Rishikesh

Woke up this morning, came out of my room and was face to face with a large monkey who was going through the bin. This seems quite normal now. I'm staying in an ashram, its a bit like a cross between a prison compound and a cheap guesthouse. There are a lot of other travellers staying there so the main thing is I'm able to meet a lot of new people, which was a problem in some other places as the standard guesthouses (basic hotels) can be quite antisocial in design.

Current location is Rishikesh in the north of India. Very scenic, the ganges flowing past, blokes dressed up in orange robes (most pretending to be holy men on the run from the law), monkeys and cows everywhere. I've been doing a lot of yoga, there's not a great deal else here but I've found a good ashtanga teacher (Kamal, teaches at Tatvaa yoga by ram jhula). I'm happy. Had a wash in the river today after class then had a huge bowl of fruit and muesli for 75 rupees (just over a pound). Shame I have to leave tomorrow, it would have been great to have another month.

My three months in India have flown by. No wonder they give out 6-month visas. And I've hardly spent anything. The next week has a lot of travelling for me, first to Haridwar tomorrow, then Delhi and on to Mumbai (a long train journey, I managed to get the last seat booking a month in advance) and finally flying back to snowy old blighty. Can't complain though, I haven't had to get up for work for over a year (apart from a few weeks in Christchurch).

om shanti shanti!

Tibetan food

Hello. I was going to write loads about Mccleod Ganj but I've ended up reading about Buddhism for nearly an hour. So I'll just write a little about the Tibetan food that you can get here.

The most popular dish is momos, which are like Chinese dumplings. They are usually steamed, sometimes fried, and can be found with both veg and non-veg fillings. The veg is usually potato, tofu, mushroom or cheese. I had a soup before which was ok, but I think they are best eaten fresh. Many Tibetan ladies sell them one the street here, four for 10 rupees with a little chilli sauce on the side (71 rupees = 1 pound).

The other dishes are largely noodle soups or stir-fried noodles (chow mein). There's chitse (flat noodles), gyathuk (the usual thin noodles), and thenthuk (my favourite, fat square noodles). The broth is usually very tasty, with some veg like spinach and carrot and some times with optional egg or tofu. Its great being able to try all this food, as its predominantly vegetarian, unlike in Vietnam and other Asian countries where I usually spent hours walking around trying to find somewhere that did veggie stuff other than fried rice.

One thing I haven't had yet is tsampa, which I thought was a very popular Tibetan food (roasted barley used to make porridge or eaten in various other ways), maybe they don't think the Westerners would like it!

Rob

Vipassana

Today I'm in McCleod Ganj, in the north of India. I've just finished a rather intense meditation course, 10 days of no talking, no eye contact and 10 hours of meditation and instruction in the Vipassana style. It has had a very strong effect on me and now I'm back in the "real" world I'm trying to keep up the daily meditations and general attitude of being aware and equanimous.

I've been here nearly a month and I still don't want to go, definitely the best place I've visited so far in India.

Any other pertinent information? I haven't drank alcohol now for over a month which is the longest period of abstentation since I finished uni (ten years ago now). I haven't missed it at all, India is a great place to be teetotal (well, apart from Goa). I also quit the smokes when I arrived in this town, again, I haven't missed them, in fact its great to be without that constant feeling of self-disgust. I've been travelling now for nearly a year but it seems like just in the last few weeks I'm being transformed, hopefully into a better person.

Don't worry though, I'm not going to come back wearing all-white robes and calling myself the Enlightened One.

Remember, there is no spoon.

Iddly, dosa and black sludge

Stilll in Madras. Its very hot today. I tried to walk to the museum but gave up. I think crossing over the incredibly stinky river finished me off. So, what do people eat for breakfast here? There seems to be two favourites. One is the dosa, basically a big pancake, folded over with something spicy inside, served with a small bowl of curry sauce and one of curd. Usually I've got a masala dosa which has spicy mashed potato inside. The other main one is the iddly, which is basically a big soft savoury cake thing served in a curry sauce. Sometimes they throw in a donut shaped piece of bread too. Sometimes there is a rice and curry combo available. Lunchtime is the main eating time, a lot of cafes (and most seem to be just vegetarian, every eating establishment is proclaimed as being veg or non-veg) serve "meal" between about 11am and 2pm, which involves a banana leaf, a big pile of rice, some types of curry and a samba (sauce) poured on to the rice. It is eaten by mixing with the fingers and then shoved into the gob. I've not found any eating place that could be called relaxing, most a big utilitarian cafe type scenarios where the service is fast, the bill comes before you've finished eating and you're out the door before you know it. This is all in the south of India, I'll soon be finding out what the north is like as I'm heading up to Delhi tonight. Anyhow, I can sort of see now why Goa is so appealing, as things definitely were a lot more relaxed there.

Black stream of sludge which passes for a river in Chennai

Fruit juice and chipmunks

Just had an amazing lassi, there are loads of fruit juice cafes here. In Madras(Chennai) at the moment. Its dirty, busy, it stinks and there's people all over the place, sleeping on the street, washing their kids in the gutter and so on. For some reason I kind of like it though, its the most full-on Indian place I've been to yet. Only yesterday I met a man who was walking a chipmunk on a string leash. Street scene in Chennai: Honk honk!

Tomorrow I'm going up to Delhi (3hr flight - trains are booked up solid for the next month), then taking a train up to Pathankot to get to Dharamsala, the new home of the exiled Tibetan people. I wouldn't have minded the 40-hour train journey, but it seems I was highly naive in my "lets wing it and just rock up to the station to buy tickets on the day". I should have learned my lesson from China. The other travellers I've met here seem to be following quite a highly planned itinery, booking all their train tickets and accomodation several weeks in advance. What a bore to do all that though, you might as well be in work.

From the beach to some big red rocks

Namaste. Just a mini blog as the internet is unpredictable here (powercuts and the like). I arrived in Goa airport last wednesday about 5am, and took a taxi to Benaulim, which seemed like a quiet, reltaively undeveloped place from my guidebook and not too far from the airport. It was ok for a few days, but I'm not much of a beach person at the best of times, and there was not much to do apart from wander down the beach, back up again and then sit in the few bars that were open at night time. Hardly any tourists there, so most of the town was looking pretty bored. I have this impression that Goa is just a big beach resort. Nice and relaxed but thats about it. Had curries and Chinese food mostly, cheap (about 80-100 rupees for a curry and rice and a nan, so about 2 pounds). Anyway, I was half deciding whether to just go back home, but I thought I might as well travel around India a bit.

Fishing boat, Benaulim beach, Goa

So today I'm in Hampi, which was an 8 hour train ride from Goa's Margao station. From the train I could see forests, open grassland, a few small settlements, and miles and miles of agricultural areas (paddy fields, bananas, coconuts). Not a very heavily populated part of the country. Hampi is a very small town, basically catering for tourists who come to see the ruins of what used to be a great Hindu city here. There's some nice little walks up on top of hills with various ruins scattered around and lots of monkeys. Not done much today, I walked along the river here watching the Hindu people bathing in the water and carrying out various religious ceremonies. Been chatting to a Kiwi bloke most of the day, we're going to meet up later and find the one bar in this town that supposedly serves alcohol...

Cows mooching by temple ruins, Hampi

Next place I'm going is Mysore, further down south. It is of interest to me as the main ashtanga yoga training centre is there; Unfortunately I don't have a reservation (you need to book a month in advance and it was way out of my budget), so I'm just going to do the usual thing of wandering around aimlessly taking random photos.

Inventory for India

This might be a bit boring, or interesting, who knows. I'm getting pre-flight jitters and it helps me to type stuff.

