W h e r e ' s J o ?

Nica time...

2009-02-22T15:59:00.009Z

... is much like Africa time, Asia time, or in fact anywhere where time is just a mere concept of when something might happen, or indeed might not happen, depending on the weather, phase of the moon, inclination of the bus driver, etc. But that's why we do it right?

So I arrived in Esteli - an alleged coffee cowboy town in the north of Nicaraguaaa - staarving hungry (owing to a missing, now found, 500 lempira, sort of thing that could happen to anyone, don't really want to talk about it) only to find that apparently 9pm is not the sort of time that food is available. Strange. Anyways took a day wondering around the town generally seeing things (as those with open eyes do) and learning about the civil war at the Sandinista/FSLN gallery of heroes and martyrs - "Que se rinda tu madre! Patria libre o morir!" as Esteli saw a lot of the fighting. Interesting stuff.

And then it was I accidentally managed to hitch a ride along the side of the road (apparently less bumpy than the actual road), the bus dropped me off at a crossroads in the middle of nowhere and who was I to say no to an air conditioned vehicle (with non-murderous looking people inside), my spanish managed to learn that they were married and heading to the beach for V-day (vomit fest). Alas got halfway then jumped onto a bus on the understanding that I would have to change to get to my final destination of Leon. So it wasn't entirely my fault that when the bus pulled into the station I wondered around asking for a bus to Leon, finding it surprising that several buses had Leon written as the destination but that none of them seemed to be heading that way... a few stupid conversations later (my Spanish failed) I was able to determine that I was in fact in Leon. Idiota. TAXI!!

Leon itself was interesting enough, with an enormous cathedral, lots of literary clout (some dude called Ruben Dario who is the best poet in Latin America, apparently, I wouldn't know, it's all Spanish to me) and artistic bonhomie. Some good food too. Alas next stop on the rollercoaster was Granada, another one of those colonial towns which is very gentrified in the centre yet distinctly ungentrified everywhere else, which was infinitely more interesting. From here I spent a day chilling at Laguna de Apoyo which is a lake in the crater of a volcano good for kayaking, floating and sadly sunburning ones nose. The next day was spent swinging through the trees like superman with the monkeys and trotting around the astonishingly cloudy cloud forest of Volcan Mombacho, which was bueno (plus the clouds parted long enough to take a piccie or two).

With a bit more time than I had initially budgeted for I squeezed in a trip down to San Juan del Sur for some surf action amongst the raging, err, surf. A really cool lesson with Alfredo later and I was actually able to surf! Standing up and all!!! AMAAAAZING! This does not mean to say that I didn't wipeout lots and lots and get covered in bruises and more sunburnt noses, but I don't care, I finally AM a surf dude-ish.

Lots of Canadian ice cream later (I don't know why so much) and I was making my way across to Isla de Ometepe, which is I quote: "the sort of place you find in fairytales or fantasy novels; an island formed by twin volcanoes rising out of a lake", sheez it's a hard life... Well, beautiful sunsets aside, it isn't all easy as we took a walk up Volcan Maderas to la cascada, I can confirm that it is hot here, and volcanoes tend to be largely steeply upward in one direction and steeply downward in the other. Lots of improbably sized butterflies and monkeys sighted en route through 'ecological' fruit plantations. Delicious lunch in a nearby comodore and bus ride with the cutest kid who was just dropped off on her own halfway, barely able to walk as the bus driver shouted to the house "chicatina! chicatina!". Apparently a vida pollo costs only 160 cordoba at market... I may be bringing one home (and some flor de cana of course).

Alas it is the mention of home which brings this trip to an end. Cue food poisoning and a long journey (great combination) towards a tired face in work on Wednesday, y'know we're not going to adapt to climate change without me... although I do think a satellite office in C.America could help things along nicely.

¿Como esta, chica?

2009-02-14T22:41:00.011Z

Yeehee, don't tell anyone but I've escaped from the rat race for a couple of weeks for un poco viaje a centrale america... First stop on the journey a night in Miami, coinciding with the Superbowl, if only I cared. Anyways, after the slowest most third world bus trip in the world (yes (we can) in the US of A) hopped onto the plane to the palacial surrounds of San Pedro Sula, Honduras.

Knowing what little I know about solo girls and fast latin american cities, I decided that this wasn't the place to spend much time so I hot footed it to the rainforests of La Ceiba where I secluded myself in a jungle camp under the cover of darkness. Daylight broke to reveal a raging river below, which could only mean one thing, white water rafting! Naturally I got soaking wet, and this was before we were even in the damn raft, me and my malco- feet!

A few garifuna-cohol shots later and I was a full jungle being, well I had no choice because luck would have it, the rainy season continues and no boats running to the islands for another day. A couple of jungle hikes later (I did not fall on my muddy ass, much) and the boat was on - TO THE ISLAND! Cheez, that boat was a bumpy ride... Sadly the caribbean sea never quite lived up to the ideal of blue skies and flat water, but who cares about rain when you're underwater - there it's all wet. The diving was absolutely AMAZING, the best coral I've ever seen and some pretty cool creatures (giant crabs, turtles, cute fishies, a whale in a wet suit - too big and ugly for a shark to eat apparently, thanks).

So apres dive it was flor de caña o'clock - yummy, I will be trying to smuggle some of this home, time flies when you're having rum... a couple of random impromtu trips to various places followed, a local kareoke bar where I was so graciously serenaded, Pedro's birthday party (I don't think anyone actually knew who Pedro was...), the sea, the hammocks. Alas, one cannot have rumfun forever and it was time to leave the island behind and see some sights.

First on the agenda, Copan Ruinas, an ancient city which was the capital of the Mayan empire at some time or another until they got too big for their boots and ate all the food there was, used all the resources there were and ran out of people to kill (¿lesson for the future perhaps?). Took a morning wandering around the ruins sneaking in on other peoples tour guides to cadge some waffle information. Being only so much 'this is what used to be here' one can take in a day I took a chicken bus (so called because locals will take anything on with them) through the gorgeous highlands (with some less than gorgeous latin music soundtrack as accompaniment) to a town called Gracias a Dios (Thanks to God).

A nice chilled out day or so there wondering around the pretty typical town and wondering whether the locals would feel affronted if I, a colonial descendant, were to purchase the fort on the top of the hill (as it had amazing views) built by the conquistadors (I just love that word, hides all manner of spanish sins). Popped into some hot springs to relax after the hectic hike there (ok, so we inadvertantly hitched a ride, but we did intend to walk).

This is all from Honduras, other than a leeeeeegnthy bus journey down to Nicaraguaaaaa. More on that later...

P.S. although some pretty bad news. It turns out I was sooo prepared I remembered everything, except my most useful companion, my frisbee :-(

2008-12-28T18:43:00.004Z

Well my pretty cherubs, I have had little need over the past year to update on 'where Jo is' because Jo has mostly been nowhere. Obviously I have been somewhere. To maintain a prescence nowhere would have enters realms of difficulty which I (short of particle collider machine), am ill equipped to deal with. Somewhere has mostly been between here (London) and there (Ramsbury). Yes, I am one step further to becoming a grown-up. I have a job. A real one. Depressing though this thought is, it comes with one major benefit: dubloons. Who knew?

Naturally, in accordance with the universal truths of the world, as everyone knows when you start a new job, the first thing you do is book time off. February to be exact. What to do in all this time? I hear Central America calling me, more precisely, I hear Honduras calling me, I hear Nicaragua calling me. I can't understand it because I have 1 month to learn Spanish, but I hear it's cry. I also have one month to buy a raincoat, obtain anti-malarials, remove the post-Christmas blubber (note to self: giving up chocolate beforehand in no way served me any favours)

"Ain't no sunshine when she's gone...

2008-05-25T17:05:00.012+01:00

...and she's always gone too long." But rest assured, the virtual me is back! Cue image of glorious sunshine. Given that I haven't been to anywhere particularly exotic, or indeed intriguing in the last few months I am destined to wax lyrical about the more mundane, the everyday, yet equally remarkable happenings of this crazy world which surrounds me.

First up I guess I should brief you as to where Jo is, seeing as it's the title of this page. Well I am back in the Shire, nestling in the cosseted country surroundings of Ramsbury in the bosom of my family. A land of uninterrupted vistas protected by popular opinion (wind turbine - not in this backyard), where post offices are allowed to remain open, snow falls in spring, marathons are 5 miles long, the US army of the 1940's is always welcome, 2 cars a traffic problem is and a week of sunshine in May does a summer make.

Alas, all is by no means lost. I am using my vastly underemployed time to work on my entries for the next photography competition which includes a short film category I'm quite keen on (time to charge the batteries - watch this space), and remembering the morning I woke up early join the laughing club only to discover it was humour's day off.

Well I'm off to bake an amazing chocolate cake that will make exercise even more of a necessity to survival (Bear Grylls, literally eat your heart out). I have added some more pictures to the intermeweb of Africa and Sri Lanka/India/Nepal. For now fact facts I will leave you with this for a bit of thinking: there are 86,400 seconds in a day, if a goldfish has a memory of 3 seconds, how many times will it think 'fishy, I'm a little fishy' each day?!

Should I stay or should I go...?

2008-01-02T23:11:00.001Z

Ello blogfans! I know I know I know, it's been a while since I last reported on my misadventures. But lets get the obvious out of the way first - Merry (how depends on consumption levels) Christmas and Happy New Year: rock on 2008! So for a brief update... I finally landed in Perth after l o n g e s t smelliest mineriest bus journey ever and arrived in the rain at casa del Saul who generously offered me a floor to crash on (yikes 2 months later and I'm still crashing on that floor, whoops - and quite literally because Big W just DOESN'T sell airbeds that remain inflated for the duration of a night). Work's good - busy and scary sometimes - and they love me so much I was almost going to be here forever... if anyone knows anyone dodgy in immigration please pass on their contact details to them?

Perth remains to be Perth. The smallest city furthest away from anyway and VERY warm. Much time has been spent attempting to crawl into the freezer (it's not as big as I might have hoped) and oscillating with my number 1 fan (I wish to hear no words from the air-con endowed population - needless to say after a Boxing Day in what was the hottest city in the world at 44 deg, I was a tad relieved to enter the climate controlled comfort of the office). What have I been up to? well I think it all went wrong from the time I crashed an IT party, a few guitar hero sessions later (rock juice gives you all kinds of ideas of coolness and grandeur that are nothing more than illusary) and I may well be a geek. Few trips to the beach and the burning hot sand and freezing cold (aahhhhhhhhhhhhh) water), the usual.

What does one get up to for Christmas in Australia? firstly it feels nothing like Christmas because I'm walking about town in shorts and looking at bizarrely decorated window dressings with snowmen in - just doesn't fit somehow... Well shock horror, one has a barbeque (delicious prawns pictured) and a cocktail party (with ones flatmates, thus not really a party, more just a lot of mojitos)! Yum yum in MY (slightly inflated) tum! And for New Years? One has (surprise surprise) a BARBEQUE!!! These Ozzies have it simple, but why change a formula that includes lots of sun, scrumptious food and a plethora of drink (not that I constantly think of my stomach)...

Oh and blogfans - don't think I'm taking this poll lightly, I have turned over my decision making authority (cos I can't make up my own mind) to the opinion of the majority (it could be interesting should there be a late surge for secret option d) because not even I know where that is...) Should you deem it really necessary to view pictures of some of my Perth people then your kicks are available from here.

Taking the l o n g way home...

2007-11-09T10:07:00.001Z

Hey Blogfans, how rocks life? So, I rather left you on a cliffhanger last time on my way to the city (town/street) of doom. Oh Katherine Katherine Katherine. But would you believe it this time when I saw Steve (grumpiest man alive) the mechanic he was actually able to hold a conversation without punctuating it with uncomprehensible grunts, he even smiled! Whether that had anything to do with the beer in his hand and giant wodge of cash I had just given him I wouldn't like to judge. And so 1 gearbox (possibly minus 5th gear) and 2 new tyres later ARNIE WAS BACK ON THE ROAD!!! Not wanting to miss the delights of Katherine I went to Woolies and bought some bread, apples and water (all the food groups represented there) and left. YEEHA!!!

The next 3 days pretty much went like this: drive, sleep, eat, sleep, drive, eat, drive, sleep, eat... Broome was some distance away, I was too lazy to put up the tent, there were no showers, you get the idea... I STANK!! And then when I got to Broome and ran into the camp bathroom for a shower imagine my delight as the electricity cut out. NNAAARRRRGGGHHHH! Spent 3 days chilling out on the beach of sunsetty delights and recovering from the road (and mourning the death of the kangeroos I roadkilled - what if they were the last remaining breeding pair in Australia??? Oh the guilt! Actually one so wasn't my fault, I slowed down to drive past it and it continued to run into the side of the car - stupid animal).

At this point I recruited some new drive companions in the form of Eric and Frank. Given that they were from Taiwan I suspect that these aren't their real names. I told them my name was Juanita Gonzales (ok I didn't cos I came up with the idea 2 weeks too late, but you get the idea). Alas with no money in our pockets it was drive time. Drive drive (camp in most fly infested place in world with resident enormous cow looking on) drive drive stop. Yes, STOP. FOR EVER. In the middle of NOWHERE (not really a surprise given that about 99% of WA is officially nowhere). Spent some time on the side of the road in 44 deg heat. That was nice. Chatted to a few miners on their way past who all wanted to help soooo much with the car situation by saying "hmmmmm, it's buggered mate". Thanks. Managed to hitch a tow from a lovely bearded man to the nearest roadhouse. And I thought Katherine was bad. Entertainment in this place involved cockroach contraception (it's less dodgy than it sounds, involves throwing rocks at the copulating little minxes), eating raw noodles, hats (see pic, dismayed face included) and time delay photos (100's in fact), because the bus was 4 HOURS late (Benno - no worries man, the bus is just a few minutes late dude!). I had to get the bus to Perth. THE BUS!!!! The indignity. Members of the public and all. Tch.

Yes boys and girls I'm back in Perth, oh city of all Perthliness. 4 days later and I'm back at work (I'm on the Northern Development Taskforce apparently). YAY!!!! Actual yay because I am BROKE (I hate that car, the car is the bain of my existence, never buy a car, car sucks, rrrrubbish). The 'keep Jo's belly and bum sizable fund' is now open, chose your avenue of donation here... Oh and join me in sorting out my life and directing me where I should go next on the poll over here----> pick the right answer please! On that note I think it's time I had a drink. a big juicy cold beer. Adios!

on the 'other' side

2007-10-18T01:41:00.002+01:00

G'day blogfans! How goes life? So the East Coast adventure has continued... Said a goodbye to Julia who had to fly back to Germany (ha ha unlucky) after a last night in Cairns in which I brutally mocked and laughed excessively at lots of slightly downbeaten fans of the Wallabies, HA HA HA (they've taken to blaming the rules of the game as the reason they lost). Then I got to experience one of my favourite travelling things - an overnight bus journey!!! YAY - how I've missed them... not.

