Crossing the Equator

As we are only visiting one country in the North American Continent on this trip I originally intended to plonk the Mexican blog entries in the South American webpage. After all, Mexico is a ‘Latin American’ country, just like those in South America.

But Gary didn’t like this idea – he wanted to be pedantically accurate. So, I’ve made a new site (after much demanding / cajoling / bribery / blackmail) – www.catch-up-with-the-sun-northamerica.blogspot.com as you might guess! Similar to all the other continental sub-sites it’s accessible by the link on the right hand side of this page. And you’ll find some piccys of Mexico City and some impressive pyramids posted there already…

Leaving Peru

Peru is a curious country, incredibly varied. From the heights of the Andes, to jungle valleys, ancient Inca ruins and Spanish Colonial coastal deserts… you do get the impression of truly travelling as you move from place to place here. Each city or town (or village) we visited was very different from the last – keeping us interested even after being on the road for nearly 11 months.

Although Lake Titicaca was truly beautiful (and spectacularly cold) and the Ballestos Islands offered the chance to see the most amazing wildlife we’ve ever come across, I think the highlight of Peru for us was visiting Cusco and the Sacred Valley. The scenery is beautiful, the towns vibrant, and of course the area is crowned by a series of dramatic Inca sites – including Machu Picchu, the most impressive Inca Citadel of all. This is a great area to explore independently too – no need to get tours to sites as the public transport is very good (and very cheap).

Since we landed in Santiago back in December we’ve travelled solely by bus, car or train – so it’s a little strange to have to catch a plane to Mexico for our last month of travelling. This return to the northern hemisphere doesn’t actually move us much closer to the UK as Mexico City lies much further west than Lima. But from there we plan to travel overland eastward towards Cancun, passing a few Maya pyramids on the way.

Anyway, below you’ll find a good v scary contest for Peru…

Some things we’ve found great…

1. Inca Ruins. Predictably the highlights of Peru for us were the ancient sites of the Inca civilisation – not so much for the stone work or architecture, but for the locations! The Incas really couldn’t match the Cambodians of the Khmer Empire or the Ancient Chinese in the construction of their temples or forts, but they really did place them in the most breathtaking sites possible! Machu Picchu is particularly beautiful of course, but even the lesser known sites such as Pisac are stunning. The Incas must have been mad to build on the top of the Andes like that – and very, very fit!

2. Inca Terraces. The Incas were actually better a sculpting agricultural terraces than building temples… these fascinating terraces transformed the Andean mountain slopes in many places and are frequently still used by local farmers today. Perhaps the most impressive examples we saw were in Pisac, where numerous clusters of immaculate terraces stretched downs the steep mountain slopes in all directions. The ones at Machu Picchu weren’t bad either, come to think of it…

3. Ceviche. This is the closest Peru gets to Sashimi – raw fish marinated in citrus juice and spices instead of being cooked. We particularly liked the fish called chito, but we haven’t a clue if this goes by another name back home. Great texture and well worth trying if you get the chance.

4. Ballestos Islands. After seeing the hoards of birds and sealions on these fantastic but tiny lumps of rock I’d really love to visit the Galapagos Islands at some point. Unfortunately we don’t have time to visit Ecuador now - we’ll have to reserve that for the next around the world trip I think!

5. Orange Juice. The orange juice in Peru was universally excellent – concentrate doesn’t seem to exist, so they squeeze everything freshly. Lovely! The only other place we’ve found with juice like this is Egypt weirdly enough.

6. Rural Peruvians. In some ways Peru is a distinctly less pleasant place to travel than neighbouring Chile – in the main towns and sites you get the distinct impression that everyone wants to make money from you. The honest ones tout tours and hotels, or try to sell you everything from woolly hats to mini-guitars. The less honest ones tend to follow you, trying to look unobtrusive! Not that we had any trouble, but we’ve met plenty of people who’ve lost a few belongings in South America! But if you leave these areas and wander off into the countryside, as we did in search of a few Inca sites near Cusco, you get a completely different impression of the locals. We met nothing but kindness and helpfulness in our wanders off the beaten track, making us much more optimistic about Peruvians than we would have been from our highly irritating encounters with pestering souvenir vendors and shoe-shine boys in the Plaza De Armas in Cusco. It’s a shame our Spanish wasn’t a bit better – conversation may have been virtually impossible, but at least you don’t need to be fluent in a language to convey good will!

And some scary things…

1. Earthquakes. Erm, none struck during our visit thankfully, but from time to time Peru does seem to be knocked by some crackers. The destruction from the 2007 earthquake that virtually destroyed Pisco and the Paracas peninsular is still painfully evident – from the piles of rubble and ongoing construction work in Paracas’ port to the cracks stretching along the cliff edges in the peninsula. Throughout the country most of the historic buildings are relatively new simply because they have been decimated every hundred years or so! This is not the most stable part of the world.

2. Security Measures. While exploring Lima we saw no violent crime, but we were more than a little perturbed to see how many security measures were in place to stop it. Police and hired security constantly patrol the public areas on foot and by car – especially in Miraflores, the coastal suburb where we chose our hotel. All buildings have elaborate security systems and sturdy external gates with remote locks… in a way reassuring, but in another fashion highly disconcerting in their necessity! This country may be a lovely place to travel, but they clearly have unresolved issues regarding violent crime.

3. Touts. And tacky souvenir sellers. They get everywhere and they are really tiring. We haven’t seen this many since India, and the only place where they are more numerous and annoying is Luxor in Egypt!

4. Vultures in the Desert!

Oh well, back to the Northern Hemisphere to swap the Incas for Mayas and Aztecs for our last month of our trip. I don’t think a year is long enough for this kind of thing…

Entering Peru

Leaving Chile for Peru was an interesting experience. The most hassle free way to cross the border from Arica to Tacna (the most southerly Peruvian town) is apparently to travel by collectivo. This has a few advantages over buses – mainly that they actually wait for you if you get held up with border bureaucracy… rather than continuing on with all your luggage as you struggle with limited Spanish and a sullen border guard! These ‘taxis’ aren’t great though – ours was about 20 years old, had the reassuring ‘No Fear!’ logo plastered across the top of the windscreen, and like all the others, refused to leave Arica until full (i.e. crammed with 5 passengers and twice the car’s weight of luggage balanced precariously on the roof). Still, we made it to Tacna without too much trauma or border queuing, and even managed to locate the bus terminal from which we could move on to Arequipa, the city where we hoped to spend our first nights in Peru.

This is of course where we hit our first snag. We’d got up before dawn broke (about 6am Chilean time), but waiting to fill up the collectivo took time, driving and border crossing more time… so that when we reached Tacna it should have been about 10.30am. Which is when we discovered one of the odd things about this part of the world. Although Chile and Peru are on more or less the same longitudinal axis, Peru is 2 hours behind Chile. Weird! We think Chile has is wrong here – even Bolivia which is East of Chile – is 1 hour behind Chile. Meaning Chile is only 3 hours behind the UK, and that the sun rises remarkably late there. Anyway, as a result we found ourselves stranded in the manky bus terminal in Tacna at 8.30am in the morning, with the next bus to Arequipa leaving at 12.30pm. Over 4 hours to kill to a 6 hour bus journey after convoluted border crossings… oh joy.

We tried to have a look at Tacna’s town centre. This was OK I suppose, except that we set off in the wrong direction, fully laden with all our rucksacks in the heat of the midday sun! Argh. Our Spanish is improving, but it’s not great – a helpful bloke at the bus terminal assured us it was only a 10 minute walk away and gave us directions. Unfortunately the Spanish for ‘right’ is damn nigh identical to that for ‘straight ahead’… you get the drift! When we eventually found the main plaza it was very pretty and lively, but we were half dead and happy to collapse into a nearby internet café. After a while we staggered back to the bus terminal for a long wait made to seem even longer by the cat-calls of various ticket touts. One man and woman were particularly skilled at competing in this – they’d yell ‘Arequiparequiparequiparequipa!!!’ break-neck speed as loud as they could every 10 seconds or so. The man was louder, but he couldn’t match the woman for fitting-as-many-syllables-as-possible-into-each-second! To my ‘delight’ Gary thought he’d have a go at out-pacing them (fortunately at a low volume) – he couldn’t come close!

