Travel Location: Clare,Australia

Travel About: food-&-wine

We started early with drinking wine today. At 11 am we were at the Penfolds’ cellar door. We knew that Penfolds has some nice wines, but there are quite a few more only available at the cellar door. Despite being a big vineyard, their cellar door is quite small and gives a boutique impression. Have you ever wondered what the names of Penfold mean? For example Bin 28 or Bin 128. It was a system implemented by one of the first Penfold winemakers and indicated where the grapes are from and how they were stored. For example Shiraz from Barossa Valley stored in French Oak. However, today it stands more for a continuation of a tradition.

We then drove to Eden Valley which we were told is the north end of the valley with colder climate and famous for their Riesling. We visited Henschke wines just twenty minutes before their closing time. Their wines are excellent, as a speciality we took a bottle of sparkling Shiraz. It was not for tasting and we were only allowed to take one – which of course we did.

We said good bye to Barossa and Eden Valley and made our way towards Clare Valley just north of Barossa. We reached in the later afternoon and started our tasting at Annie’s Lane – one of the bigger producers here. Next we visited a boutique winery called Stephen John. It was located along the Riesling Trail and the car park just about big enough for a car. The wines were nice although the lady serving us was not very talkative. We decided that we had enough white wines (and that’s what this region is famous for) and drove to Burra, about 35 km from Clare. They had an advertisement for Apple Wine (“Most” for the Swiss and Cider for the English). We didn’t find the place at first but the people in town were very friendly and seeing us struggle helped us. The guy at the cider tasting was, like the lady at Stephen John, not so talkative. Also, they had three apple wines (the ones without the bubbles) for tasting, but not the ones with. Seems they do not have enough visitors. After a while the guy warmed up and started talking a bit more, he sometimes seemed to struggle for words, so he might not be unfriendly, just limited in vocabulary.

Well, we ended the day in the Caravan Park in Clare. The weather got even colder from yesterday and we prepare ourselves with a nice Asian Meal at the Clare Asian Restaurant. Don’t try the garlic prawns, but the fried rice, sizzling vegetables and the wrapped, fried prawns are excellent. And the waitresses are very helpful and nice.

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Travel Location: Venice,Italy

Travel About: architecture,food-&-wine,art-&-museum,shopping,romantic

By the time we arrived in Venice, we were starting to feel more like wilted flowers in mid summer than the spring chickens we are. Jet lag plus a packed schedule of almost every waking hour was starting to catch up. Venice was still magical when we came out of the station though. A gondola idled up the Grand Canal opposite us, vaporetti coming and going – ahhhh it is good to be here.

The vaporetto ride was a wake up call in itself. The driver was positively savage with his use of the gear box and each stop on the journey was occasioned not only with near whip lash when he slammed the boat into reverse on the approach to the stop, but side to side whip lash as we career into the boat stop buffers. Not ideal for those feeling tender from jet lag, over eating, long train journeys and lack of sleep and we had to endure about 6 of these before our stop finally appeared.

What I haven’t mentioned is that it is stinking hot here. About 30 degrees C. After meandering aimlessly through a beautiful park, I ran out of any self respect and asked someone in Italian for our street. The vague instructions given were a general direction that did prove fruitful in the end. Finding the apartment was great though. It is just perfect for us (see the picture).

Then, no rest for us though, it was off to Murano, to meet with one of our suppliers. We dressed up in non “touristy” clothes and tried to look as professional as possible and headed for Murano. We didn’t realise that it is a reasonably big place and there are about 4 vaporetto stops. We had no idea which one to get so took the first one and were herded down to watch some glass blowing. The furnace is just what you need on a day like this!!! Finally we tracked down our supplier and find that she is not there and is not intending to be there. Oh well, it was good to find the supplier and see that they do in fact manufacture jewellery. There are many fakes, even in Venice, with look alikes made in China selling for very low prices.

Staggered back onto the vaporetto, went to dinner in zombie like state (Kathy doesn’t even remember this!) and then collapsed into bed.

Venice Day 5 20 May 2009

The tradition commences; firstly a caffé espresso made at home to kick start the day; then a meander down to a local café for a caffé latte and a “cornetto” (pastry filled with creamy chocolate). Ahh…. Now we are ready for the day.

