tobszanni's TravelStream™ — Recent TravelPod.com entries TravelStream™ news feed for member tobszanni on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/tobszanni en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:15:14 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com Siem Reap, Cambodia — Siem Reap, Cambodia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1251314106/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1251314106/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1251314106/tpod.html Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:15:14 -0400 Redundancy Runners - running with the money, until the money runs out! and the running has to stop!!
Siem Reap, Cambodia


]]> Vientiane, Lao Peoples Dem Rep — Vientiane, Lao Peoples Dem Rep http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1251313942/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1251313942/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1251313942/tpod.html Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:12:30 -0400 Redundancy Runners - running with the money, until the money runs out! and the running has to stop!!
Vientiane, Lao Peoples Dem Rep


]]> More Vietnam and more rellies! — Hanoi, Vietnam http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1248764325/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1248764325/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1248764325/tpod.html Tue, 28 Jul 2009 02:07:00 -0400 Redundancy Runners - running with the money, until the money runs out! and the running has to stop!!
Hanoi, Vietnam




TW - When I left you we were about to depart for our 3 night 2 day trip to Sapa. This meant an overnight train to Lao Cai, a town that holds nothing for a tourist except the train station that is the gateway to the surrounding hills. The train journey itself was ok. We were four to a cabin, which was cramped, but we played cards and chatted and all managed to get at least a small amount of sleep. We were woken up at 4.30, thinking we had an hour to go, only to see ourselves arriving at the station 15 minutes later and being far from ready to disembark. All was well though, apart from Suzanna being within a minute of having to leave in her PJ’s and my dad thinking it was ok to leave my parents backpacks on the platform, as if he was arriving at a station back home, while he returned to the carriage for more things. A nice thought, but our shouts of “what do you think your doing!!” soon chased him back out to retrieve said packs. We then went to find our man, amongst many, that was going to take us up the mountain to Sapa. This was, maybe surprisingly, all very easy. We were met by a hotel rep who gave us chance to use the toilets in the station, although it might have been better to hold on, as they were gross and we even had to pay for the privilege! Speaking of toilets, Suzanna would like you to share her pain of having to use squat toilets, found throughout Asia, but in Vietnam it was taken to a whole new level with communal squat toilets!! Having said that, Suzanna would also like to point out, she never went to the toilet with strangers! (personally I don’t know what all the fuss is about. Us blokes go to the toilet in communal toilets all the time!!??). Anyway, moving away from toilets, we headed up the mountain to Sapa, a journey of 38km’s, so, if you consider it took about an hour and a half, you can hopefully imagine how steep and windy the road was. We arrived at 7am, 2 and half hours before our first trek. No problem there, they were laying on breakfast and would have rooms for us. Except they didn’t have a room for Suzanna and I, and this is were things started to go slightly off course. The hotel had the right intentions but they were misplaced in that they were so concerned that we didn’t have a room to go into they tried to stick us in any room, and, on two occasions, they picked rooms that had not been cleaned or made up from the previous occupants!! Not nice, even after a night on a train. Having said that we used my parents bathroom to shower in and after breakfast were soon meeting our guide and on our first of two treks into the Sapa hills. Initially it was annoying, as the ladies from the local tribes followed us, making polite conversation, but we knew they would ultimately want us to spend some money on things we had no use for. To their credit though, they were pretty friendly and there was no real pressure to buy. As for the trek, we seemed to go downhill for ages, working our way through an indigenous tribal village to some, ok, waterfalls. Only problem was, we then had to walk all the way back up. It was hard work but pleasant all the same and at the end of it all, the only slight problem we had was that our guide was only that, a guide. It turned out he had limited English and gave us virtually no information along the way, something that would prove more detrimental the following day! We did have a nice day though. The views were great and the walk a challenge and I’m pleased to say all the oldies (yes I include myself in that!) made it back to hotel mid afternoon, latest. We then showered and headed out to explore Sapa town. Not an amazing place and, rather annoyingly, overloaded with locals hassling you to buys thing you don’t want. You can only put up with it for so long, unless you’re my Dad, in which case it seems being asked to buy something is your favourite thing ever!! Especially surprising as he spent most of his working life selling things, in a shop and as a financial adviser, to others!? We ended up in a nice restaurant with good food to end the day. I can’t say the company was all good though, as the table next to us complained to the boss man when they realised there was a snake under their table!! Turned out it was a small one but all the same, no one was particularly brave when it came to getting rid of it, which made me think it may have been a baby poisonous one!! Anyway, we survived and headed back to our hotel for a well earned rest before the next days trek.


The day started at 8am with breakfast, which was good, followed by a 9 o’clock start for our day 2 trek. A 15 kilometre trek through the hills and rice fields. Again we set off from our hotel and again we were followed by local Tribes women, only this time we soon realised they were going nowhere. Unbelievably, they followed us the whole way to their village. One of them for one of us. It may sound petty to moan about it, but for one, it meant we didn’t get a peaceful walk, and for two, if our guide had told us it was going to happen then we would have expected it and therefore no problem! Anyway, turned out it was still a great walk with stunning views of the mountains and rice fields and there were some tricky sections along the way which the locals were deffo helpful on with regards to negotiating these tough sections. Our guide continued to be rubbish though, in that he seemed to be nothing other than someone to follow, as he gave us no warning of what to expect at our lunch stop. We arrived at the first village, already happy in our minds that the ladies that had helped us through the maze of rice paddies had done a good job and we would repay them by buying something. Only problem was, there were about 100 other ladies all trying to sell us there wears. It was complete mayhem with each of us surrounded by at least 10 women all trying to sell. We all stuck to buying off the lady that had helped us along the way and scrambled into a building that was full of tourists, which was were we had lunch. A short rest and a review of what we’d bought , which drew the conclusion we where happy with the price and quality, and we were on our way again. The second section was shorter and easier which was nice after a fairly tough morning, but we had the same problem with the women from the next village following us the whole way. Again, one for each of us and this time we knew we would be expected to buy at the end. The main problem Suzanna and I had was that we’d spent almost all the money we had on us, so couldn’t buy anything even if we wanted to. I tried to explain this to my “friend” and in the end we cut a deal were I paid her 10000 Dong for her to go away which turned out to be a fair price. Suzanna and I were pretty fed up by now and the rest of the ladies wouldn’t disappear despite us trying to loose them or tell them we had no money left. Suzanna had a girl that followed her. We couldn’t communicate and it was only at the end that her mother came up to us and said we should buy something as she had followed us a long way. How guilty did we feel!? They remained unconvinced when we said we had no money. All in all it meant we finished the walk feeling annoyed , partly with the locals, but mainly with our guide. Had he told us what to expect, we could have saved some money for the second village. It all went towards detracting from what is beautiful place, surrounded by Hill Tribes and their cultures that could offer the tourist so much more. The problem is they think that dressing in their local costume and following us is what the tourist want and I’m pretty sure that if they want to continue encouraging people to visit their area they need to leave the tourist alone a bit to enjoy their mountains. Surely that will help create better memories and make them want to buy things to help keep those memories. Typical of Vietnam though, every tourist is a dollar sign and everyone wants a piece of it. Having said all of that, it’s all part of the adventure and the bad taste didn’t linger long and we were soon on our way back to the hotel, for showers, food and to collect our bags and then it was off down the mountain to get the night train back to Hanoi, which again went without a hitch.


Back in Hanoi we had 2 days before we were heading off again, this time to Halong Bay. The first day was spent relaxing after Sapa and booking on one of the hundreds of Halong Bay options. We went for a trip on “The Black Pearl”, but more on that a bit later. The second day back in Hanoi, was our second attempt at visiting the Museum of Ethnology and I’m pleased to report that this time things went without a hitch. The museum was pretty good and told about all of the tribes in Vietnam, explaining where they’re based, what they farm, how they lived and what their celebrations are all about. I must admit it did get a bit samey and we didn’t give the tribes towards the end as much time as those at the beginning, but It did give us info we expected but didn’t get in Sapa, and just when you where getting board, you went into some nice gardens where they had built examples of their houses and meeting rooms, which helped mix things up a bit.


Next up was Halong Bay. As mentioned we picked a trip on “The Black Pearl” and it had as much to do with the name as anything else really and we went with high expectations as Halong Bay is the big attraction in Vietnam and you’ll be pleased to know, it didn’t disappoint. There was one poor part which I’ll get out the way now and I’m sorry to say, it was the guide again. Vietnam is in the middle of massive development with a view to getting more tourists, which will be no problem with the things they offer, but they really need to sort out their guides. In our experience they tended to be lazy, work shy and lacking in knowledge! Anyway, Halong Bay, I’ll start by saying it’s truly beautiful and as with other things we’ve seen , the pictures show this much better than any superlatives I could write, so look at them and make your own mind up. It’s made up of a series of limestone Islands hundreds of feet high and the real beauty comes with their close proximity to each other. Add to that the fact virtually all the boats taking tourists are in the style of old Vietnamese Junks and you have the perfect view. We were on a 3 day 2 night tour that offered plenty. We started with a 3 hour coach ride from Hanoi and then we boarded “The Black Pearl” (I hope you’ve all been saying The Black Pearl as if you where Captain Barbosa in the Pirates of the Caribbean?) We were very impressed, we had our own cabin with ensuite shower, with hot water!! We then all had lunch while we set off for Halong Bay. After cruising for a couple of hours we arrived in the bay that is on most of the postcards and were off on a trip around a cave system on one of the islands. It was quite nice, but the most interesting part about this and many other caves in Halong Bay is that they were used to conceal Viet Con during the war. They would plan attacks and strategy etc, as well as turning one of them into a hospital. From the cave, it was a short Tiller ride to a fishing village where, if we so desired, we could buy a fish they would cook for our dinner that night, as well as being the launch for some kayaking. We declined on the fish but did go kayaking. We had a good time, as it gave us the opportunity to get right up to the sheer limestone cliffs and feel the tranquillity of the place away from the crowds and all the Junks that bring them.. We then went back to the Junk and dropped anchor in a lovely bay, along with all the other overnight Junks, where we watched the sunset and had a good meal with my parents and the other on our trip. Next day, we were all up early, getting breakfast and all that stuff out of the way before we set off again, further into Halong Bay, to Cat Ba Island. We spent the morning climbing a mountain, in fact it was probably only a hill, but it felt like a mountain as it was flipping hot and up all the way. It was hard work, let me tell you, but worth it as we went through some beautiful forest and had a good view from the top over the forest canopy. From there it was off to our hotel where we would stay for the night. Lunch followed and the afternoon was spent on Monkey Island. Something that could have been great but we all went completely unprepared due to our rubbish guide, despite Suzanna’s best effort in trying to get info out of him. We went to see monkeys, maybe unsurprisingly, but our guide neglected to tell us they wouldn’t be around in the afternoon as the morning trips would have fed them so much they would go off into the trees for a sleep. Having said that there were a few around, but they were a feisty lot. 2 of them decided to chase me and I’m ashamed to say I ran away like a girl. Despite my embarrassment I justify my girly run due to the fact I didn’t have a rabies jab before I came away and I wasn’t about to take any chances. Lame I know but I’m sticking to it. So after a disappointing trip to Monkey Island it was back to Cat Ba Island for dinner and a well earned rest. Our third and final day of the trip was all about travelling back to Hanoi, but the morning part of t meant we got to take another beautiful Junk ride through the Bay and it was as stunning the second time through and made for a nice end to what was a lovely trip. The rubbish guide and Monkey Island didn’t even come close to detracting from what is a stunning part of the world.


Once back in Hanoi the hotel we booked to return to was full and sent us to their sister hotel just round the corner. Turned out it was brand new and quite plush for our $20 a night. We felt as though we’d had an upgrade, which was nice. Hotel rooms aside, we had a few days left in the city before my parents headed home and we headed south. We kept ourselves pretty busy though visiting some more sights etc. We visited a couple more museums. One was Hao Lo Prison, notorious from the Vietnam war for keeping famous POW’s, such as John McCain, not that you’d know it, as all the info from that period suggested the Americans had a great time. It showed them playing basketball, watching films and eating good food. It took away all the irony from the name the Americans gave the prison, which was Hanoi Hilton. The Vietnamese, concentrated almost entirely on their own people’s plight in the prison, under French rule. It was a small, but good museum that was, again, fantastically one sided. Next day, I took my mum and dad off to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. We were to late to see the man himself, but again got to look around another museum. It was different to the others and concentrated on Vietnams successes over the year, of which there has been a few. From there it was onto the Temple of Literature, a nice place of tranquillity amid Hanoi’s madness and place of learning from a thousand years ago. The next day was a sorting things out day for us, you know, booking bus tickets etc, while we sent my mum and dad off on a trip to the Perfume Pagoda, which left one more thing for us all to do before we went our separate ways. We went to the theatre. Not your traditional theatre, but a puppet theatre, and it’s not traditional puppetry either. It was in fact water puppetry!!. Yup it all takes place in water and is a traditional art form in Vietnam. It was great and surprisingly action packed.. We all enjoyed it and it made for a nice end to my parents visits. The next day we left them for their last day and headed south to Nimb Binh, which is where Suzanna will pick things up from. It’s just left for me to say thanks very much to Linda and Carly and my Mum and Dad for taking the time to visit us. We had a great time with them and are very grateful for the generosity they showed us. They made us feel like millionaires!! Literally in fact, as they gave us their leftover Dong and we are also very grateful for that as well.