So we killed a few hours staring in fascination at the women in full and highly unflattering traditional dress: apron, HEAVEY skirts (serious amounts of fabric to make their bottoms look as large as possible), tights, twin pigtail plates, all topped off with a bowler hat! As seen in the photo. Eventually we did manage to catch the bus, but only after messing around with numerous luggage and ticket booths, and an irritating unannounced and unmarked departure tax (in a tiny unnoticeable booth on the far side of the terminal).

But this seemed to be a reasonably good work up to travelling around Peru. The bus journey itself was barmy! This wasn’t the company’s fault – they were fine – but the bus seemed to be stopped every 10 minutes for some vehicle check or another. Sometimes all the passengers were herded out, told to get their luggage, then told to leave their luggage, and finally made to walk through a random customs-like building while the bus was driven all of 10 m along side, before being allowed to get back on. Most often we just sat in the bus as the driver talked to the various Police officials for 10 minutes or so. Once however we all had to surrender our passports to a Policeman who came on board. Disconcertingly he vanished off the bus with them, but thankfully returned 10 minutes later and gave them all back. We haven’t a clue what these checks are meant to achieve – if they wish to monitor the movement of people here it’s pretty futile as most of the cars passed through these checkpoints completely unmonitored.

Anyway, we did finally reach Arequipa, and we were relieved to find it a very pleasant city. We are presently checked into a nice hotel on the beautiful Plaza de Armas – but I’ll talk about that in the ‘Arequipa’ post on the www.catch-up-with-the-sun-southamerica.blogspot.com page in a few days time!

Leaving Chile and Bolivia

We didn’t expect our time in Chile to be quite so scenic. I think it would be fair to say we’ve seen some remarkable things in many countries around the world during this last year, but some of the scenery we’ve been privileged to wander through in Chile and Bolivia has been breathtaking. Absolutely amazing.

We entered Chile in an interesting way, touching down in Easter Island as we hopped through the Pacific. The most remote lump of rock on the globe is impressive enough in its own right – sweeping hills, dramatic cliffs, mysterious lava tubes, eerie volcanic craters – but add in the presence of the staggeringly huge and sombre Maoi statues and you have a truly unique island. Our stay there was possibly one of the most memorable of the trip.

And of course this was shortly followed by our visits to the Altiplano. This high altitude plateau in the middle of the north Chilean and Bolivian Andes completely astounded us – it really wasn’t what we’d imagined at all. We thought that travelling through the barren, dry Atacama desert might be fun, especially as it would be completely different from previous our explorations this year. What we didn’t expect is that as you ascend from sea level into the Andean mountain range you would be surrounded by so many beautiful colours. The deep pure blue of the sky, crisp white salt flats, mountains with rock of every hue from black through to yellow, vibrantly alive geothermal areas, vivid multi-coloured lagoons complete with vivid-pink flamingos wandering tranquilly through the water… we’ve just never seen anything like this before. I really hope the photos we’ve posted on the South America page over the last few weeks give some sort of an impression of this place. It is truly beautiful.

It is not the most easily explored part of the world however! Chile has a reasonably good infrastructure by South American standards: the roads between major cities are good, the buses run to time – getting from place to place independently is easy. But as you go to the more remote regions (which of course are the most beautiful), the beautifully tarmacked roads are replaced by rocky dirt tracks with no real maps or signs to show you where to go! This is when you need your nice 4x4 truck and helpful driver so that you don’t get stranded at high altitude in the middle of nowhere at night, when the temperatures rapidly drop to -15 degrees C! And if this is the case in Chile, what about Bolivia? A much poorer country – we honestly didn’t see any roads that weren’t dirt tracks when we were there! Yet the scenery made our short visit there one of the highlights of this year. Especially our time watching the sun rise over the spectacular Salar De Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world. As you stand in the centre of the crisp white salt it honestly seems to stretch into infinity, leaving you feeling alone, isolated and very small!

Anyway, at this point it seems only appropriate to list some of the great versus scary features of Chile, Bolivia and Easter Island…

Some things we’ve found great…

1. Lagoons.

2. Volcanoes.

3. Salt flats. I think we’ve raved about how wonderful the high altitude scenery is here a few times now! If you haven’t already seen the photos on the South America sub-blog for Bolivia, Copiaipo and San Pedro De Atacama go and have a look!

4. Maoi. The weird ancient culture of Easter Island that obsessively created these huge stylised stone monsters of course caused its own destruction in the process. Was it worth it? To them probably not! But there is no doubt that the lasting monuments of their downfall are immensely impressive and well worth the trip to the most isolated island on Earth.

5. Pisco Sours. You know I really struggled to find alcoholic drinks I enjoyed in Asia – except in India where a good gin and tonic is widely available. So it was particularly good to find the national drink of Chile is really tasty! A mix of lemon juice with a zingy brandy to make a short lime-green sour drink. Very nice!

6. Telepizza. It’s really good to find a quick, cheap and commonly available food in a country who’s cuisine isn’t really to your taste (see below). For us, Telepizza was a lifesaver! The pizzas made by this country-wide chain really aren’t bad – nice thin bases, reasonable toppings… Best of all they always seem to be open, particularly important when most restaurants and Cafés seem to be closed every Sunday and Monday, let alone over public holidays like Christmas and New Year! Yep, Telepizza may not produce the finest pizzas in the world, but they are a heck of a lot better than Pizza Hut, and they stopped us from starving on a number of occasions!

7. The Sky. In most places in northern Chile it rains once a year at most. So for the other 364 days the sky is free of clouds, and as you ascend to the Altiplano it takes on the deepest, purest shades of blue imaginable. It really sets off the stunning volcanoes, lagoons and salars. And at night… beautiful. Northern Chile is home to some of the most powerful telescopes in the world – the major European and USA telescopes in the Southern Hemisphere are all based here due to the exceptional clarity of the sky. But you don’t need a telescope to appreciate the brilliance of the stars as they appear in their millions, or the beauty of the largest, brightest moon I’ve ever seen.

And some scary things…

1. Food. Vegetarians must have a hard time in this part of the world. The standard Chilean diet seems to consist of meat – lots of meat – and perhaps a few potatoes. Not so dissimilar from ‘Classic’ British food in many ways! Er, we weren’t fans. I mean, cooked-till-well-and-truly-dead meat and mash? Yuck! They like horse-meat too. Gary did venture as far as trying ‘Pollo a la Pobre’ a traditional combination of fried chicken and chips with two fried eggs balanced on top. Very healthy! But even he shied away from most of the other combinations of meat on offer. Its made a lot worse by a tendency to fry everything – and as a result of these fattening staples most of the population seem to be plump at the very least.

2. Coffee. Erm, well, you can have instant! You know most people here use the word ‘Nescafe’ interchangeably with Coffee! That kind of sums it up. Not fair – we like a good black coffee in the morning.

3. Music. We have swiftly learnt to dread some types of South American Music. Actually we learnt to despise a certain type of particularly evil ‘pop’ within seconds, but unfortunately had to suffer it for hours and hours… During our trip to the wonders of the Bolivian Altiplano and Salar De Uyuni we were driven around by a nice bloke called Valerio. He occasionally played a tape in his 4x4 jeep, but it would always be a pretty benign mix of Bolivian traditional music with a few western songs thrown in for god measure. Nothing great, but not to objectionable either – and at a reasonable volume. But then again Valerio was a nice guy. Unfortunately our return transfer from Uyuni to San Pedro was in the jeep of a much less pleasant bloke called Edgar. He practically shunned Gary and myself the entire way, speaking only to our fellow traveller Nachos in rapid Spanish. I know there were linguistic difficulties, but it’s easy to be polite and pleasant. He didn’t even try. On top of rudeness he inconsiderately let us all freeze at night in the car (lying that the heating didn’t work – it did – we tried it when he was out of the car). I mean freeze – prolonged exposure to temperatures well below zero. And perhaps his infliction of his ‘taste in music’ upon us was even worse. He had two CDs, each with around 18 tracks on them, but we couldn’t tell one song from another. All had the same evil, rapid but monotonous synthesised drum beat, each song exactly the same pace as the last! And every track had an identically pathetic synthesised accordion-like drone playing practically indistinguishable repetitive, simplistic, forgettable tunes, while somebody ‘sang’ in Spanish every now and then. To make it more interesting (I assume) from time to time when the singer wasn’t singing he’d chant over the accordions’ drone. ‘Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, Peru!’ or perhaps ‘Arrrreeeeeba!!!’, or something similar. It would have driven us insane under the best of circumstances, but at top volume for hours on end because the obnoxious Edgar claimed he’d fall asleep otherwise (he only said this to Nachos of course, not us – we were ignored). Grrr. By the time we reached the Chilean border we were delighted to see the back of him – no one could have made a greater contrast to the lovely Valerio who we thankfully spent most of our time with exploring one of the most wonderful parts of the world we’ve seen. Despite Edgar the trip was well worth it – he pales into insignificance.

