Over-age goes Over Land to Oz

Alice and Ayers

2008-06-24T21:54:00.001-07:00

At the campsite there are hordes of shaggy-haired, mud spattered Aussie guys in shorts, with cowboy hats on talking engines or tactics. There are bikes and trucks everywhere. It is Monday 9th of June and it is the tail end of the gruelling 'Finke Desert Race'. These men have all taken part or watched. It involves one days dash across the old road and one days return, about 500kms in all. It is all dust and distance. That explained why the camp was so full! Dutiful wives were lined up in the laundry trying to clean the dust, grease and oil off their men's clothing. It was a friendly site and I fell asleep to the sound of a Didgeredoo Concert.

Alice town is rather dull, just a series of shopping malls with oddments of history to look at. We took some time to find 'The Flying Doctor Service' then went to see the museum of Pioneer Women in the old gaol. Aboriginal people wandered around the town. It was 28 degrees in the day but only about 10 degrees at night, which surprised me. We were hot and uncomfortable. We headed out the next day to Ayers Rock, not noticing that someone had pinched my half sized bucket that we had purchased in Estonia!

Ayers lay about 250kms from Alice, which surprised me. We passed several roadhouses, among them Aileron, with its giant, 'aboriginal man on the mountain', outside. A flat topped mountain caught my eye as we got closer. Like Ayers it stood out from its flat surroundings. Ayers loomed on the horizon when we got closer to the camp. I felt very excited and we went off to set up before we headed out to view Ayers at sunset.

The camp was at Yulara, 22kms away from the rock, which surprised me. It was not even situated in the national park! It was a whole community purpose built to service visitors to Ayers. It had shops, hotels and a campsite. There was even a bus to transport you. We booked a dusty site and set ourselves up. As expected, the dust was bright red and everywhere. We headed out in the dusk to view the rock. I felt like a pilgrim on the road with others. We parked up and waited. Some people had wine and cheese on their tables. We waiting in hopeful expectation but the cloud remained and the people moved away. We drove, in the deepening dark, around the base. It was huge and instilled a kind of awe. Each side seemed to look completely different. Back at camp we set the alarm for 6am.

We woke in total darkness. As we dressed I noticed a rip in the dark sky and began to get anxious that dawn would come and we would miss the sunrise. I was not to be disappointed. In the eerie pre-dawn light other vans were moving along the road. We followed. We pulled up in a vacant space and watched, with rising excitement as the sky gradually grew lighter. There was some cloud but,we were to be lucky this time, as the sun shone through a gap Ayers lit up and changed colour so many times, from yellow sandstone to bright fiery red. It was glorious, and well worth getting up early for.

Before we left, when the tour buses had gone, we circled the rock once more. It was amazing and humbling. As we drove away I noticed, the sister rocks, 'The Olgas', glowing quietly in the morning sun. I took my photographs and we headed out to repeat the long journey up to Three Ways again and on to Darwin.

From Mount Isa to Tennants Creek

2008-06-24T21:53:00.001-07:00

I am really confused because two pages dropped out of my book and this may be slightly out of order. This is one of the loose pages and covers the journey after we left Mount Isa and headed for Camooweal.

It is Sunday morning, 8th June. We headed out of Mount Isa for the fourth time. Francine and Francoise are off on the mine tour and then heading for Cloncurry. (They are a crazy pair of 70 year olds from Adelaide, but Paris and Brittany originally. She is an outrageous flirt but quite funny too. How he copes, I do not know but he obviously likes being kept on his toes.) We, on the other hand are powering up the Barkly Highway to Camooweal then on to Tennants Creek. As it is the 'long weekend' to celebrate the Queen's birthday! We don't even do that in England! There seem to be only caravans on the road and, as it is open, that is not a problem. Spinifex and red soil are the order of the day. The sky is light grey and it is raining. I am pleased because the red dust is every where. I pondered on last night's karoke, which we swore we would not go to. We sang our socks off and waved the neon strips that Francoise got from his caravan. They are still glowing. The road warning said,'Beware: stock on the road, Flooding and Trucks over 50 mtrs long!

It is 470 to Tennants Creek,1464 to Darwin and 450 to 3 Ways. We have 360 degrees view of grass and scrubland. The rain has stopped and we have passed two road-trains already. The kangaroos that have died in the night are scattwered around like skittles. There is even a cow carcass, evidence of earlier road-kill!There is a camel thoughfully chewing in the field alongside the road. The sky/land ratio is 60/40 and there is nothing to see but low grass. We turn onto 'The Overlanders Way'. It is like driving on a perspective sketch. Barkly Homestead is 242km-a two hour drive for us. Another cow has met his maker. To break the monotony we have a beastie feast of crisps followed by a few squares of chocolate. A long line of cows move along the field fence and a happy waving motorcyclist passes by. The road sign now declares that the road-trains are in fact 53.5 meters long. You need a lot of space for overtaking. We pass 'Shakespeare Creek'.

(Pictures to include=the Camooweal kangaroo and road distances,the view through the window.

At Barkly Homestead the petrol is $205 per litre. Should be 139!!!!!More surprises, half hour time difference. God!!How many flies??? I put my net over my hat so that I do not feel silly!! I gulp my food in order not to eat a fly too. Yuk. I find this totally exasperating. I am not relaxed eating like this and it is very strange to have to head for your neck, to get under the elasticated net, instead of your mouth. I sprayed myself with, 'Bushman' fly deterrant and bounced my flip-flop at a local harrassing bird. Suddenly, loud,awful country music came from one of the box-like cabins. We decided to move on to Tennants Creek.

When we booked into Tennants Creek campsite for the night I noticed the posters showing local snakes! Nice! After 750 kms I do not want to run into them! I am glad that it is only 506kms to Alice Springs. In the camp shop Lee shows me 'Canned Kookaburra' and 'Tinned Echidna'. I am disgusted until I realise that it is a joke!

In the morning we disagree about how to make omelettes. We rarely argue so we must be getting tired. It certainly is a long haul. We are also aware that we have to repeat this leg of the journey when we return north, to Darwin. There is a nice moment when we pull up to the drive to leave. I noticed an Aboriginal man step ou t but when he saw us he jumped back. We calmly waited for him to cross as he got there first. He peered at us and we motioned for him to cross and smiled. He looked incredulous. As we pulled out he gave us a respectful wave and beaming smile. We waved back. We stopped at the huge round boulders, ten feet high, that lay scattered around, called 'The Devil's Marbles. They are strange because they lie on flat land. As we rejoin the main highway and head off to Alice Springs I notice another dead cow lying on the highway. The sky is heavy with cloud and the persistant flies buzz in my ears. Passing van drivers give funny waves and there are flocks of very tiny birds darting around. I still have not seen budgerigars in the wild though. It is 29kms to Alice and a road sign declares that we are in a restricted alcohol zone. We cross southward back over the Tropic of Capricorn.

Across Queensland and into The Northern Territory-Sunday 1st-9th June

2008-06-19T00:55:00.000-07:00

It is time to leave the east coast and head south-west,to Mareeba, over the Great Dividing Range. As we drove up into the mountains the scenery was fabulous and sweeping as it changed to the healthy green of English pastoral. This was the Atherton Tablelands. The blue sky was, unusually, streaked with white cloud. It reminded me of the start of, 'The Simpsons' and made me smile. However,the next sign said, 'Abbatoir Swamp'! Blimey, talk about a reality check! The sun came out again. This morning had a damp feel to it but this was better. The breeze was still cool.

The Malloy camp area reminded me of Cannock Chase. It was being well used and someone was collecting wood. We have not stayed in any of the free camp areas only on sites because of the need for shower and power facilities. There was a little 'town' within walking distance-a pub serving meals and a few houses.There was also a sign for unfenced animals. I would not fancy negotiating his way around a cow in the middle of the night!

As we travelled on I noticed the rocky formations of yellow termite mounds everywhere. The marshlands, beyond this, supported prolific bird life. Many Australian birds seem to be pied in colour.

Approaching Mareeba, the first thing we saw was 'The Golden Drop Winery', based on mangoes. This was also sugar-cane country, and it was almost cutting season when all the train tracks would be in use. The second thing we saw was, 'The Kingdom Hall' Jehovah's Witness church, which had a lot of cars outside it, and the third was MacDonalds, which only had had only a few! We passed through the town and continued on our way. It was too soon to stop so we headed out to Mount Garnet.

The 'Brahman Stud' just outside the town reminded us that this was cattle droving land and the start of the huge cattle stations along, 'The Savannah Way,' that stretches from Cairns, in the east, to Broome, in the west. It is usual to see wacky things along the way too. It is part of the Aussie psyche. A washing machine on a stick, at the end of a road, was someones post box! There is a trend for large 'statues' or models of things too. We have already had a lobster, banana, shrimp and mango. This time it was a giant gumboot with a gecko clambering up it, outside the Information Centre. Another shop had a giant model of a Cassowary outside it. A huge wind farm whirred up on the hill and it reminded me of England until a gash of rust-red soil told me otherwise.

The camp site was a bit empty so we parked virtually in the kitchen! There were shabby live-in plots at the back, still, it was only for one night. There was a fridge-freezer, benches, a kettle and a sink with hot water. The television had poor reception but we watched an interesting programme on Australian history whilst we prepared spagetti bolognese. I had a couple of cold beers and set the van up for the night. We rang England from here as the telephone worked, in a fashion! The operator had to connect us as the buttons were not registering.

The next day we headed out on a road that was, at times, just a wide gash of red sand and gravel with a single lane of tar in the middle. The rule is that you drive on it until another vehicle approaches, then you have half each, unless it is a road-train, in which case you pull over and wait for it to pass! Initially we were stuck behind a two carriage, milk-tanker road train, travelling at 80kms. We overtook it and travelled on, however, when we got to the next narrow strip of a tarmac a passing road-train spun a couple of stones up and hit the windscreen, cracking it! I was shocked but Lee said that it would be okay, if it stayed like that. There was a four inch crack on the bottom of my side of the windscreen. I looked at the map and noticed the town on the gulf called Karumba, not the Simpsons again! In the next town we drove into the automatic vehicle wash down, as we were covered in bright red dust, only to find out that it was out of water! We headed off again. The next town was Bedrock. Wasn't that in the Flintstones??? Two more stones hit the screen, only chipping it this time. I held my breath every time a road train passed us. I only breathed out when the dust cleared. It was hard going! The Brahman cows chewed quietly near the termite mounds that rose like huge gravestones among the endless grasslands on either side of us. A sign warned us to 'Avoid bulls and roadtrains'! I wished we could! Eagles and kites circled overhead. I would only worry if they turned into vultures! We ploughed on. When we encountered another vehicle it became impossible to see anything on the road because of the amount of dust that was being kicked up. Qwerky Oz reared its head again with the local garage model of a huge kangaroo wearing shorts and carrying a spanner!

As we approached Georgetown we noticed a small cat in the middle of nowhere. It seemed to know where it was going and disappeared into the long grass. I heard later that ferel cats are killing local wildlife, such as the Bilby, to the point of extinction! The sky was full of wheeling kites, about 30 of them. We had stopped outside the post office to post some letters then we had an ice-cold beer. We got talking to a couple from Victoria, with a dog called Ned. They said that they might see us at the camp site. As we arrived a lady booked us in and just said,"Choose your spot." We did, near the ammenities block, as usual! Nearby a man lay sleeping on the ground where he had thrown his lorry tarpaulin and sleeping bag! We unloaded our two chairs a table and two beers, very quietly. A couple of young men arrived with a van so crammed with stuff that it looked like Rubric's Cube to undo it, and they looked as though they could survive a fair amount of time in the desert! It took them an age to pitch two tents. I don't think that they could find anything! I put some washing on the line and chatted to an elderly couple, from the Atherton Tablelands, who were taking a look at the outback. He had been a truckkie for many years and never seen it. I don't know how he managed to avoid it! Ned's owners arrived after we had set up and asked us if we wanted to go with them to the local pub. Lee went for a game of pool. I did not feel sociable so I stayed in the van and read. As the sun set a whole flock of white parrots, called Corellas, set up a squawking as they swooped from tree to tree then roosted for the night. I took some pictures of them. Lee had a good night and made a few more friends.

On Tuesday 3rd June we were on the road for 9am, a first. We hoped that we could settle before the sun got too overwhelming. There was a good road,and cool air. We felt refreshed and full of hope for the day ahead. The kites were circling spoilt for choice after the night's roadkill! We avoided a wandering cow. By afternoon the air was hot, our joints had grown stiff. We had seen wallabies at 10 in the morning and a group of storks flew gracefully overhead sometime later. Apart from that it was 360 degree views of grassland. The single tarmac road was back, as was the mounting tension about the windscreen. We reached the Burke and Wills roadhouse and took a break. Everything was very expensive so we made sandwiches up out on the drive. (See the pictures of Lee making sandwiches and the sign.)Refreshed we moved on.

There was so little around us the thought about what we would do if we broke downhere was a scary one. I felt tense for quite a while. There were endless termite tombstones, the odd cow and shredded tyres everywhere. We even saw a cyclist!! Tough call that one! 'Dismal Creek' did nothing to lift the mood. We ploughed on for the Three Ways Roadhouse. Ah the joy of being on the road! It said in the Lonely Planet Guide that crocs have been run over on northern roads! As if there are not enough hazards already! I saw my first camel the other day. Fortunately it was not in the road but quietly munching grass on the side. I peered at the termite mounds. They are certainly getting a lot more creative-there are huge phallic constructions or, six-foot heaps that resemble 'Sideshow Bob's' hair.

A sign warns of unfenced land. It warns you about wandering stock. I could not be a truck driver. They run into all sorts of animals when driving. Cows are not exactly small! I would swerve to avoid one and probably kill five innocently munching wallabies in the nearby grasslands! One anthill has just resembled that rock in America with the presidents faces carved on to it! The flies seem clever too because there are plenty of them around but they do not seem to get splatted on the windscreen! Why? I hate all the insects and always check under toilet seats for the old redbacked spider! There was a report in the local paper the other day that told the story of the lady who lived on the 12th floor of some flats in town and, when she went to the bathroom she was confronted by a python coming out of the toilet! Apparently, he had come into the plumbing system and decided to come out on her floor!!!I have got used to sharing my shower with a frog but I would draw the line at that!

From Bowen to Mission Beach and Port Douglas

2008-06-19T00:11:00.000-07:00

We found a little shabby camp site just off the highway north where there was an in-house possum. It appeared at night as did two younger possums scampering up a tree branch, in front of us on the beach, as we were talking to two young Australian boys who were checking out the mines for work. It was a delightful find. The owner fed them apparently. He also fed the local rainbow lorikeets at about 8.30 in the morning. They made a fabulous blast of colour as they blocked overhead.The wildlife is abundant and exciting when you manage to see it, although I did not much appreciate the dead cane toad in the cigarette tray outside the ladies toilets, or the dead cockroach on the path nearby.

On Wednesday 28th May we we relieved to be leaving Bowen. This was a dead town with wide streets and few people. We had done our blogs in the library and then asked for a tourist map. It turned out that this town had been used by Baz Lerhman to film 'Old Darwin' for his epic, 'Australia" film. It was one of the oldest towns and the film-makers had simply covered the streets in red dust. I hope to recognise the pub when the film comes out.

We joined the highway north again. I saw my first flock of emus in the field to my right. The grass was golden and there was 60% sky with huge white clouds. It reminded me of the early American west. There was a huge dust trail made by a massive road train at the roadhouse. Along the roadside there was a plaque dedicated to all women who had had to endure violence. This is one of the visible signs of human communities like the yellow safe needle disposal tubs on the wall of every toilet that I have been into, even in the outback, the lengthy skid marks down the centre of the highways all over Australia, violence help phone lines on the doors in ladies toilets and the gambling warnings in every tote bar. You see no evidence of these but they are obviously issues. There were more fields of sugar cane and a huge refinery, providing much-needed employment to one small town. Apparently, in June, when the crops are cut and crushed, a whole network of railways comes to life and they take precedence over road vehicles. Fortunately for us we were a bit too early!
A little further on there was livestock handling one side and a huge mine on the other.

Our next stop was Mission Beach where the small pocket of Cassowarys could sometimes be seen. The site was extremely beautiful, planted with so much colour and shape in fabulous tropical trees and bushes. It had been caught in the cyclone a few years earlier and this had devastated the flora and fauna of the area. It had recovered well. We did not see a cassowary but the notice not to feed themif they appeared on the camp, was wasted on me, since they are like emus with attitude. If it wanted it the bird could have it. I was not going to risk being chased by one of those things.

When we heard on the news that storms were currently battering Noosa Heads and Brisbane and that trees had been blown over in Hervey Bay we were shocked, and a little sad, because it had been wonderfully sunny when we had been there a week or two before.

We left this area with regret.

We set out for the final places on the east coast with great hope. I was going to go out on the reef again but I was told that it was cloudy at Port Douglas because of the recent rain!!!! The town was very manicured but full of pretension. We could not wait to leave and head inland for Alice and Ayers.

The Town of 1770 and the Great Barrier Reef

2008-06-18T23:34:00.000-07:00

It was the towns annual festival as we rolled into town. We spent the Friday Night at a Stand-Up Comedy show, the Saturday at a fete and the Sunday, out on the reef.
We got the comedy tickets by default as they had sold out but someone who had been out on the reef that day was feeling sick, so they had cancelled their tickets.It was a good night and I was relieved to find that there were no pom-bashing jokes. I spoke to a wonderful lady who had grown up on a ranch and had very little schooling because she was out rounding-up cows, mending fences and cooking meals for the ranch hands and shearers. We got home at 12pm on the shuttle, tired but happy.

The next day we left camp at 11am and headed for the field where we were to get the shuttle to the foreshore. There were rides and stalls. We found seats by a performance area and watched the belly dancers and some local musicians. I watched the 'Young Endeavour' sailors come ashore. They had crewed this replica ship around part of Australia's coastline under the guidance of the Australian Navy. It was now time to change crew. It was coincidental that they were there but very apt as this was a celebration of the year when Captain Cook had first landed in 1770 in his ship, The Endeavour. I took a ride on The Lark, a converted ex-army amphibious vessel that took us out across the sandbars in the bay, where we saw soldier crabs marching along a sandbar, and lots of local seabirds. The Lark was a boat in water and a vehicle on land. It took us a bit closer to the Young Endeavour, given by the English government to the Australian government. The local school children had acted out the landing too. It was a very enjoyable day in the sunshine.

Sunday saw us walking to the harbour at 7am in order to catch the boat that was taking us to the reef. Lee had noticed a flat tyre when we got up but there was nothing we could do about it until the next day. I just hoped that it would not spoil the experience.

It was a choppy 90 minute ride to the reef. We had taken Kwells so we were okay but it was a rough ride! We were glad to step on to the pontoon where we could have a ride to the island, a ride in a semi-submercible boat to view under the waves, snorkel on the reef or have a diving lesson.

The island was lying in azure, clear seas. We took the glass bottomed boat and turtles were coming up for air around us. Amazing! I took lots of photographs. It was possible to stay on the island overnight but I had not realised this, and we did not have a tent. It was a real desert island. That would have been something!I took pictures of the white beach, bleached driftwood and coral that created so many different patterns.

When we got back we had lunch. Lee went in the sub and I got ready to snorkel. It was wonderful to tip forward and view through the goggles for the first time. I went cross eyed when a humbug fish swam before my eyes and said, "Wow!" as the scene unfolded before my eyes. This, of course, filled my mouth with salt water! I spent some time just getting used to the scene, the flippers and working out what to do with my redundant hands. What an amazing experience. I did not see any nasties and stayed where the water was deepest to get a clear view. I was surprised to get so cold in these beautiful, pristine waters though.The breathing was surprisingly easy. I was elated as I swam back to the ship.

At 2pm we went on the last trip in the sub. Again we saw the rather endearing turtles. It was the perfect end to a fabulous day.

On the Monday morning we had to sort out the punctured tyre. After a futile effort the lady next door opened her bonnet, connected the lead and blew our tyre up with the charger in her 4x4 engine!!! She even offerred to follow us to the tyre place to make sure that we made it. By 10.15 it had been done and we were merrily on our way up the coast. A wedge tailed eagle lifted on the wind effortlessly and the sun shone. The roadsign said, 'Cairns 1,222 kms: Townsville 860 kms.I sat back as we were in for a long journey! I pondered the stories told to me by two different, 'Grey Nomads' of their unfortunate dogs.

One dog, part Dingo, had caught around 30 snakes!! I remarked that he must have been swift, to which the lady replied,"Aw no. He's been caught a couple of times. Had to take him to the vets for the anti-venom.I asked how she knew that he had been bitten by a snake and she told me that the back legs stop working! I asked, "Was he okay afterwards?"
She replied,"Aw yeah but he's recovering from a scuffle with a kangaroo. Had his thigh ripped open. Cost us $300." He must be a tough cookie.

The other story involved an older lady, now travelling with her remaining, little dog. Some time the previous year her husband had been cutting the overgrown grass on the plot next to them, that was up for sale, and he had remarked about seeing a brown snake, the dangerous ones!! The next day her elderly dog had gone out into the grass, for a wee, and was never seen again! Tough life!!!!