Today is a day for visiting mask suppliers and we head across to Giudecca, one of the islands to find our supplier. We are entranced to see so many masks that are not on the web site and place a large order! Our host takes us out to lunch at her favourite local pasta restaurant and we eat right on the edge of the canal in lovely 30 degree temperatures and have the local cuisine of cuttle fish, calamari (sea food dishes galore). Great experience and lovely to meet the people we deal with over the internet.

The next supplier is on the main island and we find a completely different experience. This is artistic chaos, with masks stacked in shelves leaning at dangerous angles, piles here and there, but lovely people, who were so warm to us. The heat was starting to get to us and I look at the idle air conditioning units longingly. We return home finding that some vaporetto drivers are in fact sane and navigate with a degree of precision and skill that delivers a smooth experience to docking the boat.

The thing we notice about Venice on this trip is that it is full of Italians! This may sound a surprising conclusion, but if you just visit St Marks Square and the main tourist spots, you will come away with the impression that Venice is over-run with tourists of every possible variety. However, we are staying away from the main tourist area and find an abundance of locals who live here. It is so nice.

The highlight of the day is that we decide at the last minute to “eat in” and arrive to find the supermarket just closing, but there is one next door still open. We rush around to find essential supplies, including wine, cheese etc and are at the check out to pay and realise that we don’t have any money on us right now. AHHH!! Kathy explains our dilemma to the proprietor, who suggests we pay tomorrow!!! He looks at our faces with jaws dropping and confirms his offer. Wow!! We are amazed at his trusting of us and walk up the street with our bags of groceries vowing to repay his trust first thing tomorrow. That would never happen in NZ!!

Venice Day 6 21 May 2009

The morning ritual starts today with a difference. EVERYONE in Venice offers a greeting. All through the day you hear “Ciao!” ringing out, often sounding like a cat “meow” from some of the women! It is a lovely aspect of local life and embodies friendship and an atmosphere of comradeship, which is very appealing. Anyway, I like to join in this ritual as well and as we exit our apartment, our neighbours are also leaving and I offer a jovial “Buon giorno” and get a response under breath of “guten morgen”. My instant feeling of offence at this lack of cultural awareness brings to mind that there must be an Italian version of “I think I’m turning Japanese – I really think so”! (hope someone remembers this song!). This was reinforced to me by the fact that the next morning I awoke to the refrain “La prossima fermata e’… Zattere” followed by “The nexta stoppa is … Zattere”. Too many trips on the vaporetti!!

Our relentless schedule continues today with a visit to another supplier we are highly suspicious of. His goods usually arrive at our place reeking of smoke, so we are expecting a heavy smoker. We seem to be always on the vaporetti and this time we get on one with our destination to meet Roberto, but while we are sitting there, we realise that there are like 20 stops and a lot of time; in fact, so much time that we are likely to miss our appointment with Roberto, who has agreed to meet us in Venice, before we travel with him by bus to his mask laboratory. Thank goodness for an Italian cell phone number that we purchased effortlessly the day before (just need to produce your passport). We ring Roberto and detect slight irritation. He only speaks Italian and is waiting for us at the bus station in over 30 degree heat.

We greet Roberto apologetically after over an hour on the vaporetto (you just don’t realise how big Venice is). He is lovely, which is great, as the night before Kathy was wondering if he was an axe murderer as he specified exact times for our meeting via text. Maybe we were going to be kidnapped?? But no, Roberto was just lovely and our being late meant we missed a direct bus and had to make a connection. He and Kathy had much lively conversation in Italian while I understood snippets. The temperature continued to rise as well and now is consistently over 30 degrees every day. We finally arrive at Roberto’s offices and find a surprising neat and tidy operation and his lovely wife. We spent a great time with them and really sensed a friendship more than just a business relationship. This strikes a resonating chord of what Dream of Italy is all about and we left feeling very warmed and satisfied. This was so different to the smoky den we expected to find. He was SO kind to us and escorted us back to a bus. Then back to Venice to get on a train to head back in a similar direction to our next supplier. This was a very different experience with these people very professional business people, with much more of a package available to people like us who wish to visit them. Va bene, as they say here.

We arrive back at the apartment pretty exhausted after a pretty hectic day and decide to eat out locally at one of the restaurants in the street just down from our apartment. We have yet to find a really “good” restaurant and we have high hopes for this one. There are lots of locals there. The highlight of the evening turns out to be the proprietor who sings. He sets up his little PA and begins to sing in rich baritone voice local songs, to which the locals all join in. At certain points, they all stand up and shout in unison. It was far more memorable than the food and the highlight of the evening. We were very tired, so had to wrench ourselves away from his voice echoing around the ancient street to return to bed “stanchi”.

