A man from Cockshutt. - olliejohnson

Around the world in 180 days

olliejohnson — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Due to staying in Canada and missing my flight back to Sydney, I suddenly found myself without any travel plans. Flights between Canada and Australia are bloody expensive round trip, but one way are even more so. Another consideration was that I needed to return to England at some point before next September in order to get my working holiday visa for Canada. So, it seemed to make quite a bit of sense for me to do that now, and then head back to Aus. I found a cheap flight from Toronto to London (check airtransat out for good deals to/from Canada) and arrived back in the middle of last week. Having escaped temperatures of -15 C (-28 C with wind chill) in Toronto, I brought the cold weather back with me, and a big snowfall arrived during my first night back in the country. This finally gave me the opportunity that had been cruelly denied me for the entire time that I'd been in Canada; to build a proper snowman. I was staying with my brother at the time, and we headed out first thing with his dogs to take advantage of the snow before it melted. As I began rolling up the first ball, I was delighted to find that I was using the only type of snow I'd ever known until my recent excursion in North America: good old British packing snow. Unfortunately, coal was in short supply, and searching our pockets for suitable replacements, we had to rely on dog treats for the snowman's features; but a fine figure was created none the less.

Back in the Cock

That weekend, I finally saw Mr and Mrs J again, about 8 months before they were expecting to see me. Clearly, both were delighted, if a little confused, and I'm now taking full advantage of the goodwill back home in Cockshutt. I'll be here for the next 6 weeks or so (which is about how long the visa process takes,) before heading back off to Australia.

So, after just over 6 months, I'm back where I began. The first part of my travels is over, which will, of course, mean the end of this particular blog. In a couple of months, if I've found anything interesting to write about, then I might just start a new one.
For now, the length of time I'll be here makes getting a job an unfortunate necessity. Working 9-5 back in the Shrews. Back to earth with a bang.

Crazy Old women

olliejohnson — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT

The Canadian (better) Falls

Last weekend, Angela and I headed off to Niagara Falls, which is only a 2 hour drive away from here. I thought it would be nice to see the Falls in Winter, which it was, but it was also bitterly cold, and snowing heavily. Luckily our hotel was just a street up from the Falls themselves, and right next to the Rainbow Bridge (which takes you over the river into America), so our time outside was fairly short, though we still got to walk up to the Canadian Falls, and over the bridge for a few minutes in the USA. The main highlight of our trip however, was not one of the wonders of the natural world. It was, in fact, an old lady in a casino.

Angela and the American Falls

After we’d managed to gamble away the tiny amount that we’d decided we could afford, we grabbed dinner in a restaurant inside the casino itself. As we came out, there was a live band playing covers of loads of old songs. We stopped to watch them for a short while, and only after we’d been there for a couple of minutes did I notice a tiny hunched bundle of clothes, swaying in time to the beat at the front of the stage. Only, on closer inspection, it turned out to be a little old lady (who looked as though she was at least in her late 80’s), perched on the front of the stage with her little legs dangling down in front of her. She was wrapped up unnecessarily snugly in the heat of the casino, refusing to do so much as ditch the headscarf. To complete the old Granny look, she had her knitting to one side of her. The only thing that made her stand out quite as much as she did, and that had led to a fairly sizable crowd to form in a semicircle around her, was the fact that she was playing along with the rest of the band. On her walking stick. That’s right, a little old lady, knitting to one side, was perched on the edge of the stage playing air guitar on her walking stick. And it wasn’t something that she’d decided to do just for a second or even a minute. She spent the next half an hour strumming along to the music, with jaw set and a steely glint of determination in her eye.

An icy tree and the American Falls

After the band took a 10 minute break, they returned with even cheesier songs, such as “Hey Mickey“, and “Like a Virgin”. The little old dear could no longer keep seated. She had to get up and dance (though still playing air guitar on the walking stick). And she wasn’t prepared to do this on her own. She started stalking the crowd of onlookers, turning like an oil tanker before setting course and approaching her pray with an uncomfortably slow sense of inevitability, and pulling her victims in to dance with her. It was while she was in the midst of this crowd interaction that I saw her slowly turn to where me and Angela were standing, and ease on the accelerator. Like in that scene in Austin Powers where the guard gets run over by a steam-roller, I saw this coming from a long way off, had plenty of time to act, and yet felt rooted to the spot. Snapping myself out of this trance, I tried to dart around the corner, only to feel Angela holding on to my arm, tugging me back. “She just wants to dance with you!” My eyes must have shown my blind terror at the thought of not only having to attempt to dance sober, but having to do so in front of a massive crowd of people with a crazy little old lady, who would just stand there playing the air guitar on her walking stick.

A frozen bush and the American Falls

With hindsight, perhaps I should have explained this at the time to Angela. It certainly wouldn’t have been hard to at least have given a slightly more eloquent response than the one my terrorised mind came up with: “F**k that!”. I yanked my arm back and ran to hide behind a slot machine. Yes, a large group of people had just seen me run away from a little old lady, but at least here, crouched behind a slot machine, I was safe. I gave it a couple of minutes before I slowly peeked around the corner. And there was Angela, with a couple of other girls, dancing with the old lady. Feeling slightly ashamed of myself, I crept my way towards her around the back of the crowd. She soon spotted me, and started edging her way away from the old lady. Luckily she didn’t seem remotely pissed-off at me for deserting her. “I just couldn’t run away from her and leave her like that.” I shook my head, and said, “Canadians,” as if that explained it all. We watched a few more victims get sucked into join her ladyship, and then made our way back to the hotel.

The other London

olliejohnson — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Me and Montreal from Mont Royale

In South-western Ontario, nestled halfway between Toronto and Detroit, and in one of the most southerly points in all of Canada, lies a little city called London. Only it's not all that little - it's home to roughly 350,000 (proudly laying claim to being Canada's 11th largest city), and one of the biggest and best uni's in Canada. But, like (I expect) most people on the other side of the Atlantic, I'd never heard of it until a year ago. So, some more London facts: it wasn't founded until 1823; has the most thunder and lightning storms of any area in Canada; the 'London Ribfest' is the second largest rib festival in North America; and last but certainly not least, claims 2 Miss Universes in the last 25 years! Oh, and a famous son, Ryan Gosling, is up for Best Actor at this years Oscars.

Me and Joey the kitten

I arrived here a few days before Christmas to a very warm welcome in a very festive house. I could not have been happier. After the lack of Christmas build-up in Australia, it made a real change arriving somewhere with not only a decent amount of decoration, but also the appropriate weather for the time of year. And arriving in the house a couple of days after me was Val's (Angela's little sister) 'secret' Christmas present to the family - an 8 week old kitten. Naming it that night, Val had to be dissuaded from naming it after a helper at her school and local Ice Hockey Star, Jordan Forman. Not just calling it Jordan, but the full 'Jordan Forman'. After Val turned down several alternate suggestions point-blank, she came up with the inspired choice of "Joey from friends", which was shortened to "Joey".

Bastien the New Year Turkey - dressed to kill.

The only problem was the lack of (promised) snow. But, even though I missed out on a white Christmas, I still ended up having an infinitely better one than I had anticipated when I left home last August. I had a proper traditional Christmas week - meeting lots of (Angela's) relatives and friends, opening lots of presents, doing the last minute Christmas shopping, and even having a chat with Him upstairs for the first time in years, with a Christmas Eve visit to church. And I even got a shout out from the vicar at the start of the service.

After seeing in the New Year in London, me and Angela headed up to Montreal to spend a few days observing the French, and chasing the snow. However, Montreal was in the midst of one of the warmest winter spells in ages, with temperatures up to a relatively mild 11 Degrees C. It took a hike up Mont Royale to discover my first Canadian snow - though it was old, iced-up snow that looked as though it could do with a bit of a clean, it satisfied my snow-lust at least temporarily.