Anyway, onwards and upwards (well, northwards anyway), back towards the northern hemisphere and home – on to Peru… And that journey probably deserves its own entry come to think of it!

Espanol y Comida (Spanish & Food!)

Chile is an easy place to travel around. Really simple. Ok, as long as you can brave some linguistic complications… Put it like this – if you’ve read the blog for a while then you’ll remember the trouble we had making ourselves understood in China. Hardly anyone there understood English – and to make matters worse ‘Chinese’ is actually a collection of hundreds of mutually unintelligible tonal languages with a horribly complex pictorial written counterpart. To put it mildly we struggled – you’d have laughed your head off it you’d seen our first attempts to buy train tickets! Lets just say it was only possible because we looked up a few Chinese character place names in advance, and we were lucky enough to be served by a lovely bloke who was more than willing to make himself understood by a very graphic sign-language! But by the end of our stay in China we were proud to have mastered a few phrases in Mandarin, perfected the art of miming, and become scarily adept at drawing of beautiful little pictures to make ourselves understood!

And now we’re in South America, where approximately the same number of people speak English as in China (i.e. about 0.0000001% of the population). But luckily it’s not so bad! Latin American Spanish is a slightly softer version of its European counterpart – but most importantly as far as we’re concerned it’s a nice, Latin-based non-tonal language! Yay! No more worries about whether your voice goes up or down at the end of a word. OK, the pronunciation takes a bit of getting used to, but it’s not so bad. Especially as they use the same alphabet as we do! Gary is even finding bits of the French and Latin he learned at School useful (he’s much better at these language things than me). Today he managed to make a hotel reservation by phone with someone who spoke no English. Although perhaps I shouldn’t hype his linguistic ability too much before we attempt to check-in to the place…

Anyway, apart from our struggles with booking everything in Spanish, Chile has proved very easy and relaxing to travel around. The buses are fantastically comfortable and inexpensive compared to Europe, with huge amounts of leg room and reclining chairs resembling those you’d get in Business Class flights. The skies here seem to be permanently blue and cloudless – we haven’t felt a drop of rain since leaving Tahiti. And genuinely dramatic, stunning scenery seems to be routine. Chile is a very pleasant place to travel.

No, my only quibble with the country is the food. I always thought the UK was the birthplace of a particularly malignant form of cuisine – combining boring, bland non-flavours with soggy-cum-iron-hard-chewy textures. Especially nasty cook-until-well-and-truly-dead meat and veg. if you know what I mean. But at least eating in the UK has been saved by the abundance of culinary imports. It’s very easy to get your hands on a delicious Italian, Indian or Chinese meal, and in many places you can choose between Japanese, Thai, Mexican and many others too. But here in Chile the food is a bit like traditional British fare, and there’s a distinct lack of imported flavours. Apart from Santiago (where we had some lovely fresh Sushi) it’s a struggle to find anything but fried meat and potatoes. Great. So far our only saving grace has been a chain of fast-food restaurants called ‘Telepizza’, which (believe it or not) actually produce pretty good thin crust pizzas in a few minutes for about £3 a shot. Not bad. But at this point we’re getting a bit tired of pizza, and (even worse) as we travel north to more and more remote places we’re a bit scared that there may not be any outlets of this wonderful chain. Argh! Fried chicken and potatoes! Help!!!

Leaving Oceania

Oceania has been a relatively easy place for us to travel. Sure, very expensive compared to Asia, but it is a lot simpler to make yourself understood… everyone speaks English! Except perhaps in Tahiti or the other Polynesian Islands. But then, naturally most of our time has been spent in the major countries here, Australia and New Zealand. And after struggling with tonality and the hundreds of mutually unintelligible regional dialects around China it’s been quite restful to be able to communicate with everyone easily. Although the typical twang in the Oceanic accents took a bit of getting used to at first!

It’s also been nice to be able to construct our own basic meals rather than having to eat out every night. Try buying simple bread and cheese in China. Go on, I dare you! The best bread you’ll get will be sweet, glazed, and will probably have some fishy flakes sprinkled on it. Or if you are in Japan you’ll find they cut all the crusts off their very white air-filled bread and then squish it into a small package. Very odd. In South East Asia you can occasionally find a place that does a reasonable sarney (BLT!), but we could never work out where they got the ingredients from to make our own stuff. And you risk encountering the odd caterpillar crawling out of it! Just as well you can get cheap tasty noodle or rice dishes in these places! But fortunately Australia and New Zealand have shops and supermarkets just like the UK – meaning Gary could have some nice bread, ham, cheese, and even a bottle of New World red from time to time!

I think we managed to get a better grasp of New Zealand than Australia while we were out here. Australia was just so vast (and expensive) that we struggled to see more than a few places. Even so we had a great time and saw some weird things – and managed to meet up with friends. But by hiring cars and touring around the country at our own pace in New Zealand we managed to see and do loads, which was great as it is a truly beautiful place. Both countries were fun to visit though, and we will hopefully end up in this neck of the woods again in the near future – although not immediately as it is not cheap to get to the other side of the world!

Anyway, the next continent we visit will be South America. Our first stop, Easter Island, is not exactly on the continent however. This tiny lump of Chilean rock is over 1000 miles from the nearest neighbouring island, and the native people are apparently predominantly of Polynesian descent. So I suspect our first 10 days in the most remote corner of South America won’t give us a particularly typical sample of the place but will probably add a unique flavour of its own to our trip. Then it’s on to Santiago for Christmas, before we start returning north on our route back to the UK. With a few stops en route of course! Have a look at http://www.catch-up-with-the-sun-southamerica.blogspot.com (reachable from the navigation panel on the right of this screen as always) for details – and have a wonderful Christmas and New Year!

Website Guide

This is a really quick post - in response to a few emails from friends recently who seem to have got lost in this site...

Most of the posts we put up aren't here on the main page, there simply wouldn't be enough memory allowance to store the photos for the year. So we created pages for each continent, accessed on the right hand side of this page. See the bit called 'Links'. We've explained this a few times, but since a few people have clearly missed it and thought this was the only page we thought we'd better mention it again!

The Continental pages are usually updated once or twice a week, everytime we move from town to town (and manage to find an internet cafe...). This page gets updated once in a blue moon! So have a look at the 'Oceania' page for recent stuff on New Zealand (and then have a look at the post I've just put up below this one about leaving the place!).

Leaving New Zealand

I’ve found certain bits of New Zealand very familiar – lots of sheep, rugby mad, and in some places even the landscape is exactly the same despite being on the other side of the planet. 13 hours ahead of the UK in fact (I didn’t know you could get more than plus or minus 12 hours… daylight saving time makes everything confusing). But then you drive around the corner from a perfect sheep-grazing field that could be in mid-Wales, and hit a volcanic coastline with black beaches and turquoise water… and then you realise you truly are on the other side of the planet.

New Zealand is probably the most beautiful place we’ve visited. OK, we’ve seen truly lovely places all over the world, but here EVERYTHING is pretty. It’s very difficult to find dull areas, let alone ugly places. Be it rugged coastlines, glacier formed fjords, volcanic wastes, of geothermal wonderlands… But most importantly in New Zealand – to travel around it you really need to drive. There are simply too few people here for public transport systems to be particularly well developed, and of course many of the most notable places are in the middle of nowhere. So renting a car or van is really the only option to see things properly. Luckily car rentals are very reasonable – in fact most things are pretty reasonably priced compared to Australia, the USA or Europe.

So, the inevitable good versus scary list for New Zealand is as follows:

Some things we’ve found great…

1. Geothermal activity. As you might have guessed from the pictures on the Oceania page we found this very hypnotic and beautiful. There’s so many different intriguing ways in which it manifests – geysers, hot-springs, silica deposit terraces, bubbling mud, fumaroles… And of course the lovely rotten egg smell! I would very much like to visit Rotorua again at some point just to wander around some of the more active zones.

