Sunday, February 29, 2004

Biking off more than we could chew

It seemed like such a good idea – hiring bikes, and setting off into the countryside. And in the morning, it was. We cycled up and down the main north/south road, only occasionally being passed by motorbikes and an occasional bus, tractor or lorry. We haven't seen a car for two days! We got to see some local villages, and see how the people of Laos live outside of towns – mainly in wooden houses, raised up from the ground. The girls continue to be brilliant ice-breakers in any situation, and more so here in Laos, where they obviously see less European children. The Laos people are fascinated with their blonde hair, and all want to shake their hands and practice their "hello's".

Poor old Emily, she found it all quite exhausting, and ended up almost asleep on the back of the bike. It was alright for her, she didn't have to do any pedalling, but Charlotte was completely whacked out, and overheated, by the time we got back to the guest house.

After lunch we though we'd be a bit more adventurous and head off the paved roads, and cross the bamboo bridge towards the villages on the other side of the river. Charlotte, who'd hired a child's bike, decided to leave it behind and hop on the back of my bike, while Emily travelled on the back of Sarah's. On tarmac this had been okay, but on a bumpy cart track, uphill, it proved to be much more difficult. Eventually, at a village 6km from town, we turned around, and flagged down a tractor-trailer, which is the equivalent of a local bus. Charlotte and Emily climbed aboard, paid the driver his 5,000 Kip, and we waved them off before chasing them back to town. The tractor driver was obviously related to Schumacher, and we were soon following a trail of dust, which then petered out. But all was well, and when we got back to the bamboo bridge, the girls were on the other side, waiting for us at our favourite sunset spot.


So we did it again, just sat and watched the sun sink over the mountains. The calm and peace was disturbed a bit by the arrival of the lorry and pickup owners, who drove their vehicles straight into the middle of the river to give them a good wash, thoughtfully downstream from the children from the boarding school, who were all having their bath in the river.

We almost went somewhere different for dinner, but in the end we didn't move, and stayed on the terrace for another delicious, 5 Pounds, dinner. Vang Vieng is an amazing place, where you can eat great food, with a million dollar view, for less than one Pound each. Already we know that we're falling in love with Laos, because it doesn't seem to have the 'hassle' that accompanies travel in most Asian countries.

Saturday, February 28, 2004

To market we go...

At sunrise we took a look at the local market, to see what delights were on offer for us. Bird flu is still an issue here, and is expected to be for a few more months, so the usual supply of chickens at the market was absent, and instead all kinds of different animals were on offer – only some of which we could identify. As well as squirrels, there were rats, bats, deep-fried grasshoppers, snails, tadpoles and a strange animal that looked like a bald porcupine, being sliced and diced in front of our eyes. Everything was laid out, alongside all the usual cabbages & chillies on banana leaves.

Later in the day we went on an hour long river trip, meandering through the hills and watching life carrying on on the shores. Although Laos is a communist country, there seems to be a huge private economy here, with few of the outward signs of communist states (for example, unlike most, there are very few people wearing uniform here). In town, one example is the bamboo bridges built across the river which divides the town from outlying villages. As the rivers drop at the beginning of the dry season, two separate bridges are built by competing groups, who then charge locals and tourists a few thousand kip to cross it and keep their feet dry. They looked a bit wobbly, but once we'd seen motorbikes riding across them, we knew that the appearance was deceptive.

We saw lots of life on the river – small boys fishing and searching for snails for the market, and old ladies gathering 'sea weed' – bright green spirogyra to be dried and sold in the market (apparently it's fried or boiled into rice porridge for breakfast – mmm!). We also passed flotillas of other backpackers, taking the 3-hour drift down the river in inner tubes, stopping only to buy a cold bottle of beer.

Emily continues to be a fussy eater, refusing anything that she may have eaten enthusiastically before (oh, how I remember when rice was her favourite food – but that was in England, before we got somewhere that it is dead easy to get – now she's decided she doesn't like it). But she has finally arrived at the conclusion that she likes eggs – two, fried or boiled – for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Meanwhile, Charlotte tucks into noodles, stir-fried vegetables, and all things Asian.

Friday, February 27, 2004

Into the land of communism...

We woke up on the train in a different landscape to that we'd left behind in Bangkok – everything looked a lot drier, as the dry season is in full swing up in the north. Instead of lush green trees and grasses, as around Bangkok, there is instead a profusion of different shades of brown and grey. But we weren't planning to hang around, but instead get straight across the border to Laos. We'd already arranged our visa in Bangkok (dead easy through any of the travel agents in town, and cheaper to buy there than on arrival), and so we hopped straight into a tuk-tuk (motorised three-wheeler), to the bridge.

We got our passports stamped to leave Thailand, and then caught a minibus on the bridge over the Mekong. The river bed was huge, but because of the dry season the river was filling only a part of it, with a kind of muddy soup. Mind you, it was still 200m wide (we later learnt that the Chinese are building 8 dams upstream, and less water is coming down the river every year). Perhaps the most curious feature of the crossing was a road-sign that showed two arrows crossing over. It was when we saw the road do the same that we realised what was going on – we were changing from driving on the left (Thailand) to driving on the right (ex-French colony, Laos!). Although we're used to that living in England, it’s the first time I've come across on the road border, and I'm glad I wasn't doing the driving – the road was just like a cross-over on a Scaletrix track!

Then we had to get all the formalities done in Laos, the ninth country of our trip, and we all admired the pretty passport stamp (communist countries really go to town on their stamps, to create quite a work of art). Then we went to the exchange desk to get some local currency. Knowing we'd be there a while, I changed $100 (these days, only worth about 55 Pounds!). But in Laos it's worth a fortune, and we got a huge wad of notes from the bank teller. The Kip trades at 10,400 kip to $1. So we ended up with 1,040,000 kip. Fortunately it wasn't all in One Kip notes, but we did get quite a lot of 5,000 Kip notes. In fact, up to 2 years ago, the 5,000 Kip note was the largest denomination, and that was the biggest one the bank on the border had.

