Travel Blog

Haridwar & Rishikesh.

2008-06-25T05:26:00.000-07:00

After flying from Goa back up to Delhi, we thought we'd go for a quick trip up to Haridwar and Rishikesh. We'd heard they were pretty chilled out places and since it was only 4hours by train away, we figured it'd be a nice stress-free way to end our time in India. But we were wrong. We arrived at Haridwar at about 9pm and hated it instantly. The next day we walked down to the ghats where millions of pilgrims were bathing in the Ganges River, cleansing themselves in a river so polluted it is now classified as 'septic'. It just wasn't a nice place to be - and far from peaceful - so we got an autorickshaw to Rishikesh as quick as we could.
Rishikesh is known as the 'yoga capital of the world' and people go there to stay in ashrams, meditate, and practise yoga. About 40years ago The Beatles stayed in an ashram there, until they became disillusioned with their gurus demands for money and attitudes towards women, and left. Seems alot of people flock to Rishikesh desperatly searching for enlightenment or other such things to justify - or escape from - their lives. It's a pretty weird place. I talked to an american lady who had spent the last 34 years following some Indian guru, only to discover he wasn't a guru at all and just wanted her money and it seems there's alot of naive and/or brainwashed people in Rishikesh doing that. There's sadhus (holy men with dreadlocks) everywhere, except none of them are legit. Some even wear fake dreadlocks to trick people that they are of a high standing - the longer your dreads, the more enlightened you are believed to be. That's why Sean gets called 'baba' all the time hehe.
After a couple of the weirdest days I've had in India, we headed back to Haridwar because we had to get a train back to Delhi from there. Sean and I went to the train station to line up to buy tickets, but buying train tickets in India isn't exactly like buying them anywhere else in the world. There was a ticket window for women only so I lined up there, but soon enough the line became a moshpit and I had to fight off crazed Indian women (and the occasional man who tried to sneak into the womens line) and use all sorts of sneaky tactics to keep people from pushing infront of me. After over an hour of this in insane heat, I got up to the ticket window only to be told that the trains were completely booked for the next week. We had 2 days before we needed to be in Delhi to fly out so things weren't looking so good.
After talking to a travel agent we were told to line back up and ask for the foreign tourist quota seats, so Sean battled it out at the train station again for over an hour, just to be told the quota seats were full.
So, we were stranded in Haridwar - the worst town I've ever seen. We ended up having to get a taxi all the way back to Delhi and I've never been so happy to see the main bazaar in Pahar Ganj, New Delhi.
We're leaving for Thailand tonight to relax at the beach for a week before returning to NZ and the real world. See you all soon!

(will put photos up soon)

Goa Photos

2008-06-18T07:17:00.000-07:00

The first 2 are of Candolim beach, where I stayed. In the first photo are the pulled down beach shacks, in the second you can see the shipwreck.

Me at Vagator beach.

Vagator beach.

Poster in Panajim.

Church in Panajim. In South India they're christian instead of hindu so there's crosses, churches, and 'jesus saves' everywhere instead of temples and 8-armed gods.

A pile of street dogs in Candolim.

Indian Summer

2008-06-04T01:12:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I last updated this, so here's a brief rundown of what I've been doing since Pokhara, Nepal....
After a sad goodbye to our Nepali family we took a bus back to Kathmandu. A scary scary busride - I kept my eyes closed most of the time and everytime I opened them I saw a bus wreck either on the side of the road or off the edge of the cliff. After afew hassles and much trouble with airport security (lots of frisking, lots of bag emptying, lots of questions about drug paraphenalia which I didn't have!) we flew past Mount Everest back into the crazyness of India. And Indian Summer.
With summer you get intense heat (around 45degrees) and rain, which cools things down but turns the streets of New Delhi to a river of sludge and feces. So we got on a plane the next day and flew to Goa, in the south, to cool off at some beaches.
Because its monsoon season, there's no one around (except for afew Indian tourists who wear their matching "goa is heavenest" tshirts and take photos of the two strange people with white skin - being constantly stared at isn't nice but being photographed is so much worse) and all of the restaurants, shops, and hotels have either been torn down or closed and wrapped entirely in plastic. I love monsoon; there's no crowds or hawkers, everything's cheaper, and the electrical storms are so pretty.
We're renting a little house near the beach at Candolim and have our own manky-guard-dog and also a kitchen so I've been able to have all the foods Ive been missing like marmite and tofu yay.
We've been in Goa for about 2 weeks now, just relaxing and swimming and exploring the other beaches and sights by scooter. The roads are insane to navigate and we nearly died so many times and were both heading towards a nervous breakdown after afew days of driving!
We're coming to the end of our trip now and have about one month left, and no set plan.....

Random Photos in Pokhara

2008-05-08T01:06:00.000-07:00

The first photo is of Fewa Lake, in Pokhara and the second one is of my Nepali family in our garden.
This is the lights from rides at New Year 2065 festival by the lake (which went for 10days).It was the most terrifying fair I've ever seen. The ferris wheel (which I was too scared to even go on) had no doors to keep you in the cage and it went so incredibly fast. I saw a motorcycle show where 3 guys - with bandaged up heads - drove around the walls of a circular enclosure. We paid 30rupees and stood about 5metres up ontop of the structure and I was terrified that it was going to collapse. And then the motorbikes started getting higher and higher up the walls and taking their hands off the handlebars and by then I was hiding and wanting to run away. The motorcyclists looking like they were going to drive too far up the wall and fly into the crowd, but I couldn't leave either because everything was shaking too violently for me to get down the stairs! And then two taxis starting circling around the walls aswell - crazy stuff.
The last photos are taken at the museum, and yes they had a section on the yeti who apparently likes to steal potatoes.