Next stop Airlie Beach, the jump-off point for a trip around the Whitsunday islands. At which point I jumped off onto a maxi yacht thingy (I may pretend but I know nothing about boats...) which was apparently very fast and successful in its day (I suspect that now is not 'its day'). So we set off cruising around the lovely islands, chilling in the breeze and sleeping up on deck (the beds had a 'space' isssue, in that there wasn't any) under the stars. Hit another travelling top 10 moment as I got to steer the boat into the sunset (aaaaaahhhhh - though the picture doesn't do it justice, I was concentrating on driving) while the skipper laughed at my slightly unorthodox style (apparently writing my name in the water with the boat isn't what he meant by 'straight line')... Landed at 2nd best beach in the world (Australians, only 2nd best? astonishing), t'was a bit cloudy (of course, why wouldn't it be) so I took the opportunity to go for a 14km run on the 2nd best sand in the world with the sea licking at my feet (now why wasn't it like this for the marathon thingy) and GOT THE FRISBEE OUT!!!! Squeezed into my sexy stinger suit (damn this poisonous ocean) for a quick snorkel about more of the reef and generally cruised about. n.i.c.e.

Another joyful overnight journey took me to Hervey Bay, the jumping off point for Fraser Island the land of sand. Not surprisingly I got covered in sand. Everywhere. 22 of us piled into 2 jeeps (do not ask me how we fit in, we didn't) that we weren't allowed to get sandy or wet or risk losing at least a million $$$'s - damn car hire, I miss Arnie!!! Alas first thing we did on the ISLAND MADE ENTIRELY OF SAND was get the car covered in sand, and then a little saltwater, who'da thought that possible??? Anyways, much beach driving and track driving and there's a big bruise on my shoulder to demonstrate how smooth the roads were. A little rainforest action, a little lake action (no swimming in the sea, yes it has sharks that will kill you just by looking at you and jellyfish galore), a little floating action, a little beach olympics, a bizarre pet dinosaur and lots of bizarre things that I cannot for the life of me remember at this particular juncture (probably best left on the island I think)...

Beautiful stuff, plus I finally drank the bottle of wine that I've been carrying around since Perth, not surprisingly since it has been heated up and frozen and cooked and chilled about a million times it did not taste worthy of the effort put into carrying it. But enough of that. Went whale watching the next morning which was AWESOME, one even waved at me! In fact it was totally brilliant fantastic awesome mega cool. Fact fans: Did you know that a baby whale puts on 45-60kgs each day - that's like a whole me every day... sure makes me feel small... CRIKEY!!!! I went to Australia Zoo - home of Steve Irwin & co. An awesome day out as I got to pat a koala, feed kangeroo's, fortunately not feed crocs (they are BIG - up 7m! - and mean, especially when hungry), stalk emu's (ugliest bird in the world) and all kinds of other animal related things.

More photos of all things East to be found here (or again, and you wouldnt believe my cunning, but follow the link entitled East Coast Pictures ---->)...
Right, I'm off to hell (Katherine) now - IT SUCKS, adios.

Photo's

2007-10-15T09:00:00.001+01:00

Picture fans I have added some more pictures of the great road trip should you follow the link bizarrely titled Road Trip Pictures Part 2 (how do I come up with these things?) or if you're feeling super lazy click here...

Will update shortly (tomorrow prob) - currently in Hervey Bay en route to Brisbane, more details later, but it's nice and I'm still alive, just...

Jelarkodiles!!!

2007-10-03T07:09:00.001+01:00

YAY!!! I'm not in Katherine any more! That's the good news. Bad news, Arnie still is and I have to GO BACK THERE to get him. Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

We had to give in to evil Steve and get the Greyhound up to Darwin, arrived around 11pm, having our priorities well and truly in place we went for a 'quick' cold beer (this is becoming something of a common theme... hello Australia) to celebrate, possibly returning in the early hours of the morning after some crazy dancing (zero gravity kangeroo jumps) and cocktails to celebrate the brilliance of not being in Katherine (maybe it isn't that bad I don't know, but there's something about that place that seems to bring people to attach bits of aeroplane to their face, surely that's not good?). After a slightly late checkout (in no way beer related - and why does my neck hurt so much? ah yes, the dancing, whoops) we had to lick our sans-Arnie wounds and go about the treacherous business of hiring another car (sob sob) to get to Kakadu NP; managed to procure a beauty on the promise that we wouldn't go off road with it, 모 ㅗ드 (sorry, this keyboard keeps randomly popping into Korean for no apparent reason) - ah hem.

Well Kakadu was erm, ok? Not the same without Arnie, who given the expense of the repair job ($2000 and counting, nnnnaarrrrgggh - Perth I may be back a little sooner than anticipated) is not in such good favour anymore, especially as had to leave all our camping gear with him so slept under the stars - this time nowhere near as romantic as it sounds because it was wet, fly ridden and I was much nearer the source of snoring than usual in the tent, grrrrrr. Saw lots of birds in a muddy pond that is somehow both culturally and environmentally significant a la the beloved World Heritage list. Saw some kangeroos fighting which was cool. They fight like girls. Saw some crocodiles, they were big and scary and not to be trifled with. Plus bizarrely went snorkelling in a cloudy waterfall also apparently with crocodiles, thank someone important that I didn't see one because otherwise the water would have turned purple! Listened to Mika a lot on this trip. A LOT: "this is the way you left me, I'm not pretending, no hope no love no glory, no happy ending, this is the way we love, like it's forever, spend the rest of our lives but not together (insert Mike like squeal here *aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh*)" - will these words ever exit my head???

Back to Darwin for the soul destroying and devastating task of saying goodbye to Luka and Benno by sharing a beer at sunset on the beach accompanied by sand wrestling, full volume Mika (again), belly rubbing, bad video diaries and more manic dancing (rock on Darwin).

Have now made the bizarre decision given my current bank balance ($600, could be interesting... tch, who needs food anyway, and milkshake, and accomodation? Baby Kate perhaps?) to head over East to Queensland and am currently in Cairns and just done a 3-day liveaboard dive of the Great Barrier Reef... It was super-duper wonderful, saw lots of fish and reef and sharks (night dive bizarrely between dinner courses) and glug glug glug. T'was awesome my friend. I'm now back landside trying to figure out how to travel several many km's with no money, any ideas???

nB. a jelarkodile is a vicious combination of a jellyfish (prevent swimming in Darwin), a shark (swam with in Cairns) and a crocodile (definitely no swimming in Kakadu). More pictures when Benno gets over his jetlag and properly copies them to a CD, nnaarrrrggh.

Gift of the Gibb a.k.a how to lose a car in 10 days

2007-09-28T03:05:00.001+01:00

Guten Tag! So to bring you up to speed. Broome was bam-fan-tastic, many an evening spent on the beach watching the sunset (it's quite an event on the West coast apparently, duh) - see traditional photo... Carried out a casting for some new travel companions with my current co-conspirator Julia, and ended up with another swiss and german combination of boys, completely mad and insane boys at that, certainly keeping things interesting! So it was a quick fill of fuel and stock up of food (pasta sauce) in Broome and up the last bit of sealed road for 600+km's from Derby to the other end of the Gibb River Road - the outback adventure is underway! Whoop woo. First stop Windjana Gorge for a lovely walk in the searing heat alongside a lovely river that alas was unswimmable owing to certain inhabitants of the crocodile variety. Everywhere. Managed to obtain our first injury at this juncture, a spider bite - possibly life threatening there was no way of knowing (actually there is because 48hrs later I'm still here, just). Day 2 led us well up the garden path in search of another gorge, although still not having learnt my lesson we decided to trust the map, only to end up walking in stonking midday sun to a point 200m up a cliff face from a wee trickling stream. Slightly underwhelmed, especially as managed to stub my toe 52 times (nB thongs/flip-flops not ideal walking equipment). You probably wont believe this but the next place we went to that actually turned out to exist was, guess again, a GORGE!! Unprecedented. Much swimming in waterfall action before the sun set and pitched up camp under the stars and the moon with a mouldy bottle of wine (damn that fridge).

Next stop Mitchell Falls, ah hem... At this point Arnie let his personality be known, he drives like a kangeroo, boing boing boing, uh oh. Rolled up the Kalumbaru Rd (a side track off the Gibb, so as you can imagine it was a high quality piece of road engineering, judder judder) and into Drysdale Station where we leapt out the car and ran to the bar for a lovely cold beer with our man Hugh, oh joyous high spirits, for now: Arnie henceforth decided he was going no further and so pushed him into the campsite having made the decision that the best way to fix him would be to consume lots of beer. Genius, in the morning he started but we still spent much hands on hip time contemplating what was wrong and sadly had to abandon the Mitchell Falls and head back to the Gibb. On which road we had the ultimate pleasure of seeing someone else broken down (yippee)!

Just about rocked up to El Questro Station (not however before stalling the car in the middle of a croc infested river - aaaaarrrggh and they like Germans too, I'm travelling with the wrong people!!!) and shock horror made a mad dash for the cold beers! A few rounds later and I had fire coming out of my ass. Think that one needs a little explanation perhaps as may give the wrong impression... Being the invisible shy kinda person I am ended up in front of whole bar helping out for a 'rodeo demonstration' that somehow involved putting burning objects in close proximity to my most precious organs (mon derriere) and then having them extinguished by my man Buddy through use of whip (not sure exactly what rodeo that's from though)! Spent the days with much gorgeous Gorge action and swimming in waterfalls and dropping valuable items in rivers and stuff (whoops), it was totally awesome dawson wonderbra (some very very bad german there).

Aargh, sooo much stuff to write here... a few more gorges and we made it back onto real roads (country lanes) and got into Kununurra (which is apparently hard to say with a german accent, ha ha) to do some on the go repairs (blue tacking holes in fuel tanks, etc, shhhhh) before getting into Purnululu NP via 2 hours of bumpy winding track in the dark (ignoring all practical advise about driving at night) only to have to utter the immortal phrase "the bikes are gone" - yep road too bumpy for the poor blighters and they fell off somewhere on the way!! (found them in a crumpled heap on way back). Spent day wondering the Bungle Bungles (i.e. getting lost in them) and blitzed it outta WA into the Northen Territories (a new state, another world) to Katherine, around 2am and Arnie had had enough and completely kaputted on us. The transmission was blown so we had to do the final 200km's to Katherine with no gear other than 4th. Nnnnnaarrrrrgh!!!!! Finally arrived in Katherine, THE single worst place in the world around 5am and spent the day tracking down the most miserable monkey like mechanic in the world, Steve "it'll be ready tomorrow definitely" the Wrecker. I HATE him. Katherine sucks. nB new gearboxes apparently not that cheap, nnnnaaararrrrrrrggghhhhhh!!!

I'll leave the story at that for now as it just seems to go on and on and on and on...

Lessons of the week include:

1. Commonly used phrases whilst camping: "where is the...?"

2. make no unnecessary stops, do not turn off the engine unless entirely essential, and who needs 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th or reverse gear when there are boys to push?

3. NOTHING will beat a cold beer and NOTHING beyond the necessary should be done prior to consuming one (fixing car, putting up tent, showering, anything)

4. no matter how little drinking water available a waterfight is NEVER a waste

5. When asked what time it is, it is sufficient to reply "September"

6. I am not a mechanic, no matter how many times I say the word 'thingamyjig'. I can now test a spark plug to see if it works, it does. Bzzzzzzz...

7. Urban myth 'Pavarotti is dead' is true, in his place we ate a LOT of pasta and sauce. Too much some might say, not enough others (Benno) would say. I wouldn't complain if I didn't see pasta and sauce for a few days (hours).

9. Mika is the best. Night at the Roxbury most definitely not.

10. There really is nothing good to say about Katherine. Not one thing. Especially as I have to go back there...

broom Broome (bet I'm the first person to come up with that tagline...)

2007-09-15T05:55:00.001+01:00

G'day blogfans! Here's update # 2 of le grande road trip... (and more photo's have been added to the road trip pictures album)

Things I've learnt so far:

1. It's not a good idea to count carriages of trains while allegedly in control of a moving vehicle, 1, 2, 3, 4, thud!... (in my defence it was a really REALLY big train) - don't panic Johnny, it was only a minor scratch and all concerns easily remedied by a glass of wine

2. WA is possibly the biggest place in the whole world. Why did no-one tell me this? (see picture below of the most boring bit of road ever, not even any roadkill to entertain self with)

3. The fridge will find it really hard to keep things cold when not switched on

4. The 'other right' is in fact also known as left (or "that way! that way!" accompanied by frantic pointing)

5. Tent pegs serve a valuable purpose and the tent will depart if not appropriately utilised in windy environs

6. I will never be rid of red dirt, no matter how much soap there is in the world. *I am as one with the dirt* (makes a good fake tan actually...)

7. km's of tedium can easily be alleviated by 'bush waving' and inventing innovative amendments to the traditional one handed salute acknowledgement of passing cars

8. Road trains are B.I.G.

Think I was in Exmouth when I left you last, went diving on the Ningaloo Reef for a day, which was great apart from the fact that everyone else seemed very keen to see their breakfasts again whilst I bounced around the boat trying to avoid their projections (nice), and saw a humpback whale on the way back (I'm very excited about this, though everyone else in the world seems to have seen a million of them already apparently). At Exmouth I traded in my Irish companion for some new travellers so it was 3 fearless girls venturing into the unknown for the next leg of the journey... oh dear (much handbrake and direction related problems ensued!).

650km's later we arrived in Tom Price, which is actually a place named after a person rather than a person named after a place (can't think what his name was though, ha ha) who discovered something, possibly iron ore, possibly not, I wasn't paying attention at this point. Real purpose for this detour was to go to Karijini NP, where Arnie came into his own as we took on a few 'regular car owners' (tch 2wd scum) passengers to tour the gorges and spider walk the walls (go web go), I've said it before and I don't doubt that I'll say it again, it was gorgeous! Had a brilliant camp night out of delicious dinner, cheap wine, good company (see pic, l-r: Rachel, Julia, me, Mathius and Beat - say with weird Swiss accent and apparently it is a real name...) and a fantastic starry starry night (deffo an Oz top 10 moment) in the park and spent the next morning frolicking in waterfalls (pictured above), brilliant - this is what I go to school for.

