Anyhoo...

This part of our trip involved rather more moving around than usual. Boston was our base, but we also had a look at New Hampshire and Vermont. But before I get into all that, I have a complaint:

Massachusetts is blooming cold in autumn, and after two days of shivering we were forced to buy coats. That is so not right! I haven’t worn a jacket in eight months and I only have one sweater with me. We were supposed to be chasing the sun around the world... I guess we’re doing it wrong.

Me and my new coat. Also note my ironic sweatshirt, from Oxford University (*). It is ironic because a) I did not go to Oxford, and b) I once applied to Cambridge in a misguided attempt to get a place on one of their postgraduate courses, but the interview went so badly I expected them to hand me my rejection letter on the way out. This also had another consequence in that I went to Edinburgh University instead, and met Pete on my first day there. See, if only I’d been smarter, Pete wouldn’t have had to put up with me for the last fifteen years (or, as he says, “Fifteen long, hard years!”)

(*) BTW, the only reason I own this jumper at all is because I lost my old one at Heathrow, and this was the only replacement I could find in the half hour or so we had left before we had to board our plane.

Lousy weather aside, we did have a fantastic time in New England. The first and last parts of our stay were spent in Boston, the capital of Massachusetts, and one of the oldest cities in America. We liked it immediately, and I think that is in large part because it is a university town; they always seem to have a pleasant atmosphere. We spent many happy hours just wandering around, soaking up the sights on Boston Common, Beacon Hill, and the Charles River Bridge.

If you’re looking for some unusual attractions in the area, we found three that stood out:

Mapparium

This is an enormous hollow ball made of glass, with all the countries of the Earth displayed on the inside of the globe. Through the centre runs a bridge, where observers stand. The map itself is a little out of date, showing the world as it was in 1935, so if you look for Thailand or Vietnam, you won’t find ‘em.

This description from curiousexpeditions.org sums it up perfectly:

It is a singular experience. Nowhere else on earth can you see, well, earth. Not like this at least; earth the way it really looks, without distortion. As you walk down along the walkway, bathed in a soft blue light from the back-lit stained-glass surrounding you everything sounds strange; you can hear your own breathing as if it was someone else right up against your ear.

We weren’t allowed to take photos inside, sadly, but you can see what I’m talking about by clicking here.

The ‘Cheers’ bar

Anybody who watched Cheers during the 80’s is likely to recognise this sign:

Formerly the Bull and Finch, this bar on Beacon Street was used for all the exterior shots in the show.

We used to watch it, too, and in a fit of nostalgia we decided to drop by the pub and try to relive our misspent youths. These things rarely work out as planned, however. At the start of this trip, Pete and I declared our intention to drink our way around the world. Sadly it hasn’t worked out that way for me - health issues mean that I’m hardly drinking at all lately, much to my disappointment – but I made an exception on this occasion. I mean, I couldn’t visit Cheers and not have a beer, could I? It wouldn’t be right.

Pete’s misspent youth is turning into a misspent adulthood, too!

Tomb

Tomb was something of a surprise, as we’d never experienced anything like this before. It was advertised as an interactive multimedia adventure with an Egyptian theme, which really didn’t tell us much, but we thought we’d head on over there anyway and see what all the fuss was about.

Without giving too much away, you are taken into an Egyptian tomb which has recently been discovered in Boston. (I bet not too many archeologists thought to look there, eh?) The last person to enter the chamber was never seen again, so it is up to you to find out what happened to him. Once inside you are set a series of challenges by a very grumpy pharaoh; the tasks get harder as you move through the rooms. You are accompanied at all times by a guide, who is there to give tips and encouragement, and to stop fights breaking out between family members who can’t agree on the best way to solve a puzzle. (Apparently we were one of the more cooperative teams our guide had seen!) Anyway, we managed to make the old pharaoh happy, and he let us out eventually. We thought it was an amusing way to spend an hour.

So, Boston was great, but that wasn’t the reason I nagged to visit New England.

I have wanted to go on a fall foliage tour ever since I saw it on some cheesy flick umpteen years ago. I’ve long since forgotten the title of that movie, but I remember how gorgeous the scenery looked, and I wanted to go see it for myself. You might have gathered, if you’ve read this blog for any length of time, that I like trees and nature and stuff. Pete wasn’t so keen - hence the title of this entry - but he said the same thing about seeing cherry blossoms in Japan and ended up enjoying himself, so I told him to quit whinging, hire a car and drive! (He did as he was told, too. I’ve got him well-trained...)

But before we went in search of colourful leaves, there was one other stop I wanted to make, in Salem. Salem, for those of you who don’t know, was the centre of witchcraft hysteria back in 1692-‘93. I loved Arthur Miller’s version of the story, as told in The Crucible, and I wanted to visit the museum.

The Salem Witch Museum: one of the area’s most popular tourist attractions.

It wasn’t quite what I’d expected. Instead of walking around looking at exhibits, you sit in a large room, which is decorated with a series of wax mannequins, and listen to a presentation. The tale of the witchcraft trials is narrated, while the relevant section of the diorama is highlighted at the appropriate time. To be honest, this arrangement has received a lot of criticism. Some people see it as low-tech and cheesy, while others complain that you can’t see everything without constantly switching seats. While both of these objections are valid, I still enjoyed hearing the history again. Over 150 people were arrested and imprisoned during the height of the hysteria, and 19 of those prisoners were hanged... and all because of bunch of young girls with overactive imaginations!

Our timing was perfect for visiting Salem. Halloween starts early in America; even though it was still only the first week in October, many people had already put up their Halloween decorations. I must admit, I loved it! All those quaint clapboard houses with pumpkins and scarecrows on the front porch looked so good!

We decided to get into the spirit of things by going to a haunted house. There were plenty to choose from, and I reckon we stumbled upon one of the better shows, ‘cos ours was in 3-D! The effects were brilliant, and the actors were scary. (There was one lady dressed as some kind of white witch who kept jumping out at us who managed to make me jump every single time. What a way to make a living: running around, shouting “Boo!” at people and cackling. I think I’ve finally found my dream job! Where do I apply?)

But enough of the silliness. Salem, much as I loved it, was not the point of the trip; this was:

Click on a pic for bigger versions, as per usual.

I think we were very, very lucky with our timing. We spent one day driving along the Kancamagus Highway in New Hampshire, one of the more popular spots for us ‘leaf-peepers’, and the scenery was perfect: lots of leaves on the trees and a wide variety of vivid colours. During the night there was a storm. We drove along "the Kanc." again the following morning on the way to Vermont, and it looked totally different. Many of the trees had lost their leaves, so there were large patches of grey where the branches were visible, and the colours themselves seemed muted. We noticed the same thing in Vermont, where the foliage was obviously past its peak.

It was a lovely way to spend a few days, driving through these quaint little towns with clapboard houses, going for walks, admiring the scenery and taking photos. I just wish the pictures could do it justice – I recommend seeing it for yourselves, if you get the chance!

“What d’you mean we’re going to look at leaves?” remains copyright of the author Julie1972, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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During our first night in our Staten Island hotel, at about 3.30 in the morning, the fire alarm went off. We tried unsuccessfully to ignore it (heads under pillows and that sort of thing), but eventually realised that it was going on way too long to be a drill. We dragged on our jeans and headed out into the hall, which was filled with smoke. As we couldn't use the elevators during a fire we walked down five flights of stairs to reception. (Actually I didn’t so much walk as shuffle. At three in the morning, I look like this.) Anyhoo, we got downstairs and asked the receptionist guy what was going on. He was totally and completely indifferent to the whole affair.

“It’s probably just somebody smoking a cigarette that set off the alarm,” he said.

“Um, no,” we reply, appalled by his apathy. “Our floor is filled with smoke.”

Mr. Blasé finally gets the message and calls the fire brigade.

This makes me wonder: First we get stuck in a lift in Seville, and now this. Is Karma finally catching up with me? I don’t remember my previous lives, but I bet I did something really, really bad in at least one of them... possibly in all of them. I’m sure I’ve got some serious retribution coming my way!

As I was hanging around the lobby wondering when, exactly, the Universe was gonna kick me in the butt, the fire brigade arrived. A quick investigation turned up a faulty electrical socket in a closet near our room. Mr. Blasé behind the desk soon loses his nonchalance, ‘cos the Fire Chief proceeds to read him the riot act for violation of some law or another. Each hotel is supposed to have a fire officer on duty 24/7; our hotel had to drag their fire officer out of bed!

And that brings me back to my subject heading: ways in which TV has lied. Anybody who has watched London’s Burning or that awful American series with Denis Leary would probably get the impression that fire fighting is a tremendously exciting job. It isn’t. At least, it wasn’t for the poor blokes who were called to our hotel. They walked in carrying axes and hoses and impressive stuff like that, then mainly stood around looking bored. Eventually the Chief said, “Show’s over,” and they all went back to the station. Seriously, the most exciting part of the night was listening to the desk clerk getting an ear bashing.

Colour me disappointed.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I wanted a rerun of The Towering Inferno or anything like that, but it would have been nice if the fellas had got to soak something, or give someone a fireman’s lift.

I know, I know, I watch way too much TV. But this did get me thinking...

Many movies are set in NYC, and a lot of them have thrilling and dangerous plotlines. If TV shows or films were in any way realistic, here’s a list of things I might reasonably expect to experience in New York:

- We could be attacked by supernatural entities (Ghostbusters), or monsters will rampage through the city (Cloverfield)
- We could find ourselves in the middle of a mob shootout (The Sopranos)
- There could be an alien invasion (Independence Day)
- A good cop might chase a bad guy through the subway system (Nighthawks)
- Global warming might finally catch up with us and a new ice age will arrive (The Day After Tomorrow)
- Or, scariest of all, we might be subjected to yuppies who sit around in coffee shops all day and whine (Friends).

But it doesn’t stop there. Granted most of the above scenarios are pretty far-fetched, but Hollywood tells little white lies, too. Here’s a list of more reasonable stuff that also failed to occur:

Myth: Buses will stop when you wave at them, whether you are at a bus stop or not.
Reality: If you try flagging down a bus anywhere except at a bus stop, you will get an extremely filthy look from the driver. If you are really lucky, they won’t try and run you over as they fly past.

Myth: You can take as long as you like saying goodbye to someone at the Greyhound station. The bus will happily wait.
Reality: Greyhound bus drivers are, in our experience, people with dominant personalities and a schedule to keep. Those buses will leave on time, whether or not you happen to be on ‘em.

Myth: NYC taxi drivers honk their horns all the time and rant at you for the duration of your journey.
Reality: Our drivers were very reserved and hardly spoke at all. Also there was very little horn-honking. In our entire time there we only saw one altercation, and that was between a taxi driver and a bloke in a sports car. (They stopped in the middle of the road for a good old slanging match!)

Myth: New Yorkers are neurotic and unfriendly (and this from a Cambridge University study!)
Reality: The people in New York were as polite and friendly as people we have encountered in other parts of America. Before I arrived, I actually believed that walking down the street in NYC was going to be a major chore. I anticipated being crushed in crowds of rushed people and yelled at by irate drivers, but nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, the streets do get crowded, but nobody was rude or jostled us, and drivers were considerate and patient. Sorry, Cambridge braniacs, but our experiences just don’t correlate to your findings!

Alright, enough silliness. I suppose I really ought to tell you what we did instead of just banging on about the telly. We:

Rode the Staten Island ferry

Due to the extortionate price of hotel rooms on the mainland, we chose to stay on Staten Island. We got to take the ferry a lot, which meant that we got to see the Statue of Liberty a lot, too. Actually, the ferry is a fabulous service. It runs 24 hours a day and is free! Our hotel also provided a complimentary shuttle service to and from the ferry terminal, so although it required one car, one boat and a subway ride to get into central Manhattan, it only took about an hour.

Lady Liberty - A gift to the United States from France to represent the friendship between the two countries. I guess nothing lasts forever, though, eh? Anti-French sentiment here has meant that in some places 'French Fries' have been renamed 'Freedom Fries'! I say they're both wrong; everybody knows they're called 'chips' :-)

Walked through famous streets

A large part of our time in NYC was spent just walking and enjoying the fact that we were finally there. Must-sees included Times Square (including an obligatory beer at the Hard Rock Café), Rockefeller Plaza and 42nd Street.

Strolled through Central Park

To be honest we didn’t see the entire park ‘cos it was much bigger than we expected it to be. Well, that and the fact that the main reason I wanted to go there in the first place was for a horse and carriage ride.

The horse's name was Ernie.

Saw Grand Central Station

And had prohibitively expensive drinks at one of the bars there.

Visited the Guggenheim

They had a Kandinsky exhibition on, which was interesting if a little bizarre, but actually we thought the museum building itself was worth seeing. It’s got a spiral viewing gallery, and a central skylight – one of the more unusual galleries we’ve visited, for sure!

Went to the observation deck of the Empire State Building

Our timing was perfect that day. We had anticipated huge lines of people and ridiculous waiting times, but we went straight in and were on the observation deck in no time at all. The place was obviously set up for hundreds of visitors ‘cos they had those huge thick velvet ropes everywhere to direct the queues, but apparently going during the off-season has its advantages!

The view from the 87th floor of the Empire State Building.

I really wish that we had spent more time in New York as there was so much more to see, but it is very expensive and we didn’t want to give the budget more of a battering than necessary. We both agree that if we get the chance to go there again we will definitely take it – although next time we might just say “Hang the expense” and pay for a room in the city so we can take advantage of the night life without worrying about getting home again.

In conclusion:

Fabulous city, fabulous people (and fab delicatessens, too, though I promised not to talk about food in this entry, didn’t I? Ah well, you’ll just have to take my word for it!)

More soon

From

Julie and Pete

Ways in which TV has lied to me remains copyright of the author Julie1972, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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I wish it had told me exactly how many steps it was going to take in order to reach our hotel in Philadelphia! The day started off well enough: we had a pleasant 3.5 hour Greyhound bus ride into Philly city centre, and, based on previous experiences, reckoned that the rest of the journey would be equally easy. We’d booked a hotel on the outskirts of the city, so had to catch a train. Ordering the tickets was fun, ‘cos whoever named the place took a bit of a liberty with the spelling. We wanted to go Olney station, so that’s what we asked for, pronouncing it as it’s spelt: oll-knee. “Only what?” said the guy behind the counter. Turns out the place is pronounced oll-a-knee, though where they get that extra middle vowel sound from I have no idea.

So, we get to Oll-a-knee expecting to find a cab to take us (and our bloomin’ heavy backpacks, hereafter known as the BHB’s) directly to our hotel. Next problem: Olney is a tiny station seemingly in the middle of nowhere. There’s not a taxi in sight, so we sigh, shoulder the BHB’s, and head for the nearest main road. “You never know,” we told ourselves, “it might be within walking distance.” Hah. We want 4200 Roosevelt Boulevard; the first building we see on that street is numbered 100. That idea is quickly consigned to the scrapheap, and after a prolonged period of whinging, moaning, and cursing inaccurate maps, we improvise a plan B.

Plan B turns out to be walking to the nearest Dunkin Donuts and falling on the mercy of the bored looking dude behind the counter. Happily he is the helpful type, and he points us in the direction of the nearest bus stop, thus preventing me initiating Plan C: buying up as many donuts as I can afford and eating myself into a self-pitying coma.

The bus arrives shortly afterwards, and we struggle to get ourselves and the BHBs on board. The bus driver informs us that he doesn’t stop near our hotel; we’ll need to walk two blocks at the other end. Two blocks is better than the 40-odd blocks we were previously facing, so we buy the tickets anyway.

The bus is crowded; we are blocking the aisle and the front doorway, Pete, the BHB’s and I. We are also obviously hot, sticky, tired, annoyed and foreign. Then the bus driver does something totally unexpected and entirely welcome. “I’m the bus driver, right?” he asks us with a grin. “I can stop anywhere I want!” And so he did. He pulled up at the side of the road, immediately opposite our hotel, saving us a hot and uncomfortable hike with the BHB's. We will both be eternally grateful for this man's consideration, and reckon some heavy-duty karma is flying his way. Thank you, whoever you are!

Note:

For those of you who are intending to visit Philly yourselves and are looking for accommodation, I do not recommend the Days Inn on Roosevelt Boulevard. Yes, it’s cheaper than other hotels, but the transportation is lousy (requiring one bus and one train to get to the city centre), and it is in a very seedy area. The staff were not as helpful or professional as I had come to expect from American hotels, either. In conclusion: Do yourselves a favour and find somewhere else!

