Part Way Round

Borneo

2009-10-20T10:45:00.000+01:00

Well, this is the epilogue of the Odyssey Overland 2009 trip, the
official trip finished in Singapore, or more properly Darwin, and
Borneo is an optional extra. So far we've seen some cool things here,
and some rubbish things: I will relate accordingly.

Our first stop was Kuching for one night, just to catch our breath
before heading to Bako National Park by minibus and boat: the park is
inaccessible by road. This park is famous for being one of the few
places left in the world where Proboscis Monkeys still exist in the
wild, there are about 1000 left. I wasn't aware of this initially, as
we set off on a jungle trek to the nearest beach. Just fifteen minutes
later we saw a family of PMs in the trees above us, maybe half a dozen
jumping and swinging past, stopping to eat as they went. They are
quite gentle and reserved for monkeys, no poo throwing here. A short
while later they went on, and so did we. I found out later that it was
quite lucky for us to see them so easily and quickly, and later still
I found out how endangered they are. Very beautiful and unfortunately
very rare creatures.

We carried on walking through the jungle, and my God, it was hot!
There was no wind, and the humidity must have been close to 100%.
After no more than ten minutes my clothes were soaked in sweat and I
was being bitten alive by insects, even with mozzie repellent on. The
problem with mozzie repellent in the jungle is that you sweat so much,
most of it comes off. The only way I found to minimise the bites was
to keep moving, easier said than done when you are exhausted and
dehydrated. Our 800m walk to the beach took an hour, the terrain was
so difficult, and another hour to get back. And my water ran out just
after we started back. Not a good situation, but it was only an hour.
Despite this, it was a good walk because we saw the PMs.

The long-tailed macaques are a totally different kettle of fish
though: aggressive, sneaky thieves. They will run up and take any
unattended food or drink, try to break into your room and they
threaten you if you get too close to them. Typically, they aren't
endangered.

One thing you notice about the jungle is that there are no locals in
it. They all know it is hot and buggy and stay out of it, or chop it
down. Only weird foreigners go into the jungle for a walk. I now
understand exactly why there is a deforestation issue on Borneo: it is
horrible to live in the jungle.

After Bako, we came back to Kuching for two nights, quite nice but
oddly sleepy for a town of its size. There is an old quarter, now the
Chinese district, dating from the colonial days, and a beautiful brand
new government building which elicits resentment from the locals who,
understandably, feel that the money could have been better spent.

Whilst here we went to the Semenggoh orangutan sanctuary, along with
every tourist in the area. Even though it was busy with people, it
also turned out to be busy with orangutans as well, young ones, mums
with their babies and even the notoriously tourist-shy alpha male of
the sanctuary: Ritchie. It was amazing to see so many orangutans in
one place, and they are even more endearing in real life than on TV.
Ritchie was something else though: 140kg, suspicious and in full
control of the situation. He knew that he was the king of all he
surveyed, including all us tourists.

Our next port of call was Bintulu, via Sibu. This involved a very long
day's travel by minibus, boat, local bus, and taxi, and we stayed
there for two nights. Our hotel seemed to cater more for the per hour
clientele than the per night ones, so in retrospect it is maybe not
surprising that our room had cockroaches living in it. We were moved
in the second night to another room, which also had cockroaches, but
this time my bed also had bed bugs. Their bites are really itchy, so
much so that you wake up, and obviously don't want to go back to
sleep. Rubbish.

We did go to Similajau National Park whilst there, and went trekking
through the jungle for 14km. This was actually easier than the 1.6km
we did in Bako NP, as it wasn't so stifling or as buggy in that
jungle. Of course all my clothes were still soaked through, and I
still got bitten a few times. The trek was to Turtle Beach 1, which as
the name suggests, was definitely meant to be full of turtles! We,
however, saw none. A picnic partially made up for the distinct lack of
turtle action.

One of the nights we spent in Bintulu was a Saturday, and it would
have been rude not to partake of the parties. So after watching
Notting Hill on the TV, Denis and I went to some bars. We weren't the
only Westerners in the village but I only saw one other the whole
time. Some of the bars were a bit poor, notably the Paradise Cafe, but
Casablanca Bar and Lounge more than made up for it. This was obviously
the place to be on a Saturday in Bintulu, with an excellent local band
and a happy crowd. Denis had a dance-off with a local dude and showed
the appreciative audience how they roll in Irishland.

Following the highs and lows of Bintulu it was onwards to Niah
National Park. This park has a huge cave system which is home to
millions of bats and swiftlets, and of course, tons of bat and
swiftlet poo. Very cool to walk through the caves and we even came
across some locals harvesting the swiftlet's nests for birds nest
soup. To do this they climb poles to the cave roof, these poles can be
up to maybe 50m high, and they hold 3m long poles with baskets on the
end which they use to poke the nests off the cave walls. Naturally, no
safety equipment of any kind was in evidence. For those who don't
know, swiftlet nests are made entirely from the birds' saliva,
allowed to dry. Whoever first thought about eating them must have been
very hungry and very agile.

We are now going to Brunei, home of the famous sultan, via the town of
Miri. One more stamp in the passport!

Pics are the cave entrance at Niah, Denis appreciating Alex's moves,
Turtle Beach 1 sans turtles but with Debbie, Kuching skyline with town
hall, and as close to an orangutan as my phone's camera can get.

KL, Melaka and Singapore

2009-10-14T08:29:00.001+01:00

Because of my extended stay on Koh Samui, I ended up in Kuala Lumpur a few days before the truck. This suited me fine because I was able to spend a week with an old friend who lives there. The thing with visiting people you know is that touristy stuff gets put on the back burner: I saw the Petronas Towers only from the outside and Batu Caves. The caves were impressive, and hot, and I got mugged by a psychotic monkey who took my bag of food. I could tell it was a psycho because the back of its head was missing: it was not a monkey to be messed with. That was pretty much my tourism in KL. I did find some cool bars though, and some nice shops, so my time was obviously not frittered away on trivialities.

After rejoining the truck, minus Abby and Elaine who both went home from KL, we drove the two hours or so to Melaka where we said goodbye to Calypso. I wasn't pleased to see her go, but it did seem like the right time. 29000km or so is probably about right for a journey in a truck.

Melaka was quite pleasant, in a quaint colonial kind of way. It must have been very important in the past judging by how many nations had conquered it at one time or another: it was British, Dutch and Portuguese before Malaysia was formed. There was a rotating circular viewing deck in the city which gave a great view, there was also a big ferris wheel, which seemed to be a small copy of the London Eye, and didn't interest me enough to warrant a visit.

Since Calypso was going home from Melaka, we took the bus to Singapore. Along with half the country, it seemed. The border posts were massive and very busy, especially on the Singapore side, which had this construction more suited to a Terminator movie than a friendly welcome. I'll say it now, I didn't like Singapore. It is clean, pleasant, has plenty of parks and greenery but it is too clinical for my tastes. The trees all seemed to be planted exactly eight metres apart, the grass was cut to the same height, everything needed a rule, regulation or right-angle to exist there. It felt very much like Central London but with more rules: $500 fine for this, $1000 fine for that. And for all these rules it was no cleaner or more agreeable to be there, and many rules were flagrantly and continuously broken by locals anyway. Not my cup of tea.

Because Singapore was so expensive (just as bad as the UK!) we decided to move and spend one night across the border in Johor Bahru. What a difference a bridge makes. JB was grimier, needed a good clean, and had the odd rat visible at night but it had life! Maybe this was due to the impending Deepawali festival, but the whole town was in party mode, with music and markets and fireworks. It was a great change from Singapore, where the whole country seemed to have a broom handle shoved up it's behind.

Well, there are eight of us going to Borneo now, not including Tim and Cheryl, everyone else has gone home or to Oz. Or both.

No pics this time, my sincerest apologies and I consider my knuckles rapped as punishment. Will do better next time.

Koh Samui

2009-10-05T13:15:00.000+01:00

After Bangkok we traveled to a small town called Prachuap Khiri Khan, which was pleasant enough but not a big thing. A barbecue was held there by our lovely crew though, very nice overlooking the sea.

The big thing came after PKK, when all of us went off to some island or other for six nights of well earned rest. I went to Koh Samui with four others, mainly because I couldn't think of anything better to do. I wasn't holding up high hopes for Samui, I expected it to be little more than sitting on the beach for five days. But I can now understand why some people come here and never leave, it is a wonderful place to spend time.

Staying on Samui, everything seems to slow down, and blend into everything else, the whole experience of being there is more important than any individual event. If you are thinking that this is a cop out which really means that I did very little on Samui, you would be partly right. Frankly, after five months on a truck being constantly under the feet of twenty-odd people it was great to get some personal space and freedom back. To further my drive for freedom I hired a car on Samui, a large pickup truck with mirrored windows and chrome wheels which was perfect for the island. The woman in the hire place said that it was four wheel drive so I could take it anywhere.

So I took it up a mountain in the middle of the island. There was a sign saying something like, "Restaurant, best view", so I went to see the view. It was about seven km up a dirt track through the forest and anything less than a 4x4 wouldn't have made it. The view was amazing, but I got the impression that it was unusual for someone to actually make the journey up there by themselves. The restaurant lady said that they got 80 or so people there every day because another company took "jungle tours" up there, this must be the normal way to reach this place. On the way back down I took a different track assuming it would be of similar quality to the one on the ascent. Never make assumptions! The route down the other side was of similar quality to those used by off-road experience companies to terrify corporate team builders: it was unbelievable. What was even more unbelievable was just how good my pickup was off-road, it didn't ground or get stuck once. At times the track oscillated between being so steep I was worried the car would tip over, and so variable that you couldn't see where the road went and just had to guess and hope. All the above probably implies that there was a single clear track descending the mountain: this is not true. There were in fact several tracks forming a maze-like network leading who knows where, from which I had to guess which track led off the mountain. This sounds easy, but when you arrive at the third crossroads surrounded by forest where all the roads lead uphill, you begin to worry a bit. Anyway, I got the car back down, with only a scratch to remember its adventure. Well, a long scratch. Which cost me 4000 baht when the hire place saw it. Hmmm.

I liked Koh Samui so much I stayed for an extra week whilst the rest of the group carried on to Malaysia, this proved to be a good choice based upon the stories I heard from others. Good for me, anyway, as I had a chance to relax. Also I met up with three of our group who had left previously: I picked them up from the ferry port and drove them around a bit.

One week later I flew to Kuala Lumpur to stay with my friend V, who I hadn't seen in years. In the process I broke the overland tradition, so my overland trip is now officially from Aberdeen to Koh Samui. Still not a bad journey, right?

Pics are view from my balcony on Samui, view from the top of the mountain and Robin enjoying a foot reflexology massage.

