Nomad Tales

Windows Update log scripting

2010-09-16T13:26:00.005+10:00

** CAUTION NERD ALERT **

I have been working on a problem at work to add a list of updates required to be installed on our servers to my daily Powershell check script I have which runs each day. All the examples I had found online featured the script running a query against the WSUS server. I found this to a bit cumbersome for what I needed and it generally only gave me part of the picture required.

So instead I discovered that the windowsupdate.log file is in fact a tab separated file and with Powershell v2 you can easily import this. Once imported I rearranged to sort the newest lines first and then parse it to find the lines showing which updates are waiting.

I then strip those lines to get only the GUID for the update and query this against a WSUS server. This method seems to run fairly swiftly and quite well across WAN links.

If you want to use it just change the editable section at the top. Of course the script could be incorporated into a bigger script checking more than one computer. This is what it does in my daily server check.

I have also uploaded it to the TechNet Script Center Repository.

###
### Script to check WSUS updates to be installed on a given computer.
###
### Author: NomadTales
### Email: nomadtales [at] gmail [dot] com
### Twitter: @NomadTales
### Date: 16 Sept 2010
###
### License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License
### LicenseURL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
###
### The script parses the WindowsUpdate.log file to get a list of update GUIDs,
### then checks those GUIDs against the WSUS server. This method seems more
### acurate and simpler than polling the WSUS server directly.
###
### Please note there are probably better ways at scripting the string handling section.
### Let me know if so.
###

### Start editable section ###

$computer = "computer"       # The computer to check updates on
$systemdrv = "C"             # The System Drive
$windowsdir = "windows"      # The System Folder
$WSUSserver = "wsusserver"   # Your WSUS server
$WSUSserverportnum = "80"    # WSUS server port number
$wsusSSL = $false            # WSUS using SSL, if yes use $true

### End editable section ###

### START SCRIPT ###

## Reset variables - handy if you run the script multiple times from the editor

$updatesrequired = $null
$updates = $null
$updatelist = $null
$updatecount = 0

## Connect to the WSUS server

[reflection.assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration") | out-null
$wsus = [Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration.AdminProxy]::getUpdateServer($WSUSserver,$wsusSSL,$WSUSserverportnum)

## Generate the path of the log file

$winupdatelog = "\\" + $computer + "\" + $systemdrv + "$\" + $windowsdir + "\windowsupdate.log"

## Import the log file and change the sorting to make newest first

$updates = import-csv $winupdatelog -delimiter `t -header "Date", "Time", "Code1", "Code2", "Action", "Description" `
    | sort @{Expression="Date";Descending=$true}, @{Expression="Time";Descending=$true}

## Parse the log file for the update GUID and query the WSUS server for the human friendly title

foreach ($update in $updates)
{
    if ($update.description -match "Added update {")
    {
        $updatecount++
        $updateidtemp = $update.description -replace ".*{"
        $updateid = $updateidtemp -replace "}.*"

        $updatesrequired = $wsus.GetUpdate([guid]$updateid)
        $updatelist += "{0}`n" -f $updatesrequired.title

    }

    if ($update.description -match "## START ## AU: Search for updates") {break}

}

## Add a total number of updates to the bottom

$updatelist += "`n"
$updatelist += "Total updates to install - {0}" -f $updatecount

## Display the updates required

$updatelist

### END SCRIPT ###

TV-B-Gone inside an iPod

2010-07-31T08:20:00.007+10:00

A couple of weeks ago I got myself a TV-B-Gone kit. This is after months of wanting one. Once received I pulled out the soldering iron that had laid unused for years and constructed the simple circuitry. Completed I just didn't like it being so .. exposed.

It needed a case. And not some ordinary case, it needed some sort of disguising case. This after all is a covert piece of equipment. So I pulled out my old iPod Photo, which after a great life had also sat around collecting dust.

Once apart and gutted I set about trying to see if the kit would fit. It was satisfying to see that the cable bay at the bottom was perfectly suited as a slot for the IR LEDs.

After experimenting with the iPod Photo's battery connected to the kit I instead tested an older original iPod battery. This worked great.

The only thing to do now was to try and rig up some sort of button. I originally thought about using the main command button on the front of the unit but, after checking the circuitry, found it would be too hard to connect up to so instead changed my focus on using the hold button on the top.

Wired up with the help of a mate who had a better soldering iron and soldering skills, we had our disguised TV-B-Gone working. All that is needed now is to wear your headphones and wander into any electronics store or mall filled with annoying and power hungry TVs.

A demo of it in action ..

Malvern Star Single Speed conversion - Part 6

2009-09-16T19:27:00.001+10:00

OK as always you think you have finished something - not that I know that feeling very often - and then there are always more tweaks to perform. For the Single Speed conversion the majority of the recent tweaking has been on the handlebars.

The old handlebars that I had upside down - which looked kinda weird but actually wasn't too bad a position - were out. As I discussed in Part 5 I had ordered some track style handlebars and they had arrived during the week.

Straight away after the tight fit to install the new bars on the head stem I noticed an issue that was not discernible beforehand, the bars were slightly thicker than the 22mm of the previous one. The 1mm or so difference in size made it impossible without some modification to fit the old brake levers I am currently using.

There was also the problem of where to put the brake levers. The shape meant that they would have to be mounted near the centre at the head stem. I am not too keen on this as I like brakes to be in easy reach so I can stop suddenly if needed, without having to switch my hand position.

The track bars were unfortunately not going to work, so I pulled them out and will probably flog off on Ebay one day. Back on went the old bars until I worked out something else to use.

The something else came the next day when I revisited the handlebars I had on another secondhand bike I had picked up off Freecycle. The frame on the bike was crap and the bars I never liked because they were just too wide - almost 670mm. But now with another look I realised that if I chopped off 5cm off each end I would have enough space for the grips and the old levers. So that is what I did.

A hacksaw was used and 5cm lopped off and then with the bars installed it gave the bike a completely new look. It is a look that I like. The bars won't go completely horizontal and they have a slight upward slant but this has the added benefit that I can now flip the bike upside down and stand it. Good for working on the under carriage.

The new bars meant my front brake cable was slightly too long, so it also meant a small job to chop 10cm off the length to get it looking correct. This gave me the chance to lubricate the cable at the same time with some WD40 which I hadn't done before.

Apart from the bars the only other thing that has kept me busy has been the lefthand crank which has decided to be a bit troublesome. Without an 8mm allen key to fit I had been bodging it with a smaller one and a screw driver, the lug just kept loosening off though. So it was a trip around to the brother-in-laws to get the right size and fix this.

And the final touches were added over the weekend when I went down to the helpful LBS and got myself a bell for free. They just happened to have a box out the back full of them and gave it away.

The commute has taken on a new style and the Malvern Star has its very own spot to ride the trains to and fro work.

Malvern Star Single Speed conversion - Part 5

2009-09-08T18:33:00.003+10:00

After the disaster in Part 4 of not being able to get tyres on the weekend the first chance I got I popped into the LBS handily located across the road from work. With my small shopping list I ended up walking out paying far more than I thought I would for the rest of the bits I needed to finish off this project - new pedals, a seat, brake shoes and those tyres.

It was an eager me when I got home. Straight out to the shed to get this project finished. I was very keen to get on and start riding and the finish line was well and truly in sight.

My first task was to get those tyres on the rims. I put the tubes in the tyres and using tyre levers worked the tight tyres over the edge. It wasn't that easy, as you almost need three hands, but with a bit of patience they went on without trouble. I gave some air to the tubes, with the semi-useless hand pump that I had, just to give it some sort of rigidity but would have to a better job of that later.

With both wheels out of the way I turned my attention to saddle. I whipped off the old tatty BMX seat and installed the new one on the stem. I then put the new pedals on the cranks and bolted the cranks onto the bottom bracket. The bike was looking the real deal but the details needed finishing.

The old BMX seat is beyond repair

The major detail which needed doing was the rear brake. The one I stole from the SunTour bike was set up to be connected in reverse to the way I wanted to use it. This shouldn't have been a problem to change except cable connector wasn't designed to be removed. In the end I had to grind off the cable connector and install, after drilling the hole bigger, the one from the Malvern Star.

The brake shoes, which always take a little bit of time to adjust, went on and then it was a quick trip in the car down to the service station to properly inflate my wheels. As I am only familiar with the normal car type tube valves a little lesson was learned about Presta type valves in the process of inflating them. They don't have a built in spring so they won't return a reading on the gauge.

I was blowing up the tyres trying to see the pressure and then realised that they were already well and truly inflated. They needed to be around 100psi, so I just had to guesstimate it.

When I got back it was time to cook dinner so I would have to wait a little bit longer to take out the steed. But it wasn't long after sustenance that I was putting the last finishing touch to the machine - the chain.

The chain I had was a dedicated BMX single-speed chain, which can accommodate the slightly larger teeth of the sprockets. To get the right length, I only needed in the end, to take two links out.

With the chain installed the bike was ready. Even though it was almost 9 at night I couldn't wait to test ride. I maneuvered the incredibly lighter machine out to the street and took off around the nearby carpark. I have to say it was an incredible sensation. The bike was ultra quiet and seemed to just glide along. I was not going to miss the gears at all.

It is now a day later and I have fine tuned the bike to suit my size and taken it out on a long ride around town. It is almost perfect. Almost because I have ordered new drop track-style handlebars .. and I will wait to pass judgment to see if the new bars make it special.

I now have what I wanted from the beginning, the perfect very light weight commuter bike to take on the train each day .. and an early birthday present.

continued in the final Part 6 ...

Malvern Star Single Speed conversion - Part 4

2009-09-06T19:36:00.005+10:00

Things are taking shape in the project. After getting excited with the new parts that I arrived in Part 3 the majority of the tale since has been taken up with detailing - and there has been plenty to do.

First things first and I needed to fix the front forks so that the wheel axle fitted into the slots. I sent a text to my brother-in-law and I was kindly allowed to borrow his grinder. Once I had this in hand it was a simple 5 minutes job to make the slots slightly bigger to make them fit.

Then I was back on the frame to make it look like the real deal. I returned to cleaning up the rust patches and making the chrome bits shine. I partially followed the advice of a detailing expert except that for the rust i just went straight to the sandpaper and sanded back to bare metal. Ideally one day I will respray the entire frame but at the moment I like the old colour and the "Malvern Star" stickers.

Once the frame was in a state that I thought was reasonable it was time to make it ready to travel. This involved giving it a couple of all over sprays with a clear enamel coating. The clothes line came in handy for this job.

Now that the frame was ready it was time to focus my attention on the old handle bars and head stem. Using that detailing advice I used steal wool and WD40 to clean up the chrome parts and make it shine. I was surprised by how successful this was.

By the time I got back to it the frame had well and truly dried so it was time to reattach the front fork. I cleaned up the bearing housing and repacked with plenty of grease and screwed it all back together. Then attached the old - now gleaming - head stem and handle bars. This time though instead of the old upright position I flipped the handle bars over and had them facing down.

Next up I was installing the front brakes and lever. The old brakes from the Malvern wouldn't do though. They were just too rusted to clean up. So luckily I was able to scavenge an almost exact pair off an old SunTour bike that used to belong to my sister - well, it still officially does belong to her, but she hasn't used it in about 20 years.

I was once again getting excited and decided to put the wheels on to see what it looked liked. I liked what I saw.

The weekend wasn't entirely successful though. And the major disappointment of the last two days has been that I was unable to get any tyres. I went down to the bike shop on Saturday morning prepared to depart with cash to get some rubber only to be told they had one wheel of the size - 700x28 - I wanted.

One wheel is not much good so I resolved to check out, for the first time, the only other bike shop in town. Unfortunately by the time I got there they were closed and not to be opened until Monday. I would just have to put my desire to ride the new machine until I could get the tyres during the working week.

By the end of the weekend I had done as much as I could. I had stolen the other brake from the SunTour and tried out my seat options from my spare parts - none of which I am happy about. So with just a bit of shopping to do I can see the finish line approaching now.

continued in Part 5 ...

Malvern Star Single Speed conversion - Part 3

2009-09-03T09:14:00.007+10:00

Developments have occurred since Part 2 of the tale of the Malvern Star conversion. Two boxes of parts arrived from Melbourne.

There is always something magical about getting a parcel in the mail. Even better when you don't expect it and there they are, two large boxes waiting when you walk in home after work.

I hastily opened and spilled out the contents of nuts, small boxes, bubble wrapped silver objects and of course two large bicycle wheels. The wheels were amazing and seemed almost weightless to lift. I put them aside as I unwrapped the cranks and chainring and started to bolt them together.

I skipped dinner as I got the frame and made sure the bottom bracket screwed in and fitted - it did. I attached the cranks and laid out the bike on the floor with the rear wheel attached and the front wheel roughly where it should go. It all looked very nice.

One small problem though that I found with the new parts is that the front wheel axle doesn't fit into the slot on the front fork. It seems to be less than a mm out. Nothing though that a quick angle grind can't fix.

Also in my haste to check out all the bits I still have not completed a fundamental job - cleaning up and detailing the frame. I have started, by sanding out some of the rust patches, but still have a little way to go.

I have at this stage still decided to keep the original paintwork and just sand out the rust and clear coat it all with an enamel spray. So my eager work attaching the cranks and bottom bracket will have to be removed. But it was worth it.

continued in Part 4 ...

Malvern Star Single Speed conversion - Part 2

2009-08-28T16:03:00.000+10:00

Well I have been busy being Mr Bike Mechanic lately working on my little project to convert that free 80s Malvern Star into a sweet single speed commuter bike. So after the original pickup of the bike as described in Part 1 I have set about getting the parts I need to get it converted.

One thing is for sure, it is not that cheap to buy new bike parts in Australia. God knows how you can buy a brand new decent bike from a bike store for around $300 when the basic parts I am looking at are tallying up way above that. Perhaps the words "China" and "import" have something to do with it.

Anyway, I decided after visiting my LBSs (local bike shops) - one in Maitland and then another two in Newcastle - that they are not really versed in the single speed thing like they are down south. So I weighed up a few options, I could get the parts I needed off the net - which would be a risk as I am not exactly sure which part will fit with my frame and I don't want to order in the wrong part. Alternatively I could work with someone who does a lot of these conversions and get them to organise the parts for me.

And this is what I did. I shot an email off to Pony Bikes and asked them how hard it was to get the bits I needed.

hi pony b,

i got this malvern star for free! a "touristar" from early-mid 80s i guess. am keen to jazz it up a bit but keep the original paintwork. unfortunately i am not in melburn, tho lived there for a couple of years and was into the ss/fixie look but never got around to getting one myself. now that i have the star i want to get serious. i stripped it back to the frame and just need the parts.

could you do a quote of parts list of what would look good - maybe with a chrome look - and how much to ship up to Maitland NSW. let me know if you need measurments.

thanks,

j

Not long later I recieved a quick reply. Pony B was onto the case and she drew up a list of parts and costed them. It wasn't going to be very cheap so I restricted myself to just getting the drive train parts .. the wheels, hubs, bottom bracket, chainring and cranks. The other bits I could scrounge myself. But I knew that if I was getting someone who new the game, I would be making sure that the parts I get will be the right size and fit my Malvern.

This involved a bit of measuring, so I had strip back the frame to just itself. I had removed everything bar the cranks, chainring and bottom bracket previously but now I needed to get rid of them. So instead as suggested I go off to the LBS (local bike shop) I went around to the brother-in-laws and got myself a 14mm socket and whipped off the cranks .. with plenty of persuasion using a screwdriver and hammer.

I then worked on the bottom bracket. I didn't have the required C spanner, so again the screwdriver and hammer came to the fore and tap-tap-tap later one half was off and then tap-tap-tap to get the other one came off. I took a photo of the bottom bracket minus everything and sent it off to Pony B.

The bottom bracket measurement

Making sure the frame will fit the rear hub

She confirmed that she had the right parts gave me the final price - $600 including shipping. I could almost buy a new single-speed for that! But I was commited now and this I had decided would be my birthday present to myself (by the time I finish this project it probably will be my birthday).

So I am now paid up and just waiting for the parts to arrive.

continued in Part 3 ...

My current Idea - a new Cross Harbour Tunnel

2009-08-24T14:52:00.004+10:00

In the SMH on Saturday they highlighted their new backing of a Public Transport Enquiry. All grandiose sounding, but the intention is good. They want to take action where successive state governments stretching back before I was born have done nothing.

Of course it could – well most probably will - be a bunch of hot air, but it brought back thoughts I have had for a while, which were reinforced as I spent a few weeks commuting from Wynyard to Chatswood. Obviously there needs to be extra lines across the harbour - 2 tracks on the bridge supporting all those services is not feasible. So I thought why don't they instead utilise the spur line from Waverton down to Lavender Bay, and go underground under the harbour at Blues Point?

This then connects to the new development at Barangaroo. From there the line continues underground to a new station, either at the end of Market Street to connect Darling Harbour or it goes to the new planned "Sydney Square" across the street from the Town Hall - after they demolish the buildings currently there. From there it will connect up with the vacant stations at Central and off on its merry way into the Cityrail network.

Alternatively, I have also considered that this could be part of a line that connects the beaches - the Northern Beaches to Maroubra. Utilising the empty platforms at St Leonards a line dips underground there running north and heads off to Dee Why or somewhere - my geography of the Northern Beaches is sketchy. At the same time, after the new Town Hall station it continues on under Oxford Street to a new station at Taylor Square and then on to Moore Park - for the stadiums obviously - then to UniNSW and continuing to Maroubra.

See my little mock up below.

Now all I have to do is tell the Public Inquiry, they tell the government and it gets built. Too easy.

Malvern Star Single Speed conversion - Part 1

2009-08-22T15:54:00.011+10:00

Been a while since I have updated this blog. There have been no trips to report of, so instead I have been making myself busy up in the home region. Part of this has been a recent obsession with making myself a Single-Speed bicycle. Courier style. It's all the rage down in Melbourne. I was all keen to just go out and buy one. I had my eyes - still have my eyes - on a Trek Soho S, but then I thought a cheaper option would be to build one from an old road bike frame.

The problem. I didn't have an old road bike frame. I didn't let this stop me so I went on to Freecycle to see if any local ~~suckers~~ kind people would give away their old bike hanging up in their shed.

Message pleads:

Hi all,

I have a dream of building a fixie bike and to get me started I need a basic old road bike frame. It doesn't matter if the frame is half buried under rubbish and the wheels are rusted and tyres rotten, as I just want the basic frame.

Lo and behold only a few hours after sending it out, I get a response.

Hi, we have an old Malvern Star pushbike if you are interested.

Scant info to go by but it sounds good. An old Malvern Star, they were, I thought, the bees knees when I was a kid. I gave them a ring and we arranged to pick up on the weekend.

Fast forward to Sunday and cruising over to the suburbs I was making my acquaintance with possibly a new friend for life. And he was good looking. Apart from the tyre sidewalls that looked like they had a horrid skin disease, the bike could have been ridden away. The tyres still had pressure. The philanthropist showed me that the headset bearings were grinding, but as I discovered later this was not because of a busted bearing, but because someone had put in the bearing cages upside-down.

Love at first sight. This Freecycle malarkey is bloody brilliant.

The bike was just what I wanted. The frame is right size and design and best of all the bike has horizontal dropouts (see image below) which is precisely what is needed for single-speed/fixie convert.

All I have to do now is strip it back to the frame and buy the required parts.

continued in Part 2 ...

Boulders, Blue Wash and a Bond Film

2008-11-18T19:27:00.000+11:00

JAISALMER: It seems like an age ago that we were in Mysore, where I posted the last lame blog story, but it has just been three weeks. Since that time we have come a bloody long way again, clocking up more miles on the train and bus than I care to calculate (yet). We have also had some varied standout and forgettable moments from getting a new travel companion and seeing more amazing sights and scenery to having to put up with polluted, rubbish filled cities and battle touts and other pests (including an audacious autorickshaw driver who chased us done a lane trying to take us to a commission paying hotel).

Mysore was a standout town for us and India; it was actually fairly clean and livable. There were large boulevards to walk down and a brilliant market to explore, and then there was its fabulous palace, built only a hundred years ago, but quite impressive. After trying to sneak in with our camera (they were banned) we joined the hundreds of locals in marveling at its magnificent rooms.

Our time in Mysore also coincided with the start of the India's major festival period; Diwali, the festival of lights. We have since christened it the never-ending Diwali as it has followed us like that autorickshaw. The festival would be great if it was just the fireworks but as it turns out it also involves kids igniting fire crackers - the exploding, banging kind.

There doesn't seem to be any regulation on the size of bang either. Sitting and trying to have an evening meal while an explosion rocks you and the buildings around is not much fun – especially in a country that has active terrorism. But that is just a minor complaint and since Mysore the sights we have seen more than make up for the long travel or kids risking their fingers.

Firstly there was Hampi a boulder strewn region that once contained a capital city of an abandoned empire. The inhabitants were prodigious carvers and with the masses of material scattered around turned it all into an amazing rock city. Wandering around giant boulders to the forgotten temples and bazaars was one of the highlights for our trip in the south. Seeing as we almost did not have time to get there the experience was doubly magical.

Boulder strewn Hampi

Hampi was a highlight, so was Mysore, and then there was Bombay, our next stop. We came all the way from the south, clocking up those kilometres, to the big financial smokey town to meet Rob's sister. She had come all the way from Oz to meet us (bless her, someone who actually wants to travel with us for a month). We were going further north to where we hadn't been yet (it still hard to believe how big and varied this country is) and she was happily coming along for the ride.

The colonial architecture of the graceful buildings and busy bustling thoroughfares of Mumbai was our first shared experience. Unfortunately for me it was tainted by the expense of the place and is now also viewed through a bed bug riddled prism. Due to the cost of getting a room we ended up crashing at the cheapest place we found, the Salvos. God bless them, they provide cheapish rooms but they also came with some ferocious bed-bugs. Those blood sucking mites, savaged me for a few nights in a row. Luckily for Mumbai we have to go back there so it will get a chance to redeem itself.

We kept heading north and to begin with the journey wasn't that crash hot for us. To start there was a rough overnight train trip to Ahmedabad in sleeper class, the most basic, where me and Rob had to share a single bunk (a long story but not something I would repeat in a hurry). Then after reading a good review of the city with its old town we discovered that prosperous Ahmedabad was also one full of traffic and virtually devoid of accessible sights. Instead of a few nights there we quickly departed after one.

Then finally after a hard week or so we made it to almost mythical Rajasthan and it was fantastic to end up in its southern jewel, Udaipur. The city is another gem by Indian standards and although it doesn't take too much looking to see some of the more undesirable elements of India in its nooks and crannies the beauty of the architecture there overwhelmingly outweighed any negatives.

Udaipur is graced by its setting around a man-made lake. Even though the water was mostly a shade of green it still was a fantastically photogenic place where sunsets are the stuff of photographers wet dreams especially when there are graceful soaring palaces to fill up the viewfinder. Then there are the palaces that take up every inch of islands in the lake. This is a place which would make a fabulous set for a movie and as we found out it has. Every night we were treated (and then eventually annoyed) by showings of James Bond's Octopussy at the roof-top restaurants around town.

Udaipur's lake

We spent quite a lot of time wandering around the old town and its tourist orientated streets, visiting the city palace where like Mysore we filed through its small rooms and courtyards with hundreds of gawping locals and buses of foreign tour groups alike. Unlike Bond though we didn't get to a couple of locations in the film, one in particular, the lake palace, is now a very flash hotel. You can dine in the restaurant but we were held back by the fact we needed to iron our clothes first (and possibly the price).

Movie locations were one of the reasons that drove us on to the next city we visited, Jodhpur. The city starred in the film Darjeeling Limited, which had inspired us last year to get to India. Now after clambering around the city's imposing fort and getting the birds eye view of the labyrinth like old city with its Brahmin blue washed walls you could see why the old city was chosen as an extra to Owen Wilson and co. We spent a few nights there taking in the old city and superb central market with its amazing clocktower, but also trying to dodge that autorickshaw driver.

Jodhpur's fort and the old city were impressive and reason enough to get there but after now venturing further west to India's frontier desert town of Jaisalmer and immersing ourselves in its own version of ancient defences it is hard to work out which is more scenic. Jaisalmer though has foregone the blue paint and instead just devoted itself to natural sandstone so the effect of the fort's rounded bastions rising out of the old town and surrounding Thar desert is a bit like a sandcastle at one immense beach.

The old town of Jaisalmer has the added benefit though of some of the most exquisitely carved noblemen's houses or havellis you will likely see anywhere. They are rivaled only by the fort palaces for intricately carved stone lattice screens and flower features under eves that are attached with a bayonet fixture similar to a light bulb.

A Jaisalmer havelli

Jaisalmer is not just a big fairyland town in the desert it is also the home of camel safaris. A chance to escape the noise, smog, grime and yes creepy rickshaw drivers and jump instead onto farting camels and head into the peaceful, quite and very sandy desert to sleep under the stars for a few days. And that is what we have just done, but will have to wait until the next update. Coming sooner than the last I promise.

Southern Exposure

2008-10-28T16:48:00.000+11:00

MYSORE: To the south, to the south. The monsoon had ended (or so we thought) and it was time to take in the south. We have dipped our toes into the Dravidian cultures of South India like taking a dip in the Bay of Bengal or the Arabian Sea. The surf has been rough at times, but we have drip-dried off and experienced another side of India.

The tip of the sub-continent was reached and like a yo-yo we are now we are winding our way back up. It has been a long trip to get, here passing from the foothills of the Himalayas, across mystical flat broad and brown rivers, to the temple strewn and palm fringed east coast. Once we hit the coast at Orissa in the north-east we hugged it through to Madras and then all the way southward to as far as we could go.

The journey by boat, bus and long distance trains has not been without its moments. Fortunately they have been little things and for most of the time we have enjoyed the coast and have watched the sun rise or set over it, discovering the scenery of cliff-lined shores, flat broad beaches, still inland waterways and canals of the backwaters and the historical monuments left behind by coastal empires that have flourished and gone.

But unfortunately for you the reader because I am lazy I have not done a major write up of this section of our journey so you will have to contend with the following spotlight on some of the highlights and lowlights, listed in no particular order from the past three weeks...

* Taking a dip in both the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea beside fully clothed Kolkatans in the former and bikini clad westeners in the latter.

* A couple of near-24 hour train rides to get to the coast and the south in the first place; getting woken at four in the morning by someone insisting your are in their bunk, then watching for hours as the train passes through rice paddies and coconut palm groves.

* Visiting the fabulous 800 year old Sun Temple in Orissa and wandering around (with lots of local tourists) the gigantic structure, getting up close to massive wall carvings of sun dials/chariot wheels and risque raunchy scenes.

* Visiting the equally impressive and older carvings covering a rocky hilllock at Mamallapuram (just south of Chennai) and wondering about the lost empire that created them.

* Being a tight arse and not paying the “foreigner price” to visit the famous Shore Temple at Mamallapuram and instead looking at it through the cyclone fencing on the beach.

* Having to dodge the squatting local fishermen at Mamallapuram who insist on taking their morning abultions almost in front of you on the beach as you try to get some dawn photos of the Shore Temple through the fence.

* Visiting the city of Madurai with one of the world's largest Hindu temples, which is surrounded by a dozen massive gompuras (technocoloured pyramid shaped towers covered in statues of hindu gods and deities) - only to find that all the gompuras are covered in equally massive scaffolding and palm fronds – and you can't see a thing.

* Swapping curry and rice for aubergine gratin and ratatoui, and roti and naan for croissants, in Pondicherry.

* Being introduced to a whole new cuisine – southern style; steamed rice cakes, lentil pancakes and lots of spicey sauces – the best (and cheapest) eating of the trip.

* Cruising up the coconut tree lined, almost black, backwaters of Kerala for eight hours while watching fishermen lay nets and punt canoes with nearby eagles, kingfishers and egrets also going about their business.

* Reaching the tip of the sub-continent and discovering that there is a massive statue erected offshore on an island which is viewable from our cheap hotel room; sunrise was good.

* Loving the fact that the monsoon has ended only to discover that southern India also experiences a north-west monsoon directly after the south-east has finished; nobody told us!

* Getting more rain than we bargined for again while a cyclone parks itself off the coast and causes major rain in Kerala.

* Observing Indians and their crowd control behavior and being frightened at the way they will barge onto to transport before you have a chance to get off it; you learn to push back and realise why there are numerous human crushings at temples here.

* Watching the sunset over the ocean from a clifftop restaurant at Varkala and eating cheap fresh whole grilled tuna and snapper.

* Seeing two rare white tigers gnawing on their meaty dinner (unfortunately not in the wild but whilst taking a visit to a zoo in Orissa).

* Wandering around the photogenic old French quarter in Pondi. French colonial architecture in India! Another surprise.

* Discovering further colonialisation in the Catholic dominated ex-Portugese Fort Cochin – huge churches, and a loud Sunday sing-along.

* Watching at night from the vantage point of a cycle rickshaw, throngs of thousands of devotees to the Mother Godess Durga congreate and celebrate.

* Taking the slow bus to Mysore and arriving at 10pm over some of the worst roads we have experienced on the trip; who puts a series of speed humps in the middle of nowhere – but at least we made it safely, albeit with tyre puncture as an interval.

Oh the Humanity

2008-10-06T16:41:00.002+11:00

VARANASI: I saw the man hover around, standing nearby and moving when we did. This was not unusual in the busiest ghat of the city. Touts and hawkers continually pestered tourists while pilgrims gathered on the steps and awaited instructions from their guides, and local dwellers and the saffron clad sadhus bathed and washed in the holy water, oblivious to everyone else surrounding.

Walking away, the man held out his hand to shake mine. I complied as I thought it was a harmless enough activity. I had shaken hands with many Indians while travelling through the country and it usually ends with that, just a hand shake. Immediately though the man grabbed my upper arm and with very strong hands proceeded to almost Chinese burn it in an intense massage that followed down the length to my hand.

For a few minutes I was stuck, not able to get away, but at the same time given the most painful and enjoyable massage of my life. It ended with him cracking not just my fingers but my whole hand and saying for 10 rupees he would do my head neck and shoulders for five minutes. With a prolonged “thanks but no thanks” we eventually managed to keep moving in the hot morning sun.

