Rob's Journeys

Gallery: Indonesia

winmar — Sat, 12 May 2007 22:00:00 GMT

Bandung

Indonesia

winmar — Sat, 12 May 2007 10:10:00 GMT

The beauty of flying into Bandung for the first time was that we were able to get off the plane and go straight to Wenny’s family’s house, which is not far at all from the airport. Flying into Jakarta involves getting a bus for an hour, a train for four hours, then a taxi or minibus at the Bandung end. Bandung’s where I’ve spent most of my time in Indonesia, and where I worked a few years ago. It’s a nice city at about 700m above sea level, which stops it getting too hot.

We didn’t end up doing too much in Indonesia other than spending lots of time with the family and seeing some friends. We only ventured out of Bandung once, to stay with Wenny’s brother’s wife’s family for a couple of days. After moving around so much in the previous months we were due for a break, so were happy to hang around and do nothing much, as half the local blokes do between the ages of 18 and 75. We have a niece and nephew over there now, who provide ample entertainment. When we were away the house flooded up to shoulder height. Some walls of adjacent houses were washed away. Not good!

We took advantage of cheap cinemas prices and saw a few movies, featuring acting that was arguably the best since Jon Bon Jovi starred alongside Alice Cooper as a black female boxer in Million Dollar Baby. On a less dazzling note, while I only really turned on the TV to watch the English Premier League, I was frequently exposed to Indonesian TV shows. There’s an overabundance of soap operas, which are just appalling, with predictable storylines, bad camerawork and horrible overacting. TV dramas/soaps seem to be all emotion-based – fear (ghosts), anger, love, sadness etc. It drove me absolutely bonkers. You don’t hear people fighting there very often in real life, but on TV they’re always shouting, then crying, then seeing a ghost, then screaming, then falling in love with the ghost, who promptly cheats on them, so they shout and scream again, throwing vases and tantrums. Oh dear, I’m pretty sure my IQ dropped at least 25 points by seeing that stuff. There’s nothing remotely clever about any of it. Well, that’s one thing I wasn’t sad to leave behind! That’s not to say that Australian TV is all that flash.

I was trying to think of what’s improved there since I first went there ten years ago. Unfortunately I couldn’t really think of much! I suppose in many of my earlier trips I noticed mainly good things, but the longer you spend in a place, the more negative aspects you notice. Well that’s how it works with me anyway. It’s a great place for a holiday, but not a great place to be a poor resident (is anywhere though?). Kids drop out of school because their parents can’t afford the fees, people die because they can’t afford to pay for treatment a hospital, in many cases you have to pay a bribe to get a job etc etc. It sounds just like John Howard’s vision for Australia. However, this does not affect tourists in the slightest, and I get more than a tad annoyed when people stay away from the country as a whole because of bombings in one or two areas. When Bali gets bombed, people stop going even to Sumatra (a long way away). I don’t hear of many people avoiding England or Spain because of the London and Madrid bombings. Like Zambia, Indonesia could learn a thing or two from countries like Namibia and Thailand on attracting tourists. The governments don’t exactly do themselves any favours in that regard. I might be giving the impression that I’m negative about Indonesia, but really I’m not. It’s a lovely country with loads of friendly people, and has a lot going for it.

In the Qantas check-in queue at the airport in Jakarta on the way home an employee came around asking if we had any liquids. I showed her an unopened bottle of water and asked if it was ok to take it onboard. She said we couldn’t take it on because the bottle could be used as an aerosol. Genius!

Gallery: Malaysia

winmar — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 08:00:00 GMT

Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia

winmar — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 08:00:00 GMT

We didn’t spend very long in Malaysia, just going to Kuala Lumpur for four nights on the way to Indonesia. Not far over the border from Thailand we stopped for food, and a girl working there took me by surprise by saying I had a good face. She didn’t look it, but must have been visually impaired. Anyhoo, KL is another modern Asian city, with excellent public transport. As in Bangkok, the light rail (monorail) is particularly impressive. We’d been to KL before, so didn’t need to do everything on offer. We went up the Petronas Towers (formerly the world’s tallest buildings) and went to a couple of theme parks. One was in a shopping mall, and had a pretty big rollercoaster and other rides. The other was a water park a bit out of town, with some nifty waterslides. I’ve been to KL three or four times now, but still haven’t seen any koalas.