Bangkok

2009-09-11T09:04:00.000+01:00

We had four nights in Bangkok, which is not enough to do this city justice. The city itself is huge, with sprawling spaghetti overpasses, skyscrapers, shopping malls, street hawkers and the Skytrain, which is excellent. The first day I just went shopping, mainly for other people's computers, as three people bought new ones in Pantip Plaza, five floors of tech heaven. I remain computer-less, as my choice of machine is apparently unavailable here.

Being a tourist in Bangkok seems to result in weird experiences happening quite regularly. Tim, one of our crew, was contacted by a producer from TAN, an English language Thai TV channel, who had seen the truck and was interested in interviewing him for a segment on one of their shows. Tim, being the fine, stand-up bloke that he is, immediately volunteered four of us to do it instead, including me. So the stage was set, the camera crew and interviewer arrived the next day and started filming us and the truck. It turned out quite well as it happens, the questions were well thought out and allowed for decent answers and the volunteers performed well imho.

One question they asked of all of us was, "Where is your favourite place on the truck?" My favourite is the roof seats, and they were quite impressed when we showed them how they worked. It is rather surreal sitting on the roof of the truck in the middle of Bangkok with a cameraman standing at the far end whilst explaining what my definition of the truck is. This is my second TV appearance on this trip, the first was in a rooftop restaurant in Lhasa, but the difference here is that we will get DVDs of the finished show, which should be good for a laugh.

Weird TV show out of the way, experiencing Thai culture was next on the agenda. I visited the Grand Palace, which is the main residence of the Royal family here, making it the equivalent of Buckingham Palace in the UK. Here though, it is more of a complex of buildings than just one. It is, as you would expect, magnificent, with ornate buildings, a museum housing coins and Royal clothes and jewellery, and dress guards on either side of the entrance. What I did not expect were the squads of real, heavily armed guards dotted around the place: clearly here they err on the side of caution. I did want to see the reclining Buddha statue near the Palace, but it was so hot that I gave up and went back to the hotel.

There are a few men on the trip who are, like me, single, and so no trip to Bangkok would be complete without a visit to the red light district to see a ping pong show. Well, I did say that experiencing Thai culture was next!

We tried to find our own ping pong show but ended up in an establishment which was probably the worst strip club in the world. It was indescribably bad, suffice it to say that I did not think it was possible to be so turned off in a room full of naked women. Bangkok has no shortage of strip clubs, however, and it was easy to find a better one. It is not easy to find ping pong though, and we eventually had to admit defeat and ask a tuk-tuk driver to take us to one.

So here we were, watching unusually talented ladies do unusual things with no clothes on. What made it even more odd was the rest of the small crowd watching: all tourists, mainly women, some Japanese businessmen, all clapping politely when the performer did her thing. It must be odd to be talented in this department, there are not many career options open to one with such skills. Perhaps this is for the best.

Pics are Bangkok from one of the many motorway overpasses, a part of the Palace and a detail from a mural inside the Palace. No ping pong pics unfortunately.

Cambodia

2009-09-05T07:00:00.000+01:00

We only have six nights in Cambodia, and now, on the last night, I can say that this is nowhere near enough. I will definitely come back here at some point, there is so much of the country we simply haven't had time to see.

However, what we have seen has been great. Our first stop, the capital Phnom Penh, was a surprisingly pleasant city which I really enjoyed. Wat Phnom, the legendary location of the founding of the city is a pretty temple on a small hill populated mainly by beggars and monkeys, and is almost the only touristy bit of the city I saw. This is partly due to the rain, which is torrential when it decides to appear.

We took a tour the next day which visited the decidedly miserable Tuol Sleng genocide museum, and the infamous Killing Fields. The museum is housed in a complex which was a prison during the days of the Khmer Rouge for important prisoners like political enemies and intellectuals. Before this it was a secondary school. It is a strangely sterile place to visit, with no feeling left of the acts which took place there, but this doesn't mean it leaves you unaffected.

The Killing Fields are actually only one of dozens of similar sites dotted across Cambodia, where mass executions took place, this site just happens to be the one nearest Phnom Penh, and the one used for the prisoners in Tuol Sleng. It is now a memorial to the people who died there, with a monument containing the skulls and clothes of the people exhumed from one of the mass graves there. Again, it is grim, and again, it feels unexpectedly inert, as if time has washed the slate clean of the horrors of the past. The tour walks you through the now beautiful and peaceful paths meandering past the unexcavated mass graves, where it is common to see pieces of clothing and bone coming to the surface of the ground. The guide waits until you are standing on them before he points this out.

In comparison to the war related sights I saw in Vietnam, Cambodia seems to have been able to leave the past behind and move on, I feel that Vietnam still hurts from their recent conflict.

From Phnom Penh it was off to Battambang, the second city of Cambodia, although you would be hard-pressed to believe it. It looks and feels like a Wild West town, but perhaps fortunately we only stayed one night here to be able to get the boat to Siem Reap the next day.

The boat was optional, and cost us foreigners $18. I think the locals paid closer to $5. This was to be the way of things in Cambodia. Regardless, the boat trip was pretty cool, the fields were all flooded and it was impossible to see where the river was at times, the pilot had, however, obviously done this many times before. We passed through several floating villages which were amazing to see, some buildings were on stilts to get above the water, whilst others simply floated on the top. The local schools had flights of steps leading to the water's edge, there were floating pigstys and chicken coops and a mobile phone mast on stilts. Some floating houses even had pool tables inside, don't ask me how they got them in there, or how they play pool on a wobbly boat.

Siem Reap is a town which is booming thanks to its proximity to Angkor Wat, and the hordes of tourists that it attracts. The town itself is tourist central, with loads of hotels, restaurants, bars, and high prices. To be fair, if you had just flown in from the UK, you would think that it was all quite cheap, but compared to what it should cost here, Siem Reap is a rip-off.

The complex of temples around Angkor Wat however, is worth every penny, and then some. We only had time to see the small circle, which includes just the most famous temples, but even this was amazing. The highlight was of course the Tomb Raider temple, which I think is called Ta Prohm. Walking through this temple is just like being in a computer game: it is so different to anything else that it is difficult to suspend your disbelief even though it is all real. Also, you can pretty much wander wherever you want, through collapsing doorways, over rubble, up on top of roofs, and no one says anything, just like a computer game.

We have one more night in Siem Reap, and then off to Bangkok for four nights of hedonistic mayhem.

Pics are the Tomb Raider temple, our luxury boat to Siem Reap, some floating houses and the skyline of Phnom Penh.

Beach to Saigon's bustle

2009-08-31T06:44:00.000+01:00

After a rather epic minibus journey we arrived at Jungle Beach resort near Nha Trang, where it was dark already so we couldn't see much of the place although I could see that my accommodation was another bamboo hut. The following morning showed us the fantastically beautiful location we were in with a gorgeous beach and warm sea to swim in. It turned out to be a resort for relaxing, and not much else, as we were quite far from anything touristy. This was a nice change for a while, but I get bored of doing nothing and three nights of this was enough for me.

We took the day train to Saigon after the R&R on the beach, this was an experience. Soft class seats, the best on the train, were reminiscent of British Rail in the early Eighties, with torn seat covers, seats that reclined only when they wanted to, and very little luggage space. One good thing was the food on the train: very tasty and quite cheap, a bit of a surprise really.

Saigon was like the chalk to Jungle Beach's cheese, a massively busy metropolis which seemingly never sleeps. I visited the War Remnants museum, which was undeniably one-sided but this could be forgiven since it is the side we never see in the West. It is not a pleasant experience to see this museum, the images inside are brutal and graphic, but it does show vividly the futility of war. The area of the museum which I found most difficult to deal with was the part showing the children born since the end of the war with massively deformed bodies or strange syndromes due to Agent Orange. I found myself edging farther and farther from the displays: I did not want to see this. Only later did I realise that this was the reason for the high number of people I saw in Vietnam with deformities, it just didn't click before.

The next day we visited the Cu Chi tunnels, another remnant from the war. This was quite regimented and touristy but still gave some of the atmosphere of really being there. The guide leads you through paths cleared in the jungle, past bamboo booby traps laid for American soldiers to fall into, B52 bomb craters and finally to the tunnel entrances, where we could visit only the first of three tunnel levels, the lower two being too small for Westerners. The atmosphere was heightened by the presence of the nearby gunnery range: the sound of machine gun fire echoed constantly through the jungle and gave some idea of what it must have been like to fight there.

We got a boat back to Saigon, which went past some of the most expensive housing I have seen in Vietnam, and some of the slums as well, which reminded me a bit of Sao Paulo: the divide between rich and poor is just as great here.

I am writing this on the bus to Cambodia, which is slowly filling up with other people's huge quantities of luggage. Pics are Tim contemplating the train in Nha Trang station, and some slums next to the river in Saigon. Next stop Phnom Penh.

End of Laos, beginning of Vietnam

2009-08-25T02:38:00.000+01:00

We got a chance to spend two nights in an eco-lodge deep in Phu Hin Bun National Park: we were supposed to be camping but this proved to be impossible for various reasons. I was not particularly looking forward to this, but how wrong I was.

The place we stayed in was two hours drive from the main road, so it was rural enough already, but then we had to take boats for 40 minutes as well! The boats were small wooden things which seated three plus the pilot, who also had to periodically bail out the water which flooded the bottom of the boat. This adventure out of the way, we arrived, and found our accommodation. This varied in standard somewhat, mine was a bamboo hut containing two hard beds with mosquito nets, a light, and nothing else. Even by the standards of this journey this was very basic accommodation!

The national Park was apparently most known for its huge cave system which the river flowed through, so we all booked on a trip through the caves for the following day. This made the whole journey worthwhile: this cave was vast. It is accessible by boat, and is 7.5km long! It is big enough for a cathedral to fit inside in maybe half a dozen different places, and a church almost everywhere else. It really is astonishing, the sheer size of it is barely believable, the rock formations inside are fantastic and we even met fishermen inside in the dark. If this cave was in Europe it would be a national treasure, famous around the world, but because it is in a remote part of a remote country, it is virtually unknown.

The house speciality of the eco-lodge restaurant where we were staying was whole roast pig, so we had to order it for the last night, it would be rude not to. It was in fact roast piglet rather than pig, and the two piglets needed for our meal made a lot of noise in the morning, which was slightly unnerving to us Westerners used to pre-dead food. In any event, the food was excellent once cooked over an open fire for the whole day.

To get to Hue in Vietnam we went via Savannakhet in Laos, which is a fairly uninteresting town. We had to leave the truck here, because Vietnam wouldn't let it over the border. So we bussed it to Hue, which is a great place to spend a few days. Nothing ever goes completely smoothly though, our bus had a blown tyre on route.