The fifth State-entering Queensland

2008-06-09T19:17:00.000-07:00

By May 22nd we were back on the coast. Oranges were for sale and the Mount Warning National Park was unfolding its scenery before our eyes. We were near the border into Queensland, our fifth state.We had looked at the fabulous beach at Coolangatta and taken pictures at the Captain Cook Memorial before heading up the Sunshine Coast to Rainbow Bay. We spent the evening in a bar where the National Rugby Competition, The State of Origin, ( You had to be born in the State to represent it,) was about to begin. It was Queensland versus Southern Australia. We suddenly realised that Lee was inadvertantly wearing the opposing teams colours!!!! We left after our awful meal, without establishing eye-contact! The next morning we parked up and strolled along the beach to view the famous cliffs before we headed out, but I could not see the rainbow colours because of the green vegetation. However, I did notice the oil on the sand that had been churned up by the 4x4's that are allowed to drive along the beach to the next bay. It was a shame.

We left and headed for Tin Can Bay via Snapper Creek. We were passed by a true Aussie with a tinnie on the roof of his 4x4, towing a caravan with some witty phrase on the back, "Been there, done that!" Another version of this is the Aussie in his Holden Ute with a devoted, rough looking dog riding in the back, tied on by a bit of thick rope. Little dogs travel on the passenger seat but jump out of the partially opened window to join their owners at the pub!
Tin Can Bay was a delightful, clean, small town with a harbour and open sea. The local IGA, 'Independant Grocers Association' was the hub of activity. Locals greeted each other and a little communal hall stood proudly on the other side of the road. We had to turn around as the road was a dead end but we were pleased to have seen this delightful little place. We headed for Maryborough, 58kms further up the coast.
This proved to be a delight in a different way. It was the town that the author of Mary Poppins, P.L. Travers, had been born in. There was a statue of Mary Poppins outside the bank where Traver's father had been the manager. There were buildings from around the 1900's too. It was their festival that weekend but we were moving on.

Thursday saw us in Hervey Bay. We had a pitch over-looking the beach but it had been too cold to sit out on Thursday, when we arrived. It got worse on Friday as the sky was grey and it was raining and the van would not start! Two German girls and the elderly man next door gave us a push. Nothing! The man towed Lee out on to the road and we were off again! The girls had abandoned their car and given away the contents at the hostel because their car repair had been too expensive!!!!I felt tense but began to relax as we moved along in our usual routine. We were now in sugar cane country with field after field of 10ft canes, a huge refinery and rail-tracks everywhere, ready for the crushing seasdon which would begin in June. We stopped for breakfast in the next town called Childers. It was basically a high-street. The local pub had a statue of two bronze dogs involved in a fight!!! Lee found a place that he was prepared to eat in, called, 'The Sugar Bush", but we were too late for breakfast as it was now 11 am and breakfasts stopped at 10!!! The lady agreed to do us a breakfast and we ate it with relish; the mountains of bacon, egg and toast, it was divine, before moving on to pick up groceries at Woolies.

Along the roadside there were signs advertising custard apples,mangoes and pineapples. We also noticed a wacky postbox at the end of a drive. It was a table with a chair. The microwave on the table was the postbox. Don't ask me!
Our next port-of-call was the wonderful Town of 1770 and Agnes, where we were going to go out on the reef.

On the road surprises-The journey up to Brisbane

2008-06-03T20:29:00.000-07:00

It was Monday the 12th May and we were moving up the coast to leave New South Wales behind and heading for Queensland. We had stayed overnight in a camp called Sundowner Park and Football Motel, of which I have no recollection, unless it had a lake and painted toilets and chalets??

We passed through Fredericktown and I suddenly realised that we had passed Freddo Pies, with a Marilyn Munro statue outside. We quickly pulled in and purchased one each, for luch. Pie eating is one of the, 'How Australian Are You? tests. These pies have been voted consistently in the top three for a few years, so they were worth treying. I had Broccili, Cauliflower and cheese. Lee had Steak and Mushroom. There were gormet versions but we were staid in our choices. They were good. I even got a picture of Lee beside Marilyn, but not until he had eaten his pie!

The next port of call was, 'The Pub With No Beer", at Taylor's Arm, some 25 kilometers off our track, from Slim Dusty's 1957 hit. My aunt had a copy of this that I used to sing along with so I had to go and have a picture taken for her. I am glad to report that they did have beer but it tasted bloody awful! We continued on our way. At the Nambucca River there was a magnificent flight of about 20 pelicans overhead in 'v' formation.

One thing that is really strange is the dearth of English place names all piled up on each other in the wrong place. We passed through Swansea, Newcastle, Jesmond, Gateshead and left to Cardiff! No wonder I don't know what day of the week it is!!!

Coffs Harbour had a neat, small park with lots of live-ins, but at $25 we were not complaining. At the entrance there was a Dutch clog-barn. Why? I do not know. It was possible to watch clogs being made, daily. We stayed one night and had a look at Coffs Harbour as we left. It was a wonderfully sunny day and the beach and Harbour were a delight. I really enjoyed strolling around in the sunshine. It was clean and tidy, you could buy freshly caught fish then cook it in the adjoining parkland on the barbies. In Australia everything is provided for outdoor living: superb cycle paths along promenades, picnic benches, seating, shaded areas, toilets, plently of parking space and no charges! I was sad to leave but we were heading for Byron Bay.
Teach your Aussie...
Beautification=clean up to attract the tourists
oppy/oppo=charity shop
sqiz=a quick look
arvo=pm.
Chick poo/Alpaca poo=manure

So long Sydney.....

2008-05-16T20:56:00.000-07:00

The next morning, Friday 2nd May, was sunny. We woke at 8am. I aired the bed and Lee cooked breakfast. The engine started after its second attempt! We both breathed easy as the washing was gathered in, the boxes packed up, some cutlery went missing and was then found. I had left it on the side of the sink last night. Lee had retrieved it and, with a sigh, we headed out for Ballarat. We were following a diagonal road up to the Blue Mountains and Sydney, in a rather circuitous route out of Melbourne. The weather soon changed and, in the hard driving rain, two sandy working dogs in the back of a ute,an Australian working truck, looked rather forlorn. We sympathised with them.

We had a long day driving through pasture land, 10am till late afternoon. This was farming country, known as, 'The Fruit-Bowl'. There were lots of shabby caravan sites inhabited by the transient fruit-pickers, in each of the little towns, we noticed. As we crossed the border into New South Wales, our fourth state, the only sign was, "No fruit on return.' This was an attempt to eradicate fruit fly. I reached for the incriminating banana on the dashboard. There is always a sense of loss as younleave a familiar state behind. You just get to work out how it all goes and it changes again.

We reached a place called Findlay around 5.30, just as it was getting dark, and quickly set up the van. No-one else was staying there. The park was beside a lake and the colourful, cabins showing Australian wildlife had been painted by the local high school. The owner microwaved our chilli meals and brought them over to us when they were ready. It tasted delicious and there was just enough time to put the curtains up before it was pitch black.

I had a restless night but the night sky was fabulous as usual. The van would not start so the owner and his partner came and gave us a push. She eventually coughed into life, and we were off again, waving goodbye to the owners. The day stayed fine;we had 10hrs of sunshine and we had covered 600ks along a perfect highway amid the rolling hills, it was terrific scenery. We passed through several apparently empty towns, saw two roadkill kangaroos and two 'very much alive', emu's, our first sightings. The grasslands were golden and the fields were full of sheep with very young lambs and fat, glossy cows. Someone told me that the lambs would be the spring lamb in a few months time! There were many multi-coloured rainbow lorikeets and the, much bigger, pink and grey Rosella's. One large herd of cows was being rounded up by a man on a horse with his dog. Two flying Cormorants and a brown falcon, sitting on a fencing post, added to my wildlife count for the day. Two nutty drivers just pulled out on us despite the fact that they could see us coming but they do this to each other too, so that is okay. Its just a different style. We grabbed some fish and chips as we passed a shop in the dark. They tasted good. Within 15 minutes we had rolled into a campsite and parked up. There were some very noisy Aussie blokes in the open kitchen area. We stayed away. I managed to drop my glass of red wine all over the bed and Lee's clothes too so I had to make a quick visit to the laundry in the cold. There was a frost too!

As we were packing up the van the next morning we heard on the news about a man who had been sentenced for attacking a neighbour with a tomahawk, in the Blue Mountains, our next destination! We had to push the van again. Luckily we were on a slope. She started as she went around a corner. I said goodbye to our neighbours and jumped in. The owner had had to fetch the police to the noisy Aussies the night before. They had eventually gone to bed and had left this morning before 8am. No doubt, embarrassed! We found this out when we went to the kitchen to cook a sausage sandwich. They were awful,(the sausages and the people!) We vowed to stick with the bacon in future. We were soon on the road again.

It was delightful to us as 'Non-city folk' to find that we could stay in The Blue Mountains area and catch a train into Sydney-nip in and nip out so-to-speak. We had headed for Katoomba, at everyones suggestion but decided to check out Blackheath first. This was a delightful little town, fully decked in Autumn finery. The caravan park was low key, quiet and small, perfect. As I think you will agree, in the two pictures above, though the cabin was a funny little affair! We took this little cabin for 4 days, as a treat and a rest. We explored this lovely, neat little town then took a train into Sydney.

It was a sunny day, and the only downside for me was the fact that we had not booked on the open bus and, as our tour was a single decker coach viewing was sometimes limited. We got on and off taking pictures at the opera House, Darling Harbour and the South Bank. In the afternoon we rode the Beaches bus and saw Bondi and Manly beaches among others. This gave us a view of the Opera House and Bridge from the other side of the bay and made me feel a lot happier.

On the third day we did a tour of the Blue Mountains, riding on a tram. We went to a teapot museum called, 'Bygone Days', and had wonderful scones, visited the Edge and viewed the 'Three Sisters'. We rode the worlds steepest railway down into the gorge, then came back up on the aerial cable car. We had a stroll around Leura and bought our tin dog. He was immediately dispatched to England. A good time was had by all.

We headed to Katoomba on the fourth day and did our shopping before heading out.

Good Morning, Melbourne.

2008-05-09T20:33:00.000-07:00

After an uncomfortable night on the ferry, and the anxiety about whether the van would start, (it did-first time!), the wonderful view of hot air balloons rising over the majestic skyscrapers on the Melbourne skyline as the sun rose over the beach was surprising. A guy was running along the beach. What a way to start a day in the city! Fabulous. A look to my left as we drove off the ferry and claimed our four gas cannisters, showed me a different image. The full, flowing traffic over the Westgate Bridge. What a contrast to Australia so far, the six lane highway was in full flow, and we were about to join it! We hated it after the hick roads we had come to love, everywhere else!

Our first view had been the drive into the city from Geelong. It was alarmingly like home, litter strewn and rather dull. The whole horizon was full of buildings and trees. It was unlike anything we had seen so far in Australia. Drivers seemed impatient and screeched around us to be one or two vehicles in front! Madness, and not impressive.

We found our way first time and arrived at the campsite for 8.30am in the early morning sun. We set ourselves up, put the washing in, showered and had a cooked breakfast. Joy arrived at 11.30, having travelled from the other side of the city to pick us up. She looked lovely,her usual sparkling self. So civilised; hair done, fashionable, make-up on. I remembered that! I felt a bit daggy in my on-the-road gear. It was cold so I had joggers and a fleece on. Delightful! I settled for comfortable and warm. When I had asked a passing lady, earlier, if I would pass muster in the city she said, "Aw, rug up darlin'." so that was that.

We went to St Kilda's for luch. There were lovely old buildings. It was a bustling thoroughfare, in contrast with our next destination, the silent peacefulness of the Botanical Gardens. This was fascinating too because it was in the heart of this large modern city. The patterns and textures of the trees were like an art gallery. After tea and scones we headed off to the South Bank where we visited the pub opposite the station. It had a range of rooms on three floors, each with a different feel. There was mellow music and settee on the first floor affording us a view of the passing city life below. Behind us a room sporting a full length demure nude, called Chloe, after whom the bar was named, provided a quiet reading space. There was even a trendy roof bar with modern music, but, curiously, nowhere to sit as the seats had all just been varnished. It was a good place to be though and there was a vibe about the place as city workers called in for a drink after work.

Once dusk fell the buildings lit up in a very appealing way. It really did look beautiful standing beside the Yarra River looking over to Franklin Square. The whole scene was further highlighted by our trip up the 88 floors of the Eureka Tower. From here we had a 360 degree view of Melbourne in the rush hour. You could almost feel the pulse of Melbourne City as the lights swirled below us along the highways. It was a glorious, magical moment in a vibrant, modern city.

The day was completed with a pizza and a bottle of red wine in the Italian quarter of town, with Joy and her daughter.

A perfect end to a perfect day, and, such a contrast to all we had experienced so far. Thanks Joy. (I will post the pictures when Joy sends them to me.)

Fabulous Tasmania

2008-04-17T21:46:00.000-07:00

God, I've broken the law! I've transported an onion into Tasmania, unwittingly! It was lying in the food basket hidden behind the jar of coffee. The half a cucumber had to go at the port- oh, and the petrol. What ??? 17 pounds worth just tipped away. We were allowed to keep the petrol can as long as we filled it up with water! We did not read the small print! Apart from this...what a magical island Tasmania is. No-one had given us any clues. They had just said, "Oh you'll love Tassie," (as it is affectionately known.)They proved to be right.

Our journey began at Devonport in the pitch black. We headed for the north-west coast and stayed at Ulverston for two nights. It was set alongside the beach and was, fortunately, within walking distance of town. It was a small, nondescript town and a very typical site, in pleasant surroundings. The towns of Burnie, with its cheese factory and busy little shopping centre was a joy, as was the coastal route that took us there, with its blue skies, rocky and sandy shorelines. We visited the little town of Penguin and strolled around a rather strange collection of stalls in its famous market. We were a bit bemused but liked the prettiness of it all. It was as close as we were going to get to Cornwall quaint. We headed along the coast Wynyard's, 'Table Cape' and the beautiful, but unimaginatively named, Boat Harbour Bay. It was perfection! Next was the delightful little fishing town of Stanley with its famous 'Nut'! We travelled in on the Tourist Route and, from the lookout above the town we got a glorious view of its bays and the Nut. It too was perfection: a pretty little town with painted houses, flowers, green lawns and its historical High Street. I wish we had stayed longer here. The campsite lay alongside a bay and beach that you could just wander on to. We spent a happy morning in the town before we moved on, just meandering around, 'The Nut', in the sunshine and enjoying the views. 'The Nut' is a high rocky outcrop above the town, and can be accessed by the fit and/or insane by foot or the infirm/lazy by chairlift. We chose the latter!

Our next port of call was Queenstown. What a contrast! We had spent a whole day traversing the western mountains on the undulating road around hundreds of hairpin bends and descended into the town, wearily, as it grew dark, which is a rather instant affair in this part of the world. It starts to darken at 5.15 and, by six you are plunged into total darkness.

Your first view of the town is the smelter which seems to stand above the dark, brooding mountains. We followed the rivers path as we descended and we were soon driving through the dark and empty streets looking for a caravan sign. Street lighting was not a feature which made our task more difficult. We found it eventually and headed to the office. A couple had just come in from Strahan and said that there was nothing there. I made a mental note as that was to be our next stop! Glad to have just stopped, we wandered to our site then viewed the toilet block and the 'kitchen' Many of the vans were up on top of the toilet block which gave the camp an untidy and cluttered feel. It was only for one night. We were adopted by a lovely couple called Frank and Marie, who invited us into their van. We did not leave until 1am! We got to see the steam railway journey at Strahan. It was lovely, and so were they. A good night was had by all.
The next part of our journey took us to Richmond and the start of Convicts Route. It was quite colonial in appearance and some of the buildings at here and Port Arthur were honey coloured stone, like the Cotswolds. We had passed Cradle Mountain and the Lake St.Clair National Park area on our way, deciding not to stay as it was really a trekker's paradise, with lakes, mountain walks and rivers. We had seen a number of these on our drive and it was quite cold here too! One amazing thing that we did see was an artists studio, called, 'The Wall'. It was a renowned artists tribute to the roll of the forest in the lives of the working men of this area. There were various items carved from wood and huge wooden panels carved with shire-horses and loggers. It was so detailed and fluid, it was wonderful. You could not believe that the working gloves on the table were carved in wood. We stayed a night at New Norfolk, having descended from the mountains into glorious pastures in full Autumn splendour. The scenery and colours were simply stunning. The river ran alongside the park and, whist we were packing up to drive on I was struck by the beauty of the place. I wish that we had spent another night here. I noticed lots of the now familiar black swans
as we set off on the steel blue ribbon of silk that was the road, contrasting with the pale yellow grazing land and the brown wooded hills.There was a gash of orange soil and perfect, neatly painted houses perched on the hillside. It gives a feeling of contentment as we drive along.

Hobart was a huge city by contrast. Our time was taken up by business mostly because we had to do our blogs and then renew our visas. We decided that September 6th would be d-day. We had caught the bus into town so we were able to visit a bar where we got talking to an older couple, a brother and sister. They were delightful and I promised to send a postcard to Diane. We went into the town in the van on the Saturday to view the famous Salamanca market and spent a pleasant couple of hours wandering around before we headed up to Port Arthur in the east.

The Port Arthur camp was set in very natural woodlands. You could see the sea through the woods and wild animals frolicked along the brush line in the dusk. The vans were well spread out and the sun shone brightly. We walked to the bay through the woods. It was a beautiful walk past beaches and bays, a delight. The convict prison area was huge and crowded, Sunday again! We left, and, failing to find a pub open, returned, weary and a bit disappointed.

On the 21st of April, our first wedding anniversary, we left, in the sunshine,and headed up the coast for Coles Bay. However, we got to Bicheno first and found a little caravan Park site there. Lee wanted to go for a meal, and there as a pub/hotel within walking distance. We had a passable meal but rather a disappointing evening because Lee played pool whilst I watches David Attenborough. I felt that I had spent our anniversary on my own. Lee was confused. I had not even had a chance to get my Barrossa Valley wine and glasses out!

All was resolved the next morning as we decided to spend a third night there to really relax. There was a real feeling of decadence sitting there in the Autumn sunshine at 11am on a Tuesday morning. I briefly thought of school going on in England. I smiled. An air of calm had descended on the park as the last of the tourist caravans and four-by-fours moved off the park to comply with departure time. We decided to go to the wildlife park in the afternoon instead of rushing off that morning then moving on to the next place. I got my reading book out and took a satisfying swig of my isotonic drink and Lee went off to pay the $20 for the extra night. As I put it back onto the table my eyes noticed the, 'quickly replaces the fluids, energy and electrolytes lost during your active lifestyle'! Oh dear..... There was a moment of guilt before I carried on reading. This town had been magical in its way as we had been out in the harbour, with five other people, gazing at the sea-bed under 20 feet of water, in a glass bottomed boat. There was a shoal of fish, some gummy sharks, little ones, three huge stingrays 6' by 4' across and a rather stunning starfish amongst other sea-life. I felt like a kid pointing them out and peering eagerly over the edge of the viewing bay. We had taken a moonlit guided walk to see the little fairly penguins which was a delight too. How sweet they were. The wildlfe park was a hit as we arrived just before feeding time and went around with the keeper. The Tasmanian Devils were scary, they were so vicious too. I am fascinated by the wildlife as it is uniquely Australian and I cannot tell a Poteroo from a Bandicoot! I am marginally better informed now! I've yet to see a living possum. One dashed past us in the dark at Port Arthur, and I've seen many as road-kill which seems prolific on this island, but the one at the wildlife centre was snoozing in a log only affording me a glimpse of its golden back!

The last few days have seen excessive night rain and two sharp morning frosts. I texted my daughter, Laura, to say that it was only 1 degree and she told me that she was in Wales heading for the beach...wait a minute, something is wrong here! Ah well! Tasmania has enough highlights to be very special in my memory.

It is back to the warmth of Melbourne overnight before we head for the Blue Mountains and Katoomba to hole-up for a week, unless it is too expensive!!

The 'GREAT' Great Ocean Road-7th-10th April, 2008

2008-04-17T20:31:00.000-07:00

What a fabulous experience! Three amazing and totally different days.

Our first day, a Sunday, was full of sunshine. First, we were meandering through green hills full of large, glossy, black cows and viewing sparkling, deep blue lakes then, suddenly, it was all sheer cliffs and the angry white froth of crashing blue seas on outcrops of rocks; limestone stacks eaten away in the constant battle of the elements. This was where you felt that you could easily drop off the end of Australia! There was nothing but sea and driving winds between us and Antarctica! This was a remarkable thought. It was not cold though.

