Linda and Brents Travels

Back Home - Final Update

2009-07-25T11:23:00.001+01:00

Wednesday 1st July
Oh dear although I slept quite well i woke up this morning full of the sniffles. Not surprisingly the last few days have told on me and I have my first cold in 10 months. We got up and headed to the station to buy our tickets to Xi'an. This was quite an endeavor: we walked quite a way, enjoying the fact that the weather was quite cool and soaking up the atmosphere. At one point we spotted market stalls down narrow side streets, so we ventured down them. Wow! a whole assortment of fresh produce was down there, including huge blue bull frogs, live shrimps, live chickens and ducks as well as oddments like bicycle parts! Mmm. We bought a savoury bread snack from a street hawker for breakfast and then stopped at a KFC for a drink. Then we managed on our 3rd attempt to get a taxi driver to understand where we wanted to go. He dropped us at a very busy intersection, where as soon as we opened the door beggars threw themselves at us.. We wondered if we were in the right place and for a moment thought we weren't! We ended up in some sort of sorting office, where fortunately a young man who spoke English directed us to the station.. hidden away around a corner. By now we were pretty stressed and I wasn't feeling good. As we joined a queue armed with our trusty notebook into which I'd copied the relevant Mandarin phrase for soft sleeper! a young, uniformed woman approached. She spoke English and was very helpful, ushering us to a different queue where she checked out the ticket situation: turned out that nothing was available today, so we booked on the 7am train tomorrow, leaving from the other train staton in Wuhan. We left the train station quite disappointed but managed to find a lovely young taxi driver to get us back to the hotel. Here we booked in for a second night and had a rest before heading out to explore the city. I'd spotted the Hubei Provincial museum in our guide book, so we decided to try and find it. This meant getting a ferry to the other side of the river, then a bus out to the museum. By the time we got there it was 3.15 and we were quite tired and tense after the experience...once again we'd been rescued at the bus stop by a lovely young woman who''d phoned up to find out which bus we should take!! Amazing.

Anyway the museum turned out to be fantastic. We were just in time to hear a performance on copies of ancient bells, which we later saw exhibited. The performance was lovely. We spent a happy hour or so exploring the museum and were really wowed by the coffins excavated from one of the emperors tombs...there was an external coffin as well as the actual coffin. all very beautiful. Also exhiblited were some of the emperor's possessions, which had been buried with him, as offerings to the gods. These were very beautiful and we were astonished by how modern some of the designs were. We caught the bus and ferry back to our side of the river and worked our way back to the hotel via a huge pedestrianised area, where we found a pizza hut for dinner. It's a real luxury eating Western cuisine here. A chinese meal costs about £2.50 for the 2 of us, whilst a basic pizza with a small salad and soft drinks costs about £10!! Ridiculous really, but we regularly feel the need for it!
Later on we went back to last night's cafe, hoping to see the English speaking manager again...but he wasn't there. We had a beer and headed back to the room to pack up ready for the morning train.

Thursday 2nd July
Got a taxi ok this morning to the second Wuhan train station in Wuchang. Got on the train only to find we were not alone. A single, middle aged guy was resting on one of the bottom bunks. He didn't speak English and seemed very serious looking, stuggling to smile. The compartment didn't match up to our last soft sleeper: the bedding seemed very grey, and I was relieved not to be sleeping in it! As we sat down on the other bunk a Chinese guy appeared from the next compartment. He asked if we were from England and was clearly keen to chat. He sat down and we enjoyed a pleasant chat with him. As he left he asked us not to hesitate to ask him for help on the journey. Another example of how friendly and helpful some of the people here are. This journey was long – we got on around 8am and off at 9pm. I wasn't feeling wonderful with a streaming cold and I really struggled again with the train's toilet. There seemed to be only 1 working and it was pretty disgusting the first time I went. We both decided that we'd aim to get flights from here on! Anyway despite a late departure we got into Xi'an on time and ventured off the train, once again full of trepidation! Along with hundreds of other folk we poured out into the staion. The huge, ancient city wall greeted us from the subway and we headed into a main square....would you believe it? Suddenly another English speaking man appeared offering his services. Did we need a hotel? He could take us to a very central one that was within our budget... I was so tired and it was so difficult making our own way anywhere, that we took him up on his offer. The 3 of us got into a taxi and headed to a hotel, where we paiid about £25 for a large double room. Sounds great, but it seems that no Chinese hotels are non-smoking and this room really stank of cigarettes, which was difficult for us...still, we'd brought our trusty body shop spray, which helped and we were in bed at a reasonable time.

Friday 3rd July
Brent woke up quite early and headed out to explore our location. It was a beautiful, sunny morning, with very special light. He was delighted to realise that we were literally just around the corner from the Bell Tower, right in the centre of the old town. He watched some older locals doing Tai Chi near the drum tower and took photos, trying to capture the scene of swifts soaring and paper kites being flown. When he came back we ventured to the 2nd floor for our included breakfast...oh dear! this wasn't easy but we managed to find a few bits that we could eat: fresh melon slices and hard boiled eggs, with an unusual sweet/ dry bread with jam. The instant coffee /sugar mix wouldn't have been bearable for me had I not been bunged up with cold...so I couldn't taste it!! By mid morning we were ready to explore together and we paid to go into the 2 toweres, both of which are very beautiful. As we entered the drum tower we heard the sound of drums beating: once again we were dead on time to see and hear a brilliant performance. We wandered the streets and were chuffed to come across an arty area near the southern gate to the city. It was fun to see lots of chinese scrolls and I bought a traditional fan here. Later we explored a mall before going back to the hotel. In the evening we were about to have MacDonald's (always a last resort for us) when Brent remembered that our US friends had recommended eating in the Musliim quarter. We headed out to what proved to be a fascinating area: narrow streets full of market type stalls, selling everything from walnuts, which there were hundreds of, to more tourist related goods. We decided to try one of the cafes here and ended up ordering far too much food: a chicken dish, a lamb dish with a veggie dish and rice... each one was enormous! We asked to take away the left over aubergine dish, which was no problem. ..needless to say next morning we threw it in the bin: seemed a good idea at the time! After dinner we wandered on and a lovely young woman persuaded me to look at her wares: linen Chinesy shirts/ blouses. She was funny and had good English and we had a good laugh with her. I tried on various tops and we ended up buying a top each... not that cheap at £30 the pair, but good quality, I think. At the end of this lane we came across the Mosque, which is apparently the biggest in China and was very different from anything we'd seen before. The minaret was in pagoda style and the huge gabled roofs were inspiring. We were too tired to visit but Brent intended to go back to get some photos...unfortunately we didn't manage to. Back at the hotel we were fast asleep around 4am when the chap next door and his wife had a huge row and woke us up n the process...lovely. The air conditioning system here is integrated throughout the building, so we find that as soon as someone has a cigarette we reap the benefits of the smoke coming through the system...talk about passive smoking. Dear reader you may have noticed a touch of negativity in our latest reports... well you are right! We are really beginning to struggle with the lack of language, the levels of noise and air pollution and the weather, which all combine to make us feel increasingly tired out and frustated. Such a shame after 10 months with few complaints. I guess we are also getting tired and ready for home.

Saturday 4th July
Today we did a tour via John's company. We wanted to see the Terracotta army and decided that this would be the easiest way of doing it. We were up early and met at reception by Lily, our guide for the day. We then headed off in a nice airconditioned minibus to pick up the rest of the group: an Indian family comprising mother, daughter, son and his wife and son. They were very interesting: the son and his family are currently living in shanghai, where he works as a lawyer. His mother is an English teacher in India in a very old international school called Woodstock..somewhere in Northern India. When she found out that we were teachers she assured us that it would be easy for us to find jobs in India...Lily later said the same about china.... we're hoping it might be true back home actually!! Anyway off we went to our first destination, the neolithic village of Banpo. A modern museum covers the excavated village, which mostly comprised holes in the ground and a few bits of walls showing where and how people lived. Quite interesting. As a guide Lily was very informed, having studied history and English in Xi'an and she was able to answer our questions. We left the museum and she briefly took us into a Jade outlet next door, which she recommended as selling authentic jewellery at correct prices. We found the prices exorbitant and aren't that keen on jade, so didn't stay long...the Indians stayed longer, but when we got back together they declared how ridiculous the prices were. Our next stop was at a Terracotta Warrior factory: this wasn't actually in the advertised programme, but it was quite interesting to see how much the Chinese have succeeded in commerialising the ancient warriors. Hundreds of copies were on sale here and you could even have one made in your own image. Apparently hundreds of companies purchase them for their premises! There was quite a hard sell here... they had small boxed versions for more accessible, but still expensive, prices, but we had no trouble in turning down all the offers! As we waited for our Indian friends to arrive Lily gave away some of her prejudice, suggesting that 'Indians' always kept groups waiting.. we'd heard this before in SE Asia and realise that every people has its prejudices and stereo types particular groups...interesting. Anyway we headed off for lunch in a restaurant en route to the Terracotta army museum. We were pleasantly surprised by the quality and quantity of the food and really enjoyed our meal. Then it was time for the highlight of the day: the Terracotta army museum, where 3 pits are open to the public. Upon arrival our group was ushered into some sort of tourist office, where a guy who supposedly discovered the warriors sat behind a table ready to sign copies of a tourist guide book about the warriors and pose in a photo with any willing tourists! He seemed totally disinterested in proceedings, but the assistant there did yet another hard sell on us, declaring that Bill Clinton had visited the place and showing us his photo with the guy... oh dear! The longer we are here the more crass we are finding the Chinese approach to tourism and commercialism. Eventually we began the tour and it was fantastic to see the hundreds of warriors, dating back to 800 AD ( check this). Have to say I was still not feeling well and midway around the 2nd pit I began to feel ' warrior- ed out!'. There were hundred of mainly Chinese tourists there and it was very hot in the pits, which made it quite difficult for me. Having said that it was amazing too. After visiting the pits we enjoyed an ice cream in the cafe before meeting up with the others for the walk back. Interestingly the place provides a shuttle bus ( which of course you pay for) to get you to the museum, but you have to walk back. Not far, but along shop lined streets. Actually these were quite bizarre as there seemed to be a lot of empty buildings. This whole area was new built and reminded me of the shopping villages we get at home. Brent asked Lily why we were seeing so many empty places and she said that actually the places were the homes of local farmers. We found this hard to believe and were somewhat puzzled by this reply. Anyway we did have to wait for our Indian friends and once again Lily was very negative about them. She said that 'they' didn't understand chinese culture of bargaining: apparently if you start the process you are expected to buy and it is an insult to bargain and then not buy. We realised that we had done this ourselves, so found it unacceptable that she labelled this as an Indian trait. How as a tourist do you know these things? We both felt that Lily's attitude was quite racist: they'd only gone to buy water on what was an intensely hot day! I was pleased when Brent made the point that there are good and bad everywhere and it's easy to stereo type them...by now I was actually feeling rough and couldn't have made the effort. She also said how the Chinese like the British and Americans, who know how to behave!! Oh my god!!

As we climbed back into the car Lily asked if we wanted to visit the Emperors mausoleum which was the final part of our tour. She'd already explained that this had not been excavated, but that we could, as she put it, 'climb the mountain' if we wanted. She said that if we were too tired we could just take a photo and return to the hotel. I'd noticed that actually in the advertising for the tour, it said that we could visit the Big Goose Pagoda instead of the mausoleum, but by this time I was ready to return. My cold was taking it's toll and so I didn't ask about this option. We approached the mausoleum and saw the 'mountain'. It was really a hill with steps up to the top, where Lily said there was nothing to see, but a small shrine. The Indian family said they weren't interested in going up and i certainly wasn't. Brent probably would have, but before we knew it the minibus had slowed down and then sped back up to continue the return journey. No offer was made to view the Pagoda, and I have to say that we felt more than a bit aggrieved at the cost of the day: our Indian friends told us that it was made clear to them that a tip was expected and as they left first they gave Lily some money. We felt we had no choice but to do the same and handed over 50 Yuan. With several extras which we'd had to pay for the day was quite expensive, especially as we only saw 2 of the 3 sites... still we'd loved the warriors and didn't regret our day out.....

Once again dear readers, I'm sure you're spotting more of that negativity. Is it just that we are tired, I am ill and we are nearing the end of our trip? I don't think so. We both feel that the Chinese probably don't want to attract independent travellers. They prefer the large tour groups where everyone is herded from site to site and vendor to vendor. We really feel that they need to adapt to the new tourism that is clearly here:. Our main complaints would be...

- stand on toilets when clean are fine...but we've found a lot of truly disgusting ones...even in modern, high tech, museums.

the Chinese have a habit of what can only be termed 'gobbing'.They make a huge amount of disgusting noise as they gob up and spit out a vast amount of phlegm. We recognise that this is a cultural thing and imagine parents saying to their children 'come on, spit it out, it's bad for you'. However considering that we had to have our temperatures taken when we entered this country because of the swine flu virus currently about, we do feel that some basic education on hygiene would be useful. I'm sure you can imagine how difficult we find this whole thing – at times I've struggled not to be sick when witnessing it. enough said!

- Brent is very put out by open mouthed mastication... and if you know what that means you're better than I am! Actually the eating habits of locals are quite interesting: eating with chopsticks is a messy job and they will almost get their heads inside the bowl of noodles, scooping huge amounts into their mouths..just not the Western way I guess.

the final issue for us is to do with attitudes towards us. We are constantly stared at... not in a negative way, but very blatantly and for long periods of time. Brent in particular is of interest and at one point a guy rushed up to him to get his photo taken with him, then his 2 daughters rushed either side of Brent for their photo... initially this seems quite a compliment, but after a few weeks of it it becomes annoying,

Moans over... we'd had a good day out. That evening we ended up in another restaurant not far from the Musliim quarter ..maybe even still in it! Here we found small tables with holes in the middle for charcoal burners, with metal trays on top to cook kebabs on. The staff were really helpful ( the menu was only in Mandarin) and we managed to order a good array of chicken, tofu and vegetable which we dipped into spices and cooked... a delicious version of fondue and amazingly cheap. We paid around £2.50 for the meal with soft drinks included! Great.

Sunday 5th July
Today we decided to get a taxi to the Shanxi history museum, one of the most famous in China. The roads here are well organised for taking taxis, which are very cheap and we soon arrived in front of the building. We enjoyed a very happy couple of hours here. We were able to see individual warriors up close as well as the artifacts that were found buried with them. We should explain that as we understand it the warriors were built for the emperor as an offering to the gods, to ensure his standing upon death. We were disappointed that the purpose of the pits of soldiers was not really explained in either of the museums we visited, nor did Lily clarify this. We'd like to read more about it...it's such a remarkable site, with each warrior huge and splendid and chariots pulled by huge carven horses all restored into their magnificent splendour. Once again we saw beautiful pottery and bronzeware, which we'd happily use today but which had been created up to 200 years BC... amazing. Before leaving the museum we stopped in the cafe for a drink. Brent took out a 100 yuan note to pay only to be told that it was a fake!! We'd been warned about this early on in China, but clearly hadn't been careful enough. From the museum we wandered along a few hundred metres to the Big Goose Pagoda. The pagoda is situated in a huge open area, with fountains, statues and varous vendors. We paid the entry fee, only 20 Yuan and made our way in towards the pagoda itself, only to find that to see inside you had to pay another 26 Yuan each... another example of Chinese subterfuge ... we'd thought £2 each was a good deal but £4.50 each is more like home prices. Oh well. Needless to say we didn't bother. We ventured back in a taxi and that night took a short stroll around the corner to a restaurant specialising in duck. In the end the duck was too expensive for us and we had a fairly average meal.. and stupidly managed to order far too much again. We tried to get rid of the £100 Yuan note,but as we made our way back to the hotel 2 of the waitresses came running after us and ushered us back to the restaurant where the manageress explained the situation. She was apologetic and we felt bad and decided to get rid to the offending note and to be more careful in future.

Monday 6th July
Today we had decided to fly to Beijing. These are days when I get quite stressed hoping that all the transport links work out. Fortunately we had done our research and knew where the bus was due to leave to the airport. Everything went very smoothly. The bus arrived on time and we made our connection with very little fuss. The airport building was almost identical to the one in Adelaide. The flight we took was with China Eastern Airways and we were pleasantly surprised when they started to bring out the free lunch and drink. The only disconcerting thing about the flight was the landing when the plane seemed to vibrate very loudly.
On landing Beijing proved to be extremely grey and overcast. We eventually found the train that would link us up with the metro system and followed the instructions for getting to the hostel. These seemed ok until we got to the first street. This had recently been pedestrianised so did not appear the same. We weren't sure where we were going and Linda was feeling tired. We adopted a policy we had used before where she stayed with the bags and I went off in search of the address. I carried on down the street in the direction I assumed was correct. I was suddenly faced with a road that had been totally dug up to a depth of about 10 feet and pipes and scaffollding all over the place. I searched in vain for the place with no luck. Linda here...meanwhile I was approached by a young Chinese woman, who asked if I was looking for my friend or for a hostel. I replied: “both.” It turned out that the girl, Lily, had just finished her shift at the Leo hostel where we were staying. She knew a couple was due around 3pm and had been looking out for us! How amazing is that? She rang the hostel and her fellow worker, Connie came to meet us and lead the way back to the hostel, helping with bags. Sounds great? It was except that Brent had found the right street! The whole place was in upheaval and we were pleased when Connie suggested a different route to cut out most of the mess. When we arrived we had to clamber over pipes, rocks and gravel to get to the entrance. Once inside the hostel was lovely and everyone very warm and welcoming. We dumped our stuff and walked down to a bank and then meandered around until we came across the centre for performing arts: this was a beautiful, silver domed building, totally surrounded by water. The entrance being via an underground tunnel... very clever. After a quick look we ventured into Tianamen square, which was huge and full of people...quite overwhelming in our tired state. We headed back to the hostel stopping nearby in the 365 bar for a meal and a couple of beers. Off to bed, where Brent fell immediately to sleep, while I struggled as I drawn the short straw and had the bed with the dip in the middle...oh well!

Tuesday 7th July
Had breakfast at the hostel then went to the tourist office to try and book a trip to the Great Wall. We found this via 2 stalls of volunteers! No-one at the first one spoke English, but someone accompanied us to the second. . Anyway the tourist office was a disaster. No-one was serving at the counter marked 'foreigners' so we got into a queue. As we got near the counter we spotted a notice saying that in order to visit the wall you had to have been in the country for at least 7days... this was a safety measure due to Swine Flu. We then saw that the price of the tour depended on the number of people going, with a minimum number of 4 being required. I'd noticed 2 French girls, who were discussing what to do. I asked if they would like to join us to make up a group of 4 and they agreed...but then when I explained about the 7day rule they said they'd only been in the country 6 days! They then said that there was a tour from their hostel that was actually a bit cheaper than the one advertised here ( 260 yuan) and we exchanged email addresses, so that they could let us know if the 4 of us could join this tour. By now we'd lost our early start and it was almost midday. We headed to the entrance to the forbidden city. I was feeling pretty awful by the time we got to the ticket office: it was oppressively hot and the zillions of noisy tour groups were getting to me. As Brent got into the queue I had to stop him and admit that I couldn't face this tour! I felt terrible, but he wasn't at all fazed and said that he too was struggling. This has happened so often over the months we've been travelling, it's almost spooky! One of us will make a suggestion and the other will have been thinking the same thing! We hardly ever – if ever – disagree... must be meant for each other eh?

We headed for the exit and came out along a lovely, shaded walkway between the city wall and a moat. We enjoyed a pleasant stroll here, away from the crowds. Eventually we found our way into the main, pedestrianised shopping area, where we spotted a mall with a cinema and a Starbucks sign. We had to ask to actually find the cafe and it wasn't as cool as usual. We then had a look around and headed up to the top floor, as this is where the food courts and cinemas are usually found ( a good tip if ever you get to China!) In this mall there was a food republic up there. We bought a 50 yuan credit card and paid for a noodle based meal. Then had to top up the card to pay for drinks!! The chef was lovely and very helpful but we were disappointed in the food, especially the soup, which was revolting. We'd decided to watch the transformer film which was showing in English: those who know me will be surprised by this choice, so I should explain ...there was no choice! Well there was actually, but we decided to save Terminator Salvation for another time.. tee hee! Anyway, the cinema seats were nice and comfy and the air con very refreshing... the film we thought was pretty poor though..but worth the money for the aforementioned comforts! Afterwards we headed back to our hostel and couldn't believe our eyes when we stepped into the lounge and found a crowd watching the very same film we'd just paid to watch!! Oh well. Brent had a look through our guide book and suggested we head out to find bar street, where apparently there's lots of live music. Before going we picked up our email and were pleased to see that we could join the trip to the Great Wall tomorrow. The trip went from the Sanlitun hostel, which turned out to be just around the corner from bar steet.. weird eh? We headed out on the metro, paid for the trip and found a bar for dinner, where some sort of music / exotic dancing was going on. We sat outside with an expensive beer waiting for an age for some very average food. We later found out that there are some much more normal bars on a parallel street,,, next time eh? A group of German lads nearby were clearly horrified by their bill and we were glad at our circumspection in ordering only 1 beer each. The whole experience reminded us of those commercial bars in the canary islands, where you are dragged in off the street. No thought is given to encouraging you back at all. Once we'd sat down and ordered, we were completely ignored!

Wednesday 8th July
This morning we were up nice and early (6am) and managed to arrive at the Sanlitun hostel dead on 7.30, just right for breakfast. This was a good American breakfast and set us up for the day. Our french friends joined us and at around 8.10 we were introduced to the other members of the tour group. We headed into the mini bus and sat chatting to a nice Brit called Ben, from London, and a lovely Polish brother and sister. She'd been working in Hong Kong and her brother was visiting. A young German lad, Kristoff, sat with us. He was very quiet but pleasant enough. A group of Italian friends sat and chatted amongst themselves. When we got to the wall our 'guide' showed us where to buy cable car and toboggan tickets, which weren't included in the price and said she'd meet us when we came down...so much for a guide! Only Kristoff decided to walk up, whilst the rest of us took the cable car, which was quite a lovely ride. The wall fulfilled our expectations and we were pleased when the clouds moved about to allow us a slightly improved view. We took loads of photos and walked quite a way. All told we had about 2.5 hours up there before getting the toboggan down. We all met up as planned and took a short walk downhill to quite a posh restaurant, where we had an excellent lunch before heading back into town. The rest of the group promptly fell asleep and brent got some good photos of them all! We were sorry not to have pen and paper with us as we didnt have time to swap emails with our Polish friends.. we told them about our blog and hope they may contact us from there. Their mum lives in Grimsby and they often fly to Robin Hood's airport...but have yet to find Sherwood forest! Back at our hostel we ended up joining the crowd later on enjoying a game of quiddler. A woman from New York was sitting nearby playing monopoly with her young daughter, who was delightful. Have to say we were quite surprised when the 11 year old chose to put on some ancient Beatles footage and proceeded to sing along with all the old songs...bizarre. Apparently her mum used to play her Beatles music to get her to sleep.

Thursday 9th July
Today dawned and lo and behold, the smog had gone! We had a beautiful, blue sky day for our visit to the Forbidden City. After about 2.5 hours though we'd had enough of both the heat and the crowds and had taken loads of photos of this amazing place. We headed into town for another Macdonalds and, yes, you guessed it, the Terminator film, which we both really enjoyed. That night we got ready for our last but one journey in China..we are off to Hangzhou in the morning!

Friday 10th July
We set off early to make sure that we connected with the flight in time. Beijing had the metro connected to the airport so we were sure there would be no problem in making the time. Our mistake!! The airport had 3 terminals and we had assumed that we flew out from the same as we had flown in. We were wrong. This meant having to make a dash for terminal 3 in the shuttle bus. As we had given ourselves plenty of time though we still managed to get baggage through and into waiting area easily. The plane then ended up being delayed. This flight was with Shanghai Airlines. We calculated it must be our 9th carrier. Again we were surprised to get food onboard a two hour flight. Not brilliant quality but it kept the hunger pangs at bay.
Before leaving we had written down directions to our hostel. We managed to get ourselves on the bus into Hangzhou and then stayed on it until the terminus as directed. It was at this point that our plans went astray. We knew that the next bus was supposed to be the 151 but almost boarded it in the wrong direction. Luckily a woman saw our uncertainty and helped again. We dismounted this bus though having no idea where we were. By now night was beginning to fall and we were on the point of exhaustion. We tried to get a taxi but to no avail. Eventually one pulled up and Linda gave the name of the road. The taxi driver was just about to shrug his shoulders and drive off so she turned around to me for help.( Lin here.. actually I was desperate at this point and shoved Brent into the taxi begging him to show the map,before the guy drove off!) I quickly ferreted out our Lonely Planet and pointed to the road. Relief ... he recognised where we were going and indicated for us to get in. We were having visions of being stranded. The hostel proved very elusive the find but the taxi driver kindly kept looking, at one point even using his mobile phone to ring up base and find an English speaker to translate the number on the address. Eventually we decided to find it on foot when we realised we must be close. Many thanks to this taxi driver who saved our lives.
The hostel proved to be everything we had hoped for. Well done Hostel World and Trip Advisor. It was clean, friendly, no smoking and had all the services we needed. We tucked into a hearty meal washed down with a few beers ( much more expensive than the last place though – the beers that is ) Tired and weary we retired to bed early.

Saturday 11th July
Our hardest bed yet but a lovely room and cleaner air meant a reasonable nights sleep. The breakfast was good and we set out to explore the area. The day had dawned bright and sunny which meant sun hat for me and parasol for Linda. On leaving the hostel we were soon greeted by beautiful views of West Lake. We joined the many Chinese tourists promenading around the shaded paths on the western shore. At least in one way we had timed this visit correctly. The lotus blossoms were in full bloom and the plants themselves where abundant around the lake edge. The only drawback was the stifling heat- a head roasting 38 degrees C.
We managed to walk to the northern edge of the lake before finding the shelter of the local air conditioned museum. These have often proved to be free in China. The artefacts inside always show how advanced its early civilizations were. When we were in the dark ages they were producing the most ornate pots and silks.
By this time we were really flagging so went in search of some food in the town. At this stage in our journey we seem to be needing the comfort of western food so ended up in Pizza Hut. Refreshed we headed back to the lake side and came upon the Y2 bus. We had previously been told by the hostel directions we were given that this would take us past the hostel. After about 5 minutes it became clear that it was heading away from the lake!!! We stayed on board thinking it would eventually complete a circuit. Alas it came to a point where we all had to get off. Drat. We were re-directed to the next bus to leave, again a Y2 but had to pay 3 more Yuan each.
On arriving back at the hostel we retreated to our air conditioned room to recharge our batteries. The evening saw us heading out in search of some night life. When we did find somewhere it was packed to the rafter. We were eventually found a table only to find a small bottle of beer cost 30 Y. In our last place we had paid 6Y for a large one! Time to leave, We headed back for a good nights sleep.

Sunday July 12th
Today we intended to get to the station to buy our tickets for our onward journey to Shanghai. I got the young girl at reception to write down in Chinese the information for the ticket office. She kindly did this. A few minutes later she came over and offered to buy them for us that day as she was going near the station. We have found the Chinese so friendly in this respect.
We had consulted the map in the morning and noticed that the Silk Museum was very close so we set off in search. Immediately down the next road we found what the Chinese call a ' Walking street ' or what we would call a pedestrian way set back from the road. This followed the course of a small stream which fed into the lake. It had been landscaped and redesigned to become a small park with delightful bridges which spanned the water course at regular intervals. We also read that it helped remove the pollutants which had previously flowed down into the lake. Altogether it was a delightful walk.
The museum itself was again in a splendid building. It explained the process of silk production from the little worm itself to the final spinning and weaving of the silk. There were also some fantastic historical examples of chinese silk robes from dates stretching as far back as 500 BC. Again a humbling experience for someone from the west.
We decided to head off into town to get something to eat and to find a bank. All the buses are 2 Y so it was easy to just get off somewhere we spotted a shopping mall Alas I succumbed to a McDonalds again. Our next task was to find a bank. China has many banks each named after the district or the section of the economy they are trying to help. Most have ATMs and advertise they can use Visa. The first bank we tried was the Bank of Communication. Linda used her card and it was immediately swallowed with no explanation. The main branch was around the corner so fortunately she was able to retrieve it after showing her passport. By now we were starting to panic as we had just received an email from a friend warning about a previous one that someone had hacked into. We had visions of our account being tampered with. We went in search of another bank. The next one was the Bank for Reconstruction and Development. This time I used my card and typed in my pin – nothing came out except the card. Mild panic was now setting in. We found a third bank – Bank of Agriculture. This time using Linda's card – no response. We went into the bank to ask if anyone could help. It transpired that we needed 6 pin numbers in this machine. They directed us to the Bank of China where they thought we might be more successful. Fortunatley this time it worked so both Linda and I took out money. This gave us some breathing space as we could now pay for the following nights accommodation and food.
We headed towards the Lake where we noticed lots of people sitting looking out to the lake. We realised it was the music fountain performance. Rather than wait 30 minutes we headed back to the hostel around the lake. Again a beautiful walk with lots of bridges. We'll try and catch the fountain another time.
The evening was spent at the hostel chatting with a young man and had been teaching in a small town in the North of China. We seemed to come across quite a few of these people travelling through Hangzhou.

Monday 12th July
This morning we went up the Leifang Hill pagoda. This beautiful pagoda had been built above the ruins of the old one in 1984 and contained some fantastic carvings on each level. The views proved to be stupendous across the lake also.
In the afternoon we caught the boat across the lake to an island in the middle with three large lakes at its centre. Wandered across the island to pick it up from the other side to take us to the opposite shore of the lake. Walked back to the hostel. The air was much cooler now. We met two lovely older men who stopped for a chat. One said he had learnt his English from Radio 4 broadcasts and now taught it to others. The other was keen to show us the photos he had taken of the lake in Spring and the peach blossom. Both remarkable men.

Tuesday 13th July
Brent woke up feeling rough today. Damn! I'd hoped he'd managed to avoid catching the dreaded lurg, but oh no...
We got up reasonably early this morning only to find they weren't serving breakfast till 8.00am so went for a walk in the park to see if we could find anyone doing Tai Chi. We didnt but we did find a large group of older people chatting and playing games around the tables of an outdoor cafe. The early morning is clearly a time when they can comfortably sit in this heat. When we came past an hour later they had all gone. (Lin here... this time of the morning is also when all the watering og plants takes place, with automatic hoses recycling lake water. I wa not too pleased when I mis-timed a walk and got soaked by one of them!)

Back to the Hostel for breakfast then out to do some gift shopping. We eventually found the tourist street and bought some gifts to take home.
We then returned by the lakeside to have a siesta in our air conditioned room. The heat here is relentless and has severely restricted our energy levels.
The late afternoon saw us head out to an area of the lake we hadnt yet explored. This was much quieter than the main tourist drag and just as beautiful. We took many photos as the late afternoon sun dropped lower in the sky.. Saw some white peacocks and a pond of fantastic red carp – so many they turned the water orange.
Returned to the hostel for food. Ended up watching a dvd called Far North which had some fantastic icy landscapes on display. The plot was very thin though and stretched credibility when the anti-heroine cut off the face of her rival to the heart of Sean Penn attatched it to her own face and even managed to fool him into making love to her with attached face – bizarre!!!

Added later by Lin...think it may have been today that we experienced our second rodent experience. We were relaxing in the room when I noticed that the aircon pipe went straight out of the wall and was not plastered in. I got up to look through the hole...'Ah,' I declared there's a little bird in here.... 'uh oh! no it's not...it's a little mouse!.' Brent didn't believe me and just sniggered. 'it's cleaning its whiskers,' I assured him. He got up and couldn't believe his eyes. He stuffed the hole with plastic bags. After that we heard a neighbour squeel and gathered our little mouse had moved on. What a laugh. Can't believe how calm I felt about it. Guess after the rat in paradise a little mouse seemed harmless.

Wednesday 15th July
Our last full day here and we decided to visit the National Tea Museum. One of the girls here suggested we get the bus, rather than a taxi..which we did. Ended up waiting for half an hour before the bus came. Then followed a hairy half hour, when we were unsure when to get off. Eventually Brent said we should get off, as he thought we'd missed the stop. Turned out we were only a short walk away and one stop out! wow! The place itself was a bit weird, like many of the other places we've visited in China: there were lovely grounds with lots of buildings which were either under construction or empty. For a little while we thought it was a wasted journey...but lo and behold we came upon the museum by chance and spent a happy hour or so visiting the exhibition of the history of tea. It was very well done and made us realise that the preparation and drinking of tea in China is both scientific and artistic...all in all a serious business. We decided to fork out about a fiver each for the tea tasting in the formal tea house near to the museum. This was really interesting. A charming young woman, unfortunately with very little English, set up a large tray with jugs and kettle and small pottery bowls and saucers... we tried 4 different teas: green tea, jasmine tea, black tea and oolong tea. We were given an explanatory sheet in English, which detailed the medicinal properties of each tea. The Oolong is supposed to reduce blood pressure, so is a good one for me to drink. The process of preparing each tea as interesting, with each one requiring different brewing temperatures and times. We both preferred the oolong and the jasmine, but when they tried to sell some to us they turned out to be from £10 for a small carton! Needless to say we didn't bother, feeling sure that we'll be able to pick some up cheaper elsewhere. As we were leaving the museum Brent remembered that we'd spotted a silk outlet near to the entrance,so we backtracked to have a look. The things in there weren't cheap, but there were some lovely items and we ended up buying 2 blouses, one for me and one for Brent's mum... hope it fits! We got the bus back to the hostel and took a short rest before taking a tour of the lake by open topped tourist bus. We'd talked about cycling it, but Brent is feeling poorly now, and I'm still struggling with the heat, so the bus was preferred. It was quite a nice circuit and we saw the part of the lake that we'd not walked. Back at the hostel we caught most of a Sandra Bullock DVD, called Premonition, which some French girls were watching. The captions were hilarious, with really badly translated English, but we all managed to follow the compicated plot. Brent's now snoozing again as I write this. We'd like to catch the musical fountain later and don't really want to eat here again. Earlier on I tried the mushroom soup and it tasted like hot milk with a chopped up mushroom in it... weird!

As we are leaving tomorrow I'd like to make a note of some of the lovely aspects of Hangzhou, which I can highly recommend to you... but do come in Spring or Autumn if you can!

The lake itself is huge, with many lovely bridges, walkways, causeways and gardens
lots of different boats take you in to the islands, which again have pools and wonderful walks
You can get a range of different buses to get around: the Y3 is a wooden trolley type bus, with hand held fans and no air con, it costs 3 yuan. The y9 is the tourist open top bus and costs 5 yuan. It's a good way of getting a feel for the size of the lake and we guess that in future may include English guides, although that's not currently available.
There are bikes for hire everywhere, including at our hostel. The city scheme is one that we've seen before, where you can pick up a bike in one place and then park it at various specified places around town.
Our hostel – The West Lake Youth House – is out of town a bit, but right on the lake, near to the Liefeng Pagoda. It's lovely: very clean with lovely rooms and very friendly, helpful staff. It was too hot for us to go outside, but they have a lovely courtyard area outside with lots of seating. There's a washer and dryer here too, which is great. The only criticism would be the food, but the breakfast was excellent and the pizza quite good.

Thursday 16th July
Today was our last travel day before home. We had packed the previous night so apart from last minute things we were all ready to go. Taxi arrived on time and we were taken to the railway station with plenty of time to spare. The usual procedure took place there. Bags through scanner with attendants not bothering to look. Sitting in packed waiting rooms for train to arrive before being ushered on. The train itself was an express and much plusher than we were used to previously. The journey was a very speedy one and a quarter hours and we were in Shanghai in no time. We waited for everyone to get off the train to avoid the rush. Noticed that the carriage attendants just swung the seats around so it could go on the journey back – genius. ...Lin here... ok so here begins our final trek from place of arrival to hostel. This time it proved remarkably easy! Hurrah! We found subway line 3 fairly easily and managed to get seats on the train, which was great as we had quite a long journey of 13 stops. A lovely woman sat next to me, with excellent English, which she'd studied at university. Upon arrival at our stop we struggled to find the first road mentioned in our instructions and once again had to get help. Fortunately 2 young girls were passing and pointed us in the right direction. We walked along a busy main road in scorching heat and were just beginning to feel lost when I approached another young woman, who at first looked puzzled and then produced a card with the name of our hostel on it: Koala garden house. ... bizarre eh? Turned out we'd come route B, but were not far away. We were really chuffed when we arrived as we turned off a busy street onto a magically quiet, pedestrianised street with our hostel, quite a grand and luxurious looking building on a corner. We had to spend a few minutes sorting out our room, which turned out to be more expensive than we thought at around £28. We were up 2 flights of stairs in a lovely, clean room with a very posh shower room. Great. After sorting out we did a bit of a walk around the area and then made a bad decision: we thought we'd get the metro and try to find what a fellow traveller had described as a bohemian area. The journey was just awful.. we purchased a ticket for 4 yuan, only to find that we couldn't change onto the correct line at the raiilway station stop, as we'd planned. Instead we had to go miles out of our way spending about an hour all together before we finally found what we thought was the correct stop. In fact we were at the start of the French concession area, which was very interesting but ridiculously expensive. We were pretty hungry and despondent by now and ended up buying pizza like slices and cake for dinner, which we ate sitting on a park wall...oh well! We couldn't wait to get back and into our lovely, clean bed.

Frday 17th July
OK. So today we thought we'd head for the Yuyuan bazaar and garden, hoping to find some gifts before visiting the Shanghai museum in Peoples Square. In fact, by the time we got to Peoples square we were hot and bothered, so decided to do the museum first, partly to get some much needed air-con. Finding the right exit for the museum proved impossible and we ended up walking in the wrong direction through peoples park. Have to say that the Chinese parks are very tranquil places and had we not been sweating buckets, we'd have really enjoyed this walk. In the end after we'd stopped to look at a totally ineffectual map, an elderly Chinaman approached me and when I showed him on the map where we wanted to go he offered to take us there! Another examplle of how kind people have been. He did the usual thing of speeding up his walk at least 100%, and leaving us absolutely knackered, but in clear view of the museum. As we got close 2 young girls, fresh out of high school approached us and asked if we would take their photo. We obliged and they then offered to take one of us. They seemed to enjoy speaking English and kept us chatting for some time in the soaring temperatures. As we chatted they asked about our travels and asked where we were going. Brent told one of them and I spoke to the other. When we mentioned the museum they were both negative about it, even suggesting it would be closed. They then said they'd like us to go to a tea house with them instead of the museum. When we declined they became quite pushy and we felt quite deceived...both reckoning that they probably worked there and once again we'd been had! Oh well. We continued on our way and got into the queue to get into the museum. Here we spent a couple of hours. Have to say I'm now feeling mueumed out. Each one that we've seen has been very well organised in similarly shaped buildings: generally with a central atrium, with stairs and escalators leading up to the various floors of the museum. Galleries are arranged around the central area. In this museum we saw more of the same in terms of ceramics, but the jade collection was new to us and equally stunning: the jade cicadas were the first thing i spotted. They were intricately designed and found in excavated tombs, in the mouths of emperors! They dated from as long ago as 2000 BC. We were bowled over by some of the thumb rings also very ancient.

After the museum we should have returned to the hostel: it was boiling and neither of us felt particularly well.. but oh no! We were keen to see the Bund and on the map it looked a reasonable stroll down a pedestrianised shopping area. We could then walk along the Bund to the Yuyuan bazaar. In fact we did all of this, but it was a long way in the relentless heat and the area around the Bund is being reconstructed, which makes it hard to see the beauty of some of the builidings. We did get a feel for it though and finally reached the bazaar: this is bizarre..yes a bizarre bazaar! It's reconstructed pagoda like buildings which are basically commercial stalls, aimed at tourists. It was heaving and neither of us was up to it! We made a couple of enquiries and when the prices were high, headed for the garden, which was quite beautiful. We had a good rest in a sheltered pagoda before heading off to try and find the antique street.... uh uh! Hopeless map, no signs, meant we didn't manage this and we were just glad to spot an area we recognised and to get back onto the metro. We were exhaused. We slept for a good hour back at the hostel, forcing ourselves downstairs for a meal. We caught an Ok film about Alaska on TV before bedtime.

Saturday 18th July
We had a lie in today and decided to stay in our hostel's locality and hope to find some gifts here. It's quite a nice area and we bought a few bits and bobs...although still don't barter very effectively.
We stayed around the area and then headed out to the Nanjing Rd area later in the day. We walked to the wrong end of the street so ended up having a long walk to find the Portman Building which proved to be a part of a luxury hotel complex. This area was another one of those with the top designer label named shops and few people in them. We ended up eating in a restaurant that had been recommended by fellow travellers called Element Fresh. It proved to be delicious and not too expensive

We found a bar and managed to buy a beer. This was a buy one get one free deal and we felt quite smug when we ended up having a beer each for 15Y. The waiter then came up to us and indicated that the minimum order was 30Y. Yet another example of the subterfuge we were having to put up with all the time. We ordered two gin and tonics though at the cheaper price so felt quite good about it.

