High Mileage: A Travelogue

End of the Rail Road

2010-02-24T02:35:00.001-08:00

Almost a year to the day and here we are in London again, this time for good. Grounded. For the immediate future at least. We were back in January for a couple of weeks and then we were off again, this time to pay a visit to family and friends in Zimbabwe.

The plan to visit Zimbabwe was hatched late one night in a small room in Sala Thai, our humble but clean accommodation in Bangkok. It was a room about the size of a young child's shoe box with one window that overlooked a nondescript concrete wall. I miss it though, with it's ubiquitous and abundant street food and markets nearby. We were chatting about this and that and mostly about what we had been missing whilst we were away. For some people we talked to along the way, it was cheese, others, having a cupboard and some, shock horror, it was family. We fell into this last category and Nipun was quick to convince me that it was time to go back home before we started work again and had limited leave. After all, a twelve month trip like we have just done equates very roughly to twelve years worth of annual leave. We are not likely to have that opportunity very often. So a plan was hatched. In essence it was to arrive in Harare without telling my mum. She would then pop over to see my brother for an impromptu breakfast and discover us there, waiting laden with tales and gifts. A brilliant idea at the time, but then my mum is a septuagenarian and the hearts in our family are about as reliable as Skoda's.

Our flight therefore was quite an anxious one. "I really hope my brother has a stethoscope" was one thought that cropped up along the way. Air Zimbabwe was not big on in-flight diversions either. At the front of the plane, replacing the old projector screen, was a picture of Victoria Falls. The old joke on Youtube came to mind, "We are sorry there are no movies on the flight, somebody at head office forgot to press record on the VHS last night." I jokingly asked the flight attendant what was lined up for the evening. "Tonight, my friend, you will have a live performance" he laughed. It turned out that this performance consisted of being served dinner, with the encore taking the form of teas and coffees. Having said that though the flight was brilliant and half the price of flying to Harare via South Africa. The staff were an absolute hoot and the food was good and the drink plentiful.

Upon arriving we were met by my brothers who whisked us back home and everything went more or less according to plan. My mum arrived and my little niece spilt the beans ever so slightly by making mention of Aunty Nipun (of which you'll be surprised to know there are not that many), but this was probably a good thing. My mum came running onto the verandah, blue eyes agog and with a smile more radiant than the sun. It was a very special moment. And from there on it seems that the clock was ticking. The time flew. During our stay we made it as far as Lake Chivero (an hour outside town) and Nyanga (the Eastern Highlands which lie about three hours away from Harare). It is pathetic and sad to say but our plans to get to Victoria Falls, Mana Pools and Lake Kariba came to naught. We stayed more or less entirely in Harare. It was family time, and it was entirely worth it.

In terms of observations of Harare, it is much changed yet exactly the same since the last time I went back. For example upon arriving we followed a police car with one brake light and a shattered windscreen down a pot holed road from the airport. The officer driving looked like a competent bully but as physically fit as a pie eating competitor. So, the police remain to be incompetent ogres and there are no improvements there then. The changes though were a little more profound. The currency is entirely based in US dollars, which seems unusual for a country which has US Sanctions imposed on it. As a result of the dollarisation the shops are full of everything that you could hope for. Two years ago you couldn't buy a loaf of bread, now you can choose from half dozen types. It has also become an expensive place to live. It seems that most Zimbabweans do not have much concept of how much a dollar is actually worth. To get my mum hooked up with broadband for example, there was a US$1100.00 set up fee. We stayed with dial up after that bit of information. On the back of this information came the news that civil servants and domestic helpers earn about $100.00 a month. So no changes there either, the rich are doing well and the poor earn next to nothing. But then in context a lot more than they did two or three years ago. Perhaps my most poignant observation was how beautiful Zimbabwe is. Living in the UK I am always quick to point out how stunning our country is. Once you leave though the words become a little hollow, after all every country has it's respective merits. Being back there and having spent a year travelling through Asia I realised how much truth there is in those words though. A seemingly massive stash of diamonds has just been discovered in Zimbabwe which ironically is maybe one of the worst things that could happen at this stage. The discovery suggests corruption, army and police brutalization and political regression. I hope I am wrong.

For all of the trials and tribulations back home we were sad to leave. And for now at least, the party's over. I am currently going through something like 50 DVD's of camera raw files looking at and compiling some of the images that we captured along the way. I am on India at the moment and reliving our time in that massive and diverse country. Thank the heavens above for Lightroom. The selected images from each country will make there way into a book of some sort at some stage. But for now, thanks for following our travels and take it easy. We know you will.

Brass monkeys

2010-01-07T05:22:00.000-08:00

Sure looks like fun, can't wait to get back. Honestly.

Kyoto

2010-01-06T06:15:00.000-08:00

“Happy Christmas by the way.” I looked across at Nipun, trying to adjust the straps of my backpack which seemed to be far heavier on one shoulder than the other, a common annoyance. It was about 5.30am, an hour before sunrise and we were both stiff and heavy from a bad nights rest on an overnight bus between Hiroshima and Kyoto. Adjusting my pack so that it now seemed heavier on the other shoulder I replied curtly, “It’s not until tomorrow. It’s Christmas eve today.”

“No it’s not. Happy Christmas.”

I looked at my watch, startled. Indeed she was right. My tetchiness relaxed a little. It was Christmas day! Not that there was any turkey and roasted potatoes to be had, but still. Maybe the reason the backpack felt so wretchedly heavy was that Santa had filled it up whilst I was not sleeping on the bus I mused. He must of snuck in whilst we half-lay there, eyes tightly shut, sleep gelling the lids closed in spite of our inability to drift off further than the cold window pane. But the daydream was short. We were in Kyoto, trying to figure of the easiest way of deciphering a metro ticketing machine that seemed to be annotated entirely Japanese. True, the prices were in Roman numerals, but other than that it was all pretty meaningless. “Sumi ma san,” (“Excuse me please”) I winced in my far from perfect Japanese to two teenage girls dressed in identical soft pink fluffy outfits with Hello Kitty shoulder bags. “How do we get here?” I pointed at our station on the metro map futilely. The girls faltered at the sight of the desperate, unkempt and red eyed Gajin (foreigner) in front of them. Nipun took over. The girls English was almost as non-existent as our Japanese, but after a few minutes of confused laughter, raised eyebrows and exaggerated gesturing we were on our way. Generally the Japanese are immensely helpful, embarrassingly so at times. They will try and help you even if they have no idea of where you need to be. It is touching, but also time consuming. Then somehow you need to extricate yourself from the situation without being rude. This was an easy one though, the girls in their pink shorts, stockings and fur topped boots deciphered the map and we made our way to the platform.

Upon arriving at our station we made our way into the soft light of the pre-dawn morning and began to look for our hotel. The directions we had were rubbish, we knew our hotel was nearby but still managed to walk around for half an hour before we found it; ironically it was almost directly opposite the subway station exit. Using up some loyalty points we had managed to arrange a very plush hotel for the first couple of nights, overlooking Nijo Castle. Kimono clad attendants swished efficiently through the reception area, looking dubiously at the contrast of our battered backpacks and slept-in clothes against the backdrop of marble floors and ornate, polished wood furniture. “Check in time is only at three o’clock Sir,” the concierge smugly remarked when we announced our arrival. We dumped our bags and went wandering. We started off with the four kilometre walk around the castle moat and then, once the castle had opened up for the day, we went into the grounds. Nijo Castle was originally built in 1603 at the instigation of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate (military government to you and I). Like all good despots he ordered all the feudal lords beneath him to construct him a castle that was then extended over sucessive years. Today (in spite of fires caused by lightning and latterly an uncontrolled conflagration that swept through Kyoto in 1788), the castle is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The rambling complex is massive and includes the famous Ninomaru Palace. A large part of the palace’s fame is down to it’s Uguisu-bari, or Nightingale floor. The wooden floor boards throughout the building have been constructed in such a way that when anyone walks across them they make a birdlike squeaking, hence sending out the alarm to the bodyguards in the various chambers throughout the palace. Paranoid? Certainly not our Tokugawa. The preservation of the place is wonderful, the palace is a maze of inter-leading rooms with sliding wooden doors and hand painted screens preserved from days long passed. The paintings are over 3000 in number, some of which date back to the 1700’s. Outside the palace are carefully tended gardens, an inner moat and outer moat and a second palace.

In stark contrast to the elegant and simple Shoin-zukuri architecture of the Samurai, we went for lunch at Kyoto Station. The station is home to an ultra modern complex called the Cube, fifteen floors of restaurants and boutiques that cater for every whim. The architecture is indescribably slick, with a large expanse of open air space that consists of stairs and escalators that ascend up to the 15 floor observatory point. We discovered that it easy to lost in here, every corridor seems to take you back to the astonishing view of Kyoto Tower. What was becoming very clear as we travelled around Kyoto was just how much there was to do. The city boasts 17 UNESCO World Heritage sites, more than 1600 Buddhist Temples and in excess of 400 Shinto Shrines. And we had five days. In that time we made a decent stab at covering as much ground as possible. We did many of the obvious choices such as the district of Ginza which is renowned for it’s Geisha’s. I thought I saw one, laboured over the obligatory photos and then found out that she was actually a tourist from Canada. The photos are good (as in enough) though so maybe I’ll just keep quiet on that one. Whilst Ginza is supposedly best visited in the evening when the Geisha’s are out, I found it really rewarding to visit there very early in the morning, when most people were still asleep. The streets are practically abandoned and we spent a few hours exploring cobble roads and Shinmonzen Minami-dori, “arguably the most beautiful street in all of Asia,” if you believe the hype in the Lonely Planet. It is a very tranquil and beautiful place, but I was a little under whelmed after reading such an exuberant write up. To be fair, it is the middle of winter here and I imagine that in spring and autumn it must be magnificent.

Among the other temples we visited were Fushimi - Inari Taisha, a Shinto shrine best known for it’s thousands of Torii’s (vermillion gateways that mark the entrance to a Shinto Shrine) and dozens of stone foxes. The Shrine is dedicated to the gods of rice and sake, whilst the fox is the messenger of Inari, the God of cereal grains. Another highlight was the village and shrines of Arashiyama, which lie at the base of Kyoto’s western mountain range. To recount all the temples we saw would make for tedious reading and writing, suffice to say that with a year in Kyoto, there would still be much that was missed. After our two days of posh accommodation we moved into an 8 bed dorm and had our first and last experience of shared rooms. It is amusing how inconsiderate fellow travellers can be to each other (travelling is a purely selfish and indulgent occupation after all) and after a couple of nights of tripping over other peoples water bottles and the stale morning air created by sixteen slumbering lungs we were glad to be going again. We were also a little sad though, Kyoto has slipped by so quickly and Tokyo lay before us. It is our last destination. Ten months of travel has gone by since we left London. In some ways it doesn’t even feel like ten days.

Fukuoaka Five: Images from Fukuoka City

2010-01-01T00:32:00.001-08:00

1) Prayer Tablets at Kusihida Shrine. Most of them are in Japanese and this one took me by surprise.

2 (Above): Nihon-teien Japanese Garden. Stone, water and sand all combine in these beautiful gardens which appear to have been effortlessly sculpted. The gardens are elegant and tranquil, especially on a late winters afternoon when you are the only one daft enough to be out in the cold.

3: A hundred metres away from the ultra modern Canal City complex lie a handful of traditional style Yatai (food stalls). After pulling back the plastic sheeting and taking a seat on the wooden benches you can savour ramen and kebabs, with sake or beer optional.

4: Stone Basin, Kushida Shrine. The stone basins are an integral part of any shrine and serve for drinking water and to wash hands. They are often ornate and very beautiful. Sometimes the beauty is in their very simplicity.

5 (Below): Street art in Fukuoka near Hakata Station. Fukuoka is a city where the new and old intermingle effortlessly. Indeed the city was historically two towns that were then joined, the posh bit was Fukuoka castle town, and the cheap seats were found in Hakata. The city is now cosmopolitan in parts and quaint in others. From behind a shrine the sun will glint off a glass fronted office complex. It is also a colourful town where animation can be found on random street corners.

Final Destination

2010-01-01T00:09:00.000-08:00

“Konichiwa, Jonathan desu. Sake wa Kuda sai asa gaan.” Thus begins my tentative exploration of Japanese. It is phonetic by the way and no doubt any self respecting Japanese person would roll their eyes in exasperation at the abundant spelling mistakes. My pronunciation is worse still. But I can make myself understood. It means “Hello, my name is Jonathan and I like Sake.” After all it is the festive season here. And it is cold, runny nose, burning ear lobe cold. It is not so much the temperature as such, it is more a case of the Siberian winds that take you by surprise and cut through your clothes with the efficacy of a Stanley knife. And a hot sake is just the thing to make you feel that maybe it is not all bad.

We arrived in Japan about ten days ago and the time has flown. We had left Manila at about six o’clock in the morning, still half asleep and vaguely aware that a hangover was in the post after a night out with Zeena, Shiela and Anthony. I slept the entire flight which is unusual for me, and then arrived in Tokyo where we found that it was twenty five odd degrees colder than we have been used to for the last ten months. Though expected the shock was nasty. NASTY. I was instantly reminded of how much I dislike being cold. We made our way through customs and immigration and then found a shuttle bus to the hotel near the airport as were flying again the next day, this time further South to Fukuoka. We munched McDonalds (a Teriyaki burger that was not bad actually, in spite of my abhorrence for Ronald McDonald and the monstrosity that he has spawned) and spent an uneventful first night in Japan. Narita Airport, the gateway to Tokyo, is commonly cited as the worlds most hated airport on account of it’s distance from the city itself and the expense involved in getting into town. As such we had a lazy day, which once in a while is a really refreshing change from the continual packing and unpacking of bags.

Most people coming to Japan for a short visit will usually purchase a Japan Rail Pass that allows unlimited travel on the supernumary trains that dissect the country, including the speed of light shinkansen bullet trains. Whilst these tickets are generally acknowledged as being good value for money, they are expensive. For Nipun and I they would have been about £600 expensive so after much pontificating we decided to use up air miles and fly along the longer routes that we had and catch over night buses for other trips. It would have been great to do the bullet train, but the costs involved are a real budget breaker. We arrived in Fukuoka the following evening, found a place to stay (the excellent Khoa San guest house) and then went out for dinner. In other words we went to the local 7 Eleven where the pre packaged meals are cheap and actually pretty good. These have almost become a staple for us during our time in Japan, whether they be from the Daily Yakamaza, Lawsons or 7 Eleven. Back in the common area of the guest house we met Satoshi, a Japanese thirty year old who was doing a bit of travelling for the next few days. We were chatting away and asking him questions when suddenly he gave one of his inimitable high pitched laughs and said “Sorry, I am really drunk.” He turned out to be good fun, and carried a shoulder bag around that seemed to produce an infinite amount of little sake bottles. He was not by any means a heavy drinker, but in his own words, “I’m on holiday so it’s ok.” Followed by his high pitched laugh. Satoshi became our companion the next day as we dragged him around Fukuoka looking at the sights.

We started off the day at the Robo Square, a building dedicated (as the name would suggest) to showcasing robotic technology. Most of the robots on display are pretty small - dogs and dinosaurs that can be petted and made to chase after a ball. The application of these was really interesting, largely the pets are given to people in old peoples homes where the aged can have a virtual pet that can be looked after, without any of the tedious tasks and manual labour involved. It sounds crazy, but seeing the robots and the attention to detail it makes sense. You could imagine getting attached to, say a little green dinosaur with big blue eyes that demands attention and reacts affectionately to being stroked and tickled. The animals were actually very cute, but then again if I gave my grandmother a virtual pet for Christmas I think she would strike me with it. She would certainly be more concerned for my mental health than hers. Back on the bus we carried on around Fukuoka, a town that is ultra modern in places and yet is home to temples and gardens that would not be out of place in Kyoto. One of the highlights of the day was indeed a trip to Nihon-teien (a Japanese garden) at Satoshi‘s instigation. Despite the biting cold and the fact that the trees had lost all their leaves the garden was starkly beautiful, the elements of rocks and water and sand all being fused together to create a place of great tranquillity. We walked around the town a bit, shopped for new winter jackets and went to a temple close to town. We finished off the day in a wholly Japanese bar where Satoshi became our translator, ordering snacks of barbequed skewers and hot sake with great avidity. We spent a few more days in Fukuoka, mainly visiting the shrines and temples and marvelling at the detail that goes into these stunning structures. In contrast to the more traditional side of things we visited Canal City, an uber-modern six storey complex built around an artificial canal that houses a theatre, shopping mall, hotels and cinemas. It is very slick and neoteric, especially at dusk when the neon lights begin to sparkle and the yatai (food stalls) begin to open up for the evening. I was not at all surprised when I read many days later that “nationally the city is known for it’s Hakata-bijin (beautiful women).” The women in Fukuoka were indeed beautiful, and immaculately dressed too. It made me wonder if there was such a term as “high maintenance bijin” in those parts.

From Fukuoka we jumped on a night bus to Hiroshima. The bus journey was truly painless, there was lots of space to stretch out and at one stage I seem to remember waking up and the bus had come to a stand still. The engine had been turned off which in turn made me wonder if the driver was also taking advantage of the comfy facilities. Nonetheless we arrived in Hiroshima at the specified time and trundled out into the pre-dawn darkness of Hiroshima at 5.30am. We ambled through the streets and found our guest house where we collapsed onto a couch in the common area for a couple of hours before the early risers came in. We then set off ourselves, met Satoshi again as he had left all his parcels behind in Fukuoka by mistake. We picked them up for him and when we met again he effusively thanked us and then pressed a bottle of sake into my hand. I had it on New Years eve, it was delicious. Thank you mate. After much prevaricating we went to the Peace Memorial Museum for the day. My heart went out to Satoshi. We love museums and are especially slow to make our way through them. For Satoshi, well, there was some interest, but I did catch him having forty winks in a corner at one stage. He smiled sheepishly and agreed that a cup of coffee would most certainly hit the spot.

The museum is excellent, and of course by the time you leave you are depressed, angry and just down right incredulous that there are still morons who are out there manufacturing nuclear bombs and testing them. It beggars belief. Anyone who walks through the museum cannot help but be shocked and deeply saddened by what they see. We all know Japan was not exactly fair, angelic or vaguely concerned about the welfare of POW’s during WWII. However the museum and indeed the Memorial Park as a whole make the event more human, more accessible and more than just an historical abstraction. Were the Japanese more sinned against than sinning? When you consider that no warning was given to evacuate the cities that were then decimated, maybe they were. There is some evidence that Japan had been developing atomic technology themselves though and would they have behaved any differently from the allies? I personally think not. Ironically the order had been given to knock down wooden buildings and to create fire breaks in Hiroshima in case of any allied bombings. 70% of the city and 80 000 people were then wiped out by one bomb, affectionately called “Little Boy” and dropped by an aircraft named after the pilot’s mother. There is some seriously warped thinking going on in all of that. I'll leave out the swear words, but I am sure you get the drift as to what I may be thinking here.

Naturally Hiroshima will always be remembered as the first city to have an atomic bomb dropped on it. It’s place in history is assured by this horrific event. Based on this I expected it to be a really depressing place. If truth be known though I really liked Hiroshima. The Peace Memorial Park and the conservation of the A Bomb Dome (the building above which the atomic bomb was exploded at 8.15am on the 6th August 1945 and whose shell still miraculously stands) is a sombre but immensely peaceful place. Further afield the city itself is modern and feels prosperous. We were told that a couple of days would be more than enough in Hiroshima, but if truth be known I wish we had stayed a whole lot longer. As it is I failed to make to the much touted Miyajima Island, deciding to stay in Hiroshima and explore for our last day there. Nipun did make it though and from her reports I am furious that I missed it. Should have listened to my wife I guess.

Inilog, Biya and Christo.

2009-12-21T07:09:00.000-08:00

Farewell Philippines and hello Japan, but before we go, thanks for the memories. Oh, and the culture shock too. Herewith a brief guide to cock fighting.

1: Ok if animal welfare is your thing then look away because things here are going to get ugly. We're starting off with cock fighting. Nope, that is not two men you dislike settling their differences over a match of fisticuffs. No siree, this here is one of the national obsessions. First up, you're gonna need a cock. Ignore the obvious pun, it gets tiresome. Next up you will need to put your your erm, rooster, on a diet of vitamins and top grade feed and then exercise him regularly. That will include sparring sessions, with a leather glove and then later, with your other cockerels if you have any. This routine will go on for about a year. You will then take your fattened bird to the cock ~~ring~~ pit one Sunday and pit him against another. Your cockerel will be a thing of great beauty by the time it makes it into the ring; it's plumage proud and pristine. And to be fair this bird will be like a cherished pet to you. After all, you have fed it, exercised it, invested in it and groomed it for a year or so. But then again, it might just win the battle you are about to pitch it into. And if it wins, then you're gonna have a whole lot of cash in your pocket. And if it loses, well then the winner takes all. Including your dead bird which will go on the grill quicker than you can say "Bon appetite."

2: So we're in the ring now. Next up you'll need to strap a curved blade onto the left leg of your cockerel. The blade is about two inches (or 50mm if you prefer) long, and it will be sharp enough to carve to a chicken. Literally. Once you get your bird into the ring you and the other breeder will hold your roosters at chest height and get them to go at each other for a bit. Rile them up. Make 'em angry. And vicious. This is done to create a bit of blood lust and crowd will go wild. They'll be betting like crazy. And the roosters will spit feathers. The anticipation of the fight will grow with every feather that comes away on each peck. All the while the Christo (so called because of the way he stands with his arms outstretched in either direction whilst he registers the bets) will be taking wagers from every direction. And the amazing thing is that none of these bets will be written down, they will all be remembered. Every bet, every denomination, every punter's face lest he try and shuffle out the back door if things are going badly. The bets will be placed on either Inilog or Biya. For reference, Biya is the favourite (easy to remember: Beer is Best) and attracts odds of 1:1. Inilog pays a bit better, but not that much better.

3: After the bets are in it is time for a fight. It is a bit like watching The Highlander really. You know that "There can be only one," and you also know that there will be a whole lot of blades and blood. It is brutal. It is cruel. Throw some money in and it is addictive too. The best seats in the stadium are reserved for high rollers. Sometimes they will wager a million piso or more. That's more than GBP10 000.00. Admittedly that is not an every match occurrence by any means. But it can happen. It is big business.

4: But back to the business in the ring. The average match will last about two or three minutes. Sometimes they are quicker, sometimes longer. It is usually not long at all before one of the birds gets the upper hand though. There is a referee present (Coyme's Decision is Final reads the sign, I thought it would be more appropriate to change the "Coyme" to "Death's" myself) and when it looks like the end is nigh for one of the birds the ref will lift both birds up and get them to attack each other again. Invariably the losing bird will be slowly pecked to a bloodied mess before making its way to the kitchen. At the end of the match a final and discrete stab to the heart will be administered to the losing bird with the blade attached to it's leg. We watched the cock fighting in Dumaguete. In the three hours or so were there there must have been about thirty matches or so. We arrived late and left early. According to one local we spoke to, each Sunday there will about 100 matches in that one arena, and every town has one. That is a whole lot of chicken.

5: It is pretty strange witnessing all this at first. The adrenaline the air, the Christo taking bets, the money being exchanged and the gore of the fights. And then there is the fate of the roosters. The term "Nice guys finish last" takes on a whole new meaning. If they are lucky they may die quickly. If they are unlucky they might win and then die from their wounds later, or be blinded in the fight, or indeed even live to fight another day. One cab driver told us he had a rooster that had won four fights, he was grooming it for it's fifth. As for the losing trainer, he accepts his fate dutifully. There is no acrimony or animosity. The cadaver of the losing chicken goes to the winning trainer. Outside on the street the smell of a barbecue wafts gently into the arena. Did we bet? Of course. How much? So little that no one wanted to take our bets, hey, we're travelling. Is it addictive? Kind of yes. But personally the cruelty factor overrides it all for me. I like chickens. Mostly with chilli and a bit of lime, but preferably without the excess adrenaline.

El Nido, Manila

2009-12-21T05:01:00.000-08:00

In a whirl and a flash our time in the Philippines has been and gone. Contrary to all the warnings received we did not get mugged, kidnapped, murdered, drowned in a typhoon or incinerated by a volcano. As a friend remarked by email: “You can’t say that the Philippines is boring, that’s for sure.” Instead of certain death, what we did we discover was unparalleled hospitality and landscapes of dazzling natural beauty. Indeed the regrets we share about our time in the Philippines merely stem to the limited time that we had there, one month was clearly not enough. There were so many places that we did not make it to that we would like to have visited, Sagada and Vigan spring to mind a little higher than the others, alas they will need to wait until next time... On reflection it is obvious that Philippines was not the easiest country to backpack, it undoubtedly required a bit more effort and planning than other places we have been; but maybe this is what made it so special. There was a sense of reward in arriving somewhere new, and nowhere could this have been truer than in El Nido.

El Nido sits at the northern tip of the island of Palawan. It is accessed either directly by it’s small airport (soon to be a big airport) which, for now at least, is the more expensive way of getting there. Alternatively you can make your way to Peuto Princessa which is about halfway down the island, and from there your choices are to catch an early morning local bus or an “air conditioned” mini van. Either way a drive of about six hours on dodgy roads awaits. The bus is rickety and the mini vans not much better, so there is not much to choose between the two really. We took the latter of the options due to our arrival time in Palawan, having set out from Cebu airport earlier in the day. It was an eventful day from the outset. The taxi drivers in the Philippines are generally extremely affable and full of good humour.

The drive to Cebu Airport had been no exception and our cabbie, Julian, was an absolute hoot. Julian started off the conversation by asking where we from and then boasting of his dual citizenship. He was, he said, a citizen of the Philippines and a Senior citizen. In twenty garrulous minutes the conversation took in food, politics (there are elections here next year), Filipino family planning (or the lack thereof) and inevitably cock fighting. Whilst cock fighting seems to occupy the status of a national religion here, karaoke seems to be much like the national sport. So it did not seem too unusual when once we were on our flight a Christmas carol competition was announced. Within minutes three contestants had lined up in the aisle of the aircraft to sing a carol of choice to their somewhat bemused fellow passengers. The winner in our books was a little old lady who beamed at the passengers whilst singing “We wish you a Merry Christmas” in short sharp bursts before hollering “Happy Christmas Everyone” and scuttling back to her seat. It beat the pants off the serious efforts of her rivals.

We arrived in Peuto Princessa at about ten thirty with the daunting and dusty six hour drive ahead of us. We made our way to the bus terminal on the outskirts of town, crammed ourselves into a van and then set off through the undulating verdant hills that surround the town. After about half an hour the air conditioning gave up the ghost and it became apparent that the AC actually took the form of open windows. This was nothing new it would appear. In spite of this the drive was pleasant; soon the landscape changed and gave way to a coastal road that offered views of deserted beaches and a sun speckled, crystal blue sea. The road for the first couple of hours was pretty good really, and then, after a lunch of chicken and rice at a road side stall the tar abruptly gave way to dirt.

All in all we seemed to be making fairly good time, and then, on a bumpy stretch of dust and pebbles, the van gave the kind of sound that defiantly says: “I am going no further.” You could almost hear it wave two fingers at us. We piled out the vehicle and made our way to the rear left hand wheel to discover that one of the springs in the suspension had snapped. And so started the long process of trying to fix the suspension system with nothing more than lengths of rope and a small hydraulic jack. Around us, as far as the eye could see, were goats and sheep and the occasional smiling villager. There was no mobile network available. The van was jacked up, then propped on rocks whilst the jack was then used to force the broken spring back up and into it‘s usual position. The errant springs were then lashed together with rope, MacGyver would have beamed with appreciation. He would have sighed contentedly and cracker open a beer. It was torturously slow progress and two hours later, as the sun set for the day, we were back on our way.

In the interim we had met Antonio and Carlos, locals who were going to check out El Nido in advance of a joint family holiday. In typical Filipino style they were not remotely fazed by the break down. They continued to smile, laugh, joke and whistle whilst the van was fixed. They had a carefree stoicism that is typical in the Philippines. “When things go badly, we smile,“ they told me proudly. “After all, there is not much point in getting stressed out, is there?” Back in the van we had travelled about 500 metres when there was another groan from the suspension and it was time to stop again. The knot had slipped, but it had only been a matter of time. The sun had by now completely disappeared. Antonio and Carlos smiled like happy Buddha's. The whistled. The rest of us fumed. The inevitable “If this was Europe… “ was muttered. It began to look very much like that we may be sleeping in the middle of nowhere. A villager approached from a roadside settlement and then offered us accommodation for the night in his small out housing building. We accepted. He then offered to make us rice and bought us drinking water whilst Antonio and I went off to the local Sari Sari store and bought every can of corned beef and sardines that they had. Predictably Antonio refused to accept any money from me, “You are in Philippines, maybe when we see you in London you will help us.” I did not set him straight about Londoners, it seemed that now might not be the time. Rather I argued futilely for a few minutes and then graciously accepted that this was the way it would be. Back at the shack that was to be our home rice was served, the sardines were turned into a curry and I tucked into a local bottle of rum. I had it bought it to share out with the other passengers but they were ~~not much fun~~ sensible, so it fell to me to dispose of the wicked stuff. Later that evening the very same bottle combined with sleep deprivation sent me stumbling into an open drain, but that will be another story for another day. Above us was a star filled night, the kind of stars that you can only see in the absolute middle of nowhere, in places where electricity has not reached. That includes Harare most of the time by the way. But the whole time my prevailing thought was the generosity of the people around us. The villagers housing us for the night were relatively poor country folk. We gave them a bit of cash, but really, even if we had had no money they would still have helped. True, Antonio and Carlos were well heeled Filipinos, but then again I do not know many people who would feed a mini van full of strangers and expect no recompense or reciprocation for it whatsoever.