Next it was on to the delights of Port Hedland. I am fast learning that any town that has the word 'Port' in it's title is never going to win a beauty competition (ref: Port Talbot). A big industrial town the jewel in the crown of WA's resources boom and full of miners. Mmmmm, my favourite... But would you believe it all the campsites were fully booked, WHO are these people who WANT to stay there?!? So we had to suffer the indignity of going to South Hedland and enjoying the delightful aromas of the town of roads that have no logic (it's the roads, not the navigators...). Alas it was with a tear in my eye I said farewell to the place and on the longest most boring bits of road in the world up to Broome, which is fan-dang-tastic. Would put a picture of the lovely sunset up here but three guesses, I forgot to put the batteries in the camera (nnarrrrgggh).

Right well, I'm off to the beach and to recruit some new companions for the next leg, I'm going outback baby! I'll be back on the radar in a bit, if not then here's some recommended films for nervous parents: Hostel, Open Water, Wolfe Creek...

Cruisin' the highways

2007-09-08T03:12:00.001+01:00

I be a traveller again, in that I have actually moved! Far (protracted celebrations noises!). First up I'd like to introduce you to Arnie - the beast that is taking me where my every whim may lead me: isn't he beautiful? And boy is he packed to the rafters with everything you might possibly need to go camping (and the largest tent in the world destined to forever stay in it's bag as we can't work out how to put it up)!

So finally left my wee house on Monday (admittedly a leeeeettle late), picked up Ireland (Kildaire: big on horseracing and tractors apparently), filled up with petrol (man Arnie can drink) and true to form, got lost. Seems Perth had other ideas as we tried to leave as every road led into some winding suburb or scrubby field. Oh dear. Finally located the 'main' road (nB when reading this alter what a main road looks like in your mind to resemble a country lane) and destination north! First stop a cave in the middle of nowhere. Sure tested out Arnie's 4wd abilities on the road there, and he passed, yay! Just about made it into Cervantes in time to see the Pinnacles at sunset, lots of bizarre rocks jutting out of desert displaying the joy of erosion. First night with camping gear all seemed to go a-ok (if you ignore slight 'movement' of top layer in wind)...

Continued cruisin' up north to Kalbarri and passed first 1,000km marker at some point along here. The coast was absolutely awesome, all red rock and blue blue sea (call it the Turquoise Coast, couldn't possibly think why), and saw lots of gorges, which were, erm, gorgeous (I thought of that 'joke' about 300km away from them, but managed to hold out on it until got there - serious improvement), here's me banging my head on a rock, tch. Then further up to see the dawn of civilisation as we know it, or something resembling it anyway. *science nerd alert* These here are stromatolites which are able to survive in the unique hypersaline conditions and are tiny little bacterialites that produced the first oxygen billions of years ago (considering it takes 1 year to grow 0.4mm they had time on their side).

From the dawn of civilisation to life as we know it and up to Monkey Mia in the Shark Bay World Heritage Site (who knew) which took a 260km detour (naargh) to see DOPHLINS!!! Yay! These dudes were sooo cute (I'm currently in negotiations to have one as a pet). Next a serious day of driving (700km) lead to Exmouth, which is where I am now, will leave the update on this til I've done something here other than check my emails. There's lots and lots of stuff in between that has already managed to slip from my mind (in place of having a dream about playing the AFL Grand Final alongside my hero Ben Cousins) and there isn't enough space, but if you go here photo's of the road trip will appear as if from internet nowhere land... Ah well, I'm off to go stick on a snorkel and hopefully see some fishies (imagine I'd look a bit silly just wondering the streets wearing one...)

walk in the park?

2007-08-26T06:59:00.001+01:00

Jo is...

...currently enduring 8 different kinds of pain! All of them unwelcome but largely not unexpected. Yes boys and girls, today was the day of the great Perth City to Surf Half Marathon: 21 km (thank god I didn't get lost) and I did 'em all!!!! See here for a 'proper' (as proper as WA news reporting gets anyway) report: http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=77&ContentID=38425

Let me walk you through it km by km, on second thoughts I can't bear to do it all over again just yet but let me summarise: 6:45am and I am lined up with what turned out to be 1,000 other members of the cream of WA athletic crop (I was a tad outclassed!) on St George's Tce awaiting starters orders whilst trying to avoid the downpour (yes, I am moaning about the weather, justified in this case I like to think). And we're off, woooo! Fast forward a bit and who put that big hill in my way! See piccie - youch! *arrow denotes approximation of my position* (note early stage of race, I was soon to be found a tad closer to the back!!!) Anyways a 10k slog around Kings Park in the rain and then back onto the track to the 'Surf' (which given the galestorm winds, was definitely up) where the 14,000 odd people on the 12km race (tch, lazy) came sprinting past to join the party. I don't venture often into West Perth territory but it turns out there are a few hills there too (who knew) - nnaarrggh! Around about the 16km point it was a case of attack of the blisters. Hit the wall about 18km when my legs decided to weigh the equivalent of twelve elephants. Each. Eeuyuck. But panic ye not, I stuck my tongue out and persevered and I could have hugged the '1 km to go' sign! True work of magic on part of my iPod as 2 hrs 10 mins and 56 secs later (belieeeeeve me, every second counts in this kind of thing!) 'Eye of the Tiger' came on just in time for the death slide into City Beach for the finish!

I. Am. Never. Doing. That. Again. (please somebody remind me of this when I get another one of these ideas in my head, pleeease.) But I do have a rather glamorous medallion that I might now wear every day of my life, rock on! Will try to get some pictures soon if I can...

In other news I had my last day of work on Friday (sob sob) at AED and am departing to climes of the north variety as I head up the West Coast in my beast of a car hopefully some time this week. I'm going to be a scummy traveller again, yay! It's going to be one helluva ride! And to counter my previous whinging (pom, tch) I now love the Australian Government because they gave me all my tax back (if anyone asks, I am an Australian resident...), YAY!

Right, enough of this. Chocolate time!!

running to stand still

2007-07-19T15:56:00.001+01:00

G'day folks, how's it going? Time for a wee update on what's been going on somewhere on the other side of the world (depending on where you are when you read this that is). This wee little backwater town they call Perth seems to have somehow inadvertantly become the place I've stayed for the longest time a) in about 2 years which is scary and b) without making one of those amazing chocolate puds - dad can I get the recipe??? - which is even scarier! (not that I'm always thinking of my belly) and c) means I've been able to slack off this blogging malarky.

Current activities have recently surrounded Perth's City to Surf run that's happening at the end of August, I'm fine with the 'city' element and happy with 'surf' - it's just the 'to' that's been bothering me of late... Believe it or not I've been running all over the place in the name of training (don't laugh) and you'll be happy to know that thus far I haven't been attacked by a pelican (few close calls mind), have been complimented on my socks (left green, right 'gold') and haven't seen sense yet. There are two races I could do, one's 12km the other 21km - I need your vote on which I do, pain or lots of pain? challenge or challenge to survive? Let me know here...

Had a mini road trip at the weekend down to Margaret River which is a major wine making region about 200km south of Perth. Went down with Ali (my scottish housemate - who is scandalously labouring under the impression that he's leaving next week) and Mickael "i complain" Frenchy. Was awesome to get out the city and have a nice break (we were either driving for longer than I thought or it looked exactly like England, green fields and cows galore) and needless to say 'sample' lots of wine and even blend our own <*jo remembers why she failed chemistry as she accidently pours 50 not 5ml in the measuring tube, 'hic'*>, though we're not to talk about the chocolate factory (hrumph). It's a big surf destination down there and seeing as one of the reason I came to Oz was to get in some surfing, you'll be deeply impressed that I continued my good work and didn't touch a board (this is getting silly now - picture above). Frisbee made it out too, only to be immediately launched into the sea (tch), so was replaced with AFL ball (I'm soooo much better than those guys already, Ben Cousins eat your party heart out).

And in other news caught my first glimpse of dophlins in the Swan river whilst walking along in South Perth which was pretty exciting (I felt much empathy for the little kid who screamed whenever mummy and daddy suggested that it was time they went home instead of watching them) - if you get your magnifying glass out you might see a fin in this picture, as was the ride on the boat across the river that I didn't even realise existed (the boat, not the river) - would have saved me a lot of effort running if I'd known about it!

Harry Potter minus 2 days!!!! So EXCITED!!!

That's pretty much all I have to say right now - don't forget the decision lies in your hands: 12 or 21km - it's in the hands of democracy now...

Bonne Anniversaire!

2007-06-27T14:41:00.001+01:00

Time for another window into my world - this time we head birthday-side. Yes boys and girls, if I didn't make a big enough deal out of it already then I'll try again here... Another birthday, another country to enjoy it in, this apparently is how they do it Oz-side.

As you can see I had everything I could ever need, scrumptious cakes (a slight improvement on the luminous yellow and purple caterpillar monstrosity I made for the guys at work), wine (so who's idea was work in the morning huh?), a giant lollypop and gorgeous people to share it with, l-r: Sara (an Ozzie!!!), Birthday Girl, Philippe, Ally, Bethan (my new housemate), Rachel (another Ozzie, who'da thought it?), Mickael, Alan and Ali, not pictured Jessel and Roadkill (my hedgehog chocolate cakes) and my chickens.

more photo's at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=4859&l=9bdf6&id=517130959

I had an awesome day (all 24 hours of it, barely a winkle of sleep!) and proffer giganormous thanks for all the wonderful messages and presents, some of which will no doubt prove life changing (Alan!) - I couldn't appreciate it more (unless you have a time machine that a) makes my birthday last forever and b) means I'm not 23...). Lots of lovely big hugs and kisses to y'all!

Back in the real world... not much new happening. Won the princely sum of $2.50 at the dogtrack the other week. Am running running running all over the place (more on that later, watch this space). Indigenous Cultural Awareness training and inspecting big digger trucks for work - don't ask. All is good, life is grand.

I'm becoming a normal person. Help me please.

2007-05-29T09:24:00.001+01:00

Well my dears it's all change here on Waltons mountain and I feel (have been told by my dad) that I have neglected my blogging duties therefore here I am, blog blog blog, let me give it to you in bullet points:

I have a house!!! I am no longer a living a fugitive like life in the hostel, bless it. Chess no more (there wasn't a TV). One fridge for 30 people no more. Sharing a room with 5 other people no more. Ahhhhh, luxury. I have everything I could possibly ever want, a big bed all to my lovely self, two fridges for the 4 of us and some friends with a PlayStation (not that I'm any good at playing any of the games on them, I miss the Amiga 600!).

I have a job!!! I am no longer the pawn of evil masters who make me do zzzzzz work for pittance. I've gone up in the world and am now an 'Executive Officer' in the Aboriginal Economic Development division of the WA Department of Industry and Resources. I go to meetings that have a range of biscuits and cakes for the eating. Yippee.

Monday night dinner time (something of a ritual for the last day of the weekend, yes it was a lovely l o n g weekend, I lazed in a hammock and went on a bike ride, the sun shone, life is good) - after 3 hours slaving over a lasagne it was the tub of ice cream that received the biggest thumbs up from these clowns, grrrr! L-r: token Ozzie chick Rachel, Philippe the lazy frenchman, Alan "glowsticks", Mickael frogman, Jan the fat german, one VERY hot English girl and Ali/William Wallace (it's a scottish thing, word has it not so keen on the mothercountry) - my 'lovely' friends...

Could I be more normal? Job, house, bus pass, baking, AAARRRRRGGGHHHH!!!!! I'm growing up, please stop this process before it gets too late...

Plus more photo's of my travels available here (or follow link on right cleverly titled, favourite travel shots)

ouch

2007-05-09T05:10:00.001+01:00

says my bank account.

Have seen a local medicine man/pelican about the situation (-->)

He says it's a condition called 'evil-taxman-itis', also known as 'i want to spend all day at the beach' and 'the best things in life don't always come for free'.

By way of remedy he recommended a medicinal direct debit from your account to mine, though also mentioned that a cash deposit would do the trick equally well...

...ok so you don't pity me (is that because in Australia's equivalent to November and it's still 28oC, mwahahaha!) - so use your charitable reserves for people who may actually deserve it and sponsor my bigger (but in no way better) bro at: walking up a big hill to raise money for WaterAid, it's a great cause and if you give him enough money he might even stay up there (more than worth whatever you can give).

I thought it was about time you saw what Perth looks like, this is the view from King's Park (with some weirdo pointing you in the right direction should you get confused - oh and it's an evil act of deception on the part of a tree trunk that is making me look fat and NOT bum-brazil-itis).

Ozzie Rules A-OK

2007-04-26T15:12:00.001+01:00

Oz Stereotype #26 - Australian Rules Football is a game that largely has no actual rules (see here for the official party line on the matter). From my in depth research and analysis: Affirmative. At least no rules that anyone appeared to follow... And yes, they really do wear criminally short shorts -----> Marvellous!

As part of my ongoing and entirely selfless campaign to promote generosity and niceness in general across the world I volunteered to collect money for charity (I'm doing it for the kids) for a couple of hours before and after the AFL match between the West Coast Eagles (my team of choice, partly because they're local, largely because they are currently embroiled in some fantastic stories of drugs and scandal in the papers, and partly because I like their team colours: blue and 'gold' - don't know what it is in Australia but nothing is ever yellow, always gold - some kind of complex left over from the days of prospecting I suspect) and Carlton Blues on Sunday. The offer of free tickets and free lunch was in no way the reason why I chose Sunday to be the day I honoured my generosity and niceness campaign. After having gorged on sandwiches in the MegaZone at the kids hospital (and let me tell you, mega goes no way to describe how awesome their play/chill out area was) and armed with a backpack stuffed with plastic handclappers (the <---- headache-maker as I called them), a money tin and a snazzy T-shirt, we headed to the Subiaco Oval to shout and bully and cajole people into giving us money - now this was something I could do and do I did, although many people would only give me money in exchange for a promise that I would SHUT UP! (ah money's money when it comes to charity, though I'm sure none of you could imagine me making lots of noise with my voice, ah-hem hmm hurrr.) 1 minute into the game it absolutely wee'd it down (in Australia?!? this isn't what I signed up for), and I mean wee like the sky had been hopping about on one leg for months before finally letting it go (which it probably had been in all honesty - *drought*). I was SOAKED to my soggy little pants. Boo hoo hoo.

