Dodgy Uncle Mike's Progress (DUMP)

Bombay and Beaches

2010-05-11T13:49:00.010+07:00

So, eventually another blog, no excuses, just couldn't be arsed to sit in some dark room when the sun shines and the beers are calling. To also be honest I found this difficult to get excited about writing, its a tour of the SW Indian coast back to Sri Lanka then the scheduled hop to Thailand to re-visit old places / people and mainly to meet up with Taff and Lin plus Mark, Georgie, Bob and Mandy to celebrate Taff's 49th and their 25th wedding anniversary in Ko Samui. Beaches are beaches at the end of the day!
Then when I sit here I do it a disservice: fabulous beaches, newly opened post-war Sri Lankan east coast and then the guys of course. All mixed with the pains of travel and dry states in India, still apprehension in NE SL and diving and drinking in Thailand! So, I'll do this chronologically for a change:

Mumbai:
The only city in this chapter - and what a place! Full of more contradictions, history and today - colonial / anti-colonial, art deco mansions and skyscrapers, shanty towns and beaches but above all for me Mahatma Ghandi's base. What a man, lawyer/ philosopher / leader / peaceful revolutionary in India, South Africa (deported) and Britain. Visiting his old house is an eye-opener on his life and works, shame about the cheesy pastiches of his life.

SW Coast:

Bus and train trips all the way back down the west coast to fly back to SL through 4 states, all different:

Maharastra - deserted beaches but Robinson Crusoe-style, no tourists, no infrastructure, no beer! Great for a day or two, move on;
Goa - like another country! Just cross a river and there are Moorish cathedrals, shrines and bars / restaurants, and a thriving illegal booze smuggling trade with other states who tax it to the heavens. So small after the other states too, easy trips between sites. Portuguese until 1960's and fully western: still some old hippies but many old 60's hangouts are now either package tourist towns full of Russians and Brit winter escapees or backpacker beaches but all different styles, cultures, nightlife with a Portuguese twist in the inland towns, and still a few almost (always a bar) deserted beaches if you look hard enough! And cheap! Recommended by DUM's very lonely planet, but go soon the Russians are coming.
Karnataka - a flying rail trip through, as stopped many times on way up. Again huge beaches in the north with little infrastructure but as Goa keeps being packaged, many independent travellers are starting to migrate south. Doesn't have the western "culture", few hotels and DIY nightlife. Then, like Kerala, you have the historic ports and waterways and hill stations if you're not a beachie, so take your pick!
Kerala - as above with a couple of exceptions: Varkalla, for instance, an old established clifftop beach resort. But summed up India for me, I couldn't take a decent photo without streams of rubbish covering the cliff sides opposite each restaurant or shop area. Someone Else's Problem. Bye India.

Sri Lanka:

From Colombo up to the newly opened NE coast following the 30-year civil war. 8 hours on the train to Trincomalee, supposed to be a beach gem around there. It was still pretty much closed, the beaches deserted, hotels closed or still burnt out, army and navy patrols. Talking to the locals was easy but don't mention the war! Still tensions as most people here are Tamil and don't like the Singhalese even though most didn't fight themselves. My guest house owner spent 8 years in USA/Canada to avoid being "conscripted" by the Tigers, his family still there. His wife stayed throughout as local teacher, they have re-built their house 3 times, twice as burnt out by warring parties and once destroyed by the tsunami (4 metre high wave here)! What a cushy life we have.

Followed the east coast down through Batticaloa (pretty old Dutch fort city) through lagoons and dunes to Arugam Bay - a surfer paradise from April and all Muslim here. They were caught pretty much in the middle of the civil war, less forces and patrols here, they are still re-building from the tsunami in 2004 as money allows! Found great bar run by half-Dutch/half-Isle of Man guy who rode a bike out here in the 70's, married a local and has never been back! Illegally brews his own beers too! German-style from wheat beers to stouts - wonderful! He just pays off the police, etc and they come and drink it too! Think Arugam Bay would be fun in season!

Then through the southern national parks for the elephants (inc Born Free Foundation place, excellent) and back to the west coast beaches on the way back to Colombo and the airport. Beware full moon days in SL! Unlike Thailand, the place goes dry - its a holy day! Still, got served special "tea" in big teapots and drank from a cup and saucer! Saved.

Thailand:

Re-visited Phuket - last time I think, my favourite beach, Kamala, has 2 more big hotels behind it and you can't see the beach for sunloungers. Must have been there too often anyway, the local tailor salesman, Dave, didn't even try this year! Bye to some good people.

Then across to the east Gulf coast to the Samui islands - Ko Tao for cheap diving and fun times (except for abandoning a dive at 18 metres down when my throat closed up on me! Caught a virus it turns out, scary); Ko Pha-Ngan, the famous full moon party island (don't bother if its not full moon, its empty and sad) and to Imperial Boat House Hotel on Ko Samui - luxury! Don't think the porter had seen a backpack before, he carried it upside down, desperately clutching it to his chest! And the mob, great fun for 3 days of swimming pool, drinkies and eats by the beach. Congrats to T&L too! Then moved on - its somewhat out of a traveller's budget! Back to the west coast, Ko Lanta and Ko Lipe (free mozzies with every visit to the outside loo) for diving and island hopping south to cross into Malaysia by boat to Langkawi, and so to the next blog!

Odds and odds:

India: go back? Only to see historic palaces further north, Andaman Islands diving people rave about, and the northern mountains into Nepal, apart from Goa - a good cheap escape
Sri Lanka: go back? I loved the ancient cities, hill country and some of the resorts but not enough to stop me going somewhere new, which is my measure I guess. On second visit after India, its not as manic as I first thought!
Thailand: always fun but only with others now for fun or for diving, I think. It's not cheap anymore either, twice the price of SL or India.
Food: Thai then Lankan then Indian, though to generalise about Indian food is dangerous, each state is different, the further south the better the food
Drink: Its all become fizzy pop lager to me now. Singha still has a taste of its own. Local spirits are interesting - from rice wine to palm toddy to "whiskies", all worth a try! Some disgusting, others like raw spirit, some real smooth, all with a hell of a kick. Indian real wine was good too but expensive. Alcohol - a benefit or a barrier to travelling - discuss. Certainly "lost" a few days along the way but met some interesting locals too.
People: Thais are the most friendly, Lankans friendly but nearly always with an ulterior motive to remove money from your pocket. Indians are business people and more serious OR they ignore you because life is hard enough without helping others. Exceptions all over of course. Me being non-PC again.
Tourism: a subtle form of colonialism? Certainly completely alters the cultures, the infrastructure and the environment, but brings in dosh which makes a few very rich and jobs / services for the rest
Kites: a fond memory of India, watching huge birds of prey wheeling above and watching crowds of dads and kids queuing (well as near as you get in India, lots of shouting and scrums) to get served at Kite Shops - yes, that's all they sold plus re-stringing services! Good people watching!
"Silent Noise" night club in Goa: pay your money, get headphones and a choice of channels and dance the night away to your own DJ! Four DJ's each playing different club styles in a big open air arena, so different groups raving, smooching, headbanging all over the place at the same time! and all to get around the noise pollution laws!! Surreal, especially after a few bevvies, etc.

Sorry, rambling on as usual. Photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/laurentmik/SW_India_SriLanka_Thailand_2010

Cheers! Mike

Cows and Contradictions

2010-01-16T12:32:00.005+07:00

So India or to be precise southern India. I came here with all my western stereotypical thoughts and fears of poverty, dirt, crowds but with history, India seems to get a lot of that sort of press and images at home.

First, a step back to set context: I have been here 5 weeks now and have managed to see only part of the south! It's massive. And what I've seen and experienced have thankfully confirmed some but dispelled, or at least overridden, most of those stories.

The biggest surprise has been the geography, which is beautiful - forest covered hills (the Western Ghats) behind a western coast of beaches, waterways and historical ports. Behind the hills, fertile plains (the Deccan plateau) cut by river valleys with areas of barren hills and volcanic outcrops.
The history stretches from centuries BC to British colonial to Independence via warring kings, sultans and emperors who all built cities and fortresses, trading routes with Arabic, Persian, Chinese and then European merchants, created advanced civilisations and brought their religions - buddhism, hinduism, muslim, christian, jainism. And left huge legacies of cities, palaces, temples and cultures.
Independent India has had a fight to catch up with western countries who to this time have held the power, money and economic influence. Hence our views of a backward nation. But that is changing, at least for those who have managed to catch the new gravy train of an Indian economic boom based on IT and manufacturing (cheap labour), there is a thriving educated middle class.
Languages: there are 7 official languages, so quite often people from different states revert to Hindi, the most populous) or English!
Travelling is hard work - the distances involved plus the ageing roads (they just go from a reasonable B-class road to a mass of dirt, potholes and axle-breaking trenches within a split second), ever-stopping buses and trains means a 30 kilometres (say, 20 miles) per hour average speed. So any move is a full day or overnight lack-of-sleep-er bus/train.

So, the stereotypes and the contradictions:

Yes, there's poverty - huge numbers scrape an existence through scavenging, sweeping up after everyone else or begging. Shanty towns and homeless on the city streets. Many who won't catch this economic development through lack of opportunity (the caste system is still alive and thriving, I'm told), education or chance. But hopefully its effects will filter down. Remember, Britain had huge slums and homeless during our big development times of the Industrial Revolution and before - and we may have again some time?
Farming appears to be subsistence only and country folk stay that way or join the shanty towns - this is very much a bullock cart and ancient local buses in the country versus cars, taxis or at the worst tuk tuks in cities
Yes, there's dirt - but there's a strange dichotomy between a complete willingness to create rubbish and a culture of personal and home / business cleanliness (linked with Hinduism water rituals I think) - so dirt is someone else's problem, as long as it is not on me or in front of my house / shop - they are forever sweeping their bit of the pavement or road. And it feeds the scavengers, animal (cows - who even eat cardboard here!, pigs, dogs, crows roam the streets) or human (night sweepers, recyclables collectors, homeless). The real problem comes when they litter in areas where no one cleans up like beaches, empty building plots, river banks.
Yes, there's crowds - the Indian government openly admits it can't keep up with the population growth in terms of housing, infrastructure, education and employment, So exaggerating the haves and have nots gap. No, there are not crowds everywhere - this country is massive and you can find some beautiful places in the hills or on the coast.

And now the fun bits.

Highlights include:

Swimming on Xmas Day at Om Beach with a barbecue fish dinner on the beach
New Year's Eve on a guest house roof swigging illegal local spirits until 4am with a group of other travellers from 4 countries in Hampi, a dry city
Hampi - an ancient temple and royal capital in a pink granite bouldered river valley - surreal. It took 3 days to walk around all the sites / sights!
Mysore and Hyderabad royal palaces - those guys were seriously rich and knew how to show it off
Indian whisky is pretty damn good, and cheaper than drinking local (Kingfisher, Cobra, Foster's) beer. About 1.40 pounds for a treble in one of the dark and grotty bars they specialise in here
Ellora cave temples complex and Khailasa monolith temple, quarried out of a cliff to leave behind a big piece in the middle which then got carved into temple halls, shrines, statues and monuments - without breaking any away from its base - 2x Athens' Parthenon! All by hand in 12th century
Western travellers going native - hippy linen clothing, long hair and Jesus beards, beads and bangles and ashram/yoga/meditating things (actually saw one bloke get up after his meditation on top of a rock above the sea, not realise his legs had gone to sleep and fall over - nearly killed himself! Dead funny) whilst Indian middle classes and youngsters are heading west - clothes, TV (for good or bad - reality TV has arrived here), music
Indian politician's polling victory parade in Madakeri - motorcade, fireworks, dancing, drums - blocked all the streets - until it reached a T-junction and no one could decide which way they should go!! Brilliant

Lowlights include:

Lack of sleep on sleepers and travel times
City pollution, traffic noise (drive without signals or mirrors just blow horns) and yes, rubbish
Spitting, hawking at maximum volume and anywhere that's got a wall is a public toilet - mind you there are no actual public toilets except in major cities and tourist venues. ALWAYS watch where you are walking! Avoid the cows too, they stroll or just sit down anywhere
Bloody vegetarians - everywhere, I know its a religious thing but come on....
Power cuts
Grotty, cold water sluice buckets not showers in guest houses
A cockroach on my toothbrush
Moustaches are a must!

Enough! Photo link is http://picasaweb.google.com/laurentmik/South_India_1_2010

Cheers! Mike

Anyone for Tea?

2009-12-15T17:41:00.005+07:00

And so begins another piece of work for DUM. Have you any idea how long these blogs take to research? The blood, sweat and beers that are lovingly captured for your benefit?

August, and England gets dark, grey, colder and, yes let's get it out of the way now, the bloody merry Xmas serpent is rearing its ugly commercial head again - jingle bells is heard in Boots and turkey / stuffing sandwiches appear in Gregg's.
Anyway, bugger all that, much as I love you all, I'm off while I still can. Its November before I actually get away as I have to spend 3 weeks crewing boats in Channel Islands and Sardinia, and its Vinny and Beck's wedding! This allied to the Asian monsoon cycle timings in my target destinations - Sri Lanka and India.
So the only booked stuff is a plane ticket to Sri Lanka, on to Bangkok in March and return legs in July, the rest of it is all mine to play with (I mean work within).

To Sri Lanka: in summary, it is all it says on the tin for the enquiring tourist - ancient cities, temples, the "hill country" of British colonial settlements, miles of tea plantations hiking and views, beaches and tropical sun. The weather is still changeable as the end of the SW monsoon is about a month late (here too, eh?).
So that's the advert over, now for what I found and think:

Forget Colombo, a commercial, polluted, traffic nightmare
Beaches: For those who just want an "all-includio" hotel complex holiday then Beruwela / Bentota but NOT Negombo - it only exists as a resort for those who won't do an airport transfer of longer than 20 minutes, the beach is crap. All the good beaches are at least 2 hours away heading south, and then keep going for the really good less developed resorts and beaches to near Galle and beyond, but beware the tides and currents - its not Thailand
Cities: some great ancient cities founded 3BC (what were we doing then, apart from going "ugh" and applying a nice shade of wode?) around either kingdoms or religion or both. Mainly buddhist (one of earliest buddhist countries, visited by Buddha himself. In fact there's an authenticated 2,000 year old Bhodi tree which came from Buddha's family home, guarded 24/7 for all this time. Are the people worshipping the tree or its symbolism now - difficult to tell, cynic that I am, bits of leaf / twig are handed out to the devout and carried off in great awe. Then the colonial cities of Colombo and Galle, Galle is fascinating mix of Portuguese, Dutch and British. Kandy was still an independent hill country kingdom (too bloody difficult to get an army up there!) until the Brits conquered it in 1815, so is a real mix.
Hill country is totally different - cool climate for the summers, hence the Brits built an amazing railway up there and started up tea growing (and imported '000s of Tamils from India to pick it, another great legacy of ethnic "management" from us). Great hiking and views though.
Food and drink: Hot and spicy but with surprisingly mild coconut milk based curries. Great seafood on coasts. The standard offering is "Rice and Curry" on the menu or signboard but talk about underselling! It is served in about 6 dishes so you can mix and match spicy with coconut, vegetables with meat / fish, add to the rice and use your RIGHT hand to knead that bit together, make a small bucket with your 3 forefingers, put to your lips and shovel it in by scraping your thumb along your fingers from the palm out to your mouth - NO licking fingers, go wash your hands either during or at end of meal. Or ask for a spoon. Local spirits are homemade spirit versions (which taste nothing like, but the Lemon Gin is not bad); Arrak - coconut palm spirit, rum-like, which is the usual locals' choice - very cheap and of course lethal; Toddy - tapped from palm trees and so new still fermenting in the bottle; local beers (mainly Lion) are ok lagers, Three Coins is a malty pilsner which is the best if you can find it.

