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Nick Brown
Nick Brown

Nick Brown

8 カ国を旅行しました もっと詳しく
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  • Nick BrownVietnamNick Brown

    Hué Delicacies - Something's Fishy

    2018年3月21日, ベトナム ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    We're in a new city. We want to experience the local culture. We've had a long day on the road touring the DMZ and we're hungry. We should sample the local cuisine.

    I consult the Lonely Planet book. Lonely Planet will know where to go. Lonely Planet won't steer us wrong. Lonely Planet is our friend.

    The book tells us the Hué delicacy is Royal Rice Cakes. Great, we think. We like rice, we enjoy cake and whilst I don't care for our Royal family, at least not to the extent I feel the media expects me to, perhaps the relevant royalty here had an exceptional palate and thusly their attributable fare, in keeping with the other Vietnamese specialties we've sampled, will be delicious.

    Also we have rice cakes at home and they're fine. These ones, the book informs, are a little different, but the difference seems to be the addition of shrimp; an addition that consistently heightens any experience. The picture looks promising and anything achieving the echelon of 'local delicacy' must possess certain merits.

    The recommended outlet isn't far. We walk the five minutes to it, turning up our noses at the similarly-named shop next-door attempting to coast on the coat-tails.

    We're brought a menu. There's six items on it. We don't know what to choose but the lady conveys to us in Mr Bean mannerisms that we can order and share all of them for about a tenner. We trust the lady. The lady won't steer us wrong. We like Mr Bean.

    We wait, salivating with anticipation. They're doing that Wagamamas thing where they bring things when they're ready so they don't need to properly manage their kitchen like every other restaurant does. It doesn't take long for the first plate to arrive.

    Dish one is actually a tray filled with twelve smaller dishes. Four apiece - bargain! Each is filled with a white, jellified substance topped with dried bits of bits and a fried morsel of pig skin; a proximate pork scratching. It isn't immediately clear how we eat them, but the lady kindly illustrates we're supposed to pry it from the sides of the dish with a spoon then contort it into a bitesize blob that we consume. We oblige.

    The pork scratching is nice.

    The shrimp bits might have been were they not now infused with the white goop, that presumably at some point in the manufacture involved rice. It doesn't taste of rice. It tastes of, and neatly mirrors the consistency of, what I imagine a cooled tub of cooking fat might taste like if I was dumb enough to eat it, with a hint of fish.

    Ah well, we figure. There was bound to be one we didn't like, just what rotten luck that it's the first one. Undeterred, the second plate arrives and we eagerly dig in for our hopes to be partially validated. The puffed rice cracker topped with savoury cream and a shrimp is fine. Not nice, but broadly recognisable as sustainance. Notably, this is the only dish pictured in the book.

    In quick succession the remaining plates appear. Overwhelmed, and with a degree of dread pertaining to what lies in the periphery, we employ tunnel-vision and take from the plate holding what looks like the sliced innards of pork pies, only less appetising. We don't think it's pork. Its possibly sausagised shrimp, but that we can't tell is of concern.

    Of the three other plates, one stands out as the preferred option. Like how the 'red one' looks the least repellant of the Aftershock liqueur range. Translucent, flat, gummy disks rolled like crepes and sprinkled with the same dried shrimp they must have buckets of in the back. They're easy to pick-up and hold with chopsticks, which is about all I'll say for them. Useful though, as it's less easy than usual to convince my lips to part and embrace this alien matter as nourishment.

    Nausea brewing, we cast our eyes upon the similar-looking though differently proportioned contents of the final two plates. Cursory examination only reveals that whatever we are to convince our gullet to permit passage is wrapped in banana leaves. Unless we're supposed to eat the banana leaves which, despite being indigestible by humans, following was has preceeded might be a step-up.

    We cautiously unwrap the leaves. It's a little like unpeeling a napkin from a slice of birthday cake that's been smushed into a kid's party-bag. Unfolding the final leaf-fold we find the contents don't fall free of their wrappings but cling to it, like the sticky, globby, snotty gunk it appears to be.

    I dry heave. Caught within this gelatinous web of putrified spewtum is some sort of protein, cooked so as perfectly resemble a chunk of congealed vomit. We're British and polite so we have to scrape this crap off the garden-cuttings and introduce it to our digestive system.

    We're living-out the dinner scene from Temple of Doom, only the beheaded primate has sneezed-out it's chilled monkey brain then cleaned it's nose with the same leaf it just finished wiping it's arse with. A hygienic monkey to be sure, but not tantalising gourmet.

    The sole acceptable plate of almost-food has already been polished-off. We won't finish the rest. We sit back, contemplate the sheer ludicrousness of our unappetising, inedible banquet and laugh. And laugh and laugh. I'm almost in tears. This is a memory we'll hang onto always and will forever recontextualise any piffling complaint we have with a restaurant's output.

    After a rather morose day, despite in no way sating our hunger, this experience was somehow what we needed. Now if only we can find a cowboy bar and some cheap beer, we'll be all set.    もっと詳しく

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  • Nick BrownVietnamNick Brown

    DMZ Run : It's Tricky

    2018年3月21日, ベトナム ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    You know me. I like to keep these write-ups breezy. I shoot for an irreverent tone, keep any criticisms tongue-in-cheek, and maintain relative detachment from facts and detail whilst delivering accounts of interesting occurrences that reflect our personal experience with a brand of wit that has been reviewed as both 'trys too hard' and 'must try harder'. When we in the future leaf back through the hardback copy of this travel book I sincerely hope it will bring back memories, bring a smile and above all else be a concise record of our trip without any superfluous sentences or unnecessary pentasyllabic words or tiresome lists of exemplar alternatives inserted only out of pure self-indulgence on my part so as to satisfy my own personal penchant for meta-commentary.

    I mention as there may be a degree of tonal disparity with today's entry. We had booked, and took, a 10-hour day trip to the former DMZ (De-Militarised Zone) wherein we saw and learnt about a great many things that aren't at all funny. I'll be trying for a nuanced spirit, trying harder than usual without trying too hard, but will shy from making the heavy light.

    It will be tricky; I did go back and forth on the blog title but figured I was moderately safe with an obtuse pun that doesn't really work and references something that hasn't been relevant since the 90s. Well, I guess it's like that, and that's the way it is. Huh.

    We'd arranged to be picked up at 7:30am, giving us just enough time to grab breakfast first. Unfortunately for our driver the road outside our hotel, The Times, is currently a-changing; the resurfacing works blocking the through-road and meaning that although he could reach the front of our hotel we had to very very slowly reverse out of the narrow alley before we could get going.

    Our first stop was to pick-up our English-speaking tour-guide in a town on the way that was sufficiently unnotable to not make a note of. She was wearing a very loud top emblazoned with the massive words 'CHOOSE JUICY', designed by Juicy Couture. This, we felt, might jar slightly with the serious history she'd be imparting through the day. It did.

    We first travelled along the Highway of Horror. As a result of the Easter Offensive of 1972, the nearby Quang Tri province was lost to the North and people fled down this highway, the only escape route. Many, many people died, as is reinforced by the many gravestones in the one of many cemetaries we visited. We had to cross an active railway on foot to reach it and our driver was nearly hit by a train as it's nigh impossible to tell the horn of an oncoming train from the stupid amount of horns being honked by highway traffic. I saw a Caramac wrapper on the railway track and remarked I was surprised this particular snack had made it's way to Vietnam and wondered if they still made them in the UK as I've not seen them for ages. Woody told me they do.

    Next we visited Long Hung Church. This place was subject to 8 days of continuous attack and bombings during the same offensive, and it shows, being little more than ruins. It has been kept as it was, with its remaining walls strewn with bullet-holes. Tourists used to be able to pry bullets from the wall as souvenirs, but they're all gone now.

    We next passed by The Rockpile, which was a US Marine outpost atop an outcropping of rock in the shape of a gigantic pile, hence the imaginative name. It was smart positioning as the pile was unscaleable, with marine shifts being facilitated with helicopters. As such, we couldn't drive up it and could only see it from afar, illustrating a poor lack of aforethought on the part of the Americans who should really have predicted it's future pertinence as a tourist attraction. We took a selfie, as objectively this wasn't too depressing.

    During a walk through a small village we remarked on the ubiquity and versatility of bamboo, which the locals seemed to be employing for a dizzying myriad of purposes. In the west we're giving Nobel prizes to Graphene and the Vietnamese have been using the true wonder material for centuries.

    After viewing but not crossing the Dak Dong Bridge, a key junction of the Ho Chi Minh trail that was used by the North to transport troops and supplies during the Vietnam War (which incidentally the Vietnamese refer to as the American War, for obvious reasons), we visited a former combat base, now a coffee plantation. Mark and I had some coffee and Mark bought some coffee and Woody still doesn't like coffee and then we went for lunch.

    Following some average grub at a place packed with coach parties so you know it was overpriced but it's still Vietnam so it was embarrassingly cheap, we went north to the actual DMZ zone. The rocks and hills suddenly disappeared entirely and we were in a wide, flat space filled with paddy fields. We reached the Ben Hai River, the natural divisional boundary between the former North and South Vietnam, and walked over the Hien Luong Bridge that crosses it. In the middle there's a line representing the formal border. In addition there's something called the 17th parallel that was a proposed but unused border line but I don't know what that is and didn't want to ask because everyone else seemed to know already.

    On both sides of the river there were enormous loudspeakers that had once been used by each side to broadcast propaganda at incredible volumes at one another. Both sides also used to compete to make sure they had the highest flagpole, regularly destroying their opponent's and forcing repeated, hasty rebuilds. Such juvenile japes, reminiscent of prank-wars between rivalling summer camps in films I've never seen but have seen referenced sufficiently to know they must be a thing, sounded quite amusing and brought a temporary touch of levity to the day's mood. It was easy to imagine a Vietnamese Rowan-Atkinson-type uttering sardonic quips pertaining to such events in Blackadder Goes Pho.

    Our final stop was the Vinh Moc tunnels. These were subterrainian tunnel dug into the clay over thirteen months and occupied intermittently for five years by the local farming community of circa 100 people in a similar fashion to an air-raid shelter. We were able to go underground through the tunnels and view the pokey living and utility spaces.

    It was set over three levels down to a depth of 23 metres. We were given some plastic, made-in-cheapest-part-of-China, 'Baby's First Flashlight'-standard torches to help light our way through. Mark and I had to duck for most of our time underground as the ceilings were constructed intentionally low so as to be burdensome should Americans ever infiltrate, again showing poor precognition as to the site's future commerciality. Exploring the tunnels was admittedly rather fun (at one point we found the coastline!), though it was harrowing to think how people lived there. There were many impact craters to be seen topside, showing just how under-attack this area had been and how clever an idea and well-constructed the tunnel network was.

    Overall it was a good day. Sombre in places but certainly very interesting; I learnt a lot and would recommend it to others. On the drive back we passed some fields where they were growing peanuts. Our tour-guide spoke excellent English, leaps and bounds ahead of my Vietnamese, but it transpired she couldn't quite pronounce 'peanuts', unintentionally omitting the 't' sound. We passed a lot of such fields, necessitating frequent repetition. It would have been more embarrassing to correct her.

    Dinner will be addressed separately.    もっと詳しく

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  • Nick BrownVietnamNick Brown

    A-Hué we Go!

    2018年3月20日, ベトナム ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    There were no seats available on our train from Dong Hoi so we had to book beds for the journey to Hué. It being late afternoon and only three-ish hours away, we didn't get much shut-eye, but the lie-down proved beneficial when we reached Hué and, after barging our way through a throng of Vietnamese offering us ludicrously inexpensive taxi deals, discovered it was a thirty-five minute walk to the hotel.

    But it was good to stretch our legs, see a bit of the city and having only walked about 12km so far that day, most of it up-hill to see a temple that turned out to be a cave, the prospect of an additional 3km with 15kg strapped to our backs was too tantalising to miss.

    First impressions of Hué are that it feels like a far more modern city than Hanoi. By which I don't mean Hanoi isn't modern, by definition everything that literally exists now is modern, but I mean Hué feels more modern than some other places. Except for the ancient ruins, which feel old but not really all that ancient. I mean it's not the future like Tokyo or the past like Amish Country but closer to the middle than you might expect. I don't know what I mean.

    The city economy is most definitely driven by tourism, with Hué being positioned as the perfect halfway destination for people travelling North-to-South or South-to-North and the only destination of note for those undertaking the very short and far less popular East-West route. There are an abundance of bars, restaurants, tour-operators, mini-marts and hotels, all of which we made use of in our first day (categorically, not literally). Our chosen hotel was down a narrow dark alley close to the wide, well-lit tourist streets.

    'Chosen' is a somewhat grandiose descriptor for the process of selecting amongst the tiny percentage of hotels offering rooms to accommodate three adult males without infringing our night-time intimacy boundaries. But our hotel, 'The Times', is a lovely place with great facilities that I'm assured is in no way affiliated with the Murdoch empire.

