The Great Circumnavigation

The Trip Home

2005-08-30T14:39:00.000+01:00

We left La Paz on a flight to Santiago that stopped in Arica and Iqueque, more of a bus than a flight but we got there in the end. We checked into our hostel and headed out for a bite to eat. Santiago hadn't changed at all in the previous 3 months. It was still dirty, smoggy and a bit smelly. Also after Peru and Bolivia it was shockingly expensive, but that probably just eased us into the return to Dublin. The next morning we headed off to the airport, all was going smoothly. We checked in, did security and spent every last Chilean Peso that we had. At about the time we should have been boarding there was not a lot of activity at the gate area but the plane was there so we were not too worried. A little while later we were told that the flight would be delayed for 7 hours and that we were all being taken to a hotel. Needless to say we were not too happy about this development but if there is something wrong with the plane then there is nothing to be achieved by having a moan. We thought we would be just dumped in the airport hotel but we were taken back into the city centre and given a room in the Crowne Plaza for the afternoon, fair play Iberia! At 5pm we were bussed back to the airport to check-in and finally left at 8pm. We were never told what was wrong with the plane but if it takes 8 hours to fix it must be an important bit!

The flight takes 13 hours to get to Madrid so we arrived the next day in the early afternoon. We knew we would have missed our connecting flight to Dublin. However we knew this would be the case when we were still in Santiago so we asked for seats on a later flight to Dublin, which we were told we had. When we arrived in Madrid (without having to fill in an Customs & Immigration Entry Card, a major novelty - as Julie said it's great to be amongst friends again!) we went straight to the Iberia transfer desk and asked for our new boarding cards. Turned out that we had been booked on a flight from Barcelona to Dublin, a case of airlines telling you want you want to hear! Clearly this did mean something to the staff though because we were sent down to BA with new tickets for flights to Heathrow and from Heathrow back to Dublin. Bearing in mind that we had been wearing the same clothes for 3 days at this stage when we got on the very British BA flight we suddenly felt very very scruffy!

Our flight from Heathrow to Dublin was an Aer Lingus one which just heightened the feeling of going home (as did the Guinness & pint bottle of Bulmers in Heathrow airport!). Happily we arrived safely in Dublin on Wednesday night and surprisingly so did our bags!

La Paz

2005-08-30T14:34:00.000+01:00

After leaving Kieran in Copacabana we headed off to La Paz, the biggest city in Bolivia and highest city in the world. We were sent on our merry way by a full pan pipe band boarding the bus and keeping us amused while the inevitable row about seats took place. The trip to La Paz was beautiful as we drove along Lake Titikaka. We had to cross the lake at one point and all piled out of the bus while it was loaded on the tiniest ferry we had ever seen (it was more like a little floating platform). Reassuringly we sat beside the lifejackets on the passenger boat, especially as there were only six for the 25 or so passengers. The approach to La Paz was great - the city is located in a massive spherical hollow about 500 Metres deep and lines the sides all the way around. The bus rounded a corner and there it was below us. It's a funny thing to be in the city centre and to see shacks on the hillside above the tallest buildings and snow capped mountains through skyscrapers.

We didn't do much with our time in La Paz. We just walked around the city and generally got ready for the big trip home. We also managed to find ourselves a very nice and reasonable hotel room with a shower that was unlikely to electrocute us to enjoy the last couple of days.

We did however go to 'The Witches Market', which was just around the corner from where we were staying. The wierdest of the things we saw there, and it was available on every stall, was dehydrated Llama fetus. They were at all stages of development, from small almost unidentifiable shapes to ones that must have been almost ready to be born complete with all their fur. You could also buy a range of spells, herbs and talismans for all your needs.

We also visited the Coca Museum which gives a history of the coca leaf and the subsequent religious, political and commercial issues that have ensued.

One other thing we went to see was a prison on one of the main squares in the city. A few years ago you could get tours of the prison from Western inmates who needed the money. The trick was basically to walk right by the guards and ask for David, John or Neil and you would get the first Westerner who was available. The Bolivian Government have put a stop to it now but you can still see right into the prison from the square, which also means that the prisoners can see right back out at you.

Lake Titikaka

2005-08-12T18:32:00.000+01:00

Before we start this blog it´s very important to know the correct spelling and pronunciation of Lake Titikaka - not Titicaca as the Spanish would have you believe (to compound the Spanish changing the spelling they do so with a word that means, in the words of one of our guides, ´poop´) - and pronounced Titikhakha. The indigenous people of the Andes and Altiplano, many of whom consider themselves to be descendants of the Inkas, have a pretty grudgeful attitude to the Spanish, similar to those Irish who explain the problems in Ireland with ´well 800 years ago...´.

The first town we visited on Lake Titikaka was Puno, on the Peruvian side. There is very little to the town itself, it is just a gateway so some unique islands on the lake. After the non-stop action of Cusco and Machu Picchu we took it easy in Puno, just taking a half day trip out to see the Floating Islands of Uros. The islands are made up of loads of levels of reeds that grow all over the lake. They rot away in the water and are constantly replaced on top by the islanders harvesting more reeds and laying them on top of the island. It has a strange, spongy texture and you´re not convinced that you´re not going to go straight through the reeds into the water below. They also use these reeds to make their boats and houses. It was very interesting to see these unique islands, however they are more of a ´floating market´ with every visitor expected to buy some of the islands handicrafts. We also explored the markets, the search for the perfect Christmas jumper now over.

The next day we took a bus to Copacabana in Bolivia, also on the lake. As our hotel had only organised two tickets for the three of us we fully expected not to make this bus at all. However with much stroppiness and hounding of counter staff at 6am we managed to get our three seats. The border crossing was a very simple affair, the staff not even checking our pictures. A short while later we arrived in Copacabana. This is not the Copacabana of Barry Manilow fame and if you weren´t sure you would find out very quickly as the town is not so much ´music and passion´ as ´strewn rubbish and toilet smell´. We arrived in the middle of a festival to the Virgin of Copacabana and the town was full of people. As a result the place was filthy, stinking and many places were out of water completely. However it´s position on the edge of the lake is stunning.

Due to a slew of miracles a long, long time ago, the Virgin of Copacabana is worshipped all over Bolivia and many make the pilgrimage to Copa. There is a hill in Copa that many Bolivians climb, making the Stations of the Cross as they do. The Bolivians will buy minature houses, cars, shops, money, suitcases, etc to get blessed by the Virgin. This blessing also involves lots of spraying of beer or cider, throwing confetti, letting off bangers and drawing a picture in candlewax of what they want blessed on the side of crosses and statues. We had never seen anything like it. The view from the top of the hill over the lake was really beautiful.

We also went out on a day trip to Isla del Sol, the reputed birthplace of the Inkas. This island is incredibly beautiful, with lots of sandy beaches and bays, hills and valleys, and non-stop sunshine. We did a tough but satisfying walk across the island from the north to the south (we had been told that it was downhill from the north, however it´s only downhill after you´ve climbed each of the many uphills first!).

There is another religious ritual in Copacabana - the blessing of the cars. Each day at 10 and 2.30 cars line up outside the Cathedral to be blessed. The entire family comes along and the car is completely bedecked in colourful decorations, streamers, flowers, etc. The family then carefully places in front of the car statues of the Virgin, more minature houses, money, cars, etc to be blessed. When it is time the priest comes out of the Cathedral with a large bucket of holy water. He blesses the car/van/truck then sprinkles holy water over the family, the car, inside the bonnet, inside the car, inside the boot and over each wheel. He then poses for a picture with the family, taken by one of the many official photographers there. The family then let off bangers beside the car, spray it all over with lots of beer or cider and throw confetti all over it. They then drive off, completely unable to see anything with all the decorations, beer and confetti on the windscreen. The aim is to avoid accidents and keep the car running well. Bolivia is a very poor country and presumably the car or van is absolutely essential to the livelihood of many families. The blessing of the cars is the only time that you do not hear the constant beeping that seems to be the first thing any South American driver learns.

While Copacabana itself is not a pretty town, it is a facsinating place to visit, and surprisingly the food was excellent. This marked the end of travelling with Kieran who left to go back to Lima while we travelled onto La Paz.

Machu Picchu

2005-08-06T00:32:00.000+01:00

Machu Picchu was probably the strongest reason we had for coming to Peru an was something that we were looking forward to from the beginning of the planning.

We arrived in the village near the ruins by train, which runs right down the main street in the town. Never seen anything like it before.

The day we arrived we decided to take a walk up a mountain that is opposite Machu Picchu to get an idea of the setting of the ruins. The walk turned out to be a full on mountain climb, it took 90 mins to get to the top which was very steep in parts and had wooden ladders to climb up vertical cliff faces. The biggest of these ladders was over 25 Metres in height, as Julie said there no way we would have climbed up and down the side of a 5 storey building! When we emerged from the forest though we discovered that we were surrounded by jungle covered mountains in all directions. Think Gorilla's in the Mist. It took a while longer to reach the top and get our first view of Machu Picchu. The mountain we climbed was directly across the valley from the complex and gave us a stunning view of the ruins and surrounding landscape. When we got back to the bottom, which was almost as difficult as going up, we bought ourselves a well deserved beer, complete with Kieran and Brendan wearing shorts in the pub because the only clean trousers they had got filthy on the climb and had to be washed.

We were up at 5.15am the next morning to catch the 6am bus to the ruins in order to get there for sunrise at the ruins and to beat the major crowds. When we arrived we went straight up the highest part of the main complex (that's the postcard shot that you have all seen) and were there are the sunshine hit the ruins. Took a tonne of photos!

We spent the next couple of hours exploring the ruins on our own and listening in on other peoples tour guides as we went. Our tour didn´t start until 11 so by the time we took it we already had a good knowledge of the ruins and there layout, the tour repeated visits to places we had already been through but this time we got a lot more out of them. In the early afternoon Kieran & Brendan took the walk up to the Sun Gate to check out the view from there. It was a tough enough walk and we had to do at quite a pace in order meet our timetable of buses and trains to get us back to Cusco. In total we spent about 8 hours at the ruins and arrived back in Cusco at about 8:30 pm very tired but with a great sense of satisfaction and completion.

Cusco & The Sacred Valley

2005-08-06T00:29:00.000+01:00

Peru

Certainly the "high point" of the trip my dear friends, both in the fact that it is situated at 3,300 metres (11,600 feet) and also is the point that Kieran joins the journey (as you can now see you´ve got a guest author this time). We had low expectations of Cuzco as it was kind of expected just to be a stopping off point to get used to the altitude before proceeding to Machu Picchu, however we were all pleasantly surprised to find a very attractive town with plenty to do.

First day there was kind of strange with all of us suffering with the altitude (on the first evening we were unable to walk and talk at the same time without feeling out of breath). Day 2 was a trifle bizarre.
It started off with us stumbling across a very unusual military procession in the centre of the town. For a moment we thought the country had been invaded by Argentina, however we relaxed somewhat when the Peruvian flag was unfurled (however, they proceeded this with the national anthem followed unexpectedly by guns being fired in the air). Our attempts at Ireland´s Call after the anthem met with strange
glances from locals.

Bizarre episode number two (that would be the duality), was getting the local bus to some ruins on the outside of the town. Quite the eye-opener in how many people actually fit on a mini-bus, how often a radio station can play its jingle (Radio Las Vegas Cuzco), and also how impatient passengers can get if the bus stops for too long (a stop for about two minutes was met with a chorus of "Vamos, Vamos" accompanied by much stamping of feet and banging of windows (rather bizarrely started by Brendan and Julie!). Also, discovered that Lonely Planet don´t seem to know the difference between miles and kilometres (a 5 mile walk in the blazing sun is completely different to a 5 kilometre walk!).

Day 3 was spent on a guided tour of the Sacred Valley. Stunning sites indeed, but the highlight of the trip was certainly our tour guide Isaac who, my dear friends, gave everything his unique twist, energy and had the answer to every question (even if he had to make them up). Video footage will be available on my return from the land of the Incas. Personalities prevailed that day with Germans who turned out to
be Austrians, and one disorganised English girl who delayed us at every stop, managed to get lost in one of the car parks, was tended to by a nurse on a very minor climb, and then informs everyone on the bus that she´s starting a 5 day hike the next day. Keep an eye on Peruvian news sources for reports of a major rescue mission somewhere in the Andes.

Just when we thought day 3 couldn´t possibly get any better we went for a pint in Paddy Flaherty´s pub in Cuzco, which is not just any Irish bar but the highest Irish bar in the world (bar is complete with plaque from Guinness Book of Records). A proud moment on the trip for each of us!

All this was put into the shade though by what came next. Machu Picchu....

Buenos Aires

2005-08-01T22:28:00.000+01:00

To be honest Buenos Aires came as a bit of a disappointment. All through South America people have raved about how great the place is and how they could live there etc. But we just didn’t seem to get it, there is not actually that much to do in the place. Aside from its nightlife the biggest tourist attraction is a cemetery! (more on that later)
At the end of our time there we came to the conclusion that if the first city in Argentina that you visited it would be a fantastic place but we had seen loads of Argentina and Buenos Aires didn’t offer that much more than is available in the rest of the country. Not unlike touring Ireland and then visiting Dublin, it will come as an anti-climax.

We spent our first full day there checking out a Sunday afternoon market that they have in one of the oldest areas of the city. It’s quite an atmospheric place, full of people dancing the tango for the crowds, small cafes and bars and a lot of artists and photographers selling their work on the street. As you walk around the market though and look at some of the antique stalls you get the impression that some people are selling the family silver and heirlooms.

The cemetery is actually quite interesting. It’s a very exclusive place and you can only be buried there if you have the right family name and history. Amongst some of the people who are there include the major historic names and Eva Peron (although not Juan). The tombs are all family tombs and some are the size of small houses. Most of them are designed to look like miniature churches with huge statues around them.

Evita, even 50 years after her death, is still worshipped in Buenos Aires. The Evita Museum gave a comprehensive, but flattering, history of her life which was apparently very controversial. Her tomb in the Recoleta Cemetary is covered with flowers and while we were in BA there was a homage paid to her life.

Most of the sights in Buenos Aires are taking in strolling around the different neighbourhoods. We visited La Boca, home of Boca Juniors football club. The area is pretty rough but a couple of traditional streets have been turned into a tourist attraction. The streets are full of multicoloured houses made from corrugated iron with artists and tango dancers displaying their wares on the roadside. It is probably the most touristy area we visited in all of Argentina and as such we liked it the least. Argentina caters for the tourist but is refreshingly hassle-free.

We also visited the area of Palermo which has lots of lovely cobbled streets, interesting shops and nice restaurants.

Buenos Aires is still suffering some of the effects of the economic collapse a few years ago. Banks are barricaded up like military installations and doing a transation requires much documentation, papers, many people and a lot of distrust! Even though it is a capital city housing is incredibly cheap (one year´s salary in Ireland to buy a two bedroomed apartment). It is a very cultural city and probably a great place to live, however as tourists we found that much there was to do we had already done, more authentically, elsewhere.

Photographs

2005-07-22T00:53:00.000+01:00

The emptyness of Patigonia

The Moreno Glacier

Brendan at the Moreno Glacier

Julie on a horse outside Cordoba

The Guachos at their Rodeo

A cafe near in Pumaraca near Tilcara

Brendan at 4,170 metres above sealevel

Brendan & Julie on the Salines Grandes Salt Lake

Iguassu Falls from Brazil

Iguassu Falls from Brazil

Iguassu Falls from Brazil

Iguassu Falls from Brazil

Iguassu Falls from Argentina

Iguassu Falls from Argentina

Iguassu Falls from Argentina

Brendan & Julie at the Iguassu Falls in Argentina

A short video of the Falls on the Brazilian side

Iguazu

2005-07-22T00:23:00.000+01:00

We came to Puerto Iguazu to see the Iguazu Falls at the very northeast of Argentina, at the border with Brazil and Paraguay. We had a drink one night at the confluence of 2 rivers and could see the sun setting over the 3 countries. The falls are right on the border with Brazil and can be visited from both Argentina and Brazil. At this point on the Iguazu River there is a huge u-shaped gorge down which the falls spill. It isn't just one waterfall but a whole series of them (275 individual ones apparently) that fall all around the three sides of the gorge. Over 1.2 million litres of water flow over them every second.

