Name That Smell!

Home Sweet Home

2009-12-13T17:19:00.000-08:00

Over the last 200 days, we've seen a lot! It's been both fun and trying at times (mostly fun) and we've made some wonderful friends and memories along the way. We've traveled through 54 cities and towns in 7 Asian countries. We've covered over 40,000 kms (two thirds of which has been by land or sea). We've spent;

267 hours on trains
190 hours on buses
7 hours on bus rooftops
77 hours on boats
29 hours on planes
19 hours in taxis/tuk-tuks/the back of pick-up trucks.

That's a grand total of 589 hours, or 24.5 days we've spent on transport, and it's fair to say that's where most of our funny and/or frustrating travel experiences took place. Obviously the reason we endured all these travel hours was to get to new destinations, of which, some were amazing and some... absolutely terrible. Here are our picks from our trip!

JAPAN
Best place: Tokyo / Kyoto
Worst place: Kobe
Best meal: Sushi, Osaka
Best activity: Watching a Sumo tournament
Highlight: Freak spotting in Harajuku
Lowlight: Expeeeensive!

CHINA
Best place: Beijing / Lhasa / Fenghuang
Worst place: Shanghai / Huai Hua
Best meal: Peking Duck, Beijing
Best activity: Zip lining from the great wall / Watching the pandas in Chengdu
Highlight: Great wall / Train ride to Tibet
Lowlight: Terra-cotta Worriers

VIETNAM
Best place: Hanoi
Worst place: Hue
Best meal: Pho / Baguettes
Best activity: Hanoi Water Park!!
Highlight: Visiting our chum, Tommy
Lowlight: Getting flooded into the hotel for the day

CAMBODIA
Best place: Ban Lung / Sihanoukville
Worst place: Kampot / Kraite
Best meal: Hot & Sour Soup, Battambang / Amok, Phnom Penh
Best activity: Bamboo train/ Partying in Sihanoukville/ Slow Boat to Siem Reap/ Volunteering at orphanages... the list goes on!
Highlight: The Angkor wats
Lowlight: Bone rattling bus journeys

LAOS
Best place: Luang Prabang
Worst place: Savannakhet
Best meal: Vegetarian Buffet, Luang Prabang night market
Best activity: Tubing in the Vang Vieng
Highlight: Lazy Don Det Hammocks / Watching monks collect Alms, Luang Prabang
Lowlight: Horribly viscous osquitos in Vang Vieng

NEPAL
Best place: Pokhara / Bandipur
Worst place: nowhere!
Best meal: Giant Falafel, Kathmandu
Best activity: White water rafting, Pokhara
Highlight: Dashain Festival, Kathmandu
Lowlight: Getting ripped off by Raju

INDIA
Best place: Rishikesh / Arambol
Worst place: Bangalore / Jaipur
Best meal: Home make Keralan food, Alleppey / pretty much every meal we had
Best activity: Sunrise boat ride, Varanasi / Camel Trek, Pushkar / Houseboat, Alleppey
Highlight: Taj Mahal / Golden Temple / Diwali Festival
Lowlight: Sickness / Rip-offs / Filth / Frustration... way too many to mention! It's India!!

So, as we write this, we're on the plane back to Melbourne and thought that writing our last blog entry might make the time pass faster. We can't wait to get back ~ It's been so long since we've been home... like over a year and a half long. It's time for a comfy bed, a nice, hot, shower, a change of clothes and some of mum's cooking! For a while at least.

Neither of us know what we're going to do when we get back... the thought of job hunting really doesn't appeal, so we might have to be dole-bludgers for a while until we get back on our respective feet.... feel free to pass any jobs / ideas our way!

We hope the return culture-shock isn't too bad... after all it has been over 18 months since we've been in an English speaking country or been 'normal'... that is, not the big, white, foreigners standing out in the crowd. It'll be nice to blend in for a change and not get stared at, and understand what everyone around us is saying, and to know what we're eating, and to be able to drive a car, and hang out with old friends and family... the list goes on.

It's been a real adventure, but it's time for us to go home.

Thanks for reading our drivel for the last 6 months!

Amy and Claire

Goa’n To Kerala

2009-12-10T19:24:00.000-08:00

Travelling with Paul, we’ve had to put up with shit ‘Goa’ jokes like that for weeks... “we’re Goan’ to the beach”, “How’s it goa’n?”... the list is endless. It had always been our master plan to end our 6 month trip in a relaxing, beach-like way, so after racing around the chaotic Northern half of India, we made our way south to the beautiful beaches of Goa.

Our first stop was Arambol, where we stayed for a week. It was quieter than we’d expected but we quickly became accustomed to the low-key atmosphere, spending our days lying in the sun and our nights eating seafood at beach-front restaurants. It was just what we needed. We did manage to tear ourselves away from sun baking for a day, to indulge in our other favourite pastime – shopping! The weekly Anjuna flea market provided us with this opportunity. We don’t think Paul particularly enjoyed this, his 75th shopping trip with 2 girls, although he certainly got the last laugh by buying a bongo drum and tormenting us with it for the rest of the day (until it was put into his bag and thankfully forgotten about).

Arambol beach.

From Arambol we headed to Palolem in Southern Goa. This idyllic beach is a little bigger than Arambol and a bit more lively due to a younger crowd... It’s no party town except for Saturdays, when a bunch of foreigners organise a ‘silent noise’ party. We’d heard of these but never been to one – for anyone who doesn’t know it’s basically a night club with headphones. Weird concept, but really fun! The Palolem ‘silent noise’ party is held in an awesome spot – in a cove beach under the stars. In a town where noise restrictions close most places down around 11pm, this allowed us to party on to 5am – something we hadn’t done in India! It was really well organised and the headphones allowed us to switch between 3 different DJ’s who were playing on site – even better was that none of them played any Goan trance music!

Silent noise party.

Our week in Palolem was just as relaxing as Arambol, but sadly (for our tans) a cyclone passed along the coast, making things a bit wet and windy for a few days... we passed our time playing a lot of cards and talking about how we wished is was sunny... and then it was... sunny, that is, the day we left for Kerala.

Palolem beach.

After a 16 hour train ride, we checked into an awesome home-stay and organised a little houseboat trip in the Keralan back-waters. The next morning we and 2 Finnish girls boarded the most amazing houseboat we’d ever seen. A brand new, 2 storey, wooden, spacious dream boat complete with 3 staff (including a chef) that was all ours for the next 24 hours. As we sat in swinging chairs on the boat watching life go by on the back-waters, we were all brought snacks and coffee while our 9 course lunch and 7 course dinner of traditional Keralan food were prepared for us. We stuffed ourselves like it was Christmas and felt like we could stay on that boat forever. Did we mention all of this cost us under $40 AUS per head?!

Houseboat!

Lunch on our houseboat.

Keeping up with our newly found level of relaxation, we checked into another beautiful home-stay by the beach just out of Alleppey. Again we were waited on hand and foot and served the most amazing home cooked meals. We really couldn’t have asked for a better way to finish off out trip. From here it’s just an overnight train to Bangalore where we catch our plane home!

Beautiful beach just outside of Alleppey.

Our wonderful homestay.

Bollywood

2009-12-09T18:15:00.000-08:00

We weren't planning on getting famous in India, but when the opportunity to 'star' as extras in a Bollywood film was presented to us, we grabbed it with both hands! On a spontaneous 24 hour pit-stop in Mumbai, we were approached by "Imran from Bollywood" who was scouting for 60 foreigners to be in a few scenes of a movie being filmed that night. With the added bonus of 500 rupees for 12 hours work between 5pm to 5am (yep, that's $1 an hour) we signed ourselves up immediately and walked away wondering what kind of con we'd got ourselves into this time, but with the prospect of seeing Bollywood in the making, we threw caution to the wind and went along.

Arriving at Bollywood, we were fitted with costumes and sent to hair and make-up to be transformed into 'British Ladies' of the 1940's... or the 1400's... we're still not sure. Either way, our costumes were so far off the mark, it was hilarious. Claire, in a shiny gold ruffled dress, that was possibly left over from a Cindy Lauper music video, looked more like a trashy 80's crack whore than an affluent lady who lunches. Amy's 2 tone purple and green dress wasn't quite as offensive, but it did look like it belonged in an early 90's high school prom rather than on the set of a multi-million dollar Bollywood film 2 years in the making.

Clearly 1940's sophisticated outfits...

The following 10 hours were spent sitting around pretending to be enjoying ourselves at a flashy outdoor evening banquet with our sun-hats on. We were surprised that a massive Bollywood film, starring Salman Khan, the "King of Bollywood", would fail to ensure any form of continuity or historical accuracy. But who cares? We got to be in Bollywood, got free water, tea and dinner out of it (and lets not forget the all important $12!) Although we were disappointed not to have seen the quintessential singing and dancing routines, we enjoyed watching the star pull rank and throw diva tantrums, despite the fact that he did far less work than we did! It was funny to see this Indian A-level celebrity (who we'd never heard of) demanding royal treatment - and getting it - from his entourage of assistants. He had one guy to hold his jacket between scenes, one to comb his hair, another to hold up a mirror for him and another to hold his cigarette between takes... even the director was scared of him. To top it all off, he was probably the worst actor we've ever seen! It you ever get to see the movie, watch for the scene where he falls and hurts his leg... it's gold!

The set (better than our costumes at least)

If you want to see us in all our glory (if they didn't scrap out scenes) look out for VEER, apparently being released in January 2010.

Feelin' Pauly

2009-12-07T17:27:00.000-08:00

One of the most common things you hear about India are the horror stories of seeing little more of the country than the interior of your grotty hotel bathroom... the notorious Delhi Belly due to the, erm, different hygene standards of India. We fully expected to encounter this at some point, but one of us got a little more than he bargained for. Let us tell you a story about our friend Paul... for 2 weeks, as we travelled from Rishikesh down into Rajastan, Paul woke up with a new ailment just about every day... poor bastard... but it was pretty funny for us.

It all began in Delhi while we were stuck in traffic, a eunuch stuck her head into our rickshaw asking for cash. Knowing that eunuchs are feared across India for posessing 'evil powers' we subtly averted our eyes to aviod engaging or angering her. Paul, on the other hand, delt with the situation as only Paul would... he looked up at her with obivous shock as she put her hand out for money, which he bluntly refused. He then blurted out "Oh God! She's not going to put a curse on us, is she?" To which the eunch responded with a tell-tale clapping motion towards Paul, that symbolises he giving bad luck. She then walked away as we joked that she had put a curse on Paul... turns out that, only a few days later, on a train to Rishikesh, we began to believe this was true.
After some very questionable curry the night before (we saw mice on the flour bags of the restaurant), Paul began to feel the first rumblings of Delhi Belly. An overnight Indian train is probably the last place on Earth you'd want this to happen, but once we were on board, he had little choice in the matter and spent the majority of the trip locked in the vile bathroom.

After spending a day in the hotel room while we explored a bit of Rishikesh, Paul mustered up the courage to venture out on our 2nd day there. Lucky he did too, because we found that Rishikesh was one of the most chilled-out, beautiful places we'd been to so far. The Beatles spent a few months in an Ashram in Rishikesh during their hippie days and from walking the streets, it's quite apparent that the hippie vibe is still, like, totally strong man. More than anything, these hippies provided us with hours of entertainement. At the nightly 'Ganga Aarti' (a hindu ceremony performed at many points along the Ganges), we were distracted from the ceremony itself by 2 groups of hippies. One group felt the need to sit themselves in prominant positions around the ceremony and undertake a little public meditation... with eyes closed, they spiritually swayed to the music and sang along to Hindu chants they obivously didn't know the words to. It wasn't just us who found them amusing, all the Indians around them seemed to find their behaivour a little odd too. The second group of hippies, dressed in blankets and dreadlocks, arrived towards the end of the ceremony and put on a little show of their own with creative bird-like dancing that you'd expect to see in an improv dance/acting class... it was terrible, but at least they weren't taking themselves as seriously as the swaying meditators. Seriously, sometimes being a foreiger in this country is really embarrassing.

Ganga Aarti ceremony, Rishikesh
Vishnu
Our meditating friend...

Anyway, back to the Paul story. A good laugh at the hippies seemed to settle his stomach a little and we thought he was on the mend... until the next morning... "there's something wrong with my eye, isn't there?" he asked, as he woke up. We looked to him to see the most swollen, red, crusty, eye we'd ever seen... somehow in his sleep, Paul had managed to contract conjunctivitis. With no time to visit the doctor before our train out of town, he popped into the local chemist for some eye drops. Being the hippie town it is, he could only find a herbalist, so he had to settle for some seriously weird looking drops, which made him scream when we put them in for him. He described the feeling as having acid dropped into his eyes, and , after 2 rounds of drops, refused to take anymore.

Unfortunitely for Paul, we'd previously purchased tickets for an overnight train to Jaipur, so he was forced to, once again, travel on a grimy Indian train while sick. He emerged from the train a broken man. To try and ease his pain, we checked into a nice hotel and settled down for a nap. When he woke up, his left eye wouldn't open - it was crusted over with conjunctivitis gunk. We sent him off to the docto and he returned with a wheel barrow of medication and full of hope for a speedy recovery. Paul didn't see much of Jaipur, in fact, he didn't see much of anything through his swollen, crusty eyes.

Hawah Mahal, Jaipur

Instead, he rested up in the hotel for 2 days while we checked out Jaipur. Thinking nothing else could possibly go wrong for Paul, the night before we went to bed joking about what illness he'd wake up with the next morning. We felt a little bad when he woke up with a cold and a back so sore he could barley walk. He soldiered onto Puskar with us for the annual camel fair and over the next few days everything but his eyes seemed to clear up. Luckily for Paul, he felt healthy enough to go on the day long camel trek we'd planned in Pushkar. Unfortunitely Claire did not. It seems that Paul had passed the eunch curse onto her and she was too cick to join the camel trek. Before going to India, Claire had often joked that she'd felt like she hadn't fully experienced India unless she got so sick she pooed her pants. Well, while Amy and Paul were off riding camels, Claire "fully experienced" India.

