Friday, December 21, 2007
A hammock, Ko Phi Phi, kayaking, 'White Christmas' and the awesome...the fabulous...the one and only...FULL MOON PARTY!
3pm Thu 20 Dec: My hammock, slung from a lolloping branch above the sand, is swaying gently as I admire giant limestone cliffs planted opposite a sheet of light green and turquoise water.
This spot is familiar to two potential blog readers - Andy Worden and Graham Caygill - as we're outside the thatched Mao Prao cabins on the famously-beautiful Ko Phi Phi Don island, off west Thailand. Andy, Cago and I stayed here three years ago.
Nati is sprawled on a sarong in the shade of another branch, and, if there was ever a spot to take time out and write a blog wishing everyone a truly Merry Christmas, a fun New Year and a sensational 2008...this is that it. We both wish you a really great one!
I'm feeling festive after a kayak shop played 'White Christmas' last night as I jogged down an almost-white sand beach under a 3/4-full white moon. Thought that was quite cool - and decent blog material - so maybe shouldn't mention Cliff Richard's abomination 'Mistletoe and Wine' followed to turn cool into cheese.
For the big day, we're heading to Koh Pha Ngan (Xmas Eve Full Moon Party...is that great timing, or is that great timing?) and a cabin plonked ON the beach - then Sydney for New Year fireworks and, after midnight, a massive, classy Hed Kandi house night.
Back to the hammock...I'm fantistically happy to be here in Phi Phi; but also very sad, as what touched me most about the 2004 Tsunami was the terrible loss of life on the island I had visited three months earlier.
700 people died on Phi Phi that Boxing Day morning.
At Mao Prao, I recognise a Thai man from our previous visit. He tells me his friend was killed when the restaurant was destroyed.
The main town suffered far more damage, as waves swept over the 100m-wide sand spit (backed by beaches on both sides) on which the town is built. Photos, screen-grabs and videos at http://www.issuespotter.com/
Most of the town has been rebuilt but the scars are still there. There are still piles of twisted wood, barren land between battered palm trees, and people sleeping in rough wooden shacks which double as daytime fruit stalls.
Despite the reminders, and the daily invasion of 6ft red lobsters from package-holiday-and-sleaze hot-spot Phuket, Phi Phi is still unquestionably beautiful.
This patch of Thailand is famous for sea-kayaking, and Nati and I have had some super paddles: around Phi Phi Leh of 'The Beach' movie fame; into the shallow, pale blue, cliff-wrapped lagoon of Hong Island near Krabi (absolutely awesome for 'helloooooo' echoes!), and; up against the strange finger (or a ruder protrusion) shapes of sculpted limestone at Railay.
Nati, with her cute doggy swimming style and fear of deep water, has been surprsingly calm and hardly screamed at all.
We're two weeks into our Thai journey, which started on the southern island of Ko Lipe. We were fortunate to have a cabin above a breathtaking hook-shaped swoop of white sand; to tuck into a record-size coconut ('procured', not purchased) large enough to excite the late Norris McWhirter; swing on dangling vines from rocks onto a beach, and; relax on a picture-perfect wooden swing with a classic beach-palm tree-sea-sky view.
You may know Nati and I are crazy about food, so we've loved trying every different cuisine possible in the three months of our trip. Thai curries are just incredible...I can (and do) eat them every night. And Nati still starts salivating if I mention a sizzling seafood platter she had a fortnight ago.
We arrived in Thailand after a couple of weeks in Singapore and Malaysia, both home to the best hawker/street food I've ever tasted. Aside from skyscrapers and colonial buildings, Singers also has: quayside aerobics featuring free Yakult...ok, the temptation was too great; a superb zoo with performing elephants, polar bears and orangutans (see pic above); and a tremendous overhead thunderstorm with gunshot bangs echoing off tower blocks.
Delved into history in Malysia - Nati wasn't TOO bored - tracking Portuguese, Dutch and British colonisation in museum-mad Melaka (only place I've ever heard a flower-filled tourist tricycle play AC/DC...Nati was more impressed with Nando's) and colonial architecture-filled Georgetown.
And...had an awesome time at our pal Adam Cooper's fantastic 21st-floor pad in downtown Kuala Lumpur. The gym and pool were great - but the Petronas Towers (of 'Entrapment' film fame) and views of them over a SkyBar cocktail and on a Petronas park jog were something else. Ad somehow managed a quick 5ks the day after finishing in the top 150 of the Singapore Half-Marathon. Congrats and thanks again! Also great to meet the very fun, food-and-party-mad Julian & Honey (http://juliansi.blogspot.com/).
That's it...festive saludos to everyone again from Nati and I...going to Koh Pha Ngan and Sydney now so chat in 2008!
If you'd like to comment on this blog, click on the 'COMMENTS' tab below.
All the best
Ali & Nati
This spot is familiar to two potential blog readers - Andy Worden and Graham Caygill - as we're outside the thatched Mao Prao cabins on the famously-beautiful Ko Phi Phi Don island, off west Thailand. Andy, Cago and I stayed here three years ago.