Some thoughts:

The whole of SL is just praying that the final end of the civil war after 30 years will hold and the tourists will start to come back, as a local said to me "it will only take 1 suicide bomber at the airport or at a resort and SL will be dead in the water for years to come". It was a bit weird with all the armed forces checkpoints and bunkered guardposts along the roads and main buildings, and then in the north going into what was contested territory until only a month ago. Didn't go right up north though, although possible now, aiming to get further up there when I come back for a couple of weeks in February (also when their monsoon lets up).
The roads, or more particularly the drivers, (the roads are bad enough). Size matters, if you have the biggest truck or bus and /or the loudest horn, then all other rules don't apply. Driving on the left is optional particularly if you are a tuk tuk or motorbike. Cyclists are completely immune to all rules, and appear to have a force shield to avoid contacts. All this at top speed with horns blaring - even if its just to wave at your mate going the other way! Bus drivers have six arms, one eye on a telescopic arm and 2 brains, which enable them to drive down mountain roads / hairpin bends, hold mobile calls, chat with their mates, see round blind bends and press the horn simultaneously.
The people are really friendly, and the kids all shout and wave and practice their English - apparently all part of growing up to become a serious scam merchant. I've seen quite a few before now but I've learnt some new ones! "You're so lucky today is a festival at the temple, come see..."; "How much are these English coins worth?"; "No money please, this is my job...(until the end)"; "I've been working as a dried fish turner-overer for 20 years, let me show you....". The last guy was even on Rick Stein's Asian Odyssey apparently, still has the BBC badge (dried fish turner-overer, yeh right).
Pubs / bars: weird away from the resort beach bars, which themselves are only where independent travellers go, as the package hotels trap their people by the pool - Bentota has none, you have to use your hotel; and there are strict licensing laws. But the bars in the towns are amazing! "Attached to a hotel for local people only" (separate alleyway entrance). Men only. Purposely darkened, blinds / one-way glass to the outside / low lighting (if any), cement floors and walls, caged cashier / bar, pay before you get a drink (take a chitty to the bar cage from the cashier cage in some cases), and sit on plastic beach chairs and plank-top tables - with the rest of the top-class clientele of course (the Baker's has nothing on this I promise you). But all passed off peacefully so far, if a little strained at times
Official photographer to the launch of a fishing boat was an interesting morning in Tangalle, all had to be done strictly in time with the given propitious horoscope moment (11.12am apparently, all done by my watch anyway, which I know is a minute fast but they all assumed mine was right, so if you hear of a fishing boat mysteriously disappearing on its maiden voyage...). Joined in the milk rice, sambol (hot and spicy coconut, onion, lime, chillies chutney) and bananas celebration (Muslims, just my luck!) and back slapping all round, so it was great fun. Thank whichever God or Prophet, the prints came out ok, so sent them to the owner a few days later.
And then I wind up making my way back up the west coast to Negombo to find that Xmas is alive and well and living Roman Catholic missionary style here (shrines ans churches, convent schools everywhere)! Which is fine for the devotees but the retailers are catching on fast - Xmas trees, lights, tinsel, blow-up santas, shopping specials and sales. Luckily only there 2 days then off to India.

Bye!

Photos are at http://picasaweb.google.com/laurentmik/Sri_Lanka_1_2009

Now where WAs I??

2009-11-10T20:25:00.005+07:00

A ridiculously late blog post to complete the Aus jigsaw, apologies. This is being done as I wait for my friends to give me a lift to Heathrow for the next research trip!

Anyway, Western Australia (WA) was immense, dry (until the winter storms hit) and yet again subtly different from the other states. Vast driving distances through flat desert plains to reach towns who really shouldn't exist but for mining (largest diamond mine in the world Kimberley diamond anyone?) and pearls. But worth all the effort.

The Kimberley mountain ranges, coastline and rock formations
Shark Bay world heritage site (the oldest living organisms on the planet, stromatolytes, which convert nitrogen into hydrogen and oxygen and were instrumental in creating the atmosphere we breathe today!)and the Ningaloo reef, the only reef on the western side of a continent - dived with manta rays, dolphins, dugongs and nurse sharks cruising past! Dugongs, sea cow type things and supposedly the origin of the mermaid myths - how pissed were those old sailors??
The Bungle Bungles sandstone rock formations, only publicly discovered by white folks in 1982 when a film crew asked locals for somewhere interesting to film! Now world heritage site but with private aboriginal areas as they are still believed to practice sacred burial rites inc. termite burials of elders - period of mourning lasts until the termites have completely covered the corpse
Broome for the "Staircase to the Moon", the moon rising over the sandbars and shallow sea and reflecting a prism of lights onto them from the setting sun.Also for the open air Sun Pictures House, the oldest operating open cinema complete with deckchairs and old benches
The Dampier peninsular, home to many aboriginal people but with a catholic missionary twist
Then to the south of Perth,the giant Kauri pine forests and bleak Capes with Margaret River wine district sheltering behind them
Fremantle, a preserved Victorian city centre of grand terraces of villas and shops and public buildings, esplanade leading to the harbours and the brewery! And a party town too

Sorry, a brief summary but too late to start waxing lyrical really, but also because as I neared Perth, so my deadline loomed and the last 2-3 weeks were a real whistle stop tour and the weather went sour with gales and storms as soon as I headed south from Shark Bay.

A few last thoughts:

Best road signs "Local Police Are Targeting...", normally D&D, speeding, etc but these were "Fatigue"! Instant visions of sleeping policemen (real ones); quiet crimes during siesta times
Whim Creek Hotel, re-built by Rio Tinto Mining Corp after hurricane a few years ago, and now the mining teams@ work camp but still open to public! Ate with miners in their mess rooms and a few beers too. Amazing
Road kill (again!), emus - just the most brainless things in the world. And in Exmouth are often seen wandering down the high street - weird
Wedding, WA-style: women in party dresses, blokes in ironed shirts with shorts and flip flops but loads of beer all round - hooray!

Handed Lindie back on time and went to local "skimpies" pub (only one near camp site, honest) - barmaids and pole dancers entertaining a load of very bored looking blokes just finished work and intent on watching the horse racing in the bookie area. One of them had bra, knickers and ugg boots on, coz she was cold!

So, would I go back? Yes but would need a team and two vans better equipped so that could do the even more remote places. Would I live there? Perhaps in Sydney or Melbourne or a diving / sailing place, the country towns are as dead as Alton but without history as we know it.

Enough! Photos are at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Aus_WA_2009

Cheers!

Back out in Out Back

2009-06-05T19:18:00.003+07:00

A brief blog I think for a change. Left the beautiful coast and coastal ranges behind for the outback again, albeit including the outback's coast! (Gulf of Carpentaria, the big bite out of Aus at the top).

Leaving the QLD coast at Cairns, immediately climbing the coastal mountain range at Kuranda, then onto the Tablelands, a volcanic plateau between the coastal ranges and the Great Dividing Range (yet again) and over that into the outback travelling west to the Gulf and into Northern Territory for the 2nd time, this time the northern Northerrn bit up to Darwin.

Took lots of diversions and unsealed tracks on the way to see the weirder bits and the national parks, and up here the aboriginal sites. These people were / are all over Aus but seem more concentrated influence and history here.

A few more thousand kilometres and two punctures later and am in Darwin, "the top end". Via volcanoes, savannah grasslands like Africa, world heritage sites like Kakadu Park and Katherine Gorge, loads of wildlife (some very dangerous) and lost explorer camps and townships. Darwin is very small (about 4 blocks by 6) and very modern having been completely decimated in 1974 by Cyclone Tracy (were you around to smite then dear?) and now a laid back traveller hangout (lots of bars, clubs and hostels with pools!) plus state government and armed forces bases.

Next and last stage is into Western Australia, and everyone keeps telling me its going to be the best of the lot, and I have a fixed end date, bugger.

Aboriginals: what a confusing and difficult culture to understand. They believe in spirits creating and ruling the planet and that they are just guardians, no concept of land ownership, with no written languages just art and stories as teaching tools. Fair enough, but hence the clash with the capitalist, land grabbing / destroying / fencing-off Europeans.
So there now seems a complete mess between the government saying sorry and giving land rights back (but no you can't go back to hunting, gathering or nomadic lifestyles, we'll pay you to sit in "closed communities" and keep out of the way. Oh, and by the way, because you have been naughty boys we shall ban alcohol and porno material from your communities too for your own good - they actually smuggle alcohol into their own homes!).
But on the other hand many apparently wreck any homes built for them, drink the handout money and refuse to work, they just stroll around the towns, look straight through you (so the whites do the same back, who started it?) and then just sit / lie in any shaded spot. Its like they are waiting for the day when the whites will disappear again and all will be restored, maybe they're right??
What a mess. Its just like the nomadic tribes in Africa, their lifestyle doesn't fit with land ownership so they have to be fenced in / out, have no future, get paid to shut up, so they get drunk and violent, very sad. Having said that, of course some do break that stereotype and are teachers, expert guides, stockmen and artists.

On a lighter note, I'll never complain about changing tyres again at home, jacking 4wd trucks up in the outback in 30C, being eaten by ants and attacked by mossies is a painful experience!

Also, why can only under 30's get 12 month working visas? Renewable for another 12 months if they fulfil the work commitments? Us old gits can work too (well, maybe).

And it was only 150 years ago that people were still dying here trying to find a way across this island! Went to Burke and Wills' expedition's last camp site, really eery - just a few miles from reaching the north coast when they turned back and died trying to get home when missed their support team by 9 hours

Northern Territory "top end" - country locals in singlets, short shorts, big hats, big boots, big beards and mullet haircuts! But fun evenings in the pub watching the sport. Even the lady cook in the Humpty Doo Hotel smoked a pipe!

OK, time up. Photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/laurentmik/Aus_Outback_2_2009

Off into Western Aus tomorrow, see you all too soon.

Queensland - bye and thanks for all the fish

2009-05-25T09:20:00.006+07:00

So to the renowned Queensland (QLD) state and what I hoped would be one of the highlights, the Great Barrier Reef and sunshine coasts. To summarise, I found North QLD coast amazing, central and south too commercial for me. All the inland mountain ranges are good, getting more and more tropical as I went north of course - lots of areas are World Heritage Areas or National Parks, so its all about the geography and nature and no development. In the North, the mountains meet the coast, so the two merge into gigantic national parks and marine parks - absolutely beautiful, could spend weeks exploring, sailing and diving here, and very few tourists except in Cairns (central base for it all).

First to Brisbane and a couple of nights at Simon and Dawn's (and not forgetting Charlie - great fun, you couldn't forget him anyway!) place in Manly. Great to see them again (and thanks guys for the hospitality) - Brisbane is compact, modern and pretty laid back for a state capital - even less history than the southern cities! But still has the mix of architecture.

On to the tourist "Sunshine" coast above Brisbane, pretty much developed, smart and rather unexciting to me - nice beaches with surfing, high rise apartments, adverts everywhere for retirement properties, and holiday hotels / units. Headed into the hills behind the coast, a tip from my Sydney friends, to Looking Glass and Blackall ranges and the valleys behind them - very beautiful, and rich farming country - country fairs on as another "long weekend" for Labour Day on May 1, which were interesting - real locals and their families not tourists, but rubbish bank holiday weather works here too.

Also to Australia Zoo, Steve Irwin's place - concentrated on Australian critters, quite rightly, but now extending to include a SE Asia zone, shame. The other shame was piped Aussie "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport" type music in the main areas and a mini-football stadium (the Crocadium, from memory) with cheerleader commentaries for the croc feeding (cheer for what country you're from!! Louder, I can't hear you - yuk, then named crocs doing their bit to a hyped-up commentator). But the redeeming feature was the kangaroo park, like a walkthrough their pastures, all quiet and almost natural. Worth 54 Aus dollar (27GBP) entry?? mmmm.

Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world - a 75 mile long beach serves as the main road, then tracks through the dunes into the interior rainforests and lakes, really interesting for a couple of days guided tour. 4WD would be possible on my own, but if I got stuck then completely stuck here, loads of soft sand driving - tricky. Turpentine trees from here were used to shore up the sides of the new Suez Canal, as they are resistant to saltwater and marine rot!

Up through central QLD, all coastal plains full of sugar cane and cattle. Built own cane railways for harvest time, musat be quite a sight as it goes for hundreds of miles and tracks are everywhere.

Diving: 4 trips (2 day trips to shipwrecks, and 2 live aboard trips to the outer barrier reefs inc 2 night dives, 1 complete with real shark - if you see one green eye it is swimming alongside you, if you see two it is coming towards you - stay still and either douse the torch to make it bored or keep on taking photos and let it hit the torch!). The weather sea conditions and quality improved massively as I moved north, so sorry but you have fish photos again!! The wrecks were totally opposite: HMAS Brisbane, a deliberately sunken destroyer was ruined by rough seas and very bad visibility; SS Yongala, a passenger steamship sunk in a cyclone in 1911, was fantastic - now in top 10 wrecks dives in world, but a grave site (122 people were lost and never recovered) so you can't go inside - but you can see portholes, stairways, etc (and full medecine bottles, baths and everyday stuff still in there if you did go in as some have, of course) - but it is a wonderful dive as an artificial reef anyway. Oh, and I passed my certification in enriched air mixed-gas diving!! Go further for longer, and more times is the idea but got to get the formulae right.

The Great Barrier Reef is all it is supposed to be, and doing it on liveaboard trips gets you to the real barrier (coral walls, caves, etc) reefs which day trips can't reach (also 450 people on one boat. No!!). The weather was great, the dives wonderful and some sailing too. Saw sharks, rays and a Minke whale too, and giant cod (these look docile if big, but are carnivorous, or is it fishivorous?... "if you get your hand inside its mouth, push further in so that it chokes and spews it out as it has rows of backward facing teeth that will lacerate your arm if you pull").

Whit Sunday Islands are mountain range peaks split from mainland when sea levels rose after Ice Age, close to coast and great sailing country - we had good winds but not great sun and currents, so good sailing but not great diving - just have to go back. Whitehaven beach was massive, and such pure silica that it was used to make lenses for the Hubble Telescope!

Went as far north as Cooktown on land, where Captain Cook first landed in 1770 (only because he had a hole in his boat from the reefs!). He was not a happy bunny - named places as Cape Tribulation, Weary Bay, Cape Flattery, Mount Sorrow. Good area though, would have liked to explore further north but no time now.

Some thoughts:

Why can't bowls clubs at home be like here, and act as pubs? Walked into one, through the ranks of white-clad bowls players on the rinks to find JJ Cale playing "Cocaine" on the jukebox, bookie shop in one corner and the machines in the other and cheap beer too! Plus these are community clubs so profits go back to local projects, etc. Great idea, would bring clubs at home back into centre of social life in the right places.
What a waste! Miles and miles of beaches that can't be used for swimming. Signs up in northern areas - not only will you get stung by life-threatening jellyfish, so small that they can get through normal nets, but if the sharks don't get you the saltwater crovcodiles will! Oh and by the way, here's a free bottle of vinegar to douse the stings with until / if you can get to medical assistance - seriously!
What is it with obsession with giant fibre glass figures? I have given up taking photos, but in QLD they have risen above giant prawns, lobsters and bass to include: a gumboot the height of the rainfall in that town one year (Tully, 9.7 metres (about 32 feet)) - there's a staircase up it!; Captain Cook (a really awful "statue" at the start of the Captain Cook Highway in Cairns; fruit - "The Big......" mango, banana, pineapple....