Unfortunately we only had one full day in Hue, which I used to visit the beautiful Imperial palace. It was bombed heavily in the Vietnam war, and so is in the process of being restored, but until all the work is finished it is possible to see the bullet holes and shell damage.

One more bus took us to Hoi An, where I am writing this. I really enjoyed Hoi An, the old town was mostly pleasant to wander around: the two downsides being annoying street sellers and the fierce heat. The highlight however was definitely the nearby beach, where the sea breeze made the heat much more bearable. There were jetskis available for hire there too, they were so good I hired one twice, fell in once and got sunburnt into the bargain!

We're off to a beach resort near Nha Trang now, 11 hours on a minibus. Pics of Denis helping out with the blown tyre on our bus, and the beach at Hoi An.

Elephants and Borneo

2009-08-16T11:58:00.000+01:00

We've been in Laos now for about a week, it is a welcome change from China. Don't get me wrong, I loved China, even with the stupid bureaucracy, but the cities all felt very similar: the same massive selection of shops trying to sell the same massive selection of products to almost no-one.

Laos is hugely different, in almost every way. The infrastructure is basic to non-existent, the population is sparse, prices are even lower than China and it rains. A lot. Actually the rain can be a relief because the humidity has so far been hard to cope with, for me, anyway. Laos is also the first country I have visited in which you can occasionally see World Vision and other charitable organization's offices around the place. It must be a sufficiently "poor" country to warrant the intervention of these agencies, although, to my eyes, it does seem slightly patronizing for the well-meaning West to rush to help all these people who appear quite content thank you very much.

Anyway, back to the trip, and Laos is a very laid back country, not a lot happens quickly here. This is changing fast though, the more I see of the country, the more touristy it is getting. I can well understand why, with tourist prices being maybe three to five times local prices, but still half of European prices. As far as I can see, if you wanted to see the "real" Laos, it has already virtually disappeared, at least from the easily accessible places.

I went kayaking for a day in Luang Prabang, which was excellent, and included lunch at a waterfall where you could go swimming, and ride an elephant! I did both. The elephants here are much smaller than the African ones, but they are still not exactly small, and they were just as eager to be fed as the African ones I met years ago. Riding an elephant involves sitting on a seat a bit like a park bench on its back, but with a fairground ride safety bar on the front. The elephant then does its thing under the command of a mahout, the handler, who sits on its neck. All you have to do is hang on, as you get flung around when the elephant goes up and down hills: the reason for the safety bar is blindingly obvious.

The elephant ride takes place directly in the waterfall, which is more like dozens of small falls in the middle of the forest. The trees all grow directly out of the rock, which seems impossible until you try to break the rock on a tree trunk: it is about an inch thick but fairly soft and cracks easily. The water in the stream must be very high in minerals to deposit so much onto the trees. This water is just the right temperature to cool you down in the heat of the day, and is great to swim in too, which is what most of us did before lunch.

After lunch was just lazy kayaking back down the river, but I personally would have been happier with just the half day, as I got sunburn and sore knees from the unnatural exertion: I'm just not fit enough for this! Or tanned enough, yet.

I would love to tell you about Vang Vieng, but I was rubbish ill there and never left the hotel, so I can't. In fact, I'm still not 100% so my experience of Vientiane is also limited, unfortunately.

Vientiane is clearly where all the money in Laos is, it is still a little sleepy by the standards of a city but it is a city. Lots of bars, restaurants, and not a few old fat foreign men with tiny young local women. Seediness aside, it is quite a pleasant city, with impressive wats and the mighty Mekong never far away.

We have been given the details for the optional trip extension to Borneo now, and we have until we leave Laos to finalize our booking. I have decided that it is too good an opportunity to miss, and so will be travelling to Borneo after Singapore for three weeks! Jungles, beasties, orangutans and Brunei, all await on the island of Borneo! It's going to be great.

The pics are all around Vientiane, one showing the storm clouds but hiding the three mobile phone masts behind That Dam, the pointy stone thing. It can be a pretty city, in the right place.

Into Laos and away

2009-08-10T05:05:00.000+01:00

Even two days before we arrived in Laos, it was obvious that we were in Southeast Asia. The climate and surroundings had changed so much from what I had seen up until then: paddy fields, rubber and banana plantations and just plain jungle became the norm. Laos and China just feel different too, Laos is much more relaxed and laid back than frenetic China.

On the way to the border we were supposed to camp for three nights, but we hadn't counted on every available flat space being a field of some sort. The first night we ended up camping at the side of the road next to a virtual cliff in the jungle, an unusual campsite made even more interesting by the torrential rain and the ant invasion of our tent. The second night we spent in a hotel in Jinghong due to the continuing downpour which turned out to be quite enjoyable: it is a cool little town to wander around. I also got my hair cut here, those who know me will know what an era-defining moment this was! We missed out the last camp, thankfully, as it was still raining and there was still nowhere to camp, and we crossed into Laos a day early.

Our first stop in Laos was the sleepy little town of Luang Nam Tha, cute, prone to power outages and very humid, this so far seems to be the pattern in Laos. We spent two nights there, then moved to Muang Ngoy for one night where we had a great guesthouse room overlooking the river. This river was our transport the next day to Luang Prabang on a noisy long wooden boat. It doesn't sound very pleasant, but it was really great to travel on the river. We even stopped at the Pakou Caves which were quite impressive Buddhist cave temples next to the Mekong river. Almost as impressive was the number of small children trying to get us to buy the freedom of the tiny birds they had captured in little cages, you had to run the gauntlet to get to the upper cave.

The pictures are our wet roadside camp, the view from the terrace of our guesthouse in Muang Ngoy and views from the boat including Rich doing what he does best.

Last days of China

2009-08-03T13:26:00.000+01:00

On this trip we don't really get to see the "proper" China, the one with millions of people crammed into every available space, but these last few days gave us just a glimpse of what China is really like for most of its inhabitants, and what it is like for the nouveau riche to go on holiday.

We have been visiting towns, and one city: Shangrila, Lijiang, Dali and Kunming. The first three are all tourist towns, but almost exclusively for Chinese nationals. They are all relatively similar, in that they have pretty old town centres which tourists love to walk around whilst buying expensive authentic local products which only seem to be the same as in every other shop in the area. Of the three towns Shangrila is the least authentic because the old town was specially built to attract tourists, and the name of the town was changed to Shangrila from Zhongdian, again to attract tourists. Lijiang has the largest and most original old town, and is also the most popular destination, meaning that the crowds were enormous. It is totally geared up for extracting money from non-locals, and does it very well. Dali is probably the most honest of the three towns, if a town can be called that. It is a tourist town, but not to the exclusion of local life, which to my mind gives it more character than either of the others.

Kunming is a totally different kettle of fish. It is the closest I have seen to a true, massive Chinese city. It reminds me of Glasgow, but with sunshine. It sprawls over the area, with heavy industry surrounding it, and shops, traffic and tower blocks in the centre. Kunming does have an old town, but from what I could see, it is less than a block in size, and what is left is being demolished to make way for a mix of skyscrapers and a new old town, with more expensive shops. You can't stop progress, especially not in China.

Pics are views from the hotel in Dali, and in Kunming. We have three days left in China, then onto Laos, and no mobile data anymore. So updates will be less frequent again, unfortunately.

The long road out of Tibet

2009-07-30T01:36:00.000+01:00

Tibet has two official tourist roads: the road from Nepal in the south, and the road we used to enter it from the north. We had to travel east, to Yunnan, using an unofficial road: the main road linking the two provinces. In another country, this would mean driving along a main road, but not in China.

The road varied from poor to terrible, with a smattering of non-existent thrown in for good measure. A relatively short distance took us five days of hard driving to complete, due to the state of the road and the extremely mountainous terrain. The upside of the journey was some of the most spectacular and different scenery in Tibet, with vast forests covering the mountains. It was more reminiscent of places like Scotland and northwest America than Tibet, albeit with steeper and higher terrain.

We were supposed to camp for the whole five days, but the weather turned very wet and we were put up in two hotels for the final two days: one in Markham, and one in Deqen. One of the photos is the traffic outside the hotel in Markham, it was a very rural town. So rural that the otherwise good hotel had only three rooms with showers, and the remaining rooms didn't even have access to one. However, it was much better than camping in the pouring rain.

Deqen was slightly more civilized, but still felt quite Wild West. We ate dinner in a little local restaurant: basically one room with half of it being the kitchen and half of it with chairs and tables. Whilst eating our meals, a scrabbling sound came from the kitchen area. A plastic bag rolled into view, and a chicken poked its head out! Its legs must have been tied up because it spent the rest of the time trying vainly to escape the bag. We didn't order chicken that night.

As you will see from one of the pictures, we had a rather large tyre failure. Thankfully the truck was stopped at the roadside at the time. I put a mug on the tyre to show how large the hole is, and yes, all the steel belts are broken.

The rest of the pictures are of the varying scenery on this road to Yunnan which, incidentally, we were the first overland truck to travel. It is very unusual for foreigners to see this area!

Eclipse

2009-07-22T13:45:00.000+01:00

On the way back from Everest, we were able to see the solar eclipse just in passing. It was maybe 90% coverage, which meant that instead of complete darkness the light just went dim and strange. The birds nearby were very confused though! I tried to photograph it but it didn't turn out too well, even 10% sunlight is too bright for a camera.

Everest

2009-07-22T11:44:00.000+01:00

After two nights of bushcamping we reached the road leading to Mount Everest, or Qomolangma. The first pass on the 90km road gave some of the best views of the Himalayas, with five 8000m+ peaks visible, truly stunning scenery. After a wonderful drive through some picturesque hamlets we arrived at a weird tent conglomeration, a bit like a shanty town but entirely consisting of tent "hotels" for tourists like us. The hotel names are great: Metal Yak Grand Hotel; Alex English Tea House; Hotel De California; Mt. Everest Happiness Tea House and Steel Firm Guesthouse to name just a few. All of these establishments are about 5x5m tents made of brown yak hair, which makes the names even more amusing.

From here we could go up to the proper base camp, either walking or by taking the bus conveniently available for lazy people like me. So one furious bus ride up a gravel road later, we were at Everest North Base Camp. Or to be more precise, we were at the army checkpoint guarding the camp. After some time queueing to show the guards our passports, we were informed that we were not allowed into the camp, as there was some technicality wrong with our permit. I have been knocked back from clubs before, but never from a mountain! As it turns out, we didn't really miss much as to go further than the camp required a second, extremely expensive permit. Anyway, the view from tent town was better since the clouds had lifted by the evening. The following morning was better still, with not one cloud obscuring the peak at dawn, truly amazing.

