Stowing Away

March of the Penguins

stowaway — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 01:36:00 GMT

We hightailed it from Wilsons Promontory to try and get to Phillip Island in time for the famous Penguin Parade which starts at dusk. Our research indicated that the good tickets sellout fast, so we drove straight there and got there with an hour to spare. We bought some of the premium tickets to be right at the front of the best viewing area, and then drove off again in search of a camping spot for the Van. Finding one without too much drama in a cheap local caravan park, we grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed back to the penguin parade viewing complex, just as darkness fell.

After about half an hour of waiting in the stands near the waters edge, the first groups of penguins emerged from the surf and waddled their way up the beach, right next to where we were standing. There is a long -fenced off boardwalk that follows the path that most penguins use to return to their burrows, so you can follow their progress inland until they branch off from their groups and head off to their individual burrows. In some of the burrows you could see some baby penguins anxiously awaiting the return of their parents, bringing dinner from the ocean.

The penguins kept arriving in varying sized groups over the next two hours. Everyone had got very exited when the first group of penguins arrived, and most people had then left the beach & followed that group of penguins up the boardwalk, so that there was almost no-one left other than us to see all the subsequent larger groups of penguins arrive and waddle onwards in force.

After 2 hours, the rangers usher all the tourists out of the viewing complex to give the nesting penguins some peace and quiet. The penguins still arrive at the beach for a few more hours, but at least they won't be disturbed by over enthusiastic visitors. On our way out of the car park, we had to stop the van to allow a pair of penguins to cross the bitumen car park & not get run over by the waiting cars behind us. The penguins seemed unfazed by all the bright headlights and continued on, but their black backs make them blend in easily with the dark bitumen so each night must be quite dangerous for them to cross over the very large carpark and road to get to their distant burrow.

Anyway, it was a very fun & exciting experience to get up close to so many wild penguins. BTW, you are not allowed to take photos of the penguins as the flash disturbs them - they are very strict on this - so these photos here were purchased at the penguin center (quite cheaply), hence no pics of us in them.

The next day we visited a koala sanctuary, a vietnam veterans museum, and passed up the chance to race the ambassador van around the Phillip island racecourse (due to time constraints). I'll write more about these soon!

Wilsons Promontory

stowaway — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 03:28:00 GMT

After spending the night with a pair of savage possums beating our door down to get into our cosy van (maybe because it was raining), we started our long trip straight to Melbourne for some van maintenance, then on to Wilsons Promontory. Thankfully the weather had changed from the 40 degree heat we had experienced up to now, to being much cooler and actually raining! "See you've brought the rain with you", drawled the man leaning against the exit gate, "Are you gonna make it stay?"

The bulk of the day was filled with fun fun freeway driving all the way to Melb, we are an ambitious pair. The rain kept us company.

Moving south from Melbourne and away from sharing roads with traffic-blocking trams & meandering drivers, we headed South-East towards Wilsons Promontory. Driver fatigue highlighted our over-ambitiousness, and we stopped for the night at Leongatha. The next morning discovery of a FREE (yes free!) internet facility in the local community centre made it all worthwhile. Tea & biscuits were plied upon us by the friendly locals, who sat around gossiping while we updated our blog. After about 2 hrs surfing the net on their one & only internet computer, we thought we might be overstaying our welcome, so we thanked them & hit the road south to Wilsons Promontory.

The one & only road into the Promontory National Park is very scenic, winding its way through the bushland & coastal scrub and cresting numerous hills that offered tantalising glimpses of the rugged coastline & bright blue sea with white sandy bays that we were heading towards. The wildlife on the way was plentiful, we almost ran over a meandering wombat, and escorted an echidna crossing the road until it had safely hidden itself in the bush.

When we finally arrived at Tidal River, the furthest south the road goes, it seemed like the entire population of Melbourne had come here to camp. Far from the isolated & pristene wilderness we had expected it to be, the campsite at the end of the promontory road was a sprawling tent city with little room to swing a cat. The nearby beach (Norman Bay) was also very busy - suprisingly so considering the fact it was overcast, windy and intermittently raining.

Outside of the vast camping area, the penninsula is a very beautiful wilderness area, with lots of bushwalks to do - up mountains (well large hills really) with impressive views, or onwards to the southernmost coastline battered by the sea in the wild Bass Strait.

We explored a number of the very pretty beaches, our favourite being 'Squeaky beach' with it's fine white sand, and took lots of photos. All in all, very well worth the trip, but the campsites will be crowded if you go in summer school holiday time!

Driving along, we spotted an Echidna slowly waddling across the road in front of us & swerved to avoid it. We pulled over and watched it finish crossing the road, keeping an eye out for other cars that might come hurtling along. It made it safely and disappeared into the scrub. Unfortunately I didn't get a good photo. Cute little critters.

Next we are off to Phillip Island to see the Fairy Penguin Parade!

Click here to see a google map of Wilsons Promontory

Ned Kelly's Last Stand

stowaway — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 12:58:00 GMT

Check out our hard hitting Documentary about Ned Kelly's last stand in Glenrowan, Victoria. I have to say I was extremely disappointed with Glenrowan - I guess I was expecting something a bit more impressive considering the towns history with the rather famous Kelly Gang - especially considering it is the towns only real claim to fame.

Several telegraph-pole stumps with childishly painted faces on them are scattered randomly around the area of "Siege St", with no labels or other information highlighting who/where/what they are supposed to mean. The only stump-figure with any labeling is the one supposedly marking where poor Ned fell wounded after being shot in the leg & being unable to stand again with all that ridiculously heavy home-made armour on.

The pic below shows the location where the Glenrowan inn once was, with some more stump-men who are possibly meant to be other members of the Kelly gang. The modern houses directly behind & right next door (cropped out of camera shot as they are that close) are both for sale if you want to buy into a historic location.

Just around the corner, in the souvineer shops, you can buy a suit of plastic replica armour, or numerous t-shirts depicting Ned Kelly riding a motorbike - clearly the Harley Davidson was the key to how the Kelly gang got around so quickly in the 1870's...

In stark contrast, we spent the previous two days in Beechworth, which is a very pretty town, full of wonderful historic buildings which are well preserved & displayed. It has far more authentic Kelly gang displays such as the courthouse where Ned Kelly was imprisoned & tried, and the Bourke museum which contains many Kelly gang artifacts.

The town is also full of enticing antique stores & galleries and has worked hard to keep to it's original style, a walk down the main st is like stepping back in time. With an old style chocolate shop, bakeries, milk bars & pubs with sweeping verandahs, we could have easily spent another day or two staying there. A place not to be missed in our opinion.

Find Beechworth and Glenrowan on google maps.

High Country

stowaway — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 02:51:00 GMT

After a cool night in the van at Thredbo, we grabbed a hearty breakfast and headed up the crackenback chairlift, accompanied by the musical sounds of the continuing weekend long blues festival echoing up from the valley below.

From the top of the chairlift there is a specially constructed walking path to protect the fragile mountain vegetation from the thousands of visitors clumping boots. The path streches almost all the way to Mt Kosciuszko, which was our destination, and reminded me greatly of the Yellow brick road from the Wizard of Oz.

Two hours later we were at the highest point in Australia, without a munchkin in sight. (Yes for those of you that know Tamara she did make it all the way to the top) The views were spectacular, but limited somewhat from the smoke of bushfires that were still burning within the national park. The alpine flowers that dot the rocky windswept mountainside are so small, pretty & delicate, it is suprising how they thrive in such an enviroment of extremes. Even more suprising was the fact that Tamara had so much energy left after the gruelling climb, that she was seen running ahead. (It might have been the promise of a cold beer)

Coming back down into Thredbo we were once again serenaded by the sound of the blues floating up towards us. We were able to get a quick listen to a couple more performers before we departed for Khancoban. The road trip was extremely windey, with some steep ups & downs, but very scenic with tall forests. The occasional kangaroo hopped out on the road further down in front of us as the sun grew lower in the sky. We camped the night in Kahncoban, and visited one of the big hydro-electric power stations that form part of the snowy mountains scheme.

Today we have yet to work out were we are heading next, but we'll be sure to let you know where we end up!

Click for map of where this is

Thredbo Blues festival

stowaway — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 02:20:00 GMT

On Saturday we made it to the Thredbo Blues festival, an annual musical event held in the Thredbo village, which is now in it's 13th year (or 14th year if you count the one that was rudely interupted by a bushfire)

We got to see quite a few bands, many thanks to John for kindly offering us evening passes to see more of the main acts! Apart from the pubs & rooms where the bigger acts played, there were many free outside gigs & jams going on. The music was great and the weather wasn't too hot and the crowds were very enthusastic.

The act that most appealed to us was "The Hands" which features two keyboard players trading chops on a Hammond organ thru a swirling leslie speaker & a clavinet. "The Mighty Reapers" had the crowd dancing in front of the outdoor stage in the village square while Mal Eastick's band kept the Shuss bar hot, sweaty & packed with a very vocal & appreciative crowd.

Check out some of the photos of the bands we saw in the Thredbo blues festival 2007 gallery

Tommorrow we are off to climb Mt Kosciouszko - should make for some sore legs!

Canberra in a Heatwave

stowaway — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 22:40:00 GMT

After a day of travelling in blistering 40+ degree heat, we have arrived in Canberra. Both the van and us struggled a little in the draining heat but we pressed on with a few cooling rest stops. Along the approaches to Canberra by Lake George, a bushfire burned fiercly, blocking the road for some of the day. When we finally passed the bushfire area after dark, the whole hillsides glowed like lava from the embers of the mostly burnt out bush.

Yesterday also reached over 40 degrees (apparently their 3rd hottest day on record), and we sought some respite by going to the National Gallery, which is currently exhibiting "Egyptian Antiquities from the Louvre", which was very interesting. We also checked out the rest of the gallery's works. Jackson Pollocks splattered 'Blue poles' still reminds me of the TV ad about stain-resistant carpet, where the cleaning lady turns up, sees the "artistically splattered" mess everywhere, throws her hands in the air in disgust ("oh Mr Hart!"), and then proceeds to clean it up spotlessly. Apparently that cleaning lady hasn't made it to the National Gallery.

We've also been wandering about Canberra seeing the sights & taking a fair few pics. We caught up with Tam's brother who lives there, and tried out some nice resturaunts. Today we are heading off to Jindabyne and then to Thredbo to catch the blues festival.

Will write more soon!

Going Nomadic!

stowaway — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 07:00:00 GMT

Well, we've picked up the World Nomads Ambassador Van, and have taken it for a quick spin around sunny Sydney before we head off into the unknown. We have to drop the van off in Melbourne, but we will decide our path to get there as we go. Canberra should be our first major stop, the hopefully off to the Blues festival in Thredbo for some exciting musical feasts! Anyway, the road is calling, so will write some more soon!