Nati is sprawled on a sarong in the shade of another branch, and, if there was ever a spot to take time out and write a blog wishing everyone a truly Merry Christmas, a fun New Year and a sensational 2008...this is that it. We both wish you a really great one!
I'm feeling festive after a kayak shop played 'White Christmas' last night as I jogged down an almost-white sand beach under a 3/4-full white moon. Thought that was quite cool - and decent blog material - so maybe shouldn't mention Cliff Richard's abomination 'Mistletoe and Wine' followed to turn cool into cheese.
For the big day, we're heading to Koh Pha Ngan (Xmas Eve Full Moon Party...is that great timing, or is that great timing?) and a cabin plonked ON the beach - then Sydney for New Year fireworks and, after midnight, a massive, classy Hed Kandi house night.
Back to the hammock...I'm fantistically happy to be here in Phi Phi; but also very sad, as what touched me most about the 2004 Tsunami was the terrible loss of life on the island I had visited three months earlier.
700 people died on Phi Phi that Boxing Day morning.
At Mao Prao, I recognise a Thai man from our previous visit. He tells me his friend was killed when the restaurant was destroyed.
The main town suffered far more damage, as waves swept over the 100m-wide sand spit (backed by beaches on both sides) on which the town is built. Photos, screen-grabs and videos at http://www.issuespotter.com/
Most of the town has been rebuilt but the scars are still there. There are still piles of twisted wood, barren land between battered palm trees, and people sleeping in rough wooden shacks which double as daytime fruit stalls.
Despite the reminders, and the daily invasion of 6ft red lobsters from package-holiday-and-sleaze hot-spot Phuket, Phi Phi is still unquestionably beautiful.
This patch of Thailand is famous for sea-kayaking, and Nati and I have had some super paddles: around Phi Phi Leh of 'The Beach' movie fame; into the shallow, pale blue, cliff-wrapped lagoon of Hong Island near Krabi (absolutely awesome for 'helloooooo' echoes!), and; up against the strange finger (or a ruder protrusion) shapes of sculpted limestone at Railay.
Nati, with her cute doggy swimming style and fear of deep water, has been surprsingly calm and hardly screamed at all.
We're two weeks into our Thai journey, which started on the southern island of Ko Lipe. We were fortunate to have a cabin above a breathtaking hook-shaped swoop of white sand; to tuck into a record-size coconut ('procured', not purchased) large enough to excite the late Norris McWhirter; swing on dangling vines from rocks onto a beach, and; relax on a picture-perfect wooden swing with a classic beach-palm tree-sea-sky view.
You may know Nati and I are crazy about food, so we've loved trying every different cuisine possible in the three months of our trip. Thai curries are just incredible...I can (and do) eat them every night. And Nati still starts salivating if I mention a sizzling seafood platter she had a fortnight ago.
We arrived in Thailand after a couple of weeks in Singapore and Malaysia, both home to the best hawker/street food I've ever tasted. Aside from skyscrapers and colonial buildings, Singers also has: quayside aerobics featuring free Yakult...ok, the temptation was too great; a superb zoo with performing elephants, polar bears and orangutans (see pic above); and a tremendous overhead thunderstorm with gunshot bangs echoing off tower blocks.
Delved into history in Malysia - Nati wasn't TOO bored - tracking Portuguese, Dutch and British colonisation in museum-mad Melaka (only place I've ever heard a flower-filled tourist tricycle play AC/DC...Nati was more impressed with Nando's) and colonial architecture-filled Georgetown.
And...had an awesome time at our pal Adam Cooper's fantastic 21st-floor pad in downtown Kuala Lumpur. The gym and pool were great - but the Petronas Towers (of 'Entrapment' film fame) and views of them over a SkyBar cocktail and on a Petronas park jog were something else. Ad somehow managed a quick 5ks the day after finishing in the top 150 of the Singapore Half-Marathon. Congrats and thanks again! Also great to meet the very fun, food-and-party-mad Julian & Honey (http://juliansi.blogspot.com/).
That's it...festive saludos to everyone again from Nati and I...going to Koh Pha Ngan and Sydney now so chat in 2008!
If you'd like to comment on this blog, click on the 'COMMENTS' tab below.
All the best
Ali & Nati
Monday, November 26, 2007
Pics link
9pm Mon Nov 26: Hi...if you didn't get this pics link on email, you can see some pics up to Japan a few weeks ago here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/agrantabroad/PublicFirstTravelling
And remember you can comment on this blog if you wanna, click on'COMMENTS' tab below.
http://picasaweb.google.com/agrantabroad/PublicFirstTravelling
And remember you can comment on this blog if you wanna, click on'COMMENTS' tab below.
Hobbits, Indonesia's Machu Picchu, communication blackout, a fruit frenzy...and the Cornflake Game strikes again!
11.30am Thu Nov 22: Our Suzuki people carrier (Nati, me, German Lufthansa air stewardesses Anusch and Claudia and Dutch traveller Marieka) is snaking through the twisted, tortuous mountain forest roads of the wild and remote east Indonesia island of Flores, famous for perfect volcanoes, fascinating traditional wooden villages and the 1m-tall, Dean Valler-esque prehistoric hobbit-human, discovered in 2004 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3948165.stm).