Qomolangma is a real wonder of the world. Even if you didn't know that it is the highest mountain in the world, you cannot fail to be awed by it. I had a great day here, especially since I have finally acclimatised to the altitude: 5100m in tent town!

The best view in the world? Probably.

2009-07-21T00:54:00.001+01:00

Everest at dawn, Tuesday 21st July, 2009.

Altitude and Lhasa

2009-07-17T14:29:00.000+01:00

I can tell you now that altitude sickness is truly awful. Imagine being so exhausted that all you want to do is collapse into bed, but you cannot sleep because of the headache pounding away. Then add to this constant dry retching because you have already emptied the contents of your stomach hours ago. You then become desperately thirsty and hungry, but anything you consume reappears almost immediately. This happened to me on the night we had to drive past the roadworks, as this was the part of the journey in which we ascended to high altitude, unfortunately I suffered badly. The "road" had degenerated into a muddy track filled with holes and our truck shook from side to side constantly, this put paid to any faint notion of sleep. A further night's camp at 4700m altitude, at Namtso Lake, was better, but still not wonderful. This was a pity, because it was a stunningly beautiful place which I was not able to appreciate. Thankfully we finally descended into Lhasa, which is only at 3600m, and I have been able to acclimatise better.

Lhasa is a bittersweet experience. Again, most of the town could be anywhere in China, with wide avenues flanked by innumerable shops, cars with their horns seemingly stuck in the on position and Mandarin the language of choice. But go behind the Chinese frontage and find the old town and you see what Lhasa must have been like before it was "improved".

The people speak a totally different language, the buildings are markedly different and crowd in on the narrow lanes which are all paved in granite. The whole feel of the place is different, and definitely not Chinese. Prayer wheels are the accessory of choice, and monks are still a relatively common sight. Of course most of the important sites have been taken over by the Chinese, with mixed results.

We went to the Jokhang Temple and the Sera Monastery yesterday, and despite the heavy security presence, both visible and hidden, both these sites were fantastic to visit. The temple was still very much in use, and fascinating to see the devotees practice their faith. At the monastery we were fortunate enough to be there when the monks were debating, this is quite energetic and takes place outside under a grove of trees. It was strangely calming to sit and watch them make their arguments and responses, they are obviously used to being photographed by tourists. Apparently there used to be 6600 monks in Lhasa, now there are only 660: I can only imagine how it must have looked in its heyday.

Today we visited the Potala Palace, the main landmark in Lhasa, and probably Tibet: it towers over the city and is astonishingly beautiful to see. I was hugely disappointed by it. Why? Because of massively over bureaucratic nonsense to get in, incompetent overseers whilst inside, a train track tour of a infinitesimally small part of it whilst there and little in the way of "feel". In a very real sense, to me the Palace is a microcosm of Tibet: ruled from afar by those who could care less.

Something odd did happen to me here though, I was interviewed by Tibet TV along with one of my fellow travellers, Robin. We were sitting in a rather nice rooftop restaurant which had only just opened that day, and a TV crew arrived to film something for, I assume, the local news. They must have decided that we were too good an opportunity to pass up. I was handed a mobile phone by one of the waitresses and the man on the other end told me some random facts about the restaurant, upon which he hung up! With nothing but this cryptic message to guide me a camera and microphone were thrust into my face, and so I fumbled my way through some positive comments about the place and the town. Thankfully they seemed happy with that and moved onto Robin, who was, if anything, more bewildered than I as he had not spoken to the mystery man on the phone. We did get some free beer as a thankyou from the restaurant though, so it wasn't all bad.

Pics are the Tibetan plateau at dawn with part of the "road" visible at the bottom, and the square outside the Jokhang Temple with Potala Palace in the distance.

Travel in China

2009-07-11T07:27:00.000+01:00

After two long days of desert driving we arrived in Turpan, the second lowest place on the planet not underwater. And it was seriously hot. 43C in the shade is almost unbelievable for an Aberdonian, and makes it difficult to leave the comfort of air conditioning. We only spent one night here because of the heat, but we still visited the most important tourist spot: the Jiaohe ruins.

This is basically the remains of a whole town on an island in the middle of a river, and it is remarkably well preserved. You really get the feel of the place walking the streets and seeing the buildings, the Buddhist monastery is the best one imho. But it is easy to see why the town was abandoned, the heat even at 7pm is stifling, and combined with the various people trying to invade it at regular intervals it must have seemed like a poor choice of home.

From Turpan we headed for the relative cool of Dunhuang, a small tourist town with big tourist prices. Here as well China has been developing the town, much of the centre is brand new, with lots of shops aimed at well-heeled tourists.

Dunhuang is one of these towns which manages to be located near lots of interesting sites: top billing goes to the Mogao caves. This is one of those historic places which it is impossible not to visit as it houses some of the most impressive Buddhist art in the world. Even those of us not normally taken by "old stuff" really enjoyed it, I personally found it astonishing, particularly since it survived the Cultural Revolution unscathed. The tour guide shows you perhaps ten of the caves, with interesting stories about each one, this takes about one to one and a half hours. There are over 700 caves, this should give you an idea of the size of the place.

Those who were interested also visited the singing sand dunes. Now you would expect to just drive to the dunes, get out and have a look around, yes? Not in tourist China you don't. You drive to the roadblock 200m away, then walk to the ticket office and pay 120 yuan just to get in. Then once inside, you pay for anything and everything else: regimented camel rides, quad biking, even sand boarding costs you money. I decided to save my money for other things and started to walk back to get a taxi to the town with two others. The cheeky taxi drivers tried to charge us 50% more to get back than to take us there, so we decided to walk the 40 minutes back.

Good thing too, as soon after a local bus drove past us and tooted for us to get on, so we did. For one measly yuan per person we had a great leisurely city tour of the places tourists don't get to see, and we were dropped off right in the centre of town. I highly recommend just getting on a bus in a strange Chinese town, as you start to see just a little behind the facade of "New China" plastered over the main streets.

We have now pretty much left the Silk Road, as we are heading south towards Lhasa. We just spent a night in Golmud, a town rather unfairly described by the Lonely Planet guidebook as only fit for road engineers and escaped convicts. Ok, so it isn't the most beautiful of towns, and the view from our nice hotel window at night was of five brothels plying their trade, but it had a certain gutter charm to it.

Next stop of consequence is Lhasa, but to get there we have to drive overnight tonight, due to weird Chinese roadworks which close the road completely during the day. No fun for us, but even less fun for Tim and Cheryl who have to drive us.

Pics are flag at bushcamp at lake Bosten, view of Turpan depression from truck, and the Great Wall of China, non-tourist end.

China likes me, I like China

2009-07-04T05:22:00.000+01:00

Well, we made it into China, with no problems to speak of. The border was time consuming but I was pleasantly surprised to find the staff polite and efficient, a welcome change from some previous borders. Another welcome change is the roads: so far almost all are excellent, even skirting the Taklamakan the road is superb.

But I am getting ahead of myself here. First stop in China was Kashgar, which was pretty much totally not what I was expecting. Having visited much of Central Asia, I was thinking that Kashgar would be a repeat of the Silk Road market towns we have already visited, with a token nod to Chinese rule. How wrong I was. It is a bit like going to a mini version of Shanghai with a small Silk Road town in the middle: Beijing definitely rules here. Except for the old town, which appears to have been kept as a tourist attraction, the streets are all wide avenues, the buildings are all tall, modern and concrete, the signs are neon and the shops are endless. The main street has underpasses for pedestrians, nothing special in itself, but under the length of the road is a huge shopping centre. The new town has obviously been carefully planned to be a city fit for the modern age, the car is given equality with people.

But most people here have electric scooters to get around, which I think are great. They are cheap, around £400 new, don't need licensing and you just need a wall socket to charge it. They do all seem to come with the most annoying alarms in the world, though.

I didn't do a great deal in Kashgar, just wandering around and shopping. It is a lovely city for relaxing in, which is exactly what I wanted. Just to prove how chinese it is, here is a picture of a Hot'N'Spicy Chicken Rice burger I had at a fast food place called Dico's, it tasted much better than it looks. Also the Chinese border post, where we all had our temperature taken to see if we were too ill to be let in to the country.

China here we come

2009-07-01T01:43:00.001+01:00

As I write this, we have two more nights before the Chinese border crossing, over the Torugart Pass. This is uncharted territory for us, and for Odyssey, since last year's trip was unable to enter China for various reasons. However, at our last bushcamp at Djety Oguz we met another overland group who had just come from China, which shows that it can be done, and done recently.

The other group were a Dragoman group travelling from India to Istanbul. Their crew traded advice with our crew, and we got a chance to meet some other overlanders in the setting of the first Odyssey Pub Quiz.

We learned quite a bit about overlanding with the "other lot", for example that they were on their second truck because the first one broke down five times. The second truck was also apparently the worse of the two, and had broken a suspension spring near Bishkek for which they were having trouble sourcing a replacement. They were also paying substantially more for six months with Dragoman than we have for six months with Odyssey.

There are some benefits to Dragoman of course, they seemed to stay in more and better hotels than us, their group size is smaller, and they have the option to travel in shorter legs if the client desires. It was clear to me, however, that a not inconsiderable number of them seemed to prefer our truck and our way of doing things. And they were really jealous of our chairs! I think that Odyssey will have some more customers next year.

Just over the hills in the background of the picture is China.

New tent!

2009-06-29T09:14:00.000+01:00

For reasons I won't bore you with I have invested in a tent. Bishkek may be a capital city, but it doesn't appear to have a huge selection of tents: I found this one in a sports clothing store. I know little about tents, and so I enlisted the help of Tim, one of our crew, to assist in the decision making process. We ended up pitching the tent in the middle of the shop floor whilst the two lady assistants anxiously looked on at the strange foreigners wrecking their store. They were good sports though, and eventually joined in the assembly of the tent. When finished, it seemed to be a good 'un, so I bought it.

The box and instructions were all in Russian, so hopefully it didn't say anything like "not to be used outdoors" or "will melt on contact with water". Time will tell!

Kyrgyzstan and its eccentricities

2009-06-21T10:21:00.000+01:00

As soon as we crossed the border, the feel of the country changed. We spent two nights in a homestay/guesthouse in Osh, in converted ex-Soviet apartments, and we met our local guide for Kyrgyzstan: Asel, who is accompanying us for the time we are spending here.

Some of the most interesting stories about Kyrgyzstan have come from Asel, she is talkative and well informed about most subjects that we tourists ask about, and many that we don't. One "custom" which she tells us about is the high rate of kidnap of women here, the purpose of which is to force the woman into marriage. She says that one of her friends was kidnapped whilst walking along the street with her, and when she called the girl's mother, she was really happy about it! Happy because kidnap means marriage and this is a good thing here. In fact, Asel's mother was herself kidnapped by Asel's father, and has a remarkably philosophical attitude to it.