OK, now heading west towards Darwin and Northern Territories national parks. Only 6 weeks or so to go! Bugger.

Photos are at http://picasaweb.google.com/laurentmik/Aus_QLD_2009

Cheers!

NSW: State and Sydney Bye with...

2009-05-05T12:28:00.006+07:00

...chips. Dropped my camera and it bounced on the attached wide angle lens of course. 120GBP to replace, but very lucky to find one in Sydney. So, you will find either a fly or white fuzzy marks on many photos (inc some of those from last blog) until I got the replacement - bugger.

Been ages since last blog it seems as I missed the opportunity to do it in Brisbane. Managed to get the photos loaded but not do the blog. Its a hard life.

So, headed into Sydney via the Royal National Park and to friends of my dad and Val's - Phil and Liz. Not the royal family but a very kind, retired couple with a manic lifestyle of 7 children and 24 grandkids plus.... They have been, and will again be, avid travellers - they went to Uluru when it was still desert tracks with the kids in the back of a car in the 70's! They live in the outer suburbs, Revesby, a 45 minute trainride into the city, so I became a commuter again for a few days (not good memories).

Sydney is a fantastic place, waterfronts and gardens everywhere - and commuting by ferries from suburbs or down the river. Quite a sight, could spend many days there, partic if I stayed in the nightlife areas and the weather allowed more time on the beaches, but I did get to Manly and Bondi and have a very quick swim - it was more like Newquay in midwinter than some sexy Aussie mecca. Like Aussie cities, so far, a mix of modern and Victorian / Edwardian architecture and layouts and all starting as a port on the coast or a permanent freshwater source inland.

Then into the nearby Blue Mountains, spectacular scenery and hikes (if still changeable weather), then zig-zags up the coast to the Queensland border between coast and mountain / gorges / waterfalls national parks. Didn't manage to escape the autumnal weather which swept up from Antarctica for a few days, catching me in the mountains - frosts and ice on Lindie in the mornings (comments anyone?).

Exceptions were detours into central NSW, to Orange and Bathurst for a view of the central plains areas, and Tamworth and "New England's" farming and gold mining towns. Great diversion was to drive around the Bathurst motor racing circuit, Mount Panorama, which used to hold the F1 grand prix racing (bikes and cars) until the 1960's and is a hell of a climb and drop around the mountain - now does famous endurance races, etc. Weird, it is a 2-way public road (60kph/45mph limit normally with turn-offs into houses and farms!) in normal times - that's how they got the govt to help pay for it back then, as a scenic drive apparently, clever. So Lindie has done 3 laps of a racing circuit now!

Thoughts:

Aboriginal names: is it a con? The tribes didn't speak the same languages but managed to come up with similar names for places, all with loads of "o's" and "a's" (how many "O's" can I get away with in a name joke = Wooloomooloo in Sydney), and all meaning logical things like "place of many waters" or "place where one can see for f****ing miles, mate, trust me". That was until I got to Angourie Point, a great surfie place - now either the dopy English explorer accidentally talked to a Frenchy taking the piss or the locals had got bored of the joke, but Angourie means "place of angry seas"?? No way.
For some reason remembered it was my very old mate, Jon Pearson's birthday on St George's Day. Should have kept up with him, a great bloke and wonderful friend all those years ago, somewhere in NZ still I believe - too late now. Got that way with all the old North London crowd too, probably. Still can't change history.
Anzac Day, remembering all Aus/NZ forces, very serious over here. Dawn services of remembrance then a wake at the pub. Special licensing, cheap offers and a gambling game as played by the veterans in the trenches, betting on 3 coins landing heads or tails - only allowed on Anzac Day in the local pub (saw this in a gold mining town called Hill End - Royal Hotel's beer garden, whole families, BBQ and friendly betting betweeen each other (no bookie or central bank here). It was a special afternoon.
Great names for places if not Abo or copying Euro name: Buckaroo (near Mudgee) and Broke (Hunter Valley)
Aus still very much a rural country, well into horses (breeding, racing and betting), farming and local communities for locals only. The cities are isolated hotspots almost out of character, except on the coasts where they are suffering from the same problem as UK, all the retirees going to the good places and skewing the demography, and thus the local economies.
Lindie got a good servicing in Sydney

OK, so now in Queensland but I'll save that, except to say many thanks to Dawn and Simon (and little Charlie, aka "Bob the Builder") for their hospitality and friendship in Brisbane, before it seems too late to say it.

Photos link at http://picasaweb.google.com/laurentmik/Aus_NSW_Sydney_2009

Cheers! Mike

River Deep (-ish), Mountain High (-ish)

2009-04-18T10:37:00.004+07:00

It was all very sudden, driving for hours through the ever flattening, burnt brown hills of South Australia, turned a corner and there was the Murray River - and beyond it mile upon mile of bright green irrigated vineyards, orchards and cattle pastures! As soon as irrigation could not reach then it was back to brown scrub or grasslands.

The Murray riverlands feed masses of Australia (wine is a food in my book). The problem is that even this 2,700 km river is suffering from lack of rain in the mountains that feed its sources, added to which is the ever increasing demand from farmers and populace alike.
It is one hot political potato over here with each state it flows through accusing the others of mismanagement and pinching too much as the massive drought continues. However it is still one big river which, with its sister river - the Darling, used to be the only trade route to the inland areas - gold, wool, meat then later fruits and wines flowing out with supplies coming upriver.
The former mining and trading cities and river ports now depend on agriculture and tourism but reveal very prosperous areas still. Those same trade routes became the hot spot for bushranger (outlaw) ambushes - Ned Kelly's gang being the most famous.

The river plain stretches for hundreds of miles until the foothills of the highest mountains in Australia begin, and natural greenery, forests and rivers (low) start - and the stories of gold boom towns, now returned to small villages or disappeared completely.

The Australian Alps and neighbouring Snowy Mountains reach 2,288 metrres at Mt. Kosciosko (sp?) and ski resorts just about survive with the tops that get above the tree line - limited areas but if that's all there is, it causes huge demand in short seasons and a few ski areas all within a day's drive from the majority of Australia's population in Melbourne, Sydney areas.

So, not dramatic like the Euro or NZ Alps but beautiful views all the same, and especially as so near to the coasts and rainforests.

The sea!! Finally made it, after weeks of deserts, plains, forests and mountains - and very beautiful it is too - reminded me of south of France in parts, then south-west England in others. Loads of beaches, harbours and space (except on the roads at Easter!) - boat, shellfish and beach fishing is huge here. Everyone brings a boat and rods with them on hols.

Ans in between all this a visit to Canberra, the purpose-built Federal capital. Laid out around a lake and hills, and still a small city - which was shut on Easter weekend, literally. Even pubs and internet cafes (all 2 of them)! Except every campground was full - WHY??? Because the bloody National Folk Music Festival was on!! Thousands of them, Morris dancers, hats, the lot!! Why me? Left to hide back in the hills then the coast again.

Thoughts for the day:

Hair - I can still grow it, finally had a cut after 3 months - it was an impressive head of hair, an impressive mess but...and still no beard in sight
Internet cafes are bloody rare here, and if they do exist they don't have CD drivees because they are too scared to manage the potential risks, so take them out!
Been to Victoria's only legal brothel! It shut in 1880's. Oh well.
Lindie has a new windscreen, but no other dramas, she's going really well - so far, apart from bits of her insides falling off. Her buttons need pressing gently these days! We've done over 7,000 miles now
Beer! Victoria state has a complete micro-brewery industry, and a trail between them! And the beer is mostly pale ales and stouts plus Euro-style pilsner lagers, plus Chestnut Lager, real ginger ale and Blackberry Stout (ace!) - hours of fun (for educational purposes only). Add the wines, and even local port (lethal)!
Food! The meat, fresh fish, local bakeries and fruit are ace, many more independent shops still here, not just supermarkets. Good local cheeses too - very naughty for me.
Cold! Autumn has arrived big time in the mountains - forosts and ice on the van! Time to head for the sun and beaches methinks
Rocks - an amazing mix of ages, volcanic and old seas, lava flows
Gum trees - grow from almost seawater to snowline and have adapted to climate, fire resistance and soil change, very impressive
Public holidays - Aussies have the same lemming instinct as the Brits - chaos and road kill of a very different type. Strangely, one radio news broadcast was timing the deaths, so you had to only 12 hours, etc to go if you wanted your road kill to count as a "Long Weekend" one!

So, one final push up the coast to reach Sydney, and a BED for a few nights! Cheers! Mike

Photos link at http://picasaweb.google.com/laurentmik/Aus_Rivers_Mountains_2009

Rocky, Salt and the Reds

2009-03-31T10:52:00.007+07:00

And so Lindie and I ventured into the depths of the "Red Centre" and have emerged stunned and dusty after just over 2 weeks and over 3,000kms (1,000 on rough roads/tracks).
Stunned because it is an awesome place in terms of size, heat, colours, rocks and mountains and gorges and the people who founded and now live out here (Aborogine and white).
Deserts stretch for hundreds of miles but change colours with both the light and the different hues of the rocks from almost black to pure beach sand and salt white via brilliant reds. The sky and horizons just go on forever, broken by ranges of hills and mountains themselves split and broken by the heat, wind and freezing nights plus flash floods.
First stop was Coober Pedy, the famous underground town just existing because there is human perceived value in sparkly stones called opals - crazy, but unique and incredible. People digging around in up to 50C and living in old mine dugouts to try to keep cool, imagine the original miners, hard bastards.
Then to Alice Springs, a bit of a nonentity really being a railway, telegraph and road junction but not interesting in itself (except for an excellent western American style saloon bar called Bojangles!).
And so to the mountains and rocks and gorges:

the MacDonnell range full of narrow gorges where flash flood creeks have eventually split through the walls of the range;
Gosse Bluff, a little advertised crater in the middle of a flat plain caused by a huge comet 140 milliion years ago, which in turn threw up crater sides the height of the Alps and caused, they say, a global weather change;
King's Canyon where erosion has formed incredible rock formations from what was originally layers of compressed sand dunes, this was part of the coastline of the great "inland sea";
Uluru (and its sister hills, Kata Tjuta) - what can I say, the largest single rock in the world and still 2/3 below the desert floor yet to be exposed. It is awesome and does exude an atmosphere as it changes colours during the day and exposes clefts, dry waterfalls and holes all over its sides, plus the sacred Aboriginal sites upon and beneath it. Idiots have put graffiti on it, scrawled over the ancient paintings, and scramble to its top (from where, of course, you can't see it and there is nothing to look at except flat desert) but it is too majestic for that;
Flinders ranges where massive tectonic and earth crust movements have caused an incredible array of different rocks to be exposed in a very small area covered in faults, folds and gorges;
And between them all, huge salt lakes - the remains of the inland sea, one of which, Lake Eyre, I was incredibly lucky to see start to fill with freshwater all the way from Queensland for only the 3rd time in 25 years. Others never fill, and one of which cotains the last complete skeletons of the mega-animals as it was the last to lose its fresh water and the animals mummified in the mud of its shores.

And through it all the Aborigine tribes who not only survived but thrived here for 40,000 years. Then the explorers, the engineers and the farmers who followed all within the last 200 years. The largest cattle ranch in the world is here, Anna Creek, half the size of England and with only 1,700 head of cattle on it because of the ongoing drought here. There are the remains of boom towns from mining, farming and railway / telegraph stations (wherever there are water springs) - William Creek, population of 2 officially, a pub and a house and now an airstrip for the cattle stations.

So, lots of great 4wd trips, detours, hikes and scenic flights to take it all in. Just amazing.

And finally:

Flies: everywhere, in your face, on your back, even causing problems if nature calls while traveling. Any moisture from any source, even your breath through a flyscreen - a welcoming committee on waking up in the mornings. Thought: if zips had been invented earlier would we be zapping zips instead of flies?
Spiders: some monsters. One in particular, a sandy coloured, saucer-sized thing. I put the light on in the back of the van one night, turned round and came eye to eyes with this thing which was sitting on the ceiling of the van. Do spiders have a concept of upside down? Anyway, I sidled round and opened the rear doors, got some kitchen roll and prepared my best tennis overhead smash. Never been much good at tennis, it landed on my bunk. Now at this point it ran towards me!! I think I had upset it, but I prepared my best cricket off-drive, got it on the half volley, over the (bed)covers and through the boundary doors for six (or is it eight if its a spider, I can never remember?). A swift snort of medicine was required, and I have never left my shoes outside since, although it actually must have got in with my food shopping.
Road kill: they don't mess about here with wallabies, etc, they go for the mega point animals: cattle, camels and red kangaroos!
One geological event theory is now that there was a pre-Gondwana global ice age, but that there was then some catastrophic climactic change "overnight" (no time gap in geo-terms), and Aus went to being a tropical ranforest with 20% carbon dioxide! And we humans think we have a problem with 0.4% and rising. Just shows how small and insignificant we are, these things have been happening forever, its only because we might actually be here to experience one that it is "a disaster".

I found it impossible to edit photos down, so I have created a highlights folder and the main one (200+ photos) at http://picasaweb.google.com/laurentmik/Aus_Outback_Highlights_2009 and http://picasaweb.google.com/laurentmik/Aus_Outback_2009 respectively.

Cheers! Mike

Coasts, Koalas and Culture

2009-03-15T10:44:00.005+07:00

So, I picked up Lindie, my van and home for the next 4 months in Melbourne after a short flight from Tassie and headed south west onto the famous Great Ocean Road for a sunny, spectacular, smooth sortie to kick off this epic.
Now this where things started to go wrong:

got as far as Torquay (surfie paradise, man) and was told not to continue as the road and the Nat Parks had been closed because of bushfire threats in the extreme heat and high winds. Can't argue with that so hung around Torquay for a couple of days, at which point:
it started to rain and blow a cold wind straight of the sea from the Antarctic, so my scenic cruise was 3 days of battling squalls, storms and cliff edges to see this famed beauty. Even the bloody koalas looked as miserable as sin (but still cuddly, aaaah! - see photos), rocks and seas were pretty impressive though
all of this whilst trying to keep the inside of the van dry for sleeping in. No chance of cooking anything as the cooker setup assumes sunny, dry weather outdoors from the van! It was just like trying to go camping in UK, and I remembered why I don't

End of this coast road, and the sun came out, typical. Some heavy showers still but sun. Followed the road up into South Australia, nothing spectacular except some volcanic craters and limestone cave systems at Mt Gambier and Naracoorte. Rejoined the coast on the way north toward Adelaide.

Didn't realise it was Labour Day weekend, well nobody told me!

So stopped at a place called Port Fairy, pretty little place and found a Folk Festival starting that night (Friday) - now folkie types look the same at both ends of the world I can confirm. Had to park up in a car park.
Saturday on to Goolwa at start of Fleurieu Peninsular, pretty little place and found a Wooden Boat Festival going on - now boatie types are the same at both ends of the world I can confirm but they like better music, blues bands! A bloke called Mojo Webb who I had seen before in Pau, nothern Thailand! And there is a micro brewery in an old rail shed on the quay, good beers too, so a good night was had. Had to park up in a car park.
Sunday, a tour of the beautiful peninsular and on to the Adelaide Hills behind the city. Very pretty place, posh suburbia - now posh suburban types are the same at both ends of the world, etc, etc.
Every bloody city dweller had his caravan out for the weekend, if only to go 20 miles into the hills - now caravan owners, etc, etc. Had to park up in a car park.
Monday, and I'll have the whole of Monday with Adelaide city all to myself! Except for Fringe Festival, WOMAD festival and the Adelaide Cup horse race meeting - now festival goers and racegoers, etc, etc. Monday night and the had all buggered off home, so I got into a camp site and had a shower whether I needed one or not. Luxury!