On my first outing I took a 50L Quechua rucksack, which was packed with mostly outdoors stuff for New Zealand:
2 shirts (including one quick-drying one)
1 pair quick drying walking trousers
1 pair running shorts (mainly for doing yoga)
1 sunhat
2 pairs of pants
3 pairs socks, including 2 thick walking socks
1 pair North Face sandals
1 mountain hardware jacket
1 Peter Storm rain coat
1 Quechua lightweight sleeping bag
1 silk sleeping sack
1 micro fibre fleece
1 large micro fibre towel and one small one (I cut the large one in half, I lost the small one)
camera, mp3 player, phone, and the various leads and adaptors to plug them into computers and wall sockets
A four-section toiletries bag (one of the ones that can be hung one the wall) with shower gel, razors, malaria tablets, water purifying solutions, plasters, toothpaste, travel toothbrush, mosquito repellant (50% DEET), sunblock
sketchbook, notepad, pens, pencils
New Zealand and South East Asia guidebooks
1 canvas shoulder bag to use as a day bag
Plastic cup and camping cutlery set
Wind-up torch and head lamp
Spare glasses (never used) and a shitload of contact lenses (hardly used them, ended up throwing most of them away)
Compass (it now does not point north but south - not much use, although it came in handy several times for orientation)

It all came to about 20kg

And I was wearing a shirt, underwear, socks, quick drying walking trousers and some Merrel hiking shoes

Well eventually I abandoned all the shirts in favour of t-shirts which I picked up along the way. I just couldn't be arsed trying to look smart. T-shirts just feel a lot more comfortable against the skinI find in hot weather than shirts. Also one of the trousers went in favour of shorts, all the thick socks went, I went through several hats, swapped the guidebooks for novels, never used the purification tablets, the sandals broke so I got some flip flops and wore them most of the time, the other shoes really hurt my feet after a while and I went through three pairs of other shoes. I also bought a small backpack for going on day hikes, as the canvas bag didn't last five minutes, although I used my main bag for big walks in New Zealand. The silk sleeping sack was supposed to protect me from bed bugs but I hardly used it, it wasn't that comfy to sleep in and got ripped easily, it was most useful as a sleeping bag liner when staying in huts in NZ as my main sleeping bag was woefully under powered. I ahd to buy some other stuff for hiking in NZ as well, such as a warm hat, gloves, camping stove attachment and a set of pots. I hardly used the fleece outside of NZ, except on buses/trains/planes with crazy AC on, and in the north of Thailand. The travel toothbrush went mouldy so I bought a new one in a 7-eleven in Saigon. The head lamp got broken in my bag, however the wind-up torch I used a few times. I also came back with a yoga mat which I bought in Indonesiam, and an umbrella which I picked up in Japan.

The most important thing for clothes is to wear stuff which is comfortable and which dries quickly, it really sucked in Japan having wet clothes from the rain and not being able to dry stuff due to the humidity.

As I'm just going to Asia this time I'm taking a lot less, got it all in a 28L Tofana bag.
2 t-shirts, both quite thin so they'll dry quickly
1 slightly smarter polo-type t-shirt for hanging around in bars
1 shirt, a very thin O'Neill one
the same yoga shorts and fleece as before
2 pairs shorts
2 pairs pants
2 pairs thin socks
1 pair flip flops
1 pair North Face trekking shoes (in case I go up to the Himalayas - anything else I need I'll have to buy/rent up there)
yoga mat
camera, alarm clock
note book, pens, Goa guidebook (probably the first thing to get chucked), copy of Midnights Children by Salman Rushdie
umbrella, emergency poncho, torch
travel toothpaste, toothbrush (a normal one!), mossie repellant, sunblock, water purification tablets

The main things which have gone are the jackets and the sleeping bag. I'm quite happy that I've got enough stuff to wear and survive (not that I need a yoga mat to survive... well it helps my mental survival) and yet can carry my bag for long distances if needs be.

I'll probably think of something else to write in a minute...

Back in the UK (for a bit)

Its been a while... I suppose I should start from where I left off. Linda and me travelled from Hong Kong to Beijing, where we did a dodgy tour to the great wall which included a diversion to a Chinese medical centre, had a walk around the back lakes, Forbidden palace and had hot pot (huo guo) by one of the hutongs (old-style streets). It was hot, humid, and very busy. Chinese people don't like to queue, the worst thing was taking the subway when everyone would try to get onto the train at once without letting anyone get off. I dreaded it. Still, the subway, food, drink and cigs were all very cheap so we were trying not to complain too much.

On our first day, we braved Beijing train station to get train tickets for Xi'an. The tickets are sold in a huge hall with lots of ticket booths, all of which had long lines (okay, so they queue up sometimes). We found the only "tourist" window (i.e. which had someone who could speak English) and managed to get some hard-seat tickets for the 12 hour trip (no sleeper berths available). When the time came to get the train, we showed up at the station 2 hours early. Passengers have to wait in this large hall for the gates to the platform to open, and the waiting room for our platform was already chocka with people, sitting, standing, sleeping on the floor like in an airport. When the gates were about to open, there was a huge rush of people trying to get through, it was absolutely crazy, and we couldn't understand why all these people, most of whom had reserved seats on the train, where fighting each other to get in. Turned out that a lot of people only had standing tickets, so we had a less than pleasant journey on a very packed train. I had an aisle seat and at one point I had one man sleeping on my shoulder and another with his head on my knee.

After that we just took buses which were fine, and a lot easier to get tickets for. Xi'an was a lot quieter than Beijing, although not especially pleasant or interesting to wander around. We visited the immortal sages temple and nearby market, which was cool, and rode a tandem around the city walls, which was probably the nicest thing we did in China. Rather than take a tour to the Terracotta warriors we found out where to get the public bus, which leaves outside the front of the train station. We got to the museum site pretty early and it was great having the place virtually to ourselves, the warriors were amazing, the scale of the place has to be seen to be believed. Its also amazing that the main pit has only been half excavated to date and they still don't know all of what's down there. We took a sleeper bus from Xi'an to Shanghai, which looked like the ones I'd used in Vietnam with the three rows of bunks.

Rather than stay in Shanghai we took a train to Suzhou, which is famous in China for its system of old canals. Its a very picturesque place to wander around, although actually quite dull. The most interesting thing I did there was to get up at 6am and go to the nearby park, where, as I hoped, there was lots of elderly Chinese people doing Tai Chi (er, I didn't hope they were elderly but you know what I mean). I had a go myself, but as I haven't had many lessons I felt a bit silly doing it in front of Chinese people who had probably been doing it their whole lives. Its quite a special thing to watch to old ladies shadow boxing under a tree.

We got a bit annoyed with the hostel we stayed at in Suzhou (Ming Han Tan), the only Chinese food on the menu was fried rice, which I usually love but this had half a litre of oil floating on the plate. Meanwhile the staff where on the next table having a huge Chinese banquet. Not that I was expecting that, its just a bit frustrating when they can obviously cook all this nice food for themselves but give the guests such shite. A similar thing happened in the next place we stayed, in Hangzhou (Tour An hostel). The problem with both places is that there was not much in the way of places to eat nearby and we were hungry when we showed up. Breakfast was out of the question too, I think we had a pot noodle for breakfast nearly everyday. Actually I started to grow to like that. The range of pot noodles you can get in the Far East is pretty impressive. I had fun trying to translate the Chinese characters on the top - soon I could tell what "flavour" I was letting myself in for - Beef, shrimp, chicken etc.

The best place we stayed was the 7 Sages hostel in Xi'an, the staff were great (staff in the other hostels were not interested in helping at all), the food was good too (breakfast and dinner), they had a guitar (sweet) and the place is set in a very cool looking old Chinese army barracks with the typical round entrances to get in to different courtyards. The only weird thing was the room - the shower and toilet were separated from the rest of the room only by glass, so it was a bit voyeuristic when one of us was on the loo.

Hangzhou was a bit boring, there is a nice big lake but unfortunately it was perpetually swamped with yellow baseball cap wearing Chinese tourists. We weren't too sad to leave, and it was actually really nice when we got back to Hong Kong. Just the general mannerisms of people and the way they behave to each other, like letting people get off the subway trains first and so on. We celebrated by getting hammered.

My original plan for China was to travel to Guillin and Yangshuo, across to Yunnan province then up to Chengdu and maybe into Tibet. There were some major difficulties with that, not only the weather (the worst floods China has had for years) but also getting into Tibet sounded like an expensive nightmare. In the end I decided to go to the airport with Linda (she had a flight booked, I did not) and try to get on her plane. It turned out that there was still some seats left so I thought, why not, and next thing I'm back in London.

So I've been bumming around Manchester for the past few weeks, helping a friend move house, trying to sell stuff online, and catching up with people. One of our friends has had a baby, another one has managed to get her ex-partner out of her house and is much happier. Linda and me went camping in Malham, Yorkshire, which has some amazing scenery but was very cold and wet. We also had a day out to Southport, which has the biggest beach I've ever seen - big as in you can't see the sea its that far away.

I think I was just tired of the travelling but I'm getting itchy again now, the options are either get a job or go off travelling again. I think I'll regret it if I don't go to India, as I don't know what my situation with regards to holidays will be like in the future, and its definitely a place I'll want to spend some time in. Considering I'm a vegetarian and a yoga nut, it seems crazy that I didn't just go there first (but then I had no idea about Asia or most other countries then). I lodged my application for an Indian visa yesterday, I think after I go there I'll be ready to stop moving for a while and get my head down.

Alright, next time I'll put some more pictures up for people who aren't on facebook!

Rob

Hong Kong

Microblog for today:
Three nights, Hong Kong island, Yes Inn, very hot, humid, and raining every day. Went for a hike yesterday to Shek-O, just came down off the hills to the village as torrential rains started, very lucky, watching the news later on and many parts of Hong Kong were flooded. Hopefully picking up my Chinese visa today and getting to the mainland.

Weirdest thing I've seen so far: Live toads for sale in a supermarket:

Seoul

I had a couple of ideas for the title: Seoul man, Seoul music, Heart and Seoul, Lemon Seoul... But all a bit corny hey? I've had a bit of a cold for the last few days, so sorry if this is a bit unhinged.

