Nic and Fabio doing the World

2010-10-06T16:09:00.005+01:00

2010-08-18T10:57:00.003+01:00

2010-08-02T14:24:00.002+01:00

2010-05-10T17:54:00.022+01:00

2010-05-07T14:13:00.007+01:00

Sorry... and a brief update

2008-07-09T20:09:00.002+01:00

So much for my promise of a big review of the travelling etc etc. Well, as I was just about to do it on the evening we were due to leave Bangkok, I discovered that our flight (to London) was 4 hours late meaning that we would miss our flight to Naples from Heathrow. So, instead of spending more time on the internet I had to rush to the airport and demand to go on another flight in order to make the connection. It was a close thing but we made it in the end. Some 20 hours later we arrived in Naples.

It's as hot as you like here, about 34 degrees, and non c'è aria condizionata anywhere (having become so accustomed to air conditioning in Asia.)

Anyway, the big review will come another day, but for the time being all is well here in Naples. I started my Italian course on Monday and am going to school for four hours every day. It's good fun and I think I should be speaking a respectable Italian by the time it's over. There's no other English people in the course, which I was disappointed about at first because I had visions of me getting a little gang of English people to hang around with in Naples, but I suppose from a learning point of view it'll be better.

Last weeks in Thailand

2008-06-30T13:01:00.004+01:00

Blimey it's over two weeks since I last updated the blog. The last time I wrote we were in Bangkok, and now we're in... Bangkok! But we haven't been here all the time, we did actually escape down south for a couple of weeks.

First we got the night train down to Surat Thani and the boat to Ko Samui. We stayed at Chaweng and my God, I thought it was pretty built up and Mallorca-style the last time I was there years ago but it was nothing compared to now.. there's Starbucks and Burger King and everything. Although the beach is nice and it wasn't too crowded since it's not high season at the moment, the town itself is a bit grim. But the weather was nice so we stayed for a few days before getting on the boat to Ko Pha Ngan, which is slightly less built up than Ko Samui but still choc-full of backpackers. The weather wasn't nice at first but we managed to amuse ourselves well enough in getting massages, pedicure/manicure and watching pirate DVD movies at the many cheap restaurants in Had Rin. Then, just as we were thinking of cutting our losses and heading back here to Bangkok, the weather improved so we were able to get a bit more sun.

To be honest we probably haven't made the best use of our time in the Thai islands in only doing Samui and Pha Ngan, and it might've been better to head over to the Andaman coast and Ko Phi Phi / Ko Lanta etc but with the weather so up and down we were quite happy to just stay put and make the most of it.

So the travels are finally pretty much at an end! We leave Thailand on Thursday although instead of coming straight home we're going to Italy (Naples) for 5 weeks, where I'm going to do an Italian course. So, as of next Monday I'll be in the classroom for 4 hours every day studying hard! And after that little sojourn we'll officially be back in the UK on 9 August.

That's all for now, I will try to post again once more before we leave for Italy! Something like a post-trip analysis / review type thing perhaps.. stay tuned...

Angkor Wat and back to Bangkok

2008-06-15T16:24:00.002+01:00

Thursday we went to one of the things we'd been looking forward to for a while: the temple complex of Angkor Wat. It's one of the unmissable things in Cambodia, probably even in South East Asia, and it's everywhere in Cambodia, on the flag, it's the name of the national beer, and millions of bars, shops and restaurants are Angkor-something. They are just so proud of it. So we thought it must be pretty good and we even got up at 4am in order to see it as the sun rose, (although you couldn't really see the sun since it was too overcast.)

The whole complex itself is huge, like hundreds of square kilometres with loads and loads of temples, and Angkor Wat itself is the one which gives it's name to the site because it is the best preserved. To see all the temples in detail would probably take a week, and in fairness we probably tried to see too much in too short a time, as after going to Angkor Wat we did a whistlestop tour around Angkor Thom (an old walled city just north of AW temple) and then approx 10 other temples none of which I could really tell you that much about and by about 1pm we were totally templed-out so we headed for home.

The reputation is deserved though and certainly the main temple is pretty awesome; especially if you consider it was built in the mid 12th century. As for the other temples around, it was just difficult to really imagine what they must have been like since they weren't in such a good state. I read somewhere that the first western visitors to the temple (in the 1500s or so) thought it was so impressive that it couldn't possible have been built by stupid Khmers and it must have been the Greeks or something - charming!

Here's a few more pictures...

After Angkor, we left Cambodia by doing the epic journey by land from Siem Reap to Bangkok. The road from SR to the border was the worst I've ever seen, we took a taxi and just bounced along for 3 hours - rumour has it that the airlines pay the Cambodian government to keep the road in bad repair although it is heavily trodden by tourists to encourage people to fly the route instead, allowing them to keep this route at one of the most expensive in Asia (about 150 dollars one way.) After getting persuaded to join a minibus at the border and waiting 2 hours, the rest of the journey was pretty smooth, and 10 hours after departing Siem Reap we arrived back at good old Khao San Road, Bangkok.

I've never been the biggest fan of Bangkok but I'm starting to like it, for one thing it looks so damn western and modern compared to everywhere I've seen in the past 6 weeks! Not that it isn't nice to go a stretch without ever seeing a Starbucks or the Golden Arches, but sometimes those familiar signs of globalisation and capitalism can make you feel right at home :-) Yesterday we spent the whole day at Siam Square which is where all the big department stores and designer shops are, just soaking up all the civilisation! Oh yeah, and I finally got to see the Sex and the City movie which I'd been dying to see and was not at all disappointed. The cinema in Thailand is funny, you have to stand up for the national anthem just after the trailers and before the film starts.

Today we did more shopping, this time at the Chatuchak Market, which is a humungous market selling everything you could ever imagine. One of the best bits was the pets section where they had loads of really cute puppies and kittens, and even snakes, scorpions, chinchillas and hedgehogs (!) I bought: two Hello Kitty shower caps, a pair of cheap sunglasses and a magnet with a tuk-tuk on it. Great fun.

We're not really sure what the next stop is, we'll probably head south and try and get some more beach action in before going home, but not sure whether to do Andaman coast or Gulf coast or even to go as far down as Malaysia where the weather is better. Until next time!

The Killing Fields and S-21 (and more)

2008-06-09T13:36:00.006+01:00

First off, since I didn't post any pictures last time, here's one or two from the trip on the Mekong Delta. This is me on the speed boat from the Vietnam/Cambodia border to Phnom Penh...

Some fish being fed and going mental at the fish farm (as requested ;-))

So when I wrote last time, we were in Cambodia's illustrious capital Phnom Penh, and in fact that's where I'm writing from this time too. We haven't been here all the time, we took a trip down to a place called Sihanoukville on the coast for a few days and then came back here yesterday, intending to only stay one night before heading up to Angkor Wat but I was really sick yesterday so stayed another day to recover. Anyway, Sihanoukville was nice, quite backpacker-ish though. Also we tried to spend a day on the beach but it was just too tedious fending off the armies of kids selling things, beggars with no legs, people trying to give you a massage/pedicure etc so we opted to lie by the pool at the hotel the rest of the time. Unfortunately my camera totally stopped working for about 6 days, so I've got no pictures from Sihanoukville at all, but happily it's miraculously come back to life now.

So last week before heading down to S'ville we saw the main sights of Phnom Penh which are rather gloomy in that they're all about the genocide of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime (1975-79). First we took a tuk-tuk out to the Killing Fields of Cheoung Ek, about 15k or so outside of town, which was the site where thousands of people were massacred during the regime. Mainly they were killing people who had been connected to the government of the previous regime, but also foreigners, intellectuals, even people who wore glasses (a sign of being clever and therefore a threat to the regime.) At the fields themselves is a huge white memorial stupa which is filled with shelves of skulls from some of the bodies disinterred from the mass graves. Some of them still had blindfolds on and some showed evidence of being bashed in the head in order to save bullets. This is the building from a distance, I did take one of all the skulls up close but on reflection I think it is in poor taste.

Around the stupa you can walk around the fields and because all the graves haven't been disinterred in many places you can see bones and pieces of clothing sticking out of the ground which, as I'm sure you can imagine, is pretty chilling.

After getting back to town we headed to depressing sight #2 of the day which was the Tuol Sleng Torture Museum (also known as S-21). Prior to the Khmer Rouge regime it was a high school, but they then used it for imprisoning and torturing their victims, some 96% of whom ended up being carted off to the Killing Fields and murdered. The picture below is one of the classrooms which was used as a torture cell for one unfortunate victim: when the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and liberated S-21 in 1979 they found 13 people who had been tortured to death in each one of the classrooms and there is a black and white photo in each room showing how it was when they found it - you can see the photo on the left wall.

Like the Nazis, Pol Pot's men kept really pristine records of their killing machine so also on show was walls and walls of photos of the victims who went through S-21, some of them just young teenagers and even women holding babies. All in all a pretty grim and distressing experience, although I think it's important to see these things and try to understand a bit. Here was a sign I had to take a picture of just for sheer bizarre-ness, I guess it is forbidding laughter, but it's really quite unnecessary as it would be hard to imagine finding anything to giggle about in such surroundings!
To round off this is just a general shot of the independence monument here in Phnom Penh.