Life on the ghats

The famous ghats of Varanasi were explored throughout the morning. We walked up and down the steps leading to the Ganges, passing the temples to Shiva, Vishnu, Kali and just about all the other gods and watching the bathers wash in the holy water, until the heat of the day became too much. We returned to the area when the sun had dropped and the temperature had cooled, to only be greeted by the same smiling masseuse from the morning.

“Ten rupees, head, neck and shoulders”. This time I complied and amidst the crowds of pilgrims, tourists and wallahs enjoying the evening on the steps of the ghat, he laid down a cloth and got me sit on it. What followed was one of those bizarre travel moments that you just have to go with. With Indians staring and tourists surely bemused I was given a full body massage from fingers to toes while laying on my back and then my front. It didn't bother me and cost more than 10 rupees in the end but it was a serene experience as I gazed over the dusky Ganges and my muscles were given a massive pounding.

Yes we are back in India and in the holy city of Varanasi and travel life is back into a more hectic and frenetic pace. But how can you not enjoy all the sights, experiences and frustration that entails. It is never boring.

Life exists everywhere here. The crammed old city swarms not only with the clamour of people densely packed in, but coexists with the revered monkeys and cows that happily bound along the rooftops and lazily wander the narrow alleys feeding on the scraps. Occasionally a bull will block access and bellow or a squabble will erupt between the simians but on the whole they all exist in the same space.

Death is not far away here either. The charred corpses on top of the pyre at the burning ghats are a very visible reminder that the Ganges is not only revered for the living but for the afterlife as well. Then there are scenes of a bloated cow's body stuck in a eddy behind a moored boat and not far away is a man gargling the river water.

Human existence takes on an almost collective cohesion. The masses of pilgrims all piling into a boat for a trip along the holy river. The jostling of the crowds as they are forced to thin down to fit through the narrow alleys. Passing the sadhus with their baskets containing cobras or, most beautifully, how the city's rooftops become the playground of the boys.

With ground space a premium, kites are launched from rooftops and with skillful pull strokes allowed to gain altitude. There is an art to flying these simple homemade paper and stick contraptions, but it seems just about every boy in the city has mastered it. We watched from the rooftop of our guesthouse an endless dusky sky full of kites bobbing. Travelling certainly has its special moments and this along with getting my public pummeling were some of them.

Temples, Trails, Peaks and Rhinos

2008-09-30T13:45:00.001+10:00

SAURAHA: The elephant crashed through the leafy green scrub and lumbered on, whilst we were whipped with branches. You get a different perspective sitting high and not so comfortably on the back of a five tonne pachyderm. The view of your steed is limited to a mass of grey, wrinkly, thick skin below you and the bulbous hairy dome of its head with its wide ears flapping in front. But it is the perfect vehicle for rhino hunting - and that is exactly what we were doing.

Who would have that thought coming to Nepal we would end up on an elephant safari. Mountains and trekking are usually associated with this landlocked country stuck between the two giants of India and China. But a safari in the fabulous Chitwan National Park is how we have ended our visit here, and it could have topped the trekking as the highlight of the country or perhaps our entire travels so far.

It is not often that you get to see magestic One-Horned Indian Rhinos in the wild but this is surprisingly what we got to see. It was surprising because they (more amazingly there was not one but two together) were not bothered as we and about 10 other elephants loaded with tourists crashed our way through the forests in search of them. The mahoots shouting to each other did not disturb them either, as we finally came across the two grazing grey armoured endangered beasts as dusk approached.

Not so sneaking up to a Rhino

It was a special end to a fantastic day which started bright and early with a trip downriver in a dug-out canoe, spotting the snout of a fresh-water crocodile, and then a two-hour hike through the jungle forests. We had the usual danger speech beforehand - this is what you do if we get charged by a rhino, if a Bengal tiger attacks do this and if a wild elephant decides to go for us then we are done for. Unfortunately we didn't encounter any of that; we spotted some deer and - for the first time away from their scavenging role at temples - monkeys in their natural habitat.

But Chitwan has only been the climax of what has been an excellent three weeks here. We flew from Delhi to Kathmandu and were greeted by the familiar face of my mother amongst the crowds outside the airport. She had arrived earlier and was to be our first travel companion from home on our trip.

Kathmandu was seen from the blissful environs of Boudnath, the location for a massive stupa (Buddhist spire) where devout Tibetans lap clockwise. From our base we explored the area and visited the medieval suburb of Patan south of the river. The small narrow streets were packed with tight-knit Hindu shrines and temples, culminating in the large Durbar square. Multi-tiered distinctive Newari temples were architecturally amazing and again another stereotype of Nepal was shattered – more than just a mountain range for trekking in.

We ventured into the touristy suburb of Thamel for a night to be close to the bus stop to get to Pokhara. The peace we were accustomed to in Boudnath was broken by the neon lights, touts, feral street kids fighting and general overload of population density. It was good to get away in the end and head west, in search of the stereotyipcal image of Nepal: mountains.

Pokhara delivered. Initially everything was clouded but in the afternoon the heavens opened and there in front of us were the famous Annapurnas gleaming bright white and rearing above us. Massive mountains know how to make you feel small and these did. No matter how many times you view them you never get sick of their sight. They are glorious reminders of nature's beauty. Photos of course can never do it justice, but it doesn't stop you trying.

Pokhara though is a tourist town, and had all the trappings that that involves. Despite this, there can't be too many towns in the world where you can sip your latte as you gaze up on 7000m high mountains. The tourist area is well situated on the serene Fewa Tal lake and to kill time we hired a local woman to row us around as the sun set.

A trek into the Annapurna region is a must if you come to Pokhara. A complete circuit of the range would take almost three weeks and was beyond our time scope or our fitness level. We instead decided to do a five day trek to a popular 3200m high spot called Poon Hill where the Annapurnas and the nearby Dhaulagiri, seventh highest mountain in the world, are viewed in all their glory.

Dawn at Poon Hill

To gear up for it and to make sure our fitness was up to scratch we tackled another viewing hill closer to Pokhara called Sarangkot. The views are usually superb, at the right time of year, but as we are only now just starting to depart the monsoon for the dryer seasons, the clouds decided to block any view after our hard climb up 800m all the way from town. We stayed the night there but the view in the morning – usually the best time - wasn't any better.

Our trek to Poon Hill was delayed as a rest day was imposed on us by the monsoon. On our day of departure the rain sheeted down and filled the streets, turning the one outside our guesthouse into a river. It stopped our activities but fortunately it seemed like the last gasp of a dying beast, and the next day we departed via taxi out to the start of the trek.

Trekking in Nepal is unlike trekking anywhere else in the world. The paths along the popular routes are nicely paved, you share the route with pack horses, goats heading to market and locals heading home. Then there is the famous scenery, often just as impressive as the mountains: green forested slopes worked with rice paddy terraces. The scenery changes depending on where you are and on the entire Annapurna circuit it turns more into Tibetan style rocky environment north of the range.

On the third morning we clambered up in the half light of dawn to the top of Poon Hill. The views were literally breathtaking as we recovered from the exertion of getting to the top. Luck was finally with us and we were treated to a perfect clear dawn with sun rising behind the Annapurna range to the east and Dhaulagiri lit up to the north. It was a special moment for all of us.

Trekking is an industry here and so almost everything is geared towards it. There are lodges everywhere, all with attached restaurants providing all the usual travellers' fare. Facilities range from the more basic, rough timber floors with squat toilets, to sophisticated ones with flushing toilets and hot and cold showers.

Unfortunately in some parts a culture seems to have developed of milking tourists for all they're worth. Cartels, or as they are called here "Committees or Associations", set menu prices for all the lodges on the trails across a certain area. They set their prices at two or usually three times the prices of what the same meal costs back in town.

I understand that there is a higher cost associated with carting goods to the lodges by porters but when the item you want to eat – a locally grown meal that locals eat - is ludicrously expensive, you have to wonder. And strangely with the portering costs a beer is not that much more expensive than in town.

But that's enough of my rant. We immeasurably enjoyed our hike, and I am extremely proud of mum carrying her pack (almost) the whole way, when virtually everybody else was using porters. We have now made our way down to the tropical plains and the animal spotting. And in amongst this I got to spend another birthday in another country and what a special one it was.

Return to the plains

2008-09-10T20:28:00.001+10:00

DELHI: We are back in the nations capital after roaming the partially contentious and certainly mountainous area of India's far north. The region was an awe inspiring look at nature at its most raw and rugged and has to be along with northern Laos the highlight of the trip so far. But all things had to finish and we have now weaved and wound our way back through the Himalayas.

Delhi like Kolkata can hit you in the face with its sights. Not just the grand architectural ones that we have been visiting but all the street life. There have been no flash lodgings for us so that means we mingle more with the masses as we come out of our temporary abode above the Main Bazaar strip in Paharganj.

Everyday Indians shopping for clothes dodge the cycle rickshaws and their green and yellow auto cousins. Innovative street kids perform acrobatic twisting and then stick out their hand as a man trundles by on his little cart with wheels. Or there is the more traditional metal cup rattled at you by a man hobbling with a crutch or a woman with a baby in her arms.

But it is not just the humanity, animals mix and mingle along with the people. Cows forlornly wander around waiting for a handout of potatoes or just a munch on a cardboard box. Tethered bullocks pull wagons loaded with sacks or a horse used for weddings trots by. Other horses are still stuck in the 19th century as they are harnessed to carriages waiting for paying passengers to climb on board.

And then there have been Delhi's splendid monuments to gawk at. The pre-British Raj era Mughal built ones are more fabulous examples of Muslim architecture. The imposing Red Fort and the spectacular Humayun's Tomb which they say was a trial run for the Taj Mahal. If that is the case then Taj must truly be impressive. We shall wait and see.

Old Mughal architectural wonders in Delhi

We spent a morning soaking in the magnificent structure and then soaking in our own sweat as we clambered over the mausoleums and mosques in the sticky heat. We combined the trip to the more somber Ghandi Smitri, the place where the Mahatma was martyred to a crazed man 60 years ago. It has now been turned into an exhaustive museum dedicated to his life.

Previously to Delhi we had to pass through the old British summer capital of Shimla again. This time the weather that had dampened our last visit thankfully had eased and we actually got to roam the bazaars clinging to the hillsides. Kipling wrote of the bazaars as a "crowded rabbit warren that climbs up from the valley at forty five" where "a man who knows his way there can defy all the police .. so cunningly does veranda communicate with veranda, alley-way with alley-way and bolt-hole with bolt-hole". Not much has changed in the last 100 years it seems.

Shimla's middle bazaar

There were not as many sights to tick off this time in Shimla it was of more a recovery and preparation for the two 10 hour journeys that bookended the visit. The stay did though coincide with a Bollywood film that was being staged in the city and this was another example of how Indians just like Papuan New Guineans love real life entertainment. Hundreds of people stopped to gawk at the production and the crew had a hard time keeping back the crowds from ruining their shoot.

One thing we certainly now miss is the cool mountain air. Thankfully our stop in Delhi is only a short one and tomorrow we back on a plane and flying to somewhere with plenty of mountains; Nepal. We also get to be greeted by my mother who is already there. Our first contact with family for 5 months. Bring on the next chapter.

Dust on the boots (and more bus stories)

2008-09-04T14:56:00.002+10:00

KALPA: Sitting on a barrier on the side of the road taking a break, I saw the tractor rumble around around the bend. Perhaps a lift is possible, I thought, for these tractors loaded with gravel routinely head from the river bed into town. Grabbing our full packs ready in anticipation, the tractor sidled up and the driver called "Kaza, Kaza". "Yes, yes" we answered.

We threw our burden onto the gravel heap in the trailer and climbed up onto a back tray between the wheels of the tractor and happily bounced the last four kilometres into town. It was a great relief to know there was no more trudging along the dusty boring road with our full packs.

This was the Spiti valley, another slice of Tibetan moonscape (or perhaps Marscape) in the far north of India. We had been hiking the 16km back to the main town in the valley because the public bus system in Spiti is unfortunately a little erratic. The only other way around is to hire jeeps and the local taxi union (mafia) sets exorbitant prices for foreigners.

So we walked back to Spiti's capital, Kaza, and notched up a new mode of transport that we had not ridden before: a tractor ride. And even though it was very bumpy and we had to hold on for dear life, it was certainly more sedate than the other main mode of transport over the last couple of weeks: the bus. Buses have either been long, frustrating, painful or terrifying.

But back to Ladakh, which seems like a long time ago now. We got there on that long bus ride as described before and stayed a week in the isolated Buddhist (former) kingdom, soaking up the comforts and sights that this entailed. Leh in parts was a complete tourist town, in fact in the area we stayed, Changspa, you could call it little Israel. Hebrew was outspeaking any other foreign language 2 to 1. But being touristy it was still surprisingly fantastic. Leh has to rate as one of my most favourite towns.

The reason we enjoyed the place and why it lived up to my expectations was due to its setting. Surrounded by moonscape, Leh was an oasis of green fed by irrigation channels flowing with feng shui goodness. The small town centre bustled at just the right pace but it only took a few minutes to walk off through the stone-walled alleys into semi-rural surroundings. The old palace and Gompa (monastery) loomed over the town on one side and was pleasantly twinned by a new, Japanese built stupa on the other side of town, the place to go for sunsets.

We filled our time in the Ladakhi capital by munching our way through the smorgasbord of delights which competed for our rupee. There was also the chance to ride a mountain bike down from the highest motorable pass in the world (supposedly 5600m, but my GPS, and others, had it at around 5380m – still bloody high). You get a two hour lift up to the frosty top 39km away from Leh, have a cup of chai trying to negate some of the altitude sickness and then ride on down for the next three hours.

My bike for the ride

But the fun and relaxation of Leh had to end and then it was to the painful trip of getting back from Ladakh. It was basically backtracking via the route we had already taken to get there (the only other overland route from Ladakh is through Kashmir, and even though I would like to go there have been some major flare ups recently and is just too dangerous). This time though instead of a long haul sleep deprived van trip we decided to take the "deluxe" government bus to the first real settlement south of Leh, Keylong in the Lahaul valley.

Fortunately the government bus was a lot slower than the van, unfortunately that meant that it took 15 hours for a journey around 350km starting at 5 in the morning. We also had to put up with getting the last two seats on the bus in the back row. Normally I like being a back seat heavy, but in this case it meant that concussion almost occurred numerous times as we were launched airborne over bumps into the luggage rack above us. There was also a non-working fan strategically placed with its sharp metal edge right next to your head. Any time a bump was felt coming it was duck and cover.

Arriving very weary in the pitch black in Keylong, it was with great relief to not only depart the bus but find a fantastic cheap guesthouse with for the first time a TV actually showing the Olympics (the second to last day of competition). We caught our first views of the competition, which turned out to be a gymnastic version of synchronised swimming with five girls but with ropes and hoops. Is this new?

The guesthouse kudos was increased tenthfold upon morning when we looked out the window and discovered a bunch of white snow capped peaks of over 6000m bearing down us at the end of a green, steep V shaped valley. You have to love the Himalayas; views you just don't get back home.

The other poor saps from our bus trip left brazenly early on the same deluxe torture and carried on south to our previous departure point, Manali. We instead stayed along with another Australian couple and their four year old son and enjoyed a proper stop over break by exploring the surrounding area. This involved a hike across the valley to a traditional village called Khardung.

With stone walled houses built over mucked up stables, roofs piled high with winter fodder and drying dung for fuel, the village obviously hadn't changed much in centuries. We further ventured (or slogged) up the steep valley slope to a Buddhist Gompa (monastery) which unfortunately we didn't even get to see inside as no monks were to be found.

The next day we teamed up with the friendly Aussies (it was great to converse about things back home – it had been a while) and gave the buses a miss altogether, paid the extra to hire a jeep taxi. It just so happens they were heading the same direction as us, the 10 hour trip to the adjacent – dusty again - Spiti Valley.

The Himalayas shield the valley and the ones north, like Ladakh and Tibet, from the monsoon. Which is precisely why we were here, to escape the rain. The effect though is the dusty, Mars like landscape it creates. It is a cold desert, but healthily inhabited by hearty friendly folk.

The valley like its neighbours is predominately Buddhist, which means there are some amazingly old Gompas to visit. One in particular at the village of Tabo is World Heritage listed for its amazing 1000 year old murals littering its dark interior. We got a personal tour with a monk and our Australian friends and it was hard to believe that we were so close to something created so long long ago. I felt like Indiana Jones with my torch in hand examining the fine detail inside a mud built temple that looked like those mosques in Mali.

Tabo Gompa

Unfortunately the frustrating and scary Spiti bus network let the valley down. It was a tad bizarre and incurred my wrath as we waited and waited in the dusty capital Kaza for the bus to the village of Kibber. Instead of a logical small bus that shuttles back and forth a few times a day between the population centres, there is a only a single bus which originates about 100km away down the valley. It is usually scheduled to get to Kaza around 5:30pm but by the time it got there for us it was over two hours late. Hence why we were walking and taking tractors back to Kaza.

And then finally there is the scary and terrifying aspect of the bus system which we discovered as we were heading on south out of the valley: maniac drivers. In a valley full of hair-pin turns and blind corners we managed to get a driver that ignored it all and went full throttle the whole way. At one point one of our friendly tractor and trailer combos filled with people was nearly collected and sent into the rushing Spiti river below. We held on for dear white knuckled life.

To make the journey just that tad more exciting, the road had been made impassable for the bus due to a landslip. We were forced to strap on the packs and clamber over loose rock to where the road began again and board another bus. The drop into the valley below meant that a cup of chai was required to calm the nerves when we reached our destination nearby.

Now we are making a big loop back to Shimla. We have left the dusty valleys behind and are back in the greenery of the Kinnaur Valley to the south. We have a week to get back to Delhi before we head off again to another new country, but with just as many mountains – if not more - than the Indian north. Tidings from there.

Leh it on me

2008-08-19T20:19:00.000+10:00

LEH: The road to Leh. It was some ride alright. Eighteen gruelling hours over a bone-rattling road. Trying to get any sleep after starting at two in the morning was impossible. There was also the worry of actually getting there: our driver kept needing an occasional prod to stay awake. And then there was the altitude sickness.

But back to the how and why we were making this trip into India's little Tibet. A combination of factors drove us north. Firstly there is the rain. The monsoon had finally caught up with us. After having only the odd shower once or twice a week for the entire time we had been travelling, now we were getting soaked all day everyday. In contrast, Ladakh is basically a desert.

And then there is the timing. The road to Ladakh heads over the highest passes in the world. They are only open during the summer and officially close by mid September. If we were going to head there it was either now or another year. We don't have as yet plans to come back another year.

Just getting to the staging post for this long journey took its own time. From our brief stay in Delhi we went to Chandigarh, using for the first time Indian Railway's express Chair Class – very European and a dramatic contrast to the overnight services we had used previously.

Completely planned and built in the 50s and 60s, Chandigarh is a city that is not just strange for India, but anywhere. The modernist Swiss architect Le Corbusier certainly had a thing for straight roads and space. Unfortunately the design makes it a hike to get anywhere interesting without hiring a bicycle rickshaw.

My biggest criticism (although who am to criticise – architect I am not) of the perfect grid layout was that unlike other cities with a similar design it does not have the people to fill the huge space allocated for it. I was impressed though by the way he used the Golden Ratio (1.6??), with the city's administrative area represented as the head of the body and the shopping/entertainment area around where the heart should be. Not so impressive is the unoriginality of the grid square naming – Sector 17, Sector 22 etc. Boring.

From the ordered straight lines of Chandigarh's streets we took another toy-train to the British Raj hill-station of Shimla along some of the windiest, loopiest tracks I have been on. At one stage looking out the window I could see four sets of rails we had just passed over below us. There is also a famous amount of tunnels built for this line, a total of 103 for its 96km length. Like the Darjeeling toy-train it was slow, but fortunately not as slow – completing the journey in a relaxed 5 hours.

The toy-train

Shimla itself was wet and cold but we managed a damp climb to pay our respects at the monkey temple overlooking the town. Unfortunately the temple is overrun with its namesakes, who can be very feral. For the climb we hired the necessary gear; a 1.2m long whacking stick to keep the rampant monkeys abay. Even though the monkeys kept out of reach, I couldn't let the hire sticks go to waste and gave some monkeys a scare. Much to Rob's distress this caused much ferocious hissing and scary teeth being bared.

Being wet, it was good to move on further north to our Ladakh staging post, the popular tourist town of Manali – although it was also wet here. By this stage we were over the rain and looking forward to the desert climate over the Himalayas. We spent minimal time in Manali, merely enough to make sure we were over the 10 hour trip from Shimla and ready for the massive trip before us.

And so to great ride we undertook. We could have done it in two days, with a night camping out on the way (which is probably the way we will do it on the way back) but due to timing factors we did it in one big day. It was cold and dark when the alarm went off at 1am, and it was another hour and half before our van eventually turned up.

We took our seats at the back and immediately realised no sleep would be possible due to the Indian techno pop CD our driver blasted at us. The awful lines - “I want to party baby .. where's the party at .. down the road somewhere .. or on the dance floor” - will be etched in my mind forever. Strangely I do want to buy the CD though – for the kitch factor of course.

The van was bitterly cold as before dawn we passed up and over the first pass of 3900m into the Lahaul valley. It was a cold and wet chai at 6 in the morning at a two-horse town before we kept going further up this valley, that strangely reminded me of Iceland: all green and steep sided and completely bare of trees.

It wasn't until we climbed up the next major pass - just under 5000m - a few hours later that we started to get into the dry rocky moonscape I was expecting. From here on in for the rest of the day we were above 4000m and passed through the harshest terrain I have ever seen. There were sand dunes and rock landscapes and a weird flat open Mongolian like (complete with nomad tents) valley that took an hour to drive through.

Sand buttrisses complete the dramatic road

We stopped at various points for passport checks and food from hardy people who had set up parachute tents for the few months that this road is open. In a month's time the Army will come along and move them all down to their home villages at lower altitudes.

By the afternoon I was battling fatigue, a headache and the leaden feeling which comes from altitude sickness. Our driver was not faring much better and thankfully being located at the back of the van we couldn't see the fact that he was nodding off at the wheel. With hundreds of hair pin turns this of course was not good. The Irish guy sitting in the front passenger seat kept an eye out and a finger to prod him awake with. We made him take a nap at one of the parachute tent places.

It was with great relief and sense of achievement that we passed over the highest pass of the journey : the 5328m high Taglang La – the second highest pass in the world. There was even a little snow. (As an aside the highest road pass in the world at 5602m, Khardung La, sits behind Leh and tomorrow I take a ride up to it and then mountain bike down!) From the high of Taglang it was all downhill to Leh, which meant I could only start to feel to better.

We entered Ladakh and its blue skies and we have been here since and will be for some time longer. Leh was worth the painful journey to get here. The sun shines every day and there are ancient Buddhist monasteries to explore. The Ladakhis are the some of the warmest people I have met, and though this chilled out town is small it has all the comforts a weary traveller could want. It was a long ride through the rain and pain but we are now finally having a rest. Leh is yet another holiday from a long holiday.

The thirty two hour train (plus some other bits)

2008-08-09T20:16:00.000+10:00

DELHI: Thirty two hours rattling along the rails. It seems like a long time. But it passes and you wonder how it went so quickly. From the North East of India to the capital, Delhi, we sat, slept and sipped chai. We watched the Ganges plains roll by the window. Farmers working the paddy fields, school kids wandering to and from the old villages made of mud and brick, and monkeys being a nuisance at platforms.

Farmer going home as the train goes by

To while away the time on this second-longest train trip of my life (the first being in Russia), we stared out of the window, and we read. Around the World in Eighty Days was an apt choice which I picked up cheap at a bookshop. Or there was daily newspaper, sold from the hawkers on platforms or wandering the carriages.

The endless wallahs walking up and down the aisle shouted about their newspapers in Hindi, Bengali or English, but more commonly they called out "chai" (tea) as they lugged a hot urn and paper cups along. Occasionally a shoe shine boy, a masseuse, a coconut seller or most curiously a mung bean concoction maker would pass through. In a land of a billion people everyone tries to find a niche - even the beggars who sweep the floor of the carriage and then return with a hand out stretched.

The reason for this long journey was simple: we are heading to some more mountains and Delhi is on the way. I say more mountains because the majority of the last 10 days have been spent in the Himalayas. Or more precisely, in Sikkim and Darjeeling.

Sikkim is the small piece of India that is sandwiched between Nepal and Bhutan and with Tibet looming over it. It is home to the highest mountain in India and the third highest in the world: Khangchendzonga. It is usually possible to see the peak from just about all angles of the small state, except during the monsoon. And we unfortunately are still in the monsoon.

So we spent 10 days staying at accommodation perched on the top of ridge lines with unobstructed views of a mountain 8598 metres tall, without seeing it in all its glory once. We did see some snowy, rocky ridgeline emerge through a gap in the clouds for a few minutes. I can only assume that this small window was displaying a small piece of the bigger glorious views of the mountain which we really only saw on a poster in a shop in Darjeeling.

It wasn't all bad though. We did get to be at a higher altitude, above the hot sticky plains and coast below. Darjeeling, being around 2100m high, was in fact quite cold, with night times getting down to the low teens - temperatures I havn't felt since winter in Melbourne last year.

Also the vistas which we did get to see were worth it. On our journey to and from Darjeeling we got to pass through the tea plantations the area is famous for. Jeeps were the usual mode of transport and it was easy to understand why as we travelled from Sikkim to Darjeeling. From the bottom of a valley we climbed steeply on a jolting, rough road with more hair pins than a hat shop. For most of its way the road was only wide enough between tea bushes to fit our jeep as we went up and around and up a lot more.

Sikkim was also a welcome relief from the almost crushing crowds of Calcutta. The Sikkimese could have passed for Tibetans and it was hard to believe we were still in India. They were some of the friendliest people we have come across. There was no pushing and shoving or the hassle in which you get in the big cities here. Just a friendly and relaxed attitude.

Sikkim had a lot of Bhuddist temples

But it was time to skate on and we have mostly by train. This included the famous Toy Train from Darjeeling. Carriages as long a large car and the engine the size of a small truck, it slowly railled us down following the exact course of a road with much swifter jeeps. Which came first the road or railway I am not sure but it was possibly the slowest train in the world. It took three hours to travel the 31km we journeyed. The rest of the way down was by jeep.

So after two days in Delhi (one rained out), we are off once more: heading north first to Chandigarh and then to another well known hill station: Shimla. We don't linger though as this time real Himalayan landscapes await as we jeep-ride some more over the highest roads in the world to the moonscape of Ladakh. The mountainous passes are only open for a few months each year, and luckily for us right now is the open season. It will probably be another rough ride there and back, but this is what travelling is about - seeing things you can't see back home.

Frozen eras in a hectic city

2008-07-28T21:37:00.009+10:00

KOLKATA: The sights, smells and sound - not all good - in the "City of Joy" bombard you at every step. Calcutta is my first foray into the subcontinent and what an entrance point. It is the most populous city I have been to and certainly not for the faint hearted, but if you can look past the squalor and hold your nose when needed this is in an incredible city.

The first thing that struck me was how this place had caught hold of moment in time and not let go. The timeline has been ripped up and the historical pieces have been scattered all over. Fragments of 1950s England, a shred of 19th century Asia, a medieval scrap and then there is the modern strand weaving throughout the rest.

Stepping foot outside the airport after our eventful flight from Bangkok (it made the newspapers the next day due to a rowdy drunken man seated in front of us duly arrested on the tarmac), I was greeted by a fleet of 1950s vintage yellow Hindustan Ambassador taxis gleaming brightly in the sun. Every taxi here harks back to that golden age of round fenders and chrome bumpers; I guess if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Ambassador fleet

We got our ride into town in the back of one. With bench seats in the front, climate control via a rolled down window, shutting off the engine at traffic lights, and picking up extra passengers along the road, it was a great way to enter the centre of town.

Removing our packs from the cavernous boot another era struck us, as we were immediately greeted by a rickshaw runner touting his foot-powered vehicle. Surely Kolkata is the only place left on the planet where you can be pulled around on a wooden-spoked cart by a man with bare feet. After five days here we are still yet to use their services. It seems demeaning for me who is perfectly capable of walking to be pulled along by skinnier man with his cart. Then again, it is their way to make a living.

Checking in to the mouldy hotel we stayed in for the first night (we promptly moved out the next morning), we discovered another legacy of the British: their centuries old bureaucracy. We waited for what seemed almost half an hour as the ledger was carefully filled out and all our details were neatly written in – including father's name, where we had been, where we going – and then again for the receipt as we paid.

Escaping the paper work we took to the streets. The streetside sights we have seen while walking – and we have walked a fair way over this spread out city – are things you don't forget in a hurry. It is here that the eras of time really mingle, from ancient ways to the modern.

A typical amble will take you past tiny shop fronts offering services ranging from automotive parts to astrology readings, or the sight of holy Hindu cows outside of halal butcher shops. Food and drink sellers will be whipping up their concoctions of sweets, roti, curries, fresh lime or sugar cane juice and the ever present and my favourite chai (a sweet milky tea in a throw-away terracotta cup, which you have the satisfaction of smashing in the gutter).

Cup of chai?

The amble will take you down traffic filled streets full of not only the yellow Ambassadors but their white brothers owned by Government departments. If you pass these government buildings there will be multitudes of them parked with their drivers, some with "On Duty" signs in their windows. I can just imagine scenes inside the government buildings similar to the start of Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. Rows of desks with clerks and typewriters with fans whirring overhead.

Further on the wander you will be bound to see sights not particularly fetching for the eye. Men pissing into gutters without care for who is around. Children tagging you for a block making hand to mouth gestures are hard to shake from your person as well your mind. Then there are the occasional more sedentary ones, waving stumps at you to gain your attention for some coins in their cup. A man face first on the ground with two short arm stumps flapping about like a seal would have been comical if it wasn't so tragic.

There will also be at some point a beggar woman and her lolling baby. I made the mistake of trying to engage a local shopkeeper to tell me the Bengali words for "please, go away". When the man proceeded to inform me that they were not beggars but only did this out of habit, I was a tad shocked. If someone asks you for money isn't this begging? I politely argued that point.

