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Asia and Australia 2017
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февр. – апр. 2017

Asia and Australia 2017

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    Day 26 - Bonkers Hanoi

    5 марта 2017 г., Вьетнам ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C

    Today has generally been a day of bonkersness. Before today the most bonkers thing I'd seen so far this trip was probably the pick up truck carrying the giant Buddha and a monk in the back blasting out pop music. I'm not even sure that's top 5 anymore.

    Fuelled by cheese and ham toasties we powered the 40 minute walk to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum complex. Sadly we missed the times to go actually see Uncle Ho's embalmed body but we did get to walk around the rest of it. This involved seeing his classic cars gifted to him by the Soviet Union and his old house which is on stilts. Also their equivalent of the Changing of the Guards which is a lot camper than the Buckingham Palace version. Something weird we have noticed a lot in Hanoi is groups of friends and family all dressed the same, in this case a group of 4 in striped Where's Wally? style tshirts but also more subtle things like groups of girl friends all wearing pale pink skirts or having matching handbags.

    We headed towards the botanical gardens next which was mostly underwhelming, except for maybe the man doing some of the worst singing I've ever heard at an event in the park. On the way out we saw something amazing though. At first it was only semi weird. A lady next to a moped with two small dogs, one of which was wearing a tiny muzzle and she put it into her hand bag. Then just after we went past she climbed on to the moped and shouted something and 3 larger dogs appeared. The original non-bagged small dog and one of the big dogs jumped on the moped floor in front of her, one jumped to stand on the seat behind her and one followed along side as she drove off. The picture I hastily took does not do the scene justice. After that nothing else on a moped compares be it a potted tree, two of those toy ride on jeeps or a family of 5. It was truly bonkers thing number 1.

    We headed towards the lake and grabbed some noodles and rice for lunch. Then we took a swan boat out on to the lake (minor weird thing, there was a man flat out asleep in a swan boat moored at the collection point). At least this was some minor exercise for the day. On the walk back from the swan boats we went to a pagoda where a woman was burning brand new, out of the pack dolls houses, hats and shoes (?!) and to the Temple of Literature where kids were graduating in brightly coloured robes. At this point Matt's flip flopped feet were about to give out so we headed for dinner (more noodles, more rice) and back to the ranch for a hot shower (we're getting much better at selecting places to stay with decent showers now)

    After dinner we went to the Water Puppet Theatre. Again bonkers. I didn't take any pics of the show but go on YouTube and search for the Hanoi Water Puppet theatre for clips. We weren't really sure what to expect seeing as all we knew was that it involves water and puppets but it was so much fun and passed the six laughs test easily - how could it not with acts named 'chasing the fox that tries to catch ducks'? The set is a shallow water tank set in a pagoda and my best guess of how it works is that the wooden puppets are on underwater rods controlled by puppeteers at the back of the stage behind the curtain that the puppets enter through. (They all came out at the end wearing waders). There's musicians too playing along on instruments I've never seen. It's very clever and charming, we never saw the rods even when the puppets jumped out of the water. The stories didn't make much sense to us as 1. any speech was in Vietnamese and 2. it was crackers but I'd definitely go again.

    After the show we walked around Hoan Kiem lake. At the weekend they pedestrianise the roads around the lake which makes it an enjoyable walk rather than the stressful dodging vehicles walk it was when we visited a few days ago. In Hanoi there's either no pavements so you have to walk in the road, there are pavements but you can't walk on them for parked moped or there's mopeds driving on the pavements. There is no absent minded strolling. The closed-to-traffic roads are where friends and families go to meet up, playing keepy uppy games, hire hover boards and picnic on the pavement. There's also lots of people who bring instruments and/or a mic and amp and just perform. As with the guy at the gardens there were some terrible singers, including the one which looks like a semi professional set up involving fire and dancers.

    We leave Hanoi tomorrow. It's a cool place. Would be cooler without the vehicles.    Читать далее

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    Day 27 - A Tale Of Two Cities

    6 марта 2017 г., Вьетнам ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C

    We spent our last morning in Hanoi. Today at breakfast there was a man eating more loudly than anyone I've ever heard eat, it was vile, and the friendliest staff member ever (and she continued to be whenever we set foot near reception) so a mixed emotion meal. We had a 1pm pick up for the airport so did some last bits of sightseeing. We went to Hao Lo prison, which was originally built by the French in the 19th century for Vietnamese political prisoners. It was harrowing. There were stories of abuse and torture of the prisoners and a chance to go into the cells where dozens were kept in one place, plus the guillotine and some of the torture implements. Many prisoners escaped by various means, commonly by crawling through the narrow sewers, and they has a section of the sewer pipe there. When the French left Vietnam is was used for American prisoners of war. According to the info in the museum they were treated much better with sports courts, games and no mistreatment however other ex-prisoner accounts massively vary and the nickname 'Hanoi Hilton' is spun in very opposite ways. It was a very interesting way to spend an hour. We visited St Joseph's cathedral briefly on the way back before negotiating the pavements again and heading for another incredible Banh Mi sandwich (must be the quality of the ham Michelle). I like Hanoi but we are very, very much over the traffic and were glad to get safely back to the hotel, and the over friendliness, and into the taxi to the airport.

    (I forgot another weird thing from yesterday. Matt got stopped at the Temple of Literature for a photo with an Asian guy - we're celebs here obviously)

    The airport time was pretty uneventful, apart from bumping into a family we've now seen 3 times on our travels and spending the flight being kicked in the back by a small child. We landed in Hoi An an hour later, smooth pick up (apart from the driver not knowing where we were going despite having a board with our name so I thought we were being kidnapped) and an hour later were at our Homestay in Hoi An. I'm not entirely sure what the difference is between a Homestay and a Hostel (or a Guesthouse for that matter) - same same but different as they say in Laos. I was a bit hangry so we headed out to Red Gecko for an awesome meal. Times is strange when you get excited that they have soda water on the menu - travelling brings an odd state of mind.

    After dinner we went for a walk. Hoi An is the opposite of Hanoi. There's a river running through the middle with beautiful buildings either side and lots of brightly coloured lanterns. The Ancient part of town is pedestrian and cyclist friendly so no mopeds or cars to avoid. Everyone is friendly - they're still trying to get you to buy something but they're not forcing baskets on to your shoulder for a 'picture' or trying to get you into a fake North Face shop. There's a ton of nice looking restaurants and bars, and delicious looking street food of course. I think we're going to like it here, as we have with all the more laid back places. Tomorrow it's time for general sight seeing and a chance to see if it's as nice in the day time.    Читать далее

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    Day 29 - Beach Day

    8 марта 2017 г., Вьетнам ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    A short entry for today seeing as we spent the hours of 11am-6pm at the beach sitting in a cute cabana at a bar and catching up on Broadchurch/The Crown/Horse Racing things whilst drinking and eating enough to keep our spot (approx £25 all day). Some interesting/amusing things from the day:

    - We took 2 taxis and neither scammed us. This is a rarity in Vietnam.
    - We spotted a man asleep on top of a lying down buffalo. Flat out. Sadly we were in the non-scamming taxi and I couldn't get my camera out quickly enough.
    - The cabana opposite ours had a dog in it for a good hour living the life.
    - Matt went for a swim at the same time as a large group of Vietnamese men ran into the sea and started doing somersaults. All were in trousers, some were wearing jeans.
    - The Homestay gave me a rose for International Women's Day.
    - It's become a general theme in Vietnam that all components of a meal don't arrive at once, generally it has taken 15-20 minutes to get both our mains and sides out.
    - Matt's dinner involved triple carbs - rice, noodles and bread.

    I reckon that's about it. We had a lovely meal, albeit with the triple carb action, and walked back home to pack. Tomorrow is another cooking class (wahoo) and another sleeper train (less wahoo)    Читать далее

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    Day 28 - The Great Happy Hour Quest

    8 марта 2017 г., Вьетнам ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

    4 weeks in now. I'm not sure if it's flown by or if it feels like forever since we were in the UK. We're over a third of the way through and think we're getting the hang of it now - I'm a whizz at packing and unpacking my backpack. There are a lot of quirks still to get used to, like the point of wet rooms and how it's perfectly fine to go through a restaurant kitchen to use the toilet (and how quite often the toilet is the family bathroom).

    Hoi An is just as pretty in the day as it is in the evening. It's also a lot hotter and more humid than it was in Hanoi so sweating is immediate when you set foot outside. Today was an exploring day. Technically you need to buy a ticket to be in the Ancient Town at all but in reality it's only checked when you want to go into one of the historic buildings. So we bought a ticket and picked up a not overly useful guide pamphlet (which has one photo which it credited to 'The Internet'). A ticket allows entry into 5 of the 22 sites but with no description of what the sites are other than them being split into sections like 'Old Houses' or 'Assembly Halls' it was a bit of pot luck.

    We started with Quan Âm Pagoda/Quan Công Temple (category Communal Houses). The temple was very pretty and colourful, originally built in 1653. Lots of nice artwork inside, in particularly I liked the kitten made out of rice.