Amy's camel on the camel trek

As luck would have it for the sick and weary on our trip, we had an 8 hour overnight trip booked (on a run down bus with no toilet) at the height of Claire's sickness. She battled it like a trooper and rested up in the hotel for a few days while Amy and Paul saw the sights of beautiful Udaipur. As they made full recoveries, Paul and Claire waited with eager anticipation for Amy (who had laughed at them both through this whole ordeal) to succumb to an Indian illness... they're still waiting.

Beautiful Udaipur

Happy Diwali!

2009-12-05T17:24:00.000-08:00

Diwali; the festival of lights, is one of India’s biggest, brightest and loudest Indian festivals… basically, it’s an excuse for Indian’s to let off fire crackers and fireworks all day and all night for what is supposedly a 5 day festival, but seems to vary in date/length from place to place.

For us, Diwali kicked off in Delhi when we were greeted at our hotel by a tiny, energetic, carny-like waiter, who screamed HAPPY DIWALI while shaking our hands every time he came to our table. During out stay in Delhi, we became “best friends” with this little freak and he told us of his 2 pregnant wives back in Nepal and about the time he cut his own tiny thumb off with a knife in a fit of passionate rage. We started avoiding the restaurant.

We got into the festivities with a bit of sightseeing and, for the first time in 6 months, a LOT of shopping! Delhi is another one of those cities that people warned us of constant hassle, filth and cons abound, but, as usual, we found none of this here (compared to other places) and really enjoyed our time in the capital.

The lovely outfits we were given at the Jama Masjid mosque, Delhi.

We decided to head north to Amritsar for the main celebration day. We started our day with a trip to the stunning Golden Temple and made plans to return for the fireworks show that night. Given the festival, the temple grounds were packed with Sikh worshippers, adding to the charged atmosphere of Diwali.

The Golden Temple, Amritsar.

Coolest (and biggest) turban ever!

By day, the presence of the few foreigners around, was curiously noted by the locals, but at night we seemed to have been raised to some kind of celebrity status and were bombarded with requests for photos and a chat. “One snap please” is the way to ask for photos in these parts, but when 1 photo turned to 20, 20 to 50 and 50 to 100, the novelty of fame wore off and we’d try to escape from the crowd surrounding us… only to be surrounded by a whole new group of people wanting photos. In the end, it all got a little too much for us, and we took refuge in a cafe where the owners had to forcibly restrain people from coming in and photographing us… it was crazy! Worst thing is, they weren't even drunk! All the festivities were celebrated without a drop of booze… so different to home.

Happy Diwali!

Can you find us??

The following day we finished off our Diwali celebrations with a trip to Attari to watch the Indian-Pakistan border closing ceremony. What a hilarious spectacle! Stadium style seating on either side of the border is filled with cheering spectators watching the amusing show of bravado between the Indian and Pakistani soldiers… we’d never seen a mans leg be kicked up high in the air, nor had we heard a man hold a reasonably high-pitched note for such a long time… funny thing is that this squealing, kicking display is how each country asserts its dominance over the other. In all seriousness though, it was nice to see that despite current political tensions between the countries, this light hearted daily event still takes place for the entertainment of their people… shame Australia doesn’t share a land border with another country.

The Indian soldiers had lovely hats.

Agra - It's Totally 'Taj'

2009-11-23T14:22:00.000-08:00

Q: How many Indian men does it take to change a bus tyre?
A: Approximately 26 (one doing the work, and 25 standing around discussing it).

This scene of Indian masculinity was something we witnessed when our bus to Agra got a flat tyre.

Q: How do you avoid paying commission to a rickshaw driver for taking you to a hotel?
A: We don't know... we've tried many tactics (with various degrees of failure), but the most promising method we tried was in Agra... We directed the rickshaw driver to a cafe nearby a hotel we wanted to stay in (thank you Lonely Planet for your helpful map). We then sat and had a chai hoping the driver would get sick of waiting and go look for another fare. When this didn't work, we split up, with Claire staying at the cafe with our luggage, while Paul and Amy snuck off in search for the hotel. A few minutes down the road, Paul and Amy were congratulating themselves on outsmarting the rickshaw driver when, out of nowhere, he popped up out of the shadows and followed us to the hotel - no doubt to collect his commission... turns out he outsmarted us

Q: Are you lacking a calculator and hate doing mental addition? Does your job require you to do many sums in one day?
A: If you answered 'Yes' to this question, you need... THE HUMAN CALCULATOR!!! (Who also doubles up as an amusing, elderly, tip-requesting waiter).
Here's how he works; Your customers come to pay, you write up their bill but you can't be bothered working out the total yourself, so you call on your Human Calculator, who ambles arthritically downstairs to do the dirty work for you! Simply yell out the numbers you want added, and the Human Calculator will do the math in his head and give you a speedy total. Brilliant! And way more amusing than a regular calculator...

Q: Ever wondered what a tomato salad looks like in India?
A: Probably not, but just in case you ever attempt to order one in India, you should know that all you're in for is a tomato sliced up on a plate with a wedge of lime. Generally the food we've had in India has been amazing, but, like this tomato salad, all the food in Agra was pretty crap.

Q: Wondering why we haven't mentioned the Taj Mahal yet?
A: We're about to...
For the most visited sight in India, the Taj is surrounded by some whopping big lies. Yes, it is every bit as amazing as you've heard, BUT we were told a few porkers that were a little saddening...
First of all, many of the hotels and restaurants around Agra claim to have "Taj views"... well, as we discovered, what they actually mean is that from their rooftop, if you look at a specific angle through other buildings, you can see portions of the Taj, but not enough to take a photo... oh, and ignore the restaurants that try to lure you in for dinner with these "Taj view" claims... it's not lit up at night, so you won't see much.

The second (and most hurtful) lie we were told about the Taj, is that you can sit and watch the sunrise over this magnificent piece of architecture. Now, this isn't entirely a lie, because you can line up at the ticket window and wait for it to open at sunrise and then, as the sun is rising, you can stand in line at both the ticket window and then the gates of the Taj waiting to be let inside. Once the sun has well and truly risen, THEN you'll be let into the complex. Thanks for stealing our beauty sleep for no reason, Agra.

The final lie we were told in Agra (not actually, Taj related though), was that our train to Delhi would leave Agra station at 10 am... 5 hours later, when we were still sitting at the platform waiting for our train to arrive (despite the computer screens telling us it was still due to arrive at 10am), we wondered if our train was ever coming at all. Annoying, but made completely worth it when our train actually arrived AND we got to see an old naked man picking up rubbish on the tracks! Awesome!

Khajuraho (or if you're Paul, Khajaroo)

2009-11-23T14:14:00.000-08:00

To get to Khajuraho from Varanasi we had to take a train to Satna the transfer to a bus... simple, right? But this being India, the buses had, of course, stopped running, leaving us with the choice of staying in the shit-hole-satna for a night, or continuing onto Khajuraho by Taxi. Knowing this, a mob of delighted (read, desperate) taxi drivers were waiting for us as we disembarked the train. A bidding war broke out. It was us versus them. We listened to their pleas in turn as each of them explained to us that they were the only one with the requisite car/permit/license/reckless Indian driving style to get us to our destination. Before we knew it, we, the only foreigners in sight, were surrounded by 50 or so taxi drivers and keen observers. We'd like to say we opted for the best qualified driver, but in reality we settled for the old dude who offered us the cheapest price. 2 hours later, we sat down for dinner in a Khajuraho hotel where Paul was repeatedly molested by the resident "massage man" who, over the course of 2 days, engaged in an unrequited relationship with Paul's scalp, shoulders and, most awkwardly, his knees. It was pretty weird, but given the 'sexy' nature of Khajuraho, we figured it was par for the course. Yes, you may notice that we just described an Indian town as 'sexy'... let us elaborate... the whole reason people go to Khajuraho is to see the 'sexy temples', that is, temples with 'sexy' scenes from the Karma Sutra engraved on them - by curious people who obviously had way too much time on their hands 1,000 years ago. It's risque, it's raunchy, it's quite hilarious, and, well worth the detour from Varanasi. Aside from the temples and some very Indian public toilets, Khajuraho has little to offer tourists, so after purchasing a range of 'sexy' karma sutra souvenirs, we busted a move onto Agra.

Toilet anyone?

Far away the karma temples look quite innocent

Up close 'sexy-time' can involve animals...

But you can also have fun without horses

Varanassi is VARA-NASTY

2009-11-15T15:59:00.000-08:00

Varanassi may or may not have been the best introduction to India because even now, 1 month later it still is the most overwhelming place we have visited in the country. It's filthy, smelly the streets are full of cow shit and the rickshaw drivers and street sellers are relentless. It probably didn't help that we managed to pick a guesthouse with staff who we suspect had been recently released from a mental institution... and who should probably be sent back. Immediately. In the 3 days that we stayed there, not one conversation with the staff made sense, which was partly due to the fact that the manager answered questions with questions or a cat's meow... no joke. The closest one to somewhat sanity was the owner, he repeatedly told us "India is funky" and unfortunately he had produced a giant half Indian / Japanese baby with the ugliest head we had ever seen and who we believe would be the sole survivor of a nuclear winter (along with the cockroaches). The meowing manager did impart one pearl of wisdom on us when he said, "India is not polite - I'd rather you kill me than bore me" It turns out, in a number of situations, we've found this to be true.

In Varanassi, we gained a wonderful travel companion, our dear British friend we met in Korea, Paul.... woo hoo! After just a few days as two girls in traveling in India we realised having a male around would be somewhat of an asset in deterring Indian men.

The three of us - in our Korea days... and in Paul's defense at the end of Movember

Set on the banks of the Ganges, Varanassi is one of India's holiest cities and many Indians make their final journey here to be cremated at the burning ghats. Dead bodies wrapped in colourful fabric are paraded down the street to the river where they are publicly cremated. Walking along the Ganges we witnessed a few of these ceremonies and we were surprised at the contrast between the Indian attitudes towards death, compared to our own... exemplified by a kid drying his undies in the heat coming from the cremation fire and the fact that no one seemed concerned by the pair of legs sticking out of said fire... or when one of these legs fell off. We weren't allowed to take photos, but that's kind of irrelevant, given those images are forever burned into our minds - pun intended.

Undoubtedly, the highlight of Varanassi for us, was the sunrise boat cruise along the Ghats. The early morning light really added to the vibrancy of the women's saris, the buildings and what seemed like the entire cities laundry being washed and dried along the banks. More than anything, these scenes demonstrated that every facet of Inidian life can be (and often is) played out in public - bathing, laundry, funerals, praying, sleeping, and even going to the toilet are common place public events.

Aside from this boat trip and a pleasant afternoon exploring the backstreets of the old city, Varanassi was a confronting, overwhelming and chaotic place that everyone going to India should see, but we're certainly not in a hurry to re-visit.

What to do outside of Kathmandu

2009-11-08T22:28:00.000-08:00

Many people who travel to Nepal do so with one thing in mind: to go trekking. Why they would want to subject themselves to 15 days of torture is beyond us, but apparently it's the 'thing to do' in Nepal... Anyway, due to this trekking frenzy, we've come across so many people who only venture out of Kathmandu to climb Everest base camp or walk the Annapurna circuit. Given our shared dislike of physical exertion, we decided to see what else Nepal had on offer. So here's a list of things to do outside of Kathmandu:

1. BUS SURFING
(OK, we just made this name up, but it aptly describes what we're talking about.) Buses in Nepal get full very quickly and as that wise old Asian adage goes; "if you're going to drive somewhere, you might as well cram as many people as possible into and on the vehicle... and then add a few more." Because of this, seeing people riding on the roof tops of buses, is about as common as spotting a goat on Nepal's city streets (which is pretty common). It was only a matter of time until it was us on top of one of those buses holding on for dear life... actually in 10 days, we clocked up 7 hrs of rooftop riding, or as we like to call it, bus surfing.

2. WHITE WATER RAFTING
Nepal has some of the best (and cheapest) white water rafting in the world, so we could hardly pass up on an opportunity to spend 2 days honing our rafting skills on the Lower Seti river. Turns out that although we'd never done this before, we were better prepared for it than our 16 year old safety kayaker... our advantage was that, unlike her, we can swim. This discovery was made when, on the 1st day, her kayak flipped in an rapid and she nearly drowned... with this in mind we made valiant attempts not to fall out of our raft from then on. Aquatically challenged safety kayaker aside, we had an awesome time raging down the rapids and camping overnight on a riverside beach... we just wish we'd booked a longer trip!!

3. USING A SQUAT WITH NO HOLE
After Tibet, we figured we'd used the worst toilets on Earth... and we had, but Nepal brought a new toilet style into the mix that rivals those of Tibet. Introducing, the squat with no hole. Yes, that's right folks, it's pretty much a concrete slab. As a user, it's by far the easiest toilet going round - if you don't mind standing in a puddle of someone elses pee, that is. We're not sure what really happens with number 2's, and we don't really want to find out.

4. SHARE A BUS RIDE WITH A GOAT... or a rooster... we did. A few times.

5. ANNAPURNA VIEWS
We had no idea how big the Annapurna mountains are. They're friken huge. No one has ever reached the top. You can see them from everywhere. And they're amazing. We recommend the views from the tiny hill-side village of Bandipur and Sarangot hill in Pokhara. On a clear day, the views don't disappoint.

6. TREK TO THE WORLD PEACE PAGODA, POKHARA
We use the word 'trek' lightly, but this 2 hour uphill walk was 'trekking' in our book... and enough to put us off actual trekking for life. The snake that slithered across our path, the billion steps up the mountain and the relentless heat all combined to make it a tough walk, BUT, the views of the Annapurna's (see above) from the top, made it all worth it... plus, we got to experience world peace.