Behind the scenes the driver of the van had proved that he was a veritable thaumaturge and somehow managed to order a spare part for the vehicle. Where this came from I have no idea, but he and his faithful conductor had been working like Trojans to mend the suspension and at around 11 pm they achieved the impossible. We piled back into the van and continued on our way. In some ways it was a crazy decision, it was pitch black with bad roads and every likelihood of stray animals on the road. Nonetheless we went on with the journey and reached El Nido at an eye rubbing 3.00 am. We found accommodation in guesthouse close to the beach and then went to sleep. The next morning when we went out to the verandah, the full beauty of El Nido became apparent. We spent the day snorkelling at a nearby island, watched the sunset behind dramatic limestone karsts dropped haphazardly into an ocean of multifarious blues and returned to El Nido for an evening by the sea. I spent the next three days diving, including a tunnel dive and a swim with thousands of yellow snappers. The islands and lagoons around El Nido are spectacular, as were diving I did not have my camera with me and felt like my opposing thumbs had been taken away from me. By night we ate on the beach, drank happy hour beers and met up with friends that had made in Malaysia. Before long we were on the road back to Peuto Princessa, this time by bus. The journey was dusty and hot, but the bus infinitely more reliable than the van.

We spent a night in Peuto Princessa and then flew back to Manila, ran around the historical old town city of Intramuros and then met our friends in the city for one last night out. We drank until the early morning in a trendy bar in Malate and then said our farewells. Before we could depart farewell gifts were thrust into our hands which was immensely touching and came as a complete surprise, but then not that surprising when we think back to the continual generosity we were shown throughout our time in the Philippines. At the beginning of our journey through this country Anthony had confidently predicted, “You will not regret coming here.” And how right he was.

Balut

2009-12-08T07:44:00.000-08:00

This is Balut. A chicken and an egg, all in one. Well, actually a duck if you must really be pedantic about it. In most of the towns we have been in whilst staying in Philippines, the lyrical cry of "Baluuuut" has punctuated the quiet of the early evening. I tried one a couple of weeks back. It was not too my delectation, but to be fair this was a mental thing really. Once I got my teeth into it, the taste was not that different from that of a boiled egg. I have to admit that this balut was bought purely for photographic purposes and then ferreted into the bin whilst no one was looking, in much the same way we used to hide brussel sprouts on the ledge beneath our dining room table as kids. Eat up, before it gets cold.

Shoot the Locals

2009-12-08T06:24:00.000-08:00

A couple of evenings ago I was down at the promenade in Dumaguete looking for things to shoot. After weeks of beaches that stretch as far you can see and more palm trees than sand, I really needed some new subject matter and a bit of inspiration. I started off by taking a few pictures of an ice cream vendor having a chat with his mate as the sun went down using really long exposures. A couple of curious kids came over and wanted to see the images on the back of my camera. These were children without much in the material sense of the phrase, they help subsidise their parents meagre income by selling peanuts and pork scratchings after school and on the weekends. Materially, they come from impoverished backgrounds. They sprawled out around me in a horseshoe, one of them laying his chin on the wrist that was supporting my camera as I flicked through the images. Their enjoyment at looking at the pictures, droll as they were, was contagious. As they giggled and elbowed each other for room a couple of adults came along to join them. Within a few minutes I had a dozen local Dumaguete denizens all identifying locations that I had been to that day. In turn this lead to a conversation with one of the children’s fathers. I asked him if he would like me to take a couple of images of his family. He was pretty eager for me to do so, then and there, but by this time the natural light was long gone so we agreed that I would come back the next evening at 5 o’clock.

It’s been a while since I did any portrait work so by about three o'clock I was beginning to get a bit nervous and rue the day I made my

agreement. Dutifully though, at the allotted time Nipun and I went down to the promenade armed with a shoot through umbrella, a couple of flashes and a light stand. Over the next hour I shot about forty images of three families. It was frenetic, the kids wanted to be in all the pictures, even if it was not their parents or siblings I was shooting. Their excitement was fantastic, this was a real adventure for them. When we reviewed the images on the back of the camera they were so animated that I spent more time watching them than looking at what I had been shooting. Nipun and I developed the pictures the next day and had the pleasure of handing out a few early Christmas presents in the evening. We did two prints of each image, which at the time seemed a bit over the top. When we were giving out the photos it transpired that one of the lady’s was ecstatic that we had done this. Her husband works in Manila and seldom manages to see his wife and his daughter. And this is a common theme - that’s where the work is. The gratitude we were shown was truly humbling. One of the ladies earns about 100 pesos per day, or about £1.30 to put it in perspective. She cut straight to the point, “For us, we wouldn’t be able to afford pictures like this. It is the small things that make all the difference here.” In total the whole shoot and post processing in Lightroom took up maybe a couple of hours in total. It cost us less than a tenner in printing. And for that we managed to give out three sets of family photos. The feel good factor involved outweighs all of that a hundred times over. And to boot we met three lovely families and I got to shoot something other than more sunsets with palm trees. More images here.

In other news we have managed to find a way off the island. Our initial plan was to travel all the way around Negros and then to Iloilo before getting a ferry back to Manila. Time is running low and our options were running lower a couple of days ago. At the 11th hour Nipun managed to find flights to Palawan, and so we’ll be flying out from Cebu on Wednesday and making our way to El Nido at the north of the island. And then on to Japan, the planning for which is currently underway. There is, however, so much to see on Negros where are at the moment. The island is one of the most beautiful places that I have ever been to. In the last couple of days we have been to Dauin where we had hoped to organise a diving trip to Apo Island. Sadly this did not work out so today we headed further down the coast to Malapatan and then walked down the beach for about four kilometres to Zamboanguita. For the duration of the walk we hardly saw another soul. There was the occasional rural village and a fisherman or two, but for the most part it was us, palm trees and sand for as far as the eye could see. In front of us was Apo island, behind a mountain that pierced the clouds. We found our way back on to the road with the assistance of a local Filipino who insisted on bundling both of us on to the back of his motorbike and then continued further south to Siaton. Back in Dumaguete I keep on remembering bits and pieces from the local bus rides we have made recently: the “Fasten (your) seatbelt” signs in the absence of any seat belts, a neon light that flashed “Jesus Save Us” every time the driver used his brakes and blocks of plywood that serve as windows when the evening grows too cold, erm about 25 degrees in these parts! On the dashboard are effigies of Jesus and Mary, which makes a change from the Buddha’s that we have become so accustomed to over the last eight months.

Malapascua to Bohol

2009-12-04T05:39:00.000-08:00

"Billy Jean is not my mama..."

After the discombobulating (nice word, eh!) frenzy of Manila we decided it was time to pack our bags again and head for an island retreat. This in itself represented a bit of a challenge, after all, the Philippines has over 7100 to choose from and the largest area of coastline in the world. We decided to start in the Visayas, the archipelago that sits due south of Manila. With our boat scheduled to leave at 4 a.m. we stayed up late and then joined the long line of people queuing to go to Cebu City. Security is a massive concern in the Philippines and as we waited in line our bags were opened, put through a scanner and finally given the once over by a sniffer dog, an cuddly and docile Alsatian in magnificent condition. Having negotiated the check in process we found our accommodation for the journey, in the form of a shared dormitory with about 100 other travellers on neatly stacked bunk beds. The ferry itself consisted of several of these dorms and two restaurants, both with karaoke. Of course. “When you build a new house in the Philippines you make sure that the karaoke machine is installed before you put the roof on. It’s bad luck otherwise,” joked someone we met on one of the islands. The karaoke was on at 9 a.m. when we went for a cup of coffee and still going at 4pm that afternoon when I went to find a bit of fresh air. The same women, horribly tone deaf, was still hollering out Celine Dion. I was previously of the opinion that the theme track to Titanic could not get much get worse than the original. I was wrong.

We arrived in Cebu at about 10 a.m. a day and a half later. From the upper decks of the ferry, passengers threw coins and fruit into the waters below. Here women, children and men waited to catch the plummeting treasure, patrolling the water in small boats. Their dexterity was amazing: a coin would go hurtling through the air and beneath, a woman with two poles and a piece of fabric woven between, would deftly catch it and tip it back it into the boat. In the event that the throw was poor and the coin could not be caught, someone would roll off one of the boats and swiftly swim after the sinking booty before returning to the surface, usually triumphant. We were so caught up in the excitement that we nearly forgot to get off the ferry, which was continuing on to other islands further south.

Once we were off the boat and in Cebu City we made our way to the Northern bus terminal and then caught the local bus through to Maya, an hour and a bit north. The journey was great, passing through small towns, a thunder storm, a funeral procession and sugar cane plantations that stretched away as far as the eye could see. After about two days of travel we finally found ourselves on a banca (an old outrigger), making the 8km crossing between Maya and Malapascua island. Malapascua is a wonderful place to visit. It is still fairly undeveloped, for example there is no ATM and the electricity is only on in the evenings (which is of course more than you can say about Zimbabwe most of the time). There are a handful of resorts and bungalows along the beach, only two of which offer wi-fi, for which they charge the earth. As you walk through the village you see basket ball hoops fastened to the trunks of coconut trees, whilst the speed humps in the road are fashioned from dissected palm trees. Along the white sands of the beach, volley ball nets are strung up between more coconut trees and blithe children skinny dip in the 28 degree, turquoise sea. We found a diving school and did three dives whilst we were there, including a night dive where we saw the elusive mandarin fish do their mating dance and a deep dive on which we saw thresher sharks.

Sadly there are some elements on the island which seemed a little less idyllic. We met a young child who, aged ten, no longer went to school for lack of funds. One version of the story was that his parents had deserted him and run away to Manila where the streets are allegedly paved with gold. The other conflicting tale was that his ma and pa were alive and well, living on the island, but blind drunk for most of their waking hours. So, either way you look at it, he is without family. Nipun befriended him, schooled him for an afternoon and bought him some new clothes. The next day he was back with a friend who also wanted some food and clothes. Where do you draw

the line? Especially knowing the ephemeral difference that you will make. It is very sad, especially when contrasted against the back drop of a paradise where the rich come to dive and eat fresh Adobo and fish. A couple of days later the young child was then verbally abused and physically bullied off the property we were staying at by a foul, insane looking American dive school owner who claimed that the child was a known thief. The American was a crazed bully with a mullet that would have made even the most decadent of eighties pop stars blush. Thief or not, it seemed completely reprehensible the way the kid was treated. It made me very glad we did not do any dives with his company. The negatives are easy to dwell on but most of my memories of the island are good ones, and most of the children we saw were happy. The image of a boy of aged about four dancing through the street singing “Billy Jean is not my mama..” returns to me. He bounced along the road with his friends, making up the words as he went along. In some ways it reminded me of how I grew up in Zimbabwe, the freedom that you had as a child, which seems like an alien concept in the UK. From Malapascua we took the boat back to Maya, the sly looking boat owner telling us not to tell the other passengers that we had only paid 50 peso as he had charged them double. We only got the correct rate without argument as we had been befriended by one of the local touts who took a liking to us. He changed my almost universal dislike of touts, he was affable, helpful and not at all pushy. He had worked in Indonesia, was a carpenter by trade and had returned to Malapascua whilst the recession kicked in. I really regret not having gone on a fishing trip with him, he would have been an interesting person to chat with. Back in Cebu we found the immigration department and extended our visas. Then we left for Bohol for more diving, this time with massive shoals of jack fish forming slowly revolving towers above us and turtles. There are many things that I will miss when we get back from this journey, swimming with the fishes is one of them.

Our time in Bohol was predominantly spent on Alona Beach, Panglao island. The beach faces due south and boasts dazzling sunsets and sunrises. I got up at 5.30 one morning to shoot dawn and was astounded by the number of local people who were already up and about. By 5.45 I had already been asked twice if I wanted to charter a boat for the day. We met up with Anthony from Manila and some of his friends one night and drank far too much Red Horse, ate belut (yup, the egg with the chicken in it) and learnt the Filipino word for whatever - Umshigi. It became a catchphrase for the evening, and is used with the same mocking sarcasm that is reserved for “Whatever” in English. The inspiration came from a street kid that used to visit one of the groups (Raymond’s) work. One day the Raymond’s boss gave the child some money and gently told him that he was becoming a little to regular in his visits. “Here’s some money, but please don’t come back for a while.” The kid pocketed the money, then looked at him, smiled, and said “Umshigi!” The phrase stuck. From Panglao we went back to the port of Taglibaran, visited the famous chocolate hills and went to the cathedral. Taglibaran has a nice feel to it in spite of what the travel guide said, we ended up spending a couple of days there. I also ate more McDonalds there than anywhere else, ever. Why? They have free wi

-fi. At time of writing we are in Dumaguete, it is really hot here. I spent yesterday afternoon following a school leaving festival which was really, really good. The amount of effort that had gone into creating the costumes, the dances and the parade was astounding. And this was just a minor event in terms of Filipino carnivals, not even on the calendar. This nation knows how to party. The food is also getting better and better. Last night we had a whole chicken, barbecued on a rotisserie with a chilli sauce that was so lethal that even Nipun and I were feeling the heat. I really, really like it here. I just need those lotto numbers to come in now. Please?

Manila

2009-11-27T23:57:00.000-08:00

Well, here we are in the Philippines. Our second to last destination. In six weeks we’ll back in London. Homeless. Unemployed. Cold. And if I know England in January, probably wet too. But for now, Life is for living, and that is pretty easily done in this neck of the sunny woods. For a while we actually debated whether or not we should come to the Philippines. For one it sounded like Manila was submerged by recent typhoons. The Foreign Office is not terribly optimistic on the subject either, adducing terrorism, kidnapping, tropical storms, swine flu and military clashes as reasons not to come here. Of course there is the recent case of the 79 year old Irish Priest, Father Michael Sinnott, who was kidnapped and made to trek through mountainous countryside for a month. Upon being released the priest went on to say that his captors treated him really well and were pretty cool guys. He ended by saying "I have no desire to leave [my work in the Philippines], although I don't think they'll kidnap me again. I think if they wanted to kidnap somebody they'd be inclined to go for a much younger man because I was not able always to hike with the speed, and keep going - I often had to rest while they were hiking."

The uncertainty about travelling to the Philippines also came about from various conversations along the way. For example, I met a gregarious Filipino fisherman in Borneo and told him I would be going to Manila in a couple of weeks. He looked at me sceptically and said, “Have you ever studied any martial arts?” When I confirmed I had he smiled and said “Oh good, that kind of thing helps in Manila.” In the end though, we decided that we wanted to come here, and what a good decision that has turned out to be. We arrived at Clark Airport in the early evening and made our way into the lobby area where a long row of taxi companies hollered for business. There were maybe a dozen desks, all attended by wildly gesticulating and vociferous attendants. It was all good humoured though, done with broad smiles and with none of the animosity that you sometimes get in other East Asian countries. After messing about for a bit we decided to take the bus into town at a fraction of the price. The sunset from the bus was spectacular, a crimson ball of fire dipping beneath black granite clouds and then sudden darkness. We travelled for a disconcertingly long time.

The Rough Guide mentions that the airport is only seven kilometres out of Manila, yet we had been travelling for about forty minutes. The book came clandestinely out of our bag, we conferred in low tones and looked about furtively. Enormous billboards rolled by the windows, far larger than the ones we see in Europe. The traffic grew denser. And then intervention from a stranger, half obscured by the poor light in the bus. “You look lost… Where are you going?” A conversation ensues between us and our inveterately friendly interrogator and a couple of his friends. It turns out his name in Anthony, and he going pretty close to where we need to get to. We can hop out the bus with him and his friends, have a meal with them and then he’ll show us where we need to go. And all the time I am thinking, “This is just too easy, he is far too friendly… What’s his angle? What is really going on here?” The warnings from a thousand conversations and guide books comes flooding back. I fidget with my camera bag, steal looks at Nipun for her opinion and feign disinterest in the conversation, but then, as the bus stops and the conductor announces the stop we agree to join them. The next thing we know we are in a massive mall at Kenny Rogers Roasters, eating roast chicken and his friend, Leia, is giving us travel advice. She is a director of an up and coming travel company specializing in tours around the Philippines and fills up pages upon pages of travel advice for us. Tells us to be alert whilst we are in the Philippines. Anthony smiles continually and turns out to one of the nicest guys we have met whilst travelling. He is not only incredibly affable, he is also impeccably incredibly trustworthy and helpful. We decide to stay quite local to where we are and get a cab with another of the girls from the group called Jen. Jen insists on paying for the cab, nothing will convince her that we should pay as we are taking her out of her way. And throughout our travels in the Philippines these random acts of kindness have followed us everywhere. We decided to meet up with Leia and Anthony the following night and when we got a little lost, two twenty year old Filipino’s accompanied us for half an hour trying to find the bar we were looking for. Not only did they insist on finding the bar for us, they ended up joining us for drinks then dinner afterwards. And I think back to the Filipino fisherman who asked me if I knew how to fight. In some stage of out conversation I asked him why all the Filipino’s I had met were so damn friendly. He just laughed and said, “That’s it, we are a brotherhood.” That is how it has been for us. Sadly, it is not all like this though. The fanatics have their heels in the ground and 57 people were massacred in South Philippines this week. Included were women, children and 27 journalists. But for the few that tarnish the image of millions.

Our stay in Manila was good. The first hotel we checked into had rooms for rent at three tariffs: Four Hours, 12 Hours and 24 Hours. Apparently this is not a knocking shop, after all there is a massive picture of the Virgin Mary in the lobby. Rather there are a lot of travellers in Cuzon who need a place

to wash up and dump their bags for a few hours. Chuck, one of our new companions laughed at this theory, others maintained it’s veracity. We were too tired to care. We got the room for twelve hours, watched the Graham Greene classic “Travels with My Aunt” on the telly and passed out cold. Early the next morning we caught the train across town and then jumped on a jeepney towards Malatte where we stayed for the next couple of days. My impressions of Manila are still numerous and yet still undefined. For one it is massive. Sorry, make that MASSIVE. Between 10 and 20 million massive depending on which statistic you use. The traffic is diabolical and the air is thick with fumes. It is colourful, energetic, has more malls that anywhere I have been before and the trains at rush hour are worse than those of London. McDonalds has long lines of yellow “McDelivery” motorbikes. The restaurants are supernumerary and many of them are Western chains. The Filipino food we have tried is mostly delicious. In fact the only exception to this rule has been Balut, an incubated egg that is boiled and served after seven or fourteen days. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? In the case of Belud they come at the same time. After several litres of Red Horse (local beer, seven percent volume and cheaper than chips) I tried one last night. The experience was short and only half completed. I like my chicken with chips, as opposed to egg.

The balance of our time in Manila was spent exploring the immediate area that we were in. The Bay of Manila has spectacular sunsets, but if you walk too far down Adriatico Street then things begin to look very ropey. There are an absurd amount of armed guards around, and our Pension seemed more like a security camp than a guesthouse, complete with a shaved head, shotgunned sentinel. During our stay Nipun and I got separated on a train (the genius that I am I got off a stop too early) and for the thousands of people around we thought we’d never find each other again. It took a frantic, panic stricken hour. Overall I really liked Manila, but it seems like the kind of town where the El Mariachi quote “Bless me Father, for I have just killed quite a few men” might not be that uncommon.

Sabah, Borneo

2009-11-19T08:30:00.000-08:00

“There was not one amongst us whom looked forward to being born. We disliked the rigours of existence, the unfulfilled longings, the enshrined injustices of the world, the labyrinths of love, the ignorance of parents, the fact of dying, and the amazing indifference of the Living in the midst of the simple beauties of the universe. We feared the heartlessness of human beings, all of whom are born blind, few of whom ever learn to see.”

Ben Okri - The Famished Road

For about the last ten years (if not longer) I’ve been meaning to read The Famished Road. The winner of the 1991 Booker Prize, it was one of those books that was always on my wish list; on the list of things to read, the self same list of things that never got done. Last week I found a copy of it in the middle of Borneo of all places. It was sitting unloved on a dusty shelf in a guest house looking well thumbed and creased from spine to cover. Set in Nigeria the story centres on the fairly common African theme of a spirit child, that is, a child who is born for a short time and then returns to the spirit world, continually dying at a young age and haunting parents by returning to earth only to depart prematurely again. Their ephemeral lives are cyclical, a curse to their parents at the indulgence of the spirit that would rather dwell in the world beyond: “to be joyful on the eternal dew of the spirit.” The story is beautifully and hauntingly written, rich in surreal imagery and lyrical prose. I find myself reading and re-reading sentences, paragraphs, pages. The extract above seems to ring true for me, for throughout our travels we are constantly confronted with the “simple beauties of the universe,” and in many ways this journey of ours has made me see this world we inhabit in a much clearer and cleaner light. We have both been asking ourselves what we have achieved, if anything, by bunking off work for a year, the ultimate indulgence of wandering the earth at leisure. And in some ways I think the answer for me is that we are learning to see again, breaking away from the routines that made my daily life in London so familiar and predictable. There are many times that we have felt humbled by our experiences and what we have seen, and the enrichment that our lives have gained is beyond measure.

Few places that we have been to so far have been quite as beautiful as Borneo. We spent just over three weeks in the Malaysian state of Sabah and for this period of time we decided to hire a car and make our way around at our own pace. It has to be said that the car we ended up with was more like a motorbike with four wheels, a gutless contraption that we decided not to drive over 80 km per hour lest the wheels came off, literally. Going uphill, of which there were many, we were continually fighting between second and third gears, whilst the down hills were taken with one foot constantly hovering above the brake. The tyres, mostly bald, were cause for grave concern whilst the engine went through half a pint of oil every two days. Having said this though, it was great to drive again and our death trap car did us proud. We travelled to the Tip of Borneo in the North, to Sandakan in the East and then down south as far the town of Semporna. We drove through the Kinabalu National Park, home to South East Asia’s highest mountain. We watched with horror as our punctured tyre was mended by enlarging the rupture and then ramming a pliant piece of rubber into the sundered tyre. “Is that safe?” I asked. Though in truth I did not want an answer. It was a true adventure, and a real highlight of our journey thus far.

Our journey started in Kota Kinabalu, the sprawling state capital of Sabah. KK as it is commonly referred to is a good place to stop for a few days. Whilst is not crammed with immediately obvious things to do, it has a friendly vibe to it and the abundant local restaurants serve cheap and delicious food. There is a second hand clothes market that has all the frenetic energy of Harare’s Mbare, and if we were not backpacking I would have been in there like a shot. “Look at this eh! One careful owner you say? Done!” Next to this is a fruit market which joins onto a craft village, and then, the jewel in the crown: the Filipino food market that opens up a six each evening. Here, for far less than a fiver, you can dine on a combination of massive prawns, spicy chicken wings, barbequed tuna steaks. The air is thick with charcoal smoke and redolent of grilled seafood. If it was Europe, Health and Safety would have a word to say. It is not though, and the smoke and the swirling smells combine to create an enigmatic setting. Set on about an acre of land the market is crammed with vendors, each with fresh fish from the harbour and slabs of chicken coated in chilli and lime. Reflecting on it I feel like Pavlov’s dog, the saliva forming at the corner my mouth.

We hired our car from an execrable lady who was overtly intent on trying to get us to hire a car that was way beyond the budget we had agreed. It was a battle of the wills to get what we discussed on the phone with her, and we witnessed the same shameless routine a couple of weeks later between some other travellers and herself. Once we were on our way our first stop took us right up to the Northern most point of Borneo. We travelled through the cloud penetrating Crocker National Park mountain range, through verdant rice fields and finally into plantations of palms that stretched back as far as the eye could see, cultivated for the production of palm oil. After about a five hour drive we reached the town of Kudat and checked into a hotel with no running water which was a bit of a surprise. We ate in a roadside restaurant that was showing European football on one TV and a British B grade horror movie on the other. No one spoke English but the crowd were glued to the gratuitous movie in which a blond strumpet is hunted down mercilessly by a group of hooded up Essex style chavs intent on ruining her day. We drove on to the Tip of Borneo, forty five minutes north, for the sunset. The drive takes you past deserted beaches with turquoise seas and along deeply rutted dirt roads, thick with mud from the equatorial rains and lined with palm trees. The Tip of Borneo is magnificent and being there for sunset, more or less alone, is just one of the reasons why it was so worthwhile having a car for this trip.

Perched on a furthest extremity of Borneo you can see both the sunset and sunrise from the same point, though sadly we missed dawn owing to heavy rain and indolence the next day. Instead we explored Kudat, with it’s broad promenade and clock tower with four clocks, each of them stopped at different, incorrect times. The town is mostly dependent on fishing and the boats were in with the morning catch, the men weighing their catch before it was put into boxes of ice and loaded into trucks.

Back in the car we headed through to Kinabalu National Park, along roads that were lined with the road kill of countless dogs. One, standing over the fresh cadaver of it’s friend, ran straight at our car, rabid and crazed and frightening in it’s aggression. We narrowly missed it, but I got the feeling it’s days were numbered. Mt Kinabalu (4095 metres) is the highest mountain in South East Asia and the journey was marked by a fairly steep and consistent incline. As we got closer to the mountain we became enveloped in cloud and the car engine faltered between second and third, inexorably climbing slowly uphill to the high pitched scream of an engine that is enormously unhappy. Alarmingly there were no road signs indicating that we were on the right route so it was some relief when we pulled up in the National Park. We found accommodation half a kilometre away and explored the immediate area around the mountain. The ascent is open to any that wish to climb the mountain. Typically it takes roughly two days. In our case we came, we saw, we said “no way.” There are many who take this climb very seriously however. Each year Mt. Kinabalu is hosts an international Climbathon, the current record being 2 hours and 45 minutes to ascend and descend the mountain. It has to be said that these athletes’ are made of far sterner stuff than your humble narrator. That evening our neighbours were boisterous and noisy. At about two in the morning I ventured out onto our balcony to have a word. A thin layer of cloud lay below us obscuring the land below, whilst above the sky was clear and bright with stars. It was beautiful, and our neighbours had gone to bed anyway so the tranquillity was complete. The next morning we did a walk of the botanical gardens and one of the numerous trails in which an abundance of orchids and pitcher plants flourish. We met a couple who were about to climb the mountain, laughed at their expense (though no doubt the climb is an unforgettable experience) and then we were on our way again. Our journey that day was an easy one, a mere hour and a half to Ranau. We stopped at the War Memorial which commemorates the Sandakan Death Marches of World War II, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandakan_Death_Marches for further information. The Death March, which saw the deaths of about 1800 Australian and 600 British Prisoners of War, is sometimes referred to as Australia’s Holocaust. It is a fair point, the cruelty and loss of life was immense. But Australia’s Holocaust? That does kind of overlook the estimated 10 000 aborigines murdered in Queensland alone between 1860 and 1930 by colonial settlers. The War Memorial is beautiful though and has been loving reconstructed from the disrepair to which had fallen by a Thai living in Sabah. In the entrance area he displays the somewhat poignant legend “The Difficult Takes Time, The Impossible a Little Longer.” Under the impression that my mother had lost a brother in a Japanese POW camp we went to a few War Memorial sites in Borneo and searched for his surname amongst the plaques. It turns out that after all it was her uncle and I had his name wrong anyway, so needless to say that bit of family history went undiscovered.

From Ranau we continued our drive through the lush countryside of Sabah, across wide muddy rivers and hills lines with palms. In places one side of the road would have completely disappeared, having subsided and crumbled away. We passed through the dingy town of Telupid, contemplated lunch there and out of respect for our stomachs carried on driving. After a few more hours we reached Sepilok, the sanctuary which cares for orphaned and psychologically fragile orang utans. We watched these beautiful primates feeding for a couple of hours and then continued onto the town of Sandakan. Sandakan is a fishing village which is known to be quite beautiful, though as we drove into the town it was impossible not to notice the shanty town on the outskirts. The next morning I went down to the docks at about five o’clock and marvelled at the abundance of sea food that was being hauled in from the boats. Every type of fish I could think of was on display, including (rather sadly) some large rays. They look a lot more graceful in the ocean.

We set off once more, went to another War Memorial where we continued looking for the wrong person, and then drove through to Semporna. A new feature to the drive were the supernumerary fruit stalls that lined the road in places. For about 20p we bought enough bananas to keep us going for three days. We finally got into Semporna that evening and then set about trying to arrange a dive for the following day. Our confident approach of “We’d like to dive at Sipidan Island tomorrow” had us laughed out of town. As one of the world’s premier dive sites you need to book a couple of months in advance. We did however manage to arrange three dives at nearby Mabul, which were fantastic. The highlight for me was an artificial reef where enormous schools of jacks and barracuda swam amongst the constructed structures beneath the waves. The dives were really good and the variety of fish and coral was fantastic. Next dive site, Apo Island, the Philippines! Having spent a bit of time in Semporna it was time to start heading back to Kinabalu. This entailed largely retracing our steps as many of the roads in the South of Sabah are in very poor condition owing to logging vehicles and heavy rains. Along the way we stopped at Madai caves, famous for it’s harvesting of birds nests which are then used to make birds nest soup. Predictably the caves stunk of bird excrement and we stepped in many dark and dank puddles that I am happy to forget about. We had planned to stop at the coastal town of Lahud Datu, which received a favourable appraisal in the Lonely Planet. After an hour in the town however it became apparent that the place had the charm of medieval dentistry. We got going immediately after eating and drove straight through to smelly Telupid. By this stage night had descended and the driving became a bit unpleasant. For long, sinuous stages of road we would get stuck behind long trucks carry palm oil, upon overtaking we would be reminded that our car had the acceleration of nonagenarian and then suddenly the road the would turn to rough gravel or a long backlog of traffic would indicate a section of road where only one lane was usable. There was the usual problem of people not dipping their lights and the sight of Telupid was greeted like an old friend. The friendship was brief however and we set off early the next morning and made our way back into Kota Kinabalu in torrential rain. Our trip around Sabah was at an end, but it was such a memorable expedition. That night we dined at Pizza Hut, which is even worse in Kota Kinabalu than it is in the UK. After a few more days in KK we were back on the plane and flying to our next-to-last destination: The Philippines.