    Next stop was Triêu Châu (Assembly Hall) built in 1885 as a place to worship the Gods and Goddesses who control the weather at sea. Hoi An relied heavily on shipping, and merchants would come from all over the world to set up shop here for part of the year. There were lots of interesting carvings everywhere from the walls to the tables.

    Our third ticket was given to the Museum of Folklore. We had heard all museums in Hoi An were a bit rubbish but that this one at least had creepy mannequins so was most worthy of a visit. The mannequins were indeed creepy but helped to bring to life the strangely translated text information which went from very vague ('some kinds of saws') to slightly less vague ('firefighting tools - used to fight fires'). It wasn't the most thrilling museum but was fine.

    After all that excitement we had a couple of beers. You can get a glass of draft beer here for less than 30p and it's not bad. The place we went was a use the family bathroom kind of establishment though. We also picked up a Banh Mi sandwich - addicted - at what Anthony Bourdain (an American TV chef) called the best Banh Mi sandwich shop in Vietnam. It was a very very good sandwich though there's a good chance I'll turn into a baguette this trip as already had the homestay's version for breakfast.

    Carb fuelled we went to two of the Old Houses. The first was Tân Ky. A wooden house inspired by Japanese architecture. It floods massively most years but hasn't sustained much damage amazingly, the flood lines are marked on the wall and most were taller than Matt. In nearly every place we went on our tickets someone actively tried to sell us things as we walked around. Here our tour guide even did a sales pitch mid tour to try and get us to buy horoscope coins (the tour was roughly 4 minutes long. The sales pitch was about the same length)

    Finally we went to Dúc An house. Similar to the previous one but this one has loads of pictures of one of the family who lived there. He lived to 102. There wasn't really much explanation on who he actually was though but I guess important.

    All in all we saw some mildly interesting things but nothing groundbreaking. Maybe we chose the wrong 5 but it passed away a few hours between sandwiches.

    In the evening we bar and food emporium crawled looking for happy hours. I think we managed 7 different places of which 2 were just for food - a cart selling Cao Lau noodles - a Hoi An speciality - with long tables and small stools on the street and full of local people so we knew we were on to a winner (and Matt managed to use chopsticks for the first time) and a Mexican place we got to about 10 minutes before it closed much to their delight and had the best nachos I've ever eaten. Drinks wise we had a lot of cocktails with a particular highlight being the place we sat in the doorway and watched a rogue dog chase and dog or toddler that went past whilst old ladies tried to shout people on to their rowing boats. We ended up in a place crammed in with lots of backpackers younger than us talking loudly and doing shisha pipes. That's when we knew it was time to call it a night.    Читать далее

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    Day 30 - Cooking and The Hell Train

    10 марта 2017 г., Вьетнам ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    Day 30 brings us to the third of four cooking classes I intend to do and Matt is still going strong joining me. Today's was with Thuan Tinh Cooking School and our guide was Mo. Mo reminded us that no one in Vietnam can say Matt's name. Should be very easy, just one syllable but despite repeating it he still gets Maths or Mass.

    We went on the usual trip around the market though in a slight variation we all got cutesy shopping bags and picked up the ingredients as we went along. After two of these market trips I'm getting good at the ingredient identification portion - it's turmeric! Thai Basil! A kumquat! (I always was a swot). From the market we caught a large boat for about 20 minutes, then switched to a mini bus then to a rowing boat - all a lot of effort when the taxi back only took 10 minutes.

    The cooking course itself was run by Ms Thy. She spoke very basic English with Mo translating for the most part but her well trodden mix of mime and chatter patter was hilarious and when you got an enthusiastic 'good! good!' you felt like a Master Chef. We started off making beef broth for a meal coming later. Really that involved holding ingredients over a gas flame then chucking them in a pan with beef bones whilst we did everything else.

    Dish 1 was fresh spring rolls. Was made a dipping sauce then wrapped lots of pork, veg, shrimp and noodles in rice paper. Ms Thy made it look easy but our rice paper was sticking to things all over the shop. They looked alright in the end though and easy to recreate at home.

    Dish 2 was my favourite of the day. Banh Xeo, apparently named as Xeo is the sound of sizzling in a pan. It a rice flour pancake with veg, pork and shrimp cooking into it then wrapped in more rice paper and filled with lettuce and herbs. We both successfully managed not to drop our pancakes whilst flipping despite it being done one by one in front of the class. The final pancake was super crispy though I don't quite understand the rice paper.

    Dish 3 was a beef and noodle salad. We got to decorate our plates first. I did birds, Matt did his name in the hope people might learn to say it correctly. You could also try to set the pan on fire to cook the beef if you liked. I got a flicker but Matt was a pro. Though he won't be doing it in my kitchen (plus I think if you manage to set a pan on fire on an electric job something's gone wrong.)

    Final dish was beef Pho (noodle soup) which was basically a construction involving out pre prepared broth. The course felt like a lot of construction rather than much hands on cooking but I think that's more the nature of Vietnamese cuisine than anything. It was still good fun and in a pretty surrounding, though bizarrely was saw probably 20 ducklings all swimming together which was cute but weird.

    The rest of the afternoon was time wasting in Hoi An before our night train. We went to the spa. I had a facial and Matt a massage for which he got to wear very fetching silk pyjamas. (I've promised not to put it up online by private viewing available if the price is right). Then we moseyed around having some drinks and the best nachos we've ever eaten at a place called Hola Taco.

    Then we went to the station for what I'll affectionately call the Sleeper Train from Hell. Our first Sleeper experience in Chiang Mai was fun. Private cabin, clean, wifi. I'm sure this time could have been worse but it can't have been far off. We joined the train at 11pm so it'd been running for a while. We booked a 4 bed bunk. What we didn't realise was that just because there's 4 beds doesn't mean 4 people and already in the room we're two women and two young children who'd clearly been using our bunks before we arrived and had left them in a state so we had to sort that in the dark. The train was mouldy, damp and loud. Add to that crying children in the night, the adults deciding 4.15am was fine to sit up and have a loud conversation and insisting that the door and curtains were kept open the whole time made it not ideal for sleep. Oh and one of the kids kept reaching up and poking me to the point I had to say 'no' in my sternest voice. They eventually got off the train at 6am (we were getting off at 8.30am) so we did manage about 30 minutes of sleep. Good job it's destination Nha Trang, a beach resort, so bring on the sun loungers.    Читать далее

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    Day 31 - Hello Mate

    10 марта 2017 г., Вьетнам ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    I fear the blog is going to be in the dull zone again today and tomorrow as we're here in Nha Trang now. Not that Nha Trang is dull in itself but it's a beach resort so I imagine a good chunk of our time will be on a lounger.

    We left the train and caught a taxi to the Cozy Condos where we're staying to be greeted by Ms Huong, Owner and Director - literally on every piece of paper or sticker where her name is mentioned it adds the Owner and Director bit. We paid to check in early as we both felt Hell Train dirty. We have a mini apartment here but I imagine chances of the kitchen being used are slim to nil.

    Once we felt clean again we ventured out for brunch and found a Greek place to eat pitas. We were both hangry so just fell into the first decent place we saw. Nha Trang is very much a Russian holiday destination. Russian companies own most of the hotels so walking around all of the business signs are in Vietnamese, English and Russian. There are some terrible English translations on signs though, see in the photos for the beach sign. Since when is a dog a grazing animal?

    Energised by brunch we made it to the beach and stayed there for the whole afternoon. It's a very beautiful beach. I slept on the lounger and Matt went and jumped in the waves. We walked up the front for a while watching people (including some creepy clowns) flying kites. There's a lot of motorcycle taxis here and for some reason when we go past they say 'hello mate' in a cockney accent. Not sure what makes us look so British - probably the pastiness.

    Dinner was Vietnamese food at a restaurant called Lanterns but we both totally hit the wall and came back after that to sleep.    Читать далее

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    Day 32 - Frogger

    11 марта 2017 г., Вьетнам ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    We woke up and decided we should attempt to do something vaguely cultural today before getting on the loungers, though only after breakfast. We went to a cafe called Iced Coffee i.e. Matt's dream location. I had a Vietnamese hotdog. I'm not exactly sure what made it Vietnamese, it was still just a frankfurter in a bun just with a bit of chilli sauce. We attempted to find the bus which would take us to Po Nagar Cham Towers. After about 30 minutes of walking around in the 'too-hot-for-pasty-northerners' heat we gave in and got a taxi.

    The towers were built in the 8th century by the Cham people in dedication to a Goddess. They were restored in the 1990s as they'd gone pretty much to ruin. I'm not sure the visit was quite worth it but I think we would have felt bad if we spent the whole day on the beach. The photos of the site in the 30s compared to now were the most interesting part. And we did get to wear foxy grey cover jackets to hide our shoulders and knees.

