Jump to New Zealand - Australia - part 1 - Australia - part 2 - Australia - part 3 - Indonesia - Singapore - Malaysia - Thailand - Laos - Burma - Cambodia

New Zealand

We flew out of the approaching winter of the U.K. to the approaching summer of New Zealand. We spent a few days in the glitz of Auckland recovering from jet lag, trying to progress my six week old struggle to get an Australian visa and buy ourselves a Ford 1.3 litre rustbucket for a couple of hundred quid. We also tried to book onto the Milford trail a very popular tramp, but it is booked up for the next four months, ah well. After this we headed north, within an hour of leaving the glass high rises of the city we ran slap bang into the middle of the nineteen sixties, small townships with old style shopfronts, weather board buildings and a very laid back feel about it all, and even the odd Morris Minor and Triumph Herald to add to the effect.

Our first major stop was in the Northlands at Paihia in the "Bay of Islands", the bay was so named by Captain Cook, because, well you know. Here we took the opportunity to have a day trip out on a tall ship (replica) which gave me the chance to nip up the rigging to the crows nest, standing there looking down to the deck seemingly a mile away made me feel like a real sailor, that was until they sent up a real sailor, an eighteen year old girl to go out on to the yards and unfurl the sails, and then I did a bit of steering to finish the trip, I don`t know why they needed a crew, when I did most of the work. Later we crossed over to the west coast and turned south to look for some Kauri trees, these trees are gigantic and live for up to two thousand years, they were also a living for the gum tappers, they would tap the trees to collect the gum which was used in polish, varnish and various products until the advent of plastics and polywotsits, so in come the loggers, to devastate as much forest as they could until someone realised that these national trees were being felled to extinction, the logging was stopped and the world is a better place.

Whether it is because of my prompting I don`t know but I have just had an E-mail from the Australian embassy asking for medical proof that I am fit enough to fly to Australia, the physical proof that I have reached New Zealand alive does not seem to count. But we continued south to the Coramandel peninsular for a few days, it is quite a rugged area where we managed to get in a bit of tramping, bird watching and history, we even went to a cave inhabited by loads of glow-worms, it is a tourist cave, Helen will not go in any other sort, on the tour through we saw the usual stalagmites and stalactites but half way in there was a cavern with several hundred glow-worms on the ceiling, and we stood there amazed with craned necks and mouths agape, we got the life and times of a glow-worm lecture, they flies and other insects using their glow to attract prey, when they eat, the food mixes with chemicals in the body which when excreted glows on contact with the air, all of our mouths shut instantly when we realised we were looking up at the luminous poo on a worms bum.

From here we continue south to Rotorura, probably the most thermally active area in New Zealand, there are hot springs, boiling mud and geysers, most of these areas are fenced off and you pay to go in like the one at Whakarewarewa, aside from these pay to view sites there areas in the town and it`s approach roads where steam, hot water or boiling mud just ooze out of the ground, one of the effects of this volcanic activity is the town stinks of rotten eggs although it is probably a healthy smell. We did some smelling, mud watching and steam watching and then went on to Taupo to visit some kiwi friends, across Lake Taupo is a view of our next destination Mount Tongariro or at least there would be if it were not for the low cloud cover, deciding to do this later, we headed east to the coast and Napier. In 1931 Napier was devastated by an earthquake and fire, a severe rebuilding program was carried out between 31 and 33 making most of the city classical art deco. Place names come about for some odd reasons in 1642 when Abel Tasman tried to here, he was repelled by Maoris and some of his were killed he named the place Murderers Bay. In 1769 when James Cook sailed round New Zealand he came across an inlet and he had doubts as to whether there would be sufficient wind to sail out again he never entered and called the place Doubtful Sound.

When a particular group of Maoris reached a certain lake they called it Rotorua which means second lake. Amazingly Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu means The place where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed, and swallowed mountains, known as land eater, played his flute to his loved one. It is a bit hard to find for some reason it is not on too many maps, but if you do find it, it is a not too easy getting past the "Welcome to Taumatawhakawhatever" sign.

We have been having a bit of unseasonal weather, several days of sunshine and then the odd downpour, so we going to zap down to south island for a change of location and a change of luck. The change of luck may have started as the Australian embassy have just E-mailed to say they have granted me a visa, AT LAST, as I bought my plane ticket more than two months ago I have been starting to worry. The change of scene has brought us back into the sunshine and we are off tramping in the Abel Tasman national park, a three dayer, full pack, tent, food the lot. We got a water taxi to Totaranui at the far end of the park and prepared to walk back, the first day is along a stunning coast line, blue seas, blue skies and temperate forest. Early afternoon we had to cross a river estuary and according to the tide table we had half an hour to wait for the water to be low enough to cross, whilst we were waiting some one who knew better set off, he took a long time and got to waist deep with his rucksack on his head, but he made it. I expect he was the first to get to where ever he was going but doubt that it was worth it. We waited to the right time plus a bit and went, but with Helen not having normal length legs, when we got to the middle the water was still too deep for her so in order to keep her knickers dry we had to stand there mid stream for another ten minutes to let the tide drop a bit more. That night we made camp on the edge of the forest and the sands of tonga bay.

Day two was similar blue skies, blue seas, forest and another river crossing although this time not as deep but a bit wider and a bit muddier and a camp at anchorage bay. Day three was just a straight walk out apart from a swing bridge, one of Helen`s pet hates, but you can`t win them all. A brilliant tramp we are now keen to do some more. Back in Nelson, over night we had some torrential rain, our plan is after we finish with camping we are going to dump the tent, so we brought an old one, after last night it has proved to be not as waterproof as it could be, so we had to whizz off to the local D.I.Y. superstore to get a tarpaulin to go over the tent. This done we headed south to Kaikaura for some whale watching, the boat we went out on had all the gizmos, sonar, hydrophones and the best skipper in the bay. Out in the bay we were stalking a whale waiting for it to surface, in case you did not know, with one breath a whale can dive to three thousand metres and stay down for some two and a half hours, but we are creeping forward very slowly, the crew up top on look out, all us punters on the fore deck watching and waiting, and watching and waiting, and our skipper skilfully twiddling his gizmos, and following !!!!! our target whale, until we get a radio call from another boat to tell us the whale has surfaced behind us, worth paying for a good skipper. But we did see three sperm whales, quite a sight.

After Kaikaura we headed south to Christchurch but on the way we stopped at Hanmer Springs to sit in the thermal pools soaking up the sun and drinking cold beers, travelling is hard. Christchurch, we have been here before but we spent about ten days here seeing bits that we missed before, doing a bit of tramping and visiting three lots of friends and had a great time. Further down the coast at Oamaru we went penguin spotting, we saw a few, yellow eyed and a lot of little blue. Most of these penguins spend all day at sea up to forty kilometres out and return at the end of their hunting day to climb cliffs to their nests to feed the young and do the house work. Down to Dunedin, the usual plus a brewery tour, and a look at Baldwin Street at 1in 2.8 the steepest street in the world (allegedly) we did not think the rust bucket would make it so we walked up to have a look, all the houses on it are built on stilts, with one side touching the ground and the other side well clear.

So on to Invercargill the home of Burt Munro and the worlds fastest Indian, although Burt and the Indian went to their happy hunting ground many years ago the legend still lives on. We had a few days on Stewart Island which, although inhabited is a total nature reserve, whilst here we went out to do some Kiwi spotting, but as Kiwis are nocturnal and we are strictly dayturnal we did not have a lot of luck, well none actually, we had hoped that at the moment it light until gone 11p.m. the Kiwis may have got fed up with laying in bed, but it seems they can sleep for New Zealand. Wending our west we got to Milford Sound a real beauty spot, but unfortunately today it is cloudy and damp, but at least it is not raining and this is a rain forest area, this is also the end of the Milford trail that was too full for us to do, and, so they tell us the last section of the trail is really muddy, like knee deep in mud, I think it is a shame we couldn't do it ! but we did do a boat trip around the sound and it is very impressive.

On to Queenstown and Wanaka this is an area where it all happens, but I think it all happens for the young, fit and daring, so we limited ourselves to a jetboat ride on the Shotover river, awesome as they say over here, a lot. Off to the west coast and Haast a small township that advertises itself as being on the edge of the wilderness, it looks it from the outside and looked it from the inside, when we went into the supermarket to get some food we were confronted with rows of empty shelves and a couple of empty fridges, the last time I saw food shops like that was in Romania or the D.D.R. (East Germany) caught on the hop we had a strange concoction for dinner that night, and so did every one else in the camp by the look of it.Mick ice climbing We made our way north up the coast to Fox Glacier, where after viewing the glacier here and at Franz Josef, I signed on for a days ice climbing at Fox, going up a vertical ice face hanging on two ice axes and crampons, in one place we even had to go over a hump and down into a crevasse to climb the face the other side, awesome, bloody awesome. As we were wending our way north taking in the sights and some of the history of the area, I kept on at Helen about how good the glacier was and how much she would enjoy it, not ice climbing she doesn't do that sort of thing, eventually we turned round and had a day`s drive back to Fox for a day`s glacier walking, here it comes again, awesome. Clambering about amongst the crevasses and seracs, an amazing world all of it`s own, and thankfully Helen did enjoy it.


We had a quick whizz up to Arthur`s pass, the central crossing over the Southern Alps, on the way we stopped at an old hotel in Otira for a coffee break, the present owner used to visit the area and loved it, when the hotel closed down and came up for sale he and his wife packed up in Christchurch and bought it for $70,000 (about 25,000 G.B.P.) about ten years ago, after the sale it came as a bit of a shock to find that they had also bought the community hall, the fire station, and six cottages for that price, from postman to owning a township in one easy leap. Back north again and up to Golden Bay the area of first significant gold find in New Zealand, in the late eighteen hundreds there were a number of gold rush areas and in our travels here we have come across a number of old gold workings some were big sites that required towns for the workers and some were just small tunnels in the hillside somewhere in the middle of a rain forest, today even with tarmac roads most of them are very remote but in the late eighteen hundreds it must have been a job on it`s own finding where to dig and a long way to cart the loot. But men were men in those days.

Back to the plot, we did another cave tour this one besides having all the dangly bits also had the remains of to Moa, a giant flightless bird that was hunted to extinction, they came in a variety of sizes from about one metre high to over three metres, the two in this cave fell through a hole in the ground and were trapped until they were discovered hundreds of years later, one was a small one and the big, they passed the femur round from the big one, it must have weighed about six kilo`s (one bird bone) wow. Golden Bay is in north west corner of south island, we did a couple of day walks on Farewell Cape and Farewell Spit, also on the northern end of Abel Tasman park, and from here we head to Picton and the ferry back to North Island. From Wellington we went up the west coast. We needed two new tyres on the front wheels, when I bought the car I did not expect too much for the money but I had a quick scan round and I thought the tyres would last as we are only here for three months, but we have driven over a lot of harsh roads, unsealed roads and rough tracks, and it has taken it`s toll, talking to the owner of a small camp site we were staying at about our problem he led me over to his barn and we came out with two used tyres which I got fitted at the garage next door, all for about fourteen pounds, that should last us, but I expect I can find some more crap roads in the time left.