That being said, there was one thing our hotel was convenient for: restaurants. There must have been half a dozen within easy walking distance, which was both good and bad news: good, ‘cos it meant we didn’t have to worry about planning meals way in advance; and bad, ‘cos there were half a dozen restaurants within a couple of minutes walking distance, and I wanted to try ‘em all! To be honest, I’d compiled a list of chains I wanted to try before we’d even started this trip. Sure we get McD’s, BK, KFC, Denny’s and Wendy’s in New Zealand, but there are a whole bunch more I’d never seen: Taco Bell, Olive Garden, Chilli’s, Red Lobster, Applebee’s... the list goes on! Bizarrely, much of my knowledge of American Junk Food Emporiums comes from reading diet blogs. Many moons ago, back in the UK, Pete and I both had some excess weight to shed, and I started reading other people’s stories for inspiration (and consolation). It’s funny how weight loss blogs seem to talk as much about bad food as good.

As you might have gathered, Pete and I love to eat, so the USA is proving a bit of challenge restraint-wise, as it would be so, so easy to go overboard. Food is cheap, plentiful and comes in huge servings, so weight gain was one of the things I was worried about before we arrived (*). I know there are lots of yummy things here that I simply have to try: New York cheesecake, Key Lime pie and chilli dogs, to name but a few. (I also have a hankering for grits, even though I have no idea what they are!) Worst of all, though: biscuits. Not cookie-type biscuits, but the lovely, buttery, savoury version. My obsession with these things is all Pete’s sister’s fault. She had access to a military BX in the UK, so she fed us all sorts of good American things when we went to visit. Unfortunately she neglected to tell me that biscuits are more addictive than crack! And what do I see when we first land? A sign outside Dunkin Donuts advertising sausage & biscuits for 99 cents. I might as well throw my old jeans away now, eh?

(*) I should actually be worrying about my cholesterol levels, I suppose, but cholesterol doesn’t make my bum look big – not directly, at any rate – so I am actually more concerned about whether my clothes still fit than what my LDL’s are doing. Priorities, eh?

So, along the way, we’ve developed a few survival tactics to ensure the damage is kept to a minimum:

1 – We sort out our own breakfast instead of relying on the pastry-laden buffets that hotels usually provide. Fruit, juice, yogurt and cereal bars are our staples, and mean that we get at least a couple of our 5-a-day fruit and veggie servings first thing!

2 – If restaurants are inevitable, we look for the healthy options on menus whenever possible. Most Palaces of Cholesterol-Laden Delights have a few non-fried items, we’ve found.

3 – If the hotel has a microwave, we raid the supermarket freezer section and ‘cook’ for ourselves. True, frozen meals aren’t great, but at least they have nutritional information on the packaging, so you can try to make better choices. If we don’t have a microwave we hit the deli counter and salad bar. (We eat at restaurants so often now that supermarket meals actually feel like a treat!)

It seems to be working for us so far, though it might be a while before I’ll have the nerve to get my cholesterol levels tested once we get back to New Zealand!

Have I really just blethered on about junk food for the last ten paragraphs? And you’re still reading? Wow, I’m impressed!

And, just so we’re clear, Pete and I didn’t actually spend our entire time in Philadelphia eating; we did find stuff to do as well. Actually, we received an email from Pete’s sister (the one who started my biscuit addiction) not long after we arrived. She asked:

“Is there any reason in particular that you went to Philly??? Just wondering, Mum and I were discussing it the other day and were trying to figure out what was there.”

It’s a fair enough question, as Philly isn‘t exactly a major tourist destination. To be honest, I chose it for two reasons:

1) It was a reasonable stopping point halfway between Washington D.C. and New York.
2) The Mütter Museum is there.

For those of you who have never heard of it, the Mütter Museum houses a weird and wonderful collection of medical curiosities, anatomical specimens (both real and wax models), and antique medical equipment - some of which looks like it belongs in a torture chamber! I saw it advertised on a website of strange places to visit when I was doing research for this trip, and I was thrilled that we actually got to go there.

I must say though, this place ain’t for the squeamish (this from the girl who watches the surgical scenes on Grey’s Anatomy from behind a cushion!) as some of the exhibits can be a bit hard to stomach. For example:

- The Eye Wall of Shame is a collection of wax models showing horrible maladies and injuries, including a toothpick sticking out of a retina!

- Many severed body parts sitting in jars of formaldehyde, including a collection of spectacularly nasty tumours.

- A skull of a woman with a horn growing out of her head.

- The brain of a serial killer.

- And, most disturbing of all, the corpse of a woman known as the Soap Lady, whose body tissue turned into a soap-like substance due to the properties of the soil she was buried in. (We were particularly concerned by the fact that her mouth is open. Did she die screaming?)

Most of you will be pleased to hear that I couldn’t take photos, but the gore-lovers amongst you may be interested in viewing these pictures from someone who managed to get a peek behind the scenes. WARNING: SOME OF THE IMAGES ON THIS WEBSITE ARE VERY DISTURBING! If you want something that’s easier on the eye, go here instead.

Yes, the museum was gruesome and creepy, but it was also different. If you’re interested in medical history or want to scare yourself silly with the thought of the hundreds of ways in which the human body can go wrong, this is the place to be.

Another unusual item we found in Philly was the Liberty Bell, a famous symbol of the American Revolutionary War. It was made to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Pennsylvania’s original Constitution, and later became an icon of the anti-slave movement.

Ding dong! Notice the huge crack? Read on to find out the story behind it.

The bell was made in Britain, at the Whitechapel Foundry in 1752, on the orders of Isaac Norris, Assembly Speaker and the Chairman of the State House Superintendents. His instructions read:

"Let the Bell be cast by the best Workmen and examined carefully before it is shipped with the following words well shaped in large letters round the vizt, 'By order of the Assembly of the Province of Pennsylvania for the State House in the city of Philada. 1752' - and underneath - 'Proclaim Liberty thro' all the Land to all the inhabitants thereof, Levit. XXV/10.'"

The bell arrived, and on September 1st 1752, Norris sent a letter confirming that:

"The Bell is come ashore & in good order."

So far, so good. However, his next letter to his agent read:

“I gave Information that our Bell was generally like & appvd of but in a few days after my writing I had the Mortification to hear that it was cracked by a stroke of the clapper without any other violence as it was hung up to try the sound.”

The blooming thing cracked on the very first stroke! So much for best Workmen, eh? What an embarrassment:

............................................________
....................................,.-‘”...................``~.,
.............................,.-”...................................“-.,
.........................,/...............................................”:,
.....................,?......................................................\,
.................../...........................................................,}
................./......................................................,:`^`..}
.............../...................................................,:”........./
..............?.....__.........................................:`.........../
............./__.(.....“~-,_..............................,:`........../
.........../(_....”~,_........“~,_....................,:`........_/
..........{.._$;_......”=,_.......“-,_.......,.-~-,},.~”;/....}
...........((.....*~_.......”=-._......“;,,./`..../”............../
...,,,___.\`~,......“~.,....................`.....}............../
............(....`=-,,.......`........................(......;_,,-”
............/.`~,......`-...............................\....../\
.............\`~.*-,.....................................|,./.....\,__
,,_..........}.>-._\...................................|..............`=~-,
.....`=~-,_\_......`\,.................................\
...................`=~-,,.\,...............................\
................................`:,,...........................`\..............__
.....................................`=-,...................,%`>--==``
........................................_\..........._,-%.......`\
...................................,<`.._|_,-&``................`\

*face palm* When only ASCII art will do.

So, that’s quite enough from me for today. Hopefully my next post will be a little more... I was going to say ‘normal’, but I dunno if I can manage that. Okay, I solemnly swear that my next post will be less gore- and food-filled. That’s one promise I can stick to!

Bye.

More than just cream cheese remains copyright of the author Julie1972, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The flight from London was fabulous, the first long-haul flight I have actually enjoyed. We flew with United Airways and were extremely impressed. The crew were professional, courteous and helpful, our section of the plane was mercifully quiet, and the food was good. We will definitely fly with them again.

So, eight and a half hours later we landed in Washington D.C. This is my first visit to the U.S., and although Pete has been a couple of times before to visit family, he hasn’t really done much in the way of touristy stuff here. We wanted a relatively gentle introduction to the east coast, and figured that D.C. would be an easy city in which to get our bearings. It was a good choice! We loved it immediately, and soon decided to extend our one week stay to two.

The first thing that really struck me here was how strange it was to see places in real life that I’d seen forever on TV:

a) Pete, with the Washington Monument way in the background. Most people recognise it as the monument which was built in honour of George Washington, the country's first president; me, I remember it from the movie Mars Attacks, where the aliens play spaceship ping-pong with it before finally knocking it over!
b) The Lincoln Memorial. Abraham Lincoln was America's 16th president, and the first to be assassinated. He reportedly had a premonition of his own death, and some people claim to have seen his ghost in the White House.

c) The Capitol. The dome is cast iron and weighs 8,909,200 pounds. (I have it on good authority that the only thing holding it up is all the hot air from Congress!)
d) Me, as close to the White House as I was gonna get (and desperately in need of a hair cut!) We wanted to do a tour, but apparently you need to book well in advance. Oh well... shoulda done my homework, eh?

There are, of course, cultural differences, and even though we all speak English, it soon became clear that we are not necessarily talking the same language all of the time! Accents have been a problem for me, especially in situations where I am unable to see the speaker’s face. I never did overcome this problem, so station announcements on the Metro remained an incomprehensible babble. Happily this was not a problem because a) Pete understood what was being said 99% of the time, and b) each of the Metro trains had maps, and the stations themselves were clearly signed.

Further lingo lessons learned include:
- Do not ask for a ‘jam donut’ in bakeries ‘cos you will confuse the server. They’re jelly donuts here!
- Asking to have your ‘fringe’ cut may lead your hairdresser to have convulsions through laughing so hard. “They’re bangs”, she told me, between bouts of hysteria. (Has anybody written a UK English - American English dictionary? That would be most useful!)

On the whole, though, our British dialect received a positive response. We got chatting to a guy on the Metro, who said, “I love your accent. It’s cool.” After a short pause he continued: “You guys say ‘telly’, right?” He found this very amusing. Shame I didn’t get the chance to tell him about goggle boxes, boob tubes and idiot boxes. (Who knew that synonyms for the word ‘television’ could be so entertaining?)

People are also a lot more obvious about their political affiliations here. There are souvenir stalls where you can buy pro-Obama t-shirts, like these... or, the other side of the coin: “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for McCain and Palin”. There are political souvenir shops all over the place, and you can pose to have your picture taken with a life-sized cardboard cut-out of the Prez. I didn't think this sort of thing would ever catch on in the UK, but apparently I was wrong!

As to be expected in a big city like D.C., there is a lot to see and do. Highlights we particularly enjoyed included:

The Smithsonian Institution

The Smithsonian comprises 19 museums, 9 research centres and a national zoo - and they are all free to visit! We saw the Air and Space Museum, The American Indian Museum, and briefly popped into the Natural History Museum because I wanted to see the Hope diamond. (It's supposed to be cursed!)

The Hope Diamond weighs 45 carats, and is said to bring death or madness to its owners. The Smithsonian refute this claim, however, 'cos nothing weird has happened since they've been in possession of it. Yet.

Ducks

DUCWs (or ‘ducks’) are old military vehicles which are capable of travelling on land or through water.

Although they are called 'ducks', they are really 'DUKWs'. The name comes from the model naming terminology used by General Motors: D indicates a vehicle designed in 1942; U means 'utility'; K is for all-wheel drive; and W indicates two powered rear axles. I think 'duck' is nicer!

I was most disappointed to find out that they couldn’t fly, but I wanted to go on one anyway. I think this was the perfect city tour for us. It lasted an hour and a half, took in all the major sights, and included a paddle along the Potomac River. Our captain was a friendly and enthusiastic guide, and interspersed his facts and figures with some really appalling duck jokes, like this one:

A duck walks into a drugstore and says, "Give me some Chapstick."
"How are you going to pay for that?" asks the clerk.
"Oh," the duck replied. "Just put it on my bill."

Listening to all those duck jokes drove us quackers! (BTW, you might notice I finally got that hair cut.)

Mount Vernon

This is George Washington’s estate in Virginia, which has been kept in its original condition and opened to tourists. It was a lovely way to spend a few hours, wandering through the house and gardens.

The estate used to be known as Hunting Creek Plantation. During George Washington's occupancy, it grew from 2,000 acres to over 8,000.

Johnny Rockets

Silly, I know, but I got to eat a hotdog at one of those 50’s themed restaurants where they play Buddy Holly records and the servers all wear old-fashioned uniforms. I loved it, even though it was tacky in a ‘Happy Days’ kind of way.

So, America is off to a great start for us. I can really see this being the highlight of our trip!

More very soon,

J&P

Hey! Hey! USA! remains copyright of the author Julie1972, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Pete loves the heat; if he had his way it'd be summer all year round.

Seville is a truly beautiful old city, full of cobbled streets with religious names and stunning Gothic architecture. Modern cars look out of place on the maze of narrow roads; it would seem a lot more natural if people drove around in horse and carts. Driving is actually quite nerve-racking through the back streets: the cars are too big to go round corners easily, and the pavements are too narrow in places for pedestrians to safely get out of their way!

Seville street scene, taken during siesta when only mad dogs and honorary Kiwis were out in the midday sun.

Another hazard these little streets cause is the Air Con Drip. Watch out for puddles of water on the pavement, and avoid them if you can, ‘cos sooner or later you are guaranteed to feel a warm splash of liquid from someone’s air conditioning pipe. Decidedly icky!

The intense heat means that there are a lot of fountains around, usually with someone dunking their head in it. The authorities have also cleverly provided street sprinkler systems in some areas: these give a fine spray of water throughout the day, and are very popular with small children and shaggy dogs.

Street sprinkler systems – probably the best idea Seville Council ever had!

As in so many other hot countries we’ve seen, Spanish life mainly takes place outdoors: people sit on their terraces and balconies chatting late into the night, or congregate at the many restaurants and bars for al fresco drinks and dining. We spent a great deal of time investigating many of these establishments ourselves, and felt right at home in Flaherty’s Irish Pub, conveniently opposite the cathedral in the city centre. (They serve a fabulous selection of British food - a godsend when you’re hit with fish and chip cravings!)

Spanish food tends to be based heavily around red meat – they love ham and heavy, spicy sausages like chorizo. You can find vegetarian versions of their traditional dishes, but you may have to look long and hard for them. One thing the Spanish don’t do properly, however, is sandwiches. Give ‘em two pieces of bread and they’ll generally stick one of three things inside it: ham, chorizo or tortilla. Don’t be fooled by the places that advertise ‘vegetal’ baguettes, either. Vegetal means ‘vegetable’ or ‘salad’ in Spanish, but both times I ordered it I got a tuna roll instead. (Tuna is ‘atún’, by the way, so I didn’t just order the wrong thing... twice.)

Actually renting an apartment rather than staying in a hotel meant that we got to experience more of the mundane day-to-day stuff than we usually would (including cleaning up after ourselves and cooking. Chambermaids and room service, oh how we missed you!) One of the first pieces of information we asked our landlord for –after nagging for the Wi-Fi login codes - was the location of nearby supermarkets, where the staff proved to be paranoid on one hand, and lackadaisical on the other. We were made to put our bags into lockers at the store entrance and Pete was pounced upon by one enthusiastic employee and made to wear plastic gloves when handling fresh produce, but toddlers using plums as missiles didn’t as much as raise an eyebrow. Oh well...

Shopping, naturally, leads to garbage, and disposing of this wasn’t as straightforward as we’d anticipated. Instead of sticking it into garbage/recycling bins and waiting for someone to come and collect it, you have to take it away yourself. There are huge bins on many street corners, with containers for organic waste, bottles, other recyclable materials and ‘everything else’. Every household is responsible for carrying their own rubbish down to these containers and disposing of it appropriately. Thinking about it, this make sense; the streets are so tiny you’d never fit a garbage truck down them, and if everyone stuck a trash can outside pedestrians would be forced to walk down the middle of the road. It’s just not practical! The other advantage of this mega-bin solution is that it provides an easy way for unwanted items to get recycled: if someone throws something away that is in decent condition, chances are somebody else will fish it out of the garbage and put it to good use. Better than clogging up the landfill sites anyway.

During our month here we did more than just eating, drinking and slobbing out. Not a lot more, admittedly, but that’s beside the point. Places of interest include:

Seville Cathedral (Catedral de Santa María de la Sede)

This is actually the largest Gothic cathedral in the world. Christopher Columbus is buried here.

I have no words to explain how jaw-droppingly impressive this is. I’ve seen renowned cathedrals before, including Notre Dame and St. Pauls, but neither of them can hold a big fat candle to Santa Maria. If you get a chance to see it, go. Not into churches? Don’t care about architecture? Go anyway. There are a whole range of words I could use to describe this place, from opulent to ostentatious, but mere words and pictures can’t begin to scratch the surface.

Me at Seville cathedral, stupidly standing outside in the blistering sun instead of hiding inside the cool building, like a sensible person would do.