2. Volcanoes. Even if they are dormant they still look very cool! Especially the ones on the coastline or at the edge of a vast volcanic-ash wasteland. Very desolate and bleak, but utterly stunning.

3. Fjords. Also stunning, but a bit less bleak – unless the weather turns, the clouds pour in and it starts to bucket down of course! Milford Sound is the most accessible fjord in New Zealand, and therefore the one we visited. It’s the only one with a road leading to it… The others are probably lovely too, and hopefully they’ll be connected to the rest of the world some day.

4. Wildlife. The South Island was brilliant for stumbling across weird and wonderful creatures. Our favourites were the penguins – particularly the little blue eyed ones. They were incredibly sweet, only 20 cm high! But the massive albatrosses, grumpy sea-lions and sleek seals were also fascinating to watch, and neither of us are particularly into wildlife spotting.

5. Friendly. New Zealanders are remarkably friendly for the most part. OK, not everyone is perfect, you’ll always meet the odd gruff sod, but most people were lovely. Very friendly. It really makes a difference to your impression of a place.

6. Car rentals. There were a variety of low cost car rental companies to choose from (and the usual rip-off international brands too) – perfect as having your own transport is essential in New Zealand. We used ACE car rentals, and they very kindly supplied us with the same car Gary usually drives back in the UK. You need the freedom of a car in a place like this – New Zealand countryside needs to be explored. You can do it from a bus.

7. Adrenaline highs. Bungeeee!!!!!!!



And some scary things…

1. Auckland Airport. When we left for Tahiti we turned up 3 hours early for our flight (simply because we had nowhere much to go after checking out of our hotel) and we struggled to meet the boarding time. It’s just too small! There wasn’t enough room for any more check-in desks, but they were desperately needed – as was a revamp of a painfully slow computer system. The place was OK as soon as you got through to departures, but before that it was worse than Delhi Airport!

2. Sea water. A lovely shade of turquoise it may be. Very pretty and inviting. But you don’t want to swim – absolutely freezing, even in late spring! Gary found this out the hard way when we visited the Moeraki boulders in South island. He was so engrossed with taking photos of me perched on a boulder that he didn’t notice the waves coming in… This is the picture he took – note the water around the boulder and the fact that I couldn’t stop giggling!

3. Wellington weather. Rain. Lots of it. And not much else as far as we could make out. This place is wetter than Nanjing.

4. Erm, can’t think of anything else. New Zealand isn’t particularly scary!

Ah well, we’ve now moved on to Tahiti, the major island of French Polynesia. And trust me, it’s slightly surreal to here everyone jabbering away in French in an isolated island in the middle of the Pacific. The other weird thing is that during our flight here we crossed the date line… so went from 13 hours ahead of GMT to 10 hours behind. And although we left on the 5th of December we arrived on the 4th – gaining a day! Yay!

Leaving Australia

Our time in Australia has definitely been the most sociable we’ve spent this year. We’ve met up lots of times with Catherine and Ben in Brisbane and Surfer’s Paradise, and of course my Mum flew over to join us for the last three weeks. But now we move on to New Zealand, where we will be a weird 13 hours ahead of the UK (blame daylight saving time) and have to keep each other company again… poor Gary! And where there are more sheep than people. Just like going home to Wales!

Australia is a vast country, and spending 8 weeks there was no where near enough time to get more than a feel for the place. Our impression was that it is particularly rich in natural wonders… but that we didn’t have the time or money to scratch the surface. You really need to have a car to get around but we couldn’t afford to hire one for very long. Although this wasn’t a problem when Catherine and Ben were around as they were fantastic at taking us everywhere. It will be great to return the favour in the in the UK in the future! Oh, and as for our misconceptions of Oz being a hot country, well, the Blue Mountains sorted that one out for us. I’ve never used an air-conditioning unit to heat a hotel room before!

Anyway, the now obligatory good versus scary list for Australia follows:

Some things we’ve found great…

1. Marsupials. Koalas are my favourite. Gary prefers kangaroos. But we both agree that all the marsupials we’ve seen have been great. Koalas are the sweetest – soft fur, intrinsically huggable. Kangaroos and wallabies move in the most original way we’ve ever seen, I mean, hopping – how do they make it look elegant? Or walking with the tail as a third leg for that matter. And we loved the pouch for joeys… seeing little ones poking their heads out of their Mummies tummies and then wriggle around or kick viciously was great!

2. Natural Wonders. We only really had time to see a few of these – the Great Barrier Reed and the Blue Mountains. And when you consider that we only spent one day on the reef itself, we can’t really say that we’ve had more than a fleeting introduction. But we did see a nice big stingray! Australia has so many national parks it’s scary, and it would take many years to get even a vague idea of their scope as like everything else here they are all so large! At the very least you need lots of time and a four wheel drive.

3. Sydney Harbour. It’s a lovely harbour. Great waterfront, coves, bridge, and of course the stunning, weirdly shell-shaped Opera House. Fantastic on a nice day. But we have to say, not the most beautiful harbour in the world – it comes a close second to Hong Kong in our opinion. The beauty of Hong Kong harbour is its three dimensional nature – the most impressive range of skyscrapers I’ve ever seen on the slopes of the dramatic Victoria Peak. You can’t beat the way the mountain rainforest rises out of the city over the harbour. But Sydney with its twisting coves, river-side gardens and shining Opera House does offer a pretty good challenge!

4. BLTs. For those of you that may not know, Gary likes BLTs. Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato sandwiches (with a bit of mayonnaise). But they were something he would have once in a while previously. While in Australia he has had billions of the things! Practically one every day (and occasionally two…). While we’ve been in Auckland I’ve suggested that there may be healthier things to survive on than fried bacon, (as they seem to be common in New Zealand too), so hopefully he may explore the exciting options of a chicken sandwich, or maybe ham cheese and tomato from time to time. You never know! Saying that, I like a BLT too - though not every day – so I can vouch that some of the ones we had in Oz were very good. Particularly one in a café called the Conservation Hut near Katoomba. Even my Mum loved that particular BLT!

5. Cappuccino Chocolate. For some reason the chocolate powder they dust on top of cappuccino froth is delicious in Australia… much more chocolaty than the stuff we’ve found in the UK or even Italy! This is definitely a version of a chocolate drink they should export to the rest of the world. I feel a bit sorry for Gary and my Mum - they would both order a cappuccino while I’d go for an espresso. But as I’d get no chocolate on my shot I’d tend to steal a bit of theirs… they are both lovely to put up with me!

6. Muffins. Or rather one particular muffin from a particular chain of muffin shops. Gary has become addicted to the raspberry and apple muffin from the ‘Muffin Break’ shops, and I’ve become pretty fond of them too. They have a nice texture and a great almost caramelised glaze on top. And better still, we’ve found a few of these places in Auckland too since we’ve arrived.


And some scary things…

1. Transport. If you want to get from A to B within an Australian town or city it’s fine – there’s usually a bus network, or in the larger places there may even be a metro or light rail system. But try to get between towns and you hit a few difficulties. You can fly – Australian operators offer flights between destinations surprisingly close together as well as those over 5 hours apart. But it does seem a bit hard on the environment to take a flight that lasts only 30 minutes – especially given Australia’s current obsession with Global Warming. But the only other real option is to go by road. There are no trains to speak of. And if you do travel by road, unless you can afford to hire or buy a car you’re stuck with long distance coaches. These are not great to say the least – slow and expensive. And they seem to spend more time at service stations for ‘rest breaks’ than on the road. Hmm.

2. Local Produce. We were slightly horrified to find out that it costs more to buy a nice bottle of Australian red wine in Australia than it does in the UK! Ben explained this to us – apparently Australians will pay more for Australian produce than for imports – it’s a long-standing national thing. So everything Aussie is artificially price inflated! Such a shame, but we still had some lovely wine over there (especially at the Settlers Rise winery that Catherine and Ben took us to).

3. Imports. And the strange thing is that some imports also manage to be hugely expensive! Not all, but a few select groups. Such as many technological things and magazines. Weird! This country has not been cheap for us, even though the Australian Dollar crashed against most currencies (including the pound) halfway through our trip.

