The Happy Couple

Just setting up the blog...
Glasgow, United Kingdom
I've added everywhere we're flying to (and from), on the map, but the dates after flying from South Africa to Hong Kong are all guesses at the moment. I've filled in some guesses at the overland sections as well, but everything in the Americas is highly speculative.
written by  The Happy Couple on November 26, 2008 from Glasgow, United Kingdom
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon

Joanne's blog
Johannesburg, South Africa
Michael wants me to set up my own blog so that the blog page will include photos of him too!
written by  The Happy Couple on January 14, 2009 from Johannesburg, South Africa
from the travel blog: Joanne's Round the World Honeymoon

Leaving Lonely Lima
Lima, Peru
There I was on Lima, on my own, still travelling, but no longer on honeymoon. So this is the new blog (or new trip on the same blog, to use the terminology of this website): leaner, meaner, and less likely to keep me as busy as a part time job. At least that is the intention and this entry, the first test of that is not beginning well, so without further ado...
Lucy and Zdenek had actually arrived in Lima later in the day after Joanne had left, but we didn't meet up because they were tired and I was already drunk, but agreed to meet the next day. I thought it would be nice to see people I know to help ease my loneliness. However the backlog in the (old) blog was also weighing heavily on me; because of the frenetic pace of the last bit before Joanne left, it was over a month behind: the longest ever, so I blogged all day, before going to meet them at the waterfront.
I had barely been outside the hostel, so it was nice to see somewhere different, and the waterfront was very nice, and more upmarket than I would normally have gone, but I thought I could do with a treat. After a couple of cocktails in the restaurant they had eaten, we went to a club next door. We managed to get in for S50 for all three of us instead of the S100 each they started at; locals were all getting in free! Drinks were very dear inside, so a bottle of Pisco seemed the cheapest option. It was a big mistake.
Almost the next thing I remember is waking up in the reception of the hostel. I later found out that I had been sleeping in my underpants, in the middle of the dorm floor when my room mates came back, at which point I got up, looking confused, and wandered down to reception holding my trousers. Great. Joanne is gone a day and I'm already nearly killing myself with booze and making a complete fool of myself. The day was spent in bed, hardly able even to eat.
Large Cebiche
The next day I realised I had to get out of Lima. I hadn't read the newly acquired guidebook (with the bits of Chile the couple still needed torn out) at all, so after eating a lovely big cebiche for lunch in a place called Punto Azul, I bought a ticket to Huanchaco where Lucy and Zdenek had gone, really by default, so I could leave without thinking. Partly because it's difficult to buy bus tickets in Lima, because there is no central bus station, partly because the hostel only sold those, and partly because I felt like spoiling myself, I bought tickets for the legendary Cruz del Sur, the company consistently recommended in the guide books, by tour companies, and hostels all over South America; they also cost consistently twice what we usually paid, but some people swear by them: I think they are too scared to try anything else. It was crap! I couldn't believe it. They had told me it was cama, but it was worse than most semi-cama we had been on. OK they gave you a blanket and a sandwich, but that doesn't make up for depriving you of business class luxury! And it was another sweatbox of an overnight bus.
Cebiche, chicha morada, and no Joanne
OK, this entry is not concise enough, but I'm learning. From now on I won't mention buses at all, except maybe bad, OK, or good journey.
written by  The Happy Couple on November 22, 2009 from Lima, Peru
from the travel blog: Michael's Lonely post-Honeymoon

Hong Kong
Hong Kong, Hong Kong
We're in Hong Kong now. Arrived yesterday and just crashed when we got into our room and went for a very Chinese Indian curry!
We're going to be trying to sort out our visa for China over the next couple of days. Which I have been told is going to be a lot of fun.
written by  The Happy Couple on January 17, 2009 from Hong Kong, Hong Kong
from the travel blog: Joanne's Round the World Honeymoon

Agra - Its all about the Taj
Agra, India
My photos of Agra
written by  The Happy Couple on May 23, 2009 from Agra, India
from the travel blog: Joanne's Round the World Honeymoon

Nepal
Langtang, Nepal
Our Langtang trek was amazing!
Kyanjin Gompa
written by  The Happy Couple on June 7, 2009 from Langtang, Nepal

Fever and Chan Chan
Huanchaco, Peru
I arrived at the hostel in Huanchaco, expecting to find Lucy and Zdenek already there, but they had actually stayed at another place the previous night, but two girls we had met in Sucre and then again in La Paz were there: Natasha and Sylvie. Lucy and Zdenek arrived later and we went out and got drunk. It seemed like a nice little town, with traditional fishing boats, which surf the waves, lined up along the beach. However it was still cold. I hadn't been able to believe how cold Lima was, after coming down from the mountains, but we were now even further north: eight degrees south of the equator, just coming into summer and it was still cold! Another thing I prefer Asia for: South America always seems to be cold!
Fishing boats
The next day I woke feeling really ill and assumed it was an unfairly disproportionate hangover, but by the time I had eaten breakfast it was clear that I had a bit of a fever as well: I just could not get warm, then in the evening, after spending the whole day in bed, I was burning up. Lucy and Zdenek were both feeling ill as well; yesterday's cebiche on the menu del dia was suspected. It put me off cebiche mixto a bit and I decided to switch to fish cebiche.
Lucy and Zdenek in Chan Chan
After spending the whole day in bed, I felt much better the next day; well enough to visit the Chan Chan ruins anyway, which was the one single thing to have persuaded me to follow Lucy and Zdenek here: I had found a website listing the “Best six” ruins in South America and Chan Chan was on it. Meanwhile Natasha had become ill with what sounded like the same as I'd had. The food in this town didn't seem to be up to the standards of the rest of the Peruvian coast thus far.
Statue in front of some carved walls
A very large "well" in Chan Chan
The walls are made of mud
Opening in a wall
The well
Cheating! Reconstruction with bricks and mortar!
What the good bit look like before reconstruction
Chan Chan was nice, though not as impressive as the website had led me to believe. It is huge, which makes it impressive, but it's also very ruined, because it's a whole city made of adobe, which after all is just mud. After I arrived in Huanchaco someone had told me that they were reconstructing it after a tsunami, so maybe that had happened after the website was written. Again, the reconstruction did seem a bit excessive, but without it, it would probably all just be a pile of mud, so what else can they do?
It goes on for miles
View from the top of a wall
Not sure if we were allowed up there
If we weren't allowed they shouldn't have left it
That evening I stuck to cooked fish, and had an excellent dish called chita a lo macho, which is a rather plain fish I don't know the English for covered in a mixed seafood sauce. Delicious and very filling. And the food at the slightly more expensive place seemed safely fresh and clean! The weather continued to be cold and cloudy. What's the point of a beach town when you have to wear winter clothes all the time?
Chita a lo Macho
written by  The Happy Couple on November 25, 2009 from Huanchaco, Peru
from the travel blog: Michael's Lonely post-Honeymoon

Wedding Gifts
Glasgow, United Kingdom
Lots of people have been asking us about a "gift list". We don't have a gift list, partly because we already have most of what you normally put on it, and partly because we won't be able to cart them all round the world with us.
Instead, what we are hoping is that people will donate something towards the account we've set up at STA Travel. The RTW plane ticket is paid for, but it would be wonderful if we could afford some extra excursions while we are travelling. Most of the time we will be living very cheaply, so a pre-paid excursion would be a massive treat.
You can put something into this account by phoning STA Travel on George Street (0871 468 0622) or emailing Robert.Warburton@statravel.co.uk and asking if you can pay something towards booking number 685737.
written by  The Happy Couple on November 26, 2008 from Glasgow, United Kingdom
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon

No floaters
Varanasi, India
Varanasi is an interesting place. So many different things going on at the ghats....
written by  The Happy Couple on June 16, 2009 from Varanasi, India

Shimla belly
Shimla, India
Did not see much of Shimla because I was ill but the toy train journey was fun!
written by  The Happy Couple on June 21, 2009 from Shimla, India

Am I Really Goofy?
Huanchaco, Peru
Me surfing!
Zdenek and I had agreed to go for a surf lesson, which started quite early. As usual it was really overcast so I didn't think any sun cream would be necessary. Typical: finally I get to a beach town and it's never sunny! There was about 45 minutes of "theory" before we headed out into the water. The guy who was giving us the lesson owned the surf school with his brother and claimed that together they had developed their own technique, unique in the world, for beginning to learn to surf.
To begin with he said he had to determine whether we were each "normal" or "goofy", the former meaning that you stand on the board with your left foot infront and the latter, your right foot infront. Any time I've tried a skateboard, which has the same distinction, and the few times I tried to surf in South Africa it seemed much more natural to put my left foot forward, so I was fairly sure I'd be normal. To test us, he asked us both to stand with our feet together then pushed us both forwards. I put my right foot out to steady myself and Zdenek his left foot. Normal he said pointing at Zdenek and goofy, pointing at me. I didn't think much of his test or see the relationship between what you do on a surfboard and his test, but I accepted that he was the professional and proceeded to learn to stand up goofy.
The surfboards were enormous and Zdenek and I had to carry one between us, while our teacher managed to carry the other one on his head. The surfboard I owned but hardly used in South Africa was pretty big, but it was nothing on these things: they were like boats. The instructor asked us to paddle out just next to the pier, which provided enough shelter to prevent waves that were too big. There he took up position behind us and counted down to the time we should stand up. He was also there to give us a push when the wave arrived, making it considerable easier to catch the wave than it is when you have to paddle up to speed and time it on your own. This was the first time in Huanchaco I had been on the beach, never mind in the sea, that's how unbeachy the weather had been, so it was a nice surprise to discover that the water was absolutely full of otters, which I hadn't even realised you could find in salt water. The instructor told me that they are called lobos de marina in Spanish.
Zdenek surfing
Us hanging out
Anyway his special technique seemed to do the business because I managed to stand up briefly the first time before falling quickly off, but the second time I stood up quite easily, despite the fact he had not chosen a very strong wave for me, which meant that I was standing on the surfboard, more or less motionless in the water. Of course I lost my balance quite quickly and fell off, but the fact that it was possible demonstrates just how ridiculously large and buoyant these boards were. Third time and he chose me a good wave again, allowing me to surf, standing up, almost to the shore. Easy peasy! Zdenek was doing quite as well initially, but was soon standing up on almost every wave. The badly chosen waves and some slips meant that I was standing up well on maybe half of the attempts, which was much better than my previous record in South Africa, where I twice managed to slip off as soon as I started standing up, and apart from that caught a few waves lying down. Maybe the instructor's technique was something special, or maybe surfing is just really easy on gigantic surfboards when you have someone else pushing you onto the waves. It was fun anyway.
Traditional fishing boats
My excellent position
Us with boards
Us with teacher in front of the shop
Only when I was taking my wetsuit off did I realise how hot my face seemed, at the same time noticing that the sun had actually been out for the entire time we were on the water, and I had no sun cream on. We went had lunch in the quite expensive ceviche restaurant next door to the hostel, but this time I stuck to pescado and steered clear of the raw mariscos. It was delicious as always. After lunch we had the option of returning to use the equipment to practise on our own, but I was already having to shelter in the shadows to prevent my reddening sunburn from hurting, so I had to give it a miss. Zdenek didn't bother either.
Ceviche de pescado
I spent most of the afternoon and evening looking for places I could sit without being in the sun, but the entire hostel seems to be designed to point at the afternoon sun. I suppose they were thinking of sunsets, but the roofs really should come down lower to offer some protection from the afternoon sun, since sunsets tend to be quite low on the horizon anyway. You can't get warm in the mornings with the sea breeze and everywhere being in shadow, then you can't escape the sun in the afternoon when you are burnt. When the sun was low enough for me to venture out we sat with Natasha and Sylvie, waiting for their taxi to arrive take them to catch their bus to Mancora. Meanwhile I sat on my nice Chinese sunglasses and broke them. I guess I am goofy after all.
written by  The Happy Couple on November 26, 2009 from Huanchaco, Peru
from the travel blog: Michael's Lonely post-Honeymoon

Chill Out, Not Burn Out
Huanchaco, Peru
Close up
Hotel pet wandering around (they had two)
Ceviche de corvina
Sweeries street vendors were selling
Filled with dulce de leche
The day after the two girls, Lucy and Zdenek left as well, also to head to Mancora. It was sad to see them go, but at least it gave me an opportunity to avoid socialising for a bit and catch up on the blog. So that's what I did. That day I spent almost the whole day just sorting through the countless pictures from Machu Picchu and deciding which should be uploaded, only taking a break to eat ceviche at the restaurant next door again, this time trying another fish from their large selection. In the evening I had the entire dorm to myself, which would have been nice and peaceful were it not for a loud American couple Lucy had complained about the previous two nights when they had been playing loud music on the patio until really late. This time they came out to the patio, expecting to have it to themselves, but I was sitting there quietly blogging. They sat and covorted for a bit and the girl sang really loudly and tunelessly. When they realised I wasn't going to leave they eventually went back into their room, and when I played Fuck The USA by The Exploited as loud as my laptop could manage, they went out. I hope it was the reason they went out because when the returned later on she was still singing tunelessly at the top of her voice, eventhough it was after midnight.
Trujilleños have arrived
Meanwhile the town was getting really busy. Up until then it had been a really quiet town with very little going on, but now it was Friday, lots of Peruvians were arriving from Trujillo and the beach started to fill up with people playing games and drinking. Outside restuarants, people were leaving their car doors open while they ate, so that they could blast out their own (usually very poor) choice of music. Lucy and Zdenek had arrived on a Sunday and told me that it got really busy at the weekends.
Nice hotel breakfast
Beetroot soup
Weird vegetarian food
The following day was the same, with the exception that the noisy Americans left, singing tunelessly right up to the last moment. Someone must have told her she could sing at some point, but actually it was just really embarrassing. I blogged all day, this time having lunch at the vegetarian restaurant next door. The town continued to fill up with Peruvians and the beach was absolutely packed, and every resturant had at least one car outside with the doors open, blasting out music. In the afternoon I finished the blog up to the point where Joanne left. It was all very sad going over it again.
Another nice breakfast at the hotel
Some pages torn out
More pages gone
The patio
View from patio
The next day I started thinking that I, too, should probably move on and realised that I didn't need very much of the South American guidebook anymore, so I ripped lots of pages out to get its volume and weight down to more sensible sizes. I started a new blog for me travelling on my own. Then went back to the ceviche restaurant for lunch. All week I had been waiting for crab, which they told me is only available on the weekend. I wanted crab but I wasn't sure whether to order ceviche or cangrejo reventado. I was still feeling a bit nervous about ceviche from things with shells, but wasn't sure what the other dish was; the dictionary on my phone said that reventado means "done in"! I ordered it anyway, and it was indeed "done in". It looked like the crab had been cooked whole then smashed up in the plate. It was actually very nice but a lot of hassle to eat.
Cangrejo reventado
I got some information about leaving and decided to go the following evening to Chachapoyas. I went into Trujillo to buy my ticket. I had been planning to go South again to Huaraz where I had heard there are fantastic mountains, but a few people at the hostel had come from there and told me the weather was awful, and I didn't have the gear for trekking in several feet of snow. My other choice had been to follow the others to Mancora, but it's just another beach town and I thought I had already spent enough time at the beach. It was going to be a whole week that I had stayed in Huanchaco, the longest time in one place of the whole trip, but I had really needed to relax for a bit after Joanne left, as we had been moving so fast to try and fit everything in before her flight. Anyway my "First Time Around the World" book advises that you should slow down and chill out from time to time or else you will get to stressed and burn out. We had been going fast for nearly a year and I needed a rest. Anyway I had to catch up on the blog. And this last day was because I needed to do washing!
Lobo de marina
Sunset
After disappointing sunsets for the whole week I was treated to an incredible sunset that night. I spent about an hour walking up and down the beach taking loads of photos. What a nice finish! And how lucky I stayed the extra day.
The moon was out too!
Potato snack from street vendor
Filled with delicious stuff
That night the dorm filled up with noisy Americans, who thought it was OK to put the light on and make noise whenever they wanted, as if only American interests mattered; a bit like their foreign policy, really.
Last nice hotel breakfast
The next day I sat and watched seagulls diving into the sea to catch fish. I felt recharged and not quite as miserable as when Joanne left. I had come to South America primarily for mountains, the jungle, and ancient sites, but the fact we had to move so fast meant that we had mostly only had time for cities, which aren't anything special. Now mountains looked out of the question because of the weather, but there were ancient sites near Chachapoyas and I was planning to meet up with the others again in Ecuador for a visit to the jungle, which we had heard was cheaper than doing it in Peru.
That night I got a collectivo into Trujillo and caught the overnight bus to Chachapoyas.
written by  The Happy Couple on November 30, 2009 from Huanchaco, Peru

Final Countdown
Glasgow, United Kingdom
So little time left and still loads to do!
I've had enough of embassies and consulates. Yesterday I drove to Edinburgh, running rather late for my visa appointment, and the lorry driver in front of me once I'd hit the city traffic was blasting out Europe's "The Final Countdown" as we crawled through the West End. Very amusing and poignant I thought... until I got to the visa place (nearly on time) and they told me I could pick up the passports in 3 to 5 working days i.e. 1 to 3 working days after we leave the country. You used to be able to get your visa in one day, until they outsourced it.
So now we have to get two visas en route: Indian and Chinese.
written by  The Happy Couple on December 6, 2008 from Glasgow, United Kingdom
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon

Spanish in Ruins
Chachapoyas, Peru
When I unpacked a bit at the hotel in Chachapoyas I realised that I had left On the Road on the bus. Having carried it since the second week in Thailand I wasn't going to lose it without having read it, so I ran back to the bus station only to find it all shut up. The bus had arrived very early and I supposed nobody would be at work yet. After some knocking I found a side door and went though. There was a guy on our bus, cleaning it out, but he claimed not to have found my book, even when I gave him specific instructions to find it, and I returned to the hotel dejected. I continued unpacking and immediately found the book.
The tours to Kuelap all seemed to be leaving at 7am and two guys who had been on my bus, Nigel from New Zealand, and Daniel from Switzerland, had already booked up, so I decided to join them, which meant I would only need to stay one night, though the tour was 45 Soles, which was a bit more than I had expected. Maybe it was worth it to avoid the hassle and extra time involved in finding it on my own. After staying still for one week I needed to get moving again! I had first heard about Kuelap on a website called something like "Six Must-See Ruins in South America", though Chan Chan had been there as well, and I hadn't been all that impressed with it.
Llamas are de rigeur at Peruvian archaeological sites
The drive took a couple of hours and the driver was a maniac, hitting and killing a dog without stopping at one point. I had forgotten to ask whether food or any entrance fees were included in the S45 ticket, so of course they weren't. The ruins are definitely a bit more impressive than Chan Chan, though certainly no Machu Picchu. It's basically a fortress city at the top of a hill, built by the Pre-Incan Chachapoyas civilsation. It's quite large and it would certainly be easy to repel an attack, however when the Incas invaded the area, they simply carried out a seige, cutting the Chachapoyas off from their water supply and took the city in a few days; good builders but not very good tactitions apparently. Unfortunately the guide only spoke Spanish, so I didn't follow too much of what he said; maybe I understood about half, maybe a bit less, but both Daniel and Nigel spoke good Spanish, so they translated a bit for me when I was really stuck, though I felt too guilty to ask most of the time. I thought my Spanish would improve after Joanne left but, in fact, I had been speaking less because now I was spending more time with people who spoke much better Spanish than me (it was Zdenek before), and I was beginning to feel like I was getting out of practice.
Kuelap
A compass and sundial apparently
Snakeskin pattern on some walls
More snakeskin patterns
A reconstructed house
The main entrance to the fortress
Leaving by the main door
Mythological creatures carved in the stone
The outside wall
Kuelap from a distance
After the tour Nigel, Daniel, and I went out for a few drinks, and discussed the possibility of doing another tour the following day. They had both heard that the third highest waterfall in the world was nearby, though it wasn't in my useless guidebook at all; later I discovered that this is because it has only recently been surveyed and confirmed as such. After a good few drinks, a couple of local guys wanted to join us and tried to insist that we dance with them. They were both very drunk and extremely tactile, but when I told Daniel I suspected they might be "creepy homosexuals" he told me that this is just how people are in South America; he is married to an Ecuadoriana and living in Quito, so I suppose he knows what he's talking about. Nevertheless I made my excuses as soon as possible and left for my hotel!
Is he or isn't he?
written by  The Happy Couple on December 1, 2009 from Chachapoyas, Peru

World's 3rd Highest Waterfall
Pedro Ruiz, Peru
Nigel, Daniel, and I met up for breakfast and agreed that we didn't want to shell out so much money for another tour, so we decided to make our own way to the waterfall, Catarata Gocta. First we had to catch a collectivo to the nearby town of Pedro Ruiz, which is on the main road and where we would be able to catch buses to elsewhere. By the time we got to town Daniel had persuaded me to join him in a jungle tour in Peru rather than Ecuador, after all we were already quite close to the jungle. He had been working as a translator in the jungle of Ecuador and assured me that my information was wrong and in fact Peru was much cheaper, indeed, he had come to Peru to take a tour in the jungle to avoid the expense in Ecuador. Of course everyone knows that it's cheapest and best in Bolivia, but Joanne and I'd had no time for the jungle. In town Daniel and I bought tickets to Yurimaguas and Nigel bought one towards Huanchaco, and we left our big bags at the ticket office.
After a bit of lunch and some difficulty, we managed to get cheap transport with one local in a taxi collectivo to Cocachimba, the town nearest to Catarata Gocta. The driver told us that he would wait for us to return if we were prepared to pay for the empty seat too, on the way back. Considering we were well off the main road and transport would not otherwise be easy to get we agreed immediately.
Catarata Gocta from Cocachimba
The surroundings
Even from where he dropped us, reportely a two-hour walk from the falls, you could see it quite clearly. It is pretty high: 771 metres apparently, and the water falls from a cliff at the end of a plateau. The scenery was quite pleasant and it was much hotter and more humid than it had been at the coast. It felt like we were at the edge of the jungle and I started to feel quite pleased about the decision I had made. It was an easy trek, through trees and past some nice birds on the way. When we bought our entrance tickets, though, the woman in the office had made us sign a disclaimer because we had refused a guide. It was ridiculous: she was worried that something might happen to us without a guide, but it was just a stroll.
Catarata Gocta
3 men looking self-conscious infront of Catarata Gocta
Strange orange-hooded bird
Butterfly
As we got closer, we lost sight of the top part of the falls. I need to look it up, but I'm sure they are cheating to have the falls in two sections like that; it can't be a 771 metres drop in one go. The water hardly touches the bottom though: it just mist by the time it has fallen there, because there's really not all that much water going over the fall. It looks, from the erosion, like it might be more impressive in the rainy season, but a high waterfall really can't compete with a large volume waterfall like Iguazu Falls.
Bottom half of Catarata Gocta
Me and Catarata Gocta
Nigel and Catarata Gocta
A woodpecker
Another orange-hooded bird
The path back
Funny thistle-like plant
Then it was a quick ride back to town, where Daniel insisted we eat again. He was definitely a bad influence: I had been eating healthily and steadily losing weight I think, since ceviche became available but now we were away from the coast it was back to menu del dia and the three course cheap meals with chips. Normally I would only eat twice a day when eating like that, but Daniel seemed to be fixated with the idea that you need three meals a day, so I had now eaten four menu del dias in two days. Uh oh!
Humitas
Then it was overnight to Yurimaguas. Daniel was not impressed with the bus. Certainly, it was one of the cheap ones, but usually I find them more comfortable because they hasn't added all the extra "leg supports" and so on to make it more luxurious, which only really get in the way.
written by  The Happy Couple on December 2, 2009 from Pedro Ruiz, Peru

No internet in Joburg
Johannesburg, South Africa
Finally got online! But not for long.... my Mobile is 0783894391 or +27783894391 from outside South Africa
written by  The Happy Couple on December 10, 2008 from Johannesburg, South Africa

Before the wedding
Henley on Klip, South Africa
When we first arrived in South Africa we thought we'd spend a bit of time with Joanne's family, so we stayed with her brother Kenneth at Henley on Klip, just outside Johannesburg. Their garden was originally mooted as a possible wedding venue.
written by  The Happy Couple on December 10, 2008 from Henley on Klip, South Africa

Urine Aguas
Yurimaguas, Peru
In the morning our overnight bus arrived in Yurimaguas. When I collected my bag from the boot of the bus I noticed that one strap was wet, then Daniel discovered the whole bottom half of his bag was soaking. By the time we found the cheap hostel another traveller had recommended Daniel, we had both become aware of a strong smell of urine hanging around us. Daniel had seen a mattress beside the bags under the bus so we concluded that a staff member must have been sleeping there and relieved himself over our bags during the night. Lovely!
At first the hostel seemed to locked up, but Daniel's persistent knocking and shouting eventually brought a young guy to the door, who agreed to give us a room for only S5 each. The register confirmed that they hadn't been taking in guests for about a month and it seemed that there was some repair work being finished upstairs, where an oldish guy was hammering. The hostel was also an agent for jungle tours and the young guy asked us whether we wanted to go on one, and a guide soon turned up to speak to us. We agreed to a five-day tour at S80 per day plus S20 park fees per day, which was a bit dearer than Daniel had led me to expect, but still much cheaper than Ecuador apparently would have been. It was also a bit more time than I had been planning to spend but the guide insisted that we wouldn't get deep enough into the jungle to see good stuff in anything less than five days. Then, when the guide discovered we had no hammocks, asked us to meet him in an hour at the market to buy one each, telling us it was essential for the boat trip.
We were to leave the following day at midday, rather than catching the first boat at 9am, which I felt would have deprived us of the long sleep we needed after the overnight bus journey. Preparation complete, we went upstairs to sit on the balcony and join the older workman for a few beers. It turned out that the "workman", Carlos, was actually a journalist and news reader, who had recently returned to Yurimaguas from Lima for his father's funeral, and now seemed to be doing a bit of everything there, including working at the local radio station. He was quite a character and he hardly stopped talked for the remainder of the day, constantly jumping up and all over the balcony to act out and illustrate certain important points. I barely understood one quarter of what he said and Daniel, whose Spanish is pretty much fluent, said he probably only got a little over half.
Carlos and me
Daniel and Carlos
Only a few minutes after we started speaking to him, when he was telling us about his job at the local radio station, he put the radio on, called up the producer and, under half an hour after arriving in town, we were being interviewed on local radio. Carlos introduced himself then told the listeners that he was sitting at this hostel with two foreiners, one from Scotland and one from Switzerland, who were visiting the town as tourists. Then he said something to Daniel I didn't catch and handed the phone to him. Daniel waffled on proficiently for a few minutes and it was my turn. Again I didn't catch what Carlos said, so when he passed the phone to me I just said "umm..." and froze. I couldn't think of anything to say, panicked by the fact I had no idea what he had said to me. Quickly seeing the problem, though, Carlos took over again and said "My friend Michael doesn't speak as much Spanish as Daniel", then prompted Daniel to continue talking, which he did for a bit. When it was time to hang up I managed to get out that it was lovely here, I was sorry I didn't speak much Spanish, and goodbye. All a bit of a failure, really, but he might have prepped us better than arranging an interview without warning within five minutes of sitting down! It was all a bit of a shock, but Carlos seemed satisfied, and continued ranting on about his work until we had to leave and buy hammocks.
There weren't really any other gringos around town: we had perhaps seen only one, so I suppose it was a bit of a story for Carlos to interview us. I was very pleased to get off the beaten path, after having spent most of the time in South America going from large town to major tourist attraction. Huanchaco had been a step in the right direction, but now I had made it to a place than only deserved a few lines in the Lonely Planet. The town wasn't much to look at, but it was nice just to see people going about their normal lives instead of everything appearing to revolve around the tourist, as it had seemed almost since we arrived in Peru. Until Peru, South America hadn't been too bad at all for tourist hassle, but in Peru it had seemed to arrive with a massive improvement in the locals' knowledge of English, apparently in direct proportion to the number of American tourists, as well as the cynicism and eagerness in the locals to rip the tourists off. Having said that, we still got the impression that guide took us to a stall run by his friend and that we paid over the odds, but Daniel managed to save us a bit of money by explaining that we only needed two cords to tie them up. I didn't know anything about hammocks, but Daniel seemed to know what he was talking about.
Back at the hostel, Carlos continued ranting on and jumping about. He asked us if we had heard of ayahuasca and asked if we wanted to try it. The Lonely Planet mentions that there is a lot of ayahuasca tourism further down river at Iquitos, where, it tells you, a tourist can expect to pay at least $60 for one session of spiritual guidance and healing with an experienced shaman, but warns that the rituals are taken very seriously by the locals, so "gawkers and sceptics are not welcome". I said that it sounded interesting but I wasn't sure, because the guide book emphasised the importance of finding a shaman you can trust, if you want to experience the ritual. Carlos then told us that we would have to be very careful, and not to trust any of these shamans, because they are crooks. As soon as we left to get the hammocks, he continued, a shaman, living several miles away, had turned up at the door of the hostel and proposed that he and Carlos invite us to take part in the ayahuasca ritual then, when we are "dreaming" they should rob us and split the proceeds. It seemed Carlos had turned him down and he told us that, instead, if we wanted to experience ayahuasca, he could get us a big bottle of it for S50 for us to try it on our own, instead of paying a shaman much more money for only a little cup, probably only getting robbed in reward. This did not seem in keeping with the sincere and spiritual ritual it is supposed to be about, so we declined, however I was now also quite scared at the idea of the ritual.
My Riberena shirt
Wearing the shirt at the karaoke
Carlos continued ranting for the remainder of the day, much of what he said being quite philosophical and all about morality, much of which he had been writing over the last few days. He kept disappearing into his room to bring out quite poetically written notes and show us the very recent dates at the tops of the pages, frequently implying that there was something fated in our arriving during this period. It seemed quite clear that he was totally manic and I guessed the fevered note-taking had been in the middle of the night when his hyperactivity prevented him from sleeping. If he was a manic-depressive, I certainly wouldn't want to see him at his depressive pole if it is anything like as extreme as the manic one. He admitted to being hyper-active, but did not mention bipolar disorder. Later he insisted that, as his new friends, we should give him something to remember us by, and asked me if he could cut a piece of hair. Although I thought it a bit weird, I said OK, and held a little end of a dreadlock out for him. Instead he took it from me and cut a much larger chunk than I expected. In return, he gave me a t-shirt from his radio station, La Ribereña, and insisted I wear it while we both accompany him out for chicken at his favourite karaoke bar. The chicken was good, but the karaoke place was awful and completely empty apart from us. which didn't stop Carlos from belting out several songs.
Chicken
Andean toad
The next morning the guide told us that the boat was delayed until 1pm, so we hung around a bit longer at the hostel, where the young guy at reception asked us if we were going to do the ayahuasca ritual, pointing out a painting on the wall which he said was inspired by it. Remembering Carlos's warnings, I said no. When the guide arrived to take us to the boat, he also asked us if we wanted to, and said that the tour company owner, Manuel, would be able to recommend a good shaman when we arrived in Lagunas. Ayahuasca seems to be everywhere in the jungle!
Weird statue thing the hostel was named after
It's a spirit or something
But I can't remember its name
Ayahuasca inspired painting
When we left the hostel, a group of children standing outside all shouted together Hola, Gringos and waved at us. The boat was already packed when we got there, but the guide found us a small space and tied up our hammocks for us. It wasn't exactly comfortable and I was virtually on top of the guy next to me, while the hammock on the other side of Daniel seemed to have loads of space, making me wonder why the guides put both our hammocks in the same place. It was only later I realised that it was because of Daniel's cost-cutting exercise of only buying two cords: he already had one long piece of cord, which was used to tie one end of each hammock up, meaning they had to be together. I'm not sure squashing in like that was worth the one Sol each he saved us!
The boat
Another boat next to ours
The boat didn't leave until about 4pm, though we did see some dolphins playing in the port before we left. Just before we set off, Daniel jumped back ashore to buy us six beers, leaving me to prevent the crew from unroping the boat from the harbour until he returned. After we set off, a sheet of paper was handed around, for us to write our names, identity document number, and "reason for travel". When Daniel handed it to me, I saw that he had written terorismo as his reason for travel, rather than the more conventional tourismo, which the young guy next to me said was not something you joke about in Peru, because in that area they still have problems with the Sendero Luminoso Sure enough, when we handed the sheet back to the crew member in charge, he was not amused. He told Daniel that it was very serious, that it goes to the captain, and that we would have to write that sheet out again, destroying the original. Nobody seems to have a sense of humour about terrorism anymore.
Mi amigo right next to me
Our smugness in the face of the other tourists' jealousy, when collecting our nice cold beers from the galley fridge, soon evaporated when a bell went and everyone else on the boat without exception brought out plates and started to queue at the kitchen. How could the guide have neglected to tell us about this? He ensured we had hammocks, but forgot about our dinner! Even all of the other tourists had plates; it was only the two of us who were without. After everyone else had been served we went up and asked what to do. Luckily they did actually have a couple of plates, so we were able to eat our included meal after all.
The river
Jungle village
Jungle clouds
We sat at the only table on our deck, drank our beers, and played some cards with a young Argentinian guy, two older Spanish women he was travelling with, and a couple of locals. After a bit I got tired trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to follow everyone's Spanish and went to the front of the boat to watch the scenery, and a man, with a plank of wood, hitting the cows which filled the lower deck every time one of them got a bit agitated at the tiny space they had to stand in. I met an Israeli couple, whose Spanish was even worse than mine, and spoke English with them until it was time for bed. It wasn't the most comfortable night's sleep, but I did get a little bit of rest.
The cow hitter
Poor moos
written by  The Happy Couple on December 5, 2009 from Yurimaguas, Peru

Car Hire in Cape Town
Johannesburg, South Africa
I'm trying to organise car hire at the moment... so can everyone who is coming to Cape Town please remind me when they expect to be there until? A text to my SA number would be ideal...
written by  The Happy Couple on December 12, 2008 from Johannesburg, South Africa

Pelejo es Pendejo
Reserva Nacional Pacaya-Samiria, Peru
We had been scheduled to arrive in Lagunas about 10pm, but the boat leaving four hours late, as well as a not totally unexpected extra two hours in transit, meant that we arrived at 4:15am making the hostel stay we had arranged redundant, since we would have to get up again about 6am to set out on the tour. Even early in the morning I could see that Lagunas was another step into the wilderness after Yurimaguas; after all it was a town that you can only get to by boat, right at the edge of a large jungle reserve, with the human habitation in the half nearer the town. The toilet at the tour agency was a very basic longdrop and there was no running water at all. I wondered what the facilities in the reserve would be like. Instead of going to the hostel we all agreed just to get on with the tour and started filling in the relevant paperwork. While we were doing that, the Israeli couple arrived, then the Argentinian and two Spanish girls, who seemed a bit frantic, having discovered that the tour operator they had intended to use didn't exist or it had moved.
After the success of our beers on the ferry, Daniel and I decided that we should get some for the tour as well. We calculated thirty beers would be enough for two each per day, plus one for each guide each day. Quite modest, really, but everyone else made fun of the huge bag of bottles we had to get loaded onto the mototaxi which would take us to the reserve entrance. When we got to the park entrance and paid our fees, Daniel did not look impressed with the operation; the canoes were shit, he said. I thought they looked a bit scary and low in the water, especially after they loaded them up with all of our stuff. The Spanish girls and Argentine had already gone; apparently the girls' tour was only two days, so they needed to get going, but also waiting when we arrived was a group of three French people, an older couple and their son, Christophe, a bit younger than me.
Next to the ticket office
Dodgy canoes
While we were waiting for pay our park fees, Christophe's mother was leafing through a flora and fauna book in the ticket office. I was standing beside her, and at one page she pointed to a vine and said to me "have you heard of this plant?". It was ayahuasca. I told her yes, but I didn't know much about it. She told me that it was a very special and spiritual plant, and that the three of them had been working with ayahuasca for the last three weeks. Apparently they had all come to Peru specifically to go on an ayahuasca course, which they all insisted in describing as working with a shaman. They had each paid €2100 to do this ayahuasca ritual fifteen times in three weeks with a French shaman. The woman told me she had been going to the same shaman for every year for the last eight years, and she said she found it very cleansing, healing, and good for her spirit, and that it was even better than meditation for gaining peace and being able to see things clearly and sort out problems with yourself. It's a bit like therapy, she said. The couple, especially, looked like hippies, and now the way she was talking absolutely confirmed it. Later on Daniel discovered that she was some sort of executive of Unilever, so I suppose she must build up a lot of bad karma throughout the year, which the shaman has to help her purge.
Tourist's eye view of the jungle
It was time to set off. We discovered that we weren't getting one guide each as we had been told, but would be sharing one canoe and one guide. I had mixed feeling about this: one the one hand Daniel would be able to translate whatever Esteban, our guide, said that I couldn't understand; on the other hand, I was really worried that the canoe would not be able to take the three of us. It wasn't the high quality canoes Daniel was used to on his expensive Ecuadorian jungle trips, but it certainly seemed very authentic: it was a simple dugout tree. Then we set off without sinking and Daniel had another reason to be unimpressed: there was only one paddle, so we would have nothing to do and the guide would have to do all the work, making the trip much slower than it might have been. Then Esteban didn't seem to know the real names for anything in the jungle, or only the local names, which aren't very informative; Daniel was not impressed: the monos rojos were actually howler monkeys, he told me; the papagallos were actually macaws, and so on. Daniel knew all this from working the Ecuadorian jungle, which is really all a continuation of the same ecosystem.
A bird
A macaw (says Daniel)
Butterfly on Esteban's arm
I thought it was all quite pleasant being paddled down the river and, though we didn't have much to do, we had beers and I had my book if I got bored of the scenery. At one point the subject of injuries and I asked if they had a first aid kit: bandages and painkillers at least, to which the response was no. Daniel asked what the guide would do if something happened and he told him that nothing had happened in fourteen years of him guiding, but if it did there were plenty of medicinal plants in the forest. Daniel was not impressed, and I was a bit apprehensive about this too.
French hippies
When we stopped for a snack at a clearing with a wooden shelter, Daniel told Christophe about the first aid kit, and he responded that, yes, there are plants everywhere. Clearly Daniel was not impressed with this either: I could tell he was thinking "bloody hippies!". They gave us watermelon, which actually wasn't very nice. A feature I have come to recognise about jungle fruit, from Cambodia and the Laos, seems to be true in Peru as well, and probably everywhere: it does't taste as nice as the commercial varieties and it's full of seeds almost to the point of inedibility. In Asia it was tasteless bananas full of seeds, and here it was tasteless watermelon with more seeds that I would have thought possible, but also far bigger than to which I am accostomed. I asked Esteban if the fruit came from the selva and he said yes. Christophe's mother was now telling the Israeli couple about her working with the ayahuasca. The girl asked her, "so it's like a drug?" and the French woman replied "no, no, no, it's not a drug it's a plant". Soon after the break, we passed a little laguna where there were dolphins playing. I joked to Daniel that the French hippies were probably beside themselves, having a spiritual connection with the dolphins, which the New Age seems to hold up as special transcendental creatures. Well, at least they read Douglas Adams!
Jungle
Death awaits ye all
Hanging nests
We carried on, passing lots of birds, and a couple of three-toed sloths, or pelisosos in Spanish and pelejo in the local dialect. Daniel seemed to be enjoying himself a bit more and kept asking Esteban to remind him what the local word for sloth was, finally settling on the mnemonic pendejo to remind him, which Esteban thought was very funny, repeating pelejo es pendejo and laughing. At one point a small fish jumped into the boat and Esteban warned me not to touch it. I think it was a catfish, which he said can give a nasty bite. Daniel continued his banter with Esteban, constantly exclaiming sucsio! when anything annoying happened, like getting splashed. At first both Esteban and I thought he was saying sucio albeit a bit strangely, until he insisted, no, it wasn't sucio but some word everyone says in Ecuador, but has no meaning other than itself. Soon Esteban was saying it too: Sucsio! Pelejo es pendejo and then chuckling.
Best shot of the pelejo I could get, pendejo!
When we arrived at the accommodation for the night it was a nice surprise: a large jungle hut with a "proper" porcelain toilet, though it had no flush and had to be emptied with a bucket of water it was still far nicer than the one at the agency, and there were even showers and taps with running water. Then came the shock: the tea, bread, and jam we had been served when we arrived was not a snack before dinner; it was dinner. Daniel with his obsession with three proper meals a day, returned to his former unimpressed mood and we went to bed about 8:30pm.
The dining room-kitchen
Main entrance
The toilet out the back
I woke before 5:30am by which time the Spanish girls and Argentine has already set off, the girls back to Lagunas and the Argentine on for another half day, since his full tour was three days. I discovered that a few extra beers were missing from our hoard, as well as all of the few that the early risers had bought. Some people had stayed up after we went to bed; was it one of hte guides who had taken without asking? We had brought beers for our guides, but Esteban didn't want any and we only had one guide between us, so we did have a few extras for ourselves and would have been happy to give some away if asked, but for someone to steal our beer like that, we were pissed off!
We had an absolutely enormous breakfast of fried, very fresh fish, fried chips, and fried plantain. The previous day I was surprised to learn that it is allowed to fish in the reserve, when we saw several people letting out large nets and some other gutting fish on the river bank. Apparently the reserve only applies to things that are not fish. Odd, since you would think that lots of other things depend on the fish, but there did seem to be an awful lot of them: when we swam in river, little fish nibbled us all over, and any time some food waste was thrown in the river, not very ecological behaviour either I thought, fish would thrash around just below the surface to devour it.
Christophe
Woodpecker
When we set off and got into the run, I realised that I had burned my parting the previous day. Without Joanne to rub factor 50 into the gaps between my dreadlocks, how could this be avoided? I certainly wasn't going to ask Daniel to do it, a fact I'm sure he would have been glad to learn, so I had to improvise: I had been carrying my krama since receiving the Cambodian scarf for my birthday from Joanne, and decided it would make a reasonable bandana. I looked silly, but it did a good job protecting my head. We started on the beers early, worried what would happen to the rest if we didn't use them all up. The tour was more of the same: lots of birds, though this time we also saw some giant spider webs and at one point I was more than a bit shocked when Esteban stopped next to what he said were nests of lobos del rio, which I guessed were river otters, and started hacking at them with the oar, because there are babies at the moment, he explained. I suppose he wanted to rouse them into coming out, but what an appalling way to treat the wildlife in a reserve!
Cool, eh?
Oh yeah!
Big web
How big is the spider?
Lunch time
Papagallos
Another bird
And another bird
Just before lunch we crossed paths with the Argentinian coming the other direction. Esteban suggested that we swap boats with him because the one we were in was unstable. It had been rocking from side to side unnervingly but we hadn't taken in any water. When we set off in the new boat, we discovered an empty bottle left behind by the Argentine. Now we knew which bastard stole our beer! The new boat was more stable, but much lower in the water, we started taking in water frequently and Esteban had to constantly bail out to prevent the leaks from accelerating. When we stopped for lunch at only 11am I couldn't eat anything because I was still stuffed from the huge breakfast. I just hung up my hammock and read some more of On the Road. Luckily Daniel had complained about the absence of dinner and we got a decent sized meal that night, by which time I was starving. After dinner, Esteban took us out in the boat in the dark, hunting for caimans, not to kill as they are protected. We didn't find any, but we did see a fair bit of nocturnal wildlife. In the absence of caimans, Daniel was offered Esteban's spear to fish with, but did not have any success, only injuring a few. No breakfast for you, I teased, but didn't bother to have a go myself. I've fished with a spear before and know that it isn't as easy as Esteban made it look. I don't really like fishing.
Andean toad
Mystery bird
Esteban shows Daniel how it's done
Another mystery bird
Big toilet spider
Boo!
In the morning a little caiman was tied up by the boats and the hippies were soon out and began tormenting it. I wasn't very happy to see the poor thing like that, but I didn't really think they should have been hunting them at all. That day our itinerary was a walk in the jungle supposedly to see wildlife. I was quite excited. We were given boots and headed off behind the lodge we had slept in. Near the start was quite a big tree, which was nice because I had been disappointed and surprised how small most of the trees were. Yes, there was a lot of thick forest, but it wasn't really any different to forest I have seen elsewhere, even the few patches of primary forest still existing in Scotland are similar. I expecting absolutely gigantic trees everywhere, but that's not how it was.
Esteban with poor caiman
Terrified caiman
So called hippies tormenting caiman
Aguajes, which come from a palm and taste a bit like olives
Second night's accommodation
"Mono negro"
Goodbye to the Israeli couple!
It was now only Daniel, me, and Christophe, because the Israeli couple and the french couple were both staying for longer and were heading further downstream; only the three of us were turning around the next day. I soon discovered that the older couple weren't actually Christophe's parents, which really surprised me because the woman in particular had seemed very close to him, like she was looking after him. The working with ayahuasca together had made them very close, he explained. He had also found it very beneficial, he said, and he now felt much better physically and phychologically; their shaman had insisted that they become vegetarians during the course and Christophe has decided he was going to continue now that the course was over: the three of them had been eating vegetables with spirulina, which is just cyanabacteria for goodness' sake, sprinkled over it, which they told me contains "all the proteins your body needs", while we sat down to our delicious, juicy fresh fish. Whatever, I had thought. He went on to say that, although it is widely believed that you must be sick when you take ayahuasca, this is only because of all the impurities and toxins that most people have in their body, but with their shamans dietry method, his disciples have very little vomiting and he was sick only three times out of fifteen. However he had not received the "visions" that the oher two had, which he put down to the fact he did not yet meditate. Maybe the shaman didn't give him enough of the ayahuasca, I suggested. No, no, Christophe explained, the amount you take has no bearing whatever on the effect: it's up to the shaman and the spirit of the ayahuasca whether you have visions. He's a nice guy, but this just sounded like more hippie nonsense to me! Actually they were all nice, and they all did seem to have a calm and peaceful air about them.
Big spider in the jungle
Big tree
We pressed on a bit further and Daniel had a great time hacking away at any undergrowth he could with the machete he had brought all the way from Ecuador. Esteban pointd out various jungle fruits and medicinal trees, all of which Christophe was keen to try, presumably because they are natural, whereas I really wasn't that interested after the jungle watermelon. One vine was for getting water when you were lost in the jungle, so he hacked some chunks off and let us drink. I had a quick taste and it was OK, but Christophe seemed keen to drink as much of the stuff as possible. Why? We each had bottles of water with us.
Macho Daniel
Esteban prepares "monkey fruit"
The monkey fruit
The easy bit
Walking tree
They move around for water apparently
Then it turned bad. We were walking through deep mud, which was horrible ot walk through. On both sides of the "path" were trees covered in spinas which frequently jagged into my hangs when I put my hands out to stop from slipping in the mud. It went on for ages, just squidging through deep mud in the hot sticky jungle, with mosquitoes buzzing around. It felt completely pointless and I hoped it was going to be worth it: maybe we would be climbing a hill for a superb view over the jungle, or perhaps going to a clearing we might catch a glimpse of a puma, of which there are some in this part of jungle, we were told. In fact, after at least an hour of this torture, we ended up at a stagnant bit of water, where there were even more mosquitoes and Esteban told us we were going to fish. Great! All this horrible effort just to do something I hate. Christophe's guide appeared with some berries and Esteban caught a fish, explaining that this was just carnada, a word I didn't know, but soon understood when he hacked at it with his machete (without first killing it) and put a piece on the hook. Soon he had caught a piranha. He tried again, but dropped the next, though a pipe fish had bitten onto the line and was brought up without need for carnada. This he tried to feed to the piranha, but it seemed more worried about the fact it couldn't breathe than eating the other fish. Esteban insisted that I give it a go and I also caught a piranha quite quickly, but Esteban wasn't quick enough to collect it where I dropped it, maybe too close to the water, and it managed to wriggle back in again. Then I kept trying again. Yup, I still hate fishing: it's really boring. And pointless if you don't need to do it to eat. If I were actually living in the jungle I'm sure I would fish quite happily, and it really seems very easy there. I think this indicates how much extra unnecessary work we all do in modern life: in archaic times people would only have to catch a few fish a day, which I think would take about ten minutes max if you knew what you were doing. OK, every so often you would have to work hard for a few days to build a house or harvest a crop, but nothing, usually, like the ridiculous eight hours a day that is standard now. We need to get over our Puritan work ethic!
Poor fish
On the way back I was miserable. A whole day of this: mud fishing mud. I wondered whether this was the worst thing I have ever done and decided that it might be, but it's definitely the worst thing I've ever paid for. I decided that two days in the jungle would have been enough; three days at the most.
The next day we headed back upstream. And I felt a little burned all over, though nothing like as bad as my head had been the first day, and it seemed like Estaban was actually paddling to avoid the shadows of the trees. Even not considering the sunburn, I was absolutely sweltering. The jungle is hot! Finally I had escaped the cold that seemed to grip most of the rest of South America, even in early summer. Luckily in the afternoon, as most days in the jungle it seems, it clouded over and pissed down, forcing us to shelter under blue tarpaulin, causing me to remember the bus journey of hell in Nepal. We had finished our beers the day before, and we weren't going to see much more as Esteban had to focus on the paddling to get us upstream in time, so I spent much of the day reading and finished On the Road. It was very disappointing, considering how much people rave about it, and how many people seem to claim it is their favourite book. It was only when I got to the last two parts and they left the US for Mexico that I got any real enjoyment from the book. The message of the book seems to be that travelling around the US is pointless because it's awful wherever you end up, and painful to get there, with an underlying theme of homosexual infatuation between the two main characters. Not at all what I was expecting. Really dull.
Heavy, dark, and pendulous
The final day, I started a Paolo Coelho book that Lucy had lent me in Huanchaco. I hadn't read any of his work before, but at some point I had developed the impression that his is something I would like to read. I'm not sure if someone recommended him, if I read a positive review, or if it was just the constant presence at the front of Borders that made me curious. I read this simplistic piece of rubbish in less than four hours; probably the worst book I have ever read in my life, and one I certainly would not have read more than the first few pages of if I had another book to change to. If you ever have the opportunity to read The Valkyries or any others of his books, I assume, burn it instead of even opening it!
Every afternoon this happened
Finally we arrived back at the park entrance, and we were back on the agency's mototaxi through the jungle back to town. Esteban indicated that several cleared bits of forest used to be illegal airports used for cocaine trafficking. Apparently this area was until quite recently a major cocaine hub, which I suppose is also why the Sendero Luminso were so prominent there.
written by  The Happy Couple on December 9, 2009 from Reserva Nacional Pacaya-Samiria, Peru

Move Any Mountain
Lagunas, Peru
Back in Lagunas after the jungle tour, we were taken directly to the tour agency and who should be there but the beer-thieving Argentinian. Before we could confront him, though, he offered us each a beer; apparently it was someone's birthday in the agency and he had bought a batch of beer for a little party. We decided to call it quits, but were soon called upon to make entries in one of those silly books, where you state how great the tour was and sign your name and country. I hate filling them in, especially because some artistic person has always filled the whole of the previous page with an amusing little sketch, however Daniel seems to hate them even more than I do, and the task fell to me to write a joint one. After doing our bit in the book, Manuel, the owner was asking Christophe how he had enjoyed it, telling him that their guides are the best because they don't touch any of the animals or plants in the reserve. I thought about Esteban hacking at the otters' nest, catching fish, tying up the caiman, and chopping at all manner of different trees, but I said nothing; Christophe, though, was telling him that well, sometimes they did maybe touch one or two plants, to which a shocked Manuel was asking which was his guide so that he could talk to him about it.
I left to cross over the road to the hotel and check in, where I found Daniel sitting, drinking his beer with a French Swiss couple. I sat down to join them and noticed that I had "canoe tan", where the insides of my legs were tanned, but the outsides weren't, from sitting cross-legged in the sun for four days. At least it made my surfing tan from Huanchaco look a bit less silly: brown from the neck up, the wrists and hands, as well as the "sock tan" fixing brown ankles and feet. It was a year to the day since I had left Scotland, so I told them that we all had to celebrate my one year of travelling and we duly got drunk. The Swiss couple, Luis and Maude had returned from their jungle tour two days previously and were due to start a two week ayahuasca course the next day; they were going to stay at a shaman's house (for free) and take part in the ceremony there every second day. I said that it sounding interesting, but I was a bit apprehensive about the whole thing, particularly in the light of what crazy Carlos had told me. I asked if they thought I would be allowed to "sit in" to make my mind up about it, and I agreed to go with them the next day to speak to Manuel about it, with whom they had arranged their course.
Andean toad
The next morning I asked Manuel and he said he didn't see any harm in it as long as I made a small contribution for the accommodation, which he warned was basic, if I wasn't going to be paying for the ayahuasca. Then when I said to the couple that I thought they were very brave signing up for a two week course when they don't know yet what it would be like, they told Manuel that they had changed their mind and only paid for one week. Then I bade Daniel goodbye, as he was going to leave that day to push on further into the jungle and Iquitos, and a mototaxi whisked us away to the shaman's house, which was on the outskirts of town, on the way to the reserve.
Shaman's house
The shaman's house was certainly basic, but quite rustically peaceful and beautiful. The buildings were just roughly made wooden shacks with palm fronds for roofs and no flooring, just the dirt ground that was there before; there was no running water, just a well from which we would have to fill a basin to wash in; and there was no toilet at all: it was a short walk into the jungle. There were a dozen or so domestic birds wandering around the grounds, including one large and very ugly turkey, some ducks and some chickens. We immediately started to hitch up our hammocks between the trees so that we could relax. It was then that I realised I had a problem: Daniel's clever one Sol saving idea now meant that I had only one cord to tie up my hammock, and now no share of his second extra long cord. After trying various combinations of hammocks and trees, I had to resort to nicking a cord from a hammock hanging in the large room of the building we were to sleep in. We had a day before the rituals were to begin because, the shaman had told Maude and Luis, Thursday is not an auspicious day to begin, but Friday is ideal, so we practised getting as comfy as possible in the hammocks. That's when the mosquitoes started attacking. There were loads of them and no matter how much repellent we applied they still kept coming.
Maude and Luis by the hammocks
Aurora
Then the rain came and we retired to the kitchen to prepare some food, where we discovered the two parrots that lived on the roof of the kitchen. At about 5pm one of the parrots burst into song and kept it up for at least an hour, chattering away then singing in as voice that sounded like a child. We gather from the frequency of repetition that the bird was called Aurora. Maude and Luis had bought some food but preparing it wasn't so easy: the kitchen wasn't exactly well equipped and the only way to cook was by building a wood fire. Cooking on a wooden fire is no way to live! By the end of the first day I was already missing modern conveniences quite badly. Even in town the electricity was only on from 6pm to midnight every day, so when the lights came on I left to investigate, with no great hope, what the town's internet was like. It was a nightmare: it took me thirty minutes, slipping around in mud, to get into town, then another fifteen, wandering around town, unable to get my bearings because the buildings all look so similar, with their wooden fronts and palm frond roofs. Eventually I found the tour agency and someone took me to the internet place, where I had to wait one hour for the one PC to become free; all so that I could go online at the blistering speed on 16.8 kbps. In one hour I was able to send two emails.
Path up to shaman's house
Ugly bird
I slipped all the way home and discovered that I was sharing my bedroom with a funny little old guy, who was completely incomprehensible. I think he had been left to look after the fowl and was acting as caretaker. The other two had a double mattress on the floor of the main room of the building which I suppose was the living room, which was about half-open to the elements. There was still no sign of the shaman and when I asked the others about it, they said they weren't sure but they thought this was a different shaman's house, because someone had mentioned that we were going to a Dutch shaman's house, and the shaman they had made the arrangement with was definitely a local; the Dutch shaman was out of town. During the night I discovered that my single bed was small enough that my skin spent the whole night pressed against the mosquito net, giving the beasties easy access to my skin. And for the third time in a row, my phone ran down completely overnight, convincing me that it was badly malfunctioning, probably, I guessed, because of the heat and extreme humidity.
Alfonso the caretaker
The following day I tried washing in the tub. Not that easy, especially with the mosquitoes, but better than nothing. I like modern life. Luis and Maude had been instructed that on the day of the ayahuasca ceremony, they should drink no beer, eat nothing sweet, and eat no salty food, so we ate unsalted rice and vegetables that day. The shamans all seem to have different ideas about what you can consume; Christophe's French shaman had them eating no meat for a month before they started and no alcohol at all during the course, and I had heard of others that ask you to fast completely on the day of the ceremony.
Mosquito bites on my leg
At about 5pm again, the parrot burst into loud song and kept it up for at least an hour. It was really funny, and we kept dissolving in laughter every time it began a new refrain. About 9:30pm Manuel arrived with some other tourists, who were only going to take part in one ceremony, not do a course, then not long after arrived the shaman with some other Peruvians. The shaman wasn't exactly what I was expecting: there were no animal skins, bones, or feathers in evidence, just a little old guy in tracksuit bottoms, a t-shirt, and a baseball cap. OK, I suppose we were living in a small town, not an isolated village deep in the jungle but still - where was his sense of theatre? The others were Manuel's wife, the shaman's wife, the shaman's son, and another trainee shaman.
All the paraphernalia
They laid out sheets, mattresses, and benches on the floor, so that everyone had somewhere to sit and they started preparing various paraphernalia: two plastic bottles full of murky brown liquid, which I guessed was the ayahuasca; some things that looked like large fans, made of leaves; some cups of various sizes; two plastic bottles full of clear liquid; a pile of cigarettes made of very dark tobacco; and several basins. The clear liquid, the shaman explained, was aguardiente for getting rid of the taste of the ayahuasca, which I thought was a bit odd, since beer was forbidden, however aguardiente is OK apparently. The cigarettes were made of special black tobacco from the jungle and were for cleansing and purifying because, he explained, the tobacco spirit and ayahuasca spirit are connected, so they must always be contacted together. The basins are incase you need to be sick, he said, and if you need to go to the toilet it is vital that you ask him first, so that he can carry out the necessary rituals to ensure that there are no evil spirits waiting for you outside. The leafy things remained unexplained.
The shaman's wife blesses Manuel's wife's hands with smoke
First, he said, everything needs to be purified with tobacco, and several of them each lit up a cigarro de la selva and went around the room blowing smoke over everything, including all over everyone's body, in their hair, and over their hands, which they asked us to clasp. Then he asked us each to smoke some, to purify us inside. A couple of the tourists asked if they had to inhale, because they didn't smoke, and they were told it was OK just to take it into their mouths, so I did the same when it was my turn. The tobacco was much more like a cigar than a cigarette, and certainly much less poisonous- and acrid-smelling than the processed American chemical cigarettes most people seem to smoke in South America.
Then it was time to begin. The shaman offered one last piece of advice: if you see any snakes, don't worry it's just a vision; if you see the spirit of the ayahuasca queen (I think that's what he said), don't worry, it's just a vision; and if it's going too fast and it's too much for you, just ask the shaman and he'll slow the spirits down. If you want to see someone in your family just concentrate and think about them, in fact if you want to see anything at all, just concentrate on it, he finished. And then his son went around everyone giving them their dose of ayahuasca and the bottle of aguardiente to chase it down with. All the tourists were given a shot glass full, and most of the Peruvians took a large cup full, while the shaman took two large cups full. Manuel's wife was the only Peruvian who abstained; Manuel explained that he always joins in when any tourists arrange through him to take part in the ceremony. Meanwhile the shaman had begun mumbling to himself and blowing on a handful of cigarettes. He seemed to be gearing himself up, repeating some mantra under his breath, then he went silent, and soon after Manuel turned the lights off. On the edge of the jungle where we were, it was pitch black. And there was a very serious atmosphere, with hardly a sound being made in the dark.
Luis, Elvis, shaman's wife, shaman, Manuel and his wife
After about ten minutes of sitting still in the dark, the shaman began singing, quietly at first, then louder and louder until some other voices joined him along with rythmic swooshing noises; so that's what the leaf fans were for! They weren't the best singers in the world, but the tunes made a great atmosphere along with the leaf percussion accompanying them like a steam train. After the first song, Manuel switched the light on again and asked everyone if they were feeling anything, and whether they wanted anymore; ''¿mareado'?' was the question he asked, which I later found out means something like "dizzy?" A Czech guy, Pedro, who had already reported feeling a bit strange before the lights went off, said no way, he'd had enough, but the rest of the tourists all took a second shot glass.
Luis prepares himself for the second cup
Nice?
Then the lights were off again for more of the lovely hypnotic singing. Shortly afterwards, this was rudely interrupted by the sound of very violent vomiting. It sounded like some wild animal had come into the building and was making horrible inhuman gurgling and growling noises. After every bout finished the shaman and his helpers made funny whooshing noises, as if blowing away bad spirits, I thought. At one point, the shaman staggered to his feet and he threw up copiously outside. I thought this was strange as he would be used to it, but he did take rather a lot. In turn each of the other Peruvians puked as well, proving that experience makes no difference to the likelihood of vomiting, but after each convulsion had finished they would follow it with some more deliberate animal noises, which they eventually coelesced into atmospheric jungle noises in between the songs, including caiman gulping noises, slurping noises that I took to be an impersonation of toads catching insects, and bubbling noises, which just sounded like swampy ground. It was all really vivid and in the dark, it was easy to forget we weren't in the middle of the jungle with the animals.
Next round, only three people accepted the third shot glass: Maude, Luis, and Tomas, the French friend of the now staring into space Pedro. Next time only Luis and Tomas asked for more; this time they were given one of the big cups. By this time someone was moaning and whining in the dark, along with the periodic rounds of puking. I couldn't tell who it was, but later discovered it was Czech Pedro, who came to his senses before the rest of them and told me it had been a horrible experience that he would never recommend to anyone. He said that two minutes after the first shot he had already begun feeling very strange and was seeing images flashing in front of his shut eyes then, later, for about half an hour, the visions and the "dreaming" became so strong that he forgot where he was, and wasn't really aware of his own body or the room. At first he "dreamed" he was in the reserve, flying over the river, following it downstream, but then he was lost in a void with only a light at the end of a tunnel. At that point, he said, he had become very scared, because he thought this was the light that leads to the other side and he was facing death. This was probably when he started moaning, and apparently he had begun to shake violently as well, so to help him through it, the shaman and his helpers began singing over him, blowing tobacco in his face to purify him, and also "washing" him by shaking the leaves in his hair; all of which were supposed to make him feel better, but he said had made him feel much worse! At one point he had felt like he was going to fall asleep because it had all made him feel so tired, and they told him that it was dangerous to fall asleep and he had to fight it, just like he should have fought the shaking instead of allowing it to take over. Finally, he had made it to a mattress to lie down, where he had started to feel better. All very strange since he had only had one little shot glass, whereas the others had far more and still did not appear to be in anything like the same state. By that time, after three hours or so, the singing appeared to have stopped, and after lots of whooshing and blowing tobacco around the room, the shaman told us we could go outside if we wanted, and it was then that I spoke to Pedro, who said he now felt absoutely normal. Outside, the skies were completely clear and the stars were the most incredible stars I've ever seen. There must have been ten times more visible than you can normally see, even in the Highlands of Scotand.
Publicity shot?
Back inside I continued chatting to Pedro, and his friend, Tomas, finally started to experience some of the stronger effect he was apparenly after. Now it was his turn to get the private singing, tobacco smoke, and leaves waved in his hair. Maude had also been through a difficult time at one point, trying the shaman's suggestion of asking him to slow it down because it was too much for her, but the shaman at that point had been sprawled on the floor, totally incapacitated himself, while the others were contnuing with the singing; instead Manuel's wife sat next to her and spoke to her, stroking her back, which I thought had been quite nice. The following day, Maude told me that she had not been at all happy with the situation: the shaman was meant to be her spiritual guide and lead her through any difficulties, but instead he had been out of it, leaving Manuel's wife, who isn't even a shaman, to deal with her because, Maude reckoned, she was the only one of them who hadn't taken any ayahuasca.
Posing
I thought the ceremony had been very evocative, and it had seemed very serious to the shaman. At times, the singing stopped and he started rambling away, sometimes in quite excitable tones, at other times it seemed that he was speaking in a young girl's voice, and at other times speaking in a deep growl that I thought was supposed to be the voice of a demon. It seemed to me that he believed he was arguing or fighting with various spirits in the other world. I wondered if the little girl might be Manuel's baby grand-daughter, who we learned was in very poor health. After all, the function of the shaman is supposed to be to heal, so maybe he was contacting the girl's spirit and trying to purify it. The shaman had asked Maude and Luis if they had any problems that they wanted to have healed, but they had said no, which I think may be why the shaman suggested that they focus on family.
The Peruvians also emphasised the importance of becoming limpio. Of course the ayahuasca is known for being a purgative, which they appear to see as a good thing and any time anyone was sick, someone would be saying limpiar as if in encouragement in the dark. Christophe had mentioned this "cleansing" side of his course as well, suggesting that it would cure any digestive problem, for example worms, one may have picked up while travelling. They all apparently experienced the effects of being limpio at both ends, because later in the evening everyone had to take their turn to run outside.
The next day, when I woke up, I heard that the parrot had decided to treat us to a rendition of everyone vomiting violently from the previous night, instead of its usual 5pm bout of singing. Lovely. Luis had enjoyed his experience, and although he had vomited a lot, didn't seem to think it felt as bad as it sounded. He had also found himself imagining flying over the reserve and spent some time in reveries about his family. Maude was quite angry, though, and felt that the shaman had let them down, whereas Luis seemed to have much lower expectations and thought that there was really only so much the guy could do. But Maude wanted to leave. They had travelled down through Mexico and Central America, and now that they were in Peru, felt a really big change in the people: they felt that the Peruvians lie and cheat, as well as not being as friendly, and all they were interested in tourists for was money. I hadn't thought they were that bad, but it is definitely the only country in South America where I got the impression that tourism was spoiling it; in the rest of them it was only the desire to be like the US that was spoiling the country. They decided to move back to the hotel to get a bit more comfort, and arranged a meeting with the shaman to discuss a refund for their remaining days. The shaman said no refunds, and entered into a long argument with Maude, during which he revealed that the ayahuasca had actually been bought from another shaman, rather than made up himself as he had previously claimed. Various other contradictions in what he said enraged Maude even more and by the end of it, she had decided that she wanted to leave Peru and their lies as soon as possible. Given the lack of refund, though, they had decided to stay a bit longer and take a much smaller dose the next time. We met Tomas at the hotel, who said that he had also enjoyed it, at one point seeing snakes just as the shaman had predicted: he said he too had been flying over the river, totally surrounded by snakes, which filled the river. Strange how everybody seemed to see themselves in the reserve.
The next day, was more of the same, and this time it was only going to be Maude and Luis taking ayahuasca in the ceremony apart from the Peruvians, and I was slightly surprised when Esteban turned up. He kept on saying he was going to come and earlier that day I had sat and drunk several large aguardientes flavoured with jungle fruits. He had been quite drunk, but said it was only beer that was a problem, not aguardiente. He had taken part once before, as it seemed everyone in that town had at least once, but he didn't have any visions, so he was keen to try again, and took two large cups to make sure. I had decided that it didn't look like much fun after all of the horrible vomiting and Pedro's scary description. This time the trainee shaman wasn't there, but all the other Peruvians turned up again. The shaman took less this time, perhaps because Maude had chastisted him for being incapacitated when she needed help. This time they didn't seem to be making as much effort and the singing didn't seem as good, but there was a more informal friendly atmosphere and lots of chatting and banter between the songs. It was all a bit of a waste of time really, because Luis and Maude didn't take enough and had no effect at all.
The centre of town
The next day I was thinking of going because I had nearly run out of money and there were no money facilities in town, but instead Maude and Luis leant me money and we sat, drinking all day at the harbour. They were going to do the ayahuasca ceremony one more time, and the shaman had also suggested than they had a cleansing herb bath. That meant they would only be losing money on their last ceremony. As we got drunk, we started trying to remember and sing some of the songs, but we couldn't remember them much; most of them don't have any lyrics and the rest are in the local dialect, I think, so they aren't easy to recall. Instead we ended up impersonating all of the whoosing noises, and animal sounds; and giggling. We were joined for a bit by a tour guide, who had a few beers then left to catch the boat to Yurimaguas, where he is based. I'm not sure if the other two knew him from before or if he just invited himself to sit down, but he didn't pay anything for his drinks.
Lagunas dock
The next day, I was also offered a herb bath, which I accepted. Slightly unexpectedly, they expected us all to get naked so that they could sponge the water full of herbs all over us. Maude asked me to go away until she was done and we all took turns. I just thought of it like a visit to the doctor. But afterwards I did feel quite nice and invigorated, and cleaner than I had since arriving in the jungle; I dare say some of the herbs with in their for their soapy qualities, rather than their spiritual ones. After the bath they asked me for money for it, but the other two successfully argued that, since they weren't going to use their last ayahuasca ceremonies, they surely had S50 each credit, which they could use to pay for my bath.
Shaman and wife preparing herb bath
Herb bath being prepared
Shaman and herbs
Then we all left and went back into town, where we ate an aguaje ice pole, which I thought was an odd thing to do with a fruit that tastes so savoury, but it was quite nice. Usually it is sold as juice, which is also really sweetened, wheras I think it would be best in a salad. Then we had lunch, which was full of salty things, and followed it with a beer, meaning that the two of them had broken every dietry rule the shaman had given them, albeit only a little of each.
Main road in Lagunas
Maude had decided that she didn't want to do it this last time, as she didn't trust the shaman enough. So this time it was just Luis. This time he took quite a lot again and the atmosphere was even more relaxed. This time the shaman's son, Elvis, took took huge cups and he was really leading the ceremony. The shaman said his son was going to be a really good shaman beacuse he could sing so well. Elvis told us that he first took ayahuasca in the ceremony with his parents when he was twelve years old. This time it seemed relexed enough for me to take some photos, and after the first few they all encouraged me to take more, ensuring that I took down Elvis's email address so that I could email them copies. It was this night that all the ceremony photos were taken. After a few posed shots they got down to business and it was all the same again, though I still don't think there was as much effort in the singing as the first time. I also remembered to record a few of the songs on my mp3 player, though I wished I had thought to do so on the first occasion when the singing was better.
The next morning I woke up to discover a rat had chewed my camera case and decided it was definitely time to leave. The other two were leaving as well, so we sat and drank at the dock until the boat turned up, predictably four hours late, at 10pm. This time I was prepared: I had bought a fork and a tupperware container to use as a plate for the meal on the boat.
written by  The Happy Couple on December 16, 2009 from Lagunas, Peru

Wedding Music
Cape Town, South Africa
Just another quick entry for those attending the wedding. We're struggling to come up with music for the DJ to play, so, to help us out, we are asking for everyone to send us up to 5 requests: favourite tunes for dancing if that's what you plan to do; or just for sitting and listening to while you get sloshed, otherwise.
Of course we reserve the right to pick and choose etc etc :-)
The sooner the response the better. The DJ needs time to download them after all! -- and the "broadband" isn't up to much here.
written by  The Happy Couple on December 23, 2008 from Cape Town, South Africa

The Long Journey Begins
Tarapoto, Peru
The ferry from Lagunas to Yurimaguas was much more comfortable than the other direction. Several factors contributed to this: first, we found a bit more space to hang up our hammocks, but it is nicer being squashed up to friends than strangers anyway; second, I'd had quite a bit of practice at hanging up my hammock at the shaman's house, so I was able to make a better job of it that the guide had on the way; and lastly, we bought three small bottles of aguardiente to take away from the bar at the dock when the ferry had arrived, and this certainly helped make the journey more comfortable.
In the morning I was ready with my tupperware to collect whatever breakfast would be. It was watery, sweetened rice, the only saving grace being that it was flavoured with a bit of cinnamon. I could have quite happily done without - or just collected it in my cup; I hadn't needed to buy my fork and tub. We were expecting to arrive rather late since the boat had left four hours late, but they really managed to excel in their tardiness: the boat pulled into Yurimaguas a full five hours late, on top of the four hours late in leaving. So instead of our originally scheduled arrival time of 4am, we arrived in town at 1pm after a fifteen hour journey. The boats really don't run on time!
After our pitiful breakfast I was dreaming of the chicken place Daniel and I had gone with Carlos last time we were in town, and I thought I could probably get us there. Instead, the guide who had taken a few drinks with us in Lagunas port a few days ago, was waiting at the port when we got off and offered to take us to a chicken place. First we had to refuse the taxi he had flagged for us, who wanted to charge four times the going rate, and negotiate our own, then the place he took us to was one of those standard menu del dia places of which I was thoroughly sick: a huge bowl of soup, a huge pile of rice, a huge pile of yuca or some other potato, and a teeny piece of low quality fried chicken. It just wasn't what I had been dreaming of after days of the same of worse in the jungle. To make matter worse he didn't even offer me any money when the other two paid me their share, after the waitress had mistakenly believed I intended to pay for everything. It wasn't much money, so I let it go and we said goodbye to him. When I told Maude she was furious: "these people - they only offer to help you so that they can get something out it for themselves!" She really didn't like Peruvians. On the other hand their disbelief at how the locals behaved here really made me look forward to Central America and Mexico.
A couple of hours in a taxi and we were in Tarapoto. We were only in Tarapoto to get buses out of there, so we asked the taxi driver to drop us at a hotel near the bus terminal. I had hoped for a little bit of luxury after slumming it in the jungle for so long, but this hotel was a real dump: no running water, no fan in the room, no internet of course: nothing! However, all was not lost: I still wanted the chicken of my dreams, so we asked about whether their was a polloria and found a place exactly like I had wanted. They rotisserie pollo a la brasa, sold as entero, medio, quarto, and even octavio. A big guy sitting at the next table gave us a "thumbs up" and pointed at his quarto, so I decided it must be enough for me too and very restrainedly ordered a quarter chicken. It was incredible.
The next morning I found out that the midday bus I had been planning to take to Piura was sold out but, they told me, there was another one leaving at 3pm although it wasn't up on their board. I was relieved because it was a long way to Cartagena where I was planning to meet Lucy, Zdenek, and the two girls for Christmas, and I didn't want to lose any more days. Oddly, and slightly suspiciously I thought at the time, the 3pm bus was due to arrive in Piura the same time as the midday bus had been due. I confirmed twice at the desk: ¿directo? and got the same response both times: ¡si, directo!. Now that Luis and especially Maude had pointed out what a bunch of liars and cheats the Peruvians are, it seemed to have got much worse for me: when I came to load my bag on the bus, the driver put a sticker for Chiclayo on it. There was a bus leaving for Chiclayo at 3pm on the board. ¿Necesito cambiar para Piura? I asked. ¡Claro! came the response.
I said goodbye to Maude and Luis, who were heading towards Bolivia as fast as they could, and got on the bus, thinking about what cheats and liars Peruvians are and how I, too, would be glad to leave the country as soon as possible. It was a shame to be leaving the Swiss couple, though, because I thought we had got on very well; but we had promised Scotland-Switzerland exchange trips when we return to Europe.
written by  The Happy Couple on December 18, 2009 from Tarapoto, Peru

Conchas Negras
Piura, Peru
The bus from Tarapoto seemed to be the slowest thing on the road: buses from every other company overtook in a constant stream, even lots of lorries overtook us while we were going uphill. It was clear that they lied a lot about the arrival time as well as the fact it was directo. There was no way I would get there in the same time as the other buses, let alone several hours faster. At 4am I saw a sign saying that we were still 280km from Chiclayo and they had told me I'd be in Piura for 7am. I seriously started to wonder if they had been telling the truth about it arriving at 7am, but had omitted the fact it was 7am plus one day.
Finally we arrived at Chiclayo about 10am, where I expected someone to point me at the Piura bus. Instead, the driver waved someone over, who was standing around the bus station, gave him S20 and said something to him. The man picked up my big rucksack without saying a word to me and started walking. I thought he must be taking me to the bus and the S20 was another matter entirely, but we walked right out of the bus station, at which point I realised we must have missed the bus, and instead I was being put in a taxi, after all S20 was too much for a bus to Piura, but we didn't walk to a taxi either. In fact we walked a couple of blocks down the road to a different bus station, where the man indicated I should wait with my bag while he stood in the ticket queue! When he got to the front, he waved me over so I could give my passport details then disappeared, leaving me confused and grasping my ticket.
I looked at the ticket and it said Sabado 11am. I couldn't believe it - they had screwed me over yet again! Now I was going to have to find a hotel in this town, which looked horrible from what I had seen, and fall a day behind, not to mention the extra expense and the fact I had been hoping to do some administration in a big town like Piura I probably wouldn't be able to do here! I was livid and I wasn't going to take it any more, so I marched up to the desk, ignoring the entire queue, and told her that I wanted to go hoy. She frowned then smiled. She pointed at the ticket and said Sabado gently, then diez y nueve, then once. It started to dawn on me and I asked ¿que hora es ahora? It was 10:40am and the bus was leaving in twenty minutes. The confusion when I arrived, the lack of sleep, the disorientaton caused by constantly arriving later than expected, and the fact it was very overcast, had all conspired to convince me that it was early evening. I was clearly moving too fast, but I still had plenty of ground to cover. I was going to be a real mess by the time I got to Cartagena.
The bus to Piura was a big improvement and we finally arrived about 2:30pm, just shy of 24 hours after I left Tarapoto and seven-and-a-half hours after the told me I would arrive. I had been planning to stay one night in Piura and deal with all the administration that was becoming increasingly urgent, but I had now lost almost a whole day since leaving the jungle. Daniel had sent me an email saying that he would be home by Thursday and I was welcome to stay at his place in Quito if I wanted to. I hadn't really planned to stop off in Quito, but it now seem like a great idea, and surely Quito was big enough to be able to send a fax? When I asked what buses were available into Ecuador, there was only one option: Guayaquil which my guidebook told me is the biggest city in Ecuador and not on the direct route through Ecuador I was planning to take. No matter: there would be plenty of buses to Quito from there I was promised. I booked it and went looking for my last cebiche before leaving Peru. I found a place where they were selling cebiche de conchas negras which I remembered some Peruvian raving about earlier in the trip. It was raw shellfish again, of course, but I had to try it and ordered one of the cebiche mixto dishes that included them. The cebiche was excellent, but I can't honestly say that the conchas negras were that special: all they did was make a purplish stain on my light-coloured shorts when I picked a shell up, spilling the juice.
Cebiche de conchas negras
Cebiche eaten I was now ready to leave Peru. The bus left at 6:30pm and I had paid for the good seats since I was so exhausted and they didn't actually cost much more than the cheaper ones. As we headed towards the border, I tallied up the time and realised that I had been in Peru substantially longer than any other country in the trip, which I thought was odd because, although it is a big country, I didn't feel like I had done that much, and I hadn't loved it the same way I had Nepal or Laos. But it did have Machu Picchu and the jungle which, though I was glad to leave by the end, I was very happy to have done because it made such a change after everything else we had done in South America. And, yes, it was more touristy, there was more English spoken (except in the jungle), and the locals seemed more gringo cynical than the South American countries we went to before Peru. And my biggest regret: I hadn't seen the mountains! The highest moutain range outside the Himalayas and I had passed it by, or at least missed it out because of bad weather and pressure to continue onwards.
Oh well, at least I had given Peru a fair chance, not like Ecuador which I was going to zip through in a couple of days, abandoning all the plans I had sketched out when finding out about Ecuador from Daniel and Nigel: treks up volcanos, surfing at the beach, treks in the mountains, and the jungle, which had been rendered obsolete by my visit to the Peruvian jungle.
written by  The Happy Couple on December 19, 2009 from Piura, Peru

Drive-thru Ecuador
Quito, Ecuador
On the bus from Piura was a group of very friendly and very lively Colombians. It was like a sign that I was doing the right thing to rush on to Colombia as soon as possible. At the beach town of Mancora, where all the others had gone after Huanchaco, a Canadian girl got on and we started talking. She was also heading to Quito, as it seemed was everyone else on the bus; why they don't have buses direct up the Panamerican Highway to Quito I do not understand. After we had gone through the border, the girl suggested that we stick together until Quito, to protect her from having to sit next to "thigh gropers" on the bus. I told her I was pleased that I didn't create the first impression of being a "thigh groper", to which she responded that I was harmless. I wasn't so pleased with that impression. It turned out that she was also heading to Colombia after a couple of days in Quito, but her destination was Medellin for Christmas, then she too was heading onto Cartagena for New Year.
We arrived at Guayaquil about 5:30am and were on our way again on a 6am bus to Quito. By late afternoon we were in Quito. Daniel had told me to send him a text when I arrived, which I did, but he wasn't responding. Great! I didn't know him that well, I supposed, but I didn't think he was that unreliable. Instead I took a taxi to the hostel the Canadian girl (yes, whose name I've forgotten) was staying in, reasoning that I could just stay there if it Daniel's place fell through completely. On the way I got a text from Daniel asking if I had arrived yet and realised that I hadn't received any delivery reports for the texts I had sent him. It costs far too much money to make even a short phone call from my UK mobile, so I went to an internet cafe while the Canadian was checking in, and sent Daniel a Facebook message, got a response, and managed to arrange that he would meet me at the hostel. After a drink, waiting with the Canadian for Daniel, she said that she was going to the internet too, but she'd be back soon because she wasn't "some major internet geek or anything". Daniel arrived soon after, with his wife and Chris, a friend of theirs. We had a drink and waited over an hour for the Canadian to return, but in the end I just left my email address at reception in case she wanted to go for a drink in Cartagena, and we left. Not some major internet geek, my arse!
Daniel and I went for a couple of drinks and the other two left. Ecuador does not seem to be cheap, despite both guide books having claimed it was the cheapest place after Bolivia on the continent. Quito was pleasantly cool after the jungle thanks to its altitude, despite being almost on the equator, and it seemed to have a good night life. Daniel, though, was ill, and though he was trying to put a brave face on it, clearly would rather have been in bed than in a pub. After Bolivia and Peru it was clear the ethnic mix in Ecuador was much more diverse, in fact I think it was more diverse than any country we went to in South America (with the exception, of course, of Brazil which we didn't see any of apart from Iguazu Falls). For the first time in my South America, there were significant numbers of black people, and there were lots of people of European origin again. I like seeing a lot of mixing, and what always seems nice in South America is that there appears to be very little racism, no matter what the mix; it's not like everywhere, I believe, in Asia, where "white skin in more beautiful" and all of the beauty products have skin lighteners: they don't exist in South America. This was definitely a pleasant surprise about South America: considering how much US culture they seem to have absorbed, I had expected the continent to be much more racist, but I think it's less racist than Europe.
Quito
Looking at the remainder of my journey to Cartagena more closely, I asked Joanne in a text to look for cheap flights within Colombia, which I had heard exist. She found a flight from Cali to Cartagena for only £78, which was definitely worth it, but I couldn't decide which day to leave; it depended on when the buses would get me into Cali. Instead of going directly to the bus company we knew could give us information, Daniel took me on a tour of agencies that only sold flights and knew nothing about buses, I think to save us the five-minute bus journey. When we finally got to the company we discovered that I wouldn't have time to see the old town and send my fax before catching the bus in time to fly the following day. I sent Joanne another text asking her to book the flight on the day after next, but the cheap flights had already sold out, leaving only the £142 flights, which didn't seem as obviously worth it at all. I was so annoyed: I hate these sneaky cheap flight websites! They always know when you are about to make your mind up and the fare you've been looking at for days disappears. There was still a cheap flight for the next day, but it would be a rush to catch it, I wouldn't see the old town, and my overdue fax would be delayed even more.
Quito old town
I cracked and decided just to splash out on the expensive flight, as a Christmas present to myself. Then I instantly regretted spending the money and I was in such a mood that I couldn't enjoy the old town anyway, when we went there. It just looked another boilerplate South American town. How many of these towns have I seen? One would have been enough: Buenos Aires and you don't need to see another town in South America, except maybe Colonia del Sacramento, which is a bit different from the standard model. A main square. A cathedral. Yawn. Even the local speciality desert, tres leches, did not cheer me up. Then back at Daniel's flat, Chris hogged Daniel's PC, so I didn't have time to write the letter I needed to fax and it was all a big waste of time spending the extra money and staying the extra night. I was in such a foul mood that I decided I must have had enough of travelling for me to over-react so much, and I should go home as soon as possible.
Quito main square
A really ugly building on Quito main square
Daniel in Quito main square
Tres leches
Next morning I got up early for the 7am bus to the border. This meant I would have loads of time hanging around, but I was feeling so defeated when I bought the ticket that I couldn't be bothered going to the extra effort required to leave at a different time: it would have meant going to the main bus station and back, just to buy it, then going there again when I wanted to leave. I couldn't be bothered. I just wanted to be home with my wife!
Once on the bus, I started to cheer up again: I was soon going to be in Colombia! Everyone I had met on the trip who had been to Colombia had loved it, so I was really looking forward to it.
written by  The Happy Couple on December 21, 2009 from Quito, Ecuador

Good Start in Colombia
Ipiales, Colombia
The bus from Quito arrived on time and getting stamped out of Ecuador was quick and easy; actually they print on your passport using a dotmatrix printer, rather than stamping, but it was trouble-free. Then I walked over the river to the Colombian side where there was a queue I estimated would take about fifteen minutes. In fact I think this was the slowest moving border queue of the whole trip and it took over an hour for me to get my entry stamp, which took all over ten seconds. The problem is that the locals need piles of documents to get out of the country, and the exit queue is the same as the entry queue. I suppose they are able to cross into Ecuador with only a identity card and no passport, but this means bringing a briefcase full of supporting letters and certificates.
I had changed enough of my "Ecuadorian" US Dollars at the border to pay for a collectivo to the town of Ipiales which is the first settlement after the border. Here I reckoned I could draw money from an ATM and pay for my bus Cali. Unfortunately, the border had taken so long that the day time buses had all departed, which meant I would have to get an overnight bus and waste the money already paid to reserve a room in a Cali hostel. I needed lunch after all that travelling, so I asked for salchipapas at a cafe in the bus station, because I had seen it everywhere in northern Peru and Ecuador and not tried it. I assumed it would be spicy sausage like salchicha and insisted I defintely wanted it when the girl behind the counter said it would take ten minutes. Meanwhile I went out to ask more companies about transport to Cali. I found one desk where they were selling minibus tickets, leaving at 4pm, which was twenty minutes time, but it wasn't supposed to be arriving until 4am. I couldn't understand this because the guide book said Cali was eight to ten hours from Ipiales by bus, so I asked the man why it wasn't arriving at 1am or 2am. He said that yes, it was possible we would arrive then, but he doesn't want to tell me that time, when there is also a chance we won't arrive until 4am; he didn't want to lie to me and make me angry, he said. What?! After Peru I couldn't believe what I was hearing. So I bought a ticket and rushed back to the cafe to eat my salchipapas, which was disgusting: the sausage was hotdog and the chips weren't even nice, but I didn't care because it was cheap and I was starving.
Salchipapas
I rushed to the bus and I was off again. So much travel, and this time so little space: a man and his small son were both sitting in the seat next to me.
written by  The Happy Couple on December 22, 2009 from Ipiales, Colombia

The trouble with blogging...
Kowloon, Hong Kong
Every night since we've arrived here I've intended to write a blog entry, but by the time all the photos have uploaded an hour and a half have passed and that is more than long enough to be spending on a computer while you are travelling.
It's happened again now. And I can't be bothered again. It's now 22:45 and I logged in at 21:04. I have to wait for letters to appear after every sentence I type. It's pathetic! In South Africa the computers were all decent, but the connection speed was appalling; here it's the other way around.
Anyway one day I will write an entry, but the way it's looking I wouldn't hold your breath. I would like to do something apart form sit in front of a PC!
OK, I'll try a quick summary...
Nope can't be bothered!
written by  The Happy Couple on January 19, 2009 from Kowloon, Hong Kong

Last Leg
Cali, Colombia
The minibus from Ipiales to Cali seemed to be going at a decent speed and I was sure we'd get to Cali at a sensible time, not the pessimistic 4am the ticket salesman had told me. But then there was a longish break for food. The prices were reassuringly low, which was one of the many things I had been looking forward to about Colombia; whereas the guide books said that Ecuador was the second cheapest South American country after Bolivia, which I now knew was a lie, the travellers I had met who had been in Colombia said it was the second cheapest after Bolivia.
Despite the cramped conditions, I managed to get some sleep after a couple of Colombian beers with my food, but I woke late at night and saw people frowning and looking under the minibus. We had stopped at another roadside cafe place, but we had stopped for repairs not for food this time. Outside the cafe there was a table with some people I recognised from my bus, already quite full of empty beer bottles, so I got off and joined them. The Spanish was getting harder to understand again but, despite my inability to communicate more than the basics, everyone was very friendly, and we sat around drinking and laughing for more than an hour while they worked on the bus. When it was time to leave I tried to pay for the four beers I had drunk, but the waitress said that I only needed to pay for the one I had asked for, because the rest had already been paid for. Apparently the guys who had been collecting handfuls of beer and handing them around had paid for them all. Amazing! In Peru, the asusmption was always that the gringo would pay, and now in Colombia, they hadn't even asked me to pay for my own.
Strange corn and egg snack with beer
I had been in Colombia for less than a day and already I could see why people liked it: the people are very friendly and sociable, they don't seem to treat you differently because you are a tourist, and another thing I noticed is that everyone seems to start speaking using the familiar form of the verb, which I think seems more friendly rather than rude, which I suppose is the argument against it. I don't think I've yet heard anyone using usted in Colombia. And where there had been a broader ethnic mix in Ecuador than the Southern Cone, the Bell Curve seemed even wider in Colombia: it really is a "rainbow nation".
Posh Colombian beer
Back on the road, I finally listened to the last "unlistened" track on my mp3 player. Eight GB really is a lot of data: it took more than one year of travelling to listen to everything once. OK obviously I listened to some things more than once, but for the last several months I had only been listening to the "songs not yet heard" playlist.
At 4am, almost to the second, we arrived in Cali, just as the ticket salesman had predicted. I suppose they must have breakdowns so often that they feel they have to factor them into the schedules; in Peru, of course, the schedule assumes that there are no breakdowns, there are no other vehicles on the road, the engine is at peak performance, there is no extra weight from passengers, and there is a 100 mph tailwind the whole way. Despite the email I had asked in a text for Joanne to send, the hostel was all locked up when I got there at 4:30am. But after some persistent knocking a woman came to the door and let me in.
Joanne had booked me a dorm bed, because a private room was much dearer, but the dorm was really only a triple room and it had nobody else in it. Nice.
Since Joanne isn't here to photo the grafitti
Grafitti
In the morning I discovered there were only two other people staying in the hostel, which was more like a nice big house. I tried to have a conversation in Spanish with one of the other guests, until he eventually asked me if I spoke English. He was Israeli, and he seemed perplexed that I hadn't spoken English to him straight away. "Why were you trying to speak Spanish to me?" he asked. Sure, if I'd known he was Israeli I'd have spoken English to him, but how was I supposed know where he was from? I was just following almost everyone else's good example of at least starting in Spanish in a Spanish speaking country on a predominantly Spanish speaking continent.
Crumbly house across the road from hostel
Hostel
The woman who ran the hostel was very friendly and seemed surprised that I was leaving Cali so soon, when the Cali Festival was about to start. She told me it's a beautiful place, particularly during the festival, but I didn't have time to see much of Cali at all: I just had time to find a place where I could finally send an international fax, hopefully securing me enough money from the bank so that I wouldn't have to beg to save up for my flight home.
On hostel wall
Hostel living room
My mum has this same clock
Another Colombian beer
Then it was a bus to the airport for my expensive flight to Cartagena, via Medellin. I was really looking forward to the flight after so much bus travel. There was a time earlier in the trip when I didn't ever want to get on a plane again, but the South American buses had cured me of that. I was a bit shocked when I saw the plane though: it was barely bigger than the light aircraft we had our tour of the Nazca Lines in. OK, it was bigger, but it was only four seats across, and it didn't even have proper engines: it was just a prop-jet! I started wondering what Colombian air safety statistics were like.
After only a 45 minute flight we landed at Medellin, where I hoped we would be changing to a bigger plane but, despite making me get off and go through the transfers process, I returned to the same plane and a stewardess laughed when she saw me getting back on the plane for some reason. Perhaps it was because I had drawn attention to myself by asking if they had any alcoholic drinks on board (they didn't, and there was no meal or snack privided either).
Another hour-and-a-bit later and we landed in Cartagena. Finally! After one week of travelling almost non-stop from Lagunas in the jungle of Peru, with most of those nights sleeping on transport, I was finally at my destination and I had made it to my friends in time for Christmas.
written by  The Happy Couple on December 23, 2009 from Cali, Colombia

Last full day in Hong Kong (hopefully)
Kowloon, Hong Kong
It was never our intention to stay very long in Hong Kong. We're coming back here on the way out of China after our second entry (assuming we can get the visa, but more about that later), so I reasoned that if we liked it more than I expected we can just stay longer the second time.
Hong Kong is more-or-less as I expected: a commercialised UK with Chinese writing, although I had expected super-fast broadband. I had also been prepared for bad news on the cost of beer; the beer in this photo cost over 10 pounds. At least the peanuts were free! In fact that was yesterday, and the first time we have bought any beer in a bar.
Joanne in the Hong Kong Brew House
Until then all we had done was walk into a bar, see that the happy hour price for a draught beer was about £5 and walk back out again. But the guide book suggested the Hong Kong Brew House, and earlier on that day I sampled one of their micro-brewed beers from a shop (for substantially less money).
Nice microbrewed beer (available in the Hong Kong Brew House)
So all the drinking we've done here so far has been in our room. You can buy "quarts" (640ml) of OK beer from a supermarket for about 50p, so considering how tight our budget is this was the only realistic option. Only after we booked our hostel on-line did we realise that it was in one of the two buildings specifically recommended against in the guide: Chungking Mansions and ours, Mirador Mansion.
The appropriately named Mirador "Mansion"
And here's a little selection of photos from our first room.
And here's the Mansion from the internal courtyard and from the street.
Both Chungking and Mirador are in the Kowloon district of Hong Kong, which is on the mainland of Hong Kong (it's not just an island as I had thought) and apparently Kowloon used to be the most densely populated place on the planet. Some information I read in our hostel boasts that tourists staying there can experience the authentic life of 70% of Hong Kong locals, who live in this style of building.
This style of building is like an entire city under on roof. When you enter the buliding on the ground floor, after battling past the people asking "foot massage", "copy watch, copy bag" and "nice suit, tailor", you see corridors and corridors, set out rather like streets, of shops selling all sorts of stuff: electronics, curios, take-away food, clothes -- it looks a bit like a market. Then there are very very slow lifts, which complain when they are overweight -- usually after I get in! The lifts usually come in sets of four, each on stopping only at every 4th floor, presumably to ease the congestion, but it doesn't work; there is always a queue to get into the lift, and the last person ends up tip-toeing around the floor to try and find the spot which will not set off the overweight alarm. On the upper floors there are plenty of residential apartments, lots of hostels (at least in Chungking and Mirador), laundrettes, restaurants, internet cafes (where I am now), and an occasional shop, but most of the shops are on the ground floor. It's pretty grotty, but it is quite cool. Our room costantly smells of different food depending, I assume, on which take-away is cooking at that moment. It's got more than a hint of Bladerunner about it.
When we first arrived they manouvered us into a bigger room than we had booked, but it had two single beds which we did not think appropriate for a honeymoon, and it was just a bit too horrible; so we got moved into what was probably the room originally reserved for us, but it hadn't been ready when we arrived. The room we are in now is tiny. It is exactly the same width as the double bed, which is handy because it means you don't lose things down the side of it. Which is just as well because the rest of the room is so small that you constantly have to use the bed to put things on. It does have an ensuite, as booked, but it's a shower-cum-toilet affair with no extractor fan. However the lack of extactor fan does not matter because we have the huge luxury of a small window, which our first room did not have, and I imagine is quite rare.
Anyway, I'm hoping soon my style will settle down a bit and I will start telling you things you actually want to know.
The first impression I had of Hong Kong on the bus on the way to Kowloon from the airport was that there is a lot of impressive engineering: loads of skyscrapers and some very long and intricate looking bridges. The next impression was just how commercial the place is: people hassling you in the street trying to sell you things, and loads of huge signs sticking out from the buldings, advertising what they are.
It's a commercial place
Bowingly apologetic worker
Then I started to notice the amusing things like bowing apologising signs
We haven't actually had much time to do anything here yet. Most of our time has been spent trying to organise China. We've been trying to organise somewhere to stay via couchsurfing, transport, and our visa. Not organising the visa in advance was a big mistake. There seems to be a mark-up of about 400% when going through the travel agents to obtain a visa, however it was the only way we felt likely to succeed. We should be getting our visas at 6pm tonight; two working days from when we handed our passports over on Sunday. If we had our visas in advance we'd have already left Hong Kong but arriving on Saturday night meant we would lose two days before we could apply. Also, they've apparently "run out" of 6-month visas, which is what we need, since we're flying into Beijing from Tokyo in June. This means we've had to shell out £80 each for a single entry 1 month visa, currently with no idea how we'll get the second vias we will now need. Apparently foreigners can't get them in Japan, so we we'll have to see if we can get it in India, or else we'll have to re-route.
The second oversight on our part was not finding out that Chinese New Year is very soon. Oh lovely, you might think. Chinese New Year is the largest human migration on the Earth. This means we can't book train tickets to get out of this place, even if we do get a visa which, in turn means that we can't organise our accommodation since we don't know when we'll be able to get there.
Anyway, all being well, we'll get our visas tonight, get the local train to the border tomorrow morning, where you can walk across the border to Shenzhen, where we can hopefully get a bus to Guangzhou, where we have a couchsurfing contact. Guangzhou is a big place (although I think it's only middling-to-large by Chinese standards) and we've been warned of the pick-pocketing there, but we'll be meeting someone who knows the place, so hopefully it'll be ok. After staying there for a couple of days, soaking in the China-ness (apparently it's nothing at all like Hong Kong), we plan to move onto Guilin and Yangshuo, probably to spend New Year there. I think transport to there is going to be tricky, because then we'll be moving away from big industial places where people work, towards pretty little rural places, where peoples families live.
So yesterday, after sorting the visa application out, we finally got around to doing some touristy things and seeing some of the place. We got the ferry across to Hong Kong island, which is the original British colony, to get the Peak Tram up to Victoria Peak. The tram route is very steep, quite impressive considering it was opened in 1888. Scottish engineering of course! Apparently at that time land was already running out in Hong Kong and they wanted to open up the higher parts of the island. The tram precipitated the rapid population of the upper parts by rich colonialists. It looked to us like they are still the ones living there, although there are also expensive hotels now too. After taking this rather nice historical tram (new carriages though) up a roller-coaster-like ascent, we were again face-to-face with the commericalism of Hong Kong: the whole of the top of this peak is covered in a mall and several restaurants. And to get to the Peak Tower with the viewing platform at the very top it costs the same as the tram just to go up the final escalator. Still, the city-scape views were very nice.
And now with Sunglasses!
On the way back from that we managed to get another tourist activity in and watch the symphony of lights. The harbours on the Kowloon side and the Hong Kong Island side both have tall buildings flashing lights down their sides, and lasers from their tops, all "in time" to music blasting out from boat on the water between. Quite impressive. Another I've been noticing here is the advanced technology, not that much of it, but there are some things -- another is the Octopus card which is like an Oyster card in London apparently.
Symphony of lights
written by  The Happy Couple on January 20, 2009 from Kowloon, Hong Kong

Christmas in Cartagena
Cartagena, Colombia
When I arrived at the apartment in Cartagena everyone was a bit subdued because they'd had a big night the night before. Also, Zdenek, Lucy, Natasha, and Silvie, who I was expecting to be there, had been joined by a further two people, to reduce costs they explained: two young Swedish guys, Andrew, and one whose name I never really got so I can't remember it. The apartment was in Bocagrande, which is an upmarket waterfront suburb of Cartagena, full of high-rise apartment blocks; and it was a very nice place, with a great view. However it wasn't cheap. Ah well, I thought, it is for Christmas after all.
View from apartment at night
Cartagena, I noticed quite quickly, is hot and humid. It felt more or less the same as the jungle climate I had left behind a week previously. Unfortunately, my phone, which had begun working properly again after I left the jungle, also soon noticed that the climate was like the jungle and started overheating and losing power really quickly again. Since then my phone has been nearly useless, which means I've not been able to use it to keep track of what I'm doing or take blog notes, so I'll probably miss lots of details out from now on, which surely can't be a bad thing?
Zdenek offered to take me for a quick walk around the old town to introduce me to the place, but it was only brief taxi journey there to walk around, and we didn't even stop anywhere for a drink. Already, though, I was noticing that most of the people in Cartagena seemed to be very well turned out and it was full of large expensive cars. I was beginning to suspect we had come to a rich people's playground for Christmas.
The beach across the road
View by day
The following day, Christmas Eve, we visited the supermarket and bought just about everything in the shop. We went a bit crazy but we were all keen to capture as much of the magic of Christmas so far away from home and our loved ones, so we made sure we had fizzy wine and plenty of other booze, but also blue cheese, which isn't very common in South America, nuts, some cake, little sausages to wrap in bacon, and all the other Christmas essentials. We did at least draw the line at the massive turkeys they had, settling instead for a large chicken. It was clear that the two Swedes had different ideas about how to run Christmas, though, and they preferred to keep their shopping separate. We were spending a lot but, I told myself again, it was Christmas, wasn't it?
Parrillada
That night we went out for dinner at a parrillada in the local area. The prices were a bit high but, I told myself, it was Christmas. The Swedish boys wouldn't cave, though, and got their food from MacDonald's or some other take-away; Andrew was actually starting to sound like he had some sort of eating disorder because he only seemed happy to eat a very limited range of food and what they had on offer here, bits of cooked animal, was just too "yucky" for him, since he seems to only like it minced up into burgers and sausages. In fact, when my full parrillada arrived I too briefly had second thoughts: not only was it huge, but it included some long wiggly thing that looked suspiciously like it might be intestines; I remembered that the fact a parrillada always seems to include intestines is the main reason I had not so far ordered it, despite being surrounded by suitable places in Argentina, and frequently since. I thought I might as well try it since it was sitting in front of me and I was surprised to discover it wasn't too bad, at least nothing like as bad as tripe usually is, but maybe that's because tripe isn't usually barbecued until crispy, so that it becomes reminiscent of crackling.
The counter just needed a prop to go on it
Genuine I think and much cheaper than UK
On Christmas morning I got up quite early so that I could take my laptop to the MacDonald's where there was wifi for me to Skype Joanne and my mum. I was a bit too keen and the manager seemed not to have turned up on time with the keys because lots of staff were sitting around outside waiting. While I was waiting someone offered to sell me some Cuban cigars, which he claimed were on promoción. They seemed quite cheap and he happily lowered the price by half in response to some mild haggling, making me thing I should have aimed lower, but it was Christmas after all. I returned to the flat for breakfast and Buck's Fizz. We had decided to use the cheapest bottle of fizz for this, which was Colombian, but it really was terrible; even with the orange juice it was still pretty horrible, although the orange juice itself was also disgusting, in fact I think it might have been the biggest problem: the carton proudly proclaimed it to be lactose-free, which you would have thought went without saying on orange juice, until you remember the strange South American habit of adding water or milk to fruit juice - and always sugar, of course, because fruits just aren't sweet enough are they? Well, in this case, they had helpfully substituted the absolutely necessary milk with... soya milk! Yum yum, and now we had it in our very bad Colombian sparkling wine; I drank most of everyone else's as well as my own.
Natasha opens the first fizz
The girls sit down to a bucks fizz breakfast
After breakfast, I finally got into MacDonald's, ordered a coffee, and proceeded to call my loved ones using Skype. The place was jam-packed with noisy hyper-active spoiled little brats and their bored-looking parents, who seemed totally unwilling to control their progeny. At least I was able to download a Christmas album as a surprise for Lucy, who had complained that Christmas music was the one thing missing, and it wouldn't be Christmas without it. The conversations were a bit frustrating with all the noise, but it was just about enough to make up for not being there.
Prawn cocktail and avocado to start
Xmas dinner nearly assembled
When we were nearing the end of our conversation I got a text from Lucy, as my phone hadn't quite run down yet, telling me that food was nearly ready. The girls had done all of the preparation work, so I was glad to be able to complete the experience by putting on The Best Christmas Album In The World Ever with aplomb. The girls had done a great job and we tucked into huge amounts of food and booze, including some much nicer sparkling wine, not from Colombia, all accompanied by cheesy Christmas classics and a couple of Cuban cigars, until, near the end of CD2 my laptop screen suddenly went blank and the music was also frozen on one particular note. When I rebooted the machine it wasn't working; the thing would go on, but Windows didn't get very far into the boot-up process. Not more hassle! Was this the effect of humidity as well? What about my photos and my blogs, and using it for wifi? Someone sensibly advised me to forget about it until the next day.
Lucy carves as Zdenek poses
Not bad for being so far from home
Xmas dinner hits the spot
So apart from the laptop it was a very lovely and successful Christmas day. Unfortunately the next day we had to move out of the apartment because the price was nearly doubling in preparation for the New Year period. Amazingly, Lucy and Zdenek had got up earlier than me on Christmas morning and had found us a new place to move to on Boxing Day.
Everyone but me
Still there after plenty of rum and beer
Cake at last
written by  The Happy Couple on December 25, 2009 from Cartagena, Colombia

New Year in Cartagena
Cartagena, Colombia
The castle from the apartment at night
The apartment we moved to on Boxing Day was a bit closer to the centre of town, but essentially it was still in Bocagrande, which meant that the beaches were still easy walking distance, but I hoped we might be able to spend some time in the old town, which includes a cheaper backpacker district. In fact we just kept going out in Bocagrande, which really is very expensive, and it has none of the charm of the old town. Once you get past the nice views because you are twenty floors up, Bocagrande really doesn't have much going for it: it's full of tower blocks and horrible people, who won't even slow their expensive cars to let you cross the road, on their way to parking them right up on the pavement so that you can't walk anywhere. OK there is also the beach, but it's not the nicest of beaches, and I really need to spend a lot of time in the gym before I would feel like spending any time on a beach, for fear that I might be harpooned.
View across the bay from new apartment
View towards central Bocagrande
Quite soon I was regretting having agreed to the extra twelve days, in the second flat, in Cartagena. There was a dance music festival on the 6th January which we had all wanted to go to, but even before New Year I was utterly sick of getting wasted and staying up most of the night at terrible clubs you have to pay to get in all for the privilege of paying crazy money for the drinks and listening to terrible loud music. Bocagrande is not my sort of place at all. And of course, because we were up so late we never managed to do any touristy things like go to the castle or walk around the old town during the day. At least we could see the castle from the window at night.
View towards Bocagrande at night
View across the bay at night
Lucy and Natasha on the beach
Another thing spoiling my time was wasting so much of it on trying to fix the laptop. I kept going to the internet cafe to look online for solutions. Eventually I gave up on Windows and downloaded a miniature Linux install, which is easily small enough to run from my USB key, without even needing installed. I couldn't get the sound or camera working, and the resolution wouldn't go higher than 800x600 but it would be enough to deal with my photos (stretched wider at that resolution) and write blog entries. Finally on Hogmanay I joined the others on the beach, which made a nice change, but after a couple of hours I'd had enough. I don't know how I used to lie on the beach for hours on end, because I really don't like it now. The sea I enjoy, but beaches are just covered in sand, which gets everywhere. On the beach I realised that the birds flying up and down the waves were not seagulls as I had assumed, but pelicans, which are much nicer and perform frequent impressive dives into the water for fish.
The beach on Hogmanay
A bird on the beach
Bocagrande from the beach
We had been given a leaflet by someone running a free New Year party selling cheap beer, which sounded like it had great music, and much more the type of event I enjoy. The only problem was that it was fifty kilometres away, or an hour in a bus. Natasha and Silvie seemed quite keen as well, but when we put the idea to Lucy she wasn't keen at all because of the distance. Zdenek was sure that there would be parties on the beaches round about where we were, so that became the vague plan for the evening. It was very nice to be with friends over Christmas, but I was really beginning to see the disadvantages in staying as a big group. However I had paid the exorbitant rent, so I was stuck with my rash decision.
Across the bay to a blue moon rising
Blue moon rising over el club nautico
The moon
Again
Zdenek suggested staying longer in the apartment to save money, and do most of our drinking before we went out. Most people in Cartagena don't seem to go out until after midnight anyway, so it certainly made sense. He went into dangerous barman mode and kept plying us with shots of rum, while we watched the incredible blue moon rising over bay and the city.
Blue moon risen
The new apartment
Zdenek dishes out the shots
Cheers!
Finally, after the bells, we were sufficiently mashed that we felt it would be sensible to go outside. There were no parties on the beach and all of the clubs were asking for outrageous covers. Zdenek was absolutely certain that there was a party near an after-hours club out of town that we had been to a couple of times and he really liked; he had noticed late night parties from the taxi on the way there, which he thought had been running every night since Christmas, so we got a taxi right out of town to this beach and there was nothing happening there either, although there was an unlit empty stage still there from the previous nights.
Lucy and Zdenek dressed up. OK maybe just Lucy.
The ladies are ready - just as soon as they've drunk their pina coladas
Andrew likes Silvie's look
Maybe too many shots?
It was far too early for the after hours club to be open, but we didn't just want to pay for a taxi back to town - for what? - so Zdenek knocked on the door and they were happy enough to let us in. We ordered a bottle of rum and drank it slowly, totally on our own for a couple of hours until a trickle of people started to come in. It did eventually fill up and we had a good night, but I have no doubts that the free party out of town would have been much better - and cheaper. But I hadn't been on my own, so other people had to be taken into account, also I didn't really want to be a party-pooper and go off on my own, although the Swedes had disappeared early on in the night and done their own thing, but they were a team beforehand, whereas my partner in mischief had gone back to Scotland.
Last photo before we head out
written by  The Happy Couple on January 1, 2010 from Cartagena, Colombia

Arrived in China!
Guangzhou, China
Well we got our Chinese visas yesterday evening and got the bus from Hong Kong to Guangzhou today. We even did it the brave, cheap, confusing way by getting on the bus at the last minute, at the more Chinese end of town where all the destinations were only in Chinese characters... but only had to pay HK$80 instead HK$190, which we'd have had to pay if we'd booked the more touristy bus in advance.
So far our experience of Guangzhou has been excellent, especially after a few people in Hong Kong warned us what a dangerous place it was. The bus stopped at a bus station outside the town, but our ticket said the stop was Guangdong Guest House, which we thought we had established was in Guangzhou when we bought the ticket at the bus, so we did not get off there. While we were parked and other people we getting off, a woman standing by the bus luggage compartment started to wave at me on the bus, and point to the compartment, shaking her head and waving no to someone. Obviously someone was trying to take my bag off and she recognised it as mine and warned me. By the time I was getting off the bus some other nice people had got involved and rescued the bags. That was nice.
Then there followed a good half hour of anxiety as we worried whether we should have got off there after all, but what little communication we were able to manage seemed to suggest that we were still ok for our stop, but I was imagining that we'd be dropped somewhere well beyond Guangzhou with no way of getting back, since the ticket did not say where the Guest House actually is.
The next stop was Guangdong Guest House where the driver seemed glad that these idiots were finally getting off his bus in the right place. Although it is called a guest house it is in fact a very large and posh looking hotel. Our mission was to get a chinese sim card, contact Pietro, our first couchsurfing host, and somehow work out were we were and how to get to him. We do not have a China guidebook, and oversight we should have corrected in Hong Kong, where all the hostels were selling the guides you can also borrow; this did not occur to me until we were on the bus.
On the grounds of the Guest House, just where the bus had stopped there was a small travel agent, so we tried there for a map. Bingo! A person who can speak a bit of English. We managed to get a map, and rough instructions for getting the metro to the area where Pietro lives. The guy in the travel agency was really helpful, and I was already starting to like Guangzhou people and think that this stuff about it being dangerous was nonsense. So we set off towards the metro, looking for 7/11s on the way, where Pietro had said we should be able to get a sim.
A couple of streets along we spotted one down a side street and headed in. It did not seem like the sort of place where people would speak English so I got out my Cantonese phrase book (almost useless without being able to hear what the different tones should sound like) and practiced. Luckily the tones involved were high-rising, and high -- the two it gives examples where similar sounds are produced in English. I think we communicated. I think she said "no we don't have any sim cards".
So we headed across the street to get some food at a little takeaway / sit-in restaurant. We hadn't yet eaten that day because we'd been in such a hurry to check out then get to the bus, but it was already about 5pm! It wasn't obvious how the eating place worked, where you order, what was on the menu, or anything! So I walked up to a woman sitting at a desk, but it could have been just where you pay when you leave. She sensed my cluelessness and very deliberately ignored me. After a minute of hovering around I gave up and sat down. Amazingly a young guy came up to our table and said "do you need some help?"
He put our order in for us (it was the woman at the desk he gave it to) and then sat and ate with us, speaking about what we were doing and what on earth we are doing in this town where no tourists come, but particularly this area, where they never see tourists. I told him our plan, and he helped us get a sim card, helped us get the metro, gave us his number and said if you ever need a translator just call me and I'll speak to them. What a nice guy!
By this time I'd been in touch with Pietro again, who said we should find our way to the Starbucks near the metro stop as it was halfway to his place; he would be there a bit later as he was giving a cooking lesson at the moment. We found our way there and just sat down for a couple of hours, glad of the rest after a slightly frantic day. Eventually Pietro turned up and took us to his apartment. What a lovely place! It's huge, especially after the little box we were staying in, in Hong Kong. He also seems a very nice guy, very relaxed, and who seems to really enjoy hosting people. On the first shot the couchsurfing has certainly worked out well. More of that to come I think.
Anyway, must go an do something (I'm actually writing this the next day, and we've not yet had our dimsum for breakfast). If anyone wants to call or text, my phone number in China is +8613026893295.
written by  The Happy Couple on January 21, 2009 from Guangzhou, China

A Birthday in Cartagena
Cartagena, Colombia
Immediately after New Year is Lucy's birthday. Her intention had been to visit the nearby Tutomo, el Volcan de Lodo for her birthday, but this would have meant getting up quite early on her birthday, and since she didn't emerge from their room at all on New Year's Day this was clearly not going to happen.
Lucy's birthday cake
She managed to get up for some birthday cake about midday , after which we finally made the journey to the old town to see the walls while it was still daylight. Just. Near the centre of the old town there is a statue of India Catalina, whose claim to fame is betraying her own people and helping the Spanish defeat the natives they encountered there. I'm not quite sure why she is venerated.
India Catalina
The walls
The walls in sunset
Inside of the walls
Sunset
Kite surfer in the sunset
We continued to the walled part of the city and took a little walk around. Silvie commented that the walls weren't very impressive by the standards of some other walled cities she had been to, and didn't think they would do much of a job of keeping invaders out. True, it's no Great Wall, and at points it does look like you would only need a puddy up, but the walls are wide enough to have large numbers of soldiers marching up and down, which is what I supposed they must have done. Soon the sun set and we entered the walled part of the city to wander around. Old Cartagena really is beautiful and it reminded me of nice bits of Barcelona, with the multitude of plazas. The bit inside the inner walls, though, is almost as expensive as Bocagrande, so when we stopped off at Cafe del Mar for a birthday drink for Lucy it had to be one only.
Horse and carriage through the old town
Cartagena
At Cafe del Mar
On the way home we passed loads of kitsch Christmas decorations and booked our tour to the volcan de lodo at a tourist office on the main road to Bocagrande. Then it was an early night so we could get up for the tour, Lucy having rolled her birthday over to the next day; something tells me she does this every year, but who can blame her when it's the 2nd January?
Hard Rock Cafe
Xmas decorations
More Xmas decorations
That thing in the middle is Jesus, not a snowman, apparently
The Swedes hadn't come out with us, but didn't seem interested in the mud volcano anyway.
Mud volcano!
I wasn't that excited myself, having already had a mud bath in Vietnam, and been to several hot springs. However when we arrived I saw that it was completely different: the volcano-shaped thing was clearly made out of concrete, although I've since read that it is a natural phenomenon I can't really believe it, and everyone queues up to go into the same mud bath, which is in the crater, as it were, of the volcano. This made it a bit cramped, mind you, and we had to queue a while to get in, by which time I was thinking I would really rather not, as it looked like the whole point was the massages they expected you to take for extra money, but the couple of massages I watched from the rim of the crater didn't look like they were any good.
People after the mud volcano
Eventually it was our turns to go in and when a masajista de lodo grabbed me and asked me to lie back I told him no quiero masaje and he shoved me in the other direction. It was completely different to the previous mud bath: this mud was very thick and it was too deep to touch the bottom, so we were suspended there, helpless. Over the next fifteen minutes or so we slowly drifted away from the ladders we came down, towards the other ladders. I think it happened just because of pressure from the new people coming in behind us, as well as a kind of vacuum left by the people ahead climbing up the stairs.
On the way to the lagoon to wash off
Finally we made it out, completely covered head-to-toe in the sticky mud, and waddled off down to the lagoon to wash off. Not exactly a wonderful experience, but strange and fun nonetheless. On the way home they stopped off for lunch really near to Zdenek's favourite after-hours club, and left us on the beach for two hours without telling us what was going on. After standing around for a while, people eventually got bored and started swimming or sunbathing.
When we got back, I tried desperately to contact Joanne, because it was also our first anniversary that Lucy had hijacked by spilling her birthday over into the next day. Nothing: no email, no chat, not responding to texts. I went to bed depressed. What an anniversary!
I had to take a photo - they were always like this
Then it was a few days more of the same: late nights, in particular "one last night out" happened a couple of times, the Swedish boys never seeming to do anything except for sleep, until finally it was time to leave and I went into the old town to try and find out about a boat to Panama. Several people heading south had told me that they took a boat through the Canal, past the San Blas Islands, and onto Cartagena; everyone had said it was fantastic, but I spent all day and hadn't been able to find a boat that included the Canal part of the trip. Eventually the hostels I was asking in told me that I should go to the Club Nautico and ask there. I didn't have time; I needed to get to Santa Marta that night, and hopefully begin a Ciudad Perdida trek the next day. Hanging around the hostel area for a day, I really regretted not having been there the whole time I was in Cartagena: the area is just outside the inner walls and nothing like as well maintained, but it has a nice, old, shabby charm to it - and it's much cheaper.
I had to leave without organising a boat, deciding i would go directly to Club Nautico when I returned from the Lost City. An absolute planning disaster and misreading of the guidebook caused me to get on the wrong bus: instead of a bus going to Barranquilla, halfway to Santa Marta, I had got on a bus to La Boquilla, which was the very same small fishing port we had been taken for lunch after the volcan de lodo. I'm not sure how it happened, but it was probably just not paying enough attention and the fact they are mentioned on consecutive pages in the Lonely Planet. After changing buses another three times, I was finally on a direct bus to Santa Marta, far too late to sensibly arrive and organise accommodation.
written by  The Happy Couple on January 6, 2010 from Cartagena, Colombia

Weather
Yangshuo, China
I really wanted to write another long entry here to cover all of the missing days, and also cover a topic or two that I've not really given the time they deserve: food for example; but I've just spent an hour trying to work out how I might upload photos, but to no avail! Now I have lost my impetus, and bed beckons. For ages I've not been able to upload because I didn't bring my USB cable, and card readers are not as common as I'd hoped, so I bought one yesterday; however the computer here only speaks chinese and I can't get it to use my card reader!
To give a brief summary for the moment, our experience of China so far has been superb, and any fear of danger is the result of Asians not understanding how dangerous, by comparison, western cities are, or the result of Hong Kongese (?) being a little bit bigoted, I think. Everywhere we've been, our obvious helplessness has (sofartouchwood) not been taken advantage of, but has prompted strangers who do speak english to help us, without which we might not have been able to buy a ticket for the bus, get on the right bus, get off at the right stop, buy a sim card, buy food, etc etc.
The other striking thing about China has been the technological level. As far as I can see, any western talk of China "catching up" is now utter guff. We have so far seen nothing to suggest that they are "behind", and I wonder how long it will be before pundits realise they should be talking about the west "not being left too far behind".
Anyway, that's enough for now... I must go to bed and prepare for a bike tour tomorrow.
Oh yeah! This entry's called "weather" -- it's bloody breezing here! We weren't really prepared for this. I was beginning to wonder if all the warm stuff that was taking up loads of space in my bag was a total waste of space, but I'm glad I didn't send any home from South Africa because I'm wearing it ALL now and I'm indoors! That's thermals, two fleeces, and army socks, on top of what I've been wearing up until now. My basic mistake was to think we arrive in Hong Kong (it never gets too cold there) then we head south to Vietnam, where it never gets cold. Kind of true, but when we decided where was actually worth going in south China, Guangzhou and then Yangshuo, on the way to going south, we've actually gone something like North-West, right into a cold snap. Brrr!
written by  The Happy Couple on January 25, 2009 from Yangshuo, China

Boots
Santa Marta, Colombia
After my wrong-bus disaster leaving Cartagena I arrived in Santa Marta at nearly 11pm and asked the taxi driver to take me to the cheapest place listed in the Lonely Planet, just hoping that they would have a bed for me, since I had not made a reservation. I was out of luck but they were very nice and told me that I could leave my bag while I looked for other accommodation, and if I had no joy I could sleep in the lobby. There were a couple of Doric columns in the lobby I was sure I could make good use of with my hammock, and reckoned that my time in the jungle meant that I would be able to make a very comfortable bed for the night; however I pushed on out into the night and tried every nearby hotel and hostel. They were all full. A Colombian geezer spotted me going in and out of hostels and offered to find me somewhere to stay, and without me saying anything followed me around the streets, occasionally asking people sitting outside if I could sleep at their place, to which the only response he got was along the lines of "are you kidding? - he's only one and I could fit five gringos in there!" so in the end I decided to go back to point A, when my geezer told me he wanted a propina for helping me find accommodation; it was all I could do to stop him coming to where my bag was and claiming commision for finding it, so suddenly I wasn't able to speak any Spanish at all, in particular I found the word propina very hard to understand.
Back at the hostel, they had new plans for me: I was taken through to a back room where there were already several hammocks with people in them, as well as some mattresses on the floor, one of which was mine. It was only a piece of foam, but I had slept in New Zealand hostels and it wasn't going to be any worse than their foam mattresses. Of the group sharing the newly converted public area with me, the two girls were also planning a trip to the Ciudad Perdida, starting the day after next, when two other friends would be arriving after extensively researching the best company with whom to do the tour. I had done no research and, although the hostel had offered me a tour beginning the next day, I was unable to go as I did not yet have appropriate footwear, so I said I'd be glad to join them, thus saving myself the effort of doing any research or risking a terrible company. Besides they seemed quite nice for Australians.
Next day I spent the entire time looking for places to buy shoes and trying to find somewhere that could unlock the locked Mexican phone I had swapped with Maude, in the Peruvian jungle, for the incorrect frequency band, but otherwise identical, Thai phone; my good phone was well and truly dead: even plugged in it was struggling to stay on. I completed all my missions, even finding nail-clippers, which I had recently realised Joanne had taken with her, leaving me with no means to prevents my own toenails from cutting my feet while trekking. The shoe shop was a bit of an ordeal and the only affordable shoes that fitted me and seemed vaguely appropriate were a pair of desert boots. I have to emphasise that I have never before owned desert boots and it was only dire straits that brought about this recent state of affairs. Back at the hostel, they had spotted a money-making opportunity and everyone was hard at work, cutting mattress-sized bits of foam from huge slabs while other sewed covers over them. Clearly they were planning to put gringos on every flat surface in the hostel and charge then ten thousand pesos, which was a good deal considering the dorms were thirty thousand. Towards the end of the day I went with the Aussie girls and booked up for a five-day tour starting the next day, which I was quite pleased about because I had expected it to take six days and I didn't really want to spend that much time before moving onto my sailing trip. Every day counts. As we left they shouted after us "no beer tonight!".
During the day I also established via the internet that Lucy and co had arrived in Santa Marta before me and had quickly moved on to nearby Taganga for the beach. She had sent me a text to that effect the day before, but of course my dead phone didn't receive it; I had expected an email or Facebook message. Anyway, they were planning staying there for Natasha's birthday a few days later, so I decided to visit them for "one last drink". I waited for over an hour on the main street where the LP said to catch a bus to Taganga, but the first one pulled away after letting everyone off right next to where I was waiting, but showed no interest in new passengers; the next one, some twenty minutes later, flew right past me, even though I was walking into the road flapping my arm up and down. Meanwhile every two minutes buses to some place I can't remember went by, and every five minutes maximum buses to every other place passed. Eventually, when the next bus didn't turn up after twenty minutes, I gave up and got a taxi, who charged much more that I was expecting for the five kilometre journey. It was a horribly twisty coastal road, climbing up high and then dropping down into the bay, so it took a lot longer than I expected to get there, so I forgave him the fare; however I did not forgive the driver for leaving me up a blocked side street, saying "there is the beach" and pointing to the end of the street, when I couldn't find the "hostel on the beach" as Lucy had described it.
Walking up and down the beach of Taganga, which the LP tells you to go to instead of Santa Marta, was a horrible experience: loud, busy, and horribly touristy, like all the bad bits of Thailand; I much preferred Santa Marta which, although similarly busy, was much more civilised. I finally found the others who had also had a very hard time finding accommodation, necessitating that the girls split up: Natasha with the boys (the Swedish ones) and Silvie with the couple. Not ideal for anyone, but two triples was all they could find. We had a nice but dear meal on the beach then the boys and the couple all went to bed while the girls and I went to a couple of other places to drink cocktails and ended up at a club, despite the warnings from the tour operator. From below the place sounded terrible, but once inside it was actually really nice: the whole dance floor was in the open and it was much more laid-back than the horribly uptight and pretentious club scene I had become used to in the rich bastards' playground of Cartagena. It seemed like it might actually be fun, but I had to leave soon, especially since I had notice there were no longer any taxi loitering outside. I found one and made it to bed not too late. I had managed to secure a private room for the second night, thank goodness.
written by  The Happy Couple on January 7, 2010 from Santa Marta, Colombia

Tipping really isn't a place in China (Guangzhou catch-up and food)
Yangshuo, China
[Sorry about the photo formatting and typos in this. I'll edit it later. And I'll get the hang of it one day]
Ok I finally managed to upload the photos, although I've got such a backlog of blogging to do I think it may be a while before I have time to hook them up to any text, or tag them with useful information like descriptions. I've just wasted another half our on this damn computer in our hotel! This time when I started to type it tried to translate everything I typed into chinese characters assuming I was typing Pinyin. Great software and very useful under the right circumstances but infuriating if you just want to type English.
Joanne warms her hands on Coals
So finally after a reboot I'm sitting typing in the lobby of our hotel with all the clothes on I mentioned previously, as well as my gloves. I may have to take the gloves off soon and sacrifice my fingers to improve my typing speed! The lobby is about as cold as outside. The only thing that keeps the owner at all warm, through the 24/7 he appears to sit here, is the bit pot full of burning coals under him. Ok that's Joanne using the same sort of thing in a restaurant we were in yesterday.
So to the catch-up... and some food bits I missed out.
Squid Lips!!
When we first arrived in Hong Kong the first thing we ate was Indian food. A strange choice I thought, but I let Joanne decide. It turned out to be really quite good, probably because of the large number of Indian immigrants living in Chungking, where our restaurant was. The next day I wanted to be a bit more adventurous, so we had sushi for lunch, which was a bit more extreme than the sushi you get in Glasgow. I didn't get the "Fried Squid Lips" although I really wanted them when I saw that. Unfortunately we'd already just about blown our daily budget, and I'd eaten loads already. I'll make sure I have some when we re-enter Hong Kong. That evening we decided to take it up a notch again and we went into a proper chinese place where there was no English outside. They did have English on the menu
, although it turned out that it was open to misinterpretation. I saw other people eating form huge bowls and assumed that this must be the "big bowl of noodle with all item above stated". When mine arrived it was even bigger.
No way of eating it in one go. So I had to get the remainder as a takeaway an have it for breakfast.
The day that we went up the peak we ticked one of my boxes by getting some dim sum from a street vendor. Dim sum are a Hong Kong speciality, so it would have been unthinkable to miss out. They were very tasty, so I went back to order some other stuff and ended up with fried tripe with curry sauce poured all over it. Actually not too bad apart from the texture. In fact I could see why tripe appears to be popular in Hong Kong (we'd already seen in a couple of places, translated), because the texture, and whole appearance actually, is really very like the charred squid tentacles I'd had the other night in my sushi; since seafood like that is so popular it seems to make sense that tripe is too. The last in the selection were fish balls in curry sauce, which were nice enough for Joanne to bagsy them leaving me with crunchy tripe.
Elevated walkway
Then our last day in Hong Kong, which didn't make it into the blog at the time, we took a tram from one end of Hong Kong Island to the other.
The guide book (SE Asia on a Budget) said that this was as good as any Hong Kong tour you could get, and at only HK$2 per person (20p) it seemed like excellent value. It gave us a pretty good sense of what Hong Kong is about I think. Sky-scrapers.
Lots of Sky-scrapers.
And some rather cool overhead walkways, which you need to go through shops and offices to get to. I suppose the idea is that the cars aren't slowed down by any pesky pedestrians. Anyway, the tram ride convinced me that Hong Kong isn't anywhere I want to live. It's just never-ending characterless city.
Whole smoked ducks (I think) at the market
However when we got to the very end of the tram journey and got off to look for the way back, I spotted an interesting looking market, which we decided to have a wee look around. Just walking through this market was the most fun I'd had since we arrived in Hong Kong: finally a bit of real life instead of nothing but characterless commerce. The things on the right are whole smoked ducks I think. I neglected to take pictures of any of the more exotic things on offer.
Most of the smoked ducks were so whole they still had, not only their feet still on, but their heads as well. There were turtles; live of course. Apparently when something dies at one of these markets it's not fresh any more, so it just gets chucked out. I was a bit upset about the turtles at first because I thought they were endangered, although Pietro later assured me that it's only the giant ones which are endangered. Still, I'm going to look it up before I have turtle soup. The fish were all swimming around, with air bubbling through their containers, making sure they made it through the day. We even say an eel chopped in half; the half that remained was still alive, so I suppose that must have been ok.
That night we went to another chinese place and I ordered something I thought sounded fairly exotic: Congee with Sliced Pork and Pig's Blood. I had no idea what congee was, but the waiter assured me "it's like noodles". My sister, Lorraine, always talks about her favourite dish in Thailand which invoved "pigs blood", in some sort of a jelly-like state, which is apparently very nice. Anyway, it arrived, and the blood part looked very much like Lorraine's descriptions, but congee turned out to be over-cooked rice or rice porridge or something. And the dish has almost no flavour. It was very very dull even after adding soy sauce and chillis, so I decided that exotic didn't necessarily always mean "good".
Sliced pork and pig's blood congee
Pietro's apartment
Then we were in Guangzhou. As I mentioned we were helped by a friendly chinese guy as we failed to order food on arrival there. The food was pretty grim: all bones and gristle, hardly any meat. That night, after arriving at Pietro's fantastic place, I was telling him about this, the congee, and the market, etc. He said that he was surprised we hadn't seen dog at the market we went to, and that the Chinese attitude to what is good on an animal seems to be the opposite to Europeans'. He said that you can go to his local market first thing in the morning and they are selling fish heads for more than the whole of the rest of the fish, and the hooves / knee caps / neck / whatever grim bits are more expensive that the fillet steak, which is on the same animal, at that point whole. Apparently, you can then return later on to find headless, tailess, finless fish; and (cheap) steaks cast aside in favour of nose, testicle, and spleen. It's just meat, who wants that? -- it's boring! Not as much flavour as sinew, tendon, and skin.
A range of drinks, including the infamous "Great Wall"
Anyway, that night we just settled in and drank wine with Pietro, resulting in us getting up late. I got up and did the Guanzhou blog, then we went out for lunch, where we were too late to eat dimsum at the place Pietro had recommended, so we went to the muslim restaurant next door, where we ordered on very nice dish and another "chicken curry" where the meat was grim again, all bone and fat, and ribs looked rather smaller than a chicken's; rat-sized perhaps. Pietro has assured us that rat is often sold locally as chicken, so I didn't mention this until it was finished. That night we walked for ages, failing to find a particular restaurant from an online guide, but found a quite-nice Macanese place instead. When we arrived back, we drank a bottle of Great Wall cabernet sauvignan. Hmm. And some local brandy, which wasn't too bad. Also I had bought some Budweiser, only because I was shocked to find an American product so Chinese-endorsed.
But it wasn't the only one.
That night we drank more with Pietro. He was proving to be a bad influence. The next day we had intended to definitely do touristy things, but woke up late again. So we went for lunch with Pietro to the dimsum place he had recommend, actually it was more like an aquarium-cum-restaurant, where we chalked up another weird food experience: durian pastries. Durian is the large spiky fruit reknowned for smelling like drains or something. It tastes quite nice actually, but not much like a fruit; the pastries tasted like cheese an onion pies. After lunch Pietro took us for a walk round his local market, which was pretty much the same as the last one, except he was there to point out the little dogs faces sitting on the counter, and the dogs legs hanging up above them. That night we went out with all the Guangzhou couchsurfing crowd for "KTV" which is what they call Karaoke in China.
This was their Chinese New Year party, so they thought they should do something Chinese.
Pietro examining his cake at the KTV Night Guangzhou
Pietro had whipped up a couple of cakes to take along as he's a very good cook, apprently. The cakes were nice anyway. Then on to play pool
and then onto a night club.
It was here I realised that China is still behind us after all: they were playing techno from the 90s! Actually I've subsequently thought about it more and the only serious thing I can come up with is the fact the water isn't potable, which is a major thing I suppose, but that is it!
Aivic and Joanne at the flower festival
We had failed to get bus tickets the previous day due to communication problems, so we called up Aivic, who had very kindly offered to help us any time after helping us so muc hthe first day in Guangzhou. He agreed to meet us and help us buy bus tickets to Yangshuo. He didn't want anything; he just wanted to make sure we were ok. Afterwards he took us to the flower market, which appears just before Chinese New Year, as buying flowers for the New Year is traditional. Here's a photo of our good very kind and helpful friend Aivic.
The next day, thanks to Aivic we were off to Yangshuo just in time for Chinese New Year!
Oh yeah -- and you're not expected to tip in China.
written by  The Happy Couple on January 26, 2009 from Yangshuo, China

Nice Americans
Ciudad Perdida, Colombia
Earlier in the morning that I would have liked I got up and crossed the road to the hostel that were running the Ciudad Perdida tour, who were kind enough to offer to look after our bags while we were away. The two Australian girls, Ali and Mel, were already there (why do Australians shorten every name?) and they had been joined by the two English friends, Gemma and "Fraggle", who they had been waiting for, and who had in turn brought a friend of theirs, Jamie. As we waited around the jeep we were joined by a group of three young guys from the USA, Matt, Jake, and Colin; another slightly older guy called Alex, also from the States; and a girl from Kazakhstan, who is now living in England, called Marina. Everyone seemed to have much larger bags than the tiny day-bag I had squashed five days worth of stuff into, but since I had used the same bag for five days in the Peruvian jungle including a hammock, I was sure I'd be OK.
Soon all the bags were on the top of the jeep and all eleven of us were squashed into the back. Not long after we set off we were off-road and a couple of times I was almost pitched forward right into Marina who was sitting opposite. Soon we realised that the three people on their own, Marina, Alex, and me, had recently continued their trips without their significant other: in my case my wife, Marina's case her English husband, who had just gone home, and in Alex's case his new girlfriend. The Lonely Hearts Trek, we decided.
Finally we arrived at the place where the trek began and sat down at the restaurant for lunch. A group who had just finished were also having lunch but they all looked pretty fresh, leading us to believe that the trek was going to be pretty easy, though they claimed otherwise, saying that the second day in particular was a killer. On the wall a map also showed the profile of the trek, so I could see that the total distance to our destination was only 20km and the total ascent, including a few ups-and-downs, was only about 1600m. I was glad again that I had gone for the five-day option since to do that over six days was madness, in fact five still seemed pretty crazy. The return trip was about 40km and 2000m total ascent, which I've done in a single day on a few walks among Scotland's Munros. They were difficult days at the time and I was much less fit now, but surely we could have taken one day up, one day at the site, and one day down? Oh well, plenty of time to look at the scenery. And take photos.
Our guide, Castro (who did not speak English) told us that the jeep track we had travelled on to get there was part of a road network built by the Tayrona people, who had also built the Ciudad Perdida. The Tayrona civilisation was very early by South American standards, and so the ruins we were seeking are also very old by South American standards, building having begun in the 9th Century, some 650 years before Machu Picchu. Finally something in the Americas that is actually quite old by European or Asian standards!
The lunch was quite nice and rather large, and as a bonus beer was much cheaper than I expected at the end of a several hour jeep ride along an ancient Tayrona road. We speculated on how much the price of beer would rise with our altitude and some people abstained because of the trek ahead, but I knew it would be dead easy so I wasn't bothered and had a few.
After lunch we set off and the pace was predictably slow. After what seemed like only ten minutes, and it can't literally have been much more, we stopped at a deep slow part in the river we had been following. I couldn't believe we were stopping so soon after the start, but I hadn't yet settled into how easy we were going to take it. The Three Young Americans had been promised jumping spots by Castro, they told us, and sure enough found the deepest place and jumped in. I gathered that there were going to be a lot more stops like this and instantly regretted saving a tiny bit of space by bringing my very tight, hotpants-style swimming trunks, usually only worn under a wetsuit, instead of sensible baggy shorts-style ones. I had thought we had to bring swimming stuff "just in case" we felt like a dip, not because we'll be stopping every fifteen minutes for one. I wouldn't like to wear them under normal circumstances, but with the extra up-to 14kg I really didn't want to. But my choices were to sit at the side while everyone else had great fun splashing around in the beautifully pure and cool water, or else make a joke about my hotpants and get in.
Cooling off
Not long after we stopped again, this time for some very nice fruit, and I had begun to accept that it was going to be slow and I wasn't going to get the kind of exercise I had been hoping would kick-start my weight-loss plan! When we set off again, the TYA had already gone ahead, so I took the opportunity to put on a burst of speed and catch up with them. They were making quite a good pace, which I was able to keep up with quite easily, but soon Matt fell behind, and then Colin. It was just me and Jake now, and he was really setting a good pace. My heart was thumping and I was getting a great workout – probably for the first time in over a year. For a while I kept pace with young Jake, but it had already been mentioned that he was a semi-professional cyclist, so there was no way I was going to be able keep up with him if he kept going, so after a short time I started to tire and fall behind. At the next bend he was waiting for me. How you feeling? he asked, seeming quite concerned. I'm sure what he was seeing was a fat old guy with a purple face, working way over his limit, rather than the recently very fit, Munroist I knew myself to be. After all he was only 21, so I must have looked ancient. I told him I felt great, but his concern remained, though he was satisfied I wasn't quite ready for a heart attack and shot off into the distance, leaving me now quite tired, but feeling much better than I had walking at the snails' pace we had been doing before. At the next fruit stop, our reward was a very long wait, where we were encouraged to take photos of the lovely green view. Already lazy (or just unfit I suppose) people had resorted to mulas to carry them up the incline.
Lazy people
The TYA were constantly bantering with each other, the way young people do: it was mostly gibberish and in-jokes, but quite harmless. I soon noticed that they were actually being really nice to each other – as well as everyone else – the whole time; they often checked that the others were feeling great, or at least good, and they even went as far as being really polite and well-mannered to each other. Now this might not sound so strange to some people, but in Britain, Scotland in particular I believe, and therein Glasgow in particular, friends, particularly young guys, just don't treat each other like that: you express your close bond by constantly taking the piss out of each other and saying cruel things; the closer you are the more brutal you are permitted – and expected – to be. So one of the first acts in getting to know someone is usually some gentle teasing, leading to some remorseless slagging if you really hit it off. When I thought about it, I remembered that there are simply different social rules in each culture, so that we all value this exchange of pleasantries in different ways: at one end of the spectrum you have the Americans and at the other, perhaps, Mediterranean culture, British somewhere in between. I wondered how this overuse - from a Scottish perspective - of pleasantries would be seen by my Greek friends, who had actually been offended once because I was being so polite, as they saw it, in their company; their attitude was "we are friends so you don't need to ask and you don't need to say thank you; just take – of course you can have whatever you want". As far as they were concerned my automatic, ingrained, politeness was actually rude, as if questioning the bond of friendship. It's similar in Glasgow: if you are anything less than merciless, it means you are putting a distance between you and your friends. It's possible this attitude is where a minor cultural misunderstanding came from: after sitting among the boys' chit-chat for a few minutes, Jamie piped up that he just couldn't believe them and all day he had felt like he was in an American sit-com. Following his lead, I said that I knew what he meant because I used to think that American actors were all really bad, until I met some Americans, when I realised that they are all really like that. At this point the three Americans looked extremely upset and offended, as if I had just slapped them out of the blue. Matt said Wow I wish I knew some really good put-downs for Scottish people… hey don't you guys still wear skirts? and I felt really awful. I hadn't meant it, but I had apparently really hurt them.
Green
Anyone knows me is aware that I generally do not have much time for the Americans. Mostly this sentiment is political: after all in recent history they elected Bush twice, Iraq, and as a country continue to behave very badly on the world stage. Of course I feel the same way about the English for Thatcher and the Scottish for Blair. Obviously I have never applied this at an individual level: everyone is different and may not be someone aligned with the national characteristic I despise so much. The big difference is that, even taking them individually, I rarely meet an American I like: their opinions are usually so very different from mine – they usually seem ultra-conservative – that it doesn't often happen, and the biggest problem of all is that they don't seem to be able to criticise their own state and become very defensive if someone else does. This I cannot understand or tolerate: I am more than happy to acknowledge defects in Scotland and the UK. When I have expressed these opinions to friends in the past they have often responded, but forget about America - don't you think that Americans are just so nice? and until this trip I had always responded in the negative. However that is exactly what these three guys were: they were really nice. Clearly I had never met the right Americans before, or perhaps my travelling had made me more open-minded, who knows? Aside from being so damned nice-and-polite they were also pretty critical of America, not just Bush, but America the state. I was very impressed. Socially, though, I must admit that I still find Americans very strange and somehow really different from most other people on the planet. However, strange is no reason to hate anyone, so here it was: these three young Americans had changed my mind about Americans. And by the way, Alex, who was not part of their group of three, was also really nice though much quieter, which wasn't hard considering how loud they were! However there remains a paradox: if the USA is a country of such nice people, then how could they have voted in Bush twice, or so many of them go off to murder innocent Iraqi children, or indeed any other non-white people whose country dares slightly obstruct their all-powerful global dominance? I genuinely don't get it.
Anyway, after my teasing insult I tried to explain that it was a friendly thing to do where I come from, and sure enough they took it onboard and for the rest of the tour I was peppered with playful insults, though they were far too polite to say any of the really obvious cruel things I so deserved. Or maybe they just didn't like me enough.
First night's dinner table
First night's bedroom
The first night's accommodation was very nice and the view was astounding before the sun went down. After the sun went down the stars were astounding. The food was also really good, and there was plenty of it. They had told us the accommodation was going to be basic, but this was obviously the standard spiel that they need to give everyone, even people who haven't been travelling for months, because all of us were really happy. At dinner Melissa proved that she was half Chinese when I brought my camera out. Apparently it's really obvious to some people, but I just didn't see it – until her "Chinese salute". After dinner Castro tied together Jake and Gemma in what I guess was an ice-breaking exercise, though he claimed it was a puzzle they could solve by getting out of it. We were all pretty sure it was impossible and he never provided a solution. And neither Jake not Gemma are the sort of people who need ice-breakers!
OK, Mel, now I believe you're half Chinese
Bondage
We were too slow arriving so all the beer was gone by the time we arrived, though we were told the price it would have been, and it was still reasonably cheap despite having increased since ground level. Luckily the TYA had some rum and were willing to share. Otherwise, how would I have slept through the mystery snorer?
written by  The Happy Couple on January 8, 2010 from Ciudad Perdida, Colombia

Happy Birthdays!
Ciudad Perdida, Colombia
Kogui boy peeking at the gringos
OK that photo's a bit out of sequence here, but I like it so much I think it deserves to go at the top.
Breakfast time
The first day had really just been an introduction because on day two, the jungle started getting thicker and greener, and the scenery became more beautiful. There were more lovely fresh water pools of rivers in which to swim (or somersault, depending on you). Castro had told us that all of the water was very fresh but some people (not in our group) still insisted on adding water purification tablets. At least the tour group hadn't let health and safety go mad!
Another swim break
Lovely clear water
Poor mulas
As if that weren't enough, we had now started passing tiny villages and occasional single dwellings. These dwellings were really quite remote and the people did not appear to be that used to tourists. It seems bizarre, since this is definitely one of the major tourist destinations in Colombia but, when you add all sort of factors, like Colombia still having a bit of a dodgy international reputation (totally undeservedly), that many people are put off by a six-day trek, the fact that this area was closed between 2003 and 2005 after a large scale tourist kidnapping by FARC, and the fact that the site wasn't even discovered at all until 1972, then it does become believable. This is very remote and, though there are quite a lot of tourists here, it is nowhere near the same league as Machu Picchu or any city in Colombia, and most of the contact with the locals – the Kogi or Kogui Indians – is with several community leaders who run the little businesses, providing food and accommodation to the tourists; most of the rest just watch the gringos passing from a distance.
Kogui village
Livestock in the village
Little Kogui girls walking alone up the path
Cute, but look at the size of that machete!
And they're already working
And this belongs here. It's so cute it can go in twice.
Our guide, Castro, told us that until only ten years ago the Kogi used to throw rocks at the passing tourists and did not really want them on their land at all. Then the government spoke to the community leaders and cut a deal, whereby the community would get all of the entrance fees from the tourists, and since then they have been far more welcoming. On the down side, according to Castro, this extra money means that they are forgetting their traditional way of life. Well, you can't really keep the people poor just to entertain the tourists with their traditional ways, can you?
The track was great: there was no difficulty with the terrain and I was regretting having wasted all that time and money on new shoes when other people were wearing flip-flops. Again, lunch was fantastic and Castro had now singled me out as the guy who likes second helpings. The food was really nice, and there was loads of it, but I didn't really feel like this level of exercise deserved more. But I find it hard to say no when offered nice food. Despite what we had been told by the group at the start of the walk, day two wasn't very hard either, though I think there was some moaning from the back.
Second night's accommodation
Gorgeous swimming spot next to accommodation
Where we slept. Everyone else is the family of that guy, the majordomo.
Fraggle trying to fly while "Mr Bond" waits for a surprise
No seats for the other group
The second night's accommodation was even nicer than the first: it was a small place with the most amazing swimming spot out the back. It was run by a very high status local, who not only ran this business, but was also the school teacher. Therefore he had two wives and loads of children, who were all very cute and fascinated by electronics. Ipods they particularly liked, though digital cameras were popular as well.
He has a lot of kids
They love it
Cute kids
Really was a lovely swimming spot
Great soup
All day Castro had been carrying an awkward box, which he said contained huevos. It turned out that he had been told that it was Ali's birthday during the trek, so he had brought a birthday cake for her all the way up there. He also produced a couple of bottles of fruit wine and several half-bottles of aguardiente for us. By coincidence, it was also the birthday of his son, Juan Carlos, who was with us on the trek, so we sang Happy Birthday for him too. His birthday and his dad had made him work all day! Castro claimed they had celebrated JC's birthday before the tour began, but we still gave him some cake. Ali probably needed something to cheer her up as her feet were already blistering.
Mel and Gemma, and birthday girl Ali hiding
Birthday girl
Double birthday
written by  The Happy Couple on January 9, 2010 from Ciudad Perdida, Colombia

Chinese New Year in Yangshuo
Yangshuo, China
I've realised that in the last entry I forgot to mention that, when we went to the Couchsurfing KTV Chinese New Year outing in Guangzhou, Joanne and I both sang Karaoke although there don't seem to be any photos to back this claim up. For the record, Joanne sang "Should I stay or Should I Go" by the Clash, and I was surprised to find a selection of Metallica songs, so I entertained everyone with my rendition of "Battery", a paricularly upbeat piece of music from "Master of Puppets".
We arrived in Yangshuo on the 25th January, totally knackered. Although it had been an overnight bus, it wasn't classed as a "sleeper", so it didn't have the deeply reclining chairs that the sleeper had, and the driver seemed to think that this made it OK to talk really loudly the whole way to all the passengers, especially at the back of the bus judging by the volume of his voice. To make matters worse, the bus stopped at a garage, not at the bus station we had planned the route to the hotel from. We had read about a well known scam where they drop you miles away from where you are meant to be so that they can get kickbacks from the taxi drivers who pick you up. But everyone else got off, so we though it must be OK.
West Lily Hotel in Tangshuo
We did quite quickly find our way, ignoring all of the annoying taxis and rickshaws who kept trailing along next to us as we lugged our huge rucksacks up the pavement. It was about 7am, so we thought we might be able to ditch our bags and go somewhere for coffee until our room was ready. To our delight, the hotel owner gave us a key and said "your room's not ready yet, so you can go to this one to sleep and shower, then come down later to check into yours". He seemed very nice. After a rest we were shown to our room, which was massive. So far, we have paid less in every place we've gone and ended up with better room; it seems the further you get from Hong Kong the cheaper everything is.
Pantao, the main road in Yangshuo
Yangshuo is stunning. The town is surrounded by karst peaks, which are formed when a soluble layer of bedrock is weathered away leaving behind shear peaks of insouluble rock. The scenery all around is peppered with these almost vertical spikes of rock. There are also a couple of rivers through the town which sets it up to be a beautiful tourist attracting town. It was also pretty busy, especially considering the perishing cold. Guangzhou was cold, but now we were wearing everything including our thermals and we were still too cold.
The Yu Long (Dragon River)
It was a welcome change to be in a touristy town having spent a few days in Guangzhou, which is probably the last place most tourists would go. Most of the tourists were from other parts of China, but the town certainly caters for westerners; one of the main streets is called "West Street", having recently changed it's name from "Foreigner Street" (in Chinese).
A family setting fire to things
From when we first ventured out there we fire crackers going off, and as the evening progressed the frequency continued to increase. The Chinese attitude to fireworks seems somewhat different to a western attitude. If I were to sum up what it appears the attitude says it's "fireworks are harmless fun, which couldn't do anyone any harm". I witnessed plenty of children who couldn't have been older than 3 , some definitely under, lighting banger and throwing them at other children; some where lighting rockets and throwing them at people; others were standing holding fireworks which were spitting out volleys of fire.
Two generations apart, lighting bangers
I was of course, horrified when I saw the first few, thinking, "where are their parents, and why aren't they watching them tonight?". Then I saw a parent appear, and show their two year old how to hold the firework at the correct angle, and hold their hand while they lit the touchpaper. Incredibly we didn't see anyone get hurt, but they must suffer thousands of injuries. They must! The whole night was chaos: car alarms going off constantly because of the huge explosions of the biggest fireworks; rockets bouncing along the streets horizontally; grandparents and children ganging up to throw fireworks at the parents simultaneously.
Chaos on Chinese New Year
The whole town was full of smoke all night. The pavement was almost completely covered in the remnants of fire crackers, which sometimes seemed to be set off by the thousand.
Of course the adults behave at least as irresponsibly as the children. Two of the people in this photo are American, but I think they were just getting into the culture.
On the walk back to the hotel we were able to see that Yangshuo is also very pretty at night, although some of the lights must have been for the Spring Festival (which begins with Chinese New Year).
Remainders of EXTREME chili Sichuan chicken dish
Monday, our second day there it rained quite heavily, so we just stayed in and read. It was the first chance we'd had really, because Hong Kong has been so busy, and then the couch surfing in Guangzhou meant we were socialising more; in fact we spent more money there, eventhough we weren't paying for accommodation. We only ventured out to eat. I decided to try something that wasn't a local dish and go for Sichuan Chicken. It was ridiculously full of chilis. Unfortunately it only occurred to me to take a photo after I'd eaten most of it. Now I like hot food. I like really hot food. But this was just a plate of friend chilis with a few bits of chicken through it.
Countryside around Yanshuo
On Tuesday it had stopped raining, although it was still very cold, so we decided to get a bit of exercise and hire a bike to get a better look at the stunning scenery. We decided to have a wee look at "Dragon Bridge" then head off back in the other direction past our starting point, where there were some other places of interest. We just couldn't find it. There were no signs for it, and everywhere we went people were offering to guide us, or give us a trip up the river on a bamboo raft. It was as if they had conspired so that western tourists would get lost and fall prey to these touts.
View from Dragon Bridge
The map seemed useless. I had a compass, but I wasn't at all sure that the top of the map was north and north certainly wasn't marked on the map. We kept bumping other westerners (Australian, Irish, German, French) and nobody knew where they were; about half of them seemed to be looking for Dragon Bridge. Some had given up and turned back, while others had given in to the bamboo pimps. We hooked up with two german girls on the same mission and eventually we got there.
The bridge was not worth finding, but the view was very nice. On the way back I worked out that the map was not to scale; the 0.5 km of the town which was on the map was the same size as the 9 km we had to cycle back (along the main road, rather than the muddy paths we took on the way out).
written by  The Happy Couple on January 27, 2009 from Yangshuo, China

The Lost City
Ciudad Perdida, Colombia
Day three, Castro had told us, was going to be the longest, and it started out with more of the same: a nice easy track, another beautiful swimming spot, more gorgeous jungle scenery – incredibly green, and regular fruit breaks, all at an easy pace. I was really enjoying being outside, being somewhere remote, and getting away from the city again; far too much of my time in South America had been spent in the unremarkable cities, when it is obviously in the outdoors that the continent excels.
Crazy Jake
Crazeee Jake
One of the Three Young Americans' most repeated pieces of banter related to an idea that one of them had, to take lots of video clips of them dancing at various locations in the jungle to Jungle Boogie (see how they did that?), which they were going to have to sing to keep time. They had been talking about this incessantly throughout the trek so far, and often singing little snippets of the song, yet by day three they hadn't yet taken one single movie clip; they just kept talking about it. At one point I told them I would be very disappointed if they didn't actually go through with it, after having to put up with listening to them go on about it so much. Jamie had said that he would kill them if they sang it one more time, but he never did. But during the third day, near the top of Ciudad Perdida, they finally took a couple of little clips, though it was still nowhere near enough to fill three minutes or so of the song.
So green
After a couple of hours we stopped at an old traditional mill, which was used to grind grain, much of which would be made into aguardiente, Castro explained. I asked if we would be able to try some, or at least buy some, but he said that they don't bother making it any more because, with the tourist money, the men just get the bus to Santa Marta, where they go drinking in the bars, as well as spending the money on gambling and prostitutes. He moaned about them losing their traditional way of life again for a bit, but it was becoming clear he did not have a very high opinion of the Kogui.
Old mill
The next bit of the trek, he told us, would entail several river crossings. I wasn't looking forward to this bit at all because, although I had been enjoying getting into the rivers and swimming, my new boots were more substantial than most people's footwear so took longer to put on and take off; also I was finding the stones very uncomfortable on my bare feet, which clearly needed hardened up. I really should have been walking around with bare feet as much as possible while I was away to combat this foot sensitivity, but because of flip-flops I probably had bare feet less than at home. I tried one river crossing with flip-flops on, but my remaining pair aren't very easy to keep on in a powerful current, and I had to react fast to stop one from washing away. The shallower parts of the river tended to be rapids of varying intensity, which was fun when swimming, but makes crossing a bit harder. I had to give up on the flip-flops and take every river crossing with bare feet, cursing the whole way across to help cope with the pain. Meanwhile Ali's feet had become so blistered and painful that Castro was carrying her on his back over every crossing.
Start of the steps
Finally after loads of uncomfortable, hassley, river crossings (I think there were nine in quick succession) we reached the infamous 1200 stone steps up to The Lost City. All the way along the route there had been sections paved with large stones, where Castro always stopped to draw our attention to the original piece of Tayrona road. The entire track used to be like that, he explained, but most of the stones have been taken out so that mulas can use it more easily. The higher up we had got, though, the fewer mules we saw and the more original road there was. Castro told us that there is a large network (I think he said thousands of kilometres) of road like this, built over a large area of the north of Colombia, which was the Tayrona kingdom. But now at the steps, it was going to be paved the whole way.
Alex near the top of the steps
Everyone was moaning about how difficult it was going to be, but I was just relieved the lumpy river stones weren't going to be driving into my soles any more. Anyway, climbing steps is much easier than climbing a hill, so I didn't understand why everyone was complaining. Matt suggested we count the steps to check the number was right, but that was the last thing I wanted to do. It was over in a flash and sure enough everyone started to make remarks that it was much easier than they had been expecting and so on.
More steps
As we approached the top of the steps we started to come across some stone walls and stone platforms alongside the steps. It was very different from Machu Picchu in that the stone was really dirty and covered in green moss, whereas Machu Picchu's stones look like they are regularly washed down. Someone since told me that, in fact, Machu Picchu is mostly reconstruction, though they have done a good job of it, whereas this Ciudad Perdida is all original, except that they have removed the overgrown undergrowth. All around though, it's still thick jungle and it really does look like a lost jungle city: it's easy to see why it survived for centuries without being discovered.
Near the top of the Ciudad
I've been asked which I preferred. Well, it's a very different type of ruin to Machu Picchu, but like it, the location is incredible: where Machu Picchu is mountains, Ciudad Perdida is jungle – but it's also in the mountains, though not as spectacularly near the top. The major difference in Cuidad Perdida's favour is the journey. I really love walking, especially up (and down) hills, and the scenery and swimming spots were fantastic. I think the location and the remoteness of Cuidad Perdida edges it in front as far as I'm concerned, though the ruins themselves are more impressive at Machu Picchu (reconstructed though they apparently are). Still, the ruins of Ciudad Perdida are lovely in that all of the impressively done stonework is really old-looking and covered in this nice green fur. Maybe it just reminded me of Glasgow, which is so damp that everything goes green eventually: all the Victorian sandstone buildings have a green tinge to them, no matter what the original colour of the stone. However nice and green, though, the ruins are only platforms on which they built their wooden buildings, of which nothing remains, of course. The scale of the development is really quite impressive though, even though there are no buildings per se, and to wander around the hundreds of old platforms on old stone paths on a mountainside deep in the jungle is amazing.
Green I tell you!
Alex and his halo
Castro pointed out to use that all of the paths were clean, and free from the green fur growing on the platforms, because the Tayrona people were such clever architects that they built all of the paths to be waterways as well, which sounds daft at first, but they are designed so that the water doesn't pool anywhere and just washes down the paths then off the side of the mountain. So not only does it prevent flooding, but it also keeps the paths clean and prevent moss from building up and destroying the stonework, which is part of the reason the site is still in such good condition, he claimed. In some places, there are steps to nowhere, which start off down a very steep hill, then just end. These steps were built just to act as drainage and were not even intended to be walked on. Next Castro pointed at the soldiers who were stationed everywhere and told us that they were there for two reasons: the first was to protect us, the tourists; and the second was to prevent the site from guaqueros.
Holy sapo statue
GREEN!
Next we were taken to our accommodation, which is just off from the main ceremonial platform; a shack with a corrugated steel roof, but perfectly OK for us, since there were mosquito nets. Our group was put on the top floor, where all eleven of us were going to have to squeeze onto seven foam mattresses under one giant mosquito net. I hadn't been having a great sleep on the hammocks we had been given up until then (because we didn't get to tie our own, so I wasn't able to use the skills I learned in the Peruvian jungle), so I was looking forward to a proper sleep.
This is now closed apparently
I was the first to take my luggage up and, when I got there a girl not of our group was already lying down there. I realised immediately it was the one we had come to refer to simply as "crazy girl", who I forget to mention in previous entries. We found her on the first evening, when she asked if she could join us because she had lost her group. She said she had gone for coffee while waiting for her group to leave, but when she returned they had set off without her, meaning that she had to hitch and make her own way. Her group had been at the accommodation at lunch time she said, so she would probably catch up with them the next day and certainly by the top since they would be there for a day and a bit. It sounded a bit odd, but Castro seemed happy enough to feed her. From then she kept popping up on her own, scavenging fruit at the stops or hanging around while we had lunch. By the third day, we had decided that her wild-eyed wanderings and badly mosquito-bitten legs suggested that she had been in the jungle much longer than two days. She had also let slip that her boyfriend worked as a chef at one of the accommodation stations, so with the continued absence of her group, we had become convinced she was a blagger. When I saw her in our sleeping area I told her that she couldn't sleep there because it was for our group, after all eleven people on seven mattresses was already going to be a squash! She got up and went downstairs but later, when some others took their stuff up she was back again. So someone informed Castro and two minutes later, she was putting on her rucksack and heading out into the jungle at dusk. On her own! Castro and the other guides had already been discussing her and had come to the conclusion that she had not paid. And considering how much it costs it really is quite a major blag.
After we had dumped our bags upstairs and showered, it was time to eat. The showers had been cold the first two nights, but up a bit higher where we now were it was freezing. As with every meal so far, it was really good hearty food and there was loads of it. This time I did refuse seconds, because I had to break Castro's perception that I was always going to be the guy who took seconds. Instead, Matt stepped up to the plate.
Castro tells his stories
After food Castro started to tell us lots of things about the Lost City. At this point, several people's Spanish gave out and Alex was called upon to translate. I have to say that my Spanish was still coping, but I don't know how long my concentration would have lasted at that intensity. After a bit he invited us to take a stroll with him to look at the Lost City. I thought he was taking us on a tour, but we just sat down overlooking the ceremonial platform and waited for the TYA to come back from their own wanderings, at which point Matt took over the translation work; all the Americans had really good Spanish, actually, and I was very jealous. I have a suspicion that most of what Castro told us was made up or guess work, because much of it contradicts what was in the guide book and what I've been able to find online. The people had no writing, so a lot of what he was telling us about the culture seemed to me impossible to know in the kind of detail he was telling it. However, he claims that his information comes from Kogui the people who live there now who, according to him but contrary to everyone else it seems, are not descended from the Tayrona people. Castro's claim is that archaeologists came to examine the site and made assumptions about who the people descended from but did not actually speak to them. I couldn't help feel that his belief might be reinforced by the obvious bigotry he felt toward the Kogui, when it simply does not fit with the romantic story he believed about the Tayrona people, who according to him were the most respectful of, and in tune with nature people ever to have lived. He said that the Kogui people were the slaves of the Tayrona, which is why they use slash-and-burn farming method and don't care about nature. He said that the Tayrona died out completely, this huge civilisation, to a man, after some of them brought disease back from meeting Conquistadores at the coast. At this point the slaves escaped and ran away, which is why the city was never discovered.
Ceremonial platform
He told us that the people came from Panama to Colombia, he gave us dates during which the city was built, and he told us a bit about the social structure. This city was just one of many that are dotted around the huge area the civilisation covered, and there are apparently more lost cities in the jungle. The head of each city was a man called the Mama, who was a shaman. The Mama was chosen by selecting three children from the population and putting them in boxes with no food or water, the last one surviving being the winner and next Mama. He said that for a while after they arrived they were just hunter-gatherers, which is pretty unusual for an advanced civilisation capable of architecture, but after they had been settled there for a while they started domesticating potatoes and some animals, however they never cleared unnecessarily large areas of the forest for farming and certainly never burned it down; they remained very much living in the forest. The techniques he described that they used to "micro-clear" the forest sound ridiculous, but he says they obtained acids from some or other plant, which they then applied around the bark of the tree. They would wait months, perhaps reapplying weekly, I can't remember, until the tree was sufficiently eaten into by the acid and then they would push it down. Subtle, yes, but very slow.
Unfortunately I can't now remember much more that he told us, which is a shame since I'm sure he is the only person who would give us that version. We did ask him how he knew so much and he said that, apart from speaking to the locals, he used to be a guaquero with his brother. He then went on to describe in great detail how you go about identifying a good grave to rob and how you do it. Of course you can't do it these days with all the soldiers around. He did say that recently, for his 45th birthday, he and his brother had gone trekking all over the area covered by the civilisation looking for burial sites, for old times' sake, he seemed to be saying; not too worried, obviously, about the fact that it is illegal never mind sacrilegious.
By that time the mosquitoes had already been out of hand for longer than we could tolerate and people started to move back towards the accommodation, so Castro called the meeting adjourned, and we went back for long sleeves and trousers before buying some of the first nice chilled beer of the tour, thanks to the same ice cold water that had made the showers so unpleasant. The beer was now more than double its usual price though. Chatting to some people from other groups we began to feel like we had got the best guide by far. One other group had not had any fruit at all along the way, and their meals were small and not great, but nobody apart from us had been treated to these fantastic accounts Castro had been giving us: little nuggets of information the whole way, culminating in this grand story-telling that night. Most guides hardly told their groups anything apparently, and the others could not believe that he had thrown a birthday party with free booze and a cake for Ali. It had been a great tour so far. A couple of people commented that it had been a really nice group as well, and everyone had got on well and seemed of a similar mindset. People often say this sort of thing on tours and I always think it's really just because people do tend to get on, and most people are basically quite nice, and you don't really get to know the people well enough to make that judgement. However a few days later I had reason to think back to that and realise that I've just been very lucky with the groups but, yes, this was a particularly nice one.
It was bed time, so we retired to our upstairs slumber party under the giant mosquito net, where we giggled about the crazy girl coming back and murdering us in the middle of the night, or her being somewhere else in the room, which was actually full of other people, all presumably wishing we should shut up and stop giggling.
Slumber party
written by  The Happy Couple on January 10, 2010 from Ciudad Perdida, Colombia

Return from Lost City
Reconstructed house
We woke up in the Ciudad Perdida, one of the last groups to do that because they have apparently closed the accommodation in the city for environmental reasons. After breakfast, Castro took us on a tour around some of the site. It's too big to cover all of it in a day, he told us, and since we only had a morning we had to begin quite early. First he took us to a reconstruction of the houses that they built on the platforms, but it wasn't in very good condition. Castro said that when they were in use, the people would be burning fires inside all the time, and the smoke that permeated through the palm frond roofs kept the plant material dry and protected it and the walls from rotting, but because the reconstruction was not being used it would only last about two years rather than the 30 years they would have lasted back in the day.
Reconstructed buiding
Tayrona hand mill
Different mills for different substances
He showed us various small stone hand mills, each size and shape of stone used to grind a different substance, including sea shells, the trade in which was the only reason they needed to keep contact with civilisations at sea level. The powdered shell was kept in a gourd and used to mix with the coca leaves they chewed, acting as a catalyst and releasing the alkaloids faster, very much like the stuff the driver in Bolivia gave me on the Salt Flats tour. Even to this day – and we saw this, despite not be descendents according to Castro, all of the men carry a gourd full of some alkaline substance, into which they dip a stick to get a small amount to put in their mouth, then scrape off the saliva in the gourd neck, so the powder doesn't get wet. This constant addition of saliva to the gourd causes the neck to get fatter over time, so you can tell how long someone has been using a gourd by how fat the neck is. From when the boys are very young, they carry a little bag (you will see them in previous photos), whereas girls all have a necklace. The bag is for carrying coca leaves and their custom when they meet, is not to shake hands, but for both men to take leaves from their bag and put them into the other man's bag. The gourd is something that you only receive from the father of the girl you are going to marry, when that time comes. I'm sure Castro told us all this about the Tayrona culture, then later referred to it among the Kogui who he says are not their descendents. So why do they continue the same millennium-old cultural traditions, exactly?
Brick in the process of being cut
As of to prove what he said about how they felled trees, he showed us a piece of rock, which has a brick-shaped scar on it. This, he claimed, is an acid mark, which is also how they made all of the bricks the platforms were built from: bit by bit burned grooves with acid form plants, then when deep enough, they simply prised the brick off the rock. Seems like it would take a mind-boggling amount of time to build something tiny that way, but who knows? If you have loads of them going at once, all at different places, maybe it could work. There are plenty of fruit trees round the city, which Castro says have been there since the Tayrona people planted them, but one of the other crops they domesticated early was tobacco. And, of course, coca.
Tobacco is beautiful. Who knew?
Butterfly pretending to be an owl, I assume
Banana flower
Bird
It's in the jungle
Fraggle's slaphead
Stairs
Ciudad Perdida
Gemma's "keep warm dance" looks a lot like Morecambe and Wise
For a while he sat in the Mama's chair, where he used to overlook the ceremonies when people from all over the area came to what at the time was called the Gold City. There was a tool booth, where outsiders were required to pay in gold in order to attend the ceremony. This gold, in turn, was used to plate yet more of the city, or make the pure gold face masks worn by the Mamas. We were re-joined by a dog that had followed us most of the way up, disappearing occasionally, that the information at the entrance had explained about. This dog apparently chooses groups and spends all of its time just going up and down the trail, but nobody owns it or knows where it came from.
Castro in charge
I wouldn't trust her with a machete
Ceremonial platform
Dog followed us the whole way up and down
Castro showed us a couple of rocks with lines carved into them. One was supposedly a map of the Ciudad Perdida and another one a map of the entire Tayrona kingdom. I wasn't convinced. He showed us a hole in the ground which he said was a jail, with scrapes on the floor marking the passing of years, which was more believable. And then it was the descent.
A map of the Ciudad Perdida. Supposedly.
A map of the region. Hmm.
Jail
Counting off the years
More Ciudad Perdida
More stairs
Back down the stairs
Long trek back
We passed more Koguis on the way down, so I took more photos. We had all been scorning the tourist who bring sweeties up and give them to the kids, since they don't have toothpaste, but the father of one group came around asking if anyone had a cigarette for him and something sweet for his kids. So what can you do if the parents are asking for it? The father, though, looked like he was about fourteen despite having children who must have been about two and four. They age well those Koguis!
Cute Kogui kids
Their dad!
Kogui family
Alex throws the Frisbee
And they don't have toothbrushes...
It was really all the same in reverse: beautiful jungle, lovely swimming, lots of nice stodgy food, and Ali getting carried. I think she got a mule in the end.
My kind of jungle trek
More green
Greenest of all greens
We had discovered that the Americans were all planning to take six days, more out of thrift than anything else: they could get an extra night's accommodation and an extra day's food if they took six days. Everyone else, though, had had enough or had somewhere they needed to be. I needed to get back to Cartgena to organise my passage to Panama, if Joanne hadn't already done it. I didn't know because I'd had no mobile reception. Last I knew, the flight home from Panama was going to cost more than we expected and she had made enquiries about possible boats. After a bit of pleading for the rest of us to stay the extra day, Castro had to make arrangements to split his group in two. This meant us joining another group, while the Americans would be getting up later on our last day, to hang around for a bit, presumably also with another group, because Castro was having to get up earlier than everyone to run ahead and tell the next night's place that it would be only the four Americans, then continue on to the bottom to tell them that the rest of us would be wanting lunch soon.
See I was there
They fed us a lot
We started off quite a bit later than we were meant to, but I ran most of the way, passing everyone else, including Jamie who'd had a head start and was also going pretty fast. Finally I remembered to stop and take some photos of the leaf cutter ants which had been all over the path on the way up, but seemed a bit sparser on the way down. Amazing creatures! They still didn't catch me.
Leaf cutter ants
Right across the path
Loads of them
Busy ants
When I finally got to the last swimming spot, I dived in and was overtaken by Jamie and the fastest girl from the group we had joined. Even ten minutes in the ice-cold river didn't cool me down enough from the run, so I was still a bit sweaty by the time I arrived at the entrance restaurant; definitely not as fresh as the people who had been there when we started. I'm still convinced there must be a shower for customers in the back or something. Anyway, the beer tasted good, the food was great, and Jamie said that he thought the three young Americans had been really funny with all their chat, and made the trip for him, but he wasn't going to take it if he heard Jungle Boogie one more time.
Last swim
It is actually quite deep in places
Castro had been such a great guide that we all chipped in a tip for him, then I think he had to run back up to pick the Americans up again! And for us it was another bumpy jeep ride back to Santa Marta.