Take care everyone and see you very soon now.


tobs and Suzanna


xx
]]> Vietnam - The rellies track us down!!!!!!!! — Hanoi, Vietnam http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1248761110/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1248761110/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1248761110/tpod.html Tue, 28 Jul 2009 01:07:52 -0400 Redundancy Runners - running with the money, until the money runs out! and the running has to stop!!
Hanoi, Vietnam



Tw. Vietnam, wow!! There’s so much to say about it I’m not sure where to begin. What I can say, is that to date, it’s probably my second favourite place behind New Zealand and despite having been there for 2 months, it’s definitely somewhere we could go back to and have a whole different adventure to the one we’ve just had. Why’s that Toby? Well it’s everything about it, and it’s not all good I can assure you. It starts off when you leave the airport. You’re immediately hit by a wave of noise, smells, people and traffic. Not of the M25 jam kind, but a fluid mass of mopeds, millions of them, literally. There are 6 million people in Ho Chi Minh City and 4 million mopeds and first impressions are that they all come to meet you at the airport!! The second impression is that everyone is wearing face masks, as if there was some pandemic type disease going around!!?? The truth is they wear them due to an obsession with keeping the sun off them. Pale skin means a good job inside, a higher social standing and being desirable to the opposite sex. Now, For those of you that have been to Bangkok and other manic asian cities that are thinking I’m describing any one of them, I can assure you Vietnam takes things to a whole new level. When we were on the bus from the airport the mopeds where everywhere. On both sides of the road regardless of the direction they are travelling in and on the pavement!! And not just one or two, 3 deep all along the pavement. It’s no wonder there are bag snatches here!! Then there’s the noise. It’s a constant symphony of hooters going beep beep beep. The driver on one of our tours later told us, that if you no beep beep, you no go, and it seems that is the one part of moped school everyone listened to. Having said all of that, everyone seems to gel into one and the trust between all of them is immense. We only saw 6 or 7 minor accidents and 4 or 5 major ones, which on reflection seems remarkably low. Suzanna and I also had to forget everything we thought was correct about crossing the road. There’s an unwritten rule here, that size matters. Trucks give way to no one, buses only give way to trucks, mini buses only give way to trucks and buses and so on, so, us tiny people give way to everyone, even on the pavement and at pedestrian crossings. We were even warned by the guide book to take extra care at pedestrian crossings as some Vietnamese go for pedestrians, as they are unhappy that there is something that technically gives pedestrians the right of way!! So, we had to learn to just step out into the road and walk steadily and confidently to the other side. The first few times have a mild laxative effect, but it works and you soon see it’s the safest way to do it as all the traffic just sways around you.

So that’s first impressions and there are so many other things that are different in Vietnam. Far to many to mention here but more will come out as I tell you about our time here. We’d come to Vietnam when we did, due to family coming out to spend some time with us. Suzanna’s Mum and one of her sisters, Carly came out first, whilst we were in the South and my Mum and Dad came out later, when we were in the North. We arrived in Ho Chi Min City (also known as Saigon) a week before the first set of rellies arrived. It worked well as it meant we had time to get our bearings and understand, first hand I might add, some of the scams that go on there. Yes, although I hate to admit it, after 8 months of avoiding trouble, we got caught out twice in Vietnam. Neither of them where particularly major and only cost us a few quid, but we were annoyed at ourselves out of principle. First time happened outside the Reunification Palace. Suzanna wanted a coconut to drink. No problem there, as there are loads of people selling them. Our first mistake though, was to take the drink off the guy before we checked the price, then, with another couple there, we all got embroiled in a debate on the price, with none of us understanding what the seller was saying, which we later decided was part of his scam. In the end we all got confused and ended up paying 40000 for a coconut drink which we saw someone else selling round the corner for 5000. The difference is about £1.40, so nothing in the grand scheme of things, but try paying 800% more for your next pint and see how you feel. Next scam was actually more like day light robbery. We were with Suzanna’s family and were crossing the road. One of us got stuck and was helped by a local, so, we thought to be nice we’d buy some water of him. He tried to charge 40000 for 2 small bottles. No way we said and we’d worked our way down to 20000. It was at this point I got some money out to show him some notes to explain how much we wanted to pay. The seller then, in the blinking of an eye, swiped a note out of my hand saying 10000 and stuck it in his pocket. Unlukily for him, I’m anal enough to know how much money we have and in what denominations they are and I was sure it was 100000 he’d taken, so I challenged him, at which point he dug the note out of his pocket and sure enough it was a 100000 note. We then paid the 20000 and got rid of him. So we paid double the price for the drinks and again the amount was minimal, but again I say, next time you go to the pub and you get your money out, try letting the barman casually nick a tenner off you!?

Away from the new increased threat of being ripped off, we really liked Ho Chi Minh City. We stayed in a great area, full of café’s, bars and restaurants that had a great feel about it. We also took the time to visit some attractions, all of which focused on the Vietnam War. We visited the war museum, which showed off a few trophies in the shape of American Tanks and Planes, but also took us through the story of the war, with facts and figures as well as personal stories and the ongoing effect of the war. It really opened our eyes to the atrocities everyone was subjected to. We also visited the Reunification Palace, which is significant as the place where the South Vietnamese (the American side) organised their side of the war. The place where the Viet con and South Vietnamese freedom fighters sent their tanks crashing through the gates to finally defeat the American backed South Vietnamese and is now used as a place for government meetings etc. It was an interesting tour that showed us some of the secret passageways and the basements full of war paraphernalia, in offices that were pretty much left as they were when the Viet Con won the war in 1975.As well as this we went out of town to visit the Chu Chi Tunnels, which is one of the areas where the Viet Con had a network of tunnels to avoid detection from the Americans. It’s was great to see the innovative ways they set traps and decoys, as well as how they cooked and even managed to have schools and maternity wards in these tunnels, especially once we’d got to go in one. It was so tight and cramped and this was one they’d doubled in height for us tourists. Having experienced how cramped and hot the tunnels were it was amazing to think the network of tunnels went on for hundreds of kilometres and were continually being replaced and repaired after American carpet bombings. We found all of them extremely interesting and informative. They provided loads of information we didn’t know and I must say, it was great to see things from their perspective. It was incredibly one sided, but why not I say. I’m pretty sure the Americans didn’t give a balanced view during the war itself.

Next up on our Vietnam adventure were the rellies. Suzanna’s mum Linda and sister, Carly. Well, the less said about that the better!! Not really, we had a great time. It was fab to see them after so long, even though the imagined running at each other for a hug at the airport didn’t materialise. This was due to some issues around visas. It turned out that Suzanna’s mum didn’t have one!! Oops. It wasn’t her fault, or Carly’s!!?? but some bloke somewhere in the world wide web. Anyway, it meant the greeting was an hour and a half after expected and was with a tearful Carly and no Mum. She was being “detained” until her visa was arranged, which took about 4 hours. Poor Linda was stuck in immigration while Suzanna and I “consoled” Carly at Le Pub in the centre of Ho Chi Minh. As you can imagine, when Linda finally got through customs, she was less than pleased. The rest of us though thought the whole things was quite funny by this stage and I’m pleased to say once we had taken Linda to the Go 2Bar for a couple of Saigon Greens, she felt the same way to. After the initial problem, we had a great couple of weeks. We spent a few days in the city before heading to Phu Quoc Island off the Southern tip of Vietnam. First up though was Suzanna’s Birthday. The family sent presents, which were opened over breakfast in our favourite Saigon café, Sozo’s. This was followed by a somewhat dodgy massage for the girls, where again they were conned out of more money that they expected to pay and a stroll around the posh part of town. Later that afternoon, I was in the room and Suzanna was in the other’s room performing a fashion show of her new clothes, when I got a knock at the door and there was the Manager and her daughter, who was about 5, and they had a cake for Suzanna. I’m ashamed to say it was after no prompting from me, but they’d noticed her DOB in her passport, had a cake made for her and then delivered it with the Managers daughter so she could sing Happy Birthday to Suzanna. It was totally unexpected and a real nice touch. So, after stuffing our faces with cake, we all put our glad rags on and hit the town. We had a nice meal and then went to a few bars and even a night club for a little bit of dancing. A good day all round was the general concensus. A couple of days later we were off to the island. We spent a week here relaxing, sunbathing, drinking various colours of cocktail, as well as doing a snorkelling trip. We liked the island, it was very relaxed and quiet. No real partying to be done, although we had a go on a few evenings., although due to the lack of other people due to the time of year, it usually ended up with us all playing pool, which was good fun. I just need to say something to Carly and Linda at this point. Suzanna has continued to practice and would now officially kick your butts should you wish to challenge on our return!!? The other reason for us not having to many cocktails was due to all the restaurants and bars being along the beach which was a challenge due to the sea condition. It was rough, is the best way to describe it and Linda can vouch for that, although no detail on that will be provided here! The other factor was no lighting along the beach, so when it came to going out we had to head out with our torch and watch out for rogue waves that would come the whole way up the narrow beach and soak us! An example of how strong the waves were is with one restaurant near us. When we first arrived we could walk past their wall on the edge of the beach and they had tables out the front. By the end of the week we had to walk behind their wall to get past the restaurant and they were putting sandbags out in front of their wall to protect said wall, as all the sand in front of it had been washed away! We survived though and enjoyed several stolls along the beach to various nice spots for lunch etc.

So after a relaxing week on the Island we returned to Ho Chi Minh City. The plan was to take a trip to the Mekong Delta, but unfortunately, Carly picked up acute tonsillitis, which meant that trip was cancelled. It did mean that Carly got to visit the International SOS clinic and that wouldn’t be the last time our guests got to attend one of these places, but more on that later. Instead of the Mekong Delta, the girls went on a shopping trip. Now, I’m sure they would have gone anyway, but it was sold as something they would do instead of the Mekong trip. I can’t tell you exactly what went on, but I can tell you from first hand experience that they were very brave taking on the Market and the surrounding shops, as they are manic. The moment you step inside they are pawing you and shoving various products in your face to try and get you to buy. This is all done in a massive market with aisles that are no more than a metre wide with a new stall, either side, every 3 metres. Crazy and not somewhere any self respecting bloke could handle, so I settled for an afternoon in front of the telly watching the Moto GP. It’s safe to say they returned with armfuls of goodies and stories of battles with shop keepers. They seemed content though.

So it was, we said goodbye to the first set of rellies and we had a little over a week until the next set turned up. We looked at various options for transport, but decided we wanted to do the Mekong Delta trip and then we would fly to Hanoi City in the north to meet up with my parents. We picked a 2 day trip to the Mekong and it was great. It gave us loads of variety, a night in a decent hotel and 3 meals, all for $25 dollars each!! What we really loved about it though was that it showed us the workings of the Mekong. We got to do several different types of boat trip, see how, yummy, coconut candy is made, see a local dance troupe perform, see how rice paper is manufactured, as well as visiting a floating market that was actually for the locals and not just there for us tourists. We also got to visit a bee farm (no, there isn’t anything different about making honey in Vietnam), try some rice wine, that knocks tequila off the top of the worst drinks list and spend several hours chugging up and down the Mekong river watching the locals go about their business. It was a great trip and set a standard that was hard to beat. Having said that we would try hard to top it.