    After dropping off our laundry to be processed for the princely sum of a quid a kilo, we ventured out via a tour-operator, to book our following day's excursion, then on toward the former Imperial Citadel. En route, it began to rain so we popped into a shop to buy some umbrellas.

    The umbrellas were of equivalent build-quality to a primary school kid's art project. You would tell them 'well done' and possibly hang on the handle of the fridge door, but wouldn't use outside lest the rain dissolve the papier-mâché canopy and weaken the lollypop-stick spokes, condensing the apparatus to a PVA-soaked mound atop a resistant yoghurt-pot handle.

    But some form of portable sheltering was certainly required, most essentially for Mark so he could perform his visual documentation duties. In our tight role-based group structure it has evolved that Mark is our Planner, Co-ordinator and Photographer, I'm our Scribe and occasional Navigator and Woody is here too. Alas, the need to both hold his camera and umbrella in such a way that the umbrella also protected the camera proved difficult. This repeated reconfiguration of equipment, coupled with the frustration of idle tourists wandering into his perfectly framed shots at the very point of perfect shelter/shutter alignment, pushed our photographer to peak perturbation before we'd even entered the Imperial City gates.

    Mark. Was. Furious. The anger eminating from his being only intensified when he noticed an interloper blotching his viewfinder in the form of a tiny dust-mite. Much as the Southern Vietnam troops occupying the citadel must have felt in January 1968 when, as part of the Tet Offensive, a Division-sized force of the People's Army of Vietnam and Viet Cong soldiers invaded, Mark was incensed by the intrusion and found it troublesome to extract. However, a quick Google search clarified this to in fact be an intentional in-built system designed to keep the aperture dust-free, confirming the mite to be a feature, not a bug.

    The rain soon ceased and we wandered through the Citadel and Imperial City calm and dry. Outside the city walls we found two clusters of cannons. One set of five represented the different elements, smartly conserving bronze by eschewing the periodic table quantities for a more Captain Planet inspired approach. The remaining four cannons represented spring, summer, autumn and winter; whilst the capital city may have the Hanoi Hilton, Hué has the Four-Seasons Cannons (DID-YOU-SEE-WHAT-I-DID-THERE!?!)

    There was much to see in the Imperial City: the ornate Throne Room, the former Forbidden City (patch of grass), nine dynastic urns opposite ten shrines for eight out of the thirteen emperors, the Reading Room, the Long Corridor, the Flag Tower, the Pavilion, the other Pavilion, gates, gates, more gates and gates being restored to their former gateness, several gardens, numerous courtyards, we fed some fish, had some ice-cream and for reasons hummed the A-Team theme-tune in harmonious adagio tempo. It was a full day, and took up most of it.

    After walking over the river to the Dieu De National Pagoda it was surprisingly late in the day so we headed back toward the hotel. We stopped-off at the first supermarket we've seen to buy some interesting hot-dog pizza-breads for a late lunch which we followed with a round of not-sure-whats a lady was making on the street outside. They were like deep-fried sweet-bread doughnuts with sesame seeds and delicious. We also finally found some Dark Choco-Pies, which since I've not explained the ubiquity of the brand nor previously chronicled the quest to locate this particular variant will mean little to anybody except us.

    In the evening we went out for food, accompanied by several good-quality beers that cost 30 pence each. We like Vietnam.    もっと詳しく

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  • Nick BrownVietnamNick Brown

    Phong Nha-ke Bang - Caving In

    2018年3月19日, ベトナム ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    (Featuring our special caves correspondent, Mark!)

    Caves are cool.

    They did it with Westworld. They did it with Star Trek. They tried to do it with Power Rangers and they failed miserably with The Mummy. And now somehow Mark has managed to take something dreary, dormant and rocky (they also did it with Rocky) and successfully reboot it into actual entertainment.

    I can't give Mark all the credit however. I gave him full credit for our last group caving excursion to Carlsbad Caverns someplace in the USA (I forget exactly where, my repression techniques are working), and it was a consequence of this experience that I approached the caves at Phong Nha-ke Bang with trepidation.

    Credit here though must also go to Phong Nha Discovery Tours, the facilitators of our tour of the Paradise and Dark caves on Day 1. There's a certain ambience to organised tours in Vietnam; an enjoyable, ramshackle mania that makes it feel as though they just discovered these caves last week and so quickly cobbled together a visitors centre from banana leaves and bamboo and diverted the local bus service to ferry people to it. If we could actually understand the words the guides are frequently yelling at one other, perhaps comparing their running tallies of tourist fatalities, it would certainly take something away from the experience.

    Also want to give props to our main man Kris, the assigned guide for the day, who maintained an exiteable aura throughout the day, snapping pictures of the group and mixing jokes with fact (edutainment?) as he taught us some Vietnamese geography and history.

    As we travelled in our bus through the jungle on Victory Road, a key transport route during the American war, he explained to us how Vietnam was shaped like a letter S (debatable, but I see it) or, alternatively, like a woman (perhaps, after you've had a few drinks and imagining the woman doing a particularly painful yoga pose). Expanding upon his analogy further, Kris explained how as we were now in the approximate middle of the country, Phong Nha-ke Bang could be considered the 'sexy bits'.

    Keen to capture Vietnam's sexy bits on film, Mark had ensured his camera was thoroughly charged, fitted his other Go-Pro-like action-cam into its waterproof casing and ensured memory card capacity by uploading all previous pictures to his portable hard drive. In fairness, he did this every day, but feels most pertinent to mention here.

    We briefly stopped for the pre-show that was Eight Ladies Cave, less a cave more a shrine built into a naturally-formed cubby-hole, which Mark attended cosplaying as one of the titular ladies. We then proceeded to the first feature presentation; Paradise Cave. Whilst a respectable effort, this cave was very much from the 2001 Tim Burton Planet of the Apes school of reboots; too similar to the original in some ways (flashbacks of Carlsbad), too different in others (had to ascend a winding slippery slope to get there) and with an ending that was somehow both a retread and frustrating in it's own right (back up the stairs we came down).

    For some genuine geological commentary, I pass you to our special caves-correspondent, Mark:

    "It was aethetically very pleasing, well illuminated, and not garish. The variations of stalactites and stalacmites, their shape and sculpture, particularly notable. The overall scale of the place was breathtaking. There aren't many geology jokes."

    Thank-you Mark.

    We then travelled fifteen minutes to the Dark Cave, where we were first given lunch. This consisted of piles of meat and rice in massive wicker baskets that brought to mind the dustbin-lid presentation style of Reds Barbecue, and contained similar quantities of food. Having consumed a heavy meal, we recalled the rule that you should only swim within two hours of eating, so headed to the waterside without delay.

    The fastest route was via zipline. I was nervous as I'm not a fan of jumping off ledges at heights that would kill me were it not for apparatus I haven't fitted myself, don't fully comprehend and haven't examined the warranty for, but Woody was in the queue in front of me and his survival of the experience gave me faith. Mark slightly exceeded the weight requirements for the zipline, invalidating both the attraction's insurance policy, his personal travel insurance policy and endangering both his life and all those that might follow him, so I made sure he was in the queue behind me.

    Upon touchdown I agreed the zipline had been exhilerating, safe in the knowledge we wouldn't have to go on one again. We walked to the water where there were some boats waiting to be told we would have to swim. We swam toward a nearby cave mouth and a small jetty poking out the front. Woody enjoyed ascending the jetty ladder so much he decided to slip and fall back into the water just so he could have a second go.

    We then walked single-file into the Dark Cave, named genuinely for its darkness. We were each wearing helmets with lights attached, these being our only source of illumination. As the passageway became gradually narrower the floor underfoot became muddier, eventually culminating in a large pool of mud that we all waded into. It was doing that Dead Sea shtick where you could naturally float on the surface and we were told the mud was good for our skin, but then they always say and I've yet to see Boots start stocking big tubs of mud in place of Oil of Olay.

    After walking through mud to mud and coating ourselves in said mud, we were rather muddy. On our exit from the cave we were invited to go down a mudslide, with the promise this would make us briefly muddier but conclude in a clean water pool in which we could wash-off the magic regenerative exfoliating goop.

    Once outside we had the opportunity to kayak once more, this time in a three-way arrangement whereby Woody and I ruled as co-Kings with Mark as our shared Queen. Basically we rowed, whilst Mark took pictures. We ended up back at the visitors centre, where Mark & Woody raced on a mini-zipline (I'd had quite enough of that) followed by a few rum & cokes in the bar and Mark had a staring contest with a fire-ant. In all, an excellent afternoon that thoroughly restored 'cave' from its standing as an occasional curse-word to that which invokes open-minded intrigue. This was Rise of The Planet of the Apes style rebootery ; I would queue-up for the sequel and even buy the Blu-ray.

    Then the next day happened. We went on a lovely boat trip into a huge cave and all was well and epic and wow but then Mark said we'd be going up a mountain to a temple. 'Brilliant' we thought, so did. The climb was tough-going, steep and in sweltering heat but the views were phenomenal. Alas, however, when we reached the summit there was no temple, only cave. An okay cave, but hardly a good cave. Think War for the Planet of the Apes; acceptable I guess, but that'll do.

    This sort of duplicitous ploy is precisely what gives caves a bad name and Mark's mislead why the world looks down on geological professions with scorn. With only the descent then a late, hot, 90-minute bus journey then 4-hour train journey to look forward to today, this was a monumental letdown. Still I'll say one thing for caves, after a humid sweaty climb in the baking Vietnamese climate they have a singular redeeming feature:

    Caves are cool.    もっと詳しく

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  • Nick BrownVietnamNick Brown

    Ha Long Bay from home

    2018年3月17日, ベトナム ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C

    After working fairly hard so far this holiday, we decided to go on holiday.

    For our mini-break we went for a 24-hour cruise into then back out of Ha Long Bay. We had to wake early to get to the travel office by 7:45 ; not even enough time for the hotel to tell me they don't have the ingredients for what I would usually order, so we each had quick untoasted 'toast' instead.

    (Disclaimer : our hotel in Hanoi was and is fantastic, digs are affectionate and my TripAdvisor review confirms this stance)

    Our journey from Hanoi to Ha Long harbour felt swifter than it was, on a reasonably comfortable bus with interesting scenery and a brief bathroom-break stop at a shop selling imported goods at imported prices, presumably mainly to tourists making the same journey we were.

    The harbour was organised chaos, with much an abundance of the latter diluting any hint of the former. Finally reaching the waterside we were vaguely shepherded toward a small boat labelled 'Treasure Junk', the name of the boat we'd booked. After putting on our lifejackets, taking a seat on hard wooden benches and wondering where we were supposed to plug in our essential smart-appliances, also sleep, it became clear that this was a smaller shuttle boat to take us to the main boat.

    (Disclaimer : this was clear way before this moment, but portrayed as it happened would be less narratively satisfying)

    The main boat, the actual Treasure Junk, looked slightly worn from the exterior, but was stunning on the inside. Like a floating 4-ish star hotel, we knew instantly that this would be the most luxurious accommodation we'd be experiencing during our trip.

    The rooms were immaculate, with beautifully kept furnishings, waterfall shower facilities, stunning sea views (which, fair enough, not too admirable an accomplishment for a room on a boat) and, having strategically outplayed my compatriots in a heated match of rock-paper-scissors, I had won the added benefit of a room all to myself. It was almost a shame that our itinerary was so jam-packed, we'd be spending little-to-no time in them.

    First they fed us. We were seated to a table with menus listing seven listed meals we naturally assumed would either be options on a buffet or from which we could select our preferences. Instead we were each brought all seven courses of perfectly cooked and flavoured seafood in succession. The dessert course included a mysterious fruit, white with black spots that when tasted conveyed neither texture nor taste, rendering it both unique and utterly un-noteworthy. On reflection, I'm not entirely sure there was any fruit, perhaps my limited perception of it was a hallucination caused by some poorly-cooked seafood, my assessment of it as being perfectly cooked itself a symptom, or maybe some sort of magic-eye placemat. Woody said it was dragon-fruit, which is appropriate as dragons don't exist either.

    Next we went kayaking. Each kayak held two people and, following a team rock-paper-scissors performance to rival our lunchtime doubles kickabout days, Woody and I were paired. Weight distribution is important in a kayak and, my natural height and strict regime of unhealthy food and minimal exercise paying-off, my bulk had to be seated at the back and Woody at the front. To use completely accurate kayaking terminology used by the crew, I was the King and Woody my Queen. Just like in that dream I once had.

    We kayaked to a nearby beach, taking in the gorgeous scenery as we went. We quickly achieved a good rowing rythmn, our years at the gym together rotating through every apparatus aside from the rowing machine reaping reward. Upon reaching the beach, Mark was overjoyed to find the first cave of the holiday, which was like this concave chamber in the cliffside that you could walk into and everything. More, way way more, on the caves front to come.