Leaving China
It occurred to me after our cycle trip that, to my surprise, the only bicycles I had seen in China were those for hire to tourists. What happened to that 1 billion bicycles in China, or whatever the silly song says?
In the evening, after our cycle trip, we found a pub / restaurant that has a microbrewery and sampled some of their beer, which was a definite improvement on the very boring local beer we were becoming used to, although we did have to put up with being terrorised by a naughty Chinese child. Chinese children seem very cute on the whole, but they also seem very badly behaved. We reckon it's down to the one child policy: an entire nation of only children! Can you imagine?
It was cold on the river
The next day, our last day in Yangshuo, we felt we should do a bit more sight-seeing, so we went on a boat ride down the Li River, which many of the restaurants boast they get their fish from. Unfortunately the weather was terrible: very cold and to make matters worse the cloud was almost down to ground level so we could hardly see any of the gorgeous scenery we were on the trip for. We had booked a two hour trip, but after about 10 minutes Joanne was saying "how much longer is it?".
Scenery on the boat trip
What we could see of the scenery was very nice, and I suppose it took on a certain moody quality that was familiar fro Scotland. About half-way through our time we stopped of at this bizarre little collection of stalls and assorted characters, in quite a strange location on the bank of the river, all trying to extract money from the tourists. I'm not sure what they all wanted money for, but I think the bird man charged money to let you hold the stick which the birds feet seemed to be nailed to (pining for the fjords, I expect), and I suppose the ox man let you sit on his beast. I think the guy with the motorbike was just washing it, but who knows?
The food stall
Naturally we bought some food from the kebab lady, but declined all other offers, even the art curios. After a freezing trip, during which we saw very little, we managed to navigate our way to the correct bus and get back to Yangshuo. It being our last night, it was my responsibility to try the local speciality, "Beer Fish".
Beer fish
I'm not sure what attracted me to the dish, but I felt it was my duty. I'd been planning to have it since we arrived there, but it costs about twice what any other dish costs, so I had put it off until we'd found somewhere that charges only 45 Yuan instead of the usual minimum 60 Yuan. Lucy's place it was -- and it was actually delicious. It was only afterwards that I read that, due to the large volume of traffic on it, the Li River (where the fish allegedly came from) is very polluted, and not the sort of place you want to be fishing!
The next day we got the second bus to Nanning (8am seemed a little bit too early), where we would be able to link to Hanoi, so our last day in China! (Until June)

Still leaving China
Pingxiang, China
We arrived in Nanning after a rather nerve-racking bus journey, during which Joanne was constantly re-calculating when we were likely to be arriving in Nanning, and whether this would give us enough time to get across town to the other bus station (oops) to catch the last bus to Hanoi (oops). The journey to Nanning took longer than I had realised and I hadn't done enough research to realise that there were two bus stations.
I was quite relaxed. I knew that there were PLENTY of buses from the same bus station as we arrive at to Pingxiang. Ok, they didn't go all the way to Hanoi, but Pingxiang is right on the border, so we could get a taxi for a couple of dollars to take us to the border, and then we'd be in Vietnam and eveything would be ok. So when we arrived at Nanning bus station after the bus to Hanoi had left (so definitey not enough time to get across town to catch it), I confidently walked up to the ticket office and said "Pingxiang", easily securing us a ticket for a bus which left in less than an hour. Nae bother! But then Joanne started with the calculations again ("the border closes at 7pm"), a little worried about being stuck in a border town with nothing to recommend it apparently; we could find no information in the guide books or online, and even accommodation seemed to be absent from the available information. On the bus, though, we realised that it would all be ok because Vietnam time is one our behind Beijing time, which we were on. So the border "really" closes at 8pm if you're heading south. Only this bus too longer than we expected too.
When we got off the bus we COULD have got a taxi to the border in time, but we had no dong (Vietnamese currency of course) and no way of getting it as you can only get it in the country. In the end we decided we should cut our losses and stay in this nasty wee border town, in case we got into penniless difficulty on the other side. At least our money worked here. After wandering round for a bit we realised that there were NO roman characters in this town at all; a level of difficulty we had not yet been completely exposed to.
Room in Pingxiang (for 60 yuan a night)
So no street name we could decipher, no shop names (is it a hotel? - no they wouldn't have that butchered dog hanging in the window, would they? Or would they?), and certainly no spoken English from anyone we could find. Eventually we passed what looked like it might be a cheap-we-hoped hotel and walked in. Again no English at all. So I took a breath and tried "double room" in Cantonese. Amazingly she understood, whereas previously nobody has understood a single syllable I've uttered in Cantonese. And as if that was not enough reward in itself, the hyroglyphs she pointed to on the wall said "60" next to it, which was far far cheaper than any room we had previously. Obviously it was going to be awful, so we demanded to see it. Ok, I pointed at my eyes and then pointed up the stairs, but it did the trick. In fact the room was our biggest so far, for the least money. It even had a balcony! It was a little bit shabby, but the rule seemed to be holding that the further you are from Hong Kong the less you pay.
Old folks dancing in the square
We wandered out onto the streets, quite cautious, but were met by the noise of a public address system blaring out music over the town square, and the delightful sight of all the old folks (and a few younger ones too) waltzing, or approximating some kind of ballroom dancing. Apparently Joanne had read something about this place: this is how the people of the town take their exercise. The atmosphere was quite festive, the tail end of the New Year apparently giving the place a bit of a buzz. The huge explosions from the fireworks continued (thank goodness we had earplugs for later). Everywhere we went, though, people laughed at us and pointed. Clearly this was not a popular tourist destination. At least not for longer than it takes to catch a taxi to Vietnam. We rounded our evening off with some excellent street food at about 90p for the two of us, and went back to the hotel congratulating ourselves on having chosen the best, cheapest, and fastest option. We would get the early bus to Hanoi the next morning, as we had already bought tickets when we arrived.
written by  The Happy Couple on January 29, 2009 from Pingxiang, China

Bad Party Good Party
Santa Marta, Colombia
Back in Santa Marta, everyone from our tour group and the other one we joined decided that we should go out and have a piss-up to celebrate our trekking achievement – and the fact that alcohol was again easily accessible and reasonably priced. Someone in the other group had a friend who lived locally and therefore "knew a place".
First we had to eat, so we had some cheap-but-dodgy street food, which seems to be the standard sea-front fare in Santa Marta: greasy pizzas and salchipapas. But the two Aussie girls were pleased to be able to pay more for "vegetarian" pizzas, which just looked like normal ones with the meat left off. While we were getting our food Fraggle let slip that the Aussies had not actually contributed towards our guide Castro's tip. It seemed a bit stingy, especially when you consider what a great guide he was, moreover considering how disappointing everyone else's guide sounded, but tips are voluntary and it's easy to get into a habit of being stingy when you are travelling. However I had tipped because Castro's performance was so good it overcame my stinginess. Well everyone has their own threshold, I supposed. Then I remembered Castro carrying Ali on his back for significant parts of the trek, and the fact that he organised a birthday party for her, up in the mountains, in the middle of nowhere, after carrying a cake all the way there as well as booze and wine. Now that is really tight. Nevertheless, Fraggle hadn't wanted to make a big thing out of it, so he told Castro that the tip was from all of us.
Party!
After "food" we carried on to the place the local had chosen for our big night out. I should have realised that most people's idea of a night out is not the same as mine: I had pictured all of us sitting round a large wooden table at a simple drinking den, slowly getting drunk as we relived the last five days, after all these were nice new friends all of whom, I thought, had become quite close in a short period of time, but many of whom would never see each other again after that night. But no. Our big night out was to be in loud a dancing place, doing its best (not very well) to imitate any number of bland nightclubs in the UK. We couldn't speak and the drinks were expensive, and it had almost everything going for it that I hated about Boca Grande in Cartagena. Of course we had to go somewhere like that because girls like dancing, and most people seem to think you have to go for the most expensive place for a good night out. Well what a load crap! I just sat down and started working my way through a bottle of rum with Jamie and Fraggle.
Dance floor
Ali, Fraggle, and Emma
It was only after we left the nightclub that the evening started to get interesting, although it was also rather hazy, after two bottles of rum among the three of us. We found ourselves roaming along the front looking for somewhere to buy beer, but everything was shut and there were very few people around. As we walked along the front I noticed that there was a scattering of people who all seemed to be following and converging on us, slowly and without openly acknowledging us. Actually it was a bit like a zombie film. So far every local I had encountered in Colombia had been really nice and friendly, but here we were easily outnumbered, and I wondered what sort of Colombian hangs around on or near the beach this late at night. It suddenly felt like the dodgiest situation I had been in for the whole trip, and I remembered that Joanne had asked me not to be more reckless after she left. But after a brief period where they seemed to be hanging menacingly around us, we were sitting down with them, being offered beer, and chatting away. They were all very friendly after all, though they did seem to be a mix of students, buskers, beach bums, tramps, and other miscellaneous dodgy people. They were able to tell us which other dodgy person would be able to get us beer so late, correctly assuming, I suppose, that we would share it when it arrived.
At one point Gemma had to leave, I think just to use the toilet somewhere – I can't remember, but she was too scared to go alone, instead opting to take one of the dodgy characters with her. Fraggle and I just assumed that she fancied him, and Fraggle assured me that Gemma could look after herself. Quite a lot of time passed, most of which I spent speaking to a Rastafarian artist about dreadlocks, who eventually sold me a woven bracelet thing, and I occasionally asked Fraggle if we should worry about Gemma not being back, but he just said she'd be fine. Just as we were getting up to leave and call it a night, Gemma arrived back, rushing to keep ahead of the guy she had disappeared with and told us that he was a "total pervert" who had tried to make a move on her.
Fraggle moves...
For hazily unremembered reasons, we went to someone else's hostel instead of going to sleep; I think it may have been because there was a rooftop terrace and they had a bottle of rum. We managed to get rid of most of the dodgy crew, who had started following us, by enlisting the local girl to explain that only people who are staying there will be allowed in so late. Unfortunately Gemma's creepy guy was a tourist and, though she did say it was OK for him to come, asked Fraggle and me to keep him away from her. So the task fell to me to speak to him. Gemma was not wrong when she said he was creepy, and it wasn't long before I was pretty sure he had switched his affections from Gemma to me, though he was never explicit, thank goodness, instead telling me about being a hairdresser on a Ritalin prescription.
Creepy hairdresser
Scary man!
Dawn is coming
Nice view
Nevertheless, it was a lovely roof terrace, with a nice view and a great sunrise. I shouldn't have been up that late! I was supposed to be going back to Cartagena the next day to organise passage to Panama, since Joanne had not been able to find me the trip I wanted. So Gemma and I left to back to the dorm, managing not to wake the others when we got back, leaving Fraggle with the French girl he had pulled. Gemma told me he would be very pleased, because he's never had a French bird before, and he had made it his mission to collect one woman from every country.
Creepy man makes one last attempt at Gemma
written by  The Happy Couple on January 13, 2010 from Santa Marta, Colombia

Leaving South America
Ok so it’s been a long time since the last entry and a long time since the trip finished, but I just want to complete the blog. Of course I can’t remember as much now, so I think the rest will be more photos than words.
Despite the late partying in Santa Marta, I didn’t miss my bus back to Cartagena where I checked into Casa Viena, one of the hostels that sets backpackers up with passage to Panama by boat. Joanne had now organised my flight home, so I needed to sail as soon as possible.
A discussion with the people running the hostel revealed that they didn’t think it was possible to get a cruise that included a trip up the Panama Canal to Panama City as I had planned, even though everyone I had spoken to coming the other direction said this is what they did, but it was what Joanne had reported when she tried to organise the trip for me. The best they could offer me at the hostel was a cruise to the east coast of Panama, leaving in six days, because I missed the 48 hour deadline required to register my passport for an earlier sailing. The only chance was to go up to the Club Nautico and ask about the Panama Canal trip there.
At the Club Nautico nobody there thought it would be possible to get a trip up the canal either, but there was a Captain Fabian who was planning to leave the next morning, needed one more passenger, and said he didn't understand why some other captains insist in 48 hours' notice of registration, because he was quite happy to do it that evening as long as I got my passport to him before 6pm. Since the canal trip seemed impossible, I decided just to do it; I already felt like my trip was over and I was going home, so I just wanted to get it over with. I had to get a move on, though, because Fabian insisted that we should sleep on the boat that night, to avoid the potential problems of late-comers in the morning and make sure everything was OK with us and the boat.
Back at the hostel, they were very nice and did not charge me anything for that night even though I had used their shower and my gear had been sitting in a dorm. The hostel was in the old part of town and this day was really the only time I had a decent look at the area: it was really lovely and the accommodation was really quite reasonable as well. I felt another jolt of regret that we had spent all that time staying in the characterless Boca Grande instead of here. Anyway, that was all behind me now: I was leaving Colombia.
Back at the boat, Fabian took my passport and introduced me to two Italian Swiss guys, Sandro and Romano, who were also passengers. They spoke to me in Spanish and said that they didn't speak much English. My Spanish has seemed like it was getting quite good at one point, but it had definitely become pretty useless again, especially for conversation rather than just tourist-level. This trip was going to be tough, but at least my Spanish would go through rapid improvement again. Then the remaining two passengers turned up and I was let off the hook because they were English. They were a couple and although the girl, Alex, seemed to speak good Spanish, Toby spoke almost none, so the centre of gravity was back in English, and the poor Swiss guys ended up speaking English too, despite the fact we were sailing from one Spanish speaking country to another. Shocking really. We all paid Fabian the large amount of money that was the fare, my last extravagance of the trip, and with the rest of my Colombian money I asked him to get me a bottle of rum, either a big one or a good one, I said, while he went shopping for provisions.
Me alone in the cabin
Once we were all settled into our respective parts of the yacht (it's not a boat it's a yacht, Fabian insisted) el Capitan arrived back with my large and good bottle of rum, as well as a few beers. We should drink the beers now, since we wouldn't feel like alcohol once we were out in the open sea, he told us. I didn't really believe him but I did as I was told.
Cabin with others outside
The boat was very nice but smaller than I had been hoping to get on; the way other people had described their trips I had expected a bit more space and a bit more luxury: this was really quite cramped and there wasn't even a shower, just a pump-and-nozzle up on deck. The main thing was getting to Panama, I supposed, but for the money I had hoped for a bit more.
Despite the cramped bed, I slept well and the next morning we were off much earlier than would have been possible if we all turned up first thing, so Fabian seemed to know his stuff anyway.
Goodbuoy Cartagena!
Good riddance Boca Grande!
Leaving Cartagena we were treated to some fantastic views of the Boca Grande, which actually looks very nice from a distance, and an enormous liner pulling into the harbour: a cruise ship with a huge swimming pool and a climbing wall on the upper decks. Another country behind me, and another continent. Like everywhere else I had been, I wished I had been able to spend more time there; I think Colombia may have been my favourite South American country if I had got to know it better instead of wasting so much time in Boca Grande. Certainly the people were very friendly and genuine, without the cynicism towards tourists that seemed common in other South American countries.
An enormous cruise liner
Liner heading for Boca Grande
written by  The Happy Couple on January 15, 2010 from Cartagena, Colombia

Arriving in Vietnam
Hanoi, Vietnam
The first casualty of the trip
The morning of the 30th I had to admit that my boots had given up the ghost, but at least there would be more space in my bag (for Joanne's stuff)! We caught the bus with no incident and made it through the border, only slightly unperturbed by the long wait for our bus on the other side. In fact it wasn't the same bus; apparently a Vietnamese company had taken over.
Where the scamming bus company dropped us (14km from centre)
We had read in many places that a common scam in Vietnam is they drop you miles outside the town, forcing you to pay a taxi fare to get to where you really wanted to go, but we were prepared for this and determined not to get off the bus unti everyone else did. It was important because we knew the directions to walk from the bus station to our hotel. So we arrived in Hanoi and we stopped in the middle of nowhere. "This is the bus stop" they said. So everyone got off. Except us and an English guy, who was even more determined not to fall for this scam. Sure enough the other people, who were mostly Chinese and not Vietnamese, so as likely as us to fall for this scam we thought, started filling taxis and getting out of there. After a few annoyed words, the driver told us there was a bus stop round the corner if we didn't want to get a taxi. Russell the Englishman was still sitting on the bus ("It's a scam, it's a scam"). We gave up and eventually Russell gave up when they started threatening to drive hime back to China. We were determined not to give them the satisfaction (or kickbacks) of us getting a taxi, so we waddled up the road with our big bags.
A bus appeared and we got on it. Russell was soon engaged in a guerilla English lesson with the conductor on the bus. Russell, it turns out, has just finished a job as an English teacher in China, and seemed quite keen to spread his skills about. We determined that we were not on exactly the right bus, but we could change buses or walk at the end. Economic necessity prevailed. No, it was stinginess; the bus was only 3000 dong, but it seemed like a lot. In fact it is about 10p. The very nice, helpful conductor got off the bus at the terminus to walk some of the way, to make sure we were on track. We walked the remaining 1500m to our hotel. We needed the exercise I reasoned. Coincidence meant that Russell was booked into the same hotel as us. When we arrived, though, they had no double rooms, so we had to make to with a suite! Ok, we were now paying a bit more than Pingxiang, but at 14 quid a night, the further-from-Hong-Kong value-for-money rule seemed to be holding, even if the straightforward cheapness rule had broken down. This room was huge. With a big balcony.
When we had first crossed the border my first impression was that Vietnam was a far more agrarian country than China had appeared. Of course we did not really see much of rural China, but technology and industry seemed to be everywhere; the fact that we did not see any rural area, but we travelled quite far says it all. They are building everywhere! The countryside of Vietnam, though, really had people in tradiational conical hats using sythes in the fields. The pace seemed instantly slower, and the architecture far more charming than the modern, utilitarian towers all over (the wee bit we saw of) China. Some of the architecture has a distinctly collonial appearance, and some of it was reminiscent of Cuba, some of it Cape Town. The next thing to hit home was how easy the language was going to be to handle. Although Vietnamese still has the considerable difficulty that it is also a tonal language, this is lessened by the fact it is written with in romanised characters. It used to be written in chinese-based characters but, thankfully, what the catholic missionaries started in the 17th century, the French completed in the 19th century, and it makes it much easier to read street names, menus, or anything; and also much easier to have a stab at the pronunciation.
Bikes parked outside the "peaceful" temple
The third thing that struck me about Vietnam was the constant beeping apparently required by every vehicle on the road. A short beep seems to mean "I'm here, don't swerve", which is executed every time any vehicle passes any other, or a person; the long beep means "I'm coming through, regardless of any rules of the road. Get out of my way!". There were also a lot of motor bikes on the road. When we hit Hanoi the density of bikes approached critical mass. It's as if the entire city is over-run with Mods who have had a wardrobe malfunction, and lost some of their taste in bikes too. It's just like one huge, continuous biker gang that never ends. Also the pavements are all blocked by parked bikes, so you always have to walk in the road.
Russell Christie
Anyway, the first day we did nothing really, since we arrived so late and were knackered from travelling and lugging our huge bags around, so we just sat on our luxurious balcony and had a wee drink and a chat with Russell.
written by  The Happy Couple on January 30, 2009 from Hanoi, Vietnam

Dolphins and Phosphorescence
San Blas Islands, Panama
Like a lot of Colombians, Captain Fabian was a really warm and friendly, genuine guy, and his excellent English ensured that very little Spanish would be spoken on the cruise. He seemed very confident of his abilities as a skipper and this confidence was very reassuring to his passengers, but he had warned us that the first couple of days were in open seas and likely to be very rough, so we would get sick. He provided us all with sea-sickness pills, although I didn't think I would need it, since I have a very strong stomach. Likewise, Toby and Alex boasted of their ability to withstand any motion without becoming ill, but we all took a pill anyway when Fabian insisted.
It was on this trip that I realised my glib assumption that groups of people when thrown together on a tour are likely just to get on does not always hold true. On the Ciudad Perdida tour everyone had remarked what a great group it was and only now did I realise how true that had been. The two Swiss guys seemed perfectly nice but, apart from not being very confident in their English, which they were now being forced to speak, I think they were both quite quiet guys. I didn't mind that since I was quite happy to sunbathe, or read when I was sheltering from the sun indoors since I hadn't brought any sun cream; the boat was too small for everyone to fit comfortably on deck anyway! The English couple, on the other hand, I didn't get on with at all. They apparently took exception to the reticence of the Swiss guys and seemed to be trying to bring me into a conspiracy of hatred against them every time they spoke to me. They just didn't seem to like foreigners very much, although they had been travelling for about two years already and Alex claimed this had turned her into a bit of a tree-hugger. It turned out that she had been brought up in some weird religious cult I can't remember the name of, and she and Toby had been travelling on her huge earnings from working as a Bentley saleswoman: she seemed about as right wing as all that would suggest, which was confirmed when she told me she was planning for vote for UKIP, who aren't actually at all racist apparently.
So the atmosphere on the boat was never particularly good, since nobody really seemed to get on, the exception being the captain who was a great host and very laid back. Unfortunately he wasn't anything like as good a chef. The stories I had heard of other people's trips from Panama to Colombia were tales of incredible luxury, including lobster every day or fantastic fish if you didn't want to pay the US$1 supplement. Fabian, however, had calculated that we would be too sea-sick to eat much so all we had to eat on the open sea was jam on toast from a packet. In fact I wasn't sea-sick at all, didn't take any more pills, and would quite happily have eaten some lobster thank you very much. To be fair, because the boat was so small it was affected a huge amount by the waves and the movement in the cabin would have made it impossible to cook. I should have held out for a catamaran! Toby and Alex, however, were both very ill with sea-sickness and hardly came out of their cabin for the first two days; they had been given the double bed in a cabin, since they were the only couple of the trip.
Dolphins playing around the boat
I was really enjoying myself and realised that it was the first time I had been out in open seas in such a small boat, in fact probably the first time I had been on a yacht. Within a few hours of leaving Cartagena, we were followed by a large pod of dolphins for about an hour. Amazing: they just seemed to love playing around the boat a little bit like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoyTY8XPr4w (not this trip). After ages of thinking I must have missed my chance to get any photos, I finally thought it was worth a try and went down into the cabin to get my camera. They had started to drop away by the time I came back up on deck, but I managed to get a couple of photos.
Dolphin
The Monitor autopilot
At night we had to take turns as lookout. Fabian had a couple of auto-pilot contraptions for his boat, but the more accurate one had broken down early in the trip, so someone needed to check the bearing occasionally to make sure we were still on course, but the main reason for the lookout, he told us, was in case of any other vessels coming into sight. The first night passed uneventfully, but what I thought was going to be an unwelcome duty I reckoned the amount of money I had contributed should excuse me from, turned out to be an amazing, relaxing chill-out. Of course I couldn't sleep since I was on duty but, apart from standing up every ten minutes to look all round, I was able to lie back and relax with my MP3 player on, hypnotised by the cool air and rocking motion from the waves, which became quite exciting at points: a couple of times a large wave washed over the side of the deck, prompting Fabian to jump out of bed and make some adjustment to the setup of his auto-pilot. Most hypnotic of all, though, was the phosphorescence in the breaking waves, caused by plankton I believe. This caught me completely by surprise when I first noticed it, then I remembered having read about this effect in Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, which is set in the Caribbean; the very same sea we were on now. It's incredibly beautiful and I sat transfixed, listening to the most ambient music in my library. When my shift was up I was sad to leave it, but I was exhausted; not as exhausted as poor Fabian, who covered half of the time Toby and Alex were too ill to do their share of, the rest divvied among the two Swiss and me.
Sailing into the sunset
In the morning we found a dead fish on board, which Fabian identified as a flying fish, then later in the day we saw hundreds of them skimming over the surface of the sea - fantastic! - and another icon from The Old Man and the Sea: first dolphins, then phosphorescence, and now flying fish.
Fabian slept a lot during the day and the rest of us sunbathed and read. On the second night it seemed the Swiss boys had allowed the boat to drift off-course when I started my shift, so I had to call Fabian to check it. His GPS revealed we had drifted worryingly close to the shore, well south of where we were supposed to reach Panama, so he changed the course and left me to it. Later I was disturbed a few times from my phosphorescent reverie by the appearance of lights on the horizon, which was the cue to waken the captain. The first couple of times they disappeared again over a different part of the horizon with no consequence but the third time the other boat got closer and closer, eventually overtaking us, without ever responding to Fabian's radio requests that they identify themselves. It's probably just the coast guard trying to freak us out he said. He had explained that Colombians, in particular Colombian captains, endure quite a lot of harassment from the authorities of other countries because of the drug reputation the country has, but he seemed sanguine about this, saying it had long ceased to bother him. The chances are any shipment of coke they find in or around Panama has originated in Colombia, so what are they supposed to do? he explained. He told me the Panama coast is patrolled by the US coast guard.
The next day we started getting into calmer waters so Toby and Alex re-emerged from their cabin. Alex noticed I was sheltering indoors a lot and worked out that I hadn't brought any sun cream, so very kindly offered me some of hers and I was able to alleviate the growing boredom by spending more time on my tiny little patch on the deck. I was glad when some land came into view because I'd had enough of this tiny little boat.
Very first view of San Blas Islands
written by  The Happy Couple on January 16, 2010 from San Blas Islands, Panama

Paradise Found. Paradishe Losht.
San Blas Islands, Panama
Tiny uninhabited island
As we approached the first island it was clear that we were approaching the tropical paradise that I expected from what I had briefly read in the guide book: crystal clear, turquoise water, peppered with islands of white coral sand, covered in coconut palms; the very archetype of island paradise. It really was very beautiful.
Turquoise waters
When we got slightly closer to the San Blas archipelago I noticed Fabian had his mobile out, sending text messages, so I tried mine: yes, full reception. I wondered why they would have bothered with mobile cells when the nearby islands all appeared to be uninhabited. Then I saw: harboured in the larger coves were several large yachts; this was a rich person's playground – of course they couldn't do without reception! Then I read my messages. My friend, John, had replied to the text I sent boasting of the gorgeous islands I would be visiting on my posh cruise and he had responded with something like: ''Island ghettos for the poor indigenous people forced from their mainland ancestral homes. Sounds lovely." I hadn't read much about the islands but this unsettled me, although the island we were heading to was clearly not a ghetto, in fact it was tiny and uninhabited.
Rich people's hangout
Fabian's boat
Fabian told us that this was Koala Island, a joke in reference to the fact his company is called Sailing Koala, which he apparently thought it would be easy for English speakers to remember. We stopped off at the island for a few hours to swim and relax on the beach. The snorkel gear Fabian had promised us never appeared, but Toby and Alex had their own, as well as a fantastic design of hammock, which ties at the sides and faces forwards, ideal for your typical desert island palm tree setup. Toby and Alex seemed to be having a great time, which just made me think how lovely it would be to have Joanne there. Maudlin, I walked around the island picking up a pretty shell on the way, which I decided I would take home for Joanne; if she can't be in the Caribbean, I would take the Caribbean to her.
Toby's cool side-tying forward-looking hammock
The couple
Shell
Next up was a populated island where some local Kuna people were going to cook our dinner. It took several hours to get there so on the way I read a bit more in the guide book, hoping to assuage the fears John's text message had planted. The book confirmed that these people were inhabitants of the mainland, Colombia, until they were displaced by the Conquistadores, which wasn't quite what I thought John had meant, but sad nonetheless; though I had thought that they had been displaced recently from John's text.
Sandro and Romano
El Capitan
Arriving at the next island, there were loads more large yachts moored around the island which, even from the shore, did not look like a pleasant place to live. We went ashore on Fabian's dinghy, were introduced to the family who would be cooking for us, and Fabian invited us to walk around the island. It was pretty depressing. Here, among all these island paradises, people were living in grim poverty. Almost the entire island had been covered in concrete, so the beautiful white sands were only visible in a few places next to the water. It was also clear that the only economy they had was what money they could extract from the wealthy yachting tourists: everywhere local crafts were being sold at far higher prices than I could afford, especially having blown so much money on the cruise, and we were told that if we took photos of anyone we would have to give US$1 to everyone in each photo. We saw plenty of what we would consider poverty on this trip, but there is something particularly upsetting about poverty when it exists right next to conspicuous wealth, like these yachts. It seems to make the difference between happy poor people and desperate poor people.
First view of an inhabited island
More rich people
Poor people
The one upside was that Fabian knew a lot of the locals and I believed him when he told us that he believed in spreading the money around. I think he probably paid them reasonably well for our dinner, and he told us that he changes which people he goes to so they all get their turn. Fabian had explained to us that each of the islands is legally a state in its own right with its own laws. In particular this meant that we had to buy and drink any beer we wanted immediately, before the alcohol curfew. Bizarrely the next island along had no closing time and alcohol could be bought, never mind consumed, 24 hours a day.
Pier
Towards the end of our meal we saw a side-effect of the different state's proximity. To much excitement on the beach next to our table, a large dugout boat with an outboard motor set off from the beach opposite. It was very overloaded and judging by the whooping on board, the occupants were also loaded. It started out at full speed and started taking water immediately. It sunk lower and lower during the 30 seconds or so after it set out until it had sunk too low to keep going and everyone had to splash out into the shallow water, laughing and falling about. They crowded around and started bailing the boat out, eventually managing to drag it ashore; however one of the people who had been on the boat was face-down in the water. Just when we were about to run over, the locals seemed to notice him and dragged him out. After a bit of squeezing his chest, him coughing up water, and lots of laughing all round they indicated he was alright. He was carried away and the rest of the people from the boat staggered off, most of them so drunk they could barely stand.
No more than 100m to booze
Back on Fabian's boat, where we were to sleep again, he told us that every so often a batch of cocaine, ditched in the sea when smugglers are evading the coast guard, washes up on the beaches of the islands and the islanders sell it on, meaning that they get a huge windfall so that they don't have to do any work for a while; instead they just get drunk constantly until the money runs out. It almost seemed Fabian didn't have a very high opinion of the islanders, but he did seem to care about them; I think he put it down to their lack of choices and saw it as sad rather than bad. I certainly found their situation sad.
written by  The Happy Couple on January 17, 2010 from San Blas Islands, Panama

Paradise Regained
San Blas Islands, Panama
Sails
The next day we were sailing again for an hour or so to reach our next island paradise. This one, called Chichime, was primarily used as a coconut plantation, but a small section at one end of the island had been cleared to be used for tourism. There were a couple of cabins for accommodation and a couple of kiosks selling coldish beer, all run by one Kuna family. Fabian told us he'd try to organise lobster for dinner and we relaxed for a bit.
Fabian
This captures the atmosphere on the boat quite well
Our next island paradise
Plenty of other boats were moored here, but most people spent most of their time on the boats. There were also some people staying in the cabins long term. We soon discovered that the largest boat at the island was Metacomet, one of the boats I had originally considered taking. It was a much larger boat than ours. The passengers on the boat told us that it was really overcrowded, they were days behind schedule, and the captain wasn't paying the staff what he had promised so they had gone on strike; now the passengers had been told that they had to take turns cooking and doing other chores. Hearing about this, I was pleased to be on Fabian's boat rather than theirs.
Commerce
Fabian was unable to source any lobster; apparently they were having difficulty catching any, but Fabian blamed it on the recent coke find he assumed had been made, believing that they were too busy drinking to go fishing. In the end we settled for some nice big fish, and we were cooked a lovely meal with beans on the island. The fish was a bit ruined: fried to rubber and incredibly salty; I think they should have left some of the salt in the sea said Alex, but I still really enjoyed it.
More rich people
Turquoise
Wrecked on the reef
We were there for two nights drinking beer and, on the second night, I decided it was vital that we drink the rum. Although it was beautiful there wasn't much to do, and I didn't much feel like relaxing, but that's exactly what I should have been doing in my last little bit of time away. Now my flights were booked, though, I just wanted to go home.
Fabian, Alex, Toby, and Sandro
The rum had to be drunk
Small Island
Poor Kuna
Apart from a short trip over to explore the tiny neighbouring island, all we did was sit around listening to captains talking about their boats, which very quickly became extremely dull; just like any niche interest, the enthusiasts are very geeky and talk of nothing else. I did gather that the San Blas Islands are unanimously considered the favourite place in the whole world by captains; at least among the small sample who were actually in the San Blas Islands at that time, but most of them had been living on their boats for over five years. There was some real one-upmanship about who had been on their boat the longest. They all stated that they could never live on land again; they've tried it and it doesn't work for them. Yawn.
More paradise
Flip flops seem to make up 50% of sea debris
Really tiny island
Starfish
Sea chicken
The tiny island from "ours"
The boat
After briefly recovering from his sea-sickness, Toby had become ill again, but this time with a fever. By the last day, we were all quite worried about him; after all they had been travelling mostly in tropical places for about two years and Alex was very worried that it might be dengue or malaria. This messed up their plans a bit as they had been planning to remain on the island in a rented tent for a week after the rest of us left; they waited until the last minute then Alex insisted to Toby that they were going to a hospital for tests on the mainland, not staying on the island and hoping.
Fishing
Leaving Chichime
Carti
Impressive boat
Kuna
Fabian sailed us to Carti, an island near the border post, from where he had arranged a little dugout ferry to take us to the mainland. We had some food and beer from a bar on the island then stayed the last night moored nearby. In the morning the ferry took us to the mainland where a four wheel drive was waiting to drive us to Panama City. The cruise was over. Fabian was a good guy and a great captain, but the boat was just too small, and I was a bit disappointed with the lack of luxury after all the people who had raised my expectations. The islands were gorgeous though.
Island life
Toilet
Toilet from the outside
God lights
written by  The Happy Couple on January 20, 2010 from San Blas Islands, Panama

Bia Hoi in Hanoi
Hanoi, Vietnam
On the 31st we decided to take it fairly easy and just get to know our surrounding area. I had one main mission in mind: sample the "Bia Hoi". It's a local speciality, so I had to. Bia Hoi is -- means, I think -- "Fresh Beer", which is drunk on the day it is brewed. Apparently there were Bia Hoi places all round where we were staying but we had failed to find them the previous night.
To try and inject a bit of organisation and high-brow into our trip we decided we first had to book some things: "Water Puppetry", a boat trip from Ha Long Bay to Cat Ba (Island), and also a bus to our next destination, Hue (pronounced like "whey" with an extra "h" at the start -- not Huey). We had planned to get an "open bus" trip all the way to Saigon, meaning we could move on to each next town whenever we wanted, but the prices had apparently "gone up for the holiday". This New Year was determined to continue plaguing us! In fact they bus tickets had doubled in price. Reasoning that the Spring Festival was in fact over now, so the prices would be coming down really soon, we just booked the first stop.
Drinking Bia Hoi (fresh beer)
Eventually we found a Bia Hoi place and sat down on little plastic seats at the street corner. (Disappointingly) it was all tourists there, but we got chatting to a few people and the Bia Hoi was rather pleasant: very light and, yes, fresh tasting. Apparently it's only a couple of percent maximum, so we had several and felt very little effect. But it was so refreshing, we could have sat and drunk it all day... just as a thirst quencher of course. While we were vendors kept walking by with trays full of books. Every now and then one of them would say to me "marijuana? very nice quality". Joanne complained that they never ask her; it must be my hair. We bought a couple of books from different vendors: a Lonely Planet Vietnam guide (haggled down from 340000 dong to 120000) as our Rough Guide to (all of) SE Asia was proving a bit too rough, and a Vietnamese phrase book (haggled down from 200000 to 80000). The books are, of course, copies; scanned and reprinted, judging by the occasional incorrect letter or missing space. The quality is ok, but the pages are a bit thin and some of them a little too faint.
Later in the day we were in a book shop to buy camera batteries and I noticed the same books on the shelves. The price tags were exactly what I had paid for them! Later we would meet some French tourist who had paid more than this and feel slightly smug. We took note of the price for the Cambodia Lonely Planet and moved on.
Encouraged by our new purchase we sought a particularly good restaurant, in fact it was the "Lonely Planet Pick" for budget Vietnamese restaurants. When we arrived the place was JAMMED full with Americans (apparently uniformly -- I didn't hear another accent or see a non-white face) and the prices must have at least doubled since it was listed under the budget section, because it wasn't at all cheap; near the upper limit of our price range in fact. That, of course, is the problem with using a Lonely Planet guide book. We went across the road and had a perfectly pleasant real budget meal.
written by  The Happy Couple on January 31, 2009 from Hanoi, Vietnam

Vietnam Phone number
Hanoi, Vietnam
Number in Vietnam is +841213165515, although it seems that text messages are not getting through -- at least not yet. Maybe they're going to be delivered very late, but there is certainly some sort of problem.
written by  The Happy Couple on February 1, 2009 from Hanoi, Vietnam

Hooters Hell
Panama, Panama
After we said goodbye to Captain Fabian, we went through the rudimentary security control, our passports already having been stamped at one of the islands a few days previously, and piled into our waiting four-wheel-drive.
I wasn't really sure what to expect from Panama, but it was never a country on my agenda for more than transit and viewing the Canal. I had originally planned to zip through it on the way to, I imagined, much more interesting countries like Guatemala and Mexico; Panama, I had thought, would just be like a US colony, so not very interesting. So I was pleasantly surprised that the first half of our drive was through incredibly lush and thick jungle: more impressive-looking that the part of the Amazon Basin I had been in, though much smaller in extent. Very pretty, but the Panamanian jungle was not something I'd have time for.
Joining us in the vehicle was an ex-pat of the US and his Panamanian wife. He expressed maybe the most anti-American views I have ever heard from someone born there, insisting that he only ever went back there when he had to go there for administrative reasons. He loved Panama and had made it his home.
When we arrived in the City, Alex and Toby got out at a hospital, they were that worried about Toby's fever, and I carried on to the hostel that Joanne had booked me into. It was one of the cheapest, but the guide says it was in a good part of town; apparently most of the other cheap hostels were in rather unsavoury parts of town.
Drinkers
I didn't think much of Panama City, and I didn't think much of the area I was in: it looked like the financial district of a US city. Not very interesting. The hostel seemed OK, though, and I spent the first night there getting drunk at a barbecue some of the hostel's other guests were having downstairs: a Polish girl, whose name I can't remember, a young guy from the US, named Skye after the Scottish Island, and I can't even remember which country the other guy was from, never mind his name; I think he might have been French. Anyway, we stayed up late and drank a lot. That Clos wine in a carton is no good.
It was on the map
The next day, I thought I'd cure my hangover by going to the Hooters, which I noticed on the hostel map was nearby. I'd never been to a Hooters before and, since I seemed to be in a US colony, I thought I might as well embrace the culture. Well, it turns out that Hooters is overpriced, rubbish, and the food is terrible. Curiously, though, despite the menus being in English, none of the waitresses (or Hoots or whatever nonsense name they've given them) seemed to speak even as much English as those working in the tourist industries of South American countries where the menus are only in Spanish. Weird, I thought, but from what I've heard that's probably the same as the US as well, isn't it?
So I had to go
Panamanian Beer
Later that day my stomach started to gurgle and I started to feel quite unwell. I managed a few drinks outside again with Skye and the Polish girl, to try and kill whatever microbes were multiplying in my guts. This time, they were joined by an older guy from the US. He and Skye started talking about how they hated the country and they would both stay in Panama or wherever else they could just so they wouldn't have to go home. I was starting to get the impression that, despite appearing very much like the US, Panama is very attractive to US citizens who don't get on well in their own country. I explained that I had to excuse myself early because I thought I'd eaten something bad at Hooters, and the older American guy just said Yup, those buffalo wings'll do it to you every time. And that was exactly what I'd eaten.
I spent the next few days in Panama City too ill to do much apart from catching up on some blogging, and going to a doctor who gave me antibiotics. I don't think I'll be ever going to Hooters again! I suppose it's what I get for supporting such a misogynistic restaurant concept.
written by  The Happy Couple on January 25, 2010 from Panama, Panama

Panamá Viejo
Panama, Panama
I had planned to take a couple of trips out of the city, at the very least to see the Canal, but it looked like all I was going to see was the financial district. On the third or fourth day, I can't remember, I was starting to get over my Hooters food-poisoning and was sitting blogging in the common area of the hostel when in walked Lucy and Zdenek. Wow! Another amazing surprise / coincidence. I had known they were coming to Panama, but I wasn't sure when and I certainly didn't know they were coming to this hostel.
They told me about their trip from Colombia, which they had done partly because I had told them about all the fantastic reports I'd heard. I was ready to apologise for my bad advice if their cruise had only been up to the same standard as mine, but they had got lucky apparently and been on a huge luxurious catamaran, eating lavishly the whole way, and then got to stay at the captain's house in the City for a night after the trip; they also got a free lift from the port in his four-wheel-drive. It was a while ago, so maybe I'm not remembering all the details correctly, but I'm fairly sure that was what they got. It seemed I was the only one who didn't get the full luxury treatment on my trip, yet it cost the same as everyone else's! Well, everyone apart from those poor people who took the Metacomet and ended up with delays and staff strikes.
Anyway, the two of them were moving to a hostel in a different part of town and suggested I join them. It was a cheaper place in the supposedly dodgy Panamá Viejo, but I hated the district I was in anyway and decided I would move too, but since I'd already paid for that night I said I'd see them there the next day. Anyway, I didn't want to leave the area without trying the nearby Lebanese restaurant, which I'd been planning to go to once I recovered my health. So I went that evening and it was fantastic. The service was a bit slow and they had that same strange situation of English menus, but waitresses who can't speak any English. Considering I'd hardly eaten for the last few days I decided I could go all-out.
What is hummus normally missing?
Lamb meat!
More meat
Lebanese Lemonade
That night I went through all of my stuff and threw out the very worn out items, which it made no sense to take home. There was actually quite a lot of stuff that was far past usefulness that I had just been putting up with because I was travelling, but to take it home would have been ridiculous.
My clothes were done
I started going through the medicine bag that we had built up during the trip, intending to throw most of it out as well, from the mystery pills the pharmacist in Yangshuo had given Joanne, which might have been for period pain or any other abdominal complaint, I was never confident that we had communicated successfully; to the sleeping pills we had bought in India to help us sleep through the heat and noise after hellish bus journeys; all of this had accumulated and I wasn't very happy with the idea of taking much of it through US customs, since we hadn't required a prescription to buy any of it and I assumed one would be needed for some of it in the US. However, there was just too much of it, and I wanted to make sure I didn't throw out useful things like painkillers or antihistamines, so I put it off until the next hostel.
The following day, I moved to Panamá Viejo and what a difference! Lovely old buildings in various stages of disrepair and repair, no horrible modern glass tower blocks, and far fewer big cars refusing to let pedestrians cross the street. The hostel was basic, but a room cost only slightly more than the dorm I'd been in before, and I needed the space to repack before my flight. I went out for dinner with Lucy and Zdenek, though I forgot to take any photos of them or any photos of the area it seems. It was lovely to see them again to cheer me up when I was getting all miserable about my trip coming to an end.
My last day there and we went for a walk around the area. It was really quite pleasant and I have no idea why the guide was advising against staying there; there were loads of lovely cafes and restaurant, which were cheaper than the financial district. It did look like a lot of renovation was very recent, so maybe the book was a bit out of date and we were pioneers in a newly gentrified district. As a bonus, the start of the Canal is just next to Panamá Viejo, so we stood and watched some vessels going through the first lock, with all the American tourists buying, or already wearing, Panama hats.
For my last night we went out to a cocktail bar and I got drunk again; never a sensible idea the night before you are travelling, especially if you haven't packed!
written by  The Happy Couple on January 27, 2010 from Panama, Panama

Day of Culture in Hanoi
After our day of organisation we leapt into sight-seeing properly. One of the nice things about Lonely Planet guides is that they have suggested "self walking tours" to get you out and seeing the city. We had arranged to meet Russell at 1pm for lunch and then a visit to the Museum of Ethnology, which we reckoned gave us loads of time.
The walking tour was around the Old Quarter, where our hotel was too. It starts at the Den Ngoc Son temple in the middle of Hoan Kie Lake, "Lake of the Restored Sword"; Le Loi, a 15th century Vietnamese hero, had his miraculous sword swallowed by a golden turtle/oise in the lake. There is another small island in the lake known as Tortose Tower, and people apparently still see turtles in the lake from time to time, which is a very auspicious event. The guide says something about taking a respite from the bustle of Hanoi in the peaceful surroundings of the temple. What rubbish! This was certainly the busiest temple I've ever been to. We think it may have been down to it being the last day of the Spring Festival ("Tet" in Vietnam), but I had to fight my way to the kiosk to pay our entrance, then we had to barge our way around the little island to get a glimpse of anything at all of the temple. Children were running wild, Vietnamese people were burning (fake mostly) money all of the place, and the smoke from the incense was unbearably thick. We think the money burning is something to do with sending money to your dead anscestors, but it's defintely got something to do with luck. You can buy $5000 notes on "Fake Street" we discovered later on the walking tour.
Eventually we were able to shove our way back out of the temple and continue through the streets. By now we were getting the hang of the traffic: you just start walking across the road, because there is no point waiting for the lights as they mean nothing to the bikes, and try to maintain a steady pace; this way the mopeds are able to swerve out of your way to which ever side is most convenient to them. At crossroads, they take the same approach and just zigzag past the orthogonal mopeds and cars. The cars seem to be large 4-wheel drives mostly, which seems rather unfair and completely out of place next to all the mopeds. We visited an old restored Chinese Merchant's house, Memorial House, which was lovely and also had lots of lovely arty things for sale. We past one of the old city gates, only standing apparently because the emperor Ly Thai To prayed at a temple we also passed, after the city walls collapsed several times.
We passed a couple of markets and saw the bundles of fake notes for sale for use in Buddhist ceremonies.
A traditional house at the Museum of Ethnology
We didn't have time to finish our tour before we met Russell and headed to the Museum of Ethnology. On the bus on the way there we were joined by another tourist, Laura from England, who realised we were also heading to the Museum. Although this is a big museum, a large tourist attraction there were no signs up for it or anything, and the guide book only had directions as far as the bus stop we had to alight at. After a bit of asking and pointing we found it. The outside area of the museum was quite good fun: they had all sorts of activities engaged in by the various ethnic groups, and a little bit of a historical background to how they arose. We watched people making "clay crackers", which are like large clay ashtrays (still wet), which are then dropped from a height, upsidedown. They pop.
Stick fighting at the Museum of Ethnology
And the one whose cracker spreads the furthest wins. Apparently it's got to do with defending the river against dragons or something, but now it's jsut a bit of fun. There were also reproductions of loads of different dwellings from a variety of ethnic groups, some of them inexplicably populated by on or two school children doing their geometry homework. Then there was the stick fighting, which seemed to be all about children being humilated by their parents urging them to have just one more go with the opponents who have already beaten you three times in a row. And of course, no museum is complete without a swing.
The inside of the museum was incredibly dull. Maybe it was all just a bit too highbrow for us, but it was one of those museums I hated as a child: lifeless artifacts; glass case after glass case. We didn't spend long inside. Even the visiting "Catholicism in Vietnam" exhibition couldn't hold our interests.
Water puppet performance
So on to the Water Puppetry for our final installment of culture. Joanne had decided on this event, so I had really no idea of what it would entail. All I knew was that the name reminded me of "Puppetry of the Penis", which was so successful at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I hoped it was nothing like that. When it started it was obviously just going to be puppets in the water, which I thought was going to be awful, however it was actually quite good; the puppets were very cleverly made and they were very skillfully brought to life, but best of all was the band who played the sound track of traditional Vietnamese music on traditional Vietnamese instruments.
written by  The Happy Couple on February 1, 2009 from Hanoi, Vietnam

Never Again!
Orlando, United States
I woke up hung-over again, and with no time to repack my bag. All I was able to do was grab the first set of clothes from the top of my rucksack and head out the door to get my taxi.
When I'd changed hostels I thought I had it all worked out so perfectly: I had just three sets of clean clothes left, which was exactly correct, so I didn't need to do any laundry before the journey home and I had all the clean ones sitting at the top of my bag for easy access.
I had even gone as far as thinking that the Cuba t-shirt might not go down too well with the US authorities, and nor might the Che Guevara one; so I'd put the Cuba one to the bottom for changing into after my overnight flight and the Che one on top, for wearing the day before I left. That's how organised I was when I moved hostels. Unfortunately I'd been a bit too hung-over and lazy to change the morning before and it was only on the way out the door I realised that I hadn't wanted to wear the Che t-shirt that day. I thought about going back in and rummaging through my bag to change, but then I thought ''This is ridiculous, surely nobody could really care about a t-shirt?" and decided it was more important to get to the airport on time.
At Panama airport I was subjected to the most unpleasant and high security experience since Heathrow Terminal 5 at the start of the trip over a year previously. It was all long queues and aggressive-looking security staff. After the X-ray machine and metal detector, I was just about to pick up my cabin bag and walk away, when a large aggressive security woman shouted at me in an American accent. Sir! There is a knife in your bag. You will have to hand it over. I knew I didn't have a knife in my bag, so I said that I didn't think there was one. She didn't like that one bit: Sir, there is a knife in your bag and you will hand it over. I tried saying that I really didn't think there was, but she walked towards me and, after looking at the X-ray screen, pointed at the side pocket. In here. I opened it up and saw my corkscrew, which I suppose does have a jaggy bit on the end, but it would never have occurred to me to move it from my hand luggage. I took it out to show her and started to say It's not a knife, it's just a corkscrew but she interrupted and said Sir you cannot take that on board. Hand it over. No please. No thank you. And no sign we were in a nice third world country or Latin America.
I said goodbye to my beloved corkscrew and carried on, depressed, for the next stage of this nightmare journey Joanne had booked for me. The original plan had been to fly from South America, but it would have cost something ridiculous like two or three hundred pounds more, one way. Then we thought I could fly from Central America, which was much cheaper, but it looked like all of the flights transit through the US, which I wouldn't have worried about too much, but with all these fascist policies that were brought in on the back of 9-11, it meant that, strictly speaking, you can no longer transit through the States: everyone has to go through immigration, presumably so everyone is thoroughly checked out. In fact, recently they had introduced another hurdle, to wit, everyone has to have a visa – or a visa waiver – even including US citizens coming home, I'm told.
Still, it was the cheapest way of getting home, so I thought I would put up with the extra inconvenience, and had applied for and printed off the pre-filled visa waiver form. As a last twist in my journey, Joanne had discovered it would be considerably cheaper to land in Belfast, and take a budget carrier from there to Glasgow, and there was one flight a bit too soon after I landed, or else I'd have to wait at the airport for most of the day. It was going to be a horrible journey: Panama to Orlando, a couple of hours wait before flying to Newark, more waiting before the overnight flight to Belfast, then the whole day in the airport before a 50 minute flight to Glasgow. But we had no money left, so it had to be the cheapest option.
When we landed in Orlando, the entire atmosphere was tense and aggressive. Even the people cleaning the toilets before you go through security were scowling and staring at everyone; I'm tempted to say that they were all agents, paid to glean what information they could while terrorists still have their guard – and their pants – down. Maybe they were, or maybe they just hated their minimum wage jobs and all the people that dirtied their toilets.
If I thought the toilet cleaners were scary, they had nothing on all the staff in the immigration hall. Everyone looked very serious. And the queue was long. This was going to be a very long wait. Having travelled through several Communist dictatorships and a few highly militarised countries, this was the most blatant display of control and power I had witnessed on the trip; and certainly the most intimidating, which I suppose it the largest part of the intention. Standing in the queue I felt like I was in some dystopic science fiction story. A video screen at the front of every queue on a loop repeated the message that America is a fantastic country, full of lovely happy genuine, generous people, and above all it is a friendly and welcoming place; meanwhile - I can't remember if it was another screen, PA, or just a notice - informed us of all sorts of rules and regulations. Actually I think it must have been an announcement as I remember that being on a loop as well. It told me things like if I did not obey every command given to me by the immigration officer I was in breach of US law; if I did not answer every question he asked me completely honestly (whether relevant or not) I was in breach of US law; if I did not fill in my form correctly I was in breach of US law. And every time, I couldn't help myself from mentally adding to the end, and likely to be whisked off to Guantanamo or disappeared to Diego Garcia; it might have been the frequent references to sinister-sounding organisations like Homeland Security that completed the job, but I was beginning to feel quite scared. Friendly and welcoming, my arse! All this intimidation and I wanted to shout out I don't even want to come into your horrible country anyway!! Just let me though! I'd have stayed on the plane if you'd let me! but of course that would have been in breach of US law and probably entitled me to immediate summary sentencing by the Department of Homeland Security.
Jason Kester, who runs this website, wrote in his blog last year that he didn't like Bolivia much and it made him nervous because of his experiences at the border, but the Bolivian border has absolutely nothing on what the US does. It is truly awful.
So it was in this state of heightened anxiety that I found myself at the front of the queue, able finally to watch what the procedure was at the desk. I wanted to make sure I got it right. It seemed to involve all sort of invasive procedures like having your retinas and finger prints scanned, but for all I knew it also involved having your blood taken or getting branded by the immigration officer, so I wanted to watch closely. As I was looking on, the immigration officer looked up and I gave him a friendly half-smile automatically, as if to say hi, I'm next. In return I was greeted with a hard scowl, a very slow and pointed look down at my t-shirt, and a slow and pointed return to scowl at my face again. I thought Oh shit! I should have taken the time to change my t-shirt after all, but surely these highly trained people with such an important job to do are not so infantile and narrow-minded that something like a t-shirt would actually arouse suspicion. Then it was my turn to step forward.
The officer looked like he was about 19 years old and he had his head shaved, though not bald, just like a neo-Nazi – or someone in the army, I suppose. But he was podgy and when he spoke he sounded like a hick to me, though I'm not good with American accents, so maybe that's just what an Orlando accent sounds like. I handed over my documents and he asked me where I was going (Glasgow, Scotland) and where I was travelling from (Panama City). He asked what my flight number to Glasgow was and was not impressed when I said I didn't know because it wasn't with the same airline, but I had my schedule all the way to Belfast. He took my schedule and wrote all the flight numbers on my visa waiver form. Then he asked how long I've been out of the country. I told him about fourteen months and straight-away, he shot back at me And where did you get the money for a trip like that? Were you working? – No courtesy, no manners, just barked questions like a sergeant-major. I told him; no I had been moving too much to have time to work, but that I was obviously working before I started travelling. How much money did you have "saved up" for a trip like that? he asked, which I thought was none of his business, but remembering the sign and where I was I decided I'd rather answer him than have a bullet put in the back of my head, or spend the next four years in an orange jump suit, having daily near-drowning experiences and no contact with the outside world. After every answer I gave he responded with a cheeky little uh-huh? as if to say well that's what you say now, but I'm sure we'll get the truth out of you one way or another. Next question was And did you declare all that money when you first entered the US?
By this time my initial desire to shout out that I didn't even want to get into the country had turned into a constant internal dialogue. I think it was the only way I could cope with the situation. Internal dialogue said [Just how stupid are these people, haven't they heard of cash machines? And why has he assumed that I've already been through the US. I didn't even want to come near your horrible country], but I just told him that I had it in a bank account and drew it as I needed it, then had to point out that this was the first time I'd come to the US on this trip when he started pursuing the did you declare last time line. At about this time he indicated that I should now submit to having my biometric data stolen from me against my will and I gave up my fingers and eyes to the fascists. Meanwhile, The Thing started leafing through my passport and turning it to read the visas and stamps. At one point he seemed to jump a little, with shock I think, and asked What did you think of China?; he could not have crammed more suspicion into his voice [Oh my god these people really are stupid], so I just told him that I liked it and I thought that Beijing was an amazing city, cue uh-huh?. In retrospect, I realise I should have said at that point Man what a horrible place, I couldn't stand those Commies. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough, but I hadn't quite grasped how stupid they are yet.
So Hulk continued with the leafing, then another little shocked jump, somehow he did cram more suspicion into his voice as he lowered his lumbering brows and asked And what did you think of Vietnam, as if he was catching me by surprise and I wouldn't have expected him to think of that one. In truth I was dumbfounded that their front line against terrorism could be so stupid and pick such predictable targets. I just said Yeah I really liked Vietnam. Next, and this time I couldn't believe it, he asked the same question again, but this time the country was Cambodia. I didn't have the heart to tell him that, despite the name of the ruling party, the country is anything but Communist. I felt like helping him out: [Oh look – there's a Lao stamp, shouldn't you be asking me about Laos next? But you probably don't even believe that the US were in there. OK – look Bolivia! – now they're real Commies, ask me about that!]. I told him I didn't like Cambodia so much, then panicked as I realised that the next thing I was going to say when he asked why was that the wealth divide in that country was a disgrace and a huge shock after the absence of inequality in Vietnam; quickly I back-peddled in my mind and managed to salvage It was the poverty, there was a lot of poverty there. [Whew! I'd have been in trouble if, in America, I'd said anything against the wealth divide, the very cornerstone of Capitalism].
Anyway, this went on for some time, asking me more questions about money and what I did for a living, a lot of things that were nothing to do with him, all asked in the rudest, most aggressive manner; and then he changed tack and said suddenly Have you ever been arrested? now sounding triumphant and of course when I responded No!, getting into the psych-war by ladling as much incredulity and scorn into my voice as I thought I could get away with, he came back with a more satisfied than ever UH-HUH? and turned away from me to his computer, where he went tackity-tack for a few minutes, before turning back, not to me but to my visa waiver form where he took a red pen and wrote a big S and circled it. Then he theatrically picked up my passport, just to remind me he had it I think, and ordered Follow me!
So walking away from the immigration desks (I'd not seen anyone else leaving their post) we went through a back room, the doors of which he opened and closed at both ends with special security keys, and ended up at the luggage carousel. Identify your bag and collect it, he demanded. Now this was a shock; I hadn't expected to see my bag again until Belfast, but there it was going round on the carousel. Wait over here he indicated some plastic seats outside a room with blacked-out windows. I sat down and he disappeared with my passport. I couldn't believe this, after all the supposedly dodgy places we had been, it's the US where they hold my passport to ransom, just like I'd heard tales of from people travelling through corrupt former Soviet republics, and it's the US where it looked like I was about to be strip-searched, judging by the room I was sitting outside.
They left me sitting there for about twenty minutes, which was more than enough time for me to start worrying about the contents of my bag: [Oh shit! The medicine bag!] I'd forgotten (and not had time) to go through it that morning, containing the various drugs you probably need a prescription for in the States, but surely they wouldn't be too bothered by that, surely the worst that could happen is they'd take them off me when I said I didn't realise? Then there was the lovely decorative carved pipe, covered in traditional weaving, I'd bought in Bolivia; could they arrest me on the grounds that it was drugs paraphernalia? I didn't know, but considering how I'd been treated so far, I didn't feel particularly happy about it. Even if it ended with nothing more than a slap on the wrist, I wasn't at all looking forward to the strip-search that seemed inevitable now. That was when I realised: the red S on my form, that must be what it stands for; Search, or Strip perhaps.
Finally the orc came back with another officer of the regime, handed him my passport, and he left. The new one asked me if I could please put my bags up on a table a few yards from where I was sitting; it was one if those long desks they always have at customs, which they use for searching bags. At least this guy's manner was nicer; I assume the customs guys aren't trained to be as nasty as immigration for some reason. By the time I got to the desk he was paging through my passport. Quite the world traveller he said, as I lifted my bags up. Yes, I was on a round the world trip I explained. Uh-huh? And what did you think of China?, he said, stopping at that page. [Oh god, here we go again! Can't they think in any way that deviates from their indoctrination?]. Yeah I really liked it, Beijing was an amazing city, I trotted out. Uh-huh? And what did you think of Vietnam?. Yeah I liked it a lot too.
This one was obviously not fully trained in US foreign adventures because he neglected to ask me about Cambodia; or maybe he just had other things on his mind: So, I hope you don't mind, but I have to ask: how can you afford to take a trip like that and not work for a year?. I told him I was a computer programmer, I'd saved up for ten years, and yes it was quite a well-paid job. I see, so it's a sort of once in a lifetime trip? he said. [Wow, this guy is much nicer]. I told him, yeah, or maybe I'll save up for another ten years. The bit about the money went on for a while again.
Then it was next up: So do you mind telling me what's in these bags? he asked. Ok, I told him, mostly electronics and books in the small one, and mostly laundry in the big one. You wouldn't happen to have any narcotics in them? he asked. No, I responded, I'm not that stupid. Then he told me It's just that we've got sniffer dogs back there, behind the carousel, and they seemed very interested in your bag. Can you think of any reason that might be? I wondered if they might be trained to sniff out prescription drugs as well, but I just told him I had no idea why the dogs would be interested in my bag. Did you smoke anything while you were travelling. Or were you around people who were? he asked, then added I don't care if you did, I just really need to know. So I told him I'd been at a party where people were smoking, and he said Well that's probably what it was: the dogs were probably just smelling it off your clothes. OK, you can go, and thank you for your honesty. [Well thank you for not strip-searching me or taking me off to Guantanamo]. Then, just as I was picking my bags up, in a piece of pure Columbo, he asked me Can you tell me: what was the thing you liked most about Vietnam? He obviously thought he might catch me out, but all he did was to make my internal dialogue go into over-drive: [Vietnam? Let me tell you about Vietnam. Let me see; is it the fact that they're Commies? Is it the fact they kicked your American butts? Is it the fact that they don't allow your nasty American companies to do business, like Coca Cola and Starbucks? No, wait, I've got it –] It was the food. I really like the food.
And that was it. Over an hour, I think, of intimidation and now I was free. I am never ever coming back to this country again I swore to myself, even if it does mean spending £300 more on the flight to avoid the place. Only an hour! What it's like when you really get in trouble is beyond me; I would not cope at all. The first thing I did when I got back to the civilian area of the airport was to find a bar and order a beer. The guy behind the bar asked me for ID! What a country! Do they really still think they are free? It certainly seems to be the most restrictive country of all those I visited. OK, it was only airports, but it left me with absolutely no desire to venture further into the country.
It was only as I was sitting drinking my beer that I realised that the whole story about the dogs must have been made up nonsense, intended to scare me and break me down, because there is no way that they would have let a bag go without searching it, when sniffer dogs had been all over it. Then I started wondering, could the big red S stand for Scare? What a bunch of bastards!
This is how I felt
written by  The Happy Couple on January 28, 2010 from Orlando, United States

Leaving Hanoi and Ha Long cruise
Ha Long, Vietnam
By Monday, when we were due to leave Hanoi, we had had enough of the breakfast at the hotel. On Saturday morning, we were asked "Eggs?" when we arrived at breakfast, so we said "ok", although I really wanted the noodles with beef, chillies, peanuts, and beansprouts that the staff were eating when we arrived. Eggs arrived. Absolutely destroyed, drenched in grease, two horrible fried-to-death eggs. This was accompanied by two slices of poor white bread and sweet red stuff that was probably supposed to be jam. We got coffee because we had already discovered that it was not possible to get the nice looking green tea that the Vietnamese were all drinking; tourist are given Lipton tea, which is like Tetley, but not as good. So on the Sunday morning I had asked "Is there any choice, could we have a Vietnamese breakfast?" - "No. Eggs." so we had the same again.
So on Monday we said "No eggs, thanks" hoping we might get more bread instead, or something else, but it was just two slices of bread with red sugary stuff. Apart from the hotel breakfast and their refusal to give us green tea anywhere, I was quite sad to be leaving Hanoi; I don't think we really saw enough of it, and I felt like I was just getting to know it -- and it seems like a fun place, where the cheap food was good (apart from hotel breakfast). However we have to keep moving to get places, and we were stll keen for warmer weather as, although the 20C we were blessed with in Hanoi was a huge improvement on the freezing temperatures in China, it still wasn't really the beach weather we were keen to get some of.
We caught our bus to Ha Long Bay, where we were going on a boat trip. Half way to Ha Long we stopped at a service station. By that time we were already starving, having foolishly rejected the eggs that morning. Unfortunately we had run out of money, so all we could afford at the very expensive tourist trap full of vases and the like, was a wee packet of biscuits between us. We hadn't thought to buy food in advance, but we did make sure we had a bottle of vodka and a bottle of lemonade, along with our usual supply of water, as we were sleeping on the boat that night and figured that the booze would be as expensive as their captive consumers could stand.
Floating village next to fish farm
We were able to draw money when we got to Ha Long Bay then, on the boat, we realised that the booze was not as dear as we anticipated, but their was corkage charged on your own supplies, which we resolved to keep hidden. After a quick visit to a fish farm run by people who live in a floating village (cheesy techno blasting out of the wooden houses), lunch was on the boat: an unappetising mix of unpleasant fried (whole) fish, fried peanuts, chips, and some salad; not the Vietnamese food we had been buying on the streets of Hanoi, and of course Lipton-not-green tea.
Backlit "Dragons" in Ha Long Bay
A few Chinese people had told us that they call Ha Long "Yangshuo in the water".
It's true that the Karst formations look almost identical to those around Yangshuo, but they are the more beautiful for being in water, or maybe it was just that we could see more of here. Ha Long means "Descending Dragon", a reference to the collection of unusual peaks in the water, which are supposed to be dragons. We sailed through the dragons long enough for us to take far too many pictures of them, which of course we did. The scenery really was stunning, though.
Lime formations
Next stop on our wee cruise was a cave. We've all seen plenty of caves before, and it was like that -- except maybe with a bit more neon that your average cave. After the cave, those of us who had elected to sleep in a hotel, rather than on the boat were dropped at Cat Ba, leaving only a few people, including a pair of Dutch guys we'd been speaking to earlier, Marty and Jochem. They are four months into a trip, which started in Turkey and followed the Silk Route through lots of countries ending in "stan", and lots of places where bribing officials in a daily requirement.
Jochem and Marty (and Santa!)
It sounded like fun though -- maybe for the next trip! We settled into sharing our sneaked vodka with them, and chatted until it was dark (probably about 6.30pm). It gets dark here early in winter, due to the extra hour west of China they've set their clock, despite not being west of China. Back in our wee room on the boat, the staff kept us awake watching loud TV on the deck, but we just finished off vodka and secreted the empty bottle in the same cupboard as someone else had left their empty vodka bottle, and an empty whisky bottle.
written by  The Happy Couple on February 2, 2009 from Ha Long, Vietnam

Cat Ba Island
Cat Ba, Vietnam
The morning we woke up on the boat, I took advantage of the fact they obviously don't check or clean out the furniture very often, to leave my first bookcrossing.com contribution: I left Paddy Clark ha ha ha in the drawer above the vodka bottle in the hope that another (English-speaking) traveller would find it and take it with them (http://www.bookcrossing.com/6924642). We were treated to "eggs" again for breakfast. I was starting to worry about my cholesterol.
View from the top of the tower at the top of the hill
We docked at Cat Ba just after breakfast and the boat picked up the people who had spent the night in the hotel. We set off into the Cat Ba nature reserve, where we were taken on an unexpected hike up a small hill.
Us at the top of Cat Ba Island
The going wasn't too bad, but there was a couple of about 60 years old, who the Vietnamese guy in front of us repeatedly referred to as "old people", telling the guide to take it easy so the "old man" could keep up. I imagined how my parents would feel being referred to in this way.
The view at the top was very nice, although I wasn't at all sure about the steel tower they had built there, presumably to improve the view; it reminded me of the fire escape at our flat, which we needed to have taken down due to its instability. The top step before the platform was particularly fun. It was nice to get a bit of exercise, and very nice to see the sun again.
Joanne paddling the kayak
Then it was back to the hotel for the same rubbish again for lunch. Vietnamese food so far had been very disappointing, except when we had bought it from street vendors. "Included" Vietnamese food is terrible though. I think at some point someone has told them what westerners like and they've just stuck with the "winning formula". We got chatting to an older French couple sitting next to us in the hotel, who decided that they were going to join us for a bit of sea kayaking after lunch. On the way to the kayak place, we had our first first-hand experience of the mopeds in Vietnam, as we were taken by "xe ôm" to the harbour. It wasn't at all bad, but there wasn't that much traffic on the island. The kayaking was very pleasant, although my arms felt like they were going to be very sore afterwards. Team Shedden easily outstripped the Team France and we reached Monkey Island after about 30 minutes, well ahead of the competition. On the island we saw no monkeys, but had a chance to sunbathe, for the first time this trip, and swim in the sea.
The arms held out OK and suffered no ill effects afterwards, although the hangover from last night's vodka was still lingering on, so we resolved to cut down on the alcohol consumption. Same rubbish for dinner.
written by  The Happy Couple on February 3, 2009 from Cat Ba, Vietnam

Back home
The rest of the trip to Belfast went without incident, though I felt very relieved when the plane took off from Newark. Landing in Belfast, though, I discovered that there were hardly any facilities at the airport, most importantly no shower. I spent a while asking staff members about facilities, then one suggested I try the hotel across the road.
It was freezing outside, having come from the Caribbean the day before, so I dug my big fleece out of my bag and ventured across the road. I was hoping they might just let me use a shower as a favour, but the best deal they could do me was something like £60 for the day, not including overnight. Oh well, I'll just have to smell, I thought.
Back in the airport, I noticed that the flight to Glasgow we had assumed I would definitely miss had just reached the Gate Closed stage. If I had thought about that first instead of worrying about a shower, I probably could have changed my ticket for that flight! Oh well. I spent the next hours and hours exhausted, drinking a couple of beers in the airport before moving back to the hotel, where I was at least entertained by the TV where Tony Blair was giving evidence live to the Chilcott Enquiry.
Finally it was my flight and then I was back in Glasgow Airport, where Joanne and her brother picked me up and took me home. Happy to be home? Not really. Happy to see Joanne, of course, but back in this boring, freezing country, with nothing ahead of me but work? Until the next trip.
Templeton Carpet Factory, Glasgow Green
Kelvingrove Art Gallery, West End of Glasgow
written by  The Happy Couple on January 29, 2010 from Glasgow, United Kingdom

Goodbye to Cat Ba, hello Hue
Hue, Vietnam
Last photo of the dragons
At the hotel it was eggs for breakfast again, then off to a much nicer boat that the one we'd stayed on, to sail back to Ha Long City.
Tourist trap
We said goodbye to the dragons and took the last photo in Ha Long Bay. At Ha Long City, we were taken to a terrible tourist trap restaurant where a hall full of people were all served the same rubbish we'd been eating for several days now. I decided that we would ask for a discount instead of getting any included food in future. I took advantage of the large concentration of tourists to leave another book, My Favourite War, lying casually on the steps in front of the restaurant (bookcrossing.com/542-6924659). I felt slightly unhappy leaving a book I'd really enjoyed, but my bag was starting to get lighter!
The bus took us to the hotel we'd been staying at, in Hue, and very kindly waited for us while we collected our bags. As I was picking the bags up, the guy behind the desk signalled to me to wait while he was on the phone; however the guide from our tour had grabbed one of my bags and was on his way out, so I followed him, worrying that the hotel had decided to charge us an extra two days for leaving our bags or something. However, why he got off the phone, just as I was going out the door, he said "I just wanted to say goodbye to you". Strange, but sweet all the same. I like Asians.
Happy on the sleeper bus
Then it was straight onto another bus at the travel agency: a "sleeper" bus to Hue. We didn't really know what to expect, but the first slightly unusual occurrence was that the driver asked us to take our shoes off and put them in a plastic bag as we got on the bus. The shoes were to go in little cupboards under the seats, which were in three rows and two layers, very reclined, but not quite flat. They also inclined to an almost sitting position; if you have short legs, that is. I have a theory that these were invented by the Vietcong during the American War to torture the much-taller-than-Asians Americans.
Misery on the sleeper bus
As it was my feet were stuffed as painfully as I could bear against the end of the metal "leg pouch", but my bum was still halfway up what would be the seat back if it were upright. So it wouldn't go up. Joanne seemed quite happy though, until I realised that my bed was actually shorter than her and we swapped, due to my additional height. Now we were both roughly equally uncomfortable, but much less than I had been before the swap. We did actually get some sleep, when I discovered my feet fitted better if I slept on my side, but I can't say it was the best sleep of my life. The shoe cupboard seemed like the ideal place to stash Flight Paths of The Emperor, another book I'd really enjoyed (bookcrossing.com/817-6924653).
The next morning we arrived in Hue, which is much smaller and much quieter than Hanoi. Even the traffic was calmer. After getting a hotel, we found a wee Vietnamese place to have brunch. The food was a huge improvement on what we'd been eating, but inexplicably we still got Lipton tea, when everyone else there was drinking green tea. Just after we left there, we passed another, Western and Vietnamese place who actually had Vietnamese tea on the menu. Finally! I now wonder if the key is that asking for tea doesn't get you it unless you specify Vietnamese tea; unless you ARE Vietnamese in which case I guess you have to specify Lipton tea if that's what you want. Anyway, it was worth the wait -- delicious -- and very cheap too. While we were on a roll, we decided to try the Vietnamese coffee too. Also excellent, and very strong.
Uncle Ho above the entrance to the Imperial City
Back at the hotel the two Dutch guys, who'd been on the boat with us, appeared. They had coincidentally booked into the same hotel. We spent the rest of the day wandering around the Imperial City, a fortress within the fortress of the Citadel. It's modelled on the Forbidden City in Beijing. The Emperor was so paranoid, he even had a third, interior fortress, where his concubines lived. The Imperial City is huge, but parts of it are in quite a state of disrepair, bits of it having been destroyed in successive wars, and the Communist government not having taken much interest in preserving Imperial relics; however the restoration is well under way now that tourist money is pouring in. Walking around inside, we bumped into the French couple we'd been kayaking with in Cat Ba. It was becoming obvious that the tourist circuit here is quite small, or maybe just linear.
Outside the Citadel we picked up some unusual street food. I think it was potato with some other stuff over it, but it was quite nice. Later the good food continued with some delicious steamed spring rolls.
The downside of the day was I sustained the second casualty of the trip: I lost my sunglasses.
written by  The Happy Couple on February 5, 2009 from Hue, Vietnam

Brrrrrrooooomm!
Hue, Vietnam
Free from the tyranny of eggs, we went for a Vietnamese breakfast the way it should be: noodles.
Having seen the Imperial City the day before, most of what remained to see nearby was further than walking distance, so we decided that the traffic here was sane enough to hire a moped. Great fun! And the traffic isn't that bad once you get into it. You just need to go with the flow, and behave as if you are walking rather than driving: you might be heading straight towards someone, but you just need to change your direction slightly to miss them; none of this stuffy signalling or rules regarding right-of-way. The first attempt to get petrol failed though. I watched people getting fuel before us, and the guy in front got what read 2000 on the pump; it seemed to take a good wee while, and I reckoned it would be enough fuel for one day. So I took my cap of and handed over 2000. The woman with the pump gave me a look, and then squirted about 1 second's worth of fuel into the tank, but the meter only read 200. I was obviously being ripped off; another foreign sucker to take money from! So I tried to object and indicate I wanted ten times as much, but didn't seem to be getting anywhere. The woman seemed quite indignant and was obviously saying something about me to all the other customers. So I stepped back a bit an watched the next customer. Sure enough he only got about 1500 of fuel, but then I realised my mistake when he handed over 15000; the machines have obviously not kept up with inflation so they've just dropped one redundant zero. I stepped forward and bashfully handed over 20000 and was rewarded with a "at last you get it" face and a tank nearly full of petrol. Of course you could argue that this would all have been quite obvious if I'd only done the maths and worked out that the first time I was asking for about 8p of fuel, after all this is petrol we're talking about, not pick'n'mix ha'penny chews.
Thien Mu Pagoda
First stop was the Tien Mu Pagoda, not far along the Perfume River from the Citadel. It was originally built in 1601 when a Fairy Women (Thien Mu) told the provincial governor to build one for the country's prosperity. It's been destroyed and rebuilt many times since, and since the 60s has been a centre for political protest; in keeping with this, the area behind the pagoda houses the car driver to Saigon by Thích Quảng Đức, the monk who set himself alight there, in protest of President Ngô Đình Diệm's suppression of Buddhism. They also have a huge marble tortoise and a giant bell.
After that we zipped across the city to Nam Giao Temple. It was a bit disappointing, but at least it was free, apart from the moped parking, which we had not anticipated.
Tomb of Thieu Tri
After this, we wanted to see one or more of the mausoleums dotted around the city, but most of them were charging 55000 entrance according to the book and, as we'd already discovered, the prices of some things had doubled since the book was published (in November!), but most had gone up by at least a quarter. On our budget we decided the only one we could afford was the 20000. The only map we had was in the guide book, and we ended up having a rather pleasant tour around the semi-rural suburbs of Hue without much luck on finding it. Just after we'd given up and headed home, we found it. It was closed for renovation, but some of the outer buildings were still open.
Finally we thought we could fit in the house "Uncle Ho" (which they Vietnamese really do call him) grew up in, but we encountered further navigation issues and, although we did see some nice building who-knows-where outside Hue, we completely failed to find the village of his birth.
Banh Khoai
Defeated, we returned to town for some Hue specialities for dinner, following a Lonely Planet recommendation. Same story as the last one: very expensive; they must have at least double their prices since the stamp of approval. So we went up the road just a block or two and found another really nice cheap authentic place instead where we had Banh Khoai; a local speciality, so we had to try it. It's a rice pancake with beansprouts, bacon, Spring onion, and so on, on top. The place we found was a local place for local people, so it was all phrase books and gestures. Most of the local places are actually pretty easy in Vietnam, because they serve only one thing. Most of the street food we've eaten have been places where you just need to say (or signal) how many you want and you get what they do; no menus no choices. Simple! This place was the same. Until then we'd been eating with chopsticks everywhere without much difficulty; noodles, mostly. But these things we really quite difficult to tackle with chopsticks. I had a clumsy bash at it, breaking it apart a bit by jabbing the chopsticks in, but I was sure it couldn't be the correct approach. I had a wee look around the restaurant and watched some other people; they were doing exactly the same thing. The real problem is that chopsticks aren't the right tool for this; what you need is a knife and fork. Especially the knife.
written by  The Happy Couple on February 6, 2009 from Hue, Vietnam

Arrival in Hoi An
Hoi An, Vietnam
From Hue we got the sleeper bus again, except this time during the day, to Hoi An. Arriving in Hoi An, we were hassled by loads of hotel touts, but we were determined not to reward them with commission for hassling people and trudged around looking for hotels from the Rough Guide. We were prepared for it being quite busy because the following night was a full moon festival. After two full hotels we got one on our third attempt for not too bad a rate.
Bia hoi getting poured
As there wasn't much of the day left, we just wandered around and checked the town out. Quite a pretty place, but that's always the way with river towns, and quite touristy, but not in too invasive a way. We quickly found a bia hoi place, although there seemed to be a cartel operating, where the price was fixed at 4000 everywhere, a full 1000 more than it had been anywhere previously; still OK at less than 20p a beer, though! After a couple of beers, we found a place that does bia hoi and platters of all the local specialities, so we had to. And there I finally plucked up the courage to try one of the local brandies, which wasn't at all bad, though a bit strange tasting: mint / bubblegum, and at only 29% it was going to give anyone a hangover.
Set meal of Hoi An specialities
Across the road from our restaurant there was a square full of local outdoor food places, which sold the same specialities as we'd had for tea. The names of some of the places were quite amusing.
written by  The Happy Couple on February 7, 2009 from Hoi An, Vietnam

Full Moon Festival in Hoi An
Hoi An, Vietnam
On the way to the beach
We started the day with two excellent coffee shakes. Nice and strong. The weather looked like it had turned in our favour again, so we hired a couple of bicycles (10000 dong each) and headed off to the beach, passing through some lovely agrarian scenes on the way; the countryside never seems very far away in Vietnam. When we arrived at the beach, someone there tried to charge us 5000 dong each to park our bicycles, but I managed to get him down to 5000 together when I complained that the bikes only cost 10000.
After a nice wee sunbathe and swim we headed back into town for the full moon festival, stopping off for some bia hoi on the way. To my horror it cost 5000, so they are obviously not part of the cartel; however in compensation they gave us some snacks to have along with our beer: some boiled quails eggs.
Japanese Bridge
Back in town, we (inevitably) bumped into Marty and Jochem, and discovered (inevitably) they were staying in the same hotel as us again. The full moon festival looked pretty, but there wasn't really much going on: stalls selling food and lamps, and people selling candles in lanterns to sail down the river for good luck, as well as loads of floats of mythical creatures on the river. During the course of the evening we bumped into Russell, who was about to start heading north again, so we won't see him again. After a fair bit of harrassment from little kids I bought a lantern and threw it into the river, where it breached against the side. Immediately a small child scrambled down the side and lifted it our of the water, presumably to resell to some other unsuspecting, to-be-luckless shmuck.
Emboldened by the experiment of the previous night we bought a bottle of the local brandy to drink in our room.
written by  The Happy Couple on February 8, 2009 from Hoi An, Vietnam

Last day in Hoi An
Hoi An, Vietnam
The last day in Hoi An was quite quiet. I bought a mystery thing in a banana leaf parcel, which turned out to be a sweet glutinous rice ball, stuffed with coconut; very nice!
I bought Sellotape from a stall at the market, where a pair of very cheeky girls tried brazenly to rip me off.
Cheeky girls at rip-off stall
After haggling them down to 20000, from an outrageous 80000 for a wee roll of tape, they tried the classic "one more, one more for 20000" trick when I handed over the 100000 note. I was ready for this, though, and told them how cheeky they were. Then, to get them back, I decided to take a photo of them as I left; but as soon as I took my camera out, one of the girls said "10000! 10000!" and hid her face.
During this time Joanne was off spending nearly half-a-million on dresses! I just sat and drank and people watched (and photo'd).
I also took the opportunity to sample another local speciality: fish steamed in banana leaf. The guide books all rave about it, albeit in different, more expensive establishments than the one we were in. While waiting for my food, I went to the toilet, which required me to walk past the kitchen.
Supposed steamed fish in banana leaf speciality
On the way back to my seat, I happened to notice something looking roughly fish-shaped, going round and round in the microwave, with absolutely no banana leaf anywhere near it. Well, clearly it couldn't be my fish steamed in banana leaf. Yet, when my fish arrived, in its banana leaf, it had the chewy, dry texture you might expect of something microwaved, rather than the juicy, soft texture of something steamed. Also the garlic and herbs over the top didn't seem to have infused any flavours into the fish as you might expect in a steaming situation; in fact they seemed almost as if they had been fried and then plopped on top of the fish, presumably just before they wrapped it in a re-usable banana leaf; it had a mystery red sauce on parts of it, which didn't have anything to do with my fish. Oh well, you can't win them all!
written by  The Happy Couple on February 9, 2009 from Hoi An, Vietnam

Whistle-stop Nha Trang
Nha Trang, Vietnam
The guide books are fairly disparaging of Nha Trang, so we didn't plan to spend long there, however a slight error when booking our buses meant that we were staying there only one night instead of two; but we didn't mind because we were going to go to Mui Ne later, which is supposed to be a much quieter beach experience compared to the rowdy unpleasant Nha Trang beach resort. As we only had one day, and we weren't expecting it to be beach weather, we planned to spend some time and money at the mineral mud bath. When we arrived, after our overnight bus, this time up the back where I had more leg room, the place seemed OK to me. Not too touristy, actually, with quite a "real city" feel.
Joanne pointed out to me that there was a place called the Louisiana Brew house, where they microbrewed their on beer, so I headed there while we were deciding what to do about getting to the mud baths. The beer was excellent, but well our of our price range, so I just bought a 200ml x 4 "taster" platter. Sitting there amongst all the swimming pools, and sun-loungers and Japanese food, and menus with very expensive cocktails on them, we thought this is what the "other Vietnam tourism" is about. We left and secured a bike, which I was very proud of haggling down to 80000 from 120000, then buzzed off to the mud baths.
Mud Bath
Well I've never had a mud bath before and it was OK. Kind of nice. Weird. After the mud bath they had all sort of other stages you were meant to go through, like being blasted from both sides by hot mineral water, soaking in a hot tub, and then you could spend as much time as you want in the hot mineral water swimming pool. I didn't care about any of that, I just wanted the mud to help my dreadlocks!
On the way back we stopped off at Po Nagar Cham Towers, which was built between the 7th and 12th Century; four towers, three of them featuring lingas.
Next it was Long Son Pagoda. We were already starting to become a bit bored with Pagodas, but this one has a reclining Buddha, which we had to see to compare with the one in Bangkok (I'm sure there's little comparison); and also a large sitting Buddha.
Sitting Buddha at Long Son Pagoda
I quite like the temples for all the garish kitsch; you may think that Catholics can do religious kitsch well, but the East is way ahead. And they've got them beat where incense is concerned as well. Pagodas are all the same though: octagonal tower of several layers, big bell, a few temples, lots of monks.
The boys at the bia hoi place
Heading back home, and almost there, I spotted a bia hoi place; the first I'd seen in Nha Trang. Following my obsession with getting the real deal, this looked like just the place. Definitely no tourists here! Another way of telling a real Vietnamese place is the lack of sensible seats: everyone sits at kiddie chairs around kiddie tables; they remind me of the "childrens table" at family Christmas, except it's grown men round them. So we stopped off, to the amusement of everyone there, which is always a good authenticity sign as well I find. "Bia hoi" I said. "One bottle?" the proprietor replied with shaky English.
The Real McCoy of bia hoi
Oh no - he's misunderstood I think, bia hoi comes out a draft, expensive beer comes in a bottle; and my suspicions were confirmed when he said it was 20000. But when it arrived I realised there was no mistake. It was a two litre bottle. So we ordered some food from the all Vietnamese menu, taking a chance, and it was very nice. The proprietor seemed keen to practice his English, but I think it was off its peak due to the large amount of beer he and his mates had already drunk. When it came to pay the bill, I think the waitress just charged me what it should have been instead of following the opportunistic money-making the owner had planned; the beer was in fact only 14000 dong -- about 45p for 2 litres.
That evening I had frogs for the first time in my life. They were OK, but I wouldn't rush to have them again. I can see why the French only eat the legs as well: the ribs are a bit unpleasant to contemplate, and they don't taste as nice either; or maybe that taste as little.
"Minced" frogs in spicy sauce
written by  The Happy Couple on February 10, 2009 from Nha Trang, Vietnam

Cham Tower on the way to Da Lat
Phan Rang-Thap Cham, Vietnam
Cham Towers
An early morning bus took us from Nha Trang on the way to Da Lat, after leaving our passports behind at the hotel, only to have them delivered to me by the hotel owner on a bike just after Joanne ran back to the hotel; a bit confusing. We stopped for lunch at a service station on the way, where there were some more excellent Cham towers; obviously they are just all over Vietnam. Same plan as last time: three towers in a row, one off to the side.
written by  The Happy Couple on February 11, 2009 from Phan Rang-Thap Cham, Vietnam

Arrival in Da Lat
Da Lat, Vietnam
Dried cherry tomatoes, persimmon, hibiscus, mixed vegetables crisps, and artichoke tea
Da Lat was a French colonial summer highland retreat, much like Shimla in India was to the English. The road was quite like the one to Shimla, but the driver thankfully was not as murderous/suicidal as the one on my trip to Shimla. The guide book talks of the obvious French influence in the architecture, but we saw nothing that didn't look like modern Vietnamese concrete. The one exception was the radio tower at the Post Office, which is a copy of the Eiffel Tower; unfortunately I neglected to take a photo.
Dried hibiscus
Da Lat is famed for its vegetable and fruit produce, because the French planted all sort of things from home that wouldn't grow in the lowlands of Vietnam, so its specialities are things like artichoke tea, dried fruit, and avocado ice cream (apparently, although I saw none of the avocado ice cream). We dived in, and bought artichoke tea (very nice) and loads of dried stuff at the market: mixed vegetable crisps, dried cherry tomatoes, dried persimmon ("old" and "new"), and dried hibiscus, which is delicious.
Another speciality it hot soya milk, which is sold from lots of stalls on the street. When we went up to buy some we discovered that they also sell hot "mung bean milk" and hot "peanut milk", so we had to try them too. All very nice!
written by  The Happy Couple on February 11, 2009 from Da Lat, Vietnam

Around Da Lat
Da Lat, Vietnam
A bit disillusioned with Da Lat itself, we decided to hire a bike again, after knocking back some very insistent "Easy Riders", who take you on motorbike tours around the area; out of our price range again. We headed off to Tiger Falls, which should have been the easiest and closest to get to of the many in the area. We thought we'd be able to get there without the decent map we couldn't find, because the direction in the Lonely Planet were quite good, but not long after we hit the road I realised that neither the speedo not the odometer worked. The speedo's not a problem, since these bikes can't really break the speed limit, but without the odometer, we have no way of following the Lonely Planet's direction. Regardless we found our way to the neighbouring village of Trai Mat, where we noticed a Pagoda, marked on the map, but not mentioned in either guide book. We nearly didn't bother because we'd seen several of them already, but this one was absolutely gorgeous -- and free! I think it must be a newish one, therefore of no historical interest, therefore not of tourist interest; but it was still beautiful... and free! Now we reckon we don't need to see any more pagodas as this one was so impressive; a bit like never needing so see another Catholic church after St Peter's in the Vatican.
Da Bao Tower at Linh Phuoc Pagoda in Trai Mat
Tiger Falls
After a bit of searching we found the turn off to Tiger Falls and took the bumpy, loose road to the waterfall. At one point we almost turned around when we noticed that the ground to the right of the road was burning; and then we noticed that the ground to the left of the road too. A bit like a forest fire. But we pressed on anyway as it was starting to rain a bit, and it didn't take long to get through the smoke. The falls were a bit disappointing; you can see stuff like that, but better, all over Scotland. Same same but mosquitoes instead of midgies. The had a story behind their significance, but it all seems to centre around making the large game, that used to live in the region, extinct.
View from Cable car to reservoir in Da Lat
Next stop was the cable car. I didn't really care where it went, but the guide books talked about the stunning view. Then, at the cable car station, disaster struck! One of Joanne's fillings came out! We decided to wait for Saigon to deal with that.
The views on the cable car were OK, but nothing compared to, say, the Aonach Mor cable car. And, strangely, the cable car seemed to owe its existence to a reservoir. OK, it's quite a big reservoir, but a tourist attraction? There were loads of shops, and stalls, and restaurants, and boat trips on the reservoir, and some gardens, and temples. And so on.
Reservoir in Da Lat
They are obviously very proud of this reservoir, and see it as a great tourist asset. It's just a body of water. Really you can see much better bodies of water all over Scotland. At this point Joanne said "maybe there's not point coming the highlands of Vietnam if you are from Scotland". Maybe. But Scotland doesn't produce coffee, which is one of the reasons I wanted to go there, but we hadn't signed up for the Easy Rider trip, so we weren't going to a coffee plantation anyway; good maps are impossible to get hold of. Anyway time for another local speciality: egg, (soy, of course) milk, and soda. It's exactly as it says, and not that disgusting.
Next up, the "Crazy House". Doubled its price since the November guide book, and not worth the money. The architect is the daughter of Vietnam's second president, which is apparently why such monstrosity has not been bull-dozed. The guide describes it as a cross between Gaudi and Alice In Wonderland. I'd say it's more of a cross between Disney and Alice In Wonderland. They're still building it too, which I suppose is why they needed to double the entrance! It's what happens when an architect falls too much in love with reinforced concrete. And animals.
Durian ice cream and salted apricot and lemon drink
I got rid of another book that day: Tales of Power by Carlos Castaneda in the Peace Cafe. I also had two more local specialities: durian ice cream, and a drink made from salted apricots, and lemon, hot.
written by  The Happy Couple on February 12, 2009 from Da Lat, Vietnam

Mui Ne is a hole and it stinks
Mui Ne, Vietnam
For breakfast, we returned to the lovely vegetarian cafe we'd discovered the previous day in Da Lat. Little did we know but it was to be the last decent meal for several days.
The beach in front of our hotel
We arrived in Mui Ne (strictly speaking, Mui Ne Beach, I think -- Mui Ne Village is a little along the coast) and immediately I wondered where the centre was; on the way in we just passed resort after resort, but no "real" town. Luckily our hotel / resort was close to where the bus stopped, so we were able to get there without giving in to the constant harassment from "xe om" drivers; and we had booked in advance because we'd heard it books up at the weekend, so we could completely ignore the hotel touts as well. The hotel room was OK, but smaller than we had become accustomed to; we had finally discovered that in Vietnam (and China it seemed as well), ALL hotel beds are double beds, so we only really need to ask for a single room.
Sunset from our private beach
The beach however was a massive disappointment: we'd been looking forward to the beach here for the whole trip so far. Both guide books described the place as a nice quiet place for enjoying the beach. But there is no beach! Not unless you are booked into an expensive resort. Our more modest resort has only a few feet of beach (tide is out in the photo). Two resorts up from ours has none at all: the waves lap up against a concrete wave-break where the hotel ends. Most resorts, including ours, seem to have private beaches, which are really just sandpits with loungers in them.
The neighbouring "beaches"
After the disappointment of the lack of beach, we had a wee wander outside. There really doesn't seem to be any centre or town or anything apart from a strip of resorts and very empty bars, cafes, and restaurants. We soon discovered that the prices of everything are between two and three times what we'd been paying elsewhere in Vietnam. This meant that we felt we couldn't afford a moped, which would have been the obvious way to try and find something worth seeing nearby. We were planning to pay for a trip to see the nearby sand dunes anyway, so reasoned we really wouldn't need much transport. We had come here to sunbathe primarily, so we'd just sit on our private beach and make the most of it.
Our lovely beach
Heading back to the hotel I asked an older gentleman on a bicycle how much he paid for it; yet again the going rate was about three times what we'd paid before, but it was more affordable than a moped. In kind he asked us how much we were paying for our accommodation, and when he liked what he heard he asked if he could follow us back. On the way back, we discovered he was originally from Hawaii and had moved to Asia when he retired; he'd been living in Saigon, where his girlfriend was, but he felt he needed to get away from the pollution. While Joanne was in a shop, buying water or something, I made conversation: did he retire to Asia to make his money go further? Yes, he said, partly, but mostly because young women find him more attractive here than in the US. Apparently he was pushing seventy and his girlfriend is twenty-one (I have a life-time supply of Viagra, he confided). Later I told Joanne about this and she simply said "men are dirty dogs".
Food served with knives and forks!!
I hated the place, so I decided to catch up on the blog and spent the whole of the second day there online. Didn't quite catch up as the free internet place (a rarity in Mui Ne) decided I was taknig advantage and kicked me out! The town just got worse and worse. For breakfast we had what would normally have been cheap food for the locals; it was worse than anything like it we'd had, and it cost twice as much! In the tourist places (almost everywhere else) the food was served with knives and forks! I had to ask for chopsticks the first time it happened because it seemed too unnatural not to use them; by the second place I'd given up.
Wherever you are in Mui Ne your nose is assaulted by a periodic stench. Now, most of Vietnam smells a bit, and as you move around a town or the country, you get occasional wafts of fish. Everywhere. I think a lot of it may be down to people drying, or storing dried, squid etc in their homes. Maybe they make fish sauce at home. But it's never too unpleasant. Mui Ne stinks! This is an industrial version of the same smell. Rotting, rancid, reeking, revolting. And you are hit with it every time a lorry goes down the main road, which is about every ten minutes maximum; and since there is NOTHING but the main road, you are always there to smell it.
I think an avocado shake was the only nice thing I consumed there, and given that food is so central to my experience (have you noticed?) this was another big let-down. The second night there this came to a head: struck by acute food poisoning in the middle of the night; the "aubergines stuffed with funny tasting half-cooked pork mince" the prime suspect. You'd think the name of the dish might have forewarned me! Dune trip cancelled. Too ill to blog more. So I just read a bit in the sun; Joanne was burnt the day before so couldn't even do that. So we did nothing! Didn't see the sand dunes which seem to be the only thing to see; couldn't afford to go windsurfing which is the other big attraction; and there just isn't anything to the town. We confirmed this by renting bicycles for a day and discovered, just like it lacks any soul, it also lacks any centre. This also made me resolve not to hire any more bicycles: they have no gears and they are made for small Asians, so you can't get any decent speed up at all (imagine a BMX the shape of a touring bike), and it kills my knees because of short distance to the peddles. Mopeds only from now on!
Mysteriously, the food poisoning seemed to disappear just in time for leaving the horrible place.
written by  The Happy Couple on February 15, 2009 from Mui Ne, Vietnam

Admin in Saigon
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
If Mui Ne taught me one thing it's that I'm spending far too long on this blog! The problem is the more we do, the more I have to write about, but the less time I have to do it. Now, after Mui Ne, and doing nothing fun in Saigon I think I can catch up... but I'm going to try and be more brief in future AND keep up to date.
Bikes!
Snails
The bus on the way to Saigon broke down, but we didn't have to wait long before we were decanted on the another tour company's bus. The room we got here is another step down: on the fifth floor, the roof, which was fun with a 30kg bag, with construction work going on just outside our room, on the roof of the next hotel. And we suspected bed bugs, but I think that was just paranoia after realising the bed had not been properly changed: there was hair on the undersheet. Saigon seems like a lot of fun though, and the food is excellent again.
Dale and Erin
But all we've done is find a dentist, plan when we are going to re-schedule our flights to, got pissed with a couple of Americans who were celebrating getting a long-term lease. English teachers of course (just like most of the ex-pats here). Then, today, we got Joanne's tooth fixed, spent ages looking for travel agents, which have all moved since our information was printed, so that we can reschedule our flights; this turned out to be a lot more expensive that we expected i.e. free, with a possible SMALL admin fee. Hmpf!
Air-conditioning in german bier halle
At least we found a large German bier halle during our wanders, where they make excellent beer, and have unusual fans which disperse water aerosol as a low-tech aircon system (while the barman picks his nose). The one down so far, is that I was cheated at a bia hoi place. The old woman who was in charge, pretended I'd given her 50000 rather than 100000. I think a lot of people land here, so she must take advantage of their unfamiliarity with the money. Of course she loses, really, because this place was the cheapest around and just opposite our hotel. There is no way we'd have spent anything like as little as 50000 over the next three days. It's very annoying though. More the insult than the two pounds she stole, really! So the last thing we had to organise here is our trip to Cambodia via the Mekong delta, which Joanne is off doing right now.
The last thing you need to know about Saigon is that there are LOADS of mopeds.
written by  The Happy Couple on February 18, 2009 from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Wedding Gift Fund Closing
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
First, we'd like to say thank you to everyone who's given us something as a wedding present. We really appreciate it and we will get around to thanking you all individually...
Anyway, we need to start thinking about what we are going to use our STA fund for, so we'll be closing the account in about two weeks. So, if you were going to put something in it, but haven't got around to it yet... you are running out of time! Details in one of the first blog entries.
written by  The Happy Couple on February 19, 2009 from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Last day in Saigon
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
We finished the previous day off with a lovely Korean meal, which was by far the most expensive meal we've had, but thought we deserved it after getting the blog up-to-date. Ah, those were the days! We decided it was OK to eat Korean since we're not going there; we've been avoiding the temptation of cuisine from any country we are going.
We also discovered that the reason all the travel agents appeared to have moved address is that Joanne was looking at the Hanoi page in the information booklet, which would not have worked at all in most countries, but in Vietnam all the same street names are used in every city, which can be quite confusing when travelling from place to place.
Anyway, apologies for not blogging for so long, but we're now in Cambodia and the internet speed is not generally good at all, it's too hot to sit around on a PC, and it's also a lot more expensive to get online. Anyway, I'll do some now. Also, I've made a wee change: I've deleted all of the places from the map that we've not yet been, so you can easily see where we actually are. I'll update the map before doing anything else. I'll post our intended schedule soon, so anyone who wants to meet up with us in, say, Rio, will know when we plan to be there.
I've built up a few wee observations about Vietnam that I keep forgetting to write about in the blog, so I'm going to try and round them all up now.
The first thing, which I don't think I've mentioned, is that the coffee is really really good. And cheap. It's extremely strong, but very compex and tasty. Even the iced coffee is really strong (we ignore that advice about avoiding ice). Apparently Vietnam is the second exporter of coffee after Brazil and they are very proud of their coffee.
Asians sit on their haunches
Another little thing is that the Vietnamese sit on their haunches a lot. It seems to be the most comfortable, relaxed way for them to stay in the same place, but it looks like knee-breaking, thigh-straining agony to me. Joanne's theory is that their smaller frames makes it easier. People did it in China a bit too, but you see it all the time in Vietnam.
Game played everywhere (note guy's back)
Another couple of things, both captured in this photo is that you often see men playing a board game at the side of the road, and you often see people with circular marks all over their skin; we have since discovered that this is the result of a therapy where glasses are placed all over the skin, after holding a flame in them, and when the air inside cools and contracts it causes them to stick and draw some blood out.
Another weird one is that they seem to lose their cool quite often. We've seen plently of shouting altercations, rising to screaming on occasion. The only reason this is strange or remarkable is I had believed Asians generally do not like conflict and losing your cool means losing face, which is the ultimate fear. Anyway, they don't seem to mind losing face here.
I've been surprised to see lots of Americans here. There were quite a lot in China too, which was also surprising. I would expect them to avoid the great evil of communist countries, but when I asked on American guy about it he just said "No, we love it!" but he didn't seem to want to elucidate. There are also loads of French and Quebecois, which I suppose must have something to do with the collonial links, or maybe indirectly because of Tintin; but definitely more francophones that you usually find on holiday.
The last thing worth remarking on is the wearing of masks. We also saw this in China and Hong Kong. I put it down to disease after we saw an public information advert in Hong Kong advising that you should wear a mask if you are ill. Pietro seemed to confirm this when he told us that they've become very illness aware since avian flu and SARS. However, we have also seen women wearing long gloves that cover the arms and women often hold a book or folder up to shade their faces when riding on mopeds, both of which suggest that most women wear all this stuff to stay white; we were told that "here light skin is more beautiful". One final theory that someone told us is that people who are doing work they deem below their status tend to cover themselves up as much as possible, so that they are effectively in disguise. True enough people selling wares on the streets are often very well covered, but I had put this down to the fact they are in the sun for longer. Anyway, we've been finding it very hot since arriving in Saigon, so the idea of wearing loads of extra clothing is horrible!
For the whole time we were in Saigon there was a wake on the corner of the street our hotel was on. Three days of music pumping out and people sitting around drinking. I thought that it was a young person (and assumed a moped accident) as there was a huge picture up of a young man, but we were told that they have a ceremonial photo taken when they are in their prime, so that they will always be remembered that way.
Grapefruit salad
Anyway we started our last day in Saigon with a cup of tea thanks to the kettle we'd bought the day before. We had tea all the time in China, but none of our rooms have had a kettle since, so we decided it was time to add to my huge pack, although the kettle's not really that big. The great Saigon food continued with a grapefruit salad for breakfast and a custard apple shake.
Water apple (Man Giong in Vietnamese)
Then we headed off to the supermarket in search of (non-whitening) moisturiser for Joanne and pro-biotic yogurts which are meant to combat the digestive damage caused by the doxycycline we were about to start as a malaria prophylactic for the Mekong Delta onwards. On the way to the supermarket I bought what I've since discovered is a water apple; a strange tasting fruit like an apple crossed with a carrot. At the supermarket I got a chance to look for the Vietnamese for fruits I wanted to identify and for some of the herbs that come with all the noodle soup dishes i.e. most breakfasts. On of the herbs tastes like coriander, but isn't, one like tarragon, but isn't, and another one tastes like cinnamon. The cinnamon one was the only one I've been able to identify: Vietnamese Perilla (Tia To in Vietnamese).
Soya and Ginger syrup
When I saw durian crisps at the supermarket, I just had to buy them, even though they were quite dear, after all I hadn't found any real durian.
Jack Fruit
On the way back from the supermarket I saw someone selling strange cups of stuff from a stall, so I had to buy some of that too. It turned out to be hot soya with ginger syrup over it; really nice. Just as we were walking away from that stall I saw someone selling durian, so I bought a small bag of pieces. It was surprisingly cheap for such a delicacy and I didn't notice it smelling quite as much as I expected. Then when I got home I found out why: I had bought jackfruit! Jackfruit is delicious, but I had wanted to try durian.
Fanny Ice Cream (L-R: Anise, Chili Chocolate, Green Tea)
The afternoon was spent following the Lonely Planet walking tour. After all the walking we'd done the day before, we realised that we had already been along most of the streets the tour follows, but we persevered nonetheless, taking in the rooftop bar at the Rex Hotel, where the beer was a ridiculous 60,000 dong. It took us past a couple of nice buildings, past Fanny Ice Cream (snigger) for lunch, where I had one scoop of anise, one of chilli chocolate, and one of green tea; very nice, but again way over our usual budget.
Joanne at the War Remnants Museum
The walk also took us to the War Remnants Museum, where there is lots of captured American military hardware on display, as well as plenty of photo displays. Who would have thought that the Americans would be capable of such war crimes, atrocities, and human rights abuses? Unfortunately we only got about halfway round the museum when a guard told us it was closing and kicked everyone out. A pity, I was looking forward to the gallery of torture by the Americans. They quoted a statistic in the museum, which I cannot reliably remember now, but I think they said that on Vietnam they dropped twenty times the quantity of explosives used by all parties in the Second World War. Anyway, the walking tour finished off at the Sheraton Hotel for rooftop sundowners. The price was ridiculous: we spent significantly more on two (cheap) beers than we had on the expensive meal the night before, but the view was excellent from the 25th floor.
On the way home we stopped off at a food market, which looks like it is in transition from a place for locals to one for tourists only, but it's still fairly cheap and the food was excellent. We had some more of the fantastic Saigon style ("fresh") spring rolls, which are just prawns and fresh herbs and bean sprouts wrapped up in rice paper, steamed, not fried. I think the key is the fresh ingredients, but they always taste exactly the same: delicious. I followed that with a green papaya salad, also very nice, and a sapodilla shake, which is a bit strange: caramel flavoured fruit. As soon as we stood up our chairs were gone as a bus load of Japanese tourists arrived. We passed another market on the way back to our hotel, where I bought some t-shirts. They really think the tourists are stupid. I tried on a t-shirt sized L, which they told me fitted. I said I thought it was a bit small and I'd prefer an XL, which prompted on of the ladies on the stall to disappear into the back with the t-shirt I'd just tried and reappear with a very similar t-shirt with a sticker saying XL fixed over the label. Amazingly it seemed to be the same size as the L.
We rounded the day off by changing some dong to dollars (yuk), as we thought they'd be handy in Cambodia until we could get some local currency. On the final stretch back to our part of town (which is very back-packery, a bit like Khao San Road in Bangkok) we passed a restaurant with Jochem and Marty, and now Marty's cousin, who had joined them. We managed to towns without bumping into them, but clearly they were still following us...
written by  The Happy Couple on February 19, 2009 from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Bed bugs in the Mekong Delta
Can Tho, Vietnam
Aaaarrghhh!!
Well we had been prepared for mosquitoes in the Mekong Delta, but not what we found. Never having seen a bedbug before in real life, we weren't sure what the little beetle crawling across the bed in Can Tho was, but I had my suspicions. I took the photo thinking that I could later check to see whether it matches. Of course what we should have done is go to the reception and demand to be moved, but we weren't sure enough. The next morning an online ID check proved redundant: a good few splashes of blood on the bed and a really itchy bite on my ankle confirmed what we had suspected. The next night in Chau Doc, Joanne was covered in lines of bites, although we never saw the culprits there. A chat to several of the other people on the tour confirmed that both hotels were hoaching with the beasties, probably because the tours that TNK runs mean that they have guaranteed visitors, so they don't need to make the effort. Of course when one hotel has them and everyone who stays there is moving to the other hotel the following night, it is no surprise that both hotels are infested. We intended to complain, but haven't got around to it.
Joanne on the Mekong
Anyway, the tour itself was quite pleasant, and the tour guide was pretty good. In the bus on the way he pointed out all the new building around Saigon. Apparently they are building to Singapore standards and the government have a plan for the city to be "better" than Bangkok by 2020. Certainly the rentals he quoted are aimed at international city levels. He also told us that, not only is Vietnam the second exporter of coffee after Brazil, but it is also second rice exporter after Thailand, and the biggest exporter of both black pepper and cashew nuts.
Mekong transport
When we first arrived at the boat there was a slightly scary moment as it seemed like it was going to capsize when all the first few people filed in and sat on the same side of the boat, when the captain intervened and indicated that some people should sit on the other side, returning a less worrying camber. I had memories of boat accidents on the Mekong Delta news stories flashing through my mind, and it's quite easy to see how it could happen. All it took was for one person to decide to sit on the other side to take a better photo and the boat would lean massively in that direction.
We had been advised to buy a traditional hat each as sitting in the sun all day on the boat would be very hot without it, but we were herded onto the boat so quickly we didn't have a chance to fall prey to the hawkers. It turned out that the boats were all covered and there was no need to look silly after all, but that didn't stop some people, least of all the Vietnamese.
In the first day they took us to a coconut "candy" (I think they mean sweet) factory in Ben Tre province, which was just a little cottage industry business really. It was all done in the one room from juicing the coconuts to packing the finished product, and all using simple hand-operated machinery. Everything of the coconut is used: the milk and the flesh go into the sweets; the shell is used to fuel the fire that boils up the liquor; the ash is used to augment the soil the tress grow in; building is made from the leaves and branches; and so on. We bought some sweets at the end of it since they seemed to be quite tasty. Of course I couldn't resist buying a packet of the coconut and durian sweets, since my quest for actual durian was still unfulfilled. Joanne was not please about this, as the crisps had made her ultra-sensitive to the heady aroma of durian.
The factory itself wasn't really all that interesting, and I'd have been happy enough with all the chugging around the rivers in various motorised boats, and schlurking around the narrow tributaries in the little oar-powered boats.
Bees at the honey wine factory
Anyway, after that we were taken to a honey tea and banana wine farm, which was even less interesting, although I did buy some banana wine based on a tiny wee taste they gave us. I thought they were just being stingy, but later I realised that the wine is disgusting if you have more than half a thimble of it; then it was on to a crocodile park (if you've seen one you've seen them all; "this is what you do on a rainy day in Natal" said Joanne); then on to see a show of traditional music and sampling some tropical fruits. Great! I thought... durian, surely? But no, it was just dragon fruit and other relatively mundane fruit everyone must have already tried if they'd been in Vietnam more than a day. So we actually had a really nice day, relaxing of various boats as we were chauffeured around the Mekong Delta, but I could have done without all the activities really.
Sunset waiting for the ferry to Can Tho
On the way back we got chatting to a couple when the girl asked if I was Scottish. Hollie is from near Loch Tay and travelling with her English boyfriend, Allan. After we'd visited all the proscribed sites we docked and (disappointingly) got on a bus to travel to the ferry crossing to Can Tho, where I ate snake curry, and then I was eaten by the first batch of bed bugs.
Snake Curry
written by  The Happy Couple on February 20, 2009 from Can Tho, Vietnam

Latest Itinerary
Chau Doc, Vietnam
After the flight changes we made in Saigon, here is the latest itinerary.
16th March: Into Laos
30th March: Into Thailand
4th May: Fly to Mumbai
10th June: Fly to Tokyo
29th June: Fly to Beijing
21st July: Into Macau
24th July: Fly to Auckland
11th Aug: Fly to Santiago de Chile
13th Aug: Fly to Easter Island
16th Aug: Return to Santiago
2nd Sep: Fly to Rio
28th Nov: Fly to London
Playing Martin Sheen
written by  The Happy Couple on February 21, 2009 from Chau Doc, Vietnam

Carry on up the Mekong Delta
Chau Doc, Vietnam
As the Mekong Delta tour continued into the second and third days, I became more convinced that what we should have done is just organise three days of boat trips up the river system because I was really enjoying all of the travel up (and inevitably back down to get the bus) the river, but I couldn't really be bothered with most of the activities the operators seem to think are the whole point of the tour. Anyway, we didn't realise it would be easy to do (apparently it is), and the main reason to go this way was to take a pleasant and hassle-free route into Cambodia.
Action shot of floating market
The second day was all about floating market, for which we had to get up really early. The first market was quite interesting, but quite small; the next one is the really big one, we were told. Strangely we stopped for lunch before heading off back up the river to the second market. It was strange because we were told the reason we had to be up so early was to make sure the market was still on, but they knew what they were doing I supposed. It was about an hour up river to the second floating market where there was one boat selling some sort of fried bread snacks, then we turned around and it was another hour back to the bus. Hollie, Allan, Joanne, and I installed ourselves at the back of the bus where the bad kids sit, and drank beer, talking tipsily the whole way while the other passengers tried to sleep off the early morning rise.
It was quite a way to Chau Doc, and when we arrived everyone was booked into the hotel except us, who had to be shunted up to the next hotel because the first was full. Both hotels were infested, we discovered the next morning. Worried we would miss out on everyone else socialising we rushed back to the original hotel, where most people seemed to have opted for an early night, but Hollie and Allan were there and still ready to go out for dinner. Eel.
Eel
Farmed fish being fed
The next morning we were taken to a fish farm, which I expected to be the same as the one we'd seen in Halong Bay, but it was actually a lot more intensive. I don't know how many fish they ad packed into a tiny wee space, but they went totally berserk when some food was thrown in. Next it was off to visit an ethnic minority village.
House on stilts with flood level marked
I can't even remember which ethnic group they were now, but it may have been Khmers (or maybe Cham Muslims, I can't remember...), but weaving and living in houses on stilts seemed to be the definitive features of their culture. Actually the stilts is really just about not having you house washed away when the Mekong Delta floods, but I suppose it is a cultural choice whether you do this or build floating houses, which seems to be the most common Vietnamese solution.
Isn't this bridge in Apocalypse Now?
Again all OK, but not terribly exciting. Next it was onto the slow boat to Cambodia. Actually the speed wasn't so much the problem as the really uncomfortable seats, but the scenery was lovely, so I didn't really notice that my bum was numb until I tried to stand up for the border crossing. This has to be the easiest, most laid-back customs I've ever been through: dock your boat, spend a minute queuing to pick up your already stamped and visa'd passport, cunningly couriered ahead by the guide on motorcycle, so that they were ready for our arrival. Then it was on into Cambodia for a few more hours before docking and getting a bus to Phnom Penh.
Slow boat to Cambodia
written by  The Happy Couple on February 22, 2009 from Chau Doc, Vietnam

Intro to Cambodia
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
I think you can forget any blogging for the next 3 weeks. Connection speed in the big towns of Cambodia has been nearly impossibly slow and I've just take 50 minutes to get to the stage where I can start writing this. We are in a smallish town now (actually it's the regional capitol), and it's only going to get worse until Thailand. At $1 an hour we can't afford it with these speeds either, not to mention wasting whole days just to upload a few photos.
It's too late to write anything substantive now as we have to catch the bus. Cambodia is a big rip-off! Tourists are just cash-cows and the money only goes to line the already well-lined pockets of the bratty elite VIP crowd. The wealth gap here is shocking after Vietnam and China, where we never saw any sign of poverty. Here there are loads of huge Hummers and other massive black 4x4s with no number plates and "VIP" in the windscreen; there are lots of expensive clubs, restaurants, and bars full of swaggering spoiled youths (with guns apparently); yet here there are lots of people begging; people in dirty raggy clothes; children up to the age of about 10 walking around the capitol city naked. The government is ostensibly socialist, but nothing we've seen suggests that it is anything other than extreme right wing (maybe it's following the nu-lab socialism), and nothing any of the Cambodians have told us about how politics works suggests otherwise: without money you have no education, no health, no pension, no unemployment benefit etc. By all accounts the government exists only to keep the elite in the money.
And the food is terrible (and expensive of course) after Vietnam.
Monument at the Killing Fields
I've just come back to this and I am being a little unfair on Cambodia, my anger at being exploited forthe last two weeks being focussed by the terrible internet speed I was enduring before I changed place to a slightly faster one.
We just expected Cambodia, being a poorer country than Vietnam or China, to be cheaper; in fact we've blown our budget time and time again here, using up all 4 "free days" that we didn't use in Vietnam. I mentioned the expense here on the couchsurfing website and go some angry responses. Yes it is a lot cheaper than Euorope, but it's still much moire expensive than the neighbouring countries.
written by  The Happy Couple on February 23, 2009 from Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Snoozing in Snooky
Sihanokville, Cambodia
Surprisingly (to me anyway) the internet speed is much much better in Laos, however it's more expensive even than Cambodia. $6 an hour is not uncommon here, but I've found a place for less than $1 and the better speed makes it much better value than Cambodia. However, I'm now so far behind the blog, I'm going to have to spend hours and hours catching up... so here goes!
The arrival in Phnom Penh was quite a let -down. The city didn't seem nice, the wealth gap was evident, and the menus were much dearer. Soon we discovered that Cambodian food is nothing like as nice as Vietnamese food and the coffee is similarly poor by comparison. To be fair, neither are that bad, it's just that Vietnam is excellent for food and coffee. The street food is less available and not so good, and there's no bia hoi (how were we to survive such a country?)! We decided to get out of Phnom Penh quickly and go to the "chill-out" town of Sihanoukville, where the last battle of the Vietnam war was fought, and where we planned to plan the rest of our time in Cambodia; we'd been spending too much time on novels and not enough time on guide books.
Phnom Penh was hot. Vietnam had been increasingly hot as we headed south, and certainly by Saigon we noticed the increasingly greasy and sweaty appearance we have in all the photos. You'll be glad to hear that this all gets worse in Cambodia. The temperature was over 35C every day for the first part. The humidity was high; 60+ the only time I checked, but it felt like a Turkish bath the whole time. I think part of the problem is that, although Vietnam is hot, you usually have a sea breeze, whereas Cambodia is mostly not on the sea and always feels still. Another thing we noticed quite quickly about Cambodia is that there are even more francophones than Vietnam; as you pass people (tourists only) on the street they say "bonjour" rather than hello. The Cambodians say "hello".
We had also discovered (observe our fantastic organisation and foresight) that it's not possible to get a visa for Laos on the border coming from Cambodia, although every other border allows you to. So the plan we came up with was arrange a visa in Phnom Penh, which takes several days, go to Sihanoukville to get some relaxing beach time for several days, while the visa is being processed, then return and continue with whatever plan we came up with while chilling.
Our first bucket
Of course before we headed off to "Snooky" we met Marty and Jochem who were (of course) staying in the same hotel as we were. Where we were seemed very expensive so, before we left, we had a look at the Lakeside area, which the guide book had scared Joanne and Hollie away from. The Lakeside seemed OK, if a bit "ultra-backpacker", and the hostels were all built around slums; the atmosphere in the hostels was very nice and relaxed, the prices were a bit lower, and there was a suspiciously relaxing aroma in the air. While we were there I sampled the national specialities of Luc Lac and Mekong "Whisky". And Joanne and I encountered our first ever "bucket".
Snooky sunset
We organised our Laos visa swith the hotel and were off. Snooky is a beach resort. Actually there is a town, but we were on the the Serendipity Beach stretch. It is very nice and relaxing, but there is no "unesco tourism", only backpacker tourism, so nothing much to do but lie around on sun lounger and get wasted, which is more-or-less what we did.
Gecko-zilla
We also went diving one day, which was a bit disappointing, but prepares us for Thailand where we'll hopefully dive again. There's not really much to say about Sihanoukville except it's easy to relax there, they have the cheapest beer in Cambodia (it's made there), and it's easy to get wasted there (which we did). Oh - and they have the biggest geckos I'd ever seen.
written by  The Happy Couple on February 27, 2009 from Sihanokville, Cambodia

Back in Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Before we left Sihanoukville we (of course) bumped into Marty and Jochem again, who were (of course of course) staying in the same hotel again. This time we weren't staying in a place reccommended by the Lonely Planet, in fact this place wasn't even in the LP; it was well out of the way and not somewhere you would easily stumble across. Now I had all the proof I needed: Jochem and Marty were spies! Now I just had to work out who they were working for and how best to kill them.
Anyway we returned from Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh, where we retrieved our passports complete with (expensive) Laos visas. [Excuse any excess of typos above average; many of the keys don't work reliably on this keyboard]. This time we stayed at the cheaper, grungier, backpacker part of town where the lake is. "The Lakeside" to me sounded quite upmarket and romatic, but in fact is seems only to have been developed at all recently; as backpackers' accommodation, and also somewhere for large international corporations to dredge sandy silt to use as (I assume) building materials. I later read in the Phnom Penh Times (I think it was) about the scandal of international companies doing this (surprise surprise) without Cambodians seeing any benefit, despite the ecological damage it causes. Anyway, it seems until recently, the Lakeside was substanard housing with quite a lot of Indian immigrants. We took advantage of this by having a rather nice Indian meal the night we arrived back in PP. The guesthouse we stayed in (Number 9 Guesthouse, for anyone thinking of staying there) was absolutley disgusting.
Later research revealed that we should have given Sihanoukville a miss and headed for the less touristy beach resort of Kep, then spent as little time in Kampot. Oh well, next time!
The following day we moved to a much nicer hostel (Number 9 Sister Guesthouse) then organised a day of culture around Phnom Penh. Culture here, it turns out, is quite depressing. First we stopped off at a shooting range, where I declined the $40 fee to shoot 30 rounds from an AK47; even when he offerred me half a clip for just $20 I wasn't even half tempted. I don't really know why we went except it was part of the standard tourist route and I was curious. The LP claims you can possibly maybe shoot cows with AK47s, or indeed shotguns or anything else you are willing to pay for, after all in Cambodia money is king.
The above reminds me... I forgot to mention before, I think, one of the reasons I suspect Cambodia is so expensive is that everything is in dollars. At first I thought, OK, this is just to make tourist feel comfortable, so I'll just draw some local currency and get the "real" prices. The ATMs dispense dollars! Apparently you can choose if you have dollars or Riel if you have a Cambodian cash card, but a foreign card dooms you to dollars. I even went as far as working my way through the menus in Khmer to see if it would give me the option, but it wasn't my choice of English that had been deciding the currency. Now, when dollars are the currency, most things seem to cost one dollar minimum; in Vietnam we rarely spent a dollar on anything.
Which, in turn, reminds me about the Khmer language. Vietnamese had been a relief after Cantonese: roman script and only 6 tones instead of 9. Khmer was a mixed blessing. And to my shame I did not make it any easier by deciding not to get a phrasebook; I hadn't used it much in Vietnam, so why get one here? A mistake! It's worth it even for the few times you use it. Khmer is unusual in the region in that it is not a tonal language, however it uses its own script. The script is quite similar to Thai, although it predates it by some time (the Thais copied Khmer), the Khmer culture being the oldest of the dominant cultures in Indochina. Anyway, back to difficult to read, easy to say in theory. In practice, tourism is all they have in Cambodia, so everything that needs to be for tourists is in English; and it's not that easy to speak: the language is full of elisions and glottal stops (aspirated according to wiki). The roman translitteration contains loads of dashes and apostropes, which mean you have to sound like the power is cutting out on your microphone. Compared to the surrounding languages it sounds much harsher and truly weird. Anyway, I was lazy with Khmer and didn't bother at all.
Monument at the Killing Fields
Clothes are still scattered everywhere in the Killing Fields
So after the shooting range (which the driver had advised us to go to before), the Killings Fields, which is as depressing as you might expect: a large monument full of human remains, surrounded by the pits from which they were recovered. I don't know if they've done it for dramatic effect, out of respect, or just because the clean up would be far too much work, but all around the area where the mass graves have been exhumed, there are raggy old worn out clothes, half-buried in the earth. Nowhere did it say why, but I assumed that these were the clothes of the dead. In the monument they had a small pile of clothes recovered from the graves and these looked just the same. In a triumph of capitalism, you now have to pay to see this genocide monument; the money does not even go to the Cambodian people, or relatives of the victims, but (presumably) to the highest bidder, who in this case is a Japanese company. As far as I could gather they are doing none of the things you might expect in return for patronage of such a site; just pocketing the money I think.
Cells at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum
As if not depressed enough, we carried onto the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, which is just the Khmer Rouge's Security Prison 21 (S-21), preserved as a museum. It was previously a high school then, when everyone was evacuated from Phnom Penh to work in Pol Pot's communist agrarian utopia, they converted it to a place of torture and imprisonment. Respect for the dead prevents me from making any comparisons to its previous use. Bizarrely they have "no laughing" signs everywhere. I woudn't have seen anything funny under normal circumstances, but a no laughing sign is about the best thing I can imagine to get people laughing; especially in a school.
No laughing sign at the Genocide Museum
So we spent half the day finding out about how the French screwed things up, then the Americans made everything worse, then took communism as the signal to commit human rights abuses and atrocities galore. A familiar story in the region, although in this case they would have had a better case against the regime than in Vietnam, were it not for the complete hypocrisy displayed by fact they (and the rest of the UN) then went on to support the Khmer Rouge after they were defeated and forced into the bush by the Vietnamese army. Apparently they were afraid of communist expansionism. Well it's clearly much better to support the brutally genocidal communist than the liberators from that, isn't it?
Rules from S-21 prison camp (at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum)
Back in Phnom Penh we met a couple of South African girls who had been refused visas for Vietnam. We couldn't work it out.
written by  The Happy Couple on March 1, 2009 from Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Angkor What!?
Siem Reap, Cambodia
Having been thoroughly depressed by the current wealth gap and the former
brutality of the Khmer Rouge in Phnom Penh, we were glad to be escaping the next
day to the rich cultural landscape of Angkor, Siem Reap being the nearby town
where we stayed.
Siem Reap is the tourist capitol of Cambodia. It is obvious that many people who
go there see nothing else of the country, and IF my memory serves me correctly,
someone or other told me that indeed 50% of the country's tourists go only to
Siem Reap. The town itself was OK. Nothing special. Houses on stilts, which we
hadn't seen much of further south, but now we were in the environs of Tonle Sap
(Lake), which acts as a massive backwash when the rainy season comes and the
flow Mekong reverses into the Lake due to the extent of the rains. I read that
90% of the water in the Mekong drains out during the dry season. I'd love to
return to the area during the rainy season and see what the river having 10
times as much water does to the landscape. It made me think that people in
England should maybe start thinking about building their houses on stilts, so
that they don't have to ask for disaster relief every year when their houses
flood.
At least here there were some local food stalls where we could save some money;
much needed after paying the pass to see the temples at Angkor at $40pp for 3
(consecutive) days, and the tuktuk driver to take us around: $12, $15, and $25
for the three days, respectively. Our budget was bust again in Cambodia. And the
beer was dearer than Sihanoukville.
Bayon
I really don't know what I can say about the temples we spent three days
visiting: they are incredible. Visiting each one on its own would be a fantastic
experience, but we saw 16 in three days. We really needed about a week with rest
days, becauase by the end, we were thinking "yeah yeah bas relief. Again! Blah
blah Shiva blah blah nagas". Not one of them was boring, but it's too much to do
three full days of fantastic ancient temples in a row. The number of photos we
took is testament to how impressed we were. I've uploaded only a modest selection
of the best ones... I don't know whether you all know, but there are more photos than those embedded in the blog. Just click on "photos" at the top page of the blog (or else follow this link http://blogabond.com/Photos/PhotoBrowse.aspx?UserID=4545) where you can bore yourselves silly with the extra photos than couldn't appear in the text!
Our tuktuk driver (Rak) told us that (in another triumph of capitalism) the
temples were operated by a Korean company. Originally Cambodians were charged to
visit "their" temples until crowds protesting persuaded them to change the
rules; now they get free entry, although the still have to pay about 300 Riel to
use the toilets, although this is much less than the 2000 Riel tourists without
tickets have to pay.
Terrace of the Elephants
For the record, our first day took in: Angkor Thom (Bayon, Baphoun, Phimeanakas,
Terrace of the Leper King, Terrace of the Elephants, Ta Keo, Ta Prohm, Banteay
Kdei, and Prasat Kravan). Joanne ran out of batteries near the start of the day and those we bought showed "running out" as soon as they went in her camera. "Copy" batteries are apparently as much of a problem in Cambodia as copy everything else.
Anyway, after our first day of temples we discovered happy hour in "Pub Street",
but had terrible food in the only place we could afford, since we hadn't yet
discovered the local food stalls.
Close up of Terrace of the Leper King
The following day we had an early start: Angkor Wat for sunrise, somewhat
confusingly on Rak's advice, since the previous day he'd told us that the light is better in the
evening. Sure enough it was very disappointing! Angkor Wat was supposed to be
the ultimate in temples, but as the sun rose behind it, rendering it in total
silhouette, the disappointment in the (obediently at the proscibed place) crowd
was palpable. I'm sure it would have looked much more impressive for sunset.
Some people paid to go up in a balloon which I decided we should do for sunset
one evening. It's on a fixed line, so not a "real" balloon flight, but I've
never been in a hot air balloon before, so it seemed like a nice idea, which we unfortunately never got around to doing. The rest
of Angkor Wat was, of course, incredible, but the sunrise was a real letdown.
The long awaited sun
The rest of that day: Preah Khan, Neak Pean, Ta Som, East Mebon, and Pre Rup. Luckily for everyone my camera ran out of batteries shortly after Angkor Wat, and I'd been reserving them even at Angkor Wat, so there are probably a few thousand photos less than there outherwise would be. It
was 37C that day and about 60% humidity. Walking around in those tempratures was
not particularly comfortable, and every time we got back in the tuktuk, Rak took
the time to pause, turn around, look concerned, and say "are you alright" with
real feeling. It was all I could do not to respond "I would be if you got this
f-ing thing moving instread of acting so concerned". Not very charitible I
confess, but every second the cool breeze from the tuktuk's movement was delayed
seemed like a second closer to boiling point. He kept it up though, every stop;
he seemed to think it was dangerous for him to drive while we were so red-faced
and obviously uncomfortable. It was about that day I noticed that Cambodians
don't sweat. I actually asked Rak about it and he said, yes, if he was doing
heavy work in these tempratures he would sweat, but other than that 37C is just
normal for him.
Bas relief
Everywhere you go around Siem Reap there are people trying to sell you things;
more often than not they are children. It was there in Sihanoukville and Phnom
Penh, but here, where the tourist concentration is highest, it is incessant.
Cambodian kids are incredibly cute, and those hawking things have learned to
emphasise those aspects with expect precision. It's very hard to say no, and the
Lonely Planet emplores you to say no as they should be in education instead of
earning money, and the money probably goes to some VIP boss figure, not them.
I'm not sure about the bosses, but it's hard to see how working is depriving
them of schooling if there is no state-provided education anyway. Rak thought
that they probably were going to school, but only if they earned enough money
each morning (or the previous afternoon) to pay for school they next half-day.
Apparently this is difficult for them to do bcause the police extort bribes of
$3 per day from the kids to ensure they are not moved on from the tourist areas. Nice.
Kids climbing Ta Keo
Not wanting to break with tradition (erm annoy their shady spying superiors I
mean) we bumped into Jochem in the supermarket in Siem Reap. The regularity of
this was now passing unfeasible, so to celebrate we agreed to have dinner the
next night. We had more luck with the food that night and discovered Cambodian
street food for the first time: cheapish and OK, but not a patch on Vietnam...
more luck at the supermarket where I discovered a litre of pastis for only $4.
The last day of temples consisted if Kbal Spean ("the riverbed of Lingas"),
Banteay Srey, Banteay Samre, and Phnom Bakheng for sunset. We also managed to
fit in the Landmine Museum, which is a small museum full of deactivated mines and bombs of
various sorts, kindly left there by the Americans. Why is there not some international treaty
obliging the nations responsible for the mining to be responsible for the clean-up and care of
the injured? - oh yeah, because there would be no point as the Americans wouldn't sign up to it,
just like they haven't signed up to the current Mine Ban Treaty (along with China, India, Russia, and so on).
During the day I asked Rak a little bit about the
politics in Cambodia. He didn't know what Socialism was, but when I tried to
descibe it, was fairly certain that the CPP governing Cambodia were not any such
thing (as they claim to be); in fact he said "government is to keep the rich
rich". When trying to explain why people (apart from the rich) vote for the CPP
he cited peoples fear of change; since the time of Pol Pot things in Cambodia
have been better, and it has been the CPP in power, so they are scared to change
anything in case something like Pol Pot happens again. They know things are not
great; they could be better, but they really know how bad things can get, so the
CPP will do because they are not that. Confusing he then went on to tell me
about his own politics: "I like the idea of Pol Pot", which rather surprised me.
He went on to explain further than he likes the idea i.e. everyone is equal, but he agrees there
were a few problems with the implementation, like killing lots of people. I'm sure it can't be a very
common view in Cambodia (surely?).
Kbal Spean
Naturally, we bumped onto Marty, Jochem, and Marty's cousin at the top of Phnom
Bakheng, where we had all gone for sunset, just a couple of hours before we had to meet them for dinner.
We met up for cheap market food again, then went on to "Angkor What?" bar, where they have a happy hour(s)
special of 50 (US) cent beer and cheap buckets (buy two get a free t-shirt). A fun night was had by all,
during which we managed to secure three free t-shirts.
Those with the best view of Angkor Wat
written by  The Happy Couple on March 5, 2009 from Siem Reap, Cambodia