We booked tickets for the Acrobat show. What a spectacle this proved to be!! The starting act was the tossing of diablos by some beautiful women dressed in skin tight leotards. This was followed by a single woman act where she managed to hold 5 candelabras while balancing on one arm and still twist herself 360 degrees. The whole performance was quite mind blowing only interspersed with a sort of comedy knife throwing act.

We came away suitable impressed and ready for bed.

Sunday 19th July
We rose slowly realising that tomorrow we had our final journey. After showering we started to pack up our possessions. By now this was a well worn routine. We both knew where all our items were packed and would do the double check of all the valuable ones – camera, lap top, passports etc. It was quite a relief to know this would be the last time. Everything packed we set out on our day.
Our final day we spent looking around the French Concession area. After an abortive attempt where we ended up walking the wrong way down the road we eventually found the tree lined avenues which reminded us strongly of Paris. The houses where larger with some gated apartment style buildings behind large walls. As we walked along the streets were being pressure hosed down one man pushing a compressor along while the other directed his hose. In due course we came across a cafe slightly set back from the road. It immediately had the air of being European in character. As we entered the threshold we were blasted by the relief of an air conditioning unit. Inside it was clean. The clientele were all European and as we sat down we could hear the next table talking in French. The menu proved to have a good selection of baguettes – fantastic. When our order arrived we tucked in heartily. Delicious. The cravings of two weary travellers for a taste of home could not be surpassed. After relaxing and reading in this cool haven we were able to step outside again to face the heat of the day.
We wandered along the leafy avenues a little longer and had almost reached the Metro station when Linda tapped my shoulder to indicate another place to retreat. The sign read “ Oscars Bar. A celebratory drink was surely in order having reached our final day. Inside we were greeted by what could only be described as an English pub. It even had “ Speckled Hen “ available. To those of the uninitiated amongst you this is a delicious English beer. Home was clearly in sight. As we quaffed our drinks a stream of English speaking clientelle came through the door and were greeted by name by the bar staff. Clearly an ex-pat local.
We eventually shifted ourselves to make the final journey back to the hostel.
That evening we had spotted a Korean restaurant directly opposite our hostel. We decided to give it a try as it was so close and we needed the evening to pack up our belongings. It proved to be a good decision. The staff were very friendly with the head waitress giving us some pointers as to what to eat after Linda had said this was the first time in a Korean eatery.
The menu proved to be very reasonably priced with the beer being a quarter the price of that sold at the hostel. As we had found all through our travels in Asia – hostels bump up the prices to European levels. The food proved to be very tasty and a fitting final meal.
As you may have noticed most of our final day seemed to revolve around eating and drinking. This was mainly because we were definitely travel weary at this point It was good that we were truly looking forward to home.
We headed back to our room to find the only film on the English speaking channel was “ The Wizard of Oz” I definitely felt like the scarecrow!!

Monday 20th July.
This was our last day in China and also the final day of our travels. Linda and I both had the same feelings of anticipation and excitement at returning home. This was coupled with a deep and real tiredness. The last country had really tested our physical and mental stamina and we were hoping that our last journey to the airport would be trouble free. How wrong could we be!!
We had researched the connection with the airport. We knew it was a good 30km out of the city. We had found the location of the shuttle bus stop. We arrived at the bus at 6.10 am. The bus looked about ready to go and I put my rucksack in the open storage area. At this point the driver started pointing to his watch and we managed to ascertain he was asking when our flight left. Linda moved the hands of her watch to 9.20am. At this point he started to shake his head violently and gesticulated that we should remove our luggage. We were bemused and confused. Linda sought help from a group of young Chinese nearby. One of the girls in the party explained to us that the bus driver felt we would not make our connection. This seemed truly puzzling given the amount of time. It transpired though that these 3 friends were also going to the airport and suggested that all five of us should share a taxi. This seemed a good suggestion especially as she indicated it would only cost 25Y each – a price we assumed she had negotiated with the driver in a heated discussion we'd seen her having. We threw our bags into the back. Linda climbed in the back with the 2 friends, who were travelling to Wuhan, and I jumped in the front. The taxi driver pulled away and started to weave his way through the morning traffic. At first due to the weight of traffic the journey was slow. Linda made stilted conversation with the girl in the back. As we began to move onto the freeway though the taxi driver started to put his foot down. It was if he was trying to save money by getting there as fast as possible. The driving became more and more irresponsible as he started to zig zag his way along the road overtaking many of his fellow taxi drivers. Often braking sharply as he came up behind slower vehicles. At one point he came up behind what appeared to be a police car and hooted his horn!! The car duly moved over – most bizarre. In the front I could only avert my eyes and curse under my breath. Amazingly we arrived at the airport in one piece. The young chinese passengers dismounted at Terminal One and instantly asked if they could have a photo with me – a practice we had become used to now. We duly obliged. They paid their 25Y each and we jumped back in for the taxi driver to take us the short journey round to Terminal two. We pulled in jumped out of the cab removed our rucksacks from the boot and I handed over our 50Y to the taxi driver. His face then suddenly turned to a scowl and he shook his head handing it back and pointing to the meter. We in turn looked puzzled and then equally got angry – we had clearly been told 25Y each. It was at this point that Linda totally lost it and started shouting at the driver for his incompetent driving and taking risks with our lives. The driver was now asking for more money. it was either pay up, do a runner or keep arguing with him. In the end we opted for the line of least resistance and handed over a 100Y getting 15 change. The journey had cost us twice as much as we were expecting, Somewhere along the line we had been duped – whether it was by the taxi driver or the young chinese we would never know. The journey was still reasonable priced in comparison with home, but sadly it left a rather sour taste in our mouths. We were definitely ready for home!

The rest of our transition through the airport was fortunately hassle free. It was wih a great sense of relief that we taxied down the runway for our 12 hour flight to England.
Our journey back home took us across the Siberian wastelands, over Moscow and Northern Europe before landing back in England at 2.40pm. This translated to about 10pm at night on our body clocks. Surprisingly Linda and I both felt ok. We headed down to the underground to get to Covent Garden where we were meeting my sons, David and Simon. On arriving there we phoned them to say we were standing outside the “ Nags Head “. Davids reply “ We are inside “ lol. We spent a happy hour chatting and drinking a few pints of English ale – bliss. It had been a journey that had come full circle almost and it was lovely to see David and Simon again. David had originally seen us off many months ago on our first flight to California!
The final leg was our journey home. Simon was joining us for most of it before leaving the train in Leicester to stay with his mum for a while. We sat on the journey back enjoying the banter of a fellow group of passengers having a religious discussion. Eavesdropping was fun after having so many months in foreign lands. where we hadn't been able to understand surrounding conversations.
We arrived in Nottingham to be greeted by Linda's son Alec on the station platform. It was lovely to have finished our final leg this way. Alec helped us into the taxi saying he would see us tomorrow. We had decided not to head back to an empty house at night. Kindly Wendy and Dave had offered us a bed. We arrived to a warm welcome and enjoyed their kind hospitality. Again a wheel coming full circle; It was they who had seen us off on the European leg of our world trip. After a cup of tea we retired to a really comfortable and immaculately clean bed relieved that we had returned safely after our 11 month journey.

Big Update (We can't access our blog in China!)

2009-07-05T16:01:00.001+01:00

Monday 15th June:
This morning we managed to get our Visa applications in and were asked to collect them on Thursday. We then made our way back to the Museum of Art. An exhibition called Louis Vuitton, the Creative Years was on and was quite interesting. The building was quite lovely, with great views of the river from huge windows. After lunch we met Simon back in Mong Kok and explored this area. We visited a lovely cafe; we were wandering along a street, when Simon suddenly turned into what looked like a private entrance. We walked up to the first floor and there was a really comfy cafe with wifi and games. After a cuppa we visited the ladies market. We were going to move on to the night market, but the heavens opened so instead we went to a Japanese restaurant where Brent had his first sushi . Have to say it's not our favourite thing, but the place was very swish. We wandered along to a dessert restaurant afterwards, where we had delicious sweet treats.and dessert It was still raining hard so we headed back to Cosmo's, the local, for several beers, and more darts. We'd intended to have an early night, but after I'd won my first game of 701 ever Prudence called to say she was on her way with 2 girlfriends. Ended up a late night but lots of fun. Prudence,Beatrice and Florence have been friends since primary school and had a good laugh learning to play.

Tuesday 16th June:
We went to Lantau island for the day today. This involved a 40 mintute ferry ride followed by a 40 minute bus ride. This was all very enjoyable and we are very impressed with the transport system here in Hong Kong. We arrived at Tai O fishing village around 2pm and had lovely fresh shrimps for lunch. We then had a wander around this traditional village. We'd been later getting up than originally planned ( thanks to the late night darts!) and decided not to do the boat trip...there are apparently pink dolphins near here, but we reckoned the chances of seeing them were slim.... MISTAKE! When we got to the bus station to get the bus up to the monastery and big buddha we met 2 nice German lads, who'd taken the trip and seen the dolphins. We were a bit disappointed to have to miss this, but its one for the next trip eh? We did enjoy the Big Buddha though: it was pretty quiet when we got there, being late in the day. The area was set up for tourists though and they are currently developing it further, with construction work underway. We climbed the steps up to where the huge Buddha sits. Great views and lovely photo spots. Then we had a look at the monastery. We'd have liked to get the cable car down but unfortunately it was closed, so instead we got a bus then the MTR back down to the Central area. We were very proud of ourselves when we arrived at the Globe dead on time (7pm) ready to meet Simon and Fran, the friend from West Bridgford, who's been here for almost 10 years. When we entered the pub we were surprised when the barmaid remembered us and what we drank! Amazing! It was fun to see Fran: she hasn''t changed a bit and the 4 of us enjoyed Western food ( good pies) and a good chat. Later on we said goodbye to Simon and Fran took us to an interesting bar, where we met Ray, who'd had a late parent evening... with cocktails no less! The bar was very classy with a huge, circular bar and a corridor with private rooms... we weren't too sure what for! Ray and Fran talked to us about their lives in Hong Kong and their house in France and we told them all about our travels. They have a good life here and it made us think about the different scenario at home.

Wednesday 17th June:
This morning we decided to have a look at the park just across the road from our hotel. Kowloon Park was absolutely lovely: it had a tranquil atmosphere, with lots of walkways, green areas, sculptures and birds, including loads of pink flamingoes. We spotted a fantastic swimming pool with inside and outside areas. It looked very clean and was quite busy... something else for next time we reckon. Late morning we visited the Museum of History, which was another great building with interesting exhibits on the story of Hong Kong. We met up with Simon after school and wandered along the beautiful harbour front with the avenueof stars ( a bit like Hollywood, but not so tacky! It was a beautifull evening at the end of a very sunny day and the walk was gorgeous. We had a couple of beers on the front and then met Simon's NET friends and went to a popular local restaurant called Tung Po or Dai Pai Dong? This was previously a street cafe, but is now part of a complex that has a veggie market on one floor, a meat market on another and restaurants on the 3rd floor. It was quite a culture shock when we got up to it: huge round tables all full of locals enjoying their dinner and all chatting loudly. The noise was overwhelming until we acclimatised. Simon and his friends organised the food as we had no idea. In fact Simon had pre ordered some of the specials as they can run out. The food was excellent: amongst other dishes we enjoyed roast goose, special rice, huge crispy prawns, dumplings. Oh no... I can't remember what else... but there was absolutely loads of it and with the circular table with moving middle it was a really social way of eating. The food was served with the usual jasmine tea and we also ordered beer, which was served in bowls.

Thursday 18th June:
We collected our visas first thing today and then headed for the New Zealand Airways offices to change our flight home. This took longer than expected as we turned the wrong way out of the visa office and walked for a good half hour before realising, adding about an hour to the trip! Oh well, at least this doesn't happen often. We are now going home on 20th July, when our 30 day visa expires. We popped back to the hotel room before meeting Simon near to his school. We visited a lovely park with him called the Nam Lian gardens. This was superb, with a good collection of bonsai trees and beautiful water areas. Brent and I had a very nice vegetarian meal in the restaurant, which is behind a waterfall! Then we walked to the nearby Chi Lin Nunnery and the Wong Tai Sin Temple. Around 4pm we went to Simon's school and met some of his colleagues and had a look around the school. We were immediately made welcome by Henry, who brought us a very welcome cold drink. It's a real shame that the children are not in school this week due to the Swine flu epidemic, but it was still interesting to see the building. Its in a high rise block with different year groups on different floors. Henry, a teacher of English and Maths showed us round with Simon and pointed out a multimedia area , where children could produce their own films. We headed back to the staffroom where each teacher has a work space. Then it was time to move on to where we were going to join a group of staff at their weekly game of badminton. We took a minibus to Steve's apartment block. Steve teaches mandarin and lives in the most gorgeous building, with fantastic views, gym, swimming pools and badminton courts. We spent a very happy couple of hours and both really enjoyed playing. Brent, who played regularly for years until about a year ago, really loved it! He and Simon played together and he was impressed with how much Simon's improved. Afterwards we headed to the Chao Inn, where we met Corinna again and all enjoyed another fabulous meal. This restaurant has huge fish tanks at the entrance and after 9pm reduces it's prices. We were touched when the staff insisted on paying for our meals, which were really superb. What lovely people.

Friday 19th June:
Off on the MTR to see the Temple of 10,000 Buddhas: oh my goodness! It was boiling hot and very humid and their must have been 10000+ steps up to the temple. Each step had a Buddha on each side in different poses. It was almost tacky, but funny too. By the time we reached the top we were sweating profusely and ready for a cold drink. The actual temple was quite lovely, with the actual 10000 Buddhas in small alcoves in the walls of the temple. We headed back down the steps and had a look in the local shopping centre here in an in Sha Tin. Later on we met Simon and went up the funicular railway to the Peak. This was wonderful. We watched the sunset with the most fantastic views of HK. We then took the minibus down and went to a nice Mexican cafe in Soho. We ended up having a few beers in some of the fun bars in this area and before heading home Brent enjoyed a game of pool against a local player. Another lovely day.

Saturday 20th June – our last day in Hong Kong
We headed over to Mong Kok this morning and managed to get our last bits of shopping done ready for China. We even bought a few new clothes, which was nice and allowed us both to throw a few items out!! In the afternoon we were all a bit tired, so decided to go to see a film at one of the local cinemas. Clive Owen and Julia Roberts were on in the film 'Duplicity' which we thought might be good. It turned out to be very disappointing, but at least it was cool...maybe a bit too cool!! We headed back to Simon's place where we copied our photos and left them and some postcards with Simon for posting. Simon wasn't feeling too good and we decided to have a bit of a rest before deciding what to do later. In the end we went to a noodle bar for dinner and then had a few beers back at the flat. Dan's sister, Louise, had arrived from England and several friends joined us. They'd booked a karaoke room for after 11pm. Simon wasn't feeling up to that, but we went along and had a brilliant time. There were about 10 of us ushered into a small comfy square room, with seats all around the edge and a huge TV with karaoke at the front as well as a play station. Several mikes were passed around and everyone joined in the singing..not like anything at home. Great!

Sunday 21st June – off to China!
This morning we started to pack up our stuff and had a local cafe Coral breakfast. Then Simon came over. We finished our packing and went to Delifrance for a drink together before heading to the MTR and saying our goodbyes. We felt very sad to say goodbye to Simon, who'd been such a fantastic host. We got the train to Shenshen and had a couple of hours to spare before getting the onward night train to Guilin. We found a nice hotel / restaurant ( the cafe Berlin), where we shared a meal and enjoyed a drink before heading to Macdonalds, where we had burger and fries!! The train station was very well organised and about 30 minutes before the train left we were ushered down to the platform, along with hoards of Chinese people. We quickly found our sleeper and were delighted with it. There were 2 sets of bunks with bedding, lights and a flask of hot water...so we could enjoy our Malay tea! We awaited our fellow travellers, but no one came, so we had the whole compartment to ourselves...great! We both slept quite well and it was interesting to see the high rise blocks disappear and be replaced by green rice paddies and country villages. In the morning before we knew it (and before we were ready!) we arrived and in a mad rush left the train:. I left behind my sandalwood bangle... damn! As we came off the platform we were directed to a tourist office. Here an excellent English speaker talked us through the boat ride to Yangshuo and was also able to describe the other cruise we were thinking of doing: from chongquing down the Yangzi river. In the end we booked ourselves on the morning cruise leaving at 10am. Nick, a lovely guy from Seattle, whod been working in Shenzhen teaching in and International School, joined us, along with a Finnish couple. We were picked up and driven to the port. On the way the guide told us some of the background to the area and the different names for the Karst scenery we were about to see. Her English was difficult to understand at times and punctuated by mini tests to check whether we were listening. . have to say we were too tired to play the learning game here and left that to the others, who performed equally badly! We eventually arrived at a transit point where we were given little Panda stickers. We were told to take a seat in a large souvenir shop where it was clear we would be part of a bigger tour group sailing down the Li river. We eventually boarded our boat with about 50 other people and sat on seats that looked to have been taken from coaches and tables nailed to floor. We started the journey with a talk from the English guide, who described the various rock formations we would be seeing: the husband rock and the 9 horses amongst them. We soon got to know an American couple who were sitting next to us. He ran a t-shirt on-line business, whilst she was a Romanian emigrant who had lived in Hungary before the US. She had several degrees and was currently teaching French, would you believe... so we had a lot to talk about. In the end, after he'd made several racist comments, we realised that we had very little in common, but nevertheless, meeting them was interesting.

We got off the boat in Yangshuo and left them to their afternoon tour, whilst we wondered down West Steet, stopping at the global cafe to get our thoughts together on accommodation. Once again we struck lucky! Whilst Brent had left for the bank, I struck up a conversation with the waitress, who was really helpful. I mentioned Bamboo Guest House as somewhere we might stay. The couple next to s then mentioned that they were staying at the one down the road that had just been opened and it was very clean and cost 100Y (about £9) We went to look and the room was not only spacious with a good bathroom but also very clean. We booked in for a couple of nights, which in the end turned into 4 nights.

Monday 22nd June
Today we needed to chill, so did! We wandered back around the town taking photos and soaking up the atmosphere: West street is just one tiny part of the town and is very geared up for tourists, with lots of bars and restaurantss. Past this street the town is actually quite large, with commercial areas as well as a lovely and very well used park, which we really enjoyed. It was interesting to see lots of older people sitting at stone tables playing cards and various other games. In the evening we found a nice bar, selling good beer and food...all very reasonable. ( we think it was called the Karst bar, and it advertised climbing trips). It was nice not to feel pressured to do anything and we enjoyed relaxing with our books.

Tuesday 23rd June
We wandered out and about this morning and climbed a steep path to get a birds eye view of the town. This wasn't far but it was very humid and we were quickly drenched in sweat! We thought about going to Moon Hill, a nearby attraction. A younger couple in the hotel had climbed this the day before after cycling there...but we decided against: a/ it was just too hot and b/ I wasn't confident about the main road which we'd have to face at the start of the ride. Brent thought about going along, but the heat put him off too. Shame really, especially as there's also a fun cave near there where you can slide in mud and in natural hot pools.. Still we enjoyed our wander and the home made lemonade back at the hotel. Tonight we headed off to see the show which we'd booked through the hotel.. it was directed by the guy who directed the opening ceremony of the Beijing olympics and turned out to be a real treat: A huge open air theatre was set up in front of the most majestic view of the river surrounded by the limestone karst ( small, but impressive mountains). A cast of hundreds then performed, mostly from boats on the river. The lighting was incredible and the background mountains changed from blue, to green and red... quite beautiful. We bought the video we were so impressed...( and it was dead cheap!)

Wednesday 24th June
Today we'd booked to do a kayak trip nearby. The day began when Mark, who was our guide, asked if we would mind using motorbikes, rather than a taxi, to get to the venue. At first we thought he meant us each to ride a bike, but we then realised he meant us to ride pillion. I went with Mark and really enjoyed the ride, through the local countryside. We got a real insight into local life driving down narrow, picturesque lanes and later rocky paths. We saw locals working in the paddy fields and I was impressed by the many fields of vegetables. After about half an hour Mark began to get calls on his mobile, which turned out to be more folk interested in kayaking. Each call took a bit of time and Brent was just starting to worry by the time we arrived. Have to say we both realised how blasé we've become about taking risks.. it was only whe Mark stopped his bike in the middle of nowhere that I thought...what if Brent's not here? I could be anywhere!! En route with Mark we'd had an interesting chat about having children: he'd explained that he had one young son and that he felt very stressed by being a father. I think he was also concerned about the risk of having more children. He asked how I'd felt when I had my first child and when I said happy, he said that he too felt happiness, but also worry. Hard work for him to make enough money for his little family...made me think and realise how lucky I'd been.

Anyway we alll met up fine and wandered down to the river where we decided on a double kayak. Mark then left us with a guy who spoke no English, but who would follow us downstream on his bamboo raft...fishing at the same time! Any problems and he'd phone Mark. Have to say there was no safety check, capsize drill or anything. We were given a couple of old life jackets, heavy wooden paddles, and left to it. We both expected to see Mark later, but no...he'd gone off presumably to meet his new group! Despite all that we really enjoyed the paddle along the river. It was good to get bit of exercise and there were some good views. We stopped around 11.30 at a stilted cafe for lunch and this proved another interesting experience as moored right next to us was a bamboo raft. As we arrived we noticed that a very attractive young woman appeared to be having her hair cut on the raft...was it a floating hairdresser's salon? As we ate our lunch, which was very good, we watched as the hairdresser fitted a wig, in a bob stlye over the girl's long hair. We soon realised that a young man was taking photographs of her with the different hair styles. It turned out she was modelling for a fashion magazine! As we continued to enjoy our meal 2 fellow paddlers appeared upstream and we watched as they moored up beside us. They joined us for lunch and it turned out one was an American, working in London. Apparently everywhere he went in
China he was being mistaken for a famous basket ball player. He was a lovely guy...very fit and with a great laugh. His fellow padddler was from Argentina. They were both really nice. We all enjoyed the bizzare entertainment of the hairdresser working away on the fashion model, whilst right next to them a local fisherman stopped to gut his fish! Before continuing downstream Brent and I had a quick walk in the village. It seemed very old and we spotted a huge poster of Mao on the wall of a house we passed. We continued our journey until our 'guide' pointed to a bridge,where we had to stop. As we wandered off up the road, expecting to see Mark at any moment, we spotted our fellow paddlers, just arriving. The fit american yelled how he'd been really trying to catch us and was impresssed with our speed! Cool! We followed our leader through a very inteThe huge open fronted buildings included regular shops like a pharmacy and supermarket. Very interesting. We spotted an old banger of a bus at one side of the road and our hearts sank as we were ushered into it: it was empty with no sign of a driver. Oh well, clearly we weren't going to see Mark again. We sat patiently hoping a driver would appear. After 10 minutes or so our fellow paddlers appeared, along with their guide and all got into the bus. it turned out that the american was supposed to get a bus from yangshao to Guilin at 3pm and was then due to fly back to London around 5pm! We sat waiting for the bus driver to arrive and making jokes about the dire straits he found himself in. We'll never know if he made it, but it was certainly doubtful. That evening we wandered around West Street and enjoyed a meal in a different bar. It was interesting to watch a large mixed race group at a nearby table. We guessed that some Australian teachers were saying goodbye to their chinese colleagues... pure speculation, but they were all very fond of each other.

Thursday 25th June
We took time to pack our things in the morning knowing that the local buses ran quite regularly. This has become an automatic process now. We have two bags each and sort of know what goes in each. Downstairs we had breakfast to the accompaniment of some old classic favourites being searched on the internet by a British guy about our age. Songs like Moon River and Artists like Andy Williams came and went. This made a sort of surreal atmosphere to our last meal there. Having collected our bags we walked up to the bus station and fell upon it by luck rather than judgement. ( My sense of direction has been letting me down of late and I certainly hadnt got to grips with this small area of Yangshou ) As we approached the bus area a young lad immediately jumped out and said ' bus to Guilin ' as if reading our minds. The next question is always ' how much ? ' We knew it should have been in region of 55Y so when he said 105Y we carried on to next bus. The next minute he is pulling out 15Y and showing us. A bargain – we must have haggled local fare.
The ride to Guilin was scary to say the least. Linda seems to have become immune to this sort of driving and just told me to relax and watch the Kung Fu film that was showing. I struggled to take my eyes off the road as the driver would overtake oblivious of the fact that cars where coming straight at him. He seemed to be playing a constant game of chicken and luckily nobody challenged him prefering to veer onto the area reserved for bikes and scooters instead.
As luck would have it we entered Guilin on the same road as the station so we were able to cross and make enquiries regarding our overnight sleeper. Through a series of mime acts we were able to show the information guy what we wanted. Luckily we had written down the number of the train so he wrote down the rest in Chinese. I found an ATM while Linda looked after the bags. Then it was trying to buy the ticket. Trains are very popular in China and the queues at all the counters were large. I stood behind one of about 10 that were open hoping that i didnt have to be in a specific one for tickets to Chongqing. The line gradually got shorter until there were only 4 people left at which point the woman selling the tickets looked above her pointed to some times in blue ( which must have been her hours of work ) and closed her curtain. I together with the other people waiting joined the ends of other queues – grrrrrrrr. Much gnashing of teeth as again I joined the queue where two young guys seemed to be having a long debate with the ticketeer while everbody behind got irritated. Time was passing quickly and I was aware of the need to hurry as our train would be leaving in 30 mins. When I eventually arrived at the head of the queue I had the problem of explaining where we wanted to go. Even showing him the written Chinese did not fully solve the problem as he seemed puzzled that I wanted two tickets. Fortunately a lad close by had better English and managed to explain to him my needs. Sorted – rushed back to Linda, got bag through scanner went to waiting room. Would you believe it...the train was delayed. Murphys Law.

On eventually boarding the train we found we had bought tickets for the hard sleeper. This means you are in an open corridor carriage where 6 beds are together set in tiers of 3. We had been told of this so it wasn't that much of a shock that it had happened given the price we were charged and the language problem.
Two young girls occupied the lower tiers so Linda and I got into the second tier which meant a scramble up a ladder. Fortunately there was some room to stack our luggage. We had become good by now at passing the time so the long 20 hour journey wasn't too daunting.

Lin here: As we hadn't had time to shop for food when we got hungry we ventured to the buffet car... what a laugh! The staff there were highly amused by our efforts to get food we recognised and when we pointed to the mandarin for egg, in our phrase book the waiter mimed a chicken laying an egg.. very funny. In the end the egg fried rice and chicken we ordered were quite nice...a lot better than British Rail food!

Managed to sleep on and off and both noticed that one of the girls below us slept the whole way. When we'd arrived on board she''s been in the middle of a romantic goodbye with her boyfriend. She obviously needed to catch up on her sleep!

Friday 26th June
The morning dawned with that vague sense of insecurity. Were we at the right station? How would we progress from here with no language and no English signage. In China we definitely felt like foreigners in a foreign land. We exited the station onto a huge square with people going about their business everywhere. We clearly looked lost as we consulted our inadequate map to get our bearings because it wasn't long before a kindly voice asked if we needed help. On looking around we saw a jovial bespectacled man who clearly had good English. On explaining our situation he pointed out that we were not in the middle of the city and would need to catch a bus there which would cost 1Y. He proceeded to lead us to the bus stop and to our surprise also got on the bus too. He introduced himself as ' Jimmy ' and he was heading to work in the town centre. He asked what our plans were and when we mentioned getting a boat down the Yangtze he announced that he worked for one of the cruise companies Was this more than coincidence we wondered. Linda and I had similar thoughts as the bus took us to the city centre. Did he just wait around the station in order to get business from foreigners arriving at the station. We were too relieved to worry about it long term and even after our time in Chongqing we felt the same. When our bus arrived Jimmy took us directly to a hotel the'd recommended, aware of our budget. It had reasonable prices and we were soon booked us in. At this point we thought Jimmy may leave us to it, but no, he helped with our bags up to the room and then said he would wait in the lobby so we could accompany him to his office. Our suspicions of him being a tout increased but we realised that without him we would really have struggled. We went along with him to his office, taking a short cut from the hotel. Jimmy asked what we were looking for and we said we couldn't afford the luxury cruise, so settled for the domestic one Jimmy said he could get us a good price in a first class cabin, with private bathroom. We were only able to put down a deposit as cash was low at this point, but this was fine with Jimmy. He talked us throught the daily schedule of trips from the boat but we were too tired to make decisions. Jimmy said we could decide tomorrow, when we would also pay the balance of the trip. He then showed us the way to a shopping area with a Starbucks and Subway. At thie point he seemed to be attaching himself to us and got as far as crossing the road with us. We then explained that we would enjoy exploring the city on our own, and thankfully he didn't take offense, but left us to it.

We headed off in the direction he had suggested for some sustenance. We came across a sort of mock medieval frontage of building climbing up the steep riverside which cunningly disguised a modern shopping centre. It wasnt long before Linda and I were thouroughly lost inside this labyrinth. After a good half an hour wandering around we finally found Subway on the street level together with a rather tacky mock pirates galleon. Our desire to be in this western chain of eateries needs some explanation as: normally we would steer well clear of them. At this stage in our travels though we needed to have some western food. We were tired both from the length of our journey and from having to constantly work out directions and language. Anywhere that has the air of the familiar becomes a little oasis. So it was with great relief that we ordered a sandwich and a cold drink.

It had been very difficult in the intense heat to make decisions about where to go in this huge city of 32 million people. We ended up just trying to take care of the practicalities like getting more money. The street maps of this huge city were also next to useless as they were so small I needed a magnifying glass to see them. Life was definitely not easy here.
On leaving the restaurant we were amazed to bump into Jimmy again made us wonder if he was touting for our business. In the end after he'd given us some ideas for places to visit, we decided our bumping into him was probably a coincidence..but we were never sure! We were definitely too tired to take up his suggesions, which involved bus rides and In the end we went back to the hotel to recover and take refuge from the heat. Later on we ventured out and found our way to Liberation Square. This was the pedestrianised centre of the shopping district and once more we were struck by the number of expensive shops and designers labels. Who buys them?

In our pursuit to find inexpensive food we happened across a Chinese equivalent of MacDonalds. The food was all displayed on boards at the back all numbered. We ventured to the front of the queue only for the serving girl to pull out an English style menu for us to order. The food came in double fast time and proved to be healthy and nutritious. The only blemish on this experience was the huge row that broke out between two women sat in the restaurant who started having a slanging match that looked like it would head to blows. We departed stage left as all eyes were turned on them.
After the meal we headed back to the hotel for an early night.

Saturday 27th June
Today we planned to get up for breakfast as it was included in the price but alas ended up sleeping too long. We ended up going to Starbucks in Liberation Square and ate something sweet with a latte. This was like all other branches of this franchise inside but the huge space was totally deserted. Led to us wondering whether these are being positioned for the future as there was no way it could be making a profit. Money needed to be paid for the cruise so we tried to find the office we had been taken to the previous day. This again was difficult as we had been led there by Jimmy. Eventually found it and asked to pay the remainder of the money and they said they would ring Jimmy. He promptly arrived and tried to persuade us to join some of those tours from the boat. We'd already talked about this and decided to do just one: the little 3 gorges. Jimmy was'nt too happy about this and said we could change our minds later on when we'd thought about it some more.

A leisurely Subway sandwich was had for lunch. Again the chain was occupied by many people from the west. It was difficult not to eavesdrop on a conversation between some neigbbouring diners: 2 Australian women, who ran a restaurant business here in Chongqing were chatting with some Americans. The older of the 2 Austalians did most of the talking explaining how she enjoyed the city and had been unable to cope back in Oz! Linda overheard the American couple saying they were taking the cruise down the Yangtze. On the way out she said ' May see you later ' I didnt think this would be the case as we had taken the cheap option. I said this to Linda and she agreed that it was unlikely.

From the restaurant we decided to search out the 'Three Gorges Museum,'one of the attractions recommended by Jimmy. (The other was an ancient town a bit further afield). The bus we had been told to take was the 261 but after one had passed us we went in search of the bus stop. Not one in sight. We were looking helplessly at the map when an old but sprightly gentleman asked if we needed help. On explaining our situation he simply said ' follow me' and proceeded to take us to the museum. This was quite remarkable as it involved a trip on the MRT and a lengthy walk in which we were trying to match his pace. On arrival at the museum we thanked him profusely and shook his hand. He said goodbye and left. We wondered if that would ever happen in England..... have to say we'd both wondered if he'd prove to be a tout..but this clearly wasn't the case... how amazing.
The museum was an incredible modern building half glass and half limestone built around an atrium with exhibition floors running off this central area. It was truly inspiring. We looked around the exhibits one of which explained the Three Gorges. Although there was some English explanation at the start of the galleries most of the displays had none which made it difficult. It was well designed though with some fantastic statue sculptors of people like Mao and Sun Yat Sen. After the museum we went across the square to look at a fantastic building which looked like a Chinese version of the Albert Hall and turned out to be the People's Hall. The bizarre thing about this was it had huge plastic soft drinks bottles outside advertising something like Sprite. We paid to go in and found them setting up some sort of concert obviously sponsored by the drinks company. China has these strange contradictions going on as capitalism takes hold.
We returned to the hotel via the MRT and had a good meal in the restaurant opposite our hotel. We were welcomed into the place by a row of attractive girls who were really lovely. We'd got caught in a bit of a rainstorm, so it was good to dry out. The staff were extremely attentive: each time we took a sip of water they would top up the glass!(this did get a bit wearing actually and was often the case). The rucksacks had been left behind at reception so we picked them up and headed down to the office where we had done the deal with Jimmy. I was still feeling a little sceptical about the tickets being there on time in fact Linda bet me he would and lo and behold but our friend appeared dead on time. He helped us on board and showed us our accommodation for the next 3 days. At a cursory glance it seemed ok. Own bathroom, large window, twin beds. After we had said our goodbyes to Jimmy we heard a knock on the door. The Chinese woman standing there was pretty, aged about 25, and introduced herself as Helen, our English speaking guide for the duration of the trip. She explained what would be happening and issued us with our ticket to the top deck which was an additional 50Y each. As soon as she left the cabin a waiter came rushing in and ushered us down the corridor. At first we were puzzled but soon realised that he was offereing us an upgrade: the room he showed us was quite a bit bigger, with an enormous TV, but otherwise the facilities seemed the same. When we declined his invitation to move he dropped his price, but we still chose to stay put. Back in our cabin he proceeded to show us the light switches etc which we'd already found and then asked for a tip. He was very unhappy when we refused. After this we decided to explore and went up to the sun deck. As we began to leave the room a second waiter barged past us, locking the door behind him! He also proceeded to show us light switches etc before we showed him the door. This was actually very disturbing and left us feeling very unsettled when we should have been relaxing into our 'cruise@. By now it was dark and tup on deck he lights of the city were quite special. Opposite us there was an outside screen positioned on the side of the Arts building. It was showing scenes from under the ocean and took us back to our diving experience. We were quite surprised and pleasantly so to spot the Americans we had met in Subway. Sam and Pat were part of a trip for art teachers interested in ceramics and we got quite friendly with them during the 'cruise'. We discussed our first impressions of the boat: as seasoned travellers we hadn't expected great things, but some of their group were shocked by the dismal state of the boat... stained carpets and smoky walls dominated the open areas and the bathrooms were pretty disgusting: the pipes from the sink were loose, so whenever you used the sink it leaked. Even when water landed in the channel below this was absolutely filthy! Sam and Pat, who were a bit older than us seemed to be coping ok and we took an immediate shine to them. After some time the boat began to pull away from the quay and we were on our way down the Yangtze! We had a quick look in the bar/lounge area, where karaoke had already started. Here there was a good sized dance floor, but we decided to leave this for another night and headed to bed for and early night.

Sunday 28th June
Sleeping on the boat proved to be a strange experience. It vibrated and throbbed very loudly. Cups were rattling on the bedside table but more disturbing was the noise coming from a panel on the ceiling near the door. I took off the panel and stuffed some toilet paper in there to try and dull the sound. Success at least for a short while. At least the room had little lights by the bed so we could read. We reversed our position in the bed to compensate for the slope and soon dropped off.
Dawn broke and we got our first look at this huge river. It was a swirling mass of milk chocolate coulored water. Not the sort you would ever want to swim in. The river was very wide and we were constantly passed by boats fully loaded with all sorts of cargo ranging from coal to new vans.
The first stop was to visit a place called Ghost City. We'd booked onto this with Helen... although we think it cost more than Jimmy had quoted!! This was a series of temples set high up on a hill. Our guide Helen introduced us to another Chinese woman called Carla who had better English. She was living in Texas and was over with her family visiting her parents who were from Shanghai. We left the boat with them and headed up many steps on the bank of the river. This was to be the pattern all the way along as much of the basin had been flooded with the construction of the dam. Whole cities had been moved uphill..quite amazing. At the top of the steps we were greeted by the ubiquitous hawkers who always assumed we wanted beer first and water second. The day was very hot and it wasnt long before I was ringing wet with sweat.
We boarded some little electric cars to take us to the start of the temple ( an extra 10Y ) The initial impression of the entrance to the ghost city was very spooky with some impressive scary gates adorned by carved demons. We walked through a small street in which there were some derelict buildings and stalls selling halloween type masks. We then ascended lots of steps. At the top of the steps we entered ghost street: a wide pedestrian area with grotesque bronze statues on each side. At the far end of the street there was a huge open mouth of a demon which signified the entry into hell. We then approached the walls of the temple where we paid another 10Y to go into what could only be described as a chamber of horrors. This involved walking through semi-lit corridors filled with all sorts of scenes of horror. These were depicted by Papier Mache figures some of them automated. The type of scenes were of people being dismembered in all sorts of ways. It was all very kitsch. took me back to my childhood at the Blackpool Pleasure Beach. This was further confirmed when we payed an extra 5Y to carry on down a tunnel only to be confronted by a very makeshift ghost train. The little trolley we sat on took us in a 100 metre circle where we were brushed by various dusty items and dimly lit figures. By this time we had got quite hysterical with laughter. The tunnels continued for what seemed like miles and we made many jokes about being stuck in hell...actually we were almost on our own in the tunnels and were beginning to wonder if we'd ever catch up with the rest of the group!! When we finally got out of 'hell' noboddy else was in sight! We decided they must have continued up the hlll to another temple and proceeded to look for a way up. Nothing was obvious but Brent spotted some steps which we followes. They were in disrepair, but lead in the right direction and brought us out at a temple full of Buddhas, reminiscent of the 100000 Buddhas in Hong Kong! After a look around we began to get anxious: we hadn't seen any other members of our group and didn't want to imiss the boat... finding our way down was a challenge but we eventually got onto the main drag down and in the end made it back in plenty of time. When Carla came on board she asked where we got to and we reckoned that they'd been to one of the other temples at the top of the hilll via a cable car.

As the day wore on we got chatting to the US group and to 2 German lads: Philip is a lawyer specialising in Mariner affairs. He's been living in Shanghai for 2 years and is quite charming and very bright. He loves the chaos of China. Back in January he met the other lad, who is much more typically German and clearly unhappy with the 'cruise'. Philip made it clear that most of the time the two of them don't get on well. Have to say, although charmed by Philip I could completely understand how the other lad felt! The rest of the day passed uneventfully and in the evening we reached our next port of call. Helen hadn't recommended this to us, so we just got off for a walk up to the gate of the temple passing rows of hawkers selling a wide range of antiques mixed with trashy items. Back on the boat we had a quite evening: we'd planned to join the americans on the karaoke ( they'd had a fun time the previous night and we'd regretted not staying up. However after dinner when we headed for the bar the Americans had not appeared. We listened to the karaoke for a while but soon realised we couldn't cope with some of the 'artistes' so retired to our room, where we put out music on the laptop and updated some of this blog.

Monday 29th June
This morning there was an early trip out to visit a nearby town ( we think). We'd told Helen that we needed a lie in, so she didn't wake us up. however we had a very unsettled night as at 3.30 am the ship sounded it's horn several times, very loudly, then at 7am a cleaner came rapping at the door wanting to 'clean' the room. After that the phone rang taround 8.30oo...all very annoying. So much for a lie in! The call was from Helen or Carla suggesting that we get on deck early to see the first of the gorges. Around 9am we were up on deck enjoying the views of the gorges. It was pretty grey and rainy, but the views were still quite impressive. After lunch we left with other passengers for our visit to the little gorges. We met up with Sam and Pat who said that the previous evening's temple visit hadnt been very interesting. We realised that Helen had given us some good advice – they'd missed Ghost city, which had been quite interesting. Anyway we all headed onto smaller ferries, which took us on a commentated trip down the little gorges: these were quite a bit narrower than those we'd seen from the big boat. We couldn't believe the commentary: a young woman began to speak through a microphone as soon as we were aboard, and honestly didn't stop for breath for the whole trip, which must have lasted a couple of hours. When we reached a narrower part of the river we transferred to smaller vessels: these were wooden rafts with bamboo curved to provide a covered roof ( see pictures). They had small motors on the back, which allowed the guide to deliver his commentary from the front. Dressed in the traditional hat his delivery included some lovely singing and story telling. Before reboarding the ferry several visitors had their photos taken in the hat and a straw cloak.