The Bullring (Plaza de Toros de la Maestranza)

Pete and I did much humming and hawing before we chose to take a tour of Seville’s famous bullring. Neither of us agrees with bullfighting, and we absolutely point-blank refuse to attend an actual fight, but we couldn’t decide whether or not it would be hypocritical of us to indirectly sponsor the ‘sport’ by paying to tour the arena. In the end we felt that we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to see such a unique and unusual building. You just don’t get these places in many other parts of the world, and my nosy self got the better of my conscience (*).

The arena seats 14,000 people, and is a popular attraction for both locals and tourists. (The lady at the front was our tour guide.)

Anyway, the bullring tour was an unusually short one, taking only 30 minutes. The guide gave explanations alternately in Spanish and English, so we were able to do more than just look and take photos. For the gore-lovers among you, this is what I learned about Spanish bullfights:

They have three stages, and always involve two bullfighters.
 
Stage 1:

The bullfighter, mounted on a blindfolded horse, provokes the bull by stick a lance into its neck to weaken the strong muscles.

Stage 2:

The fighter further antagonises the bull using decorated darts called “banderillas”.

Stage 3:

The bullfighter uses his red cape to bring the bull closer to his body. When the bull is weak and cannot charge any more, the bullfighter administers the death stroke with his sword. It is interesting to note that bullfighters are rarely injured or killed during fights; pity the same can’t be said for the bulls!

(*) I can't consider myself an animal rights supporter in any real sense of the word: I eat meat and wear leather, and am well aware that animals are not always raised in wholesome conditions; but I also feel that there is a big difference between killing animals for a use (food, clothing) and torturing in the name of fun, and I will never be a fan of bullfighting or fox hunting.

Rant over. I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming...

Free sauna at the Tower of Perdigones

By far the most memorable day trip for us was the one we made to the camera obscura on a boiling hot Sunday afternoon. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, a camera obscura is basically a tall tower with a periscope on top. Inside the tower is a large screen, and by adjusting the periscope you can see the city for miles around. At first it looked like we were viewing an enormous photograph, but if you look closely you can make out details like washing flapping in the breeze, pedestrians walking, and tiny cars moving down the roads.

The camera obscura is 45m tall and lets you spy on people miles away!

This is how we got the free sauna: We’d finished with the periscope viewing, taken a walk around the balcony for some great city photos, thanked the guide for his excellent and enthusiastic presentation, and got into the lift. The lift proceeded to move several inches, then abruptly stopped. The lights on the control panel went out. Our guide says, “We have a problem.” Possibly the understatement of the year, seeing as how we were between floors, couldn’t force the doors, and couldn’t get the control panel to respond in any way. To top it off, our guide was the only bloke on duty. There used to be two staff members, he told us, but now he was the only one. He also told us that the lift frequently broke down. Great. To top it off, it was a Sunday. Nobody does anything in Spain on a Sunday, except go to church.

Oh dear.

So the guide does two things: 1) he calls his wife; 2) he presses the emergency button on the control panel and has a long-winded conversation with someone at the elevator manufacturers. Pete and I don’t understand either of these conversations, but are reassured that help is on the way.

It’s funny what goes through your mind when you’re stuck in a metal box in forty-degree heat. My thoughts started off logical enough, given the circumstances:

“I wish I’d bought a book. I never go anywhere without a book. Why didn’t I bring one today?”
“I wish I’d bought an air conditioning unit, too.”
“And a Coke machine.”

At this point I start fantasising about someone pushing a big straw under the door, attached to an unlimited supply of something cold and delicious. I started thinking about rescue dogs, and how St. Bernards will walk for miles through ice and snow to provide some poor frozen sucker with a keg of brandy; me, I’d have settled for a labradoodle with a carton of cheap white wine.

Finally Pete and I decide to find out the nature of our potential rescue:
“The technician is coming?”
“Yes, he is coming.”
(pause)
“He’s coming from Sevilla?”
“Yes.”
“Not from Madrid?”
(amused) “No, no from Madrid.”

You can laugh, mate, I thought. You haven’t been exposed to umpteen years of British incompetence and excuses! It was a totally reasonable question to ask as far as I’m concerned. He’d understand if he’d had any experience of British workmen.

Boredom inevitably led to a series of increasingly silly thoughts, my most vivid one being of slapping hysterical women. I eventually realised that I was the only female present, so I’d have to both have the hysterics and provide the sobering slap. I soon ditched the idea; it was way too hot to cause a fuss. It took all my energy to sit on the floor and ooze quietly from every pore. (Too graphic a description for ya? Sorry about that, but it’s true. Pete’s fingers actually went prune-y, like he’d been sitting in the bath for too long. Who’d a thunk that was possible?)

Finally the guide’s wife turns up. She tries unsuccessfully to reset the lift from the outside. Any hope of immediate rescue dies – we have to wait for the technician. I did, however, feel somewhat better knowing that someone else was in the building and knew where we were.

When I was a teenager, I remember there used to be questions girls would ask each other for fun, along the lines of, “Who would you most like to be stuck in a lift with, and why?” Invariably at that age the answers would involve an actor/singer/heartthrob-du-jour; after this experience I assure you that I was not thinking of Johnny Depp, mosh-band Carcass when they all had super-long hair, or the entire elf-boy contingent from Lord of the Rings. These days the person I would most like to be stuck in a lift with is a lift repairman, preferably one who has a work buddy and a van full of tools parked outside the building. Sorry, Johnny and Legolas, the man with the gadgets cinches this one!

Rescue came sooner than we’d expected, much to everyone's relief; we were actually only trapped for forty minutes (though it felt longer!) I think I handled things remarkably well, given that I’m not keen on enclosed spaces.

So there you have it: one free sauna (free because the guide gave us our money back at the end by way of apology). Somehow I don’t think either of us will forget Seville in a hurry... and I also suspect we will be taking the stairs more often from now on!

Take care,

Julie & Pete

Free Saunas in Seville remains copyright of the author Julie1972, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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After Amsterdam we decided to spend a bit of time trudging through the Siberian Wastelands. Actually, that’s a lie: we decided to go to Brussels, which comes a close second to Siberia in terms of temperature. We had howling winds, rainstorms... I’m amazed it didn’t snow!

We went to Belgium on a bizarre whim: Pete and I both really liked the comedy series The New Statesman, the final series of which was set in Brussels. (I wish we could say we had deep and meaningful reasons for travelling to these places, really I do! Maybe I can think of some for my next entry.)

Actually, we were a bit disappointed with the place at first. We expected that the centre of the European Community would have a certain vibrancy about it; in reality the city was dingy and run down, graffiti was everywhere, and many of the buildings needed a good clean. Not what we were expecting, at all!

Of course, one of the wonderful things about new places is their ability to surprise you, just when you least expect it. We were on our way to nowhere in particular, when we turned into the Grote Markt, the central market square in the city. After a morning spent walking down boring, shabby streets, this place was a feast for the eyes! All four sides of the square were surrounded by beautiful medieval buildings. I wish these photos could show just how impressive it all was:

Pretty-looking buildings on a pretty cloudy day!

It is commonly described as one of the most beautiful town squares in Europe, if not the world (although Pete overheard another tourist remark to his companion, “This is my second favourite square in Europe.” I’d love to know what his first favourite one is!)

As I’ve mentioned previously, having seen many typical tourist attractions in the last five months or so, we are now on the lookout for places to visit that are can be considered unusual in some way. Brussels had a few of these, enough to keep us busy for the two days we were there.

The Comic Strip Museum

I have to confess that a large part of the appeal of this place was that it was indoors. It was blooming cold outside that day, and I think we would have happily gone into The Museum of Watching Paint Dry to escape the weather. As for comic books, the only Belgian cartoon character either of us knew was Tintin. (Incidentally neither of us liked Tintin when we were kids. After comparing notes, we discovered that, in both our households, when Tintin came on, the TV went off!) Happily there was a lot more to it than that. The first part of the display covered the A-Z of comic-book production, which was interesting, and we got to spend a happy half hour watching really old Smurfs cartoons in black and white.

Pete and a troll. Pete's the one on the left, by the way.

The Atomium

I have only one thing to say about the Atomium: balls. Big metal ones. This weird-looking monument was built for the 1958 Brussels World Fair:

The Atomium was designed to look like the cell of an iron crystal, magnified 165 billion times.

Once the expo was over, the Belgians decided they liked it and decided to keep it, and now it is one of those tourist attractions like the Eifel Tower, where you get to queue for a silly amount of time so you can get a lift to the top and get a bird’s-eye view of the city. (Though, to be fair, the queue at the Atomium was nowhere near as bad as the one for the Eifel Tower. In Paris we waited for 3½ hours; here it was a little over 30 minutes!)

Miniature Europe

Next door to the Atomium, they’ve built a model village containing replicas of some of the major monuments and landmarks in the EU. Given the lousy weather, we didn’t know if we’d get to see this or not, but, on the day we were due to leave, the weather decided to clear up for about ten minutes; shocked and amazed, the entire city went outside to gawp at the strange round yellow thing in the sky. Having been to Asia and places where sunlight is not a novelty, we passed on the sun worshipping and went to look at some diddy buildings instead:

Miniatures of the Town Hall in Leuven, and Big Ben in London.

The models are actually very detailed (and some of them cost a fortune to make. The Brussels’ Grand Palace model cost 350,000 Euros!) Pete walks around for a while then says, “Well, that’s saved me the bother of going to any of those places, then.”

Honestly, I can't take him anywhere!

We only had a few days in Brussels, and I think that was more than enough to see the main attractions and get a feel for the place. We aren’t especially keen to return, but we both agree that the Grote Markt will be one of the memorable highlights of our trip.

Leaving Belgium, however, presented another problem. We had only 2.5 days in which to decide on our next destination and book transport and hotels. Quite frankly, this process is more of a pain in the backside than I’d anticipated. Pete and I generally agree on where we want to go next, but sometimes arranging to go there is an effort. (I see now why some people pre-plan their trips and buy round-the-world tickets!)

We needed to head south through Europe towards Spain, and decide that the best way to do this would be via France. Okay, then. I get on the Internet, and after two hours of Google-ing, fail to find information on a single flight or train to Paris, or any other major destination in the country. Pete says, “You’re doing it wrong!” and takes over. He also gets zip (at which point I gleefully tell him he must be doing it wrong, too. Immature? Me? Yup, ‘fraid so.) We come up with a Plan B, and brave the gale-force winds to get to the train station, where the nice man behind the counter also draws a blank. (Note: I resisted the urge to tell him he was doing it wrong as well!) Finally his colleague solves the mystery: France is on strike! Airlines, baggage handlers, air traffic controllers, train drivers and taxi drivers are all striking; the only way we could get there would be to hire a car and drive ourselves.

We decided to bypass the entire country and booked direct flights to Spain, glad that we hadn’t already pre-booked flights to France. (Could you imagine how annoying it would be to have tickets that you couldn’t use?)

The moral of this story: Spur-of-the-moment travel, although tedious, sometimes has its advantages!

Sorry about the delay; I'll try and post again very soon.

From

Julie & Pete

Sprouts, chocolates, lace and chips with mayonnaise: remains copyright of the author Julie1972, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Never mind. On with the waffling...

Can I just say that after dashing through Oslo and Copenhagen I am now officially worn out, and am refusing to go anywhere else for the next seven days. If anyone so much as mentions aeroplanes, passports or internal cavity searches I am going to lock myself in my hotel room and board up the door! I really hope this won’t be necessary, however, ‘cos I’ve wanted to visit Amsterdam for many years and it would be a shame if I had to spend my entire time here sulking in the hotel.

Actually, this is a 12-year belated birthday present for me. Back in the Good Old Days, on my 25th birthday, Pete bought me my first backpack in preparation for a trip to Italy. Inside one of the pockets he put a note which said:

‘IOU one trip to Amsterdam’.

Bizarrely, despite living in the UK within easy flying distance of the Netherlands, we never made it. We tended to opt for laze-on-the-beach holidays rather than busy city breaks, so my IOU remained unclaimed until now.

Tell you what, though, it was well worth the wait. Amsterdam is a fascinating city! Here are a few bits and pieces that have grabbed my attention while we were out and about:

Beer bikes

Imagine, if you will, a huge platform with pedals, comprising a table, seats for up to twenty people, and a bar. That is a beer bike, and I can honestly say I’d never seen anything like it in my life before. I didn’t think to take a picture, unfortunately, but happily Google will provide: for a photo and short commentary click here.

The one we saw was weaving around the city centre, operated by a bunch of drunken lads who did well not to fall into the path of an oncoming tram. I later discovered that they do a karaoke version as well; I’m sure I’m not the only one who was grateful that these boys preferred drinking to singing!

Hemp lollipops

A lollipop with herbal additives? It'll never catch on... will it?

I am not a drug-taker beyond the occasional aspirin (*), but these lollipops with hemp extract made me laugh. They must be good: I haven’t even eaten mine yet and I’ve already got the giggles! (For the record, you can also buy hemp-enhanced biscuits, cocoa, tea, chocolate, jelly sweets and rock.)

(*) Okay, okay, I confess that I have experimented with Beecham’s Powders, but I did not inhale… Or was that Bill Clinton?

Update: Hemp lollipops taste bloomin' 'orrible at first. It's like eating basil-flavoured candy, or something. You soon get used to it, though, and I quite enjoyed mine on the train to Belguim. I didn't see any singing mice in windmills or anything like that, though, so I suspect that hemp lollies are not the way to go if you are after a real high!

The Red Light District

This place is so notorious, I couldn't resist taking a stroll through the neighbourhood. (It mainly consists of lots of ladies standing around in windows in their underwear!) Of course, the tour operators have managed to find ways to make a buck or two out of it. If you are so inclined, you can go on a Red Light District Walking Tour; alternatively, if you are a girlie, you can have yourself a Lady of the Night experience:

(Clicky to see a bigger picture.)

Iron Maiden and other instruments of torture

And no, I’m not talking about the heavy metal band, thank you very much. I happen to like noisy head bangers and have fond memories of Maiden playing at the Birmingham National Exhibition Centre back in my misspent youth. I’m not gonna dwell on this, however, ‘cos it’s making me feel old! No, I am referring to this Maiden, as seen at Amsterdam’s Medieval Torture Museum:

To quote Bill and Ted: "Iron Maiden? Excellent!" *Plays air guitar*

We’ve seen a lot of museums on our travels so far, and are now at the point where we are looking for something a bit different. This place fitted the bill perfectly, being a macabre collection of grizzly torture devices - a testament to medieval human cruelty (*).

The museum had a bonus purpose, too, providing research for the book I’m writing. (Seriously, I’ve been working on this thing for over ten years now; I might even finish it one day!) The other tourists were walking around saying, “Eww!”, “Gross!”, “Ow!” and words to that effect; I was taking notes and saying, “This is brilliant!” They probably thought I was a trainee psychopath or something.

(*) We still have torture today, of course, but these days it’s more subtle: Boy bands and reality TV immediately spring to mind.

Windmills

We really didn’t think we could go to the Netherlands and not see a windmill. 150 years ago there used to be 10,000 windmills all over the country, but now there are less than a thousand. These remaining mills are popular tourist spots, and there are many tour operators who will drive you out for a trip to a windmill farm. Unfortunately these same tours inevitably take way too long and include way too many ‘shopping opportunities’ – usually at cheese factories and clog manufacturers – so Pete and I did our usual trick of avoiding these organised tours like the plague and heading out to a windmill on our own. This is the one we found:

Molen van Sloten, a 19th century mill used primarily for draining water.

We were given a walk-through by an extremely knowledgeable guide, with the added advantage of having only six of us in the group. Well worth doing, if only because you don't see many working windmills these days.

Pancakes

When I was a stoodint in London, a long, long time ago, I was introduced to the delights of enormous pancakes at My Old Dutch in High Holborn. However, twit that I am, I confess to being extremely surprised when I saw pancake houses in Amsterdam. (You'd think think that the name of the London restaurant would have given me a clue, eh? D'oh!) Anyway, stupidity aside, these things are to die for. Here's the one I had:

What do you mean that's not a proper dinner? It's got cherries on it - that counts as one of my five-a-day fruit and veg, right?

So there you go: you can buy Dutch pancakes in Amsterdam. Amazing, huh?

Rock Planet

Oh boy, have you guys been saved a rant and a half due to the unfortunate demise of my netbook! As it is, I'll give you the condensed version:

Pete and I like a) drinking and b) heavy metal music, so on our travels we have been looking for establishments that will provide both of these things. Unfortunately such establishments seem to be thin on the ground (mainly Hard Rock Cafes that don't play much hard rock!), so imagine our delight when we discovered Rock Planet on our final night in the city.