The shopkeeper conceded, but this unsettled me and made me ponder the best way to approach the beggar hassle. Ignore or give to each of them. Wouldn't handing out money just be perpetuating the begging? I have seen numerous charities giving food handouts. Besides if I gave to every beggar on the street I wouldn't have any money myself.

On these extended strolls we have also visited the traditional sights. The crumbling government buildings from the colonial era when Calcutta was the capital: Dalhousie square, the ornate Writers Building and General Post Office, now overgrown compared to early black and white photos. Then there is the grandeur of the Victoria Memorial – an almost squat Taj Mahal like structure built for the dead queen – one of the buildings from that period which is kept in good condition. The old cemetery of the Raj also still remains.

Sights here have been religious too. We visited the serene resting place of Mother Teresa, and watched the devout come and pray on her tomb. We then contrasted that with a visit to the sacred Hindu Kali temple, where we were jostled, pushed and shoved trying to get a glimpse of the black-skinned three eye god. Kali is very demanding and outside of her enclosure is the sacrificial alter where a goat is brought daily and once a year a buffalo.

Then there was a trip to the Indian Museum, something that looks like it hasn't changed since the British left. Rooms full of dusty cabinets full of dusty rocks are in one section, but more rewarding were the large complete skeletons of elephants and whales as well an interesting wing on the ethnology of the various tribal groups scattered throughout India.

Specimens in the Indian Museum

So with most of the sights out of the way, it is time to move on and tonight we do on the Darjeeling Mail. It is perhaps good timing to be leaving as the rains have finally hit us while we have been here. There was concern before we came as to the state of the monsoon, but with relief we have had mostly rain free days. Which of course has made it extremely hot and humid.

Buying tickets for the train was a venture into the realm of the paper pushing clerks. With the only sign a "May I help you" and a person sitting behind it who wouldn't help, it took us a while to work out the system. Eventually after helping myself to a form and more paperwork and waiting, we had some tickets out of the city.

The train we will catch is actually not to Darjeeling but it takes us near enough to get there easily. I would have liked to take the Darjeeling Express and behave like Adrian Brody or Owen Wilson, but unfortunately there is no Darjeeling Express so the Mail will have to do. Whatever is it called it will be my first Indian train. I am sure this will be start of a long affair.

Intermission

2008-07-21T18:16:00.001+10:00

BANGKOK: Every long story, adventure or activity needs to be broken up a bit. The battered copy of War and Peace I just finished had quite a few breaks throughout its long plot. Football has its halftime. The tour de France has a rest day. All the old cinematic epics were given an intermission. And so, like a long epic, the last few weeks have been the halftime in our journey.

Indochina is now kaput. Over. Finished. We hitched a ride on an Air Asia flight and flew into Thailand. After 3 months in the 3 countries (8 weeks in Vietnam alone) it was great to head off again to somewhere slightly different.

By the end, to be honest, we were a tad over Vietnam. There are only so many times of getting ripped off which you can shrug off. My tolerance is around zero. In our last week doing the final tourist loop southeast from Hanoi, we were bound to get shafted. And we did on a few occasions.

We had tried to see the World Heritage Halong Bay economically and via a different route than most people would take, but instead we were sold a "day tour" which didn't last till noon let alone a full day, and didn't include lunch. But shit happens. You grin and bear it. Notch it up on the "experience to try avoid again" board.

The last days in Vietnam did have good moments. In fact some were among the best. Hiking across Cat Ba island was one tour that was really worth it. Most of the island is National Park and very rugged. Flying across the island it would look like those scenes at the start of Jurassic Park; walking 14 or so kilometres across it we saw how Jurassic it was first hand.

It was one of few times in Indochina where we actually saw quite a bit of wildlife. Besides numerous large spiders blocking the path we saw four different snakes, one eating a lizard whilst hanging from a tree. Everywhere else in Vietnam it almost seemed to me that anything wild was already or about to be eaten; a market wander can always be a bit disturbing.

Tree snake dining on lizard

The hike finished in one of the most beautiful places I have been. We first walked and then later cruised through fjord-like scenery where those jungle clad mountains decended into the sea. It reminded me of Norway or New Zealand, and you just can't get enough of a view like that; it made up for (although we didn't know it at the time) the lack of a real cruise around Halong Bay.

Staying on Cat Ba island was also an another experience - to see Vietnamese tourists in the wild. Instead of mountain climbs, they seek beaches to play on. The tiny strips of sand that were available on the rocky island were full to overflowing with locals tackling the surf - no more than waist deep; perhaps because they couldn't swim? Rubber tubes around the waist were certainly popular.

Unfortunately, because the island is so popular during the “summer months” - or at this time of year – the accomodation was more expensive than what we were used to. And on weekends the price automatically doubled. We turned up on a Wednesday (via a dodgy, overcrowded ferry – another story), which was fine until we decided to stay until the Saturday. Friday night we found out it was impossible to get anything for a reasonale price.

Luckily we had made friends with the operator of our hotel, James, who offered to put us in his own house for a price we more used to. This turned out to be an interesting insight into how normal Vietnamese actually live. We hung out in his local neighbourhood for the afternoon, meeting the local kids. And then at night we got to listen to the gentle sounds of the neighbourhood, before sweating in their hotbox room at the top of the homemade house. It was an experience we won't forget for a while.

Another touristy spot on our list was Ninh Binh. It was easily accessible from Hanoi, located on the train line south. Ninh Binh is host to the popular – again with locals and foreigners alike – Tam Coc. It is billed as “Halong Bay on the rice fields”.

Tam Coc certainly has the karst hill landscape interspersed with rice paddies and canals. But it is also now completely set up as a tourist experience that it is almost comical. You you pay an entrance fee to the area and then pay for a little boat for a two hour trip rowed by an elderly lady.

So far so good, but it turns out the boat just travels up the river-canal hybrid for an hour passing through caves. You are bomarbed at the end by drink sellers on little boats who make you by a drink for your rower, and then the boat heads back exactly the same way and your madam tries to sell handicrafts (i.e. embroidered tablecloth anyone?) and at the end asks for a tip. No deviation from the theme please. At least the scenery was spectacular.

Surronding Ninh Binh and Tam Coc were some other spectacular sights, though more mundane I guess for the Vietnamese. This time of year is hay harvesting season and riding through the back villages away from Tam Coc it was almost as if we had been transported back in time to middle ages Europe.

Hay drying village streets

Hay was drying on every available patch of road and roof, and to go through the villages you just rode over a hay bed road. After our touristy experience it was great to see locals doing local things. Hopefully that is how I will remember Vietnam, the local side of life. Not the defined tourist trail.

So now we have been in Thailand for almost two weeks and we certainly haven't been far from the tourist trail. But as I have stated it has been a break from our journey and Thailand is an easy place to take a break. We have ventured out of Bangkok - firstly to Kanchanaburi to see the bridge over the river Kwai and the Death Railway. This was something I wanted to see last time I was here two years ago, but didn't. Secondly we ventured up to Ayuthaya for a few days rest out of the smog. I did visit there last time but was happy to go back with Rob.

And so now the next stage of our journey begins. Intermission is over and we are flying to India. A one way ticket to Kolkata and a 6 month visa in our passport. The journey proceeds into new grounds for me. I cannot wait to immerse myself in the experience of India.

Hanoi haven

2008-06-29T21:07:00.001+10:00

NINH BINH: There comes a point when you can hit a wall whilst travelling. I have felt it before, when you get to the stage when you think "that is enough, and why are we still going?". This was certainly the feeling a week ago when we walked around the dusty frontier town of Lao Cai.

On the border with China, Lao Cai is about as fun as all border towns can be - not very. Though there should be, there is no romance in these towns; they are just a place where day trippers from across the border come to spend their money on goods they can't get at home.

The place was hot. Extremely hot. And we made the mistake of arriving in town in the morning and then having a whole day to fill before departing on the overnight train to Hanoi. This was a disaster. We walked around and sweated buckets - literally buckets. I haven't experienced a place this hot since Cambodia.

To add to the heat and make us feel sick of the travel, we were scammed into overpaying for train tickets. In our desperation to get out of the place, we went to a travel agent and not the official train ticket office. (The train office was shut for lunch - for 4 hours.) The agent promised only first class was available - but for the A+ price we got the C- seats. Getting ripped off puts you in bad mood.

Then there were the couple of weeks of hard travel getting to Lao Cai. Coming across the mountains of Northern Laos was slow work. After making it to Vietnam there was Dien Bien Phu another boring border town. Then there were more mountain roads to negotiate - including another stint at pushing a bus through mud - to get to the touristy Sapa. And then whilst in Sapa all we seemed to get was hassled by the local hill tribe women throughout the town. After Laos, we had forgotten what the Vietnamese hard sell was like.

Hanoi was a haven. Another holiday from our holiday. but with more things to do than read books.

A lethargic pace descended on us during the five nights there. A couple of sightseeing activities during the day, and the rest of the time rambling about the brilliant Old Quarter - poking our noses into the little cafes, bars and restaurants - was how we spent our time. It was a great break.

A ritual developed while we were there. Although you have best intentions to check out all the good spots, you invariably find a few brilliant places initially and then the other spots don't quite compare later.

For breakfast it was a baguette and omelette combination for a miserly (or masterly) 40 cents from a little woman whipping up these fantastic delicious morsels from a gas burner on the footpath. A nearby tin oven warmed the bread while we munched through them sitting on plastic stools not a hand span high.

Street side dining

An iced coffee sweetened with condensed milk – a Hanoi institution it seemed - was followed after from another little plastic stool place around the corner. These street side cafes do one item, for a pittance, and do it well. We loved Hanoi.

There were of course the restaurants. We didn't even make a dent in the listings of high class, cheap eateries. Thankfully we are going back in a week for some more. Have I mentioned that Hanoi is cosmopolitan? I guess we can thank the French for that. So chic, so Frenchy.

In between eating our way around the city there were things to see. The Museum of Ethnology was high class and could have been found in any western city. The indoor very informative exhibits on the various races to be found in Vietnam were supremely complimented by short docos and, outside, full scale reconstructions of traditional houses which you could wander through.

We also paid our respects to Uncle Ho in his big ugly concrete bunker. Soldiers in full white dress uniform didn't let us linger as we, and a whole bunch of Vietnamese, filed past waxen old Ho Chi Minh lying stately in his glass case. I missed seeing Lenin and Mao when passing through Moscow and Beijing respectively, so it was about time I saw one of the triumvirate. (As a side thought I guess when old Fidel finally passes on there could have a forth Madame Tussuad's contract being worked on in Havana).

Uncle Ho in da bunker

So we now have moved on from Hanoi, but like I said we will be back – we do have a plane to catch from there in a little over a week. In the meantime there are a few sites to see in the vicinity, including a(nother) world heritage natural wonder. Till next time, with batteries recharged and the travel zest back...

Golden Triangle traipsing

2008-06-18T17:39:00.000+10:00

DIEN BIEN PHU: The Akha hill-tribe woman approached as we sat eating breakfast. They had approached before and always waved them away with a "no thank you" and a smile to their offer of handicrafts. This old woman in her traditional dress with her hat adorned with bright and shiny objects proceeded to place all her items on the table anyway.

After refusing all the small bags and bracelets she finally came close to me and whispering through her betel nut stained teeth said "Opium?". Excuse me, what did she say? "Opium?" she whispered again, closer this time.

We were in the notorious Golden Triangle. The loose area surrounding the point where the borders of Thailand, Laos and Burma intersect. The area is a bit of fable now. All the countries have tightened up their drug control but obviously poppy is still being cultivated.

There is no discernible sign announcing that you have entered the triangle, although at some point we must have. I guess we passed into the general area as we travelled up the Mekong on our slow boat and landed at the border town of Huay Xai.

In the town itself they were offering day trips to the actual point of intersect and promoting it as "The Golden Triangle". We didn't take the trip but I am betting there would be no opium there though. About as adventurous as we became during our rest day in Huay Xai, where we recuperated from the long days on the boat, was to go and visit the local Red Cross sauna and massage.

For some strange reason spending 10 minutes inside a tiny herbal steam filled room and sweating the last drop out of you is quite invigorating. And sweating is what we did but in a different way when we did a two day trek from Muang Sing to overnight in an Akha village.

Muang Sing is closer to other triangle, the one where China, Burma and Laos meet, than the Golden one to the south. The Akha had originally come across from China and in fact, as we discovered in a leisurely bike ride, the border is only 10km away.

Our trek had been organised through the local provincial government tourist agency. Apparently this is the only legitimate way to do it and in my eyes this can only be a good thing. So unlike similar "treks" that I have seen in northern Thailand and heard about in northern Vietnam, these treks in Laos are less of a tourist circus and more of a this is how we are, like it or not. There were no "long neck village - bamboo rafting trek" here.

A Belgium couple and us were the only ones in the group. Our guide was from the local area and we were joined by another guide who could speak Akha. After a short tuk-tuk ride to an accessible Akha village we set off.

On the way to our overnight stay we were told and shown the culture of Akha. They are Animists and have a strong sense of the spirits that surround them. At the edge of their villages they construct spirit gates to allow spirits and only spirits to pass. We walked around them. They are usually also adorned with items to warn the spirits not to mess with the village.

We were also told how the Akha have their own style of massage. And this later became a blessing after the 7 hours of trekking through rain and personally having to remove two bloated leeches from my legs. We were in need of some pummeling and pummeling is what we got. It seemed Akha style was more rough than gentle. It was intense but felt good afterwards.

A night with the cocks crowing in the darkness and then we said our goodbyes and trekked back to town. We were both struck by how similar Laos, in its ethnic cultures, terrain and landscape, is and yet very different to Papua New Guinea. One thing is for sure PNG just dreams about getting the sort of tourists that visit Laos.

Our guesthouse and resident pigs in the village

From Muang Sing our plan was to move across the north of the country on roads less travelled and enter into Vietnam via a newly opened border near the town of Dien Bien Phu. For history lovers DBP is better known as the location where in 1954 the French suffered its catastrophic loss against the Ho Chi Minh led communists. This eventually led to the creation of North Vietnam.

To pass this way we finally experienced what we had read and heard about the bus trips of Laos. How bad they can be. The prelude to the ultimate bus adventure was when we were leaving Luang Nam Tha to get to Oudomxay, the major junction town of the north. The bus was full and my seat had had its padding replaced with a plank, which would have been fine expect the roads were some the most potholed in Laos.

On top of that the bus's front right brake decided to lock up and numerous stops were made to bash and convert water into clouds of steam by pouring it on the hot brake pad. But this was only the precursor to a real adventure ahead.

It came after we made it from Oudomxay to little Muang Khou where we had to spend two nights on the banks of the Nam Ou river – the bus for our final leg in Laos through to Dien Bien Phu only runs every second day. To kill time in this small town I had sat and watched the passing of people back and forth over the Nam Ou via little ferry boats or more riveting when two large coal trucks had to be shunted over on a barge.

It seemed that not much traffic actually passed this way - and we were to find out later why. To get the heavy coal trucks over the river involved the use of not only the small tug attached to the barge but five small river boats all attached to one end heaving and straining to push the barge across the fast flowing Nam Ou. It was a sight.

Pushing the coal truck across the Nam Ou

The next day it was our turn to cross over at a very early hour and stake our seat on the bus. After delaying for an hour or so we departed and all was well on the road for a while. True the road was more goat track than autobahn but we were steadily moving.

It was only when there was another bus broken down on an incline in the middle of a very muddy section that there were thoughts as to whether we would get there. It took over an hour to negotiate the stuck bus with everyone involved pulling on ropes. It didn't take long heaving to get a muddy ourselves. The wet season had after all now started.

Passing the broken down bus on the muddy road

This was only the beginning, around the next corner was one of the coal trucks that crossed the river the previous morning parked in the middle of the road and not going anywhere. A drop off into the steep valley below was perilously close. I have forgotten to mention that this is rugged but very beautiful country and we were driving up the side of a mountain.

After getting the truck to back up we managed to pass it with more rope pulling. But of course around the next corner was other coal truck, and more pulling. By this time I was covered in mud and sweating profusely along with the rest of the bus. Did we get a discount for this? No.

In the end a journey that should have taken 3-4 hours over a 90km stretch of road from town to town, took a total of 9 hours from start to finish. An average of 10km an hour, you could almost walk it. Needless to say we were stuffed and tired by the time Dien Bien Phu arrived.

Our trip through wonderful Laos is now finished, and it is a little bit saddening. Laos is a brilliant country and the people are wonderful. It is developing but hopefully not too much. Oh and if you are wondering we didn't touch the opium.

Strangers on the Mekong

2008-06-09T18:41:00.002+10:00

HUAY XAI: The woman in the flowing yellow skirt strode up and down the steps, striking a pose to aim her oversized camera up the river or down. She took what seemed hundreds of photos at all different angles and directions. Aiming the paparazzi long lens at the boats lining the river bank, shooting at children leaning out of windows or boatmen maneuvering their craft.

She was joined by a Japanese couple who almost seemed to be in camera competition with her. They pulled out a large Pentax and an even larger Canon and together with the woman ridiculously posed with their photographic equipment on the steps above the boat for a group shot.

The engine started and all three reboarded the slow boat to take up their claimed seats. The woman had got on earlier and managed to claim a soft seat, the Japanese couple had to contend with a hard wooden seat covered with a cushion.

The boat was a long and narrow steel hulled vessel with a decking and roof constructed of timber on top. At the front on top of the prow the captain sat himself at the wheel. He wasn't tucked away in a special cabin just up the front with all luggage and cargo stacked behind him. The passengers lined up behind this, with the comfortable seats first and then wooden benches and then just decking up behind. At the stern the engine roared next to the bucket and scoop toilet and the small area reserved for the owner and family to live.

It wasn't just the Japanese couple who had to settle for wooden benches. A group of three Canadians jocks arrived late. It must have been their partying the night before. They initially sat around chatting but not long after launch two of them were intent to set up their hammocks. Their idea would have blocked the access to the back, so the matriarch selling the snacks and drink told them to take it down.

During the voyage one of the jocks got it in his head to try and erect his hammock up the front. Rearranging the luggage he succeeded in doing so and even lying down before the owners tried to persuade him to take it down for his safety. It was only after his pillow fell in the murky water and floated by out of reach that he gave up.

The river flowed on down past green jungly slopes. At regular intervals large grey black rocks protruded at sharp angles which the vessel proceed to navigate around. The rocks sped up the water and caused eddies and whirlpools to form, fighting against these the boat's engine roared as the propeller briefly churned in nothing but air.

The passengers made the most of each of their locations. The wooden benches were rearranged, and cushions put on the deck. After her initial camera obsession the yellow skirt woman was found lying down with her back on some luggage leaving her comfortable seat. The Japanese couple had rigged up a bed using two benches facing each other and the jocks settled for the deck floor.

An aging hippy with long grey dreadlocks and a threadbare shirt was originally content to just gaze at the scene flowing past him. He took it all in through old eyes framed by thick glasses. Only rising occasionally to go to the toilet and never once speaking. During the middle of day he made himself a bed with a single cushion and laid down to sleep rising after a couple of hours to resume his watchfulness.

In contrast four Irish girls made their home on a bunch of comfortable seats. They all had an identical uniform of short shorts and singlets. They were looking forward to Thailand's beaches. Their bare legs caused one villager, who boarded halfway along the river, to gawp incessantly like he had never (and he probably hadn't) seen such a thing before.

For two days the boat languidly chugged against the current. Villages dependent on the river for their transport and protein slipped on by. Gardens were carved into the hillside in close proximity to these villages. Buffalos grazing on the banks or cooling off in calmer waters docilely watched the uninteresting boat pass. Boys playing in the water or throwing nets had seen these types of craft before. Occasionally they would wave. Some passengers might wave back.

The first night the boat stopped at Pak Beng, 10 hours after leaving Luang Prabang. Everyone wandered up the slope to get accommodation. Some following touts offering better rooms than they had, others shrugging them off and searching for their own room. The greying hippy slipped from view and didn't return for the second day. The other westerners all returned.

The second day the scenes of the first were repeated. Yellow skirt took so many photos that she held up the boat from leaving. The Japanese couple fussed about their seating arrangements, hung out their hand washed laundry on some wooden benches and took photos of each other with their own big camera.

A Yunnanese business man decided the best way to travel two full days was to be drunk. He proceeded to knock back Beer Lao on the first day, but on the second he came armed with a bottle of cheap whiskey to attack his liver with from eight AM onwards. He found people to play cards with before making a bed.

The landscape was flatter than the previous day. Not as many rocks were needed to be avoided. Once the Thai border was alongside the river was as wide as it would be further south near Vientiane or Savannakhet.

The Irish girls were bored. Even a copy of The Da Vinci Code failed to keep one interested. By the time another 10 hours was up by reaching the end point of Huay Xai they were jumping at the chance to get off. Thailand would have though to wait as the boat arrived too late for a border crossing this day.

The approach of Huay Xai prompted yellow skirt into action after hours of playing solitaire on her iPod. She shot off megabytes worth of worthless photos, pointing it in everyones face before finally packing it away in the jumbo sized bag she was lugging.

Everyone disembarked and slowly wandered up the slope and dispersed their own separate ways. The muddy brown Mekong had been slowly traversed and had thrown together these strangers and was now throwing them apart.

Up and around and down northern Laos

2008-06-06T18:52:00.004+10:00

LUANG PRABANG: "I'll be there for yooou ...". Welcome to the strangest town in Asia. The surreal Vang Vieng where walking the streets you will bombarded, at any time of day, with the sounds of Friends blasting out from TVs in the lounge restaurants scattered amongst this small town.

I am not sure if the producers of Friends realise, but there is a spot on earth where their show is still being watched 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. Backpackers lying up on cushion covered plinths in a small town in Laos glued to a TV showed that ended years ago. I counted over six of these restaurants all loudly playing various repeats over and over. Bizarre.

We had come to Vang Vieng from Vientiane. It was the logical next step north on highway 13, the only real way to get to the northern provinces. For us the attraction of the place wasn't crap TV, but a beautiful surrounding countryside and yes yet more caves to explore.

Over the two days which we were there we headed off on bikes to stop and be amateur spelunkers. Some of these caves extended some distance into the hills and with the caverns opening up it was hard not to see similiarities to childhood weekend matinee watchings of Journey to the centre of the earth. Except there were no claymation dinosaurs in these journeys, just a stillness and the drip drip dripping of water.

Cave exploration

Venturing further north on route 13 we got our first taste of the roads of Laos to come. Up until this point our journey was along realatively flat countryside, following the Mekong valley. Now, however, we got to experience some of the windiest roads I have ever encounted. For our 7 hour road trip to Phonsavan, covering only 200 odd kms, we twisted and turned up and down and up and down endlessly through the mountainside. There was never more than 100 metres of straight road and more hair pin turns than I could possibly count.

We eventually made it into Phonsavan, though it was in the dark, and more 5 hours later than we thought – our first bus choice was full, so it was a 5 hour wait until the next one. The town is nondescript, but it wasn't the town we came for, instead the ancient attractions nearby. The Plain of Jars.

A day trip tour was needed to get out to these mysterious relics. The reason these jars of stone and ceramics were made and then scattered across the hillsides of this region is still a mystery. Were they, as local legend suggests, made for making whiskey? If so, the more than 500 littering the area and their giant size means that those ancients were having one hell of a party at some stage. More likely is that they were made as burial urns which were subsquently looted in their 2000 year history. One thing is for sure is that they are an amazing sight and it is a crime that there aren't more - 30% were destroyed by American bombs.

A few of the Jars

Phonsavan is a nondescript town now because in the 1960s and 70s this region was the scene of some of the heaviest bombing in the history of the world. An average of one plane load of bombs was dropped on Laos every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, for 9 years. And nobody outside the country knew.

We stuck our noses into the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) exhibition to see the good work they are doing in removing the bombs that didn't blow up. The entire countryside is still littered with unexploded bombs and it's taking years to remove them. In all the guesthouses in Phonsavan there are large collections of bomb bits lining the walls. In one cafe they have even turned small cluster bombs or bombies into ash trays. Deadly souvenirs of a past most are trying to forget.

From Phonsavan we had to backtrack for 4 hours back up and down and around the mountains to get to route 13 and then more around and up and down for another 4 hours as the road north of the turnoff junction became yet more curvaceous. Hill tribe villagers build their grass huts right alongside the roadside. These roads really are quite incredible - 8 hours of travelling for 220kms. But again the travel was worth it, as it landed us in Luang Prabang.

This town is a UNESCO world hertiage site and a damn fine nice little place. It was the seat of Lao royalty – in days prior to the communist takeover. And it has the old world feel, which Hoi An in Vietnam had. A feeling of this is the way old Asia was. It is the premier tourist destination in Laos and deservedly so.

We have spent our time here in relaxation mode. There are sights to see, more so than there have been in other parts of Laos, but we are more in a mode of soaking it up. The days have been revolving around the weather as well. Now is the rainy season and there has certainly been more of it than before. But with all the cafes, wats, markets and cheap eats, it is easy to forget about the rain.

And so from here on for the next while the trip is possibliy more about the journey than the destination. We have two days slow boating up the mighty Mekong, then go up close to the Burmese border. And there will be a hell of a lot more rough roads in the back of beaten up trucks over mountain passes to experience. Eventually, before our Lao visa expires, the goal is to get back into northern Vietnam. Somehow I think the least of our worries on this trip will be having to watch crap TV repeats.

Back along the Mekong

2008-05-28T17:36:00.000+10:00

VIENTIANE: The little red vespa gleamed in the hot tropical sun. I kept walking on by but just knew that I would have to come back. With the "Jules Classic Rentals" sign hanging above it was just too much of a temptation. How much would cost to fulfill a dream was what I needed answering.

The next day the classic 1967 Italian beauty was still there and so was Jules. $10 for the day Jules told me in a heavy French accent (I guess he is one of those "lotus eaters", that the old French colonialist called the foreigners who stayed on in Laos). And half a day? Enough time for me to cruise with my girl around the streets of Vientiane. Only $5. Sold.

Saddled up and we cruised Vientiane until lunch. Much like our trip through Laos it was at a leisurely pace and (mostly) with a grin. And like learning how to handle the old girl and its quirks (clutch and gears on the left handlebar) our Lao adventure didn't kick off that great. A bit of a stalled start.

Living the dream

The nine hour bus trip from Hue to Savannakhet in Laos was quite hellish. Once again the bus was completely packed. But at least we managed to get a proper seat and not like the Japanese tourists who had to sit on the small red plastic seats in the aisle. The major problem for me was that I felt quite nauseous at the end. This was later compounded – although I am unsure if linked – by getting a dose of the ol' gastro in Savannaket. Instead of two nights there originally planned we spent an extra one due to one completely lost to no sleep and rushing to the bucket and scoop toilet. Fun.

Savannakhet itself was a bit a tad boring or "quiet" - it is after all a commercial centre and that's it really - so it was good to keep heading north. We found Tha Khaek, our next stop, was a good place to chill and check out the brilliant karst peak countryside. A day of exploring was required to see some of the very cool caves dotted around in them.

There was an amazing story of how, not far from Tha Khaek, a villager was chasing bats into a cave – a local delicacy apparently – 15 metres up the side of a cliff and as he crawled through the small opening he looked down into a cavern below him he was shocked to see a large Buddha statue inside.

As the villager went to inspect he discovered that there were more than 200 bronze Buddhas littering the cavern floor, varying in size from quite large to small, seated amongst the stalagmites. He didn't breathe a word of his discovery for a few days before finally informing the rest of the village and taking back some others.

It so happens that the Buddhas are believed to have been left untouched in the cave for over 600 years. What is more remarkable is that this amazing discovery by the villager only happened four years ago. I had to see this. Who left them behind I wanted to know and why?

Well my questions are still unanswered, but I have climbed through the small opening and into the cavern. The Buddhas are all still there but of course the locals have turned it into a small tourist attraction. They are at least very reverent in their approach to looking after the site.

Rob was required to don a traditional Lao skirt before entering. We had to remove hats and shoes and adhere to a whole host of other regulations including "no gambling inside". There is now a concrete staircase all the way to the cave entrance and once inside, the cavern has been divided into two with the Buddhas displayed in one half and mats for sitting on in the other. Some old caretakers were there looking after the objects and eager to give us a blessing and tie another coloured string to our wrists.

The pool underneath the Buddha cave

We ventured into other caves, some also devoted to Buddha and some not, before cruising along up the Mekong to the capital where we are now. Vientiane it turns out is one of the most laid back cities I have ever been too. Not much happens quickly here, which is a shock after being in Vietnam for a while. Whereas things start happening before six in the neighbouring country, you are lucky to see cafes with "all day breakfas" signs open up until after 8 in Laos.

So all this means we are loving Laos. Laid back is for us. Though like my vespa ride it will have to come to end some stage but at least that wont be for another few weeks. There are adventures to be had in the north yet.

Confucius says no more caves

2008-05-20T21:34:00.000+10:00

HUE: The bus from Hoi An to Hue hadn't been going more than 20 minutes before they dropped us at the touristy Marble Mountains. Right in front of the bus was a large cave entrance. We had 30 minutes there even though we were just keen to get going. I decided to venture into the cave though Rob opted to stay put. I bought a ticket (nothing is for free here, but it was only $1) for this cave experience and ventured on in.

It turns out that it was just me and the bats. I could hear them above me as I climbed the steps further into the dimly lit interior. Perhaps no one else went in because it was crap? There was a certain Buddhist or Taoist or the hybrid version people subscribe to here slant about the place with statues of deities peeping out from niches. The further in I went, the darker it got. The cave opened into chamber and a fetid smell around me grew stronger; bat shit.

Steps led down on the opposite side of the cavern. Horrible scenes were depicted on either side and I realised that this represented a path to hell. What have I got myself in to here I thought. I was by myself in the semi dark, with scenes showing torture by demons, and I was having second thoughts. As I paused on the steps to contemplate this I realised that less than a foot from me in the gloomy light there was something worse than the concrete demons. A spindly legged spider bigger than my hand.

The spider next to my gingerly placed lens cap

This was almost too much. I took a few photos and after a bit further got out. Fortunately the rest of the trip has been nothing as bad my cave experience. And apart from a few crap bus trips it has been an amazing time in central Vietnam. There have been boat trips, bike riding, old world heritage towns to roam, ancient temple ruins to explore and vibrant cities built in a medieval style citadel to see.