This patch of Indonesia is nothing like humid tourist hot-spot Bali: the Aussie hol-and-surf mecca (scene of the tragic 2002 and 2005 bombings); lots of sunshine holiday fun, an air-con hotel we love and tropical scenery; but also overcrowded and with the fat-old-blokes-looking-for-women factor; set to hog the world news from Dec 3 at UN climate change conference (*** now featuring famous ecologist Mandar! ***).
In contrast, lush Flores, visited by just a dribble of travellers, is Bali's anthisesis.
Take Bena, in Flores. We must walk (many Flores roads are stomach-churning but this one was just too bumpy) to the traditional and very poor village of wooden huts, ancestors' graves and buffalo-slaughtering posts in the front yard, boasting a first-view and jaw-dropping perched mountainside location both strangely reminiscent of Machu Picchu.
Arriving in our hotel in Moni (pretty village blessed with towering and enveloping forest-coated mountain valleys; the base for pre-sunrise treks to Kelimutu volcano's coloured lakes), candles illuminate our room. The promised electricity fails to arrive...and the (ice cold) water runs out as I'm coated in soap in the shower. This is a surprisingly-common dilemma in Indonesia.
In a restaurant in Ende, just round the corner from the dramatically-short airstrip we take our lives into our hands by departing from, we order our meal and, a moment later, spy our waiter tugging away on a rope in the kitchen. He is collecting water from a genuine well. You know, the hole in the ground in a medieval castle variety...but this one's in the kitchen floor of our restaurant.
And the buses. Oh, the buses...a constant source of entertainment. People hanging out of the doors, on the roof, on the rear bumper (barging the trussed-up live chickens for space), being tossed in and out of pot-holes...and almost falling off when posing for photos.
As you might imagine, communication here is, erm...challenging. In Labuanbajo, as phone and internet lines had been severed by road-workers, I buy mobile credit for a guy's phone to make an essential call to Qantas. Yeah, you guessed it...the signal was awful and the battery ran out.
So, everything was set up perfectly to wish my sister Susie a happy birthday on the Nov 22. I succeeded in dispatching a text only after tracking down three non-working small-town internet cafes on our rumble through the jungle, and bypassing a mobile phone service black spot.
Indonesians are fantastic people - maybe the friendliest I've ever met, despite many being very poor.
The key thing is people, even from the worst-off areas, seem happy with their lot in life, getting by farming or running a small stall, making enough to provide food for their families. No British-style moaning about not having for the best iPod, complaining about poor salary rises and contributing to the London Underground attitude problem.
Indonesians, especially away from the main tourist areas, almost always wear a big grin. They smile and love the chance to shout "hello, mister" at funny-looking white bloke (Nati doesn't get it, they all think she's Indonesian!). And the kids are amazing, inquisitive and fun.
The country has a lot to offer...and we've seen just a part in three weeks. It's a vast place, the world's fourth biggest country (top three anyone?), peppered by 129 volcanoes - the most of any nation - and blessed with lush forests jam-packed with every fruit you could imagine. One of our hotel gardens had mangoes, bananas, pineapple, papaya, cactus fruit (prickly pear) and tamarind (sour, in long nut-like shell)...and we picked coconut, grenadine and avocado and saw cloves and a spice-rack full of other spices. After all, Indonesia is the famous 'spice islands' that Britain, Portugal and Holland scrapped over a few hundred years ago.
We're a short flight hop from north Australia and half of this country actually has Oceanic rather than Asian foiliage. Our Komodo Dragon-spotting bush walk, on the island of the same name, was more like the outback than the tropics. We took our eyes off the trees when a 2.5m monster lizard chased us down the beach.
Took a three-day boat trip with ultra eco-friendly company Perama to Komodo and Flores, livening up "proceedings" (as a hairy uni friend of some of us would say) by leaping into the sea from the 10-metre mast and staging the most riotous hosting of the (increasingly world-famous) Cornflake Game on deck. The music was pumping, the beer penalties were flowing and Betty, a fantastic, fun Californian lady in her 60s, brought the house down by somehow bending to floor level to of the tune of " USA, USA." Okay, okay, I apologise for footballifying the occasion.
Had a few other great nights out. One on roof terrace of small Kuta (main Bali resort) club - great view and bassy, bouncy, dirty house tunes from unbelievable speakers, while being blasetd by terrific air fans. Heard more great house beneath a sky bulging with stars in the fabulous Gilli Islands, a trio of white-sand jewels packing in turtle-snorkelling, coconut plantations, awesome azure sea and seafood into one splendid package. Half a kilo of king prawns...oh my God.
Back in Bali now, brushing up on world history (thanks to my Lincoln pal Phil's book loan), and going to Singapore tomorrow, then Malaysia and Thai islands for Christmas.
Thanks for the emails and glad this blog seems to be entertaining some of you. Hope you're well wherever you are and drop Nati or I a line to say hi if you fancy it. We always enjoy hearing from family and friends - and remember you can comment on this blog if you would like to...click on 'COMMENTS' tab below.