Me revelling in my first sighting of snow in Canada

On top of Mont Royale, which overlooks the city, in between the patches of dirty snow, was an outdoor ice-rink. Having ticked 'seeing snow' off of my Canadian to-do list, I decided it was time for another challenge. So, strapping on the skates, I swallowed my pride and set out on to the ice, knowing that there were few places on earth that I would be shown to be an outsider quite so easily and made to look such an idiot so effortlessly. Happily, with my human stabiliser in hand, I only actually fell over once. And with the appearance on the ice of toddlers that could barely walk, having to push midget-sized zimmer frames in front of them to prevent them from falling over, I at least was able to get the better of someone on the ice. Though that still left everyone capable of forming a sentence to fly past me. And some that weren't.

Angela in a snow storm

Returning to London, my due date to fly back to Aus was rapidly approaching, and never one to be aware of outstaying my welcome, I jumped on Angela's suggestion that I try to rebook my flight - delaying it by another couple of weeks. This would also give me the chance to experience a proper snowfall - and for the last week or so we've had some on pretty much every day. I hadn’t really realised before that there were different types of snow. As far as I was aware, there was snow , and ice, and if you really wanted to break it down even further, there was snow that ‘stuck’ or ‘settled’, and snow that just melted. Judging this later category was an inexact science though, and was usually done in the past tense ie. “looks like that was settling snow”, or “turns out it wasn’t settling snow”. Well, apparently that list isn’t exhaustive - I’ve discovered ‘packing’ and ‘powdery’ snow. Eager to get outside and build a snowman, I’ve had the news broken to me that the snow outside is powdery snow. Apparently, the sort of snow I need is packing snow. If I’m going to do it properly, it seems my snowman is going to have to wait awhile.

A bloody long journey

olliejohnson — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 00:00:00 GMT

The Stock Exchange gets into the patriotic Christmas spirit

Having taken my own sweet time to get to Australia from home, the journey from Melbourne to New York was something of an eye-opener. After the short flight from Melbourne to Sydney came the 13 hour behemoth to L.A. The 4 movies shown during this time still left 5 hours to fill with many failed attempts at sleep. Arriving in L.A. a little disorientated, I was knocked sideways by the full-on Christmas cheer at the airport. Strangely, it reminded me of Die Hard 2 (Die Harder). Without being led by the hand to the gate where I was supposed to take my transfer flight to New York, I soon found myself walking out of the airport, where I was accosted by a tramp. Does anyone else understand why tramps always manage to find themselves Santa hats at Christmas? Anyway, this tramp wanted to help me out. Too confused to fob him off, I had to accept any help I could get. Even if it was from someone too drunk not only to walk straight, but to form coherant sentences, and who smelled like he'd been rolling around in raw sewage. Sadly, even in this state, this man was more reliable than my own sense of direction. After pointing me in the right direction, he, of course, expected payment. Unfortunately for my Christmassy friend, I had no dollars on me. He assured me that he would be happy to accept any currency I had on me. Judging by his reaction to my stuffing several notes into his palm, I can only assume he's not aware of the current Laos Kip - $ U.S. conversion rate.

The Empire State Building

I caught the flight to New York without any trouble, and got to my hostel in Manhattan by the late evening. Woke up fairly early the next morning, and with the train to Buffalo not leaving till the mid-afternoon, I had a few hours to take some photos of the better-looking landmarks. After 8 hours on the train heading up alongside the Hudson, I got to Buffalo, and finally met up with Angela, and met Mr Nyhout (Angela's Dad). I was smuggled over the border (well, the guy assumed we were all Canadians and didn't check our passports), and we arrived in London, Ontario at about 1am.

Rude wombats and leaving Aus for Christmas

olliejohnson — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 00:00:00 GMT

The big Christmas tree in the centre of Melbourne

Two months ago I was sat in an internet café in Bali, whiling away some time looking at flight deals on the web. I came across one from Sydney to New York over Christmas at a pretty good price. Not thinking much more of this than perhaps to give it a surprised ’huh!’, I mentioned it briefly later when I spoke to Angela (my girlfriend), and joked that I could come over to see her for Christmas. It was brought up when we spoke again, and became less ‘wouldn’t it be good if…’, and more ‘should we do it?’. As is the way with these things, the day I went online to book it, the deal had gone. Luckily we both have amazing parents who wouldn’t want to see their lovely children unhappy, so with lots of help from Mr and Mrs Nyhout and Johnson, I’m heading off to Canada on Tuesday - to return to Sydney mid January. So I get to have a proper white Christmas instead of one on the beach with a BBQ (and of course I get to spend it with someone special!) I can’t say I’m too disappointed missing out on the sunny Christmas - like all the other British people I’ve met recently, I have to say that I don’t feel remotely Christmassy yet. The adverts are on, people are talking about it; but I’m just not feeling it.

All the nativity stars together for the final scene

I’ve finally made it out and about with my camera - so I’ve got a few photos of Melbourne at Christmas. My favourite thing is the window display at the department store, Myer. Apparently it’s traditionally a big deal, but I’m not sure if it usually contains the sort of thing that it has this year - a nativity play, but with Aussie animals (though spiders, snakes and crocs are noticeably absent). The story centres around ‘Wombat’, and his attempt to find a role in the nativity play - Possum has already shotgunned the role of Mary, with the Kangaroos taking the 3 Kings, and the Koalas the Shepherds. Clearly the casting director must have been high on the job, as it is only in the penultimate scene that Possum points out that no-one has taken the role of Jesus yet. So, wandering past this scene, you are given the fairly bizarre sight of clothed animatronic marsupials, re-enacting the birth of Christ.

Flinders Street Station - the historic train station in the centre

Last time I wrote, I’d packed in the door-to-door job, and was just about to start work at a call centre (another job that only financial desperation would force me into.) It actually wasn’t all that bad - and I got a good few weeks work out of it. It was at a company that gave information to shareholders in various companies - I saw myself as a bit of a Charlie Sheen - in Wall Street type character. But without the sharp suit and mountains of cash.

Wombat attempting to be the Archangel Gabriel. Unfortunately, he was too heavy...

In the past couple of weeks I’ve seen the first familiar faces for a few months - Nina and Andy. Had a really nice week catching up and getting fed the much-hyped Tanner risotto. And today, another meeting of note - finally caught up with Murph Jr, Tay, Colly and Erin for lunch, and a chat about their travels. It was great to catch up girls, and I hope the rest of your travels are as much fun as they’ve been up to now. I was delighted to see Murph Jr waking Murph Sr up in the middle of the night to speak to me on the phone - though, ideally, this would have been done on a week night. Murph Jr also informed me that the Wombat nativity play has been slightly controversial in Melbourne, as apparently it’s a bit too sexual - the animatronic animals look, to certain strange observers, as though they’re humping each other. Hmmm.

Oh yeah - the Ashes. Can’t say I’ve been enjoying it that much so far. The only thing that brought a smile to my face - apart from KP’s superhuman exploits, was when Warne was picked up on the stump microphone calling Bell ‘the Shermanator’ (as in American Pie).
So, I need to get off to start packing for my next international travels. I set off from the hostel on Tuesday at about 7:30am, and I’ll finally be with Angela 2 ½ days later when she picks me up from Buffalo train station. So, I’ll hopefully be writing my next entry from Canada. I’d like to take this opportunity to wish all my family and friends a very happy Christmas!

Mount Bromo

olliejohnson — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 00:00:00 GMT

View of Mount Bromo from the edge of the large crater

The next morning I climbed into another minivan for the first leg of my trip through Java back to Bali. The other passengers were a French couple, a French Canadian, and a short fat hairy middle-aged Frenchman, who did actually smell, and wore incredibly short shorts. Of course, I ended up stuck in the back of the minivan with fatty. The air-con was broken too. On top of this, the floor in front of me was so hot from the engine underneath, that if I tried to take my flipflops off I got scorched. So, we cooked. And I would describe the smell given off by Frenchman, as something akin to when someone stuck a tuna sandwich in the heater in the English demountable at school, after a few weeks in situ.