Adelaide is very compact but beautifully laid out, completely surrounded by parks, gardens and the river, so the suburbs are physically separated. Keeps the unwashed from the city bankers too, I suppose (sorry Pete).

A couple of thoughts:

Intiative prizewinner: lighthouse keeper who scratched a small hole in the blacked out landward side of the light in exactly the right place so he could see the beam of light from the local pub and know it was still working! My kind of man.
Why does nobody tell you that the clocks change between states? And why do they have a quarantine on fruit, plants, etc to stop spread of insects when they can fly? I was hoping to see policemen with big butterfly nets, no one there at all, so even a fly with no passport could get across!
Oh yes, and why the van is called Lindie: it doesnt say much but grumbles throatily on all day (through a large exhaust), except when its time for her to say "I need money, feed me, or I need a bloody drink". Now girls, I had a choice of names I could have selected under those criteria, so don't feel you're any better, just escaped this time, which is something I doubt I shall when I get back.

Enough! Am now in Northern Territory in Alice Springs but that's another story - its bloody hot and the bloody flies have reached here too, so quarantine can't be working.

Photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/laurentmik/Aus_Victoria_to_Adelaide_2009

Cheers! Mike

On the edge of the world...

2009-03-03T09:39:00.004+07:00

So, in Aus for 1 month already and covered an area about the size of a postage stamp on the map!

Melbourne for a couple of weeks with Pete, Julie, Nico and Alex (many thanks, guys, for putting me up and up with me). A great place to live it seems, the city has just about every sport, concert, show going plus all in a beautiful bay with the beach at the end of the road, can't be bad. A good atmosphere about the place too, a relaxed major city well into socialising, music, coffee (BIG time into coffee, Pete's local shopping street had about 5 coffee shops within 100 yards!) and the outdoors, with wide streets, trams and open spaces.

The suburbs are just like suburbs the world over, non-descript or being re-born by the trendies if they are unlucky. In the leafy outer-suburbs, weekdays means seeing ladies doing coffee mornings, speed-walking the dogs or the babies or both plus health / fitness shops ("spas") everywhere - odd when the rest of the shops are fish and chippies, or restaurants of some nationality or other; weekends means brunch in a cafe by the beach or lunch / people watching after a beach walk or cycling, scuba diving, snorkeling or sailing too! Can't be bad.

Managed to find a pub which specialised only in local beers too! Micro breweries are a big thing here, and producing things like Pale Ale and Dark Ales not just fizzy pop lager!! Hoorah. And with a new quote for me to add to my Facebook profile: "When I read that drinking was bad for you, I gave up reading" (Henry Youngman).
But generally the "hotels" or "taverns" are barns of places at rail stations or major road junctions which are also the local bookie, off-license, bingo hall (Keno here) and gaming arcade all rolled into one! With decor to match a seventies British Legion club. But prices are high (about same as at home).

Bad news about the bushfires raging around Victoria state though - still going 3 weeks on, millions of acres of forest gone not to mention, towns and the death toll. Victoria has about half the water reserves it had 5 years ago because of ongoing drought. Floods in Queensland and NSW at the same time, crazy. Weather went from 45C with gale force winds off the desert to 20C in 2 days! It was like standing inside an electric fan oven.

Then a flight to Tassie, as it is known locally. A 1 hour flight cheaper than a 10 hour ferry ride over the renowned stormy Bass Strait, sounds good to me even if you like sailing.
Picked up a campervan - a bloody monster! It turns out the Tassie is full of Aussies in campervans, so I got the last one on the island - a VW Crafter complete with shower, toilet and TV!! Far too high spec and too big for me (and no 4WD so no going offroad either), but a doddle to drive even on the small windy roads over here.
Tassie reminded me exactly of NZ - rural, forests, mountains, rivers and rough coastlines with small towns and cities, all with a mix 0f Victorian stone / brick public buildings with clapboard houses and churches and modern Neighbours bungalow estates. The people are really friendly and the National Parks are beautiful. Did some day hiking in the forests and mountains when the weather permitted, but got rained out of the west coast. 2 weeks in Tas was not enough, it is the size of Ireland despite looking so small on the atlas, but the weather is very changeable (and cold in the van at night, down to 5C in the mountains!).

Just a couple of other things:

School uniforms. Amazing. Throwbacks to the fifties with pinafore dresses or pleated skirts, closed toe sandals and woolly socks (yes, for the girls) and shorts, long woolly socks and black tie-up shoes for the boys (many of whom are bigger than me). And all with colourful school blazers and ties, all it needed were caps!
Diet: if its local its fried - everything (even fresh scallops and prawns!), if its not BBQ'd meat, and all with chips. If not then its pizza, pasta or asian. Coffee is taken with cakes, doughnuts and muffins. And chocolate shops everywhere too! Sounds like heaven for some of my readers I know, but....I noticed that Julie balances everything out with salads and fruits at home.
Road kill: bizarre to a foreigner. Masses of it, and all of it in weird shapes. Wallabies, echidna (a giant, punk hedgehog), Tas devils, wombats, possums. Cats, dogs??? No chance. Drivers only go for the odd shaped ones here, maybe there's a points system?

Anyway, all done.

Photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/laurentmik/Melbourne_and_Tasmania_2009

Cheers!

Mike

And he's off (again)....

2009-02-09T15:51:00.004+07:00

Hi all, as you all know I have just spent a month or so acclimatising in Thailand before my geography field trip around Australia.

Whilst resting one day on the beach, pondering the meaning of life and what is left of it, I hit upon a profound philosophy and, I believe, a life changing one if adopted as I now have. Not too many of you though otherwise it would be self defeating as you shall see.

I have decided that I effectively stopped the clock when I made the decision not to seek more work, another mortgage, etc. Now if you take this a step further, by then actually doing something by traveling, I must then be turning the clock backwards! Logic. And now to apply this basic truth /logic:

I must have a baseline, a point of clock stopping, so that is March 1st, 2007 - day 1 of not having anything to own, do, support or bare responsibility

In order for this to be publicly acknowledged, I have declared this DUMB Day (Dodgy Uncle Mike's (Official) Birthday (a little poetic license as I know I was formally christened in KL).

Therefore, and this is the really clever bit, as I was 52 on that Day 1 in 2007, I must have been 51 in 2008 and soon be 50 in 2009! How cool is that??

Now, a logical extension (which surely cannot be contested) is that as long as I keep traveling / not working and generally failing "to act my age", my age will continue to fall. So, if I can string this out to 2010 I shall be 49 on March 1st AND, best of all, Taff will be 50 2 weeks later!!

The rest of you good people will then either be growing, VERY QUICKLY, closer to my age or going further away from it. Think of the possibilities.....

And now the boring stuff:
I decided to base myself in Phuket again and renew acquaintances with certain establishments and people whilst getting back into the scuba diving thing. Then to go island hopping, using the local ferries, down the west coast to the last island before the Malaysian border and back to Phuket.

The diving all along here is supposed to be world class, and last year it was, but this year weather , high winds and full moon tides have combined to stir the seas up. So visibility was poor, but the good news is that it means you don't have to sit through pictures of fish and coral! Just "Wish You Were Here?" type photos. Although I did get very close to a couple of leopard sharks, which were beautiful (and not dangerous), and I set my new record for deep diving at 42 metres!

All went pretty well, the islands get less and less developed as you get away from Phuket and Krabi and the banking systems disappear completely, which led to some interesting chats with the locals (cash only, thanks) and a couple of extra trips to the mainland to find a bank. The locals get more laid back too, the last island (Koh Lipe) is ace; just bamboo huts, beach bars, live music, candles on the beach, booze and aromatic herbal smoke with not a single policeman on the island, mmmmm nice.

One hiccup worth a painful memory: staying in a hut with no electricity on Koh Bulone, and got the squits (first time seriously in 2 years!). Hut had an asian style pan and a basin out the back. Dashed out with a headtorch on into the pitch black night, tripped down a couple of steps sending the basin crashing to the ground in pieces whilst I attempted to aim my arse in the general direction of the crouch pan! A sight I shall never forget, me crouching and looking up to see a smashed basin swinging on its water pipe by dim torchlight with water spurting everywhere and me completely unable to move! The owner was very good, and so was the Enterocalm (luckily as I was on a ferry again next morning). Not a lot of sleep that night.

And so on to Australia, where I have been in the lap of luxury at my brother's place (many thanks Pete and Julie), and am currently starting to plan atrrip to Tasmania whilst sightseein in Melbourne, more of which next time.

Photos are at http://picasaweb.google.com/laurentmik/Thailand_2009

Cheers! Mike

Southern Africa - a Retrospective

2009-01-11T11:05:00.008+07:00

Well, firstly apologies for this being so retrospective, I'm afraid that as time goes on a distinct feeling of "manana" has overtaken me. But do I care?? And in my defence, Africa is not a place with fast (or any) internet connections outside of major cities.

Secondly, a brief synopsis of summer (such as it was) at home, Mike-style:

Sailing:

2 weeks falling out of /off dinghies, windsurfers and water skis in Greece. Great fun in warm water!
2 weekends of very different types: one a cruise around the solent in between drinking and eating; the second being two days racing in Force 6-7 winds (gusting gale force 8!), very wet, windy and hard graft. Half the fleet either didn't start or retired, so at least we finished Day 1, then won our class on Day 2 which was a bonus and cause for a few beers.
2 weeks crewing a yacht across the Channel to Channel Islands, France and back. 17 hours to cross on way out, dodging supertankers in Force 5-6 winds which was interesting, took 9 hours coming back on a perfect wind! Took in a French medieval festival in Dinan too, which was a real drinking event around jousting and Viking fighting contests - all really weird.

Won't bore you with the photos of boats in harbours!

Drinking:

Baker's breakfasts
Con Club coffee mornings
Hop Poles happy hours
Balcony bevvies (not many in that bloody weather)

Evening pub promenades (had to work hard on that one!)

Definitely no photos.

Golf: getting worse, clubhouse reviews over a pint on some LVA Society days

Get on with it!

Ok, and so to Africa. An organised tour, as I am too chicken to do that on my own on public transport, over 10,000 kilometres (6,000+ miles) in 7 weeks and a complete and amazing mix:

Of countries - South Africa, Swaziland, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia

Of peoples - Afrikaan, Asian, but mainly African tribes, some still trying to maintain traditional lives (San and Himba Bushmen in Namibia and Botswana particularly), values and art / skills but many others now urbanised and amalgamated. Of younger generations of all colours getting together. Of smiling, laughing, waving children of any colour and status

Of animals, birds, fish, whales and plants by the thousand in numbers and species. Of poaching and protection, dangers and safety, commercial ranching profits and fencing versus wild animal migration and life

Of politics, wealth and poverty, corruption, lingering racism and of fighting for rights. Of immigrants from Zimbabwe and all that goes with that

Of camping, cabins and guest houses in the cities

Of camp fires, barbeques, cabin stoves and restaurants

Of storms, blasting heat, fog, gale force winds and cold nights

Of tar, dirt, sand and no roads (and punctures). Of hours of traveling and of numb bums and toilet stops . Of dust getting everywhere

Of mountains, plains, hills and valleys (rich and poor), sand dunes, forests, deserts, water (falls, rivers and seas), beaches and coastlines

Of vans, trucks, safari trucks, quad bikes, pushbikes, hikes, whitewater rafts (sometimes in them, sometimes out!), microlight aircraft, light aircraft, ships and shipwrecks, cable cars, taxis, dug-out canoes, river sunset (ie booze) cruise boats, kayaks

Of swimming, drowning (nearly), cooking, washing up, pitching tents and taking the bloody things down again, flying and falling, climbing and walking, sitting in trucks. Of tent collapses and moving with me in it!

Of friendship, drinking, eating, laughter, boredom, annoyance, patience (eg border crossings), planning (good and bad), guidance (all good guides of course)

Of pubs, clubs, pool halls, bottle shops. Of keeping a rolling stock of beers in the cooler box, and whisky in the backpack. Of water bottles everywhere, even trying to edge the alcohol out of the precious cooler box space. Disgusting behaviour

Of flies, mosquitoes, scorpions, spiders and other things you really didn't want to be near.

Of good advice: "never mind the flies it's the elephants and hyenas you want to worry about" and bad advice: "Let's have a round of shooters between each beer!". The bad advice always seemed to be ignored - Springboks, Jagermeisters, Dead Donkeys, Spitting Cobras come to mind

Of the missing prides of lions (heard but not seen) and the wished for packs of leopards (don't exist)

Of stunning photo opportunities taken and missed. Of trying to edit them down to a manageable amount for the internet and your perusal. Sorry, might have failed there, you should see how many I've got!

What a time, what a place - I know I'm lucky to have seen and experienced it. Now time for a beer methinks!
Cheers! Mike xx
Photo links (x2) (don't ask what happened to #2):

Chapter 15: And Then There Were Two

2008-05-22T20:08:00.009+07:00

Two weeks, two people and two countries:

Jackie flew out to join me for the last two weeks and we agreed an itinerary covering Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and west coast Malaysia. As we didn't want to waste hours looking for 2 rooms each night, Jackie booked everything via the internet and I sat back! Being organised was a weird but very appreciated feeling after 6 months of scouring maps, guides and leaflets, and walking streets, I can tell you.

I got to KL a few days before Jackie, found a guest house in Bukit Bintang area where the "family" had stayed last time. Bought clothes as I realised that I didn't have anything except my tatty t-shirts and trekking shorts and we were going to be staying mainly in hotels not hostels!

Toured areas I hadn't seen before: went up the KL Tower (as there would be no way Jackie would go up there), seriously high (285m I think), much higher than the Petronas Towers viewing level, shame the windows are heavily tinted though; also went to the Merdeka old colonial area.

Jackie had booked a hotel right in the middle of Chinatown, so moved there and went to meet her at the airport. It was really great to see a friendly face and it felt very strange having someone next to me and nattering about home stuff as well as travel plans, even if she did turn up with a suitcase with no handle.

Stayed in KL for a couple of nights, investigating Chinatown (even found the family's infamous Chinatown rainy night restaurant again!) and its temples, and the Gardens area, really beautiful large park in middle of KL where many of the old colonials had built their mansions but sodding hot and humid to walk around (and they'd drained the bloody lake).

Jackie had a "de luxe" room at the hotel (means it has a window) which also means it overlooks the Chinatown market - very picturesque, until about 2 a.m. when they dismantle the stalls and wash down the street. So, a somewhat nackered face appeared next day! I had a cubby hole ("standard" room) at the back and didn't hear a thing - I didn't laugh too much.

Then it was a bus to Singapore. What a strange place, very regimented by laws and fines for everything and high rise offices and flats everywhere but with small pockets of the old city Chinese, Indian and Arabian quarters still in the middle of it all. Got a great zoo too, not somewhere I would choose to go normally but this one is very different - has a night safari too where you can walk through the rainforest and see the nocturnal animals under special lighting. Harbour trip too, never seen so many ships, busiest harbour in the world with Rotterdam. Boy does it rain there too.

We did stay in a hostel here because prices are outrageous, in the suburbs but had a rice/noodles food hall just down the road with a bunch of local regulars and staff who were a laugh and I think thought we were odd for being there and attempting to chat and eat with them. The locals queued out of the door for the coconut flavour rice which was apparently well known.