Hoi An had been the perfect place to slow down after the journey to get there. We were squished into buses on the journey to and from Buon Ma Thuot, as we made our way along the Ho Chi Minh Road. Along the HCM road (which is named after one of the many routes that guns and supplies were smuggled south during the Vietnam war), we broke the trip at Kon Tum.

Kon Tum is a small town surrounded by various hill tribe groups. Unfortunately, even though Lonely Planet waxed lyrical over the town and said it was the "friendliest in Vietnam", as Rob's sister pointed out that is like the travel of real estate jargon, meaning boring and uninteresting. And she was right - apart from a couple of nice cafes and the chance to wander around hill tribe settlements (not villages) on the edge of town, there was nothing to do. Nasty touts at the bus station weren't so "friendly" either. Instead of two nights there it was hastily rearranged and we were back on a cramped bus the day after arrival.

We were two of five people squeezed into four seats at the back of the bus - but the trip down to Danang, en route to Hoi An, could have been worse. The bus took us through stunning scenery - following the HCM trail, the road wove with a river up and down through mountainous jungle, sparsely inhabited. We also survived the local bus from Danang to Hoi An grinding slowly along and making us pay double - a popular local scam apparently. Finally arriving at our destination was a bit of an anticlimax: we wandered around the wrong part of town in the heat of the day with our packs on looking fruitlessly for a hotel.

Lanterns in Hoi An

But that was the worst of it over. We spent four nights in Hoi An, just relaxing and enjoying a place where there were real French style pastries. We also took a day trip out to My Son, a world heritage site of temples built by the Chams in a pre Angkor period. I ventured off also to have a look at the southern end of China Beach to bring back memories of the 80s TV show.

Now in Hue we have been venturing out on bikes through more world heritage sites in and around the city; the tombs are of emperors from the Nguyen Dynasty. The citadel surrounding the city itself has keep us busy.

Girls playing in Hue

So even though we have a 9 hour bus trip tomorrow to Laos, we are currently pacing our trip like the Confucian bowl: in a traditional merchant's house we visited in old Hoi An, a Vietnamese lady explained the meaning behind this bowl, which has a hole in its base. If you fill it 3/4 full with water, the water stays in the bowl. If you try and fill it 100%, the water drains away through the hole. If you are too greedy and overfill your bowl, you will end up losing the lot. The good with the bad. The caves, and long buses, with bikes, new foods and cheap beers.

Tourism Vietnam

2008-05-12T09:14:00.002+10:00

BUON MA THUOT: The Vietnamese man smiled and posed for his friend with a camera. It was a bizarre scene. He was wearing a cowboy hat and sitting on the back of a white horse which had black zebra stripes painted all over it. His friend took the picture and he got off the back of the mournful looking creature and handed the hat to another friend for his turn for the camera. Welcome to tourism Vietnam style.

The location was at the bottom of a mountain. Tourist buses were unloading masses of domestic tourists who then proceeded to jump into the back of a jeep to be transferred up to the top of the mountain. Zebras and Montagnards, or "hill-tribe people", selling handicraps completed the circus that was this place. This place was Dalat - Vietnam's version of a ski resort, minus any snow.

The "Zebra" of Dalat

Dalat, with an altitude of 1500m, is nice and cool and has a spring climate year round - a lot like Goroka in PNG, but without the dusty streets and frontier feel. Local Vietnamese flock here now for the same reason as the French who originally came and built the place in the 20s - for the nice climate. What that means is that the sights to see in the town itself are a bit minimal, unless you like looking at old French villas or nice lake. The only thing left to do is the kitsch touristy day trips around the town.

The climes were a bonus for us as well after the month long sticky heat we have wadded through in the Mekong and Cambodia. It was fantastic to be able to get back under the covers of a blanket without needing a fan whirring overhead all night. But all good things must come to an end and we have ventured back into the heat now.

Getting out of Dalat showed another side of Vietnam's tourism, the one geared towards foreigners. You can hardly walk around Dalat without bumping into an "Easy Rider". These are a band of initiative local guys that offer customised multi-day tours on the back of a motorbike. We were given the hard sell on a few occasions, being shown former testimonials from tourists of all nationalities and photo albums. Even a pair of Kiwis came up and sat down opposite us in a cafe to extol how wonderful their trip with a couple of the guys were. The Easy Riders are the "real deal" apparently.

And while getting shown the countryside on the back of a motorbike sounds appealing, unfortunately the guys have realised they can charge a good deal more than any other tourist activity in the country. After travelling for month averaging $25 a day each for everything; accommodation, food, transport and sightseeing activities - the $60 per day sans food or accommodation is why most of the Easy Rider guys can afford to live it up in the cafes and bars in Dalat - drinking and smoking.

So we decided to have our own real deal Vietnam trip and got the $5 bus out town north to Buon Ma Thuot. It was on this that we saw a new side of tourism in Vietnam - and it wasn't the shite bus that was worse than a Lae to Mt Hagen one. It was Dzung, a student from Hanoi, who was travelling independently around his own country using the English language Lonely Planet because there is no equivalent written in Vietnamese.

Meeting Dzung, we jumped off the bus, not a moment too soon (it was one of those trips where they have 20 seats and they pack in 30 people), 50km before Buon Ma Thuot and wandered around a natural lake in called Lak Lake. Dzung became our own little free guide - although it was the first time he had been there as well, but at least he could speak the language in a place not so used to tourists yet. After lunch and a few hours at the lake we headed into BMT on a local bus, and were sad to say goodbye to our new friend as he had to hightail it back to Hanoi for the start of his semester at RMIT (needless to say when Rob gave him one of her old cards from RMIT he was pretty impressed). He has promised to take us out to the student bars in Hanoi when we get there - student price in a country where beers are 75cents!

So Buon Ma Thuot is the heat again, previously before Dalat we had managed to survive it at the coast for the first time on the trip. It was our holiday from our holiday. A little bungalow 20 paces from the white sandy beach was a tough gig. Every morning I got up and wandered down to jump into the warm surf and watch the locals fish from their strange round boats. Afternoons were reading books and napping. Luckily I picked up a battered copy of War and Peace from a guesthouse in Phomn Penh and am currently making good headway through it.

In between the beach and the Angkor temples there was some backtracking through PP and Saigon. I am loathe to backtrack but this did enable us to visit a couple of places which we had missed in these cities. The Cambodian National Museum with its vast Angkor period artifacts could be appreciated more since we had been to the temples and the Chinese district in Saigon, Cholon, was interesting to visit with its numerous pagodas.

Smelling the incense in Cholon

But back to the circus mountain. After purchasing tickets to enter this place, we were not sure if the jeep ride to the top was included, so we jumped in the back of one and then discovered that you actually had to pay extra. Being the tight-arses that we are we said bugger that and decided to hike up to the top of a peak away from the rest of the hoards. After a certainly more sweaty ascent than the other tourists in their jeaps, we descended three hours later and the buses were all gone. The zebra was still there though, tied up to a post, looking mournfully at the ground.

Ruins and red dust

2008-04-30T16:57:00.004+10:00

SIEM REAP: The old man called out to me from inner sanctum of the temple "come sit down here". I knew that he would just be wanting me to make a "donation", but he intrigued me nonetheless. We were out at an isolated Angkor temple, Banteay Samre, and for the first time there was almost no one else here. Rob was off walking around taking pictures so it was just me and the old guy and a statue of Buddha. I was compelled to sit down, he was certainly different from the women I had seen wanting “donations” for Buddha at other sites.

So I sat and he handed me a burning incense stick. I put it between my palms and he proceeded to recant his good luck chant. Here I was, almost alone with 800 year old walls surrounding me, being blessed in Khmer whilst sitting cross legged. and I was feeling positive. The chanting stopped after a minute and we stuck our incense sticks in the pot under Buddha. Then he tied some red wool around my wrist. I felt good, and for once and didn't mind handing over a small donation.

The Angkor temples have been special. Even when you add in the kids asking “cold drink, you buy, one dollar, when you come back you buy from me” in a strange American accent every time you try to enter one. Or the tour buses full of Japanese or Taiwanese tourists who strangely seemed to turn up just at the same time as you get to a different site. Wandering around the temples, in many places without barriers, is a fantastic experience. There are certainly older sites to visit in the world, and I have seen some, but the sheer scale of the structures and added ambiance which the harsh climate here has brought means Angkor, for me, is right up things to behold.

Now when most people think of Angkor, it is always of Angkor Wat. But that is just the start. So far for me the pick of the bunch has been Bayon. With many towers of huge faces peering down at you from all angles it really is amazing. What seems like just a jumble of rock from a distance is in fact a maze of galleries, steep stairs, alcoves and towers when you get inside.

Angkorian temple, just as imagined

So the last part of the week has been clambering over ruined temples, down dark ancient corridors, around tree root encased stone walls, past glorious carvings, but originally we landed in the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. I was a tad dismissive of PP before. Perhaps I shouldn't have been so hasty. After all I had been in the country less than 24 hours. The capital has its charms, you just have to look past some of the, literally, poorer aspects – rubbish, shanty lined streets, traffic congestion. Once you do you realise and remember what this city has been through, there is much more to be gained from it.

There are a whole bunch of great people there. Whether they be in restaurants employing former street kids and giving them a chance or our fantastic tuk tuk driver Mr Lim with his own difficult past losing, like most people, family members. (Tuk tuk's here by the way are a little different than the Bangkok ones, they are just a motorbike with a trailer attached to the back. I call them chariots).

The positive progress that can be seen in PP now stems obviously from the horrors of the past when the Khmer Rouge ran the place in maniacal way from 1975 to 1979. As with any place that seems to have a torturous time a museum pops up to highlight it. Sometimes I feel I am just touring places with grisly ghosts in the cupboard (Auschwitz, Bosnia, East Timor before and now Saigon and PP here). But it is important to see these places of atrocities so we can hope this sort of thing never happens again.

First there was the Genocide Museum in the former interrogation prison, where you can walk around the actual beds used to strap people down and torture them with electric whips. Just in case you don't get the raw meaning, there are picture on the wall taken when the place was liberated showing decomposing bodies still strapped down. Wandering through the rooms full of photos of the prisoners when only 7 people survived or rows of cells not even big enough to lay down in was in the end just too much. But to top it off we visited the pock marked field outside of town where over 10,000 prisoners were brought, forced to kneel and then clubbed into a pit to save bullets before having their throats slit and buried.

A torture cell at the Genocide Museum

It hasn't been all such a doom and gloom trip though. After leaving PP and heading 300km west to the country's second city, Battambang, we had a fantastic afternoon giving our time to converse in English at a village school. We met Narath by chance on a corner and he told us about his project and asked if we would like to volunteer our time. The idea is if the village children can speak English they are more likely to be employable. I am not sure how much the kids gained from it as our conversations in the end mostly involved “How are you?”, “What is your name?”, “Do you have brothers or sisters?”, but it was still a great experience for us at least.

To get out to some of the sites near Battambang we had to get covered in what the locals call Cambodian snow. The fine red dust this country seems built on. Who would have thought that Cambodia is so flat? I didn't know what to expect but nothing like driving through countryside similar to western New South Wales. And yet they have really bad roads. PNG bad.

We bounced through on these to reach the treasures the Khmers left the world. Angkorian temples. Firstly there was our afternoon getting a motorbike tour to visit two hilltop temples south of Battambang. By the time we had made it back to our cheap hotel, we were covered in the ochre and had sea legs from rolling up and down the Luna landscape roads. To reach Siam Reap, we had what should be a 3 hour trip become a 5 hour bounce-a-thon. But it has been worth it.

Next up, like the wool around tied around my wrist we are looping back to Phnom Penh. I would ideally like to get up to some of the places to the north of here, but it is just too difficult without being on some serious (read: expensive) 4WD tour. So Phnom Penh is next and then we are unsure. Like the Buddhist say, live in the moment.

Mekong Meandering

2008-04-21T15:14:00.000+10:00

PHNOM PENH: I caused a small ruckus on the international border yesterday. A major tension between rival parties. A couple of primary school aged siblings raging over who would sell me a bottle of water.

Originally the boy would not drop his price for a can of soft drink from 15000 dong, even though I continued to offer 10000 for it. A price for which you could buy one anywhere else in Vietnam. I kept offering, even showing him the note. He wouldn't budge. His sister was cluey. She offered me a large bottle of water for 10000. Water was fine and we needed it, so off she raced to get one. The brother saw and raced off as well. The brother was quicker returning, and without thinking I gave him the note and took the bottle. The sister was furious as she caught up, bottle in hand, and screamed obscenities at me and then her brother.

We had made it to the border via a fibreglass river boat. The six hour fast boat was more than twice as expensive as the 10 hour slow boat, but at least it didn't involve a change of boat at the border and then a bus, or a lifetime on those hard wooden benches. The fast boat was for us, and we zoomed up the mighty Mekong calling in at the Vietnamese border checkpoint and soon after the Cambodian equivalent to formally enter the country.

Welcome to Cambodia. That was yesterday and in the meantime we have been wandering around this hard to love capital. On first glance the city is not quite up to Vietnamese cleanliness, but perhaps the country is yet to fully warm to us. Not like the weather though. From noon to about 4, escape from the suffocating heat is needed. Dry season still. Although back in the delta there were signs of it breaking.

Can Tho was the first instance when the heavens opened. Having just sat down to an evening meal the rain started to sheet down with a force I haven't seen since living in Lae. We watched the locals scatter to any sort of shelter available and a poor street vendor try and sit through it with the cover of a tiny umbrella while the gutter in front of her overflowed. Cracks of lightning filled the sky and massive claps of thunder boomed close by and the vendor eventually left her post drenched. More of these sights will no doubt occur as the wet begins over the next few months.

We had come south to Can Tho from HCMC as part of our Mekong Delta meanderings. Floating markets were a hot ticket item and so they proved to be. We had signed up for an early, 5.30am departure, for a long day touring the canals and waterways around the city.

Our old man river

Come morning we were met at the guesthouse by our wizened old boatman. He set off in the half light leading us towards the wharf, through an amazingly already bustling city, at a pace which deceived his bent frame. His little boat was on par with its owner - possibly on the way out. It was just wide enough to seat both of us and long enough to lay down in. If only it deceived in speed as well. Old man river knew how to handle it though, and with his stoop, he stood on the small stern and guided us down the river. Putt putt went the adapted lawnmower motor ... for the next 7 hours.

After coursing down the river, guiding up and down wakes of larger craft, the small size of the boat did benefit getting up close and personal with the floating markets. One in particular was full of similar sized boats. So with the lawnmower silent we bumped and squeezed our way through conical hat donned women haggling over the price of a bag of mangoes or buying noodle dishes off vendors. The vendors targeted us as well. A drink seller rocking up next to us with the gift of the gab was quite amusing, he made me buy a coffee and can of drink for our driver.

The water world of the Mekong Delta hasn't all been floating around. There have been sights to see on land as well. For a change from footing it we hired bikes in the border town of Chau Doc to see a local holy mountain (I am guessing it is holy because it is only bump in the flat landscape for miles around) called Mount Sam. Vietnamese bikes are something different. Mine had forgoed the chain and instead had something akin to a fan belt.

With much a-squeaking our bikes did do the trick and we made it out to the bottom of the mountain at around breakfast time, aka 6.30. I should have had some food, but instead we parked the bikes in the Vietnamese equivalent of a valet service and wandered off past the motorbike riders offering a lift (for a price) to the top.

The start of the track led through a Buddhist cemetery. It wasn't long after the graves before it was huff and puff time as we climbed past numerous places to stop and rest. Not for us, as it was only a small mountain (200 odd metres) and eventually it took only half an hour or so to reach the top. But the sweat glands had worked profusely in the early tropical humidity and I was wetter than kids at a Wet'n'Wild themepark. The breakfast situation wasn't that great either and I was feeling mildly faint. This was easily remedied on top after a hearty meal of packet noodle soup from a kiosk.

Hammock adorned rest stops on Mount Sam

Overall the food had been excellent in Vietnam. I am a big fan of cheap eats anywhere, but especially so when it is really cheap and extremely tasty like Vietnam is (the delta is by the way the origin of fish sauce). So far Phnom Penh has been more expensive than across the border but hopefully once we escape to rural Cambodia it will be similar. As long as I am more careful not to cause any more international incidents between rival siblings.

Back in the drift

2008-04-13T19:02:00.005+10:00

HO CHI MINH CITY: Time to revamp this byline. It has been in hiatus for quite long enough. The reason to bring it out of its slumber is that I am actually currently somewhere different.

Saigon, or as the Communist leaders like to call it Ho Chi Minh, after the country's favourite son, is as far remove from Melbourne in feel and lifestyle as almost possible. Living on the street takes new meaning across Asia and Saigon is a perfect example. Little pots cook at your footsteps while washing swings above your head.

Into this city me and Rob stepped the other day. Day 1 on possibly my longest trip yet. There is no fixed return ticket. So far it is just been the cheap flight from Sydney with JetScar International .. you'll remember the boredom (actually it was ok .. take your own entertainment and pack sandwiches like the tight arses we are).

So what to make of my first few days in Vietnam. So far a couple of things leap out at you like a Saigon motorbike. Firstly there's .. well .. those bloody motorbikes. Apparently 3 million are in the city, but it seems they are all on the road you are trying to cross. Just be brave, wait for some sort of a gap, step out and walk in a steady manner, no lurches or lunges, make sure no unexpected cars or buses approach and those two-wheelers should all flow around you like detritus in the Saigon river.

Up a natural canal

Speaking of the river, I was keen to take a boat trip on it. But here is a tip for any prospective tourists. Don't bother. Previously you were able to travel up a major canal of the old part of the city. Nowadays it is currently a massive construction site as it is being filled in. The little boats will still take you on a trip. To the far more boring otherside of the river and up a "natural" canal, as far as natural goes on a filthy looking river.

Secondly, the other thing that hits you is the heat and humidity. The sluice gates have opened up on the sweat glands. We took the obligatory trip out to the war tunnels to see what life was like for the VC fighting the yanks, and after 5 minutes and roughly 90 metres down in the tunnels, crawling and crouching through until your thighs think you are a sadist, you pop out exhausted and drenched. The guerrillas lived down in them for up to a month. Respect.

A busted yank tank at the Cu Chi tunnels

The war certainly was a horrible event and it is hard to escape .. from a tourist's point of view. Checking out the War Remnants Museum made your stomach turn at the graffic images displayed. It is hard to shake the mental image of a GI picking up what was left of a boy blown apart by a grenade. It makes me angry and sad at the same time that war is still being justified. Images from 1965 Vietnam could just as easily read 2005 Iraq.

Tomorrow we escape the traffic, the war, the noise, the big city and drift on south to hopefully quieter realms of the Mekong Delta. We go our own way and are avoiding the numerous 2, 3 or 4 day tours being touted, and see where and when we end up. We do know that Cambodia will be there to drift into after we navigate the delta waterways. See you in a while.

Eastern Europe map

2007-08-31T17:15:00.000+10:00

Now that Google maps can be embedded into a blog .. here is the trip around Eastern Europe last year with markers from where I blogged from. I will do maps for future trips and update from the road.

View Larger Map

You Tubing

2007-01-14T21:42:00.000+11:00

Just trying out You Tube. Here is a little movie I created quite a while ago. Back in PNG I had a mouse in my house for a while. It needed catching .. and all I had was a bucket, some cheese and a piece of string. See for yourself.

I have a few more movies I will have to upload soon. As Borat would say, I likes.

Mapping it out

2007-01-11T18:53:00.000+11:00

I have discovered Trippermap. A brilliant marriage between Flickr and maps. So far it is showing some of my photos that I have loaded onto Flickr .. quite a lot from Eastern Europe (not all of them mind) .. but some it (ok a lot) it has just forgotten about or couldn't place. But still very cool.

So What's Been Happening Then ...

2006-12-15T10:45:00.001+11:00

Glad you have asked, because I have been busy checking out some new sights and scenery and then there was the whole moving to a completely new city thing and starting from scratch and looking for work. But all is righting itself once more and things are going rosy with some very good news on the job front.

But I thought I would mention a couple of highlights from the months gone past. I got to indulge some of my new found pleasure (and pain) in trekking. Firstly there was the almost forgotten 5 day trek that I undertook with the old girl in Northern Thailand. Poor old mum. She suffered a bit worse for wear in the end. It is not like I dragged her along but in the end the trekking through water and mud stuffed her feet and toes around. It took a little while to recover.

Apart from the physical aspects, Northern Thailand I discovered is incredibly like Papua New Guinea; very green and jungly and with similar villages nestled in the mountains. Of course it was not all the same; the water buffalo, the rice paddies and the buddhist monks mediating in caves made it interesting and different.

Once back home I didn't take long to get back out amongst it and do some more trekking. This time it was the Six Foot Track from Katoomba in the Blue Mountains to the Jenolan Caves. A three day walk it proved to be a good way to get back to being in Australia with wildlife spotting a major feature.

And from there we went off to the amazing and, thankfully, hardly visited natural spectacular of the Kanangra Walls. It was a time to get up close to the unhindered drops and get some of those "guy on perilous cliff-top" photos.

So since then like I said, the job front is looking good. In a few days time I start work for a company I have been a fan of for a long time. Lonely Planet. Unfortunately not writing guidebooks, but instead in their more mundane IT department. I am really looking forward to it though.

Travel By Numbers

2006-12-07T18:58:00.000+11:00

Fell completely off the Blogosphere for a while there. Is it really more than two months since I last updated this. And all that has taken place between now and then. A lot really. First there was the finishing off of some travels through Malaysia and Thailand, doing it with my mother, returning home to Oz, travelling through my native state (ie New South Wales and not running around in the nuddie), showing it to my gal, who has also escaped the jungles, and now finally moving south of the border for a new destination and view in Melbourne town.

But before I recap on any stories, I thought I would do a bit of a tally as to how much actual travel I have done this year. At a rough count the actual hours that I have spent sitting on any form of transport has totaled up to be 370 hours, or over 15 days. Over two weeks of this year spent on a bus, train, ferry or plane, and that doesn't include the transport to get to that mode of transport or the waiting that always happens before it leaves.

Then as a total I have lugged my luggage onto 97 of these trips by sea, air or land. 35 buses, 32 trains, 21 planes and 6 ferries. Enough I reckon for one year.

More news soon.

Weird And Wonderful Romania

2006-09-25T02:22:00.001+10:00

Weird and wonderful Romania. It certainly was. I think I saved the strangest part of this little trip around Eastern Europe for the end. Filling it with strange sights and positively strange people. For me when I think back on the days I spent there, it will not so much be about the majestic mountain views, or the stunningly gorgeous countryside I got to hike through in the north of the country. No it will be remembered by the people; the wacky locals and the eclectic travellers.

There were the locals to start with. The absurdly overly happy girl who runs the hostel in Suceava just over the border from Ukraine. Everything was ultra nice with her and it became a little bit disconcerting in the way she continually used that one adjective. "That's nice", "very nice" all with the same happiness. Her English was perfect, so I wished she would use more of the vocabulary she had. But she was great and helped me decide some of plans for travelling through her country, and she was a great cook as well, and I happily paid the extra cost for her to cook up some fine feeds.

But the older guy on the 8 hour train trip from Suceava south to Braşov was stranger in other ways. No word of English out of this guy so the phrase book came in handy once again. So we spent quite a few hours working out that I was from Australia, yes, I was travelling around on my own, yes, and that I should come and stay at his house, yes, and I should meet his daughter who was single. At which point a photo was produced from a pocket with a girl posing with her arms behind her head and hair a flowing. What do you say to that? But weirder than trying to get rid of his daughter to a foreigner, was when he got it into his head to take me to the toilet. Now this was very strange and I couldn't understand his persistence on why I should follow him to the toilet. I told him I was old enough now to know how these things work. But he kept grabbing my hand and trying to drag me there, without accepting my polite refusal that I did not need to go. In the end to stop his persistence I warily followed him and discovered that all he wanted to do was guard the door and stand outside because the door did not lock. Strange nonetheless. Weird Romanians.

Then I bettered it with the random punter I met in the Transylvanian town of Sibiu. The hostel was full and this guy on the street saw my backpack and said he had a cheap bed. Sure I will check it out I said, but when I did, instead of running when I saw the place was a dump, for some reason I didn't and I ended up having one the strangest nights in my life. This guy a chain smoking alcoholic who was perhaps the vaguest (and I mean genuinely vague, not the way in which I act sometimes) guy out. He took me out to have a few beers that night, even though he was already well and truly drunk already, and got it into his head that I needed a Romanian girl. "You travel so long, you need company". It became embarrassing as he went up to random women to ask them on the street, or in the bars, despite my continued pleas that I was fine. Waking up in the morning, after a fitful sleep on a converted chair-bed thing, the first thing he says to me, "you want women, yes?". I escaped quickly on the first bus to Bucharest.

Interspersed with the weird locals, I got to do some cool bits of travel, that you would not be able to do in most other parts of Europe, simply because technology has yet or is unwilling to catch up in this corner of the continent. I decided that I would try and do a hike across a hilly area from the end of a branch train line to one of the famed Painted Monasteries of Moldavia in the north, called Sucevita. To be honest I had no idea these monasteries existed before I crossed the border, but at this stage of my journey I was all church, cathedral, monastery and mosqued out and was more interested in getting into some fresh air.

The fresh air hike ended up being an adventure. To get to the point, I got lost and instead of following what was supposed to be a trail through the hills, I was bush bashing along a scant path. Once upon a time a track had existed there, some sort of track at least, but now it was overgrown and I was barely able to be follow it. I did have my GPS and knew the direction I had to travel and so just kept on going, hoping I did not come across the brown bears or packs of wild dogs I was told existed in this part of the world. Eventually after a few hours of bashing I came out onto a logging track and following that for over an hour I came across some locals out with their saws collecting timber for the winter. After an ask of "Sucevita?" together with a point down the track, I received a nod of confermation so I continued on my way assuming at least I would get to the monastery before dark.

One of the locals, after filling up his horse and cart with with timber, came trotting up behind me and using hand gestures asked me if I wanted a lift on the back. Never one to decline such an opportunity for a hay ride, or in this case a log ride, jumped on the back and clip-clopped for the next few kilometres through the beautiful valley filled with farm land and their farmers raking hay or picking potatoes. Sitting up on top I remembered that good things usually come out of these adventures, and in the end I got to see the painted monastery with its amazing biblical frescoes daubed on the outside and felt that it was all the more worth it for the trip there to see it.

After the strange father with toilet fetish on the train, I spent about a week in various parts of Transylvania. Here I got back to being a tourist and followed the Dracula route to Bran Castle and his birth place of Sighişoara. Of course the real Dracula, Vlad Tepes, never sucked blood or was immortal, but that doesn't stop the countless T-shirt and other tat sellers from trying to cash in on this. Bran was particularly bad, and apparently the real Vlad the Impaler never actually set foot there. It didn't seem to matter for the tourists who had to have a look at row after row of the same stores all selling the same crap.

In Bucharest after the week just mainly relaxing and chilling out in Transylvania and the escape from the weird guy in Sibiu, I got to see why a lot of people don't like the city and call it a shit hole. I wouldn't go that far, it certainly has no real attractiveness or central geographical area of beauty of say a Paris or Budapest, but it is certainly not a shit hole on the scale of say some Asian or African cities. Just thinking back about the dead dog carcass in Dili or the rubbish collecting in the river of Jayapura and the capital of Romania is perfectly beautiful. It does after all have the massive monstrous second largest building in the world. I am not sure if this makes it any better but it makes it intriguing nonetheless. Though I think the two nights I spent there I think were enough.

And along the way between these sights and adventures, there were the other travellers I mentioned. They were were the most eclectic bunch of the trip. The female Russian backpackers hitchhiking through the country were certainly entertaining at the hostel in Sighişoara. They were certainly the first Russian Backpackers I have ever met, but considering they need a visa for virtually everywhere, this could be understandable. Then there was the cool Spanish girl that loved Gypsy music so much that she was on a trip to hang out with what seemed to be all the Gypsies in the east, so far she had camped out with them in Bosnia and Serbia and is now hooking up with the many in Romania. Also I can't forget the few Americans I met, the one who had spent 5 years in Japan teaching English, and the annoying Texan who wouldn't leave me alone in Bucharest.

But the best was the Belgium hippy I got to share a compartment with on the 20 hour train trip from Bucharest to Istanbul. He had spent the last 6 years in India and was on his was back there after a brief stopover in Europe to see his family. His tales of hitchhiking around Asia and busking to make money make my nomad tales pale into comparison. Being chased by the police in China for being in a restricted zone, cycling across Tibet and busking through Japan make a couple of years in Papua New Guinea childs play. He was a good laugh, and I wished him well, once we eventually arrived in Istanbul, in his quest to hitchhike through Turkey, Iran and Pakistan, back to India. He wasn't phased by it, he had already done the same trip numerous times.

And so yes I am back in Istanbul once again. I have come full circle the long way through Eastern Europe and my time in this continent is nearly over. Tomorrow I fly out to South East Asia with a stopover in Vienna. Some more brief travel around Malaysia or Thailand will follow, and then we shall see where life goes. For the next part at least I will have company, I am meeting up with my mum. One parent was not enough on this trip, now I get to hang out with the other.

Toasting, Wife-Hunting, Smugglers ..

2006-09-13T16:52:00.001+10:00

.. and a submarine base.

Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, it seems like a distant memory now. Everything has reverted back to a script I can read without having to decipher and I am in a country that is geared more towards tourists. But what can I say, I loved Ukraine exactly because it wasn't the most easy place to get around; the challenge was there and it has been conquered. It is always a good feeling.

I had a great time as well. Even though I complained last time that the "East" is disappearing, it can still be found there. Some things die hard, and others which were repressed, come back to the surface. Soviet monuments and Lenin statues are still seen and not torn down as they have been in the other Warsaw pact countries. And Orthodox churches are plentiful in number and users, and they take it seriously too.

So way back when (actually it was only a bit over a week ago) I was in Kiev (or Kyiv to use the correct Ukrainian translation, Kiev is the Russian spelling). Kiev was very busy and modern, but ultra cool. I tried to do some touristy things, but I stuggled with the search to find Chicken Kiev, so instead I had to settle for some museums and an old ancient Monastery, with some mumified monks in caves.