This was our last night on board and I have to say we couldn't wait to leave the boat! We decided to enjoy the evening with the other English speakers and took our card game ( Quidldler) down to the bar, where some of them were already playing a drinking game of cards. We were pleasantly surprised when the entertainment began and it wasn't karaoke! Instead a compere set up musical chairs and a dice game, which the chinese were delighted with. Have to say we couldn't believe how easily pleased they were – there was much raucous laughter and it was a pleasure to see folk enjoying simple fun. Then some music came on and it was Western! We were in the midst of our game, but some of the younger Americans got up to dance. Much clapping followed and a bit of a dance contest ensued. Brent and I decided we'd have a dance too, but after we came back from the loo everyone disappeared along with the music!!! all very weird and disappointing. Oh well at least we only had one night left before leaving the ship!!

Tuesday 30th June
We got up quite early to do our packing, having decided against this morning's boat trip, which left at 6am. We'd been grateful to helen, who'd organised the next stage of our trip from the boat: we would join the visit to the 3 gorges dam ( the largest in the world and very controvertial) and then get the bus into Yishang, where we would transfer to another bus to Wuhan, where Helen had booked us into a hotel...again reasonable priced. The details of all of this seemed very complicated with us having to find a Mr Li and a Mr Hu in order to collect tickets.... We were getting used to this now though.

Everyone seemed booked on the dam trip but we were in with Carla and her family, whilst the other English speakers were all together. The dam was interesting and a real leffort has been made to beautify the surroundings, with viewpoints and gardens with sculptures. There were 3 stops with short bus journeys in between and by the end of the visit I think we were both shattered... I know I was (Lin). We spotted Sam and Pat and managed to exchange email details before heading off on the journey to Wuhan. This all went very smoothly...thanks to Helen, although the bus journey to wuhan was bizarre: before we left there was a lot of shouting going on and we realised that the bus had been overbooked. It took an age to get this sorted and everyone applauded when we finally left. We couldn't believe it when 5 minutes later we stopped for at least 10 minutes in a bizarre cafe, where the toiilet doesn't bear describing! Have to say by now I'd lost the will to live! The seats were incredible close together and lots of people were coughing and spluttering. What with that and the state of the public toiltes I'd had enough! When we finally got to Wuhan we couldn't believe our luck. As everyone got off the bus a lady held up a list with our names on... turned out we were right outside our hotel...thank god! Philip said : Are you staying here?' in a very surprised voice. The hotel did look very smart and I replied that I thought not as ours was a 2 star place. In fact the smart exterior hid a second building out the back, where the 2 star accommodation was found. Once again this entailed going through a labyrinthe of corridors and a conference hall, but we managed ok. The room itself was fine...clean and with a clean bathroom. That evening we ventured out and were very surprised by Wuhan: just around the corner on a parallel road there was a stream of bars and discos and a bit further along an amazing riverside area, with vast walkways and open areas. On the way into the town we'd seen huge groups of people exercising and this would be another area for that. We stopped at a bar on the way back where the manager had good English. We enjoyed a lager and some popcorn and he invited us to try the local tea, which was quite nice. A nice welcome to Wuhan.

Hong Kong and Simon

2009-06-20T02:45:00.000+01:00

Friday 12th June
We set off knowing that we could get to the airport using the MRT having done the journey several weeks previously. On arrival at the airport we checked our bags in early. Surprisingly for a huge city there were few people around. We went through security this time with few problems. The flight was longer than anticipated and had some of the luxuries being Singapore Airlines. I almost got to watch all of the Watchmen but unfortunately found we were landing before I could view the last ten minutes. Simon greeted us on arrival and presented us with a welcome badge, octopus card, and a mobile phone – what a star. This was the first time for a long while that we had been able to switch off a little from decision making and his welcome was so appreciated. On the way into Hong Kong he pointed out some of the sights. It was like having our own tour guide! We found our way easily to Mirador Mansions where we were staying. This proved to be a rabbit warren filled with all sorts of private enterprise and also in the middle of massive renovation with bamboo scaffolding covering all the outside and the inside quadrangle. We made our way up to the check in area, then found our room. This proved to be a small suite of rooms seperated by a corridor. Our room proved to be clean and airconditioned – which by now is all we need. We dropped off our bags and headed straight out with Simon for something to eat. He took us to a cafe near where he lives in Mong Kok: he was known there and we were absolutely gob-smacked when he ordered for us in Cantonese! We enjoyed this first meal in Hong Kong: we had traditional food, including lovely broccoli with beef. Afterwards we went to see Simon's flat, which has a very comfy sitting room, with large flat-screen TV. We met Tim, one of his flat-mates and then had a quick wander around the area ending up in their local where we were introduced to Karen, who seemed in charge. We settled into a quiet corner and ordered a bucket of Carlsburg ( this was actually 6 bottles in a bucket). There was a young woman promoting the beer and after at least 2 buckets Brent was delighted to get a free Carlsburg pen. Simon suggested a game of darts and we had a go on the electronic board. We also played a dice game. Simon explained that most pubs have board games, which local enjoy. Later on Daniel, Simon's other flat- mate, joined us and we had a fun time playing darts. We left the two of them in the pub and got into taxi..

Saturday 13th June
Next morning Simon met us outside our building and took us just up the road to another mall, where we had our first, fantastic dim sum. The restaurant was fabulous: it was very busy with lots of locals sitting around huge round tables enjoying their Saturday brunch. We certainly enjoyed ours, with the crispy prawns and custard dumpliings high on the list of favourites. We then spent a very happy afternoon mooching around the antique shops on Hollywood Road on HK island. To get there we took the Star Ferry across to the island then used the MTR system. All very efficient and unbelievably clean. Somewhere en route we picked up a delicious yoghurt drink. We were very impressed by the ancient statues in one of the exclusive shops that we went in. They were hundreds of years old but had been renovated so were in pristine condition. The carvings were stunningly beautiful. It was very hot and humid so Simon introduced us to another of his favourite pubs: the Globe. Here we enjoyed Marston's Pedigree and Leffe dark beer. Brent and I had a game of back gammon before we headed to Hong Kong park, where we enjoyed the aviary before going back to our hotel for a rest and shower ready to head out and meet Prudence and her mum and dad. We ate in a Sichuan restaurant, where the food was hot and spicy. Christine and John ( Prudence's parents) went home after the drink, while we carried on to the Bulldog bar in Lan Kwai Fong. There we had towers of ale and met some of simons friends.

Sunday 14th June
We started the day again with some Dim Sum – yummy. Simon then took us via MTR and local bus to one of the many treks in Hong Kong. This came as a bit of a surprise to us both. We didnt realise that there were many walks. The walk known as the Dragon's Back headed steeply up the hill sometimes using paths sometimes steps. The heat was intense and we were all soon working up a sweat. We set a slow but steady pace and were rewarded by some stunning views across the bays below. After a couple of hours we finished our walk at Big Wave Beach.It was lovely to see local families enjoying the sand and sea. We sat down to enjoy a cold drink and some food. Linda and I took the opportunity to go for a paddle. When we felt suitably refreshed we headed back to the city using one of the small buses. These fairly zip around the island carrying about 10 people. We ended up at Mong Kok where we ate Thai food, then used Simon's internet before heading home in a violent thunderstorm.

Goodbye to the islands and on to Singapore

2009-06-16T03:17:00.002+01:00

Sunday 7th June
Today we took the water taxi to the small island. This is far more commercial and we were interested to see whether it would be any better as a place to stay. We arrived on the jetty on long beach. The hotels and restaraunts started immediately and we soon spotted the dive school Quiver that we had e-mailed but to no effect ie no reply. It didnt look as impressive as the one we had chosen. We wandered along the beach which had very little shade and had us soon scurrying for somewhere to get a cold drink in one of the bars bordering the beach. By coincidence this also turned out to be one of the ones that we had tried to contact and again had been full. The chalets looked comparable to the ones we were staying in. The beach though was very hot so we searched for the path over to the other side of the island. We struggled to find it so asked two English women sitting at a table nearby. They had not been here long so couldnt help. In the course of their conversation though they bemoaned the fact that the electricity was turned off in the early hours of the morning and didnt come on till 7pm in the evening. This confirmed for us that the decision we had made to stay at Bubbles had been the correct one.
We eventually found the path which was bordered by lots of rubbish and building. The other side of the island was cooler with some more shade. Coral Bay as it was known was the area that all the boats came into from the mainland so the government had built a huge jetty which somewhat marred the view. We spent the afternoon relaxing in the sun and taking an occasional dip in the sea. By the time 4.00pm arrived we were ready to go back to our island. We sought one of the many water taxis and a young lad drove us back to the resort. After dinner we wandered down to look at the full moon reflecting in the water: very beautiful. April came over to say that a turtle was already preparing her nest if we would like to see...Wow, once again we had struck lucky. We were able to get quite a good view of a huge green turtle preparing to lay it's eggs: this is very hard work. She uses her fins to scoop out a deep chamber. This took over an hour and she seemed oblivious to the gathered onlookers. We were very impressed by the children who came to look: they were still and quiet and completely absorbed in watching. Suddenly we heard the sound of a boat and shortly spotted several men from the fisheries, who'd come looking for turtle eggs. This is part of the government's conservation project and is quite hard to watch. No sooner had our awesome turtle laid her eggs than one of the men knelt down and with his whole arm buried in the sand scooped out her eggs. One of the young volunteers was very upset and really lost it when one of the newly arrived tourists, who'd missed April's talk, used his flash to take a photo. Throughout the whole fiasco the turtle continued to work hard to cover the eggs she thought were still there. This took another hour or more and we were privileged to be close enough to hear her laboured breathing in between her work.

Monday 8th June
Our last day on the island was a quiet day of reading and lazing about, giving our feet a chance to recover from the damage done to them by the fins we wore when diving. Our last meal was a bit disappointing and we felt ready to leave the next day.

Tuesday 9th June
We did not leave the island until 4.00am so had plenty of time to pack our belongings and say our fond farewells. It seemed that everyone was genuinely sorry to see us go. Our dive instructors and the family who owned the business all stood on the beach to wave us away.
The little resort boat took us to the edge of the island where we made a mid water crossing to the larger fast boat that sped us to the mainland. The driver was a bit of a maverick though trying to race boats and speeding into the harbour entrance at a ridiculous pace. We were relieved to get off safely. On disembarking we were told by the taxi driver who met us that they had been unable to get tickets for the overnght bus BUT fortuneately had tickets for the sleeper train. This involved an hours journey to link up with it. luckily we had lots of time before its departure at 9.00pm and found a cafe to have tea. The journey by train was our first sleeper experience. No place for bags so had to sleep with them. For me the smokers where a problem. Managed to get some sleep though and the journey continued smoothly to Singapore.

Wednesday 10th June
Arrived in Singapore about midday. Taxi from station to MRT. MRT to Orchard Rd where I did a successful recky to find the YMCA. The building was very posh. We settled into the room. A little luxury after our time on the island. On our last visit to this city we were in Chinatown. Now we were staying in the heart of the shopping district surrounded by malls – had a very different feel and could have been any large western city. We made the most of the facilities and replenished some of the supplies we were low on. In the evening went to the Quay area and had a few very expensive drinks.

Thursday 11th June
Had a visit to the Botanic Gardens today. Beautifully laid out. The highlights were the orchid gardens which had the most fantastic blooms.The humidity was very high and we wandered around at the pace to which we had now accustomed ourselves. Had a quiet evening around the hotel making the mistake of buying an expensive burger. Looking forward to seeing Simon.

Underwater adventures

2009-06-09T13:07:00.003+01:00

Eric first spotted shy bamboo sharks hiding beneath rocks but as we continued to swim we saw many more. You can imagine how wonderful it was. We saw several puffer fish and a lot of the Nemos.. you may have to wait til we get home to see the video of us amongst shoals of fish!!!

3 legged turtle

2009-06-09T13:01:00.002+01:00

We first spotted her feeding and then watched as she ascended with very little effort...amazing1

Brent signals OK

2009-06-09T12:54:00.002+01:00

Impressive eh?

diving photo 1

2009-06-09T12:50:00.002+01:00

On our last dive Eric, my lovely instuctor took his camera along. Here's one of the photos of me (Lin) followed by one of Brent ...

Diving days

2009-06-06T13:50:00.001+01:00

Monday 1st June
After studying on and off for 4 days last night we sat down to the written, theory exam part of the PADI. I (Lin) was pretty pleased with how confident I was for the most part, with just the dive planning and an unclear diagram giving me a bit more difficulty. Anyway this morning Wolfgang checked our scores. Unfortunately ( and it turned out to be very unfortunate) I moved from one section to the next wrongly and so thought I had suddenly made a lot of mistakes. I realised my mistake and Wolfgang reread the answers. This lead to my exam paper looking a bit confusing, but in fact I had achieved 96%! I felt quite proud, but our instructor got a bit between his teeth and had a real go at me. He wouldn't let it drop and I ended up walking out on the dialogue, in tears! I sat and thought about the situation whilst Brent had a chat to W. I decided not to continue with the course, feeling that the relationship between W and I could not progress and also aware that Brent would get on much faster if I were out of the scenario. Needless to say W came up with a solution, which I was very happy about: Eric, the older guy, who may own the business, would take me out this afternoon and I could then decide whether or not to continue with him. The afternoon session was great. I enjoyed Eric's sense of humour: before we hit the water we had a good talk and he told me to breathe as if I were enjoying a cigarette .. he's a smoker, as is W. but he certainly looks good on it! He made me laugh and lot and the dive itself was a lot of fun just enjoying the house reef, feeling sea cucumbers, getting a manicure from the cleaner shrimps and spotting the puffer clams and lots of beautiful fish. The day ended happy!
Brent here. I was quite astounded by the way W got at Linda and I think he was quite shocked at the way Linda came back to say she wasn't going to continue. I let him have his say and then asked if he could just let me speak. I told him that we were both in education and Linda had a far more responsible position than me. I then stated that although I respected his professionalism in my opinion he had made a bad judgement in this case. He started to draw lots of conclusions about Linda's character from this one mistake. I set him right on this. It created a rather strange scenario in that I then carried on my training with him. You have to realise that in diving people literally have your life in their hands and I wasn't quite sure whether this incident would upset the balance in OUR relationship. Anyway I first went to check Linda was ok then suited up to go out with a session with him. Fortunately all went well with the exercises we carried out. The afternoon session also went well and I had completed all my confined water sessions successfully. Tomorrow was the dive off the boat and would complete my PADI.

Tuesday 2nd June
Today was my big day. The first dive off the boat is a tense affair. I got all the kit ready. Wetsuit, weights, octopus ( breathing mouthpieces, depth and air pressure gauge, low pressure hose) fins, snorkel and mask. This takes on a rather relaxing property once you have done it a few times. You realise that your life depends on it being set up carefully so slow and steady is the order of the day. Wolfgang was my buddy so I have to check his BCD ( bouyancy control device) weights, air, releases and all his hoses. Everything in order we headed out to the small motor boat in the bay. Everything is handed to the dive master and you jump aboard. The boat speeds up and bounces over the waves. I was understandably quite nervous. The first boat dive involves entering water by dropping backwards and this was to be my first time. We soon approached D'Lagoon a beautiful area. There were already other dive boats there. Donning tank, fins and mask I was ready to go in. Fortunately on this boat we were able to take the giant stride into the water. Once in we slowly descended. The reef was amazing teaming with all kinds of fish. Sometimes they were single, sometimes huge shoals of fish would swim by. The coral rose steeply by my side as we wound our way up. Fish swam so close. Very different from the snorkeling experience. Once you are below the surface you realise that your ascent has to be slow and measured. The aim is to use as little air as possible by reducing all but the most necessary movements. Wolfgang gradually ascended stopping for 3 minutes at 5 metres we waited. Our nitrogen balance ok we gradually went up looking above us all the time I was surprised to find we were right next to the boat. We climbed back in and returned to the resort feeling content that I had now competed all the elements of my Padi and was an official SCUBA diver!!

Arrriving back at the resort Wofgang got me to fill in all the paperwork. I was told there was a dive in the afternoon to a place called Tiger Rock. This proved to be in the next bay so the boat journey was very short. We arrived and I did my back dive into the water – no problem. The top of the rock just sat out from the surface but as you descended it dropped steeply down. This was the first time I had not dived with Wolfgang so I had some time to reflect on my practice. Everything went smoothly and the coral was fantastic. I kept checking my air and reporting it back to Eric who was leading the team. It was about 30 minutes into the dive that Mervin the other dive master double checked my air supply only to find I was almost out. I had been reading the WRONG dial duhhh depth not air. I could see the look of concern on Mervins face as he indicated we had to go up. He also took up a young boy who was diving with us. Half way in the ascent he offered me his secondary air supply. This is another regulator that allows you to share someones tank. I swapped my regulator for his easily and was pleased that the training kicked in. We ascended to five metres and stopped. I wasnt panicking but felt very guilty that I had run out of air. On surfacing I apologised profusely to Mervin. He seemed to be ok with it which was amazing. For me it had been a big learning experience and one that would probably help me take more care in future.

Lin here: well today Eric and I dived on the house reef again after I'd worked through some of the remaining skills to qualify me for the PADI. Actually I'd done quite a few of them before with W. but I was happy to practice them again as this really improved my confidence and security in the water: by the end of the day I was comfortably clearing my mask and exchanging my regulator for Eric's secondary source octopus. We'd even ascended together using his air. All that remains in terms of skills is the compass skills and the CESA( controlled ascent). In the afternoon we went out for a dive and once again I loved it. Amonst lots of wonderful fish we managed to spot a huge marble grouper and a blue ring angel fish.

Wednesday 3rd June
Today I (Lin)woke up feeling very chesty and realised that I'd probably overdone it yesterday. I really didn't feel up to any dives today. Eric was fine about this and I took a rest day. Read a lot and slept a lot!

Brent here. Today I was due to do another dive. I was slightly nervous after yesterday but knew it was important to get right back on the horse so to speak. The boat took us out to Tokong Laut. Like Tiger Rock this proved to be a small rock sticking out of the sea which hid a cornucopia of fish including blue spotted ray, bamboo sharks, snapper, parrot and angel fish.
The dive went very well as did the ascent and I came back feeling justifiably pleased

Thursday 4th June
Lin here: well I felt fine this morning so met Eric and 9.30 to complete more of the skills: once again some of these were a repeat of those I'd learned with W. and I felt quite comfortable removing and replacing the weight belt and BCD on the surface. We repeated these underwater and I had a go at a CESA. and at using the compass underwater. Not surprisingly, given my navigation skills on land, I didn't find this easy, but with practice I got the idea. In the afternoon I did my first fun dive from a boat diving up to 18 metres. When we arrived at our destination ( Tiger Rock) we waited for the other group to enter the water before I got ready ( see Brent's description of this). I was sitting on the edge of the boat about to roll in backwards when one of the lads had a bit of a panic in the water. Whilst Eric settled him down I felt very pleased by how calm I felt... I was ready for this! I leaned back and entered no problem. The dive was amazing for me: we saw a star puffer fish,a titan trigger fish, tiny squat lobster and shrimp as well as brown banded pipe fish . The rock itself was quite beautiful as were the corals. To be swimming amongst shoals of beautiful coloured fish is very special and I felt very fortunate to have found such a wonderful teacher.

Brent here. This was my day off. I really did need to just chill and read. My body was feeling the effect of so much diving!

Friday 5th June
Today began well. We'd both woken early and were having a chat at 6am before packing our stuff ready to move chalets, when April knocked the door. A turtle was in the process of laying her eggs and she invited us to bring our cameras down to the beach to watch her return to the sea. This took some time, but it was a beautiful morning and lovely to see the sun rise. We felt a bit sad as we watched the turtle shuffling sand into its pit, where she thought her eggs were. In fact the fisheries staff had already removed them, but she was unaware of the futllity of her hard work...quite sad actually. When she returned to the sea we were able to get quite close and take some photos. Great!

We were keen to do a dive together now that we'd both qualified as PADI open water divers, so signed up for this morning's dive to Tokung Laut. Brent had enjoyed this dive on Wednesday and I was keen to do it. It's a 30 minute boat ride to the site and 2 Bubbles boats did the trip with 3 dive masters: Mervyn and the two Erics. Brent and I were one team and were supervised by (old) Eric. This was an absolutely brilliant dive for us. Eric manages to find so many fish. After descending this time from a rope as there was a bit of a current our little group began to explore and I was chuffed when I spotted another Moray Eel, before Eric! He then shone his torch under part of the rock and pointed out our first bamboo sharks... we saw quite a few of these as well as puffer and box fish. As we continued the dive we met up with Mervyn's group and I enjoyed the feeling of being amongst other divers, with some above and some below me. Then, well into the dive, which went up to 19.5 metres, we spotted a turtle. It was the resident 3 legged green turtle, covered in algae, which we'd been told about! When we first saw her she was feeding, but as we watched she slowly began to ascend. We were quite close to her and it was very special. I have to say that I (Lin) got a bit too enthusiastic and started to follow her up...oops! After a couple of metres I realised I was going up too fast and quickly deflated my BCD to rejoin Brent and Eric. What an amazing experience. Our little team was last out of the water, which pleased Brent no end, as his previous dives had been shorter and he'd had less air left.

Saturday 6th June
A rest day for us and boy were we ready for it! We slept over 10 hours last night and today tried to get our sore feet rested: we both have nasty wounds on them from our fins. Around 4.30 we went off for a snorkel in the area recommended by April. This was just fab! At first the visibility was poor but as we went further out it began to clear and, hiding amongst the coral, I spotted quite a large puffer fish. Then we both began to spot the sharks. This time they were reef sharks: these are about 3 foot long and have a black tip on the dorsal fin (top fin). As we continued we couldn't believe our luck when we spotted another green turtle. She wasn't bothered by us at all and we were able to follow her for quite a while. I was slightly bothered by the shoal of long thin fish with spearlike mouths, which was just below the surface above the turtle, but Brent carried on regardless. We saw a lot more of these creatures on our way back to shore and later found out that they were needle fish. We enjoyed swimming amongst shoals of different coloured fish before climbing out...definitely ready for another rest!!

To the Parhentian Islands

2009-06-01T14:37:00.000+01:00

Saturday 23rd May
Today was our last day of the package. It involved visiting a floating village on the banks of the largest lake in Cambodia – Tonle Sap. Linda had asked the previous evening the best time to start the visit iand the reply had come back – 7.00am another shock to the system. We set alarms and got up bleary eyed at the right time. At breakfast we were pleased to bump into our Irish friends who were told they would be best to join us at that time on the tour. We felt slightly guilty that we had suggested the earlier time but please that we would be sharing the experience with our friends.
We set off on our long journey by tuk tuk in convoy. As we hit the road we were amazed at the number of vehicles around. It was very busy with scooters and cars all over the road. Our tuk tuk drivers weaving in and out of the traffic. We headed down the main road to find that the market was taking place and people were carrying various items to and from there. The most amazing sights greeted us as we bumped along the road over taking other scooters. In England the scooter is largely a one person vehicle. Here in Cambodia it is used to carry almost everything – the list of items being carried included the following : two live pigs trussed up, a basket of piglets, a full size mattress folded in half, rolls of carpet attached length ways, all variety of food and fruit. The most precarious we witnessed was a man riding his scooter while at the same time carrying a four metre long bundle of metal bars over his shoulder with the rear end of it almost touching the floor, My camera was constantly taking pictures of the unfolding scenes as we overtook vehicles. As our journey continued we were equally amazed when someone pulled along side our moto driver on a scooter and proceeded to hold a conversation with him for at least 10 minutes. He carried on without slowing down. Along the way we stopped at a roadside stall to buy something we had spotted on our journey through SE Asia. These were about foot long length of bamboo. We had seen people picking out the insides and wondered what they were. Our driver told us it was sticky rice and purchased some for us to try later.
The road eventually became dirt covered and far more bumpy in our little carriage. We bounced around in the back taking in the increasing rustic homes which appeared by the side of the road. All of them were now built on stilts and the driver informed us that in the rainy season the water would be directly underneath them. At first we thought this may be the floating village until the tuk tuk stopped and we got out to walk down to the edge of the water were several boats were waiting. We boarded and then set off down a small river channel. The water was a mirky milky brown almost like liquid chocolate. Along the banks of the river we spotted the back of the houses we had seen from the other side. Here you could see they were mounted about twenty foot above the ground on stilts on the river side slighty lower by the road. At intervals we saw the activities of the riverside: children bathing naked in the water, fishermen casting nets, women washing clothes. Our guide explained there was also a person who bred crocodiles and pointed out a wooden crate by the side of the river, promising to visit it on the return journey. We continued along struck by the cheery nature of people almost everyone prepared to give you a large smile.
The river came round a bend and suddenly the vista opened up to reveal a huge lake. The water stretched out into the distance with misty mountains barely visible on the horizon. Our guide pointed out that at this time of the year it was at its lowest point and fish were plentiful. This was then confirmed as we pulled alongside a cluster of boats tied alongside a central one. People were clearly in discussion over something and our host got out onto the deck. We eventually got out too and and he showed us that this was effectvely a market for fish. The central boat was buying fish from all the ones around it. He opened a crate to show the massive load of fish packed in ice. While we were all on deck it became apparent that the driver of the boat was becoming agitated by an incident further across the lake. When we looked we noticed that one of the other tourist boats had become stuck in the mud. It was vainly revving its engine only to kick up lots of chocolate coloured mud behiind it, No movement of boat. He explained to us that the driver was his friend and asked if we minded if he took our boat over to help free him. Our guide stayed behind on the market boat and we set off on a rescue with our 16yr old driver and his 12year old mate!! When we arrived at the scene he quickly got into action. tying a rope to the back of the grounded boat to the only point which would not pull it to bits. He then jumped back into the drivers seat and revved the engine – the rope snapped. By this time another boat had joined us with bemused American tourists sitting inside it, Both boats now attached ropes and the haul began. Much to my amazement the boat was dragged off the mudbank. Rescue complete.
We picked up our guide and headed further out into the middle of the lake where he cut the engines. At this point he talked about the people who lived on the lake in all the boats and houses around us. Many he explained where Vietnamese who had chosen to stay after the fighting of the recent war. We asked him many questions and our little tuk tuk driver was an incredibly knowledgeable and well informed man. He explained all about the fishing rights on the lake and the balance between the company and locals. He also explained about the way in which the government tried to prevent overfishing but was generally fighting against corruption by officials too – backing this up by showing that the climbing perch we saw earlier in the baskets where much smaller than in the past. After about 30 mins here we headed back to shore briefly stopping to take pictures of the crocodiles.
The guide then asked if we wanted to see some more temples after we had stopped for lunch. So as not to offend him we said yes. The temples were different again but this had turned into another long day in the sun. We eventually arrived back at 4,00pm. and went for a kip after agreeing to meet up with our Scottish friends Simon and Caroline that evening.
We decided on Pub Street for our meal and wandered along eventually stopping at a Khymer restaurant brightly decked out in Orange. The waitress was only 16 but had the patter off to a tea making us laugh as she came out with saying she had probably repeated many times but still had the effect of making us laugh. The evening went well with conversation and beer flowing until Caroline said she wasnt feeling well. We quickly paid the bill and returned back to the guesthouse. A sad end to what had been a lovely day.

Sunday 24th May
By the next morning I had the ' runs ' . My guts turned to water. At first I didnt feel too bad but I knew that down the line it would get exhausting. We speculated on what might have been the cause. My best guess had been the washing up facilities I had spotted at the restaurant last night -a few bowls on the floor and no hot water in sight. Linda emailed Colin to arrange to meet up later he wrote back explaining that Caroline had been sick in the night.
We had a quiet day organising our future travels. We packed up some of our things ready for an early flight back to KL the next morning.

Monday 25th May / Tuesday 26th May
The flight was at 8.35am so this meant being up to get some breakfast at 6.20am. I was still suffering from a dodgy stomach so settled for only dry toast. The tuk tuk driver turned up and we took the 6km journey to the airport. We arrived paid the tuk tuk and went into the airport to check in baggage. The airport offical informed us we needed to pay $ 3.00 I looked in my wallet satisfied that I had a $5.00 note only to discover I had given it to the tuk tuk driver by mistake. He must have been chuffed. I blame all US dollars for looking the same!
Lin here....have to say that's the first time Brent's made a mistake with the money...he's usually very careful! Must have been the dodgy tummy! Anyway the flight passed uneventfully and we easily found our way to the Tune hotel in downtown KL. ( thanks to the previous recce. ). As Brent's tum wqs still not right, we limited what we did in our time in KL. We did explore some of the local shops, where we mangaged to find new swimwear, ready for our diving. We'd hoped to get the hop on hop off bus on Tues. but when we went to get on we were told it cost more than double what we'd read online...so we decided to use the tube railway instead. This was fine and we got to visit a pretty square and the central market. The most amazing thing happened when we got back to the hotel on Tues night.... in the lobby we spotted Katie and Colin, our friends from Georgetown ( see prev. blog)! We were all delighted to meet up again. They were about to head home and we spent a good hour catching up on what we'd all been doing, since last we'd met.

Wednesday 27th May...off to the Perhentian islands!
As we weren't flying til 1.30 we didn't leave the hotel tll10am and got to the airport in perfect time. The flght to Kota Bharu was very smooth and as we entered the terminal we were delighted to spot a guy holding a card with LINDA written on it. This was our taxi driver...what a relief...when we'd first booked the flight we thought we'd have to get to the ferry port of Kuala Besut (probably by taxi) and spend the night there. Fortunately the Bubbles resort had emailed to say they could sort us a taxi, which would get us to the port in time to get the last ferry at 5pm. This was quite scary, as we'd understood that our driver would travel on with us, but he disappeared and we were unsure if we should get on the ferry without him. Luckily we did and the speedboat trip across was quite fun. A load of other folk, mainly backpacker, were heading to the smaller island, but we continued to our destination: the Bubbles resort on Perhentian Besar. A Bubbles boat came out to pick us up from the speedboat and we landed on a white, sandy beach with turquoise clear waters. We signed in and were shown to our A frame cabin. This was pretty basic, and the sea view was marred by trees, but the bed was comfy and the bedding clean, the shower quite good. and we had a little deck with chairs. The resort, as we expected was tiny: a large, covered restaurant area, a few cabins, a diving centre, and a few hammocks as well as some plastic chairs. At our first meal we realised there was no alcohol. This was a bit of a shock at first, but we soon learned that alcohol and diving definitely don''t mix.

Thursday 28th – Sunday 31st May
We enjoyed a very lazy Thursday: snorkel ling out to the nearby rocks in the morning, followed by lunch, then an afternoon of reading . The snorelling was great with lots of colourful fish, including parrot fish, which I had never seen. That night as we ate we were introduced to April, a young Aussie girl, who is doing an internship here which involves monitoring green turtles. Several volunteers were being given a briefing and we were invited to join them. It was really interesting to learn about the breeding habits of the turtles. At this time of year the mature adults (aged around 25 years) are coming back to their birthplace to mate and lay their eggs and Aprll and any volunteers take turns staying up to check numbers of turtles coming ashore to lay. They track them up the beach and record where the nest is. They then aim to protect the nest from predators and poachers. They do this in various ways including covering the turtle tracks so that poachers can't follow them to the nest and urinating on the nest, which apparently stops the monitor lizards from stealing the eggs. Anyway we were asked if we'd like to be woken up should a turtle appear and we said not that night, ( Brent still not 100%) but any other night. Imagine our surprise when someone announced that a turtle had already been spotted on the beach! We all rushed to see it. We immediately noticed a bunch of men on the beach. These were from the Fisheries, and apparently they appear very regularly looking to remove the eggs from the nest and take them to a hatchery on another beach. This is with the aim of protecting the species, which is laudable. Unfortunately they showed little concern for the weary turtle which we then saw. She was amazing...huge (possibly 36 inches in length. We saw her tracks first, which were like tyre tracks. April pointed out the tracks heading up the beach and then we followed her as she made her way back to the sea after laying the eggs. It was amazing. The fishery guys rushed to take all the eggs and left. April said that the success of the fisheries hatchery was not a as good as the Bubbles resort's more natural method. She explained that they tried to accommodate the Fisheries folk, who sometimes left a few eggs behind which the Bubbles team could then monitor and protect, but in the currnet economic climate they'd been coming more often and not leaving any eggs. Pretty soul destroying eh?

Anyway on Friday we began our PADI course and the next few days were quite intense. The learning curve was huge and we ended each day very tired after learning a practising so many new skills. By Sunday night I have to say I was quite proud of myself: I had almost given up at 2 points of today: first of all when I really struggled to disconnect part of the buoyancy device underwater and later when I lost confidence underwater and had to have a rest on the surface. Wolfgang, our Austrian instructor managed to convince me to try again and I managed to remove my regulator and blow up the buoyancy devise successfully. I can't tell you how chuffed I was. It's been interesting to be a learner again and to discuss our instructor's teaching style, which can be abrupt at times, to say the least. However he is very experienced and we have faith in him, so put up with the other stuff.

Site of Tomb Raider film

2009-05-24T13:57:00.002+01:00

Hope some of you recognise this site..neither of us has seen the film, but the venue was just amazing. This was our first view. Amazing eh?

more temples

2009-05-24T13:51:00.002+01:00

Here's another picture of the spung tree...amazing eh?

More temple photos

2009-05-24T13:49:00.002+01:00

Here's one with us in. This was the first temple we visited and as you can see the tree, called a Spung tree, was definitely winning over the temple...

temple photos 1

2009-05-24T11:13:00.002+01:00

We were really wowed by the temples...hard to believe some of the carvings dating back to the 9th, but mostly 12th centuries. Here's a first taste...

Cambodia update

2009-05-24T11:06:00.003+01:00

Thursday 21st May
Today we got up early to visit the Temples of Angkor. These are temples which date back to the 9th century. They are spread out across a large area mainly to the North of Siem Reap. We met our guide shortly after 8.00am. He was a young man who was clearly knowledgeable about what we were about to see. The good thing about using the official guide is that they have been well trained in dealing with tourists. The only down side we quickly realised was his manner of speaking English in which he would emphasise every syllable and stress the last word of every sentence. He had clearly used the same school of learning as our Thai cooking teacher (see Chiang Mai section of blog )
We all three set out in our moto tuk tuk to the first temple. This was called Ta Phrom -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta_Prohm) and http://impressive.net/people/gerald/2007/03/ta-phrom.html for photos

Rather than being cleared and restored it had been left to the jungle. Roots and trunks mingle with the stones and seem to be part of the structure. This was also our first sight of the incredible craftsmanship and carving surrounding the doorways of all the temples. It is nothing short of mind boggling to think that this detail could have been completed over a thousand years ago. Our guide was excellent at pointing out the religious significance of it all and the stories behind some of the carvings. The temples were either Buddhist or Hindu. This one had started as a Buddhist temple but had then been converted to Hinduism. Many of the carvings of the Buddha had been defaced when it was taken over. Places of worship now contained Linga ( symbols of fertility ) rather than buddhas.

After this temple we moved onto Angor Wat see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Wat, which is the jewel in the crown. As you approach you are struck by the moat which surrounds it. A wide body of water which we were informed used to have crocodiles in it to deter any possible invaders. The entrance is across a wide causeway which has a snake balustrade running along each side ( Naga ) When you get through the western gate you are struck by the magnificence of the central towers which rise .up to the heavens. These are designed to look like lotus buds and are quite breathtakinglyibeautiful. Our guide took us to the central temple dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu. This is where the famous Gallery of Bas Reliefs is found. These are carvings which cover almost the entire wall on the first level. They are 700 metres long and two metres high and they show various battle scenes and Hindu epics. Our guide Kahem was very good at explaining the stories behind them but lost us at time with some of the jilted English and the complexity of the characters.

Lin here, writing this on Sunday, a much needed rest day after 3 long, fascinating days! After Angkor Wat we went off to lunch and I enjoyed a good curry served in a coconut. We then spent the afternoon visiting Angkor Thom, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Thom which was the last Khmer city and was very interesting, with some amazing sculputres. One area that really sticks in my mind was the Bayon- many Buddhist temples have these towers with 4 faces to represent the elements, but here there were 54 of them, many of which were very clear to see. Standing amongst these hugh carved faces is awesome. There was also a fantastic terrace of elephants, one with 3 heads. Near the end of the afternoon we visited Phimeanakas, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phimeanakas
Here we climbed a very steep wooden staircase, covering the eroded temple steps. Our guide remained at the bottom, whilst we ascended to 'heaven' and at the top we were greeted by a young, knowledgeable young man. He asked us questions about England and was qute chatty and friendly. He then proceeded to follow us around the temple top, giving us information about the history and the carvings. Lo and behold when we came to descent the steps his voice changed to a whining plea, as he asked us for money to fund his studies, as he was from a poor family. We reluctantly coughed up a dollar. One of the bits of info he gave us was about the 2 bathing pools down below, one of which was larger than the other. The larger one, he said, was for the Kings wives and concubines, whilst the smaller was for the King and his men. Once we were back down Kahem did his teacher bit.. which became a regular part of the 2 days: he would ask us a why do you think question. This time it was about the pools and Brent did a mmm...let me think about that.. before coming up with the right answer, directlly from our young guide... Kahem was delighted, slapping brent ( or Breast, as he called him) on his back in delight... have to say it was worth every cent of that dollar for the crack!!

By 4.30, when we got back to the guest house, we were absolutely knackered, but too tired to sleep!! We rested up in front of the TV. Just after 6.30 I approached the reception area: we knew a show was included in our tour deal and thought it was at 7.30, but the description had been a bit sketchy, so thought I should check. Lucky I did, It turned out that we needed to leave by 6.40 as a table was booked for us to eat before the show at 7.30. A mad rush followed and we ended up arriving around 7pm at an amazingly posh restaurant. It was all a bit weird. We were ushered to a table for two at the front of the huge ballroom type area. A few other tables were occupied, but many were set, but empty. As soon as we sat down 2 waiters approached with wine menus and hassled us to choose a bottle. Meanwhile other diners headed off for the buffet bar. It all felt very rushed and i just wanted to get sorted before the show. I fancied wine for a change from the very average beer, but at $18 a bottle Brent was not keen. No tother drinks menu had been given to us, and in the end we went for the wine, but the whole thing ruined our evening and we almost left before the show began.. In the end we stayed, but the food was not very hot and very average, the wine nice but expensive. Also as we got ourselves sorted a whole load of bus tourers suddenly appeared, filling up all those empty seats....so my fear that we were delaying proceedings was totally unfounded and I felt almost exploited. The dancing itself was quite interesting. Beautiful women began with what looked like a dance to the King, the sort of thing his concubines may have performes. Slow rhythmic music with deliberate stepping, balancing on one bent leg and lots of hand contortions... followed by a couples dance, which was a different type of traditional dance, more of the people. It was all over by 8.30, by which time we were fed up and tired.

Friday 22nd May
Our second day exploring the temples. Today began with a long moto tuk tuk drive to Banteay Srei, which was a 10th century Hindu temple, dedicated to the Hindu god, Shiva: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banteay_Srei
This building, like the others we'd seen was built with lava stone faced with carveable sandstone. The difference here was that the sandstone was pink, which was quite striking, and the sculptor's carvings were much deeper and therefore clearer than in previous temples. Kahem told us that this was his favourite ( as Brucy would say!). We then returned towards Ankhor Thom, stopping for lunch in a restaurant definitely targetted at tourists, where we had a very average lunch before continuing to Banteay Samrea, followed by what was called he Grand Tour of Angkor temples. including a beautiful temple with a central tower surrounded by 4 pools. This turned out to be a Buddhist healing area. We saw the remains of doctors 'surgeries.” Each patient was sent to the relevant healing pool: one for water, one for fire, one for earth and one for wind. Each pool had a shrine with an animal statue, with water flowing through it. This was holy water and patients would drink some in order to be cured. Our final temple, Prea Khan, a temple surrounded by jungle, with trees infringing on it. It felt like we'd come full circle and we were pretty templed out. It had been very interesting to see:

changes from earlier Hindu temples through to Buddhist temples with many changing from one to the other. For example we saw lots of Buddhist temples where the buddhas had been removed..or part of them had, by the Hindus, who'd converted the same temple to Hindu. King Jayavarman V11 had chosen to incorporate Hindu elements eg lintels with carvings of Hindu mythology, into his Buddhist temples, in an attempt to unite the 2 religions. ( We'd already recognised in our SE Asia travels the inclusion of Hindu elements in all the Buddhist temples we've visited)

changes in construction techniques. Volcanic rock faced with sandstone was later faced with brick. The brick could still be seen and many of the bricks had holes in: “Why do you think this was?” our guide asked... we guessed the holes were for gemstones, as we'd seen this before, but no! They were to retain the stucco, which used to cover the bricks: apparently the sculptors would do an outline carving directly onto the brick and then build up the carving with stucco. This was nowhere near as effective as the sandstone and remaining stucco statues were badly eroded.

how the surrounding countryside added to the sense of awe about these temples: wide, paved avenues, with bridges carved with the Naga, Beautiful water filled moats, which reflected the countryside and the temple buildings: all quite magnificent and of course the effects of erosion with trees taking over buildings

the development of tourism. For the first time in SE Asia we found tourism to be incredibly well organised: the US dollar had become the principle unit of currency and prices for the tours were surprisingly similar to those at home ($40 dollars each for a 3 day pass). An entrance ticket with photo ID was supplied at a purpose built ticket office upon arrival. This was carefully checked at each temple and proved to be a very efficient system. We couldn't believe the level of English we came across, particularly from young children. At entrances to each temple we were thoroughly hassled in English by young kids trying to sell us the usual tourist stuff: postards, books, bracelets and scarves etc. Af first we found them engaging, but by the end of the 2nd day, when we were hot and tires it actually got to be too much.