The views from Brazil and Argentina are very different, so on the first day we went over to Foz do Iguacu in Brazil to see them from there. They are in the middle of a national park (sub tropical rainforest) which is full of wildlife - Toucans, Parrots, Racoons etc. On the Brazilian side you get an amazing panoramic view of the falls. As we descended a stairs down the side of the gorge we saw them for the first time. We continued the walk around on a catwalk along the side of the gorge and at every turn would see more waterfalls, each more impressive than the last. As we reached the closed end of the gorge we could hear a roaring sound - we were getting close to the Garganta del Diablo (the Devil's Throat) where the largest, loudest and most powerful fall is. We went out on a walkway that gave us a view from about halfway down the front and we were drenched in spray that came with force from the water crashing below us.

The next day we visited the Argentinean side. On this side you don't get the sweeping panorama that you get in Brazil, but instead you can get very close to the falls right in the forest. First we took a walkway that took us to the very top of the Garganta del Diablo where we could see the water roaring below us and smashing into the mix below. There are also two walks we did in and around the waterfalls. The first takes you along the rim of the gorge so you can look straight down some of the waterfalls and see the water rushing down below you. The second takes you on another catwalk along the rim alongside the waterfalls and again we got drenched in spray. The day was wet and misty and the waterfalls looked beautiful through the trees and the mist.

It was an unforgettable two days.

Salta & Tilcara

2005-07-16T21:57:00.000+01:00

We arrived in Salta from a sunny but chilly Cordoba to find 25 degrees and sunshine. Salta is a city in the very northwest of Argentina and is surrounded by the Andes on 3 sides. It still has lots of original colonial buildings and has a lovely central plaza. On our first day we took a cable car up to the top of the nearest hill and spent a chilled out afternoon sitting in the cafe looking out on the panorama. We had caught up with the Irish we had met in Cordoba and met several other Irish, English, Australian etc that were staying in our hostel. We spent the next day getting information on trips around Salta (the surrounding countryside is by all accounts among the most beautiful in Argentina) and visiting some of the old buildings and museums around the plaza.

Our last day was spent enjoying the sunshine on the plaza and investigating the possibility of going to see the Salt Lakes in Bolivia as Salta is very close to the border. Unfortunately the transport links on the Bolivian side are unreliable and few and far between so we had the prospect of having to sacrifice too many days from Argentina. Another place we will have to return to in the future!

While in Salta we were enjoying the sun and the company of the friends we had met there and in Cordoba but we wanted to see some of the surrounding landscape so on our fourth day we got a bus to a small town called Tilcara, south of the Bolivian border. Tilcara is in an area known as the Quebrada de Humahuaca which is an arid area in the Andes where the mountains have the most spectacular colours, and just over the Andes are the Argentinean salt flats. The bus ride to Tilcara was fantastic - after driving through a cloud we could see the mountains around us as we drove through a gorge, lots of different colours and covered with huge cacti. These cacti look like they have come straight out of a wild west film.

Tilcara is unlike anywhere else we have stayed. It is at an altitude of 2500 metres and sits right in the middle of the Andes. The houses are all one story, made of stone and adobe, the streets are dusty and the main square is full of colourful handicraft stalls. It is a very touristy town but has completely kept its original character.

On our last day we hired a Land Rover and driver to go out around the area, to see the local villages, the mountains and the salt flats. The drive to the salt flats took us over the mountains - at the highest point we were at 4,170 metres (12,500 ft)! The wind at that height was ferocious, we could even see little mini-tornadoes along the road, flinging stones (not pebbles!)at the jeep. The jeep could only do 40KMs/h against the head wind. The mountains were beautiful, showing all their colours in the sun, the rocks are red, blue, green, yellow and white. Eventually we reached the salt flats. They are not as big or spectacular as the ones in Bolivia, but they are still amazing, we had never seen anything like it before and we were very impressed! The whiteness is blinding, and the salt has formed into patterns of pentagons and hexagons. The landscape is stunning white and completly flat as far as the eye can see. There are local co-operatives extracting the salt and a few salt lakes to break up the view a little and it’s very interesting to see their traditional method of extracting the salt (there are also large commercial mines but happily they were too far away to see). We ate our lunch from a picnic table, sheltered from the wind by the jeep, marvelling at the land all around us. There were salt tables and chairs we could have sat at, but decided against that!

However the wind and the dust are not incentives to stay much longer so we are now starting a long trip to the Iguazu Falls tomorrow.

Cordoba

2005-07-11T19:40:00.000+01:00

Cordoba is Argentina's second city, was founded by the Jesuits, is the home of the first University on the Contintent and 4th on the America's as a whole and has a huge student popoulation. The city's buildings around its centre are all quite old compared to the rest of the country which gives the place a pretty unique feel.

The hostel we were staying at had a real party theme going on. As well as ourselves there were a group of Dub's from Ranelagh, another Irish bloke from our previous hostel, a few English people as well as a some Canadians, Americans and Israelis. The staff at the hostel were big into going out and dragging everyone out with them, often to the pub to meet their own friends and one night to the VIP section of the biggest club in Cordoba.

We spent a couple days here wandering the streets, which are much narrower than Mendoza, looking in the shops and markets and sitting in the Plazzas. We visited the Cathedral to check out the ceiling art, it has stunnings frescos painted on the ceiling. We also took a guided tour of the Jesuit University and Church, it felt a bit like being given a tour of Trinity, we kept getting in the way of students who wanted to actually get places! It was good though as were taken to see loads of rooms that you would otherwise not have been allowed into.

We went horse riding one day, which was also Independance Day. We were picked up by a girl who hangs out in the hostel and taken to her family's summer home in the mountains just outside the city. It was on an estancia, or typical ranch, where horses were reared and trained. The house was a 14 bedroom, 5 bathroom Spanish style villa, and was gorgeous! We were saddled up on our horses and off we went with a few other people into the surrounding landscape. We rode along the road for a while and through a few villages before taking to the fields & woods and crossing fairly big streams along the way.

As it was Independence day all the local Gauchos (Argentine Cowboys) were having a party in a field that we were told we could go along to. The were about 300 Gauchos and their families as well as us 7 Gringos! They were the real McCoy too, they were all dressed in shirts and ponchos with neckties, sombreros, berets, boots and had huge knifes stuck in the backs of their belts. Even the little kids were dressed up. They were having a BBQ and Rodeo, which we stayed for. The food was great, cooked over a log BBQ. The Rodeo was made up of games on horse back as well as riding wild & semi-wild horses as they tried to buck the Gaucho off their backs. It was really entertaining, some of the Gauchos could hold on for the 12 seconds time limit, others would get thrown off but a few got dragged along the ground and one even had the horse fall right back on top of him. In the skill games even little kids were competing with the adults, handling their horses with complete confidence. Our guide told us she learnt to ride a horse at one year old! We were very lucky to participate in people´s real lives, something rare when you´re travelling.

Even though we were aching from the horse riding we made sure to re-mount our horses as though we knew what we were doing as lots of pairs of eyes watched the gringos ride off!

Mendoza

2005-07-06T14:36:00.000+01:00

Mendoza is the main city in Argentina's wine country. The city is actually in a desert but the whole surrounding area is irrigated by an ingenious system that uses melt water from the snow on the Andes. The system is an extension of one that was built here by the Incas. You can see the channels on the streets and in the roads around the city, it´s pretty clever stuff.

The city itself is really nice, it was destroyed by an earthquake in the 1840´s and was rebuilt with really wide streets and loads of plazas to give people an open space if there was another quake. It has a population of approx 1 million people so it´s big enough to have a real buzz about it but small enough to see on foot.

We spent a couple of days here just walking around and enjoying the city. It´s the first city we have been to in Argentina. They have a huge park on the outskirts of the city that we went out to for the day, the weather here has really picked up as we have moved north again. We went up to the top of a hill that is in the middle of the park from which you can see the the whole city, the Andes and the desert around. The top if the hill is not covered by the irrigation system so you can see how the area would be without it. There are even wild cacti growing!

Of course we couldn't come here without going on out to visit a few vineyards, which we did one afternoon. The tour was very different from the ones we did in Australia and New Zealand in that they actually took us around the fermenting, aging and bottling areas. The showed us massive wooden casks with 45,000 litres of wine inside! Unfortunately we only got to taste their cheaper wine, but as you can get a fantastic bottle for two euros in the supermarket we´ve been able to sample some nice red wine anyway.

Things have now slowed down a little. We will be probably be staying in places for 4 or 5 days at a time for the next few weeks, hopefully anyway.

Peninsula Valdes

2005-06-28T20:00:00.000+01:00

We have reached two minor milestones in the past couple of days. One, on the way to and from El Calafte we had to change buses in a town called Rio Gallegos, which is as far South as we will be on the holiday and almost as far South as it's possible to go without hopping over to Antartica. Neil - we had a beer here, so it counts!!
The second milestone is a bit more psychological, we have now arrived on Argentina's Atlantic coast. Although it's the South Atlantic we do kind of have the feeling that we have come around the world and that home is on the other side of the water.

Our reason for coming to Peninsula Valdes was to see some more Whales. These ones are mostly Southern Right Whales and they come here from June until December every year. At the height of their presence there can be 500 in the Gulf around here. It's also the place where Killer Whales (which we have learned are actually a species of Dolphin, who knew?) can come right up on to the beach to try and grab seals to eat, although this doesn't happen until September or October. There are whale watching boat tours on offer in the town, but if you're lucky you can see them from the shore. We felt lucky!

We got a taxi about 20 KMs out of the town to a spot that our Hostel owner had told should be quite good for seeing them. When we got there, we could spot a few of them a few hundred metres out to sea, but as we walked down the beach we could see some much closer to the shore. 8 - 10 metres from the shore and at times even closer than that. It was fantastic, they were swimming in ones and twos and there were about a dozen in total. They were swimming up and down parallel to the shore over a distance of about 2 KMs before turning back and going back down the coast again. They were really active, sticking their heads straight up out of the water before sliding back down again, rolling around on their backs with their fins in the air, we presume to clean parasites off their back on the sand and rocks. Out at sea we could also see a few of them jumping clear out of the water before falling back on their backs and creating an enourmous splash.

They were swimming quite slowly and we were able to walk with them as they swam up and down the shore, one even seemed to be watching us and we watched it. It was amazing to actually go for a walk with a Whale.

El Calafate

2005-06-26T14:37:00.000+01:00

The journey to EL Calafate is almost worth an entry on its own. We left Bariloche at 3pm on Wednesday and arrived in El Calafate and 1am on Friday morning, 34 hours after we left. The journey started off through the Andes, which was stunning and icy. After it got dark all we knew of the snow and ice on the road was when the bus would skid on the ice! The next morning we woke up in the middle of Patagonia's emptiness. Technically Bariloche is in Patogonia but this was the first time we had see the emptiness of the place. Although we didn't get to Central or Western Australia we just knew it was the same kind of nothingness. The land is flat in all directions with nothing growing higher than a bush. Every 50KMs or so we would see a track off the main road to a house somewhere but apart from that there is no life at all there. The road we were on had 3 junctions with other roads over a distance of 500KMs.

Our reason for coming to El Calafte was to see the Perito Moreno Glacier, it´s a wall of ice that is about 60 metres tall and about 2KMs wide. It ends in a lake so its very unlike the other glaciers we have seen, it's a very deep blue in places and white in others. Every so often a piece falls off the glacier into the water in front or at some point behind the front face. When this happens the noise is amazing, it sounds like a thunder clap but louder than any thunder you have ever heard.

Our trip to it started with the bus journey to national park where after about 90 mins of the bus slidding around on the snow and ice (which we are used to now) we transfered to a boat that brought us to within 250 metres of the front face. The day we visited was quite misty so we couldn't see anything for most of the boat journey there until we got to with about 500 metres. We knew we were getting close though becasue the air was getting very cold, then suddently we could see the whole thing. After about an hour on the boat we went to a viewing platform for a couple of hours, but the mist would come and go so we could see quite a bit at times and at others we couldn't even see the lake in front of the glacier.

You can see some images of the Galcier here

Bariloche

2005-06-22T15:18:00.000+01:00

Argentina.

The bus journey from Chile to Argentina was stunning. The bus crossed the Andes through an (Inter)National Park with Chilean authorities at one entrance and Argentinean authorities at the other. The road in between was bordered on either side by 4 foot snow drifts and 2 foot icicles hanging from cliff faces. There were frozen lakes and natural snow balls at the road side from where they had rolled down the hill face. It was postcard photograph stuff.

The town of Bariloche is sited on a lake not far from the mountains, you can see them on the far side of the lake from the town. Its a big skiing resort and is full of life, something that Chile had been sorely missing. The town is very picturesque, so much so that some locals make a living out of providing Saint Bernard dogs to tourists to complete the snow and chalet photographs! One night in the hostel they held an impromptu concert of sorts with a few people who were staying there and who had instruments (guitars, violins and an accordion). The theme was generally Latino and obviously we (nor anyone else in the hostel) knew any of the tunes, it also included some solo ad-libbing that times reminded us of Brad Mehldau in Vicar Street!! But was very enjoyable all the same.

We spent our days here hanging out in the town and taking small walks around the area as well as trying out some of the 50 or 60 chocolate shops that they have here. We are developing a worrying dependence on hot chocolates, which here are actually made with chocolate (not chocolate flavoured powder) and have quite a kick.

We did take a bus for about an hour out of town to a place called Colonia Suiza (Swiss Colony) with the intention of walking for about 10Kms around the lake to another bus stop that would have taken us back into town but when we got out there we discovered that all the roads were iced over and there is no way we could have walked 10Kms on them. Even the bus on the way out kept losing grip as it went around corners! But we maintained some (blind?) confidence in the driver.

Chiloe

2005-06-20T21:58:00.000+01:00

Chiloe is an island off Chile that is known for it?s distinctive culture, churches and houses. We first went to the town of Ancud. We stayed in a lovely modern hostel on the shore with views over the bay. In Ancud we tried some of the local specialty, curanto, and visited the local markets and museum. We then visited Castro, a bigger town than Ancud, known for the houses on stilts that line its shore, called palafitos. These are colourful and pretty but also quite run down, and apparently the government is torn between making them national monuments and condemning them as slums! As it was off season there were very few other tourists around and the towns were quite quiet so we just did a lot of relaxing and chilling out.

Photographs

2005-06-17T02:55:00.000+01:00

Our dinner, a Maori Hangi

Craters of the Moon

Julie at Mount Cook

Brendan at Mount Cook

Moeraki Boulders, near Dunedin

On the road from Queenstown to the Fox Glacier

With Catherine after a night out in Sydney

Seal at the fishmarket, Valdivia

Sealion at the fishmarket, Valdivia

Valdivia

2005-06-16T01:06:00.000+01:00

Valdivia is a small town on the coast a couple of hours bus drive north of Puerto Varas. It was the first town to be taken by the Chileans when they went to war to get independence from the Spanish.

Its a quiet little spot out of season, apparently its also a big student town but all was calm when we were there.

There is a fish market in the town that backs onto the estuary. The stalls are set up with their backs to the water, with a processing area closest to the water and the fish on sale towards the path on the front.

The market attracts seals and sealions who like to feed on the heads and other scraps of the dead fish. Some of the animals are braver than others though most stay on the far side of a metal barrier waiting for scraps to be thrown to them and occasionally bashing chests with each other to sort out the pecking order. There are a couple of characters though who can jump the fence and get into the market to steal whole fish when the stall owner is not looking, which leads to humerous instances of the stall owner chasing a pretty big seal around the fish market with a big stick. It all seems good natured though, just an element of 'we can't make it too easy for them!'

Puerto Varas

2005-06-12T17:46:00.000+01:00

Its not so much Chile here as Damp (and cold!). Ah come on, that's at least a little bit funny!

Our first day in Puerto Varas was the first day it hadn't rained for 3 weeks. The town is built on the shores of Lake Llanquihue and is facing a snowcapped Volcano called Mount Osorno. We spent our first day in Puerto Varas walking around the Lake and just relaxing after Santiago. The next couple of days we spent taking day trips around the lakes. We went to Frutillar, a tiny, pretty Germanic town on the other side of Llanquihue that is very popular in the summer but was deserted when we were there. We also went to an even tinier village called Petrohue, that sits on lake Todos Los Santos and is a gateway to a national park. There we got to do a bit of walking and as we were the only tourists there we had complete peace and quiet. Although it has been cold and a bit rainy we have been lucky in that we have still been able to do some walking. Our last day in Petrohue was spent chilling out, enjoying the hostel's wood stoves as it lashed rain outside. Today we are travelling to Valdivia, a city about a 3 hour bus trip north of Puerto Varas.

Santiago

2005-06-09T22:58:00.000+01:00

We were given a book before we left written by a guy who had traveled from London to Sydney overland! He reckoned that flying into a city had one advantage, cities always look their worst on the road from the Airport to the City Centre. Couldn't be truer in the case of Santiago. Its a filthy road, all the buildings are covered in graffiti (including the churches) and there are loads of stray dogs roaming around.