We have had a funny old mixture of weather for a summer we have got quite a tan, but we have had to buy a tarpaulin to keep the rain out, we have to put on hats and sun block to keep the sun out, and we have had to wear our fleeces to keep the cold out, and our plastic pocket calculator has warped in the heat. When the first settlers came here from Polynesia they named this land "Aotearoa", the land of the long white cloud, I think I know why, but now back to Tongariro to do some more serious tramping, the last couple of weeks have been sunshine all the way so we are happy and planning our walks, that night it rained and the next day was iffy, the forecast is poor and we are cursing and waiting. We are doing some local walks while we are waiting, we have decided not to do a multi day tramp due to the unstable weather, (I must be getting old) it rains every night and is cloudy in the morning and scorching hot in the afternoon, but the mountains stay in cloud until quite late and I do not want to do the crossing unless we can see it all and enjoy it, but after three days we have done all the local walks the weather is still the same and the forecast is thunder storms, so it is good bye Tongariro, we packed up and left, another consideration was the threat of a "Lahar", lahar is an Indonesian word for a mud,rock and debris flow from a volcano, there are warning notices everywhere about a predicted lahar from Mount Ruapehu and where to assemble if an event occurred, the last one was ten years ago and the biggest one ever went right through the middle of our camp, so weather forecast and lahar forecast combined we are off, and as we dropped out of the mountains we dropped back into the sunshine.

As we did not do the tramping we had planned, we wandered about a bit sight seeing for our last few days here, we went to Gisborne where we saw the statue of young Nick, Nicholas Young, was Cook`s cabin boy on the "Endeavour" and on 9 October 1769 from the mast top he was the first to see land, he probably shouted out something like "land ho, Gisborne off the port bow" being in need of provisions they headed for shore and the landing party became the first Europeans to set foot on New Zealand. The local Maoris gave them a traditional welcome, (a traditional Maori welcome is some what like the Haka with a bit of spear waving thrown in) somehow, Cook and his men misunderstood this greeting and shot the welcoming party and headed back to the ship without provisions, so Cook named this area Poverty Bay. Further up the coast is Hahei, and on a beach nearby, hot water comes up through the sand, below the high water mark, so, when the tide is out you nip down the beach with your shovel and dig a hole in the sand and you have your own hot pool, well you and two hundred other people, if you dig too near the source the water is too hot, too far away and the water is too cool, too fast a flow rate and the sand is washed back in to the hole, so most of the time you are just digging to keep six inches of water, but it was a lot of fun. Back to Auckland get rid of the car and on to Australia. A great time, a great country and very very friendly people. AWESOME.

Australia - part 1

Transworld cycle is turning into transworld driving as our first thing to do in Australia was to buy a car, when we come to sell it we will be in Darwin which is a bit of a one horse town, and that is only on the days that the horse is in town, so we want as cheap as we can get to minimise the risk of loss, but we have a long way to go and a lot of desert to cross, so this time we have got something bigger, more expensive, hopefully more reliable, but still a rust bucket.  I also have to get used to some new road rules, in New Zealand if driving down the road you want to turn left and there is some one coming the other way who wants to turn right, they have the priority to cross in front of you, a simple rule if not logical but we have seen a number of near misses.  Here in Melbourne on some road junctions you wish to turn right you indicate right pull into the right hand lane and when it is clear you turn right, at other junctions you indicate right pull into the LEFT hand and if it ever gets clear turn right, possibly not quite so simple or logical, but then we are down under.

No visit to Melbourne would be complete without popping into the public library to learn of the life and times of Ned Kelly and see his suit of armour, then across the road to the Melbourne central gaol where he was held until at the age of twenty  five he met his end on the first floor gibbet.  Our first touring destination is Tasmania, and after our fruitless searches in N.Z. for the invisible, mythical kiwi, our first aim here is to look for the hopefully visible duck billed platypus, and amazingly on our third foray into platypus land we found one, a fascinating little creature, and this one gave us quite a display of frollicking about for some twenty minutes before disappearing into the depths.  In the boot of our car the cover bits for the rear lights are missing and over a period of time all of the bulb holders have been knocked out and stuck back in with masking tape, chewing gum or whatever was to hand,  and as we have knocked out the reversing lights twice I thought I had better sort out the problem myself properly, "gaffer tape," popping in to my local mitre 10 store, (no more homebase for me I have changed my loyalties) I asked "have you got any gaffer tape or whatever you might call it here" the helpful helper thought, and said "do you mean 100 mile an hour tape," well I didn`t know the answer to that one so we went and looked, finding the tape he said "they reckon you can tape your car together and do 100 miles an hour and it will still hold" amazing I replied, do people really tape their cars  together ? I don`t know, but that's the story, he said.  So I bought some and I now know that if I do one hundred miles an hour my rear lights will not fall out.  (if the story is to be believed).

Anyway flush with success about the platypus we now want to see the Tasmanian devil, wombat, spot tailed quoll and the probably extinct Tasmanian tiger, but before all that we have to go to Evandale for the Penny Farthing World Championships, a friend of ours from Rochford is on a bit of a world tour, on a penny farthing and is here, for the races, so perhaps we can give him some advice and encouragement.  And thanks to our advice, or Helen screaming at him during his races he came second in one of the events.  There were some geriatrics there, one old boy was doing acrobatics on his penny, including going along standing on the saddle, Helen kept nudging me with her elbow and saying look he is over seventy and he`still active, a bloody good weekend and a lot of fun.  Heading north we camped at place called Kelso Beach, as night fell out came the wombats, wallabies and possums, unfortunately most of these things seem to be nocturnal so viewing times are awkward, some time during the night there was a bit of a scrap going on outside the tent, but by the time I had got the tent undone to watch it was all over and they were off, whatever they were.  After that Mount William park and hundreds of kangaroos even in daylight and right up to the tent.  Some people we met at the penny farthing event invited us round to their place at Avoca, so we went and stayed a while, they had an old timber homestead which they have been working on and it is complete with outside dunny, and the bath is in a shed even further up the garden, also here was Joff our penny touring friend, I think this is our last meet up before we both get home.  We are travelling in opposite directions at the moment but we will be going to the same countries later so who knows. 

As we continue our journey we are going to a few historical sites, mainly penal institutions, although nothing man made in Australia is more than two hundred years old there is very little left of it, and as we stand reading the notices of the hardships and the life and times of the men and women in these penitentiaries we are looking at a field with half a dozen bricks in it.  Port Arthur is excellent almost the whole township of cells, homes, work places, the governors house and even churches are in good condition and worth seeing.  We had a quick look at the Deportation Research Group`s data base and could find no family members listed, but a proper search costs ten dollars and as we come from good upright families we considered this not worth it.  Three years ago a friend of mine came to Tasmania and complained about being cold at night in his tent (Dick Smith for those who know him) we have been here for over three weeks now and have only got summer weight sleeping bags and we have been alright,  ........................up until now, despite most of the days being hot to very hot the nights have suddenly gone cold and we have had to go to Big W. and invest twenty dollars (about eight pounds) in a duvet to see us through our last two weeks here.

We spent most of our time in the national parks walking and looking at the flora and fauna all of which is amazing, it was somewhat dwarfing amongst the Eucalyptus Delegatensis (Gum Topped Stringy Bark) they grow up to ninety metres high and they only have foliage and branches on the top third of the tree.  We also took in a bit of culture, we went to the theatre to see a play, although theatre may be a bit strong, it was a sort of semi open air arrangement, and play may also be a bit strong, as it was a two man act, depicting the escape of eight convicts from Sarah Island, they only managed this with the help of the audience, (the actors not the convicts).  After this we were finishing our trip here in the highlands, when we arrived we did a good walk to the dramatic Cradle Mountain, that night it rained next day snow was forecast, we went to the coast. Tansmania is Australia`s smallest state and about one third of it is made up of national parks some of the rest is Aboriginal land, state forest, nature reserves and private reserves, the remainder is farming and towns, there is a LOT of wilderness (as in wild) and a plethora of wild life including Kookaburra, Bandicoot, Platypus, Wombat, Echidna, Pademelon, Potaroo, Quoll and Tasmanian Devil but we had no luck with the possibly extinct Tasmanian Tiger, perhaps next time.  Van Diemans Land is a fantastic place to visit, highly recommended.  But tomorrow we take the ferry back to the mainland.
P.S.  I forgot AWESOME

Australia - part 2 - Melbourne to Perth

Back on the mainland after we got ourselves sorted out we headed west on the Great Ocean Road.  After the first world war thousands of Commonwealth troops returned home to countries like Australia and New Zealand facing recession and no work.  The governments at the time took the bull by the horns, and put these men to work on what must have been at the time quite obscure projects, mainly road building, and usually in out of the way places.  Nowadays with tourism these roads are popular drives. The Great Ocean Road is one.  The last time we were here we cycled it West to East, and toward the end of it we saw some Koala Bears, this time we are only  going a short way along it looking for those Koalas again, and lucky enough we find them, they had moved on to some new trees since we were here seven years ago, but that's progress.  Out of approximately one hundred and forty species of Eucalyptus, Koalas only live on one, which narrows down a bit where they can exist.

After the animal search we went on a long lost relative search, one of Helen`s great uncles emigrated to a town called Colac, and worked as a blacksmith. It was when we were at the historical society trying to pick their brains, I now find out that, other than in the thirties Helen is not sure when he came, she also does not know his christian name, AND he had also packed his hammer and anvil and gone back to Suffolk.  Despite the fact that every body in historical society looked as if they were working here at the time, and may have remembered him.  We did not have a lot of luck.  Driving around the area off the tourist routes we came across farms in remote places and with nothing more than dirt and rock, some of them bordering the largest salt lake in Victoria, it looks hard now, it must have been bloody hard in the thirties.  As we travel we have to take our hats off to the pioneers in various countries, even today in 2007 some places look like the wild frontier, fifty, one hundred, two hundred years ago life must have been unimaginably hard.  Ha, well, back into the comfort of the car and on the bitumen highway and off to our next destination.

The Grampians National Park, a forested mountainous area which last year had the misfortune to be the target of seven lightning strikes, causing a devastating and widespread bush fire.  It is quite amazing, much of the flora here is adapted to fire, in this case a lot of trees died and will be dead for ever, but most, after looking dead sprout out new life, even the under story of grasses, ferns and bushes have sprung back into life.  A lot of the park is still closed, but from the mountain peaks it all looks green.  We did a few good walks and saw some spectacular scenery.  We are now on our way to Adelaide, we have had a couple of nights in bush camps which are pretty basic, tonight we staying at place called Meningie, Helen is sitting in the camp kitchen diligently writing up her diary, putting "we are staying in a nice camp on the shore of Lake Albert", meanwhile a Canadian is trying to light the gas, during his fiddling the gas tap fell apart and he managed to ignite the gas coming out of the pipe giving us a three foot flame across the room, when I told Helen to get out, she just HAD to collect the note book and her diaries before fleeing the scene.