Volcanoes & Earthquakes: Tanna Island, Vanuatu

stowaway — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 06:01:00 GMT

So there we were, quietly sitting in the airport terminal munching on a sandwich waiting for our flight to Tanna when suddenly the ground shakes & ceiling fans start wobbling wildly. Earthquake!!!

We looked at each other, then at the floor - which while it didn't look to be moving, certainly felt like standing on the deck of a small boat in a swell. Hmmm, maybe we should go outside.... Suddenly the tremor stops after about 15 seconds & a babble of talking breaks out inside the terminal.

We are about to get on a light aircraft to fly for an hour to an active volcano - was the earthquake a really big eruption & is there now a Tsunami moving our way?

The plane ride was without incident & provided us some great views over Efate Island, many coral reefs and a low fly-in over rugged Tanna. We quickly checked into our modest grass-hut accomodation (complete with 3 hours of electricity a day) and organised a 4WD to get us to Yassur volcano (about 2hrs away on the other side of the island, reached via rugged & muddy 4wd tracks), hoping to get there before the sun went down.

Crossing the vast ash-plain that surrounds the volcano was fascinating, very much like a lunar surface- all deep gray & devoid of vegetation. At times we had some light "ash rain", like fine snow. When we reached Lake Siwi - or where Lake Siwi used to be - It drained out to sea several years ago after breaking through it's natural levee bank. Where the water level once was, you can see numerous layers of ash deposits from many years of the vocano's constant erruptions.

Click to see Google Satellite map of Yassur Volcano & it's ash plain, and the remains of Lake Siwi where it drained out to sea

We reached the summit of the volcano, near the crater edge just before it got dark. We found a track that led a bit higher & would have given us views into the magma lake, but we were warned that the erruptions were throwing lava up onto that track today (due to the strong winds), so we stayed where we were. Every 3-4 minutes the smoke clouds in the volcano crater would glow bright pink, then a loud whooshing noise emenated from the crater depths. About 2 seconds later, a spray of small glowing blobs of lava would rise above the lip of the crater like fireworks, before falling back down into the crater. Some of the lava blobs could be seen splatting onto the far side of the crater, and stayed glowing for up to a minute. You would not want to be struck by some falling super-hot liquid rock!!! A few people have been killed at this volcano in the last few years, mostly by getting stupidly too close to the lava pool.

We spent about an hour by the crater rim after darkness fell, in the howling wind & intermittent rain, watching many erruptions light up sky. A continual shifting glow came from the crater, reflected off the clouds, fog, smoke & steam, but all else was pitch black - not even starlight due to the clouds.

The return trip was equally as adventurous as the drive out - recrossing the ash plain at high speed in the darkness, then the steep jungle tracks with wild shapes illuminated in the powerful headlights. Cattle & boars wandered suddenly onto the track in front of you, or reflected red-eyes in the distance. Eventually we got back to where our hut was, and after a quick dinner of local fish, crawled under the mosquito net & went to bed. A very good day!

Click to see Google Satellite map of Tanna Island, Vanuatu

Bus it!

stowaway — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 03:57:00 GMT

I think the Bus system in Port Vila has got to be one of the best in the world! For a flat rate of just over one dollar you can jump on any of the countless mini-busses and be taken to anywhere you wish within the city of port Villa. Just like a Taxi you may think, but as each mini bus may pick up to a dozen people along the way, the route it takes to drop everybody off may take you anywhere within the Capital before arriving at your desired destination. Its such agreat way for travellers/Tourists to get about, so much cheaper than the official Taxis, and you get to see areas of Port Vila that you would never otherwise get to. Plus lots of interaction with the very friendly & helpful locals.

On one bus trip, on the way back from the airport after flying back from visiting the remote hill-tribe on Tanna, the mini-bus/minvan pulled into a petrol station (for some reason they only ever seem to put a few litres of petrol in at a time, so visiting a petrol station happens pretty often), the pump assistant peered in through the side window and noticed one of the souvineers we had brought back from Tanna - an intricately carved walking stick with boar tusks attatched. Excitedly he motioned us to open the window and said "Did you get that from Yakel village? Did you get that from Tanna? Thats my tribe, thats where I come from!" He then called his wife over to have a look, who also admired it. We showed them some pics from the digital camera & they recognised several of the people from the tribe we had visited the day before.

It turns out the the walking stick we had bought from the remote Yakel village was actually a "Chief stick", as carried by a tribal chief. It was much admired by all the locals that saw it on Efate, and I was rather impressed that we had bought "the real deal" rather than the usual tourist stuff.

Other journeys we took on the busses (while simply trying to get from our hotel room to the town centre & back - about a 5 min trip along the main rd) went via some local's farms, the port, muddy 4wd tracks into areas where the houses were grass huts & rusted cars with tin-sheeting extensions, the airport, various schools, open air markets (complete with half a bus full of fresh vegies), the grand tour of the town centre & secret back roads, numerous petrol stations, and just about everywhere off the main road. A great way to see the 'real' Port Vila, and perfect for finding out where things are around town. It also helped a lot when we hired a car to drive around the island with - we certainly didn't get lost in Port Vila!

Click to see Google Satellite map of Efate Island, Vanuatu

Hanga Roa, Easter Island

stowaway — Sat, 13 May 2006 19:03:00 GMT

The sun is out today, after another night of torrential rain. Ive been visiting the local markets & doing some souvineer shopping. Pretty much every single building sells tourist things of one shape or another. Hanga Roa is a small, sleepy town of about 2500 people. Chickens, horses & thin non-aggressive dogs wander the streets, the locals mostly drive incredibly rustbucket cars that look like they could break in two at any moment. Bumpers, headlights, doors, windows are just things that vehicles can live without, so they do. The only modern cars seem to be the 4wds that are rented out to the tourists & are carefully washed of salt spray each night. The one petrol station on the island is deserted for most of the day but has a queue at about 6pm when all the tourists have to re-fill the tanks before returning their 4 wheel drives.

The locals are a friendly lot, mostly polynesian in looks (apart from the immigrants from Chile). There really isnt any industry here other than tourism, so i guess they like to keep the tourists happy (& sell them some carvings of Moai that they all seem to make.) Im trying to find a suitably nice carving for myself to take home. Shopkeepers with no customers can be found leaning agaist doorways, sanding down their latest small carving and/or watching the daytime soapies in spanish on tiny televisions. They all seem to work on 'island time' - maybe opening up their shops somewhere around 10-11am, have an extended siesta in the early afternoon, before closing up around 5pm. Around this time, the small plaza/park at the end of the main street, which has been deserted all day, fills up with locals & schoolchildren playing games, and everyone catches up of the days events.

The place where I am staying is right by the end of the runway, but this isn't really a problem as there is usually only two flights a week. It's a good 15 minute walk from the main part of town, so it's a bit of a pain to wander back & forth all the time. So I haven't tried out either of the two disco's in town as yet. Apparently there is a big sea-cave/lava tube in the cliffs very close to where i'm staying, but I can't find any signs or mention of it anywhere & I can't see anything from the seashore out the back. I shall do some hunting for it...

80's music is also huge here, as it is in Santiago (& Fiji apparently), but they also play some 90's/naughties stuff as well. Shakira is also big here - which is more understandable, given that she is at least South American. At the 'Ciber' cafe i have been frequenting, the playlist runs fairly consistently as; 80's song, 80's song, 00's song, local spanish or polynesisian-style song, Shakira, and then back to 80's again.

More soon...

Click to see Google Map of Easter island

Easter Island

stowaway — Mon, 8 May 2006 23:47:00 GMT

Well if you can land the space shuttle on the runway here, it must have pretty good brakes! Running from one side of the narrowest part of the almost triangular Easter island, the airport is wedged between 2 volcanoes at its sides and the sea at each end. I thought Easter island only had 3 volcanoes, but apparently it has 77 (none active). The airport was extended by the Americans as an emergency landing place for the space shuttles. Landing in a Airbus is interesting enough - the runway is quite narrow & the gound is already sloping upwards before the end of the wingtips.

Easter island is fantastic - all you have ever heard and then some. am taking 150+ pics per day. I've visited many ahu (stone platforms that the Moai stand on), and have seen many dozen fallen Moai (the big stone statues) & a few that have been stood up again. (All the Moai on the island had either been deliberatly toppled, and others were damaged by earthquakes & a tsunami, so none had been left standing)

Easter island had also been completely denuded of trees, but there are some small planted forests growing back again, and they are all Aussie gum trees! Its the rainy season here, was raining all day yesterday, adding to the dramatic atmosphere of the rugged volcanic coastline.

Today was wonderfully sunny and I got so see the main quarry where they liberate the Moai from the slopes of the volcano called 'Rano Raraku', and also climbed to the top of the volcano crater for some fantastic views. I will upload some more pics but the one i have took sooo long my budget has run out for today. i will add some more to this blog tomorrow. Please add some comments!

Today I had the best fun i have had for years! I hired a motor scooter and hooned around the island , following every dirt & bitumen road i could find (mind you, there are only 2 main roads, and they don´t even go all around the island, there is a good third of the island that doesn´t have vehicular access). Anyway, despite never haven driven a motorscooter (or motorbike for that matter), I immediately headed up the dirt track that leads up the 2nd biggest volcano (Rano Kau). I had already been to the top up the main track yesterday in a minivan to the Birdman village, so this time I found some small side-track detours and went where no rental motorscooter is meant to go. I came spinning off in a large mud puddle and got completely soaked in mud (did i mention it´s the rainy season?), but still made it to the top of the crater rim for some awsome views of the crater lake, rim and sea.

Then I did my best to circumnavigate the island following the coast along mostly dirt roads, revisiting a few Ahu I has seen previously, and discovering many more (there are lots of them, bust most are in pretty poor repair and look like a big pile of volcanic stones) Fallen Moai litter the landscape (there are over 700 on the island).I want to the amazing quarry again where the Moai are carved from the rockface, and where you see the classic images of just the big stone head protruding out of a dirt hillside. There are lots of Hawks flying all over the island, they seem to be the dominant bird species.The rental place took the scooter back without a comment, despite it and me caked in dried mud. I guess they are used to that.

What suprises me a lot is how (relatively) recent the Moai and stone villages are. The first small Moai were made around 1100Ad - the same time the Poms were building their first version of Westminister cathederal, and Angkor Wat in Cambodia was built. Each Moai represented an ancestor, and was placed on an Ahu (stone platform) overlooking the village, where it projected it's power (Mana) and protection over the people in the village. That's why all the Moai face inland rather than looking out to sea. Over the next 600 years, more Moai were carved from the quarry at the volcano at the rate of roughly two per year, getting progressively larger & more stylised. The largest Moai (still unfinished in the quarry) is 10 meters long and is estimated to weigh 300 tonnes! The biggest Moai that was actually placed on an Ahu weighs over 90 tonnes - that's a big rock to move over 10km by manpower alone!

