July 31, 2001
12:24 PM dublin time
having belted through half of vietnam and across to kuala lumpur [kl] in malaysia in barely four days we reckoned we needed a proper relaxing break and a mere two weeks left to make it overland all the way back up to bangkok just wasn't enough time. so we called up quantas and over a crackley line from kl, managed to delay our flights by eight days. eight glorious sunny beach-relaxing days before arriving into the start of a damp and chilly melbourne spring.
knowing we now had this extra time, for some reason we took another twelve hour bus journey - this time across malaysia to the fabulously paradisical perhentian islands.
and they were everything you'd expect from a tropical paradise island, with white sands, balmy torquise seas, beachside coconut trees, giant lizards, vibrant tropical fish and a severe lack of alcohol [malaysia is strongly muslim and it's illegal for malays to sell alcohol]. there was of course some under the counter expensive stuff though if you got really thirsty!!
so for five lazy days we bathed under the hot sun and in the [slightly less hot] crystal clear shallows, snorkled with turtles and baby [vegetarian - they insisted] sharks and countless multicoloured fishes, watched the sun set behind the palm trees and did not a lot else [including beer drinking].
we've just hot footed it north to thailand and kho phangan for more of the same, though with a little more beer and a ubiquitous full moon party! tune in for more when the moon starts to wane [or is that wax??].
[link]July 22, 2001
02:11 PM dublin time
seeing as i'm trying to avoid the dhrink tonight, i think i should stay blogging a bit longer and describe some of my more interesting experiences with the toilets in vietnam...
of course there are the wonderful turkish squat toilets everywhere - these are common or garden. i like some of aonghus' terms for describing them - turkish delights, 'squattastic' or 'squatalicious'.
but it all starts to get interesting when you frequent some of the local drinking establishments where the 'facilities' are those belonging to the family running the place - you're probably going to find the family's supply of toothbrushes and shower gels or the pet dog in there.
and then there's the garages [visited during the hanoi - saigon bus marathon] it was at one of these that i first met the 'non-existant toilet' [the squeamish should leave at this point]. on opening the cubicle door you first assume that they've forgotten to install any toilet at all - squattastic or otherwise - but on further investigation [and encouraging nods from the amused locals] you can discern a very slight slope toward the back wall of the cubicle and a tiny mouse hole sized drain leading usually to a ditch behind the row of stalls. and that's it. though sometimes there's two raised platforms for your feet. i must add that these conveniences are for liquid waste only, otherwise things could get really messy.
but my favourite favourite was again in a garage, not far outside saigon. the toilets were built overhanging a pond and inside there was a hole in the cubicle floor opening to a six foot drop to the pond below. the great thing was that either by accident or design on the surface of the pond was growing that very attractive sort of lush green pond weed that makes the whole pond look as if you could walk on it and it keeps the nastiness underneath totally hidden from sight. one of the nicer toilets i've been in beyond doubt.
[link]01:41 PM dublin time
harrumph. i've got a cold. even after popping all those vitamin pills. at least it's a proper irish cold though - shipped all the way via aonghus' sister. unless she caught it en route which is also possible.
either way, it's making me miserable and i'm attempting to avoid alcohol to try and get rid of it. mostly unsuccessfully i might add.
so that and the fact that we just spent the last while walking around kuala lumpur's answer to the ilaac centre haven't left me in a great mood. snuffle, sniff, sniff!! hopefully it'll get better soon.
[link]01:28 PM dublin time
vietnamese drivers are crazy.
the road rules make no sense - it appears they can drive on the wrong side of the road whenever they want [when overtaking, turning left or just for fun], irrespective of oncoming traffic as long as they beep continuously and loud enough. certainly not conducive to sleep - either when your hotel room is by even a slightly busy road, or when your bed is a bus seat on a fifteen hour bus journey. and as loud as car horns are, bus horns are even louder and bus drivers have an even stronger compulsion to drive on the wrong side of the road - even when there are no cars on their side. i can understand it sometimes - on the long route from hanoi to saigon the road surfaces sometimes aren't their best at the edges, but are a little better in the middle, which leads to a great game of chicken as two approaching busses are making the most of the better quality 'middle of the road' swerving only at the last minute. definitely not conducive to sleep!!
but we did it. the 1776km bus marathon from hanoi to saigon. in four stages and a total of 42 hours in a bus seat ["that coincidentally works out as an average speed of 42 km/hr", i told aonghus who [probably rightly] accused me of being a total nerd. i think my brain is freezing up from lack of use - i've started doing these kind of crazy useless calculations for fun.] i hear aonghus' neck isn't talking to him, and my knees have just about forgiven me. no more busses for abcd.