The place certainly looks the part: lots of posters of bands and rock memorabilia adorn the walls. And from outside we can hear music... loud music. We just had to go inside. Unfortunately, while the beer was good, the music wasn't quite what we'd being hoping for. The video screen is showing a performance by some awful soft rock band we'd never heard of. Pete goes up to the bar and says, "I'd like two pints of lager and some better music, please." The barmaid is able to produce the beer, but regretfully informs us that she is unable to change the music - even though she agrees that it's rubbish - 'cos her manager won't let her. Mr. Manager, as it turns out, is a terrible DJ. He likes old 70's bands way too much, and pretty much ignores the more modern stuff. Pete harrassed the guy constantly, and we occasionally got him to play songs we actually wanted to listen to, but it all went downhill when Mr. Manager decided to put on the Jonas Brothers. The Jonas Brothers! Silly boy band pop music! In a rock bar! It shouldn't be allowed, I tell ya!

Anyway, to give you an idea of Pete's frame of mind, check out the two pictures below (**):

On the left is Pete when listening to Metallica, Guns and Roses or AC/DC; on the right is Pete when forced to endure the Jonas Brothers. He actually said to me, "If I sit here and look really, really sad, maybe the barmaid will feel sorry for me and make him turn this rubbish off!" (His plan didn't work, unfortunately, but it was worth a shot.)

My plea to the owners of Rock Planet is this:

People, scrap the Manager-as-DJ system and invest in a video jukebox. Pete and I would have spent as much money on music as we did on beer that night, and surely the point of a business is to keep the punters happy? We were the only ones sitting inside, so that manager dude didn't even have the excuse that he was catering to the other customers' tastes. He was indulging himself, plain and simple!

That being said, a fun, noisy and drunken night was had by all, and the pub is well worth visiting if you don't mind listening to old rock music (and the occasional boy band!)

(**) I know these pictures are too dark; I'll fix 'em when - if - Pete gets my computer up and running again.

More soon, hopefully before too long

from

Julie & Pete

A Mouse Lived in a Windmill in Old Amsterdam remains copyright of the author Julie1972, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The reason I wanted to visit Copenhagen in the first place was because I saw the Hans Christian Andersen movie with Danny Kaye when I was a kid, and I really like his fairy stories, so I wanted to see Hans C.’s house and the Little Mermaid statue. Smart people would have done their homework, however, and discovered that Mr. A. was not actually born in Copenhagen but Odense, two hours outside the city. Smart people would also have factored in enough time to take a day trip to Odense in order to see said house and museum. I, sadly, was not a smart person, so the nearest I got to anything Hans-related was looking at a plaque on a wall next to a house he stayed in when he visited Copenhagen.

Bugger.

I did see the Little Mermaid, though, when I went on a canal boat ride. It was almost impossible to get a decent photo, though, ‘cos of all the people taking pictures on the shore. (Blooming tourists – they spoil everything!) Never mind, that’s why graphics editing programs were invented, right?

The Little Mermaid after some serious crop-and-delete treatment!

I think the most unusual evening we spent in Copenhagen was at the famous Tivioli Gardens theme park. I’m not a huge fan of these places, as a rule – got no stomach for the gut-churning rides – but as our hotel was just round the corner we decided to give it a shot. We also chose to go at night so we could see all the pretty lights.

Tivoli is the second oldest theme park in the world and is said to have been Walt Disney’s inspiration for Disney World/Disney Land.

As I say, I don’t like fast rides much, and I’m not good with heights, so what possessed me to go on this thing I cannot say:

This is the Star Flyer, the world’s tallest carousel. High, innit? Pete says I crushed his hand the entire time we were up there. I was pretty brave, though; I didn’t scream my head off, and I even opened my eyes at one point!

Pete, the big showoff, likes all those fast, head-spinning rides, and doesn’t even have the decency to feel ill afterwards like normal people. Here he is looking smug:

Pete went on the Golden Tower (right) and was dropped 63 meters. Me, I stayed on terra firma, watched and felt nauseous on his behalf.

Tivoli is more than an amusement park, though. It has extensive sculptured gardens, a variety of restaurants, and a concerts and theatrical performances throughout the day.

Me in the gardens, before I went on that scary Star Flyer ride, so I’m still looking calm and relaxed. (You should see the picture Pete took of me when I got off that ride. Talk about manic!)

We had a great time, and I would recommend it for both kids and adults. One thing I would say, though, is invest in the prepaid armbands that allow you to go on the rides as many times as you like. They may seem expensive, but it’s better value for money than buying tokens individually.

Before I go, I have some info for anyone who is considering visiting Denmark:

When it comes to eating out here, veggie options are thin on the ground! I’m not a vegetarian, but I don’t like to eat meat every day of the week, and I’ve had a heck of a job trying to satisfy my non-carnivorous cravings. If you are lucky enough to find a menu that has a vegetarian section, it usually only has a few items, and one of those will be pizza. However, we accidentally stumbled upon a solution. We’d dropped into a pub called The Southern Cross (being honorary Kiwis, we had to with a name like that!) and got talking to the landlord. He recommended a nearby buffet restaurant which operated on an all-you-can-eat-in-an-hour policy. For a bit extra, you can add an all-you-can-drink option from the bar. This place was excellent! It had a humungous salad bar, a few hot meat-based options, plus pasta, so Pete and I were both able to (over)indulge.

So if you’re in Copenhagen, you might want to check ‘em out:

Ad Libitum at Rådhuspladsen 75, Copenhagen
The Southern Cross at Løngangstræde 37 Copenhagen (good if you like watching sport on TV!)

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Turns out that ‘a bit’ was the understatement of the century.

Expense, I discovered, is relative. Britain is expensive; Norway, by comparison, is extortionate! The first day when we were wandering around looking for a place to eat lunch, I nearly died when I saw the prices on the menus. 90 kroner for a bowl of vegetable soup… that’s 9 UK pounds… 22 NZ dollars! For that money I’d expect my soup to arrive in a gold-plated tureen, sprinkled with truffle shavings and served with Roquefort and Almond sourdough bread or something.

This was a dilemma, of sorts: we obviously had to eat - Pete wouldn’t agree to crash diet for a few days - but it was really depressing when we realised how much even the most basic items were going to cost us. I mean, we’re not skinflints and we’re not expecting this trip to last forever, but every transaction lead to an “Ouch!” moment when we considered the dent it was making in our savings. (Such is the disadvantage of going travelling using a currency with weak international buying power.)

In the end we came to two conclusions:

1) We had to stop converting everything into NZ dollars, ‘cos the constant wincing was starting to spoil the mood.
2) We obviously couldn’t afford to spend much time in Norway!

We decided to see the highlights, pay whatever we had to without worrying about it, and go somewhere else very soon. This plan worked, and we managed to relax and have a good time, after all.

So, Oslo:

It’s a lovely, modern city, situated by an impressive fjord, with some stunning architecture. We liked it immediately.

The weather was exceedingly changeable, which why the colours look a bit washed out. For the first two days there was a heat wave. “Brilliant!” we said, donning shorts and t-shirts. “Oslo’s great, we could live here.” For the remainder of our stay we had rain and storms. “Ooh, we could never live here,” we grumbled, bundling ourselves up in jeans and sweaters. “It’s much too cold!” This, and the horribly high cost of living, effectively put paid to our idea of seeing more of the country. We simply couldn’t afford it, and we objected to freezing to death anyway.

As well as pretty buildings, Oslo has plenty of statuary. This is one example we encountered when strolling by a shopping mall. I had to include it here due to its hideousness.

This is a statue of model Kate Moss in a yoga pose. Apparently it’s famous. Sculptor Marc Quinn is supposedly a huge fan of Ms. Moss; I'd hate to see what he'd do to her if he didn't like her!

Isn’t this one of the ugliest things you’ve ever seen? Before Pete took the photo he asked me, “Which do you think is its best side?” My reply: “It doesn’t have one!” I don’t know much about art, but I know I don’t like this!

Fortunately Oslo has several galleries full of decent art to make up for Mr. Quinn’s monstrosity. I pestered Pete to take me to the Munch Museum, ‘cos there were several works I wanted to see. “Pity his first name wasn’t Monster,” says Pete. (For those of you who have no idea what he’s on about click here. Wasn't worth it, was it? Sorry.)

Most of you are probably familiar with Munch’s most famous work, The Scream:

Arrrrrrrrgh!

According to the people who know these things, this piece is a representation of man’s existential angst. I have an alternative explanation: I reckon this was painted after Munch had taken a short break in Oslo and just seen his hotel bill. (Yes, I am still harping on about how expensive everything is here. I've gotta get it out of my system somehow, and blogging is cheaper than therapy!)

After all that screaming, something a little more sedate was called for. Oslo has about a million museums to choose from, and we decided that the Nobel Peace Centre should provide the requisite level of relaxation.

The Nobel Peace Prize is the only one not awarded in Sweden. Mr. Nobel thought Norway was a nice peaceful country, and requested that the Peace Prize be handled here. Good job there aren't any Vikings around, eh?

This was worth seeing for the technology they’d used in their exhibits, if nothing else. They had an interactive ‘book’ which could be controlled using your hand in place of a computer mouse; a Wall Papers exhibit which displayed information about the Peace Prize winners in the form of a digital newspaper; and a fascinating fiber-optic garden that altered images on a series of computer screens as you walked past. It’s worth a visit if you like cool technology!

The fiber-optic garden.

And so passed a couple of days in Oslo. We liked the city very much, but sadly I don't think we'll be coming back any time soon - not unless the New Zealand dollar suddenly inflates or we win the lottery or something. Neither of these options being likely, we have decided to head south in search of sunnier climes.

More from the road soon!

A Norwegian Question: remains copyright of the author Julie1972, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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This marathon Slob-A-Thon was well earned, I reckon, 'cos escaping Asia was much more dramatic than expected. We mentioned in our last post that we missed our original flights out of Kuala Lumpur ‘cos we messed up with the visas, so had to spend a couple of days nipping backwards and forwards between the Indian Embassy and Indian Visa Centre (annoyingly these buildings were a taxi-ride apart!) They eventually agreed to give us three-day transit visas, so we were able to make our flights to New Delhi the following Wednesday.

Now the plan was, we arrived in Delhi late on Wednesday, left for Bahrain early on Thursday morning, and caught a same-day connection from Bahrain through to Athens. We would stay overnight in the city, then take the ferry to the island of Poros on Friday morning. Never works the way you hope, though, does it? We got to Delhi as expected, survived the manic taxi ride to our hotel and managed not to be mugged by the extremely dodgy taxi driver and his two mates who stood around menacingly demanding tips. We also survived a less-manic taxi ride back to the airport the next morning. We knew the timing for this next part of the journey was going to be tight: we had only 50 minutes to make our connection in Bahrain. Unfortunately the flight from Delhi was delayed by an hour and a half for some unknown reason. We made enquiries, and the stewardess promised to find out. She returned some time later to assure us that our connecting flight would be held.

Would have been nice, had it been true.

We rushed through the terminal at Bahrain only to be told that the plane had already left, and would we please make our way to the We Are A Bunch Of Lying Toads desk to reschedule our flight. To be honest, we weren’t best pleased. I mean, we know flights are delayed for a variety of reasons, and we would have accepted our missed connection without complaint. What we objected to most was the fact that the stewardess on our first flight was obviously telling us what we wanted to hear just to stop us making a fuss. (They actually admitted as much at the Lying Toads desk later!) They then told us that we would be booked onto an alternative flight that would add eight hours to the journey and involve another change in Cyprus. Now we were really annoyed. We’d already had two flights in two days and didn’t particularly want a third and a fourth, so we turned down their offer and told ‘em to think again. Poor bloke; looking back I feel kind of sorry for him. Listening to moaning customers all day can’t be a lot of fun. Still, he was very obliging, agreeing to put us up in a hotel for the night and giving us good seats on a direct flight to Athens the next morning.

The hotel turned out to be 4-star, much to our surprise. We thought we’d be stuck in the nearest grotty flea-bag motel and left to fend for ourselves. They provided free transfers to and from the airport, and free food – which, it must be said, was fantastic! The only downside was they happened to be holding a Bahraini Noisy Twit Contest in the hotel; either that or they were conducting a large-scale experiment in sleep deprivation. This place was loud. Anyway, I’m glad we weren’t the ones footing the bill.

Happily everything went smoothly after that. The upgraded flights were heavenly: we had a row to ourselves and plenty of legroom, plus as it was an adult-only flight it was blissfully quiet. (The one from Greece to London was peaceful, too. If there is such a thing as Flight Karma, we are due a couple of hellish flights to make up for it!)

So, by the time we finally got to Poros we didn’t really want to do much of anything. We did very little that could be considered touristy, and instead spent a great deal of time reading, mooching on the Internet and working on personal projects.

I found myself getting all excited about the most mundane things. This, for example:

Your common-or-garden variety wardrobe takes on a new level of excitement when you’ve been living out of backpacks for three months. I was absolutely delighted by the fact that I was able to hang up my clothes!

And this:

This was the first interconnecting door I’d seen in three months that actually lead to a second room (excluding bathrooms, of course). I also got way too excited about having minimalist cooking facilities, but I’ll spare you the pictures of the cooker.

And, of course, no trip of ours would be complete without many hours indulging in this wonderful stuff:

Ah, the delights of cheap wine! All the more appreciated due to the fact that alcohol in Kuala Lumpur was horribly, outrageously expensive.

At some point during the second week we did feel that we ought to suspend our inspection of every single bar and restaurant between our apartment and Poros Town and at least make an effort to see the island, so we hired a quad bike for the day.

Cheesy Rider!

Poros is a small island (31 square kilometers or 12 square miles, according to Wikipedia), so it didn’t take long to ride round. It is a very pretty place - it felt as though there was a spectacular viewpoint round every other corner - so we thought we’d take some photographs of things that weren’t in our apartment.

There aren't many visitor's attractions on Poros: the first picture shows Pete at the ruins of Poseidon's Temple, which is currently being excavated; the other building is the monastery of Zoodochos Pigi.

A couple of scenic snapshots. Looks like an awful place to live, doesn't it? I dunno how the locals cope!

And that's about as energetic as things got got for us recently. The last two weeks have been spent in the UK, catching up with family and celebrating Pete’s dad’s 70th birthday. We fly out to Norway tomorrow, and we intend to spend a month or two exploring Europe while the weather’s still warm. I guess we’ll be making our way further south as winter draws near, partly because we don't much like cold weather, and partly because we don't have any winter clothing with us!

I will update again from Oslo once I get an Internet connection. If the place is anything like Kings Lynn in Norfolk (where Pete's family lives), this could take a while!

'Bye for now...

Wot, no update? remains copyright of the author Julie1972, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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I am typing this in a restaurant in Kuala Lumpur. I’m not supposed to be in Kuala Lumpur, I’m supposed to be in New Delhi, but due to a cock-up of … well, not quite epic proportions, but pretty darned bad, Malaysia Airlines refused to let us on the plane. (No, no, I know what you’re thinking, but we were not drunk and disorderly, honest. We were gonna wait until we were actually on the plane before doing that!) The thing is, we forgot to get Indian visas, and unfortunately they don’t sell them at the airport. It’s our own fault: Pete was convinced he’d checked and it said that as British citizens we didn’t need ‘em; I just took his word for it. Turns out we were both wrong – a bit of a costly mistake! It took Pete two hours of arguing with the airline staff before they agreed to change our flights to another day. Our e-ticket said that we could change dates or cancel for a fee; Malaysian Airlines said that our tickets were not refundable or exchangeable under any circumstances; we said that our e-ticket was a legally binding document, and if they put incorrect information on it that was their problem, not ours… and so it went on!

Still, secretly I’m glad for another few days in Kuala Lumpur. It is a fabulous city – a mixture of modern urban and native rainforest. We love it here! It’s also one of the places I’d always wanted to visit ‘cos I liked its name (*). I first heard it mentioned was when I was very little; unfortunately I misheard what was being said and spent the next umpteen years thinking it was Koala Lumpur. Imagine my disappointment when I finally found out the truth and that it wasn’t a city full of cute eucalyptus-addicted marsupials after all!

(*) Other cool-sounding places I’d like to visit include: Azerbaijan, Timbuktu, Martha’s Vineyard, Alice Springs, Constantinople (before they renamed it Istanbul), Rangoon (before they renamed it Yangon) and my favourite: Looneyville, Texas. (I think I’d be right at home there!)

We spent the first few days here simply relishing the fact that we were back in civilization as we know it, and spent way too long in shopping malls enjoying the restaurants and the cinemas. (And, if I’m honest, the fantastic air conditioning. KL is practically perched on top of the equator, so every time we step outside we are met with a wall of heat and humidity. I think the locals have liquid nitrogen in their veins instead of blood, though, ‘cos there was an outdoor market near our last hotel that sold scarves, hats, gloves and leather jackets! Who’s buying these things, heaven only knows.)

So, eventually we’d seen every movie worth seeing and decided we ought to see if there was anything outside the malls. We were happy to discover the existence of the KL Tourist Bus service, which lets you buy a 24-hour ticket and hop on and off at various points around the city. There is an excellent monorail service here, too, but the buses are more convenient for reaching the more out-of-the-way parts of the city. Taxis are also plentiful, but they are very expensive, plus it’s a miracle if you can get a driver who will agree to put you on the meter instead of offering you an extortionate flat rate.