Recovering in Siem Reap
Siem Reap, Cambodia
Joanne, the afternoon after buckets
The day after we finished the temples of Angkor (and lots of buckets) we were extremely hungover. Joanne swore she was never going to drink buckets again. So we just took a couple of days off, since we'd worked so hard seeing all those temples. For two days we just hung around Siem Reap not doing very much. On the same road as our guesthouse I noticed a KFC was going to open soon. Lookalikes? Or maybe it was just the hangover.
Ho Chi Minh and Col Sanders -- separated at birth?
Uncle Ho -- Col Sanders' lookalike?
During our gruelling three days of temple stomping, my flipflops had started to come apart, but I paid a dollar to have them repaired, when a shoe-repair guy happened to walk past at just the right moment. I'm sure I could have bought a new pair for not very much more, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
After a couple of days of hanging around Pub Street, where we bumped into Marty and Jochem, for definitely the last time, I really wanted to get out of this super-touristy Cambodia and try to get a sense for what the "real" Cambodia is like. So we booked transport for Kampong Cham.
written by  The Happy Couple on March 7, 2009 from Siem Reap, Cambodia

Koh Paen, agrarian paradise
Kampong Cham, Cambodia
We were up early to catch the bus from Siem Reap to Kampong Cham. There's not a huge amount to do there, but it was a massive relief not to be constantly harrassed by people trying to sell us stuff, or otherwise extract money from us. I had read another blog post about the town, saying that it has the "only bridge" across the Mekong. I've since seen plenty more, so I now know this is rubbish, but maybe it's the only one in Cambodia. Since the bridge has been built the ferry trade has apparently nearly completely died out and Kampong Cham has become an important transit town.
Inside the tower
The bridge is pretty ugly. However, walking to the other side of it, there is also an old French lighthouse / look-out, which we climbed to the top of. On the way back from the tower, a woman threw a corn cob at Joanne, from the back of a truck. It hit her quite painfully in the chest and gave her quite a shock. We had read that people are much more conservative away from the main tourist areas, and that they object to tourists wearing overly revealing clothing. In preparation for this, Joanne had bought a pair of long baggy trousers before we left Siem Reap, but she was still wearing a vest top. This is the only explanation we could come up with for the attack, but it left Joanne with a rather negative impression of the town. I loved it though.
Bamboo Bridge
The town itself was nothing to see, but there is an Island in the Mekong, called Koh Paen, just as the river passes Kampong Cham. Connecting the island to the town is a bamboo bridge, which we walked across to have a wee look at the island. The bridge seems pretty rickety, but people were driving cars and (mostly) motorbikes across it. The bridge is rebuilt every year after the rainy season ends. During the rainy season the island is accessible only by boat, once the rain sweeps the bridge away. In fact it seems like the bridge may be under continual repair while it is up; some guys were trimming bits of bamboo and laying new strands down as we crossed. When we got to the other side if the bamboo bridge there was a ticket booth where we were charged $1 each, which seemed a bit excessive to me considering we were on foot. Other people on bikes were handing over what looked like smaller notes, but I didn't get a good look. We had a brief look at the island, but it was getting dark so we headed back to town.
Bamboo bridge
The next day I returned alone on a bicycle so I could see more of the island. Again I was charge $1 on the other side, but this time I decided to question it. "How much are they paying?" I asked, indicating some people on a moped. "You are foreign" was the response. I watched someone hand over a 100 riel note. So tourists pay forty times as much as locals then. This is the kind of rip-off I objected to in Cambodia. Some people complain in Vietnam they rip you off, but I never found that; they might start with an outrageously high price, but they are very willing to drop it a lot, if you just play the haggling game a little. I don't think tourist pay much more than locals in Vietnam if they are just willing to put the effort in. In Cambodia, though, most prices seem to be fixed and the price difference for tourist is "official", so there is no way of arguing them down; that's just what the price is for foreigners.
Happy peasants working in the fields
Anyway, it was well worth the dollar. The island is absolutely gorgeous. Everywhere I cycled, there were children shouting "hello" and running after me. Everyone on the island was very friendly and smiley -- with the exception of the older women; most of them are sour-faced and shaven-headed. I mentioned this to someone later, who said "well the older women in this country have had a pretty rough time", which is fair enough I suppose. I didn't find out why their heads were shaven; it may have been permanent mourning, or it may have been that they were nuns. The island is very rural, all the buildings are traditional wooden stilts bungalows, and it just has such a lovely remote village feel to it, which is all a bit strange when there is a regional capital town just over the bamboo bridge. Much of the island is given over to agriculture: tobacco, sesame, and bamboo seem to be the main crops, but most people seem to have jack fruit trees in their gardens too; all over the island chickens, pigs, ducks, and cows wander freely. I wondered how anyone knew which chicken were whose; it seems possible that they are living in the kind of agrarian collectivist utopia which Pol Pot had envisioned. Maybe he visited this island at some point. Mind you, he probably wouldn't have been very impressed with the two schools and one college I passed on the island.
Making my sugar cane juice
On the way back I stopped off at a press, where people squeeze sugar cane juice for you. I'd seen a few of them before, but never bought any. I ended up waiting around for ages while a woman cleaned and re-assembled the equipment, and her husband shaved the bark off several sticks of sugar cane; meanwhile loads of children gathered round to laugh at and watch me, and wait for their juice. The guy had to work pretty hard to turn the press, which works just like a mangle, and for the first time I saw a Cambodian sweating. It was very hot, and I was glad for the crushed ice they filled my glass with from a cool box, before pouring in the sugar cane juice. Surprisingly it's not that sweet. I was expecting something clawingly sweet, but in fact it must have less sugar in it than most of the soft drinks it goes into once it's refined. Ridiculous!
Sugar cane juice
The island left me with a nice warm glow, before we headed off to catch the bus to Kratie.
written by  The Happy Couple on March 9, 2009 from Kampong Cham, Cambodia

Dolphins in Kratie
Kracheh, Cambodia
The main draw of Kratie is the chance to see the endangered Irrawaddy Dolphins, so we hired a moped to go and find them. They seemed very relaxed about renting bikes here. "It's no problem not to have a helmet," he told us, "because you are foreign the police won't stop you". I wasn't convinced, but we decided just to drive very carefully instead of finding another shop where we might have been able to hire one. In Vietnam they had said to me "Just start in third gear because first and second will be too fast for you"; the implication being that foreigners are too stupid to start in such a "powerful" gear -- that in turn reminded me of Thailand where I was constantly told that the food would be too hot for me (just a farang).
It was nice to be on a bike again (and even nicer to have wind blowing through the hair), and we found the dolphin place without too much difficulty; there are wooden carved dolphins for about half-a-mile in either direction from the parking spot. We paid more money for the boat trip than the Lonely Planet says we would need to, but they seem to have suspended the free market and set up a new system where there is a fixed price which gets shared among the boatmen, instead of being able to haggle them down. It also said that some of the money is going towards protecting the dolphins too, so I can't complain. We didn't have to wait long for the dolphins; almost as soon as the boat pulled away from the edge, the boatman cut the engine and pointed. Considering there are only supposed to be about one hundred of these creatures left, we saw a very large percentage of the total population. They were constantly coming to the surface, and came fairly close to our boat a few times. They're quite strange looking dolphins compared to the bottle-nosed ones I'm used to; these have a snub nose and a big grin. Unfortunately they only come to the surface briefly, so I completely failed to get any photos of them. I do have a few short video clips, which I'll upload at some point. The boatman asked us if we wanted to go to the rapids, just upstream of the dolphin play area, for another dollar each, so we decided we might as well. When we got to the rapids he just parked the boat on a sand bank and said "now we swim". So, leaving poor Joanne on the sandbank as she didn't have any modest enough clothing to swim in, the boatman and I stripped down to our pants and splashed about in the Mekong. The water seemed really nice and clean.
Joanne with Sugar cane juice
On the way back to town we bought some more sugar cane juice and then I spotted a stall selling a local speciality I'd read about: sticky rice, mixed with beans and coconut, cooked in sticks of bamboo; it's an on-the-go snack. Clearly we had to stop for some. I noticed that they also had strings of banana leaf parcels hanging up, which I thought might be the other speciality I'd read about i.e. spiced pickled fish, wrapped in banana leaf. I love banana leaf parcels, because without speaking the language, you are never sure what you're going to get. Anyway, before I had a chance to buy anything, some spoiled VIP brats drove up in a black Toyota Hilux and bought every one of the banana leaf parcels. Luckily I found some more back in town, and discovered that they were indeed pickled fish and chilli, wrapped in a holy basil leaf, then the banana leaf. Really delicious! And the rice was quite nice as well.
Pickled fish in a basil leaf (in a banana leaf)
written by  The Happy Couple on March 10, 2009 from Kracheh, Cambodia

Trekking near Ban Lung
Banlung, Cambodia
We fancied doing a bit of trekking in Cambodia, so from Kratie we waited for the bus to Ban Lung in Ratanakiri province, where we had heard there is some good trekking. Waiting for the bus was also a French guy called Fabrice, who we got chatting to. He was taking lovely pictures of some children who were hanging around the bus stop. He had a truly impressive looking camera. For some really nice photos of Cambodia have a look at his photostream on Flikr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/travelspics . I kept myself busy by photographing a praying mantis on a nearby bush. It turned out that Fabrice was also interested in a trek, so we agreed to keep in touch once we got to Ban Lung.
Praying mantis
The bus was a bit overloaded, which meant that my bag and Fabrice's had to come inside and roll about the aisle, and I was squashed in at the back between loads of children. I was expecting Ban Lung to be as hassle free as Kratie and Kampong Cham had been, but as soon as we got off the bus there was a massive scramble for the "barang" by the moto dup drivers, each of whom pushed one or two guest houses. Surprisingly this was the most hassle we had yet endured, but the guest house owner in Kratie had recommended a place called Tree Top, an "eco lodge", which we soon found a driver for. At $4 for a double room it seemed like a good deal as well. When we arrived there, after a rather scary journey on the back of a bike with my thirty kilo rucksack still on my back, Fabrice was already there, and had taken the last double room, leaving us with a choice of a twin room (not suitable for a honeymoon) or a bungalow which, at the massive price of $7 we decided we
couldn't afford on our Cambodian budget. We really wanted to stay there though, as it looked lovely, so we were very pleased when Fabrice agreed to swap for the twin room. The eco lodge was a little out of town, so we just ate in their restaurant, which was a little over-priced, and got chatting to an Israeli guy, who seemed to be a mine of travel information, largely related to money saving; he scoffed at our $25 per day per person. He was trying to get by on $10. He had just arrived from Laos and I didn't think he'd be able to do it in Cambodia. After a bit the conversation went down hill when he told Joanne she was ridiculous for not eating dog when she is happy to eat pigs which, he insisted, are much dirtier animals than dogs. What a silly discussion!
We were woken at 7am by the building site, where they are building the lodge owner's house. It seems like everywhere we stay in Asia there is a buliding site just outside our window, which starts at 7am. In Banlung it was much cooler than the lowlands of Cambodia. When we went into the restaurant in the morning, Fabrice was sitting with a Canadian guy called Bobby, saying that they had been in town and found a trek that was cheaper than the one offerred by the lodge and they were going to meet the guide later to go over the details. We had arrived too late to organise any trekking for that day, so we hired the worst condition moped so far, from the lodge owner and zipped off to take in the local sights, stopping in town to have a baguette. Baguettes are for sale from street vendors everywhere in Cambodia, but this was a national speciality we had somehow hitherto missed. We hadn't been missing much, but they were OK.
Waterfall
First stop on our moped trip was a waterfall, up to which we hoped to be able to get a trip on an elephant. Somehow we missed the village you catch the elephants at and ended up right at the waterfall, which we had to pay to look at. I mentioned that we were looking for elephants at the little shop next to the waterfall and he told us he'd organise it for us, so he phoned around to find out where the elephants were. Apparently these elephants are normally working elephants so giving the tourists rides is a nice break for them. "The elephants are in the jungle" he said after a couple of calls, so he said we could get on his moped to the elephants, and they would bring us back to the waterfall. So the three of us, me in the middle Joanne at the back, crammed onto this little 100cc moped, over quite a rough, rocky road. Heading up a hill on the road, the driver lost it on some loose rocks and spilled us on to the road. Well it wasn't serious, but it was
pretty sore; my knee was badly scraped and a bit bashed; Joanne had bruised he inner thigh; and the driver was complaining of sore ribs. We just got back on the bike and continued to the very small village where we were meeting the elephants. "Elephant not here yet," he told us, "I go fix bike. You wait."
Children at the elephant handlers' village
We had no idea how long we were going to have to wait, but the family who seemed to be in charge of the elephants were very friendly and I got a couple of nice photos of them while we waited. Eventually the elephants arrived and we were off. The moped driver told us we could get two elephants for the price of one, if we wanted. I hoped it was because he was feeling guilty about injuring us. The elephant ride wasn't much fun: rather uncomfortable and the poor elephants were hit hard on the head (with the back of a hatchett) any time they strayed to the edge of the path, usually to try and eat; so after just a few minutes I was feeling very sorry for my elephant who was getting it much more than Joanne's, whose was allowed to eat the occasional leaf. At one point the elephant appeared to get so annoyed with being hit, or maybe just with not being allowed to eat, that I thought it was going to throw us off; it seemed to be rearing up a bit and it was
trumpteting quite a lot. I thought, "Great! First a moped accident and now I'm to be thrown from an elephant". However it calmed down again and there was no major incident. My elephant handler was smoking a pipe for the length of the journey and when he noticed my scraped knee he very kindly offered my a wad of tobacco which he spat in, then indicated I should rub it into the wound. I politely declined. When the ride ended I was glad that people had previously warned us not to go for a long ride because of the discomfort. One hour was more than enough, especially with all the elephant abuse. The ride ended at the shop where the guy had driven us from on the moped. When his wife realised that the injury on my knee was caused by him losing control of the bike, she gave him a severe dressing down.
Volcanic lake
Our next stop was at a lovely volcanic lake, where lots of Cambodian children and teenagers, as well as a few foreigners, were all splashing around and having fun.
Joanne's elephant
When we got back to the lodge, the trek guide was there. Bobby quite quickly decided it was too expensive for him and pulled out, but Joanne, Fabrice, and I decided to go ahead with it. We agreed one night sleeping in the jungle and one night "homestay" in a minority village. He was a bit vague about what we would see or do on the trek, but I didn't worry about that. I was sure he knew what he was doing. His name is Mr Keo Sona. Do not go trekking with this man!
That evening we had some drinks with Fabrice and a girl from Somerset, called Charlie. She had been working in Botswana in conservation, and wanted to live in South Africa. She had an aeronautical engineering degree, but hated it and completely changed careers. The next morning she was leaving for Don Det, where we planned to go next, so we agreed to bump into each other there.
The guide picked us up at 7.30am as agreed and we got driven to a ferry port. After we crossed the river we would be trekking. The guide, a guy he called his brother, and the car driver all sat around in a cafe at the ferry port having lunch, even though it was only about 10am when we arrived. Just when it was reaching the hottest part of the day we caught the ferry, which had been going back and forth for the whole hour and a half we sat there. The three of us had been sitting asking each other what on earth is going on -- after all didn't we have some trekking to be getting on with. Then when it was time to pack the bags I really started to wonder if they had any idea what was going on themselves.
The previous day when we had discussed the trek, we had asked the guide what we need to take with us and he had said not to worry, that they would carry everything; all we need to carry is clothes and our own water. We didn't need to take any mosquito nets or food, because they would organise all of that. We had decided to take one bigger bag to take turns with just in case. But when we got it out he put all the water in the one bag, then he put a huge bag of food, then he put another big bag of food in on top. I picked it up and said "it's very heavy", meaning that we could perhaps share the weight around; or at least the water, but he said "ok I'll take it" and put on the big rucksack, "you take this", and handed me a large, heavy, nylon sack. Fabrice was also given a sack to carry. Keo set off without tying the waist strap of the large rucksack as the midday sun beat down on us.
By now I was convinced they had no idea what they were doing. I'm no expert in hiking, but the last thing you want to do is carry anything in your hands, least of all an awkwardly shaped, heavy, nylon sack, which was dripping something slightly slimy from one corner; it really tires you out, puts strain on your back, and puts you off-balance. As for Keo not doing up the waist strap, he can't have known how the gear works, after all it's only the waist strap that really makes rucksacks sit where they should and takes weight off your spine. I don't think you need to have the highest tech gear to go trekking, but Keo was just wearing an ordinary pair of leather shoes, which seemed odd. Finally, setting off in the middle of the day, after sitting around doing nothing for nearly two hours was crazy, especially when the path turned out to be more of a road than a forest track, so there was almost no shadow from trees, most of which anyway had been cut down,
and the land burned. So we were walking along a large path through a scorched wasteland in baking sun. Not exactly a great start.
Soon it because clear that Keo and his brother weren't even very fit. OK, Keo's bag was heavy, but the two of them stopped and sat down for a rest every fifteen minutes, while the customers stood around waiting for them to get on with it. Surely the guides are supposed to be really fit and able to cope with carrying a heavy bag? Keo's brother didn't even have that excuse and seemed to need the rests just as much. Eventually we reached a section where the road narrowed and some of the forest had been left alone, and it started to look a little bit pleasant, however we were still being passed quite frequently by vehicles. Finally it narrowed even more, so that only mopeds were able to drive along the path. Which is about when we stopped at a clearing with a couple of wooden structures. Our home for the night! It was actually quite nice, so I started to cheer up. Keo got the hammocks we would be sleeping in out of a bag and tied them up under our shelter.
That was when things got worse! Joanne had gone over to inspect the hammocks, which had integrated mosquito nets. One of them had a huge hole in it, the zip did not work at all on one, and the last one had lots of small holes. When we complained to Keo, he told us not to worry, he has repellent spray and there anyway is no malaria in Cambodia! Needless to say we were not very happy, because we could have brought our own.
Our sleeping area in the jungle
Keo and his brother lit a fire and cooked the fish that turned out to be the thing leaking from my bag in the hot sun all day. It tasted OK, if not exactly delicious, but it made me worry how fresh the following day's meat would be. The meal was cooked with loads of rice; "Cambodians don't feel good unless they have rice in their stomachs Keo explained to me". When the sun set, the two Cambodians lit a fire for us and went to their hammocks to sleep, at about 7pm, leaving us wondering what to do with ourselves, and also we realised, nowhere to sit, because it was the tree trunks we were using as benches while we ate that were now the fire. Eventually I volunteered to take the zipless hammock in exchange for Joanne getting the best one and we also went to bed. I've tried to sleep in a hammock once before and found it very uncomfortable, and this one was no different. After drenching myself in mosquito repellent, I realised that the hammock was a bit short for me and it seemed like it would only be comfy if my knees bent the wrong way. I may have got two hours sleep, but when I gave up trying to sleep, it was actually really nice just lying there in the jungle, listening to what sounded like an elephant rustling around, although it really couldn't have been, listening to hundreds of gecko calling, listening to all sort of birds and millions of cicadas, and watching loads of fireflies floating past our shelter. All night an electric storm rumbled around us, although it only rained on us for a short time and the shelter kept us completely dry. Even if the hammock had been comfortable, I think there was actually far too much noise for me to sleep! It was a very interesting experience, though, just not much use if you want rest because you are hiking the next day.
The following morning, I discovered that neither Fabrice nor Joanne had slept either; I had seen Fabrice got up in the middle of the night and sit in the other shelter for a while. Apparently he had given up sleeping and intended to read, but when he put on his headtorch he was attacked by lots of insects, which is why he returned to bed shortly afterwards.
This day's hike seemed to consist of us following Keo around, visiting people living in the forest so he could have a long conversation with them, while we just stood around, waiting. He also took us to a clearing to show us where he used to work for an international gem company as a local expert and advisor, prospecting using lots of wooden aparatus that was still lying there, abandoned to the jungle. Apparently the company had pulled out of Cambodia at the start of the economic downturn. After this diversion, we walked to the village where we were to stay the second night (Etop), again carrying stuff in sacks, and the guides resting every fifteen minutes or so. It was about halfway back along the route we had walked the day before. We had taken so long to get going in the morning that it was already late afternoon by the time we arrived.
Minority village children
Keo explained to us that the villagers were mixed Lao and ethnic minority, "half-bloods" he called them. He went on to say that they are very lazy, have too many children, and all they care about is drinking rice wine and dancing. It was all sounding very racist until I asked him about his own ethnicity: the same, he said, but this one was not his village. The village stay was the highlight of the trek. The villagers were very friendly, and spent most of the time we were there standing around and looking at us, particularly the children, which Fabrice took full advantage of by taking loads of lovely photos. I didn't take many because I felt a bit embarrassed taking photos of strangers and Fabrice was making such a good job of it, I thought I would just look at his photostream instead.
Inside house we stayed in at the minority village
There was a little shop in the village, where the three of us bought up the entire supply of beer (seven bottles). People kept buzzing in and out on mopeds, and someone in the village had a generator, so some of the houses had televisions. So this village, although in the forest, isn't really remote at all. One woman asked Keo why these rich westerners want to sleep in the jungle and sleep in their poor village; if she was rich like us she would live in the city and own a car. They all seemed to agree: we were mad. So it seems like this village is something akin to a "trailer park" in the US now: people only live there because they can't afford to live anywhere else; there traditional village life has gone, really, and they are only ten minutes away from a small town on a bike.
House we stayed in at the minority village
It was a village elder and his family we were staying with, who cooked for us in their house, although we didn't eat with them because guests get to eat first. We also slept there, although we had to ask for mosquito nets, rather than Keo organising them. The one thing Keo did do for us was procure a bottle of their local rice spirit, which we sat around in a circle taking turns to have shots. Apparently this is the Lao way: you drink fast until you fall down. Keo did not join us, because he said he can't work if he's drinking. We managed to polish off the bottle without him. About four in the morning Joanne and I woke up shivering and couldn't get back to sleep, but as we'd gone to bed about eight the night before we weren't too tired. Only when the sun came up did we realise that everyone else had a blanket except us; Fabrice and the two guides!
Minority village
This time we told Keo that we wanted to get going early to back to Ban Lung at a reasonable time. It seemed to work because we set off fairly sharp without the usual sitting around for hours, and they even walked almost without breaks, although they did both complain frequently how tired they were. When we got back to Ban Lung, we were able to book back into Treetop, and finished the day with a few drinks with Fabrice. During the trek, I'd enjoyed spending much of the time chatting to him. I even got to exercise my French a little, something I had thought there might be an opportunity for in Cambodia with so many French people around. We had quite a lot in common politically, and he frequently ranted about Sarkozy, who he seems to believe is responsible for everything wrong in France today. At one point I said to him I thought French supermarkets are not what they used to be: less fresh produce, more microwave meals and processed food, unripe fruit and cheese on the shelves; "what's happening to your country?" I asked -- "It's the fault of Sarkozy!" he replied.
Fabrice
written by  The Happy Couple on March 15, 2009 from Banlung, Cambodia

Lazy in Laos
Ban Dondet, Laos
The day after out disappointing trek, we got the bus into Laos. Several people had advised us that Si Phan Don (Four Thousand Islands) in the south of Laos should be our first stop, and of the four thousand, recommended Don Det to relax for a couple of days. Si Phan Don is just across the border so it makes sense. At our guesthouse we had got chatting to a nice Cypriot-German doctor called Thalia, and she was also going to Don Det, so we sat next to her on the minibus. She is one of several people we met who said that they thought Cambodians were lovely, but they found the Vietnamese really cold and unfriendly. I don't understand it all, because I thought the Vietnamese were very nice as well: always having a joke with you, or maybe at you who knows, but it's not unfriendly.
They really crammed us into this minibus, and stopped to pick up some locals after it was already full! One by one, the bags from inside the minibus we taken up onto the roof and tied with rope. In Stung Treng, we stopped for lunch, where we swapped minibuses and Thalia noticed that one of her bags was missing. Stolen? Fallen from the roof seemed most likely, but the other minibus was called back to search it. It wasn't there, and after phoning the guesthouse we found out that the bag was there. Apparently it had got left behind at the market where one of the locals got off, or it hadn't made it onto the roof or something. Somehow someone knew to take the bag to the Tree Top guesthouse, so Thalia had to stay overnight in Stung Treng and wait for her bag to come on the next day's minibus.
For those of us who continued to the border, we had to pay a bribe of $1 to each side of the border, as we had been told we would have to by countless travellers. One Israeli couple had refused to pay, and the Lao side let them through anyway, whereas the Cambodian side had kept them waiting there for about five hours before letting them through. We had all decided that $2 wasn't worth a five hour wait so just paid it when they asked us to. A German couple, coming in the opposite direction, were being asked for $20 to get through, on top of the visa fee. Apparently they alter the amount depending on how wealthy you look, and they were on quite fancy-looking motorbikes. Luckily for me, it's never been that hard for me to look scruffy, so it was only $1 per side as expected.
Welcome to Laos!
The Israeli guy we'd been arguing with about the relative merits of dog meat versus pork a few days earlier had given us some advice on Don Det: when you get to the Island turn right instead of going straight on because this takes you to the side of the island where you see the sunsets, rather than being on the side with the sunrises, getting woken early by hot sun filling your room. Seemed to make sense, so we found ourselves a shack on the sunset side: in Sunset Bungalows. The accommodation is all shacks: bungalows on legs mosly made of bamboo, and they all have little verandas with hammocks. Very chilled out. So to get relaxing we thought we would get stuck into the drinks which seemed incredibly cheap after Cambodia: 6000 Kip for a Lao Lao mojito and 10000 Kip for a (640ml) bottle of Beerlao. There are about 8500 Kip to the US$, which we were still thinking in after Cambodia. Beerlao is quite nice and apparently has about a 95% market share; it used to be 99%, but the market seems to be getting penetrated very aggressively by Tiger at the moment. Lao Lao is the country's other national drink, which is rice spirit and only costs 10000 Kip for a 75cl bottle. Anyway the result of coming into the cheap abundance of alcohol and beer in bigger bottles is that we both ended up very drunk and then very hungover the next day. We did see a fantastic sunset, as did all the other people who had come over from sunrise side for a drink in the bar at our guesthouse.
First sunset on Don Det
Lao Lao just means Lao spirit in the Lao language. Coming into Laos [note the adjective relating to the country is Lao and the country is Laos, where the "s" is pronounced in English -- sounds a bit like louse] meant that we were back in a tonal language speaking country again, so it would be tricky to learn much. Anyway, the two words "Lao" in Lao Lao are different because they have different tones. After a while and some time with my phrasebook I realised that Lao is really quite easy: there are six tones which is at least easier than the nice Cantonese has, but not as easy as the four in Mandarin. But aside from the tones, which I think are pretty tricky to master, there is the alphabet, which is very strange if you are used to Roman characters. Apparently it's derived from the original Thai alphabet, which in turn is derived from the Khmer alphabet, although Thai had since been redesigned, so Lao is closer to the original Khmer now. Anyway, once you've learned the alphabet it gets much easier because Lao is phonetic. Apart from that, the language structure is very simple: the verbs have no tenses, they don't change depending on the person, or if plural; the pronouns are the same whether subject or object; nouns are the same whether plural or not, in fact all the time, so the adjectives never change either. There is more, but I can't remember now. Mostly the language is trivial, but there are one or two areas where there is extra complexity, like knowing how to address people: older sibling, younger sibling, aunt, uncle, etc etc, and a specially respectful address for monks and people in high office.
Fishing in the Mekong
Apart from the booze and the language, other first impressions are that the money all looks the same: most of the notes are greeny-blue and if you don't have the note the right way up and the right way round, you can't see the arabic numerals most of us are used to; the pigs were all tied up, although I've since discovered that this is not generally true in Laos, so I wonder if they don't trust their neighbours in Don Det, or maybe they just don't trust their pigs. Anyway, the pigs looked very unhappy on the island. Another strange thing I noticed quickly is that Lao people sweat; certainly no more than falang such as myself, but after Cambodia, where nobody sweats it was really noticeable. Another thing I noticed here is that the backpacker food had remained unchanged from place to place since the start of the trip. As we'd been travelling round we were watching the local culture shift slowly from one to another, meanwhile, I realised, backpacker culture is static: everywhere does banana pancakes (the pancakes all seem to taste like omelettes in Asia), everywhere does burgers and pizzas (usually very badly), and everywhere does shakshuka. Anyway this was a very backpaker-pitched place, so there was a lot of this food. Also, curiously, most restaurants seemed to do a pumpkin burger, which seems to be a local speciality peculiar to Don Det. I didn't notice any pumpkins growing, so I'm not sure why. The backpacker food was as it always is, but very quickly I realised we were in for a treat with the Lao food, especially after how disappointing the food had been in Cambodia.
Fish laap
On our first morning there we were woken before 6am by some cocks crowing very loudly and persistently. Given the hangovers we had we were not particularly grateful for this service and wondered what difference the sun can possibly make on sunrise side, considering you are woken before it anyway. So we spent a lazy morning becoming accostomed to our hammocks, taking a dip or two in the Mekong. Later in the day we discovered the mistake we had made. After about midday the sun beats down on the hammocks on the sunset side, making it nearly impossible to tolerate, whereas the people on the sunrise side are in the shadow of their bungalows, having been woken up at the same time by the cocks, the morning after watching a beautiful sunset by simply buying a drink on the sunset side.
View from my hammock
Quite quickly we noticed that the Lao are as obsessed with rice as Cambodians: rice, usually sticky rice, is offered with whatever you order from the menu. Burger: would you like sticky rice? Sandwich: would you like sticky rice? Ice cream: would you like sticky rice? Another odd thing we noticed is that the cats had no tails; not like siamese, but apparently docked. And a nice difference from Cambodia is that all the kids, who are just as cute, say "sabaii dii" everywhere you go, which is the usual greeting in Lao, instead of in Cambodia where all the kids say "hello". On the third day we met up with Charlie from Somerset, who had now arrived, and got very drunk again. It seemed like Laos was not going to be very good for our health. But at least we were absorbing the culture: Lao are known for being very laid back. The Lonely Planet says in the introduction that the collonial French used to say "The Vietnamese grow the rice, the Cambodians watch it grow, and the Lao listen to it grow". Apparently the Laos was always a loss-making venture for the French.
The following day was my birthday! But I was really hungover and didn't feel like doing much, however since we'd not really done much since we arrived I persuaded myself and Joanne to hire a bike and cycle around, and to the neighbouring island, Don Khon, which is connected by a bridge. In another nicer-than-Cambodia moment, we realised that foreigners only have to pay three times as much as locals to cross the bridge, a massive improvement on the forty times we had to pay in Kampong Cham. Don Khon was quieter and dearer than Don Det, but the same idea: bungalows on legs, although mostly made of wood here. We visited the water fall there, but it wasn't very impressive; too dry at this time of year probably. We cycled back a bit uninspired and still hungover. I managed a few drinks for my birthday, we went to an indian restaurant, and Joanne gave me a krama, which is a Cambodian scarf, used, for example, for protecting your face from dust when on a motor bike in the dry season; also some nice incense we'd been smelling everywhere in Cambodia, an incense holder, and a bracelet, which I'm sure will grow on me ;-)
Grumpy tied up pig
That night there was a massive electric storm and the island was lashed with rain. A bit odd, I thought, since the dry season still has quite a while to go, but I suppose you do get occasional downpours. After the storm eased off we were woken again by a couple of English guys two bungalows along, who arrived back really drunk. We'd chatted to them a bit over the previous days. They were biking over the difficult roads in Laos on dirt bikes, neither of them ever having riden even a moped before. They both had several injuries from the journey, and one had a really nasty burn from the exhaust pipe (apparently known as a "Thai Tattoo"). Anyway, after a while the dutch girl in the bungalow between hours and theirs spoke up, in a bid to quieten them down. Instead she just roused their interest: "where are you from?"; she replied "Holland"; then a few minutes later, "where are you from?"; "Iceland", she said. "We're from England" they responded; "oh really we can't tell" was the last thing she said.
Could it be another sunset?
The next day we watched from our hammocks as the female owner did our laundry in Mekong. I wasn't too worried, since everyone washes in it, as had we since we arrived there; and I think what came out the communal shower (which I never used) was just Mekong water anyway. The Mekong seems really quite clean and fresh. Later someone in our bar told us that the cats were missing their tails because baby cat tail is a delicacy and the Lao remove them when the cat is still young. That night loud music was blasting out long after most places close, and most have turned their generators off (there is no mains electricity on the island). We thought it must have been where the English boys had been so late last night, so we tracked the place down to have a look. It was locals having a party, being true to character as we'd been told: drinking Lao lao and dancing to loud music with very loud bass being played by a band playing music that sounded quite like ska. That night there was another huge storm and downpour. We decided we had to leave the next day, as we were becoming too lazy and drinking too much there.
Tubing into the sunset
written by  The Happy Couple on March 20, 2009 from Ban Dondet, Laos

Pork in Pakse
Pakxe, Laos
We left Don Det for Pakse, our livers only just intact. We had been looking forward to the coffee in Laos, as the guide book said they were very proud of their coffee, believing it to be the best in the world. After the fantastic Vietnamese coffee this sounded plausible due to their proximity, but unlikely it could be better just becuase the Vietnamese stuff was so good. We expected it to be a massive relief anyway after the very disappointing Khmer coffee (whch they are also very proud of), but in Don Det anyway it had been very poor so far. So, we headed to Pakse in search of good coffee, as Pakse is meant to be the coffee capitol of Laos. It is very close to the Bolaven Plateau, where most of the coffee is grown.
When I tried to take a couple of photos in Pakse, I realised that the beer I spilled on my camera in Don Det had actually done a bit of damage. It had seemed OK at first, but now it had dried off it seemed like all the mechanisms were a bit sticky.
My camera was taking strain
There's not really anything to do in Pakse. It seems to be full of people just using it as a base for trips to the Bolaven Plateau, so we decided to do the same. Wandering around the streets, I spotted someone selling more banana leaf parcels, and not being able to resist unusual things, least of all surprises wrapped up in banana leaf, I bought one, maybe expecting pickled fish again, but not really sure what to expect. I unwrapped it and it still wasn't obvious what it was, but it looked a bit like raw pork. I bit into it and, yes it seeemed to be raw pork, wrapped around some herbs, spices, and a big chunk of raw chili. It tasted very nice, but I couldn't help worry about worms, although the meat did taste like it might be cured, which I hoped would take care of any parasites. Oh well! I finished it off. I had read that the Lao have a taste for raw meat. Their main national dish, laap, is traditionally made with raw minced meat of fish, but it is usually cooked these days.
I tracked down a half bottle of lao-lao in the hope it would kill anything not killed in the curing process nad we finished the day in an indian restaurant, which was packed with falangs, probably more of them than we had previously eaten with.
written by  The Happy Couple on March 21, 2009 from Pakxe, Laos

Waterfalls and coffee on the Bolaven Plateau
Ban Pakthon, Laos
Tat Yuang
In the morning in Pakse, we tracked down some nice "foe" for breakfast, which is very similar to the Vietnamese "pho" (although not quite as good). We hired a moped and headed off to the Bolaven Plateau. I was a little bit worried about the distance as I'd never driver that far before on a bike. It turned out to be no problem getting there and the first waterfall, Tat Fan was certainly quite a drop, although there wasn't all that much water in it and we didn't fancy the long hike down the side to the bottom where we'd presumably have got a full view of it. The second waterfall, Tat Yuang, was actually much nicer, although to as high. People were swimming above and below the falls, and there was a lovely picnic area at the top.
Tat Fan (waterfall)
Moonflower in front of coffee
After the waterfalls we wanted to go to a tea or coffee plantation, but we didn't really know what to look for. In the end we just kept on driving until we got to the town of Paksong, hoping we'd be able to get a decent cup of coffee. The town seemed to be tiny, but we'd spotted a "fresh coffee" sign on the way in, so we stopped off. It was a very nice little coffee shop run by a dutch guy called Kofee. His coffee wasn't actually much use, but he apologised for it being weak and explained he couldn't grind any more becuase the electricity was down now, so he gave us it for free.
Moonflowers
He also ran tours of coffee plantations from there, but we didn't really have the time for a full tour now, because we had to get back in time for the night bus leaving, so he showed me what a coffee plant looks like so that we could look out for them on the way back. It turned out that almost all the plants we'd been pasing on the way were coffee or tea, the one exception being moonflowers, which seem usually to be planted next to the road infront of the coffee. I wondered if it was for the same reason as the roses planted at the end of grape vines i.e. to give early warning if the plants are in need of attention, but I've not yet found out. We made it back in plenty of time for the night bus to Vientiane.
written by  The Happy Couple on March 22, 2009 from Ban Pakthon, Laos

Great food and freaky Buddhas
Vientiane, Laos
Buddha Park
We woke approaching Vientiane nicely rested, because the night bus was a huge improvement on the Vietnamese torture machines. At last something that is better than Vietnam! Lao night buses having you lying down properly in two layers, like bunk beds. The only potential draw back is that they are all double beds, so you don't know who you are going to be sleeping with if you are on your own. Of course, as a couple, this was much nicer for us.
According to the books Vientiane is actually pronounced something like Wang Chan, but because the Roman transliteration was done by the French, it doesn't really come out right if you say it as if it's an English word. The LP says that it starts with a "V" because French does not have letter "W", although I'm sure I remember a letter called "doobleh-vay" so I don't know what they are talking about. Maybe it's a recent introduction into the French alphabet, because of imported words from English. "Whisky" comes to mind. The same goes for the "ch" sound: does not exist in French, so they chose "tia" as the next closest sound in French. Anyway, everything in Lao seems to have several different spellings, because there is a move to the Royal Thai method of transliteration, which the LP assures us is much more understandable by everyone, although I think it just makes it easier for English speakers. Having said all that, I only ever heard people saying itas
it looks in English, so maybe the spelling has led to a difference in pronunciation between the Lao and the English versions of the city name.
Our main goal in Vientiane was to obtain a Thai visa. We had only recently discovered this would be necessary due to a recent rule change which means that, while people arriving by air get the usual thirty day visa on arrival, people arriving overland are only given fifteen days, which is nothing like enough for what we want to do. Apparently it's something to do with the airport protests last year and they are also trying to discourage people from doing the Thai "visa run" where people spend a day just over the border in Burma, for example, simply so that they can get another thirty days stamped on their passports when they return. Well not any more they can't! Only when we arrived did we discover, to our delight, that for a limited period only, they are giving away sixty day tourist visas and waiving the fee. I think they must be trying to make up for the additional inconvenience they are causing people. Despite this good news it was still a real
painto get the visa. It was very hot and humid, there were hundreds of people waiting, and it took more than half-a-day just queue to hand our passports in and then queue again for the receipt. I sneaked off for a quick beer while Joanne was waiting for our number to come up and ended up the only person in a strange biker bar (I think), playing old French music. The town seems to be a bit more French than anywhere else in Laos so far, and it shows in some of the architecture.
The arc de triomphe or "vertical runway"
On the way back from the Embassy, we stopped in at the post office to get information regarding our other mission in Vientiane, which was to post home some of the stuff we really should not have brought with us. The post office appeared to be in the middle of being built, but we managed to find a way in anyway. The prices for posting a parcel was far more than we had anticipated: about 10 quid a kilo. After an unsuccessful attempt at finding a shipping company instead, we returned to our hotel to estimate which of the items we wanted to send were worth enough more than a tenner a kilo to send rather than bin. Most things passed, so items like my linen suit, which I hadn't worn since the wedding despite huge intentions of playing the colonial part, we put aside for parcelling up. Also on the list were my jeans, my second, thick fleece, and loads of other stuff that seemed to be taking up far too much space, but not tooo much weight.
Local speciality of Vientiane
Side dish for local speciality
That evening we had dinner overlooking the Mekong at a place that seemed lovely until all the insects from the reeds started closing in. Despite that, the food was excellent: I had a local speciality, naem I think, a dish consisting of fish fried with balls of cooked rice then broken up and served like a salad with greens on the side. After dinner when we went for a drink, it started to rain again. And it rained very heavily with another huge electric storm. I started to think that monsoon had started early. It would have to be about two months early, but March only gets about three days of rain on average and we'd already seen more than that.
Weird dish of wobbly rice paper, nuts, and sausage
The following day we spent another half day collecting our passports from the Thai embassy, complete with our brand new (free!) Thai visas. Later in the day we got chatting to a couple from Australia, who were heading towards Cambodia: in the opposite direction from us. They had just come from Vang Vieng and had had to part company with a friend, so he could be flown to Bangkok on account of the injuries he had sustained while "Tubing". Since Vietnam people had been telling us about the injuries that they or their friends had endured whilst involved in this activity. I still wasn't very sure exactly what it was, but it involved floating down a river in a big inner tube (the type we'd seen people floating in, in Don Det we reckoned), stopping off at various pubs for drinks, then returning to the water via various flying foxes and shutes. So a watery pub crawl. The dangers are obvious, but the sheer number of injured people we had seen was unsettling. We had initially decided to give Vang Vieng a miss as it just sounded like the gap year crowd going wild but, despite all the injuries, everyone we'd spoken to told us it was not to be missed. This Oz couple were no exception, even though their friend had been having seizures two days after cracking his skull off some rocks, and now appeared to have fluid building up in his increasingly swolen head and face. Not nice! We had initiated the converstation by asking whether the girl's obvious nasty scrapes were down to Tubing, but apparently it was only a moped accident. Her boyfriend had allowed her to drive for once and they had both come off, so I learned a lesson there from them.
Tom yum soup with heating coals
It was a terrible day for blogging. This website has some problems with drafts of blog entries going live without the bloggers say-so and I had noticed that my mum commented on an entry that was supposed to be a draft and therefore hidden to everyone but me. Clearly it was no longer a draft, but when I logged in and reset the (really quite long) entry to be a draft again, the whole thing disappeared. Completely! That night I dreamt of the death of a friend and my unborn child and the difficulties in getting their remains shipped home. Both fictional characters, but it was a very unpleasant dream. The following day I discovered that Google had cached my lost page and I copied it all to a draft email in Yahoo mail (where I now write all my post now). Praise be Google! I spent the day trying to catch up on lost blog time while Joanne posted home our items worth more than a tenner a kilo.
"Laogria"
We had another storm that day and I started to worry about the warm clothes I'd just sent home, as it seemed much cooler and we actually felt cold. I asked a few people, but everybody said that this was not too unusual and it was still months before the monsoon. The following day it still felt cold. A quick check online confirmed that it was indeed much colder than we'd become accomstomed: only 30 Celsius! We found a really good value foe (noodle) place for breakfast, where they seemed quite surprised to have falangs turn up, but then we had to go for coffee and ended up in a falang orientated coffee place and blew all the gains we'd just made on coffee, but when we were tempted into buying a brownie we'd effectively spent our lunch money as well!
Our third and final mission for Vientiane was to visit the strange sounding place known as Buddha Park, so we got the very cheap local bus out to the location, but just as we got off one of my flipflops came apart. This was the same pair I'd had repaired in Siem Reap, although the guys repair was still good: now the strap had separated from the base. Some people would admit defeat at this point but in the interests of sustainability, the environment, and stinginess, I was determined to keep the shoes going. I tried the same trick as the shoe repair had done, by setting fire to the rubber, then pressing the loose bit in place. It lasted long enough to get us round Buddha park, but I was no expert and it was clearly not going to last much longer. I still had a pending repair to my hiking trainers after the trek in Cambodia, so I was nearly running out of shoes. Anyway, the Buddha park was indeed strange. I think only pictures can adequately describe it.
When we returned to town, we bought superglue, which worked much better in the shoe repair department. That night we re-discoverd a restaurant we'd stumbled on a couple of nights previously. It described itself as modern Lao cuisine, which I fancied the sound of, and this time we noticed that it is also a community action project, run by Friends International so we could feel ethically warm whilst indulging ourselves, which we wanted to do since we decided that we were leaving Vientiane the next day. The idea seems to be similar to Jamie Oliver's restaurant Fifteen. The food was outstanding, easily the best we'd had thus far in Laos, even though the food has in general been excellent. If anyone reading this is ever in Vientiane you must go to this restaurant. Amongst our orders were buffalo and vegetable rolls, lao-lao marinated steak, and a durian and coffee shake (I couldn't help it -- Joanne said I would get no kisses for the rest of the day).
We were very pleased with our meal, after all it could have been our last; the next day we were going to Vang Vieng for Tubing!
written by  The Happy Couple on March 26, 2009 from Vientiane, Laos

Tubing and Defying Death
Vang Vieng, Laos
We got a nice cheap local bus to Vang Vieng which, in contrast to all the nasty expensive "VIP" buses we had taken so far, dropped us where we wanted to be dropped, at the town, rather than at the bus station several kilometres outside of town. All bus stations in Asia seem to be located between two and fifteen kilometres outside town, a bit like Ryanair airports. We've not been able to come up with any sensible explanation other than to provide tuktuk and taxi drivers with business. Usually the last few kilometres after you get off a bus cost about one quarter of the bus fare which has just taken you several hundred kilometres over several hours. It's like having Buchanan Bus station in Kirkintilloch instead of the centre of Glasgow. Madness, but it seems to be the norm in Asia.
The scenery at Vang Vieng
After marvelling at our convenient location, we noticed the fantastic scenery and very quickly afterwards noticed that the Lonely Planet is not kidding when it says that every restaurant and bar is playing friends continuously. Apparently Vang Vieng originally became a popular spot for travellers because of this fantastic karst scenery, not unlike the scenery we had seen in Halong Bay and Yangshuo, and it was a sporting activity centre: kayaking, rock climbing, caving, Tubing, all that sort of stuff. Now it seems that the primary reason most people come is for the Tubing. And to get wasted. They probably barely notice the scenery, but we planned to go kayaking, take a short climbing course, and, yes, go Tubing. Everyone said it was fun.
Didn't we swear never to have them again?
Relaxing in Vang Vieng
We found a nice hotel and set about settling in by visiting a hammock bar and sampling the local produce, including a bucket, which Joanne had sworn she was never going to touch again after Siem Reap (blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?CommentID=54219). After we got back to the hotel, I was a bit hungry, so decided to go out on to the street to find some food. Nearby there was a little barbecue stall, where there was only one thing left for sale. I wondered whether it was dog as the guide in our hotel room had said that there were places in town catering to local tastes e.g. dog.
Chicken on a stick (ping kaai)
The woman at the stall didn't speak English so I decided it probably was dog until a Lao guy, who did speak English said "chicken". Actually I was a little disappointed. At least it was chicken on a stick, which we'd seen everywhere (usually more recognisable) but never bought. Just as I was leaving the stall there was a loud screeching sound, and I turned around to see a circle of people running to crowd around one place. I could just make out a moped wheel through the legs and realised it must have been a bike accident. After a few minutes of people looking very concerned indeed, a woman stood up, got on her bike and rode off, albeit a little wobbly. The crowd dispersed and I intercepted a couple of American girls to ask what had happened. Apparently a car had hit this woman off her bike, but it seemed pretty obvious when she came to that she was very drunk or "on something". So they reckoned it was her own fault.
Me enjoying a nice cup of tea in a hammock
The next morning was Tubing time. Stopping after only one bucket seemed to have kept the hangover at bay. We had taken plenty of advice on this, so we knew what we were doing and now had a fairly good idea of what was involved. One was to work ones way down the river on inflated tractor inner tubes, stopping off at bars to have a drink and sliding down various apparatus back into the water. The course is quite long, so we had been told start early, otherwise you have no chance of seeing the end. We had also been told not to actually get a tube, because there is a massive fine if you don't get it back in time (which NOBODY does, we'd been informed), also people without tubes steal them from the piles in the bars, and much of the time they are really just a hassle. The last piece of advice related to staying out of the hospital there. We had already seen more people than you would think possible walking (most of them) around Vang Vieng with bandages, often around the head, and considering the number we had seen before we got there, we were keen to minimise the risks. So we should only enter the water by walking carefully down to it or from one of the proscribed methods of entry, like a chute or flying fox, as these are above the deep bits in the water. Most injuries it seems had been sustained diving into the water from the edge, and as it was dry season the water was not very deep in places. Forewarned is forearmed.
Bar number 1
We arrived at the tube hire place to discover that they also had dry bags for rent to keep all your valuables and money dry, although we'd been told the bars are used to wet money.
Someone launching on fox number 1
Instead we bought a big dry bag to share, for not that much more, since we were planning diving when it could also be useful, and we thought it might be useful to protect against the monsoon which seemed to be threatening an early start. We had to pay for the ride up to the start of the course, whereas everyone else got it included. We reckoned we'd still be well ahead after they had paid their fines. So we arrived at a rather full outdoor bar. We felt really quite old at first, as first impressions we that it seemed a bit like a Club 18-30 camp. We got a couple of beers and watched the people zipping down the wire into the water. It seemed quite high. And a bit scary. Joanne said she wasn't going to do it, but I was determined to do them all. An Australian guy we had kept bumping into since he was on our dive boat in Sihanoukville, was at that bar and advised me to let go at the very end when I was momentarily stationary, otherwise I would have too much horizontal velocity and hit the water skew.
Bar number 1 from number 2
This turned out to be terrible advice! I climbed the stairs to the platform and realised that it was as least as high as it had terrifyingly looked from the ground. But I threw myself off anyway, despite the fear I was feeling. I waited and waited until I was just at the very end and about to start sliding back, but this was the highest point after the start, and it meant I let go and hung in the air for a very long and scary time. So long that I think I looked down when I couldn't believe that I had not yet hit the water. Of course that was just before I did hit the water, which meant that my throat and chest were now slightly exposed to the surface. I felt a massive thump, then thought I wasn't going to be able to breathe when I came to the surface. Thankfully the advice about the depth had been good. My chest and throat were both stinging and I seemed to have lost my voice. I think my voice box got bruised when it was crushed by the force of the water. We swam to the next bar, Joanne using the dry bag as a float.
I'm terrified at this point
Before moving on to the second bar we got chatting to a couple of Canadian girls, Cindy and Jackie, who asked if we would take their stuff in our dry bag.
Ugly inside and out
Their plan had been to steal someone else tube, but they had been thwarted by a child who grassed them to a security guy overlooking the tubes. You get a number written on your hand when you hire one, which gave them away. At the next bar, the flying fox was much lower than the first bar, so despite my croaky-voiced injury, I went for it again. This one was a breeze! I encouraged Joanne and Cindy to go for it, although neither of them had had any intention of doing it. Jackie, who was much younger than the three of us, appeared to have disappeared, snogging her way round as many men as she could. At this bar I started to notice that quite a lot of people had "witty", often smutty, things written on their backs; some people had "182nd day Tubing!" or "74th day Tubing!" or whatever written on their backs;
Bar number 2 takes its toll
quite a few guys had what can only be described as 70s porno moustaches, and quite a few more were wearing eye makeup, and some others dresses or pink hotpants; Tubing appears to have evolved its own little subculture, presumably inspired by the loss of brain cells repeating this activity so often would cause. After a second drink the two girls decided to go for it and climbed the ladder to jump. I was ready to record the whole thing, although there were quite a few heads in the way. I got the first bit, but Joanne did not appear again over the heads on the second half of the swing, where she should have dropped off. When she did swim to the side she was not happy: sore face and bleeding gums. She had let go from fear at the lowest point, but since this is also the fastest point, her face had smacked off the water hard. Cindy was unharmed and slightly elated.
Cindy celebrates surviving a slide
Tubing subculture
For our second drink at the second bar, Joanne decided that beer was making her too full, so we should switch to buckets. Sensible! We moved onto the third bar before most of the crowd, our idea being that we could stay slightly ahead of the mob, leave when it got really crowded, and then we'd definitely make it to the end.
Still Tubing after dark!
I did the zip-slide again and on this one I was slightly alarmed when I was able to push off the bottom with my feet. I had been thinking about a somersault on that one, but I hadn't hit the bottom hard so I'm sure it would have been alright. I'm not quite sure what went wrong with our plan, but by the time we got to the fifth bar it was dark and we were miraculous. I vaguely remember a sixth bar and a mud-bath there, but we were only a couple of hundred metres down the river and the full course is meant to be a few kilometres. Maybe there is a big section with no bars, but it seems completely impossible to me.
Cindy in the Rock Bar back in town
At the sixth (or may it was seventh) bar there was transport waiting to take everyone and their tubes (late) back to town. No tube was definitely the correct thing to do. Although we probably should have started earlier with a tube, sailed all the way down without stopping in a bar, just to see the nice river scenery, then gone back to the start after getting the tube deposit back without a fine, and then started what we did about the same time as we did. and maybe stuck to beer! The van dropped us near the bucket bar, for which we had been given free armbands entitling us to... yes a free bucket! How could we not? We collected out bucket and then moved to the rock bar, where Joanne passed out and Cindy "rocked out". At some point during the evening we realised that Cindy and Jackie were the two "American" girls I'd spoken to after the moped accident the night before. What a coincidence! And, yes, they were offended that I thought they were from the USA.
Swedish Jon reminded me of Colin from Aberdeen Uni
The next day, Joanne insisted on drinking beer in one of the awful "Friends" restaurants to get over her terrible hangover ("definitely never again buckets"), and I noticed that it's not quite true that all the restaurants are showing Friends constantly: about two are showing Family Guy constantly. That night back at our hotel, we got chatting to a nice Swedish guy called Jon, who I thought looked uncannily like my friend Colin from University. It was quite dark, and now I see the photos he's not that like, but there is a resemblance: Colin used to have hair too. Joanne's hangover the next day was even worse than from Tubing, and we spent the next couple of days in a drinking-hangover cycle, some of it with Cindy and Jackie, until we admitted we weren't going to get around to doing anything constructive here, and we had to cut our losses and run. Tubing had been fun, but this was killing us!
Isn't this a Soft Cell video?
written by  The Happy Couple on March 31, 2009 from Vang Vieng, Laos

The mysterious Plain of Jars
Phonsavan, Laos
The last deed in Vang Vieng was to have my shoes repair that had been destroyed by the rubbish trek in Cambodia. The job the guy in Vang Vieng did seemed to be really good, but I decided then that Asians now have absolutely no comprehension of the wealth of westerners. Almost the whole time in Asia people have treated us like cash machines; prices are often inflated for us, although in China and Vietnam they were prepared to drop their prices a lot (I believe more-or-less to local prices) but in Cambodia, especially, and also Laos the people seem to be too racist: whites pay more. I suppose they just think we have unending reserves of cash. This shoe repair was a perfect example of this: the first price the guy suggested for the repair was more than the original price I paid for the shoes brand new!They really think that we are infinitely wealthy and we pay a fortune for everything. Clearly they don't know about the modern realities of closing down sales and Primark! Sooner or later they'll realise that the West is getting poorer, while prices have been rising in the East, so the tourist industry will be badly hit... unless the Chinese replace all of the westerers, which seems a distinct possibility. In the end, I agreed to be extorted out of 60% of the original price of the shoes. He promised to do a good job and said if I didn't like it I didn't need to pay; presumably he would then sell my shoes to someone else instead. Maybe I should have told him to forget it, but it seemed to be the lowest he was prepared to go and I didn't think I'd be able to buy such a good pair of shoes as cheaply, although I hadn't checked any prices, so who knows? He did do a good job and, although I'd paid for over half my shoes twice now, I felt happy to have extended their lives and preserved resources.
Clouds, water, and buffalo
We then spent the most of the day on an epic of a bus journey. The road was through very mountainous terrain, so wound left and right an awful lot, as well as up and down; all very very slowly, which I suppose I should be glad for, but I just wanted it to be over. A Japanese guy near the front of the bus took photos of the, admittedly very nice, scenery for the few bits he stopped his video camera from recording the entire trip. Apart from the hills we were also blessed with the sight of albino buffaloes, which seemed to become more common the higher we went: yellowish white hair over pink skin, which seemed very odd on such huge beasts, better suited to a mouse or something like that.
Bamboo scaffolding
When we arrived in Phonsavan it seemed to be very cold, so I changed into what seemed necessary: long trousers, long sleeved top over my t-shirt, fleece over that, socks and newly repaired shoes. A search online revealed that the reason it felt so cold was that we were now enduring 26C. Criminally cold! There was almost nothing in the town and all the other tourists confirmed that they were also going on a tour of the Plain of Jars the next morning. Taking inspiration from the dubious source that is the Lonely Planet, we decided to seek dinner out in the place they describe as winning the prize for atmosphere, since it seemed to be sadly lacking in the town. They seemed to be upholding their side of the LP description when we arrived, but were far too drunk to make any food. We sat down next to the bemused guests at the guesthouse, and helped the proprietors and friends polish off their lao-lao, whilst listening to them crooning / playing guitar / playing an Casio keyboard from the 80s, before excusing ourselves in search of food.
Plain of Jars site 1
In the morning we joined a small group of people on a minibus to visit the Plain of Jars. The Plain of Jars is actually the plains of jars, as there are several archeological sites. We were visiting the imaginatively names PoJ sites 1 to 3. Our guide told us that, once they had finished the UXO clearing work, he hoped that the area would become a UNESCO site and bring far more tourists and their money to the region. This whole region was utterly bombarded by (guess who!) the USA during "the Secret War" which ran for many years without the US public knowing a thing about it, despite (the guide book says) Laos being "the most bombed country in history", (almost) all by the USA.
Another jar!
Searching online for specific reveals that it's "only" per capita that the USA made Laos the most bombed country in history, running sorties on average every eight minutes over nine years! Vietnam wins in absolute bombing apparently... and who was it that dropped those bombs again? It cost the US tax payer about $7 billion, but it's OK as, to pay for the clean-up and training for UXO-clearers the USA has contributed more than $10 million! Anyway, the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which kept the North Vietnamese run through this part of Laos, and also here the "Secret Army" (Hmong people playing the part of the CIA funded "contras" in this particular conflict) battled it out with Ho Chi Minh's forces. So most of the area is still considered unsafe for exploration. Even these sites they hope will be endorsed by UNESCO still have narrow "safe" paths marked out, beyond which you are not supposed to tread.
Plain of Jars site 3
Anyway, the Plain of Jar are certainly mysterious, but many of the group felt that they were not worth the epic bus journey out of the way to Phonsavan (and the return journey most of the way we would all have to make). I liked it, but going to all three of the main sites was maybe over-kill. There are apparently a few theories for the purpose of the "jars", but I think the only serious one is that they are funerary urns, although they apparently found no organic material in them, which also means that the 2500 year-old date they give is a bit of a guess. The guide suggested that they may have been used to brew rice wine, which I think was a joke, but it's obvious nonsense anyway. I think collecting water was another suggestion, but I don't know why you would go to that much bother (they are each carved from one single piece of stone), nor why you would then have lids for them (which they all did originally). I'm pretty convinced of the burial theory, as I was reminded of my first year Celtic History and Institutions class at university where we were told of a proto-Celtic group known as the "Urn People" because they buried their dead in urns. Surely this is the same thing, although nobody in Laos seems to have heard of the Urn People. You heard it here first!
How the still works
To break up the monotony of jars, between sites 1 and 2, we went to a village where they made rice whisky (lao-lao), which I found quite interesting, as I have a lingering interest in taking my home-brewing one step further. Disturbingly the guide told me that the don't throw away the first part of the distillate (the "heads") which as I understand is mostly methanol. I bought a litre of it for 10000 kip and hoped it was from somewhere near the middle of the batch. They just poured it into one of the bottles you buy cheap drinking water in, which I loved. During the tour we'd got talking to a fellow Scotsman from Falkirk then Dunfermline and he offered to go halfies on the whisky with me, although nobody else liked the sample we were given, and some people even refused it altogether. Unthinkable! It's actually really nice stuff: sweetish like sake, but much more potent (this one about 50% they reckoned). Between site 2 and 3 we went to see an old Russian tank given to the North Vietnamese then bombed by the US.
Russian tank
That night, some of the tour group met up for food, while others went to see a film about the history of UXOs in Laos at the Mines Advisory Group, but I didn't need any further convincing about the evil of the USA and I didn't want to be made angry, so Davie and I just got stuck into the lao-lao. Unfortunately we got rather too stuck into the lao-lao and between us, with the exception of one small glass to Joanne, we drank the entire thing: one litre of 50% hooch! The next day I had one of the worst hangovers of my life.
Big Davie is a punk
written by  The Happy Couple on April 2, 2009 from Phonsavan, Laos

Food and Buddha in Luang Phabang
Luang Prabang, Laos
The bus journey to Luang Phabang was horrible for me. The road was at least as twisty as the road to Phonsavan and the lao-lao hangover would not abate. After far longer than expected we arrived and found a reasonably cheap hotel not far from the centre of town. As Luang Phabang is a UNESCO city we were expecting prices to be a bit higher and there certainly were options for spending more money.
Not wanting to set our ambitions too high for the first day there, we just took a wander down to the night market to try and find some cheap food. There we bumped into the Australian guy [actually he is from New Zealand - ed (Joanne)] who had given me such terrible advice for the first Tubing flying fox, from which my voice had still not yet recovered completely and my entire chest was still covered with a fading yellow bruise. Clearly not ones to learn from my mistakes, we listened to him again when he told us of an "excellent" vegetarian buffet for only 5000 kip (less than 50p) at the end of the street. It was just awful, by far the worst food we'd eaten since Cambodia (in fact possibly China): it was extremely plain, almost completely flavourless, and not in least Lao. The bizarre thing is that the stall was quite busy and all around us were young people raving about how great it was. I just can't understand, when the Lao food is so interesting and delicious, why you would want to eat anything so bland. Then I realised that nearly all of the people raving about the food were underweight, almost to the point of malnourished, and it hit me: they were all vegetarians, and vegetarians are very easily pleased; as long as the food is vegetarian, they don't actually care what it tastes like. At least that was the only sense I could make of the situation. For all that vegetarian food can be delicious, and it's undoubtedly an ethically admirable position, food aimed specifically at vegetarians seems to be universally awful. The food was so disgusting that we left it almost untouched and went off to get food from a place that they sell meat as well as vegetables.
Wat Choumkhong
The following day we decided to follow the Lonely Planet walking tour to enjoy all of the wats for which Luang Phabang is so renowned.
Wat Xieng Muan
Sure enough the temples are very impressive, and the town certainly has a different class of visitor from anywhere we'd been in Laos so far: lots of smartly dressed middle-aged people, and there were lots of smarter bars and restaurants to entertain them. As we walked from temple to temple I decided that my dad would love this place; lots of lovely buildings to look at and lots of lovely restaurants to eat in, many with views over the Mekong River. We witnessed a lovely moment about halfway round the tour, when we decided to stray slightly from the route just to go right to the end of the peninsula the historical centre is on.
Restaurant overlooking Mekong
The old, pretty part of Luang Phabang is at the junction between the Mekong and the Nam Khan, so we wanted to see how it ended. As we approached the end of the road, two young monks were walking very sombrely in front of us. The town has loads of monks, presumably in order to fill the many temples, and it seems most of them are young. Just as we reached the end of the road, the monks ahead of us reached the path leading down from the road, and as soon as they were slightly out of sight behind some long grasses growing next to the path, they started running and unfurling their long saffron robes, a complete contrast in their demeanour. We followed the path down a little, Joanne unsure whether we should follow them when they were clearly “off duty”, and saw that just before the intersection between the two rivers, in the smaller Nam Khan, there were loads of young monks splashing around, playing with footballs, and generally behaving like the kids they are, while the bank of the river was littered with saffron robes.
Frolicking monks
Local specialities
As I mentioned the town has more of the upmarket tourist feel than anywhere we'd been for a while, so of course we looked a bit scruffy wandering around the historical centre, but at lunch we really felt like this place was a bit posh for us. We investigated the Lonely Planet's recommendation for a mid-tour lunch stop, Tamarind, and discovered it wasn't too much over our budget and the food looked very nice.
Purple sticky rice with coconut and banana
When the food came it was fantastic, worth every penny: loads of local specialities, which is of course my favourite, including Jeow Bawng, a dip made with chillies and dried buffalo skin; some dried Mekong weed, toasted with sesame seeds, tomato, and garlic; and some dried buffalo meat. Buffalo seems to be used instead of beef in much of Lao cuisine and we'd certainly seen enough buffaloes for that to make sense. I was a little disappointed that their description of the Jeow Bawng did not mention the buffalo skin and there was no sign of it, but I suppose UNESO-driver tourism needs to be sanitised a bit for all the posh people. When it came to pay the bill we really showed ourselves up.
Watermelon and chili granita and nam mak tour (iced cinnamon bael fruit tea)
In Asia we have become accustomed to not tipping. Nobody seems to expect it and we can't really afford it anyway, but here when we left no tip, our waitress looked visibly shocked and upset. We left with our tails between our legs, but soon became indignant: why should a place that clearly sees more rich tourists already, benefit from our custom more than a better value place more used to serving backpackers? We decided we were right not to tip! Why should they get a tip just because they expect one? However, we resolved to start being a bit more generous in cheaper places when they really do deserve it (but don't expect it).
Murals at Wat Pa Huak
We finished off our walking tour by climbing up the hill in the middle of town: Phou Si, which has a couple of temples on it. Just at the bottom of the hill is Wat Pa Huak, which is one of the oldest temples in Luang Phabang. The temple is in quite a state of disrepair, but the murals inside are still in excellent condition and a totally different style of art from anything in the more modern temples: some of it is quite graphic and horrific, more like something Christian from the Middle Ages than the serene beauty that normally seems to be associated with Buddhism. On the way up the hill we were repeatedly harassed by old women trying to sell us little birds trapped in bamboo cages, which we were supposed to take to the top and set free “for good luck”.
View from Phou Si
Joanne had read that the whole thing is a scam, and the little birds are trained to return to the women, who re-cage them for the following day. I wondered how that would be possible until I noticed that the cages of birds were sitting on top of a small mountain of grain. It must be a pretty easy choice for the birds to make once they are released: fly around for a while and enjoy some freedom then return home to unlimited food at no effort. From the top I was struck by how green the city is: from above it seems to be mostly coconut palms and temples. We finished our lovely day off having yet another meal on the Mekong, watching yet another sunset over it. On the way home we passed a stall selling scorpion wine and snake wine “for power”, which we'd read about in the guidebook but not yet seen. I declined to partake, remembering that the consumption thereof encourages trade in some endangered creatures. And the whole idea was pretty horrible anyway!
Just next to the horrible vegetarian stall!
The following day I sat in the office of a tour company called Green Discovery that several people had recommended to us. They are more expensive than their competitors, but they have a major emphasis on an ethical approach and the treks and reputedly very good. They quite quickly guided me in the direction of the trek a couple people had already signed up for, which would make it cheaper for us. Without this incentive I'm not sure how I would have decided as they have quite an extensive range of options. Meanwhile Joanne collected the laundry we had dropped off the previous day. Shock, horror!! One of my shirts was not returned and in its place was some horrible t-shirt with a beer brand on it. Not that I am opposed to t-shirts like that, but after sending things home from Vientiane, my shirt was now one of the few really cool 100% cotton garments I had to wear. I had retained a t-shirt each from Laos and Vietnam which had turned out to be unwearable in hot weather, although they both (obviously falsely) claim to be 100% cotton, and as a result I was a bit low in cool tops. We went back to try and swap the t-shirt for my shirt, hoping that the t-shirt owner had realised the mistake and missed his Michelob (or whatever) shirt. The woman who did the washing claimed that it was all impossible because ours was the only washing she had done recently, but her daughter was a bit more diplomatic and suggested we should come to an arrangement “good for you and good for me” which is a bit of a catch phrase in the region, most often used by vendors when bartering. We agreed to return later to sort it out, hoping that Mr Redstripe was not yet on a bus to Thailand.
More Buddhas at Pak Ou
Door to Tham Phum, the upper cave at Pak Ou
In the meantime we wanted to see Pak Ou Caves and a waterfall which seem to be the main attractions other than the town itself, so we hired a moped. The price was massively inflated over anything we'd paid previously but we had heard that it was not possible to hire bikes at all, which would have meant signing up for an even more expensive tuktuk tour, so we were happy(ish) to pay the exorbitant fee. Trying to learn from previous experience where I'd consistently overfilled the tank and returned it half-full, I made sure I only took the correct amount of fuel. When we reached the turn-off it seemed like I'd judged it quite well, but by the time we'd been bumping along the muddy path the turn-off was, for a few miles, dodging boulders and bulldozers, the fuel gauge started to look a bit low.
Buddha
By the time we arrived at the little village of Pak Ou, it was showing nearly empty. Most people see the caves by taking a boat trip up the river, so don't have to worry about how to cross the river like we did, since the village is on the other side from the caves. There are boats waiting to take you across, but they prices were again inflated. I skillfully managed to get the boatman to lower his fee, but then rather stupidly handed over the entire lot up-front. We were pretty convinced we were now going to have to find a different ferry to bring us back, so I decided that he definitely a tip if he hung around (in the new spirit of tipping where due). There are two natural caves, stuff full of “used” Buddhas, left by the villagers for centuries. The upper cave itself was a bit of disappointment inside, but the entrance was covered with a huge ornate wooden door.
The big collection in Tham Ting, the lower cave
There were a lot of really poor looking children trying to sell trinkets and crisps to a rather small number of tourists. This was the first time we'd seen any sign of serious poverty since leaving Cambodia, so there is obviously still a problem in Laos, but maybe only in suburban areas. At first we thought the children should be in school, but then realised it was Sunday, so it probably isn't as bad as Cambodia. Anyway, the lower cave is much more impressive inside, with hundreds of different kinds of Buddha images scattered throughout. Our boatman had waited for us, which made me think the Lao people are very honest, and we did not encounter anything to contradict that the whole time we were there. Back in the village we managed to find someone selling petrol in plastic bottles, so bought a litre to take us as far as a petrol station. On the way back along the dirt road we stopped off at Ban Xang Hai (Jar Maker Village) where now they just fill the jars with lao-lao and rice wine.
Scorpion and snake wine
We ended up buying a small bottle of rice wine for more than I had bought the full litre of lao-lao from Phonsavan, and more than we could buy a bottle of lao-lao from a supermarket, just because we felt obligated after tasting so many samples (again declining the scorpion and snake wine). The rice wine did taste really nice, so we didn't feel too ripped-off!
Tat Kuang Si
The guy who rented the bike to us assured us that it was good value because we could see the caves and the waterfall in one day, but the time seemed to be getting on a bit, however I was determined so I really got into swooping around the corners of the twisty road up to the waterfall. We arrived only half an hour before the “closing” time. It wasn't quite what I was expecting: here was a park with a bear enclosure, woodland walks, and all sorts of distractions apart from the waterfall. I was expecting to get off the bike, see the waterfall and leave, but this one turned out to be layers and layers of cascade, each with a swimming pool of cobalt-blue water below.
Another pool at Tat Kuang Si
The park was absolutely gorgeous, but we were now so short of time, all we were able to do was rush up to the biggest falls, take some photos, go for a quick swim in the nicest pool, then rush back to the bike to zoom back in time to return it. It was a real shame, because it seemed like it would have been a nice place to relax and spend half a day, not half an hour. On the return journey we were accosted several times by groups of children throwing buckets of water over us. Songkan (Lao New Year) seemed to have arrived a week early! We were not expecting to be soaked until we arrived in Thailand. Luckily our cameras and phones escaped undamaged, but we realised we were going to have to be careful from then on. We got the bike back just in time, shorts still wet. On the way back to town I got really itchy all over, and by the time we arrived I was starting to feel really ill with almost flu-like symptoms.
Mekong Weed
That evening we found a very recently opened restaurant, Sunset Restaurant, overlooking the Mekong, where the owner was trying really hard to get customers to come in, and they were selling some of the local specialities I'm so fond of. The food was absolutely delicious again, what of it I could taste through my rapidly worsening flu, but this time much cheaper, so of course we left a generous tip.
O-laam
written by  The Happy Couple on April 5, 2009 from Luang Prabang, Laos

A superb Green Discovery trek
Louang Namtha, Laos
Our last evening in Luang Phabang ended with us getting a full refund for the laundry to compensate for the lost shirt. We felt a bit guilty as they had done a good job with the clothes they did return, but it still probably wasn't enough to cover the replacement shirt.
In the morning my flu-like symptoms had abated a bit, but I now had a rash spreading up my arm. Hurriedly I referred to the health section in the guide book where I discovered that a flu-like illness and a rash are symptomatic of dengue fever. Not being some sort of hypochondriac, I probably wouldn't have worried about this, but we had met several people already who had contracted dengue, and when we were in Cambodia the health services claimed to be dealing with an epidemic, although this may just have been a ploy to get more tourists to donate blood, since Khmers apparently refuse for religious reasons. As we were waiting for the bus, we saw some of the Mekong weed for sale, so bought it for the journey. It also started pouring down so Joanne bought a rain poncho. It wasn't looking very promising for the trek we had booked for the following day: me with Dengue Fever while the monsoon empties the skies on us.
This was another crazy bus journey and the weed was a real disappointment: we worked out that it was supposed to be grilled. The bus was in better condition than the one we'd taken to Luang Phabang, which we had doubted would make it up the last few hills, but this time there were large sections of road missing, apparently having fallen down the hill. But, as always in Asia, health and safety comes first, so just before the missing section of road there was a pile of rubble to prevent you from driving over the precipice, then rocks along the length of the missing section until a second pile of rubble indicated the end of the gulf. When we arrived in Luang Namtha, where our trek left from, we were transferred to a large tuktuk called a sawngthaew (which mean “two rows” after the two benches in the back, where the passengers sit), and driving towards town some people commented on the black smoke from a fire (or could it be clouds?) coming our direction. Next I think something karmic may have happened: the sawngthaew in front carrying everyone's bags knocked down a calf which had wandered into the road. Seconds later the heavens opened, and it didn't stay water for long: soon golf-ball sized hail stones were bouncing off the road and our vehicle. The driver stopped pretty quickly, as did all the other traffic around, and we sat in the back, wondering if the end had come. After a while it retuned to very heavy rain and the driver proceeded cautiously. He dropped us outside a hotel, but the rain was too heavy to work out where we were or where the hotels we wanted were, in fact my flipflops were nearly washed away when I got down from the back, so most of us just queued up to book into the hotel we were left at. The LP stated explicitly that they did not recommend any of the Chinese-owned hotels in town, as they are overpriced and poor quality, and here we were booking in to one, so I almost expected the rate to be hiked up to obscene levels considering our present predicament. In fact the hotel was very nice, and the price did not seem at all inflated. So there, Lonely Planet! Getting to our room I discovered my rash has spread over my chest and down my other arm, and I was still feeling quite ill, so I was now as convinced of my dengue as I was convinced by the apocalyptic downpour that monsoon had definitely arrived early. Given both of these, we seriously considered trying to pull of of the trek, until we discovered that it was now fully booked, which meant that the cost was now very reasonable per person. So we just crossed our fingers instead.
We got up quite early for the trek and I felt quite a bit better, and the skies looked fairly clear, so we decided not to try and get out of it, although their booking rules stated that a cold was not considered a good enough excuse.
Of course they might have seen it differently for dengue, or worried about me infecting the villagers with something if I showed them my rash, but I seemed to be passed the worst. Joanne had been worried that she would slow the rest of the group down, but it soon became clear that Joanne was about in the middle of the group in terms of speed, but there wasn't that much of a spread and the group kept up a good speed. The terrain was quite nice a varied with plenty of ascents, and the forest we were walking through was lovely thick forest, along a narrow footpath.
Lunch
The difference between this trek and Cambodia was obviously huge form the beginning: these guys knew what they were doing; they knew that nice forest and nice scenery were important; the “main” guide with the better English, Ponsa, was incredibly knowledgeable about the forest, the animals and plants in it, and about the tribes who live in it. We got no rain on the first day, although there were lots and lots of leeches. I didn't find them too bad, but most of the girls were squealing and panicking every time a leech was near them. I brushed a few off while they were still just crawling up me, looking for a good place to feed, but once I was too late and the beast had attached. Apparently insect repellent kills them and, yes, lighters can be used to remove them, but the simplest and most used removal technique on the trek was to pick a leaf, grab the leech and tug it off, the leaf acting as a barrier that prevents it from switching to your hand. Quite early on we also saw a poisonous (apparently) snake although it was very small and not at all scary-looking.
Poisonous snake
The trek was in the Nam Ha Nation Protected Area. Laos has loads of NPAs covering fourteen percent of the country and Provincial Protected Areas covering a further four percent, making it one of the most protected countries on the planet.
However they are not protected in the same way as national parks we might be used to: they were created in places that take in lots of forest sparsely occupied by various tribal villages, so the government could hardly tell these people to stop using the resources from the forest as they always had done. Instead they chose to treat the people as part of the conservation area, so that the tribal people are still allowed to hunt, fish, collect plants, cut down trees for timber or fuel, and carry on as they had done traditionally.
Cleared for rice
The important distinction between this and illegal activity is that none of these activities can be carried out with a financial motive, so no commercial exploitation of the forests is allowed. Of course there is a problem with illegal logging, and some tribal people exploit the forest for more than subsistence, but the principal seems to me a good one. We did see some tree-chopping and one or two ugly areas of torched forest, which is apparently perfectly legal for the villagers to plant rice where the trees were. It did make me wonder about the future though, because even if the illegal activity can be contained, the forest is not an infinite resource. So if some tribes are very successful and the villages start spreading, there is still going to be a problem with lack of resources. I put this to Ponsa, who agreed and said he thought the hope is probably that enough people leave the villages for the cities to keep the villages from growing too large.
More excellent food
When it was time for our lunch stop, two villagers appeared from the jungle and helped Ponsa and the not-so-good-English-speaking guide (whose name I've forgotten) to prepare the food.
Guides are not immune to leech attack
The food was absolutely fantastic, some prepared in advance, some prepared speedily on quickly built fires, served using products entirely gathered from the surrounding forest, so that our table cloth / plate was banana leaf, our chopsticks were bamboo, the prepared food was wrapped in banana leaves, and our restaurant was a bamboo shelter that had been built by the villagers. I asked Ponsa who maintained the paths and he said they were all maintained by the Akha people, whose village we were going to. Some of the bridges and paths seemed maintained more than someone living in the forest would need and when I asked about that he said that Green Discovery gives the villagers money, although he didn't say the money was explicitly for path maintenance, so maybe it's just an understanding.
Leech
I gather most of the money goes to maintaining their school and that sort of thing, although when we arrived in the village I was struck by what an enormous amount of livestock they have, so I think they must be quite wealthy for forest-dwelling villagers, although Ponsa refused to describe them even as relatively wealthy. Our accommodation in the village was actually separate from the rest of the dwellings: there was one longhouse to sleep maybe twenty visitors. Always with their eye on ethics, Green Discovery had started out with “proper” homestays like we had in Cambodia, but this had apparently caused too many problems within the villages; either the money is distributed evenly, in which case someone is being inconvenienced with visitors for nothing extra, or else the money goes to just the houses accommodating the foreigners, which leads to envy.
Joanne taking a Lao shower
This was apparently the way they had found kept the most people happy, so it was now policy. After we got settled in and were shown the “shower” (the stream behind the house), we set out en masse to visit the villagers. The first thing I noticed was a group of smaller huts on stilts, round the outside of the village. Apparently this is where the teenagers live, so that they can get enough privacy with their girlfriend or boyfriend at night. What an excellent set-up! At first I felt a bit uneasy imposing on the villagers like that, but it soon became clear that they were delighted to have their photos taken, which was after all one of our primary purposes in walking around. As usual in Asia, the children were incredibly cute and a bit precocious and the men were very friendly. Here the women were not unfriendly, but they did seem to be really quite shy, most of them certainly not wanting to have their photos taken, although very keen to have their children photographed. On the way back to our hut, I was accosted by a group of men just back from hunting, who wanted me to sit and drink lao-lao with them. How could I say no? They seemed quite pleased that I liked the drink and even accepted another one, but tried hard to prevent me from leaving. Apparently, a little later, the young German guy in our group refused to drink with them and they told him “Scottish drank”. Nothing new there then!
Drinking lao-lao with the vilagers
Back in our longhouse, I noticed a sign that perhaps explained why the villagers were so keen to be photographed: I thought maybe it was just that they liked to see the images on the LCD screen, but here was a sign asking visitors to laminate and post photographs to the village, care of Green Discovery.
Of course the villagers have no cameras of their own, so how marvelous it must be for them to receive laminated photos of their children. We plan to do this soon, from Bangkok probably, but anyone reading this blog should feel free to have pictures of the Akha people laminated and posted to them. Again, our dinner was a joint effort between our two guides and two villagers, and was really delicious. After dinner some girls from the village were gathering outside, giggling and singing.
Our masseuses (mine 2nd from right)
I thought they had just come to gawk at the foreigners, which seemed fair enough after we had traipsed through their village with cameras. Soon they filed in and Ponsa, already prone, instructed us to lie face down, arms by our sides: a Lao massage! Joanne worried about the cost and asked Ponsa. It's included, he said. The massage was quite similar to the Thai massage I'd had several years earlier: lots of trying to pop the joints and wrenching bits of body around. I think the girls were still learning actually, as they were all only about fourteen or fifteen, and it certainly wasn't a match for the Thai massage I received from a powerful old Thai woman.
Cute!
Akha gift used as phone holder
At night it rained heavily, but it had cleared up again by the morning and my flu symptoms had almost completely gone too, so, feeling much better, I was much less worried about the rash since it presumably wasn't dengue or meningitis, or any of the other worst-case options I was contemplating. Before we set off we were all presented with a “gift from the Akha people”, a charming little woven pouch which I've been using as a mobile phone holder since. Because of the rain, we were all anticipating even more leeches, but in fact most of us didn't see any all day. Again the trekking was fantastic, with just enough uphill to make me feel like I'd had a reasonable amount of exercise, along interesting tracks through beautiful forest. Again the food was fantastic. We told Ponsa he and the others should leave Green Discover and open up a restaurant called “jungle food”, keeping all the same food and method of serving.
After the trek was over I felt great, about as good as I had done since heading off on this trip. I don't think it was just the exercise, although that was undoubtedly a part of it, I think that it was just such a lovely experience that it left me with a gooey after glow. When I realised that this trek had cost us less, in the end, than the awful trek we did in Cambodia, we left quite a generous tip. They did a fantastic job, and I would not hesitate to recommend Green Discovery Laos to anybody. All the trekkers agreed to meet up for dinner after our showers, and everyone turned up apart from the two youngest, dutch girls: two German ladies who go on adventure holidays together every few years, leaving their husbands at home; a German girl working for an NGO in Phnom Penh and her younger brother, a somewhat nerdy computer programmer. We all agreed it had been an excellent trek and a good evenly matched group.
Take photo!
written by  The Happy Couple on April 8, 2009 from Louang Namtha, Laos

Twenty-one today! (and the next day)
Chiang Rai, Thailand
Checking out of the hotel in Luang Namtha, the guy on the desk was very slow, in fact he had to get out of bed to serve us. Then our breakfast was slow arriving, which meant that we missed the Sawngthaew that had been filling up with people when we first went out. We had been planning to travel with the two Dutch girls from the trek, but they were on time for the first one. Luckily the next Sawngthaew to arrive did not insist on waiting until full, because he knew we were trying to get to the bus station early enough to catch the bus to Huay Xai and cross to Thailand. At the bus station, a couple in front of us in the queue were also going to Huay Xai, then when it came to getting on the minibus it was already full. This caused a bit of a commotion as one employee told us we had a ticket for this bus so we could go, meanwhile another told us we could wait for the big bus which left several hours later and arrived in Huay Xai after the border was closed. We were keen to get on this one. While we were trying to work out what to do, more people arrived and the conductor even sold one old Thai lady a ticket, after they knew the bus was full! Shortly after this she pulled three large rice sacks up to the bus and indicated to the driver she wanted them to be tied to the roof with the other luggage. When he shook his head, she produced a 10000 Kip note, but he still shook his head. When she produced a second 10000 Kip note he stopped shaking his head an started heaving the bags up top. When it was clear the minibus overflow could not easily be resolved, they got everyone off the bus and rechecked their tickets, which did mean a few more people getting on the bus, so some must have been on the bus without a ticket, however when it came to us the conductor shook his head and pointed to a line drawn underneath our ticket numbers on the his clipboard. Apparently the woman at the desk had oversold the tickets and there were only enough seats for everyone up to, but definitely not including, us. The Dutch girls, the couple in front of us in the queue and, oddly, the old woman who bought a ticket long after us made it onto the bus, but after a 20000 Kip bribe I don't suppose the driver would kick her off. We really need to learn when to bribe.
With the new arrivals at the bus station we tried to argue that they should just use the big bus now and use the minibus later in the day, after all surely they can't have as many people who want to go to a border town after the border has closed. Apparently not, it needed to be this way, and how could we know whether they needed the big bus to stay here so it could be used later? A pushy guy I took to be Italian, found out from the incompetent, over-selling woman behind the desk that we could charter a minibus for double the price each that the bus would have been, and he confirmed that we would be refunded our ticket money. Feeling a bit bullied, we agreed because it would otherwise be even more expensive for the others he had involved in his scheme, and he'd gone to all this bother. We didn't really want to spend the night in Huay Xai, but doubling the cost was a strain on our budget. We did want to meet up with the Dutch girls in Chang Rai for Willemeijn's birthday. I asked the “Italian” I was now starting to suspect was maybe Argentinian whether he had bargained before settling on the figure, but apparently he'd just agreed to the first price she suggested and handed over the cash. When the minibus arrived and we were just about to put our luggage on, the woman from behind the counter rushed over and told us we could have the big bus leaving now (instead of several hours later when it was meant to leave) for the same price as the minibus. It didn't take long before we replied “Why would we want to do that?”. Apparently they could have spared the bug bus after all, in which case they could have fitted everyone on it. Why had they allowed the smaller bus to go, leaving behind several passengers, who were now being offered the whole bus to themselves? Presumably they could make more money this way, and if we took the big bus, they could fit some more people on who would pay the normal ticket price. We just wanted to go, and did not want to play their silly games!
It turned out quite well, apart from the extra cost, because our minibus overtook the small scheduled bus with the Dutch girls on it, and dropped us right at the border, which was just a short ferry crossing over the Mekong. It was another really hassle-free border crossing. It seems to be any crossing that involves a river is really straight-forward. Or maybe it has to be the Mekong! From Chang Khong on the Thai side of the border it was hassle-free to draw money and get the cheap “normal” bus to Chang Rai for only 70 Baht or about one pound forty, for a three hour journey. The bus was a nice change from all the VIP buses and first class we had been coerced onto so far: no freezing air-conditioning, just rotating fans over every second row, and instead of uncomfortable shaped reclining seat, which I hate, it was nice simple comfy bench seats, padded but not reclinable: a bus not a coach. The difference on this side of the border was clear very quickly. Thailand is much more developed than Laos. The houses are much bigger, more modern, and more substantial, with very few wooden ones on stilts, which is the norm in Laos. The roads are actually clear of livestock, whereas in Laos the road is always covered in dogs, pigs, chickens, cows, goats, and so on, even in towns. We met a couple of people in Laos who were scared to take tuktuks because it seemed every time they got in one the vehicle ran over a chicken. We didn't ever have such bad luck, apart from the calf getting killed by the vehicle our luggage was in in Luang Namtha. On the journey our bus was totally drenched by people throwing buckets of water all over it. We had to change sides on the bus, because the off-side wasn't as close to the pavement, so not so much water would come through the windows. Clearly Songkran (Thai New Year) was even more in full-swing than Lao Songkan.
Chiang Rai clocktower
When we arrived in Chang Rai a misreading of the guide book meant that I asked the tuktuk driver to take us to the wrong guesthouse, but having arrived there we decided to stay anyway. It was a bit out of the centre and a bit more expensive that we had anticipated, but it had a swimming pool and the guidebook said that the food in the guesthouse was good. I was keen to get some real Thai food into me, so after we checked in, we ordered some food. I ordered red curry which I remembered from my previous visit to Thailand as being searingly hot. I couldn't wait. When it arrived we were very disappointed. I couldn't understand it, but there didn't seem to be any chilli at all in the food. On my last visit to Thailand I was amazed how spicy all the food was. OK I deliberately ordered hot food, and in places that asked “you want for Thais or for farangs” I said Thais, but it was consistently incredibly hot. This was different, it was not. We'd had such high expectations of Thai food and our first meal was fairly tasteless. Lao food was nicer than this meal by a mile!
Teepee bar owner (or manager?)
After our disappointing meal we headed off into town. It wasn't too far, but it was a mile or two. We stopped at a place with draft beer, which we soon realised was a Dutch place when we saw bitter ballen on the menu, so I ordered some. After only a few minutes, the two Dutch girls from the trek, Sia and Willemijn, walked past and we attracted their attention and called them over. They spent quite a while leafing through the extensive menu, saying “wow” and giggling at all the comfort food from home they have been missing. They had been travelling for a couple of months, and were taking a similar route to ours, except they were much more disciplined and didn't hang around anywhere too long. We had a few drinks with them and ended up going to a strange little rock bar called the Teepee Bar on the main street. After it was midnight Willemijn announced that it was now her 21st birthday so she was going to drink now. The Teepee bar is run by a rather strange character of a Thai guy, with very long hair and that night, leopard print spandex trousers (Joanne says they were velvet leggings, but I disagree). He really seemed to believe in 80s rock kitsch and the whole bar was decorated in a similar vein and played rock classics all night long. The next day we met a girl we'd previously met in Luang Phabang who told us she'd heard of the Teepee bar, and that they have a rabbit with dreadlocks somewhere up the stairs. We didn't see that, but we did see plenty of strange memorabilia. When the strange guy tried to shut his bar, Willemijn complained that it was her birthday and she hadn't drunk enough yet, which got the rest of the customers onside who started to heckle the owner to stay open later. The owner was getting a little bit upset that all his customers were trying to make him breach his licence, so his compromise was to give Willemijn two free drinks and then herd us all down the road to a later opening bar. We didn't get home until about three, and the next day Joanne and I agreed we were too old to be drinking with 21 year olds, or 20 year olds as Sia, Willemijn's cousin still was.
21st Birthday party in the Teepee Bar
At least we got to sleep in late because, unlike Laos, Thailand does not have really loud cockerels absolutely everywhere throughout every city, just dying to start your hangover early for you. Another difference from Laos is that spirit houses are much more common in Thailand. Outside almost every building, whether someone's home, a commercial building, or an official building, there is something that usually looks a little bit like a bird table. Outside houses it's usually about the size of a large bird table, except that the little house on legs often looks more like a small temple, but sometimes it looks like a miniature copy of the house itself. The little building is usually surrounded by a patio, and on that or inside you will see little models of people dancing, sometimes elephants or other animals, and usually incense, some food, and glasses of clear liquid, rice spirit I believe. Outside commercial or official buildings these structures can be many times larger and the whole scene on the table can be much more grand. These are spirit houses and part of Thai religious belief unconnected to Buddhism. According to the Lonely Planet, the idea of a spirit house is to make a very attractive and comfortable dwelling for spirits near, but outside your house. This way, the spirits will prefer to stay there than in your own home (or business etc), where they would cause lots of trouble and bad things would happen. The incense, food, and drinks are regularly replaced (every day I think, before 11am apparently), to keep the spirits pleased with their surroundings. If you make renovations to your home, it is necessary to make improvements to the spirit house as well, otherwise they'll want to move in and take advantage of your new bathroom or whatever.
Willemijn argues her case
Determined to carry on the bit of effort I had made with Lao, I soon had my Thai phrase book out and was trying to relearn everything. Thai is very similar to Lao, and culturally Lao is really just a subset of Thai. The food is very similar, the demeanor is very similar, although Thais maybe seem a bit friendlier, probably because they are more used to tourists. The dialect of Thai they speak in the north is apparently indistinguishable from Vientiane Lao, but more generally Thai has only five tones where Lao has six, so it's easier to speak. Ponsa had told me that the languages are similar enough that they can all understand Thai, but he didn't think it works the other way around as Thais are not exposed to as much Lao. The one major problem with learning Thai properly would be the fact the written language is not phonetic: the language is apparently peppered with words lifted directly from Sanskrit and although the have changed pronunciation massively in Thai, they are still spelled using the original Sanskrit spelling, simply transliterated into Thai characters. It sounds worse than English!
Before we ventured out, I decided to take the precaution of putting my camera inside a plastic bag to protect it from water, since there had been quite a few people throwing water the day before. We hoped we could find some nice authentic Thai food to help clear our 21st birthday headaches but, after wandering around the city for a couple of hours, we had not come across a single Thai restaurant. All we could find were places boasting of their extensive (and also expensive) western menus. Eventually we ended up back at the same Dutch place we had started at the day before, because their menu said they had a real Thai chef and there were plenty of not too expensive Thai dishes on the menu. The food was actually quite good although not really very spicy. On our way back to the hotel a gigantic cloud of dragon flies started passing overhead. I'm not sure how closely I could estimate their numbers, but it must have been something like tens of millions. The cloud was thick enough that they disappeared vertically into little black dots, pretty close together, and it took about ten minutes for the main clump of the cloud to pass over. So impressive was this cloud that I wanted to take a photo, which was when I reached into the plastic bag and felt grit as well as my camera. I had used the plastic bag I had hastily put my muddy flipflops into when leaving Luang Namtha, to “protect” my camera. It was broken. The lens cover that had been a bit sticky since beer was spilled on it was now refusing to open at all! I'd broken my camera trying to protect it from Songkran.
We had arranged to meet up with the girls at the Dutch restaurant for Willemeijn's proper birthday, so we bought her a water pistol and a little cake. It was her birthday so she chose pizza, which was way out of our budget range, but it was her birthday so what the hell, we decided. My pizza was actually very nice seafood tom yum flavour, which is normally a soup, but worked very well on a pizza. We were relieved to find out that Willemeijn was feeling a bit worse for wear after the previous night, so she was laying off the alcohol. However after a couple of Coca Colas she decided to get stuck into the drinking again. This time we were joined by a French guy called Lambert, who seeemed to be trying to hit on the girls. He had cycled across much of Laos on a very poor looking bike, not at all suitable for long distance travel. This time we stayed out until about 5.30am. I was shocked how much the Sangsom now costs. This is a (maybe the) Thai spirit, not sure whether it's supposed to be a brandy or a whisky, but when I was last in Thailand it costs less for a half-bottle (300ml) of Sangsom than it did for one beer. I remember my guide book at the time said something about beer not really being part of Thai culture and the government trying to discourage western influence by taxation. In fact our Rough Guide from just last year says that beer and Sangsom cost about the same, but the typical price we found was that it now costs three times as much for a small bottle of Sangsom as it does for a beer. This is much more in line with the UK, but a huge price change in one year. What has happened to Thailand since I was last here? The food is no longer spicy and the spirits cost more than the beer!
written by  The Happy Couple on April 10, 2009 from Chiang Rai, Thailand

Chiang Mai: Songkran at its craziest!
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Ladyboy Power Ranger host (now off duty)
(S)he only really belongs at the end of the blog, but I think the photo deserves prominence.
Waiting for the bus from Chang Rai to Chang Mai, we bought some drinks and snacks for the journey from the 7-11 in the bus station. 7-11 is absolutely everywhere in Thailand, although they've been surprisingly ubiquitous throughout Asia. The Thais seem to really care about drinking straws, but I had to laugh when I opened the bag. We'd bought two big bottles of drinking water (Thailand may be more developed that the rest of South East Asia, but you still can't drink the tap water), two cans of Coke, and two little bottles of Yakult. The bag also contained six straws in three different sizes: long, thick ones presumably for the bottled water; medium-sized ones for the Cokes; and two tiny little narrow straws for the Yakult. I wonder how many different types of straw they have easy access to at the counter, and for how many different products!
Last time I was in Thailand I stayed at a little backpackers' called Eagle House and as they had been so friendly and incredibly cheap we had taken the unusual step of booking ahead so that we could be sure of somewhere to stay over Songkran, during which we had heard Chang Mai books up very fast. The Irish owner, Annette, who run the place with her Thai husband, Pon, did not have very good email communication skills. In fact she had almost completely failed to confirm that we had a booking at all: “I think the staff have booked the room for you” was the best we got from her. When we arrived it was pouring with rain so I did not relish the thought of looking for another place to stay. The guy at the desk told us it was the first time there had been rain in Chang Mai since last year. Either people were lying to us about the weather, or the apparent early monsoon was just for us, and was following us around Asia. There was a bit of confusion and delay but, yes, they did have a room for us, although I soon realised it was not what we'd asked for: this room had a hot water shower, a totally unnecessary luxury we had not been bothering with. The “cold” water comes out pretty warm when the ambient temperature is 35C and over, and you don't want anything warmer when the weather is that hot anyway. Also, hot water showers are usually electric “power” showers, which means that the water tends to trickle out much more slowly than water straight from the mains. I went back to the desk and explained to the young guy that I had booked a small cold water double room at 150 Baht, but he said they don't have any, just hot water rooms at 180 Baht. The price was about £3.60, a considerable increase on the 75p per night I paid before, but I suppose five years is a long time! The difference between cold and hot didn't seem too bad, so I agreed to stay where we were. There was apparently a trek leaving the next day, but we wanted to see Songkran in Chang Mai. Unfortunately he could not confirm when the next trek would be leaving, nor could he confirm whether we'd be able to stay a couple of days longer than the three days we'd booked. “Ask again on your last day” he told me.
Lamps in Club THC
We ventured out onto the street and it was quickly clear we would need to be armed, so we got Joanne a lady's-sized super-soaker type of water gun, but the water activity seemed to die down in the early evening, so we left the gun in the room and investigated the Chang Mai nightlife. We found quite a nice club called THC, which was playing a good mix of psychedelic trance, hard trance, and drum'n'bass in lovely soft-cushion fluorescent decorations surroundings. It seems to be a little slice of Thai beach culture migrated to the northern end of the country. We were starting to notice that loads of people were smoking in Thailand compared to anywhere we'd been so far. There are no real smoking restrictions anywhere we'd been in Asia, but it hadn't bothered us much because there were never many people smoking at once. I suppose other than Thailand the locals are too poor, and as for the travellers, it is more the backpacker end of the tourist industry outside Thailand, so maybe the tourists there can't afford to smoke as much either. But now we were in Thailand it was stinging eyes and the smelly clothes and hair again we used to suffer from before the excellent smoking ban was brought in for bars and restaurants in Scotland.
One of the things I'd liked about the Eagle House was their “honesty system”: you help yourself to soft drinks, beer, or whatever from the fridge then write it down in your room book, and if you order food, you write that down too. This was still in place, but there was no longer beer available, which was a bit of a disappointment. In the morning, when writing down our breakfast order, I noticed that the room rate had been written in for me: 240 Baht, not the 180 I was expecting, so I took it up with them at the desk. It turned out we were in a large hot water room, not the small hot water room I thought we were in, and certainly not the small cold water room I'd booked. I complained about this and suggested that they should let me have the room for the rate I was expecting, but they were having none of that and closed ranks, claiming (falsely) that everyone working in reception had heard him telling me yesterday that the rate was 240 Baht. They were able to move us to one of the cheap rooms we thought we were already in. I think it was right next door to the room I'd had five years previously, but the nostalgia was somewhat ruined by “improvements” they had carried out in the room. The ceiling fan had been replaced by a light and a small fan mounted on the wall instead. Ceiling fans are really nice, effective, and quiet at night, but they seem to have been replaced by noisy little ineffective wall-mounted ones in many places. I suppose they must be cheaper to replace when something goes wrong, but they really are useless. The gushing cold-water shower was now a trickling hot water electric shower, and the clean-but-basic flush-with-bucket squat toilet had been replaced by a western-style flushing toilet, but as is the case all over Asia, the cheaper western-style toilets are worse than the Asian-style ones: they leak, the seat is never properly attached, they don't flush properly and so on. All in all I was becoming pretty disillusioned with Eagle House, and Joanne wasn't at all impressed with my choice of dwellings.
Me wet
Joanne wet
We had to go looking for a camera shop, to see if we could get my grit-damaged one repaired, but before we looked for it we had some preparations to carry out: Joanne transferred all of her stuff from her small rucksack into the dry bag we had bought for Tubing in Vang Vieng; I also had a smaller dry bag designed to go inside a rucksack, so I transferred everything into that; we filled Joanne's gun up from the tap; and the first place we went out on the street was a stall selling a huge range of water weapons. I settled on 1.5 litre super-soaker, which I paid about £8 for, although I was tempted to get one of their top-of-the-range twin barrel guns, or a weapon with a back-mounted water supply for about £15, but it seemed like a rather silly expense when our daily budget is only £35 between us, including accommodation. The only camera place we could get information about on a Chang Mai tourist map we had, was a fair walk away. We were a keen to do it that day because Songkran officially started the following day and we were fairly sure they would close for the holiday, however an extra twist had been added by the government declaring a state of emergency and three extra days of holiday, which meant it had actually already started. Our walk took us through some less central parts of the town, but there were still plenty of people ready to soak us from street corners, outside shops, or from the back of moving vehicles. We were able to retaliate most of the time with our newly purchased weapons, and I noted that many people actually want you to wet them. A couple of people had pointed at me and said things like “wet me, farang, for good luck!” so how could I refuse? We soon came up against the limitation of our guns which is water supply, but we discovered that everyone is very friendly and happy to share their water supply with you, which is usually a huge plastic bin full of water. Of course they usually give you an extra soaking while you're filling up, but it's a price worth paying. When we couldn't find the camera place, it occurred to us to call the number on the leaflet: no answer.
Not the camera! Not the camera.
On the way back from our largely futile shop search, we came to a busy bar with rock music belting out, where the clientele were almost exclusively Thai. Outside there were several farangs, though, and a few Thais waging a very intense water war with the passing traffic and people stationed across the road, at the corner of the moat. The centre of Chang Mai is surrounded by a square moat, and standing next to it clearly gave those people the massive advantage of a limitless water supply, however I worried about the cleanliness of moat water being chucked all over people. I think the moat may be the reason that Chang Mai celebrates Songkran more vigorously than anywhere else in Thailand.
Evil evil ice
The bar seemed like an interesting place, so we confirmed it was OK to go inside dripping wet and sat down at the bar for a wee drink. We got chatting to a friendly girl at the bar called Aey, who told us that her sister, behind the bar, was the manager. She told us that all the farangs outside water-fighting had Thai wives or girlfriends and children to them. While we were in the bar it started to pour with rain again, so I asked how unusual it was to get rain at this time of year. She claimed that this is the first time that it has ever rained in Chang Mai during Songkran. She went on to tell us how Songkran was a gift from Buddha, when during his life there was a very hot year (40 or 50 degrees she said) and he wondered how to ease the suffering of all the people, and he apparently came up with the idea of a water fight. She was really quite drunk so I'm not sure she knew what she was talking about; I had thought that Songkran was all about washing away bad luck rather than cooling down, hence some people's desire to be wet. Also some, usually older, people tend to sprinkle a little water over you with their fingers as if anointing you.
Tom Yum Crisps - delicious!
There is also a tradition of washing your Buddha figures during Songkran, and I had seen someone pouring water over the large Buddha at the Sunday Market, so I think it is more about luck, although it was a nice story Aey told us. We sat and chatted to her for most of the afternoon, getting drunker and drunker. At one point she produced some very tasty Tom Yum Crisps and told us she works as quality control for the company. Tom Yum is usually a hot and sour soup, so these were quite an unusual take on it: most of the same ingredients, dried i.e. shrimps, chillies, lime leaves, nuts, squid, etc. I thought they were very nice and I told her I thought they would sell well in Scotland; I was thinking of posh shops like Pekhams. She assured me that they do export and kept trying to give us free packets. We only took one because it didn't really sound like the business had properly taken off yet and I've not been able to find any sign online of them in the UK, but I'm sure they would sell because they're delicious. The water fight had started to spread indoors as people got more and more drunk. As far as I can gather everyone in Thailand gets drunk continuously for about five days over this festival. Since we had Aey on our side, she helped by filling our guns with iced water which makes for an excellent secret weapon. When you fire iced water at people you can really see the difference: the shock on their face, the sharp intake of breath, and the stiffening of their back. Great stuff!
Long-range weaponry
Eventually we staggered back outside into the battle zone, where I started to notice that the iced water idea was neither original nor very unusual: we were frequently hit by streams of water that made us gasp, or worse, whole buckets of water over our heads. When I spotted huge icebergs floating in some of the large bins people were using as water supplies it all made sense. The iced water is just one element in the huge range of weaponry on the streets for Songkran: there are the ubiquitous super-soakers like we had, but many people had those guns with water supplies on their backs like rucksacks, which allowed them to go longer without a water source, while others had gone in the other direction and were using long, thin water canons which expend their aqueous ammunition in one powerful jet, or had gone for the cheap and simple option of using a bucket; both these groups of people would often be found gathered around the large water bins, never able to stray to far from a water supply, but able to deliver the most devastating assault when next to one, especially when the bin was full of ice too. Quite a few people had complimented their weapon with a comedy or horror rubber full-face mask. Let me tell you, it's quite scary to see George Bush coming towards you fully armed. Many of the bucket-packers had stationed themselves along the moat, and were re-arming their weapon by lowering it on a string they had attached. In fact, so many people were using the moat as a water supply that by the end of the day, the road next to it was flooded several inches deep and even before then a little river ran down the road all day. Another two weapons at opposite ends of the spectrum are those who carry around a little cup of water for dipping fingers into and sprinkling over people, and those who have a hose, though the hose is usually used to refill the big bins it is occasionally turned on some unlucky or deserving opponent. This raises the question: who is your opponent? Mostly it seems almost as if there are two teams: the people standing by the bins against the people driving round in vehicles.
Car against car
But then the people standing on opposite sides of the street also have a rivalry, even if it comes second to the war against vehicles, and of course there are plenty of peripatetic warriors like us, who are happy to take a shot at anyone and definitely get it back in at least equal measure. But even with these loosely defined enemies, you still see plenty of in-fighting: you can often witness short bouts where a few people round the same bin, or on the back of the same pick-up, start going for each other, but this is usually brought to an end by a passer-by refocusing the team effort. Some people seem to pile as many of their friends as they can onto the back of a pick-up, along with plenty of beer and huge bins full of iced water, which is also good for keeping the beer cool, and drive round and round the square of the moat all day. You can even charter tuktuks with buckets of water, by the hour, to drive you round and round. Plenty of people even opt to drive round and round on mopeds or bicycles.
Simple but effective: a big bucket
The result of all of this, of course, is that there is a constant traffic jam all the way around the moat, but nobody seems to mind much: it just gives them enough time to have a mini-war with one group of bin-dwellers before the traffic frees up enough for them to move onto the next campaign. Many of the vehicles and lots of people faces have white pasty stuff all over them. We had asked Aey what this is and it is apparently talc, used to protect against the sun. I had thought it was maybe a symbol for the bad luck which would then be visibly washed away. One of the fantastic things about the fighting is that it is very mixed: young and old, Thais and farangs, men and women, monks and police, they are all equal targets and everyone is having fun together, without resorting to grouping along racial or gender lines or suchlike. It's just a great big happy party, with music thumping out of various stages set up around the city.
Joanne loves her beer
Passing a Mexican restaurant advertising free wifi, we spotted Lambert from Chang Rai, so went in to chat to him and use the wifi. He was heading back to his guesthouse for a bit of a party with the other guests there, so we agreed to join him. On the way to his place we passed a stall selling durian. I had to buy some: all this time in Asia I'd been buying durian products, trying to understand what it tastes like, but I had not thus far seen actual durian. I didn't try it immediately but the smell was rather powerful; I had to keep moving it around the bar of Lambert's guesthouse so as not to offend people. Lambert seemed less worried about offending people and ranted for some time about how he hated Phuket, where we were going soon, mostly because he had objected to all the ladyboys there. I don't think he was the sort of person who would object to ladyboys in principle, but he had apparently found that those in Phuket were very forward, to the point of extreme harassment. He posed the question why there were so many ladyboys in Thailand and quickly presented his theory that it is all because of the Thai language. His theory centred on the fact that Thai is unusual in that the first person personal pronoun (“I” in English) is different depending on whether you are male of female: “dichan” for females and “phom” for males. There is also a very frequently used “politening particle” (don't know what the correct linguistic term is), at the end of most sentences unless a conversation goes on for a while, and this too is different depending on your gender: “kap” for males and “kAAaa” (falling tone) for females. Thai is the only language, he said, which does this, and consequently allows people to choose their own gender simply by changing what they say. I thought his theory was interesting, but I was only half-convinced, and I could not believe there were not more similar languages. He assured me that he had been all over the world and learned enough of every major language to be sure. Joanne later reminded me that the word for “Yes” differs in Khmer according to the speaker gender, and I think we found something in Vietnamese too, however the fact it is “I” that changes in Thai is maybe significant and the high frequency of the changing words in Thai may be too. We were probably already a bit too worse for wear to be joining another party and after a couple of Thai whiskies from Lambert, Joanne was a bit worse for wear, so we said our goodbyes to the concerned-looking people at Lambert's guesthouse and went home to ours.
When we arrived back we realised that Joanne no longer had her camera, so I put her to bed and ventured back out to see if she had left it in Lambert's guesthouse, however I was too drunk myself to remember where on earth we had just been and after about an hour roaming the streets looking for it I had to give up. I returned home and ate one of the two pieces of durian: very odd tasting. The next morning I ate the rest if the durian as a hangover cure and Joanne was very unwell. Eagle House confirmed that they would be unable to extend our booking for two days, which meant that they had allowed other people to check in after I let them know we wanted to stay on. By now I was so annoyed with them I decided to write to the Lonely Planet and Rough guide to give them a very negative review. It wasn't a good day: we still couldn't remember where Lambert was staying and Aey's sister confirmed nobody had found Joanne's camera there. We had no idea where the Mexican restaurant we met Lambert was, but it was now our best bet for Joanne's camera. Luckily my phone had stored the name of the wifi point, “Miguels”, when I'd connected to check my email, and we spotted a place with the same name when retracing our steps. They were closed for the holiday, but we found an employee hanging around. They had found nothing either and he told us that stuff often gets lifted from there because they are right on the main street. Increasingly depressed we went looking for new accommodation, but instead we found an open camera repair shop, where the owner said he could repair mine and I could collect it later that day. Maybe our luck was changing. We continued the hostel hunt, but most just said that they couldn't tell us until tomorrow, by which time we'd be walking around with our huge packs getting soaked. Finally we found a place who told us that we couldn't book but, if we came back tomorrow, they would definitely have something. It was a much bigger place aimed at younger people, where you had to pay for each day up-front, and which the LP described as noisy, but we were desperate. We collected the camera which was working again, but unfortunately still had the sticky beer problem it had been suffering from since Laos. I went to try and blog, but I was too hungover even for that, however we did receive an email from Sia and Willemijn inviting us to lunch the following day. The water fight continued unabated and we got so wet that we both had chafed thighs.
Lady Killers?
The next morning we were up early so that we could move to our new guesthouse without everything in our big rucksacks getting soaked. I had put everything in plastic bags inside the rucksack, but I didn't trust them to the amount of water we had endured the previous day.
Armed and er... deadly
In fact we had left early enough, but people were already starting to get set up along the moat. At lunch time we met the Dutch girls who didn't seem to be all that impressed at the constant soakings, but I think it was just because they wanted to go shopping instead. Meanwhile I tried to put my newly revitalised camera to good use by putting it in a clear plastic bag and taking some photos. My camera stayed dry despite the serious efforts of strangers, but the photos didn't come out all that well: most of them seemed a bit "steamed up". It started to rain heavily again, so that we asked each other if there really was any point in Songkran this year. We met Sia and Willemijn again for dinner then we all went to see what was happening on the stage in the main square, which had seemed to be hosting variety performances earlier in the day. Now it appeared to be a beauty contest in full swing.
Sitting ducks in the traffic jam
We couldn't catch much of what they were saying, but one thing we were sure of was that one of the facts they gave about the girls as they were introducing them was their weight in kilograms. Surely that shouldn't be allowed! We ended the day by taking the two Dutch girls to the THC club we had enjoyed so much a couple of nights before. It seemed to be full of Dutch people surprised that you can find “this kind of music” outside Holland. This time the youngsters weren't such a bad influence on us because Willemijn thought she had eaten something dodgy so wasn't drinking, even after I had recommended that a large Sangsom would kill any infection.
They aim....
They fire!
Last day of Songkran: rinse and repeat. I finally managed to find some spicy food in Thailand in the shape of som tam, which is a fantastic green papaya salad, incorporating lime juice, fish sauce, tiny shrimps (krill maybe), chillies, garlic, and peanuts all bashed together a bit. We'd had it in Laos a few times, but it's much nicer in Thailand because the Lao one is a bit simpler. Walking around looking for photo opportunities, out attention was attracted by Sia and Willemijn shouting from the back of a pick-up, apparently getting much more into the swing of things today.
Sia and Willemijn on pick-up
They dismounted briefly to explain. Someone had been throwing buckets of iced water from the back of a vehicle and had accidentally scooped up a full can of beer and thrown it at them. They saw their opportunity and told him he could only have it back if he and his friends allowed them to join their party. So they had been driving round in circles for the couple of hours since and seemed to have no intention to quit. They asked me to take a photo, which didn't come out very well so after they left I decided to chance taking the camera out of the bag for brief instants to take photos and little snippets of video before quickly sealing it all back up again. I was very careful with my timing, but there were still some near misses. This time we finished the day off with a tower of Chang beer, which I had been eyeing up ever since we first spotted one.
Joanne acts coy
We were going to leave the next day. We had seen no tourist attractions in Chiang Mai, but we had partied with the locals for a few days and, judging by the number of other farangs doing the same, Songkran itself is now a major tourist attraction in Chiang Mai. Only now it was over did we think we would be able to get transport to move on, but I had wanted to stay to the end anyway.
Big guns
written by  The Happy Couple on April 15, 2009 from Chiang Mai, Thailand

Suki Yaki in Sukhothai
Sukhothai, Thailand
Offering for Buddha?
The day after Songkran was over, Chiang Mai was a completely different city. All of the temporary stages had been removed, the permanent traffic jam round the moat was gone, and so were all the people intent on soaking everyone. I had been sure there would be a few stragglers who kept a little fighting going, after all they had started at least a week early, so why wouldn't they finish late? However it really did seem to be the end, although I kept my water gun with me just in case we were ambushed. Joanne just left hers behind in the hotel room when we went for the bus to Sukhothai. On the bus we discussed the relative merits of staying in Old versus New Sukhothai: the old town was very small with very little choice of accommodation or food, but it was where the ruins were to be found, which was the only reason we were going there. The new town didn't sound like it had much to offer tourists, except that the bus was going to drop us there and then leave from there to Bangkok, which would have required more effort that evening on our part, and then again two mornings later if we were going to stay in Old Sukhothai. Just as I was thinking that we must be approaching town, the bus stopped and some people got off. In an completely unexpected stroke of luck, the driver had decided to stop in the old town, removing any need at all to go to the new town, and we managed to work out what was happening just in time to pile off with the others. Accidentally on purpose I left my water gun in the boot of the bus. It didn't seem like I would have much more use for it, although I was a bit sad to see it go.
There were only two choices of accommodation, so we opted for the Old City Guesthouse as it was recommended by the Rough Guide and, having blown our budget since arrival in Thailand by indulging in a little too much revelry, we decided to save a bit of money and go for the “shared” bathroom option. In practice I think we were the only people staying in that part, so we actually had two bathrooms to ourselves. Next door was a cafe-restaurant called the Coffee Cup, selling excellent coffee, which we had been missing since arriving in Thailand. We ordered food there and I opted for the beef red curry, which should be loaded with chilli anyway, but to make sure I requested it “phet phet” (very hot) which I had learned hoping to counter the expectation that I like flavourless food because I am a farang. My new Thai had no effect and the food arrived extremely insipid although tasty, with sticky rice on a plate which just seemed wrong after a few weeks in Laos, where the sticky rice is always served in a beautiful woven basket. I was beginning to believe that Thai food really had changed dramatically in little over five years, and I would have to wait for Mexico to get hot food, after all three towns in, and one papaya salad was the only really fiery food I'd had. After dinner, we took a short walk up the road to find out if we could hire bikes for our cycle around the ruins the next day, but the bike hire shop (in the other guesthouse) had already shut up. When we returned to our room, I discovered to my horror that the pocket in my rucksack, where I store valuable things was unzipped, and my wallet was missing. I was fairly convinced that I had not left it open, so was almost certain that someone had dipped my bag in the restaurant, where Joanne had paid for the food. I was imagining what a horrible next few days at least, I was going to have, cancelling cards and living without money. We returned to the restaurant, but I hadn't left it and nobody had handed it in. Gutted, we decided our only remaining hope was to retrace our steps to the bike hire shop. Incredibly my wallet was still lying there on the pavement, half open, but untouched. “Very Lucky!” said the waitress when I returned to the restaurant. Too right! How many places could I have left my wallet on the pavement for twenty minutes and returned to find it still there?
That night we had a terrible night's sleep. The room was very hot and it was so dusty that the wind kept sprinkling a covering of dust over us, blown from the mosquito mesh over the windows. This made us itchy and sneeze. We cursed the Rough Guide which described the place as “spotlessly clean”. Ha! Clearly the researchers did not opt for the budget rooms. Just when I didn't think the night could get any worse, the dull aching in my right ear, possibly present since an onslaught of moat water in Chiang Mai, started to intensify until it was unbearable. I had forgotten how painful having an ear infection used to be as a child, but now I was reliving it. In the morning we found a chemist, but weren't completely sure the drops we got were the correct thing, as the chemist had no English and I'm not sure the Thai I produced by flicking through the phrase book was up to much. The pain had subsided back to bearable levels anyway, since the intense burst which kept my awake for hours. I couldn't really be bothered with sight-seeing as my mood was so terrible because of the night I'd had.
Our bikes
We briefly discussed staying an extra day, and just trying to get some sleep for now, but ruled it out, deciding it would be better if I just bucked up my ideas and mustered some enthusiasm. So we hired bicycles and set off. I'm not certain how much of what I felt was still because of a persisting huff, but Sukhothai was a huge disappointment after the temples at Angkor. I would certainly recommended going to Sukhothai before Angkor to anyone who was planning to visit both. It seemed like they had done too much restoration work, so some of the sites had almost completely lost their ancient feel, and all of their romance.
Wat Mahathat
After all if I wanted to look at reinforced concrete, I could just have stayed at home in Glasgow! And that's what they seem to have done in many of the sites: completely removed piles of ancient rubble to a museum, I assume, then replaced them with reinforced concrete replicas of what they imagine it used to look like when it was new. I fell out with my bicycle as well, which I decided was a complete waste of time for the centrally located sites, which were all within easy walking distance. I cursed the Rough Guide again for more poor advice. It was a very hot day, and the one silver lining was that the huge crowds of tourists arriving from the new town did not appear as expected around 10am.
Concrete Buddha at Wat Mahathat
Maybe everyone was staying away because of the ongoing trouble with the red-shirts in Bangkok. After a lacklustre morning, we stopped for lunch in a restaurant called Kacha, where I had my least spicy papaya salad yet, but the coffee and beer I had with it seemed to lift my spirits a little, and I managed to continue with the sight-seeing with hardly a single moan. That evening we got chatting to a woman running a restaurant which had no English sign, and no farang customers. I complained that I'd been disappointed with the lack of chillies in Thai food so far, especially next door, although it had tasted very nice. She assured me that next door is too used to serving farangs, and she would make me some food the way it was meant to be.
Wat Sa Si's walking Buddha
Result! She brought me a pork red curry, which was delicious and it hurt, just like Thai food is supposed to. The place is apparently called Noodle Sukhothai, although it's not written anywhere in English. After we had eaten she took us inside and showed us grateful letters from and photographs of other farangs, who had also been in search of the chilli. So now I had the explanation: nearly six years of continued tourism had caused Thai food to become blander and blander in order to cater for some imagined western palette. I blame the French, Dutch, and Germans! There's a lot of them in the region and they always seem to be complaining that food is too spicy, or looking for food like they get back home. Scots and the English have enough of a taste for Indian food and kebabs to handle the heat, and Americans have Mexico on their doorstep, so they appreciate a good chilli pepper.
Excellent hot red pork curry
Sukhothai Noodles
The next morning we made sure we sampled the local specialities, Sukhothai Noodles and Suki Yaki for breakfast, before catching a local bus to the New City bus station. At the bus station they told us that there was only one bus, a “VIP” bus, leaving at 5pm and costing 380 Baht, which was a lot more than we expected to pay and a lot later than we wanted to leave. It was fairly obvious we were being hustled, but the problem was where to get independent information. Bus stations in Thailand seem to contain dozens of competing companies running the same routes, who each have their own people trying to herd tourists to their own desk. In the Old city, we had been told there was a bus every hour, but these touts all told us the buses were full. Other farangs were having the same trouble. We walked outside to look at the buses, many of which said “Bangkok” on the front, some apparently leaving soon, and none full. We spotted a kiosk marked “Information” and thought we'd cracked it, but the woman in the kiosk just told us to ask inside, where there are only the self-interested touts. Finally we located an information computer, which gave us prices, departure times, and bus numbers. We were still looking through the cheaper and earlier buses when a bus driver came up and told us he was leaving for Bangkok now and ushered us to a counter we had not yet tried. At first I thought it was more hustling, but the ticket was only 255 Baht for 2nd class aircon. While we were buying the ticket, the farangs opposite told us they had discovered there's an earlier bus and Joanne replied “we're leaving now!”.
Suki Yaki dry
I don't know how much they paid, but I bet it wasn't as good a deal as ours. The bus was quite nice, confirming once again my general theory that the more you pay the worse things tend to be: VIP buses have incredibly uncomfortable seats, arctic aircon, and smelly toilets. The lunch break was also a real pleasure: when the buses made a service stop in Cambodia or Vietnam, the prices were several times what you would normally pay, whether for hot food, cold drinks, crisps or whatever, and they usually had rows of statues, bags, paintings, and other tourist trappings. Here, our lunch stop was in a roadside canteen: basic, but the food was delicious and as cheap as food from a street vendor. Not a statue, vase, or silk dress in sight. During the journey Joanne decided that she had an eye infection from the the dirty Songkran moat water, to keep my ear infection company. We arrived in Bangkok that afternoon. It was raining.
written by  The Happy Couple on April 17, 2009 from Sukhothai, Thailand

Bangkok and Khaosan Orientation
Bangkok, Thailand
Glad I wasn't in that
When we arrived from Sukhothai at Bangkok Northern Bus Station, our guidebook told us which local buses would take us to Khaosan Road, which we had decided to stay near, but no on. However, where we alighted, there was no sign of any local buses and no obvious way of getting information: tuktuk and taxi drivers were happy to tell us that the local bus station was two kilometres away or that we had missed the last bus, and when we eventually spotted the information kiosk, the girl working there did not seem to stop chatting on the phone long enough to serve anyone. After I failed to get anything useful from her, Joanne had a go and we found out that the local buses and just through a walkway at one end of the bus station, not two kilometres away! On the local bus they were very helpful and let us know when we were passing Khaosan Road. It wasn't quite the way I remembered it: it seems to have got shorter and much more busy since I was last there. Actually I didn't really recognise it at all. I looked for my hotel from last time, and then a bar I might recognise, but I think they have both gone. Apparently it has been developing upmarket, so the cheapest places have probably all gone. I sat in a bar an ordered a surprisingly expensive beer while Joanne looked for places to stay. Usually I go looking because you are pestered by touts constantly if you walk around with your big bag, and it's much more effort anyway. I was feeling a bit lazy, so I persuaded Joanne it was her turn! After a while she came back. She had found somewhere back from Khaosan Road, where we hoped to find somewhere fairly quiet but would be close enough to the nightlife. Joanne led me one street back from Khaosan where the place seemed nice enough and it was quite reasonably priced, although not in the bargain range that used to be available there. When we left again to explore, I pointed out that the front entrance to the hotel was in fact on Khaosan Road. Joanne didn't see the funny side I did, and told me that I should go looking in future.
Khaosan Road
Dreadlocks
Outside, Khaosan was more closely beginning to resemble what I hazily remembered. Stalls selling food and clothes everywhere, music blasting out, and people throwing “poi” or long fluorescent sticks around to the music. Several places on the street were putting in dreadlocks or giving people dreadlock extensions. Mine had been becoming progressively unravelled and Joanne thought I should get them tightened up again while we were somewhere with that service on offer. Everywhere there were people with dreadlocks and tattoos, but at least I now realised the people I'd envied with too-good-to-be-true perfect dreadlocks we'd seen in Chiang Mai were almost certainly sporting falsies.
The choice is practically non-existent
Another new feature on Khaosan Road, as far as I'm concerned, is the prevalence of places selling “buckets”. I didn't see them anywhere in Thailand last time, but everyone I knew who had been to Thailand since said they were ubiquitous. Yes, you could buy a 300ml bottle of Sangsom with a bucket of ice and a bottle of Coke, but these premixed drinks in the bucket, with Coke and Redbull were not here last time. I'm sure of it! The custom had since spread across South East Asia apparently, but the buckets we'd had in Cambodia and Laos had not taught us to avoid them, although Joanne always said “never again” the next day. So we celebrated our arrival in Khaosan by ordering a bucket.
Oh oh!
Holey car!
The next morning, we were woken early by a child wandering around the guesthouse screeching, and the other members of the family, who ran the guesthouse, shouting back at the child and to each other. We eventually gave up trying to sleep and crawled out of our beds. We were in Bangkok to get things done, and one of the things we were here to do was buy some books. We thought that there are enough English-speaking tourists and ex-pats that there should be a decent selection. Well, we were right about the selection being good, but the secondhand bookshops seemed to be selling their stock for almost as much as they cost new, in some cases more, and they did not seem amenable to much bartering.
Sweet (really?) durian
One of the other tasks for Bangkok was to catch up a bit on the blogging, so Joanne treated herself to a massage while I slaved away over a hot keyboard, before picking up some nice coconut pudding street snacks. A bit later we wandered down to the bottom of Khaosan where you were met with the rather unnerving sight of a very thoroughly shot up car just outside the police station. At first I thought it was maybe the car belonging to the leader of the yellow-shirts, whose car had recently been opened fire on, but I can't understand what it was doing there several days later. After a couple of hours we walked past again and the car had been covered up, suggesting to me that this had maybe happened there last night. We looked in the online news and could see no suggestion of anything like that happening the night before, and Joanne found the story about the assassination attempt, confirming that we had seen the same car as featured in the photos accompanying that story (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8003531.stm).
Just a wee cocktail
So that was a relief. That night we found a cheap food stall at the top of Rumbuttri, one street along from Khaosan, where the food was delicious and I was pleased that they had some genuinely spicy options. While we were sitting there eating, a guy drove past on his moped, sharing his bike with a golden retriever wearing sunglasses and a big floppy hat, looking very happy. Unfortunately I was too slow with my camera. Stupidly, that evening, we ended up drinking a bucket again. It's just so much cheaper than drinking anything else, it's very hard to resist. On the way home I bought some durian from a street vendor, but Joanne insisted that I sit outside our room and eat it all before she would let me in. I still can't make my mind up about it. It is so unusual tasting: partly sweet, partly rancid, partly savoury.
Easternized Ronald Mc
written by  The Happy Couple on April 19, 2009 from Bangkok, Thailand

Vegetarianism and Violence in Bangkok
Bangkok, Thailand
He's just a boy!
The next morning we were woken again early by the family who run our guesthouse. I don't understand why you would run a business like that. We tried to sleep through the noise which eventually quietened down about 9am. The result of this is that we were too late to apply for our Indian visas, which had been our intention that day. When we got up, we decided to check out a vegetarian restaurant, Ethos, which had been leafletting up and down Khaosan. I opted for the Krapow, which is a standard Thai dish, featuring chillies, Thai basil, and usually minced chicken. It is usually the hottest dish on the menu. This one was made with tofu, which I thought would do no harm to the dish. Again we were let down by a vegetarian establishment: my Krapow tasted of nothing but soy sauce and was almost certainly the worst food I'd had in Thailand. Of course there was no chilli either, but I had given up expecting it. Luckily the meal was saved by pudding and the interesting drinks they offered: the mango and sticky rice with coconut cream was delicious, as were the carrot juice and the hibiscus tea.
Foot replies to elbow
Sticker showing us up as suckers!
After lunch we decided that we had better make a bit more of an effort or else we would just keep drinking buckets and achieve nothing, so we did a bit of research and discovered that the cheapest way to see muay thai (Thai kick-boxing) was to go to the stadium an hour before the start. This was something I wanted to do last time but never got around to so we were determined to go, even though it was quite costly. You can buy tickets on Khaosan Road, but they only sell ringside “VIP” tickets, which we didn't want to shell out 2000 Baht each for. We're not suckers! We walked to the stadium (saving even more money) and there was a nice lady who was quite happy to sell us whatever tickets we wanted. But, she warned, there are no seats where the cheaper tickets are, so you have to stand, and there are often fights over betting. She showed us a photo of really squashed together people standing in the stadium. Joanne was slightly perturbed. I can give you a discount of 250 Baht on each ticket she told us. We conferred. Joanne did think £35 per ticket was a lot of money, but she didn't want to have to stand for the whole time, and the cheaper ones were only £5 less. She didn't want to go down to the cheapest ones at 1000 Baht in case there was fighting.
Preparation ritual before fight
OK, we agreed, VIP seats it is. She gave us tickets and put a sticker on each of us. Nobody else was wearing a sticker. We had nearly an hour to kill, so we sat outside and had bought a beer from a vendor then, after lots of getting laughed at, popped into the outdoor food court next door which was selling more of the excellent cheap canteen-style Thai food. When we returned, our ticket vendor spotted us, and ushered us into the arena. All around there were people in the cheap areas and only a couple of dozen plastic seats right next to the ring. I think everyone else there was press or family of the fighters. The 1000 Baht ticket-holders were separated from the 1500 Baht ticket-holder by a fence and it was quite busy standing-room-only back there, however there were no fights. The 1500 Baht area, though, was hardly full at all, and everybody there was sitting down on the concrete steps. We are suckers after all! We chastised ourselves for believing anything a Thai person with something to sell says, and swore we wouldn't be tricked again. The ringside seats didn't even offer better photo opportunities as the ropes got in the way. It would have been much better to have a bit of elevation and use the zoom.
The excitement mounts
Now I'm not really a fan of violence, in fact I'd probably describe myself as a pacifist. I don't enjoy wrestling, boxing, rugby, or any of these violent sports, but I do like martial arts and most things Eastern, so I thought muay thai was worth seeing once, and the guide books all recommend it. This was certainly violent and at times Joanne didn't want to watch and felt a little upset, but it was also very elegant as well. There is a band in the stadium, consisting of cymbals, oboe, and drums, and they play throughout the proceedings, the tempo and volume constantly changing to match the action. At the beginning of each match, the two fighters come into the ring with strings of flowers around their necks, sporting headdresses, and some wearing gowns, while the band plays music that could easily be something from a snake-charmer's repertoire. This is apparently quite a solemn few minutes, as the fighters slowly circle the ring, practising some moves, kissing the corners, kneeling down, standing up again, the whole time looking very serious.
Eye of the tiger
It looks much more like ritual than a warm-up, but I suppose there may be some psychological warfare going on as well. There doesn't seem to be any time limit on this phase and some of them carry on for quite a while before finally finishing. Then they go over to their respective corners where their trainer blesses them, sprinkles a little water on them, and removes the flowers, the headdress, and any other items not essential to the fight. Then the drums come in and the two fighters start to weave their fists, head, and shoulders in time to the music. It looks much more like dancing than fighting at this stage. The fights are five rounds of three minutes, or only two minutes for the lightest fighters, and they can be quite intense at times. There were ten fights throughout the evening. Less interesting fights seem to slide towards grappling, where the two fighters keep taking turns at swiping each other's backs using their heels. Most of the fighters were quite young and one of these younger fights, the fourth fight of the evening, was ended very abruptly when blue landed a direct kick to red's head and he was knocked out cold.
Ooof!
It was less than 90 seconds into the first round, so I suppose blue must have been quite pleased with himself. Red was quickly whisked off the ring by medical staff, who might have been worried by the few small convulsions he had just as he hit the deck. Or maybe that just what happens when people are knocked out, we wouldn't know, but nobody else looked particularly worried so we tried not to feel to queasy about the whole thing. The seventh fight had been billed as the Big One and just before it started, an official came into the ring with the young chap who had achieved the knock-out, raised his hand in the hair, and then presented him with a biggish metal cup and an envelope. So I suppose knock-outs are not all that common. After the seventh fight lots of people left, and then more after every remaining fight, but I was determined to sit it out until the end since we'd paid so much money! The last fight of the night was the heaviest weight and when the fighters came to ring Joanne said “oh no, it's a farang!” and so it was.
Farang moves in for the kill
“This is going to be bad”. Joanne suggested that he might have paid for one of the courses in muay thai, which culminates in a real fight. The Thai's friends were behind us, cheering him on. It was quite obvious from the start that the farang did not have the panache of the previous fighters: he looked bored rather than solemn during the rituals at the start and, by comparison, he lumbered towards the Thai, more bulldozer than dancer: where the Thais were on their toes, he shuffled along, flat-footed. I don't know much about boxing but, watching him, it was pretty obvious that the farang had been a boxer before. His reach was incredible, and he kept his guard up in a way the Thais did not. When it came to the kicking side of things it was ugly. Whereas the Thais were engaged in a martial art, he simply booted his opponent from time to time. As the match wore on it started to look like he had the upper hand. His reach was so long that the poor Thai could hardly even get a kick in, and none of them really deliver decent blows with the hands. In the end, the Thai was looking weaker and weaker until the farang went for it, kicking him repeatedly in the shins (ow!), in between strong punches to the head. At this point the Thai looked like he was going to cry, and almost seemed to be trying to run away, but the referee stepped in and stopped the match before he could jump out the ring. We had assumed the farang would lose, but this result was even worse. All his mates were there to see him beaten by a farang! Talk about losing face.
written by  The Happy Couple on April 20, 2009 from Bangkok, Thailand

Indian visa and electronics shopping in Bangkok
Bangkok, Thailand
Thai iced coffee in a bag
That evening we gave the buckets a miss because we had to get to the Indian Embassy next day, so we decided to have an early night and then the family waking us early would be no problem. We hadn't counted on the band playing heavy metal covers until nearly 2am. The next morning we were woken as usual, and were becoming seriously sleep deprived. We headed out to where the guesthouse had told us we could catch a number two bus to the Embassy, glad to find some strong Thai iced coffee on the way, served in true Thai style, in a bag. The buses didn't stop where we expected, so after the second passed us, we followed it along the route and eventually found a bus stop. The bus only cost 7 Baht and it was quick, which was just as well after all the messing around we had done trying to find the bus stop. We made it to the Embassy in enough time to get brunch at another one of these outdoor cafeteria places. As always it was really nice and cheap: only 30 Baht for a plate of rice with two “toppings” of your choice e.g. Curry and Krapow. The Indian visa takes five working days if you are not resident in Thailand, so we started making plans to avoid having to hang around Bangkok for all that time. We had agreed to pay the extra to have our passports delivered by courier to Phuket, where we planned to go soon to meet Joanne's friend James, but the helpful woman behind the desk suggested that, if we were returning to Bangkok, we could keep our passports for now and then drop them off one morning when we return, picking them up in the afternoon. Perfect. Apart from the 7 day delay in getting the visa they seemed very well organised. I noticed on the price-list on the wall that it is possible to get a five-year tourist visa to India for only a bit more than double the cost of our six-month visa.
Bored with embassies and shopping
The Indian Embassy is in a part of town with lots of shopping centres and, as my mum had kindly suggested buying us each a new camera as a wedding present to replace Joanne's lost one and my sticky one, we decided to have a look at what was available. I got a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5, which Fabrice had recommended. It seemed to fit the bill, although the price was not a good as I was expecting. I haggled hard to get it down from 12200 to 11000 Baht for the camera and a 16GB memory card, but I suspect it might have been possible to get it for less in Britain, whereas I'd been expecting low prices like I believe Singapore has. It was cheaper than rerouting our trip via Singapore and buying it there, anywhere. We couldn't draw anymore cash that day, so Joanne's camera had to wait. In fact we barely had enough money for dinner after the bus crawled back through the rush hour traffic. That night the same band were on again, and we wondered if we'd just missed them the first two nights because we were out. We needed to move because we were both exhausted, and we still had things to do in Bangkok.
New purchase!
written by  The Happy Couple on April 21, 2009 from Bangkok, Thailand

The pretty bits of Bangkok
The famous Emerald Buddha
The next day we were determined to knuckle down, so we got up early (as if we had a choice) to find new lodgings, and located a cheaper place back from Khaosan (really this time). We headed out again to see the Grand Palace, Wat Pho and the Reclining Buddha, and Wat Phra Kaew and the Emerald Buddha. They're all a short walk from Khaosan Road, but it meant running the gauntlet of “helpful strangers” kindly letting us know that these sights were closed today and old women trying to force bird food on us. We didn't speak to any of the helpful ones so we didn't get to hear what their suggested alternative activities were going to be. An old woman hung three bags of nuts over my arm as we walked past her and was pointing at me, about to claim I owed her money, when I simply chucked them back at her and kept on walking. Everything we saw that day was lovely, although the Emerald Buddha is a little it of a letdown. It's not even made of Emerald, but Jade, it's tiny and you're not even allowed to take photos inside the wat, so they're all a bit blurry, because they're taken from outside except one that is sneakily taken inside.
In the Grand Palace there were quite a few people working on maintenance, touching up frescos or working on a stupa. It seems to me that this kind of continual maintenance is a good idea because then you never need extensive renovations like the reinforced concrete of Sukhothai. The Reclining Buddha is an impressive object, taking up the entirety of the temple. After Wat Pho we picked up a portion of som tam (papaya salad) for lunch, making sure to ask for it “phet phet”. This one was a scorcher! While we were eating it, a 50 year old Thai guy (he told us) came over and said he was amazed we like that. “It makes us laugh when we see farangs eating that food, because we are not used to you eating spicy food”, he said. He said he had been working in a rock cover-band in Pattaya for over 30 years and started to list the songs they played.
I told him that this was the same play-list that had kept us awake for two night running. Apparently he knew the band responsible. People keep telling us that Thai people are only interested in your money when they talk to you, but here was a clear case against that line of thought. This guy was definitely just being friendly. Actually during Songkran we spoke to plenty of people who wanted nothing more than to soak us, but there may have been alcohol involved in their bon-homie. When we returned to our guesthouse we realised there was no electrical point in the room. This was a problem since the place we planned to go next, Ko Chang on the Andaman coast, is an island with very basic facilities: the electricity only runs for a few hours a day so we needed to charge up all of our new electricals before we left Bangkok. Downstairs the guesthouse ran a small internet cafe, so we asked if we could plug things in to charge. Ten Baht per hour we were told. They charged phones for us for free even on Don Det where the electricity only came on for the evening, and was generated from diesel, which is relatively extremely expensive. Annoyed by their greed we decided we would probably be able to charge them during our stay overnight in Ranong, where we would catch the ferry.
Model of Angkor Wat
After a successful day's tourism we finally gave in and splashed out for some books: Tom Sharpe, Blott on the Landscape; Jack Kerouac, Visions of Gerald; Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals / Ecce Homo; jg ballard, the drought; and Ian McEwan, Saturday. Following the advice of my sister, Lorraine, who lived in Bangkok for nearly a year, we planned to go to a Blues Bar she used to visit on occasion, but I thought I'd buy a beer from 7-11 on the way. They had a brand of beer I hadn't noticed before and it was cheap and strong so, always interested in economising, I bought it. Not beer, in fact it was rice wine, which was not what I was in the mood for, but I drank it anyway. The bar turned out to be quite nice, but more expensive a place than I had expected my poor English-teaching sister to have gone.
Blues Bar
So we were forced to buy Sangsom (300ml) and Coke instead of beer. That on top of the rice wine, and I was already on my way. On the way home from there, we were persuaded to come upstairs to a new bar, lured by a cheap bucket. Once inside they persuaded us that a shisha of grape tobacco would go very well with our cheap bucket. The shisha was very expensive. Suckered again! We got chatting to couple who were “just friends”, but the guy had come all the way to Thailand to see this girl he had met online. As the night wore on, she revealed to Joanne her secret that she was in fact a ladyboy, but her friend did not know. In fact she had been through loads of surgery and had a complete sex change, but still did not feel like a real woman.
Joanne hits the bong
How strange that in a country where trans-gender individuals are so accepted in the mainstream, that men who have a full sex-change are still considered ladyboys at the end of it, rather than becoming a “real” woman, which is I think how it's treated in the West. Here anybody from a guy who acts a bit camp, through cross-dressers, all the way to post-operative “gender reassignment” are known as ladyboys: third gender. That night we were horribly late home, but at least we were able to sleep our hangovers off the next morning and some of the afternoon. When we did get up, we found a cheaper bookshop, so ended up by more books: Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before; JM Coetzee, Disgrace; and Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible. We now have far too many books again, and I'm not getting through them very fast because blogging is eating into my reading time.
Joanne and katoey

Beasties in Bangkok
Beasties!
Our last full day in Bangkok meant shopping again, but this time for Joanne's camera and a laptop for me. We hoped to get a mini-laptop (or webbook, I think they are also called), which we had seen lots of people with, so that some of my blogging time could be in nicer locations than internet cafes. Joanne copied me and got a Panasonic DMC, but she went for the previous model, the TZ4, just to save a wee bit of money. Some serious haggling secured the camera, the 16GB memory card, a spare battery (we can share), and a case for 10200 Baht. I got an Asus Eee PC from a shop where they would not haggle at all, but told me that I could reclaim the VAT when I left the country. I'm not sure why this does not apply to the cameras. One of the shops told me it's because it's a special VAT-free shopping centre, but I worry it might be because the shops in that centre simply haven't registered for VAT. We were getting a bit sick of Bangkok, so decided to leave the following day and do whatever touristy things we still wanted to do here when we returned to get our Indian visa and flight. On the way home that night, we passed a stall selling insects and other beasties to eat. I remembered the stall from last time and had regretted not having tried any before so, although I really didn't feel like it when I saw them, I did what needed done and ordered a small bag of wormy things and just one grasshopper. I couldn't face the cicadas. I was quite disappointed. I thought they would be served with chilli and made into some interesting dish, but they were just deep fried and salted. Soy sauce was optional. They just tasted like ready salted crisps. Nothing special at all, just grease and salt. The worst bit about it was that a piece of the grasshopper's body got stuck between two teeth and caused me quite a lot of pain before I found a toothpick to remove it. While we were standing there I discovered that Thais don't eat them for the taste or nutrition at all: they eat them for “power”, which is a (South East?) Asian euphemism for potency or virility. I'd be surprised if there is any medical evidence to support this belief, but why would anyone bother now that they could get Viagra instead now?
Last touristy feat accomplished, we were ready to leave the next day. All we had to do was get to “Sai Tai Mai” or the Southern Bus Station. The only problem was almost all the information we could find about it goes on at length about the “new” Southern Bus Station and warns about accidentally going to the “old” Southern bus Station. Wikitravel, however, includes the extra bit of information that the bus station has moved twice in quick succession, so make sure you are taken to the new new bus station, rather than the old new bus station. The second move was in November last year, and all the other information does indeed date from before that. Our second problem was that we wanted to take the bus, but Wikitravel did not say which bus to take from Khaosan Road. Bus information isn't easy to get, but I did eventually find a bus map for sale, which allowed me to devise a route taking two buses, to where I thought the bus station was. It wasn't marked on the map, and neither was the street it was located on, so there was a degree of guesswork involved I wasn't particularly happy about. However we did have all day. We just knew that we did not want to get a bus from Khaosan, which is what any “tourist information” shop told us we should do (their own bus tickets of course). These South-travelling buses from Khaosan Road are absolutely notorious for theft. We had read news stories about people being left at the side of the road after all their money and valuables had been taken, and we had met several people how had been stolen from on these buses, always leaving from Khaosan heading South. Apparently they employ professional lock-pickers who stow themselves in with the luggage, and go through everyone's bags, locked or not. We were standing waiting on the main road just down from Democracy Monument, near Khaosan, for the first bus of two that I hoped would take us to Sai Tai Mai, and a bus went past us, a 556, with “Southern Bus Station” written on the side. Amazing luck! We crossed the road, so that we were heading in that direction instead of the airport and were quickly taken to the enormous air-conditioned mall that is the Southern Bus Station, where we bought nice cheap tickets for an overnight bus and waited for it to leave. I noticed that one of the two internet cafes in the bus station had plenty of spare electrical points, so we paid for a couple of hours online and sat at the back where we were able to plug in and fully charge everything that needed it. Just as well because getting the overnight bus meant we were definitely not staying overnight in Ranong and this might be the last electricity we would see for a few days.
Finally Joanne gets one too

Tourist Season Terminated with Extreme Prejudice
Ko Chang, Thailand
The overnight bus from Bangkok arrived in Ranong without a hitch and when we checked our luggage is had not been tampered with, not that we had really expected a problem on a bus where almost everyone was Thai. Our plan was to find our way into town for breakfast before heading to the ferry port, where we hoped to find out the times of the ferries. We expected to be able to get Songthaews into town from the main road but they either didn't understand what we were saying or else they were all going somewhere else. Eventually, out of desperation, we tried the name of the ferry port. Yes, that's where this one was going, so we decided to forget about town, after all surely there would be food at the port. The port wasn't up to much and there were no shops of cafes nearby, so I had to walk all the way back to the main road to buy some food from a street vendor. The channel leading into the port was disgusting: rubbish drifted up against the mangroves and the water was black with diesel and probably other chemicals. It seemed to be more of an industrial port than a passenger one. Considering how little there was to do at the ferry port we wished we had persisted with the town songthaews and when the ferry arrived leaving for the other more developed sister island, Ko Phayam, we were a little put out to realise our fare was the same 150 Baht even though Ko Chang was only about one half of the distance. We had expected the fare to be 80 Baht. On the journey lots of rubbish floated past and it seemed that the stuff I'd seen piled up in the channel was actually coming from open sea, not the port itself. Burma was only a few miles away and I supposed that their environmental record is probably about as good as any military dictatorship's, so the rubbish probably came from there. Then I noticed that the majority of the rubbish is tree material followed by flipflops. Could this still be debris left over from the tsunami? It was a few years ago now, but I'm no expert on ocean currents. At Ko Chang we were the only ones to get off the boat, the other 20 or so people carrying on the Phayam. There were a couple of mopeds to meet us at the pier. “Where you want go?” they asked. When we told them the name of our chosen resort, they replied “closed”. A bit suspicious, we tried the next one on our list: “closed”. The woman then suggested we go to her resort instead so we were now certain this was more Thai trickery and asked if they would just take us to the beach on which these resorts were located. 100 Baht each we were told and we complained that we had just paid slightly more than that (which we thought was a rip-off) for a 90 minute ferry journey, so we weren't going to pay it again for a three kilometre bike ride, expecting this to begin negotiations. “OK, good luck!” she said and they disappeared on the bikes.
So that's away from the water then? Oh, really?
Our lonely little bungalow
We had wanted to see Ko Chang because we thought it would make a nice change from the noise and the busyness of Bangkok, and I also fancied doing something a bit off the main tourist trail again, as I felt we had just started to sleepwalk around the tourist traps again. This place was certainly a change from Bangkok. After walking about ten minutes with our big bags, we had seen nobody, seen no shops where we might buy a map or ask about a cheaper moped taxi. The island was certainly quite pretty with coconut palms and rubber trees everywhere, but the heavy dark and pendulous clouds heading our direction detracted somewhat from the beauty. Of course it started to rain heavily and we kept walking.
A beach all to ourselves
After about half an hour, we came to a small village with some houses and even a school. There was also a map showing tsunami evacuation routes, and a sign advising that this was a tsunami shelter area. We were at a crossroads in the middle of the island and were it not for the map we would have continued straight on instead of turning right, where we found a shop and restaurant and chose to sit down and shelter. At the restaurant was strange character who, the more we spoke to him, reminded me more of Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now; Patrick is a 50 year-old French guy who had been living on this tiny island for two years. He had very little good to say about the locals, whom he clearly looked down on, and said that they were the most unfriendly people he had ever met.
Horrible dog following us
I was surprised, as this had not been our experience of Thai people at all, although it was true that the people who met us at the pier were probably the grumpiest people we'd met on our trip. I wondered why he was living in a place where he thought so little of the people, but he told us he was living in the forest away from the resorts and the people, and he was also very bitter about France, about women, and about his former life in general it seemed. He liked the forest and the nature on the island. He claimed to be an anarchist although, unusually for a Frenchman, he was very pro-USA. He absolutely refused to have his photo taken because he doesn't "want the CIA or something finding out where" he is.
Rubbish on the beach
He told me he spent his time on the island reading maths books and chess books, and his one friend on the island was a one-legged German called Uli, who was another long-term resident but, unfortunately for Patrick, did not play chess. Patrick confirmed that we were actually told the truth at the pier: almost everything on the island was shut. The guidebooks said that places started to shut down about June, so we were not expecting this at all. Patrick said “they don't care about June here: they see when the rain comes and the tourist stop coming, then they shut”. Finally I had found a place where they admitted the monsoon had come two months early! We had wanted quiet but this was more than we had expected. Maybe we would leave and go to Ko Phayam.
Path to Golden Bee
Forest full of smoke
Finally the rain let up somewhat and, following Patrick's directions, we found our way to Golden Bee. The beach front was lined with ghost-resorts; clearly nobody else was here. Apparently most of the owners move to Ranong during low season but a few, like Bee, only have property on the island, so stay open all year round. Bee was very friendly and showed us to quite a nice wooden bungalow for less than we had expected to pay. We were just settling in when a puppy hanging around vomited seafood on our veranda, then we noticed a huge wasp busying itself around a nest in the bathroom. Joanne sluiced off the veranda and Bee sent her son to dispose of the wasp and nest, but I was really starting to regret coming here.
Horrible puppies
Bee said she doesn't know where the dogs came from but since all the others left the island there have been stray dogs everywhere. Apparently they just leave their dogs when they go to Ranong and let them fend for themselves. We took a walk up the beach to see what we could find but all we found was rubbish all over the beach and dogs playing in it. We decided that we would leave for Phayam the next morning, unless the weather was much better; at least then we could sunbathe and swim. Bee cooked us up a nice dinner and we got an early night to recover from Bangkok and our long bus journey.
The lagoon had grown
Tsunami zone
Next morning we woke early so we'd have time to go for the ferry, but the weather was lovely and the island looked much prettier, so we decided to stay at least another day. We thought we'd walk across to the other side of the island to see the beaches there, but the route we had arrived by was now blocked by high tide filling a lagoon so much that the stairs up the bridge we came over were submerged. Retracing our steps, we saw a German with one leg and Uli told us the correct alternative way out. Thankfully we weren't stranded until low tide. On the path back to the centre of the island we were passed by two new farangs on the backs of mopeds. The middle of the island was the only place with a (poor) mobile phone signal, and Joanne was keep to keep in touch as her sister was expecting a baby. Patrick was there again, and Joanne found out that her new niece, Eve, had been born the previous evening.
Surely in poor taste?
Patrick congratulated Joanne and her sister in absentia, then told us that there were no beaches on that side of the island, only mangroves. The grumpy woman from the pier the previous day was there and told us that the Ko Phayam boat would not stop the next day, but the following day her husband was skipper, so she could ask him to stop specially. She also said there was no boat to the mainland tomorrow, so we were stuck on the island another day whether we liked it or not. We returned to our beach and chatted to the new arrivals at Golden Bee: Vicky from Leeds and Ben from Paris. They had only been charged 50 Baht each for the bike ride, but by different people.
Next day we slept in, but were woken by cockerels that had been much quieter the previous morning. Bee served us an excellent big breakfast of muesli, yogurt, and fresh fruit, which we ate with Ben. Ben told us of a little place called Little Italy down the beach, past the Lagoon, where the Italian owner served excellent coffee; something that was impossible to get elsewhere on the island. We wandered along to the place which was really lovely, as was the coffee, set back from the beach in the forest. After coffee, we made our daily pilgrimage to the island's centre so Joanne could get more details by SMS about Eve's weight, the birth, and so on. On our return, Joanne tanned in the continuing sun and I just chatted to Ben until it was time for dinner, which all four of us had together. We may have been stuck there, but at least there was company and plenty of nice nature to see.
Next morning we were up early again, this time to catch the boat, after another superb Bee breakfast, who was also nice enough to send her sons ahead with our big bags on their bikes, for free. Apart from the one woman we had not found the people on the island unfriendly and we wondered if Patrick was simply seeing his own antipathy reflected in those around him. After a wrong turning and a sweaty jog to catch the boat we arrived to find about twenty people already waiting. The truth was that boats in both directions serviced the island every day, only that woman's husband only skippered a boat every second day, so she had apparently lied to us to spite the competition. Back on the mainland we easily caught a songthaew to the bus station and opted to pay a little more to leave on the first class bus instead of waiting for the second class one which we were told “may be full”. Surely they could have phoned or something, but we didn't want to wait several hours anyway. The bus lunch stop was the usual cheap'n'tasty canteen food, but I opted to an unusual dish of very strong tasting salty fish which was actually disgusting. Oh well one out of so many isn't bad.
written by  The Happy Couple on April 28, 2009 from Ko Chang, Thailand