Venice Day 7 22 May 2009

This morning we find a great place for breakfast and have now decoded the local code for a great “caffe latte” (double smudged milk please).

Today is officially a “day off” after some pretty hectic business days. I decide to mooch at home and leave Kathy to do her “market” experience. She takes off to the Venice Markets and has a wonderful time finding products and invaluable contacts.

Venice Day 8 22 May 2009

Today it is back to Murano to check out some more suppliers. We are continually surprised by the most promising leads turning to nothing and some small back room operations are just what we are looking for. Every where we go there is evidence of how the Chinese are taking over and Chinese replicas of Murano products are everywhere, even in Venice and you need to be very careful. There are some amazing works of art in glass here, but at prices we can’t entertain. However, we end up buying some stock to take home and get some excellent contacts for the future. Mission accomplished.

That evening we decide to go out for a meal and we find a real Italian back-street “Trattoria”. No tourists here. We book a table. Upon our return to take up our booking, the place is buzzing with locals. A milieu of dogs, smoke and loud conversations fill the air. All tables are taken! Booking a table is a novelty that they don’t really know how to handle here! We soak up the observation of raw Italian culture in backstreet Venice and I am so glad I did not bring my camera.

While our table is being freed up, we order a Campari Spritzer, to really fit in here. We saw some old guys order one for breakfast the other day!! I must say this paint stripper taste has grown on me and I have come to quite like it. For dinner we order local fare, which is basic Italian pasta and nothing terribly special, but it is nice. For the wine we note “Tocai” on the wine list and having just seen the film on the plane “Dean Spanley” we sample this and start barking (no, just kidding)…

However, I do decide to start a photographic series called “Dogs of Venice” or “Cani di Venezia”. I have some good material already. Depending on what happens I may expand this to “Cani d’Italia”.

As evening falls, what I thought was someone taking flash photos turns out to be lightning. It grows more and more and the thunder comes. We ask for the bill sensing impending rain. There is no response much and after large drops start to fall we press inside to the chaos happening in the kitchen and bar. Lots of people, a dog also nearly getting trodden on and a frazzled barmaid who finally puts a bill on the counter under a saucer. I take a chance, grab it and yes, it is ours. We could so have walked off into the night, but this is a family restaurant and trust seems to be the value here. Nice.

We walk home amongst large, but dispersed rain drops and are glad to get to our apartment before the heavens open. We find out the next morning, they never did. Great last night in Venice.

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Travel Location: Cape-Town,South-Africa

Travel About: food-&-wine,nightlife,music

A wintery evening with snow on the mountains and drizzle in the air, but six Meridians were cosy at Alma Café in Rosebank among good company with good food and great live music.

Having heard about this place from neighbours I booked this as a trial evening, and from comments received, it will not be the last time.

Live music, good food, take your own booze – what could be better.

On booking, the owner’s Richard and Retha Tait asked us to take our own booze and glasses – what a pleasure – and after a couple of reminders, everyone remembered. “They’ve been struggling to realise their dream of a cafe cum breakfast cum music venue for some time, and so a few of us have jumped in to help and things seem to be coming together now,” said Gill Lanham, who describes herself as living across the road.

“It’s such a special place and, during the day, visitors from the humblest labourer to Andre Brink frequent the place. I volunteered to help for a month but I love it so much that I think I’ll stay two-hours each morning and carry on with dish-washing on Sundays,” said Gill.

While nibbling on chips and catching up, we were asked for our preference in food – we were fifty fifty, veggies and carnivores.

Richard and his son Jonathan sang the opening set with sixties hits from writers like Neil Young; Crosby, Stills Nash and Young – and Monty Python!

The cosy café seats about 26 diners but we noticed that two or three people popped in for music only. Sash windows and sections of bare brickwork and cupboards burdened by old tins, jars and mementos – something unusual wherever the eye leads.

Time for food. For the vegetarians it was a filling stuffed butternut with salad, while the carnivores tucked into bobotie. Everyone enjoyed their food, evidenced by empty plates.

Retha does a lot of the cooking, and all the baking, and is the typical “earth mother” type – an ex social worker. Richard is the typical mad musician – given to profanity laden outbursts……and either loved or loathed by the locals.

Time for the main act, Julia Conradie, 25, with her easy stage manner and worldly lyrics, showing talent that has tremendous potential to break through the barriers of acceptance.