Another unusual custom is the Kyrgyz national sport: goat polo. This is a game which plays pretty much how it sounds: two teams of players on horseback try to get the carcass of a goat onto a goal to score a point. The goat is specially killed for the game, and after the game is finished the goat is given to a poor family for food.

We "sponsored" a game (i.e. we paid for a goat and some prizes) and two teams of eager locals assembled the following day to play. The locals don't get to play often because a goat is too valuable to kill regularly, so they were really pleased to get another chance. The various inhabitants of the yurts near where we were camped all appeared nearby with eight or so arriving on beautiful horses to play the game. One was carrying the head and footless goat, we had been spared the actual killing but it apparently involves blessing the goat first. A pad about a yard in diameter is placed on the ground to act as goal, and the players divide into teams. And that is pretty much it for the rules. There are no boundaries, linesmen or referee, and it seemed that anything was permissible in the course of the game including whipping the opponent's horses or even the opponents themselves. The spectators frequently have to run away from the rampaging teams and play often veered through our camp. Only one tent got trampled during the game, and it survived remarkably well.

It sounds really brutal when viewed from a Western perspective, but when you are watching the game without the bias afforded by a television screen it just seems to be a logical extension of their culture. And it is surprisingly good fun to watch: audience participation is high in goat polo.

I was able to visit the yurt belonging to the local bigwig after the game, and since it was his goat which was used, he had the head cooking in the pot. Unfortunately, I chose to visit just as the head finished cooking, and was invited to eat with him and his extended family. Now don't get me wrong, boiled goat head soup, bits of aforementioned head, and noodles mixed with the remains of said head are reasonably tasty, but not as a three course meal with nothing else. All the food was very greasy, and quite difficult for my soft Western stomach to handle, so thankfully Asel managed to excuse me from eating it all. Apparently it is considered rude to offer anything but meat dishes to guests, hence the lack of other foodstuffs. As an aside, here the male dominated hierarchy was blindingly obvious with bigwig sat at the head of the table, other guests, and male relatives nearby, and women towards the far end, with the youngest furthest away.

Kyrgyzstan officially has a population of around five million, but two million of those live overseas. Even our local guide, who is from Bishkek, lives in Almaty in Kazakhstan. This can only be due to the economic conditions, as the country itself is beautiful.

Pics are Kyrgyz scenery and an imported can of Sprite. Try to read where it was manufactured!

Uzbekistan part two

2009-06-21T10:20:00.000+01:00

Samarkand was our next stop here, another historic Silk Road city, with its share of ancient monuments and bazaars. I, unfortunately, was unable to see all of the city tour given by our local guide, Mansur, due to a bout of dodgy restaurant disease. It wasn't all bad though.

The night before, I had ventured out for a meal at the aforementioned restaurant, and whilst walking back to the hotel, two companions and I were accosted by a security guard at the Registan Square complex. This area has three of the most impressive madrassas in Samarkand, and probably in the country. The guard told us that if we were to return at 5am and pay the entrance fee of 4000 som, we could climb one of the minarets and see the sunrise over the city. For some reason this sounded like a great idea, so we went off to bed and got up at 4.30am to visit the minaret. The guard we met this time wanted 10000 som entrance fee, a bit steep, but he was haggled down to 6000 som.

The minaret turned out to be a very unofficial stop on the tour. We had to walk through a building site to get to its base, then climb lots of dodgy 15th century steps, and finally clamber out onto what can only be described as a tiny tin roof nailed to the top of the stone minaret. Needless to say, there were no safety features of any kind, and a long drop to the ground below. The view was fantastic though, and worth bribing the guard to see.

We had assumed that our payment would get us only into the minaret and were moving to leave the area, but surprisingly the guards rushed about to show us almost every nook and cranny of the place, which was all the more pleasant due to the lower temperature and the lack of other tourists milling about. Unofficial it may have been, but it was the better for it.

We only had one night in Tashkent, which wasn't enough to see anything, but the next day we had a new mode of transport: the private car. Due to local politics the truck wasn't able to go over the pass to Fergana, and so it had to drive the long way through Tajikistan. We, however, piled into a fleet of seven Daewoo Nexia cars, and raced off over the pass. In the picture you may be able to see the cracked windscreen of the car I was in: this appeared to be standard equipment on many Uzbek vehicles. Our journey was quite interesting for two reasons: the driver of our car spoke broken English and told us a bit about the area; and we stopped to visit the largest traditional silk factory in Central Asia.

I had no idea that making silk was so fascinating. The guide at the factory showed us all the different stages of making the silk, from growing the cocoons to extracting the silk to weaving the fabric and several others besides. At this particular factory the work was still done almost completely by hand, and each stage had different types of worker: old ladies, young teenage boys, twenty-something women, amongst others. We were given reasons for this, such as one stage required strength, so only young men could do it well, whilst another stage had to be done by young women because it required good eyesight, dexterity and small fingers. Something I personally found endearing: the looms which the young ladies used to weave the fabric were all covered with photos of their pop idols and actors, really cute.

Again only one night in Fergana, we stayed in an old Soviet hotel which attracted a, shall we say, varied clientele, and had payphones in the lobby which only accepted kopeks. And were therefore useless.

Kyrgyzstan next, and a whole different kettle of fish.

Uzbekistan part one

2009-06-07T13:06:00.000+01:00

One thing that Central Asia is famous for, or perhaps infamous for, is the Aral Sea. This used to be the world's second largest inland sea, after the Caspian, but has been receding continuously for the past 40 to 50 years due to the rivers which feed it being diverted to irrigate crops.

Moynaq is a small town we visited which has a monument to this: it used to be a fishing port employing 50000 people but now is over 120km from the sea. There are rusting ships lying in the sand of the new Aral Kol, or Aral Desert, where they were abandoned after the sea left. The remaining Aral Sea has apparently changed from fresh to salt water, and the chemicals used for farming have become concentrated in the water thus killing all the fish which used to live in it. The lack of the sea has changed the local climate, the winters are very cold now, and the dust storms in the summer cause respiratory problems for the people living nearby, again due to the high levels of agricultural chemicals left behind.

All this was started in the Soviet era, when irrigation canals were dug to water the cotton crops. The big issue now is since the dissolution of the old USSR there are several different countries affected by the Aral Sea, and no international consensus on what to do about it. And, frankly, no money to pay for it either.

Which is mildly ironic when you know just how much money people have to carry around here. Uzbek money is called Som, and comes in bills up to 1000. This sounds like a lot, but 1000 Som is worth about 50 pence, so when you change, say, a 50 dollar bill, you get 78000 Som back. This does not fit in any normal wallet, and even pockets can be a struggle. I asked our local guide, Mansur, how people carry all their money around and he said that they pay someone else to carry it. I think he was joking.

We have now visited two Silk Road cities: Khiva and Bukhara. Central Khiva is one big museum, with 2000 or so people still living within the old city walls. It is pretty much as it was in the 19th century, which was the last time the city was burned down in an attack. It is small, which made it pleasant to walk around and see the sights, and still not quite as touristy as Bukhara.

Bukhara is more the bustling city, with the centre geared up for extracting money from tourists and the locals' areas further out. It does happen to have two nightclubs, and it being Saturday night when we got here, some of my fellow travellers and I decided to try one out. Clubbing in Bukhara is an experience, especially when you don't know where you are going. So after getting mildly lost, asking directions from a very drunk van driver, and much walking of dark alleyways, we arrived at the club. The music was a seemingly random assortment of Russian and Uzbek hits, some sounding very Western, some definitely not. The clientele were all locals, who were polite enough not to stare too much at the woefully underdressed tourists. The taxi back to our hotel was an improvement on the Kazakh ones, in that he actually took us where we wanted to go. He did hike the price up once we had arrived though, the dirty chancer.

One odd thing about these cities, is that they don't feel as exotic as they look in photos. Even looking back at my pictures of Khiva, they look very mysterious and enticing, but being here just feels like another city, albeit with different architecture and more heat.

Pics are of a boat in the Aral Sea, and US$100 in Uzbek Som.

Change of plan

2009-06-03T10:39:00.000+01:00

On our original itinerary we were due to travel to Turkmenistan, but the Turkmen government have closed the border completely due to swine flu. We are now going to Kazakhstan, where we will travel along part of the old Silk Road to Uzbekistan, and pick up our original itinerary again.

Miraculously we have managed to catch the ferry from Baku to Aktau only one night after our arrival in Baku. This is miraculous because the ferry has no set timetable, it leaves every seven to ten days, if the weather is good, and the border officials are antagonistic at best. Our crew, Tim and Cheryl, worked overtime to get us on this boat. The customs people initially were happy to let the truck on the ferry, but not us. They insisted that we would have to get the next boat, in a week's time. After a day and a half of arguing, begging, bribing and pestering, Tim finally got us tickets for the ferry at 4pm on the day of departure, the ferry left at 8pm.

The ferry itself is not as bad as it could have been, we had heard stories about some really rough ones but this was comparatively luxurious. There was one functional, if repulsive, toilet, a cold shower, a bloke to buy tea and soft drinks from, and passably comfortable four berth rooms.

In fact, the ferry journey itself was the least offensive part of this leg. What was interminably worse was arriving in the vicinity of Aktau at 4pm, weighing anchor and waiting for the next ten hours to get into the port. Then, once we had disembarked (one hour), we waited for a further three hours in border control. Then, for a further six hours for the truck to clear border control. Total time taken to dock and drive away: 20 hours. Total ferry journey time: 20 hours. Gah!

Pics of the ferry port at Aktau, and a guy's bag on the ferry.

Kazakhstan

2009-06-03T10:37:00.000+01:00

I'll get it out of the way now, I didn't see Borat, or any mention of him in Kazakhstan. What I did see were the first oriental looking people on my journey, and quite a large number of them too.

Aktau feels like a wild west town, with wide boulevards arranged on a grid and cars instead of horses. It features an Irish bar with high prices, shops, hotels and little else. It seemed that every local with a car was automatically a taxi driver as well, judging by the number of offers of lifts we got. I used these taxis twice, and both times got driven miles away from where I wanted to go, and once we got pulled over by the police as well. Interesting, but not particularly useful.

The main road from Aktau to Beyneu was fine for around 120km, but it is 400km long. The rest of the road was a rutted muddy track, which took far too long to traverse. This was compounded by the truck failing several times due to a shoddy batch of diesel, each time necessitating a ten to twenty minute stop for Tim to fix it.