Singapore

2009-11-15T06:46:00.000-08:00

Since the last post from Johor Bahru and it’s “seedy appeal” as Auden would have put it, I went through a brief stage of feeling really flat and unenergetic. I had brain overload, I felt fatigued and generally run down. Like I had been in an art gallery for too long and my brain had cramp. I am not sure if this had anything to do with arriving in Singapore. For one our hotel there represented the best accommodation we have had in months. A proper hotel with glass elevators and posh restaurants and air conditioning. A shower with hot water at such good pressure that it could be used for sand blasting. A bed so large you could have set up a six man tent on it and still had room for a game of volley ball. Plush carpets and movies on the telly. A kettle. You get the picture. It was hard to leave that room. But we were on a new island, in a new country and in a new city, all three falling under the name of Singapore.

We made the crossing from Johor Bahru and across the causeway into Singapore by bus. On the Malaysian side the new Immigration, Customs and Quarantine complex is very much trying to keep up with the Jones’ next door in Singapore. Costing a mere US$293 million (or there abouts, who‘s counting?) and completed in 2006, the exterior of this enormous edifice is sleek and modern, whilst inside water cascades down a sheet of backlit glass and marbled floors gleam as you make your way down through customs and towards the waiting buses. Upon arrival on the other side of the border everyone was turned out of the bus to go through customs and immigration on the Singaporean side and have their bags scanned for contraband. And then onto a second bus which took us to Queen Street bus station. We thought we would stand for the journey into town, which turned out to be a bit of a mistake. Singapore maybe small but it was still well over an hour before we reached our stop. Our bus driver was wildly erratic to add to the adventure, braking and accelerating at will and cursing anyone audacious enough to jaywalk in the road ahead. “Jaywalking… Hmmph.” A maddened shake of the head. And then rapid acceleration towards them and sudden breaking to make his point. At first it was amusing, after an hour just wearisome. And my mind continually returned to the Paul Theroux remark that a city without jay walkers is like a city without artists. For good measure, jaywalking is illegal in Singapore. Freedom of speech and thereby expression is much the same.

Singapore still confuses me a little. In some ways I liked it, in other ways the sterility of the place seemed all too apparent. The typical complaint is that it is a bit clinical and has no sense of history or culture of it’s own. In some ways this is an apposite criticism, but then you get out what you put in. And because we were primarily there to meet our friends Keith and Monique for a bit of a knees up it has to be said that we did not put enough in. We did not for example, see any of the sculpture that is publicly displayed around the island. There are works by Salvador Dali, Henry Moore and many acclaimed local sculptors. Nor did we see the Buddhist cremation rites or make it to the Hindu temple or any of the famous churches. The world renowned Singapore Zoo went unvisited. And we missed the break dancers and in line skaters at the City Hall MRT. Nonetheless we did spend a bit of time exploring the city, which consists of wildly opulent shopping mauls, hotels and restaurants. I am sure that we spent most of our time in places that most Singaporeans would not be seen dead in. One of our first thoughts was that Singapore is not cheap, but like most places, with a fistful of money it could be a blast. And it seems this is a concession that most tourists to Singapore are happy to make. We went to Raffles Hotel with Keith and Monique and drank a jug of beer that cost 66 Singapore dollars, or to put it in context £33.00. Yup, that's right. One jug, thirty three quid. Thanks Keith, Monique!

It is safe to say that if a bar in London tried to charge me that amount there would be talk of fisticuffs. Raffles, however, was so rammed with punters swilling cocktails that we could not get a table inside. Likewise beer prices vary throughout the day, between 12 and 3pm a pint will set you back £2.50. The price goes up throughout the day and by 8pm the same drink will cost you £7.00. Must be that it gets more expensive to make it as the day goes on!

It is all too easy to carp on about the negatives of Singapore, but there were many good things about the place that were immediately obvious too. Poverty levels appeared to be quite low. The food could be cheap, plentiful and delicious if you avoided the quayside restaurants. It was clean. It felt very safe. And in places it was wonderfully colourful whilst architecturally elements of the place are amazing. Of personal interest there looked to be a massive and healthy photography community. For all the things that I liked about Singapore though, the same niggling doubt kept on returning to me. That was that it felt like they had taken the Asian out of Asia. And that was enough to keep the wind in our sails as we flew out to Borneo.

2009-10-29T04:40:00.000-07:00

After the sticky humidity of Taman Negara’s jungle and it’s leaches, mosquitoes and vipers, our next stop in the Cameron Highlands was a welcome succour. Sitting at altitude which varies between 1300 and 1800 metres the Cameron Highlands is Malaysia’s largest hill station. It is not too difficult to see why; the temperature sits between 10 and 21 degrees the whole year around. The air is fresh and cool and the rain comes in torrents that dissipate as promptly as they appear. It is an area of stunning beauty, lush, verdant and fecund. The area takes it’s name from William Cameron, the surveyor who first mapped out the area. Shortly after Cameron’s expedition the Cameron Highlands became home to tea plantations, flower and fruit farms. Swiftly flowing rivers dissect green valleys and dense forests climb mountainous terrain. Wild animals and many reptiles live in these jungles, whilst an abundance of orchards and flowers grow naturally in the area. Culturally, the town is typical of Malaysia with Hindu temples, Mosques and Churches all built at close propinquity. We stayed in Tanah Rata, one of the three main towns in the area. The towns, sadly, are a bit tacky and detract from the beauty of the highlands. Large Tudor style apartment blocks dominate the some of the closer hills like warts on an otherwise unblemished face, whilst slightly further out of town hideous concrete developments blight the hills they are built upon. This is not to say that the area has been irredeemably lost though. A short walk out of town will bring you to the famed jungle trails, whilst along the roadsides strawberry and flower farms abound.

The Cameron Highlands became our home for about five days. We stayed at the ever-hospitable Father’s Guest House, the blackened sign post nailed to a tree trunk displaying a Bob Marley look alike, seemingly crucified on the trunk of a pine tree. Father’s was comfortable, the owners affable and full of honest, practical advice. The restaurant and coffee area was unobtrusively social and the second hand bookshop had Ngugi’s River Between and Marguerite Yourcenar’s brilliant Memoirs of Hadrian, the latter of which I am currently battling through, dictionary in one hand and with Wikipedia open to assist me with my rusty history of Antiquity. But back to the Cameron Highlands, we could quite easily have spent a fortnight there. There are multiple walks to do through the jungle, a golf course should you feel so inclined and tours of the tea estates and the Mossy Forest. I spent a bit of time attempting to keep up the cultural front, visiting the Sam Poh Chinese Temple with it’s 10 000 mosaic Buddha tiles and the Hindu Temple in Tanah Rata, where the admonition of the priest for not removing my shoes still rings in my ears. Having upbraided me he promptly disappeared. I had rather hoped he would show me around but it seems this was not to be. After seven months of vaunted temples, churches and museums my usual avidity is beginning to wane, but I continue to make the effort in the knowledge that this time next year I will no longer have these opportunities. And at each turn I am rewarded and I feel enriched by the experience. Of course, being in Malaysia, the Cameron Highlands is host to all sorts of mouth watering restaurants, serving Dosa’s and Tandori’s and Murtabach and a frighteningly wide selection of roti’s. It is also home to some less appealing establishments, MarryBrown’s for example, serving wretched Halaal deep fried chicken to songs by Nickleback. Or the Lord’s Café, a worn out tea house that sells “Beef Bacon” for breakfast (am I missing something here?), Cheese Cake that actually tastes of cheese. Adorning the walls a picture Mary Magdalene stares gloomily across from her wall at a dirty copy of a Van Gogh opposite, beneath which well thumbed copies of Readers Digest gather dust. Or indeed (and maybe the most detestable and appealing alike) the ineluctable Starbucks Café where locals and foreigners alike, surrounded by the best tea in Malaysia, go in for exorbitantly priced but very mediocre coffee. Alas the forests of Cameron Highlands seem to be under threat. There is rampant logging in areas, whilst poachers make regular forays into the jungle taking with them rare snakes, orchids and natural plants. I found out that one of the men I working at the guesthouse was involved in trafficking snakes to Germany and bitterly regret not having done anything about it. On one hand there is the moral dilemma of knowing that this friendly, smiling man would stand to lose his job and source of income if I had reported him. On the other there is the sheer outrage and contempt I have for the destruction of the forest and the abominable cruelty involved in smuggling animals abroad. I wish the latter sentiment had prevailed.

For our last day in the highlands we went on a tour that included the Boh Tea Estates in the hills North of Birchang. In spite of the rain that was lashing down the beauty of the estates was still very apparent. A rather uninformative tour of the tea curing process was included, but the real value of the trip is just being among the green valleys with neatly clipped tea trees climbing up the undulating valleys. We stocked up on ginger and lime tea bags and then continued on to the strawberry farm for chocolate and strawberry waffles. Had the rain been less persistent and time a little freer, a full day tour of the tea farm would have been very worthwhile. The estate is steeped in the history of J A Russell’s family who set up the enterprise in 1929 and whose progeny are still involved with the estate to the present day. They’re rich now, you better believe it.

The World Heritage site of Malacca with it’s clay red buildings and surprisingly authentic China Town was next. We seem to be on a bit of a roll with guest houses at the moment and our accommodation in Malacca is without doubt the best place that we have stayed in so far. It is spacious, clean, comfortable and welcoming. The owners, Raymond and Mani, are supremely friendly and refreshingly interested in getting to know the people that stay with them. It was down to their superb guesthouse and unrivalled hospitality that we ended up changing our stay in Malacca from two days to one week. Nestled on the Malacca River, the town of the same name (or alternatively Melaka) was the greatest trading port in South East Asia in the 15th Century. Unsurprisingly it became the focus of interest for many successive invaders and the cities rich blend of cultures reflects this. There are remnants of the Portuguese, the Dutch and of course the English. Add to this the Chinese, Islamic and Buddhist denizens of the town and the diversity and invigorating multiculturism of Malacca begins to take shape.

The vibrancy of Malacca is not just limited to the multicoloured temples and buildings however. Beneath giant trees the din of parrots in the evening is deafening, whilst along the banks of the river locals line dance to an assortment of music.There is even a cameo appearance by the Tourist Police, dancing to “Rock Around the Clock.” To add to the music that abounds on the streets, garishly decorated yellow cyclo’s patrol the streets playing anything from Michael Jackson to Metallica. Guided river boat tours plough through the water, the progress of the boats preceded by a sound that is akin to a sudden downpour of rain and had us starting up to look out of the window. Our time in Malacca was spent avoiding the oppressive heat of the day, immured in the guest house between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. We were up early to explore the ruins and Dutch graveyard at Bukit St. Paul (St. Paul’s Hill) and the wonders of China Town with it’s melee of Chinese and Hindu temples, mosques and nearby churches.

The ruins of St. Paul’s church are particularly enigmatic at dawn. A ghostly white statue of St Francis Xavier, one hand missing from his marble wrist (Sharia 1, Xavier 0?) surveys you loftily, whilst behind the empty shell of the cathedral dominates the hill. As any guide book will tell you St Francis Xavier was briefly interred here after his death in China. His posthumous stay in Malacca was brief however, nine months later his remains were taken to Goa, where they are to this day. Behind the deserted church old Dutch graves have a commanding view of the city below, where Chinese locals practice Tai Chi and swordsmanship in the early light of the morning. Likewise the Chinese cemetery atop Bukit China just outside town comes alive in the cooler hours of the day. The cemetery, straddling the hill for positive feng shui, is rumoured to be the largest Chinese grave yard outside of China. In the evening the contrast of joggers limbering up and stretching after a run offers an amusing contrast to the cold graves that punctuate the hill like many decaying teeth. The old town of Malacca has enough to see without leaving its narrow streets though. The lanes with their Chinese lamps. The old dilapidated buildings, vibrantly painted yet whose walls are pitted by age and roughly textured.

The Chinese temples, filled with devotees lighting incense and impaling offerings of cigarettes before the effigies. The substantial Malaysian Christian community and the grand (and some equally quaint) churches. Malaysia’s finest charm for me has been it’s enervating multiculturism and acceptance of one and all. This is embodied by it’s food and more importantly by the proudly Malaysian people; a common thing to hear when chatting to a local is “My family were from China / India / Timbuktu but I am Malaysian. And nowhere is this multiculturism more apparent than in Malacca.

The days drifted by and we were so happily ensconced at Raymond and Mani’s that we would stayed there longer had they not been fully booked the following weekend. Reluctantly we packed up and were on our way once more. We caught a series of local buses first slightly up North to the seaside town Port Dickson and then deeper South to Johor Bahru and then the godforsaken fishing village of Kukup. Port Dickson is a local retreat for those living in Kuala Lumpur. It is a fairly soulless place, but to be fair if we were to do it justice we would have needed a car. It’s redeeming factor was meeting Addy, a twenty five year old local to the area who had studied sound engineering in Leeds and who worked as a music journalist in KL. He went completely out of his way and helped us find accommodation, took us to the very worthwhile food market that evening and then later on an expedition to find beer at the El Cactus Mexican restaurant.

For all Addy’s helpfulness he was not too hot at distances, his five minute walk to the pub took closer to 45 minutes, uphill, both ways. The following day we went to watch the nearby ostrich racing which was outrageous in it’s cruelty and for the sorrowful condition of the ostriches. It was an unparalleled low as far as seven months of travel goes, an abysmal experience all round. The nearby lighthouse was, however, a lot more satisfying. The less appealing flip side of this walk was that the early evening descent was marked by mosquitoes the size of canoes. Slap your back and you’d get two at a time, then you would have to roll them off your fingers like fat, bloated slugs. On both evenings we ate at the local Pizzeria, run by a garrulous Austrian called Tino. Tino had been settled in Port Dickson for 15 years, and we got the feeling that whilst he didn’t rue the day he moved there, he wasn’t exactly ecstatic either. He sat at our table each evening, eagerly asking us questions ranging from Europe and London to our impressions of Malaysia and Thailand. He seemed visibly thirsty for conversation, but he was good company and offered us some helpful information.

On reflection it was down to his personality more than his pizza that we ate there two nights in a row. One of his ambitions is to climb Mt Kinabalu in Borneo with his son. “I’m Austrian. We see a mountain and we have to climb it. That’s the way it is with us,” he charismatically chuckled. Two nights in Port Dickson were more than enough and we headed South to the town of Seremban before getting a connecting bus to bustling Johor Bahru which is on the border with Singapore.

The next day saw us travelling ever further South to the fishing village of Kukup. I am inexorably drawn to fishing villages. They are a light bulb to my moth, nectar to a bee, a mountain to an Austrian. If money were no object, I’d live in a fishing village. I’d have a boat, a Jack Russell and I’d be happy as Larry. In fact, Happier. This would be on the condition that that fishing village was not Kukup. Or anywhere near that cursed village and it’s su

lphurous waters. The great war photographer (and a kind of personal hero if I were to have such a thing) Robert Capa once described Hollywood as “the biggest pile of sh*t I ever stepped in.”

Clearly here was a man that had never been to Kukup. Much of the town is built over the muddy banks of the ocean inlet and rests onwooden and concrete stilts. There is the overwhelming stench of drying fish in the air. Furthermore the town is redolent of sulphur, which is not really surprising as when you use the toilet you peer through the bottom of the bowl and down into the dark brown banks of the ocean bed below. Making your way along the walkways it is not unusual to see dirty shower water or worse dropping from the bowels of one of the houses. On arrival I was assailed by a podgy and surly adolescent thrusting his hand at me and saying “Give me money.” He then tried to grab my arm. I dispatched him with a few blunt words and a look of malice, yet ten minutes later he was back again. With in the space of an hour he approached me four times. My threats grew more and more animated. As it is he proved to be one of the more friendly people in town. In general we got the impression that Kukup was a little insular. It was a local town for local people. And apparently a hoard of Singaporeans who come across at the weekends. Of course this is a massive generalization and some of the people that we met were helpful enough, if not exactly effusive upon seeing us. The happiest signs of life in Kukup seemed to the ubiquitous Salamanders that basked in the mud beneath the stilts, blithe, fat, bloated and seemingly as happy as pigs in the proverbial, of which there was no shortage.

Having retreated from the fishing village, that hateful light bulb, the comforts of Johor Bahru seem wondrous. The streets here are very much alive and no more so than at night when neon lights turn the town incandescent. Food markets abound and sell all manners of delicious snacks and meals. You can buy a snake or two for virility should you wish (personally I don’t but it seems that many do) and all sorts of other charms and medications. The barber shops allegedly sell women along with their haircuts, whilst I was offered “jiggy jiggy” whilst waiting for Nipun outside a 7/11. Aphrodisiacs are big business here and unsurprisingly the city has a tawdry reputation as Singaporeans flock across the border to escape the clinical and Draconian rules of that city, where even jay walking results in hefty fines. Lets not split hairs, Johor Bahru is a veritable Sodom, but it sure beats Kukup.

Friends Re-United

2009-10-17T03:08:00.000-07:00

Entry back into Malaysia was a sobering experience. Halfway through our flight I was handed the usual arrival card and customs gumf, attached to which was a bright yellow slip of paper that mentioned the extremely high probability of a premature death should you be found bringing any drugs into the country. It goes without saying that we were not carrying any illegal substances, nonetheless that slip of paper seems to weigh you up with a cold gaze and say “Don’t say we didn’t warn you.” And then it winks and says “So did you pack your bags yourself then? And no one tampered with it at all did they?” Upon arrival in the airport terminal a couple of hours later a large video camera surveys you, and if you are not already panicked enough, another piece of brightly coloured, cautionary literature is thrust at you. It tells you that H1N1 is alive and well and living in these parts of Asia. Furthermore if you have a temperature or flu like symptoms you are probably going to die unless you repair to a doctor post haste. If the illegal substances and our in- house executioner doesn’t get you, then thebird flu will seems to be the message.

We made it through customs unscathed and in record time, then jumped onto the shuttle bus into KL, dozing along the way whilst incandescent neon lights and high rise buildings silently slid past. By the time we got to Sentral it was midnight, which was kind of bad news as we had not booked any accommodation. On account of the hour we took the first place that had vacancies, right above the reggae bar . Alas there was to be no “kinky reggae,” for it appears that the Reggae Bar actually plays drum and bass. It plays drum and bass of the crap variety furthermore and the room itself was as clammy as a steam bath. The bedroom walls were grim, dirty and stained and smeared with blood along one wall (suicide!?). Never a good sign for a comfortable nights sleep. Still, we were exhausted. We jumped into the sorry-looking steel framed single beds and then tried to sleep. For about two minutes or so this seemed to be going well. And then the DJ downstairs began to holler into his microphone. The beds vibrated, the window (facing out into a public corridor) rattled and the bedbugs awoke from their fitful slumber. It started off with a couple of twitches, then both of us systematically slapping ourselves. When the light went on a little later Nipun was sitting up in bed fully dressed, a pair of long blue and black socks rolled up each arm and a set of air plugs protruding from each auditory canal. If we were not so bad tempered by this stage it would have been funny, though as it was the hysteria was confined to the type of tears and out pourings of rage. I battled on trying to sleep, Nipun left the room and reappeared three hours later having taken to the streets for a feverish walk rather than endure the confines of our room. We checked out of the guesthouse at five o’clock the next morning, the Indian caretaker good humouredly admitting that he would rather sleep in a ditch than one of the rooms in that place. By this stage our lassitude was such that we just smiled wanly, scratched our wounds and disappeared into the soft light of morning, the streets empty save clutches of lady boys making their way home and the first denizens of the new day.

In “Little Dorrit” Dickens remarks that “One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it’s left behind.” I would have been quite keen to have put him up in the KL Backpackers Travellers Inn for an evening and seen if he revised this line. And indeed KL in general. The first time we were there I loved it for it’s architecture, the steel and glass skyline and the trains that hurtle overhead, banking left and right as they bend their way through the city. The second time around though I found the city oppressive. Little India was authentically filthy and China Town seemed to be a giant flee market catering for tourists. There were an abundance of homeless souls on the streets and the number of beggars we saw was depressing. In some cities you expect to see poverty, but in KL for all it's wealth and glitz, it is a nasty surprise. In Petaling Street (the pedestrianised drag of China Town) we saw an old homeless man assaulted by a gang of bullying shop keepers. The shop keepers, healthy young and muscled slapped the old pariah across his face with a wooden cane before sending him hurtling with a kick to his stomach. No doubt he transgressed some line (petty thefy maybe?) and this was just rough justice, but on your second day in a new town this kind of thing does little to make you love a place. Various other manifestations of pent up anger (a young woman, her foot bloodied and smeared, kicking her boyfriends motor cycle to pieces, an aggressive verbal confrontation between two passers by) made me feel that KL was just too claustrophobic for us. On the plus side some of the Malaysians we met in KL was supremely affable, in fact a casual encounter with a stranger can leave you chatting away for a half an hour. And of course the food in KL is wonderful, be it from the street markets or some of the restaurants where an ambrosial feast for two will set you back a mere £4.00. It was a relief however when David and Yolanda, our friends from Holland, sent us an email mentioning that they were thinking of heading out to Teman Negara, one of Malaysia’s national parks. We got the next bus out of town and headed straight there.

Taman Negara covers over 4300 square kilometers, which twice the size of Luxemborg or triple the size of Surrey, depending on your preference. It is a swathe of primordial jungle, dating back 130 million years. Given it’s geographical location the jungle in Taman Negara has eluded the ice ages and volcanoes. The trees and natural growth are so thick as to be impenetrable in places, the ants look as if they were raised on anabolic steroids and the leeches that abound the jungle floor are quicker than an Olympic sprinter when they detect you moving towards them. The journey into Taman Negara took the form of a bus as far as Jerantut (three hours from KL) and then a boat ride up river for three hours in a small dugout powered by a 40 HP outboard engine. The journey upstream is wonderful, verdant jungle climbs the valleys on either side whilst occasional water buffalo’s drink from the river and monkeys make whatever noise monkeys make in the trees. Wiki answers was not this much help on this particular one: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_you_describe_the_sound_a_monkey_makes

We spent four days in the jungle with David and Yolanda, trekking and walking the jungle canopy by day and watching a box set of Heroes by night, the four of us crouched around our laptop whilst the night exploded with jungle sounds around us. On about the third day three of us developed a dodgy stomach which must have been down to the food as they don’t sell beer, a matter of some considerable consternation at the time (the beer that is). It was really good to see them again, and then we were on our way once more, bound this time for the Cameron Highlands, famous for it’s tea, forests and the great explorer Jim Thomson, who went for a stroll in the Highlands and never returned.

Bali

2009-10-10T21:34:00.000-07:00

Landing in Bali for the first time is a somewhat alarming experience. Peering out the window you can the see the ocean beneath getting ever closer. Fishing boats pop up at your window complete with exasperated fishermen making rude gestures for flying too close whilst white surf churns outside surprisingly close. The spray almost seems to fleck the pane of glass, behind which you are testing the seat belt and looking for the oxygen mask. It is with considerable relief that suddenly the tarmac runway appears below, the sea still swirling on either side. And then with a slight bump you are down and the sea vanishes swiftly behind.

Throughout our travels every country has had it’s own quirks and surprises, idiosyncrasies and peculiarities. One thing though has been entirely consistent: the unfriendliness of the clerks as you enter a new country. Of course the type of unfriendliness varies, In India it was sullen insolence, in Cambodia they tried to extort bribes and instil fear and in Thailand it was just unadulterated boredom. Universally it seems that the officials do not go so far as to convey hostility; rather they just make you very aware that they are doing you a massive favour by letting them do their jobs. Arrival in Bali was no exception. They were of the intolerably bored and slightly rude variety. Not so rude as to merit a complaint, but hovering just to the side of that line. The official snatched the US$25.00 visa fee without so much as looking up, stamped our passports with exaggerated efficiency and then hollered “Next” before his stamp had even returned to it’s rubber pad. Thus served we made our way through customs and out of the airport. Along the way we were assailed by a long line of money changers waving energetically from their booths, (all of them quoting exactly the same rate) and then, on exiting the airport, the process was repeated by a horde of marauding taxi drivers, each with “a lean and hungry look” to quote that fellow Shakespeare.

We found ourselves in Bali after planning to meet James and Jens there for a ten day break. Being in Malaysia, Bali was cheap to fly to and promised good diving and a host of other activities to keep boredom at bay. Alas Bali is a big place and fate was conspiring against us that evening. Our phone charger had given up the ghost, followed shortly thereafter by our phone and our rather haphazard planning meant that we knew our friends were in Bali, but not exactly where. Furthermore it was 11 o’clock in the evening, all the hotels in the area were full on account of Eide and things generally were looking rather glum. After an hour of everything going pear shaped (and yes, I had a tantrum of the whining and stamping variety, sorry Nipun) Nipun saved the day by locating an internet café where an email awaited confirming the whereabouts of James and Jens who had booked accommodation for us nearby to boot. The evening thereafter consisted of much (too much?) merriment and chatter into the early hours, followed by a swim in the ocean the following morning to set us right again. And then back in a taxi to Ubud.

Ubud is generally accepted as the art Mecca of Indonesia. It is vibrant, filled with galleries and local crafts and has the atmosphere of a town that celebrates it’s cultural heritage. You cannot swing the proverbial cat without fear of braining the poor wretch on a sculpture or traditional dancer. It must be the only place on earth where it is kinda uncool to own an art gallery. Good eateries and bars abound, but somehow the town retains a sense of dignity as opposed to feeling horribly over commercial. Furthermore the geographical area in which Ubud lies is magnificently beautiful. Verdant rice paddies blend into the undulating hills around the town, a multitude of stream and rivers dissect the town and there is a sense of pride in the way the building are maintained and presented. Once we found accommodation it offered very good value, less than £6.00 per night for bungalow with a balcony, breakfast included. We set about arranging the next few days activities, in the form of white water rafting that afternoon, followed by a 2 AM start the following day to climb the still active volcano Mt. Battur. The rafting was excellent, not so much for the rapids (it was more like floating down a briskly flowing stream on a rubber dinghy) but for the scenery alone. The trip takes you through winding green valleys, cultivated where the gradient allows, rice paddies and waterfalls. Behind you and in the distance volcanic mountains turn blue in the distance, their peaks pushing through crisp white clouds. The rafting takes a couple of hours and finishes with a brief rush of adrenaline when the raft goes over a three metre weir, catching at first and then dropping like a stone amidst whoops and nervous giggles. And then there is the inevitable climb out of the valley, legs shake and conversation slows. The climb is, however, a morning stroll compared to what was in store the following day.

It is hard to have a sense of humour when your alarm goes off at 1.30 am and it is not a mistake. Our taxi driver seemed to share this opinion and when he arrived at two o’clock to pick up us up he was a silent somnambulist, nodding at us briefly before settling stonily into the drivers seat. Jens had failed to sleep, Nipun and I had managed a few hours whilst James in stark contrast was positively pukka. He had snuck off to have a massage the previous day and slept like a king. We made a brief detour for coffee and banana pancakes before meeting the impressively large crowd of other climbers. There must have been about 100 people, all congregated at the foot of Mt Battur for the 2 AM start. As we all wound up the hill the experience was something akin to a pilgrimage, the darkness of the night glinting with a hundred small torches all winding spiralling up the circuitous and treacherous foot path. There were regular breaks to catch our breath, and then amber cigarettes glowed alongside the head torches below and above. Finally we reached the designated view point. It was cold, windy and the coffee was overpriced. Gradually a layer of very soft light crept between the land and the sky and slowly forced the day open in shifting shades of orange and blue. Despite the early rise and the climb at such a God forsaken hour it was definitely worth it. We followed this with a hike around the volcano before heading back down and going for lunch at ten o’clock in the morning.

The next day we left Ubud after what was an action packed few days. We had done more exercise than I did last year, eaten delicious food and sampled the local whisky (Arak). Between Jens and I, we sampled a considerable amount of local whisky. I can thoroughly recommend it, mixed with lime juice and brown sugar, then shaken and served on crushed ice. Happily the whisky is cheap and hangovers are small. Everyone, as they say, is a Winner. Or at least that is what it feels like at the time.

Our next destination took us via taxi and speed boat to the island of Nusa Lembongan, famed for it’s diving and surfing and lack of an ATM machine. Ok, not so famed for the last bit but we learnt the hard way. There was a brief panic as the dive schools all seemed to be fully booked and warned us people sleeping on the beach due to a shortage of accommodation, but things looked up for us and we found both before the end of the day. The island is in many ways a breath of fresh air, having failed to become a purely commercial enterprise geared purely towards tourists just yet. The locals (and mischievous children) are welcoming and there is a tranquil air to the place. The last few years have seen rapid development (the island is dubbed Little Australia because so many Aussies have opened up businesses and bought land, indeed land prices are quoted AUS Dollar) but the locals have taken this in their stride. It had bought them some economic empowerment and 24 hour electricity, but speaking to one local dive shop owner he admitted that there were concerns that too much was being ceded to foreign investment.

The next day we spent diving which was fantastic, the second dive being a drift dive in currents of water that propel you along the reefs with the fish and the coral all passing you by. It is an amazing experience, other than the occasional wiggle of your flippers you expend hardly any energy and cover a fairly large area during the dive. We spent a few more days on the island, scuba diving with Manta Rays by day and eating sea food by night. It was a very relaxed break and when it was time to say goodbye to the island I felt that I would be back sometime in the not too distant future. The diving was great, my ears were perfect this time around and Nipun’s diving is getting really good. I’d like to think that we will make it back to Nusa Lembongan at some stage, certainly not this trip but in the not too distant future.

For the trip back to the mainland we caught the public ferry that leaves at 7.30 each morning. The ferry is crammed with backpackers and a couple of locals alike, and in fear of rough seas and the inevitable casualties to motion sickness I decided to join Nipun at the front of the boat. This proved to be somewhat foolhardy. The sea was indeed rough, and the front of the boat lacks very little protection. We got drenched, which would have been a blast if I did not have £4000 of camera equipment with me. As it was I managed to get the rain cover over the bag and spent the rest of the journey acting as a human shield to my bag, which thankfully survived but has left me paranoid about the effects of salt water on cameras. Time for a service me thinks.