[link]July 19, 2001
06:26 AM dublin time
remember i said we rode an elephant? didn't believe me? well the proof is in [after much scanner hunting] and at last you can see abcd atop an ephelant. apologies for the bad quality/size of the picture, but until i find a picture editing program i can work, it'll have to stay like that.
[link]July 14, 2001
08:42 AM dublin time
there's a lovely little balcony restaurant in hanoi called "quan bia minh". it's totally aimed at westerners but does good vietnamese food as well as the sandwiches and banana pancakes [a back packer's breakfast staple] all at very reasonable prices. the entrance is just a doorway on the street and on our first visit we were a bit daunted about the route upstairs through a seemingly dilapidated old house and up a dusty curving stairway. once upstairs though you can sit either inside or outside on the balcony and it's there that gives the perfect position for watching vietnamese street life... all the mental images i had of vietnam before i came here were true - the pointed round typically vietnamese hats that they really do all wear - especially the fruit sellers that wander around making sales of dragon fruit and lychees from their twin baskets suspended from a piece of wood carried over a shoulder.
i could just sit on that balcony all day, eating, drinking and watching the world go by.
[link]July 10, 2001
08:04 AM dublin time
gosh, it's been a bit long since last blog and i don't know where to start - usually i try to organise my thoughts before i sit down to write, but i haven't bothered doing that this time and it might be a bit rambley...
firstly i wanted to restate what a lovely country i thought laos was - particularly luang prabang - and say what a great time i had there. the loss of stuff did leave a bit of a sour taste in ones mouth but that could have happened anywhere and there's no point holding it against laos.
secondly, the other big piece of news i got was that twenty people are being laid off from my old company. this comes as a big shock and i wish lots and lots of good luck to the people who have been affected - i hope you all do really well - and don't lose touch - you know where i am!
anything else?
i could mention that i'm in vietnam now. and that i'm just getting used to the way people cross the road here which involves just walking out into the traffic, confident that the bikes [motor and otherwise - there's very few cars] will avoid you - so far they have.
i could also tell you that we saw ho chi minh - the dead man himself - though i only realised what it was we were going to see about half way through the queue - how was i to know what a maussoleum is? i can't even spell the blummin' word.
howabout i explain how i nearly died of exhaustion and dehydration on the hour and a half horrible climb up a lethally slippery stone path in the humid heat of the day - all to see a perfume pagoda, which sounds nearly worth it, and turned out to be a smoke discoloured cave. [don't let me put you off it - i'm sure it would have been fine for someone a little fitter than i am - which would actually be anyone!]
or i could describle the wonderful 'bar' that is actually the front steps and street in front of someone's street corner house where the owners have assembled some tiny plastic chairs that could only have been stolen from a playschool somewhere and they serve draught beer for about twenty pence a glass. when the keg runs out the woman of the house [who does everything - from taking the orders to serving the beers and including washing out the glasses in a bucket of water that lives beside the keg] rouses her husband and sends him off on his motorbike for another one.
and whatabout the shoe shine/repair people that will start to shine/repair your shoes whether you like it or not, while they're still on your feet, if you happen to be walking at a slow enough pace. [granted my sandals did need a bit of glue here and there, but not while i'm still walking].
and this is just hanoi.
needless to say i'm loving it.
[link]July 06, 2001
01:09 PM dublin time
where do i start?
i guess i could explain about amelia - one of our fellow travellers - who's stuff was all taken from her locked bedroom in our guesthouse in luang prabang. they took everything - money, travellers cheques, tickets, passport [containing working visas for ireland and england - she's an aussie doing the reverse trip to us].
so that was a pain in the arse for her. our guide was very helpful though and in a couple of days she had managed to sort out most stuff and was allowed to take the flight from luang prabang to vientiane with us and cross out of laos into thailand and get back to bangkok in time to catch her flight to london.
then, on our first night in vientiane i did my usual stupid ankle spraining thing - except it was my foot, and it's not quite as bad as the times i did my ankles, but it means i'm limping, and won't be able to walk properly for about a week. and as the streets in vientiane are pretty lethal [a lot of the manholes have no covers on them - so there's heaps of holes gaping open to the drains below] i'm having to be very careful.