You can look up elsewhere to get the full facts & theories, but basically sometime around the 1600's the small island's natural resources became scarce, the last trees were cut down, tribal warfare broke out and the local religion changed from ancestor worship to a birdman cult. Pretty much all the Moai were deliberately toppled, and their white coral eyes were removed, which destroyed their 'Mana'. No new Moai were started and all those in progress were abandoned at the quarry. Many of the stones fom the Ahu's & broken Moai were used to make shelters, burial chambers & crematoriums. The Orongo village of the birdman cult, on top of the volcano, was built by making chambers with thick slate walls and flat roofs topped off with dirt & grass. These were still in use when the first westerners came along. A Dutchman, Jacob Roggeveen, arrived on Easter Sunday 1722 & named it Easter Island for that reason. Others followed, including good old Captain Cook in 1774, and the Frenchman La Perouse in 1786 - hence Easter Island has a 'La Perouse bay' like Sydney does.)

More soon...

Click to see Google Map of Easter island

Santiago Smog

stowaway — Sat, 6 May 2006 01:15:00 GMT

Hiya all,

Well here i am in Santiago, smog capital of Chile. The smog is so thick you can only really see about 5 blocks. Santiago is right next to the Andes mountains to the west, (which you can just make out some of the top outline of it, if you are lucky) and has another set of smaller mountains to the east, so all the clouds, fog & smog get trapped there.

The flight into Santigo was quite interesting, just seeing a few peaks of the andes poking above the sea of cloud. I even saw a condor soaring around - what a big bird, i thought it was another plane for a while. The plane came lower & lower, and went below the tops of the mountains on both sides, but still not below the clouds. The ground became visible and gets very close, with lots of farms & the odd farmhouse to be seen, but nothing resembling a city or more inportantly, a runway. Suddenly the tarmac appears underneath,in the middle of a big dirt paddock. You cant see one end of the airfield from the other for the smog, and certainly nothing resembling a city to be seen. (I find out later the airport is 16km from the city)

It was 28 hrs between when i got up at 6am & finally crawled into my hotel bed at 9pm, but due to the neat time-travel trick of crossing the international dateline, it was still the same day. The reversal of day/night times took a good day for my body to re-adjust.

Santiago is quite a modern city, slightly bigger in population than Sydney, with pretty much most of the mod cons, but behind in all forms of technology.

I´m doing alright in getting around with my limited spanish, "te con leche" is sofar getting me what I want (Tea with Milk) - with none of the oddities I had in Spain (like getting a glass full of room-temperature UHT milk with a teabag in it)

Interestingly, this internet (saiber) cafe is also a pinball parlour (with only real pinball machines). There are quite a lot of them around santiago, and the pinball machines are quite popular. Naturally, the keys on this keyboard are all over the place, so excuse any strange punctuation¿¡, and half the keys are worn away but have little stickers with the keys handwritten on them. I´m also learning great new phrases like "Abrir en una ventana neuva" (open link in new window)

For some reason, 80´s music is astonishingly popular here. Currently the saiber cafe is playing John Farnhams ´you're the voice´, previously was ´luka´by suzanne vega. All the pedestrian malls have piped music playing along there length, and you guessed it - all 80´s music (but instrumental versions). The local resturant I went to last night played non-stop 80´s hits, and no one other than me spoke english. bizzare. Currently they are playing 'smooth operator´ by sade.

I´ve been walking around a lot of the city today & yesterday, and have seen quite a lot and walked many km, so my feet are rather tired at the momento. I was going to go to a nearby high hilltop (which has either a cable car or funicular railway to get to the top). The hill supposedly has great views of santiago & the andes, but seeing that the smog today is down to about 2 blocks visibility with no visible sun, i might give it a miss.

Anyhoo, thats enough for today. I´ve got another day before I fly to easter island, where the real fun begins. More soon!

Update: The smog cleared a little, so I did walk to the hill & take the funicular railway to the top. Verrry steep, good fun. Some limited views of the city but no Andes in sight. It also has a huge statue of the virgin Mary on top of the hill overlooking Santiago (or the clouds at least).

Click to see Google map of Santiago

Arthurian Tales

stowaway — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 06:19:00 GMT

So here I am, driving a tiny little gold-coloured hired Fiat Punto down south down the west coast of England...

The Cornish coastline is really nice, so I took all the small back roads to follow the coastline down south towards Lands end. The roads become extremely narrow, with high hedges on each side, at times brushing both side mirrors at once. Oncoming traffic can be quite hazardous, especially on the many blind corners, and squeezing past other cars/tractors can be quite an art. Indeed, all over southern England, there are many stretches of road where the high hedges and overgrowing tree branches are trimmed to form long green growing tunnels, some so thick and dark that you have to turn your headlights on.

At times the roads also go steeply down to a beach in a cove, and back up to the top of the next cliff with fabulous ocean views before plunging down again. Near villages or farms, the edges of the road are actually the walls of the buildings, complete with right angle turns and wandering livestock. None of this seems to slow many of the motorists down much.
Still, and fantastic & exciting drive.

This route took me to Tintagel, on the sea-cliffs along the west coast of Cornwall, which is a really amazing place. It's supposedly the legendary home of Arthur and his round table - you should all know the story, but if not, here is a quick recap:

Arthur and his older brother Wayne grew up in a poor but honest village in Cornwall. Their parents, Ted & Ethel Dodgy, had died some years ago from a potato overdose, so they were orphans too. For some reason there was a whopping big stone there that someone had carelessly skewered with a sword. The sword looked expensive, so a lot of people tried to nick it & claim it was theirs, but no-one could pull it free.
Young Arthur had a go one day, and easily pulled the sword out of the stone, to the gasps of amazement from the gathered crowd. Arthur, fearing he had done wrong, went to put the sword back into the stone, but was famously told to 'Leave it out, Arfur'

After that Arthur sold the sword for lots of money and with his brother
Wayne started up a used car business, called 'the Dodgy Brothers'. They
dealt mostly with 2nd hand Jaguars and Rolls Royces (some with Merlin
engines), and were helped out by their mate Terry Mc-something-or-other
(obviously Scottish), who would mind the shop while they were out. They also bought a whopping big castle right on the edge of a cliff with great view & lots of furniture including a king-sized bed and a big round table. For entertainment they used to spend many nights around the round table playing cards. The card nights became legendary in the local area for their drinking & wild antics, and many an old gaffer would sigh and fondly remember 'the nights of the round table'. Yes,those long winter evenings just flew by.

Unfortunately for Arthur, the cliff, which was undercut by huge sea caves, collapsed under their car yard and all their stock of cars fell into the sea (and some of the castle too). Broke and hounded by debt collectors, they changed their names and racked off to hide out in London. Since then the castle has fallen further into ruin (and the sea), but there is enough left to grasp the beauty of England’s prettiest used car yard.
Or something like that...

Well viewers, that's all we've got time for this week.
Coming up next week..... Pirates of Penzance, morris dancing, and what
really happens to archbishops.
So stay tuned!

Click to see Google Satellite map of Tintagel, Cornwall, UK

Ask the Leyland Brothers!

stowaway — Mon, 21 Jul 2003 12:55:00 GMT

G'day viewers, Mike & Mal Leyland here.

We were hoping to be going travelling around our big beaut country of ours with our home movie camera and showing you, the people at home, just what it's like - so you don't actually have to go there yourself and put up with all the flies. Unfortunately, Mike spent all our money building a one-quarter scale model of Ayers Rock out of paper mache, and we don't have any money left to buy petrol for the old bus which is rusting out the back.

C'mon viewers, please get off your backsides and come and visit us at Leyland Brothers World - it's a world class tourist attraction, honestly! I'm so sick of seeing that Steve Irwin on TV, stealing our format & the prime time that we used to have. At least the crocodiles we used to film in the outback weren't inflatable!

But anyway, even though we can’t get our trademark bus moving again, we can still answer some of our viewers letters. Like this one here from 'Curious' in Sydney, which says, 'Dear Mike and Mal, can you tell me what there is to do in London & England these days'. Well 'Curious', we can't travel there ourselves, but we have been in contact with our roving reporter, Stowaway, who is in England at the moment, and he has kindly sent us the following report.
Over to you Stowaway.

Thanks, Mike.
We'll I've been wandering about London for a few weeks now, and also all over the south of England, and I can tell you these facts:

* It's Warm and sunny, which is fantastic, but the lack of understanding about the concept of air conditioning is also coupled with almost airtight buildings/busses/trains/houses, so it stays damn hot & stuffy anywhere indoors (The tube system being the worst in this regard).
* There are more people in London than there are in Perth.
* Everyone I have questioned knows who the crocodile hunter is, but have never heard of the Leyland brothers. Crikey!

Kew Gardens has the worlds fattest pigeons (and me without suitable weaponry!) and exotic plants from all over the world such as um, potatoes...
In fact I reckon they may have even more plants than my parents backyard! Incredible I know, but I guess Kew has over 700 acres to store them in, while my folks have less than 1 acre.

Kew Gardens does have a large rock garden with lots of Australian plants, but it was just missing some of those fake swans made from old rubber tyres painted white to complete the Australian feel...

I visited the British museum to catch up on all the bits I missed in Egypt when I was there. I Don't think I need to go to the parthenon in Athens now, as most of it is nailed up on the walls of the brit museum.
Elgin may not have lost his marbles, but he's long dead...

Went to Greenwich & had a mean time at the observatory, and also inspected the Cutty Sark, once the fastest tea clipper in the world, but now would probably sail a bit better if they removed the concrete walls separating it from the Thames (and maybe added a bit of water as well). A very nice looking ship.

Saw the Salvador Dali Exhibition by the banks of the Thames. For Dali, time may be fluid (or melting) but it's always 6 o clock (knock off time perhaps). He also has a thing with Elephants and lobsters. With his twirling moustache it is obvious to see that he always wanted to play the villain in old Black & white movies, though there doesn't seem to be any sculptures of damsels tied across railway tracks waiting to be rescued. The exhibition is located next to the Millennium wheel, Aquarium & bungee trampolining for additional surrealistic thrills.

We took a stroll through the old Highgate cemetery which is as overgrown and jungle-like as Angkor in Cambodia, with lots of strange shaped stone creatures and buildings poking through the thick undergrowth. Not quite as hot & steamy perhaps, but more spooky. It's absolutely jam packed with graves/tombs and barely enough room for the small dark overgrown paths winding through it - it would be quite easy to get lost in it. Well worth a visit with a camera.

Hired a gold coloured Fiat Punto to travel around the south of England in.
Most uncomfortable car I've ever driven. It seems to be designed for someone with much longer legs, with incredibly thin feet & shorter arms than mine.
oh well, you get what you pay for - I'm managing ok and haven't got (terribly) lost yet.

So I headed east, bravely battling the motorways & roundabouts. My first stop was Oxford, trying to belatedly catch up on the university life I never had (well, besides all the drinking at the Manning & Wentworth bars at Sydney Uni with my oh-so-poor uni friends). It's a bit similar to Cambridge with grand old uni buildings, churches and medieval town centre, but I think Cambridge is slightly prettier.