I've been in the South Korean capital for four days now, and I haven't really done much to be honest. The place I'm staying, Lee and Nos guest house, is really relaxing. There is a free breakfast of eggs, toast, cereal and fruit juice, free internet (actually I've had that in all the places in South Korea - unlike in Japan, Australia and NZ), and even free use of the washing machine. I've ben doing yoga on the patio every morning before the other guests get up, and the rest of the time mostly chatting or reading a book (I picked up Iain M Banks' Matter of the shelf here, its a weighty tome).

Speaking of books I read two great ones recently: Hokkaido Road Blues by Will Ferguson, about the Canadian authors hitchhiking journey across Japan, and Last Seen in Lhasa by Clare Scrobie, another travel book, this time about the authors various trips to Tibet and the people she meets, including an amazingly hard sounding female monk.

So far in Seoul I've been for food in the local area, the university district. There are loads of cafes with twee-sounding names and even twee-er decor. I went to meet my mate Rob in Myeongdong before he jetted back to the UK, he was with some ex-students of his, a Korean man and woman. Plenty of drink went down, including a crazy cocktail called Hwajinkamnehsu (that's spelled from memory), loosely translated means "happy ending", consisting of a shot of Soju (rice whiskey) in a shot glass on top of another shot of something sweet (we used this weird Korean raspberry wine), in a half pint glass full of lager, that then had to be chugged. We ended up in a cool bar (LP music bar), where the walls were lined with LPs and requests could be made (I got the Doors, Riders on the Storm). I also had a look at some of the districts in the day, mostly malls, shops and restaurants. At least I got some tacky fridge magnets for my collection.

The monsoon rain I was experiencing in Japan has finally caught up with me, its been pouring down all day. It eased off earlier on and I went for a walk in the Bukhansen national park. It is very pretty there, with lots of exposed granite outcrops sticking out over the misty forests. I had to do a bit of rock climbing to get onto a ridge section, which made for an interesting change as a lot of the walks I've done recently (both here and in Japan) have been so well-maintained as to be almost dull (nicely formed paths, staircases going up hills etc., probably really good for limiting erosion I suppose but it takes the wildness factor out). It wasn't so interesting to be lost in the park in a thunderstorm, but I made for the nearest place that looked on the map like a main road and managed to get a bus. Ended up totally drenched, including my so called waterproof hiking boots, not sure if I want to carry them on the plane with me to Hong Kong, I might as well just have a pair of sandals.

A bit of a frustrating day but at least I got out of the hostel. Its Friday night and I know I should party, but can I be arsed?

Gyeongju

After an easy 1 hour bus ride (and cheap - 4000 won or about 2pound50) I was in Gyeongju. First impressions were of a run-down little town, and I think that was about right. Its a lot more basic than Busan, lets put it that way. The main reason for coming here was so I could learn a bit about Korean history and have a hike up a hill. There are various tombs dotted around (big hills covered in grass, we have the same in England), and thats about it for the central part of the city. Today I walked to Namsan, which is a mountainous, forested area known as an "open air museum" apparently. The hike was nice, especially after all the boozing I'd done on the weekend. There are various things dotted around the forest like carvings of Buddha in the cliff-faces and a couple of pagodas. There were a lot of dragonfly, and I saw a cool frog, brown with bright green patches on its back (I was to slow to get a photo before he disappeared).

Might go to visit another site tomorrow, or just get on the bus to Seoul.

Busan hellraisers

After a couple of days of relative inaction, just doing yoga and going out for food, I just had the messiest weekend I've had for ages.

On friday night I met up with a friend I'd made on tuesday, my namesake from London. We went for food in a place recommended by the hostel owner, Jin, and I'd invited a couple of people from the hostel along with me (all French!). The food was great, can't remember the place name but it was very cheap for rice and lots of side dishes and home made Maekjoli, a kind of fermented rice wine that was much nicer than soju. My buddy went off to meet his girlfriend at the train station and I went back to the backpackers.

Things were fairly sensible up to that point, but we had arranged to meet up later on. I got a phone call from him at 3AM, asking me to come to the beach to set off some fireworks and have a drink. I naively thought that asking a taxi driver for Gwangali beach, the second most popular beach in this city, would be enough to get me there. After two drivers indicated that they didn't know it, I took my map to a convenience store and asked the man working there to write the name of the place down in Korean. I didn't know the Korean for "beach"*, so I just ponted at the nearest subway station to Gwangali on the map (all the trains had stopped by then). Third time lucky and I made it to the beach and found my friends.

It was nice to just sit out watching the sun come up with a few beers and a bit of a picnic (instant noodles, tangerines and bananas). We set off fireworks and it was very relaxing. Later on we went to Hyundae beach, which was empty when we arrived but got very busy later on. Lots of Koreans floating around in rubber rings, apparently not many Korean people can swim. We went in the water quite a few times, it was cold but not too bad. Some more people showed up (everyone was teaching English here except me) and we had more drinks. There was talk of going to an Indian restaurant, which I was excited by, but we ended up going for Korean again, near where Rob was staying in Hyundae, and had the most disappointing meal I've had here. No vege options, no tofu or egg and the kimchi was horible. I basically just had rice with a bit of seaweed mixed in. Some one spilt a drink and we left pretty soon afterwards.

It was dark by then, and Rob, his girlfriend K and myself were steaming drunk by that point and we probably should have gone home to bed, but we stayed out. We ended up walking around in the rain, trying to take a taxi to a certain bar (no joy, we just got driven around in a circle), then finally going into a bar called U2, where we drank, played pool and had a shisha, which I'd never tried before.

Today I'm going to Gyeongju for a few days before I go to Seoul. I'm burning up a the moment, think my metabolism is going into overdrive trying to deal with all the alcohol.

*Note: The Korean for "beach" is "beachy". Nice one.

Busan

My last night in Fukuoka turned out to be a bit of an anti-climax. I went out to find some bars with an American guy who I met at the Khaosan Fukuoka hostel. We walked for quite a way from our digs an spied a bar upstairs just before the bridge over to Nakasa island. After one beer we were ready to move on as the place was dead (it was a Sunday though), and the barman charged us 200 yen on top of the drinks just for being in the bar. Not much money but as always, its the principal of the thing, nowhere in or outside the bar was there any indication of any bar charge. We left and crossed over to the island, which is quite a seedy area, lots of girly bars and drunk business men wandering around. I realised that I had left my umbrella in the bar (amazingly it wasn't raining when we left), so I went back for it, after which we couldn't be bothered to walk back through the same area so we just went back to the hostel. Probably a good thing because I hate trying to pack my stuff up and travel with a hangover.

The next day I caught the bus to the ferry terminal easily enough. I was told about a departure tax from Japan, and indeed I was charged 700 yen "surcharge" when I went to collect my ticket, and a further 500 yen for a ticket to use the terminal facility, i.e. get through immigration. I got my own back though, as I'd bought the ferry ticket at the reduced student fare and nobody checked on my (non-existent) student status. The ferry trip on the Beetle was fast but a little boring. As it goes so fast its not allowed to go out on deck, in fact they insist that you remain in your seat, strapped in, in case they have to brake to avoid a whale or something. There was no one sitting next to me to talk to so I just used the time to try and learn Hangul, the Korean alphabet.

Immigration in Korea was easy. I had booked a hostel, Zen Backpackers, in the Seomyeon district of Busan, so I wandered out of the ferry port and used the force to find the nearest subway station. It was a bit tricky buying a ticket, as there was only vending machines and no real person. Although the machine had a button for English language, the display kept flipping back to Korean. I put my newly learned reading skills to good use an bought a ticket to what I thought at least was the right place and luckily it was. Finding the hostel was a bit trickier. The owner of Zen, June, had emailed me a map which I had dutifully copied down. However after following the directions I could not see any sign for the place. I spent a while wandering around, asking people who spoke no English for directions, and generally getting hot and fed up. At least it wasn't raining.

I noticed that there was another hostel nearby, Blue Backpackers in a bright blue building, and figured that any hostel owner must be able to speak some English. The lady owner was very nice and took me over to the huge apartment building nearby, which I had been walking around and randomly taking the lift up to various floors, and put me on the lift to the 15th floor. June (who is a man, not what I expected) couldn't understand why I had gotten lost, and it turned out that I had not noticed some additional directions on the map for getting to the right lift and floor in the building. So, my fault, as always, but a sign somewhere in the building lobby might have been handy.

That night I went out for dinner with another guest, a very young looking Taiwanese lad, at a traditional Korean restaurant. The place had floor seating on these weird chairs with no legs, just a seat and a backrest, and a barbeque pit in the centre of the table. I feared a meat feast, but it was mostly fish, tofu, and various vegetables and kimchi, with a stone pot of extremely hot rice. We had a couple of bottles of Korean lager to go with it and some soju, which is a Korean spirit I had been warned about, but I didn't think it was too bad. Certainly not as face-wrenching as the Lao-Lao whiskey. After the food, which was very good, we retired to a Hof bar, which I think is just what Koreans call their modern-style bars, for a couple of bottles of stout. It was a brand I'd not seen before but it was good. My Taiwanese friend kept me talking about what things are like in England (he had never been to Europe) and was getting increasingly red in the face, probably from the booze, so we went back to the hostel.

