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Hue, Vietnam

Rain rain rain was what greeted us on our final morning before we left for Hue. We had to return to Cargos for a New Years Day brunch though. For $3 US or 55,000 dong you got eggs benedict's, coffee and freshly squeezed orange juice!The bus was on time, surprise surprise, no need to worry though we were first on the bus and by the time we'd done the round of Hoi An to pick up people it was another hour or so before we left town. We stopped in Danang and a grotty service station. I had to pick up some tissues so I wasn't a sniffling mess. Not too much to see on route apart from more rain.The great thing about Hue was we had managed to reserve a hotel - The Bihn Mihn Sunrise Hotel 2 - and they picked us up from the bus station, no fighting the touts in the rain, it was a nice feeling. We'd splashed out the big bucks for this place, $20 US, and had the top floor penthouse, balcony and city (read rain) views included! Well the bonus of this place was a real bathtub, before we did anything else I was filling the tub and in for a soak, hopefully this would help shake the cold! I think the hotel owner must have thought one of us had a runny bum while we stayed there as I went through a couple of toilet rolls during our stay just to stop my gushing nose!We were recommended a place close by; the name slips my mind, that's not important as the most memorable point was that here in Hue we had two new beers to chose from. Festival and Huda. We went for the Huda as that seemed to be the drink of choice, but guess what? Yep pretty similar to all the other beers we'd tried! We did get a decent set menu meal here, the reason I sour a bit is it was close to $5US per person - I know what your saying, pricey! The 6-course meal went something like thisSoupSpring RollsHue Special PancakesChicken/riceFried NoodlesMangoOn returning our receptionist had tried his damndest to sell us a tour, but we had learnt our lesson, no bus full of Muppets for us this time! He did give me some tiger balm type liquid to put under my nose though the sort of cleared my runny nose. Well we woke in the morning to no rain; despite the receptionist telling us 'take a tour it's going to rain'. After our toast and coffee we were on the road, but first to the chemist to stock up on some of this wonderful new medicine the hotel receptionist had recommended, it took some sign language to get what we wanted but eventually we managed. It must have been time to go home and I think a bout of travel fatigue had set in. After one cyclo driver had tailed us for over 10 minutes I turned around and in the most obnoxious way told him we would not be taking his cyclo ride even if he paid us! The buffoon kept following us for another minute or so before disappearing!We went for a wander around the inside of the Citadel first and an area where there were some islanded lakes when the emperors used to go to relax. After missing a gigantic dog turd on the way over the bridge I stepped smack bang in the middle of it on the way back over. We were over seeing a pagoda and at that point the monk must have seen what happened and came to clean up the bits that weren't stuck to my shoe!We headed back to the imperial enclosure, another UNESCO World Heritage Area. It was a pleasant enough place and we had a few hours doing the rounds. This place was one of the big flash points during the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War and some areas had been flattened. Home was on our minds though and once the skies started spitting at us we headed back passed the giant flag pole and the huge cannons, back across the river and settled in the Mandarin Café for a long lunch and the opportunity to try Festival beer!This place was one of those places you would likely return to day after day. The owner, Mr. Cu was one of these fantastic people, a photographer whose pictures dotted the walls and albums were available for perusal or sale! He even gave us some complementary postcards of his as we left. To top it all off his Spring Rolls were some of our favourite since we arrived in Vietnam, so much so we ordered a second portion after our main meal!Another afternoon in the bath, even Erica, got into the whole hot bath thing, I think we could make a Brit out of her yet. That evening we did another dash through the rain and arrived at Little Italy that the 'book of lies' a name we had heard Lonely Planet referred to told us had fantastic pizza. The pizza was so so, but the bottle of Dalat red wine we tried turned out to be quite palatable - the white we had tried two weeks previously hadn't lived up to our low expectations! As an added bonus the rain had stopped by the time we exited to walk home!As we sat at breakfast on the final day watching the rain we both had a feeling of sadness to be going home, yet I think for the main part were happy to be going home. We had a layover in Saigon for 4 hours while we waited for our flight to Darwin and rather than pay $7 for a crusty old sandwich we went over to a mall we could see from the airport. In here we had our last Vietnam culinary experience - a seafood hot pot where they bring everything out raw and uncooked. You have a hotplate on the table and you cook your own food. We had clams, shrimp and fake crab. There were a lot of different mushroom varieties and other green veggies. It was all rather good considering we were in the fast food joint in the Mall.The trip to Vietnam was great and just what the doctor ordered. The outstanding memories would be the food, truly fantastic. My highlight day would be the Easy Rider tour through Dalat. The people over there (bus stations and airports not included) were truly great people. What I didn't like was the fact that we kept getting bundled into these organised tours, such as the trip out to My Son. It would have been nice to have been able to go out on a bus and return at you own time. This was often hard in Vietnam.
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Hoi An, Vietnam