Starting with a song by Alanis Morisette, she went on to sing original works in her deep voice in both languages. “If you can understand, it can touch your soul. It’s very powerful stuff,” said Be. This was echoed in Julia’s words: “If you can’t find peace within yourself, you can’t be with someone else.”

This bi-lingual singer-songwriter is disarmingly honest and has no problem exposing herself in a range of songs that astound in their individuality, from melancholy to playful. “Most of my songs are about breaking up, rather than love songs,” she laughed, while another song started out loving someone before turning to hate.

What a pleasure to savour the chord structures, from of a song written from a poem penned by her brother (who was in the audience), to Running, a smiling understanding of running away from love – a song she wrote in ten minutes.

The audience enjoyed singing along to one or two songs that they knew and then it was time for a second break, this time for desert. While some enjoyed coffee, including Irish, others indulged in a warm ginger pudding with custard or in the most delicious lemon meringue.

Captivating the audience it was no wonder that we were disappointed when Julia ended her set.

But next time we book we will ask for a table away from the bar. While people were asked to switch off cell phones, smoker’s weren’t asked to wait for the intervals, and the door doesn’t close very well.

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Travel Location: Bangkok,Thailand

Travel About: food-&-wine,historic,tour,transportation,travel-tips

January/Enero 2, 2007 Bangkok

We started our first day in Bangkok anxious to go the its main attractions : Wat Phra Kaeo, Grand Palace, Wat Po, Wat Arun, and all of the Wats possible. However after a big brunch we didn’t bother to ask the people from the hotel for their suggestions. This meant that after walking one block we were already approached by a ‘very friendly’ local that gaves us all sorts of suggestions based on a true fact: 2nd of January is national holiday and most of the locals were attending the Buddhists temples to pray. To make a long story short we ended up in a tremendously cheap tuk-tuk that took us around some non-touristic temples making 3 unwanted stops at a tailor’s shop, a site where a local and a French guide by coincidence started talking about the great business of buying cheap gems in Thailand and selling them in the US or Europe, and finally gem factory. Obviously we didn’t buy a thing but our original plans weren’t followed. By the time the tuk-tuk took us to the Golden Mount, we spent so much time in the temple that when we got out he had left. The the tuk-tuk driver not only did not receive the commission from the tailor and the gem factory but also he didn’t get paid by the ride. After this initial unsuccessful ‘scam’ we managed to walk our way to the Grand Palace and Wat Prae Kaeo stopping first in the Democracy Monument, a Hindu temple and Wat Rachmanat under the midday sun. The Grand Palace and Wat Pra Kaeo proved to be wonderful. We finished our day by returning to Bangamplhu’s night markets to enjoy delicious Thai food.