It's only just down the road to Blenheim Palace, a truly grand building that was built for the first Duke of Marlborough (John Churchill - ancestor of Winston, who was born there) in 1702 as a gift Queen Anne for this famous victory over the French. Has some very cute & tame ducks in the ornate gardens.

I arrived at the town of Bath fairly late one evening, but due to the fact that it's still light till about 10pm, I took a stroll through the town, which has lots of well preserved stuff from roman Britain.
Bath was clearly named after the size of the bath in the B&B I stayed in - you could have swum in it!

The romans also had some old hot bathhouses there, which probably worked in a similar fashion to a Turkish bath/massage, but without the moustache. The water was far too lime green & chunky with algae for my liking, so I used the one at the B&B instead.

Driving across the Salisbury plains, they have lots of roadsigns like the Aussie 'kangaroo' warning signs, except that theirs says 'Tanks Crossing' with a little silhouette of a tank. I don't think even a roo bar would help you much if you ran into one of them...

I found my way to Stonehenge (I'm sure you've heard of it) - At least 4000 years its been there - and it still cant fly. Not a single druid in sight, just a slowly shuffling circle of tourists moving anti-clockwise around the monoliths, paying homage to them before continuing their pilgrimage in their tour busses. Somehow I still managed to take nearly a roll of film of this bunch of rocks.

Also visited Silbury Hill, West Kennett Long barrow (Neolithic gravesite, not a wheel barrow), Avesbury stone circle, and one of the white horses carved into a hillside were also inspected amongst others to round out the ancient landscape of the Salisbury plains. Old Sarum, an iron age earthen fort built into a castle by William the conqueror(and added to by many others since) was quite interesting and also used to house the original Salisbury cathedral. It's all ruins now, just with some foundations and the massive earthworks & moats left, with a nice view over the city of Salisbury & the 'new' cathedral spire.

Don't bother going up the road from Stonehenge to Woodhenge, which is a made up of a whole pile of very modern short concrete posts arranged in a number of concentric circles, entirely lacking in any sort of wood.
Not what I would call a special site - I mean really, there are far more exciting car parks around.

That cheesed me off a little bit, so naturally the next day I drove straight to Cheddar and checked out the decent sized gorge there. They used to keep the cheese stored in caves in the cliff to keep them cool, and obviously forgot about them for about a year and voila! Smelly cheese! Anyone a bit 'ungry like? (said in broad Yorkshire accent, while waving fingers in the international sign language for "Cheeeeese Grommit!")

I just don't get how they got the cows to graze on the sides of the gorge. Maybe some of the cows tumbled down the cliffs and that's how they discovered whipped cream and butter?? (there's cream in them hills! (and where there's cream, there's scones & strawberry jam!))

BTW, in Devonshire, they don't have Devonshire teas - they have 'Cream teas', even though they don't put any cream in the tea (thankfully- or devon either)

Well anyway Mike, that probably enough for now, so i'll sign off now by saying that yep, there is plenty to see in England thesedays, and you'll be hearing more of my wanderings soon!

*With apologies to the Leylands, the Irwins, the Goodies, Nick Park, and anyone else who feels they need one.

** Disclaimer: In case you hadn't worked it out from reading my story above, I am not actually Mike or Mal Leyland. As such, I can't answer any of the comments below with questions for Mike & Mal, and can't guarantee that the real Leyland Brothers will ever read them. But it's nice to see that you enjoyed the Leyland Brothers tv series as much as I did. Apparently you can buy the series on dvd here.

Click to see Google satellite map of Stonehenge

London via Japan

stowaway — Sat, 28 Jun 2003 01:02:00 GMT

Hi Everybody,

Well, i'm back in London yet again.

Had an overnight stopover in Tokyo on the way here, so now i can say i've been to Japan too! From the air it seems to be covered with either rice paddies or golf courses - i've never seen so many golf courses in all my life. It seems quite possible that the majority of trees in Japan seem to be surrounding fairways & greens!

My hotel tv was showing the local version of 'who wants to be a millionare' (mill-yen- aire?), which they seem to have merged with 'funniest home video's (i can't possibly explain here). Anyway, there doesn't seem to be a point in using the 'phone a friend' lifeline (a live video cross!), as by the time they have said the question in Japanese, and the friend has repeated the question, all the time is up! The hotel room was small but fine, and I was amused to see that in place of the ubiquitous 'Guidions bible' they had 'The teachings of Buddha'.

Dinner of boiled Rice & a tiny bit of seafood cost me about $34, and it was almost the cheapest thing on the menu. You think they would be able to make a decent cup of tea too - home of the tea ceremony an all, but they seem to be badly influenced by the Americans in this department - using some alien concoction instead of milk and not even hot. Yes, I'm a tea addict but you knew that already.

So onto London... Amazingly, the weather here is warm & sunny! (a surprise for me as I've only ever been here in late autumn/winter). Clear skies, up to 28 degrees and a bit humid. I don't think I'm going to need my thermals in a hurry (Though my umbrella has found use already, no suprise there). Somehow i manged to get sunburnt within my first 24hrs in London, probably a neat trick for an Australian!

Went for a drive up to Cambridge with Ed & Clare in their classic old triumph - a great car to see the English countryside in. Cambridge is very pretty, lots of grand Uni buildings, colleges, churches. parks, canals & cute ducks. I'll do a comparison with Oxford when I go there & decide which is the nicer. Unfortunately we didn't have time to go for a punt on the river.

Went to Madame Tussauds, I've always avoided it previously due to the queues & cost. So I queued up for over an hour, paid nearly $50 and was quite underwhelmed, battling for space & a view between the hordes of overweight tourists (mostly American & Arabic). I did chuckle when I saw little Johnie Howards figure standing behind Saddam Hussein's. The live actors in the chamber of horrors was a nice touch, the fake taxi-ride though the animatronics was good, but I got the most amusement out of a wax figure that looked like an ordinary tourist with daypack & camera, posed to take a picture of one of the wax celebrities (it was Buffy). All the real tourists kept moving out of the way (& even apologising), so the fake 'tourist' could get a clear picture.

Have done a cruise on the Thames to add to my suntan/burn, as well as much wandering about London. Took a spin on the 'eye of London' (aka millennium wheel, worlds biggest ferris wheel) and got a very good view over very clear London, and a peek into the ceremony in buckingham palace for the Russian prime minister. Checked out the RAF Museum, lots of old planes and a few 'touch & go' landings by a pair of Chinook helicopters next to the car park was a nice bonus. It nearly blew over a few of the smaller cars and did overturn a picnic table.

The tv here is interesting, with shows like 'Death by gardening' (watching burkes backyard, surely), and documentaries on custard wrestling. Things could get scary if i start getting into eastenders...

Anyway, i will be heading off to the south of England sometime next week, then through Cornwall & wales and back to London again, so will probably write again then.

Hope everybody is well, and will write back!

Cheers,

Tan me hide when I'm dead, Fred

stowaway — Sun, 10 Feb 2002 05:09:00 GMT

Hiya Everybody,

Well, I'm back in sunny (not) Sydney after my latest jaunts through a couple of states.

Firstly I went for a nice drive up the east coast to past Coffs Harbour,
visiting numerous friends & relatives along the way (all conveniently
located on or just by nice beaches) and attempting to work on my tan. This not being quite as successful as I hoped, I then decided to dash over to the Northern Territory for a little while, where there was bound to be sunshine-a-plenty.

And indeed there was. Nice clear skies, low humidity (unusual for wet
season), and only about 35 - 37 degrees. Apparently it was 54 degrees the
week before at one of the places I visited. No rain at all - unlike er...
all the rest of Australia from what I can work out. Suffer in your jocks!

I flew into Alice springs and joined a (gasp!) bus/backpacker tour (no, not Con-Tiki) of all the usual touristy things. We mostly camped under the stars in swags, with a few hostel stays as well.

Now I feel there must be some kind of worldwide conspiracy between bus/truck drivers to torture their passengers with the same music several times a day. If I ever hear 'I feel good' by James Brown, or indeed any part of the 'Good Morning Vietnam' soundtrack again, I shall go completely ballistic. It is NOT what you want to hear every morning, or again at lunch, or again... ever! With a boasted selection of about 200 cd's, you would think they might be able to play more than just one. Thankfully my sanity was kept intact by the liberal application of my diskman at full volume, using either the aptly named 'Please save me' by Sunscreem, or the full sounds of PJ Harvey. Her "stories from the city" CD has been getting a good workout since I first left Australia. 'Baby Baby, ain't it true / I'm immortal when I'm with you'

The Olga's (Kata Tjuta) were impressive, especially from a certain angle
where they look just like Homer Simpson lying down with his arms resting on his stomach holding a donut. I kid you not. Also went for some good walks amongst them and saw them turn even redder during sunset.

Ayers rock was huge, red, steep & strenuous to climb - I can see why it's
caused so many heart attacks. The wind on top is amazingly strong too, but well worth the climb for the view and to say you've done it. A walk around the base finds lots of caves, sacred sites and interesting nooks & crannies.

Getting up before dawn to see the sunrise wasn't so impressive - the day (& rock) got lighter and I wished I was still asleep in my swag. Sunset was a bit the same (in reverse), but with the added advantages of lots of wine and nibblies.

Kings Canyon was probably my favourite. I went for a helicopter flight over & around it, and then spent the rest of the day walking in, around, and over the canyon. Took lots of pics as around every corner it changed again (& usually got better). Was very tired but happy at the end of that day.

Also went to Stanley Chasm, Simpsons gap, and a bunch of other places. Rode a camel through the desert (more comfortable than an elephant, but nearly as tall), had a 4 metre Python crawl all over me in a reptile show, and almost completely failed to get much of a tan at all. I mean, I have a bit of one, so see me soon before it fades away after a few days once more. (Or else people will never believe I've been travelling in the sun for months & months...) Though I have (just a few) photos...

So, I'm back in Sydney, it must be time to unpack my backpack & get my life sorted out. You know where to find me,
Cheers,
Stowaway

Tassie in 10 days

stowaway — Wed, 30 Jan 2002 09:39:00 GMT

Oh yes, I flew down to Tasmania for 10 days. Hopped on a sort of minibus tour with about 6 other backpackers & went around the island staying in youth hostels. Climbed cradle mountain, went to Port Arthur, wineglass bay, Marakoopa caves, Hobart & a bunch of other places.

Will expand on this entry later when i have time.

Sydney is just a tad warmer than London

stowaway — Thu, 10 Jan 2002 04:58:00 GMT

Hiya everyone,

Well I'm back in Australia(for those who didn't already know this).

I survived the chills of London and the multitude of customs inspections with my shoes, backpack, shish pipe and mandola intact.