Panchase Trek

2008-05-02T08:17:00.000-07:00

To get to the start point of the trek, first we had to take a local bus (the kind where people ride on the roof) for 9km, which took an hour. We wound our way up and down cliffs, constantly beeping the horn and getting far too close to hurtling over the edge into the lake below and then we got to the part where the road is still being built so the tough old bus went offroad through paddocks and even through dried up riverbeds until we reached a little village which was the start of the Panchase trek.
After a quick breakfast of dhaal bhat (lentil soup with rice and some vege curry) we began climbing steep rock stairs up and up and up and they just kept on going up. After a couple of hours of the torturous stairs our guide told us that the whole trek was just a steep incline to the top of the 24oometre mountain and was one of the hardest treks to do. We thought we were off on a nice short wander through some flat land. Oh dear. I considered turning around and going home afew times, but somehow managed to persevere (and yes Katherine, I looked to Billy Blanks for inspiration!).
Most of the trek was through jungle and we stopped off at one village where we invited ourselves into someones home and asked them for some tea. They were feasting on a species of endangered monkey. The views were pretty cool along the way but because its been so dusty lately we couldn't see any of the himalayas.
So, up and up we went for about 7 hours and just when I thought I couldn't possible walk any further we arrived at our home for the night. I was so happy I nearly cried! I was surprised that there were afew guesthouses up there, and even more surprised that the guesthouses were all full. We ended up with a room to stay in though and our guide just slept on the kitchen floor.
We sat down to a dinner of dhaal bhat and black tea which the coolest old lady cooked up for us on an open fire which was in a pit in the kitchen floor. She was the strongest little lady and when she gave me a hug she nearly crushed me!
Our guide then started to drink raksi (homemade millet beer) and got pretty annoying pretty quickly so we went off to bed, leaving them to sing and dance all night. We had taken our bhai (little brother) from the hotel with us and he asked to sleep in our room with us because of the drunken guide who had promised not to drink.
I had a surprisingly good night rest on my bed which was just a wooden plank with a grass mat on it. The next day was meant to be a day of rest and wandering but we decided to head back home after a morning spent skimming rocks and watching buffalo swimming.
It was much easier and quicker going back home but so much harder on my body and my legs are so sore I can't walk!
Our guide ended up being a total dick and told his boss that we didn't pay him enough even though we actually overpaid him, and he's trying to swindle all sorts of money out of all sorts of people. Apparently it's quite hard to find an honest guide that doesn't just get drunk and try to rip you off.
All in all, I'm glad I did the trek - and did a short one before embarking on a 3week one - but I don't want to ever do one again! I'm giving my shoes away so that I never get tempted to do a trek ever again!

Here's afew photos from the trek..... The first two photos are of the view along the way, the next two are of the village I stayed in. The last two photos are of the women who ran the guesthouse, and of Mama cooking roti (like a thin pancake) for breakfast over the fire in the kitchen floor. The last photo is a random one of a snake charmer in Pokhara.

Happy New Year 2065

2008-04-14T03:06:00.000-07:00

Being in India was like travelling hundreds of years back in time. Being in Nepal, it seems I have been transported 50-odd years into the future. Yesterday was New Years day in the year 2065 - it's pretty surreal and does actually make me wonder if I fell into some kind of Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole.

I've just arrived in Pokhara. It took about 7hours by bus from Kathmandu and was actually a really nice trip with lots of pretty scenery that was like the south island but with rice paddies. It's always abit unnerving though when you pass lots of burned out buses that've crashed into cliffs along the way and your bus is overtaking other buses while hurtling around corners. I arrived in one piece though and am really liking Pokhara. Its so similar to Wanaka with a big lake and mountains which are so much bigger than I thought they'd be!

Here's some photos from around the Kathmandu Valley.

A god painted down Freak Street, near Durbar Square.

Markets down Freak Street.

The giant stupa at Boudnath, a nice town with alot of Tibetian Buddhists living there.

Prayer wheels around the stupa.

A little girl with 'free tibet' shaved into her hair in Boudnath.

The view from the top of the monkey temple (can't remember the name of the town). I thought it'd be a nice peaceful walk here from my guesthouse, but it turned out to be a walk through fields of rubbish until I was completely lost and had to get a taxi. The temple was a strange mix of monkeys, beggars, monks, and people selling drugs and handicrafts.

Marijuana growing wild on the side of the road.

Kathmandu, Nepal

2008-04-07T05:20:00.000-07:00

I've finally arrived in Kathmandu. I had the train ride from hell from Jaipur to Delhi - I hadn't reserved a ticket and there was about 100 times too many people for each seat. I'd been planning on sitting on the ground between the carraiges, but even that part was full of people! But as all things in India go, the kindness of newly made friends guaranteed that everything worked out. I then flew from Delhi to Kathmandu on the scariest flight of my life - I think we were caught in an electrical storm because the whole trip was as though the plane was missing vital parts of its engine and at one point it actually dropped from the sky for afew (very long) seconds. The screaming and praying going on in the seats around me didn't exactly help to calm my fears of an early death either. But we landed safe and sound. I've been here about a week I think, but haven't been able to see much because once again I became crippled by sickness. By the fourth bout of the same illness, you really do start to lose your faith in doctors. Each time I went to a doctor in India they handed out colourful pills, told me to eat bannanas, and told me to 'dont worry be happy'. Sometimes you need a little more than a positive mindset and a bunch of bananas to cure an illness. But oh well, I'm in Nepal now and I have found a real clinic with real doctors in it and sterilised equipment and everything! So things are looking good....
Except for the political situation in Nepal that is. I wasn't aware that the election from last october had actually been postponed until this April - in about 4 days time. In NZ elections aren't really a big deal, but here there's all sorts of bombs and kidnappings involved because of the maoists (a communist party that's pretty pissed off) so Kathmandu is pretty much closing down and we're going into hiding until the elections over and things are safe again.
Besides all that bad news, Nepal is really beautiful and so are the people. They're really tiny people but have big kind smiles. It"s nice to be in a cooler climate too , the hills and crisp air remind me of Dunedin, and the electical storms at night are really cosy. It's also a nice break from the pollution, dirtyness, and constant stares of India - not that I don't love India, but sometimes being stared at all day does get abit annoying.
As usual, there's lots of manky dogs around (they make me miss Jake!) which is cool because they seem to keep to their territories and provide handy landmarks for me when I'm walking through the markets. I refuse to believe that something so cute, fluffy and smiley as a manky street dog could possibly have rabies.
Sorry, no photos yet, I'll get some up as soon as I can venture back out into the world. Thanks everyone for the emails and comments, it's sometimes nice to feel that home isn't so far away :)