The bus stopped after a couple of hours, and without a word, we pulled up over a mechanics' pit, and a couple of guys got out a blowtorch and some spanners and got to work. 1/2 hour later, we were back on our way, and eventually got to our hotel in the pitch black and freezing cold (due to the altitude) at around 9:30.

We were visiting Mount Bromo; another active volcano. Only this one was a lot more picturesque, and a lot less volatile - Bromo is quite happy just sitting there smoking away and looking good. So this means that you can climb all the way to the Crater's edge and have a peek down.

Close up of Bromo itself

Bromo is actually only one of 3 side by side volcanoes, which are all located inside the Crater of an old super-volcano. It was from this super-volcano's edge that we were to get our first peek and photo-opportunity of Bromo at dawn the next morning. And it really was a spectacular sight, with a thin layer of mist covering the massive plain within the Crater, only punctured by the 3 peaks in the centre. As the sun grew stronger and the mist began to recede, you could just make out the temple at the foot of Bromo, and it was towards this that our jeep headed next.

View back down from Bromo's crater towards the temple

It took about 5 minutes to travel across the plain in the jeep, just from the edge to the centre. It was a surreal landscape to travel through - completely flat and desolate from Crater edge to volcano. No trees, no features, just dusty grey sand underfoot.

A look down into Bromo's crater

We got out by the temple, managed to avoid all the locals trying to get us to use horses for the walk, and made our way to the Crater's edge. Looking in, it was a sharp drop down into the centre, but it wasn't that deep. There was a crack right at the bottom, perhaps only a few metres wide, though which the clouds of smoke were pouring. The sulphur in the air here was pretty strong, and after a while walking around the Crater you could really feel it getting in your nose and throat; so I only lasted about 15 minutes up there before heading back down.

We got back to our hotel on the larger Crater's edge in time for breakfast, and were on our way to Bali by 9. We were supposed to arrive in Denpasar in Bali at 7pm. We finally pulled up at the bus station around midnight.

The Lava Hunter

olliejohnson — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 00:00:00 GMT

I spent a couple of days relaxing in Bali before making my next move. With another couple of weeks to go before my flight to Melbourne, I'd decided to head into Java - I booked a flight to Yogyakarta, and planned to get the bus all the way back to Bali.

Yogyakarta is a medium-sized city in the middle of Java, and, as much as the visit to the city itself interested me, I was mainly there for the sights out on the city's outskirts. I spent a couple of days wondering around Yogya, (which everyone seems to call it), which turned out to be enough for me. It is one of the few cities I've visited where you can still get a real sense of what the place was like before Westernisation. The place is still headed by it's own Sultan, and his palace (the Kraton) is a major attraction in the centre of the city. Unfortunately, due it being Ramadam the opening hours were made very anti-social (certainly anti-Ollie), and it closed by midday. And lying in a comfy bed, a decision had to be made between sleep and culture. With 3 consecutive pre 5am starts on the horizon, sleep won out. I did get a photo of the front though.

Borobudur - (A giant buddhist monument constructed in the 9th Century AD)

The first of these early starts took me to a massive ancient buddhist monument called Borobudur. It was built in the 9th Century, and I can only assume it took a bloody long time. It's huge! It has 1,500 narrartive panels carved into the side, and there are 432 man-sized buddha statues sitting there chilling on it. The ones on the top have what look like big upturned laticed bells covering them. Very strange. The views from the top were amaxing though, and I got a good sighter of the place where I would be spending the wee small hours that night; Mount Merapi.

View from the top of Borobudur

Now, I have to admit that I don't have a clue what made me decide to go 'lava hunting' that night, because let's face it, I'm a born coward. Maybe it was just because the poster for it at the tour operators desk looked cool. Maybe because I thought 'lava-hunting' sounded like a manly thing to do. Maybe because I wanted one final excuse to wear my expolorer hat. Whatever it was, I have to admit that if I'd been fully informed about this volcano, there's no way I would have gone. This is what the Lonely Planet has to say: "Merapi is one of Indonesia's most dangerous volcanoes and it erupts with alarming regularity. In November 1994 an eruption killed 69 people; in January 2001, pyroclastic flows and thousands of earthquakes prompted the Volcanology Survey of Indonesia to raise the warning status on the mountain." I don't know what the hell pyroclastic flows are, but I don't reckon they're a good thing.

Mount Merapi from Borobudur

I was the only tourist on this particular trip. It was just me, the middle-aged guy who I booked the tour from (who proudly told me in one conversation that he married his wife when he was 27 and she was 17 - followed by lots of manly laughter and back-slapping. Come to think of it, he did keep on touching my arm all the way on the climb. Hmm.), and his son, who acted as driver. On the way to our viewpoint, we picked up a load of local kids on mopeds who were intrigued by the white guy in the 4x4, and decided to join us for the show. I felt we were going a little 'off-piste' when we started driving around road barracades. We stopped near our destination for some hot ginger tea, and my new fans got an opportunity to chat to me about England and asked if I'd heard of Beckham.

The only tree that survived the eruption

At about midnight we made our final small journey to the viewpoint. The car pulled over, and as I jumped out a cloud of dusty ash enveloped me. It felt like I'd stepped into the Blair Witch Project. Except without the witch and the trees and that. So just lots of darkness really. It was pitch black above, and pitch black underfoot - my torch was only able to shed a small amount of light in the darkness. The only other light given off was from the stars, as the moon was nowhere to be seen. I felt a hand grab my arm, and my guide began marching me uphill, with the fanclub in tow, attempting to avoid the boulders of varying size that dotted what landscape I could make out. We soon reached a small plateau, but when I turned around, there was no-one behind us anymore. I asked my friend what had happened to them. He considered his reply for a second before rapidly patting his heart with his hand. I'd played this game before. "Ok....their hearts are beating faster?...", I looked around for inspiration. Ok, lifeless landscape, massive volcano, and...is that a rumble?
"They're scared?"
"YES!", came the instant reply. Jackpot! The brief moment of celebration at having breached the language barrier was then replaced by no small amount of concern. This was then added to somewhat when my guide shone the torch over to one side. This illuminated a small ditch with a few planks of wood covering the entrance. A closer look revealed a battered-looking door a few feet behind the planks.
"Yesterday," my guide said, motioning grandly at the surroundings. "Eruption, yesterday."
"What! This erupted yesterday?!" I squealed, and was already thinking about how much trouble I'd be in with my mum and my girlfriend for having died whilst visiting an active volcano.
"Yes," he nodded solemnly, "yesterday."
Jesus, Yogya wasn't that far away, but I hadn't heard a thing. Evidently sensing my increasing panic, my guide sought to clarify himself.
"Yesterday.....Juni."
"June?"
"Yes. Juni. 3/4 Months."
"bloody hell mate. Juni is not yesterday. Yesterday is....yesterday," I said gesturing behind me. That should clear it up for him. Still, June was recent enough, and I later found out that 2 people had died in the bunker that he'd pointed out. It'd got buried beneath hot ash and the temperature inside had reached 900 degrees. The whole area where we were (4 km from the crater) had effectively been fairly heavily shat on by Merapi.

A big gazeebo-type thing that was half buried in the June eruption.

I took my place on a 3 month old boulder to watch the mountain for signs of lava. After about 10 minutes my guide shouted excitedley and pointed towards a red hot clump of boulders working their way down the mountain. It did look pretty amazing. And you could hear it too. An intermittant low crackling sound. It was a really unique experience - unbelievably relaxing being so isolated near the top of a mountain in the middle of the night with the most clear sky imaginable, but slightly terrifying too, what with the big pissed-off volcano spitting out red hot boulders in all directions. After 1/2 hour or so watching this, we made our way down, and began the drive back to Yogya.

Getting covered in bat shit in the jungle 2

olliejohnson — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Flo on the canopy walk

Eager to escape our effeminate enclosure, we set off into the jungle that afternoon for more macho pursuits. A 1 and 1/2 hour trek through rainforest followed by a canopy walk fit the bill perfectly. The canopy walk was around 30 metres above the jungle floor, over flimsey bits of wood laid over a laddder of sorts. This was all held in place by a hell of a lot of rope, which in turn was tied to some really old trees. With my explorer hat on, I imagined I was Indiana Jones walking over the rope bridge in the Temple of Doom (far removed from the Graham Norton of our dorm).