The tube train broke down on the way to Heathrow and by the time I got to the airport my flight had already closed. Not to worry (too much...), I was rushed away through the airport via some secret shortcuts, my pack taken away from me (hopefully to see again in LA) and I was put on one of those little golf buggy mobiles and sped through the long corridors of Heathrow at very high speed, horn working overtime to herd those other pesky travellers out of the way. With the red light flashing, two uniformed men waving people out of the way and me perched on the back nursing my mandola case & daypack I possible looked like some grunge rock star, but had no time to fish out some dark sunnies to complete the look. I was the last person on the packed plane, but I made it.

12 hours flying to... a 7hr stopover in LA. mmmmm, nuff said.

On the LA to Sydney flight (14 hrs), the people in the two seats next to me didn't show up. So 3 seats to myself! I slept sprawled over them for 8 hours straight. Bliss!!! Nearly makes up for all the other hell flights on this trip.

Sydney's skies were as gray as London's, but much hotter. Yes, the bushfires were on the news overseas.

So here I am, at least temporarily. I'm feeling the call of some north coast beaches and then perhaps Ayers rock for a slight change of scene for a couple of weeks. Then perhaps it's looking for a new job and a new place of residence in good old Sydney.

So I guess this is the last of this series of my travel updates. I hope you enjoyed them.
Many thanks and Hi to all those I met on my travels, travelled with, put me up, put up with me, and took the time to write to me - I really appreciated it! Hopefully I can catch up with many of you now I'm back in Sydney.
I'll still be using this email address & blog, so... Write to me!!!

'Till next time,
Cheers,
Stowaway

Back in Old Blighty

stowaway — Sat, 22 Dec 2001 04:29:00 GMT

Departing Vienna for a slightly warmer England and it's straight down south to jolly Portsmouth by the sea. Land ahoy & shiver me timbers, there's some ye olde ships there like Nelson's flagship ‘Victory’ (surely I don't have to explain that one), the Mary Rose (it sank), HMS Warrior (world's first ironclad) & plenty more. All up it makes me glad I wasn't a sailor on any of them.

The pub-wide conversation in the small pub I stayed at in Portsmouth was quite interesting... all about who's lad could beat the pulp out of someone else's lad (with or without broken bottles). Got very heated, especially from some of the females bragging about their lads. I wisely kept quiet.

London seems more civilised & not too cold. Caught up with Clare & Ed & Mandy & Fran & Hels. Many thanks to Mandy for putting me up while in London. I've been doing day trips in & around London to places I haven't been on previous trips here, like the Planetarium (good fun!). Also saw Lord of the rings at the movies, it's great (nah nah nah to those still waiting for it to arrive in oz)

I have splurged a bit and have gone and bought myself a Mandola - it's like a mandolin, only bigger and an octave lower in pitch(also related to the middle eastern OUD and a bouzouki). It's handmade in Scotland, looks fabulous & sounds beautiful. They didn't have a proper custom case for it, but it fits snugly into a banjo case, so thats what I got. I'll have to see if I can work out how to play 'duelling banjos' now...

Anyway, the plan is to head to the US of A, hopefully able to survive getting through LA customs. Possibly difficult while looking like a ragged traveller, with a passport full of recently visited middle eastern countries, carrying a sub-machinegun-sized hard case, an Arab head dress & a shish pipe.

After that, it's back to Sydney (at least for a while) So hopefully I can catch up with all you Sid-en-ee based people in the new year!

So on that note (G#), I hope that you all have a verry merrry christmas and a ripper of a new year!! (or else yule be sorry!)

Travel broadens the behind

stowaway — Tue, 11 Dec 2001 10:51:00 GMT

'We walked in the cold air, freezing breath on the window pane, lying & waiting.... yadda yadda yadda..... Ahhh Vienna'. Oh well, it will make sense to 80's music junkies like me. Yep, I'm in Vienna, Austria.

I'm having a bit of reverse culture shock. Going from 26 degrees in Cairo to sub-zero temperatures, snow and no sun all day. And it's soooo expensive, I could live for weeks in the middle east for what it costs per day here. Suddenly it's Christmas big bigtime, cant escape the carols & decorations & festivities. Crowds of people gather at stalls at night to drink hot punch (alcoholic of course) and large open areas are set aside for night markets full of stalls selling all kinds of xmas goodies. Like at the royal easter show, but xmassy. The crowds are thick & enthusiastic and it smells strongly of chocolate, cinnamon, punch, and fairy floss. In fact it seems like a town full of fashionably dressed ski bunnies at an enormous funfair. The whole town is lit up like one big Christmas tree too.

Did I mention it's snowing? It is quite possible that I may have been walking around with an idiotic grin on my face, kicking away at little snowdrifts and watching the streets and monuments slowly turn white.

I walked through some arch (which may have been part of a palace), and suddenly I'm in this medieval world of beautiful old buildings and parks of leafless trees lightly dusted with fresh snow. Fairy tale stuff.

The food is also rather good, and I'm catching up on all the hot chocolates I've missed for the last few months. The sachaTorte is also verrry good. Along with all the food I've been scoffing since I last left London, I'm sure I've packed on some extra weight to take home. You may laugh (and probably will), but there you have it. The huge amount of fat that turned into muscle in Nepal may be reversing that trend in the land of chocolate & cream. and cake. and beer. and more chocolate.

Vienna may be a tad chilly & wallet hungry, but certainly has it's compensations. When in Bohemia, do as the bohemians do, that's what I say. Well perhaps not consuming absinthe, but hot apfelpunsch & saschertorte are certainly doing the trick for me. Indulging both in a cafe (yet again) accompanied by the soothing sounds of a string quartet, I idly wondered which of Vienna's multitude of master musicians had composed this piece. Strauss perhaps? It seemed so familiar. Hang on, it's... Enter Sandman by Metallica?? Who says traditions can't evolve!

I really like this place, but I sure can't afford to stay here for long! I got a few photo's from Egypt developed, and nearly died when I got the bill (should have asked first!), but they came out like postcards, some really good pics in there. I may even scan some in if you are lucky.

Well, it's cold, it's dark, and it's snowing. I'm off to explore & wander the streets some more...

ps: For 80's music tragics, see Ultravox's Vienna video clip here!

In search of the lost tomb of Tutankhelvis

stowaway — Sat, 1 Dec 2001 13:33:00 GMT

Meanwhile, back in Aswan, Batman prepares to escape from the clutches of the dreaded tourist police jokers by leaping onto the BatBoat...

Well, perhaps it wasn't quite the Batboat, but we did sail a Felucca (small single-masted sailboat) down the Nile for 2 days, traveling at a very leisurely pace (probably could have walked quicker), drifting with the current when there was no wind, or rowing if we actually needed to go in a direction somewhere (like the riverbank), and sleeping on the deck in sleeping bags as it got fairly cold once the sun went down.

This is of course the time when the locals break their Ramadan daytime fast with lots of food, music & partying. Having your dinner cooked on an open fire on the deck of a small wooden boat was a new experience for me, but somehow it worked without burning the boat down to the waterline.

After dinner was done, several other Felucca's pulled up alongside & the boats were tied together while still drifting down the Nile in the darkness. Out came the hand drums, Tablas ,an Oud (like a big fretless mandolin), a very battered clarinet sort of thing and a variety of small percussion instruments, and then the music started. Eventually tiredness overtook me, and the last thing i remember was lying in my sleeping bag on the deck, the water lapping gently at the side of the boat, a brilliant star filled night above, and half a dozen men singing happily & playing their instruments with the backing of pulsing percussion.

Waving goodbye to the felucca, we hightailed it back to Cairo in a long days driving, and set off for the pyramids the next day.

The Pyramids were impressive & large, it was very strange to be driving along downtown Cairo surrounded by fairly large buildings, and rounding a corner, seeing the great pyramid looming above them, only about 250 metres away. They are set back on a small hill of sand, with the desert behind them, and the city right in front. Went inside the great pyramid of Cheops up to the 'kings chamber' - the passageways to the other 2 chambers are closed for restoration. You have to bend down to travel through the passageway & it's quite steep too. The Chamber at the top is fairly tall, but still quite a small room with a simple sarcophagus. Quite eerie when you are on your own.

The Sphinx was much smaller than I had imagined, and clearly shows the work of a number of attempted restorations. Your not allowed close enough to touch it, but it makes for some good photos with the other pyramids in the background. A swirling sandstorm started up, and it was easy to see how objects this large & larger had been buried under the sand.

I also went to the original step pyramid at Saqqara, said to be the first stone pyramid (built in the 3rd Dynasty - around 2630 BC) and the basis of designs for future pyramids. It was only occasionally visible through the swirling stinging sand, so photo opportunites were somewhat limited.. Then it was off to Memphis (not in Tennessee, but an old capital of Egypt), but there isn't that much left of it, just some none too impressive ruins & few statues of Ramses II (not that you would see any statues of him at allllll in Egypt - the man really left his mark - and destroyed things by other people he didn't like).

Memphis was briefly revived in the 1st century AD by one of the later Roman emperors. In a break from the normal roman practice of trying to further ‘Romanize’ conquered countries, he renounced his own name to take the Egyptian name of Tutankhelvis. His attempt to remake Memphis the capital of lower Egypt was short lived, as was his reign as Pharaoh (96 - 100AD). Long considered to be a puppet of his high priest and adviser, Thomm, Tutankhelvis was neverless noted as a patron of the arts and somewhat of a poet/balladist himself. One latin transcript attributed to him was found on a temple wall in Memphis, and it is still debated as wether it is a song, poem or a command to the people. Reading as 'Populus orgy similarus amine domino XCIX', this roughly translates to '(We’re gonna have a) Party like it's AD99'

Tutankhelvis died in early AD100, from a combination of obesity, syphillis & liver failure, as did much of the population that year. Memphis quickly declined in importance once again, and was eventually abandoned. While the tomb of Tutankhelvis was discovered in a fairly intact state, his body was never found. When questioned about the absence of the body inside the seemingly unopened sarcophagus, the hired Egyptian diggers shrugged and simply said that "Tutankhelvis has left the building".

Over the years since then, several credible witnesses have claimed to have seen Tutankhelvis serving fries in the McDonalds in Cairo, although this has never been proved conclusively. While i was in Cairo, I decided to research this more thoroughly.

Anyway, after a few days wandering around Cairo I came to the conclusion that the best place to get lunch during Ramadan was indeed McDonalds. Shock horror gasp! Why? Well, it's one of the very few food places that are open during the day (and it has blinds that they pull down so the devout muslims outside can't see you eating). Eating your food on the streets in daytime could possibly get you mugged (Look, he's got maccas, kill him!) or at least really annoy some of the devout & hungry citizens who have been fasting all day. You are usually the only person in maccas, and so they cook all the food especially for you, it takes a little longer but gee it's hot (& fresh?) and tastes the best maccas can possibly be. But come sunset, the place is absolutely packed with very little standing room left, but only for about half an hour.

KFC is a bad choice for lunch, as they use the chicken left over from the night before, yukko. Admittedly, even that tasted better than the lamb/beef/strange alien creature's testicles that I ordered in a local restaurant one evening. It had a bizzare texture, a bit like play-doh mixed with breadcrumbs. If only I could read Egyptian... or perhaps it's just better not knowing what you ordered...