My personal favourite though was the still functioning Museum of the Great Patriotic War. Now this is where Soviet pride stills comes into its own. Huge and grandiose with a giant titanium woman perched on top with sword and shield in either hand. The displays were all in Russian but it was so visual with personal artifacts that reading it was not really necessary. What I gathered though from it all was the Nazis were nasty and the Soviets good.

Even more interesting I thought was the nearby, Museum of "In Foreign Wars". Here we had homage to wars in Mongolia, Vietnam, Korea, Angola and Afghanistan. What I thought funny though was that Soviets mostly started all those wars. Not sure if that fact was fully explained or not. Outside you could climb over some military hardware if you felt so inclined, lots of Soviet tanks and even a Hind gunship (that one from Rambo 3) which kids were climbing into and getting their photo taken.

One of the best bits for me personally about Kiev was the Metro system. Just like Moscow and Saint Petersburg, this is how Metros should work. Pay 50 kopecks (or Crow Pecks, about 20 Aus cents) and you can travel anywhere on the system. The trains come every two minutes and off you go. The Kiev system was cool, because it is actually the deepest in the world, a title I thought before was bestowed upon St Petes. But no, one station in Kiev is actually 120m below the surface. Now what I am trying to say is that you should see the escalators for these stations. You ride these monsters for 5 minutes and they would have to be 150 metres long. I would not want to fall down one.

And so anyway, after my Metro fetish I caught the train south to the Crimea. That funny shaped peninsular into the Black Sea, mainly famous in the English world for a war a 150 years ago, but for the Russians it is holiday central. I decided to try and avoid the bulk of the Russian invasion to the beaches and go for the history instead. So I went to the little town of Balaklava, just south of Sevastopol. It was here in the Crimean war that the British famously launched the Battle of Balaclava and the infamous Charge of the Light Brigade. Of course you can't find anything relating to it now and there are certainly no monuments and locals would never have even heard of it.

But luckily there is something to do there that the locals know about. The former secret submarine base of the Soviet Black Sea fleet. Now this was cool. I got to go on a one on one tour with an English speaking guide (I think I was the only non Ukrainian/Russian for that week) through the underground complex and see where the submarines would come in through a tunnel from the sea and be serviced inside. Then past the massive 20 tonne blast doors (they built this thing to withstand a nuclear strike of 5 times Hiroshima) and then into the really secret area where they assembled the nuclear warheads which were loaded onto the subs. This had all been operational up until 10 years ago, and now the government has grandiose ideas of turning it into a big museum complex. Luckily I still got to see it in a "raw" state.

And so a train to Odessa. Ah the trains, what can I say, but I think the CIS countries have the best system in the world. The soviets had one thing worked out and that was railway transport. Thankfully Ukraine has inherited that legacy. They may be a tad slow, but you get to board at night and in the morning you are in a new city hundreds of kilometres away. And as a traveller you get the added benefit of getting to meet the locals. This can also be a bit of a curse if like on my leg to Odessa, newly met compartment occupier Vlad decides to get the vodka bottle and then makes me and the other newly met pair of Sergei and Natasha toast until we finish the first bottle and then almost a second procured from somewhere.

It creeps up on you drinking vodka neat. You think you are fine for a long time and then suddenly you realise important motor skills have gone. Unfortunately as well the train pulled into Odessa at 5:30am and this meant the lights were on an hour before. My head was shot and seedy would have been a good term, but Vlad and Sergei in true Ukrainian spirit decided they needed to finally finish the second bottle and toasted away before the sun came up. I politely declined their offer to join in.

Finally Odessa. A nice town with some great accommodation. Not a hell of a lot of sights, apart from really the Potemkin Steps (famous for the climatic scene with baby pram in the cinematic masterpiece, the Battleship Potemkin), but I was not really bothered it was good to chill out for a few days. Which is what I did, at a backpacker hostel in the centre of the city run funnily enough by a guy from Queensland. A true blue oka bloke, with no connection to Ukraine until about 6 months ago. Now he is loving it and looks like he will be in the for the long haul. You see I also discovered another type of traveller to the Ukraine, the Wife Hunter. Quite amusing seeing guys from England, the US and Australia come all that way to meet women they have "met" through Internet wife finding sites.

After Odessa I did two night trains in a row. In hindsight it was a bit much, but hey it was actually costing half as much to catch a night train and go 600 km, than to stay in a hostel bed. I still can't believe it was so cheap, US$10. Try that anywhere else in the world for the same standard. Brilliant.

Anyway I went back to the very west of the country which I had originally bypassed and saw Lviv. A full day striding around this beautiful old town. It used to part of Poland, so they have inherited the same legacy as Krakow. And then a night train south to the border with Romania. From here I negotiated some way to get across the border. I was ready to move on, even though there were a couple of other places that I would have liked to seen in that area, I needed to keep moving because time was running out.

What transport I found, instead of a planned bus, was a private car filling up with four other passengers to head to the big town over the border. It was fairly cheap (even though some cheap-arse Polish backpackers were not willing to pay the US$10 and were preparing to hitchhike instead. Those Poles want value for money. Some which were in the Crimea at the same time as me were not even prepared to pay 6 Euro a night in a hostel!). So I headed to the border with two Babushkas, another guy and the driver.

Over the Ukrainian border was easy, although again they studied my passport forever. Then to the Romanian side. This was harder, especially for the poor bloke sitting next to me in the back. Customs pulled his bags out and found he had decided to try his luck at a bit of cigarette smuggling. Two Minute noodle packets with noodles removed and two packs of cigarettes inside. A loaf of bread with its innards removed and more cigarettes stashed. Same with a bottle of water and boxes of "chocolates". The customs guys were having fun and one who could speak English came over with the loaf of bread and joked, "do you want to see Ukrainian bread". Ah good times. The guy obviously did not complete his journey into Romania, so we left without him.

And so here I am, another new country and already I am having some unique experiences in only the one day that I have been here. But that is for later.

Go east young man

2006-09-02T02:43:00.002+10:00

(I know that) There are many ways
(To live there) In the sun or shade
(Together) We will find a place
(To settle) Where there's so much space

(Without rush) And the pace back west
(The hustling) Rustling just to feed
(I know I'm) Ready to leave too
(So that's what) We are gonna do

(What we're gonna do is
Go East) Life is peaceful there
(Go East) There in the open air
(Go East) Where the skies are blue
(Go East) This is what we're gonna do

(Life is peaceful there)
Go East (In the open air)
Go East (Baby, you and me)
Go East (This is our destiny)

Greetings from the east. Or once what was, I am now not so sure. I don't think the east actually exist. Not what we used to think of anyway. After trying to get back to the "east", I have discovered another new "west". In fact this whole trip has been seeing the new west. The people look the same. Dress the same. Clutch mobile phones the same. The only difference I can hear and see is that the language is alien to my ears (like it has been for the last 2 and a half months) and everything is written in Cryillic.

So I am in Kiev, capital of Ukraine and scene of the Orange revolution two years ago. No dioxide poisoning for me though and I am still well and truly alive and kicking and still discovering. But it can be a burden this travel gig. The only saviour is that when you get sick of it, you can pack it up and head to the next destination, unlike other experiences I have had in the last couple of years in other locations.

I made it after my first marathon train trip of the journey, an 18 hour overnight train from Warsaw; the night train to Kiev (great title for a film). But all went smoothly, even the border crossing, although the border guard with humongous Soviet style hat stared long and hard at my passport for 15 minutes at 3 in the morning. He studied my entry visa and then every other visa and stamp, twice. He certainly couldn't speak English and I am sure if he could he would have asked me all sorts of questions. "What is your purpose in Ukraine?", "What is your mothers maiden name?", "How many pets do you have?", "Why is the sky blue?". Fairly sure he was a bit stupid, guess it goes with the job.

So I came from Poland. Great country, pity I didn't spend more time there. Though this trip can always count for the teaser value. Briefly check it out and then if I like come on back, ala what I would like to do with Slovenia and Bosnia.

And in Poland I had one of the highlights of my trip so far, if you can call it a highlight, it was certainly a sombering experience. I took a trip out to Auschwitz and Birkenau. Oh the horrors that man can produce. It is there and it is real. A place you cannot forget in a hurry. I have stood in the exact spot where hundreds and thousands were selected to go off to the "showers".

But Poland had so much more. Krakow certainly deserves its spot as one of the must see cities of Europe. It has a vibe to go along with its beauty which is hard to miss. What other place do they have actual buglers on employment from the city council to play a bugle every hour of the day from the top of the tall bell tower in the main town square.

Warsaw alas does not have Krakow's beauty. Mostly because of course the Germans blew everything up in 1944. But it is still a cool place to go. You just have to search around for the cool spots. But they exist and I and a few other backpackers in town had a great time going to places like the Ice Bar (yes one of those bars where everything is made of ice) and the Absurd Smell bar, a very wacky place. Ranks up there with the Gothic dance night I experienced in Belgrade.

I said before that I had met up with the old man in Vienna. We had a great 9 days together, to catch up, and for him to foot most of bills (cheers again dad. oh and email me to let me know you made it to London OK!). We (or I should say, after 5 days, I) escaped Vienna eventually, even though the rivercat boat we had planned on taking down the Danube to Bratislava was cancelled. Had to settle for the regular train instead.

Bratislava it was sad to say got the raw end of our deal. And after seeing it from the train station we kept on going into the centre of Slovakia. I had heard that the place was a tad boring anyway and the only thing going for it was the cheap beer. We instead wanted to test out the famed Tatra mountains to see if they were everything they were cracked up to be. And the answer, well yes and no. Nice views and pretty alpine terrain, but they are tad small and way too crowded and not that difficult and doesn't have that I am in the middle nowhere feel. After all, there were old nuns walking along the tracks, I kid you not.

So after a couple of days there we decided to skip off to the nearby Slovensky Raj National Park, or Slovakian Paradise. Now this was different and I am glad we took the effort to get out to smallsville Slovakia for it. We hike along numerous trails over numerous terrain. Up hills, down valleys and along gorges where you had to walk on steel steps drilled into the cliff walls above the burbling water below. It was cool, no grand vista, but it is not everyday you test out your weight on shaking looking steel gangway things, 5 or so metres above freezing water.

And so from there it was a back track and a massive long day travelling, including the slowest train I have ever caught, to get to Krakow and 3 nights there before saying goodbye to dad and heading off to Warsaw and now Kiev. What's next you might well ask. Haven't you seen enough, could be another question. Well more of Ukraine and almost are the respective answers. I have a few more days in the Ukrainian capital, testing out my non existant language skills (oh why can't they invent a language chip to insert into our heads?), before I plan to make my way south to the Crimea and back to the Black Sea, where hopefully the weather will be better (for the last couple of weeks it has been shite! It is still supposed to be summer here and the weather is worse than in Sydney right now, where it is winter). From there, well we shall see, but perhaps hopefully I can at last find some "east".

Apologies to the Pet Shop Boys.

Visas and Vistas

2006-08-19T02:38:00.001+10:00

So much for heading through Eastern Europe. I've practically been back in the west for the last couple of weeks. Not so much geographically, but certainly economically. Budapest had huge shopping malls. Zagreb was like any other Western Europe city. Slovenia was covered by freeways and now I am in expensive Vienna. Nuff said.

I am keen to head back east but before I did this I had to stitch up a bit of bureaucratic red tape crap and rendezvous with someone. Now that this is done I can get back out there. But firstly to the last couple of not so adventurous weeks, although I did try to make it more so at one point.

I stayed in Budapest for a fair while. Luckily I did it on the cheap - as cheap as you can get for accommodation at least - free, staying at another travellers place. And it was a great way to get a good insight into Hungarian way of life and culture and see how the locals live in the burbs. (Thanks again for the bed mate).

Most of the time there was spent getting my Ukrainian visa. Which I can now happily say I have procured, even though in the end they stuffed up the dates on it and I had to get them to do an ad-hoc change. Are all consular officials stupid? Yes I think from later experience. But I also got to wonder around the city and enjoy it. It is a very pretty city and like my host mentioned is probably the only city I can think of besides Paris or London that truly makes use of river frontage to maximum advantage. And certainly the only city along the Danube to do so.

After Budapest, I headed to a little Hungarian city on the border with Croatia called Pécs (pronounced paich). I stayed two nights mainly because I wanted to see another part of Hungary and also because I couldn't move out of there quickly enough. Actually it was a nice place, but it did reconfirm that not many Hungarians outside of Budapest can speak English. You guys are lagging behind the rest of europe! A night in Croatia's capital Zagreb was next, which was probably enough, before heading off to Slovenia and lovely Ljubljana.

Ahh Ljubljana, what can I say. Probably the one city that I have been to so far that I could say I would like to live in. Such a cute little town and with such a cool sounding name. Like the country it belongs to, you could almost pick it up and give it a cuddle it is that cute. The city is small and compact and easy to get around. Everyone is friendly and genuinely happy to have a chat to you and are not jaded by hoards of tourists .. well as of yet anyway. And thankfully just about everyone speaks English, which is a change from basically everywhere else I have been so far.

And then there is the Slovenian countryside. To talk it up like a Lonely Planet travel guide (but legitimately so), the place is green and lush, with vivid blue rivers, craggy mountain snowcapped peaks, birds singing happily away, chocolate growing on trees and flowing streams of beer ... well almost. You get the picture. But if you don't, take a look at some of mine that I took in the Julian Alps uploaded on Flickr.

It was up in the Julian Alps that I took a prolonged trip with a cool guy called Jessie from Trinidad and Tobago. He was a white dude, but came complete with cool Jamaican soundings accent .. man. We took a little bus trip up there from Ljubljana to breath some mountain air and do some crazy adventure sport that seems to be de rigour for that neck of the woods. Kayaking was tackled first with some success. It is harder than it looks doing this down a river with rapids, but I managed to do alright with only the one feat of capsizing into the freezing Soča river (pronounced So-cha). Thank heavens for the wetsuit.

Afterwards we burned some more money by trying out canyoning. I am hooked. Now this gets the blood pumping and adrenalin flowing. Four of us (us and two dudes from Poland) and a guide suited up in special Batman like suits - with helmets, harnesses and some nappy like thing to protect the suit around our arse as we slide down waterfall chutes - then climbed up a valley side to come back down a canyon.

The canyon entailed numerous high jumps off into pools of water, the previously mentioned slides and some completely crazy abseiling down massive waterfalls - 50 metres high! If you can't imagine 50 metres and I still can't even after doing it, think how high a 10 metre high diving platform is at the Olympics, times it by 5. This was really mad and I was the first to do it. Half way down after being dumped on but mega-litres of water I was starting to wonder if there was enough rope to get to the bottom and why I didn't check that adventure sport tick box on my travel insurance form .. don't tell mum. But it was safe. It was not so much as abseiling by myself, but being lowered down gradually by the guide. Getting to the bottom was a real buzz and I just wish I could have taken my camera in to get a picture. Of course it wouldn't have truly captured it, but still.

Jessie and me then tried to make our way back to Ljubljana that afternoon. Unfortunately it was a weekend and public transport was almost non existent in this part of the world on weekends. So we decided to try as the locals do and hitchhike back. Limited success in this. We managed to get about 20km down the road in 3 hours of trying. In hindsight our big "LJ please" sign could have been our downfall. No one was going that far from the mountain resorts on a Saturday afternoon. They were all spending their weekends out of the city. After another night in the mountains at a local camp site we eventually got down off the mountains with the combination of two buses and a train to get back to LJ.

And so I am now in Vienna. I have hung out here for the last few days finally getting the Romanian visa, which I can happily say I now have stuck in my passport, although I had to carefully peel out the botched one they also did, saying 39 days instead of 30 and then stamping a big void stamp on it. Page real estate is now limited in the passport with only a few blank pages left, so I was not going to have two whole pages taken up by stupid Romanian consular officials. I need that page space for future borders.

But the best bit about being in Vienna is seeing my old man. He flew in yesterday and we are spending the next week and a bit together. First up is to head off to Slovakia and to hike in the apparently amazing High Tatras mountains, and after that .. hmm maybe some more east, Poland sounds good. I'm sure it shall be grand.

Balkan Bridging

2006-08-02T07:41:00.001+10:00

I was going to call this tale, Bosnia, Bed Bugs and Belgrade .. because .. well that basically sums up my last week. But instead here is a tale about recent war torn places moving ahead in leaps and bounds and an escape from the dreadful crowded coast into relative tourist free areas. A brilliant week in my books.

First destination out of the Adriatic tourist mecca was the fabulous city of Mostar. Location of the famous stari most (old bridge), and site of the front line of the war between the Croats and Serbs. Considering the war finished over 10 years ago, I was still amazed at the number of ruined and damaged buildings littering the city. Taking a walk around the area bordering along the former front line, the bullet holes still pock marking almost all the architecture is a shock. Signs in Bosnian and English pronouncing you not to enter the damaged buildings is common.

The old town was a pure delight. Partially full of tourist yes, but nothing like crazy Dubrovnik. It is sliced through by the strangely freezing river and crossed by the bridge (it was a shame about the river because when it is heatwave conditions of over 40 degrees in the shade, a dip would have been good, but not with the 11 degree water). The bridge was destroyed during the war in 1993 to much world outrage, but it is great to see it rebuilt now and the local pastime of jumping off is still taking being done. Though it is a tad touristy to see a hat being passed around to the package tour Americans and Germans, and then seeing the jumper surveying the takings. But seeing him jump from 25 metres up, into freezing water is still very impressive. I am glad the packagers paid for the three times I saw it.

Mostar is also the scene of my first assent up a mosque's minaret and certainly one of my highlights. I had previously thought this activity was strictly off limits to foreigners in Muslim regions, but not so in welcoming Bosnia. I climbed up and up the spiral stairs of one of the many little mosques around the town and popped out with fantastic views over it all. I could have stayed for a long time with a picnic, but eventually I had to head down before I would have got blasted by the loudspeakers call to pray.

An early morning train trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina's capital, Sarajevo, scene of winter olympics and wars, was next up. This town I loved. And if it wasn't for the filthy accommodation - which yes was cheap, but also came with a host of bed bugs that seemed to like my lovely blood - it would rank as one of my favourite destination.

Compact and easy to get around. A brilliant nightlife and cafe scene. And a beautiful location surrounded by hills, that was also its bane during the war when it was surrounded by the Serbs who sieged it for almost 4 years - a longer siege than Stalingrad and the longest siege in modern warfare. It is hard to believe that there were Serbian snipers hiding in the hills picking off everyone from old grandmothers to children on a day to day basis. I saw some footage shot during the war after I had been there for a few days and images of burning cars and people running to dodge the sniper's rifle on the same street I had just walked down is hard to get your head around.

The bed bugs almost drove me out of town and in reality I should have just moved to better accommodation, but I was having such a good time meeting other backpackers for once, I stuck around and partied with them for a while before shipping out. Reaching Belgrade by an overnight bus with a few of the other travellers heading the same way was another typical travel experience. I hate overnight buses, especially when there is a border crossing at 3 in the morning along the way. But I shall say no more on that.

Belgrade was a serious pleasant surprise. The city at the confluence of two major rivers, the Sava and the mighty Danube, is not the most attractive but still beautiful in its own way, with proper boulevards and very beautiful people to fill them (if anyone can tell me why Eastern Europe has more beautiful girls than else where, please do). The place is sort of low on attractions, but it is high on the fun. And the accommodation helped here. I found a nice little hostel in the centre of the city and hung out there for 4 nights - the longest stop off so far on the trip (I guess I am now starting to slow down a bit after rushing through some other parts).

It is a genuinely big modern city and it doesn't at all look like one that was being bombed by NATO only 7 years ago. Although you can still see the smashed up and destroyed Military headquarters building without having to walk far - guess they want to remind themselves what NATO did. Also it was interesting seeing the Military Museum and seeing the recent addition of the Kosovo war relics. A room filled with computers, cluster bomb bits, an American soldiers uniform, various guns and a chunk of the F117 stealth fighter they managed to shoot down, amongst others. The big Hummer outside is also a sure sign of the finger they are flicking to the west. Quite a few American tourist come though and don't get hassled. The past is the past here.

And so I am currently in another B, Budapest, and I am slowing seeing the sights but more importantly I am using it as a way point destination to sort out a few upcoming travel adventures, namely getting a Ukrainian visa and planning a trip to the Caucasus region later (a Russian visa was considered, but it is nigh impossible to do while here). A trip to Romania is on the cards - I really should see Transylvania while I am in the neighbourhood - but those Romanians really don't like us and we have to jump through some serious hoops to get a visa (I guess we screw them in return). But it should be worth it I think.

The Tourist Shy Traveller

2006-07-21T22:24:00.001+10:00

(warning: traveller's moan ahead)

Wanted, tourist shy traveller to see tourist meccas in the height of peak season tourism. It is a tough gig, and I mean it. After being blessed with a fraction of tourists seeing cool Albania, I have stepped into wadding pool with the rest of crowd and am going shoulder to shoulder, barging my way through. It definitely puts a dampener on it, especially when the sights are obviously worth it, it is a pity that tour guide umbrella keeps getting in the way of the view.

But back to the beginning. I made my way back to the popular coast after a three nights in Tirana. In the end that was probably enough for the Albanian capital. The traffic especially started to grate. It was some of the worst .. actually probably the worse .. traffic I have seen (and I have seen a few cities). They were not shy to use their horn and unfortunately the hostel .. although a very cool place to hang out and meet other travellers .. was right on a busy intersection, sans traffic lights. The horns blared at all hours.

So I hit the road again and headed north to the town of Shkodra. I was going to spend at least a few hours there to have a good look, but as soon as I got off the bus I was bombarded with offers to take me across the border and to the Montenegrin coast. Another traveller had been waiting for another passenger to fill the private car for a couple of hours, so I said why not, and headed straight out of town in the old Mercedes for the short journey west to the seaside beach town of Ulcinj (the towns I have discovered are now getting harder to pronounce).

I have done enough beach side towns in my past to know that they are much the same. And I can have my fill back home at far better beaches, with surf and a quarter of as many people, so I went straight to the bus station and found out when the next bus was off to the next cool old medieval town without a nearby beach. This just happened to be Kotor, which sat grandly at the end of an actual fjord (the southern most one in Europe .. hard to believe, I know, but it is true) and has a picture perfect little walled town with old labyrinthine laneways winding through it. My idea of a cool place .. what else could you want .. but wait there's more. There was also the fantastic ancient fortress built high above the town up the step sided cliff walls of the fjord. Just what I felt like doing, climbing up a mountain to a fortress and get rewarding views.

Luckily with the brilliance of no preplanning and just turning up in town at the end of a long travel day, all the way from Tirana (three buses and one car) I wandered through the old town's lanes and discovered a homestay with a free room. The lovely Montenegrin woman, running the place, chatted with me in a mixture of english, french, italian and serbian, while she gave me a turkish coffee, after I unloaded my pack in the room, and we sat out on the steps in the warm evening and watched the world pass on the little laneway outside the front door. These are the sort of unexpected delights that make travelling worth it. Instead of just two nights, I had to settle for three there.

There were certainly more tourists than Albania in Kotor but it was no plague proportions. So it was hard to leave my little homestay, but I had a date to make. An old mate was going to be in Dubrovnik, Croatia, so I wanted to catch up with her and possibly do some travel together.

I bused my way up over the border and hugged the coast to the famous old town. And it was here that I certainly discovered the tourist mecca I had been dreading all along. I knew it was going to be popular but I didn't realise just how popular. I met up with Jen and we stayed for a couple of nights in a relatively expensive place quite a way out of town. Prices were a jump up from everything I had come across so far (well expect probably Greece), and this transferred across everything, eating, seeing and sleeping. It was enough to put me off doing much there at all, and so I didn't really. I wandered the old town, saw the sights, bumped shoulders, swam from rocks, but then had to escape.

We jumped on a ferry and tried our luck for the island of Korčula, to see if this would be less touristy .. umm no. It was easy to see on the boat itself, it was full up with backpackers, flashpackers and packagers from all corners. I just wasn't used to it on my trip so far.

Korčula was nice, another little old walled town .. somehow I think the coast is somehow just old walled towns .. but the hoards drove us out of town quickly. We were both tourist shy, and we headed to the other end of the island to see if we could escape them. Luckily there were less and it was a nice little spot to spend a night, before catching another ferry to part company with Jen at Spilt (thanks Jen for the company, by the way).

And this is where I currently am, moaning about tourists at an internet cafe in Spilt. But I am about to spilt Spilt and head off out on the next part of my shuffle into, hopefully, less visited, but in my eyes must see places. First up is the historic town of Mostar in Bosnia, scene of bridge destruction and symbolic rebuilding. Then Sarajevo, which from all I have heard should be a pretty special place.

Slipping Through Shqipërisë

2006-07-13T19:08:00.001+10:00

Ah Albania, what a cool country .. well not weather wise at least .. bloody hot .. anyway, so I slipped into the country last week and have been making my way around what the locals call Shqipërisë. And it has been a genuinally pleasant surprise.

So far the week has been filled with wandering through UNESCO listed condensed hill top towns full of cobbled streets and brooding castles; being at English like (but with better weather) sea side towns, complete with pebbly beaches, promenades, cafes and the strollers walking past to fill it all; seeing an amazing village inside in a castle, perched on high overlooking valleys below; and the best bit all doing it all with no bloody tourists .. and didn't I need that after the package tourist heaven .. or my hell .. of Corfu. Here you can count the other travellers on your fingers, back then it was by the number on the back to the tour bus.

No tourists doesn't mean it is bad, just undiscovered. The rest of the world is sadly missing out. But who cares, let them follow their umbrella waving tour guide, I don't mind. This place is opening up and throwing off its recent decades of neglect and having a mini boom. It has one of the fastest growing economies of Europe at the moment, but that is really just because it started from not much to begin with. Far removed from the visions being instilled in my mind before I came; of genuine poverty, beggars in cardboard houses, thieves lurking behind every tree, knives in hand, this place is one of warmest I have discovered for a long time. Sorry to say, much more hospitable than the gloomy, grumpy Greeks, and they were the ones instilling my previous visions .. "watch yourself there" or "stay safe and alert" .. ahh how wrong. Why is it that countries so closely linked geographically, but dissociated culturally, always have that fear and mistrust .. England and France, Greece and Turkey, Australia and Indonesia ?? I don't know.

Anyway enough social commentary, as to what I have been up. Firstly I caught a fast hydrofoil from Corfu town into Saranda. It only took half an hour .. or with the time change I gained half an hour .. but they were two different worlds. Like I said I went from tour bus congestion into, sea side town.

Mr Immigration man met the boat as it docked, and with a smile we all .. the 6 of us .. headed with him to the passport stamp office. After the formalities of getting entry into the country I was out on the town proper and heading off to find accommodation. Down the town promenade I headed. Past little black head scarves clad women selling tomatos and bananas from Panama. Past Internet gaming dens. Past Caesars Palace casinos. And past all the cafes and bars already busy in the morning hour.

The first hotel I had a look in was a nice one right overlooking the water. The room would rate with any nice hotel around the world. I was hesitant to ask the price, but then she said €20. Wow, cheaper than my hostel on Corfu. I took it.

I spent two nights in Saranda. I liked the town. It did have a construction zone feel about it as buildings half completed were everywhere, some being worked on others sitting idle. The second night was the world cup final night. I selected an open air cafe with a large TV down by the beach. Just before the game a bunch of older town locals joined my table as chair real estate in the place became scarce, in fact the place was chock-a-block. They had no English between them, but all the same it was amusing to just watch and listen to whole event. Italy were the local favourites it seemed but a few were genuinely supporting France .. well to the extent that chairs were knocked over and arms flying about in disgust or delight. It was a grand old night in the end and I heard the Italian supporters long into it, still happy with the result.

World Heritage town of Gjirokastra came next. I caught a bus from Saranda up over some mountains and down the valley, seeing for the first time the infamous bunkers, read below. I stayed here in an ancient house overlooking the valley below and got to wander around the ancient medieval streets. The town was great and the castle brilliant .. in fact it was a tad scary .. wandered in from the bright sun and into a musty smelly dark great hall, lined with artillery canons in alcoves along either side of the passage .. the sound of my shoes echoing down past them. It is hard to imagine, but it was eerie at the time, and the sound of bats helped.

The most amusing thing so far for all of the Albania, is seeing the bunkers everywhere. A legacy from the lunatic ideas of former communist party and paranoid leader, Enver Hoxha. He somehow had this idea that because his country was now isolated in the world, not unlike North Korea today, he could defend the country from both external attack and internal revolution by building one-man little bunkers, not much bigger than a car, and placing them in all corners of the country. And they are still hanging around in the weirdest places. To start with I was searching everywhere to see some, and then once I realised how small they were it was like spotting grey hairs, you see them everywhere .. up on the hillsides .. dotted like mushrooms in a row along valley floors .. very bizarre.

I went on from there to Berat. If Gjirokastra was the first "museum town", Berat is the second. And it was well worth it. Another castle, or this time a citadel, perched up on the hill top overlooking the town and valley below. I have seen a few castles around Europe, but this one ranks up there with the best. The best thing was it is actually a small town complete with used whitewashed red tiled houses and small little lane ways between them all. Then there were the ancient churches scattered around the "town". Some of these were really ancient, Byzantine times. I gained a little Albanian friend who took me on a tour around the place. He couldn't speak more than 2 words of English, but it was cool to have him point at things and make hand gestures. I gave him a few coins at the end and told him to go and learn English and then wait for the tourists to come in the future.

And so now I am in the smallish capital of Tirana. I have spent a few days here wandering around the hot streets. This place is, like I said, taking off. Flash cars whizz by. Trendy looking girls dolled up totter past on their high heels. And bars and cafes are full and popular. There is even a bush park to make an Australian feel homesick .. a hot day and gum trees surrounded me with that familiar scent .. and this is after I just walked past a bar swamped with Fosters umbrellas.

So I will probably spend a couple of other nights here before continuing up north into Europe's newest state, Montenegro, formally part of Serbia. Not sure how long there before a bit of Croatia will follow and who knows after that. It is all good .. apart from the tour buses .. I am keen to avoid them.