4. BO. Not all Aussies smell – the vast majority don’t, but a few really need to pay more attention to personal hygiene. We found far more groups of people here which made us stop breathing and walk that little bit faster than anywhere in Asia. Not good!

5. Male v Female Bars. There seems to be a bit more separation between men and women here than we are used to in the UK. A lot of pubs seem to be very male dominated – to the point where it’s uncomfortable to go in there if you are a woman. In fact we read that some places still go so far as to segregate men and women into different rooms. We didn’t like this, but through our stay found it relatively easy to get a quiet drink in a bar instead of the traditional pubs. These were fully mixed sex and therefore much more comfortable to enter!

So, on to New Zealand. Land of All Black rugby and sheep. Just like going home to Neath!

Australian Internet Acess

If you’ve been checking the blog recently – sorry! No updates in ages, I know. Well, since we’ve left Sydney we’ve had appalling internet access I’m afraid. Either we’ve been in places with no machines with USB ports (so we can’t upload our text or piccys), incredibly expensive connections, or there’s been no internet access at all! To be honest, we’ve found it much easier to stay online in Asia than Australia. Not what we expected. Anyway, we’re back in civilisation now, so I’ll start popping some entries up on the Oceania page. With lots of nice photos… especially of the wilderness and koalas!

Leaving Malaysia and Singapore

So far on these travels we’ve described our day to day adventures in the various places we’ve visited on the www.catch-up-with-the-sun-asia.blogspot.com page. From swinging over the Great Wall of China on a rope wire at Simatai, being interviewed on Japanese TV in Toyako Onsen, swimming with the fishes, eels, turtles, and deadly poisonous sea-snakes in Pulau Tioman, to running away from giant monster-crabs in Hakkodate…. it’s been an interesting few months! At the end of each country we’ve tried to list a few pros and cons about the place, but in the case of Malaysia and Singapore we’re being lazy and lumping them together (we think Singapore is a bit small for an entry of its own).

So. The good versus scary list:

Some things we’ve found great…

1. Islands. Like Thailand, there are some truly beautiful rainforest islands off the coast of Malaysia (including Singapore I suppose!). We only had time to stay on one – Pulau Tioman – but it was lovely. Beautiful beaches, coral reefs and forests. Why don’t England and Wales have coasts like this eh?

2. Wildlife. This I suppose is very much related to the isolated island idea, but it also holds true even in Singapore where you can meet some alarmingly tame monkeys in the nature reserve. On Pulau Tioman we particularly loved the fact that the local wildlife was so abundant that you’d walk down the village and see huge lizards, families of monkeys, and turtles coming up for a breath of air by the pier. And if you venture into the water you’ll be rewarded by loads of fishes, eels, and even the odd octopus!

3. Malls. There are a fair few in Kuala Lumpur, but it is Singapore where the shopping mall comes into its own. It is actually difficult to walk 5m anywhere near the centre of town without coming across a new mall. We found the cinemas on the top floors were good too – much cheaper than the UK, and the popcorn is good too. Shame they blast the air conditioning on full power all the way through the film so that by the end you’re a virtual icicle…

4. Ice cream parlours. We spoilt ourselves regularly in Singapore – well, in a hot, tropical environment, a perfect way to cool down is by guzzling a nice Haagn Daz or Ben and Jerry’s’. Or if you’re not overheating, then a combination of Ben and Jerry’s ‘Chocolate therapy’ ice-cream and a hot waffle is very nice. These cafes are almost as numerous in Singapore as Shanghai, but unfortunately we didn’t find any ColdStone Creameries in competition. A shame – their chocolate brownie creation was particularly delicious!


And some scary things…

1. Fines. Singapore has far too many fineable offences. It ends up feeling really restrictive actually. The fact that you can’t cross the road without risking being penalised unless you’re at a crossing with the green man showing is absurd when there is no traffic! Or the national chewing-gum ban? Yes, chewing gum is illegal in Singapore. I mean it’s hardly a Class A narcotic now is it? OK, we couldn’t live with this fine culture, but there are some pluses. No litter anywhere, hardly any cigarette smoke, and no taxi touting – it’s illegal for cab drivers to hail pedestrians or overcharge customers. This is a breath of fresh air after the rest of Asia! But on balance, no, the restrictive laws in Singapore certainly detract from the pleasure of exploring it.

2. The MTR. Singapore’s underground system, the MTR is nowhere near as good as we expected. Well, perhaps that’s a little harsh – the actual network is reasonably extensive, modern, swift and clean. And doesn’t even cost too much. Just don’t eat or drink anywhere in the trains or stations, or – you guessed it – you’ll be fined. No, the problem is the ticketing system. It is absolutely infuriating! You have to buy plastic ticket cards from ticket machines, which at first glance seems similar to many other systems. But no. First, your fare is almost doubled buy having to buy a ‘deposit’ for the card, which you can get back at the end of your journey by feeding it into another machine. This leads to a lot of queuing – the queues for tickets are effectively doubled everywhere. Worse, at the airport it took us 15 minutes of searching to find the machines to reclaim our deposits on leaving Singapore – don’t tell me they were hidden out of site at the back of the station underneath the escalators by mistake when the ultra modern station was designed! No, they clearly want deposits for keeps! But perhaps most annoying of all is that the ticket machines only give up to $4 of change (about £2). This means you can’t use most notes (if you’re lucky enough to be queuing for a machine that accepts notes…), so you need oodles of coins to afford your trip. Worse, if you have no change and queue up (again) for a manned booth to try and get your ticket, you’ll only be told that they can’t sell any. BUT they can give you change and send you back to queue (AGAIN!!!) at another machine! Unbelievably daft! In summary – wherever possible, we walked.

Ah well. This is the last of Asia. We can’t quite believe it. We’ve arrived now in a new continent only to find it’s a lot like home – and have ended up with a strange kind of inverse culture-shock! Gary has been particularly vulnerable to this… more later in the post on Perth!

Devastating Asia

We’ve actually managed to spend half our year travelling just in Asia…

…leaving what feels like a trail of destruction. Seriously, we’ve been starting to wonder if we’ve cursed the region! See what you think:

1. Nepal – we had to change our plans and avoid this place as terrorists protesting about Chinese actions in Tibet started letting bombs off in Kathmandu about a fortnight before we planned to go there. So we got stuck in 41 degree Celsius Delhi instead…

2. India – no sooner had we left India for Hong Kong and terrorists blew up a region of central Jaipur, a city we’d particularly liked! I don’t think the culprits of this one were ever identified, but they killed 80 and injured 200 or so people. A few months later other cities were hit – Ahmedabad and Bangalore.

3. Burma – OK, we didn’t exactly plan to come here after the events of last year, however we have visited several neighbouring countries. The appalling typhoon that devastated a large area of Burma, killing unknown numbers of people (partially due to the Governments’ policy to limit international aid), occurred while we were in Hong Kong. It has been estimated that over 200,000 were missing.

4. China – just before we arrived in China we heard about a very serious train crash near Beijing which killed over 70 people. This didn’t fill us with a great deal of confidence as we planned to spend the next 6 weeks travelling by train through China! Luckily the trains we used were brilliant, cheap, and didn’t crash.

5. China – after we flew out of Hong Kong to Japan the most devastating earthquake for 50 years occurred in the Szechwan region, killing over 68,000 people. The effects of this natural disaster were very much in evidence as we travelled through China, carefully altering our route to stay away from downstream areas of the massive landslide lakes created by the quake.

6. Japan – a much smaller earthquake occurred in northern Japan, about a week after we left the country. The closest city to its epicentre was Sendai, a nice place that we’d visited briefly on the way back to Tokyo from Hokkaido.

7. Japan – at about the same time as the earthquake, a tragedy of a different nature occurred in Tokyo. A psychotic knife-killer hired a car and drove into Akihibara, the electronics centre of town to and created havoc by running over pedestrians and stabbing innocent bystanders to death. He killed 7 before being stopped by the police, but was disappointed by this – he later stated in court "I should have used gasoline so I could have killed more than I did". Nice. We’d walked down the same street, oh, a week earlier.

8. Thailand – we leave Bangkok, and two weeks later the People’s Alliance for Democracy move in and seize control of TV stations and the Government house in what they declare to be a new Revolution (in the light of the recent Thai Coup). Later Government allegations of corruption etc cause the Prime minister to be ditched… all this a few years after the (very peaceful) Coup D’Tat. A stable government system, eh?