Two buildings that are heavily advertised here are the Petronas Twin Towers, and the KL Telecommunications Tower. Both have observation decks where you get to see amazing views of the city. The Petronas Towers were next door to the mall we’d been hanging out in, so we grabbed our camera and tried to get in there. No go. Tickets are free but limited; they start handing them out at 8 o’clock in the morning and they’re usually gone within the hour. (Apparently some people start queuing at 5.00am, the nutters!) We agreed that there was no way we were getting up at that indecent hour, stunning views or no, so we switched to Plan B and headed over to the KL Tower.

The KL Tower is not free, but it has a whole bunch of attractions included in the price of the ticket: an F1 simulator, Animal World, Winter Garden, and guided walk through the rainforest. We had half an hour to spare before the next rainforest walk, so we thought we’d spend it in the animal centre.

I nearly never made it.

We were heading that way, but I had to do a sudden about-face when I saw some guy standing by the entrance with a freakin’ boa constrictor around his neck. (Said guy is hereafter referred to as Barmy Bloke, ‘cos no sensible person would voluntarily use a snake as a fashion accessory!) *Shudder*. I hate snakes. Hate them. In case you haven’t caught on yet, I think this is the time to mention that I have a real phobia about the things. They are nasty, slithery, scaly creatures that have no place on a civilized planet, and when I am Supreme Ruler of the Universe, the first thing I am going to do is ban snakes (**).

I immediately cross to the other side of the road and tell Pete, “You go in. Tell me all about it when you get back. I’ll just be behind that palm tree, whimpering quietly.”

Pete says, “I’ll go and have a word.”

Now, from my position behind the palm tree on the other side of the road I am unable to hear what is being said, but I do notice a lot of gesticulating on Pete’s part, and what I am certain is an equal amount head-shaking and eye-rolling from Barmy Bloke. One thing is clear: Barmy Bloke is not willing to do the reasonable thing here, i.e. put the snake in a cardboard box, inside a wooden crate, inside a lockable metal container, seal it with sticky tape, duct tape, superglue, 1000 meters of chain, a blooming big padlock and a welding gun, then call a courier and immediately have the thing dispatched express to Siberia. That would be the reasonable thing to do under the circumstances. But Barmy Bloke, apparently, ain’t going nowhere, and neither is the monstrosity writhing round his neck.

Bummer.

Pete comes back and informs me that the staff have agreed to let us in through the back door, thereby avoiding all things Barmy and Snaky. Good ‘nuff. Inside there are cute things like monkeys and bunnies and guinea pigs. This makes me happy, ‘cos monkeys and bunnies and guinea pigs are fluffy and not writhy and scaly at all.

Here is a picture of a cute bunny, in case all this talk of snakes is traumatising you. (Don’t worry, there aren’t any pictures of nasty serpents in this blog, ‘cos I wouldn’t let Pete take any!)

It doesn’t last, of course. The reason Barmy Bloke is outside with his freaky pet is to attract people into the building and persuade them to have their photos taken with various (creepy) animals. Pete wants a go. He declines to handle a snake, thank god – I’d have to dump him if he’d done that! – but he did want to hold a little bearded dragon. I am in charge of taking his photograph, which is all well and good, but what you can’t see from the pictures is the row of glass cases just to my right which contain more rotten snakes! I am not at all happy about this, but I take the photos anyway. It is a testament to the quality of my camera that my hand-jitters don’t show in the pictures.

Pete and a bearded dragon - much nicer than a snake!
Pete's not bad, either :-)

After that I have had enough and beg for my freedom (through the back door again, naturally).

So, having successfully avoided Barmy Bloke a second time, we make our way to the base of the tower and wait for a guide to take us on a short tour of the rainforest. I know there are snakes in the forest ‘cos I saw the warning signs on the way in, but I am hoping that the guide will be carrying a machine gun and few hand grenades in case we see one. (People say such stupid things about snakes: “They’re more scared of you than you are of them” being a perennial favourite. I disagree. Put me and a python in an enclosed space and see which of us ends up drooling in a padded room first. I think you’ll find I’ll win that one, thank you very much!)

Mr. Guide arrives and I am disappointed to see that is carrying nothing but a map and a small photo album. I console myself with the thought that he might have a stun gun or a can of Mace in his pocket. At the very least I am banking on his having a primitive, homemade catapult at the ready. I have no time to ask him about this, ‘cos as soon as our little group is assembled, he’s heading for the trees.

Mr G. is a fantastic guide and is obviously enthusiastic about the natural world. There were four of us on the tour: a guy from the UK, a lady from Thailand, and us two (dis)honorary Kiwis. Mr G. spends a few minutes giving us a Natural Geographic pop quiz: “What’s the highest mountain in New Zealand?” “How many species of orchid are there in Thailand?” and so on, until he realises we are all equally clueless and don’t have a GCSE in geography or biology between us.

He knows the answers to all his questions, though; he is a veritable walking botanical encyclopedia! One of the many factoids imparted to us that day is the fact that cicadas can tell when it’s going to rain. If they are making a noise, the weather will be fine; when they go silent, look for shelter. We didn’t think much more about this other than, “Oh, that’s interesting” until the final few minutes of the tour. Mr. G. stops, listens, then suddenly starts to run. “The cicadas are quiet!” he yells back at us. We huff and puff along behind, and finally make it to the base of the tower thinking it was all a big fuss about nothing… and then the skies open up. It’s a belter of a storm: thunder, lightening, the works. If he hadn’t hurried us along, we’d have been soaked in two seconds flat!

The storm poses another problem, though, ‘cos we haven’t yet been up to the tower observation deck. We decide to go and sit in a café for a while instead, and wait for it to pass.

It doesn’t. If anything it gets heavier, and a thick fog descends.

We eventually realise that we could be there all day, so we figure we have two other choices: a) Call it a day and go home; or b) Go up to the deck anyway and have a look at a whole lot of nothing. We choose b), ‘cos we’d paid 38 Ringgit each for those tickets and wanted our money’s worth.

It wasn’t as bad as wed feared, up in the tower. You could see some of the city, even through the fog.

Here’s one of our pictures from the KL Tower. Not exactly the spectacular views advertised, eh?

Despite the heat, snakes, storms and thieving taxi drivers, ‘Koala’ Lumpur really is a fabulous city. We are intending to return some time soon for a proper extended stay (not just an accidental one ‘cos we can’t get a plane elsewhere!)

Having finally sorted out the Indian visas, we are now able to fly to Europe. We are heading to Athens initially, but intend to get out of the city a.s.a.p. and go to one of the pretty little islands nearby. Then we are going to find a hotel with a swimming pool and a bar, and do nothing all day except read and drink cocktails. It is this thought that will help me survive two consecutive days of long-haul flights.

See ya by the poolside!

Julie & Pete

(**) Other things I am going to ban include: reality TV (is any explanation really needed here? I thought not.); those *&$##@! stupid shoes with squeakers in the heels that people insist on buying for little kids (You wanna know where your sprog is? Put child reins on ‘em, for heaven’s sake, and stop inflicting that dreadful noise on the rest of us!); root beer, for being the most disgusting concoction known to man; the use of ‘ur’ for ‘you’re’ – actually extend that to cover all l33t ‘speak’; mowing your lawn before 9.00am on weekdays (and 1.00pm weekends); giant soulless malls that sell nothing but designer clothes (to nobody, apparently; the shops are always empty); pubs that insist on showing sports on TV, even when there’s nobody watching; annoying radio DJs (that’s probably 99% of ‘em!); non-existent road works (when your lane is blocked by ten miles of traffic cones, but there’s no construction worker in sight); skorts (the dreadful combination of a skirt and shorts. (Why???? What's the point???); the forwarding of chain letters or spam emails that contain urban myths. (Stop wasting our bandwidth!)

Indulge in these things while you still can, people, as my Master Plan will come to fruition soon. Now will you please excuse me while I go off and do a bit of maniacal laughing for an hour or so? Thank you…

You say Kuala, I say Koala remains copyright of the author Julie1972, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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After our busy time in Hue we wanted to go somewhere a little more relaxing, so we headed out to the historic town of Hoi An. It’s a popular place for tourists – especially those who like crafts and clothes shopping (*) – and don’t the locals know it! I can sum up Hoi An in just three words:

“Hello. Buy something.”

Morning, noon and night, wherever you go, people are nagging you to enter their stores. Still, with over 300 tailors and 190 souvenir shops it is easy to understand why they are so desperate for custom. It’s hard to see how any of them make a living. Plus it’s especially difficult right now because the recession and fear of not-swine flu means that there are fewer tourists than usual.

However, they find creative ways to get money out of you. When the taxi driver dropped us off in the town centre, the first thing he told us to do was buy a ticket. We erroneously assumed that we needed this in order to enter the town at all. Hoi An is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so it kind of made sense that there would be an entrance fee. This wasn’t strictly speaking true. The ticket allows you to visit 5 historical places within the town, but you don’t actually need one unless you plan to see those sites. We saw 2/5; the ticket is valid for three days, but it was just too darned hot to go wandering round a bunch of old, non-air-conditioned buildings, even though some of them were pretty impressive-looking.

Trieu Chau assembly hall in Hoi An.

Despite Hoi An being primarily about shopping and clothes, we were there longer than expected. The place has its own peculiar charm, and we liked the prevalence of restaurants and bars that we could chill out in and escape the heat.

When we were feeling totally chilly, we decided it was time to move on. We couldn’t leave without taking a peek at the largest city in the country, so we then flew down to Ho Chi Minh City. Well, we got there eventually – our flight was delayed for over 2 hours. They apologized, of course, but with an excuse that would have made British Rail (**) proud:

“This flight was delayed due to the late arrival of the plane.”

Translation:

We’re leaving late ‘cos we didn’t get here on time.

Yeah, we already worked that one out, geniuses!

Anyway, one way or another we made it to Saigon.

My first impression was, “Oh no. It’s just like Hanoi!” The same chaos: crowds, cluttered streets, heavy traffic and too much noise with car horns constantly blaring. At first it didn’t seem to have much to recommend it.

We spent a day or two exploring, however, and I must admit I was pleasantly surprised by the more central districts. Saigon has a very strong French influence which is visible in the architecture (and surplus of bakeries); the European look and feel was comfortable for us, and I didn’t feel as stressed here as I did in Hanoi.

A couple of bits and pieces we saw while we were there:

Notre Dame, Saigon. Nowhere near as impressive as the famous Parisian version, and you can only get in for a good look around at certain times of the day.

Inside the Emperor Jade Pagoda. We’ve seen a fair few temples and pagodas on our travels, but this one was pretty special due to the fantastic carved figures they had inside.

The Independence Palace. The one fact I remember about this place is that during reunification after the Vietnam-American war, they battered down the gates with a tank. Now that is a job I would have wanted. (Except for the fact that I probably would have gotten carried away and rammed the building too!)

At the end of the day…

Our stay in Vietnam was unusual – for us – in that we spent so long here and saw a large chunk of the east coast. There were good bits and not-so-good bits, but I wish now that I had done a bit more research beforehand so I wouldn’t have been caught by surprise. We came here in a hurry, however, keen to escape Bangkok while the riots were going on, so our sudden arrival here was in unusual circumstances.

Below is a short of summary of my personal highlights and lowlights, including some things I wish I’d known before I got here!

The lowlights:

Tannoy systems

The majority of towns and cities have a series of loudspeakers along their streets, and twice a day The Authorities (or someone) blast out very long and very loud speeches. At first we didn’t know what this was for, but we later found out that it is a mixture of news, public service announcements and propaganda.

The really annoying thing about them? They generally start at 6am, and there’s usually one directly outside your hotel window!

Traffic

I think the proper way to start this section is with a public apology to cyclists in Japan. Those of you with good memories will remember my complaint about the prevalence of bicycles on Tokyo’s city streets, but I understand now that I completely overreacted. Sorry, guys! Compared to Vietnam, getting around Tokyo is a pleasurable stroll in the park!

Now, I know I have already ranted at length about Vietnamese drivers, but I have news for you: drivers in Saigon are even worse than their northern counterparts. They drive their motorcycles on the pavement then have the nerve to honk at pedestrians! It is unlike anything I have ever seen, and makes leaving your hotel room a dodgy prospect indeed. Saigon bikers are also the rudest, most impatient drivers I have had to deal with so far. When I am driving in New Zealand I don’t tend to get road rage, but walking down the street in Saigon brings on a bad case of Pedestrian Rage. Here’s an example of what we had to deal with:

We actually had to cross this road, and only managed to do it by cheating: we latched onto a local and followed her! We couldn’t face crossing back again when it was time to go home, so we stayed where we were and hailed a cab.

Vendors

As you may have gathered, the vendors in Vietnam are, on the whole, very pushy. They see you coming from a mile off, and will start shouting at you before you get anywhere near their stalls. Many of them won’t take no for an answer, and some of them act angry or offended when you refuse them. (The teenage girls are the worst; they have perfected the Death Glare!) We understand that it’s just business and they are trying to make a living, but at the end of the day neither of us likes being bullied at or feeling pressured. We got very good at refusals in the end. The first time they asked, we gave a polite, “No thank you”; second time we simply said, “No”; and thereafter we ignored them completely and walked away. On the whole we tried to avoid vendors who nagged; if we had a choice, we’d always go to the one who asked politely.

Perceived rudeness

The constant horn honking, yelling and general aggressiveness of some of the people here can feel very rude by Western standards. On the surface, Vietnam seems a quite inconsiderate nation. We’ve been woken up more times than we can count by locals having ‘conversations’ (i.e. shouting) outside our door at all hours of the morning; the pavements are constantly crowded with bikes and café furniture; pedestrians have no rights whatsoever; and don’t expect anyone to move if they’re standing in your way: you’ll just get a blank stare if you ask to get by. It can be quite some time before you recognise that they’re not deliberately being difficult and trying to raise your blood pressure to boiling point, it’s just the way things are here. The differences in cultural standards and social interactions are easier to cope with once you understand that you need to ignore your Western filters and start thinking like a Vietnamese.

The highlights:

The people

Despite everything I’ve just said, we met some genuinely lovely people during our time in Vietnam: Thao, our tour guide from Ninh Binh, and Long and Ken, the cheerful cyclo riders from Hue who invited us out for a beer with them after our second trip. Even though English is not prevalent here, the majority of locals tried hard to interact with us, and many took obvious pleasure in simply being able to say, “Hello”. Also, whenever we stopped to consult our map, someone would invariably wander over and offer to give us directions. Although there is poverty here, the Vietnamese people seem happy with the little they have, and we saw no evidence of the social problems (violence, vandalism, etc.) that plague certain first-world nations. Crime rates are low, and we felt safe on the streets both day and night (apart from having to play dodgems with the traffic, of course!)

Sailing down the Tam Coc River

For me, this particular trip will always be memorable for two reasons:

i) It was my first glimpse of Vietnam’s stunning countryside.
ii) It was here that I first realised that I could enjoy Vietnam after all.

All in all, it was a very peaceful and relaxing couple of hours.

The Vinh Moc tunnels

It was a goal of mine to see Vinh Moc, and I am still in complete awe of the ingenuity and stamina of the locals who created the tunnels. It is one thing to read about something or see it on TV, and quite another to experience it for yourself. Me, I’d have gone stir-crazy in such a confined space in no time at all!

In conclusion:

I’m glad we saw Vietnam, even though it is not a place I plan to revisit any time soon. It is a beautiful country, and has the added bonus of being cheap, making it a great destination for anyone on a budget. I did have a problem with culture shock for a while, and although I am glad I was able to work through that, I think perhaps it would have been more sensible to leave such a challenging country until later in the trip. (On the bright side, though, now I’ve survived Vietnam, I’m pretty confident I can survive anything!)

So, goodbye, Vietnam; it’s been fun, but we are now ready for something new. We’re off to Malaysia next.

Bye for now

from

Julie & Pete

(*) Apparently if you want custom-made clothes, Hoi An is the place to go. We discussed having some things made briefly, then decided that we could do without the extra weight to carry. We may pop back on our way home… if we have any money left, that is!

(**) For those of you lucky enough never to have experienced train travel courtesy of British Rail, check out this list of excuses. Some of them are incredible. This is one of my favourites: “There will be no further trains due to a giraffe becoming entangled in the overhead wires”. It’s comedy gold!