    In the evening we attended a spring roll rolling demonstration, then got to roll ones for ourselves. They were the same dish we'd tried constructing at Woody's birthday/housewarming party last month but had found difficult to wrap due to the stickiness of the rice paper. Turns out the trick is to make the rice paper less sticky.

    We had some beer on deck as the sun set then went for our predictably-by-now fancy dinner. We then tried our hand at squid fishing. This involved them turning on some bright lamps over the water, theoretically to attract squid, and having us hold poles supporting un-baited hooks over the side of the boat. That there appeared to be no plan in place as to what we'd do if we caught a squid suggests they didn't expect us to, and these expectations were met. We stood there for quite a while and, though we couldn't find the hidden cameras, I'm convinced the activity was being filmed for idiot-tourists-look-what-we-made-them-do.com

    We had an early start on the second day, assembling on the deck for a Tai Chi lesson before a light breakfast then sailing to the floating village. This was, and still is presuming no typhoon has struck in the past day, a community living in floating shacks in Hanoi bay, their economy centred around the cultivation of pearls. We were first taken on a boat tour of the village, rowed through by a slight Vietnamese woman with incredible shoulder strength, culminating at workshop where we were taught how pearls were made before they tried to sell us the pearls they, or more accurately the oysters, made. The jewellery was very nice, laid out for tourists and for sale at tourist prices, but I was totally about to drop a few grand on a necklace before realising my girlfriend is vegan so mightn't appreciate it.

    (Disclaimer: I wasn't, but actually now wouldn't. Creating and harvesting pearls is sadistically clever but needlessly brutal and nobody should buy them or wear them for any reason, ever)

    After this we went for a 9:45am lunch then sailed back toward the harbour for a bus back to Hanoi to walk to collect our bags from the ever-helpful Phillip at the highly-recommended Hanoi Brother Inn & Travel hotel (tell 'em Nick sent ya and you'll get the same deal as everybody else) then walk to the station to catch a sleeper train to Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng National Park, our next destination, where Mark promises there'll be caves. Which I'm really really looking forward to...

    (Disclaimer: the rule-of-three dictates that this is one-to-many disclaimers)    もっと詳しく

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  • Nick BrownVietnamNick Brown

    Hanoi 4ever : The Final Chapter

    2018年3月15日, ベトナム ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    We began Day 4 in Hanoi with disappointment.

    Upon arriving at breakfast at our semi-regular table at our regular Hanoi hotel, my regular order was unavailable. Toast would be fine they said, no problem whatsoever with the toasting me some bread (aside from their persistent problem of not actually toasting the toast, instead only introducing the bread to a heat-source momentarily then swiftly yanking it away lest it get a sweat on), but they were out of the ingredients to concoct scrambled eggs. Fortunately however they were able to root around in the cupboards to find the completely different required ingredients for fried eggs, so I had those instead. This culinary inventiveness however, per some cognitive one-in-one-out policy, did require them to forget how to make even their own 'interpretation' of toast and so they came served with a crusty roll of bread.

    Fortunately the day quickly recovered from this extremely mild annoyance, though clearly didn't generate sufficient wordage to remove the breakfast bit in the edit.

    Realising it had been almost eighteen hours since we last visited a temple, we first rushed out to a temple. The distinguishing feature for this one, Bach Ma Temple, was it was dedicated to or inspired by a white horse and so had a decorated artificial white horse in the main worshippy section. This was different as, generally, the animals portrayed have been one of the four key spiritual animals: the dragon, the unicorn, the turtle and the fourth one.

    Before Mark told us this one was the white horse temple we momentarily considered that the white horse was a unicorn. In retrospect that was a stupid consideration, though not because the horse was horn-less; a bee without it's stinger remains simply a very safe very dead bee. Turns out unicorns native to Vietnam look quite dissimilar to their western genetic cousins, something we learnt at our next stop, the National History Museum.

    The journey there was quite fascinating as it involved walking through the French Quarter, an area of the city we'd heard rumours was now dilapidated as the result of some dastardly scheme to revenge historical repressive transgressions with subdued real-estate prices. This transpired to be fake news as instead it was the fanciest, most up-market district of the city, home to a Prada store, a Rolls Royce garage and a Hilton hotel no-doubt peeved about their ranking in the Google search results. It was still Hanoi so the streets were as perilous to cross as ever, but it was the sort of area where you felt if you got struck the emergency services might actually attend the scene.

    Near the one and only and very busy petrol station in Hanoi (that we saw during our brief stay) we found the museum. We learnt things aside from the weird-unicorn tidbit, which I'm yet to fully verify, but that's the only thing that really stuck - still had a bit of a han'goi-ver at this point. I learnt something about the Mongols I hadn't known previously, but that was something Woody told me so doesn't count.

    After being kicked-out so the museum staff could go for lunch, we headed to the Women's Museum, where we finally learnt about women. There were exhibits on marriage traditions, birthing rituals and some very sombre displays telling the stories of female rebels killed whilst fighting for freedom. There was also space dedicated to the Mother Goddess, an important deity to many Vietnamese people whom they thank when things go well, pray to when things go badly and are just text once-or-twice a week when things are fine. She likes beer and Mother Goddess shrines usually contain stacks of beer cans gifted to her. It is in honour of the Mother Goddess that we have been sure to consume a beer every evening since arriving.

    For lunch we stopped at a roadside outlet and indulged in another Vietnamese specialty, pho. A couple of us had tried pho before, at Pho no less, and I can say with confidence that Pho restaurant in the UK nails the taste absolutely, if not the rough-and-ready ambience ours and therefore presumably all genuine pho is served.

    After lunch we headed to the Ambassadors Pagoda, in my view the most impressive pagoda we've yet seen. Discussion regarding this assessment raised the valid concern as to whether the grounds surrounding a pagoda should be factored into it's overall aesthetic merit, in which case the Confucian temple wins the gold star. We agreed that the best outcome would be to put the Ambassadors Pagoda in the Temple of Literature grounds and so filed the appropriate planning applications to make it happen. We also found some guy apparently asleep on the floor one of the shrine rooms so, mature thirty-somethings that we are, took a sneaky selfie with him in lieu of checking for a pulse.

    We stopped by Lenin park, entry to which is free for locals but a gouging 60p for tourists, which we were racially-profiled to be. Whilst beautifully kept, it looked as though it had once tried to be a rudimentary amusement park but hadn't removed the tired attractions and rides once the attempt had failed/ceased. There was also a serious lack of Lenin, 100% less in fact than where we'd seen the Lenin statue a couple of days back. We postulated that the statue might be better placed here so as to more efficiently consolidate the Lenin experience into a convenient singular locale for Lenin-heads to congregate and collectively get their Lenin-on, but had filed enough paperwork for one day.

    We visited yet another temple (I'm not souring on the experience, but there's only so much you can say). This one felt akin to a community centre, with kids playing football in the courtyard. We got told off for sitting on the steps with our back to the shrine and were pointed toward the designated seating area, but left in shame.

    To conclude the day part of the day we trekked to the venue claiming to produce the original Hanoi 'egg coffee', situated in a narrow alley nestled between tens of imitators. Basically a cappuccino with the milk replaced with a whipped egg-whites/butter/cheese mixture and was far more delicious than Mark and I anticipated. Woody, disliking coffee and egg and with a very finite tolerance for hot drinks in general, decided it probably wasn't for him.

    In the evening we decided to bypass the traditional 'seated dinner' for a true street-food experience, ordering steak butties from a roadside vendor before being directed to a table in hitherto unseen seating area. Determined to eat on our feet we finished our tasty sandwiches and found somebody grilling skewers at the side of the road for seconds. Failing to find a sufficiently grubby-looking dessert purveyor on the streets, we settled for a blended ice-cream dessert in a place sufficiently clean to be labelled a 'parlour', then headed to the hotel for an early night ahead of our boat trip tomorrow where, as expected, I've no Wi-Fi so haven't been able to post this until Saturday. Call off the rescue squads - we're alive!    もっと詳しく

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  • Nick BrownVietnamNick Brown

    Hanoi 3 : Han'goi-ver

    2018年3月14日, ベトナム ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C

    Hanoi puns are hard. Recognising the pun as my favourite tool when titling blog entries, we all sat down a couple of days ago to think of some. Brainstorming reaping little, we collectively concurred that the incompatibility of Hanoi with basic wordplay was rather Hanoi-ing...

    Such is the nature of writing in arrears, today's title in fact references the after-effects of the day under review. Whilst far from an Albuquerque Incident II situation, we did drink a fair bit on the evening of Day 3 and, coupled with some exhaustion and dehydration and the heat and the pollution and the persistent honking of horns for literally no reason at all, here in the far-flung future of Day 4 my faculties are a mite subdued.

    So, just time for a quick recap of the day's activities. We started out by visiting the Citadel. The former seat of Imperial power, the site has undergone numerous transformations over the years and been utilised for a great many purposes, from royal palace to military command centre to tourist attraction. The venue's current claim to fame is its Guinness World Record for Loudest Loudspeaker in the 'tour-guide belt-clip' category. Most commonly witnessed delivering a Chinese translated tour for about seven people through quiet rooms where even raising one's voice would be redundant, the skilled operator is famed for their ability to progress through exhibits at precisely the same pace as western tourists so as to completely disable capacity to concentrate and render any reading of artefact descriptions completely impossible. It's ability to incite the instinct to grab the device and crush it in bare hands then chuckle as the debris sprinkles to the ground in a beautiful silence aside from the aforementioned chuckle makes it's persistent existence all the more incredible.

    We then went to the Lenin statue so Mark could do his Lenin pose, as you do, then popped to KFC for a drink. As the Colonel's Secret Recipe appeared disappointingly unchanged for the Vietnamese market, we didn't eat. Also we weren't hungry. In fact we skipped lunch entirely on Day 3, recognising we'd been eating out of habit rather than necessity. Though on reflection that decision may have been a contributor to my present weariness.

    We then went to the Temple of Literature, a Confucion Temple containing the National Academy, Vietnam's first national university. There were some robed graduates there throwing their mortar boards in the air, after which they came down again, definitive proof of gravity's stranglehold on Vietnamese society.

    Next we went to the Fine Arts museum. It was fine.

    We wandered next to the Military Museum, firstly part-ascending the Flag Tower, a square structure taller than it was wide with a stick at the top bearing rectangular cloth emblazoned with the Vietnam country emblem. Whilst Woody and I were fairly certain it was identical from all angles, Mark took photos from every corner just to be sure. This was permitted as we'd purchased a special 'camera ticket' on the way in; presumably a canny way of ensuring national defence secrets can only be committed to film by those able to stump up the 47 pence fee.

    There were numerous military aircraft for us to view and Mark to photograph and some tanks for Mark to photograph and a genuinely impressive sculpture in the courtyard constructed from several war wrecks from combat in the French Indochina War as well as the Vietnam War for Mark to photograph. Not dissimilar to the international killing spree upon which Bond embarked once granted his permission slip, Mark made thorough use of his License to Snap.

    We returned to the hotel, stopping only briefly to drip hot oil down my t-shirt via a fried banana conduit, then had a chat with Phillip, the hotel owner. We told him where we going next and he booked the train tickets for us, gave us a free beer whilst we waited for the email confirmation to arrive and then gave us a discount voucher for a recommended restaurant nearby. In the vast Venn diagram of 'Nam, Phillip most definitely occupies the crossover between 'friendly' and 'cannot do enough for you', whilst intersecting the smaller 'hotel owner' circle and the relatively exclusive 'named Phillip' set. In fact, most everyone we've met or transacted with since we've gotten here has satisfied those first two qualities, rocketing the Vietnamese people right into the Acceptable Foreigners Top 10 list. We later found out Phillip was from Germany, but he can retain an honorary position.

    After unsuccessfully attempting to find me a spare pair of trousers (I'm too tall for literally any garment worn by anybody here ever), we went to the recommended eatery and were met by Phillip's little brother at the door as Phillip had phoned ahead for us because of course he had. For a change we each had portions of carbs and protein with some veg before heading to the nearby bar district, also recommended by Phillip.

    This was by far the most 'touristy' region of Hanoi's Old Quarter we'd witnessed, with the patrons predominantly Chinese or Western. But whilst you'd expect things to be priced at a premium, and technically they were, a circa 25% increase on next-to-nothing remains practically nothing. We had a beer at a street-bar, then were guided to a second-floor bar and greeted by a woman so scantily glad we were momentarily concerned it was something seedier. Turned out to be a normal and very nice bar where we enjoyed a private balcony with stunning views of the balconies and rooftop extensions of the building opposite.

    After a few we went back to Prague Bar, which we'd visited a couple of days earlier by chance and had tables that faced right onto a busy junction - a mesmerising spot to sit and watch the traffic go by. An actual, honestly not sarcastic, fascinating spectacle to observe.