9. Japan and Indonesia - more earthquakes occurred just as we were leaving Asia – this time in northern Japan (again), and also in Indonesia, which we had been thinking of visiting, but decided that we didn’t have enough time to cover before moving to Oceania.

Hmm. Is there a pattern here? I think Gary may be innocent on the cursing front, as I seem to have left a trail of destruction before – I was on the Herald of Free Enterprise in a force 9 gale about 6 months before she sank in Zeebruger, and on Greek Ferry in the Cyclodes a few months before it went down on some rocks! Both boats killed hundreds of people. Perhaps for the good of humanity I should stop travelling!

It does make you think though. We live a very cushioned life in Europe where we get far more protection from such things than most countries out here. Not that the UK hasn’t seen its share of terrorists and psychotic killers I suppose. Or, from another point of view, do these natural and man-made disasters happen far more frequently around the world than we realise as we sit in comfort at home in the UK?

So now we move on to Australia. If they will let us in that is!

Leaving Thailand

Leaving Thailand? Well, to be honest our passports are plastered with Thai stamps because this is the third time we’ve left Thailand on this trip – visiting Laos and the UK in between. But as we’re now moving on south through Malaysia to Singapore before flying to Australia, this will be the last time we leave Thailand this year!

It’s been fun – fragmented, but fun! Great massages, beautiful islands, tropical fish, golden Wats… Thailand is a surprisingly varied country, with more to it than just the idyllic islands seen on the tourist brochures, or the backpacker havens you’d read about as the haunts of teenagers and aging hippies. But anyway, now we’ll hop over the southernmost states (as there’s a reasonable chance of getting blown up or kidnapped by local terrorists there) to land in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malysia.

Anyway, the now obligatory good versus scary list for Thailand follows:

Some things we’ve found great…

1. Massages. No dodgy ‘massagee?? Soooo beautiful!’ middle of the night calls as in China. This is the real thing. Thais are seriously into massages, and seem to have them for any excuse from a bad back to a cold to a sore fingernail! Saying that, they do make you feel better more effectively than the average doctor. Very relaxing, very cheap… what more could you ask for? You even get to like your feet being viciously attacked by a stick during a foot massage after a few goes – although the first time it feels more like the masseur is trying to skewer your sole or at the very least dislocate a toe or two!

2. Islands. Or should I say the coral reefs around the islands? Either way, they are beautiful, and teem with life (be it monkeys or little fishes – or big fat sting rays). Oh, and the beaches are pretty too if you like that sort of thing 

3. Wats. These spiky temples usually have enough gold paint splashed around to cover the Eiffel tower. Or they coat everything with mirror glass (again, mostly gold) for a particularly shiny look. These were good in Laos too.

4. Italian food. Strange as it may seem, we’ve had some truly excellent Italian food in Thailand. Pizzas from stone ovens with crisp, thin bases, al-dente pasta – great stuff. Even the red wine to go along with it is nice! Not what you’d expect in Asia.

And some scary things…

1. Food. This is a one-off entry. Grossly unfair to the majority of Thai eateries with their very lovely noodely things. But I still going to stick it in on the basis that it left me traumatised! When we were in Patong beach, we made the mistake of having lunch in our hotel one day. We’d passed it over for food before – I don’t know why, somehow I had bad vibes about the restaurant even though the hotel was perfectly OK. We made simple sandwich orders – Gary wanted a BLT, I thought I’d try ham and cheese – and when Gary’s turned up it was fresh and tasty. Mine took a bit longer to come, but when it did it also looked great. So I took a nice big bite – tasty! Until I looked down to see a green caterpillar emerging from the other half of the sarney and legging it away across my plate! Eeeeugh! I handed it swiftly back, and an apologetic Thai bloke took the offending plate away before giving us a refund. A few seconds later we heard a loud female scream coming from the kitchen – I think the bug traumatised the chef too! I mean, I don’t mind caterpillars, but the thought of the bite I’d taken and the thing wriggling… lets just day it put me off food for the rest of the day. And in some parts of Thailand of course insects are a delicacy! But then they do deep fry them first to stop the wriggling…

2. Tuk tuks. And Taxis. Now these drivers are as bad as the auto-rickshaw guys in Delhi – they seem to try anything to rip you off as much as possible. They have an impressive range of scams in their repertoire, or even if you get an honest one it’s hard to get quoted less than twice a reasonable price for your journey. Worst of all you can hardly move 5m without being hassled by them… very tiring and boring. But actually riding them can be fun if it’s not raining!

3. Sugar Daddies. And their prey I suppose. Although with these weird couples of a young pretty Thai girl and an old, invariably fat, bald and sun-burned man you never can really tell who is the predator and who is the prey. We’ve seen them for a few weeks now though, and still can’t get used to them – or the sleazy pick-up bars where they seem to meet.

4. Ping pong!

London

Tropical, exotic, mystical London. Heart of the Orient. Just down the road form Bangkok, eh? And one of the first destinations that would cross anyone’s lips when planning a great journey across Asia…

Or maybe not. So much for taking a year out of the UK travelling – giving ourselves space to recover from the traumas of the NHS by exploring vibrant and exotic countries. No, the one destination written firmly on our list for August (on pain of disembowelment if we didn’t turn up) was Essex. Cheers Amit and Karyn! Couldn’t you two wait until next year to get married?

Oh well, so we nipped onto a delightfully quaint series of Gulf Air Planes along with what felt like half of the population of Thailand – they really pack-em-in to make sure you can NOT move even your little toe during the flight (a new fuel economy idea maybe?). And wizzed back across the globe to the lovely sunny UK. And actually while we were home it WAS lovely and sunny for a change. Weird!

Actually we wouldn’t have missed Amit’s wedding for the world. It was a fantastic day – a really relaxed and touching civil ceremony followed by a great reception with one of the best desert courses I’ve ever seen. I was far more nervous than Amit beforehand as he’d asked me to give a short reading – but even that seemed to go OK! Although I don’t think I was as nervous as the newly-weds just before their first dance, but they pulled that off brilliantly. Oh, and it was fantastic to see loads of people from College that I hadn’t met for years. Amit, Karyn – if you read this – thank you again for inviting us, have a wonderful honeymoon, and we hope you enjoy your wedding presents fully!

As for the rest of the time we had in the UK, well, we thought we’d relax, have a break, a holiday from our year-long holiday… Yeah right. It was a bit, erm, busy. In a nice way. We did lots of things, caught up with lots of people, and even did a spot of paid work believe it or not. An entire of year of dosing is proving more difficult to achieve than you’d think. But suffice to say that by the end of our ‘break’ we were absolutely shattered, physically drained, and needed desperately to get back to Thailand to get some rest and a good massaggee!

Traveling Laos

Laos has been an interesting stop on our world tour. Although we only had time for a brief stay, it really has been a complete contrast to everywhere else we’ve visited so far for two main reasons. Firstly, the pace of life is so slow here – the country feels so laid back as to be horizontal. It’s a very dreamy, beautiful place, suitable for sipping a cocktail while gazing at the stunning scenery. Secondly, travelling around here is far from laid back! This has been the most exciting / terrifying / stunning / insect ridden – varied set of journeys we’ve had so far.

You’ve probably read my post about the joys / terrors of flying with Laos airlines (even though their safety record and plane fleet has apparently vastly improved in recent years). If you haven’t and want to laugh at my cowardice have a look below. But to summarise, don’t fly with these people if you’ve an aversion for small propeller driven planes, or turbulence caused by monsoon clouds and mountainous terrain. Or if the combination of the above bothers you. At all!

After our entry to Laos in this spectacular fashion we decided to move from Louang Phabang to Vientiane by bus. This would be better, no? After all, the days of war-stricken Laos are over – there hasn’t been a bandit attack on a bus on this route since, oh, 2004? This must be better than flying again! Well, actually it was. The journey lasted 10 (long) hours, but at least was through absolutely stunning mountainous scenery. I’ve sat on many coaches driving through the Alps but I’ve never had a trip half this beautiful before. Hopefully you can get an idea from the best blurred-sideways-taken-out-of-the-bus-window- photo I’ve ever taken!