*********************************

Iniciamos este día a eso de las 8:00 am con un desayuno buffet en el hotel B180 (us$5) por persona, por supuesto le saque el jugo a estos B180 comiendo tanto que a las 4:00 pm aun no tenia hambre, jejejeje. La intención este día era visitar Wat Phra Kaeo (El Buda de esmeraldas), El Gran Palacio Real, Wat Po (Buda Reclinado) y Wat Arun, al final del plan inicial solo pudimos visitar Wat Phra Kaeo (El Buda de esmeraldas) y El Gran Palacio Real en la tarde, durante el día estuvimos visitando otra serie de templos y tiendas a las que solo van los locales y los turistas incautos como nosotros. La historia: salimos del hotel decididos a cumplir con nuestro itinerario cuando una mujer tailandesa se nos acerca y nos pregunta que a donde íbamos, en cuestión de un minuto ya nos había convencido de visitar Wat Intharawihan (Buda de pie), el Buda de la Suerte, the Thai Factory y otra serie de monumentos y lugares que aparentemente eran gratis este dia del ano porque era dia de fiesta nacional, lo cual era cierto, y por este motivo estaba abierto gratis al publico en general. Al final hicimos el siguiente recorrido en un Tuk-tuk con emosion: Wat Intharawihan un pequeño templo en donde hay un buda de pie al que los locales van a hacer ofrendas, de ahí salimos a ver el dichoso Buda de la Suerte, en donde conocimos a unos locales que eran católicos pero estaban visitando los templos budistas ese día, de ahí el Tuk-tuk nos llevo a un almacén en donde hacen vestidos a la medida, y fue acá en donde ser Colombiano nos salvo de que nos tumbaran, cuando el señor del almacén supo que éramos de Colombia se pego una desanimada porque creía que en Colombia hacer un vestido salía mas barato que en Tailandia y ni siquiera insistió en vendernos algo. Conclusión en 20 segundos ya estabamos afuera del almacén y al parecer estos almacenes les dan plata a los de los Tuk-tuk por llevarlos allá a comprar cosas, en ese momento la cara de felicidad del conductor ya no era tal, jejeje. De ahí salimos a otro templo que estaba cerrado pero en donde había un tailandés que supuestamente vivía en California y el que se nos aproximo para contarnos que hoy precisamente había una gran promoción en un sitio en donde se venden zafiros y rubíes tailandeses y que comprar en ese día era el gran negocio porque uno tenia el 195% de impuesto y además era 20% mas barato y que el ya había pagado su viaje desde California comprando joyas en Tailandia y vendiéndolas por casi el doble en USA. Por supuesto nosotros sabíamos que era un lavado de cerebro y que nos querían era hacer comprar huevonadas, en eso se aproxima un supuesto turista francés que ya había hecho lo mismo, por supuesto todo era un montaje. Conclusión decidimos irnos del templo y por supuesto el man del Tuk-tuk nos llevo a la dichosa joyería, que realmente no tenia nada bueno. Como es de esperarse no compramos nada y de ahí finalmente nos llevo el Tuk-tuk a un sitio muy popular de peregrinaje que se llama Wat Saket (Montana Dorada), en este lugar nos demoramos tanto que cuando salimos el man del Tuk-tuK ya se había ido sin que le pagáramos los B40 que habíamos arreglado por el viaje. La Montana Dorada es un sitio de peregrinación muy famoso en Bangkok y en especial el 2 de Enero estaba lleno de locales haciendo ofrendas al Buda. Después de visitar este monumento emprendimos una caminata que nos llevo a un área en la cual están ubicados el Monumento a la Democracia; la Galeria de la Reina; Wat Rachanatda, un castillo y templo de estilo Burmes, con una escalera en espiral ubicada en el centro del castillo y desde la cual a medida que se va subiendo se ven Budas a lo largo de todos los puntos cardinales. Las escaleras terminan en una pequeña cúpula que contiene una piedra a la que los locales le llevan ofrendas. De ahí seguimos a Erawan Shrine un templo dedicado a Brama, el dios hindú de la creación y a Erawan su elefante. A este templo los lugareños van a hacer ofrendas para obtener buena suerte. El día de nuestra visita el templo estaba repleto de gente llevando ofrendas y pidiendo por un buen ano 2007. En este punto de la caminata a Carolina el calor ya le había sacado la piedra. Luego de caminar un buen rato y preguntarle a un policía de transito llegamos finalmente al Gran Palacio Real y a Wat Phra Kaeo (Templo con el Buda de Esmeraldas). Este lugar es realmente alucinante, tan bello que cualquier sensación de calor, hambre y cansancio fue eliminada al instante. A Bangkok no se puede ir sin visitar este templo, es como ir a Romo y no visitar el Coliseo Romano, claro que la belleza de los templos y palacios, los detalles de la decoración, los colores, la calidad de los murales y pinturas es realmente maravillosa. A la salida de este lugar se me ocurrió sugerirle a Carolina que regresarnos al hotel caminando, por supuesto la respuesta fue un rotundo no, con la que la mejor opción fue negociar el regreso al hotel en Tuk-tuk. Después de dejar los morrales en el hotel y refrescarnos un poco decidimos salir a caminar a los alrededores de Banglamphu en busca de un lugar para comer. El área esta llena de pequeños puestos de comida y almacenes en donde se consigue desde un alfiler, pasando por artesanías, ropa de marca, zapatos y equipo electrónico. Entramos a una calle llamada Thanon Khao San en donde encontramos un muy buen lugar para probar algo de la cocina tailandesa. Carolina pidio una sopa y yo Pat Thai con langostinos, de tomar un coco helado y una cerveza Singha (la mas tradicional de Tailandia). Después de esta comida de vuelta al hotel y ahí si a descansar hasta el otro día.