At the end of today we headed for Pub Street, which is another interesting tourist spot in Siem Reap. The whole road is sort of sealed off by tourist police with motorbikes at each end of the street. We found a spot with a good view at the Temple Club, where we ate and enjoyed people watching. At times we felt like animals in a zoo: especially when a large group of chinese touriests rambled past looking at all of us in the restaurants.They wandered back and forth without stopping, clearly just enjoying the crack. We also spotted a few ladies of the night, who appeared to be unhassled by the police. As we finished our meal and paid the bill we were 'attacked' by tuk tuk drivers from all directions. Brent bartered the price down to a dollar and we headed home for another early night.

Looking forward to our visit to the floating village tomorrow!

Laos photos 1/ tuk tuk

2009-05-20T13:14:00.002+01:00

We really enjoyed Laos! The tuk tuks were fun!

Into Cambodia, our 19th country!

2009-05-20T13:13:00.001+01:00

Tuesday 19th May
Today we got a taxi to the airport ( paying far too much for such a short journey!) and flew to KL, where we checked in at the Tune hotel, making sure to get a room without a view of the courtyard. We then decided to take public transport into the town centre, partly to make our next visit easier, as we shall be staying downtown. This proved a lot more difficult than we'd hoped and it was definitely a good move in terms of knowing where we're going next time,when we'll be carrying our packs. First of all we returned to the terminal to pick up a bus to KL Sentral – a transport hub on the edge of the city. The journey took an hour, much longer than we'd expected. From here we hoped to get a direct link onto the monorail. Finding this was a nightmare: it was the start of rush hour and we couldn't find the right sign. Eventually we asked and had to walk outside and around the building, crossing a busy road, in order to reach the station. The monorail was great and we got off as close to the Twin Towers of KL as possible. The walk there took us past some touristy, disco type bars, flashing lights and all. It was around 6pm and a few local were having a drink, but most were pretty empty. We were in need of sustenance having tackled Malaysian traffic again, so dropped in for a drink and were too easily persuaded to buy a pitcher of ale, which only held a couple of pints. As soon as we'd had a sip our glass would be replenisshed, and the piitcher quickly emptied... tempted though we were we didn't buy another. We knew we needed an early night as we had a 5am start the next day. The twin towers and the area around there are quite spectacular, with lovely fountains and high rise buildings. We walked through one of the towers, which is a very exclusive, massive designer label shopping centre . We both found this another surreal experience as we'd just walked along muddy, pot holed streets to get there and also had witnessed the difficulty many of the local people have in eking out a living:eg hawker at street corners, street cleaners with basic brooms and pans, taxi drivers who constantly tout for business. Needless to say we didn't stay long in the mall, but headed off to find some dinner and chose an Indian restaurant full of local peope, where we had a fairly cheap and very reasonable meal.
0n the way back to the monorail we stopped for another pint, lured in by the promise of a glass of beer for MLR1 (about 15p). Our waiter appeared and explained that the first glass of beer actually cost MLR20 -or£3- but that thereafter until 9pm any more beers would be MLR1. We couldn't resist and both bought a beer. We then were given wrist bands and could head to the bar with an empty glass for a 15p refill. By now it was 8pm, so we only had an hour and don't forget, we wanted clear heads and an early night!! We managed a total of 7 glasses for MLR45 ( £6.50) ...next time we'll get there for 5pm and be staying within walking distance...something to look forward to..tee hee! Next to us we got chatting to a young Californian couple, who'd been working in China for 4 months... and clearly found it very difficult. They'd just come from Siem Reap in Cambodia, our next destination and highly recommended a guest house there. They taught us a new card game called Speed, which was fun. Just after 9pm we headed back to the monorail and by 11.15 we were tucked up in bed, ready for our visit to our 19th country tomorrow.

Wednesday 20th May
Woke to the sound of the 5am alarm... oh my god that is early! Had quick showers ( Tune power showers are fab!) and checked out of the hotel. I was gob smacked when Brent suggested we get the MLR1 bus to the terminal instead of walking. Don't say he's losing his Northern frugality...oh no, I've remembered, he really struggles with these transit days. At 5.20 in the room he started sweating about being late, reckoning we should have got up earlier! What??? Anyway we got the bus and headed for the international departure lounge, only to be directed to the local terminal. You can imagine Brent's reaction...'we should have got up earlier!'. We got through check in and decided to head straight on rather than have breakfast: Brent struggles if he doesn't get a coffee and something to eat withing minutes of getting up! Anyway by 6.10 we'd gone through all the controls and were sitting in an espresso bar, with a sandwich and drink. I was absolutely flabbergasted when Brent looked around and thoughtfully announced how how stressed people looked. I spluttered in astonishment .. could anyone be more stressed out than he was?? In the end we both collapsed in fits of giggles!! It turned out that our plane was about 10 minutes late leaving and we were both a bit puzzled when the gate was labelled Phuket, and not Siem Reap... I was tempted to ask someone in the queue if they were going to F_ _ k It ( my pronunciation of Phuket)..but realised that I was getting hysterical and clearly needed more sleep. Once on the plane we were able to spread out and I did get quite a bit of sleep. We arrived 2 hours later, at only 8am local time and picked up a taxi to take us to the 2 Dragon guest house as recommended last night. The taxi driver had great English, but was very keen to get more business from us, to the point of being irritating: he even took us to a new hotel where he assured us he could get us a room for the same price as the guest house $15.. but we stuck to our guns. The hostel is very nice with free wifi, a TV, and air con in the en suite room. There's a lovely cafe area, where we sat and had a cuppa, whilst our room was being cleaned. We immediately got chatting with a lovely Irish couple, who'd arrived at 6am. They told us about a deal the guest house was offering and we decided to go for it: 3 days accommodation, one free breakfast and 3 days touring with an English guide to see the Angkor Wat and other temples as well as a nearby floating village and an evening show... all for $109 each...brilliant eh. After a nice lunch we got a moto tuk tuk into town. As we headed off the heavens opened and we saw more of the rainy season. We were dropped off at a good indoor market, where Brent bought a tee shirt ( same, same but different). Then we wandered the streets: it was all a bit chaotic, with potholed roads filled with muddy water and tuk tuk drivers everywhere touting for business. We were beginning to find it a bit invasive so got another tuk tuk to the Angkor National Museum. This has only been open for 2 years and is a beautiful building with excellent exhibits. All very state of the art. It was $12 each to go in, which seemed very expensive, but the young man on the reception said it was expensive but worth it! His English was great an he made us laugh by puttiing on a cockney accent and saying 'cor blimey guv ... and ...lovely jubbly! We paid up and spent a good hour an a half in there. We were in awe of some of the exhibits there, which really prepared us for the tours we'll be following in the next few days. In fact we wished we'd allowed more time and got permission to go back on the same ticket another day, which we really hope to do. At 5pm we left the museum and immediately spotted our smiley tuk tuk driver, who whisked us back to the guest house. Actually more detail of the whisk back is worth noting here: we were quite exhilarated by the short tuk tuk ride. Here in Cambodia, although drivers officially use the right hand side of the road, in fact they chop off corners and often use alternative sides. At times there were 3 motorbikes side by side on the road and our moto driver would beep his horn and overtake them with equivalent traffic on the other side of the road! Amazing and very exciting.

Vienne Viang

2009-05-17T09:26:00.003+01:00

Wednesday 13th May
We had set the alarms for 5.00am not believing that we could wake at that time. Due to our disturbed sleeping patterns we were both awake at 4.45am. Linda jumped in the shower I gradually got myself awake and started to pack away the last things. We got out of the hostel for 5.25am in order to see the procession of monks. As we came out of the hostel we were offered alms ( chicken in banana leaves ) to give to the monks by someone selling it. This seemed like a bit commercial, but we felt that as a sign of respect for the monks we should follow the custom. We noticed a younger English guy, who was with a local and clearly wanting to support the monks. Turned out he was a Buddhist from Manchester who'd visited Laos before and was very fond of the place. His mum, who'd done various retreats in India, is going to visit the area with him next year. Brent shared with him our thoughts on Buddhism and he was in no doubt that it was a religion and that the West had adopted meditation as a way of life. We were kindly offered matting to sit on and waited for the monks to arrive. We soon spotted a few saffron robes coming towards us. The monks were mostly young and carried stainless steel drums with lids. As they approached they would lift the lids and supplicants ( those by the side of the road ) would drop in a small handful of rice or a stuffed banana leaf.
We waited for a while and it wasn't long before there was a whole procession of monks coming down the road. We were amazed at how young the monks were and how quiet the majority seemed. The ritual was quite amazing: young men from around 10 years of age get up every morning at 5am to pray / chant together before proceeding in procession around the town. We've heard that it is compulsory for young men to spend a minimum of one month as a monk and have had many interesting conversations about it: what wonderful training in meditation, but how restricting. As teachers we both noticed the small groups of less compliant young men, who were chatting as they followed the procession and wondered as to their commitment to the religion. We decided to walk down to the main street and lo and behold, bumped into Claudia, the US girl from yesterday, who was well pissed off having been the victim of a scam: she'd given a local 10000 kip ( £1) for some rice, and as more and more monks appeared had taken more and more rice to offer, only to discover that she owed 80000 kip. Have to say whilst feeling some sympathy for her we were also quite amused as she hadn't endeared herself to us. By 6.15am we were enjoying a good breakfast and we then picked up a tuk tuk to take us to the bus station: we arrived just before 7am... what an experience! Once again several touts rushed at us as we got out of the tuk tuk offering us tickets to our destination: Vang Vieng. Brent was Mr Cool again and walked through them to the ticket counter. Unfortunately several of them followed and were clearly calling out to the locals at the ticket counter: when we asked how much the bus was we were rushed into buying a ticket at 95000 kip each and both felt that some sort of back handers had taken place between the touts and the counter assistant. Oh well! The bus left at 7am prompt and we had a moment of thinking we'd done ok, saving at least 50 000 kip ( £5) a ticket. I was a bit saddened to realise that somewhere along the way I'd lost my Tongan fan, which had stood my in such good stead in the high temperatures and humidity that we have been experiencing. It had also been much commented on by both Thai and Lao local women, who seemed very impressed by the workmanship in it – It was made from dried coconut palm leaf intricatly woven and very beautiful. I just hope that whoever finds it enjoys it half as much as I did! We soon changed our minds about getting a good deal: the bus was full of locals, many carrying young children. As we began the steep climb along windy mountain roads several of the kids, including one right in front of me began to vomit...this one straight out of the window!! I was just relieved that it didn't come back in at my window!! Then several local men began to cough and spit.... we do find this custom quite disgusting and I decided the only way I'd cope was to get into a semi meditative state ie: sleep!! Thankfully this worked most of the time. The express bus continued to disappoint us: it stopped at every village, either to drop someone off, pick someone up or allow passengers to pee or pick up food and drink! One particular stop was very popular and a couple of passengers seemed delighted to buy what looked like bamboo shoots and various herbs. It was well after 10am before the first VIP bus passed us and we noticed that it was almost empty. All very bizarre. As we continued to rise the views became just splendid – lush, green hills were replaced by stark, limestone karstzs.. beside the road we saw several villages built on stilts, with some quite beautiful buildings. Around 1pm school was clearly out and large numbers of uniformed children sauntered down steep hills onto the roadside..... with coaches and trucks passing close to each other, it was a wonder none of them was knocked down. As we continued we saw several toddlers playing near the roadside on hillsides of soil.... it really made us question the over protective nature of parenthood back home..

I was suddenly awoken at around 2pm when we arrived in Vang Vieng; we shunned the tuk tuk drivers and headed for a cafe with loo. After a pepsi and a look at our rough guide we ventured into town. After a look at a grotty room we were approached by a tuk tuk driver who took us to some chalets further out of town by the river. The atmosphere here was calm and we could opt for air con for an extra 20000 kip (£2). We're now back in town organising the next 2 days over a few pints of beer.... very happy.

Thursday 14th May
Well after 6 pints of ale we managed to book ourselves on a trip today. We were picked up around 9.30 and after a Thai tourist joined us in the tuk tuk, we headed off to pick up the rest of the group. We were certainly a mixed group: there was a very interesting couple: Poky and Chidi– he was Austrian and must have been in his late 40s with a typical middle age beer belly, while she was maybe early 30s, and a beautiful Thai woman. They seemed very close and were quite overt in this...which seemed odd as we'd been very careful to do no more than hold hands in public since coming into SE Asia. I asked if he spoke Thai and he told me that they communicated in English. We struggled to understand this relationship, as both had limited English, but have to say that they seemed very together and laughed a lot! Our Thai young man spoke quite good English and explained that he wasn't actually from Thailand but worked in Bangkok as and electrician. A group of 4 Chinese tourists then joined us and proved to be very up for a good time. The oldest guy was very extrovert, singing loudly and making the others howl with laughter. A younger guy was clearly tickled pink by him, as were 2 very attractive young women, one of whom wore a headscarf tied around her lower face. We couldn't decide if she was ill, or if it was a precaution or simply a fashion accessory! The last member of the group was an Italian guy, who is a freelance graphic designer. He came from central Italy, but had worked in Madrid and currently works in Amsterdam. He was fairly quiet, but pleasant enough. Our first stop was to visit a cave: we walked through a village and came to the cave, where we were handed head lights and rubber tyres, ready for some tubing through the caves. This took some time, particularly as the loud Chinese guy had rushed straight into the caves, with no light and had persuaded the other Chinese to join him. much hooting and laughter came echoing out of the caves. Anyway the lot of them took quite lot of persuading to come out and get their headlights! Exploring the caves was quite an adventure: we basically sat / lay in the tyres and at first held on to a rope which lead under an overhang into the first cave. At the rear of the cave we had to get out of our tyres and walk, somewhat bent over into the next cave. Our guide pointed out a spider, which fortunately I couldn't see as I'd taken off my specs as quite lot of splashing was going on and I didn't want them damaged in he caves. Brent only saw 2 red eyes, but that would have been enough for me to have a heart attack! Anyway we then formed a line back in our tyres, supporting the following tyre by tucking our feed under it. We then used our arms to pull ourselves through the water. Initially we were in 2 groups, with the Chinese group together. As we moved through the caves they began to sing, so we then did the same...it almost became a contest and was a lot of fun, reminiscent of my nephew's wedding reception in France!! We were in the caves for around 50 minutes and saw some quite beautiful caves, with fantastic stalactites and rock formations. At one point the ceiling looked like the inside of a whale... amazing. We were a bit sad to climb out of the tyres, but ready for the next adventure!! This had to wait until after lunch though and lunch was quite a big affair: fried rice and veges with kebabs and bananas.
After lunch we walked back across the paddy fields to the see what was known as the elephant cave. The cave had been turned into a shrine with a huge reclining plaster buddha along one side. In the centre was a huge sitting buddha.The guide started to explain about the history of the cave. He explained that Laos had been known as the country of elephants but many had been killed in the American War, The cave used to have a huge bathing pool at the rear which was deep enough for elephants to cool off in after work. Since the demise of the elephants though the local village had thought that this wasn't safe and had decided to fill it in. They had placed the concrete buddha over the hole to the water cave. The guide then went on to explain about the practice of buddhism and the 7 positions of the buddha one for each day of the week. Unfortunately his English wasn't good enough to be able to cross examine him in detail. One thing that clearly emerged though was that we together with the Italian were the only people listening as he showed us around. It made one think about the benefits of being able to speak English. As we left the cave our guide mentioned that in Laos there were 3 levels of people – this seemed to be similar to the caste system in India. He is in the lowest level. Brent asked how the level was determined, but didn't really get a reply.

From the cave we took a short drive to the start of our kayaking trip down the river. The boats were launched from a small beach. The guides were very good and handed out life jackets. Once again we had to wait for our Chinese companion to get out of the boat before one of the guides could give us some basic instruction. Have to mention here that we have been very impressed by the safety levels on the trips we've done. The 3 guides accompanying this trip had clearly got the group sussed: they put the extrovert Chinese guy in a boat with one of the guides, rather than leave him with the other chinese! As we set off we had to manoevre some quite lively rapids, and the Italian guy, who was on his own in a boat, didn't manage them and capsized. In the course of the afternoon he had to be rescued a few times, but he hadn't kayaked before and said it was harder than he'd expected. He wasnt the only one to capsize and Brent and I were very pleased with ourselves and how we managed our boat. Half way back we came to the tubing area: we realised we were approaching it from some way off when we heard the sound of loud disco type music. Then one bar after another appeared, At the far end of the course 2 bars were heaving with backpacker type young people. There was a zip wire swing and it was fun watching some of them jumping into the water from the wire. We'd heard about this tubing experience... in fact been warned that there were regular casualties of young people who worked their way down stream, stopping off at each bar for whisky bucket!! When we actually saw it we were surprised by how few people were in the water tubing! We only saw a handful of folk. Either they were all leaving it til late evening to return or they were just visiting the bars!! Our group stopped off further downstream, where we had a zip wire, slide and bar area to ourselves. The music was great and Brent and I immediately started to dance...much to the amusement of the rest of the group. It seemed that no one was going to venture onto the zip wire/slide but after a beer or two the Austrian guy took the lead and came rushing down the slide, beer belly and all. Then the Thai lad had a go, followed by one of the Chinese girls. It was a bit scary watching her drop into the water, as she went under and had to be pulled out by several of our guides, who had been very closely following the process. I asked if she was ok and she was absolutely freezing and still in shock a few minutes after landing. As the fun continued Brent decided he wanted to have a go on the swing. Brent continuing here....
The platform you took off from was about 30 ft high and the line suspended from a crane like structure over the water. Someone placed the bar in your hand and you launched yourself into space. Having watched people do it before me I realised it was better to complete one swing back to the platform before dropping into the water. I did the old tarzan cry as I swung down and out over the water. Dropping into the water was murky and I felt as if I was sinking down and down. I eventually emerged feeling energised by the adrenalin rush.

Back to Linda here...
After Brent had had his turn the 2nd Chinese girl decided to go up..and as soon as she started to swing she started squeeling and kicking her legs up and down, a bit like a 2 year old having a tantrum. We all found this hilarious at first, but after 3 swings realised that she was actually petrified and didn't want to let go! We shouted out encouragingly and eventually she dropped into the water. She immediately sank and I was really afraid for her Our 3 guides once again rushed to the rescue as she appeared to be having a fit.. it took some time for her to recover from the ordeal but once she had I wandered over to see how she was feeling. Her friend then explained that it was hard for them both, especially as they couldn't swim!! I couldn't believe it... Were they completely mad or brave... well I can tell you I reckon they were very naive.

We soon continued our journey down the river. I have to say that Linda and I have definitely mastered the art of double kayaking and put a lot of the younger paddlers in the shade as we navigated our way through the rapids. In due course we sadly came to the end of our trek down the river – pretending to carry on as our guides called us back.
In the evening we went back to the Irish bar and had some traditional English food ( sometimes you just have to do it ) Delicious chicken and mushroom pie with chips – all very surreal in the heart of Laos.

Friday 15th May
Today was our moving on day. There are always mixed emotions going through our heads when this happens. Should we have stayed longer? What will the next destination be like? How easy will it be to find accommodation? We had enjoyed the laid back feel of Van Vieng and thought about another day. We had booked our ticket on the bus though so had committed. Herein lies another funny tale.
When finding transport there are two main considerations – cost and comfort. Our journey to VV had certainly not been comfortable (see earlier blog ) and although we went through all the right channels to make it cheaper we had definitely paid ' foreigner' prices. So this time we had decided to opt for a VIP bus. We enquired about the price in the guesthouse and whether it had air con. The price was 60000 kip but she informed us that the bus had no AC. We decided to look in the town for a better bus and cheaper price. On our second enquiry we found one at 50,000 and were shown a picture of the bus and assured it had AC. We decided to go for it. We were offered the choice of being picked up at our hotel, or meeting the bus in town. As we were so far out we decided it would be safer to get on the bus in town. As we weren't leaving untll 1pm we packed up and then went on a really nice walk from the chalet: we crossed several rickety bridges to get to the other side, where we followed a path to a laid back cafe, with a raised platform with cushions and a low table, overlooking the river. After a cold drink we headed back to the chalet, noting on route a cafe showing Friends, where we decided to spend the time before the bus arrived. Back at the chalet we picked up our bags and walked the 15 minutes to town. It was boiling hot and I was tempted to go for a tuk tuk ( please note I've now realised that I was confusing tuc tuc biscuits with the tuk tuk vehicle before...those close to me will know that biscuits have always been my downfall!!) . Anyway we chose once again to keep fit by walking downtown in the heat and were pleased to drop off the bags at the travel agency and move on to watch friends with a cold coke nearby. Shortly before 1pm a tuk tuk arrived and we joined a young guy and his guitar and ....guess what? You'll never believe it..... were taken back to our guest house, where the cranky bus, with no air con awaited us!!! You have to laugh eh? After that we had almost an hour to wait for various tuk tuks to bring other unsuspecting back packers to join us. You live and learn. We now know that nothing is as it seems in SE Asia and it's best to take everything you're told with a pinch of salt. It's clear to us now that all the travel companies work together to fill buses and the bus you get largely depends on numbers of travellers. ( we later met up with the Brit couple who'd taken the local (spitting) bus with us...they'd also booked a VIP bus from VV only to end up in a mini bus...thus confirming this theory!)

The bus journey was ok... at least there was no spitting and vomitting to cope with, but when we arrived in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, the heavens opened and it absolutely threw it down with rain. During the journey we'd earmarked a couple of places we might stay, and although we knew they weren't far away, we took a tuk tuk ( good phrase eh?) to the top of our list. This proved too expensive and our lovely driver was very patient with us and found us another place, still pretty central and a lot cheaper. He even waited while Brent struggled into our rain cape and went and looked at the room ...great tuk tuk service at under £2.

After settling into our room, which was quite big with aircon, we took a walk to the main square, where there are some very smart and pretty expensive French restaurants. We continued past them and found an indian restaurant, where we had Western food and a few Laos beers. I've decided I prefer the Laos dark beer, which comes in small bottles, which I manage to finish in time with Brent and his larger lager beer! The restaurant had a stage, which seemed set up for a band. However communication was difficult here, as the staff had very little English. It was great when a 4 piece band suddenly appeared and began to play Western songs.... the lead guitarist was an older guy, who was really talented. We reckon he may have been the dad. His 'son' had a lovely voice and a good range and we really enjoyed listening to them. They had heavily accented English and after a few beers we had trouble keeping straight faces when the 'daughter' sang the Karen Carpenter chorus: 'Every sha la la la, every who, oa, oa, oa, still shines.... ' Her version was: ' Every sha ra, ra, ra, ' you get the gist? We would have liked to hear them sing something traditional, but they stuck with old favourites, which was still great.

Saturday 16th – Monday 18th May
On Saturday we tried to book our flight out of Laos: we'd decided we needed break from the hot buses and found reasonale flights on Air Asia (ie Ryan Air). We would fly first to Kuala Lumpur(KL) in Malaysia and from there to Siem Reap in Cambodia, which is near to Angkor Watt, where all the Khmer temples are found. We shall spend a few days there before heading back to KL and on to the Perhentian islands, probably via the Cameron Highlands ( see prev. blog). Unfortunately no flight is available on Monday so we'll have another day here and leave on Tues morning. We've enjoyed Vientiane, especially the unassuming, humble and warm hearted local people....BUT... the humidity and high temperatures have rendered us almost unable to function effectively. After an hour or so of walking / sightseeing, we rush to an air conditioned cafe ( fortunately these are plentiful) to recover, or alternately back to our room, where we glaze over in front of the TV. Actually it really is difficult. Having spoken to my sisters last night, who had no pity as it's grey and rainy back home, we know we shouldn't complain, but it's hard to stay lucid when you have sweat running down your body all the time.

We have managed to see the oldest and most interesting temple here, Wat Sisaket. It has lovely cloisters and is very peaceful. Each area had both huge buddhas and tiny ones in small alcoves set into the walls. We liked it here, particularly as it was less gaudy and had a cool, contemplative ambiance. We've also seen the National Museum, which didn't have air con and, although informative about the history of Laos, was pretty boring, with too many photos and information not clearly put together. We also walked up the Vientiane equivalent of the Champs Elysees, called Lane Xang Avenue, which has it 's own incomplete Arc de Triomphe, the Patouxai. We quite liked the monument, although others had been derisory about it: it was unpainted concrete, but had lovely carvings, especially on the ceiliing. It was also the start of a lovely park area, where lots of people were hanging out as it was the weekend when we visited.

As we walked around we spotted a library and decided to have a look. This proved very interesting: there was a good children's section, with multi lingual books in French, Lao and English. It was great to see plenty of kids using it too. There were also lots of other books in English, including travel books. However there were lots of shelves with no books at all and many of the books were very out of date: eg ITC books with old fashioned programmes.

One morning we chose to eat in a nearby restaurant, which turned out to be run by a lovely Japanese hotelier, You_ skate is his email address and is the pronunciation of his name too! Over breakfast we had a long conversation with him: turns out he's the same age as us, and is divorced with 3 children. We really enjoyed his company and ended up spending all morning with him and learning about his life.

We've enjoyed eating here: one night we ate in a restaurant run by a charity called Friends....? It was partly funded by UNICEF and it's aim was to get street chilldren off the street and support them and their families by developing their skills. The food here was excellent and we were delighted to see them present the food with the same rose tomato decoration that we had been taught in Thailand! It was interesting to see how many young people were involved... we even had one girl who's job was to keep our table clean in between courses.

On our last night we ate in a pool bar, called the Red Mekong. The food was ok but the beer was good and Brent got invited to play pool, which was fun. There was an older English guy in there, who lost the game before Brent's, so I got chatting to him. Turned out he'd been in hospital management back in the UK. He was originally from the Black country and had one son in Manchester and a daughter in Surrey. He said he'd been a millionaire twice back home: once through owning race horses and the other from his antiques business. Anyway he'd lived all over SE Asia and chosen Laos, where he hopes to see out his days. He runs a pet shop here and employs several locals to manage and run it with him. He was really interesting and looking for a stress free retirement, whilst enjoying the attention of lots of young Laos women! He'd made lots of friends and when he left was off Lao dancing!!

One thing that has disappointed us here in the PDR of Laos is the number of disabled people we've seen, who seem completely marginalised here: for example last night we saw a man with amputated legs, crawling along the floor on his hands and knees...it was shocking, especially considering the attributes the Lao people have. We have also seen disabled people in converted tricycles, able to use his arms to power the vehicle. Our 'friend' Youskate was also clearly disappointed in this aspect of the culture here and told us that in Japan you wouldn't see this.

Before moving into our next country we want to note down some of the wonderful mottoes we've come across:
From Sang in Thailand:
No jokes, no fun.......no fun, no babies
From You skate in Laos:
No money, no honey! ( in relation to his chances of finding a soul mate, who wasn't after his money

photos down the Mekong river

2009-05-12T15:08:00.003+01:00

This was such a mystical experience...and we got a real taste of life along the river. Will try to give you a flavour...

Luang Prabang continued

2009-05-12T15:03:00.001+01:00

Saturday May 9h continues...
Explored the main street this morning. A mixture of tourist agencies, guesthouses, restaurants and shops. It had a very sophisticated feel at times with teak and wood frontages but the same off white behind. As I had already eaten sat with a coffee at the Cafe des Arts while Linda ate hers. Much of Laos was previously French speaking so many places have the French names still.
We wandered down to the Royal Palace only to find it closed for lunch so went to have a cold drink in a nearby cafe. I had a watermelon frappe and linda a lemon soda. Tried to get online even paying but to no avail.

Afterwards we managed to visit the museum: this used to be the royal palace and had impressive mirror mosaic walls on a deep red background. We followed the signs to see the floating buddha, both expecing to see a young monk sitting on bunch of waterlilies: oh dear, we quickly realised that the poster was in fact advertising a photo exhibition, which we found pretty average. On the way in to the exhibition we met our friend Thomas and arranged to meet up at 7.30pm for a beer. As we wandered back to our room Brent began to feel odd, so we decided to head back for a rest. Unfortunately he steadily felt worse and was feeling hot and cold. We tried a short walk down the peninsular to another temple, but it was no use: Brent simply needed to lie down. In the end I left Brent to have a pleasant evening out with, as Brent put it, a man young enough to be my son – Thomas. We wandered through the night market and he made quite a few purchases. Then we sat down at the vegetarian stall for some food. There we met an interesting pair of lads, one from Cape Town. He and I had an interesting chat about South Africa and the poverty issue there. The 2 of them also talked us through their experiences in Vietnam... and I have to say made me question whether I wanted to go there. Thomas and I finally headed down the the Mekong where we enjoyed a beer in one of the riverside bars. He then walked me back and we were both surprised to see that at the bar at the end of the road a film was being shown in Lao: huge numbers of locals were watching it and I was glad of Thomas' company!

Sunday 10th May
Brent woke up feeling a bit better, but still a bit shaky, so we decided to hang out around the town today. We went looking for a silversmith to make me a ring to set my opal into but the local craftsmen were all working in large pieces of silver, making bowls and the like. We ended up walking to the other side of the peninsula to the Nam Khan river, where we spotted the bamboo bridge, which Thomas had mentioned to me and which looked pretty amazing. On the way back to the room we stopped off at a tiny cafe, run by a very friendly French speaking Lao. Brent needed to eat at this point, so ordered some friend rice and veges. As we were waiting for this meal a larger than life character appeared, armed with a large camera: he clearly knew the owner and asked him if he could take a photo of him with the Lao Lao alcohol. It turned out he was a professional photographer who lived in India, but who travelled regularly in Laos. He was photographing for stories of human interest and had found out that our host had fleed Laos during the Vietnam war, and lived in France for a few years, before coming back to the family place some years ago.
Towards dusk we walked down to the market where Linda had eaten the evening before. This was a buffet selection of food. I was tempted so had some noodles and rice. We later headed down to the river and shared a large Laos beer before retiring to the room.

Monday 11th May
Had the same difficulty in waking up early. Had wanted to go and help with a reading scheme at a local school but the heat makes it very difficult to get up in time. Rose later than hoped and went for breakfast at the same place as yesterday. One of the women living at the house was outside cutting her toenails – lovely. As we walked in she went inside and the previous mornings waitress came out to take our order. The service today was not quite as good. The parting greeting though was very cheery. We wandered up to the main street in search of a tuk tuk to take us to the waterfall. This had become a regular call from the drivers ' tuk tuk to waterfall – cheap cheap ' so we were not worried about finding one. As we bought provisions for the afternoon a young American girl was commandeering one near to us and was in discussion with the driver. She had got him down to 50,000 kip ( about £5 ) as he said he had two more people. I quickly butted in and said we would like to go if price could be lowered little realizing that we were the other two people he meant as we had shown interest earlier. So we arrived at a price and thought that was the end of it only for him to start driving round the town looking for more custom. Eventually he found two other people who had not been able to get in their friends tuk tuk. They offered 20,000 and the driver seemingly offended started to drive off at speed. Our quick thinking US friend suddenly banged on the window telling him to stop and he did. The two others upped their offer to 30,000 so ours was lowered to 30,000 a head too. All parties happy. This was a good example of the way bartering works here ( The next day we saw one driver offering waterfall for 10,000 ) Is all about bluff and double bluff.
Our new passengers were both from England and were clearly blunt speaking southerners. Kenny described himself as 'accident prone.' He'd been bitten by a snake and was covered in bed bug bites! He was quite a character. These 2 and our american girl got into big conversation about ping pong shows... which we have yet to experience. I know that Juicy Lucy has been going for years in spain, and this sounded like an even cruder experience...needless so say it isn't table tennis! We arrived at our destination and after a short walk came to the black bears compound, where we saw 3 or 4 bears close up. Then on to the first swimming area. The afternoon was in fact a big hit: turquoise pools at the base of beautiful water falls, with changing areas and lots of good swimming.....and, most important of all...it was cool!! We met up with our 'friends' again at 4,15 for the ride home and on the way through the night market I bought a local skirt and blouse. We had a lovely meal at the riverside...the noodles with vegetables and cashew nuts was to die for and nicely accompanies with the local beer.

Tuesday 12th May
After a very disturbed night this proved to be a bit of a nothing day. I'd really wanted to do the volunteer reading at 9am, but quite simply couldn't get out of bed. We finally dragged ourselves out just before noon and enjoyed a good breakfast. Then we went back to the room for a rest! It's just too hot to function,,,honest! We spent most of the afternoon reading, sleeping and trying to get on line. Around 6pm we went for another meal at the riverside, but the previous night's dish was nowhere near as good! Bizarre eh? Back at the night market Brent did a great job of bartering for some wall hangings, which we'll now have to carry around as the post in Laos is pretty erratic! We are about to pack up ready for an early start tomorrow: we have set alarms for 5am and hope to see the daily procession of monks, to whom local people offer daily alms.. then it's off to the bus station where we hope to pick up a bus to Vien Vang.

slow boat down the Mekong

2009-05-10T08:25:00.001+01:00

Brent here...
The Mekong is a huge river. At some points on the jourmey you feel you are crossing lakes at others the shore closes in on you. The waters always have great power though. They swirl around with powerful eddy currents and tumble across projecting rocks. The boat we travelled in although called a slow boat once in the current picked up considerable speed and the jungle moved past us faster and faster. Swaying was a constant experience.

The journey itself was one in which you were lulled into a different time frame, Your attention would at times be caught by villages on the banks of the river at others by observing your fellow passengers. Villagers would go about their daily business. Fishing was clearly a major occupation and we saw lots of the long fast boats plying the water and many men tending nets. At other times we would see children having fun by the riverbanks splashing in the water. On occasion we would pull into a village to allow people to board and often the children would stand smiling or women would be washing clothes or preparing food, The contrast with the occupants of the boat was quite extreme. Apart from a few local people moving down river most were young ( 18- 28 ) backpackers. On casual observation you may think of them as having little money and possessions but look closer and you would see the tell tale signs of designer t-shirts, expensive sunglasses or cameras. Many had the look of privilege, an unmistakable way of knowing they are the ' beautiful people' in the way they hold themselves – their posture. A face which shows no lines of worry or toil. Knowing they are on a big adventure but never quite throwing themselves fully into it – the journey almost as important as the experience.

Lin here...just to add some specifics on the young people we saw: the Dutch or Austrian couple nearby – he was reading an English text on equality and justice, that looked very difficult! The older and larger Dutch guy, who was very friendly and the unusual American guy who clearly had Autistic tendencies: he would walk up and down the boat in a military style, raising a few smiles, which he was totally oblivious of. We noticed later in the journey that he was in deep conversation with a local lady and wondered if they were travelling together. An Austrian couple, who looked more Spanish or Italian, both very beautiful. They had been travelling like us for about 8 months and I shared experiences of Australia with them. We also bumped into them over breakfast on the ssecond morning. Then there were our card partners Thomas and Kateen, who had met up a couple of days earlier and who both had the same camera: she was in her early 30s and had recently received severance pay from one of the big banks, where she's worked as an accountant. She was hoping to travel for as long as possible and on more than one occasion mentioned never working again...maybe she seriously hoped to find a rich husband!! Thomas meanwhile is a 23 year old young Canadian with English father and Irish mother, He seems very mature and has just finished a university degree in geology and has a good job lined up in the oil business when he returns in September. We were interested to learn that Kateen's parents had adopted 3 Indian children and the whole family had travelled to India.

Back to Brent...
As the journey continued the occupants of the boat would find more comfortable positions. The seats we occupied were constructed out of simple timbers and were crude benches with upright backs so it was not possible to sit in them for long. Almost as soon as the journey started one man who was older began to walk up and down constantly to the point of irritation. He became known as the 'walking man ' Everyone else found positions on the floor of the boat – the majority discounting the seats so as to be able to stretch out. Time was occupied by reading, viewing the stunning scenery and in our case playing the odd game. The heat was only punctuated by the breeze coming off the water. As we contunued down the river a sort of meditative quiet descended on the boat and time slowed down.

Our journey reached its half way mark at a place called Pak Beng. This was to be our stop for the night. We had read in the guide book about this stopover being a bit of a free for all and were almost prepared for the onslaught. As the boat arrived at the landing stage between two other long boats it was ' boarded 'by many children from the adjacent boats. This felt very much like being taken over by pirates with children suddenly appearing amongst the leaving passengers and everyone holding tight to their belongings. This was then followed on disembarking by lots of people offering accommodation by holding up signs or pressing cards into your hand. At this point an iron will is needed to walk through and find your own bed for the night – usually at a lower price.

Pak Beng was one of those one street towns that wound its way up the hill. We climbed steadily looking for a double room and it wasn't long before we found one that had been mentioned in our guide book. On inspection it seemed clean with a ceiling fan. I went down to settle the money. Herein lies another story. Laos is a country which has experienced hyperinflation so denominations of the currency are in thousands – one pound being worth about 10,000 kip. We had not had time to visit a money machine since crossing the border so I ended up paying in the Thai currency ( Baht ). The change was given in kip – so was almost impossible for me to calculate whether i was getting a fair deal for the room and a fair deal for the currency. Laos accepts Baht, US dollars and kip interchangeably. Is one of those systems that ' does your head in ' and leaves you open to being overcharged.

Bill settled we went in search of food only to meet our friends from the boat Thomas and Kateen. They kindly invited us to share their table and we ordered food. The waiter was a young lad who was occcasionally listening to his i pod ( even in poor countries they seem to be the de rigeur necessity ) The food was basic but adequate. At about 10.30.pm the lights suddenly went out. The waiter brought over some candles. The strange thing was the cafe next door still had lights as did the one across the road.

Linda here:
We finished our food and beer and made our way back to our guesthouses. Luckily ours still had lights on, but just as I was taking out my contact lenses the lights went out... thank goodness for our headtorches!We managed to get sorted, but needless to say we had no electricity all night, so the fan was useless!
Friday 8th May
After a very average night's sleep we were up early, again taking Mrs Jib's advice about getting onto the boat early in case of an early departure. We found a lovely spot for breakfast which was incredible: we took a deal for the continental breakfast and there was so much food that we took a doggy bag away with us. We also took some freshly made sandwiches. By 8.15 we had put our stuff on the boat and grabbed some seats nearer the front of the boat. We then took a short walk to the tourist info. office, which we'd noticed near the landing stage. It turned out there were treks you could do from this village, but we had trouble imagining spending a second night there! In the end the boat didn't leave as planned at 9am but nearer to 10 and we then got back into 'the zone' relaxing into our trip. It was much hotter today and we both slept more than yesterday. Thomas and Kateen had invented a different version of Quiddler and we enjoyed trialling it. They are good company and we hope to keep in touch. One interesting stop today was when we parked up next to a very different vessel: this had comfy seats and pretty curtains and was clearly a 1st class version of the slow boat. As our team loaded on baskets of livestock, including a lot of chicken onto the roof, we watched a party of well dressed Chinese people board their boat. We noticed they carried only hand luggage and moments later local people appeared carrying suitcases some on their heads. We would have loved to find out more about this group but summised that we were witnissing a Chinese tour for wealthier people. They looked highly amused as they surveyed our boat from their luxurious seats! Around 5.30pm we began to notice more homes along the riverbanks and also spotted some caves, which later turned out to be a tourist attraction where lots of Buddha statues can be visited. Near a huge staircase we dropped off the last of the local travellers and just a few minutes later at 6pm found ourselves docking in Luang Prabang. Tuk Tuks and taxi drivers once again assailed us all as we climbed up the steep bank and once again we managed to make our way through them and to wander along one of the main streets in search of several earmarked guest houses. One more persistant young man on a bicycle, wanted us to look at 'his' guesthouse. He waited while we approached the Mekong Riiverside guesthouse, which was on our list. There we were offered a room for $64!! Another couple overheard the price and like us were gob smacked! We continued along the road with the aforementioned young man, who explained that the Mekong was owned by a wealthy French man, and not local people. 'His' place was local and much cheaper, he said. We decided to have a look. He showed us to a room quoting $35 for the night. The room was quite beautiful with polished teak floor, large bathroom, huge bed, air con, flat screen TV and furnished balcony and although the price was higher than we wanted to pay, we decided to take it for the night. Our young friend explained that there were cheaper rooms we could look at the next day. We got settled in and wandered down to the main street, where we had an average Indian meal in a local restaurant. Then we spent about half an hour exploring the night market, which looks good. We were just bartering over a wall hanging, when Kateen and Thomas appeared and we had a nice chat. Turned out the Kateen was off to Ventiane the next day, while Thomas was going to spend a bit more time in Luang Prabang. Back at the guesthouse I had a pretty disturbed night, despite the apparent luxury and next morning Brent headed off to scout some other guesthouses, while I had a bit of a lie in, enjoying the room. In the end we asked to see one of the cheaper rooms, at $12: this proved to be very comfortable...no TV but more efficient air con and shower and we decided to look no further. We'd certainly recommend the Sok Dee Residency to any of our readers!