Arrival in Phuket
Ban Karon, Thailand
We had heard that Phuket was very expensive by Thai standards as the tourist industry is very developed there but, as we were there so see Joanne's friend, James, we thought we could up our budget a bit for a few days. We were wary when we arrived though and, sure enough a tuktuk driver pestered us and told us that we would not be able to get a songthaew because we had missed the last one to Ao Karon where we intended to stay. The tuktuk fare was much higher than anywhere we had been so far. Of course we knew he was lying, so we walked to the songthaew stop with our big bags, phoning ahead to book a room at Pineapple Guesthouse on the way. It cost us a mere 30 Baht for a half hour journey across the Island, although we weren't certain where we had to get off. Eventually the driver stopped and said “Ao Karon?” to us, so we got off. A couple of people hanging around on the street confirmed that we had got off maybe two kilometres too late. The tuktuk drivers wanted 100 Baht for this three-minute journey, whereas 100 Baht will get you right across Bangkok and back on a tuktuk. They were not prepared to negotiate a price. Enraged by their greed, we stomped off and managed the gruelling journey over the hill into the correct part of Ao Karon. Our hostel was OK, although the room was very hot. Later that evening we met up nearby to say hello to James, his girlfriend Wan, and her daughter, before heading home for an early night.
The next day I put in some blogging time while Joanne rescheduled our flights again. After paying $30 for each of us in Saigon, we had discovered that BA in Bangkok will actually change the tickets for free, so Joanne phoned them there, where they were very helpful and got the dates we wanted. New schedule follows this entry. That evening we went out for dinner with James, Wan, and her daughter again, to what they described as an authentic Thai place in Phuket town. Although Phuket is a very touristy island, the main town is really just a working city for “real” people. I liked the restaurant a lot; it was decorated with all sorts of unusual kitsch objects and the food was excellent. I opted for the local speciality on the menu and asked for it phet phet. When it arrived I realised it was the same strong dark salty fish I had chosen on the bus trip to Phuket from Ranong. This time, though, it was cooked in a really tasty very fiery sauce and the strong flavour of the fish actually worked really well, rather than being overpowering as it had been before.
Kitsch fish tank in restaurant
James owns a bike tour business and had suggested that we accompany him the following day, as he was running one tomorrow which wasn't full. We ascertained that it would not be too tough, because Joanne doesn't have much cycling experience, I'm no mountain biking expert, and we both felt our fitness level was well down from peak performance, and then we agreed that it would be a very nice thing to do. He said that he sets the level of the tour to the lowest ability in the group, unless it's a large group in which case he would take another guide with him and split according to ability. He didn't think his customers tomorrow were looking for much more than a gentle tour.
written by  The Happy Couple on April 30, 2009 from Ban Karon, Thailand

Latest Itinerary
Ban Karon, Thailand
These are our remaining flights as Joanne rescheduled them in Phuket.
The South American leg of our trip has shrunk so much now that we may be forced to reduce it to highlights. So the original American plan is completely out of the window at the moment. It's certainly impossible to make the overland trip we were planning, so our options are re-route to fly home from Rio, take several internal flights, or somehow keep travelling for longer.....
WED 20MAY Bangkok TH Mumbai IN
THU 02JUL DELHI IN TOKYO JP
SAT 18JUL TOKYO JP BEIJING CN
SAT 15AUG HONG KONG HK Auckland NZ
THU 03SEP Auckland NZ SANTIAGO CL
SUN 06SEP SANTIAGO CL EASTER ISLAND CL
WED 09SEP EASTER ISLAND CL SANTIAGO CL
FRI 25SEP SANTIAGO CL RIO JANEIRO RJ
SAT 28NOV SAN FRANCISCO CA LONDON GB
written by  The Happy Couple on April 30, 2009 from Ban Karon, Thailand

Amazing Bike Tour round Ko Yao Noi
Ko Yao Noi, Thailand
Nice day for a cycle
Bringing up the rear
James picked us up first thing in his minivan, then collected Imran and Nanee, a nice couple from Singapore, on the way to Ko Yao Noi, a small island in Phang Nga Bay, near to Phuket. The tour around the island was at a nice sedate pace and the terrain was very easy, with only a little bit of off-road. The island was mostly flat as well, but the girls struggled a little bit on the few hills we encountered. James, Imran, and I, of course, stayed on our bikes all the way up the hills, after all we are men, but the girls ended every upward hill with a push. Joanne seemed to master the 18 gears, which was an improvement on the last time we had been on a mountain bike together. It was a real pleasure to ride on a decent bike again, after all the rubbish tiny flimsy gearless Chinese bikes we had endured so far on the trip, and I pictured much more cycling from now on, and on our return from the trip.
Joanne
Whole team
I think the girls struggled a little bit on most of the downhill sections as well because, while James and I were whooshing down at high speed, we inevitably had to wait for a few minutes at the bottom for the others to catch up. I think Imran was just hanging back to look after Nanee and give her advice. Then on our final descent, disaster! Nanee took a tumble, although I didn't think she had been travelling all that fast. I stopped but Joanne told me to continue ahead and fetch James. James was waiting at the side to get some action photos as the group came around the bend and had started to wonder where everyone was. When I told him someone had fallen, he rushed to her rescue and immediately produced his medical kit. Luckily it wasn't at all serious, although she did have a nasty gravel burn that must have stung, but she put on a brave face nonetheless.
James goes to work
Check that view!
On the way back I spoke to Imran and Nanee about Singapore. They seemed to love living there, but mostly because the rest of South East Asia was in their back garden. I asked if they would recommended Singapore for a tourist visit, and they both said that they wouldn't really, unless you wanted to go shopping. They were actually on their honeymoon as well, so we all congratulated each other on getting married. They hoped to go to Europe some time soon, but found it very hard to justify the expense when they can go to Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and so on, all within a couple of hours flying.
Imran
Nanee
Afterwards, James told us his business was struggling to get properly off the ground, reckoning that the combined problems of the airport barricading last year, combined with the current economic crisis, made it almost impossible to do particularly well in the tourist industry in Thailand at the moment. I can only hope that things pick up for him. Joanne and James had met while working as Dive Masters on a live-aboard dive boat in Australia. James had been working in diving before he started the bike tour business, and was picking up some extra work again until his own business gathered a bit more momentum. Joanne told him that we were planning to go diving in Ko Tao, as it was reportedly the cheapest place to die in Thailand, and certainly has a reasonable reputation, getting more people qualified to dive than any other place in the world apart from Cairns in Australia.
Friends reunited
He told us that the truth was, the diving there was not great, although it was perfectly adequate for people who were just learning. The best diving in Thailand, he explained, was on the Andaman Coast, not the Gulf of Thailand, in fact it was amongst the best in the world. He had already told us he could get a decent discount from the company he worked for, for a six-day live-aboard expedition, but it was really still far outside our planned budget. In the end he made it sound so great that we started thinking about, and Joanne reckoned it would be a “once in a lifetime” opportunity. Later that evening he called and said there was now another option to make it cheaper by cutting down the length of the trip because a couple of people were leaving for the trip late, so were being taken out by speedboat the day after the live-aboard left. Finally we cracked and agreed to go along. It was Joanne's “opportunity of a lifetime” that had really sold me. We decided our excuse would be to make it an early birthday present, although I'd had no intention of spending anything like that, but it made us both feel better.
written by  The Happy Couple on May 1, 2009 from Ko Yao Noi, Thailand

Prepare to dive!
Ban Karon, Thailand
It was pouring with rain in Phuket. James had agreed with me (and the Ko Changers) that the monsoon had come early. My ear infection from Songkran had still not completely cleared, so James recommended an English-speaking dive-savvy doctor and we went along to see him. He said there was still some inflammation in a shallow part of my ear canal, but all around the membrane was fine, and the membrane itself was clear, so he gave me permission to dive. I understand such visits are necessary for insurance purposes, but it was good to get the peace of mind; I did not want to be stuck on a boat for five days with nothing to do while everyone else had fun diving, especially after shelling out much more than we could realistically afford for the trip.
Later in the day, Joanne started feeling really unwell. Her stomach hasn't been great for much of the trip, whereas I think mine has been behaving better than at home (increasing size, notwithstanding), but this was apparently considerably worse than usual. Joanne sent a text to James asking what to do if she still felt unwell in the morning, but it was obvious we were putting James in a bit of a position; some late-comers were not able to get on the trip because we had taken the last two spaces, and it would be almost impossible to fill them with only about twelve hours to go before the morning pick-up. We decided we would go anyway and hope Joanne was OK in the morning, or that she would improve soon after we got on the boat.
written by  The Happy Couple on May 2, 2009 from Ban Karon, Thailand

Some missed videos
Similan Islands, Thailand
I've been unable to upload any videos for a while. I'm not sure why, but I can again, so here are a couple. You can find the rest on Youtube if you click here: http://www.youtube.com/cosmologinaut
written by  The Happy Couple on May 5, 2009 from Similan Islands, Thailand

Diving in the Similan Islands
Similan Islands, Thailand
We didn't get much sleep the night before we left for diving as the room was incredibly hot. We've been saving money by not getting air-conditioning, but recently we had been in quite a lot of places with small wall-mounted fans instead of big ceiling fans, which was making me think twice about it. I woke up quite unhappy from lack of sleep, and very anxious about the diving. This was top-end diving and I was a relative rookie diver, with only about 35 dives under my belt. I hadn't enjoyed the diving in Cambodia, and I was still not convinced that diving was “my thing”. I still wanted to dive for Joanne's sake, who was thankfully feeling much better, but I was actually feeling irrationally scared. Just lack of sleep I think, but now I really was not looking forward to it.
The minibus picked us up early at the hotel, and we discovered the two others we were joining are quite senior UN personnel, who talked incessantly on the way to the port. I had hoped to get some more sleep on the journey so I now became even more unhappy, and now had the additional worry that we would also not fit in socially: everyone on the boat would be high-flyers and realise that we were just faking it. We were backpackers at the moment for goodness' sake, what were we doing getting into something like this? It would be us and the rich and famous! When we arrived at the port, Jeff and Catherine introduced themselves properly and Jeff was happy to join me in the urgent search for coffee, which immediately made me warm to him. At least I had something in common with these people. We were expecting to miss one dive on this, the second day of everyone else's trip, but it took a long time for the speed boat to get organised, and Jeff began to complain that he wanted to get at least one dive in today. The most dives I had previously attempted in one day was three, which Joanne had found quite tiring, but this trip was intensive: four dives a day. Jeff and Catherine had originally been scheduled to go on a trip that day, but it had overbooked, so the dive companies had got together and cobbled together an arrangement whereby one company would speedboat them out to their live-aboard with their group, and another company would dinghy them (now us, too) from that boat onto the one they would be diving from.
The speedboat was horrible. The sea was quite choppy and Jeff, who seemed to know something about speedboats, reckoned that the captain had not a clue how to use the something-or-other [I can't remember what]. Most people half-fell asleep not long after getting on the boat, and most of the rest just looked green and unhappy. Joanne was in the latter group, complaining that she felt terrible and couldn't take any more. As far as sickness goes, I actually felt fine, but I have not suffered from motion sickness at all really since I was a child. The only problem I was having was that every time the driver judged the whotsname wrong, we took off from the crest of one wave and crashed down onto the next one. These things must have impressively strong hulls, however my back is not so well designed and it every time this happened I could feel my vertebrae crushing closer together. After over an hour of this, the captain said called over one of the dive masters, who announced to the group that we were not able to go on because they had just received word from the live-aboard that the wind and the waves was terrible where we were heading, so the captain had decided we could not risk it. The speedboat turned around and started heading back to land. I wondered what would happen to the plan. At least we hadn't paid anything yet, I thought, but then I realised that I was also feeling very disappointed and that I had been sitting there on the speedboat getting used to the idea of the trip, and actually starting to look forward to it. Joanne told us later that, at this point, she had thought “hooray, dry land, let's go back!”. But then a miracle happened, or at least something rather unexpected: the captain turned the boat around again and started heading back towards open sea. “The captain has decided to risk it after all since we're so close, but we might need to go a bit slower” said the dive master.
After a total of over 90 minutes of thump-thump-thump against the waves we got to the live-aboard, which was floating near a small rocky island. The South Siam was quite a big boat, already full of people in various stages of wetsuitedness. Someone barked orders at the new arrivals (except people for the Colona, he said) to quickly write their name there get their gear there get ready there blah blah blah. I was starting to become a bit anxious again; would I be able to remember how to put my kit together, especially if we're expected to work that fast. After ten minutes or so a dinghy buzzed over from a nearby boat, which I noticed was called the Colona. The four of us were herded into the dinghy, but it was really quite difficult to get into the thing. The roughness of the sea had not been particularly noticeable on the big South Siam, and when we made the difficult transition onto the Colona Joanne complained that she was feeling sea-sick again because the Colona was small enough to be buffeted from side to side by the waves. Soon after we were on board, the captain moved the ship around to the other side of the small island and the rocking subsided a bit. Joanne felt sea sick for the rest of the day though.
Super turtle!
Swiss couple on the dry deck
Only the ship crew were around, so we realised that we had indeed missed the second dive of the day. At least it gave us some time to settle in to our rooms and relax a little without needing to get orders barked at us. Not long after we were back on deck the boat swept back around the island where people started climbing in from the water. The two dive masters introduced themselves as Torren and Steve and invited us to help ourselves to lunch which was just being laid out. As they dried off enough to come up to the dry deck, we met the other divers filing in for their lunch. It was too many names for me to remember in one go, but over the next few days we had a pleasant time getting to know them a bit better. There was another Michael, who had tattoos of Buddha and an om, so he clearly liked things eastern, and with him, his girlfriend [whose name I've forgotten], both Swiss. There was Gill from England, who told me that he had won this trip in a photography competition, so we weren't the only “fakes”; he was constantly lugging huge amounts of apparatus around with him because he was a professional photographer, and the waterproof casing for his rig made it even bigger. There was a German guy called Volker who was suffering from a cold and bad ears meaning that he was unable to dive for most of the trip, so he looked miserable most of the time but cheered up when he had a few beers and talked about his travels; he has travelled a lot.
Catherine on the dry deck
There was Weijin, according to Steve and Torren, the only good Chinese diver. She slept almost constantly in between dives, although she was trying to study for her Rescue Diver course, so I assume it's not very interesting. Then there was Alexia the South African whose parents were from "Rhodesia". And finally Mimi and Sophie, a Quebecoise pair who Joanne judged from their tactile relationship were probably a couple. Catherine was also Quebecoise and Jeff was from Chicago, but had been living in Geneva for many years, and his children never knew America. By the end of the trip they had me convinced that a career in the UN would not be something to knock back. I think I got on with the two of them best out of the lot, and I don't think that it was just because we'd started off in the same boat together; they were both really nice. The underwater photos are all actually taken by Jeff, except for the turtle, which he lent me his camera for; several of them have a circular black boundry because he forgot to tell me that the wide-angle lens was attached and takes in some of the waterproof case if you don't zoom.
But we were not to be integrated in with the other divers yet: our first dive was to be an “orientation” dive with everyone else going with Steve and just the four of us led by Torren, who is American and seemed to be something of a narcissist; he liberally infused his pre-dive briefings with witticisms like “and you have nothing to worry about because Steve and I are the two best.... looking dive masters in Thailand”. However when he saw me looking a bit uncertain trying to attach my gear to the air cylinder, he came up and said “been a while has it?” which was exactly the sort of thing I'd been worried about all along. Joanne and I had gone diving a few weeks earlier in Cambodia, specifically as a refresher because we knew we were going to dive in Thailand, but it had obviously done no good. Then I realised that, although we had been taken through all the basic “skills” like clearing the mask if it floods, retrieving a dropped regulator (the device you put in your mouth which delivers the air), and what to do in an “out of air” emergency, out kit had been assembled for us then. All the other skills are essential, life-saving in an emergency, but they are not very difficult and, I find, so easy that they are impossible to forget. What I really need from a refresher course is “how to put your kit together”. I had the same problem when we went diving in Cuba several years before and I don't like it much because everyone else is an expert and this just makes you look like a complete novice even though you are supposed to be a licensed diver. But Torren didn't actually look too worried, he was just making fun of me. Then came the next stage of preparation before a dive, after you have put you kit together and put it on, you are trained that you should carry out “buddy checks”. You always dive with a “buddy” for safety (and fun, and so on, so goes the training manual). At this stage you are supposed to remember a short list of checks to carry out like making sure your buddy's air is turned on. The training manual suggest that you remember the list of tasks using the most ridiculous mnemonic I have ever heard, in fact at the time I was training to get my dive certification I told some of my friends that it would be easier remembering the actual list: Buoyancy, Weights, Release, Air, and Final-OK, than the supposedly helpful acronym. I tried, but could not remember it. Gavin, I have to say, wins the prize because I was able to remember his much more memorable, apparently, “Big Wankers Remember Acronyms Falsely” shortly after which Dorian's “Big Willies Rip And Fray” came to mind. It was much later that I remembered the awful original “Begin With Review And Friend”. Later Torren revealed one with a local twist: Bangkok Women Really Are Fellas. I thought of a few more, but none are appropriate here, suffice to say that one begins “Beautiful Women Require”.
Manta ray
The first dive was incredible. The water was 28C, and no sooner had we submerged than a huge manta ray passed within a few metres of the group. We were probably only five metres down. A bit further down and several more manta rays swam around us. I was very impressed, having never seen anything bigger than a barracuda on a dive before. We didn't go deeper than 20 metres, but we'd had a fantastic dive. When we came up Torren said “well that was some orientation dive, wasn't it?”. The next dive was in the same location and we saw manta rays again, but also sea cucumbers, and my personal favourite, an octopus. It was hunting and it kept changing its shape, colour, and texture, so that it looked like coral one second, sand the next, with brief flickers of octopus in between. It oozed from one location and shape to the next, while all around were fish, presumably its prey, that appeared to be completely hypnotised and staring at it. They were in its spell. And around the fish were a shoal of divers, equally hypnotised.
Someone diviing past brain coral
I could have watched the octopus for the entire dive, but Torren seemed keen to get on with the manta ray spotting. All these prize sightings were on top of a “usual” fantastic array of corals, tropical fish, crustaceans, and so on. I had really enjoyed these two amazing dives, but I still did not feel gripped by the obsession that most people who dive regularly, and certainly everyone on the boat , do. It occurred to me that diving is a bit like those Umbro books we used to get as children, where you tick off all the various things that you've seen, which are all worth different points; they came in many varieties: one book for birds, another for vehicles, another for trees, and many more. Diving is the same: after every dive people seem compelled to roll off everything the spotted on the dive and compare notes with each other, as well as their “best ever” spotting experiences. It's just the rules of the sport.
Joanne and me diving
Star fish
So for the record: manta rays (80 points for one, 150 points for several, 200 points because one swam really close past me); loads of sting rays (30 each); a couple of eagle rays (70 points each); puffer fish (20 points); box fish (20 points); octopus (50 points for one, but I'd give it 200); sea cucumbers (10 points, I'd give 30); leopard shark (100 points; all sharks are high-scorers, but this one is small); lion fish (50 points); scorpion fish (40 points); giant turtles (50 points, but 200 for swimming with one); tuna (40 points); porcupine fish (30 points, but I'd say 60); bat fish (20, but 200 if you swim in their shoal judging by the way Torren acted); loads of moray eels (25 points each); lobsters (30 points); and so on.
Giant anemone
OK, I'm being completely facetious, but this is really how it seemed to me. The points are inferred from how excited people get about their sightings and what people talk about. Obviously people have their own preferences too, hence my own scores, but there seems to be an agreed hierarchy of sightings. But the point is, I did see a huge variety of very interesting organisms, although my air was a bit lower than everyone else's on the dive where everybody saw a black-tipped reef shark at the point when Joanne (as my buddy) and I were just surfacing (250 points down – no fair!). The manta rays were beautiful and graceful, flapping slowly through the water, but my highlights were definitely the octopi, the porcupine fish, and the giant turtles.
Coral
The octopus I've already describe and I don't think I'll eat another one after that; they do taste delicious, but they are even better alive. Porcupine fish just look really cute, with square faces and big googly eyes they look a bit like boxer puppies or something, and on one night dive, where I buddied up with Catherine because Joanne wasn't feeling well, a porcupine fish followed us around for ages, hiding behind corals then reappearing. On that same dive we laughed (as far as you can underwater) at a bat fish which trailed along right behind Weijin for ages then started following me instead. This is apparently what bat fish do and Torren had decided to immerse himself in this feature by swimming with the shoal. He didn't tell anyone his plan and of course nobody else knew where he'd gone and we spent some time looking for him. When we came up someone said “That's the first dive I've been on where we've had to conduct a search and rescue for the dive master”.
Sting ray
“I was king of the bat fish” he said defensively. Last of my favourites are the giant turtles: they're just lovely. We saw one on the bottom, breaking up the corals with its fins then scooping the shards up to munch. It didn't look appetising at all. When we were surfacing another one swam past close to us and when we surfaced we saw why: one of the boat-hands was throwing pieces of banana into the water and the turtle was swimming around chomping them down. Having seen the other one munching on dry coral I can imagine how wonderful banana must taste to them, but wasn't this a little unethical? If you feed wild animals you change their behaviour and then they lose their fear of humans and forget how to look after themselves... forget all that! Because it wasn't shy of humans at all, a few of us took the opportunity to swim around with it. It was quite friendly and would swim right up to us. Apparently that's just the way they are, but I wasn't at all convinced that the banana played to part.
Giant turtle poses for Gil
Moray eel
The first night we were there, they played what I can only describe as a propaganda video about shark conservation and exploitation. Alexia said “I'm sure you played this last year” as she was now on her third same consecutive trip. “I play this on every trip”, replied Torren. It was the rather over-dramatic, I thought, tale of one man who wanted to start a “Save the Sharks” campaign, because he felt that they were not given fair treatment because of their unrepresentative bad public image, unlike seals, dolphins, or whales, which are all considered cute. Things could change, he points out, because in Jonah's day, whales were the baddies. He went to the Galápagos Islands and Ecuador (I think it was) to see how their fantastic shark protection laws worked, but while he was making his film they both diluted them when they came under pressure from the “shark finning” mafia, the arch villains, whose power base is Taiwan.
Nudibranch
This is why sharks are becoming extinct he reasoned: just the fin is taken to give the consumer “power” and the rest of the animal is thrown away. The figures are shocking: sharks are definitely on an extinction trajectory, so I agreed with the films's message, I just thought it was over-dramatised. Near the end of the film, there is a scene with him alone in hospital, the rest of his allies having abandoned the cause because of fears for their lives, and he has “flesh eating bug, Staphylococcus” caught from the tropical waters he was diving in, in search of sharks. If they don't amputate his legs, it may reach into his abdomen where there will be no stopping it. Not surprisingly the antibiotics work and he lives happily ever after, even if millions of sharks every year don't. There was some silver lining about pro-shark demonstrations in Ecuador, but I don't fancy the sharks' chances in the long run.
Lobster
Every day during the trip my hair seemed a bit shorter. I don't know if the salt water was causing the condition of the ends to get so bad that it was snapping, or if it was somehow encouraging it to knot up more so that it was becoming thicker and shorter, but after one dive I came up and couldn't take off my gear because one dreadlock was tangled fast around the valve of my air tank. Joanne was forced to tear me free, leaving behind a big chunk of hair. That one dreadlock is now significantly shorter than the rest, but I suspect all of them were getting tangled to a lesser degree throughout, and that's how my hair ended up several inches shorter by the end.
Puffer fish hides behind some coral
The food on the trip was also excellent. What a difference to any other “all inclusive” trips we've taken on our travels. When the cook (rarely) showed her face out of the kitchen, the two dive master insisted that we give her a round of applause, to which she looked very pleased and a little embarrassed.
Giant turtle swims past me
Giant turtle just after breathing
Not content with completely throwing our travel budget out of the window, Joanne and I decided to do a nitrox course while we were on the boat. Well, we might as well fill in our time between dives since the weather was so poor. It rained on three of the days so there was little opportunity to spend the time on the sun deck. In fact I never visited it, but Sophie managed to get quite badly burned during one of the brief sunny spells. Actually there were a few reasons for doing the course. One was slightly peer pressure: everyone else was already qualified to dive with nitrox or else doing the course, so every body except us would be diving with enriched air if we didn't do it too. In practice this meant that we wouldn't be able to go as deep or would not be able to stay down as long as everyone else, because nitrox reduces your exposure to nitrogen, which means that you can dive for deeper and longer without having the same risk of decompression sickness, or the bends.
Giant turtle escape Gil's spotlights
Another reason is that Joanne's main diving ambition is to dive in the Red Sea, where most of the good sites are at a depth that you really need to dive with enriched air to get the most out of it, so I thought we may as well get trained now, since that will probably be our next diving trip. Finally, it meant that we would be able to get the most of this trip, and a few people reported that they felt less physical strain on their bodies when there was less nitrogen in the mix. So we did it, and half of our dives were nitrox dives, and we are now both qualified to dive with enriched air. There's not really much to the course: in practice all you really need to know is that you have to check that the air mix is what it says on the label, and then to set your dive computer to match whatever mix you measured.
My poor toes
Giant turtle swallows a lump of banana
Unlike everyone else on the trip, we needed to hire all of our equipment, because we didn't want to be carrying it all around the world with us. Luckily James had organised that we could hire the equipment for free, but the dive computers were not included. Unfortunately the type of fins they had for hire do not fit me well. [Divers insist on calling flippers – fins and gas bottles – cylinders.
Giant turtle eats from Joanne's hand
For some reason they get very upset if you get it wrong. I've never been able to work that one out]. I've rented them before, but they've not been too bad, however this was really intensive diving and my feet suffered badly. After a couple of days people were saying “ow that looks sore”, but by the last full day of diving I was in agony and had to miss the last dive. I did the final dive of the trip, which was first thing the next morning because we had to be back early for Jeff's flight. To make up for that, there had been five dives in the one day two days previously. Five dives in day really is a crazy amount, and is really only possible if you are diving with nitrox. Five dives is really a bit too much in one day; it gets boring, and actually I think five days of diving in a row, even if they're not full days, is also too much. I would have been quite happy with three days. Gill who was on the freebee also said that he found his trip too long, but he had six days. So, the diving was excellent and I saw some beautiful, incredible things, but I still don't think I really have the passion for it. The rest of the people on that boat seem to only dive when they go on holiday: I know there are many people who go to another country, and all they experience of it are dive sites, dive resorts, and the places around dive resorts. It's too much! Diving is great, but it's not life.
Joanne and Catherine play with the giant turtle
written by  The Happy Couple on May 6, 2009 from Similan Islands, Thailand

A Swede, a Ladyboy, and Staphylococcus
After our final dive, we had a much more pleasant return journey on the Colona than the ride out on the speedboat had been. After we dropped Jeff off at the airport and some people off at their posh hotels, for example Jeff and Catherine had been staying at the Hilton, so Catherine was dropped there, we were dropped at our budget guesthouse. “Oh well, back to being backpackers, no more luxury” I said as we left and everyone wished me the best with my now very swollen toes. Back in the room I felt like I should shower to get the wounds clean, but when I came out I was in real agony. I couldn't even stand up. Joanne told me she had just been reading that you should not use hot water on swollen feet. I could not handle the pain, which was not subsiding. I thought I should maybe go to the doctor, although this seemed a bit of an over-reaction to a few abrasions, until I noticed that I was feeling a bit hotter than the room temperature merited. Thinking that this was a sign I may have some sort of infection I decided I really did have to go to the doctor.
I fought through the pain to get to my throbbing feet. I'm not being over-dramatic here: at the time it really was the most painful thing I could remember. Joanne supported me as I hobbled to the same doctor who had given me the all-clear to dive a few days previously. “The abrasions are infected with Staphylococcus” from the tropical water. I noted that he did not say “flesh eating” at any point, but he did agree it was serious if it was not treated with antibiotics. He did not seem overly concerned though, since that's exactly what he was prescribing me: antibiotics and antibiotic cream. My feet were so sore, and our plan was to leave the next day to go to Ko Phangan for the “world famous Full Moon Party” the day after that. I wasn't sure we would make it. I didn't even know if I'd be able to get to the bus, but decided to leave the decision until the next morning when I would have an idea how the treatment was working.
Back at our guesthouse there were a couple of guys, one Swedish one English, sitting outside drinking Hong Thong, a very cheap Thai “whisky” I had not yet tried. There are apparently a lot of Swedes in Phuket. They invited us to sit at their table and offered us some of their drink. It actually wasn't too bad, but the Swede was a true believer, an evangelist. He had clearly had a few already. He told us that he was being allowed to stay for free as long as he entertained people. He had a job in a nightclub which seemed to consist mostly of entertaining people. I got the impression his job was to get drunk and get other people pissed on cheap whisky, probably bought on expenses, and then take them along to the nightclub. Probably a nice job for about a week, but he had been doing it for several months. He had tale after tale of woe and I couldn't help think that Hong Thong might be playing a part: he had been swimming one day and he'd had his wallet, credit cards, and motorbike keys stolen from his clothes, but to make matter worse he had still done nothing about any of, except buy a new wallet. His bike was sitting unused and he still had no credit cards. His final crowning tale of disaster was that a few days previously (it was actually the day before we went diving – I had heard him telling some of the story to someone else the next morning) he had taken a gorgeous girl home only to discover there that she was in fact a man. “You're not gay if you didn't know, right?” he kept asking. What I don't understand is how you can live for months in Phuket, which is infamous for ladyboys, and still not be on guard if it's not your cup of tea. They were intent on buying another bottle of hong Thong and heading off to his club, so we made our excuses and hobbled up to bed.
written by  The Happy Couple on May 7, 2009 from Ban Karon, Thailand

Thanon Gai (Full Moan Party)
Ko Phangan, Thailand
Fire
The morning we were due to leave for Ko Phagnan and the “world famous” Full Moon Party, we were up early so I could work out whether my feet were up to me moving. It seemed the antibiotics had worked some magic and I was actually able to walk again and the swelling was noticeably down, so we caught the first Songthaew to the bus station, where we found out we could get a bus and ferry combined ticket to leave soon after. At the bus station I picked up an interesting looking banana parcel for the journey. It turned out to be very sweet fishy coconut stuff and sticky rice.
Fishy coconut
By the time we arrived in Ko Phagnan it was already quite late. The Full Moon Party is on Haad Rin (the beach), and our friend Freya had recommended a smaller less noisy beach, two bays up, called Haad Thien, which she said cost 50 Baht by boat from Haad Rin a couple of years ago. We found the boat taxis and asked how much it would be: 150 Baht if we waited until the boat was full, or 250 Baht per person if we wanted to go straight away. One of the reasons we had wanted to avoid staying away from Haad Rin was to save a bit of money because we expected the accommodation there to be very expensive round about the full moon, however paying 600 Baht return for the two of us was easily going to wipe out any gain in accommodation cost. We left our bags with a friendly Scottish guy working behind one of the bars on Haad Rin and went in search of a room locally.
Walking around Haad Rin town I recognised nothing from my last visit six years previously. I didn't remember there being all that much of a town, just a few restaurants and lots of beach huts, but the place seems to have undergone a period of massive development. And horror of horrors, there are lots of restaurants selling pizza and showing Friends or Family Guy. Just like Vang Vieng. Not a sign that things have developed in the right direction, I thought. We followed a road that should have taken us past some mangroves to the beach hut I stayed in before, but there were no mangroves, only large concrete buildings. The beach huts too, I suspect, have long been bulldozed. Nonetheless we found a reasonably cheap room at 350 Baht and headed back to the beach to get our bags and see what was going on there. I was reassured that there was still plenty of fluorescent art and people playing with fire on the beach, but I was not at all sure that the incredibly ubiquity of the buckets was a good thing.
Ko Phangan "culture"
We spent most of the next day being shocked how expensive everything is on Ko Phangan. When I was there last it was, and as far as I had known it still was, a backpacker-hippie kind of island. Now the prices are generally far above what a backpacker can afford. Transport around the island is ridiculously expensive and, unlike most of Thailand, there is no bartering: prices everywhere are fixed; as in price-fixing and cartels. The internet costs 180 Baht per hour, which is astonishing considering the very expensive Phuket only charges 60 Baht per hour, and the Rough Guide, which was only printed in November last year, said it would be 60 Baht on Ko Phangan too. It's 20 Baht per hour in Bangkok. All the souvenirs were also pricey, as were the food and the beer. Only buckets seemed a sensible purchase. I had read that Phuket was the most expensive place in Thailand but it seems that Ko Phangan has leaped-frogged by some margin in just the last year.
Miles of buckets
Fluoro!
In the early evening we watched them starting to set up for the party: row upon row, hundreds and hundreds, litres and litres of buckets. We left and returned later when we thought things would have got going. What a load of rubbish! Awful Moon Party, more like! I had been expecting lots of hippie types, more interested in dope and magic mushrooms that alcohol, wearing tie-dye, dancing to psychedelic trance and other similarly trippy electronic music, rambling on about crystals and Gaia if they stopped to chat. Instead it has been completely taken over by the mainstream: mindless drunken idiots sprawled all over the beach while hip-hop and other atrocious, not to mention totally inappropriate, boring mainstream music pounded out. Hardly anyone was dancing: almost the entire beach was covered with people sitting down in big groups, drinking buckets through straws.
Lights
No atmosphere at all. In an attempt to recapture the mood, we decided to experiment with a mushroom shake, after all they must be OK if they sell them behind the bar but, wary of warnings about them often being much stronger than people realise, we thought we should just share one. When after nearly an hour we felt nothing different, we decided it was safe to share a second one. Rather than it being so strong that we lost control or something, we still felt absolutely no effect. And they had not been cheap: 500 Baht each, but we had decided it would be worth it for this once-in-a-lifetime experience at the Full Moon Party. In fact it was yet another Ko Phangan rip-off. We re-joined the drunken hoards sitting on the beach, many of them now actually passed out in the sand. When we lost each other among the 30000 for half-an-hour, our already bad moods darkened further and we thought we should call it a night. Leaving the Full Moon Party early?! We should have been up all night; it should have been spiritual, sacred even, but instead it was like the main strip on Tenerife's Playa de las Americas: just a load of vomiting young people on a culture-free package holiday.
View of Haad Rin from "Mushie Mountain"
The next day I gave in and went into one of the internet places to upload some blog. I typed it in advance on the laptop to save some money. The place was almost empty, but the few people that came and left were all on Skype, and literally all of them were apologising for talking such a short time, complaining about the cost of the internet and Ko Phangan in general, and saying that they were leaving the island as soon as possible. I overheard one girl saying “It was fun, but there are just thousands of white people here, so I'm going to leave as soon as I can”.
We thought we'd try an discover the “real” Ko Phangan, starting off with the place Freya had recommended, before making our way north to the non-touristy part of the island, so the next day we gritted our teeth and took the expensive boat to Haad Thien. What a mistake! The beach there was awful: lots of little pebbles rather than sand, which wasn't very nice for Joanne, but my feet were preventing me from going in the water anyway. Everyone on the beach was complaining how expensive the island is, and saying that they would definitely never return to the island, and maybe not again to Thailand. I started to wonder if the drop in tourism the Thais are complaining about isn't actually to do with any political problems or the airport blockade, but in fact down to them having become very greedy and overcharging. To be fair Thailand's islands are still slightly slightly cheaper than Europe and it probably doesn't seem expensive if you are on a short holiday, but one of the great things about Thailand used to be what good value it was; in the Islands it is no longer at all the case.
Commercial Hippie nonsense
Our humble abode in Haad Thien
Haad Thien turned out to be even more expensive that Haad Rin. It was full of “wellness centres”, yoga classes, and ayurvedic massage. Here was the hippie scene I had been looking for, still surviving as a grotesque commercialised pre-packaged theme-park version of what I imagine it once was. Most of the accommodation has a sign up saying that people who are fasting have to pay double the normal room rate. And the whole place was swarming with dengue mosquitoes. I eventually found a reasonably cheap wooden shack (at least they still have the beach huts!) and we headed back down to the beach in search of power for the laptop, since our accommodation had none. In one wellness centre we found power.
Scorpion in the toilet
They seemed to specialise in wheat grass and they had loads of very expensive drinks on the menu for “energizing”, “cleansing”, etc, and a group of Americans at the next table were talking very earnestly about things like energy, nature, and peace until a large insect flew into the restaurant whereupon they all started screaming “Kill it! Kill it!” to the barman. A Scanner Darkly came to mind. When we got back to our place Joanne spotted a very large spider spider in our hut. Despite not paying thousands of Baht to sit around talking about the beauty of nature, I elected not to kill the spider but to sweep it out the hut and off the patio into the forest, while Joanne waited in the restaurant. When we returned we were greeted by a very large cockroach crawling under the door. I flushed that down the hole in the bathroom floor where the shower drains. Later that night I found a scorpion in the toilet, but did not tell Joanne about that. Periodically, throughout the night, what must have been a very large gecko sitting on our roof called out very loudly.
Big spider
Dengue mosquito (note stripes)
In the morning we got ready pretty quickly, so that we would not miss our chance to leave the bay. I noticed that the same spider had found its way back from the forest floor to just above the bed; or else a very similar spider had appeared. Joanne had not noticed it so I made sure I stood in between her and the spider at every opportunity and we got completely packed and ready to leave without her noticing it. The first she will know of it is when she reads this. We caught the boat, which hung around until he had nine people in it, but he still did not lower the per person fare. By this time we had decided not to bother with the north of the island because, even if it is “non-touristy” we were still going to have to pay over the odds to get there and back, and we were both pretty sick of the island anyway. We caught a songthaew towards the port and once we were moving I said to everyone “hands up who'll be coming back to Ko Phangan in the future”, to which the answer was a resounding “no way”. One couple said that they have been travelling all over Thailand and Ko Phangan is the worst place they've been. They had been on Ko Samui previously, which is infamously expensive and over-developed, but they said they had found it much cheaper. How is it that Ko Phangan prices can overtake both Phuket and Samui, which are known for being overpriced, yet the guide books are still describing it as a “backpacker haven”? I hope they set the record straight in the next editions. It's just not for backpackers any more.
Lovely breakfast in Haad Thien
written by  The Happy Couple on May 12, 2009 from Ko Phangan, Thailand

Back in Bangkok
We were a bit apprehensive about our transport from Ko Phangan back to Bangkok because the end point of our boat-bus combo was Khaosan Road, and after all the stories we had heard about people being robbed heading south from Khaosan, we were concerned that it would be the same heading north to there. We would have taken other transport but it was all full. We weren't as daft as some of the travellers we had met, to leave valuables in our hold luggage, but when we arrived and got booked into a place in Bangkok (well off Khaosan this time), Joanne discovered that her luggage had definitely been gone through; her belongings were all packed in a different way now. I discovered that I was missing clothes, but I soon realised that they probably just didn't come back from the last laundry we had done in Ko Phangan. This was a shame because I was already low on useful clothes, so losing a shirt, three t-shirts, and a pair of shorts was more than my mobile wardrobe could cope with.
We wanted to get the important stuff out of the way so we would have time to go somewhere else, or relax properly in Bangkok, so right after we checked in we headed off to the Indian Embassy to hand in our passports to get our newly approved visas stuck in place. The traffic was so bad getting there that we nearly missed the passport hand-in time and since we were so late we just decided to hang around that part of town until we could pick them up again, rather than sit in traffic all the way to Khaosan and back. Unfortunately there wasn't much to do in that part of town. The embassy is just round from Soi Cowboy, so we took a walk down there: closed “girly bars”, not very exciting. In fact all round that area was the same. After a few boring hours we collected our passports with Indian visas and returned to the Khaosan Road area. It was nice to be back in Bangkok with Bangkok prices: 10 Baht for a chicken kebab instead of 20 or 30; 20 for a coffee instead of 50; 20 Baht per hour internet; the Thai people seem much friendlier in Bangkok than the islands as well. I was happy to be back there.
Thai Telly Tubbies (Telly Skinnies?) near Indian Embassy
We had intended taking a boat trip up the river, or a canal trip; we had thought about going to Patpong to see one of the infamous ping pong shows; we had thought about going on a couple of day trips, or going to another island like big Ko Chang, but my feet weren't really ready for beaches, so the island was out, and we just didn't get around to the rest. We shouldn't have been in Bangkok for so long at the end of our trip, but the Thai islands had been a big disappointment and we wanted to leave Thailand early, however BA told us we could not reschedule our flight as the earlier ones were full. I quite like just hanging around Bangkok though, and I had a lot of blogging to catch up on, so that's what I did. And a bit too much drinking, One night when Joanne was in bed with stomach problems again, I got chatting to a Swedish guy and two Swiss girls, which turned into another night of flavoured tobacco in a shisha. The next night Joanne and I had a few drinks with a Japanese guy, an English guy, a Lithuanian, and a Polish guy, The first three faded in that order, but we ended up staying up most of the night with the Pole. The following night we were just coming right when we were passing the same bar, and there was Bart the Pole. So we very stupidly stayed up even later drinking with him again. If he is a typical example then Polish people can certainly drink!
A Swede and two Swiss girls
The next day we tried to make ourselves feel better by going for a Mexican meal which wasn't too bad, but all the things I consider central to Mexican food like salsa and guacamole were listed as “extras” you had to pay more for. So it turned out very dear. Just as we were leaving the restaurant we bumped into Ben, the French guy who'd been staying in our guesthouse on Ko Chang. It never ceases to amaze me how many people we see again and again. That day we also got an email from the Dutch girls, Sia and Willemijn, saying that they had been to Ko Tao and Phuket, and that they had found Ko Tao very expensive and Phuket cheap, which was a relief because Ko Tao was one of out first choices for moving on from Ko Phangan, but someone had warned us that it was dear too. We took a few days with no alcohol and I caught up with lots of blogging, but we didn't do anything properly touristy like we'd planned. It rained heavily every single day we were back there.
Frozen margarita with our mexican meal
Finally the day of our flight to India arrived. We went round the book vendors trying to off-load our travel guides. We got a (quite stingy) discount on a Hindi, Urdu, and Bengali phrase book in exchange for our Thailand Lonely Planet, but nobody would offer us anything at all for our Rough Guide to South East Asia. I just can't understand it at all. Nobody would offer us a Baht. Some people laughed and said “Only want Lonely Planet”. This is all the more infuriating when these are the same vendors we had searched carefully for a Rough Guide to India, but had to make do with the Lonely Planet, which I really did not want to do. In the end we had to donate it to our hotel library. One of our last tasks in Thailand was to post home some more stuff. This time it went much more smoothly than in Laos. Unfortunately I had been blogging so much that I hadn't had time to buy many people presents, but there are plenty more countries for that!
Quail eggs
Joanne had booked the shuttle bus to the airport “to make things easier”. It was absolutely crammed full. More proof, I thought, that the more you pay, the worse things usually are. This was 150 Baht, but the nice local bus would only have cost 20 Baht, and we would have been travelling with Thais and it wouldn't have left 20 minutes late because of picking up all of the other tourists after us. They played Dire Straits the whole way to the airport to remind us that we were all white.
At the airport I was ready with my VAT refund form from the purchase of the mini-laptop. I had the “Credit card Refund” box ticked, as well as all my credit card details filled it, the stamp from the shop, and the stamp from the office before you go trough customs. When we finally made it to the VAT refund desk on the other side, the woman just handed me over the cash, completely ignoring all I had done to avoid this. Thai Baht, just as we are about to leave Thailand. What was I supposed to do with it? So I was forced to spend all my VAT refund and the rest of our remaining money on a litre of Glen Livet from the duty free. I had been missing real whisky so this was the perfect excuse!
On the plane, the guy next to me was sniffing constantly throughout the flight. He looked really unwell. Then they handed out swine flu declarations for us to sign, stating that we had not been in Mexico, USA, UK, or Spain in the last seven days, and that you are not feeling unwell; otherwise you would be required to submit to a full medical examination on arrival in India. I wonder if the guy next to me admitted to feeling a bit under the weather. When we did land in India, we still needed to queue to have our declarations stamped by medical staff, who were checking what we'd written and presumably dragging people off for full check-ups where required.
written by  The Happy Couple on May 19, 2009 from Bangkok, Thailand

Arrival in India
Mumbai, India
We had read in our new Lonely Planet that Mumbai is relatively expensive, so we didn't want to hang around there too long. Also last time I'd been in India, I didn't go to Mumbai but the Indians I asked in Delhi said there is no reason to go to Mumbai, it's just crowded and polluted; considering the state of Delhi this sounded quite horrifying. Anyway, the plane arrived late enough that we weren't going to have to pay the pre-5am surcharges for the taxi that we'd read about, however we decided to wait about in the airport until a more sociable time. There was nothing at all to do at the airport so at 7am we set off for our hotel. Joanne was a bit worried about coming to India so she had done quite a bit of online research to ensure we found suitable accommodation. Most of the even vaguely budget options in Mumbai seemed to receive consistently bad reviews: “typical Indian place, full of bedbugs and cockroaches”, that sort of thing. Joanne had sorted through them all and come up with the one budget place which had received a good average score: The Salvation Army Red Shield Guesthouse. When we arrived I tipped the driver 25 Rupees, which was nearly ten percent of the fare, but the driver just took it an grumbled, then, before we got in the door of the hotel, we were accosted outside by a young Indian man who asked us if we wanted to appear as extras in a Bollywood production. I was a bit suspicious so I asked for some identification, which he produced in the form of a posh business card: “Bollystars, specialising in Westerners”. We explained that we were exhausted from an overnight flight, so would not be doing anything but sleeping today. He told us that tomorrow would be fine, so we agreed to phone him if we felt up to it. Inside, we agreed it sounded like fun so we would phone him later. At the check-in we were first ignored, then told brusquely to wait in the dining hall. A sign said “Check out 9am. Check in 10am”, which meant that we had to wait for about two hours, nodding off, leaning on our bags, while around us people ate breakfast. Every single person who came into the hall looked miserable and nobody was talking to anyone else. So far all the Indians we'd dealt with had been cold and unfriendly and now it seemed as if the tourists were all going to be the same. And if the dining hall and breakfast were anything to go by, this place wasn't going to be very nice.
While we were waiting, another waiting couple came into the dining room, but we were determined not to let them jump the queue. Then when people started to check out, we watched for any couples leaving, who might have had a double room rather than the dorm. It wasn't looking good until the two English boys who had been two shacks up from us in Don Det, having motorbiked through half of Laos, walked into the dining room. When we had said goodbye to them in Don Det, they had said “maybe bump into you in India”; I had thought “don't be daft, India is a huge country, it's not like Laos or Vietnam”, but here they were in the first place we turned up in India. It was their last day in India and as luck would have it, they were vacating a double room. “You might want to get them to clean it before you move in”, one of them said. After they left, Joanne said “Johnny's skin is looking bad isn't it?”, and so it was, but we put it down to them living a rather unhealthy lifestyle. We went back up to the desk and the grumpy concierge said I could look at the room to decide if we wanted it. The boys were not kidding: what a mess! There were socks all over the room (the room was honking), paper and plastic rubbish everywhere, a wet towel on one bed, and even though drinking (and drugs, etc.) are against Sally Army rules, there was an empty litre bottle of whisky. Back at the desk, I said we'd take it, but that it needed cleaned. “Don't worry, the boy will clean it now”, he said, as a man of at least fifty, with a mop, collected the keys. “Boy” is presumably used by Hindu chauvinists to refer to lower caste employees in exactly the same way as it was used in Apartheid South Africa (and still is to some extent, by racist whites there). He did an impressively quick job cleaning up the room, but it still smelled of socks a bit when we moved in. Exhausted, we decided we deserved a Glen Livet, and we too broke the rules by having a wee whisky to help us catch up on lost sleep. But this is Asia, so of course there was a building site nearby, in this case people were banging the floor above with mallets (it sounded like) all morning, so we had to abandon the idea of sleep and settled for a shower instead. The shower room / toilet opposite our bedroom was awful: it was very dirty by the (SE Asian) standards we were used to, and not all that clean by Indian standards, as I remembered them; neither the sink nor the shower could be coaxed into producing any water; and even the toilet did not flush. I believe this was our “private” bathroom. The one next door did have a flushing toilet, but no bin for the paper, which blocks toilets all over Asia, and the shower produced only a trickle. A bit further around the floor we found one with a functioning toilet and shower, so we were at least able to get clean.
At lunch time we returned to the dining room where, having seen breakfast, I was not expecting much for lunch, but it was included with our very pricey Rs600 room, so we were going to eat it. It turned out to be very nice actually. The other couple who had been waiting for a room had also checked in, but had only been able to get dorm space. Matthew and Jessica had travelled quite extensively in India already and reassured us that Mumbai did seem to be much more expensive than anywhere else they had been. I hadn't remembered people being as unpleasant as every Indian we had so far dealt with, so I said “Indians aren't typically like that concierge are they?”, to which Matthew replied “Well I don't want to put you off, but lots are; not all, but they ALL try to rip you off, which makes it quite difficult to trust people or befriend them”. After lunch I decided to make use of the internet facilities in the guesthouse, where I was amazed to discover that you are required to produce your passport before and after using the internet. Indian bureaucracy. I headed out to check out the neighbourhood and look for somewhere to get SIM cards, leaving Joanne behind to get some sleep. Immediately children start hassling me for money. I decided to see if I could find somewhere to drink because, apart from anything else, my friend, John, who I last went to India with was sending me texts asking if I'd yet had a strong beer, so I felt duty-bound. I found a rather nice looking cafe, called Leopolds, of the sort I did not know existed in India after the last trip, and went in to order a beer. There were more whites in one place than I saw the whole time I was in Delhi before. Unfortunately they did not have any strong beers on the menu. Indian licensing laws divide beer into “mild”, which has “no more than 4.5% alcohol”, and strong, which has “between 4.5% and 8% alcohol”, yet they cost almost the same. I had not checked the cost, so perusing the menu as I drank my beer, I got quite a shock when I saw that it cost £2.80 and decided to find somewhere less pretentious. Only when the bill arrived did I find out that the cost on the menu excluded tax and service, which hiked the price up to trendy Glasgow bar levels. Later I discovered that Leopolds had been one of the targets in November's Mumbai attacks, from which there are still bullet holes in the walls, although I didn't notice them. I left and discovered just two doors up and place much more like the Indian drinking dens I remembered: no whites, no women, no attractive décor, no atmosphere, and the general appearance of a dirty cafe, rather than a pub, oozing depression from every dingy corner. This was more like it! They did have strong beer, which cost less than half what Leopolds charged for the weak beer before tax and service, so I had two of them in John's name, and a delicious and cheap stuffed nan bread. On the way back to the hotel I spotted a stall advertising SIM cards, so I went over to purchase a couple of Indian SIMs to save on texts and calls. Amazingly they required for each of us, a photo, copies of our passports and Indian visas, and a hotel bill. Just for a SIM card! Helpfully, the guy at the kiosk told me I could “bring them later in the day, or the next day, but definitely no more than five days”, so I got the SIM cards and went back to the hotel where we phoned Bollystars to confirm we'd be taking part the next day, then I slept for fifteen hours, yet still had a hangover when I woke. Indian strong beer.
Strong beer
Having spent a bit more time in India since that first day, I can add a bit more. India was a big change after Thailand, where people are very friendly and warm, in fact the same is true of most of SE Asia. Our experience of India so far is that people are very cold and unfriendly and Matthew is right about them always trying to rip you off. In SE Asia I was cheated maybe twice in nearly four months; in India I have been cheated several times every day, and each day you could lose count of the number of times people try to cheat you, and they don't even bother to smile while they're doing it. Yet this was not my experience last time, however from this short visit they seem to be a nation of cheats, queue jumpers, and litter bugs. The place is filthy: rubbish is everywhere, and nothing ever seems to be clean; toilets are filthy, and it's often hard to find running water to wash your hands, but you can forget about soap unless you have your own; and of course depressing poverty is everywhere. Yet there is still something compelling about the country, although I've not really pinned it down yet; the madness, the busyness, the challenges are all part of it, but I'm sure there's something else apart (obviously) from all the beautiful architecture. We'll be returning to India soon, so hopefully I'll be able to put my finger on it then; of course I'll then have to disinfect my finger with alcohol gel!
More strong beer!
written by  The Happy Couple on May 20, 2009 from Mumbai, India

Bollywood Stars!
Mumbai, India
We were up early for our Bollywood appointment. I was hungover from the strong beer and Joanne had been bitten all over by bed bugs, despite the fact she had slept in her silk sleeping bag liner, which usually protects against insect attacks. Joanne counted nearly 50 bites. Now we realised why Johnny's skin was looking so bad: his face had been covered in bedbug bites. While getting ready to go, Joanne noticed something on the floor. Is it a bat? Yes it is! Rather than wake it up and risk it biting us and giving us rabies, we decided to leave it there, assuming it would be gone by the time we returned, after all we were expecting to be back after dark, by which time it would be out hunting. Our pick-up time meant that we would miss breakfast at the guesthouse, but we had been promised free food and water on top of the Rs500 we would earn for our day's work.
Dead bat in our room
We were picked up on time by a minder in a taxi, arriving outside our guesthouse with the scout who spotted us the day before. Joanne asked him if she was still OK to work, as she had several bites on her face, and two below her left eye were starting to make her look like she had a black eye. He said it was no problem and they dropped us at the Central Train Station, where we met the three other Westerners working as extras with us: three Dutch school-leavers, one boy and two girls. Our minder got us tickets for “general class” and we got on the train. The train was busy. I gather Indian train are almost always busy, after all there are an awful lot of people in India, so we squashed into the carriage, and by a small miracle we managed to get seats. Rather than squashing the rest of us up more, one of the Dutch girls, Milou, sat diagonally opposite us all, clinging onto some European idea of personal space. Of course at the next station more people poured on the train, some squashing in next to us, some squashing in next to Milou. The Dutch girls had obviously not done any research into acceptable dress in India, or even read the “Women Travellers” or “Culture” section in their guidebook. If they had they would have known that, for example, you are likely to attract a lot of attention if you expose your shoulders. In Milou's case she was wearing a spaghetti strap top, which was also very low cut. So shoulders and and tits exposed, here she was sitting on her own in general class on a rush hour Mumbai train. As the men filed on and sat around her they took turns staring right at her cleavage. In the West, the top would have had the same effect on men, of course, except that we would have taken quick furtive glances, but that isn't the way it works in India: the men just sit there a gawp. As the train got busier, the men next to her really started staring right down her top, then the men on each side appeared to be afflicted with arm problems that needed rubbing. Mere circumstance, of course, would have it that the problematic part of their arms was located right next to her breast on the men's respective sides. Just as she swatted one set of probing fingers away and shifted to prevent another attack, the one on the other side would grasp his chance. I felt very sorry for her but I couldn't help also thinking “what a silly girl”. In India this behaviour is known as “Eve Teasing”, and this kind of sexual harassment is quite common in crowded places, particularly trains. While not really considered a serious sexual assault in Western culture, Indian men seem to see this as quite innocent. Of course any guide book about India warns about this, and explains that you can reduce the risks by dressing conservatively. Being white probably makes you more of a target, but Indian women are also victim to such behaviour. When we stopped at a station and our minder indicated it was our stop, Milou made an understandable bolt for the door, and as we got on to the platform and I was thinking “poor silly girl” again, Joanne said “Oh!” and looked back scowling. Apparently someone had just groped her bottom, despite her conservative dress. Less than 24 hours there and I was already brewing a strong dislike for India and Indians.
Behind the scenes
Our fabulous changing room
We arrived at the set and I started to become slightly suspicious about the “Bollywood” credentials of the film company. It was a screen set alright, but it looked very basic, whereas I had been under the impression that Bollywood was all about big productions. As soon as we entered the place a pushy man I assumed to be gay took custody of us, leaving our minder behind. Thankfully he arranged for plates of food to be brought to us, so at least we had breakfast. He seemed in a hurry and, before we had really finished, ushered us to the dressing area, which was really just a small room in a concrete hut.
The Dutch enjoying their breakfast
We were to be Hare Krishnas; the structure on one side of the set was a Hare Krishna temple, it was explained. What a load of Europeans were doing as Hare Krishnas in India was left to our imaginations; apparently they just like to give their productions an “international feel” by having some whites in the background. The girls were dressed in Saris, and the Dutch boy and I were put into wrap-around trousers and long shirts. The finishing touch was a paper clip, dipped in yellow paint, then daubed on our foreheads between the eyebrows to create our religious markings. Then the true final touch: a little bag to place over our right hands, apparently an essential part of the Hare Krishna uniform. I've always wondered what they are for, and always joked that Hare Krishnas are avid Scrabble players, constantly shuffling letters in the bag, however these bags were empty. As soon as we were dressed we were urged onto the set. I was last dressed and I had apparently missed everyone else's first scene. My first, and the others' second required us to stand around outside a fake shop front, pretending to talk. I was a bit put out that I was asked to turn around and make conversation with Joanne, denying India a view of my face.
Hare Krishnas
Joanne with near black eye from bedbugs
To begin with it was very confusing and nobody really told us what was happening. But soon a pattern emerged: before the started filming each shot the director would shout “passing people” at which point we would all have to rush to corners just off set then, once everyone was in place, he would shout “rolling” then “passing” and we would all have to start walking across the set, and shortly after he would shout “action” and the real actors in the centre of the set would begin their scene. As if it wasn't absurd enough that this meant the same people appeared in the background of every single shot they filmed that day, including some easily recognisable white people, I'd have thought, when we got to the other side of the set, we would be asked to turned around and head back across the set in a slightly different direction, sometime crossing the set four times in the course of a thirty second clip.
Lights
Now I'm prepared to believe that the audience attention is so focused on the actors that they don't pay much attention to the passing street scene behind, but surely when a white Hare Krishna with dreadlocks walks by four times in one shot and appears in each other shot in one day's worth of filming, people are going to notice! That was our job for almost the whole day: lots of standing around in the hot sun between cuts, as the director and actors reviewed on monitors what had just been shot, before, more often than not, reshooting the same scene. The director is a perfectionist, one of the actors told us. As the day wore on everyone relaxed more and more and we spent some time chatting to the other, Indian, extras in between scenes. Most of them were extras full time, and they had been on this set for a couple of weeks already. They were very nice and friendly, which was a relief as we were beginning to get the impression that all Indians were unfriendly and unpleasant, and could not understand why we were not planning to return to the set the following day or, indeed, for the next several weeks. “We want to see lots more of India”, I explained.
Milou and Jessie with Indian extras
Nice Indian lady extra
During that day I realised that nobody in India has the slightest clue where Scotland is. They know England; they know South Africa, so Joanne was OK; they know Australia, New Zealand, and anywhere they are good at cricket. Actually, since a couple of Indians have told me that Scotland has qualified for something or other in cricket for the first time; could it be the World Cup? Seems unlikely, but apparently they have done something small in cricket recently, so a few Indians have now heard of the country. In Europe people say “yes Glasgow Celtic, Glasgow Rangers” when you say you are from Scotland; in South East Asia most people said “Braveheart”, but in India they only really watch Bollywood. I've now started saying “Scotch Whisky”, which is what people in Thailand new Scotland for, and which drops the penny for some Indians as they love whisky too, but so many of them don't drink I usually have to resort to “next door to England”.
The main actor from this episode
We finally got a lunch break about half past two after a particularly harrowing scene involving the actor appearing most that day, lifting a young boy on his shoulders to retrieve something from the shop roof. I'm sure all actors can allow themselves to indulge in prima donna behaviour from time to time, but this scene brought it all out. First of all, the young boy seems to be something of a star and was pampered terribly from the moment he appeared on location: he was constantly offered sweets and drinks, was having his costume and makeup re-arranged for him, and he was followed everywhere by flunkies carrying a parasol over him. I gathered the man who seemed to be playing his father is a big star, as he arrived just before his scene, was also followed everywhere with a parasol, and left immediately after. The boy was very badly behaved and we watched him have several tantrums, start crying, demand things be brought to him, and caused each of his scenes to be reshot several times. When it came to lifting the boy on his shoulders the “main” actor who seemed to be in every scene that day had clearly had enough. He didn't seem to be a big enough star to get the parasol treatment most of the time, although he was during this long stretch of shooting in the middle of the day. After several attempts at the scene being messed up by the, frankly overweight, spoiled little brat, the actor with the boy on his shoulders took a very dramatic swoon, causing everyone to run after him with water, a fan, and chairs for him to rest on. I think he was just upset because the boy had knocked his wig off, although he had clearly had enough of the boy. After a substantial break, shooting resumed using clever camera angles to enable to useless little boy to stand on a ladder instead of sitting on the beleaguered actor.
"Passing" rickshaw extra
Hare Krishna Michael
After lunch the extras had relaxed even more and by the end of the day, nobody was really listening to what they were being told to do. Everyone was just having fun and walking this way and that, and taking turns being driven by the “passing” rickshaw drivers. The rickshaw drivers had been a bit of a pain all day actually because it's not that easy to turn one of them in the confined space they had on set, just to drive it back across set again, especially when the people driving them are not real rickshaw drivers, I suspect.
The shop in the set
By the end the sound engineers, the stage hands, and even the guy who had dressed us (who actually seemed to be something to do with money and paying people) were all taking turns as extras and being driven on a rickshaw in the background. After a bit of asking I discovered that it's definitely not a Bollywood production (I got plenty of laughs for asking that), it's a new soap opera called Swarg, which is Hindi for heaven, starting on the 16th June on Colors TV. Anyone who is able to track this down please record it or download it for me as I want to see just how often we appear in our episode. I estimate that I appear about forty times in what can't be more than fifteen minutes of footage, and some of it I'm right in the foreground, between the camera and the actors.
When it all finished we changed and were paid and taken back to the train by our minder. This time he said to the girls, “you get on here”, pointing to the “Women Only” carriage. What an indictment of Indian society that women are so abused on the trains they need their own carriages! Afterwards Joanne told me that even on the women's carriage Milou was getting plenty of stares, this time highly disapproving rather than ogling. After the train our minder flagged down taxis and said goodbye. He handed me a twenty rupee note and said something like “the fare should be 18 rupees but just give him 20”. I didn't completely catch what he said, but I was a bit worried that 20 was too little. When we arrived the driver asked for Rs80. I had been expecting it, so I told him that we had no money and our Indian friend (who had already discussed the fare with the driver) had given us only 20. OK, sixty, he said, then soon after, OK, fifty. I was trying to explain that I was serious, and that I wasn't bargaining, when I remembered I had the number of the scout from the day before, so I called him. “No way!”, he said, “Do not give him any more than twenty”. I told the driver this, but he wouldn't go lower than fifty. Just then two obviously drunken Indian guys came up to the taxi and joined in the argument. They said they were taxi drivers they told me that 80 was a fair price and since I didn't want to pay it they reached in and locked down the door and said “right – drive to police station”. I wasn't certain whether the Bollystars guys or the taxi driver(s) were lying to me, but someone was, and given taxi drivers' record I was inclined to believe the twenty fare, but it was all getting a bit intimidating, so I told him I'd have to go upstairs for the money. When I came down, the other two were gone, so I said “there's the 50 you agreed” and handed it to him. He grumbled but drove off. Later we met up with the Dutch people and discovered that they had been charged 25 for going slightly further than us so it, in fact, the greedy taxi driver, going back on the fare our minder agreed and trying to rip off the foreigners. The Dutch were also told the fare was twenty, but a small tourist rip-off like 25% extra is something most people can live with; our 300% however is a bit cheeky!
While we were on set, the kiosk our SIM cards came from called sounding concerned that we hadn't yet produced the mountain of documentation required, but they seemed reasonably happy when I explained we were working and would bring it the next day, but it was already closed when we passed it anyway. We bought some insecticide before returning to our room to try and get rid of the bedbugs. The bat was still there. It seemed to have changed position, so I didn't think it was dead, although I couldn't explain why it was still there as it was well after dark. We called the grumpy concierge, who swept the dead bat up with a brush. There was a blob of blood under where the bat had been, so I think it must have been mauled by a cat or something, then just managed to make it through our bedroom window where it had its final writhing moments of agony. In the dorm it sounded like there was a bit of a party, so we wandered through to find lots of people drinking or smoking dope, with absolutely no regard for the rules, apparently. Every single person we spoke to in the whole place had bedbugs, we discovered, so stuff their rules! Joanne sprayed the room and our mattresses thoroughly with the insecticide then we brought our Glen Livet through to the party and had a few drinks.
written by  The Happy Couple on May 21, 2009 from Mumbai, India

Escape from Mumbai
Mumbai, India
Breakfast at the Sally Army
After spraying loads of insect spray the night before, Joanne only had a few suspected new bedbug bites. This time we were able to enjoy the delights of the Red Shield included breakfast. Terrible! Three bits of white bread, a small banana, and a plate of cold, watery beans. And lunch had been so nice as well. We got chatting to Matthew and Jessica, the couple who had arrived at the guesthouse just after us. They, of course, had bedbugs as well. Their plan was to go to Nepal after a longish stay in India. They had messed it up a bit, they said, because they've discovered that India wasn't exactly their favourite place, but now they were stuck here. How so, we asked. Apparently they were waiting for the “correct” time to go to Nepal, which starts in September, but is primarily October and November, after the monsoon has finished in late August to early September. At this point I despaired. We had originally planned our trip to stay ahead of the monsoon, which is why we were in India after South East Asia, where it hits earlier. We had been plagued by early monsoon in SE Asia, compounded by the fact we kept staying longer than scheduled. And now we were in India, people had told us that Goa has already “shut down” for the monsoon and the rain has started; it's already been raining in Kerala for a few weeks; and now we were learning about the monsoon in Nepal. For some reason I had not thought about monsoon in Nepal at all, perhaps because I thought that being mountainous and away from South West coasts it would escape the South West Monsoon. Our plan had been to head south from Mumbai to Goa, then onto Kerala, before heading northwards, eventually into Nepal. I asked to borrow Matthew and Jessica's Nepal guide and read that the monsoon is generally considered to start mid-June, although the season is considered to run from October to April. I also read that the Anapurna Circuit, which I had intended us to do, takes about three weeks. I hadn't realised it was so long. Maybe I should have done more research! There were some shorter suggested treks, but ten days seemed to be about the shortest of the decent ones. That decided it: we had spent far too long in SE Asia and all the delays had now truly caught up with is. We discussed it and quite quickly came to the conclusion that we should forget about Southern India and head straight for Nepal. We could see Northern India in the rain when we returned, but trekking in the rain in Nepal would not be fun (the leeches are awful apparently), and Nepal was one of my “must do” places when we were first planning our route.
Cricket on the way to the station
So that decided it: get a train to Gorakhpur for Nepal, according to the Trains at a Glance book belonging to the Red Shield, and get out of Mumbai as soon as possible. The booking office wasn't too far away, so we walked, getting constantly harassed to take rickshaws, buy hashish, buy milk for baby brother, as we breathed in the air thick with pollution. We eventually found the booking office, where the queues were a bit difficult to understand. At one end we noticed a counter for foreigners to buy an Indrail Pass, which we didn't want to do, so Joanne stood in that queue while I stood in the information queue. There was quite a bit of jostling but I got to the front, where I was told that the train we wanted for Gorakhpur via Lucknow was full “because of the holiday”.
Indian bureaucracy at the ticket office
Or was it just the foreigners' quota that was full? I couldn't quite understand because, having not quite yet tuned into Indlish, I couldn't really follow with all the background noise everyone else seemed to feel compelled to produce so much of. The next train she could offer us was in three days and there was no way we were staying in Mumbai that long. I gave up and joined Joanne in her queue, where she was speaking to a guy from Brazil who told her how unhappy he feels in India because it seems so dangerous. There are plenty of things to dislike India for, but being dangerous I think would be near the bottom of my list, and this guy was from Brazil, for goodness' sake! We got to the front of the queue and discovered it's not just for Indrail passes. Apparently the school holiday is on, so the trains are very busy. She was unable to find any route to Gorahkpur leaving in the next two days, so we thought on our feet and tried via Agra instead of Lucknow. Yes she could get us a ticket to Agra tomorrow, but we couldn't travel onwards for a couple of days. Brilliant! OK, so this would get us to Nepal no earlier, but at least we'd be stuck in Agra with the Taj Mahal, instead of in Mumbai with the high prices, the filth, the poverty, and the harassment. We weren't sure what class to book but Matthew and Jessica had told us that it's worth splashing out on Second Class A/C because you get a lockable compartment to yourselves so the security is much better. We had heard some really good things about Indian trains, but security is a concern, so we asked about 2nd Class A/C and it was much dearer than we'd been expecting. We didn't really want to be frozen half to death by the aircon, so we asked about ordinary Sleeper Class, and was it just the same, just as secure, but without the aircon. Yes, yes, just the same she assured us, and at about a third the cost we were very happy with the price too.
Indian traffic genius on way back from ticket office
When we got back Joanne had to lie down with a sore back, probably from standing so long in the queue at the booking office, but maybe from all the standing around doing our “passing” work the day before. I headed out to take the photo, passport copies, visa copies, and hotel receipt to the SIM card kiosk who had phoned to nag again. I decided to check out another of the drinking places nearby as I was curious; Mumbai seems to have more places to drink than I remembered Delhi having from my last visit, or maybe Indian culture was changing. It was ostensibly a food place, but it was the usual drab Indian place, set up like a cafe, with no atmosphere. Men (only) were sitting around, not speaking to their companions and drinking sullenly. Again I was the only white there. At the table next to me I watched an incredible display of what in Britain we would these days call binge drinking. Two mean sat opposite each other and they literally did not say a single word the whole time. They each had an empty and a half-full “peg” of whisky, which is about a quarter bottle, which they seemed to be drinking with coke. They also had a whole bottle of vodka which was about two-thirds full when I sat down. In the space of no more than twenty minutes the whole lot was gone. The vodka was the most incredible; Indians sharing water do not put their mouths to the bottle or jugs: instead they just pour it in from above their mouths. One of the two guys was doing this with the vodka: pouring a large mouthful in then putting it back on the table then, as he was swilling it around his mouth and swallowing it, his friend was pouring a large amount into an empty glass and downing it. Then the first one would take another large mouthful. They repeated this until the vodka was gone, at which point they got to their feet and left, in a bit of a hurry I thought, perhaps hoping to get home before they blacked out, or just outside before they puked! While all that was going on, the atmosphere in the place had actually lifted because the first election results had started coming in and there was a bit of a buzz; and I had ordered a very nice masala papad to go with several Indian whiskies, working my way down the list in the hope of finding a palatable one. I tried four and they were all terrible. I decided to keep a note, giving them a mark out of ten, in case I ordered one of them again in the future. Haywards Fine got 0, Officer's Choice got 1 as did Bagpiper, then the champion, Green Label got a fabulous 2 out of 10. I suspected there might be a bias as the score seemed to be increasing with alcohol consumed, but I did start with the cheapest as well, and surely four units wouldn't cloud my judgement too much!
Cheery Indian drinking den
After unsuccessfully trying to change to a cleaner room, get the hostel to pay for our laundry or show any kind of contrition for the terrible state of Joanne's skin, we gave up and sprayed more chemicals around our room, deciding instead to write a comment on the “India Mike” website, from where the glowing recommendations for this hovel had come. When we checked out and paid the next morning, the horrible concierge just said “show downstairs” when he handed us the receipt; no smile, no thank you, no sorry about the disgusting state of the place. The guy downstairs on the door was actually quite friendly and managed a smile. Outside we were crowded by taxi drivers, but they were all really greedy. We were now certain the fare could be no more than Rs20 as the station we were going to was much closer than the one we knew the fare to be Rs20 to; maybe Rs25 including a charge for the luggage. Nobody would go lower that Rs80, and most realising that we were getting a local train, wanted to take us all the way to the main train station instead for Rs250. In the end we just said “you're all greedy!” and walked. The train was only Rs12, meaning that we'd already saved over Rs300 by the time we got to the main train station, with an hour still to spare before our train for Agra departed.
It turned out that the woman at the ticket office had been talking nonsense: the compartment was not lockable and there seemed to be half again as many people on our carriage than there were seats for. So much for reserved seating! On the train we phoned ahead to book Shanti Lodge, which is place I thought might be one I remembered from my last day visit to Agra, which had an incredible view of the Taj Mahal from its rooftop restaurant. I remembered it looked like it might be an OK place to stay too and the food wasn't too dear. On that journey we learned quite a bit about Indian culture: people sneaking onto the section they're not allowed, one friend buying a more expensive seat so the rest can share with him, and the litter. Most of them sat the whole time eating snacks then, as soon as they are finished, the wrapper goes straight out the train window. It doesn't matter if you're in a station on in the countryside; it doesn't matter if it's paper or plastic; it doesn't matter if it's just a little sweet wrapper or a whole plastic bag full of rubbish: just chuck it out. When one guy noticed that Joanne and I were keeping our empty plastic water bottles, he indicated the open window with a confused look on his face. “Just throw it” someone else said, then another “why are you keeping that?”. They actually laughed at us for not littering. We didn't reply, but really I should have said “because we don't want to contribute to this country being any more disgusting than it already is; don't you mind that your country looks horrible and filthy, and smells disgusting?”. These were not children; these were not rebellious teenagers; these were normal, apparently moderately wealthy families and businessmen, I'd guess. The more I get to know India, though, the more it occurs to me that they do behave like children; Matthew had offered the explanation for the “Eve teasing” as sexual immaturity in Indian men caused by keeping the sexes so separate as they grow up, so that even grown men have the sexual maturity of teenagers; now it seems like they act as if some parent will pick up their rubbish after them too. At least we learned why the country is so filthy. Some people did get off before it came to sleeping time, but when the seats converted into beds, there were still some people sharing and a person sleeping in aisle between the bottom berths. This made me a bit nervous about our belongings, but I reckoned since I was on the bottom berth I'd be able to keep half an eye on the bags below my bed / seat. All night people swapped seats for floor and vice-versa, presumably some sharing pact, but it didn't do much for our relaxation or quality of sleep.
written by  The Happy Couple on May 23, 2009 from Mumbai, India

Arrival in Agra
Agra, India
A couple of the guys sitting opposite us on the train from Mubai were Hare Krishnas, complete with little Scrabble bags over their hands, and they had suggested that we should visit the Krishna temple in Mathura, which is the most holy of all Krishna temples. Mathura was the actual destination of our train, and where we were going to have to change for Agra. After our restless night's sleep and, in my case, getting my feet battered every time someone walked past, we didn't feel like doing anything at all when we got to Mathura apart from going to bed. We changed for Agra with little difficulty and a prepay auto-rickshaw took us to Tajganj, where the Taj Mahal and our hotel were for fifty rupees. My memory had been correct and it was the hotel with the magnificent views of the Taj Mahal. Our room was much cheaper and much nicer than the hole we'd been staying in Mumbai.
Joanne and Taj from our guesthouse
We had been wondering what the temperature was since we arrived in India, but had not remembered to find out in Mumbai. Joanne looked it up online in Agra and found out it was 39C. It felt about the same as Mumbai, where we were standing around in the sun all day in silly costumes. For me India has actually been more comfortable than Bangkok because, although the temperature is much higher here, the humidity is only about the 45% mark. I think what happens is in dry heat I sweat a lot and it keeps me cool as it evaporates, but in humid heat I just get really sweaty and greasy and hot. Joanne, however, not being much of a sweater, finds India much more uncomfortable. Our auto-rickshaw driver had sold us a tour of the things apart from the Taj for Rs350 down from Rs450. We told him that we needed to get some sleep first, but he could pick us up later. I thought a wee drink before bed would be nice but we couldn't find alcohol anywhere and the hotel told us that they didn't serve alcohol until evening time. In the end we tucked into a bit more of the Glen Livet and dozed for a wee while.
We came down to meet our driver, but it turned out he'd sent his “brother” instead. After some hesitation we decided to go anyway. First he took us to see “Baby Taj”, really called Itimad-ud-Daulah, which in fact predates the Taj Mahal, and much of the Taj's design was based on it. Next he took us to Agra Fort, which he persuaded us wasn't worth going inside, so we just took a couple of photos from outside. Later we read in the LP that it is one of the finest forts in India, so he was just trying to save himself time. Then he took us across the river for a view of the Taj, then to several other places where the point always seemed to be the view of the Taj, rather than where we were. At one temple a man dressed in saffron cloths came towards us saying “I am holy man. Give me money!”. He was a Sadhu and apparently this is what they do. We didn't give him any.
Another view fo the Taj
Yet another view of the Taj
Then we got to what seemed to be the real point of the tour: the bit where we earn him a hefty commission. He spun it all as learning how local craftsmen work, but really it was just tourist curio factories. Joanne seemed quite uncomfortable by this part of the tour but, as soon as I clicked, I didn't mind at all because I knew I wasn't going to buy anything and they were all wasting their time. I had decided some time ago that I would never buy anything in a situation like this, because you always pay over the odds thanks to the commission. Also in a place like this it's bound to be the high-end ultra-touristy expensive places you are taken. I decided just to enjoy the details of how they make all this stuff and taken for its own value, it was actually quite nice. We went to a carpet factory – I mean learned all about how it takes days on end to make these fantastic woven carpets one stitch at a time. The demonstration and explanation we very interesting and they were lovely, but my mind was made up before we entered the workshop. Joanne seemed tempted, and the salesmen sensed this, so we wanted to enter a bartering match which I was not prepared to play. Sure that their prices we going to be massively inflated I said that I was too embarrassed to say how much we could afford, but we really needed to make our money last, so I was sure I couldn't afford one of their lovely carpets. He implored me to say some price, so after more apologies and declarations of embarrassment, I told him a figure. It is low, sir, he said. Of course I knew it was, as I had no intention of buying, but if he'd gone for that price I reckoned it was a bargain, especially since it included credit card surcharge, DHL shipping, and insurance. I had plumped for Rs4500 for a carpet he was trying to sell me for Rs16000. Remarkably he told me that for that price he would be able to let me have the slightly smaller one he'd been showing me earlier originally at Rs12000. So I think I was only slightly low.
Oh no! Not another view of the Taj
I was quite impressed by the discount, but I was still sure we'd be able to get carpets cheaper elsewhere. And we didn't want the small carpet. Next it was onto a workshop where they make various marble items with semi-previous gems inlaid, just like the work on the Taj Mahal itself. These we, of course, the direct descendents of the people who worked on the Taj Mahal, and their families had been doing this for thousands of years. Again the stuff was gorgeous, but again it seemed rather pricey. They indicated their willingness to drop prices, but I was a bit worn out from the carpet psychological warfare, so we just took their card and said we would be back the next day after we'd worked out how much we could afford. Last was a jewellery shop featuring “star rubies” and “cross of Agra” very prominently. Both these semi-precious stones catch the light in a way that shows their crystal symmetry (I assume) at the surface: star ruby appears to have a six pointed star floating inside, and the cross of Agra has two bands of light at right angles. Truly gorgeous, but we'd had enough and it was obvious they were over-priced again. With no energy to barter, we just palmed them off again by taking their card.
View of Taj from our guesthouse
We were deposited at home and finally got a beer on the rooftop restaurant. The view of the Taj Mahal from Shanti Lodge really is superb. There is obviously something a bit funny going on with the licensing laws, though, because my beer arrived in a teapot: “Special Tea, sir”. We got chatting to an American girl who was also on a protracted trip and had just come from Nepal. She told us we were too late already, and the last Everest attempt had already been, and that there were already leeches everywhere. She was wanting to get rid of a Nepal LP guide and had some fantasy of exchanging it for an Eastern European guide, where she was going next. She said we could buy it from her and went to fetch it. She wouldn't sell it for anything less than Rs600 which I thought was a very unfriendly price, considering how little we'd been able to sell our guides for in Thailand. I had thought we'd be able to reach a mutually beneficial arrangement, say about two or three hundred rupees maximum, but she obviously had no idea at all. In the end we wished her good luck and said good night. Joanne decided she wanted more beer and, since it had been rather expensive at the hotel we went out looking for the off-licence the hotel were bringing it from (you had to tell them in advance how many beers you were going to want). We failed to find it, but some helpful youths working in a shop offered to sell me some hashish then, when I said I wasn't interested were happy to go and buy me beer for Rs80 instead. A small profit, I thought, but much cheaper than the hotel. Meanwhile an old woman got talking to Joanne and persuaded her to pay to have her arms covered in henna patterns. I drank most of the beer waiting for Joanne, constantly getting pestered by people selling hash, and when she reappeared the henna work was awful.
Us and Taj from Guesthouse
written by  The Happy Couple on May 24, 2009 from Agra, India

Agra Fort
Agra, India
After drinking all of my beer and Joanne's the previous night, we slept too late to get up for the sunrise view of the Taj we had planned, and I woke with a hangover. So we had to slightly reschedule. We had been planning to see the Taj and Fort in the same day, which saves Rs50 per person because of some portion of the ticket that applies to both. We decided Rs50 wasn't that much, so we would just see the Fort today and Taj the next day. John, with whom I was last in Agra, had sent a couple of text recommendations of places to stay, so when we passed one of them I suggested we go in for lunch. The food wasn't up to much but an old guy appeared while we were there; in fact the very same old guy who John and I had spoken to more than three years previously on the roof of Shanti Lodge. He sold essential oils. I can't remember if he said his name, but he has such a nice, calm manner that his presence is almost hypnotic. I wonder if some of this is due to the essential oils, which he spreads liberally over his potential customers' arms. I'm told essential oils can be quite powerful substances and should not normally be used neat on the skin like that. So after a few dabs of opium poppy and a splash of lavender I was feeling quite well disposed towards the fellow again, and I was very happy to see him again because he had seemed pretty old the last time and I had wondered if he would still be around; he didn't seem to have aged at all. We bought a couple of little bottles and left on a little cloud. I'm not sure if it's his personality or the oils, but what a nice old man!
Nice oily man
We found a book shop and, after convincing the proprietor that we were only interested in his Nepal Lonely Planet and not his hashish, we managed to bargain him down to Rs500 from what he originally said was a fixed price, set by the Indian government of Rs800; Indians don't seem to value the concept of truth in the least. I had a little chuckle for the American girl who thinks she's going to be able to sell her book for Rs600. If they are willing to sell at Rs500 there is no way they are buying for more than Rs150.
Marble work inside the Fort
You can see the Taj from the Fort
Next we went to the fort. Outside, a sign said “Entrance: Tourists Rs300. Indians Rs20”. A Sikh man and his family were stading next to us and he looked us up and down, then read the sign out loud. “You have far too much money” he proclaimed after he finished the sign. As if we enjoy paying far more for things! As if we had any choice other than not to bother seeing it! Inside it was quite obvious that the foreigner price is too high because we were almost the only whites there. The fort was interesting and very impressive and, if I wasn't expecting Indian prices, a pretty good deal. It is huge, however about three-quarters of it is off-limits because it is occupied by the army. So it's an actual still-in-use fort. As we were leaving we were rounded on by various unfortunates begging or selling things.
The Fort is huge
After buying some postcards, we were tailed by a guy selling a “marble” elephant carved inside an elephant. It was almost certainly soapstone, but it looked quite impressive to me, although I had no need for one and I couldn't think of anyone who would want one as a present, nor how I would get it to them. He started somewhere around Rs600, although I wasn't paying much attention at the beginning so it may have been higher. As we walked, he dropped the price again and again.
Inside the Fort
We were heading to a market Joanne wanted to go to for clothes and it was easily within walking distance, but the man kept following us. I was curious just how long he would go, but unknown to me Joanne was annoyed and upset by him badgering us. I am happy to filter these things out as long as I'm not in a bad mood. Joanne flagged down a cycle rickshaw, to get out of the situation she explained later, although I hadn't even realised there was a situation. As the old guy peddled off I heard the elephant vendor say “fifty rupees”. An interesting demonstration of how the prices work around an international tourist magnet like the Taj Mahal: down from Rs600 to Rs50 without me even having to open my mouth!
The Taj through Fort archways
On the rickshaw the driver suggested we go to a different market. We had agreed Rs20 which seemed reasonable as it was practically across the road form where we got in, but this other place was further away. First of all he told us the market we wanted was just old second hand army clothes, the he told us we could go to both markets and then back to our hotel for Rs20, but when he mentioned shops we said no, we'd seen enough shops yesterday. Shortly after he set off he said he wanted to give us a rickshaw each “because Agra is very hilly – same price: ten and ten”. I thought he was maybe just giving a young guy, his son (or grand son) maybe, a chance. But as we cycled past the market we'd asked to go to, I could see the old guy saying something to Joanne, in front, and Io realised we'd been split up to prevent conference. I tried shouting to Joanne, but it was too noisy and she was too far ahead. He just kept going and going, and when we were far past where we wanted to go he stopped and my young guy caught up. OK, we can go to such-and-such shop, he said. “We agreed no shops”, we responded. Apparently he'd told Joanne that our market was “closed on a Monday” but it was nonsense; I'd seen the market up side streets we passed. Again and again he said just this – or just that – only looking and so on, but we told him we'd had enough of looking and we knew that it isn't really “only” looking; it's sit down for enough time to justify his commission and then endure hard sell for even longer. Eventually I offered him Rs10 extra to replace his commission, just to take us where we wanted to go, but he said that it wouldn't even cover his costs. We had had enough, so we looked at each other an got out and started walking. We were ages away from where we wanted to be, but we were in a corner with yet another Indian cheat. He came running down the street after us shouting “give me my money! Give me my money!”. I didn't want to be arrested or lynched, so I prepared Rs10 to give him, which seemed about right for the distance given that it was the wrong place. In the end I felt a flush of anger and swapped it for a Rs5 note, which I turned around and gave him, It was enough, and the disappeared. Really he should have given us money, since we were now further from our destination than we had started! We actually had a very interesting walk through a part of Agra with no tourists, which is quite unusual there. We had people staring at us the whole way back, but Joanne didn't find what she was looking for at the market anyway, so the walk back was really worthwhile, and all down to a cheat. Back at the fort we got an auto-rickshaw, “Direct” I said after saying where we wanted to go. That's the keyword. That night we had dinner on a neighbouring rooftop restaurant, where the view of the Taj is not so good, but the food was very nice, and bountiful.
Playing with long exposure on my camera...
written by  The Happy Couple on May 25, 2009 from Agra, India

Finally the Taj
Us and Taj
After the second night's rooftop dinner we went looking for an off-licence again, because the restaurant beer prices were really high and, although it's a novelty drinking beer out of a tea-pot, it's not all that nice as it all foams up. After an extensive search we finally found a place selling beer and I asked for a couple. In India, most retail products, in particular all alcohol, it marked with an MRP: Maximum Retail Price; occasionally, especially in supermarkets, things sell for less. The MRP for alcohol varies from state to state, and I knew from the label on the beer the young guys had bought for me the previous evening that I should be paying Rs60 for a “mild beer”. At the off-licence I saw it coming: he took the two bottles out of the fridge and quickly wrapped them in newspaper before I had a chance to look at them. Then he asked me for Rs180. I was becoming impatient with constantly being ripped-off, so I said “I don't think so”, unwrapped one of the bottles and pointed to where it said “MRP 60/-”. “Sixty rupees”, I said. I was sure, having been caught out, he would back down, but Indians do not seem to feel embarrassment or shame and he persisted: “Yes, that is the old price. The new price is 90”. Unbelievable! Here I think is where SE Asian and Indian culture differ substantially; in SE Asia they will happily over-charge in a bartering situation, where it is up to you to fight for a better price but I think a Thai, for example, would die of shame to be caught out in a bare-faced lie like that, whereas Indians lie constantly; they have no shame. I said “You are kidding! Forget it.” and to his surprise we walked off, followed by his voice saying “OK – 80 rupees”.
Taj reflection
It really is very frustrating and wearing, and you constantly have to be on your guard. Every time you have any kind of financial interaction with an Indian, it's an opportunity to rip you off. Matthew had been absolutely right that first day in the Red Shield Guesthouse. The previous day, during our auto-rickshaw tour of Agra, I had run into another problem relating to the MRP. We stopped off at a kiosk to buy some water as it was very hot. I decided to buy a couple of soft drinks as well. With each item I asked the vendor how much it was; each time he told me a price higher than the MRP; each time I said no and, pointing to the MRP, said the correct price; each time he said OK and repeated the correct price. Then I stated the total, to which he said OK, so I handed over a Rs100 note. At this point a child came over to me and started harrassing me to buy some postcards, so I hurried back to the rickshaw. Only as we pulled off did I realise that the bugger at the kiosk had given me the change according to the prices he had originally said, rather than all the prices he had agreed to afterwards. Indians!
Jo, Taj, and crow
Fort from Taj
Maybe it's as well the off-licence tried to cheat us, because we were up bright and early for sunrise at the Taj the next morning. We actually got to the gate just as it opened at 6am. Again there was a huge price difference between what Indians and foreigners have to pay to get in: Rs25 vs R750. Not much you can do about these official price differentials, but it is annoying to think that an Indian (or a Cambodian for that matter) who can afford to get to Scotland can then go into any art gallery or museum absolutely free of charge; they can go and look at waterfalls for free; they can go on treks in the hills for free; and so on.
Full wide-angle view of Sunrise on Taj
I think the time has come to start charging exorbitant fees in Scotland specifically against the nationalities whose countries impose these yawning two-tier tariffs on us! To be fair, Indians aren't given with their ticket, a free bottle of water and shoe covers, which mean you don't have to remove your shoes and walk around on scorching marble barefoot. We were searched on the way in and I was told I would have to check in my camera tripod at the lockers before being allowed in. For some reason tripods are not allowed, just as they were not allowed in the Fort.
Beautiful marble work on side of Taj
The only reason we could come up with for this is that tripods take business away from the professional photographers. Joanne's search resulted in far more exclusions: her MP3 player, her book, and her head torch were all inadmissible. Apart from the apparent lack of logic in any of these, I had been allowed to take in all of these things although Joanne's book was Ben Elton's Gridlock, so maybe there was some sense to it after all. Or maybe it's just not becoming for a women to be reading, listening to music, and looking after herself in the dark; who knows?
Aeroplane flies past the Taj
Monkey watches aeropplane
Inside it was already starting to fill up and we tried to take our opportunity to snatch a couple of clear photos of the Taj Mahal and us in front of it. But pushy Indian photographers were getting in the way of almost every attempt and even had the gall to demand that we move out of their shot when we had been there first. Of course there is no such concept as “there first” in Indian culture; it is dog eat dog and fight your way to the front. Joanne had had enough and started refusing to get out of the way, or asking Indians to get out of her shot. This is, I believe, the correct way to react, except that she was also getting upset and annoyed by how rude it all seemed. To them, though, I don't think any of this is seen as rude, it's just what you have to do in a country where there are far too many people. Of course the Taj Mahal is lovely and Joanne was really enjoying seeing it, but her patience with Indians, which had been even shorter than mine all along, had run out. Lucky we were heading to Nepal! Only afterwards did I admit to Joanne that I had been a little bit disappointed when I first saw the it; it's a lot smaller than I had expected and there isn't much at all to the inside, but we were here for Joanne and she thought it was amazing.
View back to the entrance from the Taj
After the Taj we had lunch in a little place nearby, where the owner told us we could have beer for Rs70 if we came back for dinner. And the off licence had tried to sell me it for Rs90! Unfortunately we had a train to catch and hurried away to catch it.
My parents used to play this (allegedly)
There is of course a huge danger of taking too many photos of the Taj Mahal, after all what else are you going to do once you are in there? I did, but I've spared the blog from most of them. If you want to see more you can click on an image then go through the photos.
Our Hotel - Shanti Lodge

Transport Trauma
Sunauli, Nepal
A cow in the city
The direct train from Agra to Gorakhpur is only once a week, so we had to get to Delhi first and catch the sleeper from there. We remembered from the guide book that trains from Agra to Delhi were frequent, which I took to mean several times an hour, which would give us plenty of time. After sitting at Agra station for more than an hour with no sign of a Delhi train, we found a kiosk selling the Trains at a Glance guide and started looking through it. Dismay set in as I looked through the many possible trains from Agra to Delhi and started to realise that they all seemed to leave in the morning or the evening, but none in the afternoon. There was one option which meant that we would maybe just make it, but it didn't seem sensible to leave such a small margin. We thought we were going to have to quickly change plans and take the bus, which was slower, meaning that we would have to leave for the bus station immediately. Before we left, we thought to ask at information, just to make sure. It turned out there was an express train arriving quite soon, and the reason we had missed it was the station it terminated at, Nizamuddin, did not say “Delhi” in the name. We would still have to change to New Delhi Station, but it would be no problem to get a local train. Apparently.
The train to Nizamuddin was nice and fast and it the nerve-wracking seemed to be behind us. The station was impossible though. After waiting for twenty minutes or so in a “queue” with Indians pushing in from all sides and Joanne getting increasingly annoyed, we made it to the front, where we were told we were in the wrong place; it was general class, downstairs. In the queue-cum-scrum we had got chatting to an Indian who was back on holiday after living in New Zealand for five years, and we saw him again in the downstairs queue. When we got to the front of that, we were told again that we were in the wrong queue and we had to go upstairs. At this point the NZ-Indian saw our frustration and stepped in to help. After a few minutes of heated Hindi he turned around, exasperated, and admitted that he had not been able to make any sense of the situation either. He had obviously forgotten what India is like, did not seem to be able to believe how impossible everything is. He suggested we should just get a taxi, but I was not ready to give up and you always have to look after the pennies on a trip this long. I had a flash of inspiration: every Indian railway station has an office with a sign above it saying “Station Superintendent's Office” and I thought it had to be worth a try, so we went in and I explained that we were trying to get to New Delhi Station, but neither ticket desk was able to help me. He stood up and looked past us and told us there is a train on platform three now and it leaves in two minutes. “But where do we get a ticket? Can we get one on board?” I asked, to which he replied “Don't worry about that – nobody will check”. So there it was from the superintendent's own mouth. The train was very crowded as it was now rush hour, but nobody asked for a ticket and we made it to New Delhi in plenty of time
The train to Gorakhpur was already very very busy. We had booked the top bunks for this trip, so after the two journeys we would know which option was better. After our first journey we were fairly convinced that the top bunk was going to be better: peple had been able to go to sleep when they wanted because you don't have to wait for the seats to be converted into beds if you are on the top. However this train was so busy that the top bunks were already full of other peoples luggage when we got on. There were far too many people in our carriage and where there were eight berths there were about fifteen people. There was some grumbling but a man assured everyone that the three girls with lots of luggage were getting off in just an hour, which would have been 9 O'Clock, the time that seats are supposed to be converted to beds. At 11 O'Clock they were still on the train and we were exhausted, having got up so early to see the Taj Mahal. Every day I become more certain that Indians hold no moral value in the truth. However they did get off shortly ater that and we went straight up to bed, allowing the other people in the carriage to put their beds down too. Now that we were there, the top bunks were definitely better, as you are less aware of the constant movement below, although this means your belongings are more in danger of course. Also it is only occasionally when someone goes past carrying something on their shoulder or head, that my feet were bashed instead of the constant pummeling they got below.
The next morning at Gorakhpur we faced the next part of our journey: we still had to get a bus to the border then, over the border, get a different bus to Kathmandu.Gorakhpur looked like a horrible place so we were happy when we found a local bus leaving just after we arrived. It was very cheap and not too uncomfortable and deposited us about 200 metres from the actual border post, although all of the auto-rickshaw drivers who met us off the bus seemed inexplicably convinced that the distance was two kilometres. We were wise to them though, and the small collection of foreigners who had gathered on the bus made our way on foot. The border was a fairly casual affair which you could easily have walked through without dealing with any officials or paying for a visa, but the risk of being caught inside the country without one and the fact that hotels like to see it means that most people would be happy to walk in and pay the fee. In the Indian immigration office they told us that Rs1000 and Rs500 Indian notes were illegal in Nepal and they could be confiscated on the other side, so I had to change quite a lot of money across the road. Nepali currency is soft and is pegged to the Indian Rupee at a rate of 1.6 Nepali Rupees. However the money changer explained that, although 1.6 is the official rate, Rs500 and Rs1000 notes only attract a rate of 1.5; this is also official he said. I suspect this was just another con, but I didn't want to risk all my money being confiscated, so I handed it over.
The other side of the border was even more relaxed and the idea of someone from customs going through my stuff to confiscate high-value Indian notes seemed farcical. The guys at Nepalese immigration seemed unusually nice and friendly, smiling and chatting with us as we organised our visas. We were planning to stay about ten days, but when it came to filling in how long we planned to stay on the form, I asked how much the various visas cost. There was a 15 day visa for $30, a 30 days visa for $45, and another, maybe 90 day visa, which was far longer than we would be staying. So, I filled in 15 days, since it would cost the same as ten, deciding that this would give us a reasonable margin if our trek ran a bit late. Joanne saw what I had written and did not seem happy: how can we stay 15 days when we don't even have seven weeks for India and Nepal together? I explained that it cost the same, and it was just a safety margin, so she went along with it.
The border town is called Belahiya on the Nepal side but, confusingly, most people seem to call it Sunauli, which is the town on the Indian side. There isn't any gap between the two, so I suppose it would all be one town were the border removed. We discovered the next bus was leaving soon, but would get into Kathmandu about 2am, asssuming it ran on time. We decided it would be better to wait for a later bus, and arrive about 6am, saving us one night's money for a room, as well as being more convenient. After a bit of haggling we were able to get the fare down to Rs400 Nepali. They even took us to the bus to show us that it was worth the fare. It looked OK. Most insistent haggler was a guy called Al I first took to be a Scotsman, although an Australian girl was talking about him as “the Irish guy”. We made use of our time waiting for the bus to have something to eat. Disappointingly it just seemed to be Indian food. At dinner we discovered that everyone was planning trekking, but everyone else was planning on trekking in the Anapurna region, which we had ruled out because the treks there were all too long for our schedule. Al only had a vague plan. Apparently the reason his accent was so hard to pin down was that he had lived lots of places, including, most prominently, Derby followed by Edinburgh, but occasionally Cornwall would come through on a long “a” like “paaassport”.
When it came to bus leaving time, it soon became obvious that the bus was not OK. It was sufficiently plush for them to call it a deluxe bus, but there was less legroom than I've ever encountered before on transport. Even Joanne was having trouble. Evidently Nepalis are very short, or else they have armour-plated knees. Not long after we were wedged into our seats, some locals came on, apparently with the same seat numbers, and we were dismissed to the back of the bus. The road was not very good and the suspension on the bus was not very good, and at the back of the bus you could feel every stone. Going over big holes we were bounced off our seats so that our heads hit off the roof. Needless to say we did not get much sleep on that night bus. In fact we got none at all. Joanne cursed herself for moving and said that next time she would stay where she was and the local could go to the back, after all it was our seats.
We arrived in Kathmandu exhausted.
written by  The Happy Couple on May 27, 2009 from Sunauli, Nepal

Kathmandu - like India, but nice.
Kathmandu, Nepal
Kathmandu was not exactly how I had imagined it. I had imagined it to look very quaint with wooden houses, the whole town surrounded by mountain. I'm not sure where I developed such an idea but it wasn't like that, it was just modern concrete buildings like anywhere else, and there were no mountains to be seen. On the other hand it was nothing like as horrible as we'd been told by some people earlier on our trip. If they had been right it would have made an Indian city look like a clean paradise, but it was actually much cleaner than anywhere we had seen since Bangkok, and nowhere near as polluted as we had been warned either. The “when to go” section of the Lonely Planet had warned us that May and June are not good times to go to Nepal because temperatures can “soar” up, sometime over 30C! Considering we had just left 40C behind in India we had all had a good chuckle at that over dinner the night before. Sure enough it felt lovely and cool when we got off the bus, so much so that the bath we had been desperate for after two nights of transport and two days of 40C, suddenly seemed unnecessary; it was as if the cooler air was as good as a shower. Sleep was now the important thing! Most people seemed to be on a higher budget than us, but Al was definitely in our price-range, so we clubbed together for a taxi and went to the budget hotel the driver suggested in Thamel, the backpacker bit, which meant the taxi was free.
Soon after checking in we crashed out until we were woken by several Indian families on our floor, who seemed to communicate only by shouting. Another culture difference: is it that quiet is such an impossible goal in such a busy country that nobody ever tries because everyone is used to constant noise anyway? I asked the hotel owner if we could move to another room further from the families but he assured me they would leaving soon for a karate competition they had come from India for. Apparently karate is very popular in Nepal, but the competition explained why we had seen to many children walking around in full karate suits. They eventually went out and we got some sleep. A shower later, we popped down to see Al. Joanne asked him if he wanted to come trekking with us, since he had nobody to go with yet, and it's safer if you're not on your own. He had been planning to find people to go with when he got to Pokhara, but he said he'd have a look in our book at the Langtang trek we were planning. He seemed quite keen so we agreed to leave the morning after next.
We went out for a wee walk around to get our bearings. Amazing! At first most people look like Indians, the Nepali language is very similar to Hindi so they sound the same, much of the culture like the food is the same, and much of the body language is the same – even the very typical Indian head wobble. Yet there is something very very different. After a short time I realised that it's because people are smiling at us and people look happy rather than sullen. They don't shove you out of the way and we even saw people putting things in bins. When people do try to hustle you into an auto-rickshaw they are friendly and it feels like a human interaction instead of feeling like you are being herded by them. When you go into a shop people make conversation with you and nobody, the whole time we were in Nepal, tried to cheat us once. Nepalis are really nice. What a difference after India. The area we were in is highly touristy, but it was also very nice, and it was a pleasure to walk around the streets, knowing that it would take a few hours for our feet to get dirty instead of a few minutes. The shops were full of lots of really cool stuff, too: cheap hiking gear, loads of psychedelic clothes, lots of yak wool garments, and plenty of lovely handicrafts; and the prices were very reasonable as well. One thing was unchanged from India: everywhere we went people sidled up to me and said “You want smoke? Hashish. Good quality.”
Momos!
Tongba
We set about discovering in what ways the cuisine does differ from Indian, and found a Tibetan restaurant. It seems that much of the difference between Nepali and Indian culture is down to the Tibetan influence, which we had already seen was everywhere. I had heard of “momos” and they were on the menu of this restaurant, so we ordered them as a starter. They were described as “buff momos” which I realised was buffalo, and they were absolutely delicious, flavoured with lots of ginger and garlic. We had read about Tongba in the guidebook: it's a millet beer, where the alcohol is steeped out of the grain as you drink it, by continually topping it up with hot water, and they had that too, so we ordered it as well. We saw they had steaks on the menu and, seeing that, forgot about Nepalese food and decided we were both craving meat. We assumed it would also be buffalo, since Nepal is a Hindu country and killing a cow attracts a prison sentence, but I was curious so I asked the waiter. “It's cow” he said, but we didn't believe him. It was all very nice, but the Tongba was very filling after all we had eaten and we had to go to bed and lie down as soon as we'd finished. Again the Indian families were making loads of noise, and we didn't get to sleep until late.
Everest beer and Tongba
The next morning I had a nasty hangover made worse by a rally outside our window. I'd drunk an Everest beer and a couple of Tuborgs, which were better than any Indian beer I'd tasted, but I was fairly sure the Tongba was to blame. It took a while to get going, but we had to move because we had an appointment with Al to go and get park permits which would allow us entry into the area we wanted to trek. Also, we wanted to move hotel. It wasn't just the families: the hotel was also a bit out of the way. Al had been given a recommendation for a more central place and he wanted to move as well. The new place was cheaper too. That done we set off in search of our permits. Typically, the government office involved had moved location since the Lonely Planet was printed, but our new hotel owner was able to tell us the new location, so we got a taxi, fearing that it would be shutting soon. It turned out to be shut anyway because it happened to be a public holiday: Independence Day, which is also “Everest Day”. Further reading of the book suggested we would be able to get the permit at the border. We had a few things I felt we needed to buy before the trek: iodine to sterilise the water; a rain coat for me, since we were fairly sure we would get soaked; an actual trekking guide and a map; a bag to store the stuff we didn't want to heave up the hills; and provisions. After a feeble attempt I couldn't carry on; the hangover had reasserted itself rendering me an invalid. I went back to bed, cowardly leaving Joanne the task of apologising to Al and saying that we wanted to postpone by a day.
Indian breakfast
Fake Ferrero Rocher
The next day I managed to organise myself a bit better and bought everything that was required. It was a good day for food too: I started with an Indian breakfast, which was puris (greasy puffed-up fried breads) with curried vegetables and achar, then we discovered some copy Ferrero Rocher, which actually weren't very nice, but I was amused by the copies. Al told us of a cheap place he had discovered and we went there for dinner.
Pakora
The food there was fantastic: buff momos were only Rs40, but I went for the posh option and had chilly momos for Rs60, which is about 40p. Joanne got a vegetable khaja set, which was curry with flaked rice, and was also very nice. Mine was the nicest thing I had eaten in some time. We were starting to suspect it was in the rules that you had to get ten momos; we had now ordered them several times and every single time there were ten. The food was so delicious I thought we should order some pakora to take away and have as a snack later, but a communication breakdown meant that we (most me) ended up eating them in the restaurant on top of what we had already had.
Vegetable khaja set
Chilly momos
We got to bed at a sensible time without touching any tongba, ready for the early start.
written by  The Happy Couple on May 30, 2009 from Kathmandu, Nepal

Nightmare bus journey of hell
Syabru Bensi, Nepal
We got up on time and took a taxi to the bus station, just to make sure we were on time. Even the taxi driver was very friendly. We continued to be amazed by the difference in friendliness after India. In fact, after only a few hours in Kathmandu, Joanne had asked me if I knew what this “namaste” word meant, that everyone was saying to us. It is Nepali for “hello” or “how are you?”. Interestingly it is the same in Hindi but after a week in India we hadn't heard it once. Yet in a few hours in Nepal's capitol we were showered in greetings. In fact it means literally “I salute the god in you”.
The start of our trek was at a place called Syabrubese at the foot of the Langtang Valley. There was a bus direct to there, but we needed to obtain park permits at Dhunche which is about one hour before you get to Syabrubese, so we weren't sure whether we'd have to get off at Dhunche and get another bus from there. The Lonely Planet advised that you could just turn up before the bus leaves so we had not bothered to book it in advance, in fact we didn't know whether it was possible. When we arrived at the bus stop it was starting to rain a bit. This is what we had resigned ourselves to: seven or eight days of getting soaked and munched by leeches. The conductor told us that the bus would be stopping at Dhunche for 15 minutes, which we hoped would be enough time to get our park permits and TIMS cards, new things they were introducing to try and keep track of whether foreigners had returned when they had planned. We decided to gamble and just bought tickets all the way to Syabrubese. “Only roof” he told us when we bought the tickets. There were no seats left – why do we ever believe anything to Lonely Planet says?
Under the tarp on top of the bus
Joanne was very unhappy about the prospect of sitting on the roof of the bus and I was a bit nervous myself. Al seemed quite happy because, he explained, you at least get a chance to stretch out on the roof. True, the seats left less rooms for your legs than the back seat of a Carrera, but I really didn't fancy the nine hour journey getting soaked with rain, even with my new poncho on. Incidentally, that's 137km in nine hours, which had already given us some clue as to the sort of road we could expect. The roof is also where they store all of the luggage because these little buses don't have a boot and the luggage is usually covered with a large tarpaulin when it is raining. Our bus did not seem to have any tarpaulin, but after a bit of pleading with a boy who was helping load the bus, he appeared with a brand new one for us. So that was how the journey started: us playing “den”, hiding in the surreal blue world of the tarp, isolated from the rain and the rest of outside.
On top of the bus, free from the tarp
Every so often the bus stopped and I could feel people brushing past me and the edge along the top of the bus to the open end at the back. People started to squash up a bit and my cherished legroom began to shrink as my feet were shoved in ever closer. After about two hours of this strange isolation, we became aware of a bit more air blowing through our den, and noticed that the rain had almost stopped; some people had peeled the tarpaulin back from the edges to get their heads out, so we took this as our queue, as people at the front of the roof where the tarpaulin was tucked in, to gather the whole lot up and roll it up in front of us. There were an unbelievable number of people on the roof. It had started off probably under ten, but with all the stops there were now over twenty people clinging on. What a change being able to see the outside made. Up to that point we had been enduring, but now had become quite pleasurable and very exhilarating: the freedom, the wind blowing through our hair, the views, and the fun of ducking all the low branches which, up till then, had been deflected by the tarpaulin enough that we hadn't needed to worry. Not long after we were liberate from the tarpaulin, the bus stopped and a conductor shouted up something in Nepali. People started to climb down, some walking ahead, others clinging on to the side of the bus. When all the Nepalis except one old guy were off the roof, we started again and just round the next corner was a check point. I'm not sure whether the uniforms were police of army, but this was apparently the reason for the change of weight distribution. An American girl who'd hardly said a word so far announced that they're not allowed people on the top of the bus, but they don't really mind about foreigners; apparently she could speak Nepali. I suppose the elderly must get the same dispensation. As soon as we were round the next corner, everyone jumped back on top of the bus again. What a farce!
Me and Al on top of the bus
After about another hour we stopped for lunch. Everyone from the bus seemed to sit down for a large plate of rice and daal. The take-up was so complete I wondered whether it might be included in the ticket and nobody had bothered to tell us. We tried sitting down as well. “Nepali set meal?” we were asked and nodded our assent. The rice and daal was a bit boring so, when we were offered some chicken I agreed, but Joanne declined, not liking unidentifiable sinewy bits of animal you have to eat off the bone. They were even bringing round the daal and offering refills. I thought it might be free, but Joanne went to the counter as I was finishing off and shouted over in alarm that they wanted Rs350. Considering I'd had excellent chilly momos for only Rs60 the day before, I was expecting this bland basic food to come to no more than Rs100 for the two of us. I got up to complain and begin haggling, but Joanne said that everyone else was paying the same; that was just the cost. The “daal bhaat” was Rs150 and the tiny mouthful of gristly chicken was Rs50. At least the refills were free. Mental note was duly made: never sit down to eat without first asking the price, especially in a roadside cafe.
The view around the bus
The muddy bit where we got stuck
While we had been eating our lunch, something had happened with the bus: all the luggage had been thrown from the roof of one bus to another, and lots of people were piling on top. Our good places were gone! We managed to find a place close enough to our bags to keep a bit of an eye on them, but people were sitting on them and we were left to perch at the very edge of the bus. I don't know how many people were on the top of the bus now, but Al's estimate when relaying the story later was that there were fifty people on top. I doubt there were really that many, but I'm fairly sure there were more than thirty on top and hanging onto the sides, at the busiest. After lunch the road had taken a turn for the scarier: we were now well and truly into the mountains and the tarmac was long behind us now. For the rest of the trip we were bouncing up and down, clinging onto the edge of the bus, as it twisted round tight corners, over the remains of landslides, and only just kept all four wheels on the road. Actually at times I think part of the outside tyres were over the edge, but I didn't want to lean out that far to check.
My view off the bus
At one point there was a sharp turn into a climb where it looked like there had been a recent landslide, but the road had not yet been restored to it's former “high quality”. The bus got stuck in the mud and we spent about twenty minutes sliding across the road with the wheels spinning, as the conductors threw stones and drier dirt under the wheels to try and offer some purchase. I was pretty scared at this point; although the fact the road had just twisted back on itself meant the bus would only tumble a few metres before coming to a rest, instead of the several hundred metres promised for most of the journey, I still thought that would result in plenty of casualties, and I started thinking about which direction to jump from the top of the bus if it went over the edge. A shovel appeared from somewhere and a bit of digging in addition to the rocks finally got us moving again. By that time there was a traffic jam behind us: three other buses all loaded with people waited in a queue. None of the other buses had as many people on top as ours, which is maybe why none of the others appeared to get stuck and they were soon driving right up behind us beeping intently. One by one the other buses sneaked past us at various terrifying points in the road, which had not improved much after where we were stuck.
Another view down the side of the bus
The last few hours before Dhunche were through lovely mountain scenery, but the drops below the crumbly road very terrifying. The section with all the scariest drops also had very uneven sections of road, meaning that the bus leant over by an alarming amount always, it seemed, in the direction of the drop; the inside part of the road was always the higher one. Even the Nepalis were looking quite scared, and nervous giggling and whooping accompanied this part of the trip. I was seriously consider the escape route now; luckily for this section our side of the bus was looking toward the looming rocks above rather than the chasm below, so we probably did stand some change of being able to jump clear if we went at the right moment. In the end I couldn't keep the anxiety up for that amount of time and I found myself adopting more of a fatalistic state of mind: the driver did this all the time, as did many of the passengers but, if he made a mistake, what realistically could I do? Better just to relax, enjoy the scenery, and treat it like a fairground ride, where the tacit assumption is your own survival. That did the trick and I had a great time for the rest of the journey.
Syabrubese and prayer flags
The stop in Dhunche went smoothly and we got our permits. The TIMS card was slightly different: we filled in an application form, but didn't get an actual card. The official told us that we should have applied in Kathmandu if we wanted one, but said all we would be required to show was our permit. The last hour of the bus journey were incredibly uncomfortable. Enough people got off at Dhunche that we were told to get back on inside the bus. It was only 15km, but it was the bumpiest road in existence. By the time we reached Syabrubese my spine felt like it had been compacted by all the bouncing and my knees were bruised quite badly from being crammed in behind the seat in front. Throughout the latter part of the journey, there had been occasional graffiti, all in red paint, many of them including a large question mark with a spiral at the bottom. Most of them also said “Heavenly Path” and something in the Devenagari script used by both Hindi and Nepali; some said “Lovism”. During this last section, after the park border at Dhunche, the frequency had increased so that it seemed every second boulder was daubed in red. I was none the wiser; could it be some Buddhist spiritual thing?
Bus waiting for the morning
Syabrubese is a quiet little one-street town, surrounded by mountains. We went into the first hotel just to find our what the cost would be. The LP had warned us that prices in the mountains can be very high, and the further away from the road you get the higher they climb. I suppose this place still qualifies as on the road, although it is insane to drive buses along it. Inside Potala guesthouse the owner asked “How much do you want to pay?” which took us slightly aback. No tourists, he explained. Rs200 for both room, Al ventured, and the guy said OK immediately. The room rates were on the menu and we discovered that we had just got 50% off. Well done to us for coming after peak season! The food and drink prices were quite a bit higher than Kathmandu but we were expecting this; after all the goods have to go through the same nightmare journey to get there. We went out for a wee walk around town, but there wasn't much to it, and half of that was closed. So Al and I each got a peg of whisky and we discussed the trek route before getting and early night. We didn't have much choice about the early night because soon after it was dark, everything shut.
Hills around Syabrubese
written by  The Happy Couple on May 31, 2009 from Syabru Bensi, Nepal

Heavenly Path
Rimche, Nepal
The start of the trek
We started off quite early on our trek. Al had brought quite a sensible sized bag with him but, although we had managed to leave loads of our usual load behind, we were still both carrying quite heavy bags. Our hotel owner in Kathmandu had told us that there would be mosquitos on the trek, although no malaria, but it already seemed obvious that this was nonsense as the temperature in Syabrubese was already several degrees cooler than Kathmandu.
Weeds
Joanne and Al on the Heavenly Path
Walking through the village on the way to the main path up the valley, there was lots more of the “heavenly path” graffiti as well as lots of possible clues as to what it all meant, I thought: in the town there had been a few, but all the way along the route there were cannabis plants growing wild. Loads of them, scattered all over the place, growing like – well – weeds. In some sections there were huge patches just off the path and in others they were growing in a row down the middle of the path. Heavenly Path indeed!
First glimpse of high peaks
The walking was not too difficult, but our bags were too heavy and we hadn't done much exercise lately so we struggled a bit, especially Joanne.
Undergrowth next to the path
We had to get from about 1500m to 2470m. This was probably going to be the hardest day so I kept reminding her to pace herself since she kept going fast for a while then needing to stop completely for about as long. It wasn't necessary to go particularly fast, since we seemed to passing through the little villages in good time but Al was setting the pace a bit faster than us with his light bag. The scenery was very pleasant and reminded a lot more of Scotland than I expected. Much of the walking was through forest, along beside a river. Every now and then we got peeks at higher peaks, though, and you knew it definitely wasn't Scotland. Since we seemed to be making such good time, we stopped off a couple of the little villages for tea. Actually, most of the villages don't really have much to them except one or two tea houses. The tea house owners were all really friendly, but clearly desperate for business; they always ran out as we were passing and begged us to stop for tea or, better yet, food. We passed only a few other tourists walking in the other direction, but quite a few locals, most of them carrying huge packages strapped round their foreheads and hung down their backs. It doesn't look like a particularly comfortable way to carry anything, but they seem able to carry huge loads like that. Even these people with the huge loads still took the time (and energy) to say “namaste” as they puffed past.
The approach to Landslide
Al approaching Landslide
Our target for lunch had been a place called Landslide Lodge at a “village” simply called Landslide. We stopped for tea at a place we assumed was still some distance before Landslide, but there was a sign nearby which said “Landslide Hotel” on it. We asked the owner if it was Landslide and he said “Yes, this Landslide. This hot spring. This everything”. We knew there was a hot spring somewhere on the route, but it sounded just a bit like he was trying to be all things to all people in fact he'd almost said as much. Not long after he said it, though, there was a thunderous noise and a cascade of rocks poured down the hill and over the path, where we had just been walking. Did he have a friend up there to kick rocks down to help convince tourists this was Landslide?
View from inside the tea house at Landslide
There were several different signs around, and the sign in front of the building did not match the name above the door, and this did not match the name on the menu. We had begun monitoring the menus to try and get an idea of what the prices were doing. As expected they had jumped as soon as we left Syabrubese, so we quickly noted established a few benchmark items through which we could gauge each place. The daal bhaat index and the momo index has only risen slightly so far, but the beer index had already jumped past the affordable level. We left the place of many names, expecting to continue for maybe an hour before lunch but, just round the corner from this guy who had been pleading with us to stay for lunch, was Landslide Hotel.
View from Landslide
We stopped there for lunch but felt a little guilty since we were only just out of sight of the last place. The owner of Landslide Hotel was holding a printout and frowning. He asked Al if he could help him translate “because I'm not an educated man”. It was an email in English from someone in Germany who had run out of money, saying that he had transferred what he owed to the owner's bank account. However the email was about two years old! Had he been sitting there for two years trying to work out what the email said? Al and I both had momos, which were very nice, and Joanne had a disappointing noodle soup thing. Unfortunately buff momos were not on the menu, but the veg ones were very nice: spinach and garlic. I had ordered a raksi just to find out what it was and because it was cheap. As I'd been hoping it was alcoholic: it's locally produced millet wine, so it doesn't have the huge premium added to beer to pay for the porters to carry it up the valley. When it came to pay the bill he asked us to write it down and add it up. Very trusting, but I suppose he has little choice if he's as uneducated as he claims. Just as we were getting ready to go some animal moved around in the bushes. He pointed it out to us and told us we were very lucky. I didn't get a good enough look to be sure what it was, but there are red pandas in the area, as well as various monkeys. I'm sure it was one of the two.
Joanne at Bamboo
Not long later we were at Bamboo, where we stopped again for tea. This was the last place before our final destination so we seemed to be making great time, however referring to the guidebook revealed that we had not yet clocked up even half the day's ascent. We had started to notice that the menus were fairly generic and most of them did not say the name of the tea house they were in, in fact most of them said the name of a tea house or hotel further up the valley. We later realised that the places at the top of the valley must pass their the menus on down the valley each time they have a new one printed; this way the further down the valley you are, you older the prices are you are paying. At the bottom the menus must be about four years old.
Nice forest path
Joanne carrying her heavy bag
The rest of the day's trek was quite a hike. Quite steep sections, although not once did it get anywhere near the sort of difficult terrain you have to tackle on an average day's hillwalking in Scotland; apart from anything else the trail was a huge built highway by Scottish standards. The weather held out for the whole day and, although it was quite cloudy at times, there was no rain at all. We eventually got to Rimche at 2470m, where we had been thinking of staying, rather than going on to the “big town” of Changtang, known as Lama Hotel, which the Lonely Planet trekking guide had decreed was the end of the first day. We had to be a little bit careful about altitude from the following day on, but we weren't high enough to have to worry yet. However Lama Hotel is lower than Rimche, so we would be getting a head start on the acclimatisation and staying in a smaller, nicer, we expected, place. Rimche is split into Lower and Upper Rimche and we almost ended up stopping too soon when an owner swore blind that we were in Rimche.
The river we follwed up the valley
However we had the name of the place we were heading to: Ganesh View, which was actually still quite a climb from Lower Rimche. As we approached a sign said “Best shower on the Langtang – a customer” which sounded like an awfully nice idea. Most of the day people had been offering us free rooms if only we would stay, therefore eating and drinking with them. Some actually sounded like they just wanted the company and several of them said they were very bored with no tourists. So we tried it here and it paid off: as long as we kept our voices down she would give us the room for free. The two Americans, who had been on top of the bus with us and spoke Nepali were already there and presumably not getting their room for free. We almost completely failed to make conversation with them and in the end gave up. They were about as friendly as Indians. One by one we took a shower and amazingly the solar shower had enough water for all five of us, and it was still hot at the end. In fact it was so hot that you needed to add some cold water. Electricity was there but very limited as that is also entirely solar. Ganesh View was a lovely place, with beautiful views down the valley and up towards some of the higher peaks. One of the few things the Americans did say to us was to tip us off that daal bhaat was the menu option to go for if you wanted value for money. Joanne and Al both ordered it, but I couldn't resist more momos, which were delicious again. The daal bhaat was certainly good value and came with a free refill of both rice and daal. I made a particularly good discovery there: mustang coffee, which was only Rs60 compared to about Rs250 for a beer, has a large slug of local spirit in it, mustang I suppose, which is probably distilled raksi. Mustang coffees have all the warming qualities of an Irish coffee or a hot toddy. And we felt quite chilly that night, so we needed a few.
Ganesh View
written by  The Happy Couple on June 1, 2009 from Rimche, Nepal

Prayer sheet party
Langtang, Nepal
Morning at Ganesh View
Joanne on the path
The next day started off with the descent to Lama Hotel which didn't look anything nice as Rimche. Joanne was pacing herself much better and, although Al was going ahead at points, we weren't really in any hurry and at least we weren't stopping as much for rests. We still stopped off for a couple of teas on the way when our energy was low. Most places offered masala tea, which is the milky spiced tea, commonly known as “chai” in the West, but of course that just means “tea”. I started taking sugar in my tea, partly because it brings out the flavour of the spices but mostly because I felt I could do with the energy boost. My bag was heavy, and I was now carrying Joanne's sleeping bag as well as everything else.
Is it a yak?
Quite early on in the day we passed an army check point where we had to show our park permit and sign in. Later we passed a small troop of monkeys, who looked threatening enough that we all picked up rocks before walking on. Now and then we passed large cow-like beasts, which we thought might have been yaks, but when a local overheard us saying “Yak” he said “no – cow”. I think the truth is that it was mostly cow, but it's great-grandmother may have been a yak. In fact it's great-grandmother would have been a nak, which is what the females are called apparently. As we got higher and higher up the valley the cows slowly metamorphosed into yaks/naks. We learned from the Lonely Planet that yaks are considered so closely related to cows that they are also holy animals to Hindus and are also protected by law. Poor buffaloes, which I think are pretty damned similar to cows, that they are OK to kill. How strange and arbitrary religion is!
The alpha male tries to block my path
Alpha male cowers from me in a tree
First view of a snowy peak
The walk was even greener and more heavily forested that day, although the glimpses of higher, rocky and snow-covered peaks were becoming more frequent. As we got higher, the valley opened out and flattened out, into grazing land. We had also noticed that there was lots of agricultural land on the way up, mostly growing a cereal crop. After a certain point, every stream we passed had what looked like a little water mill, with brass cylinders inside, covered in writing. Al was able to tell us that these are prayer wheels, and the turning of the cylinder is meant to throw the prayers off into the heavens.
Riverside, 2769m
Ever since Syabrubese we had been seeing prayer flags, which work in the same way, using wind rather than water to set the prayers in motion. Not long before we got to Langtang a woman practically dragged us in from the path and insisted we have tea. She clearly had not been passed a recent menu and her prices were very good. She told us if we stopped for lunch on the way back she would make us very good daal bhaat for only Rs100, which was about half the going rate at that altitude. We made it to Langtang in good time, not as tired as we had been the previous day, although I think we were all feeling the altitude a little bit, as we all had moments of light-headedness and slight breathlessness. The LP warns that you should not go beyond Langtang because now at 3430m you really do start having to be careful about altitude sickness.
Lunch at the Hotel Tibetan, Goda Tabela at 3000m
Joanne lets a cow / yak pass
We chatted to a Chilean couple staying at our hotel, who were on there way down. They hadn't bothered with any of the “side trips” possible from the next day's destination town. It was just too cold to go on, they explained. Certainly it had been getting steadily colder as our altitude increased, but I didn't think it was going to get that bad. We didn't really have proper cold weather gear with us. Our hotel owner seemed very excited, in fact she was practically jumping up and down, and she was keen that we eat soon. There's a party, she explained.
The path gets steeper
There was a once-a-year “puja” happening to celebrate the arrival of the new prayer sheets from the Dalai Lama and she was keen that we all came along with her. We all filed up to the top of the village where we could see a stream of brightly dressed people coming up the hill, all singing and dancing, and some holding flags. The whole village was out and everyone was very excited. The people carrying the prayer sheets made their way to a hall, where they continued shuffling round and round to the music they were singing.
Approach to the metropolis of Langtang
They were all drinking something that looked like milk, but we later learned is chang, a locally produced rice beer. Al was persuaded to get up and dance for a bit, but Joanne and I just watched. The two Americans appeared again and again it was almost impossible to make conversation with them. It was a bit like they were embarrassed to be speaking English when there were all these people around with whom they could speak Nepali. Al, Joanne, and I mused that the ceremony was so much more beautiful than anything Christians get up to in the name of religion, citing mournful hymns as our primary evidence. Lovely as it was, it wasn't as exciting for us as it was the locals, so we made out excuses and went to bed.
Party coming up the hill
Prayer sheets arrive in Langtang
written by  The Happy Couple on June 2, 2009 from Langtang, Nepal

Road to Kyanjin Gompa
Kyanjin Gompa, Nepal
Snowy range
The next day we did not have very far to go and the views started to become incredible. This is what I had come to Nepal for: jaggy black and snowy peaks. Incredibly our weather still held and we got some fantastic views up the valley towards where we were headed. We passed rows of carved stones, piled up into walls. These are mani stones and I think the same principal applies as to prayer flags and prayer wheels; I think the writing carved into the stones is prayers. I guess it's the rain or something that's meant to whisk them off in this case. Now the cows were getting distinctly more yakky and the air was getting much chillier.
Mani stones and mountain range
Joanne walking past mani stones
When we arrived at Gyanjin Gompa it had clouded over, so we couldn't see the peaks we knew were all around us. Nevertheless we found a very nice hotel called Hotel Super View, where we were not only offered the room for free, but a 40% discount on the food. It was run by a really nice Tibetan woman. In fact most of the people we had come into contact with since Syabrubese were Tibetans who, if anything, we even nicer than the Nepalis. OK they were desperate and, in the small places, really bored, but their hospitality still seemed very genuine.
Getting closer to big hills
Since we were in Tibetan occupied territory I thought I'd try a “Tibetan Tea” despite Al's warnings that it involved rancid Yak butter. It was pretty disgusting, but the butter used wasn't rancid. It did just seem to be several ounces of butter and hot water, though. A great tip the Chilean couple had given us was that there is yak cheese made in the village, so I went out to look for it and, after one guy insisted on telling me how they make the cheese I bought a lump at only Rs450/kg. It was really nice and we were all desperate for cheese, which you don't generally find much in Asia.
Yak graing in front of mountains
On the hunt for cheese I saw the Americans again, surrounded by Nepalis, and failed to engage them in conversation again. I also went out looking for beer but I excelled myself and came back with about a litre and a half of chang which cost only Rs100. Nobody had thought to try and sell it to us, but I asked on the off-chance and hit the jackpot. The chang was quite nice, and very similar to saki, which isn't too surprising I suppose, since they're both made from rice. Our hotel owner got a bit upset, though, when she saw us bringing in all these outside goods, after all we were staying for free.
Yak cheese and chang
The cheese she seemed prepared to let go, but she insisted we try her chang and wasn't too upset when we said that it wasn't as good as the stuff we'd got elsewhere. That evening the people with the prayer sheets arrived from Langtang. There was a bit of a party again, which the owner was very excited about, but it seemed a lot more restrained than the previous night.
First view of Kyanjin Gompa
written by  The Happy Couple on June 3, 2009 from Kyanjin Gompa, Nepal

Kyanjin Ri
Kyanjin Gompa, Nepal
Morning at Kyangin Gompa
In the morning it had completely cleared up and, in anticipation of this possibility the first thing I did when I woke up was to pull the curtain to the side and peek out. Joanne later reported I acted as if there was a fresh fall of snow outside, excitedly telling her to look, then rushing off out into the morning. I just wanted to look around and soak up the view. Kjanjin Gompa is in a beautiful location: it is surrounded by high peaks. There are a couple of 7000m peaks and lots of 6000m peaks towering over the village. I went a bit crazy with the camera again, until I decided I had taken enough photos of the same thing.
Joanne's feet had not made any miraculous recovery, so Al and I set out without her. As Kyanjin Gompa was now our base and we were coming back to the same place that evening, I was able to leave a lot of the weight behind, although I did still have the same ridiculously large bag, which contributes a significant weight itself. Al and I were climbing Kjanjin Ri, a nearly 5000m peak almost directly above the village. OK 4773m. We had asked the hotel owner to make us up a packed lunch, but we didn't really think we were going to take that long.
Big peaks
The route climbed steeply but the path remained very clear and easy. Al appeared to be taking a lot more strain, because now that I wasn't having to wait for Joanne or being weighed down by all the extras in my bag, I could keep up quite easily.
Kyanjin Gompa on the way up
As we climbed, though, we both started to struggled breathing a lot more than previously. After a while we were both needing to take short rests every few steps it seemed. The altitude was now a real problem. In the hotel, there was a map of the area, accompanied by a chart showing the relative oxygen concentration at various altitudes; at the height the village is at it was already down to 50% compared to sea level; at the top of this peak it was going to be only 44%, so it's not surprising we struggled to get a breath really. A couple of times we each felt quite light-headed and had to sit for a minute or so. But it was all worth it as the views were fantastic. On the way up to a minor peak at 4565m we got clear views of all the nearby big mountains and the glaciers extending out of their cols. The top of the ridge we could see just next to us is probably Tibet; the map indicated that we were going to be within about 4km of the border.
Me on top of the minor summit
Al on top
As we stood at the top of the minor peak it started to cloud over a bit, so we set off again hoping to see at least something from the main summit. As we approached it we could see that it was covered in prayer flags, but Al also noticed that there was a person sitting at the top. We come all this way and someone has beaten us to it! A little further on and we were able to identify the person: it was the male one of the two unfriendly Americans. He had seemed like a keen mountain type, and he was kitted out with lots of fancy looking gear. I don't know if the altitude had got to him or if it was actually the girl who had been unfriendly all along, but this time he was actually very friendly and chatted to us for quite some time at the summit.
Ice fall from a big mountain
He had left his female companion back in the village so that she could spend the day horse riding. There were quite a few horses dotted around and several of the hotels had signs up offering horseback tours. He seemed very pleased: he explained that this way she gets to do what she wants and he gets to do what he wants. Maybe they were always in the middle of an argument when they were together, so never felt like speaking to anyone else. Anyway, he seemed like a perfectly nice guy after all and helped by taking a couple of photos of me at the summit, a favour which I returned. It never completely cleared up at the top, but we got enough glimpses through the cloud to be able to put together a complete mental picture of what we were missing.
Me on top of Kyanjin Ri
Bird eating the American's food at the summit
We decided to take a different route down for the same of variety, but I think it was a mistake. We reasoned that we'd get a different view on the way down. In fact the descent route just took us down at the bottom of a valley, so there was no view at all to speak of. We'd have been better off with the same view again. Descending was trivial. The path was really easy again, and the difference between going down into increasing dense air and the opposite is very noticeable. We were back in time for lunch and, although I'd eaten my packed lunch at the top, I ordered another one, reasoning that I'd earned it and used plenty of calories.
Tibet and Tibetan prayer flags from the summit
That night I went in search of a cheaper beer to reward myself with. I didn't want to pay the Rs350 our hotel was asking for one and I managed to buy one for Rs250 from another hotel owner. Our hotel owner was quite put out and told me not to buy beer from anywhere else, because she would sell it for the same price. I was quite pleased because the one I'd bought elsewhere was a year past its best before date, and I bought one from her. Hers was also a year past its sell by date, so I decided just to stick to chang and mustang coffees. Unfortunately the chang was also past its best and down to the thick stuff at the bottom. We were promised fresh chang the following day, but the stuff we bought that day just went down the drain.
Kyanjin Gompa from above
There were loads of these on the way to Kyanjin Ri (Irises, right?)
Dodgy chang and off beer
Night scene outside the hotel
written by  The Happy Couple on June 4, 2009 from Kyanjin Gompa, Nepal

Long walk to Langtang Shisha and back
Kyanjin Gompa, Nepal
Free Tibet seems to be old fashioned
I think this is called a "goth"
The next morning Joanne's feet were still not any better and I had noticed that we had made a mistake in thinking that our other planned “side walk” from Kyanjin Gompa went to a glacier; in fact it was just a long walk further up the valley to a view point. Realising this, and feeling a bit sorry for Joanne being left alone for two days, I said that I wasn't that bothered about the trip and would be quite happy to start descending that day. It also looked like rain and the clouds were very low. Al said he was still keen though, so I agreed to go with him after all. Although there wasn't much ascent (it was only up to 4300m) it was a tougher day.
Heavenly Path get everywhere
Maybe it was just because we were tired from the exertion the day before, but it also seemed a very long way. The walk started out over what looked like a glacier near to the village, but which was confusingly not marked on the map and seemed a bit low to stay frozen. When we walked to it we realised it was just lots and lots of white stones, the outwash from the glacier retreating from its maximum extent. Someone had used some of the stones to spell out “Save Tibet” on the banks of the river. This walk took us probably even closer to the border than the previous day: maybe 3km from Tibet, yet so inaccessible; although it already felt like we were in Tibet. Nobody up here was speaking Nepali, only Tibetan, although they told us that their children, who were all away at boarding school, spoke Nepali and Tibetan, and quite good English too.
A crow, mani stones, prayer flags, and mountains
Bet they were glad when the big rock didn't crush their house
The clouds were low for most of the day so we couldn't see the surrounding peaks. Again I was reminded of Scotland. The valley was punctuated with ruins of stone houses, a very common sight in Scottish glens. Although the whole valley had reminded me of Scotland quite often, the one thing that was always very different was the scale: there were boulders scattered around the valley, which you also find it Scotland, but here they were huge; the river running down the valley was much bigger than any mountain river I could think of in Scotland; for much of the walk, it was a glacial flat-bottomed valley, just like you get it Scotland, but far broader than anything I could think of at home; of course when you look up the sides of the valleys to the peaks the scale difference there almost completely obliterates the similarities.
I wish I was up there
Again the path was very easy although we lost it a couple of times and wandered onto much rougher terrain, more like the kind of ground you find yourself walking over on the Scottish hills. The route hardly climbed at all and most of what we walked through was flat yak grazing ground. There were hundreds of yaks now and they were definitely much more yakky than the yaks of previous days. We also saw quite a lot of horses, left to roam around on their own. The further up the valley we went, the clearer it became, until we were rewarded with some more lovely views.
Mountains
We were exhausted at the end and we lay down to eat our lunch, out of the freezing wind. The walk back was a real slog, but we at least managed to save some energy by sticking to the path this time. As we neared the village, a Nepali guy coming the other way spoke to us. Had we seen any horses, he wanted to know. We told him we had seen lots, but they were most of the way to Langtang Shisha, where we had finished. Apparently they were his. A little further on and we passed another guy on the same mission. Neither of these guys looked Tibetan and they were dressed more smartly than any of the locals, so I suppose they must be Nepalis who just check on their horses every now and then.
Alas poor yak
Then, just before we got back to the village we came across a dead horse. It was sprawled out at the edge of the valley and it looked as if it must have fallen down the steep slope above. We had seen a few horses very high up the previous day and I suppose horses are really made for the plains not the hills, so it must have lost its footing and tumbled.
Yaks grazing
December from Yaks 2010 Calendar
written by  The Happy Couple on June 5, 2009 from Kyanjin Gompa, Nepal

Descent
Syabru Bensi, Nepal
Heavenly Path?
Hotel owner pleased with her cash
In the morning we checked out. Like everyone else in the valley, our hotel owner told is she was uneducated and it was left to us to total up the bill. We felt a bit guilty about the 40% discount on the menu she had offered us because, although the prices are high on the menus there, she had been so nice and 40% was more than most people were offering. So we decided we would just give ourselves a 30% discount, but the phone charge and the beer were not supposed to be discounted, so we had to add that separately. After adding it up we explained what we had done, but she just glazed over, clearly not following. We had written the part relating to the discount on a loose page so that subsequent guests would not be able to see how much off we had. When we handed over the money, though, she counted it up and then looked very pleased. She may not have followed the details, but she obviously had a fair idea of how much she wanted.
Man and woman with big loads
Curds and whey
The weather was pretty good on the descent as well, and it was much easier going down. Joanne was still struggling with her feet though, but she persevered and kept up a pretty good speed. After a couple of hours, we stopped off at a place selling curd, simply because we hadn't tried any yet. Joanne chickened out and had tea, but the curd was very good, although I suspected that it was mixed with whey. Next we stopped off at the place where the woman had promised us daal bhaat for Rs100 and she kept her promise, and it was very good but she said she didn't actually have time to make daal. Instead she gave us extra vegetable curry which was excellent.
Circle of caterpillars
After lunch we came across a ring of hairy caterpillars, following each other round in a circle, something I've heard they do, but never before seen. In good time we arrived back at Ganesh View, who were pleased that we had returned. We had covered the same distance in one day that we took two days for on the way up, but we had been restricted by altitude considerations on the way up.
Me at Ganesh View
Tiny scorpion in our bed
The following day we expected it to take to time at all, since it had only been one day on the way up. Joanne's feet were much worse again and she claimed it felt like her big toenails were coming off, but I couldn't exactly carry her, so she just had to put a brave face on it and press on. When we got to Landslide the friendly guy there invited us to sit down for free tea. After chatting to us for a bit he asked if we would do him a favour and post a letter for him. I don't know where his nearest postbox is, but I don't think there was one in Syabrubese.
Ganesh View on the way down
Of course we agreed and in thanks he gave us a little hammered brass medallion from his curio stall. Near the bottom we got back to where the thick forests of cannabis were growing; it seemed like they had grown a foot in the few days we had been up the mountain. Back in Syabrubese we booked into the Potala Guesthouse where we had stayed on the way up. We thought we'd be able to get free room as we'd been getting them free the whole way up the valley, but he insisted on charging us Rs50 each. This time we knew to buy our bus ticket the day before to avoid having to sit on the roof on the back. I was actually in two minds about it because the inside of the bus is so uncomfortable.
Heavenly Path
When we returned to the guesthouse after eating Joanne showed me her toenails. They were going black and the did look like they were going to come off. And she'd hardly complained at all!
written by  The Happy Couple on June 7, 2009 from Syabru Bensi, Nepal

Shopping in Kathmandu
Kathmandu, Nepal
The seat I got on the bus back to Kathmandu from Syabrubese did seem to have a bit more space than last time I sat inside a Nepalese bus and I managed to endure the journey without my knee caps being dislodged, which seemed a real possibility on the previous occasion. Safely back in Kathmandu we returned to the nice cheap Kathmandu Cafe and all three of us had chilly momos for tea. Our hotel had done a grand job of looking after all the stuff we left behind and even my laptop, which I'd been a bit nervous about leaving for more than a week, was still there.
The following day we had to get our Nepal visa extended because the extra day we stayed in Kathmandu before going on the trek meant that we were nearly out of time but by then we had decided that we really liked Nepal anyway and we wanted to stay a bit longer: we wanted to get some shopping done in Kathmandu and maybe check out the lively night scene. We had also decided to pay a quick visit to Pohkara just to see what the mountain views around the town were like.
We asked at reception to confirm where we had to go for our extension and the Lonely Planet was out of date again. We got a taxi there to drop off our money, forms, and passports and then another taxi back because Joanne's feet were not up to walking anywhere anymore. Then, in the afternoon, we repeated the journey to pick up our passports with new visas. On the return leg the taxi driver told us that we might have some trouble getting back to Thamel because of the strike. Every day, he explained, the Maoists were striking between midday and 2pm, which meant some roads would be blockaded. He took us a long way around, without charging any extra, and managed to miss all the problems. I was a bit confused because as far as I knew the Maoists were now the government, so why would they be protesting? A little bit of online news revealed that, although the Maoists were the biggest party, they had no overall majority so, when a motion of no confidence in their leader, the prime minister, had been proposed, it was successful and the leader of another party had replaced him. Subsequently the Maoists had withdrawn from parliament in protest and this is why there were now strikes.
Nightlife in Kathmandu
Over the next few days we did quite a bit of shopping then posted most of it home along with some other things we had decided were too heavy to continue carrying with us. We did go out at night, but we are obviously getting too old because it seemed like the live music playing everywh ere was just too loud and we soon moved to a quieter place where we could hear ourselves think. It was a cocktail bar apparently popular with mountaineers, and there was a group who had just returned from an attempt on Everest. One guy, and American was only interested in using his Everest credentials to chat up a couple of girls half his age but, sitting next to us was a nice quiet guy from Peru, where he works as a guide. He had missed his return flight because the whole expedition had taken two weeks longer than he had anticipated. In the end they had not made it to the summit because, being such an experienced mountaineer, he had turned back when he realised his feet were wet, rather than press on and risk front bite. He would rather come back without the summit, but with all of his body parts, he explained. He said he has known of lots of people who didn't turn around and are now missing fingers and toes just so that they made it to the top.
Bhopki
I managed to fit it an extra couple of unusual Nepali dishes in between the buff momos, to which I had clearly developed a serious addiction. On one day I had Bhatmas Sadeko, a chili, bean, and onion dish, then the next day I ordered Bhopki, which I thought was going to be a drink; it was listed with the alcoholic drinks and, when I asked the waiter what it was, he told me it was what comes before chang, so I thought it was maybe a weaker rice beer before it is fortified. In fact it came in a bowl; it was like alcoholic rice pudding, not at all what I was expecting but really delicious actually. It was flavoured with cloves and cinnamon and it had raisins in it.
Bhatmas Sadeko
Al left for Pohkara the day before us because he wanted to squeeze in a trek there, whereas we were still shopping. When we did leave for Pokhara the bus was as uncomfortable as usual but to make matter worse it stopped in a huge queue of other buses and lorries for ages. We initially thought that there had been an accident or that somebody had jumped off the bridge we stopped next to, but Joanne eventually worked out that that it must just be the two-hour daily strike by the Maoists again. Of course nobody thought to explain to the foreigners what was going on. We eventually arrived in Pohkara over two hours late and allowed ourselves to be taken to a quiet hotel owned by a man who had turned up at the bus station to poach customers. It sounded perfect after all the noise and rushing around in Kathmandu.
written by  The Happy Couple on June 12, 2009 from Kathmandu, Nepal

The Fort William of Nepal
Pokhara, Nepal
The lake in Pokhara
Pokhara was a bit disappointing. It was the view I had come for and although the mountains may have been there in the distance, there was too much cloud to see anything but the boring small nearby hills. The town itself reminded me of Fort William. There is no real feel to the place at all because, I think, it only exists because of tourism. It seems to be purely a staging post on the way to the Anapurna Circuit. It is far more expensive than Kathmandu and the shopping there is nowhere near as interesting or varied; fine if you are looking for walking gear or a new tent but that's about it. Even the momos only came in eights instead of the usual ten!
Could be Loch Lomond
When we arrived at the hotel is was chucking it down. The hotel owner offered us an umbrella and explained that it was monsoon. We had been very lucky: while Pokhara and the Anapurna Circuit were getting soaked, Kathmandu had also received some rain we heard, but our trail up the Langtang Valley has seen only a couple of drops and most of the time it had been fine weather. We sent Al and email to tell him where we were and he arrived at our room later that day. We went our later and he introduced us to Dominik, a German guy, and Roxy from Australia whom he had both met when he arrived.
Al was still keen to go on a trek, but was put off by the Rs2000 park fees you have to pay. We had no plans except for writing postcards and reading. The rain in particular put me off walking again and Joanne's feet were definitely still not up to it. Besides, we couldn't really afford the time; we did want to spend some time back in India although we weren't really rushing back.
We just spent a couple of day hanging around. The lake was quite nice, but the weather restricted the views a bit. In the end it just looked like Scotland again, this time maybe Loch Lomond. I would never have guessed that Nepal could remind me of Scotland in so many different ways. I tried to extend my knowledge of Asian whisky while I was there and after discovering a new worst whisky (Wainscot: -1/10), we tried Spey Livet. What a find! At only Rs180 for a peg it was still at the cheap end of the market but it actually tasted nice, and like whisky. A closer inspection of the bottle revealed that it was actually pure malt Scotch whisky. No wonder it tasted like real whisky.
Booze!
After a couple of days we got bored and booked a bus back to the border. We had already booked the train from Gorakhpur to Delhi online, deciding to treat ourselves to 2A, which is second class A/C or “two tier” A/C. Al asked us to book his Sleeper class back to Delhi as he didn't have a credit card, and reimbursed us in Indian Rupees. The class system on Indian trains is about as complicated as the caste system. So far we had only experienced Sleeper Class, but there are far more to choose from. In ascending price, the lowest is Second Class, which is a bit strange considering that it's the lowest of seven! Next up is Sleeper Class, then Chair Class (A/C), First Class, 3A, 2A, and 1A. That evening we discovered that Dominik was getting a bus at the same time as us but, curiously, his bus was to have a different registration from ours. We said goodbye to Al, who had found out about a short walk that avoided the national park and the fees this attracts. He was planning to start it the next day with Roxy, who wanted to extend her stay in Nepal as long as she could so that she did not have to spend much time in India.
written by  The Happy Couple on June 14, 2009 from Pokhara, Nepal