Bats in the bat cave

The next day we decided to go to Goa Telinga, which is a small, dark, cramped cave filled with bats. Ever mindful of the dangers of leeches, every precaution was taken. Long sleeve t-shirts and trousers were worn, and to avoid the threat of leeches at ankle-level, personal dignity took a blow as trousers were tucked into socks. Luckily Flo and Marcus had brought head torches, so we could actually see where we were going in the cave. This turned out to be especially helpful considering that there was bat shit everywhere, which made everything really slippy, and also meant I spent a fair amount of time losing my balance and rolling around getting covered in the stuff. It was a pretty weird experience with thousands of bats hanging in the cave around us. Occasionally you hear a load of fluttering and then before you'd even seen it, you'd feel the beating of air past your face as a bat flew right past you.

On a jungle trek

On the way back to the hostel, Marcus somehow managed to get a leech in his sock, which gave him a hell of a bite before being turned to mush. The rest of us, owing to complete over-protection and layers of mosquito spray, managed to stay bite-free. Stupidly, the guys all listend to me when I told them that, contrary to what it specifically said on our tickets, we didn't actually need to reconfirm our return journey to Jerantut for the next day. I'm still certain that that's what the guy said at the meeting. Anyway, my error was to be revealed when we turned up to catch our minibus at 8 the next morning.

Getting settled in Melbourne

olliejohnson — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 00:00:00 GMT

The Yarra - which runs through the centre of Melbourne

I’ve been here in Melbourne just about a month now, so I thought it was about time that I wrote something about what I’ve been up to. The only problem is the complete lack of photos to add to this entry - I keep on forgetting to take my camera out with me when I do go out, and I’ve been too busy/lazy to go on a photo-taking tour of the landmarks. So, sorry about that.

I arrived in Melbourne from Bali in shorts, t-shirt and flip-flops in the mistaken belief that it would be warm in Australia approaching summer. Turned out that it wasn’t. For about the first 2-3 weeks it was actually bloody cold. And to my utter dismay the fates conspired to continue the trend of it always raining on my birthday.

Cathedral with skyscrapers

I spent the first week in the ‘Ritz for backpackers’ hostel, which was ok - the main benefit was that the bar underneath the hostel was the one that hosted the weekly ‘Neighbours Night’ (where you get to meet 3 stars of the show.) It was on my first visit to this, that I met a couple of guys who would be my companions for the next couple of weeks - Rhys and Filipo (the later an Italian with a hilarious Essex accent). Law graduates from Oxford, they were spending a few months travelling before they started their first jobs. This information gave me great hope for the quiz that takes place at Neighbours Night (which we think had a first prize of $200). We came second. Gutted. A few pints of beer and snakebite later and I was in real trouble. Luckily, the stars (Skye, Dillon and Ned) had disappeared by this point, so I was in no risk of making a t**t out of myself in front of anyone famous. Which is surely the main concern on any night out.

The Melbourne skyline by the Yarra

A week later, I had no desire to go again, but the boys assured me it would pay for itself - we would obviously win the quiz this time. We’d go there early, get good seats - not miss a trick. I was encouraged when Rhys randomly bumped into a couple of girls from their course. More Oxbridge intelligence, and being girls, they’d be able to answer questions on Netball and stuff too. I was happy with a team of 5 - $40 each. Then the problems began. The girls each had a drunken bloke in tow, and they had a couple of friends too. 9. $21 each. Then 2 more randoms. And the drunk blokes were on their mobiles, making it bloody obvious to all and sundry that we were cheating. We clearly got busted - we only got a few questions wrong, yet didn’t even figure in the top 5. However, meeting Stefan Dennis cheered me up. Especially when he made an absolute fool of himself asking the audience to sing the chorus of his one ‘hit’ with him to an uncomfortable silence, with the odd interjection of a drunken shout. The others on show were Elle and Stingray.

As I mentioned before, I celebrated my 24th birthday soon after my arrival. I went out in the evening with Rhys and Filipo and managed to score a free meal - a descendant of distant family of Filipo’s lived in the area, and wanted to meet him, so we went out for an Italian meal. This guy had a son who was a promoter of the biggest student nights in the city, so we were taken to one of these and were given free beer for the first couple of hours. Sweet!

I sorted out some proper accommodation in my first week here - I’ve got a room in a house-share. Which seems to be pretty much a bedsit. I get my own room, fully furnished, with all bills included, and have to share a bathroom and kitchen. Only problem is the lack of a lounge. But considering some of my housemates, this is probably a blessing in disguise. There’s 15 of us in the house - with 4 couples sharing rooms. There’s 2 hippy couples, who’ve headed off this weekend to some hippy festival, a big gay Cook Islander (who’s as camp as Christmas) and a hideous pair of middle-aged lesbians (one of whom I actually thought was a bit mental when I first met her, but then I found out it was that she was batting for the other team. Which explained a lot. And I genuinely think she’s an alcoholic too.) The one bright light in all of this is an American girl who works in a pastry shop. Every night that she works, she brings us back a dozen or so pies and pasties. Obviously I make sure I get my fair share, having to compete with the fat Cook Islander and a massive Kiwi bloke who usually snares at least 3.

Federation Square - a collection of strangely shaped buildings in the city centre make up this weird little area

The room is ok once you get used to it - the only problems being the sink which backs up a lot, leaving bits of food floating in it and a strange smell, and the discovery today of a mouse (whom I’ve named Bruce). I’d heard some scrabblings before, but I’d assumed it was from outside. Turns out not. Also, the kitchen isn’t blessed with amazing utensils. There’s now only one bowl to go around the whole house. There was one knife, but that has now disappeared too. I’m having to butter my toast at the moment with the back of a spoon (which actually works pretty well.)

Statue of The Don, outside the MCG

I’d been looking for work for almost a week, money was getting a little tight, when I landed a job doing pretty much the last thing that I’d ever willingly choose to do. Door to door sales. It wasn’t such an intimidating prospect - just trying to get people to change electricity companies. In the 2 days of training, we were told the opportunities would be endless and the money would be awesome. $25 a sale, and we’d be making anything from 6 - 8 sales a day (working a 6 day week). The only thing that would hold us back would be ourselves etc etc. Well, the top-selling rep, an Irish guy with the gift of the gab who’s been doing the job for a year manages 8 sales on a good day, 4 on a bad day. The other reps that have been there for 6 months manage 5 sales. This is all before tax of course. So the money wasn’t actually that good unless you were really experienced and a really good, enthusiastic salesman. Enthusiasm, if you know me well, is something I struggle to bring to the surface much. I think any charm that I have is….well, more of a slow-burner. Personally, I’m quite suspicious of enthusiastic people. Why the hell are they so pumped? Why are they always so happy?? They must be hiding something. Or slightly mental. I just wish I had a tranquiliser gun so I could calm them down when they were around me. So, you can imagine my delight in being trapped in the back of a small car for ½ hour every morning and evening, with the most hyper 17 year-old you can possibly imagine. And this was from first thing in the morning to late in the evening, after a long day of work. After a while of listening to her jabbering on about her life story, we all grew to just sit there and tune her out. Her response to this was to actually sit there and talk to herself. And not just a monologue, but a dialogue. She would ask and answer her own questions. Crazy, crazy girl.

St Kilda beach

I found the job actually not that bad, though I found it difficult to really push people into making the decision to change and sign the contract there and then, which was the only option we were allowed to give them. If we made less than 2 sales a day, we were given a ‘safety cushion’ of the equivalent of 2 sales anyway - $50. Which, after paying for my accommodation, transport and food left me with FA for a day of walking around and taking abuse. So, after almost a week of this, I decided enough was enough, hit the job agencies hard, and have now got an hourly wage ($19.50) working at a call centre. This might sound as bad as door to door, but it isn’t sales, only information from a company the customer is already with. So it should be ok, and it’ll be nice to finally get some money.