After that little bit of excitement we ambled our way up to Adelaide for a few days and then on to Port Augusta.  I would have to say that the town was a big disappointment, a bit of a backwater town, and nothing like I remembered from my last visit, but thinking about it the last time we were here we had just come from two months in the outback, so perhaps anywhere would have looked good.  Prior to heading west we did a quick tour of the Eyre Peninsular, first stopping at Iron Knob the sight of the first and biggest iron ore mine in Australia, after over one hundred years of production it closed down in `ninety seven, we did a trip round the mine, but it was only to the old, old workings and not the superpit that is still in the news even today ten years on. The trip also included the township, that even with some one hundred and fifty inhabitants left doing........ I don`t know what they do, was a bit of a ghost town.  Going down the east coast of the peninsular we stopped at Whyalla where giant cuttlefish come to breed, spawn or whatever, but although there may be some about, we were a month to early, on down the coast.  Near the tip of the peninsular there are two conservation parks where there are supposed to be brush tailed bettongs, we stayed in both but did not see any bettongs,.......... I think they make these names up.

One of the places we stayed was Coffin Bay, not named after the box they take you away in, but named after a friend of navigator/explorer Matthew Flinders, Sir Edward Coffin, there`s a name to carry around with you.  North again up the west coast and some stunning coastal scenery and a stop to look at some inselbergs, called Murphy`s Haystacks, these are amazing granite rock formations straight up out of the ground, and then worn by the elements.  To the top and ready for our trip across the Nullabor.  The general advice for driving the Nullabor road is, "Get the car serviced, tell the 'servo' where you are going so he can do everything needed for the trip, take plenty of water, spare petrol, spare hoses, spare plugs etc. etc. drone drone". I think if we spent that sort of money on our twenty four year old car it would be cheaper to fly, but we have got plenty of water, a Leatherman multi tool and a roll of sticky tape.  Setting off from Ceduna (Aborigine meaning resting place) we head west, after a while we stop for a coffee at a place called Penong (Aborigine meaning water hole) and then on to the Nullabor (Latin meaning no trees) where the Romans come into it I don`t know.

Along the road we crossed the dog fence, this is a four thousand five hundred kilometre (2800 miles) fence, stretching from the coast of the Great Australian Bight in South Australia, up through New South Wales through Queensland to the Pacific coast, to keep the dingos out of sheep country.  On our first night across the fence, instead of possums and kangaroos sniffing in and around the tent, we had dingos all night.  After our night at the Caiguna roadhouse we were on the most famous stretch of the highway the 'Ninety mile straight' one hundred and forty seven kilometres of dead straight road, Helen, who is navigating (?) even put the map away for a while, she got the map out again for the bend, about a twelve degree turn and then another fifty miles of straight.  Somewhere north of us is the Indian/Pacific railway, and somewhere in it`s length it has the longest straight in the world, at four hundred and eighty seven kilometres (300 miles) makes our ninety miles look a bit sad.  The end of the highway is now in sight, at Norseman we turn south.  I had been looking forward to the Nullabor crossing, and the most I can say about it is  "it is bloody boring"  but you know what it`s like, some one has to do it.  It is just like a Sunday drive,.......well perhaps more like a Sunday,Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday drive, and  I never even had to use the sticky tape.

From the town of Esperance we turn west and wend our way round the coast, taking in a number of national parks.  Between Esperance and Ravensthorpe we crossed the famous `rabbit proof fence, this fence starts from the coast here and runs for one thousand nine hundred kilometres (1200 miles) north to the coast near Broome` (they like their fences here) I must say that seeing rabbits both sides of the fence I could not work out which was supposed to be the working side.  When we left Ravensthorpe I noticed a little road that ran parallel with the main road, but on the edge of the Fitzgerald River National Park, and on the map it looked like a sealed road.  The roads over here come in two types sealed, which has tarmac, and unsealed which doesn't, some unsealed are very good and some are four wheel drive only, some we have driven down you would not take you car if you loved it, but back to the plot, we took this side road, it started off as a good wide gravel road after about twenty kilometres it narrowed another ten kilometres or so and we were down to two wheel tracks through the grass and bush, but after a while we were back onto narrow dirt track, but unfortunately it seemed to have had water meandering down it over the years leaving quite a wide crevice in the track, as it was wider than our tyre width and wandering all over the place, we had to keep crossing it and recrossing it and try and drive between the gap and the bush, I was very relieved when we came to the end of that and back onto a wide gravel road, at this point Helen even stopped chewing her finger nails.

We whizzed down the road merrily until the ditch right across the road stopped our gaiety.   A small stream ran across the track leaving us the problem we cross or we turn round and go fifty kilometres back along a crappy road?  One side of the road had two traffic cones with big iron stakes holding them in place, the other side had obviously been crossed by four wheel drive vehicles, well in for a penny and all that, bearing in mind this looked a little used route and it is possibly a day or two`s walk to help, we went for it, so with my driving skills and copious amounts of oohs, aahs and oh my gods from the navigator we crossed the divide.  Alls well that ends well, especially when we were back on the sealed road.  Carrying round the coast, there is a lot of incredible,stunning,amazing,etc., coastline, we started to turn north, and on our way to Pemberton I was thinking that in my recent working life I was losing enthusiasm for working up ladders, and my ladder only goes up twenty eight feet.  Enough of day dreaming at Pemberton we went to the Gloucester tree, a giant Karri, named after the Duke of Gloucester during a visit in 1946, the only problem with this particular tree was, someone had put in a series of spikes spiralling round the tree to the top some sixty metres up, this exceeds the height of my ladder by some one hundred and seventy feet.  You what it`s like, if it is there, someone has got to do it, towards the top the spiral petered out in favour of almost vertical, and from the top I think they under estimated the height of this tree by about six hundred feet.  But some amazing views.  That done heart still pounding and muscles still aching from over enthusiasticly gripping the rungs and the navigator relieved that she still had a driver we carried on our way.  Just south of Perth we went to visit a friend of a friend, we had a few days there unwinding, it was really good being in a room with a roof over our heads, even though we had to share the room with a Harley, my friends have got some funny friends.  And then to Perth the capital of W.A.

Australia - part 3 - Perth to Darwin

Leaving Len our Harley riding host was not easy, he was such a great host it was a hard job dragging ourselves away, but go we did, a quick whiz round Perth and ready ourselves for our planned trip up the coast. The best laid plans of mice and men. We E-mailed a sort of distant relation (I think) to inform him he would like a visit from an unknown sort of distant relative, who, I was told lived just north of Perth and out in the sticks a bit, as it a small place I could not find it on the map, but after arrangements were made I found it was seven hundred kilometres north, no problem, and five hundred kilometres inland, which is not exactly on our coastal route. But it is in a part of W.A. known as the Goldfields.  The night before we got to Sandstone we stayed in a place called Mount Magnet, and talking to the campsite owners about the availability of food, as when we to get something dinner in the local supermarket here was little to buy, `as the truck doesn’t come until Thursday`, but the camp owners go to Geraldton three hundred and fifty kilometres away, making it a four hundred and fifty mile round trip to the supermarket every fortnight.  And we are going further into the bush.  In Sandstone’s glory days of the gold rush it had a population of some eight thousand, now days the town has thirty nine people living in it, but the shire of Sandstone has one hundred and forty nine voters in it’s twenty eight thousand square kilometre boundary.  We had a great time sight seeing and learning about life in the bush.  A policeman calls once every two or three weeks for a cup of tea, the doctor comes once a fortnight (be ill on time) and an emergency rush to hospital is one and a half hours for the flying doctor plane to come out and a one and a half hour dash to the hospital. 

One of the past times here is gold hunting, there are a number of big mines here and a lot of people have leases for prospecting on various plots, our host is a proficient prospector and took us out so we could find some gold, with Helen thinking of new earrings and me thinking of a medallion  I set about the task, after several hours, (twice) two rusty nails and an old button later I decided not to give up the day job, (well if I had a day job to give up).  We had the same problem dragging ourselves away from our hosts, but we have places to go, and I had to leave before I was gripped by GOLD fever.  Five hundred K. to Geraldton on the coast was a drag for us, but to some people here it is just a shopping trip to the supermarket.  Turning north we stopped at the national park town of Kalbarri, where we eventually got a good fish meal, we a long way round the coast looking for some good local fish, and here we found a no frills restaurant, it is run by two bikers, you bring your own drinks, glasses, serviettes and service, and they supply an awesome barbecue fish dinner, so good we went twice.  We also did a bit of trekking round the park before heading to Monkey Mia, a small seaside place on a really weird peninsular but the BIG attraction for Helen was the dolphins. 

For over forty years dolphins have come in to the shore to interact with humans, these days the whole thing is strictly stage managed by the national parks authorities to ensure the dolphins do not become dependant on human handouts,  (it is a shame social services do not think the same way) in the morning they are some fish to entertain the crowd, but only one fifth of their daily needs, they have to find the rest themselves, luckily for Helen she was chosen amongst others to feed the critters, standing in no more than nine inches of water holding the fish, the dolphin would swim right up and take it out of her hand.  The whole thing was an amazing experience and for Helen it was knicker wetting excitement.  We also took a wild life cruise on a catamaran that once won the Sidney to Hobart race but on this occasion we just wandered around looking for more dolphins and turtles.  Although it is nearly midwinter here the temperature is around 29c. (85f.) but we are definitely moving into fly country, little bush flies that do their best to drink from your tear ducts or up your nose, they are a real pain and we have had to resort to the net, one of the local fashion accessories available is personal fly net that goes over your hat and covers your face keeps the flies out and makes you look like a right plonker.


With the onset of winter heat we need to get in some swimming, and Coral Bay is our first big stop.  This near the southern end of the Ninglaloo coral reef, it is one of very few coral reefs that have formed on a western coastline.  One of the great advantages with this reef is it is close to the shore, you can just walk off the golden sandy beach and snorkel out to it.  We have been to a lot of places in the world where we have been one month too late for the whales or two months too early for the penguins, two months too late for the dolphins even in Whyalah we were several weeks too early for the giant cuttlefish, but here on the Ningaloo reef it is slap bang in the middle of shark season, every year the giant whale sharks visit here for two or three months, and we just had to book a trip to go and swim with these magnificent creatures, our day on the boat consisted of a swim round some corals to practice getting off and on the boat in some sort of fashion, and then with the aid of a spotter plane go after the sharks, the plane would spot a shark the boat would chase after it, but the shark would dive before we got there, this, happened six times, but one came up along side the boat and we were all ordered into the water to chase after it, us chasing after an animal designed to live in the sea and swim thousands of miles, no chance, but another was spotted and we were able to get into the water in front of it and let it come to us, it definitely was AWESOME as this eight metre giant passed close by us, fortunately they the gentle giants of the sea and can grow up to eighteen metres in length and weigh up to sixteen tonnes, making them the biggest fish in the sea, and our close encounter with this one was magic. 


Next day we packed up the tent etc. and left, well we drove across the road to the supermarket (some of these supermarkets about as big as your local corner store, but in them you can buy food, haberdashery, fishing gear, car spares, boat spares, tools, plumbing gear and sometimes even farming or mining equipment) we only wanted bread, on the way back with our bread we diverted into a tour shop booked on a Manta Ray trip, went to the camp next door and put the tent up again.  Planning!!!  On the Manta search we swam around some great corals and colourful fish and some reef sharks but we have seen all these before, moving onward we came across some Eagle Rays and quite a few turtles, moving on again we found our Manta, apparently it was a medium sized one, approximately two and half metres wing tip to wing tip, what can we say, once again, AWESOME, to swim along with these majestic beasts of the oceans is an unforgettable experience.  Two days after our last departure we left Coral Bay this time for real.