So I ended up trying top cram 200 banknotes into my wallet. Just to help you imagine what that's like, the picture on the left shows my Million Kip wad, photographed alongside our South East Asia Rough Guide (the guidebook covers 11 countries over 1,400 pages, so its pretty thick!). It made everything seem hugely expensive, until we got used to it. We decided to miss Vientiane, as nobody seemed to have a good word for it, and head straight to the bus station to catch a local bus to Vang Vieng, two and a half hours away. The taxi fare was 60,000 kip, and the bus was 10,000 kip each!

The bus trip brought back so many memories of travelling around India. The bus was an old wreck, with seats with no padding, and all of the windows wide open to let in a small breeze into the stifling interior. Our rucksacks were lashed onto the roof by the conductor (who also travelled up there most of the trip), and the two and a half hour trip turned out to be a four hour one. But we did have one toilet stop – in full view just crouching in the middle of a field. There was no discretion involved at all – all of the passengers were fascinated with the sight of Charlotte and Emily heading off for the toilet. I decided I could wait!

When we arrived in Vang Vieng we knew we'd made a good choice – we found a clean and modern guest house, with a triple room for $4 a night, and then had a cool drink on a terrace, overlooking the river and the sunset. Moving around is always a bit of hassle, because you never know what to expect at your next stop/destination, so it was great to put the bus trip behind us as we sipped on ice-cold 15p bottles of Pepsi. We were so lethargic, we didn't even move for dinner, and just stayed for a great Laos style meal, costing a massive 73,000 Kip (whoa, almost 4 Pounds). Part of the reason we felt relaxed here was the striking similarities to Yangshuo in China, one of the nicest towns and views in China – limestone karts towering over paddy fields and people.

Thursday, February 26, 2004

Up the river

Bangkok's roads may be choked with traffic and moving at a snail's pace, but at least the river provides an alternative way to get around. As we had a few hours to kill before catching our evening train northwards, we took a river boat up the river to Nonthaburi, a suburb an hour north of the centre. The boats operate just like buses, with a regular timetable, and low fares (10 Baht – 15p for our trip). It was definitely more relaxing than the only other way to get around Bangkok quickly, which is on the back of a motorbike (no thanks!). It's also a lot cooler!

As less tourists make it up this far, we ended up ordering our lunch in sign language from a street-stall (I used the old "point-and-I'll-have-what-he's-got" method), and then desert was served up further down the street, as a pineapple on a stick. These carts are all over town, with a range of freshly cut fruit laid on a bed of ice. We're not really sure what all the fruit is, but whenever strayed from pineapple, we've always found it tasty, if a bit slimey on occasions!

Later on we took a taxi to the train station, to catch our train northwards to Nong Khai, the Thai border town on the Mekong, where we’ll be crossing over the Friendship Bridge to Laos.

Wednesday, February 25, 2004

The Cop and I

Getting around Bangkok is a bit of a nightmare – in the non-air-conditioned buses you can sit for hours in a traffic jam with no breeze, breathing in the exhaust fumes all around. Air conditioned buses are much better, but are fewer, and cover less routes. Tuk Tuks - the kind of thing you've seen in a James Bond film – three wheels, an engine and a Schumacher-wannabee behind the handlebars - are noisy, slow and can be very, very expensive (Tuk Tuk drivers are the first step in many cons in Bangkok, which result in people spending hundreds of pounds on worthless gems). But taxis are great, especially now that every taxi has got a meter, and uses it! Last time we visited Bangkok only a very few taxis had meters, which meant that you had to negotiate fares in advance. Now you just flag down a cab and off you go, knowing that the meter will ensure you pay the right price. To get right across the centre of the city, which can easily take an hour, costs about £1.20.

So there we are, crawling along one of the highways in a cab, going to sort out our railway tickets to Laos, when one of His Majesty's finest (ie a traffic cop) pulls the cab over. The reason was that I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt (I don't know what went wrong there – I'm normally paranoid about wearing a seatbelt in a car or taxi, but even so, it was my fault for not wearing it). Anyway, the traffic cop sees the chance to make some money. He comes over to my side of the cab, in his 1970's CHiPS uniform (don't ask me why, but all the uniforms in Thailand look like they were made for the series, and for officers one size smaller!), and starts to talk about what a bad boy I'd been, and how it was very, very naughty. And how I'd have to pay a fine of 1,000 Baht at the police station. (At this point, I'm apologetic and not a little amazed – police enforcing traffic laws in a city that has some of the worst driving in the world!). So I continue apologising, hoping that I might get some leniency.

Then the officer tells me that if I pay the fine at the roadside, I'd only have to pay 500 Baht. Aha, so that's what its all about – he's not interested in enforcing the road laws, he just wants to pocket 500 Baht! But I could be wrong – perhaps that's how it works here, and the money does really go to the Government. But I still feel this is a scam, and if I refuse it will all go away, and it'll be too much trouble for him to actually write a ticket. So I said I wouldn't pay him.

So then, in true negotiating style, he offers me the fine of 400 Baht – paid to him. Now I know it’s about money for him. So I say no again – because I'm not keen on corruption, and I really don't want to line this guys pockets (mind you, his uniform's so tight, I don't know how he'd squeeze money into the trousers). More negotiation, more refusals by me. So then he offers me another discount – this time to 300 Baht, or 1,000 Baht fine at the police station. I'm still saying no, because I still hope that not paying will result in a telling off and no fine. Then he takes the taxi driver's licence, and starts writing the ticket, and the taxi driver starts to get really worried – he's the one that ends up with a problem, because his licence is taken, and we spend all evening at the police station paying the fine.

So I offer the police officer 100 Baht – which didn't do the trick – and he asks for 200 Baht, and I refuse. And then he writes the ticket out fully (after lots of pretence at writing a ticket...), and then I know I'm not going to get off, and I'm up for the 1,000 Baht fine. The taxi driver says to just pay up the 200 Baht, so that we can all go on. And that's what I end up doing.