Anyway and so to concentrate on important matters at hand. The 40 chaps running around the field after a ball. Yes 40!!! 18-a-side plus all these 'runner' dudes who just run about randomly during play to relay messages from the coach/local cocaine dealer. Loads of them. And in true schoolboy style they all huddled around the ball wherever it went. Throw the ball, kick the ball, wallop the other player, pass the ball, fight for a while, catch the ball, kick the ball in the goal, score! In this game you got points even if you missed the actual goal but got it through the posts in the mere vicinity of the goal. And from what I could see they weren't much good at catching the ball either, fumbling the ball they were great at, though when I voiced my comments that they might all be a bit on the useless side it didn't go down so well with the nearby Australians (I daresay the immortal phrase 'bloody pommies' was bandied about a fair bit). My favourite bit was the throw-in which is done by the referee in a manner that can only be described in terms of a giraffes mating ritual, biz-arre. Even though I had little to no idea what was going on most the time I had a great time (authentic Australian sporting experience, tick!) and the good old Eagles pulled through to win by 100-39. Whoop whoop woo, GO EAGLES!

Chocolate, bad karaoke, wine, fire unicycle, John Howards thieving little hands, frisbee, out

2007-04-10T14:48:00.002+01:00

The title is a pretty good summary of this post, but I'm bored at work (opened 4 envelopes ALL DAY on Wednesday, clearly my contributions are on course to change the world any day now) so have written a suitably waffly bit of waffle for the pleasure of those of you out there as busy as I am.

So a Happy Easter to everyone. <------This is what I really really dreamed of arriving on Sunday but apparently the Easter Bunny doesn't do long distance deliveries - it would probably get stuck in quarantine anyway - so if you look carefully you will see in the reflection of the glass a little drool oozing down my face (pleasant image indeed). In fairness I did get to nab some free Hot Cross Buns from work - I was just sitting minding my own business (obviously not doing any actual work, why would I?) when this enormous tray stacked full of delightful little buns came round and invited me to take as many as I wanted. Being the generous soul I am I took about 70 (winter hibernation blubber building) and shared 1 with the others back at the hostel, ah the spirit of Easter. Speaking of the 'spirit' of Easter, can I just pass something on to shatter Oz stereotype #4: that Australians really really like their drink. With a lovely 4 day weekend ahead I got all excited about the prospects for entertainment and what do I find come Good Friday... all the pubs were SHUT!!!! Not one serving even a smidgen of a drop to thirsty folk. Huh? Well that's a teeny tiny lie. After much investigation it appeared that there was one place open for the night. A Korean karaoke bar, BRILLIANT!!!! Sadly none of my musical numbers were available so I took a purely spectatorial role in proceedings; never will 'Forever Young' sound the same to me after it's mauling at the hands of two overly enthusiastic (given their lack in tunefulness or indeed knowledge of the actual words) Korean fellows.

Languishing in the aftermath of un pue pompette-edness and having finished my book (Down Under by Bill Bryson, very topical) I got off mon derriere (and Swissland: please at least try to hold in your amusement at my French, boudine ronchon bete ogre citrouille visage) and did my one touristy thing for the week by catching the train down to Freemantle (a town/suburb about 20mins south of Perth centre where there are some actual 'old' buildings, and more importantly lots of nice cafes) armed with a camera with no batteries (when will I learn). There was a street performance festival of some kind going on, as far as I could tell this largely involved hefty applauding of very cute little kids blowing bubbles and clownish men jiggling about on oversize unicycles - what's life for if you don't throw fire sticks around whilst precariously balanced 10ft in the air? Took a quick detour to the beach en route home to relax, ah so nice to be able to just pop to the beach like that - jealousy jealousy jealousy ha ha me winner.

Anyone fancy laughing at Jo (who wouldn't)? Got my paycheck for all my hard work. Mmmmm $720. That'll go nicely in the bank. Hold on a minute, there seems to be some more numbers here... What's that minus sign doing near those numbers? $350 TAX!!!!!! 45%??? OUTRAGEOUS! It would appear that I am destined to single-handedly fund the upkeep of Australia during my stay. Or at least pay for John Howards retirement (and yours too probably Andrew so some sunglasses in exchange wouldn't go amiss!). I herein vow to take FULL advantage of everything they provide for 'free' from now on, even if it means spending all my days riding the bus round and round town.

<------Friendly spider, look at the size of it's legs!!! Run. Fast!!!

And finally those of you who are bigger fans of my Frisbee than me (and lets face it, who isn't?) will be distraught to know that it was judged to be too windy for Frisbee on the beach last week so it has spent most of it's time sulking under my bed, however panic ye not as I am scheduled to spend some quality time with it in the park soon.

Omblebumphf = viel Spass Comprendé? D’accord

2007-03-29T13:32:00.001+01:00

I’m still in Perth baby, and can I let you in on a tiny weeny widdly little secret? It’s actually getting a little bit chilly around the edges here (chilly is of course being applied relatively), I had to sleep with the sheets all the way up for the first time in AGES the other night. Things aren’t helped by the fact that I am sitting under what appears to be a direct wind tunnel from the Antarctic (super powered air-con), I’m expecting Pingu to come flying through any moment now. Yes, I’m still working, though not at the ALS, that was so last week daaarling, I’ve crossed over to the dark side (i.e. something of a profit making organisation – how can I tell this? By the extremely well stocked stationery/ary cupboard, I’ve died and gone to sticky label/biro heaven) and am at Western Power this week doing stuff that I have absolutely no idea how to do nor does anyone else to show me, so as you can imagine my days are a little short of being unproductive. Am still living at la casa Guv’s as am yet to grasp the concept that the perfect house is not going to show up on my doorstep, but that I have to show up on it’s doorstep. Outrageous. This week’s activities have included cinema (Last King of Schötland: awesome, but hook hanging is invading my happy thoughts), swimming in the biggest pool in the world, not sleeping enough, eating more than enough, Frisbee (as if I wouldn’t), wine, mozzie related scratching, kickboxing (sooooo much fun), crazy dancing and Google translating everything so international relations/insults may flourish and continue (enschüldigüng weil ich so spät bin aber mein Hamster ist gestorben). And it’s still not even time for my lunchbreak. Madness. Boring pictures later. Just had lunch which was lovely until I got invaded by about 4000 tramps and when I tried to seek refuge in the office canteen it turned out not to exist. Das stenke.

Livin’ it Westside style

2007-03-20T01:20:00.002Z

(Go West) where the skies are blue
(Go West this is what we’re gonna do Go Weeeessst)
(Together) we will love the beach (Forever)

Who’da thought that the Pet Shop Boys would have hit the nail right on the head with those immortal words of genius! And thanks to them I now don’t have to write much on this blog posting because that pretty much covers what’s been going on for me for the past few weeks. What? You want more details? Oh ok then, I’ll indulge you, but just this once. Fact fans, Perth is the most isolated city in the whole entire wide world, being as it is closer to Singapore than to Sydney and once out of the suburbs surrounded by, yes you guessed it, a great deal of nothingness. On arrival in Perth I decided to play musical beds in search of a hostel that was able to maintain an acceptable ratio between number of guests and number of pans in the kitchen (my lowest common denominator = food of course) and am now getting far too settled at the Guv’s place with our chess club (geek is thy name) and some very international drinking rules – apparently Finish for ‘cheers’ is ‘gepissed’. Santé indeed. Have spent a few days on the beaches, which are lovely white sand sparkling Indian Ocean type thingy’s and are perfect for body surfing, volleyball and yes oh yes oh yes oh yes, FRISBEE spielen!

Alas all is not well in paradise for it comes at a price and I’m sure you will all be delighted to know that I have got myself a job. Sounds very posh, this week I am PA to the CEO of the Aboriginal Legal Service. Of course this means that I do absolutely nothing other than take phone messages; yesterday that happened 4 times and I’m sure someone has invented a machine to perform this task, but I’ve never been one to turn down easy (if boring) money. Although I did get trapped in reception when I tried to leave last night, all the doors security locked around me and I had to bang and knock manically on the window for a few minutes until someone came and directed me towards the ‘press to open door’ button which in my defence was cleverly disguised by the label with those same words on. Oh deary dear, not even my Frisbee can save me now… Pictures are 1) just chilling at Scarborough Beach, 2) sculptures on Cottesloe beach and 3) enjoying the 'Sunday Session' l-r Allan, Fredd, Jen, Jan & Sarah - why oh why does it have to be on a Sunday??? - more photo's are available should you follow the link cleverly titled 'more Oz photo's' on your right. Peruse at your leisure.

A whole lot of nothing

2007-03-10T01:48:00.001Z

你好 ( Ni hao - I have it on 'good' authority that this means hello in Chinese). Acha tikka. Mes amis I have a wonderful show for you all today. Just you wait and see. Well first up is the beautiful scenescape of Adelaide. Adelaide is apparently a city. Though on reflection after walking about for a few minutes it's very small and offers no place to hide! So it was with happy inevitability that European touring group be re-formed for eine speile mit dem karten (arschloch und ring of fire - that incidently was NOT fixed by a Mr Daniel Reading, makes a big difference) order zwei. (sorry, once I've started in this pseudo german/french/english/hindi/chinese it's really hard to stop). We went round the Art Gallery for an educational tour and accidently mistook some art for a cleaning woman to much amusement - breaking the cardinal 'no happiness joy or laughter in an art gallery' rule, watched someone eat a plastic bag and paper themself to the wall. It's art daaaarling. Of course. Now this display of bonbon ---> surely that's art.

Once fully cultured up it's time to do something else. Like dance like there's no tomorrow. Alas with the recent invention of time, tomorrow arrived. Why why why why why? (sure all the rum was gone, but that was more to do with gravity than anything else, blame Isaac Newton not my slippery hands...). This was however remedied by the geographical invention of the beach and it's excellence as a frisbee pitch. And a sunburn haven. Youch. Spent the next few days living cheaply around the city, having appointments in the botanic gardens with teachers (no rendezvous to be heard of, what are we? french savages, tch), coveting all 26kgs of the second largest nugget of gold in the world (see left), squidging Bernie's belly in the evening (now that is a reference only a few will get, if you are not one of them then put the thought out of your mind forever, in fact do that even if you do know what I mean, permanent emotional scarring a risk). Sadly one can't eat cheap curry forever - had a great time in the market searching each stall for the cheapest carrots, then the cheapest potatoes, etc, not wanting to have to hand over more than 20 cents a piece. Thought we were going to be bamboozled by the ubiquitous 1.99 per kg onions, but at last le francais pulled through and spotted 1.49! Oh what joy. (oh and link to more photo's of G.O.R. is added to post below)

Then it was time to leave the land of the East behind on the Indian-Pacific railway. So to the train station I went. Obviously it was the wrong station. An hours walk later and the train was waiting (almost literally) just for me. Whoops. One of the greatest train journeys ever (apparently) across the Nullarbor Plain along the longest stretch of straight railway in the world (some 5million kms of it I think). These photos are a rough representation of what I saw over the past 38 hours - yes that long, I've come to the opinion that such train journeys are great only for certain people, and is it just a coincidence that all these people travel 'gold class'? I don't think so. Or actually for a true representation of my time read sporadically about Britney's current trauma (I. couldn't. Care. Less) and what the stars might wear to the Oscars (it was an old magazine) and maybe close your eyes for about 10 hours a piece to pass the time (viva le france for that 'help') whilst viewing what although isn't a lot is actually quite interesting for it's nothingness. And it really is red in the middle. And hot. And not a lot else...

This is the straight bit of railway.

Very straight.

I got a ruler out to confirm this situation (learning not to trust Australian superlatives) and can thus declare that 30cms of it is in fact as straight as indeed a ruler.

This is the view a little bit further on, around the 1,374km marker.

Still going...

A town in the middle of nowhere. Population 7. I kid you not. Ramsbury c'tait un metropole.

A little bit further on. Are we there yet?

The train resting in Kalgourlie-Boulder. Only another 498km's to go!

And a little more of my favourite scenery. Nothing.

It's all about the journey not the destination. Ah-hem, my arse (begs to differ).

But I have A.R.R.I.V.E.D. in Perth at last. Later than deutsche vier who was still in Adelaide when I left but I had what we call it in India, 'an experience'. Long live straight railways.

Cosmopolitan Ocean Greatness Generally

2007-03-03T00:09:00.001Z

So where was I? To find the answer to that riddle you must first consider this: what city in Australia begins with the letter M, ends in an E and has the letters 'elbourn' located in any order in between. And there you have it. Here's a picture of it in all it's cosmopolitan glory. Now at this point I really have to apologise for not having much to say about it because it was a nice place and I had lots of fun and did many sightseeing things (all free, yay! and deeply educational, including a visit to the land of neighbours "everybody needs good neighbours" - and sorry Em but I didn't get the slip Boyd your phone number!). Chilled out in the best botanical garden in the whole entire world (another australian superlative that could well be overridden in minutes), forgot to go to the beach (how?), ate lovely food from the market, and came up with an additional lyric for Alanis "isn't it ironic" (won a free Great Ocean Road trip in pub quiz about 5 minutes after having booked and paid for said great ocean road trip, grrrr). I can sufficiently say now tht Melbourne is nice (and not very helpful at getting over an addiction to coffee).

Have now just arrived in Adelaide after spending 3 days touring the Great Ocean Road and the Grampians. I'd love to regale you as to what it was like but my glasses are broken so it was all a bit blurry (this is what I looked like. Loving the hair)... Nah it was really good, unfortunately in about 400 million days of sunshine we managed to get the one day of cloud and drizzle (hello England) so viewing was slightly restricted for the first day, but even so I now have about a million 'arty cloudy' photos. If you want more and better pics then follow the route en francais here (I am not responsible for the content of this website, blame it on the choclatiens!) We saw lots of rocks and stuff, plus the lighthouse from classic TV round the twist programme ("have you ever, ever felt like this, strange things happen, are you going round the twist?" - repeat 500 times and you have an idea how annoying my head is right now, and I'm hoping that those in the know will also get this stuck in their heads as some kind of payback). By the way 'we' is the international european touring squad that I joined and as a result have developed a brilliant trans-europe language, unfortunately now it means that no-one can understand me...

Running out of time so quick quicketty quick. Mountains were good - if not in fact mountains, saw first koalas which was awesome - they are very cute if not a little on the dozy side, celebrated by eating a caramelo koala (little chocolates, not an actual koala coated in caramel, the fur would probably get stuck in the teeth). Was nice. Now slowly heading off to the beach for another session with the frisbee (this time not in a gravel coated car-park, whoops), and if we're really lucky, and teacher lets us (we have done all our lines), a tennis ball too. For now though let me just say auf revoir et bis spater por favor fukel schnell!

We're going back to Brunie?! Please no!!! Ahhh, Burny not Brunie, well where's that then???

2007-02-22T01:47:00.002Z

Ok, there's definitely a price to pay for cheap internet. I've written this already 3 times and it keeps on disappearing, so apologies if this is not as good as it should be but I'm losing my patience (and my iPod is in for repairs so not even Take That can save me now).