Heading north we were planning to visit another national park, most of these are four wheel drive accessible only, all the information we had on this one was either vague or conflicting, so unlike us we phoned ahead to ask, and was told that the gravel roads had been graded recently and were O.K. for conventional vehicles, once we had turned off the main road and went east, after about forty miles of tarmac we hit a four wheel drive only road which meant turning round going back to the main road and looking for another route in.  It would seem the park is drivable it is getting to it that is the problem.  After some more doubtful advice we eventually went down a mining company access road, which meant we had to watch a twenty minute video on driving the road and get a permit.  I must say although the park was good it was not worth the hassle of driving one hundred miles each way down a dirt road, but there you go.  Shortly after this we ran out of cash, luckily we had some free camps and the official camp and the petrol station took card, and we always carry four days supply of food and water for emergencies, although running out of dosh was not the emergency we had in mind.  It was four days before we got to an A.T.M.  Nothing is handy here.  It was also at this point that we crossed back over the rabbit proof fence, some two thousand kilometres up from where we crossed before, can’t say I noticed any difference.


Arriving the town of Broome we planned to rest awhile, but, Broome is a nice town, but. The only thing we really liked here was the cinema, the town has two cinemas one indoor showing a film we wanted to see and a fantastic outdoor cinema we wanted to go to showing a film about nuns.  The venue is ninety years old, the seating is just rows of deckchairs and the whole thing had a brilliant atmosphere apart from this week’s film about nuns.  We did not stop as long as we thought we would, and we moved on to the smaller and more remote town of Derby for a quick look round, while we were here we went on a trip to a place called horizontal falls, this involved our first sea plane flight, out to a remote bit of coastline where we transferred to a high powered inflatable, and supposedly for safety reasons we had to drive along beside the plane as it took off, I don’t know what the point of it was but it was a bit of  fun, after that we toddled across to these falls, all it is went the tide comes in it goes through two narrow points to a couple of lagoons, the restrictions cause a horizontal waterfall effect, and of course the reverse thing on the ebb tide, half way through one of the falls the driver held the boat stationary, but it was necessary to do 35k.p.h. through the water just to stand still.  This with a bit of fishing and having the catch on a barbie aboard a houseboat, was great and finishing up with the seaplane flight back over the Buccaneer Archipelago made a great day out.  Also in this area we came across the Boab tree, it is an odd shaped, fascinating and useless tree, although you can eat some of the roots and some of the leaves if you are that way inclined, but there are a lot of them about and they only grow in this north west corner of Australia.


From Derby we have a decision to make, take the Great Northern Highway, (1000 K’s of tarmac) or the Gibb River Road, (650 K’s of dirt) The Gibb River Road spends at least four months a year closed due to the wet season floods, later in the dry season it is so carved up that it is serious four wheel drive only, but at the moment we are at the bit in between (I think?).  The advice is 4W.D. recommended, not 4W.D only.  The dirt it is.  There is all the usual stuff about how to drive the road and the preparations needed for it, all we can do is check over the multi tool and make sure we still have the roll of sticky tape, and we’re off, our first day we did three hundred kilometres of hard driving, a lot of the road is corrugated to a greater or lesser extent, some of the repaired road has been washed away again with some late rains, some of it is quite rocky, our first night at Mount Barnett Roadhouse, I ask how the rest of the road was, there was a lot of pointing at our car and a of mutterings and shaking of heads, I then think as they realized we were poms they said “yes you should be alright.”  Next day we did a three hour walk up a waterfall gorge and then carried on to Ellenbrae Station, (farm to you and me) yet again on the we encountered things like deep ruts where when we were in the wheel tracks we hoped it was the axles taking the brunt of the banging as we bottomed out, also if a road train came the other way all we could do is drive off the road or as close to the edge as we could get and sit and wait, with one hundred and seventy five feet of vehicle and some sixty or seventy wheels throwing up dirt, stones and debris it was five to ten minutes before the dust settled enough to see the road, and today was only one hundred and seventy kilometres.


Day three, back on the dirt and gravel, although a few weeks ago we moved out of fly country (at least for a while) we are now in crocodile country, as we drive the road we have to cross creeks and rivers, the usual form is one of us would get out and walk across to check the depth and the bottom, I think it is only fair that as I am doing all the driving Helen should walk through all the rivers.  We have crossed about sixteen so far, not all needed testing.  Once we got to the Durack river where there is a real risk of crocs and the river was quite wide (well forty feet) my crocodile hunting co pilot chickened out, I had to do it myself.  Some of the road is very sandy which is our biggest worry as we may get bogged down, well that and the hidden gullies and holes.  But at five hundred and ninety k's into this six hundred and fifty k road we came to the Pentecost River, one hundred yards wide, two feet deep in places, very rocky bottom and crocs, where to now?  TowingWhile we were contemplating what to do, it is impossible for us to cross and it is a long way back, along came a knight in shining armour, well it was more like a very dirty Land cruiser and a tow rope, pulling us across in the wake of his vehicle we got over with no problems, well, apart from a half an inch of water in the car, once we bailed it out and a few days to dry it was fine.


It took us three days to do the four hundred miles, with some amazing driving on my part, which is not exactly quick, but it was a great drive, but my co pilot took three days to get over it.  We came across a number of people who were amazed we did it in our twenty five year old rust bucket. Over the next few days we got “oh it’s you how did you get on,”  several times.  I have now promised Helen no more dirt, it is bitumen all the way.  We had a couple of days off in a place called Parry’s Lagoon, to recuperate, and then on to Kununurra our last stop in W.A.  Some ten or so years ago over here I saw some pictures of a place called the Bungle Bungles in Purnalulu National Park, and I thought I must go there one day. It is only down the road from where we are now but like a lot of the national parks it is four wheel drive access only which means we cannot go there, …… unless we rent a 4W.D. when you gotta go, you gotta go.  It is a really rough dirt road into the park with several water crossings, but the park, chasms, gorges, and the beehive shaped rock formations made effort well worth while.  Having done about three quarters of what we planned it started to rain, we debated whether to stay or leave, the vehicle has to be back by mid day tomorrow, then it started to pour, we decided to go.  Generally they do not talk about the weather up here they have two seasons, in the summer it is very hot and wet, in the winter it is hot and dry, that is it.  This is the middle of the dry season.  The road out became a lot more exciting than the way in.  In the morning we found out that the road has been closed, and would be closed for at least four days, apparently all the dirt roads are closed, the Gibb River Road has dramatically changed it’s status.  I think after this, in order to be on the safe side, we had better stay off the dirt and on the bitumen.  (Have I heard that before somewhere.)


With this dramatic unseasonal weather we have had to abandon our tent and go into comfortable quarters for the duration, and with the temperatures plummeting to twenty degrees centigrade (72° F.) we even got out our cold weather gear.   Coming in to W.A. and heading west we crossed a time zone,, and then further on we crossed another, they were forty five minutes each.  Leaving W.A. in the north going east there is only one time zone of ninety minutes, I don’t know what happens to the bit in between.  Although I do think we have been on Kimberly time, which is a bit like manăna but not so hurried.  We have managed to get back in the sun, partly by the weather front moving on, and partly by driving eight hundred kilometres across country.  So we are now in Kakadu National Park taking in the flora, fauna and some of the culture of the “traditional owners.”  Some nine years ago we came here to a place called Ubirr and one of the things we were told to do is watch the spectacular sunset, we had flown in from the U.K. straight into this tropical heat, so we had a rest before going out to see the sun going down, it was dark when we woke up.  We are back again for a second try, and we are more acclimatised, but in the afternoon the sky clouded over, so no sunset.  And of course after dark the sky cleared and the stars came out, when your luck is out.  I think we doomed not to see this legendary (or mythical) sunset.  After Kakadu we had a quick whiz round Litchfield national park, and then by a nifty short cut I managed to find, that only involved forty five kilometres of dirt road, (oops!) to Darwin and ready ourselves to leave Australia.

We did not get quite everywhere we wanted to go as we only had a two wheel drive car and a lot of the outback roads are four wheel drive only, the problems with taking a two wheel drive car on some of these roads are (a) you may get stuck, luckily we did not have that problem, (b) you may rip your tyres, the roads are rough, luckily we have only knocked out three tyres, and one of those was one we had already replaced. (c) with the low ground clearance you may damage the underside of the car, luckily we managed to get our exhaust welded back together.  I kept saying to Helen that we should have a four wheel drive, but I think we have been in enough doo doos as it is, I would hate to think where we would be if we had a vehicle that would go into real deep shit.  Apart from the hire car, they impose all sorts of conditions and penalties.  All the locals drive hefty great wagons with two or three spare wheels, jerry cans on the roof rack and some have to get their suspension renewed a couple of times a year, by taking the easier roads we got off light.  Having been on a search for wildlife we thought we had seen it all, just as we started to relax we came across a poster of some we missed such as Planigale, Antechinus, Dibble, Ningaui, Dunnart, Woylie, Warabi, Nabarlek, Quokka, Toolache and of course the Dorcopsis oh well may be next time.  But this time we are ready to go and are heading to Bali Indonesia, of the two hundred and fifty five day we have been away we have slept only about forty six nights in a proper bed, the rest of the time has been in our two man tent, but we are glad that is now all over from here on in it is hotels all the way.  And for the last time this trip AWESOME

Indonesia

Having sold the car, and for a lot less than we hoped for but a lot more than we expected, given where we were, and eventually getting to go to an open air deck chair cinema, we saw a film described as “humorous, scary and intelligent” even though it was weird, Korean and with sub titles.  We left Australia for Indonesia, with Bali as our first stop.  We had the usual problem of not getting a long enough visa for my plans.  It never ceases to amaze me why the poorest countries limit the amount of time you can stay and spend money.  So out of Indonesia’s seventeen thousand five hundred and eight islands we hope to pay a fleeting visit to the odd eight.  For some reason or other the Bali bombings, the Java riots, Guerrilla fighting in Sumatra and a tsunami have affected Indonesian tourism, so as we wander about we are out numbered three to one by hawkers, “you want tour” “you want bracelet” “you want watch, morning price” “you want massage” “you want taksi” (my spell check doesn’t like that but I expect it hasn’t travelled much).  And in the middle of this tourist slump the government puts a limit on the length of stay, making us rush round without the time to buy anything, (luckily).


We had a couple of days in Kuta just to get our bearings and get some dosh, then headed inland a bit to get some peace and culture, this done we went to one of the Gilis off of Lombok, these are three tropical coral islands, on the one we went to we spent a few days snorkelling on the corals, sinking a few beers and soaking up the tranquillity.  After this it is back to work (if you know what I mean) we booked ourselves on a trip to Komodo, overall it is a five day voyage by an Indonesian boat maintained to Indonesian standards.  It was also overcrowded with only twenty six passengers on board, there two classes of accommodation, cabin class and a bit of deck class, Helen had to go cabin.   On the way out we called in to various islands to see some local culture and snorkel on the coral reefs.  But the aim and the highlight is the visit to Komodo to see the legendary Komodo Dragon, (it is not a real dragon and does not even look like a dragon, just a big lizard) up until 1995 they used to tether live goats to attract the dragons for the tourists to see, but now under public pressure this practice has stopped, meaning the chance of us tourists seeing a dragon is reduced, but the lifestyle of the goats has improved.  Our luck was in and we saw an impressive three and a half metre specimen, quite magic, as we were leaping all round it trying to get a good photo the guides were trying to keep us back and the dragon facing the other way, by poking it with a long stick, as they can be very fast and one bite is invariably fatal.