Northern Thailand and into Laos

2009-05-08T17:00:00.001+01:00

Hello again dear reader,
Forgot to mention a very interesting conversation we had as we were walking along on Thursday. Brent was asking Dat about how old people were looked after in the villages and this lead to Dat asking about what happened at home. We said how as a nation we felt we were not very good at this and talked about old people's homes etc. Dat was clearly horrified by this. He explained that your parents spend years looking after you and then, it's your turn to look after them as they get older. He just couldn't understand why this didn't happen at home. I explained about young people moving out of their parent's home when they studied or got married, but he still didn't understand. Have to say we were humbled by his approach and the young people with us were all very quiet...actually none of them commented! Food for thought eh?

Saturday May 2nd
Well we had a nice night last night to finish off our trek: we met up with everyone near to the night market and enjoyed a nice meal with everyone. We got through a fair bit of ale...especially Ben and Jenny tee hee! and were the last to leave the restaurant. Ben wanted to catch the end of a thai boxing contest and Nicola and Karen headed off with him, while the rest of us headed back for a good night's sleep. I'd been very sad to pick up the news that my aunie Marie had died and have to say I really felt a long way from home tonight. I kept thinking of her during the night and didnt sleep well: I really wanted to catch up with my sisters!

This morning we had a lay in and got some organizing done, before wandering down to explore a different part of town: the riverside. This was very pleasant and we saw some lively looking bars and a restaurant that had been recommended by Nicola. On the way back we decided we were hungry and stopped for a snack, which proved to be a full meal! We stopped at a little cafe just around the corner from Eagle house, where we are staying: we were met by a lovely local lady and ordered a soup and a stir fry meal, both of which turned out to be huge and lovely and very filling. With 2 beers the bill came to under £3...wish we'd found this earlier. After leaving the cafe we struck up a conversation with some newly arrived travellers, who turned out to be a portuguese guy and a Spanish girl and both very lovely! I was very pleased to be able to get on line at an internet cafe and to catch up with Jan and Barb. Just speaking to them made me feel better and tonight I'm able to focus on remembering all the good times we had with auntie.

Sunday 3rd May
I spoke to Shirl today, which was good and I'm also catching Gaz and Steph on facebook, so that's good. Simon also caught up with us, which is great. We decided to visit one of the famous Chiang Mai temples today and used a taxi to get up to it. We were going to be charged 40 baht for the single journey and 80 for the return. We were worried that the driver might disappear with our money, so I suggested that we pay half on arrival. Were we surprised when she just waved us off without any payment after asking how long we wanted!!

Wat Doi Suthep is at the top of a hill and there were great views of the city on the way up to it. There were also lots of locals out and about visiting the zoo, botanical gardens and other temples on our route. When we got to the temple we were pleasantly surprised to see the Spanish speaking couple from yesterday at the base of the staircase leading to the temple. We had a nice chat with them. They had enjoyed the previous evening which they'd spent at the riverside ( we had been too knackered to go back there!!). There were lots of stalls at the base of the staircase and it was very busy. The actual temple was very ornate, to the point of being gaudiesque. Queues of followers waited to pour oil into bowls to keep lighted oil burners alight, others offered flowers to the various Buddhas, others walked around the golden towers with loads of flowers to offer... all very interesting and a bit overwhelming. It was lovely to discover an open area, where first of all we saw the traditional row of bells, then some beautiful trees with great views. We sat here and had a drink before venturing back down where we decided to buy a few bits and bobs from the traders. As soon as we reached the bottom of the staircase our driver spotted us and drove us back. The Thai people really restore your faith in people. After a quick break at the guest house we wandered down to the night market, which once again we found a bit overwhelming: we did spot our Spanish speaking friends from afar, but quickly gave up the search for shorts etc and settled into an Italian restaurant, which served reasonable pizza and pasta... a nice change. We also picked up a box from the post office, ready to post off our sleeping bags, bedrolls etc. Then wandered down to the saloon bar to watch some footie on TV. Here we got chatting to a very interesting guy, who bought us a drink...I drank G&Ts tonight as a change from the beer. He had family in England, but had lived all over the place. Canada seemed to be his home but his daughter lives in Switzerland. He was no longer with his wife and actually, despite being very wealthy, didn't seem too happy. He'd made his money as a trouble shooter in the Nuclear energy business and was now retired. He enjoyed the adrenalin rush and had done all sorts of things. He was a qualified dive instructor and had run a business in Hawaii doing this. He had also been a very competent skier.

Monday May 4th
Our last day in Chiang Mai . We got up and finished our packing before heading to the bus station, where we picked up a bus to Chiang Rai. This proved to be very comfortable. We were given a drink of water and wafer biscuits by the 'bus hostess' who was lovely. The bus had air con and the 3 hour journey flew past. Suddenly the bus stopped and we realised we were there! As we were climbing off the bus we were assailed by tuk tuk and taxi drivers wanting to drive us into chiang Rai. Brent was very impressive: he shook them all off and went to ask at the info desk, only to discover that for 10baht we could get a taxi /bus into the city. We did this and then walked along to find the guest house which we'd booked on line. On the way we stopped in a wonderful air conditioned cafe...recommened in the Rough Guide, called ....... We then found the Chat House. Have to say I did think it would have been easier to get a taxi...they are so cheap and it's so hot! Still when we got there we were chuffed with the room: it was a lot more comfortable that Eagle House with air con that worked and a lovely communal area, which was quite busy. After settling in we walked up to the night market. Unfortunately as we arrived I was desperate for the loo, so we decided we'd have to have a beer in the bar / restaurant opposite the night bazaar. The Ayes bar proved to be a good find, and we stayed there and ate another lovely meal, which set us up for a stroll through the night market. This was much more civilised than chaing Mai's market, with fewer people and a stage with live music. I bought a gypsy style skirt, which I'm very pleased with for £4.

Tuesday 5th April
Today we explored the nearby temple of the Emerald Buddha, which was very lovely. After we'd explored the museum there we sat outside on a bench to cool down and one of the buddhist priests came along and offered us some Lychees, picked freshly... they were gorgeous! Visiting the temples certainly made us reflect on religion and its importance to people the world over: I (Linda) had naively thought that Buddhism was more a way of life than a religion, but having seen so many people worshipping the buddhas in the temples, as well as all the ritual aspects of the religion, I have realised that it is very like all other religions I'm familiar with... and it seems that many humans need to have something to look up to.

We then continued to the tribal village museum, attached to the Cabbages and Condom restaurant ( also in the Rough Guide1). This had 2 lifesize models – Santa and Captain Condom, made totally out of condoms!! Looked like it could be a fun place to th eat in the evenings, with live music, but we were too tired to walk all that way again! We chose to eat at our guest house and very nice it was too.

Wednesday 6th May
Walked down to the bus station and were speedily directed to the Chiang Khong bus. We had a bit of time, so Brent popped out for provisions. This bus wasnt air conditioned but had lots of fans and open windows, so was fine. When we reached our destination after about 3 hours we were immediately approacched by a tuk tuk driver, who explained that the town was actually 2k away. We took him at his word and he drove us to our next guest house. We'd hoped to stay at the bamboo riverside guest house, which Toe back in France had mentioned. It turned out to have closed down, so we used the Baan Tam Mi La instead. On arrival we were shown a list of prices. The room with aircon at 600 baht, seemed a bit expensive I£12) but we went to have a look at it and it was lovely, so we stayed. There was a hammock out on the veranda, a view of the river and a large bathroom with a good shower, as well as a king size very comfy bed and Tv ( mostly in Thai). After settling in we had a wander as usual, but this time with a purpose: we wanted to find Mr Jib and his wife Doe, Toe's friends. We were chuffed when we asked our host about them as she immediately knew who we meant. It turned out that they now run a coffee shop just 2 doors away. We introduced ourselves to Doe, who was thrilled to hear about Toe. Apparently she and her husband visited Toe and his family in Vias some time ago so we were able to talk about the village.. This couple explained that they had given up the guest house at the right time, before recession hit. They said that there had been fewer travellers this year and they were cleaarly just beginning to get established in their new business. Mr Jib arrived, a hippy looking cool guy on his scooter. He made us laugh talking about the French and their baguettes! After a very good coffee, smoothie and piece of home made banana cake, we left this lovely couple. We told them we'd see them tomorrow to buy provisions for our trip down the Mekong. We then walked down to the immigration area and sussed out how the system worked ready for tomorrow's journey. We enjoyed a stroll back along the riverside, where a huge path / cycle way is looking a bit the worse for wear, but which had some lovey views of the river. Back at the guest house we had quite a nice meal befoe getting an early night.

Thursday 7th...Happy 40th birthday Steve!!!
Up and out before 8am, We had scrambled eggs at the guest house and picked up sandwiches and cake from Mrs Jib. Whille Brent, who was panicking as usual on trnasit days, went off in search of more baht, Mr Jib gave me some sound advice re. the slow boad: he said it was cheapest to make our own way to the pier in Houxxai in Laos, to pick up the slow boat. Also suggested we sit near the front of the boat, in case of rain. What a nice couple! We said our goodbyes and headed off on the next stage of our adventure!

Despite the long queues at immigration we managed to get the ferry across into Laos with plenty of time . The vendors of all inclusive tickets for tuk tuks and the boat seemed disappointed when we waved them off but we took the given advice and made our own way to the pier. We were nice and early on to the ferry and it was almost an hour later that the huge crowd joined us on the boat... we'd saved a few baht too...always a good thing! Now here we are on the Mekong... we've just had a game of quiddler with a Canadian guy and US girl sittig behind us...that was fun. There's a clear blue sky above and a pleasant breeze blowing and we can't quite believe we are here...fantastic

More rafting

2009-05-05T12:16:00.003+01:00

Brent takes his turn...

rafting

2009-05-05T12:12:00.001+01:00

Fantastic fun...

more photos of trek

2009-05-05T12:07:00.001+01:00

Here's one of our elephant's head, as we got off!!

photos...

2009-05-05T11:58:00.002+01:00

We seem to have a lot of problems uploading photos, but I'll try to put on a few now to give you a flavour of our trek, which was very special

3 Day Trek

2009-05-05T11:57:00.000+01:00

Wednesday 29th – Friday 1st May – our 3 day trek:
Ready and waiting at 9am we were picked up by Dat, one of our guides for the 3 days: an attractive young man, who wore a blue and white striped scarf, Arabian style. We jumped onto one of the red taxis that we'd seen about and met 5 of our group. We then picked up an American girl who had just arrived at her smart hotel. Finally we picked up Sang, our second guide. The final member of the local team was a pretty Thai girl, who didn't seem to have much English and certainly didn't come across as very confident. it was a pity we weren't introduced to her as it was only after a day or so that we managed to find out her name (Loo).
As we drove along Brent and I started chatting to folk...
THE GROUP
Ben:
After finishing his A levels Ben had been volunteering in India, teaching English to poorer tribal children aged 5, who otherwise wouldn't have been able to pass the examinations to enter school. He had gained 4 x A's at A level and will be going to Newcastle in the Autumn to study medecine. His father is a surgeon and his mum a GP...enough said. A very nice, well spoken young man, who was proficient in skiing and scuba diving, amongst other things.
Tess and Georgia:
These 2 young girls have just finished A levels and will be starting at Bristol Uni in September. Tess is going to study ancient history and Georgia Italian. Tess's father is a farmer and her mum “an architect come Interior Designer.” We didn't find out what Georgia's family did for a living. The pair were school friends and had attended Cheltenham Ladies' College. They reckoned 75% of kids their age took a gap year, but we reckooned that would be 75% of the girls from their college!
Nicola and Karen:
Nicola is 27 and Karen 29.Both live in Manchester. Since uni Nicola has been working in social work with Domestic violence. She now wants a change and may try to move into forensics psychology. Karen got part way through a PGCE before deciding that teaching wasn't for her. She is now in nursing. This pair have been travelling in SE Asia for a while (about 4 months) and will be moving on to NZ. We were able to give each other tips, which was good.
Jenny:
Jenny is half Taiwanese, and has lived in Hawaii. She is now settled in LA. She has taken a 10 day holiday in Chiang Mai and the trek is part of her break. She is training in chiropractic medecine and acupuncture. Her boyfriend is also training in alternative medecine.Both are nearing the end of their Masters degrees.

Our first stop on the journey was at a local market. This was packed with stalls selling everything from chillies to fried insects and like most of the Thai markets was an assault on the senses. We had a wonder around for a while and Dat and Sang bought some supplies to cook our meals. Back into the open taxi we headed into the hills. The road wound around higher and higher swinging us around in the back – fortunately there was a central bar to hang onto. After a while we stopped at one of the Thai National Parks where we were due to visit a waterfall. Everyone changed into swimming costumes before heading along a short walk to a double fall. We were first in and followed the example of another group who were standing under the full force of the water as it dropped about 20 metres. Was very refreshing on a hot day if a little painful on the shoulders. It wan't long before everyone else joined in screaming and splashing in the cascading water. Cameras were exchanged and many photos taken. Our guides looking like camera salesmen when the group photo was taken... We headed back to the taxi and shorty after stopped for a noodle lunch at a roadside 'service station'after changing again headed off on our journey to the start of the walk. At this point we all had our own small rucksacks and followed our guides along a small track through bamboo groves. Dat explained the value of bamboo to local tribal groups explaining how it was essential for all aspects of their life. Eventually we came to a clearing in the forest where we saw our first example of the rice fields which had the characteristic banked sides. This was the dry season though so none of them were flooded and we walked along the edge of the terraces. Our journey continued on until we eventually smelt the sulphurous stench of thermal activity. This brought back memories of New Zealand and Rotorua where rotten eggs permeated the air. After a short journey off the main track we came to some hot bubbling springs. The steam rose in hot plumes and the water boiled out of the ground. A good photo stop. The surprising thing about this area is that it had been developed as quite an up market spa , with posh hotel. Our guides explained that honeymoon couples would come here and there were two private plunge pools lower down the hill where people could bath in the warm waters.

By now it was getting to late afternoon and our walk continued up steep hills getting more arduous. Silence descended on the group as we all concentrated on our feet and fell into our own thoughts. At the top of the hill Dat cheerily announced ' no more uphill now ' surprisingly he proved to be right and we wound our way down into the first tribal village and our stopping place for the night. As we entered we spotted cattle underneath the homes, which were on stilts. We were shown to our 'hotel' and were pleasantly surprised at how airy and comfy it was: the bamboo floor had roll out mattresses with pillows ready for us. Each area had a mosquito net, which was good news. We also had electricity and Dat later explained that the government had supplies 2 solar panels to the villagers at no cost. (Back at Eagle House Annette reckoned that the cost of running the electricity meant that some of the villagers needed to leave the village to find work... she clearly didn't approve and mentioned the rubbish on TV that they were watching). As soon as we arrived our 3 guides got stuck in preparing food. We decided to help and Jenny joined us. It was fun helping out and we couldn't believe how much frest food had been brought up. When we sat down to eat it was to a wonderful range of beautiful Thai food.We sat around chatting after dinner and Sang told us the first of many jokes..

a lizard, a frog and a centipede sat around drinking coke, water and whisky. After a while they ran out. The lizard went to get more coke, the frog more water and the centipede more whisky. An hour later the lizard and frog were back with no sign of the centipede. 'Mr Centipee!' shouted Mr Lizard, where are you with that whisky?' ...
'I haven't left yet,' replied Mr Centipede, 'I'm still getting my shoes on!;

Sang then proceeded to explain his joke...which he did every time he told one and which made ech joke even funnier!! He is such a lovely guy.

Much later the weather broke it and started to pour with rain. Nicola, Karen and i were bursting for the loo and luckily the rain stopped and off they went with our head torch to light the way. I followed and had a really scary experience: I dropped the torch and the rain started pelting down again, so that I was trapped in a pitch dark very basic toilet and couldn't find the lock! I groped around scared that I might find a creepy crawly...luckily I managed to find the lock and escape.But it was truly horrid. I felt bad telling Sang that the Happy Room ( as he called the loo) hadn't been a happy experience for me! Off to bed and quite a good night's sleep.

Thursday 30th
Our next day was to be our first sighting of elephants and anticipation was high. We were due to walk for the first part of the morning. The noises which greeted us at dawn built up gradually. The cockerel was the first to start and the one living directly under us was quickly echoed by others further down the valley. This was then followed by numerous insects and other domestic animals – dogs, pigs and cattle. Our hosts greeted us with breakfast which consisted of scrambled eggs, toast and a locally made tea. This set us up for our walk.Before setting of we were shown around the village. It is occupied by about 10 families from the Karen tribe who are very skilled with textiles. We say one woman spinning wool. Another was busy sifting rice. The children were having fun underneath some of the buildings and we were very pleased that everyone had a smile for us and basically got on with their lives, so that we didn't feel too intrusive. We were very impressed by the villagers fruit and veg gardens which stretched up the hills. Each family had its own area, it's own cattle, pigs and chickens. As for the walk, it was definitely harder than I had anticipated. The heat of the day built to a great intensity and the slopes were steep. Combined with the heat of the day it wasnt long before sweat was pouring off me ( Brent )...me too...(Linda)

Our first morning stop was at a village where we all revivied ourselves with water and a deserved rest. Had an interesting discussion with Dat who commented on the church as we headed out and up the hill. He talked about his own beliefs in Animism – which surprised me as he seemed such a modern guy. His English was good but not enough for him to go into more detail which was a pity.

The trek continued and to be honest was more of an endurance test. The rainforest flora and fauna had been somewhat disappointing. We had seen no wild animals and heard and seen very few birds. I queried Dat on this and he said it was unlikely that we would see any – they are secretive. He claimed there were monkeys, deer, anteaters and armadillo – suspected that hunting may have taken its toll too.

Just after mid day we were heading down hiil and close to the place where we would do our trek. Dat began to point out places where the elephants had trodden and we started to spot the large dollops of dung. Anticipation grew

Lin here: Jenny and I had been following close behind the front group but had stopped for an extra drink of water. jenny was telling me about her last trek in South America, where there'd only been one guide. she said that one of the party had suffered altitude sickness and this had lead to the group spltting up, which in turn lead to a group getting lost in the jungle. Scary, I thought.... 2 minutes later we came to a point where 2 paths met and had no idea which to take. We looked for prints and then shouted out to Dat and co.. but no reply! Luckily Nicola was bringing up the rear with Sang and Loo... so we sat tight and waited for them... This just proved the point that Jenny had been making about how crucial it is to have more that one guide!

We arrived at the elephant camp and had Pad Thai for lunch. We then had over an hour before the elephant ride. Several of us felt really tired so went and had a lay down in the guest hut. This really revived us. At 3pm the elephants arrived!! Great excitement.. Mounting them proved pretty easy – there was a ladder and platform and we sat in pairs, brent and I together, on wooden seats. Our elephant took the lead and It was just amazing. The huge animal had such strength and was so sure footed. We'd just got settled when it started to go down quite a steep hill into the river. Scary! But we soon realised it was very safe. We were able to turn and watch the others and really enjoyed watching the baby elephant (apparentlly 4 years old). It was kind of like watching a cheeky little kid: every time it was pulled into the river it would fall down onto its side to cool off and the leader would have to yell at it and give ithe rope a yank or 2 to get it back up..Ater a while we felt very comfortable and loved listening to our leader humming and siniging some lovely Thai tunes. We started to sing ourselves and he then struck up conversation... the power of music eh? he told us that our elephant was 46 years oldf We had a young lad of about 9 sitting in front of us, with his legs behind the elephant's ears. He was swiping off flies which kept landing and biting the poor elephant! About half way through the ride the leader asked him to change position and he sat directly on the elephant's head!!! Amazing. We were really sad when we saw the landing platform after about an hour.. what wonderful animals these are. After a short walk we arrived at our second village, also occupied by a hill tribe and this time our hut ( the guest hut, which like the other one is used for visiting friends and tourists), overlooked the river. Like the other village, all the buildings were built on stilts and this one had a kind of veranda, where we could dangle our legs and watch some kids enjoying the water. This was very brown, we guessed cos of the rain...needless to say we chose to shower rather than swim in it. Almost as soon as we arrived we were aware of singing...kids and adults alike seemed to be natural singers, which was great.

We took it in turns to shower before dinner: Jenny went first and had to ask how to do this, as the toilet simply contained a toilet and 2 barrels, unlike yesterday's which had had a basic shower too. Turned out we simply ladled out the clean, cold water from the barrel to shower. Actually it was very refreshing!

We were very tires after our busy 2 days and by the time we thought to offer to help with food our lovely guides had already got things organised. As there was no electricity here we lit candles and enjoyed another nice meal. One of the locals had a guitar and after dinner we were thrilled to listen to him singing as he strummed. He had a lovely voice and we really enjoyed the entertainment . One of the local families with twins of about 16 months and an older child of maybe 6 really enjoyed the entertainment too and made me think of Eve and Jake back home: they loved to dance and had such beautiful smiles. Later Sang taught us the elephant song, which begins Chang, Chang, Chang... lots of fun. We all had to use our arms as trunks... After a couple of rounds Sang got the men around the table up to do a 'male' version of the song...I'll leave the detail to your imagination. We then spent a lovely night singing with some of the villagers and sharing songs. The Beatles proved a big hit ... we even knew most of the words! The Chang beer certainly helped everyone's confidence and even Tess and Georgia took the lead on some songs...Great.

Friday 1st May
The dawn chorus greeted us again and I got up around 7am to sit with Jenny on our veranda and watch 2 villagers who were clearly building our rafts. This was unbelievable! They were so skilled and we couldn't believe how quickly they did it. Breakfast arrived ( omelette thistime) and we then packed up our stuff and got onto the rafts before 10am. This was another fantastic experience: we spent over 2 hours rafting down the river on 2 bamboo rafts about 4foot across by 4metres long. All our bags were tied on at the front and we had one local at the front and Dat at the back, while the other group had Sang at the front and Ben at the rear... Brent took quite a long stint at the back and we all had a go at the punting...not as easy as it looks. I found the raft pretty comfortable and took turns sitting on it and standing alternately. The views were fabulous and it was a lot of fun watching the other raft. The weather started off sunny then turned to a lovely warm rain... we saw a couple of locals on the riverbank: one guy was hunting, with his dog and rifle, while some women were gathering plants. The range of basil is particularly impressive and we are just starting to recognise the different plants now.

Back on dry land we clambered back into the truck for the drive back into town... all felt very tired but very satisfied. We arranged to meet later for dinner and rushed to our hostels / hotel ( jenny) for the best shower ever!!!

Thailand - Doing a course or two

2009-05-01T11:14:00.001+01:00

Friday 24th April
Brent here...Today we had to pack our rucksacks for our flight to Kuala Lumpur. It had got an easier task than the first time we had attempted it. We took them down to the lobby to store them. On coming through the doors we were surprised to see a film crew preparing to film what looked like a pop video. A very pretty chinese girl was gyrating around to a sugar sweet pop song while a young lad gyrated around her. Was very surreal. Katie and Colin came down to meet us for breakfast and were equally bemused.

After breakfast we walked up to the Komtar shopping centre where we caught the tourist bus around the city and decided to stay on for a whole circuit- this was very circuitous making the city appear bigger than it actually was. The air conditioning was a blessed relief though. On the second trip around we got off at the Blue Mansion. This was closed till two so we looked around for somewhere to while away the hour. Just opposite was an art college and we cheekily walked in and asked at the reception if there were any exhibits that we might see. Some of the students had put up their work, I guess ready for assessments and the guy at reception said we'd be welcome to have a look: this was very interesting: some of the students had designed buidings, others had done paintings. The level was equivalent to post 16 at home and we felt there were some very talented students there. We thenhad a cold drink in a nearby cafe, before our visit. The Blue Mansion had been built by a rich chinese merchant named Fan Yat Tze ( not quite right spelling ). it was a Unesco World Heritage supported building and had been given money to return it to its original condition. As the name implied it was painted a stunning indigo blue and built in the ancient Chinese style to conform to the principles of Fen Shui. It had featured in the film Indochine with Catherine Deneuve. You could only be shown around the house with a guided tour. We all gathered together in the entrance hall and were greeted by a very eloquent young chinese man who spoke with what could only be described as an Oxford accent. He turned out to be quite a character and was definitely in touch with his more feminine side. He was very informative and went into great detail about the owner of the house and his background commenting on his many wives and mistresses. he was also very well informed about the interior decor and the principles on which it had been constructed. The entrance hall was huge, with seating areas on each side. This area was for business and the master of the house would sit on one side with his guests on the other, speaking across the huge room. A beautiful screen separated the family area from this work area. Here the ground floor rooms were designed around 3 central courtyards. These were one of the most interesting aspects of the house: they allowed rainwater to be channelled in via a series of pipes from the gutters. At times of heavy rain this would accumulate to flood the entire courtyard forming a small pond – the surplus draining away from the house via other pipes. All fascinating stuff.

After our visit we hopped on the tourist bus and headed back to collect our bags. Managed to get in a skype call to Dad to wish him a happy birthday before getting our taxi to the airport. We arrived very early and while I was in the loo Brent got chatting to Woo: he was a really lovely guy and we whiled away the 2 hour wait very pleasantly. Woo had lots in common with us in terms of his views on things and we are keen to stay in touch. As we headed for boarding the plane he disappeared into the toilet and we presumed he got on the plane. When we landed at KL we were both concerned not to see him to say goodbye. We are a bit worried that something happened to him as they were calling for one passenger before take off. This passenger's name didnt sound like Woo but s/he never did get on the plane! All very strange. We['ve emailed Woo and hope to hear from him soon. Next stop Kuala Lumpur!

Saturday 25th April
We had booked into another Tune Hotel as it was conventiently situated at the airport and we were able to take a short walk from the terminal to our room. Sounds great eh? However we didn't have the good night's sleep we'd hoped for: our room overlooked a courtyard, with seating for guests. All night there were people talking loudly and at one point very late on there seemed to be an argument going on between 2 asian guys... what a shame! Stiill we were up early and back to the terminal to get our flight to Chiang Mai. All went smoothly and we got a taxi to Eagle House, where we were staying. After a bit of a hiccup over air con not working, we settled into our room before heading out to the Saturday walking street: a fantastic night market, where i picked up a couple of nice tops for under £2 each... wow!
The atmosphere was terrific, with musicians playing and hawkers selling lovely food. We chose Pat Thai, and were impressed with our ability to walk along eating it with chopsticks!

Sunday 26th April
This morning we had a wander round town and got some prices for cooking, massage and treks. We really liked the German / Thai couple who even offered us a reduction if we chose to do all 3 with them. We continued up to the local museum, stopping en route at a very nice coffee shop. Looking around the museum took quite some time as it was enormous and the detail of the history of Chiang Mai was actually too much for us!! There were some very interesting parts though and I particularly liked the upstairs rooms where models of local tradespeople had been set up eg. tin smiths. It showed how life had changed in a very down to earth way. Also on this floor there was a photographic exhibition, which made us realise that some of our photos are very good! After a nice cold drink we headed back towards our guest house for a rest before heading out again. We asked about their courses and for some reason decided to do the cookiig with them tomorrow and also booked a trek with them, even though it was more expensive...what are we like?? Later on we went to the Sunday night market. Like yesterday's market this was ginormous!! I was hoping to find a sarong, ready for our trek, but had no luck! This market had more art work than the last one, but there were some lovely clothes too.

Monday 27th April
Today we did a day of Thai cooking. We were very pleased to discover that we had the teacher to ourselves, which meant lots of attention! He was another character, who spoke English like a cross between a Dalek and a Japanese POW camp leader!!! This proved quite difficult at times – a/ the speed he spoke made it hard to understand and b/ it was hard to take him seriously. However he really knew his stuff! We each chose 5 dishes and then all went to the market to buy the necessary ingredients. En route Mr ? pointed out lots of the ingredients growing along the streets: kaffir lime leaves sweet basil trees, coriander, mangoes and bananas among them. Eagle House 2 had a 'kitchen' area set up, with 3 gas burners...all very basic, but adequate. Mr ? demonstrated how to chop the various vegetables and we then prepared them all. We both chose a curry and this was the first dish we prepared, and probably our favourite. It was interesting to learn how to make coconut milk and cream and then to use it to cook the curry. Of course eating it was the best part! Here are the dishes we prepared and ate!
Linda:
Green curry, chicken with cashew nuts, chicken coconut soup, stir fried mixed vegetables and glass noodle salad
Brent:
Yellow curry, chicken with ginger, Pad Thai noodles, sticky rice with mango and steamed fish with lime...just fantastic. We loved the fish, but were so full we couldn't eat it all. After we'd bagged up most of it the local family were pleased to tuck into what was left!! One of many tips we picked up was how to add the egg to the noodles...but i'd best not give it away. We really enjoyed our day and tonight we enjoyed a few jugs of the local ale in the Chiang Mai saloon bar: pretty close to an English pub, with footie and music!!

Tuesday 28th April...Massage day!
Off in a tuc tuc before 9am we met our teacher for the day, Jane and had a good chat before the other 2 course members arrived: Daniela and Emily. We then had an exhausting day learning just a tenth of the moves involved in Thai massage. Jane was lovely and we learned a lot. At lunchtime we ate with D and E and couldn't believe it when Daniela said she lived in Nottingham, in Mapperley. I mentioned the Maze and she said Gaz Peacham sent her regular info on the gigs there!!! Small world eh? She goes back next week, and I asked her to pop in and see him!!! In the afternoon we all struggled a bit in the heat. Both Brent and I dropped off during the head massage...lovely!Ate our left over food of fish with lime then went and had a coluple of pints and watched a bit of footie at the saloon bar. We are getting used to the feel of the plalce now and quite enjoy the walk down to the internet cafe and the bar: we pass lots of pretty Thai girls offering Thai massage, as well as a food market full of gorgeous fresh ruit in little plastic packs, as well as whole. Fresh fist swim in big tubs ready to be chosen and chillies and herbs abound.The atmospbere is lovely.. there's no pressure selling just a lot of smiles and bows.

April in Malaysia

2009-04-26T07:14:00.000+01:00

Just to add...we were dead chuffed on the train today when David Attenborough came on with his wildlife programme, which included a section in Australia showing red kangaroos and wombats! So although we didn't catch either of these actually in Oz we did see them from SE Asia...good eh?

Friday 17th April
We had quite a good night's sleep although I (Lin) did have a scary dream about us walking through a rainforest where a girl had gone missing and coming upon a brown bear and a lion! In the dream Brent yelled at me not to run, but I ran off the path and then watched as the male lion strolled past Brent... obviously not hungry! Weird eh? Anyway this morning Brent called me to look at the window: a hunting bird, possibly a small hawk, was doing its best to get into our room! It was tapping on the window with its beak and claws most insistently. It seemed to stay for ages until Brent got close to the window, looked it right in the eye and said: “ We don't have any food for you so off you go, “ and it did – flying into a tree down below us. Just yesterday we had been discussing Hinduism and Buddhism and the animism which both adhere to, where all things including plants and animals are believed to contain a spirit. We've also both admitted that were reincarnation to occur, we would like to come back as birds of prey. This morning's bird really made us wonder.

Anyway we ordered a taxi from the hotel to the bus station and would you believe it the driver drove carefully and charged us half the price of yesterday. We were definitely conned...in fact we reckon the guy yesterday wasn't even a taxi driver! We live and learn. We were pleased to get to the bus station early, purchase our tickets and join the small band of mainly Indian women waiting for the bus. When it arrived we were again chuffed that it had air con. and was again quite comfortable. Brent had bought some nibbles from the hawkers around the bus station and we settled into a happy 3 hour journey through quite magnificent countryside. The road steadily wound its way uphill and eventually reached a sort of secret valley: the start of the Cameron highlands. Here we were bemused by the number of market gardens which appeared advertising 'pick your own strawberries,' 'try our tea and scones' with villages where shops sold loads of strawberry related items like ballons, cushions, streamers etc. There was even a strawberry hill holiday resort! As we began to descend we were even more boggled when we say multistory hotels and alpine type chalets appearing. It was clear that what we'd expected to be a small, remote village was actually a thriving little town! The bus arrived on time and we were met by Paul, from the Fathers Guesthouse, where we were staying. We joined a minibus of several other backpackers and within a few minutes had arrived at our destination. It was quite lovely: we'd opted for the most expensive room, at RM80 (about £16) a night. Our room was cool and had a lovely view over the mountains. There was a comfy lounge area, a bar and a very helpful reception in the guesthouse, where all sorts of trips could be organised. After settling in we wandered into the town and found a mobile phone shop. We'd taken advice in Singapore and decided to buy sim cards to use whilst in Malaysia to book ahead. I thought it would be a good idea for both of us to get one so that we could also communicate with each other when separated...have to say this hasn't happened often, but partly because we can't get in touch with each other...Anyway this proved to be a BIG MISTAKE! My phone was locked and by introducing a new sim card it locked me out of the o2 network, so I can no longer use the phone to contact folk and they can't contact me either. Thank god for email and skype! Once we'd recovered from this blow we stopped and had tea and a shared scone followed later by a beer in a wifi bar. We then headed back up to Father Ted's ( as I call it) and had a very pleasant evening. The food up here was good and we met a lovely Scottish couple and had a good old chat, comparing notes on Oz and SE Asia plans. We also booked a trip for tomorrow and got some good advice about the circuit we might do around SE Asia.

Saturday 18th April
Lin here again, it's actually Sunday and Brent's headed over to the bar to watch the Man U. game, but i'm not in the mood, so thought i'd get the blog back up to date. Yesterday, Saturday was a really great day. We climbed into an old Land Rover before 9am along with Kasper and Louise from Denmark and Misty and Kyarna from Canada, 2 young women each travelling alone. Our guide for the day was Francis, a local guy, who proved to be really good company as well as an expert on the areas flora and fauna. After introductions we set off for a drive of about 45 minutes to the start of the first trek. The last 15 minutes or so were off road and at the start of this section we picked up one of the Orang Asli villagers, who was to help guide us. The off road trail proved to be a lot of fun. Brent was sitting in the front and I had to laugh at his face. As you know if you've been reading this regularly, Brent isn't the best of passengers, but his astonishment at the state of the track was palpable. There were huge ruts, some half filled with water and we were all hanging on for dear life. Francis was clearly used to the conditions and drove us expertly to the start of the trail. 2 other jeeps were parked up and at least one other followed behind us...the tourist trail once again.

We then did a 3 hour trek, which was just brill. Francis spotted a range of plants, which he crushed and passed around for us to smell... ginger and tea tree were recognisable but others had a definite medicinal scent. Francis was able to tell us their healing properties, which included: protection from bites, including leeches, help against sickness and a special plant for women to use to help them stay beautiful, so as not to lose their husbands!!! He also spotted orchids and a beautiful red flower. As for animal life, well without Francis we would have missed 3 different spiders, a smallish black spider, which could jump quite long distances, another smallish jumping spider and a huge one, which fortunately was stationery in its web...believe me there would have been 3 hysterical women about had it started to move! I was struggling to get decent pictures of some of the spiders and flowers and discovered that our wonderful guide was clearly a keen photographer: he was very patient and very adept with my digital camera and got us some great shots. Francis was also able to demonstrate the many uses of the huge bamboo stalks: using the local guide's tool he hacked at various pieces of bamboo to produce musical instruments, drainpipes, chopsticks, hair slides, and tooth picks!

The trek was called the Rafflesia trek and one of the reasons for doing it was to see this huge parasite flower, which only lasts for about 5 days. It was originally found by Raffles around Singapore, hence the name. We had to venture over 2 Indiana Jones type bridges ( but not over ravines!), ford a river and scramble up some rocky and muddy inclines in order to reach 2 of these amazing things. We actually caught it in its final day and it was interesting to see others buds, which might still bloom, and still others that had turned black after blooming. After taking lots of photos we began the descent back to the landrover, stopping off to cool down at a water hole at the base of a small waterfall. As there wasn't a lot of space to change Brent simply put his swim shorts on over his pants and I decided to go in fully clothed ( like the local women would!) Our 2 Danish friends managed to get their swimgear on as they'd brought a big towel along. The water was lovely and my clothes quickly dried out in the sun as we walked back downhill. We all piled back into the jeep and began the journey back down the track. As we travelled along Francis stopped to pick up another driver... and as we turned a corner we saw his landrover stuck in the mud ahead! It was leaning to one side and the next half hour or so was spent trying to get him back on the road, so that we could continue down to 'a traditional village.' Brent was the first out of the jeep to help and I had another laugh when I spotted the huge wet patch from his wet shorts under his trousers...and he'd thought I was mad to go in the water fully clothed! Got a great photo of him!! After the guides had filled in some of the ruts and Francis had driven our jeep into the stuck one to push it along, we all helped sway and push the jeep til it was back on course. We all got nicely spattered with mud and had a really good laugh...really added to the adventure! We eventually reached the village and Francis demonstrated how the villages would use blowpipes before giving us all the chance to have a go at blowing a dart from a pipe. We couldn't believe how light the blowpipes were and I was very pleased to discover that I had a better aim than Brent when it came to hitting the target! That competitive streak raised its ugly head again!! We were given time to look around the village and Francis said it was fine to take photos as the villagers were very friendly. In fact we felt that they looked a bit bemused by us all and didn't seem very interested in us. The children were quite beautiful, but ignored us as they played between the stilts which held up their homes. Later we discussed our thoughts on this part of the day: we both felt that it was probably not a true, traditional village as it was too near the towns and head felt very poor. Interesting though. Around 3pm we continued on to visit a tea plantation, arriving around 4pm. This was very touristy, but interesting and the new restaurant / viewing area was modern and very attractive. We were gasping for a cuppa after the tour of the factory and enjoyed the black 'english' tea, along with some cake . Lovely. Francis pointed out the labourers; accommodation and explained that the tea pickers were mostly immigrants from India, Vietnam and Cambodia, as local people refused to work for the low wages paid. The tea plantation was established back in the 1800s by a Scot and his family still owns it. As you can imagine Brent and I were struck by the power of Capitalism, recognising the similarities with home. Back on the road Francis drove us to a second trail, where we experienced 2 different types of rainforest: mossy and ericcaceous. The trail was lovely to walk on, all soft and bouncy and the plants very different: the most amazing plant was the carniverous pitcher plant. We saw several of these the biggest around 11 inches tall and all quite beautiful. Francis was able to get me a great shot of the inside of one of these huge flowers, where several dead flies can be clearly seen... brilliant! We climbed up to a peak around 2000 feet above sea level and got some lovely views back down over the tea plantation. By now it was beginning to rain and had become quite cloudy. It was also nearing sunset, so Francis drove us to a metal tower in the hope of seeing a good sunset. As we arrived the clouds thickened. We climbed up the tower, but there was nothing to see, so feeling a bit disappointed we came back down. As we stood talking Louise spotted a bit of pink sky and realised that the clouds were moving....within seconds the sky became breathtakingly beautiful and we all rushed to climb back up the tower...WoW...the views were just splendid and we all got carried away taking photos. From pink to deep red, it was absolutely awesome and the perfect end to our day. We got back to Father Ted's around 8pm and met up after showering to head downtown for some food. Kyarn recommended one of the Indian restaurants and we had a lovely meal there to finish off the day. The group had really got on well and we had a fun meal together.

Sunday 19th April
Today we had a lie in and bought a cooked breakfast at around 11am...it really felt like a Sunday treat and got us off to a good start. The weather was very interesting this morning. It was quite a bit colder and from being quite clear, within a few minutes an eerie mist came down covering the whole mountainside. Then the heavens opened for maybe an hour and it absolutely threw it down...yes, we finally experienced the rainfall that makes this place so beautiful. Surprisingly though it didn't last long and we were able to take a wander around the town and use the wifi down in a cafe. We spent much of today planning the next stage of the trip and have booked a hotel in Georgetown in Penang for Tuesday night. We've also researched transport from there into Thailand and will probably move on there before the weekend. The troubles in Bangkok seem to have died down and we don't intend to spend much time there, so should be OK for getting to Chiang Mai, in the North, which we really want to visit. This evening we had another good and cheap Indian meal ( around £2.50 each) and then had a look around the night market: I'd hoped to buy a skirt or a traditional tunic / dress to keep my arms covered, but it was nearly all food...which smelt great I have to say. Needless to say didn't buy anything. Came back up to the guesthouse and played a few games: I've got better at backgammon and give Brent more of a run for his money now, even winning a few games. Tonight though he beat me at both backgammon and Quiddler..The latter is most unusual, so I'll really have to get my own back. Anyway I'm sure you're falling asleep reading this and it's now well past my bedtime, so I'll say goodnight...catch up again in a couple of days.