Hoi An was our next stop. Unfortunately this meant a 17-hour overnight bus ride. We hadn't paid for the sleeper tickets for the bus; we would have paid the few dollars extra, we just didn't know about it. We were lucky though and ended up being placed on a sleeper bus anyhow. We left at 3pm, only about 90 minutes late, back east along the long Mui Ne strip. Past all the Hoang Tuan coffee umbrellas, this seems like the Nescafe of Vietnam. North back up the coast covering some of the route we'd covered when we arrived in Mui Ne, it was back passed all the lush paddy fields and nice coastline. We arrived in Nha Trang probably 3 hours late, we had to change buses (still a sleeper) but I'm sure the people on there already were well and truly ready to leave. I of course slept like a log, even Erica admitted to getting some sleep, a rare occurrence indeed for her while travelling. We were dropped at the Nhi Nhi Hotel, a short stroll from town. After Mui Ne we had started trying to book hotels before we arrived in towns via email. This had turned out not to have worked out the way we wanted. We would send an email enquiring about prices, we would get a response saying they had availability for the given nights and the prices, but on about 4 occasions when we had tried to reserve with a follow up email we never got replied from the hotels! This place was decent; it was clean, had a pool and was $20 per night so we decided to stay. On the downside our room did smell of mildew a bit, this place seemed like one damp city though and we had seen pictures of it flooded on a regular basis with people going down the streets in boats so we figured that was par for the course. Our sheets on the bed though ended up being damp - not a big deal as they changed them. The staff were nice here but a bit too over the top and smiley faced at times. Overall not the best hotel but not bad for the price.With both of us pretty rested we took breakfast and headed out to town. We stopped at a nice pagoda along Hung Dao Street to admire the lilies before arriving at Impression Boutique that was on the intersection with Hai Ba Trung. Erica had being waiting to get here so we could get the made to measure clothing. Shopping is not my favourite pastime, but I was happy we stopped at the shops. I ended up getting some linen shirt that really did end up fitting like a glove for $16 US, Erica got a dressy skirt with embroidery and a shirt also saving a pocketful of change from western prices. We had to have a few trips back to this store for fitting and re-fitting etc, but the ladies were nice and the clothes were great! For suits, I think $150US would get you a nice one. What was pretty cool was they had Next catalogues and you could just browse through until you found the style you wanted and just say 'make me one like that' - then you just had to pick your colour!In the afternoon we had a wonder around the old town. Wow this is a nice place. No cars allowed, that's a nice bonus, but you still have to watch out for scooters running you down here! The town was used as a shipping trading post and is now a UNESCO world Heritage area. With all the damp and flooding the town gets what gives it a special charm are the building, may of which look like they could use a lick of paint and a spot of re-plastering. This place is on the rich tour groups Vietnam route and the town seems to have a lot of older (than me) French tourists. With this came expensive boutique shops, cafes selling pastries and pricey restaurants. A side affect of this was all the ATMs, well all 4 we tried had been drained of cash - luckily we had enough money to last us until next morning when hopefully they would be full again! One of my favourite scenes was the line of 30 South East Asia people, Japanese if I had to guess, coming though in a line of cycle rickshaws organised by their tour group all with their heads poking out snapping away as they paraded through the streets.We were meeting a friend of Erica's for lunch - Jodie and her partner Alistair. This nearly ended in disaster as my watch had changed time zones to Boston time and it looked like it was an hour earlier that it was! It was actually 13 hours earlier and the evening in Boston, but after the second clock we spotted that looked an hour slow I realised what was going on.We had lunch in a small place, Hong Phoc, on the waterfront that doubled as a cooking school and had people learning in the back. I had their special that was a Snapper fillet cooked up in a banana leaf with some lemon grass and other spices. We also tried our first Banh Xeo (Hoi An Pancakes). A nice rice batter pancake served with mint, coriander, Vietnamese Basil and a peanut sauce.The leisurely lunch was followed by some more wanderings; the Hoi An market was particularly fascinating and rather busy. That night from our balcony restaurant overlooking the river we could here a lot of noise - Vietnam were in the finals of the AFF Suzuki Cup (a cup with the 8 nations of SE Asia) against Thailand and won for the first time in the competitions history. On our walk home that evening we had to dodge the moped mafia - a group of about 50 proud Vietnamese on mopeds racing round and round the street with a big Vietnamese flag waving up front.The evening brought a special charm to Hoi An - the subdued lighting and the rain made the town look like we had stepped back 50 years in time. Particularly nice were the lantern shops with the Chinese style lanterns out in the shop front and all lit up.On our second day we booked into the Red Bridge Cooking School, which seems to come with glowing recommendations. It turned out to be a top day. We started off with drinks at their base in old Hoi An before a group of 6 of us wondered down to the market. We got explanations of some of the veggies, including some we'd seen at our local market in Rapid Creek but didn't know what they were. We were told the goose eggs we saw contained embryos! People, including our guide who was probably in her late twenties liked to eat them boiled after they were 17 days old. The older folks she told us would wait 21 days until the egg was no longer and embryo! It all sounded a bit strange to our western ears!We stopped at the fish section - shark and flying fish were some of the fish on offer. Next we got a knife show from a lady who showed us what was typically used in a Vietnam kitchen. There was one knife that has all the implements in one, to cut, slice, peel and gouge. There were some tools to make these beautiful flowers out of carrots and cucumbers, there was a crinkle cutter, I forgotten what they used it for but that's how we used to get our chips cut at home when I was young. We were sucked in and bought the set for $6 US - now whether we ever use it at home is a different story!The cooking school was down the river a little way and as we got on the boat, 3 groups (about 18 people) altogether the rain started again. The location of the school was excellent though on the banks of the Thu Bon River. We first did a tour of the herb garden. There were a lot of ones, some I've never heard of, I remember the mints, there was a regular mint, but also an Asian one that tasted more like peppermint.The first thing offered to us on taking our seats was beer; maybe that's why I liked it so much! We'd started to get varieties on the Saigon Green and the Tiger as we'd come north and we now had La Rue, BGI and 333. Not too much to distinguish these beers really. The chef was a sarcastic bastard, but funny as hell with it. There was a great big mirror above his head so we got to see everything really well. After he had done his stuff we all had our little station along the riverbank where we would try to follow his example. We made the followingCha Gio tuoi - Fresh Rice Paper Rolls of ShrimpBanh uot - Rice paperBanh Xeo - Hoi An PancakesCa Tim Kho To - Vietnamese Eggplant in a Clay Pot.Trang tri - Food decorationIt all went relatively smoothly; even the rice paper and the pancake flip, that was until we got to the food decoration. I blame that on blunt knives though! We were aiming for a rose from a tomato and a cucumber flower. Erica did manage a rather impressive rose though; she will definitely be on rose duty if we ever had a Vietnamese dinner party!The starters we cooked were excellent and we all ate them fresh after preparation along with some supplied sweet and sour, peanut and fish sauces. We returned to some tables to eat our clay pot dish that was complimented with a seafood salad presented in a half pineapple and steamed "ocean fish" on a bed of vegetables. Did I mention already a great day for $18 US.Day 3 on Hoi An and we had plans to go to My Son in the morning, this is another UNESCO world heritage area. I could safely say probably my most disappointing day for a number of reasons and perhaps a little travel fatigue! We were the last 2 people to get on a bus full with 45 people. The roof on the bus leaked. My idea of fun is not traipsing around some old ruins in the wet with a guide and 45 other people. Well all the tour buses leave Hoi An at the same time so when we arrived there were 5 other buses that arrived with the same amount of people at the same time as us and a one way track around the ruins that all the groups took! Yes this was tourist hell for me. The ruins were pretty interesting and the environment around there was quite jungle like which made for an interesting walk. If you ever go to this place though take the Sunrise tour! Escape the crowds. We had opted to take the boat back into town, a light lunch on the boat followed by a stop and a 'Traditional Shipbuilding village'. All the people from My Son got off the boat at the same time and proceeded to wander around the streets and tourist shops of the village! Next we went to see a nice little old man, who had set up for the tourists in the middle of the river cast his traditional fishing nets out over the waters, after which along come the money requests. Ah I better stop before someone calls me a whinging POM. The great thing about the French influence and the tourists were the nice little cafes selling exquisite pastries. We got a street side table at Cargos and had a nice Vietnamese coffee, chocolate croissant and one of those nice raisin buns where all the pastry has got a bit gooey in the middle. This is a great place to do a bit of people watching. After a few hours in Cargos watching the tourist and locals we proceeded across the road to Tam Tams, here you can sit up on the balcony and drink a beer while doing some more people watching. A nice afternoon indeed.Back in the room and it's funny but up here at this time of year all your things seem to take on a damp feel, I'd emptied my backpack and all my clothes never seemed totally dry. We decided to try out an Indian Restaurant that night - Erica had never had a Thali before so I helped her pig out on that while I had my fish curry! I remember my first even fish curry on the island of Dui in India and thinking fish and curry what a strange combination, but had loved the tuna curry our hotel proprietor had cooked us then as much as I loved the one I was getting this evening. Rice and a nice garlic nan made the meal complete. The restaurant was called Omer's and come with high praises from us! We did get talking to a French couple who were working in Danang - the conversation was a bit slow due to our language difficulties but we gleaned that he worked with water and in particular a sewerage project in Danang. There seemed to be a good amount of clean water and sewage waste treatment project going on in Vietnam, obviously a good thing and through our conversation we were reminded that there were still many western countries dumping raw sewage into the sea until recently and there are still some places that still do. He mentioned a couple of big places in France and I remember reading reports about some beaches in the UK being too polluted with waste on certain days to allow swimming to take place!Day 4 in Hoi An and it was New Years Eve. It was a food and relaxation day for us - good job really as it rained pretty heavily the whole day. We moved from café to bar to restaurant throughout the day. Lunch was at Café 96 on the waterfront. We did try out two other local specialities there. White Rose that was pork inside a rice noodle wrap that was folded to look a bit rose like. Can Lau was a noodle based dish with the juices in the bottom that reportedly have to come from the special well in town to get the authentic version!We wanted to make a few calls via Skype this day. Funny thing is the first four Internet cafes we went to said it was not possible. We think this was to do with the fact that they also had a regular telephone service they charged big bucks for. Eventually we found a place that allowed it; funny thing was all 30 computers in that place were full. I guess they were bringing in the big bucks! We walked around every restaurant in town that evening deciding where we would spend our New Year. Some of the places had $50 US menus with what looked like about 10 courses. Funny thing was most of the restaurants, even thought they had New Year specials on the menu were empty. We chose a small place by the river because they actually had some people in there and they had hot pot on the menu, another dish we were eager to try. Here we for a set menu for about $5 US. The highlight though for us both was not the hot pot but some crispy fried wonton noodles we got as a starter there. Very nice indeed!As we sat there the rain kept pouring and by the time we left the restaurant the river had burst it's banks and we had to wade through water to get back to the town. It looked like some restaurants along the waters front were inaccessible!We went to Cargos for our desert though - I got a rather pigsy portion of a chocolate mousse gateaux while Erica had an extremely tasty strawberry tart! The town was meant to have some special New Year celebrations with an open stage and lanterns floating down the river. This was the first year they were trying it, but the rains obviously put pay to that! We ended up going for a pint in a bar full with backpackers called Treats. It turns out I was coming down with a cold and after a while of dripping nose fluid into my pint we decided to return home to bed. I was asleep by 11:30, Erica celebrated New Year by herself, she wouldn't be getting much sleep that night after downing a coffee along with her strawberry tart!
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Mui Ne, Vietnam