We spent our last night back on Bali at Jimbaran Beach. The area is very close to the airport so this made sense (well done Nipun) and is home to a fishing village. That evening we ate sea food on the beach with the surf rolling three metres away from our table. We ate lobster, fresh fish, calamari and prawns. James was nursing a very belligerent tummy bug, so we ate his too. And then drank his share of the beer. Thanks, erm I mean sorry, James! Nipun and I checked our email and discovered that our flight left the next day as opposed to two days time like we thought. And seemingly just like that we were back in the airport, hunting down my journal that I had lost ten days prior (I found it thankfully) and then stepping on to our plane. We arrived back in Kuala Lumpur at eleven o’clock that night with no booked accommodation and when we found some had to share it with ten foot bedbugs…. But that is another adventure for another day. To James and Jens, thanks for making the effort to come out, it was great to see you.

More photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7635129@N06/3998645796/

South Thailand and Malaysia

2009-10-03T08:11:00.000-07:00

Having planned to do as much of our trip overland as possible there always remained the uneasy question of Southern Thailand. As you get into the deep South of the country it ceases to be the land of smiles and is more like the land of random bombings, shootings of school teachers who are not Islamic and general anarchy as the insurgence continues. Happily we found a route that managed to circumnavigate the affected areas by heading through Koh Sok and into Krabi, down to Satun and then taking a ferry into Malaysia. Local buses and boats, happy days.

With Koh Tao behind us our next stop was Khao Sok National Park, two hours inland from Surat Thani. Khao Sok is famous for its verdant scenery and stunning lime stone karsts that are dotted around the inland. The national park is situated in the highlands, is refreshingly cool and is punctuated by rivers, mountains and lakes. There are over 150 species of birds and the dense jungle is home to tigers, leopards, gibbons and gaurs. It is the type of place that when you wake up in the middle of the night, you hear more sounds than you would during the day. The night vibrates with the noises of insects and animals and breathes with life. The karsts are enveloped with cloud above and winding rivers below, the white crags of the karsts dominating the landscape like slabs of alabaster.

The one factor that was slightly against us in Khao Sok was the weather. It rained a great deal, so much so that the owner of our guest house was heard to express concerns of the river flooding it’s banks. Antediluvian rain. Day and night. Then night and day. As we were on the aforementioned banks this was a bit of a concern, but happily the rain dissipated on our second day and left us free to take a tour of Cheow Lan Lake, about an hour from our guest house. The lake is beautiful and accommodation is available in simple huts built upon rafts. Alas we did not stay here but the setting is stunning and would be a must if we did the trip again.

It was during our time in Khao Sok we were lucky enough to befriend David and Yolanda from Holland, who became our erstwhile travel companions for the next five days. We met them shortly before they fed the cutest puppy in the world a mouthful of electricity. Or more accurately one evening during which the guesthouse owner's puppy decided to nibble on an extension cord we were all using. There was a yelp, a howl and a slightly grumpy pup that was then seen heading for the comfort of his basket. The next day he was back on form, his razor sharp milk teeth incising anything in sight. David and Yolanda were fantastic company, and at the end of our trip together we had swapped numerous book recomendations, music and movies. On the subject of music, David was (until recently) the bassist for Dutch band Alamo Race Track. They're famous... They've played Lowlands. See them here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=678ecSBvSdc

From Khao Sok we then travelled together across the peninsular to the fishing village of Krabi. Being the Low season Krabi was almost like a ghost town, the guest houses were half empty and the promenade along the river front was patrolled by boat drivers touting for business. “Where you go today? Motor Boat? Mangrove forest? Island? Beaches?” They were friendly enough, in contrast the manager at our guest house was a nightmare. Every time we so much as walked through the restaurant or peeped into reception he was trying to flog us a trip. When we told him that we would be getting a local bus further South as opposed to his mini van his petulance increased ten fold. He was the type of character that made you want to slip a packet of anti depressants into his coffee, if not to cheer him up then just to make him go to sleep.

Krabi is beautiful and again is marked by the same limestone karts that dominate the landscape in Khao Sok. The town has a sleepy appeal with some unusual sculptures that include a set of large apes clutching onto the traffic lights at Soi 10. These semi simians represent the 40 million year old remains of the Siamopithecus Oceanus that were found nearby. Or to put it simply, some of the earliest remains that suggest the ape to human evolutionary process. There are many that think that the theory of evolution is daft. I am one of them. Surely we would have known better than to move out of the trees in the first place. And as Douglas Adams remarked, there are those who even question why we would have even left the oceans.

The four of chartered a boat (called “Free Dom,” almost like there is a girl called Dominique who has just split up with a tyrannical boyfriend) that took us through the mangrove swamps and then on the island of Ao Nang. As you head down the river towards the swamps you pass through Khao Kanab Nam, twin limestone karts that rise out the water, one hundred metres in height and so readily identifiable that they have become the symbol of Krabi. In an inspired moment I took a photo of them from the boat, and then laughed my socks off when I saw that The Rough Guide to Thailand has an almost identical picture on the first page of their book. The mangrove swamps are fascinating, with their roots bared by the tide like a poor set of teeth sticking out of failing gums. The banks of the swamp are home to millions of Fiddler crabs; as you work your way deeper into the swamps the atmosphere becomes positively eerie and the jokes about running out of fuel seem to lack much humour.

After three days in Krabi it was time to move further South, carefully avoiding the areas around Songkhla, Hat Yai and Pattani where the insurgents are bombing, shooting and killing on a daily basis. We took a local bus further South to Trang, and then after a couple of hours wait we connected to another bus to Satun. In all we travelled for a full day, but it was fun and with good company. Local buses are often a lot more interesting than a stultifying ride in a minivan and this journey was very true of that. We spent a night in the no frills local hotel at the bottom end of town and visited the nightmarket in the evening. The market consisted of mostly second hand clothing and vendors who, refreshingly, left us completely alone. Satun was a really interesting town and the Muslim influence was very apparent. Many women wore burquas, we saw several men with prayer caps and in the evening the chanting from the mosque cut through the night. We only spent one night in Satun before making our way through to the ferry terminal at nine o’clock the next morning. Form here we cleared immigration in record time and boarded the ferry that took us to Langkawi Island in Malaysia. After a few hours in Langkawi we boarded a second ferry that took us to the quaint World Heritage site of Georgetown.

One of the first things that any visitor to Georgetown will pick up on is how ethnically diverse it is. There is a Little India that sells very fine food and boasts a variety of luminous colours to the sound of blaring Bollywood music. Then next door there are mosques and around the corner are the Chinese temples. Architecturally it is wonderful, there are so many styles of buildings on every street, from grand old colonial houses to stylised mosques and flamboyant temples. There is an abundance of colour of noise and life. The harbour lends a commercial feel to the town, whilst in the distance the modern glass and steel office buildings of Buttherworth contrast sharply to the beatific air of Georgetown. It was in Georgetown that we finally bade farewell to Yolanda and David, before boarding the overnight train through to Kuala Lumpur. Thus far we have only spent a day in KL, which is magnificent. We fly back there is a few days time from Bali, where we are diving with our friends James and Jens. This is such a hard life!

50/50 - Crossing the Halfway Mark

2009-10-03T06:31:00.000-07:00

There are times when I feel I should have called this blog High Maintenance as opposed to High Mileage. Again it seems an age since I last wrote so here goes. Current location is the top bunk of a sleeper train between Butterworth (Malaysia) and Kuala Lumpur. In true Malay style the train left at exactly the right time and now winds away smoothly into the night. Overhead the fluorescent lights wrap around the smooth curves of the ceiling and the sound of the wheels on the tracks punctuates the otherwise silent carriage. Unlike Thailand there are no men hawking beer in the aisles or ladies selling pungent foods. And unlike India no one has yet appeared shrieking “Cha, cha cha Chaiiiii! Coff, Coff, Coff, Coffeeee!” In some ways this train feels slightly more clinical, but it is clean, comfortable and trains are such a great way to travel. I would say the best, but for me boats win by far. Sorry Paul Theroux. More practically though, and to the point, the battery life on the laptop promises about another 45 minutes which is handy really, because then I will close my eyes and wipe the sleep from them seven hours later when we arrive in KL at 5.30 AM.

We’re now six months into our trip and still talking, oops Freudian slip, I mean going. It feels good to still be travelling and whilst the initial excitement may have been sanded down a little, it still feels exhilarating to be exploring this beautiful part of the world. And to continue the metaphor, where the edges have been sanded down I think we have become more savvy in the way we deal with each adventure and each challenge. We have had some wonderful times. And of course there have been times when we’ve found ourselves humming “Grounds for Divorce” a little too loudly. “Is your wife sick of the sight of you yet?” read one email from a photography friend Danny. And a few days later “Has your wife strangulated you yet?” in an online conversation with another friend. To be fair travelling twenty four seven together, living in a room the size of a size three shoe box and breathing the same air 23.3 hours of the day can be trying at times. But it is all part of the adventure, and at the end of the day when the stamping of feet and vociferous discussions are done, we look out for each other and support each other. In the time since the last upload we have left Bangkok behind and continued our trip through to Koh Tao via the overnight train to Chumpon. Swerving the usual travel agencies we booked our tickets directly from Hua Lampong Station in Bangkok where Nipun managed to find a deal by booking the second class sleeper train with fan as opposed to AC. For anyone doing a similar trip the ticket counter in the station offers the ferry tickets as well which we were unaware of and happily they sell them at the correct price.

The sleeper train was much as I remember it from ten years ago. In summary, at around ten o’clock, after a couple of over priced, cold Changs, you fold yourself into your bed and hope to high heaven that someone wakes you up at 4.30 the next morning when you pull into your station. The Thai staff are great, and sure enough at the allotted hour they come through the carriages with a spreadsheet and bang on your bunk to get you off the train. Of course the travellers, red eyed and slightly crazed with anxiety have hardly slept, all of us thinking we are going to end up in Surat Thani at the far end of the line. The station at Chumpon is different from what I remember, though at time of the day memory is certainly an unreliable companion. Having said that Chumpon station seemed cleaner, bigger and more modern. And this time around there was a coffee shop open to help restore some semblance of vitality to the day.

The next stage of the journey isthe ferry from Chumpon Harbour, which is still emerging sleepily from the clutches of night. This goes across to the island which takes about four hours, and both occasions this has been a fabulous trip, the new morning sun being warm and ocean rolling around us frantically. Not so good if you get seasick, but touch wood, we don‘t. Finally, after a fifteen hour journey, you arrive in Koh Tao. My initial thoughts on arriving there was how much it had changed in the last ten years. Winding back the clock to 2002 the beaches were less developed, the bungalows and bars were constructed from poles and straw and far less prolific. Having said that though, Koh Tao is still magnificently beautiful. We initially stayed on the West Beach near the harbour and the sunsets over the ocean lack none of the grandeur of ten years back. During the day we snorkeled and looked at the coral and shoals of clown fish, and then two days later we moved to South Beach. The reason that the vast majority of people visit Koh Tao is to dive and to PADI training. We decided to do a taster dive and then, after pontificating and prevaricating for hours we tossed coin and the outcome dictated that we would do an Open Water Diving Course. The next three days were spent by and large submerged. On the first day we met a psycho Thai (a minority as far as I can tell) who wanted to beat up our dive instructor for (unknowingly) landing on a private beach for the shallow water training. I suggested later that we all should have wrestled him to the ground and tickled him into submission. At the time it was not so funny though and it took the intervention of a Japanese regular to the island to defuse the situation. Days two and three were spent removing regulators under water and learning to clear flooded masks before the final exam which was easy - it was a testament to team work with all of us copying each others answers. We left Koh Tao on the night boat to Surat Thani which is infinitely more comfortable than it was in the past. These days you have a dormitory style cabin with mattresses, sheets and pillows. When I did the trip last the boat looked like it might sink and when I did manage to sleep it was with an oxygen tank as a pillow and a bottle of Absolut vodka as a sleeping pill. Still, some of the charm has been lost, I will remember the first trip a lot longer than the latter.

As we cross the halfway line of our journey I feel increasingly despondent about it ending. It is almost like the end of our trip will represent a departure from our everyday life, that returning to our lives in England will be an almost alien experience. Each day here holds an adventure, looking up from the computer now (in Bali, ten days after I started writing this) the sea below is shades of turquoise and blue and the wind that blows shoreward cools the thirty something degree heat. I find myself gazing up and trying to imprint every minute and every landscape into my memory. And then being immensely happy and grateful that I am here in the first place.

Ko Chang

2009-09-06T00:34:00.000-07:00

It seems obscene to say this but we have just been on holiday. Sorry, maybe that should read "Holiday from our Holiday." The excuse for this was the arrival of my good friend Julian from London. Julian and I have known each other since I could sit on a chair and dangle my legs. I know this because there is an old school photograph in circulation that clearly shows this. But moving along, Julian and another friend Brad joined Nipun and I in Bangkok for a few days, Brad went back to work and the rest of us... Well, we went to the beach.

Ko Chang is about five hours from Bangkok by minivan, then about another half an hour on the ferry. It is rich with palm trees, has long stretches of sand and turquoise water that is warm but still refreshing. It also has sand flies, horrible little blighters that attack your back and leave it feeling like you have come off a motorbike and have lumps of gravel in your skin. But that it is another story, and one that can be taken in your stride. Most importantly Ko Chang has little bungalows on the beach, basic but passably clean and somewhere to sleep if nothing else.

As this is my second post today (self inflicted through prior indolence) I am taking the cheeky option out, the one that says it is worth thousand words and that can be seen below. We leave Bangkok in a few hours for the last time. I love this city and can't wait to come back, who knows when (miss you already).

A couple of cheeky memories from the island before memory fails us though. When Jules went for a massage he earned himself the name of Pompoi. This translates as cuddly, especially around the mid-section. The fishing trip wiped the smile off my face though, whilst Nipun and Julian hauled in the fish I caught sunburn. And some things are better forgotten, included in these was the bus journey back to Bangkok where the AC unit poured barrels of water into the bus, sloshing about on the seat next to Jules and drenching all our luggage. Click the images to see them larger, the colours seemed to have been badly unsaturated on upload.

Sunset, KP Huts, Ko Chang

Dawn, Ko Chang. The sun's rays slices through the palm trees and illuminates the back edges of them. Such a beautiful time of the day, especially for sand flies.

Digging for shrimps. Tried to take this without getting caught, hence missed the top edges of the spades. Doh, one to reshoot one day.

Dusk

Bangkok, Ayuttuyah and Floating Markets

2009-09-06T00:08:00.001-07:00

I guess you could have called this radio silence. All the usual excuses apply, but in fact I feel I have just been a bit lazy about writing. Ooops. In this time about a month has got away from me, the good news though is that we have been somewhat sedentary in this time and have based ourselves out of Bangkok, City of (Fallen) Angels. I have been to Bangkok a few times before and each time I return I fall in love with it a bit more. We set up base in Lumpini, near the Muay Thai Boxing stadium and just around he corner from the shop sign that proclaims “LUCK.” I have not yet managed to establish whether or not this refers to the Good or Bad variety, or whether or not it relates the type that is about to run out. The infamous Malaysia Hotel is around the corner, rumoured to be a veritable den of inequity and just down the road is the ironically named Family Guest House. I say ironically because it oozes sleaze, of the camp and cross dressing variety. And that is fine in its own way, consenting adults etc, though the cap does not fit the name in this instance.

On the plus side we have the Ibis Hotel one hundred metres away, clean, modern and with an all you can eat buffet lunch for 200 Baht per head (about GBP 4.00 for a personal best of three side plates of starters, three full plates of mains and one large bowl of desert and fruit). The term Buffet really means “Challenge” where we come from and typically leaves me feeling full for the rest of the day. I am pretty sure they are going to bar us soon. A ten minute walk up the road finds you in the massive Suan Luam Night Bazaar and across the road is the Metro Station. A little further down the road is the BTS (the Sky Train) and bus routes abound. Nipun mastered the buses quickly and whereas the size of Bangkok used to seem intimidating it is all beginning to make a lot more sense now. One of the things I love about Bangkok is that you can travel by Bus, Boat, Metro, Sky Train. And most of the time it works. The traffic can be a problem, but then there are air conditioned trains that are comfortable and not usually overcrowded. It is unusual not to be able to get a seat, certainly where the metro is concerned. Finally we have Lumpini Park just up the road. The park is huge and is landscaped with lakes and gardens. It is a tranquil retreat right in the middle of town. Silom to one side, Central to the top and then this oasis of water and green grass. People run in the park, do aerobics and there is a weight lifting gym, out in the open air. In the mornings and evenings it is packed with joggers who pause to do sit ups, chins and dips at various intervals. Of course you have those people like myself who have just come to watch the day fade into evening and sit on the benches. Young couples smooch on the grass and families take picnics down to the lake side. It has a sense of community and has become one of my favourite places in Bangkok. Once you are exhausted by watching weight lifters and joggers you can take an exit from the park that leads you more or less directly onto Silom Road where the Pat Pong Night market is and, should you be tempted, restaurants, pubs, clubs, shows and go go bars. It is all there. And then one metro stop later we are back at home.

Our time in the last month has not been exclusively dedicated to Bangkok. In the interim we have also travelled to Ayutthaya (The former capital of Thailand), Damnoen Saduak (to see the very commercial floating markets) and Ko Chang for an island break from our break. To get to Ayuttayah we caught a train from Hua Lampong. The train was a local train, populated exclusively by Thai’s and crammed. Vendors selling beer, cokes and food negotiated the aisles hawking their goods from coach to coach. The journey itself was about two hours long and cost about 15 Baht. In other words a two hour journey cost us about 25 pence. And it was no worse than British Rail, in fact the trains actually left on time and you could beer to boot. The train on the way back was delayed by about half an hour, but you could still by beer so it wins on that account! More seriously though it is quite enjoyable travelling on the local buses and trains and gives us a far better feel for the country than a plush AC minivan full of backpackers.

On arrival in Ayuttayah we are alarmed to find that our guest house was fully booked and that the other ones in the area seemed to be flee ridden, windowless rooms. After some investigation by Nipun we managed to find a place above a photography studio which worked well as I had left my camera battery charger in BKK and they were more than happy to help out. The town of Ayuttayah was in actuality quite grim I felt. The old ruins were spectacular but the town itself felt too hot, too dusty and too dirty. There is a fantastic night market that sells mostly food and this I liked. That is, I liked it until I went down the pier below it at 6 AM the next morning to take photos of the river and smelt the place by day. It reeked of sulphurous urine and faeces and the air seemed sticky with filth. I got the pictures I wanted and fled for the shower. But the food was good and later that night we took the camera out with a single flash to shoot some locals and my appetite got the better of me. Before I knew we were tucking into fried rice, thick with chilli and goodness. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Sometimes. Of course the star attraction of Ayuttayah are ancient the temple complexes which are scattered around the town. You can’t pop down to a 7/11 without practically tripping over an old, crumbling temple. And they are beautiful. I did some night shots at a few of them, (thinking I would have to bribe the night watchman with my favourite Thai term - dee sam ram koon, dee sam rap pomme (“Good for you, good for me”)) but this was not the case as the temples remain open until about 9pm. And then we were back to Bangkok again, sweltering in 35 degree heat and crammed into the local train drinking Leo beer and watching Thailand fly past the window.

Our next little excursion was the town of Damnoen Saduak, home to Thailand’s most famous (and thereby commercial) floating market. Rather than jump on the tourist bandwagon and take a day trip we went to the Eastern Bus Terminal and caught the local service out of town so that we could stay a couple of nights and see the markets properly. The trip took about two hours and my first impressions of place were pretty bad. I thought the place was full of yokels and raving crack pots. As we walked along the canal an old lady on a boat harangued us for not buying her fruit; happily we could walk faster than she could row but she put in a good effort. A few steps later a young man, possibly not quite right mentally, shouted his helloes to us far too loudly from far too close and then paces later a septuagenarian tried to grope my wife. All this in ten minutes. I remonstrated with the dirty old man who then started pointing his figure threateningly at me and yapping like a rabid chi Wawa. Around about then I wondered what the local police force would have to say about pushing the aged into a deep canal with a foot to his rear. Happily as went further down the canals things improved. An eloquent and wonderfully amiable Thai lady invited us to sit with her on her verandah and for the next hour regaled us with tales about the town and how it had changed over the last decade. It was difficult to leave her. Although she had limited schooling her English was superb and she also knew Italian and some Dutch. As for the floating markets, they were horribly commercial and populated by more foreigners than locals. It was still fun to see but I wish we had made the time to go to Amphawa nearby which is more authentic though only open on official market days.

The Easy Way Out

2009-08-16T02:49:00.000-07:00

Writing takes ages. Here are some images instead!

1 - Hue. Each evening at dusk the sky is filled with vibrantly colored kites, transported here mostly by men on bicycles.

2 - Silk Worm Factory Workers, Dalat

3 - Downtime. My heart goes out to the cyclo riders. Each day, regardless of the heat they are out on the street plying their trade. And lets face it, in some circumstances sleeping on the job is a necessity!

4 - Hoi An. Market Lady

5 - Nha Trang Nun

6 - Hilltribe Woman, Sapa

7 - Halong Bay

8 - Nha Trang Opera House

9 - Hanoi at Sunset

10 - Part of the Imperial Complex Hue

Vietnam in a nutshell

2009-08-16T01:27:00.000-07:00

It is time to stop procrastinating and time to draw a line beneath Vietnam. The time we had there flew past and indeed we were on the move every three days or thereabouts. Three days is not a long time to explore a city, it’s sites and in manycases it’s beaches. It certainly doesnot leave a huge amount of time for writing. So, the low down.

Vietnam was a hugely enjoyable country to travel. In spite of all the horror stories we heard from fellow travellers (muggings, theft, aggressive denizens and psycho bus drivers) we found the country to be mostly safe and the people to be mostly friendly. Douglas Adams might have dubbed it “mostly harmless,“ but there was more to it than that. It was the most diverse and exciting part of our trip thus far. There were a couple of cretins along the way, but that applies to most places around the world in my experience. The biggest cretin I have met so far was undoubtedly in Cambodia and he was “A Rhodesian.” When I explained to him that time moves on and twenty nine years has passed in the interim he became petulant. He prided himself on being a “Colonial,” having been born in Wales (of Indian lineage) and lived in colonies of the British Empire for much of his life. The irony is that under Rhodesian rule he would have been a class two citizen of the country, and as a mixed race citizen would have faced blatant discrimination and segregation. Despite having lived in Rhodesia as it was then, he was incredibly ignorant about the country. “I still drank in all the sports clubs” he boasted. Well, whoopy doo mister. Social Darwinism found its nest in his heart, AIDS was the result of a black government and it went to pot in 1980 apparently. The conversation ebbed and flowed (we were in a large group of people thankfully) but as the local wine flowed he became more surly and aggressive. By the end of the evening, I felt there two options left open to me with the way the evening was going. These were (a) to punch him before he punched me and then end up in the beautiful but squalid Kampot jail for the night or (b) call a spade a spade and head off to bed. I chose the latter which was probably wise in retrospect. So in all my time travelling it seems that the biggest plonker I have met hails, in part, from my very own country.

We spent longer in Saigon than anywhere else in Vietnam, not because we particularly like big cities but rather because there is a lot to see and do. The museums were interesting and it is here that so much of Vietnam’s history took place. We visited the War Museum, the Cu Chi tunnels, the Re-Unification Palace and spent time just exploring the city. We learnt to cross a road in Saigon. Trust me, it takes a while to get used to throwing yourself in front of four lanes of speeding scooters. From Saigon we caught up North to the coastal town that is Mui Ne. It was a Friday afternoon and the traffic out of Saigon was incredibly heavy. Saigon sprawls for mile upon mile and it must have been a couple of hours before we had made it out of the city. Our four hour trip to the coast became a six hour one of brake lights and horns. But it was worth it. Mui Ne is known for it’s waves and it was great to dip into an ocean where there some surf. The current pulls to the left very strongly and we would start at one part of the beach and end up at another. But as the beach with it’s wide sand stretches along for ten kilometres this is not so much of a problem.

It was not just for the beaches that we went to Mui Ne but also the sand dunes that are a few kilometers inland. The dunes are red in one area and white in another and cover a fairly expansive area. We started off at 4.45am with an irritable jeep driver who was not big

on small talk. Then again at that time of the day who can blame him? We did the white dunes first, watching the sun rise from atop the dunes. It was a beautiful dawn and after some time there we moved onto the red dunes. Where there had only been a handful of people at the white dunes the red dunes teamed with people. Local Vietnamese families covered every dune in sight, using hired sleds to shoot down the dunes. Vendors sold food from baskets hanging from their shoulders on bamboo poles. Laughing children, smiling women, men with their jeans rolled up around their ankles and sweat on their foreheads. It was a convivial and friendly atmosphere. One of the great things about Vietnam was seeing local Vietnamese people enjoying the outdoors as opposed to tourist dominated hotspots where the only locals were hawking goods. The trip ended with a visit to the local fishing village where our eyes bulged at the amount of food that was being hauled from the ocean, whilst wicker basket-like boats bobbed about on the waves. The stench of salt water and fish was ferocious and on every side were blankets of fish, crabs, weighing scales and women with heavy poles and baskets slung over their shoulders. Finally we went to the “Fairy Spring,” a shallow creek that runs through a dazzling red clay valley of sand dunes. Wading through the cooling waters was a good end to a very busy, long and hot morning.

Dalat

After the blistering hot beaches of Mui Ne it seemed wise to head up into the mountains of Dalat. At an altitude of about 1500 metres above sea level Dalat is four precipitous hours from Saigon, heading almost directly North, away from the coast and up into the interior of the country. The winding drive is breathtaking and the sinu

ous route had a few people reaching for their little blue plastic bags. One of the first things that stuck me about being in Dalat was the weather. It was like being back in the UK. The sun, impossible to escape for nearly five months now, was nowhere to be seen. It was grey, wet, cold. Not raining, not dry. Just persistent damp.

And it was refreshing for a change! It felt great to put a fleece on and zip it up. This weather has many implications on the area. The French used to use it as a retreat from the heat, and as such there is an old French Street and the very quaint train station. More recently, Dalat is rumoured to be Vietnam’s number one honey moon spot. It is also where a whole host of Western Vegetables are grown in Vietnam and the fresh produce is diverse and cheap. Flower farms are scattered through the hills as are silk worm factories and a host of other industries including Dalat wine. The wine is not bad either. The best way to see Dalat is to get a couple of motorbike riders (the self styled Easy Riders) who will take you through the region and beyond if money and time are no object. After much debating (can we afford it? Sounds expensive?) we took a day trip and it was without a doubt one of the best things we did in Vietnam

. If I could do the trip again I think I would allow a three or four day Easy Rider trip through Vietnam. Our concerns about the ability of our guides to speak English was quashed when one of the first things he said was “Lovely Jubbly.“ Our day trip started off in Dalat town, firstly looking at the Linh Quang Pagoda and then heading out into the lush countryside. The great thing about being on a motorbike is that you can stop anywhere. We looked at the waterfalls in the area, the silk farms and the local hooch distillery. Sadly the local hooch was not available for sampling. We ended up back in town, overlooking an aerial mast fashioned to replicate the Eiffel Tower and near the train station where the token carriages were painted with a red, white and blue motif.

The next leg of the trip took us from the hills of Dalat along a wildly meandering road back down to sea level and the beaches of Nha Trang. Along the way you find yourself in a Catch 22 like scenario. The scenery is remarkably beautiful, but the road meanders so hideously that if

you look anywhere but straight ahead nausea becomes your new best friend. Immediately around me I could see four people paling rapidly and discreetly disgorging

into plastic bags. Finally the gradient decreases and with the hills behind you, the beaches of Nha Trang stretch away in front. After walking into town and finding accommodation we made our way down to the promenade and were befriended by a Vietnamese couple after pulling faces at their young child. It was the kind of “Oh how cute” faces that struck up the conversation, but whilst in Vietnam we met some really friendly locals which was great. It is nice to be genuinely befriended as opposed to sold to continually, it is one of the things that I notice now. The principle draw of Nha Trang are the miles of glistening beaches, but there is plenty more to do as well. The town itself bustles with life and there is plenty to see if you tear yourself away from the beaches. For us this was not too hard, it was bucketing down with rain most of the time we were there. Among the sights was the gallery of the Vietnamese photographer Long Thanh, a fishing harbour where the fishing boats (similar to those in Mui Ne) look like giant wicker baskets and Long Son Pagoda. Above the Pagoda, set atop a hill, is a giant Buddha, the base of which features bust reliefs of the seven monks who died by self emolliation protesting the South Vietnamese government of Ngo Dinh Diem. Whilst my big toe did not make it into the ocean on account of the weather, Nha Trang was still worthwhile.

Heading North by sleeper bus our next pit stop, eight hours up country, was rustic Hoi An. Hoi An is famed for its tailors.

Figuring that if the locals are good with scissors then this would be a good place for a haircut is a fatal mistake. I can testify to this, they cut cloth better than hair. Promise. But Hoi An is all charm. It is graceful and at night the evening comes alive with lanterns and street markets where the food fantastic and the restaurants advertise “Fresh Beer.” The beer is cheap, the food good and the town’s vibe is vibrant and yet laid back. The market at dawn is worth the 5am wake up call and a Vietnamese coffee a couple of hours later braces you for the rest of the day. As if Hoi An did not have enough to see and do with i

t’s ubiquitous art galleries, tailors and riverside walks the Marble Mountains are a bus ride away and a good way to spend the day. Carved out of - you’ve got it -marble, the mountain features numerous pagodas, temples and caves that house more temples. Edentate women with red mouths from chewing beet peddle incense sticks, rewarding the lucky by showing them some of the more clandestine sights of the complex. Hoi An is another place that I would like to make it back to, particularly in the wet season when the whole town becomes flooded and the streets are best mooched by boat.