    We ordered beers from the menu we hadn't yet tried, only to be informed by the apologetic waitress that they were out of stock. I jokingly expressed chagrin at this mild inconvenience, but I don't think my humorous tone translated as they rushed out to a different bar to purchase our selected tipple and sell-on to us. Feeling a bit bad about this, we drank up and left a nice tip, which would have been insulting from a monetary perspective in the UK and is apparently insulting from a cultural perspective in Vietnam unless they've done something particularly surplus to requirement, which we felt they had so it was probably okay.

    We then went to another bar where they gave us free shots along with another three beers each. We put our names on the 'winner-stays-on' list for the pool table, on which we all played but didn't stay on. Moderately drunk, we wandered back the hotel and so this morning had the titular Han'goi-ver.

    But since this is written intermittently through the day in 20-30 second bursts, mainly when Mark is taking pictures, I'm feeling quite a lot better now and can likely stomach the Egg Coffee we're walking to try. Will we like it? Find out in tomorrow's thrilling instalment if we have wi-fi on the boat, which is unlikely.    もっと詳しく

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  • Nick BrownVietnamNick Brown

    Hanoi 2 : Electric Boogaloo

    2018年3月13日, ベトナム ⋅ 🌫 19 °C

    After a busy first day in Hanoi and after an evening of alcoholic indulgence, we opted for a more sedate Day 2, setting the alarm for five minutes later, visiting seven or eight cultural sites and walking only a measly thirteen kilometres.

    Much of our initial distance was achieved via periodic shuffling whilst queuing to see the body of Uncle Ho, not the friendly neighbourhood pimp but the affectionate nickname of the reverex revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh.

    When first approaching the mausoleum from the road we spied a particularly long queue that Mark remarked made the queue for the Reichstag in Berlin, our to-date point of reference for exceptionally long queues within the context of the three of us holidaying together, look short. Alas, on rounding the corner to join this really long line we noted that this was the line for people with appointments to see Ho Chi Minh, which we didn't have.

    Unable to fathom how to secure a spot in a dead man's diary, we continued walking round the complex to find the queue for people with a more spontaneous attitude toward cadaver ogling. We soon found the end of the queue, only it was the end at the end of the queue, as opposed to the start of the queue we could join. We followed the queue through the designated queuing space, out of the designated queuing space, out of the complex, onto the street, across six-or-seven other street, restraining our remarks that this actual queue made the queue we thought was the queue that made the Reichstag queue look short look short until we found the back.

    We never actually found the back of the queue. In an astounding breach of ethics and Englishness, Mark surreptitiously found a gap into which we could queue-jump and myself and Woody, abiding sheep/accomplices that we are, followed. The woman in front of whom we jumped yelled some choice words at us, but she chose them in foreign so didn't sting too much. After much, though unfairly curtailed, queuing we reached the impressive mausoleum and walked through the viewing chamber, kept cool for freshness.

    Uncle Ho has been dead for nearly fifty years. Still is. I've never seen an almost fifty-year post-human human before, but it's honestly not a good look. I think it's fair, and only possibly very slightly offensive, to say that yesterday's preserved giant turtle looks more like a turtle than Uncle Ho looks like a person. To each their own, but family/friends note when I die I don't wish to be placed in a cooled glass case in the centre of a tourism complex with visitor's centre, museum and gift shops. Just the museum will suffice.

    After a brief walk round the museum, wherein limited translations required us to interpret ourselves the meaning of the various esoteric displays, and a quick climb/descent of the single-stilted pagoda the complex closed for lunch. We left and headed toward a temple, though the sheer abundance of temples in Hanoi render such statement meaningless. The temple was nice, though the sheer abundance of nice temples in Hanoi make etc.

    We then walked, and I checked this afterward for accuracy, a billion miles north to visit another temple that was slightly nicer than the previous temple but didn't really satisfy the effort/reward ratio. We then took a taxi back, in which I left my bag containing my passport and so my holiday was over and we'd have to find the embassy and plead for my passage back home, until about five minutes later when the driver returned. We tend not to dwell on epic fails unless committed by persons other than myself, but still God bless that man, and his descendants, and his descendants' descendants, but that'll do.

    The Ho Chi Minh complex reopened, we went for a stroll round Uncle Ho's former home and grounds, including Uncle Ho's fishing hole, Uncle Ho's stilt house and Uncle Ho's classic car collection. Being leader of a nationalist movement for more than three decades, fighting against the Japanese then French colonial powers and then the US-backed South Vietnamese and being President of North Vietnam for fifteen years clearly brings home the bacon.

    Tired and with aching feet we returned hotelwards, coincidentally also in the direction of a temple, for a rest before our planned evening excursion. Walking back past the turtle-tower-temple we'd visited on Day One, now all lit up and pretty at night and likely one of the pictures I'll attach to this post, we went to a Water Puppets performance. It was genuinely very entertaining, even the parts I could only see through the conduit of some dickhead's phone who'd dickheadedly decided to film the first third of the show. It's hard to describe, but closest approximation would be Punch & Judy meets The Muppets on Ice, only the ice has melted due to global warming. A bit like Waterworld. Only good.

    We had steak sandwiches for dinner then tried to find a new bar, but failed and went to the one over the road from the hotel. We had a few beers and eventually remembered probably all the rules to play blackjack. I invented a brand new game called Blackjack Extreme with all-new special rules and cards that we only played once because it was so great.    もっと詳しく

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  • Nick BrownVietnamNick Brown

    Hanoi : Day One-and-a-bit

    2018年3月12日, ベトナム ⋅ 🌫 19 °C

    Q. Why did the chicken cross the road?
    A. It didn't

    If there's one thing we learnt in our first 26-or-so hours in Hanoi, it's how to cross the road. This lesson transpired to be essential, lest we remain holed-up in our hotel for our entire stay as, whilst the door from our lodgings technically opened up onto a pavement, pedestrian walkways aren't really a 'thing'.

    Instead, the 'pavement' as it were or would be were it a 'thing' is utilised as a combination seating area, barbecue pit or, most commonly of all, parking space for motorbikes. As such, one doesn't wander beside the street but instead on said street, aside said pavement and both alongside and in direct conflict with such things expressly designed for traversal on said streets most commonly, as I said, said motorbikes.

    Walking parallel within isn't too tricky; just find a gap and join the traffic lane like any other vehicle, maintaining consistent speed and clearly indicating any sideways shifts. You don't have to emit 'brum-brum' sound effects, but it's fun.

    Crossing perpendicular to traffic flow, however, is a teensy bit more perilous. With traffic lights functioning as mere suggestions and zebra-crossings simply exceedingly-neat graffiti, picking a suitable point to cross is both difficult and easy, insomuch as every potential choice is equally unsuitable.

    You have to unlearn everything you learnt about crossing safely. Looking both ways is a sign of weakness. Traffic won't stop and the cacophony of blaring horns is mere background noise. You simply take a breath, shake hands with your compatriots whilst expressing fond sentiments for your time together (actually happened), then...walk. To misquote but ascribe rythmn from Dory of Nemo fame, and latterly of Dory fame, you 'Just keep walking, just keep walking...'

    If it feels like you're going to die, you're doing it right. Bikes will swerve, cars will slow and I'm not sure what coaches do since we're not idiots and obviously don't step blindly in front of speeding coaches. In summary; be brave, don't hesitate, stay alive.

    We first began honing this technique on our first night in Hanoi. Landing rather late in the evening and reeling from being awake for 40 hours we had intended to simply a) find hotel and b) sleep. But so invigorated were we by our taxi journey through the vehicular insanity and sensory onslaught of the Vietnamese backstreets, with the musical accompaniment of local pop hit 'Welcome to Vietnam' blaring from Airport-Pickup FM, that we resolved to go outside.

    Informed by the helpful hotel probably-owner that our first night was the final one during our stay when the local night market was open, we decided to go. Amidst a vast row of stalls selling all manner of fake good we carefully examined the various street-food stalls, then picked one at random and feasted on things on sticks, different things that looked like they'd be on sticks but were in fact chopped-up and mixed in a cup and finally some frozen stuff, on a stick. We had a beer on some children's garden furniture across the road, then called it a night.

    Next morning we discovered breakfast was not only included in our ridiculously-cheap room-rate, but was also really good, definitively putting Premier Inn Leicester City Centre to shame (see TripAdvisor review entitled 'Fucking Terrible' for more details). Scrambled-eggs/pancakes/toast consumed, we headed out into the city.

    First we went to jail. The remains of the former Hoa Lo prison, somewhat entertainingly referred to as the 'Hanoi Hilton' by Americans during their relatively pleasant detainment there during the American/Vietnam war and less-entertainingly a harrowing historical incarceration centre for heroic Vietnamese political prisoners resisting against the oppressive and ruthless French colonialists. There was an informational/propaganda video set to the music of Pirates of the Caribbean. Or Pirates of the Caribbean cribbed it's soundtrack from a patriotic Vietnamese anthem.

    Mark, the exalted organised-one of our trio, guided us on a walking tour of Hanoi's Old Town. The streets of Hanoi appear largely segregated by the nature of goods for sale; there are streets dedicated to tin, some to knock-off toy brands, an odd cluster dealing exclusively in television remote-controls and others solely concerned with the prolonged suffering, torture and meticulous murder of marine life. We visited the 'Memorial House'; a preserved, traditional house that hadn't been actively lived-in since the late 90s, granting it equal historical credence as pictures from my 14th birthday party. We also ventured into a covered market billed as stocking 'anything you could possibly think of', which was true, so long as you limited your free-thought to stationary, confectionary and dried fish products. Should your imagination apropos retail possibilities be so restricted, check out amazon.com and thank me later.

    During our tour we would intermittently pop-in to numerous small Buddhist temples and visited one very large Catholic cathedral. Like most people visiting such places, I couldn't help but be reminded of the evolving design philosophy of the Legend of Zelda video game franchise. The juxtaposition here of the many-but-small Breath of the Wild approach against the fewer-but-bigger LTTP through Twilight-Princess structure (discounting the obvious anomaly of Skyward Sword) helped me, in common I'm sure with most tourists, once again conclude that Ocarina of Time remains the definitive entry in the series.

    At Hoan Kiem lake we visited possibly the most famous temple in Hanoi, Ngoc Son, dedicated to a legend about a sword of the lake and a Turtle God or something I'm not really sure it wasn't all translated. Nearby in the middle of the lake was a structure known as 'Turtle Tower', in memory of the legend or the turtles or towers. There was a resident hero-in-a-half-shell by way of a preserved giant turtle specimen that was either dead, bronze or dead and bronzed depending on who you asked.

    From the makers of 'The Eiffel Tower' came the penultimate instalment of our tour, a bridge that we saw almost 75% of from a distance. Finally we experienced the Ceramic Road which, whilst admittedly an impressive four-kilometre mural carefully constructed and depicting beautiful cultural imagery, is in fact a wall next to a road and not technically a road so reportable under the Vietnam equivalent of the Trade Descriptions Act (Articles 103/106, 1992 Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, fact fans!)

    We returned to the hotel for a brief rest before heading out for dinner. On the suggestion of the hotel probably-owner we went to a local street-food venue, selected a few things off the menu and received at least 40% of what we ordered. What we had was delicious once coated in chilli sauce, following which we walked a few streets to an upmarket craft beer venue which we'd spotted earlier in the day. Turns out it's an outlet for a brewery we'll be visiting in a couple of weeks in Saigon, so functioned as something of a preview. They had a mix of delicious dark stouts and IPAs for people into that sort of thing. It was relatively expensive, but the 'relatively' aspect is key here since for five drinks each, several of which fell into the premium 'ultra-strong' category, total bill for the evening was just over a million dong; approximately a tenner a head. Or, to translate into a more relatable metric, around three pints of Kronenberg at the Trafford Centre Namco Station circa 2002.    もっと詳しく

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  • Nick BrownVietnamNick Brown

    It's On like Hongy Kong

    2018年3月11日, 香港 ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    Layovers can be a pain. Short ones mean you're rushing about, cautious not to miss your connecting flight and cursing that immigration won't just briefly abandon national security concerns to let you saunter through unimpeded. Several-hours ones can be just dull, resulting in aimless lingering in the airport whilst too many hours requires consideration of accommodation, sustainance and the acknowledgement your stopover is effectively a mini-break in itself.

    I think we hit the sweet-spot with ten hours in Hong Kong. This was partly due to timing; we landed just before their 7am, perfectly synchronizing the commencement of our exploration with their morning cornflakes. As the city awoke we travelled on the ridiculously-nice-when-you-compare-it-to-literally-every-train-in-England Airport Express into the metropolis.

    Though we were fairly tired, after all 'their' 7am was closer to our bodies' midnight, we also had an advantage. Woody had been to Hong Kong before so would know the most efficient way to navigate and experience the key sights. Granted command, we followed his lead and alighted at Kowloon station to head toward the harbour.