Anyways, spent the past week on Bruny Island (not Burnie, a very uninspiring industrial port on the north coast of Tas), which lets be honest doesn't feature heavily on many people's itinerary for worldwide travel being as it is just a little island more remote and with a more isolated community than that of 'mainland' Tassie (allow me to provide some perspective, the farm-boy hick that I had a brief conversation with when in the snowies - who also expressed a liking and enjoyment for rodeos - told me that it was a lovely place but the 'people are pretty interesting', all relative I guess). But I had a great time. In lieu of the promised heatwave we picked blackberries by the beach until red in the face (literally) and enjoyed much picnic type fun. As dark fell we went to the rookery to watch the nightly throng of fairy penguins who ritually stagger up the beach from the depths to moult, mate and sleep (ah the joys of the simple life). Sooooooo cute. Though not easy to photograph - I took reassurance when the ranger told me that the only people he ever saw get good shots turned out to be a film crew who also shot sections of the Planet Earth episode in the Antarctic!

The next day it was my turn to be waddling along away from the beach as it was time to take in a bushwalk, or five. I think the views were pretty nice, but i was busy concentrating on the groundin front of me as apparently tiger/brownsnakes are not that amenable to being trodden on. I was skipping as I came back to the beach and ran in the sea to cool off, and boy was it cool. Some might say icy, but I'm not one to judge. Got to do something I really wanted to by driving the km's along the empty beach at Cloudy Bay to our million dollar campsite (free) with awesome views. Although the worrying smoke that had filled the air all day suddenly burst into billowing clouds and flames leapt out from the forest - BUSHFIRE!!!! To add to the 'excitement' several thunderstorms raged overhead as the sun was setting, very very dramatic (needless to say my camera was out of batteries after the penguin blitz). Sadly the price to pay for remoteness is a sacrifice to access and firecrews were unable to contain the blaze which some think will last for months until they burn themselves out.

With that in mind it was essential to make the most of the rainforest there was, and surprise surprise, take a 'nature' walk through one. It seemed that the large majority of 'nature' present at that particular time consisted of hungry leeches eagerly wriggling about my ankles thirsty for my blood. Yum. Then went to Cape Bruny to survey the lighthouse and more splendid views. I didn't see them because a haze of smoke reduced visability to nothing more than a cloud, shame. Though you can see them here. After another walk it was definitely time to stay in a real campsite and indulge in the luxuries of shower, kitchen and oh oooh ooh a laundry!

That pretty much brings me up to present, I'm now in what might actually be considered a cosmopolitan city (I think I told an amusing anecdote about that in one of the posts that got deleted and I can't be bothered to re-write it, but with a little application of imagination I'm sure you can embellish an equally if not more amusing cosmopolitan city related anecdote - do share it with the world if you do) and am deciding between fuelling my addiction to iced coffees or going cold turkey, is proving troublesome.

Tasmaniac

2007-02-14T06:45:00.001Z

In 'the land under down under', as confirmed by location on the map. Hello. Feels like have been here for a year (insert less than nice words about credit card people here). First stop Hobart. Pictured here from halfway up Mt Wellington, and before you chastise me for only going halfway up allow me to make my defence on this matter. I. Just. Couldn't. Be. Bothered. And Converse don't make good walking shoes (yes mama, I know I have a perfectly good pair of shoes at home, but that's a long way away and I now momentarily admit I was wrong). Hung around here for a while (Hobart, not the mountain) trying to go cold turkey off ice coffees (not easy or at all successful, addicted I am). Got a campervan with Pierre and Anja to form 'Team Europe' travel around this magical and it has to be said slightly bizarrely populated island. Perhaps should have thought things through as Pierre turned out to have, erm, how to put it nicely, slightly missed a few stages in the evolution game (needless to say he doesn't have this site address, libel at will). Though did get to use my french (consisting of the phrases 'chocolat, frambroise, vanille', 'gwep' or however wasp is spelt in european, 'ou et la toilette' and 'du soleil'). Much better on the German front (just don't mention the war), I can now swear auf deutsche with perfect pronounciation! Years of language tuition at school put to good use I say.

Anyways, what did Team Europe do I hear you cry... Well we went to prison for crimes we didn't commit/a tour around the leftovers of Port Arthur which is where the really bad people got sent to do slave labour (Oz stereotype #56). Each visitor got matched up with a prisoner's story to follow round, my dude stole a lamb and got deported for life, though good on him tried to escape (note use of word 'tried' to denote failure). Watched the cricket that night - ENGLAND WON!!!! Ha! Stick that Australia! Next stop was Freycinet NP, which has apparently the 3rd best beach in the world (see above), but this is contestable. Have noticed that everywhere is Australia is the best this or highest that or oldest whatever (age being pretty limited to around 200 years or so), can't blame them for trying I suppose. Camped out in a car park near some fisherdudes who caught this cute little fellow! Bit more driving and sleeping by beaches and stuff (distressing life this) also went to Cradle Mountain - did have a picture but have inadvertantly deleted it and can't be arsed to reupload it - which we inadvertantly ended up climbing (probably should have paid the $2 for a map instead of just taking a picture of it) but was pretty damn awesome I think. Did lots and lots of other stuff but can't for the life of me remember what. Ah well. Oh and happy days, here's some evidence that not all Australian wildlife is of the genus 'splattus roadkillus'! Have also seen a teeny tiny snake, possibly a worm, and a possum and a moving rock (wombat - so cute, but deathly stupid).

Am heading off to a small island a little bit south of Tas tomorrow (with Team Europe slimmed down to just Team World War - ach I've gone and mentioned it now), so does that make it the land down under down under under down under? It's a puzzler... And in continuance of my Australian education, here's the national anthem to learn. By heart preferable. Though prob not really necessary given that England just won another cricket match (actually I won't say that because that match was ages away and have probably played again and lost by now so just sillyness, ah well too late now). If anyone was wondering, the reason why there's usually a bit of waffly rubbish at the bottom of all my posts, it's because I'm filling in time while the pictures upload, if this waffle isn't for you just stop reading about halfway through, actually if waffle isn't for you, this isn't the site for you. Ah well. YAY, is done. Have also put pictures on blog below for your viewing pleasure. I'll hop along now.

STREWTH!!! (Oz stereotype #3, thus far unfounded - it's not in predictive text!)

2007-02-04T02:48:00.001Z

G'day how you going? (application of local lingo #1 = successful thus far). Sorry but no pictures of me at the moment because the cable thingy has somehow moved from being in my bag to not being in my bag and thus out of reach (not any more - UPDATED!). Many apologies photo fans. Though on that topic if it's photo's you're after allow me to refer you to my slightly geeky family photo competition site at www.snappercomp.blogspot.com - and this is where I ask my fanbase, that's you, to work for me by posting many a positive comment about MY piccies, I'm not condoning making disparaging remarks about works by other competitors, but should you make any then I'm not one stop the right to freedom of expression and suchlike.

Should you be a bizarre creature who has other things to do than indulge my lifestyle, then I'll just give a brief update as to my most recent of goings on. Left the 'cloudy mountains' behind and shuttled off down to the capital heartland of Cranberry, which really is in the middle of NOWHERE, but a lovely city it was. Even though my tour guide had absconded to the beach (grrrr) and the only other offer was of a slightly intimidating drunk (shocker) irish fellow who's advances and offers of a 'chaperone' I hastily turned down. Crowning glory moment would be taking a tour of the government building and chatting to the friendly security guards therein. Marvellous, learnt more in 45mins than ever did during public law semester at uni (though that could say more about my ability to handle the morning after a 'few' drinks than anything else...). 26th January saw the celebration of my (well European in general I think but that's not nearly self-serving enough for me) arrival in Australia with some big fireworks display over the lake which was pretty good (minus the crowd rousing clip of commentary from the Ashes, grrrr - though I can report that England beat Oz in the beach cricket match televised last night, and you're only as good as your last game so that speaks for itself).

Headed up to the (not very snowy) Snowy Mountains for a few days camping in los great outdoors. Tent still slightly suffering at the hands of it's better poled compadre's but rallied through the winds admirably (only jumped in the air a few times, aargh). I climbed to the top of Australia (the lumpy hill like thing in the middle of picture) and ate an apple. Which was nice. Then I took a day horse riding but was not allowed to wear cool akubra hat (Oz stereotype #27 - alive and well) for health and safety reasons, but a delicious lunch avec wine made up for that - luckily wasn't caught by police for riding a horse whilst under the influence (was only one glass, but hey, this is me), but then again this was a place where they have drive-thru liquor shops, read into that what you will... Bid farewell to the land of local radio which unashamedly played redneck country and western music ('the fellow wore a nice hat' my particular favourite lyric). Went to beach which was awesome in the white sand blue sea kind of way. In general lots of pretty scenery. Back to Squidney to fly to Tassie which is where I am currently stationed waiting for the bank to pull through for me, should they ever do so. Disparaging comments about Mastercard wholesomely welcomed.

Geography fans will be pleased to note that I have updated my map - (Baghdad where are you). Trivia fans: a koala bears fingerprints are virtually indistinguishable from a humans. The bank robbery? It was that fellow in the corner, yep the one munching on eucalyptus between naps. I'm going up a mountain now (wish they were flatter but what can you do)...

OZ jus' cannea believe it

2007-01-25T06:13:00.001Z

Crikey (Oz stereotype #49), THEY LET ME IN!!!!! Underwent a mild bout of panic at immigration when was told to "just step this way please..." Aaaaaaaaarrrrrggh! Fortunately just some 'routine' thingymcjiggy that they had to do. Made it past that hurdle only to be confronted with quarantine. Apparently this wasn't the time to be making flippant remarks about bullfrogs and the like. Even my best "I've been on a plane for hours and am really tired but think you're the most amazing person I've ever met" smile didn't allow me to queue jump the hoards of Thai's who were under the impression their shoes were poisonous (still don't really understand what was going on there), and all because I picked up a few shells on the beach in Thailand.

Anyways, a quick hop on the bus and I was in Squidney baby! (pic below

= Oz stereotype #5) were it not dark I would say that the sun was shining gloriously. It still is, yayayayay! Awoke the next morning full of life (it was afternoon) and went for a little explore. I pootled around the Squidney Aquarium with the duck billed platypusses (seen above, Oz stereotype #167), scary sharks, penguins and educational lessons (the difference between a croc and a 'gator is their teeth, when jaw shut croc shows both upper and lower teeth - I'm writing this trivia here so I don't forget it), and NEMO and friends!!!! It's pretty expensive here so don't judge me for being boring but it was free so I went to the National Maritime Museum and learnt all about ships of yore (and snuck into the pirates exhibit yo ho ho), also went to the IMAX movies for some 3D fun. Lots of other wondering around the place, sitting in people's chairs (who is this Macquirie dude that everything is named after? Google it for me someone will you) and looking at pictures (art galleries = free, yay, art gallery cafe = deffo NOT free, yikes). Pootled over to Manly on the ferry (young children came of use here when big wave threatened to splash me but being the kind person I am I said that young kiddo could stand in front of me so she got soaked instead, hahahahaaaaaaa) wondered around (walking = free, new pair of shoes = not so cheap, subsequent blisters = less amusing) and ate lovely fish n' chips on beach (preying seagulls at no extra cost). Went over to Bondi (pictured here, Oz stereotype #18) but all the surfers there were rubbish (read: not good looking enough) so wondered along the coast over rocks and through yonder whatevers and stuff for rest of day.

Aha, just realised I forgot to mention the exact reason why everything I did had to be on the cheap side of cheap. I lost my wallet. Thought it could have been stolen. Reported said loss to police. Cancelled all my cards. Went to sleep. Woke up next morning to message from police "wallet has been handed in", friendly dude didn't even take the cash out of it. Now have wallet complete with cards that don't work cos I cancelled them. Grrrrrr. Got replacement 'emergency' credit card at bargain basement price (ouch) that was such an 'emergency' it took about 5 years for it to get to me. Alas I'm not bitter. Much.

Well once all that palarva was sorted out I have finally made it out of Squidney (repetition of cute misspelling of name in hope that it catches on) and went up to yonder Blue Mountains avec huge car and tent with hideously bent poles that make tent laughing stock of campsite, it is being seriously bullied. Well here's a picture of the 'three sisters' but don't let that fool you into thinking that the view was nice fort he whole 2 hour walk that I did, oh nononono. Lots of clouds and not a lot of Blue or indeed Mountain seen at all (as seen on right of screen, behind perplexing image of myself), but fortunately after a handy application of Take That (have a little patieaaaaaaance) and Japanese tour group camaeraderie through the fog the clouds parted and

this vista was bestowed upon me, bet The Darkness never had this trouble (look up your MTV trivia). Now just driving around for a few days, will obviously keep you updated as to my whereabouts, but must go because this country is veeeerrrrry B.I.G. But not in the Tom Hanks way.

Beach Life

2007-01-02T15:55:00.002Z

'ello blogfans, belated Happy New Year to y'all,

You'll never EVER guess where I am now, Thailand, again. It's still pretty nice, if you like that kind of thing. Obviously lying on a beach all day isn't really my cup of tea but sometimes sacrifices have to be made in the name of travel. (fire poi man below, inexplicable candle-eater man not pictured)

I think I do have to take the opportunity to publically voice a note of thanks to my beyond brilliance family for having me home for a wonderful Christmas (and 3 month run up to said day), I thoroughly commend their airport taxi service, the room not too shabby (could do with being a bit tidier mind) and the food (puds in particular) second to none (except - in a hushed voice - perhaps the food here, GIANT prawns, yum yum). I had a super time and molefo recommend it to anyone.

Well quick update on what I've done since leaving the home of all wonder, hopped back onto plane to Singapore to watch Pirates of the Carribean (I didn't fully understand what was going on mind), multiple episodes of Kath & Kim (revising for my next port of arrival) and other such funk. Quick footed it up to Bangkok and then down to sea sea sea. First stop Ko Lanta which weren't too bad, though pales in comparison to Ko Phi Phi (current home), especially as have gone posh (oh the benefit of having a partner in crime to share costs with). Has been a wee bit cloudy mind, but obviously, being british and all, first day sun came out got sunburnt, duh. Went on pilgrimmage day trip to mini Ko Phi Phi which is where The Beach was filmed, very nice but a bit crowded - think it would be worth a swedish shark attack/episode of craziness/scary gun-toting drug farmers to protect said haven (read the book). Here is shot of me pretending to be Leo DiCap, think I carry it off rather well... Also got to go to another beach a.k.a. paradise but could only stay for an hour, despite pleading with the boat man (why couldn't it break down again there?!?).

Ach, must skiadaddle, big coconut pancake and fruit shake is beckoning me, but will leave you with this:

A priest, a rabbi and a monk walk into a bar, the barman says "is this some kind of joke?"