Dia 3 Bangkok

Para nuestro tercer día en Bangkok teníamos bien claro que intentaríamos seguir al pie de la letra un itinerario predefinido. Salimos del hotel a eso de las 8:00 am e inmediatamente empezamos a caminar a lo largo de Thanon (Road) Phra Athit. Lo primero que encontramos fue un fuerte llamado Phra Sumen, seguido del parque Santichaiprakan. Desde este punto se puede ver el río Chao Phraya. Si se continúa caminando sobre esta calle en dirección sur oeste se puede llegar a los principales sitios turísticos de Bangkok muy fácilmente. A lo largo de Thanon Phra Athit, se pueden encontrar una serie de palacios en donde vivio la nobleza Thai y que ahora son utilizados por diferentes tipos de organizaciones. Algunos de estos palacios son el Ban Chao Phraya que es utilizado por las Naciones Unidas y Maiwan Palace el cual es ocupado por la FAO. Siguiendo la misma ruta se encuentran el Teatro Nacional, los campos reales de Sanam Luang y el Museo Nacional. Lo siguiente que encontramos fue la Universidad de Thammasat, un sitio muy importante para la historia reciente de Tailandia. Contiene un monumento que conmemora la masacre de estudiantes del 6 de octubre de 1976. La derecha Tailandesa que gobernaba en ese momento masacro a un grupo de estudiantes que estaban protestando por los derechos de los más pobres. Esto motivo a muchos a huir a las montanas y selvas de Tailandia para formar grupos guerrilleros de izquierda. Una muestra clara de cómo la violencia y la represión generan más violencia. Siguiendo la misma ruta esta Wat (Templo) Mahathat, un monasterio budista que alberga la Universidad Budista Mahachulalongkorn. Este monasterio fue construido para albergar hasta 1000 mojes. Allí tuvimos la oportunidad de entrar a un lugar que congregaba a muchos monjes, hombres vestidos de naranja y mujeres vestidas de blanco, orando alrededor de un buda. De aquí nos dirigimos a nuestro destino principal del día, Wat Pho (El Buda Reclinado) pero antes volvimos a pasar por las afueras de El Gran Palacio Real; Wat Phra Kaeo; la Universidad Silpakorn; Tha Chang Wong Luang, que en un tiempo fue las puertas del ciudad y ahora es un embarcadero para cruzar el rio, el mercado de los amuletos, el embarcadero real Tha Ratchaworadit y un mercado en donde los sentidos se deleitan con la cantidad de olores y colores de frutas, especias, pescado seco y puestos de comida típica tailandesa.

Wat Po es un complejo de templos que albergó la primera Universidad en Tailandia en 1832, sin embargo lo mas destacado de este lugar es el Buda Reclinado. Una figura de 45 metros de largo que muestra al príncipe Sidarta entrando al Nirvana. Después de visitar Wat Po, cruzamos el río en ferry. En este momento me di cuenta porque el trafico en Bangkok es tan caótico, pues tal parece que el curso de conducción de carros se aprueba después de pasar la prueba de manejada de ferry. Inclusive en el río el tráfico es un caos. Este cruce nos costo B3, mas o menos US$0.08. De aca nos dirigimos a Wat Arum o El templo del Amanecer, compuesto por una serie de torres de estilo Ayutthayan, es el templo más distintivo de Bangkok. Después de visitar Wat Arum cruzamos nuevamente el rio pero esta vez para tomar el bote expreso que recorre todo el Rio Chao Praya, con destino a el Barrio Chino y El Buda de Oro.

El Barrio Chino es una combinación de todos los barrios chinos que he visto en Londres, Melbourne, Sydney, pero además agregándole San Victorino y la carrera decima en la peor época de invasión del espacio publico, con un poco del mercado, el paseo de Bolívar y el San Andresito de Barranquilla, por aquello del calor, los olores a cano y los carritos de comida vendiendo arroz de lisa, claro que en Bangkok la variedad es mucho mayor, arroz frito, noodles, pescado seco, jugos de fruta, etc. La experiencia recorriendo el Barrio Chino fue fascinante. Para destacar el Kuan Yin Shrine. Finalmente llegamos al Buda de Oro, que esta localizado en un templo muy modesto, pero que da su importancia a que es la figura de un Buda en oro macizo más grande del mundo, de trss metros de alto y media tonelada de peso. Impresiona que no hay ningún tipo de sistema de seguridad que lo proteja. Después de visitar el Buda de Oro, decidimos aventurarnos a tomar un bus que nos llevara de regreso al hotel. A 250 metros del golden buda esta la estacion de Hualamphong en donde tomamos el bus numero 53 que nos llevo de regreso a Banglamphu. Recorrer la ciudad de Bangkok en transporte publico fue una de las mejores experiencias que hasta ahora hemos tenido del viaje. Nada de guerra del centavo y tampoco nada de Transmilenio o servicio primera clase. Un sistema bien básico pero organizado y en el que se tiene la oportunidad de experimentar la ciudad y su gente siempre amable y servicial. El recorrido en bus nos permitió tomar muy buenas fotos de la vida de la ciudad, siempre vibrante, llena de olores, colores y sonidos intensos.