Ali & Nati
This patch of Indonesia is nothing like humid tourist hot-spot Bali: the Aussie hol-and-surf mecca (scene of the tragic 2002 and 2005 bombings); lots of sunshine holiday fun, an air-con hotel we love and tropical scenery; but also overcrowded and with the fat-old-blokes-looking-for-women factor; set to hog the world news from Dec 3 at UN climate change conference (*** now featuring famous ecologist Mandar! ***).
In contrast, lush Flores, visited by just a dribble of travellers, is Bali's anthisesis.
Take Bena, in Flores. We must walk (many Flores roads are stomach-churning but this one was just too bumpy) to the traditional and very poor village of wooden huts, ancestors' graves and buffalo-slaughtering posts in the front yard, boasting a first-view and jaw-dropping perched mountainside location both strangely reminiscent of Machu Picchu.
Arriving in our hotel in Moni (pretty village blessed with towering and enveloping forest-coated mountain valleys; the base for pre-sunrise treks to Kelimutu volcano's coloured lakes), candles illuminate our room. The promised electricity fails to arrive...and the (ice cold) water runs out as I'm coated in soap in the shower. This is a surprisingly-common dilemma in Indonesia.
In a restaurant in Ende, just round the corner from the dramatically-short airstrip we take our lives into our hands by departing from, we order our meal and, a moment later, spy our waiter tugging away on a rope in the kitchen. He is collecting water from a genuine well. You know, the hole in the ground in a medieval castle variety...but this one's in the kitchen floor of our restaurant.
And the buses. Oh, the buses...a constant source of entertainment. People hanging out of the doors, on the roof, on the rear bumper (barging the trussed-up live chickens for space), being tossed in and out of pot-holes...and almost falling off when posing for photos.
As you might imagine, communication here is, erm...challenging. In Labuanbajo, as phone and internet lines had been severed by road-workers, I buy mobile credit for a guy's phone to make an essential call to Qantas. Yeah, you guessed it...the signal was awful and the battery ran out.
So, everything was set up perfectly to wish my sister Susie a happy birthday on the Nov 22. I succeeded in dispatching a text only after tracking down three non-working small-town internet cafes on our rumble through the jungle, and bypassing a mobile phone service black spot.
Indonesians are fantastic people - maybe the friendliest I've ever met, despite many being very poor.
The key thing is people, even from the worst-off areas, seem happy with their lot in life, getting by farming or running a small stall, making enough to provide food for their families. No British-style moaning about not having for the best iPod, complaining about poor salary rises and contributing to the London Underground attitude problem.
Indonesians, especially away from the main tourist areas, almost always wear a big grin. They smile and love the chance to shout "hello, mister" at funny-looking white bloke (Nati doesn't get it, they all think she's Indonesian!). And the kids are amazing, inquisitive and fun.
The country has a lot to offer...and we've seen just a part in three weeks. It's a vast place, the world's fourth biggest country (top three anyone?), peppered by 129 volcanoes - the most of any nation - and blessed with lush forests jam-packed with every fruit you could imagine. One of our hotel gardens had mangoes, bananas, pineapple, papaya, cactus fruit (prickly pear) and tamarind (sour, in long nut-like shell)...and we picked coconut, grenadine and avocado and saw cloves and a spice-rack full of other spices. After all, Indonesia is the famous 'spice islands' that Britain, Portugal and Holland scrapped over a few hundred years ago.
We're a short flight hop from north Australia and half of this country actually has Oceanic rather than Asian foiliage. Our Komodo Dragon-spotting bush walk, on the island of the same name, was more like the outback than the tropics. We took our eyes off the trees when a 2.5m monster lizard chased us down the beach.
Took a three-day boat trip with ultra eco-friendly company Perama to Komodo and Flores, livening up "proceedings" (as a hairy uni friend of some of us would say) by leaping into the sea from the 10-metre mast and staging the most riotous hosting of the (increasingly world-famous) Cornflake Game on deck. The music was pumping, the beer penalties were flowing and Betty, a fantastic, fun Californian lady in her 60s, brought the house down by somehow bending to floor level to of the tune of " USA, USA." Okay, okay, I apologise for footballifying the occasion.
Had a few other great nights out. One on roof terrace of small Kuta (main Bali resort) club - great view and bassy, bouncy, dirty house tunes from unbelievable speakers, while being blasetd by terrific air fans. Heard more great house beneath a sky bulging with stars in the fabulous Gilli Islands, a trio of white-sand jewels packing in turtle-snorkelling, coconut plantations, awesome azure sea and seafood into one splendid package. Half a kilo of king prawns...oh my God.
Back in Bali now, brushing up on world history (thanks to my Lincoln pal Phil's book loan), and going to Singapore tomorrow, then Malaysia and Thai islands for Christmas.
Thanks for the emails and glad this blog seems to be entertaining some of you. Hope you're well wherever you are and drop Nati or I a line to say hi if you fancy it. We always enjoy hearing from family and friends - and remember you can comment on this blog if you would like to...click on 'COMMENTS' tab below.