Ramsbury-itis: it's catching!!

2006-12-07T10:58:00.001Z

Have you got it?

Not wanting people to get withdrawal symptoms from my lack of posting on here I have suspended my holiday from being on holiday briefly to write this. Aargh, how did it get to be 12 o'clock already and am still in Pj's, yay?! Despite that obvious joy of being at home (this is a picture taken from my bedroom window - awww, isn't it quaint) I think I prefer being on actual holiday to being on holiday from being on holiday; it really is quite chilly here, white fingers all over the shop, and shoes? weird concept not having a sole held to your foot by a single strap but a whole over-the-foot ensemble, laces-'n-all shoe. The days last for about a minute of glorious sunshine (gloomy rays peeking through big fat clouds, and now it's just started to rain) before it's night again and the prices are real, no haggling (ahhhhh) and no dividing by obscene exchange rates (eek, maths) to come out with a bargain price. If anyone's feeling sympathy for me at this point (doubtful) let me leave you just one piece of advice - TIP WAITRESSES (i.e. me), and if you're going to, make it more than 5p. Purrrleease.

But am I complaining, no no no, because look what I got to eat the other day (not a noodle in sight), and I fully intend to have many many more (need an insulating barrier of blubber to keep out the arctic chill, the wind is literally howling now) and am fully updated on the past season of the OC, but don't talk to me about Lost because I'm still only halfway through the first series (though guessing that as there are many more they haven't yet made it off that weird island).

Have done a mini tour of England (mainly of h&m and topshop branches) since my arrival, gracing the handsome shores of Cardiff (I've lived there for 3 YEARS and still, yes you guessed it, I got lost), Oxford (p-osh), Newcastle (sadly didn't bump into Jonny W, maybe next time), London (where I took up my new career as a political correspondent outside the Houses of Parliament or at least photographed myself doing such, gaining me somewhat dirty looks from the actual political correspondents outside the Houses of Parliament) and, my personal high point, Swindon, oh sweet Swindon. Not to forget the illustrious mayoral/Miss UK/random 'Boro footballer/Harry Potter switching on of the Christmas lights and enjoying some of what corporate hospitality had to offer (smoked salmon galore!) whilst greeting my fans amidst mild terror at Professor Snape (lookalike, or was he?) at Stockton.

Well word on the street is that some religious chaps birthday is just 3 weeks around the corner and Father Christmas needs some help buying all those presents for the good boys and girls of the world (and coal for the bad ones) so I've got a visit to Reading ahead of me - must remember to get dressed properly before I go. I'll just leave you with a lovely wintery sunset shot, beat that Johnny!

I'm in....

2006-10-19T11:32:00.001+01:00

...RAMSBURY!!!!

It's quite chilly.

Asia in my pocket

2006-10-04T18:33:00.001+01:00

In the Lion City (Singapore). I ran out of Malaysia to visit after having a 'shenanigan' or two (well just the one at those prices, and I didn't even pay for that) to say farewell to Borneo, whilst being deeply amused by the dance moves of the 'live band' and the cool guy we saw on the telly earlier. By the way, I think Singapore's brilliant, is clean and air-conned and easy to get around and would be cheap if I had just come from somewhere very expensive, like, erm, the moon.

Naturally the first thing I did was get lost, I walked around in a lot of circles and as it turns out covered every stretch of road in the area apart from the corner where my hostel was, duh. It's very warm in Singapore, a very humid kind of dry, cue buckets of sweat, nice. My initial plan was to do 'stuff' whilst here. I did some stuff indeed. Went for a wonder around the colonial district (wasn't even allowed to have a peek in Raffles hotel on account of my 'scruffy attire'), which was, well like every other colonial place I've looked round since I left England, it was like England, only 100 years ago in the 'golden age'. Spent far too long in the Asian Civilisations Museum, astonishingly all about the many varied civilisations of asia - though I wouldn't be able to tell you much about that because I was too busy playing on the interactive games that I suspect were there merely to entertain the kiddies - and entertain they did! I got to do a drumming jam with the coolest muslim hippy in the world and also succeeded in building the Taj Mahal (jigsaw puzzle). Felt a twinge in my neck muscles in anticipation of the eponymous head wobble as I walked through Little India and indulged in one more curry.
Next day I went SHOPPING!!!! Aargh! And spent far too long doing it. On Orchard Rd there's about a million shopping malls the size of, erm, big shopping malls. Yikes! On the way back took a detour to Chinatown, which having not been to China, was erm, perhaps Chinese I wouldn't know... Why is it never Little China and Indiatown - who decides these things?

On that thought I went to the bizarrest museum place in the world, a park devoted to telling many Chinese myths through odd statues and displays. Went through the 10 stages of hell (another bizzare 'exhibit'), which has confirmed a long held belief of mine that hell probably isn't somewhere I'd like to end up. Had enough of that so hopped in a cable car (which was quite high up) over to plastic fantastic land of Sentosa Island - Singapore's 'beach resort'. Being the cheapskate I am I went to all the free places (i.e. the beach), though also popped into Underwater World and went through the tunnel of many sharks and I found Nemo, again! Saw some pink dolphins (apparently a rare asian species, though I suspect they'd just got sunburnt) jumping through hoops and petted a parrot, as you do. Rounded off my visit being entertained by a laser/light show and the most magnificent and fantastic man in the world (I've reserved judgement on that one).

Had one last trip to the fantastic hawkers centre where I ate about 5 times a day and then headed off to the airport, apparently the best airport in the world - though I wouldn't know anything about that because it was 2am and everything was closed, grrrrr. And so I caught my flight to my next destination, here in fact, which is... (drum roll please)....

almost human

2006-09-29T04:09:00.001+01:00

Yep yep yep: I'm in the Malaysian half of Borneo! It's one of those places that I've always wanted to go without realising where it actually was, if you get me (doubtful). Well it's quite nice, apart from the fact that every hotel/guesthouse kindly locates their reception at least one flight of stairs up - I discovered that the more places I tried that were full, through some freak of gravity my bag became much heavier and more useless, especially after one 'it doesn't look far on the map' tramp across a city towards a promising looking establishment that ecktually turned out to be a hospital. Taxi!

Flew into Sandakan and promptly went to Sepilok orang-utan rehab centre, which was sooooo cute as two babies and one big mama came out to play at feeding time as they tried to work out how to hold bananas in both hands and feet without falling over (impossible), watching them learning how to swing on the ropes and how best to wee on a bunch of camera weilding tourists was great! They're 96.4% genetically identical to humans apparently (yep I was paying attention), though I suspect this figure is closer for some than others, i.e. the annoying americans stood next to me, grrrrr. Then I headed off into the deeps of the Borneon rainforest (well an hours boat ride away anyway) for a bit of a jungle adventure which was awesome, saw loads of cool animals like tarantulas, improbably nosed Probiscis monkeys, colourful birdies, thieving Macaque monkeys and even some more orang-utans swinging the trees by the camp. Went on boat safari's (never did learn that my binoculars were useless in the confines of my bag) and some jungle trekking through muddy swamps (squelch!) whilst trying to avoid touching anything - even trees are poisonous out there. Brilliant. Spent the nights playing cards and learning some classy magic tricks, though probably wise to steer clear of the rice whiskey (pure ethanol), yikes!

Was sad to leave the jungle behind (not as sad as the person who had to sit next to me on the bus for 3 hours - there are no showers in the jungle and boy was I ripe!) but had more to explore at Sipadan - one of the world's permier dive sites. It was really really really good, saw loads of cool stuff though got a bit ridiculous as was wafting around on the currents going 'oh look, there's a shark, and another, and oh look there're seven turtles having a nap, and there's a few more sharks over here, and watch out for the shark, oh and say hello to the turtle just swimming past' - brilliant stuff! Am now in Kota Kinabalu supping on ice-coffees and wondering around with unbearable smugness at the fact that I'm not climbing the huge mountain here (I like to think that I've done my time on that front). Laziness reigns. But I have added some photo's to the posting below for your viewing pleasure should you be so inclined. Oh and I want an orang-utan...

it was like that when I got there,

2006-09-21T11:39:00.001+01:00

honest.

So don't go blaming me for the trail of civil unrest that seems to be following in my wake.

And to prove my point (somewhat weakly) here's a picture of me celebrating my independence from British rule (those pesky colonialists) in Merdaka Sq, KL. -------------------------------->

Yay!

Kuala Kuala but no Bear

2006-09-18T07:07:00.001+01:00

So, outta Thailand to Malaysia: it's different. Firstly, there was the hugest police/army presence I have ever seen lining a single and otherwise uneventful road, either that or they were on a mass 'wee in the bushes' training manouvere (hard word to spell) or something. Anyways, moving on from that strange image if I may, spent a night in the lovely (hahahaha) town of Kota Bahru where restuarants have not very encouraging looking dead street cats lying outside. It seems that Malaysia is an odd mix of Indian (curry, lecherous men, more curry), Chinese (i.e. writing I can't even begin to understand) and Western (i.e. more KFC's per square mm than anywere else I've ever encountered - heaven to some) culture, only without the alcohol. Then spent a week or so on the Perhentian Islands (where you last saw me, or my feet anyway), which was marvellous, apart from having the darkest cavern of a beach shack - I never did find the bed (but hey it was the cheapest I could find). Though I did see a TURTLE when diving (he may not have been called Leonardo, mutant or ninja, but I swear he mouthed the immortal words 'cowabunga dude' to me), brilliant.

I eventually dragged my sorry bottom off the beach and hopped on a speedboat back to the mainland and the longest most overrated and boring train journey ever, the so called 'Jungle train' down to well, the middle bit of Malaysia. It lasted for 12 hours (12!!!!!) and the view consisted of lots of tree trunks. Wow. I also discovered the culinary delight of poisoned rice (this isn't the ad line the buffet cart went for, but I find it an appropriate description) and lukewarm coffee, brilliant. All this did make me appreciate all the hours of my life that I have spent not being on a train however, so every cloud and all that.

Fortunately there was a point to all this travelling as I got to the Taman Negara National Park. It has a lot of trees in it. Seeing as the rainy season is fast approaching and it is in fact a rainforest, I doubt you will be surprised to hear that it rained. Lots. Mainly as I was walking between sheltered areas. Hello mud. Hello slippery trail. I think we all know where this story is headed. Splat! Having cleaned myself up a little I made it to the Canopy Walkway, which was brilliant if you like walking on wibbly bridges suspended 45m in the air (which I did actually - despite a minor onset of vertigo, which is only common sense all things considered). The views were excellent progress, I was able to see tree trunks and tree leaves, and if I looked really hard I could also make out the ground far f a r below. On the way back I spotted some monkeys and got very excited when I heard a bush rustling only for a pig to pop out (boring, we have them at home). I arrived back alive only to have the tables turned on me after Cambodia and was absolutely feasted upon by a variety of insect species (30 bites and that's just my left hand). Brilliaaaaaaannt.

Leaving behind my tarzan/jane/monkey aspirations I'm in the big city of Kuala Lumpur now. Considering the first I had heard of it was when learning about photochemical smogs in geography classes at school, it's made a good impression on me. This clearly has nothing to do with the fact that when I don't know where I'm going and decide to follow my instinct (always a risky decision) I actually ENDED UP WHERE I INTENDED without having, quite literally, gone round the houses. Brilliant. I went up the much prided 4th highest tower in the world (have found out that the 9th highest tower is in Uzbekistan, you know me, I've cultivated an irrational desire to go there) where there was a pretty good (not too smoggy) view of the city. The excursion was much improved by the presence of a (free) audio and video (!) guide complete with a Malaysian/cockney fella informing me of a variety of pointless yet amusing facts about big buildings. Brilliant. By this time I was getting high off tall towers (get it) so off I went to another tall tower, the Petronas Towers, the 2nd tallest building ---> (it makes a big difference in tall thing classification apparently) in the world. It was, erm, tall. Then I went to a rather posh shopping centre (i.e. I am too poor to be even allowed in the shops) where I got a little confused between doors, mirrors and windows - they were all so clean! - much to the amusement of an entire eating establishment. Cue red face and hasty exit (the doors are the ones with exit signs incidently). Fed myself on a bit of sushi and plodded around a lovely little park wondering if I could really get away with playing in the huge kiddie play area, turns out all the other adults in there had a child with them as a cover story so sadly I didn't qualify and moved on to Chinatown where they have decided to celebrate the Year of the Dog with some quite atrocious lanterns adorned with pictures of pooches (<-----), brilliant, and a veeeeerry genuine market (check out these guys "we sell no fake rolex's" innocent as pie look as the police came round)! ------>

Oh and I quite like the word brilliant today... BRILLIAAAAAAANNT!

can't think of a title

2006-09-11T05:21:00.002+01:00

as my brain has rotted.

Am on a beach. In Malaysia. Sand: check! Sea: check! Lots of fishies: check! Nice 'ere innit?

These are my feet (in case you're anatomically challenged and didn't realise) ----------------------->

Ciao (on that continental note - why do all europeans lose their sense of style when they come within a 10 mile radius of a beach? Surely there is some EU treaty-type-thing against flouro swimgear and dodgy tie-dye t-shirts)...

in an octopuses garden

2006-09-01T04:19:00.001+01:00

I'm on beach! I'm in Thailand! The sun is shining! Woo wooo! After another stopover in Bangkok (I went to the Grand Palace, again, to fill in time, and certainly did no shopping...) I'm on the lovely island of Ko Tao. Have been here for don't quite know how many days and have been learning to scuba-doo (or self-contained underwater breathing apparatus dive as the tekkies have it) which is absolutely brilliant, love it! I have my Open Water cert, which involved watching lots of very dull videos on decompression whatnots and doing a few dives which were pretty good. Though yesterday things got even better when went down down down to 30m (sadly didn't get nitrogen narcosis) where I played with egg yolks (?) and saw lots of sharks (aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggghh!!!!!), they were pretty friendly though and apparently well fed as my arms are still intact. Sadly diving has been put on hold for a few days as have delightful infection in my left ear so am just going to laze about on the beach for a while (yayayayayayay - beats sitting on the sofa watching Postman Pat - the video that always came out when I was ill as a child) while gunk pours out my ear and try to remove these slightly dodgy wetsuit tan lines that I have developed and then I'll get back to the important matter of finding wee Nemo, just keep swimming and swimmming...

If any of you are reading this in an office, look away about now:

mwah ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

And oh my word, let us take a moment to comprehend the sad news of legend Steve Irwin (not to be confused with Crocodile Dundee, whoops), it's the end of an era of "crikey!" and "streuth!" and his demise is like a sting in the heart to me... Oh and thanks to Mr 'it's a great city' Canberra (you know who you are!) for the on the pulse news bulletin.

err, waiter? there's a fly in my soup...