    In Woody's defence we only spent an hour or so lost in the private accommodation complex / closed shopping-mall he took us too, only nearly died when we tried to escape by walking on the motorway and only slightly wasted 10% of our Hong Kong experience by the time we got back to the same station we'd arrived at, gotten back on the train and travelled the few stops to where we were supposed to be.

    The views of the harbour were stunning and probably attached. Mark did his standard poses, I did my standard selfies and we progressed to the Star Ferry, apparently quite famous but I haven't gotten around to googling it yet. Once on Hong Kong island we traversed through the crowds of Filipinas folk socialising on cardboard boxes in the streets (a cultural weekly occurrence when the maids of Hong Kong have Sundays off) and stopped by for pictures at HSBC HQ to relieve my withdrawal symptoms.

    We next queued, and boy did we queue, for the furnicular railway up to the peak, which the locals refer to simply The Peak and thusly I've forgotten the actual name for. We were the last ones aboard so didn't get seats, but that turned out to be dangerous/awesome as the tram undertook it's steep climb and as we could each stand angularly to the floor, messing about with our sense of gravity.

    There was a vast visitors centre at the top and after a few escalator rides we were atop the highest 360 degree viewing platform in the city, looking up at the points higher than us unable to advertise a 360 degree viewing platform. Looking down we took-in more stunning views and took more obligatory pictures/selfies. It's easy to see why the platform is one of the more popular proposal locations in the city, with packages for such being heavily advertised by the venue. Neither Mark nor Woody popped the question.

    My ring-finger bandless, we visited the gift-shop where I bought fridge magnets and Mark haggled a deal for the purchase of a pretty picture print. I wasn't clear on the specifics of the deal, but it apparently involved the handing-over of his travel card as he had to buy a new return ticket before we left. We descended the peak, finding the queue to go back up completely dissipated and proving we'd definitely come at the wrong time, further damning the day's Activities-Director.

    We were hungry and, after introspective analysis of the situation, decided to find some food. Harnessing the power of Google, I assumed directorial duties and guided us toward the authentic (by which I mean how it looks in the movies) centre of Hong Kong island. Keen to locate some authentic (by which I mean how it looks in Chinese restaurants) local cuisine, our efforts were mildly hampered by the apparent local preference for foreign food. Akin to trying to find an English restaurant in central Manchester, it was exceedingly tricky to find a simple Chinese restaurant in the centre of a Chinese city however, after a little searching, we stumbled upon our Wetherspoons proxy. Unfortunately there was no kids menu, so Woody had to leave half of his perfectly standard adult meal uneaten.

    By this point, circa 6am to us after a night without sleep but with extensive activity, we were pretty exhausted and headed back to the airport. We each intermittently though thankfully alternately fell asleep on the warm, comfortable, no-reason-they-shouldn't-be-this-nice-in-the-UK train and went through into the terminal.

    We were quite early for our plane and expected to get bored, but we fortunately found an exciting mission to occupy ourselves. Mark's headphones had broken and, having forgotten to pack his spares, needed some new ones. Though the airport was vast we soon found an electronics dealer, but the headphones available were excessively priced so we moved on. Seeking a WH Smith equivalent, where headphones were positioned more as a point-of-sale convenience item than a business focus and priced accordingly, we trapsed through several other retailers in search of a decent set of earbuds costing the equivalent of around a fiver. We almost had a breakthrough when we found some Disney-branded versions at around a tenner, but these were considered unsuitable for reasons. We spied a 7-Eleven on a lower floor and tried to reach it by going down an escalator but overshot. In an attempt to course-correct upwards Mark suggested we go further down. This didn't work. We later took a lift to the correct floor but to a 'staff-only' section of said floor which we didn't enter because it's an airport and we might get shot. We never figured out how to get to the 7-Eleven floor or find Mark some suitable headphones, but at least we got this fantastic story out of the experience. Also I remembered I had a spare set of headphones and said Mark could have those.    もっと詳しく

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  • Nick BrownVietnamNick Brown

    Flight Night Live!

    2018年3月11日, 香港 ⋅ 🌙 15 °C

    Never my favourite bit. More accurately my second-least-favourite bit, pipped to prominence only by the flight home. Gotta say though, speaking relatively to a prejudicially low base, our journey to Hong Kong was rather luxurious.

    Planeophobia isn't the word and possibly isn't a word at all to describe my attitude to air-travel, but such fears are somewhat soothed when the magnificent flying contraption assigned the task exudes class and quality. From the svelte exterior to the neat contours of the cabin, by way of the massive back-of-the-seat entertainment system with an actual lag-free fully-functioning touch-screen (take note BA) to the personal plug socket and USB port and actual leg-room for actual legs and the multiple fold-out tray-tables to suit a myriad purposes and free peanuts the entire experience looked and felt futuristic. And as we all know, or at least did before Brexit/Trump, the future equals good.

    Only minor foible, they'd run out of my preferred meal option by the time the food-cart reached us, but that's nothing a formal complaint/law-suit can't resolve. Fed and full-up with the aubergine-pasta thing nobody else wanted, we commenced consumption of the on-board entertainment selection.

    The M-Dubyas both watched The Death of Stalin, but having seen it already I took in Alien Covenant. It's about as good as you'd expect an 8th instalment of a franchise to be that isn't produced by Marvel or starring pubescent wizards. Underwhelmed, I decided to stick with the b-movie vibe and watch 'Happy Death Day', which was fairly good mainly because it's a horror rip-off of Groundhog Day. I then decided to watch a bit of Groundhog Day itself, figuring my familiarity with it might help me drift off to sleep, but alas it kept me perky with it's ruddy entertaining perfect script, casting and direction. I considered watching Edge of Tomorrow, but determined such thematic repetition might instil the sensation I was enduring the underlying premise as opposed to simply observing it, so I put on some Family Guy instead. Farts lol.

    Tried to get some shut-eye, but only achieved it in the purely literal sense. Whilst Mark enjoyed Paddington 2 : Paddington Strikes Back Reloaded With A Vengeance, I watched It, by which I don't mean an aforementioned something beimg latterly referenced as it but instead the film entitled It about something called It in lieu of It's actual moniker, it being unclear what It actually Is. It was alright.

    I then tried to watch Kong: Skull Island, but it quickly felt more like Skull Island feat. Kong and I lost interest, so decided to begin chronicling our exciting adventures with a point-by-point re-telling of our flight. Then we had some noodles and I watched some Blackadder and we got breakfast and then I watched Young Sheldon and Woody watched Detectorists and I couldn't see what Mark was watching and I didn't ask.

    We're starting our descent into Hong Kong now so have to put my phone away. Might post this, might not ; will decide later. If I don't, guess nobody will know. Unless I leave this bit in, which would be dumb.    もっと詳しく

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  • Nick BrownUSA Road TripNick Brown

    Days 11, 12 & 13 ; Los Angeles

    2016年6月10日, アメリカ ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C

    So, we mis-judged the drive to Los Angeles. We'd Googled it before leaving, because we're not idiots, but being not-geniuses either we failed to fully factor-in the impact of our ignorance of Google's suggested & therefore quickest route in favour of taking a prettier, technically more direct but oh so much longer route along the Californian coast-line.

    After bagels for breakfast we set-off, briefly getting lost in the vacinity of Sea World, which is likely an intentional road layout to trick people into inadvertently entering the formerly-awesome but now horribly-depressing aqua attraction. As we skirted along the cliffs and beachfronts of the South-West US the view was admitedly excellent, albeit overall progress was hampered somewhat by an abundance of traffic-signals, speed restrictions and an accidental wrong-turn into a US Marine base.

    As such, it was rather late in the afternoon when we reached Los Angeles and our first stop, Venice beach; the beach that tobacco built and marajuana now supports (Kinda True: the resort was originally built by tobacco entrepreneurs and now, visitors to the beach can stop at a booth for a $40 'marajuana check-up' or something or somesuch where a doctor will issue you with a marajuana prescription to enable you to legally purchase and consume weed locally. We didn't do this...but then would I honestly admit to it here if we did? There are parents reading this...)

    Mark went for a wade in the sea which he informs me was 'brisk'; he has established it to be his life's ambition to enter every ocean/sea/puddle in the world and his tally is now up to four. Five if you count Sale Water Park, but why would you. Woody then drove us up to Oxnard, a bit up and a notch to the side from LA, where we'd booked the Vagabond Inn for the night, conveniently next to a Denny's. We ate and slept and whilst there was likely more to Oxnard we didn't see it so I can't reliably report on it.

    Morning of Day 12 we headed back into LA and up into the hills to the specific hill atop which stands the famous observatory, which was closed. But we hadn't driven there to observe stars, rather to observe what the stars see when they look out their windows: the Hollywood sign. We saw it; every letter and in the correct order. We read it a few times and took pictures of it and with it. There's really not much more that can be done with it. It's a sign. It says 'Hollywood' and is in Hollywood; at the very least, and indeed also at most, it's accuracy is not in question.

    We went for a saunter into the hills up a series of paths that Woody and I recognised as looking identical to the area where Carol and Beverley go jogging in the hit Showtime series 'Episodes' starring Matt Leblanc and other less famous people (which is kinda the show's entire premise). I tried later to research and confirm this but it is notoriously difficult to Google the show given its non-descript title.

    We next Googled then drove to, on the suggested route this time, the TCL Chinese Theatre and walked around the Walk of Fame; walking being resolutely the most appropriate way to experience it.

    If somebody has headlined a film in the last circa fifty years you can bet they've got a star here. Mind, we're talking proper films; not top-shelf works or 'free with this week's Daily Express' tat. Except Ryan Renolds, disappointing Luke. There were also the iconic hand/foot-prints outside the Chinese Theatre itself where we discovered that despite being a badass Sith Lord and leader of the Empire's near-eradication of the Jedi Order, Darth Vader had surprisingly small feet.

    We went for lunch at Hooters; a lovely sports-bar with a cute owl logo that serves excellent food and delivers top-notch customer service. The waitress/waiter (I can't remember which, the uniforms being of a conservative/androgynous/almost-Amish-esque design) brought us some fantastically spicy meat dishes which we enjoyed thoroughly and at no point considered either her/him or indeed us were being exploited via any undue focus on base characteristics. We left a tip and then left ourselves.

    Despite my having considered our numerous geological excursions to have concluded, Mark had one more natural historological site he was keen to visit. Since we're sharing a car, the rest of us went too. The La Brea Tar Pits are the black, sticky graves of many, many, many animals that died in their black stickiness over a period of c. 36k years. That's way before the start of this blog post, and then some. Most of them apparently got stuck after trying to eat the ones that got stuck in there before them, which serves them right. As a punitive system for deterring the attempted consumption of animal flesh, the tar pit stands as the most convincing motivator yet for a vegan diet and is, unless I am sorely mistaken/talking nonsense, sponsored by the North-American chapter of PETA.

    After the tar pit we headed to the motel, the 'Super 8' in Pasadena; two better than a Motel 6 and immeasurably more super. We went for dinner at the Pasadena Cheesecake Factory in geeky reverence of the Big Bang Theory TV show, something Woody was particularly excited about. We had to wait half an hour for a table but Luke entertained himself by burglarising the local Scientology centre of an 'Introduction to Dianetics' DVD.

    We went in with the intention of having something quick and savoury followed by some cheesecake. We hadn't, however, banked on the Cheesecake Factory being a full-fledged restaurant with a fantastic menu, since whenever Leonard and Sheldon go there and get served by Penny and Sheldon makes a funny by not understanding social conventions and Leonard expresses his exasperation with Sheldon and Sheldon explains himself and Penny humorously doesn't understand and likens him to a robot, the place always seemed to be more like a diner.

    In actuality the place is quite fancy, with delicious and massive portions of American cuisine. We each ate way too much and then chose some cheesecake from their expansive selection. I had a coffee liquor one, Luke had the 'chocolate tuxedo', Woody had the limited edition 'salted caramel' and Mark had the '30th Anniversary' slice which, as we are approaching his 30th anniversary of being alive we arranged to be served with a candle and to have the staff sing him 'Happy Birthday'. Though it wasn't technically his birthday, it was an overall happy day for Mark, us and the beneficial owners of the Cheesecake Factory franchise conglomerate.

    Day 13 was a day I'd been personally especially looking forward to. We'd pre-booked tickets to visit Universal Studios Hollywood, so it would have been downright silly not to have gone. We got up super mega early like excited kids and excitedly drove, like kids that had stolen a car, across LA to Universal Studios. We were amongst the first in the park and so were able to get on most of the rides early-on without having to queue.

    We rode the Simpsons ride first, which was excellent in every way except for it having replaced the Back-to-the-Future ride, which was as if not slightly more excellent. Next was The Mummy rollercoaster which was great followed by the Transformers ride which was less great but in the context of not having had to queue for it was absolutely fine.