So the next stop on our itinerary is Siem Reap and Angkor Wat where we're heading tomorrow, and after that we will be back to Thailand for a few weeks. Right now it's dinner time and we're off to a lovely place we went to twice already last week, a wicked Italian place run by a chap (Giorgio) who's from near where Fabio is from in Naples. Ciao for now..

Saigon and the Mekong Delta

2008-06-02T13:22:00.003+01:00

After arriving in Saigon - Ho Chi Minh City if you prefer (although most locals seem to refer to it as Saigon) - on Wednesday morning, we spent the afternoon wandering around the city and went to the fairly brutal War Remnants Museum (formally known as The American War Crimes museum.) It was pretty interesting but not for the squemish - there was a big section of the display about the effects of the US use of the herbicide Agent Orange including deformed foetuses in formaldehyde, and numerous pictures of grotesquely disabled or napalm burned people. It must be so embarrassing to be an American tourist in Vietnam given that you can't go anywhere in that country without being reminded of the horrific atrocities perpetrated by US troops during the war. Of course it's all highly biased propaganda and you never hear about any untoward behaviour from the North Vietnamese troops, but even so there's some pretty damning evidence.

The following day we took a trip out of the city to the Cu Chi tunnels, which is a network of tunnels used by Vietcong troops during the war. Again, there was a lot of American bashing. The most interesting aspect of it was just seeing how resourceful these Vietcong guys were, when you consider they were up against the Americans who had all the most modern warfare technology, and they were running rings around them by tunneling under the ground and catching them in ingenious booby traps made from sharpened bamboo sticks and stuff.

After 2 days in Saigon we decided to head for Cambodia, via a 2 day trip in the Mekong Delta. This involved (on Friday) travelling to Cai Be, about 3 hours from Saigon, where we visited a village where they make rice paper (which is actually quite tasty!) and coconut candies (we bought a bag which we ate in one go and felt sick). Then we went to a few other floating market- type places, before staying the night at Chau Doc near the Cambodia border (in a totally grim hotel I might add.) The next morning we headed on a boat up the river, stopping at a fish farm on the way, to the border where we swapped to a speed boat which took us most of the rest of the way to Phnom Penh. This was the best bit of the trip, the rest of which seemed a bit disorganised and disjointed. We felt sorry for a Swedish girl who was in our group - she had outstayed her visa by one week and was sent all the way back to Saigon (about 8 hours) - having been told she would be able to pay a fine at the border it turned out this is not the case if you are more than 3 days over the limit, d'oh!

So we are now in Phnom Penh, and have the dubious honour of staying at "Rory's Pub" -the only genuine Irish pub in Phnom Penh apparently. Anyway, it's a bit of a dump and we haven't exactly been overwhelmed by the landlord's Irish charm and hospitality but the location is good. I quite like this city on the whole - Fabio thinks it's a sh*thole and can't understand why I like it. I must admit that there is a lot of building work going on which makes it really noisy, and there is a lot of rubbish in the streets (including dead rats) which makes it quite smelly, plus there's loads of beggars and people trying to get you in a tuk-tuk or buy a book, etc so it probably doesn't sound so good. But on the plus side there's lots of nice bars and restaurants, lots of pretty temples and buildings, and the people are really friendly (apart from the staff at Rory's pub.)

Anyway more on Phnom Penh and Cambodia in the next post as it's dinner time now. Hopefully I'll find a place with a connection speed which is up to posting some photos next time too, but that may be optimistic since they seem to have trouble even with the electricity supply here let alone the internet connection - the power went down for about 3 hours this afternoon leaving us with nothing to do other than drink warm cola in the pub with no fan or air-con and flies crawling all over us - nice!

Lazy Days

2008-05-27T11:53:00.002+01:00

There's not much to report since my last entry so this is a very short one. We are still in Nha Trang, but only just as tonight we head to Ho Chi Minh City / Saigon on the night train.

We've been extraordinarily lazy in that I don't think we've been outside of a 250m radius of our hotel for the past six days, since the beach is right here as are all the decent bars and restaurants.

I know the city will be a big, dirty, smelly and chaotic shock after the peacefulness of the past few days so I'm bracing myself for it, but I am feeling about ready to absorb some 'culture' again and take a break from the beach for the time being.

Hoi An to Nha Trang

2008-05-23T15:47:00.006+01:00

Since my last post, we've spent 4 days in Hoi An, and are now in Nha Trang - a lovely coastal resort South-ish of Vietnam.

Hoi An was pretty much as I expected, a picturesque, quaint smallish sort of town. Full of tailors - there are apparently 200 odd tailor shops in the town which is quite something if you consider the size of the place. Every single shop pretty much offered some sort of garment making service, and since it seemed to be the thing to do in Hoi An, on a whim I decided to have a dress made for me. I'm not sure if I like it that much or that I will ever wear it, but at less than 10 quid I'm not that bothered either way, at least it fits really well! I also bought a very nice pair of handmade leather sandals for about a fiver, and to be fair I could have bought loads more stuff if only my rucksack was not already bursting at the seams.

I was a bit slack on the photography front in Hoi An, but here's a shot of the river, taken from a cafe where we had lunch..

Apart from shopping and eating/drinking, we hired bikes and went to the beach a couple of times which was about 5km out of town. Really nice beach it was too, once you get the knack of getting rid of the persistent hawkers trying to sell drinks/fruit/sunglasses/jewellery etc.

Feeling like we should do something cultural one day we bought the Hoi An Old Town ticket, which lets you see a number of temples, meeting halls, old houses & museums. The Hoi An history museum was vaguely interesting and would have been more so if 90% of the explanatory notices weren't in Vietnamese. That which was translated was the sort of thing you couldn't imagine seeing written in museum anywhere in Europe, for example: "AK-47 rifle used to kill 11 Korean soldiers" and "Remnants of the corrupt and decadent lifestyle of American soldiers" (or words to that effect - this was on a bunch of old 70's vinyl records taken from US troops during the war.)

After Hoi An, we travelled on an overnight "sleeper bus" down to Nha Trang which is where we are currently and have been since Wednesday AM. The journey was pretty hideous - the air con didn't seem to work properly so it was about 40 degrees plus you couldn't get to the toilet at all because the aisles were filled with random refugees picked up from petrol stations en route.

Anyway we are loving Nha Trang, we had only really intended to stay a couple of days here but as the weather is nice we've decided to stay until at least Monday, possibly a bit longer. The hotel is right by the beach and there's a wicked beach club nearby with the comfiest sun loungers and probably the best food we've had anywhere in Vietnam so far. There's also plenty of watersports options (we're going to give parasailing a go at some point) and trips to outlying islands for snorkelling and what not. I'm getting pretty brown too!

Me on the roof of our hotel here in Nha Trang, with the sea in the background..

It goes without saying I was up all night on Wednesday watching the Champions League final and I'm obviously chuffed about the result, even though I still can't quite believe it (being English and therefore not having much experience of seeing my team win on penalties.) As for JT's penalty though, it just goes to show that you can count on the English guy to miss when it really matters, some things never change, eh.

As a final point and on a completely random note, I've just counted and I'm reading book number 20 of the travels which is maybe more books that I've read in the 3 years prior to leaving. At the end I'll post the full list with (maybe, if I can be bothered) ratings out of 10.

Where the dragon descends to the sea...

2008-05-15T12:23:00.002+01:00

The title is the apparent meaning of "Ha Long" as in Halong Bay in Northern Vietnam, where we've been for the past few days. Pretty weird that a two syllable phrase can express all that!

We spent the first day cruising around the bay, went to an island with some interesting cave formations and a couple of fishing villages, plus did some kayaking. Then we spent the night on the boat, in a tiny little cabin. I had heard (from Bianca) to watch out for rats and big spiders on the boat, but I'm happy to say we didn't see any!

The scenery was lovely, essentially all you can see for miles around are thousands of limestone islands and the greenish (and admittedly somewhat filthy in places) water. The weather was really hot and it was nice couple of days with a good balance of relaxation and activity. The group we went with was a pretty good bunch too.

One of the most amazing aspects was the way of life of Halong bay residents, people basically living on boats or little shacks perched on top of platforms which were basically a load of wooden rafts tied together (they still had TVs and microwaves in there though!) There was loads of people going around with little shops on the boats selling drinks, sweets, crisps, sometimes with dogs, cats and children on the boat too.

This was a fishing "village" with a few huts and all the square tanks holding different varieties of fish..

Some kids messing around the above village...

The view from our cabin in the boat..
On day two, we went to Cat Ba island which is the only inhabited island in the bay and went cycling and trekking through the national park. The cycling was particularly tough - 14km mostly uphill in the blazing sunshine - very hard work but it was nice to get the exercise.

Then we went to "Monkey Island" where we could swim, before getting dropped off at Cat Ba town where we spent the second night at a really nice resort on the beach.