Al final del día fuimos a cenar a Siam Oriental Inn, a probar algo mas de la comida tailandesa, totalmente exhaustos pero felices por todo lo vivido ese dia.

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Travel Location: Parity,Brazil

Travel About: food-&-wine,festival,waterfall,carnaval,iguazu

We made it to Trelew and travelled by local bus to Gaiman where we were staying. We checked into the Gwesty Tywi and headed straight out for a ´Welsh tea´ or Te Cymreig. We found a small place aptly called Ty Cymraeg (The Welsh Tea House) and headed in. Nobody spoke Welsh there but i think the aim of the place was to see how many cakes real welsh people can eat as the waitress proceeded to bring out 10 slices of different cakes along with bread and jam and a gallon of tea. We hadn´t had a…snack like this for a while and we really enjoyed it until we started to feel abit sick. We spent a few days at the lovely guest house and visited the musuem dedicated to the Welsh settlers, the Taberncl and we even managed to have a few conversations with the locals in Welsh-they even understood some of my welsh, or maybe they were just being polite.

We moved on from Gaiman to the capital city of Beunos Aires. It was a long trip and we were lucky to have a really good hostel right in the centre of the city. We headed out and walked throught the old areas of the city and watched the street performers doing everything from the tango to contortionism. Over the next few days we travelled around the city taking in the sites like Eva perons grave, the water front (and the odd Irish bar).

“…ac eraill mewn gwisgoedd bach pitw – caeodd John ddim ei lygaid drwyr nos!”

Our next stop was Puerto Iguazu, home to the Iguazu Falls. They are supposedly 5 times bigger than Niagra Falls, and on inspection they were very impressive. We got completely soaked whilst walking along the viewing platforms due to the spray from the falls, but also it started to rain so hard that when we got back to our hostel we found that it was flooding! So we decided that we would head to Rio de Janiero as soon as possible and catch the last day of the Carnival.

It was a gruelling 22hr bus journey to Rio but it was worth it. We got in early and were pretty tired. We decided to get a cab with a guy named Fergus who was staying at the same place as us. The cab ride woke us up to say the least, this was due not only to the cab driver´s disrespect for other vehicles, pedestrians, dogs etc, but also because we got our first view of the statue of Christ the Redeemer overlooking the stunning city, its a sight we will never forget. We spent the rest of the day walking around trying to get to Copacabana beach (unsucessfully), then we headed back to get dressed and went in search of the Carnival. We went to a couple of street parties and drunk and danced as much as possible, then at about 12midnight we decided to try and get into the Sambadroma, the huge arena that the Carnival parade goes through. We managed to get in with tickets we bought from a tout who swore they were genuine and spent the next 4 hours watching the samba parade with its thousands of people in different costumes and huge floats. We made friends with some Brasilians who allowed us into their gang only after we attempted the Samba, i thought they were gonna die laughing when i did it! We drunk and danced with them all night, one of them turned out to be a 7ft dutch guy in drag but nobody cared as it was carnival. We flagged at 4ish in the morning and got the tube back with people still in costume to our digs. We got to bed around 5…WHAT A FANTASTIC DAY!

During the next couple of days we went too see Jesus on the hill and took in the heat and the views of Rio. We also went down to Copacabbana, Ipenama and Santa Teresa for a look around. We went to watch a football match in the massive Maracan Stadium, Juninho turned out for Flemenco and they won 3-1. The crowd went mad when Flemenco nearly scored in the frist couple of minutes, but when they scored it was fireworks, flares and huge shirts all over the place! What an atmosphere!

We were completed tired out when we left Rio for the coast, our next stop was Paraty between Rio and Sao Paulo. Its a very beautiful place and we have just lazed around recovering and getting a bit of a tan for the last few days – its been very hard i”m sure you can all imagine!

We are heading on to Salta in Argentina and then into Bolivia and Peru.

I hope your all well and the weather as well as the 6 Nations isn`t getting you down too much.

See you all soon

.