Thailand

winmar — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 23:00:00 GMT

The modernity of Bangkok smacked us in the face when we arrived, like my little sister Rachel smacks me for being an idiot. It was hugely different from anything we’d seen in India. The facilities in and around the city centre were excellent, with well-maintained footpaths, nice gardens and people employed to pick up rubbish. Obviously it’s not like that in the slums, but at least the government is making an effort to make it a pleasant place for visitors. It seems to have improved a lot since we were there in 2002. There’s an excellent monorail, which makes travelling around parts of the centre very easy. Bangkok has masses of temples and some useful ferries on the river, which are attractions some other large Asian cities (Jakarta for example) don’t have.

We went to islands on the east coast in 2002, so thought we’d see the west this time round. We got an overnight bus to Phuket, staying there for 5 nights. Spending 5 days in a row on the beach could be horrendously boring, so we hired a bike and hooned around on that for a few days. We felt like odd ones out, as Wenny’s Asian but not Thai, while I’m western but not Swedish. A lot of people seem to go there for a week a year to get their skin cancer fix. It is actually very nice round there, especially away from the developed areas. Lots of people seem to go there instead of Bali these days.

From Phuket we didn’t feel like going too far, so went to a couple of beaches near Krabi. After spending a couple of nights at the main beach (Ao Nang), which was a bit too built-up for our liking, we went by longtail boat to Railay, which was much more attractive. The area was packed with beautiful limestone cliffs, but not as many Swedes. It looked pretty similar to the area in The Beach, starring teen actor Leonardo Decaprio.

We stayed in hotels and bungalows, and found that we never really met anyone except when we were on buses. I wished at times that we were staying at backpackers like I always used to. When a solo traveller I would slum it to save money (even sleeping outdoors on a beach and on concrete by a highway in Holland), but met a lot more people. Anyway, from Thailand we got a bus down to Malaysia.

Gallery: Thailand

winmar — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 08:00:00 GMT

Bangkok, Phuket, Krabi

India

winmar — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 13:50:00 GMT

Delhi

We got a free upgrade for the London-Delhi leg, which was a nice bonus on Wenny’s birthday. A bigger bonus for her would have been a new husband, but she had to settle for the upgrade. I wouldn’t bother paying for business class though, as the only difference was the size of the seats. We arrived in Delhi in the middle of the night, and went to our disappointingly disappointing hotel in a rather busy area. When we went outside after waking up the next afternoon, it was all pretty nuts. Despite being in a central part of the city, there were cows wandering all over the place. I’m not quite sure who they belonged to, or how their owners kept track of them. In that way they reminded me of adolescent girls in England.

We didn’t do a lot in Delhi, but one evening I went and got a bad haircut (business as usual then), which was overpriced at $1.50. Wenny had a facial at the same time and then they asked me if I wanted one as well. I wouldn’t normally do it, but figured that my face was due for a clean and that there was no risk in making it any worse, so gave the thumbs up. Things were going along swimmingly until the dude decided to stick his little finger right into my ear and use it as a swivel for his vibrating facial machine. He repeated it on the other ear, which sent me into shock for three days. I know strange things go on in India, but this was unexpected. Perhaps he thought my brain was itchy.

Kashmir

From Delhi we went up to Kashmir. Upon landing and on the way into town we noticed a large army presence. This wasn’t surprising, given the region’s history. You’d have to be a bit silly to try anything stupid, for those fellows and their large, imposing guns were everywhere. We stayed on a moored houseboat on Dal Lake in the capital, Srinagar. Our room had a wood fire, which was just as well, as it got pretty flipping cold up there. They gave us ponchos to wear to keep the cold out, but the ponchos also served the purpose of making us blend in a bit more. They seem to be the regional dress. We had to get a rowboat to and from the mainland, and one day went on a bit of a cruise on it, which was very nice. Our guide from the houseboat kept getting us to go to shops along the way, which we got a tad sick of after the first couple. In the end I just threw him and his commission over the side of the boat and figured we’d guide ourselves.

We went up into the Himalaya for a spot of hiking/trekking. On the first day we rode mules for some of the way up a mountain and then went back to the house. It was just a bit of a warm up. The house we stayed in was very simple, and didn’t seem to have a kitchen or a bathroom. There was a rather feral dunny out the back, which we avoided. A couple of hundred yards behind the house was a lovely, freezing river. The only problem was we had to dodge the crap on the ground on the way. In the evening the guys around there had a bit of a Kashmiri sing-song in the living room/cooking area. It was quite a surreal experience, one that prats on shows like Getaway would gush about in a highly annoying way if they ever actually left their five star hotels to experience such a thing. The next morning we went for a longer walk/ride on a different route. This one took us a lot higher, into an area with a lot of snow. It got pretty tough going after a while, when we couldn’t walk without sinking into thigh-deep snow with every step. Even our four-legged friends had difficulty. It was a real novelty, but summer would be better for an extensive trek. The mountains in that region are just massive.