I've broken the law by not wearing a seatbelt. The policeman stopped us for it so that he could make 500 Baht himself (which is the only reason he stopped us). I started off threatened with a 1,000 Baht fine, and ended up paying the policeman a negotiated 'fine' of 200 Baht, which will have gone straight into his pocket. Did I do the right thing? (Okay, so I don't like corruption, but I think the non-corruption route would have cost me 5x more. But is this a scam, or just law-and-order Thai style? And is it any different to speed cameras in England, where the councils are now putting up loads because they get to keep some of the fine every time they catch someone?)

At the end of the day, it was a small amount of money to me, but it's the fact that you can't trust a policeman that gets to me. What do you think?

Tuesday, February 24, 2004

The Khao San Road

The Khao San Road in Bangkok is synonymous with "backpacker". It has been the historical backpacker haunt in the city since the early 70's, and it is lined with shops selling everything the modern backpacker needs. Today that seems to be 1) beer 2) fake CDs 3) fake student/press ID cards and 4) hair braids. We last saw the road ten years ago, and somebody had told us that we "wouldn't recognise it – it's now full of coffee shops and nightclubs". Well, it doesn't seem to have changed that much, although it is definitely a lot busier with the weight of thousands of international travellers wandering the streets. We're amazed by how many there are in Bangkok – around this area they seem to outnumber the locals on the streets. The ambience isn't helped by the roadworks going on at the moment, and every few feet there's a hole in the ground where a new draincover will be, but currently its just a 4 foot drop to a stinking sewer.

Although the main roads are jam packed, and the pavements are just one long marketstall, the side alleys still provide some respite from the noise and the traffic in the city. Its also the place where you'll find good, cheap food during the day. In the evening food stalls seemingly cover every side street in the city, but during the day your choice is to find a café/restaurant, or one of the very small permanent stalls down an alleyway. Thailand is reputed to be cheaper than Malaysia, but we've found Bangkok costs about the same. Perhaps pinning the Malaysia Ringgit to the dollar has made Malysia cheaper, as the dollar has plummeted since we've been travelling. Typical costs here are 30-40p for a meal on the street, or £1 in a restaurant, 15p for a bottle of Coke and 8p for a bottle of water. Our money is certainly going to start lasting a lot longer here than in the rest of the world!

We're in Bangkok to arrange a whole host of things – changing flights, travel and visas to Laos and Cambodia, getting some broken things repaired – so we're not planning to do any sightseeing this time around. We'll be coming back to Bangkok 3 or 4 times before we finally fly out, and we're saving the sightseeing until we do it with the BBC crew in the middle of next month. Today we sorted Laos visas – tomorrow we've got to try and rearrange our flights home, and sort out travel up to the Laos border.

Monday, February 23, 2004

Arriving in Bangkok

In the morning, after a Thai Railways breakfast ("Oh, don't those fried eggs look soo attractive wrapped in clingfilm?") we watched the Thai coast and countryside slide past as we headed further north. Although we're only a few hundred miles north of Malaysia, the outlook is quite different – especially the architecture and the ornate Thai temples dotted around the landscape. The closer we got the Bangkok, the more built-up it became, and the more advertising hoardings stood out on the landscape. Eventually, in the suburbs we passed the new raised up expressways, choked up with traffic. Mmm, now I remember why I didn't enjoy exploring Bangkok.

We hopped off the train at the station before the final stop, and got ourselves a metered taxi to the Khao San road area. This is the main area where backpackers head to, and has a wide range of budget accommodation. We got the taxi to drop us at one likely place (at least, according to the Lonely Planet), but it didn't have triple rooms, so we went on a bit further – to a guest house with dark, dingy and windowless rooms. Mmm, 2 down, 1,000 more to go. So we found a café, and Sarah went off to check out some places while I sat with the girls and the bags. Then Sarah came back, having a drawn a blank, and it was my turn to go off.

Eventually we found a great place – the New Siam II Guest House – down a small alleyway behind a temple. It is much more like a hotel than a guest house, and even has a swimming pool (How to become a popular Dad!). The cheapest rooms we'd seen would have cost us 400 Baht for a triple (around £6), and this one cost a mighty 960 Baht (£14), but it was worth the difference. Not only do we have air-conditioning, a bathroom and a spotless white tiled bedroom, but we also have Louis Vuitton sheets on the bed!!! Sarah has decided that this is what she's been waiting for since we left home. Finding this guest house has put me into everybody's good books.

Sunday, February 22, 2004

Taking the slow train north

Time to head north – and to leave Malaysia for Thailand. After spending so long in other countries – 3 months in Oz, a month in the States, Canada and New Zealand – it seems odd to be leaving Malaysia after just less than two weeks. However, we have spent over 2 months in Malaysia before, and this trip was mainly for the girls to get a feel for it, and to see some of the things we remembered from last time. It has been great to visit – the food especially is a highlight of Malaysia, because of the many different types available. The other main memory will be the backstreets of Georgetown, with all of the Chinese shops and houses squeezed together, with barely enough space to live in. Because of the open nature of the house-fronts, its easy to see how sparsely furnished their houses are, and how many people are packed into a small space. This was especially true down one of the narrow alleys lined by shanty huts, where whole families lived their lives in a space the size of our spare room at home.

We caught the afternoon sleeper train to Bangkok – although it is a 22 hour journey, we always prefer to travel by train, as there's normally more space and freedom to move around, and you see more of life drifting past the window. The girls were looking forward to the 'sleeper' moment, where the railway staff convert the seats to beds, and we all settle down for the night. But as you can see in the photo, it turned into a 'non-sleeper' train, as they were so excited by it all that they couldn't get to sleep. No surprise there then! Eventually, by 10 o'clock, they were sleeping soundly and we were all tucked up in our blankets, trying to escape the icy blast of the air conditioning.

Saturday, February 21, 2004

Friday, February 20, 2004

Eating Asian style

Some people regard eating in Asia as a game of Russian roulette, where you're always likely to get ill from a meal, but just don't know when. I'm sure that during our three months here, we'll eat some dodgy meals, and end up getting temporarily ill from them, but on the other hand, we've got some rules of thumb that help us avoid it as much as possible – and they fly in the face of what many other people do!