7. KOREAN TEMPLE STAY
We never thought living in Korea would come in handy on our travels, but boy we were wrong! After meeting two Koreans on our bus to Lumbini (the birthplace of Buddha), they told us about a Korean temple in the area where we could stay and be fed 3 meals a day - for free! Well, for a donation but still... we never got to do a temple stay in Korea, so aside from eating Korean food and brushing up on our Korean language, it was a nice unexpected addition to our trip in Nepal.

8. BE CONSTANTLY MISTAKEN AS AN ISRAELI
"Shalom shalom" was the usual greeting we received from Nepalese shop keepers as we walked down the street. "you from Israel?" was the question we were often asked... we knew there were a lot of Israelis around, but we didn't understand the constant confusion (Claire maybe - at least she has dark skin and curly hair, but Amy doesn't exactly fit the bill). Then one day, after a guy gave us a particularly hearty "shalom", we asked him why he thought we were Israeli... he replied "it's because of your get-up, you know!?" After rewinding our minds to 1976 when the word "get-up" was last used, we realised he was talking about our clothes... Not sure how a t-shirt and shorts qualifies as Israeli 'get-up', but apparently it just does.

Our stay in Nepal was short and sweet but with our flight home booked for late November, we wanted to allow ourselves enough time to explore India... and as we sat in a jeep waiting to cross the Indian border, watching Indian truck drivers punch rickshaw drivers trying to overtake them, we knew we'd be in for an interesting last 6 weeks of our trip.

Kathman-dudes!

2009-11-02T18:26:00.000-08:00

After the chilled out vibe of Laos, arriving in Kathmandu was pretty full on. First of all, wed travelled 24 hours to get there (apparently the cheap flights aren't always direct), AND, we didn't have quite enough money for our visas (F.Y.I Lonely Planet - visa prices have gone up at least $10 since your time of research). To add to this, we arrived on day 2 of the 15 day Dasain festival (Nepal's biggest national festival) AND a beggar tried to bite us for refusing to give him cookies we didn't even have.. all of this in our first 12 hours!

The contrast compared to S.E Asia was huge, the smells, the sounds, the colours, the scams and the pace of life bore no resemblance to what we'd been used to in the previous months. It was time to wake up and smell the cow shit.

Bodnath stupa, Kathmandu

As you'd expect, we saw all the main sights around Kathmandu and the valley, but the most exciting part about our time in Kathmandu was the Dasain festival. We're still not 100% sure what the festival is all about, but it involved a lot of people shopping and being merry aaannnd... the decapitation of several hundred animals. You probably think we're horrible people, but we were totally excited to see goats and buffaloes being sacrificed to the gods in this way. Watching 30 or so of these scarifies, wasn't nearly as bad as we thought it would be and although they're killing animals, it's done incredibly quickly and none of the animal goes to waste. If this grosses you out, don't look at the next picture and whatever you do, don't ask to see our videos of it!

Heads!

Once killed, the men run the head and body around a circle

Kathmandu has quite the mix of people walking the streets and we thoroughly enjoyed people watching on a very regular basis - here are our favourites;

The Trekkers: We hate the trekkers. We're not talking about people who climb mountains here, these are the people who feel the need to walk the streets of Kathmandu CITY in their trekking gear. Ummm... despite what you may think, wearing Kathmandu clothing in Kathmandu isn't the epitome of coolness, nor is wearing polar fleece on a 30 degree day. It's not just the clothing that offends us either (but if we see one more quick-dry t-shirt or zip off shorts/trousers, we may scream), it's the unnecessary use of trekking equipment in an urban environment that drives us nuts. Hiking poles on flat bitumen roads and head lamps in restaurants simply are not necessary... we get it, you've walked the Annapurna circuit. Good for you.

We hate trekkers

The Hippies: Hippies and Kathmandu have a historical link.. the city actually has a street called 'Freak St' named after it's long-running hippy community. Thanks to this community, Kathmandu's shops are filled with hippie crap and the young babies of hippie parents are answering to names like "Lark" and "Peace"... seriously cruel... but at least they're not trekkers.

Lark and Peace grown up

The Sadhus: These guys are our favourites... or at least they were until they started stealing our water bottles, attacking us with red dots and asking us for money all the time. Still, their long dreads, body paint and weird walking poles make them a cool novelty in our book!

Two Sadhus kindly posing for our photo... for a few dollars of course

We always seem to like the places that other people hate... and Kathmandu was no exception.

Raju from Rajistan

2009-10-24T17:34:00.000-07:00

Here's a scenario for you;
You've just arrived in Kathmandu and while walking around the chaotic streets, you stop to check you map. As you do so, a young guy (maybe around 30-ish) kindly offers you directions to where you want to go. He then makes small talk with you while walking with you to your nearby destination. He tells you he's from India, but is studying in Nepal and likes to spend his free-time chatting with foreigner to improve his English. He assures you several times that he doesn't want any money from you, but instead offers to show you around town so that he can practice his English. You notice that he already speaks English very well, but agree, somewhat reluctantly, to let him accompany you.

You spend the next few hours being shown some great corners of Kathmandu... some you'd never have seen otherwise, and he even shows you how to navigate the insanely crowded public bus system! Together, you head towards the Tibetan quarter of Bodnath, where, he tells you, there is a festival on that day. Once again, you're given an insight into local life that you couldn't have possibly discovered on your own. At the end of the afternoon, you consider buying him lunch in return for all he has shown you, but instead, he insists that you accompany him to his house to meet his family and drink some chai. Tired of always turning down invitations like this, you figure 'why not?'... plus you've spent the whole day with this guy and he seems cool enough. You follow him the 5 mins it takes to get to his neighbourhood, but soon realise that the apartment buildings you were expecting him to live in, were now behind you, and that the reasonably well dressed guy you'd spent the day with, was leading you to him home in a Kathmandu slum. Suddenly, you're surrounded by shelters made of plastic sheeting and other scraps and you're confronted by the sight of poverty that's more extreme than anything you've ever seen in your life.
You meet his wife and their 3 young children, his sister and her 2 kids, and you realise that all 8 of them share this tiny, tiny shack. It grows increasingly difficult for you to hide your shock at what's before your eyes. Hearing his 2 year olds terrible cough, you're compelled to offer your help... but before you get a chance to do so, he tells you a story about corrupt police officers confiscating his livelihood - a shoe shining/repair box. At this point you feel like maybe something isn't quite right, but then think that (a) maybe you are too cynical, and (b) there's a family in front of you living in abject poverty and any contribution you offer could make a difference - even just a small one. So, you offer some money... but your host refuses the cash, suggesting instead that you could help him by replacing his shoe-shining box. You agree to make a contribution and minutes later, a man with a shoe-shining box for sale shows up. Convenient. Twenty minutes later, the box has been purchased and you are shown back to the bus stand... apparently no longer required.

So, that was our first day in Nepal... At times we feel like we were royally duped, but at the same time, this dude and his family live in a really horrible slum and if our money helped them in any way at all, then we're ok with that... even if the money wasn't really used to buy his shoe-shining box. You may think we were stupid, and maybe we were, but once we saw the way this guy lived, there was no way in hell we could have gone back to our comfortable, clean hotel room without giving him some money.

What would you have done?

Tubing in the Vang Vieng

2009-10-15T07:52:00.000-07:00

Tubing in Vang Vieng (affectionately known as Vangers) has become a rite of passage on the South East Asian backpacker trail, and while yes, it is full of drunken foreigners, we had so much fun we went there twice! (please don't judge us).

Our all-star tubing team - Team Orange

Making ze tubing with ze Germans... ja!

"What is tubing?", you may well ask... well, basically it is floating down a river in an inflatable tube... drunk. Nice eh?!
Need more explanation? Well, being the veteran tubers we are, we've compiled an easy to follow 15-step-guide-to-tubing;

1. Hire a tube from the tubing dudes - you can get 1 tube per person, or 1 between many (recommended for advanced tubers only)
2. Ride a tuk-tuk to the start of the tubing course (3.5kms)
3. Kick off the day with a Beer Lao and a free shot of Lao Lao whiskey at the first bar (optional extra: trapeze or flying fox over the river... watch out for rocks)
4. Float 25m down stream to bar #2
5. Begin on laolao buckets and have a dance with dancing man (see profile below)
6. Float to one of the two mud bars (we prefer the one on the left)
7. Play in mud pits and consume several buckets with newly made tubing buddies
8. Continue on to Slide Bar on the right hand side of the river (you can't miss it... it has a big slide)
9. More buckets and the option of a ride down a dangerous slide.

From here you have a few different options;
10a. Tube back to town before sunset and reclaim your full tube deposit (if this option is selected, you are weak and should skip to step #13)
10b. Tube on to the last bars and continue to drink heavily
11a. Get a tuk-tuk back into town
11b. Float back in the dark (not recommended)
12. Return your tube and reclaim deposit (minus a few bucks fine for late retun)
13. Q-Bar (look for 'Dancing Man' and 'Fan Man')
14. Sunset Bar (look for 'Dancing Man' and 'Tubing Trent')
15. Rock Bar (look for 'Dancing Man' and a cheeky 15 year old)

Repeat as desired.

We loved tubing so much we did it 4 times and each time our tubing posse grew and grew... meet our crew.

CLAMY (Claire and Amy)

Nationality:

Australian

Associated Tubing Days: 4

Likes:

Tubing

Dislikes:

Mozzies, tubing back in the dark

Why we love them:

'cos we are them!

THE LOVELY LUNGERS (Katy, Emily and Carly)

Nationality:
English

Associated Tubing Days: 3

Likes:

Lunges, hats, buckets

Dislikes:

Tube stealers

Why we love them:

'cos they're "well fun"!

THE NAUGHTY TUBERS (Paul and Tony)

Nationality:

English

Associated Tubing Days: 2

Likes: Hair straightening, 'naughty caves'

Dislikes:

Bowling socks, being photographed

Why we love them:

'cos they're "well rapid"

ZE GERMANS (Philip, Tino, Philipp and Basti)

Nationality: German

Associated Tubing Days: 1 (big one!)

Likes: Moustaches, sausages, swings

Dislikes: Puppies, vomiting, us when we mock their accents

Why we love them: Because zey like to make ze tubing und zey are wery funny!

Unfortunately (for you), our tubing posse have, like us, moved on from Vang Vieng and are therefore unavailable to tube with you. But fear not, as you are likely to meet a variety of characters on your trip to Vangers. Keep an eye out for these (or similar) tubing celebrities;

"TUBING TRENT"

Nationality:

Canadian (possibly on the verge of Lao residency)

Associated Tubing Days:

Going on 300 (no joke)

Likes:

Tubing (obviously), matching board-shorts, sunnies and headband outfits

Dislikes:

Reality (evidently... the guy has been tubing for over 9 months)

Why we love him:

Because he's the ambassador for tubing, man!

"FAN MAN"

Nationality:

Unknown (we're not even sure he's from this world)

Associated Tubing Days:

Possibly just one, but it must've been a HUUUGE day

Likes:

Dancing with electric fans (preferably oscillating)

Dislikes:

Air-Con and ceiling fans (he's unable to dance with either)

Why we love him:

Because he was, by far, the drunkest person in Vang Vieng.

"15"

Nationality:

Australian

Associated Tubing Days:

numerous... but he's too young to be tubing anyway (he's only 15!!)

Likes:

drinkin' buckets, piggybacks, trying to chat up girls nearly twice his age

Dislikes:

People mocking him for his age, anything pre-1994

Why we love him:

'cos he's a cool little dude who can hold his drink! (even though he shouldn't be drinking)

"DANCING MAN"

Nationality:

Irish

Associated Tubing Days:

Unknown (we never actually saw him out of a bar)

Likes:

Dancing, dancing, dancing... free buckets

Dislikes:

Standing still, changing clothes, beer in his bucket

Why we love him:

We don't really, but he's hilarious to watch.

With all these crazy characters around, we didn't have a single dull moment in Vang Vieng... in fact, the worst thing about it was leaving.

Mud volleyball at the mud bar!

We luv Vangers 4 eva x

Sabaideeeee Laos

2009-10-07T18:15:00.000-07:00

Laos would have to be one of the most laid-back countries on earth. Exemplifying this, was our first stop, Don Det, a tiny Mekong island in the 4000 islands of Southern Laos. You know that when you have to physically wake restaurant owners up to make your lunch at 2pm, you've entered a whole new realm of relaxation. At breakfast, lunch and dinner, this was a regular occurrence in Don Det. You also know, that when you spend 4 days solid lying in a hammock, you've quickly adapted to this lifestyle and have entered a whole new realm of laziness. Aside from one afternoon bike ride, (which required more energy than is the norm on Don Det) the most physical activity we exerted was a lazy stroll to the bakery to buy cakes and getting up from our hammocks to watch mama (our crazy guest home owner) drown pigs on the island opposite us. With the only electricity available being run from a generator between 7pm - 11pm, this kind of relaxation is what Don Det was made for.

Mama's guest house - the hammocks that became our home for 4 days

Mekong sunset

In fear of having criss-cross hammock marks permanently indented in our backs, we voted ourselves off the island. On the main land, we got a bus to Champasak ...well, that's what we paid for anyway. But given we were the only ones on the packed bus getting off at Champasak, a decision was made (unbeknown to us) to drop us off in the middle of the turn off. Great. We tried to bribe a mini bus driver (with a nice shiny can of insect repellent) to take us into town. When this didn't work, we forked over a dollar and he gave us a lift. Twenty minutes later, after trying to pin point our location on the Champasak map, we were informed that we weren't actually in Champasak. Again, great. To get to Champasak, we had to cross the Mekong (information that may have been useful earlier). We hopped onto a local bus (by bus we mean pick-up truck!) and drove onto a rickety raft to cross the river. This detour, although initially a little annoying, proved to be awesome fun ....perhaps more fun than Champasak itself ...actually, definitely more fun.

The raft used to cross the river

It makes sense that Champasak isn't on the Laos tourist trail, because aside from a pretty temple, some wacky Japanese students, and a nice Qantas pilot, there's very little to do...oh, except kill giant spiders in our bathroom.