    Next though was the best ride and one which had been worryingly 'temporarily closed' upon arrival. The Jurassic Park River Adventure ride isn't only a near-perfect translation of the feeling and narrative of a near-perfect movie into an amusement park attraction but, present as we were with one of the biggest Jurassic Park fans alive today (Mark), our overall appreciation for the effort and attention-to-detail applied to it was massively heightened. Though now I think about it, it's basically a log flume.

    Next we undertook the hour-long Studio Back-lot Tour, through the actual working studios of Universal Hollywood. We got to see numerous sets and studios, including the Bates Motel and Wisteria Lane(!), as well as enjoy a few scripted experiences like Jaws/King Kong/Fast & Furious. It was brilliant.

    We went for an over-priced but novelty lunch at the 'Springfield' Krusty Burger where me and Woody also had a pint/whatever-measure-they-use-here of Duff beer. It tasted like cheap lager, which by sheer definition it wasn't. We watched the 'Special Effects' show where they set a guy on fire (on purpose, to be clear) and then decided we'd somehow earnt a snack so went to the 'Lard Lad Donut' shop. We were struck by the immense size of the donuts on offer, but instead of just taking a picture of one or buying one for us all to share, we decided to buy one each.

    Feeling not for the first, second or even third time this holiday uncomfortably full, we next headed for what Luke and I were sure would be the highpoint of the day and that Mark and Woody had accepted they would at some point have to endure. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter was a perfect as-you'd-imagine-it recreation of Hogsmeade village, albeit with minor niggling imconsistencies (such as the presence of an Ollivanders) which initially niggled Luke but that he would later embrace.

    The ride was nothing special, though the queue for the ride twisted through a miniature recreation of Hogwarts which was, as with the rest, spectacularly realised. As Woody and Mark tired of the magical fare and went off to re-ride other things, Luke and I visited Ollivanders and bought 'our' wands, indulged in some Butterbeer at the Hogs Head and generally enjoyed the immersion of the Potter area until it was almost time to leave. We did the Jurassic Park and Mummy rides once more, then did so.

    Full from too-much-donut, Woody and I skipped dinner. Luke and Mark went out for some, but I'm not sure where.    もっと詳しく

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  • Nick BrownUSA Road TripNick Brown

    Days 9 & 10 ; San Diego - feel the burn

    2016年6月7日, アメリカ ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

    Small towns are done. I'm over them. They're sooooo last week they're still offering a fair and balanced sterling-to-dollar rate before all you people back home allowed a recent poll to suggest we might actually leave the EU. Donald Trump is pro-Brexit ; let that sink in. That racist, hypocritical, politically incorrect but somehow politically front-and-centre guy who sounds like an arse and whose name literally sounds like gas excaping from an arse wants the same thing an increasing number of Brits want and is seriously impacting the cost of my holiday. Vote Remain.

    On Day 9 we entered California and reached the first of the final three 'big-city' destinations on our trip; San Diego. Which, as Ron Burgendy taught us, is Spanish for a 'Whale's Vagina'...though obviously isn't and is in actuality the name of a Catholic saint or something. I did look it up but then got distracted by Anchorman clips on the YouTube.

    As referred to in my last post: a re-writing of hip-hop-artist/one-hit-wonder/presumably-unemployed Afroman's seminal/silly/catchy song/single/admission-of-criminal-guilt, Phoenix/the-hottest-place-on-earth was deemed by group consensus to in uninhabitable and thusly we all sat down on the morning of Day 9 to plan our escape.

    I was to be the 'Wheel Man', it being by rotation my turn to drive. Luke 'The Phone Guy' Crowley used his honed Google-fu skills and operational mobile data-signal to seek out new appropriate lodgings in our intended destinations, whilst I, in my alternate guise as 'The Booker', telephoned the existing bookings secured under my name to re-arrange where possible. Woody and Mark (the 'Watchmen') kept a lookout; them having no bookings in their name or data signal but needing some sort of role in this awkwardly mixed prison-break/heist metaphor that if I'm honest didn't really work as well as I thought it might.

    But the re-booking was successful; basically enabling us to have an extra day in Los Angeles and a bonus night in San Diego, giving us longer in each place and giving me an excuse to take a full day off writing and fuse two blog posts into one. The new plan relegated Day 9 to become basically a driving day; our final 'big drive' of thr trip. Myself, Mark and Woody each took a turn setting the cruise control to 5mph over the speed limit and occasionally turning the wheel when the mostly-straight roads of America defy expectations and indulge in a slight bend.

    We checked-in at the Good Nite Inn Near SeaWorld; a place that we haven't seen, won't go near, don't talk about and feel violently I'll at even the thought of (we've seen Blackfish). If you've been to SeaWorld, have happy memories of the experience and don't want these memories irrevocably tainted, I implore you not to watch Blackfish. Poor Shamu...

    Later that evening we went to the San Diego 'old town', conveniently located just around the corner from the motel to the extent I would suggest the motel re-name themselves the 'Good Nite Inn Near Old Town' so as to rid themselves of any and all loose association they have with that place I won't mention again. Or just 'The Good Nite Inn'; that'd do.

    The San Diego Old Town is probably the most 'tourist-y' place we've been to yet ; a term I don't use derogatorily since we are, inarguably, tourists. Of the six-or-seven Mexican restaurants on one of the streets we selected one at random and were seated for dinner. The food was excellent, the waitress taught us some Spanish that I've completely forgotten and then we shared a big Margarita cocktail that we attempted to butch-up with a bottle of Corona but the attached picture of us consuming said cocktail still looks unnervingly like a promo shot from Sex & the City. I'm a total Charlotte btw.

    On Day 10 Luke, Woody and Mark decided to go and visit an aircraft carrier. I'm told it was very big, impressive and interesting but I didn't go so this is just informed speculation. I've never been on an aircraft carrier but I have been on boats and visited airports and felt I could sufficiently conceptualise a merger of the two to not need to see it myself. I instead spent the day wandering the length and breadth of San Diego city, ultimately taking a bus back the length and breadth to avoid repetition. I walked the coast, had a hot-dog-on-a-stick from a place called 'Hot-dog-on-a-stick', read Private Eye with a Starbucks coffee in the humungous Balboa park and got sunburn from the deceptively strong sun that had been rendered unnoticeable by the pleasant coastal breeze.

    We all burnt; Luke probably looks the most red with myself and Mark vying for second place and Woody, who I think sensibly applied the most suncream, trailing/winning in fourth. Aftersun has been applied and I am dreading my next shower; scheduled for immediately after completing this post.

    In the evening we travelled back into central San Diego to the 'Gaslamp Quarter', a massive district home to a huge collection of bars, restaurants and bar/restaurants. After a brief walk we opted to eat at a brazilian steak-house called Fogo de Chao; which is Portuguese for 'place where too much food is provided to and eaten by gready patrons'. It was one of those places where the servers walk round with different cuts of meat and you say yes to all of them because you've paid dammit and want to get your money's worth but then proceed to eat excessively and feel uncomfortably full for the rest of the evening. This is what happened; the standard pre-dinner picture this time replaced with a post-dinner one to illustrate our collective fullness and also I forgot to take one at the start.

    We waddled home and absorbed our final views of San Diego as we passed them by on the brilliant tram ('trolley') network. We could easily have spent longer here but have a schedule to keep to and thoroughly expect our next and final two stops to be as equally places-we-could-have-spent-longer-in upon our departures, so to take any time from them to elongate our stay here would only ultimately compound our time insufficiency issue. But if LA for some reason sucks, we'll head back.    もっと詳しく

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  • Nick BrownUSA Road TripNick Brown

    Day 8 : Because it was hot

    2016年6月5日, アメリカ ⋅ ☀️ 38 °C

    For reasons of a missed alarm, it being my day to drive and the pressing need to re-schedule the remaining week of our trip, there will be no normal blog post today. Instead, please enjoy the following summary of Day 8, to the tune of 'Because I got high' by Afroman;

    La da da da da da La, Da Daaa,
    La da da da, La da da da, La da da daaa

    On Day 8, we went outside, and it was hot,
    We went to Subway, had a good meal, and it was hot,
    But over here, they don't do sausage, no they do no-ot,
    (yea heyy)
    And it was hot,
    It was still hot,
    So very ho-ot.

    (La da da da da da da da da)

    We went to tombstone, checked out some graves, and it was hot,
    Watched a western gunfight re-enactment, and it was hot,
    They had special seating, in the shade, how could they no-ot?
    (yea heyy)
    'Cause it's so hot
    Stupidly hot
    So 'effing ho-ot.

    (La da da da da da da da da)

    Most of us watched a multimedia historic diorama, inside where it was cool,
    Most of us drank bottles of saspirilla, to make us more cool,
    And had burgers topped with chilli, except, our resident 'kook',
    (yea heyy)
    All except Luke,
    All except Luke
    All except Lu-uke,

    (Chilli la da da da da da da da)

    Saspirilla tastes like 'Deep Heat' spray, which is a shame,
    They wouldn't serve us a finger of whisky without our IDs, which was a pain,
    But Luke and Woody got to play cowboys, just like John Wa-ayne,
    (yea heyy)
    It didn't rain,
    Oh for some rain,
    One drop of ra-ain,

    (La da da da da da da da da)

    As we drove North, toward Phoenix, it got more hot,
    The in-car thermometer hit one-seventeen, 'cause it was hot,
    When we arrived and got back outside, deny we could no-ot,
    (yea-heyy)
    It was so hot,
    So fucking hot,
    Way, way too ho-ot,

    (La da da da da da da da da)

    We went out, to get us some eats, it was still hot,
    It was, like, nine in the bloody evening, it was still hot,
    Woody and I went to play pool, I made an amazing black-ball jump-shot,
    (yea-heyy)
    But outside it was hot,
    You know the score,
    Stupidly, overly, unnecessarily hot,

    (La da da da da da da da da)

    We were meant to stay in Phoenix, but now we're not,
    Were gonna go to a water-park, but now we're not,
    Think I've been clear as to why, but in case I've no-ot,
    (yea-heyy)
    It's 'cause it's hot,
    Way too fucking hot,
    Genuinely the hottest place I've ever been, and I've been places...we don't want to stay, you wouldn't either. It's ridiculous.

    (La da da da da da da da da)    もっと詳しく

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  • Nick BrownUSA Road TripNick Brown

    Day 7 : Sandy Nuts

    2016年6月4日, アメリカ ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    When planning-out our expedition, in order to ensure we completed our circuit in the allotted time we set a series of fixed-points in time which, a la Doctor Who, we absolutely positively couldn't change (unless a blonde girl from London asked reeeeeeally nicely). It was also accepted that there would be variables ripe for inclusion discovered along the way, but for such diversions to be worthy of our visitation they should ideally meet the criteria of being 'The World's Blank-iest Blank'.

    Our first stop today was to be one of these such locations. Technically it was our third stop; our first being one we chose; for breakfast (I personally find breakfast to be the best choice for resolving those pesky morning hunger pangs) and our second being somewhat obligatory; any failure to stop potentially inviting a barrage of good-old American freedom-infused bullets. The Border Patrol pulled us aside for being suspiciously English; our accents insufficient to evidence our nationality and ESTA status we were required to present our passports, which for me necessitated a partial unpacking of my suitcase on the New-Mexican highway.

    After taking various DNA and other samples for their records they permitted us to leave and we proceeded onwards North towards the above-trailed 'Blank-iest Blank' location. To maintain the gripping suspense, assuming I haven't used a picture of it as the primary blog photo, I shall reveal the blanks sequentially. The first Blank is 'large', so therefore 'large-ist'...or 'largest' to use the actual English.

    The second blank...'Pistachio'. I'm not sure exactly who, if anybody, keeps track of these things ; there was no Guinness certification to be seen (they would likely take issue with the fact that it isn't actually a nut, but instead some sort of nut-shaped monument, constructed in honour of the great Nut God and used for weekly Nut-themed worship, ritual and sacrifice as the owners would have no-doubt told me if I'd asked), but I'm more than happy to accept this to be the biggest Pistachio in the world purely on the basis that I expect the particular mental irregularity that prompts a person to build a huge nut in their yard is sufficiently rare for this to be an isolated case.

    'Pistachio Land' most definitely exceeded what minimal expectations a name such as 'Pistachio Land' generates. We swarmed around the 'free samples' bar, a phenomenal sales technique that induces obligation on the part of the sampler to purchase. Not that adherence to this consumer convention was necessary for our wallets to be pried open; the samples were delicious and we each walked out with bags of flavoured Pistachios. Luke almost bought the 'Atomic Brittle', a particularly spicy pistachio brittle, but found the sample too spicy and had to drink lots of water and cry in the corner for a while. I purchased the 'Chili Chocolate' brittle which was less spicy than the 'Atomic' stuff but 100% more chocolatey. We also all had some ice-cream before going; the pistachio-flavoured type agreed as the best amongst those of us that tried it - Luke having now developed a psychological aversion to pistachios opting for the safe and definitively un-nutty vanilla.