We had spent the day driving along to each look-out, taking photographs, along with all the other tourists. We saw an Echidna happily grubbing for ants along one walkway, totally unconcerned by the nearness of humans. These porcupine like creatures tend to look like a moving tuft of grass. The look-outs are well set out, wooden walkways and prevent people from disturbing the vegetation and wildlife. Both can exist alongside each other happily and successfully. We watched people taking pictures of themselves posing, with the magnificent scenery taking second place, in the background??? By the time we got to the Twelve Apostles and noticed that there were coaches of visitors, of every nationality, we realised that Sunday was not a good day to do this! We have had the luxury of walking around on working days when there are only a few people around, a real luxury, and what a difference!! We headed out to camp.
We did not like the tourist crowded Port Campbell, despite its river and beach, so we moved on to Princetown. This was the other extreme. There was a bar and a shop. That was it! But it was very picturesque.
The camp was set up next to a winding river, where it flowed into the sea. Unfortunately, this usually meant mosquitoes in extremoes!!! We had learned this lesson the hard way from our Port Piri experience! I thought that I was being clever parking up on the bank, by the road. We had noticed pencil sized holes in the ground, underneath the van but Lee had dismissed them as tent peg holes. I was not convinced, and I was right. It was not so. As I climbed out of the van to head for the loos in the dark my torch had captured a movement in the grass. On closer inspection I noticed Cicadas oozing out of these holes and rushing through the grass, in force, as the sun disappeared. At first I had thought that they were cockroaches and had scrambled inside imaging the full Alfred Hitchcock scenario. My last journey of the night had seen me sporting black socks with my trousers tucked in and sandals! We left early the next morning, well, once the van started. There was no sign of the insects.
Day two saw us driving in the Ottaways, a constantly winding road through great, green forests of firs, a managed plantation. The Aire Valley presented a wonderful pastoral scene, with majestic trees the shape of oaks, under which the relaxed cows and sheep sheltered from the sun, and lush green hills. This was a far cry from the dryness of Southern Australia and their concern about the great Murray River with its dropping levels.
Day three took us along cliff roads. The cliffs lined one side of the road and the ocean lined the other. It was less dramatic than day one but lovely, nevertheless. Apollo Bay sparkled in the sun. We wandered around the harbour where fishermen and women waited patiently. The golf course was right alongside the beach and a warm beach played over the sand. Lorne lazed in the sunshine as we strolled around.
Funnily enough, in the midst of this beauty Lee voiced the question, should we leave? He had had enough of Australia! I have had many mornings when I have felt the endlessness of all this and it has not filled me with joy! We decided that anything was possible. We would sleep on it for 48 hours. There was little real conversation for 24hrs but a lot of thinking. I wondered whether we could sell the van in time, where we should go to sell the van and then I began to think about all the places that I had not yet seen-Ayers Rock, Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Great Barrier Reef. These were the things that people came here to see!!! We decided that we would have time to make it to Sydney and, just when we thought that we had made a decision, we changed our minds! We decided to give ourselves another four months to do as much as possible and then call it a day. It felt good to have a boundary.
The next day we spoke to some people who said that we must do Tasmania, so here we are, and I am so glad that we did. We renewed our visas yesterday, in Hobart, at considerable cost, and even extended our visit here by a week. You never can tell how things will go from day to day but that is part of the joy of travelling.

A Day in the Life of The Willis Two! Paddy's Day..2008

2008-04-17T19:05:00.000-07:00

Sorry, we are a bit out of sequence. This was 17th March, 2008 and attempts to show the emotional swings of a day on-the-road.We had limped into Port Augusta during the heat wave, having made it across the Nullabor wilderness successfully only to peter- out of power outside Ceduna. Today the van was to be repaired. We did not know what the problem was and the diagnosis could affect our travels considerably as we now had far too much stuff to carry.

The phone alarm went off at 6.30. as the van had to be at the garage for 8.30. I was warm and comfortable. I noticed that the van was beginning to get warm as the sun burned through the glass and metal. I went off to the shower block then came back to have some cornflakes, sitting in the gazebo. The atmosphere was tense and we were sharp with one another. There was an air of gloom. We could put it off no longer! We began the task of taking the gazebo down. The heat was increasing and the flies began annoying us by constantly flying into our faces. We rolled up the net covers. My clean clothes were covered in red dust! My sandaled feet were already dusty too, in fact, they never felt clean. I had only showered and dressed half an hour before!

Lee headed for the garage, with the casualty, and I headed with our day-bag to the recreation room. I was to wait for him to come back.I headed for the swimming pool. It was warm and I was not joined by the fat, bright beetle that had insisted on joining me the day before, thankfully. I rescued a small dragonfly and floated around in the sun. After 15 minutes I went off to listen to the news. Lee arrived back after walking back from the garage. He looked hot and cross.We were both tense in case it was declared a wreck! Nothing was said. We head off for the town, leaving the pass key in reception. I took pictures of the sparkling waters of the port as we crossed the bridge. It felt strange without the van,incomplete; just us two and a bag.
The sun was relentless and the walk into town was long. I had used my mobile to book our computers in the library for 11am. We were only five minutes early. I uploaded pictures and Lee did his blog. We forgot about the van.The library was cool and quiet, the ladies were very helpful. For once the Internet was free! Lee was frantically tapping away.

At 1pm we headed out to ring about the van. It was ready! The pipes had been cleaned, a section of exhaust replaces and she was ready to roll! We were very relieved. The garage we had bought the petrol from had low tanks and the subsequent build up of condensation had caused the problem. It had not been as bad as we had expected and we had not lost our full tank of petrol either. I bought a blouse to celebrate as we headed into the town center. I was beginning to feel less tense.
We had an awful lunch in the Peppermint Cafe, then Lee walked back, in the scorching sun, to collect the van. I joined the RAC, via a number that a wonderful Aussie guy had given us at the campsite, while I waited for him to return. We then made our way to Big W to return our fridge that wasn't a fridge, but a cooler, a whistling kettle that didn't and the electrical flex that was 10watts instead of 15watts. They changed everything without a fuss. We bought an electrical kettle and an Esky, (cool-box. This was an exciting innovation. Maybe we could have some cold beers now???? We also bought some proper tent guy-ropes and pegs for the gazebo in an attempt to stop it continually trying to transform into a hot-air balloon!! We even got ice.
We set off happily for the nearby Port Piri, safe in the knowledge that the van was okay and hopeful that life on the road would become a bit easier with our purchases. The sun was at 40 degrees now and it is 3.45.
We arrived at the beach campsite at 5.30. It looked a bit forlorn.The van seemed okay though and the thought of a cold beer upon arrival spurred me on. Port Piri is a small industrial town, known for its iron smelter! Not promising, but on our route and as far as we wanted to go for that day. We arrive with a cheerful Greek family from Melbourne. We all set up camp. As we were only staying one night we decided not to bother with the gazebo. We had a cup of tea and I went off for a shower. The Greek grandfather was wandering off after his shower, heading in the wrong direction. His granddaughter whistled him back!
As the sun was setting we set out for the town to find the fish and chip shop. A screeching car passed us and headed along the beach road as we walked back.We could hear it in the background as we reached our van. We returned with our tea but as we sat down we felt a million tiny pin-pricks on our skin-the place was alive with mosquitoes!!!! We could not sit still!!!We could have passed an Irish dancing competition without trying.
Lee pulled the van off the grass and on to the nearby tarmac. This was better. We sat and watched the Greek grandfather trying to open the ladies shower room with his key. We wondered whether to tell him. His wife appeared from around the corner. We left them to it. The night sky was glorious. I can pick out the Southern-Cross, from the Australian flag, and the milky way is an awesome sight without the usual light pollution, however, we were beaten by the mosquitoes. We sprayed the insides of the van and retired for an early night.It was not as hot as I had imagined and the little fan did a brilliant job. I did get up in the night. Once again, the sky was awesome but my wonder was short lived when I spotted a million mosquitoes dancing under a street lamp. I quickly hopped back into the van and shut the door firmly.
When we talked to the Greek family the next morning they had all been bitten a lot so they had decided to move on. The grandfather had been trying to get his wife's shower room key to work but had been unsuccessful. I had gained 37 fabulous bites and was glad to head to Mount Gambia, at the far eastern side of South Australia.

Kangaroos and Possums on the rampage!

2008-04-01T20:06:00.000-07:00

Having left Adelaide on the Tuesday after Easter we headed down the Fleurieu Peninsular. What a pleasant surprise! The scenery was fabulous. It resembled Wales and the Lake District. The flat redness of the earlier road journeys had been replaced.The sun was warm but the southerly breeze was cool so we often wore our fleeces, a bit of a change from the 40+ degrees in the week before!!! The van had recovered from its expiry on the empty road 40Ks from the nearest town, and so had we!!! The van had just lost power and petered out all of a sudden leaving us stranded in the middle of nowhere, in very hot weather. surrounded by flies. We tried to flag people down but they did not stop. Lee tried the vehicle twice at 15 minute intervals and, although it revved it would not engage. We had water and food but no phone signal. Eventually two women stopped and, having explained to them our predicament, we tried it once more. It kicked into life!!! We hoped in and put our foot down for Port Augusta where there just happened to be a Mazda agent within walking distance of the camp!! How good was that??? (Australian phrase!) We had arrived on Friday afternoon so we booked her in for the Monday. We had filled up the petrol tank in Ceduna where their tanks were low and condensation had got into their petrol, which had caused our problem!! We were the third vehicle they had had in that morning from Ceduna! We joined the RAA there too!!!! The van was ready for 1pm so we went on our way, heading for Kangaroo Island. We had a shiny new bit on our exhaust so it was no longer blowing either! We set off in a more relaxed mood.
On our way we found a ferry sign before we expected to so we did not have to go right down the peninsular, which was good. We stayed a Second Valley, a deserted camp, for a night and caught the 11.30 ferry the next morning
The ferry left from a tiny harbour in glorious sunshine. It was a rough crossing and lasted 2hrs. Neither of us were sick, but it was close. As soon as we landed we headed for the campsite in the bay. We spent a happy few days here exploring the beaches and seal bay, where we had a guided tour down on to the beach amongst the rather huge Australian seal colony that resides there. We went up to Pennishaw, in the head of the kangaroo and down to the west campsite, where we met the fabulous Ross and Helen. We spent a happy evening chatting away in the camp kitchen. They left their driver window open and a very lucky possum helped itself to a banana and some weetabix before leaving its calling card! The signs said, 'Please do not feed the local wildlife.' I was tempted to add a postscript along these lines,'They will quite happily help themselves!'
We ventured out into the spectacular scenery of the Remarkable Rocks and Admirals Arch. The rocks have been weathered into the most fabulous shapes and the Arch lies off the edge of great slabs of rock where a colony of New Zealand Fur Seals live. I was so busy looking at their antics in the sea and in the rock pools that when I turned and viewed this magnificent weathered arch of rock I was quite 'blown-away.'
We viewed koalas in the wild, bush turkeys and yellow beaked geese,from the area. It was all a quite fabulous wilderness. There had been a big bush fire in the forests in the west and I wondered about the local wildlife as it had been quite extensive.
We left on Monday morning and headed to Goolwa, where Ross and Helen lived in a fabulous bungalow. We had the best time in a real house with a lounge etc. It was quite bewildering after our time on the road.
We have been invited to visit Ross and Helen in the centre where they run a store in an aboriginal community, just north of Ayers Rock. That will be another story and I really look forward to it. They were fabulous hosts and fantastic people.

Adelaide

2008-04-01T19:23:00.000-07:00

Well, what an adventure. Have just returned from Kangaroo Island, off the south coast of Southern Australia, our second state.
After the apparent emptiness and heat of Perth, the emptiness and endlessness of heat, red road and flies on the Nullabor, we settled on the foreshore of Ceduna, a little town on the coast, and met our first Aboriginal people. Unfortunately they were drunk and constantly being moved on from place to place. They sat on the foreshore, under the trees, not far from the bottle shop, and staggered between the pier and the trees. They are an unknown entity to me as I have only seen three small groups, in towns, following this pattern. Since this we have picked up some information from local people and been to the Adelaide Museum, where there was quite an informative display about various aspects of Aboriginal life.
We were quite impressed with the city of Adelaide itself. It is clean and spread out. We popped in and out on the local buses for a $7 ticket, exploring the various features. There are
four main variations: the hills, the wine regions, the city and the coast, a wonderful variety of options, and so easy to get to.
The second that we visited, after the city itself, were the Adelaide Hills, where we visited the vantage point of Mount Lofty, viewing the whole of Adelaide out to the seashore, wonderful. Next to this we wandered around the Cleland Wildlife Park. Here, the local flora and fauna was available for our inspection. We saw snoozing wombats in their dens with glass sides. I was really surprised at how big and solid they were, like bulldogs. The only animals enclosed were the ones that sometimes bite! Although thesae looked cuddly they were not!
The wallabies and kangaroos just lounged around in the woodlands that we walked through. One large, very white kangaroo was lying on his back with his paws in the air. All the others lay like dogs, on their sides. I was convinced that he had died until a rather lazy paw came up a few minutes later, to scratch an ear in an abstracted way! The koalas were sleepy and folded up so tightly it was hard to see their faces. They lodge their pudgy little bodies in a fork of a tree and snooze for 18 out of 24 hours, partly because they are mildly intoxicated and partly because the eucalyptus gives poor nutrients so they do not have much energy, poor old souls. They do look a bit out of it!!!! My next favourite were the birds of the forest, the elusive but noisy Kookaburra, the Splendid wren, a tiny bird with the most amazing bright blue plummage, the multi-coloured, vociferous parrots and lorikeets and the huge black and white Pelicans that lift on the wind as light as a feather, magnificent. I have akready seen the largest bird of prey, the Wedge-tailed Eagle, eating road-kill on the Nullabor! We saw dingos and lizards too.
Our next foray was to the beach of Glenelg, where the world volleyball championships were about to take place. This was a bustling little town, packed with a variety of eating places and bars. We liked the bustling atmosphere. On Easter Sunday we drove up into the Barrossa wine region. The scenery was so different and very beautiful. We saw where Hardy's and Jacob's Creek wineries were situated but had a tasting and cheese plate at the Trevor Jones winery before returning to the camp-site on the Torrens river, only 4kms from town. We had been to West Beach and stayed at Adelaide Shores but had to move over the Easter weekend.
All in all, I feel that we saw a fair amount of the region and found it very much to our liking.

Photo's of South Australia-Esperance, the Nullabor and Ceduna

2008-03-16T19:02:00.000-07:00

Wonderful sunsets, friendly roos,

fabulous, empty beaches. Aren,t we lucky???

The South Coast

2008-03-16T17:44:00.000-07:00

We were heading for .........., packed up and on the road for 11am. It was hot and there were lots of annoying flies. The white beaches of Esperance lay 187Ks south. Warm air was blowing in through the vents. It was another 'mobile oven' day! I looked through the windscreen. The open, undulating countryside was only orange scrub. Huge road-trains thundered by, tthe force of their passing shoving us across the white line. The curtain I had been hemming was finished. I made a mental note to buy white sewing cotton, bread and a lamp for night-time. The endless, grey road lined with brick-red dust, lay ahead. It was going to be a long day....
Later in the afternoon we approached a bare looking campsite in the open scrub-land. There were rusted machines lying at the entrance which resembled a junk yard and dumping ground, until I took a second look. There was something humorous about this place that attracted my attention.
Lee screwed up his nose at the scruffiness of the surrounds. I looked around, bemused. We clambered out to book a night. The reception smelled stale and a scuffy, mean looking chiawahwah checked us out and barked, alerting his owner. . Now my nose was screwed up! There were piles of junk everywhere. A noise outside the reception revealed an scrawny, old lady with the brightest tattoos that I have ever seen. She had an old man's physique and hairstyle. She was painfully thin and wore a lumberjack shirt, despite the heat. When I said ,"Wow! when I saw her tatoos she said,
"I'm one colourful lady. Ain't I?" I agreed. It was $14 for a night. We booked in.It the cheapest site ever.
As I got out I noticed that the toilet block wall had been painted with a fabulous mural, showing the countryside and local animals. I went off to have a look around. The pathway to the loo was littered with a series of discarded household items. A cane chair had a plant pushing through the seat, there was an open doored oven with a plant baking inside, an empty television set had the same. It was hard to get inside the toilet door because of the proliferation of plan growth! By the sink a broken cup lay on its side in a plant pot. Nearby a pottery frog was suspended by its feet with a plaster over its mouth. Again, this was over a plant. My favourite feature was the real, well-weathered, leather boot with the plant growing inside. I had seen so many croc versions and here was the real thing. The next morning I noticed that a dead beetle had been removed from the toilet floor and placed carefully, the right way up, on the toe of the boot. It was both eerie and fabulous. Just so very different and hugely entertaining.

First Impressions-Perfect Perth

2008-02-17T20:30:00.000-08:00

It really is amazing to me that I am sitting in Perth, Australia. Just amazing. Why did we not go to Darwin??? We were ahead of ourselves and the wet season has not finished. Simply that.

Perth is a city but quite small by our standards. It is bright, sunny, new and spacious. It seemed so devoid of people that it was like walking in a virtual city, at first, even the cars were quiet. Wierd. It has malls. a river and a nearby beach. I cannot fault it in looks but we searched for a spirit. That was hard. We went into a pub ob Friday at about 5pm and it was busy with people celebrating the end of their working week. God, it was noisy. Not spirited, just noisy.

We caught the airport shuttle into town which was qwerky. It cost about six pounds. Shockingly expensive after asia!!The driver whittered on, waited until he was full and had to get off to run around and open the doors every time someone wanted to get off. Out hostel, the Barracks, was full! It looked grubby too. We walked around the town and Northbridge but the backpackers were all full. The sun was searing my skin and I was weary. One had a space in room 9. We booked 2 nights with relief. We went up to the room. It contained a double bed with dirty bedlinen, a pile of rubbish in a plastic bag and a full bin. We went down and asked for our money back. The young girl on the desk looked surprised but she did give us our money back. We trapsed to a few more. Lee left me in one hostel that offered a double bed in a room with two single men!!! He came back a short time later having got us a double room for $65 (2.2 to the pound) a night!!! More shocks, but relief too. There was a pool too. There was a lounge, huge kitchen, an outside seating area, a laundry and clothes line, everything we needed. Our room was like a uni students room with a shower and sink. The loo was next door. It looked clean too!We dumped our bags and went out to explore at about 7pm only to find the town closed down. We were bewildered and headed back to the hostel. There was a bottle shop, liquor store, and an arcade with a supermarket and kebab shop in it. We had a look around the supermarket pricing things, shared a kebab between us and bought a few beers from the bottle shop, for some extortionate price. It was quiet that night and we slept like logs. We had arrived in Australia.

During the next few days we explored the town on the fabulous free buses. The red one ran from across the road. We walked down by the river, had a look at the shops, bought our sim card and a phone-home card and generally bedded in. We trekked around the hostels and travel shops to look at the van boards. We viewed three, and bought one. The downside was that the girls were not going back to Germany until the 25th, they wanted to go off to Esperance for their last two weeks. We agreed and off they went. We went off to Freemantle in our hired car after booking out on the Monday.

Lee went off to hire a car to transport us to the south of Perth. It cost about 7.50 a day for 7 days. We chucked our three bags ito the boot and off we went.

We headed to Fremantle village along the Sterling Highway. It was a coastal run and we could see all the building developments. We viewed the three sites south of Freemantle and chose the last, one of the 'Big 4' camp sites that are superbly run, but quite expensive. We were not ready to camp as we did not have the right equipment and did not want to buy stuff until we had had a good look at the contents of the van, to see what we needed.

We have now spent one week in a deluxe chalet at Woodman Point. It has a lounge and dining area, two bedrooms, a bathroom and a verandah. It seems so normal to have a car parked on the driveway. We went shopping at Woolworths, which is a supermarket out here. Back to normal eating, no rice or noodle! Bacon, milk, cheese, bread with no sugar in it! YYYEEESSSSSSS!!!!!!!

Lee is cooking, without a grill though, and, on gas. Trauma! I have helped too. I am now doing all our washing and ironing!!! Hmmmm!!!!

We went to Rockingham via the coast road. It was clean and quiet like Perth. There were not many people but those that we saw were so relaxed. What a fabulous beach. Endless. Nothing on it. Just white sand!!! The esplanade was edged by a grassy area that had shaded, benched areas and changing rooms. The bike path ran for miles. I took my first dip in Aussie waters, with a big grin and cheer. I did not see the jellyfish until I got out. Two see-through blobs of raw egg size lay on the water line. Yuck! With the heat I was dry in 10 minutes. We went off to the city shopping mall. We just wanted to look. We tried fish and chips between us. Not bad. Rockingham was a lovely little seaside town. I would recommend it.

The next trip out, on Thursday, took us a bit further down the coast, to Mandurah. Again this was a small town on an estuary. It had parkland and a few small shops. Most of the buildings were single storey. We sampled the local fish and chips. The best so far! We meandered around the local shops and Lee decided to go into a local hair dressers and get his hair cut short. We both had ourselves restored after the disaster of our Thailand haircuts!! On the way back I noticed that there were whole estates of bungalows. It was clean, quiet and well spread out, giving a feeling of space and light. The sky seems always to be a rich blue with some pure white clouds and, of course, sun. Again, there did not seem to be many people.

On Sunday we drove back towards Perth where we could observe Aussies at play, in the surf of Cottesloe Beach. We parked, with no charges, and took our folding chairs down to a near empty beach where we could look at the surfers, of all ages, having fun waiting for the incoming tide.

We joked with some guys, who came past carrying a canoe, that we looked very English sitting thjere in our chairs, they asked whether we had a flask of tea too! The answer was no!

Later, we moved about a mile down the road to the main town area. There were loads of people in the water, at the water line, sitting on the grass and benches. No-one was intruding on anyone else. It was fabulous. There was no litter or shouting. People were walking to the bins to dump their rubbish. The sun shone, the breeze cooled us. It was a glorious beach, town and day. We saw something of how it all worked out here. Interesting. Perth is gaining more points every day.

This week we plan to get the bus to Fremantle and have a look around, then, later in the week get the boat out to Rottnest Island. No cars are allowed. We may have a bike or take a tour.

In seven days the van should be ours and we will head south to view more of western Australia; Bunbury, the southern tip where the two great oceans meet, Albany and Esperance, before we attempt the four day drive across the great Nullabor Pain to Adelaide. It is both exciting and daunting;the distances, the animals, how much we don't know, but we have made it this far so we will make it in our own way no-doubt.

Indonesia-Life on the road is exhausting!