The next day I was up and out about 11am after I sneaked in some yoga in the lounge area while no one was about. I went to Beomeosa temple, which just looked like every temple I'd seen in Japan. But my main reason for going there was that I had read about a hiking trail that leads from that temple, over some hills to another, much nice temple. I spent the rest of the day hiking, including going up a mountain and getting a good view for a change, and trying to find a place that would give me just a rice dish and not some sort of barbequed goat meal. I failed in the food quest and just had to make do with a tasty mango ice pop and a disgusting packet of corn chips. The walk I did passes through the site of an ancient fort, Geumjeong, although the only parts remaining of it are four stone archways which served as gates. It was nice to be out in nature for the whole day, sans rain, after my last couple of hiking trips which were wet and miserable. Eventually I made it to Seokbulsa temple, and it was quite a good one, on top of a hill with some Buddhas carved into the rocks nearby. On the way back down I noticed some Korean people were using the random exercise machines which were just sitting in the forest.

After such a healthy day, I ruined it all by going on an all night drinking session with some lads from the hostel (from Wales, London and the states), with the aim of staying out for the football which was on here at 3.30AM. Highlight of the night for me was our impromptu darts tournament, played on some high-tech dartboards which electronically kept the scores. Rather than having sharp metal points, the darts have blunt plastic ends and stick between the plastic protusions on the surface of the board. (Somehow I won, and no one was more amazed than me)

I'm still in the same hostel, but moving over to Blue Backpackers tomorrow. After they were so nice to me when I arrived, even though I was staying at a rival business, I thought it was only polite to stay with them. As its the World Cup final this weekend, I thought I might as well hang around here as the area has masses of bars and food places. After this I want to go to Gyeongju, which sounds like a cool place, mountain hiking and temple visiting.

(picture: carvings at Seokbulsa)

Last night in Nippon

Konbanwa. After learning about all the atomic bomb stuff in Hiroshima, and getting soaked on Miyajima island, I took the Shinkansen and another train to get to Nagasaki. Yes, its the A-bomb tour, 2010. I stayed in a cool little hostel, Kagamiya, which was more like a traditional Japanese home which happened to have a room with some bunks in. The owners were very nice, one night they took me and two of the other guests, and Indonesian guy and a French woman, to a local bar to watch the Japan vs Paraguay match. I put down 2000 yen for an all night bar tab, which I proceeded to make full use of. A lot of the nama (draught beer) went down, followed by some Japanese spirits which I can`t remember the names of. Japan lost on penalties but no one in the bar seemed to bothered, the atmosphere was very subdued actually. The next night the lady owner drove us up to the top of Mt Inasa, which I imagine can give splendid views of Nagasaki at night when its not cloudy. As it was, the fog was so thick we coudln`t see anything.

Nagasaki is a great little town for wandering around, there is a lot of character and variation in the streets, a lot of which run up and down the hills that surround this long, narrow settlement. The other cities I visited were just too big and exhausting to walk around. I paid a visit to the Cultural museum, which had a lot of information on the first contacts between the West and Japan, by which Nagasaki was the only port that European traders could use. The Japanese built a tiny artifical island, called Dejima, which was the only place the Portuguese, and later the Dutch, could use. I had a look at Dejima island and it was tiny, it would not have been fun being cooped up there. Apparently they were let out at festival time though. Another interesting thing about the city is that it was the starting point for Christianity in Japan. When it started to take off, the reigning shogun decided he didn`t like it so had a load of Christians put to death on a hill in Nagasaki, and there is a monument there to mark it. The Christians had to practice in secret for a long time before it was accepted. (I haven`t exactly done a lot of research on this, sorry)

After Nagasaki, I had acouple of days in Aso town, which is near an active volcanic crater and some mountains which I had a hike around. It was good to be out walking but it was again very foggy with intermittent showers. I`m now at my last port of call - Fukuoka. Not much to say about the place, its a big port town, and my only reason for being here is to catch the ferry to Korea. I had some street food last night, the first in Japan, unlike in South East Asia where street vendors are everywhere this was the first place I`d seen them in Japan. It wasn`t any cheaper than a normal restaurant though. Today I went to Robosquare, a showpiece for some of Japans` robotics which is mostly aimed at children but it was a good distraction from the rain. They put on a show, which featured dancing dog-droids and two bipedal robots which were doing acrobatics.

And now it must be about time to go out, its sad to be leaving here when I`ve got my head around the way things work and I`m just getting an ear for the language. Or maybe that`s a good time to move on!

Rob

Hiroshima

O-hayo gozaimasu! (means "good morning").

I`m in Nagasaki today, the rain hasn`t stopped. I was looking on the internet before and it seems most of Asia is taking it, rain wise. China seems to be in a particuarly bad state. Meanwhile, Europe is in a heatwave. Ho hum. Well, if I was back in the UK I`d probably be stuck in a lab staring out of the window wishing I was in the pub.

The temple stay at Koyasan was fun and interesting, but it was ruined slightly in the morning. Myself and an American couple who were also staying there were up at 7AM to watch the monks chant in the main hall. The chanting went on for quite some time, the four monks were really getting into it (apart from the older one who kept coughing up phlegm). After wards, the head monk gave us a quick tour of the hall, telling us about how after a big fire in teh past, many of the temples in Koyasan had been destroyed, but a wealthy samurai lord had donated money for their rebuilding. Then the monk asked us for a donation in order to help with reconstruction, 1000 yen (about 7 pounds) and we`d get a nice set of chopsticks in return. Well, I did the moral thing, packed my bag and sneaked out of there, ninja style, and jumped on the next train to Hiroshima.

I didn`t do too much in Hiroshima as it rained constantly and I was getting fed up of being wet all the time. I had a look at the A-bomb dome, the remains of which are quite eerie, and the museum which has lots of stuff about the bomb. I gathered that the Americans (backed by the British of course) had three reasons for dropping the atomic bomb on Japan:
1) put a swift end to the war
2) to test the weapon - a uranium bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and a plutonium one on Nagasaki, and the sites were chosen as much for the ease of observation of the effects as for the strategic importance
3) to show the Russians who was boss

I also visited Miyajima Island, which most people who go to Hiroshima do. It was very wet and foggy when I was there. I tried to climb up the mountain but got drenched and gave up 600m from the top. Not that I would have ahd a good view anyway.
At least the hostel there (K`s house) had a guitar, it was great to sit around on the sunday and just play for the first time in ages. I almost wrote a new song too (no words though).

So now I`m in Nagasaki (even more rain). Free internet so I`ve been arsing around all morning. Will have to get out eventually though...

Til next time,
Rob

Fuji to Koya san

Hi, a quick one today. I didn:t climb Fuji, it was pouring down. Instead I took the train to Osaka, spent the night in a capsule hotel and ate fried octupus balls (Takoyaki). The capsule hotel was cool , each room has an upper and lower set of capsules down each wall. Each capsule is about 2x1x1 metres, made of plastic, and with a blind at one end to seal it. It reminded me of a suspended animation capsule from a science fiction film. There is a thin matress inside and a tv (or I had the option to choose one with a charging socket). The end of the capsule I watched the last England game in there (vs Sloveni). There was a coin slot in the room and I was curious on what it did so I put my 100 yen in and was treated to two channels of Japanese porn. In the interests of journalism I watched on, as a man and woman got it together in a car and the woman made noises like a wounded cat or small child. On the other side a woman was tied up by the wrists as a man used various implements on her nipples, including the type of wide brushes they use here for stirring tea. The slurping noises were horrific.

Er, so after that I took the Nankai express and cablecar to Mount Koya-san. This is one of Japans three power spots as places with spiritual significance, along with Fuji and Takai. I went into the tourist office and booked a night at a temple, 9500 yen which is the most I"ve paid for a room yet (about 70 quid I think). It was a lovely day in Koyasan and I wandered around the graveyard, temple area and did a bit of a walk up the side of a hill. The temple meal was great, lots of small (vegetarian) dishes but I was quite full after (lots of tofu and pickled veg, and a really nice miso soup). After that I tried meditation with one of the monks, and had a great sleep in a big airy room.

Ok, my internet times up, see you later!

Tokyo

After five days of temple exploration in Kyoto and Nara, I decided to get on the bullet train to Tokyo and have a weekend there. It was easy enough to get a seat ticket using my rail pass (I even asked in Japanese: Tokyo ni ikitai desu) and then I was off. The shinkansen moves pretty fast from the word go; it took about three hours (to do about 471km) and then I had the fun of trying to navigate Tokyos incredibly complex metro rail system in order to get to Asakusa, where I had a hostel booked.