Next up was Hanoi. Hopefully I got across to you how crazy Ho Chi Minh City was? Well, Hanoi had the same amount of craziness, but they put it into a city centre that has streets the width of those in Wokingham (that’s not very wide for those of you that don’t know Wokingham very well). Even though Suzanna and I felt comfortable with the whole craziness thing, it took a couple of days to get used to Hanoi and as for my parents, well, my Dad was like a kid in a candy shop, but my Mum, and I’m sure she won’t won’t mind me saying, was overwhelmed by the whole experience. It’s no surprise on reflection, as you can’t go from some sleepy village in Devon to Hanoi in a minute, and to her credit, by the end of their trip my Mum was ambling across the road like a local. First impressions though were very much, OMG!!! So, having got our bearings and settled in we welcomed the next set of relies, my Parents. They’re in their late sixties and early seventies and have never been to Asia before. I know that overall they loved it, but there were certainly some times along the way when Bishops Nympton seemed a very long way away. We packed a lot into their 2 weeks though and I’ll try not to ramble on to much when telling you. We spent a few days getting know Hanoi. We visited the Perfume Pagoda, (Pagoda is a temple) separate to my parents. It was another great trip. We were rowed up the river passed loads of limestone kasts, before walking up, for 45 minutes, to see a lovely pagoda in a cave. We also went to see the Woman’s museum, which focused on the role of women in the war. Then we tried to visit the museum of Ethnology, which focuses on indiginous tribes in Vietnam, but, and this is where we get to visit another International SOS centre, my mum took a “funny turn”. Not the type that involves slap stick comedy or a stand up routine, but a turn that involves us asking for an ambulance only to be told they don’t have them and then getting a taxi to the SOS centre. It sounds all very dramatic and it was for a while, but it all turned out well and it seems my mum was suffering from something many would say I havn’t inherited from her, that is, over doing it, working to hard and not drinking enough, which led to exhaustion. It was nothing that the now FAB, International SOS couldn’t fix. So revitalised, we were off on our first trip out of Hanoi. A 3 night, 2 day trip to Sapa, a town in the mountains with beautiful scenery, good trekking and, as it turned out, really annoying local tribes people that would leave a sour taste in mine and Suzanna’s mouths (metaphorically speaking). But, having wetted your appetite for more, I’m going to leave it there for now and get this part of the Vietnam blog out to you, while I continue slaving away on the next part over a cold beer in a hot country.

Take care everyone and we’ll see you very very soon. Love to you all

Tons and Suzanna

xx.
]]> Calm Malaysia to crazy Thailand — Bangkok, Thailand http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1248251798/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1248251798/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1248251798/tpod.html Wed, 22 Jul 2009 03:38:30 -0400 Redundancy Runners - running with the money, until the money runs out! and the running has to stop!!
Bangkok, Thailand



SD - On the move again, next stop was the Cameron Highlands, which took us up into the mountains on very windy stomach churning roads, passing stunning waterfalls as well as a group of elephants, which must have been helping to move logs. During English occupation in Malaysia, the English would come into the mountains to take advantage of the cooler air, so its known for its English feel, strawberries are grown everywhere with one sign advertising ‘Pluck your own‘ and scones are readily available. My initial thoughts were that it wasn’t very English, more European, white buildings with black cladding, like a ski resort. The evenings were chilly and at dusk a thick mist would roll in. The town is small, with a handful of restaurants, the best we found was an Indian restaurant with lovely staff and fantastic tandoori food. The backpackers we were staying in was very well set up, helping with tours, onward journeys, breakfasts and dinners and everything else a good backpackers provides. The location was good too, it was set up on the hill, with great views of the surrounding area, but the rooms and shared bathrooms let it down. The walls in the bedrooms were paper thin and the bathrooms were pretty grotty with dribbling showers and bugs thrown in to make sure everyone had quick showers! Whilst here we took a half day tour where we trekked into an area of mossy forest and took in a tea plantation of which there are many in this region. The mossy forest is a protected area due to its special ecosystem and its immediately cooler when you step inside with its own micro-climate. Moss covers the ground so it was squidgy under foot and sometimes you could see you weren’t walking on solid ground, but on thick moss and tree routes and we hoped that the ground wasn’t going to collapse under our weight. Speaking of the risk of being swallowed up by the ground, this is one of the theories of why the silk king Jim Thompson was never found after taking a walk in the Highlands back in the 70s and never returning. Jim Thompson was a American who revolutionised the Thai silk trade into what it is today. The walk was challenging and muddy as it was all very overgrown with not much of a proper path, but fun all the same. We trekked to a viewing point looking over the mountains and tea plantations and got to see some rare plants called Pitchers, which is part of why the area is protected as people will pay a lot of money for the plants. After this we were back in our range rover, which is the first choice of transport here, the highlands have the most highly populated area for land rovers in the world, Guinness book of records stuff. Next we went to a tea plantation and saw how the tea is produced and had a scone with jam and some tea surprisingly whilst looking over the tea plantation, but what’s the point of a scone without clotted cream? On the way back to town we got dropped at a small museum which had a kitsch collection of colonial memorabilia and old photos of the town, which was good. After which we walked back which was quite a way but we stopped for a breather and a drink at an English style pub.

So next was the Perhentian islands for some R & R. The two islands aren’t open all year round due to the monsoon season, but should have been opening up at this time, which was March. We couldn’t find much info out of what hotels were and weren’t open yet, so we really didn’t know what to expect when we got there and were worried it could be a wasted trip. Our backpackers in the Highlands said that they knew of one resort that is definitely open, so we went on that basis. From the Highlands the only option to get to the islands was by mini-bus. It was a long journey being cramped in a stuffy mini-bus, which wasn’t helped by me feeling ill and our driver thinking he was invincible. It was one of the worst journeys we’d had because he drove too fast and spent most of the journey on the other side of the road, at one point we came very close to having a head on crash. As we all gasped in horror, the driver did apologise and shortly after I had to request a toilet stop, which I think everyone appreciated! A few of us suggested to the driver that taking it a bit slower would be better and he seemed to take note as the last part of the drive was better. The journey wasn’t over yet though, we were then dropped at a port and got on a speed boat, which took about an hour to get to the islands. The journey by boat wasn’t too bad, our only concern was our luggage which was precariously thrown on the back of the boat and looked like it could slip off, if we hadn‘t have mentioned it! We were the first drop off which was disappointing as we wanted to check out where other people were getting dropped in case our selected resort was no good. It all turned out well though, our boat stopped off the beach and the resort sent its own boat to come and get us. The resort was in a bay on its own, with about capacity for 50 people, but it wasn’t particularly busy. It had one restaurant and no shops or other restaurants near by. Access to other parts of the island was by boat or foot only. The rooms were basic huts looking out to sea with particularly basic bathrooms, but it was worth sacrificing a nicer room for the location. One day we decided to take a walk to the main beach on our island to check we weren’t missing out. When we arrived we stopped for a drink on the beach. Whilst we decided that the evenings would be more entertaining here, what we had although basic we might not get anywhere else on the trip, so took a boat back to our resort comfortable we’d made the right choice. We spent loads of time chilling out and took advantage of the no tv, internet and only having electricity for a limited amount of hours per day and wrote blogs, read several books, played cards, swam and sunbathed. Our beach had a lot of dead coral on it as most of the coral is dead unfortunately for various reasons. There was a dive point near our beach which seemed popular so there may have been live coral the deeper you went. Despite the lack of coral, there was plenty of life in the sea, including turtles which seemed to be in good numbers and there was also so called ‘friendly sharks’ that were around early morning if you fancied taking your chances that they weren’t feeling unfriendly that day! On the turtle subject, we took a trip out in between the two islands and swam with turtles, which was as cool as it sounds apart from the stingers in the water which give you a fright when they first sting you, but you get used to it, plus they were not the dangerous type. One evening we went with the hotel staff to see a turtle laying eggs, on the opposite side of the island. We took our torches and walked through the jungle then sat on the beach watching the stars and lightening in the distance till we were told we could go and see the turtle. Whether she actually did or didn’t lay her eggs was lost in translation, she might have just been preparing her nest, but it was nice to see. We had a few large storms on the island, but had the advantage of no time restriction so we waited those out and still got plenty of nice weather. The storms were spectacular though, the thunder was so loud it sounded like it would knock our little wooden hut down! The waves were so strong that by the time we left the island, the resort had lost a large chunk of its sand.

After we were suitably relaxed and about to run out of money (no ATM’s on the islands), we left by speedboat in the morning after 9 fab nights. We boarded the speed boat but there was no room other than at the front of the boat and our driver didn’t give us time to put life vests on, luckily we managed to throw them on when the driver had to slow down for just a moment. The driver sped flat out all the way back and it felt totally unstable. He had no regard for the family with tiny children on board, but they were at the back of the boat where its not as bad. I struggled to hold on and had hand ache where I was holding on so tight. The waves we landed on where vibrating painfully up through our backs and I was terrified, doing my best to try to make some conversation with Toby to make the journey go quicker. It was the worst boat journey ever and whilst I loved our time on the Perhentian islands that journey back to the mainland may well have scarred me for life!

When we got off at the jetty, there were plenty of taxi drivers waiting around but it all seemed too much of an effort for them to take us to the town we wanted to go to, it made us chuckle and we wondered how they made any money being so reluctant to work! Eventually one driver volunteered and much to my relief his driving was fine.

We were heading to Kota Bharu and our first choice guest house had a room, so we took it. The owner Zek, his wife and son were super nice, they rarely stopped smiling. The town didn’t have lots to offer, but turned out to be the friendliest town we’d been too in Malaysia, the locals were very interested in us. We couldn’t walk down a street without the locals shouting ’hello’ at us and getting excited when we replied, it was a little embarrassing at times. Others wanted to chat to us and we were interviewed by 3 students who were studying English and they even wanted photos with us! We got caught out by a national holiday, so we couldn’t get on a coach to our next destination when we had planned to, so stayed on longer that we had intended, but with such friendly people, we didn’t mind. We even managed to get ourselves a local Chinese restaurant with a friendly waiter. Kota Bharu is a conservative Muslim town, with few tourists, so the restaurant options where you could get a beer was limited. Whilst we don’t need alcohol with every meal, Toby had sacrificed alcohol on the island to help our money last the 9 days we were there, yes I know what your thinking Toby can’t remember when he last went this long without a beer either! Our Chinese even played live English football, which Toby hadn’t seen for a long time, he was v v happy! Asians are football mad and are always keen to tell you the premiership footballers that they know when they realise you are English, mind you they never really support any other teams outside Man U, Liverpool or Chelsea, glory hunters for sure! Before we left we visited the culture centre where they put on a free show of top spinning and kite making. The organiser was very camp and loved to show off his English phrases, such as ‘Lovely gubley’ ‘Pucker’ and ‘Lemon Squeezey’!

From here we took an 8 hour coach journey to the island of Penang on the west coast. It would have been easier just to cross the border north from Kota Bharu but because of civil unrest in that region of Thailand its not recommended so we played it safe. Toby had been here 10 years ago and called it a ‘toilet’, so our expectations were low, but it was somewhere to stay whilst we sorted a train ticket into Thailand out. We were pleasantly surprised and found that it was actually quite nice, but not as friendly as the other places we have been nor did it have anything to see that was different to what we have seen before although it is now a world heritage site. This new status may have explained it not being a ‘toilet’ anymore, however we did read in a local newspaper that a lot of homeless people were moved out of the city a few days before we arrived, so it could have been different if we’d arrived a week earlier. After a few lazy days in Penang we took the boat back to the mainland to catch our train. Before I go onto Thailand, in summary we loved it in Malaysia. Toby came here 10 years ago and went to some of the same places as we went to this time, but his view of Malaysia now is all positive compared to last time when it didn’t make much of an impression. Having since visited other Asian countries, I think the beauty of Malaysia is that most Malays don’t look at tourists as a meal ticket, which is how you are viewed in most other Asian countries, which means the people are friendly without any extra motives than just being interested in you. So we left with good memories and a commitment to come back to Malaysia in the future.

Back to the train journey, the train was better than we imagined since we had memories of a long and uncomfortable train journey in Thailand a few years earlier. It was air-conditioned, the bunks had curtains that didn’t fall down and we were able to have dinner brought to us in our seats which was great. We had prepared ourselves to eat separately in the restaurant cart, one would need to look after our luggage whilst the other ate. At the Thai border, we didn’t have to take out luggage off which was strange but we picked up armed police from that point. Why this was we weren’t sure, they were on board all night. It could have been to check tourists coming into the country and ask to inspect luggage, perhaps it was due to us being close to the area of civil unrest or it could have been to stop thefts as we were handed a leaflet about protecting ourselves from theft whilst onboard. Going back to the border, there was a very strange notice, which stated rules of entry into Thailand for ‘Aliens’, that’s us tourists. It described how if you looked like a hippy you could be refused entry, a hippy look includes wearing a waistcoat without t-shirt, long unwashed hair and inappropriate shorts amongst other things. It was pretty amusing!