We're now back in Hanoi but just until tomorrow, then we're travelling down south to Hoi An, for a few days. I've heard only good things about Hoi An from people who've been to Vietnam so am looking forward to seeing for myself.

First post of my thirties :-)

2008-05-11T07:30:00.008+01:00

We are now in Hanoi, Vietnam, where we celebrated the start of my thirties yesterday. Mum and Dad came for the weekend and good fun was had by all but more of that later. First let's catch up on the previous week spent in Laos.

As I mentioned before we were in Luang Prabang in Northern Laos for a few days which was very nice indeed. Peaceful, picturesque and with very hospitable people, there isn't that much to do there but somehow we managed to spend almost 5 days.

This is the main street in Luang Prabang - traffic mostly consists of tuk-tuks and bikes, plus the odd car...

I just can't resist taking pictures in the back of tuk-tuks...
One day we sailed along the Mekong River in an excruciatingly uncomfortable wooden barge to Tham Thing - a cave built into the mountainside and only accessible by river, which was completely full of buddha statues which had been deposited there mostly during the nineteenth century. It's a place of pilgrimage for Laotians these days on certain festival days.

Interestingly outside the cave we were set upon by the usual army of cute children, trying to sell an array of local wildlife which they had trapped in tiny, tiny wicker cages and were trying to sell to tourists. Birds mostly, but even some rodent like creatures. We surmised that, since they surely realise that you couldn't feasibly expect to take one of the creatures back home on the plane to keep as a pet, that they were trying to arouse sympathy in farang travellers so that they would buy them in order to release them. Well, I did feel sorry for the poor things but they still didn't see a kip from me I'm afraid.

Anyway, here's some pics from the buddha cave...

In the centre of the town at Luang Prabang is a hill called Phousy Mountain, with a temple on it (I think called Wat Tham Phu Si), the usual assortment of Buddha statues, and some spectacular views across the town and the surrounding landscape...

Anyway after a few days in Luang Prabang, we thought it was time to hit the bright lights of the capital city of Laos, Vientiane. Well, it's fair to say it's not the most attractive city in Asia. It's hard to believe it's actually a capital city at all, the traffic is fairly minimal, you could walk from one end of town to the other in around half an hour and even some of the quite major streets in the town weren't properly surfaced. It's hard to imagine what it would be like to live in such a place, which a lot of ex-pats apparently do since there are a lot of NGOs based there and there seemed to be quite a few Western run hotels and bars.

That said, we did enjoy our stay there since we were in a very charming hotel overlooking the Mekong River, with treats you don't get everywhere like a huge balcony and a huge bathtub, etc. Also the restaurant in the hotel served some pretty good food so afte we'd seen the limited sights the city had to offer, we had a nice base to come back to.

Laos' answer to the Arc de Triomphe...

Thursday we flew to Hanoi, Vietnam, whch is a bit of a culture shock after the quiet, slow pace of Laos. I have never seen so many scooters in my life or become so accustomed to ceaseless car horns buzzing, the traffic is totally crazy, especially when it comes to crossing the road. Pedestrian lights are a rarity and the traffic doesn't have any clear breaks in it so you have no choice but to step out into the road and just hope that the bikes and cars will weave around you.

Mum and Dad arrived on Friday, and together we spent some time mooching around the city. We stayed in five star luxury at the Nikko Hotel in honour of my birthday.

This is a view across the Hoan Kiem lake in the Old Quarter...
This is us all outside the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum. You couldn't take photos inside but it was a pretty grim spectacle where you see the old embalmed corpse of HCM lying on a bed. Quite creepy and weird really. And the poor guy said in his will he wanted to be cremated!

Last night we went out for a very nice meal at Bobby Chin's restaurant. Bobby is apparently something of a celebrity chef in this part of the world although I haven't heard of him. Anyway the man himself was there and he came over to our table to chat for a bit; he struck me as a bit of a nob in fact but there you go.

Oh yeah, and before we went to the restaurant I had a cake! And champagne! And lots of nice presents courtesy of my folks and Fabio. So it was a pretty good birthday even though I was thousands of miles from home. Thank you to everyone who sent me texts, emails, facebook messages!
Anyway after all that excitement we've done literally nothing today, I'm just enjoying the fact that we've got a computer in the hotel room, which is why I've been able to write a long entry and upload a lot of photos today! Tomorrow we are off on a 3 day trip around Halong Bay (sleeping on a boat one night) and Cat Ba island, which hopefully will be good.

Off for dinner now, and then to get comfortable somewhere for the final games of the football season which kick-off at 9pm Vietnam time. Here's hoping the next time I update the blog United are champions again...

Dogs, elephants and Laos

2008-05-03T08:45:00.011+01:00

So after a couple of days in Bangkok, we headed north on the overnight train to Chiang Mai. Even though it was hard to sleep because of the motion of the train, I have to admit that the facilities were very civilised and comfortable and it was a pretty fun experience.

All was going fine in Chiang Mai until Fabio got bitten by a stray dog! I've never seen anything like it, we were just calmly walking along a road when three dogs came out of nowhere barking their heads off and chasing after Fabio. He just kept on walking, thinking that running away would only make it worse, but one of them snapped at his leg and bit him anyway! I must admit that I thought it was funny until I saw there was blood pouring down his leg.

Anyway we took a trip to the hospital where they gave him a tetanus jab, and the doctor laughingly told us there was no need for rabies treatment because the bite had been through the trousers and there was no skin contact so no need to worry. However, after mulling over it for a day and Fabio getting all worried (he is a bit of a hypochondriac by nature) we sought a second opinion and this time the doc said better to get the rabies treatment to be on the safe side. So he's had the first of a course of five injections over the next month - we just hope we are going to be able to find places where they have the vaccine available on our travels.

On a happier note while in Chiang Mai we did an elephant trek, which was fun, and also floated along the river on bamboo rafts, rode in an ox-cart, and visited an orchid farm (the latter was admittedly a bit dull).

We have now left Thailand behind for the time being (we'll come back there at the end) and are in Luang Prabang in Northern Laos. We only got here yesterday but so far we think it's absolutely beautiful here and we'll probably stay a few days.

It's quite a small town and it is a little bit touristy but nothing on the scale of Thailand. It's on the banks of the Mekong river and the buildings in the town are a mixture of oriental style and old shabby French colonial which makes it very picturesque. The people are lovely, especially the little children in the streets selling stuff; while eating lunch today we were coerced into buying a couple of bracelets from one very chatty little girl called Nani, which immediately meant we were surrounded by loads of others doing puppy eyes and sticking out their bottom lips to try and make you buy something. We felt guilty but you just can't buy from all of them.

Anyway that's all for now, I had wanted to upload some more photos but I'm fighting a losing battle with this slow connection as it keeps timing out in the middle of every upload.

Only one week to go until I'm thirty! And also, I can't believe Boris Johnson won the London mayor election.

Bangkok

2008-04-29T06:26:00.002+01:00

So we arrived in Bangkok on Sunday afternoon and are staying in backpackerville - the Khao San Road area.

Bangkok is much as I remember it from previous visits - hot, sticky smelly and very hectic.

Yesterday we went up to the Grand Palace and Emerald Buddha temple, and as Fabio had shorts on he had to borrow some awful smelly old trousers to go round in, much to my amusement.

Other than that we've done a little bit of shopping in the markets, haggling and bargaining all the way as is the norm!

Two days in Bangkok is about enough for me, and we'll have to come back here later on anyway, so tonight we are heading up north on an overnight train to Chiang Mai for a few days. The journey should be interesting - there was no space available in first class so we are travelling second class which I hope will not be too grim.

That's about it for a quick update - will upload some photos on the next post.

Long time no blog..

2008-04-23T16:03:00.005+01:00

Not because I've been particularly busy or haven't been able to access the net, I've just been a bit lazy (which is just so not like me, I know...)

Last week we spent at a villa in Bali with family and friends to celebrate my Dad's 60th, doing actually quite little other than eat, drink and lie in the sun, plus take advantage of ludicrously cheap Balinese massages. The villa was lovely and aside from everything it was just blissful to stay in the same place for one whole week!

Here's the whole gang that was there - me, Fabio, my parents, Roddy & Lara, Dave & Carol (family friends) and Ann & Eddie (ditto)

The swimming pool with part of the villa in the background...

Me in the pool....

And Fabio likewise in the pool...

On the Tuesday of Dad's actual birthday, Mum had arranged a huge meal and as a surprise, a troupe of traditional Balinese dancers, along with a group of about 12 musicians came to the villa which was a pretty interesting sort of spectacle...

This is the memorial at Kuta to the 200-odd killed in the Bali Bombing of 2002...

And, last but not least, here's one the guys we spotted in the Monkey Forest at Ubud :-D

I should mention that I can't take credit for any of these photos, they are all either Fabio's or Dad's, mine are still on the camera (but are not much cop anyway.)