Culture Shock: Indian Re-entry
Gorakhpur, India
In the morning we walked most of the way in the direction of the bus station we didn't really know how to get to, then chickened out and flagged down a taxi who only had to take us about one hundred metres. Then we had to wait around for ages for the actual bus to turn up. As seems to be standard on Nepali buses some seats were double-booked, possibly a result of selling tickets for buses with two different registrations then trying to cram everyone onto one bus. We had moved quickly, though, and had our seats, as did Dominik. As everyone else started to pile in, the attitude of some people changed from confusion, into anger, then into indignation. The Nepalis couldn't see the problem and just handed them little wicker chairs to sit on in the aisle, but these tourists had paid for a seat, specific ones for that matter that other people were sitting in, so they insisted. In the end the Nepalis gave up and apparently arranged another bus, but we were off before it arrived.
We arrived back in Belahiya at the border and the Indian influence was evident: auto-rickshaw drivers were charging a fortune from the bus station to the border and exaggerating the distance. We ignored them and set off on foot, but just round the corner a minibus was about to leave for only Rs10, but we had to sit on the roof again. There were no mountain passes on this short journey so we jumped on and overtook all of the auto-rickshaws that had left the bus station. We stopped off for lunch before crossing the border to savour our last few minutes in Nepal. It was much hotter now that we were back on plains.
As soon as we crossed into India the temperature seemed to jump several more degrees; filling out our immigration forms and swine flu disclaimers sweat was dripping off our faces. I didn't border to change the rest of our Nepali money back into Indian as I am absolutely certain I'll be returning to Nepal soon, and it's nice to have a little something when you arrive in a country, just to tide you over to the first ATM. Dominik had heard that you can share a Jeep to Gorakhpur for Rs100, which is about double what the bus costs, but we thought it would be faster and more comfortable. I doubted we could get it for that cheap, but Dominik went over to speak to driver and then waved us over. It seemed quite a good deal but I could imagine waiting for ages before they had enough passengers. Before putting our bags on top I asked what the maximum wait would be before they left anyway and I was told ten minutes. Completely forgetting just what India is like, we agreed and started waiting. At ten minutes I asked whether the Jeep was leaving or we were getting our bags down and heading for the bus. OK, leaving when these passengers arrive, we were told. There were some more people coming, so we waited for them. A few minutes later when I asked again we were told just five more minutes, so I said if we didn't leave in five minutes we'd be getting the bus. Five minutes came and went so I started taking the bags down, whereupon a different Indian guy ran up and asked what we were doing, as the bus is about to leave. This pantomime went on for ages with me threatening to take the bags down, taking them down, then some other story was made up, we were made to change Jeeps so that we could leave “immediately” as if there was some problem with the car, but we just ended up waiting in the second one instead. Finally they started asking people for money and in every case asked for more than had already been agreed. Nobody was budging, least of all the Jeep driver. By this time the car was full and everyone was saying things like “Welcome back to India” then a bit later “Bloody Indians!”. They tried to charge us Rs150 each, then they tried to charge us Rs10 per piece of luggage and every time I refused and asked for our bags back. Eventually they let it go and everyone paid what they had agreed, although this did vary from Rs100 to Rs150. Finally the Jeep pulled off over an hour after we had been promised ten minutes and so packed with people that it was less comfortable than the bus, now also going to arrive later than the bus. We had forgotten: bloody Indians! We would have been much better to get the government bus than try to enter into any kind of private financial transaction. Dominik looked shocked. He had never been to India before as he'd flown into Kathmandu. Once we were moving everyone was laughing about it and discussing how complete the culture change is, just fifty metres from the border. Later we spoke to other people who had been into Nepal and everybody seems to agree that the culture shock coming back from Nepal into India is much worse that anyone is prepared for; after all so many things are similar between the countries that forget what India is like and it really takes you by surprise. It's so wearing, always having to argue about everything, never getting a smile. Even the driving is worse.
Back in Gorakhpur, the Jeep stopped one kilometre from the train station with a flat tyre. Of course I assumed it was a con, but getting out the vehicle we could see that it was true. We just waited for him to change it and then he took us the rest of the way after all. Inside the station more culture shock: huge queues for tickets, people sitting or lying all over the floor inside and out on the platforms. Poor Dominik's eyes were almost popping out of his head. Where was he going to get a ticket? We were a bit uncertain of ours as we thought we might have to re-confirm it after the internet booking. After wandering around the crowds in a daze for a bit, we found a ticket counter that was for “foreign tourists” where several Indians were pushing each other out of the way to get to the front. The queue was only about one tenth of the size of all the others though, so Dominik joined it. After fifteen minutes or so, getting nowhere, we went up to him and told him that you really have to push your way to the front. It was as if he had only been treading water. There is a rule of Indian queues it seems, that an Indian never has to queue behind a white person. I had noticed it several times in queues and Dominik was suffering from the same problem. Most of the time Indians will loosely collect in a line, although people try to drift up past the person in front at all times, however a white person standing at the back seems to be a signal to start two new separate queues, one to each side, starting just in front of where the poor tourist is left stranded. No further person will stand behind and join the real end of the queue. Eventually he did get to the front and was told that he could not get a ticket for our train, but some Koreans he had met in Pokhara were also trying to get to Varanasi and he joined forces with them. Meanwhile I had been searching the platform in vain for the reservation charts that usually appear on the platform before the train. Having no luck I too joined the tourist queue but deployed my elbows from an early stage and made it to the front unskipped. The guy behind the counter told me it was already confirmed, raising his eyes heavenwards, and pointing to where on the ticket it said “CONFIRM”. We had thought that meant we had to confirm it but, displaying brilliant clarity it actually meant it was already confirmed.
Waiting for the train
At last the train arrived and we were able to get on and settle in to our luxury cabin. The main attraction for us was that entry into the A/C cabins is restricted, whereas it seems like anybody can get on Sleeper Class, whether they have a ticket or not. We hoped this would mean we could worry less about our bags and we would be disturbed less by all the comings and goings. Straight away we saw the difference when we were able to stow both of our big bags under the chairs, instead of having to wait for people to get off. Joanne seemed pretty happy with the arrangement, although it was much less sociable than Sleeper Class. The snobby Indians on 2A clearly liked to keep to themselves. Or maybe it was just the ones in our cabin.
It turned out that we had just not prepared well enough for the air conditioning. We had read that we were given bedding in the A/C cabins, but it was nowhere near thick enough to keep out the arctic wind blowing through the cabin from the air conditioning unit. I drank the remains of the rough apple brandy we had bought in Pokhara and managed to pass out for an hour or so, but Joanne apparently got no sleep whatsoever. We arrived in Varanasi totally shattered.
written by  The Happy Couple on June 15, 2009 from Gorakhpur, India

Arrival in Varanasi
Varanasi, India
Varanasi is a place I had been intending to include in our Indian itinerary from inception, but every person without exception we spoke to about it while travelling said the place is incredible, not to be missed. So we were really looking forward to going to a place in India that was so universally recommended. People were, however, quite selective in their choice of adjectives when describing the place; nobody said it was “lovely”, “nice”, or “pretty”, for example. Some people had even said that it certainly isn't a place you would describe as nice, but that it is amazing.
We were so exhausted from the little luxury of the freezing cold A/C carriage we had “treated” ourselves to that we just let the auto-rickshaw driver take us to his hotel suggestions, presumably ensuring that we paid about a quarter more to cover his baksheesh for taking us. By the second hotel we were desperate for bed and I thought the place seemed quite nice anyway, but the main reason I decided we should stay there was that the hotelier seemed very friendly and was certainly quite a character by Indian standards: he had his quiff, popular with Bollywood heroes and therefore many Indian men, bleached to quite a light orangey colour. I assumed it was something to do with promoting the place, which is called Elvis Guesthouse. It was being run by four brothers, but they each seemed to adopt a group of guests as their own; our brother was called Haroon. From the beginning he was keen to tell us all about India and Varanasi, take us to tourist sites, and generally baby-sit us. We insisted that we needed some rest first and went up to bed.
Elvis Guest House
Varanasi was very hot. The day we arrived it was 44C, but it rose to 46C over the next couple of days. I'm sure this is the highest temperature I've been in. It didn't seem to be at all humid, though, so I didn't feel all that uncomfortable. In fact I think the humidity was a bit too low for comfort: after about five minutes without drinking any water I could feel my eyes drying out and my mouth parching. Cold water is almost impossible to come by because, even if you buy it nicely chilled from a fridge, it only takes about ten minutes before the whole litre is warm. At that temperature everything is warm to the touch which is really quite unusual: the mattress on the bed feels as if it has an electric blanket on it; the wooden cupboard in the room is hot; my phone was hot; the cold water from the shower or tap comes out hot and doesn't run cool; clothes from my rucksack felt like they were fresh out of the tumble-drier; and strangest of all the marble floor, which normally keeps you cool in hot weather, was hot underfoot and quietly glowed with heat all night, ensuring the bedroom stayed warmer than the outside temperature. I'm not sure why it seems so strange; it seems you get used to the air temperature but when you touch a solid object and it's hot it just seems wrong. I assume it happens when the air temperature is above 37C, body temperature.
Since re-entering India I had been thinking about what it is I like about the place. We had been finding it so frustrating that it was easy to come up with things not to like about the place, but I didn't feel I was giving it a fair chance, after all I had not found it so difficult last time. The first thing that hit me after we re-entered is that the country inspires a sense of awe: the fact that there are so many people virtually anywhere in India (Al had said he find there are always twice as many people as there should be, no matter what you are doing in India), that the country is so massive, and yet it still works quite well. It really is an incredible place but, like Varanasi specifically, I hesitate to use words like “nice”; more fitting are “fascinating”, “awesome”, “amazing”, and “incredible”. Unlike peoples descriptions of Varanasi, however, I would not hesitate to describe (bits of) India as “beautiful” or “pretty”; in fact another aspect I love about India is the art: the stone work on the temples, the patterns on the textiles, the women's jewellery, and the henna on skin all tends to be incredibly intricate, which I like. I love the fact that everything is covered in pretty designs or perfumed with oils and incense, whether it's wooden boxes, beads, or statues of Hindu gods. It reminds me of Eurasia Craft on Great Western Road in Glasgow – and of being about sixteen. Culturally the country is fascinating as well: like the art, the rest of culture seems to be very intricate as well. The caste system may be awful, but it is fascinating and complicated. Then Hinduism alone must be by far the most intricate religion with thousands of different gods, each with several incarnations, each with several manifestations. When you add all the other religions into the mix it makes for a very interesting place, which brings up another wonderful thing about the country: tolerance. India must surely be the model for a multi-cultural state, with all these different religions and castes living side-by-side yet unified under the idea of the Indian state. Although it happens, ethnic or religious violence is rare, and people do not seem to discriminate when choosing their friends; I think that most Hindus have Sikhs or Muslims as friends.
Back in Varanasi, Haroon had told us that people just stay indoors and maybe sleep between 11 and 3 every day in hot weather. Unfortunately our across-the-hall neighbour had clearly not heard about this. While we were trying to catch up on our over-night transport lack of sleep, he was practising scales on a musical instrument. I think it was an oboe and I would guess that he bought it in India. Quite a lot of people seem to use their trip to India to explore their spiritual side, which almost invariably appears to mean making lots of noise, either on a musical instrument or simply by singing. I suppose they think that the Indians are all making lots of noise so it's OK for them to do so too. After failing to sleep for a while Joanne knocked on his door and asked him to stop playing his “flute” because we'd just come off the overnight train. To his credit he stopped for a bit, but we were already over-tired and now it was far too hot to sleep. Eventually we gave up and went downstairs to consent to Haroon's tour.
Shiva temple at the university in Varanasi
Haroon had offered us a free tour, but he was only talking about his time and we still had to pay for the auto-rickshaw. The tour wasn't actually all that great. He took us to the Shiva temple at the university, which is a huge campus on which over 40,000 students are taught. He said it was a very prestigious institution, often known as the Cambridge of the East. The temple wasn't very interesting though. Next he took us to the “monkey temple” to the man-monkey god Hanuman. Like all Hanuman temples there are hundreds of monkeys all over the grounds. I asked Haroon if they build the temples where the monkeys are or they bring the monkeys to the temple. He said that he thought the monkeys just come to where the temples are. He may be right, although I think it's less likely because of some sort of spiritual affinity, and more likely because Indians tolerate and feed the monkeys at Hanuman temples, whereas they normally throw rocks at them or hit them with sticks. No wonder they are “drawn” to these mystical places. Finally we were taken to the Mother India Temple, sponsored by Ghandi, apparently. Quite a bizarre temple, but again I didn't find it very interesting. I like my temples to me pretty and intricate, but all of these seemed quite dour. In this case, all the temple contained was a 3D relief map on India on the floor. While we were inside, Haroon had got speaking to a couple who were looking for a particular restaurant and he had offered to give them a lift. But, as always seems to be the case for a tour in India, it was time for the visit to the shops. The couple didn't seem to mind as we were shown to a silk weaving factory, but none of us bought anything and they were duly dropped off at their restaurant.
Licensed boats waiting for customers on the Ganga
Later Haroon suggested that we take a cruise on the Ganga. We were certainly intending to do this as most people we had taken advice from had said this was a highlight, but we hadn't decided whether to go at sunset or sunrise, reportedly the most beautiful times. In the end we decided to go once for each, so followed Haroon down to the river where the boats were waiting. He explained that this was one of only two government authorised places to take a cruise; elsewhere were unlicensed boats which sometimes run into trouble with the police. The light was already failing, but we could still see that the riverside is quite an impressive sight. Through the town the river is lined with ghats, which are large stone steps leading down into the river. Most are bathing ghats to give access for swimming in the river, which some people were doing, washing clothes, washing buffalos, and so on, but a few are burning ghats with platforms for cremation and religious ceremonies. The stairways ascend for quite a height so that they provide access to the river whether it is flooded during monsoon or in spate. At the top of most of the steps are large stone buildings, the bottom of which must be under water during monsoon.
Puja on the ghat
Our boatman
Just as we were pushing away from the bank a child selling floating candles boarded and we bought one each. More, he insisted – one for you and one for your father... and one for your brother and your mother, but we in turn insisted that we were only buying one, and were taken back to the bank so he could get off. We floated them in the water then were rowed slowly down the river to the main ghat, where there was a puja in progress; the ceremony is performed every evening, and another one every morning. Our boatman slid us up to the jam of boats parked in front of the ghat and tied on to our neighbour, so that we could sit and watch for a bit. Boys zipped about from boat to boat selling chai and others sold floating candles. A few candles were floating around the hulls of the boats and I wondered about the safety of floating fire next to wooden boats. People all around us were splashing the river water over themselves and, in the next boat, one of the chai wallahs leant over the side of the boat and drank several scooped handfuls of water thirstily. By contrast, Joanne was flinching every time a splash of water went near her legs; I wasn't quite so paranoid, but I certainly didn't want any on my lips or in my eyes or ears. Along this stretch of river all the sewage from the city is pumped directly into the river, most of it untreated; the water is horribly murky and there is lots of rubbish floating on it; and not just ashes, but entire dead bodies are dumped in the river.
Boat park in front of the puja
The purpose of the cremation is to purify the body before committing it to the Ganga, from where the dead will be taken to heaven; however there are five cases where cremation is not necessary and the body can be put straight into the river. The first case is children under eight, who are considered too pure to have accumulated any bad karma; try telling that to the tabloid press in Britain! The second case is pregnant women, whose pure unborn child makes them pure too. Third are lepers, who are believed to have already suffered all of their bad karma during their lives, so have no need of the purifying flames. The fourth case is those who have died from snake bites; I think a similar bad karma argument applies as to lepers, but the logic of it escapes me: what about people who have lived through cancer, or a disability, or any manner of horrible ways to die? The final case is monks, who are already at the top of the reincarnation ladder and poised to achieve moksha, release from the endless cycle of death and rebirth, the state of perfect nothingness; a state that a friend once remarked to me is sought after and achieved by Hindus only after living through countless increasingly pure lives, but which atheists reach the first time they die.
The puja was vaguely entertaining and the atmosphere among the boats was fairly reverend, but I failed to see or feel what it was that people we had spoken to had found so profound and moving about Varanasi. As we were untied and rowed back towards the ghat we boarded from Joanne lifted her camera to take a photo of the pyres on the burning ghat, not realising what they were, but the boatman shouted “no photo”. I'm not sure why this specifically is disallowed; is this supposed to be the moment that the soul leaves the body or something? It can't be when the body dies, otherwise there would be no point going through all these purifying rituals, as it would be too late and the soul would already have been reincarnated in some womb down the purity ladder. And what is the point in having all these complicated rules about dharma and karma if your family can just burn away all of your bad karma anyway? Religion really is odd. Varanasi is considered such a holy place that anyone dying there achieves moksha, skipping countless less than pure lives, and moving directly to Go, as far as I can understand it regardless of how they have lived that life. That would make it a fairly popular retirement destination you would think but there didn't seem to be any sign of large piles of Peoples Friend for sale in the newsagents.
Puja
I remembered that everyone who had recommended the place had seen a dead body floating in the water. At the time I had not found the thought very appealing at all, not being much of a fan of ghoulish or horrific experiences, but I now realised that I had unconsciously been hoping to see something similar so I too could be shocked into feeling like it was a profound experience. However we saw nothing gory and we returned to our hotel feeling a little disappointed. The puja was OK, but nothing special, and another expectation I'd had about Varanasi was that it would be absolutely teaming with people so that it would be almost impossible to push through the crowds on the ghats; in fact it seemed to be the emptiest Indian town we had been in.
When we got back to shore, the guy who Haroon arranged the cruise with told us it had been over two hours so asked for double what we had agreed. I checked the time stamp on the photos I took from the shore just before getting in the boat and it was only about 65 minutes ago. I told him that he was talking rubbish and besides we only asked for one hour, so if it had lasted for longer it was his problem, not ours. The cheating never stops in India! He didn't seem upset, just realised he'd been caught out, and accepted the Rs300 each which is apparently the government set rate. Thankfully, he sent someone to take us back to our guesthouse, which Haroon had arranged as well. There had been one of the very frequent Varanasi power-cuts in our section of the city and we had no idea how to get back. We went to bed, looking forward to catching up on sleep, and hoped that the morning cruise would be more interesting. We went to bed early, but we were going to have to get up very early for the sunrise cruise. In fact it was still so hot – about 39C at night – that we struggled to get any sleep at all, so when we got up at 4:30am we only had to look in the mirror to see a dead body.
written by  The Happy Couple on June 16, 2009 from Varanasi, India

Cows and corpses
Varanasi, India
Haroon was already waiting for us when we dragged ourselves downstairs at about 5am. A group of English public school gap-year kids, who were also staying there, were also downstairs for the early morning cruise. One of the other brothers was taking care of them. They were being taken to the ghat directly nearest to the hotel, where you can only get unlicensed boats. Haroon asked “OK, we're going this way?” pointing to where the others had just gone. Joanne complained that those boats were unlicensed, but this time he didn't seem worried. We could go with either, he explained, only sometimes this way it's not so nice, he again indicated the others' exit route. Joanne did not want to risk it, so he agreed to take us back to the government boats.
Fisherman
The boats await
The cruise was a bit more interesting in the morning. We saw a beautiful sunrise then, because it was getting lighter rather than darker, we were able to see the impressive ghats ever more clearly. The water was lovely and quiet but there were already people starting to crowd on the steps for their morning bath and laundry. At the burning ghats, last night's ashes were being cleaned up. Dogs were going through them, presumably looking for leftovers, and in the water in front of the pyres a couple of men kept diving under, looking for gold teeth, Joanne suggested. Meanwhile piles and piles of new wood were being brought in for the day's cremations. It was piled up in boats and all the way up the steps it was piled high. Again I marvelled at how people could happily splash about in such filthy unhygienic water, but as far as they are concerned they are bathing in a goddess and the water protects them and promotes well-being.
A tourist gets all spiritual
A burning ghat
Our boatman
A guesthouse on the ghats
On the way back to the guesthouse I remembered to take a couple of photos of something we had seen repeatedly in India. Disgustingly, it seems that most of India's holy cows are fed on rubbish, at least that is the only thing we have ever seen them grazing on there. To look at them, though, you wouldn't say it can be too bad for them as they all look pretty fat. I suppose greasy Indian leftovers must have the same effect on cows as the food does on my waist line.
Yum yum!
Space Invader!
Back at the hotel, the French guy across the hotel was playing scales again. He obviously did not care that people usually sleep during the hottest part of the day in Varanasi, so we soon gave up trying to sleep and wandered out into the baking heat. I wanted to see the ghats close up so we just walked down to the river then started making our way along. The place was almost completely deserted.
Old Varanasi street
Some people were dozing in the shadows, but we were the only people walking around in the midday sun; even the mad dogs were nowhere to be seen. Buffalos were wallowing in the river to keep cool. We passed another group of silly Caucasians heading in the other direction, but the ghats remained free of locals. I was enjoying this much more than anything else we had so far done in Varanasi; up until that point it felt like we were being baby-sat: on the cruises and on the city tour. This was the first time we'd had to ourselves. The ghats are all really ancient looking, many of them looking like forts, but we came to one and saw something very incongruous that I thought I had seen from the boat: a Space Invader painted onto one of the buildings' stones.
Indian truck
Lazy cow and two burkas
Soon after that our feeling of freedom was ruined: a young Indian guy, who was “just trying to be friendly” and was a “hhonest man” intercepted us and tagged along next to us. After establishing that we didn't want a guide, he decided that we should visit his brother's shop. Joanne had been looking for a top for India that would be reasonably cool but still stop Indian men from gawking at her or groping her, and she was also looking for a scarf to do as Indian women almost universally do, and drape over the bust for exactly the same reasons. It's easy to get irritated with the hustlers and touts in India because it is almost incessant and I could see Joanne bristling at the guy's presence. I don't have much time for them when they're trying to sell things we don't want or when they are taking us to someone else's shop for commission, but this guy was taking us to the family shop and he said they sold what we were looking for so I thought we should treat it as a fortunate coincidence and give him a chance. He even offered to take us to the post office which was one place we were really trying to get to, so that we could finally get rid of the letter we were given to post by the tea house owner on the way back from the Langtang trek. The post office was down a tiny wee street and didn't much look like one: it was a cramped little room with monitors and keyboards piled up on shelves, but there was nothing computerized about the place. Even the purchase of a few stamps was handwritten, double-entry no doubt, into a huge ledger. It took about fifteen minutes just to buy stamps and hand over the letter. But I suppose post offices are at the cutting edge of efficiency the world over, aren't they?
Temple near our hostel
In the young man's shop, which was little more than a kiosk with a big stock cupboard, he made us chai and took us through what they had to offer. Joanne was looking impatient because he wasn't showing us what she wanted to buy, making sure we saw everything else first, but I was quite happy; we were sitting just off a busy little street, too narrow for cars, and all around were little old-fashioned shops. It wasn't too hot, I was sitting down, and I had chai. He was actually also a very friendly guy, incredibly friendly by Indian standards, and just trying to make a bit of money. In the end he got around to showing us the tops and scarves, and we bought them for what seemed like a good price. He kept saying, “I am hhonest man, I am hhonest man”.
View down the Ganga
Boy washing his buffalos
Letter, scarves, and top ticked off, next on the list was to find an off-licence. There was one listed in the Lonely Planet so we headed in that direction, stopping off at a restaurant, where I reasoned we might be able to get a drink. My heart sank when I saw the menu: “Pure Vegetarian” means no alcohol. Why are Indians so puritanical? Or is it just that alcohol was never part of the culture before the Raj? Or were Indians not so puritanical until they learned it from the Raj? The food looked nice anyway and we ordered some. At the next table was a couple, the girl with wearing a bhindi on her forehead and dressed in the short top Indian women wear under a sari: it's underwear and equivalent to walking around in a bra and nothing else on top. Very inappropriate, Joanne said. The girl started singing out loud and continued to sing loudly all the way through our meal. It sounded like it was Indian music. Quite bizarre, the people who are attracted to India. All full of finding themselves and spirituality and expressing themselves and all that nonsense. Bah!
We left the restaurant and failed to find any off-licences. Drinking in India is really difficult! The walk back took us through the edge of the old town which looked quite interesting, with even more cows in the streets that an average Indian town, so we decided we would explore it a bit more the next day. It had also been nice to escape Haroon; they were very nice at the guesthouse, but so helpful it was a little suffocating.
That night I finally got a decent rest. In the morning we saw Haroon had got rid of the bleached quiff in his hair. He explained that a guest had done it for him recently, but Indian people are very conservative and people had started talking about him, so he'd had to restore his more conservative hair style. I was very disappointed because I hadn't yet had a chance to take a photo of him and I had assumed it was his usual haircut, part of promoting the Elvis name of the guesthouse. He suggested that we take a day trip to a nearby town famous for being where Buddha delivered his first sermon, but we wanted to explore the old town more.
Space Invader
We walked along the ghats, passing another incongruous Space Invader, to the main burning ghat, where we stood around for a while with the crowd watching the pyres. We headed back from the river and, passing huge piles of wood, we were passed by a couple of groups of men carrying bodies wrapped up in sheets. We found a rooftop restaurant, where we stopped to check the view, but there's not as much to see from above so we headed back out deeper into the warren of streets that make up the old town.
Cremation wood piled high
Here I began to really like the town because it is so chaotic, with hundreds of little shops selling everything from food and pann to tourist souvenirs, and pedestrians fighting for space as they edge past bikes and cows. Joanne wasn't enjoying it so much, though, and was getting really annoyed with the constant harassment from people trying to sell us stuff or “help us”, so we headed back to river, arriving just in time to see some people row out to the middle and dump a body wrapped in sheets straight into the water. We wondered which of the five categories of purity the deceased fell under. Quite a strange thing to witness, and enacted with relatively little ceremony.
Varanasi from above
So now we had seen a few dead bodies, albeit wrapped I sheets, so our Varanasi experience was complete. I can't say that I ever felt the magic most other people seemed to have felt there, but the old town is fun, the ghats are very impressive, and it's fascinating to watch all the activity in the water.
Joanne looking at a shop in old Varanasi
Nearly back at the guesthouse, a mystery was cleared up for us. I had been wondering what happens to all of the dung the cows presumably produce all over the towns in India. The streets may be filthy, but cow manure is unusually absent. It turns out people collect it all, dry it out, and then sell it as fuel. The cow is so holy, even its shit has value!
Street in old Varanasi
We were running late and had to take a taxi to the train station as soon as we got back. Another overnight train journey awaited us, but this time we had opted for sleeper class again to avoid being frozen.
Drying cow shit
written by  The Happy Couple on June 18, 2009 from Varanasi, India

Drive-by Delhi
Delhi, India
The sleeper from Varanasi to Delhi was surprisingly cold, even without the air-conditioning of the more expensive classes, then at 5am I was woken by a group of people sitting opposite and talking loudly. They had not been there during the night, so they weren't in their own seats, but they didn't seem to care or care that people who did have tickets for that part of the carriage were still trying to sleep. Getting sleep in India is a challenge, especially on transport.
Delhi was just a daytime stop-off on the way further north. But we did have to submit our passports in application for our Chinese visas before catching another sleeper to Kalka that night, then the “toy train” to Shimla in the morning. We planned to get up to the mountainous northern part of India just to see what it was like. By this time Joanne had more or less decided that she did not like India and hoped that it would be more like Nepal or Tibet in the mountains. I had decided that India needs a lot longer than we had allowed for it and I just wanted to see a couple more places before we left.
I had remembered Delhi as being more civilised than the bits of India we had so far visited on this trip and it was certainly cleaner, and the metro was a joy to use: very modern and efficient, unlike most of our India experiences. There was also a lot less hassle.
We found our way to the Le Méridien Hotel where the Chinese Visa Service is located and came up against a predictable mix of Indian and Chinese bureaucracy. First we were searched and our bags X-rayed before entering the building, then I wasn't allowed into the CVS office because of the laptop in my bag. Then, when Joanne handed over the forms and passports she was informed that we each also had to submit a letter to the Chinese Embassy, stating that we wished to apply for a visa, and telling them exactly all the same information requested on the application forms. What is the point of the application form if everything has to be repeated in a letter? The letter was not mentioned on their website or on any of the “what you need” information on the walls outside the office. Fed up, we tried the hotel, which was just round the corner, hoping for a business centre to type up the letters. We were in luck but they told us it would be Rs200 per page, compared to about Rs10 usually charged in an internet cafe. Joanne quickly typed up the letters then when she asked which printer to send it to, the guy at the desk said “oh – you want to print them out to?” . What on earth was the Rs200 charge supposed to be for? When we were done he told us that the charge is just for typing them up, maybe to save on a memory stick, and there should be another charge for printing them out! He saw how shocked we were and must have felt sorry for us because he only charged us Rs200 instead of the Rs800 or so we should have been charged. Delhi is much more civilised!
Nice Doric columns around Connaught Place
Passports submitted, we went to Connaught Place, the centre of New Delhi, to look for a cheap place to eat. With the help of the Lonely Planet we managed to find an affordable place among all the very expensive posh places. The waiter put a jug of water on the table and assured us it was OK for us to drink because it was filtered. I wasn't sure that filtering is enough to make Indian water safe; surely it should be UV and reverse osmosis treated as well? After a couple of sips I decided it didn't taste very nice and left it. However the food was nice and I really enjoyed the atmosphere: there were no tourists and something about the people seemed really nice. Delhi seemed to me totally different from the rest of India, but Joanne's opinion was not going to be changed, although she did say that she preferred Delhi.
Expensive Connaught Place
We wanted to go online to look for accommodation in Shimla. The nearest internet place was in Paharganj, which was ideal because it's near to the train station and it's also the backpacker bit of Delhi, where we were likely to be staying when we returned, so I wanted to see what it was like. It was like everywhere else in India outside of Delhi: dirty and lots of hassle, although there were more tourists than anywhere else we had been. When we finished online, without booking any accommodation, we went into a Nepalese restaurant next door, only to find Dominik sitting there. He had managed to get a bus to Varanasi after we left him in Gorakhpur and, having spent one day in Delhi, was now waiting until his train for Dharamsala, one of the mountainous places we intended to visit. We spent the rest of our wait chatting to Dominik and eating momos. He hadn't really been enjoying his time in India and had the same idea as Joanne as far as hoping the mountainous placed would be more like Nepal. He just kept saying that he can't believe how different it is from Nepal and how unfriendly Indians are. “They never smile” he complained.
Another sleeper train, another night with almost no sleep and we were in Kalka.
written by  The Happy Couple on June 19, 2009 from Delhi, India

It's fun to stay at the...
Shimla, India
The toy train up the mountain from Kalka to Shimla was full of Indians throwing their rubbish out of the windows and the whole way up what should be a pretty little narrow-gauge train journey is spoiled by mounds of paper and plastic, not just from the train I should say, but also from the towns the track passes through.
We arrived in Shimla with loads of Indians who were obviously on holiday. Joanne asked if I knew whether it was a popular holiday destination for Indians but I wasn't sure; I only knew it was a popular honeymoon spot. I spent some time in Shimla last time I was in India, and it's worth a look but we were only planning to spend one night there as I thought that would be enough. Shimla is on a steep hillside and there was already a big queue for the public lift. When we got up to the main street of Shimla, called the Mall, we could see just how busy the place was. Joanne was really fed up and said that she wanted to go somewhere there weren't any Indians. She had thought Shimla would be full of foreign tourists and Tibetans, not Indian tourists. She had really had enough of the country!
The Ridge with Christchurch in the background
After a long and tiring search for a hotel, leaving Joanne in a bar with the bags, I realised the only reasonably priced placed with any vacant rooms was the YMCA. The bar I'd left Joanne in I remembered as being the only bar in Shimla. It had been a really rough place with the worst toilet I'd seen in India (which is obviously saying something) and everyone there so drunk that they were falling over and walking into things. It had seemed that drinking was so unrespectable that people thought they really had to go for it if they were crossing that line. The place had completely changed and it was now actually quite a nice upmarket restaurant and bar. I think attitudes to alcohol in India are changing, although in many places it is still far from acceptable.
The YMCA was a really nice building, if a little institutional, and quite high up the hill with a nice view. We had been told that there was only hot water at certain times, but after two days of travelling we were quite happy with cold water, so we both jumped in the shower as soon as we were checked in. After just a couple of minutes, when we were both covered in soap, the cold water stopped. Apparently it wasn't just the hot water that stopped during the day. We later discovered that there were currently water shortages in Shimla. After our abortive showers we slept. Most of our time in India seemed to be spent not sleeping on overnight transport or catching up - or trying to catch up - on missed sleep. That's one reason you definitely need to take your time in India. That day Joanne was quite ill and I discovered that she had drunk quite a lot of the filtered water I'd rejected in Delhi, which I reckon was probably to blame.
The next day I left her in bed and went out to secure tickets to Manali, our next destination, and top-ups for our Indian mobile phone numbers. When I asked for the top-ups, the man in the shop told me to write down the two numbers. When he looked at them, he realised that they were not local numbers and confirmed that we had got the SIM cards in Mumbai. In that case, he explained, we would need to spend Rs351 “for full talk time”. I didn't know why, but I took his word for it and handed over the Rs702 which was far more than I thought we needed. He started tapping away on his phone, several times asking me to confirm what some number was. Not a very good system and very error-prone I thought idly. One number in particular he asked me about three times: an 8 or a 6? It's a six, I told him. Three times. Before I left the shop I got a text from Joanne thanking me for the credit. I was expecting a message from Vodafone saying that I too had credit, but it didn't come. The shop owner assured me that it had gone through and told me to come back later if there was any problem, so I headed back to the YMCA.
View from the YMCA
Much later than day Joanne was feeling a bit better and my credit had still not registered so we both went into the shop. After a bit of discussion we discovered that he had typed in 8 instead of 6. That's why he'd asked me three times, he said. Yes, I explained, that's why I'd told him 6 three times. He told us that there was nothing he could do because he had no way of contacting the Vodafone centre in Mumbai and local Vodafone would take more than a month to reclaim the credit, and that would only happen if the number he had added it to wasn't in use. I told him I couldn't believe that there was no way, but he insisted that there was nothing at all he could do. What a ridiculous system! I left furious, now certain that India will never truly compete with Western economies; how could they possibly rely on such obviously flawed procedures? The shop owner had kindly given me his card so I could call him the next day in case he was able to contact the recipient of my misplaced credit. If they are a good person they will transfer the credit to you, he assured me.
And that was Shimla. We didn't even visit Jakhu Temple, another Hanuman temple, where the monkeys supposedly frisk you for food or drinks, and for which several shops in Shimla sell “monkey sticks” for hitting them with. The next day we had to hike down the hill to get our bus to Manali because the public lift doesn't open that early in the morning.
written by  The Happy Couple on June 21, 2009 from Shimla, India

Mooching in Manali
Manali, India
On the bus to Manali we experienced a fantastic example of Indian driving. A lorry had stopped in the middle of the road, causing our bus to come to a standstill just behind it. No sooner had we stopped than the lorry started reversing. The bus driver started frantically beeping the horn, but I suppose Indian drivers are so used to hearing other driving beeping that they just ignore it, and the lorry hit the front of the bus with quite a lot of force causing the windscreen to shatter.
Modification made to the bus
We spent the next hour waiting to see what would happen while the responsible parties argued, presumably about whose fault it was, although it's hard to imagine there being too much disagreement. We were envisaging having to wait for the three hours or so we had travelled from Shimla, while a replacement bus was sent for us, but in the end Indian-style common sense prevailed and we set off again with no windscreen. Several rows from the front we were getting dust in our eyes, so I was glad to see the driver had taken the safety precaution of wearing a pair of sunglasses. It actually wasn't too bad without the windscreen but when we stopped for lunch, the true nature of their plans because clear: all the luggage was swapped with a bus heading in the other direction and the passengers from that nice intact bus were herded onto ours. I felt a bit sorry for them but I was pleased to have a windscreen again.
Mountains behind New Manali
Only about thirty seconds after we got off the bus in Manali, Joanne complained that it looked like a horrible place. It certainly wasn't what I was expecting. I had been expecting a really quiet mountain town full of western tourists, but it was even busier than Shimla, there was no sign of westerners, and it was very polluted with exhaust fumes. The Lonely Planet has advised against staying in New Manali, where the bus had dropped us, so we took an auto-rickshaw up the hill to Old Manali. It certainly looked more that part the further up the hill we got, but I started worrying that it looked a bit too touristy. We checked into a hotel with a nice view of some mountains, which was a bit more expensive that we had hoped for at Rs400, but the room was very nice and we decided just to spoil ourselves after all the transport hell we had suffered lately.
Indian breakfast. Yum!
We had some really nice food in the lovely outside dining area where we were served by an extremely friendly waiter. He must be Nepali, not Indian, we bitchily joked to each other. But maybe the Indians were different here after all. When he returned with the bill he asked where we were from and, after telling him Scotland, I asked if he was from Manali. No, I'm from Nepal, he said.
View from our room
After getting over the shock of having our prejudices confirmed, we ventured out into the town. There isn't really much to Old Manali and it is far too touristy. It's not my kind of place at all actually but, at least for Joanne, there were hardly any Indians. In fact it's just another bland standard-issue backpacker resort. All the same food we've been seeing in those kind of places since we started our trip and no real sign of the native culture. We were not going to be trekking because Joanne's feet had still not recovered from the trek in Nepal and, as far as I could see, if you aren't planning to trek, the only other reason people were in Old Manali is that it seems to be absolutely acceptable to smoke joints openly in all the bars and restaurants.
We did find quite a nice bar called Shesh Besh, playing great music, where they have backgammon on all the tables, but it was absolutely swarming with flies. Apparently it's just the time of year. The staff were really nice: Nepalis again. The food was even more disappointing around Old Manali that it had been in the rest of India. Who would have thought you can spend five weeks in India and never eat any spicy food? Quite bizarre.
Unusual way to promote a shop
The next day we bumped into Dominik again. He didn't have anything good to say about Dharamsala but he said Macleodganj, where the Tibetan government in exile is based, was OK. Just like Manali really, he said. Then he said that he was going to Leh as soon as possible because he didn't like Manali, quite shockingly, as there were too many Israelis. I think it sounded even worse coming from a German. It's true that there were a lot of Israelis there; the keyboards in the internet cafes all have Hebrew characters on them. In fact most of these ultra-backpackery places, where there's obviously a lot of drugs, seem to attract large groups of young Israelis. I suppose mostly they are probably just finished their national service and wanting to go a bit wild, not really caring where they are.
A bin! In India!
We said goodbye to Dominik and then spent the next few days not doing very much. I did lots of blogging and Joanne did lots of reading. One day the waiter asked me what I was typing about and he seemed very pleased when I said I was writing about Nepal. The weather remained pleasant and the hotel owner told us it was far too hot. When we said we had come from Varanasi where it was about 45C he explained that mountain people like him can't handle the temperature if it goes near 30C, and it was only 26C. We were nice and cool.
Half-built pool hall
The ouside dining area and pool hall behind
Eventually we got a ticket for a bus to Macleodganj. Infuriatingly the buses only went at night, which we were certain meant another night of no sleep, then a day or two trying to recover. On these mountain roads there is no way you can sleep.
written by  The Happy Couple on June 26, 2009 from Manali, India

Spooky coincidence in spiritual Northern India
Macleodganj, India
Before we got the bus out of Manali, we took the opportunity afforded by being in New Manali for the tickets, to go into a Vodafone shop to try and sort out the problem with our SIMs. Not only had my credit been sent to someone else, but Joanne's had stopped working after just two days although she still had loads of credit. The shopkeeper in Manali was much more helpful than the one in Shimla and went to the trouble of looking up the main office in Mumbai to get it sorted. He told us that our problem was we hadn't bought any contract time, only talk time. This meant that although there was plenty of credit, the account was suspended until we extended the contract time. This meant spending another Rs200 on top of the Rs351 I had already spent per phone. Finally I understood the “full talk time” the previous shopkeeper had insisted I needed; it meant that I wouldn't be “wasting” any money on contract time. That would be well and good if he'd known or thought to ask whether we had any contract time left. Until then nobody had mentioned that's how it works. We decided just to pay for one contract and not even bother chasing up the stray credit that some “good person” somewhere might kindly transfer to me. The contract time came with more talk time, leaving us with much more credit than we needed between us for the few days we had remaining in India, so we decided to share Joanne's SIM in the safe knowledge that my pal John the text fiend would appreciate the deluge of texts resulting from the spare credit, and would reward me with a similar deluge.
As predicted the overnight bus to Macleodganj was completely sleepless, being buffeted from side to side round every corner on the twisty mountain road. The bus helpfully dropped us at 4:30am, not in the bus station and not anywhere easily identifiable on the Lonely Planet map. We did manage to work out where we were but clearly after everyone else did because our chosen hotel was fully booked, apparently having given their last room away only five minutes previously. However the owner there took pity on us and invited us in to sit, telling us nowhere else would be open yet. It became obvious that we were in a Tibetan enclave, not really India, when he brought us free cups of tea to drink as we planned our next option. When we had rested a bit we headed out and found that most of the hotels in town were booked up. We were getting near the end of our choices when we found a hotel up lots of steps with our big bags which was able to offer us a room.
Our plan after checking in was to eat some breakfast then go to bed, but the hotel we were in had no kitchen and told us that nowhere would be offering breakfast yet. We were sure we had seen somewhere near the bottom of the steps which looked kind of open so we went down there to find they were actually serving breakfast on the veranda. Halfway through a rather poor breakfast of kidney beans, which were horribly dry, a tall slightly punky looking guy appeared at the opposite end of the veranda and stared for a bit. At first I thought it was big Davie from The Plain of Jars in Laos but the near-impossible coincidence and the fact he looked younger than I remembered him convinced me it was an unknown stranger instead. He kept looking, though, in a way that suggested he wasn't convinced either, but clearly did not have the extra too-young factor to completely put him off. In the end he cracked and asked “Michael?”. Of course it was him! But what an idiot I felt for not recognising him immediately. He was staying at this hotel.
The return of Big Davie
The day before Joanne had said to me that it looked like we wouldn't be meeting up with Davie. We had had a vague plan to meet him, but headed off in opposite directions when we reached India, and last email contact we got from him suggested he was still in Rajasthan, soon leaving for Nepal. In fact he was planning to enter Nepal from the West, via Macleodganj and Manali. Rajasthan, at 49C, had been ever hotter than Varanasi and too much for a Scotsman he expained. Certainly the three-day camel ride in the desert sounded like an error of judgement! Apparently alcohol had been so hard to get hold of where he had been in India that he had been on the wagon for several weeks and, in fact, had been drunk for the first time again the previous night. So he was ready for a reunion session later. He told us that he'd paid for a shave at a barber's the day before and thoroughly recommended it. I realised immediately that this must be the secret to his youthful appearance and asked him where he had got it.
We agreed to meet him later back on his veranda and went out in search of his barber to regain my lost youth. His directions were a bit suspect, but who gives away the secret of the font of youth? In the end I settled for another barber, reckoning that just a shave would do, even without the elixir of life. The whole experience was quite unusual: exposing your jugular to a stranger with an open razor, who is only going to get Rs20 if he doesn't cut your throat. But it was also very pleasant; total luxury at a low price. No need to go through the terrible hassle of foaming up and shaving your own face: just get a man in! I left feeling much nicer and fresher as I'd left it a couple of days too many in the relative cool of Manali. I didn't think he'd done as close a job as my Mach III normally does, but at Rs20 a day it would be cheaper to pay for a shave rather than do it myself every second day, Mach IIIs and Gillette shaving gel included. Why hadn't I tried this at the start of our trip? I was definitely hooked now.
We met Davie again later and went to what seems to be the only bar in town, where he had been drinking whiskies the previous night. He had warned us that the whisky seemed to be difficult to get hold of and only one employee would serve it to him. This time nobody would so we had to settle for beer, however the fact we were not ordering food seemed to make us of very little interest to the waiting staff and we were unable to order again. We decided to save a bit of money and actually get a drink by going to the off-licence outside with the intention of having a few drinks on Davie's hotel veranda. We had time for one drink before the very grumpy manager appeared and switched off the light, leaving us in the dark. It was only 10 O'Clock, but clearly it was time for bed. Our hotel had no common area so our last hope was to retire to Davie's room for more drinks, but as we were filing in his next door neighbour, a twenty-something french french guy complained that he would be able to hear us if we were talking in the room. It was only just after ten! And he wasn't even thirty! We gave up and Joanne and I settled for a couple of drinks alone in our bedroom. I much preferred Macleodganj to Manali, but clearly it was not anything like as much of a party town.
Rubbish collection in India!
As usual in India, the next morning we were denied our catch-up sleep from the bus journey by noisy people early in the morning. It's a nice little town but there's not loads to do and the only tourism we had intended was a visit to the Tibetan Museum. Although we hadn't had many drinks the night before, they had all been strong beers and ciders, and I was feeling a bit hungover as well as tired. I just couldn't face the museum; I went in, but it was hot inside and when I saw all of the exhibits were mostly text with a couple of photos, I had to leave. Reading was too hard. Instead I waited in a nearby cafe and managed to read the Times of India. Apparently the monsoon was now so overdue that there were serious water shortages all over India. Terrible for India, but it did mean that we had got a break from the early monsoon that followed all round South East Asia. They were expecting the drought to continue for another two weeks at least. I turned to the international section which I had noticed before seemed to be nothing but gossip and a half-naked Western girl. It was the same again. I found a couple of older papers and checked: same again. Apparently the only news Indians get about the West is gossip and proof that all Western women are loose. No wonder they feel at liberty to grope them if this is the only way the are portrayed in the media! Joanne appeared and confirmed that the museum had not been all that interesting, but, for what happened in Tibet, she was now adding China to her travel-inspired list of evil countries which until then had only contained the US, for what happened in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. She suggested that we should re-route to avoid it for political reasons. On the way back to the hotel we were completely drenched as the late monsoon appeared just to spite that morning's newspaper.
That evening we met up with Davie again, but earlier, in the hope of getting drunk before the town shut down, this time not on strong beers in the hope we could avoid the disproportionate hangover we had both suffered earlier. We managed a bit better, but it really isn't a party town.
The next morning we were woken early again, but the non-strong beers seemed to have done the trick and I felt more human again. We spent the day wondering around town, buying bus tickets back to Delhi and off-loading the books we had read; as usual we came away with more books than we got rid of, which really isn't the point of the exercise, but when you see a good English bookshop in Asia it's hard not to go a bit overboard. Macleodganj in absolutely crammed with monks but what is particularly unusual is the very high number of female monks (or is it nuns?). Apparently the branch of Buddhism practiced in Tibet is far more egalitarian than other forms.
Again we had only been able to get an overnight bus, but I hoped that this one would be a bit more comfortable after the first couple of hours when we would be out of the mountains and back on the plains again. When we arrived at the bus station Joanne was not impressed: the “semi-deluxe” bus we had booked didn't look very deluxe at all. I found it comfortable enough and slept more than I had on any other bus trip. Joanne was not so lucky because, even though it was a night bus, they still crammed as many people in as possible, and she had people leaning against her headrest all night. Some people were trying to sleep standing up. They must have been even more exhausted than Joanne by the time we arrived in Delhi.
written by  The Happy Couple on June 29, 2009 from Macleodganj, India

Bollywood Dreams Dashed
Delhi, India
Back in Delhi it had also been monsooning and the streets of Paharganj, where we were staying, were even muddier than they had been on our earlier drive-by visit. Joanne was desperate to leave India now and kept complaining about the “disgusting filthy country”. Certainly Paharganj is not as clean as the rest of Delhi.
Before India we had been trying to eat street food as much as possible, but in India Joanne had never fancied it so we'd never had any. This had posed us with a bit of a calorie problem, as restaurant portions in India are huge and greasy, but we had been very restrained and had shared one portion at almost every meal. There were loads of tasty looking food stalls in Paharganj though, and I was determined to have street food at least once in India. Rs20 was all it cost for probably the best curry I'd had in India, served with two stuff parathas. I think I was ripped off actually, as a customer had told me it would cost Rs15, but a tourist mark-up like that I can live with; it's when they think they can charge tourists double that I start to object. Again Joanne didn't fancy it, but I went ahead without her. We struggled to find her something as we were running really low on cash and the ATMs were all playing one of their periodic no-money tricks on me.
A relatively quiet queue at the train station
It was quite a shock to be back in the crowds of Delhi and the heat in Delhi was a bit much for us after all the time spent in quieter, cooler mountain towns, so we retired to room and lazed about most of the day, watching Bollywood on TV. Joanne had never seen any Bollywood before and decided that she really like it. Actually I really like it as well – another thing I love about India! We were waiting to see Swarg when it came on at 7pm. This was the new TV series we had worked on as extras for a day in Mumbai. It had started the day before so we had missed it travelling on the overnight bus. As soon as the program started we recognised the scene as one of those we were present for. It was quite surreal watching the finished version after having witnessed take after take. The production quality was far higher than we had expected after witnessing the set and the performances from behind the camera, but the magic of television really had worked wonders on it and it seemed like quite a polished, very professionally made piece of television. It just goes to show how little I know about making television as I clearly had not been able to imagine anything close to what the director saw while it was being filmed. Alarmingly, though, the cuts were far faster than I had expected and the shots were much closer in to the actors than I thought. The net result was that there was far less footage of the extras than I thought possible. At first there was no sign of us at all so I started to focus more on the background. I suspect that quite a bit of digital post-processing had been done on the background because some action seemed to go at a slightly different speed from the foreground, and some seemed to be taken from a slightly different angle, but mostly there seemed to be far less going on than there had been at the time of shooting. In a couple of split-second cuts we spotted the two blond dutch people who had worked with us, and after downloading and extensive analysis, we believe Joanne also appears briefly, but I am almost certainly not there. I suspect some digital editing was to blame there. I can just imagine how it went: “Look at the state of him! Take him out. Leave in the girl and, oh yes, the two young blond ones”. Even the scene I was certain would contain lots of me had none. They must have re-shot it on subsequent days! Our dreams of Bollywood stardom – over!
You can watch "our" bit of the program here: http://www.desi-tashan.com/?ID=620478784e4311ab or else by searching for: Swarg colors 30th June.
And this is a reminder from when it happened: http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?CommentID=72447
A postcard for whoever is first to add the time Joanne appears as a comment below! And if anybody finds a higher definition version than the above link, please let me know so I can go through it more closely looking for myself!
written by  The Happy Couple on June 30, 2009 from Delhi, India

We give in to grease
Delhi, India
Real India curry. Greasy as anything.
We were definitely ready to leave India now, and were getting really excited about Japan: after picking up our passports complete with Chinese visas, we bought a Japan Lonely Planet for a very reasonable price and that night decided to treat ourselves to a relatively expensive meal out in Parikrama, a rotating restaurant I had eaten at during my last trip to India. I remembered the food was OK, nothing special, but the view was great and the whole thing was quite fun. Since it was nearly our last evening in India we decided to go for the full dish each and what a place to do it!
My food was shiny with fat. It seems in India the more you pay for your food the more fat is in it. Obviously they still associate fat with prosperity and wealth instead of the other way around like we now do in Scotland. And middle-class Indians certainly are fat, on the whole. I'm sure they must at least rival Glaswegians for the higher heart attack rate. The meal came to Rs1600 for the two of us, which is not expensive by Glasgow standards but it's probably more than ten times what we had normally been paying. A young Indian couple came in and sat at the next table while we were eating and the girl looked really shocked when she opened the menu and pointed out the Rs40 rotis to her blanching boyfriend; they are usually no more than Rs4.
Sinister-looking building on way back from Parikrama
written by  The Happy Couple on July 1, 2009 from Delhi, India

Goodbye India?
The next morning we were up early to accomplish everything we had to before flying to Japan. First up was to check Couchsurfing to find out what replies we had from Japanese couch hosts and therefore where we would be staying in Tokyo. Unfortunately we still had no replies. We had sent our first requests off nearly a week previously which we thought would be enough time, but had since sent off increasingly large volleys of increasingly panicky requests into the ether. We would check one more time before going to the airport. Next up was a shop for Joanne to buy a pair of sandals she'd had her eye on. Meanwhile, to save time, not because I have no interest in Joanne's sandal shopping of course, I went to get my final Indian shave. It was now over a week since I had last shaved myself and I wasn't going to arrive hairy in a new country.
Soaped up
The shave started all according to plan: we agreed on Rs20 and he went to work. When he was finished he asked if I wanted a face massage. I was asked this after the first shave I had, but not the second and I had regretted saying no since the first one because I was sure Big Davie told me that he got a face massage included with his Rs20 rejuvenating shave. So this time I was not going to miss out and said yes. Joanne came in with her sandals during my massage which was OK, but not as good as the one Joanne's beauty therapist niece, Maxine had once given me. Once that was all over he said something to me which I thought was “finishing off?” and I assumed he was talking about the aftershave they usually finish with, so I said yes again. Before I new it my face was getting covered in a whitish caking substance. A face mask! I had never had one before and I can't say I really enjoyed it. I particularly didn't enjoy sitting there while other people could see me apparently paying to be pampered, but while I was starting to panic about the amount of time ticking away when we had so much to do. Do face masks really need that amount of time?
Nearly finished
Despite me holding us up we were still sure we could get everything done in time for the taxi we had booked to the airport, but just to make sure we broke with personal protocol and decided to splash out on an auto-rickshaw to Connaught Place where our next mission was: posting home a parcel of Joanne's new sandals and a couple of books I wanted to keep. When we arrived at the post-office the rickshaw driver ask us if we wanted him to wait for us, and when we agreed he asked how long we would be. About ten or fifteen minutes, it depends on them, we said.
After queuing for a bit we explained that we wanted to send these three items to the UK, whereupon they sent us back outside to get it wrapped. We had been expecting them just to put the stuff in a box in the post office itself but instead we had to wait around outside for about fifteen minutes until the freelance wrapping expert they use returned to his post. He asked for a small fee and we handed over the items, which he then started to sew up in a piece of canvas, which took some time. When he eventually finished we rushed back inside thinking we might still have time to shower and change before our airport taxi arrived. In fact we had to wait in a very long and very slow moving queue and when we eventually got to the front the man behind the counter did not seem to have any idea what he was doing. He kept wandering off for the next form to fill in, and at one point sent us back outside to borrow the wrapping man's pen and write the address, then later sent us out again to write the sender information on the canvas. Then we had to pay for a photocopy of Joanne's passport, which he disappeared for about ten minutes to make, and when he finally got around to weighing it and telling us the price we were five minutes over the “very latest we need to leave” and the auto-rickshaw driver had been in twice to check we were still there. We were surprised how high the price was (surface mail was apparently not an option) and since we didn't know how much longer this could go on for we just told him it was too much and stormed out with the silly canvas package. We were about an hour in there, just to post a parcel. Not for the first time I thought that the West has no reason to fear India as an economic threat and marvelled at their incredible bureaucracy and obstinacy.
Our patient auto-rickshaw driver was still there and returned us to our hotel just in time for us to retrieve our bags and book a hostel in Tokyo, since there were still no responses to our Couchsurfing requests, before our airport taxi arrived at the door. We were sweaty, unwashed, and still wearing our sweaty clothes. At least we'd be able to change at the airport.
When we arrived at the airport we discovered that Indian bureaucracy had not yet finished with us. At the door of the terminal building we were turned away by the armed guards because we were too early to check in. Instead we had to wait on the opposite side of the road in the waiting room. I remembered many very miserable hours in that waiting room from the last time I was in India but, luckily, they have upgraded it so that it now has a fast food cafe in it, instead of absolutely nothing at all except for some broken seats. When the allotted time had nearly passed we went back over the road and the guard grudgingly let us in. There was a post office in the terminal, so Joanne sent the package there while I changed in the toilet. It seemed to go much more smoothly there, but it still cost the same. After we had both changed we set about looking for our check in desk, but could see no sign of our flight. As the time grew closer and our flight had still not appeared on any boards we got a bit nervous until we finally cracked and asked someone.
This flight is not on today, we were told. “You mean it's cancelled”, we said. No, not cancelled, just not on today, they insisted. They fetched a representative for Japan Airlines with whom we were flying and he marched us up and down, checking with people and making phone calls until he was able to confirm that the number of flights on this route had been cut two months previously, so we should have been rescheduled for the next day. But nobody had told us. He asked who our ticket holder was and when we said BA took us out of the building into a neighbouring office. This was not as straightforward as you would think because we all had to sign out of the terminal building again, including an excuse for leaving. Having taken us up one floor to a BA office, he promptly disappeared, clearly feeling he had dispensed with his duty. The two girls behind the desk were a bit confused and quite annoyed to be lumbered with us. It turned out to be the lost luggage office, but it was the only BA place still open after 5pm. They told us they couldn't help and wrote down a number for us to call, sending us back outside to a call box. We duly lugged our big bags down to the phone only to discover that the number did not work and when we returned to the office to check the number it too was shut. BA have no representation at all in Delhi International Airport after 6pm. A helpful janitor unlocked the door for me and I went in. Even more annoyed the girl I spoke to said that it wasn't BA's fault and I should contact whoever I booked the ticket through. Stuck an extra day in India and stuck right in the middle of their obstinacy again!
We didn't know what to do. Clearly we weren't going to get our flight until the next day, but unable to contact BA to find out whether they would give us compensation, we didn't know whether to just book into some convenient hotel or to return all the way to Paharganj and look for another cheap place within our budget. Not knowing what else to do, I sent my friend John a text asking him to get in touch with STA where I booked the tickets and ask them to call me on my Indian mobile number. We didn't have enough credit or money to call internationally, but I hoped this would work. John had already been a lifesaver several times when we needed information in a hurry but had no access to the internet; a quick text to John and the information is usually returned by text in just a few minutes. John came to the rescue again and I was soon talking to someone from STA who confirmed what I had suspected: BA were responsible for letting us know about the change of schedule, since STA no longer received notification relating to our schedule after we made the first changes. The guy was very helpful, though, and when I said there was nobody from BA to speak to there, he offered to call BA in Britain. A few minutes later he called back and told me that BA accepted responsibilty and would compensate us, so I should just go ahead and book into a hotel. He didn't think it would be a problem to get compensation for a fifty pound room in the nearby three-star hotel a taxi driver kept walking past and suggesting we go to.
Before we went with the taxi driver I confirmed there was a bar and a restaurant in the hotel, since we were now both starving and in dire need of a drink. Yes, he told us, and added that there was also TV, internet, Air-conditioning, and breakfast all included in the price. Great! A wee bit of luxury for our extra last night in India to make up for this awful turn of events. We took the taxi to the hotel, being sure to get a receipt. We eagerly checked in and dropped our bags in the room. The room was rather disappointing for three stars and we had actually stayed in similar places for nearly one tenth of the price. The TV turned out not to have any English language channels either. But it was the first time we'd had aircon in India. We left our shabby room behind and went to the desk to ask where the bar was. No bar. But they said they could get us alcohol and we ordered a few beers. They wanted cash up front, which was odd, and also problematic because we had spent all of our Rupees in advance of the rescheduled flight. It was not possible to put the beer on the bill apparently. Clearly this hotel wasn't even licensed, so I was going to be able to pay for beer by credit card along with everything else. It also meant, rather annoyingly that we would not be compensated for the drinks, and I was determined that we deserved to be compensated for some alcohol after all the stress it had caused us.
The manager directed me to a nearby cash machine, where I discovered that the ATM was refusing me card again. I returned and pleaded with them to put it on the bill, but they just sent me to the next nearest ATM, which was attached to the nearish Radisson Hotel. While I was in there I popped in to check their room rates, wondering if the compensation would stretch to that, fully intending to leave our horrible, barless hotel if it was at all reasonable. It wasn't: it was about five times what we were paying, so I just went to the cash machine. No money again. When I got back I was raging and had decided we would just get a taxi to another hotel if they couldn't help me out. I really wanted a drink! Maybe the could tell what I was thinking because suddenly it became possible to put the beer on the bill and we were able to get slightly drunk before falling asleep and dreaming of Japan.
written by  The Happy Couple on July 2, 2009 from Delhi, India

Goodbye India!
Waking up in our to-be-reimbursed room, we ordered breakfast by room service because the dining room was just as dismal as everything else about the hotel and we couldn't face it. At least this time we were able to shower and change before going for the flight. We stayed until lunch time so that we could put that meal in the bill as well then checked out and paid. In a final insult, we discovered that the “included” breakfast was only included if you went to have it in their horrible dining hall, because it was a buffet. Nobody had told us this but, this being India, nobody would admit that we hadn't been told or remove the charge for breakfast from the bill. To get our own back we took a big handful of plastic bags intended for laundry from the cupboard in the room. When you are backpacking certain items take on extra value and plastic bags are definitely one of those essentials. After that it all went smoothly: taxi to airport and this time our flight was on the board.
Child extras
I was quite sad to be leaving India because I don't think we really gave it a fair chance, and I now intend to return to India one day and travel just in India, so I will have more time for it. Joanne, however, does not intend ever to go to India again, so I'm not sure how that will work. It was strange how different my experience was this time compared to the last time. A lot of it has to do with the fact I had Joanne with me this time, and she is more upset by the dirt and the smells of India, which in turn upsets me to see her unhappy, but I think the main difference is that this time we had to expend a lot of effort on financial transactions and deal with a lot of crowds. Any time money is involved, particularly relating to transport, or any time there is a crowd, it brings out the hardest to deal with aspects of Indian culture if you are used to Western culture: there is so much cheating, pushing, and arguing it can all be quite unpleasant if you let it get to you. Last time I was more or less being baby-sat by the college I was studying at and all of the transport was taken care of, and all of the buying was either done for us or smoothed out in advance. Also this time, because we were travelling through, most of the contact we had with people was in a crowd or buying something. In these situations Indians never smile and can seem very unfriendly. Last time I was in the same place with the same people for longer, and they weren't trying to get anything extra out of me. In that kind of situation Indians can be very sweet, earnest, and philosophical people, although still very serious most of the time.
"Passing" rickshaw extra
Most of the time the negative aspect in this trip did not get to me, in fact some of it can be quite fun: it all seems like a bit of a game they are playing. One particular game is “the change game”. For some reason there never seems to be enough Rs10 notes. This means vendors never want to give you any of their hoard and will lie that they have no change. Soon you also start hoarding and lying about having change just so that you can buy small things should the occasion arise later. The way to win this game is insist that you have no smaller money and indicate that you will not be buying if they can't give you change; of course this opens you up to the possibility of a revenge short-changing, but you just have to keep your wits about you.
Nice Indian lady extra
Despite all the extra frustrations this time, I actually enjoyed it more. Previously I wasn't really exposed to the “real India” at all: I didn't get to see how the society really functions, and I wasn't doing any of the same things that Indians do. OK, this time we were still tourists, but we were definitely closer to the action and saw much deeper into the country than I did last time, even though I was in the country longer last time. It's a fascinating place, but a really tough place. The poverty, in particular the begging, are very upsetting and guilt inducing. But the place is also really beautiful: the Taj Mahal and Varanasi are both incredible and Varanasi grows on me more and more when I look back at the photos.
This guy just got in our rickshaw for a free ride
written by  The Happy Couple on July 3, 2009 from Delhi, India

Arrival in Japan
Tokyo, Japan
From the moment we arrived at Tokyo's Narita Airport it was pretty confusing. We had been warned about the lack of English in Japan but we had hoped for at least a little at an airport. Before this trip I would have thought it absurd to suggest that any country should be using any language other than their own, after all we are the visitors so shouldn't we be speaking their language, and they clearly can't be expected to support every foreign language can they? However I've since discovered the extent to which English has become the de facto international language. People of all nationalities talk to each other in English. So now I've come around to the opinion that any country which cares about its tourist industry should cater for English speakers. This doesn't make me feel very good, to be travelling around the world, expecting everyone to speak my home tongue; I would much rather that French or Spanish, or just any one single non-English language would be an international passport to communication, but it just isn't the case. English is the language that everyone speaks everywhere. Except Japan.
The first thing I had intended to do anyway was buy a phrase book, so I left Joanne with the bags and went hunting for a book shop in the airport. I found one and bought it, grimacing slightly at the fact it was more than one tenth of our daily budget; a daily budget which was about four times the highest daily up to this point, and one which we had settled on after lots of financial, arguably self-delusional, trickery that even Gordon Brown would be shocked at. We had already shelled out £300 each for a two-week Japan Rail Pass in India, which was the same as we spent in total for three weeks in Nepal, during which we didn't watch our money at all and did lots of shopping.
The next airport mission before braving the outside world in this new country was to print out the instructions for getting to the hostel we booked before leaving India. We had booked it so last minute there had been no time to print them out then. We found some coin-op internet terminals in the airport and were shocked once again at the cost. Then using it we were shocked at how dreadfully slow it was. Is Japan supposed to be a super-high-tech country with lightning fast internet? There was no printer either, so we settled for taking a digital photo of the map and the directions.
Already we were noticing some very nice differences from India. Joanne's favourite: Japan is clean; the toilets don't smell; and there is almost no litter. Secondly, passers-by were actually returning our smiles, and when we dealt with someone in a commercial situation they were very polite and friendly.
We were ready to go now, so we followed the JR signs for Japan Railways and managed to swap our exchange vouchers for rail passes. The JRP is not available outside the country, however the exchange vouchers you need to get one cannot be obtained inside the country. Luckily we had been forewarned and had done everything right: exchange coupon stamped by customs, visitor stamps in passports. I thought the extra day we had been trapped in India meant our pass would now last us the whole of our stay in Japan but I had miscalculated; it would run out the day before we leave, so we would only have to pay for transport back to the airport. All the rest of our transport in Japan would be free. Surely our budget would suffice under the circumstances?
Everything seemed to be going well: rail passes and phrase book obtained. We were a bit surprised that our rail passes were just little cardboard books. Apparently we would have to show them when reserving seats. Then we saw the turnstiles everyone was going through by feeding tickets through them. What were we supposed to do? An employee waved us over to the end of the turnstiles, unlatched a gate, and waved us through. First the internet and now this! Japan was really falling short of the technologically advanced country I had expected. Both China and Hong Kong had RFID smart cards in place that you just wave over the turnstile to open it; these could have been charged up with unlimited credit for a certain period. Surely Japan could do better than this clumsy and bulky work-around.
Then we got on the train. No maps of the line; no video screens telling us where we were; at least there was an announcement telling us the name of the station, but again I was let down by how low tech it all was. Clearly my expectations of Japan had been just a little bit too high. I had really been looking forward to seeing this country of the future and in fact it had been one of my “red lines” when designing the trip in the first place. The fact that I had been so determined to see Japan had considerably added to the cost of the tickets and the hassle of finding a route which allowed it.
We managed to change lines without too much difficulty, despite the lack of information. I was starting to notice an additional problem to the lack of English. The signs in Japanese most of the time did not even have an accompanying Romanisation of the Japanese script. This meant that maps were of no use, we had no idea from the front of trains arriving where they were going, and so on. Japanese uses three character sets. First and the oldest is Chinese kanji character which are identical to those used in China and give no clue to their pronunciation; you just have to know. The Japanese use far fewer kanji than the Chinese: only a few thousand instead of the tens of thousand for Mandarin and about one hundred thousand for Cantonese; however I wasn't going to learn the one thousand considered basic for junior school children during a two week trip, so that was out. Next up is hiragana, which is a phonetic script containing forty-eight characters. I assume this was developed after distance grew between theirs and Chinese culture and is used to express newer concepts not contained in the original kanji set. Finally there is katakana which, absurdly I think, represents exactly all the same phonemes as hiragana, except it is used when the word has been borrowed from another language, for example “birru” or “kuredit carto”. It seems like pointless duplication to me, but nonetheless it would have been feasible to get a handle on hiragana and katakana within two weeks, if not actually learn them, at least so I could look things up easily. The problem is that all these three scripts are mixed together and the majority of the writing is in kanji. Learning the other two would only let me read one or two words in an average sentence. And this is why the Romanistation, romanji, is so important for foreigners: this is how you can look things up in phrase books or dictionaries and this is how you can at least make approximately the right noises without understanding what you are reading. Clearly Japan was going to be tougher than we had expected. Apart from the scripts Japanese seems pretty easy from what I read in the phrase book: it has a similar structurelessness to all the SE Asian languages i.e. no plurals or tenses, although has most of the same additional complications, like quantifiers and a very complicated system of polite and respectful terms.
When we arrived at the station disaster struck: the strap of Joanne's big rucksack broke off the bag. She was furious because she had bought it new before the trip only about six months previously and it was “a good brand”, Berghaus, but I was worried about what we were actually going to do. The (massive) differences between Japan and India were still sinking in and this really brought it home. In India you can just pay someone well under a pound for them to fix something like that, but in Japan what do you do? We were at a loss. Furthermore, in India, you can take auto-rickshaws everywhere until you find someone to fix your bag, but there was no way were could afford taxis in Japan. The rucksack does also have a handle on the side so you can carry it like a suitcase, so that was what Joanne had to do until we got to the hostel.
Outside I noticed something else a bit backward and surprising: like all SE Asian countries we had been to, and India, the overhead wires were a shocking tangle and looked like all sorts of disasters waiting to happen. Surely they at least have health and safety in Japan? More and more it was looking like my ultra-modern image of Japan was completely misplaced. But apart from the distinctly Asian wiring, it looked much more like Europe than I had expected. Another feature from my imagination which was missing in reality was the ubiquitous small Japanese car. It just doesn't exists! The cars were just as big as Europe, in fact I thought that there were far more Buicks and other infamous large American “gas guzzlers”. What happened to the country of the future?
The map and directions to the hostel could have been much better but we did manage to find our way there. This feat was not helped by the fact that none of the road signs had accompanying romanji, yet the instructions had only the Romanised street names and no Japanese representation, so we couldn't tell what street we were on. When we arrived reception was closed and a sign indicated that check-in is at 4.30pm. This was despite the fact check-out was stated to be 10am. The notices went on to inform us that early check-in was possible with payment of 50% of the room fee after 3pm, increasing in steps to 90% before midday. The room was already about ten times what we had been paying on average in India and four times more than the most we had paid anywhere, except Hong Kong, and it was still nearly double that. We had no choice but to wait, although we were exhausted after our overnight flight.
There was a helpful map outside showing where we could get cheap food. It wasn't cheap by the standards to which we had become accustomed but to be fair it was quite cheap by Scottish standards: the sign said ¥250 for a bento box, which in my experience had been nice little assortments of sushi. The Yen is almost one-to-one with the US cent, so it didn't seem too bad. I left Joanne attempting to sew up her bag with dental floss and headed out. The bento place was crazy: there was a long queue of people and one woman at the counter doing most of the serving, who was constantly jabbering away in Japanese. She sounded something like a auctioneer, or a commentator or pundit at the races. It was very entertaining but the selection was not quite what I had been imagining: I returned with one box containing a burger and rice with spicy tomato sauce, and another containing a piece of fried chicken and rice. Oh well, beggars can't be choosers!
After eating we felt a bit better and Joanne had noticed that the office door was open, so we dumped our bags inside, leaving a note explaining that we would be back in time to check in, and set off to check email and find whether any of our last-minute couch requests had been successful. It was clear that we were not going to be able to afford to stay in hostels, so it was vital that the Couchsurfing worked out. We had been assured that Couchsurfing is easy in Japan, so we still hoped for the best. We found an internet place which was very expensive and also had shockingly slow connection, probably the slowest we had encountered since Cambodia, which amazed me. The Couchsurfing news was not good. A few people had replied but they were all saying no, because it's a very busy time at the moment as it's the peak holiday season. To compound matters, the Tokyo message board we were thinking of posting a last-minute plea for help to already had a last-minute plea for help and the responses to it were incredibly unpleasant and unfriendly. We were shocked because in every other country we had visited we had kept an eye on the Couchsurfing bulletin boards and never seen anything like that. It is, strictly speaking, discouraged to post a couch request to the group, but many people do it out of desperation, either because they have had so many rejections or simply because they were too disorganised to get around to it in time. We were somewhere in between, but after having seen all of the self-important patronising responses this poor guy got we decided to forget Couchsurfing in Tokyo. Choice phrases were “Couchsurfing isn't a band-aid”, “Why don't you re-read the guidelines and think for a while about what Couchsurfing is all about”, and “There are plenty of hostels in town and even some stairwells”, "Nobody owes you anything". Lovely! In other countries people run around trying to help even hapless fools out when they post a message like this, but in Japan it seems you just get mauled. A very upsetting surprise, especially when everyone in person had so far seemed so friendly. To be fair most of the people posting these remarks were foreigners living in Japan, but they had clearly developed a very high opinion of themselves in this position. The Japanese people on the forum seemed more of the opinion that Japanese people are so nice and friendly that everyone just wants to take advantage of them.
Defeated, we returned to the hostel and I dozed on the bench outside for a while. Soon the owner came back and started to check us in even though it was only just after 3.30pm. He seemed like a very nice friendly guy, full of helpful information about trains and suchlike. He was telling us that we don't need to worry about security at the hostel much because they have never had any kind of theft or other trouble, when he stopped himself and said that they did have one kind of trouble, but that was when a customer didn't pay. He was from Ghana, the owner explained, then said that he knows he shouldn't be prejudiced, but now he is. He went on to explain that Japanese people are very trusting, very stupid. Caucasians though, he told me, are very clever. Apparently because of Caucasians cheating the public telephone boxes and some other public services they had all been withdrawn because they took advantage of the Japanese stupidity. Of course I said that I thought that was nonsense and Japanese are well-known for their ingenuity, but he was having none of it: they were very stupid. I hadn't noticed the connection to the Couchsurfers at this point, but this turned out to be a common preoccupation with Japanese people; they are paranoid about being so nice and polite that evil foreigners will just take advantage of them. In fact many of the Japanese Couchsurfing hosts say something similar on their profiles. Ironically this makes them not at all nice, and far less so than the average Couchsurfer elsewhere, but the natural tendency does seem to be towards niceness. Why some of them want to fight against it in this way I cannot understand. Maybe that's what happens to individuals who aren't nice born into a society built in politeness.
By the time the owner had finished it was about 4.30pm anyway, so we weren't checking in early after all. He showed us to our room, after we refused his offer of a more expensive bigger room which looked like a cell. This was the smallest room I have ever seen in my life. It was obvious that they had put up partitions just so that they could cram in more people than if it was a dorm. The partitions between rooms didn't even go to the ceiling and they were made of chipboard and plasterboard, and in some places something even thinner; could it be cardboard? In the space that had originally been a medium-sized room, smaller than many of the places we had stayed in India (and much smaller than some), there were now four rooms, each with a bunk bed, and a common area / kitchen and a shower room / toilet. Absolutely tiny, but we had no choice. All over there were posters excusing the tiny size of the rooms by the fact that it was so incredibly cheap. I couldn't believe it was so expensive and that was before I saw how little space we had. The common area had one computer for coin-op internet. Again it was horribly slow and expensive. I just couldn't understand it.
Our bijou room
We took the owner's advice and went out looking for a place where they sell cheap sushi after a certain time, but we couldn't find it. Of course all the shop and restaurant signs are in Japanese so we had no idea what anything was. Instead we settled for a supermarket we passed and bought some sushi there. It was more than we were used to paying for food, but from the supermarket we could just about afford it. Clearly this was how we were going to be eating in Japan. When we returned and said we hadn't been able to find the place, the owner's wife offered to take us the next evening. They really were very nice people.
Back in the common area our neighbours has appeared. They were all Canadians and they had been shopping. Of the two couples, one girl had apparently gone completely overboard and they had been shopping for several days non-stop. Clearly they had come to Japan with the correct amount of money, although goodness knows why they had chosen to stay in a sardine tin like that. When we went to bed I could hear the guy on one side sniffing and on the other side I could hear someone's personal stereo. What a place!
View from my bed
written by  The Happy Couple on July 4, 2009 from Tokyo, Japan

Tokyo: Consumerist Heck
Tokyo, Japan
Just before we had gone to bed a very strange older guy came the common area but did not stop listening to his personal stereo the whole time he was in the room with us; his was the personal stereo I'd been able to hear in my bed. He was an American of about 50, who looked like Andy Warhol. Anyway, he got up very early in the morning making no effort to be quiet which, in that tiny little place, meant everyone was awake. And we had hoped for a nice long lie-in after our overnight flight from India.
We headed out again to see some of the sights of Tokyo as well as investigate what a Manga kissa had to offer. We had been told that these have the blisteringly fast internet speeds I had been expecting in Japan, and it is also possible to sleep there for much less money than a hostel. I thought we could maybe sleep there one night to see if it would make a suitable substitute for Couchsurfing in Japan since that didn't seem like that would work out, and also take the opportunity to back up all of our photos taken so far to online storage, just in case something happens to the camera memory cards, the laptop, and DVDs we've been backing up to. The final thing we had to accomplish was to book seats on the train to Nagasaki, which we had decided to leave for the following day.
At our local train station I deployed the one Japanese sentence I had learned: eigo ga hanasemas ka, which means “Do you speak English?”. Thankfully the woman behind the desk said that she spoke a bit and we tried to reserve seats to Shibuya in the centre of Tokyo, however she told us, in pretty good English, that it wasn't possible to reserve seats on the local train, we just had to show our passes and walk through.
The "iconic" Shibuya Crossing view
At Shibuya station we went into the ticket office, having decided to get the Nagasaki booking out of the way, and I tried my sentence again. This time the woman shook her head. Oh-oh! We tried just saying Nagasaki but she wanted to know which train and what time and who knows what else. We scurried away to look for some information, since we weren't going to get it from behind the desk. Everything in the ticket office was in Japanese only, not even any romanji, including all of the time-table books, so we were none the wiser. Instead we decided we would just find the information online while we were at the Manga kissa, then return with the train number and times written down. We were a bit put out by the experience though. Our passes are only for tourists, after all you cannot get them inside the country and they're not available to Japanese residents, but nobody in the ticket office at a major train station could speak English and none of the important information is in English. You can get timetable information online, but you can't book seats online, so you have to come to one of the ticket offices to make a booking, yet they seem totally unprepared for tourists. Odd since the woman at our little local station could speak English. It also seemed strange since I imagine Tokyo must be quite a major tourist destination, but there is almost no English.
We set out for the Manga kissa quite nearby on the Lonely Planet map of the Shibuya. Quite quickly we ran into a problem: even the major streets did not seem to have signs indicating what they were called. We weren't totally sure, after all some of the Japanese sign may have been street names, but there wasn't anything where you would expect a street name. We walked about for a while not knowing if we were heading in the right direction, then we walked back and tried another anonymous street. We didn't find the Manga kissa we were looking for, but found another one and went in. At the desk it was all a bit confusing, but we managed to indicate that the two of us would just share one booth. The price was very high per hour, but the night rate which was for eight hours, looked very reasonable if you saw it as a substitute for a hostel as well as an internet place. As promised I was finally rewarded with some fast internet, although it didn't seem anything more than I'd expect at a good day at a workplace or in a university in Britain. The cubicle was just big enough for two people to sleep in, although it would be quite tight with both big rucksacks. It definitely seemed like a reasonable option. When we had finished online we went to the desk to pay and got quite a shock: even though we had shared a cubicle, we were charged double! Suddenly it didn't seem like such a cheap sleeping option after all, although it did mean we might as well take a cubicle each and spread out a bit.
Shibuya Crossing, ready to go
We walked about a bit, remembering that we were supposed to be enjoying the city, not just getting lost and frustrated, so we returned to train station where we had read in the guide book Shibuya Crossing is one of the most famous crossings in the world. It did look kind of familiar, although it reminded me a lot of New York on TV. I decided that Japan didn't seem European to me, but Anglo-Saxon: it reminded me of the UK and the USA. We saw some trendy young Japanese people in unusual clothes, took some photos and moved on. Another must-see area is Harajuku, we had read. It was quite nearby, so we decided to walk and take in more of the city. On the way I really started to dislike Tokyo. It wasn't just the fact that there are no street names (most of the streets genuinely have no names, we discovered later), but it all just seems about consumerism. I hate it at home and what I see of America on the telly, and I don't like it any more in Asia. It's just all about shopping. How shallow!
We were still suffering a bit of culture shock from India I think. In many ways Japan and India are opposites and some of the change was very nice: the food is light and clean-tasting instead of the heavy greasy food in India; as far as cleanliness goes they are opposite; as far as manners goes they are opposite. But then they are also opposite in cost, which is bad, and also as far as rules are concerned. In India if something is closed, it isn't really closed; someone will be there to open up, but closed really is closed in Japan. Trains and buses don't run on time in India, but that means there is always some kind of backup allowing you to be quite slack, but it seems in Japan if you are late for things that it tough, because that's it. You just aren't late in Japan. It wasn't as easy to adjust as I had expected. India tolerates total slackness and you never need to be organised in advance; you can just make it all up as you go along, but Japan is just too complicated to do that.
Takeshita dori, Harajuku
We got to Harajuku and saw a few more unusually dressed young people just like we were supposed to, including one dressed as Bo Peep and several girls with wings. Most of them seemed to be dressed in some kind of goth style variation. I have since read that the favourite style there is known as gothic lolita. I can't say I really enjoyed walking about Tokyo much; other than constantly getting lost due to the lack of street names, all of the high-rise buildings everywhere make the city very oppressive, and for the most part they're just not as modern-looking as I expected. Everything looks like the 70s or 80s.
Busy on Takeshita Street in Harajuku
I was still so tired that I nearly lost my wallet drawing money. I came out of the air-conditioned room full of ATMs and started walking up the road to rejoin Joanne. After a couple of hundred metres I realised the “wallet pocket” in my rucksack was still open, which usually means I have my wallet in my hand. Sure enough there was no wallet there, so we rushed back to the ATM room. There is was sitting next to the ATM I had used and all around Japanese people were studiously ignoring it. Thank goodness! That was the second time I've got away with stupidly losing my wallet; I don't think I want to a third time.
Back at our own train station we tried again to get a ticket for Nagasaki. It was becoming much more urgent since we were supposed to be leaving the following day. Unfortunately the English-speaking girl was no longer on shift and we totally failed to communicate with the guy who had taken her place. At the hostel we asked if the owner's wife would write out our ticket request in Japanese for us, which she did, but when we asked about the cheap sushi restaurant she had said she'd take us to she told us we were too late. Odd that she hadn't mentioned to us that there was an ending time before, but we made the best of it and bought our dinner from the supermarket again. At least we were saving money. After quickly eating I returned to the station ticket office which the owner's wife had told us would still be open. It wasn't. Apparently she had neglected to say that it was closing in just ten minutes so you had better hurry. I think there must be something in Japanese culture about leaving things unsaid. First the sushi restaurant and now this. I suspect this is partly what was making Tokyo so difficult: why have street signs up when everyone knows where they are?
That evening the Canadians were noisy and kept us up late and I didn't sleep well at all, even after they went to bed. Rather than recovering from our overnight flight we were getting more and more worn out. I really hated this hostel and our tiny little room and wanted to get out of it and Tokyo as soon as possible.
written by  The Happy Couple on July 5, 2009 from Tokyo, Japan

Shinkansen to Nagasaki
Nagasaki, Japan
Shinkansen (700 series)
We checked out of our horrible hostel run by the nice people and went to the train station ticket office armed with the Japanese note which had been written for us. This time we were successful and got tickets for the Shinkansen. The Shinkansen in the famous Japanese “Bullet Train”, but unfortunately our Japan Rail Pass did not cover the Nozomi, which is their fastest service, reaching 300 km/h, so we had to settle for the Hikari reaching a puny 285 km/h. The trains were very impressive and modern looking. When ours arrived it was one of the newish 700 series, also used on the Nozomi service. Inside it was very comfortable and another large step up from the Indian trains we were quickly becoming less used to. This time there were video screens presenting information about our location and speed in both Japanese and English. At last something modern enough to live up to my expectations of Japan!
Japan Rail Pass
The journey was very quick and it was possible to get a sense of the speed by watching everything whizzing past outside, but you wouldn't think for a moment you were travelling at high speed from how the train sounded or felt: very smooth and quiet. When we reached Fukuoka on the island of Kyushu we had to change to a standard service, but the whole journey took just over six hours, including time to change trains, for a six hundred mile journey.
We were surprised and pleased to discover the tourist information at Nagasaki station actually had an English speaker, who was able to tell us where to find internet access. We were in the position of having no accommodation organised because we hadn't been sure we could get on the train until the last minute, so we followed her directions to the manga kissa and this time made sure they understood it was only for one person, so we wouldn't be charged twice. This time it wasn't set up with booths, so Joanne just hung around behind me while I looked for local accommodation on hostels.com. After a few minutes the girl at the desk signalled for Joanne to go over and using a Yahoo! translation tool on her phone, let her know she could use the terminal next to mine for free, then put a finger to her lips and said “Shhh”. How nice! We booked the hostel and then noticed that the check-in time ended in just a few minutes. Oops!
We rushed out with carrying our big bags and tried to hurry in the direction of the hostel, but as we were leaving the building someone who had been in the lift with us asked if we needed any help. They are very nice and helpful the Japanese! We explained where we were trying to go and he said we should follow him. He walked with us for about ten minutes before leaving us at a junction with instructions to take us the rest of the way. Unfortunately I had clearly not followed what he said and the route I insisted on taking turned out to be wrong. Luckily Joanne had listened better so when we tried her route we ended up at the hostel. Which was of course closed. But there was a notice up on the door addressed to us, with a phone number to call and direction to the very near public phone box. All going better than the last place. The number didn't help though, because it just rang out. Just as we were beginning to despair and swear a lot, some people staying at the hostel arrived back and trusted us enough to let us into the reception area. Joanne spotted an envelope taped to the desk with our names on it. The envelope had our key in it, but we still didn't know the code for the outside door, so we tried ringing the number again from the call box inside. Again it rang out, but this time it coincided with the phone behind the desk ringing. Clearly somebody had forgotten to turn on call forwarding!
This was a very nice hostel and our room was gorgeous compared to the previous one, however it was nearly twice the price. Now we really needed to save money, so we decided against the rather pricey-looking restaurant some other guests recommended and had supermarket dinner yet again. Three days in Japan and we hadn't had a meal out yet, nor had we had any tea! At least, though, I had discovered some rice spirit cheap enough for us to afford it, even at the incredibly high room rates.
Cheap rice spirit
written by  The Happy Couple on July 6, 2009 from Nagasaki, Japan

Indiscriminate Murder and Self-indulgence
Nagasaki, Japan
Indiscriminate Murder
At last we got a lovely long sleep in our expensive room and got up nice and late. We caught a tram to the Atomic Bomb Museum. We had opted for Nagasaki rather than Hiroshima because Nagasaki sounded like it was quite a nice town as well, whereas Hiroshima sounds like it's just about the bomb, but of course the main tourist sites in Nagasaki are bomb-related too. The trams were frequent, cheap, and easy to use even for stupid foreigners. There actually seemed to be more Romanisation of Japanese script, more English written, and more English spoken in Nagasaki, which came as quite a surprise. We had expected things to get even worse away from Tokyo, but it certainly wasn't the case here at least.
Joanne contemplates atrocity
We spent a bit of contemplative time in the Atomic Bomb Hypocentre Park outside the museum, where a black stone column marks the spot on the ground above which the last atomic bomb dropped in an act of aggression exploded. The museum itself has exhibits of photos, videos, and various burned and melted objects all telling stories of individuals and their families who were in Nagasaki at the time of the blast. Joanne found the whole experience very moving and was shocked at the extent of the damage. I was actually surprised how limited the extent of the damage was, but I think this comes from having grown up during the 80s with films like Threads and The Day After, which depicted the effects of multi-megaton bombs. What actually had the most profound effect on me was considering that this bomb caused as much damage as it did, although it is of the order of one thousand times less powerful than a typical modern bomb. It's terrifying to consider how much damage just one of them would do. I would encourage you to look here http://www.carloslabs.com/node/20 , here http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/gmap/hydesim.html , or here http://bit.ly/11CF7c to find out.
Pledge of Peace
Leaving the Museum Joanne said to me that everywhere we visit the Americans have committed some atrocity: the military campaigns in Vietnam and Cambodia, and the secret one in Laos all leaving behind tons and tons of UXO to kill and maim civilians for years afterwards; the Bhopal Union Carbide chemical disaster in India; and the only ever two atomic bombs used in aggression. Why does anyone have anything to do with America? she asked me. This later became her Facebook status. What had really shocked her were the facts that Russia had declared war on Japan the day before the second bomb was dropped, Japan had already requested peace negotiations more than a month before the first bomb was dropped, and then the Americans' own Strategic Bombing Survey report afterwards came to the conclusion that “certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated”. Yet both bombings still went ahead. We spent a little time in the Peace Park looking at the Peace Statue, but it was raining so we didn't hang around long.
The Peace Statue (impersonating Roy)
On the way home from the Museum we stopped in at a supermarket for supplies then looked into a bar we passed just before our hostel. Even though we hadn't actually tried to get in the doorman made it clear we would not be allowed. He seemed to indicate the shopping bag in my hand which seemed fair enough. Joanne thought it might have been because I was wearing shorts or perhaps my flip-flops. I didn't think the clothes explanation was very likely because Nagasaki was so hot and humid. I had originally thought we'd be landing mid-monsoon in Japan but it turns out the rainy season in Japan is relatively short; instead we had landed in the hot-and-humid summer which is also peak tourist season for some reason. Tokyo's weather had not been too bad, but I was finding the humidity in Nagasaki almost unbearable, and far worse at 30-something Celsius than Varanasi was at 45C.
Self-indulgence
Delicious salmon sashimi and sake
We had agreed that we couldn't continue with the budget as it stood. Although we were surviving, we weren't having all that much fun, and we wanted to eat something other than supermarket food. We definitely could not afford to increase our daily budget of ¥10000, of which our room was taking ¥6000, so we convinced ourselves that we could instead afford a treat worth ¥5000 once every three days. That meant we were due a treat, so this time we went out to the expensive-looking restaurant we had not been able to afford the previous night. There was no English menu, but our waiter could speak just enough English to help us out. They had sashimi, which is my favourite, but when Joanne asked for nigiri he told us they didn't do sushi. Apparently sashimi and sushi are not usually sold in the same places in Japan. The food was excellent and the waiter was really helpful and did his best, although his English wasn't much better than my almost completely non-existent Japanese. Some people at the next table took an interest in us, and offered us some of their “Japanese crab” and “Japanese rice whisky”, shōchū, which were both excellent. They laughed at us quite a lot but they were very friendly. At one point the all started practising English phrases at each other, but when I looked over and asked my one sentence, eigo ga hanasemas ka, everyone looked a bit shocked and, shaking their heads vigorously, said “no no no no”. We had been warned that Japanese people tend to be a bit shy, but also perfectionists, so will not admit to speaking English unless they can speak it very well.
Sashimi of a local fish
It was a great night, and when we walked out into the street there seemed to be a musical performance being put on for someone's birthday, and they had decorated the already quite attractive bridge outside with candles in little paper lanterns. Lovely! I was definitely beginning to enjoy Japan now. Maybe it was just Tokyo that was horrible.
Lamps across the bridge
written by  The Happy Couple on July 7, 2009 from Nagasaki, Japan

Onsen and Organised Crime
Nagasaki, Japan
In the morning we checked Couchsurfing again and found that we still didn't even have any negative responses from the Kyoto Couch-hosts. Lots of people's profiles said that they were fully booked for the next two months and the mood on the Kyoto forum was more agitated that other places, although nowhere near as nasty as Tokyo's forum. I came to the conclusion that Couchsurfing is broken: so many people know about it now that those hosting are constantly busy and have now started to feel like they are being put upon, rather than doing it because they want to. It's a real pity, but they obviously need to change something to re-balance the surfers versus hosts populations. Maybe they need to insist that you have hosted before you can surf; this would have excluded us too, but we would have tried to host before we set off if those had been the rules. At this point we pretty much gave up on Couchsurfing in Japan and decided we could get by with our treats once every three days. It also meant that we had to consider dorms from now on. We booked one for Kyoto.
We had been so stingy the first few days that, even after our expensive meal the night before, we still have some money left over, so we decided to spend it on the ¥1000 onsen package our hostel had leaflets for. For those who don't know, onsen are Japanese hot springs and, we were informed, a must do and a national institution. They are all over Japan and we were in danger of spending the whole time worrying about which one would best and never doing it, so to avoid this we just agreed to go for this one since it was near, sounded quite nice, and seemed reasonably priced; the ticket price included a ferry to Ioujima, a little island off the coast from Nagasaki where the onsen is, and entrance to all manner of different types of hot-tubs, Turkish baths, saunas, and so on. We managed to get a ticket at the ferry port by pointing and saying “onsen” and fifteen minutes later we were walking into a large complex, looking like a health centre. It was all a bit confusing but we followed some other people and came to a reception desk.
Behind the reception desk there was a sign saying “No tattoos”, with a little image of a butterfly crossed out and another one of something more manly. This was first English we had seen in the place. Joanne and I both have tattoos and since onsen are taken naked there was no chance of hiding them. There had been no mention of this in the leaflet at our hostel, nor any mention of it at the ferry port where we bought our all-in-one ticket. We pointed to the sign and she shook her head, but seemed surprised and confused that we would have tattoos. I pulled the neck of my t-shirt down so she could see the one on my chest, which is small, and she shook her head again and managed “sorry”. We were a bit annoyed to say the least, having shelled out what was a lot of money for us and come all the way here without getting any warnings. I looked up the word for “refund” in my phrase book, but it was clear this was not an option, so I tried donata ka eigo o hanasemas ka a slight variation on the sentence I knew, meaning “Does anyone speak English”. She nodded and picked up the phone.
Our private onsen
The onsen island
Soon we were talking to a very apologetic manager who kept on bowing and saying sorry. He explained that in Japan tattoos are associated with the Yakuza, the Japanese mafia, and they are not socially acceptable. It's common, he told us, for onsen to ban tattoos. Culturally it's different in Japan, he explained. He wouldn't hear of a refund either, though. We explained that we had never been to an onsen before and we knew nothing about it until we saw that sign. OK, he said, what they could do was give us a cottage, where we would be in private and nobody would see the tattoos. This sounded too good to be true. In the public onsen we would have been separate into men's and women's facilities, but this way we could be together.
The onsen resort
Also, the private cottages must have cost at least three or four times what we had paid, so it was definitely a result! Of course it did mean that we weren't going to get the “real” Japanese onsen experience, but what could we do? And why did the Lonely Planet not mention this – or any of our friends who had been to Japan, for that matter? The cottage was lovely, clearly far better than anything we could afford, with a large hot-tub in a walled-in area outside. It did mean we were missing out the many different types of baths, but it was a nice little treat anyway: TV, aircon, robes, tea; the place even had two beds in case you needed a lie down, as well as a kitchen, and a lounge area.
The main room of our private onsen cottage
When we were on the ferry back to the main island it occurred to me that the reason we had been refused entrance to the bar the day before was probably because of the tattoo that was visible on my ankle, next to where the shopping bag I had thought was responsible, had been hanging. What a socially conservative country! Quite a lot of the Westerners we had met in Japan had tattoos, some of them quite large, and walking around with them uncovered. How shocked all of the Japanese people they passed must have been! Ours were only small and caused all that trouble, getting us a big freebee; maybe the manager thought we would break his legs or have his head cut off if her didn't make it good for us.
Surely the next Spiderman villain?
When we got back we celebrated our victory by going out for dinner again, but this time to a much cheaper place, that sold local specialities. Mine was quite a nice seafood dish, but Joanne wasn't very impressed with hers. Nagasaki has a large Chinese and Korean influence in their culture due to having been Japan's only open port for many years. The food was kind of Chinese and Joanne had really gone off Chinese food since our short stay in China at the start of the trip.
Joanne's local speciality
My local speciality
The next morning we had time to see some temples before getting the train to Kyoto. Near our hostel was “temple street” with many temples, including all the best ones in Nagasaki. What a disappointment! Japanese temples are incredibly austere. None of them were at all pretty, in fact I didn't even take any photos, and they were not at all interesting. We decided not to bother paying to go into any since they all looked so dull and ugly. After all the beautiful ruins, temples, and pagodas we had already seen, I suppose Japan was up against stiff competition, but this was like they weren't even trying. A Church of Scotland in Glasgow has more appeal than a Japanese temple. Instead I took photos of amusing Engrish on signs and t-shirts as we whooshed passed the religious monstrosities.
Triangles!
We quickly headed off to the train, grabbing what were becoming a staple for us to eat on the journey. We still don't even know their names, just calling them “triangles”. They sell for about ¥100, which is one of the main attractions, and they are triangles of rice, wrapped in sea-weed, and filled with what is a random filling if you can't read Japanese. The sea-weed is cleverly wrapped outside the rice, but between two layers of plastic, presumably so that it doesn't get soggy against the moist rice. Ingenious! But also heavy on the packing. The amount of packaging used in Japan is really shocking: packets of biscuits are wrapped individually inside the big packet, and it's not unusual to have to make your way through three layers of packing before getting to what you want to eat, not to mention the piles of plastic bags they throw at you from behind the counter; seems we didn't need to steal all those laundry bags from the hotel in India after all!
Sign operator must have a sense of humour
written by  The Happy Couple on July 9, 2009 from Nagasaki, Japan

A Massive Let-down
Kyoto, Japan
Kinkaku-ji
We arrived in Kyoto and I was expecting to be blown off my feet by the beauty of the place, but it was just another over-developed consumerist hell. Japan is just about shopping. Kyoto seemed more like London where Tokyo had been New York. I had been expecting much more (again my expectations of Japan were too high) as Kyoto was spared bombing during the war. Oh well the beauty must all be in Gion, the old part famous for geishas.
Gion at night
We had some difficulty getting to our hostel. We were starting to suspect that Japanese people cannot give directions. Every time we'd had to follow directions they had been awful; there always seemed to be so much unsaid. It's all very well having a culture that is so precious people don't like to be explicit about things, but it's rather irritating when it comes to things like directions and closing times! We made it there, nonetheless, and the place was huge. Floor upon floor of young people. It was a bit intimidating: how on earth were we going to get on with this plague of 18 and 19 year-olds? That first night we stayed up until 5am drinking and talking to an Israeli guy and a Quebecois, who gave us this great tip about Strong Zero, a fruit cooler that comes in a half-litre can, costing about the same as a can of beer, but it's 8% alcohol by volume. Great tip. Bad hangover.
The next day we got up too late to do anything really, and I didn't feel much up to it anyway. This time our hostel had an excellent internet connection and free wifi, so I spent the whole day online, most of it blogging, while Joanne got excited about the well-equipped kitchen and the prospect of cooking again, and went shopping for provisions to cook with. I only left to get more Strong Zero. That night we stayed up quite late again, but managed to rein it in a bit that night and got to bed about 2am.
We had only been able to book that hostel for two nights, apparently because the hostels all fill up with Japanese people at the weekends, so the next day we had to change hostels. It was in a different part of town and walking distance to Gion, which was just as well because we had so far seen nothing of interest in Kyoto; just Strong Zero and a city that could be British. In fact in Kyoto I decided that Japan is more similar to Britain than the rest of Europe is. Must be that influx of Anglo-Saxonism brought by the Americans at the end of the war.
This is Japan: a shopping mall in Gion
Near the hostel we discovered a cheap Japanese fast-food place, where the food was quite good. It seems to be mostly noodles, but many dishes come with a raw egg and a device for separating the yolk from the white. I watched someone then copied them by leaving the white aside and plopping the yolk on top. I wasn't sure why you wouldn't want the white when all of the cholesterol-, fat-, and guilt-free protein is there, but I didn't want to look like I didn't know what I was doing, so I just left my egg white as well. Delicious and cheap – we now had an extra eating option after supermarkets, which was a relief. The triangles are nice, but they aren't very interesting.
Cheap fast food
A geisha running from the paparazzi
After lunch, we took a walk around Gion. Again it was a massive disappointment. Yes, there were some old wooden buildings, yes we saw a couple of Geishas, but it just wasn't very beautiful. I had expected Japan in general to be an extremely pretty place and it was ugly in general; I had expected Kyoto to be particularly pretty and it looked like London; but I had expected Gion to be the absolute centre of all beauty in the world and it was just about OK. So far Japan was without doubt the ugliest country we had visited.
Gion
We went to look at a couple of sites with a special mention in the Lonely Planet but remained totally unmoved. At that point we noticed the introduction to Kyoto says that many people are under-whelmed when they come to come to Kyoto, but there are little corners of beauty remaining if you hunt them out. I didn't come here to play hide-and-seek with beauty, I came here to be bowled over by it! After hunting out a couple of motes of slight non-ugliness, we decided not to bother any more.
The LP says this is the most beautiful street in Asia!
A very obediently posing Japanese crane
The "lovely" river in Gion
Heading back towards the hostel we passed through quite a lively area. I have to say that although so far I was not much impressed by Japan as a tourist destination, I think it would be great to live there. There seemed to be a really lively nightlife everywhere we had been and there is plenty of shopping, if you're into that sort of thing, and I'm sure the wages are great.
Fnarr fnarr
Also, I think most of the interesting stuff about Japan takes a bit more time to see, and all the difficult stuff would become much easier in time and a grasp of the language. One reason I had wanted to go to Japan in the first place was to see a radically different culture. In fact it was without doubt culturally the closest to Britain we had seen on our trip. We can see reserved and polite people in a modern environment any day of the week at home. I believe though, there is a much deeper complexity to the culture that you can really only become properly aware of if you spend more time than two weeks there. We weren't going to understand it in that time. And at those prices we weren't going to see much of the nightlife either.
Beef birth certificate, complete with pedigree and nose print!
Very expensive beef
We found a place called Sam and Dave's that everyone in the hostel had been raving about and disappearing to every night, so we went in. There was a cover charge of ¥1000 after which we got the privilege of paying extortionate prices for the drinks. We simply couldn't afford it. Instead we went downstairs where there was a bar with no cover charge and quite reasonably priced drinks. It was a Jamaican / Reggae bar and it was completely empty apart from us. How depressing that our first drink out in Japan was in a Jamaican bar!
I thought this was cool
Our new hostel was nothing like as large and did not have as lively a social area as the last one. However we soon discovered that the people staying there were quite happy to ignore the signs saying “No talking in the sleeping area after 11pm”. I couldn't read the Japanese on the same sign, but I'm sure it didn't say “No talking unless it's only foreigners trying to sleep”. The social area downstairs was empty, but the dorm next to ours, separated only by a tatami partition was full of people talking and laughing. We were exhausted by our two consecutive nights of Strong Zero, so Joanne got up and asked them to be quiet. I was too scared they wouldn't speak English and it would all be very embarrassing, but at least one of them understood and they went away with no problems. Shortly afterwards our dorm filled up with young Japanese people, who made loads of noise, before disappearing only to return later with lots of food, which they ate in their beds as if at a slumber-party while chatting and giggling. Clearly the Japanese under “No food in the sleeping areas” must have said “Japanese people can slurp their noodles loudly and keep foreigners awake”. So much for Japanese people being polite! I had heard that there was a big generational divide in Japan and that one of the dividing lines was manners; in fact the Japanese film Battle Royale is all about that subject, and that night I really feel I got the point of the film: sending the younger generation of Japanese off to an island to kill each other seems like the perfect way to cure them of their insolence!
At this point I feel I have to admit that some of our problem in Japan at this stage was self-inflicted: we had effectively wasted two days on staying up late and hangovers, and without that we probably wouldn't have been as tired in this dorm. But dorms are horrible and we couldn't afford anything else. After keeping us up so late, the little buggers got up at 7am and made even more noise than the night before. How do those young things do it?
The river promenade in Gion
We were determined to get something out of Kyoto, so we hired bicycles from the hostel and set off to see some more LP recommended sites. I had forgotten swearing never ever under any circumstances to hire one of the stupid awful Chinese bikes that infest Asia. Why a supposedly technologically advanced country such as Japan imports cheap Chinese rubbish instead of making their own high-quality bicycles I cannot understand. They are tiny. They make a really uncomfortable angle at the knee, even in people small enough to ride them; I watched some Japanese people on them. They have no gears and the one gear they have is for uphill. I reasoned this time we weren't trying to get anywhere far so it would be OK, but I'd forgotten about the knee pain caused by trying to exert a force at 120 degrees from a straight leg. We took the bikes back and tried to get a refund, explaining that it was like a child's bike to me, but instead, after one more failed swap, he said I could take his own bike. It was only slightly better, but I didn't feel I could refuse his bike when he's made such a big thing of it, and he clearly didn't want to give us a refund. I wonder if this is another Japanese cultural thing: the onsen preferred to give us something worth several times what we had paid rather than a refund; here the owner gives me his own bicycle rather than a refund. Would giving a refund mean failure? Or do they just love money so much they hate to give it back?
This was the best bicycle on offer
For luck. Probably.
We cycled to Kinkaku-ji, the “famed Golden Temple”. It makes it into the inside cover of the Lonely Planet as one of the top sights, and Joanne had read on Wikitravel that it is located in lovely gardens. I longed to see beautiful Japanese gardens so we chose to go there first. The cycle was an unpleasant uphill in the humidity and my knees were aching when we arrived. It would nice to sit down in the beauty of the garden. We paid the rather high entrance fee and went in. The temple was quite nice, but to have it as a top sight really spoke volumes about Japan to me.
Not much of an aim are they?
To put it in the same category as the Grand Palace in Bangkok is ludicrous, in fact I wouldn't rate it next to just about any temple you can see in any town in Thailand or Laos and as for the Taj Mahal, the Varanasi Ghats, or the temples of Angkor, forget it! Maybe we had already been a bit too spoiled on this trip. To make matters worse, the gardens were only for looking at, not for enjoying, and you had to stay behind ropes, shunting through a one way system until you got to the end. Near the exit I realised I hadn't taken any photos, so tried to return, but it was not allowed. Luckily we were able to get in again using the same tickets and I took some snaps then had to go all the way around the one way system again to get out.
Kinkaku-ji. OK, it's quite pretty.
At this point I more-or-less have up on Japan. This was the best Kyoto had to offer and Gion had been rubbish too. I had expected Kyoto to be the highlight of Japan, which I had expected to be one of the highlights of our trip. There was still Fujisan to look forward to at least.
Infuriating Japanese umbrella use!
The cycle back was a bit better because it was downhill, but rather annoying that we had to constantly bump up and down on the pavements. For some reason the Japanese cycle on the pavement; maybe it's because you can only go just above walking speed on the terrible bicycles everyone rides. As a pedestrian it had been annoying us since we got there; nobody had hit us yet, but there had been plenty or near misses and big frights, so it seemed only a matter of time.
Following a recommendation at the hostel, we went to a sushi restaurant for dinner. It was very confusing. You needed to get a ticket from a machine and wait in quite a long queue as it was a very busy place. Of course the machine was all in Japanese and after a couple of failed attempts at pushing random buttons I gave up and we just hovered wondering what to do. Luckily a nice Japanese girl came up to us and offered to help. She handed us our ticket and said we needed to listen out for the number. No high-tech solution: no video screen with the number; no pager for each customer; just a woman calling out your number, but at least she had a microphone! It wasn't easy to pick the number out, but we practiced listening for numbers in the stream of – to us – completely redundant syllables, and I think we would have got it, but the nice girl who had helped us tipped off the staff when their number was up and the caller came to get us when it was our turn.
Fish nigiri
Tuna nigiri
The sushi was easy: it was on a conveyor belt and we knew we would be paying according to the collection of plates left at the end. Getting beer or anything else not on the conveyor belt was another matter: each table had a touch screen menu to order things, so that was pretty high-tech, but we had the same language problem as usual. We tried pressing a few buttons after the icon with the beer on it, but nothing happened.
Mini beef burger sushi!
Eventually a waitress appeared and we waved her over and managed to get our order in that way. Some time after our beers had been delivered she re-appeared and indicated that we had to do something with our screen, pointing up to a large screen on the wall which had our table number on it. Apparently we had managed to call her before, but had not cancelled it. Anyway, the food was excellent and really cheap: only ¥105 per plate. The beer wasn't so cheap and just three beers cost nearly the same as our 21 plates of sushi. We were happy again.
That night it was very noisy in the dorm again and we remained exhausted as we had been since arriving in Japan, save for the day we went to the Atomic Bomb Museum in Nagasaki. In the morning we sat downstairs, waiting for our train to Nara, and chatted to an 18 year-old girl who had been living in Japan for nearly a year. She had been WWOOFing (www.wwoof.org) and loved Japan. Many people we had met loved Japan, but they were all either there long-term, or it was the first time they had ever been out of their home country; parents seem quite happy to send their kids to Japan, feeling it is a safe option. This girl fell into both categories, and when I said I didn't think we were really getting the country because we really needed longer to see all the social stuff that makes Japan so interesting she said that she had found it interesting for a while, but now it was actually starting to really irritate her: there are just far too many unspoken rules, she explained.
At the train station ticket office I saw three geishas who were all obediently posing for tourists to take photos. I didn't have my camera, so I ran back to Joanne, who had been waiting with the bags, and told her if she wanted to get a better geisha picture than we got in Gion, then she should take her camera there now. She rushed off but came back saying she had been too embarrassed to take photos as everyone else had stopped by then. Later she was cursing herself; in Gion they had all rushed from doorway to car, but here they had been sitting ducks!
written by  The Happy Couple on July 12, 2009 from Kyoto, Japan

Deer and Okonomiyaki
Nara, Japan
Cute!
We left our noisy hostel and got the train to Nara. We had actually received one Couchsurfing reply from a girl in Nara, but it was just to say she could no longer host people, however her boyfriend was running a hostel next door, and would we like to book in. At first we had resisted, hoping for another response but, of course, there were none so we emailed back to say we would like to stay. It was the going rate for a dorm room at ¥2500 per person, which was really too much for us, since this was half of our daily budget.
Arriving in Nara, we soon realised the directions were terrible again. We had no faith that we were going the right direction at all and had to make a couple of guesses, but we did end up in the right place. It wasn't really a hostel at all, just someone's house; a very moody American's house it seemed. He did none of the usual checking in stuff like checking our passports to take down details and getting us to sign a book. It was presumably all unofficial, untaxed, and I suspect the whole Couchsurfing profile was just a scam, designed to reel people in without going through any of the official channels. Still, our room was nice although Joanne complained that the kitchen and toilets were the dirtiest we had seen in Japan and not up to the standard of a hostel.
Two buildings of the temple
More of the temple
We had arrived quite late, so most of the tourist sites were closed or would be soon. There was a temple quite close to the “hostel” called Kōfuku-ji, so we left to make sure we at least saw something that day. The main attractions of the temple were two pagodas, dating from 1143 and 1426. The older one is a five storey pagoda, and is the second tallest in Japan. It was OK, but the Japanese style just doesn't do it for me. It's not particularly pretty, intricate, or ornate. It's wood and it's brown. Just behind the Pagoda, though, were a few deer wandering around, obviously very tame. There are loads of deer, which were considered messengers of the gods and are now national treasures. We had read in the Lonely Planet that you can buy deer biscuits to feed to them, but the shop was on tomorrow's route.
Tame deer
Deer hassling a man
Me stroking a deer
Lovely sake cup (filled with lovely sake)
Joanne had picked up a tourist map of Nara, and spotted an advert for a sake brewery which sold sake ice cream. It sounded like a local speciality to me so we had to seek it out. Unfortunately Japanese directions struck again and we spent quite a lot of time seeking it out. Eventually Joanne spotted it on the map nowhere near where we had been looking because it was supposed to be “west then on the left” from a temple, when it was actually South East. By the time we realised it was already closed, but we had discovered a nice little drinking place with some Japanese people sitting outside. We had a couple of nice draft beers and a couple a nice sakes, which were served in a lovely decorated square cup. I quite liked Nara. We decided the key to Japan was to avoid the big cities like Tokyo and Kyoto and concentrate on the small places, which seem to be prettier.
Drinking sake
We weaved our way home to discover three Americans, one of whom was Japanese-American. The Japanese-American, Yu, was married to Kim; originally they had got married so he could stay in the country because, despite living nearly his whole life in America, was not a citizen, and when his dad had decided to move back to Japan, he would have had to leave too. Kim and Yu had since had a proper wedding, having got the legal convenience stuff out of the way several years earlier. They were also on a year-long round-the-world honeymoon. The last American, Moses, had joined them for a holiday in the middle of their trip; something, we explained, that we had been hoping at least one of our friends would do, but it didn't look like it was going to happen.
Latching on to their Japanese language advantage, we agreed to out with them for Okonomiyaki, since the Quebecois in Kyoto had raved about the stuff. Unfortunately the restaurant was closed and we went to the supermarket for food instead. Somehow we came out with two litres of sake and the Americans with loads of beer. When we returned a German girl called Julia had also joined the collective, and we all sat down to eat and drink. Really it was too much drink and Kim and Yu went to bed before it was all finished, however Moses, Julia, and the two of us were silly enough to go to the 7-11, which seems to sell alcohol 24 hours, and buy more of it. The dreaded Strong Zero strikes again!
Plastic food
Marauding deer in front of the gate to Daibutsu-den
We slept in late, when we really shouldn't have. We had several things we planned to see before getting the train to Kawaguchi-ko near Mount Fuji. We decided to forget the rest and just go for the big-hitter: Tōdai-ji a temple whose grounds contained Daibutsu-den hall, the largest wooden building in the world. On the way I remembered to take some photos of the awful plastic representations of the food restaurants have outside. I think it's meant to entice you in, but it always looks horrible. The temple was absolutely crawling with deer and children.
It seems to be a popular place for school outings. The hall was indeed very impressive, and the deer, although cute, were at times a bit on the precocious side. I saw a couple of stags nudging people with their antlers when they saw that they had deer biscuits. It looked like all of the deer's anltlers had been blunted, and a good thing too! I bought a pack of biscuits too, and took great pleasure in feeding them to the eager deer. Joanne is not an animal lover so she wasn't interested, but I persuaded her to feed one for a photo opportunity.
It's big
On the way back to pick up our bags from the hostel we passed an okonomiyaki place, which was advertised in English as “Japanese pizza”. It was nothing of the sort, but it was very tasty. It's a batter mixed with meat, vegetables, and sauce and cooked on a griddle, more like a savoury pancake. It's then served on a griddle sunk into your table. Apparently cheaper places leave you to mix and cook it yourself, but ours was delivered mostly cooked; okonomiyaki means “cook what you like”.
My okonomiyaki
Joanne's okonomiyaki
At the station we asked to book seats for Kawaguchi-ko, but we were told that it wasn't possible because we were too late. We hadn't really considered that the trains might stop so early because Mount Fuji is such a tourist destination, we thought. We were told that to get there we would have to go to Mishima, change for Gotemba, then change again there. But we had missed the last train so we would have to get a bus. We weren't happy about getting a bus since we had paid for our rail pass, but we had also booked accommodation so we needed to get there. When trying to confirm the instructions she seemed to change her story and told us we would have to stay the night in Gotemba and get the bus in the morning. This was very confusing: why would we want to get the bus in the morning when we could get a train? We decided the only two options we had were to go back to and ask to stay another night or go onto Kyoto. We decided on Kyoto, since it would mean an earlier start the next day as it's closer to Mount Fuji. We didn't think we'd have any problem booking accommodation since it wasn't the weekend. However when Joanne called our hostel in Kawaguchi-ko and asked for our booking to be moved, but they were fully booked the next night.
Joanne eating okonomiyaki
Joanne rubbing the foot and wishing for hers to get better
written by  The Happy Couple on July 14, 2009 from Nara, Japan

Failed Fujisan. Homeless in Kyoto
Kyoto, Japan
We were heading back to Kyoto with nowhere to stay. This was another job for John! I sent him a text and asked him to try and book us accommodation in Kyoto. Just before we arrived in Kyoto John sent a text back to say he had been unable to find anywhere that wasn't completely booked up. We walked to K's hostel, the huge place we had first stayed in Kyoto, hoping for a cancellation that hadn't yet made it onto their system, but they had nothing. It was only when we arrived there that we realised we had forgotten about the Gion Matsuri! People were coming from all over Japan, and probably all over the world, for this annual festival in Kyoto. If we had known about it before we arrived in Japan we would have arranged our time differently to be there for it, but we had already spent too long in Kyoto and we probably would have had to book before we even got to Japan.
We sat in the cafe next door to the hostel and used their wifi to look at various options online. Sure enough every hostel in Kyoto was fully booked, so I started to look for information on love hotels. These places normally offer rooms by the hour, but, like Manga kissas offer a lower rate for overnight. They are reportedly quite unusual places, tending towards the utterly bizarre at times: themed rooms decorated in styles as varied as the 60s or the Second World War. We had planned to stay in one for fun one night during our stay, anyway, so this seemed the perfect opportunity. I enquired at the very helpful desk of K's Hostel and I was sent a few blocks down the road.
At the love hotel, I first had to attract the woman's attention from behind the desk, then I very much failed to make myself understood. She had very little English, but managed “business hotel, that way!” pointing further down the street. I thought it might be because I was on my own, which I had read they don't like at love hotels, so I tried to indicate that it was for my wife too, but I think she just wanted to know whether my wife spoke Japanese. She had said the business hotel was cheaper anyway, so I went along the road to ask about the rate. It was much more than we had paid before, or could afford, and K's Hostel confirmed it was much more than the love hotel would be for the night. Perhaps it was because they don't want foreigners, it was suggested. We thought that the woman at the love hotel maybe meant it was more expensive because they were still charging at the hourly rate, so we asked for a girl working in the cafe to write down “How much is the night rate?” in Japanese and Joanne and I went along together, thereby eliminating two of the possible problems. This time the woman made it very clear that they just didn't want gaijin. We were furious! How unbelievably racist!
So we went to the business hotel, completely screwing our budget. It wasn't all that great either, but they did have wifi in the lobby, so we stayed up to book accommodation in Tokyo and send off requests to Beijing Couchsurfing, determined to get in early enough that we wouldn't have to go through the same as we had in Japan. By the time we went to bed it was too late to catch the early train in the morning, but we couldn't find anywhere to stay at fujisan anyway; there was some kind of big organised walk up it, which was presumably why everything there was booked up too. We decided to forget it and just go from Tokyo in a day or two, allowing us finally to get a decent night's sleep.
Silly dressing gowns at the business hotel
The one benefit of staying in that hotel, apart from the amusing kimono-style dressing-gowns, was that we did get a decent night's sleep. But the room had cost us nearly 90% of our daily budget, and really wasn't all that nice. When we had to, we checked out and got the train to Tokyo.
written by  The Happy Couple on July 15, 2009 from Kyoto, Japan

Japanese Whisky and a Fat Pipe
Tokyo, Japan
Approaching Tokyo station we starting to examine the railway maps we had, looking for the station to get off at for our hostel. We couldn't find it anywhere. The instructions they had provided in an email and I had saved on my phone were, of course, only in English, which meant that we couldn't ask anyone for help, or compare the name station name with any of the maps or time-tables, because they were all in Japanese, and none in romanji. Eventually we realised that the digital photo Joanne had taken of the Google map on the computer screen when we booked it did have the Japanese of the station on it, so we tried to get a ticket at the desk by pointing at the name on the map. The man looked very confused, looked up his big book, and eventually understanding dawned on his face. He told us to go to Ueno station and change there for something or other. Unfortunately his English wasn't very good and was not able to pass on his dawn of understanding.
We decided to go to Ueno station and ask again. There we discovered what we were starting to suspect: the station was not on the railway, but on the underground route. The hostel had lied on the directions on their website which stated “5 minutes from the railway station”. Presumably this was deliberate to reel in people like us who have JR rail passes. We had booked that hostel because it was cheaper than most, but the extra we were now going to have to pay for underground tickets would completely wipe out the saving, which was unfortunate after yesterday's financial disaster.
The hostel itself was pretty dismal. We went to buy alcohol as consolation. We still had a “treat” or two in reserve, so I decided to splash out on a bottle of Japanese whisky. We hadn't drunk much whisky here, but apparently a Japanese was recently judged to be the best in the world. It sounded totally unfeasible to me, but it seemed only right that I make my own mind up. The previous day I'd sampled my first Japanese whisky at K's Hostel: a Yamazaki single malt. It was very nice, but I thought it tasted much more like bourbon than whisky: it certainly wasn't superior to Scottish whisky as I'd been told had been decided in a competition. Maybe they make better ones. Anyway this time I bought a bottle of cheaper Suntory whisky, but still a single malt.
Boooooze
We had originally planned to go to Nikkō the next day but re-reading the Lonely Planet it seemed the place was all about temples and given what we had thought so far of Japanese temples is sounded more like torture than anything else and we decided to cut our losses and put all our eggs in the fujisan basket. There had been a couple of accidents on Mt Fuji over the last few days and some people had told us that the snow was not completely cleared so Joanne was a bit nervous about climbing it. I didn't care: all I wanted to do now was see it and get out of Japan.
The whisky wasn't bad, but I'd have taken a Bells instead any day. We stayed up later than we had intended so that Joanne could speak to her sister, Mahri, on Skype, since the internet speed was pretty good. I had started uploading all of our photos to online backup storage and it was bliss to see how quickly it went.
After a slightly late, slightly boozy evening, we were woken at 7am. This time we weren't in a dorm, but we were right next to the common area, through paper-thin walls. Hostels in Japan are a noisy nightmare! We were too tired and too late, after falling asleep again after the 7am wake-up, to make it to fujisan so I just uploaded all day.
written by  The Happy Couple on July 16, 2009 from Tokyo, Japan

Very Zen Fujisan
Gotemba, Japan
During night we were woken by someone in the hostel Skyping on the communal PC from 2am to 4:30am, but it was our last chance to do anything it Japan so we took the train to Mishima station and changed for Gotemba, just as the woman in Nara had told us we needed to. On the way we caught a tantalising glimpse of the mountain but carried on a fair way before we got to Mishima.
We duly changed and took the train to Gotemba. On the way to Gotemba I noticed that the Lonely Planet actually had a map of the area around Mt Fuji. It showed train stations Mishima, Gotemba, and our intended destination Kawaguchi-ko. However it was also clear from the map that there was no line connecting Gotemba to Kawaguchi-ko. The woman in Nara had told us a load of nonsense, which we had stupidly believed instead of doing a bit more research ourselves. But you do expect people working at a railway ticket desk to know how to get somewhere by rail. Well, we consoled ourselves Gotemba is one of the starting points for climbing the mountain and it is one of the closest towns so there must be a view there. But it was obvious from the clouds all around that we would be lucky to see very far down a street in Gotemba.
Sure enough we couldn't see any sign of the mountain. And there was no train to Kawaguchi-ko. We thought about getting the bus to Kawaguchi-ko, but when we discovered it would cost us ¥3000 each for quite a short journey after which we would probably still see nothing we decided against it. Why is transport in Japan so horribly expensive? The silver lining on these very heavy dark and pendulous clouds was that the station shop sold some interesting looking beers; the first I has seen in Japan. Most Japanese beer is competently made, but very uninteresting: bland, but certainly not unpleasant, a bit like the temples. This stuff looked like it was made in a German style so I bought one of each kind: wheat, dark, and lager.
German-style beers
On the way home it looked like it was much clearer on the Kawaguchi-ko side of the mountain, so we may have had a view after all, but I was totally defeated: Japan was just too difficult for me. It's hard enough with the language difficulties, but then when you have been giving you duff directions all the time, or not telling you vital things you need to know it just proved too much for me. As we came back into Tokyo I mused that the tower blocks look more like Glasgow's 60s and 70s tower blocks than the modern things they had in Hong Kong.
Spaghetti sandwich on the train
It was a rather pointless day. My friend Tim used to describe episodes such as those a Zen Missions. I'm not really sure what it means, if is his use is at all "correct", but I suppose it must have something to do with the activity being it's own end. It had certainly been a very Zen day.
Sour grapes sweeties. How fitting!
written by  The Happy Couple on July 17, 2009 from Gotemba, Japan

Goodbye, Japan. No Hard Feelings!
Back in Tokyo we made one last effort to spoil ourselves and went out for a meal, looking for a kind of DIY barbecue available in the area. We found a likely place, which certainly smelled the part, but ordering meant pointing, and Joanne pointed at what someone else had. It turned out to be cow organ stew. We're not sure what organ; it seemed quite like tripe but not as chewy as it usually is or with the same texture; Joanne thought it was tongue, but I have a suspicion it was what I saw later on a menu: colon. What a fitting end to a terrible two weeks! We went home and finished off all the booze, giving ourselves a sensible four hours sleep before getting up for our flight.
Cow organ stew
Japan wasn't horrible, but the time we had there was. Of course there were very nice moments: Nagasaki and Nara were my favourite places, and the couple of times we went out to eat were lovely. The people we always really nice, but it was just too difficult; I don't think two weeks is anything like enough time to get to grips with the place unless you have Japanese baby-sitters, or at least someone who had been living there a while to help you out. It certainly wasn't as beautiful or as high-tech as I had been expecting, and I think my expectation being so high compounded how disappointing I found it all. The sleeplessness and the awful form experiences did not improve my ability to enjoy myself either. I don't understand that: most of the dorms I've slept in have been in Scotland and they are never noisy like that. The English, Scottish, Germans and Dutch who (primarily) make use of them are considerate and quiet. Why Japanese people who are renowned for their politeness are so inconsiderate in hostels is beyond me. And lastly there is the cost. It was too expensive for our budget really, but we did manage it. However, I would advise anybody against visiting Japan; live and work there, sure, but if you have a finite amount of money to spend why on Earth would you go to Japan when your money will go much much further in SE Asia, India, Nepal, or even China? And to my mind, the places are not just much cheaper, but much nicer to visit anyway, even at the same cost.
We didn't expect Japan to be so difficult, certainly not harder than South China had been, but it was. Until Japan we had never walked so far with our big bags; most places the cheap backpacker accommodation is near public transport, but not in Japan, and even if it wasn't near public transport in other places you could just get a tuktuk or equivalent, but in Japan there are only unaffordably expensive taxis.
Oh yeah! But I loved that fast internet once we eventually found it!
I was absolutely ecstatic that we were leaving, though.

Return to China
Beijing, China
We flew from Japan early in the morning, still very fuzzy from all the alcohol we had been forced to finish the previous night, before leaving the country. On the plane Joanne couldn't resist asking for red wine, since wine is so expensive and so hard to come by in Asia. This was only about 10am, but I couldn't resist a gin and tonic to smooth the edges off my hangover.
From the moment we arrived in Beijing things looked much better than they had been in Japan. There was far more Romanisation of the Chinese script than anything we had seen in Japan, everybody seemed to speak English, and the instructions for getting to the hostel were very clear and extremely detailed. Unlike the Japanese, it seems, Chinese people can give directions. On the shuttle bus from the airport to the Metro I was amazed how modern Bejiing looks; finally here was the super-modern city I had expect to find in Tokyo. Beijing looked much more modern than Tokyo, and it was only then that I realised that Japan probably doesn't look so modern now because its big boom was in the 70s and 80s, leaving it in a time-warp from then, whereas China's boom is much more recent, so most of the big buildings were probably built in the last ten years. Once on the metro, the ultra-modern dream continued: simple to use ticket machines with an English option, very modern trains, and everything clearly sign-posted with maps everywhere. What a difference from Japan!
Cool sculpture in the park
Nice park near the hostel
Tian'anmen Sunrise, our hostel, was in an excellent location, right next to the Forbidden City, and not far from Tian'anmen Square. Leaving the metro we were surrounded by modernity and next to a very impressive major boulevard.
Tai chi in the park
Yet, on the walk to our hostel we passed several examples of the kind of beauty that I had expected but was completely absent from Japanese cities: the ornately decorated entrance the the Grand Hotel Beijing, a pretty little park where a woman was doing Tai Chi next to an ornamental carp pond. This was exactly the kind of stuff I had expected from Japan, but just wasn't there. Everywhere were electric bicycles, electric mopeds, and all sort of other electric vehicles: Beijing is incredibly modern. I think I remember the authorities banning petrol-powered mopeds in the run-up to the Olympics since their two-stroke engines were a major contributor to the pollution, although I've never got around to checking up on the reliability of that memory.
Lots of carp
Carp
Grand Hotel Beijing
It was very hot and humid. Japan had been more humid than I could handle but this was much worse! I think too much aircon in Japan had made us soft. Nearly at the hostel two people stopped us in the street and told us that they were art students and invited us to the college's art exhibition. We just wanted to get to our hostel and to shower and sleep so we told them that we would maybe go the following day. They insisted that we should come now because it was the very last day of the exhibition, but we were in no mood for touts so we just walked off. The hostel was excellent and our room was lovely and big, for less than half the price of a cheap dorm in Japan. Anyway, enough slagging Japan! Suffice to say that I think we should have given Japan a miss altogether and spent more time in China. The staff at the hostel were incredibly friendly and helpful; after checking us in they drew our attention to the warning posters on the wall about not accepting any invitations to art exhibitions or tea ceremonies from con-artists posing as students. For our whole stay in Beijing, we were invited to at least one every single day.
Xichangan Street, between Forbiddern City and Tian'anmen Square
After a wash and a rest we ventured out into the lobby to take advantage of the free wifi and became involved in conversation and drinks with two young Americans. They were planning to travel some more once they were finished in China, so we regaled them of our travelling tales. They seemed particularly interested in India and when we were telling them about Varanasi they could not believe that people would drink such contaminated water. But it's a religious belief, I explained to them, but they insisted that no matter what you believed religiously it made no sense at all. I responded some people believe that Jesus came back from the dead, and that certainly doesn't make any more sense than believing drinking from a river will bless and protect you. They both looked a little bit shocked and one said “Well I suppose if you put it that way. I take it you're not religious then?”. It's easy to forget how religious America is; these had just seemed like two normal young lads, getting drunk, but they apparently followed Christian dogma. That makes them a very unusual pair of lads by European standards!
written by  The Happy Couple on July 18, 2009 from Beijing, China

Forbidden City and the Great Pall of China
Beijing, China
We didn't want to overstretch ourselves on our first full day in Beijing, but we thought we had better get started since there was so much to see there, and since the Forbidden City and Tian'anmen Square were very close to the hostel, we decided to start there.
Outside it seemed the weather had taken a turn for the worse. When we arrived it had been nice and sunny, but now a thick fog seemed to have descended on the city and it was even more humid. After a bit of debate we agreed that it must be pollution, although it was different from the black pollution of Delhi which turns nose-blowings black; this was just like fog and our snot was still clear! A shame really, because the city didn't look as nice with the thick haze between the camera and the subject.
Entrance to Forbidden City
Only the emperor used to be allowed through this gate
The Forbidden City was very impressive: absolutely huge and every massive building exquisitely decorated. It was crawling with other tourists though, which made it hard to take the photos we wanted. Chinese tourists are really funny: apart from the most common “twin peace signs” pose that they strike for most photos, they have a whole catalogue of other highly posed positions for having photos taken in; they often climb on things and they seem compelled to touch whatever they are having their photo taken standing next to. They don't seem to have much respect for objects, even ancient ones, which Joanne was appalled at. Perhaps it's a remnant from the Cultural Revolution when they attempted to erase the past and the arts were considered dangerous.
Apart from the climbing on valuable artefacts I have some sympathy for the exaggerated posing because otherwise it is easy to end up with lots of stiff-looking photos where you look like you've just been copy-and-pasted onto lots of images of famous places. Of course we are far too reserved and Calvinistically Scottish to do embarrassing things like strike silly poses, after all we are not American or Chinese, so we'll just have to continue looking dour in front of famous places – most of the time. A little disappointment was that you are not allowed into most of the buildings, but they didn't look all that interesting anyway. There were a few nice gardens inside, but again the Chinese tourists were showing them no respect and climbing over fences to have their photo taken among the flowers and so on. Large parts of the Forbidden city we off limits, but the area available to us was still huge.
Joanne copy-and-pasted in front of a great hall
Guard and Mao
Monument to the People's Heroes
Next stop was across the road to Tian'anmen Square. I think it's quite a typical authoritarian square: huge and imposing. It's flanked on one side by the Great Hall of the People with the National Museum opposite, on the third enclosed side the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, where Mao's preserve body is on display in a glass case, and in the middle of the square is the rather phallic Monument to the People's Heroes. All the buildings around the square are very impressive, but very stern. The police presence in Beijing generally had been rather prominent, but in the Square the security was very tight. We had to put our bags through X-ray machines and walk through metal detectors just to get into the square.
Don't you love revolutionary art?
The square was also very busy with Chinese tourists, having their photos taken in front of the big Mao portrait outside the Forbidden City. All day people had been giving us long curious stares; a few people had asked to have their photo taken with us, we were obviously so alien. We hung around the square for a bit just watching people and getting stared at. Chinese people all seem to smoke and there are almost no restrictions on where you can smoke. With nearly 1.5 billion people they are going to have massive smoking-related health problems unless they do something about it soon.
Another imposing street
Food!
Snack Steet
On the way home, we were almost hit by several electric bicycles. While I approve of them for environmental reasons, they just don't make enough noise for you to know they are coming. The pedestrian flow around most of the Beijing, as well, seems to be very controlled: there are barriers preventing people from crossing roads almost everywhere, underpasses being the only way of getting to the other side. We stopped off at Snack Street to see if we could buy our dinner there. Some of the food looked quite nice, but they had some very unusual things as well, for example live scorpion kebabs, various insect and grubs, sea-horses, and star fish. We decided to give it all a miss, but I was very tempted by the cups of soft drink bubbling smoke, presumably with lumps of dry ice dropped in. Carrying on home we noticed that there are loads of KFC and Macdonalds everywhere. In a Communist country? How odd!
written by  The Happy Couple on July 19, 2009 from Beijing, China

It Really is Great!
Beijing, China
Wow!
In a bid to save money we eschewed the hostel's Great Wall tour and their advice on how to get there, and decided to follow the directions we had found online. A metro ride across town and we'd be able to get the last tourist bus leaving to Mùtiányú, which we had read was less touristy than Bādálĭng where everyone goes and is reportedly crawling with vendors and touts. When we arrived at the bus stop a man there told us there was no bus except on Saturdays and Sundays; if we had bothered to read what the Lonely Planet said about Mùtiányú we would have known this, but determined to make the plan work we fell back on the advice the hostel had given us, by jumping back on the very cheap, modern, and efficient metro and catching a different bus on the other side of the city. This approach meant changing to a minibus at the end of the bus route, which we were slightly apprehensive about. Some way from the last stop, a man got on the bus and pointed to us and said that we were at our destination and we should get off now to get to Mùtiányú. He managed to fluster us a bit, but we were sure enough to stay on the bus. After we pulled off from the stop I checked with the driver that we were still going to our destination. It was just a minibus driver trying his luck.
When we got to the end of the bus route it all went very smoothly. Minibuses were waiting to whisk us off to the Wall and they were only asking for about half of what we expected to pay, and we didn't even have to barter to get that price. The driver must have been desperate for work because he offered to wait for us and do the return trip too; he wouldn't even take half the money before we set off up the Wall.
Joanne just a little sweaty
The climb up to the Wall
It was a bit of a hike up the wall, but with the heat and the humidity we were sweating profusely; the fact we hadn't done any proper exercise for ages probably contributed to the difficulty we felt. At the top the view was superb.
Slightly exhausted
Even though the Wall had been restored it was still very impressive, and we had chosen well because we were not hassled too much and it wasn't jam-packed with other tourists as Bādálĭng would have been. We walked from one end of the restored section to the other, up and down some very steep stairs, until we got to a sign indicating that we should go no further. Beyond it was quite overgrown but other than that the wall actually looked in pretty good condition. There was an offshoot at right-angles to either side at this point and these bits of the wall were in a similar over-grown condition. It didn't seem like they would actually have had to do all that much restoration to get it in the tourist-friendly state it this section now was. I stood there thinking to myself “Wow! I'm on the Great Wall of China. I'm really here!”
A steep bit
More climbing?
Whew!
Getting really steep
The view from the Wall
No entry
There were disallowed exits all the way along
Joanne touching it in Chinese style
Unrestored bit of Wall
Even here they have to watch the people
Fantastic!
When will this end?
Mystery of the Plain of Jars solved! (It was the Chinese)
Even here they have time for detail
Last steep bit (honest)
We had refused the cable car on the way up because we really needed to save money after Japan, and our hostel wasn't really as cheap as we should have been aiming for in China, but there was a toboggan option for the descent and I couldn't resist. It was quite expensive, but it was definitely money well spent. Unfortunately there was a slow guy with a child going pillion in front of me, which ruined my high-speed descent, so I just stopped completely until Joanne caught up with me then set off again at full speed. There were officials posted at all the sharp corners telling me to slow down, but I ignored them and, since the rules at the top had said no photographs, I took a video of part of the descent. At the bottom I capped it all off by haggling a great deal on an army-style bag with the Mao motto Serve the People in Chinese on it, under the red star.
The Night Market
A stall at the Night Market
Beijing Duck
The really fatty stuff
Back at the hostel we asked if they knew somewhere for Peking Duck, since we thought we should try it while we were there, and were directed along the Night Market. There were more food stalls here, looking a bit better than the ones on Snack Street, although they still had the collection of alternative foods. We found our place and went in for duck. It was a bit above our budget, but we felt we had to. The menu had all sorts of horrible sounding things on it; I'm sure they're all really nice, but we were quite happy to stick with our side of vegetables and Beijing duck, which is of course what they call it. It wasn't really Joanne's or my sort of thing. It all seems to be about the fat; the meat is cut into three types: breast fat, lean breast, and mixed fat and lean, which I think is leg meat.
Vegetable side
There are little rice pancakes to wrap it in, and sugar, a choice of three sauces, cucumber, and spring onions to vary the contents of the parcel with. The fatty stuff is just really really fatty and I thought it was disgusting when I tried a few pieces without any accompaniments. By the end of the duck we were both totally full, although it hadn't looked all that much when it arrived, but it was a rich, sickly full, rather than a stuffed full. I could see the point of it, and I understood what they were doing, and why some people would like it, but it just wasn't my kind of food – but at least I'd have real Peking Duck.
Back at the hostel an American guy we were chatting to, told us he was leaving for Shanghai the next day, to see the total solar eclipse there. The what?. We knew nothing about it, but it sounded like an excellent plan. Shanghai was our next planned destination, but it would mean leaving Beijing a day earlier than we had planned, which we weren't too bothered about as we felt we had already had an excellent two days of tourism. So that was the new plan: Shanghai for the eclipse the day before Joanne's birthday!
written by  The Happy Couple on July 20, 2009 from Beijing, China

Descent from the Great Wall
I've finally managed to get enough time online to upload this.

Hotel Beijing
Since we had decided to go to Shanghai a day early, we had to book our train ticket as soon as possible. Train ticket booking was one of the services the hostel offered, so it wasn't going to be much hassle. We thought.
In order to be as organised as possible we spent much of the morning deciding on our exact itinerary for the rest of China so that we could book all of our train tickets at once. When I finally went up to book them we ran into several problems. First of all, the trains were fully booked on the day we wanted to go to Shanghai. Secondly I was told that they could not book any of the other tickets; only tickets originating in Beijing. Back to the drawing board.
We looked at flying but it would have cost far too much. We asked about the bus but that was fully booked as well. We considered going part of the way a day earlier and then travelling to Shanghai the intended day, but those routes were fully booked as well. We gave up on the eclipse and tried to book trains to Shanghai a day later, in time for Joanne's birthday which was our original plan, but those were fully booked as well. We considered switching the route around and going to Xi'an in time for Joanne's birthday, then Shanghai afterwards, but the trains to Xi'an were all booked up as well. In the end we just asked how long we would have to wait in Beijing to get a train to Shanghai, but they couldn't tell us that. Apparently we should have booked ten days previously... but we were in Japan at the time and we wouldn't have been able to book! We were trapped in Beijing!
Finally we tried asking about the bus to Shanghai after Joanne's birthday but we were told that they couldn't book bus tickets. Earlier in the day a different staff member had looked up buses online for us, but he seemed to have disappeared. There was no bus information online; we couldn't even find out which bus station (there are about 15) to go to, to ask about tickets. All the information we could find simply said that Beijing transport was simple: flying is cheap and the trains are excellent. Approaching desperation Joanne phoned a tourist information line, only to receive a recorded message in Chinese, a trick clearly taken out of the Japanese book of tourism! Joanne asked the girl on duty at the hostel if she would phone the number and decipher the message; it was a message saying that the number had changed. She called the new number, but discovered that “tourist information” meant “booking hotels”, so we were stumped again. Maybe seeing our desperation, or wanting to get us out of the common area, the girl asked what we were trying to achieve now and offered to phone a bus station for us. I wasn't the express bus we had been hoping to get, but she was able to reserve us overnight tickets to Shanghai the day after Joanne's birthday, over the phone; and they were going to deliver the tickets to the hostel.
At last some progress! Our arrival in Shanghai assured, we sent off several batches of Couchsurfing requests to Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Suzhou; although we couldn't book tickets for the latter two, we had been assured that there are plenty of trains, so no need to book in advance. This had taken almost the entire day and during that time we had got talking to Sue, an Australian woman in her fifties who periodically went travelling without her husband, as he didn't enjoy it much. She sympathised with our difficulties as she had run into the same ones. In Suzhou, though, she told us, the ticket office there had been very helpful and allowed her to book all the rest of her rail tickets from anywhere in the country. We looked forward to being able to remove the anxiety of no onward transport.
Testicles and other lovely organs
Sue had just arrived in Beijing and asked if she could tag along to the Night Market with us to get some food from the stalls. We passed on the sheep penis, centipede, water beetles, longhorn beetles, bee cocoon, testicles, and other organs, settling for some disappointing and over-priced spring rolls and dumplings. Maybe Snack Street was the place to go after all; the food there had been cheaper at least.
Bee cocoon, beetles, centipede, "sheep penis", etc
Sun through the pollution

Spectacle: Total Eclipse of the City
The eclipse!
We hadn't managed to get to Shanghai in time for the total solar eclipse, but there would still be a fairly full eclipse visible from Beijing, so we had decided to view it from Tian'anmen Square; it was nearby, it would be interesting because of all the people there, and there was enough space that tall buildings would not block our view of the sun.
The pollution was terrible
In the morning we had a look outside and the pollution was the worst we had seen it. We discussed trying to get out of the city where the air should be clearer, but we hadn't really got up early enough to realise any alternative plans, and we just accepted that we were stuck with the plan we had. We had to get within about fifty metres of Tian'anmen Square before we could even see it, but hopefully the sun would still be visible through the fug. There were plenty of people in the Square but most of them seemed to be waiting for tours of the Forbidden City to begin.
We could hardly see across the Square
Serve the People!
Our arrival was a short time before the start of the eclipse and there was no sign at all of the sun. Even the other side of the Square was partially obscured. Given the conditions I didn't expect to see anything until near the maximum of the eclipse, when I hoped we would at least notice it becoming darker. We waited and people-watched. As time passed, it seemed like it might be getting darker, but it was so gradual that our eyes were adjusting to it and it was hard to be sure there really was anything to notice.
Looking back towards the Forbidden City
People watching in Tian'anmen Square
The yellow troupe
Just after the time for the maximum of the eclipse had passed and we were starting to give up altogether, a troupe of yellow-clad youths seemed to be moving in formation to music. I couldn't see clearly what was going on, so I got up to take a closer look, planning to take a video clip of whatever was going on, and left Joanne sitting and paging through the Lonely Planet. I had just whipped out my camera, as I was close enough to video the dancers, when I noticed people all around me going oooh and aaah and pointing to the heavens. I looked up and there it was: a not quite full solar eclipse, which I immediately snapped a couple of photos of. I thought of whistling or shouting back at Joanne, but then remembered all the security forces around and thought better of acting in such a prominent and individualistic way in Tian'anmen Square, however when I looked over I could see everyone around her was looking up and pointing at the sky too, so she would obviously have seen it too. The whole time we were in China people stared at us, even in Beijing where they see lots of tourists. Often they asked to have their photo taken with us, and that day was no exception.
They took a photo so I thought we should too
I took a couple more shots and walked back over to Joanne; nobody runs or jogs in the Square. Did she see it, I immediately asked, but my confidence had already subsided as she still seemed engrossed in the Lonely Planet.
Charcter in the Square
Inevitably the response was “see what?”. The eclipse had long since sunk back behind the Beijing soup and Joanne had seen nothing. She was devastated: “All this time waiting around and I miss it!”. We waited a bit more in case it broke through again but, when enough time had passed that there would no longer be much to see, we gave up and headed off in the direction of the opticians where Joanne planned to get some cheap glasses and contact lenses; we had heard the prices are a fraction of what you pay in Scotland. Just as we were about to leave the square, I spotted the sun peeking through again and alerted Joanne. It was still fairly eclipsed, but it was well on its way to the end. Joanne cheered up that she had at least seen something of the eclipse, if not the relative spectacle I had witnessed.
The eclipse as Joanne saw it
At the opticians, with some difficulty, we were able to establish that the very reasonable prices on display were for everything, not just the frames. It really was a bargain, however I admonished Joanne for simply agreeing to the ticket price as the girl from the hostel who had given us the directions said we should definitely get a discount off the advertised price. But at 240 Yuan it was still a great price, I'm told. After a bit of coaching from me, she also chose a pair of polarising sunglasses and this time asked for a discount, claiming grounds that we had already bought something. They were very obliging and dropped to price from 120 to 70 with no argument. We were asked to come back in 45 minutes when the glasses would be ready.
Girl working at a tea shop we couldn't afford
Joanne's birthday was the next day and she had chosen to attend one of the famous Beijing acrobatics shows as a birthday treat, however she suspected the one they were selling tickets for at the hostel might be a bit touristy, so we were now hunting a theatre the Lonely Planet had recommended for a more authentic experience, partly in the hope it would be cheaper too.
Engrish
A muggy half-hour walk brought us to the theatre, where we discovered that the cheapest tickets were a bit more than those the hostel was offering and, what's more, the hostel were offering transport there and back, which seemed like a large bonus now that we were both sticky with humid sweat. Just outside the theatre were women kneeling on the pavement selling pretty Chinese fans. I considered buying a couple then, so we had something to keep cool with, but the fact I had not yet bought anything for Joanne's birthday made me see sense and I decided to return alone later.
On the way back to the opticians we decided we should really take more advantage of the cheap prices, and get another pair of glasses for Joanne to post home, as well as a replacement for the dodgy spare pair of Joanne's sunglasses I had been wearing since I lost mine. Maybe to save us all embarrassment after our clumsy haggling earlier, this time we only had to ask what the price was and they dropped it considerably, and I walked away with a new pair of polarising sunglasses for 70 Yuan, and Joanne secured a second pair of glasses for 200. This meant another wait, so I took the opportunity to offer to pick them up after some shopping I had to do. It turned out Joanne had expected me to do any remaining birthday shopping at a market we had planned to go to earlier, but I was sure I would be fine locally.
Front Gate
As soon as Joanne was out of sight I began the march back down the road to the theatre. The opticians was off a main street, just south of one of Beijing's few remaining city gates, which seemed to be a brand new shopping district that wasn't even finished.
No fun!
It seemed so new and artificial that it had more the feel of a film set rather than a real place for real people. Most of the shops weren't open yet, but those that were are clearly pitched at the high-end and tourist market. There were tram tracks and stops on the street, but no sign of any overhead power supply; if the street had not been so obviously new I would have assumed that they were vestiges of a defunct transportation system, so had they constructed this artifice of a street with built-in romantic nostalgia? It seemed possible considering how fake everything else about the street was. At the bottom of the street a sign confirmed that it was not to be a fun place: a four-by-five grid of signs prohibiting various behaviours would probably have been smaller if they had listed instead what was allowed; spending money and supporting the Chinese economy exclusively, I would think.
Top of the strange street
I couldn't get over the pollution
Green eggs (but no ham)
After a rather misjudged “shortcut” I ended up back at the theatre. Of course the fan-selling women had gone. I really could have done with one myself by that point too, but I needed to press on, so I made my way all the way back to the vicinity of the opticians, picking up a cute Buddha's Eyes key ring, allegedly made from yak bone, from a Tibetan shop on the way. Then almost across the road from the opticians I noticed some fans in a shop Joanne had described as “a junk shop” earlier. She had really wanted a fan, so I went in anyway. Although I was conscious of Joanne's description, the shop seemed to have some really nice stock and I found myself piling several items on top of pretty fan I had chosen. None of it was very expensive but since the dive trip in Thailand was meant to have been her present, she was only expecting token gifts anyway. Very pleased with myself, I collected the glasses and headed home. As I passed the top of the fake street, I tram pulled along side me, drawing large crowds of onlookers. Another one was sitting ornamentally behind gates at the other side of the street. They must be powered by an onboard battery but, judging by the trouble they had moving the thing even at a crawl, they are only going to be used for “fun rides”, in keeping with the rest of the street, rather than for anything real like transport. On the way home a downpour started, leaving it mercifully cooler afterwards.
The tram appears at the top of the fake street
Back at the hostel we realised that the cheaper acrobatics tickets the hostel were selling was actually to the very same place we had visited earlier.

Joanne's birthday
The morning of Joanne's birthday, we had just ordered our breakfast when I thought I heard a couple at the next table asking for “two free breakfasts”. The previous day I had noticed a sign up saying “Free breakfast not on the menu”, but we had decided that it meant that there is no free breakfast, although we had considered the other possible interpretation; after all there was no free breakfast on the menu. I went up to the desk to ask what it was all about. I as told it was only for class A rooms, whereas we were staying in a class C room but, I complained, we only moved into the cheaper, shared-bathroom, room for the extra two days we'd had to extend our stay by when we discovered we were stuck in Beijing. He flipped back through his ledger and said that since we had booked over the internet, only class B rooms are available, and that's what we had been in before. He pointed to the price advertised behind the desk and said “Class A”. This was actually the price we had paid for days three and four of our stay; we had originally booked in for only two days in case we didn't like the hostel or we could find a cheaper option, and when we discovered how nice the hostel was we asked to extend our stay by two days but had been surprised to discover that we had to pay more when booking direct, when it is usually cheaper to book direct. Suddenly I saw: it was dearer at the desk because it then counted as a class A room, entitling you to free breakfast. I explained all this to him and he demanded to see the receipts for days 3 and 4. I objected that I didn't know where they were, but he seemed unable to find any trace of the middle section of our stay. Luckily Joanne was able to find the receipts. In China you always need to keep your receipts: without your deposit receipt, you can't get your deposit back, and without receipts in general there never seems to be any proof that you have paid; in this case, apparently, because their ledger system was a shambles! They made some excuse about a new girl having taken the money from us; apparently they each have their own ledger book and system of notation: either they couldn't find hers or couldn't understand it. Nonetheless we came away partly victorious with four free breakfast vouchers. We had already eaten breakfast, but I didn't care: I was having my free breakfast!
After second breakfast we were joined by Sue, who had just come from her free breakfast, won after a battle of her own: she was in a class B double room, but only because they were not able to provide her the single room she had booked, and since she was paying the full class B tariff, she argued that she should at least get a breakfast for the extra money she was spending. As we talked we heard a murmer of “free breakfast” spreading round the room. Soon there was a queue of people at the desk and everyone on both side of the desks was looking rather agitated. “See what we've started”, Joanne said. When we returned later in the day the “Free breakfast not on the menu” sign had been taken down.
Qilin at the Summer Palace
17 Arch Bridge
We were going to the Summer Palace that morning and Sue asked if she could join us, so we all took the hostel's advice and took the 20 minute walk to the bus stop next to where I'd seen the tram the previous day. The bus would drop us off right at the palace, avoiding the “very long walk” from the nearest metro stop.
Annoying bird whistle vendor
What a nightmare the bus journey was: it took about two hours for a seven kilometre journey, for all of which we were standing and being wrenched around by the drivers terrible driving and very heavy brake foot. By the time we reached the palace I was in agony.
Lotuses growing in Kunming Lake
My back had been giving my low-level gyp almost since the start of out trip; not surprising since my bag started out over thirty kilos, and there is a lot of taking it off, lowering it down, lifting it back up, putting it back on, lifting it up to go on top of buses, and that sort of thing; but it had so far held out and not deteriorated into a full-scale back problem. It seemed the bus journey had finally done it. I hobbled around the Summer Palace with the other two for a while but I wasn't enjoying it much.
The Buddhist Fragrance Pavillion
It was clearly a very pretty place, but the Beijng pollution was taking the sheen off the beauty again and, as with the Forbidden City, there were loads and loads of other tourists, many of whom were children with those annoying sliding bird whistles that annoying vendors everywhere inside were constantly demonstrating to sell them. It was an enormous site, full of places called things like 'The Garden of Eternal Peace and Tranquillity'. “This tranquillity is a lovely idea. Shame it's ruined by all the noise” quipped Joanne. When we saw boats on the lake it was clear what we should do, so I bought a couple of cans of beer, purely for back-pain-relieving purposes of course, and we went out on a pedal boat. Much more peaceful, and the exercise and sitting seemed to help my back a bit, or maybe it was just the beer.
Dragon boat on the lake
The bus journey there had taken up so much of the day that by the time our hour was up it was time for us to be heading back. The walk to the subway was a bit longer and we were harassed by rickshaw drivers the whole way, an experience reminiscent of SE Asia and India we had so far been spared in China. In fact apart from the “student” con artists, there isn't much hassle as a tourist in China.
We got back just in time to change before the minibus took us to the acrobatics show. I should say at this point that I wasn't that excited about the acrobatics show; for our last night it was a choice between that or a Kung Fu show, which I would rather have seen, but it was Joanne's birthday so it was her decision. The Kung Fu wasn't going to be a real competition anyway, just a demonstration, otherwise I would have ensured we made it to that on a previous day.
Honest we're really spinning them
The opening act featured some difficult balancing by one girl and lots of other auxiliary girls who didn't do much more than roll around the stage. Oh – and they were all spinning innumerable plates; it was obviously fake though and I felt quite embarrassed watching it. I was just thinking that the act would actually have been quite good if they hadn't bothered with the silly plates when one of the girls dropped a plate. Immediately I assumed it was to prove that the plate spinning was actually real, then noticed that the other three plates on poles held by the same hand were now all hanging limply, not spinning, but somehow still clinging on the the poles. Quickly the girl saw what they were doing and chucked the four sticks away off stage. The group of four sticks were obviously a unit as well; I wouldn't be at all surprised if the spinning was motorised.
Honest they're not stuck together
Guy running up a pole
After that I was feeling quite cynical when the second act started. This time it was a contortionist, who was balancing piles of wine glasses, but the glasses were obviously all stuck together and it was clearly fake again. Her act was very impressive, but totally ruined by the stupid balancing. Her finale was to take each glass in turn from her forehead pile and pour out the liquid to gasps all around, supposedly proving not only were the glasses separate, but she had been keeping all the liquid in all along. During this finale, though, one of he helpers who was collecting the glasses as she removed them, kicked over one of the piles of glasses that had been removed intact. Of course the tower fell over as a unit and no liquid spilled out. I suppose the head pile must be the easiest for the contortionist to keep a good check on.
Unicyclists
I did manage to shake off some of the cynicism and enjoy the remaining acts, some of which were quite entertaining, but every time they brought an element of balancing objects they were obviously cheating and I found it embarrassing. There was no need for them to do it: the acts were perfectly good without going that extra distance. Joanne enjoyed it more than I had, and neither she nor Sue had noticed all of the cheating, so obviously I'm just too much of a cynic to be looking out for that sort of thing.
Balancing act
To top off Joanne's birthday we had decided to go out for a hot pot, which we'd been told was a local speciality. The Lonely Planet recommended a couple of cheap places, but instead we asked at our hostel if they knew of somewhere locally. Unfortunately they must not have realised we were staying at a hostel because we were cheap and we were directed to a very expensive hot pot restaurant. Ah well, we decided, it's a birthday so we can splash out and ordered the beef option. We were a bit disappointed that they didn't give us any instructions, leaving us a bit confused about what goes where when, in fact the only service we got after ordering was five minutes after our food arrived when the waitress appeared out of uniform and told us we had to pay as they were closing. We were permitted to stay and do what we could, but being novices, we really made a meal out of it. A bit of a disappointing end to a nice day. At least she had loved all the presents I bought.
Disappointing hot pot
The next day, after sharing the remaining three free breakfasts, we had only one thing to do before getting an afternoon bus: get to the post office and post home Joanne's extra glasses and a few little things we had bought. We asked the staff in the hostel for directions and they showed us on the hand-drawn map behind them. It wasn't too far, so we would have loads of time to spare. When we arrived at the spot, however there was no post office. We tried asking some passersby, but could never be completely certain we were being directed to a post office, which we couldn't find, and not just a post box, which we did find. Eventually we gave up and went back to the hostel. This time they went online and called up Google Maps: look there's another one here, they said pointing at a map with only Chinese characters on it. When I complained that I could tell where it was, they went back to the wall map and showed me. This one was even closer, so we couldn't understand why they hadn't sent us there in the first place. Ten minutes later we were standing, holding our bags of things to be sent, outside a Post Office Savings Bank. Back again to the hostel. This time one of the staff kindly offered to take us to the one marked on the map. It was not where the map had said it was, but once we were there, what a contrast to the useless, slow, Indian postal service. We stood and watched as our fragile items were expertly and thoroughly wrapped until the girl was satisfied she could bounce each one on the counter without any danger of it breaking. This took a while though, and we were nail-bitingly fearing what Indian-style delays might be involved in the actual sending, but it was fast and easy.
Excellent service, but what a carry on it had been to get there. We had to get a taxi to make it to our bus in time.