Kashmiri people look very similar to those from places like Afghanistan. They don’t look Indian at all, and it did feel like a different country up there. While a lot of Indians are pretty in-your-face, in Kashmir they were more reserved. They weren’t outwardly friendly, but friendly enough when they had reason to speak to us. Most of the blokes look like the types that tend to end up locked in prisons in places like Nauru and Guantanamo Bay. If they tried to enter Australia or the US with those beards they’d immediately be issued with orang jumpsuits and sent off to be tortured for four or five years.

From Srinagar we got a bus back to Delhi, which took 26 hours or so. It was only about 900km away, but much of it was so winding that it seemed to take forever to cover any distance at all. It was a beautiful journey though, with much of the scenic part covered during daylight. We didn’t stay in Delhi long before going on a tour of Rajasthan. We don’t normally travel like that (doing everything independently is more our thing), but if there’s any country that’s worth going for part of it by private car, it’s India. We didn’t have a lot of time, so figured we’d give it a go once. We had a driver called Vicky (male, and a bit of a Fonz at that), who was very amusing and spoke in rapid-fire Hindi. He also had excellent driving skills, especially when he was sober.

Rajasthan

I won’t talk about each place in Rajasthan that we went to, because we went to about 8 cities. I’ll instead focus on some of the highlights. We went to several forts/palaces in which maharajas in each area used to live. They were all very impressive, with lovely architecture, as were their wives (going on the paintings). The forts were generally high up on hills, for obvious strategic reasons. A common feature was an area for the respective maharajas to keep cool in, which was quite a sensible idea. One had a pulley system which enabled a servant to activate a fan to keep the maharaja and his concubine cool in the bedroom. Not a bad move really. The region’s arid, with pretty warm temperatures during the day, even during winter (which it was when we were there). It gets stinking hot during the summer (45 degrees), which I don’t think I could handle.

In one fort I was wearing my exceedingly stylish Everton shirt, which I think was the reason that a whole class of schoolkids crowded around me and wanted to ask me questions, have their picture taken and shake my hand. In other places (Collingwood for example) I’m used to people throwing apples and watermelons at me as I walk down the street, but on this occasion I was a novelty, despite not exactly being the only tourist around.

One particularly interesting place we went to was a rat temple near a place called Bikaner. For a reason which escapes me the rats are holy, so they’re well-fed and breed like Tasmanian teenagers. There are apparently 20,000 or so of them in the temple and they run around everywhere. Wenny panicked about 30 seconds after going in and almost started crying, so quickly retreated to the safety of the outside world. I thought it was all good fun (false bravado ahoy!), venturing further. The rats were provided with big trays of milk and food, which they all crowded around. One reason I wasn’t particularly bothered by it all (I usually hate rats and would almost cry myself) was that because they’re fed, they don’t need to look for food in dirty places like usual rats do. One tried to nibble on one of my toes, so I promptly turned it into kebab meat. Great success!

Vicky needed to buy new wiper blades at one stage, so stopped at a garage to change them. When I got out to stretch my legs two snake charmers appeared out of nowhere. They played their pipes and the snakes danced around, hissing all the while. The surprising thing was that we weren’t even close to a tourist spot. Because they didn’t speak English and I don’t speak Hindi, my brain decided that it might work if I tried speaking to them *in Indonesian*. It only took a couple of sentences for me to realise that it was just a ludicrous thing to do and that I was a buffoon.

There was an abundance of animals in Rajasthan, even in town streets. As with Delhi, there were loads of cows. Some would decide that they couldn’t be bothered standing up any more, so would sit down in the middle of a very busy street. There was also no shortage of hogs roaming through town streets either, plus the odd monkey and plenty of camels. Camels are used as a form of transport.

Speaking of camels, we went on an overnight “camel safari” from a place called Jaisalmer, way out in the west, near the Pakistan border. We got a lift out into the desert, then hopped on camels and rode for a couple of hours to a spot with a few huts, in which we camped for the night. We watched the sunset out on the sand dunes, trying to recover from camel-induced cramps. While we were sitting there four young girls (perhaps 8yo) appeared and started dancing for us. They wore some sort of local costume, and it was quite a sight. Even better than that was the guy who wandered through the dunes selling beer. I thought he was an apparition at first. What a champ. When I took a photo of my camel I, for some reason, counted to three out loud, thinking the camel was somehow going to understand and smile for the camera. Idiot. As if Indian camels are going to speak English. They struggle with Hindi.