Two days later we limped into Beyneu, a town with a deficit of tarmac and seemingly a surplus of nothing, except psychotic guesthouse owners who terrorise their customers. It was a town with no apparent reason for its existence other than the railway junction there. By now the train was looking pretty attractive as a means of travel, with the awful state of the "main" road. And we were going to be driving on a minor track the following day! It will be terrible, with sand drifts, mud pools, monsters, bandits and foreigners!

Actually, the track turned out to be much better than the main road: virtually level, and nothing to impede our progress. We reached the Uzbekistan border quickly, and passed through in only two hours! Trust me, that is really quick for this part of the world. On the Uzbek side the road got even better, with passable tar in places. We reached Qonghirat that night.

Just one photo, I can't remember whether it is Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan because it all looks like this. Yes, really!

Talking about Georgia

2009-05-23T12:15:00.000+01:00

I haven't written an update in a while, and in the meantime I've forgotten some of the stuff we've done, so this one will be slightly different.

We've visited: Gori, famed as Stalin's birthplace and host to the Stalin museum; Kazbegi, a rural mountain village with a hilltop church pictured on the cover of the Georgia edition of the Lonely Planet guide; T'bilisi, the capital of Georgia; and a winery in the Kakheti region.

All this variety has just highlighted to me the similarities of people around Georgia: their curiosity, openness, friendliness and hospitality are almost universal. Almost, because the people of T'bilisi proved to be the exception, at least in my case. I did not enjoy the city overly much, passers-by being particularly rude in cases. This probably speaks of the dehumanising aspects of large cities, the loss of community, the loss of respect for fellow people, the victory of the rat race over the human race. Or it may be just me, as no one else I spoke to experienced the same level of disrespect. The other cities and the countryside were much more pleasant in terms of the manners of the locals: they were just as curious but not randomly condescending like in T'bilisi.

I wonder whether this is how foreigners feel when they visit the UK, a country not known for its generosity towards strangers? I would like to think that we Brits are more tolerant of differences, at least in part due to the many rules governing "anti-discrimination", but possibly I am mistaken.

Speaking of differences, the Stalin museum in Gori presents a wholly different picture of the man to that which we in the west are used to. A family man, dedicated to his cause to the end, with no skeletons in his closet. According to the guide, anyway. She gave us a comprehensive tour of the great man's life, with nary a pause so that we couldn't ask any awkward questions. For me, the highlight of the tour was Stalin's own train carriage, in its original condition. A comparison between this and the state carriage of, say, Queen Elizabeth II, neatly encapsulates the differences between communism and the decadent west. Stalin's carriage had berths for other people, the fitments were good but not grand, overall it was on the quality side of functional. It did feature a very comfy wooden-seated toilet: even communist leaders must have their little luxuries.

We are heading for the border with Azerbaijan now, more pointless formalities taking several hours methinks.

Pics are the church from the cover of the Lonely Planet, with memorial, and an illicit view of the bridge to Azerbaijan.

Mestia

2009-05-19T08:36:00.000+01:00

We had a long, long drive to get here, not because of the distance, but because of the appalling road. Mestia has one road leading to it, only built in 1935, and never improved since. Allegedly.

This road barely qualifies for the term, winding its way along the side of a steep gorge always with unguarded precipitous drops to one side. The road has evidently collapsed on numerous occasions, with repairs ranging from shoveling earth into the gap, to propping up the road with metal girders or wooden sticks, to digging new tunnels barely big enough for the truck. For some reason the Georgian police insisted on escorting us most of the way up the road, but they frequently stopped to chat with locals and had to catch up with us later.

One of the unique features of the truck is the four roof seats at the rear. They are a bit like the dickie seats sometimes found on really old cars: two metal hatches open from the roof and four can sit with their legs dangling into the truck interior. I tried these seats, and they are fantastic. You can see, smell, hear and feel everything around you, and the sheer exhilaration of being next to nature dulls the pain of being battered constantly by the potholes. I have named these seats the Nutcracker Seats, as anatomic

Georgia and Batumi

2009-05-19T08:35:00.000+01:00

One more country ticked off, Turkey is done and dusted, but not without problems at the border: Georgia has some new procedures due to swine flu. Procedures which seem to be less than second nature to the border police as the queues were unbelievable. The truck magically becomes a bus for border crossings, so we were able to drive straight past the mile or so of stationary HGVs, but we couldn't avoid the pedestrian and domestic traffic. Three hours, one irrelevant form and three queues later, we were through.

One thing that has been really noticeable on this trip is how different opposite sides of a border look and feel. In this case the difference was marked, Georgia just isn't anything like its neighbour. The first obvious difference is the cows everywhere. And I mean everywhere: they are not confined to fields. They happily amble around the roads, oblivious to traffic, I imagine that India must be somewhat similar.

We stayed in a hotel in Batumi, called the Old Boat Hotel. And it genuinely was an old boat, moored in a harbour with rigging, a non functional wheel, and wooden fittings of questionable durability. The wheels on my bag actually fell through the floorboards on deck, the hotel staff nearby apparently neither noticing nor caring.

We took part in a traditional Georgian night at a local restaurant, which was also a boat, but this one was a fake land-locked one. This was a restaurant aimed at locals, so our group were the only foreigners there. There was live music provided by two singers and a chap manipulating some sort of backing band synth, consisting of well known foreign music and apparently well known Georgian songs. The locals regularly jumped up to dance to some song which none of us had heard before, it would have been rude not to join them. The food was large in selection, large in quantity and excellent in quality, every dish was delicious, and very hard to describe to someone who has not experienced Georgian cuisine. And a good time was had by all.

The pics are of the upper deck of our hotel, and the view from aforementioned upper deck.

Sumela and Trabzon

2009-05-09T07:23:00.001+01:00

There was no sign of the Turkish army today, because we camped in a proper campsite. I say proper, but it barely qualified as a field, let alone a campsite. The "facilities" consisted of two toilets, each also containing a shower. One shower was unheated and so slow as to be useless, the other was lukewarm at best. The roof of this mighty edifice was comparable to Gore Tex, it being the total opposite of this material, guaranteed to let in all external water.

And external water we had lots of. It rained almost all the first night, and all the next afternoon. Luckily when we visited the Sumela monastery it was sunny and fresh. This monastery is situated on the side of a cliff, twenty minutes walk up the very steep side of a mountain. After hiking up, the first notable feature, apart from the stunning landscape, was a busker. It didn't seem to be a very profitable patch, but maybe that changes in the height of the tourist season. Soon after, we came to a ticket office and fortunately a drinking fountain. The monastery itself was astonishing, but in some disrepair due in part to age, and in part to large amounts of graffiti. I understand that the money from ticket sales is going toward restoration work, which should make more of the building accessible.

I finally managed to buy a towel too. Trabzon, a city of some half a million inhabitants, featured one towel shop which I could find. Why it is so difficult to find a towel in Turkey will probably remain a mystery.

Two pictures of the most notable buildings of my stay here: the Sumela monastery and the Sumela campsite facilities. We are going to Georgia today, there is no mobile data access there, so blog updates will be more sparse until Azerbaijan.

Unintentional camping

2009-05-07T19:07:00.000+01:00

When we bushcamp, what happens is that Tim and Cheryl, our crew, find a likely looking spot away from the road, and we set up camp. Everything goes smoothly and we head off the next day. What happened last night was not quite as planned.

Tim found a nice looking spot next to a lake, drove the truck along the track, and got stuck in the mud. Much effort later, the truck was freed, to become even more stuck ten yards away. So we had found our camp for the night. A group of mud loving lads all pitched in to dig the truck out, whilst I went for a walk.

After a tip from a passing farmer, I noticed a large yellow digger still working about a half mile past the next corner, this was at about 6pm. We went to talk to the guy driving the digger, and after showing him a photo of the truck along with some discussion in Turklish we had a tow vehicle. This area is very rural, so what he was doing moving gravel around at 6 at night is anyone's guess. So the truck was rescued by the JCB guys, and returned to the tarred road.

All this had obviously attracted the attention of everyone living within several miles of us: every passing vehicle tooted and waved at us. About four hours after we got stuck, we received more visitors, who arrived in a van with flashing lights, jumping out of the back carrying huge guns: the Turkish army. They turned out to be really nice chaps, despite the weaponry, and told us to phone their captain if we needed something. All this excitement didn't really affect us, most of us just looked at them, said, "Oh they've got big guns", and carried on eating dinner. We are all getting a bit blasé.

Pictures are the stuck truck and view from said truck. Quite a nice campsite, apart from the mud.

Goreme

2009-05-05T19:07:00.000+01:00

This is one of the reasons I came on this trip, to see places I would never have considered going to otherwise. Goreme is a small town in the Cappadocia region of Turkey, surrounded by some of the most unique countryside I have seen. Apparently formed as a result of volcanic activity millions of years ago, along with water erosion afterwards, the landscape is surreal and Star Wars in equal measure. The ancient inhabitants carved their homes out of the rock, adding to the impression that a strange alien is just about to accost you to try to sell you a carpet.

First we all went on a bus tour for a day, our local guide Faruk telling us all about the history of the region in encyclopedic detail, in excellent English. We visited several landmarks, including an underground city, a town cut out of the cliffs, a church inside a pillar of rock, and even a wine shop. All this was very interesting and impressive, but pales in comparison to my next day's chosen option, a hot air balloon ride.

Twelve of us decided to pay the high hundred-odd pound fee for one and a half hours of ballooning, this meant that we all went in the same large balloon. The downside of this activity is getting up at 5am for it. Those who know me, know that I am not a morning person and that I don't like heights, but I can honestly say that this was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. Floating above an alien landscape with literally dozens of other balloons, the silence punctuated by blasts from the gas burners, is awe inspiring. Definitely one of the hundred things to do before you die.

Back to earth, and one of my companions, Denis, and I walked from the campsite to Goreme town centre to investigate hiring bikes and quads. He hired a bicycle, and I decided to wait til the next day. The owner of the shop then insisted on giving me a lift back to the campsite on one of the hire scooters. At high speed, on switchback cobbled roads. This was also an exhilarating experience but for totally different reasons. Needless to say, safety equipment consisted of holding on for dear life, and prayer.

The weather put paid to my planned quad excursion, so an easy day of wandering around town was had. In the afternoon I managed to display my almost total lack of fire lighting skills in the campsite's underground cave bar, where some of us were trying to dry our clothes, since it was raining outside. One smoke filled cave bar later, my work was done.

The pictures are mostly from the hot air balloon, with one taken at a church carved from a pinnacle of rock.

Easy days and crap nights

2009-05-01T19:12:00.000+01:00

After hectic Istanbul, we have had a relaxing two nights in Akcakoca, on the Black Sea coast. It has basically been a chance for everyone to just do nothing for a whole day.