So, we're back in Singapore now, at Mum and Dad's and in fact we should have been in Thailand by now but we decided to linger here until next Sunday as a big BBQ party was scheduled for Saturday evening - part two of Dad's 60th birthday celebrations. Very sadly however, my Granny passed away yesterday morning so Mum and Dad are heading back to the UK on Friday for the funeral and the festivities are off. We are still going to stay here until Sunday anyway as it seems pointless to change the flight again, then we'll go to Bangkok for a few days before heading north and into Laos.

RIP Granny, 1916-2008

xxx

Fraser Island to Sydney

2008-04-10T13:06:00.011+01:00

It's been a busy old week since we left Cairns last Thursday and flew to Brisbane.

Thursday evening we enjoyed the hospitality of my brother's girlfriend Lara's parents in Brisbane - Bob and Ella May - which was really great. Lara's mum was nice enough to collect us from the airport and drop us the next morning in town so that we could catch our ride to Fraser Island. And you can't imagine how nice it was to stay in an actual house (as opposed to cheap hotel / hostel / campsite / van), sleep in a proper bed and have home cooked food for the first time in 3 months!

While we were in Queensland I was determined to go to Fraser Island, since the last time I was in Australia everywhere we we went people said "But did you go to Fraser Island?" and looked really sympathetic when we said we hadn't had time. So we departed Brisbane at 6am on Friday morning, in the back of a really uncomfy 4-wheel-drive with 8 other people and headed up there for a 3 day/2 night tour.

We got really lucky with the weather which stayed sunny almost all the time, and the others on the tour were a pretty good bunch (2 Americans, 1 German, 1 Austrian, 2 Swiss, 2 Irish plus us) with the possible exception of the 2 Americans. The Irish guy was pretty amusing because noone could understand much of what he said and I kept having to stifle a laugh when I spoke to him because Fabio had said he looked like Nosferatu - I wish I had a photo.

I'll spare you the blow by blow account of what we did and saw on the island, but here's a few photos...

Fabio in the back of the car... (with his NZ All Blacks t-shirt on, bet you never knew he was a rugby fan)

Shipwreck on the beach, which has been there since 1935..

Sand dunes, and Lake Wabby on the right

More sand dunes...

After getting back knackered from Fraser on Sunday night, we stayed at Bob and Ella May's again before flying down to Sydney on Monday. And now we're still enjoying free accomodation courtesy of Roddy and Lara.

Their place is pretty wicked, it's right near the beach in Bondi, and you can see the ocean from the front windows - a bit different to flats we're used to in London.

We've done all the usual stuff, walked around the harbour and taken a million photos of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, and been to the shops and cafes at The Rocks. Today we went up the Centerpoint Tower observation deck and walked around Darling Harbour. Yesterday we walked 5km down the coast along the clifftops from Bondi to Coogee Beach which was very nice. Here's a few pics...

The harbour bridge of course..

A DIY photo from the Centerpoint tower (the ones taken by a stranger we asked were rubbish)

That's Bondi in the background behind the rocks, taken from the clifftop walk..

So next stop is Bali, with a 24 hour stop at Singapore en-route. Have to go as Fabio wants a go on the computer now, so the next update will be from somewhere in Asia.

Bye bye Australia!

Like a fish out of water...

2008-04-02T12:43:00.006+01:00

Today I did something I'd said I would never do... I scuba-dived.

Having been to the Barrier Reef years ago and had the opportunity to dive, I decided not to on the grounds that I feel weird about the idea of being under deep water, surrounded by fish and what-not, and not being able to breathe or move naturally. I don't know, I just had some kind of phobia about it.

So today we went out on a boat on the Barrier Reef and Fabio was pretty certain from the outset that he would dive, and I said I was happy just to snorkel. But, when we got onto the boat, I allowed myself to be talked into diving since there wasn't many people and I was told it would be amazing, we'd see turtles and sharks and it's a once in a lifetime opportuntituy, etc etc. I guess I was also sold by the fact that everyone who goes diving (the people I know anyway) is totally hooked after one dive and loves it.

I bet you think I'm going to say it was really great and my reservations were completely unfounded. Nah, as I anticipated, I really didn't enjoy it much. I wasn't completely terrified, and I'm glad I can say I've done it now so that I am justified in never doing it again; it just wasn't for me.

I felt like the opposite to the proverbial 'fish out of water' in that I was a land dwelling mammal in the water. I was uncomfortable and awkward, and for the whole 20 minutes or so I was quite looking forward to the experience being over. But I put a brave face on it and told the guys on the boat I had enjoyed it and it was great, etc, until they asked me if I wanted to go again at which point I had to admit that I hadn't liked it that much. So Fabio went down for dive number two and I gave it a miss.

Anyway, that's another box-ticked, a fear faced and something I don't think I'll do ever again. Unless maybe there's some dolphins involved... then I might think about it :-)

4 days in Melbourne

2008-03-31T04:34:00.005+01:00

We're in Australia now, currently in Cairns having spent Wednesday until Sunday down in Melbourne.

I had fond memories of Melbourne, having been there 10 years ago, and we stayed in the pleasant little district of St. Kilda where I stayed before, and nothing much had changed. The weather wasn't great - not too cold but quite grey and showery. Apparently it had been 40 degrees the week before, but the heat wave was well and truly over by the time we arrived. Oh well.

We spent some time walking about in the city centre, saw a really good exhibition about medieval illuminated manuscripts at the library of Victoria, and went to the Old Melbourne Gaol. This is basically an old Victorian style prison, which was used from the early 1800's until around 1925. You get to see the gallows where Ned Kelly was executed, plus plenty of other info about former inmates - all held in exhibition stands in the tiny cells.

We also did a tour of the disused (since 1997) police custody centre next door, since it was included in the price. It was pretty funny, like a role-play show where you get shown round by a little Aussie policewoman who arrests you and you go to the holding cells, etc. And then at the end you get to take your own mug-shot - as you can see Fabio didn't have to try too hard to look like a criminal. All that's missing is the burberry baseball cap..

We also did a trip on the Great Ocean Road, which runs along the south coast of Victoria where you get to visit rainforest, see koalas, kangaroos and view some limestone formations just off the coast. This is us inside a hollow giant gum tree... taken by the tour guide Bill who said we were a "stunning couple"...haha.

And this is the formation known as London Bridge.. because it used to have another archway where the gap is in the middle, but it collapsed about 15 years or so ago.

So now we're in Cairns and are going out on the Barrier Reef at some point, before heading down to Brisbane area and possible Fraser Island at the weekend.

South Island catch-up

2008-03-25T05:34:00.008Z

Well it's been a while since the last update... sorry about that.

The past week and a half we have been cruising around the South Island of New Zealand in the van, which we have actually slept in every night since leaving Wellington and which has become a comfy little home I'll be really sorry to leave!

After Kaikoura, where we saw the whales, we headed down to Dunedin in the far south. It was a nice enough city, looking a lot like Scotland because of the style of the architecture in the city centre, and all the streets had very Scotch sounding names. Apart from the pubs (it was St Patricks day) about the only bit of sightseeing we did in the town was Baldwin Street - the steepest street in the world! See below. Even though I thought I was going to have a heart attack, we did walk all the way to the top and even have a certificate to prove it (free from the gift shop).

After Dunedin we pressed on to Queenstown, which was really lovely, and since the weather was nice and we'd been on the move quite a bit, we decided to stay a few days. Queenstown is the main centre of crazy adrenaline sports like bungy, jet boating and sky diving, but we were actually very boring in that department in the end. The most adrenaline we got was from a few rides on the luge at the top of a peak overlooking the town.

This is us on the gondola ride which takes you to the top of the hill (where the luge is)...

And this is the stunning view from the top, across all Queenstown with The Remarkables mountains in the background (which incidentally are used in many Lord of the Rings scenes, if you're interested.)

After Queenstown, we headed to Wanaka for a night. As per Queenstown it's by a lake and is not dissimilar in character, but a lot smaller. It was Good Friday so there wasn't a lot going on, but we did go to a place called Cinema Paradiso, a really funky little cinema with sofas and an old VW beetle instead of traditional cinema seats. There was really good food served before during and after the meal: it was like a nice informal cafe which happened to have a cinema attached. The film, by the way, was Michael Clayton, which I would totally recommend.

As an aside: it's amazing the lengths they go to in NZ to stop people getting drunk. On public holidays you couldn't even get a drink in a pub unless you were having a main meal, and not even bottle shops were selling alcohol. Ha, that reminds me, while we're on the subject of alcohol a week or two ago we were refused a bottle of wine in a supermarket because we didn't have any ID, unbelievable! And very flattering of course...

Anyway, as I think I mentioned before, I was really disappointed that we couldn't do the swimming with dolphins in Kaikoura, so having found out that at Akaroa on the Banks Peninsula (not far from Christchurch) you could do it, we headed up there and we did the swimming today. It was great, a bit scary, but in an exciting sort of way. You'd be in the water and not see anything around you and suddenly you hear a 'whoosh' (from the dolphins' air hole) and a couple of dolphins would brush right past you. The dolphins they have at Banks Peninsula are the world's rarest and smallest - Hector's Dolphins - only found in New Zealands so that made it a bit special. I'm now obsessed with dolphin swimming and want to find out if there's anyplace we can squeeze it in when we're in Australia!