From the island of Komodo we went to Flores for an overnight stop and then the return leg starting with the island of Rinca, where we saw four more dragons and of various ages, so we could see size/age difference and learn about their life.  But then the return trip to Lombok.  Our last stop was a real picturesque tropical island; it was only about one acre in size, sandy beaches, turquoise sea and coral reefs, absolute magic. The company logo is “Land, Sea, Adventure” we had a brilliant time on the land and in the sea, I think the adventure bit was the boat, the dingy that ferried us ashore shipped water at anything over two knots or two inch waves.  One night the ship ran aground, (so much for local knowledge and navigational aids,) at one point we had to heave too, while they repaired the steering.  And on our last night at sea, one of the prop shafts sheared, slid out of it’s housing and with the propeller dropped to the bottom of the deep blue sea, leaving a hole in the bottom of the boat, at five in the morning one of the crew noticed that we were taking on water, waking his mates up they turned on the bilge pumps, that steadied the level but did not lower it, after a search round they found the problem.   Once again we had to heave too, and panic reigned, men jumping in the sea swimming under the boat, others banging and every body shouting, passengers blissfully unaware what the commotion was all about, fortunately they seemed to have plugged the hole,………. well at least we didn’t sink.  Just to finish as we started out, after our last snorkel before returning to the home port the showers run out of water, we had to wash down from barrels on the foredeck. It may not have been up to P&O standards but it was a fantastic trip.


We are now running out of visa time, so we have to rush a bit, from Lombok back to Bali then straight on to Java and the city of Jogjakarta.  We are in Jogja (as the locals call it) to do a bit of temple spotting, the first one at Prambanan is Hindu, and built around the 9th. Century, but mysteriously abandoned soon after, rediscovered some nine hundred years later in a sad state of repair, then later still foreign aid saw it restored to its former glory.  A few years ago an earthquake severely shook it bringing some of it down, and making the rest unsafe.  I suspect this is the reason for its abandonment, and its sorry state in the first place.  But I expect more foreign money will repair it again.  The second at Borobudur is Buddhist, built some fifty years before Prambanan, and used for longer, but with the decline in Buddhism in the area it to was abandoned, and rediscovered in 1814 when Sir Stamford Raffles was for a while governor of Java.  They were both amazing sights with an incredible amount of stone carvings in their huge structures.  But now we must move on.  I am sure all my fellow travellers (and ex fellow travellers) have suffered the same as us, you go to a bus station wander up and down to find a ticket office with the name of where you want to go listed in it’s destinations, and you for a ticket to a blank response, you ask again (usually louder) after the forth time you point to the name on their list, and they have never heard of it and buses don’t go there anyway, you walk away frustrated and confused, then some tout comes up and asks “where you go” you tell him and he says “yes come come” “come come” you follow him back to the kiosk you have just left, where after a rapid and fluent exchange in a foreign language tickets are produced, you pay, sit down and wait, and hope that the bus if it comes is actually going to where you want, even if it is not going you want to go you hope it is somewhere nice.

We did not have quite that bad this time, but not far off, we arrived at our destination tired and worn out, picked somewhere out the guide book and a taxi to take us to the hotel Purnama, he took us to the Grande hotel, after seeing him off we walked across the road.  Bandarlampung has nothing to recommend it, other than due to it’s proximity it is easy to arrange a sea trip to Krakatau, the famous island volcano. Well may be, has it happens not too easy, well difficult enough for us to abandon the idea and go to the jungle instead and do some elephant spotting.  I am not too sure I am cut out for this travelling lark, I have difficulty buying bus tickets, I cannot get a taxi to the right place and I am unable to get a boat ride.  But ever onward, north to Bukittinggi, a quieter town than the big cities and tourist hotspots, also up in the hills it is less humid.  We have almost reached the limit of our visas now so are very limited on what we can do.  (Mainly due to bad planning, I was expecting to be able to get a two month visa, and have had to cut my cloth to thirty days, and I have tried to cram too much travel in.)  We have taken a trip to the surrounding area to see some Minangkabau culture and architecture, we have gone to the jungle to see a Rafflesia Banksia, (we have seen one before in Borneo but we thought we would have another go) this is a giant flower, the biggest in the world, but the one we saw measured only about eighteen inches across but they can be double that.


From Bukittinggi we go to Pulau Batam this involves a ten or twelve hour bus ride to Dumai then an eight hour ferry to Batam all for the estimated cost of four hundred thousand, but at the cost of four hundred and fifty thousand (Ł23) we are going to fly.  And tomorrow we will be in Singapore. 

P.S.     During our wanders round Bukittinggi we have come across quite a lot of buildings that have suffered from earthquake damage, also there have been various landslips, it appears to be a regular occurrence, they had a large one here four months ago and a couple of minor tremors since.   On our last night here we had just finished packing for an early start, in the morning, when there was a mass evacuation as the hotel was being fairly well shaken by an earthquake only fifty kilometres away.  As the hotel gave a slight tremble we thought what was that,? then when it really shook we thought lets get out, it is not easy trying to put your trousers on when you are in panic mode and the room is moving side to side, by the time we were ready, the shaking had stopped, but we still went out to join the rest of the evacuees.  I think everybody slept with their shoes on that night.

Singapore

There was a dramatic change going from Indonesia to Singapore. Not only are we back in the northern hemisphere, but we have gone from noisy, grubby to quiet and ultra clean. But we have lost the magic of the east. (But, not for long.) In 1819 Sir Stamford Raffles set foot on this island and decided to set up a trading centre to rival the Dutch East Indies, now Singapore is in the twenty second century and the former Dutch colony is lagging well behind. It is just as well we are good clean living honest people, as here there are severe fines for littering, smoking in the wrong place (which is almost everywhere) and smuggling chewing gum into the country, (don’t ask) drug using is rewarded with a damn good beating and a prison sentence, drug pushing is death. We found a hotel in Chinatown, which gives us access to the colonial district and little India, around these historic enclaves there is the non stop production of high rise buildings, for international business and wall to wall multi story shopping, you have never seen anything like it. And everything is air conditioned here, rooms, transport, whole buildings, in some of the more popular shopping areas they have roofed across between the shops put doors on the end and air conditioned the whole street. Sometimes one has to wonder how much global warming is going into keeping the place cool.

After a couple of temples, the Sri Mariamman Hindu temple, and the Buddha Tooth Relic temple, we took a trip to the infamous Changi prison; it was quite sobering to read of the horrors inflicted by the little men from the land of the rising sun. That done we finished up with a look round Raffles hotel. In the nineteen twenties Noel Coward spent a month here, and whilst sitting on the balcony looking out to sea and drinking a gin slings wrote about "being stuck in this god forsaken hole". I don’t know what he was used to but don't think that description fits Singapore now or then. Raffles is not the sort of place I would stay, having paid god knows how much for a room, and then have oiks like us wandering about just looking. They have a dress code there, "long pants and shoes" I did the best I could, not having any long pants I just put on long trousers and hoped they did not want to look up my trouser leg to see my pants. Using this ploy we got in, and given the amount we invested in the famous Singapore gin slings in the Long Bar, I feel like I have shares in the hotel. As Singapore is probably the shopping capital of the world Helen has thrown herself into it whole heartedly and blown about six months budget in as many days, so we are off, and heading in to Malaysia as quick as we can.

Malaysia

The town of Melaka is our first port of call in Malaysia, and indeed it is a port, the architecture of the town reflects its past invaders, Portuguese, Dutch, British and a lot of Asian.  Whilst investigating the delights of Chinatown we came across an herbalist with two large copper urns set up on a table, proclaiming the remedial effects of these potions, thinking if they are herbal and medicinal they must be alright, so I tried some while Helen abstained.  Having now paid for it I was going to drink it.  The concoction must have been made up from acorns, dried tree bark, cow dung and lashings of arsenic, I suspect the theory of the healing is the taste will scare anything away, and if you ever dared to get ill again you are going to have to drink more of this gunk.  UGH.

North to Kuala Lumpur or K.L. as it known locally, we had a quick whiz round Chinatown, little India and the colonial quarter, popped up the telecom tower (fourth tallest in the world) and went up to the sky bridge on the forty first floor of the Petronas twin towers which until ninety four was the tallest building in the world, (I don't know if it has shrunk a bit since).  We didn't stop long; it was our third city on the trot so we headed for the hills, in the shape of the Cameron Highlands.  Being a bit elevated we have escaped the steamy humidity of the lowlands.

But by way of showing how much I miss that steaminess we went on yet another trek out to see yet another Rafflesia flower, I enjoyed the trek but Helen covered in mud and sweat moaned about another bloody jungle.  On our way back we stopped at a village of the Orang Asli (the local indigenous people) and had a go with a blow pipe, as there were no monkeys around we were limited to aiming at a cardboard target, and I managed to hit two bulls out of two from a range of thirty feet.  But even after that, and at this late date Helen relented and said we could go to Borneo, it now means we have to back track a bit.  Back to K.L. and then fly to Kuching.  Our first night's lodging was in a place called, The Anglican Diocesan Rest Home, an old building owned by and in the church grounds.  After sorting out Kuching we caught a boat to Sibu, and headed for another church hostel, this time Methodist, but it had been knocked down and is now a building site.

We had planned to go up river from here, but instead we got on the bus up country to Miri.  Going round the local markets is great, and if only it were not so far away, one kilo of lemon grass thirty pence, one kilo of ginger same price, and the fruits, as you walk through you get offers to try the fruits, rambutan, jambool, langon, pulasan and loads that we had never even heard of. 

Just south of Miri are the famous Niah caves, we just HAD to visit, at the park entrance they told us that the walkway to the caves was closed and there was an alternative route, we missed the alternative route and went up the "closed" walkway, this consisted of a concrete framework waiting to be boarded over, Helen does not like this sort of thing so it took us ages just inching along this half a mile construction.  The cave is massive, the entrance is massive the whole thing is immensely huge. So I have to wonder WHY?  Someone thought “if I hack through miles of primary rain forest find this cave, tie three or four long bamboo poles together end to end and climb up to the one hundred foot plus high ceiling and collect the birds nests it ought to make a tasty soup ???.”   But whoever he was was right because they fetch a good price.  We did not see anybody climbing the poles but just seeing them as they disappeared into the darkness is amazing, the nesters turn up every season slap the poles to see if they are still sound and then shin up to collect the nests made out of bird spit.  I am not sure whether this is worth risking life and limb for, but I think well worth visiting, on the way back Helen did not want to creep along the construction site so we took the official alternative route, this is a bit of a track through the primary jungle, at one particularly muddy stretch and while we where having a drop of monsoonal rain, I could hear Helen behind me muttering something about "bloody jungles" and "why am I lumbered with him instead of going out with some one who owns a villa in the Algarve". 

But unfortunately tomorrow we are off to the interior.