By now the clock was seriously ticking for us and in spite of having wanted to spend time in Danang, we ended up taking the

bus straight through to Hue, the old imperial capital of Vietnam. Hue is home to the Forbidden City and is bisected by the Perfume River. The town itself ranges from the beautiful promenade to the sprawling mass of motorbikes and narrow streets. It is a rewarding place to spend some time though. It was thirty eight degrees when we were there which was a bit too hot to do much, but I still managed to spend a day roaming the Imperial Citadel. I ate three over priced ice creams and drank who knows how many litres of water. And shot 4 gig of photographs. It is beautiful and so rich in culture. As the sun sets the area in front of the citadel comes alive with kite fliers and colour, whilst in the background, blustered from the 37 metre high flagpole (the highest in Vietnam) a giant Vietnamese flag billows out in the warmth of the last light of the day. We ate Japanese food at a charitable restaurant supporting street kids called JASS, only to find out that the name had been copied by a nefarious business mind set on capitalising on JASS’s good name. We ate at a different JASS the next evening, so hopefully one of them was the real deal.

Hue was soon behind us and we found ourselves on board a sleeper bus with real-ish beds. The comfort was short lived, we were at the back of the bus above the engine. I woke up half way through the night with my back feeling like I had passed out with the electric blanket still on, whilst above the air conditioning unit chucked out huge volumes of freezing air. It is quite a bizarre sensation to feel like your back is in a wok and your front in an icebox. At a roadstop along the way I got out with a couple of other travellers from the back section to chew the fat. We watched some locals eating one of the Vietnamese delicacies, a semi-incubated egg that has been boiled. Once the shell is off the egg is traced by a network of veins and arteries. It should be the best of two worlds really, I love eggs and eat silly amounts of chicken. But put the two together like that and erm, I’m gonna pass this one thanks.

We arrived in Hanoi at six the next morning, I promptly got lost whilst looking for accommodation and found an unimpressed Nipun two hours later, dutifully watching our bags and patiently waiting for me.

The alleys for which the city is famous, do kind of look the same on the first day in town. Hanoi sprawls and motorbike drivers patrol each and every street trying to get you to take a ride across town with them. Vendors try and trick you into picking up their bamboo poles with fruit laden baskets for a photo opportunity, and then charge you for the privilege. Cyclo riders bombard you and ask you to take a trip through the old Latin quarter with them. It is a busy city, and one that can leave you feeling harassed pretty quickly. We were already pretty exhausted by the time we made it this far North and so it was not too long before we had booked our onward travel into the mountains of Sapa. And if the rain was bad in Nha Trang, then in Sapa it was a deluge. For three days spent there, it rained for over two and half. But having said this Sapa was stunning. We did manage to get out for a couple of hours on motorbikes and the country side was magnificent. Terraced rice fields stretched away beneath mountains and verdant fields stretched away as far as you could see. Which was not that far because of the fog. But you get the picture. Less appealing than even the rain were the local hawkers who tried to sell anyone and everyone no end of trinkets. “No” does not mean no in Sapa, it means “Challenge.” The Hill Tribe ladies and girls are really sweet at first, but make for very aggressive and determined sales ladies.

But then such is the beauty of Sapa that I would return there immediately with no qualms. My only disappointment is that the weather conspired against us with hellfire and brimstome. And then before we knew it we were back in Hanoi, headed for the airport and soon to be in Bangkok.

Saigon: Worth Many Thousand Words

2009-07-27T19:21:00.000-07:00

On arrival in Vienam it became apparent that we were really going to be up against it it terms of time. Having entered from the very deep south and leaving (in four days) from the north there has been a lot of ground to cover, and a huge amount to see on that ground. As we have been on a bus every two or three days the blogging has been falling to pieces, so I figure that if a picture is worth a thousand words, then uploading a buch of pictures should adequately cover my shortcomings in the writing department. That, coupled with the fact that we stumbled upon Bia Hoi Hanoi last night and a glass of fresh draught beer cost about 6000 Dhong -or 20 pence. The locals love to shout "100 percent" as a toast. This translates as "Finish you glass now." Juvenile? Maybe. Fun? Hell Yeah! Writing would be an insurmountable task today so have some pictures instead.

First up is a sculpture from the Museum of American War Crimes in Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon as it is mostly referred

to. Saigon was fantastic. The city was constantly alive and had all the sophistication of a modern, first world city combined with all

the bizarre things that you see in Asia. It had highways and alleyways, fine dining and stalls on the road serving dog and weasel coffee. But back to the museum, it is chilling. I cannot say that it is entirely un-prejudiced, but it does showcase the brutality of the Americans in Vietnam. There are photos of grinning goons holding up decapidated heads and horrific pictures and preserved foetuses of Agent Orange victims. It is sombre to say the least. It also offers a timeline of the Vietnam War and a remarkable photography exhibition dedicated to the photojournalists that were killed in the Indochinese Conflict and Vientam War. I got to see photos by some of my heroes including Robert Capa, Nick Ut, Larry Burrows and too many others to mention. Pictures that I have only seen in books until now were hanging from the walls in abundance. They had to kick me out at closing time, and I vowed to return the next day but time was against us and we ended up in the Cu Chi underground tunnels, the underground networks of tunnels that the Vietnamese used to defeat the Americans. There is more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%E1%BB%A7_Chi_tunnels

I found them horribly claustrophobic and they had me gagging for fresh air, but then again if the other options was Napalm exploding overhead then I think I could have been persuaded to stay down there a little longer.

Ok, this is really two pictures but I make the rules here and I am counting it as one. Not the best diptych in the world but down and dirty and quick, which is what we need at the moment. Saigon, as mentioned, has all the contradictions you can think of. Traffic is just one of these, and if the joke was to be re-written it would go something like "How did the chicken cross the road." And then, just five minutes away from all the congestion and chaos you have alleyways with markets, locals scurrying through narrow walkways carrying coffee pots and the occassional motorbike barging its way through, hooting and erratically accelerating.

Quite by chance we ended up at the Hindu temple in Saigon. We were on our way to a museum when our cyclo rider asked Nipun if she was from India. She affirmed this and he pointed across the road at a colourful building which is Saigon's which he explained was the only temple for Hindu's in Saigon. We ventured inside and soon got talking to the priest, a Vietnamese of Indian descent. He was such an aimiable man, gregarious and yet also sage and full of warnings about Saigon for us. Among these was do not buy anything until you have been given a definite price, and not let anyone put something into your hand or over your shoulder, because if you do, you will have to pay for it. We spent a good half hour with him nattering away before he bestowed a small gift of fruit (prashad) on us and we were on our way again. The temple was beautiful and his friendliness completed the experience. What was most interesting is that a lot of Budhists were present in the Hindu temple and praying to Hindu deities, which I thought was kinda cool. They embraced a different religion and looked for similarities instead of differences. And in turn they were welcomed inand let to go about their prayers without any chiding or proselytsing. I found that acceptance and common respect of each other a breath of fresh air. If only there was more of that.

We paid a visit to the Ho Chi Minh city museum during our time in this great city. The museum traces the history of Saigon right back to when it was a primitive port town that produced pottery and eartherware and traces the places development over town. The museum was not the best that we have seen, it seemed a bit random in places. However the building that houses the museum is stunning and worth the visit for this alone. What we did not know though is that several newly weds use the place as a location for their wedding

pictures. There were about twenty couples in outfits that ranged from traditional brightly coloured clothes (she in red and he in blue) to white suits and dresses. Restless photogrpahers patrolled the museum waiting for their turn to use a desirable location. I skulked in the back ground and bounced a flash off the ceiling whilst no one was paying attention!

The Saigon Central Post Office is just across the road from the city's very own Notre Dame Cathedral. This was a bit of a find for us really, we saw it from across the road and had no idea how beautiful it was. The curved roof with its skylights are magnificent and fill the post office with soft, beautiful light that wraps around every surface. Without a tripod I was reduced to having to use a narrow table top for a support, so this picture could be sharper, but hey, it gets the message across!!! More to follow soon, we are about to be thrown out of our hotel room so gotta run!

Vietscam?

2009-07-25T07:36:00.000-07:00

The Lonely Planet edition for Vietnam dedicates roughly ten pages to dangers, scams, annoyances and thefts. Spread throughout the book these methods range from petty acts of criminality to more, shall we say, in your face methods of appropriating your goods. On page 468 they make some attempt at reassurance with the words “In spite of all of this, don’t be overly paranoid.” Which is almost like saying “Yup, you’re gonna get done so don’t worry be happy.” Paranoid I was. By the time we entered Vietnam my camera bag was attached to the belt loops of my jeans by a length of chain and a steel clip. “Let’s hope they don’t take your pants with them too” my Vietnamese friend Huy, back in the UK, commented. The bag itself is padlocked closed and our rucksacks are chained together and locked. Happily we are three weeks into Vietnam now and nothing has gone missing, in fact we have not run into any trouble whatsoever and the Vietnamese have been superbly friendly. Of course we are not out of the woods just yet, but we are well over half way through and Vietnam has been the best place we have been to, if it is possible to make such fickle comparisons that is.

We entered Vietnam from Cambodia and arrived in the riverside and coastal town of Ha Tien. Ha Tien is a border town and during the 1970’s was heavily attacked by the marauding Khmer Rouge army. Thousands of civilians were murdered and tens of thousands residents fled their homes until the Khmer Rouge was toppled by the Vietnamese in 1979. In an unkempt, rural way Ha Tien possessed a charming character with blue and red fishing boats docked along the river and one horse motorbike streets. A new modern bridge crosses the river and to the right as you head away from town the gulf of Thailand glistens below. We rode into town on the back of motorcycles, rucksacks balanced at the front of the bikes, followed by the driver followed by one of us followed, in my case, by a camera bag and a tripod. It was an ungainly entrance, but a method of travel we were soon to master as there are no tuk-tuks in Vietnam. A couple of things became quickly apparent in Ha Tien, firstly that next to nobody speaks English and secondly, that the budget guest houses are like something out of the Hammer House of Horror. The first place we looked at had our local motorbike riders shaking their heads and muttering about the massages and ‘boom boom’ - that would be a happy ending to your massage and not an all night party as you could be forgiven for thinking. We looked at a couple more places, each grimmer than the one before until eventually our motorbike drivers convinced us that our best bet would be the beach, situated 8km away. It has to be said that the motorbike driver who spoke (some) English was a bit of a sly old dog and maybe there were better places in Ha Tien that he decided not to show us. He was quite keen on getting some cash out of us for the running us out of town meant that he could do this. In any event it was a fortuitous decision as the beach in Ha Tien was completely un-Westernised and consisted of fully dressed Vietnamese people in their jeans and golf shirts wading into the ocean and frolicking in the waves.

An intrepid photographer darted in after them snapping pictures and then holding his camera and flash head high before the approaching waves drenched his equipment. The beach in Ha Tien was also memorable for it’s seaside restaurant whose menu, boasted “Blind Gobi Orange Fever,” or “Steamed Swimming with Beer.” We never did ascertain what these delicacies were but my mirth was short lived when I got to “Grilled Dog.” To add to this startling revelation, three pooches mooched around the porch and panted by our feet. Were they livestock…? Pets…? I don’t want to know. One way or another the staff found us to be an amusing spectacle as we attempted to decipher the menu and they attempted to decipher us. We left town the next day, making our way to the bus step where we had breakfast with the locals and a grinning elderly gentleman offered me a wife swap, his for mine. The locals howled with laughter and Nipun seemed up for it but I figure better the devil you know.

We caught a minibus inland to a town called Rach Gia before getting a second bus to Can Tho. The Vietnamese are not too shy when it comes to personal space and it was not too long before the man next to me fell asleep on my shoulder. I woke him up a couple of times by jabbing my shoulder into his face as we bounced along the road, not hard enough to hurt but hard enough to make my point. He was unabashed though and within minutes he was drooling and softly snoring again, his cheek pressed to my shoulder and his body at a jaunty 45 degree angle. The journey itself was beautiful and as we travelled through the Mekong Delta with the sun setting we traversed several rivers and canals, all crammed with markets and boats and buzzing with activity. We arrived in Can Tho at about eight o’clock that night and after months in Laos and Cambodia it was an eye-opener, the town hummed with life. Ubiquitous neon signs for bars, coffee houses and hotels lit up the night and motorcycles came at you from every plausible angle. The town was truly alive with life and light and was the most frenetic city we had seen in about three months. It felt like being a yokel from the county. Situated in the Mekong Delta Can Tho is the largest city in the region and serves as the transportation and economic backbone for the region. Our explorations took us through town where we had KFC and found a shops that sell high street fashions, new laptops and phones and sound systems. On the other side of the town is the river front, which during the evening makes for a refreshing retreat from the city and also has some very fine restaurants.

Our main reason for stopping in Can Tho was to see the floating market and we arranged this down at the waterfront with a lovely lady who spoke broken English and served as our guide for the boat trip into the market at 5.00 AM the next day. The floating market was, for me, a fairly unique experience and really enjoyable. As you get into the market you can order good quality hot black coffee from one of the boats next to you, or should you fancy a nibble then a bowl of noodle soup. Most of the boats sell fruit and fresh veg, the produce being easily identified from afar by a length of bamboo that, like an aerial, protrudes into the air. At the top of this bamboo there will be a melon, or a bunch of rambutan fruit. It is exotic and thoroughly enjoyable. Like many of the Vietnamese towns we have been in Can Tho also has myriad small alley ways to discover and explore, with markets selling anything from boat propellers stacked high to clothing to a man who has set up a barbers chair and cuts hair and cleans out ears. And then were back to the bus station again negotiating our fare out of Can Tho by minibus, headed for Saigon.

Vietnam: The Route so Far

2009-07-18T20:11:00.001-07:00

We are way behind schedule with posting our journey so far and I will sit down and get more on paper soon. This posting is a journey planner entry for anyone doing our trip in the future - the photos and superlative nonsense will follow soon. And "Hi mum, we are alive!" Just thought I would let you know!

We are currently in the very quaint and tranquil Hoi An, Vietnam. I say tranquil but maybe this is not altogether true, there are over three hundred tailors all wanting to make me a suit and the same number of motorbike taxis all wanting to ferry me to the marble mountains. But I like Hoi An, a lot. It is rustic and romantic, and very alive.

The route that we have taken so far is as follows:

Kep (Cambodia) to Ha Tien (Vietnam), a small city where not many people speak English and we actually had to actively look for a man on a motor bike to take us anywhere. Accommodation was dire in the budget range, based on the handful of places that we looked at. The place we did stay in seemed to double up as a brothel, not that I checked that is. It is close to the sea and quite refreshing in its complete lack of Western tourists. The sea was populated with modest Vietnamese swimming fully dressed, complete with jeans and polo neck shirts.

From Ha Tien we took a bus to Rach Gia (two hours) before getting a connecting bus to Can Tho (apprx two hours again from memory) the same afternoon. As opposed to what the touts may tell you, you can get your connecting tickets with in the bus station and there is no need to jump on a motorbike to go anywhere else. Rach Gia seemed to be a bustling, commercial town and may have been worth a night or two, but the thirty visa is a pain in the proverbial. Rach Gia does not seem like a tourist town and there in will lie it's attraction for some.

Can Tho is beautiful and combines a busy centre with a charming water front. The main reason for our stay here was the floating market. I went twice, leaving at 4.45am each morning to catch first light and then sunrise. It is beautiful, but it gets very hot. Early is your best bet! Later in the day you can catch up on your sleep. It is too hot to do anything else.

Our next leg took us from Can Tho to Saigon. A lot of people we have spoken to hated the big city, I found it fascinating. It's museums are great and me eyes were roved like a chameleon's with all the sights. I was there for close on a week which has seriously messed up my schedule.

After the bustle of Saigon it was time to hit the beach at Mui Ne, a beach with real waves and a slight chill to the water. Sundowners in the evening are fantastic and the cocktails are on special so it is difficult to go too far wrong. Mui Ne is also famous for it's red and white sand dunes, get there for dawn and watch the sun come up. The jeep driver may try and bully you into spending a but few minutes there but it is all part of the game. There is also a brilliant fishing village and the fairy spring, both worth investigating.

From Mui Ne we moved on to mountainous Dalat, a vertiginous drive through stunning mountains capped with clouds and a melody passengers throwing up into blue plastic bags from the serpentine bends. No trip to Dalat would be complete without getting a Easy Rider (steady on, that is the name of a company of professional guides who take you through the country by motorbike) for at least a day (US$20.00 for a day trip). They are expensive, but in terms of value for money they are worth every cent of that twenty dollars. A longer trip (eg the three day trip with them from Dalat to Nha Trang) would set you back $65.00 a day, if time was on our side we may have done this. The guides are excellent and from a photographic point of view you have all the freedom that a bus deprives you of. And the scenery is stunning. In fact if time was on our side I WOULD have done this. Next time.

We took the bus from Dalat to Nha Trang, again rich with the sound of travel sick passenger and verdant, heady scenery. Nha Trang is famous for it'sturquoise ocean and 8km beach, it also has some very cool pagodas and photographic galleries. The final leg was the eleven hour bus slog from Nha Trang to Hoi An. Next stop Hue!

You said "HOW MUCH!!!!"

2009-07-10T00:00:00.001-07:00

Or alternatively somewhere to lay your sleepy head.

I am working on this at the moment and it will be posted right at the beginning of the blog as the first entry. Update: It is the only entry in Feb 09!

This will be down and dirty, functional information without the pretty pictures, aimed at those who need indicative prices and possibly the name of a place to stay. Some of it is Lonely Planet and Rough Guide recommendations, much of it is from people we have met along the way, but the benefit of this post will be that we have actually stayed a night in a bed here so hopefully the information will be accurate. The accommodation has varied from the pristine and clean to blood on the walls and bugs in the bed, but hey, that is all part of the adventure.

Included in this post will be accomodation costs, visa information as we found it and transport routes. This is all likey to change over time so none of this is gospel. And of course, being Asia, prices are usually negotiable. Obviously this post is aimed at people doing similar trips to us or anyone who wants to get a snap shop of prices. We will endevour to update this regularly but should you need any other information then ping me an email. Happy days.

South Cambodia

2009-07-09T22:35:00.000-07:00

There is a funeral going on outside our window. It is ten o’clock at night; an amplified voice penetrates the evening and is accompanied by frenetic, syncopated drumming. To this caterwaul add an Indian sounding piper playing a crazed melody that erratically cuts into the song. To one side of this devilish carnival there stands a small applauding crowd and a bald, hunch backed monk who taps away at a small coconut shaped drum with the precision of a metronome. To be fair, it feels and sounds nothing like a funeral. Whilst the dirge is melancholy in places, the drumming and the crowd is almost celebratory and we would not have known that this was an occasion of mourning it we had not asked what was going on. From our balcony we overlook the gathering, which is located down one of the small, labyrinth like alleyways in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City. We have been in Vietnam for about a week now, which means I have some catching up to do. So let us rewind to Phnom Penh, and the journey into southern Cambodia where the beaches glisten in the evening sun, a barbeque of fresh fish and lobster costsabout U$2.00 and the beer at happy hour (2pm to 7pm) is considerably cheaper than a bottle of coca-cola.

So....

Sihanokoville

Our journey from Phnom Penh was typical of most of our trips in Cambodia. The roads were good, the drivers sensible and the bus was new, air conditioned and punctual. The attention to the customers needs and desires went so far as to include a TV, which played karaoke songs such as Wham’s Careless Whispers and loved up numbers by Enrique Iglasias. Seldom have I been so happy about having an iPod with me. Personally I preferred the crazy departure from Laos where we were treated to Linkin Park featuring Jay Z at an eardrum shattering level. Jay Z cussed, Linkin Park hollered. It was far more agreeable, but then taste is subjective. Having clocked the entertainment on offer on the bus and consequently turned up my ipod to balance out the hapless couple that were Wham, reading proved difficult. Staring out the window greater Phnom Penh shot past. Again I was struck by how vast the city was, it sprawled. And then we were into rural Cambodia again. The countryside as we travelled South towards the coast was stunning and I would love to do this route again by ourselves, in our own transport. This would not be merely in an effort to escape Wham, (though of course this is motivation in itself ) but rather because the countryside is remarkable in it’s beauty and bus drivers are not always very understanding when you want to get out a camera, some filters and a tripod. As you get closer to the coast you ascend into a mountain range and then, suddenly, as you round a corner the sea sparkles between hills to the right. The sea is shades of dazzling green and blue capped with iridescent diamonds. The bus crosses over numerous rivers and then runs parallel to the coast before you enter the less picturesque town and bus station of Sihanoukville. The town itself seems quite industrial and to be fair, prosperous as Nipun observed; welders (naturally unafraid of arc eye and enthusiastically welding without masks) go about their business in pokey garages, tradesmen bustle and the new, busy market is a constant source of activity and movement.

On arrival at the bus station, over helpful hands made grabs at our bags in an attempt to chuck them onto tuk-tuks before a price could be negotiated. After a few minor and amiable fracases we got our bags on our backs and walked onto the main road. We have found that it is easier to negotiate a sensible, fair price for transport away from the station and it is certainly less stressful than being surrounded by a handful of eager drivers, cajoling and pushing each other in order to gain your favour. The attention in these situations can be a little overwhelming and stressful and my asperity has surprised me from time to time - after all these guys are just earning their daily living. But sometimes it can just be too much, the jovial joking side of me wilts and I get snappy. Then about half an hour later when I have calmed down I feel guilty and, I admit, like a complete prat for being such an irascible fiend.

At our guesthouse Nipun got chatting to the manager as she checked in. A couple of young British guys staying at the guest house were causing him some grief, aggressively asking him to remove a Vietnamese girl from their room (reading between the lines a call girl who for one reason or another who was going nowhere - go figure). Through gritted teeth he went on to tell Nipun how, when they had checked in, they had given him a sum of money for looking after. They told him it was US$800.00. When he counted it in front of them it was only $500.00. “And when they checked out, they would have accused me of stealing the money and I would have been responsible for paying them back” he concluded. In a similar incident he had been defrauded of about $500.00 last year, and held accountable for the loss. This time it was by an English guy who said he was off to the bank so he could settle his food and drink tab before leaving town. The man never came back. He had smuggled his luggage out and was off like a shot to Thailand. Needless to say the manager was somewhat contemptuous of the English. He eyeballed our passports and us we tried to convince him that we were nice people - really! But it is shameful that people with so much can steal from people with so little. I reckon that the manager of that hotel probably makes between $100 to $150 per month and is no position to pay back someone else’s bar bill.

We got changed and went down to the beach with as little delay as possible. Sihanouville is beautiful. We stayed next to Serendipity Beach which boasts soft, white sands and a sea (the Gulf of Thailand) that is warm and clear and dotted with vibrantly painted, wooden fishing boats. Paradise here is a shallow illusion though. On our walk along the beach on the first day I almost kicked a used syringe complete with hypodermic needle. One of the local ladies that offers massages on the beach shook her head in disgust and acted out a junky shooting up. Drugs, it seems are a big problem, both with the foreigners (surprise, surprise) and the local youth. Young kids of about ten also patrol the beach selling bracelets and trinkets and can get a little shirty when you refuse to buy anything from them. Sensibly the powers that be have forbidden any children from hawking goods after seven o’clock at night, a rule which we saw being enforced. We took a day trip the next day to three islands in the area which was well worth the money. We got to do some snorkelling, got burnt to a crisp and played some atrocious volleyball. That evening as we dined al fresco at a local Indian restaurant a huge commotion erupted across the dirt road at us. Locals leapt up, hollered, a table went flying. The table was then picked up and hurled repeatedly at the ground before a seven foot snake was triumphantly held up in the air. It was bad luck for the snake really, it was non-venomous. As Russell Hoban put it in the brilliant book Riddley Walker “Your turn now, my turn later.” Continuing this theme the next morning as we had breakfast CNN caught our attention. Something about Michael Jackson was going on and they were mentioning his upcoming concert. Ten minutes on and this was still going on until we clicked, he was dead.

Kampot

Our next stop was the somnambulistic town of Kampot. Rather than catch the tourist bus we took a shared minivan. Not only was the journey an adventure but the process too proved memorable. The first driver we found took our luggage and put in the boot of his car and then told us that we had to wait for more passengers before we could leave. In the interim Nipun found a minivan that was leaving immediately and was also cheaper. Our first driver however would not return our luggage for love or money. He became petulant, aggressive and hostile, refusing to budge. So I tried to wrest his keys from his pocket whereupon his surliness increased. Threats of the police were the only thing that made him laugh. Eventually, after the threats of physical force had joined the empty threats of the police action he relented and sulkily returned our baggage and we were on our way. The shared minivan was shared with about two tons of mephitic barley, picked up from a depot in town before we set off. Bags of fifty kilograms were hoisted into the van until the rear view mirror was transmogrified into a useless accessory, six old ladies also on their way to Kampot were bundled into the remaining row of seats and then we on our very smelly way. As we continued down the coast towards Kampot the scenery got better and better, the rivers increase in size and swell into the ocean, littered with villages and smiling kids that wave from the side of the road. I really regret the fact that we spent so little time in South Cambodia.

Kampot seemed almost like it had been picked up out of Laos and dropped into Cambodia. It is a small, lethargic town, set by the river and populated with dilapidated but graceful French colonial buildings. The restaurants and riverside bars are fantastic and the town has a relaxed and cheerful feel to it. It’s old bridge is worth the visit to the town alone. The bridge was destroyed during the Khmer Rouge years and has been rebuilt by throwing together a bewildering combination of materials. The main section of the bridge is covered by steel chequer plates that clank like a train track as motorbikes and tractors traverse it. Kampot prison is nearby, and alarmingly close to the guesthouses in town. The prison is as beautiful as a prison can be, after all it was built by the French and is painted in a soft saffron colour that catches the evening sun and glows with warmth. The inside, I have just read, is not so grand… “A surge in inmates in Kampot prison has led to severe overcrowding and mounting health problems, including malnutrition, prison and provincial health officials said Thursday. In particular, several prisoners suffer from tuberculosis, skin infections and hypertension, said Lim Kaing Eang, chief of Kampot's provincial health department.” There are two other reasons that Kampot enjoys some fame, one is for Kampot Pepper, some of the finest in the world (trust me on this one, we had a Kampot pepper sauce and it was practically enough to get me filling in an emigration request) and the second is the nearby Bokor National Park and Bokor Hill Station.

Bokor

The main reason that we wanted to see Kampot was it’s proximity to Bokor Hill Station, a visit that cost us US$50.00 to do but which was worth every penny. Access to the Hill Station is now sporadic as the government builds a monstrosity of a new hotel nearby, from the drawing being displayed an anachronistic eyesore that hails back to the flamboyant but tacky hotel architecture of the seventies. The irony is that the environs are stunning and that the new hotel will be entirely unsympathetic to the landscape in which it will be set. Furthermore the impact on the Hill Station and its historic grandeur will be awful unless it is micromanaged, and this is unlikely to happen.

The original hotel was built atop Phnom Bokor by the French as a retreat from the heat and humidity of the main cities. At an altitude of over 1000 metres the hotel grounds overlook a vertical drop into the ocean below. The view can be mesmerising. I say “can be” because the hotel is so high up that clouds often sweep across the building and render them into an obscure fog. As you push along the road you suddenly see the hulking structure of the hotel or its outbuildings manifest before you, much like a ghost ship appearing from the mist. The overall effect is positively eerie, and then as suddenly as the clouds rolled in they are gone again. In the sun the Hill Station and the nearby cathedral glow amber in the sun, the walls being covered in an orange lichen. To add to the overall uneasiness the place inspires the walls are pocked with bullet holes from conflicts between the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese.

Kep

It was time to ago again, the few days that we spent in Kampot with it’s rusted corrugated roofs and ubiquitous volleyball games was too short. But we only a few days left in Cambodia before the visas ran out and so we moved onto the seaside of Kep, forty minutes down the road. The first thing that strikes you about Kep are the Hindu statues that line the road as you drive into town. Indeed Kep seems to be populated by statues in a variety of styles and quality. As you stroll down the main beach for example, the alabaster white Naked Fisher Man’s wife stares at you from across the beach, eight feet high and ensconced upon the end of the pier. It is refreshing that there is so much sculpture in Kep though. Owing to the seaside town’s bourgeois heritage (it was a quintessential seaside resort, the French loved it and the former King had a palace here) the Khmer Rouge decimated the town and as you walk along the seafront the old ruins of burnt out houses and villas. As such the town has an undiscovered feel to it in places, particularly in the early mornings. Local rumour has it that some of the burnt old buildings house ghosts, and at this time of the day it is easy to imagine why.

The beach in Kep was not as picturesque or the sea as inviting as it was at Sihanoukville and the nearby islands. However the crab market more than makes up for this. At dawn each day the grainy shore in front of the market is filled with women wading into the water to check crab traps, they return with baskets stuffed to bursting point with crabs and lobster. These are put onto scales, chucked into baskets and off they are taken. The quantity of crab that tumbles from trap to baskets made our jaws drop. Is this sustainable? Who knows. There are thousands of crabs being fished, weighed, put on ice and dispatched. Some of this crab stays put though and is served up at the twenty or so quaint shacks that line the beach. We had a sea fish lunch one day, more crab than we could eat, bursting with flavour and fist sized prawns caught that morning. From memory it cost us about US$10.00, which for this neck of the woods is expensive. But the quality and freshness of the food, coupled with the view of the ocean and rounded off with a Kampot Pepper sauce was worth every penny. It was our last day in Kep and the following morning we had an early breakfast at the Star Hotel (which was housing the president at the time) before getting a tuk-tuk (that we had pre-arranged) to the relatively new Vietnamese border post at Ha Tien. After about half an hour of driving through verdant rice fields with the smell of fish drying out in the sun hanging thickly in the air, our tuk tuk driver handed us over to some motorbike drivers who got us across the border and into town.

We had heard that crossing into Vietnam could be a bureaucratic nightmare, made more difficult by antagonistic and rude officials. Nothing could have been further from the truth at Ha Tien and the process was entirely painless. We were into Vietnam and Cambodia, sadly, was behind us.

We loved Cambodia, the people were generally friendly and good fun, the culture rich and the landscape beautiful. Of course everywhere has its problems though. It was a land of those who had plenty and of others who had very little. We saw shocking injuries on men and women whose lives had been shattered by landmines, children working the streets late at night and then the plain old homeless and destitute. A recent survey by Transparency International ranked Cambodia as the 14th most corrupt country in the world. Nepotism is alive and well a select few seem sure to prosper. And yet on the other hand for a country where monetary currency was only re-introduced in 1979 (after the Khmer Rouge declared Year Zero and effectively abolished money in Cambodia) the Khmer people have come along a very long road in a very short time. I was apprehensive when I entered Cambodia because the history was so brutal, so bloody and so recent. And yet our time here revealed that this is just one small aspect of a land where people are getting on with their daily lives and making a go of it. Cambodia was wonderful.