The hostel was an experience too, a problem meant Jackie and I sharing a family room for the first couple of nights (she doesn't snore but does grind her teeth, with Sniffy and Gran in the room next door, a Chinese girl and Gran - you decide why we called her Sniffy, it was horrible and Gran got up at 6 am to incessantly run water and go to the bathroom! Then Jackie got the single room with a captain's bunk bed which creaked like mad apparently and kept her awake again - I didn't laugh, honest.

Back to Malaysia, to Melaka (ex-Malacca) - good place, big mix of Portuguese, Dutch and British colonial buildings plus what was the largest Chinese trading post in SE Asia. All being done up and the riverfront renovated really good, although they have gone over the top on museums ( including for kites, youth and self-mutilation/tattooing habits all over the world!)

Now I had got used to being chatted up by bar girls over the months but I had my daily wander during Jackie's siesta and actually got chatted up by a local bloke! Called himself a "fem-boy", really scary. Jackie tried not to laugh too much.

On to Penang island, and a smart hotel with a swimming pool! Bloody luxury. Georgetown is another ex-British colonial place with a huge mix of races (and therefore temples and architecture). One huge buddhist temple complex still being expanded. Jackie bought and signed our names on a roof tile to cover this enormous statue of the chinese goddess of mercy, so we are immortalised on a rooftop in Penang!

Anyway we had a good mix of busy and lazy days, and boozy nights. I even managed to get a long-distance telling-off by Jackie's sister in a call from England for leaving her in a bar with a bunch of ex-pats while I went for a shower!

And so back to KL and the flight home, the end of an amazing 6 months, and a fun last couple of weeks (thanks Jack). Photolink is at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Malaysia_2008_Chapter_15

Cheers! Mike

Chapter 14: A Complete Circle and a Line

2008-04-12T11:55:00.003+07:00

So, here I am at the end of the tour of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia - well actually I am now in Kuala Lumpur but that's another story.

Crossed the border from Cambodia into Thailand by "rocket" ferry from Sihanoukville to Koh Krong, then pickup taxi to the border and minibus from there to Trang for the night. These rocket ferries are about 60 seater streamlined boats with massive internal diesel engines and shift at about 40km per hour over water, which is going some - 4 hours on the ferry to the border then the usual paperwork and handover of currency takes about an hour (unless you pay a local to jump the queue with your passport and departure card, he disappears inside behind the counter and hey presto comes back in about 10 minutes - but it is expensive).

Trang is the nearest city, so I stayed the night there, then a bus and ferry to the island of Koh Chang for some diving and beach. Mountainous island, said to be the next Phuket, particularly as only 4-5 hours from Bangkok by road. Found this fishing village right on the southern end where the dive boats go from too, and a guest house in its own little rocky cove (so good snorkelling too) and rustic bungalows - remember those? Bamboo hut with a fan and a mattress on the floor and a toilet block a few hundred yards away, but cheap (300B, or 5GBP per night for a "double"). Diving was good, mainly small fish but loads of corals and anenomes.

And so at last I go to Bangkok and the famous backpacker area around the Khao San Road - supposed to be chaotic fun, but mainstream tourism is moving in and the road is now tourist shops and bars plus a couple of clubs but no different from other tourist areas really. Experienced people I spoke with said it has died, but still I managed to lose a couple of days / nights! Did manage to go to the Royal Palace and temples, absolutely packed, plus the King's sister, who died at New Year, is still Lying in State there as part of 100 days of mourning (all civil servants, TV presenters, etc are still having to be dressed in black everyday) so queues of Thais for the daily ceremony and walkpast.

All in all Bangkok was ok, nothing special and nothing really bad (although I didn't go to the apparent 3 red light districts) and the pollution let up after the first day so lucky there.

Bus to Kanchanaburi, and the site of the Bridge over the River Kwai and the Thai-Burma Railway Line. Again very touristified, and a party town at weekends for Thais from Bangkok, but you can still get passed that and appreciate the history. There is no sign of the famous original 220 metre wooden trestle bridge (bombed and dismantled over time), it was only in service for 6 months in 1943 because the Japanese built a concrete and steel bridge next to it which superseded it by July 1943 - I didn't know that. Anyway part of this bridge is still the original, the centre sections are post-war after it was bombed in 1945 (despite POW's being tied to the pillars to try to prevent the bombing). You can walk over it, tourist noddy train over it or catch a twice daily train from Bangkok which goes up to the next town in the hills 2 hours away via the original wooden trestle bridges, viaducts and cuttings (inc Hellfire Pass, where "working 24 hours a day by firelight cast shadows on cutting walls which looked like a scene from Dante's Inferno").

There are 3 cemeteries and a very good museum, which puts it all into context both from a global war perspective and the actual reasons, engineering and above all the lives lost, for building it. About 9,000 - mainly British, Australian and Dutch (captured whilst defending Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia) plus about 40,000 asians (mainly Malays, Burmese and Indonesian - not Thai as they signed a Cooperation Pact with Japan). A common urban myth is 4 deaths for each sleeper on the line. A sad but beautiful part of Thailand.

On south to Hua Hin on the Gulf of Thailand coast, and a royal summer retreat. Skyscraper hotels and condominiums disappear over the horizon, miles of good beaches and loads of golf courses, but basically of no historic interest (apart from the original fishing village, where I stayed in a guest house on stilts over the sea). Then an overnight bus to Phuket for a couple of days before flying on to KL and the final leg.

Photolink at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Thailand_2008_Chapter_14

See you soon!

Mike

Chapter 13: Cambodian Sunsets

2008-04-02T15:24:00.005+07:00

Hi

Last posting from Cambodia as time is running out to get to Phuket by 08/04 for my flight and I want to see Bangkok and Bridge over River Kwai plus get some more diving in!

Cambodia has been a surprise, mostly pleasant but with some irritants. Last post was after Angkor and its sheer scale and history. Phnom Penh was a mixture of new-found investment (and the corruption), tourism and really good, but relaxed, nightlife.

Then to the coast in the Gulf of Siam, Kampot and Sihanoukville:

Kampot the original trading post and sea port for Cambodia, so with plenty of French colonial influences including the Bokor hill station (a volcanic plateau just a few miles inland from the coast), built by the French in the 1920's as a retreat from the heat of the lowland plains. Complete with 5-star hotel, casinos, auberge and whole community including church. It was abandoned twice by the French as wars overran them and was made a National Park (it has its own rainforest and micro-climate, rare tigers and elephants, etc) and is an eery place to take a 4-WD drive to get to when the clouds start rolling in from the coast and up the cliffs.. It became one of the last Khmer Rouge refuges until the 1990's, when they had pitch battles between the buildings! And guess what, the government has sold the National Park to a friendly businessman, who happens to own the State Oil business, so a 2-way road is being bulldozed through the rainforest, widening the original hill climb made by the French, and in 3 years' time the old buildings will either be renovated or destroyed and a golf course created too. Doesn't tourism stink sometimes?
Sihanoukville, a set of good beaches just along the coast from Bokor, also now a diving, fishing and the new commercial port centre for Cambodia. The diving is ok (shallow stuff and visibility only ok), fishing is good (boat caught barracuda, snapper, ray and loads of littlies, and the kiwi that runs the boat cooks it all up in his pub in the evening!). Still great value for both compared to Thailand, $25 for day's sea fishing, inc dinner and $60 for a 2-day liveaboard diving trip! But get there soon as developers are buying it all up at a fast rate and it is getting dirty too, the locals are not into cleaning up.

So, a reference for Cambodia?:
The main tourist sites of Angkor, Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville and their surrounds are definitely to be seen. I have found out that the north-east area needs seeing too, but too late, they filmed Apocalypse Now river scenes there and the lakes and trekking are supposed to be great! More mountains in north too but you can't see everything. The remainder of the countryside is flat and poor, sorry but, uninteresting, much like the Mekhong plains of Laos.
The people are really good, smiley. laughing, and very few attempts at real rip-offs, much more new to tourism (like Laos) so have not grown the thick hide of most of Thailand (unless you get right off the beaten track in Thai).
Value for money is excellent, much cheaper than tourist Thailand but apparently catching up - the reliance on imports for oil and consumer goods is not healthy and fuel prices are high compared to our minimum wage and fuel rates. Watch out for photocopies of books on the streets, can be great value but may be old editions of travel guides inside and/or the pages may be out of sequence / missing! A bit like any SE Asia CD's / DVD's I suppose.
The food - they rely a lot less on chilli peppers than main part of Thailand, which makes it different not necessarily better but watch out for the oddities, please add ants and ants eggs to the menu.
Again there is the French influence which is making a big comeback (minus the boules in Laos interestingly as it was banned by Khmer Rouge), it is seen as a stylish angle to the tourism.
Sadly there is begging, mostly genuine amputees but not all, so you have to judge for yourself. I have tried to buy everything through charities / village opportunity schemes, etc but you really don't know what is real.
Rural women also wear colourful pyjama suits for some reason at any time of day, maybe they are made here?

So, here I am back in Thailand, actually I crossed back a couple of weeks ago but lost some days and nights resting in Bangkok, and heading back to my original location at Phuket for my flight to Kuala Lumpur so I'll talk around then.

Happy birthday to Mary please someone, and to TC please Jackie - I have sent cards honestly!

Photolink at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Cambodia_2008_Chapter_13

Cheers! Mike

Chapter 12: Cambodia - Years Zero and 802

2008-03-13T11:00:00.005+07:00

Hi, do you realise that on 01/03 it was exactly 1 year ago since work gave me up? And tomorrow is one year since I first started travelling.

Anyway, an eventful crossing from Laos to Cambodia by 4 minibuses, some of it over dirt roads, a boat and hours of paperwork (and handing dollars over). I've never seen anything quite so chaotic for an international border, but finally made it to a small city, Kratie, on the Mekhong river about halfway between the Laos border and the capital, Phnom Penh. Yet another one with loads of French colonial buildings, many rundown but many now government offices, but friendly and pleasant.

Talking of government, the politicians and armed forces here are apparently even worse than Thailand and Laos - openly corrupt; selling public land to developers and keeping the money; jobs for the families; swanning around in enormous 4WD Lexus landcruisers. The remainder of the population can now run their own businesses or they farm.

Slightly odd here is that there is still a Royal Family, who until very recently were still active in the politics, even managing to come through the Khmer Rouge years unscathed. It is all extremely confusing with people changing sides quite regularly it seems with support from China, Vietnam or the West.

The Khmer Rouge, whose leader was Pol Pot ("Brother No 1"), was the infamous band of rebels who overran the country in 1975 when the Americans and Vietnamese left. Extreme Maoists who declared it to be Year Zero and that everyone had to work in the fields for the common good and that educated people (and any rivals) were the enemy. So they closed all schools, temples (Buddhism was banned), hospitals, etc and de-populated any cities to agricultural work camps. The educated were imprisoned, tortured and killed in the most inhumane ways, there were prisons set up in hundreds of ex-schools around the country.

The famous prison of Tuol Sleng (or S-21) in Phnom Penh with its accompanying Killing Field at Cheoung Ek, 13km away is actually only one of 343 killing sites found containing 19,433 mass graves. Estimates are 3 million people killed or starved to death in the work camps. Tuol Sleng had 14,000 prisoners in 5 years, 12 survived; Cheoung Ek has 129 mass graves (86 excavated contained 8,985 corpses); people were killed there by clubbing to death to save on bullets, with chemicals piled on top just in case they weren't dead and to stop the smell. Kids (families of the educated, just in case they too became clever) were killed by smashing their heads into a tree!

Eventually the Vietnamese took over Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge fled to the jungle mountains bordering with Thailand, where they continued to fight until 1991, taking thousands of prisoner workers with them. The world's largest minefield was laid by the freed Cambodians and Vietnamese to try to keep them there. Amazingly at this time the Western nations supported the Khmer Rouge to prevent Thailand going Vietnamese-style communist, we actually fed them and gave them ammo! Because a "fair trial basis" could not be agreed, Pol Pot died a natural death in 1998, others still await trial, if it ever gets agreed upon.

Cambodia today though is booming with foreign investment, particularly in tourism and infrastructure. Phnom Penh is really lively with the French influence coming back in a big way. Siem Reap (feeder city for Angkor) is a boomtown, building hotels and shopping complexes everywhere. So, despite all the chaos only ending 29 years ago, the locals are really looking forwards and their standards of living are rising in the towns if not for the rice farmer and fisherman - lots still live in bamboo shacks and scratch a living from pretty poor lands.

And so to Angkor from the Year 802 to 1432: firstly, what a place it is not a single temple, Angkor Wat is a single temple, vast but just one, inside Angkor. Angkor is a collection of temples, walled cities, royal palaces, reservoirs which started to be built in the halcyon days of the Angkor empire. This empire covered Thailand, Laos and the southern half of Vietnam, and Cambodia. Succeeding kings outdid each other in their building works, not just temples and walls but also enormous reservoirs and water systems to support a metropolitan area of 26 square kilometres (I think) and of up to 1 million people (many being builders and labourers, but a troop of 650 dancers, 1000 staff organising festival events and so on. They even carved the rocky bed of a spiritual spring and river 30 kms away (Kbal Spean) which fed the reservoirs.

The buildings that remain are mostly the temples as they were made of sandstone, the rest wood. The reservoirs have all but disappeared as rice fields, and so temples that would have been set as a floating island lose the impact. Unfortunately, sandstone is great for carvings but erodes and discolours to a uniform grey and succeeding empires and looters have ransacked many statues and treasures, so imagination is required as are good shoes and water. I took 3 days to get around most of it, there was more but it all becomes a blur.

I'm not sure why but Angkor didn't grab me the way Machu Picchu and Chichen Itza did. I think the others have more dramatic geography, more culture and engineering to grasp. But it is still a stunning place that I shall never forget.

Back in Phnom Penh now, came back by boat from Siem Reap down the Tonle Sap lake and river. It is the only river (and lake) in the world that flows in two directions depending on time of year. It feeds into the Mekhong at Phnom Penh during the drier seasons but when the Mekhong rises, it backs up from its delta in Vietnam and forces the water back up the Tonle Sap and refills the lake 330kms away!

Off to the seaside tomorrow (at last, the sea!) to see how developed the beach tourism is here, booming apparently with the government selling bits of beaches to private developers, and in one case to their own families! Still it has been 3 months since I left Phuket so a beach and a swim sounds good to me.

Photolink is http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Cambodia_2008_Chapter_12

Cheers!

Mike

Chapter 11: At a Laos end

2008-03-08T12:53:00.007+07:00

Following the Mekhong river down through central and southern Laos before crossing the border into Cambodia before my visa expires on 03/03. Basically very boring countryside as it is all flat river plain of dusty brown paddy fields and cattle with the craggy limestone hills marking the edge of the plain in the distance eastwards. Everyone is waiting for the next rains to start, usually in April then building into the real rainy season from June to October.

Stopped at Ta Kaek in central Laos for a 2-day trek into the hills here, which are huge limestone hills rising like cliffs from the plain with rivers cutting gorges and caves into, and under, them. Some rivers actually have cut right through and created tunnels of up tp 7 kilometres in length which emerge the far side of the range - that must have been something when the river first burst through!

Then came the overnight stay at a remote village and a lao lao party, well two actually. Lao lao is the local moonshine made from rice spirit but is surprisingly smooth rather like drinking neat good quality vodka (bars actually hide it in vodka bottles as it is illegal). Our guide said we should go to the village next door for a look see, we got to the first house where the lao lao was already flowing and got invited up onto the living platform (all stilted houses here) to join the headman, local teacher and soldier. All the kids crowded around too of course, staring at the farang (foreigners). Lao lao is served by the host and a communal glass is used, which is passed back and forth to everyone in the circle - to refuse is to offend. However after about half a dozen rounds some of our group passed the glass on to those of us still drinking, and then it was our turn too - it's a hard life.