Ali & Nati
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Pounding techno, big sandwiches, cycling and yellow spiders
6.30pm Sun Nov 4: I type this having just polished off two mountainous ham, cheese, lettuce and tomato toasted sandwiches, giving me the energy to kickstart my brain after an epic and absolutely thumping night of Tokyo techno ending at 8.30am this morning.
Nati, our Japanese pal Mariko (a girl we met on the train) and I hit Japan's best AND second-best nightclubs in one fantastic night, combining a gorgeous Japanese meal (shoeless, naturally), a stream of beers bizarrely served in mini-glasses, jam-packed Club Air and Club Yellow (both completely hidden in basements; Yellow is so underground it doesn`t even have a sign...and only the club only opens at 5am due to a police-imposed midnight-5am dancing ban due to no licence!), and booming basslines in two phenomenal 360-degree soundsystems from DJs including Detroit techno godfather-figure Derrick May.
As you might gather from the paragraphs above, it went off with spectacular aplomb.
What a way to end two weeks in a country where everything feels familiar due to the comfort and developed-country-ness...but is actually very different. Same same but different, as you would say if you`ve visited Thailand.
Take cycling. In London, you have to be a nutter to pedal into the centre - but EVERYONE In Japan cycles (on granny-style bikes with shopping baskets), bikes get priority on pavements and they`ve even got bike racks outside nightclub. This must give rise to obvious problems, while we also witnessed the amusing but suprisingly-common offence of sending-a-text-while-cycling.
Everyone here is soooooo polite. Ask for directions in London and some chav would probably mug you. Ask for directions in Osaka, as we did, and a guy on his way home from the office spent 40mins helping us find an obscure bus stop. And the lady who ran our Japanese guest house (called mishuku, no beds but sprung tatami mat floor and men`s kimono dressing gowns...sexy) said "you`re welcome" and bowed her head so many times I thought it was gonna fall off.
Taxi drivers? Not some rude cockney bloke with a beer belly and beeping at girls...but an elderly gentleman with suit and flat hat, casually flicking a button to open his back passenger door and beckon you in.
And road/building work. Every Japanese house/pavement/roadworks has a guy with a luminous yellow strap-jacket wafting a red glow stick so long Luke Skywalker could fight Darth Vader with it, all in case someone
might inexplicably not see the enormous double barrier round that work colleague repairing a small paving slab.
Since our last update a fortnight ago, we had three days in a superb hostel near Mount Fuji`s lakes, where we got lucky and saw the snow-capped colossus before a typoon blew in. We were whisked to Kyoto by the shinkansen bullet train (exhillarating 188mph ride; the random factor was the woman next to us singing) and then the day after the typoon I got sunburnt in a heatwave at Kyoto`s very fun wild monkey park.
Chugged round Shikoku`s mountain gorges and Thai-esque surf beaches on trains tinier than the Metheringham to Sleaford school train (that will mean something to some people reading this), passing through even tinier stations. Walked over a vine bridge spanning a river just after dawn and stayed at a surfers` hostel sounding like an extra from The Usual Suspects, the brilliantly-named Minami Kaze.
Endured a night in a bizarre control-freak hostel (somehow Lonely Planet`s top recommendation for Kyoto) with 1,000yen late check-out fines, a kitchen/lounge closed for most of the day and even notes on a tiny sugar pot about not dirtying the spoon with coffee...hello, I left nursery 27 years ago! Upped sticks to the awesome K`s House hostel chain...no notes on the sugar, a beer machine cheaper than the supermarket, free lifestyle/clubbing mags and an International Herald Tribune/Asahi Shimbun (Japan`s biggest English paper) to read listening to funky music in the lounge (yes, I was happy).
Also...realised the government must be oblivious to the mass of tourists here as hardly any signs in English; saw a few geishas; ate various strange combinations of raw egg, chicken cartilage, crazy veg and enough noodles to stretch from London to Tokyo. Tried at least 14 different types of beer (honestly not a bad egg among them...Asahi Extra Dry is my fave), and; Nati almost had a heart attack when she tried on a top with a four-inch yellow spider in it.
That's it, thanks for emails we've received and hope all is well with you. We're going to Bali, Indonesia, tomorrow so will blog about that in a week or two.
All the best
Ali
Nati, our Japanese pal Mariko (a girl we met on the train) and I hit Japan's best AND second-best nightclubs in one fantastic night, combining a gorgeous Japanese meal (shoeless, naturally), a stream of beers bizarrely served in mini-glasses, jam-packed Club Air and Club Yellow (both completely hidden in basements; Yellow is so underground it doesn`t even have a sign...and only the club only opens at 5am due to a police-imposed midnight-5am dancing ban due to no licence!), and booming basslines in two phenomenal 360-degree soundsystems from DJs including Detroit techno godfather-figure Derrick May.
As you might gather from the paragraphs above, it went off with spectacular aplomb.
What a way to end two weeks in a country where everything feels familiar due to the comfort and developed-country-ness...but is actually very different. Same same but different, as you would say if you`ve visited Thailand.