    We taxi'd back and then spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach. I drank coconut water from a fresh coconut and finished watching The Crown whilst Matt went back into the waves. The most amusing part was watching the people who take payment for the sun loungers getting super strict, especially at the end of the day when people were trying to negotiate the price. The sun lounger men always won and even double handed shoo'd a couple of women who tried perching on one. Twice today people have also thought we were Russian and given us Russian drinks menus or tried to talk to us in Russian.

    After some stressful road crossing (I will be so happy to be back to the zebra crossing and green men of UK roads) we went for dinner at a delicious Indian restaurant called Ganesh. Emergency red wine was called for to recover from the roads - its like playing real life Frogger. Then it was time for another sleeper train. I like that at Nha Trang station there's no clever arrival board, just a screen where they can link a computer to and display a word document telling you the expected time (see photos). We spent our time at the station praying for a better experience than last time and overall it was, though poor Matt couldn't really sleep anyway. Our bunk mates were quiet and respectful and the cabin was clean-ish. Though the horrible shiny gold blankets which made you sweaty and slid on the floor were less pleasant. We arrived at 5am to hit the hotel for a bit more sleep. That's it for trains now and almost it for Vietnam. Just Ho Chi Minh left to go.    Читать далее

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    Day 33 - Sweatsville

    13 марта 2017 г., Вьетнам ⋅ ⛅ 32 °C

    After a few hours sleep we braved Ho Chi Minh city proper. It's back to being very, very hot. Hello Sweatsville. (It ended up being a double shower day). We walked out to the Emerald Pagoda. It was one of the more active, less touristy places of worship we've been to which made it more interesting. There was more burning of cardboard goods and two ponds, one with cat fish and one with turtles. Both had random bread rolls and chips thrown in which neither animal was going for. Poor things.

    The roads are even busier here however there are a lot more crossing points and more people (not all) respect the green man so getting round is a bit easier. We went for lunch at a random Vietnamese cafe where it turns out the male restroom is also the female restroom and where they wash the glasses. If you walked into the loo in the UK and they were doing that you'd phone the council but here it's all nice and normal. After lunch we went to the Vietnamese history museum telling the story of Vietnam from the prehistoric era to the start of the 20th century. I'm a little sceptical that the piles of rocks could indeed be classified with certainty as tools but apparently you could clearly see the advancing technology. There was a lot of pottery and statues but the best part was reconstructions of different battles that looked like they'd been made by a school class for a history project. Lots of faux blood and spears through little plasticine models. Also on display was an actual mummified body of a woman then found a few years ago - nice.

    We dragged ourselves back to the air con hotel. According to the (I'm sure reliable) Apple Health app since we started our trip in February we've walked over 300km! I should be skinny as a rake by now but I think we're cancelling it out with all the iced chocolate drinks and fruit smoothies. We were going to attempt the cinema but I'm pretty confident we both would have fallen asleep so we went for dinner instead at a place round the corner. The waitress was hilariously sullen and had to explain to me how to eat my food (more leaf wrapping) which clearly brought her no joy whatsoever. Others learnings were that an iced yoghurt is not frozen yoghurt as you might guess but a glass of yoghurt with ice in. Go figure.    Читать далее

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    Day 34 - Noir

    13 марта 2017 г., Вьетнам ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C

    By (un) popular demand it's Matt back as guest editor today. After some relaxing days where we hadn't done a great deal I get to write about what's been a really interesting day.

    Firstly we went on a free walking tour. We've done a lot of these in various countries where there's no set fee but you pay what you think it's worth. This was slightly different in that it is actually free as your guide is a local student who's studying tourism and they use the tour as a way of improving their English. Our guide was Huey (not sure of the spelling) and we paid him anyway. His English was really good and he took us around some local landmarks such as the Opera House (French built and an impressive building) and the Post Office building (French again and looks like a train station). He then takes you to either the Reunification Palace or the War Remnants Museum. We went for the former as we wanted to go to the war museum later (see below). The Palace was pretty good but full of communist propaganda and digs at the south and Americans.

    It was interesting taking to Huey about communism. Vietnam is one of only five communism countries left (try and think of the others comrades, answers at the end) and he was openly not a fan. He said most of the south don't like it whereas the north still worship old Uncle Ho. He said support for it amongst the young in particular is low and he hoped it would change to a democracy in the not too distant future. He also talked about their closer ties with Japan who are helping fund the Metro that's being built which is a move away from the usual Chinese investment (clue for the one of the answers here).

    After the tour ended we were so hot so took refuge again in the nearest air conned cafe. HCMC is slowly melting us, 34 degrees again today. Appreciate that the locals are much more accustomed to the heat than us but we saw a bloke today wearing a wooly hat in the middle of the day. We then had some street food at Ben Thanh street food market, it's street food but a bit sanitised (think food court at a shopping centre) but was still nice.

    This afternoon was spent at the war museum. Quite harrowing and some really horrific images. It's done with a major slant towards the north Vietnamese and the Viet Cong as you'd expect but still highlighted the horrors of war and was quite hard viewing at times. Particularly the bits about Agent Orange (where the Americans dropped chemicals to damage the jungle the Vietnamese were using as cover and which went on to cause horrific birth defects for generations afterwards) and the confirmed atrocities committed by US soldiers against civilians. Despite it being tough to see glad we went, it really wasn't that long ago and shows what the people here have had to deal with.

    So on to the evening and Helen played a blinder (terrible pun intended) as she'd discovered HCCM has one of the dine in the dark restaurants, it's called Noir and owned by a Dutch bloke. There's a few of these popped up in London but for anyone not familiar with them you dine in the dark funnily enough. All the waiters are blind or sight impaired and you literally can't see anything while you eat (the chefs can see however which is one of the FAQ's for confused visitors). Someone had also asked what the dress code was.

    It's a set menu with your only choice being east or west inspired. We chose east and after an introductory cocktail you play a game blindfolded where you have to put different shaped blocks in the correct places to get used to doing stuff in the dark. After that you're introduced to your waiter (ours was Tum) who takes you in convoy to your table with your hand on the shoulder of the person in front. It is literally pitch black to the point where you can't see your hand in front of your face.

    Once seated the food arrives. We got four starters, three mains and three desserts. It was all delicious and it was fun trying to avoid spilling food everywhere and also guess what you're eating. After you've finished you go back in to the light and an explanation of each dish. We were very mixed at guessing. Helen correctly picked out the tuna dish which is often misidentified apparently but I thought one was pork crackling or something similar but it was actually a veggie rice cake.

    It was a bit pricey by Vietnam standards (around £75 total including drinks) but much cheaper than the ones back home and definitely money well spent. It was a really good experience and a right laugh. As well as employing lots of visually impaired people many of the other staff were deaf and/or mute. We were speaking to the manager afterwards and he said how difficult it is for people with a sight or hearing issue just to get around in Vietnam.

    After dinner we went over to a roof top bar at a hotel right in the middle of the backpackers area in district 1 before we called it a night.

    Only a day and a bit left in Vietnam. It's been fun and a lot of contrasts. Hanoi and HCMC are interesting but a bit crazy in a Bangkok kind of way. Hoi An was such a cool place and Nha Trang was great for a relax on the beach. Glad we've been to them all but the quieter places like Chang Mai, Luang Prabang and Hoi An are still my favourites of the trip so far. We fly to Cambodia tomorrow, new country for both of us and looking forward to it. We're now five weeks in with six to go, it's weird, feels like it's flying by in some ways but thinking back to Hong Kong it seems ages ago.

    The Cheltenham festival starts today (Tuesday) which means Helen will definitely be back on the blog as I'm hoping to cash in some of my cooking class credits to try and watch the races on my phone which will start at 8.30pm here.

    So the answers are:

    Vietnam
    China
    North Korea
    Laos
    Cuba

    The power of five thousand suns and a free statue of Uncle Ho if you got all five. Down you Imperialist pig if you only got one!    Читать далее

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    Day 35 - The Start of Matt's Christmas

    15 марта 2017 г., Вьетнам ⋅ ☀️ 33 °C

    It's Helen back again. From today we lose Matt to Cheltenham AKA 'Matt's Christmas'. I made the grave error of not negotiating exactly what I'd need to give him in return for the cooking classing and now I have my answer - being home for 8pm every night so he can watch it.

    We started the day skipping the hotel breakfast and heading out for a Banh Mi at a place nearby that we'd heard was good. On the way we saw a group of men knocking down a building with sledgehammers and by the time we came back later in the morning it was completely gone. I imagine the building partly melting as I certainly was. The Banh Mi place was a typical small seats on the street experience and had 2 options on the menu. An already constructed sandwich or a baguette which came with the contents plus a couple of eggs and some strange fish cake things in a bowl. Matt had the former and I the latter. It was pretty decent, I reckon it ranks at number 3 in my Banh Mi league so far. And all in all cost less than £4 for the two of us with drinks.