Miss Saigon? remains copyright of the author Julie1972, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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So, where was I? Oh, yes…

A couple of days later we ran into Long again. This time he had the bright idea of giving us a half-day tour of the area on motorcycles. If I was concerned about the cyclos, the idea of getting on a motorbike in Vietnamese traffic made me break out in a cold sweat. Again Pete was unconcerned, and Long, as usual, was persuasive. He introduced us to his friend, ‘Ken’ (not his real name, but close enough), who would be riding the second bike. He was also a really nice guy. He had all his limbs, full sight in both eyes and a bike that seemed solid with no evidence of being in a recent crash. (Picky, maybe, but a girl’s gotta have standards!) He also told me that the bike was his own and he had been riding for over fourteen years. And then he produced a crash helmet that actually fitted me.

I guess by this time I was kind of committed to the project, doubts or no.

Ken was a really careful rider. He knew I was nervous. Well, it was kind of a clue when we introduced ourselves and the first thing out of my mouth was, “Pleased to meet you, Ken. I’m Julie. Whatever you do, do not drop this bike!” He just laughed and kindly agreed to let me hold onto his waist, but it was clear within about twenty seconds that I was gonna crush the poor guy’s ribs. I considerately switched my talon-like grip to the rail behind the seat; I swear he sighed with relief. I don’t blame him in the slightest. Driving is bad enough in this country without having to worry about having the air squashed out of you by a panicky tourist!

Long (left) and ‘Ken’: very nice guys and great drivers!

What a day that was. We started off touring a couple of royal tombs (Khai Dinh, which was incredibly ornate, and Minh Mang, which was quite boring-looking in comparison).

Khai Dinh was Emperor of Vietnam between 1916 and 1925. He financed the building of his tomb by raising taxes on the peasantry. It's easy to understand why he wasn't terribly popular!

Long wanted us to do three tombs in total, but really, two dead dudes is more than enough for us in one day, so instead we asked to be taken to the Ho Chi Minh museum. We didn’t have any particular motivation to see this place; neither of us knew anything much about Vietnamese history or politics other than what we'd seen in movies, but it was an interesting way to spend an hour. ‘Uncle Ho’ (as he is known here) was obviously a very intelligent guy with strongly-held beliefs about what was right for his country. Whatever your political ideology, it’s hard not to admire someone who has the nerve to stand up and tell politicians that they should be honest, good role models, and take responsibility for their mistakes. The West could learn a thing or two there, I think.

After the stifling heat of the museum, we were keen to get back on the bikes and spend some time in the open air. Long had a bright idea:

“I take you to Japanese bridge,” he told us.

“How far?” we asked.

“Not far,” he replied.

Of course, we should have realized that ‘not far’ in Long-ese could mean anything up to 100 kilometers away, and the bridge turned out to be outside the city. I have to admit, this was my favourite part of the whole trip. Not the bridge itself, though that was pretty enough, but the getting there. I’d forgotten how much better the world looks from the back of a bike.

The journey took us through the countryside and several Vietnamese villages. Unlike in Hoi An, the locals weren’t putting on an act for the tourists’ benefit, and we got a glimpse into their daily lives as we drove by. I enjoyed seeing the unexpected items in their front yards: the small shrines, the haystacks, ducks and chickens and even a few buffalo. There is a lot of poverty in Vietnam, but the overall mood was positive. Even in the most run-down areas people were cheerful; many waved and yelled greetings at our drivers as we passed. This was a pleasant thing to see. Vietnam has had a rough past, being occupied by the Chinese, Japanese, French and Americans. From the little I have gathered talking to local people, they are now enjoying being a free nation again. Good for them!

Ken and I actually arrived at the Japenese bridge way before Pete and Long. For a while we were worried they’d fallen off or something, but it turns out they’d just run out of petrol. Never mind; while we were waiting I was distracted by the most gorgeous puppy. He was obviously only a week or two old – when his owner put down a plate of food for him, he got pushed out of the way by half a dozen greedy chickens, that’s how small he was! I, being a dog lover, was completely smitten by the cute little guy. If I could have brought him back with me, I would have. Ken and the other locals found my preoccupation with the pup hilarious. Although they keep dogs as pets here, their attitudes towards them are very different. Dogs aren’t pampered or petted they way they are back home, and are not encouraged to approach people for attention. On the whole, the dogs I’ve seen here have been very well behaved. Of course, this makes sense in a country where they are also considered food. It’s less a case of ‘dinner’s in the dog’, but more ‘dinner is the dog’, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, Pete and Long finally arrived; my cute puppy, having eventually managed to rescue some of his dinner from the chooks, curled up and went fast asleep. I had no more distractions, so off we went to inspect the bridge.

Thanh Toan Bridge (a.k.a. the Japanese Bridge). Tran Thi Dao, the wife of a high-ranking Mandarin in Le Hien Tong's court, initiated construction of this bridge in order to improve transportation and communication in the village. Emperor Khai Dinh (him with the posh tomb I mentioned earlier) obviously wasn't all bad, as in 1925 he granted Tran Thi Dao a posthumous title for her good works, and ordered the villagers to place an altar on the bridge in her memory.

On the other side of the bridge was the smallest museum I have ever seen. It had a staff of one: a tiny, elderly Vietnamese lady who spoke barely a word of English, but who still managed to entertain us for twenty minutes or so by giving us practical demonstrations of equipment used by the local farmers in everyday life. She took us through the rice harvesting cycle, miming cutting with a scythe, then showing us how the grains are separated, ground and made into flour. She also demonstrated buffalo herding, field ploughing and catching fish – all the while smiling broadly for the camera and encouraging us to take photos. At the end she wouldn’t let us leave until she’d had a picture taken with each of us in turn – we were surprised by how tiny she was; Pete looks like a giant next to her!

This little old lady is possibly the most enthusiastic museum curator anywhere, ever!

On the way back to the bikes we were accosted by another little old lady. This one spoke better English, and said that she wanted to tell my fortune. I think palm reading is a load of old hooey, but I indulged her because it was easier than saying “no” a hundred times ‘til she got the message. Madam Fortune Teller made three predictions:

1) I’m going to have 3 kids; the first one’s due next year apparently. (Um, no; not in this lifetime, anyway.)
2) Next year I’m going to be very happy (I do hope so.)
3) There will be alcohol in my future (Ditto.)

Two out of three ain’t bad, I suppose. We thanked her and gave her a few thousand dong, then returned to the bikes, laughing at prediction #1 (she was so obviously telling me what she thought women of my age wanted to hear!), and discussing the likelihood of prediction #2; we reckon that prediction #3 will help enormously in #2’s development.

So, another good day; but the sightseeing wasn’t yet over in Hue. The one place I really wanted to see when we came to Vietnam was the DMZ: the demilitarized zone from the Vietnam War (or, as they refer to it over here, the American War).

The DMZ is approximately 70km outside of Hue. There are bus tours available, of course, but they are 12 hours long, starting at 6am. (Noooooo!) Some quick research on the Internet confirmed our worst fears: of these 12 hours, 8 were spent on the bus. Many people also said that these tours tried to cover too many places in one day (most of which we had no interest in seeing anyway), so we rejected this as an option and instead choose to take a more expensive private tour. We hired a car, a driver and an English-speaking guide, and took a trip that lasted approximately seven hours (starting at the more reasonable hour of 10am). Instead of trying to see everything in the area, we just focused on the highlights.

First we visited an abandoned American military base, of which little remained except the rusting shell of a tank and a couple of bunkers; the rest was overgrown with thick weeds. The DMZ was supposed to be a ‘safe zone’ between the north and the south, but as we walked along the guide pointed out holes in the ground: large ones (craters from explosions) and smaller ones (where locals have dug up unexploded bombs). She told us that the bombs are still a problem in the area, and that there are several deaths every month, mainly children who don’t fully understand the dangers. She herself had a small hand injury from a bomb that exploded when she was in primary school – some boys were playing football with it when it went off. The stories were sad and the abandoned base was vaguely spooky. In all honesty, I was glad to leave.

From there we headed to the Ben Hai River and the Reunification Bridge (a duplicate, as the original was damaged in the conflict). During the war each side painted part of the bridge in ‘their’ colours, so one half was red, and the other half was blue. It’s strange walking across that bridge now, knowing how the country was divided then. Family members didn’t see each other for years! The two sides finally reunified on July 2, 1976, becoming the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Us posing on the Reunification Bridge, trying not to look too windswept!

The best part of the tour by far was our visit to the Vinh Moc tunnels. This network of tunnels was used to transport soldiers and supplies towards the south, and covered 100s of kilometers on three levels. When bombs were dropping, up to three hundred Vietnamese people lived in the tunnels for days at a time. There were tiny ‘family areas’ – barely bigger than a large box – water wells, washing rooms, cooking areas, meeting rooms and even a health station. Our guide told us that 17 babies were born in the tunnels; amazingly all of them survived. (What a start to life they had, eh?)

We got to walk through part of the network. It was a bizarre experience. It’s hot and stuffy down there, the steps are steep and slippery, and the tunnels are cramped (for us tall Westerners, anyway!) It’s impossible not to bump your head on the ceiling in places (*). Although it must have been a very strange way to live, the tunnels were a success: none of villagers were killed, and the one bomb that made a direct hit failed to explode, so they used the resulting hole as a ventilation shaft!

Me and our guide (name now forgotten!), in the Vinh Moc Tunnels. There are similar tunnels in Saigon, but I'm glad we got to go to Vinh Moc. I've heard you have to crawl through the other ones - not good for claustrophobics! I don't think I'd have enjoyed that very much.

And so ended a tiring few days in Hue. After all this touristy stuff we decided we wanted to hang out and chill for a while, so we continued down the coast to Da Nang and Hoi An. I shall tell you all about our overindulgences there very soon!

(*) Still, looking on the bright side, after many, many years of head-banging by lanky tourists, the ceiling height will increase and we won’t have to stoop any more!

A Long Hue To Go (continued...) remains copyright of the author Julie1972, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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It is worth mentioning at this point that our major mode of transportation over long distances has been the train. The trains offer a variety of services of varying standards, and the quality of the service is determined by the prefix before the train number. Roughly speaking, trains starting with ‘TN’ are cheaper, but do not necessarily have comfortable seats or air conditioning; we use the ‘SN’ trains which are more expensive, but you get an allocated seat in an air-conditioned carriage. For more details, check out the website below, including information on overnight sleeper carriages:

http://www.seat61.com/Vietnam.htm

Note to the wary: Many hotels and travel agents will offer to buy train tickets on your behalf, but it is worth noting that some of them charge a ridiculous amount to do so. You know you are being ripped off when your tickets are handed to you with a piece of cardboard carefully stapled over the price! We removed them, of course, to discover we had paid double the actual value of the tickets. In this case we didn’t mind too much – we figured it was worth the extra for the convenience – but we will keep this in mind for the future and buy them ourselves when possible.

The trains aren’t particularly clean, but then Vietnam is an untidy place. There are no waste bins, so people just leave their rubbish wherever. The train staff do sweep the carriages at regular intervals, however, so the mess never becomes a health hazard. The worst thing by far about Vietnamese trains, though, is a method of torture cunningly disguised as entertainment; it goes by the name of RailTV. Each carriage has a couple of televisions attached to the ceiling, and these play a series of non-stop programmes very, very loudly. Some of the shows are okay – dramas, cartoons, kids’ shows – but the overwhelming majority of the time is taken up with annoying ads and equally annoying music videos. Having spent a fair amount of time in the presence of these things, I came to the conclusion that they were showing a medley of Southeast Asia’s rejected Eurovision Song Contest entries. What’s that you say? Southeast Asia doesn’t enter the ESC? Thank heaven for small mercies!

On one particularly memorable 6-hour journey, I spotted a guy in our carriage who was wearing an identity tag proclaiming him to be a RailTV employee. It was very brave of him, I must say. I’m amazed that the rest of the passengers didn’t get together and beat him to death with their hand luggage. I’m sure I’m not the only one thinking this way. The one time the TVs went on the blink the whole carriage gave an audible sigh of relief.

Anyway, the moral of the story is this: take an MP3 player with you, and make sure it is fully charged. Time flies much more quickly when you don’t have to listen to an Elvis looky-likey belting out the Asian equivalent of boy-band songs. Trust me.

Other notes about trains, before I get back onto my fantasies of strangling the sadistic inventor of RailTV:

1) They have toilets – some Asian-style, some Western – but they are generally not very pleasant. Take your own loo roll as there’s no guarantee any will be provided.

2) They (often) provide free bottles of water, and have a food service. They sell a variety of snack foods: corn on the cob, chicken wings, popcorn, etc. but if you order a main meal you don’t get a choice. From what I saw on one train, you get a lot of rice, some veg and a couple of meatball thingies. Large serving sizes, though, and it seemed popular with the locals.

In conclusion: the trains aren’t particularly fast, but they are pretty reliable and get you where you’re going without all the swerving, honking and near-death experiences associated with driving in Vietnam.

And in such a fashion, we arrived in Hue.

I liked it immediately. The place had a really friendly, laid-back atmosphere, plus dozens and dozens of restaurants and bars, most of which offered Western food. Having just over-indulged in all things yummy at the Sun Spa resort, I was keen for more of the same, and we soon made ourselves regulars at an Italian restaurant and drank way too much imported - and therefore horribly expensive - wine. (They actually list the price of wine in US dollars, ‘cos the good stuff costs over one million Vietnamese dong. They’d need to supersize their menus to print the prices!)

Anyway, when we weren’t eating and drinking, we went exploring. Hue has a lot of tourist attractions in easy travelling distance… and this is how we met Long, Vietnam’s only serenading cyclo driver.

Long, to put it mildly, is quite a character. He has a way of ‘wooing’ customers, making a point to shout a cheerful hello at any passing tourists and initiating a conversation when possible. He carries a little book of testimonials written by satisfied customers, and he is quick to show you all the nice things people have written about him. He has a cheeky grin, a wicked sense of humour, and is impossible not to like.

On day 1 in Hue, Long convinced us to hire a couple of cyclos for a trip to the citadel. I was slightly apprehensive due to the crazy traffic, but Pete seemed relaxed enough about the idea, so I just shrugged and trusted myself to Fate and the innate unwillingness of the Vietnamese to run over tourists ‘cos it’s bad for business.

As drivers went, Long wasn’t bad. He even stopped at red lights sometimes. And, because he didn’t have a horn or bell on his vehicle, he’d pedal along shouting, “Beep beep!” at anything that got in his way.

The thing that I will remember forever about that day, though, is being driven over a bridge in a drizzling rain listening to Long belting out a selection of Beatles’ songs (in pretty good English, it must be said). It was quite surreal, very amusing and altogether unexpected. I am hoping for a serenaded nighttime gondola ride when we return to Venice later in the trip, but I’m sure now it’ll just remind of Long and his slightly off-key rendition of ‘Hey, Jude’. Who needs opera, anyway, eh?

Some 'serious' piccys from Hue citadel (click on 'em to enlarge 'em):

The citadel was built in the early 1800s. The complex is huge, containing an imperial palace, temples, gardens and tombs, but much of it has been destroyed by wars and fire. Restoration projects are currently underway, but we enjoyed the parts we could see. The architecture is amazing in places - so much colour and fine detail!

And a not-so-serious piccy from Hue citadel:

Pete playing silly buggers. Honestly, I can’t take him anywhere!

On the way back, we got a free peek at the tanks outside the American Museum. This is the one that I want:

Dear Santa, please can I have one of these for Christmas? I promise to be really, really good. (Yeah, right!) One of these days I am going to go on one of those tank adventure days where you get to crush a car. I’m not sure where I get my destructive streak, but this idea definitely appeals to me!

Ooh, look, I’m waffling again. I think I’ll split it into two, like I did with the Japanese entries. More tomorrow…

A Long Hue To Go remains copyright of the author Julie1972, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Anyway, the point is, we are a bit of a novelty in this part of the world. While we were on our day trip to the Thai Vi temple in Ninh Binh a couple of weeks ago, two Vietnamese people approached us and asked if they could have their picture taken with us. We were a bit confused as to their reasons, but agreed, seeing no harm in it. The girl immediately grabbed hold of my arm and grinned like a Cheshire cat, while the fella she was with snapped off a photo. I can only imagine what it’ll be like when she gets home and shows the pictures to her family and friends:

“This is me outside the temple… and this is me next to Buddha’s shrine… oh, and this is me with a couple of European hippies we found wondering around looking a bit lost. Aren’t they simply the funniest thing you’ve ever seen?”

The mind boggles! Oh well, at least they didn’t try and charge us for the pleasure.

The other way in which you can start to feel like a target here is simply walking down the street. The traffic is crazy – like nothing I have ever seen. If they have a road code, nobody pays the slightest bit of attention to it. It is impossible to walk on the pavements because the Vietnamese treat them as car parks, and it’s scary walking in the road because of the sheer amount of unpredictable traffic. And the noise! Everybody honks their horns all of the time, which can be rather deafening.