To be continued...

*it is possible there may be some extremely tiny historical inaccuracies in the above article, although it was extensively researched by Professor Arthur Dodgy.

Thank you very much, uh huh.

We got ourselves a Convoy...

stowaway — Mon, 19 Nov 2001 12:38:00 GMT

Then it was off to Wadi Rum, a desert region of sand dunes and impressive vertical rock mountains made famous by the exploits of Lawrence of Arabia, who used it as a base during WW1, and also lived there for some time after the end of the war. It wasn’t long before our 4wd truck got bogged in the fine dry sand. Despite it’s large tyres and a lot of digging, we were stuck fast until some local Bedouins drove by in their 4wd and towed us out of the super soft sand patch.

Dusk was falling and they invited us along to their campsite not too far away in the wadi, sheltered beneath a huge rock formation. We stayed the night in a Bedouin tent, and they cooked us up some of the tastiest chicken I've ever had - KFC watch out! Desert hospitality for you!

The next day Iain & Jana took the freed truck headed back to the main road and the long way around Wadi Rum to Aqaba, and we went in the bedouins' 4wd straight through the desert (just like Good old Lawrence did, but why use camels when you've got a landcruiser!), stopping off at various places that our Bedouin driver thought would be interesting to us. They were, especially Lawrence of Arabia's house & surrounds, and many of the natural rock formations. Apparently much of the movie starring Peter O Toole was also shot on location here.

After leaving the Wadi, our Bedouin driver took us into town in his ancient rattley Landcruiser, coasting down the looooong steep downhill to the coast - with the engine off and in neutral (to save petrol), & with a broken handbrake, but still overtaking semitrailers & dodging oncoming traffic. I did get slightly worried when he opened up the door and stood on the doorsill – one hand on the steering wheel and the other hand going through his stuff on the roof-racks. However we made it to the port of Aqaba and found our little truck again (just in time to catch our ferry to Egypt...)

Ramadan arrives (the Muslim holy month of fasting and late night parties), causing havoc with travel departures and eating during the day. Places start to open about 10am-ish, close again about 2-30pm onwards, and open up again about 6-9pm. Restaurants and street vendors won't serve food during the daylight, but are jammed full of locals as the sun starts to set, who attack their plates in a frenzy of eating the moment the sun falls below the horizon. The streets are almost totally deserted while this occurs, but they emerge later to continue on late into the night.

Due to this, our ferry to Egypt, originally departing at midday, eventually left at about 9.30pm, arrived in Egypt about 2am, and we cleared customs a bit after 4am.

Made it to Dahab on the shore of the red sea at 6am, so a sleep sounded like a better idea than exploring. Whoever named the red sea must have been colourblind, as it is very obviously a rich deep blue, not red.
(* further research by well known Egyptologist Dr Arthur Dodgy has since revealed that the name actually came from a bad-english translation of ‘the sea of Reeds’ – due to the amount of reeds along the shoreline.)

Spent a few days lazing about in the sun at Dahab. Hundreds of palm tree lined beach front cafes/restaurants/hotels in a row. As a tourist resort it must be jammed packed in summer, but is almost deserted at the moment. Went diving in the red sea, at a (world famous?) location called the blue hole - a large hole in the coral reef, 5 metres offshore, 105 metres straight down. Did my deepest dive yet (must do my deep diving course when i get back), and was chased by a huge turtle that seemed nearly as big as me!. Brilliant visibility to boot.

Driving onward through the desert of Sinai, we naturally stopped to climb Mt Sinai to watch the sunset. It's freezing up there as the sun goes down, and we stumbled back down the mountainside in the darkness and eventually found our tents again at the bottom.

After trucking it through the Egyptian desert for a while and driving under the suez canal (i didn't know they had a tunnel there), buildings started appearing and the manic traffic of Cairo engulfed us.

Visited the Egyptian museum and have now seen enough mummies to last a lifetime. Rameses II (the main man) was still in pretty good nick, though looking a little weather beaten.

Many of the other mummies were really showing (and acting) their age. They all looked liked they could do with a good feed too, as they were getting close to skin and bones.

Time to head further down the red sea coast to Safaga, and next day down towards Aswan. At least that was the plan. To drive south from Safaga to Aswan, the government requires you to join a convoy of other tourist vehicles, guarded by submachinegun toting police, 'for your protection'. This was started after the tourist massacre at Luxor in 1996. Strangely, heading north from Aswan to Safaga along the same road does not require a convoy as it is 'quite safe'. Go figure...

We were told the night before that the convoy left at 9am. Arriving at 8.15, we were told that the convoy left at 7am (or 6am, depending on who you talked to). After much arguing, pleading, waiting, arguing again and shuffling between police checkpoints, we were told a 'special' escort would be arranged. After a 2 hour wait we realised this wasn't going to happen, so it was off to the police checkpoint to haggle again.

No convoy till 3pm was the answer. More waiting. At 3.40pm the 'convoy' (just us) finally left (with heavily armed escort car). Phew, that's over.

But wait, there's more (a free set of steak knives???)

Less than an hour into the 6hr trip, the escort car pulls into a tourist rest stop (designed to cater for many busloads of tourists all needing to go to the loo within 5mins and having to pay dearly for the privilege). So, loo break & back in the truck. The escort car informs us that they are not leaving till 7pm (so they can have their Ramadan feast at sundown, ages away yet). More arguing and we head off without police escort until we are stopped at the next police checkpoint. Yet more arguing, red faced police captains, bored guards staring into the distance or moving spiky logs across the road, AK47 waving plain-clothed guys. This goes on for about 45 mins and the traffic we are blocking with the truck is backing up in both directions. Finally, the captain agrees to let us go (to get rid of the traffic jam), without escort (curse those stupid foreigners), if we apologise to him (for attempting to undermine his authority in front of his subordinates). This is easily done and we cheer as Jana drives away under our own control.

But these ain’t just ordinary steak knives...

We drive into the night with a huge fat red sun sinking slowly in the west and glowing across the desert. We get to Luxor, about halfway to Aswan, skilfully avoiding police checks by driving as fast as possible through the slalom checkpoints, where the guards are too engrossed in eating their first meal of the day to pay much attention to the traffic. This lasts for a while, but one must have realised and radioed ahead to the next checkpoint, who had the spiky logs and barricades out as soon as they saw us. The Captain at the last checkpoint had said to us that we didn't need an escort past Luxor -maybe just to get rid of us). Shee, and this police force was set up with the specific task of looking after tourists! More arguing was to no avail, with much AK47 waving going on, so we turned around and found a hotel in Luxor. (double bed luxury with onsuite for only $5 Australian!)

So here I am in Luxor, on the banks of the Nile river. Luckily we were planning to come here at a later date anyway. Visited the big Temple of Amun at Karnak, the Luxor temple (*best viewed from 3rd floor of McDonald's next door, if you don't want to pay to get in), and some more Egyptian-type-stuff (suprisingly enough).

The next day we went to the valley of the kings (king tuts tomb & many others) on a donkey. Always wanted to go there and it was truly excellent & well worth it. I always thought it was waaaay out in the desert, but it's just the other side of the Nile from Luxor. The trees and vegetation disappear less than 100 m from the riverbank, and it's desert again. We spent the day riding donkeys from tomb to tomb, saw Ramses II, King Tut's (very small and plain) and a number of others before hoofing it over to the valley of the queens to see Queen Nefertari's tomb, which is probably the most impressive one remaining - stunning paintings & carvings on the wall, still in near perfect condition. Also saw some of the artists tombs (who painted/carved the pics in the royal tombs).

The information signs for the tourists which are at the entrance to the tombs are often rather amusing, as the writer’s English translation skills are somewhat questionable. One example starts with “the fourking 19th Oynesty”. The best one reads “The wall is Oecoratd with the Book of the DeadBook of the Book the Book BookBook”.

My bum is still sore from riding a donkey all day - donkey rides are definitely a pain in the ass.

We did manage to catch the 3pm convoy to Aswan ok (just us again), and from there caught another convoy at 3:45 in the morning (with lots of tourist busses for a change) to Abu Simbel to see the temples that were relocated in the 1960's to prevent them from being lost under the rising waters of the Aswan dam. They were re-assembled into a man-made hillside, airconditioned to prevent decay of the paintings, and now overlook the waters of Lake Nasser.

And then the hordes of tourists were ushered back into their busses and the convoy departed to head back here again, leaving the majestic temples in peace & quiet once again.

to be continued.....

The road to Damascus

stowaway — Fri, 16 Nov 2001 10:59:00 GMT

After camping a night in a disused rock quarry to evade the Turkish rangers (who aren't very keen on people camping by the roadside in the middle of nowhere), we crossed the border to Syria. Strangely, the soil changes colour from dusty grey to rich red as soon as you cross the border. I have no idea why as there is no obvious geological change.

First impressions of Syria:
flat treeless desert plains
mad drivers - no road rules but lots of traffic policemen - up to 9 policemen on one intersection - even though they also have working traffic lights at the same intersection! I was quite surprised at the number of old American cars from the 40's 50's and 60's. Also lots of black Cadillac’s and Mercedes motoring about.

We visited several Crusader Castles scattered across Syria, by far the best being CRAK DES CHEVALIERS, which is definitely the most impressive castle I have seen anywhere. (also know as Krak des Chevaliers)

Spent a fair bit of time scouring several local covered souks (markets), narrow alleys and everything for sale you can think of (and many I hadn't). I found there were much less hassles shopping in the local markets compared to Turkey – not yet sure if this is a cultural difference or because there is a lesser impact of tourism.

Spent a day in Palmyra in the Syrian desert, yet another city swallowed by the sands of time. Probably the most impressive set of ruins I've seen to date. Where else can you get a Roman city, a crusader castle & Bedouin tents in the same place?

Much of the middle east can be summarised by those brilliant modern philosophers, the B52's, who in their song 'Mesapotamia' wrote:
“I aint no student / of ancient culture
before I go / I should read a book
But there is one thing / that I do know
There's a lot of ruins / in Mesapotamia.”

And Now I am up to Damascus, busy city, and spent two days wandering around. Soon it's off To Jordan, where I m looking forward to going to Petra.

will write more soon

Bath Time!

stowaway — Fri, 2 Nov 2001 11:34:00 GMT

Today we visited Cappadocia, a large area of amazing rock formations & underground cities carved straight out of the soft rock. One area we visited had 11 levels - 3 floors above ground carved into the cliff, and 8 levels below ground! A bit like caves, but cosier & better designed. The six- floor monastery carved into a cliffface was particularly impressive.

Apparently people used to still live in some of the old carved out dwellings until very recently, when the government relocated them to neaby towns (that have nice modern things like plumbing, sewerage etc). Mind you, you can still see a few tv aerials poking out from some of the 'caves'

The pointy rock formations that abound are formed simply by water erosion into the very soft rock. It looks very other-worldly, which I suppose is why they filmed some of the first 'Star Wars' movie here.