I stayed in the Khaosan Annex, one of a chain of four in the same area of the city. The hostels distinguishing feature was that the dorm beds were in individual wooden cabins. Cool idea, but they were damn hot every morning when I awoke. I used my rail pass to go around the Yamanote line which loops around the central part of the city. Its a bloody big place. I spent 3-4 hours a day just getting around on the train and subway. Most of the areas I visited were quite similar, in that they were very busy and had loads of shops, but not really much else of interest. I didn't even see any business men reading schoolgirl manga porn on the train.

Before I arrived, some other travellers had told me that the Japanese were quite unfriendly to foreigners. Judging by my experience so far that isn't true as I've met a lot of friendly, helpful people. They can't always speak English very well, and some people expect foreigners to be able to understand Japanese, so perhaps more so than the other countries I've visited in Asia having a bit of language skill is very handy (not that I have any myself really). It is true that it is a relatively expensive place, fruit in particular is extortionate (although cigarettes are cheap), but I don't think its any more expensive than Australia or European prices.

I had a big night out on saturday. I went with some other guys from the hostel to Atom in Shibuya, probably the most expensive club I've been to (3500 yen entry) and definitely the most rammed and hottest. The music wasn't great so it was more for the experience of seeing young Japanese going crazy that I hung around (like Louis Theroux or something). I lasted until about 3AM (the club shuts around 5.30AM) then escaped. There is no public transport at all in this, one of the biggest cities in the world, until 5AM, so rather than hang around (no way I was paying for a taxi) I walked about two hours in the direction of my hostel, which only actually moved me a fraction of the way back, then finally caught a train. The next night I was out again in a karaoke bar.

So after all that malarky I thought it would be good to get out into the countryside, so I took a series of trains to get me to the Fuji five lakes area. I had a wander around the lake nearest to where I'm staying (Kawaguchico) last night and its very scenic, with a nice view of Fuji-san topped with a bit of snow. A couple I met in the hostel last night are taking the bus this morning to the fifth station in order to attempt a climb so I 'm going along then. Climbing season doesn't start until the 1st of July, so there are not many buses on at the moment, but at least it won't be too crowded. There's some other walks in this area too so I may hang around for a few days more. I still haven't decided whether to go to Hokkaido - its a long way and will probably involve me going back to Tokyo but the area sounds really nice for outdoors-y stuff.

Til next time!

banzai!

Hey. I`ve got 7 minutes left on this machine so here goes.

My Air NZ flight was nearly empty, I had an empty seat next to me. I slept most of the way. Arrival in Kyoto was fine, no one asked to see my onward ticket to Korea. Later I asked other travellers about whether they were required to have one, and no oen else has had to. The check in people obviously just don`t like the look of me.

I`ve had five days in Kyoto, the 3rd capital of Japan and seemingly its main cultural place these days. Its a huge city, it took an hour by bus to get to my hostel (ok so its probably about the same size as manchester but theres a lot more tall buildings in the city centre). I stayed at UTan oyouth hostel, which is very nice, it has a large enclosed green space and a bath house, and an all you can eat breakfast, but I think its more of a retreat place or place for school groups rather than independent travellers. I stayed out til 11 (woo!) the night before last and I couldn:t get a bus back; I rang up the hostel and they told me that the place would be locked down at midnight, so I had to get a taxi back. A bit annoying really, as the city centre is quite boring by day, and I`ve only seen it once at night time.

Apart from that I`ve visited a few temple sites and generally wandered around. I went to Nara for the day, which is a smaller city, but the temple area there is in a large park with lots of deer, so I had a better time (in Kyoto there is either a lot of walking through city streets or waiting for buses to get from one site to the next).

Ok thats it for now, see ya!

Are we having fun yet?

Earlier today I was getting very annoyed. I arrived at Auckland airport to check in for my Air NZ flight to Osaka. It was only 1pm, and the flight is not until 10.45pm, but it seemed like a better idea than hanging around the hotel lobby.

On the first attempt, all was going well until the man behind the counter asked me if I had an onward ticket for Japan. No, I said, I was going to take the ferry from Hakata to Busan in South Korea. Could I not book that online, he asked. Well, I didn't really want to do that as I wasn't sure when I'd want to leave. But I was pretty much forced into it. So I went over to the (luckily free of charge) internet booth and booked a ticket for the 5th of July. This gives me about 3 weeks in Japan and 2 in Korea before I go to Hong Kong (I'd already booked that flight to meet up with my girlfriend Linda). It was about what I was going to do anyway.

So I went back to the check in desk (bearing in mind I hadn't eaten since the night before and that was just jam sandwiches on the plane) and talked to a different person this time, he said I needed an actual print out of my booking confirmation, rather than just the details written down in my notebook. He told me in a very patronising way that this was what I needed when I used airports. Well I'd been doing fine without any printouts since I'd left the UK, and flown to Bali, Singapore, Bangkok, NZ and Australia (and back to NZ). Of course the computer terminal doesn't allow printouts, so I was told to email the details to one of the people at the ticketing desk. Well JR Ferries never emailed me a confirmation, its just on their page which I have to access by password. I couldn't even copy the page and paste it into hotmail. So I took a photo of the screen showing my booking details, then laboriously copied them onto a blank email. It looked a bit dodgy, but when I went back to check out they accepted it (after disappearing for some time to check it out in a back room). So, with luck I should be going to Japan after all. Good job I turned up early!

What a pain. It seems things are made as difficult as possible for overland travellers. The situation in Thailand was the same, I wanted to travel overland to Cambodia, which no one books until they get to Bangkok, but they wanted to see proof of onward passage so I ended up flying. After spending what seems like the past two days in an airport, I can safely tell you that they suck, and being stuck in a metal box for hours crammed in with your miserable human-kin is no smilefest either. Yesterday I had the joy of an extremely overweight woman sitting beside me, taking up half my seat, and in front of me was my favourite kind of person, that is the type that continuously try to recline their chairs further and further back until I'm almost breathing in their hair. And then there was the bloke who just poked me in the arm to ask me a stupid question (Which one is the window seat? Hey, its the one on the diagram thats near the window-looking object). I'll stop there before the rage consumes me utterly.

At least the hotel last night was nice. I had a bath, several cups of green tea (my own tea bags) and watched the first half of the first match of the world cup in a double bed in my own room! Luxury. Most expensive room I've had yet (about 70 pounds), just a shame I arrived after midnight and couldn't have a full night of it.

Ok then, til next time, sayonara
Rob

Leaving Oz

Hey hey. I'm typing this in an airport again, the joy of free internet and weird keyboards. After Sydney I went to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains area, very nice on the first day with a geat view of the canyon, and saw my first unusual wildlife - pigeon-type birds with little spikes of feathers on their heads (not cockatoos, although they are wild here aswell). I played some songs in a pub, although it was probably one of my worst performances (and thats saying something). On day two it was all fog and rain so I easc aped and got a train to the c apital, canberra. A big wide mostly featureless city, with one youth hostel miles away from the train station (thats planning for you). The walk up AInslie hill was cool though, I saw some kangaroos and got a good view of the city at night.

The last place I went to was Melbourne, home of Neighbours although I didn't see Harold or anything. Melbourne has more of a cool feel than Sydney, more a place you'd actually want to live. I met up with a friend who I'd originally met in Laos and she took me to some great little bars (I'll have to get the names off her, but two were out of the city cente in the north part of town), and we had a massive meal in a Lebanese restarant (in fact I've just finished up the left overs at the airport!). I had to get back to Sydney so I took an overnight bus... 12 hours ... my head is not right today.

So going back to NZ now for one night, then onto Kyoto!

Banzai!

Sydney

All the while I was travelling in New Zealand, I was toying with the idea of coming over to Oz for a bit, seeing as I was in the vicinity. Although Oz wasn't on my original plan, I'd met quite a few sound people from that country, and the chance of seeing some of the wildlife there was also tempting. I think what decided it was when I was reading Bill Bryson, Down Under, in a youth hostel in Rotorua while it rained heavily outside.

So I booked a cheap flight with Jetstar to Sydney, and three days later I was there. A friend had recently moved over there from the UK and he very generously decided to put me up for a few days. On my first night we went down to the harbour to see the classic Sydney icons, the harbour bridge and opera house. The opera house which was lit up by some interesting lighting effects as part of a art event called Vivid, so it looked even more like something out of a science fiction series than usual.

The next day I took the ferry from where my friend lives in Balmain over to McMahons point. From there I walked around a nice little bay area which featured the remains of Sydneys last shipbuilding site. I walked over the harbour bridge to the circular quay area and had a good mooch about for the rest of the day. Sydney is a huge city, but the weather at the moment is quite cool so it was not so tiring to walk around. It rained torrentially at one point so I hid in a bus shelter. After it had died down I walked back to Bahmain via the Anzac bridge, which in some ways is even more impressive looking than the harbour bridge, although it doesn't have the same classic view of the harbour and opera house.