Anyway the music started on a battered stereo driven by a generator and the dancing started as did the photo taking (the kids loved seeing themselves in the displays, some of the adults were not so keen!). The kids would mimic whatever dance steps the adults were doing, this started a sort of surreal Simon Says sort of deal (sorry very sixties / seventies ref there).

So the time came after about 4 hours of this to stagger back to our village, where we were met by that headman and more lao lao (and beer!) and a ceremony called "Baci". This offers welcome, health and safe travels to the guests, during which you touch the centrepiece with your hand full of food and drink and the headman says prayers and ties a piece of white string to your wrist as a good luck charm. Then back to the drink and more kids (large and small by this time) dancing until time was called and everyone collapsed onto a sleeping platform unconscious.

Six o'clock next morning the roosters told everyone to get up, a quick breakfast of cold fish and sticky rice, mmmm yummy, and off on a 14 kilometre hike into the hills ( am I glad I don't get hangovers, some guys were really suffering)! This was followed by an easier afternoon visiting more lagoons and rapids mainly by tractor rides, much to everyone's relief.

And so to southern Laos, to the Bolavan Plateau amd Si Pan Don ("4,000 islands").

The Bolavan rises out of the Mekhong plain, a volcanic plateau remaining from a long extinct volcanic region, and has its own micro-climate allowing tea and coffee plantations, with huge waterfalls falling of its edges. Predictably we come back to the 2nd Indo-Chinese War as it is called here, but the extension to the Vietnam War to us, the place commands views westward over the Mekhong plains and eastwards over the valleys through which the Ho Chi Minh trail ran. Bomb craters, landmine clearance and injuries still going on. Did a one day trek through the forest to the top of some of the falls, which was good.

Then to Si Pan Don, where the Mekhong river splits into hundreds of small branches making it 14km wide. In dry season thousands of islets, sand bars and rocks emerge, hence the name. Some of the islands though are permanent and have a lazy south-sea island feel to them of coconut palms, very little vehicle traffic (everything by longtail boat) and riverside beaches. The backpackers have found a couple of these and turned them into drinking / smoking havens, others have small guesthouses and river trips to see the islands, rare freshwater dolphins and massive rapids at the southern end where the river comes back into one. The French even built a railway over a couple of the islands to get around the rapids to try to make the Mekhong a trade route all the way from SW China to the sea in Vietnam, remains still there.

I managed to see the dolphins but they were too far away to photo, so you'll just have to trust me!

OK, now in Cambodia going to Angkor, city of temples, should be good!

Photolink is http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Laos_2008_Chapter_11

Cheers!

Mike

Chapter 10: Surreal times 4 and Real...

2008-02-21T13:19:00.007+07:00

Vientiane, the capital of Laos, I mentioned at end of last blog. Nothing to add except the MaeKhong river here is now so low that you can only just see it on the Thai side of the river bed.

Then I flew up to the north east mountain plateau called the Plain of Jars in a province called Xieng Huang toward the Vietnamese border. A bleak place in winter, some sun during the day but always a cold wind blowing over the plain, gives the provinial "capital", Phonsavan, a real frontier feel. Bloody freezing at night too, and no heating in the guest house! To bed fully clothed again, I really must head south.

This place has about 60 sites of over 600 jars where some civilisation about 2-4,000 years ago (they can't agree) rolled huge lumps of sandstone from a quarry 15km away, then carved them into enormous stone jars on vantage points on the plain. There is also a nearby cave with 3 carved vents in the roof, which was used as the cremation site. Three theories:

They are funeral tombs (they had close fitting stone lids before the Chinese armies raided them in 12th century, I think) as ashes and a skeleton were found.

They are offerings jars seated on top of tombs, as ashes and belongings have been found under them.

Folklore says that they are giants' lao-lao (rice spirit) jars from when a legendary king celebrated victories in battle, and the cave was the distillery! My favourite.

Fair enough, and stunning they look too. Anyway, to the surreal bit, bear with me here, you need some context.

But, roll forward in time to 1965-73 and the Vietnam War, well actually the Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia War. Laos particularly was dragged into the conflict as they allowed the North Vietnamese to create the Ho Chi Minh supply trail right down the mountain ranges the length of the country, and so into the back door of South Vietnam and Cambodia.

Now, both sides agreed under the Geneva Convention that no combat would be fought in Laos - both sides secretly ignored that, the Viets carried on using it as a supply line, so the Americans thought they would close it down. But they couldn't do that publicly due to the Convention, so they created a CIA project to secretly carry out this "alternative theatre" (couldn't name Laos). They put volunteers in from the USAF pilots (the scouts became known as Ravens) and Army trainers, removed their uniforms and dog tags, and built an entire secret city (Long Cheng) in the mountains, which could only be approached by air. Then they recruited a tribe, called the Hmong, who did not like the pro-communist Laos government, 50,000 of them, and armed / trained them and set them as the army to face the Communists. The USAF then scouted by air, and bombed the trail and any communist army troops / bases to bits. Millions of tons of bombs, much of which onto the Plain of Jars area - the Hmong then followed up with land battles there (40,000 killed from both sides). About 30% of the bombs and shells failed to explode, add in the landmines by the armies and you have a place which is still lethal today.

So, there I was in amongst the jars one minute in pre-historic times, then being guided along a signed UXO (unexploded ordnance) / mine-cleared path to the next jars site, passing trenches, tank traps, foxholes, bomb craters by the hundreds and above all live ammunition still coming to the surface! (see pics) Add in the sounds of controlled (hopefully) explosions by the UXO Lao (Lao government agency) and Mines Advisory Group (a British charity) teams and there we have surreal days spent on the plain and in the villages.

You can actualy pick up pieces of metal and equipment as you go. Went to a shot-down T28 fighter crash site where you can just pick up pieces of the plane! Very small pieces as the locals have taken everything for scrap, which sells at 3,000 kip (about 20p) per kilo.

This brings me to the third part of the surreal days: scrap metal at 20p per kilo is worth risking your life for here, and there is a cottage industry (illegal but noone does anything) here where kids and adults scour the bomb craters and battle sites for scrap or UXO's. Now UXO's need defusing, and people are getting killed trying it on a weekly basis - a single bomb can weigh 60 kilos and more! There is a picture in the MAG office in town of 3 guys, 2 dead and 1 blinded when trying to defuse a SAM missile they found in undergrowth! MAG are still clearing farmland to enable it to be used again and therefore get people earning from farming instead of scrap metal hunting. We came across 2 kids digging outside of the cleared areas, so the we wandered over (our guide didn't seem to mind going off the path, so we followed his footsteps) to see what they had collected - pieces of shell casings, live bullets, bits of equipment. Then he said we could go over the fields back to the path, and there we saw live artillery and mortar shells just lying there being walked over by the local cattle (and us)! Took pics and walked on rather quickly.

Part 4: what the locals haven't sold, they use. So, there are cluster bomb casings (which were made to split in half on impact to release hundreds of bomblets) being used as flower pots for onions, etc or as stilts for the villagers' pig pen or rice store, bellows made from mortar shell casings used by the village blacksmith, the farm tools being mnade by the smithy from pieces of iron, aluminium cut up for cutlery. And then the "piece de resistance": a 200lb defused whole bomb had been rigged up as an air pressure tank for the local garage to blow up tyres.

But still we kept coming back to the jars, sitting there for thousands of years, now bullet marked in places as they were used as shields, but still like Stonehenge, a place of real history. Against a war that never was admitted to be happening.

Also went for a trip to a Hmong village in the mountains around the plain. Most aren't open to tourists, you need a permit to visit. The majority of Hmong joined with the Americans for the money and free guns / uniforms, but some villages opted out and stayed on their farms and many got blown up there. All told the reckoning is that 1 million Laos people lost their lives out of a population of 3 million at that time.

Back in Vientiane now, on to central Laos tomorrow to try to get to see some limestone gorges, waterfalls and cave systems.

And on a lighter note, some of Murphy's Laws on Combat Operations (thanks to Craters Bar):

Incoming fire has right of way
Try to look unimportant, they may be low on ammunition
The enemy diversion you're ignoring will be the main attack
If your attack is going well, its an ambush
When you have secured an area, don't forget to tell the enemy
Never draw fire, it irritates those around you
Never share a trench with anyone braver than yourself
Everything being equal, the side with the simplest uniform wins
The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire, is incoming friendly fire
Each side is convinced that they are about to lose, they are both right
Always remember, your weapon was made by the lowest bidder!

Photolink is: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Laos_2008_Chapter_10

Cheers!

Mike

Chapter 9: Laos, lousy weather

2008-02-14T13:20:00.005+07:00

Crossed into Laos by longtail boat across the MaeKhong to Huay Xai and after much confusion and paperwork and money by bus into the mountains near the Chinese border at Luang Nam Tha.

The idea was to base there and do some trekking which is just taking off here in conjunction with various country's agencies all designed to aid the hill-tribes and to preserve the forests from extensive logging (mainly by the Chinese). However the weather deteriorated and we got rain and cold winds, all from the Chinese weather system which dumped tons of snow on them! So I left, without even a picture.

You can't go much further north from there, so I shall be heading pretty much south-east following the MaeKhong river right down Laos and then down Cambodia for the next 2 months or so. The weather has been either dull, cold but dry with others sunny once the cloud is burnt off. I need to get south!

Anyway, Laos:

the French colonial influence remains not only in old colonial-style buildings but also oddities like baguettes, petanque (French bowls), bakeries and cafes. This is mixed with old Lao architecture and buddhist temples, and now with tourist hotels and demands. The people are really friendly and laid-back, and everything is written up in western (French or English) as well as Lao script.
Lao food is good, a little less spicy than Thai but pretty similar, and having French bread sandwiches is a treat. Beer Lao is really good (they even do a dark beer of 6.5%!) and lao-lao the local rice spirit is eye-watering.
Everything is even cheaper than Thailand outside of the tourist hotspots. Beer 0.55GBP for 640ml bottle, a double room with own bathroom is about 3GBP (but up to 11GBP in Luang Prabang and Vientiane for same - see below), a meal costs me about 2GBP. Spending 11GBP per day for everything including buses on average!
Geography is 75% mountain and river gorges with only real towns along MaeKhong river. Lots of exploring to be done, I hope.
Apart from subsistence farming for the majority, there is a lot of weaving in silk and cotton, and then there is tourism.
Transport is funny, buses are old Chinese things and they operate a "we are never full" policy for people or produce. I sat on sacks of potatoes for 6 hours the other day, the entire floor of the bus was covered in them before anyone could get on! The main roads are ok, but if it not a trade route along the MaeKhong or across to China or Vietnam then it is unpaved and bone-shaking, and slow (4 hours to do 70 miles).
Currency: 17,000+ KIP to 1GBP, so maths is required here. But nothing costs less than 1,000 to a foreigner so forget all the zeroes, but you do end up with wads of notes, and i'm now a millionaire!

Tourism has hit here big time, two types: the tour groups in minibuses or planes on "SE Asia in 3 weeks" tours or something; and the independent travellers, of which loads are ex-University having a party before starting work (or ex-school before going to Uni or ex-Israeli conscript soldiers getting over their time).

The government is trying to keep it under control with all pubs closing by 11.00, licensed clubs at 12.30 or so but the party town of Vang Vieng has an island in the middle of the river where the party carries on without alcohol (supposedly; although "Happy" Fruit Shakes and Pizzas are on the menu which contain both alcohol and your choice of drug - opium, marijuana, mushrooms, etc)! A couple of interesting evening of people watching.

So the mix is one group doing the architecture, temples and art / handicrafts, the others wanting bars, music and clubs - weird in what is still a communist country with hammer and sickle flags flying everywhere. But money talks. Laos is apparently like Thailand 15 years ago, still relatively small hotspots of tourism but those are developing very fast. The volume and rampant capitalism has taken me by surprise, I have to admit, and prices in the hotspots are at least double of elsewhere but the number of hotspots will always be limited by geography and there are no beaches so the party people are starting to move on to Cambodia and Vietnam as the weight of mass tourism takes over apparently.

Luang Prabang, the original royal capital of the kingdom - a world heritage site and quite beautiful, on a headland by the MaeKhong. The historic part is quiet and beautifully laid out with temples, palace, and colonial houses (many now boutique hotels and restaurants (auberges even), the south end is the cheap end for the travellers with bars, markets, guesthouses and food stalls galore - good fun.

Vang Vieng, the party town, was just a crossing point over the Nam Soi river, but set in amongst limestone cliffs, cave systems and forests - really pretty, when the sun shone. A ghost town during the day as people sleep it off / laze in the bars watching loops of reruns of "Friends" (true! trust me) or are caving, kayaking or tubing on the river (with a stop at every bar on the way!), comes alive at night. Went kayaking, but tubing on your own didn't sound the same somehow.

Now in Vientiane, capital city and another mix of French and Lao plus new communist monuments. Big number of Europeans working in aid agencies, charities and teaching. Quite a good mix of bars and restaurants down by the river. Yet to explore more but I only have 3 more weeks here and still in the north, something will have to be dropped off the wish list.

Enough! Photolink is http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Laos_2008_Chapter_9

Cheers! Mike

Chapter 8: The Last Post....

2008-02-02T11:34:00.000+07:00

....well from Thailand anyway for the time being. Off to Laos tomorrow, crossing at Chiang Khong by ferry to Huay Xai then head north east to Luang Nam Ta where there is a National Park that does trekking trips (weather permitting).

So, this post really covers my travels back to the north of Thailand with various stops along the Mae Khong (shortened to Mekong in English) river which forms the border for much of the way and up into the mountains of the Golden Triangle.

Mae Khong river is impressive even now in dry season, imagine it 13 metres higher in October! Still deep enough for 500 tonne Chinese barges to come all the way down from China.

The Golden Triangle, well the Thai side is now just a tourist label. No opium grown in Thailand any more, well not publicly, but chatting to a Chinese guesthouse owner, many of the older generation locals are still hooked so they get it from somewhere. The Thai government persuaded them to grow tea and coffee instead, and they draw Thai tourists for the products, so seems to be working. I found a coffee shop advertising brownies too, but all I got was a sugar rush (yuk). Great place though on balcony overlooking the plantations, but played smooth lounge jazz mmmmm Nice.

Mae Salong was founded in the mountains by the remnants of the Chinese anti-Maoist army, the Kuomintang. They originally took refuge in Burma in 1949, but they chucked them out in 1961 to keep in with China. Thailand have accepted them as full Thai nationals now, but you hear Mandarin spoken and Chinese lanterns and food everywhere. Everything is written 3 times: Thai, Chinese and English!

Anyway, enough for this post as I probably bored you silly with yesterday's effort (Chapter 7, no photos). It has stopped raining so I'm going out to play.

Photolink: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Thailand_2008_Chapter_8

Cheers! Mike

Chapter 7: Rain Stopped Play...

2008-02-01T11:17:00.000+07:00

Yes, bloody rain in the middle of the dry season. Chinese bloke in Mae Salong (in the northern mountains) told me that it was only the second time in his memory. Might be linked with the weather system that is dumping snow all over southern China, causing mayhem there. And it is like English rain, murky, grey, cool and a consistent drizzle not your tropical downpour, 1 hour and done.

So, today's post is a dump of stuff until play resumes. No photos, just stuff.