2008-02-02T21:54:00.000-08:00

This leg of our journey also got off to a bad start as we did not have on on-going ticket to leave and nearly got sent back, I don't know where to!!!!

We arrived at Jakarta airport at 12pm. We had to state straight away how long we were staying. We had thought between 7 and 10 days, based on our recent experiences. We thought that if we liked Bali we would stay and relax but if we did not we would get the hell out of there. Our stay was immediately limited to 7 days as you had to pay either 10 or 25 dollars each depending on whether you were going to do 7 or 21 days. I did not feel very welcome as all other visas had been for 30 days. I wondered if we had already lost one day travelling, but they dated it for the 31st. That was something at least. It got worse!

When we went through immigration they wanted to know where we were going next. We said Bali but had not yet bought the ticket as the internet page for this would not open up. We just thought that we would buy it at the airport. They seemed appalled at this. We were sent back to their ticket desk to buy a ticket but the young men behind the counter said that they could not do it. They sent us to the Cebu-Pacific desk. It was not open. We waited. I expressed concern to a passing security guard about our bags which would be getting dizzy going round and around the baggage claim belt. He said that they would be okay. He returned to the immigration counter. We waited. Ten minutes later the immigration guy motioned for us to go back up there. They processed our passports and reactivated the visa, which we had just paid for and they had cancelled. We were on our way. It was 2am. We got a taxi to the terminal for domestic flights.

The airport was closed! We sat on benches outside. The ticket desk would open at 3.30am. Flights began again at 6.30.We waited. A girl came by selling stuff from a trolley. We bought water and disconsolately flicked small insects off our clothing. We had been travelling for 14 hours now. I was a bit tired but, worse than that, I was hot, melting. Your skin is continually wet with perspiration. Your clothes and hair sticks to you, even if you have just had a shower. Trying to apply insect repellant is hard unless you are in a breeze because it just skates off the surface of your skin. I watched small cockroaches skuttling around. It is all so disgusting. The airport became busy with people arriving in taxis. We were joined by a delightful pair of youngsters called Richard and Maria, from Sweden. They were going diving up on a northern island. At about 4am we went to price a ticket to Bali. They were 60 pounds each, which was a bit expensive, but at least we could progress! We all chatted happily until 6.30 then we went in to the air-conditioning. There were no toilets and nowhere to sit. We could not check-in as it was too early. I was just making a space to sit on the trolley when Richard and Lee spotted a business lounge with wonderful brown leather armchairs. It was only 50,000 rupiah to enter (about 3 pounds), and there was a free breakfast and unlimited tea and coffee. We paid up, looking very un-business like with our backpacks, and slumped with a cup of coffee. Maria fell fast asleep. They were flying at 8.30. We were flying at 9.40 ish. While we tried some of the food a snake was eating a lizard on the television! I hoped that his breakfast tasted better than ours! Lee went on the free internet to check on the football results. It was the slowest connection ever. After 40 minutes he went off to the loo waiting for the details of the league table to fill in. He had the headings. While he was gone a man came and used the computer so he had to set it all up again!! I watched a dubbed soap. It only had 4 actors, two couples, and was all based on misunderstandings with the usual dramas. We relaxed until 8.30. Richard and Maria had gone at 7.30.

Processing was fairly straightforward apart from check-in. Lee was doing ours and was pinned in by some people who had come late. They hemmed him in so he told them to move back and have patience. They did not appreciate this .They called each other names but there was no international incident.

The flight was a good one, and we slept through most of it. It was 2hour not 3 as we had gained the hour we lost in Jakarta! I was woken by the stewardess offering a bottle of water. I took it and realised that my mouth was open. I quickly shut it and 'came-round'. We had now been travelling for over 27 hours. We hoped into a taxi and headed for Sanur, in the south, as it had been described at Kuta, main resort and area of the bombings, in a cardigan. The driver did not know where the hostel was. Great! He asked someone and deposited us outside for an exhorbitant fee, despite being a ticketed airport taxi!

The hostel did not have any vacancies so we had to stay up the road and booked in for five nights from the following day. We left our bags and went out for a cold beer and a meal. We returned to our homestay after that and fell asleep. We think it was about 5 or 6 when we fell asleep. We surfaced the next morning. I woke at 6 am and went to get hot water so that we could have a coffee.

After showering and packing-up breakfast started well with a fried egg, not the two advertised on the menu! When my tea and Lee's coffee arrived however, and I poured the milk in it coagulated in lumps on the top. I showed the lady and said that the milk was off. She said it could not be because she had put it into the fridge!!! I looked at the disgusting mess in my cup, so did she but she could not see what the problem was! I just asked for two cups of hot water and got the sachets of creamer and Nescafe from our backpacks. We spoke to Merlin and Ninia from Holland. They were incredibly lean and tall, maybe 6ft 6", and very nice. We headed off down the road. The owners asked where we were going. We said, "To join some English friends."

We dropped off our bags and went off to the internet cafe while we waited to book in. We had to book our flights out to Perth for the 6th!!!! We found a flight but the computer went off line. We had printed off the details but when we went back on it had added another 80 pounds to the cost! We searched again. The Quantas site would not book anything before the eighth and, after the trouble we had had at the airport in Jakarta, we did not want any complications on exit. We decided to hop into a taxi and go the the Quantas Office which happened to be in the Royal Bali Hotel. It cost 15 thousand rupiah and seemed a rather grand place. The guards opened the boot as we went through the checkpoint. I asked the driver why and he said that they were checking for bombs! Us????

We got our flights for 12.15 am (ungodly hour!) on the 6th February. They were 240 pounds which was quite a shock. When we left the hotel the porter was going to call us a cab until we asked, "How much?"
"35,000 rupiah," he replied.
We said, "You must be joking! It only cost 15,000 to get here."
"It is the hotel taxi," he said, embarrassed. We walked on. Near the top of the drive other taxi drivers asked us if we wanted a cab. We showed them the address. "35,000," they replied. We told them not to be silly and told them the price it had cost us to get there. They asked 20,000. We stuck to our 15,000 and they said okay. Whilst we had gone about this negotiation we had seen hundreds of men in yellow, black and white tee-shirts or jackets walking past us returning to the hotel. We asked what it was. The taxi driver had said it was a huge conference. "Political or religious?" I asked.
"A fundamental Moslem Party Conference," he replied.
I was left reflecting on how such a thing could take place on an island that had suffered bombings by radical Moslems. The world is a very strange place sometimes!!

We have been in Bali for four days now. We are weary of asia, rice, excessive heat and insect bites. We are fed up with maps, boats, planes, boats and buses. We miss our little world, family and friends but we are ploughing on. Perth is in our sights and we will use huge reserves of energy getting into that way of life. I suppose we will be okay once we get going in the van, but it all seems so expensive after asia. It fills me with all kinds of dread and anxiety, and a little excitement. Maybe I am getting a bit old for all this......

Why the Philippines???????

2008-01-27T23:17:00.000-08:00

This leg of the journey did not get off to a good start when we flew into Clark (Manilla) Airport only to find that it was not Manilla as the internet had implied. Manilla was a two hour drive south!!. This was a minor airport above Manilla. It used to be the American airbase until a volcano had erupted and covered it in two feet of ash. The Philippino army was based there and the security was something else!!! When I asked if we could go into the airport to buy an ongoing ticket I was told that I had to go into the town. I could not believe it. We would miss any outgoing flights by doing this. We were overcharged for the taxi and found ourselves in sleaseville. It had obviously been the place where the American military went to relieve their tensions!!!! It was wall-to-wall girlie bars, unaccompanied women were banned.

We went to the hotel to get a ticket out of there, but we were not sure exactly where we wanted to go. A travel agent said that she would help so we followed her in our taxi, to her office on slease street. She tried to convince us that it would cost two hundred and fifty pounds to get out of there by going to Manilla then out to Cebu. We were used to paying 30 for an internal flight so we walked out of there. This did not look like any place that we would want to stay, and the blatant rip-off attitude of the travel agent and arrogance of the airport security posed quite a problem. As we walked past an internet place Lee asked a european guy if he knew anywhere that we could stay and it turned out that he owned a hotel! It was called, The Anchorage, and he was the Aussie owner. What luck. It was basic and clean, and, apart from the mirrors along the headboard wall (!!!), seemed acceptable, under the circumstances. It had a bar and a type of transport cafe. There were one or two ex-pats around too. Lee had his best pork meal ever later, and got talking to Paddy Lynch, who travelled extensively in the Philippines. He assured us that we could get out of there for about 25 pounds. We were beginning to relax. He suggested a place to stay in Cebu, he even recommended some islands that we might like to visit and wrote it all down. A plan was beginning to shape itself. I went and had another beer where I watched on elderly doddery old man being persued by two young girls, with their tea of meat in skewers clutched in a plastic bag in their hands. His hand was shaking so much that he was spilling his beer. I think it was an illness, not the girls. Sometime later he meandered away from them and to the safety of his bed. They left. I smiled to myself.

We set out at 10am to the travel agent around the corner next morning to book a flight to Cebu. It was 25 pound and left at 12. We shot back to the hotel via a 24hr cafe with petite girls in halter neck dresses as waitresses. We picked our tickets up and grabbed a jeepney and returned to this bloody awful airport. The driver was a bit harrassed at the checkpoints by over zealous guards and I was getting irritated by the time delays. We pais our money and a guard asked me what we paid the driver. I said that it was my business. He waved his security badge and said it was his adding that they were just concerned that we were not overcharged. I quickly retorted, "Like your official airport taxi's yesterday that overcharged us. We left it at that. I was so glad to leave.

At Cebu we got a taxi to Kiwi Lodge recommended by Paddy. It was full but they got us a room around the corner. This had a huge cockroach hiding under the shower curtain. I squealed and Lee sprang into action, venting his anger on the said creature. My hero!

The next morning we flagged down a taxi at 7.30. The driver did not speak a word of English and 'pier 4' and 'ferry port' were hard to act out. We drew a boat, with no response so we left it and headed back to The Kiwi Lodge, (God Bless Paddy Lynch,) where the boy called a cab and told him where we wanted to go. The ferry took two hours to deliver us to Bohol and a taxi delivered us to a smaller island, joined by road, off the south coast, called Panglao. We headed to Alanaland. We paid off the taxi and then found out that it was full! We booked in next door, Bananaland. By now it was beginning to feel like Lalaland. We stayed two days. It was beautiful but empty. The beach, accessed through a rather grander resort was white but there were no sunbeds that did not belong to the hotel, and they were right up near people's bungalows. I did not feel comfortable. There was nowhere to leave your clothes and nowhere for Lee to sit comfortably in the shade. The sea was tourquoise but had quite strong waves, so swimming was difficult. We were unsettled and left. We did not go back. Despite the beauty this was not our kind of place. We moved to a little place on the mainnroasd where there were other people and got talking to a couple who went there to dive. We left two days later.

The taxi took us to the port. The boat took two hours. Another taxi took us to Cebu airport. The first plane took us to Manilla then we had to get a taxi from the domestic terminal to the international terminal, for our flight to Jakarta, Indonesia. We were glad to leave the Philippines. It had been an expensive, waring waste of time! It is easily, the worst place that we have been to, seedy, dirty, very, very poor and quite forlorn, I felt, though the people seemed pleasant and resigned to the fact thast they would work for very small money and just 'get-by'. It just made me feel sad.

What wildlife???? What life?????

2008-01-20T01:44:00.000-08:00

Malaysian Borneo-exotic thoughts of dense jungle, orangutans, exotic flowers and birds.......well!!!!!!

Borneo is a large island divided across the middle. The northern half is Malaysian, and, the southern half is Indonesian.The north-western section is called Sarawak. The north east is called Sabah. This is the place we visited.

As our taxi sped away from the airport I was feeling very excited. We were to begin our trip in the capital of Sabah, called Kota Kinaballoo. We had picked a little hotel with a pool for three nights, from hostelbookers, on the internet. It was only 21 pounds in total. I was looking forward to jungle, rain forest and a myriad of wild animal, birds and sea-life; the reason we decided to go to Borneo. I sat back and looked out of the window. The factories and brick built houses, garages and shops were a bit of a surprise. At the next junction our taxi headed away from town, which was a bit disconcerting too. I asked where we were going and he said that our hotel was on the coast in Papar. Where the hell is that? I thought. I hoped that we were not too far out. Forty minutes later our taxi pulled up outside a large resort with a sweeping entrance, not our kind of place! I had a feeling that we had done it again!!!

We walked into the entrance area and the receptionist seemed surprised to see us. I thought we were in the wrong place. I hoped we were in the wrong place, as beautiful as it seemed. We showed him our bit of paper. He said that the rate was higher than our receipt said, but, since we seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, we argued the point. He made a phone call, and then accepted our booking. I looked around as Lee booked in. We asked if there were any restaurants or supermarkets nearby. Ten minutes, he said. Oh, I thought as I heard Lee asking, "How many people are actually staying here?" I was not surprised by the answer.
"Just you two, Sir," he said, smiling. I looked over the large lounge area, the empty restaurant and out to the manicured lawns. We asked why there were no others. He said that last week many people had stayed there but booked out just yesterday, (Did they know that we were coming? ). We established that meals were available. We could have then delivered to our rooms, at no extra cost, if we wished, we were told. Lee asked if we could have a couple of cold beers. No alcohol. We were told. Ah.....A Muslim hotel, we thought. We had stayed in one in Satun, in southern Thailand. Bemused, we were shown to our room. We walked in thoughtful silence.

The room looked reasonable and the view over the pool and the sea were rather nice, though I did seem to startle the security guard who was walking across the lawns when I opened the curtains. They did not seem used to seeing people here! I went out on to the balcony and lit a mosquito coil. I closed the door and flicked the light on on the balcony. It did not work. I went to the other side of the patio door looking for another switch, only to find a two-inch gap between the wall and the the window frame! The mosquito's would have a field day. I turned to tell Lee, who was already looking crestfallen after examining the bathroom. The soap dispenser was broken and the soap had been put into an empty water bottle. It did not look too attractive. When he opened the bedside drawer there was a used tissue and some receipts. We decided to ask for our money back and get the hell out of there. The receptionist provided his car and a mate for 400 ringotts, to drop us into town. We shot off with boom box and rap on full.I knew the words, which amused the driver. I was just glad that the windows were tinted as I mimicked the Peugeot advert set in Mumbai
Kota Kinabaloo, the capital of Malaysian Borneo, looked quite shabby as we drove around in the dark, early evening. It is a medium sized town with a colonial past. The population was Muslim, with Filipino workers in abundance. We wanted to go to the National Park and the Abdul Rahman, (Yes, folks at Alumwell-I did not enquire who he was.) Marine Park. We decided that the backpackers looked grim so we opted for the Kinabaloo Hotel. Another mistake, though I did laugh about the sign warning that no Durian fruit was allowed. It is popular in this part of Asia, about the size of a marrow and smells like a rotting corpse! It actually does not taste much better, either! A room was ten pounds. It had no window but seemed clean enough for one night. We dumped our bags and set out to find something to eat.
We walked around the area and saw no other backpackers or westerners. We did discover, 'The Lilac Lodge', however, and booked three nights there, moving in the next day. It was opposite a huge, open, fish restaurant that seemed to inhabit a shopping mall space. The designated seafood swam in tanks all around us, which was disconcerting. Some slug shaped things in large plastic bottles seemed to squirm and rotate in a disgusting manner, they were lobster sized without the legs. Yuck!!! An irritating man on the stage seemed to want to attract my attention. He was drawing portraits. Having seen my recent photo's there was no way I was going to have an enlarged version done!!!! I gave him one of my irritated stares and he left us alone. We had a beer and left, squirming slightly at the sea life's fate. We would not eat here.

The buildings looked grimy. There was no colour, nothing attractive. Men stared at us from the small, dark rooms that passed as shops and cafes. I smiled at the older women. They smiled back. The streets seemed warm and grubby: added to the now familiar smell of sewerage and drains was the disgusting smell of huge, open bins. Great! We were sweating from the intense heat of the night, trickles of sweat ran down our faces and back as we looked for somewhere acceptably clean, to eat. I noticed some lady-boys, which was a bit odd in this staunchly Muslim town; they seemed happy enough.

After crossing the road we found a place to eat. Lee had chicken sweet and sour, I had fried rice. Both were cheap and tasted okay. We even had a beer! As we were tired from travelling we returned to our room. I went into the bathroom and was suddenly aware that I could hear every word of a telephone conversation that was going on next door. I also became vaguely aware of some banal music drifting up from somewhere below too. I closed the bathroom door and got into bed. After 10 minutes our neighbours through the adjoining door returned, and, again, it became clear that we could hear every sound. There was the bathroom, a short disagreement between a man and a woman in a language I, thankfully, could not understand, and much rustling in plastic bags as I drifted off to sleep.

The next day we booked out of the Kinabaloo Hotel. They seemed surprised. We transferred our bags across a few streets, booked a trip and had a walk up to the harbour. It was an easy town to explore but we did not find much that we liked. The few western style bars were grouped together on a jetty overlooking the sea. It was all a bit isolationist for us. We walked back past the market as the sun set. It was unbelievably warm and added to the smells previously mentioned, the barbecued fish and rotting fruit were overwhelming! We turned towards the town and our lodge as we had an early start the next day.

We had booked a day trip to Kota Kinabaloo National Park the next day. The lodge had made 100 ringotts (ten pounds) on us we found out as we had booked the trip through them. They gave us the wrong receipt initially, so that left a sour taste before we had even set out
We were picked up at 8am and began our adventure. There were only three of us and the mini bus driver from hell played Shumaker around the hairpin bends of the mountains for two hours, overtaking three vehicles at a time:another white knuckle ride!! There were often sheer drops on either side of us too! We trekked through the rain forest and saw rain... and yes you guessed it...forest. No wildlife, a few orchids, some hot springs, that were so full of locals I declined to go in. It was a bit like sharing your bath with 7y1!!! We had a good lunch at the lodge where the guide proceeded to show us all the local wildlife that we would not see! We walked into the rainforest after lunch and climbed high enough, up very uneven steps, to do the tree canopy walk, 42 meters up in the air, in pouring rain. The walkway was constructed of a series of narrow aluminium ladders threaded with rope, from which they were suspended. Netting had been placed either side. As it was a bit like a training programme for tight rope walkers, at the circus, we did not dare take our eyes off the finishing line. Total madness! There were five of these bloody things and NO WILDLIFE. I was so disappointed. The climb down was an endlessly punishing series of steps. We did get some satisfaction from the efforts we had made and Lee did well with the heights. We just had the returning two and a half hour mini-bus trip to face. We were very relieved to get back, and a bit disgruntled for the next two days as we felt that we had been ripped off.

We did find other backpacking places and the colonial history in Atkinson's clock and Jessleton Point pier were an interesting change. We sat quite happily in a pleasant breeze and a more muted sun, because of clouds, for two hours on our last day and wished that we had taken a boat out to a couple of the off islands from here. Ah well.....

We took an hours flight into Sabah, on the northern eastery tip of Borneo, and got the taxi to our backpackers. It was lovely apart from the garish colour schemes. Our window overlooked the sea, from where I did spot sea-eagles dipping in the bay. The town was smaller and shabbier that Kota Kinaballoo. The hostel was empty again, apart from us two, but we did book a rather expensive trip to a type of desert island where green-back and hawksbill turtles came to lay their eggs after 50 years of roaming the sea.

We set off, at great speed, a couple of days later, in a small speedboat, at 9.30am. It took one hour and we stopped the engines to look at a large pod of dolphins that honoured us with their presence for a while, then sped off again amid spray and engine roar. The island had white sand where we were allowed to wander along the clear waters. We could snorkel and swim too. I floated in the warm waters while a Brahmin Kite circled overhead and thought about school, as it was Tuesday afternoon. I had hated Tuesdays last year! It is strange how life changes.
By evening I had done a pretty good impression of a tomato, much to my embarrassment, but others were red too. It was all forgotten as we watched a distant tropical storm like a firework display in the warm night then the call came that a turtle had come up onto the beach. By the light of a full moon, in the warmth of a tropical night we watched in awe as this huge sea creature laid her eggs. Her shell was over a meter in length and 92cm in width. I felt amazingly priviledged to witness this and the release of some new hatchlings, just ten yards from where I had been sunbathing in the afternoon. An amazing and magical experience, though their survival rate is less that 5%. I thought about our Basic Skills book about the turtle.

The next day we returned to Sabah, leaving turtle island at 7am, and docking at 8.15am. It was quite a choppy journey and we were sprayed with sea. We were being picked up at 10.30 to go into the jungle and up the Kinabatangan river to spot Probiscus monkeys, in the wild.

It took 45 minutes to get to the jungle lodge, which was actually based at Sepilok, the Orangutan rehabilitation centre, that we had visited earlier that week. A two hour drive brought us up to the side of the rather wide river. Our boat looked very flimsy and I had a moment of hesitation as the heavens had opened and I could not see how the boat would not fill with water. Luckily, another boat picked us up and off we set, in the warm rain. It did subside so I got my wildlife fix. We saw lots of probiscus monkeys as they come down to the river at sunset. They are huge and comical looking. I was thrilled. We saw silver lemurs, long tailed macquacs, crested snake eagles, two types of hornbills, a kingfisher and many other local birds. I was tired, wet and happy as we returned and even complimented the driver on his superb, relaxed driving.
Earlier in the week we had seen a large monitor lizard near the harbour in Sandakan so Borneo had, at last, delivered its promise of wildlife, though it had been a very expensive place to visit!!!!