The train journey was about 23 hours long! When we arrived in Bangkok we struggled to get a taxi that was willing to take us to one of the main backpacker haunts in the city. Often we thought that they didn’t understand us, other times it was again just too much effort to take us there! We shared a taxi with another couple who were going to the same place. The drive was crazy and I initially felt like I missed Malaysia! It didn’t take long to settle back into our usual haunt of the Khoa San Road though. You either love it or hate it here and really its best only to spend a few days here as its full on. We had arrived here with one purpose of getting our Vietnam visa and flying off to Vietnam in plenty of time to meet our family. On the way to the Vietnamese embassy we took a boat along the river, which is one of the main modes of transport here so the river is very busy. The boat was crammed and a wave came crashing over the side of the boat and soaked Toby and other passengers, it went over the head of one of the small locals! Luckily Toby dried out before we got to the embassy as we were a bit worried that they would deny him a visa on the basis that he looked like he’d peed his pants! The day we were due to pick the visas up the weather turned very bad with a lot of heavy rain and the Khoa San Road and surrounding areas flooded. Whilst we waited for the water to subside in a café, the drains became overloaded which pushed all the cockroaches out, they were everywhere. It caused panic amongst the girls especially, who were screaming and standing on chairs, they didn’t realise they could fly, ha ha! When the water didn’t recede we had no choice but to wade through the water to go and collect our visas.

After getting out visas so quickly staying in Bangkok didn’t make financial sense plus we have been here before, and could only handle so many hangovers! We chose to take a bus journey a couple of hours west to Kanchanaburi, famous for the bridge over the river kwai. It was a good move as we found it to be quiet, the people were much friendlier than in Bangkok and we stayed in a really nice guest house on the river. We visited the Death Railway Museum which was very informative but sad too. For those of you that don’t know anything about this area, in WWII the Japanese used thousands of prisoners of war to build a huge railway to connect Burma and Bangkok to transport military supplies. The Japanese were very cruel and lots of soldiers died, including around 6000 English soldiers, but the worst hit were the Burmese/Malays who lost tens of thousands., in total around 100,000 POW died. The museum looks out onto one of the graveyards for some of the soldiers, there are many more graveyards in the jungle. The graveyards are very well looked after and whilst we were having a look for the English graves we noticed a note on one of the headstones which was a message from an English lady to her Dad, she must have been very young when he died and she’d made a special visit to her Dad’s grave, it made me a little choked. After understanding the significance of the area, another day we took a bike ride in close to 40 degree heat and went to look at the famous bridge, we were very sweaty!

That was a long one! Toby’s already underway with the Vietnam blogs, which includes two visits to a Medical Centre! Stay tuned.


]]> South East Asia - The final leg!!!! — Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan, Malaysia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1247112090/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1247112090/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1247112090/tpod.html Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:05:34 -0400 Redundancy Runners - running with the money, until the money runs out! and the running has to stop!!
Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan, Malaysia




Leaving Australia we were looking forward to Asia, expecting nightmare journeys, sweating whilst just standing still, intense sellers, bad stomachs and all that’s typically Asian, plus a dramatic fall in our daily spending. However, Singapore has gone as far away from being Asian as possible, but it was just an entry point to Asia for us, plus you can’t take away from Singapore that they have many different nationalities living together mostly in harmony and its a safe place to live. Singapore has a reputation for being a strict nation, chewing gum is banned and spitting is against the law, having said that, I only saw one group of Police, plus people do still spit, much to my disappointment! If you’ve not been to Asia before spitting is a part of daily life, Asians think nothing of clearing their throat and spitting the contents right out in front of you, some can’t even stop themselves when they are indoors, the mind boggles of who started the spitting craze off and how they don’t see how gross it is! With Singapore being more western than Asian, we weren’t going to get the impact on our budget, its an expensive city. Our accommodation options were limited, with the backpackers not coming up trumps for us, so we took a hotel on the outskirts of the city. We didn’t expect that our hotel would be a brothel though, which it definitely was, so it felt a little seedy, but it was in a ‘ok’ area. Having said that, we made sure we didn’t get back too late at night, as we were the only tourists around so we attracted a lot of attention. Brothel aside, there was a tube stop within 10 mins walking distance, so the hotel served its purpose for our short stay here, as we wanted to move onto the ‘real‘ Asia as quickly as possible. Speaking of the tube system it was efficient and easy enough to navigate ourselves around the city.


So, how did we fill our days in this expensive city, well we spent one day at the zoo and as zoos go it was of a pretty good standard, but no match for the pinnacle - Australia Zoo. It stood out for some of its animals being allowed to free-range to a certain extent. We could walk through an area that had fruit bats hanging within touching distance and lemurs jumping in front of your nose. The most impressive area was the free-ranging organ tans, they swing from the trees above your head and don’t come down to the ground, as there are electrical wires on the trees if they come too far down. They run various shows/talks on the animals, one where the animals were part of the show, the best part was the monkeys again swinging around the arena, even if the show was cheesy to say the least.


Another day we went to The National Museum of Singapore, which is housed in an impressive building and as part of the entry you get an audio tour. We spent hours here and we could have done with more time, the museum takes you through the history of Singapore, focusing a lot on local peoples stories, which made it one of the most interesting museums we‘ve been too.


Another key area of central Singapore is called Clarke Quay, a glossy restaurant area set on the river, it had numerous large bars and restaurants competing against one another with different, sometimes weird themes, for example, one was designed like a hospital, so you could sit in a wheelchair whilst enjoying a glass of wine, it was empty at the time of passing!


Worth a brief mention is Singapore’s Chinatown and Little India, which we checked out one day. Chinatown was a little flat at the time of visiting, but that might have been due to the rain, but Little Indian definitely had the nicest feeling to it of all the areas we’d visited in the city, with its small streets, cramped shops and makeshift businesses on the curb.


Within a few days, we were saying goodbye to our brothel and on our way to Malaysia . We were surprised by the quality of coach we took to Malaysia, it was a comfy small coach with large reclining seats, so we were a bit like kids on Christmas morning but we reminded each other not to get used to it. We were on our way to Melaka in peninsular Malaysia, so called as Malaysia also has part of the island of Borneo. For those of you that paid attention to our list of destinations before we left home, (go to the top of the class if you did) Borneo was on there, but for various reasons, too many to go into when we are this behind on our blogs, we decided we would leave it on the ’To Do’ list. We had no problems crossing the border into Malaysia and arrived in Melaka after about 4-5 hours, going straight to our first choice guest house, which had room at the inn. On the way our taxi driver went over a roundabout on the wrong side of the road and at last we felt like we were in the ‘real’ Asia. If your wondering how we sort our accommodation out, well, if we think we would benefit from having something booked, because we are turning up late or we would have been travelling for a long period, we try to book ahead. If not, we note a few favs and see if they have availability when we get there, doesn’t always work out, but so far we haven’t had too much trouble doing it this way. Our guide book had suggested that china town in Melaka had a bed bug problem at the time of writing, so we avoided china towns accommodation, a little paranoid???…….. nope, a girl arrived at our guest house and asked us if it was ok as the place she was staying had bed bugs!





Melaka has just been given world heritage status, as it used to be a big trading port in its day and was in the process of improving some of it sights. The town has been heavily fought over between the 15th- 17th centuries due to its important trading location. It changed hands from the Dutch to the Portuguese and then finally to the Brits until independence in the fifties. Whilst here we took in the sights by foot as everything was close by, here’s a quick summary; The shell of St Paul’s Church built by the Portuguese which overlooks the Straits of Melaka, the remains of an old fort again Portuguese built, Chinese temples and a replicate sultans palace, a sultan could be likened to a King.


The town was a little quiet although we’d chosen a room that backed onto the nosiest road with an outdoor restaurant which was an all night affair, with a blaring TV, so I’d often wake to the sounds of screams of someone being hacked to death in the late night horror movie!


Speaking of noise pollution Melaka also has a funky selection of tuk-tuks aimed at tourists, they are all brightly coloured and often playing loud music, which they seemed to think would attract our business, most amusing of all, the music was often heavy rave music!


China town was very quaint, and unspoilt by anything too modern, but disappointingly and surprisingly didn’t have much going on in the evening. Chinatown is the place to go if you are wanting a beer in Malaysia, as it’s a majority Muslim country, so alcohol is not readily available. There wasn’t a great selection of restaurants in the town and whilst we went to have a look at the outdoor food hall with intentions of eating with the locals, without English descriptions of the food, it would have been a bit pot luck what we got, so went elsewhere. This became a bit of a trend throughout Malaysia and whilst you’ll see I’ll sing its praises as it rated highly with me, a bit of help with interpreting the local food would have been nice.


All in all Melaka was a nice introduction to Malaysia, the people were friendly and it was a taste of what was to come, on a few occasions the locals would shout ‘hello’ to us from long distances or slow down whilst passing in their cars, just to say ‘hello’.


On leaving Melaka, we got into the taxi with an eccentric driver who did impressions all the way to the bus station, so I was glad when we arrived, as I had face ache from trying to laugh at all his impression so not to hurt his feelings. I did tell him a small white lie, I suggested he should go on the ‘Malaysia’s Got Talent‘, assuming they had one, so if he ends up on the tv, it might be my fault.


So, where was next on our hit list, well it was the Capital Kuala Lumpur. It was just a couple of hours, further up the west coast, but no luxury coach this time! First impressions, busy, busy, busy! We had already chosen our preferred hotel based on online reviews, so headed straight there avoiding all the touts. It was a good pick, with really friendly staff and a good location. Having already explained the issue with trying to eat traditional Malay food, we ate mostly in Chinatown whilst here, which was a stones throw from out hotel. This is where our sweet and sour chicken addiction began, lets just say it’s the best we’ve ever tasted and was pretty consistent throughout Malaysia. Unlike Melaka, Chinatown had a good atmosphere in the evening, with lots of people watching to be done and is filled with stalls. Speaking of shopping, I made a few enquiries on prices of goods and without even starting to barter with them they brought the price down instantly, they were almost bartering with themselves, it happened several times and we were a little taken a back by their approach. Typically, still being several months from coming home at this point, I wasn’t able to go off for a shopping spree and take advantage of the one way bartering. Apart from Chinatown our other favourite place whilst here was the Petronas Towers. Its free entry, but you have to get up very early in the morning to queue for the free tickets that they kindly give out every day. Yes, its just a building, but its pretty attractive as buildings go, with its shiny steel coating. It used to be the worlds tallest building,but it is now only the second tallest buildings in the world and will soon drop further down the tallest list with new taller buildings under construction around the world. Unfortunately, you only get to go to the 41st floor bridge that connects the two towers, the towers have 88 floors. I could tell you more, but I’ve lost the leaflet that tells me anymore!


KL doesn’t have lots of amazing attractions, beside Petronas Towers its got a large number of other attractive buildings of mixed architecture, as well as a large park, so it makes for a cheap day out. Check the photos out to see what we saw.


Next time, we’ll cover off nightmare road and boat journeys, huge storms, swimming with turtles, the friendliest town ever and a train journey of 22 hours! See Ya!
]]> Cairns to Sydney - Our last days in Aus — Sydney, New South Wales, Australia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1246874620/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1246874620/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1246874620/tpod.html Mon, 06 Jul 2009 06:08:04 -0400 Redundancy Runners - running with the money, until the money runs out! and the running has to stop!!
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia



Tw - And so it was, we had to fly from Cairns to Brisbane to escape the floods. It was a pain as it meant we had to double back on ourselves to get to Fraser Island, which was our must see parts between Cairns and Sydney. There are a lot of other places to visit along the way, but they all offer very similar activities, such as the Barrier Reef, which we went to in Cairns. We would have liked to have done a sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands, but it was one of the places cut off in the floods which meant we had to miss out on that. The other problem we had was one we have mentioned before about cost. We couldn’t afford to just hang around in Aus, as it was s expensive for us, we averaged £100 a day, so we knew we had to keep moving, doing all the trips we wanted along the way but getting around in just over 2 months instead of the 3 we had planned and saving money on accommodation.