I have managed to do slightly more than nothing though. Clothes washing came first, then losing at backgammon. The following day Tim, who is one of our crew, and myself were shown the sights of the town by the enthusiastic campsite owner and the president of the local tourism and environment committee, a German lady who moved here twenty years ago. The sights were somewhat slim on the ground, as this is a small town, but the reason people come here is for the scenery rather than tourist spots.

Scenery which I was able to admire from the sea as the truck's two inflatable canoes were deployed for adventurous types to paddle about. The canoes had to be carried down a steep slope and flight of steps, then over some very slippery rocks to the sea. I ended up sliding down these rocks on my behind, which endowed my white trunks with nice green seaweed stains. These stains are now firmly attached.

Our choice of destination was one of the tourist spots shown to us by our guides in the morning: the local beach. The beach was perhaps two kilometres away, and fairly average as beaches go. Lots of off duty school kids were there, and showed some interest in us for a short while.

Truck life was poor today, I was part of today's cook group, which so far has not been a bunch of roses. Each of the five cook groups helps to prepare the food until they have prepared one dinner, then the group changes. Today, frankly it sucked. I would happily pay for 24 dinners if it meant not doing this tedious drudge.

Tomorrow is a nine hour drive to Goreme, joy. Tedium comes in twos, it seems.

Pictures are views from and of the campsite, by the way.

Istanbul

2009-04-29T15:41:00.001+01:00

Having just spent the last two days here, I am now of the opinion that Istanbul rocks. Despite a rather shaky birthday involving hours on the truck, hours at the Turkish border, more hours on the truck and finally a cringingly embarrassing party at the tastefully named Meat House restaurant, Istanbul has more than made up for it. The town is a real melting pot, full of East and West, old and new, shops, restaurants, beggars, monks, cats and knock-offs. The Turks have a love of confrontation, using their car horns, voices, elbows and children to get their own way, but somehow also have a laid back attitude which seeps through the city.

There are so many great things to see and do here that it is hard to know where to start, and with only two days I just had a taster of this wonderful place. The Grand Bazaar is still the place for buying cool stuff, even if it has become geared up for the tourists. The shopkeepers have a mostly uncanny ability to guess your nationality and shout greetings in your language, but I got at least two "Konnichi wa"s on my travels. The Hagia Sophia and the Topkapi Palace are the standard tourist stops, and both are worth seeing, but preferably without several busloads of primary school kids.

Apart from these obvious places, just walking around the city is fascinating, with shops selling nothing but buttons, others with nothing but ribbons. My personal favourites were those down a flight of steps, in an underground passage, selling ride on lawnmowers, in the centre of Istanbul. This is a city with a not inconsiderable lack of grass, particularly underground.

The food is absolutely excellent here, I haven't eaten anything less than great in two days. In fact, I have just eaten the best cake of my life at a shop near the Hagia Sophia, I could have happily died with that cake in my mouth. However, I am fortunately still alive, so I can continue with this blog entry.

The only downside that I can see to Istanbul is that it is a real money pit of a city, I have visited the ATM more times here than in the last two weeks. I do have some tat to show for it though, so it's all good.

The pictures show the view from the rooftop bar of the hostel where I am no longer staying, having paid for a room in a guesthouse. It really is a beautiful city.

Leaving Romania, bushcamping in Bulgaria

2009-04-26T19:05:00.001+01:00

Filthy Romania has been left behind, we are now in slightly less filthy Bulgaria, but only for one night. From what little I have seen, it is a beautiful but poor country, with snow on the tops of the mountains we just drove over. Thankfully our campsite is warmer than the mountains.

After the snow, we went past a beautiful church, which looked old but I think was finished in 2003. There were the inevitable tat sellers, but these ones were selling traditional Bulgarian rose scented items and decorations. And also furry dice, flick knives and throwing stars. Go figure.

Our new campsite is near a lake, with snow-capped mountains in the distance and a stream running by. If this sounds idyllic, that is because it is :) We even had a barbecue tonight, using wood which I helped to split. I can be useful sometimes!

Turkish border tomorrow, then Istanbul.

Tourism, Bucharest style

2009-04-24T18:44:00.001+01:00

What a ridiculous city. The population all seem to have split personalities, one psychotic for driving, and one for everything else. This manifests itself as noise, and lots of it. Engines, horns and sirens are the soundtrack to Bucharest, with dirt and decrepitude as the backdrop. Apparently this is the Paris of the east, perhaps with a good scrub and some driving lessons it could be.

The bus into town was eventful, as we were fined for not having a ticket. This ticket is impossible to buy on the bus, and at bus stops. The nearest place where we could get a bus ticket was, of all places, the airport. So we had no tickets, and got fined by the jobsworth inspectors, who couldn't care less that we came from somewhere that had no tickets. Romanian authority sucks.

What made up for this in spades was the Museum of the Romanian Peasant. If you think that this name sounds eccentric, slightly random and of dubious quality, you would be right, but only on the first two counts. This is essential viewing in Bucharest, somehow encapsulating everything that is Romania in one slightly unhinged package. It contains a multitude of exhibits, arranged in a semblance of order, ranging from clothes to tools to a whole wooden church and windmill, all indoors. They charged 6 lei entry, and 50 lei to take photos, so we didn't pay for the photo privilege. This was a mistake, the museum is easily worth 56 lei, so much so I am considering returning tomorrow just to get some photos.

So in summary, Bucharest itself is a deranged beast of a city, with some refuges of sanity lurking within. Also some nice soup: Transilvanian sour soup.

Dogs, Dracula and digging

2009-04-23T20:37:00.003+01:00

We had a full day in Sighisoara today, which is enough to do justice to this pretty, small town. Famed as the birthplace of Vlad Dracul, there are surprisingly few fangs and capes to be seen here. It is a real town, with businesses other than tourism, and a population with things to do other than fleece visitors. They try to make an effort to keep the old buildings in good condition, but only in the now typical Romanian manner. It is common to see satellite dishes on the sides of the buildings, "Do not walk on the grass" signs next to parched patches of weeds and boxes of junk left in the corner of the churches. This does add a certain charm to the place when you leave your Western expectaions behind, especially with the streets being a mix of tar, cobble and dirt. These streets have a significant population of dogs, whose sole purpose seems to be to look cute and receive cuddles from passers-by.

We climbed the clock tower, which is a construct only possible in this part of the world, with eerie model people who appear on the hour, wooden stairs crowded with Romanian tourists who will not give way and holes in the wall which appear to be designed for the use of boiling oil. There was a lovely view from the top.

I tell you this because the picture here is of the view from our current toilet, a toilet which one must dig with a trowel. I think this view is better.

To Bucharest, early

2009-04-23T20:37:00.001+01:00

We've arrived in Bucharest a day early, due to not being able to find a suitable campsite. We travelled through the Transilvanian Alps to get here, which are as stunning as the name suggests, and would be absolutely heaving with sports nuts in the winter were it slightly further west.

Prior to this we visited Bran Castle, home of Mr. Dracula. I said before that Sighisoara had a pleasant lack of tourist tat. This, I now realise, is due to them all being in Bran. The whole town seems set up to sell crap to tourists, from Dracula masks to the ever popular genuine Romanian samurai sword. The Lonely Planet guide book says that you can run round Bran Castle in half an hour. This is absolutely correct, since the castle has nothing at all inside. Everything moveable has been removed and the end effect is like an open viewing of a grand old house. With really low ceilings. And people who charge you to take photos. It was a significant letdown for someone used to Crathes Castle.

There was a further exhibit after the castle: a recreation of a small traditional Romanian village. This exhibit had signs proffering information. One sign said, and I kid you not: "This is the house with the yard, known locally as "the house with the yard". It features a house, and a yard." All the signs continued in a similar vein, providing much needed hilarity to our group. Despite the amusing signs, I find difficulty in recommending Bran and its castle to others.

Sighisoara, via Turzi canyon

2009-04-22T12:56:00.001+01:00

Romania doesn't have all that many roads. We travelled for some hours, and took literally the only turning off the road, which led up a dirt track into the hills. The lack of roads means that you pass through every settlement, and sometimes it seems that there is only one continuous village. The road into the hills led up to a section which appeared to be the entrance to a secret military installation, complete with multiple verbose signs in Romanian. Of course we just ignored the signs and carried on. Unfortunately, it was not a secret army base, but a campsite so remote and hidden that we couldn't see how it got any custom. It didn't get any more custom from us either, as we just used it as a truck park whilst we all trooped off into the surrounding hills.

The main feature of the hills was a stunning gorge with forest at the bottom, and a path which we took. This helped to illustrate something slightly unusual about Romania's inhabitants: they throw their litter everywhere and anywhere. Even this magnificent place with rubbish bins at strategic intervals had trash spread around all over the place. I am beginning to think that disdain is a national personality trait here, which extends to many aspects of life: the environment; other road users; the unfinished houses that line the roads. Perhaps it is a hangover from the communist era when it was always someone else's responsibility.

Our first bushcamp went well, and ended even better since I am writing this sitting in a hotel room in Sighisoara, having spent about £4 on a huge pizza and having had a great shower. I think that all tents should have ensuites.

Romania, greatest country in the world

2009-04-20T18:18:00.000+01:00

One long drive later, the intrepid band arrived in the fair land of Romania: land of slightly suspect building practices, chickens and inquisitive villagers. And accommodating farmers, since we are now camping in a field, thanks to the donation of an Odyssey t-shirt and a beer.

The country is obviously poorer than those we have already passed through, but it seems to me that there is no real misery or discontent here. Those we have seen appear to be content, with a genuine family life. I don't think that this is an over generalization, as we have driven past so many houses with all the inhabitants outside having dinner as a group. Something increasingly rare in the UK.

Our family is getting used to the reality of no shower tonight, and generally coping using a process of denial. This will change to grudging acceptance by tomorrow morning, and open truck windows by tomorrow afternoon. We are such soft westerners!

Budapest and group idiocy

2009-04-19T21:53:00.001+01:00

Beautiful weather and Budapest make a great combination. The city centre is a lovely place, even on orthodox Easter Sunday, which meant most things were shut and others were slightly odd. The shut things included most shops, which wasn't much of a hardship, but also included the funicular railway to the top of Buda Castle hill. This disappointed me greatly as the train was extra cool, and teased onlookers by carrying cement up to the top of the hill. My cement bag costume was left at home, so I wasn't allowed on.