    After breakfast we went to the Museum of Traditional Vietnamese Medicine. As you do. We went round with a guide called Ho and a small group which included a Western doctor taking notes in a small note pad. We learnt about the history of traditional medicine, the key pioneers and the tools and ingredients. I liked seeing all the ingredients and what they supposedly helped with, including some scary looking ones I'm pretty sure in my chemistry learnings we were told were very toxic. Apparently in many hospitals in Vietnam you can still chose whether you want to be treated by traditional or Western medicine. Plus as a treat we watched a hilarious propaganda video which randomly had an instrumental of the Christmas song Up On The Housetop (made famous by the Jackson 5) as the intro. Ho tried to guess Matt's job - no idea why - and started at soldier then engineer then clearly wanting to hedge his bets (no pun intended) went for businessman. There's been several times here that men have taken an interest in Matt's size (plus a woman in a coffee shop who told him he had a nice smile and asked if he was married, I should have left him with her).

    We had some meatball/meat noodle soup for lunch. Here in HCMC they provide wet wipes at the start of a meal but if you open them they charge you. (There's no warning of this in the restaurant) and as I'm affectionately known as 'Cut Price Coxy' I refuse to succumb despite having half a bowl of noodles on my face. Luckily we were near the hotel so I went there to wash my face - 10p well saved!

    In the afternoon we took an Uber to the Bitexco Tower. I LOVE that they have Uber here. It's very very cheap and no getting scammed on price or the driver taking a long route (I've been watching on google maps and seen them do it then they argue a street is one way when you pull them up on it - lies!). CPC strikes again and I refused to pay 200K each (about £8) to just go to the viewing platform on the 68th floor when you can just buy an overpriced jug of draft beer for 200K and get a free cheapy garlic bread on the 51st. Once you get past the 20th floor surely it doesn't make much difference to the view anyway? The views were pretty good, fun to see where we've been but there's not a lot of distinguishable landmarks here that you can see. Though maybe you could from 68.

    There's a cinema in the tower so we went there to watch Logan in the air con - much better than John Wick 2. A quick dinner at the sanitised hipster street food area and we Uber'd back with seconds to spare for Cheltenham. I read my Lonely Planet and Emma - cinema and Austen is what being in a different city is all about eh?    Читать далее

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    Day 36 - 60p Beer and Pesto

    15 марта 2017 г., Камбоджа ⋅ ⛅ 33 °C

    Day 35 brings us to a new country - Cambodia. We left Ho Chi Minh with a last sandwich and just about scraped out of the country after queuing at the slowest check in desk then having immigration question our visas and having to get a 2nd opinion from a manager. We had the same problem with the British Gov recommended visa on the way in, surely on the way out though they shouldn't care quite so much? Luckily manager said yes and we quick footed it to the gate only to stand in the airport transfer oven, sorry I mean bus, while people faffed around looking at waving lucky cats and overpriced dried fruit.

    A bumpy 40 minute plane ride over the border we arrived in Phnom Penh and our waiting taxi. The temperature has risen again and even in the 5 minutes it took us to get from the hotel to a bar to grab some food left us glowing with sweat. At least the bar had 60p happy hour beer. And pesto! (How I've missed you green heaven). And that's pretty much how the rest of the evening continued. We had a nice dinner at a place called Mok Mony. It has an interesting concept that they'd rather you order out of your comfort zone than play it safe just so you don't waste food/money/be hungry so they have a no questions asked returns system. Any sent back food they say they box up and give to the local homeless or street kids. I get guilty for not sending mine back but it was too delicious! After dinner as the wifi in the hotel isn't strong enough for Matt's Cheltenham fix we traipsed bats till we found somewhere which did. Luckily they had £2 red wine to entertain me.

    A quiet day today so inspired by Matt's quiz when he guest edited I've put a photo on which I took from a rooftop bar which is like a bingo game of South East Asia sights. I've mentioned most in the blog so see how many you can get.    Читать далее

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    Day 37 - Remembrance

    17 марта 2017 г., Камбоджа ⋅ ⛅ 33 °C

    If you're in Phnom Penh it almost goes without saying that you should go to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (S21) and the Killing Fields. I'll be honest, it's probably only in the last few years from other friends coming to Cambodia that I even really heard about the genocide here in the 70s, it's not something I learnt about at school and isn't so widely talked about in the West in general. To give a top line, in 1975 Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge took political control in Cambodia and forced everyone out of the cities to a horrific life of forced labour in the farms. Any one perceived to be intelligent (even just people who wore glasses or had soft hands), anyone from different minority races, any one religious was imprisoned, tortured and killed. No one was allowed out, borders were covered with landmines and Cambodians abroad were even called back under false pretences to be killed. It's thought up to 3 million people were killed over their less than 4 years in power which was a quarter of the population.

    We went to S21 first. Before it was a torture prison S21 was a school. People were brought here and tortured into making false confessions about their spy/CIA connections, despite most of them not having a clue who the CIA were. There was an excellent audio tour here which guided you around from room to room which had exhibits and items in them and told real life stories from victim's families and the handful of survivors. Most harrowing were the photographs of the prisoners, both when they entered the prison and in some cases when they were killed here (usually accidentally through the torture, purposeful killing wasn't done much on site). Everything was very well documented by the Khmer Rouge, they even had some of the prisoners who were artists draw scenes of what was happening. The site is now a UNESCO site and there is a very strong message of keeping the memories with you in the hope the world will not see an event like this again.

    Next we went to the Killing Fields. Once S21 prisoners had made their confessions there were brought here to be killed almost immediately. The guards waited until night time, put loud music on so those outside couldn't hear anything and basically battered people to death as bullets were expensive. Victims were put into mass graves. Men, women, children, babies - it didn't matter. This Killing Field was one of hundreds around the county. It's actually very peaceful here now, which is the intention. The site is being preserved as a memorial. Bodies have been removed (almost 9000) and all the skulls put into a beautiful memorial stupa.

    It felt wrong to take photos but I did take one of the 'rules board' at S21 which I think sums up how brutal and deranged the Khmer Rouge were. It was a very sad morning but we're glad that we came here. There was a message of remembering the past but not letting it define Cambodia today which is very powerful.

    We came back to the hotel for a couple of hours to escape the afternoon heat and to plan our last couple of weeks in Asia (yikes) then got a tuk tuk to the river. I don't mind the tuk tuk situation quite so much here. There's so so many and you get asked if you want one repeatedly even if you just said no to 5 of their friends, which is quite annoying but there's a rough idea on a fair fare (cheap) and everyone is jovial through out the bartering. Due to what happened in the 70s the population here is skewed young and everywhere on the river are groups of young people eating, chatting, playing football or even doing an aerobics class. We went for dinner at a tapas place which is run by an NGO that train former street children in chef and service skills. The food was amazing, especially the chocolate cheesecake. They also have a shop next door where they sell local crafts and you can get your nails done. It was a great concept. Child exploitation is still a big problem in many areas of SE Asia with some parents relying on sending their kids to the streets to sell things as more money can be made this way than by them being in school so there's kids getting no education or skills for their adulthood.

    After dinner we went on the Cheltenham Quality Wifi Hunt. We found a bar with a covers band which was sufficient. I'm not entirely sure they were singing the right words to their Amy Winehouse and Lionel Richie covers but the rough syllables were there. I sat and caught up on the January edition of Asia Life magazine whilst Matt watched the horses until he felt sorry enough for me to take me back to the hotel - though he did then leave me there to go to the bar across the road. One more day....    Читать далее

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    Day 39 - Mind The Cows

    18 марта 2017 г., Камбоджа ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C

    A day mainly of travel today so not a lot to report. After much confusion over our hotel bill where we were being honest and adding things on for them that their notebook system let them down on ('our laundry was 6kg not 2kg, we had breakfast on Thursday') and a quick Costa we took a small bus to our big bus to take us on the 6 hour drive to Siem Reap. Some key highlights:

    - The bus was very quiet so we didn't have to sit on the narrow 'built for smaller people' seats next to each other.
    - The complementary squashed, pre packaged pain au chocolat was pretty good.
    - We had to emergency stop twice for cows crossing the road.
    - We saw a lot of kitten and chickens.
    - A strange fellow passenger stared at Matt whilst they were at neighbouring urinals at the rest stop.

    We made it to our hotel and went for a swim in the lovely pool. We resisted the swim up bar for today, but I'm sure we'll be back. The bed had not only towel art but also my name written in leaves which was pretty impressive. We went on an ATM hunt and I got befriended by children who kept giving me fist bumps and high fives then showing me their play fighting skills then had dinner at the hotel and retired to bed early ready for our 4am alarm.... tomorrow Angkor Wat.    Читать далее

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    Day 38 - The Heat Always Wins

    18 марта 2017 г., Камбоджа ⋅ ⛅ 32 °C

    We started the day early-ish in an attempt to beat the heat (spoiler alert - the heat always wins) and headed for breakfast at a place called The Shop. Our hotel's manager is very chatty and is always offering us tips. Today's was basically 'don't go the way you know to walk to town, go this way down the backstreets and see how real people live.' Obviously we couldn't not take his advice and ended up getting lost whilst people doing their laundry and going about their lives looked puzzled. But luckily the manager was following us (?!) and put us on the right path. At The Shop You could get a regularly named breakfast (like Eggs Benedict which I had) or a celebrity named fun breakfast. Matt had the David Beckham. Rather than having any link to football or sarongs it seems it was only named after DB cause he's English. You could also have a Jackie Chan, a Gerard Depardieu or a Jane Fonda.