At first glance the city centre was just a little better but not much and suffers from a permanent heavy smog that sits over the city. Adding to all of this the local students were having a protest (don't know over what though) and there was a really high security presence on the streets and riots vans down the side streets.
Anyway we got to our hotel around lunchtime, dumped our bags and went for a bit of a walk around the city in an attempt to try and stay awake and beat some of the jet lag. Didn't really work though, when we did go to bed at 6pm we slept all the way through to 5pm the next evening. As it was Saturday night we headed out into town to see what was happening. We headed to a part of town called Bellavista that sounded like it would have a bit of life in it and as it turned out Chile were playing Bolivia in the World Cup qualifiers so we stayed in the pub to watch that with some very loud Chilean fans! It was good fun and they tried (albeit in vain) to chat to us. After the match we stayed in the pub for a little while before heading to a nightclub. Finally got back to the hotel at about 5am.
Over the next couple of days we suffered from the worst jetlag ever. We would be wide awake all night, fall asleep at around 6am and wake at around 2pm, with most of the day wasted.

The more we worked at getting something decent out the city the more we succeeded though. You can walk down pretty ordinary (ugly!) streets and suddenly come up on a really nice Colonial plaza with fountains and landscaping. We also went to a Museum of pre-Columbian art which told the history of pre-Columbian Central and South America through artifacts and which actually turned out to be interesting enough.
Very few people speak English here so we have had to launch into Spanish straight away. For the most part we can make ourselves understood, but we understand very little of what is said to us - not helped by the fact that Chileans speak a form of Spanish that leaves out the end of words.

Between the jetlag, smog, riot police, stray dogs and graffiti we were pretty glad to leave the place, which we did on Wednesday morning for the Lake District, we are now in a small town called Puerto Varas on a lake with snow covered Andes on the far side. Its a world of difference!

Sydney II

2005-06-02T10:09:00.000+01:00

We have enjoyed our second trip to Sydney more than our first visit. We have been much more relaxed this time around and got to do some of the things that we put off from April.

On our first day here we wandered around 'The Rocks', which for those who have not been here it’s the area around and under the Bridge that has retained its original buildings and street layout. It’s a nice area, cobblestone streets and windy lanes - very different from the rest of the city. We booked our Bridge Climb (more on that in a mo') and walked around Darling Harbour to the National Maritime Museum to visit a replica of Cook's Endevaour. It’s a full scale replica of the ship he used to sail here, around New Zealand and then back to England, its much smaller than you might imagine and very cramped inside.

Our second day was dominated by our Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb. We checked in with the company and were decked out in all the gear - silver jump suit, safety harness, radio, headsets and fleece jackets all clipped onto us at various points. The trip up the bridge was great, you pop up between 2 lanes of traffic while climing the ladders up on top of the arch. The climb was much easier than we were expecting, for some reason we thought it would a major effort! Our guide was one of those really loves his job types, but he was quite funny and knew loads about the skyline and history of the Bridge and area.
The view was amazing all the time we up on the arch, it was a really clear day and we could see for miles in all directions. Of course we picked up the obligitory (and lets face it, really tacky!) photo of the 2 of us up on top of the bridge!

We met Catherine (another ex-WF staffer) for dinner and a few drinks last night, it was great to catch up with her. She took us to a few places that we would have never have found on our own around the Harbour and Bridge areas. It was a bit surreal being out with Catherine under the Sydney Harbour Bridge, it's a very long way from the Cellar Bar!

So ends the second major leg of the trip, tomorrow we fly to Santiago for the South American, and final, leg. We are both really looking forward to it, we are ready for a bit more adventure - which given our current level of Spanish should happen quite quickly! Its a 16.5 hour flight leaving Sydney at 10am but because of the International Date Line we arrive in Santiago at 12:30pm the same day and go from being 9 hours ahead of GMT to being 5 hours behind! We might be offline for a couple of days after all that!

Christchurch

2005-05-30T04:12:00.000+01:00

Christchurch is a nice place, that's part of the problem with it, it's just nice. Which kind of means it's also a bit boring with not a whole lot going on.
While we were there the Super 12s Rugby Final was on in Christchurch and Christchurch were playing in it against the New South Wales Warritahs. To put this match into prospective its like Munster playing England in Thomond Park with Munster having the dominance that Kilkenny have in the Hurling. Its a big deal. The city though only seemed to half behind the team, which is odd because they are fanatical about their teams. We went to a local pub to watch the game and enjoyed the night there, the crowd were pretty good but we heard reports from the city that people were expecting more of an atmosphere.

Anyway we did enjoy our time there, we went to the museum, climbed the steeple of the Cathedral and wandered around the city a bit.

While we were in New Zealand we crossed a few milestones in the journey - we went over the halfway point in calendar days that we will be away and, as has our regular readers will know(!), the point furtherest away from Dublin.

A few stats on the trip so far

We have

slept in 50 different hotel and hostel beds (and in Lesley and Anthony's houses), 3 trains, 2 planes, 1 boat and of course the van.
traveled by plane, car, bus, camper-van, mini-bus, tuk-tuk, pickup truck (and on the roof of one), jeep, motorbike, bicycle, cyclo, train, tram, underground metro, skytrain, monorail, junk, longtailed boat, open kayak, rigid inflatable, dingy, yacht, motorboat, speedboat, catermaran, car ferry, passenger ferry, flat bed ferry and a cable car
taken 12 flights and been in 17 different airports
driven (well jules drove!) 10,500 Kms in Australia and New Zealand
Brendan has taken 1,620 film photographs and about another 3,000 digital shots - Aodan I'll have a tough time picking the top 12 for New Years for you!
Julie has taken 720 film photographs

Kaikoura II

2005-05-27T03:29:00.000+01:00

We had kept the pace up around the South Island to buy ourselves a day to return to Kaikoura to try the whalewatching again. We did a marathon drive from the Franz Joseph glacier to Kaikoura in one day and along the way we rang to book a sailing and was told that the weather was expected to be excellent - result!

That night we went to a pub in Kaikoura for a pub quiz. Although there were only two of us in the team we managed decent a little better than mid table mediocrity, coming 4th out of 11 teams. There was a tie for first place and the tie break was a hilarious dance off - something that could be included in this year's New Years Eve quiz maybe???!

The next morning was glorious and, seasickness tablets taken, we made our way to the whale watch check in. Our boat was a very fast catamaran but even on that flat windless day there was a strong roll in the sea - it could have been a miserable experience if we had actually gone out the last time in wind and rain. The trip lasted 2 1/2 hours and in that time we got to see eight sperm whales close up (about 40-50 metres from the side of the boat). We saw a few others in the distance as well as a small pod of dusky dolphins, some huge albatross and basking New Zealand fur seals. The whales were a very impressive sight, coming to the surface for air for about five minutes, blowing their blow holes, before diving back down again with a wave of their tail. The average for a trip is to see one or two whales so we were very lucky. The crew would scan the horizon for spray from the blow holes, then the captain would race over to the whale as they are only on the surface for 5 - 10 minutes before diving for about 40 - 50 minutes. It was all done very sensitively though, approaching the whales from the side so they could see us and decide whether or not they wanted to stick around, maintaining a minimum distance, not using any sonar, etc. There was a big emphasis on conservation and our guide was a mine of information about whales and all sealife off the New Zealand coast in general.

Fox and Franz Joseph Glaciers

2005-05-25T01:12:00.000+01:00

We spent a day driving from Milford Sound to Fox Glacier, a tiny village beside the Fox Glacier. The scenery on the way was beautiful, especially going through the Haast pass which took us through the mountain range to the Western side. At Fox Glacier we booked a half day glacier walk for the next morning. Although it was due to rain we awoke the next morning to a sunny day, and with 4 layers of clothing, hats and gloves we set off on the walk. There were two groups walking, each with about 10 people in the group. We walked up to the front of the glacier beside the river bed which flows from the glacier and then up the rocks leading up the side of the glacier. This glacier is very active, for example on one night following a rainstorm it moved forward 15 metres. When we reached the side of the glacier we donned ice spikes on our big hobnail boots and started to climb up steps that had been cut out of the ice. Whenever we stopped moving it was very cold, with an icy wind coming off the glacier. We saw one chasm that descended all the way down to the bottom of the glacier and heard bits of ice breaking off inside of it (cue everyone moving a few feet back!). We spent about an hour on the ice, the ice itself was really beautiful; with parts of it appearing blue under the white top layer, and black veins through it from ground up rocks, it looked like marble. Because the glacier is moving it grinds up rock caught in its path, turning the river a milky grey. Any alpine farming stock that fall in are turned to dust in just two weeks! The river that flows from the glacier, although it is quite shallow, is so powerful that if there is an ice fall it could sweep a person out to sea in a matter of minutes. Happily we all made it back down without falling in any crevasses/ rivers and we then set off ourselves to drive to the Franz Joseph glacier 20k north. There we walked to the face of the glacier, which was much larger than the Fox glacier but not as accessible on foot. At the end of the day we reckoned we'd ace any Leaving Cert Geography exam what with all the U-shaped valleys, terminal moraines, etc that we had seen!

Here are some pictures of the glaciers:

Fox Glacier

Franz Joseph

Milford Sound

2005-05-22T07:56:00.001+01:00

Milford Sound is the most northerly sound in the Fiordland National Park which takes up most of south west New Zealand. We arrived in Te Anau, the main town in the area and 120km from Milford at midday, filled up on fuel and food and headed out for Milford. The drive there was stunning as we wound our way through glacial valleys between huge mountains on either side. Some of these were snow capped, others had clouds floating half way up. We stopped off at several points along the way to take in the views which were more spectacular at each turn. We stayed at one of the two lodges in Milford which makes up the entire population of buildings in this village. The next morning we went out on a cruise on the sound and out into the Tasman sea. Our captain liked to get up close to the mountains on either side, bringing the boat right up under waterfalls and we got to see some New Zealand Fur Seals in the water beside the boat.

Dunedin

2005-05-22T07:56:00.000+01:00

Edinburgh of the south is what they call it. Our main reason for being here is because it's the closest town to the furthest point (which is out at sea) in the world from Dublin. We are 11,913 miles or 19,170 Kilometres from Dublin, we will never be further away than we are, we will see-saw back and forth as we go through South America but we have just begun the trip home. We went over the halfway point on the calendar a few days ago as well so from all respects we are now on the road home.

While in Dunedin we took a trip on the Taieri Gorge Railway, its one of those feats of Victorian engineering railways that cuts up through the absolute middle of nowhere. It's now a private railway run by enthusiasts as a tourist attraction and was 4 hours well spent, we saw parts of New Zealand that we would never have been able to get to at all.

Mount Cook

2005-05-22T07:55:00.001+01:00

Mount Cook National Park is about half way down the Southern Alpine Mountain Range that runs practically the entire length of the South Island. We stayed beside Lake Tekapo, which is surrounded by snow capped mountains and the following day headed to Mount Cook. The morning had started a bit misty but cleared up as we were leaving to give us perfect views of Mount Cook before we left.
First we walked to the Tasman glacier, the guide book says its largest glacier in New Zealand with depths at points of 600 meters and moves at 20cms per year. Now from that you would be expecting to see a massive block of ice coming down the valley. Off we set on the walk up to the glacier, it's only a short walk from the carpark, when we got to the lookout point there was a lot of rocks and no ice to see. There was a sign though that read 'Where is the Glacier?', apparently it's a retreating glacier and all the rocks were once suspended in the ice. At the point below where we were was a lake filled with melt water and apparently there was also another 200 metres of ice below the lake. Although we didn't get to see much of the glacier we did get a wonderful view back over Lake Pukaki and back down the valley. We then did the Hooker Valley walk which took a couple of hours and we got to see some icebergs quite close up which had fallen from the two glaciers in the mountains above, we also heard quite a few avalaches but could not see any snow moving from where we were.

Kaikoura

2005-05-21T00:06:00.000+01:00

Bit of a disaster here folks, well not so much a disaster as a drama. We arrived in Kaikoura with plans to see Whales, there are Sperm Whales that live all year round in a deep water trench just off the coast, and at this time of year there is also other species migrating through. So we booked our trip out for the following day and set off to see a Seal colony up the road.
The weather was a bit misty but no worse than a 'grand soft day' at home so we figured we would be well able for it. To get to the Seal colony you have to walk along a cliff top walk for about an hour before following a path down to the rocks before turning back the way you game along the coast straight through the Seal colony (the area is huge so we would never get too close to them). That's the way it's supposed to happen anyway.

We left the car at the carpark at the base of the cliff walk, where there was a Seal there who was just hanging around. As we got further along the cliff walk the weather started to get worse and the path basically turned into a mud track that was fairly boggy in places. As we were walking along we could look down to the waters edge but couldn't see any Seals but figured they would be around the next headland (the map at this point had basically turned to mulch). As we crossed over a stye in a field a cow noticed us and wandered over for a bit of a look. Julie wasn't happy about the cow's level of interest in us(!) so that cut off our returning along the cliff walk if the weather got any worse. Finally we got to the path down the cliff to the water and the Seals.

You should know that this Seal colony is huge, it's in all the guidebooks, on all the maps and has permanent road signs directing traffic there. So we arrived at the downward path fully expecting to round a corner into a colony of 1,000s of seals, all very David Attenborough. There was not one seal for as far as we could see. So off we set back along the rocks to the carpark figuring that maybe we had come a bit too far and we would come across them soon. We walked the full distance back to the carpark, about 45 mins, across very wet and slippery rocks (it was low tide) without seeing one Seal. When we finally made it back to the carpark there were dozens of them about 30 feet from where we had left from!

The next morning we awoke all set for our day Whale watching but the weather was even worse than the previous day so we were a bit unsure if the boats would be going out. We headed off down to the check-in station ready to head out, a bit dubious of the weather, but willing to give it a go. The company running the trip had a boat out from 7am and we were due out at 10, the 7am boat radioed a message back and our trip was cancelled. We will have to make up a day further on in the trip so we can go back and do it properly.

Marlborough

2005-05-17T02:31:00.000+01:00

Marlborough was our first stop in the South Island. Happily the ferry ride from Wellington in the North to Picton in the South was very smooth as it has a reputation for very rough seas and very sick passengers! The Marlborough region is just south of Picton and we decided to stay in the very small village of Renwick as a base to explore the wineries that the area is famous for. On our first evening we went to a lovely local pub, The Cork and Keg, supposedly done in a traditional English style (although being devoid of poker machines, filthy carpets and weak beer it wasn't like any traditional English pub we'd been in!) with a big open log fire. The locals were very friendly and we spent the night chatting away to whoever decided to come down and sit at our table with us. We had been told to make sure to spend at least one night in a tiny village meeting some real Kiwis and it was great fun.

The next day we hired bikes to explore the many wineries within a few Kilometre radius of our hostel. Unfortunately the sun and warmth of the previous day had been replaced by wind and rain, but we wrapped up and set off. We visited Cloudy Bay, Allan Scott, the Mud House, Huia and Wairau River vineyards. Cloudy Bay was the only one that we had heard of previously (again we skiiped the major brands because we can just taste those at home) and we got to taste lots of lovely Marlborough white wines in each of them. We met one owner who had left England with her husband to buy their winery a few years ago and are now doing so well (you can pay a fortune for their wines in Gordon Ramsey's restaurant) that we left feeling very jealous! Luckily the last vineyard we visited was very close to our hostel as we wobbled home on our bikes and spent the last bit of the afternoon sleeping off all the wine. We can't wait to get home and be pretentious!!

Taupo and Napier

2005-05-17T01:59:00.000+01:00

Taupo is a town on the shore of New Zealands biggest lake and is at an altitude of 1200 feet. It's bloody cold there. The wind blows across the lake and just hits the town square on. On the upside though it is a very picturesque town. It began its life, and still is to a certain, as the place where the Kiwis go on holidays.

The do however have loads of volcanic and seismic activity there. There is one area called The Craters of the Moon which was created after they built a geothermal power station up the road and changed the pressure structure of the steam underground. It's an area that does not have Geysers or more mature features like Rotoura but it has created craters that are active for a while before dying off and another area turns into a crater. This really does make the area look like the moon from certain angles, except for all the steam obviously.

We stopped off at the Volcanic Activity Centre, where they have working models of the inside of geysers, live seismic readings of the area and an earthquake simulator of a quake that hit there in the 80's. It was a 6.5 on the Richter scale and it causes a serious shake. We also went to see the Huka Falls which although they only fall 10 meters they are quite narrow and are really powerful, the flow of water is 400 litres per second.