Pushkar

2008-03-23T00:56:00.000-07:00

Well I ended up leaving Udaipur after afew nights - it was really pretty there but so touristy. I took a train for about 7hours and then a bus for the further 11km to Pushkar. The bus took almost an hour to go the 11km and was full of people, but they managed to stop and put more and more people on every hundred metres! So, I've been in Pushkar for just over a week now and am trying to organise my train out of here for tomorrow, so I'll try to do a vague recap of what I've been doing in this lovely little town.....
Pushkar is known for the camel fair that takes place in November, but since its not November and I'm not really in the market for buying camels, I've been meeting crazy people with crazy stories, hiding from gypsies, wandering the markets, sitting by the holy lake, watching the sun set from a quiet spot in the desert, talking to cows, eating good food, lying on cushions on the rooftop, and taking part in the Holi festival.
The Holi festival began the day before yesterday with a big haystack being set up in the town square and after alot of people throwing flowers and oil on it, it was set alight and the drums began and everyone went a little crazy and did these stick dances. The following day was the colour throwing part of the festival. The second I left my room in the morning I had my face smeared with bright pink and gold dye, as a sign of friendship. I think. So we headed into the town square for this massive trance party where everyone was throwing water and powdered dye and paint. It was mental and I'm still afew strange shades of pink and green today.
Pushkar has been really nice but it's time to leave the heat of deserts of Rajasthan for the cool mountains of Nepal...
The photos are: me at Agra Fort, in Agra. The view of the Taj Mahal from my hotel in Agra. The streets in Agra. Palace on the hill in Bundi. My new family in Bundi. The town of Bundi by the lake. A view of Pushkar. Me in the desert in Pushkar. Me after the Holi Festival.

India: delhi-agra-bundi-udaipur

2008-03-12T03:01:00.000-07:00

I've been in India for about two weeks now so I'll try to catch up on whats been happening... after Delhi I got a train to Agra where I stayed the first night just out of town and away from all the touristyness of the place. It was really cool, all the people were really friendly, and I found the best samosas in the bazaars there. I moved into the Taj Ganj area and spent most of the time just hanging out and watching monkeys and enjoying the view of the Taj Mahal from the roof of my hotel. On my last day there I got struck down by delhi-belly - with a 12 hour train trip ahead of me that night. I spent most of the day dying in bed but managed to get up long enough to go and see the Taj Mahal. It was pretty cool but im not really that blown away by monuments and was dissapointed that there aren't actually any spikes in the lake there - which Id thought since I was a kid.
The train trip started off ok - the train was about an hour late but I met some nice Indian people in the station. Being a foreigner here is kind of like being a celebrity because everyone just stares at you and wants to come and talk to you and show you to their friends. I had a sleeper class train which consists of rows and rows of 3tier bunks. I was on the top bunk and lay down to try and sleep but all these guys were sitting there staring at me so I got out my sleeping sheet and covered myself, even my face, with it to try and sleep. The next minute someone pulled the sheet off me and grabbed my leg and it was about that time that I swore I'd never go on a train again. Turns out it was a begger just wanting money and after sean yelled at him and then an Indian woman yelled at him, he left and the rest of the trip was fine and 12 hours later I arrived in Bundi, a small town in Southern Rajasthan.
Bundi is really beautiful, and the town looks the same as it would have hundreds of years ago. Most of the houses there are painted blue (to signify that brahmen, the highest caste, live there) and theres a huge old palace and fort overlooking the town. The streets are full of roaming cows, pigs, dogs, and the odd camel and monkeys run around everywhere so you have to carry a monkey-stick with you to scare them off. I love how in India the people just live in harmony with all the animals and let them wander around wherever they want - if there was monkeys and pigs walking around the streets in NZ we'd probably set traps and kill them all! I stayed in an old haveli with this nice family and everyone in the town seemed to have decided taht I was their new best friend. I t was impossible to walk down to the bazaar (marketplace) without being called to come in and drink chai with my new friends. I got the flu while I was there and everyday the locals would ask me how I was feeling, all making sure I was ok and offering to take me to the hospital haha. A lady invited me to her house to look at her wedding photos and drink chai which was really amazing to see how she lived and to talk about Indian culture. I also go to see a Hindu wedding procession going down the street, which I watched from my roof with my monkey-stick at hand. Everyone was so colourful and dancing and playing brass instruments and riding crazy colourful horses. Later that night I got invited to go to the wedding and was made to eat heaps and heaps of really spicy food!
It was pretty sad leaving Bundi, but more adventures lay ahead of me in Udaipur, about 6hours by train. I just arrived in Udaipur last night and am surprised at how touristy it is here - its abit of a shock after being in a little town where there was barely any other foreigners! Its a really beautiful place though and has a big lake and heaps of palaces. The james bond movie octopussy was filmed here, so all of the guesthouses play it.
I'm loving the street food in India, and its so cheap. I can get a samosa for 2 rupees (about 6cents NZ) or a bowl of alu gobbi with a stack of chappati for 10 rupees (about 30cents NZ) or a thali of dhal, vege curry, rice, and chappati for 25 rupees (about 75 cents NZ). Darren - you'd love it here!
All of the horror stories you hear about India are (so far) not true at all. Its more dusty than dirty, the people are so welcoming and friendly, only the minority of men are creeps, and I am yet to come across any bottles of water that have been drained and filled with tap water. It's a crazy place and so much happens everyday that makes you stop and think.

pai and a change of plans

2007-09-28T23:09:00.000-07:00

I spent afew days in Chiang Mai, in northern thailand, and then took a minibus 3hours to Pai. Pai is awesome, another town where I wish I could live forever. The slogan of the town seemed to be "do nothing in Pai" which is exactly what I did. Pai is just a small town surrounded by hills and trees with a river running through it and a main drag of bohemian cafes, art galleries, and clothes shops but its got something special about it. I even got to stay at a flash place with a pool and sauna and a tv and dvd player in my room, and ran into my aussie friend I met way back in Cambodia. After lazing around there for about a week I got my last 12hr thailand bus trip back to bangkok to sort out my Indian visa. So then I hung around bangkok by myself bored out of my mind waiting the week it takes to process the visa and decided to book myself a flight back to NZ on Tuesday instead. A random change of plans but I guess that's what happens. So the current plan is to work at Cooks beach for afew months to get some money and then continue on with the India/Nepal plan when things in Nepal are abit less dangerous and full of maoist bombings.