Bloody computers! Trying to be a good boy and do online banking to pay the bills each month and this internet cafe system sends a bloody virus with my transmission, so Barclays blocked me out. This happened in December but I didn't know until a few days ago because they don't tell you online, just in the post - brilliant! So, beware online banking is a one-way street. PS Thanks to Jackie who is trying to sort this out for me.
Thought I'd have a couple of days resting in Chiang Rai, a city in N. Thailand with many ex-pats, so it caters for westerners, ie it has bars. Over-rested until about 2 am, and had 3 days here. Singha beer and whisky chasers (found Johnnie Walker Red Label here (1.50GBP a shot), the best blended scotch in my opinion - not as good as malt, but hey).
Not complaining, but: just to let you know that traveling alone is not all a bed of roses. It is nackering - planning every day, sitting in buses / trucks for up to 6 hours, finding somewhere to kip, then dumping the gear and going to see what you came to see. Then night, sometimes there are only so many night markets and noodle shops you want to see. Off the tourist trail, there a no bars as such (so I sit in the noodle shops at a plastic table on a plastic chair on the pavement, drink beer and watch the locals - most ignore you, some stare at the "farang", but I have had some weird conversations with locals more drunk than me who want to try out their English skills), and no English language bookshops. Guesthouses don't have safes either, so you either take the risk of leaving documents, camera, phone, books and money behind, so I lug it around all night, even to the loo! Thailand is very safe outside of the big cities but....And then get up next day and get on the bus (or pickup truck), hoping you are on the right one as very few have anything written in English or even any type of western script, so you trust some guy in the bus station - and everyone is milling around, shouting stuff - quite exciting really.
Books, probably the heaviest part of all my gear - travel guides and reading. But running out of something to read at night really causes me a problem, just wish they would invent lighter ones. And don't say CD's because then I have to have a laptop, battery charger and adaptor and hope there is somewhere to plug it in, AND you can't get the bloody things here anyway! Does Lonely Planet do electronic versions?
New Year: the Thais invent them or adopt them I think. Celebrated "International New Year" on Jan 1, then they will celebrate Chinese / Vietnamese New Year (07/02 this year), and then have their own one! Mid-April time, they have a festival, called Songhkran, which is a mass water fight from what I can tell - should be symbolic water blessings but sort of get carried away. Might try and change my flight to stick around for that.
Thai politics! Wow, what chaos, each party claiming the other rigged or bought votes. And a full-time central control board specifically set up to investigate the claims! Then they issue red and yellow cards - brilliant, one red card and the politician is sent-off and they re-run that constituency's election! If three party people get done they ban the whole party. The General Election was in December but the re-runs are still going on and the new Prime Minister only got sworn in this week - a coalition of 5 parties, that's really going to work isn't it? Its Thaksin's (the guy who bought Man City with allegedly embezzled millions) party too who won the most seats - they reckon that he is running the show from his place in Hong Kong as he is on criminal charges here.
Ex-pats: what a mixture of nationalities and types. Seem to fall into 4 categories though: the-happily-married-to-local ones - usually running bars (although I was told of one who didn't know his wife was an illegal Burmese migrant until he tried to register the birth of his new baby!); the old bloke seen trailing around behind a local lady looking decidedly lost and sad, and still not understanding what she is happily saying to her friends; the loners, effectively retired, drifting around the bars in their chosen home city (usually somewhere easy to get new visas by a day run to Burma); and the retired couples/ singles who have bought a house and come here every European winter, they seem the happiest.
Buddhism: the wheel of life, as I understand it you go round and round with your various , assumed to be sinful, lives until you either drop into your own personal hell, or reach Nirvana and cease to exist at all which apparently is a good thing as then you have no earthly woes. By the way, it is Year 2551 here, marked from when Buddha was enlightened in the 6th century BC in India. So that's why there is a strong entwining between Hinduism and Buddhism, he was an Indian prince, so I believe. Strangely the year clicks over on "International New Year" not Thai New Year, how does that work??
Drinking: the Thais really love it. They eat out a lot, and have this thing where the host brings a bottle of whisky to the restaurant, the restaurant puts a trolley at the side of the table and supplies a bucket of ice and the mixers (usually soda water) and serves out the whisky all night. Once finished the party buys another bottle or flask from the place and off they go again. The empties stay on the trolley so that there are no arguments at the end! The tourist bars now do this "Buy a Bucket" thing (but you have to buy the bottle of whisky from them of course), a big thing at beach parties - sit around your bucket and share with your mates, very civilised. The type (Thai or imported) and size of bottle is a big status thing to the Thais, Johnnie Walker Black Label seems the top, not my favourite though in case anyone was asking?
Fermented chicken tendons, whole pickled swallows and frog curry, plus roasted chestnuts are the latest seen (but not tried yet). I'm told spiders are eaten in Cambodia! We shall see. By the way, chillis still get me. And I have no idea what is in the various steaming pots on the stalls, but some of it tastes pretty good! I can nearly order food now, many places have no English menu (or any menu!), and can count pretty well too so I can pay the bus fares and bills OK. They cook everything with a base of spices, and then give you jars of chilli, chilli vinegar, sugar and fish sauce so you can add hot, sour, sweet and salt to your own taste.
The language: tricky stuff as it has 5 tones for words, each carries a completely different meaning! So, "mai" means "new", "burn", "wood", "not" and "not??" depending on how it is said. So, "New wood doesn't burn does it?" is "Mai mai mai mai mai?" (nicked that from Lonely Planet). And "Khao" is rice, hill, white and understand, which makes for interesting thoughts on what the hell the Thais think I'm trying to say. "Khai" is egg and "Kai" is chicken too.
More drinking: I forgot to tell you in earlier posts about the hardships of trekking. Most nights we stay in hill tribe villages and they bring in stuff to try to sell to you, mostly handwoven hats and bags and silver / leather jewellery, not for me I have to say. Can't see me with a handwoven hippy sling bag, although I see many tourists do. But the other thing they bring for the local guides, who are all mates, is "happy water". I saw all these plastic water bottles being taken into the guides, and they cut off the neck of an empty one and were using it as a communal shot glass for water from these bottles. So, I walk over and ask and find out it is the local moonshine (usually rice or corn spirit). So, I say look I'll buy a slab of beer to share from the village store or head man, can I join you? Became quite a regular thing. Good stuff, very happy, until I see the guides next day! I leave them to their drinking games after a while, and they carry on into the wee hours, while I get some kip - it softens the bamboo sleeping platform I found.

Enough I hear you say! Aiming to get a photo post out soon too, last one in Thailand.

Cheers!

Mike

Chapter 6: Ayutthaya, Crickets and Bats

2008-01-17T20:52:00.000+07:00

Just re-read last posting and realised I didn't explain "Ticks": two aspects, Ticks as in yes this province really is something special; and as in the insect, I managed to collect a few on the trek - nasty little bloodsuckers which need salt and/or good fingernails to unhook them.
Anyway, Ayutthaya - the capital city that took over from Sukhothai, and lasted for 400+ years before being sacked and burned by the Burmese, who then withdrew after 3 years taking all the treasures and having melted all the gold from the statues. Bangkok then became capital and slowly formed Thailand, with more wars and European colonialism along the way.
And so back to nature withh a trek into Khao Yai National Park eastwards from Ayutthaya into what is North-East Thailand, known as Isan as it is mainly populated by a mix of Lao and Chinese ethnic groups and has a distinct cuisine and culture. I have now eaten fried preying mantis, bamboo worms, silkworms and crickets but drew the line at one menu item: fried appendix! (didn't say from what and I wasn't going to ask).
Went looking for wild elephants, bears, tigers (very rare) and found bats, bugs and birds. But what birds, giant hornbills - really prehistoric with 1.5 metre wingspans. They actually sound like helicopters as the wind goes through their wings.
The bats were incredible too, 2 million of them from a single cave at dusk. I took some video, but the Google web albums tool only deals with standard photos, so I'll try to put them in Facebook (maybe!!). A python at night was an interesting thing to trip over too.
Now travelled up through the North East to Nong Khai on the banks of the MaeKhong river and the border with Laos, but that's for the next post.

Photolink is: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Thailand_2008_Chapter_6

Cheers!
Mike

Chapter 5: Tak Ticks and Kingdoms

2008-01-10T14:29:00.000+07:00

Survived the last mountain trek for a while, not sure it lives up to the "Most Beautiful in Thailand" boast but 2,000 Thai tourists went to one campsite there over their New Year holiday, so who am I to argue?
More contact with the Karen refugees on the way down to Um Phang in the open pickup truck / bus and more camps, tucked away in these beautiful mountain valleys - apparently the Karen prefer it there as they are mountain tribes anyway.

The highest waterfall in Thailand was stunning, and bloody cold to swim in, but the trek went well, so it was back to Um Phang and over a final range of mountains into the central plains, the farming centre: rice, sugar cane, tobacco and veg for hundreds of miles, all the way to the coast south of Bangkok. Most of the rivers from the mountain ranges which make up North and East Thailand all flow into these plains. Its hot and dry.

But this is where the history is: kingdoms, cities rising and falling to invading Burmese and Khmer kings, and finally Siam (then Thailand being created in 18th century, I think). Here because of the trade routes (caravans from India, Burma to China), freshwater, agricultural richness and access to the sea, via the huge rivers, south of where Bangkok now stands.

Sukhothai and Si Satchanalai from the 13th century. Sukhothai was first capital of Siam. You have to bring your imagination with you as the buildings now look sad and crumbling. But when they were built they were covered in limestone stucco / plaster and ornately carved. The sacking of the cities, looting and erosion have done the rest - now World Heritage sites. Also only the temples and palaces remain, all other buildings plus all roofs would have been made of teak and so have disappeared.

Other thoughts:

Burmese refugees: some in these camps since 1984. 150,000 in camps plus over 2 million "migrants" who do not even have a refugee status as they didn't flee active fighting. So these guys get no education, health benefits, etc, and it is these that all the charities are trying to support. Very sad.
Hill tribes: government is putting in dirt roads, basic school and even solar panels to many villages. Will it destroy their cultures for the shorter term benefits, and are tourists a good or a bad thing? Discuss.
Markets: they eat anything! Bags of live bullfrogs, water beetles, crickets, intestines. But trying to bring in law to protect the local markets, which are huge and go on day and night, by agreeing with the supermarket chains (Tesco the biggest with 7-11) how big they can build and how near a town centre based on its population! Good one.
Buddhism: not pretending to understand but I am going to read more on it. All about protecting nature and leading a good life to achieve that. No superbeing about to cast you into hell, you do it yourself! Neat.

Off south to Ayutthaya, another kingdom that took over from Sukhothai for 400 years then Bangkok took them over. A train ride of 6 hours on a slow train - you can open the windows and take photos and watch it all slowly pass.

Photolink: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Thailand_2008_Chapter_5

Cheers! Mike

Chapter 4: Mountains, hill tribes, more water

2007-12-30T14:54:00.000+07:00

From Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son province by bus to find that at this altitude there are cold nights, sunny Mediterranean days and flora (plus rice) and autumn tints on deciduous forests on the hilltops, quite a surprise.
Pai, ex-hippie centre of opium growing era, now a tired small town trading on its history but still loads of Thai tourists and travellers trying to see if the magic still exists, ethnic food, live music and jam sessions are the flavour here. Biking (1.15GBP per day!) around the valley the best bit.
Managed to get on a whitewater rafting trip for 2 days down Pai river to Mae Hong Son (63km and 40 sets of rapids - not at full spate but still fun), which is where I am headed anyway AND chops off a 4-5 hour bus trip over the mountains containing a well-publicised 1,864 serious bends (you can even buy the T-shirt).
Motorbike trip (3GBP per day plus 1GBP petrol) to particular tribal village of the Paduang people, a sub-sect of the Kayah people, refugees from Burma. Granted land for farming outside of the refugee camp as they bring tourist value due to their custom of wearing brass coils around their necks, knees and ankles - weigh up to 5kg each, depresses the collarbones and ribcage rather than stretching the neck, kids start at 5 with 1kg.
Then trip to a Chinese village, Mae Aw (or Ban Rak Thai in new name, meaning Village loves Thailand)populated by Kuomintang fighters (anti-Mao Chinese war in the 1960's) who were allowed to settle and grow tea and coffee in the highlands, now that Opium is a no-no. Also went to a Royal Food Bank project, teaching the hill tribes how best to grow crops organically and sustainably. They share the produce and sell the extras. Then they go back to their villages to spread the word.
Xmas in Mae Hong Son city, catching my breath before 3 hour bus trip south to Mae Sariang and a serious 1 day jungle trek, wading through streams and complete with machete at times by the guide to Karen tribe villages and jungle waterfalls - 8 hours of it! The Grizzly beard has made a comeback too, see horrible photo under waterfall! Learnt how to say how are you? and Cheers! in Kareni language, very useful.
Now south again in Tak province after 6-hour open-sided pickup truck trip over the mountains at Burmese border city of Mae Sot for New Year. Went past huge refugee camp near Burmese border, been there a while but very depressing. Lots of dodgy trade with Burma here, drugs, teak and gems apparently, Thai officials get bribed.
Heading to Um Phang for largest falls in Thailand, more rafting and jungle trekking, supposed to be most beautiful Nat Park in this country. No internet, phones, banks, ATM or anything down there so there will be a short interlude.
Cheers! Tabloo! Mike
Photos link: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Thailand_2007_Chapter_4 . You can also go to this blog, and therefore the pics by Google searching on "Dodgy Uncle Mike" and selecting the first of two results, not many of us around then.

Chapter 3.....What, wat, water

2007-12-19T14:36:00.000+07:00

Now flown to Chiang Mai (55GBP in 5 hours or 25GBP by bus via Bangkok in 24 hours plus - no contest!).

Old walled city built in 1296 and scenes of many kingly wars and takeovers, unfortunately only the corners, city gates and the moat still exist. But it is also the city of 300 temples ("Wat" in Thai), so stand by for the photos! I had a real problem editing down to this many as they are so beautiful inside and out, sorry.

Then have just got back from whitewater rafting (no photos as too hectic paddling and hanging on in the rapids) and rainforest trekking in the nearby Doi Inthanon Nat. Park (highest mt. in Thailand at 2,565m, sorry went a bit David Attenbrough there). 4 days with only a bathe in a forest river on Day 2 night, sleeping on bamboo platforms and cooking on camp fires, very boy scout. Came back filthy and sweaty - still hot in the North and humid in the forest, boy did we smell!

Visited some of the hill tribe villages, these are tribes who have migrated here over the centuries (and still are coming) from Burma and China and have been allowed to settle and farm but they retain their customs and dress. In this case they were from the Karen tribe (ex-Burma) who are still fighting an ethnic cleansing war inside Burma, so the refugees are still coming.

Part of the trek was also bamboo rafting, which is how these tribes ship their produce towards the markets in the towns and villages (although 4-WD tracks and motorbike trails are fast taking over). Rafting over mini-rapids whilst standing up with nothing to hold onto is quite something, and I was rear driver with a long pole to fend off the rocks and banks and keep the bloody thing straight-ish whilst our guide steered at the front!

Other thoughts:

King's birthday: he is like a god here, even got his own shrines inside buddhist temples, slightly weird. He's 80 and I hate to think what they'll do when he dies.
Chiang Mai sausage: they eat pig here in the North, and all of it. Intestines are deep fried, pork crackling of a sort is a daily snack as is lumps of deep-fried pork fat, and the sausages make Cumberland ones seem bland, I don't know what's in them but...
Elections: they closed all the bars for an entire weekend, and will again this weekend, to stop politicians getting prospective voters drunk for free and bus them to the poll station! Just got to the mini-mart in time to get a slab of Singha and a bottle of Mekhong before the ban started. So what are the politicians doing this time? They are handing over cash to the poorer voters to buy their votes (allegedly), 3-500Baht per vote, about 7GBP!