When I was in sixth form college back in the UK, I had a friend called Nettie. The college was next to a busy main road, but the pedestrian crossings were inconveniently located away from the college gates, which lead to a lot of jay-walking. Nettie had an extremely idiosyncratic approach to crossing the road: she would dash across as quickly as possible, screaming all the way. I once asked her why she did this, and she replied, matter-of-factly, “Oh, it’s in case the drivers are blind. At least this way they’ll be able to hear me.” At the time I thought this was just another example of Nettie’s hilarious quirkiness; now I am convinced that she lived in Vietnam in a previous life. All the guide books will tell you to simply walk at a steady pace when crossing the road here, and let the drivers swerve around you, but Nettie’s dash-and-scream approach seems a lot more realistic. It’s certainly what I want to do every time I set foot outside the door!

Anyway, after more than two weeks of observing traffic here, I think I have worked out the road rules. Below is my take on the Vietnamese Highway Code, should such a thing exist (which I seriously doubt).

THE ROAD CODE, VIETNAM-STYLE:

Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre

MSM is for sissies. Just rev your engine and pull out without looking. Nobody will mind if you cut them up, honestly. Some of them will even make an effort to avoid you.

Road signs and road markings

Purely for decoration; ignore them.

Traffic lights

Pretty, aren’t they? Don’t worry what colour they are; red, amber and green all mean ‘go’.

Overtaking

Is some inconsiderate person in your way? No problem! Lean on the horn until (s)he moves. If the aforementioned inconsiderate person refuses to move, simply pull into oncoming traffic and honk at them instead. Someone will give way… usually.

Cyclist and motorcyclists

Are you in a big car, bus or truck and want to overtake a cyclist? Easy! Simply sit on their tail and blare your horn at them until they take the hint and get out of the way. Alternatively pull along side them and nudge them off the road into the nearest ditch or paddy field.

Pedestrians

If you see a pedestrian walking along the side of the road, honk your horn at them. If you see a Western tourist, laugh, speed up and aim at them. Honk only if you feel like giving them a sporting chance. Remember: if they’re not pale and terrified, you’re doing something wrong.

Pedestrians II

If you see a pedestrian trying to cross the road, park immediately in front of them. They won’t mind walking 500 meters down the road to the next available gap, even if they are carrying heavy backpacks.

Night Driving

Are you the only driver on the road at 3.30 in the morning, feeling lonely? Don’t worry; honk your horn to cheer yourself up. People don’t mind being woken for no reason and they won’t curse at you... much.

Alright, this is just a bit of silliness I dreamt up during my first few traumatic days in the country, but I'm not kidding about how manic the traffic is here. Check out the blog below for some photos that beautifully illustrate my point:

http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/blog-377029.html

But, intimidating as this all seems at first, you really do get used to it. We no longer care that we are walking targets, and the honking is just another part of the background noise. Actually we have pretty much reached the conclusion that the locals are reluctant to run over us – after all, they can’t take our money if we’re squished all over the road! (Cynical, me? Surely not.)

And, despite my saying that pigs would fly before I trusted myself in any vehicle other than a taxi, I have actually travelled in a cyclo and on the back of a motorbike. That, however, is another story, so look our for my next update very soon.

Bye for now!

No, We’re Not Paranoid… remains copyright of the author Julie1972, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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After leaving Ninh Binh, we decided to brave the buses again and headed for a resort town called Sam Son.

The view from our hotel balcony in Sam Son. The weather has been unseasonably rainy lately - just in time for a Vietnamese 2-day public holiday!

We’d heard this was a popular tourist spot, which is true; what we hadn’t heard was that Sam Son is a popular tourist spot for Vietnamese people, and it’s not really set up to deal with foreigners. Also it was low season, so we were pretty much the only Europeans in the place.

This was problematic in two ways:

1) Very few people speak English there, and all of the menus in cafes and restaurants are solely in Vietnamese. As I mentioned in my previous entry, this lead to us playing Guess the Menu Item every time we went out to eat.

2) We were instant targets for every taxi driver, cyclo (*) driver, restaurant owner and street vendor in the area, plus gaggles of small children who followed us around shouting, “Hello!” non-stop. (That wouldn’t have been so bad, but they didn’t know any more English, so we couldn’t have a conversation with them. We just had to wait for them to get bored and go away again.) Walking the streets in Sam Son is a noisy business!

At first we were a bit dismayed to have our expectations dashed like that (we were hoping for more of a Western presence so we could at least buy ice cream!), but somehow it all worked out and we had a better time than we thought we’d have. Sure, some people tried to rip us off – that’s just how it is in Vietnam – but others were really lovely. We found one particular café where the beer was super-cheap and super-cold (not guaranteed in all establishments), and one of the waitresses there was very keen to improve her English. We had a tit-for-tat relationship with her: she’d tell us how to pronounce stuff in Vietnamese, and we’d tell her English words that she didn't already know.

And despite the fact that we were relying on luck and guesswork, the food was another nice surprise. Although pretty basic, we had some of the freshest, tastiest fish we had ever eaten. Serving sizes were a bit weird though. Wherever we went in the area, people would bring us more than we asked for. If we asked for two beers, they’d bring three; if we asked for rice, they’d bring out large Tupperware bowls containing enough to generously feed a family of four. Very strange, and not something we’ve experienced anywhere else. Still cheap though, so it wasn’t anything to worry about.

A couple of days later, we were still on the prowl for a place that really catered to Westerners. I turned 37 last month (37??? How did that happen? Mentally I’m still 18, I swear!), and Pete had promised me a couple of days in a posh hotel as a present. I happily agreed to this; if I must get old and creaky, I might as well do it in pleasant surroundings, right? So Pete spends a while Googling, and eventually finds a little bit of paradise in central Vietnam:

http://www.sunsparesortvietnam.com

This place was fabulous! Large, well-equipped rooms, a private beach, swimming pool, health club and, best of all, room service.

The view from our room.

Our (mainly empty) private beach.

I was in heaven! For three whole days I indulged every food craving I had, plus several I didn’t have as well. I’m glad I don’t have access to bathroom scales at the moment, ‘cos I don’t wanna know what all this extravagance has done to my waistline. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss, eh?

Obligatory cocktail photos. That tiny little drink in front of me really is a cocktail. It's a B-52: layers of Kahlúa, Baileys Irish Cream and Grand Marnier. We drank these things then decided to play a game of pool. We really should have done things the other way round, 'cos neither of us could pot a ball to save our lives! Of course, we blame the fact that the pool table was tilted and the cues were covered in a horrible, sticky varnish that made proper aiming impossible. That's our story and we're sticking to it!

It really didn’t matter that the weather wasn’t great – rain and storms, on and off – it was still a lot of fun. We are now both feeling totally relaxed and spoilt, and ready to move on and do some more sightseeing.

Brilliant birthday pressie, Pete. Thank you!

(*) Cyclos are Vietnamese rickshaws.

Sun, Sea, Sand… and Storms remains copyright of the author Julie1972, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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First-Time Around the World: we highly recommended this book if you are considering a trip of your own.

We love it! It’s full of great advice and has been invaluable on more than one occasion, so thank you, Pat and Joe. I knew I was going to enjoy reading it immediately, ‘cos the first thing I found when I was skimming through was this:

A friend of mine would never leave a place until he’d had a good time there. Another friend would not leave a destination until he had learnt something encouraging about the people and their culture. Both are currently stuck in Brisbane.

Cruel, but funny.

Anyway, I mention this book for a reason, bear with me…

First Time Around the World has this to say about Asia:

To some travellers, Asia is the home of the most exhilarating natural landscapes on the planet. To others, it’s a collection of frenzied cities and remote cultures connected by rough local transport through countless terraced rice paddies.

I have to confess that when I first arrived in Vietnam I was very definitely of the latter opinion. In fact, for the first couple of days I positively hated it! It was just so different from anything I’d experienced before, and I really wasn't prepared. From the moment we passed through customs and into the main lobby of the airport, everything was an all-out assault on the senses. We were followed by crowds of pushy locals trying to get us to buy stuff or hire their services, the traffic is just insane (and warrants a blog entry all of its own), and the cities are noisy, crowded and dusty. Two days in and I was already planning my escape.

Pete, quite rightly, was having none of it. For a start, we’d just paid $300 (US) for two expedited visas, and he also wanted to see the country before we went elsewhere. But he is a sympathetic fella, my Pete, and, seeing how stressed I was, he suggested we leave Hanoi a.s.a.p. and head for somewhere quieter.

He didn't have to ask me twice!

Pete at the one tourist destination we visited in Hanoi: a shrine in the middle of a lake.

We had an interesting time leaving the city. Vietnam runs a series of ‘open buses’ which are aimed at tourists. They are relatively cheap, so we thought that this would be a good way to get to our next destination, Ninh Binh, some hour and a half away. Of course, it wasn’t that simple. The open bus that collected us was taking other passengers on a day trip. Once the guide realized we just wanted a one-way lift to town, he took us off the open bus, hailed a local Hanoi bus and told us we were going the rest of the way on that. This was kind of annoying: the local bus was crowded, so we couldn’t get proper seats, and there was absolutely nowhere to store our enormous backpacks which got in everyone’s way. Plus, we’d already paid the more expensive fare for the open bus. It wasn’t so bad in that we got there in one piece, but I still have bruises from that trip. It’s not really an experience I want to repeat.

Things improved considerably once we reached Ninh Binh. It is a smaller town, so there was less noise and fewer people, and we also got lucky with our hotel. We hadn’t pre-booked, just chose the first decent-looking place we came across. It turned out to be a really nice establishment. They also ran a series of day trips, complete with English-speaking guides, which were excellent value for money.

We took two tours:

The first was a river boat ride through three famous grottoes (Tam Coc), followed by a couple of temples, and a look round Hoa Lu, Vietnam’s ancient capital. The following day we visited a rescue centre for endangered primates, explored a really stunning cavern in the mountains, and had a motor boat trip to see traditional Vietnamese life in Kenh Ga floating village. (Kenh Ga = chicken canal, so called 'cos there used to be a lot of wild chooks in the area.)

Our guide was wonderful. As well as the history of each place we visited, she told us local myths and legends, so we came out of it with a mixture of names and dates, plus stories about dragons, kings with 1000 wives, treacherous priests, star-crossed lovers and Buddha, who reaching enlightenment sitting under a tree. She was also a great entertainer - like Robbie Williams, eh, Joe? (*) - instigating games when she thought we were getting tired and singing songs. At one point she taught us a children’s song in Vietnamese, the only word of which I can remember is “quack” ‘cos it’s the same in English.

Me with our fabulous tour guide. I can't remember how to spell her name exactly, but it's roughly pronounced 'thou', as in the word 'thousand'. That's what we called her, anyway. If we got it wrong, she didn't seem to mind.

Once we actually started going out and doing things, my attitude began to change. Vietnam is actually an exceedingly beautiful country, and I have finally started to appreciate just how different it is from anything I have seen before. There are still aspects of the Western culture that I miss, but I’m learning to think less about that and concentrate on the good and positive stuff here. There are things that you just don’t get to see in the West. Yesterday evening we were enjoying a beer at a café when we saw half a dozen cows wandering down the middle of the road. The locals didn’t bat an eyelid, just swerved round them and carried on their way. The amount of stuff that people manage to pile onto their motorbikes is also amazing. Bags, boxes, whole families, you name it; they all somehow manage to balance it all and still drive. (The dodgiest thing I’ve seen is two guys balancing several large panes of glass between them. You’ve just gotta hope that they didn’t get into an accident!)

So, the upshot is, the worst of the culture shock has passed and I no longer want to go home. I am missing Western food terribly (heaven help the person in Europe who tries to get between me and a granary loaf!), but I am also enjoying the novelty of Asian culture. You might remember that in Japan Pete and I started playing the Mystery Food Product game, buying random, unidentifiable items from stores. Well this has been taken to the next level here in Vietnam, where we are now playing Mystery Menu Items. We recently left a beach resort called Sam Son (more on this later). It was a nice enough place, but unfortunately it is where the Vietnamese go for their holidays so it’s not really set up for Westerners at all. Very few people spoke English, and none of the menus were in English either, so we simply had to make educated guesses and select things that would hopefully turn out to be edible.

In the end we got smart. We booked an hour at an Internet cafe and made a list of all the common foods and their Vietnamese translations. Now we are able to at least identify the main ingredient in each dish (and avoid the less appealing ones like frog, dog and snake!) We've added a dozen other useful words and phrases, too, and I reckon that this page is going to be one of the most read pages in my notebook. I wish we'd thought of it sooner.

(*) Pete's dad has never forgiven Robbie for butchering the song 'White Christmas'.

Shock! Horror! remains copyright of the author Julie1972, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We saw a large chunk of Tokyo while we were there, and did a lot of walking (sometimes 6 hours at a stretch), but we found that the best way to get around was to use the underground system. Tubes and trains are excellent in Japan: clean, cheap, and devastatingly efficient. They always turn up, and they leave on the dot. The station signs are in both Japanese and English, so finding your desired stop is easy.

Outside of the stations, however, things were a bit different. The problem, in a word, was bicycles. They are everywhere… and by ‘everywhere’ I mean ‘in the blooming way’. See, cyclists in Japan aren’t daft – they know they’d be crazy to ride on the road with all the cars, so they ride on the pavement.

As well as a nation of cyclists, the Japanese are also a nation of smokers (which came as a surprise to us), and they have cigarette vending machines on every other street corner. Just to shake things up a bit, the councils or whoever paint big Do Not Smoke and Walk signs all over the streets. Being good, obedient citizens, the Japanese have found another solution to this light-up ban: they smoke and cycle instead!

All this makes the simple act of nipping to the corner shop quite an adventure, I can tell you. If you make it back to your hotel without being run down or burned, you are doing very well indeed!

Tokyo city

The city itself is a bizarre mish-mash of old and new. Much of it is very urban – crowded streets, lots of tall buildings, nothing remarkable:

Tokyo street scene.

But occasionally you’d peer down a side street and see something like this:

An unexpected shrine.

One area that particularly stood out was Akihabara, which is a major shopping area for electronic, computer and anime products. Compared to the rest of Tokyo, this place was overwhelming: bright colours and lights, and so, so noisy. Apparently it is the 30th anniversary of Space Invaders this year, a factoid which made us feel our ages as we both remember when the game first appeared in amusement arcades. Time for us to start reminiscing about The Good Old Days, I guess… Anybody got a spare Zimmer frame?

There are many museums in Tokyo – too many to see in only 11 days – so we got recommendations from other travellers we met in our hotel. We were particularly impressed by the Edo-Tokyo Museum, which explains the history of the city. The place is a huge, barn-like structure, and inside they have constructed life-sized replicas of buildings (I remember a traditional Japanese house and a theatre). They also had the most intricate model villages I have ever seen – so much detail in such tiny figures. The thing I shall remember most about the place, though, was the escalators you had to use to access the upper floors. They were practically vertical! If you don’t like heights, I recommend you just grab the handrail tightly and try not to look down!

Pete in a palanquin at the Edo-Tokyo Museum. We’d been walking all day, and he decided he wanted to be carried. Unfortunately he’d forgotten to bring his half-dozen servants with us to lift the thing, so he had to get out and hoof it along with the rest of us commoners!

Oh, yes, I nearly forgot:

The one reason I really wanted to visit Japan was the cherry blossoms. The Japanese are exceedingly fond of cherry blossom. It turns up in pictorial form everywhere (including manhole covers), and they hang fake blossoms from street lamps. Pete can’t understand what all the fuss is about. “They’re cherry trees,” he says. “Blossoming is what they do!” (The old misery!) Me, I like trees, so I was absolutely delighted to discover that we were visiting at the start of the official Cherry Blossom Season. Even better, our hotel was just a few tube stops away from Ueno Park which has long avenues of cherry trees. One night we decided to go to the park to see the trees lit up by Japanese lanterns – very pretty. This was about 8.30 in the evening, so we expected things to be fairly quiet. Not so! The place was heaving. Groups of people sat on tarpaulins beneath the trees, having picnics and getting drunk. Some of them had obviously been there all day, and we saw more than one neatly dressed businessman staggering down the road with his briefcase. It was quite strange to see.

Just me and my cherry blossoms… and twenty gaziilion other tree-huggers!

And speaking of drunkards, we also discovered that talking to Aussies and New Zealanders in pubs leads to humungous drinking sessions and equally humongous hangovers. I was introduced to a pleasant enough tasting liquor called ‘Soju’. It went down easily enough, but its after-effects were so disturbing that I had to conclude that it was some local variation on metholated spirits. I later Googled it and found this description:

Soju - a South Korean drink made from rice, yams or tapioca, described by the Lonely Planet Guide to Korea as being as "potent as toilet bowl cleanser.”

Needless to say, I won’t be drinking it again!

In conclusion:

We both enjoyed our stay in Japan very much. It is a safe, clean country with a low crime rate, so we felt that it was a good place in which to experience our first foreign culture. We now know that we can generally make ourselves understood even if we can’t speak the language, and we learned enough of the local customs to keep ourselves out of trouble.