and then, to top it all, the real disaster struck - the morning after i sprained my foot, we were having our last tour day with the other [smashing, lovely, triffic] people on our tour, when aonghus noticed that some stuff of ours was missing - travellers cheques [$700], cash [$60] and one of aonghus' credit cards. they were missing from a valuables bag that aonghus either keeps on him or - if we're heading into town for the evening - leaves at the reception of the guesthouse where we're staying. and because all the rest of the stuff from the bag was still there [both our passports, tickets and various other bits and pieces] aonghus hadn't noticed anything go missing and the last time he could positively remember seeing the now absent stuff was about two days previous.
we thought it would be an easy matter to cancel the travellers cheques and credit card and get new ones reissued - we had the relevant toll free phone numbers - but this is when things started to get complicated - because there's no toll free system in laos, none of the numbers would work. and then the amex people said they wouldn't be able to issue new travellers cheques unless we had a police report [something they're aparantly not entitled to do, but we weren't in a position to argue]. we eventually managed to get toll numbers for thailand and ireland to cancel everything [and spent about $18 in call cards in the process] but getting the police report was no easy matter.
because there was a space of about two days in which the theft could have occurred [and it most probably did occur in the guesthouse in luang prabang where amilia's stuff also was stolen] the police weren't keen to fill out a report - saying the luang prabang police should do it or something. of course it was aonghus who was having to run around from phone to amex to police as i [and my foot] were in no state to hobble around with him!
the most ironic thing is that when amilia's stuff was taken, the police told her she should have left it at reception - the very place where ours was taken from [we're pretty sure].
anyway - not to keep you in suspense, after much to-ing and fro-ing and delays and repeat visits and a lot of help from the tour people, we eventually got a police report and our travellers cheques reissued. but it really was a pain in the neck and even though it was aonghus that did most [or all of?] the work, i'm knackered too [it's all the hobbling], and we've decided that a twenty four hour bus journey to hanoi is just too much, so we've booked a couple of flights instead [we really are getting soft]. i think to make back the money we have to stay in grotty non air conditioned bathroomless rooms for the rest of the trip. oh woe is us.
[link]July 04, 2001
04:26 AM dublin time
we're in laos now - a totally lovely country. the people are laid back, very friendly and really hospitable. luang prabang, where we've spent the last three nights, is the second biggest town with a population of a mere sixteen thousand. it's a unesco listed town [not even sure what that means] but it's a great place to relax.
yesterday we went swimming in a waterfall near luang prabang - at least one of the many torquise pools staggered below a waterfall. we knew there'd be swimming when we set out, but on arrival were greeted by "no swimming" signs at the bottom two pools, so we set off on an exhausting trek to the upper pools. we passed some that looked alright, but not quite deep enough for swimming and arrived dissapointed at a shallow muddy pool at the top. however from that great height we could see a great deep swimming pool that we'd missed on our way up - probably coz it's pretty inaccessible and needed a slippery scramble down from the top to get there. i was totally knackered from the climb - i'm really stiff today - but it was so well worth it - the thrill of swimming in a pool into and out of which water was thundering [note to parents : do not worry, there was absolutely no danger of floating over the edge]
it was an absolutely fantastic experience - so much fun. i think the fact that we managed to avoid leeches was pretty good too - some of the other guys got them and had to burn them off - something i'd much rather avoid.
[link]July 03, 2001
01:15 PM dublin time
incase you're looking for a more balanced account of our trip - aonghus has caught the blogging bug [well he had to start doing something whle i'm spending all this time at the keyboard]. he can be found here but don't believe a word of it!
[link]01:08 PM dublin time
we've started a holiday photo theme - taking a picture of our feet on every mode of transport we use. it started during the eleven hour bus journey from bangkok to chiang mai - we were sitting in the very front seat of a double decker bus with our feet resting on a ledge in front of us and had a perfect view of all the wonderful thai scenery out the window. I wanted to take a photo of the sun as it started to set behind the rice fields, but through the window i knew it wouldn't come out, so i took one of our feet instead and it just took off from there - we've been snapping feet non stop since.
so far we've got pictures of our feet on a bus, tuk tuk, elephant [we rode an elephant!! it was prickly], ox-cart, songthaew [like a van come minibus with two rows of seats along the side walls - they're everywhere here], sidecart tuk tuk, fast boat, slow boat... i think that's all so far.
the reason we started was so we could both be in the pictures - usually all of our holiday snaps are of me or aonghus on our own. it also means i can keep track of my anklet purchasing [i cracked and bought another one in the night market in chiang mai].
[link]