The mountains themselves (though very pretty) were however a bit of a pain. The road could find no way around them, so had to go up and down and over… you get the idea? Lots of hairpin bends, cliffs, ravines – and a boy racer bus driver to complete the picture. Not a trip for those prone to car-sickness. And as it’s the rainy season we kept on coming across disconcerting landslides too – every few miles part of the mountain above would have slipped down to partially block the road, making our driver swerve out towards yet another a 100m drop. But hey, we got through, no problem!

No, all this was fine. And no bandits appeared. The only really traumatic part of the trip was the music. Our lovely driver’s favourite pastime seemed to be blasting Laos-style-easy-listening-rock-music at full volume while he made his nauseating manoeuvres. Most of you probably know that we’re really not into easy listening at the best of times, but imagine wailing East Asian singing (with obligatory guitar and flute solos for each song) pulverising your brain for hours on end. We couldn’t even listen to our mp3 players – this was so loud it cut through the headphones and ruined whatever music you put on. And the songs all sounded the same! They had exactly the same pace, beat, instruments, production - even the same tune (more or less) – enough to make you scream! And just to make sure you got the monotony, after each song finished an excerpt of it was repeated with people screaming over it (in the way that people only ever scream in soap operas). In summary, travelling in Laos is, erm, interesting.

Leaving Laos was easier. Thailand and Laos are divided by the course of the Mekong river for much of their border. Vientiane is only 22km from the border crossing the ‘Friendship Bridge’, and so we simply took a (very boring) bus across to the sleepy Thai town of Nong Khai. Here we wandered on the other side of the Mekong and experienced another day of manic rainfall / violently sunny weather before catching an overnight train back to Bangkok. Unfortunately here the boring transport ran out again.

We’ve been on plenty of ancient, dusty night trains on this trip. But this was the first one where none of the windows in the carriage would close and the staff left the lights on all night. OK, Thailand is not exactly cold – what’s the problem? Bugs. As we swept slowly through the paddy fields of Northeast Thailand we accumulated a nice little insectoid ecosystem in our carriage. You could see them clustering manically around the lights. And of course one of the little devils would land on you every few seconds looking for a tasty drink of fresh blood.

The bug avoidance tactics of various passengers differed quite a bit. The cluster of US college boys at the back tried to ignore them (and ended up with fetching clusters of mosquito bites over their arms the next morning). We decided to attack the things with the DEET repellent spray my lovely vet students gave us as a parting gift when we stopped teaching. It kind of worked – insects still landed on us, but they usually gave up swiftly enough. On the downside we were also a bit repelled by the stink of the stuff, but couldn’t fly off to escape! But my favourite anti-mosquito tactic was from a French girl sitting behind us. She armed herself with a fly-swat the size of a tennis racket and brandished it menacingly back and forth. This backfired a tad when a bug actually landed on her or her boyfriend – they may have had an impressive selection of bruises to show for the trip! And of course it wouldn’t have worked so well after they dropped off to sleep…

Anyway, our next mode of transport should hopefully be a lot more boring. We’re flying to London for Amit’s wedding – leaving here on the 29th of July, and then returning to Thailand to resume our travels on the 7th August. We’re travelling with the very well known ‘Gulf Air’. What could go wrong?

Scared again...

If you’ve read this blog over the last few months, you might remember that when we were in India I posted about the terrors of flying in planes with propellers – we didn’t like turbulence that felt like the plane had just hit a brick wall… you know what I mean? Anyway that wonderful experience was courtesy of Jet Airlines, who actually were excellent and have a very good international reputation.

Moving on a few months – meet ‘Lao Airlines’. Or rather don’t if you can avoid it! The only way you can easily get from Chiang Mai into neighbouring Laos is by flying, especially if you have a tight schedule to keep to (and thanks to my best friend Amit and his wedding in London in a few weeks time we do). Of course the only airline that flies from Chiang Mai to Laos is ‘Lao Airlines’ – a small government-owned company with an appalling safety record. At least, the safety record is really bad for their domestic flights. We did an extensive internet search before booking our tickets, and were reassured that the international flights used nice big planes – Airbuses or Boeings. Only the internal flights between Louang Phabang and Vientiane (the capital) used the dodgy old converted Chinese military craft. So flying in from Thailand should be fine. Absolutely fine.

As a result, when we walked out of the airport bus to see our plane was a small, propeller driven thing where the luggage was stowed just by the cockpit we were a little taken aback. Stepping cautiously on board we thrilled to see the chairs seemed to be tacked onto the floor with little more than drawing pins. But reassuringly the tiny seats were upholstered in a flower pattern coloured with violently florescent shades. Very soothing. Oh, and the final calming touch was that the seat belts attached to our chairs were completely different from everyone else’s on the plane – mine was absolutely huge, twisted, and completely unadjustable. Really useful if things did go wrong!

Anyway, as you can tell from this post we survived the flight in our lovely little ATR 72. There was a heck of a lot of turbulence in places – well it is the rainy season so we expected that. The engines made a huge amount of noise so that the whole plane seemed to resonate. And every now and then the tone on the engines would suddenly change pitch, making you feel as if they’d stalled or something. Nice!

But the pilot was perfectly good, and touched down in Louang Phabang very smoothly despite the poring rain. Actually it was probably the most beautifully scenic landing we’ve ever had due to fantastic views of the Mekong river and surrounding mountains capped with lush forests and golden temples. It took our minds off the scary flight which is saying something! As did the cute little airport which, to be honest, looked more like a petrol station. Now we’re sitting in our very atmospheric hotel room, waiting for the rain to ease up slightly as we can’t wait to explore the town. The glimpses we had from the plane and our taxi window were tantalisingly lovely to say the least. This is a smidge more remote and untouched than Thailand!

Leaving China

Travelling through China has been a lot of fun, but it’s not exactly the easiest place to get around – mainly due to linguistic difficulties. As we’ve said before, the collection of languages called ‘Chinese’ are impossible! Even trying to make yourself understood for basic phrases is a nightmare, and the locals do not allow for this. If they speak no English they do not even try to help your understanding of what they are saying by pronouncing carefully or slowly – if anything they speed up and yap at you as if you’re being difficult! Not helpful! Oh well, at least we got around it most of the time. I was quite proud of my Chinese character writing by the end of the trip!

One thing that is very obvious out here at the moment is that China is mad about the Olympic games. OK, you might expect Beijing to be excited, but the rest of the country is almost as caught up. Beijing itself is in the final throes of a substantial makeover – it has a lovely new airport completed in the nick of time, and many of the down-town buildings we saw last year have been rebuilt. Er, and some have been pulled down for reconstruction… but looking at the rate of putting them back up they are never going to get it all done in time! But the temples have been given facelifts, the parks look fantastically well tended, and the Forbidden City has had more than just a lick of paint. Just as you’d probably expect.

The strange thing is that the rest of China seems to be trying to follow suit. Every town or city we visited had major squares given over to celebration of the Games – complete with huge silken models of the ‘Friendlies’ (the Olympic cartoon mascots that get EVERYWHERE). Every town seems to have its own array of ‘Official’ Olympic shops, there are banners across streets, posters on lampposts and in shop windows… you get the picture. We’re really curious to see if the UK will be this strongly infected with Olympic fever in a few years time!

We actually left mainland China in a lot of style. When getting to Pudong airport in Shanghai you can catch the world’s only Magnetically propelled train – the Maglev. It’s very, very, VERY fast! Each train carriage has a digital speedometer, so we watched the world wiz by at a top speed of 431 km / hour. That’s about 267 miles / hour! Not bad for an airport shuttle. Then when we checked in we were seriously jammy, and managed to get a free upgrade to business class for our flight to Hong Kong. This is the first time it’s ever happened to me (although Gary’s been lucky once before) and it was great! We had huge, comfy reclining seats, we were served edible airline food, NICE wine – and best of all, Haagen Das ice-cream for dessert! Perfect! I hope this happens again some time.

Leaving the SARs Hong Kong and Macau was a bit of a comedown. We found Asia’s answer to EasyJet and Ryan Air: Air Asia. A nice little low-cost airline with fares to Bangkok for only £50 each. Not bad for a 3 hour flight, but unfortunately no free upgrades to Business Class. Actually, no Business Class at all come to think of it!