laos photos

2007-09-19T22:17:00.000-07:00

Vang Vieng: the bridge over the river I tubed down, rice fields and limestone cliffs, my gang of guides that led me through a cave, swimming hole. Luang Prabang: a waterfall that a group of us climbed up and stood ontop of, a swing at the bottom of the waterfall. In the jungle next to this place there was a bear rescue centre and a tiger rescue centre where bears and a tiger were saved from po

achers and are now in a big enclosure in the jungle. In other news, I survived the 2day boat trip down the Mekong River to get from Laos to Thailand so I can sort out my visa and get to India in a week or so.

vang vieng

2007-09-15T08:16:00.000-07:00

Vang Vieng is a cool little town, quite strange, but lots of fun. The main street is lined with restaurants all playing back-to-back episodes of 'Friends' and you can usually hear about 3 different episodes all going at the same time. I spent about 6 days here, biking around little villages, exploring caves, swimming in waterholes, and of course I had to go tubing. You pay your money, they put a number on your hand, cram you into a tuktuk, drive you 4km up the river and give you a tractor tyre to float down the river in. As you float along bar-owners fish you in with bamboo sticks, give you as much free lao lao whiskey as you want and try to convince you that it's a good idea to jump off their bamboo tower ropeswings before heading down the river to the next bar. Now, this all seems like a good idea at the beginning, but when you're blind-drunk and still have to float 2 more kilometers down the river in a tyre to get home, you start to wonder what you were thinking. But yeah, lots of fun and lots of good people.

photos

2007-09-09T04:22:00.000-07:00

A bunch of random photos: the first 3 are in Cambodia....the road from Poipet to Siem Reap, Wats of Angkor. The next lot are in Vietnam....women washing carrots in a dam in Dalat, the red canyon in Mui Ne. The last photo is of Seppon, a small village in Laos.

laos (yay!)

2007-09-06T22:42:00.000-07:00

I spent afew hours trapped in a limbo of not being allowed into Laos and not being allowed back into Vietnam, just sitting on a bench playing backgammon, waiting. The border crossing was all going smoothl and the man had stamped me through and given me a visa, but then he tried to charge me $40USD for the visa when I knew it was meant to be $30USD. It wasn't the money, but the fact that people just blatantly lie to your face and try to rip you off, thinking that every tourist is just rolling in money. When I asked him why I was being charged that much he said it was a "service fee" because they office was closed (despite there being an 'open' sign up and him sitting in the window) so I said I'd just wait until the office was back open. Then he started bargaining with me, offering me $37USD for the visa. I refused to bargain over a fixed visa price so he got really angry and stamped CANCELLED on my visa and threw my passport at me. When he returned he was much calmer and continued the bargaining, offering me $35 for the visa. Eventually I gave in and paid him $31 just to get out of there.
I got on a truck to a little village called Seppon which was awesome. Everyone there was either terrified or curious about seeing two white faces in their town and even though noone spoke english and all I could say in Laos was hello, goodbye, and thank you, everyone was so friendly and helpful. I managed to order a vegan meal by pointing at pictures of onions and then got on a truck the next day to Savannakhet. It was the best ride I've had so far, I got to sit up in the cab with the driver who shared all his yummy snacks with me and spent a couple of hours reading out all the road signs to practise speaking Laos. Laos is awesome, everyone is just so nice and happy to come up and say hello without trying to sell you something.

Hey lady, you want motorbike?!

2007-09-03T21:10:00.000-07:00

I left Dalat for Nah Trang where I was meant to spend just one night before getting on the bus to Hoi An but couldn't bear to get on another long shitty bus ride so ended up spending 4 days in Nah Trang. The second I got off the bus in Nah Trang I was screamed at by moto drivers as usual but I have to give them points for their persistence. To get away from them I went into a cafe to have some lunch and just relax before looking for a guesthouse. The moto driver came on into the cafe, brought a beer, sat down at the table, and went on and on about how he just wants to say hello and not sell me anything while at the same time trying to make me sign up for a tour. After lunch he then followed me on his moto and trying to make me go into his friends hotels and watching to see where I was going to stay. It got beyond annoying and got pretty creepy.
So I found a hotel and then went down onto the beach which from a distance looked really beautiful until I got close up and saw not only mounds of rubbish but dead rats and used syringes everywhere, and some guy going for a crap on the beach. The next day I walked to the opposite end of the beach where the touristy area is and the beach was clean, the sand was raked, and the water wasn't full of rubbish so it was pretty interesting to see the two sides to Nah Trang. We hunted out places to buy Beer Hoi (blackmarket beer for around 15cents a handle), met some cool locals, and ended up having a pretty good time there.
Time is ticking so I had to either get on the bus I'd paid for or buy a train or plane ticket, and decided on a rad sleeper train to whoosh me off to Hue and from there I'll be heading into Laos.
I went to a vegetarian restaurant in Hue which had lots of fake-meat options on the menu including intestines, kidneys, and ears! I got the chicken but think I should go back tonight and order the intestines.

strange days in vietnam

2007-08-28T05:51:00.000-07:00

So far Vietnam has been quite a weird surreal place. I cancelled my booking through the dodgy travel company, only to discover that its impossible to find one that isn't dodgy....I got a bus to Mui Ne, a beach that smelled like dead fish and cat urine but had cool sand dunes and canyons and then left for Dalat. The bus was 6hours late picking me up and then the "brand new, big air conditioned bus" was really a van crammed with about 15 people plus all their luggage. The hating-vietnam-meter began to rise a little. The good thing was that the van got us to Dalat 3 hours quicker than a bus because the driver obviously had no fear of death and thought nothing of hurtling down the road at a million miles an hour in a game of chicken with various trucks and buses. When we arrived in Dalat the tour office we'd all booked through offered us other services, thinking we were stupid enough to want to book anything else through them, so I told the man he was a liar (evidently one of the worst insults in southeast asia) and he tried pitifully to defend his company, making up all sorts of stories about how the roads were closed and then how the real bus broke down etc etc, and then he tried to calm himself down and nearly cried. Awesome.
So I'm in Dalat, a weird kitschy town with swan boats, penguin rubbish bins, broken down amusements parks with weird figurines and giant mushrooms, and a fake eiffel tower. It's pretty rad, and there's big markets where I can get a vegan feast of fake meat for $1. It resembles Queenstown on drugs, some kind of warped alice in wonderland town, and everyone here wears ski jackets even though its not cold. Ahh, Vietnam.