    Next stop was 'White Sands National Monument', which absolutely isn't a monument but is instead a small-by-America-standards but massive-by-our-standards desert in South-East New Mexico. Must confess; when Mark suggested going to the place I wasn't overly-excited, expecting it to be something that could be experienced in any desert with a greyscale filter-lens. But how wrong I and my monochrome camera kit would have been - White Sands was, to re-use the one and only adjective I can muster in such circumstances, stunning.

    See, it's not about the whiteness of the sand at all; though they are exceeding white (Daz, eat your detergent-y heart out). I genuinely believe the sweeping, majestic dunes of White Sands would be as equally impressive were they bright orange, powder-blue or a Clan MacGregor tartan pattern circa 1730 with fluorescent green highlights. No, as with many things; it's not the size, colour or slight bend at the end that matters - it's how you use it.

    Dunes naturally have a slight bend at the end, totally cleaning up that comment, which is essential for providing the means for deceleration upon reaching the bottom. See, we didn't just drive through, walk round or taste the white dunes. We didn't do the last one at all (imagine they'd be salty). But instead we found the biggest, steepest dune and flung ourselves down it in a plastic dustbin lid.

    The technique was initially hard to master. After an unspectacular first attempt by Luke and Mark, Woody and I decided to try jumping forwards from the peak and land on our bin-lids mid-flight to enhance forwards thrust upon landing. Didn't work, unless by 'work' you mean 'to discover an efficient means of getting a sore arse', in which case you define 'work' very oddly and should probably seek help.

    We eventually sorted it and enjoyed several slides down the dunes and endured an equal number of awkward treks back up the dune between goes, not counting the first trek up the dune which obviously couldn't be between goes as it preceded the first go, albeit this was likely implied and such pedantic clarification is a waste of both my time, your time and the finite bytes the internet can store, presuming the Internet can be said to 'store' information in 'bytes' and not in some larger unit and I know that even if larger units are used then technically these larger units could be reduced to bytes but, think about it, when you say you've got a pot of pepper in the pantry, assuming you have a pantry and don't just use a cupboard, but wherever you store your pepper, if you were to be asked if you had a pot of pepper, or salt if you prefer, you would say 'yes, I've got a pot of pepper' or 'yes, I've got a pot of salt' depending on your preference, though you'd probably say 'shaker of salt' instead of 'pot of salt' or at least I would as I have an affinity for alliteration, you wouldn't express the volume of pepper in terms of the number of peppercorns in the pot, or mill/grinder as would actually be needed to dispense pepper from its peppercorn form though these terms don't alliterate as nicely, or salt-rocks in the shaker which, too, would need to be a mill/grinder to be of any use, unless you're one of those people that buy ground in which case a pot or shaker would suffice and you would find it even more difficult to express your quantities of condiment in terms of their individual component parts and so would, in common with those with mills/grinders, would likely if asked simply respond with 'yes, I've got SOME pepper or salt' depending on preference, possibly enquire as to their unhealthy interest in your stocks of seasonings when you'd not even offered them dinner and re-evaluate your acquaintanceship with them and therefore we had a great time on the White Sands dunes and I'd likely go back if I was ever again in the area.

    After sledding down the dunes we also took a walk on the 'boardwalk' section, where it was quickly discovered that we could generate static charge simply by walking on the boards without touching the handrail. Except Luke for some reason. Thusly and logically the game became 'shock Luke', which he appreciated immensely. Though I suffered the biggest shock upon handing Mark the car keys on departure, karma eh? (Or 'Car-ma'...ah-ha-ha-ha-ha).

    From White Sands the intention was to drive in the direction of 'Tombstone' which we plan to visit on Day 8. We stopped for dinner at a retail park where we tried to go to an Applebees, but despite it smelling delicious when we entered the foyer they had the gall to expect us to wait twenty minutes for a table. We instead crossed the road to a 'Jack-in-the-Box' and had yet another though by far the best burger of the trip so far. Except Luke.

    We drove for a couple of hours and stopped in a small town called 'Lordsbergh', famous for being the place we slept last night.    もっと詳しく

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  • Nick BrownUSA Road TripNick Brown

    Day Six : Wombling libre!

    2016年6月2日, アメリカ ⋅ 🌙 24 °C

    In the hushed yet excitable tones of Sir David Attenborough, I remark that on Day Six I awoke to an extraordinary sight; a beast whose majesty is eclipsed only by its scarcity in the wild and in the presence of which so very few can claim to have been.

    Luke was awake first ('Lukus Awakii-Firstus')

    But the most fascinating feature of the untamed Lukus Awakii-Firstus is that despite stirring from slumber several hours in advance of the rest of the pack, it is somehow able to be the last one prepared to depart from its night-time lodgings. Such a radical trait would indeed be worthy of further academic study, were there any applicable value in it whatsoever.

    When Luke was ready we got in the car and headed off for food. They say you can tell the measure of a man by the breakfast he chooses. I can't remember who said it; I might have read it on a Kellogs box, but there can be no questioning of our collective masculinity when we commence our day with four Denny's Grand-Slams. Our second such brekkie of the trip to date, the only measure that concerns me is that of an expanding waist-line; ballooning wider daily and transforming texturally from tight, sinewy firmness to a flappy, fatty, cookie-dough-like bulge.

    Next we stopped at a gas station, where Mark once again showed himself to be the hero we all know and agree he is. Whilst inside the station kiosk buying gas (heroic in itself, but it gets better) he was able to find something I've looked for literally everywhere I've been since I got here (aside from that one place we don't mention we went). But Mark achieved what I failed at and found and purchased for me a whole bag of Coffee-flavoured M&Ms! They're yet to be eaten as I'm afraid they might be the 'Best-Thing-Ever' and doubling back round to that particular gas station to buy more would be costly from a scheduling perspective and likely unpopular in every other perspective.

    From there we headed to Carlsbad Caverns via a picturesque drive through the appropriately-named Carlsbad Caverns National Park. This was very much the third instalment in the geological formations trifecta after the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley and Mark was in his absolute element as we undertook the 2.5 mile walk down, down, down, slightly up then further down, down, down and around the humongous underground caverns network. We actually nearly didn't get in at all as Woody threw his entrance ticket in the bin, like, seconds after he bought it. But the ranger gave him an ocular pat-down, deemed him not to be a security risk and allowed him through.

    Whilst wandering through the caverns, Luke postulated that the location might lend itself well to an action sequence in a James Bond film; for instance Bond might have to rapidly descend through the cavern in order to disarm a terrorists' bomb. Though I questioned the overarching strategy of a plot to bomb an empty, underground cave-network, this nonetheless sparked a back-and-forth that became increasingly ludicrous until Luke had to take a break on a bench, hunched over and giggling uncontrollably like a schoolgirl. Either due to 'science' the differently-composed air in the deep caverns somehow precipitated this giggle-fit, or alternatively Luke actually IS a schoolgirl and his portrayal of being an adult male with a job has been but a ruse. I also laughed a bit, mainly laughing at Luke laughing; a little like a schoolgirl laughing at another schoolgirl, but way more manly.

    Woody, Luke and I completed the cavern-walk, then approximately two days later so did Mark. We joked that he must have stopped to take a picture of every rock in there, but he corrected us by telling us he'd actually taken two pictures of every rock in case one didn't come out properly.

    We took the elevator out of the caverns and began the journey South-West to El Paso. We stopped briefly at a roadside historical marker detailing the events of the 'Salt War', an escalation of the 'Pepper Skirmish' that resulted from the 'Ketchup Conflict' during the 'Condiment Campaign'. But seriously, people died.

    We arrived in El Paso late afternoon and headed straight to the border that our visas, car rental agreement and gut-reaction upon seeing it prevented us from crossing. Mexico doesn't look great, but we waved to it as we drove past the border-fence. I like to think that if any Mexicans had spotted the mildly condescending wave of comparatively-rich, white-privileged tourists actively avoiding setting foot in their country, they would have appreciated it.

    We checked into the 'Budget Inn Motel', where the only thing 'budget' was the price, the rooms, the a/c units, the remoteless, CRT televisions and the general feeling of security whilst on the premises. We headed out to a nearby Mexican food place recommended by Mark's guidebook called 'Chicos Tacos' (the restaurant, not the guidebook). The signage proclaimed the chain to be an 'El Paso Institution', meaning it isn't good or successful enough to have expanded into other cities.

    The food was as interesting as it was decent; that is to say, 'quite'. The 'Tacos' were narrow, crispy things served in a sort-of tomato-based 'soup'. The burritos were closer to expectations, though only loosely rolled and containing potato instead of rice. Maybe this is actual, proper Mexican food and what we've been eating from Old El Paso and BarBurrito are mutated renditions of the original traditional versions. Or maybe they're just fucking with the tourists.

    Having earlier been the fabled 'Lukus Awakii-Firstus', Luke was tired so went back the motel after dinner whilst Mark, Woody and I headed down the street to a bar I'd found on Google Maps called 'Howie's Good Times'. En route we passed a place called 'Cabaret' advertising 'Girls, Girls, Girls ; topless and fully nude!'. This not being the 'good time' we were looking for (well, not for a moonlight-robbery $15 cover charge...) we continued on to Howies.

    If you were to imagine a typical American bar, this would be it; neon lights, pool table, friendly/busty barmaid and a casually discriminatory attitude. We were made welcome on the express condition we weren't gay and we ordered a round of tequilas; not because any of us liked them but because we were near Mexico and it felt obligatory - or else I considered it obligatory and thrust this obligation unto the others.

    Can honestly say I've never before enjoyed a tequila, but doing it 'properly' (lick of salt, shot, lime) as I've somehow never done before I found it surprisingly palatable. I had the idea that they should pre-mix these elements into one whole, long drink. Woody then told me what a Margarita was.

    We staked out a spot at the end of the bar and our novelty value as 'travelling Brits' had soon drawn in a cluster of folk (Mike, Louie, Marc and Jennifer) with whom we chewed the fat regarding our trip, the differences between the US and UK, the dodgy reputation of the restaurant we'd just eaten at and the potential gastronomic distress we might subsequently and resultantly experience.

    The owner was very proud of his beer selection, though with the majority imported from Europe they were slightly less-special to us. I had a California-brewed milk stout, Woody had a disgustingly fruity pale ale that he seemed to enjoy and Mark had something else. Though one of the key features of where we'd been seated had been duly noted by all of us, it was noticed as we left that we'd been sat in something a sign referred to as 'Horny Corner' with the 'breast view in the house'. Even considering the multitude of sights and viewpoints we've experienced this week, I know what I'd rather have on a postcard.    もっと詳しく

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  • Nick BrownUSA Road TripNick Brown

    Day 5 : Roswell that Ends Well (+ Mark)

    2016年6月2日, アメリカ ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    Yes, today there are pictures ; our shutters-fingers no-longer shuddering from the after-effects of the 'Albequerque Incident' and each of us in a far more photogenic state, Day 5 has been thoroughly captured in static-snap form.

    Brief aside; there has been disquiet that there has been insufficient 'Mark' mentions in these blog posts. For those worried, he has been with us every step of the way, driving much of it and keeping us entertained with random but relevant pop culture quotes. Attached to this post are some bonus 'Mark' shots for your consideration and approval.

    Luke skipped breakfast today in favour of some additional shut-eye. We were all shocked I tell you...shocked. Myself, Woody and MARK went down to the 'breakfast room', formerly the 'Chinese takeaway room', and had a breakfast that hadn't been cooked in grease, sprayed with grease then served on a bed of grease. After sensible cereal, Woody and I decided it would be rude not to have a go with the waffle-maker, so we shared the experience and the product. MARK didn't have one, but watched us eat ours.

    It was Woody's day to be driver, and drive us he did. It is becoming a tradition that whenever Woody takes the wheel, the drive turns out to be a horrible one ; or else whenever there is a horrible drive to be done it is Woody's turn to drive (chicken/egg etc,). Today's drive through the tiny towns of West Texas was abysmal; there was a storm warning in effect but we respectfully ignored this and drove right through it. There was pouring rain, localised flooding and heavy side-winds, making this the most treacherous trip we've yet taken. Woody expertly kept the car under control whilst Luke kept a keen eye out for lake-sized puddles and I navigated us through the styx to Roswell. MARK was in the car too.

    At isolated moments when it wasn't raining we stopped for pictures with the big texan (there's probably a history to it, but I haven't looked it up) and at a town called 'Happy', that looked like one of the most miserable places on earth.