    Next up was the Royal Palace. It's like Bangkok's Royal Palace except much more expensive to get in, less crowded and less spectacular. It was fine, I liked the Angkor Wat model and the gates but otherwise same same. And it was horrifically hot even at 10am so we spent a chunk of our time there sitting on a step and the rest of the time sighing and whinging. They did have some beautifully air conditioned exhibition rooms featuring elephant boxes (literally hundreds of elephant shaped trinket boxes) and more creepy mannequins and models.

    After the Palace we went to the National Museum. It had the most painful audio tour ever. There were 237 audio tour stops, each in front on a statue or painting (mainly statues). Each audio description was on average 2 minutes long and we were not willing to spend 474 minutes listening to every stop especially as the first 20 seconds was a musical intro and a guy very slowly reading the exhibit name. The most fun part was watching people pose in the garden for photos e.g. sniffing flowers or holding an arm up seductively. I think we managed less than an hour before we could feign interest in yet another broken statue no longer and went for lunch at a Khmer restaurant called Kabbas. It was cheap and delicious. I had Amok and Matt had Lok Lek, traditional Cambodian dishes I'd like to learn to make (and maybe will). We tuk tuk'd back and spent the next hour or 2 air conning.

    At 4.30 we were picked up for a sunset boat trip. It was free beer and soft drinks but we were pretty much the only people in the Brit frame of mind of 'get your money's worth'. Our tour guide was a tourism student and gave a fast paced and detailed guide to the rivers and surrounding buildings. There is a lot of investment happening in Cambodia and so much construction going on. It'll be a very different place in 5 years time. Sadly it was pretty cloudy so the sunset happened a little earlier for us than expected but was still a fun trip.

    We did a post-boat geocache and then had some burgers and fries on the walk home. I think I've eaten more burgers this trip than I do in a typical year. When you're a tourist eating local food every day I think you brain goes into rebellion mode and craves something else. (That or I just want the cheese). We walked back to near our hotel and went to the 'secret bar' next door that the helpful manager obviously told us about. It was behind what looked like an old coke machine and was nice and hipster inside. There was a guitar and singer duet for a while who were great and the cocktails were excellent. Matt could even get Cheltenham signal!

    A lot of blogs and guidebooks were read said most people rush a couple of days in Phnom Penh and quickly move on as it's nothing special but we definitely could stay longer. However it's off to Siem Reap tomorrow and past the half way point of our trip. Eek!    Читать далее

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    Day 40 - Angkor Part 1

    19 марта 2017 г., Камбоджа ⋅ ⛅ 33 °C

    We managed to drag ourselves out of bed at 4.15am on the promise of an apparently bucket list sunrise over Angkor Wat. Loyal readers may remember that last time we got up for a sun rise (Halong Bay) we saw no sun and got very grumpy so we hoped for better. We met our Tuk Tuk driver Mr Smarty at 4.45am and proceeded to buy tickets (printed with our 'we shouldn't be awake yet' faces) and join the crowds at Angkor Wat lake side. There were hundreds of people already there but we managed to get a fairly good spot. It's very much a leave an inch and someone will fill it kind of place and maybe it's me, or maybe we came on an off day or maybe it's standing so close to people when it's already hot and humid that you're sweating at 5am but I thought the sunrise was kind of...meh. (Though in hindsight looking at the pictures I think it was probably me being grumpy). However from there on it was definitely not meh.

    Getting there early did mean we were there as they opened up Angkor Wat itself at precisely 6.10am and were at the front of the queue to go up to the very top. They only let 100 people up at a time and then it's one in one out and there were at least 100 people behind us when it opened precisely at 6.40. It's hard to put into words and 6 pictures how amazing it in Angkor Wat and all the temples. All the old carvings are so intricate and there are thousands of them. There's so many pathways and rooms to discover than even though there's hundreds (thousands?) of people there you can find somewhere quiet. Comedy moment of the morning (well funny to us, we were hot and it was early) though was that when we came down the steps from the top I had to cling on to the rail cause it was steep, but the railings were rusty and my hands were pure orange. Luckily I had wet wipes so got work on cleaning them but I noticed a man staring from about 2 feet away at me. I got up and moved as it was making me very uncomfortable and he followed me and asked what I'd done to my hands. I tried to explain but he didn't speak much English. Next thing he moved away and we heard his phone in Queen's English go 'Rusty' really loudly. I'm glad we could educate someone in the lesser known words of the English language.

    I won't bore you all right now with the ins and outs of all 11 of the temples we are visiting here across the 2 days, I'll save that for the slide show you have to watch when we get back (projector will be hired) but some key bits.

    After Angkor Wat we went to Angkor Thom, which was the old capital city. We spent the whole morning going 'I can't believe it's only {insert time here}' so by the time we got there it felt like 2pm but was probably about 7.30am. The big draw of Angkor Thom is Bayon temple which has 54 pillars each with a giant carved face on the side. Bayon was very busy with big tour groups doing their best posing against rocks but we managed to find a couple of corners to breathe. We even pulled some poses ourselves mainly in the huge frames which are a common feature throughout. A lot of the temples at Angkor are from around the 12th century so they're not all in one piece and a lot are undergoing restoration so plenty of chances for moody in the ruins pics. We explored some of the other buildings and terraced of Angkor Thom including some great corridors of carvings which were fun. There are a lot of make shift stairs in the rocks at the temples so there was a lot of monkey crawling up and sliding on bum downs (less easy when the rock is seemingly on fire)

    We went to another's beautiful bonus temple [Full disclosure. There's going to be some times I respectfully refer to somewhere we went as a bonus temple as I can't remember what they were called.] on the way one of the other big draws of the Angkor Complex, Ta Prohm. It's where some of the film version of Tomb Raider was filmed. Mr Smarty came with us in to this one to give us a guided tour/take photographs of us in front of everything using tricks I didn't know existed - upwards panorama anyone? Apparently a lot of carvings and statues in this temple, and the others in general, were destroyed or stolen during the civil war as religion was banned and sites were abandoned for a long time which gave the chance for huge trees to grow in cracks in walls and buildings which was spectacular to see. It was good having Mr Smarty with us as it was busy again but he knew the best way round and had no qualms about telling people they were taking photos too slowly or cutting in on queues. He also showed us an amazing nature spectacle of the entrance to an underground bee hive. It looks like a hose pipe full of bees, so incredible/terrifying. Watch where you sit on rocks...

    We managed to cram all of that in to 8 hours which made it only lunch time and we were both too hot to carry on and came back to the hotel for lunch and to hit the pool/bar in the pool. Then it was time for the circus. Not a traditional circus in any way, shape or form but one set up years ago as an off shoot of an arts school that was trying to get kids living in poverty into some form of alternate education. They started just getting the kids drawing but found it didn't engage them so started teaching music and circus skills. Thus Phare Circus was born. They school now can afford to take 1200 kids per year into the school (which is a scarily large number and a fraction of the kids in poverty here) and a lot of them become professional performers bringing in an income. Our show was about a group of school friends who are haunted by two ghosts and have to learn to face their fears if they want to be rid of them. It's a very funny show including juggling, amazing acrobatics and spot on music to accompany every move. There was a guy who could literally get his leg straight up parallel to his torso and behind his head - a bit disturbing. We really enjoyed it.

    Another not quite so early start tomorrow for Angkor Temples Day 2.    Читать далее

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    Day 41 - Angkor Part 2

    20 марта 2017 г., Камбоджа ⋅ ⛅ 32 °C

    A slightly less early start today (7.30am) for Angkor complex part 2. Today, just in the morning, we saw 7 temples. They were mostly smaller than the big draws yesterday and I can't really remember the names of any of them. But I can remember some of the odd things that happened across the morning.

    The first temple we went to was cross shaped with rooms the width of the 'arm' all the way to the centre. The doorways between each room got smaller and smaller as you got closer to the middle. In the middle we met a man in a police man's uniform - I have no idea if he was a genuine policeman - who took it upon himself to give us a guided tour including going and visiting in one room a very old person (I thought man, Matt thought woman) sitting in front of incense and a carving of a Buddhist queen. He/she took our arms and chanted something I can only assume was a blessing before blowing on our foreheads (?!). We learnt a lot of interesting things from the policeman guide who at the end asked for a $5 tip and wasn't too impressed that we only gave him $3 but there was no way he was 'I have no change-ing' and taking our $10 for a tour we didn't request.