Languid in Malaysian Langkawi

2008-01-09T21:02:00.000-08:00

Another two days of travel brought us to this charming island off the coast of mainland Malaysia.
We were up at 5 and out by sixas we were the first to be picked up and the ferry was at 8am. The mini bus transferred us to the ferry after one and a half hours of riding around trying to find the accommodation of the other 9 travellers! We were up and down tracks and tumbled about before the driver parked at the jetty car-park at 7.30 and disappeared. He reappeared 20 minutes later then told we were too late for the eight-o'clock ferry. Shame that he had taken 20 minutes to get the tickets!!! We all got off, loaded the bags on to our backs and marched, not towards the jetty but towards a waiting coach!!. We clambered on and waited, feeling confused. About 30 minutes later we started the next stage of the journey to a different jetty. This took us a short while, about 10 minutes!!!! We all had to pile off the bus again and walk onto the ferry. This time our bags stayed put. The ferry set sail ten minutes later, much to our relief. We had an hour and a half before landing. The television was on so we looked for seats as far away as possible and ate our breakfast of cheese and a cup-a-soup each, as the shop only sold pot noodles!!
As we disembarked at the port and waited for the coach to reappear, I had the presence of mind to get near the coach doors, which was just as well because we had acquired two extra passengers. This meant that two of the original passengers were now without seats for the drive up to Surat Thani. I was appalled. They sat on the stairs and on the steps. About half hour into the journey the young male host put both televisions and we were subjected to rather awkward young Thai girls gyrating in little, quite decent bikini's. There were lingering shots on non-existant bosoms, and crutch shots. I wanted to shout, "Oh pleeeeaaaase! Get a room, or a girlfriend!" I toyed with the idea of turning our television off, as no-one seemed to be watching it,and we had an elderly Buddhist monk with his bongo drums justn behind us, (I liked to think that he found this quite disgusting but I am not sure, however, I was not quite brave enough. Maybe the monk had prayed because there was a kind of divine intervention when, a rather solid father-of two-teenaged-girls said something to the young man about 15 minutes later and the television was clicked off immediately! Lee cheered loudly. It was like being in some adolescents dream!!! Yuk!!! For once it was good to be aged.
After the remaining hour on this coach we watched, amazed as the coach was driven down a very narrow side street. Washing and two tuk-tuks had to be moved and a tuk-tuk driver who came down hoping to turn left at the bottom had to turn around and go back the way that he had come. We had wondered why the coach was going down such a narrow street but it transpired that the travel company office, toilets and restaurant were down there. It began to rain a little. We were all asked to get off. When we all asked why we were told that another coach would come for us. We still did not budge but they began off-loading the bags!!! Eventually we were all unceremoniously dumped in the street., where about 50 other people were waiting with stickers stating their destination written on theen, like evacuees.
During the next hour everyone was collected by tuk-tuks or mini-buses. I went to the loo where they had the cheek to charge 5 dong. I was disgusted so said there was no way I was going to pay and told the youngsters to do the same. No-one paid but no-one seemed to mind either. We grabbed a fried rice before we we hustled onto a mini-bus by a rather rude driver muttering, "Felang blah, blah, blah," under his breath. We treated him with equal disregard when he tried to put the bags by our feet. He shoved it in, I shoved it away with a firm, "No!" Twice. I argued that Lee had to have somewhere to put his feet. I was not going to back down either. I thought I had won until Lee clambered in and my bag was chucked onto his knees before the door was slammed shut. Ah well, I felt better, and Lee squashed the bag between him and the guy next to him where it acted as an arm rest.
We travelled on quite fast up wide roads heading for Satoon, on the coast, where we were to spend the night. We would then cross the border, out of Thailand and into the muslim country of Malaysia. After 3 and a half hours our driver had stopped, shouted Satoon and begun off-loading bags again. So, in the middle of a torrential downpour we had to run to the waiting mini-bus in front where the driver was waiting to take the five of us to Satoon. The journey was much more pleasant then. There was more space, a gentler driver and pace. This is when we met the wonderful Matt and Vicky, who were also heading to Satoon and then on to Langkawi. As they had not chosen a hotel, and ours was a reasonable price, they followed us and we shared a taxi/truck to the hotel. We went out for an evening meal and found a delightful little bar that had locals and a type of folk club at 9.30. It was a brilliant evening and quite unexpected. We even had a few English songs too-The Young Ones and Imagine. These were such lovely Thai's with very little English but their little bar Binhla, named after a local bird, was an absolute delight.
We met Matt and Vickki after the non-existant breakfast, listed but, as the hotel had no bread it did not happen!! They flagged a tuk-tuk to the ferry port. This time we shared with them. It was 200 baht (67 to the pound!) for all of us to the port. It took 20 minutes too!! Value for money or what?
At the port the paperwork was simple and we crossed another border, and gained another visa. We were soon speeding along in an enclosed boat, along with at least 3 small cockroaches that were wandering among the life jackets above our heads! Two televisions, showing the local sit-com, were in full blare. One in each compartment. No-one was watching. An older English gentleman had switched it off but it had been put back on. He sat there with his head down!Never-the-less the journey passed pleasantly. Lee offered a cold alcoholic drink to Matt and Vickki and we chatted happily.
We disembarked at a jetty on Langkawi where we could see a beautiful square containing a huge brown eagle statue with wings outspread. It is called Eagle square and the island is named after this beautiful bird that6 resides here amongst the karst pillars between the islands. We walked through a shopping mall and bought a fabulous cake each then headed for the taxi rank. We shared a taxi for 20 ringotts, (6 and a half to the pound) as we were heading to the same part of the island.
We travelled for 20 minutes and each went off to view our respective accommodations. Ours was full for two days and their was rank so we booked into a hotel across the road. Now to investigate Langkawi ....Christmas homesickness fading fast.

Pai eyed in Thai

2007-12-29T20:34:00.000-08:00

One word....AWFUL, AWFUL, AWFUL. We do not like Thailand at all. Reasons will become apparent as you read.
CHANGMAI
We thought we were being clever avoiding Bangkok and going to Changmai, the second city. We were wrong!
The worst things.....
Heat and dirt (Should be used to that by now!)
Awful hairdressers! (Apparently, everyone thinks that they can cut hair in Thailand and they do not need a qualification to set up!) We both look like lunatics!!! Caused a row!!! Don't want to talk about it!!!!
Men who look like women
Women who look like men
Adults with a child in tow!!!!
Old English men with beer gut and ponytails with young bored Thai girls in tow!!! (Sad or what?)
Postcards of naked young boys (Why?????)
Awful food unless you have a long time to find the good places.
Rats on draining boards, among the 'clean' dishes!
soul-less rooms with no chairs or table
The bill often has extra on it. You need to check it out-always!
Good things....
Popeye and Rugrats on tv-to stop me going mad!
Internet down Moon-Amung and the sweet little socks on the legs of the chairs to stop them squeaking!
The cafe opposite here that made a great cuppa.
The dogs with tee-shirts on (But why???It is 33 degrees????)
PAI
After 3 days we left by mini-bus for Pai, on the northern border with Burma. This involved a 3 hr journey hurtling around hair-pin bends up into the mountains. The scenery was wonderful and the town itself was attractive in the sense that it consisted of stalls selling local goods, foods and ethnic crafts, travel shops, restaurants, supermarkets and Internet services.
We soon found a room at a very respectable rate of 350 baht a night, (5.50p) It was a hut in a tropical garden and we were the only ones staying there.
After putting some of our basic stuff out we heard rain, in the bathroom, At first we thought it was a leak as water was pouring from the ceiling. However, Lee opened the outside door and it was raining in the garden too. A close look at the ceiling revealed slats of wood so that is why the rain came in. We quickly retrieved the towels and the toilet roll! Fortunately, the bedroom had a proper ceiling. In 20 minutes the rain stopped. We explored a local bar, the Buffalo Bar, where musicians were having a jam session. It was very good.
We were to stay here for 10 days because of Christmas, and, although we went to a local pop concert, billed as Pai's 'Woodstock' and had a reasonable time we grew increasingly bored. We could not find decent food or fresh milk, we tried a bar with a pool that was owned by a rather rough looking Scotsman who was an 'almost' pool star. When Lee gave him a game and won, he would not play again!! We did not find people of our own age to talk to, the only youngsters seemed to be Thai, who were all very quiet and well-behaved, or young girls with Rasta hairstyles hanging out with the locals. I could not work out what the Caribbean influence was about. Christmas came and we had no company, missed our families and fell out, which is very rare, so it was all a bit of a mess. There was nothing to do with Christmas only the Thai elections, which were on that weekend so alcohol was banned. We were later told that this was to do with buying votes from people. It made for a pretty dismal time. Probably my worst ever 'Christmas'. Only tv was BBC World News which seemed to be random items, and sometimes the sound went off!!!!Ah well.....Bit of travel fatigue setting in too I think. We are a bit Asia-ed out! We set off on the 26th for Ko Samui, an exotic holiday island in the south of Thailand. This involved hurtling back down the mountains for 3 and a half hours with the driver from hell. It was hard not to be travel sick. I did manage to stay in my seat by holding on. He managed to knock a girl off her motorbike by squeezing in too narrow a gap. He did not even stop!!
We got a room for the night in a room that would not pass muster in a prison or a doss-house. There was a rat gnawing at the skirting board during the night!!! How low can you go???
The next day we got up at six, left at seven and got a taxi to the airport. The first flight was only one and a half hours, but we had a three hour wait at the airport. I began to feel ill too. The next flight was one and three quarter hours. I was clutching my sick bag all the time. We transferred to the coach and I did manage to be sick then. We transferred to the ferry for a three hour journey to the island. It was so pretty but I was too ill to appreciate any of it.
Ko Samui
We got to the Pier and got a taxi to Fisherman's cove. The second hotel was an absolute dream of pretentiousness with a dramatic theme of Chinese red, gold and black. The sea lapped outside the patio-door. I crawled into bed! Lee went out to get a meal. He was propositioned by a Thai girl, who hung around for some time waiting to be bought a drink. She needs to know that you can never distract an Englishman from his sport! The guy he was talking football with told her to go, that Lee was not interested, though he had his Thai girl sitting nearby and ignored her the whole time he was talking to Lee. Strange world here, and quite sad.
Big Buddha Beach
Unfortunately our wonderful Chinese,'Red House' hotel only had two nights so we had to move again. We spent the second morning looking for somewhere to be for New Year-Don't ask! I did not get time to enjoy the red room as I was too ill and we were sorting out our move and packing up-so near and yet so far. The resort itself seemed to contain a lot of rough looking Englishmen who owned bars, but we found one or two good places to go. Ah well.
Ayranburi Boutique Resort!!!!!!
Another disaster. We have ended up at a very posh resort, with a room the size of our shed. It is out on an idyllic headland with the bay, beach and pool. It is empty and the few people who are there do not talk to anyone else!!! Everything is ridiculously expensive and, as we know the true prices in this area, just damned annoying. It is all so jumped up and plastic, it is awful. We cannot wait to leave in two days time but, in the meantime have to suffer a GALA dinner which has cost 40 pounds each.

What an absolute nightmare. I would rather have had lobster for two in a restaurant in Fisherman's cove, instead I am going quietly mad here. It is a bit like that program, The Prisoner, from the 60's.
Chaeweng Beach
We got the mini-bus here this morning as there is nothing where we are. We have stocked up on drink and food as we do not want to pay their prices. We are doing our blogs as we will not pay the extortionate prices at the hotel. We walked down the High Street and were stopped 5 times by motorcyclists doing the time-share scam in 10 minutes. Nightmare. We looked at the beach and were immediately accosted by a sun-glass seller!!!! Blackpool-Costa Nightmare. We leave in two days but I do wonder will Langkawi, in Malaysia be any better. I sure-as-hell hope so!!!!!

Arrival in Vang Vien- a one horse town

2007-12-15T00:30:00.000-08:00

As the mini-bus dropped us off, outside a guesthouse, the usual thing, we decided that we would be more discerning about finding a place to stay that met our needs. We walked away from the place we were dropped and went 3 doors down! We avoided a hotel for $15 for a straw hut (See picture above!) costing $5 a night, two pounds, fifty pence, (Gosh! That much!). After an initial encounter with a cockroach, it proved to be our little oasis........

We walked into the gateway to ask if the Khem Kong had any rooms. We were shown a basic room with fan, double bed and shower/ toilet but I had noticed the romantic little huts in the 'garden and asked whether they had one of those. She said that the rooms were the same so I asked to see one. I think that she wondered whether I would make it up and down the steps. I'd show her. I went down the most rickety and steep steps ever, followed by the family dog, who moved with alacrity, unlike my good self! and clambered up the steps to the hut on stilts. It was gloriously simple and had a fabulous view over the river, see pics, . It had two little chairs, adult sized, and a card table on the veranda outside too. We took it. Lee sat on the veranda and tried out his phone. Still not working. Disappointing.Within half an hour we had unloaded our bags and set out to explore the town.

The initial road was a track and there did not seem to be much there, building projects, street cafes and tubing trip outlets, but the town soon opened out into a series of shops and cafes. There were numerous outlets for the famous trek, caving and tubing trips, shops selling fake designer shorts and walking sandals and cafes of all demeanors, including the famous t.v. cafes where hoards of youngsters could slouch or loll around on bed stuctures with loads of cushions slurping milk shakes and watching endless episodes of Friends. They slumped with glazed expressions staring at the screens. Lee was stunned. I thought immediately of Tom Willis and Michaela Plant, who may have thought that they had died and gone to heavan! There were about five of these cafes each showing a different series. We moved on. We stopped for a meal. I tried Thai noodles but found them too sweet and left most of them. Lee tried a roast, a bad choice I thought as they don't cook in our ways. I was right but he slogged through it. I smiled in sympathy at a young Laos woman pushing a pushchair with a restless baby in it. She immediately parked him by me! I made a point to remind myself not to smile at women with babies. She removed him five minutes later when I showed no interest. We left soon after and took a bottle of Bacardi and coke back to our veranda.

We were going to sit outside, relax and read. Lee sat on his chair and opened his book. I went into the bathroom to put out the towels. Within five minutes Lee had brought his chair in bemoaning the fact that we could not find perfection anywhere. He had already been chased inside by the number of insects attracted by the balcony light! He came in disgusted by the number of strange insects that had landed in a dazed state on the table and his book. To top this a gecko was hunting around the light above his head. I did point out that we were in a tropical country and by a river and if he had long trousers on and sprayed himself with deet he would be fine. . He was neither appeased or amused, I was, by his curmudgeonly expression! Until the cockroach incident that is! He was going to pour the drinks but stopped in mid flow as I let out an expletive and a loud shriek. I had hung up the towels on the rail in the bathroom then gone to move the old toilet roll, that had nearly run out, to replace it with the new one, when a huge cockroach flew out of the inside, skimmed my arm and scuttled under the bed!!!! Lee peered flustered, around the door and, between swearing and squirming, I was able to indicate the events. We headed, cautiously, to the top of the bed and peered over, the cockroach was trying to squeeze under the skirting board. Eugh!!!! How disgusting are they??? I shuddered. He was on his back, squeezing with all his might. I suddenly noticed, with horror, that the although the windows were netted against mosquitoes, there were gaps between the floorboards big enough for a colony of any insects to move in, when attracted by the light. Our pretty little hut seemed to have turned into our worst nightmare!!! Lee looked in despair, as he thought we had found a perfect place, at last. We could hear the clicking of the rather cross cockroach nearby and constantly checked for his reappearance. He did start to crawl up the wall and we fetched the owner's son, who was going to removed it. Of course, as is often the way with these thing, it had disappeared when he came over. He suggested that we block some of the gaps with rolled toilet paper!!! This could take all night. I decided to be sensible. I unpacked the mosquito coils and set them burning under the bed. We had a couple of drinks and retired for the night, but not before we had moved the bed away from the wall a bit and I had dressed in long trousers, socks and a long sleeved tee shirt !!! I woke once and heard the clicking but could not see a shadow so I drifted off again.

Day two saw us at the street cafe eating cornflakes and enjoying a huge cup of tea. It was set in the middle of what looked like a building site, but that was fine. It looked like the site of the old market and it was now being developed. This is the case with every place that we have been in Asia. It is hard to get away from the tapping of hammers, as everyone has decided to develop their assets. Currently, to my left a group of six men are working under an old dust-laden parasol, tying springy steel strips together. These will, no doubt, be used inside a wooden casing filled with concrete to form the uprights of a new building that will take shape during the next month. Across the road a floor dries in a double shop unit, while, next door, a wall appears, and so it goes on at an amazing rate. The beautiful limestone karsts will not be visible from this vantage point soon.

We got cycles after breakfast. Since it had been forty years since I had ridden a bike I was quite nervous, and wobbly, to start off with. The pedals seemed very high, and the builders over the road were amused when I nearly fell into their barrow of cement. I gathered as much dignity as I could and pushed my bike to the next corner before trying again.We went up and down as many of the roads as we could over the next two hours but ran out of places to go. I turned puce but gained confidence. It nwas exhilarating and gruelling. The town is surrounded by limestone karsts that stand dramatically in the morning mist and provide the rich green background of vegetation. As it was the height of the daytime teperatures 12-2 we decided to give the bikes back. It had cost 50p to rent them for the day, so that was not too bad. We bought cheese and beer and retired to our riverside view.

During the afternoon we sat happily chatting on the veranda. There was no noise except the distant shovelling of gravel out of the river. It was being used in some building project across the way.

Later we tried baked potatoes, at the organic cafe, but they were hard and inedible. On the way back we passing a group of Italian lads at a pancake stall. "The best in town," they informed us. The owner grinned and reached under a damp cloth for a small ball of 'dough'. He proceeded to roll it and spin it until it was wafer thin and the size of a dinner plate. He then stretched it over a well oiled hotplate. He quickly peeled two small bananas and squeezed chocolate squiggles over the slices. He folded it into an envelope shape and laid it onto paper. It was cut into small squares then covered in condensed milk and cocoa powder. The lads eyes lit up. I thought it must be so sweet. They walked off with their take-away treat.We tried a simpler version. It was okay. Maybe we are too old for all this???

Crossing the rickety bridge the next day we make it to Smiley's bar, where the yougsters hang out on hammocks, or swim in the river. We claimed a platform and I lolled over cushions while Lee sat in a hammock. We read, listened to the superb choice of mellow music, drinking refreshingly cold fruit shakes. A line of buddhist monks walked to the rivers edge, discarded their orange wraps and waded into the water to cool down and play like any nother young men. A few local cows paddled and grazed on the waters edge. One or two tubers floated by. The only negative was my encounter with some flying insect that I thought was a dragon fly. I had brushed it away and it had shot a barbed sting into my knuckle. I removed it and fortunately had my spray in my bag so I deadened the intense pain. I was shocked and tearful for a while but recovered after twenty minutes or so.

This laid back place has been one of our best so far, a little haven of peace. Laos is a wonderful place to visit.

The journey to in Vang Vien-Laos Sunday 9th Dec

2007-12-10T21:20:00.000-08:00

On the last night in Luang Prabang we set out to have a tea of Pizza, in a recommended place. It was good. WE then returned to our room to pack. This is always a quiet activity with a certain amount of tension. It takes very little time really but sometimes we are slower than others. That night, Saturday, we were going to change our normal route and find the bar mentioned by Ivor, who we had met on the boat in Halong Bay, Vietnam. It was going to show the Villa match and I would be able to read in peace! Their slogan was, 'drink like a fish for the price of water!'. It was cheaper than the high street too, a point worth noting. We had scored a major victory at the internet cafe as the guy in charge, once he heard about the virus on the computer memory card had said let me have a look. We were to go back after 5pm. I was not hopeful as we had been told in Cambodia that the pictures were lost. This genius, uploaded them and put them onto a disc for me. I was, ' over the moon.' I wanted to text everyone to say that I had got my pictures back but the telephones will not send messages from Laos. Technology is both wonderful and totally exasperating!!

We went to the opposite end of the High Street and headed towards the Mekong River. Some youngsters had just arrived loaded up to-the nines. They were looking for a place to stay. We pointed the ATM out to them and the direction of loads of guesthouses. They went happily on their way. It was pitch black at first but then we discovered a whole new part of the town. There was a fabulous pub garden and loads of youngsters were having a happy chat in the coloured lights. The atmosphere was electric. We had not investigated this road before. There was a great atmosphere and we relaxed, for once, with our drinks not feeling that we should order food as we had in the many restaurants. Lee even had a game of pool with Ivan as his team mate.

We woke with the phone alarm at 7 and we were sitting on the steps, waiting for the mini-bus, at 8.30. By 8.40 we were on our way to the middle of Laos. As we drove off I caught sight of the start of a cock fight, on the banks of the river. A few men were standing idly around watching. It was the only bad image I had of Luang Prabang. I shuddered.

The journey to Vang Vien was supposed to take four hours, we were told. It was six and a half, but the scenery was wonderful. The mini-bus moved smoothly up the mountain roads dodging cows, goats and ..yes...the inevitable hens. Within an hour we were snaking our way around endless hair-pin bends and through the regular villages of shabby wooden or raffia walled huts that clung mysteriously to the sides of the road, surrounded by sheer drops. At one point the cloud lay in one of these sheer drops like a lake far below us. The banana plant silhouetted against the skyline like wind turbines, the lush green vegetation in shades of bright green contrasting sharply with the bright red sanstone that reminded me of Ayers Rock, in Australia. Tall pampass grasses waved feathery fronds of lilac pink in the breeze. At the side of the road stalls were piled high with oranges, bananas, potatoes and onions. We bought small oranges when the driver stopped to get some. The lady pointed across the road to indicate that she had picked them earlier that morning from the trees we were now staring at. They were sweet and juicy and very cheap, 25p for about 20!