One more buffet breakfast and we were on the road again. After a few hours we came to a beautiful panorama and an overlook down to the flat plains of the lowland. Great views as we spend the next 30 minutes descending. Once at the bottom we were back to the land of rice and beautiful shiny green paddy fields. After a while longer we stopped at a 'service station'. Just in time, as I was full to bursting. Well I managed to pick the urinal that had a leaky pipe so after what seemed forever I was stood there in a giant pool of my own pee! Back into the main building and I just kept getting plied with taster snacks and drinks - the poor ladies were hoping I'd buy something. The red wine they are giving me would have been better sold as a vinegar product! The crispy peanut bar wasn't too bad though!Here we and another couple had to switch buses while our bus continued to Nha Trang. It was good timing really and the southbound bus arrived 2 minutes after our north bound one. We were placed on a sleeper bus. This bus had 3 rows of bunk beds. Probably 35 beds in all. We dropped down to the coast and what was a lovely windswept coastline. We arrived in Mui Ne to rain. Pandemonium broke loose when we arrived with hawks everywhere and no good explanations from the bus drivers and people leaving the bus, Mui Ne is a long town though and we found out eventually that the bus would make a stop further up the road, closer to where we would stay - no need to jump on a motorbike to take us there. It was Christmas Eve and we wondered from hotel to hotel in the rain to be told no room at the inn. The chance of us getting beachfront place wasn't going to happen unless we shed out the big bucks! We ended up at Hoang Vu in a small tiny box room - not too happy we would spend our Christmas in a shoebox. It turned out to be satisfactory for our needs and we really didn't spend too much time outside sleep time there.We had a walk up the beach - we discovered most of the beachfront property was really big resort hotels and they just seemed to go on forever. This place was starting to remind me of a quieter Spanish resort that the Brits would flood to for their 2 weeks of jollies every summer. The difference here was it wasn't shared with the Germans, this place had signs in Russian everywhere. I guess in the grand scheme of things for some people in Russian this would be one of the closest beaches!It didn't take us long to find what would become our local boozer. Lam Toms I think it was called and it had the cheapest beer and seafood in town all with a sea view. We sat next to some Russians who were just starting to warm up with 10 empties of Saigon Green in front of them. It was 4pm after all on Christmas Eve. We tried to match them but gave up after two.We stayed in our hotel restaurant for dinner that night, it turned out to be one of the most popular in the area. After a wander around what attracted us to our place were the big bowls of seafood on ice up front, with lobster, barramundi, red snapper and 1/2 lb tiger prawns, where you could chose your own and get them BBQ'd right there in front of you. The two for the price of one Blue Lagoon cocktails was the icing on the cake. We both got the tasty tiger prawns stuffed with garlic butter. It was Christmas Eve so we treated ourselves to banana fritters with hot melted chocolate for desert!We seemed to have a lot of mozzies in our room that night. Poor Erica attract them and seemed to spend most of the night sat on the end of the bed with a new gadget I bought her. It gives a small electric shock that is meant to stop the itching and swelling. These late night antics were a little unfortunate as we were up at 4:45am next day - the plan was to see Christmas Day morning sunrise from some of the big sand dunes in the area. Unfortunately our driver who was the strangest of character and had a whole manner of nervous repetitive movements neglected to fill the jeep up with petrol and a ways along the beach road we came to a jerking stop. He ran down the road (it was still dark) knocked on someone door and got us a litre of juice to get us to the gas station in town. Missing sunrise wasn't a big deal as the horizon was full with clouds. There was however a lady in a wedding dress and a bunch of photographers on one sand dune - not sure if it was her big day or if it was for some commercial. The dunes were pretty empty apart from one tour bus that luckily all stayed on the top of one sand dune by themselves. We got to have a nice wander without the crowds. These sand dunes were known as the white sand dunes.We had been sold some plastic sheets to 'board' down the dunes on. We got some movement, but the sand was pretty wet with the rains and we didn't move as quickly as we would have liked! Oh well they had cost us a dollar.Back at the car our driver had his head under the bonnet. A quick top up of the radiator that was leaking like a sieve and we were off again. We stopped at a red sand canyon that had been carved by the floods, it was nice, but Vietnam has a huge litter problem, so on our walk that is what really caught our eye. We did see a good-looking lizard, a Hoopoe and some beautiful kingfishers down the canyon also, so that was nice. There is a larger more beautiful canyon we passed, but due to erosion that has been closed for a good few years.The red sand dunes were next - this was Muppet heaven and by the time we got there they were packed. They were wet, full of people, footprints, tyre prints and certainly weren't the red windswept sand dunes you think about when you think about the Namib Desert. Unless you like flowing people footprints stay away from this place!We were getting behind schedule - something to do with running out of petrol! 5 minutes was all we were allowed at the fishing village. Probably a good thing as I think Erica had one too many Blue Lagoons the night before and that fishy smell wasn't sitting too well on her stomach. It's an interesting place though with what looks like hundreds of fishing boats!Our final stop was Fairy Stream - this was a nice 40-minute walk up through the centre of a cool stream fed by a spring, no turds in this one! Red sand canyons surrounded the walk again. Very pleasant. We did have some young kids offering to be our guides, but unless you have problems following a stream bed you should be safe to do this one alone.It was 10:30 by the time we got back for a feed and went to Mellows for a nice coffee and eggs. We were so hungry we headed straight back to Lam Toms on the beachfront for lunch and some liquid refreshments on the back of breakfast. We sat at the same table; the Russians arrived a few minutes later and started on their Saigon Greens again. We sat on the beach, did some swimming and watched all the kite surfers and windsurfers during the afternoon. Mui Ne usually gets a decent wind and it's a Mecca for these surfers.We took a scooter the next day. As soon as we paid our money the guy mentioned how a bunch of tourist had been arrested the previous week, jailed and bribed by the cops and asked us which way we were going. Once we told him he said that's ok no cops that way at the moment! If you decide to go the other way come back and check with me first! Let's just hope the cops didn't turn up in our direction later that day! We were heading to see the Po Shanu Cham Towers close to the town of Phan Thiet just west of Mui Ne. We stopped for petrol - the device was a barrel of petrol, a little pump and a container that would hold up to 4 litres. We asked for 2 litres, they filled the container using the hand pump to the two-litre level, then put the pipe into your tank and emptied the container. It seemed to do the job for the land of the motor scooter! The coastline was quite beautiful just north of town and we stopped to check out the beach before our 5km trip to the towers. When we got there some young kid led us to the towers before an older man turned up demanding money and that we paid for a ticket, he yelled at the little kid and scowled at us and as the towers weren't too interesting we decided to skip the entrance fee and head into the town proper. This one was another larger fishing town; again the harbour was jam rammered with boats. We had a quick look, went to the market, bought some tangerines after trying three stores to see who gave us the best price. After that we headed back to find a nice rock to sit on the nice bit of coastline just west of Mui Ne and eat our tangerines. Erica learn the joys of moped riding and burn her leg on the exhaust - she was able to join the rest of the people walking around town with a bandage on the inside of their right calf!Back at Lam Toms that afternoon, the Russians were there again making the most of the cheap beer. There were the usual array of sellers, one who Erica was convinced was a ladyboy wanting to give us massages and very irate when we said no, shell sellers, we'd see them digging for the shells in the sand the next morning! My favourite seller though was the guy who brought his moped on the beach and was selling kites. He seemed like he was doing a roaring trade! That night we decided to have our last dinner back at Hoang Vu. Back in the room Erica closed the door and the whole centre piece that held a mirror in place fell out and shattered everywhere. Seven years bad luck for her! It obviously wasn't our fault but the guy who ran the hotel/restaurant was young and a bit of a jerk, we told him next morning as we were leaving but he was surprisingly OK about it.
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Dalat, Vietnam

We picked up a few pastries for breakfast along with a machiata coffee from what looked like a western style chain called Tous Les Jous, apparently named because the food was fresh every day! This place was a nice legacy from the French colonial days. On the road and in the lowlands the traffic and horn honking was intense, but after a few hours we left Hwy 1 and proceeded on Hwy 20 and things quietened down. Vietnam is a long thin country and signs were saying 1800km to Hanoi. Our driver tried to persuade anyone and everyone who was stood at the side of the road that they needed to get on our bus. We weren't quite sure if this was a little extra money earner for them but it certainly didn't speed things up for us!Once on Hwy 20 we started up into the hills, there were less houses and agricultural land included coffee and tea. The people definitely looked less well off. We were both looking forward to the mountains and colder weather after 5 months in the heat of Darwin. Our bus was definitely not going to make our estimated 1:30 arrival time and some demanding young lady of oriental background went to tell our driver 'get us there on time' - I laughed as at this time it was already 2:30 - chill lady! Eventually we switched drivers; the second driver was a lot younger and definitely speedier! After ascending a final big pass we arrived at 4:30 and got dropped outside the Hotel Nice Dreams! Erica had her heart set on a place called Dreams, but we ended up checking out the room and for $13 we got a balcony, view over the city, free Internet and a buffet breakfast. There was no need to go any further!We had wanted to go to a national park called Cat Tien from Dalat to see the monkeys, birds and crocs. This place was meant to be one of the last places on earth where they had Java rhinos, although none had been seen in years! They also had an Asiatic bear sanctuary. We now realised that due to the speeds of the travel on the roads that 150km would be 4 hours back down the road and we should have got off the bus closer to the park and made our own way in! Oh for hindsight!We wandered around this old French hill station that afternoon. This is where the French colonialists would come to escape the heat of the lowland and there was a little French architecture left over, but nothing like our guidebook implied! Dalat was now the place Vietnamese tourists and honeymooners came and boasted up to 1m of them a year as oppose to the 100,000 foreign tourists.We ate at Long Hoa restaurant that evening. Good food but they put us in a fairly un-atmospheric back room. This seemed like a family room and I couldn't swear it but one of the family photos looked like superimposed imaged from other pictures! The joys of Photoshop! The music was also a bit suspect, there was some Dirty Dancing, I've had the time of my Life, followed by some of Elton Johns Lion King music and despite what people say this is not my favourite music!Multiple Easy Riders accosted us during our first evening in Dalat. They are a band of about 80 motorcyclists, mainly on 125cc bikes who have their own business and take people around the surrounding countryside sightseeing! They have imitators around town but we were told to real ones are distinguishable from their jackets!http://www.easyrider.vn/Next morning we got a fantastic buffet breakfast - Fruit - orange, banana, passion fruit- Bread/toast jam, butter, peanut butter- Coffee/Tea- Egg and bacon combo of your choiceThat morning we took some back alleys to escape the hoards of Easy Rider touts and went for a wander around Xuan Huong Lake. Our first stop was the lovely Dalat Flower Gardens and their fantastic orchids. Despite the Lonely Planets horrendous map and Erica's doubtfulness on my map reading skills we made it to the old railways station. Cremaillere Railway Station has an active cog railway that goes for a few kms up the valley, the station though it nothing to write home about. We stopped at the Vietnam Airlines office and booked tickets from Hue back down to Saigon for the end of our trip. In my book, $35 for a 1,000km flight is a bargain, especially when a 24-hour bus ride would cost you the same price! We stopped in Tin Tin Restaurant, that overlooked the lake from a hill, for a spot of lunch. This place was organised chaos. A few hours passed before we ordered, ate and paid for our meal. I think Erica had finished her food before mine even arrived! She did get to try an artichoke tea though! What a strange flavour!In the afternoon we went to Crazy House and all I can say is it's a crazy place! It's a hotel there the rooms have themes and the outside looks like some sort of tree although I'm not sure where the guests are as all the rooms were open for viewing! There was a kangaroo room, a gourd room, and eagle room, a tiger room and more, on top of that they are still building - pay the place a visit!We met a couple of easy riders outside and booked a tour for the next day. Kenny and Titi were their names and they were not quite as pushy as the other easy riders, or so we thought!That evening we went to Larry's Bar for happy hour. This tavern would fit right into a top US steak house was a nice place to hang out for an hour or so. Afterwards we went to the V Café for din dins. Part owned by an American, Erica got some half decent Mexican food. Just a shame the specials board had lemon meringue for desert, not my favourite! I think in Vietnam you can't own a business unless you are married to a Vietnamese or are a multinational corporation!We were up early to make sure we took full advantage of our buffet breakfast before taking off with the Easy Riders!Our first stop was the spectacular Lihn Son Pagoda. This was probably my favourite pagoda on the who trip due to the gold dragons places at either side of the main entrance, a huge big dragon to the side, whose body of fully measured must have been 30 metres and Erica may laugh but a statue of monkey that resembled the Monkey from a dubbed Chinese TV program we used to watch in the UK when I was young.Next were collections of small allotments, interesting for the fact they shows some of the things that were grown in the area. I picked up they were growing carrots, onions, strawberries and cauliflowers at present. Kenny told us how his wife made strawberry wine, I asked him about the yeast, but he was insistent it was not used! I guess the outer skin of the strawberries must have some on there, similar to apples when making apple cider.Next stop was a large hill where we were to get stunning views of the surrounding countryside - it was a hard slog even in the cool of the mountains and to be honest I think the views were better from the bike looking down into some of the valleys we past. Still a bit of early morning exercise never hurt anyone.There were greenhouses, made with plastic sheeting all over the countryside. They were used for amongst other things flowers. We stopped at one where they were growing roses and daises - we got onto the subject of tulips, but it was too warm here apparently.Coffee was left everywhere, mainly at the front of house, to dry. We stopped at one little farm where there were coffee trees. They seemed to imply they would use one kilo of fertiliser a few times a year for each plant. Not sure how environmentally friendly that was! The good thing was though all parts of the coffee got used and the husks would be again sold on as fertiliser once the coffee beans had been extracted. It seemed like things would get reused in Vietnam more than the West where stuff tends to get dumped. Coffee trees take about 3 years to produce fruit and will live for up to 25. Titi was a bit of a babbler, more than me I believe! He mentioned that Whiskey, fish sauce or butter would get added to the coffee to enhance flavour, although I'm not sure if something wasn't lost in translation there! Fish sauce flavoured coffee? I don't think so!There were also some silkworms where we had stopped; they were fed from the mulberry trees in the area. We were going to the silk factory next to see how they took the cocoons and turned them into silk. I didn't quite pick up the whole explanation here, but they are put in boiling water and they have some process to extract the start of the silk twine that is then rolled up ready for producing the silk, twins where there are 2 cocoons produce a more course silk. Again what is left over from the boiled silkworms is sold as food. It all gets used! The thread is then used on looms within the same room to produce the finished article. This reminded my of a factory floor from 1800s England in the industrial revolution but without the slave driver owners beating down on the workers. Very interesting place.The next stop was elephant falls. Phew it was a slippery path, but a very nice set of waterfalls indeed. We did see one couple pull up, she was pretty prego and he had a 5 year old girl sat on his lap on the bikes. I guess if it's OK for the locals it's ok for a Westerner in Vietnam to travel that way!There was another nice pagoda with giant Buddha's and statues. The minority ladies at the top of the falls then persuaded me to buy a nice silk/cotton shirt I liked. Probably way overpaid, but it was for a good cause!We had a great spread for lunch that day in a little run down hut that all the Easy Rider bikes seemed to stop at. There were 80 official easy riders all together and I think our rider said there were about 50 out that day! We never saw more than about 6 at a time. Pork sausage, shrimp, rice, a couple of different veggies and some noodle stir-fry, it was really quite the spread. After lunch stuck in the café we had to undergo the hard sell for a 4-day trip at $75 a day to Hoi-An - probably the only downer part of the day. Erica is too polite and doesn't like to say no and I get extremely tired with that stuff pretty quickly. I was just about to put my head on the table and start napping, but I think the yawns had given it away and our drivers took the hint.After the BS it was off to a mushroom growers. Here they fill plastic bags with wood chips, add some spores, seal the bags in a dark place and after a few weeks slit the bags and out grow the mushrooms. I think they called it Cat's Ear Fungushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auricularia_auricula-judaeOur final step was a distiller for rice wine. I was hoping we were going to get to try some, but only if we paid. We were dropped off for a short walk on the way back past a bunch of Lantana flowers. I was in 2 minds whether to tip after our hard sell at lunch. But we did and to be honest for $20 it had been a top day out!Back to Vs that night - we got lucky, as the prices had jumped 20%; I guess it was time for them to hike their menu prices. As we'd had a cheaper menu the previous night they let us have the old price that night! Well I had to try the 'Grandma's House Special' that night, can you believe it all the way out in Vietnam - Pork loin, gravy, mash potato and 2 veg! It was like heaven!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonclark2000/4/1229748240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonclark2000/4/1229748240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonclark2000/4/1229748240/tpod.html Sat, 14 Mar 2009 23:45:37 -0400 Moving to Australia