So we arrived in Brisbane, the capital city of Queensland, a booming city that is growing rapidly. People love it there and say it is a fantastic place to live. It gave us that impression, with good weather, nice riverside, beaches close by etc, but for the traveller, it was not so great. Firstly, it seemed all the backpacker hostels were full and the one we went for, which unbelievably, was the Lonely Planets pick, was by far the worst Backpackers we stayed at. It was called the Yellow Submarine and the bottom of the ocean would have been a good place for it. Everything about it was bad, so bad I might add, that Suzanna signed onto Tripadvisor web forum to get her opinion out there in the world wide web!! Crappy backpackers aside, as I said, Brisbane was nice enough, but had nothing to offer us really. We went up a famous bell tower, which used to be the tallest structure in Brisbane, but is surrounded by Skyscrapers now, so the view is not so great. We did do the obligatory city walk, which was nice. It took in the city centre, the Botanical Gardens and the riverside, but that was about it for Brisbane, so with not much to keep us there, we quickly headed north up to Hervey Bay, which is the main jumping off point for Fraser Island. The journey took us 14 hours, which may surprise a few of you who know that part of the world, but it took that long because we went via Australia Zoo, Steve Irwin’s Zoo, and spent most of the day there. We’d heard so many good things about it we went with high expectations, which often leads to disappointment, but, not in this case. We loved it and for all the right reasons. As a zoo, it seems to have it just about right. Great diversity of animals, in enclosures that are of a decent size and that they work hard on to replicate their natural environment. Then there’s the side that brings out the kid in everyone, a bit cheesy, but brilliant for being just that. They have made the zoo as interactive as possible and have keepers on hand throughout the day introducing animals to the public and explaining things about them. Then, of course there are the crocodiles, which I must say, spend almost all their lives sitting around doing nothing, except waiting for their next meal to go by. They are very impressive beats though. The funniest thing we saw at Australia Zoo was the keepers mowing the grass in the crocodile pens. They had two guys running around cutting the grass and another stood near the pool part keeping an eye on the crocs to make sure they don’t eat the lawnmower man. After checking out the crocs and the other animals, Suzanna had her must do moment and had her picture taken with a Koala, who’s name was Leno. He was very cute and Suzanna and Leno bonded, after an initial moment of rejection, so much that if she could have taken him with her she would have. From there we went to The Crocosium, the 5000 seat arena where they put on a show . Again, although a bit cheesy, it was brilliantly done. Not only did they show off all the animals and their talents, but they got everyone involved. After that show we headed for the tiger show. Again it was brilliant and at no time did I feel as though any of the animals where being exploited. I loved it so much I became a “Wildlife Warrior” and that’s the part I really loved, the fact every part of what the zoo does is about the conservation of animals and their habitats. It was deffo a F.A.B experience.

So, feeling good, we left the zoo and went to the bus stop to wait for the bus to take us the rest of the way to Hervey Bay. This is not normally a problem, except that a tropical storm came through and flooded the car park we were waiting in. It was a nightmare and the rain was so hard it meant the bus was an hour late, so I’m sure you can imagine how wet we and our backpacks got. So after a soggy 5 hour journey we arrived in Hervey Bay. It’s famous for whale watching, although only at certain times of the year and not at the time of year we were there and as I mentioned before, Fraser Island. We had a look around Hervey Bay and it was like a ghost town. This, we were reliably informed was due to the floods north of here. Apparently the road to the Whitsunday’s had just reopened and everyone that was holed up there had moved on. Regardless, it was dead and we were glad to be heading to Fraser Island.

We had no idea what to expect from the trip. Most people who go to Fraser Island self drive in a four wheel drive and camp. We didn’t fancy that, mainly due to you having to go in groups of eight and having no say in who you travel with. We, instead, opted for an organised tour , where we had a guide and got to sleep in a hut and we were driven around in a four wheel drive truck, converted into a coach, a lot like the one we were on in South America, only the difference in condition was a bit like comparing my Fiesta, to a new fiesta. We opted for the 3 day, 3 night option, getting to the island the day before the tour started. When we arrived, we couldn‘t believe our luck. The place we arrived at was like a plush resort. We were very excited. This excitement was, however, to be short lived. Despite arriving at about 9 in the morning, we were told our room wouldn’t be ready until 1. This in itself wasn’t a problem, but, why pick us up in Hervey Bay at 6.30am! Then we found out our room wasn’t in the nice hotel complex, but over a nearby hill. Again this was not a problem on the face of it, but it was turning into one of those trips where lots of little things start to add up, to potentially make the whole thing a nightmare. As things progressed, we then had a problem getting the transport to our room, apparently they had to ferry wedding guests and a bride around. I was like, what’s more important, the biggest day in someone’s life, or someone who’s getting married!! We then get to our room. It’s a hut with four rooms, three that sleep four and one that sleeps 2, our room. It was ok, especially if we compared it to the Yellow Submarine. So we started to settle in and went for a wander around our hut. We found the eating/drinking area, which seemed ok, although there was no one around. On retuning to our room, we couldn’t open the door. After what seemed like an age, we decided to find someone to help. Not as easy as you may think, remember no one was around. The other thing I should mention was that the reception was about a mile away and the next shuttle bus to the reception was in 2 hours. Our hut did have a phone, but guess what. It didn’t work. Eventually we found a man and he tried our lock, only to confirm the key we had couldn’t open the lock!!. He did, however, have a master key and opened the door for us. I then had to walk back to reception, over the hill that I can confirm is very steep, to reception. When I got there, they were all jolly and nice, which was wasted on me at this point, and cheerily told me we were supposed to be in a different hut!!! So I trudged back up and over the hill, we moved rooms and thought things would now be ok. Only problem was there was no one to tell us what to do and when. Anyway, I feel as though I’m ranting on a bit, so will cut to the chase. It’s safe to say, things did not get better for a while. The next morning, we had breakfast and were wondering what would happen. We had been given a form that told us to wait in the restaurant for our guide. So we waited and waited. There were some other people waiting so we checked they were on our tour and then waited with them. We exchanged stories of how average everything had been so far and all came to the same conclusion. If they had one person running a reception at this part of the complex, most of our problems would disappear! So with that sorted, we waited some more, then, out of nowhere , this old guy appeared and barked at us to get on the bus out front. This, it turned out was our guide and we all thought, oh my god, on top of all the other things, we’ve got a guide who’s had a personality bypass!! We spent the next half an hour, being told nothing while we worked our way back to the main reception, stopping at various places on the way for no apparent reason. Eventually we end up back at the jetty where we were dropped the day before and we pick up the rest of the group. We did a role call and finally set off on our first day of the trip. It was at this point we found out our guide was called Karl and that one of the things he picked up at a previous stop was his personality, because as soon as we were off and running he was like a different person. All of a sudden he was cracking jokes and full of all kinds of information. Those of us that had been there the day before all let out a huge sigh of relief. So, we were off on what would turn out to be a fantastic three days. The off road driving is truly off road and Karl was a demon driver, who managed to give us an extremely in depth commentary along the way. So, what did you do and see, I here you cry. Well I’ll get to that in a sec. First a few Fraser Island facts. It’s the biggest sand island in the world. It’s 122 km’s long and up to 22 km’s wide. The highest of the many sand dunes is currently 244 metres, although this is subject to change. Although it’s a sand island it is home to a sub tropical rainforest and is home to hundreds of species of birds , mammals and reptiles and we spent three fab days having a good nose around. Our first day was spent travelling through the forest in the truck, visiting the beautiful Basin Lake, an old, redundant, logging station, a walk through the forest, finishing off with a relaxing swim in another beautiful lake, known as Lake Mackenzie. As you’ll see from the pictures, we had a Dingo visit us here, which was cool, although you have to be careful to remember they are wild and although they look like our domestic dog, they are actually more like the Asian Wolf and have, famously, taken a couple of small children recently. Once back at the huts, we all ate and had a couple of drinks and got to know each other a bit better. Day two started at 9 am, following breakfast, and it was straight into another day full of sights, sounds and loads of information, from our now favourite guide, Karl. We started off by driving across the island, through the forest, to the beach. Then we drove along the beach for about an hour before getting to “The Champagne Pools”. You may be surprised to hear they don’t actually have champagne in them, but are in fact pools fed by the sea crashing over the rocks, where the water appears to be a champagne colour due to the sand. From there, we walked up and over Indian Head, a rocky bluff that I’m reliably informed is 60 meters high and am less reliably informed looks like a whale, not something that was obvious. From there we headed back down the beach stopping at the very famous Maheno Shipwreck and at Eli Creek, a surprisingly popular spot for swimming. From there it was back to the huts and the end of another day. The final day took us to more parts of the Island. We trekked through the forest to Lake Wabby, which could have been a nice place to chill out, but in what became a feature of the final day, it rained very hard and there was no shelter. We did have a swim though and saw cat fish in the lake. From there we walked across a sand dune back to the bus. Then it was lunch and onto our final spot, lake Birrabeen, which I’m sure would have been great if, again, it hadn’t been hissing down with rain. Having said that, we’d all bonded well, so the atmosphere was good despite what could have been a disappointing end to the trip. So there it was, our Fraser Island trip. As I said, we loved it in the end and despite first impressions, it was Karl that really made it what it was.

From Fraser Island it was back to Hervey Bay, which was still empty, for a days rest, before heading back down the east coast. We’d made the decision to get back to Sydney pretty quick, stopping only at Surfers Paradise and Byron Bay on the way. There are other places to stop on the way down, but they mostly offered beach, or, similar things to those we’d already seen, As it turned out we couldn’t get accommodation in Byron Bay, so had to miss that, but, we did spend a long weekend in Surfers, which whilst being like any other resort town, anywhere in the world, did give us a chance to “dress up” (I wore a shirt, and I ironed it!!) and have a night out on the town. We went to a few bars, one of which impressed Suzanna a lot, by asking her for ID, and we even had a dance. The town was very busy, but had a bit of a Cath and Kim feel about it. From Surfers, we took the bus straight down to Sydney, which took a bum numbing 15 hours. Once in Sydney we took a bit of time to sort a few things out and treat ourselves to lunch at one of Bill Grainger’s restaurants and then it was onto South East Asia. We were ready for the change, mainly due to the fact we felt like we spent the whole time in Australia haemorrhaging money. Having said that, we had a great time here. We loved the wildlife. We saw and experienced some amazing things. We spent some quality time with old and new friends and we spent new year in what is probably the coolest place to do so. There are a bunch of things that spent time trying to annoy us, but the pros far out weighed the cons.

Take care everyone and we’ll mail again soon.

Tobs and Suzanna

xx
]]> Stranded!!!!!!!!!!!!!!- Alice Springs to Cairns — Cairns, Queensland, Australia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1243939867/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1243939867/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1243939867/tpod.html Tue, 02 Jun 2009 06:52:36 -0400 Redundancy Runners - running with the money, until the money runs out! and the running has to stop!!
Cairns, Queensland, Australia



SD - Leaving Alice Springs in the evening, there was only one other passenger with us on a large coach and within a couple of hours we were the only ones on the coach. Our bus driver was friendly and became a bit of a tour guide, bless him! It was still difficult to get much sleep, even with a quiet coach, because of the ungodly hours of the night the driver had to stop to take breaks. The drive was eerie being the only ones on the coach in the middle of the deserted outback. One stop was at a roadhouse where the owners were waiting for their post delivery even though it was the early hours of the morning. I should explain that the coach company acts as a delivery service to these remote areas. At this stop we were greeted by the most amount of bugs I'd ever seen, attracted by the only lights for miles, it could have been a challenge from 'I'm a celebrity get me outta here' just walking through them! The owners of the roadhouse were lovely and showed us where the scorpions lived in a plant pot and just before we left they found a giant scorpion in the bar! They gave us a tour around their bar, told us about the history of the area and their family history. It was far from a minimalist bar, with things covering most surfaces and the walls covered in signed money. Visitors can leave money with their name on to be pinned on the wall, so if you ever go back there again (its pretty unlikely you will) and your short on money you can take back your money to buy a drink. The roadhouse claim to fame, although its grim, is that a British backpacker was abducted just 12k down the road, he's never been found but his girlfriend managed to escape the attacker and she was at times suspected to be involved in his disappearance but she wasn't, perhaps you remember it? Back on the coach and the backpacker disappearance wasn't far from my mind and I can't reiterate enough how baron it is in the middle of Aus, the cattle farms out here are the size of some European countries! Most of the night there were spectacular lightening shows all around us, which were cool to watch. In the morning we stopped at another roadhouse for breakfast and a change of drivers. The owner of the roadhouse was again full of local knowledge and was keen for us to hold one of his various snakes which we managed to avoid. Here we got a great photo of a road train, which are very long trucks used on these long straight roads due to little other traffic being on the roads, plus to make the long journeys more efficient. As we drew closer to Katherine the scenery became greener and the road sides were filled with giant termite mounds. Lunch time the day after we left Alice we arrived in Katherine after about a 17 hour journey!