As we started off again a troupe of young children came up the slope carrying huge baskets on their backs full of some kind of vegetation. At the next village these leaveswere being woven into green roof panels. These were also laid out on the side of the road for purchase. I wondered who came to buy these goods, but come they must or there would be no point in setting up the stalls. On the floor nearby two men were weaving fabulous raffia wall panels for the creation of homes. They would be nailed onto a wooden frame. They seemed amazingly flimsy but did the job they were designed for, nevertheless, and the patterns on them were very pleasing to the eye. In fact, nature did her bit too, as everywhere the eye looked there were patterns from the vegetation to the frequent, dense spider webs on the sandstone, like the fishing nets on the river.

In the villages there seemed to be many children playing in the dust or climbing trees, men clustered around a repair, women were sitting in groups or hand washing clothes under taps. Each doorway showed a myriad of eyes watching from the dark, cool insides. Pigs, goats, puppies and chickens with tiny chicks in tow seemed to roam everywhere.

On one particularly steep bend I was really surprised to see a full sized coach go by. I glimpsed a seas of faces inside, a mountain of luggage on the top, and then, on top of the luggage were some peole sitting on the top! I did not fancy their view of the road especially since the sheer drop was their side!

At the first stop we parked beside a colourful series of food stalls. There were roast sweet potatoes, whole pineapples, bananas and papayas for fruit smoothies. Chicken feet marinated in some sauce were fixed to a stick as were a series of chicken hearts. We had a french stick made up with white chicken meat, onion, cucumber and tomatoes. It was then wrapped in cling film.

A Thai tour bus parked up and the women struck up a conversation with us. They were on their way to Bankok. One looked at our sandwich and, after checking whether it was just for me, gave us a cunk of the fish that she was eating. It was delicious. She was saying that the sandwhich was too fattening that the fish was better. I agreed. It was delicious.They waved as they drove off. I smiled in the sunshine. Some local children, obviously very poor, stood staring quizzically at us. I asked Lee for our sweets and gave them a pack each. The eldest smiled and struck up a faltering conversation with us. It was wonderful, and so was life. As we clambered back onto our bus another mini bus pulled up. It was full of back-packers. We were the only two westerners on our bus. It did not matter though.

On the bus we struck up a conversation with two younsters who were travelling together from Singapore. They gave us lots of information about travel in Thailand and Malaysia.

Laos-Friday 7th December

2007-12-07T22:28:00.000-08:00

A flash of orange catches my eye as I gaze across the river. Below me a trio of Buddhist monks are talking to some fishermen in the boats by the bank. I raise my eyes as they begin to clamber about. A flotilla of small boats ply their trade across the river. My eyes are drawn to the ferry transporting a motorbike across the river. The ferry has been made by laying a raft across two small longboats, quite efficient. There is even a blue gazebo on an expanding metal frame to shade the traveller. A small, wooden, long-tailed boat beats it to the waters edge and a row of ant-like figures move up and down the bank opposite. The hum of a boat engine draws my attention downstream where a simple passenger boat moves rapidly with the current across the path of the returning ferry. The rippling brown surface of the river reflects these daily activities.

We sit, relaxed, on a wooden platform, overlooking the river flowing smoothly below us. A line of ants form a motorway along the tilting, wooden rail by our table. Our table is laden with fresh fruit , fruit shakes, French bread, butter and jam. A steaming mug of tea arrives along with a tin of condensed milk, the only blip in this perfection!!! We eat contentedly to the accompaniment of the tap, tap, tap of a neighbour's hammer. and the occasional whirr of an electric saw. Wood requires a lot of work and there is always something to be mended on the boats and in the homes of the local people.
The next day sees us sitting on the step again at 7.30 waiting for the mini bus to whisk us of on an elephant adventure. The bag had been reduced to essentials and had been put into our back pack in case we had to scramble and needed both hands!

The minibus arrived ten minutes later and whisked us off on our adventure. More scenery and a craft village. The people smile and greet us with ,"Sabadaii", which means Hello. They were just setting up so we left after a short while for the elephant camp. We were to ride the elephants through the jungle, catch a local long-tailed boat to the waterfalls to swim and relax, after lunch.
The majority of roads there were unmade which made for a jolting journey, better than any fairground ride! We were grateful for the unusually comfortable seats and reasonable suspension of the van! We were more shaken than stirred by the time we reached the ,'All Laos Elephant Camp. We walked to the waiting area where four elephants stood munching huge chunks of bamboo. I watched Pushkin, our elephant, deftly strip the outer layer off then stuff the remainder into his mouth and crush it to a pulp like a stick of rhubarb. I suddenly realised that they were already harnessed up. This consisted of a garden bench mounted on an inverted v shaped frame to protect their spine and distribute the weight. This was fixed in place by a flimsy strap which ran under the tummy of the elephant. My stomach lurched in fear as we were called to the mounting steps. I scrambled up these wondering why I had thought that this would be a good thing to do. At the top of the steps I was urged to take one step off the platform to step onto the elephants back then sit on the bench, which now had a cushion on it. I took a breath and stepped . Before I knew it Lee was beside me, a pair of basket hats were placed on our heads, and with the snap of a bar in place our elephant moved off to wait for the others to do the same. The mahout was sitting astride the elephants head and directing him via wiggles of his knee and feet, which lay behind the ears. I could feel the warmth of the elephants skin against my ankles. I was afraid to move my feet in case I accidentally gave a command! It was both exhilarating and terrifying as we moved through the jungle paths as there were sharp bends, steep inclines, declines that seemed like sheer drops at tomes, muddy streams and then the river!! As we tilted this way and that I was, irrationally, concerned that either we would fall out or pull the elephant over! Pushkin was extremely sure-footed and dexterous. He gradually won my trust and I relaxed. Sometimes he would stop and ponder over a juicy bit of foliage but a sharp rebuke from the mahout seemed to bring him to his senses and he plodded on.
I rewarded him with a huge bunch of bananas for his efforts which I fed to him wholesale, in 4's and 5's by placing them in the fold of his trunk. After a coffee, with condensed milk! We headed off for a nearby village where we walked a dusty track to the river and scrambled one by one across a bamboo raft and into a very rickety, and narrow, long-tailed boat to go the the Tad Sae waterfalls. The boat was very unstable to scramble into but we all did it and set off. The sun was shining as we made our way down river holding on to the sides of the boat. I kept one eye on the hole just above the waterline!

We had lunch at the waterfalls and then swam in the pools or under the flows of water themselves. A troupe of elephants paddled through the bottom pool as I was swimming higher up. It made a beautiful image, a lasting memory of a wonderful day.

We returned along a tarmaced road and wove our way through the colourful street market to return weary but elated, to our guesthouse.

Elephants and boats down stream...Is this a dream?

2007-12-07T02:03:00.000-08:00

We got up at 6.30am. Our bags had been packed the night before but tension is always high on travelling days. We headed out for breakfast at 8, returning at 10 when we found the taxi waiting. The driver said $10 when we asked him how much. I waved the Cambodian guide, 'Out and About in Cambodia" and pointed to the bit that said that the taxi was about $5 stating that the airport was only 6km. He looked chastised and said, "Okay, $5." We set off up the narrow passageway nearly taking someones washing with us! Someone came and moved the rail over. We gave the driver $6 and thanked him.

The airport was small and expensive but we were processed quickly. There was a cheeky tax of $25 for all people leaving Cambodia, so Lee asked where it went. "To the Government," The official replied. Lee suggested that it should be given to help the poor children. She laughed nervously but he repeated it as we walked away. It was a short flight to Laos.

There was a mist over the mountains as we disembarked and I noticed that ours was the only plane on the runway! We had to have our photographs scanned for our visa which cost us $1

plus $36. We joined the second queue. Just as we were about to collect our visas the Dutch boys in front of us, Gaye and Roland, realised that they did not have enough cash in dollars. They asked us to help. After a moments deliberation we gave them $42 and we set out as a group of four to the town and the ATM. Our transport was an open pick-up truck with seats along each side and a metal cage over the top. We threw our bags in and clambered aboard. The journey was short, the countryside amazingly attractive and the main street delightfully charming. What a pleasant surprise: no dust tracks or rubbish, no tin hunts just villas, pavements and signs in English. This was a town in Laos, called Luang Prabang.

The lads gave us our money in Kip and we all set off to find somewhere to say. We turned down a picturesque street full of villas, flowers heading for the river. We booked into a guesthouse but moved further down the street the next day. We sat by the river and had a sumptuous meal of the local stew and four Lao beer each.

We were woken the next morning at about 8 by the chatter of young girls voices all around us and the occasional clatter of a mop bucket. The curtains were see through, the shower was cold. Hence the move.

The new guesthouse was $15 but promised hot water and some privacy and quiet. It was clean and bright too. We set out happily for breakfast. The buildings are exquisite and, despite the fact that we were told that Laos was less developed than either Vietnam or Cambodia, we have not found this to be the case. It seems far more civilised and clean. There is less hassle and has more moderate weather. There is a great deal of French influence here, shown in the colonial buildings, the brick villas, the fluffy poodles and french bread.

We took a stroll in the sunshine and came across the American guy dressed in blue overalls that I had noticed at the airport. He asked us where we had got our money back and was reassured when we said yes. We took photographs of the vegetation which was full of patterns, and the men building a bridge using thin wooden supports. Amazing but effective, nevertheless. We booked a trip to a nearby waterfall that was leaving in half an hour. It was only $4, 2 pounds each, and for this we would get an hours ride through the countryside, 2hrs at the waterfall and the return journey! We rushed off to get my swimming costume and sat on the steps of our guest house in the sunshine to wait for our transportation.

Soon we were hurtling happily around bends and through villages. We had several close encounters with yet more chickens crossing the road, (why?), a cockerel nearly met his demise, we slowed down but so did he, I really did not think that he had escaped our wheels until I opened my eyes and heard an indignant squawk as we hurtled away. The houses were often on stilts or stone villas set among exotic flowers. We came to a halt in a large car-park with its own market. The driver pointed to the way in. We walked for five minutes through the greenery and came across a bear rescue centre. There were about 6 of these small brown bears lazing or wrestling in a compound. There was natural jungle shade and they looked quite relaxed. In a nearby compound was a tiger who had also been reclaimed from poachers . I bought a tee-shirt for my daughter.

The waterfall had several turquoise pools to swim in, which I did. We walked up to the top and the scenery was beautiful, a real feast for the eyes. As we strolled back to the market for an ice cold drink the huge tropical flowers were superb. A Christmas plant with red leaves grows as a bush out here. This was the best day so far. As we were dropped off the night market was being set out on the road in a blaze of lights and colour. Perfect!

Nothing is flat, except the land.

2007-11-30T20:33:00.000-08:00

We got up at six, or thereabouts (all our time pieces had a different time on them!) to get the taxi to the other side of the island to catch the fast boat to Rach Gia. It takes 3 1/2 hours and can be choppy! The receptionist appeared in her pyjamas to ring for the taxi, which we were told cost 2,000 dong . We noticed that when the taxi driver arrived she handed him, 1,000 dong!

It was time to go, the jolly Czecks left just before us, the Russian youngsters had left the day before and, as usual all the inadequacies of the place had begun to niggle us.

The town was already awake, teeming with life. The pavement cafes were full and the working day was well underway as we left at 7. We passed several motorbikes with a whole roast pig in a box across the back seat width-ways. There was fancy paper on their ears. Strange.

There were two boats and lots of local people on the quayside as we unloaded the taxi. We walked to the fast boat and, with a roar and a surge we were off. They gave us a small bottle of water, several black bags and put on the most gory film possible at a screeching volume. It was about an hour before I was sick, despite my travel bands, and then I dozed. Before I knew where we were we were disembarking on the quay at Rach Gia, the mainland of Vietnam. Now we had to find out how to get overland to Cau Doc, up the Mekong, to catch another boat to the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penn. It proved to be amazingly easy.

When we got off the boat we were trailed by two motorcyclists who offered to help. We were with an Aussie couple who were heading the same way. We did not want the help of these two but they insisted in accompanying us. We went to a travel place on the corner and they came in with us. We wanted to know where the bus station was. After asking the girl to ring a taxi for us a mini bus turned up with- Chau doc on its screen and some Vietnamese people in it!!! I called the others. We agreed a price 120,000 dong (4 pounds) each for the four of us and we were off again. The Vietnamese were all shunted into the back seat!

We had all our bags scattered around and the drivers assistant/conductor grinning broadly at us connected two bare wires and a desk fan blew fiercely at us. The air-conditioning! One of our party was in the front with his feet on a box of frozen chickens! We travelled along quite happily dropping people off and picking up others. The usual tooting every time you passed somebody was accompanied by the conductor screeching loudly at the cyclists or motorbike riders. Maybe it was good that we did not understand what he was saying. (He was actually the only person I heard shouting about traffic. There are no rude signs or angry looks, even when someone crosses your path suddenly. Vietnamese drivers seem to just steer smoothly around everything, totally non-plussed.) Th conductor/guide even boxed the ears of one young schoolboy who was sitting minding his own business on the back of his friends bike. I was sorely tempted to push him out of the window more than once!!! He was the only thing spoiling the journey! The open windows provided a welcome breeze and the homes gradually became 3 sided with hammocks hanging everywhere. We enjoyed the villages and green countryside. At the end of 3-4 hours we were dropped at the side of the road where a couple of guys with a different style of tuk-tuk waited. As the bus sped away the conductor said, "Bus no go into town. You go tuk-tuk, short distance", and he was gone.

The Aussies clambered on board with their luggage and were off. I walked away leaving Lee with a dilemma. There was no way I was going to ride in a wheelbarrow! I would not fit, I could not get on and I want a bit of dignity! We walked about a mile and a half into town accompanied by the tuk-tuk driver who was talking to Lee. I had a face like thunder and now it was a battle of wills that I was not prepared to lose. The tuk-tuk driver seemed to think that Lee would pull his wife in line as per local customs- no way Jose, as they say! Lee was explaining why I would not get in and a motorbike appeared. All three men were asking me to get on board. I was appalled that I was being dictated to by the locals. I told Lee to carry on and I would catch him up but he would not go. This made me even madder with the bloody tuk-tuk driver who actually accompanied us to the hotel despite my remonstrations that he should go. That we did not need or want his services. I won. I walked there as I knew I would!

We booked into the hotel that we had chosen from the Lonely Planet Guidebook, not the one the tuk-tuk had tried to get us to go to! (Score high five!!) After a passable meal we explored the local market. It was mostly food stalls and it was teeming with life. We wandered around getting bread, spread cheese and oranges for our boat trip through the Cambodian border, the next day.

The next morning another 'wheelbarrow' arrived to take us to the boat. We walked behind it like a funeral procession while our bags had a ride!!!! Fortunately the boat looked good so this was soon forgotten.

As we moved steadily out into the middle of the yellow Mekong river I noticed a wooden boat that was low in the water. It looked like a dug out tree trunk! An unconcerned mother with her child sat at one end, whilst a man rowed standing at the other end. In the middle and older woman was busy bailing water with a yellow container! No one looked concerned!

The boat to Phnom Penn was like a Thames cruise boat in style. Visibility was good though the banks seemed duller than Vietnam's. There was less green and more mud. People waved from the banks as we glided by. Fishing seemed to be the main activity although there were cattle and water buffalo on the banks of the river, here and there. We moved smoothly with a spray of water at intervals and a fabulous breeze. At passport control we were inundated by Vietnamese children hoping for a sale, selling, water, cans of pop, postcards and crisps. At the Cambodian side we had to get off and go to the passport office. It was all quite relaxed and another visa joined the others in our passports. The rest of the journey was passed happily chatting to Hue and Ceri, who were on an eight month honeymoon trip! They had married in April, like us and were great company. I miss my women friends. Lee and Hue talked football.

We had been told that this particular weekend was the National Water Festival, when thousands of Cambodians came into town and competed for a money prize. Suddenly we were wondering whether we would get accommodation! Our boat moored suddenly at a muddy bank and I noticed water buffalo and cows being unloaded one at a time just feet away from us. Apart from that there was nothing. One enterprising taxi-driver who had been alerted told us that the boat had been diverted to this bank because of the races and that the town was just a short distance away. Hue and Ceri were quick enough to engage his services and we shared the journey into the town of Phnom Penn with them asking for a room at their hotel. Fortunately, there was one. Lee nipped over the road to go to the bank and was offered a woman! Fortunately, he declined. He was then offered a tuk-tuk!

We had a shower and headed, with Cerri and Hue to the Foreign Correspondents Club, on the water front where we were able to view the fireworks and floats at the close of the days races. There was a real carnival feel and the streets were heaving with people and food stalls. Later we caught a four seat cyclo back to the hotel. A great day was had by all. (A cyclo is a four person truck towed by a motorcycle.)

On day two we decided to book our bus out of there to Siem Reap. We were going to see the Genocide museum in the afternoon. In the morning we attended to more domestic matters: Hue helped us to sort out the camera and we spent a pleasant evening in the sports bar, avoiding the crowds.

The next morning we were a bit hung over but packed and left the hotel at ten to eight. We headed to the Asia Hotel to catch our coach. Instead we were taken to the local bus station to get a local bus. It looked a bit of a crate and we were ushered on with our bags. It was to be a 6hr journey and our bags were round our feet but, despite this it proved to be delightful. The passengers were friendly and looked at us curiously at first but smiles and gestures soon helped us to communicate. The bus was cool and we watched a theatre comedy act as we sped along. It was quite funny, and very popular with the locals. The sometimes screechy singing was a bit tough though!! The scenery was pleasant, green fields, raffia huts on poles, boats, hammocks and markets. It lacked the intensity of action and colour of Vietnam, but held its own charm. We stopped twice as the coach had no facilities what-so-ever. The second stop was at a village known for its deep fried spiders of tarantula proportions. I had read something about this but I had had no idea that I would come across it. I had gone off to the loos and seen stalls with pineapples on them but I had not seen the piles of fried spiders and grasshoppers nearby!! Walking back to the front door5 of th coach I had noticed a local, in tradional squatting pose, put one of these monsters near his mouth and bite off a leg or two. Lee's attention had been drawn to this by my expletive! On the bus an otherwise normal seeming teenager had held hers, dad, of couse, between here left forefinger and thumb. She then broke off one leg at a time and stuffed the morsel into her mouth, finishing with the thorax and then the abdomen!!! I was both enthralled and horrified. The rest of the journey continud without incident and we were greeted by a moto-driver holding up a huge paper with, MR WILLIS, on it. We piled in and had a 15 minute journey to Siem Reap Riverside Hotel.
We were greeted by smiles and shown our room by an enthusiastic young man, who smiled manically. When I asked why the television was on the floor he said, "New extension, room not finished! I suddenly heard the sound of drilling. I looked out of the window. I could only see the front of a local house with a child playing in what lookd like a pile of rubbish. I put the curtain back.
"You have another room I asked?" We looked at two rooms at the front but from neither could I see a swimming pool. We chose one, threw our bags in, and went off excitedly to telephone Jean to wish her a happy birthday. The line was engaged. We checked to time in England and ordered two cold beers. I said to Lee, "When we booked this hotel, were we shown a picture of a pool??? He said, "Yes." I was confused. I mentioned it to the desk clerk who said that this was a sister hotel to the one with the pool. I was so elated about our happy chat with Jean, and the perfection of our timing, that I said no more. We washed up and strolled into the town. It was glorious around the old market. There were craft and clothing stalls, cafes and restaurants and a myriad of above-board massage parlours. We decide to eat at The Red Piano. There was music and a wonderful liveliness that was missing from where we were staying. The food was good but ther were so many mosquitoes and little black flies that it becane difficult to eat. We did not go back there!
The next day we appeared downstairs with our backpacks at 9am. They were surprised. I said that we had paid for a different hotel, one with a pool. They said that it had been full,
"Then," I said, "you should have explained!" They offered the pool but we left saying that they had lost 6 days of our custom. They looked quite shocked. Even the cyclo driver that took us into town tried to find out where we were going. We stopped off for breakfast then booked into The Ivy, this was grubby, despite being reccommended by the Lonely Planet guide. I asked for the sheets to be changed. We found a supermarket and strolled happily around the town. It felt good to be in the middle of things.
The people are very friendly, bigger than the Vietnamse and still prone to making size-ist remarks which can get you down. They do have a good humour and seem to be family orientated. However, there are problems with poverty although there are a number of projects trying to help with this. We saw a film of a project involving some of the street children. It was interesting and informative. We saw children as young as 5 in charge of small babies, one was crawling on a rock in the ruins, about 3 feet up. The brothers and sisters were sitting nearby playing!!!! There are also land mine victims who sell books to support their families.
One intriguing thing is that the buildings are being done up but they seem unable to create steps of an even size. It is so strang because your sense usually guage steps, not so here. The flight of steps leading to our current room on the top floor are almost vertical and all different heights. The pavements are high and uneven too. Nothing is flat except the land!
(NB This is the next day. Just as I was about to publish the computer flipped its lid and about an hours work was lost. It had done something similar the day before so I left it!!!!!)