Later on, while in the neaby town of Goreme, we tried out a genuine Turkish bath in the local (men only) bathhouse. After sitting around in a very spacious marble-enclosed steam room for a while, alternating between the sauna on one side, showers on the other & the large communal space in the middle, I was guided off into an adjoining room for the next stage of the Turkish Bath experience. An enormous moustached Turkish Sumo-wrestler entered the room and proceeded to completely squash me onto a marble slab. Apparently this is what the locals call massage.

However this was just the prelude to the real torture, administered by another equally moustached but even larger Turkish sumo. This involves being scrubbed down with what seems to be steel wool, which was quite painful, and watching my skin flake off in large chunks was also not pleasant. As a finale, I am doused with several buckets of near boiling water. I emerged much flatter, with glowing red skin and minus the suntan I had been working on for 3 months.

I wonder if they do accupuncture too?

Red sky at night, Turkish delight

stowaway — Sun, 28 Oct 2001 03:51:00 GMT

We left Greece and after a long and annoying border check, we entered Turkey and drove to Instanbul. I had 3 days there to wander around and went to the Blue mosque and St Sofia and lots of museums (such as the archaeological museum, the museum of ceramic tiles and the museum of carpets and candlesticks) in the rain. That's culture for you.

Of course Istanbul is not complete without a visit to the Sultans palace and the Harem, which under the sultans mother and wives was the true seat of power of the Ottoman empire for hundreds of years. (yes yes, insert Sultana/Date joke here...)

Then it was off to Gallipoli on a beautiful sunny day, which is a quite unique place to be. Again we were the only people there, which made it even more special.

I wandered up from Anzac cove, climbed the hill to Plugges plateau, down into Shrapnel Gully and up to Lone Pine and Chunuk Bair: all names quite familiar to me, but so different when you are actually there. Really makes you think. Watched the sun set over the nice flat beach the Anzacs were meant to land on.

The next day, a short car ferry took us across the Dardenelles and into Asia minor (but still in Turkey).

Went in search of the fabled city of Troy - most people thought it was just a Greek legend until a German guy went digging for it at the place it was written (in the Illiad) to be - and found a bunch of ruins. Nine ancient cities built on top of each other. They reckon the legendary Troy that was fought over by the Greeks to rescue Helen of Sparta was city no. 6 (or 7). Apparently the sea was a lot closer then, as Troy is now a long way inland due to lower sea levels.

Troy is not that big but it's a dense mass of ruins and city walls. I never realised it was only about 2 dozen km away from where the Anzacs landed in WWI (though the French landing was right by it)

Saw the remnant of the temple of Artemis today, once one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world - now there is just one pillar standing. Also visited Esphesus, another huge ruined city (maybe I'm in Rome again)

I did buy everyone (part of) a huge amount of Turkish delight, every flavour imaginable (and then some) but it's really yummy & I have eaten almost all of it. Naturally, we spent a very pleasant evening watching traditional belly dancers and eating vast amounts of Turkish cuisine (other than kebabs).

Visited Termessos - a hilltop city that was never conquered by anyone. Alexander the Great tried & failed, and later the Romans had a look at the cities defenses and declared them allies instead of trying to take it over. Unfortunately, since then the city has had a major run-in with father Time and a couple of earthquakes, and the place is now a mass of overgrown ruins.

We went to Olimpos, a ruined roman (& other) city by the sea, and that night climbed the mountain to see the flames of Chimera spouting straight from the rocky mountainside. We also stayed the night in a treehouse (as you do), playing cards & drinking.

Well that's it for this installment. Heading east tomorrow i think, probably another 10 days in Turkey.

Take care all,
Stowaway

Meteora monasteries

stowaway — Thu, 25 Oct 2001 06:54:00 GMT

A 9 hr ferry ride took us to Greece. Greece was fun and we camped everywhere, being the only people in every camping site we went to. The weather is getting colder & there are very few tourists about which is fine by me - you get to see most sites undisturbed.

Went to some monasteries at Meteora which are perched atop small but high & very vertical rock formations. You generally need either very good rock-climbing skills or the use of a winch & lowered basket to get up to them. One of the monastaries was used as evil villans secret hideout in a James bond movie (forget which one now). Anyway, an amazing place. (pics to come soon)

Next stop - Turkey!

Today is Tuesday so this must be...Rome?

stowaway — Tue, 23 Oct 2001 00:39:00 GMT

Hang on, it's Wednesday.... so I'm in... (checks watch) .... well it's 4am in the morning in Sydney anyway (note to self: much change watch to local time, after finding out where I am & what day it is).

I'm pretty sure I'm in Rome today, there is some evidence to support this claim: I saw the colosseum, the Cistene chapel, some big marble house where an old guy in a funny hat lives (with bizarrely dressed doormen!), lots of roman-like ruins (could be anywhere in Europe i suppose), some steps covered with tourists, and some big fountain where you throw coins in over your shoulder & make a wish. Hardly conclusive proof of being in Rome, But I do know I had Pizza in Piza, next to some wonky tower yesterday (or the day before yesterday), so I guess I'm in Italy at least.

I left England on Friday morning. Many thanks to Caroline & Kate for letting me stay at their places while in London. The one night I had to stay in a hotel (Russian run), someone tried to break into my room while i was in it. Irately calling 'excuse me' caused the metal ruler to stop trying to open the lock with no further attempts that night. An interesting experience. Also Caught up with Francoise & Helen & Ed & Clare and had a good night in a pub in London. Hiya Guys, hope you had a good night too!

Anyway, took an early train Friday morning to chilly Dover & a short ferry trip to Calais. It was like deja-vu from going to Ireland or Orkney, as the ferries are identical. France was a rainy blur of flat green fields & cheap hotels. The fields turned into hills & then mountains, and just as you think your going to get a nice view, the road goes into a tunnel. I may have 1 photo of France.

One of the tunnels was apparently a border to Italy. The weather suddenly improved, as did the frequency of tunnels. Eventually the mountains got flat again, the Mediterranean sea sparkled (between tunnels) and Piza suddenly appeared.

Anyway, moving right along at high speed... Pompei was good - I never realised it was so large - that's a lot of excavation work gone on there and a good glimpse of life (and death) in that period.

Well, I'm out of money so that's all folks (for now) Next stop - overnight ferry to Greece, and a mad dash to Instanbul (Which is where this trip really starts, I'm just traveling to get there by Saturday).

Hope everyone is well,
Later,
Stowaway

Mt Everest aint so big...

stowaway — Thu, 11 Oct 2001 13:57:00 GMT

Hi Everyone,

I'm Back in Kathmandu, Nepal, after wandering up & down a few small hills to have a bit of a look at Mount Everest.

Before that I did a week long trek to the Annapurna ranges (kinda at the other end of Nepal). It started at a fairly low altitude outside of Phokara and climbed pretty steeply to a reasonable height. It was sunny & very hot so the sweat was running nearly as much as the numerous rivers & streams. Lots of rice paddies, stunning views of snow covered mountains (suprise suprise), classy toilets (sarcasm) & pretty good food & accommodation (sometimes even with hot showers of a sort). The sherpa guides take pretty good care of you & I've got used to black tea (with or without lemon cordial). Lots of donkey/mule caravans on the trail and of course lots of porters with truly amazing loads. They are a bit tougher & fitter than me... I found coming down the steep hills much harder than going up as it's harder on the knees & calves.

Then it was off to the Royal Chitwan nation park for a 3 day jungle safari.

It was incredibly humid & very hot. I thought I was sweating going uphill on the trek, but nothing like this. I thought nothing could beat the humidity of Bangkok, but again I’m proven wrong. Up to 6 showers a day and dripping with sweat again 2 minutes later. Very yuk. Did two Elephant back safari's through the jungle & grasslands - one in the afternoon and another early one morning (much cooler). We saw lots of rhino, deer & wild birds. Didn't see of hear any tigers though.

The Elephants are amazing - so large but so gentle, graceful & silent (except when tearing down trees/grasses to eat). Not the most comfortable ride in the world (still better than an ox-cart!), but you get used to it.

We got back to Kathmandu & some clean(er) clothes and were still walking around like old men from our stiff legs. The new group we met up with to do the Everest trek with looked so clean & fresh...

We flew from Kathmandu towards the Himalayas in a tiny 10 seater plane(with some tantalising glimpses of them through the clouds & mountain valleys)into Lukla airstrip (which is the shortest & steepest airfield I've ever seen - about 350 - 400 metres long with a steep hillside at one end and dropping away into a huge valley at the other) & began trekking along the main trail that winds its way to Everest base camp.

It was lines of very hairy Yaks carrying loads, rather than donkeys on this trail - the Yaks are much bigger and have very sharp horns, so it really pays to stay out of their way (usually by pressing yourself into the hillside/cliffside/stonewallside and waiting till they pass - there isn't a lot of room on these trails). They do have a nice selection of bells (like cowbells - yakbells?) around there neck, so you can hear them coming from a long way away.

Three days of up & down hills (more up than down)later, everyone except myself and one other person (who did the same trek around the Annapurnas as me) got some form of altitude sickness. Big headaches, vomiting, lack of sleep etc - nothing too serious. We stopped for an extra day to acclimatise, during which it rained heavily non-stop. (Thankfully that was the only rain we got all trek, and it was brilliantly clear for all the good bits!) While there, we found out a person in the lodge we were about to go to, had died during the night of altitude sickness during their sleep. This made a few of the group a bit paranoid & worried, and 2 people from another group even decided to not go any further. The story was clarified a day later that the girl who died was sick from day one, but refused (against all advice) to go to a lower altitude (the only cure), and therefore got worse & worse. Stupidity really.

So we continued up to Thanboche (about 14,200 ft) and spent a bitterly cold night there (sleeping bag was still very warm though!). Got up and watched the sun rise over Mt Everest & surrounding mountains, which was breathtaking - completely cloudless. Took far too many photos... Went to some monasteries & climbed past 14,500 ft - nearly twice as high as Mt Kosciusko, still not quite half as high as Mt Everest (8848m), but as high as I've skydived from out of an aeroplane.

We spent 4 or 5 days coming back down and flew back to Kathmandu yesterday. My legs survived this trek better than the Annapurna trek - partly as the Annapurna trek starts much lower and climbs steeper more quickly up a greater vertical distance (we also did it at about 3 times the pace of the Everest trek). The Everest one starts at a much higher altitude & therefore you have to travel much more slowly to acclimatise properly.

Early on my last morning in Nepal I went Hot air ballooning over Kathmandu. It was very interesting with kids coming from everywhere to watch this alien balloon take off and land in their rice paddies. The view itself wasn't that spectacular as there was a thick haze over Kathmandu and only got some misty views of the Himalayas in the distance, even though we went up over 7000ft. We floated right next to and above the airport for quite a while, and thought some plane must soon come in to land and crash into us, but the wind slowly changed and we drifted away again. A nice soft landing and another 50 million kids crowding around asking what my name was and if I was a film star. Didn't they instantly recognise me as Arnold Swartzenegger???

