TravelStream™ news feed for member bobsonthegreat on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/bobsonthegreat en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 06 Oct 2008 11:34:36 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobsonthegreat/rtw-2006-2007/1176361740/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobsonthegreat/rtw-2006-2007/1176361740/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobsonthegreat/rtw-2006-2007/1176361740/tpod.html Mon, 06 Oct 2008 11:34:36 -0400 Around The World In 363 Days

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Hat Ton Sai, Krabi, Thailand

'Hat Ton Sai' - A name that will forever be synonymous with rock climbing, near-death experiences, partying, eating, and obscene amounts of chilling. All will become clear.

We were excited. "A climbing mecca" they say, "completely surrounded and contained by limestone cliffs with its own beach, its own beach-side bars, and bungalows set in the heart of the jungle". The smiles were beaming as we (finally - after much fare searching by our bus driver) arrived in Ao Nang and got into the longboat that took us to our new home. We took stock of the beautiful surroundings and then made our way into the jungle where we found 'Dream Valley Bungalows', a nice little resort with fan bungalows in beautiful settings for 300 baht each. Well originally they were 400 but Carsten told them we would stay for a week and used his German charm to slice off the extra 100 they were asking for. We walked around the corner, and were presented with a lovely little wooden house on stilts with its own balcony. I was too excited about the balcony to care what the inside was like but it turned out to be fantastic, so, first thing's first - toilet break. I wasn't sure quite what was going on. Where's the handle? I thought, and after a good minute looking for one realised that there was no water tank, there was no toilet rim, and there was no handle. What the...? And then it dawned on me. The bucket took on a new meaning. Before, you only used it to ladle the water into a smaller container but now you had pour the water down the toilet as well - a 'manual flush' if you like. Utter fascination when it actually worked. I'm sorry about all the toilet references in the recent blogs but I like to write about things that catch me off guard, and when something like going to the toilet is second nature to you then all these new ways of doing things are pretty momentous.

Anyway we got settled in, went to get some food, and checked out the climbing shops to see how much the gear was to rent. I wanted to buy some climbing shoes but all the Thais have such small feet that they had none in stock for an ogre like me. After a chilled out evening we went to bed and got up at 8am for a half-day of climbing.

All of the cliffs have set climbing routes complete with names and bolts in the wall to attach your quickdraws to. The way it works is that one person 'leads' by climbing up with the rope attached and clips it into the various bolts of the climb as he makes his way up. Once he reaches the top he uses a sling to secure himself to the anchor (the top bolt if you like), detatches the rope from himself, puts the rope through the anchor, and re-attaches the rope. Then you're left with the climber on one end with the rope going through a hoop and the belayer (the bloke who keeps him safe) on the other end. This is called a top-rope configuration.

Top-rope is about as safe as you can get, as the rope is always tight and if the climber lets go of the rock then he won't fall more than a couple of inches. When lead climbing however, if you let go of the rock you will fall to wherever you clipped in the last bolt. A lot of the time this isn't a problem because the walls overhang and you just fall into open space, but sometimes a climb might not be so well protected and you could end up smashing yourself on the rocks... Which is nearly what happened to Carsten. Different climbs have different ratings depending on their difficulty. 4 and 5 are fairly easy, then you have 6a, 6a+, 6b and so on. From climbing various routes in Hat Ton Sai I was pretty much maxed out on a 6a. Carstens been climbing a fair bit longer so he maxes out on a 6a+. The climb we decided to do (before we knew our limits) was a 6a+, and a new route not even in the guide books. Carsten had to lead because I had no training so he set off up the rock like a seasoned cat-burgular. About half-way up it was getting tough. The holds were dirty because it had hardly been climbed before and Carsten was having trouble clipping in the next bolt. I gave him some slack so he could clip it in easer and before I knew it he let off this almighty scream and fell head-over-heels in what seemed like slow-motion. I pulled the rope as tight as I could before he had used up all the slack and pretty soon I was being launched into the air off the rock I had been precariously perched on. I heard a thud above and just thought oh shit. Somehow he'd managed to come down head-first (which is extremely rare) and slapped his back on the rock about half a metre away from the rock that was jutting out below.

"Are you alright?!"
"Yeah..."
"Have you hit your head?"
"No"

Immediate relief. There was Carsten, visibly and understandably shaken, suspended upside-down from a bolt in a wall, and there was me, hanging about 3 metres from the ground and pissing myself with uncontrollable laughter. It wasn't the right thing to do. I should have been sympathetic, empathetic and very serious given the situation, but there was nothing I could do. For some reason I found the whole thing absolutely hilarious. I slowly belayed myself down to the ground and gave Carsten enough slack so he could put himself the right way up and rest on the rock for a minute, and then lowered him down.