Rule of eating in Asia Number 1: Eat where you can see it cooked
Which means that we avoid restaurants, and especially buffets, in favour of 'street food'. The picture on the left shows stage one of the making of streetfood – a food stall being pushed down the road to be setup on the main road in Georgetown, right alongside the stream of traffic. And not only does it contain the kitchen, and the food, but piled on top are the tables and chairs that make up the stall too. They are stored away overnight, and in the morning different stalls are pushed out to make breakfast treats (like rice porridge). In may look unhygienic, but curiously, we like eating at street stalls because you can see the food, you can see it being cooked right in front of you, and it is served up to you the minute its ready. Okay, so it doesn't always look safe, especially when there's a rack of chicken, or a whole chicken, hanging behind the glass all evening, without anything like a fridge, ice etc.

Rule of eating in Asia Number 2: Eat like a local
If a restaurant is packed out with locals, you know it doesn't make a habit of making its patrons ill! It's exactly the opposite logic of some who believe that a restaurant full of tourists must be good, because you can get away with anything in there – after all your customers leave the country in a fortnight at the most! Tonight we ate Indian, at a 'banana leaf' restaurant. They serve all of their food up on a banana leaf instead of a plate, and they don't bother with unnecessary stuff like cutlery. Charlotte loved the idea, until she had dollops of rice and curry served onto her leaf, and realised that she actually had to dip her fingers into that. But the look on her face was actually because she'd just spotted a mouse running across the floor!

Rule of eating in Asia Number 3: Be a flexi-vegetarian
When you've seen the chicken hanging in a warm window all day, then perhaps it's wise to leave it to another customer! If there's any doubt about how old the chicken/beef/fish is, then its easy to eat vegetarian in Asia, where the vegetable dishes tend to be really, really good (even for me, who normally feels there's something missing if there's no meat in my meal). And that rule gets stricter on Sunday, when we cross from the relative safety of Malaysia (bird-flu free) to Thailand (where bird flu continues to rampage all over the country). Even though WHO say that you can't catch bird flu from properly cooked chicken, there are so many deaths clocking up in Thailand, that we've decided to be over cautious until we feel somebody has a full understanding of the facts.

Thursday, February 19, 2004

Moving on from one island to another

We finally moved on from Pangkor Island, heading to Penang Island, 200km further north. Considering that's only 120 miles, its not quite believable that it took almost 7 hours! We started at 9am, taking one of the island's shockingly pink taxis to the jetty (4 miles, £1.20), then across to the mainland on a catamaran (8 miles, 80p), then breakfast while we waited for the bus to Butterworth. The bus was a zippy three hours (103 miles, £1.50), then we had a wait while I booked our sleeper train tickets for next week to Bangkok. Then onto the Penang ferry (4 miles, 8p).

Finally, once we were in Georgetown (the main town on Penang Island), we took a trishaw to our hotel (1 mile, 80p). In most other places in Malaysia, trishaws are used only to do tours for tourists, but in Penang they are used by locals and tourists alike for short city hops. Although they are more expensive than taxis, because we need two, it was an experience not to be missed. The traffic in Penang has changed beyond all recognition, and is a total nightmare, and from the bonnet-high perspective of a trishaw, you soon spot the tendency to jump red traffic lights, weave around and generally drive like a lunatic! Taking a trishaw also involves an ethical decision, as its driven by human power, and we’re in a pretty hot country.

The girls, however, decided that it was no more inhumane than pushing a buggy or a wheelchair, and you have a bike to help you do it! But it is clearly hard work, and although as tourists we pay more for the same ride as locals, sights like the photo here still make you stop and think. Its one of the trishaw men, who was having his early evening nap on the road, holding onto his trishaw so it couldn't be stolen. And meanwhile, the rest of the world carries out around him, ignoring the everyday scene.

Wednesday, February 18, 2004

Bloodletting


One of the facts of travel is that over time you get used to tropical temperatures. When you first arrive somewhere like Asia the heat and the humidity hit you like a wall, and you feel unfit and unable to do anything (add that to jet lag, and imagine what a life our friend Peter has, as an international sales manager visiting Asia from England's winter). Upon our arrival in Asia, it had still got to us, as New Zealand wasn't exactly tropical when we left. And it zapped all of the energy out of us, and infused us with lethargy. So it has been good the spend a few days getting acclimatised on the beach (what a great excuse!). Your body adjusts by thinning down your blood over about two weeks, so that you can cope more easily with the heat (the same happens to our bodies in England, as we change from winter to summer, and vice versa – but of course it has longer to do this).

The result of all of this thinning is that "cold" takes on a different meaning. Each night, as we've gone to bed, we've set the air conditioning to a 'cold' temperature, Over the last four days that has gone from 22-degrees being too cold with just sheets on the bed, to last night, when we had to turn the air-conditioning off because it's maximum of 28-degrees was too cold! What a contrast to England, where we have the heating set to 21-degrees, and have to turn it off at night or we get too hot. So here, we're now acclimatised to 28-degrees being cool (which is exactly the night-time temperature here), and are starting to get to used to 34+ degrees during the day.

Tuesday, February 17, 2004

When we went for a walk this morning, we didn't have to get very far to see exotic wildlife. Sitting on the roadside opposite our room were three hornbills, waiting to see if they could nab a tasty morsel from the food stall. Sadly, down on the beach we came across a beached, dead Leatherback turtle. The horizon here is full of fishing boats, day and night, so I suspect it might have been caught in the nets of one of them, and then discarded. It was huge, much bigger than Emily, and sad to see. After breakfast we canoed across the bay to a small island, and fed the fish on the reef.

And after that exertion (what, did you miss something?), we had to take it easy on the beach in the afternoon, swinging in the shade or resting on the sand, watching the world go buy. We've found Malaysia to be a very relaxed country to travel in, and Pangkor Island is more relaxed still. Unlike other Asian countries, there's no hassle or grief trying to do things – it is all very easy, and there aren't touts waiting outside every taxi/bus/restaurant/bus stop. Its certainly, after Singapore, another easy introduction to Asia before the hassle and rush of Thailand ahead!