Mountain Top, Sea Hop

2006-07-07T00:19:00.001+10:00

New Travellers Tips Discovered:

* Better shoes are needed before attempting to climb over high mountains. Mud and snow soak through easily. Boots for next time.

* Wet muddy shoes take a long time to dry .. and they stink.

* Bulgarians will not stop trying to speak Bulgarian, even after you have clearly tried to explain you cannot even say thank you correctly. Blah-goh-dah-reeya!

* Always check how much a taxi in Sofia will cost. When they say "I have meter", check their rates.

* Doing a runner on a scary looking Bulgarian taxi driver should not be undertaken, even after most expensive ride in history.

* Travelling without a guidebook is hard work. It makes "easy" countries more adventurous.

* Bus stops are great sources for local maps.

* Big book shops should be visited to have that quick squint at that English guidebook. Handy for knowing where to catch the next bus out of town.

And so it is another country, another day. Off and around and across. I am making tracks after stalling in Bulgaria for over a week. And a great week it was.

I ended it by having a bit of a hike. And it turned out to be a mini adventure, and I am all into those. I partnered up with Luke, the crazy Aussie, cycling from Thailand to London, and we caught an early bus out of Sofia, Bulgaria's capital. We were on our way to the Rila Mountains, some of the highest mountains in the Balkans.

To get there though we needed, to catch two buses and then hope for another one going up to the start of the national park. The first two were easily achieved, in fact almost too easy, we were on and off without any waiting around. The third though just so happen to stitch us up. No buses up to the mountains on a Sunday. Bloody weekends, they can screw around with your travel plans.

Not too fazed we decided, to walk and grab a lift with a kind stranger. I kept remembering the last time I did this .. in East Timor .. and ended up having to walk 20k's in the hot sun. Luckily this time, it was overcast and after the fourth car we got a lift from a couple of guys and a young girl. We squeezed in the back with her and we had fun looking at her Bulgarian gossip mag, complete with pictures of Nicole Kidman getting married. I hope she was impressed when I told her she comes from the same place as me.

We started the hike. We were on the north side of the mountains and we were crossing them to get to the famous Rila Monastery. It was only an overnight walk, but we were planning to stretch it out over a few days to see some of this countryside. No tent was needed, as their were plenty of huts, but Luke bought his along anyway.

To the first hut took about 3 hours straight up. By the time we were getting close the weather closed in and we were in the middle of thick fog. More than 15 metres in front of us was total whiteout. So it was a surreal experience, to hear voices first, then see a light up on high above us, and then to see the outline of a gigantic building loom out in front of us. This was not a hut, it was a palace. Inside we went. A hotel it turned out to be. Complete with restaurant, bar and lounge area. The weather was really shite outside, so we decided to have some soup, as you do, up in the mountains, and wait out for it to clear.

It did clear up and so we headed off to the older hut listed on the maps nearby. Somewhere hopefully with a bit more atmosphere and not as soulless. It turned out to be a laugh with an old woman caretaker, looking after the place, and some young Bulgarian kids sleeping in the dorm room. It was cheap too and the old woman even dried out my wet shoes in her oven. They must have stunk up her little room in the process though.

We filled in the evening by the cooking ritual, and then a few games of chess. One of the other Bulgarian guys sussed out our playing standard and challenged me to a game later. I was completely trounced. He had a skillful defence with his knights. I will have to remember it.

Next day the weather was still closed in, so the beautiful views we came all the way to see were nonexistent. Instead of poking around for an extra night, we decided to high tail it all the way across the tops to the Monastery. In the process we walked through snow and over 2600m mountains. My shoes were almost had it but after 6 hours we reached the Monastery. Just as the last bus back to Sofia was leaving. Nice timing, but we were keen to see something of this place, so we passed on the bus and hoped something would work out.

Turns out a nice little French man with a rented car and on business was heading back half way to Sofia. We politely asked if we could get a ride and he was more than happy to help. We kept him entertained with stories to pay our way. After dropping us off it was a bus and a tram back to the hostel, Luckily the days are long here, still light at around 9, so getting in late is no big deal.

I had a couple of options from Sofia. The first was my original plan was to go through Macedonia, but this required getting a visa in advance and I was only planning to go for a few days. The second option was through Serbia and then Kosovo, but this meant I had to do a lot of back tracking from where I wanted to see. The third option was taken, through Northern Greece.

I discovered a bus leaving at a reasonable hour and I jumped in the first cab to the bus station. Of course this is where I got hit up by the exorbitant rate. Bastard. I should have realised when I saw the TV attached to the dash that this guy was a shark.

Across the border into Greece to Thessaloniki, to get a tad lost. No guidebook makes it all the more interesting. Managed to find a cheap .. very cheap hotel .. to rest up. Next day and I was out on another bus heading west. For someone who loves train travel so much, all I have caught so far on this trip are buses.

The bus deposited me at the port town of Igoumenitas, and before I knew it I was off on a ferry to Corfu. Another party place. Beaches and bars again. And it is not really my scene. But I want to get the sense of this culture before plunging back into the place I was really trying to get to all along. Albania. Soon I will be on a ferry heading over there. Should be an adventure, at least I have a guidebook for there though.

Nod For No

2006-06-29T22:12:00.001+10:00

Greetings from central Bulgaria. Land of nods for no and shakes for yes. Of monasteries and beach. Where all the girls get dolled up and the guys just watch them walk by. And where Cryillic script is de-facto. It is almost like a little Russia, but with hot weather. And I am absolutely loving it.

But first I had to get out of Turkey. This thankfully was achieved without too much hassle, although there was the incident of the attempted scam, but that is a story for another time; to add to other scams attempts I have run in to. So I left Istanbul from the main massive bus station, or the Otogar. The place must be the mecca for bus stations worldwide. Buses travel to all corners of Europe and the Middle East and they would probably go further if they could (London on a bus from Istanbul is possible, about 3 days worth .. no thanks). Myself, I just wanted to head west, cross over the border and up the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria.

I had no idea what to expect from this new country. I had plenty of Eastern European stereotypes floating around in my head; horse drawn carts rumbling down the main streets; gap filled smiles; orphanages needing help; nuclear reactor incidents. So I was in for a shock from Bulgaria. And Varna was the place to slap me in the face.

Varna was party central. A walk down to the beach was a sensory overload. Getting to the beach first, I had to pass all the beautiful people meandering around and along the pedestrian malls. Then past all the bars and all the clothes shops with all the latest fashion, and through the throngs with mobile phones clasped to ears. It all seemed so affluent and western, where was the communist soviet bloc influence?

Once I was at the seaside it was shoulder to shoulder through the masses and past the clubs. Dance tracks blasted out and even more beautiful people streamed in and around. The joints were packed and I was aghast. I needed a drink so I picked the first one that seemed open enough and was also happening to play a world cup game. Sitting at the bar I just wanted a beer. But it just so happened that I was at the cocktail bar that was in the Guinness book of records for the most commercially available cocktails. I counted them on the menu. Over a hundred, and they were cheap .. Eastern European alcohol prices. Every cocktail was AU$4 or less.

The beach the next day was another eye opener. The beautiful with less clothes and no inhibitions. I am still staggered at how dressed up Bulgarians get, and I have been here for a week. Although now that I have been out and away from the coast at least I have seen some normality .. horse drawn carts in town centres.

I have also seen some amazing geography and precarious towns utilising it. Veliko Tarnovo was one .. medieval hilltop fortress, cobblestone streets .. you get the picture. It will be one of the next big destinations for package tours worldwide. Expect to see it gracing brochure covers in years to come. It was good to beat the hoards, because it was a brilliant spot to stop and relax for a few days. Mainly thanks to the accommodation. A chilled hostel run by local guys with time to spare to have a few beers and chats with the small clientele. I hope the rest of the east will be like this.

Same deal with my current local, Plovdiv in central Bulgaria. Here it is more of the same. This country is just breaking into the backpacker market and it is a great time to be here. I am meeting tons of other solo travellers and it is always good to trade stories and hometown anecdotes. The best so far has been meeting Luke, an Aussie from Sydney, who has ridden his bike from Thailand to Bulgaria for the last year and a half; he has a few stories to tell, and this is why I love travelling so much.

On the sightseeing side of things there has also been the getaways from the towns and into the countryside. It has been very hot, but a daytrip today to a fortress was a highlight. As well as the five hour return hike a few days ago to a monastery. This was complete with wizened old white bearded monk with hunchback looking after the orthodox church with beautiful ancient frescos covered in soot. I am not regretting heading this way to travel.

But tomorrow I am off to the capital, Sofia, for the first time. Another hostel awaits and some more travellers are there to meet; some on their way to Istanbul, others into Serbia. But for me I will be staying for a few days before leaving the heavy pack behind to go lightweight and south for some hiking. Hopefully I will be meeting up with Luke as he is keen to ditch the bike. Besides, I want to shake and nod my head in reverse order at more of his stories over a campfire in the Rila Mountains.

Out There In Istanbul

2006-06-21T22:50:00.001+10:00

Istanbul was Constantinople,
Now its Istanbul not Constantinople,
Been a long time gone from Constantinople,
Now a Turkish delight on a moonlit night.

Every gal in Constantinople
Lives in Istanbul not Constantinople
So if you've a date in Constantinople
She'll be waiting in Istanbul.

Even old New York,
Was once New Amsterdam,
Why they changed it I can't say,
People just liked it better that way.

So take me back to Constantinople,
No you can't go back to Constantinople,
Been a long time gone from Constantinople,
Why did Constantinople get the works?
Thats nobodys business but the Turks.

Istanbul, Istanbul!

Istanbul or Constantinople or Byzantium. Whatever you call it, in my books it is certainly one of the great cities on earth. More ancient wonders per square kilometre than .. well anywhere besides Rome I guess. And what could be a better place on my first port of call on this latest leg in my year of bumming out and travel, than Istanbul, not Constantinople.

So jet lagged and bleary eyed I arrived the other day in the Europe meets Asia city. Over 24 hours in travel, minimal sleep, and a feeding frenzy .. all that airline food .. 7 meals and then other snacks .. I just couldn't say no. I vowed to stay awake though until a normal sleeping hour, even if I was checked into my hostel before midday.

Getting to the hostel was typically my style. No way was a (relative) expensive taxi going to be used when there were light rails and trams to be caught. So I crammed in with the rest of the Istanbullus on their morning rush and headed into the old city, Sultanahmet. Once there I was back into backpacker mode and was shrugging off the touts and spruikers on the way to a hostel, like an old pro.

Once done with the pack in the room it was time to explore. It has been 4 years since I was last here and I wanted to make sure that the old city was still the same as I left it. From initial inspection I can say that it is. Not many changes on the street level, still dotted with 1500 year old ancient wonders and relative newer 500 year old mosques.

Highlights so far from my ramble wanderings would have to be just soaking up the crammed narrow cobbled streets lined with shops selling everything from spices and spades to nuts and ninja stars. Then there are the hawkers peddling whatever small items they can flog off. My personal favourite has to be the guy selling Viagra individually.

Seeing the sights has been also on the agenda. The magnificent Aya Sofia was first on the list and I am still impressed by this masterpiece of ancient architecture. 1500 years old and still going strong. In terms of world cathedrals, can any really come close? A few shoeless pokes into various active mosques has also been achieved. And there are plenty of them. It would take a long time for anyone to get around all the mosques that this city has to offer. And to be honest after a while they all look the same. Those Sultans loved that dome style.

Also checked out the Archaeological museum for the first time. Mightily impressed. The "famous" Alexander Sarcophagus was well worth the entry price alone. Two and a half thousand years old and it just looks like it was made yesterday. Intricately detailed. I was also impressed by the way the museum translated just about every inscription on all their ancient artifacts. Something that most other museums I have been to don't bother with. The best bit was the translations of the clay Hattite tablets. There were ordinary letters, IOU notes and then the write up on what to do if you are impotent. Go and catch a pigeon and crush the whole thing up, sprinkle it with salt, add the saliva of a bull which is erect at the time of collection, do the same with sheep saliva and then eat and wash it down with beer. Hah. I love it. And this was written 3300 years ago.

Anyway I am here for a few days more. To do, more sightseeing (tons to see), socialising with the fellow backpackers and watching the world cup at a normal hour. (I managed to miss Australia vs Brazil due to being on a plane at that time, doh, at least Aust v Croatia should be a cracker). So after Istanbul, not Constantinople it is off to the west. Bulgaria awaits. See ya there.

Quaffed

2006-06-18T08:16:00.000+10:00

A week back in my own place has gone quickly. Catching up with family and friends; playing with my new niece; eats, sleeps and squawks; all in a happy way. Then there has been the going out and socialising; beers, laksa and live music; Lazy Susan and some other Clash clone at the Hopetown Hotel; $10 for a great gig; I will be back.

One of the best bits of the week and the reason I came back when I did, was for a mates 30th birthday winery trip around the Hunter. I've been on a few of these, but I am no expert. After the first wine they tend to all taste the same. It is fun to pretend and quaff though. But it also amusing how serious others can get into this pastime. Tannins, nose, colour, blah blah. Something that tastes good and not too pricey please.

But the week has gone quickly and is now almost up. Time to pick up the little stamped filled book, hitch the pack over the shoulder and head to another airport and catch another plane. (So far this year I have caught 14 different planes). In a way I am sad to be heading off again. I always seem to get a little trepidation anytime I leave my family and friends and this time is no different. Especially since there is no one to meet me and no one besides myself to keep me company along this path. Once I am there and out I am sure I will be grand. Just have to get over the long journey and jet lag first.

PNG: The Return

2006-06-13T11:24:00.001+10:00

A couple of surprisingly better than expected weeks have just past in Papua New Guinea. A place the locals like to call the Land of the Unexpected. But for me, it was mainly all expected. For instance I wasn't surprised by the DIY home vet procedure, or being stuck in the dusty wild west town of Kainantu, or the fact that my old base of Lae and Unitech is exactly as I remembered it. But I was pleasantly surprised when I found more than an expected amount of money in my old bank account. Always good.

Instead of a boring travel log of I went here and did this and then that. This time I might break the trip up into a summary of the highlights and lowlight. So here you go.

* Seeing my old buddy Wendy again for the first time in a year and a half. And getting to play with her HD video camera while she was playing documentary filmmaker.

* Hanging out with the old volunteer gang again and staying with a few (thanks guys). Luckily most of the gang that I remember are still there, sprinkled with a few new faces.

* Hosting another Tropfest film festival. Third year in a row. Crowds were down on previous years, but it was just as good if not better than before.

* Helping to remove a hook from the throat of Nick's dog. It always amazes me the drugs you can buy over the counter in PNG. In this case a couple of syringes full of anaesthetic and date rape drugs. Scary.

* Going out on Nick's boat to a deserted island close to Madang. Snorkelling over coral and finding Nemo. Always great to do, especially now that I am back in cold Australia. burr.

* Getting stuck overnight in Kainantu. A definite lowlight. Jumped on a mid-day bus from Madang to Kainantu in the hope that I would make a connection to Goroka. Instead the bus took forever and ended up getting to the final stop too late. Darkness descended and here I was stuck in the middle of dusty Kainantu being watched by the locals. Huddled under the only street light for about half an hour hoping another bus going all the way would come. Various shady people hanging around checking out my bags. And then thank Christ for the Salvos. Didn't know they existed there but sure enough I was shown there door and put up for the night for only K15. The lovely woman even cooked me a meal. Those guys are great. Next day I was off and out of town to Goroka without problem.

* Going up Mt Gahvasuka National Park near Goroka. A first time event and a recommended one. Got a friendly lift by a provincial government car up to the top over an extremely rough road. Then wandered around and up to some lookouts to get fabulous views over the entire Asaro valley. Unfortunately most of the buildings were burnt down a couple of years ago in a petty and typical PNG land wrangle. But the place is well going to. Apart from the Mt Wilhelm government reserve this is the only other one in the country I have been to.

Unfortunately I didn't get to go anywhere really new on this trip. No new provinces added or major hikes completed. Next time perhaps. Not sure when that will be for PNG though. It is a costly place to get to when AVI isn't paying. But before I contemplate going back there, first up I am off to new places again in a few days. Eastern Europe and Turkey this time beckon. Say tuned.

Battles, Bali & Borders

2006-05-31T10:10:00.001+10:00

I have good timing. Just last week Monday I was flying out of East Timor's capital Dili. The next day it seems there are running gun battles through the city. If I had of stayed any longer I could have become an impromptu war correspondent.

But as it turned out I only discovered the news a few days later in Bali that there was any trouble at all in the city. And even then when I was being told about it, it was like "um, no way, that is not true, surely not". There was absolutely no sign when I was there that any trouble was brewing. Life seemed normal. Pity it is so true. East Timor was just getting on its feet.

Check your weapon at Dili airport

Anyway we ended up spending 3 days in Bali. A bizarre place. It was my first time there, and I will go back. But away from the beach, bars and bogans. When we flew in it was straight out to the tourist village of Ubud, only about 25km away from Kuta but a long drive all the same. The streets and roads are narrow and clogged with motorbikes, taxis, buses, cars and the odd cart being pushed along. Everyone tries to get where they're going as quickly as possible. A major change from Dili, where the taxis are lucky to get past 40km/hr.

Ubud was fantastic and the accommodation sooo cheap (around Au$8 for a double room and en-suite). But it seems some other tourists had got there before we had. The streets were lined with home stays, bungalows, resorts, shops and services, catering for masses of tourists. Luckily it seems most of them are not going anymore, so we could pick and choose, unluckily it also meant that anywhere you walked some tout was calling out to you to see if you wanted "taxi, transport, yes?" (coupled with a two-handed steering wheel mime).

We escaped into the surrounding countryside one afternoon for a hot walk around and through the paddy fields. Along the way we caught a glimpse of some of the real Bali life, while watching people work in the fields and women taking offerings to Hindu temples. One of the main things I noticed in Bali was how seriously Hinduism is practiced. Maybe I am a tad naive but I had never realised it before. Temples, shrines and offerings dot the streets. You have to be careful not to kick any of the little banana leaf, rice and incense offerings that are put out every morning in front of the shops and homes.

Kuta was another story. We had one afternoon and evening to fill in there before our flight out east late at night and the place was not really my cup of tea. It is filled with surfie and bogan types, a lifestyle I just don't subscribe to. The beach was an eyeopener, locals offering everything from massages to pineapples to the sun baking few. The scene that typified the clash of cultures the most was a bronzed girl flashing her norks to the world on a banana lounge while having a pineapple cut up in front of her by a local woman covered head to toe with clothing and a hat.

Kuta beach

It was good to move on from Kuta, but also a bit sad that I couldn't have seen more of the island and escaped to littler known places. We flew off to Jayapura, West Papua at 2:30am and got in there early in the morning. I had heard that it was now possible to go straight to the border and get your visa exit stamp there instead of the previous saga of having to go to immigration in Jayapura town itself. This it seems was the case last month. Those Indonesians like to change their bloody minds.

Over an hour in a taxi and quite a few hundred thousands of Rupiah and we were dropped off, just a short stroll from Papua New Guinea. When we discovered that the policy had now changed and stamping was now taking place back in Jayapura. We weren't going to budge. This would mean quite a considerable outlay in cash and also would take most of the afternoon. We wanted to get into PNG and organise some tickets to get further into the country. So it was a Mexican standoff. Neither side giving way. Our passports were pored over. Every previous country stamp I have been to looked at and the visas as well. We stayed for over an hour like this. Eventually with the border guards telling us to wait for the bigman to yay or nay if we could exit without getting the stamp.

In the end they became pretty friendly, offering us food to eat and bizarrely chatting away to us in Pidgin. They talked amongst themselves and we sat down and waited. Eventually they pulled out some homebrew or something a rather and drank that. There were no other people crossing the border apart from the locals and some dodgy looking Malaysian guy.

The big man came and our moment arrived. He chatted away back to base on the two-way radio and we waited anxiously. I was certain that we would have to go back. Surprisingly he passed our passports back and said we could go. Victory for us and jubilation. We set off very happy with our packs on our backs and greeted the PNG immigration officers like they were old friends. No problems getting into PNG and we were out trying to get to Vanimo. This turned out to be a bit of a small drama in itself and some creative thinking allowed us to slyly slip a hire car guy a small amount of money to get dropped off in town instead of the ludicrous amount they originally told us it would cost .. K180 (Au$70).

So I am currently back in PNG. I just can't escape this place it seems. I have been catching up with friends with more catching up yet to do. And things .. well things it seems are exactly the same as when I left it. This I like. I know how things work.

Vanimo town park

Timor Leste Life - Part 2

2006-05-24T19:14:00.001+10:00

.. and we're back.

So I was saying, we were on a bus to Baucau, the second city, or more like town, of East Timor. The bus was a brightly painted and colourful variety with some great reclining seats. Comfort. Luckily I didn't have to stand in the door like a guy near me did. The whole way the door was open and a few guys were hanging out it. Even after we had off loaded a couple of people they still insisted on standing. The trip was for 3 hours.

We were dropped off in the new town of the city and we wanted to get to the old town, so we hailed a passing Microlet (minivan). There was no grabbing at bags anymore and everyone was happy to help point us in the right direction. In fact even when they were bag grabbing back in Dili they were doing it with smiles. I was just too shitty to notice.

Baucau it seems has seen better days. Like most of the country it was ransacked in 99 by the Indonesians. They were a bit pissed off at the time at being told they were not wanted by the East Timorese, so they went on a rampage and destroyed three quarters of the buildings and a fair chunk of the infrastructure as well. Oh and then there was the mass slaughter they carried out on the locals as well. So the scars are well and truly evident. In Baucau this was seen in the old Portuguese Mercado or main market. The thing is slowly crumbling while kids climb on the roof for fun.

Baucau Mercado

Two nights in the town were enough, possibly even too long, before we had dried up on things to see, so we braved another bus experience to keep going east. We had been told about a magical fishing village called Com, with beautiful beaches at the farthest the road goes, so we were determined to get there. Maybe a little too determined to get there in the end.

The bus we were on went to another town, Los Palos. Com was on a turn off about 20km before Los Palos. We asked others on the bus if we could get off at the turnoff and catch a microlet to Com. They all said yes. So we jumped off at Lautem, the point where the road splits. At a small market nearby we asked the same question regarding the microlet and got a laugh. It seems they only run early in the morning if at all. So we decided to just walk up the road to Com and hail a passing car, after all the village was only 20km away and we had all afternoon to get there. We could always walk the whole way.

Which is what we did. There was absolutely no cars for the entire 20km passing in our direction. We hiked in the middle of the road and only saw a couple of motorbikes for 5 hours. It wasn't all bad we did get to walk past small villages, and smile and say "boatardi" (afternoon) numerous times to greet everyone we saw. And this was returned with a "boatardi" and a big smile back. We also passed, wallowing buffaloes, countless goats, long stretches of beaches and a small green snake according to R. Then there were the pied piper moments when about 20 kids followed us as they headed off to collect water from a water tank. I am sure we were the most interesting thing, with our packs and sweaty look, they had seen all year.

Com was worth it. A guesthouse on the beach, with an attendant who almost became too overbearing and we recovered from our large hike over two nights. Swims at the beach and a few cold beers at the nearby "resort" (a village style one at least) to make us feel relaxed. The food was also some of best I have eaten, especially in E Timor, fantastic fish and nasi goreng. We also determined that we could get a microlet out of town, so we organised it. It just happened to run at 6 in the morning.

So we were off again after the recovery and headed to Los Palos in the hope we could bus from there straight back to Dili. This proved impossible as we just happened to pick the countries Independence Day. Major events were in the works. We were stuck in Los Palos. Wandering through town and looking at some of the average guesthouses, and we stumbled upon a couple of Australians. Volunteers no less. Saviours. We quickly established that volunteer secret code, special handshake and all that, and we were taken under their wings. We were also invited to witness an independence day flag raising ceremony.

Bus lunch stop

Off we went. To sit in the VIP tent. Me scruffy looking. 10 day old beard growth, sandals, dirty T-shirt. It was a laugh. So was the scene performed. A stilted march past with the flag accompanied by some music that seemed ominous and Stanley Kubrik like to being with and then became almost Benny Hill-ish. It was hard not to laugh. I whipped out the big camera and looked like a foreign journalist and got some extra kudos.

Next day we back off to Dili. This time a 5 hour bus ride and another pre-dawn rise. The journey was ordinary apart from some incidents near Dili that caused some alarm. A few rocks thrown on the roof, a guy lying face-down in the road. Later this could have meant an ambush and robbery could have occurred. Not so much unlike PNG after all.

One last night in Dili and then it was off to the airport. We weren't going through the UN check through but instead to the Merpati, counter to check-in for the Bali flight. Which is where I currently am. And what a contrast to East Timor this is. But that is another tale.

p.s. It seems we left just in time. A few problems have now re-erupted over there.

Timor Leste Life - Part 1

2006-05-23T20:59:00.001+10:00

And so the traveller moves on, through new lands and to a very new country. I have just spent the last eight days in Timor Leste, also known as East Timor .. the newest country on the planet. And it was a trip that was well .. to steal a tour company's name (and one that we also kept bumping into) .. was intrepid .. but also really great. I like the place. It has potential with a capital P. It just needs to get back on the path.

The trip was also one that had a few anxious moments. Not least before I had even stepped into the country. There was a heightened level of tension that was around in the weeks before going. Images of riots in the capital Dili, were splashed across media sources. The family was worried. I was .. to be honest .. a tad nervous. The unexpected always does that. Government travel advisories were telling people they should reconsider their travel. I reconsidered for a moment before committing myself. It can't be that bad, can it. After all I lived in a land of inherent violence for 2 years. Let's see how this compares.

Also I had an ace up my sleeve. The volunteer network. There are more AVIs in East Timor than PNG I was to find out. And luckily I was in contact with them. Things it seemed were not so bad on the ground as what some news grabs can make out. Isn't it always the case.

So I met up with my travel mate, R, in Darwin, and we got up ridiculously early to get out to the airport for our flight. Check-in, wait around, spy on the other passengers (gun runner, CIA, journalist, NGO officer?) and then out onto the tarmac for the safety demonstration by the pilot and into his little plane, bend over at right angles to get to the seat, and we were off. Nearly two hours later the twin prop thing touched down in Dili and we were walking to the terminal.

First step was to get our visa. This was a site shed. Inside a counter and a couple of officers. US$30 was handed over with the passport and a visa was issued, no photos or forms, just a big rubber stamp into a page. One of the easiest visas I have ever got. Next step was to meet up with some of the volunteers I had been contact with. A taxi into town, through dusty streets and past motorcycles and ramshackle and sometimes burnt out buildings (legacy from the Indonesian rampage back in '99) and to a beachside hotel for breakfast. Rhoslyn was the main point of contact I had and she turned out to be an organisational queen. Over breakfast she gave me a SIM card for my phone, a map, marking out places of interest, other hints, and organised a cheap room and even hailed us a taxi to get there. This travel thing couldn't have been more easier.

First impressions are always weird. For Dili, after walking around the first afternoon, they sort of go like this. A goat tied up underneath the peace park sign, a dog carcass completely mummified on the street (why hadn't it been removed?), lovely white vehicles with big UN letters on the side, taxis roaming past honking to see if you want to hire it (no I am happy walking thanks), a giant Jesus at one end on the harbour and beautiful beach side cafes catering for UN staff. And above all it was safe. You could roam around quite happily and there was no razor wire or worries. I wanted to volunteer here. Not a bad gig at all. And there was a selection of beer from all over.

We spent two nights in the capital before we decided to head east on a bus. This is where the travel turned intrepid and adventurous. So far it was easy. We got up early to get a taxi on the road out of town to the bus terminal. And when we got there the fun started.

Kids swamped the taxi, all of them from different buses. Doors were flung open. The boot popped and my pack taken out. My day pack grabbed at. And this is all before we had paid the driver. The driver asked for $5, way too expensive, but I just gave him a note and jumped out. My bag had disappeared and I was pissed. The bag in R's arms was being grabbed and tugged at her by a bunch of kids. I yelled "hey, hey, hey" loudly and they all stopped. Then I shouted "where is my bag", any thought of using Tetun, the national language, was forgotten. Some of the kids knew what I meant and pointed to the nearest bus. Inside the empty thing I found my bag perched proudly up on a seat. I boarded grabbed it and we stormed up to the front of the bus queue, where there was an almost full bus, ignoring the pleas of the kids to jump on theirs. Not long later our chosen bus started and we were off to Baucau, sharing the ride with prize cock-fighting roosters.

To be continued ..

Back Backpacking

2006-05-13T11:05:00.001+10:00

So I was in Alice Springs not so long ago. It was a cool (and hot) little town. Time does fly though when you are backpacker. Alice seems ages ago now that I have made it to Darwin.

Back in Alice I had a few days to spare after my hike. I organised a bit of personalised sightseeing around the town by hiring a bike to visit some far flung reaches (I have discovered that you definitely use different muscles when riding a bike as to walking .. methinks i'll stick to the walking for a while). So I went back to the Old Telegraph Station. Went off to the "Cultural Precinct" to see some old planes and a couple Albert Namatjira works, among others. And cycled to the top of ANZAC hill to get a view of the lie of the land. In the end of my rounds I came to the conclusion that Alice is not such a bad old place .. but I couldn't live there. Hot and dusty and miles from nowhere. The nearest beach would have to be 1500km away.

So I caught the train out. I didn't do this because it was cheaper, or quicker, but because there is no one I know who has caught a train to Darwin, and I like the thought of I did it first. It was also really because I have never caught a long distance overnight train in Australia (except to Brisbane but we won't count that) and so I was keen to compare to the ones I have ventured on in Europe and China. And besides, I like trains, it is my favourite way to travel.

In the end, after a 24 hour journey, from the centre o the country to the very top, I came to the conclusion that we just don't do the long distance train business as well as the Europeans. The Ghan was more about the tourists than the travel. It was full up with the blue rinse brigade and there is nothing wrong with that, but it dampens my view of it. I guess I have been spoilt by riding the trans-siberian and real working train with the tourists a secondary thought. And I guess it was probably because the cheap seats was all I could afford. So instead of the comfortable four berths in the middle of Russia, I was cramped up with a stiff neck on the bloody day-nighter seats. It was worse than any long distance flight I could remember. And cold too. But luckily once the day rolled around and it was possible to go to the lounge car (and lounge around) things were not so bad.