It was out of season in Katherine due to it being the rainy season. The main reason for stopping here is the Katherine Gorge, as the town has nothing else to offer a tourist. On the drive to the gorge, there were lots of wild wallabies, which are similar to Kangaroos but they are smaller and cuter, plus wild water buffalo, which were brought here by early settlers. I expected to see more Kangaroos on the drives through Aus, but as it was quite wet in most places the roos don't have to come close to the roads to get food, which is a good thing really as we didn't see much road kill. We travelled by boat along the picturesque gorge with a guide and took a couple of walks to see a waterfall and aboriginal rock art. There are several gorges but we were only able to access one at this time of the year, due to the high water levels. The other issue with the water being so high is that the crocs that are usually held down river are able to swim up river and the rangers therefore set traps. Typically, only a few days before a beast of a croc was caught in the gorge and it was the first one in about 14 years. The trip on the gorge was a nice afternoon despite a bit of rain.

In Katherine town we unfortunately encountered the social issues of the Aboriginals again, with large groups hanging around the small shopping centre. After seeing the gorge we didn't hang around in Katherine much longer and we were back on the coach to Darwin.

We arrived in Darwin after about 4 hours and our backpackers looked initially like one of the nicest we'd stayed in, more like a hotel, the rooms were fab. However, like many of the backpackers they only advertise a kitchen not an actual working kitchen, so there's no equipment to cook with and it was dirty. Toby touched on this last time - a lot of backpackers generally don't take care of things therefore the owners of backpackers spend as little money as possible on their places, particularly the communal areas. We're not the usual backpackers per se, or that's what I like to think, so I felt we had to suffer due to the type of backpackers Aus attracts particularly on the east coast, I called it the Magaluf of the backpacking world! Unfortunately, as this was a reoccurring issue throughout Aus it was a big negative for me and I think a bigger budget could of helped to avoid having to stay in places like this. So that first night Toby muddled through to cook our dinner, whilst I sat with my feet up to avoid the cockroaches and then we decided we'd eat out after that! And you guys thought travelling the world was a breeze!!!!!!!

Darwin is tropical, so its wet and humid. From Darwin its actually a shorter flight to places in Asia than it is to most other places in Australia! Unfortunately, even with the tropical weather the beaches are not really used, one because of jelly fish in the water most of the year round and two because the crocodiles that are regularly found near the beach, which are caught and relocated! We enjoyed our time in Darwin, it has a good party/social feel about it, bars/restaurants are close enough to walk to for a night out and it wasn't too big.

The next night we met up with our friend Jay who we met in South America and some of his friends to celebrate his belated birthday. The following day Jay took us to a crocodile park, where we were given a tour which was quite interesting. They claim to be a research centre but weirdly sell crocodile meat and products? The guide gave demonstrations on how the crocs can jump out of the water by dangling food out for some of the females, as long as the water is deep enough a croc can jump their own body length out of the water, remember that when climbing trees over water! Some of the male beasts were also fed and the sound of the air being pushed out of their jaws when they snap it shut is chilling. The park has a museum of all things crocs, which my most vivid memory was a picture of a croc that had been caught and cut open as it was suspected to have eaten a little boy and it had this poor little boy whole in his stomach! The park also has some other animals which we checked out before going off to have a McDonalds (one of our guilty pleasures whilst we are away, particularly when hung-over) and calling it a day as we were all feeling a bit delicate. That evening, Jay picked us up and took us to his place in Fannie Bay (yes we laughed too) for a very nice home cooked meal.

Next morning we were leaving on our tour to Kakadu at 6:30am, which is a world heritage listed national park and owned by the Aboriginals. Like a lot of tourist spots in Aus there is an agreement that tourists our allowed to visit Aboriginal owned areas whilst abiding by their rules. For example, some frequent rules are; some things sacred to them are not allowed to be photographed, areas can be closed at short notice if the Aboriginals request so and names of anyone deceased are covered up in museums and in guidebooks etc. Along the way we saw some more of Aussies wildlife with wild dingoes running across the road, they may look like dogs but are not to be approached as they will have small children for dinner! Once in the park we took a trip along the yellow water billabong and saw a crocodile and various colourful birdlife, including one bird known as 'jesus bird' as it looks like it walks on water from a distance. It was a nice boat ride but you really had to be a bird lover to fully appreciate it. Usually in the dry season we would have boarded the boat much further down the river, however due to the high water levels the usual car park was under water and you could just make out some of the walk way railings under the water. After lunch we took a hike up to the Nourlangie Rock which had a nice view over the park and various rock art and aboriginal stories along the way. Lastly we visited the cultural centre of the aboriginal land owners, which explained their beliefs and traditions. Often with the aboriginal influenced museums they have comments on welcoming you to their land but mostly it comes across with some resentment and we really got the impression that most aboriginals would prefer not to share their land. Due to the time of year parts of Kakadu are not assessable and we were lucky to get to see what we did as the day after the road to Kakadu was closed due to flooding. So although we may not have seen some of the more spectacular parts of the park it was a nice day out, helped by having a guide full of info and enthusiasm.

When we got back from Kakadu we all went for dinner on the pier which was busy and had a nice atmosphere, it was canteen style dining with lots of different food options. We sat outside and I fed the fish some leftovers.

So taken by the fish feeding I went to do this the next day too, but at a fish centre by the sea. After this we walked to the museum. You might not know that Darwin has an interesting history, it was bombed in WWII by the Japanese and it was hit by a devastating cyclone in the 70s. The biggest and more devastating bombing in 1942 some named 'The Pearl Harbour' of Australia, because there were more bombs dropped in this raid than in the Pearl Harbour raids. The city had to be re-built after the cyclone and most of the residents were evacuated out whilst the city was reconstructed. In the museum we got to listen to a cyclone in a little pitch black room, scary stuff! On display in the museum was a famous Northern Territory croc, called Sweetheart. Sweetheart was 5.1 meters in length and was captured after it was thought she'd become a danger to the public after numerous attacks, but died in the capture process. This is the biggest croc I think we saw dead or alive whilst in Aus, however its thought by experts that as crocs don't stop growing there could be bigger ones out in the wild and as hunting is now illegal there is potential to see bigger crocs in the future.

Our final night with Jay we ate at the sailing-club, which overlooks the beach and Jay treated us to a yummy meal, always appreciated when your on a budget! Darwin is well known for spectacular sunsets and we got to witness one for ourselves and it was pretty good.

Darwin was great and whilst we went there to see Jay it has plenty to offer tourists. Special thanks to Jay - you were a star!

The very heavy rain caused floods and by the time we were ready to leave the roads out of Darwin in most directions including the direction we were planning to take were flooded, we therefore flew to Cairns on the east coast.

Cairns is one of the main jumping off points for the Great Barrier Reef and we stayed here longer than expected as the roads south were closed due to flooding, plus we waited for better conditions to take a trip to the reef, as the huge volume of rain was making visibility poor. The highlight here was the reef trip even if the visibility wasn't at its usual best. We boarded our boat and headed for the snorkelling/dive spot, we briefly saw some playful dolphins. Although we were on a large boat we both felt quite sick on the way out for no apparent reason, so were glad to arrive and get into the water. You'll have to imagine the next bit as we have no pictures of us (thankfully). We hired stinger suits as jelly fish had been spotted in the water, these were lycra full body suits much lighter and thinner than a wet suit and as the description sounds, not very flattering. I also opted for a life jacket and a buoyancy aid to begin with, which Toby thought was funny as apparently I looked a little uncomfortable, but better that than drowning. The boat stopped off a reef, so you have to get into deep dark water which didn't look particularly appealing, then you swim across to the reef. The current was surprisingly strong, Toby pulled me along when I looked like I wasn't getting anywhere fast! It was rewarding once we reached the reef though as there were every possible colour of fish, very psychedelic and all different sizes. The coral wasn't as bright as I expected but because of the amount of rain, I think the coral may have been covered in sand. We snorkelled several times at two different sites and afterwards had a nice BBQ lunch on board. If I came back to Aus I would take another trip to the reefs as there is so many places to snorkel and considering it was fab the way it was, it could be amazing with better visibility.

After the reef trip we'd done all we wanted to do in Cairns and were then waiting it out for the roads to open to travel south. So, we had a lot of lazy days here but one day we hired bikes, rode along the promenade by the sea and checked out the Botanical gardens. Eventually we grew tired of waiting for the roads to open and the supermarkets were out of fresh food despite the news saying that supplies had been delivered by boat, so we decided to fly south. Before leaving though we had a BBQ at our backpackers which was a really good night. We got to try emu, kangaroo and crocodile meat, of which emu was the nicest. After dinner the owner demonstrated how to play a didgeridoo and then selected a few people for a competition, it proved to be hard work to master, but as you can imagine the innuendos that can be used with playing a didgeridoo were endless, so it was all good fun.

Bye for now, next time Toby will wrap our Australia trip up.


]]> Melbourne - Alice Springs by going up the guts. — Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1242886860/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1242886860/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1242886860/tpod.html Thu, 21 May 2009 03:45:00 -0400 Redundancy Runners - running with the money, until the money runs out! and the running has to stop!!
Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia

TW - G'day mate and welcome to the next blog. From Melbourne, it was across to Adelaide and then "up the guts" to Alice Springs. Up the guts is the affectionate term given by our colonial cousins to the journey you take through the centre of their country, by the way. The first part of our journey was to take our first overnight bus journey, which took us from Melbourne to Adelaide. It was fairly uneventful, I'm pleased to say and we both managed to get a reasonable amount of sleep on the 10 hour journey. On arriving in Adelaide, at 6.30 am, you wont believe who we saw when we got off the bus?.........It was Phil Leysley everyone!!!! I know, what are the chances of that? Well, pretty good seeing as we'd arranged to meet him. For those of you that don't know Phil, we worked with him at GMAC and he has since moved home to Australia. So, Phil met us off the bus and we headed into the centre of Adelaide to grab a coffee before Phil went to work and Suzanna and I had our first experience of Australia's Backpackers. I've just been thinking about what I could say about Aussie Backpackers as a summary and the best thing I can come up with to describe them as, is a pig sty. That's because they are generally very friendly, social places where everyone gets along, yet the inhabitants seem happiest living in dirty places, where they don't clean up after themselves meaning the places become run down v v quickly, and whilst the people looking after everyone are usually very friendly and caring, ultimately they are after their pound of flesh off you, in terms of booking tours and trips etc. Anyway, having said all that, our first backpackers in Adelaide was actually one of the best we stayed in and not a bad introduction.

Having arrived so early in the morning, our room was not ready. We had no plans for the day, as Phil and Katherine (Phil's girlfriend) were busy, so we dropped our bags off and went for a wander. The centre of Adelaide is nicely compact, so it meant we could walk into town and get our bearings. After that we spent the rest of the day relaxing. Over the course of the next few days we covered a lot of ground around Adelaide, whilst catching up with Phil, who was a great host and guide along the way. I should say thanks to Phil and Katherine at this point, as not only did they take the time to hang out with us and show us all around their city, they did it whilst in the middle of moving to Melbourne, literally, as they left Adelaide the same day we did!
First up was a quiet night out with Phil and Katherine, we had a nice Thai meal in the old part of town, followed by a couple of cheeky beers at the Exeter, an Adelaide institution that has live music and is run down enough to be cool for the kids , but not enough that you wouldn't want to go in there. It was a good night and gave us an opportunity to catch up with Phil and get to know Katherine a little bit. Next day, Phil was having his last day at work and we were off for a night out in the evening. Suzanna and I spent the day on a walk around Adelaide. We went into the South Australia Art Gallery, then along the River, through the Botanical Gardens and then to the Adelaide Wine Museum, which gave a good insight into what to look for in wines and some history about how local wines have evolved. No free samples though. That evening Phil and Katherine picked us up and took us back to Hyde Park!!?? Not that one, the one in Adelaide. And so it was, a quiet night in their local pub, watching the cricket and putting the worlds to right. It was great, although Katherine had to leave us after a couple of hours as she had to work the next day. Despite Katherine leaving, the three of us continued our quiet night out. After the Pub shut, we headed back into the centre of Adelaide and went to a nice looking bar, the name of which eludes me, but it wasn't right for us really, as we wanted to put the worlds to right some more and it was a bit loud (I'm allowed, I'm forty!!), so we did what you should and did a shot each and then found another pub. We stayed there until it closed at 3 am, leaving satisfied that if the world was in our hands, everything would be ok and from there it was home to bed..............no it wasn't, we were drunk as we'd been drinking for hours and we wanted to sing!!, so we went to the Karaoke place next door!! We had our own room and were brilliant! That's not me just saying that, the machine said it. Phil and I scored 99 and Suzanna and I scored 100!! (we've assumed the score was out of 100, but aren't sure on that). And so it was, after an hour and half of Karaoke, closing time, so, despite us still wanting more, this time it really was home to bed and a mighty hangover in the morning. As I said, a quiet night!?

