him and keep my attention focused on Yulia and the others. He spends the rest of the evening offering me more tea.

Russian Spy has come back. It seems my James Bondism has really got to him and now he's settled into our cabin again quizzing me on it. He eventually got over it but the conversation awkwardly moved on to our opinions of the Russia-Georgia conflict. I stayed out of this one. We were all tired, nervous and bored of him. Everytime he asked for an opinion from me he just went on about the melody of my voice which just frustrated me. I think before long we'd managed to shed him again and continue about our evening, except I'm still not happy to see Bad Russian is still lurking and offering me tea.

Suddenly Russian Spy has come back yet again and introducing himself as Bond. I don't know how it happened but whilst talking to Yulia, Bad Russian hanging around us so I turned to my cabin only to find Russian Spy settled in there once more. Both Russians are getting quite drunk and have now clashed. We don't know what is said between them but my name is mentioned lots. I'm left with no where to go so we attempt to get rid of Russian Spy from our room who is now talking extensively about Russian milertary history and we're too tired to work out what the right answers are. Yulia has gone to bed and Bad Russian continues to lurk outside. Russian Spy doesn't like this and now believes Bad Russian is actually the English speaking spy.

Now out of nowhere, the cabin attendants are at the doorway. We've had nothing to do with them all night but now they want my address. That is clearly what they are saying but Russian Spy is struggling to understand them (it seems our Russian translater isn't great at his home language either). Anyway, I give them my email but they come back wanting my home address and they give me theirs. Then they give me a phone number, which is rediculous because how could we ever communicate by phone? There are 4 of us in the cabin, but they tell Russian Spy that their details are only for me. They then invite me to Russia in the summer where I, and only I, can join them on a boat to China. I don't know why. The attendants then disappear.

We make some final attempts to clear our cabin of Russian Spy, who previously told us not to be polite, we should just ask him to leave when we're ready. But now he says we'll have to kill him or put up with him, he's not leaving (but all the while apologising for disturbing us). After he says some more odd things about me, he leaves and we lock up.

Finally there is a knock at the door, and some female voices. Perceiving it to be safe we open it to find the attendentas outside our cabin giving only us lit sparklers wishing us a Happy Old New Year before running away. We accept the fire hazard into our cabin and do our best not set fire to it before Russian Spy is back complaining we kicked him out so we could sleep and 10 minutes later we are still awake. We give up on the politeness and shut and lock the door again and go to bed now just a few hours from our Irkutsk stop.

88 Hours

2009-01-16T05:30:00.006Z

Last saturday lunchtime I boarded the train for Irkutsk, and just 88 hours later, on wednesday morning, I was there! Actually it wasn't as bad as it sounds and within no time at all I found I was genuinely really happy, relaxed and enjoying some quality train time. Our carriage was everything I'd hoped for and more, far worse than the St Petersburg to Moscow train, completly out dated and ready to fall apart.

Having seven of us in the group meant we were split between two cabins of four, giving three of us a Russian roommate. He was ok, but keen to not socialise with us, which suited us fine as he actually smelt pretty bad. Fortuantly he was only with us for the first 24 hours and after he left, we didn't aquire anyone new for the duration.

It's difficult to remember how it was possible to pass so much time in boredom and still love every second of it, but I, and the others, did it mostly by looking out of the cabin window, looking out of the corridor window, walking to the end of the train and looking out the window there, listening to some ipod, playing cards, chatting, reading and preparing meals.

Meal times were a big part of the day, although we never really knew what part of the day it was. Keeping our watches set to Moscow time, as that is also train time, we lost at least an hour a day local time due to passing through several time zomes. It wasn't long until day became night and night became day. So meals times happened when I was bored enough, but I enjoyed the balenced diet of Smash mixed with chicken cupa soup or bovril (the chicken was actually pretty good and well worth a try). This was followed by green tea with the mash potato remains left in my cup. Others jumped off the trains and bought bland pot-noodle style meals which they mixed with Marmite. A chance to eat in the restaurant car was impossible as either our timing was always bad or the lady there just didn't like us, I couldn't read the menu anyway.

As expected the temperature on the train was nearly always far too hot, around 25°C -30°C, which I usually was ok with, but when our cabin was full, the temperature was known to rise even higher still. Our cabin was unusual and had a broken window that allowed snow to form in the inside corner of it by my bed, which ended up appearing as a snowball on my pillow a bit later. Thanks to the unbarable heat I was able to borrow an extra blanket from the others to keep warm!

Stops were fun, each time we pulled into a station (one every few hours), I would jump off to get some air and look around the platform. When the door was opened we were nearly always met by locals selling either things we should never attempt to eat or trading from a makeshift convienience store on a sledge. I would be free to wander across the tracks but with the thick ice between them I could only see it ending badly so never ventured too far. We had to master the cyrillic timetable to understand how long each stop was, anything from 6 to 45 minutes. Enough time for the cabin attendants to beat the ice from the bottom of the train with a stick. The attendants were good, and after we nearly left one member of our group behind, they always came and made sure we were all accounted for, but not until after we'd set off.