So now it’s off to London via Bangkok (one week only - I'm off to France on the 19th), so I’ll catch up with some of you Londonites then.
From there it’s overland to the middle East, via France, Italy, Greece & Turkey.
The route & countries then on may be re-arranged depending on the current political situation, but we shall see!

That's all for now,
Take care all,

Ian

Kathmandu

stowaway — Tue, 18 Sep 2001 13:53:00 GMT

Hi All,

Well I'm here in sunny Kathmandu, Nepal, about 28 degrees and not too humid (unlike Bangkok).

It's nice here - like a big friendly village (except the airport which is surrounded by hundreds of touts & taxis to take you everywhere you don't want to go. There's plenty of trekking tourists here, but about 98% of them are French (dunno why - I've only seen one other Aussie, 1 Dane, couple of Brits and a number of Germans)

Just finished 2 days of white water rafting down the Trisuli river. It's not the wildest river in Nepal but has a few decent rapids. Some of the other rivers are still closed as the monsoon has only just finished & the water levels are still to high to safely travel.

When I booked the rafting, I was told there was 16 people, mostly Australian, on two rafts. What it turned out to be was the Arthur Dodgy tour of 1 raft, local bus trips there & back, with myself and 5 Frenchmen. (I could tell because of zer outrageous French accents) They all smoked incessantly (mostly hash), except if we were actually going down a rapid at the time (only so they didn't get the hash wet). I was so looking forward to the pristine Nepalese countryside air... So 5 completely stoned Frenchmen trying to navigate down white water, hmmm... At least the guide & I knew what we were doing.

We spent a night camped on a riverbank (with good food cooked by the guide) and then it was back on the smoke boat for another day. The trip finished by the side of the road somewhere (well, in the middle of nowhere as far as I could tell), and the raft-guide flagged down a passing local bus to take me back to Kathmandu. The 4 hr trip took about 6 hrs as a landslide cut the road just outside Kathmandu. (The hills drop away almost vertically in most places with the road carving a little track along the side - landslides are a daily event - this is Nepal were talking about here). A bulldozer filled in the hole and a long procession of busses & trucks floored it over the damaged section, hoping it wouldn't give way above or below. Still, the roads are much better here than Cambodia - they have bitumen! and drainage! and a semblance of retaining walls to stop the buses falling off the cliffs (I've only seen two old wrecks of trucks that had gone over the edge).

Quite a few military road blocks on the road too - to keep down the Maoist rebels, i think. They stopped the bus about 4 times each way Some posts are quite heavily armed - on had 3 machine gun posts (m60's), several automatic rifles on bipods and about 20 soldiers with SLR's all pointing nonchalantly across the road. If something ever happened, I wouldn't want to be the shop directly across the street...They gave the bus a very half-hearted search, poked about at a few bags (totally ignoring me, the only foreigner on the bus), and got off.

I start my first trek to the Annapurnas on Friday, then off to the Chitwan national park for an jungle safari on the back of an elephant for a few days. Assuming I'm not eaten up by some rampaging tigers, then it's off towards Mt Everest for my 2nd trek & some higher altitude fun. Hopefully I will be able to do some hot air ballooning on my return to Kathmandu - I had planned to do it now, but apparently the ballooning season doesn't start for a bit over a week (too much wind or something).

So got a fairly nice cheap place in Thamel (the oldest, most interesting (& most touristy/backpacker) place in Kathmandu - narrow medieval like streets) for $5 a night, so I'm just cruising around & looking thru the nooks & crannies (& internet cafes) & temples. I think I'll hire a bike for a day and wander around the Kathmandu valley.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to my treks (where I shall be internet deprived), and will talk to you all after then.

Hope everyone is well,
Cheers,

Ian

Click to view zoomable Google satellite map of Kathmandu

Thailand, Bangkok & the world trade towers

stowaway — Thu, 13 Sep 2001 00:58:00 GMT

Well, I've said goodbye to Cambodia now, I quite enjoyed it, especially Angkor Wat & Preah Khan.

After driving slowly for ages along the incredibly bumpy & potholed roads we eventually got to the border with Thailand at Poipet (a horrible yukky place), queued in the boiling sun next to an open sewer for ages to get through immigration, watched some incredibly overloaded trucks take out some overhanging power lines - they sit people on top of the trucks (which are stacked too high to get under the lines) who pick up & pass the cables BY HAND! over the top of the truck, until the truck has passed through.

However, they dropped the cables between the gap of truck & trailer, and we watched the cables tighten & snap in slow motion as the truck slowly kept moving. I took a few photo's.

Anyway, got over the border, magically the roads were smooth, bitumen and well maintained. A short tuk-tuk ride to the bus terminal and then a luxury coach to Bangkok. The air conditioning in Thailand gave me a bit of a cold, but it's pretty well gone now .

Got to our hotel in Bangkok that evening and turned on the TV and watched the live CNN news about 5 mins after the 2nd hijacked plane crashed into the world trade centre. I remarked to Brian that "Well, Americia's just declared war on somebody, they just don't know who yet". Pretty shocking stuff, I hate to think how many lives have been lost. We went down to Khoa Sahn road and most of the tourists were crowding around the TV's in all the bars watching CNN live with their mouths hanging open. Made for an interesting night. I wonder in the future if it will be like 'So where were you when the planes hit the trade towers?'

I might have to reconsider going to the states at all. I'm hoping it won't affect any of my other travel plans but I'll have to keep an eye on what happens. It's going to change a few things around the world, I'm sure.

Spent a couple of days doing the touristy things in Bangkok - the royal palace, reclining Buddha, the markets etc etc & said goodbye to the people I travelled from Saigon to Bangkok with.

Next stop: Nepal!

Cambodia: Communal update

stowaway — Sun, 9 Sep 2001 09:57:00 GMT

Hi All,

I'm in Siem Reap in Cambodia at the moment and have another day here before moving on towards Thailand. I went to Angkor Wat and other temples yesterday, the day before yesterday and yet again today. They are absolutely amazing, especially the ones still overgrown by the jungle like Ta Prohm & Preah Khan (the Temple I'm sure they based some of the Tomb Raider games on). While I didn't run into Lara Croft, there are some pretty good substitutes (read well endowed & wearing short pants) wandering around through the temple complex.

Bayon, with it's multitude of carved faces on each tower, was fascinating. Angkor Wat is the biggest temple in the area, surrounded by moats and massive walls carved with detailed scenes from it's past history. Climbing the steep narrow & badly eroded stairs right up to the top (4th) level of Angkor Wat provides a great view of the surrounding countryside and allows you to take in more of the massive scale of the temple.

Preah Khan is definitely my favourite temple, vast & wildly overgrown. It's less visited by tourist too, so you can explore in solitude & sort of feel like you have just discovered it in the jungle. I visited it a number of times, in sun & rain.

Took the 'Fast boat' up the Tonle Sap lake/river/floodplain to get to Siem reap (running out of typing time here) which broke down and made for a very long day after being transferred to a smaller & much slower boat, sitting on the roof and watching the countryside go by (did I mention the place is in flood? - water to the horizon in all directions in some places due to the monsoon).

Took another smaller boat from Siem Reap to Battambong, travelling above the flooded roadway, which made an interesting canal through the water covered countryside.

Visited a temple in the middle of a minefield too - quite careful to make sure I didn't walk off the cleared path - there are soooo many people missing arms/ legs/faces/parents it’s quite shocking. The Killing fields weren't quite such nice places, or the 15 meter glass pyramid filled with skulls, or the s21 torture camp, but they had to be seen to be believed - and to give you some better perspective on Cambodia.

Still, a very interesting country, with nice people (if incredibly poor) and the worst roads I've ever come across. The main highway is basically a boggy 4wd track - average road speed is under 20kmh - and it gets much worse off the main road.

Anyway, I'm having fun, food & company is good, my water filter is getting a workout (even on the local bottled water, which has a very chlorine-y chemical taste) and I'm off to breakfast now - gotta go!

Vietnam

stowaway — Sat, 1 Sep 2001 05:36:00 GMT

I started off just over a week ago in Saigon (Ho Chi Min City), Vietnam, after some very long flights there.

Saigon is an incredibly busy place, traffic is mad - motorbikes, more motorbikes, trucks, bicycles and even more motorbikes. Currently it's monsoon season in this region, so it's hot, humid and usually buckets down for an hour in the afternoon.

Getting out of the airport I was surrounded by touts & taxidrivers wanting to take my backpack (and me) to their taxi. I eventually chose a driver who didn't appear too dodgy, negotiated a fare, and gave him the address of the place where I was staying.I'm sure I paid more than the going rate but it was still only $10 US, so I'm not really going to complain about being scammed.

After being driven for ages into the outer parts of the city, I was getting worried that I was being taken for a ride (so to speak). I was deposited in a fairly dodgy street with nothing looking like the hostel I was meant to be staying at. The driver insisted it was the address I had given me & pointed to a non-descript building. I went in & couldn't find anyone who spoke English, but the general vibe was that there wasn't any accommodation here or nearby. eventually they found someone who did speak English, and they looked at my bit of paper with my booking confirmation & address. It turned out that I was at the administration office of the people who ran the hostel and the actual hostel was on the other side of town. I had been pointing to the wrong address on my piece of paper & the taxi driver had taken me to the address I had pointed at.

"Not to worry", said the man who explained it to me, "My brother will take you there". And sure enough, a few minutes later, his brother turned up on a small postie-bike style motorcycle, and gestured to me to get on.

With much trepidation, I got on, and somehow survived a trip through Saigon on the back of one of that tiny bike - with my 25kg backpack on my back & 10kg daypack on my front, no helmet, hanging on for dear life to the local driver while weaving through the manic traffic. Very scary stuff. A number of times during the journey I looked up at the blue sky, took a deep breath and thought to myself "Today is a good day to die".

I arrived at the hostel safely, in one piece & yes they had my booking & a nice airconditioned room!

Out of all the places I have travelled to sofar, Saigon is the first place that I have ever had any real 'Culture Shock'. it took me about 3 days to get over it.

After a few days, I have gotten used to the 'simple task' of crossing the street here - you just wait until there aren't too many trucks and only about 15 motorbikes coming each way, and then walk out straight in front of them - keep walking at a steady pace in a straight line, don't stop, and the traffic magically weaves around you.

I visited the Cu Chi tunnels, which is part a very extensive network of very small (but crawlable) tunnels where the Viet Cong lived & fought the yanks during the Vietnam war (or "The war against American aggression" as the Vietnamese call it). The Vietnamese also used their tunnel system to help successfully defeat the French years earlier. So much for learning the lessons of history... I also did a comparison test fire of AK47's vs M16 at their firing range (AK47 is far superior)

Next, I'm taking a minibus to the Cambodian border & hopefully I'll get another bus from there.