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Can Tho, Vietnam

We arrived at the airport nice and early for our 50-minute flight to Rach Gia. There were a lot of people waiting and when people started queuing I joined them. Turns out this queue was for the flight for HCMC. There were less than 10 people, including crew, on our flight! Profit is obviously not that important in this communist country!Rach Gia was our gateway to the waterways of the Mekong Delta. The luggage was dumped in a large room, no conveyer belt, it was then outside for an ordeal with the taxi/bike people.It was $3 for a very slow 2 minute ride to the 'bus station', that was really just a petrol station outside the airport gates. Demands of 500,000 dong for the bus ride to our next destination were bargained down to 200,000 for both of us. I did see locals tickets later and learnt they paid 42,000. We'd been swizzled but not speaking the language it's hard to argue. Erica was none too happy but I reminded her we're only been swizzled $6US! The slow bus to Can Tho took us about 4 hours. There were waterways along the road for most of the way as there are throughout the Delta. Nowadays waterways are important during the floods and the wet season but they are loosing their importance as roads get built on higher and higher banking. I was surprised out here to see that even though the housing looked pretty sparse the roads were still jam packed with traffic. One thing we had seen a lot of driving around were bicycles trailing big bunches of Christmas balloons that were for sale. The houses along the way nearly all had small manmade ponds in the gardens, it looked like these were to allow people to raise their own fish. All the water we saw though, whether in ponds or waterways looked a dirty brown!We disembarked the bus only to be surrounded by motorcycle touts. Erica really wasn't enjoying the dealing with the locals part of the trip, so we walked straight past them and walked the half km into town. It was the fact that prices weren't fixed and the feeling that some people were trying to rip you off that got Erica's goat! I've said it before and I'll say it again, bus stations in foreign countries seem to attract the scum of the earth, always someone wanting to extract a little additional money from your wallet!We booked into the sparse but clean Hien Hotel. Not wanting to deal with the hassle of a DIY trip again we paid out $75 US for a two day combo of boat and accommodation to take us all the way back to HCMC. That afternoon we wondered through town having pizza and beer at one place before hitting a waterfront café to watch some of the boats go by. Can Tho has about 350,000 people and the bus station was a bit mental, but down here things are a little more calm. Dirt seems to be the main commodity on the Mekong! Every second boat seemed to be some big barge transporting dirt; some transported it up stream, others down! The other think you notice is all these long thin boats with these long long motors that seems to stretch out 20 feet out the back. I seem to recall a James Bond movie chase in one of these boats once!We ate at the Mekong Restaurant that night. It was certainly a bit grotty looking but the food was great and it was as cheap as chips! In Vietnam (in my opinion) you need to check 2 things to determine how expensive a restaurant is - beer and spring rolls! This place did 750mm bottle of Tiger Beer for 18,000 dong, a sure sign of a bargain basement place! This place also had snake or frog on the menu, was teaming with geckos and sold San Miguel beer! This brought back lots of memories of sunny Spain in my younger days where we this was the beer of choice.We were up at 5:30 next morning, these markets are early morning affairs apparently! There were lots of dirty grimy houses and factories as we motored down the river. We stopped at a small riverside café for a pre-dawn coffee before arriving at the market. A few boats hitched up to ours and tried to sell us more coffee. As we floated though we saw people selling fruit and veggies. There were bananas, pineapple and watermelon and if the vendor wanted to let you know what they were selling they would have a long pole sticking out above their boat with the fruit attached! They say locals aren't visiting the floating markets as much anymore, better roads and more of the population owning a scooter. This first market was the Cai Rang and did not seem to have that many customers. It seemed very touristy and there were some large boats run by the tourist board. The sad thing about these boat was they were too large to get into the heart of the market that resulted in the odd boat coming out to them and all the Asian tourists leaning over trying to buy whatever that could!The second market we went to was the Phong Dien, this was definitely more interesting with smaller boats where all the boats floated in a cluster and you had to pull yourself though the middle with just a paddle. Our boat driver took a pineapple he had bought earlier. After a bit of slicing and dicing he presented it to us like two lollypops on sticks. The sticks being the long stem that were left on the pineapple. I did try a couple of local 'doughnuts' also, but they were certainly nothing to write home about!We left the main waterway and took an interesting backwater route back to Can Tho. There were lots of kids waving, banana trees, water hyacinthes and veggie plots including runner beans along the way. We also got to cross a monkey bridge! These are wooden bridges with a thin piece of wood you have to balance your feet on and just one handrail. Once the wood becomes mossy and damp it can be a bit hairy! Apparently and perhaps unfortunately the government has a goal of replacing all these with concrete bridges! That's progress I guess!We had a pizza lunch again before jumping back on the boat for our 4-hour trip back to Vihn Long - one of the guys had laughed at us as he said it was an hour by car! We did comment as we ate lunch how everyone wore a helmet, New Hampshire has a lot to learn! A law had been enacted about a year ago and we did find out that before this law people would deride the use of helmets here. What was funny and didn't seem enforced was only the driver had to have the helmet. The wife and 2 kids on some of the scooters were obviously expendable. Once on the boat we crossed over the Lower River AKA Hau Giang AKA Bassac River! It's a good old size and there were plenty of ferries taking people and the vehicles across. This is all to change though soon as there was a mightily impressive suspension bridge going up. Just the 2 main support towers were finished really and I think our boat driver said they had been working on it for four years. I guess the ferry owners were safe for a few more years yet!We had a quick stop at a tofu factory. They have some process to liquefy the soy beans and they then put the liquid in a big pot for 30 hours, every hour skimming a layer of crust off the top and leaving it out to dry. The room the guys were working in was like a furnace, certainly not a job I'd like to do long term! As we continued up stream our noisy engine would occasionally get drowned out by a boat that sounded like it's muffler was totally missing. The drivers of these boats but have lost their hearing a long time ago! All the boats you pass in the water, large or small also have 2 eyes painted on the front; we presumed this was to keep a 'watch out' and some sort of good luck symbol. The ride was pleasant passing a number of small towns and eventually we arrived in Vihn Long where we crossed the Upper River AKA Mekong AKA Tien Giang. The Mekong is one of the world great rivers and travels 4500km from the Tibetan Plateau, through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia before emptying into the ocean in Vietnam. The Vietnamese call it the river of 9 dragons as it splits into multiple branches when it reaches there.We headed across the mighty Mekong where our boat driver dropped us at what was meant to be our home stay. Our rooms were bamboo bungalows with just a high wall separating us from the bungalow next door, if you jumped up and down on the bed you could probably see in! Luckily our new neighbours weren't snorers! That night also turned into a bit of a chilly one and we had a blanket that if your feet were covered really only came to the bottom of your chest! I chose to have cold feet! The bungalows were actually raised up over a small pond, I presume to help with cooling but this caused a problem with mozzies! We had a net though so all was well and good.The house we stayed at was called Ba Tung. The owner was one of those genuinely happy, salt of the earth type of guys who always tried to make you feel welcome. He started our dinner with an aperitif shot of his homebrew banana wine and gave us an additional shot for when we finished our dinner! We got a whole spread of food that evening. Elephant ears fish to start with, along with some rice paper rolls, cucumber, mint, lettuce, noodles and a nice fish sauce for a make your own rice paper rolls! We got some smoked fish cooked in a rich soy sauce and although a boney fish I though this tasted fantastic! We got fried spring rolls, soup and pineapple pieces with a salt and chilly pepper dip that actually made a great combination!The next morning we had a nice ride around the island. There were concrete paths along most of the smaller waterways with thin bridges with no sides didn't inspire confidence when you were wobbling across on your bike! There was this fantastic big arched bridge close to our bungalow that reminded me of the famous bridges from the Greek mountains or the old packhorse bridges from the UK. It was a nice ride checking out the nice house and gardens with their flowers and butterflies that seemed quite typical of what we were used to seeing outside the cities in the Mekong.There was a small accident close to our bungalow when a scooter hit a dog. The guy was a bit shaken and the dog just kept on yelping loudly and looked like he was in shock. This must happen a lot in Vietnam as there are always dogs running around trying to keep out from under people's feet!The sad thing about Mekong waterways is that is what is often used for trash and wastewater. Apparently this wastewater is starting to cause environmental problems as well as odour issues! The litter everywhere also looks unsightly for Westerners.After another great lunch we took some scooters to the ferry back to Vihn Long. The speedometer never seems to work on the bikes over here. From here it was a taxi to the 'bus station'. Our bus ended up been a 7 seater SUV that dropped us exactly where we wanted in HCMC. This full service experience definitely turned out to be worth the extra money and after the local bus experience a few days earlier I know Erica definitely appreciated it. It amazing the roads for the full 3 hours back to Saigon were crazy busy. The whole route was also lined with either houses or industry. Vietnam had 83M people in 2004, the 13th most populous in the world. 65% of the population are under 30 and the country now has a 2-child policy in urban areas! Some locals mentioned this policy only applies to government employees who will lose some salary if they break this limit! This time we stayed in the Hong Hoa, unfortunately Hotel 127 was fully booked. We reserved tickets for the open bus tour for the next day. $31US for the 1,100km trip with an open on off policy at about 5 major tourist points along the way - what a bargain!We had spend about $800 so far in the first week and was definitely more than we though we would spend based on the guide book prices from 2004. We were paying double what the book said in most places.I had 2 pints of a draught beer at the Bi Saigon next door to our hotel with our dinner that night. It tasted decent enough, but I thing it was really some sort of home brew and I did have a bit of a aching head the next morning!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonclark2000/4/1234081200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonclark2000/4/1234081200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonclark2000/4/1234081200/tpod.html Sun, 08 Feb 2009 03:25:00 -0500 Moving to Australia