    Next was a temple you got to over a long wooden bridge. On the way to the temple we saw a child's flip flops on the side of the bridge but no child was to be seen. Odd and a little concerning. The temple was apparently the hospital temple as the king would go there to drink holy water which cures everything. You couldn't go in this one as it was surround by the holy water so we didn't stay long but on the way back we worked out what happened to the owner of the flip flops. He must have been under the bridge catching fish as he was back up with a little fish squirming in his hands.

    The next few temples were quite similar to ones we'd either seen or to each other (except with a couple of geocaches). One had some nice elephant statues that I liked and a girl getting a friend to take photos of her doing yoga poses at the top. At another we were admiring a chicken and her chicks when the chicken bolted, a rooster started squawking and the chicks all huddled under a root. A local guide explained to his tour group (with us eavesdropping) that the chicken had seen a bird swoop which would have tried to take a chick so she'd gone on the attack. It was like something from Planet Earth, though I'm not sure Attenborough has ever done much on chickens.

    I think it was after bonus temple 3 that we got back to Mr Smarty and his bike wouldn't start. Queue a flock of other tuk tuk drivers flocking and pointing at different bits of the bike until one guy who must have some tuk tuk ring authors came by and pointed at the other side of the bike and suddenly the problem was fixed. It broke down again after stop 4 but was quickly fixed and we were ok from there. We asked Mr Smarty what was wrong and he just said the bike was old so maybe it's a common occurrence.

    On our way out of the final temple we pulled over to look at the wild monkeys which sit on the edge of the roads hoping tourists will feed them. Mr Smarty gave one of them a bottle of water which it proceeded to down - so funny. What was less funny in the moment was that I then felt something on my back and another monkey had grabbed my bag strap and t-shirt. Once it had got off and I hadn't been bitten or given rabies I could see the funny side as it sat behind me in the tuk tuk with Mr S playing with it. Well until I think it nibbled him and it was time to go. It clung on briefly as we drove away before getting off to join his friends.

    We got back about lunch time again and went to Pub Street for lunch. I found a dish which ticked all my favourite ingredients - chicken, mash potato, pesto and cheese. We had a quick 50cents beer before coming back for more pool time. The most amusing part of pool time was either a grown man diving in and soaking two women without caring one bit or the bar man trying to fix the jacuzzi bubbles on the pool edge and somehow just making water spray up in the air from random places on the edge.

    After the Western lunch we were back to Cambodian for dinner. More Lok Lek and Amok. Then a Cambodian cocktail class at a really cool bar which is the only old wooden house left in the city centre. It was just us in the class with our teacher Sombo (or Sombu, we can't agree which was right). We made a ginger mojito, a tamarind sauce and for our third I made 'The Lanes' which featured peppercorns (surprisingly nice) and Matt made a sweet Green Lemongrass. Sombo/u made us read all the ingredients out loud in the Khmer language which was very difficult but hilarious. She kept pitting us against each other, but I'm not sure there were any winners. The class was excellent and another skill to bring back.

    Final cookery class tomorrow!    Читать далее

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    Day 42 - It's A Small World After All

    22 марта 2017 г., Камбоджа ⋅ ⛅ 33 °C

    The (probably) final cooking class of our trip today. We were picked up by Ben from Cambodian Countryside Cooking bright and early at 7.30am. After a last minute cancellation it turned out we were the only 2 people on the course which is good cause you get lots of help but it does mean you can't quickly hide mistakes or fudge things.

    We started, as is the norm it seems, with a market visit. The moped loads never fail to surprise us. We saw one which had 4 people on plus two plastic washing basket strapped to the sides like makeshift side cars each with a small child in them. This market visit was probably the best one so far. It was quieter and as there were only two of us we had more chance to hear and ask questions. We learnt about how the stall management works, found out that Cambodians think we're crazy for eating coconut flesh (they feed it to the pigs) and that what they call a parsnip is very different to what we do. We saw a lot of fermented fish (apparently if it has maggots in it it's a sign off good quality?!) that our Western stomachs are too sensitive to eat and also a lot of live fish jumping out of their bowls and wriggling around the market floor. We also ate deep fried insect which was surprisingly delicious. It's good prep for when all the world's population need to start eating them.

    After the market we headed to the cooking school. The cooking school is a not for profit business, the money made is put back into the school/shelter that Ben and his team run for orphaned children or children who's parents can't afford to look after them. It started in 2009 with 6 kids and now they're at 71. He's currently training up a young guy called Ti who ran the class, with Ben keeping a watchful eye. It was clear he was just repeating back the English he'd learnt from watching Ben so if we asked questions he got a bit lost but he'd only been there 2 months and did a great job. We started on dessert first as it needed an hour to steam and made a coconut custard filled pumpkin. We had it in Thailand and it was gorgeous so we were keen to try it again. Matt scraped out the pumpkin and I squeezed all the coconut in water to make the coconut liquid. A few more ingredients and it could sit in a steamer till it set. Very easy.

    Next up was spring rolls. Our spring rolls were like snowflakes, no two alike! I kept thinking I'd got the hang of it and then would make a really crappy one. We began by peeling taro and 'parsnip' which took forever (they really need a spiraliser) and mixed it with egg, garlic that I had to smash by hitting it hard with a cleaver and pretending it was my enemy, and peanuts. Then we rolled them up. Despite them all being different they turned out ok out of the frier. After that we made Chicken Amok which I've wanted to learn since we got to Cambodia as it's possibly my favourite dish from the whole trip. It involved a lot of pestle-ing from Matt and a lot of chopping and smashing from me. Most of the ingredients you can get at home (hurrah) except the all important Amok leaves, but Ti reckons you can use spinach. I'm not sure I have the patience to thinly shred spinach, Amok leaves are lovely and long, easy to roll up but maybe I'll go crazy and try it was cabbage. We had to make little bowls out of banana leaves for it to go in. Matt had a lot more success. Mine was subtlety rejected! We enjoyed our Amok and pumpkin dessert in between lying in hammocks. It was a very nice morning.

    After being dropped back we had an afternoon by the pool. Highlights being margaritas at the in-pool bar and a loud, drunk American woman trying to argue with a Brummy family cause their very young son was playing with a pool jet and she thought he would break it. Words were exchanged on both sides so obviously I subtley turned off my headphones to hear phrases like 'entitled' and 'irresponsible parents' being thrown around. The family didn't stop their son but started ignoring her fairly quickly but her loud monologue continued for about 20 minutes. Very awkward but super amusing. Matt then came out which distracted her and, despite her husband being there, she started cat calling Matt and calling him eye candy. Cringe.

    Dinner was at a bargain Cambodian grill near the hotel where we saw possibly our favourite religious offering so far. Most businesses have a shrine to their chosen religious icon and there's usually food or drinks left. This one had a cup of coffee with a sugar sachet on the side. You know, just in case they want it. Then we met up with a woman called Eleanor who I work with and her new husband Matt who happened to have just arrived in Siem Reap on their honeymoon! (Plus a cat who had a seat at our table for a while) It's such a small world. We've had a few paths almost crossed whilst we've been here. I felt slightly bad for crashing their honeymoon but we had a fantastic time drinking lots of cocktails at Asana where we did the class last night. Probably at least one too many seeing as we had to be up at 6am for a flight...    Читать далее

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    Day 43 - Hello Old Friend

    23 марта 2017 г., Таиланд ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C

    Urgh, I regretted the last round of drinks when the alarm went off at 6am this morning. We tuk tuk'd to the one of the nicest airport's I've ever been in - clean, nice shops, excellent signage - and got our flight to Phuket with a dismal in flight meal of plastic cheese slice sandwiches. Arriving to Phuket and figuring out onward transport is a chaotic experience. We ended up in a crammed full mini van with no idea how it worked. We asked the driver where we'd be dropped off and he just said 'hotel'. Seeing as none of us had told him where our hotel was I didn't really get how that'd would work but on our way we went. What it turns out actually happens is you drive way past Phuket Town (where we were staying) first to the pier. Lose half the passengers there then give the driver your hotel names. He has to make some calls to figure out where they are and then you're driven to them. We got there in the end!

    We went straight for lunch as the hanger was setting in. I went for a classic Pad Thai and Matt had a green curry. It's been a while since we were in Thailand so Matt forgot that saying you don't mind medium spice is a grave error and he had to sweat his way through dinner determined not to let the chillis win.

    There's not an awful lot in Phuket Town to do except wander around and after having to play the 'is this overpriced sun cream real?' game since we left Thailand last month we took a pilgrimage to Boots and spent a small fortune on toiletries. The Boots just happened to be at a huge shopping centre with a cinema and Beauty and the Beast, my childhood favourite, just happened to be on so with little else planned to do we watched it. Matt tolerated it, I loved it obviously. The cinema was very nice, and cheap. Just £3 for comfy seats with lots of leg room. I forgot though that they play an anthem to the King before the film though nestled between Coca Cola and car adverts so everyone has to stand up and pay their respects.