Cambodia/Vietnam

2007-08-23T09:17:00.000-07:00

On my last day in Cambodia I went to the Phnom Penh water park which had afew waterslides, a wave pool full of rubbish and a river run that had water that looked like a polluted river but it was heaps of fun and I ended up joining (another) random party that was being held at the pools. The people were workers from some big hotel and they were so happy to party with afew farang that they wouldn't let us leave and kept feeding us some kind of potent wine/rum stuff and insisting that we stay for just one more song. So the next morning I got what was meant to be a big airconditioned bus (but turned out to be a tiny shuttle bus) to the Vietnam border. I'd been warned about how dodgy the Vietnamese people are when it comes to money and charging you for madeup things, but I was surprised that within seconds of crossing the border the officials stamping my visa were already trying to make me pay a 'quarantine fee'. I knew they were just trying to rip me off so I just refused to pay them and they smiled sheepishly like kids thatd been caught doing something naughty, and let me through without paying. I've been in Ho Chi Minh City for 2 nights now and even though I generally hate cities, its really cool here. The traffic is insane; aswell as the usual vehicles coming from all directions at the same time regardless of what colour the traffic lights are, the way to cross the road is to just stroll into the middle of the chaos and hope that you don't get hit! It's pretty scary being surrounded by hundreds of motorbikes all heading in different directions on all sides of the road, and to make things worse they drive on the footpaths too so you can't even walk on them! I've booked an open tour bus ticket and am supposed to be heading to Mui Ne tomorrow morning but have discovered that its a totally dodgy company that I've booked with....

s-21 and the killing fields

2007-08-18T07:06:00.000-07:00

My last day in Phnom Penh was spent looking around S-21 and The Killing Fields. S-21 used to be a school and during the 1970's the khmer rouge turned it into a prison and torture chamber and now its a genocide mueseum. There were stories and torture equipment in the old cells and mugshots of all the prisoners who were kept there (and later murdered) aswell as photos of dead people who had been killed in the prison. Prisoners were then taken to the killing fields, where they were murdered by being hit over the head because bullets were too precious. 3 million people were murdered and put into mass graves - with the killing fields being one of the largest mass grave sites. Theres a temple built there now filled with skulls taken from the graves and as you walk around the area there's still bits of bones and cl0thing poking out of the ground. It was a really really horrible day but I learned alot and understand the Cambodian people alot more now. The next day I left for the south coast where I stayed right on the beach for free. Its low season so there's alot of free accomodation at the beaches (and 50cent handles of beer), and The Frog Shack where I stayed was the safest place to be on the beach because there were guys camped out in hammocks outside the rooms all night keeping watch (even though one night I saw a khmer guy climbing over the wall into the room of the barowner to steal stuff - because the walls werent high enough to reach the ceiling) and during the day a crazy guy called Dune would blow a whistle whenever gangs of theives would come near us on the beach. One night a group of us ventured afew hundered metres down the beach to go to a different bar and it was so scary - twice groups of guys started to circle around us from out of the shadows but as soon as we blew the whistle they ran off, and there were also murders and robberies happening down the beach quite often. So, Cambodia really isn't the safest place and I think landmines are the least of my worries, but the Khmer people are really great and are always looking out for us to make sure we're okay and it's really cool to travel through a country that is still real and not yet destroyed by tourism.

...where the deer and the antelope play

2007-08-12T06:27:00.000-07:00

I feel like I've fallen into a Dr. Suess book. On a quest to find some traditional khmer food I have come to the conclusion that traditional khmer food consists of drinks with magic mushrooms in them, pizza with marijuana all through it ( 'happy pizza'/'special happy pizza'/'ecstatic pizza' is the official name for it) and that it's quite a good idea to have live snakes and alligators roaming around restaurants and people dressed in sailor suits. This was my messed up introduction to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Add to that millions of people in your face saying "hello lady buy something", tuktuk drivers that won't leave you alone, and the availability of any kind of drug you may want brought over the counter and it's no wonder that I once again found myself sick. I spent the first few nights in cambodia too sick to even get myself to the hospital, and instead lay in bed watching episode after episode of Ripleys Believe it or Not. Once I was better I went wandering around the temples of Angkor which I really don't know what to write about them. Angkor Wat was mindblowing; millions of intricate carvings, crazy steep steps by which you could climb all over the ruins, and stories of monkey armies. The next day I went to Bayon in Angkor Thom which has over 200 giant faces carved throughout the temple, and I got to see my first ever wild snake eating a frog. Temple sightseeing done, I headed to Phnom Pehn today where things just got stranger and stranger.... there are adverts to go and shoot rocket launchers at cows, the killing fields have become a moneymaking tourist attraction, everyone is yelling at you to buy something from them or go somewhere in their taxi, and all the guesthouse staff are persistently trying to sell you drugs - convinced that you aren't able to relax unless you buy their drugs. Its like WINZ came here and solved the unemployment problem by offering lucrative careers as taxi driving drug dealers.

cambodia (finally)