This reminds me I forgot to update on the seal swimming trip we did: it was ok but the seals didn't seem to be hugely interested in humans, and it was very grey and cold so there weren't that many of them in the water. Dolphins are definitely the way forward.

So to round things off, we're in Christchurch now, and tomorrow we hand back the van and catch a flight to Melbourne, so the NZ chapter is sadly at an end.

Here's a couple of token sights of the city before I go. Christchurch cathedral....

Fabio watching a game of chess in the cathedral square...

That's all, more to come from Australia. We're off out for food and drinks to end the NZ experience in style :-)

From Middle Earth to the Whales

2008-03-15T05:01:00.006Z

I couldn't possibly come to New Zealand without doing some kind of Lord of the Rings tour, and believe me there are plenty of people here making a few tourist bucks off the back of it so I wasn't short of opportunities.

In Wellington we decided (well I decided and Fabio tagged along) to do the Rover Rings Tour, which is where you spend half a day checking out sites around the countryside around the city where they filmed various scenes in the LOTR movies. For those who know the movies pretty well, we saw the woods where they filmed the early scenes in Fellowship where they're escaping from the shire and the Ringwraiths are chasing them. Remember the scene where the four hobbits are crouching under the tree stump and the Nazgul rider is above them? Well, the tree in the movie was actually made of polystyrene but hey, we saw some of the trees that were in the background! That was pretty much a standard of the whole trip - they showed you the location, and the scene from the movie on a laminated photo which invariably included a lot of CGI but there was the occasional shrub or tree which you could identify. It did require a huge stretch of imagination in places, but I found it all pretty exciting anyway.

This was in Victoria Park in Wellington, where they filmed a lot of the early scenes in Fellowship and did a lot of the close-up shots from elsewhere in the movies:

Other scenes from the movie we saw were Rivendell, Helm's Deep (a massive quarry, totally unrecognisable) the gardens of Isengard (where Gandalf and Saruman walk in the first movie when they're talking about how the ring has been discovered) and the River Anduin (where the fellowship get into boats after visiting Lothlorien, end of the first movie). This is me beside this the river:

At one rather amusing part of the trip we got to put on elf ears and pose like Legolas under a tree where they had apparently taken publicity photos of Orlando Bloom. I did like the elf ears!

Wellington harbour...

Anyway, enough of the nerdy stuff. Friday we took the ferry across the Cook Strait and are now in the South Island, a little way down the west coast at Kaikoura. It's a pleasant little town on the seaside, mainly known for whale watching (sperm whales) and other marine type pursuits like fishing. I was fairly dubious about whale watching having done it years ago and knowing that you aren't guaranteed to see anything and it could all be a big fat waste of time. In fact as soon as we got onto the boat the guide was busy dampening everyone's hopes by saying that they usually are lucky to see 1-2 whales per trip and you won't see very much of them etc.

Well, when we went this afternoon we were lucky enough to see six whales! This is apparently the only place in the world you can spot sperm whales, since there's a really deep marine canyon just off the coast and they like to dive down to the very bottom of the ocean. When they surface for air they usually stay floating around on the top for 10 minutes or so and then dive down again, and you see their tail flukes on the way down.

I can't explain how amazing this was to get so close to such huge whales. Definitely the best daytrip we've been on I'd say. Here's a few shots of them, and another one I took on video of them diving down..

On the way back to the marina, we passed by a pod of dusky dolphins, about 500 or so of them. All leaping and diving around in the water, I did try and get some photos but they were too fast for me.

Another thing you can do around here is swim with the dolphins, which we were really hoping to do tomorrow, but all the trips are full until mid next week so we're on a waiting list. If that doesn't come off we're going to go swimming with New Zealand fur seals instead which I'm sure will be cool - will let you know next time.

Zorbing, Maoris, The Van & more

2008-03-11T07:03:00.010Z

Right then, it's time for a big fat update and some pictures.

As mentioned, we stayed a couple of days in Auckland, and it was pretty cool, we liked it. The pic to the left is the Sky Tower, which is one of the main tourist attractions in the city (tallest structure in the Southern Hemisphere no less!)

Other than the Sky Tower complex, the city centre didn't have all that much to offer. The best bars and restaurants we found were in the suburb of Ponsonby where we stayed, and also on 'K Road' nearby(K is short for Kangarappe or something) which is the street to get whatever food you can imagine - Japanese, Korean, Italian, Indian, Afghan. I've been craving a curry for the past 6 weeks and of course you can't really get one in S. America, so it was nice to get one in K Road, and for only $8, bargain!

We also went to the national museum, which was pretty good, a bit like the natural history museum in London (not as good though, but they try ;-)) with dinosaurs and other stuffed creatures, plus tons of Maori artefacts and history. One fact I learned about New Zealand which I found quite interesting was: before human settlement (about 1,000 or so years ago) there were no native land mammals in New Zealand, only reptiles and birds.

On Saturday the fun really began though, when we collected out beautiful home on wheels and headed across country to Rotorua.

Truth be told, we bottled out of sleeping in the van the first two nights - we did stay at a campsite, but in a cabin with a toilet/kitchen etc rendering the van's facilities somewhat redundant. We were just a bit worried it would be too cold at night, because although it's warm enough in the day at night the temperature drops to about 7 degrees.

Rotorua is a tourist attraction chiefly for 2 things: it's a main centre of Maori culture, and for the volcanic activity (geysers, thermal springs, etc.) Oh, and there's also a fair bit of New Zealand style wacky sports. So in the short time we were there, we did our best to sample a bit of everything.

First stop was the Te Puia thermal reserve, which is also a Maori heritage site. Here we had a guided tour by a Maori dude around the park, where he told us about some Maori customs and the stories behind carvings on the buildings and monuments. We also went to a Maori concert in the meeting house (wharenui), involving singing and dancing, and of course, a performance of the haka. I'm trying to remember all the Maori words and names for things!

The thermal section of the reserve had some mud pools, and geysers which apparently erupt about 20 times a day, and they were erupting just as we arrived (the one on the right is called "Prince of Wales Feathers" geyser.)

Fabio has tons of pictures of the geysers and all the Maori carvings etc, here.

On our last morning in Rotorua, we were determined to try "Zorbing" which is basically where you roll down a hill in a giant plastic hamster ball. What can I say.. it only lasts about 15 seconds and you don't really have much idea what's going on, but it was fun all the same.

The Zorb track....

You can't see but this is actually Fabio in the Zorb...

So after leaving Rotorua, we drove to Lake Taupo, and guess what, finally slept in the van! And it was great, very civilised indeed and not cold at all, and we can't wait to do it again, except we can't tonight because now we're in Wellington and there's not a campsite in sight.

Drinking a bit of pre-dinner vino last night...

Anyway, as I said we're in Wellington now, just arrived after a longish drive down today. Looks nice so far, although it's almost unbearably windy. I knew it was known for being windy here, but this is ridiculous...

More updates to come soon, we'll be heading down to the South Island as soon as we tire of Wellington.

New Zealand

2008-03-08T06:08:00.002Z

Just a quick post to say we've arrived in New Zealand...

Got here at 4am (!) on Thursday and spent a couple of days in Auckland. It's really nice here and I can tell we're going to have a wicked time over the next few weeks.

Anyway we've hired a van, not quite a camper van but what they call a 'sleeper van', which is more or less a converted people-carrier with a double bed in the back!

Today we drove down to Rotorua, stopping by Lake Takapiru for a picnic on the way, and are at a camp site just outside town. We'll be here for a couple of days checking out all the Maori stuff and the thermal baths and geysers before heading further south.

A bigger update plus photos to come in the next day or two!

Chile

2008-03-03T16:34:00.003Z

Wow it's been a week since my last entry. I haven't forgotten about the blog, just haven't been able to get a decent stretch on the net in the past week.

No photos this time as no USB port, but here's a round up on the recent events.

So we left Mendoza last Tuesday for the trip across the Andes into Chile, which ended up taking around 12 hours due to a 4 hours wait at the border during which the Chilean police offloaded all the luggage on the coach and searched it thoroughly with dogs and x-ray machines (to make sure there was no fruit, veg, animal products, seeds, which are not allowed to be brought into Chile.)

We stayed from Tuesday to Saturday at Viña del Mar, on the coast of Chile about 1.5 hours from the capital Santiago. Allegedly it's one of 'South America's premier beach resorts'. Well, it was ok. The beaches were nice enough and we'd hoped to spend a few days just lying on one, but in the event the weather wasn't quite good enough, it was always cloudy in the mornings with the sun finally emerging around 2 or 3pm, and even then it was only around 23 or 24 degrees.

Wednesday we just walked around the town getting our bearings, some gypsies stole 30,000 pesos from me (don't ask!) and we found that things are a lot more expensive and less good value in Chile than in Argentina.