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Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam

After breakfast we took a taxi back to the airport for our short hop over to the small island of Phu Quoc.The Vietnamese are a conservative people and we didn't see any of the locals wearing shorts or low cut tops for the trip to this tropical paradise. I wonder if it would be different on the island!Our plane was a small prop plane, Erica looked at it with a little trepidation but it got us to our destination safe and sound. We flew over the Mekong Delta, it seemed like I lot of the land was flooded, I'm not sure if this was true and this was the rice paddies or I was just seeing things.Flying over Phu Quoc we could see it was quite a hilly little island. It is 48km long and rather thin. We could also see Cambodia close by, it's closer to Cambodia than Vietnam and they lay claim to it. Another war just waiting to happen!Our hotel was a short taxi ride away through the town of Duong Dong, a bustling fishing port. We had splashed out for a beach view, although we were set back a little and the bar/restaurant was where the prime view was. We were also a little close to a fence that went over into a little valley and a poo stream. It was fine but we did get the occasional whiff coming up our way if the wind was blowing in the wrong direction. If you stay at Mai House I'd recommend a room on the right when looking towards the sea. We checked out the restaurant and had some nice fried squid in a sweet tamarind sauce while we waited for our room to be ready. Flowers on the bed were definitely a nice touch.The local massage girls were calling us from afar but it looks like they had strict orders not come on any of the beach area right in front of Mai House that I'm sure would save us some hassle in our time here. We had some lovely breezes coming of the sea where we were and during our short stay it seemed like it would be stronger early morning, easing off in the afternoons and evenings.The place was a family run business but Gerard, a Parisian, seemed like the main driving force behind the business. He was married to a Vietnamese lady, I think this is the only way foreigners can own a small business in Vietnam. We had noticed a few other French names when looking for hotels though and I think there were a few French ex-pats around. After Erica had dipped her feet in the Gulf of Thailand, part of the South China Sea we were ready for a walk south down the beach. Man that girl loves the sea J We made it up to the Thousand Stars Resort, past a bunch of other beach front hotels and bars. It was all a very relaxing atmosphere and the palm tree lined beach was spectacular. The Thousand Star Resort brought you back down to earth with a bang; plaster animals and naked mermaids, true tack, Blackpool would be proud.The next day to our surprise we found we had a buffet breakfast. Bread, jam, coffee, cereal, multiple fruit juices. I have to say I was a bit disappointed with my coffee - I'd got use to my Vietnamese stuff and the coffee here seemed more like one of Gerard's French varieties J We also got a plate of eggs and bacon in some combination, omelette, on toast, boiled etc. as part of the deal. There was lots of fruits, banana, mango, pineapple but there was one that we have seen in the markets in Darwin and weren't sure what it was. It was pink on the outside and white with black spots on the inside. It turned out be a Green Dragon Fruit and very tasty it was!After breakfast we took a scooter to go and explore the island a bit. After braving the busy streets of Duong Dong town centre and a few wrong turns we managed to get on the road north. It was road works and red sand and the first few kms were big trucks coming past throwing dirt and dust everywhere. The white shirt I was wearing had definitely been a bad idea! There was also some loose sand that the front wheel kept hitting and sliding away from us. It was Erica's first ever scooter ride! After a bit of apprehension at first I think she came to rather like razzing around on it! Gerard hadn't helped the cause, even though he rented us the bike he kept going on about death on the roads and giving us dire warning about having no insurance and no licence and having to pay bribes to the police! He followed those warning up with horror stories about the boat ride back to the mainland, how rough it was and the Vietnamese not travelling well and throwing up everywhere. Funny as the sea even of the western side of the island was like a millpond! That guy was definitely a pessimist.Erica had wanted to go to Mango's, another eco tourist resort that had been recommended and check it out. We unfortunately missed our junction but did end up in this cool little fishing town. The wooden bridge we went over with no sides dropping down into the water was a bit scary. We parked the bike up on the crest of the bridge and got off to take a few pictures. Funny how things work but because the bridge had no sides I kept having to look back to see if the scooter had fallen in to the river!We continued on up the coast along these long unbroken beaches and stopped at some resort at the head of the bay for a cool down drink. I thought I'd try the winter mellon and see what it was like; Erica stuck with a safe 7UP. That will teach me to be adventurous! It tasted so foul we dug a small hole in the sand and poured it in when the owners weren't looking so as not to offend!We did find Mango's on the way back. The resort looked very nice. Very rustic raised up cabins with it's own beach. We had to go to the restaurant to try the lemon grass shrimp stir fry that Erica's friend had recommended and it sure was tasty. It was a bit pricey, but I guess when you own a restaurant with captive hotel guests and no other places in walking distance you can charge a little extra.There were lots of birds around and we did get to see these cool hornbills with white beaks up in the trees. We had a swim before heading back to the bike. The water was so clear here. I tried to sneak a pee on the roadside close to the bikes but was caught by one of the resort staff! He kindly pointed me to the toilet - the backside of a small wooden building close by! I should have just gone a little further into the bushes to start with!Gerard had put us off the boat and we stopped at Vietnam Airlines main office to book a flight to Rach Gia for two days time. It was a strange place with 5 girls all sat there, not doing too much but facing forwards. After 5 minutes of enquiring about times, prices, dates, availability we said we'll book. Too late the girl turned around and said sorry we're closed! It was 5pm and time for the 5 girls to leave! Crazy, but they did point us towards a hotel where we could book our flight and told us to turn off the light switch as we left and they all rushed out to their bikes!We headed down to the lighthouse in Duong Dong where the harbour empties into the sea. We could see all the squid boats leaving for the evening with their big spotlights. We can see these shining out on the horizon at nighttime from our beachfront restaurant.After walking north up the beach that evening looking for a restaurant we decided to return to the safety of Mai House for dinner. It was a nice little walk though and the bioluminescence we could see out in the water was a new experience for me. Out of all the fantastic seafood dished available I plumped for hamburger and Erica for tasty crispy rice. Talk about adventurous! Next day was 'rip off massage day'. It was 60,000 dong or $4US for a one-hour massage. We were a bit green though and one lady started rubbing our feet with a pumice stone and another lady had some cotton she was using to remove hair from Erica's lower leg. These turned out to be extras and our 120,000 for 2 massages became 370,000 dong! We didn't say anything but I'm onto those ladies now JNot too much else going on that day part from a little uneventful snorkelling with our only creatures being a few 8-legged starfish!We had happy hour and sundowners up the beach but return to Mai House for our final din dins.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonclark2000/4/1229314983/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonclark2000/4/1229314983/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonclark2000/4/1229314983/tpod.html Sun, 08 Feb 2009 00:48:09 -0500 Moving to Australia