Napier is a town about 2 hours drive away that was almost completely flattened in the 1930s by a quake. When the town was rebuilt almost all of the buildings were built in the Art Deco style. Some of the buildings are really gorgeous and although they have changed owners or functions over the years they all have the original owner's name or business outside them. Most are also really well lit. We did a walking tour of the town for a couple of hours and really got to see some detail that we would have probably missed otherwise.

Rotorua

2005-05-12T06:48:00.000+01:00

Rotorua is a town in the middle of the North Island whose attraction is based on the geo-thermal activity going on all around it. It has a huge geo-thermal lake, lots of hot springs, geysers, mud pools, etc - you couldn't dig a hole without hitting a bit of bubbling mud. It is also a Maori cultural centre with lots of opportunities to learn more about the Maori people. Oh, and it stinks.

On our first morning we visited the NZ Maori Arts and Crafts Institute Village, which houses a typical Maori meeting house and village. It also contains lots of mud pools, hot water pools and geysers, and a Kiwi bird house. Luckily for us the geyser erupted while we were there, sending huge columns of steam and water spraying into the air. Parts of the landscape look like anywhere but Earth, with grey mud mini volcanoes, plopping as the mud inside boils and yellowy sulphuric formations on the rock. The sulphur makes the whole place smell of rotten eggs, but you get used to that very quickly. While we were there we went to the Maori cultural experience in the meeting house which was a formal welcome, the haka, dancing and singing and traditional games. It was fun but pretty slick and commercial.

Later that afternoon we went to visit some of the lakes outside Rotorua which were very peaceful and lovely. They have been a popular tourist spot ever since European settlers came to New Zealand, but are now overlooked for all the fun and games within Rotorua so it was nice to get away from the crowds.

That night we did another Maori cultural experience, this time a hangi and concert evening. The one we attended is run by a family on land their tribe has owned for a long time and which contains areas that are sacred to them. A hangi is a traditional Maori way of cooking food; a hole is dug in the ground in which rocks are heated by burning wood, the food is then placed on the rocks, water poured over to created steam which is then sealed in. The food is slowly steamed for hours and the results was delicious and moist meat and veg. But before the food members of the family performed a fantastic concert, including a ritual welcome, a haka, dancing, singing, demonstrations of Maori martial arts, explanations of ritual tattoos, etc. Everyone was encouraged to join in by standing up and doing some actions and shouting. It was both entertaining and enlightening and the performers were really enjoying it too. It was much more authentic than the one earlier in the day but as each tribe would have slightly different customs and hakas they complemented each other rather than seeing the same thing twice. After all the fun and food we went for a short bush walk in the forest, learning how the Maori would use the forest for all their needs, and seeing some glowworms.

After such a hectic day we spent the next morning at the Polynesian Spa 'taking the waters' - lazing around in heated mineral pools, overlooking the lovely lake Rotorua.

Photographs

2005-05-12T06:46:00.000+01:00

There are a lot of photos here, we have done quite a bit since the last lot, and the dolphins are really cool so we figured it was worth putting up a few extra of them.

The 2 of us at Sydney Opera House

Sydney Opera House

The 12 Apostles, The Great Ocean Road

The 12 Apostles, The Great Ocean Road

The 2 of us at the 12 Apostles, The Great Ocean Road

The 12 Apostles, The Great Ocean Road

Out with Dave in Auckland

The view from the Auckland Sky Tower

The view down from the Auckland Sky Tower

Julie standing on the glass floor of the Auckland Sky Tower

Brendan standing on the glass floor of the Auckland Sky Tower

The Auckland Sky Tower in the distance

The Dolphins in the Bay of Islands

Northland

2005-05-10T09:04:00.000+01:00

We met Dave and drove up to the Bay of Islands, our first stop in Northland. Northland is the area of New Zealand above Auckland and gets some of the best weather in the country.

The Bay of Islands is, unsurprisingly, a bay with lots of small islands and we went to a town called Paihia which is the main jumping off point for tours of the bay. Paihia in itself is a lovely little seaside town with plenty of lovely seafood restaurants and little craft shops. We spent the first night sitting out the front of a bar around an outdoor fire, enjoying being out of the city again. The next day we went on a cruise around the Bay of Islands. We followed the route the creamery boat used to take, collecting the milk before the roads were made, which takes in most of what there is to see. The boat was also on the lookout for dolphins, who are regularly seen in the bay, especially outside of the high season. After only half an hour cruising we came across a pod of bottlenose dolphins. As they had young with them we were not allowed to get into the water with them, but they were very curious and came right up to the bow of the boat so we got up close anyway. There were at least 20 of them, and they jumped, back flipped, dove, swam under the boat, etc for at least 20 minutes. It was incredible to see them so close in the wild. We were all hanging over the bow of the boat for a better look, and one of them swam under us, swivelling around on his side to watch us watching him.

After that we visited the Hole in the Rock, which is an island with a hole right through it which we sailed through. Next stop was a beach for lunch and snorkelling. At that point it was sunny and warm so we got into the water and snorkelled around a bit and although we had spotted lots of rays from the boat there wasn't a whole lot to see in the water. Shortly afterwards it had clouded over and started to rain so from bikinis and shorts we were in jeans, jumpers and raincoats - a very Irish experience! After that we cruised back around more islands to Paihia and spotted, the same pod of dolphins again. You could also boomnet off the side of the boat - get in a big fishing net and be dragged along, but we didn't have a go as it looked more painful than fun. That night we ate the best fish and chips we've ever had (in a chipper voted best in New Zealand).

The next day we drove to Waipoua forest, on the other side of the island, to see the Kauri tree, the second largest in the world, and very important in Maori tradition. We saw lots of these incredible trees - one the largest existing kauri tree (girth 14m, height 52m) and the oldest living tree, around 2000 years old. There are very few of these trees remaining - only two forest areas in all New Zealand - as they were extensively logged by European settlers.

Auckland

2005-05-10T08:29:00.000+01:00

As the plane came in to land at Auckland airport we got our first view of New Zealand. The mountains came right down to the shore and the waves were breaking 100 meters off shore. The mountains are covered in a vegetation that is a colour green we just don't get in Ireland.
When we got into downtown Auckland we met up with an ex-Webfactory staffer who lives there now, Dave. He sorted us out with a room in the backpacker hostel he works in and out we went for a few pints. We took in a comedy gig, there's a festival on in Auckland at the moment so the place has loads of choice.

The next day we headed off to the Auckland Museum which has loads of stuff on the history of New Zealand but is particularly good on the Maori culture, so we learnt loads there.

On Friday we headed up the Auckland Sky Tower, its basically a big tower in the centre of Auckland that has nothing for 180 meters and then has 6 floors of a restaurant, bar, casino and viewing platform - which you can also jump off if you like. We decided against that!!
What it does have is a glass floor in sections, apparently the glass is as strong as the concrete but everybody who stepped onto it was very gentle about putting their feet down and most would hang onto the stair rail! The view from up there is amazing though you can see all of Auckland, including the harbour and all its boats, 1in5 Aucklanders owns a boat.
That evening we went to a Rugby Super 12's game between the Auckland Blues and Wellington Hurricanes, although the Blues were favourites the Hurricanes came out very much on top. The game was a complete entertainment package in the spirit of the Americans. They gave away a car at the very start to a person who was picked out randomly from the crowd another competition had 2 blokes in a hot tub with 3 girls next to the pitch with a case of beer! The team mascot is called Captain Bluebeard and he comes into the stadium on a boat pulled along by a jeep shooting fireworks and making a tonne of noise!

Auckland, and the North Island of New Zealand in general have so far been very like Ireland. The scenery in parts is quite similar, the roads in part are as bad and in some parts even worse, on the road just outside Auckland there is a warning of delays, but across this sign is another saying that these delays have been delayed! There is a bridge over Auckland Harbour, not unlike the bridge in Sydney, but a few years ago it started becoming a bottleneck in the rushhour traffic so the New Zealand Government awarded a contract to a Japanese company to attached 2 extensions to either side of the bridge, these extensions have been nicknamed (in the spirit of Dublin wit) the Nippon Clip-ons!

Melbourne

2005-05-05T06:49:00.000+01:00

Melbourne is a cool city, in all senses of the word, the bars and cafes spill out onto the streets and the athmosphere is great. Its a very different place to Sydney and the trams are a great way to get around the city.

The city was founded as a village and stayed that way for a few years until Gold was found in the hills around and the place exploded in size as a result. We did a 6KM walking tour of the city that concentrated on its life in the 1800s and the places that were famous (and infamous) during that time. Among the places we visited were the Gold Treasury Building and Vaults, the Immigration Museum (which even included a mock up of the inside of an Ocean Liner, inculding all 3 classes) a really georgous gothic bank (its still a bank & is a branch of ANZ), the oldest pub in Melbourne and another pub that is almost as old but is also where the Judge who hung Ned Kelly used to drink. The route also included some alleys and streets that we would have probably not have gone down otherwise so it was a great way to see the city.
We did a few of the other standard touristy things aswell - Federation Sq, the viewing platform on the 55th floor of the Rialto Building and a visit to the victoria Market.

Some of the houses are really georgous, Victorian buildings with wrought iron fences and balconies. Alot of them have fallen in disrepair or look to be occupied by students but are really close to the city. If you had the money to buy one we reckon that they could be worth a fortune when people realise exactly what they are living in

The Great Ocean Road

2005-05-01T03:00:00.000+01:00

We hired a car in Adelaide for a three day trip to Melbourne, taking in the Great Ocean Road. Our first day was all about putting in the miles to get to the coast so we could explore the Great Ocean Road at our leisure. We stopped the second day at a town called Koroit, just at the start of the G.O.R. This town is proudly Irish, with shamrocks in the street, Irish tourist paraphenalia in all the shop windows, and an annual Irish festival that was due to start that night. We had lunch in Mickey Bourkes Hotel, Irish Stew and Beef & Guinness Pie and a pint of Guinness. The pint of Guinness was painstakingly poured when the barman realised we were Irish and we debated staying for the festival which included a Guinness Tent - the homesickness nearly won out but we decided instead to keep going - a good choice in the end.

The weather was a bit wild and windy which made for spectacular waves when we first rounded a corner and got a glimpse of the Limestone coast - limestone cliffs, rock formations, caves, etc. It took us the afternoon to travel the short distance to Port Campbell, getting out every few minutes to look at another scenic lookout and a different view of the coast. The afternoon light and the wind making the waves roar made it a very special few hours! We stayed the night in Port Campbell, a lovely little seaside town, with pretty boutiques and restaurants. The following day we continued down the road, the main stop off being the Twelve Apostles - free standing limestone rock stacks that have been eroded by the sea into different shapes and sizes - watching the waves crash up against them, sending spray in all directions was pretty spectacular!! The rest of the road wound along the coast, with plenty of scenic points worth stopping off in, prompting many 'oohs' and 'aaahhs' as we rounded corners and came over hills. We arrived in Melbourne that night having spent two fantastic days on the road.

Adelaide

2005-05-01T02:27:00.000+01:00

We were welcomed in Adelaide by Brendan's relations, our main reason for visiting South Australia. It was lovely to arrive at an airport and be welcomed by a friendly face!

We spent five days there, chilling out and enjoying the area. Our first day was spent catching up and enjoying the sunshine (we had left a (relatively!) chilly Sydney that morning. Our second day we spent walking around Adelaide town centre. The centre is nice and compact with some beautiful buildings and parks. It has the same population as Dublin but is much more spread out, if that's possible! Over the next few days we relaxed a lot, enjoying all the home comforts we had been missing (satellite tv!) and having our dinner made us every evening. We went out wiyth Brendan's cousin (Anthony) to a few of the citys bars and a went to an out of way nightclub where one of Anthonys friends was the DJ. It was great to see a part of the city that we would have never seen otherwise and and all the better to get in free!

We borrwed a car and visited a lovely seaside town just outside Adelaide called Victor Harbour. It's like something from a film - complete with horse and cart, tourist train, crazy golf course and colourful wooden buildings. After that we visited a couple of wineries in the McLaren Vale - Kangarilla Road and Shottesbrook, but driving ourselves meant that we couldn't indulge the same way we had in the Hunter Valley! The South Australia Museum had really interesting exhibits on Aboriginal culture and the whales that visit the South Australian coast in the winter months - unfortunately we were a bit early to get to see them ourselves but are hoping to see a few in New Zealand.

Sydney

2005-05-01T02:23:00.000+01:00

We arrived in Sydney safely after a 3,800 KM journey in the van from Cairns. We will be returning to Sydney later in the trip (after NZ) so although we only had a couple of days here we will be back soon. After we had dealt with dropping the van back to Wicked, sorting out a place to stay and doing a few other Admin things we went off to see the sights.
Starting off with the real touristy things - we went down to the Harbourside to see the Opera House and Bridge. We spent about 45 mins walking around the Opera House taking pictures etc. but as it was a really nice afternoon (and we are on holidays after all) we went to the cafe/bar that is under the Opera House and sat down for a couple of very pleasant beers. Sitting in the sun Opera House to the right, Bridge to the left and all the boats milling around the Harbour in the middle.
The next day we continued with the touristy activities and took a 2 hour harbour cruise and was very interesting but really tacky! The audio commentary had the dodyiest sound effects accompanying the narration. After the cruise we went to the Sydney Museum, which had a very interesting display on the history of Sydney with old photos of the harbour etc.
We have did not have time to really do anything else so when we get back in June we will be very busy.

Australia Days 15 - 20

2005-04-22T02:21:00.000+01:00

We arrived in Brisbane for a couple of days that we filled walking around the city, it was our first Australian city and actually quite a nice place. We went to a museum (housed in the oldest building in Queensland) that details the history of Brisbane when it was actually a prison for people who re-offended when they were in Port Jackson (Sydney). We were given a tour by a local historian who the museum staff dragged out of the attached library; he had loads of stories that were not included in the exhibits themselves.

While in Brisbane we had to drop the van off at the Wicked depot for a safety check so got a look at some of the other vans, compared to the others ours is not that offensive and is actually in pretty good condition. Some of the 300,000 KMers were in a pretty rough state!

When we left we headed to Byron Bay for lunch and the afternoon. Not much to say about Byron Bay, it's very nice but the Aussie beach side towns all start to look the same after a while so we spent the afternoon ion the beach, as it will probably be our last beach side stop of the whole holiday. We left in the late afternoon for Nimbin.

Nimbin, for those who have not heard about it is a hippy/drug smoking village inland from Byron Bay and is the oddest place. Its history is that in 1973 the Australian Students Union wanted to highlight the decline of rural towns so they picked Nimbin as an example of this decline and decided to have a party there. That party is still pretty much going on! There are aged hippies and young people outside every shop trying to sell marijuana, marijuana cookies and every other kind of edible marijuana product they can think of. Thing is though we reckon that they are actually smoking and eating way more of their product than they are selling.
The residents of Nimbin are having their annual Mardi Grass later in the month, and as we read in the local newspaper (The Nimbin Good Times, says it all really!) it is being organised by the Hemp Embassy with the cooperation of the Police and local council (a few issues still to be ironed out at time of press!).
All of the shops have psychedelic colourings and even the local butcher has had to get in on the act. Who considering his largely vegetarian customer base seems to be doing quite well for himself. Quite a number of the shops don't even bother opening until midday!
It's the maddest little village and you get the impression that not all of the locals are enamored by the hippies but is was a fun place to stop off.

We left Nimbin for Dorrigo National Park which was brilliant. Dorrigo is a rainforest park that has some great trails going through the forest that shows the life of the rainforest, when a tree falls down they put up a few signs explaining what is happening with the opening up of a light space inside the canopy. They also had a solid canopy walkway (unlike the ropeway in Malaysia) that went around the trees with details of the birds that you could see and hear, although we could not see anything! They also had a couple of really good mountain lookout points that had amazing views.

We left Dorrigo for the Hunter Valley to visit some vineyards. We went on an organised tour that brought us to 6 different boutique vineyards, none of which had wines you could buy in the shops. They only sell through their vineyard, members club or to a few restaurants around Australia. It was really good to go to these as we would have never have gotten to try their wines otherwise. Everyone on the trip was up for a good day and it was great fun - although the first glass of wine at 10.30 in the morning was a bit tough!!
The vineyards we visited were Pepper Tree, Lucy's Run, Ernest Hill, Ivanhoe, Tulloch and Drayton Family, passing by Rosemount Estate and Lindemans a couple of times during the day. Our favourite was Lucy's Run - a tiny vineyard owned by a retired couple who only make about 1000 cases of wine a year and also make their own olive oil - we all left very jealous of their lifestyle!

Next stop Sydney.