On Thursday we ventured to the nearby town of Valparaiso, which is a big port town, built on a hillside with a number of old-fashioned funicular lifts taking you up all the steep hills which overlook the port. It's a UNESCO World Heritage site no less. and was definitely worth seeing, although one day was probably quite enough. The harbour was good for a little boat trip and we did some walking around but a lot of the buildings are quite run down and slum-like, I was reminded on more than one occasion of Rocinho, the favela we visited in Rio.

We went to the house of Pablo Neruda (famous Chilean poet - I wasn't really aware of him but Fabio made out this was like not having heard of Shakespeare, and insisted that we see his house.) It was pretty interesting anyway, high on a hill with a view over all the town and filled with lots of exotic artefacts from his travels around the world. He was a politician as well as a poet and was consul in Burma, Singapore, Ceylon, as well as having a few posts in Europe so he'd seen a lot of places.

Friday, to make Fabio happy, we did Pablo Neruda pilgrimage number 2, taking a bus 1.5 hours to a small town on the coast called Isla Negra. This was his seaside house, ditto filled with lots of things from around the globe, built in the style of a ship, and him and his wife were buried in the garden overlooking the beach.

Since Saturday we've been here in Santiago de Chile, the capital city and in many ways it's just a big modern metropolis. We ventured out yesterday to see the main sights including the cathedral and all the government buildings, but it was really hot under the 32 degrees sun plus most things were closed as it was Sunday, so we ended up going to the cinema in the afternoon, a simple pleasure we have missed since leaving the UK! I finally saw Sweeney Todd which came out in the UK on the day we left so we didn't have a chance until now - I had half expected to be be disappointed in it but in fact we really liked it.

So the South American chapter of our travels is almost over. Overall assesment I think we would both agree that Argentina has been the best country so far, we don't like Chile so much (although having been here less than a week I admit it may be unfair to judge it too harshly.)

Tomorrow evening at 11pm we are off to New Zealand, and will arrive in Auckland on Thursday morning at 4am, in a time zone 12 hours ahead of GMT instead of 3 hours behind it, which is something quite strange to get my head around!

Anyway, until next time, byebye!

Wine Country: Mendoza

2008-02-26T01:43:00.005Z

Here we are in Mendoza, a small city in the region which produces 90% of Argentina's wine. We've been here since Friday morning, and to be honest there was no real need for us to stay as long, but we are staying at a nice place and we just got a bit lazy.

The first day we took a long walk out to the huge park on the west of the city, which sounded like the place to be according to our guide book, with a couple of museums, a lake, and a 'very famous' zoo. Well, since there were no signposts anywhere we didn't find the museums or the lake, but after a long struggle we did manage to find the zoo. We should have guessed that since it cost less than one pound to get in that 'famous' didn't really mean it was going to be any good.

Now generally I like zoos, as long as the facilities are nice and the animals don't look suicidal: this was not the case at Mendoza zoo. In one part there were four pumas in a cage about 4 by 2 metres, devoid of any trees or anything to break the monotony, and a few chunks of rotting meat covered with flies on the floor for them to eat. It was truly depressing. If I thought that was bad, there was a polar bear, stuck on a concrete platform about big enough for him to turn around on, alongside a filthy little plunge pool about the same size; I could hardly bear to look. We wanted to get out of there as soon as we arrived, but the route around was planned in such a way that you couldn't take shortcuts, so we had to trundle around one nasty little cage after another before we could get out.

Anyway, it's not been all bad. That evening we had our best meal since starting travelling, we felt a bit guilty as it cost about 3 or 4 times the price we normally spend on dinner, but still a trifle compared to back home.

Sunday we visited a museum about the history of the original settlement in Mendoza. The city was destroyed by an earthquake in 1861 (I think, or maybe 1865?) and at the museum they had excavations in the ground showing some of the details of the pre-earthquake colonial town square. So that was all quite interesting. Plus there are a few nice little plazas around the town, the streets are wide and there's lots of trees and greenery so it's an attractive little place just to mooch about in.

Since we're here, we thought we really ought to get out into the countryside and see some of the vineyards and wineries (bodegas) - that really is the only reason people come to Mendoza. There are seemingly hundreds to choose from, and since we had no particular preference we just booked on a tour which picks two or three at random on the day and takes you there on a minibus. The first one we visited was a really old, traditional style one, owned by an Italian family - the tour was quite tedious as it was all in Spanish so I only understood about 10% of what was said. But the wine at the end was good so that was something. Then we went to a more modern winery (only open since Jan 07) which, unusually, was owned by a family from Mendoza (most wine production has been bought up by foreign companies.) The tour was in English this time, so was a bit more engaging, but the wine was not quite so good. The most entertaining part of the day was probably the questions posed by some Americans to the tour guide on the second tour, such as "how do you know how old a bottle of wine is" (something to do with the year on the bottle perhaps?), and "oh, so are there lots of different types of grape used to make wine then?"

Don't have many decent photos, but this is us next to a monument to Martin Fierro in the Plaza España (look him up...)

And me with some vineyards in the background...

Anyway we're saying farewell to Argentina tomorrow and heading across the border to Chile, where we plan to stay on the coast a few days before heading to Santiago to catch our flight to New Zealand which is next Tuesday.

San Carlos de Bariloche

2008-02-21T13:32:00.012Z

We've now been in Bariloche since Sunday and it's really beautiful. The town is surrounded by Lakes and backed by the Andes mountains. In the winter its a popular ski resort, and in the summer is a good base for trekking in the mountains, rafting, riding, kayaking, etc. You could stay here a month and do something new every day it seems.

All the architecture in the town is Swiss Alpine style, and the town is famous for its chocolate, so we've eaten a kilo or so between us while we've been here. There's also loads of St Bernard dogs with those little barrels around their necks, with people charging around 30 pesos (about 5 pounds) to have your picture taken with one. I was tempted, but I resisted!

Here's a few pictures from around the town just to give an idea of the place. This first one is the view across the lake from our room at the hostel. It was a nice room but with the huge window catching the sun and no air conditioning it was a bit like being in a greenhouse..

The cathedral...

The main square, and the big building is the tourist office...

One of the St. Bernard dogs (plus puppy)...

On Tuesday we decided to spend the day white water rafting, which was a great experience. We were collected from the hostel at 9am and driven about 80km away to a cabin in the countryside, where we had some breakfast and got kitted out in all the rafting gear:

We then went down to the river, the Rio Manso, which is a class 3-4 river (with 5 being the highest in terms of ferocity of the rapids). We were on the river for about 3 hours, it was a wicked adrenaline rush. I managed to only fall out of the raft once but some people seemed to fall out at every rapid (Fabio.) In some parts of the river it was pretty calm so you could swim, and the scenery was spectacular, with dense forest on both banks of the river backed by high canyon walls on either side.

Here are a couple of pictures (I've got a CD of about 200 so there are probably better ones but I don't have time to look through them all now). Spot me paddling away:

Spot Fabio on the second left of this one (we had to go in separate rafts)..

At the end of the river trip, we crossed the border with Chile, before getting out of the boats and heading to a small farm in the mountains to have yet another great barbecue.

On Wednesday (as if we weren't sore and stiff enough as it was), we went riding at a ranch nearby called Estancia Fortin Chacabuco. Another barbecue was had, and a couple of hours riding through the hills and mountains. This is a view I took from the horse. You can't really see in the picture but some of the mountain tops have snow on them even though it's the middle of summer.

Fabio and his mount...

..and me on mine..

Finally, we had a great view of the Lunar eclipse last night as it was such a clear night. I've got some photos but they're not that good so won't bother posting them.

That's about all folks, we have another bus to catch so we must dash now...

Patagonia part 2 - photos

2008-02-18T04:19:00.004Z

As promised here are a few of the photos we took last week at Peninsula Valdes.

The hairy armadillo which was running around in the car park...

Fabio snorkelling..

A Patagonian grey fox...

Penguins on the beach...

Close-up shot of a young penguin (the white blobs on him are molting feathers)...

The sea-lion colony...

Close-up of a young sealion...

Some elephant seals on the beach...

Fabio and I by the coast where the elephant seals were...

Oh and this is an old one which Fabio took in Buenos Aires but I put it up because I quite like it.

There's loads more photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/fabio.zuppardi

We're in Bariloche in the lake district now for a few days. Going white water rafting tomorrow then horseriding potentially the next day.

The place is beautiful, lakes and mountains all around and all the buildings are alpine chalet style. Will upload some news and photos from here later in the week.

Patagonia, part 1

2008-02-16T14:25:00.003Z

The first thing to say is that, rather annoyingly, the USB port doesn't work on this machine so I won't be able to put up any pictures this time, so I'll try to put some on the next entry.

We're in a town in the south of Argentina in Patagonia, on the Atlantic Coast, called Puerto Madryn. Originally it was settled by Welsh people, so there's a lot of Welsh stuff in the souvenir shops and a lot of the people have Welsh names due to their heritage which seems pretty odd in the south of Argentina. They stop short of having all the signs written in Welsh like when you go to Wales though.

The main reason for coming to this part of the country is that it's a major wildlife spotting area, there is a peninsula which juts out into the Atlantic about 50km to the north called Peninsula Valdes which in the winter time is a place to go whale watching, but in the summer (i.e now) there's lots of penguins, sea lions, elephant seals just lying around on the beaches in various parts of the peninsula.