Arrival in Shanghai
Shanghai, China
We had not been looking forward to the bus from Beijing, for one thing because it was a 25 hour journey, but also because we had noticed that our seat numbers were not consecutive, so we would either have to battle our way through some difficult communication and persuade someone to swap with one of us, or spend the whole journey apart. When we got on the bus we had a lovely surprise: it was a sleeper bus, with proper beds, and the reason our seat number weren't consecutive is that the numbering goes left bottom bunk, left top bunk, middle bottom bunk, middle top bunk; we had two neighbouring top bunks, so it all seemed like it would be much better.
However for me it was just another Asian travel nightmare: the aircon blew directly onto my forehead, which kept me awake, but also gave me an ice-cream headache; even though it was a non-smoking bus, people seemed to think they could get away with smoking in the toilet – and then they did, the reason only becoming clear when I saw the driver smoking at the wheel; the provided blanket was too short for it to cover my arms and feet at the same time; the bed was too narrow for my small bag to fit comfortably with me and there was nowhere secure to put it instead; when the driver wasn't smoking he was talking on his mobile, in fact usually it was both at once; and possibly worst of all, the passengers were constantly farting so that the bus was filled with noxious gas. It was a long journey though and, since we were lying down the whole way, I did probably get a reasonable amount of sleep once I thought of wrapping my krama around my head to protect it from the cold. The krama was a birthday present to me from Joanne in Cambodia. The Cambodians mostly use them to keep dust out of their faces when on the back of mopeds, but they use them for plenty of other things, and I had found several more uses since leaving Cambodia, but this was another one.
To compound the discomfort of the journey they played that other common Asian trick on us and did not drop us at the bus station, but at the side of the street, in some unknown part of the city. At first sight Shanghai was nowhere near as modern and pretty as Beijing, with lots of rubbly building sites and crumbly tower blocks which looked like they must be social housing, which I assume almost all housing in China is. It turned out we were near a metro stop, and we found our way to the hostel with no trouble at all.
At the hostel we returned to trying to organise the next stage of our trip. After the trouble we had escaping Beijing, we wanted to get the next journey booked as soon as we arrived. We were told that we couldn't book trains from Shanghai to Suzhou or Hangzhou because the train were so frequent there was no point in booking. After some debate they told us it might be possible to book a train ticket from Suzhou to Xi'an, which was great as it was the journey we were most worried about not being able to get. But we would have to wait until the next day to find out.
Taking advice from the hostel, we went to a fairly cheap nearby restaurant. The food was really good. Joanne especially had been finding Chinese food a bit difficult to take: the meat is awful. And offal, usually. I don't know why we were bothering ordering meat, actually, we really should have been ordering vegetarian food, because vegetables don't have bone, sinew, or fatty skin, which is all the meat in China seems to consist of usually. Anyway, this wasn't like that: it was proper bits of animal muscle and it was very very spicy. After the shock and disappointment of Thai and Indian food not really being hot at all, China provided us with by far the fiercest food so far. A bit of a surprise and it seems to be only certain regions that do spicy food: the restaurant we were in was a Yunnan restaurant and previously we had eaten very hot Sichuan food.
Yummy spicy Yunnan food
We had a bit of difficulty ordering in that restaurant as it wasn't a tourist restaurant, and it seemed that English was not as widespread in Shanghai as it had been in Beijing. I was really struggling with the language, and the phrase book I had bought wasn't up to the standard of the Lonely Planet ones we had usually bought, and I had thought those were useless. It's just the tones that make the language so hard. Even with the phrase book's system of Romanisation and accents I find it very hard to work out what the word is supposed to sound like. The result of that was that nobody ever seemed to understand even single words that I said, so managing a whole sentence was out of the question. In retrospect, we really should have bought or downloaded audio guides for countries with tonal languages; the few times that Chinese people said words for me to copy it was much easier rendering them comprehensible next time I used them, but words hardly ever sounded like I had expected from reading them. In common with most Asian languages, the grammar, as far as I could tell from the phrase book, seemed to be very easy. It had all the same components, unusual from a European language perspective, that every other language we had encountered had: quantifiers for counting objects and a far more complicated system of pronouns and conferring respect when addressing or referring to people.
I think Chinese would be great to learn, because learning it would teach the ability to grasp a tonal system as well as the grammatical structures that seem to be common to at least most Asian languages, but also it would teach at least a rudimentary collection of the Chinese characters used in several other languages, for example Japanese. These characters are another major obstacle to learning the language. I had always believed that they were purely pictograms, meaning that they each represent a concept and you just have to know the character to have any idea what it means or how it's pronounced. Several people had confirmed this to me, and it would mean the writing system was incredibly difficulty to learn, each character needing to be learned separately. However after arriving in China I looked at an online introduction to writing Chinese, which claimed that most characters contain elements which carry information about the meaning and the pronunciation of that character; they quoted a study which came up with a figure of 90% of characters not being pure pictograms. Thinking about it, the people I asked were probably all Japanese, so maybe there are no pronunciation clues for them since, although the meaning of a character is usually the same across languages, the pronunciation is usually very different. Nonetheless, we were having far less difficulty in China than we had in Japan, because they seem to be far more geared to tourism and their Romanisation system, pinyin is far more widespread than Japan's romanji.
written by  The Happy Couple on July 25, 2009 from Shanghai, China

Drinking on the Bund
Shanghai, China
We spent the morning struggling with more train booking pain. The girl from the hostel returned to let us know that it was possible to book the train we wanted from Suzhou, another place, to Xi'an. Unfortunately she hadn't booked anything, so we told her we would like the ticket that she enquired about, but that meant waiting another day to find out if there were still seats. However, cheered by the fact it was possible to book trains originating somewhere other than your current location, we asked if she could also find out about (and this time also book) the train from Xi'an on to Lanzhou. She wasn't sure, but we couldn't understand why one booking would be possible and not another, but this is China so you never know!
Shanghai is modern after all
A European-looking building
We decided to see a bit of Shanghai and took the metro into the centre. Shanghai, it turned out, was every bit as modern as Beijing, it's just that our hostel was far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western side of town. The centre was full of tall modern buildings, but punctuated by older European-looking buildings which had not been a feature of Beijing. We were heading for the Bund, a street built by European traders when the city was an autonomous settlement immune from Chinese law. The buildings there do look quite oldish European, but across the river is Pudong, which is China's answer to Hong Kong. Apparently the Chinese government plan this to become the most economically active region of the country, so that it's no longer a former colony, but a newly built 100% Chinese venture across the river from an old European concession. Pudong is certainly modern and similar to Hong Kong, but it's not quite the techno-skyline Hong Kong offers, yet. However our view was slightly spoiled by the fact they are reconstructing the walkway on the Bund side of the river, and the works are hidden behind huge adverts all the way along.
Pudong from the Bund
It was our intention to walk all the way down the Bund and into the Old Town district, but I was distracted by a sign sticking out up a side street claiming to be Shanghai's oldest microbrewery. The beer was really quite expensive, but they had a two-for-one offer during the day. But there was a snag: this free drink could not be claimed on the same day; they just gave out vouchers valid from the following day. Sneaky! We had about three each of the nice German style beers. The brewery was only established in the 90s, but I suppose it was probably all state-owned breweries until then.
This character kept us amused while we drank
He was an obviously bored security guard
After we realised how much money we had spent we dragged ourselves back out onto the Bund, where we were almost immediately befriended by Chinese students wanting to practice their English etc., who wanted us to come with them to an acrobatics performance later. They didn't quite seem like the con men we were used to in Beijing, yet I felt instantly very uncomfortable about the whole thing. Near the end of the conversation I discovered that they were Christians. And I thought they had just been harmless con men!
Old Town
We made it down to the Old Town, but our hearts weren't really in it. One of the beers must have been stronger than it tasted. The Old Town looked a bit too reconstructed, but the lots of the buildings were quite pretty; maybe we didn't even make it to the real stuff, I don't know!
Back at the hostel, Joanne's increasing antipathy towards Chinese food led us to ask at the hostel for a Western food restaurant. Burgers the girl stated. Fair enough, I suppose. On the way we worked out we'd been directed to a McDonald's and took evasive action; we had eaten once at McDonald's so far, a breakfast muffin, hung over at the airport waiting to leave Japan, and we had no intentions of aid the evil empire any further. We ended up walking into what I can only describe as a greasy chopstick, and failed almost totally to communicate with the staff. We ended up with dumplings and soup. Chinese soup is usually disgusting, consisting of nothing more than MSG-filled stock and bits of bone and gristle. The dumplings looked OK, though. In this case the soup was actually quite nice, just due to the inclusion of large quantities of fresh coriander. The dumplings were, however, just what you'd expect from a greasy chopstick: stuffed with fatty low-quality meat; not very nice.
Food from the greasy chopstick
Back in the hostel we made a decision to cut China short, because Joanne was keen to spend some extra time in New Zealand, which we'd only scheduled eighteen days for. Joanne phoned BA and rescheduled our flight, transferring four days from China to New Zealand.
Seaweed Pringles!
They're green!
written by  The Happy Couple on July 26, 2009 from Shanghai, China

Museum and Free Beer
Shanghai, China
Ugly!
Sorry about the formatting of photos in this (and several preceding blogs) but the formatting seems to have been broken and I can't be bothered investing the hours it normally takes to make it look OK.
We had yet another morning of trying to organise transport, but we did have one small victory: the girl working at the hostel had managed to get us train tickets from Suzhou to Xi'an although she had been unable to book our transport onwards from there. Another dead end! Since hostels always seem able to book transport, we booked our accommodation in Suzhou and tried phoning ahead to them to ask them to book the train for us, but for the first time the hostel did not offer that service. Organising transport is very tricky in China; clearly you are meant to travel with a group
After Xi'an we intended to get the train to Lanzhou and onto Xiàhé by bus from there. We reckoned that it wouldn't be a very busy route so we'd be able to book that without any trouble when we arrived in Xi'an. That only left our return journey from Lanzhou to Hong Kong to consider. This leg of the journey was vital because we would miss our flight to New Zealand if anything went wrong. In the end we decided not to gamble on being able to get train tickets and decided to fly. We found quite a few cheap flights sites in English and filled in all our details on the cheapest one, only discovering that there was no actual online booking: we just filled a web form and someone would get back to us. Not quite the peace of mind we were looking for, but we felt we were edging towards being organised.
View from Renmin Gardens
That done we leapt into tourist mode again and took the metro to Renmin [People's] Park for the museum. Outside the museum we were approached by two Chinese girls who planned to attend some ethnic minority fair nearby and they were keen for us to join them so they could practice their English.
Renmin Gardens
These girls seemed totally genuine, but we were both now very suspicious of these approaches as it always seems to be con-artists, so we politely refused, saying we needed to get to the museum before it was too late. Outside the exit of the museum we were approached by another group, who again seemed like perfectly innocent young people, but this time I was sure it was a con, because they invited us to a tea ceremony and told us it was a very special one we could only see that day, just like the gallery people who insisted it was the last day of the exhibition.
More modern buildings
The tea ceremony is a well known con, where you are left for a massively inflated bill for just a couple of cups of tea. This time it was easy to get out of it, because they had thought we were leaving the museum since we had mistakenly gone to the exit instead of the entrance; that was another give-away: they were hanging around, poaching, outside the exit of a well-known tourist site.
Great lighting in the museum
The museum itself was great. We don't normally like museums much, but this one really appealed to us both. I think it was partly the way it was very atmospherically lit, and cameras were allowed which made it a bit more fun as well. It was mostly just objects, but somehow it didn't seem as dry and dull as that would suggest; perhaps it was the way they were arranged in chronological order, so seemed to take us through Chinese history as we walked around.
In the museum
The Bund from Pudong
Big tower in Pudong
After the museum, determined to cram in as much as possible, we took the metro across the river to Pudong. We had been going to walk across via the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel, but it was much cheaper just to get the metro. We took in the view of the Bund from Pudong, but it was raining quite heavily, so not much fun.
Pudong
Pushing on with the tourist agenda, we got back on the metro and took it out to the start of the maglev line to the airport. We had no reason to be in the airport, but the Shanghai maglev is the fastest operational train service in the world and I just wanted to ride it for fun. Inexplicably Joanne wasn't very excited about it, but maybe it's a boys toys kind of thing. When we arrived there I had a huge let-down. Apparently the full-speed service doesn't run all the time, and we had missed the last 430km/h train, leaving us only with the option of a pathetic 300km/h. The Nozomi in Japan goes at that speed, and our Shinkansen was almost that fast, so it would have been a waste of time. We would have to return the following day.
Free beer!
The Bund at night
To console me we returned to the bar at the microbrewery we had been in the day before and redeemed a few of our vouchers for free drinks. I'm sure the free ones tasted even better than the ones we paid for the previous day. We used the bar's wifi to check email and discovered that I'd filled in the flight form incorrectly and had reserved a flight on the wrong day, and it was more also more expensive than the web site had said. I replied explaining the date was wrong and we set off to look for a club we were planning to go to the next night. When we were out with Sia and Willemijn in Thailand they had told us about places in Shanghai where you can pay an entry fee then get free drinks all night. It sounded like the fee was set with Asian livers in mind, not Celtic ones, so it was our intention to go to one of these places the next night.
A boat trip going up the river
Pudong trying to be Hong Kong at night
View from the bar
After wandering around the Bund for ages, we came to the conclusion that the club we were looking for was at an address which had been demolished as part of the extensive building work all around the area. We ended up in an old building, an island among the building works, where they were trying to regain some of the massive losses to their business, caused by the great difficulty in getting there past the building sites and road works, by offering two-for-one Schofferhoffer.
Another boat trip going up the river
An additional bonus was that the building used to be a clock tower (or was it a lighthouse?), so there were levels well above the adverts hiding the building work, and we were finally able to get a proper view of the light of Pudong. It isn't as impressive as the Hong Kong lights, but there are more tour boats sailing up and down the river, also lit up. After a couple of rounds of two-for-one Schofferhoffer we were drunk enough to and cope with the awful food offered by our hostel when we got home.
Disgusting "omlette" from the hostel
written by  The Happy Couple on July 27, 2009 from Shanghai, China

World's Fastest Train
World's fastest train
[Sorry the big photos are the only ones that still format correctly so that's all I'm going to use until it's fixed]
After the previous night's free beer and cheap Schofferhofer we were up a little later than planned, but we were still on time for the full-speed maglev. When we waited longer than expected for our train, it seemed like our return journey was probably going to be at the slower speed, but at least we were going to get one journey at 430km/h. It was absolutely fantastic! And the highest speed according to the display was actualy 431km/h which it hovered around for about half of the journey before starting to decellerate again. China really is the future, unlike India. And it blew away Japan's puny Nozomi! Everything in China is bigger, cheaper, better, and faster than Japan. During the acceleration phase I felt my stomach rising up into my throat. It was so smooth but noticeably extremely fast: cars on the motorway below us whooshed backwards past us.
Waiting to go
Full speed!
The world whizzing by
When we arrived at the airport 30km away just seven minutes later, we just got off the train and straight back on for the slower return journey. The timing is clearly a bit grey because the return journey was actually at full speed as well. I can't explain how much I enjoyed it. It's exactly the sort of thing I would love as a child, so I've obviously not changed much. Afterwards Joanne seemed quite excited too and admitted that she had surprised herself by really enjoying it too.
The French Concession
Next up was the French Concession. The guide book said it was like being in France, but that was quite an exaggeration. It did seem more European, but the Bund had already seemed quite European, and I'm sure both districts have large ex-pat communities as there are plenty of drinking venues that look like ex-pat places. The most French thing I saw were the trees lining most of the streets in the area, which I thought looked like the sort of tree they might us to line an avenue in France. There were lots of art shops, but that's not exactly French is it? We had hoped to find a cheese shop, but had no luck there.
Kittens outside the hostel
Back at the hostel we prepared for our night out, but some more detailed searching online revealed that the drink-all-you-can deals only run on certain nights and our last night in Shanghai was probably the one with the worst choice of all the nights we stayed there. The choice came down to a place offering five free drinks to women (it was ladies' night in many places) and 100 Yuan for men to drink as much as they want, versus a night called “Cheap Enough For You?” where the drinks were all 10 Yuan all night. The first choice would have won out easily, but it was also a hip hop night and we didn't think we'd be able to get drunk fast enough to tolerate the music longer than about ten minutes, so we settled for the second option as our big night our in Shanghai. It was a small place in the French Concession and clearly an ex-pat crowd who all knew each other. We succeeded in getting drunk, but it really wasn't the big night out I'd been hoping for. It was too quiet and everyone else there obviously went every Tuesday.
The In Crowd at "Cheap Enough For You?"
The following morning we made one last trip to the Bund to use the last two free beer vouchers to help soothe our hangovers. Pleased that we got full value from the bizarre two-for-one offer we headed off to catch the train to Hangzhou.
Another amusing sign

Exploding Pork and Joanne's Toes
Hangzhou, China
When we got off the train at Hangzhou we had a very confusing couple of hours. According to the hostel instructions we should have been able to get a bus that went right past the hostel, which was very close to the zoo, however, at the bus stop next to the train station, there was no sign of the bus with the correct number. I tried asking the woman at the desk there, but the language barrier was too great. I wasn't sure if she just didn't understand my attempts at “zoo” in Chinese or if we were in the wrong place or something. Luckily someone with a bit of English appeared in the queue and translated that we wanted the zoo, but the answer was still no. He thought maybe there were no more today, but he didn't seem sure; something I suspect Chinese people don't understand each other! We had no idea why we were stranded but we were, so we flagged down a taxi and just as we were about to give up communicating with the driver, another helpful person appeared and told the driver we wanted to go to the zoo. He confirmed that we realised it was too late so it was closed and we explained our hostel was there.
In the taxi, the driver clearly did not believe that he had it right, or saw an opportunity to make some commission. He said what I am pretty sure was Chinese for “zoo”, looking rather confused, then he stopped briefly and put his hands next to his face in an imitation of sleep. Yes, I thought, he has grasped that our hostel is next to the zoo, but he soon pulled up outside quite an expensive looking hotel. I tried saying the word for zoo, but it didn't seem to work, so finally it occurred to me to say the name of the street that the zoo and our hostel are on. This did work and he set off again, retracing the entire route we had already taken, stopping only once to turn around and repeat the word for zoo, then going “grrrr” and making a claw, like a lion I guess. The zoo was about the same distance in the opposite direction from where he had first taken us, but at least we got there. It seems the further from Beijing you get, the harder China becomes. It was a bit annoying having to pay the double fare, but I was pleased the stress was over, saved by the lion gestures.
The hostel was really lovely and much cheaper than where we had stayed in Beijing and Shanghai. There was lots of barbecue food lying around, but it had been abandoned due to the rain which was now fairly persistent.
One of the sights you're supposed to enjoy at the lake
The next morning it was still raining and it wasn't really a day for walking around outside, however Hangzhou's main attraction is the West Lake, apparently the “best West Lake” in China and the one that all the other West Lakes in China are based on. We were only staying there one more night and leaving early the next day, so we had to see it that day. We started walking to the bank next to the lake because we also needed to draw money, but the rain just got worse and worse. Soon we had to take shelter along with all the other people out for a walk by the lake, and the wind blew stronger. By the time we reached the ATM it was proper storm weather and the idea of having a nice walk around the lake was ridiculous, so we had to admit defeat and take the bus home.
Lovely weather at West Lake
We arrived back at the hostel too early for food. The other places had been able to provide food all day, so we were a bit miffed. And hungry. We tried out on the street near the hostel but the first restaurant had no English menus and the useless phrase book let me down again. We left with no food and tried another. This time they did have an English menu which seemed to be only a small subset of the whole menu, featuring interesting sounding dishes like “Sauce Explodes the Pork” but, trying to save a bit of money, we settled for noodles for which we were overcharged, but that's what you get when you can't speak the language.
Back in the hostel I took a photo of Joanne's toes since so many people had been asking how they had been since the Nepal trek. Not too good!
Joanne's toes: no big toenails!
written by  The Happy Couple on July 30, 2009 from Hangzhou, China

Venice of the East
Suzhou, China
We had been sending bursts of couch requests on Couchsurfing every couple of days, but had no luck so far in China. When we checked email in the morning it seemed like we may finally struck it lucky: when we were in Cambodia, Jochem and Marty had recommended a couple of hosts in China and now Romeo in Xi'an had responded to our request. This buoyed us up a bit despite having to leave Hangzhou without really seeing it.
We left the hostel and caught the bus for the train station, from where plenty of trains for Suzhou leave, according to our hostel, just as the hostel in Shanghai had told us there was no need to book. On the bus we suffered a crisis of confidence and got off when we were sure we must have already gone way past the train station without realising it; because we hadn't caught the bus from the station, we weren't sure how close the bus would actually pass. No idea where we were, we had to resort to flagging a taxi again, but this time I was able to show the driver the Chinese for “train station” using the dictionary I had downloaded to my phone the previous day. The taxi continued in the direction the bus had been going for only a couple of hundred yards before arriving at the station. If only we'd kept our nerve!
At the train station we had difficulty being understood again, but I was becoming quite practised in copying Chinese character and I wrote out where and when we wanted to go. I had read that the dialect in Hangzhou is quite unusual, and people from neighbouring towns can't understand each other, but I was still surprised that saying “Suzhou” or “Shanghai” was not enough for them to understand where we wanted to go. After a few attempts I established that the next train to Suzhou was hours away and it was full, and the next train had only standing room remaining. Finally there was a sleeper that costs much more and got us in too late. Even the Shanghai train was full and the next one had only one seat free. So much for not needing to book because there are plenty of trains! We phoned the hostel from a kiosk to ask them to translate that we wanted the girl working at the kiosk to write down “Please take us to the East Bus Station” where we thought we could get a Suzhou bus. The girl at the hostel could not understand why we weren't getting a train and, very annoyingly continued to insist that there were plenty of trains. Nonetheless she did as we asked and we were soon armed with the necessary written request for a taxi.
The next bit went without a hitch and we got a taxi then a bus to Suzhou without any delay. Our arrival in Suzhou was met by lots of pushy taxi drivers, trying to charge us 40 Yuan to the hostel. But we had good directions to the hostel and, swatting the taxi drivers aside, we got to the bus stop where we only had to pay 1 Yuan to get us to the hostel. Of course, on the bus we were in the position again of not being sure how we would know we were in the right place, but then we noticed that the bus stops were named and, although we couldn't read it, we were starting to become quite good at recognising Chinese characters and were quite pleased when we successfully got off at the right stop. China was becoming a bit easier.
At the hostel it all fell apart again: they had given our room away. The booking form on hostels.com, through whom we had been booking most of our accommodation, had a drop-down box for approximate arrival time, which I filled in sometimes, but Joanne had always been leaving at the default, which is 11am. Apparently they had given our room away at midday and it was now 7pm. Joanne was furious: nowhere else had they paid any attention to that information and, after all, our booking was for that night and we had paid a 10% deposit online and you forfeit the whole first night's fee if you don't turn up, so they would have been paid twice for the room. The receptionist just kept insisting “but you are very late”, finally grudgingly saying that they had a single room we could have instead and I followed her to look at it. The bed was actually as big as some doubles we had slept in and this room was ensuite, whereas our room was with shared facilities. I started to cheer up, but when I insisted that we would not pay any more as I felt they should not have given our room away, suddenly everything changed: the manager appeared and apparently phoned the woman who had been given our room, then they explained that she had agreed to take the single room since she hadn't paid any deposit but we had. “You are very lucky” the manager said to us, patronisingly. I'd have thought getting your room when you've paid a deposit was more to do with rights than luck!
Our room in Suzhou
It wasn't a good start to Suzhou and we were very grumpy when we discovered that the cafe attached to the hostel was very expensive, and the street outside our room was very noisy at night. However the room itself was very nice, with a big four-poster bed.
Boating down the canal
Staying in Hangzhou only one night and all the stressful travelling we had done over the last few days had taken its toll. It felt like we had been trying to do too much in China and we couldn't really be bothered doing anything at all in Suzhou. We needed a rest after the terrible time we had in Japan, but China was nearly as difficult and we were just getting a bit sick of everything being so hard. We hadn't been spending enough time in one place so I'd had no time to read, little time to blog and I was far behind, and we'd had no time to play cards or backgammon.
Big pagoda
We forced ourselves to visit a pagoda not too far away but we didn't really want to and the ones we'd seen in Vietnam were much nicer. Again the shadow of the Cultural Revolution was visible in the pagoda: China has clearly not been valuing history and the pagoda was in a terrible state, yet it is one of the tallest in China and much bigger (of course) than anything Japan had to offer. Although Suzhou is promoted as the “Venice of the East” it is impressively ugly from above so the view was more like insult to injury rather than the reward you expect for climbing nine storeys. At the foot of the pagoda, though, was quite a pretty garden. Suzhou is known for its canals, hence the Venice comparison, and also its gardens.
Garden visible from the pagoda
The rest of Suzhou from the pagoda
Inside the pagoda
Incense. Everything is bigger and better in China.
The gardens next to the pagoda
[Sorry about this - I'd have made some of them thumbnails if it still worked]
Resident in the gardens
The gardens
A breather
We agreed not to try to hard and just rest a bit in Suzhou. While we were in the supermarket looking to save money on food, it started to rain. We felt pretty depressed and the walk back was treacherous: we first noticed it Bangkok when it was raining, but all over Asia the use paving stones for the pavements rather than tarmac. It looks very nice, but wet they become incredibly slippy, especially in flip-flops, which it typically what one wears in these countries. Since then we had spent many a walk cursing the stupidity of using such a material. It seemed only a matter of time until one of us sustained a flip-flops and paving related injury.
The fish counter at the supermarket. It's a tank.
The meat counter at the supermarket
Deadly paving stones
That evening we walked around our area discovering that it really is quite pretty. Venice is pushing it a bit, but it is nice.
Suzhou at night
The next day we chose one of the famous gardens to visit: Garden of the Master of the Nets. It is actually more of a stately home, incorporating a garden complex. There are loads of small buildings, each for a different mood or season, each looking out onto a different garden. The place is relatively small, but such a maze that we spent quite a lot of time there. Some of the gardens were beautiful, but many of them contained mostly rockeries. I had noticed these first in the garden in the Forbidden City; Chinese garden seem to feature quite a lot of rocks, but not interspersed with flowers as I would think of a rockery: just piles of stone, serving a function more like that of statue in a western garden.
Garden of the Master of the Nets
Funny stones in a part of the Garden of the Master of the Nets
The Spring Drawing Room (or something...)
Bonsai!
We finished off the day by wandering around the canals near our hostel to see what it looks like during the day. Our hostel was actually in a really nice area and we regretted not staying longer in Suzhou, probably missing our Hangzhou to give us the extra time. But instead, we had to leave, catching a bus to the train station in time for the sleeper train to Xi'an.
Suzhou's attempt at Venice
More Venicey stuff. Sort of.
Public toilets in Suzhou
Suzhou's Rialto Bridge?
written by  The Happy Couple on August 2, 2009 from Suzhou, China

There IS a God! (but he's not a Chinese butcher)
Xi'an, China
The sleeper train to Xi'an was really comfortable, and a million times better than any Indian trains we had taken. We had been unable to get a ticket onwards from Xi'an in Suzhou, despite Sue's promises in Beijing that we'd be able to book trains from anywhere there. And the possible couch at Romeo's fell through because he was out of town while we were there. So as soon as we arrived in Xi'an we asked at the hostel where we could buy train tickets. We headed out to discover the office closed, but a second attempt at the hostel along with a photo of the sign from the ticket office window revealed that we should return an hour later, after lunch.
An hour later we returned to the ticket office and there was already a long queue, and it was pouring with rain. We got our tickets to Lanzhou but realised later in the day that we had forgotten to ask for the top bunk so we had been given the bottom bunk which is the most expensive and, by all accounts, the worst.
In keeping with our plan to relax a bit more, we did not rush out to do anything touristy, although our hostel was just next to the city walls and one of the city gates. Instead I did a bit of blogging.
The next day we tried to change our train tickets to the top bunk but all the trains to Xi'an that day were completely sold out, so we were very lucky. We were both starting badly running out of clothes due to wear and tear, items going missing when we do laundry, and also we anticipated needing some warmer clothes when we arrive in New Zealand. We had asked at the hostel for a cheap place to buy clothes but the market we were sent to did not seem to exists, or else it wasn't on that day, or else we had got on the wrong bus. After that we went to the cheap high street shops we had been recommended but they were all out of our price range. I don't understand how clothes made in China for sale in Primark in Glasgow can cost less than supposedly cheap shops on the Chinese high street. Eventually we returned to the hostel exhausted but empty-handed.
Our plan had been to take a short break at the hostel then head out again to the market stalls in the Muslim area, but I was so knackered I didn't think I'd be able to face going out again. We walked through the reception into a little sitting area on the way to our room and just sitting there, leaning against a table in that room was a plastic bag with the words “Free clothing! Enjoy” written on it. There is a god! We picked it up and took it back to our room for a closer look. Inside were a couple of Nepal tourist tee-shirts (“Never End Peace And Love”), one pair of North Face walking trousers (presumably Nepali copies), some thick socks, other things we didn't want, and a Ganesh tee-shirt, so there is a god: Ganesh!
God provides
We had been planning to make our own way to the Terracotta Army but, discussing our plan, we soon admitted to each other that we were tired of everything being difficult and never doing things the slightly dearer, easy way. To begin with I had really enjoyed the challenges, but six months of Asia had worn me down a bit and Japan completely finished me off. So we booked a tour through the hostel. China outside Beijing and Shanghai is not as easy, so we couldn't be bothered with trying to do it ourselves.
Ooh looks quite nice. Maybe we picked well this time...
When we went out for dinner ordering was quite difficult too. Most of the time Chinese food just isn't very nice. It's always the meat that ruins the dish though. The problem seems to be that they don't have butchers in China; either that or they are all axe-wielding maniacs. They don't seem to have the concept of cuts of meat, in fact I don't know what they do with all the bits we would call meat, because the food always seems to be made from assorted grisly bits. The dish we ordered looked quite nice to begin with but, after a couple of fork-fulls, serving yourself was like dredging the canal for body parts. Probably the nicest animal product was horrible wobbly stuff, possibly gelatine flavoured with stock, but at least it wasn't all bone and skin like the rest of the meat. Soon, eating became, in practice, dredging bones from the dish and transferring them directly to the disposal dish.
Horrible wobbly bits were the best part
Mostly untouched "meat". The clean bone didn't start with flesh.
written by  The Happy Couple on August 4, 2009 from Xi'an, China

Terracotta and Leather
Xi'an, China
First thing, we were on the minibus from the hostel towards the Terracotta Army. Before we got there though, we were told, we would be stopping off at a workshop / warehouse place where we would be able to buy reproductions of the terracotta warriors as well as other works of art. Ah, yes, I remembered this is why we normally avoid tours. The stuff in this particular tourist trap was lovely, but very expensive. I found the warrior reproductions a bit annoying: I wanted the first terracotta warriors I saw to be the real thing, not a warehouse full of reproductions ranging from 10cm high up to twice life-size; they should have gone there after. We managed to spend so long looking at all the gorgeous carved wooden furniture inset with precious stones that, when we made it outside, everyone else was waiting for us. Oh, yes, another drawback of a tour: you have to go at the consensus speed.
Pit 2
At the real thing, we were taken first into pit two. I was really disappointed. I had an image of thousands of complete warriors all neatly lined up, but here was half-dug site, littered with bits of broken pottery. At least it was a bit more than a series of small walls, but not much. This was the second biggest of the three finds, and the newest. It seemed to be more about demonstrating the archaeology process, but I was looking for the wow-awe experience I had expected. Next up was pit three, which was the smallest, but much more assembled that the previous one had been. This pit contains mostly higher ranking warriors: generals. It was also a bit underwhelming, but I felt a little rush of expectation with the rising tension.
Bits of broken warriors and horses in pit 2
Pit 3
The finale was pit one. This pit was also a work in process, but much bigger than the other two. Clearly this is where all my ideas of the Terracotta Army had come from but, we were told, it's archaeologically less interesting because the warriors are lower-ranking. It was certainly more impressive, but I wasn't blown away like I expected to be; for one thing it's not as complete as I thought, and for another, there just aren't as many of the warriors as I expected. After walking around for a bit I really started to appreciated the detail on the warriors, though: each of the warriors is individually made and they are all carefully crafted, rather than mass-produced despite the fact there are quite a lot of them.
Woo! Pit 1.
Semi-assembled warriors
Warriors facing the original entrance
You're all individuals
Yes, we're all different
I'm not
We managed not to be last out of pit one where we were informed that next on the agenda was sampling some real Chinese food. We had already had our fill of “real Chinese food” and suspected the lunch would be very expensive, but we followed along anyway just in case it was included. They were herding everyone to the tables, but had still not said anything about cost, so we asked our guide when we were assigned a table. It was going to cost about the same as our big splash-out Beijing Duck night had cost; just for lunch, and not including drinks, either! The food did look really nice: a westernised version of various Chinese dishes, but at this point we made our excuses and left, finding nourishment from the barbecued sweet potato stalls and others, along with all the Chinese tourists. In the restaurant there had been literally no Chinese people apart from staff and guides. That had been our first clue that we should do a runner. This is yet another reason, I remembered, for never ever going on tours: they try to railroad you into spending money at every turn, but we had won by denying them their commission!
We had wanted to get back home straight after the Warriors so, finally back at the hostel, we immediately escaped and headed out again to the Muslim quarter. The traffic in Xi'an was terrible and I saw why so much of Beijing was fenced off with underpasses: nobody pays any attention to green men and it is very hard to find a break in the traffic. But when we got to the Muslim quarter it all changed: there were occasional mopeds going up the road, but it was mostly stalls and people. I loved it. It had the kind of exciting market atmosphere completely missing from the UK and Japan. You get similar markets on mainland Europe but, for some reason, nothing so lively happens at home or in Japan. I sought a local speciality recommended in the guide book and found it, but it was mostly sheep guts I think, although the liquor was delicious and the way you eat it is to break one whole local bread into the broth. So we just soaked up all the juice and left the ugly bits. Stupidly, I had not asked for a price before we sat down, because I was a bit too excited at having found a place doing this dish. When we were leaving she showed me two fingers, which I thought was excellent value, but when her face filled with (feigned I think) horror and she began jabbering excitedly to her husband I realised she meant twenty Yuan. Not exactly a bargain, but not quite a total rip-off. I think it probably should have cost less than ten.
Market in Muslim Quarter
Tasty lamb guts soup speciality
The bread to break into the soup
The resulting bready soup
On the way home I saw a couple of leather wallets I liked and, bearing in mind advice we had received, planned to purchase some decoy wallets for South America. I entered into bartering but we could not agree on a price; after the food I was determined not to be ripped off again, but the girl on the stall would not lower her price beyond a certain point.
We were close though: I was determined not to go above 25 for a wallet and she wouldn't go below 30.
Chinese men do this when they are hot
Lamb leg stall
Some black stuff I drank, but have no idea what it was
Excellent stuffed bread stall
Moon over the Bell Tower
The South Gate at night
The next day we worked on our New Zealand plan and booked a flight from Queenstown to Auckland in time for our flight on to Chile. We sent loads of Couchsurfing requests off to Auckland, where we were arriving. We also finished off our organisation of China, booking a hotel in Lanzhou, where we were staying one night before our flight out of Hong Kong; this was not easy as many hotel in Lanzhou do not accept foreigners and the ones that do, don't speak any English. We also spent a lot of time researching everything we would have to do to get from Lanzhou to Hong Kong in time for our flight. It was quite an intimidating prospect as there were several stages to the journey. All this took almost the whole day.
South gate in the day
Building very near our hostel
That done, we headed out to the Muslim area again. Joanne finally found some shoes but didn't follow the haggling instruction I was whispering to her, so paid 50% more than I would have done :-p and I gave in to the woman selling 30 Yuan wallets, but also bought another pair of “designer” wallets from the same stall as Joanne's shoes. Hopefully we won't be robbed as enough times to need all the wallets, but at least we'll be prepared! On the way back I couldn't help buying more lovely Muslim food. Muslims always seem to have excellent cuisine.
Excellent quail eggs, chili sauce and tahini.
A quail egg stall
Kitted up, it was off to the train station for another overnight train, this time to Lanzhou.
written by  The Happy Couple on August 6, 2009 from Xi'an, China

Into a Tibetan Autonomous Zone
Xiàhé, China
Our train journey from Xi'an to Lanzhou was nothing like as comfortable as the trip to Xi'an. The train to Xi'an was a Z train which used to be the fastest, most luxurious trains in China, although they have been superseded by the D trains, whereas on the journey to Lanzhou we were on a K train which also used to be the fastest, most luxurious trains in China, but they were superseded by the Z trains. And it made quite a difference, both in the state of the train and in the people who got it. The people were too noisy; the bunks creaked noisily and the whole train sounded like it might fall apart; it was too hot; there wasn't really enough room on the bunk for my little valuables bag next to me, so I couldn't get comfy; it was too hot; there was a lot of smoking, which is allowed between carriages, even though the doors to the carriages are wide open; and a family on the bunks next to ours stayed up late noisily eating Macdonalds then noodles, obviously not really planning to sleep since they were up again at 4am to leave at an earlier station. I didn't really sleep.
Not really having properly prepared our plan for our arrival in Lanzhou, I had been texting John to ask him to look stuff up online for us. There are two bus stations in Lanzhou and John had assured us we could get a bus to Linxia, which was our next destination, from either one. Our final destination was Xiàhé but, as this is in a Tibetan autonomous prefecture, the Chinese authorities had made it quite difficult to get to: we had seen online that it is not possible to buy a ticket for the bus which goes directly to Xiàhé from Lanzhou, but it should be possible to get a bus from Linxia, so we had to get there first. Our guide book told us which bus to catch to each station, but not where we go from them so we just trusted John and went to the easiest to get to bus station: West Bus Station. Confidently, knowing that we weren't trying to do anything controversial like go to Xiàhé, I walked up to the ticket desk and said Linxia, but the response was lots of head shaking and waving. Seeing that I didn't understand, she very helpfully wrote it down in Chinese. This is quite a common response in China; it seems generally understood that not everyone speaks their language, but widely believed that everyone can read Chinese, after all people speaking different dialects and languages within China all write the same, and even people from outside China like Japanese, Korean, and some others, can understand most commonly used Chinese characters. At least I could make a guess at one possible response and checked what she had written again the characters for South Bus Station matching the characters in question among the unintelligible squiggles.
They weren't too far apart, so we opted to walk between stations, although the weight of Joanne's bag nearly caused her to mutiny and flag down a taxi. At the South Bus Station I tried again to get a ticket to Linxia, getting pretty much the same response but this time, rather than writing anything, the woman said passport copy in English, so we dug around in our luggage to retrieve our last remaining copies and I took them up to the desk. The woman shook her head and sighed a lot, waving me away again. Luckily there were some other lăowài [foreigners] in the bus station who were able to tell us that we need a copy of our Chinese visa as well as the passport copy, and that there was a copy shop just across the road. I decided to get three copies each instead of one, since I thought we might need another one to get to Xiàhé and you can never have too many copies of your passport when travelling. This time the woman looked like she was in total despair with me and said two. Lucky I'd got the extra ones, and this time she finally nodded, put the copies to the side, and wrote down a time before waving me away again with the money I had offered. One of the other lăowài, an Israeli, could speak Mandarin and was following much better. Apparently we weren't allowed to get our tickets until just before the bus left; the time she had written down was five minutes before the departure, which I thought was leaving it a bit fine, considering the pushy crowd at the desk, but it all went OK and we got on the bus.
The Israeli and his mother, it turned out his companion was, were wearing masks. It is very common to see orientals wearing masks in China (you are expected to every time you are ill and many people working with the public do as a precaution), but very unusual to see lăowài wearing them. On the bus he explained to the rest of us that a town near to where they had travelled from was under quarantine because of an epidemic of the black death. I told him that he needn't worry because it is no longer the 12th Century and it is now easily treatable with antibiotics. He retorted that it needed to be treated within 24 hours or it would be fatal, but I think he was just making that up and the masks were probably mostly for show.
Stepping off the bus at Linxia we were met by a bus driver who said we wouldn't be able to get tickets inside, but we could pay him directly to get to Xiàhé. He charged us 30 Yuan, which is a person mark-up for him of ten, but it was probably worth it, since there are reports of people having a lot of difficulty at the ticket desk, including being hounded by loads of taxi-driving touts. So there we were, right onto the next bus and heading into a sometimes-controlled Tibetan autonomous zone. The Israeli guy coached us all that we should have our story straight in case the police questioned us; that we should say we thought we were going to some other place and it was all a big mix up, but nobody else seemed particularly worried and we had read online that it was in fact open to foreigners again, although I was less sure of that having seen the hoops we had to jump through to get there; in retrospect it was just the authorities making it difficult, while being able to say it was open.
Xiàhé main street
Xiàhé wasn't really what we were expecting. The guide book had described it as a mountain village or something similarly romantic sounding, so we were expecting something similar to the little mountain town in Nepal, or the rather larger town of Macleodganj in India. It was a much bigger town, looking like a scruffy frontier town and it was flat; OK, there were some hills around the town, but in no way were there mountains visible. It was a massive let-down; even Marty and Jochem had recommended it, saying that there was no need to go to Tibet proper when you could just go Xiàhé instead. If this was like Tibet, then it seemed to me you are better off going to India and Nepal for Tibetan culture. The one obvious similarity, though, was that it was very cold. We all agreed to meet later and go for food together before heading off in different directions to get accommodation. As soon we got to our room we changed into our thermals, which had been packed away unused since the trek in Nepal. Reitse from Friesland in the Netherlands had been unable to find his intended hostel and ended up in the same dorm room as us at the Oversees Tibetan Hostel. Joanne was not at all impressed with the hostel and neither was Reitse, so we went out to look at the other options but returned after deciding that not only was ours cheaper, but the toilets smelled less than any of the alternatives!
Street sweepers causing a cloud of dust
When we returned the Israeli guy from the bus had taken the last bed in our dorm and his mum had taken the room next door. Apparently he had been studying Mandarin for the last nine months somewhere quite near and his mum was over to visit him before he went off to Varanasi to study Hindi. Nice life! The two of them left and did not turn up at the agreed time for food, so the rest of us went across the road to a Tibetan restaurant. The momos were not at all up to the standard of those we had in Nepal, but Reitse and the American couple from the bus both enjoyed them. We also shared a yak hot pot, which was delicious, and some other yak meat dish. Here at least was one aspect of Tibetan culture not suppressed by the Chinese but, ironically, suppressed in their countries of exile: yak is close enough to a cow for it to be illegal to kill in India and Nepal, where buffalo had taken its place in food; in China they eat everything.
Momos in Xiàhé
After our meal everyone else was going to bed, tired after a long day's travelling, but I wanted to go into Tara's Guesthouse next door to our hostel for a drink; it had received all the best reviews online (but had smelly toilets). It wasn't at all lively inside as I had hoped, the only other customers being robed monks, who talked incessantly on mobile phones whose ring volumes were all set far too high.
written by  The Happy Couple on August 7, 2009 from Xiàhé, China

A Kora in a Ring
Xiàhé, China
In the morning we ventured out to have a look around town. It was actually much nicer than my first impressions had been. And the people were apparently very nice as well: after buying some painkillers for Joanne, who wasn't feeling very well, the shop owner ran out of the shop after me to point out that I have a hole in my back pocket so large that my wallet was about to escape. I think that makes the fourth time I have nearly lost my wallet.
Monk passing an ornate door
Later Joanne and I took a walk into the real Tibetan end of town to look for the start of the outer kora, a Buddhist pilgrim path around the monastery. We couldn't find the start of the walk, which takes you along the ridge high above the town. We weren't too bothered though, as the walk around the Tibetan end of town had been lovely, and Joanne didn't really feel up to the hike anyway. We took a break, during which we spent a bit more time online planning the New Zealand leg of our trip.
Ornate door
Tibetan family
Monks getting out of class
In the afternoon we decided just to walk around the inner kora which is three kilometres long and passes 1174 prayer wheels. Many of the inhabitants make this journey at least once a day, spinning each prayer wheel as they pass. The wheels are each painted with the same ornate design and it's fascinating to watch so many Buddhists, ranging from monks to very Westernised-looking people, all going through this same ritual. We followed the path all the way around the monastery and monks' quarters to just above the town, from where we could look down on some of those buildings, while above us on the hillside were little meditation huts.
Small part of the kora
Prayer wheels along the kora
Monk spinning a big corner prayer wheel
View down the prayer wheels
View other way down the prayer wheels
Fortress-like Tibetan architecture
Mani stone carved in the hillside
The top part of the kora, passed the mediation huts
The monks querters around the monastery
Last part of the kora
Just coming to the end of our circuit, we bumped into Reitse, who told us that he had heard that, although the town was open to Westerners, it was only supposed to be people in tour groups who were allowed. This explained all the hassle we had getting there.
Doing the kora
Reitse from Freisland
written by  The Happy Couple on August 8, 2009 from Xiàhé, China

Monastery of a Living Buddha
Xiàhé, China
In the morning we went on a guided tour of the monastery. Labrang Monastery makes Xiàhé the most important Tibetan Buddhist town outside Lhasa as it is the seat of the Jamyang, a line of reincarnated living Buddhas third in importance after the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama. For this reason the town apparently attracts many Tibetans on pilgrimage.
Our guide
Our guide was a monk, who took us round the monastery's buildings explaining about the monks' lives and their religious practice. He had been living in the monastery since he was eight and seemed quite happy with his lot. Tibetan Buddhism seems very heavily influenced by Hinduism and features one thousand Buddhas who are worshipped as gods, not to mention a multitude of protector spirits, of which there were many paintings around the monastery, painted in an incredibly Hindu style and very much resembling the Hindu goddesses Kali or Durga. This is not at all the way I had understood Buddhism to work; I didn't think there were gods as such and I'm sure that the Buddha, Siddharta Gautama, did not intend for people following his teachings to worship him or any other Buddhas.
The monastery
Most of the buildings featured an image of Maitreya the future Buddha who he informed us is extremely important. He told us that they were members of the Yellow Hat Sect and this is one of six temples dedicated to their sect. He explained that they focused their studies mostly on philosophy and music, whereas other sects such as the Red Sect tended to focus more on medicine. Every building we entered, our guide started with “This building was not destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, so everything is original” then for a couple of buildings he said “This was completely destroyed during the Cultural Revolution”. He clearly had no love for the Chinese and made occasional snide but fairly light-hearted remarks about the Chinese tourists who visit the monastery. Throughout our tour we were only just ahead of a noisy Chinese group.
The car park in front of the monastery
There used to be over four thousand monks in the monastery, he told us, but the numbers were greatly reduced during the Cultural Revolution and currently the numbers are restricted by the Chinese government to twelve hundred. He explained that their line of living Buddhas was third in importance after the Panchen and Dalai lamas who, explained, choose each other's successor when one of them dies. While he was talking about that I remembered the posters we had seen in Macleodganj protesting about the Chinese government's kidnapping of the Panchen Lama when he was six years old. He has been missing for over a decade now, so I asked what would happen if the Dalai Lama died without the Panchen Lama being found and he said “Yes. It's a big problem in Buddhism”. He said he couldn't say very much because it's difficult to talk about these things since the recent trouble. The day before Reitse's guide had told him that during one wave of protests, twenty thousand soldiers arrived and announced that they would be staying in the monastery, where they stayed until they had searched the quarters of every monk and taken dozens away for questioning. Many of them had still not been released.
Unfortunately the weather wasn't very nice that day, so we didn't spend much time outside taking photographs and we were not permitted to take any inside.
We spent all afternoon working on our New Zealand itinerary, not wanting to run into the kind of transport difficulties we did in China. That evening we returned to the same Tibetan restaurant we had eaten on the first night and had a delicious meal. Afterwards we finalised our New Zealand plan and even went as far as booking all the transport: we had discovered a cheap bus company called Naked Bus, which worked out much cheaper than hiring a camper van, paying for petrol, and parking it in places with facilities, which had been our original plan. The final missing piece in our plan was the return flight from the south to the north Island in time for our flight to Santiago. Excited by the fact we were now thinking about Santiago we even started to work on our South America plan, resulting in an eye-stinging six hours online.
Yak hot pot
Joanne's nice Tibetan food
Tibetan bread
Muslim tea
written by  The Happy Couple on August 9, 2009 from Xiàhé, China

Grim Hotel and Weird Fruit
Lanzhou, China
We were up early for our 7:30am bus to Lanzhou. On the way out of the Tibetan autonomous zone we weren't expecting any trouble at all which meant that we would be able to take the direct bus to Lanzhou instead of changing buses at Linxia, however when I asked at the desk for Lanzhou at 7:05am I was given tickets for 8:30am. Using the increasingly helpful Mandarin dictionary I'd downloaded to my phone I went back and said “now” in Mandarin. I was very pleased when she clearly understood what I had said (Mandarin is very hard) but not so pleased when she made it clear that there was no bus before the 8:30 one.
Disheartened I sat back down next to Joanne and we settled in for a wait. Presently some Chinese people appeared near us and started to become quite agitated, raising their voices and looking very angry. Soon one of them sat down next to us and it turned out she was an English teacher. She asked if we were also waiting for the 8:30 bus and I asked what they were upset about. Apparently they had bought tickets for the 7:30 bus the previous day but when they turned up at 7:15 the bus had already gone. I told her that it must have been gone ten minutes before that because it wasn't there when we arrived. She was from Suzhou and had enjoyed her stay except for the terrible service from the bus, she said. I thought it was pretty much par for the course in Asia, but I didn't say that.
The direct bus was much faster and we had no problems taking the two local buses required to get us to the airport, where our hotel was. Our flight from Lanzhou to Guangzhou the next day was pretty early and just the start of a very long and complicated day which would get us onto the plane to New Zealand, so we didn't want the extra hassle of getting to the airport so early, probably before the airport bus was running and we had been quite pleased when the hostel in Xi'an had been able to book the airport hotel for us.
Everything had gone remarkably smoothly since we left Xiàhé but, when we arrived at the airport we realised we hadn't asked for the name of the hotel to be written down in Chinese and we weren't even sure what its name was in pinyin. We knew there we three airport hotels so we were going to have to go into each in turn and find out if it was the place. Not as easy as it sounds: none of the buildings opposite the airport had anything other than Chinese signs so we weren't even certain where the three hotels were. One was obvious so we decided to start there but, once inside, it all started to become a bit farcical: we tried saying what we thought the name of the hotel was but, without it written down, we couldn't be sure she was understanding even if we did have the name right. It was a total failure and we were about to leave and look for the other hotels when the girl had an idea and reached for a piece of paper under the desk. She showed it to us an pointed at it then us. It said “Joanne McAllister” on it. A miracle! What a lucky and easy day this was after all.
The hotel was awful. So much for luck! Being a hotel rather than a hostel it was quite a bit more expensive than we usually paid, reasoning it was worth it to avoid all the hassle in the morning, but it was absolutely minging and our room had clearly not been cleaned: there was still toilet paper in the bin and the towel had obviously been used. I took a shower and the drain was blocked so that the bathroom filled with so much water it was threatening to overflow past the lip designed to keep the bedroom dry. In another victory for my Mandarin skills I managed to say to the girl on the desk that the room was not clean then, just to be sure, I showed her a line from the phrase book translating as “Please will you clean my room” and we went out for food. When we came back the room had been cleaned a bit, but the floor had obviously not been vacuumed in a very long time. Oh well it was only for one night.
Funny pear crossed with aubergine fruit
It was probably worth it because in the morning we just got up and walked across the road to the airport with our bags. We had plenty of time to wait around and I bought myself one of the strangest fruits I've tasted. It looked a bit like an aubergine crossed with a pear, which I thought was quite pretty, but it also tasted a bit like an aubergine crossed with a pear, which was not very pleasant, but very very unusual.
written by  The Happy Couple on August 10, 2009 from Lanzhou, China

Goodbye China and Asia!
Hong Kong, Hong Kong
The aeroplane left Lanzhou and landed a couple of hours later in Xi'an where there was a short stop-off before continuing to Hong Kong. I was hoping we could just sit on the plane and read but we were forced to get off, hang around the airport for a bit, and then get back on the plane to continue to Guangzhou. Even on aeroplanes, Chinese people seem to think it's still OK to go to the toilet and smoke, but they clearly don't have the smoke detectors set up to identify smokers and nobody did anything about it. The smoking is one aspect of China I really won't miss.
We took off from Xi'an early and landed thirty minutes ahead of schedule. This was great because we had a succession of transport links which would get us to Hong Kong airport, with not much time to spare, although we had allowed a fair amount of leeway at every step. The plan was Lanzhou to Guangzhou by plane; airport shuttle bus from Guangzhou airport to Guangzhou East Train Station; train from Guangzhou to Kowloon in Hong Kong; then the airport express from Kowloon Station. The crucial step was the train journey from Guangzhou to Kowloon and our original schedule had us waiting for quite a while for a train there, which would get us to Hong Kong only just in time to check in, so I wasn't very happy about it at all. I hoped that we would get there early enough to get the previous train, but an alternative and possibly more complicated plan if we didn't get the previous train to Kowloon was to get a train instead to Shenzhen, just inside China then walk over the border to Hong Kong, where we could get on the Hong Kong Metro and take that to the airport.
When it all seemed to be going so smoothly the luggage belt stopped just as we got there. Then when they finally restarted it my bag was one of the last off and we could see all of our advantage evaporating. Waiting for the shuttle bus, I noticed some black stuff over the back of my big rucksack. Could it be that the Chilli Bovril I had been taking round the world since South Africa had smashed in my bag and leaked through? It seemed quite likely. This was the first time I had packed it without the protection of the plastic cups I had been shoving the jar in. I did not relish the thought of trying to clean up the black sticky mess of smashed glass from all over my clothes while rushing to make it in time for the international flight.
The shuttle bus took us across Guangzhou too late for the train I wanted to catch, which meant we would have to wait for one hour forty minutes for the next one, leaving us with no margin at all. I suggested to Joanne that we should consider that Shenzhen train instead but she was not keen on the complication of not knowing what the border crossing entailed or where the metro station in the other side was. So we waited. At least the wait meant I had time to investigate my bag, discovering to my huge relief that the black sticky mess did not originate inside my bag. Some other person on the Guangzhou plane was now dealing with a mess in their bag some of which had leaked onto mine. Unlucky for them!
The train left more-or-less on time, but soon after it left the station it stopped for ten minutes. We were getting quite worried. It never seemed to get up to full speed and it stopped several more times. This was supposed to be an express! Eventually it arrived, forty minutes late, meaning that we would maybe make before the check-in closed but only if we got the airport express immediately. After going through customs at the station we ran up the stairs to find our where the airport express leaves from. It leaves from Kowloon Station we were told. But surely that's where we are: we had bought tickets to Kowloon and arrived at Hung Hom which we had seen online is Kowloon Station. It turned out we must have misread something or seen a mistake on a website: Hung Hom is in Kowloon, but Kowloon Station is actually a different one. We were stuffed! There was nothing to do but run outside and flag down a taxi. The taxi driver was not getting into bartering: it's a good price, he said, because he was going to pick someone up at the airport anyway. Hong Kong is definitely still not China. No bartering and very high prices, but Joanne reminded me how much the airport express would have been and the taxi was actually only slightly more at HK$250, so we agreed and were saved.
The flight was absolutely terrible: because we had arrived so late all of the good seats were gone and we had to take the two seats in the middle, behind the section of the plane where the put all of the children. The row in front was a couple with two young children; one of them screamed for nearly the entire twelve hour journey and the other one bounced up an down on armrests of the chair in front of me while the parents did nothing at all. After all the awful transport we had taken in Asia I remembered that aeroplanes are the most uncomfortable form of transport known to man: the moulded seats are far less comfortable than any wooden bench because they are moulded for short people and the headrest makes you crane your head forward no matter how far you recline your chair. Because of these things I find it very hard to sleep on planes so I hate night flights but, with the children on this flight it was just impossible. I don't know why children are allowed on planes. It's just selfish to take them. Nobody in our row got any sleep at all then when the aeroplane's blinds went up and it was time to wake up, the whole demon family were soundly sleeping in a row. I was tempted to start screaming and kicking the chairs, but I managed to restrain myself.
Wow!
So that was it: China over. I really enjoyed China and I'd quite like to return some time, maybe to learn the language, which fascinates me. We felt quite hesitant about returning to China after having spent time with Tibetans in Nepal and India and the cultural suppression of Tibet is appalling, however if we were to boycott all countries with unethical policies there wouldn't be very many places in the world to go, and I'd certainly not be able to return home to Britain. There is actually another side to the Tibetan issue: educational opportunities and quality of life in Tibet have improved massively, particularly the poor's, since the annexation but the suppression of culture that accompanies this is inexcusable. I would like to see Tibet proper on my return and I'd also like to see some of the more remote areas, and cross over into Mongolia to see what that is like.
Remainders of EXTREME chili Sichuan chicken dish
I was very impressed with how modern Chinese cities are and how widespread environmental measures like electric vehicles and energy-saving bulbs are; you never see an incandescent bulb in China. The low-light must be the food though. Although we had a few excellent meals and the by far the hottest food in Asia, most of the time the meat was just awful. I suppose this was partly due to not knowing what we were doing most of the time we ordered, but I think it would be hard to order nice food all the time.
Precocious Chinese children
The people are generally very nice and friendly, although in big cities this nice temperament is abused by very convincing nice friendly con-artists all over the place. The human rights record in China may not be up to much, but there is no sign of the people being unhappy. Russel, the English teacher we met in Vietnam, had been working in China and raised the human rights issue with some Chinese friends. They insisted that his concern was to completely misunderstand Eastern, particularly Chinese, psychology. They told him that Chinese people do not really have a sense of self like Westerners and to them their awareness begins at a collective level; where a Westerner sees an individual's human rights being abused, they told him, a Chinese person will just see a disruptive element being removed from society. It's hard to believe that an individual's psychology could be so collective as to virtually lose empathy for other individuals in preference for the group, but what do I know – I'm just a individualistic Westerner. Whatever the truth on an individual level, it does seem like this philosophy has been put into practice by the Chinese government: the quality of life in China has improved far faster than any other country in recent times. OK, so some individuals have suffered terribly in the process, but is it worth it if the end result is a massive uplift of society in general? My Western morals reflexively say not, but I don't think it's really as morally a straightforward choice as my gut tells me.
Kyanjin Gompa
As we flew away from China I realised that we were not just leaving China, but leaving Asia after seven months. To some extent it was a relief, because Asia can be really tough at times, but my overwhelming feeling was one of sadness. I really love Asia. There's a lawlessness that I find really exciting, augmented by the fact most of it is so busy. It's just crazy, the madness of Asia climaxing in India which somehow hangs together despite all of the chaos. But despite this lawlessness, it very rarely feels like you are in any danger from people out to do you harm. I think you are farm more likely to be involved in an accident than the West, but I am sure that you are far less likely to be a victim of crime. Of course there are exceptions, where there are high concentrations of tourists, like the Khaosan Road to Thai islands buses, but generally Asia feels extremely safe as far as danger from other people goes, but you are not protected in the same way as we are in the West. Surely this is the right way round: I would rather be responsible for my own wellbeing than having the state prevent me from doing things it considers dangerous or criminals out to damage my wellbeing? And what lovely people for the most part: from the kind and gentle Tibetan Nepalis to the ultra-cute children in Cambodia, there were many things I admired in every culture we encountered. Of course as a Westerner the difference in culture can be very frustrating: having to haggle over everything can be great fun, but it gets annoying at times, particularly in India, where the rules of fairness seem to be more flexible than in the West. Other than that most of the food is great and all of your senses are constantly assailed: apart from the delicious and sometime unusual food, it's noisy and smelly. But I think we Westerners are generally a bit too fussy about things like hygiene. Lastly, the weather is generally hot which I love, and for the most part it's very cheap so you spend a lot of time there without spending much money. So how much of shock was it going to be going in the other direction: we were heading to New Zealand where there was going to be health and safety (not sure about crime), it would be cold, and it would be expensive. Why were we going there again? At least there would be good beer and wine, something very much absent from Asia. And we would be understood wherever we went! No more struggling with tonal languages or difficult scripts. I was viewing New Zealand as a rest. A little stop off before the excitement continues in South America.
Take photo!
written by  The Happy Couple on August 11, 2009 from Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Arrival in New Zealand
Auckland, New Zealand
On the plane approaching New Zealand the passengers were all informed about the very strict customs regulations when entering New Zealand. Food in particular was very tightly controlled. This was a bit upsetting because we had just bought some quite expensive goji berries and some other unidentified brown berries from duty free in Lanzhou. What was more, I had bought several vacuum-packed chicken feet, which are such a popular snack in China. It had been my intention to post one each to a few friends as a joke, but they had told me I wasn't allowed to send them to Britain when I had tried to post one from Shanghai, so my plan had been to send them from New Zealand, where I assumed you are allowed to wrap your own parcels and post them. I thought about sneaking them in and not declaring them, despite all the warnings about how thorough they are, after all I had them stuffed inside our metal travel teapot to save space, so they wouldn't show up on the X-ray. But, after reading a few leaflets about the unique environment which needs protected from biological contaminants guilt got the better of me and I decided we had to confess all.
Customs was chaotic: coming from Hong Kong, the plane was full of Asians who had transferred from various different countries but all ones, it seemed, where you cannot leave the house without packing enough homemade food to last a week. Indians and Chinese people in particular were having to give up about half of their luggage, handing over Tupperware boxes of sauces and flat breads wrapped in tinfoil. One family was repeatedly sent back from the X-ray by increasingly irritated officials. Our berries were fine, apparently, although I had expected to have to give them up. The combination of dried and vacuum-packed seemed apparently made them safe, but the same was not true for my amusing chicken feet, which I had to watch being thrown into a hazardous waste bin. Even the trusty chilli Bovril was allowed, although I'm sure there must be some mistake there.
Through customs, I thought Auckland looked like Scotland crossed with South Africa. The big colonial-style bungalows and two-storey buildings with wrought iron balconies contributed the South African part, but I'm not sure what made it seem Scottish; maybe it was the fact it was cold, cloudy, and wet. It was different from Scotland in that there were lots of churches – and they haven't been converted into bars and restaurants! What possible other use could they have for them?
It was cold and wet in Auckland (there's the Sky Tower)
At the hostel, we were delighted to find that Berghaus had done as they said they would and sent by courier a replacement rucksack for one that broke at the start of Japan. They had been slow to respond initially and changing countries twice had confused things, but once they got going their customer service was excellent and now Joanne had a lovely new model to replace the useless one still held together by dental floss (top tip, by the way). When we got online we discovered that Joanne's friend, Sharon, had sent an email to say she had received the guide books Joanne had arranged to send to her house, so it was all going smoothly.
We were very tired from our terrible flight, but we were keen to drink some red wine and went out to get some. Drinking the wine, we got talking to a middle-aged guy who commented or complained, I couldn't tell, that Auckland is like being in a different country, there are so many Asians here. He was from the south island in New Zealand and thought it was only a matter of time before the north island becomes completely Asian. I had been thinking how strange it was to see so many white people and hadn't really noticed how many Asians there were, because I was used to seeing Asians so it didn't seem unusual. He claimed that earlier in the day four out of five people he passed were Asian. I'm sure he was exaggerating here and the demographics don't support anything like that proportion but it is true that there are quite a lot of Asian immigrants, most of them students and their families. Maybe this was good as it would break us out of Asia and into Western culture gently!
After the wine we decided to go out an explore the nightlife a bit. After a very expensive mojito in a bar that was clearly too upmarket for us, we found a cheaper one where the Irish barman, hearing that it was our first night in New Zealand, insisted on treating us to a lock-in. It was not a good move for us: we stayed out too late and drank several Green Chartreuses each, which is never a good idea as everyone only ever drinks it because it's the strongest thing in the bar (they had no absinthe, thank goodness).
written by  The Happy Couple on August 12, 2009 from Auckland, New Zealand

Brand New Zealand
Auckland, New Zealand
Our first morning in New Zealand did not start well. We couldn't clearly remember getting back to the hostel, and the plant in the hallway outside our room looked like it might have been knocked over and most of the spilt earth clumsily heaped back into the pot next to the bent plant. Some of the contents of Joanne's handbag were scattered in front of our bedroom door and the window blind was badly bent, although we're sure that this couldn't possibly have been us. It did look a bit as if someone had fallen against it, causing it to bend against the portable television positioned under the window.
Slightly puzzled but quite sure that none of the chaos could possibly have been us, we went into the kitchen to make some much-needed coffee. One of the other guests asked me if we found our keys last night. Not having any idea what he was talking about I said yes, since we must have had them to get into the room. A few minutes later the middle-aged guy we'd been speaking to early the previous evening came in and asked us if we had found our keys and not long afterwards one of the guys running the hostel asked the same question. At this point I had to admit that I had no idea what they were talking about and confess that I didn't clearly remember getting back to the hostel. He informed me that main reason for his interest was that he had lent us a spare set of keys, which he was keen to see returned, when we had been unable to locate ours in Joanne's bag. Someone had let us in at the main door, but we were stymied when it came to our own room. Very embarrassed, I rushed back to the room and found a set of keys sitting on the table next to the bed. Meanwhile Joanne found ours in her purse.
Having wasted most of the day by waking up so late, we wandered into the town centre to get a feel for the place. Considering it is the biggest town in New Zealand, Auckland is tiny but then with only 4.3 million inhabitants in the whole country, there are not many New Zealanders to go around. I kept being reminded of Glasgow but again I'm not sure why. Probably still just the cold and the rain. On the way back from town, inevitably, we passed the Irish barman who had so kindly locked us in and served us green chartreuse the previous night. I didn't feel like speaking to him; I must not drink green chartreuse again.
We behaved ourselves that night and the next day returned to town to meet Joanne's friends Sharon and Derek. They had kindly agreed to receive post for us, so they brought us our South America on a Budget and New Zealand Rough Guides; completely sick of the Lonely Planet after it was all that was available in Asia. They also brought us a DVD full of MP3s that Joanne's brother-in-law, Robert, had sent us to allow us to change some of the music on our MP3 players we had become completely bored of.
The Sky Tower - still obscured by rain
We left them and went to Auckland museum. It was really pissing down and we had to wring our clothes out in the toilets when we got there. I wasn't all that impressed with the museum, partly because the exhibits weren't in any kind of chronological order, which I found very confusing; they preferred to have a room of “Maori stuff” and another room of “Birds” and another room about “Scottish immigrants” which is all very well, but I would rather have seen how each area of interest impinged on the others and at what point in time they all intersected. It wasn't a well put together display at all.
There wasn't as much as I'd hoped about New Zealand before the Maoris arrived either. The Rough Guide had really piqued my interest when I read that Maoris probably did not arrive until the 13th Century. I had assumed that they had been there ages before the Europeans arrived but in fact they only just beat them by about four hundred years. Not that long ago a friend of mine – Gavin I think it was – had seen a promotional video by the New Zealand tourism board which had described New Zealand as “The newest country in the world” and we had both assumed that this was a piece of Euro-centric propaganda, since it was about the last place white men found, but in fact they knew what they were talking about and it was perfectly accurate. That somewhere on Earth was not inhabited by humans until so late in human history I find amazing.
What I did learn at the museum, though, I found very interesting: New Zealand split from Gondwanaland so early that it went down an entirely different evolutionary path from the rest of the world; even Australia with its weird marsupials and so on is a much more modern deviation than New Zealand. All the trees native to New Zealand are also endemic, which is further confirmation of the early isolation. Frogs native to New Zealand do not go through a tadpole phase, now generally considered de rigeur by other frogs; instead they are laid in yolky eggs, rather like reptiles, and born as froglets complete with little tails and legs. Oh yes, Creationists, you are so right: clearly Evolution is just a myth!
There were no ground-dwelling mammals on New Zealand until the Maoris arrived, bringing, apart from themselves, some kind of Polynesian rat as food, and dogs. The only mammals before were some bats, which presumably flew all the way from Australia or other Pacific islands. The explanation for the lack of mammals is that mammals had not yet evolved by the Gondwanaland separation. In turn, since New Zealand's dinosaurs suffered the same catastrophe as all the rest, this meant that there were no ground-dwelling predators and over time birds evolved to fill the niche that mammals occupy elsewhere. Unfortunately for these birds, that meant that they were flightless and defenceless against humans, dogs, and rats when they arrived.
Like many guilt-ridden Westerners, I assume, I am used to thinking of European man as the baddie who causes mass-extinctions and destruction of the ecosystem when they arrive in places previously occupied only by gentle natives in-tune with their environment. Of course this view is naïve nonsense and, like the Amerindians who were guilty of massive deforestation and the extinction of the giant sloth amongst other creatures, the Maoris' arrival caused huge upheaval in the environment and many of these flightless birds in particular were extinct not long after their arrival. I had read in the Rough Guide that Maoris occupied the North Island predominantly. What the museum added was that they had originally occupied the South Island where most of the tasty flightless Moas were to be found; this is what they lived on after the most of sub-tropical plants they had brought from Polynesia failed in the temperate climate. Then once they had eaten all of the Moas, they moved back to the North Island where these who had stayed behind were beginning to learn how to cultivate the land there. Sweet potatoes, or kumara, that's what they lived on after exterminating so much of the native fauna, the only imported crop to grow successfully in the new land. Of course the dogs and rats took their toll as well and it all added up to an ecological apocalypse.
However the Maoris' ecological damage was nothing compared to what happened when the Europeans did arrive, releasing pigs early on “so there would be something to eat” when they returned, then deer a bit later “so there would be something to hunt”; and this was before colonisation had even begun. Of course they also brought the more familiar ship stowaway rat from Europe. And cats. The remaining flightless birds were doomed: they had been hiding in the forest but, after the deforestation the Maoris had begun was brought up to an industrial pace, there was nowhere to hide from the new predators and their numbers plummeted further.
The archaeological, cultural, logistical, and linguistic evidence all points to the Maoris coming from Polynesia, probably via the Cook Islands and maybe further East before returning and heading South; legend tells of the people originating from far overseas in a place called Hawaiki. They weren't explicit in the Museum, and I'm no linguist but I assumed they were suggesting that Hawaii is where their journey began, although I didn't see that implied anywhere else.
Another source of disappointment in the museum for me, was that the Maori section said absolutely nothing about the moko, the traditional Maori facial tattoos. I had hoped to find more out about them. We had seen one woman in Auckland with her chin tattooed, but that was the extent of our moko experience thus far. The museum had lots of paintings by colonial artists, where the mokos were clearly the main subject, but the panels underneath didn't even mention them: they just told you all about the artist!
When we left the museum we were soaked again. Such Scottish weather – and we didn't have the clothes for it. We had clothes for a year-long summer. Back at the hostel even more people asked us if we had found our key; clearly the owners had been very amused and told everyone about it.
written by  The Happy Couple on August 14, 2009 from Auckland, New Zealand

A Massive Comedown
Paihia, New Zealand
This was our first test of Naked Bus, with whom we had booked our entire ground transport around New Zealand. When we arrived at the bus I showed the bus driver the text message with our reference details, just like the web site said we should. The text messages cost a little extra, but they tell you all the details you need to know when catching the bus: the time and the place the bus leaves from, as well as your reference number. The driver looked at my phone with a sneer and said “Nice phone mate, now do you want to tell me your reference number?”. Then when I tried to hand him my bag, warning him that it was heavy, he said “Well I'd be able to load it if you'd just put it down”. When I protested that I was just trying to help him, after all in Asia for seven months I had been helping bus drivers with my bag the whole time, he just responded “I'm a professional”. It was childish, but I couldn't help it: I just said “A professional what?”. He did deserve it.
When we arrived in Paihia it was quite late, so we checked in then went out for a couple of drinks. The town was clearly almost completely artificial and for the benefit of tourists. All the other people in pub were young, except for the predatory locals, and they were determined to have a party, getting very drunk and dancing on the tables. We just sat quietly at the side, drinking and watching.
Youngsters going wild
The next morning I assessed our finances and realised that our drinking the previous night and the first night in Auckland meant that we had spent several day's money. It was nice to be able to speak English again, but the cold and wet was not pleasant and now I was realising that the cost of New Zealand was not really our thing either.
Our time in New Zealand was quite short so we only had two nights in most places, Paihia included, however we had realised after arriving late on our first day that we were leaving early after our second night, so we really only had one full day there. It wasn't nice weather and the main attraction of Paihia is supposed to be the scenery in the Bay of Islands. The weather as it was, we didn't think we'd be able to see much on a cruise which seems to be the usual activity there. Joanne spotted a leaflet for a skydiving company in town and she seemed keen, so we decided to do that instead. The other usual option apart from a cruise is a scenic flight; this would have cost only slightly less than a skydive, so we felt we would be getting two-for-one. As far as the budget was concerned it simply couldn't be counted or else New Zealand just wouldn't work out at all. I wasn't sure how we'd square that but what does that matter when you're about to jump out of a plane?
Joanne getting ready to jump
Finishing touches to Joanne's kit
During the briefing before our jump they asked if we wanted videos and photos of our jumps. Since it would almost double the cost and neither of us are fond of the lens-end of cameras, particularly video cameras, we said no but, just as I had feared, they said they would film it anyway so we could decide afterwards. I just thought of this situation that we were going to have to feel awkward and self-conscious without even getting a video as reward at the end of it. Joanne's tandem partner was jumping with a video camera in one hand, whereas my video was to be taken by a solo jumper rather than my tandem. Sure enough, they irritated and embarrassed us by making lots of faces close-up in the camera then shoving it in ours for us to do the same; there was considerable use of words like “crazee”, “rad”, “awesome”, and so on, as well as lots of “cool” hand signs and fake excited screams. It was really tiresome and we responded by doing nothing but looking embarrassed, which probably only encouraged them into greater heights of hardcore wkd awesomeness, or something. I wished they would just leave us alone to meditate on the absurdity of jumping out of a plane and enjoy the free incidental scenic flight, which was affording very lovely views of the Bay of Islands.
I have skydived once before, over the Namib Desert, and loved it, so I wasn't anything like as nervous this time. Joanne had been excited and looking forward to it until we got on the plane, when the engine noise and cameras made quiet discussion impossible; now she looked nervous. Last time I had been so anxious at the point we jumped, I couldn't really remember that part of it and only really became aware again a couple of seconds later. This time, not being so overwhelmed, I was able to take it all in. We tumbled right over before my tandem partner stabilised our fall and flattened us out. I had missed that last time. Next I was aware of lots of damp, icy wind hitting my face, very painfully; this didn't happen last time in the desert! My ears were also getting very sore and I wished I was wearing a balaclava or a deer-stalker at least. Only when the parachute was deployed did I realise that the ear pain was mostly due to the pressure build up, not just the wind, and I equalised my ears just like you have to do when scuba diving. With the ferocious biting wind reduced to a breeze, I was able to appreciate the view again as we floated slowly down to Earth.
When we landed, the camera was in my face again: what did you think of that? I was asked. I just said freezing, which wasn't at all the answer they were looking for. I don't know if it was just the discomfort or if it's that you can never get that same first-time high back again, but I wouldn't say this jump was anything more than OK. Last time I had thought it was the best thing I had ever done. Joanne had loved it, so maybe the first-time theory was correct, and she hadn't really noticed the cold, although she did prefer the floaty parachute bit more than the free-fall, which I reckon was probably subconsciously because of the cold. No sooner were we indoors again and the hard-sell for the video started. Joanne's was edited and ready in no time and we were sat down to watch it. The company owner was very pleased with Joanne's apparently. My video wasn't so good because the solo jumper had not managed to keep close to us and I was just a dot in the distance for most of it. We explained that we really couldn't afford to buy them, and this is why we had originally said we didn't want one. This wasn't strictly true: the main reason we had said no was that we didn't want the cameras to be there the whole time, but now that we had gone through that anyway, there was no way we were going to be further inconvenienced by paying a fortune for the evidence. Joanne did want her video though, so I thought we could maybe cut a deal by spinning it so as to emphasise the financial aspect. He soon agreed to give us Joanne's DVD for about one third of the asking price, after all they had filmed and written it anyway, hadn't they? He threw mine in for free since it wasn't much good. Clearly our time in Asia had trained us well in the art of negotiation; he had never stood a chance!
written by  The Happy Couple on August 16, 2009 from Paihia, New Zealand

Better Than Brioche (or Cake)!
Rotorua, New Zealand
The bus journey to Rotorua took most of the day. We had included Rotorua in our New Zealand itinerary as it is billed as the place for maoritanga, Maori culture, and we were to stay there for three nights since, after feeling rushed in China, I thought this was the minimum necessary for a town; for scenery I felt it was OK to swoop in, take photos and leave again, after all we had only three weeks for the whole country. Rotorua and the nearby Bay of Plenty is where most of the Maoris have lived since settling on the North Island, and I wanted to learn more – and maybe meet some Maoris.
Surely an Uphall is all that's required
On the way, the bus stopped at a small place for lunch, where a sign greatly amused me: it was for a probus club, the word probus being defined, I thought, in The Meaning of Liff by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Meaning_of_Liff ), the text of which can be found here: http://folk.uio.no/alied/TMoL.html. A little research has revealed that it does not feature there, but it was probably the Official Supplement to the Meaning of Liff and a clue to the meaning may be found here, where there is a small excerpt: http://www.2000ad.org/oscar/liff.htm.
By that evening we had accepted that we were not going to be able to afford to eat in restaurants or drink in bars. It was the supermarket for us. For the first time since leaving South Africa the supermarkets were almost like home: we were enjoying drinking red wine and good coffee, and eating wholemeal bread, pasta, cheese, spicy food, and cold meats. Meat, particularly beef, seemed very cheap compared to Scotland, whereas I had expected lamb to be the cheapest; maybe they export enough to keep the prices up. Vegetables were very expensive though. Oh well, let them eat steak! It was also nice to have the opportunity to cook for ourselves again: hostels and guesthouses in Asia don't have kitchens. At the same time it would have been nice to go out too, but New Zealand is just too expensive. At least hardly anyone in New Zealand smokes and it's banned in commercial buildings, which was a nice change after China.
Another, not so welcome, change we were starting to realise was not just an aberration is that beds in New Zealand are disgustingly soft. We like a firm bed anyway, but months in Asia had got us used to the firmness of futons or tatami. We hadn't slept very well so far on the marshmallows they call mattresses, and we were developing lots of joint and muscle aches and pains.
Also, I had been hoping to get some peace and quiet in New Zealand after the constant racket of Asia. I was viewing New Zealand as a bit of a break from travel, really, a rest between difficult continents, a home antipodally away from home, and it did feel quite like that. Since I expected it to be much like home, I wasn't expecting much interesting culturally out of New Zealand, with the exception of maoritanga; I was mostly here for the fantastic scenery everyone raves about. But I did also expect some peace. Unfortunately, New Zealanders and the people who travel there all seem to be addicted to television. We had hardly seen any TV for all the months we had been in Asia and I had not missed it one bit, but now that we were back in Western culture, we were constantly subjected to this, one of its greatest diseases.
We spent out first full day in Rotorua walking about town. Other than maoritanga, Rotorua is famous for its geothermal activity. And the smell of rotten egg. Actually the smell wasn't as bad as I had been led to believe, but I did keep thinking I had ham and egg sandwiches in my rucksack.
Black swan on the sulphurous lake
More black birds
First we took the walk in the Government Gardens, past some Victorian bath houses, and along next to Lake Rotorua. We gave the hot baths a miss since we had done that in Japan. On the bank of the lake there was some bubbling mud and steaming pools. It was pleasant enough, but not exactly exciting or beautiful. Apart from the geothermal stuff it could have been a flat bit of Scotland or a hilly bit of England; again the cold probably helped this impression, but at least it wasn't raining here.
Bubbly mud next to the lake
Detail on Maori church
The lakeside walk passed a Maori war boat on display then ended at Ohinemutu, the city's original Maori village. There is a lovely ornately carved church, but not much else, certainly nothing else particularly Maori, so I was a bit let down. We were in Rotorua for maoritanga and this was the Maori village but, aside from the church, it was just a modern housing estate, except that most of the houses had steam coming streaming out of little chimneys presumably coming from the hot spas they each had indoors, and some had bubbling pools in their gardens. Where were the Maoris? In fact, where was anybody? If you're not near a television New Zealand is really quiet, in fact it's empty: 4.3 million people in a country bigger than Britain feels quite lonely after Asia!
Maori church
All that really remained to see was Kuirau Park which is the main hotspot in town, so we walked around steaming ponds and saw some more bubbling mud, which all created a nice spooky atmosphere. And eggy. So that was it: Rotorua in a morning and, although there were more Maoris walking in the street than Auckland or Paihia, I didn't really feel we had connected with the Maori soul. There was nothing for it: we had to book a tour. Generally opposed to tours and hardly believing that it would be an authentic experience, we had barely read the leaflets but, since we were there for Maoris and saw no other place to find Maori culture, shelled out more than we could afford and booked a Maori experience evening for the next night.
Steaming pool in the park
Somehow very Calvinistic view of a pool in the park
written by  The Happy Couple on August 18, 2009 from Rotorua, New Zealand

Great Tribe of Fifteen Nations
Rotorua, New Zealand
We spent most of the next day in the hostel escaping the rain, me getting irritated by a group of Irish girls who seemed to be so addicted to television that they required it for background noise. They kept walking away leaving the confounded machine on, so I kept getting up to switch it off. Then, a few minutes later, they would return, immediately switch it back on, then sit down and start chatting away, completely ignoring it. Trying to concentrate on my book, I wished I could ignore it so easily. I suppose the background noise must just remind them of their family homes.
Later on we were off for our evening of Maori culture. A minibus going round all the hotels and hostels picked us up and took us to Mitai, the “Maori village” not far out of town. I hadn't really been looking forward to this event, expecting it to make me cringe agonisingly. I was expecting something similar to a “Zulu village” I'd been to in South Africa. They were living in mud huts, wearing animal skins, carrying spears, doing traditional dances for the whites, and the women were all topless. After we left, outside, we saw the same people, wearing jeans and tee-shirts, get into their cars and drive off. Fair enough, but they had presented it as if they were all living in this Zulu enclosure, as if it was real life. Luckily Mitai was nothing like that.
We filed in, paid, and sat at our allotted tables. A Maori MC with a microphone started to welcome us. He kept referring to us as “Tribe of the Four Winds” and Great Tribe of Many Nations and said he would deal with each nation individually, welcoming them in their own language. Quite a bold claim! He almost succeeded, but he was stumped by Guam and the slightly dubious Cornwall, but both of the natives from these places could say only hello and nothing else anyway. For the other thirteen countries, he was able to engage in a little banter. When I said Scotland he said to me “How's it goin'?” then said an Englishman had told him to say “There's a moose loose aboot this hoose”. But he managed Welsh, Irish, Japanese, Portuguese, Maori of course, French, Dutch, Afrikaans, and colloquial English greetings from the US, Canada, and Australia. There must have one or two others I've forgotten (Spanish or Italian maybe), but it was really quite impressive. The young boy who said he was from Guam informed him that hello is haffadai (don't know the spelling) in whatever the official language is there and the host clearly filed it away: he turned to an older Maori guy sitting behind him and said “not a whole day, but half-a-day – that should be easy to remember”. After that we were “Great Tribe of Fifteen Nations”. An Irish chief was chosen from our great tribe after the young Guamese boy was told he was too young to be a chief.
The hangi waiting to be revealed
Next we were encouraged to don some traditional blankets and plastic ponchos that were hanging up ready for us, and venture out into the cold and rain to see where our dinner was being prepared. I was already relieved that this was tongue-in-cheek enough that we would not be expected to believe any nonsense like the Zulu village. We all huddled round while he exposed his hangi to us. Hangi is the traditional Maori way of preparing food: you light a fire and put rocks in it, meanwhile digging a pit. Then you put the very hot rocks at the bottom of the pit and pile up all the food you want to cook: meat and kumara. Then you put a wet blanket on top to retain all the steam.
The hangi revealed
Traditionally there would have been fresh mussels as the first layer on top of the rocks, releasing a nice seafood steam when they open, but ours didn't have this; it was lamb and chicken, neither of which the Maoris would have had before the Pakeha arrived, as well as potatoes, again brought by the Pakeha, and kumara, maybe the only authentic ingredient. Having gathered round to see the food uncovered, we were taken away to see Maori warriors arrive by canoe. Apparently the costumes and canoe were authentic reproductions. We were all freezing, wrapped up in warm clothes, blankets, and waterproof ponchos, but these poor guys were just wearing some skins.
Maori "warriors" paddling down the river
Maori show underway
We followed the “warriors” up to the tribal building, where our chief was ritually challenged by a spear-wielding warrior and offered a gift, which he had to accept or else do battle. He was then required to address their chief and offer our thanks which he cunningly did in Irish. The formalities over, we were then treated to a short Maori concert of traditional singing and dancing, after which the chief made a speech in Maori. When he finished he said “OK you can clap now... and I can speak English”. The next thing he said was that as Maoris, they no longer live like this; they live in the Western world, but they still like to remember their traditions and like to be Maori. Thank goodness: definitely not a repeat of the Zulus. They proceeded to a display of Maori martial arts, various instruments, some legends, and then a brief explanation of the moko: it represent the four “birds” important to Maoris.
Maoris near the end of their show
The bat is represented on the forehead, the kiwi on the cheeks, the parrot on the nose, and the owl on the chin. Women also have the owl, only, which represents protection because they protect the children. He went on to say that traditionally the moko is earned over a lifetime, and literally chiselled into the face then the wounds filled with soot. Nowadays, he added, I can get mine in just five minutes with the help of paint and a brush. More relief! One of the demonstrations incorporated both martial arts and music: poi. The men used a rope with a weight on the end as an exercise to strengthen their wrists for battle, but the women soon adopted them and turned it into a game then a percussion instrument. We had seen poi in the museum in Auckland, where I had already wondered how on earth a traditional Maori art came to be ubiquitous on the beaches of Thailand, albeit on fire, and at any hippie or trance event on the planet. The finished their performance with their haka. Each tribe has their own, the bulging eyes and sticking out tongue apparently conveying that your enemy's flesh looks delicious. “But we're no longer cannibals”, the chief assured us.
Finally it was time to eat. On the way back to the food hall someone said to the MC that the “warriors” must be cold in their loin cloths and he responded “that's why I drive the bus”. The food was delicious, and the first time we'd eaten lamb in New Zealand. It was a buffet, which I normally try to avoid, due to my propensity to overconsume, but since we had paid so much money for the evening, overconsumption was mandatory. The hangi cooking method certainly seemed to leave make the meat succulent. At the end we were invited to re-don our traditional plastic ponchos and come into the forest to see some glow worms. Some people seemed to be too afraid to turn off their provided torches, so much of the time we could see nothing but, when we managed to get away from those people we could see that there were thousands of little dots of light all round the forest. At the start of the walk he had shone his torch directly on what seemed to be beetles. Apparently those we the glow worms.
It was a great evening and, although it was totally artificial, at least it was all done with a sense of humour and they were honest about it. It seemed to be the only opportunity we would have to experience maoritanga.
written by  The Happy Couple on August 19, 2009 from Rotorua, New Zealand

Wellied
Wellington, New Zealand
Before catching the bus to Wellington, we sent off a volley of Couchsurfing requests for Santiago, encouraged by the fact we were about to head off to our second ever Couchsurfing host. Finally our hours and hours of work had paid off!
When we went to get the bus I obediently left my bag down because of the scolding I had received in Auckland for trying to pass my bag to the driver. This time it was a female driver and she said “Can you bring the bags over? I'm sick of carrying other people's bags. I'm not paid to carry other people's bags”, so it seemed like all New Zealand bus drivers are grumpy, but each in their own individual little way. This is odd because generally kiwis are extremely nice. Actually another exception seems to be the people who own cafes that the buses stop at: most of these cafes have nasty signs up warning you that you are not allowed to eat any of your own food even if you buy something to drink, “This is not Macdonalds! Food takes longer than 10 minutes!” and lots of other angry-looking signs; lists of rules in a little road-side cafe. Several times we had to shiver outside in the rain, to eat our pre-made sandwiches, and only then go inside to order our hot coffee. I wondered, coming out of one of those places, why the owner's friends had not suggested that the hospitality industry wasn't really his field; maybe because he didn't have any friends. But all this only made it seem more like home: where would the world be without Highland hospitality? I bet he had a Scottish surname. What they need are Aussies, South Africans, and East Europeans, who have revolutionised the hospitality industry in Scotland.
When we arrived in Wellington, Stephan, our German host, kindly picked us up at the bus stop. We had a couple of bottles of wine and chatted with him. He is a computer programmer, with permanent residence in New Zealand, working for clients mostly in Germany. He does his web-based work via the internet. It's my dream, I told him, how does he do it? Apparently there is a German website where you can register. I've still not checked, but I am dreaming that there is an English language equivalent, so we can live in Nepal earning European wages. Or somewhere else. Stephan was very accommodating, but his living room, where we were located, was a bit on the chilly side; and it had a cat in it. I love cats, but I'm also slightly allergic to them. I just had to remember not to touch my eyes after touching the cat. We had known about the cat in advance as it was on his Couchsurfing profile, so I could hardly complain. Self control, that was all I needed.
Joanne didn't sleep because of the cold, but I had been alright. And I woke up without itchy or swollen eyes! I had managed not to transfer cat hairs to my eyelids, which I regarded as a personal triumph. We had been told that the Wellington Museum is the best one in New Zealand so, despite the disappointment of the Auckland one, we thought we should go. After Auckland we had decided to restrict our museum visits to those considered the best.
View from Stephan's lovely home
With the daylight, we could see that Stephan's flat was in a fantastic location and the view was stunning. Wellington is a port surrounded by hills, one of which Stephan's flat was on, hence the great view. It reminded by quite a lot of Cape Town which has the same sea-plus-hills formula, which is almost always a winner. Stephan told us we were very lucky because “windy Welly” hardly ever sees the sun and it was a gorgeous day. We were already forgetting what the sun was like, so were keen to get out in it.
View from the waterfront
We got the bus into town, shocked at how expensive the transport was after Asia where local transport is usually properly socialised and cheap, in particular China. When we got off and walked to the harbour, we couldn't bear just to go into a dark museum and lingered a while, people-watching. There was one particular harbour-side bar-restaurant with a large balcony, which we were very tempted by, but we decided instead to walk all the way along the front before making any rash decisions. After picking up venison burgers from a kiosk, we decided to go back to the balcony bar and drink a glass of wine or a beer in the sun. It reminded me so much of Cape Town waterfront I was feeling positively homesick for the place. When we returned the business lunch crowd were out in force and the only table left on the balcony was reserved. Furious with the result of our indecision we headed back towards the museum, noting that you should never put off for five minutes a beer you can have now.
The waterfront
Kayakers coming into the harbour
Next door to the museum was a microbrewery. How could we not? There weren't any seats there either, but there were benches at the very boundary of the drinking area where we found a couple of spaces. And we sat in the sun and had a couple of beers / wines for Joanne. Then a couple more drinks, watching the Welly skateboarders out in force. Some of the beer was quite nice; of course I had to try all of them to decide which I liked best.
Sk8!
More skateboarding
Finally we felt obliged to go into the museum, but we were just slightly to sozzled to get much out of it. It did seem like a really good museum, with lots of interactive exhibits and much better organised than the Auckland one had been. Actually thinking about it, much of what I said I learned from the Auckland museum was probably from Wellington instead, just too fuzzily remembered to place correctly. We enjoyed it but it was wasted on us. Or were we wasted in it? After about just a week of cold, rainy weather, we could not see a sunny day go by without sitting around enjoying it. How are we ever going to adjust back to Scotland?
Dusk over the harbour
Joanne had offered to cook for Stephan to thank him for hosting us, so she cooked pasta and pesto with roasted vegetables. It cost us a fortune. I've said it before, but vegetables are really expensive in New Zealand. It would almost certainly have been cheaper to cook three steaks instead. Stephan's flatmates happened also to be entertaining that night, so we joined them drinking and talking after our meal. His flatmates and most of their friends were seismologists, Wellington being a world centre for it, receiving San Francisco levels of earthquakes. One of the guests was a cosmologist, which is my own field, and she had of course heard of my evil ex-supervisor George Ellis, “he's famous”, she said, although nobody outside of cosmology circles thinks so. We stayed up late and drank many bottles of wine. Everyone insisted the weather in Wellington is never like this. I suspected this was a lie perpetuated by Wellingtonites (Wellies?) to prevent other people from moving there. From what we saw it was a really lovely city, although in the wind and rain the allure of the hills and waterfront may have diminished somewhat.
The next morning Stephan drove us to the ferry terminal, which we had not thought very necessary until we saw that the terminal for our ferry company was much further out of the city than the terminal we had seen. What a gracious host! And what a lucky sod as far as his work goes. We were very lucky that he could host us because later that day he was leaving for China to spend some time with his Chinese girlfriend in Beijing, where he could continue doing the same German-rates work.
written by  The Happy Couple on August 21, 2009 from Wellington, New Zealand

Sweet kiwis and dry wine
Blenheim, New Zealand
First tantalising glimpse of the South Island
The ferry trip to the South Island was very pretty, although the wine from last night's dinner party meant that we didn't have our best sea legs on. It wasn't just a matter of sailing away from one coast and landing at the other: it was about one hour at each end of channels and islets, a complicated jigsaw of land rather like Scotland's West Coast. Much of it reminded me of the ferry journey to the remote Knoydart peninsula in Scotland. The only real difference in the ladscape was that it is covered in trees in New Zealand because, I supposed, the English didn't cut all of them down in New Zealand. It was beautiful. Finally it seemed like we were getting to where this famous New Zealand scenery was.
Queen Charlotte Sound
Nice wee house in Queen Charlotte Sound
Me!
When we got off the ferry, I checked the text message instruction from Naked Bus. It said that the pick up was from the train station, near the ferry terminal. We had incorrectly remembered that it was at the ferry terminal so we hurried, panicking, to the train station. We were there in plenty of time, but there was no sign of a naked bus. Confusingly, the text message said that the pick-up point was “On the platform”. Clearly this was crazy talk, but I went onto the train station platform and had a look; as one might expect, there were no buses on the platform, Naked or otherwise, and no people waving a Naked Bus flag, saying “follow me” or anything, so I returned to outside the train station. Joanne asked the information place across the road and they told us that it wouldn't actually be a Naked Bus, but an Atomic Shuttle instead. Well it would have been nice if they had mentioned that in the text message, but at least we were forewarned now. We watched another bus come and go; we heard a train leave the station, but there was no sign of any Atomic Shuttle or Naked Bus.
A couple of minutes after the bus was due, I dialed the number you are supposed to dial “if you have any problems” on our New Zealand SIM card. A recorded message told me I couldn't dial premium rate numbers, so Joanne went back across the road to the information place to buy a phone card to dial the “help” number on their public phone. After about ten minutes, she came back raging; phone cards for public phones cannot dial premium rate numbers either. My phone with the UK SIM card couldn't dial premium rate New Zealand numbers either, so I phoned customer services on the New Zealand SIM, incurring the NZ$1 charge, only to be told that there is no “unlock” for premium numbers. Our bus wasn't there and there was no way for us to phone the number for help! We didn't know what to do, so I went into the train station to ask just in case there was a train to Blenheim from the port. There was one a day, but it had left just ten minutes ago. The lady behind the desk at the train station was extremely nice and helpful, and explained that they get a lot of Naked Bus customers very confused, never knowing whether they are supposed to get a bus or a train and wrote a complaint email on our behalf. “You won't get any money back from them, though”, she assured us.
A short time online across the road, at the information place who had told us to look out for the Atomic Shuttle, revealed that we should have been on the train. The text messages we had paid extra for, so that we wouldn't have to print out the instructions, were truncated to one sms length, which meant that some vital facts were missed, like it was not a Naked Bus we would be getting and it wasn't a bus at all. There was no way to contact them on the website and we couldn't phone them, so we just had to give in and accept that we had lost out. We saw now on the website that Naked Bus only actually run on the North Island; on the South Island they contract the routes out to other companies. Luckily there was an Atomic Shuttle four hours later and, since this was our shortest journey in New Zealand, it didn't cost us too much to replace our train journey with this minibus. There wasn't that much to do in Picton where we were stranded so we just waited in a bar.
We only had to phone when we arrived in Blenheim and we were picked up in the hostel minibus. On the way to the hostel, the guy who had picked us up told us that they were having an international night where the guests at the hostel were all cooking a dish from their native country for everyone else to share. It sounded nice, but it would have meant us improvising something Scottish in 30 minutes from the meagre bag of food we had brought with us. In retrospect we could have made porridge, but I don't think it would have gone down very well for dinner. The hostel was really nice and the staff were very friendly.
After everyone had finished their dinner we went to join them for a drink in the “shed” which was a small building detached from the hostel with a darts board and table tennis and, of course, a beer fridge. It reminded me of a school six year common room and I got the impression the staff more or less left the place alone. Everyone else at the hostel was working in the area, mostly as pruners on the local vineyards; in contrast they asked us if we were “just passing through”. They were a nice crowd and the atmosphere among them was excellent after several weeks working together. After most of them had gone to bed the Irish guys we were talking to produced a bottle of Jamieson's from the freezer. I would have thought this to be sacrilege, but they insisted we try it. Apparently a German guy had done the same a few weeks previously and they were totally sold on the idea. It goes down so smoothly they enthused, whereas I like the way that whisk(e)y burns when it's neat. We weren't complaining though.
Not having been prepared for such a party atmosphere, we had under-catered on the alcohol front and the only nearby licensed premises was a rugby club across the road, we were told. None of the pruners had ever been in it but we decided to give it a try. Before we were even close to the door, a girl standing there called to us and waved us over, inviting us in. It was her 30th birthday and it seemed rather empty considering the time. Only a few people remained, so she invited us to sit down with them and got us drinks. She was far too sober for the end of her 30th birthday but, she explained, she had children to go home to. After a couple of drinks, more people left, bringing the number of guests down to four: us, her brother, and her ex-boyfriend, so we thought it might be time to take our leave. On the way out I asked if I could buy some of the stack of beer and she told us not to be silly, insisting that we leave with an armful for free. Kiwis really are nice! We returned to the Irishmen and shared our bounty, as well as the explanation about where we had been. More frozen Jamieson's followed.
The following day we weren't feeling much like it, particularly Joanne, after all the booze the night before, but we were in Blenheim to go wine tasting, so there was no way we weren't going to do it. The excellent hostel had bicycles to borrow for no charge, so we followed the girl's advice on which were the “best two” bikes. My back tyre needed pumped up quite a bit, Joanne's range of gears was extremely limited, and I was missing a few. What on Earth were the other bikes like if these were the best? My navigation took us a slightly longer route than intended to Hunters, the first vineyard, but the scenery was quite pleasant: rows of severely pruned vines and hills in the background.
There were some other people already tasting when we arrived: an Australian couple with a kiwi friend, who seemed to be quite a successful Maori business woman. They certainly seemed much posher than we did, arriving on bicycles, but I was still quite miffed when I realised that the tastes of each wine we were poured was less than half what the others were poured. The whites in particular were very nice, in fact we had tasted the chardonnay in the Wellington sun, which is why we had chosen to do a tasting there. Since they had started before us, we had missed a couple of wines that the others had tasted and they were ready to leave before us. The Maori woman asked us casually which wine was our favourite, then immediately bought a bottle of the chardonnay for us, despite our slight protestations. It's a wedding present she explained. This was the first thing we had received on the trip for our wedding; we had hoped that being on honeymoon would guarantee us upgrades on every flights, but so far we had received nothing. But this was yet more evidence of the generosity and niceness of New Zealanders.
We only made it a hundred yards or so in the direction of the next vineyard when I had to stop thanks to my tyre being completely flat. We hadn't brought the pump with us but, even if we had, this looked like a major puncture which would not have been helped by just a pump. Luckily the girl working at the hostel had given us her mobile number and offered to pick us up if we were too tired to cycle home, but we thought we would be able to get at least one more vineyard in if we changed our plan and headed for the nearest one. On the way a local shouted over the road to us to ask if we'd had too much wine to cycle. Very funny. The wines at the next place were nicer but much more expensive. The brut, which could easily have been mistaken for champagne, was delicious, so we reasoned that since the gift at Hunters had saved us money, it made sense to spend more than we had intended on the wine we did buy. We bought a bottle of the vintage brut and one of the Gewurtztraminer which, we were assured, would be the perfect accompaniment for the curry we intended to cook that night.
The Gewurtztraminer did go very well with the curry, although it's not the style of wine either of us would normally drink, and the sparkly worked reliably as an aperitif. Making the curry had involved working around huge piles of large green-lipped mussels, which were in both ovens and seemed to be in every pot. Soon some Taiwanese pruners appeared and admitted being responsible for the haul. It had only taken them ten minutes to collect all of them, one guy told us. There were quite a lot of people, but there were plenty of mussels each. They gave us a couple each and told us to help ourselves if we wanted more. I was a bit suspicious of the mussels, remembering being told that easy-to-pick mussels are usually there because the locals know a very good reason not to pick those ones. Nonetheless it was only two each and we ate them.
The next morning we were both slightly unwell and I wondered how the Taiwanese people must be feeling after each eating a large pile of suspect mussels. Just before we left to catch our bus about lunch time (getting another lift from the lovely people running the excellent hostel!), one of the Taiwanese guys came into the kitchen for some water, still wearing his pyjamas. They were supposed to have left for work at 6am! I wondered if they were all in bed instead of work.
written by  The Happy Couple on August 23, 2009 from Blenheim, New Zealand

Half Nelson
Nelson, New Zealand
Our bus from Blenheim ended in Nelson. This time we were prepared for there to be no Naked Bus and managed not to miss our transport again. We hadn't originally planned to stay in Nelson but the bus timetables made it impossible to avoid, however we were arriving after dark then leaving first thing in the morning, so we weren't going to see anything anyway. We had booked a dorm room in a YHA hostel but staying there convinced us to avoid YHA in future. The contrast after the friendly and helpful hostel we had just left was incredible. Also, when we had stayed in Paihia, the hostel was not very busy and we had ended up with a dorm to ourselves. Here, in Nelson, the hostel was maybe even emptier but they managed to fill the dorm we were in, leaving many others totally empty. I understand that it saves them a bit of hassle to fill each dorm up, rather than space people out, but it is indicative of the kind of attitude you encounter at a YHA place versus an independent hostel. The laundry and internet were both dearer than anywhere we had been, yet they still had signs up boasting about how reasonable it was.
Joanne cooked us both nice big steaks for dinner but the kitchen got a bit smoky in the process, and there was no extractor fan, causing the manageress to run through and make a huge fuss, coughing, fanning the air, and apologising to everyone, much to Joanne's embarrassment. The steak was delicious though. New Zealand supermarket pricing policy was turning me into a dedicated carnivore. Other than the steaks we had also stocked up on loads of other food and whisky because we had heard that the glaciers, where we were heading, were so far from any large towns that the prices were ridiculous.
It was a terrible night's sleep. A full dorm makes loads of noise, everybody coming back at different times, but the worst was two girls next door, talking really loudly until very late. Of course usual “no noise in the rooms after 11pm” rules applied, but they didn't seem to care and I was already too determined to get to sleep to get up and tell them to shut up. On top of that, the bed was too short for me to be comfortable and double glazing doesn't seem to have hit New Zealand yet, so the fact this hostel was on the main road meant I was listening to lorries all night. Definitely the last YHA we stay in!
Useless!
written by  The Happy Couple on August 24, 2009 from Nelson, New Zealand

No Power, No View
Franz Josef Glacier, New Zealand
The drive to Franz Josef took most of the day: we left at 7:30am and only arrived at 4:30pm. What scenery we could see from the bus I thought looked very like Scotland again. Again, the main difference was the trees on the hills. The weather was terrible when we arrived so we were unable to appreciate the wonderful view from the hostel I'd read about. The storm continued and turned so bad that electricity went off. Some pylons somewhere must have come down.
In the morning there was no electricity, although it had come on during the night long enough to bake me on the top bunk bed I had in the dorm. At least in Asia and South Africa they have a back-up generator or solar power for when the electricity goes down. To shower, I had to tiptoe my way through bits of shrapnel on the floor where workmen seemed to be hacking the entire surface up. After showering we couldn't even make food easily or get comfortable in the lounge because, apart from the fact it was freezing in there, workmen were sanding down a newly set concrete floor. This was another YHA place, which we had booked before swearing against them in Nelson. Now we were certain!
When the power finally came on, I hung about blogging and Joanne just watched films. The weather was awful outside and, although we were only in Franz Josef for the Glacier, there was no point in going on a trek in its direction because, even if we braved the conditions, the cloud was so low we didn't think we would see any scenery even when we were in it. It was a waste of time really. Briefly it improved and we went outside to take a photo and go to the shops to buy blank DVDs for backing up photos to. The weather quickly deteriorated and when we returned I discovered that the PC in the hostel did not have a DVD writer.
Where the Glacier is apparently
Then at 4:30pm we had to catch our bus to Fox Glacier where we would hopefully see more than we had of this one.
written by  The Happy Couple on August 26, 2009 from Franz Josef Glacier, New Zealand

Tomacco or Quito
Fox Glacier, New Zealand
The journey between glaciers was only 30 minutes, so it was still torrential rain when we arrived at Fox Glacier. The kitchen at this hostel wasn't very good and the attached bar was shut due to lack of customers, but the owner was very nice and sold us a couple of beers to take up to our room. We made a short dash through the rain to the neighbouring bar for one more, but it was a bit too expensive for us really. The food smelled good though. We were exhausted from two nights in YHA dorms so just had an early night.
Next morning it was still raining heavily. Then it hailed. We made a dash to the supermarket for a couple of beers since we couldn't afford the bar and there was nothing to do but drink, blog, and read. At the supermarket boredom made me buy a tomarillo, which I had never before heard of, probably out of some hope it was related to the tomacco from The Simpsons. It looked a bit like a tomato, but inside it looked a bit like a granadilla. Guess what! It tasted like a cross between a tomato and a granadilla, which isn't all that pleasant a combination. After the pear crossed with aubergine in China, I should have learned that things that look like A crossed with B, usually taste like A crossed with B. Probably because they are A crossed with B.
Tomarillo
Another glacier, another waste of time. The next morning we were woken early by really heavy rain and soon after there was a huge rumbling noise which didn't quite sound like thunder to me. Was it giant chunks of ice crumbling off the invisible glacier? Later, the manager said no, it was thunder. Before the bus arrived, we called BA to re-route our ticket: Joanne would fly home from Quito on the 19th November and I would fly from from Bogotá on the 9th December, the very last day of the ticket. They were not able to confirm anything and would have to phone us back. We weren't sure if we could get all the way to Glasgow or if we only had enough stages to get us to London; we weren't sure if there was a flight on the days we had requested; we weren't sure if I was allowed to land on the 10th or if I had to land before the ticket expired; but they couldn't tell us any of this, and more importantly they couldn't tell us how much it would cost. Changes of schedule are (usually) free, but re-routing costs something. In fact they were so useless that they didn't seem to have heard of Quito or Bogotá.
When the bus picked us up at 11am I was regretting not having gone for the camper van option after all; just up the road, there were better views, although the weather was still awful there. The point is, we would have been able to move around at will, looking for the nicer weather and spots. Instead we were doomed to waiting around in one place, hoping that the weather would clear enough to justify spending money on a trek or tour.
written by  The Happy Couple on August 27, 2009 from Fox Glacier, New Zealand

The First Rule of Ski Club
Queenstown, New Zealand
Almost as soon as we left Fox Glacier the phone reception cut out and stayed at zero for the whole day. We were definitely going to miss the callback from BA. New Zealand has worse mobile phone coverage than any other country we had been to. It's strange because I had expected New Zealand to be next after Japan, of the countries we were visiting, in terms of technology and people at home kept saying things like it must be so nice to be back in civilisation. In fact, in many ways New Zealand seems more primitive than much of Asia: worse internet and computer facilities, and the thinnest single-ply toilet paper I've even seen! OK you can throw it in the toilet, which is quite civilised. And we had come to New Zealand mostly for scenery, but the weather had been too bad to see any of it. I was getting depressed.
On the bus journey from Fox Glacier to Queenstown we saw little glimpses of scenery, which all looked like they would be fantastic if the cloud base was higher than 200 metres. We passed through huge flat-bottomed glacial valleys, much bigger than the glacial valleys in Scotland. And there were trees everywhere, unlike Scotland, but so much rain. At the time I thought that there must be more rain than Scotland and, later I did a wee bit of research online that confirmed this is the case. The average rainfall on the West coast of New Zealand is more than double the average at the heaviest points in Scotland.
Queenstown looked a bit like Aviemore at first sight. It was much smaller than I had expected, but it was clearly another artificial town mostly constructed just for tourism. People had told us, though, that Queenstown was a touristy place and some people, mostly kiwis, had implied that we shouldn't really bother with it at all. I thought it looked OK, but it was the best scenery we had seen yet, mostly I suspect, because the cloud was a little thinner here and we could actually see a bit of scenery for the first time. After checking in we found a curry place that wasn't too dear by Queenstown standards which, we had been warned and we were finding, are expensive. It was nothing special but at least it was much hotter and less greasy than you can usually find in India. Oh for a curry from Glasgow – curry capitol of the world!
New Zealand Curry
Real India curry. Greasy as anything.
We had intended to take a day trip from Queenstown to Milford Sound, which was reputedly one of the wonders of the world, according to Rudyard Kipling, however considering the lack of success at the glaciers we were reluctant to fork out the large amount of money required for the tour. Instead we discovered that the weather was forecast to be good in Queenstown the next day and booked skiing instead. Joanne had never skied before and was keen to do so; I realised that it was twenty-one years since I had last skied and I was keen to see if I still could. The forecast for Milford Sound was poor the whole time we were scheduled to be in Queenstown so we were thinking of cutting our stay there short and heading somewhere else.
What we had booked as a twin room wasn't in the main part of the hostel like we had expected, but one of two rooms in a little self-contained cottage, which we were sharing with a couple of young kiwis. It would make an excellent destination with friends, but the couple seemed nice and we got on well with them. They were planning to go snowboarding for the first time the next day, so we all went to bed reasonably early.
We were picked up early by the bus going to the Cardrona ski resort, which was further from Queenstown than I expected since the town was surrounded by snow-covered mountains. It turns out that the package we had booked, almost at random, was not really in Queenstown but 90 minutes away, near Wanaka. There was hardly a cloud in the sky and on the way we were told that there had been twenty centimetres of snow during the night. It would going to be amazing conditions they said, the best weather they'd had all week.
Joanne was signed up for the beginners group and two lessons, whereas I had signed up for the Achievement package, which meant one lesson in the morning then free time in the afternoon. There were loads of different levels for me to choose from and I wasn't sure where to go, but they told me to speak to an instructor if I wasn't sure what level to go in at. There were various signs for me to choose which to stand next to, and I reckoned level one, “stoppers”, and level two, “beginner turners”, were beneath me, so I thought level three, “wedge turners” would be fine. I explained to the instructor at level three that I was probably a level five last time I skied over two decades ago, but I wasn't sure where I should go. She suggested I try to see what I could remember then choose: if you can stop and turn come here, if you can't turn go to level two, and if you can't stop go to level one.
Level three it was! The group was a mix of people who had recently come from level two and people like me, who hadn't skied for a while. At twenty-one years my length was the greatest. One of the women in my group said “So you were three last time you skied”, which I liked. Later Joanne told me that this only meant I am now old enough for middle-aged women to make passes at me, but I'm sure she really thought I was twenty-four. It was great fun, and I was in the correct group, but I was definitely near, though not quite at, the bottom of the group.
The slopes
One of the guys in my group was an American and on the way up the chair lift together we got chatting. When I said I was from Scotland his first response was “Scotland's in a lot of trouble now isn't it?” referring to the release of al-Megrahi. My news consumption has been quite limited while travelling and the only US sentiment on the issue I had picked up was on internet forums. I responded that I didn't really think anyone apart from Americans cared, and he stopped talking to me! I re-engaged him by asking him whether it was really that big a story in the US and he told me that it was the story; it was the full hour on CNN. He told me that they were genuinely discussing freedom whisky and freedom tape just like the freedom fries debacle in the build up to the Iraq War. How childish! Anyway, he told me, most people had decided to boycott instead of just changing the name, so I just told him that this would be great since it might cause the prices at home to fall.
The beginner slopes - Joanne may be in this shot
I had a lot of fun, but it wasn't quite working for me, and I was always one of the group that the instructor gave advice to when we stopped. None of the advice seemed to be helping though, until finally she asked me “Do you know the difference between defecation and fornication?”. Apparently I had been crouching instead of sticking my pelvis forwards, but this was only because I was trying to follow other advice she had given me. After this last bit, it all came together and, for the last two runs I think I went from being one of the worst in the group to being one of the best.
View at the bottom of the chairlift
At lunch time I met up with Joanne, after fighting through the reporters who were there for the final of the Winter Games. Apparently loads of top snowboarders and skiers had been at this resort for the last month or so, and many of the competitions were finishing that day. I met Joanne just after they announced the female freestyle halfpipe champion (or something). Joanne was still unsure whether she was enjoying it. I fell over once she told me, ashamed, it seemed. I told that falling over once on your first ski lesson is nothing. After lunch we both went to the nursery slope where I went on one little run with Joanne, but I didn't think I would help very much so I decided to go off one my own then remembered that I had forgotten to take a picture of her, so went back but couldn't see her.
View from the top of the chairlift
I spent all afternoon practising what I had learned in the morning and introducing some stuff I used to know that I probably wasn't “supposed” to be doing yet. The weather was amazing all day and every trip up on the ski lift I met new single-serving friends. Loads of the people there were with children, some as young as three. Apparently that is the correct age to start skiing, although one guy told me he'd left it too late to start his daughter at three: you should start them skiing before they can walk he said, at least half-serious, I think. I kept popping in at the beginners' slope to take photos but I could never see Joanne.
The Remarkables
At the end of the day, Joanne said that she'd really enjoyed it too, as had our skiboarding neighbours. Immediately I started thinking about how we could go skiing cheaply in the future. It had been quite dear but, in fact, compared to skydiving or bungy-jumping it was very good value: they are both over in no time and cost about the same or more than a whole day skiing.
Queenstown
written by  The Happy Couple on August 29, 2009 from Queenstown, New Zealand

Fat Man on an Elastic
Queenstown, New Zealand
The day after our day of lovely weather and skiing it was pouring again. We only ventured outside to buy steak to cook and to ask about bungy-jumping options. The young couple sharing the unit with us had packed up and gone snowboarding again quite early in the morning, so goodness knows what the conditions were like on the slope. Soon they were replaced by a middle-aged couple from Australia. They were also very nice and we spent the remainder of the day chatting to them.
The following day the weather was better again so we headed into town to organise the bungy jump I had decided on. There was an expensive “highest” option but, when I realised it was only the highest in New Zealand, not the world, I decided instead to opt for the “first bungy in the world”, which I had found out while researching the activity's safety record, is actually just the first commercial bungy site. When we turned I up at the bungy shop, they said we could go immediately or wait for another two hours. I was tempted by suddenly rising nervousness opt for the later one, but realised that was silly and in less than five minutes we had paid and were on a minibus. Joanne did not intend to jump, but they had a spectators go free promotion on so she was along for the ride. The only other people on the minibus was a group of Muslim girls from Kuala Lumpur, all wearing hijabs, not exactly the surfer-dude stereotype I had expected to be on the bus with us but clearly the appeal is very broad. The girls told us that only one of them was actually jumping, the other three just coming along to watch.
The Remarkables
How much!?
At the bridge we went into the small office to register and have me weighed. Clearly a necessary step for them to judge the length of elastic to use. They wrote the weight on my ticket and also on my hand, presumably to prevent ticket-swapping mix-ups. Ninety-one kilos! OK, I was fully clothed, but that couldn't account for more than two kilos. That means I had gained about ten kilos while travelling! I had been getting more and more nervous, but now I had something more serious to think about: in South Africa we had both gained a lot, then lost most of it in Vietnam; in Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand there was probably a steady slow increase of weight, but not much opportunity to check that with scales; then in India we lost a bit not, like many people, because we were ill, but because the food was so obviously greasy and unhealthy that we rarely had a meal to ourselves; surprisingly we put weight back on in Japan, but probably because of all the Strong Zero we were drinking in our depression; in China we probably maintained, but the real problem increase had been New Zealand, for much the same reason as South Africa: the meat is cheap and good. All those big steaks had taken their toll. It's really tough to maintain your weight when there are no scales around: it just creeps up on you!
I have to do what?
Perched
I wobbled up to the jump station on the bridge, where someone who was obviously a trainee was asking another guy questions. Immediately my focus returned from weight to jumping off a bridge: I sincerely hoped that the trainee wasn't going to set up my equipment. As I stepped down next to them, onto the platform, the trainee asked if they were going to do a dunk. I knew that they sometimes judged the jumps here so that the jumper's head is dunked in the river at the maximum stretch but I had thought you had to pay extra for that, and I had no intention of doing it.
Ready
Thankfully the other guy replied that it was too cold, then it was him who held out the harness for me to step into. It's a brand new line he told me as he clipped it onto my feet. I'm sure he says that for every jump, but I felt slightly reassured. Then he just stood back and said OK you're ready to go. I was expecting a bit more training or preparation of some kind, so I asked him whether there was anything I should know. He told me: ''stand on the edge of the platform, look straight out at that other bridge, and jump straight out as if you're flying”. Now I was standing on the edge, where I could see the drop. He told me to smile at the camera and wave to my wife. I could feel the anxiety gaining on me rapidly so, as soon I had waved at Joanne, I thought that I would have to go immediately or risk bottling it. Which wasn't an option.
So I jumped. I think I went just in time: it's really hard to overcome the instinct not to jump from a high bridge, no matter how many positive safety reports you have read or how secure the equipment all feels. It's a very odd sensation, dropping like that when the water is so close, but it was all over very quickly. I did think that I was going to hit the water just before the elastic snapped me back in the other direction and bounced me quite high up again. I bounced and dangled upside down for much longer than I expected, before I realised that I hadn't been told anything about how to get off it. Then I noticed that the dinghy I had assumed was just there in case of an emergency rescue was paddling towards me with a big pole in the air for me to hold onto. After a couple of misses I grabbed onto it and they pulled me down into the inflatable boat. I told them that I had jumped just in time because I was getting nervous as it was my first time. One of them replied “Was that really your first time? You jumped like a pro.”
Boing!
On the way back up the steps to the viewing platform, I stopped to watch the girl who had been on the bus with me, as I thought I would miss it if I continued to the top. I actually would have had plenty of time because she was having trouble going. The bungy engineer kept peeling her fingers off the pole she was holding onto and saying some, presumably encouraging, words to her before she grabbed back onto the pole and looked sceptically over the edge. This happened many time but then, eventually, it seemed like he pushed her, and she went feet first, which is inadvisable since it increases the chances of whiplash or getting caught up in the bungy. When she reached the maximum she was whipped around which looked very uncomfortable but at least she remained intact. Later I told her it had looked like the guy had pushed her off and she said that he had, because she had asked him to; I just couldn't go on my own, but I really wanted to. The price had included a t-shirt but the DVD and photos package was nothing like as much of a rip-off as the Skydiving would have been at full price, so I shelled out and got my souvenirs. It really is an efficient factory: by the time the jumpers have climbed the steps back to the office, they have your video and photos ready to view, and by the time you have paid for them, the disk has been finalised and you can take it. They must make loads of money.
The next day the weather had deteriorated again and the snow-line was only just above where the hostel was. It was freezing! I spent most of the day trying to back-up photos to DVD so we could post a copy home, but finally realised that it wasn't possible anywhere in town: the girl are reception in the hostel had assured me that it was possible but, after waiting ages while it appeared to be copying, there was nothing on the disk. At one place in town I was told it wasn't possible to write DVDs and at another the USB port was so slow the computer was reporting 100 minutes to copy everything first to the hard drive, and at New Zealand internet prices I wasn't going to wait that long. I couldn't understand it: in no matter where we were in Asia we had no problem writing DVDs. So much for New Zealand being civilised!
The other task for the day was to contact BA again about getting a quote for out requested change of route. This was now the eighth time we'd had to contact them because they kept leaving messages or sending emails to say that they needed more information then, when we phoned them back, they always asked the same questions all over again. And BA in Thaland had been so efficient! This time we managed to get a quotation from them but it was far more than we had been expecting so we even after all that we still had to ask them to leave it while we considered it.
written by  The Happy Couple on September 1, 2009 from Queenstown, New Zealand

Fat Man on an Elastic - The Video
Queenstown, New Zealand
I forgot to include the little video clip I uploaded in the last blog entry, so here it is:
And I also forgot to include this quite nice photo of Queenstown taken when we got back from the bungy jump.
Queenstown
written by  The Happy Couple on September 1, 2009 from Queenstown, New Zealand

Groundhog Flight
Christchurch, New Zealand
Our bus journey from Queenstown to Christchurch took the whole day. The bus driver clearly fancied himself to be a tour guide and kept putting on his microphone to talk to the passengers. His ability to talk incessantly was really impressive but, since his knowledge was very good too, it was hard to feel too annoyed about the fact he kept distracting us from the books we were trying to read.
For the first time, really, we were able to see New Zealand's fantastic scenery. For three weeks nearly all we had seen was cloud, but now, on a bus journey on our last day, we passed beautiful mountains that we could actually see. As soon as we moved a bit further East than Queenstown it cleared up. When we were planning New Zealand we had asked lots of people their opinion regarding the North versus the South Islands. In retrospect we should have asked about the West versus the East: presumably then everyone would have said “Oh yeah, the West is the most dramatic, but if you're going in winter you won't see any of, so you might as well skip it”.
The bus travelled through a region which had, in the past, been designated the hunting region, and huge areas of forest had been cleared. Now the scenery went from looking quite like Scotland to looking exactly like Scotland: I was almost expecting to come round the next bend and see a sign for Braemar. So just as in most of Scotland, there were some parts of New Zealand where the English had cut down the trees. The difference is that in New Zealand they have since exterminated the forest-destroying wild deer and have now replanted large parts of the country. In New Zealand you still see quite a lot of deer but the fences keep the deer in, not like in Scotland where the fences are to keep the deer out. So in Scotland there is almost no native forest and there can be no serious programme of reforestation until something is done to curb deer numbers. Somehow legislating on the price of venison seems like the way forward to me; how the meat of vermin can be sold at such high prices seems outrageous to me. In Scotland we should refuse to eat an beef at all and switch to venison so hopefully we can eat enough of the beasts to allow trees to grow again. Or we could just reintroduce wolves. And bears.
Lake Tekapo
Further on, we passed right next to two large lakes with Mount Cook in the background, New Zealand's highest mountain. The bus driver / tour guide told us that the reason the lakes are so turquoise-blue, particularly the first one, Lake Pukaki, is that they are full of glacial flour; the particles of rock ground off the mountains by the glaciers are so fine that when they eventually wash into the lakes they are suspended in the water, affecting the way they reflect and diffract light. We stopped at Lake Tekapo for lunch and had a proper chance to admire the scenery. What a waste that we had spent three weeks missing all of this!
Eventually we arrived in Christchurch and found our hostel. They seemed very friendly, but we declined the included pasta dinner and instead went out for a steak special we had seen advertised on the way to the hostel. The next day we were going to South America, where we would be able to get even better steak, but I just couldn't resist a NZ$10 steak.
Christchurch
We had to get up early the next day, but it turned out that the Wednesday included dinner deal they run at the hostel turns into a drunken party after the food is eaten. Our room was right next to the kitchen and it was about 4am when the manager, who seemed to be the ring-leader, and the partying guests finally went to bed. We had to get up at 6am for our flight to Auckland.
We dragged ourselves to the airport minibus in time and on the way the driver entertained us with stories of gap-year kids in New Zealand going wild on daddy's credit card or getting themselves pregnant and, either way, being too scared to go home. Certainly there had been a lot of young travellers in New Zealand and, as we had endured that night, plenty of partying. In Auckland it was lovely and sunny and we finally got to see what Auckland looks like. Quite nice. I wished again we had asked about West-East instead of North-South.
Goodbye New Zealand
The flight from Auckland to Santiago was another nightmare flight. When we checked in the woman asked if we wanted emergency exit seats, which we thought was very kind, what with all the extra leg-room. What we did not reckon with was the fact that they were right next to the toilets. Perhaps because of the accelerated night when flying East, nobody seemed to feel like sleeping on the flight and, instead, they spent the whole night going to the toilet and slamming the door behind them. I hate night flights. We took off at 4pm and landed at 11:30am in Chile, although the flight was only twelve hours long, so people were only really ready to go to sleep about the time they were preparing to serve us breakfast. Another oddity is, because we crossed the dateline just after taking off from New Zealand, we arrived the same day we took off, only earlier in the day, even though we had gone though another night. We get to live the same day all over again! Maybe this time we'll ask to sit somewhere away from the toilets... we might have been one day younger but we didn't feel it after that flight.
So that was New Zealand. We had some fun, it cost a lot of money, but really we missed most of it, especially the bits I wanted to see, just because the weather was too bad. I had originally only planned to stay a few days in Auckland as we had to stop there on the way to South America, because I wasn't that interested in New Zealand culturally as I expected it to be quite like home; it was, only very empty. However when Joanne expressed more interest in seeing the place, we extended the time there. We couldn't really choose the time of year to arrive and, given when we were arriving, we probably should just have stuck to the three days. Or stayed away from the West. I can't complain, though; if someone went to the West of Scotland in winter then moaned about it raining, I'd have to quote Billy Connolly: Well of course it bloody rained! It's f-ing Scotland isn't it?. It seems New Zealand is much the same.
written by  The Happy Couple on September 3, 2009 from Christchurch, New Zealand

Ripped off in South America (already!)
Santiago, Chile
We arrived in Chile very tired, but there, we had finally managed to organise Couchsurfing! This meant that we were going to have to speak to people and seem lively instead of just crawling into bed. The guys who were hosting us sounded very relaxed on their profiles and in the messages we exchanged, so I wasn't too worried. Also I thought being encouraged to stay up until normal bedtime in the new time zone would really help avoid jet-lag.
Me, Joanne, Jaime, and Pablo
The two guys, Pablo and Jaime, were very nice and, although they were very chatty, they understood that we were not exactly lives and souls of the party after our flight. Pablo was from Uruguay, which was very interesting and useful, since we hadn't yet decided whether we were going there; Jaime was a native of Chile. They told us that the rest of South America doesn't think that Chileans speak Spanish, but some other related language and Argentinians, and especially the Uruguayans sound more like they are speaking Italian because of the slow, sing-song way that they speak Spanish, which is much easier to understand.
That night we both slept for fourteen hours. Excellent! From 10pm until midday. However this meant that my avoiding jet-lag plan hadn't exactly worked, but at least we'd caught up on some much-needed sleep. We had thought we would wake up at 8am, after all who can sleep longer than ten hours?
Joanne neither up nor down
We went out for a wee look around. Pablo, Jaime, and the guidebook has told us there wasn't really much for tourist to do in Santiago except climb both of the cerros, which you can do in one day. Since half the day was gone we decided to go for the smaller one, Cerro Santa Lucia, as it also had the advantage of being closer to Pablo and Jaime's flat. The weather wasn't great, but we hoped we would get a view of the Andes, which we had been told you can see from the city. When we arrived the previous day, the weather was so bad that there was no chance, but it had improved a bit since then. Even on the walk to the park we could see hints of the Andes between the buildings. It's really nice to see such massive mountains from the middle of the city.
City and mountains
Santa Cristobel (the other hill)
A snogging couple in the park
When we entered the park and climbed up the wee hill it was lovely and the view was much better over all the buildings. One very nice thing about the park is that it was full of couples snogging. After Asia it was really nice to see some affection between people; Joanne and I had just spent the first seven months of our honeymoon [I like that phrase :-)] having to be careful not to hold hands in public in case we offended a local. What a change: some of the behaviour in this park would certainly not have gone unnoticed in Glasgow. From the top of the hill we could almost see the Andes clearly but there is too much pollution to see them properly. We found a place near the hill selling empanadas, which we had to have as they are a national speciality. They were quite nice, but rather reminscent of a Greggs pie. That was lunch.
Pollution and mountains
Big mountains, ugly city
Nice fountain in Cerro Santa Lucia park
More of Cerro Santa Lucia pretty bits
On top of the city, looking down on pollution
Later we headed to Bella Vista, which the guide book says is a trendy part of town and great for night life. On the way we were intercepted by a student who was handing out poetry to make money, because the government is increasing the fees and it's impossible to live, he said. We had heard a fair bit the previous night about the relative political inclinations of Chile and Uruguay: in Uruguay health and education is free; in Chile you pay for everything. As we were travelling for a year, we had become quite hardened to begging; for one thing, our trip would be severely curtailed if we gave to everyone who seemed in need; for another thing it becomes very annoying when you are constantly targeted as an obvious walking piggy bank. Consequently we hadn't given much in India, probably about the same frequency as a middle-class Indian, and in India there was a lot of need. It may seem callous, but after refusing so many needy people in India, there was no way I was giving money to some poet-student who looked pretty well dressed. When I told him we couldn't afford it, he said please just a token, so I handed him a 100 Peso coin and he responded “It's too much of a token”, and refused to take it, so I just said OK and walked off. We still hadn't got used to the money at that point and, in fact, it was more stingy than I had intended to be! How are new-comers to the country supposed to understand a currency that only manages about 1000 to a pound? Mind you, writing this I've changed my mind: what beggar in Glasgow would have refused 10p? In fact in Chile the cost of living is much lower, so this is probably equivalent to 50p, although I have no idea how much glue costs in Chile.
Soon after we were lingering outside a bar with a sign for pisco sours, which we were obviously going to have to try as they are a national speciality, although if you ask Peruvians, apparently, the Chileans stole this speciality along with Ceviche from them, who invented them first and have the best ones. Later a Chilean guy would tell us that this is because the best lemons come from Peru and, since both specialities rely heavily on lemons, Chile could never has as good versions as Peru. As we were dawdling there a few locals came out, in high spirits, and invited us to join them. It was the girl's birthday, they told us. I didn't see the harm, although I felt a little nervous about a random encounter with strangers in South America, which I had been looking forward to with apprehension, slightly, all the way through safer-than-Europe Asia. Nevertheless, I felt our trip to Cuba had missed a little from not mixing enough with the locals whenever they seemed a bit shady (which was all the time), so I thought stopping off for one pisco sour would do no harm. The pisco sours were great, and the people we very nice and friendly, so we stayed for a beer too. Then one of the three left and soon after the bill arrived. The “brother” of the “birthday girl” threw in only a few coins even though most of the bill was theirs. I complained that their bill was much more than that and he put in a bit more, but I didn't feel confident enough in my smattering of Spanish to involve the staff and just decided to pay the extra 1500 Pesos. They had still been expecting us to meet them later in Bella Vista, but I told them that there was no way we were meeting them later if I had to pay so much extra towards the bill. If they had asked before, I might well have said yes, because the chat was good and it's only actually about £1.50, but they had broken at least one principle, so that was it. £1.50 to be encouraged to look up “La cuenta distinta” for next time didn't seem too costly.
After that we were in need of more food and the only thing we thought we could afford was another empanada. Pie for lunch and pie for dinner: a good Glasgow diet. We did get to Bella Vista alone and it was a great wee area. Actually it seems to be just one street. Litres of beer for only 990 Pesos and the whole street is jumping with activity. It wasn't great, though, that everyone smoked. We had got used to it in China, but New Zealand had made us sensitive again. The city and now, especially, the night life really reminded me of Barcelona. The lively atmosphere mostly. The architecture in Santiago doesn't have a whisper of a dream of Barcelona's, but the atmosphere is just a nice. And who cares how ugly the city is when you can see the Andes between every pair of buildings? One unexpected difference is that the people are much whiter in Chile. I had expected the people to look pretty much Spanish, but a bit darker due to mixing with the indigenous people. Now, there are plenty of people like that, but there are also a lot of locals who look northern European, which I was not expecting. I didn't realise, but there were a lot of later immigrants to South America after the original colonial days, and they have certainly left their genetic mark.
written by  The Happy Couple on September 4, 2009 from Santiago, Chile

Enough Empanadas Already
Santiago, Chile
The second morning we woke in Santiago was raining. It had been cold since we arrived, but this made it even worse. I thought South America was hot, but this was barely warmer than New Zealand. Apparently Chile is not a hot country and I was thinking of Brazil, people told me.
We were keen to get a SIM card to save money on texts and for local calls, then head to the other hill, San Cristobal, to complete our set of things tourists can to in Santiago. So we went to the ATM to draw money. Not working. We went back to the flat to get the credit card. Not working either. Several times in India Nationwide had let us down badly, by preventing us from drawing money when we really needed it. This was the same thing happening. It seems like they have some problem with their international link because people with other foreign cards had no problem, but neither of my Nationwide cards worked. Then a few hours later is was OK again. This lack of money meant that all we could afford to eat were empanadas again. They might be a national speciality, but on our third day in Chile Joanne had already had enough of them.
An empanada. It's just a pie isn't it?
We waited around for hours, ate an empanada or two, and finally were able to draw cash and get the SIM card, which was the first real test of my Spanish. It's pretty rubbish, but between my Spanish and Joanne's female ability to read people's gestures and intonation we were able to work out what everyone replied to my clumsy questions. By the time we got the SIM card it was too late to do anything touristy. It was raining anyway, so who wants to go up a hill?
Joanne's hundredth empanada in three days
Back at the flat, Jaime and Pablo said they would like to cook for us. We had actually just had a little something to eat, but we needed something to go along with the New Zealand wine we had brought them. They explained that they don't drink much, only with guests, so it would just sit there if we didn't help them. They don't like to go to the Couchsurfing weekly meetings either, Jaime said, because they are just about getting wasted, and he can't be bothered with that. Even on the groups online, he continued, most of the people who join “Last Minute Couch in Santiago” or just say they are willing to host, never really do so; they just want to party, but he really likes hosting people, which is why they are in all the groups. What a difference from Japan, especially: people who are members of Couchsurfing and actually want to host people! For most people, they reckoned, it's just about joining in with the travelling spirit by getting drunk with travellers, without having to travel yourself (or host any of them). “I don't think Couchsurfing is about getting drunk”, Jaime said, whereas the most common attitude we had encountered online was “Couchsurfing isn't about a free place to stay”, which is patent nonsense. It seems the problem is that some people think it is just about getting drunk and some people think it is just about a free place to stay. Unfortunately most of the former group seem to be hosts and the latter, guests.
I reckon they have the balance right: free place to stay, eat a nice meal together, drink a bottle of wine, and sit around chatting for a bit longer than we should have considering our early morning flight to Easter Island. It didn't matter that we went to bed a bit later than we intended because the salsa club downstairs kept us awake for most of the night anyway! Travelling is all about learning to live without sleep.
written by  The Happy Couple on September 5, 2009 from Santiago, Chile

Where the Hell is Michael?
Hanga Roa, Chile
First off I have to apologise for the number of photos crammed into this bog entry, but what are you suppose to do in somewhere like Easter Island? There are some bonus ones at the end.
The six hour flight from Santiago to Easter Island was quite rough and when it came to the descent, the pilot had to back off and try again. In the end we spent two hours circling around around the island waiting for the weather to break. A few of the passengers were becoming visibly anxious and after a while we both started to wonder about the amount of fuel they carry for the flight; after all if they are completely unable to land, where can they divert to? - it's probably back to Santiago. Nonetheless we landed in one piece, prompting spontaneous clapping from the passengers, something I've not seen for many a year. Clearly there were a lot of relieved people on board.
Our flight path for two hours
Of course, the weather was still awful when we arrived, but this didn't stop the hostel manager from putting garlands around our necks when we introduced ourselves, as if we had arrived at some tropical paradise. The airport was tiny, though, and this combined with the garlands combined to give me a very quaint first impression of the place. It's the most remote inhabited place on Earth, over two thousand miles from Chile, and somehow I felt really aware of it as soon as we landed; maybe it was just the amount of time I had to meditate on that fact while we should have been landing, but I think there is more to it than that; maybe the way the skies look or the way the air smells or the way the sea moves. The drive to the hostel was a bit uglier than I was hoping. It may just have been the weather, but I wondered if we had made a mistake to stay there for so long.
The only other new arrivals on the minibus to be picked up with us were school children, and lots of them. Alarm bells were already starting to ring. We were booked into this hostel for three nights and we were planning to ask whether we could stay an extra two, despite what the website had said, because we really couldn't afford to stay at the place we had booked into for the last two nights. Were we really going to have to spend five night with a school party? We hid in our room and spoke to Guillermo, an Asturian who was already resident in our “dorm”. We had originally been booked into different dorms because the hostel was so heavily booked: with Joanne in a female dorm and me in a mixed dorm, but the manager must have taken pity on us and re-allocated us to Guillermo's dorm. The “dorm” looked like it was probably one of the owner's children who had been kicked out to make more space (and money). Seeing how easily he could re-shuffle we asked about the extra two days and were told it was no problem, saving us about US$100. We would be able to eat! By the evening the weather had improved and Joanne and I wandered down to the sea for the sunset.
The coast on our first night
When we woke I went through to the dining room, excited at the prospect of the free breakfast, while Joanne finished showering. I sat down and waited to be served; the table would need to be cleared first. But nobody came. After waiting some more I noticed that there were a couple of undisturbed places at different tables and I was so hungry that I collected together enough unused crockery, including a couple of plates with bread rolls covered with a paper napkin, and two glasses of juice, each covered with a napkin. Was this really how breakfast was supposed to work? We scavenged a little meat and cheese from plates in the middle of several different tables and half-used jam and butter. That was breakfast. At least there was coffee too.
Joanne by the Volcano
We had originally planned to rent bicycles but, considering that the weather seemed quite unpredictable and the difference in price was almost nothing, we opted for a moped again. The weather held for most of the day and never turned awful like the previous day. We intended to spend that first day seeing as many of the major sights as we could, reckoning we could tick off all of the moais in one day. We set out up the East coast of the island and found the terrain to be rather worse than we had hoped, but we had been warned that the roads are not much good apart from the main ones. Soon we found ourselves at a volcano, which was odd because we hadn't intended to head that way. It was an excellent bonus though. I've never seen a volcanic crater before and this small volcano offered excellent vistas over the town, Hanga Roa, the only town on the island. From up there (not really all that high) we could easily see two sides of the island and, were it not for a couple of other hills, we would have been able to see the whole thing. It really is tiny; it's about the same size as Bute. To think of an entire civilisation isolated here, without any outside contact, is incredible; for the whole of the known universe to be just sixty square miles, I find mind-boggling. Every single person would know almost every piece of ground that the entire civilisation knew of: reality was bounded, and they could walk from one end to the other in a day. How comforting that must have been. Or maddeningly boring.
Hanga Roa from the volcano
just slightly to the right: the other coast
First moai!
We corrected our navigational error and found ourselves on a much nicer, bigger road. After a while we were starting to wonder where the moais were, when Joanne spotted something. It was quite exciting but a bit of an anti-climax. I had refused to even take a photo of the moai in town because I was convinced it was a reproduction or at least not a very good one because it was much smaller than I had expected, but this first one we found out of town was even smaller and in worse condition. Also, according to the map, we had already missed a few on the way. Considering the time we had taken for the detour to the volcano, we thought we should press on and return another day to find the missing moais if time allowed.
It's not very big
Old boys on the pish
Joanne's next sighting was a vital one, and not so easy. We had been expecting them all to be sign-posted for the tourists, after all how many other reasons are there to go to the island, but so far there had been only small signs you would see after the moais. In this case they weren't so easy to see because the were all lying face down like old boys from Partick a bit worse for wear.
First really big one
Before we went there I had read that some of them had been vandalised by the islanders before any Europeans arrived, so it wasn't too much of a shock, and at least these ones were pretty big so we could get a much better idea of how impressive they must have been while still intact. The moais all stand (or stood) on an ahu, a platform built up from boulders. The island literature says that these have a sacred significance, so you must not walk on these. How this can be true when the islanders themselves desecrated the sites I cannot grasp, but I applaud any emotional blackmail the archaeologists can play on less respectful, but superstitious, tourists.
See how big!
The quarry
We picked our way up the coast, from site to site, missing several more, and they were all demolished. Some of them were huge things, though, and we could still appreciate the awe they must have instilled. But we were becoming a bit impatient: where were the really incredible sites? We started to skip sites deliberately if we knew from the guidebook that it was just more of the same. We still stopped for a really large one or a particularly intact ahu, but we wanted to move on to the big hitters. Near the far end of the island from Hanga Roa we passed close to the volcano Rano Raraku, where we knew we could find half-carved moais in the quarry there, but we continued because just round the corner was Ahu Tongariki the most complete site on the island.
Joanne and stray moai at Ahu Tongariki
Ahu Tongariki
Finally we could feel the full force of the awe that these statues are presumably meant to inspire: fifteen of them lined up along the coast, the biggest enormous. Of course the whole site is rebuilt. What I hadn't realised before going to Easter Island is that not just some of the moais were vandalised, but almost all of them were toppled. This site had been destroyed twice: once by the islanders and then the ahu itself was demolished by a tsunami in the 20th Century.
Despite being repaired, the site is lovely. I'd had a discussion, verging on argument, with the American archaeologist we met the first night in Xiàhé about restoration. I agreed that I hated things to be over-restored, like many of the sites in Sukhothai, but he would leave everything exactly where it lay when archaeologists found it. What on Earth would be the point of fifteen giant stone statues lying facedown when the restoration involves little more than standing them up and sticking their heads back on? It's very impressive, it's very beautiful, and I don't care if it's not how the Europeans found it. Actually the first Europeans there found them all standing up, so I have a theory that it was actually later Europeans who knocked them all down but, when they later felt guilty about it, made up a story about the natives having a civil war; after all who wrote the history?
Finally totally awed by the scene, I felt obliged to pay a little tribute to Matt Harding, whose Where the Hell is Matt? videos contributed a significant nudge in finally getting it together to go on this big trip. If his videos don't make you want to see more of the world then nothing will. I don't think I quite captured his dancing but I gave it my best shot.
Matt
Me
Next we headed up to the quarry and got some nice shots, but we didn't pay to go in because the ticket only lasts one day and includes a couple of other sites on the island, which we reckoned we would be able to see all of another day. Instead we continued on to the beach at the North End of the island, which is a lovely fine sand beach with several moais looming in the background. We narrowly avoided getting stuck in the mud on the road on the way to the beach, but made it back completely unscathed and very please with the day we had.
Rano Raraku
Rano Raraku (el Gigante in background)
written by  The Happy Couple on September 7, 2009 from Hanga Roa, Chile

... in Which We are Entirely
Hanga Roa, Chile
Surrounded by Water
Our second morning on Easter Island we had learned to be quick, so got up before the school children for breakfast. This time we were able to find food at places next to each other and get a fair amount of meat and cheese. We had been planning to go to the main significant moai we had not yet seen, which was just North of town and is the most complete example, including white coral eyes. It had been my intention to get there nice and early, before breakfast, while the light was still great for photography. When we woke up, though, it was torrential rain, so we didn't bother.
We spent the whole morning waiting indoors for the rain to let up just a bit so we could take the moped back. We had it for 24 hours, so any time before about midday was fine. A German guy who had arrived the same day as us, looked particularly depressed that morning; we were rather surprised when he told us he had booked in for ten days and this was the only stop on his trip. We were also very surprised when he told us he had booked a jeep for a week. We had managed to see almost the whole island in one afternoon on a moped, so what he was going to do with a jeep for a week, I had no idea. That morning he looked like he was having second thoughts about all his plans too.
I don't think I've ever seen so much rain, even the beginnings of the monsoon we caught in Asia, and eventually I just had to make a run for it on the moped. I looked out the rubbish poncho I had bought in Laos before our trek. The poncho arms only came halfway down my forearms, but it was the only waterproof I had. At the end of the road I remembered that I was supposed to take the bike back with a full tank, so I turned around and headed up the hill towards the island's only petrol station. All the way up the hill there was water pouring down the road and in no time I was soaked right through my clothes, despite the poncho. At the top of the hill, the road the garage was on, really looked like a river. It looked like it might have been deep enough to get water in the ignition system, but I was more worried about there being a large rock or some other obstacle in the road which I wouldn't be able to see due it being submerged. As I hesitated at the junction and considered taking the bike back without filling up (surely they'd understand) a middle-aged couple standing on the pavement signalled for me to drive along the pavement instead. Excellent idea! So I bumped up onto the pavement and drove along until I was opposite the garage. The water seemed really deep here and I could easily imagine falling right in it. On the forecourt, two guys working there waved me over, clearly amused. I still wasn't sure, but now they had challenged me I could hardly give up. I braved the torrent and managed it across the road no bother, but after filling up the engine wouldn't start. I felt like saying to the pump attendant “see!”, but then I realised I just hadn't put the key back in properly after opening the seat to put fuel in. Back at the hire shop, the girl asked me “Is it full? - no”, clearly not expecting me to have fought through the rapids she must have known would be there.
I walked back to the hostel and got even wetter. A dog followed me all the way from the shop where I had bought empanadas, which was all we could afford to eat on Easter Island; it is much more expensive than the mainland. Guillermo had left, promising that, if he was there at the same time, he would meet up with us in Cordoba, where he had lived for a while and was planning to stay with friends about the same time as we would get there. Another batch of people arrived and Guillermo was replaced by a Brazilian called Raphael, who went straight to bed. More school children had arrived too and their numbers had swollen so much that they seemed like a sea crashing around the courtyard between blocks in the hostel. It rained very heavily all day and we didn't go out again.
The rain continued all night. I couldn't believe how much it rained. It even turned heavier and thunder and lightening kept the dogs outside howling and whimpering all night. One major problem with Easter Island is that there are stray dogs everywhere; they hang around all the takeaways and restaurants begging and they follow you home from the supermarket and wait outside your hostel room. The manager had warned us to be careful of the dogs at night because one or two guests had been bitten.
It rained and it rained and it rained. Apart from running out to get empanadas when it got a bit lighter, we just sat around all day and talked with Raphael, who had finished his heroic fourteen hour sleep. He was jet-lagged after a flight from New Zealand he explained. He was a very interesting guy, who worked for the Brazilian equivalent of the FBI – the federal police – and he had been to 96 countries almost all with work, who allowed him to take his leave in the middle of a work trip abroad; he only had to postpone the flight home by two weeks, so never had to pay for his travel to take holidays. He told us that Brazil has really turned a corner because the government are making real efforts to reduce the wealth gap and they were seeing big changes in the crime figures as a result.
In the evening the rain finally got a bit lighter. We had intended going out to a pub for the game, but the weather was still unsettled and the manager told us nowhere would be open, so we nipped out to get some wine before the Brazil – Chile football World Cup qualifier. Raphael told us that he actually wanted Chile to win because Brazil were already through and Chile winning would mean that Argentina were far less likely to qualify; apparently Argentina are hated on the field by both Chile and Brazil, but not off the field, Raphael emphasised. It was the only one we could afford, so we had gone for the cheapest wine available: we each had two litre cartons of Gato Negro. It wasn't very nice.
As soon as the game started Raphael was shouting for Brazil. Apparently he couldn't stick to his plans to support someone against his own team once the game was actually happening. The school kids were Chilean, so they were all supporting Chile. The kids had been quite noisy in the evenings and at night, and Colette, who was very friendly, and some other people sleeping in the rooms adjoining the courtyard were not pleased with their behaviour. Quite soon it was clear what the problem was: they were all getting wrecked on tequila and pisco. Appeals to the teacher in charge of them were met with total indifference and we soon realised that he was getting just as drunk with the children he was supposed to be looking after. Furthermore we found out that the owner of the hostel was friends with the teacher (or was it headmaster of the school, I forget), so there was no way any complaints were going to be paid any attention. Oh well, if you can't beat 'em... by the end of the 4-2 drubbing by Brazil over Chile, the kids were far more talkative and wanted me to taste their pisco while they practised their English. Oddly, they were attending a German school, but none of them could speak German, only English. Both the pisco and the kids were surprisingly nice. I suppose I would have been exactly the same if I had been on a school trip where the teacher did nothing at all to maintain control. The only pisco I had ever tasted before was Pisco Capel when my local off-licence in Glasgow was selling it off at £5 a bottle, because it was so disgusting they couldn't sell it for any more. The stuff the kids were drinking, Mistral, was obviously much higher quality and had been aged in wooden casks for several years.
Many drunken conversations and not quite two litres of horrible wine each and we were probably contributing to the noise which kept the others awake, although I'm pretty sure we were much quieter than the kids. Near the end of the night I remember Raphael talking about the recent problems with shenofabee in South Africa. Joanne and I were both staring at him, clueless. And he said, you know when people were attacking foreigners. Xenophobia – aren't other languages a laugh?
Raphael, Colettle, us, and the kids
written by  The Happy Couple on September 9, 2009 from Hanga Roa, Chile