Next day, Suzanna and I had to be up by 9am as we were moving rooms, so it was into the 38 degrees of heat, hangovers and all, until our new room was ready. We survived, but went into our new room as soon as poss and rested for the remainder of the day. Sunday, we were out with Phil and he took us into the Hills around the city. We went to a great small animal park, that had examples of most of Australia's wildlife, and in their own habitat, so not all locked in cages. We saw, Kangaroos, Wallabies, Tasmanian Devils, Wombats, Koalas, snakes (in display units, thankfully) and reptiles, as well as loads of others, including Emus, most of which liked Suzanna so much they kept following her, very funny!! From there it was off to Mount Lofty Summit, a nice lookout over Adelaide City and then we went to Handorf Village, a quaint place, that was originally started by German Immigrants, way back when, and is now a nice place to go for a wonder and a coffee. It was also a good place to end another good day in Adelaide.

Next day, we headed to the beach at Glenelg. It was to be our first bit of sunbathing, so we made sure we slapped on the sun cream. Two problems with that, it was really windy, so we got covered in sand and invariably we missed a few bits with the sun cream, so got burnt a bit, including Suzanna's arm pits!! I won't bore you with how that came about, but rest assured that we've laughed about that quite a bit since. Apart from the beach itself, we didn't rate the beach area much. Maybe obviously, it was totally set up for families, so didn't offer us much, except for a lot of very annoying families!! and, that was about it for Adelaide. We had a final meal with Phil and Katherine to say goodbye and then a quiet day waiting for our bus to take us to Coober Pedy. We had a great time in Adelaide and that was as much to do with Phil and Katherine as the place itself, so thanks again to them. It was fab sportsfans.

So, we left Adelaide on another night bus, which was uneventful again, I'm pleased to say. It took eleven hours and got us into Coober Pedy at about 5am. I'll tell you a little bit about Coober Pedy at this point, for those that know nothing about it. Coober Pedy is a mining town and has been for a long time. They mine for opals and it is all done on a small scale. People get rights to a small area of desert and they can drill as many wells as they want in that area. People normally work in pairs, with one person down the well and one person up on the ground. From what we saw it is very hard work for little reward, but as with most prospecting or gambling, the little bits they get are enough to keep them going and then every now and then, someone will make it big and everyone else is re-invigorated. The other thing about Coober Pedy is that it gets so hot out there, most people have built there homes underground, which makes for a sparse landscape, but it did mean our backpackers was underground, which was pretty cool , literally and figuratively speaking.
So we got to our backpackers at 5 am and thankfully we could go into our room, which was 6 meters underground and nice and cool. Only thing that put us off slightly, was that the walls to our room did not go to the ceiling, so we could hear every snore, whisper etc from all the people in the other rooms!! And unfortunately for them, it seemed our early arrival woke a bunch of them up, oops. We figured the reason for the lack of wall was to help with airflow and keep the moisture down, because, as you could probably guess, there are no windows 6 meters under ground.
When we woke up we headed out into "town", only to find out why people live underground, it was 40 degrees in the shade and if your wondering, yup that's officially flipping hot!! All we saw on our stroll were a few shops and a bunch of aboriginal people, taking up any shady spots they could find, drinking strong beer and arguing with each other. It was a bit intimidating and not a good introduction to the town. I should mention the aboriginal situation at this point and try and give some detail of what we made of it all. It is one of those difficult situations, where we learnt a bit about their culture and about some of the terrible things that were done to them under the banner of making them "civilised", which gives us a want to learn more and be compassionate to them. But, the reality of it is that the ones we saw in the towns, seemed to do nothing to help themselves, or have a desire to. They seemed to sit around all day drinking and arguing and often appearing aggressive and threatening. All of which is not a good view for us tourists to see. So, having got that impression we tried hard to understand better, but it seems they do not want us to know much. We found out there are plenty of aboriginals who live life the way we are led to believe they do, in various parts of the outback, but in doing that they don't want us tourists bothering them, also, we heard lots of old aboriginal stories on our way up the guts, but subsequently found out that all the stories the tourists hear are actually stories told to the children and that the real stories are kept to themselves. All of this meant that our overriding impression was that aboriginals sit around getting drunk all day and that most Australians have a low opinion of them because they believe the government give them so much, which they in turn waste. The really frustrating thing for us was that we wanted to learn more and understand better, but it seems the aboriginals are completely insular and the rest of Australia is fed up with the situation. We know there is so much more to the whole situation and I could easily have upset people, but this is our impression , rightly or wrongly.

So, back to Coober Pedy. With poor first impressions, we decided we needed to get on a tour and find out more. It couldn't be that bad!? Next day we set off and I'm pleased to say we had a great time. Our guide had lived in the town for 17 years, he'd been a miner, making and then loosing his fortune (he eventually gave up throwing good money down a mine when his wife gave him the ultimatum of her or the mine!!??) and he gave us a great insight into the town and it workings. He pointed out loads of the houses, which to look at are just dust mounds, he took us to the mine fields and explained how they worked. He also took us to the local graveyard, which has some quirky graves. It also gets a lot of visitors due to friends going out there on various days of the year, like birthdays, Christmas etc, to have a beer with their old mate. From there we headed through the town, having the huge number of clubs pointed out to us, on our way to see the local golf course! The clubs are for the different ethnic groups that make up the community, of which there are to many of to mention here, but it sounded a bit like it was all the countries in the EU. As for the golf course. It's a full 18 hole course, but with no grass!? You carry a patch of astro turf with you and you can place your ball on that each time you play a shot. Other points of interest included an underground church, the 5600km dog fence and the home of a local legend called Crocodile Harry. He used to be a crocodile hunter in the north, hence the name, but when they banned the shooting of crocs, he came to Coober Pedy to mine. His home is full of, well, stuff. It's worthless but has created a legend that is part of why people come to town. The guy used to invite people into his home and get them to leave something. It was usually bras from the girls and nothing in particular from the rest of us, but it's reputation was enough to get it used in Mad Max Beyond the Thunder Dome. It, like the rest of Coober Pedy was a little bit quirky, but despite initial impressions of Coober Pedy it was quirky in a good way and when we left we decided we quite liked it.
From Coober Pedy we headed to Alice Springs and to head out to see the Crown Jewel of the centre, Uluru, or Ayres Rock, depending on your generation. Alice Springs was a disappointing place. It seemed to me to always be sold as this Las Vegas type place that people visited to have a good time. Well from what we saw of it, reality couldn't be further from the truth. There is a Casino there, but it's out of town and the town centre has nothing really, a few shops, a couple of restaurants and, unfortunately, a lot of Aboriginals hanging around all day, getting drunk. So it didn't make for a very nice place. Having said that, we found a reasonable backpackers that seemed to have the busiest bar in town and did evening meals for $5 (that's very cheap) and jugs of beer in happy hour for $5 dollars (that's very very very cheap!!). We also went to the Flying Doctors Museum, which was quite interesting and helped explain what is an integral part of life out here. The real reason we were in Alice, Alice, who the ......... Is Alice (I sang that part of the song a lot whilst in Alice) was to go on a trip to Uluru. We decided we would do the trip in a day, which meant being picked up at 6 am and not getting back until 1.30 the following morning!! This was due to Uluru being a 5 hour drive from Alice and the fact we wanted to do a tour that took in the sunset at "The Rock". So, with sleep in our eyes, we set off on a day of adventure and all things Aboriginal.
Right from the start it was a good tour. Our guides where excellent. They where very knowledgeable and informative, pointing out things along the way, as well as telling us stories from the Aboriginals and the settlers. There were two of them and they worked as a tag team, which meant we had info and sights coming at us for pretty much the whole day, well until we started the return journey, when we all fell asleep. The first major sight seeing spot was Mount Conner, which as you can tell from the picture is often mistaken for Uluru. Then we saw some salt lakes, which where nowhere near as impressive to look at as Uyuni salt flats in Bolivia, but the fresh water table underneath is where most of Australia's fresh water is, so it's important to say the least. From there we headed to Uluru's township, Yuluru, for lunch. This place is soooo expensive, so if ever your planning a visit and want to stay here, save hard first. After lunch and a quick bus tour of the town, we headed to the Olgas. These are made up of the same type of rock as Uluru and in Aboriginals eyes are equally as sacred. We took a walk around some of them, but we didn't get much detail on them, so really only saw them as a warm up to the main event. One thing I should point out here, is the flies. Oh my god, the flies. I reckon that unless you've been here, you just wont be able to imagine the number of them. We took a picture to give you an idea, but the ones you can see on my t shirt are just the tip of the flyberg. There are thousands of them around each person, and they go for the moisture in your sweat and breath, so are trying to get in your mouth and up your nose the whole time. I reckon they would actually send you mad if you didn't have one of our very fetching fly nets. We were advised to get them, so we did, but lots of our group didn't, at first, but the whole group had them by the end of the day! Anyway, back to the tour. From The Olgas we headed to Uluru. We spent a good amount of time at the rock, going to various points and getting explanations on what certain caves and recesses where used for by the Aboriginals and stories of animal gods that created gouges and markings on the rock when they fought for supremacy (yup, turned out they were kids stories). From there, we headed to the Aboriginal centre, which helped explain some of the Aboriginal feelings about the rock and about western mans influence on their lives. That, and the day, was all wrapped up with a BBQ overlooking the rock at sunset. All very nice, even though the sunset was particularly underwhelming. So, did we like Uluru? Yes we did, and whilst there's no getting away from the fact it is only a rock in the ground, it's deffo the most impressive rock I've seen, and the stories, be it from the Aboriginals, or the first adventurers to come across it, to the first westerner and aboriginal who started taking tourists there, to the present day "adventurers" who get themselves in all sorts of trouble walking in the area, it's all very interesting, funny and kind of magical.
So, with the sun set and another day in 41degrees of heat under our belt, we headed back to Alice Springs, getting to our room at just gone 1.30 am. It was a long day of sightseeing, but a good one and one we'd recommend. From Alice we continued north, but I'll stop here and let Suzanna take you up to Darwin and across to Cairns.
Take care everyone and please let us know how you are doing and what you think of the blogs.

Tobs and Suzanna
xx
]]> G'Day! - Our Australian adventure begins — Melbourne, Victoria, Australia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1237788960/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1237788960/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tobszanni/1/1237788960/tpod.html Mon, 23 Mar 2009 04:41:59 -0400 Redundancy Runners - running with the money, until the money runs out! and the running has to stop!!
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

SD - After waiting around for what seemed like forever to sell our beloved car in New Zealand we were finally off to Australia. We had little choice on accommodation at this late stage and finally decided on two different hotels over the Christmas and New Year period, as the cheaper one of the two didn't have availability over new years, go figure! We blew our budget sky high, but decided it might be a once in a lifetime chance to be in Sydney for New Year. So, we arrived on the 21st December and you would have never known that the world was in a financial crisis as the shops were packed, having said that whilst we were in Aus it was clear they were not immune from the crisis, just a bit behind.