So yesterday we took a bus trip around, covering some 400km in total throughout the day, to see the various different parts of the area and we managed to get some wicked pictures of the animals. At one point there was armadillos just running around between our feet looking for food. Oh yeah, (FYI Iain) there was even roadrunners believe it or not, though sadly I didn't get any pictures...

The only thing I was disappointed about is that we didn't get to spot any orcas (AKA killer whales). For anyone who remembers the really well known sequence from David Attenborough's 'Trials of Life' programme years ago, where the whale catches the baby sealion on the beach and flips it around a bit, that was actually filmed on one of the beaches we were at yesterday (Punta Norte).

Some killer whale trivia: Peninsula Valdes is apparently one of only two places in the world where this type of hunting (where they deliberately beach themselves in order to catch prey which is not in the water) has been observed.

We did a boat trip too, and Fabio went snorkelling, which I'm told was really good, but the water just looked a bit too cold and wet for me. The sun is really blazing hot, but it felt pretty chilly on the penisula because there's a cold wind blowing all the time.

Other than going to the peninsula, we've been lying on the beach since there's a pretty good one in the town, also the hostel we're staying at has been great. On the day we arrived the owner (an Argentine of Welsh descent) had a huge BBQ (BBQs Argentina-style are just nothing like at home, there was literally half a cow on it and a huge salmon about three feet long) with lots of really good Argentine red wine flowing and lots of chat. It's nice to stay in a hostel again since we'd been in a hotel in BA which can be fairly isolating in terms of meeting other travellers or bonding with the staff, etc.

Tonight we are heading to the other side of Patagonia to the lakes district, near the Andes, to a town called San Carlos de Bariloche (or just Bariloche for short, basically.)

So that's all the latest. I'm not sure if anyone is still reading the blog anyway, I hope it's not too dull 'cos when I read it back to myself I always think it doesn't sound exactly scintillating ('and then we did this, and then we did that, etc...')

No puede ingresar

2008-02-13T14:23:00.002Z

So, we're still in Buenos Aires, but not exactly by choice...

The title, for those who don't know any Spanish, means 'you may not enter'. Uruguay, that is. On Monday we decided to take a trip across to Uruguay on the boat for a couple of days, and I was refused entry!

The reason being that my passport had a couple of torn corners on a few pages. Never mind the fact that I've travelled to the US, Singapore, Malaysia, Brazil, Argentina plus tons of places in Europe on the same passport - Uruguay said NO.

The result of which was a mad dash to the British Embassy on Monday afternoon, stopping for passport photos and cash (a whopping 750 pesos) on the way, and having to apply for a new passport. They told me this could take up to 10 working days to process, so we were pretty despondent at the idea of being stuck here that long - we love it here, but we're pretty keen to get on the road and see some other sights.

Anyway, I made a general nuisance of myself at the British Embassy and kept calling them for updates, and the result is my passport was ready this morning. Less than 48 hours for a new passport - I'm sure you couldn't get it that quick in the UK.

So we missed out on Uruguay which is a shame, but it's just lucky that I've got a new passport now, rather than being refused entry to Chile when I was at some remote border post in the Andes and more than 1,000 miles from the nearest British Embassy. On the downside though the photo is totally minging and I'm stuck with it for ten years. After tearing around town with my rucksack on in 30 degrees heat, after hardly any sleep and with dirty hair and no make-up on I wasn't in the best shape. Oh well.

Anyway, that's the first major hiccup of the travels behind us, I'm sure there'll be more along the way. We're off down the coast this afternoon to Puerto Madryn on the Atlantic coast of Patagonia, it's supposed to be a good place for wildlife like killer whales, penguins etc.

Ciao for now.

¡Hola! from Buenos Aires...

2008-02-09T23:45:00.000Z

We've now been in Argentina's capital for the past 4 days, and we really like it, so we're gonna stay a couple more days before moving on.

I wasn't sure what I thought of it at first; I'd heard it was really sophisticated and European and to me it just looked dirty and noisy and crowded, but I think it was just the culture shock of getting back to a big city when we'd been out in the sticks for a week or so.

We're staying in the district of San Telmo, which is the home of Tango and also the oldest district of the city. It's a pretty interesting area, full of bookshops and antique stalls and little art galleries and it's not too far from the town centre either, about 15 mins walk. Anyway here's a little round up of what we've been up to the past few days.

The first day we mooched about, getting our bearings and finding out our way around the city. We went to the Recoleta cemetery over the other side of town, since it was reputed to be one of THE sights to see. It's a pretty crazy place, like a maze filled with row upon row of marble mausoleums for Argentina's famous (and rich) dead people - though I had only heard of Eva Peron. Fabio took this photo, that's why it's black and white and at an angle, because he thinks he's an artist..

We also went to the Plaza de Mayo, which is the main square in the city centre, where the government building is (behind me in the picture below) - called the Casa Rosada.

On Thursdays at 3.30pm every week there`s a march around the square by old women whose children went missing under the military regime in the 1970s, they're called the Madres Del Plaza de Mayo, so we stopped by in time to see it...

Also the other night we went to a tango show, including dinner, which was EXTREMELY touristy and pretty expensive by Argentina standards, but well worth doing and I would totally recommend it. Before we leave BA we want to try and go to one of the more dirty authentic ones where locals go, maybe tonight if we find something.

This afternoon we went down to La Boca, famously the home district of Boca Juniors football club. It´s a pretty run-down and poor area in the port district, but there is one part of it called La Caminita where we had lunch and spent most of the afternoon.

This is a neighbourhood where all the houses and shops are painted in really bright colours, and there are street artists, tango dancers and loads of market stalls lining the streets and lots of cafes with tables outside. It´s a really good atmosphere, we had good fun and it's definitely been my favourite thing in Buenos Aires so far.

We had to pay 3 pesos for the privilege of having this picture taken... money well spent?!

Ok that's about it, not sure where we'll be on the next update, maybe still in Buenos Aires!

P.S. Happy Birthday for Sunday Mum!

Iguassu Part 2

2008-02-05T22:58:00.000Z

We crossed the border into Argentina yesterday, and are now staying at Puerto Iguazu, which is the town nearest the Falls on this side of the border. There was one hiccup involved in the crossing in that the bus we were on didn`t stop at the Brazil border post so we got our entry stamp to Argentina without first getting a Brazil exit stamp. When we got to town we asked what the implications of this were and apparently it means that you`d have to pay a large fine if you went to Brazil again on the same passport, so to be on the safe side we went all the way back to Brazil to exit properly, collecting an Argentina exit and another Argentina entry stamp on the way.

We were quite sad to say goodbye to Brazil, but in two respects it is quite refreshing. Firstly not having to contend with Portuguese anymore, which I find when spoken at speed in a strong Brazilian dialect is pretty incomprehensible and it was embarrassing not being able to speak a word. I`m remembering how to speak Spanish and it feels good being able to communicate in some way. Secondly Argentina seems to be a lot cheaper than Brazil, we`re finding that things are a similar price in AR Pesos as they are in BR Reais, even though there´s only 3 reais to the pound as opposed to 6 pesos. Last night, in a fairly upmarket restaurant which is supposed to be the best in town, we actually wondered seriously whether the prices were in US dollars, because the pesos amount just seemed obscenely cheap!

Anyways, today we visited the falls and national park on the Argentina side, which was probably even better than the Brazil side. There seemed to be much more to it in terms of all the different walks you could do, we saw more wildlife and got much closer to the water and all the individual sections of the falls than you can from the other bit. Also, we did a wicked boat trip which took you through some white water rapids, before dunking you under one of the falls. This was us just before the shower...

And this is us again at some point later in the day, still drying out.

I have got loads and loads more photos but think everyone`s probably seen enough of Iguassu by now!

Guess what though, I finally saw some coatis, and here`s the proof on video...

Anyway that`s all from me for today, next stop: Buenos Aires.

Iguassu Falls

2008-02-03T22:42:00.000Z

Well the torrential rain finally stopped on Friday morning, and we were able to catch a few rays of sun in Santa Catarina after all, although it was shortlived as we´d already booked the bus out of there on Friday evening. We arrived here on Saturday morning, at Foz do Iguaçu, which is on the borders with Argentina and Paraguay and the nearest town on the Brazilian side to the Iguassu Falls.

The town itself is pretty charmless (i.e. a dump) but we treated ourselves to a fairly nice hotel with a swimming pool, cable TV etc so we don´t have to go wandering the streets to look for entertainment of an evening.

So today we got the bus down to national park and the falls themselves, and as we´d anticipated, it was fantastic and will surely be one of the highlights of our trip. Here´s a few photos from today...

They say that the Brazilian side of the falls is the best way to see panoramic views of all the falls - basically you walk a couple of kilometres along a paved footpath through the forest looking across the falls from various angles. At one point you can walk along a suspended platform which goes right near to one of them, and gets you pretty soaked. That´s where we´re at in this picture, though you can´t really tell...