Moai Revelations
Hanga Roa, Chile
The rain had finally stopped and the sun was out. Raphael had already left to explore the island, but we were feeling a bit rough and the Gato Negro had stained our mouths purple. The children had warned us the previous night that we shouldn't be drinking cheap rubbish like that and it seems the spoiled little brats were right! We went in for breakfast but this time there was absolutely nothing left for us. I found the woman who works there and explained in the best Spanish I could manage that there was nothing at all left for breakfast. She produced some pancakes filled with dulce de leche, but the usual cheese and meat had apparently been finished by the greedy kids.
We decided to hire a moped again again, see the remaining moais and then head to the beach for a while, so I went down to the hire shop to get one. The same girl as last time was on duty and thought I was just there to observe her tearing up the credit card security slip from before. I started trying to explain in Spanish that I wanted to hire one again today, but she cut me off, saying something to do with drinking and the police. She was telling me I couldn't hire a bike, perhaps because I smelled of alcohol. I needed to look up ayer, yesterday, to explain I was drinking yesterday, not today. She stared at me: pero esta bien? she asked. Si I responded, and she was happy enough after that.
Moai at Ahu Tahai
Approach to the North Moais
The coastline behind the moais
We headed straight for the moais north of town, where we found a pack of dogs running after one of the horses which roam free all over the island. Horrible beasts, dogs! I suppose the horse could easily have killed them with a kick if it came to it, but the poor thing looked very spooked. There was one ahu with six moais in various states of repair, then a final large moai on its own; the piece de resistance, a large moai, complete with the pukao, or topnot, which several others have intact, and the coral eyes that they all originally had. I have since seen online, to my slight disappointment, that the eyes on this one are just replicas, but I really liked it anyway, so much so that I felt obliged to give tribute again to Where the Hell is Matt. I think I got a better handle on his dancing this time.
The beach
Next we headed off to the beach and tanned for a while, until it started to cloud over. After that Joanne wanted dropped back at the hostel, but I wanted to see all the remaining sites. Unsure exactly where I was going, I headed off up one very uneven road after another, not getting anywhere. Eventually I took the long way around, where I knew there was a sign indicating the quarry where the pukaos were all obtained; along that road there was one more fairly complete site of moais. This road started off better, but soon it got very muddy and I was worried about losing it. The tyres were good over stones, but didn't seem to have much traction on mud. I was just turning the bike around to give up on moais and make do with the quarry, when the German guy from the hostel pulled up next to me. When I explained that I was giving up, he offered to take he there in his jeep because it had been very rainy when he went there, and it was only a couple of minutes away. So his week of jeep hire did have some use.
After that it was a quick trip, before the sun set, to the volcano from where the pukaos were quarried then home again. There were some nice views from the quarry, but not much to see at the site itself. I got back just in time to pick Joanne up to watch another sunset, this one much nicer than the first.
Sun set
Joanne in the sun set
It seems to me that Easter Island is a microcosm of humanity and should be a warning to us all. A ruling class oversaw this pointless production of the moais, driven by religious beliefs, until this led to an overconsumption of resources on the island; competing factions wanted to out-compete each other and assert a higher status by producing bigger and better moais. In the end, the trees, which were essential in the transportation and erection of the effigies, fell victim to overconsumption through the unsustainable over-production of the moais, and massive deforestation precipitated an environmental catastrophe, changing the ecology and causing crops to fail. It seems that an aspect of human nature drives us to consume everything available, regardless of necessity, just out of greed or a desire to achieve higher status than other members of society. The result: apocalypse! The structures in place that allowed such a ridiculous situation to perpetuate: religion and a class divide. It must have been obvious to everyone that they were going to run out of forest, but they still continued erecting the statues. Just as nowadays it is obvious that our consumption of fossil fuels cannot continue without causing massive environmental damage, yet the economic forces continue to exert the pressure which will ultimately lead to our downfall if they remain unchecked. In the case of Easter Island, the rest of the population finally rebelled against the ruling classes, whose silly hobby they'd had to support by fishing and farming, and struck out against what they held dear and what had been given most importance in their society: they destroyed the moais. This seems to me reminiscent of any revolution, but particularly the Cultural Revolution in China, where the arts and intellectual pursuits were distrusted and destroyed. Pointlessly, having cast off one set of religious shackles they soon started another religion: The Birdman Cult. We didn't learn much about that, but I hope at least it supported a more egalitarian social order than the moai cult.
The inevitable sun set
written by  The Happy Couple on September 10, 2009 from Hanga Roa, Chile

How September 11th Could Have Been Worse
Santiago, Chile
Funny little airport on Easter Island
The next morning it was goodbye to Easter Island and back to the mainland.
Goodybye Easter Island
When we arrived at our hostel, Ecohostel, the girl on the desk warned us that we shouldn't go outside because it's the 11th of September. I was a bit confused at to why that should matter so much in Chile, until I remembered reading something a year or two before, that more people died as a result of this September 11th in 1973 than the better known and more recent one. It was Noam Chomsky I had read:
So, let’s imagine how [the September 11th attacks] could have been worse for example. Suppose that on September 11, Al-Qaeda had bombed the White House and killed the President, instituted a murderous, brutal regime which killed maybe 50,000 to 100,000 people and tortured about 700,000, set up a major international terrorist center in Washington, which was overthrowing governments all over the world, and installing brutal vicious neo-Nazi dictatorships, assassinating people. Suppose he called in a bunch of economists, let’s call them the 'Kandahar Boys' to run the American economy, who within a couple of years had driven the economy into one of the worst collapses of its history. Suppose this had happened. That would have been worse than 9/11, right? But it did happen. And it happened on 9/11. That happened on September 11, 1973 in Chile. The only thing you have to change is this per capita equivalence, which is the right way to look at it. Well, did that change the world? Yeah, it did but not from our point of view, in fact, who even knows about it? Incidentally, just to finish, because we [the U.S.] were responsible for that one.
Anyway, the girl in the hostel thought it would be safe enough to go to the pizza place round the corner, since we hadn't eaten anything yet, and the pizza place was quite close. I still don't know who it is that causes the problems but, apparently every year, they have riots. Whether it is Pinochet supporters or detractors I don't know, but on the TV at the pizza shop there was plenty of live footage of demonstrations or riots; lots of things on fire and lots of police. Thankfully none of it seemed to be in our neighbourhood and we made it back to the hostel with our pizza.
The following day was nice and sunny. We had to go shopping for a new (OK second hand) pair of trousers for Joanne to replace a pair that had worn through. Most of what we had taken with us was starting to wear out and I would be needing to buy some more myself. For one thing the compass which has been so useful finding our way around cities was full of air and not working very well, however, when I went into the outdoor shop to ask for a brujola they sent me to a fishing shop.
The fishing shop was closed but just next door was a nice little cafe, selling schopp, or draft beer, and colaciones, which are cheap set meals. Both were very nice, although the beer cost almost the same as the food. It's always surprising how much nicer places are in the sun, and it worked its magic again in Santiago. Where I had previously thought the city was OK, I now thought it was a great place. My not very good Spanish seemed to be holding up well and the sun was shining.
After our lunch we went to the bus station to buy a ticket to Valparaiso, where we were heading the next day. At the bus station, the Spanish I thought I had been speaking so well was suddenly useless. I don't know if it was the guys accent or if he just wasn't so used to dealing with foreigners, but I could hardly understand anything he said. We managed to get a ticket in the end and set off to the supermarket to stock up for Valparaiso: we bought some food, some wine, and some aged pisco, like the kids on Easter Island had been drinking, though not the same "expensive" brand at nearly £4 per bottle!
written by  The Happy Couple on September 11, 2009 from Santiago, Chile

Delicious Decay
Valparaiso, Chile
Valparaiso mural (photo by Joanne)
The bus journey to Valparaiso wasn't long, only about two hours, and we arrived at Hostel El Yoyo in the afternoon. Everyone at the hostel seemed to be recovering from a heavy night, so we took it easy as well. I blogged. And we bought oven empanadas from the supermarket. Joanne, especially, was really really sick of empanadas now.
Valparaiso
The next day we headed out to see the town. It's quite a pretty place, but it has a wonderful decay about it, kind of like Venice; it's obviously well past its heyday and falling apart a bit, but it's holding up well and falling apart beautifully. I'm a sucker for places with hills and Valparaiso had loads of them. Most of them have old funiculars, still functioning, to take people up and down. Everywhere there is graffiti, but most of it is very artistic: either neat stencils or else very well done murals, some of which may be sponsored and official, but there is no obvious divide.
Restaurant we couldn't afford in Valparaiso
Pisco sours
It was our intention to go up one of the hills and we chose Cerro Concepción. We spent a while walking around looking for the funicular to take us up the hill but, by the time we realised how high we were, we were already at the top, and we did finally find the funicular, but from the top. The area had obviously at one point been very upmarket, but it still retained a certain amount of wealth, though all now for tourists it seemed. Most of the restaurants and bars there were out of our price range, but we did find a lovely place with a reasonable set lunch, which was delicious. Then we took the funicular down the hill.
Joanne's spinach fettucini
My grilled chicken, wild rice, and peanuts
Joanne in Valparaiso
Lazy dogs at the top of the funicular
Valparaiso decaying in style
Valparaiso prettily falling apart
Another restaurant we couldn't afford
Still a romantic place
Funicular track
That night, the others in the hostel seemed to have recovered and we joined in their night of extreme drunkenness. Max, who was on the desk, seemed to have as part of his job description to get drunk with the guests. Other than that we got chatting to an English couple, Tess and Liam, although Liam insisted he was Irish. He may have had Irish parents, but he certainly didn't sound Irish. Also drinking was an Australian guy, Brad. Tess and Liam are travelling indefinitely, working where they can, and they have covered much of the same ground we have, taking 14 months to do what we did in eight. Not fair!
Mural in el Yoyo
Liam. He's Irish.
Tess and Max
Brad and erm...
I'm a bit tired I think
Definitely tired
written by  The Happy Couple on September 14, 2009 from Valparaiso, Chile

Meat, Booze, Ceviche, and Missing Clothing
Valparaiso, Chile
Our second full day in Valparaiso, we woke up remembering that some Australians wanted to organise a barbecue for that night. I asked Max if he knew anything about it, but he didn't, though he said we would have to let him know if we wanted one because the hostel barbecue had been borrowed by his friend. Everyone decided they did want to barbecue and next time I saw Max he had already collected it anyway. Max is a really nice guy and very laid back. The hostel is run quite unlike any others we had been to: very casual and very few rules. Max's main job seems to be to get drunk with the customers.
We all went out to get meat, which was pretty confusing considering none of the cuts are the same as those we're used to: no sirloin, fillet, rump, t-bone, etc – at least not with those names. I've since discovered that you can get t-bone and fillet, but they're not that common. Most of the cuts are just gigantic lumps of meat, with no so consistent thickness. After much dithering we all chose our various lumps and I also bought some traditional sausages, recommended by Max: Longanizas. He had also recommended the cut of meat called lomo vetado, but the supermarket didn't have it. He had impressed on me that the supermarket was the place we should buy meat because he didn't really trust the butchers, which he said were a bit dirty. Nonetheless, we had to go there for his lomo vetado. When we told Max where we had got it, he did not look happy at all, but he cooked it and ate it anyway.
Full disclosure: all these photos were taken by Joanne, not me.
Tess and the meat
Rare shot of Max with no hat (Brad & Adam behind)
Underbite dog in the background
The whole time we were cooking dogs hung around hoping for the best. One in particular was very funny: it had a prominent lower jaw and very noticeable “underbite” so that it's bottom teeth were visible all the time. I'm sure it got some scraps just because of the way it looked. The Australians, Brad, Adam, and Sally had been travelling together for a while, but were all going their separate ways soon. Liam is a chef and, although he didn't want to get too involved to avoid the temptation to take over, was very strict about leaving the steak until the right time, so much so that some of the steaks only just cooked. However they did cook so maybe he was right.
It may not be responsible, but it is coordinated
Plenty was drunk all round and once the barbecue was finished, Max suggested we all go out to a club. The underbite dog followed us the whole way to the club then, when we were turned away from it because it was full and left for another club, we were followed by a crowd of locals as well as the dog. When we arrived at the second club we transformed it from a place with two customers to almost full, counting the locals on our tail. On the way the dog was attacked by another dog and later we all agreed we were almost ready to step in and defend “our” dog, though he was adopted over the course of only one evening.
A French girl on the prowl, but I'm married
.... French girl turns her attention to Max
It's just a perk of the job for Max
After the club closed we all headed back to the hostel, being tailed by one of the locals. The girls were a bit uneasy by this and let Max know they weren't happy. He said that we shouldn't worry, the guy wouldn't get in. Valparaiso seems to have a slightly dangerous reputation and we were still very wary of South America after months in relatively safe Asia. Max told us that he had once been mugged just as he got to the hostel and robbed of his watch (grandfather's), his wallet, and even his shoes and trousers. Luckily this guy just disappeared when Max told him that the hostel rules, actually it seems to be its only rule, is that guests are not allowed after 1pm, and it was well after.
Me and Adam
Brad and Liam
We stayed up all night and drank everything we had: the pisco we had bought in Santiago came out and was drunk; the extra beers we bought were drunk; all the wine was drunk. We were all drunk. There was dancing in the kitchen. I think we went to bed about 7:30am. Most hostels have rules about noise, but this one just seems to be a party hostel. The guy working on the desk is up drinking with all the guests. I feel really sorry for anyone trying to sleep at night in that hostel.
I'm so drunk a flying mouth is eating my head
Tess and Joanne
The next day, afternoon of course, we got up and discovered that Joanne's fleece was gone, as was Tess's cardigan, and a German guy's jacket. Each one might have thought they had drunkenly misplaced it, but all three together was more than a coincidence. A review of the previous night's photos (after all there was no memory to refer to) revealed that all of the clothing had made it back from the club to the hostel kitchen. It also revealed that some friends of another employee at the hostel were around quite late on, so late that nobody remembered them having been there. Max seemed suspicious.
Chief suspects in the case of the missing clothing
What we needed to deal with our hangovers, Max suggested, was some ceviche, Chile's national dish, except it's really Peruvian, maybe. He offered to make it, so we went out to buy all the ingredients:
Ceviche
Ingredients
Reineta (or salmon) Fillets from 2kg of whole fish
Cilantro [Fresh Coriander]
Green Chili
2 Onions
1kg Tomatoes
2kg Lemons
1 Pimento [Bell Pepper]
Method
Juice the lemon and chop everything else up and mix it all together
Leave it for an hour or so
Eat with bread
At the supermarket my Spanish came up rubbish again when trying to deal with the fish counter. They had the fish we wanted, but it wasn't already filleted. I wouldn't have expected that to cause too many problems, but it took us ages. We finally made a decision and settled for the fillets from two whole fish when she started suggesting that we might want frozen fish as well. Frozen fish, raw? No thanks.
The ceviche
It was well worth it. He didn't actually use all the tomatoes or lemons (for juice), but Max's ceviche was absolutely fantastic and I fancy that it did alleviate my hangover substantially. Max joined us to eat, although he had to be persuaded, and told us about his job. He was waiting to be told about a job in Spain but, even if he didn't get it, there was no way he was working another summer at the hostel: it's just too much partying, he explained. After the independence day celebrations he was planning to go skiing near Santiago and told us he could get us free ski passes. Apparently he had another job on the slopes.
El Yoyo's guide to Chilean slang
We hadn't really decided what we were doing after Valparaiso, and we didn't know where to be for Fiestas Patrias, the independence celebrations, though we considered Max's party proposals. I quite fancied going to Pucon in the Chilean lake district, then maybe crossing over to Argentina at that point, but it was going to be hard to fit in with out tight schedule and Fiestas Patrias. There was skiing down that way too, and the snow would be better. Tess and Liam were looking forward to a double party because the day after Fiestas Patrias finished it was Liam's 30th Birthday. Finally we decided we didn't really have enough time to go to Pucon, after all we wanted to go to Mendoza, which is just over the border from Santiago. So we decided we would go with Tess and Liam to Santiago for Fiestas Patrias, then celebrate his 30th birthday with them. After all we had celebrated a 21st in Thailand, so why not now a 30th?
written by  The Happy Couple on September 16, 2009 from Valparaiso, Chile

Party party party
I had been hoping to steal some of Tess's photos for this blog, but they seem to be even further behind than I am, so I've had to make do with the three photos we took between us over four days in Santiago. I'll steal some of Tess's and post them later when they are up.
Back in Santiago (for the third time), we checked into Casa Roja, the same hostel as Liam and Tess, who recommended it after their last stay in Santiago. Santiago is such a hub, everyone seems to pass through it several times. Chilean independence celebrations were already underway and there seemed to be quite a few hangovers around the hostel. Keen that we be prepared for similar circumstances we all went out to find a pharmacist and stock up ibuprofen, re-hydration salts, and Berocca. We struggled for a bit in Spanish (Tess's Spanish is better than mine, but she was still struggling to explain re-hydration salts and what Berocca are), before the pharmacist revealed that he could speak English. They were all in high spirits in the shop and the pharmacist offered us each a pisco sour; apparently they were all drinking on duty. What an excellent pharmacist, to dispense pisco sour free of charge to the customers!
Nice pharmacist serving us pisco sours
Us and the best pharmacist in Chile
Now fully prepared we bought food and booze from the supermarket, which we were told was going to close early and be closed for three days. Tess sent Liam out so she could sneakily buy him a birthday cake and we bought him a bottle of Havana Club rum as a present, and also, for us, a bottle of the Pisco Mistral we had the kids had let us taste on Easter Island. Of course we had wine and beer as well; we didn't want to run out. Back at the hostel Liam took charge of food and I was assigned the task of making a fine chop concasse, tomatoes with their seeds removed and chopped up into tiny bits. This was mixed through the rice along with some more Longaniza sausages and served with lemon chicken. Stomachs lined, we headed out for the start of our celebrations.
That night, most of the people at the hostel were going to see a band, called Banda Conmocion, playing at a venue very close to the hostel. The support bands were quite good, but the headliners were fantastic, combining several chaotic musical genres I like: ska, Balkan, gypsy-punk, and a hint of salsa. There were at least twenty band members, many of the dressed up in bizarre costumes (one was satan) and parading around the stage apparently oblivious to the rest of the band; however the cacophony all came together somehow and there was a lot of bouncing in the club. The previous bands had been far more salsa and some of the dancing then had been intimidatingly proficient, but this was far more my sort of thing: plenty of knees up, running on the spot, and straight-forward bouncing for the real climaxes, so I got stuck right into to the sweaty masses. At one point, during one of the earlier bouncy bits a girl tapped me heavily on the shoulder and, when I turned round, said Baila como la mierda, which I thought was a bit rude and it dented my confidence enough to make me retreat to the back and resume the indifferent shuffle. However from there I could see that she was the only person in the whole place still trying to salsa dance to crashing cymbals, booming bass drums, and parping trombones; everyone else was bouncing around, buffeting her, until eventually retreated looking disgusted with everybody. She was the one who had got it wrong, not me!
The next day the drinking just continued; this was the actual independence day of Fiestas Patrias, and we paid a visit to the bar where Tess and Liam had befriended the staff during their last stay at Casa Roja. The owner had incredibly cool long dreadlocks, of which I was very jealous, but he had been growing them for ten years. All of these friends of Tess and Liam were very patient with our Spanish, which was just as well because none of them really spoke any English. It's amazing how much easier it is to speak another language when you know English is not an option – and you've had a skinful!
The next day was Liam's 30th birthday, but also “Military Day”, the last day of Fiestas Patrias and we started it with a great hangover breakfast: leftover longanizas, fried together with leftover chicken in rolls, the finishing touch being the HP sauce and Coleman's English Mustard I had bought in New Zealand. A girl eating a vegetarian breakfast in the garden near where we set looked on at our massive meat sandwich breakfasts with a mixture of disgust and admiration, I thought. Maybe it was just disgust. Straight after breakfast (well it was already late afternoon) Liam started on the Havana Club, so we started on the Mistral. Rinse and repeat.
The next day I felt absolutely awful. I could barely speak to anyone, and a brief attempt I made to be sociable with all the people we had met in the hostel over the last few days, had to be abandoned in favour of a large take-away pizza for each of us. Liam was even worse that I was: he had drunk almost the whole bottle of rum himself in less than an hour, just to start the day off. He only managed to get out of bed long enough to eat half his pizza then disappeared again.
All I could think was, we can never drink like this again. We're too old to be celebrating 30th birthdays; I thought it would be OK because we had managed a 21st previously but, in retrospect, 21st birthdays are probably safer and tamer, because 21 year-olds have not yet had the time to develop fully-blown disgraceful behaviour, whereas 30 year-olds certainly have, and have not yet started the long decline where they can no longer maintain. Or maybe it's just chefs. Liam and Tess were planning taking a month of alcohol as well as quitting smoking the next day. At least we didn't have cigarettes to quit, but we couldn't stop drinking: our next destination was Mendoza and the only reason we were going there was wine.
We definitely needed some sort of rest though; apart from all the alcohol we had barely slept except through the drunkest of slumbers, because our dorm of eight beds was also the thoroughfare to the neighbouring dorm of another eight beds, and during the last few days people were keeping all hours, so it was never quiet. To help us recover, Joanne booked a double room in a hostel in Mendoza which was recommended for being quiet. That's what we needed after the last two party hostels we had stayed in.
It was another night of almost no sleep and the next morning I was still feeling terrible, so we had leftover pizza and a can of beer I found in my bag, hoping it would clear away the last vestiges of the binge before we properly began our better, cleaner lifestyle. Tess and Liam did not look like they were going to wake up, so we just left them, and headed of to the bus station to catch our bus to Argentina. It was a shame we didn't see more of Chile, but we did go to Easter Island, which was the main thing, and afterwards we joined in with the national celebrations, so we didn't do too badly on the right schedule we have to stick to for South America. I liked the people and the atmosphere in Santiago, but it would have been nice to make it further south to Pucon and the lake district, or even further to Patagonia. Oh well, there's always next time.
Breakfast

Arrival in Argentina
Mendoza, Argentina
We weren't sure how easy it would be to get a bus from Santiago to Mendoza considering that such a major holiday had just finished, and we also didn't want to arrive too late, so when we someone behind one of the bus company desks told us his was leaving in five minutes and we had to hurry, we jumped to it. This meant drawing a little more Chilean money, just to pay for the ticket and maybe buy something to eat. We drew the money and paid, but there still seemed to be a fair bit of time before the bus actually left. Also it was a minibus, rather than a proper bus, which we might have had second thoughts about and looked around for other options if we had not been in such a hurry. About half an hour into the journey I realised that my bank card wasn't in my pocket where I expected it to be. I checked the likely locations in my bag and it wasn't there either. The pockets in the trousers aren't very effective, so I checked all around on the floor when the bus stopped, but still found nothing. At least we knew it had got as far as the bus station, since I had drawn money afterwards.
Joanne talked me through everything I had done since. Did I accidentally hand it over to the conductor when I paid for the tickets? Definitely not: I remembered counting through the money and would definitely have noticed my card there. Did I collect it from the ATM after drawing the money? I couldn't remember one way or another; normally it's so automatic I don't register doing it. Then I remembered that the stupid ATMs in Chile all ask you if you want another transaction (Y/N) after dispensing your cash. Then I realised: this is something I would have remembered because it always annoys me that they ask such a pointless and potentially hazardous question to the ownership of your card. I had hoped that my irritation would always remind me about this but, on this occasion, we had still been discussing which bus to get, and I think I must have just whipped the money out then continued the conversation. Could someone have been passing, just as it was beeping for a response and said Yes, I'd like to draw all the money available? I hoped it at least asked for this PIN again if you try to draw more money. This is why ATMs in the UK give you your card first, then give you your money; if you want another transaction after drawing money, you have to put your card and PIN in again. Stupid South American ATMs! Stupid rushing and harassing bus conductor! But above all, stupid me for walking away from the machine without my card!
I'm not certain that this is what happened, but it seems the most likely explanation. I suppose I may have dropped it on the way to the bus, or someone may have dipped into my pocket. Whatever had happened to it I had to stop the card immediately. So I sent a text to my trusty old friend, John, asking him to look up the card-stop numbers for me. Soon his (reliable as ever) text came back, but I discovered we couldn't make international calls on the Chilean SIM and I didn't want to call them, roaming from my UK SIM; someone might have been taking the daily maximum out of my account but that would surely be nothing compared to the bill racked up by waiting on hold from abroad. So I sent my dad a text and asked him to make the call for me. Even at 36, parents can come in really handy.
On the road there were hundreds of large lorries. It must be a major haulage route between the two countries. The scenery was stunning on the way up to the border, but most of the time quite well hidden by cloud. I can't remember what height the pass is, but it must be about 3000 metres, I think. We passed a few ski courses and continued upwards. All this climbing, of course, meant that it was absolutely freezing at the border, where we were obliged to hang around for more than half an hour, off the bus for some reason. We weren't dressed for it, in fact we didn't really have the clothes for it with us, but putting on our thermals before we got on the bus would have helped.
On the road to the Santiago-Mendoza border
Back on the bus, heading down the other side from the border, suddenly things seemed far more militarised: we passed several army units apparently out on exercise in the hills and there were quite military-looking police everywhere. Also, the railway line I thought I had caught glimpses of on the way up to the border was much more obvious on the other side, but now I could see it was disused. Clearly this railway line used to be the main freight route between the countries but now it's all hundreds of big lorries. What a waste! The line didn't even look like it had been out of use for all that long, no more than twenty years. All the tunnels were intact, as were the bridges, some of which didn't even look very rusty, in fact there were even metal signs along the tracks that were still legible. It was only the weeds and the uncleared earth, part burying the tracks in places, that gave away the redundancy of the line. We followed the railway route pretty much the whole way to Menddoza.
Maybe to prepare us for the country we had now entered, I pondered, on the bus stereo was now played a continuous string of the biggest cheese merchants that the music industry has ever been cruel enough to inflict on the world. Act after act of faux-sincere, over-emotional crooners wailing about un amor perdido or whatever. It was horrendous and just when we thought it couldn't possibly get any worse, they switched on the screen and there they were: strutting around the stage, mostly rather macho, complete with gleaming teeth, giant collars, white suit, bouffant hair, or tight purple jeans and a hairy medallioned chest, or whatever other awful combination their style-gurus must have told them would really sell. I understand that music in the UK used to be overrun with crooners before Elvis and pop music rendered them all obsolete, but this was no video nasty from the 50s or 60s, this was clearly quite recent and a few numbers even featured a nod to modern pop-py beats. What kind of country were we entering where this could be modern music? What was it - Cheesier than Cheddar vol.5? Now that's what I call Gorgonzola? We'll never know because, although disbelief really made me want to ask, I couldn't risk someone overhearing and thinking that I had liked it.
After a while the road levelled out and became very straight. The numbers of police on the road just rose and rose, until there seemed to be cars pulled over every few hundred yards. At first I thought they must be pulling people over looking for bribes, but then I noticed that around every intersection the speed limit was very low, and there were frequent little shrines dotted all along the road as well; so I suppose they probably have good reason to pull so many vehicles over. Whatever the reason is added more to the feeling that we were in a police state or military dictatorship, which I wasn't expecting given how long it has been since the last junta.
The walk to the hostel wasn't very nice and we were anxious to get there before it got too dark. On first impression, it was it far more run-down than Santiago or Valparaiso: there was graffiti everywhere, and not the nice murals of Valparaiso. The pavements were all cracked and loads of the paving stones were missing, as if they had been lifted and sold off. Everywhere there were real wrecks of cars on the road. I didn't really expect this much of an obvious change just coming across the border from Chile to Argentina, but it really seemed like we had arrived in a less prosperous country, full of vandals. The people even looked quite shady after Chile.
The hostel was very nice and it was quiet, which was what we needed after Santiago. The guy who was on the desk seemed very nice, but extremely serious, bordering on miserable. We got chatting to the only other people staying there: a girl from Irvine and her English fiancé. They took pity on us and our lost bank card, and invited us to join them in the dinner they had just made (a little too much of, they insisted).
written by  The Happy Couple on September 21, 2009 from Mendoza, Argentina

Missing Photos
I've finally got around to stealing Tess and Liam's photos from Facebook, to fill in the gaps for when I didn't have my camera with me in Valparaiso and Santiago.
Santiago
What an excellent gig it was!
Banda Conmocion gig
Valparaiso
Not drunk, honest
Quite late on at the el Yoyo
Still sober, oh yes.
Amusing dog with "underbite"
Awwww. Tess and Joanne.

The Worst Wine Tour EVER
Mendoza, Argentina
The morning brought nothing but administration: I phoned Nationwide to make sure my lost card was cancelled and not just frozen, and to find out what options there were for obtaining a new one. There were no options. I had hoped they'd be able to send it to a branch of some partner bank but the only option they offered was to send it to my home address. Since my sister is in the flat, it would have to do: she could arrange for it to be couriered to me. Nationwide out of the way, I took advantage of my admin momentum and called More Than about the insurance they had cancelled rather than giving me a third year free, as sold to me. I had even less luck with them and, rather than apologising, it sounds like they have submitted a negative report to credit rating agencies. I vowed to report them to the regulator when I returned home.
Finally we went out to look at the town. It was shut. I have plenty of memories of holidays in continental Europe, where hours were spent wandering around ghost towns just because they like a long lunch. It doesn't happen much in Europe any more, but the tradition seems alive and well in Argentina. Everywhere you could sit down there were people drinking mate from nice cups with bombillas jutting out of them. But everybody seemed to look very depressed; it was almost as bad as India, but when I considered how shabby the town looks, it didn't seem that odd after all. I felt like I was wandering around Clydebank. We were planning to buy some clothes as our clothes shopping was now well overdue, but the only shop we saw opening times for suggested that they were closed for four hours over lunch. We needed something to do in the meantime, because our hostel was a bit out of town and we didn't want to walk back and forth.
Beer
The only places still open were restaurants and bars, so we decided that lunch would do to fill the time. When we saw somewhere offering bife de chorizo for AR$23 we decided this was the place. It seemed a bit more than we should be spending and a bit more than we were expecting, since we had been told that Argentina is cheaper than Chile, but we had also been told that this cut is the best one in the country with the best steaks in the world, so we couldn't resist. Inside we discovered that it was actually a very good deal, because it normally costs AR$35. The meat was amazing: nice thick, juicy steaks. We washed it down with some Malbec wine, an Argentinian cultivar, and I had a local beer. Lunch cost our entire daily budget. Ooops - but it was worth it!
Bife de chorizo
By the time we were finished our lunch, we were so full and tired from the wine that we couldn't be bothered shopping and just returned to the hostel, pledging that the next day would be a full one. Again I was struck by how shabby the town is: the drains are all open, like the poorer parts of Asia, there are really worn-out cars everywhere, and there is no consideration at all given to pedestrians: no crossings, no pedestrian lights, no stopping to let you across. It really seems like they have the American love of the automobile (and truck), in fact most of the old cars are old American ones; it's a bit like Cuba, except the cars are from the 70s instead of the 50s. And they are in much worse condition that the Cuban equivalent.
Dodgy car and drain
I just couldn't get over how different it all was from Chile.
Next morning we arranged to go on a wine tour in the afternoon. The hostel could arrange two different tours: one was Mr Hugo's bicycle wine tour and the other one was in a minibus. The guy working in the hostel told us that the bicycle tours were dangerous, because of people looking for drunk tourists to rob, and Joanne had read somewhere that the vineyards on the cycling route tend not to be as good as on minibus tours. So we booked up for the minibus tour. There would only be two vineyards, which was a bit disappointing, but there was also an olive oil factory. Woo.
In the cellar
Waiting for our tasting...
It was the worst wine tour that either of us has ever been on. We each paid AR$60, for which would could have bought three good bottles of wine each, and in return we got two miniscule tastes of wine at each of the two wineries. How they expected us to choose what to buy from their entire selection of wines after tasting just two, I have no idea, so we refused to buy anything. I can't believe it makes good business sense for them to be so stingy, but we just assumed they haven't really learned how to do wine tours yet in Argentina. Oh it wasn't just tasting: we had to endure being shown all around the factories and told all about the process of producing wine, in both wineries. As if we don't already know how wine is made, or give a monkeys anyway, when we are there to taste wine. This was the reason we had come to Mendoza and all we got was four tastes of wine. We weren't very happy.
The Andes in the distance
Another cellar
Yet another cellar!
An expensive wine they teased us with
More wines we weren't allowed to taste
The olive oil tour was actually the best part of the day but, when we decided to buy some unfiltered olive oil and sun-dried tomatoes, we discovered that they didn't take credit cards, which was all I had. We had been told by three different people that everywhere takes credit cards in Argentina, but here is a place on a tour, for goodness' sake – for tourists and they didn't take credit cards. The tour we had signed up for was a “bilingual tour”, but the English seemed to be forgotten about after the introduction. Utter rubbish! Then, just when we thought our day could get no worse, because we were on our way home, the tour guide picked up the microphone and announced that we'd be stopping off at a church. On a wine tour! She explained it was la virgen de vino, the patron saint of wine, but I couldn't have cared less by that point. I wanted my wine! When we got back, we went straight to the supermarket and bought an expensive bottle of wine to make up to ourselves what we had missed out on the tour. I bought myself a nice-looking beer just in case the wine didn't cheer me up.
La Virgen de Vino on the church
Something to do with the Virgen. Who cares?
The area around the wineries was quite pretty
Nice beer
We were tempted to stay an extra day and do a different wine tour, maybe the cycling one, but would it be any different? We decided against it and made our way slowly down to the bus station. Getting a bus in Argentina is not a simple matter: because of the stupid and wasteful freemarket system they have embraced, it is necessary to walk up and down dozens of different companies' desks, asking each how much?, when?, and so on; they don't have menus up telling you that information, and there is no central, impartial information point you can go to, much the same as Thailand. It would have been the same in Chile, but we had chosen the one company with a price up on the way to Valparaiso because it was less than we had expected, but there were only about five people on the bus, and buses leaving every five minutes; what a waste! Our guide book said there were buses every hour to Cordoba, so we hadn't bothered to book. What our guide book had not mentioned, and we learned when we arrived there, is that the buses are every hour, after 9pm, so we were stuck in Mendoza for an extra half day. If we had known we would have had time to do the wine tour before the bus, but now it was too late.
We heaved our bags back to the hostel and asked if the guy on duty minded if we left our stuff. He was very nice and said we could use the internet, shower, make food, or do whatever we wanted. So we went online to change the hostel bookings we had made in Cordoba and Buenos Aires, which now needed to be put back by one day. The hostel in Cordoba was full the day after we had booked, so we just had to drop the first night. We thought this would be OK, since we would probably be leaving there at night as well, so we would have two full days, even if it was only one night. My friend from Cape Town, Andre, had said he'd be able to meet up with us in Uruguay, but the ferry books up well ahead of time, so we booked that as well. This was the most organised we had been since New Zealand.
Taking advantage of our unexpected extra time, we headed out to buy clothes, but didn't find anything we liked. Instead, we ended up sitting down for lunch at a basic looking cafe. We expected food to cost less than we had paid for the bife de chorizo, so I thought we should experiment with how cheap it was safe to go. My lunch was a parilla, or grill, for AR$15, including a glass of wine and a salad. Sounds nice. Joanne went for three slices of pizza for AR$8, but she went for “juice” instead of wine. In Chile we had discovered that actual juice seems impossible to buy; everything they sell as if it is juice is actually nectar which is a disgustingly sweet mix of water, fruit juice, and sugar, but even that seems to be too healthy for most Chileans: probably the most popular drink we saw at breakfast was Coca Cola. In Argentina it was turning out much the same: fizzy drinks everywhere and fruit juice is impossible to buy. Lunch was really horrible. Clearly food wasn't supposed to be as cheap as that, but at least we knew that we had misjudged. Suddenly the bife de chorizo seemed like excellent value.
AR$15 worth of food (plus wine, not shown)
We picked up our bags from the hostel and went to the bus station. Amazingly Salli, the Aussie from the hostels in Valparaiso and Santiago, was getting the same bus as us. She was raving about the fantastic wine tour she and her friends had gone on, had we heard of Mr Hugo's bicycle tours? As much wine as you can drink back at Mr Hugo's house after visiting loads of vineyards. I was raging so much that I was very tempted to get off the bus and stay for an extra day, but we were already falling behind schedule and we didn't have much time in South America. I had to let it go.
More transport, more discomfort. The seats were made for midgets: the edges of the head rest poked into my shoulder blades when the chair was fully upright. Terrible crooning Argentinian music blasted out of speakers directly over our heads. They provide an on-off switch for everybody's lights; why don't they provide one for everybody's speaker? It's madness. Bife de chorizo aside (which is difficult to do because it was so good), Argentina had started off very disappointingly.
written by  The Happy Couple on September 24, 2009 from Mendoza, Argentina

Pajeros de Toros
Cordoba, Argentina
Still trying to recover from our bender in Valparaiso and Santiago, we had chosen our hostel in Cardoba for it's lack of reputation as a party hostel. For some reason, the online booking system had been down, so Joanne had booked it over the phone. The AR$25 price online was old, they told her, because they have made improvements, and it's now AR$35; a bit more than we had paid until now, but not the end of the world. The hostel, called Hostel Art, did look very nice, and it had a lovely patio on the roof, but the dorm was really cramped, there was no wifi as advertised and, for the first time in South America, breakfast was not included. Not very good for the money: I don't care if it looks nice, I want substance!
Cordoba
It's sunny!
Aware of our short time in Cordoba, we headed straight out as soon as we had dumped our bags. The city was surprisingly ugly. That's unfair: there wasn't as much of the nice architecture as we had expected. We were there for the reputedly nice architecture but San Martin Plaza, the main square, which is supposed to be a highlight, was all off limits because of building or restoration work, or maybe they were just trying to remove the graffiti that seems to be everywhere in Argentina. We walked around the central area looking for colonial buildings, but didn't see much, so we walked around Neuva Cordoba, looking for many examples of 19th Century buildings converted into bars and restaurants, but we didn't find them either,
Plaza San Martin - off limits
and there seemed to be building works all over the city. We gave up on architecture for a while and headed into the park. Even the park was ugly because of graffiti and construction. How can you need to do so much building in a park? It may be that we just missed it all because our guide book is not detailed enough to give anything more specific than areas, but we practically carried out a box search after leaving the park; maybe it's just that we are really spoiled with European cities and it takes an awful lot for a city to look beautiful to us. Still not very impressed with Argentina.
Graffiti
Neo-Gothic Iglesia Sagrado Corazon
We went to look around the Jesuit ruins but we couldn't find any sign of the guided tour and gave up, since there are much better examples further north and in Paraguay. We passed a demonstration, which seems to be an Argentinian institution: we had hard demonstrations every day we were in Mendoza as well.
Demo
A particularly bad piece of public art
Beer
At least the weather was nice, and it was almost warm in the sun. We stopped off at a (definitely not 19th Century) restaurant for a menu del dia at AR$25, having happily established that fifteen pesos is too little in Mendoza, but I had terrible trouble communicating with the waiter.
I had begun to feel quite good about my little bit of Spanish, but suddenly I could understand nothing: I had asked him for the contraseña for the wifi, but after several attempts I still couldn't get it; he had said to me what sounded like “siette ve ce siette y un ocho”, which I understood all of except for the “ve ce” bit. A failing I had discovered in my Spanish dictionary is that it does not tell you how to pronounce the names of letters if something is spelled out, so numbers were fine, but I had no idea about letters. Considering this gap in my knowledge, I reckoned that “ve ce” was probably letter V and letter C. I tried 7vc718, I tried with uppercase letters, I tried W instead of V, but none of them worked. Eventually I called the waiter back over and asked him again. After repeating it several times, which was no help, he finally thought to “siette: un, dos, tres, ... , siette!” and it clicked: he had said siette veces siette, seven times seven. Whew! I tried again, 777777718, and still got nothing. Then the last penny dropped: 77777778. Seven sevens and one eight. I'm sure he could have explained it more clearly, or just written it down for me.
Argentine flag
An old car
It's amazing how much difference your ability to speak another language can be sabotaged by a native speaker who is totally insensitive to the fact you can't really speak the language, yet with other, more intelligent people I suppose, they can really make your life so much easier. Even ordering and paying the bill with Visa was difficult with this guy: rather harassed by my inability to communicate, I asked him in Spanish “do you have Visa?” instead of “do you take Visa?”. You would think it should be easy enough to work out what someone who has just asked for the bill is really trying to say. I even pointed at the Visa sign, but he eventually managed to hear “Visa” as “cerveza” instead of just seeing the obvious mistake. Later, chatting to a Porteño with less English than we have Spanish, we discovered that the accent in Cordoba is particularly unusual, so that probably contributed to the lunch time debacle. When he realised we were going to have communication problems he said podemos comunicar sin idioma, “we can communicate without langauge”. Only later did we discover that really was his fields: he had been staying in Cordoba for two months busking with marionettes and making good money apparently. In fact we were able to get by on Spanish rather than non-verbal communication. In most (or all?) of Argentina they slur the “y sound” for both letters Y and LL and pronounce it like the second G in “garage” in French. So amarillo, yellow, becomes something like amarijjo. In Cordoba this guy told us, they also slur the double-R, so that perro, dog, becomes something like pejjo. It is quite liberating talking to someone who has no option to switch into your own language: we just had to muddle through, without feeling at all embarrassed about how badly we were doing. But it was hard work and after the second bottle of wine we started to give up. Anyway, we were hungry, so we got directions to an empanada place and left.
Argentinian empanadas
More Argentinian empanadas
We had been told in Chile by several people that the best empanadas in South America are in Argentina, so we were keen to try them, despite having been totally sick of the Chilean ones. They were much nicer. Rather than greasy, flaky pastry, it was a plain short-crust pastry (I think, not too good with pastry terminology) and the meat filling was more interestingly flavoured. Back at the hostel we caused some amusement when we realised that other people staying there, for a conference, were not animators as we had heard but animal inseminators or maybe it was animal maters we had first been told.
Greek Orthodox church
written by  The Happy Couple on September 25, 2009 from Cordoba, Argentina

Pilgrimage to Alta Gracia
Alta Gracia, Argentina
The unseasonable cold weather was clearly over as it was a lovely sunny, hot day when we travelled the hour or so by bus to Alta Gracia, basically just as a pilgrimage to Ernesto 'Che' Guevara's home. In the hope it would alleviate his asthma, his parents moved from Buenos Aires to the warmer drier climate of Alta Gracia, where he lived between the ages of four and thirteen. We hadn't actually planned to go there, but we were so unimpressed with Cordoba that we felt we had exhausted the city in half a day, and that one night had been more than enough. So we looked in the guide book for day-trip ideas nearby. The town sounded quite nice and I wasn't totally opposed to the pilgrimage idea anyway.
Che
The house had been turned into a museum, which was moderately interesting, though I felt like it was a bit of a spoiler at points, since I am currently reading an excellent biography of him, called Compañero. Each room in the house represented a different period of his life, starting with toys he had owned as a child and letters he had written to his aunt, then the famous motorbike on which he started his travels around South America, until the last few rooms, where it was mostly photographs of him with Castro, then on campaign in the Congo and Bolivia. Actually the motorbike must surely have been a replica, because they left their motorbike for scrap in the Andes didn't they?
Che's bike
Che's house
Next door was a Cuban bar, where we sat around in the sun listening to salsa music, drinking expensive – and very poor – mojitos, had some empanadas for lunch, and struggled again with the Spanish which I think may be even more heavily accented than Cordoba, before heading off to the town centre.
Che's patio - with his writing on the wall
On the way we passed some of the mansions still standing, which used to be owned by Che's friends and neighbours. This was all in a bit of a state of decay as well, in the romantic Venice or Valparaiso way, not in the Mendoza or Cordoba way. We passed the Sierras Hotel, where his parents used to live it up life with their socialite friends. It still looks very grand, but seems to be going through some major renovations after being shut down for some time. Like most things we had tried to see in Argentina it was off-limits because of construction.
Argentine fare
Nice clouds over Alta Gracia
Che's neighbour's house
Sierras Hotel
Main square Alta Gracia
Jesuit church
The town itself is really quite small, but fairly pretty, and we both preferred it to the supposedly pretty Cordoba. In the main square a young jazz band had set up and were playing to all of the bars and cafes surrounding the square. It seems like quite a lively place as well. But we couldn't linger too long because we had to get back on the bus to return to Cordoba in time for our overnight bus to Buenos Aires, or BA as all the travellers seem to call it, though I never saw it abbreviated to anything other than Bs As by actual Argentinians.
Clock tower Alta Gracia
Old Ford
Older Ford
Our bus to Cordoba from Mendoza had been really quite comfortable, better than anything we encountered in Asia, so we expected the same again. Unfortunately it was not so: our overnight bus to Bs As seemed to have about twice as many seats crammed into it and I looked forward to a night with no sleep.
written by  The Happy Couple on September 26, 2009 from Alta Gracia, Argentina

Not so Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Despite the uncomfortable bus, we got a good amount of sleep on our overnight bus from Cordoba, but when we arrived we discovered the metro had not yet opened, which meant getting a taxi; something we have very rarely done on this trip. And it was absolutely freezing, so our hopes of the unseasonable cold weather being finished were dashed. When getting taxis in Argentina you have to struggle to get your own bag into the car before the guy standing by the front of the queue does it for you, obligating you to tip him. There seems to be a lot of tipping in Argentina and the people will ask you directly for it. There was a bit of this in Chile, but nothing like as bad as Argentina. You can't ask for a tip! Even at the supermarkets you have to be quick to pack your shopping or else someone else will do it then demand a tip. Anyway we managed to get our bags in and open the door ourselves to avoid the extra cost.
Old car
At the hostel, the guy working on the desk seemed quite hostile, as if he had just woken up. He let us in to dump our bags, as we had hoped, but then he told us that check-in wasn't until 2pm, so we couldn't stay. He told us there was a famous market on and we should visit that. What an unfriendly welcome, and the only place in nine months of travelling we have encountered something like that. Compare this to the people in Macleodganj in India who let us stay and gave us tea, even though we weren't going to stay there, or the place in China where they had let us use another room to sleep or shower because ours wasn't ready yet. So, literally shivering, we made our way to the street the market was on. Nobody had set up yet. We walked the full length of the street looking for any sign of a market, but found only icy winds. We spent some time (and money) in a cafe, waiting to see if the market materialised, but the few people who turned up with boxes looked doubtfully at the sky and then disappeared again.
Duff beer
Finally we could take no more and headed back to the hostel to ask for more clothes out of our bags. When we arrived the same horrible guy said “Don't you want to wait inside?” so we were in. After nearly four hours risking hypothermia we were allowed into the hostel. “Most people are up now”, he said as if in way of explanation, as if we were going to come in and make loads of noise and wake everyone up. Three hour later, all the up to 2pm, he finally checked us in. Now, I knew that Indians tended to be overly bureaucratic, but I had no idea Argentinians were so obsessed with following rules; or maybe it was just this hostel, or even just this receptionist. “Some people are still sleeping. They got back drunk very late last night, so don't worry you won't wake them” he told us. Then when we went into the room, none of the beds seemed to be free, although there were only three people in a six bed dorm. They had spread their stuff all over the room. Joanne was incandescent: he kept us waiting all of that time, probably just so some drunk people could lie in, and with all that time we were kept waiting they haven't even made sure the room is ready for us.
So called bife de chorizo (a lo pobre)
Bife de costilla a lo pobre
Now that we were allowed to, we both had showers, which were sorely needed just to warm up, if nothing else. Then it was out for lunch: we found a place selling bife de chorizo, keen to repeat the fantastic experience in Mendoza. It was quite a bit pricier, but we now realised what a good deal we had got before. Joanne went for a slightly cheaper bife de costilla which is a T-bone steak, but they were both fairly awful. What a let-down and what a bad start to Buenos Aires. The day was a write-off. But it was raining anyway, and we couldn't face being out in it any longer. We would have to miss the famous antiques market which is only on Sundays. We had already noticed a propensity for Argentinians, particularly, but not just, the men, to barge right into us when walking down the street. They appear to make no effort whatever to do their share of getting out of the way, and I swear that some of them were actually going out of their way to barge us, and it was much more noticeable in Buenos Aires. They give the impression of being too arrogant to change their path at all, but I think with some of them it's just naked aggression. Joanne asked me if that's where the phrase argy-bargy comes from and I started to wonder myself. We had heard that South American machismo is at its zenith in Argentina, but I didn't really expect it to extend to some of the women too.
This one's for Gav
The one glimmer of hope to rescue our time in Argentina was that what we had seen of this city did look very attractive, although the Argentinian graffiti is at its worst in Buenos Aires. And the Spanish seemed much easier here than Cordoba: everyone sings the language, making it sound really like Italian.
Comfort wine
We ended the day with a consolatory bottle of wine, getting something a bit pricier than we normally would, still looking to make up for the failed wine tour.
written by  The Happy Couple on September 27, 2009 from Buenos Aires, Argentina

Buenos After All
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Buenos Aires
Determined to improve on the bad start, we set out on the Time Out Origins walking tour, Joanne had copied down from the magazine in the hostel. Buenos Aires is a beautiful city; I don't know why we even wasted our time on Cordoba, but even here there seems to be loads of (re-?)construction and graffiti, which does a lot to make Argentina seem shabby and negate the impact of such a gorgeous place. The old cars, at least, seem to be in better condition in Buenos Aires.
Casa Rosada
Malivinas (Argentina) Veterans
Roof of famous pharmacy
Famous pharmacy
At one point we were tailed by a dodgy-looking character, but he must have just been waiting for an opportunity when one of us dropped our guard and gave him a second to steal a bag or something, because when we stopped and turned around to look at him from the other side of the road, he lingered for a few seconds before turning and heading back the way we had come.
Representative of a lot of Bs As
Nice church
Bs As
The buildings aren't all nice
Good graffiti
So-called bife de chorizo
Clearly not learning our lesson, we tried again at the bife de chorizo. Maybe we were just unlucky the previous day. It was cheaper here, but still considerably more than the excellent one we had in Mendoza. This time the meat was nicer, but it didn't look like the same cut we'd had in Mendoza and it was over-done. Since it was quite nice, we didn't feel too bad until we realised everyone around us was ordering the same as us, and they were getting the real deal: big fat, juicy steaks, all done to perfection, just like the legendary Mendoza steaks.
Joanne's slightly better bife de chorizo
We had been given the gringo cut! Lunch went from being quite nice but not great, to being really annoying. I think other people were starting to wonder what I was staring at, all the time I spent looking longingly at their plates. At the end of the meal, the waitress, who hadn't spoken any English so far, came up with the bill and said “Tip not included”. The steak might not be as nice in Chile, but at least the people are polite! To her back I said “bife de chorizo not included, more like”.
A cheesy Ford
Another banger
The cerveza artesanal place just around the corner didn't have any tap beers on, so it was more of the insipid Argentinian bottled beer, which is only a small step up from American mass-market beers like Bud. We gave up and went back to the hostel, me to blog, Joanne to watch films.
Middle-of-the-road graffiti
The next day, we planned to see much more of the city by taking the open-top city bus tour. We had some trouble finding the nearest stop to hop on at, which is at the Palacio del Congreso building. There is a huge monument to los Dos Congresos outside the building, which is entirely surrounded by a high fence, presumably to prevent this one monument from being vandalised. It seems a bit sad. We could not find the bus stop and had to walk all the way to the kiosk at the start of the tour.
Not so good graffiti
Mobile graffiti
Graffiti protection
El Congreso
Buesno Aires
It was absolutely perishing on the top of that bus, but we made it all the way round the route once. We had been planning then to stay on and hop off somewhere we liked, stay for a while then hop back on again, but we were too cold to face any longer on the bus by then. There was so much more to the city than we had seen on foot, and I think to properly appreciate the city would take about a week, but a taster is all we're getting of South America, so we couldn't hand around.
Widest road in the world (apparently)
There were several entire large districts we hadn't even explored and which all looked lovely as well, from the modern (and pleasant) re-development of the old port, to La Boca, still quite rough, originally a neighbourhood of poor, mostly Italian, immigrants. Apparently there is a different dialect associated with that part of the city, which at one point was very similar to Genoese. La Boca is obviously going through some regeneration and it seems to have a great cafe culture, as well as theatres, and plenty of pretty buildings.
The redeveloped waterfront
What a lovely city and what a shame we were leaving the next day.
written by  The Happy Couple on September 29, 2009 from Buenos Aires, Argentina

Another Day, Another Dorm
Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay
I've just realised when uploading them, that I took a lot of photos in Colonia, so this entry will be mostly photos... but it's a really pretty place, so I think it's inevitable.
Our ferry to Uruguay was quite early in the day, which meant negotiating the Buenos Aires metro during rush hour. It actually wasn't too bad and when we got off and looked around, confused, an Argentinian offered to help us. Unfortunately his English wasn't good enough and I couldn't muster the Spanish I needed in time. I resorted to pointing at the boat icon on the map where the ferry port was and saying the name of ferry company: Buquebus. Still he had no idea and wandered off. About thirty seconds later, he came running after us: oooh – Buquebooss; apparently I had pronounced it too much like an English U instead of a Spanish one. We didn't actually need any help now that we had decided which direction to walk, but he wanted to help us. He told us, apologising I think, that Argentinians are very rude. After asking where we were from, he told us that he doesn't like the British... but that he likes the Scots and the Irish. Oh, you don't like the English, I corrected. Then we reached the ferry terminal and he gave us each a kiss on the cheek goodbye. I'd heard that they are even more keen on kissing than continental Europeans and it seems that's correct: a five minute walking conversation with a stranger is enough to earn a kiss from another man.
The ferry to Colonia, I think, is the most luxurious boat I've ever been on: much nicer than those grotty cross-Channel efforts, and many times better than the cross-Channel cast-offs that they use for the Cyclades.
Patterns and textures
Once in Colonia, we were struck by how many people are walking about with a cup of mate in one hand and a thermos flask tucked under the other arm. In Argentina you see quite a lot of people outside, sucking on a Bombilla, but in Uruguay it's an epidemic and they don't even bother to sit down like they usually do in Argentina. Shops everywhere have entire window displays of hundreds of different flasks. They must be world leaders in flask technology.
Somehow the horns go with the beer
The hostel was lovely and the staff were very friendly and helpful; a total contrast to the place we had left behind in Buenos Aires, with their obsession with rules. There was a fire burning in the bar, so we felt obliged to sit there and sample a Uruguayan beer before we ventured back out to wander around. The old town isn't very big, so we thought we would probably have time to see most of it in the remainder of the day, and we weren't wrong. It is very pretty though and, like Argentina, there were old cars in various stages of decay but, happily unlike Argentina, the whole place wasn't covered in ugly graffiti.
Road to the jetty
Colonia
The promenade
Car matches house
Really old car
Twee!
More patterns and textures
Lighthouse and destroyed nunnery
It could be Italy or Spain; I don't know if it was because of this but, as we walked around, I started to feel like we were on holiday, rather than travelling. This was dangerous because, by the time we sat down at a cafe for a drink, I was thinking “to hell with the budget! Let's just relax” so, before even calculating how much it would have cost in Argentine Pesos, I ordered a different Uruguayan beer and a grappa.
Relaxing
Now I definitely felt like I was in Italy. The Italian influence is even more evident in Uruguay than it is in Argentina (grappa for instance), and if you don't concentrate on what they are saying and just listen to the sounds, it is definitely Italian they are speaking, not Spanish. As we were sitting there, relaxing in the sun, we encountered the only thing I objected to at all in Uruguay: buskers; generally I hate buskers. OK, very occasionally you may come across one who is quite competent and playing something that appeals to you, but for the most part, they impose their awful noise on you, uninvited, then they have the cheek to expect you to pay for that privilege. I refused to give him anything with this busker came round with his hat but Joanne was embarrassed into scraping together a few coins.
This busker I like
Museum
Sycamores lining the streets
"Drugstore" restaurant in front of the clocktower
Old Ford
More old stuff
Colonia del Sacremento was set up as a Portuguese colony in direct competition to Spain's Buenos Aires, denying them exclusive access to the region's riches. It soon because a centre for smuggling and so historically was a pirate town. Arrrrr. Portugal eventually ceded Colonia to the Spanish, eliminating its raison d'etre and precipitating its decay. Actually it seems in pretty good shape, apart from the crumbly city walls, so it must have been largely rejuvenated by all the Argentinian tourist money.
By the city walls
For Gav
Oh dear
Dear oh dear
My dream car
Ouch
Another French wreck
Joanne in Colonia
Back at the hostel, we were encouraged by a staff member who was eating a chivito, to try one for ourselves, from a take-away kiosk on the corner. A chivito is a Uruguayan national food, described in our guide book as “a heart-attack on a plate”.
Saturated in light too
People familiar with the Maggie in Glasgow will be aware of the Scoobie snacks that they sell; a chivito is something very similar, except that they use a piece of steak, instead of a burger, as the starting point on which to build. Bacon and a fried egg seem to be mandatory, then you can choose what you want from various salads (OK it's slightly healthier than a Maggie Scoobie snack), garlic mayonnaise, chillies, olives, various sauces, and so on. Very tasty!
Street of Sighs
St Miguel
We had been dreading staying in another dorm, because we were really starting to feel like we deserved another double room, but they had been all booked up or far too expensive for the last couple of places. But this dorm was a bit better: it had an en-suite bathroom and only one other person staying there. The next day, though, Joanne had a few insect bites. And they were very itchy a red, just like bed bug bites tend to be. We were only staying there one night, so there was nothing to be gained by complaining and they had been so nice that we didn't want to anyway.
One of the staff members let me use his own laptop to write the DVDs of photos that I had first tried to create in New Zealand, because the guest PCs had no DVD writer. Then, when I completely failed to communicate at the post office, so failed to send the package, another member of staff phoned the post office for me to help me and find out what had gone wrong. The contrast with the staff in Buenos Aires could not have been starker. After finally succeeding to send the disks home, we decided we owed it to them to warn them about the bed bugs, without actually complaining, just because they could end up with a problem, so Joanne very quietly had a word with the manageress.
We had most of the day before our bus to Montevideo, so we just wandered around more, taking more photos of the pretty town and spending more money. We had been expecting Uruguay to be cheaper than Argentina, which we had been expecting to be cheaper than Chile, but none of this seemed to be true. Oh, well, who cares? - we're on holiday after all, aren't we? At least that's what it felt like. So we had a very nice meal for lunch and sampled another national speciality: medio y medio, a blend of still and sparkling wine, usually white. It was OK, but a bit sweet for our palettes, and at only 10% alcohol there hardly seemed any point. Actually it reminded me of Baby Cham.
Medio y medio
This time, when we were harassed by a busker, I simply said no quiero when he put his cap out and he didn't bother us for money again. Unfortunately, there was a middle-aged couple, Argentinian I thought, who kept encouraging his crooning by giving him more money and making specific requests. We were contemplating asking to be moved inside when he finally left us in peace. That was when the manager appear in a silly hat, wearing a mask, and blowing through a kazoo. Maybe realising what a grumpy old pair we were, he focused on the other couple who were loving it. He had a different silly rubber hat for each course, including a chicken and a cake, as well as different sparkly jackets and other silly props. Anyway, the food was nice and at least he wasn't looking for extra money like the buskers.
Then it was off to the bus and on to Montevideo.
The Cathedral in Colonia
written by  The Happy Couple on October 1, 2009 from Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay

Andre in Montevideo
Montevideo, Uruguay
The bus to Montevideo from Colonia took two and a half hours, not the one hour that Andre had promised. Luckily the hostel in Colonia had given us the facts, so we had shifted to an earlier bus. I hadn't seen Andre since about ten years ago in Cape Town, so it was a bit weird to be meeting up with him in Uruguay. As a bonus, though, Andre had offered to pay for us to stay in a real hotel rather than a hostel. It wasn't anywhere grand, but it was a big step up in luxury compared to what we had become accustomed to. After a bit of a struggle I managed to explain to the concierge with no English, that my friend, who is still at work, had reserved a room for us. I had to guess a bit with the past tense; why don't dictionaries and phrase books have verb tables at the back? Shortly after going up to our room a parcel was delivered for me: my new bank card, on time! At last we could return to business as usual.
We were just settling in when I heard a familiar voice in the lobby. I went out and heard what was unmistakably Andre's voice, talking in quite proficient, but a bit self-conscious-sounding Spanish. I didn't know he could speak Spanish, although it sounded like he hadn't really embraced the accent at all. Then he appeared from the lift, on the landing, not at all changed in ten years I thought. Quite remarkable since in that time he has married and now has two children. I thought kids were meant to age you! He put out a hand to shake mine, but I insisted on us hugging, after all it was a decade since we last even spoke, and only the magic of Facebook had put us back in touch a couple of months previously, and an incredible timing coincidence put us in Montevideo at the same time. I thought nearly ten years in the USA might have encouraged Andre to become a bit more tactile, but he seemed as uncomfortable with a hug as I would have expected the pre-US Andre to be; oh well, you can take the boy out of Pretoria...
Andre's brother was in the same hotel, having also agreed to meet up with him while he was there on business, but he had been ill and was not yet well enough to come out for food and a drink. Andre took us to a nearby restaurant where the manager greeted him like a son and teased him about smoking all of this cigarettes; definitely the same Andre: ten years later, still smoking without really admitting to it, so always having to nick them off other people. I don't really come here that often – he just has a really good memory, Andre protested when the manager backed off to let us choose. Wanting something a bit more grown up than medio y medio, we ordered a bottle of tannat, an exclusively Uruguayan cultivar, not really expecting much after the Chile and Argentina, but it was actually very nice. Until the previous day I hadn't even known that Uruguay made any wine.
Reunion!
It was great to see Andre again, although he seemed a little distracted as he was working again the next day, so he wasn't going to go all out and get really drunk with us. He did make a brave effort, though, taking us to a live music place afterwards where there was a jazzy band on. I was surprised by how white everyone was. The ethnic make up of South America really isn't what I expected: in Chile they looked kind of northern Spanish when I was expecting them to look like a mix of Spanish and indigenous, then in Argentina they did have that kind of look, when I was expecting them to be much more European; this I blame on the Che Guevara biography I'm reading, which describes Argentina as the most European country in South America, where the indigenous people are not at all in evidence. Of course the mistake I made was assuming that nothing had changed since the 30s when he was a child in Argentina, when the truth is that Argentina has been through several big changes since then.
Anyway, now we were in Uruguay, which I admit I had no real pre-conceived ideas about, but had assumed, as a former Spanish colony, people would look vaguely Spanish, probably with some indigenous mixing. In fact, away from Colonia, where there are so many Argentinians on holiday, Uruguayans on the whole look like northern Europeans, perhaps German or Dutch. Apparently they also pride themselves in not being hot-headed and macho like some of their Latino neighbours, and this really seemed to be the case in this club: compared to other countries in South America, where you might expect Salsa, Tango, or Rumba, but certainly something up-tempo and exciting, with the crowd dancing or bouncing or getting really involved somehow; in this club, everyone was sitting around barely smiling or even moving, listening to cool jazz, and politely clapping between songs. Nobody danced, nobody whooped, trilled, or whistled. Maybe it was just that club or just that band, but Andre reckoned it was very typically Uruguayan; they are very stoic, he explained. How could that happen? I suppose there was just far more post-colonial immigration to South America from non-Spanish Europe than I had realised. I knew that there were a couple of German enclaves in Brazil and Argentina, but Uruguay seems to be an entire country of German descendents, although there must have been lots of Italians too for the accent to end up like it has.
It's weird to hear people this white speaking fluent Spanish
The next morning we went for coffee and the combined German and Italian influence was very much in evidence in the pastry shop where we bought our breakfast: there was an incredible variety of delicious-looking fancy cakes. I bought a rather over-ambitious thing, like a cross between an éclair and a mille-feuille, and filled with a thick layer of dulce de leche, which is an incredibly sweet substance, usually for spreading on bread. Afterwards I felt sure I was going to go hypoglycaemic when my body over-compensated and was flooded too much insulin to deal with the huge sugar spike.
An oompah band in the main square
Huge paella(!) some being made at a fruit promotion
Later that day we attempted to go shopping again, still desperate to replace some of our ailing clothing, but it was more expensive than we had hoped, and it's just not very easy to go shopping for bargains in a European-style city you don't know. Asia is far easier to shop in, and much more in tune with the way I shop: everything is cheap and it's all from stalls in the one location; no expensive shops and cheap shops you need to determine which is which and, if you don't like the price, you can argue about it. Here, just as I am when shopping at home, I was at a total loss and we returned to the hotel empty-handed. At least while we were shopping we had a chance to see some of Montevideo; it seems similar to the nicer towns in Argentina, but without all of the horrible graffiti everywhere.
What does it mean?
This sign is just plain wrong
It has quite nice buildings
Montevideo
I've forgotten who this gaucho hero is
That night we went out with Andre again. His work was over this time and he was much more relaxed, but unfortunately the night had to be cut short so that he could leave and go for his 3am flight back to New York via Guatemala. We agreed to pay him and Nicola a visit in New York if it was before they moved to Berlin, otherwise we would see them there; in turn Andre told us that he had several hundred other places he would rather visit before he ever found himself in Glasgow. Pah, I'm sure Glasgow can outclass New York any day of the week!
Joanne's spinach canelone
My second heart-attack, I mean chivito
Out benefactor gone, we had to start slumming it in dorms again the next day. We wandered around, following Andre's advice about where to go, but we couldn't really be bothered; we were getting a bit sick of being in towns again: it was time for some more nature! The town is quite nice, nicely decaying in parts, but it was just starting to look like more of the same. We passed a couple of nice market, hovered around a redeveloped enclave in the new town, and I had another chivito; they're not that unhealthy. We also popped down to the Rambla, which is apparently the longest promenade in the world.
An antique market
Good condition old Ford
The Rambla goes in that direction for 22km
70s car
Beer
In the end we just returned to the hostel and planned our route to Puerto Iguazu where we would find plenty of nature. Our plan was to take a bus to Salto in Uruguay the next day, then cross over to Concordia in Argentina where we would hopefully be able to get an overnight bus all the way to Puerto Iguazu. The information online was a bit sketchy though, and quite a lot of people advised specifically against the route we were taking, although it all seemed to be based on what they had seen elsewhere, rather than people who had done it. The alternative was to get the bus and boat in the wrong direction, back to Buenos Aires and get a bus the whole way. Where would the fun be in that: spending more money and going through a place we've already been?
Redeveloped area in old town
Un-redeveloped old town
Our real hotel
A hostel we didn't stay in
They have sycamore-lined avenues here too
Nice barrel-aged local spirits
written by  The Happy Couple on October 4, 2009 from Montevideo, Uruguay

Tea Time Doubly So
Salto, Uruguay
We had to get up quite early for our bus but, since there was wifi in our room, I thought I'd stay up a little bit online. Then, at 12:30am, I noticed that my phone was now reading 1:30am. Quickly checking online revealed that the 4th October was the day that summertime started in Uruguay and daylight saving meant that the clocks go forward one hour. We had an hour less sleep than we expected and Joanne's alarm was going to go off too late for us to get to the bus. The time had not changed on the laptop because it was still set to Argentine time and their daylight saving isn't until later in the month. What a daft old-fashioned and pointless habit! If people want to get up at a different time in different seasons then surely it makes more sense to change the time they get up rather than change the time! It's as if the time is something real that means anything: primitive! Time is an illusion.
Anyway, I set my alarm and woke Joanne up, both of us totally unready for the day ahead, me especially. We made it to the bus station on time, then, when buying our tickets in Spanish I used up so much of what little concentration I had, that I lost my phone. I looked up the necessary words then asked at the desk if they had found the phone I had just lost. No, of course they hadn't, someone had clearly picked it up the moment I stupidly and sleepily left it lying on the counter. Then I found it in my bag; it was going to be a day like that.
Amusing sign on the bus. They are addicts.
The bus to Salto was even more luxurious than the others we had taken in South America: this one was like an aeroplane business class, with only three seats per row. We arrived at the hostel in Salto after walking miles with our bags, first because we missed our stop, and then further because the directions to the hostel were so awful. The receptionist didn't know any English, so we had to rely on my poor Spanish, but on top of that she was new, apparently, so when we were chased out of the 6-bed dorm she first took us to, by an old lady who was in bed, she didn't know what to do. She fell back on a phone call to the manager and instead took us to an 8-bed dorm. We had booked a 6-bed dorm and certainly would have complained if the dorm filled up, leaving the psycho old lady a dorm to herself, but the whole hostel was really empty, and there was so far nobody else in our room, and since it was quite late, we reckoned we had the dorm to ourselves.
Sunset over Salto
We had been hoping to get to the hot springs, but they are further out from town than I realised and we arrived a bit late. The only other tourist attraction near Salto is the waterfall, after which the town is named, but why would we bother going to see some puny waterfall when we were going to Iguazu Falls the next day? Salto seemed quite when we went out in search of food, particularly because it's not really on the gringo trail, so it wasn't very touristy, just very laid back. We found a restaurant someone online had claimed served the best steaks in South America; quite a bold claim, and totally untrue it turned out: my steak was quite good, but the best in South America? Come on!
Best steak in South America?
"Salmon in pepper sauce"
In a couple of places around Salto, we saw railway lines that weren't overgrown, so it seems in Uruguay, in contrast to Chile and Argentina, they do actually still use the railways that they poured money into in the past. Mind you, we never actually saw a train.
written by  The Happy Couple on October 4, 2009 from Salto, Uruguay

Junk Food Limbo
Concordia, Argentina
The next day was really hot and humid and the next stage in our journey to Iguazu was to get a bus across the border. Before we got on the bus, we used the last of our Uruguayan Pesos to buy a pancho, which seems to be a bit of a national dish – in Argentina and Chile too – but it's just a hotdog. We had a few Pesos left over, so I bought us each a dulce de leche ice cream. Every country we had been to so far in South America seems obsessed with dulce de leche, which is often for spreading on bread for breakfast, but it had also featured in the particularly rich pastry I bought in Montevideo; we'd had it in pancakes on Easter Island. It's everywhere. It's quite like runny toffee or thick condensed milk; Bon Maman in France make the same stuff, which I think they call milk jam.
Panchos
Leaving Argentina, the bus stopped and we all had to get out of the bus to get our passports stamped: at one desk we were stamped out of Uruguay, then our passports were handed along one desk where we were stamped back into Argentina. As soon as we were back in Argentina, people were asking for tips again: the guy unloading our bags from the bus, then the creepy people than hang around in the toilets handing out sheets of toilet paper. The tipping culture isn't very nice in Argentina: it just isn't like that in Uruguay or even in Chile.
We spent hours hanging around the bus station in Concordia waiting for our overnight bus. There was nothing to do but eat more typical South American dishes, so I had a sandwich de Milanesa, which is just breaded meat in a sandwich. Not very healthy, I imagine, and I've started to suspect that it's veal, which I'm not that pleased about eating, but, if it is, it's not particularly young veal because it tastes very like beef. Finally our bus arrived over an hour late and, unfortunately, it wasn't the same business class quality bus we had to Salto, but it was comfortable enough.
Sandwich de Milanesa
Quilmes bock
written by  The Happy Couple on October 5, 2009 from Concordia, Argentina

Awesome Iguazu Falls
Puerto Iguazu, Argentina
We barely slept at all on the bus, despite it being comfortable, because two rows forward an old man kept coughing all night. He must have been seriously ill, because he coughed every ten seconds or so for nearly the whole night. Surely people that ill shouldn't be travelling? On top of that we didn't get the breakfast we had been promised when buying the tickets, the bus arrived three hours late, and it was pouring with rain. Looks like I chose the wrong week to give up drinking (which we had been planning to do for a month after we left Uruguay and Andre). There was nothing for us to do but go out for a drink.
Our hostel was recommended online for being quiet, having lovely hammocks to relax in (which it didn't look like we'd be using), and for having humming birds around their lovely garden (of which there was no sign). It was a little out of town, but we located a venue which our guide recommended for its strong caipirinhas and felt obliged to order one each. We were just looking at the menu and thinking about eating there, when the waitress chastised the couple next to us for drinking from a small bottle of water they had brought with them, rather than buying it there. It wasn't as if it was alcohol or something, just water, so, disgusted by their attitude, we decided not to eat there and instead followed the advice of a couple at our hostel, who were just at the start of a round-the-world trip, and went to a nearby Italian restaurant. The couple had been at the hostel for over two weeks, due to the girl getting a “stomach flu” on their first day, so we reckoned the guy must really know the town inside out. Unlucky start for them, though. We double-checked that they hadn't gone to the restaurant before she got ill. Mine was OK, but Joanne was very disappointed with her risotto. I don't know why she ever orders it, because it never lives up to homemade.
My carpaccio starter
Joanne's bruschetta starter
My spinach gnochi putanesca
Joanne's bad salty risotto
We had only been planning to stay two days in Puerto Iguazu, but our first day had already been written off by the weather. I bought a plastic waterproof coat incase the weather continued, because we couldn't just cower indoors from a wee bit of rain. The next morning, my second purchase of a crappy waterproof coat proved just as effective a talisman against the rain as the first one I bought in Nepal had been: it had cleared up quite a lot and it was even a bit sunny.
So we went to the falls. I don't have the words to describe them... so I'll just post lots of photos. They are awesome, incredible, overwhelming, stupendously powerful, breath-taking, and quite beautiful, thundering in the surrounding lush green forest. The park is inhabited by cheeky little creatures called coaties, which I later saw referred to as “... or racoons”. I've never seen a racoon before, so I don't know if that's right, but they are persistent in their attempts to steal food from customers at the cafes in the park. There are signs up warning that you shouldn't feed them or touch them, but we saw plenty of people ignoring the second warning. They are quite cute, but I wouldn't want to touch one, especially when it might mean a rabid bite in return. Or worse, it could steal my lunch.
People hassling the coaties
Coati
You can get really close
We first walked around the upper trail, which follows over the top of the falls along the horseshoe-shaped cliff they drop over. At points, the path is only inches from the flow as it plunges below, and there are places where you can reach out and put your fingers in the gushing water. It impressive to be that close up. The falls are absolutely huge, and go on for miles. Literally. OK, it is more than one mile, anyway. I don't know whether we were there during a period of heavy flow, but the whole area was full of water vapour, splashed up for the churning foam beneath. At one point, there was a view of people below, presumably on the lower trail, being absolutely soaked by this vapour on a pathway constructed just in front of one waterfall.
Jesus, I presume
Lots of people getting soaked
Quite busy
Next it was the lower trail for us. We had prepared for the soaking by putting everything into a dry-bag. You get some nice broader face-on views of a series of falls from the lower trail, but the main point seems to be the pathway that brings you right up to the massive, crashing, thundering, foaming white wall of water, with the boiling cauldron beneath. It's the crowning moment to stand there right in front of it, really driving home the enormity of the place, and it's just wow. Some people we protecting themselves with plastic macs and things, but I'd forgotten my newly purchased one, which I had only really intended for the rain anyway; and since it was sunny I was happy just to dry off after getting soaked.
The first bit you get wet
It's crashing down
Me in the middle of it
Me, wet, on my way back to dry land
Wooo!
Joanne in the middle of it
Coatis and Beer
Los Dos Hermanos
The final section of the park is a short train ride away at what is meant to be the most impressive bit of the falls: la Garagana del Diablo, the Devil's Throat. On the walkway after the train we met two American guys from the hostel in Buenos Aires, who had thought we might see in Colonia, since they were going there the same day as us, but in yet another travelling coincidence, here they were instead. The falls here are certainly incredible, and the quantity of water flowing into the hole in astonishing, but there isn't really so much to see, maybe because the flow of water was too strong, but the vapour obscured everything after the first few metres of the drop. Even from quite a distance you can see the cloud rising up from it.
The American guys from Bs As
La Garganta del Diablo
Foam
Us at La Garganta del Diablo
Joanne at La Garganta del Diablo
The really ugly Sharaton overlooking the falls
The last thing we had wanted to do that day was take a boat trip, which we had heard was great fun, but all of the cheaper options down at the water were cancelled because the water level was too high; even the boat trip to the island in the middle of the falls was cancelled that day; the only trip available was the full package, including a Jeep ride through the jungle. It cost too much, so we decided to leave it. Using our tickets as vouchers, we would be able to get 50% off the park fees the next day, so we decided just to try again then. This meant we would have to stay a day longer, since we had missed the first half-day due to rain and we were going to miss another half-day by returning to the Argentine side of the falls, so we asked at the hostel if we could stay an extra night: sure, no problem the guy on duty said.
That night we celebrated our lovely day by going out to another Italian restaurant. We were called in off the street by the owner and the prices were very reasonable for Puerto Iguazu which, as you can imagine, is a bit dearer than your average Argentinian town. The food was excellent, although my steak consumption has really got out of hand; still it was a cut I hadn't tried: bife de lomo, which I think it a fillet steak, though some menus translate it as other cuts; they have as little clue about European cuts as we do about theirs. For pudding I had something like zabaglione. A bit too rich after a big steak, but they didn't have the grappa I wanted to settle my meal, so I asked for a mate instead. They seemed very surprised and, although we had been in South America for over a month, we had only each had one sip of someone's mate; it isn't ever on menus in restaurants or cafes. I suppose they reckon there is no market because everyone always carries their mate and flask with them, but surely other tourists would buy it?
Bife de lomo
Pudding
written by  The Happy Couple on October 7, 2009 from Puerto Iguazu, Argentina

Vegetarian Meat
Puerto Iguazu, Argentina
Just as we were about to go to sleep, there was a knock on our door and I opened it to find one of the staff members standing there: in the morning you must reconfirm the extra night he said. A bit strange, since we'd already been told no problem, but maybe the computer system was down and the manager needed to update it, or something. Who knows?
In the morning, I went to the desk to “reconfirm” our booking and the guy on duty said sorry we're full. The one we had asked the day before was not on duty, but he had been standing at the desk until I appeared, at which point he immediately disappeared. Great. If we had known the night before we could have made arrangements and been ready to move, instead, we had to scrabble about online trying to find another hostel with available space. Marco Polo Hostel, just across from the bus station, where we had originally planned to stay until I read how lovely the other one was, had space in the dorms, so we booked it.
I had no money to pay the hostel we were leaving because I hadn't thought I was going to need to draw it yet. This situation was quite tricky because nobody in that hostel spoke any English and I didn't have the Spanish to get across what I wanted to say: we are furious, your colleague told us there was no problem, this is totally unacceptable, you'll just have to tell the people moving into our room that you made a mistake, and so on, were all a bit beyond my limited grasp of the language. I managed we are very angry but it fell apart a bit when he asked me why and I tried to explain. I really need to look up the perfect past in Spanish, or whatever they call it. To add insult to injury, he insisted we leave one of our bags behind until we could return to pay the bill. That would mean an extra journey and wasting more of the day. I should just have sworn at him in English really, I'm sure he would have understood, although it was really his colleague I should have been shouting at.
Spinach canelone garnished with (meat) estofado
So we went up and dropped one bag, checked in, drew money, went back down to the first hostel, paid, took the other bag to the new hostel and dropped that off. So much of the day was gone by that time, we realised we would have to extend our stay in the area by another day to do everything we wanted to. And we're on such a tight schedule in South America! So we checked in for the two days and our two days at the falls had grown to four and it was already lunch time. Following the well-known maxim that there's no vegetarian meal which cannot be improved by the addition of some meat, the delicious spinach cannelloni I had for lunch came topped with delicious meat stew.
Then we rushed back to the falls to find out if the water level had fallen enough overnight, with no rain, for the boat trips to be running again. We were in luck and bought our tickets just inside, in case they changed their minds by the time we got to the landing platform. The bottom path which takes you right down to the waterside treated us to another perspective on the falls. The flow may have been a bit less, but it was no less impressive. We got on the boat and the driver zoomed backwards and forwards around the island, getting nearer and nearer to the spray each time. Eventually we were getting soaked, but I couldn't see anything at all because the water shoots away from the impact with such force that it hurts too much to keep your eyes open. I wish I'd had some goggles with me! Or even if I had been prepared enough to put my sunglasses on they may have offered enough protection to see something. The whole thing only lasted about twenty minutes and I didn't really think it was worth it. Joanne really enjoyed it, though, and so had everyone else we knew who had done it. I just thought it was OK; maybe if I had been driving the boat it I would have enjoyed it more. After the boat we had been planning to take another short hike to another part of the falls not on the main trails, but it started to rain and we decided against it. Just as well because, when we got on the bus, it really started to rain again. Perfect timing!
Where the boat goes to and fro
Boat in the spray
Joanne wet
Back at the hostel we met our new room mates: an English couple who only had two more weeks left of their round-the-world trip, and an Israeli guy I was amused to learn had just finished travelling with his mother and was now waiting for friends. He was the second Israeli guy we had met who was travelling with his mum. Is it something cultural? Something else cultural I've noticed about Israeli travellers is that they are always full of well-meaning advice. It's nice that they are trying to help you, but it's often unsolicited and in this case it was a bit embarrassing to say the least: we had told him that we were planning to visit Ciudad del Este the following day, where I hoped to buy a portable external hard drive to supplement the pathetic capacity on the laptop, and he helpfully advised us that we should be very careful there because there are a lot of Arabs. Nice. We drank a bit too much, I tried to steer clear of politics, and he promised to make me some Israeli coffee in the morning, which was just as well, what with the hangover I was investing in.
written by  The Happy Couple on October 8, 2009 from Puerto Iguazu, Argentina

Fly-by Paraguay
Ciudad del Este, Paraguay
We were a bit slower in the morning that we should have been thanks to the previous night's over-indulgence, but our Israeli room mate was good to his word and came to the rescue with some excellent Israeli coffee. It wasn't quite the standard Mediterranean coffee I was expecting as it was flavoured with cardamom, which made it taste exactly like the Lebanese coffee I had at Dubai airport but, given some of the opinions he had been airing the previous evening, I didn't tell him what it tasted like.
At the bus station there was already a bus waiting which said “international service” on it, and when I asked if they went to Ciudad del Este, the driver said yes, then something about frontera. We paid and got on the bus and then the penny dropped that he had probably been saying that we would be dropped at the border where it would only take five minutes to walk across the bridge. I wasn't totally sure, though. We really should have waited for the bus which actually said “Ciudad del Este” on the front, because that one goes direct and just transits through Brazil so you don't need to go through their passport control. At the Argentina-Brazil border, the bus just went straight through and I began to believe I had misunderstood, but when we got to Foz do Iguaçu in Brazil, the bus just pulled up to the bridge to Paraguay without going through any borders. This was a bit of a problem because we hadn't been stamped into Brazil and now we were about to try and leave it. We just had to brazen it out: en transito, I announced confidently to the border policeman as I handed over my passport, but it didn't work. They were quite nice and only lightly scolded us, reminding us that we had to get stamped on our way back. “Bus the bus didn't stop” we said, but he just said that we have to ask the bus to stop.
The other slight problem with the bus we had taken was that someone at breakfast had told us that their guide book (Lonely Planet) warns that the bridge is too dangerous to walk over, so you should not do it. It seemed OK, so we just walked and, although there were definitely a few unsavoury characters hanging around in no mans land, they didn't seem any more dangerous than you might encounter on a walk into Glasgow city centre. Certainly during the day with so many people around it didn't seem at all dangerous; maybe at night I would have second thoughts. At the other side we found passport control and asked them to stamp our documents.
Ciudad del Este, at least at the border, is quite a crazy place; we hadn't seen anything like that level of activity since Asia: there are loads of stalls lining the streets, touts who offer you cards then try to drag you into their preferred photographic or computer shop. It does seem a bit dodgy, but I certainly wouldn't have put it down to “the Arabs” our Israeli room mate had warned us about; in fact I didn't see anyone I would have recognised as an Arab. The city is apparently known as the supermarket of South America because of all the contraband goods smuggled in from Brazil, but even the legal goods are probably cheaper than Brazil because of taxation and the relative value of the currencies, cost of labour, and so on. At first it was a bit over-whelming, but then I decided to follow a tout or two, just to find out where the computer shops were and try to get some kind of feel for the prices. The prices were much higher than I expected and nobody seemed keen to haggle much, probably because of the tout's cut, I thought. I had checked the prices on Google UK the night before and it was definitely not looking like a good deal here. It was very confusing because electronics are supposed to be cheap in Ciudad del Este. Is Britain just really cheap for electronics now?
We decided we had to try it without the touts, but it proved quite difficult because I didn't know Spanish for hard-drive (disco duro it turns out – doh!). I had picked up a word from the box of one of the hard-drives offered to me by a tout, but I think that just means “storage” or something and I kept getting confused responses and it all just seemed to be whole laptops and mobile phones everyone was selling. Finally someone pointed us to a particular building, which was very different from the shiny, flashy shops, with lots of products in the windows, we had been taken to before: it seemed very sedate in comparison to the rest of the town, with people just sitting behind desks. After a couple of tries we found a computer place (with no products on display) and, when I asked, the woman brought up a catalogue on her computer and was able to show me the price on the screen, rather than plucking one out of the air. The price was much lower than any we'd had before, but their smallest had more capacity than I needed. A nearby shop with the same setup had a smaller drive at an even lower price. Cheaper and much more respectable than all the showrooms. Unfortunately we had been misinformed by people who had told us you could use Argentine Pesos for everything: it seemed to be the only currency they wouldn't take there; US Dollars, Brazilian Real, and of course Paraguayan Guaranies were all OK, but I hadn't drawn any yet, but we didn't have to worry because there was an exchange downstairs. US Dollars, in which all the prices were set, was their preferred currency.
Job done! Now all we had to do in Paraguay that day was get a bus to the Hydroelectric project which was the world's largest until the recently built Chinese dam. I'm not much of an engineering geek, but who wouldn't find the idea of a mile-long machine room exciting? Unfortunately our hangovers had dented our organisational abilities and we hadn't registered that the guide book had no map of the city. It had an address for tourist information, but without a map what use is that. They really should have a tourist information at the border crossing. I tried asking people for directions to the bus station, which the tourist information is supposed to be close to, but it wasn't the right bus station and we were getting hungry, hot, thirsty, and tired. So we had to give up and find food instead. We had been told that you can get Asian-influenced food, very different from most South American fare, but we couldn't find anywhere selling food at all, save for a couple of empanada stalls. We were making our way back to the border, increasingly defeated, then just at the border we spotted a food hall. It was disappointing and not Asian, but we just wanted to eat.
We stamped out of Paraguay, crossed the bridge, and stamped into Brazil, mission only partially successful, but the hard-drive was the main thing. Now we wouldn't have to delete non-backed-up photos.
written by  The Happy Couple on October 9, 2009 from Ciudad del Este, Paraguay

Fly-by Brazil
Foz do Iguacu, Brazil
Paraguay out of the way, it was now time to visit the Brazilian side of Iguazu Falls. We had been told half a day is easily enough for this, though we were in danger of not even having that. Getting a bus on the Brazilian side wasn't as easy as we expected either. We saw a bus on the same route as we had taken, but the driver refused to take us and I couldn't catch why. We didn't understand: this is the same bus you take into Foz then you have to change to another bus for the las cataratas. Eventually we worked out he was telling us to wait at a different stop for a different bus. We were still none-the-wiser why, but had little choice. This bus went OK until it dropped us at the terminus: the only explanation we'd had for taking this bus instead of the one we tried to get on was that it might be direct. The bus station was very confusing: I hadn't realised how much I was relying on the wisp of Spanish that I have and now it was replaced with Portuguese I had nothing! Someone with only a little Spanish tried to communicate with my only a little Spanish and pointed us in the direction of the bus we needed. And it was free!
Garganta del Diablo
Even at the entrance to the cataratas park, we couldn't work out what was what. Why is Brazil so confusing? The tickets were split into entrance and transport. Did we need the transport? What was the transport for? We just asked for two foreigner tickets and paid the amount, then we were back outside again waiting for another bus. Ah – the set up isn't like Argentina: you pay at the entrance to the park which is a few miles from the falls.
View across to Argentine side
The Brazilian side isn't as breath-taking, mostly because you aren't as close to the awesome power of the falls, but it does afford very nice panoramic views of more-or-less everything, which you can't see in Argentina due to the your proximity: you can only ever see one little bit at a time. Unfortunately, we were there at the wrong time of day: the view was a bit too dazzling because of the sun right behind the falls; morning would have been the time for the Brazilian side, but our stupid guide book didn't think to mention an obvious detail like that. Nonetheless, details like the impression of the clouds constantly rising up out of the forest are very nice, then la Garganta del Diablo is actually better on the Brazil side: a platform takes you out onto a lower level calm bit, halfway down the cascade, so that you are facing the main force of the deluge, while precipitously hanging over the next stage of the cascade. You can see much more of this spectacle from Brazil.
Gorge up to Garganta del Diablo
Steamy forest
Walkway to the edge of Garganta del Diablo
Then we were waiting for a bus again, back to the park entrance; then another bus to take us to the changing point, where we could finally get our bus to Argentina. But we went past where we expected the change to be, even though a German guy we had started talking to had asked the driver in much more proficient Spanish than mine to alert us when we should get off. Finally he asked someone else who told him to get off now. Then we were waiting again, and the time of the last bus was approaching, but it arrived before we started giving up, however there was one more obstacle to clear: we had to get our passports stamped out of Brazil. We were thinking about not bothering because we had no plans to re-enter Brazil, but then some other people stood up to get off and we thought it would be OK with others doing it; the bus would presumably wait. But as soon as we were off the bus, it left, and only then did we notice the other people had not got off, but just sat down again. The stamps took no time and the poor German guy had got off with us for no good reason as he hadn't been stamped in, so would have been in trouble if he'd tried to stamp out. Some passersby told us the border crossing here is three kilometres long and very dangerous, and that there was only one more bus, so we had to get it. When the bus arrived we showed our tickets, which are still supposed to be valid for the next bus, but the driver said “wrong company, twenty minutes more”. We had been told this was the last bus and it was definitely after last bus time now, so we weren't taking any more chances and we just paid again. At the Argentinian side the buses wait.
Waiting for the bus
What a stupid stupid system: all this pointless competition when they could have an integrated public transport system; this stupid system of not waiting at the border; and finally, why isn't there at least a tourist bus, travelling from Puerto Igazu direct to las cataratas on the Brazilian side? And another travelling from Foz do Iguaçu direct to las cataratas on the Argentinian side. They could be buses that wait on both sides of the border and they could charge double what the two-bus combined trip costs and most tourists would do so happily to avoid all of this hassle and uncertainty. The Brazilian side was nice, but not as impressive as the Argentinian side, and by the end of all that, we wondered if it had been worth the effort.
Back in town, our grumpy mood was amplified by the discovery that nearly all the eating places were closed by 10pm – on Friday – which is worse than Glasgow! And this is supposed to be Latin America, where people never even leave the house before 9pm. The place we did find was packed and I was struck again by how many fizzy drinks, particularly Coke, South Americans drink. There would be tables of families with two big bottles of sugary soft drinks in the middle of the table; no wine and no water, in fact you don't seem to be able to buy big bottles of water in restaurants, just two-litre bottles of pop! How strange, it's not a children birthday party; even tables with just adults had the same. They may not be alcoholics, but they must have a terrible rate of diabetes.
written by  The Happy Couple on October 9, 2009 from Foz do Iguacu, Brazil

Jesuit Ruins Then Paraguay
San Ignacio, Argentina
It was the start of another big day, and we had somehow not found time the previous day to book our accommodation then, in the morning we definitely didn't have time before catching our bus, so we were heading towards a town with little accommodation in it without having anything booked, an approach we hadn't taken since Asia, where it rarely caused a problem, but Japan then New Zealand had made us more cautious.
First stop, though, was San Ignacio, a place famous for the Jesuit ruins there. I didn't know much about the Jesuits but there are plenty of examples of their ruined community buildings all over this part of South America, abandoned when the King of Spain expelled them, then destroyed during South American international wars. I didn't really know what to expect of the ruins either, but thought we should check them out since we were in the area.
In the town of San Ignacio it was the first time we had seen anyone who looked more than slightly native American. And the tragedy is that the South American Indians here, Guaranis I think, were probably the poorest people we had seen so far on the continent. They all seemed to be living in the streets and they looked utterly miserable. Maybe not so much has changed in Argentina since Guevara's time after all.
We were a bit unsure what to do when we arrived. I tried to tell someone that I was looking for tourist information, but I think he understood simply that I was wanted information and pointed us in the direction of the ruins, rather than somewhere we could maybe store our bags for a few hours, get a map, and maybe access the internet to book a place to stay that evening. We stood around contemplating lunch and where the entrance to the ruins might be, rather than the exit we were standing outside, when a woman came out of one restaurant, and invited us to leave our bags for no charge. I'm not sure if she was explicit or hinted that we eat at her restaurant, but we were quite happy to do so anyway.
Lots of birds around the ruins
What would Dan Brown make of these symbols?
The entrance to the ruins first takes you into a little museum which explains a bit about the Jesuits and what they were trying to achieve. They had set up these communities as a way of bringing Christianity to the natives, but rather than completely repressing their culture as had been the approach of some other missionaries, they only tried to change the parts of the culture they saw directly contradicting god's word, so that, for example, polygamy was disallowed, but they did not bother trying to teach them Spanish, as they had been told to, instead choosing themselves to learn the Guarani tongue. One of their objectives, the exhibition informed us, was to protect the natives from exploitation, and the resulting communities are considered one of the earliest examples of working Marxist communes, the information continued. In what way these communes were more Socialist than the communal societies the natives were living in before the Jesuits arrived, the exhibition did not say, but it did make me wonder whether the Jesuits were really expelled from the Americas for doctrinal reasons, rather than economic ones; I'm sure prevention of exploitation and communal living were not high up the Spanish King's list of priorities for his colonies.
Entrance to the ruins
Church entrance
Tree growing through a wall
Even here they can't resist grafitti
The ruins themselves were not very exciting; actually they were quite impressive, but any ruins on the same trip as Angkor have to be really impressive to be of much interest. They seem to be rebuilding large parts of it but haven't got very far yet.
Living quarters
The stonework has seen better days
Original tiles! Wow.
Reconstruction work
Central courtyard
A big cactus
When we finished at the ruins, we picked our bags up from the restaurant where the staff kindly told us where to wait for the bus. After half an hour of waiting, I was starting to get nervous about the possibility of our intended hotel filling up before we got there, but a bus arrived shortly after and we were in Posadas soon after, where we quickly and easily caught a bus to Encarnacion, across the border. At the Argentine border post the bus waited as almost everyone got off to get stamped out, then at the Paraguayan side the bus stopped and the driver looked at us meaningfully. We had considered not bothering with Paraguayan stamps this time, after all the hassle at Iguazu, but a few other people getting off the bus persuaded us it would be OK. As soon as we got off the bus the others all wandered off in the direction of no-mans-land, where they probably lived, but it looked like the bus was waiting, so it would be OK after all. The queue for the immigration officials wasn't very long but it wasn't moving very fast, and one of the two windows was taken up by an official having his lunch. After a couple of minutes, the bus crept forward, the driver craning to analyse the situation briefly, before putting his foot down and disappearing.
Luckily the next bus was along in only fifteen minutes but by that time I was convinced all of the rooms in Encarnacion would be gone. After longer on the bus that I expected, with no sign of any bus terminal, the bus stopped in the street, everyone else got off, and the driver asked us where we were going; el terminal I said, but he pointed backwards and said something about fifteen blocks. Surely the point of a terminal is that the bus terminates there? It looked a bit dodgy where we were so, completely against our usual policy, we took a taxi. Before we got in I had to tell the driver that we had no guaranies, but he said it didn't matter, he would take pesos, dollars, euros, anything.
written by  The Happy Couple on October 10, 2009 from San Ignacio, Argentina

Arrival in Paraguay
Encarnacion, Paraguay
When the taxi deposited us at Hotel Germano, it looked closed and there was a sign on the door which said that the didn't have some kind of rooms; I didn't know the Spanish word, but I thought it might have meant “available” or something similar, confirming my bus-provoked fears. Luckily the girls who came to the door said that they did have a room, but it was only available for one night. I was very relieved but Joanne still looked stressed. What about the next two nights?, she asked.
I had a secret plan to book us into a posh hotel for the next two nights, so I couldn't tell her. I told her I'd ask the receptionist for advice but actually asked her if she knew and would book for us Hotel Tirol, which our guidebook suggested as a place to visit for its bird sanctuary or the swimming pool, also mentioning that this former favourite hangout of the King of Spain is surprisingly reasonable to stay at. It turned out that they could only take us for one night too, although Hotel Germano were able to take us back again for our last night in Paraguay. Joanne was still unhappy about the accommodation situation so I had to spoil my surprise about Hotel Tirol before she continued into an inconsolable despair about how we shouldn't have come to Paraguay; Joanne hadn't wanted to enter Paraguay in the first place and Ciudad del Este had been enough to convince her, whereas I had wanted to spend quite bit longer than the three nights I had compromised on, but Joanne's time was running out and she really wanted to get to Bolivia.
The girl on the desk had recommended an “international restaurant” nearby so, to make life easier, we just followed her advice instead of spending the time to find a more traditional Paraguayan place as I would have preferred. The “international restaurant” turned out to be a Japanese restaurant, where the sushi was very good, and much cheaper than it had been in Japan! Judging by the clientele, it was one of the posher restaurants in Encarnacion, but the prices were extremely reasonable compared to Argentina, and the Paraguayan beer we had was far superior to that horrible, tasteless Quilmes stuff that is ubiquitous in Argentina.
Judging by the short walk we had around town, it was a very religious place: the schools had religious names; the parks had religious names; there were banners up promoting religious festivals; there was even a hairdresser called El Niño Jesus; and when we got back to the room I discovered that the chest of drawer next to the bed contained a copy of The Gideon's Bible in Spanish and English; I don't know how many years it is since I last found one of these in my drawers.
Beef and egg soup
The next morning, in pursuit of something a bit more authentic than Japanese, we went next door to the basic-looking cafe. Feeling brave, I ordered something in the breakfast section that I had no idea what it would be, but turned out to be a very tasty beef and egg soup. As it was late morning and other people were drinking beer, I thought it would be OK to order one myself, and it arrived in one of those very civilised bottle containers for keeping beer cool. We hadn't seen one of them since Thailand and Cambodia, but it was very hot in Paraguay, so it made sense. As we ate, two flies landed in beer, reminding me of the unlikely coincidence in a joke Andre had told in Montevideo (stop me if you know it):
A Scotsman, an Englishman, and an Irishman are all in a pub having a beer. Coincidentally, a fly lands in each of their beers at the same time. The Englishman pushes his pint to the side, saying that he can't possibly drink it now; the Irishman nonchalantly picks the fly out, throws it away, and continues drinking; the Scotsman picks the fly out of his beer, lifts it up to his face, and shouts at the fly “spit it oot!”
Nice cold beer
We had time for another little walk around the town before our bus to Hotel Tirol, but there really didn't seem to be much to see. Compared with everywhere we had been recently it seemed a nice, laid-back place, where people were just going about their business, but it was also extremely ugly compared to anywhere we had been for a while. I think, other than Asunción, Paraguay is not about the towns; what a shame we were only going to be out of town for one day! We left most of our luggage at Hotel Germano and waited at the bus station.
written by  The Happy Couple on October 11, 2009 from Encarnacion, Paraguay

Treating Ourselves
Hotel Tirol, Paraguay
The bus we had been told to get was going to Ciudad del Este, but passed right by the entrance for the hotel. After buying our tickets, we were then asked by three different employees where we were going, the last one on the bus, checking tickets; at least they would now be sure to stop at the right place. On the bus there was no stop button to press or cord to pull, confirming that the reason we were asked so many times where we were going was so they would know which stops they would have to make. I was still a bit nervous about missing our stop but I thought it would be OK since the guide book said the entrance was on the main road. I wouldn't have trusted this guide book completely, but the fact that three employees knew where we were going too made it seem quite safe: what were the chances of both of these failing? In fact, we were lucky that our rather unreliable guide was correct on this occasion because we saw the entrance to the hotel whizzing past as the bus showed no sign of stopping whatsoever. We rushed to the front, shouting “Hotel Tirol”, whereupon the driver turned round, but without even slowing down, asked “Hotel Tirol?”. By the time he stopped we were several hundred yards past it, but before we got off the bus, we noted that none of the three people in the front seats were any of the three people who had checked our tickets before we left the station. What a system!
We made our way back to the hotel and up the long driveway to check in. It seems even in the tourist industry in Paraguay there is no English spoken. We managed, but the receptionist was one of those people who makes no allowances for people who have said they can't speak Spanish well. The hotel didn't seem anything like as posh as the guide book had led me to believe, and the price the girl at the last hotel had quoted me was a bit higher than in the guide, but it did have four swimming pools, as promised, and there seemed to be plenty of birds around. To settle in, we decided to have a beer by the pool, before taking the plunge ourselves, but by the time we had finished our beers, there was an ominous rumbling and some distant flashes of light. We barely had time to seek shelter before it started pouring with rain and the clouds were so thick that Joanne took some convincing that it was already about 6pm and getting dark: it was only 2.30pm and not because my phone was still in another time-zone.
Too wet even for a toad
How dark it looked before playing with camera settings
It rained...
... and it rained
So we spent the one day we had by four swimming pools watching incredibly heavy rain from the hotel bar. At least the beer prices didn't seem to be too inflated for somewhere supposedly so posh, though they had a terrible selection of drinks and wouldn't even mix cocktails. When I had tried to get some more information about the place online, several days before, I had gathered from the Spanish only site (the English section was “under construction”) that the hotel was for sale, also there was no way to book online, so I hadn't seen sure it was open until our last hotel's receptionist phoned for me. Now I could see why it was for sale: they had no idea what to do with the place, and they weren't charging enough for drinks. Good news for us, though. Here I reflected on something that had been bugging me in Argentina, and was clearly the same in Paraguay. The beers come in three sizes: un litro, tres cuartos, and chico. Chico means small, only in Latin American Spanish, I think: in Spain it means only “guy”, whereas South Americans never seem to use the word pequeño for small. Anyway I have no problem with the chico size: it's 330ml, which is quite small, however the litro bottles are only 970ml, which is clearly not a litre; OK it's only slightly short and maybe nothing to get upset about, even if it is clearly a lie. My real problem is with the tres cuartos bottles, which are only 620ml, far short of their advertised quantity and, in fact, even less than dos terceros I might let them away with on the same grounds as the litro. The most baffling thing about all of this is that the bottles are usually priced according to their professed volumes, rather than the real ones, so buying two chicos is cheaper than buying one tres cuartos, though un litro is almost always the best value, which really leaves little choice...
After an hour or so of non-stop very heavy rain and increasingly close lightening, the power went out. I had just built myself up to ask the tourist-unfriendly receptionist about internet use, only to be told no because of the weather, which I had thought was a bit daft; now I understood what she was saying. Back in the bar I tried to speak a bit with the barman, but found him very difficult to follow as well. He was either speaking Portuguese or Spanish very heavily influenced by Portuguese. There seems to be a lot of Portuguese in Paraguay: in Ciudad del Este, it seems to be most people's first language, but it makes sense there as it's just over the border from Brazil, but here the closest border is Argentina, so I wasn't expecting it at all. After a very uninspiring “buffet dinner” closely resembling school meals, we gave up and retired to our room, which was very nice, to be fair. On the TV, all the channels seemed to be in Portuguese. Strange.
View from our room
Our room
Joanne catches some rays
Our room from across the pool
In the morning it was nice and sunny, so we were out at the pool by 8am. We swam a bit and lounged around until we had to check out, after which we returned to one of the non-resident pools and continued sun-bathing. We had gone there for the pools, so we were going to take advantage of it. One mystery we never got to the bottom of was the fact we hadn't been able to book in for two nights; that had been my plan, so that we would get one full day there, but the previous hotel's receptionist had reported that they were full the second day, however there were very few other guests around. Maybe there was a huge tour group arriving later that day, or maybe the receptionist had got it wrong, just as she had with the price, as I discovered at check-out: she had told us 350000 guarnies for the night, but it was only actually 200000, which is really quite cheap. Maybe I should buy it and do it properly; I'm sure there's money to be made there.
Nice sunny view
Non-resident pool
Best shot I got of the birds!
Our only other plan in Paraguay was to visit the Santísima Trinidad del Paraná
Jesuit ruins which are near Hotel Tirol; after the ruins in Argentina, we weren't that excited about it, which partly explains our extended sun-lounging, though we did finally get around to ordering a taxi, not at all sure about the buses we might be able to catch.
written by  The Happy Couple on October 12, 2009 from Hotel Tirol, Paraguay

More Jesuit Ruins
La Santísima Trinidad del Paraná, Paraguay
In total contrast with the staff at Hotel Tirol, the taxi driver who picked us up there, was very keen to talk to us, was able to speak more slowly and slowly when he realised how useless I am at Spanish, and tolerated my many mistakes and apparently understood everything I said; he was even able to rephrase things so that I would understand when I didn't know a word. Why is it so hard with some people and so much easier with others? Even with the easier to communicate with people, though, I have had to take a linguistic step quite alien to me, just so that I have anything to say at all: I've started not worrying very much about grammar and just pressed on regardless. In South America, I started out trying to remember the gender of every noun and make sure I had the correct verb ending, but I wasn't getting anywhere at all, though I'm sure the very few sentences I produced were perfect. After a few high-pressure situations where I had to respond quickly, I have now taken to guessing where I am not sure, and most of the time people do seem to understand, although I like to have my dictionary in my hand as a prop at all times of communication, to excuse the massacre of the language I assume I am inflicting. By the end of this drive, I really felt like I could actually speak Spanish, so I gave the driver quite a generous tip “for understanding my horrible Spanish”, I meant to say. He smiled and accepted the money then, as I was walking away, I realised I had said “for I understand my horrible Spanish”. That's the kind of thing I'm sure is slipping out all the time, without me even realising, especially when people are trying to engage me in a proper conversation with no time to prepare each sentence.
The ruins were much less developed than the ones in Argentina: no museum, no rebuilding going on, no buttons to press for a description in your language. Joanne thought it was even less impressive than the Argentinian ruins and, to be fair, they were very similar, though this one was a bit smaller. However, it was in a nice hilltop location, whereas the Argentinian one had felt rather claustrophobic, and I preferred the untouched, falling-apart-on-its-own appearance. Parts of it seemed to be in better condition without the construction and it just seemed like a lovely place to hang about. Hanging about wasn't in our itinerary, though, and we needed to get back to Encarnacion, unsure of the bus timetable as we were. Having seen what I understand are two of the best examples, I wouldn't have bothered with Jesuit ruins. They're just not that interesting. But I didn't know, and at least I do now.
We hiked the half-kilometre or so back to the main road and did our best to shelter for the sun as we waited for the bus.
written by  The Happy Couple on October 12, 2009 from La Santísima Trinidad del Paraná, Paraguay

A Bit Rich
Encarnacion, Paraguay
After waiting only about ten minutes outside the entrance to La Santísima Trinidad del Paraná a bus came along. The taxi driver had wanted to charge us 90000 guaranies just to take us back to Hotel Tirol, whereas the bus cost us only 5000 each. Getting the local bus really confirmed to us that Paraguay is a third world country. In Chile and Argentina it certainly hadn't felt like we were in the third world, but here on this shaky old bus, we were back in it again.
That evening, back at Hotel Germano, I asked the receptionist for somewhere mas tipico de Paraguay, not sure (or caring) if the Spanish is correct, and she directed us to somewhere that she admitted was not tipico tipico but they had a few dishes apparently. At the restaurant, which seemed to be an Italian restaurant, I asked the waiter for something tipico and he told me they didn't have anything. So I just ordered a steak done in the house style, which turned out to be stuffed with ham and cheese, and garnished with some more of the same as well as some mushroom sauce. Just a little bit rich!
Extreme steak
In the morning we went shopping in the bajo part of town, which is due to be flooded as part of a dam project, but for the moment, where all the market stalls are to be found. There wasn't as much there as we'd been hoping, nor was it as cheap, but my trouser situation was really out of hand since my “best” pair of long trousers' fly had gone and was only held together by safety pins. Under pressure, I bought two pairs of shorts I didn't really like for more money than they should surely have cost in that country.
Market in Bajo Encarnacion
This will all be flooded soon
Seems they've already started the flooding
Mission accomplished, we loaded onto the bus back to Argentina. Since we had some time, we thought it best to stamp out of Paraguay, which of course meant getting off the bus and waiting for the next one, which stopped and waited at the Argentinian side for everyone to get their stamp. This time, though, there were already people waiting and, by the time we got through border control, our bus was full and pulling off. Joanne ran after it for a bit shouting at the driver, but there was no point: it was full. So it was another wait for the next bus, which we made sure we got on, again leaving lots of people behind. Only a few hundred metres past the border, the bus stopped and the driver indicated everyone should get off, though I didn't catch why. I went up and asked him aren't we going to the terminal and again, I didn't quite get his answer, so we just got off too, at which point we saw why: the bus had a flat tyre. Considering the bus had been so full that not everyone waiting at the border had been able to get on, and there had been people waiting from the previous bus when we arrived at the border, we didn't fancy our chances with the next bus, but the driver just told us to wait. The next bus actually had enough space for everyone, so maybe the previous two were during rush hour.
Rickety old local bus
We had left lots of time to spare before the bus we had to catch in Posadas, but now it was starting to get a bit tight. Luckily it wasn't much further to the terminal and we were soon checked in for the bus. When we got on the bus, I was very disappointed; we had paid extra for cama rather than the semi-cama we had taken before, but it turned out, for me, to be less comfortable than the cheaper option because, in an effort to make everything seem more solid and luxurious I think, there is no space under the chair in front, where you have to jam your feet to be comfortable if you are not short. Instead everything is built to look like a solid unit right down to the floor. The journey just got worse: cama is downstairs on most buses, but so is the toilet, which meant that we were kept awake by people banging the door, then by all manor of hideous odours. As if that wasn't bad enough, the military stopped the bus three times during the night to get on, check people's passports, and on two occasions, removed bags from the boot and demanded to know who the owner was. Thankfully it was never us.
written by  The Happy Couple on October 13, 2009 from Encarnacion, Paraguay

Unlimited Meat and Red Wine
Salta, Argentina
When our bus arrived in Salta, we obediently tipped the bag handler and reclaimed our bags, but I watched some people just after us refusing to tip him; I think they were saying that they had no money. He simply shrugged his shoulders, put the bags to one side, and continued with the next bag to come out of the boot. I assume they did get their bags after everyone else and he wasn't actually keeping them hostage, but what a horrible person! I wasn't very pleased to be back in Argentina.
Salta
The information online for our hostel,
rather than giving directions from the bus station like most of them do, simply said that you should jump in a taxi and they'll pay for it. So we got a taxi in front of the bus station and told the driver we were going to Hostal del Centro. When he heard that, he stopped the car, turned around and asked who would be paying, me or the hostel, so I told him the hostel would be paying. At that, he shook his head, got out of the car, and opened the boot to take our bags out. I shouted to him that it was OK, I would pay. On the way, still hoping to get the hostel to pay, I asked him if he would give me a receipt. No he replied. Horrible grumpy man!
At the hostel, I was struggling a little with the Spanish when checking in, but the owner realised I was an English speaker and switched from perfect Spanish to English with and English accent. I told him what had happened with the taxi driver and he said that it was no problem to take it off the bill, though he was rather surprised by the story. On Easter Island, Colette had recommended this hostel, telling us that they did the best barbecues if you are there on the correct day. A sign above the desk confirmed we had got it right: Eat and drink all you can BBQ! Wednesdays and Saturdays. We didn't have much time in Salta but Joanne wanted to go horse riding while we were there, so we signed up for the barbecue and, bearing that well in mind, signed up for the afternoon horse riding the next day.
Salta is meant to be a pretty town, so we had a bit of a wander about, but we were quite tired after the bus journey, and we were still a bit sick of Argentinian towns. It was also very windy and dusty when we first set foot outside, but we did see some of city.
It's windy when we arrive
Quilmes negro
Back at the hostel, the barbecue was starting and we discovered that Lucy and Zdenek, the couple from Iguazu Falls who had begun their trip with a two-week stomach flu delay, were at the same hostel. Needless to say, we both overdid the unlimited meat and wine, but I like to think that I easily outshone Joanne, by putting that extra special effort in. Just before falling into bed, I remembered about my recent purchase of two pairs of shorts, which surely meant I could finally throw out the pair of trousers whose fly was now held together only by safety pins; I bought them the first time I visited Thailand, five years previously, so they had done their duty. In the bin they went.
The barbecue
Everyone
My meat
Stephen
Lucy and Zdenek
Ricarda, Lucy, Zdenek, and Joanne
Stephen and Ricarda
written by  The Happy Couple on October 14, 2009 from Salta, Argentina

Horses and Hangovers
Salta, Argentina
Salta
Urban industrial art in progress
The morning after unlimited meat and wine we had the inevitable hangovers and I only managed a short walk into town to draw money, passing some unusual urban art under construction, before we were picked up to go horse riding. The barbecue had taken its toll, too, on Stephen, who was also staying at the hostel, and he had slept in and missed the tour he had signed up for; so as not to waste the day, he had decided to join us horse riding.
The gaucho shows us how it's done
I don't quite manage it
When we arrived at the ranch, the gaucho who had picked us up at the hotel showed us how to throw a lasso; the aim was to capture a cow skull on a tree stump. When I stepped up to have a go, he told me three chances and then you run. I tried three times and I got close, but failed. OK, now you run, he told me; so I did. I thought I might escape by zig-zagging, but he was too good for me and I was caught!
I get my just desert
Stephen does it first time!
Joanne nearly does it
Then it was time to set off on the horses. I was pretty nervous, not having been on a horse since I was about seven, on a tame pony in Ireland. These horses were also quite placid, so it wasn't as difficult as I feared. After getting over the initial nerves, though, I started to find it a bit boring, just trotting along, but after a little longer I relaxed even more and found it quite a pleasant journey through the country, but it was still frustrating how slowly we were going. Finally, our gaucho said to us do you want to gallop? and slapped our horses behinds' while geeing them on. At last some real fun! To my surprise the gallop was actually more comfortable than trotting or cantering, because there is only one “bounce” every cycle of the hooves, so there isn't as much bouncing. It didn't last long though, and the horses soon slowed back to a trot without ever galloping very fast. Afterwards the gaucho explained that the horses do this because they are not stupid, and they can tell that the people on their backs don't know what they are doing.
All the way through, Joanne's horse, Caramelo ("Sweetie"), was very badly behaved: Caramelo was determined that it should always be in front, and any time my horse or Stephen's started overtaking, Caramelo turned its head to the side and bit the other poor horse. Poor Stephen's horse, which was really quite small, was clearly bottom of the pile, and by the end of it did not dare pass either my horse or the evil Caramelo.
Me on my horse
Joanne on the trail
Joanne on her horse
Through the undergrowth
At the top of the trail
Authentic gaucho
When our trek was finished and we dismounted back at the ranch, I discovered that my only remaining pair of long trousers had ripped a huge hole right at the crotch! Now I had no long trousers at all.
All on our horses
My horse
Return path
Fighting through thicket
Caramelo on the rampage
Back in town, Stephen, Zdenek, and Lucy came out with us for dinner in a restaurant across the road from the hostel. I decided that I'd had enough of steak and had a traditional stew, but regretted it as soon as Zdenek's thirty peso steak arrived: after all the great steaks we had seen in Argentina, this was the best one – and huge. Meanwhile Joanne decided to give the meat a miss altogether and go for the lentil stew; when it arrived it did have lentils in it, but it also had beef, chorizo, and bacon in it! We were going to have to get up early the next morning so when I saw coca tea on the menu, I decided it was probably just what I needed to help me pack before bed. It tasted pleasant enough, a bit like green tea, and I think it probably did help with the packing.
Spanglish on the menu!
Next morning we got another grumpy taxi driver, who even ignored my buenas dias! then at the bus, the bag handler was refusing to give people their luggage receipts until they tipped him. Not long after we left town, the bus was held up for an hour by yet another demonstration. We only had one more night in Argentina and I was becoming very pleased about that.
written by  The Happy Couple on October 15, 2009 from Salta, Argentina

Pucará in Tilcara
Tilcara, Argentina
Our plan had been to stay at Tilcara and visit the pre-Incan pucará before heading into Bolivia the next day, however Joanne had seen something about more ruins a bit closer to the border at Humahuaca, and Enrique, the Argentinian manager of the hostel in Salta, had advised us that Humahuaca was nicer and cheaper to stay than Tilcara, and he was also able to recommend us a hostel there; so our new ambitious schedule was to stop off at Tilcara, see the ruins there, get on another bus to Humauaca, see the ruins there and stay the night.
By the time we arrived at Tilcara we were a couple of hours behind schedule, even though the bus was only supposed to take a couple of hours; the demonstration on the way and the fact that they were clearly lying about the time in the first place had made our original plan look very unlikely. We had a quick lunch and set off, deciding just to make it up as we went along; maybe the ruins in Tilcara wouldn't take too long.
Nice stripey mountains
Nobbly formations
The town was very dry, but surrounded by fantastic rock formations and hills with lots of different coloured layers. The town itself was quite cute, with lots of shops selling llama wool clothing and various other tourist tat, but we didn't have time to hang around, so set off on the road to the pucará. Once there we discovered that it was a national park, the ticket also covering a small zoo and some gardens. Apart from taking a couple of photos of llamas we just ignored these and headed straight to the ruins.
Dusty road, pucará in the background
Llamas! Rrrrrrr!
Stripey!
I suppose I should have read a bit more about the ruins in advance, but these were hardly Machu Picchu. Most of it had been completely reconstructed and the parts that hadn't were so ruined there wasn't really anything to see. It was interesting enough to imagine people living there even before the Incas, but it was really the landscape and the giant cacti that made the visit for me. On the way back along the road to town, we bumped into Ricarda, the German girl from the barbecue in Salta two nights previously. Funny how the same people keep popping up again and again.
Lots of cacti
Reconstructed dwellings
I'm sure Esther Rantzen would like this
Those cacti are pretty big
Could be the Wild West
Pretty
Grave
Not sacred enough to leave the remains apparently
Graves
Then it was on another bus and off to Humahuaca. It looked liked we might just have enough time to see the ruins, depending on where they were; otherwise we would get up early in the morning to see them before heading for Bolivia.
written by  The Happy Couple on October 16, 2009 from Tilcara, Argentina

Humitos in Humahuaca
Humahuaca, Argentina
We arrived in Humahuaca and found our hostel. It was a bit disappointing: the beds were terrible, it was quite expensive, there was no internet, no other guests, and the owners were so old and doddery that I would have had difficulty communicating with them in English, but the didn't speak any. I soon worked out from the lady owner that there were no ruins near to Humahuaca at all. Joanne isn't sure where she got the idea, but it at least meant we weren't so short of time, since there weren't any to see. I think the confusion may have arisen because Tilcara is in Humahuaca province, or something like that. To make matter worse, when we ventured out to find that there was almost no internet in town, the place we found had no USB facilities, which meant I couldn't upload the blog! We were starting to leave civilisation...
Humahuaca
The hostel
The town was very different from Tilcara, which was an underdeveloped dusty and simple place: Humahuaca is a colonial town, so it has all the usual colonial developments: central plaza, grand town hall, and a grand church; a much bigger place, but much more like lots of places we had already been.
We had already climbed quite high to get to Humahuaca so the temperature had dropped considerably, which reminded us that we really needed to get some warmer clothes before arriving in Bolivia. And I needed some trousers now that both of my long pairs of trousers had been binned, having ripped open the crotch of the second pair while horse riding (see http://blogabond.com/94912 ). So we went shopping, but there was very little choice and we only bought a fleece for Joanne.
The town seemed to attract a slightly richer tourist than us, so we took advantage of the fact there were to by several nice restaurants and went out for a nice dinner. Never one to miss an opportunity to eat a new species, I ordered llama ham as my starter, which was very nice, and Joanne ordered some tasty humitos.
Llama ham
Humito unopened
Humito unwrapped
written by  The Happy Couple on October 16, 2009 from Humahuaca, Argentina

Goodbye Argentina, Hello Bolivia!
Villazon, Bolivia
We caught quite an early bus from Humahuaca to make sure that we would not miss the train from the border to Tupiza; Bolivia has actually kept its trains, rather than letting all that investment go to waste in pursuit of the car and the American Dream, as the rest of South America appears to have done. The bus went so slowly, though, and stopped constantly to let people on or off, that the 10am bus started looking like it might be too late for us; this, even though the journey was supposed to be less than two hours and the train didn't leave until 2pm. It was taking longer than expected and we didn't know how long customs would take. And if we missed the train, we would have to wait three days for the next one!
The disused railway into Argentina
I was quite pleased to be leaving Argentina: apart from the steak (when you don't get the “gringo cut”) and, of course, Iguazu Falls, I hadn't really enjoyed my time there. Some things about the culture just grated with me: it seems more militarised and less laid-back that its neighbours, and we had spent far more money than we had planned to. That's not to say I wouldn't go back to Argentina: apart from the falls, we didn't have time to do any of the things I would really have liked to, such as visit Patagonia and the lake district, and spend some time in the Andes. Also, I would like to spend some more time in Buenos Aires, which only scratched the surface of. I think we did spend too much time in towns, though, and apart from Bs As they weren't really worth it.
Finally, we got to the border, and it looked like we would still have enough time to catch the train, although it still depended on customs and finding the train station. At first our hearts sank, because the queue for customs was huge; it looked like it would take at least two hours but, just to be sure, we decided to walk up to the front in case we were missing something. Thankfully, there was another window which officials were waving us towards. At first I felt a bit embarrassed, believing that the gringos got their own special fast track window, but then I noticed that our window said entrada over it, whereas the one with the huge queue said salida. Seems like a lot of people want to leave Bolivia for Argentina, or else it's just very slow and complicated to do so. Next to our window was a poster which said vota si! Evo, which is not the partisan kind of material I would expect to see at a border post.
Ten minutes later out passports were stamped, I had realised that we had gained and hour due to the time difference, and I had spotted a sign saying that the train leaves at 3.30pm, not 2pm as we had been told. Suddenly we had loads of extra time, but Joanne still wanted to hurry because she had read that you need to buy tickets well in advance. We had been told that there were no ATMs are the border, so we drawn some extra Argentine Pesos to change; ominously, in return for the 370 Argentine Pesos I handed over at the cambio, I received 666 Bolivianos.
We marched along the main road in Villazon, with our big bags, asking people where the train station was: invariably they answered cuatro cuadros, mas o menos; we just didn't seem to be getting closer and it was really hard work: the sun was out and Villazon is at about 3500m, well into the altitude sickness zone. We walked past food stalls, loads of places selling a great range of nice warm clothes for very low prices, some pro-Morales graffiti, and finally arrived at the train station. We bought ejecutivo tickets for 51 Bolivianos (about £4.35) then sat down to wait, which is when we realised we were both very hungry. But was there a cafe in station? Was there even a kiosk, selling sandwiches or something? No. All there was, were a couple of stalls outside the station where the women were selling sweets.
Evo seems popular
There was no real food to be bought. I tried a couple of shops across the road, but all they sold to eat were sweets and sugary biscuits. Apart from the Argentinian steak, which you can hardly eat all the time, South American food had been fairly awful: it's almost all junk food. In restaurants, most of what they offer is a bit of meat with some chips. OK, there are some nice Italian restaurants, but on the whole the cuisine is terrible. Now it looked like Bolivia was going to be even worse. Some Argentinians had warned us that the food in Bolivia was awful, and also very likely to make us ill, but I had dismissed this as xenophobia. I was sure we had passed some half-decent looking food stalls and also a stall selling coca tea, which I was becoming convinced I needed for the altitude; apparently coca tea is good for altitude sickness and I was starting to get a bad headache and feel very light-headed.
Of course there was no left luggage facility at the station, so I left Joanne with the bags and marched back towards town in search of food and coca tea. The further north in Argentina we got, the poorer and more basic the places had begun to look; also people had started to look much more interesting and a lot darker skinned. Now we were in Bolivia, it was at first sight a far poorer place that Argentina, and almost everyone looked properly Amerindian now: no real Spanish look, and certainly none of the northern European look of Uruguay. I walked and walked, getting out of breath and feeling worse. Eventually, almost all the way back to the border I felt too bad to go on, so I started heading back without having found any food or tea.
About half way back, I saw a sign for a restaurant and decided to ask if they would sell me some food para llegar. The menu was simple: they were selling meat sandwiches from a barbecue outside, so it was no problem to get a takeaway, but when I sat down to wait, the manager told me they didn't sell coca tea. I was surprised, because I thought it was everywhere in Bolivia; after all it had been everywhere in northern Argentina, so I had to make do with a beer, which was surprisingly nice, and a great improvement on the awful Quilmes that dominates the Argentine market. Finally I made it back, panting, to the train station, and presented Joanne with her dodgy sandwich. She had been talking to a Scottish guy who was cycling around South America. He had found the altitude too difficult over the last stretch, though, and had decided to take the next stage by train. Now that would be a great trip!
I had taken so long to get the food that we didn't have to wait much longer for the train. It was very nice and the most luxurious transport we had travelled on for some time. We even had food brought to us in our seats.
written by  The Happy Couple on October 17, 2009 from Villazon, Bolivia

Skint!
Tupiza, Bolivia
The train journey to Tupiza was quite pleasant, with lots of nice, but dry, scenery on the way. This southern part of Bolivia is so dusty that we needed to keep the windows of the train shut to avoid getting grit in our mouths and eyes. Joanne was looking forward to leaving her contact lenses out for a few days.
When we arrived in Tupiza it didn't look like much, and it was still extremely dry and dusty. We tagged along with a pair of Dutch girls we had been chatting to on the train, and ended up at hotel more expensive than I had been hoping we would find; Bolivia is really cheap, we had been told. Continuing in the same vein, we went with the girls to a tourist restaurant, where I was finally able to get some coca tea for my altitude sickness; it wasn't as bad as it had been at the border, after all we had dropped about 500 metres, but I still felt terrible. We usually let ourselves overspend when we first arrive in a country, until we work it all out, but we were seriously going to have to change our ways in Bolivia to stick to the budget other people had led me to believe was possible: after paying the food bill we had already spent more than a day's money and we had only just arrived. OK, it was definitely cheaper than Argentina, but I was expecting it to be as cheap as Asia.
Coca tea
Huari Beer
Pilsner La Paz
The next day I discovered there are no ATMs in Tupiza. Joanne claimed to have known this and told me so, but I only remembered that there were no ATMs at the border, so I had only drawn enough Pesos to change, to get us through one day in Tupiza. Which put us in a difficult position. Now our extravagance the day before was really coming back to haunt us: no way should we have eaten in a tourist restaurant if there are no ATMs in town! And we should have stayed in the cheaper hotel that I had suggested. After a slightly heated debate about what to do, Joanne and I agreed that we should simply change the stash of Euros if anyone would except them, since they don't seem to be as popular in South America, otherwise we would just change all of our emergency stash of US Dollars.
Tupiza
We did have enough money for a couple of days in town, but the main reason we had come here was to take a tour to Salar de Uyuni, the famous salt flats: the largest in the world, and the tour was going to be quite expensive. Also we really really needed to buy some warmer clothes, so we definitely needed more money. We went into the tour office to find out what the situation was: we could pay by credit card, but it would incur a 7% fee which is a bit hefty, so we weren't keen. Or, the agent said, beaming, we could simply pay a Bs200 deposit per person, clearly believing that we would obviously have such a tiny amount of money, and pay the rest in Uyuni, the town where the tour terminates, as there is a cajero automatico there. I showed him what I had in my pocket and he said that he would be happy enough to take Bs200 for the two of us, but that would have left us completely cleaned out and unable to eat or pay for accommodation. At my suggestion, he agreed to let me pay just the deposit on credit card, so the 7% wouldn't be so painful. But, he said, we should change some money as there would be things to buy on the trip, and directed us to a currency exchange.
The currency exchange was closed. It was Sunday and almost everything was closed. There was no way the banks were going to be open, but there were plenty of informal exchanges around town, however most of them were shut too. People kept directing us to one place or another, but it was always shut. Finally we found a Chinese run restaurant, though not selling Chinese food, which had a notice up in the window saying that they buy Dollars. The food was cheap, though, and fairly typically Bolivian I think, so we sat down to eat, then I asked about Euros, but of course they didn't want them. After looking around town more, we decided this was the only possible place and went back with our small collection of Dollars. When I offered the $36 to the proprietor, he seemed quite angry. I couldn't catch everything he said, but the gist was that he only wanted $100 bills or over; he wasn't interested in a Peso here or there, and he almost shooed us out of his restaurant. The Dollars we had were left over from Cambodia, where that was the only currency we could get, but I wondered what on earth kind of tourist he was used to, who has wads of $100 bills. I suppose some Americans must just go on holiday with a suitcase full of hard cash.
My Bolivian lunch
Joanne's Bolivian lunch
Hours more walking around, knocking on locked doors, then finally I realised that tocar is used for ringing a bell as well as knocking on a door, and we were let into one of the locked places people had repeatedly directed us to. Even here, the guy wasn't interested in the eleven $1 bills, which had been so vital in Cambodia, and we came away with $25 worth of Bolivianos; enough, in one of the only open shops, to buy me a pair of trousers which didn't fit all that well, but I reckoned would do, since I would definitely be losing weight after my Argentinian peak of 93kg. Even the previous day when shops had been open, the choice was awful, and I'm sure I was overcharged for the trousers. We really should have bought clothing in Villazon, but at least I had trousers again.
Finally we were ready for the tour.
written by  The Happy Couple on October 18, 2009 from Tupiza, Bolivia

Salar de Uyuni Trip: Day 1
San Antonio de Lipez, Bolivia
The trip we had booked was leaving at 9am. We had elected not to book an English-speaking guide as it cost more, and since the other two people they had told us were coming on the trip had not booked one, we would probably have to pay double to cover the costs alone; the other two were apparently a German couple who spoke Spanish. I decided that it would be an opportunity to learn a bit more Spanish, and to see the trip as inclusive of a 4-day language course; also we hoped that the Germans would speak English and be able to translate for us.
We turned up at the office of Tupiza Tours to discover that, of the German couple, only Tina but not Stephan spoke Spanish, and that we had been joined by a fifth person, an American girl called Victoria, who also spoke quite good Spanish; at least a fifth person on the trip meant that we would owe less money when we got to Uyuni.
Our transport
As we set off in the jeep, it seemed like we were to be joined by an extra passenger: not only did we have David as our driver-guide, and Bernadine in the back as our cook, but she was joined by a rather small passenger by name of Abigail; their daughter, aged three. After a bit of Spanish I didn't really follow, Tina told us that they were dropping Abi off at her grandmother's house on the way out of town. We did stop briefly on the way out of town and some doors were knocked, but still Abi remained in the car. Tina said that she didn't think they really expected to drop her off and she would be accompanying us for the whole trip. She was cute and didn't take up much space, though, so we didn't mind.
Jaggy rock formations
More jaggy rocks
Cacti and jaggy rocks
Everyone else reflected in Victoria's sunglasses
Cacti
Llamas
A mine
Dry stripey mountains
Short climb before lunch
The first day of the tour took us through some very arid landscapes, where llamas were the only livestock suitable for the environment, and where the small towns we passed seem as if they should be uninhabitable, except that most of them were set up as mining towns using coerced labour. Despite being very hot during the day, the high altitude means that even entire herds of llamas freeze to death occasionally, as had happened here a few years previously. Luckily, enough llamas had survived to provide us with dried llama meat as the filling for the delicious tamales we ate for lunch. During lunch, we asked if we could each get the two litres of water the company had promised us per day. David told us that, yes he know the company said that, but in fact there was only one litre per person, per day. When the child was taken into account, we discovered, there was actually less than that. First black mark against the company!
San Pablo de Lipez...
... a little town in the middle of the desert
Colourful rocks
View
Our cool registration plate
Llama skulls
Lots of dead llamas
Finally we finished our first day at a small town called San Antonio de Lipez. Unfortunately for me, the town is at 4200m above sea level and we had started at about 3000m above sea level. The Lonely Planet trekking guide to Nepal, I remembered, says that you should ascend no more than 500m per day above 3000m; and in one day we had just ascended 1200m. If we had done it from the border town of Villazon it wouldn't have been so bad, as Villazon is about 3500m above sea level. I had been feeling fine as we ascended all day, but not long after we arrived in town I had to lie down and I couldn't even get up to eat dinner. Everyone else seemed fine, but the thought of moving or eating anything was enough to make me feel like vomiting; so I did neither.
Stripes
Che
During the night I got up for the toilet, feeling considerably better, though still not quite right, and I stayed outside for about half and hour, looking at the fantastic stars; at least as fantastic as the southern hemisphere can manage in the way of stars.
written by  The Happy Couple on October 19, 2009 from San Antonio de Lipez, Bolivia

Salar de Uyuni Trip: Day 2
Laguna Colorada, Bolivia
Coca leaves handy for the driver
In the morning I felt much better: the altitude sickness from the previous night had completely gone and I even had the bonus of having missed dinner to kick-start my post-Argentina diet! When we started off in the car, David advised me to join him in chewing coca leaves to ward off the effects of the further ascent we had planned for the day. He had been chewing them almost constantly since we set off the the previous day, until after a few hours of driving his cheeks bulged like a chipmunk's. I was curious and I really didn't want to feel as ill again, so I took him up on his offer; after initially tasting very strong and bitter, it settles down to quite a pleasant flavour reminiscent of tea. I think it maybe perked me up a little, too, but the effect is certainly no stronger than a cup of coffee. David told me that 80% of Bolivians chew coca leaves; no wonder the American policy of coca plantation eradication is so unpopular in Bolivia: coca is central to their culture.
An abandoned mining town
Morning view
The landscape on the second day was even more arid than the first, but what really stands out is how richly coloured all the rocks are; apparently this is due to the incredible variety and wealth of the mineral content. We soon came over a pass from where we could look down at what looked like a frozen or snow-covered lake, but David told us that is actually mineral deposits, though not common salt as in the Salar we were eventually going to reach.
Highish pass
Mineral lake
Volcano
We passed a small green patch where lots of llamas were grazing. The each had different coloured ribbons tied to their ears to identify to whom the belonged. David told us that each family in the area owns about two hundred (I think it was) llamas, since they are their only source of wealth.
Llamas
Cute ear ribbons to identify owner
Out of the car is was really cold, since we were at about five thousand metres above sea-level, but still the coca leaves seemed to be keeping any problems at bay. Everyone else started feeling sick though. I'm not sure if I had just gone through some threshold the night before or if it genuinely was chewing the coca leaves that kept me healthy, but I was definitely the best off all day.
Joanne and llamas
Cold Joanne
At the park entrance a poster had advertised the fact we would see flamingos and when we got to the mineral-rich lake, we discovered there loads of flamingos all over the lake, though they were quite shy, and tried to evade our photography.
Flamingos
All those little dots are flamingos
See?
We pressed on, through ever drier ground until there was almost no plant life at all. All the time we were surrounded by colourful mountains bursting with valuable minerals apparently. No wonder Bolivia was exploited by the Spanish so much as a mining country and source of raw materials.
The road ahead
Mineral filled mountain
Andean fox
Finally we came to a hot spring, where we had lunch then took a dip in beautiful surroundings.
Everyone but me in hot spring
Everyone but Victoria in hot spring
Just Joanne and me
Then it was onto Laguna Blanca and Laguna Verde, with Volcan Licancabur as the backdrop.
Laguna Verde
David told us we would next be driving through the Desierto de Dali. I wasn't sure what the big deal was supposed to be, but we all took photos anyway. I suppose some of the warped rocks are supposed to look like something he would have painted. Or maybe the place inspired him, my Spanish wasn't good enough to work it out.
The road continues
Desierto de Dali
The first of many "photos locos"
Then the next stop in our busy schedule was at some geysers at 5000m. Tina started to feel really ill here, and David gave her some drug for treating altitude sickness. I still felt fine and encouraged everyone else to have some coca leaves but, apart from Joanne testing a couple of leaves, everyone else stuck with their sickness or chemical treatments.
Geisers Sol de Manana
Bad boys walking beyond the danger signs
A big geyser
Trusty Chilli Bovril
Finally we dropped down towards Laguna Colorada where we were scheduled to spend that night. We would be sleeping at 4350m and I still felt fine. David said that we would not actually take in the lake until the morning, instead saying that it was time for tea. We sat down to some bread and the sickly sweet dolce de leche when I remembered that I really wanted to finish off the Chilli Bovril that I had been carrying since South Africa: my bag was too heavy and it was time to start doing away with pointless extras like this. With our bread, we were also offered various teas, including some of David stash of coca leaves, to use as an infusion. Very pleasant, subtle, and I'm sure as harmless as coffee. What is it about Western culture that makes us want to distil and refine the goodness out of natural products until they become dangerous and addictive?
Dolce de leche - dangerous and addictive
Coca leaves for tea
written by  The Happy Couple on October 20, 2009 from Laguna Colorada, Bolivia

Salar de Uyuni Trip: Day 3
Atulcha, Bolivia
To some extent, day three was just more of the same, except prettier, perhaps. Hence the many photos. At the start of the day I was feeling a bit sick from the altitude again so David insisted I join him in chewing coca leaves again. It's also good for your digestion, he told me, since I had just finished breakfast... and it's good for working, good for staying awake, good for concentrating... in fact, he told me, it's good for todo. I think he had already been chewing his mouthful for some time. This time he offered me a little piece of what looked like a small stone to put in my mouth along with the leaves; a catalizador he told me. This time, instead of slowly building alertness as with a cup of coffee, my cheek went numb and I felt instantly really awake, but then the leaves in my mouth seemed to be "done" not long after. The catalizador didn't taste very nice; I suppose it was some sort of alkali, perhaps lime, and, from the back, Tina informed me that it makes your teeth go black and fall out. Certainly David's teeth were in a state. I thought I'd give the catalizador a miss in future.
Another mineral lake
Che
More flamingos in a thermal lake
Flamingos and Volcano
It was more mineral lakes, more volcanoes, and more flamingos. Soon we were requesting no more flamingos; we have enough photos of flamingos we insisted, but every time David told us that these ones would be more tame and we would get better photos; and he was right. Why he didn't just take us to the last really tame flamingos and forget the rest, I don't know.
David and Abi walking over minerals
Flamenco y Volcan
Hot lake
The wheels
More minerally mountains
Not much of a road
Surely this should be Dali's Desert?
After the flamingos in Laguna Colorada, we came to some much more distorted and interesting rock formations in the desert, than those in the Desierto de Dali the previous day. Here David introduced us to photos locos, which I think is a course they must do in guide school. All the guides know how to get the best shops of people doing silly things, but their favourite is to take photos with an unusual perspective, making it look like the object of the photo is much larger or smaller than it really is. I believe this all may have started with people holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa and pinching the top of the Taj Mahal, but it probably goes back to the dawn of photography. The main attraction in this part of the desert is the Arbol de Piedra which David instructed us each in turn to pretend we were holding. He didn't make a very good job of mind so I didn't bother putting it up, but there are plenty more photos locos for the Salar itself. Normally I would have been embarrassed by such behaviour, but months of witnessing Chinese tourists has completely desensitised me to extreme posing.
Photos Locos no.2
El Arbol de Piedra
Boogeyman from Nightmare Before Xmas?
Rocks
Photos Locos 3
Photos Locos 4
Minerals
A wee walk by the lake
The previous day, we had passed several vicuñas, which are another of the four species of camelids living in Bolivia, where llamas and alpacas are the most common and only two to have been domesticated. Vicuña, by contrast, are wild and rare, David told us, and there is a program to protect them from extinction, so all hunting had been banned for some time. Of course we wanted photos of them, but David had been keen to stick to his timetable the previous day, and we had been unable to take any photos. So, this day, I was waiting for an opportunity and as soon as I spotted one I asked if we could stop and we all took photos. If I'd known how many we would see, I might not have bothered with that first one.
First vicuña caught on camera
Another mineral lake with....
... FLAMINGOS!
Yup , flamingos
There were some flamingos
More vicuñas
Ffff... flamingos
Flamingos!
Would you believe it - flamingos?
Explosive lake
How did they come up with the name?
My stomach had been giving me trouble all day, despite having made it for seven months in Asia with barely mild indigestion. Argentinians had warned us about the food in Bolivia, telling us we should be very careful, but I had thought the tour would be fine. Throughout the day, I discovered that everybody else also had a bit of a stomach upset. I suspected last night's chicken. But it could have been the humitos, who knows? After many many flamingos over several small Lagunas, we came to what David seemed to think was something of a climax: an active volcano, still smoking. It was quite nice, but not really much different from any of the other volcanoes we had seen; just a little wisp of smoke coming out of the top.
Vicuñas in front of mineral lake and volcano
Vicuña AND flamingos
Smoking Volcan Ollague
Abi helps with the driving
What's that reflected in Jo's sunglasses?
Oh, it's me and a smoking volcano
Joanne and volcano
New Nazca Lines?
Finally we reached our destination for the day: a salt hotel. Joanne had read something about a salt hotel being illegal, so we were a bit apprehensive about it, although it was very nice and it was also the first time on the trip that we could have hot water showers. There were a few other groups staying in the hotel and we noticed that, just like the previous day, and at lunch, everyone seemed to have nicer food than us, although they were all complaining about not getting enough water. Our food had been pretty awful and now it seemed we all had food-poisoning. To irritate us further, every time we had a meal, including breakfast, at least two litres of fizzy drinks were brought out. Why couldn't they forget about the fizzy drinks and just give us more water? Clearly people from the first world do not have as sweet a tooth as South Americans.
Salt bedroom
Salt Livingroom
written by  The Happy Couple on October 21, 2009 from Atulcha, Bolivia

Uyuni, Bolivia
The previous two mornings had required us to get up at about 5am, but David wanted us up even earlier to make sure we got onto the Salar for sunrise. We were all at the car, ready for leaving at 5am, but this time David and/or Bernadine had slept in, and they were rushing around trying to get stuff done. Abi was already seated in the car and a suspicious smell of bacon was wafting out of their quarters. Our breakfast had been stale bread and dolce de leche every morning.
Clouds at dawn
Bricks for salt hotels
Nice PC background? The Salar.
Dawn
Distant volcano
More bricks
We did get to David's preferred stopping place for dawn, but his preferred stopping place was disappointingly ugly as there were rows of salt bricks hacked out of the flats and piled up near where we had stopped. The dawn was a bit of a non-event anyway, as there was a lot of cloud. Oh well, time to get down to David's proscribed repertoire of photos locos.
Photos Locos!
When we got out of the car, Joanne noticed that her trousers were wet and after a bit of investigation it seemed that it had been a mistake for them to put Abi in the back of the car so long before they were ready: she had wet the seat, where Joanne had then been sitting. After a bit of photo taking, we were off again towards an island in the middle of the Salar. These salt flats are huge; I think they are the biggest in the world. Apparently they were formed through the evaporation of a large inland sea, which occupied the whole of the Bolivian Alto Plano at the end of the last ice age. So the island in the middle, Isla del Pescado would have been a real island in the middle of an extremely saline lake at some point, and it still really gives the impression of being a real island, except that it is surrounded by salt rather than water.
Isla del Pescado
The volcano
Mongo's restaurant
Salt roads
Flowering cacti
Cyclist
He's come a long way
At the island, Bernadine prepared another pitiful lunch for us, while David stood around chatting to other guides, who were all chewing coca leaves.
Guides with bags of coca leaves
The Salar
Abi
Then it was off again for more photos locos and also to dig around through the salt layer to look for crystals. The salt layer was surprisingly thin and it was quite easy to make holes with our shoes. The car didn't seem to be in any danger of falling through though.
Dooking for crystals
A big crystal!
Joanne in the Salar
Shadows on the Salar
This is like Sesame Street: Near...
... Far!
Apparently when it's the rainy season you need to wear wellies because the water just lies on top of the salt layer, and this is when the Salar looks its most impressive, apparently, with the reflections in the water. Joanne wanted me to do a star jump (or "jumping jack") to get her own photo of me doing silly things, but disaster struck: a large hold in my new trousers ripped open at the crotch, rendering them totally unwearable. Luckily I had shorts to change into. It was a bit cold, but it would have to do. I knew I should have paid over the odds for trousers that didn't quite fit correctly! A quick action photo sequence of the whole process of my trousers ripping and me realising exist on Joanne's camera. Unfortunately she hasn't been uploading many photos so nobody will ever see it....
Everyone taking photos
Wheels
Photos Locos
Eventually we set off again, to stop at the salt hotel. It turns out that this is the illegal one, so it's now been turned into a museum. We originally had thought that the illegality might come from some desire to preserve the salt flats, but it fact they are quite happily mining it all over the place: for building bricks and also for food. In fact the original salt hotel is the only one on the Salar itself; the rest are near, and the problem was that it had no proper sewage facilities, located as it was in the middle of nowhere on the salt flats. Oddly, you can't go into the shop and museum until you agree to buy something, but you have to do this before you've seen what's on offer, so we refused. Business sense seems to be seriously lacking at time in South America! We just took photos from the outside.
THE salt hotel
Don't pee!
Swimming pool!
Bricks
At last the tour was over and we hung around a small market where they are trying to flog all manner of tourist tat, which we also declined to buy, reasoning that on the salt flats is probably the most expensive place to buy any of it.
She was crying before
Abandoned child in abandoned truck
Then it was on to Uyuni, where I had to pay for the trip. They had a cash machine, I had been told. However, what they didn't tell me was that the maximum withdrawal is only half what I owed for the trip. Luckily I had a credit card I could use for a cash advance, but it could easily have been an awkward situation.
We said goodbye to everyone and gave David a tip from us all, though he had been acting very strangely since leaving the salt flats: he had become very sullen; maybe he was sad that we were going, or maybe he had run out of coca leaves. I'm sure his mood had been rising and falling depending on how large the bunch of leaves in his mouth. Poor Victoria was taking the option to return with them to Tupiza; maybe the problem was that David was in a huff because she was depriving him of family time. She was planning going to the office to complain and refuse to pay any more than what she owed minus all the money she had spent on water during the trip.
We booked cheapish bus tickets and sat around at a bar, drinking and chatting to some other travellers, before getting on the bus out of there. Uyuni is a rather ugly and pointless place, so we were delighted to leave. Not so delighted when we discovered how cramped the bus was: it was the least leg room we had seen since Nepal. I was getting leg cramps from the lack of space, but thankfully the person in front did not recline their seat. Whew! Another overnight bus, this time to Sucre.
We had been promised toilet stops as the toilet on the bus was locked, but the first stop was at 2am, seven hours after the bus had set off. This was also the food stop, so we bought some cheese and bread. Oddly the cheese was being sold for 5Bs for three cheeses, which was far more than we needed, but it was so little money it hardly mattered and we bought all three.
written by  The Happy Couple on October 22, 2009 from Uyuni, Bolivia

Sleeping in Sucre
Sucre, Bolivia
We were absolutely shattered when we arrived in Sucre. Three days in a row of getting up at or before 5am really takes its toll, especially when immediately followed by a night bus designed for garden gnomes. Sucre is supposed to be a nice colonial place, which is why we were there. It was Joanne's idea; I had seen enough South American colonial towns, but people did rate it highly. We really weren't up to sight-seeing when we arrived, so we just spent time online, drank, and then went to bed about 7pm. The hostel we were staying in, La Dolce Vita, was a bit pricier than we were expecting for Bolivia, but it was supposed to be a good one. Despite that, they did not let guests use their wireless internet connection. There is no excuse for not having internet access, especially in a more expensive place!
We had read that Bolivia is famous for its fruits and we hadn't yet a a chance to sample them, since we had only been on the tour and in a very dry part of the country before that. So we went to the nearby market to buy some fruit and also buy some of Bolivia's famous fruit juices. The juices were a real disappointment: the guidebook raves about them, but they are not a patch on the juices and fruit shakes you can get all over Asia. You can't usually even just get fruit juice: you have to choose between con agua and con leche. Funnily enough, one tastes like watered down fruit juice and the other tastes like a milk shake. What a let-down!
Arches just outside Cafe Mirador
Beer at Cafe Mirador
One highlight of Sucre we had been told about is Cafe Mirador, in a nice part of town, with amazing views over the city. So we went there. It rained, but we bumped into Ricarda, the German girl we met in Salta, then again briefly in Tilcara. Cafe Mirador was OK. I suppose it would have been better in the sun. At least the beer in Bolivia is quite good. We agreed to meet up with Ricarda later, where we were planning to meet some other people from our hostel later. We drank too much. We drank two towers of beer. It was messy.
Sucre
written by  The Happy Couple on October 25, 2009 from Sucre, Bolivia

Tourists Trapped in Tarabuco
Tarabuco, Bolivia
Next morning we were booked to go on a tour to Tarabuco, which is meant to be a lovely little town with a Sunday market, mostly of traditional textiles from different nearby villages. The market was traditionally held for locals, but it was now chiefly a tourist event, we understood. Unfortunately I was too hung over to shop. It's not easy for me at the best of times, but virtually impossible with a hangover. When we got off the bus, we headed straight for a cafe for some coffee. The first place we stopped had such bad coffee that we poured it away before heading to another place.
Joanne eating Api con buñelos
Nice restaurant
The next place we found was actually quite nice and we ordered a “traditional breakfast” without really knowing what to expect. It was described as being Api con buñelos but I had no idea what either were. Api, it turns out, is a hot and spicy fruit drink; very nice and thick. Buñelos are little biscuits, for dunking into the api I supposed.
We bought something from him
I think this statue is something to do with defeating the Spansih
Textiles
Woman in traditional clothes
The stuff on sale at the market was quite nice, but the town was a tourist trap and people constantly hassled us; something that hadn't really happened since Asia, and something my hangover did not equip me for. I just wanted to leave but we couldn't because we had taken the tour bus instead of getting the local bus: we had to stay until our bus was leaving. In the end we did buy a couple of things are probably got quite good prices for them, but I found it so irritating being hassled constantly for the whole day, I wouldn't recommend the place. Yet, when the boot is on the other foot it's a different matter: I asked an old man if I could please take his photo, and he just looked annoyed, as if he was sick of all this hassle, and said no. Horrible place! Maybe he's not involved in the market and it is all annoying for him too.
More traditional people
More traditional dress
Babies, goods, and goats are all carried in those
Armadillo guitar?
Back in Sucre we went out to Locot's Mexican Restaurant, which the guidebook recommended, saying it had wifi. We got the worst service so far on the trip, which is saying something, and the wifi wasn't even working. I was really becoming sick of Bolivia. Lucy and Zdenek arrived later in the day and were also staying at La Dolce Vita, but he was really ill and not up to socialising at all. He also believes he has a really strong stomach (unlike Lucy), but the food in Bolivia had struck him down.
The following day we managed to find an open tailor and get my poor broken trousers repaired, along with various other items of clothing, mostly shirts, which had ripped to a greater or lesser degree. The repair was cheap and quick, so I had trousers again! Just in time for another overnight bus. This time to La Paz. We had to check our bags in like a plane and mine weighed only 25kg, so I was at least losing some weight from my bag. It was another horrible bus journey: the speaker above our heads rattled loudly, the toilet stop was far too late again, but at least I finished my Che Guevara biography. It was heavy going but really good. And how appropriate, I thought to finish it in the country where they did him in. And what a cheek, I thought, for all the tourist places to be selling goods with him image on them, when the people of Bolivia constantly reported his presence to the military and their betrayal led directly to his death. Still, I suppose nations can change. And he was a bit stupid launching a guerilla campaign in Bolivia in the first place, not helped by the Stalinists in the country deceiving him, causing him to make serious tactical errors.
written by  The Happy Couple on October 26, 2009 from Tarabuco, Bolivia