Today I decided to do a small pilgramage. In the Bryson book, he recounts how he walked down Victoria road to Hunter's hill, which he describes as being pretty special, then through the suburbs back to Sydney central. At some point he decides to take a shortcut through a place called Tennyson park, where he gets chased by dogs and escapes by climbing over someones back garden fence. The owner is standing in the kitchen watching him in disbelief and its a very funny section of his book (a lot more funny than how I'm telling it). Anyhow, I followed his route from Bahmain across several bridges and two rather confusing subway systems which enable pedestrian access onto the bridges. The road walk wasn't that great, just a main road, but there was little in the way of quieter roads running parallell that I could take (most side roads lead down to the water). Hunter's hill was nothing, just a hotel, cafe and a highly busy road junction. I was thinking that either this place has changed a lot since Bryson was here, or that he was high when he wrote it. I also found Tennyson park, which was actually a nice patch of regenerating bush. It didn't look like many people had been through there since Bryson had. It was a long walk into the city centre from there, I reckon I was walking for about 5 hours through Lane Cove, North Sydney (just a load of office buildings) and back over the harbour bridge.

On checking his book later, I realised that Bryson must have walked to the end of the peninsula where Hunter's hill was. Hmm, that will teach me to not read things properly then shoot out of the door for a ridiculous hike. At any rate, two days in a city is enough for me (especially after spending the previous three in a different city) so I'm planning on taking the train up to Katoomba in the blue mountains next.

Return to the north island

Since the last blog I've journeyed from Nelson on the South island of NZ right up to nearly the northernmost point. Not that I've seen much the last two days due to the torrential rain. Today I'm in Whangarei, in the Northland region (the bit above Auckland on the map). Staying at quite a cool hostel, the Bunkhouse, which is basically someones (big) house with a few bunkbeds in some of the rooms. There are two guitars, both sadly missing 'A' strings.

All I've done the past two days is sit either in buses (yesterday) or cars (today). Er, maybe I should recap. After Nelson I took the ferry over to Wellington, and got a room in the Downtown hostel near the train station. It wasn't the most friendly of places, with a big cavernous dining room. It was raining (and had been for the previous three or four days) but I braved the long walk out to find something to eat. It was a sunday, but in a capital city you'd expect to find something open. There was very little on offer in the way of food until I got to the cinema complex and got some Malaysian buffet food from one of the stalls inside (I don't know what was so Malaysian about it, seemed like Chinese food to me). Then I went to see Boy, an NZ film about a Maori family, was pretty good. Funny in places but mostly quite a grim depiction of poverty.

The next day I got a bus up to Ohakune. This town is described in the Lonely Planet as being the "carrot capital of NZ", although the only evidence I saw of this was the giant carrot sculpture by the road on the way into the town. In fact the town was dead, seemingly awaiting the arrival of snow and the skiing season. I had a dorm room to myself in the YHA hostel, which had a nearly in-tune piano. The only other residents seemed to be a crowd of working men, who spent all night playing poker and drinking beer. I played a couple of hands and lost all my change ($3, whoo hoo). The only other coins I had were Singapore dollars and Thai baht but for some reason they weren't interested. Why was I in such a place, you might ask. Well, I wanted to be near the Tonganiro national park, which contains three mountains made famous in the Lord of the Rings films. There are several walks there of varying lengths which I wanted to do. By the accounts of other people, the one day crossing is outstanding. Unfortunately for me, visibility above 2000m was very poor and there was snow and ice on the tracks. And it was raining. So in the end I hiked up to waterfall, took a picture, then got out of there the next day. Bah.

Next stop was Hamilton. No more needs to be said about this place. It was just a means to make a bus connection to Rotorua, but as I arrived late I had to spend a night there. The man at the YHA-associated hostel, Microtel (on Ulster st, not where my LP guidebook indicated, which is nice when you're walking around a strange town in the dark with all your gear on your back), gave me a single room for the price of a dorm. The room was tiny, so no yoga for me there. The kitchen was also tiny and I had lots of fun drinking red wine and trying to cook while four manic Malaysian men of ages ranging from middle to ancient also prepared food while observing me and asking a lot of questions, as is their way. They were impressed with the few words of Malaysian which I happened to pick up in Indonesia (the Indonesian language is based on Malaysian).

Rotorua next, I spent a few days there wandering around the thermal areas. The earths crust around this area of NZ is very thin and there is a lot of voalcanic activity. Lots of pools of bubbling mood and steaming sulphurous water can be found around the town and lake area. I visited the Wai-o-tapu thermal wonderland, for more of the same only on a much bigger scale. For $68 it was perhaps a bit expensive (that price included the shuttle bus). I spent an hour and a half inside, but that was more than enough to see it all. There is also a geyser show, which is vey corny. Basically around 10.15AM, all the tourists gather around this area which has a rocky cone behind a fence. A man steps up to the cone and starts telling the audience about the geyser (apparently it used to be a hot pool used as a bath by convicts; one dropped in a bar of soap which caused the geyser to erupt and lo, a tourist attraction was born). The man adds disinfectant (biodegradable, he assures us) to the cone, which immediately begins to froth (something to do with two pools of hot and cold water underground, which mix in the presence of the soap, causing vast quantities of steam to be produced). By this point, the entire audience is standing, cameras raised, waiting for this thing to go off. But the man keeps talking, no-one is listening by now. The frothing gets more and more excitable until eventually the man stops talking, gets out of the way and the geyser goes off. And it is quite impressive, I'm no judge of heights but lets say the water spray is about 30ft tall. Although it goes on for some time, the whole audience clears out in a few minutes, once they have their obligatory "stand in front and strike the same pose you always do" shots taken. I'm one of the last ones to leave, its quite sad seeing this geyser gradually die down, deflated, forced once again by its human servants to go on its ejaculatory display.

After another day of aimlessly wandering Rotorua (note: its a crap drinking town. $9 for a pint of Guinness? And more souvenir shops than in Asian towns - well, nearly), I took an epic 8-hour, 4-bus journey up to the Coromandel peninsula. I was aware that this region is more of a summer, surfing spot, but several people had told me how nice it was. Apparently they grow a lot of a certain mystic herb there too which I was intrigued by. In the end, I arrived at Whitianga in the middle of some very heavy raining (the whole country was geting battered by rain at this time). All I saw of the place was the information centre (closed when I arrived), the ferry terminal (where I was supposed to meet my farmstay host, but who never answered his phone - he emailed me the next day to say he'd lost it), the hostel (Cats Pyjamas - nice place, nice owner Anne, another one which is given the wrong address in the LP), the fish and chip shop (Bluenose - couldn't distinguish it from any other fish I've had battered) and the offy (6 cans of Waikato draft, ta). I spent the night playing drinking games with some of the other guests, and got invited to come with them the next day to Whangarei, which explains why I'm here.

Ok, thats more than enough cyber-babble. Til next time!

Sea's a bit choppy today, skipper

Well then. I'm typing this quite late as I can't sleep. This could be due to:
a) The large Irish bloke snoring in my dorm room
b) The mussels that I had for dinner, a nice couple from London shared today's catch with me
c) Because its a new moon

Or all of the above.

Anyhow, the Abel Tasman coastal track was very nice. I took a bus and boat combo to Totaranui and walked down to Marahau, staying one night in a hut. The track dips in and out of some nice looking beaches. It cost me 40$NZ to get from Motueka to Totaranui, and 20$NZ to get from Marahau to Nelson. The driver was good enough to stop by the YHA in Motueka so I could pick up the stuff I'd left there. Luckily I had just got to the end of the walk when the rain started, its a full on storm out there now. It was a very scenic route, also very easy. It would probably be a good one to do first rather than leaping straight into hard multiday treks up mountains and so on (like I did).

Ok, til next time
Rob

Another day another hostel

Hi, just a quicky again. I've just come from Kaikoura, which is on the west coast of the south island, about 2 hours north of Christchurch. Its a really nice place on the coast, I spent a week there just wandering around the shore and on the walk across the cliff-tops. There are lots of seals there lying around. I nearly walked into one on the first day, even though they are quite big they are well camoflauged against the rocks. You can smell them though!

I'm in a small town tonight called Motueka, staying in the YHA which is massive but seemingly dead. Its out of season for walking now - this is one of the main bases for people doing the Abel Tasman track, which I'm starting tomorrow. Its a long walk on the coast, and so far everyone I've met, tourist and kiwi alike, has told me how beautiful etc. it is. It will probably be the last hike I do on the south island before I go back to the north island and attempt the Tonganiru (Mt Doom) hike - hopefully the mountains won't be covered in snow by then.

Well, I'm okay, actually really relaxed. Been doing yoga everyday, I'm bendier than ever. Til next time!

ps I saw the film Kick-Ass in Kaikoura, it was great especially the mass-murdering little girl

Northern migration

Just a quick post as I'm knackered tonight. I've had a good time in Christchurch, the job was not too taxing and I got some good results in the lab, the boss was happy anyway, and I've got some experience doing chromatography. It was nice being at my friends house, cooking food and taking the dog for a walk, and having my own room!