Photographs

2005-04-14T03:39:00.000+01:00

Apologies for the quality of some of these shots but some of them were taken at long distances and in lowlight.

Orang-utan and baby

Orang-utan, juvenile male, in the tree

Orang-utan, 'Richie', the dominant male

Singapore Zoo

Julie holding a Red Tipped Boa Constrictor at the Singapore Zoo Night Safari

Singapore Zoo, Polar Bear

Singapore Zoo, Polar Bear

Our Campervan

Our Campervan

Our Campervan

Our last morning with Lesley

Billabong Sanctuary, Croc Feeding

Billabong Sanctuary, Croc Feeding

On board Maxi Ragamuffin, Whitsunday Islands

On board Maxi Ragamuffin, Whitsunday Islands

On board Maxi Ragamuffin, Whitsunday Islands

Australia Day 6 - 14

2005-04-12T08:04:00.000+01:00

We left Cairns for the long drive South stopping off at places we fancied along the way. On our way out of Mission Beach we saw 2 wild Cassowaries. Cassowaries are very large endangered birds, there are only about 1500 left in the world. All along the highway, for hundreds of KMs, there are warnings that some have been seen in the area and to keep your speed down, so when we did see 2 we did not want to be the ones to have hit them! You really don't want to have to make that phonecall!!
Cassowaries safely negotiated we headed for Townsville to visit Lesley & Ben. On our first night with them we went to Ben's parents house for a BBQ. It was a bit of a thrill for us to have home cooked food, well it has been 3 months! The following day we went out to Magnetic Island for the day. We hired a 'Moke', its basically a really small car with no roof, for the day and drove around the island before sitting down on the beach for a few hours.
It was great to see Lesley and Ben again and we really enjoyed our time with them.

We left Townsville for the Whitsunday Islands stopping off at Billabong Sanctuary just outside of Townsville. Billabong Sanctuary is a sort of a Zoo / Crocodile park with Koalas, Crocodiles, Dingos etc. We were there for the Croc feeding which was done in the Steve Irwin style by one of the keepers. It was actually really interesting, he fed 3 different pairs of Saltwater Crocodiles each of which behaved differently and he was explaining why as well as dodging the attempts made by the Crocs to get him!

So we arrived in Airlie Beach (jumping off point for the Whitsundays). We sailed around the Whitsundays on an 80 Ft Maxi Ocean Racing Yacht called Maxi Ragamuffin. This particular yacht won the Sydney to Hobart race 3 times (when it was named Bumblebee IV) and a few other races. Although the yacht is now a charter yacht for tourists it is still kitted out for racing and they still do race it in local races. We had to help the crew out, lifting and lowering the sails etc. All great fun. The boat was traveling through the water at an angle of about 70 degrees, at points the guard rail was fully submerged, we had to use the foot stops to stop us falling down the deck! All great fun! We also did about an hours snorkelling in a place called Blue Pearl Bay, which was very different to the Reef snorkelling we did in Cairns, the coral was not as good but the fish were far more curious and we were even joined by a Mauri Wrasse.

Maxi Ragamuffin

We have been largely uneventfully continuing our journey South stopping off at Rockhampton, Noosa, Maroochydore and are currently in Brisbane.

Australia Day 1 - 5

2005-04-06T06:19:00.000+01:00

We arrived in Cairns off of an overnight flight from Singapore to Darwin and another flight from Darwin to Cairns. Although we had the whole row of seats to ourselves we didn't really sleep, the plane landed at about 3:30am and we took off again at 5am. When we got to Carins we met another Irish bloke who had missed the flight yesterday because he thought it was 5pm!!, He has a point though, who ever heard of a flight taking off at 5am.

After we had got some sleep for the afternoon we got up and started organising stuff for Australia. We now have a mobile phone, if you want the number just email either of us, and we also sorted out a camper van to drive from Cairns to Sydney.

On our second day in Cairns we just walked around the town and generally enjoyed being back in 'familiar' surroundings where everybody spoke English and we were not seen as walking cash dispensers to the locals.

On our 3rd day we went to the Barrier Reef, we went with one of the smaller companies as the guys in the hostel reckoned they were a better bunch of people than on the 100 plus boats. It took us 2 hours to sail to where the dive company's bigger boat was moored. It was 2 hours of hell! The seas had 5 metre swells and the boat was going up and down with the waves, everyone on board was ill, the lads definitely felt it worse though, Brendan was sick twice on the way out (once there and twice again on the way back!)

When we got to the dive site though it calmed down a lot. We were given the option to dive or snorkel, we chose to snorkel because of Julie's Asthma and the minor problem of Brendan not being able to swim, although we were assured that diving is actually safer if you can't swim!!

We were given 'Sting Suits' to protect us from the box jellyfish, floatation aids so that we didn't tire to easily and in we went. There were 5 people in our group with a guide who was basically pointing stuff out to us under the water and generally making sure that we did not stray too far from the boat.

The whole snorkeling experience was brilliant, we were swimming over and around the edges of the reefs just looking at everything that was going on under the water. We saw clown fish (Nemo's!!), zebra fish, clams, huge parrot fish, coral (obviously!), loads of other fish we couldn't identify, the divers in our group and Julie even saw a 3 metre span Manta Ray with two small sharks attached to it's body.
It was a brilliant experience and we are definitely going to try and get back out to the reef at some point further down the coast.

We picked up our campervan for the trip south from these people http://www.wickedcampers.com.au/
Photos will follow at some point on the van!

We took it for a quick spin inland to see some of the national parks around Cairns and to get Julie used to driving it. We then headed off up to Cape Tribulation, about 150 KMs North of Cairns to have a look at some Aussie Jungle. Cape Trib (as its known) is the only place in the world where 2 UNESCO World Heritage sites exist side by side (the other is the Reef).

We then drove towards Townsville, stopping at some nice beaches on the way. We're here to meet up with Lesley.

So far we are enjoying Australia - it's both familiar and different at the same time, and the Australians are proving themselves to be a really friendly, nice bunch of people.

Singapore

2005-04-02T10:25:00.000+01:00

On our first day in Singapore we went to a resort island south of the main island called Sentosa. Its the type of tacky resort that every knows and either loves or hates. Every detail has been attended to and everyway of separating you from your cash has been exploited. The reason we went there was to go to Underwater World.

Underwater world is an Aquarium under which there is a transparent glass tube that runs for 85 metres through under the water. It was really interesting they had rays, fish and a few different types of shark, including Bullsharks. When we were there they were feeding the sharks and rays. A diver jumped into the water with a bucket and fed the rays and sharks (but not the bullsharks) from his hand. It was amazing to watch the rays as they would use the glass tube to support the fish they were eating and we could see it up very close. The diver would literally have to push and kick the Tiger Sharks away from the food and they managed to get their teeth into his chain-mail glove a couple of times, much to the worry of some of the watching public!

After we finished in Underwater world we went to see a Dolphin show. Its not something we would have gone to see normally but our ticket to UW was also valid for the dolphins so we went along not really hoping for much.
We were not surprised! They had the Dolphins doing all the usual tricks of balancing balls, 'walking' on their tails and waving at the crowd. It was the tackiest thing we had seen in a long time.

Our second day was spent wandering around the shops and city but that evening we went to the Singapore Zoo Night Safari. It's a tour of the nocturnal side of the zoo, totally separated from the main zoo (more on that later). The animals are in simulated moonlight and the visitors are in darken open sided electric trams (less noise) with a guide who points out what the animals are and what they are doing. We saw Tigers, Hippos, Rhinos, Lions, Leopards, Anteaters and Wolves to name just some. You can read more about it here though - http://www.nightsafari.com.sg

On our last day there we went to the main zoo, as most of you will know Singapore Zoo is one of the top Zoos in the world, second probably only to San Diego Zoo. It lived up to all expectations, when we arrived we wandered around for a short while waiting for the Polar Bear feeding. The bears were pretty lazy for the 10 mins before the show but after that they got up and started walking around the pen and swimming in their pool. The pool has a glass wall and we could see the larger male under the water swimming and generally just messing about. He was born in the zoo and knows exactly what is going on. When one of the staff was giving a talk on the bears he would come up to the glass and look at the people gathered and do a trick or swim back and forth so everyone could see.

The whole zoo is brilliant it was the total opposite to the Dolphin show, you can read more about the zoo here, http://www.zoo.com.sg/

Singapore has a pretty cool city centre atmosphere and although the Nanny State aspects are still there the place is very relaxed.

Kuching

2005-03-30T07:59:00.000+01:00

Kuching is the main city in Malaysian Borneo, and we arrived there very late after delays at Kuala Lumpur airport. The next morning we woke up to a lovely city on the Sarawak river. Kuching has a real colonial feel with white colonnade buildings along an esplanade, but also has a Chinatown and Little India. It feels very different to the Malaysian peninsula, and we even had to go through separate immigration procedures.

On the first day we explored the city on foot, and went to the excellent Sarawak museum which explains the cultures of the Borneo tribes. It even had a section of a lifesize longhouse to explore, which is a wooden building that houses
entire clans (up to 10 families will live in one). There is very distinctive art and sculpture here to the rest of Malaysia. That night we had an excellent meal - one of the best in a mainly lacklustre food experience in Malaysia. Seafood lovers take note of Kuching as the fish was divine!

The next morning we awoke to lashing rain so our plan to venture out to a National Park was abandoned and instead we went shopping (along with the usual tourist tack Kuching is actually full of wonderful handicrafts) and then did a boat cruise along the Sarawak river. At one point we were walking down a street and there before us on the pavement was a snake. Bright green, about one metre long, in coils, completely still. The two of us froze at first, then edged around it while locals passed by on motorbikes laughing and pointing. The people in Kuching are by far the best we have met anywhere - passing cars and trucks beep their horn and wave, people stop us on the street to ask us where we are from, everyone smiles and says hello and voluntarily gives us advice and directions, and not one person tried to rip us off!

One of our main reasons for visiting Borneo was to see some Orang-Utans and on our third day we went to the Semenggoh Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre where captive Orang-Utans are rescued, rehabilitated and released into the huge jungle nature reserve. There are 21 apes in the reserve, however as most of them have experience of humans they are semi-wild and sometimes make appearances. The centre has feeding times twice a day for any apes that are around and as we were there when the jungle's own fruit season had ended there was a good chance we would see some. We arrived between the two feeding times so the place was deserted apart from the two of us and the park rangers. There is very little else to see apart from some captive crocodiles. When villagers complain of crocs in the river this centre will capture them so they avoid being killed. However they seem to have a miserable existence as they don't get released again somewhere less populated but live out their life in a small enclosure.

So we were reconciled to waiting the few hours until the next feeding time when a ranger spotted an Orang-Utan in the trees making a nest. We watched it for about an hour in the trees when it then made its way down to the ground. It was a female with a baby and we got to get up close (about 10 feet away) as we all watched each other for several minutes. Then a small male started swinging through the trees above our head and later another female and her baby arrived. We spent about an hour and a half with the apes, just the two of us and the rangers. It was an incredible experience and we took stacks of photos! We didn't get too close as they are well capable of taking a bite out of you, but are happy so long as you keep your distance. They have been known to snatch tourists bags looking for food, and any tourist that doesn't let go gets grabbed and bitten!

After this lots of other tourists arrived for the feeding time. This took place about 400 metres into the jungle and on a raised platform about 50 feet from where we stood. We were all waiting for the star attraction, Ritchie, the dominant male, to appear. After about ten minutes of anticipation the trees started to rustle and a smaller orang-utan came to the platform, grabbed some food, and raced away again. This way we knew that Ritchie was coming and slowly he made his way through the trees. He was absolutely enormous, several times the size of the other apes we had seen. He sat on the platform and calmly ate every single thing in sight before ambling off through the trees again.

It ranked up there with the Grand Prix as the highlight of Malaysia and we left Kuching the next day for Singapore really sorry not to have more time to sample the wildlife, scenery, food and friendliness of Kuching and Borneo.

Photographs

2005-03-27T10:54:00.000+01:00

Railey Beach

Railey Beach

Railey Beach

The view up Bottle Beach from our cafe / bar

The view of our hut from the beach

The view of the beach from our hut

St Patricks Day, Kuala Lumpur

The Petronas Twin Towers

KL - Grand Prix city

A Renault F1 car outside one of the shopping centres

The view we had from our seats

Kimi's McLaren

Close up of the first corner. The tyre marks in front are from one of the Minardis and the marks to the right are from Jacques Villeneuve spinning off the track

Brendan at the race

Julie at the race

Hornbill, Kuala Lumpur Bird Park

Eagle, Kuala Lumpur Bird Park

Toucans, Kuala Lumpur Bird Park

Storks, Kuala Lumpur Bird Park

'Ferrari Birds', Kuala Lumpur Bird Park (we actually don't know what kind of birds they are!!)

Kuala Lumpur II

2005-03-27T10:17:00.000+01:00

As we had a flight to catch to Kuching we came back from the Jungle a day early, not to avoid anymore encounters with spiders! We forgot to mention that when we were walking around we also saw a metre long monitor Lizard walking by in front of us, which was really amazing.

We had heard about a bird park in the middle of KL so we went to check it out for the afternoon. The place was brilliant fun, its a huge park covered by netting with 'airlocks' between sections. They have hundreds of birds there of all different types. Everything from Peacocks and Hens to Eagles, Toucans, Storks and Pelicans. As we walked in they had to Mina Birds just inside the main gate who could speak English. They were great fun.

We could get up really close to a lot of the birds and some were even free to wander around with the people. Some of them probably didn't have enough space to really fly around, but I suppose that's the trade off with most zoos etc.

We saw them feeding Kites, a raw red meat and fish. It was quite funny because one of the Kites didn't like fish and would spit it out when given it!

At the moment we are on the island of Borneo in a city called Kuching, more on that soon.

Taman Negara

2005-03-24T10:54:00.000Z

Taman Negara is a National Park in the north of Malaysia that contains the world's oldest tropical rainforest. There is a river that separates the park from a small town with cheap chalet accommodation, and this is where we stayed. The river front is full of floating restaurants and tour agencies, however as there hasn't been rain in over 45 days some of the restaurants are more stranded half way down the riverbed than floating! The river is so low at the moment that boats often get stuck in the gravel and the passengers have to get out and push.

On the first morning we did a jungle trek and canopy walk. There is a long canopy strung high between the tree tops of the forest for about half a kilometre. At some points we were so high we couldn't see the ground for all the trees tops underneath us. The sounds and smells of the forest were all around us, although at times we were concentrating more on staying steady at some very wobbly spots!

After that we did a trek to the top of a mountain about 1.5 km away. While it wasn't far away the trek involved half walking/half climbing up a path covered in tree roots, leaves and vines and was pretty hard work, especially in the incredible heat! Our guide told us about many of the trees we passed and their uses as medicines or tools for the local indigenous people. We spent the afternoon recovering and that night went on a night safari. We were originally very sceptical about the likelihood of seeing anything with three 4WD full of tourists barrelling along paths with huge spotlights, but the trucks split up, and our guide was excellent at picking things out. We saw some owls, and small poisonous snakes, and the highlight - two leopard cats. These are like really big domestic cats with leopard markings. We were driving through a palm plantation in darkness with thunder and lightning overhead which made the whole experience even more evocative.

We also had closer encounters with creatures that day at the lodge that we were staying at. The accommodation was made up of simple chalets with a front porch and a lean-to kind of bathroom at the back. The setting was lovely, being beside the river and with lots of landscaping, but that also meant there were a lot of insects. Big insects. One of them decided to take up residency in our bathroom. He was a huge spider, about the size of a splayed hand, and a really fast mover. We discovered quite how fast when he raced across the bathroom floor underneath Julie's feet causing her to hurl herself across the room screaming. Luckily the lodge had an 'expert' spider catcher on the staff who chased it around the bathroom and pinched it between his fingers before waving it at the two of us as he left. We, of course, squealed like little children. Later that night, in the open cafe, a big flying beetle dive bombed onto Julie's shoulder. Bren chased her around the cafe trying to shake the thing off while the other residents laughed. However everyone was jumpy afterwards and the table beside us screamed when a cat jumped up on their table. In between times we dealt with mosquitoes, wasps, bees, ants, beetles and all sorts of other jumping and flying things. We are really coming to appreciate the small 'micro-fauna' of Ireland!

The next day we took a trip out to a settlement of local indigenous people called the Orang Asli (Original People). It wasn't quite as much of a human zoo as visiting the Hill Tribes in Chiang Mai, but it was still a bit strange. Our guide encouraged us to walk around and take pictures but it felt like walking around a person's house uninvited. However they did demonstrations of making fire, and making blowpipe arrows which was really interesting. We both had a go of the blow pipe, but we need a lot more practice before we'll be catching any monkeys for dinner.