A four hour stop over at Katherine was made and we caught a shuttle into town to just wander around it. By this stage I was getting to know some of the other travellers on the train, sharing stories and the like. So as you tend to do, you band together with them and head off. We were all too skint to go and have a look at the Katherine gorge though. And in hindsight I wish I just put up the cash and gone along with the grannies instead of trying to do it independently with the collective band of backpackers. But such is life. I missed Kings Canyon as well .. so I figure it is a good reason to come back through this way one day.

In the afternoon following Katherine we rolled along through the top end and looked out the windows trying to spot crocs and instead having to make do with looking at the massive termite mounds and the grass fires burning trackside. Before evening we came into Darwin .. or at least about 18km from Darwin in some freight terminal. Seems they forgot to build the track into town. Probably because of the expense. Shame I think.

A bus into town and a check in at a hostel before it was priorities and out in the beautiful evening warmth and off to a pub to cash in some $1 meal tickets we got.

The collective band of backpackers was now well and truly formed. The plan was to make the most of our time and make tracks to see some of the local countryside. So we hired a 12 seater mini-van (which my NSW drivers licence managed to cover), went and got some grub, hired some camping equipment and loaded up and headed for Litchfield NP. Kakadu was thought of but it turns out a lot of the main attractions are still closed there following the cyclone and besides it is a fair hike to get there.

Litchfield was absolutely magical though. We gandered and then swam in waterfalls. Visited massive termite mounds and famous magnetic variety. Did some more swimming in rock pools. And took obligatory photos of standing in front of crocodile warning signs. One of the waterfalls was actually closed because of the potential threat.

After the camp out and drive back, we tried to get to see the famous jumping crocs at Adelaide River Crossing, but were a tad too late. So instead we just gandered at the big beasts in captivity at a croc farm.

Since that little cheap escape (turned out it cost us just $60 per person .. instead of a two day tour that would have cost $200), I have been hanging around Darwin town. This town I like. I like the tropics, with an evening that you can wander around in shorts and shirts and build up a thirst. The locals are not pretentious and very friendly. No wanker attitudes, just a laid back mode. And it is nicely laid out with all things central. I went to the Mindel Beach market at sunset and got some more of the vibe there. And did a touristy but surprisingly fun feed the fish at a thing called Aquascene. Catfish and mullets swimming between your legs and going bananas over a few buns in the water.

All good things must come to an end. And tomorrow I am out of here to uncharted waters. Back from backpacker mode and into adventure mode. We shall see how it fairs.

Larapinta Madness

2006-05-06T17:02:00.001+10:00

I think I am slightly mad. Who else in their right mind would trek for 3 days and 3 nights .. out in the widerness .. by themselves .. and only seeing a handful of other people in the whole time. Lets just say I can handle my own company.

The Larapinta Trail is something I had never heard of until a couple of weeks ago. I was flicking through a newly purchased Lonely Planet to the Top End and was wondering how I was going to fill in a few spare days in Alice Springs before the weekly train came through. And then I saw the top ten best bushwalking section and Larapinta was at number one. Where the hell was this? I flicked to the page to check it out. It just so happens it is a serious 240km track that runs from the Old Telegraph Station in Alice Westward through the West MacDonnell Ranges, linking up some established tourist attrations like Standley Chasm and Simpsons Gap over 13 sections. My problem was solved I would do the first 3 sections in reverse order. (check out this page for more info).

So I jumped on a local tour bus as they were on their way out to Standley Chasm last Wednesday afternoon. We picked up people from the local resort and headed out. We all jumped out at the chasm and they wandered off to see the thing while I got prepared. I decided that instead of camping at the chasm I may as well put in a few hours of walk and get to a campsite along the track.

All the others on the bus thought I was slightly mad as I came up to the chasm for a gander. Here I was standing with my pack on and loaded up like a packhorse with what must have been over 20 kilos in weight, more than I am really used to, but that was due to carrying a ton of water and food for three days. They asked me where I was going and I told them, Alice Springs. They waddled back to the bus .. wishing me luck.

The first section it turned out was some of the toughest that I would be walking over. And it was also some of the roughest and rugged track I have ever crossed. This was serious. One slip and it could have been an early exit. A few hundred metres climb up and then down and then up and then I got a bit lost as the track disappeared and I had to backtrack to find it again. I was sweating like pre-pork. But it was brilliant. There was no one around and I had the whole track to myself.

I found my campsite, which turned out to be no more than a patch of flat dirt about 4 metres wide in amongst some scrub. This would have to be it. First thing was to collect some wood. Unlike some other neighbouring countries we can light open fires here. I was in my boy scout mode and loving it. And the best thing was that it was the easiest fire I have ever got going. This stuffed burned like no tomorrow. Some paper to start was laughed at. Just poof on the dry twigs and hey presto.

I was wondering if I should get out my tent fly that I had bought along as a shelter, but thought bugger it. The sky was brilliantly clear and there was no chance of rain out here. I unrolled my sleeping bag on a ground sheet and had the entire universe as my ceiling. And I got intimate with it. Watched the planets rise and cross the sky. Saw the stars circle through the night. Watched the satellites wizz over as well as the odd plane. It was unbelievable. I didn't get much sleep but I didn't mind I was enjoying myself knowing there was no one for miles and this view was mine.

Next day was the best bit of hiking I have ever done. I got going early and climbed up a ridge line for dawn. You could see in every direction and I was impressed and snapped quite a few photos off. Down the ridge and I met the first of only two other guided groups I would see on the entire 62km trek. I was impressed by these guys though, they were off to do the entire thing. Good luck to them.

Before lunch I had the chance to stop at a waterhole. I was not missing a chance to clean up and wash off the sweat and besides it was hot as well. I got all my gear off and got in .. I wasn't worried about seeing anyone else, they would have had to have been camping with the group and they said they were it. The sun dried me and it was lunch time. And then I was off again. I had over 10kms to knock off by the end of the day. Luckily and unluckily it was flat. Lucky cause it made it quick .. unluckily because it was quite boring and tedious.

Camped by myself again. No shelter again. Got more sleep, but I discovered something that I didn't encounter the previous night. Dew. I woke up before dawn with the outside of my bag wet. Bloody thing. So I took my time to get going as I dried off my bag in the early sun. Thankfully that didn't take long. It was going to be a long day as I had 24ks to complete and I was keen to go.

I clocked up the speed and got to Simpsons Gap at around lunchtime and then had a good break but was slightly freaked out by all the tourists and their campervans. I had not seen another soul for over 24 overs.

The afternoon was very hot and I had 10ks to make to get to my scheduled campsite. I was looking at the map and hoping some of the sights along the way would work out to cool me down. First up was Fairy Springs and I felt confident that this would be a good spot. But alas there was no spring and certainly no fairies. All I got was a dry hole and some wallaby carcases and this is after I wasted time and energy walking 400mtr off the track. Then next up was Scorpian Hole. With a bad name like that it had to be good. But same scenario as before but worse, with more bones scattered around the place, so it was off to the campsite.

I made it before sunset. But was bemused to find a troupe of Scouts hanging out camping and abseiling and the like. This was slightly overloading and I didn't want to seem rude to them but I really did not want to spend the night with these brats. I know what they are like I used to be one. The leaders had the idea before me though and kindly told me that I should go a little bit up the track where there was a good spot. So I did.

After camp was set up, with shelter this time, I set off back to get water which was a 5 minute walk away. Once completed I headed back in the twilight and surprised some dingos heading from the direction of my camp. I scared them off by making some noise but then hurried back to make sure a dingo hadn't stolen my campsite. All was fine though.

Best night sleep of the 3 and a very early start again saw me making tracks for 14kms back to Alice. Good views from a ridge line in the early light again and then I was closing the gap on the ups and down. The track this stage was well worn. Much more use than the first section I tackled. No chance to losing it like I did a few times up dry creek beds the previous days. Crossed the train line heading to Darwin and took photos of the tracks I will be going over in the next few days and then I saw the other guided group. They were off to Simpsons Gap but overnighting on the way.

Like all end to tracks I just wanted it to finish for the last few kilometres. I was counting them down. Finally at around noon with hot sweaty feet that had made my socks soaked through and slipping in my boots I made it into the Old Telegraph Station without fanfare. No one to greet me. I checked to see how far it was to town and was disheartened to find it a 4 km walk. I wimped out and called a cab. I had done enough walking. You can give me that can't you?

Rocking Around Some Rocks

2006-05-06T16:04:00.001+10:00

Greetings from Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia. Visiting the dead centre of the country for the first time. Just finished a slightly serious hike .. well 62kms at least .. through desert like country .. over a few mountains .. 3 nights sleeping under the stars .. by myself .. but more on that later (or when I can fix up a story on it). Anyway so as to what I have being doing before that.

It started off with the flight to Yulara, the resort town near Uluru (Ayres Rock). Using the Qantas quick check-in I tried to work out what side I should sit on to get a view from the air of the big rock. Of course I chose wrongly and managed to get views of the red-herring of Mt Conner. So as we came into land I was wistfully looking out the window at the flat expanses before I thought I would take a gander across the plane through the other windows. And there it was. A huge bloody big rock. They say you remember the first time you see it. And I will vouch for that. It filled up that little port hole and the one next to it. Hah I was impressed and was eager to get out to it.

Shuttle bus to backpackers. Check-in. Transport to the national park arranged. With-in an hour of landing I was heading out there with some French tourists interspersing their words with "magnific" as we gazed at the sight before us.

And so I got dropped at the base of the climb. And my moment of should I or should I not climb came. After reading the sign and seeing plenty of others go up. I hesitated, re-read the plea from the Aborigines, my leftie side fighting my adventurous side, and then I decided bugger it, I am going up, if it is not illegal .. I want to do it. I also figure if they really don't want people to climb it, why don't they just close the thing off. And I think they should .. not just for their spiritual reason, but because of the damage climbers are doing .. there is a well worn path up there now and you can spot it from a mile away. Besides I don't mind if they close it off now .. because I got to the top.

The climb is surprisingly hard. And I can see why people have died. The first steep ascent with the chain is something else. A trip and a stumble and you would end up at the bottom as a sack of crushed bone and tenderised meat. I took it easy although not as easy as some and I was soon overtaking some climbing. After the chain section the walk was quite easy although the upward does take it out of you. When I got to the top I had the whole place to myself for 20 minutes. I checked to see if my phone had mobile coverage and was surprise to see it did. And so I made a couple of calls to say I was standing on top of Ayres Rock .. a slightly surreal experience.

After the pics and phone calls down I carefully went. Which as usual I think is harder than going up. The old knees don't like this one bit. But I made it without become a broken sack. I kept checking my watch. I had until 5:40 before I was going to be picked up for the sunset viewing. That meant I had just over two and half hours to walk around the base. They say it takes 3-4 hours for the 9.4km distance. So I was off, there was no time to spare.

The base walk got made with half an hour to spare and the shuttle bus arrived and I was off to see the famed sunset .. with the rest of the country it seems. There is this huge car park filled with campervans and cars .. and then there is a completely separate park just for the tour buses. Bloody hell. As to the sunset .. hmm nice, apart from all the idiots I had to share it with. Do I sound cynical in my old age.

Next day I was off to the only other real attraction for miles around. Kata Tjuta or The Olgas. It was an early rise to get picked up at 6:15. Their theory is that the early you get going the better to wander around the Valley of the Winds walk before the hoards. Good point and as it turned out it was a great one. I walked with a couple from the US and I got them excited when we crept up on a couple of little bush roos having their brekkie.

After that was completed I tried to stitch up a tour to get myself to Kings Canyon. As it seems to be the only way possible to get there. All the tour buses come from Alice in a circuit and see that first and then the rock, etc and then head back. So I was out of luck. Next choice was to jump on a Greyhound to Alice. Which I did. And where I still am. Kings C will have to wait. I am hanging here and seeing the sights now until my train arrives on Monday to take me north.

Now for that other story.

To Climb?

2006-04-28T15:33:00.000+10:00

In two days time I will be at the iconic, monolithic and, from all accounts, fantastic piece of monstrous rock that is Uluru. I am a rock virgin, never having gazed upon it with my own eyes. Never having had the chance to be in awe, but that is all about to change and I can't wait.

But there is a question nagging me. I have been pondering long and hard about it. Do I climb the thing?

See the thing is, I really want to. The little red devil on the shoulder is crying out for me to climb up the mighty rock and gaze out over the centre of Australia from up on high. The little white angel on the other shoulder says, respect the wishes of the local aboriginals and fore go the climb for the walk around the base. The devil tells me to do both. Arg, I really am not sure what I should do.

So my plan is to see what my gut feels when I get there. If a genuine sense of guilt washes over me then I will stay grounded. If not I will follow my old man's footsteps from the sixties and make it to the top.

Either way, being at the rock will be a fantastic way to start my six months of travelling, right in the red heart of this great continent.

Look forward to some upcoming nomadic tales.

Pre Crack Of Dawn Service

2006-04-27T08:50:00.000+10:00

Two days ago it was ANZAC Day (yes I am a tad slow with the updates), and I decided that I would do something that I had never done and head off for the dawn service at the Cenotaph in Martins Place. (Now why is it that they call it the dawn service and in actual fact it is a long time before dawn? .. I actually know the answer to this .. so this is a rhetorical question).

We arrived at just before 5am and we could not get within 2 blocks of service. And at 5am they were well and truly already into the service and were at the last post and wrapping up with the anthems .. including a god save the Queen .. hmm. So it was a tad shame that we mostly missed it. But the atmosphere was still great. All those people, proud and patriotic about the sacrifice that our diggers have made. It was more a sense of pride for me than I ever felt on this years Australia Day.

Somehow by stealth I seem to have been caught up in the new tide of national feeling towards ANZAC day. I guess it all started for me when I headed off overseas and visited the battlefields of France in 2000 and then went to Gallipoli four years ago for the 25th of April. And now I have completed the Kokoda track and wandered around the war cemetery in Lae. On the horizon I am even contemplating hiking along the Thai-Burma railway later this year. Once I started visiting these battlefields I feel I should complete more of them. The funny thing is I don't know why I feel compelled to visit these places. It is obviously not because I just want to tick a box.

Anyway I took a few photos the other morning. I forgot to take a tripod so they are a tad blurry at the slow shutter speeds in the non-existent predawn light.

The masses of people

The Cenotaph

Beer at 6am .. oh there were plenty of people in this pub

More up on my Flickr page.

Another Bash

2006-04-24T21:02:00.000+10:00

Back to the bush again on the weekend. This time for a 30 something k hike round my local national park, close to where I grew up . The usual activities .. an overnight camp, playing with camp fires, roaming along peopleless tracks, retrialling my ankle busting boots (not too bad this time) and getting the bush knife out for the first time since PNG .. great for chopping firewood and hacking insidious weeds. And the partner in crime .. my mate from the NZ trip.

It was all good preparation for my upcoming weeks where I plan to do a few hikes in various terrain - desert in the Northern Territory, a mountain in East Timor and probably a jungle nightmare back in PNG. We shall see. I certainly have now got back the taste for hiking. 2006 may be the year of the trek .. Eastern Europe, Turkey, possibly some Caucasus, still to come.

Traveller Turns Farmer

2006-04-18T18:42:00.000+10:00

You drive the tractor. The fence poster needs to go on the back of it. The bloody thing is hard to get on. It is huge and ungainly. The thing precariously sits on the back. You drive off slowly and it topples about and looks like it is going to fall over. Then you are lining up the tractor over the spot for the post. Drilling the hole with the auger. Getting the posts. Using the chain-saw to sharpen up one end. Picking the post up and putting it the hole. Using the rammer on the fence poster to whack it into the ground. Whack, whack, whack. Lining up over the next spot. Repeating. Making sure the post is level at all times. More whacking. It is in as far as it needs to be. The pump electrics need fixing. It is shorting on the switch. Switch removed and pump is back in business. It sucks air. You check on the foot valve in the river. Make sure it is clean. Find a huge wombat hole. Could almost crawl in it. No torch handy. Walk through sways of sticky beaks and burrs. Getting them clinging all over your clothes. Pulling them off for the rest of the day. A walkabout sawmill is being hired. You wear goggles and ear muffs. Saw chips still sting your face when it hits. Various board sizes are pared off the log and loaded on the truck. The fine sawdust clings to your skin with your sweat. Six hours and six logs are ripped up into rectangular timber. The truck is moved and the boards are unloaded in stacks. Batons separate the boards to air them. You head back to collect the tractor for the next section of fence. It is only a few days on the farm but you are still enjoying it.

Wander, Perve, Dip .. All In A Days Work

2006-04-13T17:35:00.000+10:00

Absolutely brilliant weather the last couple of days. Great anti-dote to Melbourne's cold. Yesterday in fact it was the hottest April day since 1983. A sultry 33 degrees. Bellisimo.

So what does one do when you don't have to work and have no other plans and the weather is perfectly summerish. Yep .. head to the beach.

So to Bondi I trotted. Foot, train and bus. Once there it was a case of wander around the promenade. Do some perving. Go jump in the surf. Jump back out. Jump back in and shake it all about. It was cold.

After the dip it was off to do something I had never actually done before. Walk the coastal path around to Tamarama and Bronte beaches. This was actually worthwhile. Recommend to anyone, although I hope you don't have to put up with walking behind a short, tubby, leathery tanned looking guy in g-string budgie smugglers. It aiiiin't a pretty look .. but like a car crash you feel compelled anyway.

Tamarama was a nice beach. First time visit. And I learned an interesting historical note. It had one of the country's first themeparks, which ran between 1887 and 1891. There was even a roller coaster that spanned the entire beach. Impressive.

Bronte was nice as well. A lot better than Bondi. Even though the latter is much more famous. The only pity, my bloody ticket didn't allow me to catch the bus back without coughing up more dough. Damn you State Transit Authority. Why can't you get your act together like Melbourne.

Wankers

2006-04-13T17:31:00.000+10:00

This monster was parked out the front of my residence today. A black Hummer with all the wanker trimmings.

What sort of dick would actually own one of these things? The ultimate tosser vehicle. For someone who just feels they need to give everyone and everything the big finger. I could feel the global warming just by looking at it.

Honestly, this beast will never see anything other than tarred and sealed roads .. of a big city .. let alone anywhere near where there may be roads of any other kind. So what is purpose of it?

Gawd it just drives me mad. Thankfully I will be able to put some perspective on such wankerness when I head off travelling soon. I bet there are none of these in East Timor.

Krispy Kreme, No Dream

2006-04-11T20:57:00.000+10:00

Had my first Krispy Kreme donut today. No biggy. Rather ordinary actually. Not sure what the fuss about these things was. It was more like a chinese pork bun, with the pork removed, apple syrupy stuff inserted and cinnamon sprinkled on top. I should have just got the pork bun. In fact as soon as I finished the donut I was hankering for one .. but I was not walking all the way to Chinatown. It would have been cheaper than the bloody donut though. $2.50, what gives? Whatever happened to the 40c normal cinnamon variety .. with an actual hole in the middle. Oh they still exist don't they. Just at somewhere outside the insidious creep of KK.

The thing that really winds me up about Krispy Kreme is that they chose our little fair land as their first port of call outside of their North American stronghold. If it wasn't enough to create all those obese monsters in their homeland, they chose us as next destination for belt stretching. Forget Europe. Forget those wacky Japanese. They're all too skinny to be tricked by these fat laden wares. And it worked. A couple of years ago their first store in the country, their first store out of the US or Canada, opened. The location, Western Sydney, Penrith to be exact. It was the perfect target market. On opening night the cars were banked up out the drive through and out blocking the main road.

Anyway today I gave into temptation and tried the expensive Apple sprinkled Cinnamon puff explosion whatever. Mainly because the store was actually free of a queue when I walked past. (I absolutely loath queuing up for anything .. if it is not urgent and more than 5 people are in a line, I will just walk out of the store). Every other time a queue was always formed out the door. But I also needed to know in my own mind whether if I was just insane in being the only cynic about these guys. And to be able to say "yeah tried them and ... (fill in the blank)". Well now at least I can at least fill it with "there is no need to head back again".

---

And speaking of expensive, I finally got around to purchasing my one way flight out of PNG in the first stage of my travel plans. Rang up Air Niugini to get a price. Was stupidly thinking perhaps the price would be under $400 for the hour long flight from Port Moresby to Cairns. Instead after I told them all my details and casually asked what the price would be at the end (lots of finger tapping on keyboard was heard), "oh that will be $758 including taxes". WTF?. If I was eating cornflakes I would have choked. So I said .. "um oh ok, hold that booking, I am going to check your new competition, Airlines PNG. I know at least that they had cheap fares at the end of last year" thinking maybe Air Niugini was still matching them, but no budging there. So I hung up and rang the new guys in town. Thank Christ they started a service between POM and CNS at the end of last year and at a good and realistic price. A while later I had confirmed a booking with them for over $400 cheaper.

While on the phone to Air Niugini I was bemused to hear their lovely "hold music" spiel about how you should enjoy their hospitality on flights to and from Singapore, Manilla or Japan. What the? Are they actually serious? How many people would fly Sydney to Singapore via farking Port Moresby??? And not just because of their bloated and ridiculously priced fares, you would have to actually contend with getting there on the day you wanted to as well. To put their prices in comparison I flew return to New Zealand for well over a hundred dollars cheaper for a flight twice as long as their stupid one way they quoted me.

Air Niugini I hope more competition comes along and blows you out of the water. For the sake of PNG tourism at least .. you ain't helping it that is for sure. With its international image and high cost to get there, no wonder the only reason PNG tourism's figures are being propped up to around the 30 or 40,000 a year is because of the Kokoda Track and dumb returning volunteers.

John Laws Nearly Ran Me Over

2006-04-10T16:01:00.000+10:00

Back in big bad Sydney. Sunday night. Decide to do my usual dine out at Harry's Cafe de Wheels. Wander off down there. Do the correct thing and wait for the little green man at the traffic lights. Get the signal. Start crossing the road. Get a big Bentley streaming down towards me. It stops just in time. ABS working for it. Get a bit of shock. Look alarmingly at the "357" number plate. Then through the front windscreen. Start thinking wanker with too much money. Get a good view of driver and passenger lit by the street lights. Recognise the passenger to be Golden Tonsillitis himself, John Laws. Confirm the wanker with too much money thought. Golden Jaundice looks rather sheepishly towards his driver. Some young bloke in a white t-shirt. Bodyguard, son, plaything, who knows. Notice some other people in the back seat. It all takes a second. Filthy look maintained and delivered throughout it. I cruise on to the other side. Grab that pie I was after.

I guess it could have been worse. Some nobody with no money could have nearly hit me or done the full job. Or it could have been Allan Jones. But if you are going to be hit make sure it is a Bentley. Which reminds me of that Simpsons episode.

It did reconfirm for me my contempt for everything Lawsie. If there is ever a statue made of him. I might just have to do something similar as the below to it.

Captured yesterday in Macquarie Street.

Icons

2006-04-07T15:15:00.000+10:00

Local icons. Both impressive specimens. Bigger than you would expect. Great to finally get around to seeing first hand and in the flesh.

Yes I have been having a perve at some of Melbourne's more famous icons. Chloe at the Young and Jacksons and good old Phar Lap himself. Next one to tick is Ned Kelly's armour. That's tomorrow though. Firstly I need to clean up. Have a shave. Get my best threads on. And head off to a wedding.

Pity about the weather. The wedding is in Flagstaff Gardens. It's very gloomy at the moment. It is true what they say. Melbourne has shite weather. I have never been here with good prolonged weather yet. Is this enough to rethink thoughts of moving here. Hah, what am I saying, I lived in London for 18 months. Can't top that.

The Place To Be?

2006-04-04T17:35:00.000+10:00

Flew down to the Mexican capital on the weekend. Staying at a mate's place. Got the whole week to fill in. Bumming around. Catching up with friends. Visiting pubs and sites. It is the tough life of an unemployed person with time to kill. Someone has to do it .. may as well be me.

There is a reason to the sojourn. The wedding of my volunteer loving mates from Lae. It has been planned for a while and so has this trip .. but that is not until Friday, so I have some time to be tourist boy.

So far I have ventured into the Docklands, taken a squizz at the National Gallery of Victoria, wandered through the Shrine of Remembrance, visited the shopping streets, ridden the trams and trains, checked out the new looking Spencer Street Station (now called Southern Cross Station), bypassed Federation Square and gandered at an exhibition at the Australian Centre for Moving Images. All in a tourist's days work with more to follow.

I like Melbourne, nice town. Thinking about living here one day .. for a while at least. Then again I wouldn't mind living one day in a host of other places. But I figure Melbourne is up near the top of the list. I need a reference at least on Sydney. Sydney is great, but from what I have heard so is Melbourne. It would be good to be able to compare and not just hear in either city, one eyed locals bleat that theirs is better.

And cheers to my mate Dippa, for putting me up. Nice digs, he's close to the city centre, on a tram line straight to Elizabeth street, has a huge plasma TV and a free 512k internet connection (he works for an ISP).

Ode to Nuw Zulund

2006-04-04T09:17:00.000+10:00

A little poem written by my travel mate. I think it is great and good enough to share, but it does all mean something to me.

We started out just the two of us
To see the Routeburn, Milford and Kepler
This is the story of the characters we met
And tribute to the Nuw Zulund Nation

To start off was the Kinloch guy
A happy chappy love was he
In what was no less than robbery
Charged us boat, bus, board, spa, breakfast and tea

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Then fond memories of our frind at Routeburn Flets
In less than threw us out in the rain
And the 2 campers we subsequently met
Cuddling up to them was such a shame

The Lack McKenzie ranger was a bit of a torment
Threw us out after a heavenly half hour
And trudging through water back out to the tent
Spittin chups at the nixt icy shower

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Then to Milford Lodge with such a reputation
To the 2 tenters it was a total delight
The hearty meal was reason for jubilation
But the loss of both gloves was really not right!!!

I could fill a book about the bus drivers-but need
To mention that very special Atomic shuttle gent
For his physique, skill, interlect and speed
The 90 k trip took 4 hours…our patience was spent!!!

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The Kepler was started in fine rainy fashion
In reverse to surprise our Washington frind
In downunder style- with our Mediteranean rations
With that forecast thought we may well meet our inds

After 2 rainy days walking along the flats
We found Iris Burn falls on the third attempt
After a few sleep depriving experiences
Couldn’t but wonder if should’ve brought the tent

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To my utter delight-we shed the brocolli
Up the steep mountains pounds were shid
Despite some pain our spirits were high
In the sun, wind and snow our knees were rid

And at the ind of a great day in the comfort of Luxmore
While writing the poem and having a rist
Amongst the riff raff and nursing the sores
Can not help but think this week’s bin the bist

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What To Choose?

2006-03-31T14:54:00.000+11:00

I was reading the SMH last night and I flicked over to the TV section and my eyes wandered onto to Doug Anderson's reviews for the day. First up was Getaway where he took a great swipe at all the "jaded people who have been there and done that - the indulgent drearies" - who would want to watch this show.

This was brilliant Anderson at his best. I love his scathing, bitter reviews, it is almost like he has a personal grudge against all of TV's usual suspects. He didn't disappoint when he went to town on one of the shows featured destinations, Las Vegas - "global capital of inanity, greed and pathetic excuses", "Nevada's neon armpit". I was smiling to myself until I read the last sentence "just the spot if you fancy your chances in the program's $50,000 photo competition". Hang on, now this was something to take notice of.

Looking at the clock, it was 7:30, so I put another Kerry vs Little Johnny debate to one side and flicked over to the indulgent drearies channel. And so I proceeded to sit through Catriona yacking about driving through the Cotwolds (hmm .. I have to admit I have been there and done that), some new bloke driving us around the McClaren Valley (hah haven't done that) and then the garish Las Vegas segment, which I skipped and turned over to the ABC for. Finally at the end of the one hour long advert for Virgin Blue there was the photo competition info, all I had to do was upload any photo I have taken on their website. I should of guessed.

But what photo? Checking the site to see if it had anymore info to help it just says you can enter as many as 5 photos per person. Yeah but of what. What wins a competition like this?

I have a stack of photos from all over the place and now I need to find the best 5 that might win the Getaway muppet's hearts.

Taking a quick sqizz through my collection I am wondering if something like the following might do it? Covering all sorts of bases from awesome nature pics to humanity photos. Whatd'ya reckon?

A nice pic of some nuns outside of Gaudi's famous Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.

The might of nature at the Gullfoss waterfall in Iceland.

A humorous pic of a cyclist taking a nap in Xian, China.

Nicely framed dust pic of a yak herder doing his job in Mongolia.

Or another humorous pic of a Goroka man in his sing sing bilas finery and a ciggie hanging out of his mouth.

I have heaps more, but the choice is hard.

Lost For A Bit (or how to survive unemployment)

2006-03-29T19:22:00.000+11:00

Since being back in the country again I have had a bit of time. What does one do:

a) Plan some future travel.

b) Catch up on some movies you have copied off a mate.

c) Plan some more travelling, buy a guide book.

d) Watch a few episodes of Lost, that you have copied off same mate.

e) Go for long walks through nearby areas.

f) Watch more of Lost.

g) Book some flights abroad.

h) Watch some more again of same TV show .. in fact watch the entire first season .. all 25 episodes @ 42 minutes each .. which = 17.5 hours.

i) Get out to the family farm.

j) Go fishing with your sisters rod down at the river.

k) Catch nothing but some small flappers .. throw them back.

l) Start watching second season of Lost.

m) Go for a hike up a hill on the farm.

n) Take some photos of the countryside you grew up in.

o) Watch some more of the bloody TV show.

p) Finally finish off all the episodes you have on your computer.

q) Be content that you are about six episodes up on the rest of the country and did not have to watch one commercial for it.

r) Contemplate reading a book for the first time in 3 months.

s) Forget book and instead watch a Super 8 movie transfered to DVD of my fathers journey through central Australia in the 60's (complete with him rolling his car in bulldust .. visiting Alice Springs .. climbing Ayres Rocks .. rolling car again and destroying roof .. throwing smashed roof away at the rubbish tip .. driving 800 km back home with no windscreen or roof).

t) Realise where I get some of my adventurous nature from.

u) Think about a trip to Alice Springs and Uluru.