Monday, February 16, 2004

Pangkor Island

When you're in a tropical paradise, and you wake up and open the curtains onto the sea, then there's no alternative but to spend the day on the beach – so we did. And because its Monday morning, I thought I should share it with you. To say anything else is unnecessary! (Well, apart from the fact that the sea water is around 28 degrees, and the day reached 34 degrees) It's hell.

Sunday, February 15, 2004

Pangkor Island at last...

It's only a day late, but it was worth the wait. We've now reached Pangkor Island, just off the west coast of Malaysia, above Kuala Lumpur. The ferry across from the mainland took half an hour, and cost 60p, and then a taxi took us to the west coast of the island to Teluk Nipah, a small bay with a range of backpacker accommodation near the beach. We arrived around lunchtime, so had plenty of time to check out the different hotels before deciding on splashing out on the Nipah Water Front.

It is right on the seafront, so costs a little more, but the room is clean, modern and huge – there's more than enough space for the extra bed for the girls. The others we looked at were away from the beach, and some had pretty dingy rooms, or weren't big enough for 3 beds. And what does this extravagance cost us? Well, the cheapest rate at the others we were quote for a triple room was 60 Malaysian Ringgit (£8), and we're paying 90MR for this (whoa, a whopping £12). And the little bungalow has a balcony looking over the sea towards the sunset.

Saturday, February 14, 2004

What a romantic Valentine's Day

Oh, to be in Asia, now that Valentine's here. Following on from the wedding anniversary spent on a Chinese hard-sleeper train, we managed to spend today on a bus. Malaysian buses are pretty impressive, compared to normal Asian standards, but there are still elements of Asia in the organisation. We had tickets for the 9:30 bus, with a warning to 'check in' half an hour before. So we did – what idiots! We turned up at 9.00, and although our bus was there, waiting in the bus park, we weren't allowed to board until the driver parked it beside the terminal – which was at 9:45. If only we'd known, we'd have crossed the road for breakfast, but as we weren't sure, we thought we didn't ought to take the risk! Anyway, at 10:00 sharp the bus roared out of the terminal, and we all tilted our seats back and had a rest. As well as the four of us, there were four other passengers, so it we were all able to spread out a bit.

We'd been told it would take 6 hours – which we thought meant we'd arrive in Lumut at 3:30 – plenty of time to catch the ferry connection. But that isn't how it worked out! At 12:30 the bus stopped to drop off the other four passengers in Klang (about 200km north of Melaka), and pick up two new ones, and then we sat on the forecourt of an Esso garage for an hour. The driver said it wasn't a lunch stop, so we didn't go and get any food, but fortunately we did buy some drinks and go to the toilet. Then, as if he'd suddenly woken up, the bus suddenly lurched away again, and off we went towards Kuala Lumpur. Then we got stuck in horrible traffic, caused by the Tour de Langkawi cycle race (hmm, getting used to massive detours thanks to that!). At 3:30, after finished our drinks, and then realising that we really, really did need the toilet, we stopped at a roadside restaurant for lunch. Emily spent the whole time inside clutching her nose, because of the smell of rotten fish. Come back, Happy Eater, all is forgiven. We knew we must be behind schedule because (i) buses are normally arranged to stop at lunch time, 12:30, rather than half past 3 in the afternoon and (ii) because we still had 220km (130 miles) to go! So our great plans to link up with the ferry were no more. Eventually we reached the town of Lumut at 7:30pm, and decided to find a hotel in town rather than take a night ferry crossing, and arriving on the island of Pangkor in darkness. Fortunately we found a nice Chinese hotel (called Hotel Indah for some reason) and stopped our hunger pangs with a Chinese meal. (Malaysia is a lot cheaper than anywhere we've been before – the bus cost us £4 each; the hotel room cost £8 with bathroom and air-conditioning, and the meal cost us £7, including beer, a whole sweet and sour fish, and other dishes.)

All in all, not the most romantic of Valentine's days, but hey, nothing's normal when you're travelling!

Friday, February 13, 2004

Day one in Malaysia

Since we arrived in Asia, Emily has consistently asked for one thing to eat – coconut. Unfortunately here, they don't tend to have the hardened brown coconuts we have at home, so the flesh is quite different to eat. Instead, they chop open a green coconut, pop in a straw and drink the milk. The rest, including the flesh, is thrown away. We've tried to explain that to Emily every day, but it didn't seem to be getting through. So in the end, we went to a coconut-drink stall and got them to pop open a coconut for Emily to eat the flesh (until it matures, its quite slimy!). But she enjoyed half of it, and we took the rest of the flesh away in a plastic bag for her to eat later. So she has finally had her coconut, and we can finally get some peace!

We saw a couple of key sights in Melaka – the Baba Nonya Chinese house and the Museum of Beautification. The museum was especially interesting, as it displayed hundreds of painful looking ways of disfiguring the body to make it look beautiful, from all over the world. Things like filing teeth to points (New Guinea), lip plates (Africa and Indonesia), brass neck rings (Burma) and most horribly, skull flattening and elongating from New Guinea. We thought they were all horrible (even the corsets, which could reduce your waist to 13 inches) but our special favourite yuck one was the bound feet of China, especially with the graphic details and photographs displayed alongside tiny pairs of shoes. The girls were completely grossed out (I know that's not a proper word, but it’s a great description) and we had to go to the Kite Museum to take their minds off it (or rather, bore them to sleep!).

Our final sight of the day was the hawkers and stalls in the main square. Food stalls selling coconut drinks, curry puffs, curries and stir fries. Stalls selling t-shirts, stickers, name plates etc. And trishaw drivers offering scenic rides around town every few feet that we walked. In the end, we got so engrossed in watching the Malaysian honeymooners get their photo taken with a monitor lizard, that Charlotte and I decided to have a go too. As you'll realise, the smiles are false! My haircut, on the other hand, is real.