The driving in other parts of Asia seems pretty crazy when you first come across it (it becomes normal after a while), but in India I think it genuinely is crazy. There’s endless mad overtaking, constant beeping of horns and stupid moves galore. One guy we saw pulled off a very dangerous move, just avoiding an oncoming truck, then 100 yards down the road pulled into a petrol station. Weird. Trucks are generally seriously overloaded too, which provides frequent amusement and occasional terror.

On our last full day we went to the Taj Mahal. We couldn’t really not go there, isn’t it? The place was very busy, as it probably always is, but pretty spectacular too. If you’ve seen it on TV or in magazines, then that’s pretty much how it is. When you’ve seen something that many times before you see it first hand, there can’t be too many surprises.

One thing I appreciated in India was the lack of McDonald’s and shopping malls, which we didn’t see any of until our last night. I’m sure there are quite a few in the richer areas of big cities, but it was refreshing to be able to escape them.

At the airport on the way out a few middle-aged Afghani guys on their way to a concentration camp in southern Cuba came up to Wenny and I when they saw us filling out our immigration cards. They spoke no English nor any of the Indian languages, so Wenny and I ended up filling them in for them, using their passports as guides. Half of the content in the passports was in Arabic, which was a bit of a challenge. One of them had a fingerprint in his passport in place of a signature, and did the same to sign the immigration form. I assumed he couldn’t read or write, which made him a great candidate for president of the US and A.

Gallery: India

winmar — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 08:00:00 GMT

Delhi, Kashmir & Rajasthan

Gallery: England

winmar — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 10:00:00 GMT

London and the north

Gallery: Kenya

winmar — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 20:00:00 GMT

Mombasa, Lamu, Tsavo East, Nairobit

Gallery: Tanzania

winmar — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 08:00:00 GMT

Mainly Zanzibar

Gallery: Zambia

winmar — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 10:00:00 GMT

Victoria Falls, Lusaka

Namibia

winmar — Mon, 4 Dec 2006 17:00:00 GMT

We flew up to Windhoek from Cape Town. Initially we thought it had a population of about 45, but then we realised it was a Sunday. It was rather hot, but nice and got going once the working week began. Rather than hang around there though, we went to Swakopmund, a well-organised German town on the coast. I felt a bit out of place wearing just sandals, so bought some socks to go with them. After a couple of nights there, we went inland to Sossusvlei, one of a large number of massive red sand dunes. I'd seen pictures of the area before, and it was quite spectacular. While Swakopmund was fairly mild, the desert had an average temperature of 35. We got to the dunes at 7am to beat the heat, and by 10am it was stinking hot. Climbing them was tough going, but rewarding. A bit like being married to someone who listens to pop music really. Another noticeable thing about much of Namibia is the desolation - we saw perhaps four cars in four hours at one stage.

Perhaps the biggest challenge in Namibia was getting a Zambian visa for Wenny. While the Namibian visa was very easy to get within 2 hours in Cape Town, the Zambian representatives (well, more their counterparts in Lusaka) didn’t quite seem capable of processing it within a few days. It must be tough, having to come back from a three hour cigarette break and actually do some work. Initially I think they forgot about the application, but after that they were just useless. It ended up with us having a race around the world experience, after getting the visa late on and rushing to the hotel, then to the bus to Zambia. The bus ride was pretty good though, and we saw a large elephant by the side of the road which resembled a former Australian immigration and education minister.

South Africa

winmar — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 17:00:00 GMT

Our first port of call was South Africa. For the first time in living memory I enjoyed a flight, as I sat next to someone who I talked music with all the way to Perth. The Perth-Johannesburg leg was, by contrast, incredibly boring.

We eventually arrived in Johannesburg and didn't particularly feel like being murdered that night, so stayed in a cheap and nasty Formule 1 hotel near the airport. The view of the city from around there was amazing though - it sits high up on a hill and at dusk had a red glow behind it. Quite spectacular really - almost as spectacular as the herd of Wildebeest that rampaged through the car park. Is 'herd' the correct collective noun? It could be an 'asparagus' of wildebeest for all I know.

In the morning, after being mugged 14 times in half an hour, it was time leave our hotel for the flight to Cape Town. Cape Town's a marvellous place, one that's more European than African really. We stayed with one of my cousins and her family for about five days, and saw most of the city and some surrounding areas. Unfortunately Wenny developed an addiction for biltong (spiced dried meat), so we spent half our time in southern Africa thereafter trying to get her a fix. I tried to stop her breaking into houses to steal TVs, I really did.