Today we came back to Kuala Lumpur and tomorrow we fly to Kuching, in Malaysian Borneo.

Kuala Lumpur

2005-03-24T10:42:00.000Z

We arrived in KL by overnight train at sunrise. We could see the highrise buildings of the city from the train and then turned a bend to the very impressive sight of the Petronas Twin Towers in the distance.

The city was host to the Formula 1 Grand Prix while we were there (tickets had been sorted out before we even left Dublin!!). The whole place went F1 crazy. They have adopted the Sauber team as the home team and all of the street lamps have Sauber Petronas posters on them. There are replica cars in all the main shopping centres and on the main street corners in the city centre. We spent our first day walking around the city and taking in the race atmosphere. We went to the Petronas Towers for a look and ended up at an exhibition of the past 10 Sauber F1 cars in an exhibition space in the towers complex.

As part of the F1 madness we had read about a resturant that was doing a F1 special menu. When we got there it was in the 9th floor of one of the high rise hotels and was pretty crazy. Among the fare on offer was Kimi Raikonnen Ocean Cod, Michael Schumacher Rack of Lamb, Fernando Alonso Steak, Julie had the Rubens Barrichello Seafood Salad and Brendan had the Juan Pablo Montoya Grilled Chicken.

We spent St Patricks evening in an Irish bar in one of the suburbs that houses mostly ex-pats, the atmosphere was great. There were not that many Irish there but there was quite a few Welsh there.

The Grand Prix:
Our seats were great, right on the apex of turn 1. We could see turns 1 & 2, half of the main straight from the start line forward, in the distance we would see turn 4 as well as some pit activity. We went to the practice session for the race on Friday and headed out early for the practice and first qualifing session on Saturday. The atmosphere was building from day to day, as was the heat - on the Saturday it was already 36 Degrees.
For the race on Sunday we went out early to catch the practice & qualifying. There were only a couple of support races before the drivers parade and then an air display by the Malaysian Airforce. In Europe air displays have been banned over crowds because of the dangers of a crash, not in Malaysia! There were 5 MIG 29s in the formation and they performed stunts and high speed fly pasts right over the main grandstand.
The athmosphere for the race was fantastic. It was great to hear the different engine noises, for those interested the BMW sounds very good! Everyone was cheering all the drivers, especially when the Jordans and Minardi came by our corners. Although they all were out of the points they were having a great race between the 3 of them.
It was a very hot day though, it topped out at 40 degrees. Our seats were covered so we were shaded from the worst of the heat but it was still tough just to sit there some times.

Penang

2005-03-15T08:54:00.000Z

We arrived in Penang after another long day travelling. In Thailand nothing seems to go from A to B, you have to stop at C, confirm your ticket at D, get transferred to E, etc. Crossing the Malaysian border however was an absolute breeze compared to previous borders. All of us on our mini-bus also agreed that it was very casual until we were pulled in by the border police who shined torches in our eyes, demanded to know where we were going, inspected the bus and generally gave the impression that we were getting away without thorough inspections and time in a cell just because they were in a good humour that night.

We arrived in Georgetown in time to catch the second half of the Ireland - France match. Presumably the subdued atmosphere in our little cafe (the two of us and a guy from Belfast we met on the minibus) was reflective of pubs across Ireland.

Georgetown is a mix of Malay, Chinese and Indian cultures - we were staying in Chinatown and Little India is just around the corner, and as you would expect the food has been very good.

Penang was a British trading outpost and parts of it have a real old colonial character with white colonaded buildings along esplanades, convents sitting along side mosques, clock towers and forts and street names like Jalan Campbell and Jalan Argyll along with Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah.

We have done plenty of sightseeing and today we went up Penang Hill to get a view of all of Georgetown. We went up the hill in a funicular which ascendes at a slope of about 50 degrees. The hill is high above sea level but even there it was really hot - and Kuala Lumpur should be even more so.

Tonight we take the overnight train to Kuala Lumpur for the start of a great few days taking in St Patricks Day and, of course, the race!

Ko Pha Ngan

2005-03-11T06:04:00.000Z

We arrived on Ko Phan Ngan on Sunday night after a fairly painless but really messy bus journey from Krabi that involved a pickup truck to a bus checkin station, another pickup truck to the bus, a bus to the Gulf of Thailand port town, minibus to boat and boat to Ko Phan Ngan via Ko Samui. After all that it was too late to go to the part of the island that we wanted to go to so we had to spend the night in the main town on the island.

The place we wanted to go to is known as Bottle Beach and you can really only get to it by getting a bus to a village on the north of the island and getting a boat for 10 minutes to the beach. When we got to the port village we were told that the water was too choppy for the longtail boat to make the trip and that we would have to go by car. Que a pickup truck that belonged to the place were staying at loaded with food and drink for the resturant and bar. There were 3 lads already siting on top of the food and drink on the back of the pickup. Julie was put in the cab with 2 other girls and I was put with the lads on the roof with all of the bags and aforementioned food and drink. As was well for about 15 minutes as we drove along the paved roads, I was kind of thinking to myself 'what am I doing sitting on top of all this stuff on a pickup in Thailand with 3 randoms'. After we turned off the paved road onto a dirt track it was still not too bad, a bit bumpy but not too bad. Then we started going up some really steep slopes and kept going up more of them. By the time we came to going back down to sea level the dirt track had gone away and was replaced by a dry riverbed which was very bumby and very very steep. There were some parts of it that were more or less a waterfall. I then started thinking 'what the hell am I doing sitting on top of all this stuff on a pickup in Thailand with 3 randoms'!! Still we got there safely enough. When we got off the truck Julie was telling me that as the truck arrived at a steep bit the girls were all saying 'ooh', after the 3rd or 4th time this happened the driver and his mate started taking the piss out of the girls, which come to think of it might have encouraged them to go the steeper way down some of those drops.

After all the effort we finally got to the beach, which was really nice. The Andaman Sea side was probably nicer, but we are really talking degrees of perfection here. From Monday until Friday we just got up went to the beach for a while, had lunch, read on our bungalow balcony went back to the beach for an hour in the afternoon, grabbed a beer at about 5 and then watched pirated movies in the evening in the bar. The bungalowes did not have electricty until 6:30 in the evening when the generator was turned on, which also meant that the showers were cold(!), it was all very relaxing but we are glad to be moving on again.

Tomorrow (Saturday) we are going to Georgetown, Penang in Malaysia.

Krabi

2005-03-05T12:04:00.000Z

Pronounced gra-bee.

We arrived here two days ago, delighted with ourselves having spent a couple of hours in a plane covering a distance that would have taken us at least 2 days overland. At the airport we were welcomed by drummer boys and dancing girls. We are in an area that was one of the worst affected by the tsunami and which is being heavily promoted in Thailand to try and get visitors to return.

All the infrastructure is in place and we have only seen a very small bit of damage over the past couple of days, but the place is devoid of tourists. The cafes are empty, the tour companies have no clients, the harbour is full of diving and cruising boats tied up. Probably most telling is that no one is trying to con us or rip us off! It is estimated that it's operating at about 10% of its normal tourist capacity.

Yesterday we took a longtail boat out to a paradise beach cove about 30 minutes from Krabi town. Rai Ley is on a peninsula made up of towering limestone cliffs, white sand beaches and crystal clear shallow water. We went to the west beach for a day on a little piece of paradise. The beach was pretty quiet and there was plenty of room to sunbathe and swim. There were one or two indications of the tsunami - a battered speed boat, a bar that had not been rebuilt, and inland some random debris piled up together. Here's a picture of Rai Ley, we were on the beach to the left. It is one of the most beautiful places we have ever been.

Today we were to do a tour of local islands, however due to lack of numbers the boat didn't leave and we found ourselves at a bit of a loose end. So we went about 8 km out of Krabi to a Buddhist monastery with a mountain top shrine that takes 1237 steps to reach the top. It was bloody hard work climbing it in this heat!! There were many stops for recovering breath and drinking some water on the way up, and plenty of sympathetic looks from people skipping their way back down. It was worth all the effort though as the view was great. On the way back down we saw lots of monkeys, completely tame, coming right up beside you to try and grab food from your hands. They seemed particularly fond of gummy bears, chewing away with stuffed cheeks.

On the way back to Krabi town it started to rain - the first rain we've had since we arrived in Hanoi - the novelty wore off pretty quickly!

Tomorrow we are travelling to Ko Pha Ngan on the other side of Thailand, where we will spend a few more beach days before leaving Thailand for Malaysia.

Chiang Mai

2005-03-02T13:13:00.000Z

We arrived in Chiang Mai after a 15 hour (uneventful) overnight train journey from Bangkok. Chiang Mai is in the North West of Thailand and is supposedly the second city, but in reality its considerably smaller. Think Cork to Bangkok's Dublin.

The city has as its core a really old moated section with small narrow streets and low buildings, further out though the high rise hotels and neon lights have sprung up - we have mostly avoided that end of town. You also don't have to walk far to see the middle aged men with the late-teen / early 20s girls hanging off them.

Yesterday we took a guided tour to see some more of the countryside around here and to visit the villages of some of the local hill tribes. The tour lasted about 10 hours so we saw loads of the countryside, its a really beautiful area with high mountains covered by jungle and lower valleys that have been turned from poppy growing to coffee and even some vines - might be a new wine to try in a couple of years!
On the tour we visited a Butterfly Farm (as Julie pointed out, why would you farm Butterflies? The best reason we could come up with was that you would do it to charge 20 Baht to see them!). We also went to see a place that turns Elephant Dung into paper, its actually quite a clever process and the paper is really good quality. We also some big Buddhas and a few caves, but at this stage we have seen plenty of Buddhas so its not worth going into too much detail. From the viewing point of one Buddhas though we could look across the valley into Burma, doesn't count in the 'countries game' but it gave us a bit of a thrill anyway!

When we got to the hill tribe villages it was actually a bit weird. The village was composed of 3 different tribes (Akha, Lahu and Paduang Karen - the longneck people). The Karen you will have all seen on the TV, they are the people with the brass rings around the women's necks. Stick the name into Google and you will see some images.
To be honest we felt a bit weird up there, it had the feeling of being a bit of a freak show. The tour companies are selling a tour to visit hill tribes in their village, but that's just the spin when you get there its much more of a come at look at the freaks living in the mountains vibe. The women start to wear the rings at age 5, but we saw one girl who looked no older than 3 wearing them. They add an extra ring every year until the weight gets to about 6 KGs, but some go on until closer to 10KGs. Each ring is seen as a sign of extra beauty. We picked them up and they are very heavy, they don't actually extend the neck they work by compressing the ribcage to give the effect of a longer neck. We looked at a few XRays at the effect. We were told that unsurprisingly it was extremely painful.

In the end we were kind of sorry that we went because it occupies an uncomfortable moral ground between exploitation of these women for commercial reasons (there have been stories of these women being trafficked by other Karen tribes as they are so popular with tourists) and the preservation of a tradition that could otherwise have been lost. To our Western mind though you wonder are there some traditions worth preserving... well that's a discussion for another day!

As we need to make up some time quickly we are booked on a flight south to Krabi (jumping off point for Ko Phi Phi). We had not really planed to fly anywhere in SE Asia but we passed a travel agents that had a Thai Airlines 'After Shock' promotion. We don't know if that's just in bad taste or a simple translation error! Either way we are off to the area that was hit by the Tsunami but have been told by people who have just some from there that its in very good condition. After that we will be heading to the East coast (Ko Pha Ngan, Ko Tao and probably (cause we can't avoid it) Ko Samui for a few more days before moving into Malaysia. We won't be missing anything that we had planned to see by doing this, we can get 2 full days worth of travel into a half day.

Keep the emails and comments coming.

Bangkok

2005-02-27T09:27:00.000Z

We were up and waiting for our bus from Siem Reap to Bangkok at 7am, not really looking forward to what we estimated would be a 12 hour trip. An hour later a mini bus picked us up to bring us to the bus we would be getting to the Thai border. With apologies to our parents, the bus was a complete piece of shit. The air conditioning didn't work, there was no luggage compartment so all the bags were in the bus, the seat backs were broken, people had to sit in the aisles on top of bags. The suspension had been left out of this bus.

The road to Poipet was a red dust dirt track of 140 Kms. It took us only 7 hours to do this 140 Kms. As the air con didn't work we had to have the windows open which meant we all got covered in red dust, that was thrown up by every passing car and jeep - which included one too many UN jeeps! The windows were made of plastic as glass would have shattered with the rattling along the road. The novelty soon wore off.

We were delivered to the border crossing at Poipet which is everything a seedy border town should be. Somehow, someone has secured permission to build two enormous casinos in the no-mans land between the two borders. On the Thai side there is a warning that the authorities cannot be responsible for any loss of life as a result of leaving Thailand for gambling purposes! Later we were transferred to our Bangkok bound bus, after several hours languishing at whatever cafes were giving the kickbacks that week.

Our Bangkok bus in comparison was the height of luxury, frilly curtains and all.

On the bus we quickly realised that this country was very different to the last two - far more Westernised, they drive on the right side of the road (left), they obey the rules of the road, and later we could hardly believe it when a car slowed down to allow us cross the road. We got to Bangkok at 11 at night, deposited beside the Koh San Road.

We spent four days in Bangkok not sightseeing a huge amount - just the main attractions and wandering the city and it's many shops. We both really liked Bangkok - the food was fantastic, and we ate from street vendors most of the time, the shops were great and the huge air-con shopping centres became a haven when the temperatures hit over 35 degrees. Yesterday as a treat we went to the cinema (by the way don't go see 'Constantine') and before the show started we all had to stand and pay our respect to the king. The national anthem was played and a soft focus montage of pictures of the king's life accompanied the music. A far classier affair than the end-of-disco national anthem sessions at home.

Last night we got an uneventful overnight train to Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand, it's about 60 miles from the Burmese border. Here we will do some trekking out to the local hill tribes, but first things first and we're off now to the Irish bar here to make sure they're showing the match.

Some more photos

2005-02-24T13:08:00.000Z

The beach in Nha Thrang

Brendan at the Nha Trang sailing club

Julie & Brendan on the beach in Mui Ne

Watching the Rugby in Saigon

Brendan going down into the VC tunnel network

Some of the faces in the Khmer Rouge S-21 prison

Some of the faces in the Khmer Rouge S-21 prison

Inside the Khmer Rouge S-21 prison

Inside the Khmer Rouge S-21 prison

Crocodiles in the pub (see the wooden floor just at the top of the picture - thats the level we were standing on!!)

Crocodiles in the pub

Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat

Celebrating Brendan's birthday n the Siem Reap Foreign Correspondents Club

Siem Reap (Angkor)

2005-02-21T14:29:00.000Z

Hello from Siem Reap

We arrived up from Phnom Penh on the bus last Friday. Fairly uneventful except for the constant Cambodian Karaoke that the driver insisted on playing on the DVD player. 9 hours of it. Funnily enough we went straight to the Irish bar when we arrived!!

The rest of our first day was just wandering around Siem Reap and getting a feel for the town. That evening we went to a bar that some people we met in Hue told us about. They have a Crocodile pit in the bar, actually in the bar. You have to walk over it to get to the toilets. Its an open pit, only about a foot deep and is only protected by potted plants and the smallest 'wall'you have ever seen. The Crocs are mostly babies with a few adolescents but still Drink and Crocodiles can't be a healthy mix. We actually asked the staff if anyone has ever been injured and she said 'oh yes, people sometimes stick their hands in with some food and get the fingers bitten off'.

The next day we began the first of our 3 day tour of the Temples in the area. You will have all heard of Angkor Wat (which is also the worlds largest religious building), that is only 1 of dozens of Temples in the area. We started at Angkor Thom (the other big hitter) and spent the morning there, in the afternoon we went to Ankgor Wat itself. It was absolutely jammed with people, but we battled through up to the top of one of the 'beehives' to watch the sunset. In order to get up there you have to climb up steps that are very steep, very very steep. You walk up like a ladder but coming back down the steps are uneven so you can't walk down backwards. It was pretty hairy coming back down!

On our second day we got up at 5am to watch the sunrise behind Angkor Wat. The whole complex was much quieter than the previous evening was completely worth the effort. We went from there on a tour of the other Temples, some of which have trees literally growing out of them, another which the French dismantled in an archaeological excavation but when the Khmer Rouge came to power they destroyed all the paper work so no no-one has a clue where all the stones go. There are thousands of them all numbered and placed in what looks like a logical sequence but no-one knows the key to the numbering or sequence! On the 3rd day (today) we went to some of the more distant Temples, about 40 KMs from the town centre.
To be honest the whole place is amazing, its the kind of place that you could come back to again and again and still not see the same thing twice. Ankgor Wat was quite different at sunset than sunrise.