We had arranged to meet up at the Pest side of a bridge since it was the birthday of one of our intrepid lot: Debbie. This was rather surreal, as we could see the bridge for about twenty minutes before we got to it. This in itself is not particularly surreal, but the bridge was completely full of cyclists, on both sides. When we finally reached the bridge, it was still full of cyclists, who were queueing up for a huge distance to join the, well, queue. Thousands of them kept cycling past for maybe forty minutes more, using various modes of cycly propulsion. My favourites were the people who had decided to participate, but couldn't be bothered to actually expend any physical energy, and hence had hired rickshaw drivers to take them around. Making a green statement whilst remaining upper class.

This meetup in the pub taught me a very important lesson: read your own maps. A group of 16 or so people cannot make decisions quickly, and everyone follows the person in front. This resulted in most of us going toward the wrong station on the way home. It also resulted in an irate member of our group angrily telling us this fact, and proceeding to lead us all off in another direction. Which was equally wrong. Some four of our group are still not back, it is 10:50pm. We are supposed to be leaving at 7:30am. Groups do have their downsides.

Three more countries in one day

2009-04-18T20:15:00.001+01:00

Country no.1 is a slight cheat, as we were there last night: the Czech Republic. I can sum up the motorways there in one word: bumpy. Actually three words: annoyingly, repetitively bumpy. They are awful. Country no.2 is Slovakia: flat. Country no.3 is our current place of residence: Hungary.

So far it seems almost like just another new EU state, with Tesco, Ikea and other staples of modern life. However, I have noticed a certain undercurrent, which smells like poverty. I think that Hungary may be the tipping point between the prosperity of western Europe and the East.

This has no doubt affected our campsite, as it appears to have been something completely different in the distant past, perhaps a train station. This gives it a really offbeat atmosphere, especially when one realizes that all the camping sites are up a hill, in a forest. Whilst the essential infrastructure is well maintained, there is a plethora of derelict items lying around the site, including half a stone staircase, various ancient farming equipments, and an old ice-cream delivery truck.

Everyone here, including me, thinks that this is the coolest site we have visited so far.

Life in a truck

2009-04-17T18:22:00.001+01:00

I guess things are settling down to some extent on Calypso, everyone is starting to understand how things work on an overland trip. We have been assigned jobs to do, most of us do them, and the jobs rotate occasionally.

My current job is Tent/Wood Packer/Unpacker. I'm quite glad I don't have a badge for that one. This job involves, well, it's self explanatory really. But we haven't had any wood yet, since we haven't done any wilderness camps yet. So my job has been that much easier. I think this will change in the next few days.

One girl, Rachel, is the Truck Wallha, which is an arcane and mystical position requiring many years of study. As she has been training for only five days, we still haven't been able to determine what this job actually entails.

We all take turns cooking, my turn has yet to arrive. So far the food has been surprisingly good, today's lunch was unexpectedly good. We stopped at a motorway service station where there was already a bus group of mainly retired German and French tourists having their lunch. They took great interest in us, as does everyone we meet, but then they gave us all their surplus food! We received a bucket of potato salad, some sauerkraut, some type of coleslaw, loads of bread and an almost whole ham. And even some dessert. It was embarrassing how much they gave us, but we ate it all gladly. If this happens every time we stop we won't need to buy any food!

I wonder whether it is ethically correct to live entirely from the generosity of strangers? I hope to be able to answer this once I have been fed by the cook group.

Prague

2009-04-17T18:21:00.001+01:00

We're obviously going too slowly, as the rain has caught up with us. It has been pouring for most of the day, which wasn't as much of a downer as I expected. My raincoat passed its first test, and more importantly, so did our tent.

Prague was stunning, even in the rain, but you won't be able to see what I mean because my phone stayed in my pocket for the whole day. Sorry :) The city was a strange contrast between old and new, communism and democracy, gloss and grot. The centre was disappointingly touristy, with high prices, low quality and false "culture". Despite this, it still manages to be enticing and characterful. And every second car is a Skoda.

Prague is a genuine Old World city, more so than London or Paris, as it still retains the feel of its ancient past and heritage whilst adopting a certain modernity. I love it, and wish that I were here for more than one day.

Bamberg

2009-04-15T18:17:00.001+01:00

Well I think we earned it, but today in Bamberg was 26C and blazing sunshine all day. And to top it all off, Bamberg is a fantastic town, beautiful old buildings mixed with a very cosmopolitan cafe culture which sems to attract not only tourists but local people from all around. I managed to get to Bamberg relatively early considering I was disturbed by my tent mate arriving back from a night out at 5am. He did not get to Bamberg early.

The centre had two or three proper markets going on as well, real ones with goods like fruit and veg, the sort of markets sadly missing from much of British life.

As seems to be the norm in German towns, there were multiple old churches, including the Dom. It was unsurprisingly spectacular, but not on the same scale of ostentation as the Cologne Dom.

We visited a little cafe, which also produced a great cappucino. I think the UK still hasn't grasped how to make a good coffee, even with all the baristas and cafes which popped up in the past few years. Why this is remains a mystery to me. This little cafe also furnished my two companions and me with delicious apfelstrudel in vanilla sauce, which looked suspiciously like custard. However, it was excellent, which seems to be the norm in Germany.

Bamberg has a small riverside district called "Little Venice", which doesn't really look like Venice, but is little. Apparently fishermen used to live there, and each house has its own dock. The picture above shows what I mean. Soon it will be dinner time, pork steaks, potatoes and veg apparently, so I will sign off for now.

To Bamberg

2009-04-14T17:54:00.001+01:00

Today we finally left the fog behind, it had been constantly foggy since London, and to see further than 200 yards was a novelty. Journeying in a grey soup is less than exciting. Once the fog cleared we witnessed perhaps 5 miles of stationary traffic on the motorway, thankfully on the other side of the road. Even German traffic jams are carefully regimented.

Our new campsite has engendered a feeling of great relief amongst the travellers, since the wash block is newly renovated, and complete! With big, modern, hot showers for everyone. Good thing too, since we are here for two nights.

The campsite is full of sculptures of various subjects, and the new wash block also features an eccentric artwork, which I show you here.

Cologne

2009-04-13T23:20:00.001+01:00

What a contrast to the first day, Cologne is a first rate city, although not without its quirks. To get here we drove for about six hours through constant mist, past a bad accident on the motorway. Rather surreal. Eventually reached the campsite, to find the wash block still under construction, with atypical German efficiency only one of the showers was working, with just cold water.

Never mind about that, what about the famous Neustrasse shopping district? Closed. And the magnificent Dom cathedral? Open, magnificent, but we were ejected by the bouncer priests due to a service taking place. They must specially train for this duty, being remarkably hard looking for priests.

The highlight of Cologne came in a most unexpected place though, the cafe opposite the Dom. This cafe made me a fantastic coffee, easily 9/10. But the highlight was not the coffee. No, it was the toilets! These were no ordinary toilets. These were toilets of excellence! Each cubicle door was clear glass, which was quite worrying until one used the lock on the door, whereupon the glass instantly frosted over. This was the German engineering I knew! Marble, glass and technology in perfect harmony, working to awe slack-jawed tourists!

These toilets were so fascinating that two ladies in our group went to video them. I, however, retained my British decorum, which is why you see instead a picture of the contrast between the masterful Dom, and its catastrophic neighbour, the Dom Platz. Also a photo of a hard-boiled Easter egg gift from a restaurant in which we dined. At least the Germans haven't lost their sense of humour.

Day 1 - Tournai

2009-04-12T17:31:00.000+01:00

Three countries in one day sounds like a lot, but when they are the UK, France and Belgium, the reality is slightly easier. Here is a photo of our truck, Calypso, and my tent, Bill. I didn't pick the names. Calypso is too big for the campsite, but by parking rudely she was made to fit.

We have finished pitching up camp, our lovely crew have cooked us dinner (mushroom soup, spaghetti bolognese and salad, since you ask) and we are enjoying the fine Belgian evening. Everyone is getting on fine so far, even the hairy Scotsman! I haven't had the opportunity to sample the local chocolates yet, but maybe later.

Day minus 0

2009-04-11T16:21:00.001+01:00

The accommodation on offer at the Easy Hotel London Victoria is nothing if not orange. My phone's camera cannot do justice to the trademark Easy Orange, but take my word for it, it is breathtaking. The base of the bed is also orange. As is the sink. And the shower tray. Mercifully they stopped short of installing an orange toilet, perhaps due to cost reasons. It certainly wasn't due to a surplus of good taste.

Having said all that, the room is all you need for a good night's sleep, and is considerably cheaper than a "proper" hotel. The few staff I met were all polite and courteous, and happy to help you. However, I would suggest that if you plan on staying more than a couple of nights, ensure that you get (i.e. pay for) a room with a window, as orange walls get old very quickly.

I will only be sampling the Easy delights for one night though, as the truck leaves tomorrow, 8am. Once I am out of the UK, blog updates will probably become more sporadic, as I don't know how easy it will be to post from other countries networks. We shall see.

Day minus 1 - Aberdeen

2009-04-10T21:57:00.000+01:00

Well, I'm on my way, months of planning has come to this. The Caledonian Sleeper to Old London Town, to meet up with all the other mad people who think six months alternating between a truck and a tent is a good thing!

It was hard to leave home like this, surprisingly hard. All the preparation doesn't prepare you for actually doing it. It feels a bit like a leap of faith, a leap into the unknown.

And we're off! The train just pulled smoothly away from the platform with no warning, into the darkness. Passing the industrial estates of Torry and Cove, which look peaceful at this time of night, making the first few steps on my 10000 mile journey.

My car is two years old, and it has just completed 10000 miles. I'm doing that here, now, in six months. The distance is quite staggering, when you stop to think about it. But, as a wise man once said, a journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step.

What to take with you when you go away for six months to countries which people have never heard of.

2009-04-01T17:31:00.007+01:00

Let me welcome you to Part Way Round, blog of my trip with Odyssey Overland. I hope to update this as I go, local infrastructure permitting! I am due to leave on 12th April, but I thought I would tell you a bit about the sorts of things you need on trips like these. Real essentials, stuff you can't do without.

A good bag is a given, my choice is pictured here, chosen for its practicality, size, and the fact it has wheels. This allows the lazy traveller to do as little carrying as possible, whilst simultaneously making everyone else jealous.

Next up is torches. You need something small and light, which doesn't use weird batteries and won't blow the bulb every week. Hence my top choice, the Zebralight H50 head torch, paired with the Fenix LD10 pocket torch. Both use one AA battery, both use the same ultra bright LED, and both are, frankly, stonking.

Lastly, something that many people inexplicably overlook, but its absolute necessity cannot be overstated. I am, of course, talking about the electric ukulele and battery powered amp. It has always mystified me how so many otherwise sensible people flat out forget to take these essential items. What's that you say? It's not essential and anyway I don't know how to play it? I ask you. Some people have no sense of adventure.