Ted the dog

Tomorrow I'm heading back out, getting a bus to Kaikoura at 7.15am. Should be a nice place to chill out, there's usually a big sun over the place on the weather reports. I've been travelling now for 6 months, and strangely I'm sort of on my way home now. I'm planning on heading back up north, eventually getting to Auckland in June for my flight to Japan.



Ok then, take it easy



Rob

Toilets

So when I got to work this morning I needed a slash. There are three toilets - men, women, and disabled. Why is it important for abled women get a separate loo from the men, but not the disabled ones? What are they trying to say?

Also, I've just realised that 99% of mistakes at work come through boredom, through the tedium of repetitive tasks that send you into an automatic, unconcious state. It doesn't help to be in a room lit by fluorescent lights, with stale air, and where you are surrounded by machines ticking away in a metronomous fashion. It takes a special level of kung fu-concentration to be able to focus. Or is this the point where you should take a break?

(note: I have not drank any black tea today, after drinking quite a lot lately, maybe thats the problem)

New Zealand mega-blog

Hi. I'm in Christchurch, I've got a job in a lab, Otago university (although most of Otago Universtiy is in Dunedin, which is in Otago county, whereas Christchurch is in Canterbury). Have worked two days so far. I'm just analysing someone elses samples, but its quite nice to just have one thing to do. Almost like watching paint dry: watching liquid inexorably drip out of a tube.

I'm staying at some friends I know from Newcastle. It sure makes a change to not be living out of a bag for a bit. I still haven't shaved since I've been in this country though!

I suppose I should write a bit about what I've been doing in the last month. I started out in Auckland, where I stayed with a very nice couple I met when I was in Vietnam. It was good for a bit of normality. The first day I was there I went into a supermarket with them, it was very strange. I felt like a caveman. Also, it was weird not to have to haggle with anyone when buying fruit! I had a couple of nice days in the capital, climbing up the various ex-volcanoes (well, apparently the area under Auckland is still volcanically active) for views of the city. The Louis Vuitton sailing regatta was on, which meant a lot of boats floating about.

Auckland. With boats.

I then took a train to Wellington. Well, I should say "the" train. Its mainly done for (mostly elderly) tourists now. However, it was a nice trip, and there is an outside viewing platform for taking in the scenery (and waking yourself up). And a bar. I like train travel a lot more than buses.

Action shot from the train.

Wellington is a nice place, I hung around there for a few days. I missed the Tonganiro national park out though (where they shot Mt Doom for Lord of the Rings), I regret spending so much time in Auckland and Wellington now, as its getting nearer to Winter now and I don't think I'll be able to do the hikes there when I've finished work. I took the ferry to cross to the south island and another train journey to Christchurch, saw my friends briefly and spoke to my new boss, and then got myself a bus pass (Nakedbus) to go travelling around the south island with. First stop was Te Anau, which boasts the delightful Trout Observatory.


A trout.



Te Anau also is within an hours walk of the start of the Kepler track, one of NZs "great walks". This track is also circular, meaning that, unlike most of the other great walks, transport does not have to be arranged for either end. The first day of the walk is very gentle, through beech forest, then up a substantial climb leading up to Mt Luxmore. Day 2 crossed over some alpine ridges, and was definitely the most scenic with plenty of misty views of the Fjords below. The last day was a long one as it was meant to be done over two days, but I didn't want to fork out for another night in a hut for $45 (dorm rooms where $27 in the Lakeside backpackers).

As well as bunks with matresses, the huts have gas stoves, flushing toilets, and were very clean and maintained. I didn't get a very good sleep at the first hut (Luxmore), as it was very crowded and there was a couple of late night rustlers (people going through all their plastic bags in the middle of the night). At the second (Iris Burn), there were far less people, and it was much more relaxed.


Mists over the Fjords



Yes, I'm a tight git, so I also didn't shell out for a tour of Milford sound (which is a big valley with a river) or jump out of a plane, or bungee jump, or pay for a guided hike up Franz Josef glacier. I did at least see the glacier, very nice. Hey, I'm trying to save my money to keep travelling. I bet all the crowds of people doing all the tours didn't get to see the Trout Observatory.


Yes, its a big load of ice. Coming right for you. Or is it receding?

So I went up the West coast, which has some very dramatic scenery - rugged coastlines, I think they call them, and rainforests, gullies, rivers, lakes and mountains. The bus journeys here pass by really quickly because the views are so nice. I've also met quite a few people, some of whom showed up in other places later on. Not surprising when there's basically one road going round the island. I stopped at Wanaka for a few days, then Franz Josef (which is a nice town aside from the glacier) and Westport.

A friend I made on the Kepler track was telling me about Nelson lakes, and it sounded really nice. Its a bit hard to get to by public transport as its off the main bus route, but I did it by taking the Nelson lakes shuttle bus from Nelson to St Arnaud. There's not much in the town except one shop, which doubles as the petrol station and chippy, and a backpackers/hotel place. I stocked up on instant noodles, bread, eggs, biscuits, beans, crackers, cheese, peanuts and a camping stove, bought a backcountry hut pass for $60 then set off on the Travers-Sabine track, a 5-day hike in the bush. I really enjoyed it, there was not many people about, lots of nice scenery and breathing clean air. Just to be that far away from society for so long was good to experience. The huts on the non-great walks tracks are smaller, and don't have gas stoves, and only have outside drop toilets (one was full of wasps - agh). But once you have a pass you can stay in as many as you like. I'd love to do a 10-day one next time! I had a gas stove, but as the huts have wood burning stoves I saved some gas and cooked on the hut stove in the evening. Chopping wood is also great fun when you haven't done any manual labour (or any work of any sort) for a while. Generally there was only about 8 people staying in the huts per night, and it was a good atmosphere. It was especially good talking to local people, as it was mostly tourists on the Kepler track. Not that I don't like other tourists, its just nice to speak to people from the actual country I am visiting. If you are a possum, stoat, deer or any other introduced animal, you are fair game and killing these animals is actively encouraged by the DOC (Dept of Conservation). One night, the father and son of a family from Hawkes bay went out and clubbed a possum to death outside the hut, and thought nothing of it. It also is your duty as a Kiwi to run over any such animals you see on the road. I've never seen so much roadkill, nor birds of prey tucking into said roadkill. The roads are actually pretty empty outside of the cities, if you drive its probably great.



View of lake Rotoroa, dawn at the Sabine hut, Nelson lakes
(not shown: wasps and sandflies)

Singapore

Hello and welcome to... the next blog. As I've probably rambled about earlier, I had to get back to Bangkok after Indonesia in order to get my flight to New Zealand, so I decided to breakt the journey up with a few days in Singapore. My preconceptions of the place were: It is an ultra-controlled totalitarian police state, where you can get flogged for chewing gum and shot for jaywalking (by a Judge Dredd-lookalike), and it is a concrete block floating off the bottom of Malaysia. Which intrigued me. Plus a friend had told me that the food was good, so hey hey.

There is a bit of history to the place - the British were defeated at Singapore by the Japanese in WWII, and a lot of allies got rounded up and killed rather than taken prisoner (the Japanese saw surrender as a cowardly act). The Chinese seem to have got it worse, many were beheaded. My maternal grandfather was one of the "lucky" ones who didn't get killed, and instead got to work in a copper mine on Formosa (now Taiwan) for his troubles. He did survive that though. There is not a great deal of history apparent in the city now - it is all wide roads, cars (though the traffic is not very heavy at all), shiny public transport (and cheap), and absolutely hundreds of expensive malls selling designer goods. As far as it being a police state, the most obvious restriction was on smoking, with smoking outside seemingly restricted to certain areas with ashtrays available. Also there is no eating or drinking on public transport. I didn't actually see any police, maybe they were undercover, but I also did not see hardly any CCTV cameras, certainly not as many as in the UK. People do seem very well behaved there, they all wait patiently for the pedestrian crossings to change to green.

I stayed in the Mitraa hostel (very nice, great staff) which is on the edge of the little India district. On seeing the rest of the city I reckon this was the best place to stay, as it was very lively, lots of cerremonies going on (both Hindu and Chinese/Buddhist) and there were tonnes of cheap food places, with loads of vege options. Food is cheap, but drink is expensive - I had my first pint for 3 months in the Prince of Wales pub, cost me $12, or 6 of yer British pounds. So nearly as expensive as Paris. I had three days there, one to wander around the city, one to visit the zoo, and one to go to the MacKenzie reservoir, which runs into the Bukit Timah nature reserve, this is a patch of native rainforest in the centre of the island.