Take cycling. In London, you have to be a nutter to pedal into the centre - but EVERYONE In Japan cycles (on granny-style bikes with shopping baskets), bikes get priority on pavements and they`ve even got bike racks outside nightclub. This must give rise to obvious problems, while we also witnessed the amusing but suprisingly-common offence of sending-a-text-while-cycling.
Everyone here is soooooo polite. Ask for directions in London and some chav would probably mug you. Ask for directions in Osaka, as we did, and a guy on his way home from the office spent 40mins helping us find an obscure bus stop. And the lady who ran our Japanese guest house (called mishuku, no beds but sprung tatami mat floor and men`s kimono dressing gowns...sexy) said "you`re welcome" and bowed her head so many times I thought it was gonna fall off.
Taxi drivers? Not some rude cockney bloke with a beer belly and beeping at girls...but an elderly gentleman with suit and flat hat, casually flicking a button to open his back passenger door and beckon you in.
And road/building work. Every Japanese house/pavement/roadworks has a guy with a luminous yellow strap-jacket wafting a red glow stick so long Luke Skywalker could fight Darth Vader with it, all in case someone
might inexplicably not see the enormous double barrier round that work colleague repairing a small paving slab.
Since our last update a fortnight ago, we had three days in a superb hostel near Mount Fuji`s lakes, where we got lucky and saw the snow-capped colossus before a typoon blew in. We were whisked to Kyoto by the shinkansen bullet train (exhillarating 188mph ride; the random factor was the woman next to us singing) and then the day after the typoon I got sunburnt in a heatwave at Kyoto`s very fun wild monkey park.
Chugged round Shikoku`s mountain gorges and Thai-esque surf beaches on trains tinier than the Metheringham to Sleaford school train (that will mean something to some people reading this), passing through even tinier stations. Walked over a vine bridge spanning a river just after dawn and stayed at a surfers` hostel sounding like an extra from The Usual Suspects, the brilliantly-named Minami Kaze.
Endured a night in a bizarre control-freak hostel (somehow Lonely Planet`s top recommendation for Kyoto) with 1,000yen late check-out fines, a kitchen/lounge closed for most of the day and even notes on a tiny sugar pot about not dirtying the spoon with coffee...hello, I left nursery 27 years ago! Upped sticks to the awesome K`s House hostel chain...no notes on the sugar, a beer machine cheaper than the supermarket, free lifestyle/clubbing mags and an International Herald Tribune/Asahi Shimbun (Japan`s biggest English paper) to read listening to funky music in the lounge (yes, I was happy).
Also...realised the government must be oblivious to the mass of tourists here as hardly any signs in English; saw a few geishas; ate various strange combinations of raw egg, chicken cartilage, crazy veg and enough noodles to stretch from London to Tokyo. Tried at least 14 different types of beer (honestly not a bad egg among them...Asahi Extra Dry is my fave), and; Nati almost had a heart attack when she tried on a top with a four-inch yellow spider in it.
That's it, thanks for emails we've received and hope all is well with you. We're going to Bali, Indonesia, tomorrow so will blog about that in a week or two.
All the best
Ali
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Tokyo, noodles and a giant golden thing
12 noon Wed Oct 24: Thanks for emails guys, great to hear your news. It`s a nice autumn day in Tokyo, about 22C in the sunshine and a lovely fresh breeze. Arrived on Sunday night and staying in a very homey but extremely small hostel with even smaller rooms and door frames (Mandar the giraffe would have bruises on the upper third of his body), near a kind of bizarre golden giant sperm perched on top of a flashy black building which is actually Asahi beer`s HQ.Currently trying to burn pics to CD using Japanese-only instructions...a task which would test the mental dexterity of Mandar, Einstein, Stephen Hawking and numerous other clever people combined. It says squiggle...squiggle...squiggle if anyone knows what that means?
Had two days of neon lights, enormous skyscrapers, nice autumn colours and super-cool fashion stores which had Nati doing somersaults, and enough noodles to last a lifetime.
Been in brilliant but very busy cities for a fortnight - Cairo, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Tokyo - so now leaving mankind behind and heading for some space near the colossal Mount Fuji. My uni friend Andy and I actually climbed it when we were travelling here three years ago...but it's far too dangerous to climb outside summer unless you're Sir Edmund Hillary. So Nati and I are gonna admire from nearby in the superbly-named Kawaguchi-ko, before heading on to temple-and-monkey heaven Kyoto and a interesting-sounding large island nearby with ocean whirlpools, kayaking (don't worry Mum, not too nearby), vine ravine bridges, monster waves on a big headland and a white-sand beach with palm trees.
Might get the bullet shinkansen train once as very pricey (some things in Japan are double the England cost, others less) and then hop on buses.
One fantastic piece of news is that Japan is crazy about techno. Some of you might know that's right up my street...and even sweet Nati likes a bit of bass now! So back in Tokyo on Nov 3 to hit Layo-and-Bushwacka favourite Womb or another big techno club with a nice Japanese girl we met and some of her mates, before Bali and Indonesia.