Spider in our bathroom... YUK!

Wat Phu - Champasak

While we're on the topic of places to skip in Laos, add Savannaket to the list (this is, however, where the list ends) ...In hindsight, we don't even know why we went there. ..all we did was spend hours on the internet and gaze longingly at the action-packed town across the Mekong ...which turned out to be a town in Thailand.

Perhaps Vientiane, the capital of Laos, would hold a little more action for us. ...ummm ...not so much, but we did get to visit the worst nightclub in Asia (and Asia has some pretty bad clubs). Neither of us are big clubbers, but when every bar in the city closes by 11pm, a beer in Vientiane's only nightclub (in Laos' tallest building ...a huge 14 stories) is hard to pass up. Surrounded by prostitutes and dodgy old men, we entertained ourselves with the latter - in the form of Korean business men who were amazed that 2 white girls could speak some Korean.

Our next stop, Vang Vieng, has earned itself it's own blog posting (we'll be putting that up soon), so we'll skip onto Luang Prabang.

We're starting to realise that we have some seriously bad bus karma. The road from central to Northern Laos is long and winding due to a billion mountains in the way. The scenery along the way was breathtaking, but, so was the smell of the bus. First of all, the on-board toilet was leaking, but half way up the first (of many) mountains, the smell of vomit began to overpower the smell of urine. You'd think your senses would eventually adapt to the smell, but they don't, and when the man sitting in front of us somehow managed to throw up on Claire's leg while he was asleep, all we could do was laugh - a lot ...and then move seats. Surely, that's enough bad luck for one day!? Nope. Collecting our bags from under the bus, Amy noticed hers was a little damp ...actually it was soaked in what turned out to be chicken juices from the baskets of live and not so alive chickens that had been sitting on her bag. The pair of us smelled rank and we pitied the poor soul at our guest house who washed our vomit pants and chicken bag and clothes.

From our rocky start in Luang Prabang, things started looking up as we wondered around the charming town, it's excellent night market and it's delicious and cheap food stalls. Pretty much everyone we'd met on our trip in Laos, was in Luang Prabang at the same time, giving us playmates for late night bowling, an "orange" party (with free orange t-shirts!) and beers at the night-food market.

Luang Prabang and it's surroundings are gorgeous and there's no shortage of things to fill your days with - beautiful waterfalls, traditional Lao massage, monasteries and temples galore - we did it all - including getting up before dawn to watch the hundreds of local monks collecting alms.

Kouang Si Waterfall - Luang Prabang

Views of Luang Prabang from Phu Si

Monks collecting alms

Orange party free t-shirts = love

We were a little shocked at our bowling skills

From uber relaxation to buckets of fun, Laos has it all - picturesque scenery, fascinating culture and friendly people (both locals and tourists alike), our month there passed so quickly and, once again, we fell in love with a country and were very sad to leave...we might even miss those Mekong sunsets.

Next destination, Nepal. Stay tuned for updates on our penultimate stop before home...but not before you read about our tubing adventure in Vang Vieng - if the Lao Lao buckets haven't erased the awesomeness of it all from our memories, that is.

S.C.A.O. & C.O.S.O.

2009-09-29T04:23:00.000-07:00

For all it's beauty and growing tourism industry, Cambodia is still one of the poorest countries in Asia. Signs of poverty are everywhere and we found it impossible to spend a month here without using some of our time and experience to make at least a small contribution to those in need. Given that we'd both spent a year in Korea teaching English, we figured that some voluntary teaching time was the best way that we could help, so while planning our trip a few months ago, we allocated some extra time to spend at a few orphanages along the way.

The first orphanage we went to was S.C.A.O. in Phnom Penh. We'd heard about this organisation through 2 lovely friends of ours (Patty and Janine), who had visited S.C.A.O. on their travels through South-East Asia. S.C.A.O. is open to visitors who email or call ahead and welcome volunteers who are available for anything from a day to a few months. On the days we spent at S.C.A.O., there were enough volunteers to cover the English classes run by the orphanage, so we didn't end up teaching any classes, however, even just hanging out and playing games with the kids is something the organisation encourages...the kids loved it... and so did we! There are currently about 20 kids living at S.C.A.O. and dozens of others from poor neighbouring areas who attend daily English classes run by the orphanage. If you want to learn more about S.C.A.O., or would like to help, see their website; http://www.savechildreninasia.org

Save Children in Asia Organisation

The second orphanage we visited was in Siem Reap, in Northern Cambodia. Despite being home to Angkor Wat and the large number of tourists this site attracts, Siem Reap province is one of the poorest provinces in the country. The NGO presence in Siem Reap is large and there are ample opportunities for people wanting to make a contribution - be it financial, material or through volunteering time. Through some people we met in our guest house, we were introduced to C.O.S.O. an orphanage housing over 50 kids on the outskirts of Siem Reap city (http://www.cosocambodia.org/ this is an old website and is expected to be updated soon). As the branch of C.O.S.O. that we visited is relatively new and still trying to get on it's feet, it doesn't receive the number of volunteers that other organisations do, therefore we were given the opportunity to teach full days of classes to children of all different ages and English levels. We were inspired by their tenacity and eagerness to learn... it certainly showed us a different side to teaching when compared with our experiences in private schools in Korea, where kids are comparatively well off and not so keen to learn (for a number of understandable reasons, mind you). Between classes, we spent our time hanging out with these amazing kids who showed us so much love it was incredible.

Cambodia Orphan Save Organisation

While we were considering volunteering at orphanages, we were, at times, a little conflicted as to the best course of action, given the potential negative effects that a changing flow of volunteers could have on the kids. Continuity is important, however, the message we got from the organisations we contacted was that without volunteers (even those who are only able to stay around for a few days) many organisations wouldn't have the support they need to meet the daily needs of the children... basically, any time you can give is greatly appreciated. The whole experience was very eye-opening and moving, and we'd personally recommend it to anyone going to Cambodia.

Pains, trains and automobiles...

2009-09-22T18:32:00.000-07:00

Our last couple of weeks in Cambodia were action packed...so, we have selected a few highlights (in no particular order) that sum up our time in the north.

#1 Bamboo Train

Imagine a small bamboo raft of sorts plonked on top a of a few old train wheels, then add a glorified lawn mower motor and throw a rubber band in the mix and you have yourself a bamboo train. Pretty cool huh? We thought so anyway, and an hour long ride on this shakey hunk-o-junk is what drew us to Battambang. Cruising through the rice paddies at a lazy 30kph on Cambodia's one and only railway line, we often encountered oncoming bamboo trains which required us (or them) to stop and dismantle the train in order to allow the others to pass. Lots of fun!

We were a little nervous before our bamboo train began

#2 Slow boat to Siem Reap

Given the choice of a couple of hours on a bus or 7 hours on what is undoubtedly the most scenic boat ride in Cambodia, we opted for the latter... even if this did involve some seriously hard wooden seats. The scenery was stunning; rice paddies, floating villages and nature reserves passed us by. The width of the river fluctuated from around 20m to as narrow as our skinny little boat and out again to as far as the eye could see. At the narrow points, trees and branches scratched the sides of the boat, flicking spiders and ants on board and occasionally whipping us in the face... but even that was kind of fun.

Slow boat

#3 Sunset at Bakheng Mountain

Being the thrifty travellers we are, we used our amazing detective skills to discover that single day tickets purchased for Angkor Wat could also be used to gain entry to the wats at sunset the previous day... ok, so a tuk-tuk driver told us this and once we arrived at the mountain we realised that this was Siem Reap's worst kept secret - the place was packed! Luckily this didn't take away from the beauty of the sunset...

Sunset at Bakheng Mountain

#4 The Angkor Wats

Obviously a must for any trip to Cambodia and really must be seen to be fully appreciated. Rising before dawn, we (and our cameras) put in a hard days work covering the main temple ruins of the Angkor circuit. Surprisingly (or not), our favourite wasn't the famed Angkor Wat... it was the faces of Bayon and the tomb-raiderness of Ta Prom that took the cake for us. As amazing as all this was, after 4 months in Asia, we are officially templed out.

Angkor Wat

Bayon

Ta Prom

#5 The confusion between a car and a bus and how many people should ride in them

Here's another few bus stories for you... In order to travel from Siem Reap to Ban Lung (about 300 kms as the crow flies), we had to travel 13 hours... south then north then east, 'cos that's what travel in Cambodia often requires due to non-existent/terrible roads... and the mighty Mekong and a lack of bridges. From Siem Reap we took a 5 hour bus to Kom Pong Cham... no air-com and yet another broken seat made this yet another unpleasant journey. At Kom Pong Cham we were supposed to be met by a mini-bus to take us a further 3 hours to Kratie... Apparently the difference between a car and a minibus is a bit confusing in Cambodia, because the 'minibus' we were directed to was, in fact, 2 taxis... for 11 people to fit in. The two of us were quite happy to squish 6 people in a car (wouldn't be the first time), but some of the other foreigners weren't so keen on the idea and managed to argue for an actual minibus...

Enter "piece-of-shit-car".

Turns out that Cambodia's worst minibus was sent for us - bamboo poles propping the seats up and giant cracks in the windshield may give you a small idea if the condition of this rust-bucket... buuut we all piled in anyway and after over an hour of stuffing around, we were finally off... then the police showed up... words and money were exchanged between the cops and the minibus guys... we were given the nod to drive off... we drove around the block... back to the depo... police say 'everyone out'... we get out... not sure why... new bus shows up... much more road worthy... Phew, so we all piled into the new bus and off we went again. All was well until the boot sprang open and Amy's bag tumbled out at 80km onto the muddy road...no real biggie - just a muddy bag and wet clothes. Five minutes further down the road, an accident was narrowly avoided by a quick swerve to dodge a pair of amorous cows attempting to make baby cows on the road.

We made it to Kratie in one piece and arranged another mini bus to take us to Ban Lung the next day...we weren't exactly surprised to find that they crammed a few extra people on the bus (19 people in 11 seats) but we were a little shocked when even the driver shared his seat and attempted to drive a manual van on muddy, unsurfaced roads for five hours. We can't believe we made it alive!!

The mini bus with two people sharing the drivers seat

#6 Ban Lung's crater lake

If you ever get the chance to visit the North East of Cambodia, do yourself a favour and go to the crater lake in Ban Lung. Crystal clear, refreshing water enticed us to spend an entire day by the lake swimming with the locals...the photo speaks for itself.

Crater lake, Ban Lung

#7 Surviving the "death moto"

Lying in a puddle of mud, under a motorbike and a laughing Cambodian wasn't exactly what we expected from a morning trip to Ban Lung's waterfalls, but it's where we found ourselves on our last day in Cambodia. Normally, we try to avoid motos where possible (neither of us are the biggest motorbike fans), but in a town as small as Ban Lung, tuk-tuk's aren't an option and motos are the only way to get around...so we climbed on board with an experienced Cambodian driver (the fact that he had a strong cockney accent is irrelevant but highly amusing) and set off along the steep and slippery, muddy roads to the falls. Mistake, mistake, mistake. We slipped and slid all over the road and nearly fell off a dozen times. And then we did fall off...and it hurt...and it was scary, but we were all ok, just covered in mud and a little shaken. We pretty much decided that's the end of motorbikes and us.

#8 The people of Cambodia

We've banged on about this a bit, but we really met some great people in Cambodia. The smiles and greetings from people on the street and the Cambodian sense of humour, made us feel so welcome and truly enriched our time there, making Cambodia one of our favourite places so far. Go there. You'll love it.

How do you say 'beach' in Hebrew?

2009-09-01T11:10:00.000-07:00

Kep - It's a small town on the southern coast of Cambodia... well, town may not be the right word... two isolated streets converging on a roundabout and a handful of seafood restaurants may be a better description. After a lot of late nights in Phnom Penh, a change of pace was welcomed - even if we did feel a little too close to nature in our garden bungalow surrounded by frogs and roosters. We hired push bikes and rode down to the beach, dodging cows and dogs on the road along the way, ate the freshest seafood and chatted to the locals... that's about all there is to do in Kep. The next day we decided to move onto the next town. 40 minutes in a tuktuk later and we arrived in Kampot, having been greeted with cries of "Helloooooo!" from every villager along the way.

Kampot is a strange place. A riverside town in disrepair, the old French colonial buildings resemble something out of a ghost movie and the town is somewhat of a ghost town. Although Kampot is about 8 times larger than Kep, we still found that there was very little to do there given the mountain, that is the towns main draw card, was 'closed'... so we took a sunset river cruise in a little 'authentic' (read; crappy, un-sea worthy, leaky) boat, which was a highlight.

Most of the buildings in Kampot shared this state of disrepair.

Keen to step things up a little, we booked ourselves on a bus to Sihanoukville - the party beach of southern Cambodia. We were excited at the prospect of some beach time (and some human interaction after 3 days of barely seeing another soul), and we eagerly boarded our 7am bus to part-ay town (as eagerly as one can do anything at 7am). About 40 minutes into the trip, we looked out the window only to see our bungalow guest house in Kep passing by. Erm... this is the complete opposite direction to where we were supposed to be going. After a little confusion, we discovered that we'd somehow been put on the bus back to Phnom Penh... NO! We want beach!

A few phone calls later between the bus guy and the guest house guy in Kampot (who sold us the ticket), we were standing on the side of the deserted street waiting to be picked up by a tuktuk that our Kampot guest house had sent to collect us and take us back to Kampot. Once back in Kampot, the apologetic guest house owner had a share taxi waiting to take us to Sihanoukville at no extra cost. Nice guy.

Share taxi... now, there's an interesting experience. To save on costs, Cambodian taxi drivers aim to squeeze as many people as humanly possible into one car over a long distance. Our trip to Shinaoukville was luxury with our standard 5 seater taxi carrying 7 people the 2 hours to the beach. Of course, no journey of ours would be complete without a few fruit-cakes in the mix. This time we had; (in the back seat with us) stinky French guy and his Cambodian girl friend who liked to leaf through magazines pointing out all the white people and wait until we put our earphones in to start talking to us. Sharing the front seat we had "The Mute" and the red-bull-guzzling Cambodian granny who, after guzzling her red-bull, suffered from verbal diarrhea and profuse sweating... we're surprised her heart held out the whole trip.