Dried llama fœtus
La Paz, Bolivia
We had agreed that by the time we got to La Paz we would have recovered from our party excesses nearly two months previously in Chile. After the towers of beer in Sucre we weren't so sure, but we had already booked ourselves several nights in what we had heard is one of the most extreme party hostels in South America: The Wild Rover. Yes I know it sounds Irish rather than Bolivian, and that's because, well it is an entire hostel in the style of an Irish bar. I know, it's awful, but these are the sacrifices you have to make if you want to have a good time.
Unlike most hostels, they didn't provide any directions on the website, just an address and how much you should expect to pay the taxi driver. Obviously people who go to party hostels have lots of money. We checked in an headed out again, wary that we should try to get as much done as possible before we found ourselves with crippling hangovers.
Suburbs at the top of town
A traffic zebra
Typical street
Illimani Mountain peeks through the buildings
La Paz is quite high up, so we were a bit worried about altitude sickness, but hoped that our previous high altitude experience was recent enough to protect us. The city reminded me slightly of a very Shimla: blocky houses on steep slopes, though La Paz was missing that everything-on-stilts, Dr Seus element to the architecture that makes Shimla so strange-looking. At one end the streets at one end of town there is a huge mountain. Once in the center, zebras were driecting the traffic. Yes, zebras.
St Francis Church
There was quite a nice church, though undergoing renovation, in one of the main plazas, and Joanne was keen to visit the witches market, which she thought looked good in the guide book. They did have some interesting, even nice, things, but they also had some rather gruesome objects for sale, most notably the dried llama fœtus, which is apparently a standard house-warming present for good luck. Good yuck, more like!
Dried llama fœtus and other stuff at witches' market
Witches market
Joanne has a mojito...
After perusing the fœtuses for a while we booked a cycle trip down the Road of Death for the following morning, then we found a Cuban bar and stepped inside to see what was on offer. Mojitos and a Cohiba: that'll do nicely! Heading back towards the hostel we popped found an Indian restaurant, run by an English guy, so we thought we'd try it for lunch, after all it couldn't be worse than the usual standard of food in Bolivia. In fact the food was excellent. I opted for the vindaloo, which is so hot they give you a t-shirt to finish a full portion, however I was only having a lunch portion; I saw it as a test run for the real thing. It was exceptionally hot, by far the hottest food either of us had eaten on the trip, but I reckoned I'd be able to earn that t-shirt.
... in a Cuban Bar
La Paz
Joanne wearing a bracelet from Tarabuco
Hottest food on the whole trip
Back at the hostel we unpacked and I discovered that my dry bag, containing my thermals, was missing. Someone must have stolen it during the night, from the where our bags were stored on the bus from Sucre. And soon we would probably be needing them again, since we were planning to go trekking in Peru. Thieving scum!! I was really going off Bolivia: first food-poisoning and now theft. Nobody warned us about this, everyone had said Bolivia was the best place in South America and everyone we had spoken to before getting there had loved it. Now that we were there, everyone we spoke to had been robbed and had food-poisoning. A strange difference.
That evening, the bar was very loud and lively, and we had a few drinks and chatted to some people. Most of the people staying there were younger than us and a large percentage were Irish. One Irish guy said that he had recently got his vindaloo t-shirt even though he hates curry, which made me more determined than ever to get one of my own. He had made himself sick after finishing the bowl and thought it was very brave of me to have even a lunch portion the day before our death road cycle. You don't want that in you he advised, helpfully. Later, Ricarda appeared and also seemed keen to go for the vindaloo t-shirt. We all agreed that we would do it on Friday when Lucy and Zdenek arrived in La Paz; I was sure he would want to have a go at it too.
written by  The Happy Couple on October 27, 2009 from La Paz, Bolivia

Road of Death
La Paz, Bolivia
The Road of Death cycle route starts at an altitude of 4650 metres and then it's almost continuously downhill to 1200 metres. The road was declared the world's most dangerous road in 1995, with around 300 people being killed each year on it. It's much safer now that a new road has been opened, which means that there is almost no traffic on the Death Road now apart from mountain bikes and their support vehicles.
The company logo on the van
We were picked up early at our hostel and driven to the starting point of the route. It was nice and sunny, but still very cold at that altitude. We had heard some dodgy tales of unscrupulous operators using badly maintained bikes and minimal protection. We had been recommended Vertigo by someone who had used them and they were offering a low season discount so it cost only Bs400, more than Bs200 less than the most famous company, Gravity, who the Wild Rover Hostel would have been happy to sign us up with.
Me looking really white
Joanne looking really cool
Me looking cool
Full bike team
There's not too much more to say about the day, but I have lots of photos as the fee includes a CD of photos and a t-shirt saying that you survived the Road of Death. Most of the photos were taken on the day, but they also included some standard ones, including lots of photos of shrines and a couple of jokey ones. I was surprised they are still so flippant about it, after our guide Chello told us that there was a fatal accident with their company not that long ago. There are still occasional fatal accidents, but nowhere near the levels they were at before the new road opened.
There are lots of shrines on the road
I'm surprised the company still joke like this
The road
More shrines
Shrines
Coca harvest
Another pose
The route starts off on tarmac but at the point the new road splits off it turns into a crumbly gravel road. The mountain biking wasn't as tough as anything I've done in Scotland, though the chances of dying if you do have an accident are certainly much higher: those drops are long. The bikes were good, it was probably the best mountain bike I've ever been on, but they didn't seem to be geared very high, which meant I couldn't go as fast as I would have liked. Maybe this is deliberate to reduce the chances of people taking corners too fast, or perhaps it's just that I'm used to road bikes, which are usually much faster. Nonetheless it was a lot of fun and the views were great.
Top part of the road
Chello taking it seriously
Me near the start of the gravel road
Joanne and scenery
The Road
Standard pose apparently
Big drop
A fast bit of road
Joanne fast
Nice view
Joanne cruising
Setting off again
Photos locos
More posed shots (tired)
Promotional shot
The whole team, including driver
The drop
The finish
La Paz
written by  The Happy Couple on October 28, 2009 from La Paz, Bolivia

More Bolivian Misery
La Paz, Bolivia
Lamentable empty club
When we got back to the hostel after surviving the Road of Death, we thought we should get into the party spirit of the hostel and had a few drinks. One thing this party hostel does which actually makes it much easier to sleep than most party hostels, is it organises taxis to whisk people away to different clubs every night, by about midnight. So we decided to go to that night's club when the taxis turned up. The club was completely empty until we arrived there. It was awful, so we just accepted our free drinks and then headed out to look for somewhere more interesting. We did find a more interesting club, which meant that we only left it when it was light, a situation we took advantage of by picking up our Death Road t-shirts and CDs. There were traffic zebras everywhere.
Traffic zebra
Two traffic zebras
Predictably, we spent most of that day sleeping and feeling terrible. Eventually we got up for food and I had a burger in the bar. That was that day.
The next day was Friday and Lucy and Zdenek were arriving. They had decided to give our hostel a miss and instead book into the Adventure Brew Hostel which has its own microbrewery. We went looking for them, hopefully to join them for a beer, but they weren't answering text messages when we arrived there and I was starting to feel really ill again; I could barely drink the beer from the microbrewery. By the time we gave up waiting for them and left, I was convinced that I had food poisoning again. I suspected the burger. This partly ruined our plans for the night because I was too ill to eat anything, let alone the hottest vindaloo in South America (maybe the world) and when they woke up again we discovered that Zdenek hates curry anyway, so he wasn't interested. Oh well, at least I had my Death Road t-shirt.
That night we went out again, this time with Lucy, Zdenek, and Ricarda, but even on Friday night we struggled to find lively places and spent a fortune going from place to place in taxis. Eventually someone told us about an after-hours club so we took a taxi to there. I was in the front seat and everyone else got out so it fell to me to pay the driver, however I had nothing smaller than a Bs100 note which people are always sticky about changing. Before I handed to him I asked him if he had change and he said yes. Then he took a pile of small coins out and said no and could I ask my friends, so I turned to ask the others and Ricarda handed me a Bs20. When the taxi driver handed me back my Bs100 note something almost registered, but didn't quite make it though the drunken fog. It was only after I got out that I realised the note he handed me back felt completely different from the one I had handed him. I looked down and it was pretty sure it was an obvious fake. The bastard had realised I was drunk enough (only just actually) and switched it on me after directing my attention away from him.
Robbed again! Why did nobody warn us about Bolivia? At the door I tried to use the Bs100 note but my suspicions were confirmed that it was an obvious fake, but the people on the door were nice enough to apologise for the taxi driver when I cursed him. It actually seemed like a really good place, but it was packed with nowhere to sit and we were all a bit tired by that point. And I was completely fed up, as well as still feeling ill. At that point I was completely sick of Bolivia. Poisoned twice and robbed twice. What a place. Just before we left, I spotted Chello, our guide from the Road of Death, wearing his “I survived the Road of Death” t-shirt. He came over and hugged as both before heading on towards the bar. I think it was a proper cool underground club we had stumbled on; if only we had found it before so many of the other rubbish places that we'd nearly had enough. I didn't care: I just wanted to go to bed and dream of murdering taxi drivers, who seem to be almost consistently the most evil people in any country. OK, you do get nice ones, but most taxi drivers seem evil in every country.
written by  The Happy Couple on October 30, 2009 from La Paz, Bolivia

Good Food in Bolivia!
Copacabana, Bolivia
I just wanted to leave Bolivia, but Joanne had been reading the guide book and Copacabana was going to be nice, apparently. At least is was at the border with Peru. Bolivia had been one of the countries we were most looking forward to, but I was feeling very negative about it now. Looking back at it, the Salar de Uyuni trip was amazing: the landscapes we went through there was fantastic, but it cost a lot of money; in fact, taken together with the Death Road cycle, they alone used up what I had estimated our entire budget for Bolivia would be. South American “cheap” is not like Asian cheap.
Anyway, one thing we were looking forward to in Copacabana was, because it's on Lake Titicaca, fish in Bolivia would finally be safe to eat, and trout is abundant apparently. Of course, we were looking forward to the ceviche in Peru even more, but a Peruvian guy staying at the Wild Rover had told us that we have to wait for the coast for the ceviche to be safe in Peru; apparently the fish from Titicaca isn't right for ceviche. However I was still really ill and wouldn't be eating anything; I just wanted to get to the hostel and get to sleep. The hostel was apparently very disorganised and had no idea that we had booked with them, so they did not subtract our ten percent booking fee from the bill, although I think what they charged us was less than the online price anyway.
I just went to bed, leaving Joanne to fend for herself for the first time in ages. I slept all the way to morning, but when I got up and used the shower I was not impressed: there was no hot water, which wouldn't have been a problem if it was warm, but we were at about 3900 metres above sea level, so it was cold. To make matters worse, this cold water was streaming through bare wires hanging down from the shower head, where they were presumably supposed to do something about heating the water, but were just scaring me instead. Online we had booked for two nights, but decided to take advantage of their ignorance by moving hostel to a much nicer place.
I wasn't much impressed by Copacabana itself, but perhaps the main reason for going there is to take a trip to the nearby islands, so we made enquiries at a couple of travel agents. The woman at the desk of one reasonably-priced place told us that the trip leaves early for the Isla del Sol, visiting the South end of the island, before stopping off for an hour or so at Isla de la Luna and returning about 6pm. We bought tickets for this half-day ticket, but when we returned to get on the boat, the captain said that we were going to the Isla del Sol then returning at 4pm. I was still annoyed with Bolivia, so I got very angry and demanded our money back. He sent us back to the office and we did get a refund. The woman at the desk denied that she had told us that the trip went to Isla de la Luna. What a liar!
I was still feeling quite unwell anyway, so I returned to bed and sent Joanne out to get me medicine, book a full day trip the next day, and book the bus to Peru. For the first time, I gave her the dictionary and an extra phrase book; she was going to have to speak Spanish! She had started quite well, making a reasonable effort in Chile, but has quickly become lazy as my Spanish got a bit better. Now she was in at the deep end. A bit later she came back with everything, having apparently found it all easy enough. There were no trips to Isla de la Luna, even though every travel agent had a sign outside saying “trips to Isla de la Luna”. Everyone had told her that you can only do it with a private boat, which they don't offer. We theorised that because high season was now finished, they were no longer doing there.
Trout. Nice food in Bolivia!
I was feeling lots better, so we headed out to find some trout. We found quite a nice place at the water front and I ordered a trout. For reasons I cannot understand, Joanne ordered lasagne; here we are at a lake full of fish, which we had been looking forward to for weeks and she orders lasagne. The trout was very nice, though a bit on the small side. Apparently Joanne's lasagne was OK. Definitely feeling much better after dinner, I finally got around to smoking the Cohiba I had bought in the Cuban bar in La Paz.
Joanne got lasagne for some reason
written by  The Happy Couple on November 1, 2009 from Copacabana, Bolivia

Birth Place of the Sun and the Moon
Isla del Sol, Bolivia
In the morning, my food-poisoning seemed much less severe, but I was starving, having not eaten much the day before. Unfortunately the place we went for breakfast gave us only five little hard bits of bread between us and a smidgen each of the disgusting red jam and industrial-tasting margarine (always called “butter”) that are so widespread in Bolivia. We bought a packed lunch each from the place we had eaten the night before, since the food had seemed OK, and got on the boat to Isla del Sol.
Pathetic packed lunch
Once we were chugging our way out to sea, very very slowly as it happened, we had a peek into our packed lunches to see what we had to supplement our meagre breakfast. It was terrible: the “fruit” we had been expecting was actually just a sugary fruity drink like a froot shoot and the rest of it hardly made up a meal substantial enough for what we ha paid. This was the last straw for me and South American food: it is awful; the only thing to recommend about it is the steak in Argentina, but then it's just meat meat meat, which gets rather tedious. Mostly the food is fried rubbish; I think the influence of their fastfood-loving neighbour to the North has destroyed any idea of a traditional cuisine. Or maybe the food has always been terrible.
Lazy captain
Pathetic engines
The boat took an incredible amount of time. Instead of having a decent-sized on-board engine and large propeller attached to the hull, they were powering this passenger boat, at least the size of a small fishing boat, with two outboard motors, presumably after realising that one wasn't going to do it.
Incan terracing
On the trail
Finally we got to the island, in Inca mythology as the birth place of the Sun and the Moon, it was an extremely important location to them. We paid for our ticket which, they told us, would cover entry to the museum, the ruins, and todo, then we set off on the path towards the ruins. On the way we passed Puma Rock, which in Quechua is titi kala, after which the lake is probably named. We passed a table, reportedly used for sacrifices. The island was very dry, though very pretty with the Incan terracing and surrounded by clear blue water.
Looking back at the port
"Sacrificial" table
Funny angled islet
When we first approached the ruins, it just looked like a few uninteresting stone houses and I felt the disappointment of Tilcara rising all over again, but when we got closer I realised that these houses were linked into other houses further down the slope, in an interconnecting network of tunnels and passageways. It must have been quite a busy little village at one time, but how absent privacy must have been, when every house is connected directly to several neighbours; in effect is was really just one big building with a large complex of rooms. Much more interesting than the Tilcara ruins an in much better condition, though these ruins are probably a few hundred years more recent.
Ruins
Joanne sitting in ruins
After the ruins we decided we would walk the seven kilometres to the South end of the Island rather than retuning to the port to get a lift there in the boat. The guide book said it was the only way to truly appreciate the island and we thought we needed a bit of exercise to get us in training for Machu Picchu, which was now only a few days away. It was hot and the altitude meant that we found it quite difficult (the summit of the island is over 4000 metres above sea level), so I took out the bag of coca leaves I had bought on the Salar de Uyuni trip and started chewing. Ever few hundred metres, a few people would be standing with a bundle of tickets, claiming that we needed to pay 5 Bolivianos to continue down the path; no we don't I explained, our ticket is for todo, but none of them cared, so we just told them that we didn't have any money and kept walking. I was fairly sure it was a scam, but I wasn't sure until we passed a South American guy who was waving away the ticket vendors and shouting something at them in a very irritated voice. Did you pay them? he asked and said he was very pleased when we told him no. We really didn't have enough money for all the tickets, since we were leaving Bolivia that day and had been running our funds down. We could have bought a few, but we needed money for a beer when we got to the end!
Modern stone work
The long path ahead
The interior of the island
Inca Steps from top
Joanne keeping the sun off
The island had been getting progressively more green as we headed South, until the end of the walk where it was very green and much less dry-looking than the North. There was much more development at this end of the island too, and the highlight seems to be Incan Steps up from the harbour to the plateau of the island. We rewarded ourselves with the beer we had been waiting for, and sat on the grass and chatted to an Irish couple from the same boat. They had paid every one of the rip-off 5Bs tickets, though now they said “I knew it! I knew it was a scam!”.
Inca Steps from bottom
Last chance to photo Bolivian ladies
Joanne cold
On the way back we had to endure the super-slow boat even longer than necessary because they stopped off at a “floating reed island”. We had heard about these islands on the Bolivian side, but hadn't realised our tour included it; the genuine reed islands are on the Peruvian side, and we knew that these ones were fake, recently constructed for tourists. They were charging 2Bs per person to get off the boat and wander around, but the only people who did were two Bolivian ladies. You can tell Bolivian ladies by the fact that they all wear unusual hats, like tall bowler hats. Nobody else seemed interested; presumably everyone else knew they weren't the real thing.
Silly floating "reed" islands
Bolivian ladies the only one to get off
Copacabana
Back in town, we had a few hours to wait for the bus and only enough money for one more beer. Everyone around us was ordering food and it looked like the food there was really good, especially the pizzas some people near us ordered. I called the waiter over and asked if they would take US Dollars, since we still had some left over, but he told us that they would accept Dollars, but only on bills over a certain amount that just two people could not easily have spent, and we certainly didn't want to. We were starving though, so not long before our bus was leaving, after we had paid our bill and not long after the people with the pizzas had left, we made a quick exit, passing the table where the girl had left half of her pizza untouched, and I lifted two of the large pieces off her plate. It was only one piece each, but we reckoned it would be enough to keep starvation at bay until we arrived in Puno anyway.
The border crossing into Peru, not long after leaving Copacabana, was nice and easy, but someone got on the bus at the border who had the smelliest feet I've encountered since India, and we had to move one row back to avoid vomiting. We would have moved further back, but the rest of the bus was full, because even where we were it was still slightly stomach-churning. I love bus travel.
written by  The Happy Couple on November 2, 2009 from Isla del Sol, Bolivia

South America plan - latest
Puno, Peru
Updated in Puno. Joanne has given up waiting for her work to let her know if she has a job, so we are now waiting for BA to get back to us with a quotation to re-reoute her itinerary. As always, the plan is still vague... for more up-to-date schedule information check this http://blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?TripID=4517 and click "Show Newest First"
Peru
Aguas Calientes (Machu Picchu)
Joanne
England
Scotland
Glasgow 20/11/09 to ∞
Michael
Ecuador
Colombia
Panama
Costa Rica
Nicaragua
El Salvador
Guatemala
Belize
Mexico
USA (it's OK now 'cos of Obama)
You can see there is real military precision in my planning.
Booked Flights (totally redundant now)
Santiago to Rio 25/11/09
San Francisco to London 28/11/09
Now the real flights are looking something like they will be
Joanne: Lima to London 19/11/09
Michael: SF to London 19/02/09
or something...
written by  The Happy Couple on November 2, 2009 from Puno, Peru

Not Puno Day
Puno, Peru
The hostel in Puno was really quite nice. It was organised into little apartments and our room was part of a two bedroom apartment, sharing a bathroom, kitchen, and TV room with one other couple. At first the manager seemed very keen to please and very helpful, but we soon realised he was just a very bossy control freak. He didn't recommend we walked far form the hostel at night, which reduced our choices of what to eat for dinner considerably: it was a Chinese or chicken. We opted for Chinese, more because we happened to pass it first and we were starving, than any real decision. Ordering in Spanish in a Peruvian Chinese restaurant was quite challenging, but we managed in the end.
First group spotted
The plaza is where it's all happening
The next day we booked our bus onwards to Cusco, as well as a tour to the Islas Flotantes. The bus station was a bit of a walk away, but it meant we could save a fair bit of money on the fare the bossy hostel manager was charging, as well as having a look around the city. The hostel manager had told us that lots of things would be closed because Puno Day was coming up in a few days time. We had decided not to bother hanging around for Puno day, but as we walked around the city it seemed like the celebration was already well underway: colourfully dressed marching bands were slowly making their way through the city streets.
Peruvian Beer
Nice colours
All quite restrained
It's John Travolta
We sat down in a restaurant on the marching route, advertising menu del dia for S2.50 (Soles), where we were able to watch troupe after troupe shimmying past us. The menu was actually very nice, particularly the huge bowl of sopa criolla to start. It was certainly a step up from Bolivia. During lunch the costumes went from rather over the top and very colourful to totally ridiculous high camp: tassels and sparkles were in abundance, then this gave way to giant collars even Ming the Merciless would think twice about wearing, until they lost the plot completely and it changed to Gorilla costumes with pierced noses and guys wearing wedding cake skirts and full face masks of pipe-smoking Chinese demons with giant blue feathers sticking out of their hats (at least that's what I thought they were). The dancing looked really disorganised, the music was cacophonous and most of the bands seemed to be (trying to?) play the same tune, or one of a few options, but it was very entertaining all the same; clearly it is all really about the costumes, not the bands or “marching”. A nice, unexpected surprise when we thought we were going there only for the Islas Flotantes.
Costumes getting more outlandish
Gorilla suits?
OK, getting quite whacky now
What?
OK
written by  The Happy Couple on November 3, 2009 from Puno, Peru

Floating Islands and Reed Bananas
Taquile, Peru
In the morning, before heading off on our floating islands tour, I had a small run-in with the weirdo control freak of a hostel owner. There were two small jugs of coffee by the rest of the breakfast things, which I thought was a bit odd since there were quite a few rooms, but I assumed he must periodically refill them. I helped myself to a cup of coffee, leaving behind maybe a third of one little jug, and before I sat down in my seat the owner was at my side saying “THINK!!” and tapping the side of his head: “Twelve breakfast and twelve coffees. Take only a small amount and fill up with hot water”. He looked like he was about to explode, so I just returned to the jug and slopped most of my cup of coffee back in the jug and dribbled in a bit of hot water. The coffee hadn't been very good the day before, so I didn't want to make it taste any worse. “You are crazy!” he continued ranting, “It's too strong! You'll make yourself ill! CRAZY!”. I wonder who the crazy one is. His coffee started off weaker than the espresso I normally have a mug of for breakfast at home, so I don't think I was in imminent danger of ill health from his pathetic microwaved filter coffee. Looney!
Native fish
Someone we had met in Asia, who was doing their RTW trip the other way around from us told us about the Islas Flotantes in Lake Titicaca. We had been told how amazing it was because these people were originally from some Pacific islands, but had experience xenophobia when they arrived in South America, so instead took to building entire islands made of reeds in the middle of the lake, to keep them safe from xenophobic harm, and the descendants of these same people are still living there more than a thousand years later; it does seem incredible, however I had read nothing since that corroborated this exact explanation.
On the (very slow again) boat on the way to the reed islands, our guide, who for once really was a bilingual guide and translated everything she said, whichever language came out first, started to tell us the story of these people, the Uros people. According to her they were living there, along with many other ethnic groups, before the Inca Empire arose around the Lake Titicaca area. As I listened I wondered how on earth the others had got the impression that they were from the Pacific islands. The guide went on to explain that the Incas wanted to charge high taxes on the land around the Lake, where the Uros had been living; it was for this reason, she said, that they moved onto the lake, simply because they could not afford to pay the land taxes. Then after telling us what a peaceful people they were, who didn't want conflict with the Incas, she said that they were able to continue their pacific way of life on the floating islands on the lake. Was that it? Was it the confusion between pacific and Pacific that led our friends to believe they came from Polynesia or somewhere? I wondered if they had taken the exact same tour, with the same guide and her preference for pacific over “peaceful”.
Main group of floating islands
Anyway, the Uros people are apparently still living the same lifestyle as many hundreds of years ago, although it is now being heavily influenced by tourism, and intermarrying with the surrounding Aymara people means that less and less are they a people in their own right, and more and more are they becoming absorbed into mainstream Peru, just another part of the tourist industry. Oh well, things change, and I'm sure they are better off weaving colourful clothes and making ornaments for tourists than they were subsisting on fish and reed roots. Also, I can't help thinking that an isolated population of only a few thousand must be a bit inbred, so mixing with the landlubbers can't be a bad thing either. Also, they have long stopped speaking Uros and now they all speak Aymara, but Spanish is beginning to creep in.
Nonetheless, there are still large numbers of people living on these bizarre man-made islands. They have floating schools, two floating hospitals, two floating churches, floating shops, and most other services you would expect in a small city. This is the real deal, unlike the Bolivian side. The guide had told us how these people look very different from people on the land, due to their genetic history, but I didn't really see it; they did have some different dress styles, but the only people we saw were on a couple of islands used exclusively, I suspect, for tourist visits, so even the difference in dress may just have been for our benefit. It would have been much more interesting to hire a boat and float among the real, working reed islands, but how were we to have known the tour would be so superficial? If only there had been a clue, like the word “tour”.
Unmarried girl
The first island we stopped at we were introduced to a few of the Uros, men in their shirts made of reed fibres, and women with different-sized pompoms in their hair: large for unmarried, small for married. The guide and an Uros helper built up a scale model of the island to demonstrate how it is constructed. It really is quite incredible: using specially designed (metal) tools, they cut a several metres thick layer of reed roots, which are very buoyant, to use as the foundation for the island. On top of this layer, which float below the surface of the water, they start layering and weaving the tops of reeds, until there is a three metre pile of these on top of the base. This is what we were standing on. Then, she explained, to prevent them from ending washing up on Copacabana beach, in Bolivia, they anchor the islands in several places using up to seven-metre-long reed stakes, one stake for each anchor point on the island and one into the lake bottom. Then they build their houses and so on made, also made of reeds.
Guide with Uro guy and scale model of island
Then they talked for a bit about the food they eat. They use the reeds for everything and sure enough this includes food. We were each handed a piece of reed shoot which we were told was an “Uros Banana”. It tasted OK, very fresh, but you would get bored of it very soon. Before the Spanish arrived, she told us, the delicious trout and king fish that the lake is now full of, were not here; the only fish were some really small unappetising fish, and one of the poor things was shown to us by an Uros lady. This was their staple until the bigger fish were added, and it was also the basis of their economy, because this isn't really enough to live on, and they have always traded extensively with their neighbours, particularly for things like alpaca wool and potatoes. The guide told us that until recently the Uros never used money, despite the Incas bringing it to the region, and barter was done on a basis of volume for volume: one armful of fish for an armful of potatoes. I'm sure the Spanish must have loved that system when it came to gold!
Solar panels
We were then invited to have a look around the island and try on their clothes in one of their houses. Joanne and I declined to try on the clothes, but we had a wander around. Beside one house a French couple, in the same subgroup I had been separated off into, had spotted solar panels, so they asked our subgroup Uros guide what it was for. Electricidad the woman replied, and the couple seemed satisfied with the answer, which I thought was nothing more than a statement of the obvious, so I continued and asked what they use the electricity for: television seemed to be the most important thing. At least they are not ashamed of, or hiding, the modernisation of their culture from the tourists, so maybe this will allow their way of life to continue for some time, but I'm still sure their days must be numbered. You may be able to get all the benefits of modern life on the islands, but it's just so much more convenient on the land.
Us in the reed boat
Next we were invited to take a trip to the next island in a “traditional” reed boat, which would cost us a further S10 each. Joanne was keen so we did it, but then noticed that none of the large group of Peruvians who had got on the boat paid anything. Joanne pointed this out to the couple sitting next to us and we all stared at the Peruvian end of the boat until, embarrassed, their apparent leader handed over S5, which I suppose was meant to cover the cost for all of them; there must have been about eight of them! Joanne was very unhappy with the unfairness of it and tourists being ripped off, but she really should have been used to it by then! We were treated to short songs in Uros, Aymara and Quechua as a farewell from the ladies of the island, then bizarrely they went through Spanish and English versions of things like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. When we arrived at the next island and were invited to pay for various traditional foods, we boycotted!
Singing to us
Leaving first island and our boat behind
Approaching the second island
Joanne not impressed
Cooking
Bigger better reed boat
Outlying tourist islands
Then it was back on the main boat and we chugged slowly off towards the next part of the tour: Isla Taquile. What we hadn't realised when we booked was that this island is two-and-a-half hours away on a slow boat like ours. The guide told us all about the unique culture and history on the next island, but I just drifted off. I couldn't believe we had five hours more on this torturously slow boat. I can tell you that, unlike the rest of the area around the lake, it is and always was a Quechua speaking group of people on the island, and the economy of the island has always been organise on a completely communal basis: everyone earns the same amount of money, no matter what job they do, she told us. Everything is shared among every occupant of the island. And they've been doing this since long before Lenin or even Marx, and their society is still functioning fine about one thousand years later. She then went on to tell us in more detail, then about their clothes and other traditions, but this was when I drifted off. Joanne later told me that most of it was about the different headdress they wear: men wear floppy hats, one type for married and one for single; and women wear cloaks over their heads.
One married man, one single
Taquileñas
Alighting from the boat, I re-ripped my recently repaired trousers where they had been stitched back together. The clothing was moderately interesting, but not worth a five hour return journey to see. Likewise, the island itself wasn't particularly attractive, not a patch on Isla del Sol. I wondered why on earth the tour included it and now I had to walk around with my pants on display. It was a bit of a hike up to the top of the island, where the guide had told us to go and wait in the main plaza. There were some fairly old people in the group so we had to wait a while in what is undoubtedly the ugliest main square I have seen on this trip. Even Japan didn't have one this ugly, although they don't go in for plazas much. The buildings round the square are all made of reinforced concrete and have rusty corrugated iron roofs, just like the rest of the ugly little island. The only building that was a bit different was a super-modern mayor's house, but it wasn't very nice either. Then the guide revealed what must be the real reason for bringing us all this way: UNESCO had declared the island's weaving the best in Peru in 2005, and we were all invited to browse the goods. To my eye it was nice, but no different from weaving we had seen in Bolivia or in Puno, except that it was about ten times the price. Nobody bought any. Another example of bad business sense in South America. Maybe if they had dropped the price a bit, a few people would have bought some.
Ugly main square
Mayor's house
Most attractive part of the square
Expensive weaving
Then it was time for lunch. We were told we had to eat at one specific restaurant, for reasons that were unclear. We assumed that this was just another ploy to overcharge us, but in fact the prices were the same as tourist restaurants in Puno. It was trout, which we was very please about, and when the waiter came out to our table with one massive trout and two small ones, I thought oh goodie! a massive trout for me, especially once he had given Joanne a small one, because apart from us it was only some old ladies sitting at the table. But no! The idiot of a waiter gave me the other tiny one and proceeded to give an old lady the giant one! I couldn't believe it. What a fool! The next round of fish he brought out included one almost as large as the giant one and a couple of medium-sized ones a bit bigger than our minnows. I was furious. It reminded me of the wine-tastings in New Zealand, where we were given much smaller samples than the “respectable” people there, even though we spent as much money in the end. Do people just look at us and think we don't deserve good things – instead of the waiter thinking “he's a big lad, I'll give him the big fish”? Predictably the old ladies left about half of their fish; the giant one was probably only one third eaten. We were pissed off and just wanted to home. On another 150 minute boat ride.
Rusty-roofed houses
The Islas Flotantes were interesting, albeit totally touristy, but I deeply regretted having gone for the option including Isla Taquile, and was glad to be able to warn Lucy and Zdenek when we discovered they had now arrived at the hostel we were about to check out of. We went out for dinner with them before the owners veins exploded because we were spending time inside after checking out. Dinner was nice, but beautifully finished off with pisco sours. At least, we get to taste the real thing instead of the Chilean copies!
The only attractive thing on the island
written by  The Happy Couple on November 4, 2009 from Taquile, Peru

Alpaca: clothes and food
Cusco, Peru
The overnight bus to Cusco was incredibly hot. At least is wasn't freezing cold, but why can't they get it right? It seems that the temperature outside being above 23C means they have to try and lower it to 10C, whereas the outside temperature being above 23C means they have to try and increase it to 40C, which I'm pretty sure the achieved on this particular bus: my big bottle of water felt hot when we finally got off the bus. Incredibly the promised pick up from bus station was actually there, for which we were very grateful.
At first impression Cusco looked like a rather attractive place, in particular the main square and a wall near our hostel, which had been built by carving large stones so that they fit perfectly together; a technique I knew, from some documentary I once watched, was an Incan architectural technique meaning that no cement or grout is required. Incredible. Worried about how cold I was going to get in the Machu Picchu trek, considering that I still had no warm clothes since my thermals were stolen and my one pair of long trousers were ripped again, we went shopping for clothes for both of us. I bought a nice warm-looking alpaca wool jacket, though I wasn't all that keen on the style or the fact it was very bulky and therefore going to take up a lot of space in my bag. Nonetheless, the vendor lowered her price until I didn't feel I could say no and I really did need something warm. I also needed some shoes, since mine were finally starting to fall apart, months and months after having them repaired in Laos. I thought I might get some walking boots, but these were all very expensive. I nearly bought one of two pairs, but I couldn't decide which fitted better, deciding I could come back to choose in a day or two.
That night we met up with Tess and Liam, who had been in Cusco for two weeks already, learning Spanish. Predictably it turned into the usual late night and drunken carnage that seems to be all they do; though they claim that we are a bad influence on them and they spend all their time learning Spanish and doing other wholesome things while we are not around.
Guy in Liam and Tess's hostel with a big bag of coca leaves
Oh dear
Bit more like it
Much nicer!
Is Liam stuck?
The following day Lucy and Zdenek arrived and we met up with them to coordinate Machu Picchu, and bought very expensive train tickets to the nearby town of Aguas Calientes, which seems almost completely to have changed its name to Machu Picchu Pueblo, unsurprisingly. Pleased at our decisiveness and progress we went out for dinner and I had an alpaca steak, which was rather nice, but not a patch on an Argentinian Bife de Chorizo.
Alpaca steak
written by  The Happy Couple on November 6, 2009 from Cusco, Peru

Location, Location, Location
Aguas Calientes, Peru
written by  The Happy Couple on November 9, 2009 from Aguas Calientes, Peru

Location, Location, Location
Aguas Calientes, Peru
We had to get up at 5am to catch the train we had booked to Aguas Calientes (Machu Picchu Pueblo). There was one train before and others after ours, but we had booked the “backpacker” train, which was the cheapest option at US$50 each way. Now considering you can travel the length of the country for less than that on the most expensive coaches, there is clearly something wrong here. Later we found out what is wrong is that the “Peru Rail” is a Chilean company. However, if we had done the Inca Trail, we would have had to book several months in advance, precluding any reorganisation of the schedule and it would have cost us somewhere in the region of US$1000 each, so we weren't complaining much. This is the cheap way to do it!
Warning this entry MAY feature excessive photography
The train was nice enough and I wondered why you would possibly want to pay double for a journey that only takes three hours, until we left, passing another train full of passengers with tables between them and waiters bringing them breakfast on platters, and absolutely no riffraff like us on board. Lucy, Joanne, and Zdenek all slept on the train, but I didn't. I just don't sleep easily in transport, also the scenery was quite nice. When we arrived, the people in the hostel were really nice, and one girl in reception told us where the locals eat to avoid gringo prices. We found a place with a S6 cena menú which was perfectly alright, then we bought entrance tickets for the next day and went to bed very early.
The reason we went to bed so early is that the next day we had to get up at 3am to ensure that we were able to get a ticket for Waynapicchu. Waynapicchu is the distinctive mountain towering over the main complex of Machu Picchu. We had heard you get great views from there so we wanted to be in the first four hundred, because only the first four hundred get tickets for Waynapicchu: two hundred are allowed in at 7am and the rest at 11am. We set off not long after 4am and headed down towards the entrance, head torches at the ready, however it was just after full moon and it didn't seem like the lights would be necessary, despite the hostel (and the Machu Picchu entrance tickets) insisting that you bring torches and spare batteries. There was certainly a small crowd heading the same direction as us, but we were in no danger of missing out on our rightful places up Waynapicchu.
Pink-faced people at the gate
There was still an slight air of competition and it was quite steep, but I had weighed myself on the control-freak hostel owner's scales in Puno to discover, after the Bolivia Diet I was only 87kg, a full six down from my peak after Argentina, so it was going to be easy for me. By the time we got to the entrance at the top of the path, at about 5:30am, lots of people had steam rising off them, and nearly everybody had bright pink faces. Now that the sun was coming up we could see some of the stunning scenery we had been climbing through. The surrounding looked quite like the karst peaks we had seen in Halong Bay in Vietnam and Yangshuo in China.
Similar to karsts
Surronded by mountains
Then we all has to stand in line and wait for the gates to open at 6am. Just before the gates opened the first three buses arrived; they would all get to go up Waynapicchu and none of them had to go through what we did. We all agreed that Waynapicchu tickets should only be available to people who have walked up from Aguas Calientes. Then, when the gates opened someone went down the queue, asking whether we wanted to be part of the 7am or 11am group for Waynapicchu. We said 7am, because we wanted to get the early morning views of Machu Picchu and avoid climbing in the midday sun; however everyone else seemed to have received counter-intuitive advice and asked for the later entry. When the gates opened and we all piled in, the 11am crowd all headed sharply up to the left. They obviously knew what they were doing. Or thought they did.
Llamas
Joanne next to nice Inca wall
Not sure what this is. Cute though
Hard not to grin
Houses to the right, temples and stuff to the left
Across the plaza to houses
Almost as soon as you are through the gate, you get lovely views of Waynapicchu and you can already get a feel for the size of the place. Round the first bend we were met by a herd of llamas who apparently live in Machu Picchu, keeping the grass short, I suppose. Most of the buildings aren't too badly ruined, but there large piles of boulders here and there, and none of them have roofs anymore. We headed in the direction of Waynapicchu in case we had estimated the distance badly, but we were there in no time and hung around looking at other nearby bits. We took so many pictures that I can't be bothered continuing very much with the description. It is an amazing place. Machu Picchu was one of my reasons for wanting to travel and it wasn't disappointing.
Waynapicchu and Huchuypicchu
Joanne and Waynapicchu
Me and Waynapicchu
Us!
Something sacred
When the gates for Waynapicchu opened we had to queue again, then sign a register. Most ominous. The track up the mountain was quite difficult going, and very steep in places; nothing for a seasoned hillwalker such as myself, of course, but the others struggled a bit, especially Lucy. Near the top of the path, some typical Inca terracing started; this is usually used for agriculture, but here the ground was ridiculously steep. Then we saw that at the top of all the terracing was a ruined house. Insane! Somebody had built this path to access, and built all this terracing as a vegetable garden for one house. Someone must have really hated the rest of the community or been very important. As we got higher the views of Machu Picchu started to disappear as clouds started to rise out of the forests we had climbed through that morning. I imagined that it was actually all of the sweat form the early arrival, rising to form clouds. I wondered if this is why most people wanted the later tickets. For a while the view was obscured, then much nearer the top is started to clear up again and it stay completely clear for the rest of the day.
Start of path up Waynapicchu
Joanne struggling a bit
First view from above
Crazy terraced garden
Crazy steep path
Moon behind the Waynapicchu house
Waiting for the view to come back
The View is clearing
A bit higher and it's definitely clearing
Me and Mach
There's also terracing further down
Yup it's clearing
Clear!
Quite impressive
Composure returned
Onwards and upwards
What a place
Crowds at the top (it was much worse on a bit)
The top of the hill only has a little space and you can see why they restricted the numbers; otherwise it would be like lemmings up there. The views are fantastic. The stonework, the architectural, and engineering achievements of these people who didn't even have the wheel, are very impressive indeed, but what really makes this place is the scenery. What a place to build a town: at the top of a mountain, surrounded by other beautiful mountains and valleys, and from the top of Waynapicchu you can really appreciate the full context of Machu Picchu. I was really glad that we had got up so early and managed to secure our free tickets to the mountain. The first bit of the way down was even steeper than the way up and most people were going very slowly. In front of us was a group of about five middle-aged Canadian women. They had apparently been adopted by a young Glaswegian guy, who must have been working for the Scottish Tourist Board. He was keeping the ladies laughing the whole way down, offering to take their walking poles at tricky bits, and taking their hands when necessary. By the time we overtook them at a wide bit, they had started calling him their “path angel”. Good work! All Scots are like that, of course.
Imagine living here.
In case of altitude
The full picture
From the house above
Incredible terracing and Huchuypicchu
Big mountain nearby
More garden, I presume
Steep path down
Incan stone work
Oh it's Machu Picchu
Alternative route
Back near ground level I decided I wanted to climb the smaller mountain, Huchuypicchu, closer to the ruins, but nobody else would join me. They would wait for me, they said. I set off quickly, not wanting to hold them up to long and soon I had to squeeze past some slower people on the trail. Not long after that I was aware of a bad smell. Checking me shoe I realised that I had stood in something, and my stomach told me it was something human. I tried to wipe it off as I was walking and retching, but the smell still followed me. I pushed on faster, still retching, hoping there would be lots of grass at the top, but the haste I had added to my speed just caused me to trip, and I fell on my knee, ripping the new trousers that I had bought in Cusco to stand in for the ones with the crotch rip. I really wasn't having much luck with trousers! Anyway, at the top I was able to clean my shoes more and get fantastic views of both Waynapicchu and Machupicchu that are closer up than viewing one from the other.
Terracing up the side of Huchuypicchu
Alternative view
Me an' Mach
My own private view
Waynapicchu
The top bit where we all were
Top of Waynapicchu close up
We spent the next few hours just wandering around the site, taking photos, lazing about in beautiful places, and trying to take in as much of the experience as we could, simultaneously trying to ignore the lingering aroma from my shoe. Eventually the crowds really started to fill the place up and some small black flies, just like the evil ones at Iguazu Falls, started attacking us. The locals all talk about mosquitos, but this was not a mosquito as we know it, it was more like a midgie, but the bite is much itchier and each one actually draws blood. I wonder if to Spanish speakers “mosquito” just means little fly i.e. mosca + diminutive.
This rock is meant to have power
Oh yeah I feel it now
Curious llama
The "power rock" is meant to mirror the mountain profile
Joanne and llama
Awesome Inca stonework
Temple of the Three Windows
Looking down on the housing
Us
Huchuypicchu
Someone on top of Huchuypicchu like I was
Except nobody took a photo of me
Views from higher up on Machu Picchu
We were there!
Joanne was there!
Pose
More Chinese or American
All knackered
The crowds arrive
Contemplation
Meditation
Excitation
Aggregation
Chased off by the little flies, we decided to see what remained of the site and be off. The last bit was an Inca bridge, which was another fifteen minute walk. The bridge was another incredible feat of engineering, in fact the whole path along to the bridge was, but it was undergoing some reconstruction, so who knows what state it was in before. The strangest thing about the bridge is that it didn't seem to go anywhere: it clearly crossed a difficult gap on the contour the path was on, but then it seemed to peter out. Maybe it was all just eroded and there used to be a path beyond the bridge heading up to the next pass, but it wasn't obvious. Anyway, Machu Picchu is an awesome place and everyone should go there. The ruins are great, but it's really the scenery that makes it stand above any other ruins I've seen.
Joanne and Inca Bridge
But where does it go?
Flower
Waynapicchu from near Inca Bridge
This is the Inca Trail
View from Inca Trail
Machu Picchu
We had planned to get the bus back to town, but when we discovered that the $7 did mean US$7 and not just 7 Soles, we decided to walk back down again. It was purer that way anyway, wasn't it? We celebrated with beer and coca sours (another take on Pisco sours), and Zdenek bought a kilo of cheese from a street vendor. Happy days.
View of site from ground level
Aguas Calientes
Coca sour and Cheese
Looking pleased
They make everything from coca
And it is good for everything, as David said
The next day I thought my shoes had been through enough and I wasn't convinced they'd ever smell right again, so I threw them out. The rest of the day was spent at the baths the town is (or used to be) named after. Quite nice, very cheap, but oddly they have a sand bottom which makes the water look really dirty. Then it was back on the train to Cusco.
End of shoes
Machu Picchu was the coup de grâce
written by  The Happy Couple on November 9, 2009 from Aguas Calientes, Peru

Big Banana Feet
Cusco, Peru
After returning from Aguas Calientes, it was quite late by the time we had checked back into our hostel, so we just went to the nearest restaurant for food. It seemed like quite a nice place and I ordered calzone. It was large, as they often are, but the filling was a bit cold. It must have been sitting around a while, waiting for other people's food, I thought.
I didn't sleep at all well that night. Lucy and Zdenek had been put in the room we had before and our new room had a really old uncomfortable mattress. To make matters worse, my stomach felt really unsettled and by morning I was convinced that I had food poisoning again, so I stayed in bed all morning while everyone else went out. By the afternoon I was starting to wonder whether altitude sickness wasn't playing at least a part in my ill health; Machu Picchu may be quite high, but it's not really high enough for altitude sickness, and the town is only at about 2000m, so I had probably de-acclimatised while there and now I was having to re-acclimatise in Cusco. Or else it was just food poisoning, I'm not sure. I managed to get up in the afternoon, but I still wasn't feeling right by the end of the day.
Inca wall
Despite that, I still managed to go out with the other three to book bus tickets to Arequipa and take a few photos of the town, since we had been too drunk last time. Zdenek was keen to see an Inca Sun temple, but we discovered it had been added to significantly by the Spanish and they had turned it into Santo Domingo Church. See how they've done that? Sun. Domingo. Anyway, you had to pay to go into the church to see what was left of the temple inside, so Joanne and I didn't bother, but Lucy and Zdenek later told us it was quite nice.
Sun temple turned into a church
Front of Santo Domingo Church (Sun temple)
Main square
In the morning I was feeling much better again. We walked around a few travel agents, considering changing our next destination from Arequipa to somewhere there might be a beach for Joanne to relax a bit before heading off, but in the end it was just going to be too much hassle and it would mean missing out on the Nazca Lines, as well as Colca Canyon, which a few people had told us was their next favourite after Machu Picchu, and one person even went as far as saying they thought it was better than Machu Picchu.
Nice balcony
Way up to our hostel
Coca shop very near our hostel
Since my shoes had finally died, it was really urgent that I get a new pair, so we returned to the two shops I had seen likely candidate shoes last time we were in Cusco. Unfortunately neither of them were open, so we had to try some other shops. In the first few shops, I looked for a pair of shoes I liked then asked if they had them is a size 44, to which the all said that they had nothing bigger than a 42, so in the next few shops I just came straight out and asked if they had anything in a size 44; a couple of shops said that, oh yes, they do have a size 43, which they seemed to look at as a kind of outsize shoe, but they didn't fit me. The two shops that weren't open must have been stocking gringo shoes, because nowhere else did anything bigger than a 43. I didn't think my feet were that big, but when I asked for a 44, the shop owners all looked at my feet in amazement. I told them all that Peruvians are small. Then we tried to get Joanne trousers and exactly the same thing happened, so I told them that Peruvians are small again, and one woman replied that Americans are big, so I put her straight on that one. Instead, I resorted to getting my last pair of shoes repaired. They hadn't fallen apart as badly as the ones I had just thrown out, they just had holes in the soles, so maybe they were salvageable. The guy put new soles on them and we were off again.
Ancient rite
On the way back to the hostel we passed an advert for an ayahuasca ceremony on Friday. This is a plant used in shamanic rituals, which sounds quite interesting, though I don't think Friday the 13th would be the right day to have the shamans treating you. Once we got back one more thing fell apart: the leather and stone bracelet thing that Joanne had got me for my birthday had finally had too much continuous wear and completely fallen apart. Nothing lasts a year!
Dead birthday present
When the taxi came to pick us up to take us to the bus station and deliver our tickets at the same time, we realised we had been done: the company on the tickets was not the company we had agreed to go with. When we got there we were at the back of the bus, where we had specifically asked not to be, instead of the middle where we should have been, and we discovered that the tickets had cost S35 rather than the S60 we had been charged. This was the first time in South America we hadn't got the tickets at the bus station and it was a mistake. We had thought S60 was OK because the hostel had tried to sell us tickets for S165! As it happened the bus was actually fine, but it was still very annoying knowing that we had been ripped off like that.
However, a good night's sleep was not to be had: some idiot had set their mobile phone alarm to go off at 4am and took ages to switch it off. It might not have bothered me so much if it hadn't been the alarm on my old phone I used to use to get up for work. I was completely awake. Then just as I thought I might get back to sleep some evil person called me on my phone. It really irritates me that I can't turn off all incoming calls. I can divert them all, but to where? I want them to divert to nowhere (or /dev/null if you want to get geeky).
written by  The Happy Couple on November 11, 2009 from Cusco, Peru

Mugged Beef and Trade Unionists
Arequipa, Peru
When we arrived in Arequipa our hostel room wasn't yet ready. To be fair, the bus did arrive very early, although to be a bit more critical, the bus always arrives that early and the guy running the place had not come to pick us up at the bus station as promised. No matter, we just went to the main square for breakfast.
Well the sun's over the yard arm - woops no it's not
After breakfast, I thought I might as well have a wee drink, since it feels like I'm still up from the night before, and we'll be going to bed for a rest soon, what's the harm? Of course everyone else agreed it was an excellent suggestion and joined me. How civilised the world is outside Scotland, that you can just order a beer whenever you, as an adult feel like it. We weren't alone in fact, and I was actually given the idea by the older guys at the next table from us who were already drinking.
Main plaza
Condor overhead
Lovely restaurant balcony
Condors
Lucy
After a couple of beers, a march started in the square below. After a bit we realised it was more of a demonstration: it seemed to be trade unionists from the local area, then they were joined by trade unionists from other areas, but it all seemed very peaceful. After a while longer, some other groups arrived that didn't seem to be trade unionists, and they started marching around the square in the opposite direction. Round about this time, the riot police arrived, although they didn't look very heavily kitted up. There was lots of military-sounding music, possibly some communist- and some fascist-sounding, but there's not much to choose between tunes intended to rouse the proletariat, so I couldn't be sure, but in the end they all just marched away in different directions and it remained just as peaceful as it had first seemed.
Trade Unionists
Marching
People marching the other way too
The plaza
Once the demo had disappeared, we returned to the hostel, buying tickets for a Colca Canyon tour the following day. Our minibus pickup was at 3am. I have never got up so early so often other than on this trip!
A big rabbit
That evening I finally had lomo saltado, which literally means “jumped beef”, though I'm not sure what it means: mugged beef, maybe. It's a national dish of Peru and I had never really fancied it, but the cheap restaurant we had gone into didn't have many other choices, so I decided to make it a bit more exciting and have it mixed with beef spaghetti, which was one of their options. It's kind of like a Chinese beef and peppers dish, except that it has chips through it. Great cuisine in South America.
Lomo saltado (on the right of the plate) - Yum yum!
New beer
More new beer
Plaza in the evening
written by  The Happy Couple on November 12, 2009 from Arequipa, Peru

Upsidedown Munro
Cabanaconde, Peru
We got up on schedule at 2:30am, although I was a bit confused when the alarm went off. Racing around to be ready for the guide arriving “between 3am and 3:30am”, we were interrupted by the hostel bell going then a knock on the door by the owner. Our pickup had arrived five minutes early! I know it's not much, but after getting up at 2:30am I want every last second to get ready. By three we were ready and stumbled out into the street to meet our pickup. It was just a young guy and no sign of any vehicle. We have to wait for the minibus he said. So after arriving earlier than our already early pickup time he is making us wait! Over half-an-hour we waited on the cold street for this minibus to pick us up, and when it did it was already half-full of people, which was odd because our young friend, who had since told us he was also going to be our guide, said it was only going to be us on the trek, and he only had enough walking poles for us.
The minibus climbed and climbed and it got colder and colder. For reasons I never worked out, not only did the driver not have the heater on, but he kept opening the windows. The only sensible theory I could come up with was that he had severe wind and was letting the smell out. So I froze the whole way up and over the pass at about 5000m so was completely unable to get any sleep, which was quite annoying. I was already asking myself why we had booked another tour when we always hate tours. At a (much too late for comfort) toilet stop, Joanne and I ended up swapping seats, and when she sat down she slightly missed the seat, which wouldn't normally be a problem, but this crappy old bus, possibly with no heating and faulty windows, was also missing the arms of the chair, leaving behind only a sharp bit of metal, which sliced a nice long rip right in the seat of Joanne's walking trousers. Now she was really annoyed too. How was she going to trek for two two with her bum hanging out? Having recently been on two tours with my crotch hanging out I had nothing but sympathy for her. She told the guide what had happened, but he clearly didn't know what to do and just chuckled a bit.
By the time we got to the next toilet stop, I had decided that I was going to tell him that it was the fault of his company's badly maintained bus, there is no way my wife can walk like that so, unless he can find some way to get them replaced or repaired, we would like to be driven back to Arequipa to have our full money refunded. I didn't know how it would go down, but the guide seemed like quite a nice guy, even if customer services isn't such a well defined concept in South America. There just didn't seem to be any other way, though, until a little later, I remembered that I had my trunks with me for the oasis at the bottom of the canyon. I told Joanne I could walk in my trunks and she can have my trousers. They would be too long for her, but they are the walking trousers I bought in Cusco, which have two-stage zip-off legs; taking the first stage off would make them short enough. They still had an unrepaired hole in the knee from Machu Picchu, but it's not too serious. Now that I had thought of a way out, there was no way I could maintain my anger at the poor wee guy, at least not as far as insisting on a lift back and full refunds. Joanne insisted that I couldn't possibly because it would be too cold, but now that we were lower again, near the edge of the canyon, the temperature wasn't too bad at all, and it was still early in the morning, so during the day, and as we got deeper, it was bound to be perfectly OK for the short shorts that my trunks are. Nonetheless, to prevent the risk of me being cold, she in turn came up with her own plan: she could wear he bathing costume under the trousers and it wouldn't be so embarrassingly revealing. However the tear would probably still grow when walking, so she still wanted to try and do something about it.
A less crowded viewpoint below the cross
Soon we stopped at the first major point of interest: Cruz del Condor, where we had been pretty much guaranteed that it would be teeming with condors. I wasn't too bothered because we had already seen loads of condors since we arrived in South America and I didn't really consider them anything special, however I thought it might be rather impressive to see them in such large numbers. Most people on the tour, however, were very excited, and when we passed a group of maybe fifteen circling, people were jumping up and down with their cameras squealing to get out; there were already a few tourists there taking photos, but we continued on to the famous Cruz del Condor. There were literally hundreds of tourists here, yet not one single condor. It was bizarre: everyone had their camera in hand, looking out over the canyon. When a single condor came cruising down the canyon everyone went wild, snapping photos, myself included I must admit. It just seemed to be the done thing. Some time later a pair flew around for a while, but that was it! We had seen more condors in the main square of Arequipa the previous morning.
A female condor (white collar)
Two condors
I was more interested in the Canyon itself, after it was so hyped by several fellow travellers, and I had since read that it was over twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, so I was really excited after that. But now that we were standing on the edge of the Canyon, I was not at all impressed. The Grand Canyon must be really boring, I said to Joanne. It didn't look particularly deep or breath-taking. Considering that the Grand Canyon is frequently voted the best thing in the world, I was very surprised. Oh well, no need to make it to the States then, I was thinking. Before we got back in the van, I asked the guide about the possibility of a repair. He said he knows a family at the bottom of the valley who can sew it up, if we can last to there. He didn't even have any Duck Tape for a temporary repair. Of course we should have had some tape: it's one thing that has been consistently wanting in our kit, though usually to tape over speakers directly above our heads on buses, but it had a million uses. Anyway, I reckoned the rip wouldn't grow much when walking down; it was when stepping up I thought it would get worse.
The canyon
The canyon. Big wow.
At the next stop our guide got off the minibus and said that the others should stay on to meet their guide in the Cabanaconde, the town we had stopped short of. Now it all made sense; apparently the others had opted for the three day trek, which was the recommended one, but we had decided that we couldn't really spare the time when Joanne was leaving so soon. Ours was going to be a bit tougher going apparently, but that's good: we needed to get fitter. We set off down a well-maintained but very dry and dusty path. We were all slipping a bit, but the new soles on my shoes, in particular, seemed totally inappropriate for the rugged path; more suited, perhaps, to a squash or basketball court. The view was OK, but nothing too different from the sort of views you see a hundred times a year if you are walking frequently in the hills of Scotland. The distance we were going to drop down to the bottom of the valley was just over a thousand metres, though I've since read that the valley is over 4000m deep. I don't know how they work the depth out: perhaps all of the downhill from the high pass we went over is included as well, but that's blatant cheating as far as I'm concerned. Anyway the drop is fairly typical of the ascent on a moderate day's Scottish hillwalking, so the view is fairly similar to the view of a valley between two hills. I decided that the whole concept of a canyon is cheating, since you get much larger valleys between mountains. Everyone else, especially Lucy and Zdenek, seemed really impressed though, so I kept my mouth shut to avoid being a killjoy.
Joanne and Lucy at the edge of the canyon
Bottom of canyon
While I was busy being unimpressed to myself, my shoes were slowly falling apart. I got my shoes repaired in Laos and they lasted an extra seven months, included several tough treks; I get my shoes repaired in South America and they only seemed set to last a few days! Typical! Every day I spent in South America seemed to be making me even more of a fan of Asia.
The wall of the canyon
Zdenek at lunch
At the bottom of the valley, we stopped for lunch. It was quite nice and green at the bottom, in stark contrast with the parched side of the valley we had come down, where even the cacti seemed to be shrivelled and dying. At least it was a bit prettier here. There were several types of fruits growing, though the guide told us that purple corn was the most important crop. At a prickly pear cactus, the guide stopped and took what looked like some fungus off a leaf, but told us it is a beetle, which is very important for clothes and art. He then crushed what was presumably the chrysalis of the beetle and his hand was covered in a bright read colour. “Oh cochineal”, I said, feeling very pleased with myself when he said, si, cochinilla. What a swot!
Lunch stop
A short climb past prickly pears
After a little bit of climbing we came to drop where we could look down and see the oasis we were staying in for the night, and a little later we had taken the path down and were at the pool. We had asked the company recommended by the Lonely Planet for a quote for a tour and it was about four times what our company were charging. At the oasis, they had told us, they camp instead of staying in the cabins like all the other companies, because they have heard that they have bed bugs; the guy told us he didn't know what these “bed bug” things are, he just knows that there won't be any in the tents. This had made us all a little bit nervous, but I suspected it was just a little bit of industrial espionage, and nobody had reported bed bugs on the online reports of the tours. Nevertheless we checked the mattresses and found nothing. A swim, a meal, a beer, and (most of) one night's sleep later and the rip-off company were proved to be liars. There were no bed bugs.
First glimpse of the oasis
Las Mulas
Closer look at the oasis
Waterfall
The next morning we were up in time to set off at 5am. The guide had told us there was an option to start at 6am if we wanted to rent a mule to take us back out of the valley, but we had all bravely refused. The climb out of the valley was a bit harder, since we were going up, but near the top it really started to take its strain on all of us, because of the altitude. It's not so high we would have been bothered by it normally, but you feel it earlier when you are exercising hard. Joanne and I made it to the top before the first mules past us, carry all the lazy people from another group. Lucy was really struggling by the top, but she managed anyway.
Interesting rocks
Ascent continues
Our guide on the way up
Getting nearer
Joanne wins
Victorious
First lazy peron arrives after us
Then it was a ten minute walk to Cabanaconde town for breakfast. We were taken to a really nice looking bar / restaurant, where the manager was running around clearing up glasses when we arrived. Sorry we had a big party last night, he said. While we were eating our breakfast a confused looking tiny old lady appeared at the back of the bar and hung around for a bit. Apparently she had accosted Joanne on her way back from the toilet, but she hadn't been able to communicate with her. The manager went to the door, shoed her away, and closed it behind her. Not long later she appeared again and this time he took her and led her through the bar out through the front door onto the street. As she was taken past us she was saying buenas, Señor to everyone she passed. The manager came back and explained that it was his granny, who was ninety-two. He said she sometimes gets confused and forgets things: she still thinks that this is her house. I don't know why he kept kicking her out though; she seemed harmless enough and very polite and friendly. And, after all, it is her house. Zdenek reckoned he was embarrassed of his old granny.
Purple corn growing
After breakfast, we went to the main square to wait for the bus, passing granny on the way, shuffling down a street, saying buenas to everyone. We waited ages for the minibus and other groups appeared. We wondered how on earth we were all going to fit into it. When it arrived one of the other two guides and the bus driver told our guide that he had got it wrong and there was no space for us; his bus must be at a nearby town getting repaired, so they prevented us from getting on the minibus and insisted that their groups get on first. Then it came out that our names were on the sheet after all, although it seemed like the company had messed up and booked one place too few. That meant crushing up a bit on the bus, and when I got on I couldn't see a seat. “Where should I sit?” I said, and the evil guide replied “ask your own guide”. What a nasty piece of work! It transpired that there was a seat for me at the back, crushed horribly between a fat guy, who couldn't help it, and a silly macho French guy, who seemed determined to win at shoulder jockeying. A nightmare!
Luckily it wasn't too far to the lunch spot, where we had been told we could choose our own restaurant on the main square. Instead, we drove right through the main square to the edge of town where we parked outside the only restaurant in sight. The evil guide told his people that they could have a look and decide, but our guide said nothing to us, he just looked bullied and crushed. Stitched up again! Typical of a tour! It was predictably expensive: there was a buffet, which I have banned myself from, especially at that price, and nothing cheap on the menu. Joanne opted for spaghetti bolognese, which was one of the cheapest things on the menu, and I refused to buy any food, settling instead for a beer for lunch. Lucy and Zdenek gave in and had the buffet but, apparently it was pretty awful. After lunch we made sure we were back on the bus early to get good seats to the hot springs (not included), then we left the hot springs early to ensure good seats for the long trip home.
Joanne was planning to go to the office when we got back to ask for compensation for her trousers, which, although she had got them free in China, were good walking trousers: possibly not fake North Face, and now they were ruined. Now she was also going to complain about the minibus and restaurant, and the other guide if he turned out to be from the same company. I asked our guide and he said that, no, both the other guides were from the same company, but not his. So they were ganging up on him and bullying him. And he was only twenty-one. Poor thing.
In the event, we arrived back much later than scheduled and we didn't have time to complain at the office, just head off for our bus to Nazca. Lucy and Zdenek were staying for another day to relax but, as always, we had to keep moving. The cheap bus company we had chosen was a shambles: they had no idea how they were loading the luggage and seemed to have a very complicated and pointless process for doing so. It took forever and the bus left more than an hour late. By this time everyone on board was getting very annoyed and stamping on the floor. The bus itself was fine. The seats themselves were fine. We had been a bit worried about these when we went for the cheap seats on the cheap bus, but they were both up to the usual standard. The problem we should have foreseen is that they had crammed 66 seats on the top floor of a bus that usually only has 40 seats on that floor. What fun! Remarkably, I got some sleep, but Joanne had a terrible night. We both had very sore knees by the morning.
written by  The Happy Couple on November 14, 2009 from Cabanaconde, Peru

Etch-a-Sketch Popinjay
Nazca, Peru
As soon as we got off the bus in Nazca we were confronted by hoards of touts waving leaflets at us, all desperate for our business. We hadn't seen anything like this for a while, maybe since Asia, but it soon became clear that this really is a one-trick town: all the touts seemed really surprised that we had somewhere to stay. Often they are surprised you have somewhere to stay already, but here it was at all; the representative of every company offering their flights seemed keen to emphasise that they had luggage storage. Clearly most people do not have a hostel to store their luggage in. We had been thinking about staying for two nights, just to slow down a little before Joanne left, but the presumption was already making us have second thoughts. Walking through town to our hostel made our minds up: we would only stay one night after all. It wasn't that the place was horrible; it just seemed like there wasn't much to it.
Cebiche mixto
Cebiche Pescado
Maiz Cancha
At last we were near the coast, so for lunch we went our for cebiche; or ceviche, they don't seem to be able to make their minds up, but since they are pronounced the same way in Spanish it doesn't make that much difference. I ordered mixto and Joanne ordered simple or solo pescado. They were both delicious and came with a big pile of large white corn kernels, a few slices of some unusual Andean potato a bit like a sweet potato, and garnished with seaweed. At last decent food again! They also gave us a little pile of salted maiz cancha or “corn nuts”, which is like unpopcorn. That night we drank a bottle of Peruvian wine. It was OK.
Cebiche Mixto without the seaweed
Joanne and Cebiche
Cebiche Mixto
*shudder*
As usual we were up early, not long after seven, and Joanne realised that she had misplaced the guidebook. This wasn't too serious for her because she was going home soon, but I was going to be in trouble without any kind of guide. We asked at the hostel but, even though she was sure she had left it at the internet PC the night before, nobody had handed it in. We went all the way to the cebicheria in case we had left it there, but they had found it either. The most likely explanation remaining is that some scumbag other traveller just put it in their bag.
We couldn't investigate further because it was time for our hostel pickup to see the famous Nazca Lines. First we were taken to a hotel where we were shown an introduction video all about the Lines. But before it was finished we had to go back to reception to be whisked off to the airport, which was very small, with lots of screen all round the waiting area, showing various videos about the Nazca Lines in different languages.
Getting in the plane
Soon we were bundled into a four-seater Cessna C172, along with a Brazilian guy. It's so small that we couldn't even take our bags in with us; they had to go into a small boot under the wing. As soon as we started down the runway I remembered that I love flying (though not flights), and I particularly enjoy flying in these little planes. We climbed a bit and flew for less than five minutes, then the pilot asked me if I was ready before banking sharply to the left, while chanting under the wing, under the wing, under the wing like a mantra. In fact he kept reminding me of the hypnotist character from Little Britain, saying look into the eyes, look into the eyes, not around the eyes, except this time it was look under the wing, look under the wing, not towards the tail.
Anyway there it was. The Whale.
Whale (and surely something beside it?)
Whale again
After circling it a couple of times at what seemed to almost ninety degrees, and checking I'd seen it, he flattened out, turned back, and went around it the other way for the other two (I was on the pilot's side). Next it was the Trapezoids.
The landscape
"Trapezoids"
More "trapezoids"
These "trapezoids" are good
In fact there are loads of lines, shapes, and “runways” all over this desert. The stylised animals only make up a small fraction of the marks in the desert, though the vast majority are very long, very straight lines. Next up was The Astronaut.
"Astronaut" on a hill, "under the wing"
The "astronaut"
I thought this was a bit silly. Why isn't it just a “person”? Anyway it is quite different from the rest in that it's done on a hill, and it's much messier. Maybe the hill made the work so much harder to do, maybe it's a fake later addition, though I think the archaeologists would know about it, or maybe it was made by aliens. Stupid aliens, who can't draw neatly. It's just not up to the same standard are the rest. Then it was the very impressive Monkey.
Monkey!
Is the moneky on a branch or something?
It really is a monkey!
This is particularly impressive because the nearest monkey would have been even further away than the nearest whale for these desert dwellers. Next up the Dog.
Dog. With two tails?
Dog
People say, yeah, but how did they make them so perfect?. Well, I think they are incredibly impressive, outstanding achievements, but perfect? Have you even seen a dog that looks like that? It's got two tails apart from anything else, but maybe that's supposed to represent it wagging. Perfect? No. Next Spider.
Spider with construction lines
Just spider
This one's interesting because it's the first that it is so obvious that the animal shape leads on from other more usual straight lines. One of its feet has been started at a pair of parallel lines. Next the Condor.
Condor
A bit less obvious than some of the others, but not bad considering that it is maybe more than one thousand years old. The desert gets so little rain, that even small accidental marks made on the desert stay for a very long time; tyre marks made in the vicinity of the Lines in the 20s are still visible today. The Lines however were made deliberately and are even more resilient than the tyre marks. Next up was the incredibly clear Humming Bird.
Humming bird
Humming bird plus construction
Humming bird again. It's so neat.
I have some doubts about the names they have give all of these. I think the design for the “humming bird” is very similar to the “condor”. Anyway, the humming bird also has obvious construction features, starting at its beak. It reminds me an awful lot of Etch-a-Sketch, where it is not possible to lift the “pen” from the “paper”, so you have to sneakily connect all shapes with construction lines. In fact I wonder if some of the less distinct faded shapes all over the desert are first attempts that have been erased, in an analogous way to Etch-a-Sketch: agitating all of those cleared rocks back where they came from, would make a reasonable job of clearing the image. Next, we passed over some marks in the desert which the pilot did not point out to us. I took photos anyway.
Were Argentinians here, I wonder?
Batman, Carlos, et al. woz ere
Then it was another short flight and we were at the parrot.
Parrot
Not sure how they know what it is. Doesn't look much like a parrot to me. It was one of the most obvious images from the sky though. Next I think it must be the Alcatraz or Heron Bird, but it doesn't really look like the image on the map they gave us, and it's very hard to make out.
Heron Bird?
Then the images they call Tree and Hands.
Tree and Hands by the road
Tree and Hands
The tree I am happy with, but I think “hands” looks like it's supposed to be some sort of other bipedal creature, probably another bird. Between the two figures, they have built a viewing tower, and isn't it remarkable luck that they could build the Transamerican Highway right through this site and only skim past a couple of images without ruining any? For good measure he took us past the parrot again.
Parrot yet again
Joanne had been looking a bit green for a while, but had not needed the sick bag in front of her. On the return flight I started feeling slightly sick, but even before we landed I was feeling better again. I think it was all the looking at the back of my camera instead of out the window. When we got out of the plane the Brazilian guy in front was grey and sat with his head between his knees for a while. Even when the bus came to take us back to our hostels he didn't seem any better. Everyone we had spoken to before this had mentioned feeling very sick, so Joanne had taken a pill for motion sickness, thankfully, whereas I thought sheer machismo and bravado would get me through.
Nice view on the way back
Just to prove that we were feeling sick, we went to a much cheaper, non-touristy cebicheria for lunch. We also ordered chicha morada which I had seen on menus for a while, but it was only on the Colca Canyon tour that I realised it means purple corn. It's really niced, not too sweet, and flavoured with lots of spices.
Cheap cebiche mixto
Chicha Morada
The map
The planes
Then we took a bus to Ica. This time I opted to pay the extra S1 for ejecutivo to avoid the misery we had suffered on the Andoriña bus on the way to Nazca.
written by  The Happy Couple on November 16, 2009 from Nazca, Peru

Final Luxury
Huacachina, Peru
We had really splashed out for Huacachina, since it was Joanne's second last place, and we had already booked a hostel in Lima that we had been recommended, so this was the last indulgence. Imagine our disappointment to discover that the “hotel” has no internet facilities; not even ones you can pay for, never mind free wifi! Imagine our further disappointment when we realised that there aren't any power plugs around the bar or outside areas for you to plug your laptop into. Imagine us not quite being able to contain our disappointment when we realised there was no TV in the room. OK, we got towels and soap, which hostels didn't always supply you with, but the rest seem to be considered standard in a hostel. Strange. The more you pay the less you get.
Cats
Never mind, it was a very nice place, with a convenient HUGE sand dune just out the back gate, and it did have a swimming pool which hostels hardly ever do. AND it was sunny and quite warm, for the first time in Peru, which is ridiculous because we were rapidly approaching the equator, so I think it should have been warm all the time, if not sunny. We went to a nice chilled-out bar-restaurant nearby for dinner, which had lots of tiny cute kittens in the garden, who were chasing their mother's tail. Back at the hotel, the barman wanted us to try his version of a caipirinha, using vodka, passion fruit, and limes instead of the usual cachaça and limes. It was very nice indeed.
Passion fruit caiprinhas
Joanne drinking
The breakfast was the same rubbish that you get in most hostels in Peru, though you could pay S5 to get eggs. We've had three-course lunches for S2.50 each! Anyway, it was an indulgence. We relaxed and sunbathed by the pool waiting for Lucy and Zdenek to arrive. I realised that this was the first time we have relaxed and sunbathed since the start of Cambodia. In February! Travelling is NOT a holiday. Since we were still quite near the coast, we tried the hotel cebiche. It was quite nice, but not as good as the stuff in Nazca.
Pool and dune
Joanne relaxing by the pool and dune
Joanne
Cebiche
Cebiche and cocktails
When Lucy and Zdenek arrived they seemed delighted with the place; they had decided to spoil themselves here as well. The previous day we had booked all four of us places to go sandboarding. Tess and Liam had done this before we met up with them again in Cusco, and Tess has sustained a bloody nose and a black eye doing it (so Liam claims, anyway).
In the buggy
The sandboarding included a dune buggy ride, which I hadn't been that bothered about: I had been on a quad bike in the Namib Desert, so I'd been there done that. I had no idea! These dune buggies are fantastic vehicles: 3.5 litre diesel engine, or so the driver told Zdenek, and that means a lot of grunt. Totally unrelated to a quad-bike. Even racing around town to the dunes was fun, but as soon as we got on the sand it was brilliant. I could not believe how fast we were going over sand dunes. At several crests it really felt like we were going to take air, and all the girls screamed. Then the descents on some of the big dunes was like being on a roller-coaster. What a lot of fun! I want one.
Stop for the view
When we came to a stop to admire the view with a big crowd of other people, I was disappointed it had come to a stop. We had paid for one hour and the clock was ticking! The drivers laughed when they heard me saying que mierda. But we were soon off again, but not for long. Next it was a stop to go sandboarding. By this time I really just wanted to keep zooming around in the buggy, but it was sandboarding we were here to do, so I thought I might as well give it a go. There were velcro bindings, but apart from that it was very like a snowboard. Which I have never used either, so that's no help.
Shadows
Dunes
The hotel's buggies
I bound my feet in an stood at the top of the dune and set off. I went quite slowly then fell over. It was rubbish. The bindings were mostly useless, so that falling over once, means you have to sit there and velcro yourself back in. Meanwhile the girls went down on their bellies. Faster than I started off, I thought. There was a French couple there, who looked very stylish and technical as they went down standing up, but also very slow. At the bottom they confirmed that they were snowboarders when I asked. I walked to the top and I tried standing up again, thinking it might be better if I head straight down, like the people going head first, and it was a bit faster, but I just fell off even faster. It was exhausting walking back up, then I realised that most other people weren't doing it, before the buggy tilted over the crest and came down to meet us, picked us up and took us to a bigger hill.
Another buggy
Doing up the bindings
At the next hill I had one last attempt (I decided) at standing up. It was useless. This time the hill was too big to try again and I just waited with the rest. For the rest of the increasingly large and steep hills, I went head first and it was a lot of fun and very fast if you didn't brake the whole way down. As it got steeper, Joanne and Lucy resorted to screaming the whole way down the slope, despite the fact they were braking the whole way down. Zdenek and I had competitions about who could get furthest by going fastest. Even the French snowboarder conceded that going head-first looked like much more fun and defected to the dark side. His girlfriend pursued her pointless, but elegant standing approach.
Getting out the sandboards
Off to the next dune
Before I really felt like I'd had enough face-first descents, the sandboarding was over. We were buggied to an oasis hidden between the dunes, after following rows of stones lined up together in what absolutely must have been an Inca or pre-Inca road, but nobody pointed it out or mentioned it; this was about fun, not culture. Then we parked up for sunset, in a most unusual place: most of the dunes were empty, but we parked in front of what looked like warehouses or factories; not the most attractive of sunsets. Someone asked a driver what the building were and he responded that they were cocaine factories, hidden in the dunes. I assume he was joking, but you never know.
Oasis
Pre-Inca road (I reckon)
Buggy on the dune
Joanne in the buggy
Sunset over coke factories
:-)
Zdenek and Lucy, here's your photo!
The end
Buggy into the sunset
The main oasis
On the way back to town, we past the main oasis that the town is built around. It smells a bit but it looks nice. Later we went back to the same kitten restaurant because Lucy is mad for cats, especially kittens. Then we got drunk: this was Joanne's goodbye with them.
Horrible fruit beer
In the morning, that was it: we had to leave and catch our bus before Lucy and Zdenek were up. Off to Lima!
written by  The Happy Couple on November 18, 2009 from Huacachina, Peru

Goodbye
Lima, Peru
The hostel in Lima we had been recommended seemed very nice, and the owners were very friendly, introducing themselves and remembering everyone's name. It was a shame to have to leave Huacachina so soon as it has been very nice to relax for a change, after getting over the shock of no internet.
We had been planning a big dinner out for our last night together but Joanne in particular was quite tired from the previous night's drinking then early rise and she asked me if I would mind giving the expensive meal a miss in favour of nice cebiche for lunch before she left. So we just got some food in a local place, where they at least sold litres of beer, and had a fairly early night. At least we had a double room.
Come on, give a cheers to the camera...
Wayhey!!
The next morning was all very depressing, while Joanne checked out and left her bag in storage and I transferred mine to a dorm – a different place from her bag. It didn't seem right. And it wasn't, but that's life, eh?
I think we went out for ceviche but I can't really remember, because we had a few cocktails while waiting for Joanne's taxi, then I continued drinking after she left. Everyone else on the roof terrace was planning to go out to a club that night and I was planning to go with them. The problem was that they weren't leaving until midnight, so common sense dictated at that time, while I still had some, that I should probably just go to bed instead of going out, which is what I did.
I wasn't sleeping too well and my room mates didn't come back until about 6am, when they made lots of noise, which prevented me from properly getting back to sleep again, if I had ever been properly asleep.
So, really, I think that has to be the end of the Round-the-World Honeymoon, because you can't have a honeymoon on your own can you?
With Joanne leaving, I felt a similar fear to the one I had before going travelling, or again before arriving in South America after safe Asia and New Zealand. I didn't have a clue what I was going to do. We had been together 24 hours every day for more than eleven months and I was already feeling completely lost.
Lima seemed like a hole, too.
Fin
written by  The Happy Couple on November 19, 2009 from Lima, Peru

The End
Aguas Calientes, Peru
How could I end the blog without one last final tribute to Matt Harding?
I still haven't quite got his moves right. The man's a dancing genius, I tell you.
written by  The Happy Couple on November 8, 2009 from Aguas Calientes, Peru

Kelvingrove Art Gallery, West End of Glasgow

Templeton Carpet Factory, Glasgow Green

This captures the atmosphere on the boat quite well

This is how I felt

Lebanese Lemonade

My clothes were done

Panamanian Beer

More meat

Lamb meat!

What is hummus normally missing?

So I had to go

It was on the map

Drinkers

The rum had to be drunk

Poor Kuna

Small Island

Sails

Fabian

The couple

Toby's cool side-tying forward-looking hammock

Fabian's boat

Shell

God lights

Toilet from the outside

Toilet

Island life

Kuna

Impressive boat

Carti

Leaving Chichime

Fishing

The boat

The tiny island from "ours"

Starfish

Really tiny island

Flip flops seem to make up 50% of sea debris

More paradise

Sea chicken

Wrecked on the reef

Turquoise

More rich people

Fabian, Alex, Toby, and Sandro

Commerce

Our next island paradise

No more than 100m to booze

Pier

Poor people

First view of an inhabited island

El Capitan

Sandro and Romano

Turquoise waters

Tiny uninhabited island

Rich people's hangout

Very first view of San Blas Islands

Sailing into the sunset

The Monitor autopilot

Dolphins playing around the boat

Dolphin

Liner heading for Boca Grande

An enormous cruise liner

Good riddance Boca Grande!

Cabin with others outside

Goodbuoy Cartagena!

Me alone in the cabin

Creepy man makes one last attempt at Gemma

Nice view

Dawn is coming

Scary man!

Creepy hairdresser

Fraggle moves...

Ali, Fraggle, and Emma

Dance floor

Party!

Busy ants

Loads of them

Right across the path

Leaf cutter ants

It is actually quite deep in places

Last swim

They fed us a lot

See I was there

Greenest of all greens

More green

My kind of jungle trek

And they don't have toothbrushes...

Alex throws the Frisbee

Kogui family

Their dad!

Cute Kogui kids

Counting off the years

Long trek back

A map of the region. Hmm.

Jail

A map of the Ciudad Perdida. Supposedly.

More stairs

Back down the stairs

More Ciudad Perdida

Dog followed us the whole way up and down

Ceremonial platform

Castro in charge

I wouldn't trust her with a machete

Gemma's "keep warm dance" looks a lot like Morecambe and Wise

Ciudad Perdida

Stairs

Fraggle's slaphead

It's in the jungle

Bird

Banana flower

Butterfly pretending to be an owl, I assume

Different mills for different substances

Tobacco is beautiful. Who knew?

Reconstructed house

Brick in the process of being cut

Tayrona hand mill

Reconstructed buiding

Slumber party

This is now closed apparently

Castro tells his stories

GREEN!

Holy sapo statue

Green I tell you!

Alex and his halo

More steps

Near the top of the Ciudad

Alex near the top of the steps

Start of the steps

Crazeee Jake

Old mill

So green

Crazy Jake

Double birthday

Birthday girl

Mel and Gemma, and birthday girl Ali hiding

Cute kids

Really was a lovely swimming spot

Great soup

They love it

No seats for the other group

He has a lot of kids

Fraggle trying to fly while "Mr Bond" waits for a surprise

Where we slept. Everyone else is the family of that guy, the majordomo.

Gorgeous swimming spot next to accommodation

And they're already working

Second night's accommodation

Kogui boy peeking at the gringos

Cute, but look at the size of that machete!

Little Kogui girls walking alone up the path

Livestock in the village

Kogui village

Poor mulas

Lovely clear water

Another swim break

Breakfast time

Bondage

OK, Mel, now I believe you're half Chinese

First night's bedroom

First night's dinner table

Lazy people

Cooling off

Green

The walls

I had to take a photo - they were always like this

On the way to the lagoon to wash off

People after the mud volcano

Mud volcano!

That thing in the middle is Jesus, not a snowman, apparently

More Xmas decorations

Cartagena

Xmas decorations

Hard Rock Cafe

At Cafe del Mar

Horse and carriage through the old town

Kite surfer in the sunset

Sunset

The walls in sunset

Inside of the walls

India Catalina

Lucy's birthday cake

Cheers!

Last photo before we head out

Maybe too many shots?

Andrew likes Silvie's look

The ladies are ready - just as soon as they've drunk their pina coladas

Lucy and Zdenek dressed up. OK maybe just Lucy.

Zdenek dishes out the shots

The new apartment

Blue moon risen

Again

The moon

Blue moon rising over el club nautico

Across the bay to a blue moon rising

Bocagrande from the beach

A bird on the beach

The beach on Hogmanay

Lucy and Natasha on the beach

View across the bay at night

View towards Bocagrande at night

View towards central Bocagrande

The castle from the apartment at night

View across the bay from new apartment

Cake at last

Still there after plenty of rum and beer

Everyone but me

Xmas dinner hits the spot

Not bad for being so far from home

Lucy carves as Zdenek poses

Xmas dinner nearly assembled

Prawn cocktail and avocado to start

Genuine I think and much cheaper than UK

The counter just needed a prop to go on it

The girls sit down to a bucks fizz breakfast

Natasha opens the first fizz

Parrillada

View by day

The beach across the road

View from apartment at night

Hostel

My mum has this same clock

Hostel living room

Another Colombian beer

On hostel wall

Crumbly house across the road from hostel

Grafitti

Since Joanne isn't here to photo the grafitti

Posh Colombian beer

Strange corn and egg snack with beer

Salchipapas

Tres leches

Quito main square

A really ugly building on Quito main square

Daniel in Quito main square

Quito

Quito old town

Cebiche de conchas negras

Nice?

Publicity shot?

Posing

Alfonso the caretaker

Luis prepares himself for the second cup

The shaman's wife blesses Manuel's wife's hands with smoke

Luis, Elvis, shaman's wife, shaman, Manuel and his wife

All the paraphernalia

Shaman and herbs

Herb bath being prepared

Mosquito bites on my leg

Shaman and wife preparing herb bath

Main road in Lagunas

Lagunas dock

The centre of town

Aurora

Ugly bird

Path up to shaman's house

Maude and Luis by the hammocks

Shaman's house

Every afternoon this happened

Heavy, dark, and pendulous

They move around for water apparently

Poor fish

Walking tree

The easy bit

The monkey fruit

Esteban prepares "monkey fruit"

Macho Daniel

Big tree

Big spider in the jungle

Goodbye to the Israeli couple!

"Mono negro"

So called hippies tormenting caiman

Terrified caiman

Esteban with poor caiman

Aguajes, which come from a palm and taste a bit like olives

Boo!

Big toilet spider

Another mystery bird

Esteban shows Daniel how it's done

Mystery bird

And another bird

Another bird

Papagallos

Lunch time

How big is the spider?

Big web

Oh yeah!

Cool, eh?

Woodpecker

Christophe

The toilet out the back

Main entrance

The dining room-kitchen

Best shot of the pelejo I could get, pendejo!

Hanging nests

Death awaits ye all

Jungle

French hippies

Butterfly on Esteban's arm

A macaw (says Daniel)

A bird

Tourist's eye view of the jungle

Dodgy canoes

Next to the ticket office

Jungle clouds

Poor moos

Jungle village

The cow hitter

The river

Mi amigo right next to me

Another boat next to ours

Ayahuasca inspired painting

But I can't remember its name

It's a spirit or something

Weird statue thing the hostel was named after

Chicken

Wearing the shirt at the karaoke

My Riberena shirt

Daniel and Carlos

Carlos and me

Humitas

Funny thistle-like plant

The path back

Another orange-hooded bird

A woodpecker

Catarata Gocta

Nigel and Catarata Gocta

Me and Catarata Gocta

Bottom half of Catarata Gocta

Butterfly

Strange orange-hooded bird

3 men looking self-conscious infront of Catarata Gocta

The surroundings

Catarata Gocta from Cocachimba

Is he or isn't he?

Kuelap from a distance

The outside wall

Mythological creatures carved in the stone

Leaving by the main door

Kuelap

The main entrance to the fortress

A reconstructed house

More snakeskin patterns

Snakeskin pattern on some walls

Bones of workers were built into the walls to protect the living

A compass and sundial apparently

Llamas are de rigeur at Peruvian archaeological sites

Last nice hotel breakfast

Filled with delicious stuff

Potato snack from street vendor

The moon was out too!

Lobo de marina

More pages gone

Cangrejo reventado

View from patio

The patio

Some pages torn out

Another nice breakfast at the hotel

Weird vegetarian food

Beetroot soup

Nice hotel breakfast

Trujilleños have arrived

Filled with dulce de leche

Sweeries street vendors were selling

Ceviche de corvina

Close up

Hotel pet wandering around (they had two)

Ceviche de pescado

Us with teacher in front of the shop

Us with boards

My excellent position

Traditional fishing boats

Us hanging out

Zdenek surfing

Me surfing!

If we weren't allowed they shouldn't have left it

Chita a lo Macho

Not sure if we were allowed up there

View from the top of a wall

It goes on for miles

What the good bit look like before reconstruction

Cheating! Reconstruction with bricks and mortar!

The well

Opening in a wall

The walls are made of mud

A very large "well" in Chan Chan

Statue in front of some carved walls

Lucy and Zdenek in Chan Chan

Fishing boats

Cebiche, chicha morada, and no Joanne

Large Cebiche

Wayhey!!

Come on, give a cheers to the camera...

Horrible fruit beer

The main oasis

Buggy into the sunset

The end

Zdenek and Lucy, here's your photo!

Sunset over coke factories

Joanne in the buggy

Buggy on the dune

Pre-Inca road (I reckon)

Oasis

Off to the next dune

Getting out the sandboards

Doing up the bindings

Another buggy

The hotel's buggies

Dunes

Shadows

Stop for the view

In the buggy

Cebiche and cocktails

Cebiche

Joanne drinking

Passion fruit caiprinhas

Joanne relaxing by the pool and dune

Pool and dune

Cats

The planes

The map

Chicha Morada

Cheap cebiche mixto

Nice view on the way back

Tree and Hands

Parrot yet again

Tree and Hands by the road

Heron Bird?

Parrot

Batman, Carlos, et al. woz ere

Lines in the landscape again

Were Argentinians here, I wonder?

Humming bird again. It's so neat.

Humming bird plus construction

Humming bird

Condor

Just spider

It really is a monkey!

Spider with construction lines

Dog

Dog. With two tails?

Is the moneky on a branch or something?

Monkey!

The "astronaut"

"Astronaut" on a hill, "under the wing"

These "trapezoids" are good

More "trapezoids"

"Trapezoids"

Whale again

The landscape

Whale (and surely something beside it?)

Cebiche Mixto

Getting in the plane

Joanne and Cebiche

Cebiche Mixto without the seaweed

Maiz Cancha

Cebiche Pescado

Cebiche mixto

*shudder*

First lazy peron arrives after us

Purple corn growing

Victorious

Joanne wins

Getting nearer

The canyon

Ascent continues

Waterfall

Las Mulas

Interesting rocks

Closer look at the oasis

Our guide on the way up

First glimpse of the oasis

Zdenek at lunch

The wall of the canyon

Lunch stop

A short climb past prickly pears

Bottom of canyon

Joanne and Lucy at the edge of the canyon

Two condors

The canyon. Big wow.

A female condor (white collar)

A less crowded viewpoint below the cross

Plaza in the evening

The plaza

More new beer

People marching the other way too

New beer

Lomo saltado (on the right of the plate) - Yum yum!

A big rabbit

Marching

Trade Unionists

Lucy

Condors

Lovely restaurant balcony

Condor overhead

Main plaza

Well the sun's over the yard arm - woops no it's not

Ancient rite

Dead birthday present

Inca wall

Way up to our hostel

Coca shop very near our hostel

Main square

Nice balcony

Front of Santo Domingo Church (Sun temple)

Sun temple turned into a church

Machu Picchu was the coup de grâce

End of shoes

Looking pleased

Coca sour and Cheese

Machu Picchu

Aguas Calientes

Waynapicchu from near Inca Bridge

View of site from ground level

View from Inca Trail

This is the Inca Trail

Flower

Joanne and Inca Bridge

But where does it go?

Views from higher up on Machu Picchu

Aggregation

Excitation

Meditation

Contemplation

The crowds arrive

All knackered

Joanne was there!

Pose

More Chinese or American

We were there!

Except nobody took a photo of me

Someone on top of Huchuypicchu like I was

Us

Looking down on the housing

Huchuypicchu

Temple of the Three Windows

Awesome Inca stonework

Joanne and llama

The "power rock" is meant to mirror the mountain profile

Top of Waynapicchu close up

Curious llama

Me and Waynapicchu

Oh yeah I feel it now

This rock is meant to have power

The top bit where we all were

Waynapicchu

My own private view

Me an' Mach

Terracing up the side of Huchuypicchu

Alternative view

Alternative route

Oh it's Machu Picchu

Incan stone work

Steep path down

More garden, I presume

Big mountain nearby

From the house above

Incredible terracing and Huchuypicchu

In case of altitude

The full picture

Imagine living here.

Crowds at the top (it was much worse on a bit)

What a place

Onwards and upwards

Composure returned

Quite impressive

Clear!

Yup it's clearing

There's also terracing further down

Me and Mach

A bit higher and it's definitely clearing

Joanne through the tunnel 2

Joanne through the tunnel 1

Joanne through the tunnel 3

Moon behind the Waynapicchu house

The View is clearing

Waiting for the view to come back

Crazy steep path

Crazy terraced garden

Joanne struggling a bit

Us!

First view from above

Start of path up Waynapicchu

Something sacred

Joanne and Waynapicchu

Across the plaza to houses

Waynapicchu and Huchuypicchu

Hard not to grin

Houses to the right, temples and stuff to the left

Not sure what this is. Cute though

Joanne next to nice Inca wall

Surronded by mountains

Similar to karsts

And it is good for everything, as David said

Pink-faced people at the gate

They make everything from coca

Alpaca steak

Is Liam stuck?

Much nicer!

Bit more like it

Oh dear

Guy in Liam and Tess's hostel with a big bag of coca leaves

The only attractive thing on the island

Expensive weaving

Rusty-roofed houses

Most attractive part of the square

Mayor's house

Ugly main square

Taquileñas

One married man, one single

Outlying tourist islands

Cooking

Bigger better reed boat

Joanne not impressed

Solar panels

Us in the reed boat

Leaving first island and our boat behind

Unmarried girl

Approaching the second island

Singing to us

Native fish

Guide with Uro guy and scale model of island

Main group of floating islands

OK

What?

OK, getting quite whacky now

Gorilla suits?

Costumes getting more outlandish

It's John Travolta

All quite restrained

Nice colours

The plaza is where it's all happening

First group spotted

Peruvian Beer

Pathetic engines

Lazy captain

Copacabana

Bolivian ladies the only one to get off

Joanne cold

Silly floating "reed" islands

Last chance to photo Bolivian ladies

Inca Steps from bottom

Joanne keeping the sun off

Inca Steps from top

The interior of the island

The long path ahead

Modern stone work

Joanne sitting in ruins

Ruins

Funny angled islet

"Sacrificial" table

Looking back at the port

On the trail

Incan terracing

Pathetic packed lunch

Joanne got lasagne for some reason

Trout. Nice food in Bolivia!

Two traffic zebras

Traffic zebra

Lamentable empty club

Another pose

The whole team, including driver

Promotional shot

Photos locos

More posed shots (tired)

Joanne cruising

Setting off again

Joanne fast

A fast bit of road

Big drop

Standard pose apparently

The Road

Joanne and scenery

The road

Me near the start of the gravel road

Chello taking it seriously

Top part of the road

Full bike team

Me looking cool

Me looking really white

Joanne looking really cool

The company logo on the van

La Paz

The road pt.3

The road pt.2

The road pt.1

The finish

The drop

Coca harvest

More shrines

Shrines

I'm surprised the company still joke like this

There are lots of shrines on the road

Hottest food on the whole trip

Joanne wearing a bracelet from Tarabuco

Illimani Mountain peeks through the buildings

... in a Cuban Bar

Joanne has a mojito...

Witches market

Dried llama fœtus and other stuff at witches' market

Typical street

A traffic zebra

Suburbs at the top of town

St Francis Church

Armadillo guitar?

Babies, goods, and goats are all carried in those

More traditional dress

More traditional people

Woman in traditional clothes

I think this statue is something to do with defeating the Spansih

Textiles

We bought something from him

Nice restaurant

Joanne eating Api con buñelos

Sucre

Arches just outside Cafe Mirador

Beer at Cafe Mirador

Abandoned child in abandoned truck

She was crying before

More bricks

Swimming pool!

Bricks

Don't pee!

THE salt hotel

Photos Locos

Wheels

Everyone taking photos

This is like Sesame Street: Near...

A big crystal!

Shadows on the Salar

Dooking for crystals

Joanne in the Salar

The Salar

Abi

Guides with bags of coca leaves

He's come a long way

Cyclist

Flowering cacti

Salt roads

Isla del Pescado

The volcano

Mongo's restaurant

Photos Locos!

Distant volcano

Clouds at dawn

Dawn

Nice PC background? The Salar.

Bricks for salt hotels

Salt Livingroom

Salt bedroom

New Nazca Lines?

Joanne and volcano

Oh, it's me and a smoking volcano

What's that reflected in Jo's sunglasses?

Abi helps with the driving

Smoking Volcan Ollague

Vicuña AND flamingos

Vicuñas in front of mineral lake and volcano

How did they come up with the name?

Explosive lake

Would you believe it - flamingos?

Flamingos!

Ffff... flamingos

More vicuñas

There were some flamingos

Yup , flamingos

Another mineral lake with....

... FLAMINGOS!

Minerals

First vicuña caught on camera

A wee walk by the lake

Photos Locos 4

Rocks

Boogeyman from Nightmare Before Xmas?

El Arbol de Piedra

Photos Locos no.2

Surely this should be Dali's Desert?

Not much of a road

More minerally mountains

The wheels

Hot lake

Flamenco y Volcan

David and Abi walking over minerals

Flamingos and Volcano

More flamingos in a thermal lake

Another mineral lake

Dolce de leche - dangerous and addictive

Coca leaves for tea

Trusty Chilli Bovril

First view of Laguna Colorada

A big geyser

Bad boys walking beyond the danger signs

Geisers Sol de Manana

The first of many "photos locos"

Desierto de Dali

The road continues

Laguna Verde

Just Joanne and me

Everyone but Victoria in hot spring

Everyone but me in hot spring

Coca leaves handy for the driver

Andean fox

Mineral filled mountain

The road ahead

See?

All those little dots are flamingos

Flamingos

Cold Joanne

Joanne and llamas

Cute ear ribbons to identify owner

Volcano

Mineral lake

Highish pass

Morning view

An abandoned mining town

Stripes

Lots of dead llamas

Llama skulls

Our cool registration plate

View

... a little town in the middle of the desert

Colourful rocks

San Pablo de Lipez...

Short climb before lunch

Everyone else reflected in Victoria's sunglasses

A mine

Cacti

Dry stripey mountains

Cacti and jaggy rocks

More jaggy rocks

Jaggy rock formations

Our transport

My Bolivian lunch

Coca tea

Joanne's Bolivian lunch

Pilsner La Paz

Tupiza

Huari Beer

The disused railway into Argentina

Evo seems popular

Humahuaca

Humito unopened

Humito unwrapped

The hostel

Llama ham

Not sacred enough to leave the remains apparently

Graves

Grave

Pretty

Could be the Wild West

Those cacti are pretty big

I'm sure Esther Rantzen would like this

Reconstructed dwellings

Lots of cacti

Stripey!

Llamas! Rrrrrrr!

Dusty road, pucará in the background

Nobbly formations

Nice stripey mountains

Spanglish on the menu!

My horse

Fighting through thicket

Return path

Caramelo on the rampage

Authentic gaucho

All on our horses

At the top of the trail

Through the undergrowth

Joanne on her horse

Joanne on the trail

Me on my horse

Joanne nearly does it

Stephen does it first time!

I get my just desert

I don't quite manage it

The gaucho shows us how it's done

Salta

Urban industrial art in progress

Locals whose name I can't remember :-/

Stephen and Ricarda

Ricarda, Lucy, Zdenek, and Joanne

Lucy and Zdenek

Stephen

My meat

Everyone

The barbecue

Quilmes negro

It's windy when we arrive

Rickety old local bus

This will all be flooded soon

Seems they've already started the flooding

Market in Bajo Encarnacion

Extreme steak

What an excellent gig it was!

Banda Conmocion gig

Awwww. Tess and Joanne.

Amusing dog with "underbite"

Still sober, oh yes.

Not drunk, honest

Quite late on at the el Yoyo

Best shot I got of the birds!

Non-resident pool

Nice sunny view

Our room from across the pool

Joanne catches some rays

Our room

View from our room

Too wet even for a toad

... and it rained

It rained...

How dark it looked before playing with camera settings

Nice cold beer

Beef and egg soup

A big cactus

Reconstruction work

What would Dan Brown make of these symbols?

Central courtyard

Original tiles! Wow.

Church entrance

Living quarters

Even here they can't resist grafitti

Lots of birds around the ruins

Tree growing through a wall

The stonework has seen better days

Entrance to the ruins

Waiting for the bus

Steamy forest

Walkway to the edge of Garganta del Diablo

Garganta del Diablo

Gorge up to Garganta del Diablo

View across to Argentine side

Joanne wet

Boat in the spray

Where the boat goes to and fro

Spinach canelone garnished with (meat) estofado

Pudding

Bife de lomo

The really ugly Sharaton overlooking the falls

La Garganta del Diablo

Joanne at La Garganta del Diablo

Us at La Garganta del Diablo

Foam

The American guys from Bs As

Los Dos Hermanos

Coatis and Beer

Joanne in the middle of it

It's crashing down

Wooo!

Me, wet, on my way back to dry land

Me in the middle of it

The first bit you get wet

Coati

Quite busy

Lots of people getting soaked

Jesus, I presume

People hassling the coaties

You can get really close

Joanne's bad salty risotto

My spinach gnochi putanesca

Joanne's bruschetta starter

My carpaccio starter

Quilmes bock

Sandwich de Milanesa

Panchos

"Salmon in pepper sauce"

Best steak in South America?

Sunset over Salto

Amusing sign on the bus. They are addicts.

Nice barrel-aged local spirits

They have sycamore-lined avenues here too

A hostel we didn't stay in

It's weird to hear people this white speaking fluent Spanish

Our real hotel

Un-redeveloped old town

Redeveloped area in old town

70s car

The Rambla goes in that direction for 22km

Good condition old Ford

An antique market

My second heart-attack, I mean chivito

Joanne's spinach canelone

I've forgotten who this gaucho hero is

Montevideo

It has quite nice buildings

Huge paella(!) some being made at a fruit promotion

This sign is just plain wrong

What does it mean?

An oompah band in the main square

Reunion!

The Cathedral in Colonia

Medio y medio

Colonia

St Miguel

Street of Sighs

Joanne in Colonia

Saturated in light too

Another French wreck

Ouch

My dream car

Dear oh dear

By the city walls

For Gav

This busker I like

Relaxing

Old Ford

"Drugstore" restaurant in front of the clocktower

More old stuff

Sycamores lining the streets

Museum

Lighthouse and destroyed nunnery

More patterns and textures

Twee!

The promenade

Really old car

Car matches house

Road to the jetty

Patterns and textures

Somehow the horns go with the beer

The redeveloped waterfront

Widest road in the world (apparently)

Buesno Aires

El Congreso

Graffiti protection

Mobile graffiti

Not so good graffiti

Middle-of-the-road graffiti

Another banger

A cheesy Ford

Joanne's slightly better bife de chorizo

So-called bife de chorizo

Good graffiti

The buildings aren't all nice

Bs As

Nice church

Representative of a lot of Bs As

Famous pharmacy

Roof of famous pharmacy

Malivinas (Argentina) Veterans

Casa Rosada

Buenos Aires

Comfort wine

This one's for Gav

Old car

So called bife de chorizo (a lo pobre)

Older Ford

Jesuit church

Clock tower Alta Gracia

Main square Alta Gracia

Sierras Hotel

Che's neighbour's house

Nice clouds over Alta Gracia

Argentine fare

Che's patio - with his writing on the wall

Che's house

Che's bike

Greek Orthodox church

More Argentinian empanadas

Argentinian empanadas

Cordoba

Demo

A particularly bad piece of public art

Graffiti

The park

Ducks in the park

Graffiti and rubble in the park (and guys wearing helmets)

An old car

Argentine flag

Neo-Gothic Iglesia Sagrado Corazon

Plaza San Martin - off limits

It's sunny!

AR$15 worth of food (plus wine, not shown)

Nice beer

The area around the wineries was quite pretty

Something to do with the Virgen. Who cares?

La Virgen de Vino on the church

More wines we weren't allowed to taste

An expensive wine they teased us with

Yet another cellar!

Another cellar

The Andes in the distance

Waiting for our tasting...

In the cellar

Dodgy car and drain

Bife de chorizo

On the road to the Santiago-Mendoza border

Breakfast

Us and the best pharmacist in Chile

Nice pharmacist serving us pisco sours

The ceviche

El Yoyo's guide to Chilean slang

Tess and Joanne

I'm so drunk a flying mouth is eating my head

.... French girl turns her attention to Max

Brad and Liam

Me and Adam

It's just a perk of the job for Max

Chief suspects in the case of the missing clothing

A French girl on the prowl, but I'm married

It may not be responsible, but it is coordinated

Underbite dog in the background

Tess and the meat

Rare shot of Max with no hat (Brad & Adam behind)

Definitely tired

I'm a bit tired I think

Brad and erm...

Tess and Max

Liam. He's Irish.

Mural in el Yoyo

Valparaiso mural (photo by Joanne)

Bottom of the funicular

Funicular track

Lazy dogs at the top of the funicular

Still a romantic place

Another restaurant we couldn't afford

Valparaiso decaying in style

Valparaiso

Graffiti in Valparaiso

Valparaiso prettily falling apart

Joanne in Valparaiso

Pisco sours

My grilled chicken, wild rice, and peanuts

Joanne's spinach fettucini

Restaurant we couldn't afford in Valparaiso

Goodybye Easter Island

Funny little airport on Easter Island

Sun set

Joanne in the sun set

The inevitable sun set

Pukaos rolled down the hill from the quarry

The quarry in the volcano

Pukaos around the quarry

The last moai site

The beach

The coastline behind the moais

Moai at Ahu Tahai

Approach to the North Moais

Raphael, Colettle, us, and the kids

Maois in silhouette on Anakena Beach

Re-erected moais on Anakena Beach

Moai on Anakena Beach

Anakena Beach

Ahu Tongariki

Rano Raraku (el Gigante in background)

Rano Raraku

Joanne and stray moai at Ahu Tongariki

The quarry

See how big!

Another biggie

A big ahu on the coast where most of the maois look out to see

An ahu

An unusual face-up one

First really big one

Old boys on the pish

It's not very big

First moai!

just slightly to the right: the other coast

Hanga Roa from the volcano

Joanne by the Volcano

The coast on our first night

Our flight path for two hours

An empanada. It's just a pie isn't it?

Joanne's hundredth empanada in three days

Main street in Bella Vista at night

More of Cerro Santa Lucia pretty bits

Nice fountain in Cerro Santa Lucia park

A snogging couple in the park

On top of the city, looking down on pollution

Santa Cristobel (the other hill)

Pollution and mountains

City and mountains

Big mountains, ugly city

Joanne neither up nor down

Me, Joanne, Jaime, and Pablo

Lake Tekapo

Goodbye New Zealand

Christchurch

Queenstown

Someone else jumping 3

Someone else jumping 2

Someone else jumping 1

I have to do what?

Wheee!

Ready

Perched

Flying

Falling

Boing!

How much!?

The Remarkables

View from the top of the chairlift

View at the bottom of the chairlift

The beginner slopes - Joanne may be in this shot

The slopes

New Zealand Curry

Useless!

Tomarillo

Where the Glacier is apparently

Me!

Queen Charlotte Sound

Nice wee house in Queen Charlotte Sound

First tantalising glimpse of the South Island

Dusk over the harbour

More skateboarding

Kayakers coming into the harbour

View from the waterfront

The waterfront

View from Stephan's lovely home

Maoris near the end of their show

Maori show underway

Maori "warriors" paddling down the river

The hangi revealed

The hangi waiting to be revealed

Somehow very Calvinistic view of a pool in the park

Steaming pool in the park

Detail on Maori church

Maori church

Maori war boat

More black birds

Black swan on the sulphurous lake

Bubbly mud next to the lake

Surely an Uphall is all that's required

Finishing touches to Joanne's kit

Joanne getting ready to jump

Youngsters going wild

The Sky Tower - still obscured by rain

It was cold and wet in Auckland (there's the Sky Tower)

Funny pear crossed with aubergine fruit

Muslim tea

Tibetan bread

Joanne's nice Tibetan food

Yak hot pot

The car park in front of the monastery

The monastery

Our guide

Reitse from Freisland

Doing the kora

Monks getting out of class

Tibetan family

Last part of the kora

The monks querters around the monastery

The top part of the kora, passed the mediation huts

Mani stone carved in the hillside

Fortress-like Tibetan architecture

Ornate door

View other way down the prayer wheels

View down the prayer wheels

Monk spinning a big corner prayer wheel

Prayer wheels along the kora

Small part of the kora

Monk passing an ornate door

Street sweepers causing a cloud of dust

Xiàhé main street

Momos in Xiàhé

A quail egg stall

Excellent quail eggs, chili sauce and tahini.

Building very near our hostel

South gate in the day

The South Gate at night

Moon over the Bell Tower

Excellent stuffed bread stall

Some black stuff I drank, but have no idea what it was

Lamb leg stall

Chinese men do this when they are hot

The resulting bready soup

The bread to break into the soup

Tasty lamb guts soup speciality

Market in Muslim Quarter

I'm not

Yes, we're all different

You're all individuals

Warriors facing the original entrance

Semi-assembled warriors

Woo! Pit 1.

Pit 3

Bits of broken warriors and horses in pit 2

Mostly untouched "meat". The clean bone didn't start with flesh.

Horrible wobbly bits were the best part

Ooh looks quite nice. Maybe we picked well this time...

God provides

Suzhou at night

Suzhou's Rialto Bridge?

Public toilets in Suzhou

More Venicey stuff. Sort of.

Suzhou's attempt at Venice

Bonsai!

The Spring Drawing Room (or something...)

Funny stones in a part of the Garden of the Master of the Nets

Garden of the Master of the Nets

Deadly paving stones

The meat counter at the supermarket

The fish counter at the supermarket. It's a tank.

A breather

The gardens

Resident in the gardens

The gardens next to the pagoda

Incense. Everything is bigger and better in China.

Inside the pagoda

The rest of Suzhou from the pagoda

Garden visible from the pagoda

Big pagoda

Boating down the canal

Our room in Suzhou

Joanne's toes: no big toenails!

Lovely weather at West Lake

One of the sights you're supposed to enjoy at the lake

The In Crowd at "Cheap Enough For You?"

Another amusing sign

Kittens outside the hostel

The French Concession

The world whizzing by

Full speed!

Waiting to go

World's fastest train

Disgusting "omlette" from the hostel

View from the bar

Another boat trip going up the river

A boat trip going up the river

Pudong trying to be Hong Kong at night

The Bund at night

Free beer!

Big tower in Pudong

The Bund from Pudong

Pudong

Museum lobby

They did them in colour too!

Ming vase

In the museum

Ugly!

Great lighting in the museum

More modern buildings

Renmin Gardens

View from Renmin Gardens

They're green!

Seaweed Pringles!

Food from the greasy chopstick

Old Town

He was an obviously bored security guard

This character kept us amused while we drank

Pudong from the Bund

A European-looking building

Shanghai is modern after all

Yummy spicy Yunnan food

Disappointing hot pot

Guy running up a pole

Balancing act

Unicyclists

Honest they're not stuck together

Honest we're really spinning them

I liked the name

Cool water writing

Chinese photograph two-finger salute

Dragon boat on the lake

The Buddhist Fragrance Pavillion

Lotuses growing in Kunming Lake

Annoying bird whistle vendor

17 Arch Bridge

Qilin at the Summer Palace

The tram appears at the top of the fake street

Engrish

Green eggs (but no ham)

I couldn't get over the pollution

No fun!

Girl working at a tea shop we couldn't afford

Top of the strange street

Front Gate

Charcter in the Square

They took a photo so I thought we should too

The eclipse as Joanne saw it

The eclipse!

The yellow troupe

Serve the People!

People watching in Tian'anmen Square

Looking back towards the Forbidden City

We could hardly see across the Square

The pollution was terrible

Sun through the pollution

Bee cocoon, beetles, centipede, "sheep penis", etc

Testicles and other lovely organs

Beijing Duck

The really fatty stuff

Vegetable side

Menu item

A stall at the Night Market

The Night Market

Last steep bit (honest)

When will this end?

Mystery of the Plain of Jars solved! (It was the Chinese)

Even here they have time for detail

Wow!

Fantastic!

Even here they have to watch the people

There were disallowed exits all the way along

Joanne touching it in Chinese style

Unrestored bit of Wall

No entry

A steep bit

Getting really steep

Whew!

More climbing?

Slightly exhausted

The view from the Wall

The climb up to the Wall

Joanne just a little sweaty

American Express! (They missed that one)

Bubbling potions!

Food!

Snack Steet

Snack Street

Another imposing street

Don't you love revolutionary art?

Chairman Mao Memorial Hall

Forbidden City from Tian'anmen Square

National Museum

Great Hall of the People

Monument to the People's Heroes

Guard and Mao

Guard, Mao, and Forbidden City

A huge hall

Space!

More nice buildings

Locked bits

More detail

More people over the fence

Chinese people over the fence

Nice detail

More of the garden

Little building in the garden

Flower in the one garden

Joanne in the Forbidden City

Inside of another hall

Chinese poseurs touching the building

What you have to push through to get a photo inside

Inside of one hall

Exquisite detail

Joanne copy-and-pasted in front of a great hall

"Made possible by American Express" blanked out!

Only the emperor used to be allowed through this gate

Mao portrait outside Forbidden City

Entrance to Forbidden City

Grand Hotel Beijing

Xichangan Street, between Forbiddern City and Tian'anmen Square

Carp

Lots of carp

Tai chi in the park

Cool sculpture in the park

Nice park near the hostel

Cow organ stew

German-style beers

Spaghetti sandwich on the train

Sour grapes sweeties. How fitting!

Boooooze

Silly dressing gowns at the business hotel

Apparently the deer work for the police. I knew it!

Happy dog jobbie

Joanne eating okonomiyaki

Joanne's okonomiyaki

My okonomiyaki

Typical Japanese architecture

We didn't try them

It's big

Joanne rubbing the foot and wishing for hers to get better

Usual stuff inside. Buddha.

Can't remember this ugly guy's story

The whole class went through that for some reason

Wonder if the model has a little tiny model inside it

Cute!

Marauding deer in front of the gate to Daibutsu-den

Plastic food

Drinking sake

Lovely sake cup (filled with lovely sake)

Me stroking a deer

Deer hassling a man

Tame deer

More of the temple

Two buildings of the temple

Some kind of textured tofu (I think) nigiri

Roe sushi

Beef and egg(?) sushi

Don't even remember what sushi that is

Fish nigiri

Mini beef burger sushi!

Tuna nigiri

Kinkaku-ji

Kinkaku-ji. OK, it's quite pretty.

Infuriating Japanese umbrella use!

Not much of an aim are they?

For luck. Probably.

This was the best bicycle on offer

Fnarr fnarr

This is Japan: a shopping mall in Gion

Gion at night

The "lovely" river in Gion

I thought this was cool

A very obediently posing Japanese crane

The LP says this is the most beautiful street in Asia!

Very expensive beef

Gion

Beef birth certificate, complete with pedigree and nose print!

Eh?

A geisha running from the paparazzi

The river promenade in Gion

Cheap fast food

Sign operator must have a sense of humour

Triangle howto pt 4

Triangle howto pt 3

Triangle howto pt 2

Triangles!

Sign on the pavement

Is this referring to the University?

Engrish T-shirts

My local speciality

Bowing apologies

Joanne's local speciality

The onsen resort

The onsen island

Surely the next Spiderman villain?

Our private onsen

The main room of our private onsen cottage

Delicious salmon sashimi and sake

Sashimi of a local fish

Lamps across the bridge

The Peace Statue (impersonating Roy)

Pledge of Peace

Joanne contemplates atrocity

Japan Rail Pass

Cheap rice spirit

Shinkansen (700 series)

Takeshita dori, Harajuku

Busy on Takeshita Street in Harajuku

The "iconic" Shibuya Crossing view

Shibuya Crossing, ready to go

Our bijou room

View from my bed

Nearly finished

Soaped up

In South Africa this would be considered racist

Sinister-looking building on way back from Parikrama

Real India curry. Greasy as anything.

A relatively quiet queue at the train station

Rubbish collection in India!

The return of Big Davie

The ouside dining area and pool hall behind

Half-built pool hall

A bin! In India!

Unusual way to promote a shop

Mountains behind New Manali

Plague of flies

Backgammon!

Indian breakfast. Yum!

Modification made to the bus

The Ridge with Christchurch in the background

View from the YMCA

Expensive Connaught Place

Nice Doric columns around Connaught Place

Drying cow shit

View down the ghats

Street in old Varanasi

Joanne looking at a shop in old Varanasi

Varanasi from above

Cremation wood piled high

Someone walking their buffalos to bathe

Space Invader

Boy washing his buffalos

View down the Ganga

Temple near our hostel

Indian truck

Lazy cow and two burkas

Old Varanasi street

Space Invader!

Yum yum!

Bathers

Laundry

More cremations on the other side of the river

Man completely immersed

Activity on a bathing ghat

Our boatman

A guesthouse on the ghats

A burning ghat

Dogs looking for scraps

Us on the Ganga

Morning bath

Sunrise on the Ganga

A tourist gets all spiritual

Men taking their morning holy dip

Fisherman

The boats await

Puja

Boat park in front of the puja

Elvis Guest House

Puja on the ghat

Licensed boats waiting for customers on the Ganga

Shiva temple at the university in Varanasi

Waiting for the train

Booze!

Could be Loch Lomond

The lake in Pokhara

Spider next to the lake in Pohkara

Nightlife in Kathmandu

Bhopki

Bhatmas Sadeko

Back in the big smoke

It's all cannabis

Heavenly Path?

Heavenly Path

Last tea house

Joanne happy to be nearing somewhere to rest her feet

The raging river

Another suspension bridge

A moth we spotted

Rage!

Ganesh View on the way down

Tiny scorpion in our bed

Me at Ganesh View

Hairy caterpillars

Circle of caterpillars

Curds and whey

Way home

Man and woman with big loads

Man with a big load

Bridge

Suspension bridge in the hills

The big range

Goodbye to big peaks

Hotel owner pleased with her cash

But is it art?

Walking back over the "glacier"

Moraine coming down from some higher peaks and Ganja La (I think)

December from Yaks 2010 Calendar

Yaks grazing

Al contemplates the walk back

Our lunch stop

Mountains

The way home

Alas poor yak

I wish I was up there

The biggest "village" on the way to Langtang Shisha

A crow, mani stones, prayer flags, and mountains

Bet they were glad when the big rock didn't crush their house

Heavenly Path get everywhere

I think this is called a "goth"

Free Tibet seems to be old fashioned

These stones look like a glacier from far away

Night scene outside the hotel

Dodgy chang and off beer

There were loads of these on the way to Kyanjin Ri (Irises, right?)

Kyanjin Gompa from above

Not really a glacier

Tibet and Tibetan prayer flags from the summit

Bird eating the American's food at the summit

Ice fall from a big mountain

Al on top

Me on top of Kyanjin Ri

Me on top of the minor summit

Kyanjin Gompa on the way up

Big peaks

Kyanin Gompa from higher up

Morning in Kyanjin Gompa

Big peaks above Kyanjin Gompa

Jaggy ridge above Kyanjin Gompa

Scary ridge above Kyanjin Gompa

Kyanjin Gompa in the morning

Temperature inversion from Kyanjin Gompa

Jaggy mountains above Kyanjin Gompa

Pig peak above Kyanjin Gompa

View from Kyanjin Gompa

Morning from Kyanjin Gompa

Morning at Kyangin Gompa

Yak cheese and chang

Tibetan Tea. Yuk.

First view of Kyanjin Gompa

Ice fall just before Kyanjin Gompa

Al

Prayer flags across the path

Definitely more yakky now

Yak graing in front of mountains

Cattle grazing, mani stones, and mountain range

Getting closer to big hills

Mani stone

Mani stones

Wall of mani stones and mountain range

Joanne walking past mani stones

Mani stones and mountain range

Looking back at Langtang

Snowy range

Horses grazing above Langtang

Kyanjin Gompa

The party indoors

Prayer sheets arrive in Langtang

Party coming up the hill

View from our hotel

Approach to the metropolis of Langtang

Last settlement before Langtang

Nearly last settlements before Langtang

Family at a tea house

And steeper

The path gets steeper

Joanne lets a cow / yak pass

Is this one a yak?

Joanne and Al walking over a helipad

Lunch at the Hotel Tibetan, Goda Tabela at 3000m

Goda Tabela , 3000m

The valley opens up into grazing

View back down the valley

Joanne walking through the forest

So green it could be Scotland

Tea at Riverside, 2769m

Riverside, 2769m

Alpha male cowers from me in a tree

The alpha male tries to block my path

First view of a snowy peak

Is it a yak?

Joanne on the path

Morning at Ganesh View

Joanne at Bamboo

Nice forest path

The river we follwed up the valley

Ganesh View

Joanne carrying her heavy bag

View from Landslide

View from inside the tea house at Landslide

The approach to Landslide

Al approaching Landslide

First glimpse of high peaks

Joanne and Al on the Heavenly Path

Weeds

Undergrowth next to the path

The start of the trek

Hills around Syabrubese

Bus waiting for the morning

Syabrubese and prayer flags

Another view down the side of the bus

The view around the bus

My view off the bus

The muddy bit where we got stuck

Me and Al on top of the bus

On top of the bus, free from the tarp

Under the tarp on top of the bus

Pakora

Look how cheap!

Chilly momos

Vegetable khaja set

Fake Ferrero Rocher

Indian breakfast

Momos!

Tongba

Everest beer and Tongba

A cow in the city

Our Hotel - Shanti Lodge

Only photo evidence of Joanne's rubbish henna

Full view of Taj and mosque

Monkey watches aeropplane

View back to the entrance from the Taj

Huge arch with quranic arabic around

Beautiful marble work on side of Taj

Mosque flanking the Taj

3/4 wide-angle view of Taj

Jo, Taj, and crow

Fort from Taj

Taj

Us and Taj

Taj reflection

Playing with long exposure on my camera...

Inside the Fort

And I thought the Shish Mahal was just a restaurant

The Fort is huge

Marble work inside the Fort

The Taj through Fort archways

You can see the Taj from the Fort

Taj from Fort

Nice oily man

Us and Taj from Guesthouse

Joanne and Taj from our guesthouse

View of Taj from our guesthouse

Oh no! Not another view of the Taj

Yet another view of the Taj

Another view fo the Taj

Inside the Baby Taj

"Baby Taj"

Stripy squirrel

This guy just got in our rickshaw for a free ride

First view of the Taj - from outside the Fort

Agra Fort

Indian traffic genius on way back from ticket office

Masala Papad

Cheery Indian drinking den

Cricket on the way to the station

Indian bureaucracy at the ticket office

Breakfast at the Sally Army

Nice Indian lady extra

Joanne and Milou next to "Krisha Temple"

Milou and Jessie with Indian extras

The main actor from this episode

"Passing" rickshaw extra

Hare Krishna Joanne with bedbug bitten face :-(

Hare Krishna Michael

Hare Krishnas

Child extras

Joanne with near black eye from bedbugs

Waiting between shots

Behind the scenes

The shop in the set

Lights

Our fabulous changing room

The Dutch enjoying their breakfast

More strong beer!

Strong beer

Quail eggs

Frozen margarita with our mexican meal

A Swede and two Swiss girls

Thai Telly Tubbies (Telly Skinnies?) near Indian Embassy

Joanne gets into the spirit

View of Haad Rin from "Mushie Mountain"

Fire

I get into the spirits

Lovely breakfast in Haad Thien

Dengue mosquito (note stripes)

Commercial Hippie nonsense

Big spider

Scorpion in the toilet

Our humble abode in Haad Thien

Ko Phangan "culture"

Miles of buckets

Wasp on my laptop

Fluoro!

Fishy coconut

The turtle's head

Catherine on the dry deck

Swiss couple on the dry deck

Coral garden

Puffer fish

Puffer fish hides behind some coral

Nudibranch

Lobster

Giant turtle escape Gil's spotlights

Super turtle!

Giant turtle just after breathing

Giant turtle poses for Gil

Joanne and me diving

Coral

Moray eel

Sting ray

Giant anemone

Star fish

Manta ray

Someone diviing past brain coral

My poor toes

Unhappy Volger and my unhappy toes

Giant turtle swallows a lump of banana

Giant turtle swims under the boat

Giant turtle comes in for close-up

Joanne in pursuit of giant turtle

Joanne and Catherine play with the giant turtle

Greedy monkey

Friends reunited

Forest track

James goes to work

Imran

James to the rescue

Imran poses

Joanne on a pit-stop

Action Joanne

Rest of the team

Check that view!

Nanee

Whole team

Bringing up the rear

Nice day for a cycle

Kitsch fish tank in restaurant

Killing Fields?

Hermit crab on the beach

Path to Golden Bee

Forest full of smoke

"Eve and Mahri"

Joanne of the jungle

Pineapple tree

Fractal leaf!

The lagoon had grown

Tsunami zone

Thomas and Eve

Marhi, Thomas, and Eve

Robert, Thomas, and Eve

Both babies

Eve

Rob and Eve

Sunet on the beach

Horrible puppies

Rubbish on the beach

Horrible dog following us

Surely in poor taste?

Jack fruit tree

Crab

Crab marks in the sand

A beach all to ourselves

So that's away from the water then? Oh, really?

Our lonely little bungalow

Amusing rice

Finally Joanne gets one too

Proof

Ready?

Proof!

Joanne and katoey

Joanne hits the bong

Blues Bar

Strange decor at Blues Bar

Blues bar

One coin in each jar

Model of Angkor Wat

New purchase!

Bored with embassies and shopping

Thai iced coffee in a bag

Farang moves in for the kill

He's just a boy!

The excitement mounts

Ooof!

Foot replies to elbow

The press look bored

Eye of the tiger

Preparation ritual before fight

Cuddling Muay Thai fighters

Preparation between rounds

Family supporters look on at muay thai

Delicious cheap food at the muay thai

Sticker showing us up as suckers!

Delicious mango, sticky rice, and coconut cream at Ethos

Terrible krapow at vegan / veg restarant

Carrot juice at vegan / veg restaurant

Thai flags up for Coronation Day

Khason again

Durian

The durian

Fellow bucketteer

A big one...

Easternized Ronald Mc

Just a wee cocktail

Leo beer

Sweet (really?) durian

Responsible drinking?

Encouraging responsible drinking

Lovely coconut puddings

Police. Protecting you.

Glad I wasn't in that

Holey car!

Dried squid

Tiger draft

Dreadlocks

The choice is practically non-existent

Oh oh!

Khaosan Road

Suki Yaki dry

Sukhothai Noodles

Joanne's flipflops are the latest casualty

Just outside our room

"Spotlessly clean" - Rough Guide

Our filthy room

Noodle Sukhothai Restaurant

Excellent hot red pork curry

I didn't dare order 3rd down

Spicy pork and sticky rice burger from 7-11

Wat Mahathat

Wat Mahathat on way home

Offering for Buddha?

No climbing on Buddha

Gold leaf on Buddha

Big Buddha at Wat Si Chum

At Wat Phra Phai Luang

Buddha at Wat Mae Chon

Spiceless som tam and Archa beer

A cow ponders Wat Son Khao

Cows at Wat Son Khao

Concrete Elephant at Wat Sorasak

Wat Sorasak

Wat Sa Si's walking Buddha

Wat Sa Si

Wat Sri Sawai

Another concrete Buddha at Wat Mahathat

Concrete Buddha at Wat Mahathat

Our bikes

Simple but effective: a big bucket

All-day traffic jam and flood

Everyone gets this wet

Car against car

Long-range weaponry

Tum Yum Crisp ingredients

A small but very decorated spirit house

Tom Yum Crisps - delicious!

Here's to Songkran!

Joanne acts coy

Ladyboy Power Ranger host (now off duty)

Big guns

Sitting ducks in the traffic jam

Me wet

Me and Uncle Ho

"Not recommended by the Lonely Planet" :-)

Are they after us?

Joanne loves her beer

Coin op water dispenser (and irish guy we keep meeting in bottom right)

His camera's in a bag

Loads of kids swim in the moat (and some adults)

Shadow of justice!

Sia and Willemijn on pick-up

Some traditional dancing

Club THC

Lamps in Club THC

They fire!

They aim....

Not the camera! Not the camera.

Lined up along the moat

Armed and er... deadly

Lady Killers?

Evil evil ice

Teepee bar owner (or manager?)

Willemijn argues her case

21st Birthday party in the Teepee Bar

Willemijn, Sia, and Joanne

Chiang Rai clocktower

Buffalo and fowl

Akha gift used as phone holder

Sometimes the leaning ones fall apparently

Butterlies!

More excellent food

Gold-coloured ladybird thing that landed on me

Outhouses where teenagers live

Village school

Spirit gate (prevent spirits entering the village)

Owl and owner

Ponsa feeding an owl

Kids

Take photo!

Pig eating rubbish

Moths on my kikois

Spider on the toilet door

Our masseuses (mine 2nd from right)

Dinner

Shy lady

He wanted his sister photo'd

Next shot coming up!

Drinking lao-lao with the vilagers

She wanted to know what the fuss is about

Note the "toy" bird

Why they love their photoes taken

Torturing a frog

Pig threatens our beer

Our home

Sour?

Boys with berries. How do the taste?

The village

Ponsa

Ponsa demonstrates timber cutting

Cleared for rice

Nice Akha-built bridge

Wasp licking salt off me

Butterflies!

Hut

Guides are not immune to leech attack

Leech

Moth? Butterfly?

Lunch

Forest "restaurant"

Poisonous snake

Joanne with a big bag of weed

Mokpaphok

O-laam

Mekong Weed

Another pool at Tat Kuang Si

Tat Kuang Si

A blue pool at Tat Kuang Si

Scorpion and snake wine

Buddha

The big collection in Tham Ting, the lower cave

More Buddhas at Pak Ou

Some Buddhas at Pak Ou

Door to Tham Phum, the upper cave at Pak Ou

Pak Ou Caves from the river

I just thought that was funny. It's probably not.

Very ambitious ant cleans up after BBQ

Another sunset over the Mekong

Snake and scorpion wine

Just next to the horrible vegetarian stall!

View from Phou Si

Wat Pa Huak

Murals at Wat Pa Huak

Purple sticky rice with coconut and banana

Rosella and lemongrass and iced jujube drinks

Local specialities

Watermelon and chili granita and nam mak tour (iced cinnamon bael fruit tea)

Wat Sop

Frolicking monks

Wat Xieng Thong

Offerings of sticky rice

Self-portrait

Portrait of Joanne in the glasswork

Wat Choumkhong

Restaurant overlooking Mekong

Wat Xieng Muan

Big Davie is a punk

Don't even remember this photo

Big Davie

Russian tank

Site 2 has a lid, but not on a jar

Plain of Jars site 3

Clouds, water, and buffalo

Site 3 has moody clouds

This proves the jars are older than the tree

Turkeys are quite common in Laos

How the still works

Fermented rice liquor ready to be distilled

Condenser in place, still ready to go!

Fermenting rice

A person carved on the jar (apparently)

Lidded jar (probably originally from another jar)

Cave where people sheltered from the US bombs

More jars. Note the lidded one in background.

Some of the jars are quite big

Another jar!

A jar!

Bamboo scaffolding

Cindy and a recurring Swede at bar 3

Tainted Love? Bucket Bar.

Rule number 7

Keep the noise down :-)

The Bucket Bar

Bucket Bar motif

Isn't this a Soft Cell video?

Lamps and Bamboo

Swedish Jon reminded me of Colin from Aberdeen Uni

Cindy in the Rock Bar back in town

Still Tubing after dark!

Chaos seen from bar number 3

People writing on each other

Bar number 3 taking its toll

Tubing subculture

Cindy celebrates surviving a slide

Tubing subculture (pink shorts)

Bar number 2 takes its toll

Ugly inside and out

I'm terrified at this point

Joanne and Cindy prepare to jump

Someone launching on fox number 1

Bar number 1

Bar number 1 from number 2

Me enjoying a nice cup of tea in a hammock

Chicken on a stick (ping kaai)

Didn't we swear never to have them again?

Relaxing in Vang Vieng

The scenery at Vang Vieng

Tat Yuang

Tat Fan

Birthday drinks floating on the Mekong!

Li Phi waterfall

Unhappy Michael on a small asian bicycle!

Sunset stage 3

Sunset stage 2

Enjoying our first cheap Beer Lao!

View of the shacks at Sunset Bungalows

The arc de triomphe or "vertical runway"

Spooky internal gallery of gods

Joanne overlooking Buddha Park

Buddha Park

Ganesh et al in Buddha Park

Strange deity in Buddha Park

Hindu gods at Buddha Park

Reclining Buddha

"Laogria"

Tom yum soup with heating coals

Weird dish of wobbly rice paper, nuts, and sausage

Side dish for local speciality

Local speciality of Vientiane

Nosey kids in Paksong

Yup, it's raw pork.

Hmm, looks a bit like raw pork.

Another banana leaf surprise!

My camera was taking strain

A wat. I just liked the sign.

Inside our shack at Sunset Bungalows

Banana stones

Stoney banana

Fruit salad with stoney bananas

Joanne with real mint tea

"Real" mint tea

Fishing at night

Tubing in Don Det

Tubing into the sunset

Victory pt3

Victory pt2

Victory pt1

Could it be another sunset?

Grumpy tied up pig

Cute Lao child

Stick rice: howto 4

Stick rice: howto 3

Stick rice: howto 2

Papaya salad

View from sunrise side

Another pumpkin burger

Water buffalo

Pumpkin burger

Comrade Jo

Charlie

Lots of insects where there's light

Figure in the sunset

The accommodation

Washing our clothes in the Mekong

Joanne's puny moped injury

My moped injury from Ban Lung

View from my hammock

Lao fresh spring rolls

Water mellow

Fish laap

After the sunset

Fishing in the Mekong

The bar at our guesthouse

Shake

The last of the first sunset

First sunset on Don Det

Welcome to Laos!

Cambodian spring rolls

Minority village

Fabrice

House we stayed in at the minority village

Inside house we stayed in at the minority village

Our sleeping area in minority village

Minority village children

Collecting tree resin

Our sleeping area in the jungle

Volcanic lake

Joanne's elephant

Passenger's eye view from an elephant

Joanne ready to go

Our elephants

Village of the elephant handlers

Children at the elephant handlers' village

Sad monkey at the waterfall

I hope they're not endangered

Sugar cane juice press

Praying mantis

Pickled fish in a basil leaf (in a banana leaf)

Fruit and iced coconut milk

A banana leaf parcel

Brats in a Hilux at the sticky rice stall

Bamboo filled with sticky rice and plugged with coconut fibre

Eating sticky rice from bamboo

Sticky rice mixed with beans and coconut (in bamboo)

Joanne with Sugar cane juice

Dolphin!

Story of the Irrawaddy Dolphins

Cheap booze

Main street on Koh Paen

Tiny banana

Chicken foiled by plate-lid

Sugar cane juice

Kids watching

Making my sugar cane juice

Lizard

Boats waiting for rainy season

High gain ariel mounted on bamboo

Happy peasants working in the fields

Happy peasants on Koh Paen

Koh Paen

Naga outside the wat in Kampong Cham

Bamboo bridge

Bridge repairs

Bridge over the Mekong

Bamboo Bridge

Surprisingly large promenade

Inside the tower

French Lookout Tower

Kampong Cham

Re- what?!

Little gecko in good light

Thought Dorian would like this

Local beer and Lao beer

Coconut drink

Balloon waits for sunrise

Uncle Ho -- Col Sanders' lookalike?

Spicy mango and olives

Ho Chi Minh and Col Sanders -- separated at birth?

Prasat Kravan

Sra Srang

People sweeping up dust?

Joanne overlooking the royal baths (Sra Srang)

Ta Prohm

THE beer of Cambodia

Curry

Larb

Good beer

Ta Keo

Kids climbing Ta Keo

At the top of Ta Keo

Joanne climbing Ta Keo

From the top of Ta Keo

Chau Say Tevoda

East Gate of Angkor Thom

Close up of Terrace of the Leper King

Terrace of the Leper King

At the back of Baphuon

One wall doubles as a reclining Buddha

Walkway to Baphuon

Dragon flies

Bayon

Bas reliefs on Bayon

Joanne next to some bas reliefs at Bayon

Faces of Bayon

Door in Bayon

In front of Bayon

South Gate of Angkor Thom

Sunset at Snooky

Everyone is chilled out in Sihanoukville

Cells at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum

Excavated pits at the Killing Fields

Clothes are still scattered everywhere in the Killing Fields

No laughing sign at the Genocide Museum

Rules from S-21 prison camp (at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum)

Monument at the Killing Fields

Girls wearing masks (side-saddle) on bike

Young child on bike

Girls ride side-saddle

Free fruit salad at the Green Leaf

Menu at the Green Leaf

Happy outside the Green Leaf

The Green Leaf

Outside the Green Leaf at night

Snooky at night

Who knows why the pizza was happy....

My hand for scale of Gecko-zilla

Gecko-zilla

Giant prawn soup

Hollie and Allan

Snooky sunset

Wat Ounalom

Master of chopsticks

Very hopeful

"Fried Earl with Chilly" (eel)

I had the "Fried Earl with Chilly" :-)

Cheap beer in Cambodia!

Loc lac - seems to be a Cambodian national dish

Our first bucket

In a tuktuk in Phnom Penh

Independence Monument, Phnom Penh

Vietnam

Vietnam and Cambodia Border

Rice paper factory

Floating Market

Coconut Sweet factory

Coconut Sweet Factory

Bai Hoi counting system

Sun downers at the Sheraton Saigon

Sun set at the Sheraton Saigon

House in Cambodia

Kids on a bridge

Slow boat to Cambodia

En route to Cambodia

Dredging?

Isn't this bridge in Apocalypse Now?

Leaving ethnic minority village

Swotting up on Cambodia

House on stilts with flood level marked

Bridge to "ethnic minority village"

Floating village

Leraving fish farm

Farmed fish being fed

Pagoda near the border with Cambodia

Eel

Japanese knotweed (I suspect)

Sun rising over floating market

Action shot of floating market

Aaaarrghhh!!

Playing Martin Sheen

Playing with my camera

Vietnamese dark beer

Uncle Ho

Local beer

Beef curry

Snake Curry

Sunset waiting for the ferry to Can Tho

Coconuts leaving the Delta

Our slow boat being overtaken

Journey back on Mekong

Snoozing on the Mekong Delta

Traffic jam on the Mekong Detla

Traditional singing

Bees at the honey wine factory

Fishing on the Mekong Delta

The finshed product

Rolling, chopping, and packing the sweets

Sweets for sale

A piece of coconut sweet

Parking at coconut sweet factory

A lovely bunch of coconuts

The driver

Coconut sweet factory sign

Joanne on the Mekong

Mekong transport

Joanne scared of the durian crisps

Durian crisps, so smelly they wrap them twice

Guys playing keepie-uppies

More bikes

Asians sit on their haunches

Crossing the road

Joanne at the War Remnants Museum

Sheraton from Rex Hotel rooftop bar

Rex Hotel rooftop bar

Hotel de Ville in Saigon (now People's Committee)

Municipal Theatre

Fanny Ice Cream (L-R: Anise, Chili Chocolate, Green Tea)

Durian Crisps

Jack Fruit

Soya and Ginger syrup

Game played everywhere (note guy's back)

Man Giong

Water apple (Man Giong in Vietnamese)

Grapefruit salad

Cucumber Juice (I think)

Bikes!

Adverts for builders (we think)

Air-conditioning in german bier halle

Dale and Erin

Snails

Mekong style Banh Xeo (as apposed to Hue)

Safety first

Our morning alarm, right next to our room

Wires are messy everywhere in Vietnam

Lotus salad

Avocado Shake

Boy collecting recyclable rubbish from the beach

Our lovely beach

Our private beach

The good beach in the distance

The neighbouring "beaches"

Food served with knives and forks!!

Finally gave in to a coconut milk

Interesting interpretation of "vegetarian" (R13 - and R12 for that matter)

Michael eating a burger in Vietnam!!! (He was ill at the time and couldn't face local food)

Sunset at The Watering Hole Resort

Linh Phuoc Pagoda

Linh Phuoc Pagoda we climbed to the top

Spiders webs in the gardens of

Hang Nga Crazy House

Dragons!

Not sure what these ones are? Any suggestions?

In cable car to Quang Trung Reservoir

Tigar Falls

View from the top of Linh Phuoc Pagoda

Lights shining lights from Bono superman picture!!! (Mirror ball)

Huge white Buddha seated on a lotus blossom. It is visable from all over the city.

Two monkeys guard the entrance on one side of the bridge

Two dogs guard the entrance on one side of the bridge

Japanese Covered Bridge

Ladies working in the rice paddies.

Michael tending to his dreadlocks while drinking some cold Vietnamese tea

More dreadlock tending on Cua Dal Beach

Cua Dal Beach

Cool motorbike rider!

Thien Mu Pagoda

21m high Thap Phuoc Duyen tower

Michael challenging the dragon

See the dragon back away from Michael's fighting stance!

Emperor's Reading Room

Thai Hoa Palace

Sunset from our private beach

The beach in front of our hotel

Petrol station

Joanne eating excellent vegetarian breakfast

Breakfast at excellent vegetarian cafe

Banh Bao - oh it's got pork in it! (and egg)

Steamed dumpling (Banh Bao)

Crabs in bondage

Drinking sua dau nanh (soya) and sua dau xanh (mung)

View from Soya Milk stall

Dried hibiscus flower, opened out

Durian ice cream and salted apricot and lemon drink

Woman weaving at the back of Crazy House

Crazy House

Scary Kangaroo in a bedroom in Crazy House

Crazy House is not finished

Bedroom at Crazy House

Soda, egg, and (soya) milk - after

Soda, egg, and (soya) milk - before

Reservoir in Da Lat

View from Cable car to reservoir in Da Lat

Jack fruit crisps

Semi-rural suburbs with terracing

Joanne in Wonderland

Grrrr!

The bridge was out at Tiger Falls

Kitsch at Tiger Falls

Legend of Tiger Falls

Tiger Falls

No idea who this lady at the pagoda is

Inside the temple at Linh Phuoc Pagoda

One of the two pillars flanking the entrance to the temple at the pagoda

I'm a bit confuced about what these are

Buddha inside the tower

View from the top floor of the tower

Us on the top floor of the tower

Dragon at one corner of tower

More tower detail

Tower detail. It's built from debris of glass, pottery bowls, and porcelain

View from second or third floor of Da Bao Tower

View from first floor of Da Bao Tower

The largest bell in central Vietnam (8.5 tonnes) in Da Bao Tower

Stairs up the tower at Linh Phuoc Pagoda

People catching sweets thrown from Da Bao Tower

Linh Phuoc Pagoda in Trai Mat

Da Bao Tower at Linh Phuoc Pagoda in Trai Mat

Wide boys who were messing with my moped

Dried hibiscus

Dried cherry tomatoes, persimmon, hibiscus, mixed vegetables crisps, and artichoke tea

Ba ba ba

Kitten playing with my bag strap

Cham Towers

Presumably captured American plane

Weird Military place next to our hotel

Bar in Nha Trang

Super Bono in Nha Trang Bar

Gecko

Morning Glory and Garlic

"Minced" frogs in spicy sauce

National Beer

Local Beer

Biker Jo

The boys at the bia hoi place

The Real McCoy of bia hoi

Bell at Long Son Pagoda

View from Long Son Pagoda

Sitting Buddha at Long Son Pagoda

Serious incense at Long Son Pagoda

Reclining Buddha at Long Son Pagoda

Temple at Long Son Pagoda

Long Son Pagoda

Steep steps down from Po Nagar Cham Towers

Po Nagar Cham Towers

View from Po Nagar Cham Towers

Entrance to Po Nagar Cham Towers

To chicken to go right under

Mrs Hulk

You wouldn't like me when I have mud in my eyes

The angrier Hulk gets, the stronger he becomes

HULK IS ANGRRRYYYYYYY!!!!!

Mud Bath

For Lorraine

Breakfast. Probably a local speciality, but I can't remember!

Supposed steamed fish in banana leaf speciality

People watching in Hoi An

Cheeky girls at rip-off stall

It's a black(!) rice ball and coconut

Mystery in a banana leaf

Local brandy; only 30,000

Full moon festival

Me sailing lantern

Joanne with lantern from boy

Boy selling lanterns

Japanese Bridge

Dragon float at the full moon festival

Floats and Lanterns in the river at the full moon festival

Float of the beast of the year at the full moon festival

Lamp market at the full moon festival

Mother and child about to sail lantern

I know how they feel

Opening coconuts outside Mr Dong's

Hoi An

Quail eggs, free with our bia hoi

On the way to the beach

Another Hoi An speciality

Cao l?u

Delicious STRONG coffee shakes

Despite the others' boasts, this was more popular with the ladies

Right next door to Mr Hung

No comment

Set meal of Hoi An specialities

Bia hoi getting poured

More spring rolls

More bia hoi

How the coffee is prepared

Huda, the local beer in Hue

View from the back of our bike

My ear from the back of the bike

Just a house (I think) we passed on the bike

Tomb of Thieu Tri

Leving Temple of Nam Giao

Heaven, Earth, and Humanity

The scruffy Temple of Nam Giao

Chimes made of stone at Nam Giao Temple

Little monk at the Thien Mu Pagoda

Monk at the Thien Mu Pagoda

2 tonne bell at Thien Mu Pagoda

Old graffiti on back of marble turtle at Thien Mu Pagoda

Marble turtle at Thien Mu Pagoda

Banh Khoai

Bell in the Imperial City

"Saigon Style" spring rolls

Not sure what this was. Potato maybe.

Citadel wall from the Imperial City wall

A gate into the Purple Fobidden City, inside the Imperial City

The tennis court really is of historical significance

Historically significant tennis court in the Imperial City

People weeding the grass

The renovations of the Imperial City aren't exatly complete

Chinese Lion grass bins?

Some nice detail on the Royal Reading Pavillion in the Imperial City

Inside the Imperial City

Looking back at the entrance to the Imperial City

Uncle Ho above the entrance to the Imperial City

Some cannon in the Imperial City

Square in the Citadel in front of the Imperial City

Approaching the Citadel gates

At last some decent food

Misery on the sleeper bus

Happy on the sleeper bus

Tourist trap

Ha Long harbour

Last photo of the dragons

Austrian couple

View first thing in the morning

What karst looks like close up

Joanne paddling the kayak

Polished karst under foot

Last one's a doozy

Us at the top of Cat Ba Island

View from the top of the tower at the top of the hill

Guilt sell

Neighbouring ships at night

Jochem and Marty (and Santa!)

Cat Ba Harbour

"Dragons" in Ha Long Bay at dusk

Sun goes down on Cat Ba Harbour

"Dragons" in Ha Long Bay

Flying the flag

Joanne (and Jochem) on the boat to Cat Ba

Backlit "Dragons" in Ha Long Bay

Busy outside the cave

Heavy traffic in Ha Long Bay

Lime formations

All at once?

Neon in the cave

Cuttlefish in the farm

Floating village next to fish farm

Approaching floating village

Vendors get everywhere

Just setting out from Ha Long City

Beer fish

Boats at the jetty

Weird group of stalls on the river bank

Sailing away from the "lunch stop"

A curio stall

The food stall

The bird man

The ox man

Bike wash

It was cold on the river

Scenery on the boat trip

Precocious Chinese children

View from the beer place

Me drinking some nice dark beer

Joanne drinking some nice dark beer

Dragon Cake

Water puppet performance

Long thin houses (they're taxed by street width)

Swing at the Museum of Ethnology

Stick fighting at the Museum of Ethnology

A traditional house at the Museum of Ethnology

Pho Hang Ma, "Counterfeit Street"

Dried squid and prawns at market

Typical busy Hanoi backstreet

Some big crisp things

A woman at the merket bashing stuff

Old city gate in walls

Detail on the bed in Memorial House

The bed in Memorial House

Tea pots in Memorial House

Bikes parked outside the "peaceful" temple

Burning money at the temple

LOTS of incense burning

Peace and quiet at the temple

Patterns in the water outside the temple

The bridge to Den Ngoc Son Temple

Russell Christie

That's why the boots are duff -- made in China!

Joanne the half-millionairess

Drinking Bia Hoi (fresh beer)

Bikes, Rickshaws, People

Busy streets

Our balcony attached to our huge room

The other half of our huge room (for 14 quid a night)

One half of our huge room (for 14 quid a night)

The woman who ran the racket

Where the scamming bus company dropped us (14km from centre)

The first casualty of the trip

Old folks dancing in the square

Room in Pingxiang (for 60 yuan a night)

View from Dragon Bridge

Team Lost at Dragon Bridge

Animal of the Year

Countryside around Yanshuo

Remainders of EXTREME chili Sichuan chicken dish

Some Americans adopting the Chinese approach to Fireworks

Mother helps her young child to light rockets

Joanne warms her hands on Coals

Nice Pagoda sitting on top of a karst formation

One of the main streets at night in Yangshuo

Chaos on Chinese New Year

Two generations apart, lighting bangers

Remains of hundreds of bangers

Festive trees

Night scene in Yanshuo

Kids playing frisbee

The Yu Long (Dragon River)

Family setting up fireworks

A family setting fire to things

West Street

Pantao, the main road in Yangshuo

West Lily Hotel in Tangshuo

Capitalist Communism

Strange "cake"

Is the cake made of gelatine? I couldn't work it out.

The Citic Centre

Park next to Citic Centre

Silver and Gold

Aivic and me at the flower festival

Joanne and me at the flower festival

Aivic and Joanne at the flower festival

Me, Warwick, and Rose at a nightclub

Pietro's nickname is "Sleazy Chair". Wonder why...

Couchsurfers playing pool with Joanne

A crucial shot!

Chinese Starlet Sings

Cycle trip Yangshuo

Pietro examining his cake at the KTV Night Guangzhou

Riveside Yangshuo

Guangzshou

Guangzhou

Hong Kong

Sliced pork and pig's blood congee

Efficient lifts?

Ground floor of Chungking Mansions

Chungking Mansions

The cigarette bit is always on fire

Skinny sky-scrapers

More skinny sky-scrapers

A whole street of skinny sky-scrapers

Whole smoked ducks (I think) at the market

Meat at the market

The market at the east end of the island

Tram's eye view of pedestrians

Trams

Elevated walkway

Our ferry from Kowloon

Our second (nicer but smaller) room in Mirador Mansion

Our tiny toilet-cum-shower

Symphony of lights

Two International Finance buliding; the 9th tallest in the world

Hong Kong Island Skyline

Joanne in the Hong Kong Brew House

This just spoke to the mathematician in me

The oldest reservoir in Hong Kong

Bowingly apologetic worker

View on the way down from The Peak

Feet

Nice microbrewed beer (available in the Hong Kong Brew House)

The platform we paid 20 HKD to get on to

Forest Gump theme shop?

Us on the $20 platform on The Peak

Joanne takes in the "green side" of Hong Kong Island from The Peak

Construction on The Peak

Hong Kong sky-scrapers

And now with Sunglasses!

Oooh that sun is bright!

Hong Kong skyline from above

Crossing from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island

"A big bowl of noodle with all item above stated"

The menu... guess what I chose.

Squid Lips!!

It's a commercial place

Mirador isometric view

Mirador internal view

Sea gulls wind surfing!

View of harbour at Kalk Bay

Cape to Cuba bar

Drinks at the Vineyard Hotel

Michael eating breakfast on the patio of our hotel suite

Table mountain walk

Michael and Dorian chatting

Thomas enjoying ice cream

Lunch at the Vineyard Hotel to check it out before our wedding

Relaxing with Jodi and Sacha

Building overlooking our lovely apartment building

The state of our room

Graphitti on our wall

Graphitti

Mirador Mansions

The appropriately named Mirador "Mansion"

Star Ferry Pier

View over to Hong Kong Island from the Star Ferry Pier in Tsim Sha Tsui

Me and Joanne at the Star Ferry Pier

Maxine and Me with bunny chow

Eating my first bunny chow

Can't remember the name of the wine farm this was taken from...

Joanne at the Cascades

The garden at the Cascades

The Apostles

Agapanthus

Path

Statue at Cascades

View from Cascades

The eponymous cascades

Giant Tortoises outside our honeymoon suite at the Vineyard Hotel

View from our patio at the Vineyard Hotel