2007-08-06T23:05:00.001-07:00

I should have arrived at the Cambodian border before lunchtime yesterday, but good ol' dodgy Thailandness got in the way and it wasn't until 4pm that I finally got there. I made the mistake of booking a bus ticket through a proper travel agency instead of just taking a public bus like I usually do, thinking that paying abit more money to avoid the hassle of public transport was a good idea in order to just get out of Thailand asap. But... being Thailand, nothing is as it should be. The bus was an hour and a half late in leaving and then after driving for 4 hours it cruised on straight past the border and dropped us at this travel agency/restaurant and then drove off with our bags still in the bus. This horrible travel agent lady then tried to pressure everyone into paying her 1200 baht to 'help' with our cambodian visas and said if we didn't pay her to do it we'd be facing a 3day wait at the border because there's thousands of people trying to get their visas at the border. Everyone except for me, Sean, and Andrew caved in and paid her and handed over their passports. She then tried to pressure us into buying bus tickets from her to get a bus from the border to Siem Reap for alot of money. Andrew eventually gave in too and handed over his money and his passport (after she took him away to a room and gave him a discount and said she wanted me and Sean to do the same). We stood our ground and said we wanted to just do things ourselves. We ended up waiting in this restaurant/travel shop for a further 2hours, unable to leave until the bus returned with our bags. Finally it came back and we drove to the border. Everyone had to wait on the bus because the lady hadn't returned with their passports so Sean and I were let off and were through the border checkin points (no 3 day wait or queues of thousands of people - we were the only people in line hahaha) before the others had even gotten off the bus. Obviously everyone was feeling pretty stupid and ripped off and then had to go and get on their bus that they'd paid for while we got into a taxi for less than what they'd paid for their bus, and would have arrived hours earlier in Siem Reap than them. So it just goes to show that you should never do anything through travel agencys in Thailand.
I was so glad we'd gotten a taxi instead of a bus because Cambodian roads are INSANE. I'd heard stories about them, but they were so much worse than I could have ever imagined. It was like driving for 4 hours through market gardens wearing a blindfold, in a car with no suspension or tyres. The roads are just mud and potholes (made worse because of all the rain) and everyone just drives all over both sides of the road. We spun out quite afew times, doing 360 degree skids in the mud right into oncoming traffic and all the while the driver is just cracking up laughing, having a great time. To make things even more surreal he then cranks up some weird trance music, and constantly answers his cellphone while driving one-handed. It was great fun, although I am a little surprised that we arrived in Siem Reap in one piece.

full moon party

2007-08-05T02:43:00.000-07:00

The full moon party was on Haad Rin, a beach on Ko Phangan (an island off Thailand) and around 10,000 people go to each one. I arrived not expecting to really enjoy it, thinking it'd just be a bunch of gross drunken idiots all bopping along to trance music. I was partly right - there were thousands of shirtless guys drinking alcohol from buckets and slutty girls with 'shag me' painted on them, people being dragged out of the ocean passed out drunk, and lots of general grossness. There were so many people that I was sure I'd get lost but when we headed to the northern part of the beach towards Mellow Mountain it became alot more chilled out and there was cool music, space to play poi, and lots of blacklights for painting ourselves in dayglo paint under. I got to watch some amazing poi spinners, met some really awesome people, watched the sunrise, stayed at the party until about 10am the next day, and had one of the best nights ever. Unfortunately I couldn't really work my camera so ended up with only acouple of photos; this one is of Jannie and Marie.

ko phangan

2007-07-30T01:51:00.000-07:00

I got a boat from ko samui to ko phangan for the full moon party which is happening on the beach tomorrow night. I arrived yesterday and went looking around on a motorbike which, considering my streak of bad luck recently wasn't such a good idea. A thai guy collided with our bike and completely mangled the bikes so that they were stuck together, but luckily noone was hurt. I was on the back of the bike and got flung up in the air and landed flat on my back on the road so went and had a massage for my back and neck today and its already feeling much better. This photo is me in the hammock of my bungalow, right on the beach.

waiting for the bus to ko samui

2007-07-26T06:24:00.000-07:00

After a hassle-free border crossing back into Thailand from Malaysia, I had 4 hours to wait before getting on my bus and ended up going to a random street party around the corner which was some kind of party for buddha as far as I could tell. I got given a necklace and made to dance with the crazy drunk ladies and even some synchronised dancing with a guy who later did pole dancing. Somehow we all managed to communicate with eachother through crazed screams of "sanook!" (which translates roughly to super-happy-happy-fun) and other random thai words I knew and random english words that they knew. There were constant gifts of beer and food and as we left, branches of rambutan (a fruit similar to a lychee). It seemed like a fitting return to Thailand. Stocked up on beer we got on the bus where we sat for about 14hours drinking which, by the time we arrived in Ko Samui this morning, I realise wasn't such a good idea. I felt like I was going to die so instead of taxiing to big buddah beach went across the road to the nearest hotel where I slept all day and wondered if that crazy party actually happened.
Turns out it wasn't just a hangover but some kind of bug I must've picked up in Malaysia because I ended up spending most of my time in Ko Samui feeling like I was dying and to top it off a bee stung me on my back. I stayed at Big Buddah beach (named because of the big (12m I think) buddah statue by one of the temples) which I reakon is the nicest beach on the island. I hired a motorbike to explore the island and found hell on earth at Chaweng beach, a spot just for westerners with starbucks, strip bars, fancy resorts, and fat old white men with no shirts on. Photos are of the party and crazy statues near the temple on Ko Samui.

perhentian islands, malaysia

2007-07-24T01:48:00.000-07:00

I've just got back from the beautiful perhentian islands where inevitably I got bitten by a monkey. For all their cute fluffyness, they have really sharp teeth. Its times like these you wish you'd gotten those rabies shots...
The first night I stayed on Perhentian Kecil (small island) on Long Beach in the only place that wasnt' completely booked up and it was a total rats nest. After a really long night of centipede bites, big creatures running around the room, a bathroom so gross I couldnt bring myself to shower there, and a really expensive rate, I walked through the jungle to Coral Beach on the other side of the island. It was much nicer there - less crowded, cheaper food and rooms, but not as good swimming because of all the coral.
The other day I did a day-long snorkel trip around 5 or so different spots on both islands and I got to swim with giant turtles, a black tip shark, millions of crazy coloured fish and coral that made me feel like I was on some other planet. The water is amazingly clear so its no wonder its one of the top dive spots in the world.
After talking to people that've been travelling Malaysia, Ive come to realise there's not alot else to see here so am heading back to Thailand tomorrow to do some island-hopping before the full moon party.
The first photo is of coral beach and the last two are long beach. The chairs on coral beach are where I got to sit to eat dinner every night which was so nice. There's no way these photos could every do justice to how beautiful it is here.