    We reached Roswell, New Mexico in mid-afternoon and went for some authentic Mexican food made and served by some authentic Mexicans. I had a burrito, Woody tacos, Luke chilli and MARK enchiladas. It was fine, though the experience was mildly tempered in my opinion as we somehow selected the one establishment on the Roswell Main Street that had in no way embraced what the town is so famous for; it's aesthetic simply Mexican. They still had Cinquo de Mayo decorations up almost a month after the day itself, suggesting that it's either traditional to keep them up for a while following May 5th or that the owners were simply too (REDACTED) to take them down.

    To explain, you know you are entering Roswell when you begin to see little green men EVERYWHERE. Virtually every business establishment has themed their enterprise around the idea of aliens having visited/died-horribly-in-a-crash there in 1947. Be they peddlers of sushi, opticians or tax attorneys, all signage either contains terms such as 'galactic', has pictures of spaceships on them, is accompanied by a human-sized fibreglass alien or, most commonly, all three. (see picture of MARK attached).

    After lunch we visited the International UFO Museum and Research Centre, where we were able to peruse a notably balanced account of what might have happened in July 1947, alongside pictures and recreations of the various 'evidence' for and against the 'alien' thesis. The weirdest aspect of this was the revelation that the 'crash' actually happened nowhere really near Roswell, and the incident is seemingly so named as Roswell is where the debris/alien-bodies were taken afterwards. In fact, the crash-site is almost as close to Albequerque as it is to Roswell, a place now famous for its own incident where the facts are disputed and the truth will never be known.

    After the museum we went to the 'Spacewalk' experience round the corner. It was basically someone's back-room painted black with a few bads of luminous paint and a black-light, but what can you expect for two bucks? (answer: way, way more).

    After wandering around the various gift shops selling alien crap and not buying anything (it being crap), we got back in the car and drove south to Carlsbad, where we plan to visit some caverns the next day (today, in around ten minutes as I'm writing this, MARK having just knocked on my door to request we get a move on). We went for an amazing meal at a Bar-B-Q place (see picture); probably the best food we've had since being here (stacks of meat with sides), then for a few drinks at a nearby Best Western hotel; the pricier neighbour to the budget 'Carlsbad Inn' we'd booked for the night.    もっと詳しく

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  • Nick BrownUSA Road TripNick Brown

    Day 4 ; The Chicken and the Egg

    2016年6月1日, アメリカ ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C

    Bear with me, I'm going somewhere with this.

    It's the classic causality dilemma that has stumped philosophers for centuries, confounded scientific communities and regularly crops up in pub discussions, recurring in rotation alongside 'which local team is doing best at whatever locally-popular sport' and 'dude, we should totally open our own bar'.

    I've sorted it.

    Obviously the egg came first. There were dinosaur eggs FFS. Nick FTW. STFU H8rs.

    But this is a facetious answer. Obviously when people ask 'what came first, the chicken or the egg?", they are referring specifically to a 'chicken-egg'. Well, 'people', even with these parameters properly defined, the 'paradox' is still easily resolveable.

    It was the chicken. Eggs are classified according to whatever laid them; this truth evident each time you slice the top off a boiled chicken-egg and DON'T find a baby-chick-foetus inside. Aside, of course, for that one traumatic childhood experience which is why Woody doesn't eat eggs.

    Ergo, whatever laid the egg that the first actual chicken emerged from wasn't a chicken, but rather a mutated mess that had it away with an equally genetically-distorted fustercluck. Their passionate bonding into what was likely a particularly hideous beast with two backs resulting in the formation of the very first 'chicken', which later laid the first 'chicken-egg' and, thus, breakfast history was made.

    So, why write all the above? Two reasons: firstly, there's very little to write about 'Day 4' of our trip and I had space to fill. But secondly, the reason WHY there's very little to write is because, much like the 'chicken egg', Day 4 was very much defined by what spawned it. Day 4 was the definitive 'day after the night before', with every move we made and every breath and step we took suffering from the 'sting' (didya see wot i did there!) of the copious drinking undertaken on Day 3.

    We woke late, only a few hours after falling asleep, but just-about managed to get out of our motel rooms on the stroke of the 11am check-out time. We then went for an unenthusiastic breakfast at IHOP. Given this acronym breaks-out to 'International House of Pancakes' I've always been somewhat perturbed that they don't seem to exist outside of the USA (you know, 'internationally'), and after tasting their wares this frustration will be only exacerbated.

    Today's plan was to reach Amirillo, Texas. It was Mark's turn to drive and, both objectively and in context, he did well. We stopped only once at a McDonald's for some food. I had a Sausage/Egg McMuffin, since McDonald's here has an all-day breakfast menu. Woody had chicken nuggets, made from chickens that were descendents of the very first chicken born from the non-chicken egg, but couldn't finish them so Luke and I helped out. I think Mark had chicken nuggets too and I don't remember what Luke had, but I'm sure he does so there's something to ask about when we get home, since this blog does to an extent negate the need for the standard 'how was your holiday' line of questioning.

    After McDonald's, the drive continued. Mark decided at one point to deviate from the interstate to travel down a section of Historic Route 66, as we have been doing sporadically over the last few journeys. After a while this 'road' became seriously historic, devolving from tarmac through potholes to become a rough dirt-track. A car passed us in the other direction and whipped-up a rock that struck our windscreen, causing a small crack. In our zombie-like state we barely reacted, but probably need to do something about it.

    We eventually made it to Amirillo. We tried to find a motel in the downtown area but, despite much tedious searching, didn't. Feeling we'd had our fill of the Amirillo 'experience', we drove out to the town outskirts and found a cluster of hotels near the interstate. Ordinarily we'd have compared the meerkat to find the best price, but in our exhausted and hungover condition we opted to stay at the first place we found.

    We checked-in and then collectively (though separately) lay on our beds in silence for a while. We later decided we should have some dinner but also that we couldn't be arsed going anywhere so ordered-in Chinese food. We ate in the hotel's 'breakfast room', encountering spoilers for the following morning. I had sweet and sour chicken, which annoyingly came in the battered-balls form instead of the Cantonese 'with-veggies' style, so did nothing for my developing scurvy. Everyone else had a stir-fry, some of them finished it. I made a great joke involving a fortune cookie, but you had to be there.

    Luke announced that he would like to write a blog entry, but Luke says a lot of things. Still, by transcribing this intent he might feel compelled to follow-through. Peer pressure might work too; come on Luke, all the cool kids are doing it!    もっと詳しく

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  • Nick BrownUSA Road TripNick Brown

    Day 3 : The Mighty Ducks

    2016年5月31日, アメリカ ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C

    My head hurts.

    Being a moderately organised bunch, before coming over here we held a series of planning meetings to determine a rough outline of the distance/activities we hoped to achieve each day. These meetings, much like most occasions the four of us meet up, commonly began with structured conversation, examining of maps and Googling of ideas until we all decided we deserved a beer or ten, at which point they evolved into the standard fun drinky-times to which we've become habitually accustomed. It is likely a result of this that the plan for Day 3, on which we were to reach Albe-quack-e, read simply 'get wankered'.

    I love it when a plan comes together.

    First, however, there was the journey. From Farmington to Albyqerkey we took a combination of highways and Route 66, stopping only once at a place for which there'd been circa twenty-odd billboards, each extolling and proclaiming the place to be on par with the second coming of Christ, if the big JC were to confound religious scholars around the world and make his comeback in the form of a roadside attraction. It turned out to be a gift shop.

    I bought some fridge magnets for the metallic side of my fridge and we continued onwards and Eastwards. Arriving in central Albeequirky at a sensible hour we went for a stroll and had a rest for a few hours. At around 7pm, the evening began.

    From this point onwards, events will be presented to the best of my recollection. There will be inaccuracies, half-truths and massive, gaping holes comparable with albeit only metaphorically analogous with those described in Days One and Two.

    Before leaving our rooms, we each indulged in a few fingers of moonshine. We'd never had moonshine before and likely wouldn't again had we not purchased an enormous jar of the deadly, 100% proof, 50% ABV chemicular concoction from Walmart that our commitment to value and aversion to waste precludes us from pouring away. It was cherry flavour, but you wouldn't have known by tasting it.

    From there we decided to go eat, but intelligently decided to have a drink on the way. We stopped at a restaurant and sat at the bar where a lone US army veteran was celebrating Memorial Day sipping a non-alcoholic lager. He offered to buy us all a drink; we declined in that polite, English, 'Hugh Grant' way Americans like to comment on, but bought our own drinks and sat down for a chat with the guy. He told us stories that were interesting and I thought would later be memorable, but are unfortunate victims of the aforementioned memory leakage.

    We went to a Pizza place and shared a massive pizza. Woody and Luke met a nice guy in the toilets and after brief three-way intercourse invited him back to our table. He turned out to be a stand-up comic and a stand-up guy; a pun I shared with him, to which he responded that I should be the one doing stand-up. I agreed, and told him I'd do his stand-up and he could do my 'sit-down'. He totally ROTFLOL-d at this and said I should have my own Seinfeld-type show.

    After food we went next door and watched the guy and several other comics perform at an open-mic night. They varied in quality but we're mostly pretty good, partially as we'd opted to sit at a table right at the very front and loudly announced our Englishness, enabling the performers to chuck out 'British' jokes at our expense. When the show was over the M/C told us the afterparty was heading to another bar a couple of blocks away.

    En route to the afterparty we went to another bar called 'The Library'. It was here that the booze began to most significantly floweth. We chatted to folk, drank alien-themed beer, had a photo taken with some dude for reasons I don't recall (see attached) and the barmaid was wearing a rather fetching (very short) tartan skirt.

    We left as the place was closing, or the place closed because we left, and headed to the comedy afterparty. We resumed our roles as the token British and chatted with some of the comics whilst continuing to consume significant quantities of beer/spirits/drain-cleaner. Somebody tried to explain the different way Americans calculate alcohol content which means their produce is stronger than it looks, but I wasn't in a state to comprehend and I'm sure Woody can explain it better. I'm not sure when we left, but since we're no-longer there I can accurately state that we did.

    ERROR: Next memory not found.

    Sometime later we were in a different bar and met some Mexicans. As that bar closed they told us they knew another place that wasn't closing. They did and we went there.

    The remainder of the night is like a sickly, swirly montage. There was beer, ATM withdrawals, cigarettes, jumper cables, disco lights under a bridge, shots, but a notable lack of looking at watches. We departed for the ten minute walk back to the motel at what we figured was probably 1am, but got back at just gone 4. Luke ran back for some stupid reason and had a brief kip on the concrete like, literally, three feet from his bed.

    So concludeth Day 3/early Day 4. Does it say something that the longest 'travel blog' entry so far is basically describing a night out that could have happened anywhere? Maybe...I can't really think about that at the moment since, per the above, my head hurts.    もっと詳しく

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  • Nick BrownUSA Road TripNick Brown

    Day 2 : Day Harder - Farmington

    2016年5月30日, アメリカ ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C

    As our body-clocks continued to wage war against us, we once again woke on our second day here at an hour that would make milkmen cry. Are milkmen still a thing...or are they one of those things relegated to our childhood memories? Like Thundercats - remember Thundercats? Thundercats were cool.

    Having just discovered these early hours of the day actually exist, Luke is demonstrating a particular passion for breakfast and today directed us to sample a selection of Denny's 'Grand Slams', which were so damn good I forgot to take a picture until we were all done gorging.

    From breakfast we drove toward Flagstaff to peruse some more geology porn; a meteor impact crater. I drove, with Luke looking up the route on Google Maps and determining I should aim to arrive half an hour ahead of its ETA; a target time I ultimately missed by a mere three minutes but is still representative of significant ignorance of the locsl speed limit laws.

    The crater was, as in hindsight I should have expected, basically a big hole in the ground. It was impressive, albeit not quite as stunning as yesterday's big hole in the ground. There was a small museum to wander round, a Subway where we had lunch and a gift shop where I nearly bought a Route 66 keychain but then in a shocking twist didn't.

    In honour of the bravery and sacrifice of valleys everywhere, the inter-state forces of Arizona and Utah commissioned the creation of a 'Monument Valley'. This was to be our next destination, and was a helluva long way North of where we were in a totally different state. Mark drove us there at breakneck pace and we eventually arrived around an hour before sunset.

    It....was....stunning. Arriving late in the day, the 'park' was exceedingly quiet as we rumbled through on the dirt path in 4x4 mode, stopping every thirty seconds or so to take in the view and take an immense volume of pictures. I don't believe I've ever been in such awe of a landscape ; I would quite happily make this sight my screensaver, my living room wallpaper and even a replacement for that general featureless blackness I see when I close my eyes.

    We had Burger King for dinner and decided to head toward our next stop, Albequeque/Albequerque/Alberquerque/that-place-I-can't-spell. Knowing we might not find a motel given the lateness, Woody begun the first driving 'shift' in knowledge that we might have to rotate and drive through the night but we didn't as we found one and it was fine.    もっと詳しく

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  • Nick BrownUSA Road TripNick Brown

    Dennys Brekkie

    2016年5月29日, アメリカ ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

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