Heading into Gunung Mulu national park I fancied the two day going up river in various long boats (canoes with outboards) option, Helen favoured the thirty five minute flight option.  Arriving at Mulu airport we were whizzed off to our lodgings, after lunch we went to a couple more caves, one was decorated with stalactites and stalagmites, the second was yet another famous cave, the deer cave, this cave has the biggest entrance tunnel in the world, some one hundred and fifty metres high (500 ft.) and one hundred metres wide (330 ft.) it is huge, it is home to millions of bats, and millions of creepy crawlies living on the guano, as evening came on we were seated in a viewing area to watch the bats come out, it started with a group of one or two hundred followed by a bigger group and then an endless flow, they come out the cave mouth spiral upwards and then head off south ish, they passed over our heads at about six to eight hundred feet but as there were so many you could hear the continuous noise of their wing beats, we only stayed for half an hour but this exodus goes on for up to three times longer.  Incredible.  There were six species of bat, including wrinkly mouth and naked, but from where we were sitting they all looked the same.  Next day was a couple of more caves and then a nine k. walk, including a couple of wobbly bridges which did not cheer Helen up, but we arrived at the camp before the rain.  Day three started with a wobbly bridge and then a twelve k. walk, every thing was going fine until the midway point where we came to what I have always wanted to do, and Helens worst nightmare, a rope bridge, one to walk on two for handrails and a few to hold it all together, it wasn't very high but it was still fun, but I don't think the other half of the team had the same opinion.  Things did not improve at lunch time, Helen has a great fear of leeches, so in this sweltering heat she wore a long sleeve shirt and long trousers tucked into her socks, at lunch she took her boots off only to find that the boot, sock and trousers were saturated in blood.  It would seem that leeches who would normally attack wild boar and buffalo found trousers tucked into a sock no challenge at all.  A two hour long boat ride to a long house where we stayed the night.  Next day to Limbang, hot showers, laundry, beer and clear of the jungle.

 

The island of Borneo the third largest in the world is divided between three nations, something like three quarters of it is Indonesian, maybe four fifths of the rest is Malaysian and the tiny bit that is left is the independent sultanate of Brunei Darussalam.  Seventy per cent of Brunei is covered with pristine rain forest, but we are trying to give jungles a miss for a while, it has a few beaches covered in drift wood and the capital city of Bandar Seri Begawan, oh and of course oil, we just had a couple of days people watching, bird watching and wandering around the town taking in the sights and pharmacies and doctors, collecting medical advice and potions in the hope of not dying from leech bite fever, well at least one of us was worried about it.

 

Leaving Brunei we bought a ferry ticket to the town of Lawas in Sarawak, what actually happened we got onto an over crowded over sized dingy with luggage piled high on the roof, and shot off across the bay and up a river system until we reached some sought of way station on the river bank in the middle of nowhere, but it did have an immigration shed, we got our passports stamped and then had to find a minibus to Lawas thirty kilometres away.  All this so we can get to Beaufort for a train ride to somewhere we don’t want to go, there is not a lot of choice for destination as it is the only railway line in Borneo.  The tickets for this two and a half hour ride cost five ringits fifty that’s about seventy five pence, for the both of us, and it is clear to me that they do not blow the whole 75p, on livery and maintenance, it is probably buying some fat cat a new suit.  It is great train journey as the line winds it’s way up the valley alongside the Sungai Padas to Tenom, the place we did not want to go to, so it is the first bus to Kota Kinabalu.


Over a period of time and in several countries I have tried to get Helen to go river rafting, and she has always said no for reasons like her glasses might fall off, or she might fall overboard and get sucked under by leeches, (she has got a vivid imagination if nothing else) but here in K.K. she said yes she would give it a try, there is a local river here called the Sungai Luili, but it is only grade one to two which is kids stuff, up the road is a grade three to four which is more like it, this one is called the Sungai Padas, to get there we only have to go to Beaufort and get on the train to Tenom, (this all seems familiar) but this time instead of sitting in the time forgotten carriages we sat on the flat car with the cargo.  We got a briefing on what to do if we fell overboard, how to use the paddles, and where the nearest escape hatches were, and we ready to go, the river itself was a bit brown somewhat like boiling tea, but we piled into our allotted rafts and away we went, a grade one rapid to start with and then during the next quiet spell we practised our falling overboard techniques, but as the rapids got bigger I don’t think there would be any real technique you would just go, there were seven rapids in all and the two biggest had four foot high waves, we did about ten kilometres on the river and it was great fun.  At the end wet and weary, it was shower, change, B.B.Q. and the train back.  Even my complaining travelling companion enjoyed it and said she would go again.

Heading north from K.K. we went to Sepilok where there is an orang-utan jungle reserve, it is great to see these magnificent creatures, we have seen them in better locations but at least they were free even if the viewing is a bit contrived.  While we were in this location we just had to go on another jungle trip, this time most of the activity was cruising up and down the Sungai Kinabatangan, looking for wildlife amongst which, were proboscis monkeys because we have got a nose for it we found them, one of the other animals we were looking for was the pygmy elephant but all we found were footprints and piles of poo.  We also did a three hour jungle walk and during this I picked up about twenty leeches, and I must admit by now the attraction of the jungle is starting to wear a bit thin and I hope there is not much more of it on our way. 

Sandakan, our book says, “At first Sandakan seems merely a chaotic commercial centre with traffic choked streets, and grimy buildings, but look behind this and you will see the grubby high rise residences overflowing with laundry” and for once our book is right.  We came here to go to some off shore islands, but they are fully booked for the next three days, three days in which to explore the delights of Sandakan.  Eventually our time came to go to Seligan one of the islands forty kilometres off shore where turtles come ashore to lay their eggs, on our arrival we had some free time to wander the beaches and go snorkelling on some fantastic corals and myriad colourful fish, after dinner it was a waiting game, the turtles come ashore at night so the rangers station themselves around the beaches and wait for the turtles to come up and dig their holes and start laying, at this time they seem to go into a bit of a trance so it is then we are called out to watch.  There was another island off Sabah where turtles used to come for their egg laying, but with uncontrolled tourism the turtles got fed up and went elsewhere.  Here and now it is all stage managed, if you want to take photos you have buy a permit, (and they sold loads, also you cannot use flash, as we were watching the egg laying we were not allowed in front of the turtle, although we were asked not to use our torches so everything was in the dark apart from the rangers torch shining down the egg hole occasionally we thought that we could pop our torch on for a moment and take a quick photo, but the second the torch was on you were surrounded by about fifty million sand flies so the light went off very quickly and no photo achieved.  All the time the turtle was laying her eggs the ranger was scooping them up and putting them in a bucket, this is so they could put them in a protected area to safeguard against monitor lizards, rats and crabs, after the egg laying we watched a release of baby turtles that hatched out that day, it was quite fantastic to watch these creatures.  It was a great highlight with which to end our stay in Borneo. 

Back to K.L. and the bus to Taman Negara, at one hundred and fifty million years supposedly the oldest rain forest in the world, although how they work it out I do not know.  We went off to visit one of the jungle tribes, although they make a few bob out of the tourists they still live a very basic existence, grass huts no facilities etc. but kids being kids the world over they still want toys, here dad has to catch a bright green bug thing about three inches (75mm) long tie it to a piece of string and the young lad can wander about with this flying around his head like a helicopter.  We were shown how to light a fire and the tribesman who demonstrated this made hard work of it, when I had a go after (as I know about things like this) I failed, I only managed to make a little smoke, my only saving grace is nobody else did any better, when it came to the blowpipe I was champion again, this time the target was a stuffed toy, further away and with a longer blowpipe, I was the only one to hit the target, but only in the arm but no problem, with the aid of poison darts it would dead in minutes. 

With all the rain forests we have been to with guides showing us what fruits are edible and which are poisonous, which leaves are good for snake bites and which are good for diarrhoea, which trees to make canoes from and which to get poison from, and lots more, we should be experts by now, but interesting as it is for us it is still a jungle out there.   The other thing we (I) came for was the canopy walkway, they claim the highest, longest and swingingest in the world, and I must admit it was pretty high and it did swing a bit, but in a storm a couple of months ago a falling tree damaged some of it so only three hundred metres of it’s five hundred and twenty metre length was open.  A bit of caving and a couple of river trips and it is off to the Perhentian Islands for a few days of sand surf and snorkelling before leaving Malaysia

Thailand

Walking through the frontier at Sungai Kolok in the heat of the day, carrying our bags from desk to desk, building to building and filling out forms for immigration was not our best start to entering a country, but once clear our guide book said, “it is a fifty metre walk or a five Baht sawngthaew ride to the train station.”  We did not have five Baht but we can walk fifty metres, a thousand metres later, and still carrying my “guide” book we arrived at the said train station.

We took a few days moseying our way northwards and stopped off at Ko Tao, an island off the east coast, and had a few days snorkelling.  From here an eight hour bus ride takes us to Bangkok, our hotel is near the famous Khao San Road, years ago when we walked down this road it was full of cheap doss houses, cheap food stalls, cheap street vendors and cheap women.  Then Helen made me read a really awful book called “The Beach,” and since then and with the subsequent film of the same name (which I have not seen) the Khao San has attracted more fame, and even the Gold Card set come to see it.  In response they have knocked down the old buildings and built four star hotels, cleared the food stalls and made swanky coffee bars.  Some street vendors remain but the old character has gone.  I have no doubt the improvements were long overdue, but I have to wonder what have these people come to see?

I have to admit that we did spend one night in the hotel that portrayed the Khao San flop house.  It is the oldest hotel in Phuket town.  A week before we got to Bangkok, we also went to Ao Phang Nga, A.K.,A. James Bond Island, as it took part in the film, The Man With The Golden Gun. 

In Bangkok we took in a few local sites like the Grand Palace which was in The King and I, and nearby sites like the floating market (Bond again, same film) and the bridge over the river Kwai, in the film of the same name. 

We also wasted a bit of time going to embassies our own and others.  One thing I was hoping to do was go to Myanmar (Burma) it took me ages to talk Helen into going, and when she finally said yes the country decided to have a bit of domestic unrest and their embassy has stopped handing out visas.  That’s life….

Having done with the film sets we took the overnight train to Chiang Mai in the north, here we went on our first trek for a long time.  Although it was hilly with a few rickety bridges, luckily it was fairly easy; we stayed overnight in a couple of hill tribe villages, one real and one definitely on the tourist trail.  On the last day we had an elephant ride which I thought was going to be part of the route but turned out to be a circuit and then a bit of rafting which was on the way, it was only a grade one or less but very wet, we were on bamboo rafts and even in a very small rapid the raft was six inches (180mm) under water, it was easy but great fun, we will have another go at that.

Back in Chiang Mai in an effort to improve our diet we took a cookery course, we had intended to try and improve our job prospects when we got back by taking an elephant driving `mahout` course, but we were not too excited about the way they look after the elephants so we went cooking instead. 

At this point we are running out of visa so we have to head further north.  Buses up to Mae Sai, a day pass into Tachilek, Burma, and return to Thailand and a new visa.  This was part of the area in the hey day of opium production known as ‘the golden triangle’ all we got was a visa.  I have often been offered Viagra at bargain prices, on street corners in markets and even on the internet, but in Tachilek I was offered the aforementioned drug by several people,  0ne demonstrated its fist clenching and elbow bending abilities, and one was a ten year old boy, I was a bit upset to find out that my shortcomings (no pun intended) were obvious to a ten year, while I am walking about in  a Burmese street market.  Must be worse than I thought.