    We walked back through the sweaty evening humidity and had a late dinner at Surf and Turf where they'd run out of prawns, fish and pork limiting our selections somewhat but the food we did manage to get was great. We're off to Koh Phi Phi island tomorrow so Phuket was more of a stop over from us to get us near the pier in the morning.

    Thinking of all my friends back in London, and the whole UK, today x    Читать далее

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    Day 44 - Koh Phi Phi

    23 марта 2017 г., Таиланд ⋅ ⛅ 33 °C

    After something that definitely was not a Croque Monsieur (erm, chicken?!) we caught the boat to Koh Phi Phi from Phuket. A fairly uneventful 2 hour trip though again with seats designed for narrower people. I've felt many times on this trip that I could improve the way businesses run and today's situation was unloading the bag from the boat. No one knew if you retrieved your own bag or waited for it to be chucked on the pier so a couple of hundred people were just milling around trying to go through the bags whilst staff were trying to chuck them off but no one had any space to do either activity. We got ours in the end and headed to try and find our guesthouse via a bar with wifi.

    Koh Phi Phi is a beautiful island which over the years has become a full on party island. There's a lot of debate about if the island is now ruined and if the government should do more to rein it in but since I was last here 6 years it actually seems a bit quieter. Where we're staying is certainly the tourist focused bit with bar after bar down the narrow streets. There's no vehicles here so that makes walking around easier though. It's again very hot though and it's tempting to stay inside in the air con. Our guesthouse is not far from the pier luckily so not too far to shift the bags and it's also full of cats so I'm happy. We managed to tear ourselves out and found an amazing grilled cheese sandwich that made up for the breakfast then we walked to the beach and spent a short amount of time there.

    Unfortunately Matt isn't very well so other than going out for a really delicious dinner (well mine was, I think all food to Matt is currently a struggle), we spent the rest of the evening in the guesthouse. It's nothing seemingly too serious, just a stomach ache, but it's not nice for him. Hopefully he'll feel better tomorrow and we can go and explore more of the island.    Читать далее

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    Day 45 - Rooftop Cocktails

    24 марта 2017 г., Таиланд ⋅ ⛅ 32 °C

    Matt's feeling a bit better today but still not great so we had a pretty relaxing day. We started with breakfast where I ate my body weight in bread and Matt forced some muesli down then headed to the beach. Sun loungers and beach chairs are outlawed here. Apparently the army came and cleared them all a few years ago as part of a way to control businesses and declutter the beach so you have to lie on the sand. Not the comfiest but adequate when all you're doing is listening to podcasts. When the discomfort got too much we went for a swim. Or attempted a swim. The tide goes out quickly and really far here so you have to go a long way to even get to knee deep. In the end we made do with that and balanced on a couple of rocks. As it's so shallow you can see all the little fish swimming about which is a big creepy, it's also the same temperate as a bath.

    Our eating patterns are all out of whack so we had lunch at about 3. In a break from rice we had Turkish food so hummus and chicken kebabs. And chips. We were going to attempt a pool party but decided against it for fear we'd be surrounded by flat stomached 18 year olds drinking buckets of cocktail at 4 in the afternoon. Instead we went to a roof top bar called Banana bar for their 4.20-6.20 happy hour and sunset. Neither of us were very hungry as we ate lunch so late so we walked on the beach. There was a storm somewhere close by, but crucially not over us, and we could see lightening in the clouds. It was very cool. I could have sat mesmerised for hours but we decided instead to have a wander and grab some nachos. With Matt still not 100% we had another early night. We've got a pre-7am start tomorrow for a boat trip so hopefully he'll be feeling better.    Читать далее

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    Day 46 - Swimming With The Fishes

    26 марта 2017 г., Таиланд ⋅ ☀️ 35 °C

    Matt was feeling well enough this morning luckily to come out for a trip on Mr Chet's longtail boat which would take us around the nearby island of Koh Phi Phi Ley. He tried to time it so it wouldn't be at peak busy-ness at the various bays and lagoons (it is always a level of busy as pretty much everyone who visits Koh Phi Phi Don where we're staying will go there) There was 7 of us in the group, plus Mr Chet, his brother and a driver. We started by going to a little lagoon. One of Mr Chet's USPs is that he takes loads of pictures of the scenery and of you to upload on to Facebook and as he's done this tour hundreds of times he knows the best pictures to take so there was a lot of posing in front of various rocks etc. Post-lagoon we went to Maya Bay where the Leonardo DiCaprio movie The Beach was filmed. Even when we were there at about 9am it was very busy. It is a beautiful beach, the sand is like flour and the water is so blue, but you couldn't spend a relaxing day here simply due to the volume of boats going in and out with more people.

    After Maya Bay we went to our first snorkelling spot. As discussed in a previous blog post I'm not fantastic in open water. I also struggle with having something like a snorkel mouthpiece in my mouth cause it makes me panic and gag (I was once sick on a dentist who was takin dental impressions) so I was very anxious about the snorkelling to the point I wasn't sure I'd be able to get in but Mr Chet was very patient with me and helped to calm me (and another person who was afraid) down. He suggested I go in without the mouthpiece first and just focus on being in the water and holding my breath if I wanted to look down. It really helped and as I'd missed the first appearance Mr Chet's brother took my hand and swam me to find a turtle. He swam to the bottom and nudged it for me which was very kind (less kind for the turtle I suppose). It was amazing!

    We went back to the first lagoon for more snorkelling. Mr C was confident that as it was much shallower and calmer I'd be able to relax more and use the snorkel mouth piece - he was determined I should start using it so I could 'Find Nemo' later on. I found the technique of pretending to be Darth Vader and channeling his breathing really worked for me. We saw so many beautiful and colourful fish plus a baby shark! Apparently baby sharks are not dangerous but surely there's a transition between them being harmless babies and harmful adults and I'm not sure how you identify that point... I was loving snorkelling by now and didn't want to get out but get out we did for some time drying off on the beach and eating lunch. Mr Chet's brother (we never learnt his name, I guess he was also Mr Chet but he could have been a brother in law) found a dead crab and brought it over to us looking just as excited as when he gave us our pineapple i.e. thrilled.

    Next stop was trying to find Nemo. It was back in the more open sea so that freaked me out a bit but it was actually much easier to deal with the waves when your head was in the water. I didn't attempt to dive below the surface but Matt did a few times which meant we got some great videos and pictures. It's so weird to realise how close to fish you are all the time when you're in the water, a bit creepy really. We did find Nemo after MC's B went poking around at the bottom again. I've got the snorkelling bug now, but not sure I'll ever making diving.

    Once we were out and wrapped in in towels to try and avoid the heat we went briefly to Monkey Beach. As the name suggests it's a beach with monkeys on it. Mr Chet was very very clear with us not to go too close to the monkeys, not to feed them and not to tease them as they can get angry very quickly and bite you. Of course there were big groups of idiots doing all of those things plus picking them up like cats. Is it wrong we really wanted someone to get bitten?

    All that was done by 1.30 and we grabbed a quick lunch. Unfortunately Matt started to feel a bit worse again. We stayed in for a couple of hours and then ventured up to the Phi Phi viewpoint at his insistence. I don't think I've ever sweated so much and this was at 5pm. By the end I could wring out all my clothes and hair, it was gross. You start off with about 300 steps then get to View Point 1, not a bad view but you could go higher. To get to VP2 you go up a big steep slope which was horrific. Luckily there was a drink stand there but unluckily it was also very crowded for sunset. Luckily I had heard that VP3 has an apparently slightly lesser view but is quieter so we headed up an uneven and steep dirt track to get there. (And even more luckily there was a geocache which of course had nothing to do with my decision to go up there). In fact the view was amazing, it was very quiet and we timed it just perfectly to enjoy a fresh coconut as the sun set.

    Sadly that's where our, well Matt's, luck ended. We managed to make it down but since then he's not been well at all. The worst he's been. I slipped out for a late dinner but Matt had to stay in bed. Poor him.    Читать далее

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    Day 47 - Strays

    26 марта 2017 г., Таиланд ⋅ ⛅ 13 °C

    Matt is still not doing so well. I left him sleeping to go off to breakfast and have some quiet beach time. The beach is a different place at 8am before the hungover groups clutching hair of the dog stumble out. Luckily Matt was well enough to get up and make it to the ferry to Koh Lanta where he slept again. Mr Tan, the owner of our guest house came and picked us up from the pier which we were very grateful as we've never been bombarded quite so much by people wanting us to take taxis or tuk tuks. Mr Tan is the man!

    We attempted lunch. Matt ordered some toast which earned him a puzzled look from the waiter. I had a curry and as soon as it arrived a little cat came and sat next to me. I'm not sure curry is great for cats so I didn't feed her any of that. We tried her on a bit of rice and jam (neither of those are probably good either) but she wanted neither and it was then we realised she just wanted a fuss - though I'm sure tuna wouldn't have gone amiss if offered.