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Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

The noise pollution flying into HCMC was very low. The lights on the houses outside of town were very dim and most looked like they just had some main light, not the typical light explosions you'd see in most suburbs in Western countries!Our driver was waiting for us with a sign showing our name on it. It was a 30-minute ride to our hotel. Even at 9pm at night the streets were packed and driving here was like driving back in Boston but on steroids! There was a lot of horn work required and a left turn (Vietnam driver on the right) meant slowly edging across the road into oncoming traffic and once there was space the bikes would switch from going in front of you to going behind you! It must be the volume of scooter/mopeds/motorbikes (or what ever else you want to call them) on the road that amazes any new visitor to South East Asia. How they manage to avoid each other with what looks like total disorganization is amazing, there must be some method to their madness!We drove for what seemed like 2km down one road and it was just shop after shop. No big stores from well know brands. Each store was a little hole in the wall 4m wide with the sidewalk space taken up by other street vendors. This gave us a little perspective of where the South East Asians get their entrepreneurial spirit. It was also great to see such lively streets at 9:30 at night.The Vietnamese hospitality showed at our hotel, Hotel 127. We had to have a drink before we were allowed to go to our room, although I'm sure part of this was so they could show us the brochures for the tours they got commission for. They did not push though. The room was clean and comfortable. We had A/C although we did have some teddy bear bed sheets that only seemed to look good once the lights were out! We had a fridge that turned out to be the norm for Vietnam and one of those showers with no curtain that once on soaks the rest of the bathroom including the toilet and the floor. For $17 per room this place was a real bargain and for that price we got breakfast and dinner! To put that in perspective we did eat lunch at a popular cheap place the next day and it cost is $12 for the two of us.Vietnam is 2hr 30 behind Darwin and we were therefore up at dawn and ready for an early breakfast. It had rained overnight and cooled things down a bit for us. People we met at breakfast commented on how warm things were here, after coming from Darwin though things were nice and cool and a welcome relief for us!Breakie was green bananas that despite their appearance were ripe. Tea, coffee and kumquat or orange juice we weren't sure which. We also got this nice crusty bread, so crusty there was almost no dough in the middle! Very tasty, especially once the homemade sweet strawberry jam and butter were added. The coffee came with a thick sweetened condensed milk. I think these guys like their sugar! The coffee had a nice nutty flavour, not like the hazelnut flavour crap you get some places. I did mention this to a Vietnamese person at some point and I think they were slightly offended. The Vietnamese are proud of their home gown coffee.Before we knew it we were loose on the streets of HCMC. After a slight miscalculation, otherwise know as finding your bearings, we were soon on route to the Ben Thanh Market.Crossing the road in HCMC is an experience in it self. With 10,000 mopeds rushing towards you, you just have to edge across slowly and watch the bikes magically disperse either side of you. The secret is to move nice and slowly, give the riders plenty of time to see you!A good number of the bikers in HCMC wear masks, we were not sure if this is for SARS or because of the pollution as I know after out taxi ride into town the previous night my eyes had been stinging. We did hear later on our trip the ladies also liked to keep white skin, so wearing these masks and shoulder length gloves helped them keep their skin away from the smog drenched sun!Christmas decorations adorned a lot of the shops. More so than anything we got in Darwin that was a surprise to us. I though Vietnam was mainly Buddhist and Hindu. It turns out the French missionaries had done a good job at converting people to Catholicism!At the main roundabout by the market there was a huge Christmas exhibit sponsored by Heineken. The Christmas trees had Heineken plastered all over them. We got plenty of pictures for Erica's dad whose favourite beer is Heineken! As we moved around the country we found Heineken set up plenty more of these Christmas displays.There were souvenirs, clothes, coffee and some wonderful flower shops in the market. Unlucky for Erica though I always get drawn to the fish and meat section! There was tongue, tripe, intestines, good old pigs trotters and an assortment of other body parts! Most of the seafood was still alive and in bowls of water or laid out on ice! It was certainly fresh! One lady kept looking is disgust as one of her lively fish kept jumping the bowl and landing on the floor, only for her to have to pick it up again and place it back in the water! They had shrimp of all sizes from tiny dried ones to monsters that looked more like lobsters! They did also sell some variety of lobster/crayfish. All the vendors were happy enough we I asked if I could snap a photo. I should mention the durian fruit in the market. These are known for the pungent smell, some will say the worst smelling fruit in the world, the fruit looks similar to jackfruit a fleshy fruit we oven see in Darwin and a fruit I have picked from our local trees. I didn't find the smell too bad, and though it smelt similar to my hair after a hairdresser girlfriend of mine decided to give me a perm! Needless to say that relationship was pretty short lived after that experience! Back on the streets and we were constantly asked if we needed a ride - choices being taxi, moped or rickshaw! If we stopped to look at our map we would get surrounded with drivers helping point out how hot it was or how far it was to get to where we were going. We stopped at a few street vendors on the way for nectarines and waffles and everything was 'one dollar'. I don't think the people on the street realised we'd just been through the financial crisis and if you gave them 10,000 dong they were happy. The US$ was now actually fetching 17,000 donga to the $! The town hall was our next stop. It has some nice French architecture and the no photos sign next to the soldier and sentry box outside didn't seem to be stopping people from snapping away, so we joined them!We did an unplanned lap of the block before arriving at the post office building and the Note Dame Cathedral -worthwhile stops on out little walking tour.For lunch we stopped at Pho2000 - Bill Clinton and Chelsea had stopped here for a bowl of noodles back in 2000 and they had the pictures with the various staff members dotted all over the wall to prove it! This had been the first president to stop in Vietnam since the Vietnam War. We, of course, had spring rolls and out first of what would become many bowls of noodles since our arrival. I chose to try a fruit juice - Sapodilla that was tasty but we weren't sure what it was at the time!http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SapodillaErica got a lime soda, this was a soda water with freshly sliced lime to squeeze in there. Erica definitely approved of the fresh approach. The meal comes with a plate of fresh herbs and veggies that you can eat raw or add to your soup, Mexican coriander, basil, cuces, radish and carrots. Erica brought up the fact that we were eating veggies washed in probable tap water, drinking fruit juice and ice. A few no nos. I mentioned if it was good enough for the Clintons they it was good enough for us. Maybe when we got to the smaller towns we'd be more careful!We had a bit of time before the Reunification Palace opened so I suggested a coffee shop for a pick me up! Erica got an iced coffee along with the condensed milk and that deadly ice again! Before I over dramatise too much we found out that nearly all ice in HCMC comes from a special factory where it is purified so most ice is good. We both got iced tea with our coffee. We found this to be common to all coffee shops. Get a coffee and they would keep topping up your iced tea! Well I tried a black Vietnamese coffee. The lady seemed a bit surprised when I refused milk or ice. She probably had a smirk on her face as she brought over what one could probably describe as tar! After a few sips I couldn't take anymore and fished out a few ice cubes from my tea and added it to the coffee to make it a much more enjoyable beverage!The reunification palace was next, this was where in 1975 the much media publicised event of the North Vietnamese driving their tanks through the gates for the South Vietnamese government to surrender had taken place. There were some old Chinese tanks and US fighter planes left on the lawns that were interesting. Inside the palace, besides the sense of history there was not much besides old meeting rooms still in their 70s decor and some old radio equipment and control centres in the basement. Not really my cup of tea. Experiencing my first Vietnamese beer at a café on the roof was probably the highlight of this place. It was a Tiger beer that I now know is actually owned by a Singapore listed company and together with Saigon Green these seem to be the beers HCMC residents drink. Nothing too exciting - just the usual mass-produced lager style beers!Just around the corner was the War Remnants Museum. This was apparently once known as the Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes, but some level of diplomacy and a want for the tourist dollars had got them to change the name. This place is well worth a visit if not to outline the terrible atrocities that occur during wartime. The pictures of torture and disfigurement from bombs and chemical certainly aren't for the faint hearted!A few things stuck in my mind. One of the first displays was a passage from the US Declaration of Independence; at least I think it was the US Declaration as Ho Chi Mihn had apparently modelled the Vietnamese Declaration very similarly to the US, although that doesn't matter. It was the passage about treating all individuals equally. A few displays further round there were details of how the USA had paid out $180m to US, Australia and New Zealand veterans for problems caused by exposure to Agent Orange. Equality didn't get applied to the Vietnamese people who did not get a penny in compensation for exposure to this chemical herbicide. The other display that stuck in my mind was when you think about the consequences of war and who really gets harmed was a photo from 2003! A very graphic photo of a young boy with missing limbs hit by a landmine!After than we needed a drink and where better than the Majestic Hotel. We decided to take a cycle rickshaw, the first guy wanted 150,000 dong, and so we wondered across the road when we got a ride for 50,000. This of course caused a small altercation between this guy and the original seller - but it's a buyers market out there with those rickshaw drivers! Apparently all the rickshaw drivers are offspring of intellectuals who supported the US during the war. The US had promised a lot of these people they would not be left if things didn't work out. They had not followed through on this and even now as a punishment their offspring were still not official citizens, they cannot own property and are not offered the rights of regular citizens and are resigned to being rickshaw drivers!The Majestic Hotel has a rooftop garden overlooking the Saigon River and it was nice apart from the stingy cocktail sizes!Back at our hotel guess what was on the menu? Spring Rolls and noodle soup again. Good job we like it so much!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonclark2000/4/1229226480/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonclark2000/4/1229226480/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonclark2000/4/1229226480/tpod.html Fri, 30 Jan 2009 22:56:27 -0500 Moving to Australia