Angkor What???? On Wednesday we visited the national heritage site of Angkor Watt. I had checked out the details and written down what we wanted to see. In the morning we could see Angkor Thom, a collection of Buddhist temples, that included A dramatic carved face on an archway, the temple of Bayon with 32 columns, each containing four carved faces, a terrace of carved elephants, the terrace of the Leper King. After that we were going to look at the glorious Ta Prohm, a temple that was being claimed back by the jungle. Huge silk and fig trees were throwing down roots that were wrapped around the stone in a real stranglehold. Lara Croft was filmed here. Finally, and gloriously we were to see Angkor Wat as the sun set. However, we made the mistake of picking a cyclo driver with very little English. We got dropped at these places according to his route and we saw the least important for the longest. We walked endlessly through woods, got lost and could not find the places that we were looking for, and, worst of all, by the time we got to Angkor Wat we were so weary we could only do a bit of it as we had run out of energy and enthusiasm. It was a thoroughly spoilt experience. Our driver had wanted to drop us 2 kilometers from Angkor Watt but we refused to get out until he took us closer. Ah well.... The journey there and back was good.

Tomorrow we are off to Laos. I wonder if they can make good steps???

Leaving Vietnam

2007-11-28T22:24:00.000-08:00

The next day was spent by the lapping waters on the beach. Lee did not go roaming and sat reading his book. I swam in the crystal waters watching a shoal of tiny silver fish arc through the water just in front of me like liquid sunlight, a swallow skimmed the water joyfully nearby. I just bobbed about in the water and it suddenly struck me that I could have been in a classroom with 7y3. It seems a lifetime away, an alternative universe; the clocks, the bells, the noise and pressure. I still love to hear how people are getting on. I think dying must be like this. Everything goes on as it always has, its just that you operate somewhere else! Time has ceased to matter in a way, and you live very much in the moment. I realise that I am very lucky.
I was brought back to the moment by the sight of four coconuts being cut from a nearby palm and the hum of voices. This is the beauty of this special place. A group of three local boys walk past happily with their daily catch of fish threaded onto poles. They have had a good day by the looks of it, not so the fish! Conical hatted women offer, "Massage Madam?" I decline, as I sip my papaya shake. At lunch I have my usual egg-fried rice with the local fish sauce, an exquisite spiciness.
Evening. We pop to the 'Hop in' Aussie bar, and order skewers of pork, chips and egg salad. All goes well until the order comes: salad and chips arrive. 15 minutes later my skewers of pork, peppers and onions arrive! 30 minutes later Lees skewer arrives. They do not understand the, 'we eat together idea'! Not good.
After this, things begin to niggle. It is time to move on. The winds of change blow again and with it comes a quiet tension. All the washing has been returned so we pack up. We are heading for Cambodia but I leave Vietnam with a heavy heart: that we did not take more time in the north, that we got washed out in the middle. It is a wonderful, vibrant land, full of little smiling peole, who are immensely strong and not afrais of hard work. I will always remember the colours, the lush green vegetation of the countryside and mountains, the warmth, the variety, the frit and the comical hats.

Motorbikes along the highway.....Phu Coc.

2007-11-28T21:02:00.000-08:00

Having spoken to 3 Aussie girls at Dalat Airport about their stay in Phu Coc we were determined to see the other side of the island and the beautiful, undeveloped beach at Sao Bao. To do this we decided, in a rash moment, to hire a motorbike each for three pounds a day, complete with a full tank of petrol.

When the morning came we had a 5 minute practice in the drive, much to the amusement of the cycle taxi drivers. I kept mine in first but as soon as we set off and I went up the gears it was much better!! I had a pale pink helmet, Lee had pale blue. We looked like, 'Plonkers Are Us!'

It was a red dust road as we were heading away from town, to avoid traffic and junctions! We were soon flying along glimpsing the shoreline of sand and deep blue sea. The breeze created gave a welcome cooling as we drove along. There was very little traffic, just the occasional lorry that seemed to thunder by bringing with it a whiplash of gritty dust, one hell of an exfoliator!! It was hard to take your eyes off the road as it was quite uneven. I glanced up at two sea-eagles gliding just above me and looked down in just enough time to avoid, by 4cm, a huge pile of stones. There were grooves, holes and piles of loose grit in places too! We had to cross bridges with deep planks of wood laid down for car tyres but these were raised well above the general road surface, causing a different type of hazard. I wobbled my way across a few of these. It seems that when you have to keep straight it becomes very hard. I kept my eye on Lee in the rear mirror. He looked sweet with blonde curls around his pale blue helmet, his face set in a steely determination to stay on. Apart from the varying surface of the road there were the hazards of animals. Why did four chickens cross the road, especially when they were about one meter in front of me? The odd cow wandered off the grass and two dogs decided to have a tete-a-tete in the middle of the road.

We got off once or twice to look at the beach or have a drink.. At the first stop we watched the fishing boat hauling in its catch. They are keen to show you what they are doing. Half an hour later, the same fish were spread out on the side of the road and local people were selecting their dinners. How fresh was that? When we stopped at a local bar, we were joined by the family and our animated conversations would begin! They did not charge us local prices though! The land at the beach edges were being bought up and the fishermen were moving inland a little. It really is an Eden, but it will all change soon. Even while we were there the hotel next door were trying out two jet-ski's with their intrusive roar. I don't know what that will do for the fishermen, or, perhaps I just do not want to think about it!

We found our white beach, after a hair-raising drive on a pathway down to the shoreline. How I did not come off I will never know. We swerved all over the place because of the soft sand, and it was as white as the Goan beaches in southern India. This area was really undeveloped. There was one beach shack serving fruit and local dishes and a Vietnamese run compond with real dessert-island shacks, with fans that could be rented for seven pounds fifty a night! We had planned to spend a week on this side of the island but it was not our cup of tea.

As we left a guy walked past with a cockerll in his hands. My bike would not turn over so, he stuffed the struggling cockerel between his legs, which I considered a bit reckless, and helped me to coax the bike to a start. I had to quickly click it into second and I was off up the track again with Lee in pursuit. (Computer has just lost the other half of this so I am having to do it again. I am cheesed off.)
We were glad to get back as the bikes tip your body forward meaning that all the pressure is on your wrists, also, we were gripping the handlebars so tight we had grooves in our palms. When we got back we looked as though we had been down a mine but I felt that we had struck a blow for 'olds' as we had had a go. I have a healthy respect, of sorts, for the locals, as they tended to drift past with whole families on their bikes, babies in their mother's arms as they travelled on the back, and toddlers standing up between dad's arms, standing on the petrol tank. Young ladies went by weaving effortlessly inbetween the trucks, tuk-tuks and other traffic holding an umberella and looking demure. Ah well. We returned gloriously tired, tanned and grubby. Nothing that a hot shower would not cure.

Gecko's on my ceiling

2007-11-25T20:26:00.000-08:00

It is twelve days now since we flew to the magical Eden that is Phu Coc. I glimpsed the sparkling line if headlights along both sides of the runway as our little p[lane lifted suddenly into the air above Saigon. I was so glad to be leaving the city behind as I had felt quite cheated by the rain that prevented me from staying on the mid-Vietnam coast.

Regarding the floodwater:I've since heard that cases of cholera have broken out in Hoi An, as the rains have continued. There did not seem to be any concept of the dangers of floodwater as we watched the people clean up when the water had receded by twometers, and was just, at this point, in the roadway itself. I had already mentioned the people wading in the water; we were horrified because it had to contain sewerage!!! As they cleared up they were swilling things with the floodwater in the street, and some people went to the water's edge to wash their hands!! The pub staff, across the road, where we had had a game of snooker were washing all sorts of table things in it!!! People were also throwing their rubbish into it. In Hue, further up the coast, a crocodile farm had got flooded and the animals had escaped, so the locals were wadingin water with crocodiles init, until theyfound out!!!

Our arrival in Phu Coc, one hour after take-off from Saigon, was a little ominous as it went dark and began to rain. I thought, Oh no. Not again, but within 30 minutes the rain had stopped, and a bright, warm sun had appeared, and that is how it stayed most of the time.

We hadno idea where we were going to stay but there were a number of people there to offer suggestions. We were picked up by the gloriously camp, Llin. He grinned widely, crinkling his nose in amost captivating way. He said,"Come and have a look. If you do not like it you do not have to dtay." Sowe did, and stayed 10 days.

The journey to the hotel Kim Hoa consisted of Lee and My self in an air-conditioned mini-bus. I was a bit concerned that there were not others, but we could always leave if we did not like it. We need not have worried. Lin sped off on a bike with his well manicured nails firmly gripping a friend. We satbackand relaxed.

We drove through the familiar lush green countryside that we associate with Vietnam. There were many tin and straw hut, little shops and businesses along the way. As we pulled down a red, dusty lane we entered the Kim Hoa compound. There was a well cultivated tropical garden with charming paths weaving their way through the grounds and pots and half coconut shells, planted with all manner of things, strung on a wire. It was glorious,and abundant.

I noticed the sound of waves and gazed in wonder as I surveyed a sparkling blue pool with no-one around it and went down the steps to the golden, palm fringed beach that stretched as far as my eye could see, in both directions. There were simple wooden beds and a few straw beach huts. Crystal water lapped this perfect shoreline. The staff smiled wonderfully. I wondered where all the people were. We were told that it was very early in the season so they were only about 1/3 full. We booked a couple of nights in the apartment block away from themain building, where it was shaded and undisturbed. We spoke to a German couple who had travelled in Asia extensively. They had stayed for four months in recent years stating that this was by far the best island they knew of. They directed us to the small town that was about a 15minute walk away. We unpacked sent all our clothes, including the flood coat, to be hand washed and set out for town. It all seemed too perfect to be true.

The town was small but had all that we required except fruit. Lee had spotted a nice teeshirt hanging up and was about to ask the price when he realised that it was somebody's washing that had been hung up on the fence to dry!Then we discovered the market. We walked to the left, just following our instincts and crossed the river. There was a fascinating shanty-town of blue and red painted boats, planks and fishing nets teeming with life. Set against the verdant green of a mountains foliage this created a glorious riot of action and colour. Lee was walking ahead in search of the mandarin oranges, that are so fresh and juicy out here, I suddenly noticed the darkness of the sky. Lee had just begun choosing some when the heavans opened. We were pulled behind the counter and ordered to sit on an up-turned bucket until the rain stopped 15minutes later, and we continued our journey, complete with our oranges still on the branch! The internet cafe was thenoisiest that we have been in as it was full of childen playing gamesa! Occassionally one would drift over and look quizzically at the English on the screen. They love to try their, "Hello's!" out on you, and are delighted when you reply.

Lee walked in most days, returning with a fabulous Addidas teehirt one day, that cost him all of 70 dong, the equivalent of two pounds, fifty. I sat by the pool, on my own, writing or reading. He always returned as I ordered my fried rice and a papaya shake! We found a french owned beach bar, a german brockworst bar and an Aussie barbecue bar, where you chose your fish from that days purchase, and they cooked it for you.

The one problem was the faltering English, especially at our hotel and the Aussie bar. I cameback from the loo one day to find Lee surrounded by plates containing four fried eggs, four bagettes and twohalf pint mugs of tea. We lost something in translation, I think! Getting tea without sugar was hard because they tended to use condensed milk.

Half way through our stay we decide to get a motorbike each and go to the other side of the island to view the white beach in the south-east but that is another story!

Life on the Road..

2007-11-01T01:21:00.000-07:00

November....7 weeks in....Beijing today...Vietnam tomorrow.
There are changes in our days. Life has a pattern, or rhythm, in the sense that you leave, you arrive, you set up your washing for the joy of clean clothes, you find a place to be that makes you feel good, you greet old friends and make some new, you find shops etc that supply your needs, then it dissolves again as you move on and it starts all over again. We are changing from tourists to travellers. Within this there are the normal tensions of life that surround change but there is a lot of relaxing too, an acceptance that it is okay to go with the moment, and you do not have to be out on the street every hour of the day. Neither do you have to buy all the usual tourist stuff because you cannot carry it. This is definately a plus, though it confuses the locals!
Life challenges are smaller but still daunting. You work out where your base line is-what you can accept , like my itchy washing, my navy trousers and teeshirt so caked with soap powder I itch, but I know that in Vietnam I can get rid of them and have some cotton trousers and shirts made up, and wash them myself! We miss having running water to wash, clean teeth etc. It feels so confined to use a glass of bottled water! Sit down toilets are a real joy after the others!How many times can you act out, "Could I have some toilet paper?" Say no more! Getting butter with your toast and milk with your tea is good. I am so sick of acting that out. I will have to show the Chinese the, ' English tea-ceremony'! For the love of god!!!!!
The best things we have bought in terms of survival skills? Our little red bucket. It has been our washing up bowl, our bathroom sink, (on the five day train), our washing machine, the loo, when I was sick, Our washing up bowl etc. It has been worth its weight in gold, along with our water purifying tablets. The travel wash has been excellent in view of the small bags we have, four pegs and a short drawerstring that has provided our wash line have also been good. Our sleeping bags were vital in the Ger, when it was cold. They are cotton and provided a clean place to lie if some of the beds looked a bit suspect! Our two plastic beakers have provided clean drinking vessels too, necessary if you are going to avoid tummy bugs! So far, so good. Vietnam will test us out!
We miss being able to turn on the heating because the places we have stayed do not have carpets, warm curtains etc and the cold is setting in. Food is an issue because very little tastes the same. The omelette cooked in Chinese oil has a different taste. Sometimes you long for the simple tastes of cheese, fresh bread, coffee. In China we have carried our crackers but found nothing to put on them...maybe fresh tomato will do?? Often you adapt your acceptance levels or find foods that compensate. The brandy is only one pound a bottle! Fruit is crisper and fresher in Beijing. Some of the Chinese food is pretty good too, if you search around. Getting butter with your toast is sometimes hard going...it is a bit like the Python sketch for spam. I could have one toast with butter and the other with jam, but noth both on each...Hellooooo!!!!!!!
Trying at least one local dish in each place has been...lets say interesting...See earlier blogs!
The next adaption is to heat, hard sell and mosquitoes (maybe) . We envisage ourselves renting a beach hut along the Vietnamese coast, becoming the Timmy Hasselledoff and Prune-lla Cumbersome of the beach scene. Lets see.....

Monkey Business.....

2007-10-30T02:00:00.000-07:00

What is navy and vast and hangs from a bar?????? Me on the high altitude train getting off the middle bunk. How undignified is that? Especially in an open carriage. I surprised a few passing innocents.
Well, we were glad to leave the smells and thin air of Lhasa behind only to find that worse was to come. Stoop toilets on the move now.!!!!! Not managed to perfect a technique. It is not natural, and I do not propose to spend time on it.
This time we decided to travel like backpackers and selected a hard sleeper. Thjere were six of mus in the confines of an open carriage. Bloody hell! We were surrounded by smiling Chinese people noisily slurping their bloody pot noodles on one side of us or hoiking their guts up on the other. The oxygen meant that our breathing problems were resolved but the air was still dry. Night-time was too hot and it just seemed like hell-on-Earth. We clambered about like monkeys and sat on the bottom bunk when invited, or perched on the passageway seats at other times until the 'trolley-lady' came past screeching something in Chinese.
The Chinese people in our carriage changed two or three times, but others came to change their places getting into the same bedding.....
I woke on the first morning to find some guy from the next room grinning at me from outside. I looked away. He was there again later when I lay reading, I stared at my book. He remained a while so I gave him a stare. He was outside so I would not sit on the seat outside. He walked past grinning, I looked away. I felt quite distressed. The Chinese lady on the bottom bunk took pity on my forlorn look and invited me to sit down on her bunk. He walked past and looked in. I looked the other way. After this he seemed to get the message. I never saw him again. Mercifully he must have got off at the next station.
On the last night we had changed personell so that we now had four Chinese women, Lee was surrounded but I felt so much more relaxed. We acted out simple communications and shared fruit. One ate marinated chicken claws with delight. We were only eating fruit at this time!
We were so relieved to reach Beijing. We followed Mikel and Brushiana to their hostel, where we are now. The food is not good but we have found a good hostel around the corner. Tomorrow we get our visas, and Friday we fly to Hanoi to stay at the Ritz for 3 nights for 22 pounds 50! After that we are heading for Halong Bay, boat trips and sunshine.... I can dream a while.

Lhasa? Eugghhh!!!

2007-10-30T00:08:00.000-07:00

It is Tuesday the 30th October. We are in Beijing, just 10 minutes from Tian'namen Square. We have just explored the art area 5 minutes walk from our hostel. Fabulous. There are small lanes with birds in cages, barrows of really fresh fruit and fresh looking meat hanging on stalls here and there. Lee had a conversation with a Macaw who spoke impecable Chinese but no English! The air is cool but dry so I am all right with my fleece on. Lee's only sweatshirt was washed yesterday so he was cold, even with his lightweight coat on. He was delighted to get the washing back last night but when we looked at it this morning it was covered in soap powder. It is a pity that we are wearing navy!!! We have too few clothes with us to offer them for washing again. At least we match! All these warm clothes will be thrown away next week, when we will be in the 28 degrees of Hanoi. We will probably moan about being too warm then!!!! At the moment I need sun and sand. I have had enough of cold, dry air and freezing nights.
Back to the last post where we were in Chengdu, waiting for a permit to visit Lhasa.....
By some bureacratic decree we had to set up a tour to visit Tibet. This meant that we had to hire a driver and guide, which increases the cost considerably. I would not have minded so much but it is such a small town it is easy to get around yourself.. We were not able to go by 4x4 overland as it is a tense time in Tibet during this month apparently. A Polish couple, called Mikel and Brushiana, who wanted to go had advertised so we joined them and set out full of hope to fly Air-China from Chengdu, and leave the wonderful, ' Simm's Cozy Guesthouse'.

It was an easy, comfortable flight. We were greeted by our Chinese guide, Helen, with white scarves, in Buddhist style. So far so good. The airport toilets were 'stoops'. Just don't ask!!!. Women are not designed to aim, unless you are in one of those shows in Amsterdam!!!! Disaster....Just the start.....
We set out happily, if a little wet, for Lhasa, which was about an hour away. The scenery was spectacular; huge velvety brown mountains and torquoise streams with yaks munching in closely cropped grass. Brushiana, (Not the right spelling..sorry B), and Mikal took some excellent pictures which they have promised to sent to us on a disc. The little square family house had flags in sticks in five colours, representing different aspects od Buddhist belief, on the corners. They were colourful and were meant to sent your prayers in the wind, we were told. Whilst revelling in the sights and enjoying the space I began to notice that my breathing was uneven, which was a bit disconcerting. The guide suggested that we settle in today and just wander a few local street whilst we acclimatise.(????) I began to realise why later!
The Yak hotel was quite nice we thought as we arrived. Going over to our rooms with women porters hauling our bags, (which seemed odd,) I turned into Steve Austin, the bionic man, in slow motion, and tackling the stairs was somethings else. One flight of about 12 steps required about 4 stops, whilst I gasped like an old goat! (What's new?) As we had got up at 4.30am we fell fast asleep from 11am until 3pm, when Lee decided he needed food. I felt oddly uncomfortable and was gasping as I bent forward to put my socks on. (No rude comments here, Stanley!)
We made it aroung the corner and ducked down a side street. There were various items on offer on stalls but it all looked a bit mucky so we searched for something like a bar. We found something like a bar, and, relieved, moved inside. Two women who were wiping the counter looked up and grinned hugely. We asked for a menu. I decide that I would try sweet tea, in order to avoid Yak butter tea with salt, and Lee ordered a beer with much arm waving.
His beer was a large bottle. It came accompanied by one of the smallest glasses you can have. I was highly amused, until my tea arrived. It was a huge jug-flask that smelt(?) foul when the grinning barmaid opened it! The tea was rather like tea we would give to a small child:too milky (full cream yak milk I expect), and a bit too sweet, (I don't usually take sugar.) So there we were, grinning like fools at the ladies behind the counter whilst they smiled back, until one burst into song and we relaxed.
We perused the menu, and, sometime later, asked to order which caused intense, then shocked stares. We had decided on potato curry. The lady acted out, 'No food only drink". Lee tried again with gestures, "No food?????" The little one, who resembled Jimmy Cranky, looked quizzical but then registered something after a moment and shot through a curtain shouting, "Ah, "Gallyfan! Gallyfan!" We glanced at each other, not sure whether to be hopeful or not. Lee said, "Maybe cauliflower? That would be good." The lady was back,
"One? Two?, she gestured.
Lee looked at me. I looked at her and quickly signed, one. She came back ten minutes later with a bowl of potatoes, rice, yak meat and shredded carrot. It was potato curry! It looked good so I tried it and then ordered a second. She had wondered why we had not ordered two at the same time, but I felt too weary from the thin air to explain.
On returning to our hotel we were told that breakfast was on the fifth floor. I thought someone was having a laugh but it was true!!! No lift and recurring boughts of the bionic man in slow motion made me feel despair. Ah well, this could be a weight-loss plan that works, I thought, and retired to bed .
The second day involved two visits to the Jokhang temple and the Potala Palace, the winter palace of the Dali Llama. The first was packed to the rafters with visiting pilgrims from the coutryside in colourful costumes in a continual snake around the outside and inside of the temple. They looked at us quizzically as we did them. They were devout Buddhists, and when they were not throwing themselves with gusto, onto the floor, they took great care to lift children to each 'gods' image and explain the meaning behind it which I appreciated. Though there seemed to be hundreds of these the children were well behaved and seemed awe-struck when they viewed these images. They bwere pretty gruesome, some of them! They were poor people but liberally sprinkled their flasks of hot Yak butter at each deities candle area. The smell was nauseating, to say the least. I could not wait to get out of there.
Potala Palace rose into the sky in a white radiance. It was built on a huge rocky outcrop and dominated the town. The one thing I noticed was the continual staircase of steps, and that was that. Though I was bitterly disappointed I was not going to attempt twenty minutes of stair climbing when I was already suffering repeated attacks of altitude headiness that affected my breathing. I sat in the sun until I got too hot, then in the shade until I got too cold, people watching.It was fascinating.
Day three introduced us to Sera monastery outside Lhasa, and the 'slapping monks'. IQEA group take note!Here, the teaching method for new monks was to team them into threes or twos. One stood and asked a question of the other, about Buddhism. Once the question had been posed, they slapped their hand on to their arm to present a challenge to the others. They had to provide the relevant answer about Buddhism. Will it catch on ??? Good teaching method. Not sure where the teachers were!!!!!
I avoided the close confines of the insides of the monastery on the grounds of sanity! I wanted to keep the fragments that I have retained. We were told by our guide that washing once a year was the rule. Phew!!! It was only October, but I was so pleased that I was not a summer visitor!!! Ask Anne Taylor.
We did n ot find any edible food and felt unwell nearly all the time, so we were pretty pleased to get out of there!!!! We booked the two-day high altitude train to Beijing. And that's another story!