Photos link at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Thailand_2007_Chapter_3

Right off to aging-hippydom (ex-opium growing area) in the mountains north west of here around Pai, then hopefully a 2-day whitewater rafting trek down the Mae Nam Pai river to Mae Hong Son, more forest trekking to other tribes (Burma / Thai border conflicts permitting).

Cheers!

Chapter 2......and Plan B

2007-12-10T12:59:00.000+07:00

You are now in touch with Mike Laurent, AOW and bar. Passed my Advanced Open Water PADI course, so I hit the bar on the boat! Does that mean I am now Well Dodgy?

Had a great time since last post (only 2 weeks ago but seems longer):

3-day liveaboard diving trip to Phi Phi Islands and Hin Muang / Hin Daeng rocks - 9 dives in 3 days including my first night dives! Liveaboards are really good, you dive, eat, rest, dive, eat, rest and then beers after last dive of day whilst looking at all the photos and watching the sunsets
3-day expedition to 2 nature reserves in next province, Phang-Nga at Khao Lak (coastal) - endless beaches, staying in wooden huts behind the beach; and Khao Sok (one of oldest primary rainforests in the world). Still too wet to trek after end of recent rainy season (mud up to your thighs and leeches everywhere, nice), so had to go in by elephant (not what I wanted at all but no choice) and out by canoe. Needs more time to explore properly, so may be back!
7-day liveaboard diving trip to Similan Islands (Thailand), into Myanmar islands and back via Richelieu Rock (Surin Islands) whilst doing course. Stunning places. Deep dives to 35 metres, night dives into caves and tunnels up to 16m long with 1 square metre exit at 25 metres depth. Getting quite exciting at times.

Myanmar has hundreds of uninhabited islands off the coast, all rainforest to sandy beaches and 27C water! And nobody there, only Moken (sea gypsy) people. We were the only dive boat in the entire place, quite spooky really.

On a more sombre note, the Tsunami sort of haunts the coast. Chatted with a tuk-tuk driver who lost his sister and took 5 days to find his wife, who was one of only 2 survivors from a beachfront hotel kitchen staff of 35. He said as noone knew what this was everyone was watching / photographing the seawater disappear leaving fish all over the exposed sea bottom, as the wave sucked all the water into it. Sucked dry for 10-15 minutes, then they saw the wave and ran for it, he escaped 6000 around here didn't. The wave was about 7 metres high in Khao Lak, moving faster than a car and went over half a mile inland just flattened everything. Also destroyed many coral reefs, so the beaches are now being eroded as no more protection. Still photos stuck on trees as memorials, some with small offerings of flowers, incense sticks.

And so to Plan B. As from December 1st, crossing into Myanmar for diving now counts as a formal exit and re-entry trip (before they just paid a visa fee ($200 per person) and sailed on). So, as I have a 3x60-day visa for Thailand, my passport got stamped and I am now officially into my second 60-day package. I still had 15 days left on my first package which I was going to use up and cross into Laos for New Year, NO LONGER!

So Plan B is now to stay in northern Thailand until the end of January. In some ways it is good as I can really see a whole section of the country that I would have missed - all the mountains, rivers, treks and hill tribes along the Myanmar borders and into the Golden Triangle. Very remote and have to check each step with the Thai army to make sure that Thailand and Burma aren't having yet another border war. Also hope to now get to the ancient capital cities of Sukhotai and Ayuthaya. But the effect will probably be that I won't be able to see much of Vietnam on this trip, Laos will be Feb, Cambodia in March then back to Phuket for 08/04 flight to Malaysia.

That's it! Photo link is http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Thailand_2007_Chapter_2 I have put captions on photos to try to give some sort of reference points.

Cheers!

Mike

Thailand: Chapter 1, the first.......and second

2007-11-21T19:31:00.000+07:00

So, it has been 3 weeks in sunny Thailand (apart from the tropical downpours), and Mike is well into this lifestyle, thank you.

This was going to be a list of firsts, but following a disaster with the memory card in my camera and time marching on, there are also a lot of seconds.

I lost 75% of my photos, so had to go back to re-take them, hence the sequence is all awry I'm afraid but you'll get the drift - pictures of Kamala Beach (my base), a trip to the neighbouring province of Phang-Nga which are all the shots of island stacks coming out of the sea, caves and fishing village on stilts; and 2 lots of dive days in reverse order.

I have also now bought a new camera (about 15-20% cheaper here against even online sites in UK, 30% on RRP) which also has an underwater case, so the second dive day are photos taken by me - scary taking a new camera 20 metres under relying entirely on a waterproof seal!

Back to the list:

The first dive day off an island called Racha Yai, south of Phuket island - lionfish, stonefish and moray eels amongst loads
The first nights at 2 new beach bars, free food! Cheap booze, some homemade plum brandy and all on a beach under the stars - oh all right. just one more
The first jet ski ride, at least on this trip, jumping the waves was fun
The first travels with backpack and using public transport (1 GBP for a 1.5 hour bus ride here) to Phang-Nga, just turning up and seeing how far I got that day. Relatively short trip but a learning curve too. Buses in Thailand are pretty good, but timing is on Thai time
The first whitewater rafting where I reached to Level 4 (serious rapids and drops), a level higher than in Peru
The first motorbike ride for many years - rented one for a day to get to far end of island, not my idea of fun though, so may stick to cars if I ever need to do that again. My sense of balance is pretty crap and the traffic here has its own rules. Using motorbike taxis though
The first longtail boat trip through mangrove swamps and around the Phang-Nga islands, including the "James Bond island" where a couple of those films have been shot - badly ruined by tourism now, but the rest of the islands are still untouched
The first overnight stay in a Muslim community (Koh Panyee fishing village) - no alcohol for an entire day and night! No running water either after the pipes burst and a mossie net full of holes
The second photo shoot of Kamala beach and neighbouring Laem Singh cove
The second trip to Phang-Nga islands to re-take all the lost photos, as I thought the place was worth it (40 GBP for a speedboat day trip when the entire 3 day first trip cost less!)
The second dive day at Anenome Reef and Shark Point (my photos and the first ones you'll see!). Still too nervous, using my air up too quickly (40 minutes max for a whole tank, others getting an hour out of one) but hopefully practice will fix that.

Now planning for Stage 2 in northern Thailand, trekking in the rainforests, temples and lots of earliest Thai culture. Got a contact from a UK couple just come down from there so trying to fix up with them, and base myself in Chiang Mai until 29/12 when I have to leave Thailand as my first entry (60 days per entry) on my visa expires, so Laos for New Year!

But the next event is a 3 day diving trip, living on board the dive boat (23-25 Nov) to a couple of rocks about 60km south of Phuket island (Hin Dang and Hin Mueang) as a practice for the 8 day trip (including sitting my Advanced PADI exam) from 1 Dec to Similan and Surin islands off the west coast and (unofficially as no visa stamping done, just some money changes hands with the Burmese Coastguard apparently!) into Burma. Then trekking for a couple of days up the west coast from here.

Photo link is: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Thailand_2007_Chapter_1 Sorry, quite a few as diving and the coast here is pretty spectacular. I'll try to keep to more regular posts and so smaller photo links in the future, honest.

Cheers!

Mike

Welcome to Thailand

2007-11-08T10:26:00.000+07:00

It's been a week, so I thought I would get a first post up for this trip as an introduction. By the way, this is not going to be a Judith Chalmers or a David Bellamy travelogue but more my experiences and my usual warped views.

Uneventful flights all on time, so got to Kamala Beach on Phuket island early afternoon. Watched Pirates of C. 3 film - brilliant piece of overacting by all!

Staying at PapaCrab Guesthouse about 1 minute from beach, this is right at start of season so all the beach bars are just being built and restaurants gearing up.

First night's sleep was interesting: right next to Bob's Reggae bar (hate reggae), down the road from a club, fighting the mozzies, then at 4 am the sound of stilleto heels on walkway outside and my neighbour enjoys what I shall politely call a bit of slap and tickle (literally) until 5 am, just in time for the Mullah at the mosque down the road to blast the town with loudspeaker-driven 5 am call to prayers! Not finished yet, at 7 am next door other side is a large school and they start at 7 am with outdoor assembly conducted over loudspeakers complete with music and drum rolls - fantastic!

So, exploring beach and town for first few days. Managed to fall into "Sports Bar" where only sports were ladies and "lady boys", got invited to their grand opening night by Evie, a lady (no adam's apple) who is my size and height, so I didn't argue! Escaped intact and avoided the place on Opening Night only to be spotted by Evie who came stomping down the road after me! Anyway, managed to get out of it and we are still talking (Dodgy Uncle Mike strikes again, and NO, Lindie, I still don't want to buy those - in joke, ask her, but you can guess I expect).

Kinger, if you are reading this, you were right of course, a bloke on his own here stands out somewhat - unless you then have a Thai lady (or lady boy) on your arm, which so many of the older ones do, thankfully I'm not old yet (mentally, anyway)!

Went to Kata and Patong to see what they are like, very large, very crowded and all the lady bars you could possibly want! I'll stick to Kamala. Met with the Dive team and firmed up all dive dates, so that starts from 10/11 and finishes with a week aboard a dive boat in Similan and Surin Islands plus going into Burma to Mergeuil banks, doing my Advanced PADI at same time, firsat week of December - at least that's the plan.

Living here is so good, get up for walk on beach, breakfast at beach bar, laze on beach (when not raining, still end of rainy season) cruise the bars for the evening and eat at seafood and Thai restaurants. A dinner with a Singha beer costs about 3.75GBP, a beer or a Thai (Mehkong) whisky is about 85p!

Anyway, getting known around town now - even the Indian tailors are starting to give up, and the ladies just shout and wave. Really friendly people particularly if you try a little Thai speaking.

Finding my way around the island using the local buses (not tuk-tuk's), 40p for about a 1 hour journey (tuk-tuk is about 5GBP for same trip as I can't divide the cost with anyone here), if you don't mind sitting with chickens, sacks of rice and all sorts of locals.

Off to Phang Nga, neighbouring province, for a few days next week - island stacks out of the sea, James Bond film-style, caves, temples and nature reserves plus sea kayaking and rafting, I hope. Catch the bus there and see!

Cheers!

Mike / Mick

First draft of the Peru Journal now has a link

2007-10-30T20:14:00.000+07:00

Go to Peru posting and click on journal link.

Note: so far only covers first few days! I'll update over the next couple of weeks and issue a posting to say when finished

Cheers!

Mick / Mike

Today

2007-10-29T21:01:00.000+07:00

Right, we are up to date.

I have slightly enhanced the Bali post today as I remembered a couple more nicknames and movie sketches!

There will be more stuff added to the Peru posting as I am getting photos from the guys on the trip and I have yet to publish the journal as a link.

I shall be doing these updates as I shelter from the midday sun in Phuket!

Off tomorrow, so next post will be just to say arrived ok, after which there will be irregular posts and, if I can organise it, photo dumps.

Cheers!

September 2007: Kuala Lumpur and Bali with the "family"

2007-10-27T21:07:00.000+07:00

A long arranged holiday of the "family" in celebration of Jackie's 40th birthday. I was asked if I would like to join, and so was born "The Add On" / "Dodgy Uncle Mike".

Participants were:

Jackie (aka "Judith Chalmers" / tour guide / "control freak" / "The Director")
Tracy (aka "The Smiter" / "she who takes photos of toilets")
Dave (aka "Dad")
Libby (aka "Mum")
Taff (aka "Uncle" / "Bobby" / "Wobert" / "David Bellamy")
Lin (aka "Aunty", "Lindie")
Mike (aka "The Add On" / "Dodgy Uncle Mike" / "Rex Hunt", and the one who always seemed to get the blame for everyone's hangovers, tiredness, lateness, illness - but do I get any sympathy?)

Publishable photos on this link:

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/KL_and_Bali

Also a certain set of movie sketches (who's idea was it to give Jackie a camcorder for her birthday?), the highlights of which include:

Judith Chalmers' travelogues
David Bellamy's wildlife documentaries
Panorama-style hidden camera stalking. These include the quite brilliant ideas of: stalking the victim from in front of him; and doing "silent stalking" with a commentary! But the director can never stop talking so not really a surprise.
"Cutting Shapes" in an "if you are ever in KL, this is a real cool club" club
"Buddha eating a Chinese meal"
The hotel band singing "Who The **** Is Alice?"
and culminating in the dark, drunken "I Need A ****" sketch

All cheques for the movie to be addressed to B. R. Ibery, Alton.

Enjoy.

July 2007: Peru Tour and Inca Trail Trek

2007-10-26T18:48:00.000+07:00

A four week tour of southern Peru through a tour company, The Adventure Company http://www.adventurecompany.co.uk/

This consisted of an effective seven sections:

Coast, Deserts, Nazca and Puerto Inca - http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Peru_Coast_Deserts_Nazca_07_2007
Arequipa, the Altiplano, Volcanoes, Colca Canyon and the Condors - http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Peru_Altiplano_Volcanoes_Canyons
Lake Titicaca, Sillustrani and Sacred Valley (first visit), which also had a surprise in store - a general strike! - http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Peru_Lake_Titicaca_Sacred_Valley_1
Inca Trail trek to Machu Picchu - http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Peru_Inca_Trail_to_Machu_Picchu
Inside Machu Picchu - http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Peru_Inside_Machu_Picchu
Sacred Valley (2) and on to Cusco - http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Peru_Sacred_Valley_2_and_Cusco
Amazon Rainforest trails - http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Peru_Amazon

I have a Journal (Word document) under construction (still!), so this piece is an intro with links to photos and the journal - http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dff2nsff_1gf69vp

I have created separate web photo albums for each section due to size and allowing for boredom factor!

Enjoy

June 2007: Sailing in Greece

2007-10-24T22:00:00.000+07:00

A late offer from Sunsail was too good to refuse. A week sailing around the Sporades islands and Volos gulf (mainland).

They do a share-a-boat scheme within a flotilla group, the risk is always who you are stuck with to share the boat. Done it before, had a really good time.

This time I was berthed with 2 skippers who fought each other for control whilst I sat and refereed - terrific. Worse was that one was an OAP who was really past skippering and a bit forgetful but "a decent chap", and this egomaniac bullshitter who was an excellent racing skipper but had a fuse the length of a hamster's toenail.

Luckily you always meet up with the other boat crews in the evening and have drinkies (surprise!) and dinner together, so they were laughing at our antics every day and I managed to talk to humans every night!

Anyway, the Greek islands are a superb setting for sailing (and some motoring when no wind), so a couple of photos are on this link:

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Greece_06_2007

May 2007: Worldham Golf Club Tour to Devon

2007-10-24T21:52:00.000+07:00

No photos, thankfully. Just including this as a reminder.

4 days in Okehampton, Devon organised at the golf club.

About 40-50 supposed golfers play "sociable" golf on a huge complex near Okehampton, can't even remember the name!

Managed to get some sleep between drinking, eating, golf and all sorts of other indoor "sports".

March 2007: Antigua and BVI

2007-10-24T21:36:00.000+07:00

The start of a new chapter.

Get back to sailing, learn SCUBA diving and travel.

Easy start, a package through Sunsail including 2 weeks on land at their club in Antigua, getting RYA Dinghy Sailing Level 2 ticket, followed by a week in British Virgin Islands doing an RYA Competent Crew course.

Managed to get some golf and mountain biking in too! Plus the cricket world cup was on in the West Indies at the same time, so the locals were well excited and chatty, taking the piss out of the English efforts as usual.

See selection of photos at:

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Antigua_and_BVI