My Travel Fix

2006-03-26T23:00:00.000+11:00

Oh mama. What a year I have set up for myself. Wandered into a Flight Centre office yesterday and wandered out close to 3,000 bucks lighter. Once they start telling you there are only two seats left on a certain flight you want to take, you start to get a bit cash happy.

These travel agencies have their uses, occasionally. I find it rather daunting heading into one though. Their walls covered in brochures. Set holidays off to beaches or resorts. Pictures of good looking people in fabulous settings. Instead of making me want to head off to these places, it makes me want to head in the other direction.

And so I am off in the wrong direction and you can forget that last post. Buying the SE Asia Lonely Planet was a bad idea. It flipped my travel plans on its head. Once I flicked to the best time to travel section and found out my idea of being mid year through the region was at odds with a certain weather phenomenon called the monsoon. Doh. Being in the rain for a few months can pass until the monsoon finishes at least towards the end of the year.

Sitting in the Flight Centre I scoured the walls of brochures and thankfully couldn't see my now changed destination on any covers. With SE Asia on the back foot in my mind I wanted to head somewhere I had never been or at least with a dash of the familiar to begin with. I was quickly purchasing a three month return trip to Eastern Europe and Turkey with a stopover and option for another three months in SE Asia on the way back.

Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Serbia and Montenegro, Albania, even Moldova and Ukraine are on the cards. Istanbul is first up though. Somewhere I have been before and loved. The large chunk between that old city and Western Europe was a void I had been wanting to fill. I am now getting round to it.

The previous furthest east I had got was to Vienna. A trip at that time to Budapest was thought about, but back in those days a visa was needed to Hungary and just about everywhere else in the east. Bloody Aus passport. Nowadays though, thank you mr European Union. Everywhere is almost visa free it has all opened up like a tin of beluga caviar.

But my plans are not all Transylvanian castles, tacky Black Sea beach resorts or sipping Turkish tea. Before all that starts in June I am off on another mini adventure. A little round trip for a month through Australia's closest neighbours. I head to East Timor for a week or so and for their independence day in May and then back again through Indonesia to Papua and then back over the border to PNG again.

Yes I am heading back to PNG. I just can't shake the place. There are people to catch up with and a couple of places that I haven't been, to visit.

Until that kicks off though, I need to fill in the next month. A trip to Melbourne will help in a weeks time. And then perhaps some more travel through Oz. I have never seen Uluru. Why not.

I have said previously I am travel junkie. This year should help me get my fix. Stay tuned.

Scenes from Istanbul, 2002

Got It

2006-03-21T18:45:00.000+11:00

Been hanging out for a while for this. Latest hot off the press edition. And I even picked it up today with a 20% off. Nice steal. Although Borders tried to hide it on the floor out of sight behind all the two year old editions stocked on the shelves.

I was a bit surprised to discover it. I checked a few weeks ago on the LP website for the upcoming titles and it wasn't included. But I knew it would be coming out as the old one is two years old and LP are pretty regular on a two rotation .. for their popular titles.

I guess this sort of gives it away as to where I am off to next. It has been planned for a long time .. a really long time .. before I even went to PNG .. and the time is now nigh. Can't wait. But where to first? A couple of people and places I want to catch are throwing spanners in the works. Things will sort themselves out. I just have to wrap my head around all the logistics of the plan first.

There are also a couple of other things I am waiting on .. but they now seem less likely.

Back Home

2006-03-19T15:18:00.000+11:00

A couple of great weeks have past. There was the trekking I have already mentioned (sore heels and fantastic views, rain and snow, tents and huts) and then there was a small tour off to the very south of New Zealund to round it out.

We trouped off to Stewart Island for a couple of worthwhile days, passing straight through tarmac loving Invercargill where I had just enough time to pick myself up some new shoes that didn't hurt. The weather, as it always seems in that part of the world, was touch and go. Our first night on the island was just rain .. and some more rain. It didn't stop us wandering around the town trails up until the evening twilight hit around 9pm. We got very wet in the process but it meant that we got a free feed when we ventured into a local pizza shop and got talking to some locals and long termers, a couple of whom were American girls.

(Which brings me to ask, why are there so many yanks travelling around NZ and the majority of them, girls. Out of the two in the pizza place we got talking to one earlier in the day in a shop (who was a friend of the owner of the pizza place .. hence the free feed). But there were also Americans everywhere else we were. On the tracks. In the huts. In the campsites (some Californian girls there whom we cuddled up with on the first very cold night of the Routeburn .. sharing body warmth and all that of course the things you have to do .. photo below). And then there was also our hiking mate from Seattle, who turned out to have exactly the same track itinerary as ours. She was good value, and certainly not your average stereotypical burger munching fat American, in fact the complete opposite. Although she lived up to their ability to be able to talk, we heard all about her impending wedding preparations.)

Our second day on Stewart Island was spent kayaking around the large Paterson Inlet (great name) and taking along the fishing rods. We had originally planned on getting off the ferry from the mainland and kayaking on the first afternoon to a campsite, but the weather prevented that, so instead we made the most of just day tripping on the water.

I never really liked fishing before. Thinking it was particularly boring. It is when you don't get bites at least. But it is actually fun when you can just drop a line and get bites straight away and then just reel in fish after fish. This is what we did. Blue Cod after Blue Cod. It is also handy when you are travelling with someone with a degree and honours in aquaculture. You can get them to kill and fillet the things for you.

We were originally told by the local we hired the kayak off to stab the fish through the head after catching to stop the flap. That's not when you are with my mate, it takes too much time to wait for me to get my Swiss army knife out of my pocket. Just rip the heads half off with your bare hands. Effective. It made me laugh. Poor cod, taste good though. Pan fried with a herb batter and some chips from the local fish and chip shop. It was a good end to the day.

We picked up a car in Invercargill and headed off to have a sticky beak at Dunedin. Nice town. Lots of active people. Everyone seems to jog around and it is one hilly place. A tour of the Cadbury's factory was had. Quite a few samples to keep us awake for a few local brews at a pub to watch some of the Commonwealth games. Poor old Kiwis they try hard at least.

We rounded off the trip heading back to Queenstown to catch up with our Seattle friend and had a monster night out on the town for St Patricks day. What a riot. I haven't been in such a great night in years. In one pub we ended up in there was dancing on tables and on the bars. Guys were hanging from rafters. Everyone was going mad. It was a sore head for the trip home but a great way to round out a great couple of weeks.

Phots on Flickr. Clockwise. Californian bird and me keeping warm (mother Hubbard look intentional). Third day on the Routeburn in the snow. My mate killing Cod fish. In the Alpine section of the Kepler track, the best hiking of the trip (the track can be seen wandering off like a ribbon on the ridge).

I Love My Boots .. Not

2006-03-13T16:54:00.000+11:00

in Te Anau. just finished off another track. they just keep on coming and we keep on knocking them off. this time the Kepler. not too shabby. beautiful views from above the tree line and in the snow. the weather god has been kind this time and we only had a touch of rain on the first day. and then got to tramp (a kiwi term i hear) through the snow in the beautiful sun. to make it more difficult for us we decided to do it backwards to everyone else (or at least 99.5%) of people. those losers do it anti-clockwise so that they don't have to climb up a 900 metre steep incline on the 3rd morning. piece of cake. he says now. it was a tad struggle at the time. coupled with the fact that for some reason my boots have decided to turn into the devil incarnate and try to destroy my Achilles heels. bloody things. now that i have finished they are swollen and worse for wear. lucky i was tramping with a pharmacist to dispense the drugs. new things i have learnt is codine is good and so is ibuprofen. the bits before the drugs kicked in though were a punishing affair. hopping along the track.

about the track itself. 63km long. takes 4 days and 3 nights comfortably. staying in lovely monster sized huts (50+ people - bloody hell) this time. no tent. term-a-rest yet to be repaired. shame that. does mean that we had to put up with steam train snorers. last night was a beauty. my mate attacked our neighbouring peace destroyer with a weighted pillow slip. did the trick. but got the dirty looks this morning. he deserved it though. we should have been giving the looks.

ok next up is Stewart island for a sticky beak. and then back to Queenstown by Friday night for St. Patricks Day in the bars and Saturday fly back. doesn't time fly when you're having fun.

ramble over and out.

Note From NZ

2006-03-08T19:20:00.000+11:00

in the land of the long white cloud .. sending a quickie on one of these timed jobies. just finished the Routeburn Track this morning after two nights on it. was a great hike but only kinda short (32km) and bloody cold. they have it in for tent users over here. i think they think we are a tad crazy .. and they may be right. my term-a-rest last night blew a puncture and i was basically sleeping on the frozen ground without insulation. get up in the morning and it starts snowing. so we trekked through a wintery scape for the last stage. the previous two days were not snowing at least .. but we did get the wind and rain. and i am on holidays for this. guess it beats sweating like a maniac on the kokoda. we got the short end of the stick the first night on the track. a lovely roaring fire in the nearby hut and when we ventured in for a warm up from the howling rain the ranger kicked us out. 2nd class camper citizen. bastard. i was thinking of ways of revenge for the next day and a half. actually i have just stopped of the revenge. maybe cause i just got out of a hot shower.

currently in milford sound at a backpacker lodge. great spot. and they have laundry. the dirt is being removed from the trousers and the boots are in the drying room. off soon with my mate and a hike pal from the track to go and find the pub. a couple of beers would complete the return to normal. tomorrow a tourist trap venture off to see the fabled "sound" will report back if it is worth raving about and compares to the norway fjords. after that we are off to Te Anau and perhaps a bit more masochism on the Kepler track. it is a 4 day 3 night beast through an alpine terrain. can't wait. i think i will book into the huts though this time.

signing out from the blunt end of hiking and self flagellation.

Where The Bloody Hell Am I?

2006-03-02T09:48:00.000+11:00

The view from my office at the moment. The view that I have had for the last five and a half weeks. It hasn't been too bad seeing the Town Hall in the morning sun. But it is only for another two days. Yes I am making like a pack of ducks and getting the flock out of here. Again.

In two sleeps I will be winging my way to New Zealand for a couple of weeks. Some hiking. Some sight seeing. Some adventure sports (could be a first time for a bungy jump?). And some chilling, will be on the agenda. All good. After that who knows. I will be on a free range.

This job currently about to end was to cover the costs and bills while I have been back in Oz, and allow me to see my new niece and catch up with family and friends. Mission accomplished there. But the next question is, where the bloody hell am I going to be next? Certainly I will be out of contact for a little while at least.

But just in case you care a tad more, you can check out what I have been looking at for the last few months on my flickr account where I have uploaded a stack of random photos, that perhaps or perhaps not mean something.

Take it easy.

Red Cross Calling

2006-02-27T21:45:00.000+11:00

I can't stop volunteering. Next month I will be ringing bells and banging on doors, singing out for people's money. I got the phone call a few weeks ago and I thought why not. After all I get a little bag and an official little receipt book to take around. No name tag though.

The deal is, I have one block of my street to door knock on. When the girl rang up one evening and asked if I could collect for my street, I told her that my street was fairly long (it runs through 6 suburbs and up to number 1000 something - I live at number 11). She then asked me what would be a good number to collect to, and I said "hmm .. maybe to 25". Since checking where that is .. it is as far as the corner. Before you say "slack arse", there is a block of apartments on the corner .. with about 16 flats in it.

I now realise I have ventured into a killer way to meet all my no doubt eclectic mix of neighbours. I have already seen them wandering about .. fleeting glimpses as I walk past open doors .. or as they pop out to get some milk. So now next month I get to bang on their doors and use the brilliant opening line to lure their donation .. "Hi I am your neighbour from number 11, and I have volunteered to collect for Red Cross. Would you like to volunteer some money".

And when I get a tad thirsty from all the collection I can visit the two pubs on my bit of street and collect there.

update: I do indeed have a little name tag. Found it after I properly looked at the package they sent. They didn't send a clip to attach to your chest though.

Night Shots

2006-02-22T08:24:00.000+11:00

Decided to grab the tripod and camera and do something with them last night. Here is some of what I came up with.

Clockwise: St Mary's, Eastern Distributor, Martin Place, Skyscrapers and Cahill Expressway.

click to go big

Not so long ago I had been dreaming of just being able to wander around at night. It is good to be able to do so.

The Good & The Bad

2006-02-20T13:26:00.000+11:00

I get to go and see Billy Connolly this Sunday night. Cool.

The tickets were a present off friends for Christmas. Very cool.

It just so happens it is on the same night as Tropfest. Uncool.

A Sunday night at that. What are the chances that both events would be on a Sunday night? I only picked up this conincidence when I double-checked the date on the ticket again.

To be honest I am pretty miffed. I can't exactly tell my mates who gave me the ticket .. "um .. you see .. I have been hanging out to see the Tropfest thing in the Domain, ever since I was doing my own Tropfest night in Lae, so sorry, Billy can wait". It wouldn't wash. Besides, I guess Billy is now getting a bit long in the tooth so there might not be another time.

Anyway shit happens. I guess I will just have to watch the finalists on the free DVD as per the last two years. (I hope there is a free DVD again).

In other news, I retrieved my collection of DVDs back off my sister (whom I visited over the weekend and my new niece) and in that bunch there is stuff I have been hanging out to see for a while. Especially the Sergio Leone, Man with No Name trilogy. Ooh baby, there will be some wasted hours watching these again [attempts whistle from the beginning of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly].

Monkeeeey

2006-02-16T09:24:00.000+11:00

Ohh baby ... irrepressible Monkey is being reborn. My favourite show from childhood is getting a 21st century rework-over in Japan. This can only be good news and apparently the Japanese are lapping it up too; one in three Japanese viewers have been watching.

Of course the original for me will no doubt be the best. All the bits that made it great; the opening credits, ".. Elemental forces caused the egg to hatch; from it then came a stone monkey. The nature of Monkey was irrepressible!". And Tripitaka; was it really a chick playing a priest? I could never tell. And then the whistle to call the cloud; often mimicked. And of course Masaaki Sakai who plays Monkey himself, he certainly made the show the cult which it is.

When I was growing up I loved the show so much. Mainly I think because it was actually violent and I was allowed to watch it. It did get me hyped up after each episode that I used to attempt to beat up my sisters. After this happened a few times, the oldies set up a bean bag hanging up out the back of the house and I was forced to go and beat that up instead. And there were also a few tomato stakes that got pulled up and twirled about as well.

I still love the show today. My cat, which I got for my 21st birthday, is actually called .. yup you guess it .. Monkey. The rest of the family didn't approve at the time, but the name stuck. Unfortunately I only see Monkey every once and a while when I head home and she is not so much my cat anymore (although she was never really anyone's cat). If I get around to having another cat it will be called Tripitaka.

There is one thing that I don't have, the DVDs. I have seen them out in the shops before, but now I have noticed that you can get all 52 episodes in a box set. This will be added to the credit card soon.

Burnt Out

2006-02-14T13:15:00.000+11:00

Everyday at the moment I pass these impressive sculptures. Usually I just pass on by, but once in a while I stop or slow down and have a think about what they mean - when art does that to you know it is good.

They seem simple enough - a couple of giant matchsticks about 5 or 6 metres in height - but like all art should, they mean a whole lot more.

They are of course Brett Whiteley's Matchsticks outside the Art Gallery of NSW. And the reason I love these beasts, without going into sentiments and artsy fartsy talk, is that even though Whiteley was going through depression and drug abuse at the time of creating these monsters he could still step back realise this fact and put it into this creation. Whiteley the fiery red head, literally (or sculpturally as it is) burnt out. (They are also a tad phallic which could sum up Whiteley as well).

The other reason to love them is just for their simpleness and sheer size - they would have been fun to make. I can imagine Whiteley hacking into these huge beams with a chain saw and then hitting one of them with a flame thrower and charcoaling it up. Art can be cool.

Smart Advertising

2006-02-13T09:01:00.000+11:00

Would you sell out for a $35 a week car? People up my street have.

An advertising mob called KahDo has dreamt up a scheme of almost giving away cars to various people (who fit their criteria), willing to drive around the mobile billboards. The car which you would receive for your money would be one of those small Smart cars, not much bigger than a shoebox on wheels.

They obviously want people who live in dense residential areas, park on the street and drive to an equally dense commercial area. Funnily enough I fit the bill here. The only question for me is do I want to be a sell-out? Coming from a person giving up their time and money to volunteer for two years to one flogging off some deodorant brand would be a big change. But it would stop my whinging about not having my own wheels to get about in - see previous moan.

Another plan by advertisers was in the paper the other day. Instead they are targeting people with existing cars and who would trade in their commercial morals for their car to be wrapped in advertising. In return the advertising company will pay for your registration, insurance and fuel costs. With the high costs of these things at the moment, it probably won’t be long before we are a nation of sell-outs.

Little Asia of the West

2006-02-09T19:59:00.000+11:00

I got to go on a work trip last week. To a place I have never been. A place that has a reputation. A place which I discovered (once I looked it up in the street directory), is actually a long way away. It is a place called Cabramatta and it was a good trip once I got over my initial reservations.

First up though I think I should get a few things straightened out. I grew up in the country of NSW - nice town, small population, dairy farming country, on a river .. you get the picture - and I only moved down to the big smoke when I was 23. The move was to the centre of Sydney and is the same place I have stayed on and off (when I am not out of the country) since then.

Sydney is a big place. Geographically it is huge. Suburbs stretching for .. well a hell of a long way. Now with Sydney being so big and me not growing up in it, it is understandable that I wouldn't have got to all the places in it during the course of my life (actually to do so would be a pretty great achievement and while I am thinking about it I have just remembered that there is a retired bloke who is walking every street in every suburb .. if you've seen the street directory, well .. good on him). So I haven't been to all the places and certainly western Sydney is one of the areas I have mainly missed out on.

Back to Cabramatta. The place has a reputation - Asian drug gangs, heroin addicts, random crime and violence - all of course mediarised (yes not a word .. just made it up .. hey I can do so if I want). So I was thinking, "was Cabramatta going to be like a new Papua New Guinea for me?". All hype, not much substance. And would it in fact be like everything which you build up expectations for and be a bit of a let down.

To be honest, I was feeling slightly nervous. I haven't seen Little Fish yet, but I have seen all the reviews and this only adds to the image doesn't it? There was only one way to find out about the place and that was to get on the early morning train and head out there, and fit some work around my gawking.

A car was considered, but heading out there in the morning it is quicker and cheaper to get the train. It also meant I could pop into work on the way, pick up stuff, then go to Town Hall and get a direct connection. And so I did.

The summer morning was a stinker. 95% humidity apparently. And so of course the train I got on was the old non-air conditioned variety. On the downstairs level I sat, with the morning paper and a small window opening to let in a pathetic breeze, and let the Tangara rattle off on the route to Campbelltown with its collection of various commuters.

Occasionally I would glance out the window to see where I was; Ashfield, Burwood and Strathfield past by. The faces on the platform changed, Asians, Africans, Indians, I was heading into one of the most multicultural places in the world. The further I went the more so it became; Clyde, Parramatta, Auburn and Fairfield, chugged past and my carriage filled and emptied with people of all backgrounds; Africans in traditional dress or old Chinese couples speaking in either Mandarin or Cantonese.

Closer to my destination the carriage emptied and a young Asian guy seemed to be the only one riding with me. I hadn't noticed him previously as I was wrapped up in the newspaper and my music. Now that I noticed him it seemed like he was staring at me. It was hard to tell with his mirror sunglasses. Thoughts of gang members and random violence drifted through my head. He certainly looked surly, definitely trying to have an attitude.

Cabramatta station approached and the young bloke jumped up and looked at me as he made his way to the door. He was a short arse with baggy pants, the brief thoughts had disappeared. I followed him and we briefly stood together as the train drew to a halt and the doors opened. He strutted past and I headed out into the steamy air.

The weather had a subtropical feel to it and suddenly the scents and scenes did too. Into the main street I wandered, past a Chinese bakery, a computer stores and beauticians with more Chinese or Vietnamese than English writing on their signs and notices.

The place had a surreal quality. I was having throwbacks to my brief stints in Asia. This place was like an outer suburb of Hong Kong, but more open and cleaner. I was now keen to have a look around. Instead of the envisaged crime gangs and means streets of the reputation, this place was like all other destinations I like to head off to, somewhere different.

My work was not taxing. I fixed the problem of our sole representative in this neighbourhood and headed out the door. I made the mistake though of ringing my work colleague to let him know I was finished. This meant that I had now limited my time to be able to spend observing this new found land. A few laps around the blocks, noting the differences and then a stop off at the Chinese bakery would have to suffice for me.

Back on the platform I went, waiting in the shade, the previous reputation in my mind in shatters. I jumped on board the new Millennium train when it quietly rolled up. Things would be different now; Little Fish won't seem so grim when I get around to watching it.

I headed back to the city, filling in the crossword, feeling changed slightly now, like the cooled conditioned air of the new train. I should have known this would be the case; reputations never live up to expectations.

I'm An Uncle ..

2006-02-08T08:54:00.000+11:00

.. for the first time. Yesterday my sis brought a new little girl into the world and now I'm an uncle. This is very exciting, but I am yet to see her or even some pics of her (with this digital camera age you'd think huh .. so last century), but I am rest assured I will receive some soon.

The best thing about this is now I get to play, play and play some more with my little niece, and then hand her back when she is screaming or razzed up. I especially look forward to future years .. red cordial and airplane rides out in the backyard. Surely this is what uncles are for .. not too sure though, this is new territory.

updated: I finally got some pics. Little feet.

Cryptic Challenge

2006-02-05T20:18:00.000+11:00

Yesterday my sister laid down the challenge by text message. In the weekend's Sydney Morning Herald, turn to the cryptic crossword and do 9 down. Not one to back down from a challenge I got the paper and flicked to the puzzle section and put the brain in gear (which was a tad tough considering my night before). My brain needed to wake up once I saw the clue - Abandoned the port taken by the Addams' butler (4,2,3,5).

The cryptic crossword is previously something I have often just thrown quizzically glances at while I attempt the quick crossword or sudoku. But I am not one to turn down a challenge in a hurry and there is always a first to give this thing a good go.

9 down at first glance looks like the usual gobbley gook that is the cryptic. But amazingly the brain was working. The Addams' Family butler = Lurch. So looking at the letters it must be something in the lurch. And abandoned can be leave or left and then port is also the lefthand side of a boat so it must be .. left in the lurch. Ah ha, this was actually feeling good.

From then on I was heading into unknown territory, actually getting some of the clues. Next up was .. Casual wear for panzer commanders (4,4). Pretty easy .. Tank tops. Then there was .. A bit of a pickle for a tiddly pet dog (1,5,4). Took me a while but worked it out eventually .. A tight spot.

I am now suddenly discovering that getting somewhere with these cryptics is a lot more enjoyable than just a normal crossword .. until of course you start to dry up with the answers. I got a few more out and checked in with the sis to find out that she had a couple I didn't. But at least I now also know what my New Years resolution is, to see if I can complete a SMH cryptic.

Book Heaven

2006-02-01T09:15:00.000+11:00

Like a suicide bomber dreaming of the many virgins to come in the afterlife, while up in PNG I was dreaming of the many bookshops to browse once I crossed over into the developed world. Now that dream has exploded into reality.

My current job is located within two blocks of about half a dozen major books stores. Dymocks, Angus & Robinson, Borders, Collins, Abbeys, Galaxy and my personal favourite Kinokuniya - apparently the largest global book store in Australia, whatever global means - are all here. Heaven.

I do admit though that I am not much of a reader, but I am certainly a browser. After living in bookshop wilderness for the last two years - unless you count Christian bookshops - being able to just look around, pick up random books, walk through the aisles, admire the gleaming tomes, go to the travel section, pick up random destinations - it is a joy .. and also a tad sad I admit, but hey it really was that bad back in PNG.

Currently the travel section is taking up most of my time. Mainly of course because I keep researching my next destinations. The one on the top of the list at the moment is New Zealand. I have booked tickets to head over there soon with a mate for a couple of weeks to do some hiking on the South Island, possibly the Routeburn track and Milford Track if you are up to speed on that part of the world.

I was there three years ago to do some skiing which was brilliant - apart from tearing a muscle in my ankle - and I am hoping some hiking this time should be equally as good. And it will also be a pleasant change from the last hike I did - that Kokoda thing. Still remembering the exhaustion.

Lime Green & Clickety

2006-01-30T17:31:00.000+11:00

I have done my fair share of travelling by train around the world, it is after all my favourite way to travel. Four months around Europe and a few thousand k's between Norway and Hong Kong means that I have willingly heard plenty of clickety-clacks. But now there is one train trip in particular that my enthusiasm is starting to wane on - the one back home.

It is not because of the destination - I love seeing my family, once in a while at least. And it is not because of the time it takes - a couple of hours can be filled in with a newspaper, a book and some iPod action. I think perhaps it is more to do with the type of train. After all sitting in lime green vinyl seats for a couple of hours is about as thrilling as sitting in lime green vinyl seats for a couple of hours - the appeal diminishes.

The trains really are not so bad, of course not in the same league as European trains go - it ain't a TGV or Deutschbahn ICE for example, but then again we don't have the same user base as Europe, or train culture. The old NSW state rail Intercities are at least cheap and whenever I have used them reliable. And when you can't be bothered to buy a car, beggars can't be choosers.

But going back to my original enthusiasm for these double-deckers, it is just on the way out. Things start to grate after a while.

There is social spectrum element. To put it bluntly you get all sorts on these trains. The screaming kids with devil lungs. The nutters with extendable batons that once played with and become stuck in the whacking position need to be belted on the floor to retract. Or the hill-billy mullet sporting parents who scream and swear at their infant children in language brickie' labourers would shy away from. It is a colourful spectrum.

So I have been thinking again about putting an end to my seven year hiatus of non-car ownership and finding something I can head up and down the freeway in occasionally. But then I keep remembering there are other things I could spend that money on first, i.e. travelling on a train in a new country. It is a dilemma.

Patriotic .. Moi?

2006-01-27T12:00:00.000+11:00

I am not particularly patriotic when it comes to Australia Day. Sure the patriotism is there - I swell up with pride at certain sporting occasions and like the fact we have so many big names in Hollywood now - but the overtly Australian parochialism and breast beating just doesn't cut my mustard. So for a day filled with flag waving yesterday, what did I end up doing? Head to an art gallery and see a French painter.

After the impressionism I took the complimentary Herald from the gallery, headed down to the park for a read of the Oz day coverage. Luckily they seemed to be more in step with my feeling with their UnAustralian of the Year awards.

I think half of my problem with the day is seeing everyone wrapped in the flag or it flying from every pole. I just don't like the flag. Not all of it, just one of the corners. Why do we have to have someone else's flag stuck on ours? We need to change it .. and while we are at it get rid of the Queen too.

The other day I met Fred from Perth in Hyde Park, who is travelling around the country with his own new design for a flag. I had a chat with him and discussed his design. (I actually don't mind it, turn it on its side and you have the bush, beach and stars). He is fund raising his own trip around the nation to get the flag issue back on the agenda. Good on him I say and I bought one of his stickers.

Yesterday for me wasn't completely unAussie, after my sitting in the park I went and grabbed a pie from Harry's, followed by some cricket on the box which then led into more cricket at the pub with a couple of schooners. Almost the same as last year in the end .. except no little fat politicians were around.

Bar Views

2006-01-26T11:59:00.000+11:00

Back in PNG .. not so long ago .. I used to head down to the bar at the Yacht Club .. on weeknights .. after work .. to enjoy the end of the day and have a good chat with the mates.

The view was good .. on the water .. over the marina .. watching the boats bob .. and the sky get darker.

Fast track forward to now and life is not so much different .. drinks after work .. over the water .. watching boats .. and cars .. and bridges .. and a hell of a lot of other things.

My life has changed dramatically in the last two months. I am back in a job .. back in routine .. just temporarily though for the next 6 weeks .. and I'm already making plans for things to do when the time is up .. itchy feet syndrome is hard to get rid of.

New views do await .. but in the meantime old views will have to suffice.

Under The Stars

2006-01-22T13:49:00.000+11:00

Just a nice little picnic in the park last night.

With some friends and bubbly.

And a couple of hundred thousand other people.

Symphony in the Domain. It has been years since I did it last. And it was fantastic last night. Beautiful weather. Great company. Brilliant music. Gerswhin was the theme, so a 15 minute Rhapsody in Blue was the kick starter. But it finished in usual style with Tchaikovsky and the 1812 and fireworks off the top of Chifley Tower.

For me these free outdoor events are the highlight of the calendar in Sydney. I'm now just looking forward to that other outdoor one in the Domain, Tropfest in a few weeks time.

B-Grade Celebrity Spotter

2006-01-20T16:31:00.000+11:00

Maybe it is where I live or where I walk to but I seem to keep on running into Aussie B-Grade celebs while being back in Sydney. Just this week I have rubbed shoulders (albeit against tiny little ones) at my local pub with that scary looking SBS weekend news reader Lee Lin Chin. Close up impressions .. she is tiny. Her head of hair is bigger than the width of her body.

And as to other people, today I saw David Koch from Sunrise tapping away into his mobile as he walked past .. probably checking out his stocks, which if anyone remembers is what he used to know all about before he reincarnated as the happy chappy on morning TV.

Later I also saw author and large wealthy woman, Colleen McCullough, coming out of DJs with her walking frame thing with wheels full of gourmet food .. perhaps for her cat(s)? She must be on holiday from her normal Norfolk Island abode.

Previously I once walked past grumpy old Labor stalwart, Bob Ellis, whereupon when I saw his grim face I gave him a "G'day Bob" and a thumbs up and managed to change his look to a big smile. It may have made his day.

I then have seen everywhere actor Bill Hunter in the pub across the road. I hear he lives somewhere nearby and obviously likes a beer or two. Another around this neck of the woods is that old dickhead John Laws who drives his Bentley around to and from the golden microphone.

And then moving on from the B-graders I have seen Law's neighbour, old Russ Crowe, a few times around, either out in his tracksuit keeping fit with Danielle or getting out of a prestige cab. I've been careful not to get him angry and make sure he hasn't had a phone in hand.