It is about 3.00 AM now and the funeral is still going strong. We have gone from the live band to karaoke to Buddhist chants and now it is time to go to bed. What a time they have had tonight, we should have joined them!

Kings and Beggars ~ Phnom Penh

2009-07-03T01:18:00.000-07:00

Phnom Penh could be one of the truly great drinking cities of the world, I am sure of it. The ubiquitous bars and pubs range from the sleek and slick to the raw and crowded, the punters from the gregarious and affluent to the blotchy, desperate drunk of near destitution. In one river front bar we were in, pseudo trendy pop art posters decorated chocolate brown and textured walls, quoting Hunter S Thomson. A couple of blocks down the only colour in the room came from a television set screening a Khmer Boxing match where two men kicked, elbowed and kneed each other around the ring. I have always looked at drinking as an indulgent and carefree past time; the carefree aspect becomes difficult in Phnom Penh. It is a city of contrasts, and the drinking culture is a very base way of illustrating this. As you sit in one of the cafes or open street bars that shimmer with mood lights and bright tables and indulge in a glass of beer (or whatever your poison of choice may be, even absinth is on offer), it will not be long before a young child, cap in hand approaches to beg for food or money. Or to sell you a black market photocopied book or a hand woven bracelet. And then shortly afterwards a landmine victim, on crutches if he or she is lucky enough to still have legs, will approach. And then a young woman with a child on her back. Around this point we look at our drinks in despair and they seem a wanton, frivolous thing. A pleasure-less guilty pleasure. Of course you can retreat into one of the roof top bars or hide behind closed doors, but you know all too well what is waiting outside. Phnom Penh could be one of the truly great drinking cities of the world, but it fails because it is difficult to really enjoy a drink whilst desperation beats on the back door. In the annual poll of the best and worst cities to live in (based on many factors varying from political freedom and economics to culture and quality of life), Phnom Penn came in towards the bottom of the list. My dear Sunshine City, Harare, came in at last.

Phnom Penh is located at the confluence of four rivers, the Lower and Upper Mekong Rivers, the Tonle Sap and the Tonle Bassac. As you look out towards the great body of water where the mud coloured rivers swell and mix it is hard not to imagine that you are near some great coastal port. In fact the sea is still a couple of hundred kilometres south where the Gulf of Thailand extends to meet Cambodia’s shoreline. Arriving by bus in Phnom Penh takes you through the myriad streets and mazes that make up the city, past ultra modern looking office blocks and a swanky stadium and then, conversely, through streets where the garbage lies out in the streets and the smells that greet your nostrils make them flare and your stomach churn. From the moment you step off the bus the cries of “Tuk-tuk,” “Moto” and “Cyclo” are ineluctable. We needed to get towards the river front and within minutes had reduced the price down from $10.00 (extortionate for the distance) to $2.00 (a lot more realistic). And then we were into the traffic of Phnom Penh, swimming upstream against the cars and bikes that came from all sides and then darting across the road into the right lane and in search of accommodation. We eventually found a room that was huge and clean, though the air conditioning beeped incessantly and the free wi-fi proved to be a myth. “When will it be fixed?” Nipun enquired.“Maybe three days” said the pretty girl behind reception.“Maybe three months” her colleague snorted derisively. Our accommodation was comfortable though, with a room the size of a football pitch and air conditioning that beeped irritably throughout the night until I silenced it at about three in the morning, fuzzy headed and cursing silently.

No visit to Phnpm Penh is really complete without a visit to the Tuol Sleng genocide museum, or S-21 (The “S” standing for Security Prison) as it was known. It is a grim way to spend time but I think an important journey to make, as it forms a chillingly real part of Cambodia’s troubled and recent history. The history of S-21 is well known and well documented. It was here that

about 17 000 “prisoners” were bought to be tortured and then executed. They were bought to the prison predominantly because they were suspected to be enemies of the state, or intellectuals who might challenge the Draconian rule of Pol Pot and his grinning gang of idiot thugs. The reality of it is that most of these terrified men, women and children had no idea why they had been bought here. And of these 17 000 prisoners only seven survived. It has been said that the prison was much like the nightmare that Kafka wrote about in “The Trial,” in other words once a prisoner had been arrested they were guilty, otherwise why would they have been arrested. Once arrested life became a hell of incarceration in tiny cells, brutality from guards and torture. It was not uncommon for prisoners to die whilst being interrogated - beaten, shocked, drowned or suffocated until there was no life left in their bloodied bodies. Every prisoner entering S-21 was photographed and their details were recorded, the men, women and most eerily, the children. As part of a photography course I did some time ago I had written about Tuol Sleng and the photographs (or negatives at least) that been discovered shortly after the Vietnamese liberated Phnom Penh from the Khmer Rouge. When the Vietnamese arrived they found the 14 mutilated bodies of the last prisoners to have been hastily murdered at the prison, the bodies being too far decomposed for identification. These victims are interred in the grounds of the museum now, which seems a shame. I would rather be buried any other place than the place where I had been tortured, humiliated and callously killed. The greatest irony of the prison though is that it had formerly been a school, populated by happy children and a place of enlightenment.

Walking through the museum you are taken through the torture cells (formerly classrooms) where the steel beds that were used to chain the prisoners too are still in situ. In each of these rooms a picture of the corpses that were found by the Vietnamese hangs from one of the walls. The body, still chained to the bed, displays a puddle of gore and blood beneath the metal slats it rests upon. Outside, what looks like a giant gallows, marks the place where prisoners had their hands tied behind their backs and were then hoisted (by their freshly bound arms) into the air. The pressure on their arms pinned behind their backs would dislocate their shoulders and when they passed out from the pain they were dunked head first into giant urns filled with fetid water, until, gagging, they regained consciousness. And then there are the thousands of black and white photographs that show the prisoners who were bought into this hell. Some are mere children, some look terrified and some defiant. Most just look scared and resigned. They were mostly told that they had been bought to this place to be “re-educated,” but I suspect that they mostly knew the truth. Once they had spent their allotted amount of time in the facility they were taken to the Choueng Ek killing fields where they were executed by being beaten across the back of the head or neck and then had their throats slit. There are stories of people being buried in the mass graves before they were fully dead. And at the killing fields itself flourishes the tree where several babies were killed, they were swung by their ankles into the tree trunk. 43 of the mass graves (of which there are 129) have still not been excavated, whilst 8000 skulls from those that have are now placed in the memorial on the grounds of Choueng Ek, The skulls are arranged according to sex and age and placed behind a glass partition.

After a day spent between Tuol Sleng and Choueng Ek a return to buoyant spirits seemed unlikely. We had dinner that night and I seem to remember it was a very early night. In total we spent about six days in Phnom Penn, the other highlight of this time being a trip to the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda. The Silver Pagoda was a bit of a let down, it’s name being derived from the fact that the floor is made up of 5000 silver tiles. The tiles are however mostly covered by a protective carpet and the ones that you can see looked to me like a raised access floor in an office, waiting to receive carpet tiles. The palace itself is amazing though, ornate and graceful and home to the King. The Khmer style of architecture (not dissimilar to the Thai it must be said) has an imposing grandeur, with high towers and brightly tiled roofs that reflect a dazzling array of colour in every direction. Next to the Royal Palace is the National Museum, and across from this a perfectly kept park where, at dawn and dusk, the Khmers come to play football, badminton and to relax. During the day when the temperature soars the park is completely deserted, but as the temperature drops the park fills up with life.

We enjoyed the buzz of Phnom Penh. It can be exhausting with the constant beckoning of tuk-tuk drivers and kids trying to sell you bracelets and books you already have, but generally once we spoke to these people and had a joke with them, they were lovely. And there was always some distraction, be it kids break dancing on the streets to earn some pocket money or the ubiquitous bars and coffee houses and clubs. And happily there are many community projects on the go in Phnom Penh, such as Friends, the restaurant that recruits former street children and trains them up in the hospitality industry and whose profits are put back into the community. As with so many of the places that we have been to I would like to go back to Phnom Penh. We really only scratched the surface there. So it goes.

Bamboo Trains and Crazy Markets

2009-07-03T00:47:00.000-07:00

The town of Battambang in North Western Cambodia in the country’s second largest city. Nestled in the province by the same name the region has a reputation for it’s fecundity, growing (at least according to the guide books and locals) the best rice, sweetest fruit and boasting the friendliest people; an apparent all round Utopia. Like London, Budapest, Paris and countless other cities it is divided by a river, the East bank being the newer up and coming area, whilst the West bank remains more historic with it’s colonial French dwellings and the central market, Psar Nat. Battambang was once Cambodia’s richest province and still retains a sense of that affluence, even the tuk-tuks are larger and grander, their colours seemingly more vibrant. The streets are frenetic with motorbikes converging on the streets from all angles and tuk-tuk drivers call out from all directions, “Hey, where you go tomorrow? See the train? The Killing Caves? Nice Temples!” The abundance of Moto-drivers and tuk-tuks can be accounted for by the fact that Battambang is the fourth most popular city with tourists coming into Cambodia, many drawn by the “Bamboo Train” that runs just outside of the town. Battambang is not all wealth and riches though, and it is a city of contrasts.

We arrived just outside the town by boat at about three o‘clock in the afternoon, having started off in Siam Reap at about 7 AM. The trip to Battambang by boat is a remarkable experience and worth every cent of the $19.00 ticket. Compared to the bus it is expensive - almost four times the price - and the journey time is longer too. But as is so often the way it is the journey and not the destination that makes the experience remarkable and this could not be truer than with this particular stretch of water. The boat departs from the floating village of Chong Kneas (abundant with life and colour) and makes its way South until it reaches main body of the Tonle Sap Lake. Here the sky touches the water at the horizon and the sun strikes the lake invigorating the water with glittering jewels. Interestingly the docking port at Chong Kneas and the village move with the level of the river as the seasons change. Lining the river are domestic dwellings and schools full of raucous children that float upon the river. In contrast to this happy cacophony, elderly ladies row by, water splashing from their oars and hawkers make their way from floating house to floating house, selling steaming food and fresh produce. Motorised boats with families aboard cruise past and the occasional long tail boat shoots past, churning the water into white foam. The whole experience is fascinating, but I suspect the fascination in somewhat one-sided. The Chong Kneas village has become a must on the itineraries of most travellers to Siem Reap, and as such the village is bombarded with tourists (no doubt all complaining that the experience is “over touristy“). We were fortunate enough to see the village early in the morning when it hummed with predominantly local life and it was a glorious start to a glorious journey. There are a few more floating villages along the way until finally, after having cut West across a small part of Tonle Sap Lake, you come to the canals that will lead you into Battambang. These back waters are reminiscent of the canals that we travelled in Kerala, India. On both banks the verdant countryside stretches back as far as the eye can see, with occasional rustic dwellings springing up from time to time. Along the way some of the land is given over to agriculture, whilst much of the area is a protected wetland and supports a wealth of bird life. As we made our trip westwards the sky gradually darkened and became more sullen until, at about two o’clock, the drizzle turned to rain and the remainder of the journey was undertaken behind thick canvas blinds. I was not too unhappy about this though; I had just finished reading an extremely depressing and erudite book on the Khmer Rouge’s “S-21” prison (S-21 by Michael Chandler) and had just commenced “The Great Railway Bazaar” by Paul Theroux. My second-hand copy of the paperback is held together by cello tape and creased and folded. The front page wishes “Robert” a happy birthday back in 1977. It is a wonderful read though, a travelogue that is relevant to us as it takes in parts of India, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Japan and then countless other countries that we will not get to.

The serenity of the journey was shattered upon arrival at Battambang where a desperate gang of tuk-tuk and minivan drivers met the ferry, braying for customers who they could take to the various guesthouses in town. The competition is fierce and the drivers will take you into town for free in the hope that you might use their services the next day to visit the local sights. We suspected that the hotels pay them a commission for bringing in guests, but allegedly this is not the case. Rather they are touting for prospective customers as the low season kicks in and trade begins to dissipate. Times are pretty tough for these guys, but they are by no means the worst off. We checked into the Hotel Royal (US$7.00), close to the central market and had a meal before falling asleep at about nine o’clock. It seems that sometimes on the days that you do the least the weariness is most profound.

The following morning we were sitting in a café having breakfast and an alarmingly sugary cinnamon bun when a couple from the boat approached us and asked us if we had left a book on the boat. We had, I had left the S21 book behind in a no doubt sub-conscious effort to forget about the brutality of the pages contained within. After shooting the breeze the couple, called Patrick and Barbara from Switzerland, decided to join us on a tuk-tuk ride to the Killing Caves and the Bamboo train. Patrick pulled out but Barbara came along and we made our way to The Killing Caves, about fifteen miles outside Battambang. The caves were a Khmer Rouge killing ground back in those most horribly benighted times. The sick and elderly who had outlived their use to the regime, along with any perceived enemies of the state (intellectuals, people who wore glasses or anyone that just grumbled too much) would be marched up a steep hill and made to kneel at the top. They were then beaten across the back of the head and neck with an iron ox cart axle, hopefully killing them. To be sure of the deed though, their throats were then slit and the corpses thrown into the limestone cavern below. This was of course the Khmer Rouge and bullets were deemed to expensive for the extermination of supposed enemies. It is not a very cheery journey to make but we went into the cave which now houses a reclining Buddha and some Buddhist Nuns. Above is the skylight where the bodies were thrown into and in the cave itself is a memorial of about 200 skulls, nestled behind thick glass. Our intrepid guide on this occasion was a high spirited twelve year old boy who claimed to speak English at the base of the hill, but whose repertoire of English rapidly dried up as we ascended the hill. He was a very sweet child, and it felt a little eerie to hear a twelve year old laugh and joke about death and murder. It was a happy irony that was wasted upon him that if he been born a generation earlier then it could have been his bones that lined the glass casings. It is a sad thought, but in Cambodia, whenever I see an effervescent young, pig tailed girl or smiling, curious eyed boy on the back of a motorbike for example, I wonder about the children killed in those brutal years. And when I look at the men and women my age and older I shudder when I think of things that their eyes must have witnessed.

The next part of our trip took us to happier grounds, the legendary Bamboo Train. The bamboo train runs along two warped steel rails that are in no way parallel to each other. Although there is only one set of tracks trains runs in both directions. So when another train approaches from the opposite direction there is a Robin Hood and Friar Tuck type scenario whilst the drivers of the trains decide what to do. The genius of the system is that each “train” consists of two axles, a small petrol (?) engine and a three metre long bamboo mat that rests upon a wooden frame. As such the train can be quickly dismantled to and taken off the tracks to allow the other train to pass. The ride jolts along at what feels to be breakneck speed, traversing bridges and cutting through rice fields on either side. The journey is about half an hour in total is an absolute blast! And the best part is that it cost us just $2.00 each, though local scams can see some people paying triple this.

For the remainder of our time in Battambang I explored the town mostly. The market was just one of the examples of the contradictions that I saw. Outside the market on its perimeter walls, vendors sell fresh fish, hauling it from buckets of water and filleting them there and then. Wooden carts attached to motorbikes and full of hunks of meat line the front entrance. The meat is sliced and diced on the wooden mud guards above the cart wheels and flies buzz lazily from fish to meat to freshly skinned hanging chicken in the background. To the right side of the market are the fruit vendors where about two kilos of fruit cost us $1.50. And inside the market, to my huge surprise, were rows of orderly glass cases, filled with gold chains and bracelets and staffed by bored looking Cambodian beauties. The chaos and carnage outside is replaced by shimmering jewellery.

Again, more contrasts: On the East Bank of the river are the new developments and plush new houses; a grand new fountain (filled with plastic bags and rubbish) commemorates the public Garden of SAR Kheng and two emaciated labourers trim the grass of the side walks with antiquated lawn mowers whilst three children play Piggy-In-the-Middle nearby. The promenade is ordered and maintained and pleasant in the late afternoon sun. And then I pass a landmine victim slumbering shirtless, face down on a stone bench, his legs terminating abruptly beneath each knee. Further down a mad woman shrieks at me and beats her chest and another man who does not seem to be all there follows me closely before seizing my hand and shaking it manically and disappears (laughing wildly) into a crowd. At dinner that night at a side walk cafe Nipun and I watched as a couple of beggars pilfered the left over food from the table next to us. They approached us and we gave them some fruit which they gratefully received. And yet overall most people in Battambang seemed to be doing ok. In a country where there is no social support systems there was a generosity that was obvious to see between so many of the Cambodians, giving out food to beggars and money to those who had lost limbs to mines. Battambang was an interesting town, and as I reflect, maybe we should have stayed longer.

The Angkor Ramble!

2009-07-03T00:23:00.000-07:00

Built between 800 AD and the mid 1400’s the splendour of the Angkor Kingdom was every bit as impressive as we had hoped. Constructed at a time when the Khmer Empire was one of the most powerful forces in South East Asia the temples grew over a 600 year period as each devaraja (word of the day - that means god-king!) tried to better his predecessors. Whilst the immediate association of Angkor (and probably, for many, Cambodia) is of Angkor Wat this was not our favourite of the ruins. True, Angkor Wat is undeniably majestic and is cited as the largest religious structure in the world. It is huge, the moat surrounding it alone is 190 metres wide. The walls are detailed with bas-reliefs and the sandstone blocks that the temple was made from were quarried about 50 kilometres away. In this day and age of sophisticated quarrying methods and heavy duty transporters that is no great achievement, but to put it in perspective the Lonely Planet points out that this was around about the time that London was a town that numbered 50 000 people. Nipun and I visited Angkor Wat twice. The first time was a sweltering afternoon and the place was besieged with people scurrying all around, mopping the sweat from their foreheads, lapping from water bottles and posing for photos in a variety of positions. The second time we went the sky was foreboding and grey, we nearly cancelled our trip out suspecting an antediluvian deluge. At the last moment though (neither of us wanting to back down and admit it would probably be more sensible staying in town) we decided to go out and were rewarded by having Angkor Wat more or less to ourselves, well comparatively speaking anyway. The upper level of Angkor Wat (which rises 55 metres above the ground) is currently closed to the public as a wider and safer staircase is made. Again on our second visit, a gaggle of sly security guards surreptitiously suggested that I might go up to the top and admire the view that is currently forbidden to the masses. No doubt a small fee would have been involved and I was sorely tempted, it was only the ominous sky (by now the colour of black granite) that put me off. In retrospect I should have gone, the rain when it came was nowhere as dramatic as the skies had promised. But for all it’s imposing splendour and elegant Asparas and Asuras (heavenly nymphs and devils respectively) it was not Angkor Wat that won us over. Rather it was the towers, corridors and 216 massive carved stone heads of Bayon, the root riddled ruins of Ta Prohm and myriad corridors of Preah Khan that were for us, the most enchanting of the ancient city. There is so much literature available on the ruins that it would be pointless to regurgitate it all and indulge in gratuitous plagiarism (“For there’s someone, somewhere / With a big nose, who knows / Who‘ll trip you up and laugh when you fall”). Rather I’ll slap in a few photographs that do these places little or no justice and enough text to cover what we liked about these places.

Bayon: Think Laura Croft in Tomb Raider and you are along the right lines. Constructed during the rule of Jayavaram VII and VIII respectively, Bayon was possibly our favourite place, but I stress the possibly! Entry can be from the North, South, East or West and from the perimeter a multitude (over fifty) of stone towers ascend in front of you on varying levels. Throughout the complex and on the top of each tower, facing each cardinal point, are four imposing, stoic stone faces. Each face is massive and at any given time, as you ascend the complex towards the centre, you can see several, watching you with a detached interest. Bayon, it has been established, is unique, even among the other ruins of Angkor. It is not just the inexorable sense of history that makes the place so compelling, it is also the other-worldly atmosphere as numerous carved eyes watch you from every direction. Occasionally you round a corner and one of the massive heads, level with your own, austerely confronts you. If the corridors and heads are not enough to captivate your imagination there is over 1.2 kilometres of bas relief carvings that depict aspects of daily Khmer life and of course, war. Annoyingly Nipun and I got up at 4.45 am to photograph Bayon as the sun came up and breathed it’s life into the stone faces. Sunrise that day was of the British winter variety and I ended up trying to use a tiny speed light, angled from the side with a warming gel, in an attempt to replicate the colour and soft light of dawn.

Ta Prohm: Of all the places in the Angkor Ruins Ta Prohm was (again for us) one of the most atmospheric places that we saw. The temple was dedicated to the King Jayavaram VII’s mother (it makes a Mothers Day card look a bit lame) and when it was discovered the decision was made (by Ecole Francais d’ Extreme Orient ) to leave the ruins in a “natural state.” In other words, whilst the jungle was trimmed back, prominent features like the massive tree roots and tree trunks that sprawl across the walls and corridors of the structure remained in place. In places the ruins had to be reinforced in order to make them safe, but it has been done so sympathetically that, to the untrained eye (i.e. mine), it is impossible to tell where these remedial works have been carried out. The effect is fantastic. It is like being Indiana Jones in a lost city as you clamber through the ruins and stumble upon silk cotton trees and strangler figs with roots and trunks like giant tentacles that form mazes across the ruins of Ta Prohm.

Preah Khan: We visited Preah Khan shortly after dawn on our second day at the Agkor complex. As is often the case we saw a spectacular dawn from the seat of our tuk tuk - we had emerged from our room twenty minutes to late to catch it at the temple. Whilst disappointing the tuk tuk ride in the balmy morning air and resplendent colours of the early morning was immensely enjoyable anyway. And two hours later at 7 am the temperature must have been close to 30 degrees Celsius! It was really worth waking up at five and getting a couple of hours in before it became prohibitively warm. Preah Khan (meaning Sacred Sword) is a sprawling ruin that is suspected to have been a large city and a Buddhist University. It is similar to Ta Prohm in that there are numerous places where the temple still looks like it has just recently been discovered, with trees resting atop walls and boulders strewn across impenetrable corridors. The similarities do not end there either; whilst Ta Prohm was dedicated to the King’s mother, Preah Khan was built some years later and dedicated to his Father. Like Ta Prohm many of the stone blocks are covered in green lichen and with the early morning light this was again an immensely atmospheric place that we could easily have revisited.

Whilst we could have fitted in far more during our time at the ruins, the three days was exhausting. As the end of our ticket’s validity approached I have to admit that I began to feel massively relieved. It is not that the temples became boring, rather it was that after three days with temperatures that must have been in the mid thirties we felt completely drained of all energy. We were constantly buying bottles of water and trying to negotiate our way through throngs of overly eager vendors, which was amusing initially but could become tiresome. It would have been fool hardy to do just the one day though. If I did it again I think I would take the extra twenty dollars on the chin pay for a weeks ticket, then do three or four days at a leisurely pace.

2009-06-12T08:43:00.000-07:00

The bus trip from Kumpong Cham to Siam Reap was probably one of the most painless journeys we have made so far. Ignoring the over friendly and over interested individual across the way from us there was nothing to trouble us bar the occasional pothole or brief dirt stretch that penetrated my vacant stare out of the window. On arrival our curious companion from across the aisle thrust his business card into my hand before disappearing on his way. His parting words confirmed my suspicion that he operated local tours and that he hoped that that his painfully ingratiating manner had won him our custom. Unsurprisingly the sell, sell, sell continued as we got into town. Stepping off the bus was not dissimilar to stepping into a scrum. We were jostled by tuk-tuk drivers and motos’s from the nanosecond our feet left the confines of the bus, each of them vying for business before out feet even touched the ground. Immediately it becomes apparent just how much Siam Reap revolves around the tourist dollar and the competition is cut throat. Likewise the prices are initially inflated by double on most things like transport and market goods. We managed to get one tuk-tuk driver aside and within seconds had cut his price down from US$2.00 to $1.00 to take us into town.

Having found accommodation I went to explore Siam Reap which amusingly balances Western consumerism with it’s own unique East Asian idiosyncrasies. For example walking down the main street into the downtown area takes you past stores advertising Armani, DKNY and D&G. And then a motorbike with three wildly squealing pigs bound upside down to the pillion will whistle past this same store. On every street corner tuk-tuk drivers prowl (“Where you go? Temples? Tonle Sap? Cheap price…Maybe tomorrow…?”) and as you head further into town children try to flog you books and bracelets (“Ten for one doellaaar, you buy!”) and postcards. The tuk-tuk driver are mostly good humoured and happy to joke around, the children with their dogged persistence and refusal to take no for an answer are down right exhausting. They are not begging as such - after all they are after a transaction - but nonetheless their persistence comes across as a variation of this. They are just children, many no older than ten our twelve, but already they are part of the local economy, buying and selling books and trinkets and carefully calculating their profits. Further into town brings you to Pub Street where you can buy a pint of draught for fifty cents and around this area are myriad eating options ranging from French cuisine to Italian to Thai and Indian. Guesthouses line the roads and again the competition is crazy, our accommodation costs four American Dollars a night, whilst the one next door is ten dollar s but offers free Wi-Fi, free breakfast and free laundry.

The obvious attraction in Siam Reap and one of the primary reasons (if not the prime reason) that Cambodia gets over 2 million tourists a year is the ancient Angkor Complex. The ticketing system is not terribly friendly, coming in at twenty American dollars for a single days pass, forty for three days and sixty for a week. To rub salt in the wound if you do more than one day then you are forced to go on consecutive days. We have just emerged from three solid days of ruins and we are exhausted. Whilst expensive the tickets do offer value for money as the Angkor Complex is massive. As such a more sensible approach would surely be to allow you to split your days up in order to avoid cultural saturation! The real outrage though is that of the entry charges a mere fraction of the money, a meagre ten percent, goes to the body responsible for preserving and maintaining the complex. The rest goes to the Sokha Hotel Chain who administrate the entry gate and the Finance Ministry, an alledged black hole from which nothing returns.

Our three days at Angkor were rewarding though. The sense of history that abounds and the obvious awe that is inspired by the structures that were created using only "primitive" technology leaves you dumbfounded. It has to be said that from a photographic point of view I failed miserably. In spite of being up at five in the morning every day I seem to have completely botched each sunrise and the sunsets are more pityful still. Angkor is surrounded by jungle, and I learnt the hard way that looking at a place on a map and pointing East is not much good when there are hundred foot trees all around. It is a bit like fishing though, the pleasure lies in hanging out there and if you catch it is just a bonus. As the sun got hotter and brighter I ended up doing more textural work using flashes to create shadows and taking close ups and abstracts. To avoid duplication and repetition I will do an Angkor post with all the un-pretty pictures and descriptions. In a similar way that kids prowl the Westernised streets of the city, the entrance to the monuments are home to a legion of kids and women selling food, drinks, books, bracelets and souvenirs. As you approach they holler from a distance in a nasal, unpunctuated drawl that you have to laugh with or you’ll go crazy. “Heey laydeee-you-wan-waaaaatttterrrr? You-buy-mie-pineaaaapple-only-one-darllaaaar.” and “Heymistaaa-you-want-postcard? Only-tennnn-fa-one-darlaaar?” Everything is one dollar. Bracelets, water, cans of drink, postcards and fruit. And most of this can be very quickly negotiated down by fifty percent. At first I found the constant badgering quite annoying and bordering on harassment, but after a while it became a joke and ninety percent of the people selling the stuff were really good fun. They could take a joke and throw it right back at you with a cheerful laugh. And they were very astute. One young girl aged twelve told us that if we bought a book from her she could tell us the capital city of our county, irrespective of where we came from. We duly bought a book that I had been wanting to read and low and behold she knew the capital of India, Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Argentina. We asked her several more in quick succession and she shot the answers back without hesitation. We finally tripped her up on Botswana but her geographical knowledge was probably better than ours. Furthermore her English was brilliant. As opposed to the usual “Where you from?” she eloquently demanded to know our “nationality.” Her English had been gleaned from trading with tourists before and after school. Like most of the kids there she went to school for a few hours a day and then sold books for the rest of the day. It seems a bit sad to sad to me, children of twelve should be being children.

Our other excursion thus far has been to the Landmine Museum just outside town. The museum was set up by Aki Ra in 1997 to illustrate the devastation and grief that mines and unexploded bombs (compliments of the States and Vietnam) cause. Ra, who is unsure of his age, had been a child soldier in the Khmer Rouge Army after his parents were both killed by the same regime. Ironically he had laid landmines for them and liked the mines: in a time when food was scarce and his life was constantly at risk, the landmines frequently killed animals for food and kept him safe when he slept. As he grew older he realized the wickedness of the Khmer Rouge regime and he defected to the Vietnamese Army that later routed the Khmer Rouge from Cambodia. Aware of his past life he found his vocation clearing landmines. Today he estimates that he has cleared more than 50 000 mines and has set up an international NGO that assists Landmine victims. In the evening we went for a foot massage. By fish. Yup, that’s right. You plonk your feet into a tank filled with hundreds of tiny fish that proceed to nibble away and clean you feet. It tickles. A lot. However ten minutes in and it is actually quite soothing, if not a little bizarre.

Cambodia: Kratie and Kampong Cham

2009-06-11T04:31:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Kratie in the middle of a thunder storm, the rain driving down almost horizontally towards us and the roads and sidewalks immersed in dark, muddy water. I did a very quick sortie for accommodation and, given the weather conditions, we checked into the first recommendation for Kratie in the Lonely Planet. Usually such an establishment has succumbed to the Lonely Planet Effect, in other words the price has shot up, and the staff are sometimes complacent. To be fair the accommodation was cheap (US$4.00 per night) for a double room with a balcony and the people working there were an absolute hoot. The other great thing about our guesthouse was that it directly overlooked the local market down below which was a constant source of fascination. I got into the habit of getting up at dawn and going into the meat section where all varieties of fish were hacked up, live chickens tied together squawked in anticipation of their final hour and slabs of unidentifiable meat attracted flies that were intermittently shooed away by sleepy eyed termagants. Commonly a pig would be driven by, bound to a custom made plank above the front wheel of a motorcycle, legs pointing heavenward and squealing with fear at this ungainly method of transportation. Sadly for the pig I fear that things were about to get a whole lot worse too. On my morning saunters through the aisles I thought about vegetarianism for about a nanosecond, and then conceded that it was easier to just not question the origins of my meals. And this was not a bad decision: I can highly recommend the pork, the fish can be a bit iffy and generally the chicken is as fresh as the new day. And that is because it is.