2006-08-25T06:02:00.001+01:00

...and then some. Left Phnom Penh (no I don't know how to pronounce it either) to go to a place called Battambang, was initially disappointed when I realised that this wasn't Battemberg of cake fame, but soon got over that when I discovered a nice cafe selling lots of other much nicer cakes. However this soon faded into utter disgust as I decided to go for an adventure and find somewhere 'local' to eat, oh dear. Much gesturing and pointing ensued and out came a nice noodle dish, yummy yum, but hang on what's that? and that? IT WAS CRAWLING WITH INSECTS. Initially I thought this was some kind of mistake, until I realised that they had been fried: they were there on purpose! Guys I really tried to eat it. Each bite was washed down with a hefty gulp from the enormous jug of beer I accidently ordered. I had a good few mouthfulls until I realised that the food to beer ratio was heftily weighted towards me being very drunk. I did eat about half of it but had to stop when I looked at the chopsticks and there was loads of insect wings stuck on them. Eeeeeeeuuuuww. I stumbled home and heartily brushed my teeth never to think of it again, until now.

Eating crises aside, went on a tour of the local area for the day with some dude called Bom (or similar) who took me along lots of muddy tracks that are actually main roads. Saw lots of rice paddies, learnt how much rice costs and that if you hand plant it rather than some other way of planting it you get 4 times as much rice (my rice education continues, I might even be able to cook it one day). Went up a hill to one of those lovely Khmer Rouge type places where Bom's family was killed and on the way down I saw a funky lizard who we called Ernie - see how I'm helping Cambodian's recover from their cruel past. On way back got very splashed by big muddy puddle as road had disappeared (pic), washed most of the mud off in a rice paddy which in all honesty left me just as muddy, but now probably have a happy combination of rice fly diseases. Unfortunately on my way out to dinner (went to a restuarant stuffed with tourists so felt pretty safe) I misjudged the dark patch next to the pavement and was up to me knees in mud again.

Time for a bit of ancient history now folks. The temples of Angkor, the remains of the great civilisation of South East Asia. Thousands of years old. Yada yada yada. Spent a day looking around all these old temples and stuff, Angkor Wat is apparently the largest religious building in the world though I think they cheated on this, look - it's tiny, ha ha haaaaaaa! Played Tomb Raider in Ta Phrom which is where parts of the film was, erm, filmed, if you look real close at the picture below you might be able to find one of the keys or whatever it is that Lara Croft was always looking for. Got a bit embarassing though as I was messing around and got caught by a huge tour group who snuck up behind me and the leader pointed out a sign saying 'DANGER DANGER' as I scrambled and posed all over the ruins, whoops. Climbed a big hill to watch the sunset over Angkor, like everyone else I know who also did this, it was cloudy and a little rainy. And that was that for Cambodia, almost. Journey to Bangkok naturally took about 12 times longer than it's meant to owing to bumpy road, tiny (read collapsing) bridges and lots of dust (got off the bus and was orange with all the dirt - realised however that this is essential make-up for a chav night out in any town near you).

Enough of that, I'm going to the beach.

merrily down the Mekong

2006-08-17T12:20:00.001+01:00

Apparently couldn't spend all my time on the beach so hot-tailed it down to Saigon and Ho Chi Minh City (which turned out to be the same place). Can't actually remember what I did there so must've been great - plus have already accidently deleted this post twice so gradually losing patience with writing it. Hmmm, oh yeh did go somewhere else in between, Nha Trang or something, it was distinctly av. though. So obviously I got lost in Saigon/Ho Chi, and now taking things a step further by not only getting lost on the way to places, but also getting lost in these places. Spent a little longer than intended in the City Museum - granted given that I didn't actually want to go there at all, I thought it was somewhere else. Then found the Reunification Palace, not wanting to play the 'British card' or anything, but it wasn't Buckingham Palace (not that I've ever been there), see picture - it looks rubbish, so I didn't bother going in. If anyone who went in there thought it was simply the best place ever, I don't want to know. A few metres on and I was at my intended destination (woo), the War Remnants Museum (less woo), it had all the remnants of war (though did not have that classic song lyric "war! what is it good for? absolutely nothing! Huh" playing in the background, shame cos I had it stuck in my head) and some lovely pictures of decapitated bodies, etc. Also turns out that Agent Orange was not a fruity spy. Pleasant.

Next stop a 3 day 'tour' of the Mekong Delta. Visited various Mekong Delta related sights that my defective memory has somehow erased. Well let me summarise what I can recall, coconut sweet factory, 'traditional' music (turns out the traditional music is akin to cat wailing/fingernails on blackboard), rice factory, rice noodle factory (oh the education of it all), floating vegetable market, slightly schizophrenic tour guide and lots and lots of river. Turns out the Mekong river is very big, so big that it took about 4 days (11 hours, I exaggerate) to do the 5 hour by bus journey to Phnom Penh.

Guess that's a bit of a giveaway as to where I am now, Phnom Penh the 'resurgent' (Lonely Planet uses this word at least twice to describe it, but have no idea as to what it might mean, any ideas?) capital of Cambodia (yep, another country to add to the list). As a city it's a leeetle messed up in the history department. Schools that are actually used as prisons and classrooms for torture (worse even than AS maths, if you can imagine that). Khmer Rouge killing fields (Choueng Ek) where thousands (possibly more) were not so nicely murdered and unceremoniously buried. Enough said? Nope, cos now there're sweet 11yr old girls selling cocaine on the streets. Fair point it's not all bad - the food's nice - but I think I'm going somewhere less resurgent tomorrow.

Oh CAM ERN!

2006-08-09T06:30:00.001+01:00

(Vietnamese for 'thank you' - not quite as much fun as the Laoian (?) one, li li liiiii li li). For now this one's just going to be writing I think as the speed of this computer is comparable to that, of well, something very slow (life's too short slow) and can't actually view website from here anyway - something to do with site being blocked due to my uncouth remarks about Uncie Ho probably...

So anyway, I struggled to tear myself away from Hanoi and went to a wee town called Ninh Binh which was nice, the scenery was similar to Halong Bay but different because lots of rice paddies - not too surprising given that it's known as 'Halong Bay in the rice paddies'. Had a fantastic bus journey down to Hue as there was a distinct inbalance between the number of passengers and the number of seats available - when he realised this problem the driver/conductor dude started shouting into his phone for about 30 mins as if would create seats from thin air in this vain, finally gave up and promptly fell asleep in a hammock (not whilst driving).

Had a 'DMZ day' which was rather educating I must say, I now know (I think so at least) that the Viet Cong were the northern Vietnamese army who were fighting the US of A in the south with the aid of the Ho Chi Minh trail (lots of tunnels to transport stuff from China (I think) to the south to take out the evil americans). Have a lovely picture of the DMZ as it is now (this is of the 'border' on the north side, apparently they kept fighting to have the tallest flagpole and stuff - the things that count in war...), though apparently it wasn't as 'demilitarised' as intended back then with people living in tunnels for 5 years (!). Consider that a history lesson, didn't stop me pretending to be Forrest Gump or generally being silly with weaponry (see right) though. Oh, and for lunch we ended up gatecrashing a wedding, no-one seemed to mind a whole bus load of tourists there, in fact I think they quite liked it. Bizarre. And then a very weird 'small world' moment as pretty much literally ran into someone from RAMSBURY!!!! Yikes!

Am now in Hoi An, it's really nice here. And I haven't got lost here. A significant achievement given my past record. Loads of good food too, yum yum. There was a full moon/Japan-Vietnam 'cultural exchange' festival on the other night which involved boat races, the requisite b.a.d. music and lots of pretty twinkly candles out on the river, very nice. Hoi An is famous (well amongst travellers in Vietnam anyway) for it's tailor shops (over 200), somehow a trip to buy a pair of shorts has resulted in me buying 2 shorts, 2 shirts, 1 suit, 1 dress and 1 jacket (whoops), but for the record I look hot (with a capital T) in a suit - shame it's not soo practical whilst travelling... Hired out a motorbike yesterday (don't panic assorted aged rellies, I securely wrapped myself up in cottonwool before embarking on such an exercise - actually it wasn't for the first time either, eeek) and drove up to the 'marble mountains' near Danang, which are probably as far from being mountains as possible (thankfully as all the pagodas and caves and stuff were kindly located at the top) and then spent the rest of the day chilling on China Beach, and I'm going back there again today. It's such a hard life.

and the capital of Vietnam is...

2006-08-01T11:17:00.001+01:00

...Hanoi! So no more arguments about that one. 36 hours later and a decidedly non-VIP bus ride and I made it to the city of moto's. Found a lovely place to stay and went for an explore around the place. That's a big lie. I went out to get a fruit shake and didn't return for about 5 hours, I got very lost (not much of a surprise there), though I don't think I'm the only one to have done so, I reckon the reason that there are so many people on the streets on their motorbikes and eating and stuff is because 5 years ago they left their homes, maybe to get a pint of milk or a goat or something and just haven't found their way back yet. I'm sure the streets move every hour or so just to keep things 'interesting'. Anyways, I've seen a lot of the Old Quarter (see right, or is it left, completely lost all sense of direction...). Went to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum though unfortunately he was having his afternoon nap and was not to be disturbed (apparently he doesn't get much rest these days) so had to make do with the attached museum which if I was studying symbolism for an art GCSE would have been great, alas I was left standing incredulously at a giant plate of fruit which portrayed 'Vietnams hope for the future generation to learn from their history', uh-huh. Took in a few more sights - I probably should have realised that when the bible (Lonely Planet) said the history museum was 'in a nice building' it would mean the contents were less than exciting. It was breathtakingly dull and didn't even have air-con (sacrilege). Went to a few temples (as per usual) and the prison, don't know why but since been travelling seem to keep on paying to go to jail, biz-arre.

Alas, left the befuddling streets of Hanoi behind to go to Sapa via the equally befuddling (it's a cool word, why not use it twice) train station from where the train was leaving from at least 6 different platforms, turns out the different carriages all go to different platforms and then the train gets built together and leaves seconds later, keeps things really simple. Sapa's a french hill station famous for it's Saturday market, which was, well, a four letter word beginning with 's' (and I don't mean Sapa). Oh and it started to rain. Non-stop. Went to the Sunday market in Bac Ha which was AWEsome (see above), all the people from nearby hill-tribes came here in their best colourful costumes (no-one told me it was fancy dress) and sold horses, food, tobacco, little piggies, wellies and pretty much anything else you'd need in the Vietnamese hills - I just about managed not to accidently buy a chicken. Back to Hanoi on the overnight (tch) train in something less than luxury and then (yay) to Halong Bay (see right) for a cruise, cave (see left), kayak and swim. You'd probably not believe this but, oh yes, it was still raining (I realise i'm becoming a little obsessed by this, especially as it is the rainy season and to be expected, but I'm on holiday). Just in case I'd forgotten what irony is (ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife), the sun came out the second we stepped off the boat, ha ha haaaaaaaa. However we did go through a tunnel as featured in Tomorrow Never Dies so that brings the number of Bond film sets visited up to 2, I'm practically a Bond girl now, just call me Halle Berry(hmmm).

Am currently back in Hanoi (I think, could be more lost than I thought). Managed to lose 2 pairs of sunglasses in the space of 3 hours which strikes me as a little stupid, however not to worry as there are streets dedicated to selling gen-u-ine Roy Bans. I'm sorted for entertainment tonight, there's a place here doing all you can eat on ice cream, I fully intend to try every flavour they have (about 30) so could be rolling home - good job I'm not on the top bunk. On that note I'm going - have to leave early to allow for very high probability of not finding my way there within the next hour. Au revoir!

water water everywhere

2006-07-23T13:04:00.001+01:00

Got a bit of time to kill at the moment (understatement) so thought I'd fill you blogfans in on my most recent adventures, all naturally, are fascinating.

A lovely bus journey took me to Tadlo, and this time the 'real asia experience' because joy of joys there was not only a CD player, but also a DVD player so endured 6 hours of Lao kareoke (sp?) videos played at top volume. Lao pop music? It's not good. In fact one hour long video consisted purely of one bloke and four dancers doing exactly the same thing in every song, though knew it was a different song because man was wearing a different shirt. Aaaiiioooww jaaaa hmmmaaa dddaaaahhhj is how I think the words went. That was a particularly slow hour. Got off the bus in pitch darkness to discover that had to walk between 1 and 2km (depending on how old your Lonely Planet is) to get to the place we were staying. Shock horror there was a waterfall here, tell a lie, there were 3 waterfalls here. I finally got to ride an elephant here (yay), and don't knock my photographic skills, it isn't all that easy to incorporate self and elephant in a picture when balancing precariously atop said elephant. Needless to say I decided to leave my high fashion silver poncho behind and oh yes, it rained.

Decided to leave this debarcle behind and headed off on another 'asia experience' bus - this time had loads of chickens flapping maniacally all the way to go to Si Pha Don or Four Thousand Islands where the Mekong spreads out a bit down at the bottom corner of Laos. Here I became as one with a hammock and did absolutely nothing for a day or so, with the company of my new best friend Billy (who followed me everywhere I went, though in fairness he was a dog and I did keep feeding him). Very rural, lots of mud (not that I fell over in it at all, damnit), piglets and rice paddies here, and surprise surprise there was also a WATERFALL (!) on the mighty Mekong. Again, I left aforementioned poncho behind, it rained, again. Think there could be a lesson to learn here...

Enough of all that laziness malarky. Back on the road again (just about - see piccie, if only we had this woman with us in Africa it would have saved us a fair bit of time tearing apart the truck and standing about with hands on hips in traditional 'hmmm, there's something mechanically wrong here and by standing here like this I'm helping out' pose) and now just waiting waiting waiting for my 'VIP' (I'll believe it when I see it) bus back to Vientiane (made a bit of a bodge up of my route planning into Vietnam so now have about 2 days and nights of bus travel largely over same bit of road in different directions ahead of me).

Apparently scientists discovered a new species of rat previously unknown to man when doing a test of a 'meat stick' kebab sold in Laos. So it's back on the viggies (with Argentinian accent) for me. Oh and a guide to the pictures should you really need one: (1) me on elephant, (2) girl washing up bamboo hut style, (3) sunset as seen from my hammock, (4) whooshing waterfall and (5) mechanics on the go.