Anyway, to end our experiences in China, we’ll give you the inevitable scary versus fun listings:

Some things we’ve found great…

1. The Great Wall. Predictable entry, eh? Well, it’s brilliant. Huge, long, and very impressively snake-like as it winds over hills and mountains. More than anything we’ve seen on this trip so far (including the Taj Mahal, Jaisalmer, Terracotta Warriors etc) we would really recommend you see this. Go to Simatai if you can as it is particularly impressive there, and you can have a ride on the rope way (what we’d call a zipline or flying fox) back down over the lake after your climb!

2. Musical fountains and light displays. This is something they do surprisingly well in China. There are lots of places where they have silly huge fountains with choreographed jets of water rising and falling to music – we saw them in Xi’an, Hangzhou, and of course, Macau. Some of the effects are really impressive such as simulations of tsunamis or opening flowers, especially when combined with tacky under water lighting, or better still, occasional jets of fire! Really silly. Hong Kong’s answer to this is the ‘Symphony of Lights’ – a nightly display where many of the major buildings flash their lights and green lasers in synch with music across the harbour. Apparently it’s in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest permanent light display. The music is incredibly cheesy, but the whole thing is so ridiculous and over the top it’s brilliant!

3. Trains. Once you’ve found a way to book tickets the rail network in China is cheap, efficient, and actually usually runs to time. Scarily the trains often leave slightly early – which is a shock to the system after living in the UK. The best are the Bullet trains – just like the Japanese ones, but a fraction of the price. There is a drawback however. When waiting for a train you are not allowed onto the platform, but held in large waiting areas instead. People are only let through the barriers a few minutes before the train arrives, so you get a stampede in busy stations as hundreds of people try to catch their train. It’s a shame, and spoils what would otherwise be a great network.

4. JJ Inns. Formally known as JinJiang Inns, this fantastic chain of business hotels has loads of branches across China. They are clean, spacious, give you nice complementary internet connections and tea, and best of all: REALLY cheap. Usually about £15 a night! We loved them, and will miss them in Thailand. Apparently there are other similar chains of hotels in China, but we stuck with JJ Inns as they were so good – and as they have a website which allows you to reserve rooms reliably without needing to enter your credit-card details. Brilliant!

5. Chinese Food. Dim Sum – lovely little Chinese Dumplings - are great. They come in all shapes and sizes, steamed, fried, boiled… lots of variety. And they are especially nice to eat when you choose them from trolleys in Hong Kong. And that’s just one example! Beijing duck is very delicious, incredibly rich – and has enough calories to last you out a few weeks without food! China is a very large place with loads of regional foods, many of which are absolutely delicious. But (see below) order with care or you might get a scorpion or a bullfrog…

6. Non-Chinese Foods. What we found surprising is that some western foods are incredibly well produced in China. We’ve had the best popcorn and candy floss we’ve ever tasted out here. And they have some great sushi, especially in Shanghai. Go to number 666 Fuzhou Street and eat at the fantastic Japanese restaurant on the ground floor.


And some scary things…

1. Scorpions on Sticks. OK, we’ll deal with food in general in a moment, but this delicacy deserves a special mention. Even the Chinese seemed to find it strangely fascinating – loads of them were taking photos of the wriggling kebabs at the same time as us! We still haven’t worked out whether you are meant to eat the little devils alive and wriggling or if they get fried first. Anyone know? Please reply to this post as we’re very curious!

2. Other scary foods. Erm, well, if you’re board of scorpions you could try a variety of insects, or how about chicken feet? Freshly steamed of course. Or other options include braised pig’s intestines, spicy duck’s neck or stewed bull-frog. And many, many more. Yum. Tempted?

3. Bridal Parlours. These things weren’t so popular in Beijing, Hong Kong or Shanghai, but you could find them on virtually every street in the other cities. The parlours seem to specialise in dressing the bridal couple up in as hideous and elaborate (and garishly coloured) wedding clothes as possible, before taking pictures of them. Many of them seem to advertise these pictures with computer generated backgrounds, so the couple look as if they are on an athletics track, or in a field or something. Very odd. Is this an essential part of getting married in China? Do these places even outfit the couple for their big day? Or are they just photo shops? We didn’t have a clue, but we were fascinated by how popular they were. And by the spectacularly hideous bride’s dresses in the windows! Some were truly impressive - my favourite was a marshmallow shaped monstrosity made of mass of bright yellow fills!

4. The language(s). Tonal. Millions of incompatible dialects. People that speak REALLY fast. And a written language that manages to be more complicated and less intuitive than Japanese. Impressive and ultimately impossible.

5. Whistle Blowing Traffic People. Now China actually has a very well ordered traffic system, with reasonable roads, lane discipline, traffic lights etc. It works well. Unfortunately it is supplemented by whistle-blowing people at some major junctions who wave at traffic, pedestrians, and blow the incredibly shrill whistles continually. On and on… nightmare. And completely unnecessary too, as all they do is look at the traffic lights and then tell the traffic to what the lights are already telling them! Why? The sad thing is that after a few days in Thailand we’ve seen them here too. Grr, more earache.

6. Hotel calls in the middle of the night. OK, this isn’t limited to China. ‘Massagee? You want massagee? Soooo Beautiful. Massagee OK?!’. Gary was impressed!

Success! Well…

… sort of. We have been in China for nearly three weeks now, and for the first time today we have managed to get a bill in a restaurant after asking for it in Chinese! I know this does not sound like much of an achievement, but so let me explain.

First of all, our previous attempts at asking for the bill (apparently ‘maiden’ in Mandarin Chinese) have resulted in many things being offered to us by bewildered waitresses – soy sauce, the menu, beer… we’ve only managed to get the message across with detailed charades, pointing to someone else’s cheque, or the restaurant finding someone with a few words of English to help out! So it’s quite a step forward to be understood for once – well, sort of understood. Gary’s linguistic attempts to pay did give the staff the giggles…

So why is this a problem? Normally when we go to any country the first thing we do is to learn a few words and phrases – please, thank you, hello, good bye, yes, no – simple things like this. It’s not much effort, and it’s usually appreciated as a politeness even if the people you speak to can understand English. But things are a little difficult in China, and to be honest we’ve struggled. Really struggled.

I suppose the main problem is there is no such thing as Chinese. There are about a billion different ‘Chinese languages’ – every region has an individual dialect, which may be completely incomprehensible to anyone from another region. And within the regions themselves apparently there is huge variation from place to place. So even a Chinese person will struggle to communicate verbally with the majority of people in China unless they know more than just their local dialect. Now we’re travelling around of course, so we can’t get the feel for words in even one place…

Actually I’m not even sure if the number of dialects is our main problem. Perhaps it is that all of the Chinese dialects are tonal. In other words, they have relatively few words compared to most languages, but the meaning of each is changed by the tone in which it is said. So say the same word in a flat way and it will have a completely different and unrelated meaning to that word said with a rising tone. Or a falling tone. Or a tone that goes high-low-high… This is completely unintuitive to us, as of course in English we use tones for expression – for instance we would usually say a statement flatly, or a question with a rising tone at the end. So whenever we ask a question out here we naturally use the wrong tone (even if we’re trying not to) and no-one has a clue what we’re going on about! Worse – Gary managed to reduce a poor girl in an ice-cream parlour to a severe fit of giggles today by trying to ask where the toilet was. She had to run away to recover. I don’t know what he said, but it probably had nothing to do with finding the gents!

And finally, to top it off, the written word in Chinese is a mass of complicated symbols. So trying to check that you’re on the right train, street, etc is a nightmare, and reading signs that tell you about changes, where to go etc downright impossible. So you could say we’re struggling.

However, we have found amusing ways around our problems. We have managed to work out the numbers one to ten, so at least can give the correct money at a newsagent when buying a drink (usually). Gary is persevering with speaking to people – he’s got a better memory for vocabulary than me! But I have got very good at miming what we want (which usually works better than the linguistics). And, when buying tickets at railways stations I’ve worked out that we actually sort of get what we want if I copy down the symbols for the place names and carriage class along with dates, times and train numbers onto a piece of paper to hand the attendant. I’ve got quite artistic about it! Trust me, we’d have no chance at just speaking to them. We tried once, and failed dismally to get beyond ‘hello’.

Anyway, if any of you have any suggestions as to how to speak at least Mandarin Chinese (the most widely spoken dialect) we’d be really grateful. A few weeks ago I’d have never thought I’d say that I miss being able to understand people as much as I did in Japan! Now Japanese seems easy peasy. And that’s saying something!