ko lanta & crossing the border

2007-07-19T06:46:00.000-07:00

The days become all merged together and places all confused, so I'll try to remember what happened and where...
I spent about 3 nights in khlong khong in ko lanta, an island just off Thailand and stayed in this cool bungalow on the beach. We rented a motorbike and beach-hopped our way around the whole island and there was no one else around anywhere (except for afew wild monkeys running across the road). Half of the road was just dirt and rocks and some of it was still in the process of being built but I'm pleased to say we only had one near-crash!
After leaving there we set off on a mission to Malaysia which unfortunately meant we had to stop off in Trang and Hat Yai - two towns full of rats and filth and people staring. Trang was gross but Hat Yai was a whole new level of gross - upon arrival a homeless guy with no teeth and only one eye decided to befriend us and show us to a guesthouse (which luckily was the one we were looking for) but then he wouldnt leave and after hiding from him for a while we decided it was best to just run down the stairs. He ran after us until we hid in a toy shop to escape. After all that running it was time for dinner so we went to find this vegetarian place I'd heard about. But it was closed down so we went to the night markets instead which was pretty disappointing food-wise. Sean ate a deep-fried bat and then the crazy homeless guy found us again so we took off for the guesthouse, and along the way I accidentaly kicked a frog.
The next morning we couldnt wait to get out of there and got on a 4hour train ride to the border. We had to pass through afew towns along the way where alot of bombing and arson attacks had been happening the past few days (guess it pays to read a newspaper before going into these towns) and there were alot of men with machine guns on the train. It was quite possibly the most terrifying 4 hours of my life - wondering how I'd die first: being blown up by bombs or getting shot on the train.
Finally we got to the border and had a nice chat with an immigration officer who gave us water and fruit and then YAY we were in Malaysia! Malaysia is much friendlier and cleaner and nicer than Thailand and there's the best vegan restaurant here with a buffet for just over $1 nzdlrs for the best food Ive ever had. Getting up early to catch a bus to some islands tomorrow and then its off to the jungle.

Photo of one of the beaches on Ko Lanta.

krabi

2007-07-14T07:36:00.000-07:00

After sitting on a bus for 14 hours I arrived in Krabi Province, in Southern Thailand then took a longtail boat to Railay Beach. It was a pretty nice beach, real small with a short walk between the east and west coast of the beach. Everything was expensive there so had to stay in a fancy place with a pool and aircon and fluffy towels. poor me. We went on this walk up into the jungle to investigate a restaurant and ended up getting pretty lost trying to come back through the jungle in the dark but found out that theres another beach on the other side of the mountain so set off the next day to Tonsai Beach. The walk through the jungle was pretty tough with a pack on, trying to scramble up the mountain but it was so worth it. Tonsai is the kind of place I could accidentaly end up staying at for years. It was really small and alot of the resorts were still destroyed from the tsunami and just heaps of rasta shacks right on the sand that sell vegan ''peace cake'' were left. Hopefully I'll get to go back there to live for years and years in my own shack. We stayed in these rad bungalows up in the jungle and afew seconds walk to the sand. The jungle is amazing: lost of bats and lizzards and beautiful insect sounds. Unfortunately lots of mosquitos too so I've started taking my maleria tablets because theres a pretty good chance I've caught maleria and if I havent then I'm bound to soon.
Today I waited around for a big storm to clear so I could get on a boat and head to a beach near on the way to Ko Lanta but somehow ended up at a different beach and in a tourist centre with some guy trying to rip me off so have decided to spend the night in Krabi town which has been nice, just exploring the markets (and a vegan stall full of fried tofu and other yum stuff) and sussing out a bus to get to Ko Lanta in the morning.

The photos are of: peace cake at the rasta shack, Tonsai beach with the tide out, and a view of Railay Beach from the start of the jungle.

engrish

2007-07-07T02:07:00.000-07:00

I've finally gotten around to uploading afew photos and have put some on my first post but for some reason keep getting electric shocks when I plug things in...
Here's a photo of a rad book I got to use as a travel diary when my lovely one from Louise gets all full. It was in a shop that was packed full of millions of crazy books like this.

food and bathrooms

2007-07-05T21:07:00.000-07:00

Instead of writing about how Ive just spent the last 5 or so days lying on the beach getting burned like a lobster I've decided to write about food and bathrooms instead because I havent' gotten around to doing that yet...
The food here is amazing, even though I can't eat alot of what they sell on the street it's still rad looking at it all. The stereotypical backpacker food here is pad thai which I'm kinda embarrassed to say has become my favourite. It costs 60-80 cents for a big plate of noodles with cabbage and bean shoots, ginger, garlic, lime juice, chilli, and peanuts. Apart from all the yummy fruits (mango, watermelon, pineapple, dragonfruit, lychees, custard apples) there's a tonne of deepfried snacks: everything from beetles to these amazing balls of rice flour deepfried with a peanut inside. The best dessert I've found so far is grilled bannanas that have been flattened and then drizzled in a sweet sticky sauce made from coconut milk and sugar.
Everyone always asks me if its difficult being vegan in thailand. Not at all. There's alot of buddhist-run restaurants which have fakemeat and specifically say whats vegan and whats vegetarian, and anyone anywhere will whip up a dish of noodles or rice with veges if you ask them to. Eating from the street stalls is also pretty easy because you can see exactly what they're making your food with so I can point and say no to things. I've managed to learn quite afew thai phrases relating to food aswell which of course makes things easier too because I constantly have to ask for 'mai sai num plah' (no fish sauce) because thai people love to drown everything in fish sauce, even fruit.
On the other end of the spectrum is the bathrooms that I've been meaning to talk about. I was told that Thailand doesnt have many squat toilets, but they're everywhere - even in KFC in Bangkok. They consist of a hole in the ground, footholes if you're in a flash one, a bucket/tub of slimy water with a dish floating in it, and a hose. In houses and some public restrooms there is also a 'shower'. The shower is not so much a shower as it is a larger bit of floorspace so you can fill the bucket and then scoop water out of it with the dish and throw it over yourself and all over the floor. The shower is quite tricky and takes a long time to try and wash soap or shampoo off and I have my doubts as to whether I'm any cleaner at the end of it all. Bathroom floors are always ankle-deep in what I like to pretend is just water.