After some rest and nicotine he started to come round again and we collared a couple of passing Germans to climb up to the top for us. If we didn't top-rope the climb then the quickdraws would be stuck up there so the dude kindly obliged but still didn't clean up the quickdraws. One of us was going to have to get them. I got about halfway up without too many problems but the crux (the hard part of a climb) was too tough. I tried and tried but my forearms just would not work any more. Carsten was going to have to do it. Fair-play to the guy, after nearly cracking his head on a rock, he still got back up and did the whole thing which in my book is worthy of the title of "Legend".

The rest of the week we did a lot of eating, chilling, and a couple of 5 climbs as well which were loads of fun. The final highlight was a birthday party for 'Dickie' who was handing out flyers since it would co-incide with the closing of his bar for the season. He owned a fanstastic Shisha bar in the jungle, and a night of socialising, dancing and drinking ensued. What a week.
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Liverpool, United Kingdom

After leaving Frome, we drove to Cheddar to check out the Gorge there. A number of people have informed me that they've seen men in lycra trousers scaling the rocks so we figured there would be a bit of bouldering as well. Excellently, we found a couple of places for a good traverse (side-to-side) climb so we jumped on the rocks and wore out our arms before getting told off by some passing army (!?) guys in a car. Oh well, off to Liverpool then.

Liverpool is famous for being the European City of Culture 2008, the birthplace of The Beatles, the (ex) largest port in England, and the home of one of the best football clubs in the world. What it is not famous for however, is its hostels. "Why should it be?" I hear you ask, "What city is?"
"Fair point." I reply, but I think it should be, merely because it is home to one of the most bizarre in existence. Enter the Embassie Youth Hostel, our second option after we found that the International Inn was full. The guy in the International Inn kindly informed us that there was another hostel in Liverpool, and phoned them up to book us two dorm beds.

After getting lost trying to find it - forever driving around the same side streets and turning around in cul-de-sacs - we came upon a pub and I ran inside to ask the bargirl if she knew where it was. Shrugging intently with a look of intense thought, she said "Sorry luv noooo, let me ask soomeone else". Down to the end of the bar she went to ask the owner of the pub, who also didn't know. Before I knew it there were about 15 people all conversing about this very subject, and when somebody who knew where it was piped up, the rest all started competing with each other to explain the quickest way to get there.

We followed the best directions and sure enough, they took us right where we needed to go - a huge house on the corner of the street. After ringing the bell and being let in by a person that apparently had nothing to do with the running of the hostel, we wandered down a long corridor leading to a little room with uncovered brickwork walls and a blazing log burner. All the walls were covered in Beatles memorabilia, maps of the city and little bronze trinkets like those you find in old-fashioned country pubs, and in front of us was a huge oak table with a middle-aged guy called Kevin sat at the end of it, looking intently at the ledgers laid in front of him. "Hello guys, sit down, take a seat. You must be the guys from the International Inn yeah?"
"Yeah that's us"
"Bobby and Carsten is it?"
"Yeah that's right"

The usual routines ensued - the filling in of forms, the detailing of where everything is, the free toast and hot drinks...

...and then the guide to Liverpool...

Usually when you walk into a hostel they give you a map and show you a couple of places to see, bars to drink at, and ask you if there's anything particular you want to see. This was a presentation, scripted - with map pointing and historical facts - starting with what Liverpool is famous for, moving onto the various attractions and sights, and ending up with an "any questions" type finale. Desperately tired from the 5 hour trip up the M6 (three of which were spent in traffic queues), we simultaneously said "no" and hoped that he wouldn't go back on any places that he personally would recommend we visit. By this point (of course), some random Greek bloke was stood in the middle of the room dying to butt in with some pointless question about something for which he undoubtedly knew the answer, but was trying to prove that he was intelligent enough to ask the question. That coupled with the fact that he had seen this presentation before - likely 17 years ago when he first set foot in this haven for freaks - and simply had nothing better to do than instil a feeling of mounting helplessness into weary travellers.

Eventually, after this little Q&A session, Kevin led us up the stairs into a 12-bed dorm and pointed to two bunks that looked like someone had only just got out of them. Likely they had. "These two are yours" he said, and then showed us the men's toilet and shower room - the former with a big square-shaped hole in the bottom left hand corner of the door, the latter with a massive crack in the basin where the whole thing had once been sheared in half, likely because one of the resident FODMs (Fat Old Dirty Men, pronounced 'foddom') had decided to take a shit in one when he found that the toilet was in use.