Oh, and I´ve got a little video as well (my first EVER upload to YouTube). Haha, I didn´t realise there was audio on it when I filmed it...

From the Argentine side (which we´re going to check out on Tuesday) you can do boat trips right up to the base of the falls, so more to come on that later.

If there were any downsides to the day it was that there were about a million people queueing for tickets when we arrived so we had to wait about 2 hours before we could even see anything. I now see why the guide book reckoned it was best to go early in the morning. Secondly I was a tad disappointed about the lack of wildlife on show. There were supposed to be coatis (I´m not too sure what this is, I think it´s racoon-like, but didn´t see one) and 12 species of toucan and sometimes jaguars but all we saw was a few big spiders and this lizard:

I guess going early in the morning may have been better for wildlife too, oh well.

After the falls we went to a bird park thing, which was alright, bit of a rip off to get in and a shame to see birds in cages, but was worth seeing all the same.

Anyway I´m off to get some dinner, hope all is well with everyone at home, I´ll catch up with you in Argentina.

Rain, and yet more rain..

2008-01-31T19:27:00.000Z

To say we've been unlucky with the weather in Brazil would be something of an understatement. We're now looking back longingly at the light rain and cloudy skies we had up in Rio, as now down here in Florianapolis, it's a whole lot worse.

We arrived yesterday afternoon after our bus journey from Rio, which was supposed to be 18 hours but turned out to be more like 23 hours. It was ok though, we'd shelled out for the luxury bus which gives you fully reclining seats, pillows, blankets, movies, air-con, so the time didn't really drag too much.

The whole way down from Rio and every minute since, it's been pouring with rain. On the TV they're saying it's the worst rain the region has seen in 30 years, they've even had to cancel the carnival celebrations on the island (due to start tomorrow.)

As a result, we are pretty much holed up in our hotel, watching TV, reading, playing cards etc. It is an excellent little place, with a swimming pool and all the rooms are cute little cabins with their own kitchens and hammocks out on the terrace - it would have been perfect if we'd had good weather. The woman who runs it (Ida) is doing her best to keep us entertained, she's lent us her laptop for internet, and her DVD player so that we can watch some movies later, so she's been great.

In theory, we are leaving tomorrow evening on a bus to Iguassu Falls (arriving Saturday morning) but with the roads on the island being totally flooded, I am not optimistic about the likelihood of even being able to make it as far as the bus station (which is on the other side of the island) and the rain is not forecast to stop until at least Saturday. So, if we're unlucky, we suspect we could be stranded here for another few days.

Here's a few pretty dull pictures anyway, the view from our window:

Fabio in the room, watching TV..

Cristo Redentor statue, and the Favela

2008-01-28T21:05:00.000Z

Well, the tour yesterday turned out to be quite safe and above board, we´re still alive and in possession of all our valuables. And best of all, I´ve got some photos up now.

We went in a small bus to a few of the sights around town, firstly the famous Maracana stadium, but we couldn´t go inside or anything because there was a match on, so that was nothing special. Then to the Cathedral of San Sebastiao, something the Cariocas (what they call Rio natives) seem to be quite proud of, but which is quite possibly the most hideous building I´ve ever seen. I would post a photo but it seems a waste of the 3-4 minutes or so it takes to upload.
Then we went up through the Tijuca forest to the Corcovado mountain and the statue of Cristo Rendentor (i.e. Christ). It was pretty funny actually because it was so cloudy that to take a photo meant it was a blink-and-you´ll-miss-it situation waiting for a momentary gap in the mist. Here´s an upwards shot of Fabio under the statue:

After that we went to a nearby heliport in the mountains, with a view of all the city...

Anyway, onto today, and we had planned to take a trip up the Pao de Açuqar (Sugar Loaf Mountain) on the cable car, but since the weather is rubbish, and it´s just a cable car, we decided to do something entirely different and booked onto a favela (slum) tour.

These tours had come highly recommended in the guidebook , so we ventured into the tourist information office (run by the government) to ask about them and were told ´We DO NOT recommend this tour, it is very dangerous...´ Undeterred we called a company called Be A Local (slogan: ´Don´t be a Gringo, be a Local´) and booked on the tour at 1.30pm.

I must say it was wicked and I´m so glad we decided to do it rather than going up in a cable car in the rain. The favela we went to is called Rocinha and is the largest slum in Latin America, apparently, and sprawls across the hillside in the south of Rio. At the start of the tour, our guide stopped the minibus at the foot of the hill and entrance to the favela, where we were each taken by ´moto-taxi´ (i.e. on the back of a motorbike ridden by a local) really fast through the main street of the favela, up to the top of the hill where the slum sprawled out beneath us:

Over the next couple of hours we walked down through the streets, well I say streets, they were more like alley ways and dirt tracks, with our guide explaining about how people lived, and pointing out the odd drug dealer here and there. We went to the day care centre for the kids, which is more or less entirely funded by people taking favela tours. This was one who kept whacking Fabio over the head:

At one point we were treated to a little show by some street kids playing percussion on bits of rubbish:

And here´s a few more of the street kids we encountered at Rocinha..

It was amazing how friendly and welcoming everyone was. I still don´t think I would have much liked to venture there alone, but in a group it seemed safe enough, the bike ride at the start was probably the biggest hazard.

So that was today, and tomorrow we´re off on the first of what will probably be many mammoth bus journeys - 1200 or so km and 18 hours down south to Florianapolis. This is supposed to be a beautiful town on the island of Santa Catarina, we´ll probably stay there a few days and then head to Iguassu Falls at the weekend. Hopefully the weather will get better when we´re there as there´s meant to be some good beach action.

Finally - a random observation about Rio - while it´s really common for people to walk around town barefoot, it´s really common for dogs to wear shoes.

Bom Dia

2008-01-27T15:27:00.000Z

Just a quick one to say hello from Rio de Janeiro...

We arrived yesterday and went straight to our hostel, which is alright by hostel standards but obviously not the utmost in luxury. The worst thing is that the room has no windows which is pretty grim, but other than that it´s clean, we´ve got our own bathroom and you get breakfast included so I can´t complain too much.

First thing Fabio said was "Are we gonna stay in any better places than this?" To which I said yeah, but it´s quite possible we might see some worse places as well along the way.

So yesterday we didn´t do that much except sleep and then ventured out down Copacabana late in the afternoon. The weather is not great, it´s warm but cloudy and yesterday on the way back from dinner we got soaked in the rain :-( I´m sure that will make everyone in London feel better.

We had dinner at a Rodizio which is where you choose your own food from a buffet and they weigh it to tell you how much it costs. Anyway it was a quite expensive meal as it turned out, especially as we ordered a bottle of wine which we didn´t really want and which cost us about a quarter of the daily budget we´re trying to stick to.

Anyway we´re heading out now on a tour up to the Christ statue, and a few other places - I had a rather stilted conversation with a Brazilian guy after calling a number from a flyer we got in the street, and I think the result was that he´s picking us up at 2.15 and it costs 45 Reais each. Fabio is convinced it´s all some kind of dodgy business and they´ll rob us and take everything, so I´ll let you know if we survive it intact in the next post.

That´s all for now, I´ll hopefully have something more interesting to say and maybe some pictures next time.

Four days to go

2008-01-21T20:53:00.000Z

Four days to go until we head off to Rio, very exciting, but also a bit scary...

First off thanks to all at Ralph for my send off on Friday, I had a brilliant night with you all and was completely overwhelmed by all my presents. Incidentally my Mum had never noticed this habit I have of saying "Listen..." at the start of every utterance, until I explained the story behind the t-shirt (and the references in the card) and now she keeps laughing every time I say it, which as you can imagine, has been quite a few times in the last couple of days.

Anyways, today was weird, getting up on a Monday and not having to go to work. Still, it's not like I got to lie in, especially not since parents are here and they always get up really early so you feel like you have to as well.

We did some more packing up of stuff in the house, although there's still a worrying amount of things still to pack. And then we went to Oxford Street shopping, I didn't need to get anything but Fabio seemingly still needs to buy the entire contents of his rucksack and is incapable of shopping by himself, so I had to accompany him.

Well, since we haven't actually started the travelling yet I don't have any pictures of faraway places to share, but I wanted to practise the picture upload thingy using my fancy USB reader thingy, so here's a few pictures of when I went to the darts at Lakeside a couple of weeks back :-)Me and Ann-Marie - yeah I know it's the wrong way around, forgot to rotate it before I uploaded it and I can't be bothered to do it again.

Err, this is Ann-Marie taking the winning shot in a game of snooker. As above re the rotating... this is not going well so far.

Ok, tried making it smaller that time, I need to stop uploading portrait photos though. That's Adam and Fabio btw.

Fabio, Ann-Marie, Emily, Charlie and Adam...

Hmm, so I managed to post a portrait one, but only by using image editing software. Is there an easier way to do this?

Marcus, Emily, Phil, Adam, Ian, Ann-Marie, Leila, Charlie & Fabio at Lakeside.

That's it for now. If I don't post again before we go, I'll see you in a few days in Brazil :-)