Taking Helen round the markets in Mae Sai and Tachilek was starting to hurt my wallet so I whisked her off to the hills at Mae Salong, where we got the opportunity to see some of the local tribes Akha, Lisu, Lahu and especially the Padaung.  To visit the Padaung we had to pay to go in the village area, money that we thought went to the villagers, but it seems the bulk of it go to some spurious organization, and the locals main income is from what they grow and what handicrafts they sell to the tourists.

Once again I think Helen fed three families for a week.  The padaung people’s main claim to fame is the amount of brassware the women wear, this is the tribe of the long necks, the women have five kilos or more of brass rings round their necks, starting at the age of five they put the rings on and add to them as they grow until later in life they finish up with extraordinary long necks, some also have brass rings on their legs.

To go and gawp at some one else’s lifestyle is somewhat embarrassing but we wanted to go and were so amazed that we could only stare.  Apart from the third degree of “why do they do it?” “how much does it weigh?” “is it uncomfortable?” and so on.  Mae Salong was settled by the Chinese nationalists escaping from the red army of Mao, having taken over the area they planted tea, opened tea shops, and made themselves at home.  Sawngthaew from here to Tha Ton and a three hour river trip to Chiang Rai, and tomorrow we go to Laos.

Laos

After crossing the Mekong from Chiang Khong to Huay Xai in Laos we headed off to Luang Nam Tha for a bit of trekking, our route took in a few hill tribe villages of the Khamu and Hmong people. We had fewer makeshift bridges and less jungle on this trek but more inter action with the local people, we ate our food sitting on the floor and off of banana leaves, we were even able to help a bit with the preparation of the evening meal, in a bamboo hut lit by three candles, in a way it may be lucky that we could not see what we were preparing or eating.  Sleeping was a rush mat on the floor of our hut, and the toilet I will have to leave to your imagination.  It was a really enjoyable trek but we glad to get back to our hotel and have a shower, instead of washing in the river and sleeping in a bed, a real bed.

Going South the only bus going our way only went half way to where we wanted and left at twelve noon, one hundred and fifteen kilometres (70 miles) and three hours later we arrived in Udomxai, and there is only one bus a day to Nong Khiaw our next destination, so mańana it is.  One day to do seventy miles.  On top of that the temperature dropped and it rained, so away went the sandals out came shoes, socks, fleeces, and raincoats, we were not used to this weather and with it dropping to seventy degrees Fahrenheit we were wrapping up like Eskimos.  But then it is winter so what should we expect.  Next morning up bright and early to get our bus tickets and a long wait for the bus, this turned out to be a pick up truck with a bench seat either side in the back, and it took us four hours to do the next seventy miles, travel is not the easiest or quickest thing here.  We came to Nong Khiaw so we could do a six hour river ride down the Pak Ou through stunning scenery down to Luang Prabang.

Luang Prabang is a really laid back town even thought it appears to be the tourism capital of Laos; it has a quaint colonial charm and sunshine again.  We enjoyed our Thai cooking course so much we thought we might have a go at Lao cooking, on our to find a cook school we signed up a two day mahout experience, so we went elephant riding instead.  Day one involved going to a waterfall having swim and exploring, playing about with a baby elephant, and then going for a ride on a big elephant, lunch, looking around and then riding the elephants back into the jungle where they left to fend for themselves till morning.  Wednesday five thirty A.M. day two and I am already fed up with being a mahout, it feels like the middle of the night but we have to get up and go and wash the elephants, we go out with the rest of the team to the jungle and find the elephants and ride them down to the river, and out to the middle and give them a good scrubbing, when we finished we rode them back to the compound where they were saddled up to take tourists for rides.  It was great but we did not really get enough elephant time.  After we finished our duties we found out that we were on the economy course because there was no taxi to take back to town, we had to paddle our own canoe, we had a three and a half hour kayak ride down river (with rapids) to town, and although we did it in slightly better than average time Hiawatha we are not.  We took a couple of days sight seeing etc. before moving on to Phonsavanh.

Xieng Khuang province has two main claims to fame one is the plain of jars, there are hundreds of stone jars mainly gathered in three sites the tallest jar is some three and a half metres high and the fattest is about one and a half metres diameter, they are 2500 to 3500 years old and no one why or how they arrived here, but it is quite an amazing site.

The other claim to fame of this area is, it is the most heavily bombed area in history, and during the second Indochina war (Vietnam to you and me) the Americans dropped around two million tonnes of bombs in Laos, which is more than the total dropped on Germany and Japan during the Second World War.  And one tonne of bombs, per head of the population living in Laos at the time.  Approximately one third failed to explode, leaving around six hundred and fifty thousand tons of unexploded ordnance lying all over the place.  Many places in the town use defused bombs for decoration, standing collections of outside or in the foyer.  The British Mine Advisory Group has been clearing the U.X.O.s for some years and at the present rate they have another hundred years to go.  Visiting the plain of jars and other areas we are always advised to stay on the path or stay within the marked zones and keep out of the bomb craters, advice we are happy to take. I find it incredible that in the pursuit of world peace the U.S.A can bomb a sovereign nation five thousand miles away because of it’s beliefs, and then leave the thousands of tonnes of U.X.O.s for future generations to live with.  Some of the poorest people in Laos are unable to grow crops forty years after the event due to this American legacy.  Every year locals are killed either through scrap collecting or farm on dangerous land.

We also visited a silk farm, as you may know the silk worms feed on mulberry leaves, as we wandered through the process of silk making we learned that the farm had twenty two hectares of mulberry bushes, and nothing is wasted in the process.  Any whole leaves left over go to making mulberry tea, any spare half chewed leaves go for animal fodder, the dead silk worms go to market, (a Lao delicacy) and even the silk worm poo is swept up and sent to China where they use it to make tea.!  We will be going to China soon; I must remember not to drink the tea.

Next stop Vang Vieng.  Leaving Phonsavanh the bus was delayed for two hours so that it could load up with cardboard boxes, sacks of rice and machinery spares, the public bus left early, we opted to pay more and go on the V.I.P. bus where you do not get treated like cattle and you get more leg room, if there was more leg room I must have missed it, and with the aisle loaded with cargo I could not even stretch my legs out that way, (and this on my birthday) still only eight hours to go.

Our first day in Vang Vieng we went on a trek that took in four caves, two were dedicated to Buddha, one had the usual stalactites etc. and one was full of water so it was a bit of a wet process exploring it.  After the caves we walked on to a Mhong village, and shortly after we caught the tube back to town.  That is not tube as in the underground but tube as in tractor tyre, we chucked our tubes in the Nam Song plonked ourselves in the middle of them and wafted down stream.  As you can imagine wafting like this can be thirsty work, but as luck would have it the locals have built several bamboo bars along the way, as you pass they throw out lines to pull you ashore, so we able to get into a couple to quench our thirst.  The wet cave also had the same means of transport and a rope system to get around inside.  Next day we rented a couple of bikes (midget sized ones) to look round the countryside a bit.

Heading down to Vientiane we decided to go one better than the V.I.P. bus, we opted for the private minibus.  The photos of it looked good, but getting wedged in like sardines seem to take the glamour out of it, I even had to take my sandals off so I could get my feet in the foot well.  The seats are big and comfortable enough but they are far too close together.  Good job it was for only three hours.

Vientiane does not have lot to offer but we are having a couple of days off from buses, one thing they do have here are A.T.M.s the only town in the country where we can get some dosh out.

The other thing we can do is go to immigration to get an extension on our visa, easier said than done, we turned up Friday afternoon.  Go into the office see a window marked information, go and ask, they ask “how many days”, we say “five” they say, “go to window number four”, off we go, on our way on this thirty foot (9m.) journey a man sitting at a desk waved us on to right window, at window number four I saw a sign proclaiming “we do not accept applications on Friday afternoon” but the man behind glass asked us what we wanted, we told him, “how many days” he asks “five” we say, “you have to get a form from window number one” he tells us, “she sent us here” we say, at this juncture a woman sitting next to man at the desk who waved us on shouted something in Lao to the man in number four, which I took to be, “we don’t take applications on Friday afternoon you silly old fool”, because window number four turns to us and says “we are closed.”  Good job there is a woman there to keep everyone up to date on what they are doing.

 Back again after the weekend and it’s mid afternoon, the sign says open, the lights are on, office doors are open and papers on the desks but the place is like the “Mary Celeste” not a sole about, some time after a few would be applicants had gathered all asking each other if anyone knew what was going on a woman on her way out spotted us and asked what we wanted, after we replied she said they were shut, and they would not be open until Thursday, we queried this, she consulted a colleague who had just come along and then said “we will be open at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.  Sometimes one has to wonder if the left hand knows what the left fingers are doing.  Eight sharp next morning we are there, we buy two application forms (not only do we have to pay for the visa extension we have to pay for the application forms as well) fill them in and wait at window number four once again.  An hour later someone came and told us the man in number four has not come in, (just in case we could not see that for ourselves) and could we come back at two.  Back at two window number four is occupied, we hand over our passports and applications, he then stamps both of them several times and then picks up the passports goes out the office, comes back, goes out, comes back, puts the passports and applications in a folder then repeats the exercise of coming and going a couple of times and then asks us to sit and wait.  We eventually got our passports and extensions and left town.

We are in Laos PDR which I took to mean Peoples Democratic Republic, but one of the locals has just told me the PDR means Lao People Don’t Rush.

Off to the far south, our first stop was at a place called Champasack to have a look round the historic Wat Phu.  On our way to Champasack we took a tuk tuk, two thirds of the way there it decided to have a terminal breakdown, in the middle of the countryside with a broken vehicle and a driver saying “broke broke,” eventually he flagged down a tractor, this is not a tractor as we know it, this thing has an engine two large ish wheels and two very long handles, the thing is designed to be able to fix on a rotovator, plough, or whatever and walk behind it, just like following a water buffalo.  This one had a trailer attached, we slung our bags on and having a trailer made it a four wheeled vehicle so we did not have walk behind, we piled on with the farm hands and continued our journey, to the ferry.  Leaving Champasack some of us big foreigners had to get off our overloaded vehicle and help it up the sandy river bank, for a vehicle that holds ten or twelve uncomfortably ours had about twenty in it and the luggage on the roof.  But from there on to Si Phon Don (it means four thousand islands) here the mighty (murky) Mekong spreads out over a vast area making room for four thousand islands.  A really beautiful place to chill out, no TV, no electricity, no traffic noise, no traffic lights, and no roads. The accommodation is a bit basic; but we are paying a pound a night for a double room with a balcony (and hammocks) on the waters edge.

One of the things we did here was to go out in a boat to look for the rare Irrawaddy dolphin, but I suppose as we were floating about on the Mekong they would have been rare. Laos is a fantastically beautiful country and the people are great, but the travelling around is hard and the food is mediocre, but to be fair we did stick to the mundane fare local specialities include things like, fermented swallows, roasted grass hoppers or house beetles, you could even try barbecued silk worm larvae or the favourite toasted wood grub. We have dallied a bit and other events have caught up with, or overtaken us, so we have to miss the last couple of waterfalls and tomorrow we are back in Thailand, again.

Burma

In Vientiane we got Visas for Myanmar (Burma) unexpectedly and almost accidentally, but now the question is – Should we go? One the one hand, the Foreign Office advises against it, in the current circumstances, and that being the case, our Travel Insurance would be invalid. On the other hand, would our visit help support the despot who runs the country? (Whoops, shouldn’t say that – we had to declare that we were not Government Employees, Journalists. T.V. Producers or anybody likely to tell the world about the state of the nation) On balance, we decided to go.