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Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia

On the road again - as my project manager always says to me "you're living the dream Jon" - well I've got to admit I'm always happy when I'm on the road exploring. If that's living the dream then that is indeed what I'm doing.We had put together a rough itinerary four our trip and had booked the first two night into Hotel 127 in HCMC (Ho Chi Mihn City) or Saigon as it is still sometimes called and was know prior to reunification in 1975. They had arranged for us to be picked up at the airport. It's always nice not to have to left to the mercy of the taxi drivers when you're arriving in a new city of 6M people where you don't know the language and get confused when you think, now is that 10,000 dong worth $1 or $10? We had booked a flight to the island of Phu Quoc, at $50 a one-way the flight was cheaper that a nights accommodation. We had wanted to stay at the eco friendly Mangos, at $50 a night for a beach front cabin it was going to be our big splurge, unfortunately it was full as it seemed were a lot of places at this time of year. We had our heart set on a beach front cabin though, always a mistake, and we ended up booking a place for $75 US a night - Ah you only live once, but for a developing country this certainly blew away the most I'd ever paid for a room on any previous trips!First things first though, we had both recently attended the CDU cyclone awareness program. Very interesting it was, it did of course have the obligatory video footage of some guys out in a cyclone as big pieces of debris flew past them and saying don't do this at home folks! There were all the scare tactics and some interesting details on the eye of the storm. If you're lucky to have the eye of the cyclone pass directly over you there will be a big lull in the winds and apparently sometimes even a glimpse at sunshine! The wall of wind will eventually hit again and it is at it's most intense when it's closer to the centre so one big no no was going outside if you got a sudden drop in the winds, because guess what was coming next! And because the winds move in a circular motion the winds will be going in the totally opposite direction once they start up again! Well this is what causes the most damage - all the pressure coming from one side, weakening the structure and then the winds come from the total opposite direction to destroy what was not previously downed! They say buildings in Darwin have to be build to withstand a category 4 cyclone as the chance of being hit by a category 5 were too negligible and the additional cost was too great. The one thought that keeps returning to me though is what if!Just to make sure our fears weren't dulled too much I had recently spent a day at the Museum and Art Gallery of the NT with my dad who was visiting. This was my first trip to this great free museum! They have some great aboriginal artwork but more importantly a fantastic display on Cyclone Tracy that hit Darwin on Christmas Day in 1974. This had been a category 4 direct hit on Darwin. They have some great before and after shots from the air. We even found out our local supermarket used to be a drive-in movie theatre. This cyclone had killed 71 people, 22 of those were at sea, and destroy about 80 percent of houses according to the wiki.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_TracyBack then the buildings were not up to code and didn't contain cyclone proof rooms. One of the helpers at the museum, who had been here during the cyclone, reckoned 20 percent of the homes had been truly destroyed and most had been just damaged still the pictures shows a trail of destruction and we certainly didn't want to be taking any chances!As we were going to be gone we took the advice from this program to cyclone proof our house before we left! We brought in outdoor furniture or anything else from the yard that could act as a missile; unfortunately the new truck would not fit through the patio doors, shame as we'd cleared a nice space on our living room floor specially! We took picture frames off the walls and that was about it! One of our frames was covered in what was a pretty colourful and nasty looking mould! It was pretty well ruined and went straight to the bin! The houses have tin roofs here and we'd had to call out the roof repair people a couple of time to fix leaks! It seems the bolts that hold the sheeting down eventually rusts and in comes the water, in our case, running right down behind the picture frames. One of the perils of living in the tropics!The other thing we did was take a bunch of our electrical gear to Erica's nice air conditioned, cyclone proof office! Laptops, unused lenses, external hard drives and Ipods. No point letting a cylone get to them if in managed to rip our rusting roof off or worse the ant deciding our external hard drives looked like a nice place to set up home!My dad was leaving the same day and we took him to the airport at 12pm, giving us time to prepare. We took a taxi at 3:30pm but even though we were at the airport 2 hours before out flight we nearly missed it! We were sat in the departure lounge drinking coffee and beers only to find there was another security checkpoint we had to go through for international flights! We ended up running for out gate as the display flashed up gate closing!Our flight was with Jetstar, these guys certainly know how to make a quick buck with their captive audience on the 4 hours 30 minute trip! The plane has no TVs in the ceiling or seatbacks, but you're more than welcome to purchase a portable entertainment system with movies for $15! They seemed popular though and they ended up running out! Get a seat near the front of the plane if you like to watch TV with Jetstar! Dinner for 2 and a glass of wine for me also set us back $36The flight itself was great, we got views of our house, Nightcliff jetty and the coastline all the way up to the northern suburbs! We flew over the Tiwi Island. There were these great windy river systems. They looked estuarine and looked like they would be great places to go up in sea kayaks following the tides! We also crossed over Timor, Borneo and Brunei before starting our decent into HCMC. Moving countries is a complicated task and we both were looking forward to the three week break!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonclark2000/4/1227097020/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonclark2000/4/1227097020/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonclark2000/4/1227097020/tpod.html Wed, 19 Nov 2008 07:19:28 -0500 Moving to Australia

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Mary River National Park, Northern Territory, Australia