Not sure what this is a statue of. But there's a nice palm tree next to it

Melbourne itself is a really cool place. I’m living in St Kilda which is just outside the CBD, and there are lots of really nice bars and shops nearby. Only, I don’t have any money to spend in them. The weather here has definitely improved over this last week, hitting the mid 30’s at one point, and my weird housemates are trying to fire up the BBQ in the yard at any opportunity at the moment. I’m just missing the shrimp at the moment. But as soon as one does cross my path, you can be assured that I’ll throw it straight on the Barbie.

End of the road

olliejohnson — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 00:00:00 GMT

I decided that I'd take a few days off from doing anything when I got to Kuta (the tourist/backpacker haven in the south of Bali), and spent the time sleeping, eating and going to the beach. I had 2 weeks in which to accomplish more, and had great plans to travel the Island, and maybe even brave the 11 hour trip to the Gilli Islands just off Lombok. However, I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't even left Kuta these past 2 weeks. I simply couldn't be arsed (plus the fact that I was so pissed off by the constant harrassment from taxi-drivers and moped people offering transport, that I decided I'd start a one-man stand against them). I've been caught in a coma enduced by excess sleep, cheap food, cheap beer and baking hot weather.

The sun sets on Kuta Beach

So, accomplishments during the last 14 days:

-I've kept a pretty regular sleeping pattern
-This has been composed of the main sleep at night, and early afternoon kip (usually just after lunch) and an early evening kip (between 6-8pm)
-I've managed to become a regular at a sports bar. When I arrive, all I need to do is pull up my stool, and a cool Bintang will already be waiting for me
-I've found a quiet restaurant down a back-alley that puts on Family Guy every time I come in
-I've worked on my tan

So, other news from Bali...

Over the past few days Kuta has been invaded by Japan. Luckily for me and my natural aversion to hard work, the invaders are tourists, and as far as I know, have no desire to annex Bali in a violent coup, round up all the residents and foreigners and begin a brutal regime. But that's only as far as I know...

A game of football on the beach

Anyway, the snap-happy little chaps have given the town a little more life, as it's been remarkably quiet until now. Speaking to people that have been visiting Bali for years, I've found that it's been as quiet as this pretty much ever since the first bombing. The second one last year really was a hammer blow. The backpacker party scene has now moved to Thailand.

Symbolism. A final sunset

Well, apologies for the lack of variety in photos. As I mentioned above, I haven't actually seen anything interesting, so I just took a stroll down to the beach for sunset last night and snapped away.

I'm off to Melbourne in about 10 hours to begin my mission to make 'birthday friends'. The big day itself is next Thursday, and as of now, I have 0 people to celebrate it with.

So, that's it. End of the road. No sooner do I make it as the posterboy of Blogabond, then my reign at the top is cruelly cut short. Just like James Dean, Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain. Except that I won't actually be dead of course. Having said all that, I'll probably write one more blog in a week or 2 from Melbourne. Just to let everyone know how I'm settling in.

Getting covered in bat shit in the jungle

olliejohnson — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 00:00:00 GMT

As I returned to my Guesthouse in Kota Baharu, I found 2 German guys that I'd met on the Perhentian Islands there too; Marcus (who'd been my diving buddy in my Open Water course), and his friend Flo. They're making their way to New Zealand, where they'll be till January before heading home. My German isn't so hot, so luckily for me, Marcus has just graduated as an English teacher, and Flo is also fluent. On a demonstration of my German, they were amazed that I'd had 5 years of lessons at school. Anyway, it turned out that they were heading off to Teman Negara on the Jungle Railway too, and there was a taxi going from our Guesthouse. This made things a lot easier for me.

On the Jungle Railway down to Jerantut

So, the next morning we arrived at the station at 6, met up with Khurum (who had now decided that he didn't fancy Teman Negara any more, so was going to Kuala Lumpur. He had grander plans than our little jungle jaunt. He was off to Borneo.) and got onto the surprisingly comfortable train in the pitch black. The seats were really springy, and the reason for this was soon apparent. We were to be riding a bucking bronko for the next 10 hours. Luckily, it wasn't too hot or packed, so, apart from the bouncing, the journey was relatively comfortable. The scenery was pretty good too, as we were taken deeper and deeper into the world's oldest rainforest (apparently no ice-age or tectonic activity has affected this region).

On arriving in Jerantut (the stopping-off point for journeys into the jungle), we decided to share a room there that night, and head off to Kuala Tehan (the town right next to the National Park) the next morning. The main highlight here was the male receptionist with a ridiculously high voice attempting to flirt with us, and his clear interest in Flo. We went to an 'information meeting' in the evening and were lectured at by the guy giving the talk, who had an annoying habit of shouting "get it??!!", at the end of every sentence. We left after half an hour, during which he'd managed to describe only that there were 2 ways to get to the park; bus or boat.

Water Buffalo in the jungle

Well, it turned out that there was only one option, as when we tried to get the bus the next morning, we were told that it wasn't running, and we'd have to take the 3 hour boat journey, which turned out to be a killer. We saw jungle, some water Buffalo, and that's about it. The boat itself was a long, thin, narrow type, 2 people wide and sitting very low in the water. And there were lots of leaks - there was a guy sat in front of the driver whose sole job was to bale water for the entire journey. The guy I was sat next to, Asif, was an architect in London, travelling alone, and was to join us in our jungle adventures.

Flo posing in the Pink Palace

When we finally arrived, the 4 of us set off to look for accomodation. By this point, I was dying for a piss, so I signed into the first cheap place we came across while the others had a look at some other places. 10 minutes later they came back, saying they'd found somewhere much nicer that was exactly the same price - it had mosquito nets and everything. I really couldn't be assed to move, but they insisted, so I managed to get a refund and headed off with them. Well, words cannot begin to describe the homosexuality of the dorm that greeted me when I opened the door of this new place. Pink and peach mosquito nets, draped over each set of bunkbeds, with little frills at the bottom and even peach coloured walls. This room even smelled of girls.

Me and my 'lovely bear and friends' bedsheets

And to make things worse, my bedsheets had 'Lovely Bear and friends' all over them. I told them it was pretty much the gayest thing I had ever seen (and I've seen Murph dressed up like a woman). Flo decided to dub it 'The Pink Palace'.

Seeing the sights in Kuala Lumpur

olliejohnson — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 00:00:00 GMT

So, we turned up at 8am to catch the bus back to Jerantut, and were subsequently told that we should have reconfirmed as there wasn't enough space on the bus. I put up a storming protest, which centred around blaming someone else (the rep back in Jerantut) for the error. After a little debate and a few phone calls, the woman organising things on our end managed to sort out another bus to come and pick us up, only we were told that we'd have to wait a few minutes as the driver was currently in the shower. When the bus did arrive, he drove at speeds approaching my dad's, and made the journey which usually takes 1 1/2 hours in 45 minutes.

KL Tower

From Jerantut, me Flo and Marcus took local buses all the way to Kuala Lumpur, which still only took just over 3 hours, and disappointingly, there were no weird locals doing crazy things to keep me amused . Using the Lonely Planet as a guide, and with me staying well away from any navigational duties, we made it to our hostel without any problems. Though things did look a little ominous as we climed the stairs to the reception, and saw 5 hippies sat around a table, strumming a guitar and playing bongos. Luckily, this was the extent of the hippy action while we were there.

We spent our short stay looking at really tall buildings and sorting out tickets for wherever we were going next. For me, this meant booking my flight to Bali and finally booking a flight to Australia (from Bali.) I get into Melbourne on October 29th.

Kuala Lumpur from the KL Tower

First on the sightseeing list was the KL Tower - which proudly bills itself as the fifth highest tower in the world at 400-odd metres tall. We got tickets to go up it to the observation deck, which gave amazing views of the city and of the Petronas Towers. From here we walked over the the Towers themselves (the second highest in the world at 450-odd metres tall) and took some photos.