Thursday, February 12, 2004

Crossing the border to Malaysia

Up at 6:30, then into a taxi to the express bus for Melaka, across the border in Malaysia. After some of the dodgey transport we'd experienced in Asia in our previous travels, this was a delight! Although it was a full size coach, there were only 3 seats across and 10 rows, so each seat was massive, and lay back miles. It was just like business class on a plane (except much, much cheaper). We had to get out at the Singapore/Malaysia border, for the immigration and customs checks, but other than that we just lay back in the seats and relaxed. By the time we arrived in Melaka, 5 hours later, we'd all caught up with a bit of sleep, and noticeably cooled off.

Then the local transport option took over – we walked a few hundred yards to the local bus station, and sat and waited on the Number 17 bus for the driver to appear. Half an hour later, as we were beginning to wonder if it could get any hotter in the bus, he hopped in and we were off without any warning. We drove all around town (chaotic because 'the Tour de Langkawi' cycle race was also in town) and then finally arrived at the end of the street where our hostel is. By this time the girls were hot and bothered, and had both fallen asleep in the heat. So we made ourselves really popular waking them up, handing them their rucksacks and setting off down the road. (Perhaps with hindsight, the £1 taxi option would have been better than the 15p bus option, but these are the things you only learn with hindsight). Anyway, the Travellers Lodge hostel turned up trumps – an air-conditioned triple room with en-suite for £9 (the most expensive they had, but the only one left) – and it is quite the cleanest hostel we've seen anywhere in the world. So far then, great marks for Asian family accommodation.

Wednesday, February 11, 2004

A typical day around Singapore

A few times people, before we left England, people asked me "When you're travelling, what do you do all day?" – I guess its difficult to believe that you can spend a year travelling around the world without getting bored, or spending all day on the beach. I'll use today as an example of how a day can go in a flash!

We went out to Jurong Bird Park today, but first that meant getting up, wandering down the street to a Chinese café for breakfast, and then down to the City Hall MRT (underground) station. It was about ten when we got there. We arrived at the station nearest the bird park at 10 to 11, and then waited until 11:20 to get our bus there (it was too far to walk from the underground to the entrance). That got us there about 20 to 12. The rest of the day was spent in the bird park, seeing all the different aviaries, and watching the bird shows (have you ever seen a macaw paint with a brush?), and drying the girls clothes after they played in the fountains at the water park. After a great time at the bird park, finally we left at 4 o'clock, and got back to our hotel at 5:30. Then, while the girls had a little play time, I went out to get coach tickets for our trip to Malaysia tomorrow – that took an hour because I had to walk a mile to the Golden Mile Complex to the agents. Then at 6:30 we rushed out to the Raffles City shopping centre, because there was a troupe of Chinese acrobats putting on a free show in the concourse at 7.00.

By this time the girls had walked miles, so they were delighted to sit down and watch the show for half an hour (have you ever seen a ballerina stand on the head of a standing man, and do a slow pirouette?). The acrobatics were amazing, and both girls loved the show. Then we went for dinner (chicken rice, rojak and wanton soup) and finally I got a haircut, while Sarah got some snacks for on the coach. Finally we got back to the hotel at 9:30, got the girls sorted and asleep by 10:30, and then checked our email and wrote a couple. Just before bed we packed all our rucksacks for an early start tomorrow, and then finally crashed out at midnight. There's a typical day!

Tuesday, February 10, 2004

Hospital Day

Last week Emily got her leg put into plaster. Today, we went to the Singapore General Hospital to see if it could come off. We had to be checked for SARS before we could even get into the building (ID check, temperature check), and once inside the doctors took enormous care to ensure that everything was okay – first they took an x-ray with the plaster on, then she saw an orthopaedic specialist who said it looked okay, and then the plaster was taken off, and the leg x-rayed again to be really, really sure. Through all of this, Emily just took it easy – she just lay on the bed, and let them get on with it, or allowed us to carry her around the different departments. This photo was taken 10 seconds after the plaster came off – she paused long enough to gaze at the nurses working on her leg with scissors. I'm not sure I'd have managed to stay composed myself! Finally a supporting bandage was put onto the leg, to help reduce the swelling further, and then her shoe went back on for the first time in a week. So all's well that ends well.


Emily was also hugely relieved that she didn't get any new medicine, because she was quite put off by the Chinese Medicine Shops we passed in the day. This photo shows a typical street side display – dried sea horse, sea cucumber and squid – laid out so that you can choose the best specimen. I don’t dismiss Chinese Medicine, because in China something's working very effectively to keep a billion Chinese alive to some very, very old ages, but I wouldn't fancy grinding up a sea horse and drinking it myself. Probably the worse bit is the smell of these shops – as you can imagine, dried sea food has a unique smell it is difficult to lose from your nostrils. Anyway, the worst that Emily will get this week is a spoonful of Calpol at night!

To celebrate Emily's newfound mobility, we walked around the city for a while, and then took a boat trip along the Singapore river. The state government still seem to regard 'old' as 'bad', and although they have done some fantastic building restoration, the most frequent sight is an area of ground cleared of old buildings to make way for new ones. Since our last visit, they built this fantastic new theatre behind the girls, the shape, glass and spikes designed to look like a durian fruit. Its strange to see a 80m tall durian on the street, especially as the fruit is so smelly that it is banned from being carried on public transport in Singapore. There are lots of other restrictive laws and regulations in Singapore, all of which are designed to make the city a better place to live. For example, chewing gum is illegal in Singapore, and it is also against the law to leave a public toilet unflushed after use!

Sunday, February 08, 2004

Out on the city

With Emily's leg still in plaster, we had to think carefully before rushing out onto the streets of Singapore. If we knew she'd be in plaster for much longer, we'd buy a buggy for her, but as we hope it will be off this week, it means that for the moment we're carrying her everywhere. Although she weighs less than my rucksack, she's a lot more awkward to carry, and my rucksack doesn't fidget at all.