Siberia itself was beautiful but didn't change greatly the whole way. Sometimes it was flat, sometimes there were hills, many little hut villages and the odd bridge over a frozen river. There were always lots of trees. As consistant as it was, it never stopped being interesting and captivating, which was lucky.

The only downside we had, apart from the lack of showers, was that I didn't get much chance to mix with the locals and become fluent in Russian thanks to the antisocial restaurant car. This all changed on the last night but that's a whole other story!

Vodka'd up

2009-01-10T05:34:00.005Z

No trip to Russia would be complete without learning a tiny bit more about Vodka. Above is where I was taught...The Vodka Museum, Moscow.

That's all from Moscow

2009-01-10T04:30:00.009Z

Hello, hope you're all well. I'm leaving Moscow in a couple of hours, and since the Hostel has free internet, I thought now would be a good time to update this (now at least that I have figured out how to convert this keyboard to type with English letters. When I first used this machine I had to copy and paste the individual letters I needed from the google home page to access my email).

It was a very early arrival into Moscow so we dropped our stuff off and took showers after a pretty hot train journey. We headed straight to the Red Square to see the obvious stuff first, getting there in time to enter the huge tomb of the embalmed Lenin (pictured). It is an odd experience and difficult to describe, but a bit like a more sombre BodyWorlds exhibition with less dissection.

The Kremlin was weird too. When I'd got there they'd arranged a sort of baggage reclaim but with kids istead in the main square. There was what looked to be around a thousand children walking in a huge circle around a big Christmas Tree. Then around them were twice the amount of parents desperately waving to try and find and then drag their kid off the 'conveyor belt' system. We don't really know what was happening there but think the Kremlin had acquired the kids earlier on in the day as part of a Christmas celebration, and now it was going home time. With the huge number of people in the square, the amount of pushing, waving and shouting combined with wind and snow, the whole seen was chaotic, and to me, a bit like it belonged in a Second World War II film based over Germany way.

I much prefer Moscow to St Petersburg, although I've been far colder here than I've ever been (two layers of gloves aren't preventing my fingers from completely freezing on occasions and I've had to progress to my extra warm socks already). Moscow is also a very slippery city and most floor surfaces are made of granite which doesn't help, my shoulder is nervous here but so far I've managed to stay on my feet. Moscow snows a lot too.

It is train time again after breakfast, this time for 3-4 days, apart from fast dashes on to the platform at stops for supplies and returning before the train leaves. I'm really looking forward to it and I'll let you know how it goes, if I don't, it's because I didn't make it back on board in time at one of the stops!

Train Time

2009-01-08T19:57:00.006Z

We were delivered to the station last night at 23.00 hours - in time to catch our first train in the 7865km rail journey. We suffered for the first half hour as four of us, dressed for -15° conditions, each with backpacks as big as ourselves attempted to fit into a cabin of 6'5" x 4" with 2 sets of bunkbeds (and other obstacles) whilst it was set to a temperature of +25°. It took some effort, but once we'd unjammed ourselves and lost a few of our warmer layers (although that did make a few of us look like Shakespearian actors with our black thermals for tights), it was really comfortable in there. The cabin attendants brought us tea and insisted we bought vodka and beer from them. The journey was great and although we still have 5 or 6 more full days on a train to come, we still thought it would be a good idea to stay up til 4am looking out the window (in the dark at the same constant scenery). Getting up at 6am for our arrival in Moscow wasn't the best!

So far, so good

2009-01-08T19:32:00.009Z

So far I'm really liking Russia...when I first arrived the music in my transfer car was Queen followed by the Rolling Stones...brilliant! Anyway, once you get used to a few things it's really cool here, definitely another visit needed (but in warmer weather). The only down side, apart from not knowing what's going on most of the time, is that the Russians are tending to push me around a lot. I don't think it's anything personal though, just what they do.

St Petersburg is lovely and looks really good under snow. It seems that maybe 8 out of 10 cars are old Ladas (pictured is one with a flat tyre in the middle of a busy main road) and most will try and hit you given the chance. When safely on the pavement we found some nice bars with interesting people and music, not to everyones taste but I liked it. Apart from that we spent our days exploring and visiting the usual places, and in between made stops to warm up. We even found time to visit a film festival (in English with Russian subtitles) before getting to the station for our first stint on the train.

The Honcho

2009-01-08T07:44:00.002Z

I've realised that I've probably not explained how my journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway works. Basically there is a small group of us, seven in all, and we are met at each stop by our Honcho, a new one at each location. It is their job to to help and point us in the right direction.

In St Petersburg I kind of expected the Honcho to wear a poncho, she wasn't (but apparently they do in Mongolia).Anyway without her (Marsha) we would have been completely lost in every way. In the bars when we are being shouted at by the barmaids we just tend to offer more money until Marsha will rescue the situation and translate that less money is required but in change. And when she orders our food it is fine, but twice I tried going it alone and found myself with a cabbage pancake and tomato juice, both things are far from what I'd planned and seem very wrong to me!

I will stay close to my Honcho from now on, but tomorrow I'm going to attempt to speak only in Russian (to Russians). Tomorrow I will be hungry.