It's Mongolian life-but not as we know it Jim.

2007-10-20T00:57:00.000-07:00

A single star and the moon hung in a dark blue sky, with a creeping of peach over the mountain tops that enclosed the flat, velvet brown planes of Mongolia. It was 6.30am and our 5 day journey on the Mongolian Express was coming to an end. We were eager to put our feet on terra- firma, our earth had moved enough!

A herd of horses grazed in the mist that was beginning to lift off the surface of the steppe. It was barren rather than bleak. Snow lay in light drifts around the fencing of the train tracks. I saw my first circle of Gers as the sky turned marshmallow pink then cerise and bruise blue.

We pulled into Ullanbattor station and were collected straight away and whisked off to our guesthouse. Once again our world had dissolved and reformed itself. Gone were the neighbours of the last few days, smiling, dutch Rob and new Zealand Bob. We were to start again. Our mini-bus was a jumble of tired people needing showers, washing done and a fresh, still bed. We laughed and joked in the early morning light with irish Lu and Seamus. Once showered, we handed over our laundry and set off through the town looking for the internet, the post office for postcards amd somewhere for a decent breakfast. We were now dealing with tugriggs-only 1240 to the pound! 700 for a tip, (How much?) amounted to the princely sum of 50p.

Ullanbattor was a glorious shambles of soviet blocks and 'posh' hotels. The ramshackled ger district would have made any shanty town proud. There were generally smiling faces and the odd curious look, there were uneven pavements and huge broken kerbstones but it felt safe and it seemed very easy to find your way around. There was a little English but information was limited as we were there at the end of the tourist season, and when they assured you that something would happen it was not necessarily the case, however, it felt wonderfully relaxed after Moscow.

Each day we woke to a summer blue sky and a bright sun but the air was fresh and cool. The dryness of the air surprised us and caused some breathing congestion. I watched a patch of black ice all week and it failed to melt, despite the sun, which intrigued me.

The open countyside has the fabulous contrast of the Gobi-desert and the grassland or steppe. Youngsters went off for treks of 6 or 9 days, moving around. We were content with the city, visiting the art gallery and two museums, and finishing our visit with an overnight stay in a ger.

Our hostel was great. The UB hostel. Clean and friendly, efficiently run but with a very small kitchen. It was quite hard to socialise and a lot of people seemed to move on quickly to the countryside treks

The ger visit was overshadowed by the killing of a horse for the next menu and a sudden spate of minus ten degree weather!

We had arrived on the Tuesday at around 12. It had taken us an hour and fifteen minutes to get to the Terelj National Park. There were vast undulating brown velvet hills, strange rock formationsm reminiscient of early Star Trek Martian sets, and the famous white felt circular ger tents of the nomads. There were also a few tepees and camels, which was confusing on grassland!

I stepped, Maria like, (aka Sound of Music), into the hills and headed joyfully, towards out ger, whilst a Man, up a ladder, yelled, "Meat? Meat?" at me. I indicated yes, as did the others without thinking, as we were to eat with the family whilst we were there. Inside it was decorated with brightly coloured cloth and had only four wooden beds around the edges and a stove in the centre. This was the nearest I was going to get to my desert tent fantasy! Fabulous. After a brief chat with the other four we realised that dinner was to be in two hours time so, some went off riding, not me as I had decided that to inflict myself on some poor unsuspecting horse would be cruelty. Bob and his wife Sarah, from southern England, had decided to go for a walk and invited us. Lee was actually considering it but I had already realised that they were serious walkers and declined on the grounds of infirmity! Once they had set out I sat on the ledge outside the ger in the glorious sunshine looking at the fabulous scenery. That was when I noticed the two men, directly in front of me, walking towards the tethered chestnut horse with a huge plastic sheet in their hands!

I looked around but they kept coming into my line of vision so I went for a walk over the hill and behind sone rocks. It was so still I just sat, and worried about the horse. It was quick and efficient, the kill. The others were shocked when they returned because the horse had been reduced to neat joints of meat on the plastic. It was all collected up later in the 4x4, and that was that! Practical and efficient but quite shocking for me. The next two meals were very subdued affairs, while we stared at the thin strips of meat on our plates among the noodles, carrot and potato and reflected a little. ! We are very hypocritical about eating meat in the west.

It began to get dark about 4 and, with the loss of the sun we were at the mercy of the cold, so when one of the men appeared in our ger with a large bundle of logs we were very grateful. We tried to unhuddle and look a little less frozen. We probably looked pathetic! A warmth spread around us and we felt brighter. We visited our neighbouring ger bearing gifts of vodka and coke. Everyone had a little, then we retired to out now warm ger and had a game of cards. I won best of three.

As the dark advanced it became hard to see the cards in our spluttering candle so we retired to bed. It was only about 9. Periodically the door was ripped open and the man top[ped the fire up ,or threw a pile of logs on the floor. His last visit was at about 11 when he filled the stove with logs and topped it off with coal. We sweltered beyond endurance. I stepped outside to cool off. It would not have bothered me if the whole Mongolian nation had been out there I was so hot!
It did not work. It was unbearable!. I had wondered how the others were getting on sharing as they had only met that afternoon which was not conducive??? to stripping off! At three in the morning we had the reverse situation as it was now -10 degrees and we had drafts blowing under the felt! We woke up frequently and were relieved when the morning came. We could not believe that we had paid for the priviledge of these extremes. We were glad that it was only for one night!

We returned to out hostel at 12 amd had a shower. We went out for a meal amd caught the taxi to the airport at 6.30. We were now heading for Beijing and then an internal flight to Chengdu, on the borders of Tibet, where I am sitting now, writing this , in an oasis of heavan, known as Simm's Cozy Guesthouse. It is the most wonderful hostel I have ever seen. It is a traditional chinese house with every facility that you could wish fir, including plenty of room to converse with other backpackers, consequently we spent happy hours with Emma and Tina who have moved on this afternoon, and we are setting out on a 4-day visit to Tibet with a Polish couple on Tuesday, when we hope to ride the high altitude train for two days through the Hi malayas to Beijing, to fly to the warmth in Cambodia. I have started Vikram Seth's book about Tibet, and we are off to see the Pandas tomorrow. Life seems amazing.

Mongolian Express-Oh!

2007-10-12T00:07:00.000-07:00

The relief as we boarded was palpable. Made it to the right place and on time. Phew! It was close though...

Lee had done a reckie on the two previous days with limited success.

Tariq from our hovel-hostel had taken him the first day. After a frustrating morning they did manage to purchase Tariq's ticket but the stop for beer and a celebratory sandwich had turned into a, 'convert to Jehovah', session. Lee made it back as fast as he could!

The next day we both went to test it out but started by going up-town instead of down-town, (there was no way of telling!) We did discover one of the best stations at the end of the line. Everyone melted away and we were left standing in what looked like a magnificent ballroom, complete with fabulous chandeliers. It was silent and empty. A guard came and directed us to the next level to return to the main line. We reached our station about 4hrs later, it had only been 6 stops and one change!!! I was exhausted and a bit dispirited. I was not looking forward to tomorrow.

We left our hostel at one the next day at one, even though the train was not leaving until 9.30, complete with our backpacks and two bags of shopping for our journey. We walked to the first station to avoid changing, and, after asking several times, we made it straight there in an hour!

We sat at the Internet cafe and the 7 hours went quickly. Two hours before it was due we went to the platform. Lee had the questions written in Russian, 'I am catching the Mongolian Express, train number 6, at 9.30. Could you please tell me which platform it goes from?' We were put in position by a helpful Russian rail woman, but it was only 20 minutes before it left when Lee took a wander and found our train in on platform 2 not 5!!!! There seemed some confusion when we approached the carriage attendant but we eventually got on. There were a few back-packers but many more Mongolians carrying so much stuff on board that we could hardly believe it . We found out later why.

We sat relieved in our 1st class compartment. This was to be our home for the next 5 days. I was very excited about this stage of our journey, because of the distance we were going to travel, we were leaving the Russian bureaucracy, behind and Mongolia was a complete unknown.

There were two knocks on the door. A man first, wanted his bag from the store under the seat. We obliged. Some time later a couple of women pointed to the compartment above the door. When we looked up there was an enormous blue bag. Lee passed it to them and locked the door. We checked everywhere else. Nothing. We settled happily for the night. The rocking soon sent us to sleep.
I awoke at daylight the next day and peered excitedly through the curtains. I could see only two colours: The summer blue sky and the golden leaves of Autumn trees. It was dazzling and fabulous. I could not fail to smile. I leapt out of my sleeping bag, not wanting to miss a thing. I released the blind and just stared at the scene before me.
Along the track majestic beeches stood sentinel, their bark silver spears in the sun. Behind them the flat land stretched endlessly away with a haze of white frost lifting in the suns rays.
We stopprd at a grey station. The Russian women seemed serious, the Mongolian women bustled and smiled. Their faces bloomed like the moon I once saw in a Victorian play.
Our hot water flask provided our coffee, we had bread and a choice of jam or fruit-a veritable feast. I am constantly surprised by how little we really need in life.
At the next station a few pieces of the jigsaw fell into place. There had been a lot of activity as we approached and, as we were only stopping for 15 minutes I did not bother getting off. In seconds the Mongolians had held up endless goods for sale. There was the sudden flood of Russian people trying coats on and examining shoes and boots. In ten minutes it was all over! It was fabulous and sudden, reminding me of those elaborate fold- out birthday cards. This happened every time we stopped, whether it was 5am ir 12pm. Simply amazing. The Mongolian are traders by nature. They can make 2000 euros a month doing this!

5 days was a long time, and, at times, the train seemed relentless in its jourmey, until the border, where we had to wait 5hours for the Russians to search for the Mongolian goods that had been moved up and down the train so many times the passageway resembled an ant run. This was greeted by the europeans on boardwith hilarity.

We made lots of friends, exchanged books, shared a beer amd generally had a good time. We lost 3 more hours, now -7 from England, and went through three seasons; We started in the Summer sunshine of Moscow, changed to the firing of the landscape among the little wooden villages of outer Russia by the fabulous Lake Bakiel, where I watched the sun rise, a gash of gold in a cold, grey sky, over the surrounding mountains, near the Russian border, and then moved to the white snows of winter as we approached Mongolia. The dawn injects a little blue into the sky, a softerner of colours, but there is no disguising the onset of Winter. We would soon be getting off in Ullaanbaator.
The later scenery was even more breathtaking than the former. The beech trees were now skeletal fishbones and, no longer silver but stark-white, the brave gold of the remaining leaves now a pale orange. It was all magical. A morning mist rose around the horses on the plains amd the sun peeped coyly over snow capped mountains . I think Mongolia will match the Russian Steppes.

From Russia with love...

2007-10-01T00:58:00.000-07:00

Well destination 4, I think. Moscow. It is hard to keep the dates etc in mind when the days do not have specific events to mark them out.

After St Petersburg and the rather secretive meeting under the number 64 I was not sure what to expect of Moscow. An image had formed in my mind of people looking over their shoulders and more dark cars with sunglassed men wearing darks suits. (If they are watching what the hell can they see????)

The good knews is that it is like London but cleaner and less crowded. There is no chewing gum in the streets and people move so silently it is wonderful. People are dressed decently and there are not acres of tatooed flesh hanging out everywhere. The sun has shone constantly from a clear blue sky on beautiful buildings in wide streets. The metro is superbly efficient and some parts of it are exquisitely beautiful, well worth a visit in their own right.

Red Square was wonderful, creating an immense pleasure like my stroll down 5th Avenue in New York. It is one of those famous places you just have to see. You are not hassled or jostled, just left to stroll with your thoughts, bliss! The Kremlin was less impressive for me, but if you are into churches and that kind of decoration, it is beautiful. There were lots of school trips but the children were well behaved. The parks are relaxing and beautiful, unlike the squares in St Petersburg with their glassy eyed drinkers, that felt threatening. Worth visiting are Gorky and the sculpture park, there is even one that was a dumping ground for the space programme, now a theme park, Russian style, lacking all the advertising and hard sell. Just sitting there for you to see at your own pace. There are lots of middle-aged women and men employed to garden and pick up leaves, wearing ugly green overalls. I did wonder if they were doing community service, an alternative Siberian exile? There were ice-cream sellers who also sold cold beer on tap, and hot dogs. Very enterprising I thought.

Our street is a haven for visitors with artists, musicians and stalls. Lets not mention the accommodation, Home from Home, whose home it is based on I am not sure but it works on the commeraderie?????? level, with people from all over the world passing through. This gives us very interesting conversations.

A final thought, maps are hard to follow, brush up on your Russian alphabet! English is very limited, rather like French in England. Tell Chris White!There are one or two enthusiasts but most people seem reluctant or embarrassed, never-the-less they are very friendly and will do their best to communicate with you. A pen and paper are vital and be prepared to act out a lot.

I was expecting 0 degrees in Mongolia on Wednesday but now it says 20 degrees. You never know what to expect.

Love to everyone. xxxx

Lost, found and lost again!!!

2007-09-24T01:13:00.000-07:00

God, its all Russian to me!! Puzzles are fun for a short while, but not 24/7. Everything is a puzzle because very little is written in English: example, yesterday we went to the main station to book our transport out of here.
We found ,'Information' because the sign is international! Ha, little did we know that was to be our only success of the day We asked the 'assistant' "Do you speak English?"
She replied abruptly, "No." and that was it. Her shoulder shrug said, 'Deal with it!'
We went to the extensive queues and, when it was our turn, asked tentatively, Moscow? We were signalled to queue 12. We joined. The young lady spoke a little English. Hope bloomed. "A train for 26/9/07?", a Wednesday we signalled.
"It only runs on Mondays and Fridays."
"Any others?"
"Yes!" Increduously.
"Times?"
"Seated or standing?" (They do hard seating or padded I remembered but said nothing).
"Seated." We waited, held our breath. She stared at her computer screen, clicked a few buttons, then announced, "There are no more tickets available." We gave up because we did not know what to do.....
Now, I know that this puts us in the category of super-whimps but we had had a very trying morning. Lee's one goal that day was to book our passage out of there. We were going to track our journey to the station. Two hours later we were still walking!!! The maps are very confusing! We walked miles in straight circles deciding to visit our original bus station in the hope of catching Euro-bus to Moscow. A man wearing an advertising placard advised us in perfect English where to catch the bus. We walked in a strange queue of three! I forgot to suggest to him that we should apply for a job at the station! We got on the number 34 bus which proceeded to take us back down 2 miles of the road we had just walked, then deposited us in an unknown bus-station! Apparently this was the one where we could get a bus to Moscow, but we had Eurobus in mind, so, blinkered, we walked on another mile to the Metro, and, with a sigh of relief, came back up at our original bus-station, which suddenly looked far more attractive than it had on our arrival!
We were pleased to see that building was progressing as a fence had been erected between us and the eurobus office. We walked the long way round, undaunted, flushed with the success of finding our own way to the office via the underground when everything was written in code. It was only when we were waiting to be served that I made the link that Eurobus would not take us to Moscow!!!!!! Plonkers.
At this point Lee concede defeat. We returned to the underground and two stations took us to Pushkin, near to our address. We called into a Druckers type cafe and 'licked our wounds'. Some time later, Lee wandered upstairs to the loo and found an internet cafe, which is where I am writing this, and, better still, as we wandered outside we found an agency that books transport, however, it was closed.
Today is Monday 24th, I think, and we returned to the agency. We now have a flight to Moscow on Wednesday. It is only 50 minutes, and it was all done 5mins from our apartment!!!
A lesson, I think! We are going to celebrate by having a late breakfast in Mollies Irish bar. Tomorrow, we will make a determined effort to find the Idiot cafe, which is vegetarian but sells novels written in English. Bliss!
Impressions of St Petersburg??? A huge building site. I bet 1/3 of the roads and buildings are being sandblasted. There is so much dust everywhere... The canal was covered in red dust yesterday. God knows what it was. There are beautifully ornate buildings but the are either in need of paint or surface work. It all looks run down. There are wonderful cafes and shops selling exquisite goods but it is not for me. I will be glad to go. The local shops selling beer, vodka, bread etc. are very friendly and this apartment is within ten minutes of the centre.
We were sad to feel so isolated in our apartment. Once you close the door it is silent, despite being ten flights of stairs up in a huge decaying block. Our stairwell is a grim, peeling public toilet green, the stairs, though solid, are dirty and warn. Once through the huge iron door opened by a key that would be better suited to a fortress, we were greeted by an appalling stench of drains. However, it still seems very welcoming after eight hours pounding the busy streets of St Pete's! (Please forgive any mistakes, my mind is in a whirl of times and situations and, therefore, a little more scrambled than usual, if that is possible.) Moscow next!

gone....to Eastonia

2007-09-17T01:20:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are in Estonia. Monday 17th of September, 2007.
First impressions...Easy to get to, pretty, uncrowded, so quiet.
The people wear quite serious expressions, but, given their recent history, it is not surprising!
Go to the Museum of Occupation! People speak very little English so conversations are limited, stilted and even abrupt. Persevere, there are some nice people out there!
The old town is a curious mixture of ornate and brightly painted Baroque merchant houses, quite large wooden houses, like those I saw in America but strange building materials for the cold and snow , and tall Soviet blocks with nothing to recommend them except serviceability. The tall spires and red roofs of the old town reminds me of Prague. It is difficult to distinguish the use of buildings as they tend to have no distinguishing features and are often behind tall iron gates. A cafe, a school and a museum can be indistinguishable at first glance.
There seems to be no accessibility for disability in the 3 inch threshholds, the 12 inch high steps
and the cobbles like boulders. It feels safe but there are opportunist thieves around so keep your bag across your shoulder and under your coat, for peace of mind.
Our hostel is clean and tidy. It is easy to relax and meander. There are many good cafes and beer cellars. It is a good start....

More pieces in place.....!

2007-08-30T11:46:00.000-07:00

Well, that took some doing. I have spent so much time on the internet checking visas, trains, safety and accommodation my eyes are like those glasses where the eyeballs spring out.

Managed to miss last Fridays injections, not because we were doing anything, just overlooked the time and found that we were too late! What a pair of plonkers. Last injections tomorrow and Monday. Lets hope that we make it!

Some accommodation booked now in Estonia, St. Pete's, Moscow, Mongolia and China , all hostels. The plane is bookedto Estonia and the train from Moscow to Mongolia. It feels a bit more secure now. Still feeling a bit anxious. Just waiting for the visas.

We had a practice pack. Lee's rucksack, complete with sleeping bag, is so neat!!!! I was chuffed that my stuff fitted into my larger rucksack but I need to reduce it to fit my sleeping bag safely on the top. Tommorow.....

With the cars gone, the phone and internet off tomorrow and no television for a month our world has changed considerably. We only have the travel insurance to complete and last minute reading to do...

Nu beginnings

2007-08-09T13:32:00.000-07:00

10th August, 2007
'Let's drive around Australia and New Zealand?' Lee had said two years ago. We had been across Europe in our Suzuki van for the school summer holiday and really enjoyed it-Monaco, Nice, Pisa, Rome, Zakynthos, Kithira, Venice, Switzerland, Luxembourg and then home. Bliss.

During this two years the 'Australian' trip has morphed into a 13 country journey overland to Darwin where we plan to purchase a small camper-van and tour Australia then move on and do the same in New Zealand. We are starting in Estonia then catching a train to St. Petersburg. After this we will visit Moscow and catch a train across the Trans-Syberian route across Mongolia and into China. From here we plan to visit Tibet and Nepal, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Malaysia, some Indonesian islands before flying to Darwin.

This is the diary of that journey.

The planning is advanced now and the weeks are racing by. I have barely had time to recover from my early retirement and I'm doing the rounds of vaccination clinics and visa sites.

It was bad enough to see my photograph for the visas...many of them unfortunately! Distinctly unattractive, unless you were entering a halloween competition!! Something was wrong with the colour balance as I was not wearing white face make-up or bright red lipstick. On the booth I had noticed the word 'Fun'.. This was not,, but time was of the essence, unabashed we stuck them on the relevant documents and sent them off. Pity we were not going to Transylvania.

Tomorrow is the second visit to the clinic for our injections. The first, had resulted in a perplexing moment when the nurse happily stated that unless the inflammation covered more
than two thirds of my upper arm I should not panic! I panicked, but all was okay. No side effects that we were aware of. Let's see what round two brings us...