We also saw loads of wildlife driving around the Temple complex - Monkeys, Elephants and Lizards.

Tomorrow we are off to Bangkok on the bus where we will probably spend 3 or 4 days and then go north west to Chiang Mai. Its fair to say that this is the first place that we are a bit sad to leave, it was always going to be a highlight and it hasn't disappointed.

Some stats on the trip so far;
Julie is winning the pool tournament 8-4
Julie is also winning the Chess tournament 2-0 (but we were drinking beer during that!)
Brendan has taken 708 film photographs and at least 700 digital (some have been deleted as we went)
Julie has taken 250
We have slept in 11 hotel beds, 1 plane , 1 boat and 1 bus.

Phnom Penh

2005-02-17T12:05:00.000Z

We left Saigon at 8.30 am for Phnom Penh. Two and a half hours later we arrived at the border between Vietnam and Cambodia. In the searing midday sun we took our bags and walked up to a small corrugated iron cattle shed that was the exit stamp office. The procedure here was that your passport was stamped out in a delay directly in proportion to the bribe sticking out of the top of your passport. As we only discovered this when the bus drivers of the big air-con buses full of American tourists started handing big bundles of passports around the side of the office it was at least two hours before the official deigned to look at the backpacker passports.

We took our stamped passports and made our way across a dusty dirt track that marked the land between Vietnam and Cambodia. Here the cheery official was very fair about allocating time between the bribed passports and the queuing backpackers - something that has proved very indicative about the country we just left and the one we were entering. In Vietnam you were ripped off with a scowl, at least in Cambodia they are very friendly about doing it - scamming with a smile and a joke.

After hanging around for an additional hour waiting for everyone to get the requisite stamps we got back on our bus. Half way to Phnom Penh we had to get a ferry across the Mekong river. At the ferry terminal was our first indication of what Cambodia would be like. As soon as the bus stopped it was thronged with beggars and vendors of drinks, deep fried birds (fully intact), deep fried cockroaches (you eat them by removing the wings first). Ten hours after setting out we finally arrived in Phnom Penh, it's only 280 KMs from Saigon to here.

We are staying beside the lake on a 'floating' guesthouse. These are wooden buildings that extend out over the lake. They are very basic but make up for it with wooden verandas out on the lake that are a fantastic way to spend an evening.

Yesterday we started our sightseeing visiting the National Museum first. This contains many treasures from Angkor Wat along with post-Angkor art. It was interesting, but we are looking forward to seeing it in context once we have visited Angkor.

Afterwards we visited Tuol Sleng - the Cambodian Genocide Museum. This is a former high school that was converted into an interrogation centre by the Khmer Rouge. 17,000 people were interrogated, tortured and imprisoned there - mostly from the educated classes. Those of you wearing glasses or speaking a foreign language - you would have been first in line for questioning by the Khmer Rouge. It is an exceptionally harrowing place to visit. It is composed of four buildings. The first was made up of interrogation rooms. Each room contained an iron bed with some shackles/ bullets/ bullet ridden pillows etc plus a picture on the wall of a prisoner dead on the bed. It was very effective at conjuring up in your mind exactly what went on in the room in front of you.

The next building housed pictures of all who passed through Tuol Sleng. Organised by gender and age the pictures filled rooms and rooms. Some of the faces were clearly terrified, others were smiling at the camera - whether in defiance, ignorance or just in an automatic response to a camera it's hard to know, many more were expressionless. It was an intensely moving experience seeing these pictures of adults and children.

The following building had the cells where the prisoners were held - these were .8m x 2m in size. This building had three stories and the outside walkways were covered in barbed wire to stop desperate prisoners from committing suicide. Outside this building was a wooden frame, previously used by students for exercise, now used to string people upside down while interrogating them. If they lost consciousness they were dumped in a vat of rancid water to wake them up so the interrogation could continue.

The final building was a photographic documentary of the period. Especially interesting were comments from people who had been part of the Khmer Rouge revolution - some claimed fear of death as justification for what they had done, others were unashamed, and others regretful. Most tellingly those at the top have never faced punishment. The photo of Pol Pot has been defaced, spat upon and someone has written 'Red Demon' on it.

Today we then went to the Killing Fields where we saw the violently broken skulls belonging to all the people in the photographs we saw yesterday. Those brought to these fields were killed by being bludgeoned to death to save bullets. There is a monument seventeen levels high full of the skulls of those exhumed from the mass graves here. As you walk around there are pathways between small craters that were the mass graves. The pathways are still full of bones and fragments of clothes sticking out of the ground. You can even see teeth and jaw bones in the ground. Our guide had both parents killed by the Khmer Rouge and participated in the excavation of the mass graves.

From the desperate history of the past two days, tomorrow we are going to see the pride of the nation, Angkor Wat and the temples around Siem Reap.

Ho Chi Minh

2005-02-14T07:10:00.000Z

Everyone here calls it Saigon so so are we.

We arrived here on Thursday on the bus from Mui Ne only planning to be here for a couple of days but because of Tet the banks are still closed (that's now a week) and so is the Cambodian Consulate.

Saigon has been an experience though. Its totally different from the rest of the country. A fact that strikes you as soon as you hit the outskirts of the city. Although Hanoi is the capital Saigon is definitely the commercial and financial capital. Its full of high rise glass & steel office buildings with all the major banks and hotels represented.

We spent our first full day here just walking around the city to get our bearings and sorting out some admin stuff that needed seeing to. The next day we went to the Reunification Palace, which aside from the fact that it looks like UCD in a 1960's post modernistic way is not that interesting. We then had in lunch in a Vietnamese place that was close by. As soon as we started looking at the menu we knew we were in over our heads. It would be fair to say that we have been pretty good at staying away from Western and eating Vietnamese foods. But this place was something else. They only had one menu with English translations on it, which should have started alarm bells ringing. Some of the fare on offer included Snake head soup, grilled Frog, Dove & if that wasn't enough Turtle Dove, Sparrow and Pigs Ovaries. Needless to say we stayed pretty much middle of the road and just ordered some noodles but when they arrived they were topped with some meats that were definitely more organ than flesh, we made our excuses paid the bill and left.

From that place we went to the War Remnants Museum. It's laid out in 6 sections. One section is on the 76 photographers who were killed in the war and a selection of some of their photos. Another is mostly made up of bits and pieces of American hardware that the Vietnamese have picked up from around the country. They have planes, helicopters, jeeps, guns and lot of bombs.
There is a section on the effect that Napalm and Agent Orange (it killed the leaves on the trees) had on the population and continues to have with birth deformities, as well as Vietnamese bodies killed or tortured by US soldiers. It was pretty nasty stuff, a lot of the photos were very difficult to look at.
At the end of each section they have a comments book, which after viewing the previous images is mostly full of anti-American and generally anti-war comments, except while were there some bloke was going around writing
Give 'em Hell
God Bless America
Son of a US Green Beret
He then signed and dated it before taking a digital photo of what he had just written.
That night Ireland played Scotland in the 6 Nations. Wearing the jersey up to the Irish pub for the game attracted more Irish people to follow us so by the time we actually got there we had added 6 Irish girls and 3 Welsh lads (who we keep bumping into all down the country) to our number. Before the game in the pub there was a band called 'Whiskey in the jar' playing. Not one of them from Ireland, the singer was from Hong Kong, the bodhran player from France and the rest of the band (guitar, mandolin, tin whistle and accordian players) were Vietnamese. Fair play to them though they knew their stuff. At 11 when the match should have kicked off the pub suffered technical difficulties, the owner didn't have the channel showing the match!! There was almost another rising there and then. A rumour spread fast by one of the Welsh lads that a place around the corner had a South African satellite feed, you have never seen a pub empty so fast! So we missed the first 20 mins of the game or so, when we got to the new pub there were even more Irish and a healthy representation of Scots. A good night was had by all.

Yesterday we went to the Viet Cong tunnel complex at Cu Chi, about 50KMs outside the city. The whole area was cris crossed with tunnels during the war, the Americans had great difficulty finding the tunnels because the VC were pretty ingenious about hiding them and covering their tracks. So much so that the Americans just turned the whole place into a free fire zone and told any pilots coming back from missions with left over bombs just to drop them there before they landed. The tunnel complex itself spread for over 200KMs, as far as the Cambodian border. The VC even had a bomb shelter right underneath the American base in the area. Our guide was a member of the VC for 6 years and had loads of interesting things to say.
We went down into a couple of tunnels that were about 3 metres underground and saw some of the rooms that were used by the VC. Then we were offered the chance to go down into the deeper tunnels, about 7 metres deep and crawl along down there for a closer insight into what it was really like. Previous to this we had only crawled about 20 metres or so at any one time but this crawl would be closer to 200 metres (15 minutes underground). The guide said that it would be tough going and a couple of people did opt out. My god it was tough going. The tunnels are enlarged for tourists and were (dimly) light in places, but we could not even stand bent over so had to crawl, slide and climb and fall our way through them. As I said they were lit in parts but most of it was pitch black and we could not see where the tunnels fell way or went uphill. By the time we got out everyone in the group was pumping sweat and saying how difficult it had been. To be honest the physical part was nothing compared to the psychological effect of being down there and it took a good 30 mins or so to relax again.

We were then shown some of the guerilla weapons used by the Viet Cong against the Americans - holes in the ground with poison-tipped spikes camouflaged from view, pits with 'fish hook' spears so your leg would go in but not come out, pits with rotating rolling pin-like cylinders with eight inch nails all the way down so you would be torn all over your body as you fell. This, along with the proud boasts of the fact that many villages were friendly to the Americans during the day, but VC by night, mitigated some of the sympathy created by the War Remnants Museum, as it must have been constant hell for the US troops there as well.

After the tunnels we were offered the chance to shoot guns at some targets, the choice included AK47s (as used by every rebel you see on the news hanging out of a Toyota jeep!), M16s and get this an M60. For those of you who don't know what one of these is, stick it into Google for an image but lets just say its so big that they are normally bolted onto tanks and helicopter gunships. We didn't indulge ourselves but a few of the others did.

Last night we went back to the pub for the England France game, as the night progressed you could hear the beer taking effect. The Irish and Welsh went from muted support for England (for Ireland's and Wales' sake in the championship) to outright support for France, including several chants of 'Where is Johnny, where is Johnny'!! The second the match finished the English just left the bar.

Today is our last day in Vietnam, we are getting on a bus to Cambodia tomorrow morning. We have stayed far longer in Vietnam than we originally planned and have loved in parts and loathed it in others. Overall though it was really great, we have seen many aspects of life here and I think we will watch the country with interest over the next few years to see if anything changes. Most of the people we have talked to are getting sick of the ruling party and are cynical of 'their' communism. One guy told us that they have to pay for everything, including schools for the kids, "not like in Cuba". Even though official's salaries are low they are all going around in Mercs and BMWs and living in huge houses all paid for with the 'magic stick'! As more and more Westerners pile into the country throwing around incomprehensible amounts of money this will surely force people to stop believing the propaganda.

There are so many children working the streets here, and paedophilia is apparently a really big problem. Tellingly, the only schemes we came across to help street children (like restaurants, bars, that train them up and reinvest all proceeds into their campaigns) were owned and run by either foreigners, or people of Vietnamese descent who had left and returned to Vietnam and were shocked by what they saw. One bar was called 'Crazy Kim's Bar' because her Vietnamese friends thought she was crazy to get so worked up about such a commonplace problem as child prostitutes on the beaches of Nha Trang. We have met people further up the country who are also familiar with the work that Christina Noble is doing in Saigon. For a communist country the 'social' aspect seems to be entirely missing as we see so many homeless, child workers, and an overall lack of concern for people's lives (eg that so many Vietnamese are allowed lose their lives on the road here is shocking). Let's just hope we don't get thrown into jail for undermining national unity with these statements!!! (For the New Year several foreigners in jail for that exact offence were given amnesty and released).

Our next blog will be from Cambodia so Tam Biet from Vietnam!

Mui Ne

2005-02-09T13:14:00.000Z

Just a short update from Mui Ne because here, well, all we have done is go to the beach, swim in the sea, laze on a hammock, decide where to eat dinner, and repeat.

We're staying in a place called the Canary Resort. The resorts here are all very small - about 25 bungalows, a restaurant and a beach. It's a real little paradise - rustling coconut palms, white beaches, gentle waves - here's a few pictures http://www.canaryresort.com/photos.htm

Today is Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, it's like Christmas at home. Houses are decorated with trees - kumquat trees, yellow blossom trees, big pots of yellow and red flowers, etc. It's very pretty, but the celebrations seem to be going on in the privacy of people's homes so it's hard to know exactly what it's like.

Tomorrow we are getting a bus to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), after a wearisome encounter with a funny official (you all know him - 'the bus isn't running, hahaha only joking', 'but you have to pay more, only joking hahaha', 'petrol is more expensive at tet, hahaha').

We will write a more detailed entry soon, and respond to personal emails from Saigon, as our internet access in the past week hasn't been as good as the first two.

Hoi An - Nha Trang

2005-02-06T06:44:00.000Z

After leaving Hue we spent 3 days in Hoi An. The own is really nice, inside an area a little bigger than Temple bar it’s all preserved buildings from the 19th Century. It’s a real craft town, all of the shops were tailors (where we got some bespoke suits & casual clothes made up), art galleries and traditional craft makers. The food was amazing, as well as Vietnamese food they also have a few specialty local dishes. It’s the type of town that is designed to make you spend money!! At night a lot of the shops lit traditional lanterns outside their business. For those from Ireland the closest description of Hoi An is a living working bigger version of Bunratty Castle. We both really enjoyed our time there.

Here is a link to some photos of Hoi An and the My Son ruins that we also visited.
http://www.terragalleria.com/vietnam/vietnam.hoi-an.html

We then had the bus journey from hell from Hoi An to Nha Trang, it was an overnight bus that left at 6pm and arrived in Nha Trang at 7am the next morning. The bus was a 45 seater with 46 people on board, there were bags all down the center aisle – so much so that you had to literally climb up onto the seats and walk down the aisle to get off the bus when it stopped. The only thing missing from this bus was a cage full of chickens! After about 3 hours the relief driver hung a hammock between the dashboard and first set of seats, which at first we all thought was hysterical but after a few more hours of being trapped in our seats were really jealous off. Not that any of this bothered the 2 Vietnamese passengers on the bus, as soon as we hit the road they got down on the floor and slept all the way!

So we arrived in Nha Trang, it’s a beachside town on the South China Sea. The beach itself is gorgeous. It’s all you would expect, emerald coloured sea, bamboo cane sun shelters and coconut palms growing all along the seafront. The beachside road looks as though it was modeled on Nice, it's remarkably similar. The rest of the town though is a bit of a disappointment. It’s like a Spanish beach resort, lots of bars with neon lights outside and loads of people trying to get you come into this bar or that. We have spent our days here just sitting on the beach and reading. It’s been good to have a break from all the travel, touring and sight seeing. Last night we meet up with a gang of Welsh people to watch the 6 Nations game, we will be meeting them again tonight for the Irish game. As they said – they will have to return the favor for supporting them. My jersey will be worn with pride, even though I am likely to bake in the heat.

We are leaving tomorrow (Mon) for Mui Ne where we will spend a few more days beach side before heading into Ho Chi Ming City for a few more days. We are quite a bit behind schedule at the moment so will have to pick the pace up for the next couple of weeks.

Sorry for not posting a message sooner, but the last few hotels we have been staying in have not had free Internet access. When I fill up the digital camera cards again I will put some of my shots online, it’s a time consuming process so I don’t know when I will actually get to around to doing it.

Just because I couldn’t let the opportunity pass, below is a photo of the café where we have been hanging out for the past few days. These are shots that are already on the Web.

Hue

2005-01-30T09:02:00.000Z

Hello from Hue

For anyone following on the map Hue is about half way down the country just a few miles inland from the coast. We got here by train on Thursday morning, which was an interesting experience. Having never been on a Vietnamese train or talked to anyone who had we figured as we would be overnighting (15 hours) we would get the best possible seat. Which was a berth in a 4 berth cabin. Whilst the train was not bad, it was no Orient Express. The cabins were clean and although the pillow looked best avoided on the whole it was not too bad. We took a wander down the train at one point and compared to the cheapest seats, varnished hard wood, we were in the lap of luxury. The train company did however insist on playing this same song over and over on the PA, the only words we could make out were ‘Vietnam, Vietnam’ followed by about another 5 minutes of verse. We could switch off the speaker in the cabin, but the noise could still be heard from the speaker in the corridor. In the morning Julie said that she had dreamt about hearing music in her house and no matter how many CD players she unplugged she could not get the noise to go away! Our breakfast the next morning consisted of a small bottle of water and a piece of sweet bread thrown into the cabin by a pretty unmotivated Vietnam Railway worker. Ray Burke probably got a better breakfast than us!!