Va va vieng voom

2006-07-17T06:16:00.001+01:00

Sabaai dii sabaai dii (the call of Lao children)! Finally left Luang Prabang, which is a place 'you just have to go to' - was really nice and chilled with monks lining the streets (apparently this is the time of year when they all go into hiding with freshly shaven heads into the monastries, which goes some way to explain the otherwise inexplicable bell ringing and drum banging that went on at about 4am everyday), the home of Hive (again, you just have to go there) and a good spot for a bike ride (yes I got lost, very lost, again).

Hit the shores of the Mekong River again in Vang Vieng where hopped onto a (very temperamental) tuk-tuk 3km up the road and floated downstream on a inner-tyre of a tractor: the tubing phenomena is born! Brilliant fun! If you ignore the indignity of getting stuck in a tree/weeds or bumping into bridges. Seems these Lao dudes know what people want from a lazy river trip so there were plenty of riverside bars to stop off in and best of all some wicked but scary swings that launched you flying into the river (or in my case unceremoniously splatted you into it, whoops). Can't get much better than blobbing down a river with a Beer Lao in one hand and some amazing scenery in the background (which I would share with you but no way was I taking my camera near water) so you'll have to make do with these land-shots of Vang Vieng at night.

Enough of that enjoying oneself malarky it's back to travelling again, so landed up in Vientiane, capital city, and surprise surprise, it rained, a lot, just as we were getting off the bus. Laos - it's wet (see piccie, if it ever uploads, slow slow sloooooww computer, well anyways you've all seen rain before, it's wet cos I've just given up waiting - oh no, finally it's appeared, there you go, rain). Had a couple of yummy foods (did however skip frog and 'little piggy intestines' advertised on the menu) on the banks of (yes you guessed it) the Mekong River and made a swift exit down to here, Savannakhet. I say swift, delete that. 8 hours on a bus, the main 'highway' in Lao really is just a country lane-type-road. Though I did get a tofu sandwich, promise you it was nicer than it sounds... This place is a bit like Luang Prabang but more french (bizarre) and much quieter, which is good seeing as I have a wee bit of sleep to catch up on! That's pretty much me up to date now, oh and I caved in to that meat craving (nothing to do with the tofu sandwich surely) and had a pork kebab, and then another, and one more for the road and I'm making no promises that I wont have another...

La La Laos Land

2006-07-09T07:47:00.001+01:00

G'day folks. New day new country. I say new day, I mean new few days because it took that long just to get anywhere. Day 1 left Chiang Mai to go to border (Thai/Laos) on bus, Day 2 crossed border in POURING RAIN (absolutely soaked, took about whole journey for my trousers to move from wet to damp in the drying out process) and hopped onto the 'slow boat' up the Mekong river. It was slow. Stopped over at some little village that seemed to exist for the pure purpose of housing us boaties for the night. Pretty dire nights sleep on mattress that turned out to be made of wood. Day 3 on the slow boat again, this time was upgraded so some people had seats that had clearly been half-inched from a bus, though we had to sit on more wooden seats. Laos - comfy it aint. Piccie (slightly blurry, still not got hang of this modern tech) is of some of us 'slow boaters' (l-r: UK Harry, Argi Dolo and Ozzi Jane) powering on through the journey with the aid of dipping pineapple in our teacups of Beer Lao, classy we are. Scenery pretty nice on way (despite rain rain rain) and then finally arrived at destination Luang Prabang.

Obviously the first thing we did was get a pizza, then head off down to get some mojitos (yayayay), and later onto a loverrrly spot called the Vietnam Bar (I really hope Vietnam is nothing like this place), which was nice. Currently living in a kind of bizarre 'slow boat world' where everywhere we go it seems that everyone we met on the boat is there too, or they are people met millions of years ago in different places (couple of guys who also did Challenger in Isle of Wight are here too - bizarre). Went to see this waterfall yesterday (see los picturos on rightos) so spent time avoiding leaches splashing about there for the day - awesome.

Today is cultural day and are going to hire some bikes to go around, though so far only managed breakfast (brunch) and to come on internet, hmmmm. But true to form I did get lost this morning so already had a walk around more of the 'city' than intended. Happy days.

wat's that?

2006-07-01T10:06:00.001+01:00

Yes yes, I know 'what' isn't spelt like that, but 'Wat' is. Chiang Mai: here a Wat, there a Wat, everywhere a Wat Wat. Hired out a cycle yesterday and went wonder-about, there's a big temple on top of a hill where an elephant left it (apparently many many years ago an elephant was carrying whole temple on its back, decided to walk all way up hill only to die on spot leaving temple behind, as you do) that I thought would make a nice bike ride. Lasted for about 5 minutes (exaggeration) until realised getting a lift to the top with some dudes from New Yoirrrrrk with fun New Yoirrrk accents (don't know how to express them in writing) and just zippy zip zipping back down would be much more fun (it was). Got lost on way back to guesthouse, accidently stumbled upon some more Wats and monks being monkey-ish (is that what you call the work of a monk I don't know). Found another 12 million Wats. Cycled round and round and round (swear these streets keep on moving) and eventually made it back to my guesthouse only to be attacked by a giant butterfly (scary). Foolishly went out on bike again for dinner, got lost, again. Found another Wat, or 5. Seems not a lot else to do in Chiang Mai other than getting lost and finding Wats. What's a Wat I hear you ask, erm, temple type thing where the more gold the better I think (see picture above).

Actually that was a big lie, there is something else to do in Chiang Mai as did a Thai cookery course today which was quite fun, am well and truly stuffed with food. Bought all the ingredients from market (see piccie: oi piggy - you lookin' at me?!) in the morning and spent afternoon pounding and chopping and pounding some more; apparently with a little more work I will make 'good Thai wife' (not sure I actually want to be good Thai wife, but that's by-the-by). Thinking of learning how to be a mahout (elephant trainer) tomorrow because I know that's the kind of skill employers are looking for on a CV, hope I don't get trampled on.

Oh, and the geographically challenged amongst you may find help in knowing where I am by looking right (or is it left, erm) and following the link "is Baghdad near Iraq" (ex-Talybronx residents of M8 will know where that came from) and you will find yourself looking at a map of my rough location about this world.

Alas, must toddle off now, apparently there are some Wats around here that I "really must" see...

P.S. oh and at the request of some of the more aged readers out there (Johnny) you will be happy to discover that a mojito is in fact a delicious beverage containing rum, soda, mint and lemon - it remained elusive but managed to find a substitute (in the many roguely titled cocktails such as Foo Girl and Blue Hawath - still have no idea what they were, but they came in pretty colours).

whistle that tune...

2006-06-26T10:02:00.001+01:00

Currently in town called Kanchanaburi on the river Kwai and I'm revelling in my new digital camera at the moment, everything and anything is being photographed - hopefully some of the more boring shots (brick wall, etc) will be shortly deleted (once I've found out how to, instruction manual largely in Japanese, eek) but here are some highlights for your viewing pleasure:

(1) "death railway" bridge over the river Kwai - lots of fun WWII relics and stuff, plus bizarre museum that on one floor had remains of loadsa soldiers and other such delightful exhibits, then on next a 'directory of Miss Thailand' and a 'spot the elephant game' (still one elephant elludes me after 30 mins of searching)

(2) thought I'd include this one of me for anyone who's forgotten how fantabulous I look (gotta say that in absence of mirror in room the digi camera is working well so I can check appearance, etc - me? vain? never) .

The more astute amongst you may notice that today is a very v.e.r.y. important day in the history of mankind, or indeed Jo-kind so am treating myself. Just had a Thai massage, which considering the stories of pain and cripplement that I've heard was actually pretty nice (will just re-attach my arm now). Going out to (hopefully) nice dinner tonight (maybe even ice cream and strawberries if lucky) with a bunch of people on the search of an elusive mojito (can't have beer and footie every night - on that subject I'd like to have an 'I told you so moment' in that I kept the faith and knew ole Davey B would come of use eventually) which should be good.

And finally, (3) general shot of lovely Thailand, all green and exotic and nice, though admittedly a wee bit cloudy - wouldn't believe the thunderstorm the other night, was a little bit scary and got very wet (must buy umbrella). Ah well, must skiddoo, have an unhealthy addiction to Tiger Balm (that incidently, does not contain any actual tiger derivative) which is demanding I smear it all over my mozzy bites immediately. Ciao mes amigos.

Yipppeeeeeeeeee!!!

2006-06-21T13:43:00.001+01:00

I'm in THAILAND BABY!!!!!! I made it at loooonng long last!

Ended up spending the remainder of my time in Delhi doing nothing of touristic value, I rode the subway though - it was surprisingly nice; no spit or wee or rubbish (or any other traditional trace of India) to be seen anywhere! Randomly met one of the girls who was also volunteering in Sri Lanka on last night, which was a happy coincidence (of all the people and all of the places in India, small small world).

Somehow managed to take 3 days to get from Delhi to Bangkok, despite total flying time of only 4 hours... Turns out I had a stopover in Bangladesh where everything was as close to being water as possible without actually being water and lots of cockroaches scurrying about. I'd like to thank the hoteliers for waking me at 5am to inform me that breakfast (dry bread and water - well worth getting up for I'm sure) would be ready an hour later, only to not leave for the airport for a further 3 hours. But all made up for by fact that was flying business class (posh-o) so got to use the 'executive lounges' and generally lower the polite businessman-type-newspaper-reading-vibe by stuffing my face with all the free foody nibbles available. Such joy.

Topical comment of moment: has anyone else noticed that Sven Gargle-Eriksson looks astonishingly like Mr Burns from the Simpsons? Especially with Steve "Smithers" McClaren in tow everywhere he goes. Obviously my mind isn't wandering at all when I'm watching the footie in the early hours.

Oh and Khao San Rd (see piccie) veterans will be happy to know that the kid who challenges people to thumb wars is still doing a good trade - although he's more of dude too old to get away with playing thumb war than the child he once was. Happy days. Bring on the Beer Chang!

P.S. 5 days to go...

smelly, belly, errr, telly...

2006-06-12T12:59:00.001+01:00

...Delhi (prize being offered to you blogfans who can come up with any more rhyming adjectives). Finally hauled myself out of my Rishikesh 'it's very easy to do nothing all day' stupour (but did go wild one day and dipped toe in Ganges) and via a lengthy bus journey sandwiched between smelly fat man with no concept of personal space (or in fact trouser drawstrings - v. unpleasant yellow Y-fronts moment as discovered this) and strange singing boy I arrived back in the buzzing supermetropolis of Delhi yesterday afternoon. Found myself a hotel with a TV, and not only a TV, but ESPN on it so can watch football matches to my hearts content: GO Serbia and Montenegro!!! Also discovered that due to some hefty censorship can fit about 3 episodes of Sex and the City into 1 hour, v. efficient viewing (although no idea what each episode was about as entire storylines missing).

Oh and some GOOD NEWS, after a brief but painful hiatus as a refugee I now have a passport again - yippeee! I can leave the country at last!!! Oh no no no noooooo. Turns out I need a visa just to leave the country, which obviously carries with it days of requisite paper pushing and stuff so they can be absolutely sure that I am in fact in India at the moment (hmmmm, apparently my presence is not quite enough evidence). Oh and my airline are very keen to give me an opportunity to tour seemingly the entire of Delhi in search of nonexistant but apparently essential bits of paper from random offices that prove that I didn't fly to Bangkok 2 weeks ago (again my presence in their office proved inconclusive).

Here would probably be the space to write a lengthy prose on the sights and 'attractions' of Delhi, but alas not possible, is a Monday so naturally everything is closed and at 40+ degrees if it doesn't have air-con then I'm quite frankly not interested (nice cooling breeze as scoot about in rickshaw akin to opening an oven door); I have however managed to see Delhi Fort (astonishingly very similar to Agra Fort), parliament buildings (suspiciously the only nice and new buildings in Delhi, wonder how the government decides to spend its money) and the spot where the Memorial Gate is (a dust haze has restricted visibility to about 100m) - have a picture of it in my Delhi Guide so guess that counts.

Have taken up playing chess (well have done since I beat a Canadian, Australian and a Kiwi - and what British sporting team can boast that achievement? will ignore embarassing defeat at hands of ruthless Indians). Think high point of week was seeing some monkeys running away from a cow. It's been a slow few days.

HELP!!! My leg's stuck!

2006-06-05T10:22:00.001+01:00

Hello there, to those of you who don't know I'm busy waiting time out whilst I get myself a new passport (long boring story, entirely as a result of me falling asleep on a bus rather than being happened upon by bandits which admittedly would make a much more interesting tale to tell). So am currently to be found in Rishikesh, self proclaimed 'Yoga Capital of the World', so obviously (when in Rome and all that) had to try it out for myself to see what all the fuss was about (*hippy alert hippy alert*), hmmmm. Lesson started off innocuously enough sitting on mat with legs crossed and inexplicable chanting - not a problem I can do that, this is going to be easy - though my optimism was soon vanquished as progressed on through different poses until reached nadir as teacher was balancing perfectly somehow with legs and seemingly entire body in air whilst I lay on my back with legs waving helplessly about, non too impressive.

So that was yoga, second thing Rishikesh is famous for (see piccie) would be the Beatles, however I have managed to find absolutely no trace of their being (not even a singing-wallah) so have to make do with singing songs to self, 'we all live in a yellow submarine' indeedy.

Thought I was being a bit boring seeing as I have absolutely nothing to do but kill time and read books, well actually book as there is nowhere to trade my literary classic (Bridget Jones II) for anything other than a Guide to Tantric Yoga or whatever, so to keep things interesting I moved hotels this morning. My new room is ever so slightly larger if you're interested.

Have finally managed to convince the good (hmmm) people of American Express that I really did lose my travellers cheques and didn't just report them stolen for my own amusement so am one step closer to returning to pre-bag loss state (yay). One week to go til World Cup, have made it my aim to be able to watch England playing whilst in Thailand (just hope it is in earlier stages of competition as can't stay here forever). Fingers crossed...

few piccies from down India way

2006-06-05T09:09:00.002+01:00

(1) Palolem beach in Goa, it's not all bad this travelling malarky

(2) think you know what this one is, not sure about the dodgy folks posing in front of it (me, Damian and Garlen who spent few weeks with in India, and who I thieved these pictures from: thanks)

(3) public transport desert style - still slow, smelly and not so comfy - being attended to by our man David "chappati?" somewhere in the Great Thar Desert

(4) one of the palaces at Udaipur (as featuring in James Bond's Octopussy), I WANT ONE of these for myself

South Africa (verrrry briefly)

2006-06-05T08:56:00.001+01:00

View from Table Mountain (Cape Town) and (if you use a magnifying glass) some happy little penguins I found on place I can't remember the name of but is meant to be the most southern tip of Africa, but aaacktually it isn't, it's just the most southern bit that is near Cape Town and has the added bonus of having some penguins (which makes all the difference methinks).