    Matt retired back to bed and I went to the beach which is only a couple of minutes from where we're staying. The beach itself is sandy most of the way to the sea but then there's a lot of rocks and little rock pools have formed. There were a lot of people trying to catch crabs and a ton of weird fish which looked like they were part lizard darted about. I walked for a while before picking a quiet spot, though it's actually heading into low season here so most of the beach was quiet. That was when I noticed a cow walking down the beach without a care in the world. We've seen a lot of stray cats and dogs but the cow was a first! I stayed out to watch sunset, which was not underwhelming for once, and went back to check on the patient. He was doing a little better and even managed some plain steamed rice for dinner - again earning him a funny look whilst piggy here at Pad Thai. I'd feel more guilty but I like to eat too much.

    On the way back we saw lots of hermit crabs - they're so weird and if you shine a light on them they just freeze in their shells. You could easily collect the shell and have no clue. Well I guess until it clawed you. Matt seems a bit brighter now he's managing to eat a bit so fingers crossed it's passing.    Читать далее

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    Day 48 - Lanta Animal Welfare

    28 марта 2017 г., Таиланд ⋅ 🌫 10 °C

    Matt update - feeling a bit better and has graduated on to muesli and yoghurt as well as toast for breakfast. We had this before we got a tuk tuk complete with driver plus his two young daughters to Lanta Animal Welfare.

    Lanta Animal Welfare was set up in 2000 by a Norwegian woman who came to Lanta and saw how many stray dogs and cats in poor health were here. She sold everything she owned in Norway and set up a small rescue centre. She also set up a cooking school to help fund it and after 6 years she had enough money to move on to the current premises and look after more animals. The primary aim of LAW is to sterilise strays so that the population of animals which don't have a home to care for them stabilises/reduces. We found out that every time a female cat has sex she gets pregnant, something to do with penis barbs and ovulation and that female cat can directly and indirectly through her offspring produce 80 more cats within a year meaning the population spirals out of control. Through the work LAW have done they've managed to stabilise the number of stray cats on Lanta and reduce the number of stray dogs by 90%. Aside from the sterilisation they also treat animals, both strays and non-strays, and give advice/educate the local community on how to look after animals. Healthy cats are often released back as there just isn't the capacity to keep everyone long term but the animals which can't be released into the local environment for whatever reason are put up for adoption.

    The centre is open for tours, the donations from this form a large base of the funds to run the centre. You can also take the dogs for a walk which we did. We were asked about our dog experience (me none, Matt some) and then given Sanchez, a dog who was tied to a tree by his owner and had another pack of dogs set on him. So cruel. Because of that he can get spooked by other unfamiliar dogs/cats and has to wear a muzzle. The woman at the centre said we'd be ok cause Matt's a big guy. We were a bit puzzled by that as Sanchez isn't a massive dog. What it turns out it means is that Sanchez is stubborn and doesn't do anything he doesn't want to do. A lot of cajoling and gentle persuasion was needed. The route we'd been given was along the beach. Sanchez had a good sniff of everything, relieved himself etc then decided he didn't want to move. He just bedded down and stopped. We tried to keep going on the route and it was only when we walked back the way we came he moved a bit. We went through this a couple of times, be it when he wanted to go around a certain tree or when he wanted to go dangerously close to a deckchair he wanted to wee on. Eventually, via a number 2 in a load of ants, we had him strolling back. We tried to give him his bowl of water which he'd only drink if I held it up for him but he didn't get spooked by any of the cats we saw or chickens roaming around. When we got back they laughed and said he was an old man and didn't like doing anything he didn't fancy - hence why they have to put him with a strong guy or you'd never get anywhere.

    We had a bit of time before the official centre tour so went and played with the cats including a gorgeous little kitten with one eye called Wasabi. I wanted to put her in my bag and take her right there and then. I can see why so many tourists adopt them. We had our tour around the centre and learnt that they keep the dogs in packs and rotate them around the areas each day. Part of me expected the conditions not to be great but they were really good. Lots of space and lots of volunteers to give them love. When a new dog arrives they get tried in each pack to find a fit and they try to mix puppies and older dogs so the puppies learn some manners. One pack of older dogs never really get rotated as they don't like change and just want peace. There were so many sad stories of cruelty and a lot of the dogs were very scarred. The lady running the tour said the best part of it was if you were on night shift you could choose a dog to sleep in the bed with you which sounds a bit weird to me but whatever works for you.

    After the tour we went into one of the dog areas to socialise with a few of the dogs. We fell a bit in love with Pumpkin who's been in the centre since he was born 6 years ago. A while back he escaped and turned up 5 days later but is now terrified of traffic. I wish we could have adopted him and taken him home and I shed a few tears last night thinking about him. But he has a lovely life in the centre and hopefully someone more equipped to look after a dog like him will be found soon.

    We tore ourselves away and the same tuk tuk driver drove us back. It made me a bit sad to know that it was worth his while waiting 3 hours for our pretty small journey/fare rather than find another job. It is noticeably quiet here and I guess us tourists are fewer and further between than peak season.

    We went for lunch at a vegetarian place near our hotel. I had a massive plate of salad, homemade bread, a veggie patty and dips and Matt kept going on veg and bread. (Maybe too much). The place was pretty hippy, cushions on floors etc but the food was excellent. I appreciated the cushions to lie on with my patty baby. We got chatting to a couple of guys who live in Dubai but are English and South African. It transpired they were a chef and an events planner looking for businesses in South East Asia to buy and were mystery shopping the restaurant to see if they'd want to buy the business. It was interesting chatting to them about life in Dubai/South Africa. I don't think they'll be buying the restaurant though.

    The afternoon was then spent on the beach. It was overcast and rained a bit but was still a nice way to spend some time before dinner at a place which had rock band posters all over the walls and wind chimes/dangling ceramic figures from the ceiling. It was run by a rocker couple, she was the chef and covered in tattoos and he was on a crutch after 'an accident'. The food was immense and they were very funny. Matt still can't manage a curry but made do with Bruschetta and survived.

    It's mostly a transit day tomorrow as we head back to Phuket and then on to Bali. Zzzzzzzzz.    Читать далее

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    Day 49 - Transit

    29 марта 2017 г., Таиланд ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

    Matt Update - much better which is good as today would not have been an ideal day to be sick.

    Today was all about the transit.
    Breakfast - brief walk via beach - taxi - ferry 1 - handover to ferry 2 - taxi - dinner in Phuket - wine - taxi - plane - sleeping in Singapore airport - plane - taxi - Bali!

    Needless to say it was fairly dull with minimal sleep but now we're in the paradise that is Bali so more excitement coming I hope.    Читать далее

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    Day 50 - Sate and Spice

    30 марта 2017 г., Индонезия ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

    I can't believe we're already at day 50 and in less than a week will be in Australia on the final leg. We're a little concerned that our planned route takes us to Cyclone Debbie's main destruction zone so might need to rethink depending on how things are there

    Anyway back to the present. We're in Ubud in Bali in a gorgeous AirBNB villa. We were welcomed with watermelon juice but as we arrived so early sadly our room wasn't ready yet. Cue the next few hours feeling slightly grumpy and sleep deprived. We took the shuttle service into town and had breakfast at the first place we found which took Mastercard. Yesterday was a public holiday here in Bali where everything shuts down and people are banned from leaving their home so none of ATMs were yet working from that and we had no cash. Luckily it was a nice place. I had a Nasi Goreng which is a traditional Indonesian dish of rice, veg, chicken, prawns and egg. So good! Plus a coconut. Matt is finally back on the coffee and eating so he had a big plate of meat, potatoes and eggs. And a couple of lattes.

    We attempted a short walk around Ubud and had a look at the palace and some of the temples. It's a very beautiful place, I loved all the statues. Especially those that had been dressed up. We were probably a bit too over tired to fully appreciate it and were grateful when the shuttle came back at 1pm to collect us. Our little villa is gorgeous. Four poster bed, a bath, nice pool we share with the villa next door. We appreciated it for all of 10 minutes before pretty much passing out asleep for a couple of hours. We had a bit of a swim and sit outside before heading into Ubud for dinner. We went to a place called Arang which specialises in Indonesian Sate - beautifully grilled skewers of food with lots of options to choose between. I had the meat tasting selection and Matt the poultry. The food was so good. One of the best meals I've ever had. You even got a little hot stone to continue grilling with. And they had cocktails 😍 Highlights were the chicken liver, steak and lamb/blue cheese meatballs. We even ordered extra afterwards like the greedy pigs we are. I could have ordered a whole other tasting plate but managed to rein it in. The customer service was also second to none, though I forgot how little I missed people being able to smoke in restaurants.

    After that we walked around town for a bit. Well until 9 cause that's when the happy hours start. We went to a place called Spice where the cocktails are based on Balinese ingredients. Again really good and excellent customer service. The manager came and chatted with us about the concept and whenever anyone arrived or left all the staff shouted out a greeting in unison. My favourite cocktail was a sparkling lemongrass and apple drink. Yum.

    We caught the last shuttle home and once we'd managed to figure out the mosquito net again promptly passed out. Good night.    Читать далее

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