And so we arrived in Hue. It’s a much quieter city than Hanoi. Most of the backpacker resources (hotels, cafes & bars etc.) are on the south side of the city, with about half of the city’s northside taken up by the Citadel & Forbidden Purple City. Our first day here we sorted out a hotel room and wandered around the town and bought some warm weather clothes. Its 30C here compared to the 18-20C that was Hanoi. On our second day we went to the Citadel & Forbidden Purple City and spent several hours wandering around what is a massive complex. It is quite badly damaged in some parts, the French, Americans and a couple of Typhoons have all done their damage. It is beautiful place though and we took loads of photos. Some of the digital shots are below. On our second day we took a bike tour of the city and surrounding countryside. It was absolutely fantastic fun. The guide was great craic and showed us loads of stuff. We also traveled through some really small villages and saw loads of the life in the countryside. When we stopped at one site the guide showed us the mark of the high water level in the last flood in 1999. When were there one of the local duck farmers passed by us taking about 100 ducks to the butcher, it was quite a sight to see all these ducks being herded down the river by a guy on a boat. We also visited a working Temple and witnessed the monks praying. The older monks were taking it very seriously but at the back the younger monks had a dose of the giggles and kept missing the chimes of the bell, causing even more giggles! One of the other Temples we visited was where the first of the Buddhist Monks to set himself on fire in Saigon (HCM City) was from, they have kept is car and have a pretty gruesome photo of him burning in Saigon on display.

Today has been spent taking it easy, I have just been hanging around the hotel, Julie went to the local market. Where she met and had tea with a random local who had family in Ireland and a little time to kill this afternoon. The 2 of them had tea in a little place just off the market. The guy said he stopped her because he thought she might be Irish as she was so white!! Gotta get working on the tans! The last time we went to the market we just got constant hassle, but when Julie went today she said she got no hassle at all – her theory is that the traders can spot me coming over the crowd from a good distance away and they have time to sort themselves out! Lesson learnt there, I am staying out of markets unless absolutely necessary.

Tomorrow at 8am we are getting a bus a few hundred KMs south to a town called Hoi An where we will stop for a couple of days before moving on.

I hope that photos below are not killing your ability to read the Blog. Its good to know that at least some of you are reading and enjoying it!! I do sometimes wonder how we will keep up the regularity, but with no work we do have quite a bit of free time every now and again.

We have started writing the first set of post cards so hopefully should get them sent soon. Don’t hold your breath though!!

Some photos of the trip so far

2005-01-29T13:41:00.000Z

Below are some photos that we have taken on the trip so far.

They have been reduced in size quite a bit, but if they are still too big to download apologies. If you do find that the images mean that you can't read the site drop me an email and I'll remove them (maybe make them links).

These were all taken with the digital camera, so no critiques!

Brendan at a cafe on the lake in Hanoi

Julie at a cafe on the lake in Hanoi

Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum

Our junk for Halong Bay - The Dragons Pearl

When you don't know the way, follow someone who does!

Halong Bay

Halong Bay

Halong Bay

Other boats in Halong Bay

Brendan on the train from Hanoi to Hue

Hue Forbidden Purple City

Hue Forbidden Purple City

Hue Forbidden Purple City

Hue Forbidden Purple City

Brendan & Julie inside the Forbidden Purple City

Hue Street banner

Hue Tour - Pagoda

Hue Tour - The top mark is the high water level from the last flood in 1999

Hue Tour - King Tu Ducs tomb

Brendan & Julie in the grounds of King Tu Ducs tomb

Hanoi - Halong Bay - Hanoi

2005-01-27T07:30:00.000Z

(Tues 25th) Halong Bay is in the Gulf of Tonkin about 3 hours drive away from Hanoi. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site and is made up of about 2,000 uninhabited islands. We had wanted to go there to see the bay, but with the misty drizzly weather in Hanoi we were in two minds about it. In the end we decided to go anyway, figuring that we would probably not be here again and it might be worth it if the weather picked up. We booked a tour and headed off with about 10 other people.

The tour we booked was a 2 day 1 night deal, it was a bit more expensive than some of those available with other companies but claimed to use the ‘biggest and most beautiful boat in all of Halong bay’. The bus journey out was largely uneventful, as was the transfer from the harbour out to the boat, they kept calling it a junk – but I think that’s just to please the tourists. Junks are way smaller than this thing was. The weather was pretty hazy but we could see the islands so all was not lost.
We got out to the boat anyway and had a welcome drink, were assigned our rooms and had a bit of lunch. When we went back on deck there was a fog so thick you could not see 20 feet from the boat. We went up on the tanning deck of the boat to look out at the fog when we were told that the boat had lost where the deep water channel was just going to have to wait a little while for it to clear up a bit. While this was going on though there seemed to be a lot of running around being done by the crew and after a while it became clear that they had no clue where we actually where! At 1 time almost all of the 22 crew members of the boat were up the front looking out for landmarks. As this went on all we could do as a group was laugh. As the crew began to figure out that we had clicked it became even more obvious what had happened. The boat had a map and GPS and get this – no compass!! So although the crew could figure out to about 100 meters (their GPS was a bit rubbish!) where we where they couldn’t figure out which direction we needed to go in to get where we were supposed to be. The scene was like something out of a comedy scene with about 8 crew members all at the front of the boat pointing in 8 different directions and the guy steering (who looked about 15) seemed to be willing randomly pick a direction suggest by whom ever he happened to look at that second! Eventually when they found a buoy they gave up and we sat still for a while. During this time though a kayak came over to the boat with 2 very cold and wet Vietnamese people in it, who unfortunately for us didn’t have a compass either. When another boat turned up we followed them to where we supposed to be!! As a group all we could do was laugh, which was good because the mood could have easily gone the other way with people giving out etc.

Once they had taken us where we were supposed to be we were served dinner. There was loads of food and it was absolutely delicious. They always remembered any special request made by people (who don’t eat seafood, vegetarians, had nut allergies etc.) The next morning we woke up a gorgeous day the fog was all gone and the sun was out. We went to the ‘Amazing Cave’, which is, then cruised around the bay for a few hours before coming back to the harbour for our transfer back to Hanoi.

Halong Bay

Dragons Pearl Junk (our boat)

We got an overnight train out of Hanoi at 8pm on Wednesday night to a town about 700KMs south of Hanoi called Hue arriving here this morning. At first glance Hue is much nicer than Hanoi, the weather is much better its about 30C in the shade. The shops seem cheaper and so far we have less hassle. Although we have been told that that will change.

When we have spent more time in Hue we can do a proper edition about it. I would reckon that we will be here for at least 4 or 5 days, if nothing else just to relax from the constant pace of Hanoi.

Its great to get comments and emails from you all so keep them coming.

Hanoi

2005-01-23T15:39:00.000Z

Well, at the end of the first day we weren't hugely enamoured with
Hanoi, mostly because we were so tired, it was raining and negotiating
the streets takes some getting used to.

But on Friday we got out and about, had found our bearings and had
bought ourselves rainproof hats and we enjoyed it much more. We went
to Hao Lo prison, which was known as the 'Hanoi Hilton' by the
American troops that were held there during the Vietnam War. It was
very interesting to see the propaganda - there were pictures and
brochures of how well the Americans were treated and how much they
enjoyed their stay (realising the error of their ways, etc, etc) much
to the disgust of the Americans visiting the museum!! It was also
where the Vietnamese resistance was held during the time of French
rule and in some aspects it had a feeling of Kilmainham jail (although
I don't think they ever referred to the English in their exhibits as -
'the English aggressors and their lackeys'!).

We also went to the Women's museum which had great exhibits on
Vietnamese women's involvement in the wars and resistance.

We did a little shopping and had a delicious bowl of noodles hunkered
down on the side of the street.

Then yesterday we were up with the sun to go see the Ho Chi Minh
mausoleum, which closes very early, and we walked there, delighted
with how well we were negotiating the streets. However, we ended up
at the wrong end of the (huge) complex and had guards shouting and
waving to us when we tried to take a short cut to get to the entrance
(they take Ho Chi Minh VERY seriously here). Getting to the place was
an exercise in unbelievable bureaucracy. Firstly we were asked where
we were from (I wonder what answer means you don't get in - American?)
and as we were foreigners we had to leave our bags in the left
luggage. After much discussion and deliberation about our bags we
were told we could take them through, we were then sent back and when
we tried to leave both of them behind they insisted that we take one.
You then had to sit in on a video presentation (in Vietnamese) about
Ho Chi Minh before you could proceed. Then our cameras and phones
were taken out of the bag at another check in. We continued on with
our bag until another guard became very upset to see us with a bag and
we were sent to another left luggage place. So in the end we had no
bags but three different luggage areas to go back to - and we had
tried to leave in both our bags at the start! There was a quick walk
though the mausoleum where Ho Chi Minh lies and we found ourselves
outside cranky and a bit fed up with Hanoi again.

It started getting better when we had a great lunch at KOTO - a
restaurant that trains street children in the hospitality trade where
they progress to the top hotels in Hanoi. We then spent a lovely hour
walking around the Temple of Literature which was the original
university where the Crown Princes were educated. The professors are
worshipped, and it was a timely reminder that while it was a place
that we walked around photographing, it is also a place where the
Vietnamese come to worship. We also visited the Jade Mountain temple
on the Hoan Kiem lake, a lake in the middle of the Old Quarter, near
where we are staying.

Then last night we ate in a restaurant called Little Hanoi, that does
lovely Vietnamese food. We had eaten there on our first night but
there had been no noodles so we ventured back to try the noodles. We
also had a glass of Vietnamese wine, as a bit of an experiment.
However there was something in that meal that gave us an ominous
rumbling in our stomachs a small while later (we reckon the wine was
watered down with tap water) and so our plans for today were pretty
much put on hold by the inevitable stomach bug we had so successfully
avoided for the first few days.

Tomorrow we are going to Lenin Park and the Museum of Ethnology and
the next day are doing a two day trip to Ha Long Bay - at this time of
year the visibility won't be great, but hopefully it'll still be a
wonderful experience.

We'll then take an overnight train to Hue where the weather will be
good (you'd think being Irish we could handle the rain in Hanoi - but
it's really pretty miserable!!).

Dublin to Hanoi

2005-01-20T13:34:00.000Z

After the year of planning we finally left on Tuesday afternoon for Heathrow at 4:30pm. We were due to leave then for Bangkok at 9:30pm but due to "Technical difficulties with the aircraft" we were delayed until closer to 11. On the flight over we flew next to the Himalayas for a while, the view was amazing - I took some photos with the digital camera and will try and add them over the next few days. We arrived in Bangkok at about 5pm local time on Wednesday afternoon, dumped the bags and went straight to the hotel pool for a dip and a beer. Our flight to Hanoi was at 8am on Thursday morning we had an early start, not that really mattered though as we were awake at 2am bright eyed and bushy tailed. Still feeling the effects of the jet lag, but that should pass tonight.

I can't think of the words to describe how different Hanoi is to Dublin, or any of the other cities I have ever been to. The road in from the airport is lined on both sides with Paddy Fields but straight down the middle runs a very modern motorway with double decked bridges. I have never seen so many scooters before anywhere. There are literally millions of them, hundreds on each road with no real sense of formal road rules, anything goes. So far on the back of scooters I have seen people carrying washing machines, fridge-feezers, 8 large boxes piled up at last 3 times the height of the driver, chickens, pigs - you name it they carry it on the bikes. They all park the bikes on the footpaths and whats left of the path usually has the shop owners cooking and eating their dinner so you have no choice but to walk on the road, its more a case of the bikes dodging you and you avoiding the bikes. Which has made for some close calls!

The food is really good and we are starting to find our feet! Its very cheap, we have just come from a 3 course dinner with 2 beers and it all came to just under 5 euro. We then went to a bar and had a few more Vietnamese beers for about 75c each.

Tomorrow we are going to head off into the city proper, we have not gone further than about a 1 mile radius from the hotel. We are both looking forward to seeing the rest of the city.
Keep in touch
Brendan & Julie

The Going Away

2005-01-20T13:09:00.000Z

Thanks to everyone who made it to our going away party in O'Dwyers. We both really enjoyed the night and it was great to have so many of our friends in the one place. I think an extra thank you should go those everyone traveled to Dublin for the night, we really appreciated the effort.
B & J

The Final Countdown

2005-01-07T14:49:00.000Z

The Great Circumnavigation as our holiday has come to be known, or Around the World on 80 Grand as some ungracious people have christened it, is as almost upon us. We are almost ready to go on the trip now at this stage. Its been a long time coming and there have been a lot of sacrifices, lifestyle changes and nights in (although not too many of those!). I'm sure there are some of you who will be more than happy to see us off, having heard so much about the trip - lets face it its all we have had to talk about for a year! This weekend we will be moving most of the stuff out of our apartment back to our parents house. Julie is finished work on Thursday, I'm finished on Friday. 7 years in Webfactory, the time has flown by.

Its been weird saying goodbye to people over Christmas who we won't see again until we get back.

This blog is where we will be posting messages along our way around so you wont have to read long boring emails but can keep up to date with us as we go as and when you feel.

As most of you know the basic plan is

Leg 1 - South East Asia
Tue 18 Jan Dublin to London (Heathrow)
Tue 18 Jan London (Heathrow) to Bangkok
Thu 20 Jan Bangkok to Hanoi
Thu 31 Mar ex Singapore

Leg 2 - Australia & New Zealand
Thu 31 Mar Singapore to Cairns
Sun 24 Apr Sydney to Adelaide
Sun 01 May Melbourne to Auckland
Sun 29 May Christchurch to Sydney

Leg 3 - South America
Fri 03 Jun Sydney to Santiago (Chile)
Wed 08 Jun Santiago (Chile) to Puerto Montt
Wed 27 Jul Buenos Aires (International) to Lima
Sat 30 Jul Lima to Cuzco
Mon 15 Aug La Paz to Santiago (Chile)
Tue 16 Aug Santiago (Chile) to Madrid
Wed 17 Aug Madrid to Dublin

It breaks down more or less like this;

South East Asia
Vietnam, we will be travelling from Hanoi to HCMC over about 3 weeks

Loas, we are probably going to pop over from Vietnam for a couple of days

Cambodia, we will travelling to Phon Phem spending a few days here and then heading to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wot. Should be Cambodia for about a 1 week

Thailand, we have a few days in Bangkok, then a week to 10 days on Koh Pang Nang and another week or so on another island, probably on the west coast

Malaysia, we are going to spend about 3 weeks here on Langkawi, The Cameroon Highlands, Kuala Lumpur, inc. the Malaysian Grand Prix on March 20th :) we may end up going through Brunei depending on a few things. We will be in KL for March 16th, it should be a good weekend - Paddys Day is Thurs, there is a 6 Nations game (Wal V Ire) on Sat and the race is on the Sunday.

Singapore, we will be here for just a few days before heading to Australia

Australia & New Zealand
Australia, we are flying into Cairns and travelling down the east coast for just over 3 1/2 weeks. We are then flying from Sydney to Adelaide. We will go to a few vineyards around there and then hire a car to drive from Adelaide to Melbourne along the great ocean road

New Zealand, we are flying into Auckland and will be hiring a car and driving the North & South islands for 4 weeks before arriving in Christchurch for a return trip to Sydney for a few more days

South America
Chile, we have a few days in Santiago before flying a few hours south to Puerto Montt. We don't have specific plans from here on in but do want to try and get as far south as we can. I reckon that how cold it gets the further south we go will determine how far we actually go!

Argentina, we will cross into Argentina at some point in south Chile and work our way back up to Buenos Aires. We have about 7 weeks to do these countries so we have lots of time

Uruguay, we will get the boat from Buenos Aires to Montevideo and spend a few days here before having to head on again

Peru, we have to go through Lima so might as well make the most of it. At least we won't be there too long. We then have an internal flight up to Cusco where we will visit Machu Pichu.

Bolivia, we will cross Lake Titicaca and head for La Paz, before heading south to the salt lakes
The plan is then to return to Santiago to do some skiing so we will have to extend the return flight for a bout a week or so allowing us to do this. I also reckon we have left it a bit tight in Bolivia so may end up heading for Peru a bit earlier.

Then we are heading back to Santiago where we will do a bit of skiing for a week or so before coming home in late August.