So we ended up seeing Singapore from the windows of a round-the-city sightseeing tram, and Emily and Charlotte slept right through the first circuit (the five hour time difference to New Zealand has confused them – we arrived at the hotel last night at the equivalent of 3am, but it was only 10pm in Singapore).

For lunch we hit one of the massive food courts that are all over the place in Singapore. Basically, it’s an area of tables surrounded by small stalls selling all kinds of meals and drinks. You can choose between Chinese, Thai, Indian, Malay and everything in-between, and drinks from tea and coffee, to soft-drinks, soya-bean drinks and fruit juices chock full of wheatgrass. Emily has become a fussier eater in the last few months, and so she picked at all of the different meals and decided she didn't like any of them. But Charlotte tucked into some Malaysian noodles, followed by some Chinese stir-fry, and then a Malay desert. According to Charlotte the best bit was apparently using the chopsticks!

Later on, we had dinner of Chicken/Rice, a Singaporean speciality, at a small restaurant two doors down from Raffles Hotel (Dinner at Raffles = S$100/£30. Dinner at Yet Con = S$5/£2.70). We'd eaten there on our first day in Singapore ten years ago, and things hadn't changed a bit – as the restaurant has been there since 1940 without changing a bit, why should that surprise us? The staff didn't speak a word of English, but we got by. It's actually unusual to find Singaporeans who don't speak good English – its generally the older Chinese residents who have only speak Cantonese. After a short walk, we finished the day by watching the evening show at the SunCity fountain ("The World's Largest Fountain, certified by the Guinness Book of Records" who cares – but it's cooling to sit around the base!).

Flying to Asia

Handy travel hint: Getting through airports is made a lot easier when you've got a child in a wheelchair. Those people that push you around the airport know every single way to jump a queue and get you settled in a lounge quickly. Much better than one of the swanky Gold cards!


After 7 months on the road, since July 16th last year, we're finally leaving the luxury of the 'developed world'. We deliberately chose to visit "easy" countries first – Canada, the USA, Fiji, Australia and New Zealand were all fairly easy to travel around, and we were on familiar ground. By now, the pattern of backpacking has settled down, and we're all used to the style of travel that results from there being four of us rather than just two, like last time we did this. But when we wake up tomorrow the girls will wake up in Singapore, and pretty soon afterwards we'll hopefully be heading up the isthmus to Malaysia and Thailand. Although they're not as difficult to travel around as India or China, we will be off the beaten track for a while, getting away from the resorts on the west coast. And the heat and humidity will be worse than we've experienced for a prolonged period elsewhere, so we're all waiting slightly nervously to see how it goes. And then we can tell you!

Saturday, February 07, 2004

Having a treat

When we're travelling, 'having a treat' has a special meaning. It can be something small, like a decent cup of coffee or an ice cream for the girls, or it can be something else. The girls' treat today was an ice-cream, which had been emailed to us by our friends Tom and Elizabeth. (Well, emailed so to speak, because they'd sent Emily a get well soon email, and asked us on their behalf to buy her an ice cream as a get well treat. I suppose the cheques in the post!).

We also dropped in to see Steve and Eileen Tully, who'd loaned us their deluxe apartment in Mt Manganui last week. And that was a treat for us too, because we were able to sit down in somebody's garden, have a dip in the pool (imagine how Emily wailed about not being able to swim because of her plaster) and sit around a dining table and eat a normal meal (no backpackers pasta in sight). The girls got to ride around on the trike, and play with other dolls for a change ("Daddy, can we buy one of these to take with us to Asia?"), and could sit on the sofa without fear of sitting next to a grumpy backpacker.


When it came time to leave, we had to tear ourselves away. In just 4 hours we'd had a great time, and made really good friends (we'd never met, and only spoken on the phone three times before!), and in the car on the way out Charlotte said "I felt so welcome there – more than anywhere I've ever been in the world". When you're backpacking and hostelling, you tend to meet people, get to know them, and treat them like old friends very quickly, because most times, you'll only see them for 2 or 3 days before you each go your own way. Its one of the strange facets of travel that doesn't seem to exist in 'real life'. And that seems to apply even now, travelling with the girls, and they seem to have the same effect – somebody they've know for 2 days becomes somebody they will talk about for a long time afterwards.

Friday, February 06, 2004

The Farm at Whangaruru

Emily has quickly adjusted to life wearing a plaster cast. After the first night, it doesn’t seem to have caused her any pain, and she was quite happy to sit and watch satellite TV all day long, without having to move a muscle. And when the sun came out, she moved out onto the veranda, looking over the horse paddocks, volleyball pitch, and the backpackers playing petanque.

And after two days she was up and about. In the hospital they'd wondered about crutches, but Emily's happy without them Although we're not letting her walk often, she doesn't want to sit down all day, and there are times when she sees all the children playing and she just wants to be up and about with them. Hopefully that means that she's not got a broken bone, but we'll have to wait until next week to see.

Charlotte, of course, hasn't slowed down a bit, and managed to get her very first horse ride. Although it was just around one of the squares, she learnt to be able to get the horse moving and steering it around. And her first question after getting off? "Can I get a horse when we get home?" We've been asked a lot of questions that start and end "Can I.....when we get home?" and most of them have been answered with a 'maybe', but this one just had to be a 'No'. Who knows what life will be like when we get home, but I suspect it's unlikely to involve Charlotte having a horse!

Tuesday, February 03, 2004

Should her foot really look like that?

Hmm...This morning Emily seemed okay with her ankle, but we weren't entirely sure whether it was okay or not. Our worry was that when we leave for Asia next weekend, we'd want to be confident that her ankle was okay and getting better. Although it was bandaged up well (any sheep or cow would have been pleased with the result!), we decided that we should get it checked a bit further, and make sure there were no broken bones.

That turned out to be a bit more difficult than we thought! We had to drive to Whangerai Hospital, about 40 miles away on a windy, twisty, hilly road. The rain, which had started at midnight, had caused the local streams and rivers to surge, so we quickly came across a flooded road. On the photo you can see where the road is – it’s the bit under the water, between the white posts. We made it across, just, but we saw two cars on the other side that hadn't! If it had been too deep, we'd have had another 40 mile detour.