The downside, I feel, was the cost. Things were very expensive – we couldn't check our bank balance without wincing! It was worth it though. It is a fascinating country and we would like to return later in our tour to see the rest of the country (even if it means robbing a bank or two first!) Happily our next few destinations are in Southeast Asia which is notoriously cheap, so we should be able to recoup our losses a bit.

More very soon, 'cos I now have a proper Internet connection in my room - yay!

Thoughts on Japan – Part II remains copyright of the author Julie1972, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Anyway...

We spent a total of eleven days in Tokyo, being ready for a break from all the dashing from place to place. It is an intriguing city, and although we got to see a large chunk of it, we would have needed another week or so to do it all.

The accommodation

Japanese hotels are different from Western ones (says Little Miss Stating-The-Blooming-Obvious). We initially stayed in a hotel that catered to tourists. There we had a “twin room” – basically two singles that had been knocked through to make one big room. There were Japanese style beds: a roll-out futon on a tatami mat, plus a pillow that felt like it was filled with dried peas or something. (I swear, never have a pillow fight with these things; one of you will end up with concussion!) This, basic as it seemed at the time, was actually quite luxurious. We then went on to spend the majority of our time at a traditional hotel that had quite a lot of businessmen as clients. This room was… a cupboard. A large-ish cupboard, true, with room for two mattresses - which were the thickness of tissue paper - and not a lot else. On top of that, this was a whole new ballgame for us because we had to learn Japanese hotel rules: taking off outdoor shoes when entering the lobby; the etiquette of using the public bathing area, etc. Actually I’m sure we made a mess of things a dozen times a day, but everyone was very understanding.

It was an interesting experiment, but not one either of us is keen to repeat at this stage. Honestly, I think we are still in Spoilt Western Mode, and things like proper mattresses and en suite bathrooms appeal to us. We’ll get over it – we have to if we want to go exploring in more remote areas, ‘cos I don’t think they have en suite bathrooms in yurts.

The people

Lovely, friendly, polite – pretty much every stereotype you’ve ever heard about the Japanese is true. Some spoke English very well, others knew only a few words, but everywhere we went people were helpful and tried hard to communicate with us. It’s also amazing how much you can say through ‘sign language’, too; Pete and a pharmacist had a fascinating encounter when we were trying to buy mosquito repellent. I wish I’d had a video camera, it made great viewing.

The food

I’ll admit to being a bit apprehensive about this, ‘cos I had never tried Japanese cuisine before (except sushi a couple of times), and I had only the vaguest idea of what to expect. On our first day in the city, Pete announced that he wanted to eat ‘local’. I eyed the many McDonalds, KFCs and other Western Junk Food Emporiums with more than a smidgeon of longing, and agreed with some trepidation.

Of course, finding a place we could cope with took a while. Restaurants are plentiful, but the majority of them had menus only in Japanese. Fortunately some of them had accompanying pictures, so we focused on those. That wasn’t the end of it, however, as the Japanese do love their technology, and even something as mundane as ordering lunch didn’t work the way we expected it to. Instead of going inside and giving our order verbally, we had choose a dish from the window, memorise the appropriate number, then get a ticket from a vending machine outside the building. This ticket was handed to the cook, and it all went from there. Apart from the fact that we spoke no Japanese, the lady behind the counter spoke no English and our orders came with noodles and other bits and pieces that we weren’t expecting and couldn’t easily express preferences for, it all went swimmingly.

Oh, yes… and apart from the fact that I am a fumble-fingered klutz when it comes to using chopsticks. And they gave me noodles. In soup. Are you getting the picture? Messy, isn’t it? Still, we got served one way or another, and I managed to get more food into me than I flung around the restaurant, so we are calling this particular experiment a success!

I’m glad Pete made me do this early on, though. As I say, Western-style food is readily available, and it would have been so easy to chicken out and simply order chicken nuggets! As it was, once I’d survived my first local dining ordeal, I was happy to try other Japanese places, so ate a wide variety of things I’d never tried before (*).

(*) I would like to point out that we did later try Japanese versions of McDonalds (pretty much the same as UK/NZ McD’s) and KFC (better selection than NZ and their teriyaki chicken burger was to die for!), plus we also tried the Japanese chain Mos Burger. In all cases the food was freshly prepared, but it was expensive and servings were small. There ain’t no Super-Sizing in Japan!

Supermarkets were also great fun, ‘cos each time we went we grabbed an MFP: a Mystery Food Product. There were many interesting looking items lining the shelves, and of course we couldn’t read a word on the ingredients list, so we just chose one at random and hoped for the best.

BTW, this is a picture of a Japanese microwaveable ready meal:

Pete assures me that it was every bit as delicious as it looks.

And just to prove that we really did sample the local cuisine, here is a picture of Pete bravely tasting the local brew:

He was so brave, he had several ‘tastes’ one after the other!

To be continued, so watch this space...

Thoughts on Japan - Part I remains copyright of the author Julie1972, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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So, as I said, things went haywire pretty much on landing. I became ill, developing a miserable cough & cold which I generously shared with Pete. This meant that we were both too sick to travel or do anything much for the best part of a week, apart from sit around the hotel, moaning, coughing and surviving mainly on the contents of our room’s mini bar. (It will be some time before I am able to face another packet of salted cashews!)

Then we got better, finally looking forward to seeing something other than the interior of our hotel… and all hell breaks loose in the city. You’ve probably heard about the Thai anti-government protests in Bangkok – it’s been all over the news. Fortunately we were quite a long way from the riots; unfortunately all the interesting stuff we wanted to go and see was in the danger zone. After half a dozen urgent emails from both the British and New Zealand government agencies declaring a state of emergency in Thailand, we decided we wanted out and arranged for expedited visas to Vietnam.

Exciting reading, isn’t it? Well, I did warn you.

To be honest, we didn’t have a lot of luck in Thailand generally. Our first hotel leaked like crazy during a thunderstorm (we are lucky we still have a laptop!), and our second one, despite being advertised as an oasis of peace and calm, was a nightmare: two days of twenty-odd horrible teenagers running up and down and making a racket, followed by two days of drilling and building works immediately outside our hotel door. (You should have seen the customer feedback form I submitted at the end of that little adventure!) Our third hotel was, happily, a nice environment, and we would like to go back there when we return to Bangkok (*).

So, enough with the whinging already. We did get to do odd bits and pieces while we were there, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time. Bangkok is proof that the however bad the economy gets, consumerism is still alive and well. I have never seen so many malls in one place! And to get to these shopping centres, you often have to elbow your way through a crowded street market or two. And you can forget walking on the pavements with any ease, ‘cos they are all packed with street vendors.

I’ve probably mentioned before how much we hate shopping, but there was one acquisition that we are very pleased with:

Our little Cube speakers – perfect for upping the volume on our Netbook, but small enough to pack away and transport easily.

The only other photo we took in Bangkok was this one:

It’s rainy season in Thailand and although it's hard to see it in the photo, the rain was bucketing down! We took it when we got caught out in a storm and were forced to take shelter along with a couple of sensible locals. It turned out we were the tourist attraction on this occasion, ‘cos passengers on the buses kept waving and laughing at us. Personally I don’t see what’s so funny about a couple of damp foreigners, but I’m glad they were enjoying themselves!

The other event that happened while we were there was the Songkran festival, otherwise known as Thai New Year. One of the main parts of this celebration is water-throwing: people line up at the side of the road with hoses, super-sized water pistols and buckets, and give each other a good dousing. It’s all in good fun, and although they obviously really like getting tourists, they will leave you alone if you ask them to. Pete and I got ‘splashed’ (i.e. drenched) a couple of times, but we had to ask them not to after a while ‘cos we ran out of dry clothes!!

Probably the most powerful memory we will take away with us from our short time in Bangkok is this: on TV we watched protestors clashing with the police, the army, and each other, yet downstairs in our hotel lobby the girl receptionists were squealing ‘cos the bellboys had ganged up on them with water pistols. It was like two different worlds, very hard to reconcile.

This state of unrest is predicted to hurt the Thai tourism industry quite badly, which is a real shame. We both liked the little we saw of Thailand, and intend to return once the political situation has been resolved. It was unfortunate that we had to leave before we got to see much of the country, but we both agree that this was the smart thing to do. We are now in Hanoi, Vietnam, and are hoping to take a road trip down the east coast of the country, starting tomorrow. I promise not to get sick again and will update soon (including interesting pictures!)

(*) For anyone reading this hoping for travel tips, the place we hated was the Anda Boutique Hotel on Ramkhamhaeng Road in Bangkapi. They are in the process of remodelling, and although it will be great when it’s finished, it really isn’t habitable right now. Aside from the noise and the dust, many of the facilities were not available (e.g. room service). The one positive thing we would like to mention about Anda is the staff. They were consistently courteous, helpful and professional, and managed to do an excellent job in difficult circumstances, but I still highly recommend checking to see how their renovations are going before booking.

The place we liked is the Sawasdee Sukhumvit Inn in Prakanong. These guys have reasonable rates and are perfectly situated for easy access to the city, plus they have lovely staff and a restaurant on-site.

Bangkok: More of a ‘fizz’ than a ‘bang’ remains copyright of the author Julie1972, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Despite the adage about not being able to teach old dogs new tricks, Pete and I have learned a thing or two, and this post is really to sum up the good, the bad and the ugly, what worked and what didn’t.

Let’s start with the good stuff.

Trip highlights:

- Walking on a glacier (and having another helicopter ride).
- Getting up close and personal with cute little penguins, both at the Antarctic Centre and on the nature tour.

Trip lowlights:

- Invercargill. Not in the least helped by the fact that the weather was freezing cold, and when it wasn’t raining we had hail. Truly miserable!
I’m gonna upset people with this one, I’m sure, but what the heck…
- Milford Sound. Now before people start sending me hate mail and stuff, can I just say that I don’t really categorise this as a major lowlight, but more of a minor disappointment. Yes, Milford is pretty with its mountain scenery and lakes etc., but it was also a major drive from Invercargill. Pete and I both agree that a) it was something we had to do, just to say we’d seen it; but b) it perhaps wasn’t worth the time it took to get there, given that there are equally pretty mountains that are way more accessible.

*Okay, I’m wearing my flame-proof suit now. Fire away!*

Anyhoo, enough of insulting the Sound… what’s next?

Place on the south island we’d both like to live:
Dunedin.

Main problem with living in Dunedin:
The lousy winters and horrible snowfalls.

Potential solution to the above problem:
Global climate change. Go to Dunedin (in the summer, obviously) and release loads of CFCs into the atmosphere. The hole in the ozone layer above Dunedin will widen, letting in more UV rays and heating up the land. Once Dunedin resembles Bali, we can move there with our sun lotion and beach towels and live happily ever after.

Reasons why potential solution won’t work:
1) I’m pretty sure the greenhouse effect doesn’t work that way; and 2) It’s a really evil idea, and although I have my moments, I don’t think I am capable of wreaking such environmental havoc.

Secondary potential solution to problem:
Buy some thermals and two dozen hot water bottles and learn to tolerate the lousy winters! We should be used to it – we’ve lived in Edinburgh, after all.

Other things we have learned:

It is possible to become inured to too much pretty scenery

For the first couple of hundred miles (or kilometers, if you insist) of rivers and mountains and what-have-you, we were all, “Ooh” and “Ahh”; for the next hundred whatever-units-you-prefer-to-measure-in our reactions were a little more understated, in a sort of a “Oh yes, very nice” kind of way; by the time we were heading back to Christchurch we were deliberately driving past every scenic lookout, and the only view that really grabbed our attention was an open-cast mine where trees were non-existent and dirt was piled everywhere. (I know, I know. We are a couple of city-raised philistines who have absolutely no business in the country!)

Driving is knackering

We have seen so many places over the last two weeks that my memory of the towns and cities we visited has merged into one big Mega-City. Although I have no sense of direction and am usually lost, it has been worse than usual recently because of the constant moving around.

This disorientation extended to Australia, too, and even caused us joint stomach ulcers on one way-too-memorable occasion. We made a brief stop-over in Oz in order to take advantage of some super-cheap flights to Japan (update coming soon), so got to see a bit of Brisbane and a bit of the Gold Coast. We had to brave one of the local malls to withdraw some cash, and had a major freak-out when we discovered that our bank account was showing a much lower balance than expected. Paranoia kicked in, and we started worrying about our account being hacked or other types of fraud… just to realize during a panicked phone call to the HSBC “Help, We’ve Been Robbed” hotline, that we hadn’t been cheated at all. The ATM machine was displayed our balance in Australian dollars, not New Zealand dollars, so of course it was lower. Once we’d stopped having simultaneous heart attacks and calmed down, we wondered why on earth we hadn’t realized this sooner. I put it down to the fact that Oz and New Zealand aren’t sufficiently different for us to recognize that we were in a foreign country. It sounds stupid, I know, but honestly, looking round that shopping centre there were very few clues as to our location. Many of the shops are the same, and there are branches of New Zealand banks all over the place. The style and layout of such buildings are similar, and most of the time I didn’t feel like I’d left NZ at all. Given all that, I think it was a reasonable assumption that we’d expect our balance to be displayed in Kiwi dollars. (Either that or we are complete idiots who shouldn’t be allowed to travel the world!) Still, we learned the hard way and won’t be fooled like that again.

We packed way too much stuff to bring on this trip

Remember I mentioned in a previous post that Pete’s backpack had up and died on in Wellington? Well mine waited until we were due to fly out to Australia before deciding to split its seams. After buying me a newer, smaller pack, we spent an evening whittling our stuff down to the bare minimum. Clothes now take roughly one quarter of our pack space, not one half, and we can now get everything into our backpacks if required, eliminating the need for separate day packs.

We cannot keep up the current pace of travel

It’s too disorienting and too exhausting. Our plans have now changed for the umpteenth time, as follows:

Instead of doing a mad tour of Japan, we are having a city break in Tokyo. We have a hotel booked for three nights already, and we hope to find another hotel where we can spend the remaining 8 nights. (Not having to get up in the morning and clear out every morning will be pure unadulterated luxury!) From Tokyo we fly to Bangkok, Thailand, where we will spend one week, before travelling a popular route through Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.

In conclusion:

The south island is beautiful, and I am glad we took the opportunity to see it before leaving New Zealand. We were both impressed enough that we may consider living there at some point - if we can overcome our abhorrence of cold weather, that is!

This was the easy part of our tour, and it has given us a chance to get into a routine in a familiar environment. From here on, things will be a bit more challenging, ‘cos for a large part of it we will be in countries where we can’t speak the language, and the locals may not speak English, either. It will be interesting, to say the least…

We shall update you on our Tokyo adventures soon.

From

Julie and Pete

Haere Mai remains copyright of the author Julie1972, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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It’s been a while since I last updated, mainly because we’ve been doing so much driving recently. Since Christchurch we have driven the rest of the way down the east coast of the island through Oamaru to Dunedin (which we loved), then on to Invercargill (which we didn’t like at all). Yesterday we drove approximately 400 kms from Invercargill to Milford Sound, then a long way backtracking again because we couldn’t get accommodation. Most frustrating!

Anyway, I shall update you on all of that properly in a later post, ‘cos the purpose of this one is really to inform everyone of our change of plans. In our first blog entry we announced our intention to leave New Zealand and tour Australia. We chose Oz for several reasons:

1. It’s a country with which Pete is already familiar, so it wouldn’t feel too strange as our first foreign destination.
2. It’s a safe country, as far as these things go. We reckoned the worst we’d have to put up with was perhaps being called 'Whinging Poms', or being made to watch Mel Gibson movies or something.
3. There are a whole bunch of people in Oz who we can’t wait to see again.
4. Although there are poisonous snakes and spiders and nasty things like that, I have it on good authority that you hardly ever see them in the cities. (I really hope that’s true!)

Of course, since this decision was made, poor old Australia had had rather a rough time of it. As well as snakes, spiders and Kylie Minogue, the Ozzies have also had to put up with:

- Those terrible bush fires in Victoria
- Dengue fever in Cairns
- Drought
- Floods
- Extreme temperatures in Melbourne and other areas.

So, to Claire, Donna & Pete, and Beccy & Marcus, we send our apologies. Our sympathies are with everyone affected by the horrible events of the last month or so, but we feel that it would be better to wait until things have settled down and the country has had a chance to recover a bit. We will come and visit you all eventually, but it will be later rather than sooner. (Donna and Pete: Keep that cocktail mix chilling for us, okay?)

Our provisional schedule now looks like this:

1. Leave New Zealand and head to Japan for a couple of weeks;
2. Go to America and tour the southern states before summer arrives and we melt from the heat!

It’s a theory, anyway.

I will post again either tonight or tomorrow morning with proper details of what we’ve been up to as soon as I’ve worked out how to upload photographs to my blog pages.

More very soon

from

Julie & Pete

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Backpackers... remains copyright of the author Julie1972, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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