And FODMs there were... in abundance. Once, when Carsten and I went down to the basement to sit in the abomination Kevin called the 'Common Room', there happened to be one of these creatures sat staring at the T.V. set from across the pool table. We took our seats at a table with a nervous Asian guy who was flicking through channels with wanton abandon, when he promptly shoved the remote in our direction and practically leapt out of the room. Obviously not one for conversation then, I thought. We weren't really watching the T.V. so Carsten kindly got up and offered the remote to the bearded FODM.

...no answer...

"Here's the remote if you want it", a little louder this time.

...still the FODM stared blankly at the colourful moving pictures that danced on the wondrous box in the corner. Carsten left the remote on the pool table, and the FODM had not moved when we left the room 10 minutes later. Upstairs we went, passing two lesbians kissing passionately by the front door and another bearded FODM - this one older than the last. Carsten checked his emails and decided to go upstairs for a rest. I stayed downstairs on the oak table, writing the Bognor Regis entry on my laptop while Kevin and a few locals watched the Jackass movie on the T.V. We had every intention of sampling the nightlife in Liverpool but it simply didn't happen - we were both knackered from the journey - so I went upstairs to sleep on the lopsided mattress Kevin had assigned me, paranoid I was going to get eaten alive by bedbugs.

Morning came and I got up as Carsten chimed "Let's get the f*** out of this s***hole". I nodded agreement and we made as much noise as possible, making sure that we woke up all the Russians that kept us up half the night turning on lights and having full-blown conversations with each other.

And so into the city we went with every intention of doing a little sightseeing and other such tourist pursuits. The weather was bitingly cold and threatening to snow, the city was nearly dead (it being about 8:30am) and to top it all off, the Beatles were laughing at us from every single bus poster in the city as if to say "We made millions to get the hell out of this city and you've come to visit out of your own free will?? Suckers."

We stopped at a bookshop to peruse a Lonely Planet and drink a coffee, before we got the hell out of Liverpool.
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London, United Kingdom

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Tolleshunt D'Arcy, United Kingdom

dadas
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Manchester, United Kingdom

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York, United Kingdom

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Cambridge, United Kingdom

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King's Lynn, United Kingdom

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Leeds, United Kingdom

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Frome, United Kingdom

One cannot help but feel a great deal of pride for one's hometown. Though I could not move back to Salisbury for a multitude of reasons (chief among them being the small size of the place) I always love visiting, and it was fantastic to show it to someone who had never been there. Having lived there for most of my life I know the places to go to (Old Sarum, Salisbury Cathedral, the nice country pubs) and the places not to (The Chapel nightclub - and in fact most nightclubs there, Bemerton Heath, The Friary etc). On arrival to the city I began to arrange sleeping quarters. Dad said we could stay at his so we stopped off for a bit and then went into town for a beer at the New Inn, got a curry from the Asia restaurant, and drove up to Har to see Chris. After wolfing down my Lamb Madras I had a go on his slide (which was a huge anticlimax let me tell you - my arse wouldn't even fit in it properly) and we drove into town again to visit one of our old haunts - The Old Ale House. After a little catch-up session we dropped Chris off again and drove back to my house to introduce Carsten to my Dad, then it was off to meet Mum and her friends in The Bridge at Middle Woodford, a lovely little pub in the middle of nowhere with a massive beer garden and a river running alongside - a great spot in Summer. After a few laughs we went back to Dad's and went to sleep.

Morning then, and after a nice lie-in we drove back into town to have a coffee and some AMAZING pasties from Reeve the Baker (after popping into the cathedral grounds to take a few pictures) then we were off to Frome to see Farley, who's mate Reg had kindly agreed to put us up for the night.

So we made it into Frome, stopping off to buy a banquet of crusty bread, Saint Agur cheese, tomatoes, olives and Feta cheese. Nothing comes cheap in this country so it's better just to accept the bitter truth and buy the most extravagant things we could. If you're going to pay over the odds, you'd better have a good time doing it, then you can pay the consequences next payday. Farley finished his shift and we waited in the car park, got a man-hug off him, and followed him to his house where we swapped into his car and got a guided tour of his hometown and the brewery where he works. I finally know how my favourite drink is made. We went back to the house and Carsten cooked him, myself and Reg some pasta & pesto, corn-on-the-cob, and some chicken, peppers, onions and garlic. Yum. When that had all settled a bit we went down to the pub for some beer and *puts on farmer accent* properrr scrumpy ciderrr which went down a treat, and chatted about times past and times anew, and some random crap along the way. Finally we grabbed 3 bottles of Corona from the landlady, got back to Reg's, played a bit of guitar, ate half a loaf of bread and the rest of the cheese, and messed about on youtube before crashing out for the night.

Oh yeah... We went to the zoo too. Sorry I forgot and I need to get this up.
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