Crossing Thailand from Laos we met up with our Penny Farthing riding friend, who after amazingly cycling from Beijing to Lhasa in Tibet, and then across the Himalayas into Nepal and on into India, there for some reason or other he got really fed up with the Indians, so he then flew to Thailand.  After a couple of day of catching up with each other’s travels we left for Myanmar.

In an effort to throw off any vestige of Colonialism the ruling despots changed the name of the country and a lot of the towns and rivers.  The British Foreign Office, in an effort to ignore this still use the old names.  I will fall into line with the F.O.  Burma is a step back into history, first with the thousand plus year old temples and cities, secondly, with present day Burma, a land where the oxen and plough work the fields, and the horse and cart still a common means of transport.  A land where e-mail and mobile phones are still just over the horizon, and credit cards, A.T.M.s and constant electricity are just a pipe dream.

As there are no A.T.M.s we had a fist full of U.S. Dollars, we had a similar problem in Laos and we had a pocket full of Thai Baht, some U.S. Dollars backup.  We changed some of the Thai Baht for Laos Kip, as we went through the country we were using all three currencies, it was a little bit of a job trying to remember what was worth what.  Here in Burma it was easier, as we only had two currencies to deal with.  We went to change up some dosh, and we handed over five crisp one hundred dollar bills, and got back a carrier bag full of Kyat, and it was all in the largest denomination available, good job there was no small change.

Mandalay turned out to be not as romantic as it might sound.  It is a dirty, grubby city, not the city of my dreams, but all around it is amazing.  We had a couple of days taking in the sights (mostly Temples) after that we caught a boat down the Irrawaddy River to Bagan.  It was a nine hour trip, and in all that time we never saw any of the rare Irrawaddy Dolphins, they appear to be rarer here than on the Mekong.  Burma, could be called the Land of a Thousand Temples, but Began has two thousand eight hundred in it’s region.  We hired bikes and cycled around for a couple of days on the rough roads and dirt tracks, and we had a day on a horse and cart.  All in all we took in about a dozen of the Temples and Pagodas, which was enough for us.  We left the other two thousand seven hundred and eighty eight for someone else.

After, we headed across country to Inle Lake, this time we took a plane.  Travel is very hard here, and this particular road is really bad.  The Lake is some thirteen miles long and has a number of villages on the Lake shore, and on the Lake itself.  Life is on the Lake.  Floating Gardens, or more precise Floating Allotments, complete with floating fences and gates, they grow tomatoes and various other crops, and they float up and down the rows in canoes to harvest and tend their plants.  We took a sight seeing trip on the Lake, visiting communities and workshops.  In one of these workshops they were hand making cigars.  Helen had a go at this, and the owners decided that the ones she made were not quite good enough to go on the shelf for sale, so they were given to her as a souvenir.  The whole lifestyle of the Lake dwellers is amazing.  Next day we hired a couple of bikes to have a bit of a pedal around the countryside.

Leaving here we had to wait at the roadside for a pick-up (this is a pick up truck with two wooden benches and a rood over) up to the main junction, where we got onto another, overcrowded pick-up.  Helen managed to squeeze inside, I got on the roof with the cargo, and five other passengers.  About two kilometres down the road we picked up more cargo and more passengers.  Making fifteen inside, four standing on the tailgate and eleven on the roof, plus those in the cab with the driver, and the cargo.  All in/on a Ford Sierra sized vehicle, and on some really crappy roads.

Eventually we got to Kalaw, where we did a three day trek, in some stunning countryside, and taking in Palong, Danu, Tongu, and Po Ho Hill Tribe Villages.  Leaving here for Rangoon we have three transport options;- Plane, Train and Bus.  The plane, we feel, is bit like it is cheating (even though we think we have already earned all the stripes we need).  A twelve hour bus ride from Meiktilla, which itself is five hours away, so that is definitely off the list, but a compromise, Sleeper Train, will do nicely.  Once again it is the overcrowded bus (all the buses and pick-ups leave only when they are full, and then they pick up people along the way) on really bad roads, and through some amazing scenery.  Wending our way out of the mountains, down to the lowlands for four hours, to get to Thazi.  A small shanty town on a rail junction.  We were told IF the train is on time the next one will be about 1.30 am, fourteen hours sitting on a platform waiting for a train did not appeal, and we have now burnt our bridges with the plane option, so that all that remains is another one hour ride to Meiktilla and the definitely “off the list” bus.  (I love it when a plan comes together).  We had a couple of days wandering the streets of Rangoon, including a climb up to the Shwe Dagon Pagoda and Temple, the Zedi is reportedly covered in fifty three metric tonnes of gold.  The top of the spire is encrusted with more than five thousand diamonds and two thousand other stones.

An amazing country, fantastic people, our short time here did not do it justice, but it was fantastic and a real shit government.  I can say that now that we are back in Thailand.

Cambodia

I have three ex pat friends in Thailand, one who is thinking about moving here, and left for Europe weeks before we got here, one who when in the UK gave me his mobile number, but with the wrong prefix, (possibly a ploy on his part) and one who seems to be wandering about a bit, when we were in the south he was in the middle, when we were in the north he was in the East, when we were ready to travel down to where he lived he was in the North East, we only had a mobile number so we could not tell if he was really travelling around or just avoiding us.

But we have left the hardships of Burma and are now, back in Thailand, with tarmac roads, and easy living,…….. ……..but for only a day and a half.  Leaving Bangkok for the forth, and the last time ever. We head East to leave Thailand, and this also is for the last time ever.

Crossing the Cambodian border we set off on the main road from Thailand to Cambodia’s biggest tourist attraction, some one hundred and thirty kilometres away, unfortunately this road to the end of the rainbow only has about fifteen K’s of tarmac the rest is just dirt.

 We took a tuk tuk to do the tour of the temples; we have constantly been amazed of the casual driving habits of the Asians, but our tuk tuk driver seemed to have a total lack of regard for his life, the only bit that left us a touch concerned, is that as we are in the same vehicle he would seem to have the same lack of regard for our lives.

We started our two day tour at Angkor Wat, probably the largest religious site in the world, it is quite impressive, but as I keep telling Helen size isn’t everything, the next site Bayon is a lot smaller but a lot more interesting, as is Wat Ta Prohm.  One of the most impressive sites is the Terrace of Elephants, a place where Angkor Kings would review parades and festivities.  Looking at this three hundred metre long, very ornate terrace and the surrounding temples it is easy to imaging the wealth and the power of the mighty Khmer empire at it’s zenith.  Half way through day two of our temple tour we decided we were templed out, so we left the pomp and the wealth of ancient Cambodia and went down to the lake to see the squalor and poverty of the floating village in modern day Cambodia.

Leaving Siem Reap we took the ferry to Battambang.  The Tonle Sap lake is in the centre of a vast flood plain, in the wet season the Mekong river rises so much it flows into the mouth of the Tonle Sap river and makes it flow backwards, and flood an enormous area of land, during this time the ferry only takes four hours to Battambang, now we are just into the dry season the water levels have dropped and the ferry has to go a longer way round.

Many of the waterways I suspect will be fields soon, as we were going through a lot of narrow passage ways with hedge rows either side, sometimes narrow enough for the twigs and branches of the hedge to flick in and catch the unwary across the face, and a few times in these channels we met boats that were coming the other way, that made a bit of an interesting pass, as both boats tried to push into the hedgerow and rub along each others sides.  This route took eight hours, and I think later in the season they have to use smaller boats as the water level drops, apart from the last hour it was a great trip.

Around Battambang there are a number of temples which we totally ignored, but we pop off to have a go on the bamboo train, some locals have knocked together a platform of bamboo perched it on two pair of wheels mounted a portable engine, hey presto you have a machine to cart goods and tourists up and down a disused railway line.  You can see why the line is unused by trains so the whole thing is a bit precarious but a lot of fun.

At this point sitting in Phnom Penh I am contemplating going to the monopolies commission, the governments insist you have a passport to travel, only governments can issue passports, and when you do travel these same governments acting as a cartel fill up your passports with stamps, (and some governments charge you to fill up your passport which is a real piss take) so you pop off on holiday the next thing you know is you are stuck in a foreign land and your passport is full up and useless.  Necessitating hanging around for ages and forking a load of dosh to the authority that insisted that you have a passport and whose mates filled it up.  Helen’s passport is full, room for one more country, so once we get Helen’s new passport, we pop across the border and go through the process again to renew mine, I still have six years to run so no way have I got my money’s worth out of it.

At this point we managed to catch up with Joff, our penny farthing riding friend, he seems to be getting to places ahead of us, on his bike.  At the moment I think he is just riding round in circles in a warm climate waiting for winter to pass in the U.S. where there is some sort of cycling event.  Together went to the Tuol Sleng museum, a rather sobering place to visit, it was a school that was turned into a torture prison during the Pol Pot era, killing an average of one hundred prisoners a day, and right in the heart of the capital.  Next day was a trip to the “killing fields” of Choeung Ek where seventeen thousand prisoners were killed and buried in mass graves.  This was only one of many such places, it is totally mind boggling how and why such atrocities could be carried out.  It is certainly a big difference from the Khmer empire building of kings like Suryavarman 11 and Jayarvaman V11 to the destruction of the nation by the Khmer Rouge.

After that depressing experience we go the British Embassy to get Helen a new passport, easier said than done, it appears that this branch of Her Most Britannic Majesty’s Embassy does not issue passports, but they would be pleased to post our application to Bangkok, a process that could take up to six weeks, unless we pay forty five dollars for express service then it might only take three weeks.  During this time our Cambodian visas will run out, Helen will not have a passport to get a visa extension in and if I get one in mine I will not have room left to get a Vietnam visa, so I will need to get a new passport from the same embassy that does not issue them.  Ironically in our next destination Vietnam the embassy does issue passports, I have room for a visa to get there but Helen doesn’t.  After a lecture on how stupid we are thinking that we as British subjects could just walk into a British embassy and apply for a new passport we left.  Our easiest and cheapest option is to go back to Bangkok ourselves and renew both passports there. I think I might be losing my grip on this travelling lark, (if I ever had any grip in the first place) 

From Phnom Penh we toddled down to Sihanoukville in time for the new year, did a bit of trekking and snorkelling in the area, then we wended, if wended is the right word, or may be struggled our way to the border, doing it the easy way we bought a bus ticket from here to the frontier, and we know unlike the road into Cambodia, this one is tarmac all the way, in reality the bus company sold too many tickets, we finished up with a dozen people sitting on plastic stools in the aisle, common on local buses, but not long distance tourist buses, and some of the luggage going in a truck, we were told this would be for only one hour and then we would change buses.  Off we go, an hour later we stop at an incomplete bridge where we gather our luggage, scramble over a barrier cross the bridge to a waiting bus (bigger but not big enough) an hour later another half complete bridge, us and our luggage clamber aboard a raft type thing with an outboard which took us across to the next waiting bus, our last river crossing was similar to the first, bus drives up to the barrier we climb over and walk to the bus, (tarmac all the way but no bridges) eventually we are on our way back to never again Thailand,……..(never say never!)