Petronas Towers with a tree in front

Apart from that, all we did was spend some on the internet, get our last tastes of Malaysian food, and drink some ridiculously expensive European beer. I also took it upon myself to expand my German friends' English vocabulary. I've made sure that they're going to arrive in New Zealand and really blend in; using such pleasantries as "old chap", "I am inclined/disinclined to agree with you"; as well as such basics as what "cleavage" and "morning glory" are. I also taught Flo the "DO IT!" line from Starsky and Hutch, which he's adapted with aplomb into an enthusiastic "f**king DO IT", which he's said he can't wait to use in New Zealand. Boys, you're going to be a big hit.

Unfortunately they had to leave for Singapore the day before I left for Bali, which left me on my own again to wander around the city. In the evening I decided to treat myself and have some proper Western food; so I got a rib-eye steak from an Irish bar with a pint of Old Speckled Hen, before heading off to the Hard Rock Cafe for a Fudge Brownie Sundae. It was whilst munching my way through this that a lonely old expat came up to me and asked me if I wanted to join him, as we were the only 2 people on our own. Innocently I went over to his table, but just in case he had any ideas, I quickly mentioned that I had a girlfriend.

It turned out that he just wanted an English person to talk to - he'd lived in Kuala Lumpur for 6 years, was the director of some company over there, and apparently recognised something of himself in me. So I had to sit there for just over an hour as he imparted advice on me, and picked my brain on certain issues. As I was getting ready to leave, he gave me one final anecdote, which compared me to Bambi and him to an old stag. Slightly disturbed and confused, I went on my way.

Perhentian part 2

olliejohnson — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Sunrise over Big Island

I met some really interesting people on the island:
- one guy had spent the last 15 months travelling to this point from England overland. The southern route too - which took him through Iran and Pakistan, and along the Afghanistan border. He reckoned Iran was the most friendly place he's been to.
- another had been travelling for a year and plans to for another 4 or 5. He saved up this money by working as an environmental spy on an oil rig. To do this he had to have a legitimate job on the rig, and got paid shit loads for both. After 4 years of doing this (2 weeks on the rig, 2 weeks off), he'd managed to save 40,000 pounds.
- bizzarely, 2 guys, travelling completely separately, who'd both been in the British under 18 gymnastics squad, and lived at Lilleshall for a few years. Queue drunken acrobatics on the beach at night.
- a Canadian guy who was a pilot in the Yukon (in the North of Canada). He had to fly supplies to various scientific and explorative camps, and absolutely loved his job as he got to spend all day with birds' eye views of the deserted wilderness.

The damage caused by a locked out Ollie

The doors to our chalets were locked by just a small padlock, with a tiny key that i was inevitably going to lose. When this did finally happen, in my attempt to break back into my room, I managed to put my foot through the wall. I eventually found the key underneath the chalet. I tried to hide the damage by pushing the broken plank back into place. It seemed to work.

Richard Keys and Brian Clough.

I also managed to spot a fair amount of nature in my time on the island. I had 2 ghekos; Richard Keys and Brian Clough, guarding my room each night, and they stayed in exactly the same place. I liked them. There were also more monkeys, monitor lizzards, and what I swear were pygmi squirrels. I need someone to check that last one out for me though.

I'm now back in Kota Bharu, and will be heading off to the national park in the middle of Malaysia; Teman Nagara, tomorrow, for more animal fun. The 'Jungle railway' to the park leaves the station near Kota Bharu at 6am. It's going to be an early night.

Phi Phi

olliejohnson — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMT

The ferry from Railay to Phi Phi took 2 hours; in blazing sunshine I decided it was best not to arrive with sunburn and took shelter in the air-conditioned cabin. I hadn't heard too much positive stuff about Phi Phi, but it was exactly what I needed when I got there. It was busy, but not ridiculously so, so the beaches were never too crowded, and the bars never too empty. I also welcomed the chances to have a proper pizza and real English breakfast.

There are two Phi Phi Islands, with the smaller one (Phi Phi Ley), being the one that was used for The Beach movie. The Thai government wanted to keep at least one fairly untouched, so no 'development' is allowed on Ley; it's all restricted to the bigger island. Both are still stunningly beautiful. The larger island is basically 2 parallel sets of hills joined in the middle by arcs of sand. This creates 2 bays and 2 main beaches (though one is now primarily just a harbour), with a small town in the middle. I took this photo from a viewpoint on one of the hills.

From this, you can see why Phi Phi was hit so badly by the Tsunami - such a thin, flat strip of land. It's only really beginning to properly recover. Over 2,000 people died on the island, the majority of which were tourists hitting the beach first thing. There are now warning signs around the beaches. However with the advice consisting of "run to higher ground", I'm not sure how much good they would really do. At one end of the main beach there is a memorial garden for the victims of the Tsunami. I'm not usually one to say this or that really affected me in any great way - I'm almost perpetually and frustratingly underwhelmed. Perhaps that's why I came travelling. But anyway, walking around this beautiful little garden, decorated with various things that were washed up by the Tsunami, and then seeing the wall with plaques of names of some of the people that died, and photos with notes from relatives... Well, it was very moving. I think it's added to by the fact that there's still a lot of obvious work going on in the clear-up. It makes it all very real rather than just some abstract tragedy. But, as I say, there were plenty of tourists on the Island when I arrived, and it was getting busier and busier, which is what the Island and the people need more than anything.

The Guesthouse I found on the Island was called Ban Thai, and I mention this because the woman that ran it, Mrs Lee, was an absolute legend, and I highly recommend staying there if you get the chance. She's like a mother hen looking after her brood - she runs a tight ship and keeps everyone in line, but goes out of her way to do everything she can to help you out. She learns everyones' names and always asks how you are and where you're off to. When I arrived she was bollocking this Israeli guy for being late, and when I checked in she told me, "don't be stupid" and put loo roll in the toilet. Wouldn't dream of it Mrs Lee.

Every evening I ended up at "Hippies Bar", where I met more and more Irish every night, with pretty much everyone going off to Australia. With all these Irish around me talking about how Australia was the land of opportunity, was the place to go for a better life, how they didn't think they were going back, it was like being taken back 100 years ago to when the Irish flooded to the States.

With the Coup in Bangkok a curfew had been set in place, which I hadn't had the opportunity to notice at Railay. It meant that no music was allowed to be played after 12 for the next 2 weeks. They could serve drinks, but couldn't play music. This seemed pretty pointless to me, as people still stayed out till the morning regardless of the lack of music.

spent one of the days here on a boat and snorkeling trip around the Islands with 4 Canadians and an English girl from my Guesthouse. Had a really cool day relaxing amongst some of the best scenary I'd seen so far. We went to Shark Point (which was sadly devoid of sharks), Bamboo Island, Monkey Island (where I wanted to resume battle, but they weren't up for a fight. Cowards), and finally Maya Bay on Phi Phi Ley. Unfortunately we arrived at low tide, but it was still pretty spectacular.

Mrs Lee woke me up on my last morning on Phi Phi to make sure I caught the 9 O'Clock ferry back to Krabi. She'd organised my whole journey down to Malaysia. She wished me a safe trip and I was on my way.

Learning to dive in the Perhentians

olliejohnson — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Long beach on Perhentian Kecil

The journey down to Sungai Kolok at the Malaysian border went without a hassle. It just took a bloody long time. On the second mini-bus I'd had to take I got chatting to 3 guys from Leeds who were also on their way to the Perhentians. When we got to Sugai Kolok it was pitch black outside. Perhaps expecting some sort of assistance in crossing the border, we were a little surprised when the minibus stopped in a deserted carpark and told us to just walk in the direction of the lights he was pointing at. We did as we were told, and eventually came to a deserted border crossing point. As we walked across the bridge that marked the border, we could hear the wailings coming from evening prayers at the Mosques in Malaysia. I've found that Islam is really really big here.