Our first night in Sydney we headed to China Town to try to fulfil my craving for peking duck, only to have a very different style of peking duck. First, they just bring you large chunks of fatty duck skin with the pancakes, with the usual sauce and greens to eat together. Then you get the duck mixed in with rice afterwards, on a lettuce leaf, different, but so disappointing, it might just have to be my first meal when we get home. After this, the next few days before Christmas we filled our days with checking out the key sights like the harbour, took a trip up an observation tower to have a look at Sydney from up high and visited the Barracks Museum. The museum building has had several uses from the eighteen hundreds, including holding convicts, a court house and a women's immigration depot. It tells the stories of the life's of these men, women and children from the journey on the boats from the UK, the awful conditions and their poor treatment, it also documented their convictions which were often very petty crimes. The weather was good and at this point it was a nice temperature, not roasting and I was still bothering to do my hair. We did a lot of walking around Sydney including visiting several of the nice parks right in the city, where they have large fruit bats hanging from the trees and lots of colourful birds, much prettier than the plain old Pigeon or Magpie back home.
Sydney is a great city and would be a nice place to live I imagine, it has lots similarities to other great cities as its cosmopolitan. Some differences, aside from the weather which encourages more outdoor activities, are its unique landmarks and the beaches that are a ferry ride away from the city centre. Whilst exploring one day we avoided what looked like the GMTV crew down at the harbour where lots of Brits were pushing to get to say 'Hi Mum Happy Christmas' on the telly, they apparently haven't yet heard of the phone. Speaking of Christmas we had to decide on what we were going to do with ourselves on Christmas Day, if we had been in a backpackers its likely a group event would have been on, but we were lording it up in a hotel ,so that wasn't an option. After lots of investigation we established that in Sydney there was plenty open on Christmas Day and we didn't have to book ourselves into a boring hotel buffet. Therefore, our day went like this. We took a ferry across to Manly, which is a north Sydney beach area, we strolled along the promenade and sat down to people watch and eat our packed lunch. Some people had brought their whole house down to the beach, well at least they had brought gazebos, BBQ's, seating, drinks and food etc. It is a very different day compared to how we would celebrate at home, with just as many groups of friends as there were families. So after lunch, we picked up a few Christmas messages on email, had an ice cream and headed to a bar for a drink or two, or was it three, probably more like it, until we got thrown out. What did Toby do wrong I hear you ask, actually nothing, they were just closing. We took the ferry back to the harbour, stopped for more drinks and chocolate at a chocolate café and then had an Italian dinner, finally calling home late that night to exchange Christmas best wishes with family. Its was great for us that so much was open and because of the weather I can kind of understand it, it helped us not to feel home sick, but it didn't feel like Christmas day really. So all in all nothing beats a Christmas back home in England.

In between Christmas and New Year, we took a 5k long cliff top walk from the famous Bondi beach to Coogee beach. It was a very hot day but a great walk. All the beaches were packed, but weren't what I had expected from Aus, I think I envisaged more of a Caribbean style of beach and I thought a few of the smaller beaches along the walk were much nicer than the well known Bondi or Coogee beaches.
We didn't stop on the beaches and as you'll see through the blogs we hardly did any beach time in Aus for various reasons. We'd decided early on that the exchange rate wasn't in our favour, making it too expensive for us on our budget, with that we decided to move around Aus a bit faster than planned, therefore spending 2 months rather than 3 months going over our budget. Also, beach time is what Asia is going to be all about and we want to try and experience different things in each country. Another point to add regarding the beaches is that there were shark attacks and sightings of sharks every few days it would seem. Whilst I know that the press sensationalise the stories, it just didn't help to encourage me into the water since I have a particular phobia of sharks. I became a bit like a character in the Jaws film, looking out to sea and thinking I kept seeing a fin. It wasn't just that though, the sea was often quite rough with dangerous currents, because of this you have to stay in the designated areas that are patrolled by the lifeguards, often only 10 feet wide. If you don't get eaten by a shark or dragged out to sea by a rip, then there's the jelly fish and crocodiles to worry about the further north you travel!

The next day we were picked up for our trip out to the Blue Mountains, about 65k from the city, on the way we stopped for a look at the Olympic Park. Blue Mountains, so called due to the haze that can often be seen over the forest from oil in the eucalyptus trees. It was an all day whirlwind trip, we had an enthusiastic guide and it was our first introduction to the Aboriginal culture, who are the natives of Australia and thought to be one of the oldest civilisations in the world. We were taught a bit of bush medicine, plus saw an aboriginal carvings thought to be a map of the area in the shape of a Kangaroo but some of the aboriginal stories you have to have a child's mind to really believe. Later on in our trip we found out that the stories we non-aboriginals are told are the children's versions of the stories and they only tell the real stories to the men in their tribes as they are particularly secretive. You'll see later in our blogs that this amongst other things we encountered and learnt along the way made it difficult to understand and connect with the natives.
We drove to a viewpoint above the Blue Mountains and looked down on the forests, where their were several rusty car wrecks, but its not a grim tale as you might expect, kids used to push old wrecks over the side of the cliff for entertainment purposes. Later, we descended into the forest by glass cable car and then came back up on a weird contraption, similar to a rollercoaster train but going vertical up and backwards, without the restraining bars holding you in, it is actually the worlds steepest inclined railway. Before coming up we got our picture in front of the three sisters, an unusual rock formation with an aboriginal story attached to them. Our lunch stop for the day was in a nice little town, where we stocked up on sweets from an old fashioned English style sweet shop. Last couple of stops of the day were a walk to a waterfall, which since there hadn't been much rain had hardly any water trickling over it and was a bit disappointing and then to a park where we saw our first wild Kangaroo. We were then on the journey back to the city, this time by boat and got to check out the harbour side properties of some lucky buggers. It was a packed day so pretty tiring, but there was nothing particularly spectacular about it, ok maybe the Kangaroo!

One of the highlights whilst in Sydney for me was the outdoor cinema, where we watched 'The Commitments'. They run a schedule during the summer months of a mixture of classic and new blockbuster films. We went VIP, with a spot already reserved for us in the gold circle, with bean bag chairs and wine. It was a fab way to enjoy a warm summer evening and the film is definitely worthy of the classic film tag.

Just before new year we moved to our pricier hotel, which was about a 20 min walk away from our current hotel. So far we're been lucky and haven't had to carry our stuff around that much, so it was hard work and it reminded me that this would now be a regular occurrence over the next 8 months. I figured I'd just have to toughen up, or failing that I'd have to sneak heavy items into Toby's backpack!

So, after Christmas was all done and dusted we had the dilemma of New Years. You can't just turn up down by the Opera House and watch the fireworks, all that area plus all other vantage points are cordoned off. You have to get to most vantage points early in the day to get in, however a day sitting around to reserve our spot didn't appeal. The other option was to pay to get into a restaurant or bar in one of the vantage points, you have tickets for the venue pre issued so you can just turn up in the evening, that was the option we took.
So on new years eve I put on my new shoes and we made our way to Circular Quay (the harbour front). I managed to persuade Toby that I needed new shoes and he opened the purse strings just long enough for me to make a purchase even though we were massively over budget at this point. In all honesty if Toby hadn't have been keeping an eye on the money we'd be home by now!
We weaved our way through the huge crowds of people towards the gates at Circular Quay, when security started turning people away, which worried us slightly, but we waved our golden tickets and were let through just to time, as people were eyeing our tickets up. Inside there wasn't much pavement left, just a gangway, everyone looked pretty bored of waiting, with lots of people catching some zzz and the queue for the toilets was huge. We bypassed all that into our lovely air conditioned bar for all inclusive drinks and canapés, watching down on the crowds, so we immediately agreed we'd made the right choice. We boogied the night away until it was time to rush outside with the rest of the mob and find a spot to watch the main fireworks at 12pm, I say 'main' as there had already been one set of fireworks earlier in the night for the kids. We had an fair view and were able to see the bridge and the opera house and I was chuffed to be there having always seen the fireworks on the TV back home and never really thinking that I'd get a chance to see them. We met another English/Irish couple that we spent most of the night with who were a good laugh and it's a small world as the guy was born in the same town as me. So, once our dancing feet would dance no more we walked back to our hotel and then only went out for takeaway the next day, good healthy start to the new year, but we were in a posh hotel so were making the most of it.

January 2nd we left and boarded our coach, which was fitted with roo bars in the event we come across any suicidal kangaroos and headed for Canberra, which is the Capital city. After some investigation on how we were to get around Aus, we decided to buy a kilometre pass with a coach company and as we made journeys they'd knock off the equivalent kilometres, we brought 10,000k's each for a cost of £600 each. In Canberra we were in a hotel again as it was all the accommodation we could find at the best price, so after an expensive Christmas and New Year we were nervous about achieving anything near our budget. When we arrived in the Capital though there was a car event going on so that explained the lack of accommodation plus the Capital isn't set up for backpackers really, even the YMCA was more expensive than our hotel strangely. Without cooking facilities in our room we could only manage breakfast and lunch and were eating out in the evenings. The locals seemed to have plenty of cash in the Capital, even on a Monday night restaurants were busy. Here we visited parliament who weren't sitting at the time, but we took a tour and our guide was most enthusiastic so it was well worth it. Their set up of Parliament is much like any other democratic countries. We also skipped around an art gallery here and we were then back on the move again to Melbourne.

Melbourne is another very nice city and has an arty feel to it and we were pretty busy here. Once again we didn't find that the backpackers offered us anything competitive so we went for a self contained apartment, it was a bit tatty but meant we could do breakfast, lunch and just about manage a dinner or two. Whilst in Melbourne we caught up with our friend Morgan who we met in South America. Morgan drove us into the hills to a sculpture forest, where an artist called William Ricketts has his work of Aboriginal people displayed and we also stopped at viewpoints to look down onto the wine valleys. This area was full of quaint little towns, however we are still wondering how much of it survived after the awful bush fires that happened just a month afterwards. We also had afternoon tea with Morgan's friend Miriam, who lived in an idyllic spot in the hills with a beautiful house with a cute but timid little dog. She'd made the most fantastic mini scones and chocolate brownies and even sent us away with a batch of the brownies. We could have chatted with Miriam all day, she was the type of person that didn't seem to have a bad bone in her body and a very interesting lady, we tried to marry Morgan off to her, but he's happy having several lady friends, he's such a lady killer!! Later we headed back to Morgan's where he made us a lovely meal and we chatted till late, getting the last train back into the city. Thanks Morgan it was great to see you.
Next up is what must be the most well known road in Aus, the famous Great Ocean Road, so we booked a coach trip to take us out to see it and I'm glad we saw it, but again it didn't blow either of us away. The Apostles were the highlight though, which are rock formations set in the sea, however there used to be 12 and are now only 11 as one has crumbled away. We also stopped at London bridge, another rock formation in the sea, which lost its connection to the main land after it collapsed. Amazingly when it collapsed some people where on it and got stuck on the part disconnected from the mainland. How lucky where they not to have been on the bit that collapsed that day, I hope they went and brought a lotto ticket afterwards! I expect that had we have driven along the Great Ocean Road ourselves, stopping along the way rather than a whirlwind long day trip it might have been more enjoyable, plus it was very busy as we were there at peak time.
Whilst we were here conveniently (for Toby) Australia were playing 20/20 cricket against South Africa, plus we were a stones throw away from the ground, so we went and I'll admit it was pretty good considering it was the first game I've ever watched in my life. The atmosphere was fun, they play music to get the crowd going in between balls, they had live music in the break, some acrobats and small fireworks. Oh yes and Australia won, which we were lucky to see, as after that Australia lost most of the other matches against South Africa.
Another day we visited the art gallery, which was in an attractive building with a large glass wall waterfall at the entrance. If your wondering about what may appear to be an obsession with the art galleries, yes we have been to quite a few. Generally the galleries are free which is an attraction and often we don't like much of the art as its not our taste, usually only finding a handful of pictures we like and I particularly liked the aboriginal dot paintings. Usually there is something interesting if not a little odd to look at in most of the galleries. Its amazing what some people think art is and how they get paid a fortune for splashing a few lines on a canvas or even mounting sardine cans on a canvas. If I don't get a job when I get home, I'm going to have a go at art!

We also spent an afternoon in St Kilda a popular beach resort, which had a nice feel to it with individual shops and restaurants and a little beach, we had a fantastic lunch here and a general wander about. Unfortunately we couldn't test out a cake from one of the many fancy cake shops they had here as we were full from our lunch, maybe next time. Our final day in Melbourne we spent in the Museum, as we had an overnight bus journey in the evening and thought that the museum would be the perfect way to pass the day in an air conditioned environment, particularly as we would not be getting another shower until well into the next day! It was a great museum and we could have easily gone back the next day as it had lots to see. We learnt more about Aboriginal culture, including the fact that the Australian government were taking away Aboriginal children from their families up till the 1970's to try to show them to right way of living etc. This fact helps to explain why there is so many social issues with this sector of their society, we were pretty shocked by this, as its fairly recent. There were loads of other areas to see, including a bugs/insects section that made us itch a lot, a real forest and a city of Melbourne section amongst others.

Hopefully your not all nodding off, it's a long one I know. That's all folks or should I say mates as its much more Australian of me.

Suzanna and Toby - Blogging away on a stormy tropical island in Asia

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