The zoo was great, many of the animals were almost free ranging, including some of the monkeys. My favourites were the probiscus monkeys, marmosettes, otters, cheetahs, giant tortoises and the absolutely huge python. But the best was the baby komodo dragon, I don't think there are any more of these in the world in captivity! He was very active (makes a change to the usual reptile house were they just lie there) but he stayed still long enough for me to get a couple of shots:
I also saw the big daddy komodo:

The reservoir/nature reserve walk was also good, and was a great cheap day out. I didn't even pay for lunch as I'd taken some extra boiled eggs and fruit from the hostel breakfast. There were lots of wild macaques out, and I saw a really thin snake. There are apparently Pangolins living there (anteaters) but as they're nocturnal its no surprise I didn't see them. I walked part of teh way with some locals which was interesting, they asked a lot about business and football! By teh way, everyone speaks English in Singapore. My favourite part of the walk was the tree-top bridges on the MacKenzie nature trail:

Next time: NZ!

Bali

Hello and welcome to Indonesia part 2. I wrote most of this in Singapore airport, great to have free internet. Blogger is a pain though when trying to stick pictures in, the only way I can do them is to upload them then gradually pull them down through the file, no way to put them in at the cursor or even to pull and scroll at once. Bah. The bold text refers to the few pics I've put in.

After visiting Mt Bromo I paid for a combined bus/ferry ticket back to Denpasar. When I'd first crossed into Java it was night-time so I couldn't see anything; I was glad to see it in the daytime on the way back as the scenery is amazing all the way. The sun was setting during the ferry trip, and the backdrop of volcanoes, ships and the multi-coloured sky was fantastic.


I made a couple of friends on the bus, an Aussie lad and a girl from Munich. Having a chat really helps survive the trip. The expected time of arrival was about 8pm, of course it turned out to be more like midnight. Luckily the minibus only had six people in it - I'd hate to do that trip in a packed out bus. We didn't want to stay in Denpasar so we paid an extra 20,000 rupiah each (about 1 pound 30) to be taken down to Kuta beach. I was expecting a Ko Pha Ngan kind of affair, a couple of bars and some baungalows, but the place is a lot more developed than that, and a hell of a lot noisier. We hauled our bags around the poppies gangs and finally scored some rooms at the Taman Makar II. Quite a good place actually, not in the LP but it has large rooms, a balcony, breakfast included, a bathtub in the room and a minah bird (or a talking bird at least) in the courtyard. The bird could say "hello", "good morning" and make an ach-choo sneeze noise.

Suffice to say we went out and got hammered that night, and the next. For a country with fairly strict drug laws there was a lot of people selling stuff on the street; Best avoided as a) the stuff will be shite and b) there's probably a copper lurking in the background waiting to fine you. Mostly they were selling Ephinedrine tablets, I think thats something they give to people with heart conditions. Our first meal there was at the street stalls by the Poppies club; my Aussie friend indicated that the area we were in was were the bomb had gone off - so that was why there was a bit of derelict land in between two buildings! Apart from getting wasted, we did a bit of surfing on Kuta beach. For me it was a first, and after half an hour I'd only managed to get up on one knee, get very frustrated and get stuck in a rip-tide - that was quite hairy.

After my friends went their separate ways I spent a couple of days in Ubud, in the centre of Bali. It was good to do yoga everyday and not smoke or drink. There's not much to do there, there's a lot of spas and fairly pricey restaurants (though there's cheap vege food too), and tons of art shops. In fact, from walking around the place, it seems every road leading to Ubud is lined with art/craft/tat shops for about 5 miles. There is a couple of nice rice paddy walks up by the north of the town.

It seems every night in Ubud there is a Hindu festival or ceremony, lots of people parading down the street, with some playing the eerie gamelan music. There are also nightly performances, one of which I attended involved a man wearing a wooden horse kicking over flaming coconut shells. I also visited the botanic gardens which were a nice way to spend an afternoon, virtually in solitude.




One thing about south-east Asia is, the souvenir stalls in the tourist places invariably sell the same things. Its crazy to walk down a street with people saying "You want to buy something" and its the same crap as the place next door. I mean, who would want to buy a wooden dildo? I did get one thing - a wooden demon mask, its extremely ugly and I don't know what the hell I'm going to do with it. I've not seen anywhere selling football shirts for the Asian national teams - that would be a good souvenir. All you get are the English ones!

I finished my Bali tour off by going further up north to Bedugal (there is a nice temple by a lake).

From there I walked over the hills and past some more lakes to the village of Munduk.

I think there is a lot of nice walking possible around Munduk, but I had got a blister on the ball of my left foot so I just sort of hobbled from one end of the town and back. Its basically a strip of houses alongside a road running down a fairly steep hill. There are nice views either side of hills, forests, paddy fields and the ocean is visible in the distance. There are a couple of basic Warungs (restaurants), I got a nice tofu/beansprout/satay dish and my first beer for almost a week. Nice for a stop-off if you just want a quiet place.

Finally I had to charter a Bemo van to get me out of Munduk, which cost about a tenner. It doesn't sound a lot but transport and accomodation were relatively expensive in Indonesia compared to the other SE Asia countries I had visited. I went up to Lovina as a lot of travellers that I had met seemed to be heading there. When I arrived I took a tour (again, just me and the driver - and doing the tourist thing which I'd told myself I wouldn't do anymore). We visited the Gitgit waterfalls, which was nice but you know, its another waterfall (none have topped the Kuang Si by Luang Prabang yet).

Then we went to a buddhist monastery on a hill, which was very tranquil and scenic, I didn't see any monks though so I don't know if its a working place or not (my driver did not understand what I meant by monk!). I think its the only buddhist temple on Bali.

The best thing we did was go to the hot springs, another first for me, bathing in faintly egg-smelling warm water was good fun.

I went to Lovina beach afterwards to watch the sunset. The beach is made up of grey volcanic rock, and I got hassled constantly from vendors; also the bars seemed quite expensive there, and the only other tourists where old Dutch couples or single men. And there was a tropical storm so I missed the sunset and didn't get any sleep - I've never heard thunder so loud, the noise went inside me like the kick of a bass drum when you stand next to the speakers in a club.

And after another night in Kuta (supposed to be quiet, but stayed up til 4AM in Piggys bar on Poppies II, my favourite, live music and open mic with the man Rene) I caught a plane to Singapore, which is were I am now. I've nearly caught up with myself! Oh yes. Next time: Singapore zoo!

Thailand to Indonesia (Java)

Hello again, I hope your cobblers are nice and toasty. When I left of I was in Pai, north of Thailand. I changed my travel plans slightly, rather than going to NZ from Bangkok I decided that I wanted to see a bit of Indonesia so had booked some cheap Air Asia flights from Bangkok to Bali. My next flight was to NZ from Bangkok, so I'd have to come back to Thailand after Indonesia. On the way down to Bangkok I stopped off at Sukhothai, one of the old capitals, and spent a pleasant day cycling around the temple ruins.
I'd met someone who was travelling down to one of the islands in the south of Thailand, so I decided to go along, as I wanted to check out Ko Pha Ngan anyway. It was a long journey, and I ended up only getting 4 days on the island. A relatively expensive place, maybe it wasn't worth it for such a small time. I did stay on Hat Rin though, which is the most touristy part. I spent most of the mornings walking up in the jungle behind the resort. Some nice views, and I followed trails that led to other beaches, including Leela beach, my favourite.

I saw a bit of wildlife too. And not just at the Black Moon party.
Next stop was Bali, via a not very interesting plane journey to Bangkok. Waiting 8 hours in an airport sucks! I decided to avoid Kuta at first, the beach resort on the south of Bali, as I'd heard only bad things about it. I had one night in Denpasar, the island capital, which was interesting as there were no tourists there at all. I managed to order food with the help of a local man (Nasi Goreng - fried rice). After that I went on the computer and wrote down a lot of Indonesian language that I thought would be useful. Going to Indonesia was a random decision and I hadn't planned at all, no guidebook, nothing. I soon found out there was quite a few vege meals, probably my favourite was Gado Gado, mixed vegetable with peanut sauce. I only had 2 and a half weeks so I did a lot of travelling there. Unfortunately I arrived in Februrary, the rainiest month, which is the worst month for going to the Komodo National park. So I had to come up with a different plan.

First I took an overnight bus to Yogjakarta as I wanted to check out Borobudur. It was okay for a day trip, the fun thing to do is to look in the giant stone bells on the top, and try to touch the Buddha statues inside (apparently for good luck - what else?).

The city was Yogjakarta was quite cool, there is a palace surrounded by a walled village area, and an interesting market street. I headed back to Bali via Mount Bromo national park. I only saw a small area of the park. From the village of Cemaro Lawang I got taken up in a jeep at 3am up to the viewing platform to see the sunrise over the volcanoes.
Then we did a short hike up to the Bromo crater rim.
Another "with hindsight". I'd booked a bus to Cemaro Lawang as part of a tour. I met some people on the bus to Bali who had just turned up and hiked up it with a local guide from the hotel, I think that would have been better, I only got the morning in Bromo and a few more days would have been nice. Of course, when I first booked the transport the agent said it was not possible to do it independently. I decided after that experience to do no more tours, in fact staying clear of touristy stuff altogether. Well I almost managed it... (Bali next time!)