Arriving in Sihanoukville, we checked into a bungalow overlooking the sea and headed out for a relaxing day on the beach... or so we thought. Choruses of "lady, you want bracelet/ massage/ manicure/ pedicure... you buy from me... you promise me... maybe later... where you from? G'day mate... dingo stole your baby... etc etc" made the day a whole lot less relaxing and more expensive than we'd anticipated, but after we'd been massaged, manicured and plucked to within an inch of our lives, we enjoyed getting to know the friendly beach sellers and quickly made favourites/BFF's. An older woman named Annie became our Cambodian mum, and we now have a number of adopted little sisters. All good fun.

Amy with one of the girls selling bracelets and Annie our Cambodian mum.

The view from our bungalow.

Sunset on Serendipity beach.

As we settled down for a beer after dinner on our first night, we bumped into a few Israeli guys we'd met in Phnom Pehn (actually, I think they were following us). Alex/Bob - whose hair bares a striking resemblance to a blonde Sideshow Bob, and Nitzan/George - who is an uncanny cross between George Michael and George Clooney. We spent the next week bar hopping and beach bumming with these two and a brood of Israelis they'd met along the way (yeah, we're fluent in Hebrew now too). Many a Mekong bucket was consumed and many a sunrise was seen in Sihanoukville, making it somewhat difficult to leave... but eventually we did... nursing nasty hangovers.

Alex (side-show Bob) with Phil

We met George Clooney!!

Phnom Penh, Moi, Bee, Bey (1,2,3)

2009-08-28T16:18:00.000-07:00

"Have you been to Phnom Penh?"
"Yes"
"How was it?"
"Shit"/"Dirty and disgusting"/"Hated it"/"I got robbed 4 times"...etc etc
"Oh..."

This has been the general gist of conversations we've had with people who have been to Phnom Penh. Combine this with the fact that the L.P warns of bag snatching rip offs and general dodginess in the capital, we were shitting ourselves at the prospect of spending much time there.

After reuniting from our week apart, we stashed our wallets, cameras and anything else of remote value in our hostel room and heading out with minimal cash for dinner, expecting to return battered, bruised and penniless. Luckily, we survived day one without any issues and after seeing the streets full of smiling moto drivers rather than knife-wielding gangs of thieves, we realised that, perhaps we over-reacted a little. Sure, PP can be a pretty dangerous city, but in our experience it actually turned out to be quite fun....so much so we ended up spending a week there all up.

Aside from the lack of visible muggings, the two things that really stood out to us in Phnom Penh were how friendly the people were and the abundance of info available for foreigners (and Cambodians) of the country's recent and difficult history. Admittedly, we weren't very well versed on Cambodia's history (we knew the basics, but nothing in great detail), so places like the S-21 prison (former Khmer Rouge torture prison) and the killing fields proved to be horrific, yet highly informative for us.

S-21 prison was quite confronting

S-21 prison

War remnants aside, Phnom Penh has some interesting markets, a stunning Royal Palace and a few nice Wats all complete with striking orange robed monks (with nicely accessorised orange umbrellas too!)

Striking orange robed monks....shame they didn't have their matching umbrellas

Royal Palace

Eight-legged lunch anyone?

Many would say the riverside in Phnom Penh is the place to be...but after trying at both the river and lakeside, we'd have to disagree. For us, the lakeside was a lot more relaxed and social, but more than anything, it housed #10 Lakeside Guest house/bar. Being the bar flies we are, this became our regular haunt where we would sit, drink, laugh and learn Khmer from the locals (we can mow say: "thank you" , "1, 2, 3, 5" (not 4), our ages, "what's the time", "eat", two different words for sex and "boobs"...all the important stuff.

Believe it or not - this is part of the bar at our guest house

It's fair to say that Phnom Penh exceeded our expectations (not hard, they were very low). We had an awesome time and were sad to leave our new Cambodian friends who made us feel so very welcome in their city...or crime...and dirt....

Xin chào Vietnam!

2009-08-15T01:43:00.000-07:00

Often when we arrive in a new city it can take a little while to feel comfortable - questions of; 'Is this place safe?', 'Is this taxi-driver ripping us off?', 'Will we like it here?' come to mind as we approach our new destination. Arriving in Hanoi, however, brought no such worries as it is a city we'd both been to before, during out study tour to Vietnam in 2006.

After 6 weeks of navigating unfamiliar China, a few weeks in Vietnam was going to be a breeze...after we battled our way through customs that is. The orderly customs procedure we experienced at the airport last time we came to Vietnam was the polar opposite of the land border crossing from China. Queues were non-existent as was air-con or any resemblance of order. Every part of your body was required to push your way through the sweaty crowd towards the customs window. Actually reaching the window was an impossibility, so throwing accuracy was needed to get your passport through said window and into the hands of a customs officer, who, rather than processing each passport as it came to him, decided to stamp dozens of passports at a time and return them at random, causing a frenzy amongst the waiting crowd. It was exhausting, but once finished we were back in 'nam and very happy about it!

Upon arriving in Hanoi, we found that the hostel we'd booked online didn't actually exist... awesome. We weren't exactly surprised by this, but the problem was quickly solved by our discovery of a nearby hotel owned by the same company who compensated us nicely for this mis-hap, by giving us a much better room than we had booked, for the same price! Whoot whoot!

Having covered the sites of Hanoi on our last trip, we spent our days leisurely walking around and consuming delicious baguettes and coffee in copious numbers of cafes. Basically, we were laziness personified... although we did manage to get ourselves to a water park where we spent the day floating around in over-chlorinated water, getting stared at (and mildly harassed) by locals. One middle aged man even tried to pull Amy's shorts off before insisting on a series of swimming races in the wave pool with Claire. Fun times.

One place we hadn't explored on our last visit to Vietnam, was the North-West town of Sapa, so we headed there for a few days to wonder around the beautiful mountain town and its surrounding villages. As usual, the weather was not kind to us and we spent our time in Sapa dodging storms, but this gave us more time to lazily sit in cafes and chat with the local hill-tibe girls selling crafts on the streets.

From Sapa it was onto Ho Chi Minh City, a place with some sentimental value for us as it is where we first met eachother back in 2006 (and despite what it sounds like, we're not a couple). We enjoyed re-visiting our old haunts and were amazed at all the changes that have taken place in the last 3 years.

The main reason we re-visited HCMC was to catch up with a dear friend we made in Korea - the one and only Tommy Yikes! Those of you who know Tommy, can probably imagine the hilarity that ensued. In addition to a lot of pub time, Tommy invited us to spend an afternoon with him at his school - so we went along curious to see the man in action. It will come as no surprise that we were tricked into teaching Tommy's class for an hour... Australian history to be precise. It's the kind of subject you need a little prepartion for, but as Tommy's middle school world history textbook failed to mention our country at all, we had to get creative with the facts. It was kind of fun to be back in the classroom....even if we did make up half of the things we taught! At least a whole class of Vietnamese kids now know about Kylie Minogue and K-Rudd.

Getting Tommy to act like a 'normal' person is not easy...
But we love him

At the end of our time in HCMC we were forced to do the unthinkable....we separated for a whole week!! In the last 15 months the longest we hadn't seen each other was 3 days (and once again, no, we're not a couple). Amy visited her grandparents in Perth while Claire was left to her own devices in Vietnam. Fear not though, we were reunited in Phnom Penh, Cambodia a week later!

I'm a celebrity, get me out of here!!

2009-08-06T10:26:00.000-07:00

In the 6 weeks we were in China, we spent a grand total of 173 hours (or, just over 7 full days) on long distance buses and trains.... and 9 times out of 10 this involved some kind of debacle or disaster, be it someone refusing to move from our reserved seats, lengthy delays, incessant staring (now we know what it must feel like to be famous), being dropped off in the middle of nowhere or just some out and out foul behaviour from fellow passengers - we've been through it all. You may recall our "Hell on Tracks" post about our trip from Beijing to Xi'An.... little did we know then, that that trip was a walk in the park compared to what we would encounter over the next month.

Here are our favourite stories from the road...

#1 THE RETURN OF BERTHA (Bus: Kaili to Xijiang)

A one hour mini-bus trip to Xijiang village was supposed to be an easy trip, but, in China, things don't often work out the way they're supposed to.

A while ago, we told you about 'Bertha' - our train mate in "Hell on Tracks"... well, turns out Bertha has a twin from the Miao ethnic minority who is as equally creepy and gross as her sister... we call her Bertha II. Bertha II also likes to stare at people and pick her nose, but, unlike her sister, she doesn't travel so well.. we discovered this when her breakfast splattered across our window as our minibus wound around the mountains. Figuring we only had to endure the sight and smell for another 20 mins, we weren't too fussed, however, China, as always, had other plans for us. Heavy rains had caused a pretty heafty mud-slide over the road just hours earlier, giving us an extra 2 hours to gaze at and debate about the contents f Bertha II's spew. Awesome.

#2 KEEP YOUR FLUIDS TO YOURSELF, PLEASE (Train/Bus: Kaili to Fenghuang)

Usually when we travel on trains in China, we opt for the cheapest tickets... the hard seat (or hard sleeper for long journeys). It's certainly not the most comfortable way to travel, but we got pretty used to it. In addition to the hardness of the seats, the people on these trains can also tend to be pretty 'hard'. Usually, the carriages are crowded with farmers and peasants, and without exception we were the only foreigners in sight. On this particular journey, we got on the train to find our seats occupied by a gang of ticket-less peasants who preferred to sit and stare at us struggle to find a place for our bags rather than vacate our seats. Cheers guys. One incredibly grubby little girl, did, however give up her seat. Not out of politeness of course, but because she was terrified of the two funny looking foreigners standing before her. The rest of the journey became a game of musical chairs (and stares) as every time one of us got up to go to the toilet, we'd return to find some new curious onlooker sitting in our seat. Four hours had never passed so slowly and it was an incredibly uncomfortable journey... you can't underestimate how exhausting it is to be stared at by a carriage of people for 4 hours solid.

Adding insult to injury, after getting off the train we immediately boarded an overcrowded bus to Fenghuang. Again, it wasn't a long journey, but by God was it painful.

Aside from the terrible condition of the roads, the lack of suspension on the bus and a broken seat, our bus mates ensured we were grossed out for the entire journey. As the bus pulled out of the station, the guy sitting next to us got a blood nose - not just a little one, but torrents of blood pouring out of his face. Rather than use the packet of tissues in his hand, he chose to drip blood on the floor, just centimeters from our feet, which he didn't bother cleaning up at all, leaving us to stare at his pool of blood on the floor for the next 2 and a half hours! Joy!

As if this wasn't enough, the obligatory spewer on our bus was a little girl a few seats in front of us. After the poor little thing had soaked herself and her dad's t-shirt with vomit, her dad resourcefully used the fabric cover of the seat head-rest to clean her up. Needless to say our bus didn't smell or look good at all.

#3 THE CREME DE LA CREME (Hotel in Huaihua & Train: Huaihua to Guilin)

This story would have to take the cake as far as our disgusting travel stories go...

Unable to get on a train before morning, we were forced to stay overnight in a dodgy little city called Huaihua. After a bit of searching, we managed to find a hotel that was both cheap and clean. Perfect! As the sun was setting, we checked in and went out for a few hours, but upon returning to our room, we found our hotel was not so perfect after all. There was one little problem... or more like 10 big problems. Cockroaches. We turned on the lights to find these dirty bastards on our beds, in the bathroom, under our bags and on the walls and floor. Being too late to change hotels and given we had a very early morning train, we considered spending the night in an internet cafe, but decided we had to harden up if we were going to survive the next 4 months in Asia. So we stayed and faced our demons... Well, we left the lights on and pretty much spent the whole night sitting up, dispersed with periods of fitful sleep in the foetal position until we could get up at 5am for our train.

We'd never been so happy to check out of a hotel, nor had we ever been so eager to get onto a train, and we were so looking forward to the next 11 hours of roach-free sleep. You can imagine, then, our exhausted disappointment when we got on the train to find that (a) it was from the dark ages (complete with coal powered hot water urns), and (b) that there were two women sitting on our beds who refused to move.

Tired and shitty we began the process of trying to negotiate our way onto the beds we'd paid for. It was during this process that w noticed one of the women was holding a baby between her legs. The baby was pant-less. The baby was pissing and shitting all over the floor of the cabin. The mother had removed it's nappy to allow this to happen. The floor of the sleeper in which we were to spend the next 11 hours was covered in piss and poo. Well, that was the last straw... we lost it.

Eventually, the women got the picture that we didn't want baby crap on the floor, and removed the offending nuggets, before spreading wee all over the cabin floor with a piece of newspaper.

With our bags safely tucked up on our tiny beds, we waited for the pee on the floor to dry and looked on in horror as people unknowingly stepped, barefoot, in the puddle before stepping onto our beds while climbing up to their own.

Claire unhappy with the piss covered floor

From sharing stories with other travellers along the way, it's pretty safe to say that we've been unlucky with our travel companions. We've seen some pretty gross things and seen a side of China we didn't quite expect to see! While some tried our patience, they've given us some very real experiences that have kept us laughing along the way and that we're unlikely to forget.

Xie Xie, China!

May the Hot-Pot have mercy on your ass

2009-08-03T17:30:00.000-07:00

Our last few weeks in China were hectic compared to our slow-moving 1st month. In the 1st 4 weeks we averaged one city a week, but in our final 2.5 weeks, we managed to visit 10 cities/towns/villages in the southern half of the country.

Our first stop after the wonderful Tibet was Chengdu, capital of the Sichuan province and known for it's spicy food and pandas. To be honest, we didn't do all that much in Chengdu aside from get our visas renewed, but here are some photos of what little we did;

Panda

Our hotpot!