We shared a taxi into Kota Baharu, from where we'd be able to get a taxi to the port in the morning. Used a map in my Lonely Planet, and actually found what I was looking for. Got a ticket from the Guesthouse for the speedboat to the Perhentian Islands for the morning. This also included the price of the taxi to the port at 8 the next morning. Somehow I slept through my alarm (though to be fair it is just my ipod's alarm turned up to maximum), and was woken by banging on my door at 8 telling me my taxi was waiting. Everything was shoved into the backpack and I dived into the cab offering my sincere apologies to my travel companions not only for my lateness, but for my not having time to shower. The speedboat to the Island was amazing. The guy just floored it.

My 'chalet' on Perhentian Kecil

The Perhentians are a pair of Islands about 8 miles off the north-east coast of Malaysia, and like Phi Phi, one is known as 'big' island, the other 'small'. I stayed on small island (Kecil), on Long Beach, which had a lower standard of accomodation, but was cheaper and had a better nightlife. My 'chalet' here was even more basic than the one I'd had on Railay. And it was rotting beneath me. There was one shared bathroom block (shared with all the other chalets and the local dive school) - 2 toilets and 2 showers. No sinks, no mirrors.

View from my chalet in Perhentian Kecil

The showers were hoses with a tap on, and obviously only had cold water. But apart from that, the island was amazing. Really beautiful, and despite what I'd heard, had a decent nightlife. Alcohol was freely available, despite being told that it wouldn't be due to it being a Muslim country. There was a really cool bar actually on the beach where everyone would end up, as it would serve until the last person left. The barman was a legend, and had a really eclectic taste in music - his favourite band was Deep Purple. There were also nightly BBQs on the beach, and they used a special maranade which was delicious. The Barracuda was my favourite.

My fellow learners and me

I decided soon after arriving on the Island that I'd finally take a scuba diving course, which would then allow me to dive all over the world up to 18 metres deep. During the course I got to see lots of Clown Fish, Trigger Fish, Sting Rays (who are the new Great White apparently) and a school of massive, 1 metre long parrot fish. The course eventually took 5 days, as there was one guy (Khurum) on our course that really struggled. He's one of the most accident-prone guys I've ever met, and it looks like I'll be heading into the jungle with him at Taman Negara. This is a good idea as it'll then mean that if anyone is going to get bitten, stung or eaten, it'll be him. I'll just have to make sure my first aid kit is to hand.

Troublefree Monkeys and troublesome snakes

olliejohnson — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMT

West Beach as the day draws to an end

I arrived in Krabi in the early evening, so just had time to get a Guesthouse, wonder around the night market and work out how best to get to Railay the next morning. Turned out it's really easy; all you need to do is rock up to the peer when you want to go, and when there's enough people, you all get in the longtail boat and set off.

My 'chalet' in Railay

Railay isn't actually and island, but it's at the end of a small peninsular and completely disconnected by road, so has a real island feel with beaches on 3 sides. I got to Railay at high tide, which meant minimum wading through waters with a backpack. If I were to have to do this, you can be certain I would be the sort of person to fall in. I made my way up to 'Railay Cabana' despite the warnings of locals on the way telling me it was miles to walk. It actually only took about 10 minutes. Like pretty much all the other accomodation in Railay, it was a collection of huts, ambitiously described as 'chalets', but as it was only 150 Baht a night, it meant I had more to spend on food and alcohol.

A Monkey with its' baby

On the way to and from the beaches I had to negotiate a pack of monkeys that were searching through a hotel's bins daily. Without the benefit of a stick to hand with which to beat them, I decided not to spoil for a fight.

Not really sure which beach this was. But it looks nice.

There are 3 beaches on Railay, though only 2 of them are the sort of beaches you'd want to spend time on: West Beach and Phrao Nang (to the North). The whole place was relatively deserted, which meant that there was no more than a dozen or so people on a beach at any one time. It also meant that most of the bars in Railay were closed, and those that were open were empty; so there wasn't much in terms of nightlife. But I still speant a few days enjoying the beaches and swimming in the warm, clear water before heading to Phi Phi.

Longtail boats at sunset on West Beach

I managed to catch a couple of sunsets on West Beach, and got some pretty nice photos. On my last night in Railay, on returning to my hut in the pitch black, I switched on the light to find a snake enjoying the few home comforts my accomodation was offering. Rather than scream like a girl and run away (which would have been my usual reaction), I did the much more Manly thing of shining my torch in its' eyes until it left the hut. I was finally becoming a man at one with nature.

Dodging tanks in Bangkok

olliejohnson — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Koah San Road in Bangkok

Unbeknown to all of us trying to get some sleep in the back, the driver must have been in a real hurry to get to Bangkok. Maybe he knew something we didn't. But the upturn of all of this, was that rather than arrive in Bangkok at the relatively unreasonable hour of 7am, we got there at 4 instead. Hoping against hope that we would just be left to sleep while the bus parked up till 7, I was forcibly ejected, with the small consolation that I managed to hang on to the blanket we'd been given at the start. Any thoughts of just finding a quiet corner to continue my kipping till daylight were soon banished by the sight of rats the size of small dogs scurrying around my feet, not to mention the festering stink that seems as much a part of Bangkok as ladyboys and cheap t-shirts.

Temple across the water

So my mind was made up to find somewhere to crash for the next few hours and the following night, while I sorted out what my next move was going to be. This would also give me a chance to have a quick look around the city. Luckily I came across a Guesthouse that had a wardrobe free, and this was to be my room for the next 36 hours. If I contorted myself in a particular manner I could touch all 4 walls at once (though, admittedly, I would be unlikely to sleep in such a position.)

Giant reclining Buddha

So I spent the next day wandering around the local markets, going to Chinatown, visiting a temple that housed the largest reclining buddha in Thailand, and catching up on email. The buddha is in only one part of a massive temple complex, and there were loads of weird and wonderful statues dotted around, with some other interesting-looking buildings with lots of spires. The buddha itself was indeed very long. Apparently the 'recline' was the position adopted when the buddha was on its' way to Nirvana. It does look pretty comfortable.

Camp statue outside giant buddha temple

In the evening I booked a flight for the next day to Krabi, and caught Man U losing at home to Arsenal. Had a sweet and restful sleep. 24 Hours later, whilst I was wondering around Krabi, the tanks rolled in and the first coup in 17 years quietly took place.

Tubing in the dark

olliejohnson — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMT

The journey from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang really couldn't have started any better - I had one of the best sandwiches I've ever had whilst waiting for the bus to go. A chicken and salad baguette with a touch of mayo. The bread was perfect - not too soft, not to brittle. The chicken was still warm! The salad was cool and crunchy, and best of all, there was no tomato for me to pick out before eating it. And it was perfectly seasoned with a good measure of pepper. It was indeed a thing of beauty. As I walked onto the bus, I was still shaking my head in disbelief as to how good that sandwich had been. It took a chap walking past me with a semi-automatic rifle hanging around his shoulder to snap me out of my trance.

Of course I'd heard that this was probably going to happen from other travellers, but it's still a bit of a surprise when you see it. The reason (as I understand it,)for this armed 'guard' on most journeys between Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang, is due to the linking road (Route 13) having been attacked by bandits fairly heavily in the past. However, I'm really not sure what good it would do anyone to have one armed guy on the bus against a group of armed guys attacking the bus. Personally, I'd much rather that guns were taken out of the bus altogether, so that there was no need for anyone to fire one at anybody else. Luckily though, our trip was bandit free. I don't think our guard was up to much anyway - he spent the whole time sleeping, with his gun poking him in the side, as likely to shoot himself in his sleep than defend us against any outside terrors.

The route for the first 4 hours takes you over and around the most windy mountains you could possibly imagine. And the bus driver didn't like to break too often. So, although I'd managed to get a double seat to myself, any thoughts of lying down for a kip soon went out the window, as I'd either slam my head into the wall, or slide off the seat altogether. Eventually we arrived in Vang Vieng in one piece, and I got a room for about $2 a night.