Monday 20th April
Ok...so I'm writing this sitting in ...wait for it, Starbucks... in Georgetown, Penang. It's Tuesday as I write and Brent is doing a reci looking for our hotel here. ...Anyway yesterday was a good, chill day. We got up late, had a good breakfast at Father Teds: I had fresh fruit with yoghurt and toast and Brent had cheesy scrambled egg. Then we headed into town, where we managed to hand in our laundry for collection later on, post Fred's birthday card, book our coach for Penang and have a nice lunch. we also decided to get haircuts. This proved to be a real treat. We were the only customers in the place and for RM63 (about £12,50) for the 2 of us we got great head, shoulder and back massage plus wash cut and blowdry!! Brill! In the afternoon we caught a bus out to a butterfly farm: this was well worth the trip and we saw some beautiful butterflies, some small and others really enormous. They also had various local snakes, lizards, beetles, scorpions, centipedes and spiders in cages, some of which I can tell you were pretty scary!! We wandered down the road to a strawberry farm, where we could have picked our own...or as one advert put it 'self plucking strawberries!' Here we ate a wonderful icecream, with fresh strawbs and cream...delicious. After that we strolled down the road and had a laugh at the huge selection of strawberry related tack on sale!! Brent had the most awful coffee and I had a poor cup of tea in a cafe with a panoramic view, which included a building site! We had a good look around some stalls, selling all sorts of stuff, including strawberries. Brent asked the price of a small punnet and was told RM3. As we thought about it a Malay guy asked the price and was told RM2.50 for a large punnet. Brent took out RM2.50 and a large punnet and passed to the girl, who said oh no, it was RM8!! Needless to say we didn't buy any. We moved to the roadside ready to stop the bus and found 2 lads from Bournemouth and a French girl from Bordeaux, who'd been waiting for over 45 minutes. We joined them and waited for around 20 minutes before the bus arrived, getting us back just in time to collect our laundry. A quiet evening was spent in preparation for our bus trip.

Tuesday 21st April
Got up bright and early and enjoyed our last breakfast at Father Ted's place. We'd listened to the wind blowing all night and it was raining as we left, but it was nice and cool and I have to say I almost enjoyed putting on my Berghaus raincoat for the walk to the bus station. The journey to Penang took 5 hours and we were ready to get off when we reached the bus station at Penang: the speedy driver had taken the windy road at quite a pace and it felt good to be on terra firma! We walked over to the ferry terminal and enjoyed the ride over to the island and it's capital, Georgetown. Refusing the local taxi drivers ( that Northern frugality again) we spotted a bus to the Komtar shopping centre and knew that our hotel was near there, so jumped aboard. Now we are about to walk to the hotel, which Brent has just found....will catch up later dear reader.

Hotel like a mini Ibis, with added extras of towels, shampoos etc., hair dryer put the price up to RM63. Room smelt a bit smoky so we decided to check out other recommendations before rebooking. This was interesting: Brent, the font of knowledge when it comes to directions, took us the wrong way and route B lead us past an excellent Indian restaurant, where we both had an lovely chicken Biryani with Naan bread for around £2 each! We eventually found Love Lane and the hotels: the first one, the Star Lodge, was asking about RM45 for a very basic room and we couldn''t find the second, but did find a Chinese run hotel, Hotel Penang, which looked nice, but weren't able to confirm vacancies until the next day. They charged RM65. In the end we decided that Tunes hotel was a bargain, so booked another 2 nights there...RM52, without the extras. Good eh? On way back up to the room we met up with Colin and Katie, our Scottish friends, who'd recommended the hotel...thanks you two! We arranged to meet for breakfast tomorrow morning. Back in the room Brent nearly had a heart attack when he discovered that the $US he'd put into the safe had disappeared!! 15 minutes later, having searched the room, including under the bed, which was disgustingly filthy, we decided to head to reception to inform them of the theft...thank goodness I suggested Brent check the laptop bag one last time and lo and behold, there they were...phew!

Wed. 22nd April
Met up with Colin and Katie, our new Scottish friends, who are coming to the end of their year out and are ready for home. Had a Starbucks deal for breakfast: RM6.5 for coffee and cake (just over £1), not bad eh? It was good to have a good ole chat: Katie has just finished her probationary year as a primary teacher and was telling us about the lack of jobs in Scotland. Around 12 we said goodbye and headed off on the free shuttle bus from the Kompar shopping mall down the road. Have to say that getting down to the mall is an absolute nightmare: the city is unbelievable un-pedestrian friendly and each time we head outside we have to run the gamut of cars, scooters, motorbikes, cycles and pedocabs and honestly feel like we are taking our lives into our hands... absolutely horrible. We'd hoped to find the tourist information, which yesterday we'd been told was on the 3rd floor of the Kompar mall: this shopping centre seems to be on both sides of a very busy road, and we decided to go to the other side as we'd had no luck finding it yesterday. Security on the ground floor told us to head to the 3rd floor, where we'd need to get a pass to go on up to the 56th floor, where we'd been told the tourist info was... oh dear! As we stepped off the escalator on the 1st floor a very nice Malaysian man came up to see if he could help us. He insisted we follow him back downstairs and directed us to the shuttle bus stop, saying we needed to get off at stop 15 to find the tourist info. He did say that we could pay to go up to the top of the Kompar tower to the sky deck, but we decided against this and got onto the free bus. Once again we found the Malays very friendly and keen to help us: 2 chaps asked where we were going and told us when to get off for the tourist info.. hurray! This proved to be tourist info for the heritage sites: the many religious buildings are generally all in the same area, which is a UNESCO heritage site.

We ended up spending a wonderful few hours in the area. First of all we visited a museum of Islam: this was very well done, explaining how Islam arrived in Malaysia via India and China and describing the influence of the religion in terms of education and culture...all clearly explained and very interesting. We then decided to limit our time to 2 other buildings: the Chinese Clanhouse and a Mosque. These were both unbelievably beautiful and both had excellent guides. The Clanhouse was in a hidden courtyard behind quite a typical run down street. It was ornately decorated in different hues of red and gold. We climbed some steps to a kind of verandah, where the carvings were intricate and many were frames and told parable-like stories: we were very impressed by 2 of these, both of which conveyed the message that the old should be revered and cared for by the young: the 2nd carving had a young man lying on a block of ice: apparently the old man nearby was his grandfather, who wanted to fish. As it was Winter this wasn't possible as the water had frozen, so the grandson lay on the ice so that it would melt and his grandad could fish!!! Wow! The detail was amazing. We then looked inside the 3 areas off the verandah: the main, central area was huge, with even more ornate carvings, with a central shrine-like carving. A doorway lead to a corridor at the back of the building, where there were huge paintings, done in ink. These were superb and again told stories. The remaining 2 rooms off the verandah were for males only: the first was a homage to the men who had gained academic degrees. The walls were covered in gold plaques listing names and details of the degrees achieved. It was interesting to see that these had been gained from universities all over the world, including Oxford, and Lincolnshire!! the smaller room was used for ceremonies and was similarly decorated.... very interesting. Our guide here was female and very well informed: I did ask her if she thought females would at some point gain access to the rooms, but she said not.

We left the Clanhouse with a real sense of the moral value of Confusionism and moved on towards the beautiful, much plainer Mosque just up the road, and visible from the road. Before going in we went past it into the area known as Little India, where we bought samosas from a street hawker for lunch ( very good they were too). As we entered the grounds of the Mosque there was an arrow pointing to Information. A guide came out of the office and introduced himself with a big smile. He then showed us around the Mosque, where a handful of men were praying. The area was huge, with long carpets set out throughout. Our guide showed us the pool where worshipers washed before beginning their prayers. This is seen as both physical cleansing and a way of clearing away the trials and stresses of the day and cleaning the mind in preparation for prayer. Our guide explained that the men pray shoulder to shoulder, with no differentiation between rich and poor. He described the 5 compulsory times of prayer, beginning at 5.50am and ending at sunset. He explained that women prayed separately from the men, as contact with them might distract the men from their prayers. I asked where the women prayed and I was given permission to look at the area, which was a small interior room, where one woman was supine on the ground. Our guide said that generally women were not comfortable in the Mosque. He said that many of their work places provided a room where the women could pray together. All very interesting. He then invited us into the info office, which was air conditioned and a very pleasant book lined room. Here he gave us cold drinks and we had an informal chat about his religion. A younger guide and a Chinese Muslim joined us and the chinese guy asked my name ... Ms/ Mrs....umh??? He was clearly digging and I felt quite uncomfortable. In the end I decided to tell a white lie rather than divulge my personal details. He asked if we wanted to convert to Islam, and we said no, but we were interested in all religions. Brent in fact asked why there was so much friction betweeen religions and he suggested this was due to ignorance, implying that there was sometimes a closed minded approach to Islam. We left feeling that we'd been made very welcome.

Back at the hotel we managed to sort flights for Thailand and a hotel in Kuala Lumpur for the overnight stay. We were really fed up to discover that our skype is no longer working...some problem with the audio device. I'd been really keen to chat to family, but it wasn't to be.

Thursday 23rd April
After another Starbucks breakfast and chat we decided to head to the Botanical Gardens: as we walked back into the hotel we overheard a young German couple booking a taxi to take them there. We asked if they'd like to share the taxi and they were very pleased. The 4 of us then enjoyed a happy couple of hours at these beautiful gardens, where lush greenery provided very welcome shade. We left them at around 12 and they headed off in an expensive taxi to the Spice gardens, while we wandered down the road to find a bus home. En route we visited a Batik factory, where we were talked through the process and wowed by the beauty of the fabrics. In the shop I was sorely tempted, but resisted, knowing that a/ we needed to look after our remaining funds and b/ I didn't need to be carrying any more stuff! We were very hot and sweaty and stopped for a lovely passion fruit drink, freshly made in front of us. The friendly seller also gave us a banana, my second, since we'd bought a bunch earlier from a nearby stall....oh dear. 5 minutes further down the road and I got awful stomach cramps. A ghastly hour followed where we struggled to find any form of transport home and i seriously thought I might have an 'accident' before we got there. Luckily Brent waved down a taxi driver, who was lovely and got us back just in time!!! We've been trying to drink only bottled water, but sometimes it's just impossible to resist the temptation of a cold drink. Anyway after a good rest we were able to head out for tea.... have to admit that neither Indian nor Chinese appealed and we ended up at Pizza Hut!!! We were served by a young man from Bangladesh and got into conversation with him: turned out he'd been in Penang for 2 years but was not happy. His wages were low – half what Pizza Hut workers earned in Bangladesh back home. He was very efficient, well spoken and charming and we felt for him.

We then went to the local cinema and saw a Harrison Ford film called Crossing Over. We knew nothing about it before going, but when we looked at what was on both chose it. It was bizarre... if you haven't seen it stop reading here and go! It was particularly pertinent to us here in such a multicultural society and began with a Muslim girl reading aloud in class in New York. She was trying to say that whilst we may not agree with what the 7/11 bombers did it was their means of getting heard but her classmates were outraged and turned against her, with verbal abuse. The teacher was way out of her depth and struggled to reach a conciliatory end to the lesson, with the poor girl being harangued and ending up running out of the door in tears.

The film then moved between different people of differing Nationalities and cultures, all trying to get into the US: the young Brit ( Ashley Judd), who pretended to be a practising Jew with experience in education, the young Australian who wanted to be an actress,and ended up sleeping with an Immigration official to no avail; the Mexican single mum and the young Chinese boy forced to join the local gangsters, who ended up involved in a hold up . HarrisonFord was in the immigration 'police' department and involved in raiding ilegal factories. His partner was and Iranian Muslim, whose family was about to receive Naturalisation. He had a younger sister who was American born and who was seen by the males in the famiy as dishonouring the family by dressing in western style. The film was very thought provoking. In the end the 15 year old schoolgirl was deported for her essay – her house was raided and her mother chose to go back to their home land ( Bangladesh / india?). It was heart breaking to see the family split up and for me after my own small experience on entering the States, entirely believable. Meanwhile one of the Iranian brothers murdered his sister and her married lover..another tragic story.

We came out of the movie theatre somewhat shell shocked, only to be assaulted by the sounds of Play Station type games with loud music blaring out.. this after being forced to exit via the underground carpark...all very weird.

As for the cinema...well it's the first time we'd walked in to a cinema to find we were all alone!! Around 6 other folk did join us, but overall the place was deserted. It has 8 screens and we'll probably come back tomorrow for the comfy 'ish seats and air con!!!

Into Asia

2009-04-16T14:31:00.000+01:00

Sunday 12th April
We headed off early to meet Pete and Chris for breakfast in Brighton before returning our 11th car and getting on the plane to Singapore. It was lovely to see them again and Pete gave me a lovely Opal stone, which he'd cut that week.. I shall try to get it set before we get home. Many thanks Pete. Getting from check in onto the plane proved more than a bit hectic: once again we had to go through the xray machines twice...which we'd forgotten, so I'd put all the liquids back into my washbag!!! oh dear. We didn't even have time for a coffee, let alone spend our last Oz dollars. Still the flight itself was great in terms of beautiful hostesses and lovely food. The only down point was the guy who sat next to Brent in the aisle seat: he announced as we sat down that he would be getting drunk, explaining that he had a metal plate in his head, so claimed he needed to drink to cope with the pain. He then proceeded to order one short after another! The staff were clearly struggling with his requests and as we neared Singapore their supervisor came over to talk with him. He also checked we were ok and handled the situation with real expertise. The plane landed on time around 5.30 and we were proud of ourselves when we found the MRT( tram / underground system) and got to the station nearest our hotel quite easily. Unfortunately we left the station at the wrong exit and spent some time finding the hotel, which was a short but uphill walk in high temperatures and high humidity. It was after 8pm when we got there looking hot and bothered! It was great to be met by a charming receptionist who couldn't do enough to settle us in. The hotel is retro 70s and our room was lovely, with great air con., full Bruce Lee cut outs over the bed and brightly coloured furniture and fittings. We overlooked a pretty park and were in easy reach of the whole city via the MRT.

Monday 13th – Wednesday 15th April
Highlights of Singapore:
the cleanliness of the place:we can't believe how spotless it is...no chewing gum, not a nub end to be seen ( except in ash trays), and huge areas eg; the causeways in the tram stations, which are simply immaculate. Very impressive.

The Food: we ate in both Chinatown and Little India, choosing the food courts in Chinatown and a restaurant in India. For $2,50 ( around £1) we got good meals in the food courts, where hawker stalls sell a wide range of traditional foods, whilst it was 3 times as expensive in the restaurant, but really lovely food. Both very good value. The waiter and supervisor in the Indian restaurant were really friendly, but when we went to the loo before leaving we both noticed that the kitchen was a bit of a sweat shop: whilst we dined in lovely air conditioned surrounds the staff behind the scenes had no such luxuries.. hard to get to grips with.

Raffles Hotel: as Brent was wearing shorts, he wasn't allowed into the lobby,
but I was and it was quite lovely. We were pleased that we were both allowed to look around the outside and visit the shops and other areas of the hotel. It really is very beautiful and it was easy to imagine the rich and beautiful dining in such sumptuous surroundings. We though about having the champagne lunch at $142, but not for very long...tee hee!

The Hindu temple in Chinatown, where we caught an evening ceremony. the
ornately decorated interior was typical of Hindu temples and we were intrigued to witness the religious practise there.

The bronze statues in the UAL place in the financial area near the river.. we hit
this at the end of lunchtime and felt the effects of the aircon within even in the square between the buildings! The Dali and Henry Moore statues were just perfectly placed and we loved them.

Other interesting moments in Singapore:

Our first bar: as we entered through a black door, I felt a bit uncomfortable, but the beer was reasonable priced and the karaoke music a bit of fun. It was when one of the pretty girls there ( and she was a girl) sidled up to Brent and asked if he wanted to buy her, that I felt even more uncomfortable! Brent was a bit flabbergasted and we didn't stay for a 2nd beer!!

visiting the money changers: we decided to change our Oz and NZ left over dollars and found out that in Singapore money changers are the way to do it, giving the same deal as bankers and very easy to find and compare. We found several all together in one of the many air con'ed shopping centres. We even managed to change NZ dollars into Malay currency.

It was interesting to see the similarities between the working folk here and elsewhere: they clearly worked all hours; wore smart clothes with the men generally in white shirts and trousers and the women often in heels and smart skirts; got stressed, which lead to us being dealt with in a very brusque way particularly at the post office: were equally hooked on mobile phone usage! We also noticed small numbers of locals exercising in the park early in the mornings. This involved walking up and down the steps whilst waving arms about and we could see similarities with Tai Chi.

The weather: we were actually very lucky to only get one shower on Wed. morning and this although really heavy, was short lived. Apart from that it was generally sunny, hot ( 30degrees) and very humid. Have to admit we found it quite difficult and it was great to have the comfort of the hotel to chill in, which we did each afternoon. We had thought to visit the zoo, but in the end spent some time on the laptop organising the next stage of our trip. This was particularly important as there are currently troubles in Thailand, so we've decided to stay longer in Malaysia before heading that way. We are both a bit nervous about tomorrow, when we get the train out. Fingers crossed for us!!

Thursday 16th April

We got up early, packed up the last of our belongings and headed out to the station. Getting there early was something of a relief. I was less nervous about this stage of our journey than Linda. We got through the first stage of exiting Singapore with a simple walk through customs at the station. The train proved to be air conditioned and have loads of leg room and a plasma tv to boot. We settled into our seats for the journey through Singapore to the bridge crossing in the north. At this point the train stopped again and we had to get off to have passports checked for our journey into Malaysia. Normally at this point it is me that gets pulled over for some reason. Linda went through first and everything seemed to be ok until she turned round to ask me about a piece of card with the entry stamp for Singapore on it. She had managed to lose it so was drawn aside into a separate office to fill in another one. I waited while everyone got back on the train. I had visions of it pulling away with all our bags on board. Fortunately we managed to get back on board ok. The train had a friendly atmosphere with many of the Malays chatting amongst themselves. People got on and off as we continued our journey. The train went through a landscape filled with many palms and banana trees. It was very green in contrast to the arid landscape we had witnessed in Australia. Some of my geography lessons came back to me about the dangers of clearing natural rainforest and replacing it with plantations. The rivers showed plenty of evidence of the extent of the run off from the soil as they ran thick with sediment.
We eventually arrived at our destination right on schedule and were almost assaulted by a taxi driver outside the station offering us a lift. As we were now really backpacking we said yes. An attempt to haggle him down was unsuccessful but the total cost was only two pound anyway. The hotel proved to be reasonable clean. This was in total contrast to the brief walk we took to get some money from the bank. The road side drains emmanated the most horrendous smells and the lack of anything resembling a pleasant place to eat had us returning back to the hotel and ordering room service. Ipoh is definitely only a transit spot.

Linda here...thought I'd finish this off as Brent is flicking TV channels in our hotel room in Ipoh and I'm waiting for the bath to fill...yes a bath! It will be our first in many weeks...yippee!

The Outback and back!

2009-04-06T06:21:00.002+01:00

Sunday 29th March
What a nice evening we had... we ate at one of Brighton's bistro cafes, called Nino's, where they did good food at reasonable prices. Then we had a sharp half (or 2) in the local pub, where Chris won back the price of a round on the pokies. Back at the house we played Quiddler, which was a good laugh. This morning Peter dropped us off at the station and we are now on the Ghan, headed for Alice Springs. We were welcomed aboard by the uniformed staff and checked in our luggage before finding our seats, which reclined for sleeping. The train wasn't dissimilar to any other train, with loos at one end of the carriage and showers at the other. We took enough food onboard for breakfast and lunch and then bought dinner in the buffet car. Over dinner got talking to a nice Oz couple...she was a teacher and they were taking time out to travel within Oz. Nice people. Later on we met a lady travelling alone. She was born in the UK but had been living near Syndey for over 20 years. She was very interesting and was enjoying her travels and meeting lots of younger people. “Did we get a good night's sleep?” we hear you asking. Well it was a bit fitful. I (Lin) finally found a comfortable position by putting my legs up on Brent's meal tray!! Then snuggled into my sleeping bag and was away. For the return trip we'll remember to bring out pillows along, which should make a difference. So what was the best thing about the journey?
Well without a doubt it was the stunning landscape outside the windows. The clear blue sky ahead with scrub land of green, brown and yellow below was unlike anything we've every experienced and quite beautiful.

Monday 30th April
Today we got off the train in Alice Springs just after lunchtime. I called Mike, my second cousin and he came out of work to pick us up and deliver us to his home, where he'd made up a double room for us, which proved very comfortable. On the way he'd done a whistle-stop tour of the town, showing us the highlights. We were amazed when he gave us the keys to his new Ute, and told us to use it to get into town for a look around during the afternoon and to use it to visit Ayers Rock! We spent a nice afternoon looking around the town and drove up Anzac hill to get some photos of the town from above. We also bought provisions for the next day , when we would be heading off to Ayers Rock. When we got back to the house Mike's housemate, Veng, was in. He was a nice guy and, like Mike, made us feel at home. Later we went out for a nice meal with Mike and then back at the house the 3 men got playing pool, in the purpose built 'shed' out the back of the house. I enjoyed watching over a few beers.

Tuesday 31st March
Mike said good morning to us before leaving for work at about 7am this morning. We got up and piled up the Ute, leaving at 8am for our 440k drive to Ularu ( the indiginous name for Ayers Rock – named after the water hole found at the base of the Rock). We took it in turns to drive the Ute, which was a real highliight of the trip. The long dusty roads made Cruise control an essential and Mike's CD collection were a welcome entertainment and had us singing along in no time. We stuck to the speed limit of 130kph and 110kph and stopped at various watering holes before arriving at the Ayers Rock resort around 1.30. We were chuffed to discover that the $31 camping fee entitled us to use all the facilities of the resort! Once we 'd set up the tent we visited the hotels and had a good old nosey at what you got for the $200 + a night there. We ended up having a luxurious 2 hours at the outside swimming pool of one of the hotels, lying around on loungers and reading....fabulous. Near to sunset we drove to the Ularu lookout and took some photos of the rock. A family group had set up with their chairs to watch the sun go down, but we decided to head back to the Outback bar / eatery area, where we enjoyed dinner and some free entertainment – a singer/guitarist, who was quite good. Then it was back to the tent, where we met a lad from Cumbria, who'd been at Nottm uni for the last 5 years! Small world eh? The stars were absolutely amazing as were the beetles and ants,which we just about managed to keep out of the tent. We set the alarm for 5am ready to get to see the sunrise over the rock and got off to sleep nice and early.

Wednesday 1st April
Managed to get up and out of the site by 5.30am, along with a few others and got to the entrance to the National Park dead on 6am as it opened...brilliant. Watching the sun rise proved to be quite an interesting experience...on the one hand the rock was really beautiful: the colour constantly changed from black to reddy brown, red, to dark orange and finally almost yellow... breathtakingly beautiful... on the other we found the whole tourist thing almost bizarre: coachloads of people arrrived and were given breakfast. Lots of folk were setting up tripods to get 'that shot.' One chap set his up on top of his 4wheel drive, whilst another couple in matching outdoor style clothing (possible purchased from Katmandu) overtook us on the road in order to get their tripod in the key position...have to say I was really tempted to 'accidentally' knock it over!!! Then once the sun rose they were all hurried back into their vehicles, like scurrying packs of mice and driven around the base of the rock with a final stop at the cultural centre before leaving. At around $100 dollars per person per trip it was a prime example of tourism as we know it. We really appreciated having the Ute...thanks so much to Mike! We were able to sit and have our breakfast after sunrise and then took our time driving part way round the rock getting lots of photos before doing part of the base walk, the Mala section,which we thought was very worthwhile. There are ground level caves of mystical shapes which can't be seen from a distance. At close range the rock is quite special and it is easy to understand why the Aboriginal people consider it a sacred site and have so many dream stories about it. At the waterhole itself we felt a real sense of peace and serenity. We were quite surprised to see that despite the signs everywhere asking tourists not to climb the sacred rock, there was a clear climbing area, which was closed due to the high winds today. We couldn't understand why climbing was allowed but later were told that the Japanese tourist brochures all included climbing the rock as an attraction! Around 9am we headed for the cultural centre for a coffee and then visited the display area, which we were somewhat puzzled by: it was managed by a mixed team of Western Australians and Aboriginal indigenous people, but there was no sign of any Aboriginal folk...in fact we only saw one woman leading a base rock walk. A short film was shown, which had clips of various aboriginal customs including some dancing. Unfortunately there was no commentary so that we didn't really get what was happening. Rather than being an informative experience we felt that it was an as if amateur had been given the go ahead to produce the film, which might even have been seen as confirming some of the negative stereotyping of the indigenous population. We felt this was a real pity and found ourselves questioning the whole operation: did the Aboriginal people get benefits from the tourist developments of the area? Later in the day we visited an aboriginal art centre. Here a group of Aboriginal women were clearly producing work but looked to be supervised by a white australian woman.... all a bit bizarre. We continued our return journey and were delighted to get chatting to 2 60+ Lancashire women, who were on a coach tour but 'doing their own thing' whenever they could. One of them even had a go on a camel at the cattle station stop- Stuart's Well. We got back to Alice around 4.30 and enjoyed another pleasant evening with Mike, stopping off to have a look at the local sports club, where Mike and Veng enjoy playing pool. There were some really good players and Coopers pale on tap, which went down a treat!

Thursday 2nd April
Had a slow start to the day. Packed our bags together and got a lift from Mike to the Ghan. Said another goodbye and a big thank you to Mike for all his hospitality. It was strange getting back on knowing the sort of journey we had ahead of us.Fortunately we had a seat opposite two young people who had studied and met in Birmingham and had a lot in common with us. Greg had been a teacher in Citizenship and had even taught in schools I knew from Leicester. Steph had done a doctorate in Immunology and was looking to get into teaching when she got back to the UK. More interestingly they had just travelled through South East Asia so we picked their brains on different places and ways of getting there. Time flew by and was soon time for lights out ( warned by an officious train guard who treated passengers as little children ).

Friday 3rd April / Saturday 4th
Arrived back in Adelaide and were met by Pete and taken back to their comfortable home. Chris had prepared a lovely roast beef dinner for us, which we thoroughly enjoyed. After a good night's sleep Pete took us to pick up our 11th hire car and after a good fry up lunch we headed down to the Fleurieu peninsula. The drive was another beautiful run. We stopped for a cuppa in a pretty little place then headed on to Normanville, where we found a brill campsite with a lovely walk down to the beach.

Sunday 5th April/Saturday 11th April
Thought we'd had a lie-in on Sunday until we put the TV on as we were getting breakfast in the camp kitchen and discovered the clocks had turned back and it was only 8.45!

During this week we had a good look at the Peninsula, which has a beauty all of it's own. We decided not to go over to Kangaroo Island, as we'd found out that the crossing was the most expensive in the world at around Aus$320 ( about £160) for a crossing of about 10 miles!!! Ridiculous. Instead we explored Cape Jervis, where we had a good chat with a Liverpudlian couple who ran the cafe from a caravan. They were very interesting to talk to: had been in the country for around 30 years and owned a lot of land, house with swimming pool and were intending to build a cafe in place of the van. After chatting with them we decided to go on to Victor Harbour, which we liked a lot. We walked over the causeway to visit Granite Island. This was lovely: a 3k walk goes all the way around it with fabulous views of some fascinating rocks...hugely awesome. We decided not to do the Penguin viewing, as we'd experienced one already in Phillips island. However if you are reading this and thinking of coming to Oz, we'd definitely recommend Granite Island over Phillip island to see the penguins, although Phillip island is much prettier overall and definitely worth a visit for it's beautiful beaches.We spent some time around McClaren Vale before heading in to see Mount Barker, Hohndorf and the Bel Air National Park. One day we explored further North around the coast and enjoyed the beach at Adelaide Shores. Hohndorf was a quaint,touristy village with lots of cafes and gifty shops. It was very pretty. We particularly enjoyed staying in the NP. Here we met a lovely Oz family: Mark, June and their twin lads, Ryan and Luke and younger son, Dylan. We ended up giving the lads our little 2 man tent... feeling sure they'll make good use of it. We did 2 lovely walks here and saw koalas, wallabies and kangaroos as well as some quite beautiful parrots.

and so to Adelaide...

2009-03-28T02:06:00.001Z

Saturday 21st March
Had a look around the attractions of Mt Gambia today: the town is known for its sink holes. The City Garden was the smallest, but an interesting one to visit, whilst the larger one on the edge of town was quite lovely. “What is a sink hole?” I hear you asking... well it's basically a limestone cave, which has lost it's roof due to erosion. After the collapse of the roof the space is developed into a garden area. The larger one was originally bought by a local businessman in Victorian times and converted into a small lake with its own little row boat. A sort of folly. After this we got back in the car and headed off to Robe. Linda by this time was feeling unwell so we headed onwards and found a campsite just outside the little town of Robe. The reception and YHA building attached to it were historical buildings with lovely old stone quarry tiles. We set up the tent and while I (Linda here) had a rest in the tent, Brent walked into the town for a stroll before dinner and bed.

Sunday 22nd March
After packing the tent we ventured around the coast and saw the red and white pyramid type lighthouse and a sculpture nearby before heading inland to Murray Bridge. As I hadn't had a lot of sleep we decided to treat ourselves to a night in a motel. We had a good look at everything that was available and chose a nice motel, where we had a nice room and where there was a barbeque area, where we had our dinner. It was great to just chill and watch TV.

Monday 23rd March
Had a good walk around Murray Bridge then headed towards Adelaide, stopping off at Mount Lofty Botanical garden for a walk, which was lovely, with great views of the Adelaide Hills. We then followed my cousin, Pete's directions and easily found their lovely home in Brighton. What a lovely spot! They are just a short walk from Brighton Jetty and the ocean. We were quickly made very welcome by Pete and his wife Chris, who cooked us a lovely meal. It was great to relax, especially as I still wasn't feeling 100%. It was also a treat to have a comfy double bed for a few nights!

Tuesday 24th – Saturday28th
A welome respite from camping! We've really enjoyed our time with the Jones' and feel that we've got to know Adelaide and their district quite well. On Tuesday we did our own thing... I saw a doctor in Marion, a nearby town. The surgery was close to a nice library, gallery, cafe and also a huge shopping centre, so I had plenty to see. Mind you I waited 3 hours to see the doctor...sounds awful, but I had a really good book on the go, which I just finished before I was called...so it wasn't so bad. Brent had a first look around Adelaide and got his bearings, so that in the following days we easily found our way around. We really liked the North Terrace area, with favourite places being: the City and State Library building, the Adelaide University area, where we enjoyed our lunches! The festival hall and riverside areas. The pedestrian area of Rundle street was also very nice to walk around, with buskers of all sorts. One day we decided to get the bus to Glenelg and walked back along the beach. The esplanade is lined with gorgeous homes..how the other half live or what? Glenelg had an interesting museum, called Bay Discovery Museum with a gallery where we enjoyed the postcard exhibition. On Friday night Pete and Chris drove us up to the summit of Mount Lofty, where there's a posh restaurant and a fantastic viewpoint of the city...splendid! In the evenings we relaxed and enjoyed Chris' cooking, Brent and Pete had a game of backgammon and we all played Rummikin. Tonight we are going to eat out. Brighton is fabulous with lots of little cafes / restaurants. We can't thank Pete and Chris enough for their hospitality – it's been lovely. We enjoyed meeting Caroline too and look forward to meeting Michael when we get to Alice Springs. Hopefully we'll be able to repay the hospitality some time in England.

Into South Australia ( and the fruit police )

2009-03-21T10:13:00.000Z

Sunday 15th March
Around 7.30 the rain stopped for 5 minutes and we managed to get the tent down. After breakfast we got hold of a password, and as I write this we're waiting to get a connection so that we can do a bit of skyping!! Fingers crossed. Have just seen the news about the oil spillage in Queensland... I (Linda) really wanted to see the sunshine coast and swim on the Great Barrier Reef, but it has really had more than it's fair share of problems since we arrived: first the floods, which left crocodiles attacking babies on the streets and now this dreadful oil problem.
...9.30pm well, we managed to speak to Ruth and to Blanche which was good. We also had a quick chat with David, who was out on a Saturday night. Then we headed off to further explore the Port Campbell NP, which we really liked. After the rainforest of the Otway NP., which was quite beautiful, Port C. reminded us of the Yorkshire (or Lancashire) moors and was equally stunning. Every now and then we came across a lookout point where there were magnificent coastal views of the limestone structures. We would jump out of the car and run to look bracing ourselves against the wind. Fantastic fun!! Arrived in Port Fairy, hoping to celebrate st Patricks day there, as there were Irish named roads all over the place. After setting up the tent we walked into the town. We went into the largest hotel ( these double as pubs in Australia ) where we ordered two pints of Carlton and ended up paying the equivalent of £3.50 a pint, which made me really miserable all night much to Lindas chagrin...( I was well pissed off!!)

Monday 16th March
Headed into Port Fairy town this morning for a better look. Posted some stuff and had coffee. Really liked the little second hand bookshop, where Brent spotted a book on China and I found a couple of novels to keep me going. Travelled inland in overcast weather. Found the landscape quite flat and barren...and brown. Finally arrived in Dunkeld. This was quite a hard sell in all the literature but when we arrived turned out to be little more than a petrol station, cafe and a few shops. We decided to look at the arboretum, which was in the early stages of development, but quite nice. Had we not been so tired we would have moved on, but we decided to look at the campsite. This was run by quite a character. When we arrived he was in the middle of getting the toilet area and tap cemented, so that a lot of the facilities were out of bounds. He lived in a run-down converted bus, which was full of clutter. He also had 2 caravans...needless to say we weren't tempted! I slept ok but Brent had a fitful sleep listening to passing quarry lorries.

Tuesday 17th March
After camping in Dunkeld set off to the Grampians for a walk up Mount Abrupt. This was a 7k walk up a steep escarpment and along the saddle of two hills. I was struck by how precarious the path was when we noticed that some of the boulders had bounced down from the mountain side and landed very close. We even heard one fall later during the walk as it crashed through the trees. The view from the top was very spectacular and gave us a insight into the magical landscape to come.
After we returned to the car we set off towards the highest peak Mount William. This was rather strange and disappointing as most of it was climbed using the car on a tarmac road. The last stretch was also on the road but this time on foot to the top where there was a huge military aviation tower.
Drove on to Halls Gap campsite which was in a gorgeous wooded valley filled with kangaroos feeding at dusk, and lots of cockatoos and other birds.

Wednesday 18th March
Another lovely day in the mountains. We began by having a coffee in Halls Gap, very pleasant. Then we went to the Brambuk Cultural Centre, which was impressive and free! There were 2 emus right outside grazing. They are hugely majestic animals. The centre provided a fascinating background on the history of the area and white european exploitation of the aboriginal community. After lunch we did the Pinnacle walk. This can be as long as 11k but we chose to do the shortest version which was about 4k return... it was absolutely beautiful and after yesterday very easy for us. We climbed huge bizarrely shaped rocks with magnificent views to reach a lookout point, which was terrifyingly balanced over a sheer drop. Brent scared me to death by climbing nearby rocks to get photos... incredible. On the way back to the campsite when Brent was driving we spotted a wallaby right on the edge of the road. As we approached it took flight and bounced along the road ahead of us...magic!

Thursday 19th March
We awoke to yet another glorious morning in the Grampions. Both needed the loo around 8am so got up and on the road. Spent an hour back at the cultural centre using their internet facility. It was my turn to drive today ( ie Lindas) and I really enjoyed the windy roads... I particularly enjoyed Brent's reactions to them, as i knew how he felt having been in the passenger seat myself for a couple of days. We did 'A day in the Grampions', as directed in the tourist info guide....ie. visited Baroko lookout first, then Reed lookout and the Balconies, then Macenzie Falls, which were brilliant...thanks Janine... then on to Horsham, where a country music festival starts tomorrow. Will we stay??? The scenery in the mountains was just brilliant and I did suggest we stay another day, but Brent was ready for a move, so on towards South Australia we went ...and hit the heat!!! By the time we got to Horsham it was well into the top 30s and we couldn't believe it!! We headed off into the town in search of a hammer as the ground was very hard. Had to pay $12 for one,which was a bit steep but set up camp and enjoyed another clean kitchen, a few beers and a chat on skype to Jan and Mags. I also really enjoyed watching most of a chick flick on TV...the one where Catherine Zeta Jones takes on her sister's daughter. All in all a good evening.

Friday 20th March...Happy Birthday Pete!
After quite good night's sleep helped by last night's beer, I (Linda) woke up to discover one of my eyes wouldn't open.. conjunctivitis had struck. Went into Horsham and sorted out some drops...keep your fingers crossed dear readers that this does the trick as i hate not being able to wear my contact lenses! We hung around the town to listen to some of the country music festival, which was interesting. A lot of the more mature members of the community had taken along their folding chairs and enjoyed sitting in the afternoon shade listening to the performers. We enjoyed the first guy, who performed his own stuff which was quite folky, but moved on once the 2nd guy came on with more traditional country music. The drive into South Australia was just as we'd imagined the country... vast prairies of scorched grass with magnificent gum trees along the roadside from time to time. I decided to get a picture of a kangaroo sign and couldn't believe it when as we approached one a mother and her baby were sitting right next to it. Unfortunately it was a bit of a bumpy road, so the photo isn't as good as it could be. Just before we got into SA we saw signs about not entering the state with any fruit or veg...oh no, once again we'd forgotten about this and bought grapes, bananas and tomatoes just yesterday! We stopped and ate as much as we could but still had to throw some stuff away, which really riles us! We finally got to Mount Gambia around 6.30 and found the top ten campsite we'd picked out. It wasn't as good as the last site, but the tent site was very quiet and the kitchen adequate. Met a nice family... the son was with his Belgian girlfriend and had travelled in Europe, including a spell in London. Good to chat.

Hey...free wifi again!

2009-03-14T22:26:00.002Z

Wow an immediate update...brill!
Saturday 14th March
Well...what a weird day! Woke up to torrential rain, so bad that we didn't want to take the tent down. We asked if we could leave it up until there was a break in the weather and this was fine. A family put on the Mr Bean film in the camp kitchen and we quite enjoyed it for half an hour or so, until the rain stopped and we got our tent down and on the road by about 10.30. We ended up having quite a good day, in between rain storms. We first went to the Otway fly walk... where you climb up a metal structure onto paths at tree height... it was fabulous and the suspended section was fun: it rocked away in the heavy winds and we thought of our friends Peter in Spain, and Pam in England, who would not have enjoyed the experience! After that we went to Triplet Falls, another area in the Otway National Forest, which had been recommended by Janine. Once again we couldn't believe our luck when the rain stopped as we arrived and the sun came out. This was a lovely walk through temperate rain forest and we saw the trees from a different angle, which was good – it has been a while since we've done a forest walk and we loved it...thanks Janine! Afterwards we got back onto the Great Ocean Road and travelled through very stormy, wet weather to the 12 Apostles. Would you believe it yet again the rain stopped as we drew up in the car park! Mind you it was scarily windy on the magnificent walkway on the cliffs, but we loved it and got some great photos of the spectacular rocks. Arrived in Port Campbell- a small inlet on this windy coast line. We found the campsite in the middle of this little town and immediately set up tent. This proved a wise move as not long later the heavens opened yet again. Cooking on some of the campsites has always been a bit of a hit and miss affair due to the varying conditions. Last night we had had four star facilities tonight we were relegated to one star. There were only two electric hobs with someone using them as we arrived to cook. When we finally got on there was no space to prepare. It was all a little fraught. The temperature had also taken a tumble and eating in the camp kitchen was no longer a cosy affair. One saving grace on this colder evening has been our investment in a light on a flex which in our small two (wo)man tent also provides some heat ( 60 watt bulb ). We even managed to hook up our computer to the external power but forgot to ask for a password for free internet before the office shut ( damn blast ).We both woke up at around 1.30am in need of the loo.. what a wild night! We waited til the rain abated and ran for the toilet block. Phew! Just in time...literally as we got back into the tent it began to throw it down again!!We ended up with intermittent sleep as we listened to the howling rain and wind and worried about the tent staying put. Around 7.30 the rain stopped for 5 minutes and we managed to get the tent down. After breakfast we got hold of a password, and as I write this we're waiting to get a connection so that we can do a bit of skyping!! Fingers crossed. Have just seen the news about the oil spillage in Queensland... I (Linda) really wanted to see the sunshine coast and swim on the Great Barrier Reef, but it has really had more than it's fair share of problems since we arrived: first the floods, which left crocodiles attacking babies on the streets and now this dreadful oil problem.