The owners of the Tiny Mao Museum

On a whim, we decided to head South East from Chengdu to Guiyang - theft capital of China and gateway to a number of small towns and villages we wanted to visit. Guiyang didn't have a great write-up, so we were pleasantly surprised to find that it was actually quite a cool place - a lot of energy and vibrancy with an awesome public park complete with wild monkeys!

Wild monkeys

Our next stop was a small city called Kaili. Aside from a busy internet cafe and a small night market (where you can watch the nightly outdoor group dancing classes), Kaili isn't exactly action-packed... and the people there are unusually short... but it's a good place to base yourself for day trips to the nearby minority villages. we chose to visit the Miao minority village of Xijiang and spent a day wondering the cobbled streets and admiring their unique wooden houses.

Xijiang

From Kaili we headed to the stunning riverside town of Fenghuang. After a long ordeal involving cockroaches, a train, a bus, a thunderstorm and getting very lost, we eventually found our gorgeous little hostel nestled along the riverbank of this amazingly beautiful town.

Fenghuang

What could be described as the Venice of Asia (but better), Fenghuang is a town you instantly fall in love with - despite the hoards of Chinese tourists and overpriced cafes and bars (hey, at least it has cafes and bars!!)

After barely seeing another foreigner for over a week, our next destination, Yangshou, and it's crowds of Western backpackers was a surprisingly welcome sight. The town itself is beautiful and set amongst karst mountains, but rain prevented us from doing many of the activities on offer in Yangshou. Instead, we indulged in long breakfasts (that turned into long lunches) and drinking cocktails with some great people we met along the way.

Yangshou

While our time in Yanghou was laid-back and relaxing, we also saw something there that nearly reduced us both to tears/vomit. This involved a farmers market and some very mis-treated animals, in particular, dogs... If you don't want to know more, we suggest you don't read on.
This market had a large section where you could chose your meat in live animal form. We understand where meat comes from and all of that, but the way these animals were treated was pretty horrible. Cages crammed with a mixture of live geese, rabbits, chickens, pigeons etc lined the aisles of the market. Other aisles displayed random animal bits such as intestines, feet and testicles and there was an aisle of dead geese with their slit necks hanging off the edge of the tables. While all of this was a little unpleasant, it is something you get pretty accustomed to seeing in Asia... but we weren't quite prepared for what we saw in the back of the market. Several stalls were selling dog meat... we're not talking just a chop or a fillet here and there, but whole dog carcasses hanging from hooks, dog heads lying on the table, dogs being skinned and gutted on the floor, and worst of all, terrified looking live dogs squished in cages awaiting their fate.

We found it difficult to conceal our anger and disgust at this, but experiencing different places, cultures and practices and dealing with them even when they upset you, is part of what travel is all about, right?

From Yangshou, we headed to nearby Guilin. By this stage we were tiring of Chinese cities, so we spent our time exploring a cave on the outskirts of the city with some super tacky lighting and hung out at the nearby Longji rice terraces.

Longji rice terraces

In 6 weeks in China we saw some truly amazing things and had an amazing time... but, China can be really hard work at times, so we were kind of ready for a change of scenery. We had originally planned to head back West to Kunming in order to get down to Sapa in North-West Vietnam, but, as we tend to do, we changed our plans at the last minute and went South-East to Nanning to get our visas for Vietnam and jump the first bus to Hanoi.

Photos!

2009-08-03T13:30:00.000-07:00

We can't be bothered going through our past photos and adding them to our old blog posts so here are 2 links to some facebook albums Amy put up.

China

Tibet

Enjoy!

Yakkedy Yak, Just Stare Back

2009-07-12T04:22:00.000-07:00

In the last 2 months, we've spent enough time with our noses buried in Lonely Planet guides, that we figure we're pretty much 'L.P.' experts (L.P. - that's short for Lonely Planet, for those of you not down with the lingo).

Anyone who has ever travelled with the assistance of an L.P. has surely, at times, been frustrated by out-dated, incorrect or misleading information, and given that anyone following our blog has no doubt been amazed by our incredible travel writing skills, we've decided to take things into our own hands and have re-written the L.P. for Tibet. From the excerpts below, you'll find our version far superior to the original, or your money back, guaranteed.

TIBET: ROOF-TOP OF THE WORLD
by Amy and Claire, 2009.

GETTING THERE AND AWAY

At the time of writing, it was essential for all foreigners entering Tibet to obtain a Tibet Travel Permit - sounds simple... it's not! In order to obtain said permit, foreigners must pay an exorbitant amount of money to a travel agency to book a 'group tour' to Tibet.... a group can be just one person, but the price goes down the more people you book with.
Expect permits to take between 3 and 10 working days to process and for travel expenses to and from Tibet to be exclusive of tour prices.

The cheapest way of entering Tibet is on the Qinghai-Tibet railway (the highest train in the world, which reaches a dizzying 5070 meters above sea level and requires supplementary oxygen to be pumped into the pressurised cabins). From Xi'An to Lhasa, the train takes around 36 hours and the return journey to Chengdu, takes 48 hours. Although long, the scenery, that changes from rolling green hills and lakes, to endlessly flat perma-frost plateaus, to soaring snow-capped peaks, makes the lengthy journey worthwhile.

In addition to the beautiful views, it is likely that your fellow train-goers will also provide you with hours of entertainment (whether you want it or not).
Above entertainment includes;
- Speaking at you in Chinese or Tibetan even though it's been established that you understand neither.
- Finding out that you are Australian, then playing a real-life game of Chinese whispers as this information is passed along the carriages of the train.
- Attempting to read your travel journal, despite not knowing a single word of English.
- Waking you from an afternoon nap by poking you and pointing out the window to a yak/river/mountain/lake etc etc.
- Playing with your camera and ipod without asking, and;
- Generally staring at you for what feels like hours on end.

Upon arriving in Lhasa, you should be met by your friendly-yet-unenthusiastic Tibetan guide who will wear the same outfit everyday (making it easy for you to spot him in a crowd), who will often leave you alone for hours to go hang out with his friends, and who, when forced to spend time alone with you, will admit that he hates his job and constantly try to secretly chew some form of betel nut-like substance.

Sometime in the duration of your stay in Lhasa, it is likely that your guide will take you 'shopping' - note that he will be earning a healthy commission from certain shops, regardless of whether you make a purchase or not. If you are lucky, your guide will be cool and let you in on this little secret and than take you out to a weird Tibetan night club, buying beers for you all night with the 'profits' of and afternoon's 'shopping' spree.

SIGHTS IN AND AROUND LHASA

Your guide will have an oil-stained scrap of paper which represents your itinerary of Lhasa's must-see sights. These should include the following;
- The stunning 1300 year old Jokhang Temple - the holiest temple in Tibet attracts a fascinating and constant flow of pilgrims from all over the region on a daily basis.
- The Barkor -A pilgrim circuit and market surrounding Jokhang Temple, that must be navigated in a clockwise direction for religious purposes.
- The iconic Potala Palace, built in the 1600's, was the winter residence of the Dalai Lamas and houses the tombs of Dalai Lamas #5 and #7-#13 (apparently #6 was a bit of a playboy who wasn't respected, so didn't crack a tomb in the palace).
- Norbulinka Palace - former summer residence of the current, 14th Dalai Lama. In here you can see his bedroom, his mum's room, his prayer room and even his bathroom and toilet!
- Sera Monastery and it's famous courtyard of debating monks. Red-robed monks yelling, stamping and clapping energetically during discussion is an entertaining sight.
- Nam Tso Lake - one of three sacred lakes in Tibet. At 4,500 meters above sea level, it's not just the beauty of the lake that will leave you breathless!

In addition to these main attractions, you are bound to come across some amazing sights by simply wondering through the streets and alleyways of Lhasa. For an 'authentic' experience, we suggest you follow some pilgrims (you'll know them when you see them - they're the one's spinning the prayer wheels and thumbing prayer beads), and with any luck they will lead you to the stunning pilgrim circuit hidden in the backstreets of the city. Once on the circuit, expect to find ornate carvings and paintings on rock faces and an abundance of colourful prayer flags and prayer stones that will leave you awestruck and snap-happy.

EATING AND DRINKING

Although there is an array of delicious Indian and Nepalese food on offer in Lhasa, if you want to sample typical Tibetan cuisine, you'll need an iron stomach and a palette accustomed to repetition. Yak, yak, yak, yak, yak... it's the animal that sustains the entire Tibetan region's gastronomic requirements. Yak dumplings, Yak stir-fry, Yak noodles, Yak milk, Yak butter, Yak tea, Dried Yak (Really, Tibet could give Forrest Gump's 'Bubba' a run for his money!)Travellers, be forewarned; there is a BIG difference between Yak milk tea (delicious) and Yak butter tea (disgusting). We made this discovery when we were randomly invited into the home of a local and were politely forced to consume chunks of home-dried Yak meat and cup after vile, foul cup of the oily, yet meaty, Yak butter tea that our host had so graciously provided.

P.S. We saw a woman watering the carpet with a watering can in a restaurant. Fact. WTF?

DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES

#1- Staring
It's difficult to describe the number of stares that two foreign girls will receive in Tibet. These aren't dodgy stares or leers of any kind, they are simply the result of 100% pure curiosity. Old men, young men, old women, young women, teenagers, children, dogs and even the yaks have no qualms about staring at you for long periods of time. It doesn't matter what mundane task you may be carrying out, it is of high interest to the locals - be it surfing the net, eating in a restaurant, shopping, walking the streets or utilising the door-less toilets (more on them later), you can almost guarantee that 20 pairs of eyes will be fixed on your every move.

We found ourselves at a rooftop cafe one afternoon, enjoying a cold can of sprite, when we sensed the familiar feeling that we were being watched... a glance at the table next to us confirmed that we held a captive audience in a family of Tibetan nomads. Their stares were INTENSE. Despite having become accustomed to a lot of staring of late, we at first tried to ignore the oogling from the table next to us. When this failed to divert their attention elsewhere, we tried a new tactic of staring back - this only served to unwittingly start a staring competition that our cultural norms could not possibly allow us to win. Admitting defeat, we gulped down our Sprites and, to our audience's disappointment, hot-footed it out out of the restaurant. When we got to the end of the street, we looked back to see the entire family watching us from the restaurant balcony... we're still not sure what they found quite so fascinating.

#2 - Toilets
The trench-like toilets in Tibet make the toilets on Chinese trains feel like heaven. No doors, often no dividing walls or running water, these toilets (if you can call them that) contained some of the most horrible sights and smells we've come across thus far, and combined with the negative effects of yak meat on the digestive system, they are places you unfortunately can not avoid.

Far from Western-style toilets and even far from the usual Asian-Style squats, the toilets in Tibet require a flexibility and agility like no other. Navigating your way around these squats and averting your eyes away from the flow of waste running through the trench below you, is an unpleasant experience (often made all the more difficult by a group of 10-year-old girls who came in to take advantage of the door-less toilet situation, and watch the foreigners go to the toilet).

#3 - Police and Soldiers
Lhasa is literally crawling with them... this is something that the Chinese Government doesn't really like to advertise... but given our blog is blocked in China, we figure we can mention it here.

Every second rooftop in the city is occupied by soldiers and police carrying out surveillance of the streets below. In addition to this, there are soldiers on street corners and patrolling on foot, and as night falls, their numbers double. It's fairly obvious from the majority of people, their presence is unwanted and they do a pretty good job of making things uncomfortable on the streets... basically no one can scratch their butts without it being seen by the soldiers.

The other thing that's obvious is that these soldiers are bored... we had another awkward rooftop experience in Tibet - this time it wasn't nomads, but policemen, and they weren't staring at us from the next table, but with binoculars from the next building... we were a little worried we'd said or done something wrong, but when they ran across to our rooftop and gave us their phone numbers, that worry turned into pure embarrassment as everyone in the restaurant was glaring at us wondering why the police had come to speak to us.

#4 - Toothpicks
You may think it strange to have toothpicks in a 'Dangers and Annoyances' section, but a word to the wise- DO NOT use toothpicks in Tibet, unless you bring your own. We saw toothpicks dropped on the floor, sucked on by kids, and being used to clean out ear wax before being put back in the toothpick jars on restaurant tables. Fact. Enough said.

HIGHLIGHTS

Aside from the sights, the experiences you can have in Tibet are second to none. Here are our picks on some simple day-to-day pleasures unique to Tibet.
- Gazing at the colourful prayer flags flapping in the wind against the stunning mountain backdrop surrounding Lhasa.
- Smelling the aromatic Tibetan incense as it wafts from temples, through the streets.
- Making friends with some awesome Tibetan guys, from who we learnt so much about the Tibetan culture and thinking... and who we just laughed a lot with.
- Watching the traditionally dressed pilgrims with their prayer wheels and bead, performing their religious rites.

** We hope you have enjoyed our guide to Tibet. Without getting all hippie-like, it has to be said that it is a truly amazing place that has, without a doubt, been the highlight of our trip so far... it's going to be hard to top Tibet!

Greetings from the Far East

2009-06-29T22:39:00.000-07:00

Dearest Blog Readers,

For those of you who are unaware of our wondrous fortune, we wish to inform you that our recent sojourn in Xi'an was simply delightful due to the fact that we were the recipients of gratis accommodation at the Hyatt Regency, Xi'an.

Sincere thanks go to our darling friends, Lisa and Marco, for so graciously sharing with us their quaint little top-floor, three bedroom residence in the Hyatt. Hyatt, Hyatt, Hyatt, Hyatt, Hyatt.

After the ghastly locomotive journey to Xi'an, we felt it absolutely necessary to recuperate in a style to which we are accustomed. Hyatt, Hyatt, Hyatt, Hyatt.