Vang Vieng is a really weird place. It sort of springs up in the middle of nowhere. It's on part of a massive dusty flat plain, with mountains reaching up to one side and far in the distance; and the river running beside it manages to remain hidden until you're actually on it. The town seems to exist soley because of the backpackers going through it. It's a bit of a surreal place - almost like Las Vegas in that you're not sure if there is a real heart to it anymore, or whether it's just an exotic Centre Parcs.

The Guesthouse I was staying in was one of those that showed Friends from about 8 in the morning to 11-11:30 at night. And, as with most of the bars and restaurants in Vang Vieng, it had really comfortable seating (consisting of raised platforms with loads of cushions and pillows, and a small table in the middle) which, once you'd sat down, was so comfy that it was difficult to sum up the energy to get back up again. You could end up going somewhere for lunch and then staying there till closing time - on my first evening I put myself through 5 hours of Friends (series 10)in a paralysis of comfort. When I came down the nest morning, series 1 was back on, and so it goes on and on and on. Another bar showed Simpsons on a loop, with others showing various movies. On my last night I found one that had a load of Family Guy.

Apart from all this culture, I also managed a couple of day-trip type activities, one of which was the famous (among backpackers anyway) tubing along the river. You get given an old lorry-tyre tube, which you jump in and stop at the various bars along the route back to Vang Vieng. We started at around 1 as we'd heard that things didn't really get going until then, but it turned out that as it was the sunniest day for a long while, the river was absolutely packed. The bars were really good fun, and apart from serving beer and other drinks, had music and massive rope swings that took you really high above the water. We were having such a good time in the bars, that it began to get dark before we realised it - and we had to get the tubes back by dark,
a)because the hire-company asked that you do so, and
b)because otherwise we had no idea of where we were going or when to stop.
So, in a slight panic, our group of about a dozen quickly jumped in the tubes, tried to stick fairly close together, and hoped for the best. It turned out that we needn't have worried, as the neon lights of the bars beyond the finishing points guided us home.

I also spent a day kayaking, but there was only 3 of us doing it, so I had to share a kayak with our Lao guide, who soon quized me as to whether I was married and about my girlfriend. He told me that I should have 3 girlfriends, and although he explanied why, I couldn't really understand him. So I asked him whether he was married. He wasn't. Did he have a girlfriend. No. He laughed when I asked this. I was beginning to feel uncomfortable, but was slightly reassured by the fact that if he tried anything on whilst on the kayak, I'd just capsize us.

We stopped to look at some caves later in the morning. The first one was the 'elephant cave', so called because there was a rock that looked like an elephant in it. And that was about it. There was some buddhist stuff in there too, and our guide (coincidentally called Row) decided it was time for a story. One that would sap our will to live, as it would plod on for the next 15 minutes, with Row using his great theatrical talents to give different voices to all the different characters. I think it was about a dragon that lived in the cave. The monk that lived in there too told him he was lazy. And then so did a monkey. The dragon said that he couldn't do anything else because the villagers were scared of him. So the monk said he could stay and guard the temple. There was no further mention of the monkey.

Then we went to another cave, this time semi-submerged, and to go through we laid on tubes and had to follow a rope. It was actually a bit more fun than I've just made it sound. Afterwards we kayaked back to Vang Vieng.

I'd heard through the grapevine that there really wasn't much to do in Vientiane, so I decided to just book a trip all the way back to Bangkok. This still gave me a couple of hours to have a look around Vientiane in between bus journeys. My impression of it is: it's still a bit French. Went over the 'Friendship bridge' back into Thailand and boarded our 'luxury' sleeper bus that would arrive in Bangkok at 7 in the morning.

Stalking tigers

olliejohnson — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Gun at the top of Phouset Hill

This is definately one of the most chilled-out places I've been to. It's a surreal experience walking through the market at night, as the sellers are all so relaxed the most you can expect is a 'hello', unless you start looking through their wares. Spent a lot of time doing not very much here. I walked up Phouset Hill in the middle of the town, which gives amazing views of the area, and there's a temple at the top too. There's also a reminder of the revolution that happened not too long ago, with a massive gun right next to the temple.

View from the top of Phouset Hill

I rented a mountain bike for a day, and headed off to Khoung Si waterfall, which was 28km to the south of the town. As I set out, I reasoned that that was only 17 or so miles. I hadn't thought that it was, naturally a return journey, or that I might have to go over mountains. It took me close to 2 hours to get there, and I arrived close to being a broken man. However, the waterfalls made it all pretty much worth it.

The big waterfall at Khoung Si

After an hour or so swimming around in the freezing waters on a hot day, I made my way back to the bike through the forest. I turned a corner and came face to face with a tiger, slowly walking in my direction. Fairly understandably, I froze (I'm not sure how this natural reflex reaction is actually supposed to do you any good).

A tiger

Then, I noticed that she was in fact in a cage, none of which I'd noticed on my way up to the waterfalls. Apparently it's all part of a protection scheme in Laos, and nearby were some black bears being 'saved'. The advice on the tigers cage seemed fairly sound - it urged you not to poke anything through the cage as the tiger would actually bite it. Surely we should let Darwinism take care of the sort of people that need these warnings - we need them out of the gene pool.

Anyway, the ride back wasn't so bad, as it was mostly downhill. I swallowed my pride and resorted to pushing the bike up any hills, whilst being overtaken by children on bikes without gears. Had a really good street buffet that evening before heading off to the now infamous Hive Bar for the night. Sensible planning, as I was getting picked up at my guesthouse the next morning at 7:30 for the dreaded bus to Vang Vieng.

Cruising down the Mekong, Day 2

olliejohnson — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Pak Beng. That's pretty much all there is to the town.

Spent most of the evening in Pak Beng trying to dodge a Laos Professor who'd latched onto me at the guesthouse. Apparently he specialised in earthworms.

"You've heard of earthworm?", he asked me during our first conversation. I knew he was a Professor and that he was working in the area. So, for some reason I thought he was referring to some sort of 'project earthworm', that any Westerner with a heart should know about. Perhaps some kind of Oxfam-type scheme, where they don't just get a fish, they get a net so that they can do their own fishing. Work themselves out of poverty. That sort of thing. Yep, Project Earthworm. I was a big supporter already.

"Have I heard of Earthworm?" I attempted a serious, yet caring face. "I definately recognise the name, and the sort of area it's in, but I'm not exactly sure what it does if i'm honest."

This seemed to confuse him. It evidently wasn't the answer he was after. He resorted to simply repeating himself. "Earthworm." He waggled his finger. This, I understood.

"Oh the actual earthworm. Yeah,I know those." And so he went on to talk at me for half an hour about his earthworm fun. He'd been digging up the critters all over Laos, and had even found one 115cm long in the North. I wasn't sure if this was exceptional in the world of earthworms, so I ventured an entusiastic "wow! That's big!"

"No," he corrected. "Long, not big." Schoolboy error. Clearly, I still had a lot to learn about studying the earthworm.

My wads of Laos cash

The Laos currency is Kip, by the way. It's almost as pointless as the Lira was. 10,000 Kip to a US Dollar. So, when I changed my Dollars to Kip at the border, the guy got out 2 fat wads of cash. I expected him to count out what I was owed. He pushed them towards me. Slightly embarrassed by my sudden elevation to cash-in-hand millionaire, I stuffed the wads in my bag and made my exit.

Mist on mountains next to Mekong

The journey on the Mekong the next day was a bit more pleasant as the boat was less crowded. There was, however, a massive rainstorm, which forced the driver to beach us for 20 minutes, as the engine was filling up with water and we had begun to list to one side. The baggage on board was shifted to the other to act as a counter-weight. With a bit of bailing and an easing up of the storm, we were soon back on our way, and arrived in Luang Prabang in the early evening. Joined up with some English guys I'd met on the boat and got a cheap guesthouse, before sniffing out a bar that was showing live Prem. Caught Everton stuffing Liverpool 3-0. Not the re-introduction to football I'd have liked.