March continued

2009-03-13T10:48:00.001Z

Sunday 8th March
Today we headed off to Phillips Island stopping for a quick coffee en route. Alas we had not been able to book accommodation prior to arriving at the tourist information. They were very helpful and fixed us up with a “ quiet cottage” This was run by a kindly man. It was basic but only one night so nothing lost. It had a kitchen, shower. living room with corner double bed and single room. The loo was outside with a bath, with shower over. It reminded Lin of chalets visited back in the 60s. Having viewed it we set off to look around Cowes. This was a pretty seaside town with a quaint pier. For Janine this was something of a walk down memory lane, although it was clearly more touristy than she remembered. Linda was pleased to find a cheap jacket to supplement her wardrobe! Janine told us of many of her lovely childhood memories of happy family times on the island. We visited the house her father built in Silverleaves which was in a quiet wooded lane very close to the beach. She soon got chatting to a lady who had lived there for many years and promised to get her mother in touch with her next time they visited the area. The lady looked very pleased to have this contact. It was great to see that the house hadn't really changed and to walk up the lane to the local beach. Janine was horrified to see a huge machine, which we decided was a dredger, but which really spoiled the otherwise idyllic views. We could imagine Janine as a girl sailing with her father and meeting other young people in the evenings.. sounded fabulous!

As it was getting later we headed to Penguin Parade where we could view penguins coming up the beach. We had been warned earlier that there would be in the region of 3000 people watching them so we arrived early. We sat down in a small amphi-theatre facing the beach. The sun was setting and at first it was pleasant to be there. As the sun set it got colder and colder with the wind coming off the beach. Fortunately Janine had thought to bring a blanket which kept us all warmer. At about the time we had been told, the penguins began to arrive on the beach in little clusters of 5 or 6. They seemed disturbed by the floodlights or the gulls facing them, retreating occasionally back into the surf before plucking up courage to venture out again. It was all very sweet but seemed a little contrived for tourists. The little penguins moved into the dunes to go and feed their young while being surrounded by tourists on boardwalks. Left us with a mixture of emotions about conservation and exploitation. We returned back to the cottage, grabbed a snack and slept.

Monday 9th March.
Today we saw Koala Bears for the first time. Their reserve was in a eucalyptus grove and had a set of boardwalks where we could view the sleeping marsupials. We found about twenty scattered through the reserve all precariously perched in some of the outermost branches. Linda and Janine were lucky enough to see one on the ground moving between trees. The reserve had been managed to ensure that the trees were not stripped bare by the koalas. Many of them had plastic collars on the prevent them being climbed ( the trees not the bears ). The experience was far more encouraging in terms of the treatment of the animals than the previous evenings.

We had promised ourselves fish and chips the day before but had arrived too late. We headed off to catch the take away early. The sun was out and we dined on beer and delicious “ flake “ and chips on the rooftop overlooking the island bridge.
The journey back was going to be difficult as everyone would be heading back after their long weekend. Janine had to be back for the next day and we were very grateful that she could drive us back. We arrived home tired but contented at having spent a relaxing time together.

Tuesday 10th March
Drove into Richmond with Janine ( where she worked ). We said our last goodbyes before going to pick up our hire car. It had been fantastic to meet up with her and meet her mum, sons Lincoln and James and daughter Rhiannon and be able to share her home and get a feel for Melbourne. We really appreciated the cosiness of her home and the welcome we had been given after our time on the road. Thank you so much Janine. Hopefully it won't be long before we meet up again in England. We would love to return your hospitality.

We picked up the car in Melbourne and drove back to East Malvern to pick up our things. All went well after some initial navigation hick ups. Back at Janine's place we managed to change our next flights: this took longer than expected but gave us the chance to say proper goodbyes to Linc and Rhiannon, and take their photos, which was good. We eventually headed down to the Mornington Peninsula an area of stunning coastal views and equally stunning properties. We spotted foreshore campsites as we approached Sorrento, but decided we'd prefer a site with more facilities... this proved impossible: the only site we found didn't accept tents!! So we ended up camping on the foreshore. The site was pretty basic, but as we'd arrived late and left early, we didn't pay anything... which was a bonus!

Wednesday 11th March
Got up early and went into Sorento for a coffee, before getting the ferry over to Queenscliff, where we stopped for quite a while: we thought this town was very pretty with some lovely Victorian buildings. We moved on along the beautiful coast and set up camp in Torquay, the surf capital of Australia, where the Ripcurl company was established. Whilst cooking in the camp kitchen we got to know a lovely French Canadian couple, who have been travelling for a while.

Thursday 12th March
Had breakfast with our Canadian 'friends' – Lea and Guillaume. He was feeling nervous about a surf lesson booked for 10am and we had a good chat. We later went down to the surf beach, but couldn't spot him amongst the others in the surf school. It did look a lot of fun though and we were a bit tempted to have a go....oh to be younger!! We continued along the road to Lorne, another pretty town. The tourist information here was excellent and a very nice lady recommended various campsites to us, including Kennett river campsite, where we decided to stay – tempted by the promise of seeing more koalas as well as free wifi! As we travelled along we kept bumping into the same people – a lady travelling alone who was having a break from her family and Lea and Guillaume, who must have been sick of the sight of us when we turned up at the same campsite! We were delighted to spot koalas even before we'd put the tent up and spent a really enjoyable evening sitting out watching them and some lovely birds: a red and blue parrot and another very tame kukkaburra amongst them. As it got dark we spotted a koala coming down it's tree.. we followed it as it sought an alternative tree to feed from: many of the trees had been protected from the bears to conserve their leaves, but it eventually found a suitable perch... fabulous to watch!

Friday 13th March
Woke up to a glorious morning and managed to get on skype to Alec, which was great. Unfortunately as we were chatting a sea fret came down and didn't disappear all day!! We decided not to go far in the hope of better weather. We ended up in Apollo Bay, where we had a lazy day. The campsite we found (Pisces) had a fabulous inside kitchen with a wide screen TV so we really enjoyed the luxury!

March in Melbourne...or is that Melbin?

2009-03-13T00:18:00.001Z

Sunday 1st March
Set off for Melbourne (pron. Melbin) this morning, stopping off at the Traralgon tourist office. Here we found a lovely guy who gave us lots of good tips for the Great Ocean Road as well as local places of interest: we went to the local Wild Dog Winery and bought a nice bottle of Sauvignon Blanc ( pron. Savblon). Got to Melbourne with no problems thanks to Janine's perfect directions. Navigator ( thats me ) and driver ( Linda ) worked in totally harmony. Was lovely to be greeted by our luvly friend on her own patch. Met Lincoln and enjoyed a pizza dinner together.

Monday 2nd March
Woke up at about 8.45 and checked the paper work re. the van... oh la la! It was due back by 11am today. Total panic set in and we rushed around like mad fools, leaving about 9.30 and finally getting the camper van back spot on 11am thanks to Linda's fantastic calm driving and despite Brent's panicked navigating. The Apollo team was over stretched and we were lucky to spot another English couple who were headed to the airport and who gave us a lift. We then picked up the shuttle bus from the airport to southern cross station, where we then sorted out a week long travel pass which proved very efficient. We enjoyed our first view of Melbourne:federation square was very impressive with a presentation taking place of a winning football team..on a big screen. We were quite tired, so decided to get back to Janine's place and get some rest. We enjoyed finding our way on the tram and bus, getting off the bus at the local mall where we had a look around and bought some fish for dinner. That evening Janine drove us to St Kilda – the beach area of Melbourne: it was a lovely evening and we walked down the pier – whilst looking out at sea I (Linda) fell over a step and for a moment thought I was going to fall over the edge into the brink! It was actually quite scary, as my cheekbone hit the floor with quite a smack !! Poor Janine was really upset! A nearby bar provided ice and a cool drink and in less than no time I was in the Espy ( the Esplanade) bar enjoying live music and a beer. Brent and Janine even managed a dance b4 we left.

Tuesday 3rd March
We had a lazy day today, catching up with email, washing etc. We did get to the local mall again – it's huge and we found everything, including a Dick Smith's where we bought a new memory card for our photos. Janine cooked us lovely lamb chops for tea then her mum picked us up and took us to her keep fit class. This was a lovely group of women, who made me very welcome. I really enjoyed it and was very impressed to see Janine's mum in action leading the class: she's over 80 and has run the class for many years. It was great- a mix of keep fit/ yoga/line dancing etc.

Wednesday 4th March
Today we got a bus to Caulfield and then got on the train to Frankston to see my cousin, Mal. She picked us up just outside the station and although it was over 40 years since we'd last met, we quickly got into a good natter! Back at her house she cooked us a lovely pork sunday roast and we spent the day catching up over several glasses of wine. It was good to see family photos and get to know each other....thanks for making us so welcome Mal.

Thursday 4th March
We got the train from Frankston and decided to head into Melbourne. We visited the moving images museum ACMI, where we had a lovely chicken and asparagus soup....have you noticed how important food is for us???!! We had a look in St Paul's cathedral before getting on the free shuttle bus tour of town. The bus driver was great and gave us lots of info.and insight into the city. We got off on the south bank and walked to the Crown Casino complex, which was amazing. We spotted the cinema and were delighted to get cheap tickets to Slumdog Millionaire, which we thought was very powerful and moving. After the film we fancied an Indian meal and found a nice restaurant in the lanes.. great. Back at Janine's we watched a film about life on a kibbutz, which sent Brent into nostalgic reminiscing of his experience back in the early 80s...the film gave a very negative view of things, which wasn't Brent's experience at all.

Friday 5th March
Brent stayed at home this morning and sorted out a hire car. Meanwhile Janine and I headed to town, where we had a coffee in an arcade of the lanes and had a look for a new fleece for me, in some very expensive, but lovely camp shops. We then went up to Victoria market and I really enjoyed the $2.50 lunch from the deli there. We headed off to meet Brent and pick up our tickets for Billy Elliott which Janine and I had decided to treat ourselves to. We ended up meeting Brent on Brunswick street where we found the gallery showing Kate Shone's work ( seen previously in Metung). We loved this area and after Janine left us we went to the beer hall she's pointed out to us and enjoyed a decent beer.

Saturday 6th March

Today we all headed into town and Janine and I went to a famous Italian restaurant for minestrone soup before going to see the stage version of Billy Elliott at her Majesty's Theatre...what a brilliant show! We loved everything about it and went through a whole gamut of emotion, including a good cry! Met Brent after the film up on Brunswick Street and he told us that he'd been having lunch up at Victoria market, turned around to see right next to him a German couple, that we'd chatted to back in Sydney at Lane Cove....what a small world! They were on their way back and had travelled the Great Ocean Road in the rain. Janine said goodbye to us and headed off to meet her friends and we found a great Malaysian restaurant in China Town where we overate but got a good taste for Malay food, ready for the next stage of our trip! Afterwards we explored some of the bars that Janine had recommended: we loved the Cookie Bar and decided to explore this high rise further.. 2 floors higher up, ie on the top of the building, we found the rooftop cinema bar, which was quite spectacular with breathtaking views of the city. Fab.

Continuing Travels to Melbourne

2009-03-07T22:23:00.000Z

Monday 23rd February.
Woke up to free pancakes. Fluffy and nice. We felt we should move to a cheaper campsite but found that the first site we tried was charging $40. Found a much more reasonably priced one on the cliff top. Decided to do the boardwalk along the side of the lake, passing by oyster farms on the way. Very satisfying views with lots of little soldier crabs. ...Lin here... when Brent says lots of little soldier crabs he makes it sound really sweet. In fact as we were walking over the beach to the board walk I suddenly realised that the area surrounding us was alive with these tiny crabs... I didnt half run to that boardwalk I can tell you! Creepy!! Back to Brent's account...Went back to campsite and got chatting to a young couple who had spent a lot of time in Asia and gave us some good tips – especially to carry American dollars. Got slightly pissed and played Quiddler. Linda then invited us all to share the rest of the night with some Ozzie lads....Lin here...just to clarify...I was well away and got chatting to the lads, who were the other side of the fence. We ended up having a good old natter and a laugh...although I have to admit ...I don't remember much about it!!

Tuesday 24th February
Lin here: well having just about recovered from my funny tummy today the drinkig on what was still clearly and iffy tum lead to terrrible heartburn. Oh dear and I bought it on myself. Anyway we moved on, saying goodbye to our new friends and moved on to Eden, staying at a campsite called The Garden of Eden! The site wasn't exactly paradise, but was nice enough and we got a good night's sleep.

Wednesday 25th February
This morning we enjoyed exploring Eden and it's wonderful Killer WhaLe museum. It was fascinating to see the bones of Tom, one of the killer orca whales that worked alongside the whalers to catch other whales which were then shared between man and whale... sounds far fetched but apparently the killers were only interested in eating the tongue and the lips of the other whales, so the townsfolk had the rest! The museum was full of whale remains and stories of how men and whale worked together. Outside the museum there was a set of mosaic panels depicting the history of the whaling community. Good photo opportunity.

We moved on to Mallocoota from Eden and were surprised to see quite a few folk free camping on the headland. We had a look roun quite a few sites, but they were all very busy and tightly packed. We've realised by now how important fishing is all along the coast here. It's the main attraction for holiday makers and everywhere we've been there are special sinks for cleaning fish once caught..these are on sea fronts and in all the campsites. Here in Mallocoota there were loads of fishing boats and fresh fish available everywhere...although the choice today was quite limited. Anyway we ended up camping on a site with more space a short way out of town. Before dinner we did a quite wonderful walk from the site, along the road to the path, which meandered through bush country around the headland to a wonderful beach, which for most of the time we had to ourselves. It was alovely evening and quite magical.

Thursday 26th February
Moved onto Lakes Entrance. Tried a campsite out of town but wanted to be a bit closer to civilisation. Loads of campsites but the first one we tried was tighly crowded so we moved on to one nearer front. By now we are getting used to the Oz Walk in and out vans... we think they are quite funny: you get a static caravan of normal size attached to a cabin, where you get sofas, TV etc. Seems weird to us and we can't work out why you'd want this combination.. in England you'd either rather be moving with your van, or you'd go for a larger static caravan ie a mobile home or a cabin. Still the system here is very popular and our neighbours had planted up in front of their walk in/out and taken their 2 large dogs along!! (fortunately they were very quiet!). We enjoyed looking around Lakes Entrance and found a video store with good internet where we caught up on skype before bed.

Friday 27th February
Spent this morning walking along the splendid esplanade here. We loved the figures carved out of Yew trees which represented the town's history and were very beautiful...more photos if we ever work out how to upload them!! We walked across the bridge to the wonderful 90 mile beach. All around the town we saw school children of all ages litter picking. They were all in smart uniforms with huge sun hats and really doing a good job. We later found out it was Keep Australia Clean Day. On the beach we saw an ambulance get stuck in the sand and rushed to help along with several others..Turned out they were on a training exercise, so no one was in there thankfully. Interesting to watch though.

After lunch headed off to the Buchan Caves, which were about 45 minutes away in a lovely National Park. They were really spectacular with quite amazing stalectites and stalagmites. After the guided tour we left the park to visit a local pub... still need to find some decent ale! We then went back to the park and used the campsite barbeque to cook up a gourmet meal. Then we set off in search of marsupials! We enjoyed watching a kukkaburra up close on the play equipment and then spotted a young kangaroo feeding quietly near the men's loo! Before we left the park we'd seen a load of kangaroos feeding and hopping along... they are just beautiful.

Saturday 28th February
Called into metung, a bit further down the coast. This is quite an exclusive resort and marina and we enjoyed a walk along the board walk where we saw lots more pelicans, before grabbing a morning coffee. Unfortunately I (linda) left my one and only fleece on the chair here...the one I bought in Millets in Skipton for £20.. oh well Can't find anything under $100 (£50) to replace it, so will make do with my M&S cardi! From Metung we moved to the other side of the mini peninsula to Paynesville, another exclusive resort. We parked up here and walked onto the local ferry to Raymond Island: we'd read that this island had a large amount of koala bears and naively wandered around expecting to see them! There was a map near the ferry port with KOALAS marked clearly on it, so of course we trekked several kilometres, before giving up on them. Only to read later that they were extremely shy and actually slept for up to 17 hours a day!! Oh well. Continued south and settled on a site in Sale for the night. This site had lots of room and we got a good night's sleep. It was right by the river and on the right road for us, which was great.

more photos at last!

2009-02-28T11:24:00.004Z

Hi everyone...Lin here on the last day of February. We've finally managed to get a decent internet connection for our laptop. For some reason we're finding that much more difficult here in Oz. Anyway rather that continue the journal side of the blog I'm going to try uploading some photos of Tonga

continuing travels

2009-02-26T08:52:00.001Z

Sunday 15th Feb
Lin here...first of all I need to apologise for Brent's poor grammar and spelling mistakes!!! Guess he's out of sorts too.

Anyway the rain poured down all night and we both slept fitfully, worrying that the tent might be washed away. Brent here. Decided to go for a drive towards the Blue Mountains. Weather still very overcast so visibility up high was not good. One bright spot was a lovely little cafe on the main road where we sampled some of the coffee and cakes. Headed back to the campsite feeling that we had seen a little more of Australia.

Monday 16th Feb.
Woke up to try and get on line to see if we had been successful in booking a camper van. Frustratingly the hotmail showed the responses but we didn't seem to be able to open them. There was one from the company we had queried – was it yes or no ? I suggested that on our way into Sydney at Chatswood we look for an internet cafe to check there. Our luck was in – we found a good one in the town. On opening the mail though they said there was no availability. Back to square one. Time was running out now as the car was due back tomorrow so we had to get something sorted. The cafe had skype so we made some calls and luckily got sorted for the next day – hurray. Took the train into Sydney. Today we explored the Botanic Gardens and walked through the parks. Very beautiful trees and plants. The weather had fortunately improved. Walked through Hyde Park (not the London one ) to the Australian Museum where we wanted to see the Wildlife photographer of the Year exhibition. Some of the most stunning photographs on display. A highlight of the day. Linda returned to campsite early as she still felt rough. I followed shortly after picking up confirmation of our van booking on way through Chatswood. Spent evening packing up car ready for an early start the next day.

Tuesday 17th Feb.
This morning we had to be quite organised: we decided to drop off all our possessions at the campervan place, where Linda would sort out the booking and pack up the van, whilst I drove through Sydney to drop off the car and then return by public transport to meet up with Linda again. Through forward thinking and a little luck it all went very smoothly. We left with our van at about 10.30am on our way to Melbourne. We drove out of Sydney via the Royal National Park taking in some fantastic views of the Grand Pacific Highway and the Seacliff Bridge. We found our first campsite at Shell Harbour near Kiama. Was tucked away in the suburbs and seemed to have an age discrimination policy – we just sneaked into the youngest on site. Was very quiet though and we enjoyed a dry and pleasant night in the van – what a relief.

Wednesday 18th Feb
Drove down the coast taking in the fantastic seven mile beach. Self explanatory. Another one of the beaches with Pacific rollers braking along its length. Stopped for the evening at a small campsite just outside Huskisson. Beautiful situation on a saltwater lagoon with a little jetty looking out over the water. Linda feeling a lot better now.

Thursday 19th Feb
Lin here...finally feeling more like myself...I was beginning to wonder there. Anyway today we left the site and drove down towards Bateman's Bay. We found a Big 4 campsite, as recommended by Janine at Ulladulla, on Burril Lake and decided to spend 2 nights there. We were able to connect to the internet and used Skype to contact my cousins and ring family in England. Great!

Friday 20th Feb
A lazy day.... much needed. We hung out at the site until late afternoon, enjoying the serenity and making those calls. Late afternoon we walked down to the local park and as we gazed down at the river estuary spotted an octopus! I was feeling even better today and risked having some wine... probably a mistake, but it was nice all the same!

Saturday 21st Feb
I woke up feeling a bit icky again and have pledged ( again ) to give up the booze. Still we headed off and enjoyed exploring more of this beautiful coast. We started at Depot Beach, where we'd seen pictures of kangaroos. We can't believe we've been here almost 2 weeks and not seen one. We found a short walk through rainforest, which we enjoyed. Birds of all sorts were plentiful and we briefly caught the rear end of what we believe was a bush wallaby... but no kangaroos. The white sand beach here was lovely. When we returned to the car park we noticed another Apollo van.. in fact it was the 2 berth van that we'd have preferred to rent, but which wasn't available ( ours is a 3 berth). We were just having a nose when the German couple renting it appeared, so we had quite a long chat with them. They'd done our trip in reverse and were able to recommend some places to stop and we recommended Lane Cove to them. I mentioned that we had yet to see our first kangaroo and they looked somewhat puzzled... look over there they said... and lo and behold just across the road in between some cabins was a group of joeys just lying about!!! Did we feel like a couple of wallies or what! Still we finally saw and stroked our first kangaroos! Brilliant! We move on to Bateman's Bay and stopped at the headland on Guerrilla Bay and did part of a beautiful coastal walk.. spotting loads of rainbow parakeets and a host of other birds, as well as a large lizard... David Attenborough eat your heart out. Finally arrived at our destination, Narooma, and set up camp. Noticed a folk festival advertised for this weekend and decided to go tomorrow.. we've really been missing live music!

Sunday 22nd Feb
Got up quite early and set off towards the folk festival. Stopped for coffee in historic villages of Tilba... very pretty and arrived around 11 at the showground. There were about 6 tents offering different gigs. Our first 2 made us wonder if we'd wasted money... in the “voices” tent a choral group of women who were very nervous and definitely amateur. It was painful to listen to at times and our next tent proved little better!! However once we headed to the main stage things got better and we heard a lot of really good music. We really enjoyed the Fagan family in the voices tent: they got everyone singing a round as well as performing great harmonies. The last band was called the Beez and they came from germany and were very funny – they took words from one song and put them to music from another...you had to be there! 2 English musicians were playing and were very entertaining. They were part of a political set and one of them – Graham ?(Todd?) was very anti monarchy.. we loved him! We also enjoyed the comedians set, which made us realise what a global world we live in – all the same issues were made fun of. We particularly liked Damien Neil and Damon Davis, who's harmonies were really incredible. By the end of the afternoon we felt that we'd really chilled and made up for all that lost music time. Headed to Mirumbull

Into Australia

2009-02-14T23:16:00.002Z

Monday 9th Feb
A day of relief and sadness. To be getting off Tonga but leaving our friends. Stefan drove us to the airport complete with a very passable impression of an Indian taxi driver. We were finally leaving – even the departure lounge was a blessed relief with its air conditioning. First flight to Auckland was straightforward and link to Sydney went well with a short interchange. That was were our luck ended. We had hoped to pick up a hire car that evening and met the shuttle bus a little late but with some hope that we might get there in time. It was when the driver claimed he had no change that things got farcical. One couple getting out of van to use ATM coming back with only a 50 dollar note. When we finally got going was fairly obvious we would not be able to liase with the car hire company. We made the decision to ask at the hostel where another couple were heading – no luck all full. It was now getting dark so we made a quick decision to stay at a hotel called the Astoria without bothering to look at the room - big mistake. The room ended up being dirty, bug ridden and noisy – all night take away directly outside the window. As it was late we had to make best of it and duly put out sleeping bags on bed and headed out for a drink. The area was called Kings Cross and mirrored the London equivalent – enough said. A long night and restless night followed.

Tuesday 10th Feb
Picked up our hire car very early. At least seemed to be a good model. Headed out of the city in search of Lane Cove campsite. Unfortunately the map we were using was not good. Eventually stopped at a garage in suburbs and purchased a better one. The campsite proved to be a good recommendation by our swiss friends. It was in a small National Park with loads of wildlife. The camp kitchens were well equipped but open to the elements on three sides. We opted to stay for four nights as we had lots of plannning to do. Settled down for an early night and to catch up with missing sleep.

Wednesday 11th Feb
Spent the day in a local shopping centre getting our camping equipment together again. Fortuneately there were several discount stores so we soon replenished our stocks. The shopping centre was one which could have been transplanted from one country to another. Frustrating design which meant you had to walk past every shop to find what you needed.
We went back to campsite getting into rush hour traffic jams – something we hadnt experienced for a while. In the evening we had signed up for a wildlife walk around the site with one of the rangers. She gave an informative talk before taking us on a torchlight tour. It was very enjoyable and showed us the massive variety of creatures and birds we were living with here. Possums were spotted regularly – mostly around rubbish bins – were they forage for scaps. Found a rarer ring tail possum in one of the trees. Spotted bandicoots which look like large jumping rats. We were also shown the roosting kookaberas. The most spectacular resident though was Warren the Water Dragon – a metre long lizard.

Thursday 12th Feb
Went into the centre of Sydney today using a rail, bus, and ferry pass. Got off the train early and walked over the Sydney Harbour bridge. On descending the bridge walked into a pretty area of small streets, galleries and coffee shops called “ the Rocks”. Linda was not feeling too good at this point so decided to limit what we intended to do. The gallery of Contemporary Art proved to be a highlight as we managed to link in with a guided tour. This gave us an insight into some of the local modern artists. Outside on the wharf enjoyed watching a street artist climb up 20ft into the air onto a BMX on a pole and then juggle with a sword, flame stick and an apple – he was very funny with his banter too. Walked around the Circular Quay to the Opera House. Strangely all the doors seemed to be locked and the place very inaccessible. I had the idea of catching a ferry back which linked with a bus service. The journey back took us ages because the bus we intended to catch stopped running at 4.00pm which seemed ridiculous. This meant we ended up walking long distances and catching buses which took us on circuitous routes. We eventually arrived back at the campsite just as night was falling.

Friday 13th Feb
We intended to use the time on the campsite to organise ourselves for the Oz trip. Today we returned to the shopping centre to see if we could get our booster jabs. Not successful as the nurse wasnt there. Linda not feeling well now and very queasy. We opted to go and see the Changeling at the cinema. Good in parts.

Saturday 14th Feb
Went back into Sydney to try and get a camper van booked. On the way met the German couple we had bumped into previously – gave us some information on a cheap van they had hired which distracted us a little from our objective. Realised later on that rates vary according to where you pick up the van. They had hired it in Brisbane and were travelling to Sydney. All the van hire rates are more expensive if you move out from Sydney which must be more popular. Went to the city library to find out if there were any available. Lovely building but came away having achieved very little. Linda now not feeling good so decided to return to campsite. The rain and cloud has been with us now since we came to Australia and there is no doubt it is beginning to wear down our spirits. Is the first prolonged spell of bad weather we have experienced but wet and gloomy dont help your perceptions and motivation. The evening did not improve with regard to this. The rain bucketed down for most of the evening and we returned to our tent fearing it might have been swept away in the rain. Not a good day – one bright spot is I managed to make a provisional booking for a van.

Into February and Tonga

2009-02-11T02:01:00.001Z

Friday 30th Jan
Managed to chat to my sister, Shirl, before leaving this morning. Also posted off some of our stuff to Brent's mum for storage...unfortunately I managed to stuff my trusty hat in with the stuff, so had to buy another! Found a bargain in Khatmandu.. a cap with optional neck protector. Headed towards Auckland stopping for lunch at the botanical gardens in Hamilton, which we'd wanted to see on our last visit. It was a lovely couple of hours. Stayed in a motel for our last night... not quite what we were used to for $NZ100 but ok.

Sat. 31st Jan
Decided to head to the Botanical gardens for lunch, as we'd really enjoyed them on our last visit. .. you wouldn't believe how hard it was to find the entrance! Finally made it and enjoyed a coffee and a nice walk before returning the car to the Omega office near the airport. Arrived far too early but were able to check the bags in early and relax, whilst looking out for Niel, who we'd hoped to see before we left. At 4,30 we had to go through security, with no sign of Niel... we do hope that we didn't miss you Niel and that something else turned up. You were so kind to show us around Tauranga and we hope we can reciprocate one day back in England. Our flight was fine and we arrived in a dark Tonga at around 8.30. It was lovely to be met at the airport along with 3 other folk: a Canadian couple and a Dutch guy. As we got close to our resort we turned off the road onto a pot holed track... a bit scary in the dark. What a relief when Sven, our host appeared and helped carry our bags to our superior fale, which was great. After settling in we had time for a cold beer and a chat with our fellow travellers before bed.

Sun Feb 1st 2009
Struggled to acclimatise to the humidity today! Enjoyed a lovely Tongan breakfast of fresh fruit, coconut and toast. Then got dropped off at church with Mary, a retired American who's lived here for 5 years, and 2 girls from Iceland. We attended the service at the Catholic basilica, which was very beautiful. We weren't disappointed by the singing... the church was full of people, many of them dressed traditionally and the service included a lot of singing, with a choir leader conducting. Absolutely amazing sounds. After church we picked up some rolls, doughnuts and biscuits at the local bakery then went back and spent the rest of the day chilling back at the lodge. We both had power naps before dinner, which was really good! I had tuna and Brent had chicken both cooked in a lovely sauce and served in banana leaves... preceded by papaya soup...all very delicious!

Mon 2nd Feb
Another hot and humid day with temperatures around 38 degrees. We quickly realised that our brains found it difficult to work in such conditions and we slowed down to a snail's pace. This morning we joined a group, complimentary orientation tour of the town and enjoyed visiting the cafes and generally having a look around. At the market I bought a Tongan fan, which is really efficient and Brent was very tempted to buy a Tongan shirt: they are really colourful and are worn over black skirts with sacking type aprons. I'd like Brent to buy the whole thing really, but don't think he'll be persuaded! Upstairs in the market was interesting: there was a guy with a sewing machine, making made to measure shirts and women making handicrafts. Later we met up with Kristina and Victoria from Iceland in the supermarket and at the bus stop and got a bus back around 4.30. Time for a bit of a chill before dinner. Tried to check email but the internet was dead slow and for some reason we can't connect our wireless to the system here.. shame! Best thing about today??? We met a lovely Swiss couple, Stefan and Monika, who over the next few days became really good friends: we didn't stop laughing!

Tuesday 3rd Feb.
Brent here. We booked an island trip today to one of the nearby resorts. Got a lift to the port where the boat picks us up. A rather nervous German couple were standing there. They had disembarked from the cruise ship. The man looked around at the chaos of the port and said to us “ this is not the German vay “. I had to think its not the English way either though didn't say it. The boat duly arrived at 10 and we scrambled onto it. We arrived on the island to be greeted by a Tongan woman on the landing. The resort at first appearance looked very comfortable with a central bar and restaurant and some comfy if slightly grubby chairs on the timber decking. Linda and I decided to go for a walk and found that the resort was very self contained with a security guard posted at one end. Almost as soon as we left the resort we noticed a huge pile of rubbish...tins etc at the side of what had seemed a pretty, green path. The path soon disappeared though and we felt uncomfortable exploring what felt like people's homes. The rest of the island was very poor in contrast to the calmness of the resort (that's Brent's opinion..I didn't feel we got a good enough look). On returning to the resort we were told we could kayak so we went out to to find two on the beach. Linda was fine with one of the small ones but alas for me they were far too small. I tried a large open one which resembled a surf board but realised very quickly it was too difficult to balance in. The whole experience was very frustrating and we began to realise that the resort was not that well equipped. The other clear fact was that it was deserted so had a strange atmosphere. The staff were just hanging around watching the TV and didn't seem keen to ask if we required anything. That fact coupled with the high temperature and humidity meant we just sat and read. It wasn't long before Linda had dosed off in the chair. When lunch time finally arrived the choice was very limited... and we were thankful that it was included in our trip, as the chicken sandwich with a few chips cost T$26, which is about £9!! It was pretty awful too. The trip back to Tongatapu was made more interesting as we shared the boat with a Kiwi couple and their 10 week old baby, who were visiting the mother's grandmother for her 90th birthday on Saturday. They'd spent one night at the resort and found it very expensive.

Wednesday 4th Feb 2009
Joined a new group to get into town today. We'd looked for flights to the Va'vau islands, but they turned out to be prohibitively expensive..although accommodation there was reasonable. We really couldn't imagine staying here until 19th Feb, so went into Air NZ to enquire about changing flights...we were put on a waiting list for Monday... and told there were no spaces after that all week!!! Oh my god! Had a wander round and enjoyed the cafes on the main street. Back at the lodge we arranged to share a car with Stefan and Monika for the next few days. We all enjoyed a game of Quiddler and the laughing was very therapeutic.

Thurs 5th
Stefan's tour of the western side of Tongatapu island:
A good day today – we took over the car from an Australian woman and her German helper! There was no contract, which worried all 4 of us, so we headed for the Fab Rental (love the name!) offices, where Lee sorted a contract out for us..very smart offices...NOT! It was completely chaotic, with bizarre objects strewn around each desk..eg. cans of motor oil, piles of papers etc. Anyway feeling happier we headed off and despite Sven's warnings that there were no road signs to the “attractions” we successfully found: the coral beach, the flying foxes ( very large bats) and the blowholes, which were really impressive! When we arrived at the beach there was a show going on at the nearby resort and brent and I snuck a quick look: a fabulous group of dancers was performing and the music was brill. The group was enjoying a lunch along with the entertainment. Around an hour after we got there they all disappeared and we reckoned that we'd seen a tour from the cruise ship we'd seen that morning. After that we had the place to ourselves. What was not so impressive was the large amount of rubbish found along the beach, where we also saw several rats! Swimming here was also tricky as there was a very strong undercurrent, which pulled us very quickly away from our stuff.

The local villages we saw on the journey were generally poor, with few facilities apart from a small church. All had wild pigs and chickens wandering about and there were lots of wild dogs. The children we saw were always curious and friendly calling out “Bye!” as we drove past... we later learned that they found this easier to say than hi, but at the time it made us laugh and we enjoyed calling out hello and hi to them.This evening we cooked in the super hot lodge kitchen, alongside mosquitos and geckos!! We retired after to the lounge, where we enjoyed a game of Uno with M and S...lots more laughs.

Friday 6 Feb
Stefan's tour of the eastern side of Tongatapu island:
Monika suggested that we buy flowers for the air NZ lady, organising our flights, and we seriously thought about it...oh my god it was hot!! “Bloody hell ,”said Stefan. Fortunately our flight was confirmed for Monday without the bribe...hurray!
It was boiling again and Stefan kindly made us all pancakes for lunch. Later
headed off to explore all those remaining kilometres...tee hee!

Got very excited at Captain Cook's landing stage, which turned out to consist of a wooden information board and a huge, concrete platform overlooking a rather seedy mangrove swamp...not even a real view!! We moved on to find some of Tonga's other attractions: the pyramids – stacked graveyards and the stonehenge like archway were both hard to find...but worth it...well the arch was! The best bit was the journey: the car's air con worked...especially in the front of the car and the banter in the car was just brilliant. We were amazed by our friend's standard of English: they could use play on words and were fluent in slang expressions. They even knew the difference between Mr Bean and James Bond!! ( private joke). At the end of the afternoon we found a lovely, white sand beach and had fun snorkelling amongst the beautiful coral. It was like being in a warm bath and we saw some very colourful fish. That night we went to the local show on Oheipi? beach.. this was great. The venue was lovely: on arrival we were shown along a torchlit path in the sand to the resort, where a band was playing ( loud, oldies) and tables were set up. We spent a bit of time on the beach, where we found some unusual lounger chairs and enjoyed the beauty and serenity of our surroundings. We headed back up to the resort in time for the buffet dinner, which was very nice. Kristina and Victoria were helping out there...they became “close” friends with the staff there. After dinner we were shown into a massive cave, wherethe entertainment took place. The atmosphere was wonderful, with candles and torches lighting up the venue. A family run show then followed with men and then women performing traditional dances. The men's dances were very aggressive, warlike type dances, whilst the women performed gracious and elegant flowing dances. We all enjoyed it and we were very impressed by M and S's cameras.

Saturday 7th Feb
Mr Bean drives us to find the land bridge:
After another slow start Brent took to the wheel in search of the final attraction on our island: the land bridge. This took some finding and when we finally got there it was...wait for it...unbelievable! ( our Swiss friends' favourite word). Muddy, unsigned paths where you had to lean over a sheer drop to see anything!! Oh well!
We headed back to the sandy beach, but there had been a storm and the water was very cloudy and not clean. A group of locals were in the water just a bit further along and brent suggested we head over there. The 2 of us then enjoyed snorkelling in much clearer water, following a coral ledge. As we left the water the locals were clearly interested in us and we got chatting to a Tongan woman, living in Oz and several of the children, one of whom was intrigued by Brent's goggles ( or should that be googles Stefan?). That night to celebrate our leaving M and S suggested we get a take away pizza and some wine to share. Good idea, but turned into a bit of a farce: The restaurant we went too was a three storey very posh building owned by an Italian – so good so far. We went to the counter ( stefan and me – Brent ) to check on prices. Expensive and with a mystery tax we had not encountered before. We ordered a takeaway of the cheapest pizzas – neapolitan and hawaiin. Ten minutes we were told. Half an our later we were still sat there. The manaer arrives and gets angry with the staff – suddenly two pizzas arrive. Relief, we walk out of the place only to be stopped when the manager opens one of the boxes to look inside and declare “ they have not put any oregano on it it has to go back – they will never learn unless they do “ Sit back down. In this time we decide to go and get some wine – so I drive Monika and Linda to the supermarket. Only just in time. Return to pick up Stefan who is now justifiablylivid
We reflected on the problems of organisation in Tongan society. Went back to base and had a game of backgammon.

Sunday 8th Feb
Day of high humidity..we spent with Stephan and Monika at the lodge... brief outing downtown in the hope of finding ice cream..Realised the tank was on empty so went very slowly only to find that all the shops were closed and the streets deserted. Tonga is a very religious nation. That evening we chatted with our friends and shared our last bottle of wine. Tonga was experiencing record temperatures and the humidity was crippling. I have to admit it was going to be a relief to fly out to cooler climbs but we realised we would miss Stefan and Monika without whom we would have struggled to get by. Much laughing and joking always helps lighten the mood. Thanks again to our friends !!!

The rest of January...

2009-01-29T20:24:00.000Z

Saturday 17th Jan – Thursday 29th January
Goodness, it's hard catching up on the blog and makes me realise how important it is to do this regularly....still here goes.

Lin here, writing this on 30th January and having trouble remembering what we did!! We think that today we moved on along the East coast. We came across several Maori meeting houses, called Maua. These are quite beautiful and as we travelled along on this Saturday morning many of them were being used. This area of the North Island had come recommended by several Kiwis: it is predominantly Maori and we certainly noticed a difference: finding stopping places was difficult – when we finally found a spot, which seemed idyllic right near a beach in shaded forest, I was attacked by the dreaded sandflies: these tiny insects are driving us mad. The females suck your blood and I can tell you it's quite painful! Then where they have bitten begins to itch. I seem particularly sensitive to them and have had some nasty raised weals on my skin. Needless to say we didn't stay there for lunch! When we finally reached the campsite we were aiming for it was so hidden that we drove straight passed it! We turned around at Te Araroa, where the road to the most Eastern lighthouse in the world is found. Going there would have added a good 20k to our journey, so instead we headed back to the campsite. Our initial impression was that it was a bit run down, but it turned out to be well shaded and we met some more friendly kiwis there. There was a large group of friends in one corner. They'd set up a game of volley ball and had built a fire in a purpose built shelter there. In another area several families had met up and the kids were having great fun... reminded me of the days when we went camping in our trailer tent with our good friends. Just as we were going to bed, at our usual time of 10pm!! a family arrived at the cabin just next to us... all the sites here seem to have these and they look good, but are a bit expensive for us at around $NZ100 a night. Their daughter was very excited to be there, especially as she hadn't realised some of her friends were already there.

Sunday 18th Jan
Next morning at 6am we were awoken to the excited calls of all the kids who were already up and about. We didn't mind at all as we'd had our beauty sleep but the parents of the kids kept coming over and apologising to us for their kids behaviour!! Before leaving the site we walked over the marshy area to see the beach, which was quite a good one...then around 11am it was back on the road. Once again we struggled to find a place to stop. but when Brent was preparing our lunch at pull in – sandwiches and a cup of tea, 2 wild chickens appeared. They were pretty mangy and clearly determined to share our lunch! One of them was very aggressive and was charging at Brent. I came to his rescue with one of my walking poles and we managed to eat in peace. As for the beaches: some were right on the roadside, with free camping available in one area, whilst others were
quite inaccessible. We reached our destination – Gisborne, the most Eastern city in the world and set up camp at the town site, near the river, just a short walk from the centre. The site was very busy and we had to pitch right near the road opposite the amenities block, which proved to be very busy and noisy. However I was pleased to be able to speak to Alec, my son, on his 26th birthday, and we enjoyed following the historic walk around the city, which was very pretty. Along the riverside there were lots of statues: this was one of the areas where Captain Cook landed and his statue was one of them.