the wwoofing deathtrap

2007-06-28T08:27:00.000-07:00

I left yesterday morning to go to Thamafaiwan village in Issan to do wwoofing where I was supposed to be helping build mud-brick houses and organic farming for afew hours a day in exchange for all meals and accomodation. Things didn't quite work out that way. After about 8 hours on a bus from Bangkok to Chaiyaphum I got on a tuktuk and then a truck to take me to Thamafaiwan village, smackbang in the middle of nowhere. I sat on the truck for 2 hours with a bunch of people staring at me with their mouths open. Aparently they don't get many foreigners out these ways. And no one could speak a word of english and my awesome skills of being able to say 'hello', 'thankyou' and 'cat' in thai weren't of much help. So after sitting waiting for 2 hours the truck finally started to get going, only to stop 100 metres down the road to buy fruit and then again afew more minutes down the road to run errands and then again and again. I was just gratefull to be on the move, heading towards Baan Sairoong (Rainbow House). 2 hours later it was dark and raining and I was the only one left on the truck. Turns out the driver didn't know where he was going and we were completely lost. Luckily we came across some monks who could speak english and I told them where I was trying to go and they told the driver how to get there. All he cared about was getting his 200 baht and I didnt care as long as I got there. So I finally got dropped off at Baan Sairoong and the guy running the place wasn't there but his scary scary friend said I was to stay with him, all said while he was looking me up and down. I didn't have much choice but to stay there because I was miles away from anywhere. 7 kids and another guy were there and I was told I would be sharing a bed with 2 of the kids. I called the guy who was meant to be there and he said he was in Bangkok for afew months and that I was to look after the kids and cook and clean everyday.hmmm. I ended up sleeping in a chair by the bathroom while a pack of manky cats and dogs and lizards ran around. I mulled over what to do and thought I should give it afew days at least, but come morning I actually thought I probably wouldn't get out of there alive so got up early and left. 12hours later I'm back in Bangkok finally and feeling much safer and happier. From the bus depot instead of a taxi I got a ride on a motorbike which was rad. I had to squish my arms, legs and toes up when we were weaving between tiny gaps between buses and cruising along towards oncoming traffic.
I've met up with Ben and Jenny from America that I met over the summer at Cooks beach and that's been real nice and good timing that they happened to just get into Bangkok tonight. Its the end of their 10months worth of travelling so they've got lots of tips for me and showed me where you can get water from machines around town which is much cheaper than buying it from the 7-11.
So the plan is that we're gonna hang around Bangkok for a couple of days and then head south to Hua Hin and escape the heat at the beach.
Oh and just for Annie, the food I've been eating here is much the same as what Id normally eat in NZ anyway: rice, veges, and tofu only all the veges are super fresh and there's lots of really yummy spices and sauces. Last night for dinner I had vegan spaghetti and meatballs (made of ground up chickpeas and veges) - not very thai, I know. The best thing here is all the fruit juices and especially the bannana soy shakes and food is so cheap!

khao san road

2007-06-26T02:50:00.000-07:00

Another day of random adventures... I met this guy from Laos whos travelling around Bangkok for university and we went on a massive walk around and got some beer to drink at the park by the river. Its so insanely hot here and I really wanted to go swimming in the river but it looked like once i got in there, I wouldnt be able to get back out again and would probably be run down by boats. Im not sure where we ended up but there was heaps of scary people who looked like they were dead and /or dying on the footpath. One lady had a monkey tied to her leg and it tried to grab me when I walked past. I haven't seen much of the packs of stray dogs that I'd been warned about, but plenty or rats that could possibly pass as dogs.
I've moved out of my nice comfortable guesthouse to a much cheaper much grosser one, still on Khao San Road. I like that it has windows with no glass so I can get some kind of breeze and dry some washing so that's a good thing. I'm missing my private bathroom already cos the shared shower here doesnt have a door that closes so I had to constantly try to hold it closed. At least the giant hole in the door lets me see if anyones coming haha.
After all the walking I did today I thought I'd treat myself to a thai massage where I spent an hour getting twisted into all sorts of contortions and got climbed on and hit.
I'm going to hunt down the vegan apple crumble with custard tonight yum.

Still alive....

2007-06-25T04:55:00.000-07:00

Well, Ive arrived in Bangkok and managed to find my way out of the airport, into a taxi, and to Khao San Road. Dropped off in the middle of 4 lanes of traffic in true madmantaxidriver style. Finding the guesthouse I'd booked two nights at was another story... i never did find it. Khao San Road is pretty insane and Itll be nice to get out to do wwoofing away from all the backpackers and dance music.
On the first of many times getting lost I stumbled upon an alley full of vegan and vegetarian restaurants so I've been feasting down on lots of yum stuff. Getting lost usually works out to be a good thing - I decided to go walking to try and get my bearings abit and got horrible lost so jumped in a tuk tuk and went of to visit some temples. The tuk tuk driver is now my best friend. I think we're getting married. He was rad - drove me around for over 4 hours and explained all about the temples to me and showed me how to do the prays and chants and then let me drink from the fountain of holy water. surely holy water cant' give you giardia......
When I figure out how, ill post some photos of the temples - they're amazing and so sparkly and gold. Oh yeah and I didnt get charged a cent for the whole tuktuk ride and he's decided to be my personal tuktuk driver while im in Bangkok and will drive me around anywhere for free haha.
I've got one more day in Bangkok and then I'll be heading out to Thamafaiwan Village in the issan to do some wwoofing for 2weeks which will be nice - I think the insanity of Bangkok would get to me before long.