Hope you enjoyed this blog...trying to give a flavour of our trip. Thanks for reading - drop us an email to say hi if you'd like to.
Sayonara!
Ali
Friday, October 19, 2007
Trance lessons, forest of skyscrapers, toilet brushes and fake DVDs
2.30am Sat Oct 20: I'm in a Hong Kong internet cafe where it is perfectly acceptable to blast out internet music on high-quality Creative speakers at extreme volume - so right now I'm giving the neighbourhood a pumping trance lesson with assistance from the awesome http://www.di.fm/. It's going off! I'm in a doubly-great mood as I've just knocked back an amzing mango juice-jelly-ice-cream combination...superlatives cannot do it justice.
HK is a brilliant city - a forest of skyscrapers, harbour to rival Sydney and very busy, pretty fashionable and about 2/3 the price of England. Had a couple of jaw-dropping jogs past Tai Chi hot-spot Victoria Park and along the promenade.
Stumbled across the hostel I stayed in here three years ago when travelling with Andy Worden (the really thin guy from my uni); hostel is smack bang in the middle of the action and nice apart from rather bizarrely having a used toilet brush on the kitchen sideboard. The Peak is the famous mountain overlooking the city and it's a really staggering view on the few days it's not cloudy.
Picked up a great portable DVD player in Bangkok plus 16 top-quality #1.30 DVDs...so Nati's loving that...thank God I managed to persuade her not to buy the entire 35-DVD Sex and the City back catalogue.
Been away a month now but feels like three or four months. Really loving travelling. Seen a lot already with Verona, Venice, day in Madrid, Egypt, five days in Bangkok and HK...going to Japan on Sunday after a hopefully-epic Saturday night featuring one of HK's best club's house music launch night followed by 3am RWC final (we're seven hours ahead of UK).
Thanks for emails to Nati and I - we both love hearing from family and friends. Drop us a line to say hi and let us know how things are in England/Peru/Israel/Anglesey!/elsewhere.
Take care and thanks for reading.
Ali
Sunday, October 14, 2007
4.30pm Sunday October 14. It's absolutely throwing it down in Bangkok, which is so humid it's impossible to dry clothes. Have just slept off my hangover after watching England's amazing rugby win (2am kick-off here), and now going shopping so Nati's very happy! Thought we'd add a pic from Venice so it should be above.
Hope you all enjoyed the rugby, unless you happen to be French!
Take care
Ali and Nati
Hope you all enjoyed the rugby, unless you happen to be French!
Take care
Ali and Nati
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Pyramids, habiscus tea, police checkpoints and a beer drought
8.45am Wednesday October 10. Our dilapidated bus is leaving Egypt's Gulf of Aqaba (across the water from Saudi Arabia) and swinging inland through the foothills of Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments. Arabic easy-listening music is easing our passage to Cairo, as it will do for the next nine hours.
Nati and I have spent an enthralling 17 days exploring Egypt and learnt that this country, 90% desert and 10% Nile Valley, is a fusion of new and old, rich and poor, easy and frustrating.
We caught the tube to the Pyramids; drank habiscus tea in a wood-pannelled bar on a five-star cruise down the Nile; snorkelled world-class coral and fish in the Red Sea before savouring a smorgasboard of seafood in chilled-out divers' haven Dahab; and stumbled across a funky house pool party at an outdoor bar with stupifing flame dancer, far eclipsing any flame dancer I've seen in Thailand.
But we also saw thousands of bony donkeys and horses carting around everything from dates to building materials and tourists; fought erratic phones and undecpipherable Arabic to contact the airline that cancelled our flights; and washed under (sometimes salty) showers ranging in power from nothing to Niagara, made more bizarre by uncontrollable shower-heads swinging from side to side and soaking the entire bathroom. We were also kicked off a bus after four passengers were bundled into a police van at a one of many checkpoints, a legacy of a succession of terrorist bombs targetting tourists in the last decade...although the drama of our situation was reduced by policemen's pjyama-style uniforms that made them look like the Egyptian judo team.
We had some great Arabic experiences - meeting Mustapha, Mahmood and Abdul (all on our first day, and all who looked surprised when I said Ali was actually an English name); suffering a beer and food drought (our visit coincided perfectly with Ramadan, Muslims' month of fasting); and receiving an offer of 100 camels for Nati. I declined, insisting on 200 minimum.
Egypt is great fun, which is why 8million tourists flood here every year, although most of them ae on uncomprehensible race-round-a-temple-and-be-back-on-coach/boat-in-30-mins tours, or trips to Sharm El-Sheikh, the least Egyptian town in Egypt and, strangely, absolutely rammed with Russians.
We took a little more time and had some fantastic and fortunate solo experiences. We bartered for a camel ride to a desert viewpoint as the Pyramids closed and were lucky enough to walk back through the monumental complex alone before sunset, with just the Sphinx for company.
At the Valley of the Kings, a gap in the tour group/cattle-driving frenzy allowed just the two of us to stare at the sarcophagus of Tutankahmuan, on the spot where Howard Carter opened his tomb to spark Egyptomania and the curse scare story (journalists!) in 1922.