Monday 19th Jan
Today we spent some time in the good library in Gisborne, where the internet was free. We changed our flights from Fiji to Tonga and enjoyed being in quite a busy city. We also made friends with a lovely couple and their little girl Sophie, who were camping next to us. He was British but had lived there for some years. Once again we found them really friendly and helpful. We decided to move on the next day – I'd felt a bit wheezy for the first time in ages and actually used my inhaler. We reckon it was being so close to the road.

Tuesday 20th Jan
After a morning in Gisborne we headed onwards to Mahia beach. We arrived late afternoon and after a fish and chip supper ...which we had a long wait for! around 7pm had a wander down to the lovely golden sand beach. As we neared the shore Brent thought he saw a fin in the water near to where some children were playing, up to their thighs in the sea. It turned out to be a resident dolphin! We read the sign about her: she arrived in the bay at Easter 2007 and has stayed. We watched her playing with a group of kids, clearly enjoying the attention. We were quite gob smacked! Had a chat about her to an American woman and her husband, who were from Colorado.

Wednesday 21st Jan
Another glorious day dawned and we planned to do a local walk in the bush. Before leaving we headed for the beach just to see if Moko was about. We ended up staying the whole day on the beach! Moko appeared some way out to sea and we swam out to see her. Unfortunately just as we arrived so did a boat and Moko swiftly followed it out to sea. Dissappointed we went back to the beach only to find that in minutes she was back playing with a surfboard. Linda decided she was going to go out and see if she could get closer. She swam out to find the board whizzing towards her but pleased to be close to the bottle nosed dolphin. Meanwhile I was feeling a little jealous so when she came back tried to swim out too. I was lucky enough to get close enough to touch her – much to the annoyance of Linda. Soon after she was taken out to sea by following a boat.
In the evening we went into a local bar for a drink. Not much atmosphere more like a youth club!

If you'd like to read more about Moko have a look at these websights:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/animals/news/article.cfm?c_id=500834&objectid=10548964

http://www.cdnn.info/news/eco/e080312.html

Thursday 22nd Jan – off to the start of our one and only Great Walk at Lake Waikaremoana
Left the campsite this morning, calling goodbye to Moko. Stopped for a look around Wairoa and visited a really nice little museum there, with lots of Maori artefacts as well as an exhibition of art from a local art class. We laughed to see the teacher's comments, which read like school reports! We knew that the last part of this trip was on a gravel road, but were surprised when this started quite soon after Wairoa. It was pretty awful as the sun was boiling, the air con on the car wasn't working and lots of 4 x 4 vehicles kept speeding past us kicking up a load of dust. We were terrified that the windscreen would be broken...but our luck held out. It was also impossible to stop as picnic areas were few and far between. When we finally managed a stop we realised that we were just a short way from the Waikaremoana holiday park, where we were staying! We arrived around 4.30 and Brent rushed off to the DoC office to book our walk and hut and campsites while I put up the tent. He arrived with just 7 minutes before closing and got pretty confused by my notes about where we should break the walk up...we'd thought we'd do the walk over 3 days and 2 nights, but he ended up booking 3 nights / 4 days! As you'll see this turned out to be a blessing!!! We got off to bed and slept well in preparation for our trek!

Friday 23rd Jan
The start of our Great Walk adventure -
We got up bright and early and sorted our backpacks ready for the tramp. By the time we'd sorted the water taxi and changed our camp booking it was about 10am before we left. 2 lovely Maori guys dropped us off at Onepoto, the start of the walk. We were left on a rocky outcrop and as they left I turned around to get a photo of them and managed to knock my backpack into the lake!! Brent jumped into the brink and to the rescue, soaking his boots through...what a start! Another boat was pulling in and one of the group took out his video camera to capture me wringing out my sweatshirt. We followed their example and had a swim in the lake, hoping that my stuff and Brent's boots would at least start to dry out. Finally we set off about an hour after the other group, at midday. It was a beautiful morning and we were glad of the shelter offered by the bush. We knew we had a climb ahead up to the Panekire Hut, where we'd booked bunks for our first night and set off full of anticipation. A few hours later and we reached what we thought was the top of the climb: the view was stunning, but a bit scary in terms of the sheer drop in front of us. Our exhilaration at arriving soon turned to horror as we realised that this was just the first of several summits we'd need to climb before we reached the trig point at 1180 metres where the hut was sited. We wondered how the children in the other group were coping and soon came across them. We all introduced ourselves: 2 brothers and and 2 sisters – Russell and Alex were farmers and their sisters, Margaret ( a doctor) and Elizabeth with her 3 daughters, aged about 7,9 and 11. We were so impressed with those girls! All of us agreed that the climb was demanding and all felt that the guideline of 5 hours was totally unrealistic when carrying packs. This proved to be true! It took us 7 gruelling hours to get to the top and some parts of the path were really difficult. At one point we had to scramble on all 4s over huge boulders and tree roots. At several points the path narrowed right near to sheer drops... it was really scary! In the end we got to the hut about 20 minutes after our new friends, who greeted us with wonderful mugs of scotch. They were really lovely and shared with us their dinner: Russell had shot a deer a couple of days ago and they'd cooked the fresh venison to perfection. It was the first time we'd eaten Venison and we loved it. Olivia, the middle daughter was delighted to finish off our cheesy pasta, but we definitely got the better deal!! We spent a fun evening chatting to them and all enjoyed foot massages...much needed! Other folk were staying there, including more children.

Saturday 24th Jan
Oh dear! Not a good night's sleep! I was sure that someone had fallen off the path en route to the toilet, but we found out this morning that some of the girls had spent the night puking up!! We'd heard Margaret and Alex chatting in the middle of the night, but hadn't realised what was up... how awful! Alex made us smile this morning ... he didn't fancy a cuppa from their billy can as it had been the sick bowl during the night...yuk!! Anyway we managed to dry our most of my stuff and headed off just after 10 for our 2nd day of tramping. The main downhill section was quite demanding and once again we found it a long day. It was, however, much easier than yesterday, with some lovely sections through the woods. We arrived at the Maratui hut, where Alex and co were spending their second night, and were boiling hot. It was a much smarter hut, with lovely new bunk beds, right next to the lake. We couldn't wait to get into the water. Brent rushed down to the lakeside and was immediately attacked by sandflies...bloody hell! When I came to look for my swimming cossie it had disappeared! I must have left it on the rocks to dry when we last swam... oh well! I had to swim, so put on my shorts and a tee shirt and went in anyway. Who cares? (I later found my cossie...I'd put it in a different pocket of my rucksack!) After a good rest and a cup of tea, we ploughed on to the korokoro campsite where we were staying our 2nd night. This was a lovely spot and there were just 2 other tents there when we arrived. We quickly got talking to our fellow campers – David was a nice guy, who was staying on at the camp for a good look around. After dinner he lit us a great camp fire, where we all sat around chatting. Carol and Jane were lovely. They'd met on Great Barrier Island and this was Carol's first tramp with a backpack. Jane was English, but settled here some years ago. She has done lots of tramping. We really enjoyed their company and helping them finish off a crossword. It would be great to keep in touch.

Sunday 25th Jan
We both fell asleep pretty quickly but in the middle of night Brent woke me up in a panic: someone was shouting for help! It turned out to be David having a dreadful nightmare. We were able to give him a torch and he seemed to settle down. We felt badly for him. This morning we enjoyed reading the passed on weekend paper, with British news...until...a/ we realised how miserable the news was and b/ we realised how much time reading it was taking... we'd had a lie in!! Jane, Carol and David were already up...with the women enjoying their toast...were they well equipped!! After our muesli and banana breakfast I wandered over to chat to 2 French lads who'd arrived late last night. They were clearly very fit and doing the walk over 2 days!!! We said goodbye to Jane and Carol, who we hope to keep in touch with, and headed out of the camp at 10.10. David was staying for another night and exploring the area. He recommended a swim in the lake from some rocks about 2 and half hours walk away. Unfortunately we'd mis-read the map ...not alone in this. It really was confusing... and decided we couldn't afford the time to stop, but needed to get further than our pre-booked campsite, Maranui, if we were to get to the water ferry on time. This was a pity as the walk to Maranui was a pleasure and the site itself quite idyllic. We did stop for lunch though and met up with a lovely young couple. He was kiwi and she was from Monteray, California..remember that Gaz and Al? His parents were kayaking the lake while they were doing the walk over 3 days! Needless to say they'd found the first day exhausting and like us were worrying that the last day might be equally hard. They headed off b4 us and welcomed us around 7pm when we arrived at the final campsite, next to a newly renovated pair of huts. As we approached the noise was amazing and upon arrival we discovered 2 groups of sixth formers were staying in the bunkhouses....we were really glad that we'd chosen to camp!!! They were pleasant enough and really enjoyed lighting a lovely campfire. We headed for bed around 10 aware that most of them had gone to bed.

Monday 26th Jan
What a terrible night! I was so knackered that I fell asleep, despite the goings on outside, but Brent couldn't switch off and was aware that a few lads from one of the school groups were out shooting possum with airguns...probably under the influence. Around midnight I woke up when a torch lit up our tent. It was pretty scary... we both felt very vulnerable: what would happen if we stuck our heads out??? We decided against this, but did ask the lads to get to bed... well I think Brent's words were: “ get to f___ing bed... some of us are trying to sleep here!”. This didn't work and an hour later, around 1am we heard a terrible cracking sound, followed by a frantic cry of: “ Are you Ok?”... then running to the main hut and a raised alarm. Minutes later we were asked if we owned a boat moored nearby... the lad was seriously hurt. We later found out that he'd broken his leg and had to have his ear taped up! How lucky that boat was there! As there was no signal the leaders couldn't make contact with the rescue services and the lad was clearly in trouble. He was lifted onto that boat and taken to the nearest landing with telephone reception.

Around 7am we got up and saw 2 dead possums near the bonfire. I chatted to the female leader of the D of E group, who told me the lads involved were from the other group. Their leader was very apologetic, but we both understood the situation having taken away groups of teenagers ourselves...we just felt sorry for all of them... hope the lad is ok and learns from the experience. We were ready to leave this last stop-over just after 9am and couldn't believe how easy the last stage of the tramp was: we almost strolled through peaceful woodland and stopped at the last hut for a nice pasta lunch ( same as previous nights!) and a swim in the lake, before getting to the water taxi pick up point. It was lovely to see our 2 Maori friends return and safely get us back to base...what a sense of satisfaction.

Notes following this, our one and only Great NZ walk:
We really feel we should contact DoC and point out that the timings given between the stages of this 46k walk are not at all accurate for anyone carrying a full backpack. We did meet some young, fit lads who were keeping to the schedule. However we met many more, young and old, who found the times completely unrealistic. In fact had we had better guidance we would certainly have spend at least 5 days on the walk. This would have given us time to really appreciate the beauty of our surroundings and to take all the opportunities, particularly towards the end of the walk, to swim in the lake.

Tues 27th Jan
Awoke to a cloudier morning! This was good news as we had been dreading the 60 mile gravel road. This still proved a challenge, but Brent was up to it...yes!! About a third of the way along the road we came across a man traveling in the opposite direction in a pristine hire car. As we got near he stopped and wound down his window. “ ow much further does this road go?,” he said, in a positively Northern accent. Brent turned off the engine and wound down the window for a natter: it turned out the chap was from Blackburn and clearly hadn't got a clue about the road he was on. In fact he thought he'd turned off the main road...understandable actually. Poor chap! We got close to Rotorua and spotted a sign for a thermal valley. We arrived just in time to complete the distance from the visitors centre/ entrance to the main lake, where a bus brought us back to the start. We were advised to miss out part of the walk -but knew we were fit enough to do the whole thing and managed it easily. We had to pay NZ$36 dollars each to do this, but were blown away ( fortunately not literally!) by what we saw: first a pool of turquoise water, then a bubbling lake, surrounded by steaming hillside, then an emerald green pool...all a bit scary – we were actually walking through a volcanic crater, which had erupted for the last time in 1974, although in the early 1900s a more serious eruption had occured, when 2 tourists were killed when a geyser spurted its boiling, noxious gas over them!! Needless to say we got a move on at this point! When we arrived at the lake we found quite a crowd of people waiting for the bus. I went to dip my feet into the lake, where we got chatting to 2 Austrian lads, who were spending a few months in NZ and were very friendly.

We finally arrived in Rotorua and headed for one of the many motels there. We chose one with a studio type accommodation. It seemed quite luxurious after all the camping and at NZ$105 a night, seemed very cheap...that's about £46... It had a nice double room upstairs, with a kitchen/ living room, smart bathroom and courtyard with hot spa. All very nice. By the time we'd been shopping and got a meal it was quite late, but we still managed to fit in a hot tub before bed.... what a treat!

Wed 28th Jan
Lin here... well I expected to get a great night's sleep on a very comfy bed, but was awoken at 2am: a light was on downstairs and Brent was on the laptop – unable to sleep. Needless to say I was not very happy as it then took me ages to get back to sleep, whilst he was snoring!! Anyway we had a really nice, chilled out day, enjoying the space of the motel studio. In the morning we emptied the car and sorted out our stuff a bit – we intend to donate our pots, pans etc as well as some un-needed clothes to a charity shop here in Rotorua. Around 4 we headed into town and enjoyed a walk to the lake in the sunshine. We found lots of bars, with music (!), an alternative cinema and one of the many spas here. We got laundry done back at the motel and enjoyed a cordon bleu meal prepared by moi: steak aux champignons a la sauce fromage bleu, avec legumes varies, cuits en ail...delicieux! (made a change from Brent's lovely pastas!)

Thursday 29th Jan
Had a pretty quiet day today. Really sorted out our stuff and packed up our packs ready for the move. Took lots of our camping stuff into town to a charity shop and visited the recycle centre with our empty bottles etc. Around 11 am we took some time out to head for the luge – which had been recommended by Lindsey and Mr Wood ( the couple we met on the Great Walk). We took the gondola up the hill and sped down on wheeled plastic chariots...great fun. We had 3 rides and would have loved to stay all day! This has been a lovely few days: the wireless internet has been very efficient and we've finally worked out how to use skype to make cheap phone calls! It was lovely to hear from Carol, one of our Great Walk crossword friends and we managed to phone her tonight. We are now ready for the off and glad to have discarded even more of our clothes... we're getting good at this!!!

Some photos of New Zealand's North Island

2009-01-19T23:18:00.004Z

Hi everyone... as you can imagine we have hundreds of photos of New Zealand. Here are just a few of the North Island. Hope you enjoy them...Lin and Brent xxx

Meeting more family

2009-01-18T23:32:00.001Z

Lin here posting this on my son, Alec's birthday. Happy 26th birthday to him! This post carries on from the last but doesn't quite bring you to today!!!God this blogging is complicated...

Bowentown continued: the first night here I was feeling lazy and stayed in reading my Sebastian Faulks novel...On Green Dolphin Street...while Brent went up the nearby hill.

Saturday 10th Jan
Brent was keen to share last night's walk and it turned out to be quite lovely...a lot longer than I thought with quite a lot of uphill. We came down to the sea, which had been very calm the previous night when Brent was there with a group of fishermen. Today the tide was on the way out and the water in the channel was scarily fast flowing. We decided to spend a lazy day here and I enjoyed finishing my novel and generally not doing much. I think we both realised that our days have been pretty full and that we do sometimes need to take time out to do nothing!!!

Sunday 11th January
Arrived in Tauranga late afternoon and easily found the local YHA, which had campsites in its garden. It was very pretty and everyone there was very friendly. The hostel was a short walk from the town and we walked down to get a feel for the place. It was lovely, with lots of bars along the waterfront. It was just after 6pm when we got there and unfortunately we'd just missed out on the live music, but we enjoyed a beer before heading back to cook our meal. Spent the evening chatting to some other hostellers: a female teacher from Staffordshire who was travelling alone and using the Naked Bus, and a chap in finance. Always interesting to hear people's stories.

Monday 12th Jan
Went into Tauranga this morning and called Brent's cousin Niel, who came out to meet us around lunchtime on his Honda motorbike. It was great to meet another member of the Abbott family and Niel took time to show us some of the local sites. We loved the Mission House and the area around it and enjoyed the air museum where Niel volunteers. Late afternoon it started to rain and we said our goodbyes before heading off to find a campsite nearer to Mount Manganui. We were lucky at the 3rd attempt and stayed at the Girven road site. That evening we walked to the Bayfield Mall where Brent found a pair of sunglasses to replace those he'd lost.

Tuesday 13th Jan
This morning we drove into Mount Manganui, parked up for a couple of hours and went in search of coffee. There were loads of coffee shops but the one we chose forgot we were there and we ended up with a free coffee but a potential parking ticket.... the warden had marked the time on our tyre and if our watches were correct we'd just overrun by about 3 mins... no visible ticket but guess we'll have to wait and see. Arranged to meet Niel and Barbara after lunch and really enjoyed the walk around the base of the Mount. Once again the views were outstanding and it was lovely to get to know Barbara and spend more quality time with family. After tea and cakes we said our goodbyes. Thanks Niel and Barbara for your kindness in taking time out to spend with us. The Abbott's fish and chip shop cap is brilliant and we'll be sure it gets to Rochdale
.
Wednesday 14th Jan
Got up this morning and set off for the library in Tauranga to see what was happening in Fiji. We knew that a few people had been killed and many more evacuated in the recent floods there and we are wondering if we need to cancel that next leg of our trip. The forecasts weren't good and we emailed our travel company for advice. We'll decide a bit nearer the time what to do. We then decided we had to visit our friend, June's new home in Papamoa, the next town along the coast. It was fun taking photos there and leaving her a postcard with a “wish you were here” message. June lives in a lovely place and we stopped to have a picnic near her beach before moving along the coast to Whakatane, where we found a lovely campsite on the river, with a lovely walkway into the town. We explored the town, did some washing and had an early night.

Thursday 15th
Today we took the advice of the lady at reception and did the most beautiful walk. I'd managed to pull something in my back early today, so we began the day with a bit of Tai Chi, which helped. Anyway the walk began with a steep climb through bush, up to Toi's Pa: the oldest Pa in New Zealand. (If you've forgotten what a Pa is it's the highest piece of land in the area, which the original settlers, in this case Maori used to claim their lands). from the Pa the walk continued around a headland of bush, with fantastic views of the ocean at various points. After about 2 hours we descended to the most gorgeous beach. There were 2 other small groups on it, but they soon left and we had the place to ourselves. It was as close to paradise as it gets. We swam to cool off and enjoyed our mini picnic before strolling along to Ohopi beach, the next one along. Here we had a drink in a nice bar before catching the bus back to Whakatane. After a nice meal we walked into town where 2 bars were competing for custom with karaoke nights. We enjoyed both of them and Brent was persuaded to join in one number... unfortunately it wasn't a song he really knew and I have to say it was a bit embarrassing!! Tee hee!

Friday 16th Jan
Woke up with a bit of a hangover ( no excuses!) and a very stiff back. Decided to have a chill out day and catch up on the blog, do washing etc.

Happy New Year

2009-01-10T22:57:00.000Z

January 2009
Thursday 1st January 2009...Happy New Year to all our readers!
We got up quite late and headed into Napier to see the art deco buildings there. I thought they were quite beautiful..so simple and elegant. Brent on the other hand thought they looked like factory buildings! We decided to ring Gordon, a Kiwi, who we'd met in Nottingham and whose parents live near to Napier. Gordon's wife to be (in March actually!), Sarah worked with me for a while, and we all got together a couple of times. Sarah is sorting out the wedding plans and spending Xmas with her mum in Atlanta. Anyway we were thrilled when Gordon came to the phone and said he'd meet up with us for a coffee. How brilliant. It was cool to see him on his own patch and great to get some tips for future stops. Thanks Gordon..we didn't get to see your batch but it was very kind of you to offer it as a stop over. After saying another sad goodbye we headed back towards lake Taupo, where lots of people were enjoying the lake in the hot sunshine. A fellow Brit at the campsite in Napier had recommended that we stop at the Hula falls and we were really grateful to her as they proved spectacular...a wonderful turquoise colour again, but amazingly powerful. We managed to get to Tirau that night and found a quiet little campsite, where we did our laundry and got a good night's sleep...our last in the van, sniff, sniff.

Friday 2nd January
Drove through Cambridge and enjoyed a stop in Hamilton, where we made some phone calls and had a coffee. We didn't have time to do Hamilton's renowned botanical gardens, but enjoyed the city. We arrived in Auckland spot on time and said our goodbyes to the van...we cunningly stuck back on a knob that we'd managed to snap off the very first day and noone seemed to notice! We shared the ride into Auckland with a friendly German lad and his family,who'd been out to spend Xmas with him. He was coming to the end of his time in NZ and was a lovely guy. We dumped our stuff beside the van and were about to say goodbye to the driver, when I realised I didn't have my handbag...oops! The driver rang the office and I'd left it on the back of a chair there. We arranged to pick it up the next day and got ourselves installed in the hostel.

The City Groove Backpackers:
We stayed here for 4 nights and used the time to try and gather our thoughts and do some background reading and research on our next move. The hostel was very friendly and we both enjoyed getting to know fellow backpackers. Laura, the Argentinian was lovely and it would be great to stay in touch with her. Our room had it's own loo and shower, which was great- but it was very basic. After initially clearing out the mosquitos, of which there were many! We enjoyed some good sleep. One night we played cards with Divisha, an interesting, young, Indian woman who is working in Wellington after studying there.

Auckland:
At first we found the city a bit uninspiring: it seemed to be mainly focussed on shopping...not a passion of ours. Also it was bank holiday there and the streets were pretty empty..all a bit weird. The first day I headed off on the bus to get my bag back. It was a pleasant experience and I even found a hairdresser on the route so took the chance to get my hair cut. Brent meanwhile had found a great library and spotted an excellent link bus, which we used to visit the Domaine park and the fab museum in it. We really enjoyed the 3rd floor, with its panoramic views over the city. The Sky City tower was also fun...and we passed under it just as someone came hurtling down on the skyjump...it looked absolutely bloody terrifying! In subsequent days we found the city more vibrant and interesting as people went about their everyday routines. We enjoyed picnics in the parks and got a lot done.

Tuesday 6th Jan
Picked up the hire car after lunch. Drove around the coast past Mission Bay where people were enjoying the beach. Got a little lost trying to follow the coast road. Decided to find a campsite near and ended up in the Top ten Manukua site. Was quite close to the main H1 road and was very busy as a transit camp from airport. Went for a lovely walk in the nearby Botanical Gardens. Beautifully tended and exquisite planting of a wide variety of flora. Turned out to be a massive site and wandered around enjoying the atmosphere of the late afternoon sun for a good two hours.

Wednesday 7th Jan
Went shopping in the nearby town for camping stuff. Linda said it would be small I said big. Guess who was right. Loads of shops and a huge mall. Got everything we needed but took ages. Set off to the base of the Coromandel Peninsula. We set up camp on a DOC ( Department of Conservation ) site called Broken Hills. This was down a long dusty gravel road but set amidst a stunning gorge by the side of a batheable creek. Plenty of long drop toilets ( can you work that one out ) but no other facilities. Our neighbour was a lovely single mum who was spending seventeen nights there with her 12 and 14 year old daughters – brilliant and admirable. She enjoyed a good natter and gave us advice on where to swim. Put together a good meal and snuck some wine having seen a big liquor ban sign. Ended up waking up through the night to another large group of people getting drunk and singing rugby songs loudly. Fortunately at other end of campsite.

Thursday 8th Jan.
Set off on one of the tramps recommended by the camp host. It was called Collins Drive and was a loop walk from the camp site. It began with a punishing climb through tropical bush country to a stunning lookout point with views as far as the ocean. Then we descended through a cooler path where we saw some inquisitive fantails up close : they really are sweet and beautiful birds. The next part of the tramp took a disused gold mine tunnel. Fortunately we had come prepared with our two dollar torch ( 80p ) which almost gave no light but a spooky atmosphere! The tunnel lasted 500 metres, which doesnt sound far but when the light at the end of the tunnel disappears seems a long way. We were balanced on planks of wood over pools of water and I had to scan the ceiling constantly to stop from banging my head. The ceiling of this tunnel also had glow worms – see earlier blog... we just loved it. Especially when the light appeared at the other end of the tunnel. Indiana Jones eat your heart out. The rest of the walk was varied taking in views across the valley. Got back into camp at 2pm for some lunch. Boiling hot we cooled down in the creek afterwards.

Friday 9th January.
After a better nights sleep – no rugby parties. We woke up feeling and looking ( and probably smelling ) like tramps. We had been tramping though so felt justified. Next stop had to be a campsite with showers and a laundry as I was down to my last pair of pants ( TMFI ? ) We headed for the coast and found a secluded gorgeous beach were we spent a happy hour walking and paddling to relieve our sandfly bites : these are tiny black flies which create the most horrendous itchy bite ( lin says she has 16 – she just counted ) We saw several big purple jelly fish and next morning read about a plague of them washing up on the local beaches. As we had successfully finished off our food in the Doc camp we stopped at Whangamata to replenish our supplies. Arrived at Waihi Beach around 5.30 pm and got a last spot ( NZ Hol still going ) at the Bowentown site. Very friendly neighbours and all facilities.

End of December

2009-01-10T22:56:00.000Z

Continued from last blog..Larry's barbeque... (Lin) enjoyed seeing Gina's school...even in the dark and we were sad to say goodbye.

Tuesday 30th December
Today we headed off to a DoC campsite, purchasing a tent on the way from the Kathmandu sale. We met up with Wendy's friend, Beth and her lovely daughter,Taylor...a big buddy of Matthew's. After we'd set up camp we all had a paddle in the nearby creek before lunch then Paul, Graham, Brent and I headed off on a tramp through some lovely bush down to a large braided river system. Paul was very surprised by how the landscape had changed following the floods off a few years back. New bridges had been built and gullies had formed. We got back at around 6pm...an hour later than expected! Unfortunately the children's sausages, which Paul had chosen with such care, were locked in our van, and they'd been so hungry that a can of spaghetti had provided their meal! Sorry folks! The adults were all ready for a glass of wine ...or beer...or 2 or 3. We all piled into Mavis and Graham's van for a lovely meal and a Moroccan dice game...fun all round. Little Matthew couldn't settle and managed to get himself dressed and walk through the dark to the van to join us!!

Wednesday 31st
Went for a short nature walk all together before saying goodbye.. a BIG thank you to everyone for making us so welcome. We stopped at Masterton and imagined Paul and Wendy's wedding in the lovely park there. We ate our picnic in what felt like a typical English setting of village green cricket: all the players in white, cricket pavillion, umpires etc. Lovely. Then on we went to Napier and were a bit worried when the first site we tried was full. However Brent directed us to another site nearby and we struck lucky. That evening we walked to the nearby harbour area and found a great bar where there was live music and a disco. We enjoyed being in a party atmosphere for New Year's Eve.

Xmas in NZ

2009-01-02T22:07:00.000Z

Wed 24th
Another glorious day with the sun beating down. We parked up by Lake Wanake and set off on the Waterfall Creek walk. No time to do all of it but enjoyed spectacular views of the mountains. Headed off to Dunedin around twelve and got there around four. Phoned Daniel an old school friend of Alecs, who probably thought I was mad ( he said to his mum “How random was that” lol ). Met up with Marge and Gavin and their friend Janine later on. The Robbie ( all Scottish in Dunedin ) had a great Soul Band on and we enjoyed good company and a bit of a bop.... really got us in the Xmas mood. Thanks Marge and co.

Thursday 25th Xmas Day
What a fabulous day!!! After a good lie in ( been on the move a long time ) we headed out to explore the Otega Peninsula. Gaz phoned Lin just as we were leaving so put her in a good mood ( not that she always isnt :) ) It was cloudy when we left but as we looked around Lanarch Castle gardens the sun came out.
Carefully tended and planted gardens which were a delight to the eye. We made sure everyone wished us merry xmas by wearing our cracker hats. Raised a few smiles and some puzzled looks from the Chinese tourists. From the castle we headed out to Pilot Beach on the headland- another splendid drive. Our high expectations of seeing wildlife were fulfilled when we spotted several albatross flying amongst the seagulls. Standing on a bluff with the sound of the gulls and the magnificent sight of these huge birds was truly magical. We also had our first view of NZ fur seals. The sun was out fully by the time we arrived at Sandfly beach. Marge had recommended this beach for viewing yellow eyed penguins as well as the seals. A big thank you to her. The beach was backed by the tallest dunes we had seen. Great fun running down them – but dreading the climb back. As we walked along the beach we got close to seals basking in the sun. One couple almost got attacked by a big bull seal when they foolishly invaded its space. We carried on to the end of the beach where hides had been set up at a distance from the rocks where the penguins were known to come out of the sea. We patiently waited to see some and enjoyed good views of other sea birds and seals. Needless to say no penguins surfaced largley because of some thoughtless tourists who insisted on walking up close despite clear notices about these shy creatures. After about half an hour we both thought we were seeing things when Santa appeared on the beach below in full garb including a beard ( not well camouflaged for spotting wildlife ). We thought this was hysterical but fellow birdwatchers were not amused. Disappointedly we strolled back along the beach. I said to Lin in my best school boy voice “ I need to see a penguin now and Ill be happy “ Literally two minutes later we saw one waddle up the beach and into the dunes. On closer inspection we spotted two of them preening their feathers and seemingly quite tame. We got great views through the binoculars and climbed contentedly but wearily up the dunes back to the van.
The day was perfectly finished off with stuffed lamb chops and a nice drop of wine.
Forgot to say we'd had the Xmas cake, provided by Kea, the shortbread and the chocolates earlier!!!

26th December – Lin here
Managed to speak to Gareth this morning ( Xmas night back home) which was great, but was disappointed not to get hold of Alec. Managed to get hold of Brent's mum, dad and brothers, which was nice, then headed off for Christchurch. I was proud of myself today as I found us a very nice campsite right near the centre of the city, so we were able to fit in a lovely walk late afternoon, early evening. We really enjoyed the town, which is very pretty. It was a pity it was a bank holiday as there's a lot of art here and the galleries looked very interesting. We went into the university cloister area and were very impressed by a hanging sculpture of a church...hard to explain, but as you walked around it you saw different views of it( it was a simple line image) very Escher like...loved it. We also liked the front of the Dyslexic building, which had talking seats and lovely statues. Found a studenty bar that was buzzing and enjoyed watching the end of the NZ/ West Indies cricket game, then stopped around 9.30 to listen to some live music – an acoustic singer / guitarist, who played amongst other stuff, some Jack Johnson, who we both like. Another good day.

Time for a little aside about New Zealand:
This may seem unimportant, but actually it really made for pleasant days: there are toilets everywhere and we never had to wait more than 5 minutes before finding one. On top of that the loos are generally very clean, all with plenty of paper, soap etc...as over 50's we really appreciate this.

Saturday 27th Dec:
Left Christchurch nice and early and headed for Kaikouri (meaning eat crayfish – a local delicacy). Today there was a lot more traffic on the road and we quickly realised that the locals were heading off on their annual summer holiday.We were quite worried about finding a campsite and couldn't believe our luck when we got the last site on the Top 10 site in Kaikouri. We enjoyed our lunch...more Xmas cake, Xmas chutney etc.etc and did a nice little walk along the front. After all the alcohol and good food and driving, we were very tired. Still, we managed to do our laundry before retiring to the van, where we watched a daft horror DVD.. bit of fun.

Sunday 28th Dec:
Headed off for Picton and the ferry back to North Island. As we left ( around 8am) a sea fret was hanging over the mountains and the views were quite mystical. Once again the skies cleared for another lovely drive. What a country! After 20 minutes we stopped at Nins Bins – a roadside shack selling fresh crayfish, which Marge had recommended. We bought one for lunch...thanks again Marge! We had plenty of time to stop off at Blenheim, where I tried to get my hair cut at a hairdressers with the same name as the one I use at home ( Beyond the Fringe). Unfortunately they were doing a wedding and couldn't fit me in. Still enjoyed the murals, the toilet and the coffee here, and thought the place was very pleasant. Found a picnic table at Picton and enjoyed our fish lunch before getting on the ferry.. and here we are!

NEW ENTRY
Monday 29th Dec
Got off the ferry and headed into Wellington, arriving around 4.45. Parked right near the Ta Mau? museum. A National museum of culture as well as an art gallery. We enjoyed over an hour in there and could easily have spent a whole day looking at the exhibitions. The Maouri canoes and meeting houses were quite beautiful...definitely a favourite. Left there at 6pm and phoned Brent's cousin, Paul, who gave us directions to their lovely home up on a hill in Melrose, near to Island Bay. Met all the family: Matthew and Rebecca ( and Percy the engine), Mavis and Graham and our hosts, Paul and Wendy. Enjoyed a lovely meal with them. It was great to mix with good company around a Xmas table. We loved the house and enjoyed the view from the top of the nearby hill... even though we almost got blown off...tee hee!

Tues.30th Dec
Another lovely day: Paul kindly took us to Katmandu, a great outdoors store, where we identified a tent, which we later bought. Then Paul, Graham, Brent and I did the walk that the Rochdale Abbotts had done when they visited. We went up the hill where we had a great panoramic view of Wellington. Back to Paul's home and we all fitted into Paul and Wendy's cars and set off to see Pam, Gina and Jed in Waikanue. We'd arranged to meet them in a restaurant and it was lovely to see Jed, Matthew and Rebecca enjoying the play area. They are really close cousins. We all went back to auntie Pam's beautiful house and garden. It was great to be involved in their Xmas celebration and Pam's Xmas tree was absolutely stunning. The children loved all the dancing and singing Santa Clauses she had ( actually so did we!!) and her garden was a real picture. Late afternoon we joined Paul, Wendy , Gina and Larry for a walk up the hill to where uncle Geoff's ashes had been scattered. This was a lovely walk to a tranquil outlook over Waikanue, right above Gina's home. That evening we all headed to Larry's amazing property where we had a great barbeque.

tues 23rd continued again..

2008-12-27T18:51:00.002Z

Well after the lake we moved East towards Dunedin. This was the most beautiful drive from Haast up a river valley with turquoise blue waters, throught the Haast pass and on to lake Wanaka..where we were overawed by the beauty around us. We found a great campsite near the lake and had a lovely fish meal in a restaurant that overlooked the lake. Great!

and on to xmas day

2008-12-27T18:46:00.002Z

Tues 23rd continued...
So that morning we managed to find the lake...the sun had been in our eyes the night before and we'd simply missed it! It proved to be the most wonderful walk, with stunning views back over the mountains on another absolutely glorious morning. One thing we keep forgetting to mention about NZ is the wonderful sound of the birds every time you get out of your car. It's quite stunning and we've seen a lot of different birds..to be continued

on to south island

2008-12-27T02:06:00.001Z

After Xmas now and we've finally managed to get on line to upload this blog. Hope all our readers had a great Xmas day and we wish all of you a very happy new year. Lin and Brent

Wednesday 17th Dec – Lin here
Well the Dargaville site didn't live up to expectations: described in the book as having a hot tub, which would have been very welcome after our soaking, it was a bit ropey. Still we slept ok and headed off this morning. I wasn't feelng too brill..icky tummy... so Brent did all the driving today. The scenery was once again splendid and although the traffic was heavier in Auckland, it wasn't problem. By the time we'd come through it we were really ready for a stop, but there wasn't even a lay by to stop in until just after 3.40 when we spotted a cafe. As we drew up we realised that the closed sign was being put up! 2 women in front of us poked their heads in and were given the oK to get a coffee and we swiftly followed them in. The coffee and cake were very welcome take-outs. We finally hit the east coast of the Coromandel peninsula, our destination. I'd spotted a site described as paradise, in the book ( guess this was becoming our bible.Brent was very tired, and the windy roads needed full concentration, but we managed to reach it around 7pm. The Ha Hei holiday resort was just great, although we shouldn't have
paid an extra $2each for hilltop site, as all the pitches were brilliant – except those on the far side of the dump! Anyway we got rid of our waste, filled up with water and hooked up. I rushed off to explore the beach. Right near our pitch we could cut through to where 2 rope swings had been set up, overlooking the most beautiful beach...it really was like paradise: turquoise waters, with green islands and white sands. The water was freezing though, so we only managed a paddle before dinner. Then we headed to the internet room where we uploaded the last blog entry and tried out our phone card. This proved unsuccessful and after a day of griping stomach I have to admit to going to bed feeling a bit weepy and homesick!

Thursday 18th Dec
Wow! Woke up to the most beautiful morning and no stomach pains. Hurray! Managed to phone home too and booked ourselves in for an afternoon of kayaking. Decided to have an hour on the beach relaxing...it was absolutely boiling and we enjoyed the comfort of our thermorest seats. Around midday we climbed into the van and took the ferry over to Whitianga, where there was a bank and a nice shopping area. Back at the site we grabbed a sandwich b4 joining the kayak group. We'd been getting a bit fraught with each other...guess after 3.5 months together this wasn't surprising but we'd been looking forward to some time in our own boats. Oh dear! upon arrival it turned out we were all in double kayaks. I'd quickly said I'd prefer to be in front..otherwise I wouldn't see past Brent, when our guide, Mark ( drop-dead gorgeous young man) said it was wisest for the most bossy of the pair to be in the back where the peddles were! What could we do? We're both teachers and both bossy! In the end we stuck with plan A and it turned out a great afternoon. The weather was perfect and we were able to explore caves, go through tunnels and enjoy close up views of cormorants, or shags as they're known here. The company was good too,with a very friendly German couple, who we'll contact via email, a lovely Spanish girl travelling with her Canadian boy friend and a couple of women, one Canadian and one New Zealander. We stopped off at Cathedral Cove, where we had a swim and a drink and biscuit, then we moved out to the nearby islands and Mark told stories about the history of the island... apparently a Polynesian explorer was the first to discover the Bay ..it's original name is complicated but when captain Cook 'discovered' it later on he named it Mercury Bay, (something to do with an eclipse at the time and its relationship with the planet, Mercury). .. Back to Hei.. the story goes that at that time an explorer would walk to the highest spot and claim all the land he could see. Also the island where he first landed was said to resemble a part of his body... his nose in this case! Anyway a good time was had by all and we were all very reluctant to land our boats at the end of the allotted time. However after landing we realised that we had time to catch the renowned Hot spring beach just up the road. Here at low tide only you can see natural hot springs rising from below the sand, where a larva bed is buried. It was amazingly hot and quite funny to see a crowd of people with spades busy digging holes and sitting in the hot waters! Altogether a brilliant day.

Friday 19th Dec
So this morning we decided to drive around the peninsula and then head down as far as possible towards South Island. It was a long drive, but we ended up on a very nice site on Lake Taupo. En route we passed some beautiful countryside.

Saturday 20th Dec
Got up early and tried to take the direct route to Wellington, only to find that there'd been an accident and we had to take a detour. Still once again the sights were lovely and we still arrived in plenty of time for our ferry at 6.15. The crossing was just lovely and we sat next to a lovely couple from christchurch, who gave us lots of good advice.

Sunday 21st
Drove from Picton to near Greymouth. We'd intended to visit Nelson ( as per the advice yesterday) but the first part of the drive was along windy roads and we opted out for a more direct route along the coast towards Westport. Called in at lWestport for diesel and then enjoyed the spectacular coast road to Greymouth. After a good night's sleep we headed for the local supermarket to do a quick shop, only to be accosted by the local mouth...her words! She spotted Brent and hurried over to say: Where did you learn to shop? Brent thought she was being aggressive and was somewhat taken aback! Needless to say 20 minutes later she was still chatting... and on to her rude jokes eg. why don't single women fart? Cos they haven't married and got an arsehole yet...oh dear!
Have to say we've found the New Zealanders of all ages totally unpretentious and friendly.

Monday 22nd
After shopping drove to a nearby centre for Jade, Hokitika. A lovely little town, where we found frozen yoghurt compatible, but not quite as good, as what we'd had in Italy. Moved on to find the Franz Joseph glacier. It was cloudy weather, so we couldn't see the tops of the mountains and decided against the helicopter ride..tee hee. By the time we reached the glacier the weather was improving. We were just too late to join a walk on the glacier, but did walk to the foot of it...first time Brent had seen a glacier and it is pretty special. On to Fox Glacier, where we found a lovely site with great views of the snow capped mountains...yes, the clouds had disappeared! Do we deserve this? oh yes! Got talking to a young couple who'd been waiting to sky dive all day and had rang up at 6pm when the weather was fine only to be told they'd have to wait until tomorrow. They'd been drinking all day and were well fed up...felt quite sorry for them. I'd sort of love to do a sky dive myself but their experience and the thought of doing my back / eyes in put me off and we decided to stick with eco friendly walking. Brent had commented earlier in the day about the contradiction of the beautiful scenery and the helicopter flights going over every few minutes and disturbing the tranquility of the place. Quite right. Anyway after dinner we tried to drive to lake Matheson? check while the sun was shining. Unfortunately it was so bright that we missed the sign to the lake and ended up driving several miles up a dirt track... oh dear, proved a bit stressful at the end of the day, but we did get to the viewpoint where we had quite magnificent views of the mountains.

Tuesday 23rd Dec
We got up early today so that we could do a walk before moving on.