At the hospital A&E the treatment was quick and efficient – after a check from the nurse, and then an inspection by the doctor, Emily was taken to have her ankle x-rayed, and the verdict was delivered. But unfortunately it was inconclusive – she could have broken her ankle, but the x-ray showed a shadow rather than a definite break. So they recommended that we put her into a plaster cast for the next week, and then get it checked before the plaster comes off. Two and a half hours later we left hospital with Emily plastered up to the knee, and wondering what we should do next.

Everything should be okay for the plaster to come off next week, but we'll have left New Zealand by then, and have flown to Singapore. Rather than head straight off to Malaysia, we'll stay a few extra days in Singapore, so that we can get Emily checked in one of their good hospitals, and then move after everything's been confirmed to be okay. It's better than it could have been – if she had definitely broken a bone, the doctor would have put her into a bigger plaster and recommended for it to stay on for six weeks, and we'd probably end up spending extra time in New Zealand. At least we'll be able to get to a beach in Asia for a quick bit of recuperation for her!

Emily's happy anyway, because she got to eat tea at McDonalds as a treat, and she got a get-well balloon signed by Ronald McDonald, and a little bag of goodies.

Monday, February 02, 2004

The Farm, Whangaruru – WHOOPS!

After another emotional farewell to Sarah's parents (with all the bird flu news, they're even more nervous about us heading to Asia next weekend), we drove north towards the Bay of Islands, the area where the first European settlers arrived in New Zealand. But we're not really here for the history, but because we'd been recommended 'The Farm' five months ago, when we were in Fiji. It sounded like an ideal place to spend a few days before Asia, and for the girls to get a chance to milk a cow etc.

As we arrived the sun was shining, and the girls were over the moon that there was a full-sized trampoline in the garden, and the owners have 4 children for them to get to know and play with. So we sat on the decking with the other backpackers, enjoying a cup of tea in the early evening sunshine, and relaxing from the drive.

The peace was broken by the sound of Emily howling. Somehow she'd landed awkwardly on the trampoline, and had sprained her ankle. It soon started to swell up, with a horrible lop-sided look to it. So much for worrying about the dangers of Asia – we hadn't even got there yet!

It was straight on with the bag of frozen peas, and a quick dose of Calpol (its amazing the things we've been carrying in our rucksacks!). Fortunately the hostel owner is a vet as well as a farmer, so he soon bandaged Emily up to limit the swelling, and begin the healing process (the only slightly curious moment was when Michael, the vet, said "She'll be okay – she can just walk on her other 3 legs for a while. Oh"). And for the rest of the evening Emily had to be carried around everywhere. She loved it! But later in the evening it was so uncomfortable for her (mainly because she couldn't scratch an itchy bite that was underneath the bandage..) that she couldn't sleep. At half past twelve we ended up doing the old parents-favourite, of taking her for a drive to get her to sleep. It took 20 minutes to get her to sleep, because around every corner was a possum in the middle of the road! In the end she went to sleep counting the possums, and we all got a restful night!

The Surfers Paradise

We've now moved to the west coast of the North Island, and are in a village called Raglan, which is where the surfers of New Zealand gather - and our view of the beach is great! The Solscape hostel is a surfers paradise, with half railway carriages as double rooms dotted around the grounds, full of surfers discussing their greatest wave and how cool everything is. Sarah's parents have joined us for the last two days before they head to Auckland and home, so we're all sharing a big cottage in the grounds with 'to die for' views. Or at least they would be to die for if the weather was better than it is. Unfortunately the weather all over New Zealand has taken a turn for the worse, and we're left peering through rainstorms towards where the beach was earlier! The photo shows the view from the cottage decking, during a break in the rain. But the cloud from the silver lining is that we were able to light a log fire, and have a cosy day catching up and discussing our respective plans for the months ahead.

It's a real shame that the weather wasn't better, and our clever plan to get 3 summers in a row by coming down to the Southern hemisphere seems a bit of a distant memory, but in 7 days time we'll be in Singapore, where it is currently 32 degrees and very high humidity – then we'll be dreaming about the cool New Zealand summer!

Sunday, February 01, 2004

When things go wrong...

Although we're travelling with quite a bit of equipment, like our Tablet PC, CD Writer, digital cameras etc, we've been reasonably lucky so far with keeping it safe and working. Unfortunately we've had the first serious failure this week, when the Canon Ixus 400 camera jammed with a nasty "E18" error message, which apparently means that the lens is jammed. The bad news is that Canon in New Zealand can't fix it before we leave the country, and they won't repair it anyway without the original warranty document (Right, like I carry that everywhere), even though I've got a copy of the receipt. Also, apparently digital camera warranties are only issued for the country you buy them in, rather than worldwide. So we've had to send the camera home with Michael (Sarah's Dad) to get it repaired in the UK, and then we'll hope to get it sent back at the end of March. It's lucky that we bought another camera in December – otherwise all of the website photos would have ended up looking like the one above for two months!

Goodbye to a little bit of luxury

Well, all good things come to an end, and we've come to the end of our stay in Steve and Eileen's apartment. It has been an amazingly normal week – the girls have enjoyed watching the television when they want (Oh, what a joy to see Matthew Kelly presenting 'Stars in Your Eyes' last night...) and we've all relaxed. But now we've had to squeeze everything back into our rucksacks (we'd actually hung some clothes up in the wardrobe!) and roll up all our clothes again (rolling is the easiest way to keep clothes crease-free in a rucksack).

We've also enjoyed the pool downstairs, the two beaches across the road (harbourside or Oceanside) and the view from the apartment balcony. Although this apartment hasn't cost us anything, you’d normally pay around NZ$160 a night for a one-bedroom apartment in the summer, so it would have been out of our budget. However, converting it into the English equivalent, £64 a night for a modern apartment in a stylish seaside resort in high season, shows the value that New Zealand can offer if you're holidaying here. (Coming to New Zealand, click here for the details!)