We have a car! It's about time, with the added bonus of not have to get on the bus and go downtown for a car rental every weekend and do all your car chores in one day. We splashed out on a nice new shiny Nissan Navara in the end - One of those cars that has a different name in the USA to the rest of the world. It's a Frontier in the USA! What is it with the USA that they always have to be different! So what did we get for our money? We decided to buy new as the second hand cars weren't that cheap and we got a good deal with the Navara getting 9k off the regular price. By the time we did the maths it work out we would loose as much over 4 years on a new car as we would on a second hand car. Given that we would get a 3-year new car warranty and the reliability of a new car it was a bit of a no brainer. We got a nice dual cab (i.e. 4 seater), 4x4, metallic silver, diesel, Nissan Navara ST-R. The dealership messed up and gave us tinted windows, floor mats and headlight and bonnet protectors by accident - they obviously couldn't charge us so the tinting saved us a nice $500 bill down the road! New car prices here include all fees in the final price - buy and old car and on top of the sticker price you end up paying 3% stamp duty and the rego (registration) that for our sized car is about $450 per year. The rego does include third party liability insurance. Our insurance cost are a lot cheaper than the USA though - less than $700 for fully comprehensive - I think I would have had to pay $2000 in Massachusetts for this beast! Our insurance also included the important flood and cyclone damage protection! I should also mention the exchange rate, what with all the craziness going on in the financial markets. When we arrived in Darwin the $US-$AUS was about 1 to 1. We did bring about $10,000 with us, in the next few months it proceeded to change by 40% meaning out $10,000 AUD would have been $14,000 - hindsight would be a wonderful thing to posses! Interest rates over here were also in the 9s for mortgages and 20s for credit card, we didn't check what a car load would have charged us! With the financial meltdown the Aussie Fed has dropped the rate a few percentage, but with interest rates this high we certainly stayed away from finance with our new car purchase!Now we're all ready to go and head out into the outback and do some exploring. In the two weekends we've had so far we've done a few little trips.We did a trip down to Litchfield National Park again - it cost us a cool $100 to fill her up, glad she's a diesel and it seems we can get about 600km for that much fuel. This time the camera batteries did not run out so I managed to get some pictures of Tolmer Falls and Wangi Falls! There was an excellent little short walking trail close to Tolmer Falls that takes you up above the top of the falls. We did a little side trip down a 4WD track to Sandy Creek. The first thing we noticed, besides the clearance of the truck, going off road meant a lot less people! The car gives you 'added muppet protection'! We took a dirt road back from Litchfield that bought us up to the Cox Peninsula Road. It was a bit of a boneshaker as much of the road was very corrugated. It was worth it though as the back road took us to a great magnetic termite field that was far more accessible than the one in the park and was apparently where David Attenborogh did his termite mound filming when he came to the Top end.Last weekend we headed to Mary River and took our new baby out on the little more challenging Hardies 4WD Track. We figured it was time to head back once Erica closed her eyes and screamed no! We didn't make it through the big mud quagmire that provoked the screams, but luckily threw her quickly into reverse and she got us out safe and sound. I think I have a lot to learn and we decided that was a good point to end our adventure for the day and head back out the way we came! Maybe we'll look at buying a winch and shovel in the future just in case! Erica did remind me on numerous occasions that perhaps I should have read the instruction book before we came, I promised to do so once we got home, but where is her sense of adventure! We did learn a lot though about what the truck was capable of and did a couple of wet and dry stream crossings and some steep hill inclines and declines, that unless I'd know people had managed beforehand I wouldn't have been so confident doing!We did spot plenty of wildlife, Brolgas, Jabiru, croc at Hardies river crossing, juvenile white bellied sea eagle, but the highlight was a 5ft monitor lizard - Erica remarked is that a tree stump as it was stood up on its hind legs, I quickly assembled the camera and rushed off into the woods after it, but those things are quick and it was off into the woods before we even had a chance to snap a few pics - spoil sport! We do see a few of these around where we live although not as big as this guy. Erica spots them on a regular basis on her way to work and I spotted one once while out on a bike ride up the coast. We have both also seen a few frill necked lizards down on the Nightcliff foreshore. This is the route Erica tales to work, but the bike path here goes through some nice parkland for a few kilometres with the sea to the west. It's a popular place for cyclist, gawkers, kids playing or people picnicking. I didn't let my lizard get away without getting off my bike and approaching him just enough to make him uncomfortable enough to frill up his collar, I was surprised though that he did not run, I just wish I had my camera!We stopped at Corroboree Billabong on the way home, but there is not too much to see there unless you have a boat! We drove a bit closer to Darwin along the Arnhem Highway an stopped at the Leaning Tree Lagoon. It was a pleasant area with lots of birds not a sole in sight. Like a true 'bogan' we sat in the truck looking over the lagoon sipping on a couple of Cooper's Pale Ale! Just in case you're wondering a bogan is the Aussie work for hillbilly - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogan !We are finally starting to feel settled. We got our driving licenses and it can be reported that the RMV here is as slow and bureaucratic and the DMV in Massachusetts. Mmm, let's see 1 hour for a driver's license! Erica has yoga twice a week and I play soccer with some local guys and go to circuit training on a Monday lunchtime, which I feel is really kicking my butt! We were both surprised at how long it does take to get your life back to what feels like normal after a relocation to a new country.We have had a few problems with the natives since we arrives - animals that is! We knew the ants were going to be a problem the first day we bought Crunchy Nut cornflakes - those ants know a good cereal and you can leave a weetabix or oatmeal out all day and they won't touch it, Crunchy Nut cornflakes though are a different story! After finding a trail of them coming down the wall and heading into the cornflakes box we knew it was time for airtight containers! Now Erica has pretty severe allergic reactions to ants and can swell up like a balloon! She now has to carry and EpiPen around with her at all times. Getting bit in the night by frenzied ants was definitely not something we wanted. We tried borax mixtures; mint tea leaves and considered lining the bedroom with Paprika until we decided the colouring in Paprika might put our security deposit at risk! Despite not wanting to use chemicals we ended up buying a bomb kit that you set off in your house, seal all the doors, turn off all gas and electric (some sort of explosion risk) and leave the house for at least 2 hours! Now we may both have picked up cancer from these fumes, but we haven't seen an ant in the house since. You've seen some pictures of the tree frogs we get around here, well one evening right around bedtime we spotted one in the downstairs karzi, we think he came up from the back side. Well can you imagine my surprise when right about midnight I wake up to this guy landing on my head after he must have climbed the stairs! After a few wild swings in the dark and a landing on Erica we popped the lights on and did what we should have probably done originally, caught the little bugger and dumped him outside on the street! Talking about toilets, the ones over here all have 2 setting a low water flush for a number one and a big, wash it all down flush for a number two. Makes sense in a country that needs to conserve water! Erica, being the scientist, tells me the Coriolis effect is in place here also, although she says she has not determined this from watching the toilet flush, but rather the shower water going town the plughole.The DVD player we ordered from the USA came and it nearly ended in disaster. In big letters on the box it said 'Region one only'. I think Erica was about to cry. Frustrated I went back to Amazon to check my reading abilities were still ok and it turns out the specification does not detail that it is multi region, but some reviewer details an obscure sequence of events followed by entering a secret code will get it working in any region for either PAL or NTSC! It was not in the instructions but amazingly it worked. How the hell do people find out these things! Again though this must be a huge scam by the electronics manufactures to make extra money. The DVD player would work with all formats, it just wasn't advertised or detail how to get it to do this!Now may be a good time to talk about some of the interesting food differences between the USA and Australia1) Coming from the UK we use a spread for toast, sandwiches, potatoes called marmite. Over here they have and equivalent called Vegemite. Nowhere near as tasty obviously (a bit of bias here). What is interesting is these spreads are yeast extracts, now if you look where the marmite factory is in the UK it's right next to the brewery, so guess what the yeast extract is? Its the left over yeast of the brewed beer!2) Talking about beer, sorry Aussies out there but your beers is crap, no two ways about it! It's all much the same. I can't say much more for the US or UK mass-produced beers, but both countries luckily have a host of great small breweries and microbreweries. Unfortunately Australia seems to be lacking them! In a part of Australia that we are they have one of the highest alcohol consumption rates in the world, I think there is a golden opportunity here for me to follow one of my dreams and open my own microbrewery!3) We're back into the world where a biscuit is not something you put in a casserole, but is something the Americans like to call a cookie, apart from most of the ones over here are hard and crunchy and not soft an gooey! The local favourite over here is a Tim Tam and a mighty fine biscuit it is too. One could argue it's merits compared to a Penguin (a biscuit from the UK) but one has to give Arnott's merit for a culinary masterpiece.4) Someone asked me this weekend what made good fish and chips and I had to reply, 'why a Yorkshireman of course', followed by well the fish shouldn't be raw and the batter should not be soggy and under cooked like some I got from The Pickled Octopus in Nightcliff. Funny thing was the first time I went there they were decent, but I guess you need the crusty old guy who has owned the shop for years cooking your fish and not some 18 year old who changes from day to day! I only wish I could remember the girl who cooked my fish on my first visit there! I've heard the secret to good fish and chips though is beef dripping or lard, eaten in newspaper and a good batter.5) In the USA we were use to Sharp or Extra Sharp cheddar, here it is Tasty or Extra Tasty cheddar!6) Many American don't realise that sausages can be a wonderful food. My experience of sausages in the USA was those Italian and bratwurst sausage from the ball games. Certainly nothing to write home about, those big lumps of gristle put me off slightly! Aussies have better class of sausage; made my local butchers you can get some with decent meat and nice added herbs.7) Lamb is back on the menu big time - I love lamb, for some reason it was not too popular in the USA, something about it being too gamey!8) For a Brit being able to get HP sauce, Patak's curry paste, chapattis, naan and chuckneys off the shelf at all supermarkets is a big bonus.9) Ginger beer is big in Australia. Probably the best pop on the market, never really sure why Coke made it to number one! It reminds me of when I was young and my mum used to make it by the gallon!10) We've back to British style bacon, you know the stuff that actually has some meat on it and isn't all fat! No more frying pan swimming in fat when it's cooked, in fact the best way to cook is under the grill! I have to admit I did grow to like US bacon after a year or two living there!11) Besides HP sauce, nothing is better in a bacon butty than a few slices of avocado at $1 each here there is no better way to make you feel like you're getting some greens with your greasy bacon J12) Just an interesting point but you can buy your rotisserie chicken with stuffing!13) Erica has big issues with the ice cream and the crisps over here, potato chips to you Americas. I don't mind too much as these are similar to what I was brought up on, but I have to admit Trader Joes potato chips and Ben and Jerry's ice cream come out the winners in this little contest.14) Custard and sticky toffee pudding are staples on the grocery shelves again, not just something they charge you a fortune for in the international section of the supermarket! In my book, this more than makes up for any ice cream disappointment!15) I'm partial to a bit of radish in my sandwich/salad. The radish they sell at the farmers markets here are over 2 feet long, a bit bigger than the one inch ones my dad grew in his garden! There is more than enough in one radish to last for lunches for the whole week!16) Beetroot is something there is a whole section for in the supermarkets! Another staple for lunchtime sandwiches. In fact the Aussies have found that a bacon cheeseburger can be improved upon by slipping in a nice few slices of beetroot! Very nice!17) Living in the tropics means lots of great fruit, spending 6 months of my life in India got me addicted to mangoes, when your local farmers market sells you a 10kg box for $10 you know you have taken one step closer to heaven!18) Melons are grown locally, honeydews, watermelon and rock melon. For those of you not in the know a rock melon is what most people call a Cantaloupe.19) Plum pudding, Christmas Puddings, Mince Pies, as I mentioned before these were in the supermarkets by mid October, but the fact that have these great British inventions makes me realise I've come to a truly great country!20) I have to mention going out to bars, people here often drink Champagne instead of beer, you often see a guy stood at the bar with his champers! Funny thing is they come in these small single serving bottle sizes!That's about it that I can remember at present, but I have to mention a few other things - Kangaroo meat is in the supermarkets over here. Before you start feeling sorry for little Joey they are overrun with them over here and have a cull every year. You can get kangaroo bangers or buy some cuts to make up a tasty kangaroo vindaloo! It turns out kangaroo is very good in a lot of ways, it turns out it's fat content is about 2% compared to beef that can easily have over 10%. It does have a strong taste though that some people will not like! Funny thing is kangaroos don't produce methane like cows, for those who didn't know this is actually one of the main environmental issues with cows! So want to reduce your environmental footprint? Eat a kangaroo today! Next local delicacy on the menu was croc meat! This experiment didn't go too well and I haven't had the nerve to ask Erica when we can get the two left over tail segment out of the freezer. Despite looking as tough as old boots, they say the best way to cook a croc is like fish! The meat is tender and dry and easy to overcook! Well I think my big mistake was buying un-boned tail from some guy's picnic cooler at the farmers market who did not speak English and therefore was not able to give me any cooking tips! I did try to filet the meat off the bone but it didn't got too well, it got marinated and then got cooked till it had a rubber like texture. I don't think the leftover meat will be coming out of the freezer anytime soon!Well I though these blogs would be getting shorter, but they seem to be getting longer! Hope you're still reading and if so hopefully I'll get another one in before we leave for Vietnam! We've booked a 3 week trip to Vietnam leaving mid December after my dad's visit - I can't wait I've always wanted to go!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonclark2000/5/1225352160/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonclark2000/5/1225352160/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jonclark2000/5/1225352160/tpod.html Fri, 07 Nov 2008 01:06:52 -0500 Quitting the rat race - Chile, Argentina, Bolivia and Peru

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Ica, Pisco, Lima and home, Peru

We came to Ica for only one reason, nearby was a oasis surrounded by huge sand dunes, we'd heard we could get a board and surf down these! So next day we went out hires our boards and spend the next hour being boarders. It was good, the only problem being the walk back up the dunes, very tiring indeed so after an hour and a half we were more than ready to return our boards and head to the final place before Lima. Pisco is where a famous south American liquor made from grape juice comes from although we arrived at a bad time of year to visit the vineyards so we had to make do with a trip out to a wildlife island where there was an abundance of bird and wildlife, so much so that the waste products of these animals was scooped up to make a very profitable fertilizer business for somebody! Lima was my last port of call before flying back to the US, I arrived there with three days to spare, enough time to do my shopping. I had an excellent last few days and met some really nice people. I left Lima with mixed feelings, happy to be going home to see all my family and friends again, yet sad to be leaving after such an excellent trip!
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