Whilst there is not a huge amount in Kratie, bar the markets and the waterfront that overlooks the Mekong River, it has a seductive charm and a soothing atmosphere. Sunsets by the river are rewarding and the crumbling buildings imbue the town with a sense of times past. It is one of those places that, in spite of limited in what it can offer, makes you want to stay longer. I could happily have spent a few more days there, but the thirty day visa is a relentless motivator. The main reason that the town exists on the tourist map is that you are almost guaranteed to see the Irrawaddy fresh water dolphins if you charter a boat for a couple of hours. Having seen countless dolphins before (admittedly mostly jumping through hoops and taking fish from a bikini clad nymph at the Durban sea front) we decided that instead we would hire a couple of men on motorbikes to take us out into the outlying country to see the rice plantations.

This turned out to be quite good fun and Nipun joined in the hard work of planting for about ten minutes before the mud, sun and posture became a bit too much. I passed up this golden opportunity and took the photos instead. Our motorbike guide was a constant source of information, prattling on about subjects ranging from the rice plantations to villagers being caught making, ahem, “boom boom” with livestock. He was delighted with this last tale and when I told him about a similar highly publicised incident in Zimbabwe where the perpetrator was made to marry his sweetheart (in this case a cow) his delectation was suitably increased. We ended up the trip by going to the market again, this time tasked with purchasing some fish and vegetable as we had been invited to lunch with him. My decision on the fish was fairly straightforward, being the specimen with the least flies buzzing about it.

Our next stop was four hours South by bus, the equally sleepy town of Kompong Cham. Whilst hardly a bustling metropolis Kompong Cham was positively frenetic compared to Kratie. Immersed in books we missed the bus stop and had to walk a kilometre back into town and from the moment we stepped off the bus tut tuk drivers and “motos” (motor cyclists who, for a fee, will put you on the back of their bikes and whisk you off to your destination) clamoured for attention. We walked the kilometre and found a café to have a coke in, whereupon the wind picked up and seconds later the rains were upon us. When we finally got going again we explored the town. Kompong Cham is a provincial capital and during the colonial days was an important trading hub. An impressive new bridge spanning the 1200 metre wide Mekong (the first in Cambodia to do so) ensures a steady flow of traffic through the city and the central street and roundabout is a constant source of activity. The promenade is glorious and lined with restaurants and guesthouses, whilst across the river the old French Light House catches the setting sun and turns to an evanescent, eldritch pink in the evenings. As the sun drops further the promenade fills up with people who come to do their daily exercise. The groups vary from footballers and volleyball players to others who form in front of large speakers to stretch and do a gentle workout to golden classics such as Footloose. The atmosphere is convivial and one of the idiosyncrasies that made Kompong Cham so worth the visit. Whilst we sat in the Mekong Crossing that evening, Nipun immersed herself in the Lonely Planet. A Cambodian gentleman in his fifties approached to chew the fat whereupon Nipun looked up and said “Are you Mr. Vannat?” I have to confess to some confusion at this point. Mr Vannat nodded his affirmation whereupon Nipun read out “Mr Vannat is an experienced local guide and if you sip an evening drink overlooking the Mekong, he’ll likely find you before long.” He had taken about half an hour to find us. We ended up going out into the country with him the following day, his 1955 jeep still going strong along the potholed dirt roads and thick monsoon mud. Among the sites we stopped at were the rubber plantations and Wat Maha Leap.

Wat Maha Leap is one of the few remaining wooden pagodas in Cambodia, many others having perished under the rule of the Khmer Rouge. Inspired by Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China the Khmer Rouge obliterated most holy buildings and any other structures that were more than just functional. Angkor Wat was one of the few exceptions, owing to it’s Khmer heritage and unique and special place in Cambodian history. Wat Maha Leap survived only because it was converted into a hospital during the period between 1975 and 1979 when the Khmer Rouge were in control. As Loung Ung wrote, most hospitals around the world are seen as places of recuperation and the focus is on getting the patients being restored to health. Under the Khmer Rouge though, people went to hospital to die. Other people we have talked to have confirmed this, the hospitals were rife with infections and the “medical staff” had no medical training. As such the bodies of 500 Khmers are buried in the gardens of the pagoda. The pagoda has been restored as the Khmer Rouge had left their own marks on the building, painting over the gilded columns and doors and generally leaving the place in a state of disrepair.

Next to the pagoda is a Junior School, catering for 350 vociferous children all shouting “Hello” at the same time. As their vocabulary is limited and “Hello” gets attention they scream it. Over and over. It is strangely endearing if not a little overwhelming. The juxtaposition is a little eerie in some ways, just thirty years ago these children would have had their childhoods snatched away from them. They would have been forced into labour and some into the Khmer Rouge “army,” many would simply have perished. All would have been scarred. Today, not fifty paces from the mass graves and a hospital that was more of a mortuary, these children bound about with massive smiles and bags of energy. I suppose that is not really eerie, rather it is rejuvenating and an immensely powerful testament to what peace and relative prosperity can bring to a country. It is a soothing sight in a country that has been through such a dramatic and unforgiving past.

Going, going, Gone!

2009-06-11T01:24:00.000-07:00

I wrote this some time ago but it never got uploaded owing to being on the road a lot and having very limited access to the internet. So it goes, it is outdated but I wrote it and I am uploading it!

Laos is now behind us and we have arrived safely in Kratie, Cambodia after a prolonged trip by long boat, bus and mini van - all in the space of one day. In actual fact the journey was painless but punctuated by long waits along the way. This matters not all as it is not like we are going to miss a meeting or anything. We entered Cambodia near the Mekong at Dom Kralor and paid for our visa on arrival. As anticipated the border officials suggested that we pay a couple of extra charges here and there, firstly for “Departure Tax” as we left Laos (at US1.00 each) and then for the Cambodian visas at USD21.00 as opposed to the going rate of $20.00. Credit be to Nipun who politely contested our case (most of our fellow travellers paid the money willingly) and managed to ensure that we were not fleeced. Having grown up in the third world I would have been more than happy to pay the, ahem, admin fees and be done with it. Experience has taught me that there are many pompous uniformed men and women out there who will happily ruin your day over a dollar. The ZRP (those fine stalwarts of Zimbabwean society who are charged with upholding the law and order of the land) are fine examples of such nefarious characters. Where Nipun pleaded indigence today, I would have thanked them for being so undemanding in their terms and offered a tip. All in all by refusing to pay the various fees she managed to save us USD6.00 which paid for a meal out. It has to be said though that the Cambodian border police were absolutely brazen in their requests and so supremely confident that their fees almost seemed to be genuine!

I seem to be developing the unenviable habit of going gaga about every country we leave and Laos is no exception. Laos exceeded every expectation that I had, I loved it and I was impressed on so many levels. The infrastructure and road network was generally very good along the routes that we took, the diversity of the landscape (ranging from the vertiginous route from Luang Prabang to Vang Viang through to the plains of the South,) the hospitality of the people and their gentleness and generosity. Sure, we met a few rogues along the way. My fishing trip with a lao lao (local home brew) swigging maniac springs to mind. His fishing gear consisted of broken rods tied together with twigs and elastic bands whilst he used bits of broken bricks for weights. The only fish we could have caught would have been one that was hit on the head by a plummeting rock.

As can be seen in the photo of our bellicose friend (credit on this one to Jochen Druberg who was test driving my D300) he was as crazy as a loon and took great offence to me writing down something in the notepad that comes everywhere with me. The contents of my scribble were harmless - a guest house recommendation in Cambodia given to me by one of the girls on the trip.

Our hapless guide then returned to his lao lao before steering us back along the river, needless to say without a fish caught between us. He ranted all the way, referring to me as Mr Book and refusing (thankfully by this stage) to acknowledge my presence other than to offer desultory curses. Ultimately though this just made for a very amusing afternoon and I’d be lying if I said that we did not make a decent dent in the Lao Lao too. We were so amused by the days “fishing” that we ended up de-briefing in one of the bars for the evening.

As a contrast to my fine fishing companion the family that we were staying with came to our bungalow (called the Holiday Inn but baring no relationship whatsoever) before we left and lit incense before tying string bracelets around our wrists and blessing our onward journey. It was a simple way of saying "Good Luck" to us and we were touched by the effort that they went to. It did not matter that they were Buddhist, Nipun Hindu and me, to all intents and purposes a tree worshiping pagan who would have been burnt at the stake as a heretic once upon a time - rather they were grateful that we had stayed with them, played with their kids and wanted to wish us well on our travels. It was very humbling, and a high note to leave Laos on. What really struck me as we travelled through Laos was the small, random acts of generosity and kindness that we saw time and time again. And that can be refreshing anywhere in the world.

Savnnakhet, Pakse and Si Phan Don. All bundled up together - oops.

2009-06-06T08:46:00.000-07:00

It seems an absolute age since I wrote, let alone posted. As such this will be a summary of the last couple of weeks, hauled from my memory which is held together by scrolling back through the photos on my camera. Since we left Vientiane we have travelled further South through Savannakhet, Pakse and Si Phan Don (Laoation for 4,000 Islands). At present I am writing from the banks of the Four Thousand Islands, longboats shooting past on the Mekong and fishing nets bobbing up and down in the water. Electricity is only available from 6 PM to 10 PM and the town abounds with adorable kittens, most of them missing their tails. But let’s rewind a little… Let's leave Vientiane first.

We arrived at Savannakhet at about four thirty in the morning, having left Vientiane at eight o’clock the night before. Our sleeper bus was as sleeper friendly as an interrogation camp. We were in the back row of the bus which seats five people if they sit like dominoes and where the seats do not recline. Having paid double the price of everyone else on the bus, sleep was already elusive (rage was filling in for it). Next to me sat a garrulous Thai air conditioning engineer. He was affable and urbane, a lovely man though sadly of a generous size that flowed effortlessly from his seat and into half of mine. This problem only increased as he slumbered; we became very close. Nipun was on my other side and had it worse. The guy next to her had a serious case of the stares. Every time Nipun looked up he was looking right back at her. This would have been OK if he had been of a cheerful disposition, but rather than smile or say “Hello” he would only offer a detached, emotionless stare. It was a little bit creepy. What’s more there was not a lot we could we say because (a) he was in his seat and entitled to look wherever he wanted and (b) he would not have understood a word we said anyway. Our attempts at meeting and greeting met with a face that was a tabula erasa. It was a relief to get off the bus and join the mosquitoes on the hard wooden benching at the bus station until the sun came up.

We decided that as it was still so early we would walk into town. The Lonely Planet said that it was only about 400 metres into town after all. This proved to be patent nonsense, though was not helped by us taking a much longer route along the Mekong. Stray dogs barked and growled, locals laughed and eventually we hailed a tuk tuk that took us to the Saisouk Guest House. It was about 7 AM and already if felt like it was about thirty degrees. We took the AC room and then went to find breakfast. Savannakhet, in spite of my initial protestations about going there, was a beautiful old town. In parts it was positively crumbling away, the old brickwork exposed and paint peeling from structures. The town had once been the largest French trading and administrative centre south of Vientiane. Now it crumbles and other than the Casino remains a sleepy riverside town. As gambling is illegal in Thailand it seems that most of the trade in Savannakhet revolves around Thai’s who pop across the Mekong to play cards and roulette. In the evenings a food market sets up on the river bank and makes for the perfect setting for grilled chicken ands sun downers.

As Savannakhet town is small it can be exhausted in an afternoon. The surrounding countryside is far more rewarding though and we hired a tuk tuk driver to drive us through the paddy fields that line the roads (Savannakhet produces a huge amount of rice) and the lakes that are dotted around, finishing up at Dong Natad Provincial Protected Area. Our driver spoke not a word of English, but was so friendly and helpful. It was a great day. We got caught poaching berries from laughing locals, lost my sunglasses climbing a tree (not so great, they were Ray Bans) and visited one of South Laos’ oldest temples which is allegedly home to Buddha relics and surrounded by a courtyard of golden Buddha’s.

The heat had been getting oppressive and the air growing ever more

humid, so it was immense relief that night when the sky lit up and crackled and then gave way to a storm, the likes of which I have not seen since I left Zimbabwe. There is something wonderful about lying in bed beneath a corrugated iron roof, listening to the rain explode above you, the air thick with electricity and thunder. Over the course of the next day we met Louie and Geoff from Melbourne who became our mealtime companions and who we hope to see in the UK, ot who knows, Melbourne.

Our next stop was Pakse, made by bus again and this time the local variety which is always so much fun. During the six hour journey we stopped 11 times to drop off or pick up passengers and to purchase food such as barbequed chicken and skewered eggs that had then been boiled, freshly picked mushrooms and some things that I am happy not being able to identify. Lao music blasted from eight well positioned speakers and gradually the bus filled up with plastic chairs when the proper seating ran out.

Keen to crack on we only spent one full day in Pakse and went on a tour of the Bolevan Plateau. This included stopping off at a tea plantation, a coffee plantation and a few of the local zoo’s villages where bus loads of tourists are bought in to ogle at the locals. I find this all very disquieting and wonder how I would feel if twice a day (or more) ten people arrived at

my house and snapped numerous badly composed and lit pictures of me. It all feels a bit intrusive I think. The positives though (because that’s how we roll) were the waterfalls and stunning country side and the brilliant companions we made on the journey, this time from Switzerland (Mourizio and Daniela) and the Nethelands (Ninka). Our address book is growing steadily and when we get back, fiscally ruined from travel, weekends in Europe look good!

As mentioned we are now in the Four Thousand Islands, staying at Don Dhet before we make our way across the border and into Cambodia. Our bungalow is cheekily called the Holiday Inn and bears no relation what so ever to the chain we are all so familiar with. We tried, they will not accept our loyalty card. It is run by a fantastic local family with adorable kids who come play in the river each afternoon. They use empty water bottles tied together as floats and inflate plastic bags for a ball. No one speaks English but we all manage to understand each other. There is no electricity in our bungalow except for a few hours in the evening and at night the toilets are populated by poised, black scorpions (I counted four last night) that prowl the walls for moths. The island is home to the rare fresh water Mekong dolphins that have so far proved elusive to us, but that does not matter - the boat ride is otherworldly and Tolkien-esque with bent over trees and swift, dirty currents of water that boil around the myriad tiny islets in the river.

Today we (Sunday 31st May) we will be packing our bags and going across to Cambodia in the morning. I have just finished reading Loung Ung’s book “First They Killed My Father” about the genocide that occurred in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Watching the carefree children play in the river outside it is difficult to imagine that so recently, just across the border

, similar children were tortured, forced into labour and beaten to death to save bullets. That so many family’s lives were destroyed. The book is a non fiction work is outstanding, it is narrated in the first person by Loung, going back to when she was aged five. This account of Cambodia’s history is enormously compelling but difficult to read at times because of the sheer tragedy of what the Cambodians went through. The epigraph speaks volumes:

“From 1975 to 1979 - through execution, starvation, disease, and forced labour - the Khmer Rouge systematically killed an estimated 2 million Cambodians, almost a fourth of the country’s population. This is the story of my survival: my own and my family’s. Though these events constitute my experience, my story mirrors that of millions of Cambodians. If you had been living in Cambodia during this period, this would be your story too.”

I find that a terrifying and hideous prospect. It leaves me with mixed feelings about the next leg of our journey. It is a country with such a recent history of human misery and suffering, of utterly mindless and senseless violence, but on the other hand home to country where the people are rumoured to be so very friendly and welcoming. I am sure that our time in Cambodia will be enriching in many ways and whilst sad to be leaving Laos, I am thrilled that tomorrow we will be on our way again.

Welcome to the Big City

2009-06-06T08:24:00.001-07:00

My first thought on arriving in Vientiane was “Crikey, it is HOT here.” It was sweltering, and this was at four o’clock in the afternoon. It was a dry, hard heat, the kind that hits you when you are making a Sunday roast and you open the oven door. We took our bags down to the first coffee shop / bar that we stumbled on which was a serendipitous find - the Moonlight Café. The Moonlight Café sells Laotian / Western fusion cuisine with friendly staff and funky acid jazz tunes playing in the background. You also can take your iPod in and have new music loaded copied on to it; the music selection is quiet eclectic and has some real gems. For example on their list of recommendations are three albums by Malcolm Middleton, not particularly well known even in the UK. Of course there is a small fee involved and you are effectively buying an illegal download, but at US1.00 per album so be it.

On arrival at the café Nipun drew the short straw and went off to find accommodation whilst I chillaxed with the bags and had a couple of Beer Lao’s, surfing the net on the free wi-fi they provide. Increasingly we are finding that when arriving in a new town the best thing to do is for one of us to sit with the bags whilst the other looks for somewhere to stay. This (a) prevents reduces short tempered arguments caused by the heat and the bad packing hanging off your back and (b) mitigates the inflated prices from the guesthouse receptionists who can see the desperation in your eyes when you have walked across town with all your worldly possessions and a camera bag that weighs half of that again. What became immediately obvious was that Vientiane is an expensive place to stay and that the accommodation within our budget was pretty rubbish.

The city itself is far bigger than any of the other towns that we have visited in Laos. There are several beautiful hotels and guesthouses, but for these you will pay top dollar. This in part influenced our decision to spend relatively little time in Vientiane. As it transpired we stayed in two different guest houses (each at roughly 100 000 kipps which equates to roughly GBP 9.00 per night), the second offering air conditioning which only blew out hot air. I could see the condenser outside and the wall mounted unit in our room looked quite new, but what was happening between the two could be anyone’s guess. As such our room sauna was worse than the first room we had taken as we ended up paying more for accommodation with a fan and shared bathroom. Over the course of the next day I looked at several rooms and the budget accommodation seemed to be typified by manky, dirty rooms that had not seen paint in twenty years.

Vientiane did not feel (for me at least) as grand as Luang Prabang. Whereas Luang Prabang felt compact and enriched by history, Vientiane felt like just another capital city. It sprawls. The pace of life is noticeably faster and things seem more expensive. That is not to say the city was without beauty though, there were tree lined boulevards and the rustic, decaying French buildings set back from the streets that typify so many of the Laotian towns. Temples are dotted around the town and of course there is the Mekong flowing swiftly by without Thailand watching across from the other side. I liked Vientiane and we spent too little time there, but it has to be said that I liked the former capital (Luang Prabang) more.

In total we spent three night in Vientiane, exploring the town and the temples, eating delicious food and visiting the night market where you can buy a skewer of four roasted frogs or fist size snails ready for eating. Alongside the grilled chickens you can find grilled bat and all manner of other local delicacies on offer. My sense of adventure failed me and I headed off to Jaipur for a chicken curry with rotti. There is a huge variety of food available in Vientiane and part of the reason I feel that we spent too little time there is down to the rumblings in my tummy when I think of the restaurants that lined the streets.

The highlights of our time there included our visit to Pha That Luang, four kilometres outside town and cited as the most important monument in Laos. The Wat is a glittering gold, graceful structure that was originally built in the 1500’s but consequently razed by Siamese treasure seekers. The Wat was rebuilt twice by the French during their occupation of Laos and had been beautifully maintained. Just off the main complex are another two Wats that we briefly explored before jumping in our tuk tuk and heading back towards town and stopping at Vientiane’s answer to and copy of the Arc De Triomphe (Patuxai). Patuxai looks like a sore thumb in Vientiane, even from a distance. The monument was built in 1969 to honour the Laotian soldiers who died in the pre-revolutionary wars. Sadly the arches lack the breathtaking grandeur of the French original, and the setting does not gel with the monument. The scale feels wrong and the juxtaposition just looks silly; what’s more this impression is only strengthened as you get closer. As you reach Patuxai it becomes apparent that it has never been finished off. The walls are drab unfinished concrete and inside the archways bored looking, unfriendly vendors sell cold drinks and ice creams. There is no flame to commemorate the Unknown Soldier as with the Parisian original, rather a just a sign that says the monument was never completed as funds ran out halfway through.

After our flying tour of Vientiane we got going again. We were charged double for our bus tickets out of the city and onto Savannakhet (180 000 kipp each as opposed to 95 000) as we foolishly purchased them from our guesthouse instead of going directly to the bus station which was annoying, but live and learn. We suspected that the guest house may be a little more expensive than going direct to the station, but it was lashing down with rain and we got lazy. What we did not expect was the extent of the price hike, but then this is the capital city and capital cities are renowned for being a little over zealous in their charges.

Vang Viang

2009-06-06T08:01:00.000-07:00

Vang Viang has taken on a tainted image over the last few years as it has attempted to lure in the tourist dollar. Most of these dollars come into the town in the form of backpackers, so in other words mostly young punters who are intent on drinking, toking and scrimping and saving on accommodation and any other overheads that can be eliminated. As such Vang Viang town is devoid of any of the crumbling grandeur that is so evident in place like Vientiane and Luang Prabang. The two main streets that run through town are characterised by guesthouses, bars and restaurants that serve up predominantly Western food. True, most of the menus will include a few local token dishes but the emphasis is on All Day Breakfasts and Cheese Burgers. The proliferation of cheap-ish guest houses in recent years means that most of the buildings in and around the town centre are soulless structures that blight the town, whilst the modest dress sense of the local Laotians contrasts sharply with the bikini clad Lovelies (and they are - mostly!) and bare chest-ed dudes that prowl the town on scooters and foot. Furthermore there are still several guesthouses going up, and the place looks like a construction site in some areas. On the small island that separates the town from the Nam Song river proper lies the Rock Bar, Smile Bar and countless other places that blast their music up until midnight each evening, completing to see who can play their music the loudest and therefore (in theory) draw the most people in. All in all the town is completely geared towards backpackers who are cultured out from their travels and want to party long and hard en-route to elsewhere. The handful of Wats in town are largely ignored by the travellers that pass through the town, who are more intent on watching re-runs of Friends, The Simpsons and Family Guy. It is not a pretty town, but it’s surrounds are majestic.

Vang Vieng lies alongside the Nam Song River and is surrounded by breathtaking limestone karsts that thrust up and through the low lying clouds that hang lazily in the sky when we were there. The view from our balcony was magnificent, providing you looked up slightly and thereby avoided the sight of the Rock Bar. As Vang Viang only consists of a handful of small streets it takes minimal effort to get out of the town and into the country.

On our first day in town we rented out bicycles and cycled out of town for three kilometres, ending up at the Organic Farm. The Organic Farm is a nother brilliant enterprise that raises funding for education in Laos, their goal being to provide equal opportunity and access to education for the local villages. The Farm consists of a guest house (specialising in mulberry pancakes and fruit shakes - delicious) and, no prizes here, a farm that grows organic fruit and bacon and eggs (Pigs and Chickens). They also have several goats that are milked and then they manufacture goats milk cheese which sadly we did not get to try. We spent a few hours here - feeding the goats, watching the pigs and piglets and exploring the fields where they grow pineapples and chillies. Again the setting is beautiful, though a little marred by the three bars that lie slightly down stream and cater for the tourists who go tubing down the river. Tubing is immensely popular and synonymous with the name Vang Viang. The idea is that you float down stream on an inflated tractor innard, stopping off along the way at the bars that line the river. Once

again the bars compete by playing their music as loudly as they can. The effect is that at any given time you can hear a medley of three songs all intertwined together which is a bit disconcerting, especially in such a seemingly tranquil setting.

The following day we went out of town on our bikes again, my bicycle being a lovely shade of pink and having a basket that was made to measure for my tripod. We went in a different direction, this time crossing over the river and stopping about 2km out of town for breakfast at a local Laotian shack that sold noodle soup and fried rice dishes. It was here that we met a handful of local kids who befriended us for the day and in effect became our local guides. They took us swimming in the lagoons and up to one of the several caves that penetrate the limestone hillside. The kids were really great fun, our introduction had taken place over breakfast when we gave them some pens and they wrote out the A, B, C’s for us. They spoke no English, and one of them was deaf and unable to speak at all (I hate the connotations of the word “Dumb“), in essence though he became our key guide for the day through a combination of sign language and an uninhibited enthusiasm. At the end of the day he tried to lash us with a fee for his companionship, but by this stage we had bought him and mates food and drink and he had been pedalled around the countryside by your humble narrator, so the fee was wavered. It seems that a hangover of the tourist industry is that a lot of the kids view Westerners as a source of cash, be it by blatant begging or more surreptitious methods. On our first day in town some kids tried begging from us and instead of money we gave them some children’s educational books that we had purchased in Luang Probing (at Big Brother Mouse) - they were ecstatic. We sat with them for ten minutes whilst Nipun made them write their names in the books and read out a couple of pages for us (they read in Laotian so who knows if they read them out or not!). When we left the kids behind they were still huddled around together, immersed in their literature and animatedly pointing out different pages to each other. It was a rewarding experience (very humbling as so much that we have seen is) and felt so much better than chucking away some spare change.

The rest of our time in Vang Viang was spent cycling around town and exploring. After a couple of decades of not getting on a bicycle Nipun is becoming a mean cyclist, whilst I on the other hand have déjà vu of having had to ride to school every day (how I loathed that!) and also rediscovering muscles in my body that I had long since forgotten. The next stage of our travels in Laos took us by bus to Vientiane, the capital of Laos that sits on the Mekong River which forms a border with Thailand on the other side.

Luang Prabang - Please Don't Make Me Leave Here!

2009-05-16T05:00:00.000-07:00

Luang Prabang is the former capital of Laos and upon arrival it is easy to see why this beautiful location would have been selected as the country’s premier city. The town is shaped somewhat like an outstretched finger, the peninsula bounded on one side by the Mekong river and the on other the Nam Khan River. At the centre of the old town rests Phu Si, a one hundred metre high hillock that rises up and is capped by the temple That Chomsi. The journey up to the temple consists of about 300 steps which I foolishly undertook at midday when the temperature was a balmy 36 degrees. Halfway up I thought I was I was going to collapse from hyperthermia. Nevertheless the views from the top are fantastic and no doubt far better at dawn and sunset.

We arrived in Luang Prabang at about 5.30pm and managed to find a guesthouse with our erstwhile friend K (“Call me K” says his business card) from Seoul, South Korea. K was a fantastic fellow, gregarious and loquacious with a natural enthusiasm about pretty much everything, especially South Korea. Before I met K South Korea was not a destination I had really given any great thought to, but from our conversations about the people, the country and the food I am now more than curious. We talked about Korea’s history, the current situation, food of course and the hospitality with which South Koreans treat guests to their country. K, if you read this and fancy a career change, there is a bright future for you in marketing the myriad delights of your county!

Our guest house was the Kuang Si, located just behind the night market and a short walk from the leafy banks of the Mekong River. Clean and conveniently located the guest house was ticked most of the boxes for us and also supplied free drinking water and as many bananas as you could wish to scoff. A half hour walk from there along the Mekong brings you to the Nam Khan / Mekong confluence and the wonderful bamboo bridge that crosses the river, weighted down with boulders and creaking with every step that you take across. Our accommodation here cost us 60 000 Kipp per day, which works out to about £5.00. Coming from Zimbabwe I find the Laotian currency pretty easy to deal with, our denominations put those of Lao to shame. We talk in millions and trillions, thousands are nothing!

In spite of France’s colonisation of Laos there seemed to be relatively few hangovers from this era in Luang Prabang. One immediate pointer to the French era is that they drive on the right hand side of the road so we were constantly looking the wrong way when crossing over, narrowly avoiding an undignified end from the business end of a scooter. Some of the government buildings still bear French names beneath the Laotian script, as do some of the cafes and guest houses, though more commonly the names are displayed in English. No one seems to speak French bar a few of the old timers, indeed the closest I came to discovering any living remnants of French culture consisted of various games of petang taking place among the shaded sidewalks and the Laotian coffee that drunk black was as strong as Biblical Samson. The architecture too displayed some the colonial influence and the old buildings, many of them now guesthouses, give the town a rustic grandeur that is especially beautiful at dawn and sunset. The rivers are lined by trees and cafes, the atmosphere is very relaxed and whilst the 11.30 curfew on the bars can be an irritant the bowling alley stays open until much later, somehow having avoided the draconian ruling on closing time. The UNESCO World Heritage status of the town also means that there is very little traffic in the town, and what traffic there is predominantly confined to scooters on the wrong side of the road.

We spent six days in Luang Prabang and in many ways I felt that maybe we left a bit too quickly, we were however aware of the thirty day visa that we have and the fact that there are many other places we want to get to in this magnificently beautiful country. Luang Prabang is definitely a town I would like to go back to though, life is unhurried and being a boulevardier in this town holds a definite appeal. It is quaint and hospitable, has a wealth of culture and is, as the Lonely Planet points out, a tonic for the soul.

There are numerous other impressions of the city that I will take away, the ineluctable tuk-tuk drivers who patrol the streets (“Tuk-tuk, Waterfall? Where you go?”) and the scorching, humid heat. Between about mid-day and three o’clock it is pointless trying to do anything other than wilting away in a café or attempting a siesta. One of the six worldly possessions of the Lao Thevada monks is an umbrella, which seemed bizarre to me until I took a midday stroll. Then it made a whole lot of sense. The umbrella had nothing to do with rain, it was all about keeping the beating sun off of your head. On the flip side of the heat though is the fact the a large bottle of chilled Beer Lao costs you about 10 000 kipp, which is less than 1 GBP and litre for litre cheaper than a can of coke. Indeed one of the bars has the slogan “Drink like a fish for the price of water!” which is not far from the truth. More importantly than the beer and infinitely more rewarding than the beer prices are the number of initiatives that have been set up in order to help the less privileged and economically challenged communities in LP. An example of this is the Big Brother Mouse which encourages students to read and talk in English with a view to furthering their education and improving their opportunities in life. The fact that the emphasis in on English I guess is an indication of far behind the French influence

is being left. Travellers can come into Big Brother Mouse and buy books in Laotian and English translation to distribute to school children who do not own any books. Rather than handing out money and candy to kids, books and education are encouraged. Six days a week travellers passing through can volunteer two hours of their time to go and help out with conversational English and help the Laotian students with their reading, writing and English conversation skills. It is a humbling experience, when Nipun and I went I spoke to a student whose day started at 6.00am every day and ended at midnight (he also worked as a security guard to gain some form of income), however he still managed to come and study every day in the hope of bettering his opportunities. Several other organisations exist along similar lines in Luang Prabang with the aim of helping the society, there was so much on offer to get involved with.