First and foremost, it was imperative we received a lengthy massage (180 minutes to be precise), however, during this relaxation time, the most horrendous thing occurred!! A young 'local chap' being massaged in an adjoining parlour overheard us speaking English (the Queens English, of course) which must have intrigued him so, as he took it upon himself to constantly open the sliding French doors betwixt our parlours and commence staring at us in a most unsettling way. Now, we are no strangers to travelling the Orient, and as a consequence, have become somewhat accustomed to such stares. However, a massage parlour is no place to be staring at a lady, particularly in such a relentless way!

Once we recovered from the massage parlour ordeal, we were free to explore the wonders of Xi'an. Our days were spent leisurely cycling around the grand city walls and dining with our friends and their charming colleagues.

Despite residing in the Hyatt, we were compelled to experience life in Xi'an as the town folk to. Who would have thought two such refined ladies would be found dining street-side eating barbequed food from skewers! And furthermore, we enjoyed it thoroughly!

As one must do when one is in Xi'an, we paid a visit to the world renown 8th wonder of the world, The Terracotta Warriors. What a delight it was! We were utterly amazed at the historic ambiance we encountered there and we were not at all surprised to find that the likes of Bill Clinton had also visited this site in years gone by. Might we add, the introductory film detailing the history of the Warriors in a dramatic re-enactment, is a must-see. Such superb 360 degree cinematography simply cannot be surpassed! Sadly, as we had previously arranged an expedition to a little place called Tibet, our vacance in Xi'an drew to a close.

One knows when one travels, that one is occasionally required to forego some of life's basic necessities, such as maids, porters and doormen and the daily replacement of one's 100 count Egyptian cotton sheets (seriously, we're not kidding). However, we can only hope that for the remainder of our pan-Asian voyage, we continue to receive this basic standard of living to which we have become accustomed. Which raises one final matter- Does anyone know the address of the Hyatt Regency in Lhasa, Tibet? If so, please phone ahead and notify them of our imminent arrival on Friday evening.

Warmest Regards,

Miss. A. Palfreyman and Miss. C. Pace

(Hyatt Regency, Diamond Members)

Hell on Tracks

2009-06-24T00:25:00.000-07:00

So... we survived the night train from Beijing to Xi'an... barely. Wow, what an experience that was!

We got the cheapest seats ... hard seats they call them. This involved kind of booths of 6 people - 3 on each side facing each other. We were lucky enough to be seated opposite a charming couple... we dubbed the husband BBB King (birthmark, burps and balls King) and his lovely wife, who we like to call Bertha, who constantly felt the need to jam a finger up her nose and roll her snot in her fingers... that's when she wasn't spitting sunflower seed shells all over our feet. By the way, when we say booth, please don't think we're talking about anything that would provide some kind of privacy or sound-proofing... we just mean rows of seats, 3 on each side of the train, facing each other. This seating arrangement is what allowed us to get to know BBB King so intimately - had we been facing the other way, we wouldn't have been able to stare at the birth mark on his face or see the delightful camel-toe his synthetic, checked, high-waisted pants were giving him... although facing the other direction wouldn't have prevented us from hearing him burp up a storm at 10 minute intervals, so maybe it wouldn't have been all bad.

We were the only foreigners on the train and as a consequence we got stared at A LOT. The guy sitting next to Bertha and BBB King spent at least 9 of the 10 hour train ride staring at us... we call him Starey McStare. He wasn't creepy, just curious, we think.

We had fun stepping over people sleeping in the aisles while walking to and from the shit-covered hole in the ground they call a toilet, and we particularly liked it when we couldn't wash our hands after touching the piss-covered toilet door handle because there was a man sleeping in the sink. Fact. (Thank god for sanitizer gel). We also enjoyed it when the people in the booth next to us set up their cell phones to play crackly Chinese music at full volume until about 4am. Who cares though really, it's not like we had a cusion under our asses or a head rest of any sorts that would allow for some kind of comfort that may permit sleep.

In addition to all these highlights, we also had the luxury of being able to oogle at the fat elderly gent in the booth next to us who spent 50% of the train ride shirtless... lucky us. Another fun bit was the stinky food cart that smashed into our knees every hour or so... really, it was 10 hours of joy. Tell you what, next time we book a train, we're not skimping on the $20 extra it costs for a cheap sleeper.

Experience had, lesson learnt.

Never again.

One World, One Dream

2009-06-19T21:02:00.000-07:00

It was after Shanghai that we were due to part ways with our travel companions - us to Beijing and them to Hong Kong...but the three of them enjoyed our wonderful company so much that they decided to join us in Beijing!! So, Shanghai'd out the five of us jumped on a night train to the Nation's capital. Soft seats made the travel time pass by relatively quickly, however, the 12 hour journey did drag on a little.

For five kind of lazy people, who like to sleep in we really surprised ourselves with how much sightseeing and recreation we managed to fit into just under one week in Beijing.
First things first - Beijing is awesome...Shanghai was fun, but Beijing took fun to a whole new level - and we actually felt like we were in China! There is so much to see and do in Beijing, you'd need a life-time to do it all. We can't be bothered writing detailed descriptions of everything we did, and we're sure you can't be bothered reading them, so here, in dot-point form, are some highlights;

Summer Palace (stunning - must see!)
Forbidden City (big and forbidden)
Exploring some of Beijing's Hutongs (old, narrow alleys)
Lazy Sunday on a cozy Hutong rooftop bar ($10 for all you can drink in 3 hours!)
Food glorious food (Peking duck and hot pot!!)
Olympic Park (an eerie ghost town)
Factory 798 (lots of cool artist spaces with graffiti and sculptures)

No visit to Beijing would be complete without a trip to the Great Wall... so obviously we went there. We opted to take the road less travelled and walked the 10km largely un-restored Jinshaling to Simatai section. It was pretty tough walk that sometimes required us to climb steep stairs on all fours - but the views were amazing and it was definitely worth the hard work.

While the boys were left to climb the wall without assistance, we were 'fortunate' enough to be 'adopted' by two local farmers who offered us their leathery old hands to hold up and down every step and ramp. We knew this help wouldn't come for free but they were so cute and old and told us lots of interesting things about the area...so we accepted their help thinking they'd accompany us to the end... but alas, half-way through the walk, after a particularly trying set of stairs, our old friends pounced on us with books and t-shirts insisting we buy. Five dollars later, we parted ways. After scaling the wall we felt we could do anything, so at the end of the walk, we took a super scary, yet fun, zip-line across a river!! A great way to end our Great Wall experience.

Another highlight was the "crazy food night market" (it's actual name escapes us now). Here you could sample an array of, erm, interesting and different foods such as; sheep penis, snake, scorpion, silk worn larvae, snake skin...and there were just the things we tried! There was also sea horse, star fish, centipedes, beetles of every kind and the guts and gizzards of just about every farm animal you can think of. Fair to say, no one's stomach felt 100% at the end of the night, but we had a great time and a lot of laughs (particularly at the man who yelled out "you try penis! you eat penis!").

You may (or may not) know that June 4th marked the 20th anniversary of the pro-democracy student protest at Tinanmen Square. Given that we were in Beijing for this important anniversary, we were curious to check out the square on the day. Having been there a few days earlier, the beefed up security was noticeable - even if they did try and hide this by using plain clothed police (p.s - China, drop the matching badges, hats and sunnies if you want them to blend in). There were more soldiers and police (uniformed and plain clothes) than regular people - but this was the only indication of the anniversary that was evident. It would've been good to see the 1989 events remembered and acknowledged in some way, but the ominous presence of 'the law' made it a little scary for anyone to do anything about it.

The end of our stay in Beijing also marked the end of our travel time with the boys from the boat...sadly, we said our goodbyes and they headed south while we made our way south west on another night train to Xi'an..to stay in the Hyatt. Fact!

Shanghais and Lows

2009-06-19T20:39:00.000-07:00

Shanghai 1st impressions: Smoggy, big buildings, crowded, baaaad food.

Shanghai lasting impressions: Smoggy, big buildings, crowded, decent food.

As you can see our 1st and lasting impressions of Shanghai remain largely the same, but for one thing - the food. This may have something to do with our first meal in China, that left a bad taste in our mouths - literally.

A combination of wanting to sample the local cuisine and our complete inability to speak, read or understand a word of Chinese, led us to a small soup/dumpling restaurant near our hostel. The fact that we saw a man selling headless snakes in the shop next door should have, perhaps, made us rethink eating in this part of town... but it didn't and oh how we wish it did. From what we can gather, the restaurant had 3 dishes- soup, dumplings and some kind of animal leg. We opted for soup and dumplings, but what we were served can only be described as bit of some unidentified beast floating in water. We're fairly sure we recognised the chewy texture of liver and kidney, but the rest of the 'meat' remains a mystery. Not wanting to be defeated by food on our first day in China, we attempted to eat it... we ended up eating ice-cream for lunch instead.

Food:1. Amy and Claire: 0

Later that night over a few drinks, the guys we met on the boat (Luke, Rich and Niall) informed us that we would be having a 'tour-off' of Shanghai over the following days. This 'tour-off' would be Boys Vs Girls and involved each 'team' creating a sightseeing tour for the day and leading the others around... basically the guys couldn't be bothered trying to figure out what to do, so elected us girls to go first.

The following morning, 'Amy and Claire's Shanghai Sightseeing Tour' kicked off... however, a substantial lack of planning on our part, due to short notice and hangovers, left the tour as somewhat of a disaster that saw us get lost several times and unable to find the vast majority of sights (such as the propaganda poster museum) on our hastily put together tour list (also known as the Lonely Planet Shanghai Walking Tour). In our defence, there were many factors at play that were out of our control - for example, The Bund, one of Shanghai's biggest tourist draw cards, was completely under construction and there is basically nothing else of interest to see in Shanghai. Furthermore, we were wrongly led to believe that 'The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel' would actually be good and involve a few sights... but given that it is an underwater tunnel, it's not really a surprise that 'sights' weren't involved! Regardless, we felt cheated out of out $8 when instead of a tunnel of sightseeing, we got flashing lights and crackly audio that said something about passing through 'hot magma'... perhaps you might care to look at this link for a better idea... http://www.chinasnippets.com/shanghai-cultural/bund-sightseeing-tunnel/

An entry ticket for The Bund... possibly the most exciting part of the whole experience.

Over the next few days the competition continued and we saw all the sights of Shanghai (that we could find) including a backstreet full of pet stores complete with dead fish and rats lying on the road for cars and unsuspecting pedestrians to squash. Let's just say the competition was a draw (sorry boys, it's our blog and there ain't nothing you can say about it!).

While Shanghai isn't exactly a tourist paradise, it does have a unique 'cultural offering' of it's own... cheap drink nights!! Needless to say, we spent a fair amount of our time there exploring this 'cultural' aspect. We seriously could not believe our luck when we stumbled across bar after bar serving FREE (or near free) drinks every night of the week. We also couldn't believe our luck when in one such bar, we bumped into our friend, Alex, who we knew from Korea who is now working in Shanghai! Crazy small world!

So to Shanghai we say this; Although you were not the best place we have been to, you were fun in your own way. Thank you for the hangovers and thank you, sincerely, for your amazing sightseeing tunnel that robbed us of 15 minutes and $8 that could have been spent on other things... such as fighting locusts.

I'm On A Boat!!

2009-06-08T16:40:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_YlkEUOonI&feature=PlayList&p=0516A45938BF35B7&index=0&playnext=1

Have you ever been the victim of random temperature checks??
We have (6 times in 2 days in fact).
Have you ever been forced to buy and wear a face mask??
We have.
Have you ever spent 48 hours on a boat??
We have... and we live to tell the tale!!

Swine flu... apparently it's a pretty big deal... and apparently when travelling from Osaka, the Swine Flu Capital of Japan, extreme measures are taken to ensure that you don't have or spread the flu to your country of destination.

Prior to being granted permission to board our ferry from Osaka to Shanghai, we had to pass a test... it's not one you can study for, but it is, in this age of Swine flu, the greatest test of all... The Temperature Test. Now, in general, tests of any kind make us a little nervous, but after seeing the guy in front of us denied permission to board the boat, we began to worry a little that we could be forced into quarantine in Japan and miss our ferry to China. That would be just our luck. We waited in anticipation for our turn to take 'The Test', which involved a small Chinese man holding a sensor of sorts about 2cm from our foreheads to check our temperatures. The first 5 attempts at checking Amy's temp were complete failures... apparently a body temperature reading of 3 degrees Celsius isn't normal... good to know our travel fate was dependant on such an accurate and reliable scientific instrument. After some very technical adjustments were made to the sensor (that is, the clerk bashed it against his palm a few times), our temperatures were read and we were finally allowed to board the boat. Phew.

Upon boarding, we were shown to our 16 bed dorm room (ladies only, thank you)... by dorm we mean a 5m X 5m cupboard with windows and tatami mats on the floor... and by bed we mean a very thin mat on the floor with a brick for a pillow. As the last people to get into the room, we were happy to see that it was only half full.. what we weren't happy to see was that our room mates for the next 2 days were 4 Japanese women with a brood of little kids under the age of 5. Every kid on that boat was in our room. Joy! Don't get us wrong, we love kids, but being woken up by a 4 year old smiling at you while jumping from your shins to your stomach (fact) tends to make their charm wear a little thin. Really, in all fairness, they were really cute kids and when they weren't building forts around our beds with the spare pillows and mattresses, or spilling their drinks all over the floor (that was also our bed), they provided us with a lot of entertainment and hugs on our long journey.

In addition to making BFF's with 4 year olds, we were also lucky enough to meet a few other travellers who, like us, had opted fro this cheap mode of transport. As you can imagine, there's not too much to do on a boat for 2 days, so we bonded with our new travel companions with the help of beer vending machine and karaoke bar. We don't know why, but there's something about being stuck in a confined space for a long period of time with the threat of swine flu hanging over your heads that makes you feel like you've known someone for years... so by the time we got to China, these guys were our best friends!