We also gawped at Ramses the Great's phenomenal Abu Simbel temple 25 miles from Sudan, and met the great man, sorry, mummy, himself in the antiquity-packed Egyptian museum, along with King Tut's gold death mask.
Suffering, as all visitors do, from Pharonic fatigue, we headed for the Rea Sea, snorkelling and dodging barracudas at the awesome 110-metre deep Blue Hole and finishing our trip yesterday with a quad-bike blast to a desert canyon and absolutely shimmering Red Sea lagoon.
If you made it this far, we hope you enjoyed our update and thanks for reading. We hope you're well wherever you are. We actually had four days in Verona (Juliet's balcony of Romeo fame) and Venice (every bit as spectacular as you could hope) before Egypt, and we'll update you again from SE Asia.
I'm going for a big Leo beer now before watching the rugby, Ali.
Nati and I have spent an enthralling 17 days exploring Egypt and learnt that this country, 90% desert and 10% Nile Valley, is a fusion of new and old, rich and poor, easy and frustrating.
We caught the tube to the Pyramids; drank habiscus tea in a wood-pannelled bar on a five-star cruise down the Nile; snorkelled world-class coral and fish in the Red Sea before savouring a smorgasboard of seafood in chilled-out divers' haven Dahab; and stumbled across a funky house pool party at an outdoor bar with stupifing flame dancer, far eclipsing any flame dancer I've seen in Thailand.
But we also saw thousands of bony donkeys and horses carting around everything from dates to building materials and tourists; fought erratic phones and undecpipherable Arabic to contact the airline that cancelled our flights; and washed under (sometimes salty) showers ranging in power from nothing to Niagara, made more bizarre by uncontrollable shower-heads swinging from side to side and soaking the entire bathroom. We were also kicked off a bus after four passengers were bundled into a police van at a one of many checkpoints, a legacy of a succession of terrorist bombs targetting tourists in the last decade...although the drama of our situation was reduced by policemen's pjyama-style uniforms that made them look like the Egyptian judo team.
We had some great Arabic experiences - meeting Mustapha, Mahmood and Abdul (all on our first day, and all who looked surprised when I said Ali was actually an English name); suffering a beer and food drought (our visit coincided perfectly with Ramadan, Muslims' month of fasting); and receiving an offer of 100 camels for Nati. I declined, insisting on 200 minimum.
Egypt is great fun, which is why 8million tourists flood here every year, although most of them ae on uncomprehensible race-round-a-temple-and-be-back-on-coach/boat-in-30-mins tours, or trips to Sharm El-Sheikh, the least Egyptian town in Egypt and, strangely, absolutely rammed with Russians.
We took a little more time and had some fantastic and fortunate solo experiences. We bartered for a camel ride to a desert viewpoint as the Pyramids closed and were lucky enough to walk back through the monumental complex alone before sunset, with just the Sphinx for company.
At the Valley of the Kings, a gap in the tour group/cattle-driving frenzy allowed just the two of us to stare at the sarcophagus of Tutankahmuan, on the spot where Howard Carter opened his tomb to spark Egyptomania and the curse scare story (journalists!) in 1922.
We also gawped at Ramses the Great's phenomenal Abu Simbel temple 25 miles from Sudan, and met the great man, sorry, mummy, himself in the antiquity-packed Egyptian museum, along with King Tut's gold death mask.
Suffering, as all visitors do, from Pharonic fatigue, we headed for the Rea Sea, snorkelling and dodging barracudas at the awesome 110-metre deep Blue Hole and finishing our trip yesterday with a quad-bike blast to a desert canyon and absolutely shimmering Red Sea lagoon.
If you made it this far, we hope you enjoyed our update and thanks for reading. We hope you're well wherever you are. We actually had four days in Verona (Juliet's balcony of Romeo fame) and Venice (every bit as spectacular as you could hope) before Egypt, and we'll update you again from SE Asia.
I'm going for a big Leo beer now before watching the rugby, Ali.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
You found us!
Hi
Welcome to our blog! We're blogging while we're travelling, from September 18 to probably May-August 2008. We hope to keep our familes, friends and blog visitors entertained with stories about what we've been up to...to see us and our friends, have a look at these leaving party pics from September 10:
http://picasaweb.google.com/agrantabroad/BBQLongStrawsCornflakeGameAndTheHats
Thanks for reading, enjoy yourselves in England (or wherever you are) and we'll post an update about Italy and Egypt in a couple of weeks.
Cheers / saludos
Ali & Nati
Welcome to our blog! We're blogging while we're travelling, from September 18 to probably May-August 2008. We hope to keep our familes, friends and blog visitors entertained with stories about what we've been up to...to see us and our friends, have a look at these leaving party pics from September 10:
http://picasaweb.google.com/agrantabroad/BBQLongStrawsCornflakeGameAndTheHats
Thanks for reading, enjoy yourselves in England (or wherever you are) and we'll post an update about Italy and Egypt in a couple of weeks.
Cheers / saludos
Ali & Nati
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