Our days were generally very busy here, along with every other tourist to LP we spent a day at the Sang Phet Waterfall (“Tuk-tuk, waterfall, where you go?”) where we swam the whole day and swung from ropes and jumped from waterfalls into the pools below. We visited the stunning Royal Palace Museum which was formerly the residence of King Sisavanvong and then later his son Savang Vattana. In 1975 after the revolution in Lao Savang was exiled to the North and never heard of again. Such is the beauty of the town that I manager to get up twice at 5.30am to photograph dawn and the daily procession of the monks with their alms bowls that takes place at 6.00am. Sunsets were mostly spent down by the confluence of the rivers, watching the Laotians swimming and making long exposure photos of the water reflecting the sky. The tripod has been a real pain to carry around at times but I have no regrets about my decision to bring it. We rented bicycles by day and enjoyed the food of the night market in the evenings.

Earlier today (12th May) we left Luang Prabang for Vang Vieng, another breath taking location amongst dramatic limestome Karsts and situated on the banks of the Nam Song River. The rich and fertile alluvial soil means ensures a rich and colourful setting with a wealth of greenery and trees. The town itself remains to be explored in any detail. Many people dislike this as it has become an epicentre for backpackers and has therefore been transformed into a very commercial town of bars, guest houses and eateries. The bars show re-runs of American TV shows such as Friends (I thought this bit of the travel guide might be outdated, but no) and there is an Aussie Bar, an Irish Bar and who knows what else. I imagine that it will take very little effort to get out of town and into the country side.

The Bouncer

2009-05-16T04:41:00.000-07:00

“[His eyes were] green in colour, and of a peculiarly metallic glint, which caused them, as we shook hands, to be exploring my person for good spots to hit. What was probably intended to be the smile that wins, appeared to me a grim and sardonic twist of the lip. Take him for all in all, I had never met a man so calculated to convert the most truculent swashbuckler to pacifism as a glance; and when I recalled Ukridge’s story of the little unpleasantness at Marseilles and realized that a mere handful of half a dozen able bodied seamen had had the temerity to engage this fellow in personal conflict, it gave me a thrill of patriotic pride.”

PG Wodehouse: Ukridge

The cross over into from Chiang Khong on the Thai border and into Huay Xai, Laos was remarkably straight forward and easy. At half past eight in the morning we were picked up and then whisked across to the river crossing point. From here we were then taken across the Mekong River on long boats. Bored officials stamped put passports for US$35.00 each and then all the travellers congregated together in a small shop to wait for enough people to fill our slow boat.

What became immediately obvious is that Laos is certainly not the road that is seldom trod anymore. Each boat can take about fifty people and we and our fellow backpackers filled two boats on a random Monday morning. We were gullible enough to book a room in advance for the nightly stop over in Pak Beng when we crossed over and during our wait a charismatic Laotian took the opportunity to warn all the travellers that Pak Beng was a den of inequity and bustling with thieves straight out of the Arabian Nights. “There are many thieves” he quoth, “that will separate you from your baggage and make away with it in no time at all.” And then “Make sure your room is locked, and that the windows are sealed closed. Carry your valuables with you at all times.” I hugged my camera bag that little bit closer to my side. The rest can go, I am tired of carrying it. This little man then went on to tell us about his guest house in Pak Beng, apparently clean, safe and hospitable. It was, I was relieved to note, the same place that we had already booked. In retrospect I would argue all of those points. Our room smelt of urine, the staff had offered me weed (“Hey my freeend something nice to schmoke?”) twice before I even made it up the hill from the boat (dudes, I DON’T smoke! Not even cigarettes, they make me feel ill!) and when we refused to stay there a sturdy, strong in the arm (very) thick in the head gentleman challenged me to a bout of fisticuffs. I declined but I am getting ahead of myself.

We were still in Huay Xai, the Laos side of the border. “Usually our rooms are 500 Baht a night” our host intoned, “but for now it is off season and they are only 300. Additionally Pak Beng is very small, not many guest houses and the electricity goes off at 10 o’clock. It is better for you if you reserve a room here and then you know you are safe.” I patted myself on the shoulder and for the six hours we were on the boat I felt comforted that the thieves and villains of Pak Beng would have been foiled by boy scout-ish preparedness. The slow boat journey is beautiful with forests on either side of the river and the occasional village, but Koko had been right. After all the Mekong is the twelfth largest river in the world and though our section was comparatively small it still took us from Thailand deep into Laos.

The river itself is a hive of activity with everything from food to trucks being transported along on a variety of boats. On the shores villages spring up as you round in bends of the river and occasionally our boat would stop to allow vendors on who sold food and drinks to the travellers. The amount of life on and around the river was fascinating but three and a half hours in and my bony behind ached as though I had been caned (this from the cramped benches) and I found myself coveting the cards of our neighbours. I read, shifted from side to side, had a couple of large bottles of beers (ok, four) and then finally we were toiling up the banks of Pak Beng towards the promised comforts of Bounmee.

“Bounmee Rooms, 150 Baht” a chorus of touts cried out. In my finest PG Wodehousian tone I heard myself saying “What ho? 150 Baht?” We had been charged three hundred. Upon arrival we kicked up a fuss. We demanded to pay 150, but no, they would (reluctantly) go down to two hundred. They showed us a room redolent of stale urine with a broken fan and still demanded 200 baht. Nipun went to have a word (several in fact, and created a stink not entirely unlike the one in our room) and was told by a Laotian brute of a man that “You are one woman and he is one man in Laos. You do not live here. I will make your stay in Lao very difficult.” We managed to get our deposit back and went in search of alternative lodging, pausing only to tell the man that had tried to intimidate Nipun that I was a journalist and he should look out for the latest copies of the Rough Guide and Lonely Planet when they came out. He went doo-lally and the next thing I knew he was trying to get me to put down my backpack so we could escalate our discussion to the next level. Given that he was an ogre of a man and had “a face like boiled meat” I passed up the opportunity to trade blows with him. I legged it, and quickly at that, though in secret I was delighted with how riled I had got him after he had threatened Nipun. Later, dinner at the local Indian restaurant proved to be true to form with three separate tables having to argue their bills and us included after that. We did not need an alarm clock to wake us to quit that ghastly town. On the boat we heard further horror stories about Bounmee, with rooms with no hot water, lights that did not work and a general inhospitable demeanour from my erstwhile friend the boxer. No doubt he was stewing away and thinking long and deep on how he would like to boil my guts up in a cauldron and brand me with red hot pokers.

After another nine bum crushing hours on the slow boat the next day we arrived in Luang Prabang, the former capital of Lao and a World Heritage site. It is the antithesis of Pak Beng and having been here for three days now we love it. More on that later.

Chiang Mai to Chiang Khong

2009-05-16T04:08:00.000-07:00

Our last days in Chiang Mai seemed to have passed in a blur. Some of our time was spent investigating the best route into Laos and we decided, with the help of Mr Koko of the Chiang Mai TIC travel agency, that the most practical way to travel would be North to Chiang Khong by minibus and then down the Mekong River by slow boat as far as Luang Prabang. In all the journey would take three days, one on the minibus and then two on the slow boat heading west to the former capital of Laos, Luang Prabang.

Mr Koko had done the journey personally, was enthusiastic and came across as a reliable and trustworthy source of information which can be as refreshing as a swim to the traveller. He was full of useful tips such as don’t get the cheapest room in Pakbeng “like I did - it had rats, all night I could hear them crawling around the room” and to take some cards and a MP3 player. “The first few hours on the boat” he explained “are great. Mountains! The River! The jungle!! But after the first four hours you start going crazy. Take cards!” In retrospect Mr Koko was a very good source of information and he was right in pretty much everything he told us. He was especially right about Pakbeng, a one horse town of thieves and braggarts if first impressions are anything to go by. To coin a Tom Waits album name, the term Beggars, Bastards and Brawlers

comes to mind.

Koko also advised us on taking a zip line adventure day. Nipun had been reading up on the “Flight of the Gibbon,” a New Zealand Company that had put zip lines into an area of the jungle that allowed you to whiz your way across the valleys and forests. Again Mr Koko had an enthusiastic opinion and pointed us in the direction of a new company called Jungle Flight. Unbeknown to us this venture had been recently set up by Songpram, the same man behind the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School. Songpram is a really amiable and affable man who had been on the Flight of the Gibbon adventure course and found it wanting for one reason or another. Being an entrepreneurial soul (and egged on by his young son who thought this would be better than any jungle gym) within six months he had found himself a place in the jungle, investors and builders prepared to work through the Chiang Mai rainy season. Within eight months (and after much alleged intimidation and nastiness from some of his competitors) he and the investors were open for business.

The course is set deep in the jungle with a verdant forest on all sides. The hills and valleys are dramatic and one of the cable lines spans close on 300 metres. You are harnessed onto the cable and then launch yourself across the jungle and above deep valleys with trees arching up beneath you. As much as anything the setting makes the day worthwhile, whilst the white knuckled, adrenaline charged rides across the jungle merely add to the adventure of the day. We were lucky enough to be there on the day when there was a PR Agency doing a brochure and as such we tried out a whole new section of the course and then were treated to as much lunch as we could possibly eat.

The rest of our time in Chiang Mai was spent fairly lazily, meandering through the markets, eating and enjoying a stress free travel schedule for a few days. We met a young monk, Nan, who maintained that he’d like some help with his English so we spent a few hours with him on various days. Despite bringing his text books to each informal lesson Nan studiously avoided his text books, his delectation was to talk and try out new catch phrases that he had learnt. So it was “By all means I can do that” and “It would be to my advantage to do this” for three days. What did strike me about Nan was his enthusiasm to chat in English, he had only been learning for two years and a lot of his English was self taught. He was half way through a text book that fell outside of his work requirement and that in itself is admirable. Whilst he could not have been more than eighteen he had been a monk for six years and a novice for two. The monasteries afforded him a living in Chiang Mai and a chance to gain an education. How different was his attitude to the peitit bourgeois that we were as kids.

And then we were on the road again. Driving out of Chiang Mai I was struck by how much I liked this town and I felt a little sad to be leaving it behind. Generally the people were polite and friendly, the roads were well maintained and lined with flowers and trees and as we drove through the suburbs there were ubiquitous markets and Wats that glowed with colour. In a chaotic contradiction of all this order the phone lines above consisted of massed, indistinguishable cables and occasional street kids patrolled the traffic lights selling strings of white flower necklaces to anyone who would take one. Five uneventful hours later we were further up North on the border with Laos at Chiang Khong. The Mekong River was a ten minute walk from our guest house and we spent the evening watching the sunset over the river as longboats lazily docked around us. The next morning we were up well in advance of dawn to photograph sunrise. The sun rose and it was beautiful. I would love to include some of these pictures of that sparkling dawn here, but in a moment of utter genius I formatted the memory card without having put them onto the laptop. I was tired and multi tasking. Poor excuse I know but there we go. Given we were up at five thirty you have very little idea of just how annoyed I am.

Thanks (but can I have a new liver?)

2009-04-30T02:49:00.000-07:00

This here is Brad, Brad Pike to be specific. I think the last time I saw Brad was in Zimbabwe at my farewell party before I left Zimbabwe. I was indulging myself in a couple of frothy tops in Rob De Ridder's lounge when Brad was leaving the party. I heard his truck start up and then a metallic thud as he reversed into someone. I started to laugh until someone in the room said "I don't know what you're snickering at, it was your car he just drove into."

Well that shut me up PDQ. As to the car, the damage was insignificant and a couple of weeks later the vehicle was written off when a fully grown Doberman sauntered into the road when I was driving home. Sadly things didn't turn out so peachy for the Doberman either. At the time I was livid for all the wrong reasons (IE the car being totalled) but looking back I just feel sorry for the dog. Insurance paid up for the vehicle and that in turn paid for my ticket to the UK and everything seems to have fallen into place for a reason. Unless of course you were a doberman whose moronic owners proved incapable of keeping you off a busy road.

Brad in the interim had moved to Australia and set up a new life with his family there, working mostly out of Chiang Mai in Thailand as part of the tobacco trade and travelling between Australia and Thailand for work and family reasons. Needless to say when we knew that we were making this trip emails were sent and luckily our timing co-incided with his and one Friday night we met up and things got a bit messy. We commenced play at the Un-Irish Bar and ended up at Spiceys, a late night joint that sells beer and plays bad music I am told. Between the two venues I could have been taken to Timbuktu for all I know.

The fun did not end here. A couple of nights later we went to watch some Muay Thai and lost all our bets through a combination of picking bad fighters and a very apparent and unsubtle amount of fight fixing that seemed to be taking place. I bumped into one of the fighters later, a behemoth of an Irish fellow who had been ahead on points and then just quit at the end of the second round. Literally. He just heaved his shoulders and dropped out of the fight. He was half way through munching a hot dog at Mikes Kithchen when I saw him.
"What happened" I cried, "you were doing so well, you were ahead on points."

"An old time injury started playing up" he winced.

"But you were ahead on points" I exclaimed, exasperated.

"Thanks," he said somewhat sheepishly.

"Thanks?!!!!! Thanks? I had money on you, you great poltroon," I wanted to cry. I say "wanted" as he was quite large both up and across and mean looking and I suspect that if I goaded him too much he might suddenly forget his old injury and decided to engage me in mortal combat.

The most alarming thing about the Muay Thai was not the rampant match fixing though. It was the fact that out of six fights three involved little kids of about eight, pounding each other with everything that they had. And the crowd loved it! If I put something like this up on Youtube then I would be sent to gaol, but it happens here three times a week.

A third time out with Brad ended prematurely when I ran away (to be fair Nipun was very unwell having picked up a dodgy tummy) early, but I still felt deathly the next day. But that aside this is meant to be about Mr Pike, who quotes Shakespeare when he drinks ("Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war") and inisists on picking up bar tabs that are not his. So thanks Brad, and when we hopefully see you in the UK it will be on us. But I suspect that there will time for a few more catch up sessions between now and Monday when we leave. So please, let us pay this time! Oh, and any chance of a new liver?

Of Elephants, Snakes and Temples

2009-04-27T02:28:00.000-07:00

“We also have a circus” he said. “Also a school for animal training.” This interested me greatly, since I have a loathing for everything associated with performing animals.” I have never seen a lion tamer who did not deserve to be mauled; and when I see a little mutt, wearing a skirt and a frilly bonnet, and skittering through a hoop, I am thrilled by a desire for its tormentor (in the glittering pantsuit) to contract rabies.

Paul Theroux - Riding the Iron Rooster

It is hard to believe but we have now been in Chiang Mai for just shy of two weeks. The Rough Guide has a few warnings from the wise regarding Chiang Mai. It would appear that Chiang Mai is to the traveller what Calypso’s island was to Odysseus. An anticipated short stay turns into an unexpectedly long sojourn, and whilst you know that you should be getting on with your journey, it becomes difficult to leave. The pace of life is relaxing, the people friendly and the hospitality second to none. The other warning that the Rough Guide bundles in is regarding the food. “The main difficulty with eating in Chiang Mai is knowing when to stop.” And how true that is. Be it the street market food with barbequed chicken and pork, spiced to perfection, or the local specialities, the food is ambrosial.

It has to be admitted that during this two week stay my attempts to keep this site up to date have flagged somewhat. By and large we have been kept very busy, taking in the local town markets and Wats, the night markets, a cooking school and an elephant and snake show. My thanks to Mr Theroux for providing the quotation above whose eloquence sums up my general feeling for performing freaks of nature. Coming from a family that has bred parrots for generations my brothers are well aware that if it were up to me I would open the aviaries and set the birds free, and elephants, lets face it, should be respected and not made to paint pictures with their trunks. The snake park was more depressing and on this point I can only hope that in future when I see somebody manhandling a snake and swinging it around his shoulders by its tail, that he will shortly rue the day he chose this trade. Nothing personal but treat animals well, please. Sure, if you have a python the size of a baobab beneath your house, get a snake handler in. But do not chuck them in cages and watch them become gradually more and more diseased until their snouts are disintegrating. And is it really that ingenious to taunt a king cobra three times a day? Sure, there is a lot of skill involved and frankly of you asked me to do it you’d get a very short and pusillanimous response, but really. I would love to say that the crocodile handler at the snake park just outside Harare had learnt his lesson. A year after losing his arm to one of his captives he was still prodding our reptilian friends about with a pole though, grinning like a troglodyte who has just half discovered the powers of fire. He was clearly not a man to whom the saying “Once bitten, twice shy” was applicable.

The Elephant Farm was not so bad in spite of my diatribe. Many of the elephants are orphans and the Indian Elephants have a far more agreeable and compliant nature than their African counterparts. Some of the show was pure cheese, the aforementioned painting show (sadly the elephants failing to plunge a paintbrush through the eye of their trainers), elephants doffing their hats and walking around in circles tail to trunk. When they started to kick a large plastic football around though you began to get an understanding of their immense power, and whilst watching them stack and pile enormous logs it was hard not to be impressed by their grace, power and the precision with which they were handled. I find this kind of work orientated display easier to reconcile than cheap tricks, yet I was in the minority it would appear. The marauding masses seemed quite bored by this part of the show, but when the straw hats came out they became euphoric once more. Our tuk tuk driver, Adoon Ireland, tried to get us to go to a Monkey Show too, but by this stage I was practically ready to the monkeys dirty work for him so instead we went back into town and did the cultural stuff (in other words we went to another Wat). Adoon was a likeable fellow, gregarious and with a mischievous laugh that always made you wonder if you were at the brunt of some arcane joke. The “Ireland” part of his name seems to have come from the fact that he lived in Dublin for five odd years working as a construction worker before he found himself struggling to find gainful employment and returned to Thailand. He was no fan of the Irish winter either so I suspect that leaving Ireland was not the end of the world for him. He now drives a tuk tuk with a Bob Marley sticker emblazoned across the side and willingly chats away about most things other than politics. Try as I may he would only shake his head on this one and remain very non committal. This seems to be a common trait. Our other taxi driver was Mr Chai and he too was happy to chew the fat about anything else but. Mr Chai was a cunning one. He offered to take us around town for 100 baht (GBP 2.00) which seemed far to cheap. What we did not know was that every factory shop in Chiang Mai seemed to bankroll him. For every tourist he bought to their shop he received a fuel coupon. As such, he was very eager to show us around, indeed far too eager at times. In his defence he was completely honest about this and our 100 baht jaunt would have cost a lot more if this was not the case. After looking at silverware, gold, brass ware, ceramics, lacquer ware, leather and umbrellas I suspect that he had enough fuel to last the rest of the month. What was interesting on these trips was meeting the apparently large Nepalese community that now reside in Chiang Mai. Chiamg Mai has welcomed them as part of a co-operative scheme in the interest of diversifying the already burgeoning handicraft market that exists. They were nice guys, displaced from home but making a go of it abroad. Once we got past the aggressive sales bit they relaxed a lot and were very open and easy to speak to. Like everyone else at the moment they are finding things difficult, the global recession has caught up with them and they seem to be willing to sell most of their stuff off as cheaply as they can just to help cash flow. Whether that was just sales talk or not I guess I will never know, but at the end we were chatting pretty frankly.

We ended up at Bo Sang, the area where a large proportion of the Thai umbrellas are made. The umbrellas are made from either silk, paper or cotton with bamboo shafts. The fabric is then hand painted and varnished to make it water resistant. Like all the Thai crafts that we saw that afternoon the umbrellas were that beautiful that you feel compelled to reach into your pocket and say “Yes! Please! How much!?” Unlike all the places though the compulsion at Bo Sang beat common sense around the head and we are now the proud owner of a silk umbrella. Nice.

In the last couple of days Nipun and I have largely been at cooking school. We took different days, firstly capitalise on doing two days each and as such getting four days of knowledge between us, and secondly to have a bit of downtime where we can get around a bit by ourselves. The cooking school was a great experience and makes me wish we were returning home to our own kitchen in some ways. Travelling can be great, but it is over a month since we ate a home cooked meal and a wardrobe seems like such a very precious commodity.

We have also been up Doi Suthep, the mountain that is crowned by Wat Phra That. Upon arrival there are three hundred stairs to ascend and then you reach the Wat proper. Quite honestly it has to be said that the three hundreds steps pale in comparison to the journey up to the Monkey (Jakhu) Temple in Shimla. The Wat is very beautiful, as are all the Wats we have been to. The vibrancy and attention to detail is again awe inspiring and whilst sometimes ruins can be more beautiful than a glistening, well maintained building, I would argue that Wat Phra That is an exception to this. The fact that it is built so high up and on a seeming precipice is again very impressive, as you look over the edge there are long ridges of concrete reinforcing that support the build. 1000 metres below via a short but serpentine route is Chiang Mai. The road bends and twists so much that upon arriving at the Wat both Nipun and I felt nauseous! In the week that lies ahead we plan to go hiking in the hills outside Chiang Mai and then start looking onwards and upwards towards Laos. Whilst Chiang Mai has been great if we do not shake this gentle contentment we find ourselves here next year, wondering if the money will last that much longer and how much we can get as teachers.

Happy Songkran!

2009-04-22T09:48:00.000-07:00

Alas I am a bit behind on the whole blog at the moment, a combination of having been really busy (what DO travellers do all day?), sporadic internet connection and an inability to get onto the blog from the hotel and hence the laptop where all the images and text are saved! USB keys don't work as our Operating system is Vista and this has Microsoft works and all the internet cafes have an older Operating system that cannot open the aforementioned. And I'm lazy, the truth will indeed out. In response to this a picture is apparently worth a thousand words and so I'll bung down a couple of those and I'll chuck in a video clip from Songkran, the biggest water fight in the world. That should easily bulk it all up a bit! Songkran by the way is the business. It rocks.

Journey from Hell Part II

2009-04-22T08:33:00.000-07:00

Our original plan had been to arrive in Bangkok early on the 9th April and then take an overnight train straight through to Chiang Mai in the North of the country. Upon arriving at Hualamphong Train Station in Bangkok it became very obvious that this was not going to happen. Alas, owing to the New Year festivities of Songkran the first train that we could get out of Bangkok was on the 13th, so we had four days to kill in Bangkok. In itself this was no problem, Bangkok is a town that neither of us are that familiar with and as such it gave a chance to explore the city, albeit with the Red Shirts in town running amok and burning buses and generally antagonising the police in all manner of ways (for my own part I imagine that I would react rather unkindly towards anyone throwing a fire bomb in my direction). But being what Morrissey would have referred to as the “Lazy Sunbathers” in his heyday (which for me was Vauxhall and I), we were fairly oblivious to the disquiet downtown more or less up until the time that we were meant to start heading out towards the station.

Our train was scheduled to depart from Hualamphong Station in Bangkok at 1800, however as we arrived back at out Guest House we were told to check if this was still the case by a couple of people. I legged it across the road to the station (only to have a bucket of water thrown at me by the cleaning lady and her companions, Happy New Year to you too) to be told that the train had been cancelled and would not be going anywhere, whilst the next available train would be in three days time. I pleaded. The bored ticket sales man looked on, wholeheartedly unsympathetic. After all it was a bank holiday, he had to work and I was clearly being a difficult customer asking stupid questions. “The train is full hombre, get lost,” his expressionless face said. He flicked through pages of trains on the screen, all with no availability. And then he had a brain wave. If we did not take the sleeper option and went for a reclining chair then could leave the same evening at 2230 and save money too. We would have to leave from Bang Sue at the other side of the metro as no trains were leaving from Hualamphong due the red shirts, but other than that, happy days. Why we not offered this option from the outset was a murky, swampy, pestilence ridden topic that I did not want to go in. We did the refund, got the new tickets and I went back to the lodge to explain the news.

At 9 o’clock we found ourselves at Bang Sue Station in eager anticipation of our 2230 train, which was now leaving at 2300. The station was rammed with people all congregated on the open platforms beneath the stars and sharing the balmy evening with the mosquitoes. This was no glamorous, modern station by any means. It was functional spit and sawdust stuff. At 2300 our train was said to be leaving at midnight. And then I got talking to some of the other people on the platform. It was now 1100pm. Many of the people I spoke to had been at the station since 1900. At midnight very little had happened but apparently (sun?)light was at the end of the tunnel and we would be on our way by 0100. People were now sleeping on the tarmac platforms all around us. Soon Nipun joined them for a brief nap. At 0200 there was still no train and by three I was losing the will to live. By four I was hopeful that I may see the sun come up over Bangkok, by five though the predawn light showed me in sufficient detail that whilst I might get to photograph dawn, there was not much of interest to take a picture of. We were in Bangkok’s ugliest corner. It has to be said that the occasional train did show up and depart, infrequently, late and after sitting at the respective platform for an hour. And by about 0500 I had really kind of lost all interest.

The sun came up at just before six and we were still on hand to shoot it. Like the station, I can say that I was there and it was ugly. But at least I have some proof that I have been up for sunrise in Bangkok. At about seven that morning we finally pulled out of Bang Sue and were on our way to Chiang Mai. I must admit that doing the train during the day offered some really stunning views that we would have missed on a sleeper train. We passed through paddy fields of rice and other grain crops, lakes and rivers all of which we would not have seen by night. But again part of me has to admit that we were too tired to do anything other than recline in our semi-reclining chairs and hope that the journey would be relatively painless and quick which it mostly was. About one hundred kilometers outside Chiang Mai we had to leave the train for a bus as our train was required back in Bangkok again. The bus was AC though and to be fair it was probably quicker. We are now in Chiang Mai and ready to take to the streets for Songkran tomorrow. But for now Goodnight, we are off to sleep!

Final Result: Red shirts 1 / Lazy Sunbathers 0 Referee: BKK Police

Thailand

2009-04-19T05:08:00.000-07:00

Well here we are in Thailand. After a nail biting connection between the Bangalore to Mumbai leg for the onward flight to Bangkok we are here at last - hurrah! I say nail biting as we had the usual palaver that always seems to occur when you need make a connection flight, the plane leaves late, lands later still, and the bus driver between the terminals has had a long, long day and done the entire trip without ever having made it out of first gear. It was a little stressful but we got here, and hey if we didn’t, there is always tomorrow.

The last time I left Thailand I had a little tear in my eye. This was not primarily due great sadness about leaving (which I was), but more because I had picked up an eye infection that left me with two continually seeping, swollen shut eyes and the terrifying suspicion that if it was not cleared up quickly I might go blind. I jest not, when I got home the only way I could negotiate traffic lights was by following the car in front of me and hoping that they had not jumped a red. In the end I had to ask a friend to take me to a doctor PDQ. I digress though, the other reason for the seeping eye was because I was finishing up Mordecai Richelieu’s Barney’s Version, a stunningly poignant and beautifully written tale about, erm, Barney. And then of course I was very sad to be leaving Thailand and toyed with the idea of coming back to teach English when I got my sight back.
Arriving back it is easy to recall why I was a little heavy of the old ticker. We have spent the last few days in Bangkok and it has been a blast. And I have seen enough to make my eyes water again, how symbolic that I left half blind. We got the bus into town and checked into Your Place, a guesthouse near Hua Lumphong station. Whilst not the most exciting part of town location wise it works really well for us, the super efficient metro is a two minute walk away and there are pretty good buses to most places. As importantly China Town is a twenty minute walk down the road which means cheap, good food. We have been eating street food for four days solid now and after India my constitution seems fabulously robust. Songkran (the Buddhist New Year or the worlds biggest wet t-shirt party depending on your interpretation) is also upon us which has meant pitched water fights in the streets. It is great! 35 degree heat, ice cold water and water pistols. Oh, and cold beer too. But the cultural bits first.

We spent our first full day at Wat Pho (your humble narrator having panicked and got off the bus too early as we were on our way to the Grand Palace) where there was a food festival on in the lead up to Song Kran. Any weight I lost in India promises to return all too quickly at this rate. Besides housing the food festival Wat Pho is also home to the Reclining Buddha, a behemoth of a statue in the form of a gold Buddha that measures 45 metres. It is enormous. The rambling complex is fascinating in itself and before we knew it was six in the evening, we had eaten the equivalent of a small armies rations and it was time to go. The next day we tried to out do our gastronomic efforts of the previous day in China Town and spent our time there, eating all manner of things that could occasionally be identified. They have a Tesco’s in China Town which seems a bit surreal, the Tesco Lotus. (Edit: Tesco Lotus seem almost as ineluctable as they are in the UK, they were even sponsoring Songkran events in Chiang Mai, offering peppermints to anyone who would take one.)

Songkran was drawing ever closer and the next evening we found ourselves in Pat Pong for the night market. Patpong remains much the same as I remember it. Within minutes of arriving I had been offered “DVD SEX," and when these tactics failed several personable and pressing invites into go-go bars (I declined). Oddly, many beautiful women seemed to think I was handsome (maybe they had a point). And then minutes later I was offered all of the above again. And a few minutes later the offers were repeated. By the time we left at about 1 am Songkran had officially started and was underway in full swing. We were both drenched, Levi's soaked through and a sweat shirt that came off at about midnight because it was so ridiculously wet that it weighed about ten kilos. In Bangkok they also add to the water throwing with smearing clay across your face as a blessing. No sooner have you managed to hose the clay off before somebody else decides to do it again. In short it is best to go with it as resistance is futile. Since then we have been back to Pat Pong for the Songkran festivities again. The fire department were out with their hoses to douse the crowd and I am really glad we got to see Songkran in Bangkok as well as Chiang Mai. It is Same Same but Different as the saying goes. Needless to say this time I wore shorts and a vest and abandoned any hope of avoiding a drenching.