Upon arriving in Shanghai we were greeted by the sight of 10 policemen waiting for our boat to dock. They forced everyone to wait on the boat for an hour while they searched bags and took groups of Japanese men aside for questioning. We're still not entirely sure what was going on, but the boat rumour-mill has it that they were searching for counterfeit money.

After the police allowed us to leave the boat and we passed yet another temperature test, we headed to immigration where we all had to undergo thermal scans before being allowed to continue through customs... well most of us were allowed to continue to customs. Our friend Niall, had worked himself up into such a nervous state that he failed the thermo-scan and was promptly led into a closed room by a man in a biohazard suit. We may never know what really happened in this room, but after about an hour, a shaken Niall was released... he asked us never to speak of this incident again (or something kind of like that).

Finally free from the confines of the boat, our team of 2, now 5 strong, discarded our face masks and stepped out onto Chinese soil.

The end.

Hey there... Team JAC.... It's necessary

2009-05-30T01:15:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Shanghai!! We're a little behind in the blogging... and have discovered that we are unable to access blogspot due to the 'great firewall of China' (please, don't give us the credit for that catchy term we're not nearly nerdy nor funny enough to think of that ourselves).

For the time being we are emailing our blog posts to Amy's sister, Cath, who will update our blog for us.... love you long-time, Cath. We'll put some photos up when we get to Vietnam in about a month, but in the meantime, here are links to our facebook photo albums from Japan:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=263702&id=892645136&l=6a7c3f1d9e

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=125374&id=561405335&l=c2ce30dcc8

... back to Kyoto.

You may have noticed that we weren't exactly impressed with our hostel, so we searched the town for a decent place to rest our heads - and what a decent place we found!! It was an earthly version of paradise in our book - particularly the all you can eat (or eat all you can) buffet breakfast... eggs, potato, sausage, bread - yes REAL bread, cheese, fruit, yoghurt, cereal, coffee and even salad! Our friends in Korea will understand just how exciting this breakfast is due to the complete lack of such wonderous food establishments in Korea. We were overjoyed with this find to say the least and set off with a spring in our step to explore the temples and old laneways of Kyoto.

Things were looking up for us in Kyoto. To add to this, we were eagerly anticipating the arrival of a dear, firey-headed friend of ours from Korea... Jesse-shi!!

Jesse has spent a while living in Japan prior to moving to Korea, so not only did we have a chum to 'talk jive' with, we also had our own personal, Japanese speaking tour guide to show us the ins and outs of Kyoto. Whoot whoot!! Our time with Jesse was spent by the river drinking beer from the convenience store, having ice-cream viciously stolen by swooping hawks, riding bikes around Kyoto, competing in pizza eating competitions, and walking... a lot.

Another of our favourite passtimes was speculating about the identities of our hostel roommates. Based on the headwear we found on their beds, coupled with an unfortunate experience Jesse once had with an angry Norwegian (involving Jesse being strangled in an elevator and forced into a tumble dryer), we decided we were sharing a dorm room with Indiana Jones and a giant albino Swede.

Turns out Indiana Jones was a German with an imaginary pet monkey that could travel through space and time (so he never knew where the monkey was or when he was... he just knew he was)... and the giant albino Swede was a very small English boy with a lot of luggage (but there was a giant almost albino Canadian wondering around the hostel who gave us much amusement). A late check-in saw the arrival of another roommate... we call her Befana. She wasn't our favourite person in the world, so let's just leave it at that. Oh, and we're pretty sure we met the ghost of Scatman-John in a Family-Mart too... Fact.

Claire, Jesse and Amy find some impressive headwear of their own

We took a day trip to Nara where we played with deer, looked at temples and shrines, got harrassed by a man selling terrible poetry, and got our fortunes read. Turns out Jesse is a lot luckier than we are. Amy's fortune was "Late Luck", while Claire's was "Half Luck". According to Buddha, the people we are waiting for will not come... well, that's just awesome... so much to look forward to.

Shopping deer

That night, Jesse and his friend Mai took us to an Izakaya for dinner and drinks followed by a bout of Karaoke (all you can drink Karaoke, mind you!). Our tight budget in Japan didn't allow for such luxuries, so a big thank you to Jesse and Mai for taking us out and showing us a side of Japan we would have missed out on otherwise! Phil says thankssss too.

The Big Bang love affair continues

As any right minded traveler would do, we headed to Osaka in the midst of a swine flu outbreak. With over 100 infections overnight, Osakans were wearing face masks like they were going out of fashion (which they actually are). We opted for no face mask, but even if we had wanted one, we wouldn't have been able to buy them. Apparently they were sold out (cough cough). Osaka was a cool city - much grittier than the rest of Japan. In a way, it felt a little like Melbourne. Osaka highlights include; the night views from the sky building, a shopping center with a ferris wheel on top, people watching in Namba... especially the male hosts with hair bigger than Bon Jovi, sushi sushi sushi, hanging out with old people at a temple flea market and once again, getting very very lost.

Two weeks in Japan flew by in an expensive blur. We loved every minute.

I Thought What I'd Do Was, I'd Pretend I Was One Of Those Deaf-Mutes

2009-05-13T14:19:00.000-07:00

After a big night at the Jamaican festival on Sunday, we were a little worse for wear come Monday morning and decided to take it easy for the day. What does one do when taking it easy in Tokyo, we hear you ask?? Go look at electronics and Manga porn of course! Luckily, we were staying quite close to Akihabara, a district of Toyko that specialises in both electronics AND manga porn! Sweet!

Seriously who gets off on cartoons?

It was in Akihabara that we met someone... someone who has become very dear to us and accompanies us everywhere.

Mum, Dad, meet Phil.

Hey There

Phil jumped out at us in a variety shop and we knew instantly that Phil was our perfect travel companion. Small, squishy and with a dashing 'tash to boot, we couldn't leave the store without him (although after purchasing our little man, we did see some rather unsavoury posters on the back wall of the shop, of girls who may not have been quite old enough to be posing in such a way... if you get our drift - yuck.)

On Tuesday we spent the day watching fat men in g-strings slapping and pushing each other. Fact.

Fat men in g-strings

If you haven't cottoned on yet, we spent the day at a Sumo tournament... which was pretty cool... and wobbly.

That night we caught the night bus to Kyoto... wow. The midnight express complete with a 30 minute bed-time story from the bus driver... seriously. Although we have no idea what he was actually saying over the PA system, we imagined it to be a detailed history of his life as there is no bus-related information that could possibly take that long to convey to the passengers! Aside from the driver with verbal diarrhoea, the journey was fairly painless and we arrived in Kyoto early Wednesday morning.

Tired and in need of a good shower, we made our way to our hostel.... it was crap.
We have 5 suggestions for improvement for the crappiest hostel in Kyoto...
1) In order to qualify as a hostel, it helps if you have actual guests and staff who are at least sometimes in the building.
2) Locks on doors are good things...but there were none of these to be seen- including the front door. Coupled with the issue raised in the previous point AND the absence of lockers, you may find theft an issue in the future.
3) Showers should not have bugs in them.
4) While it is honourable that you have an English school attached to your 'hostel', if you want it to be successful, we recommend you refrain from using advertising phrases such as "Let's study English with us!" We also suggest you get a few students.
5) You shouldn't advertise for things you do not possess. For example, "New Building" would imply a structure built post 1973. "Internet access" would imply you have the internet and that guests would have access to it. "Laundry service" does not mean guests should have to wash their undies in the shower or walk 20 minutes to the nearest laundromat. "Bicycle rental" would suggest you actually have a bike to rent... but what does that matter?? There was never anyone at reception to deal with any of this anyway!

Sadly we'd booked at this hostel for 2 nights online, so to avoid loosing a lot of money, we needed to endure the bugs and the creepiness of the cemetery across the road for a few nights. Fear not though - we got ours back.... we penned a strongly worded post-it note that sure showed them! If anyone ever came to reception that is.

We Heart Tokyo

2009-05-11T18:30:00.000-07:00

We feel a little out of it... for many reasons, but three in particular;
1: We don't have face-masks and there are pigs with the flu out there.
2: We are speaking Korean and everyone else is speaking Japanese.
3: We cannot stop getting lost!

We arrived in Tokyo on Thursday evening and all the Japanese on our flight were wearing face masks... we thought, perhaps, that this was taking things a little too far, so we dropped a few words in spanish and coughed a lot for a laugh. When we landed in Tokyo, the whole plane was greeted by quarantine officials in scrubs and were given 20 questions about our contact with Mexicans, Americans and Canadians. After a detailed investigation, we were awarded a certificate saying we had passed the quarantine test and were free to continue onto immigration... think we might get them framed. After we lined up behind a gender confused nun and were asked another 55 questions about our plans in Japan and the contents of our bags, they set us free into Tokyo!!

We found our way to our hostel and were told we'd recieved an upgrade of sorts... rather than being put in the 10 bed dorm we'd booked online, we were placed in a 6 bed 'capsule' dorm room- whoot whoot!

Capsule bed

Our first day was spent hanging out with Japanese school girls and exploring our local areas of Asakusa and Ueno.

Amy & school girls

After living in Korea for the last year or so, the lack of noise, neon and people in these areas took a bit of getting used to, but it was good to see a bit of 'old Tokyo' even if it was very different to what we were expecting.

While walking through a park in Ueno, we noticed there were quite a few homeless men hanging about... favourite hang out spot for the old guys perhaps? As we kept walking we saw a group of about 200 people sitting silently in rows on the concrete. At first we thought it was some kind of protest or an incredibly quiet performance, but as we got closer we realised it was more of a soup-kitchen type arrangement for the local homeless population. It was a really strange sight for us, partly because while living in Youngtong we didn't really see that many homeless people, but what was really strange was that the whole affair was conducted in such an orderly and quiet way... it was kind of eerie in a way, but at the same time it was a humbling sight.

After a long day of walking we decided to cash in our free drink cards at the hostel's bar. Hmmm... 'bar'... well, corridor would be a better description. A corridor with a few stools and alcohol. We used our coupons on beer. This may not be unexpected nor exciting for those of you reading at home, but for us it was a taste-bud revelation. The sweet sweet sapporo rolled out of the glass and down our throats in a way we had forgotten beer could. It was so good NOT to be drinking Cass, that we put away a solid 4 beers in an hour (or 3 hours with bottles of water interspersed between the beers, if you are our mums reading this).

The following day... think that was Saturday (all this no working is making us forget what day it is... mwahhahaha) we headed into central Tokyo to check out the Imperial Palace. Palace Schmalace. After a few wrong turns that resulted in a 5km detour around the palace moat, we discovered that the palace is not, in fact, open to the public (nor visible at any point around the long long moat), but we were able to view the gardens. Great. Trees are overrated... so is grass you can't sit on. It was pretty nonetheless.

In the afternoon we visited Tokyo tower where we met a monkey wearing pants and got photos taken with a giant penis. Fact.

Monkey wearing pants

Giant penis

On Sunday, we went to Shibuya and crossed the famous crossing every which way we could before heading to Harajuku to people watch and soak up the atmosphere. After snapping a few shots of the Harajuku girls (and boys) we wondered around Yoyogi-Koen Park and chilled out with a few beers in the sun amongst the Rockabillies and Rastas... the perfect Sunday passtime anywhere in the world.

Harajuku girl

Rockabilly

After dark, we came across a big Jamaican festival where we discovered cheap box wine... we're not sure what happened after that, but the photos look hilarious, so it's safe to assume we had fun.

New Aussie friends...we are everywhere.

Japan, so far so good!

Korea, 감사합니다 !!

2009-05-07T07:33:00.000-07:00

Dear Korea,

You may have noticed we have gone, so we just wanted to write to you and thank you for a few things...

First of all, we want to thank you for kimchi ("the cabbage that we ravage with the chili-paste taste"). Without kimchi our meals would have been bland and our yellow raddish would have been lonely and tasted like feet.

On a similar thread, we would like to thank you for all the free side dishes you have given us over the last year. Without them we would have gone hungry and been unable to stretch our stomachs to hold the large capacity of food that they can now hold.

Korea, we also want to thank you for Noraebang (in particular, the Noraebang on the train)... without it, we would never have had the opportunity to hear so many good songs murdered by so many people (including ourselves), nor would we have been able to stay awake past sunrise on so many, many, many occasions.

We would also like to thank your cheap alcoholic beverages (for convenience and cheapness, not for the taste). Firstly, to Soju - sorry things didn't work out so well between us in the end, buddy... we really liked you, but then you gave us the worst hangovers experienced by man and things turned a little sour. Secondly to Hite beer for being both crisp and fresh and for giving us an alternative to Cass... even though you taste exactly the same. Finally, we'd like to thank our old faithful, Cass beer, for it's sound of vitality and for the extra 5 kilos we have both gained because of it... we couldn't be so chubby without you.

Korea, if you don't mind, could you pass on a few shout-outs for us??
-Thank you to the guy who works at garten bier who dank from our soju cocktails before we did.
-Thank you to all the trolley-weilding ajuma's in homeplus... our shins will never be the same again.
-Thank you to the assholes who stole our beloved push bikes mere weeks after it was actually warm enough to start riding them.
-Thank you to all the men who spat/snorted/vomited in our paths - you make the world so much more colourful... for everyone
-Thank you to all the loved up couples who wear matching clothes... we feel so lonely when walking down the street alone.
-Thank you for K-pop and for 꽃보다 남자... especially for T.O.P. and Lee Min Ho.

But seriously, Korea. Thank you for everything you have done for us and everything you have given us, like our fantastic friends, who are more like a family. Thank you for Mrs. C. who has been our Korean mum (who also happens to feed us beer on a daily basis). Thank you for the gorgeous kids we taught... and thank you (sort of) for the not-so-gorgeous ones too. Thank you for giving us the chance to live in your weird and wonderful country and attempt to learn your language and to try and understand your culture. It's been weird... and wonderful. The last year has been amazing and we will never forget you. Korea, 사랑해.

보고 싶어요

Love,
Amy and Claire
(E-i-mi hago Ku-re-eo)
ㅋㅋㅋ