FERSIWN CYMRAEG

Ar ol El Calafate, teithio dros nos ar fws moethus i Drelew ym Mhatagonia. Doedden ni ddim yn gwbod beth i ddisgwyl, ond reodd y profiad o fod yn y Wladfa yn un pleserus dros ben. Arhoson ni yn Gaiman, mewn gwely a brecwast or enw Gwesty Tywi gyda Brenda a Diego. Roedd hi´n 4 y brynhawn erbyn hyn a´r ddau ohonyn ni´n llwgu, felly mynd am de traddiodiadol i´r Ty Cymreig fel tourists da! Dwi erioed yn cofio cael te fel yma gatre – 10 cacen, bara, jam, caws, scons a´r pot mwyaf o de dwi eriod ´di gweld – ron i haner disgwyl i rhywun arall i ddod i eistedd gyda ni! Do`n i ddim moyn codi cywilydd ar Gymru, felly fe drion ni fwyta´r cwbl (yn ofer) ond nethon ni ddim bwyta eto tan amser cinio y dwirnod ar ol ´ny! Roedd Gaiman yn hyfryd o dawel a braf iawn oedd gallu gofyn am swper neu cyfarwyddiadau yng Nghymraeg, ond dwin credu ein bod ni wedi bod yn lwcus dros ben gyda faint o Gymraeg y llwyddon ni siarad.

Ond y peth rhyfedda i ddigwydd yn y Wladfa – cwrdd fyny a Catrin Morris, cyn athrawes cerddoriaeth Rhydfelen! Weird neu be??

Ar ol ymlacio yno am rhai diwrnodau a mynd am ddiwrnod i Puerto Madryn, lle glaniodd y Cymro cyntaf, teithio dros nos eto i Buenos Aires. I fod yn onest, reodden ni ychydig yn siomedig gydar ddinas ar y cyfan. Reodd gweld y fynwent gyda beth Eva Peron yn ddiddorol dros ben, a gweld y dawnsio tango ar gorneli styd, ond roedd y ddinas ei hun yn eitha brwnt a lot gormod o draffig, felly mlaen a ni!

Wedyn i Puerto Iguazu i weld y rheadrau enwog. Roedd rhain yn anhygoel, ac yn ymestyn am 2.5 km. Y diwrnod hyny, fe wnaeth hi dywallt i lawr a glaw, ond doedd dim ots gan fod y niwl or rheadrau yn ein gwlychu ni tabeth. Erbyn i ni gyrraedd nol ir hostel, roedd y stryd fel rheadr ar hostel o dan 3 modfedd o ddwr. Dwin credu eu bod nhw wedi arfer, gan mai rhoir panhigion allan yn y pwdeli wnaeth y staff.

Croesir border wedyn i mewn i Brazil a mynd ar y bws cyflymaf i Rio er mwyn dal diwedd y Carnifal. Reodden ni wedi penderfynnu ei bod hi yn rhy ddrud i ni fynd Rio amser yma`r flwyddyn gan fod prisiau llety wedi mynd i fyny 500%, ond dyma nin pendefynnu funud olaf i fynd, tabeth oedd y gost. Dyma un or penderfyniadau gore i ni wneud gan fod y Carnifal yn brofiad gwych. Miloedd ar filoedd o bobl wedi gwisgo mewn gwisgoedd mawr dros ben llestri, ac eraill mewn gwisgoedd bach pitw – caeodd John ddim ei lygaid drwyr nos! Fe wnaethon ni ffrindiau a chriw o San Paulo oedd wedi dod i weld y Carnifal, a gethon ni llwyth o sbort gyda nhw – wrth gwrs reodd ein Sbaeneg ni o ddim help i ni, gan mae Portugese reodden nhw`n siarad. Ond reodd hi`n haws cyfleu pethau ar ol dawnsio ag yfed, fel arfer!

Mae Rio ei hun, heb os, yn un or dinasoedd pertaf dwi erioed wedi bod iddi, ac o ben y Sugar Loaf, roedd yr olygfa o Corcodova (Iesu ar ben mynydd) ar favelas (ardaloedd tlawd) yn dringo fyny ochr y mynyddoedd yn hyfryd, ac wrth gwrs, y traethau bedigedig. Gethon ni sawl diwrnod yn crwydro`r Copacobana a Impanema a doedden ni ddim yn teimlo o dan fygythiad o gwbl. Roedd naws hyfryd a chyfeillgar yn y ddinas, a hyd yn oed pan es i mewn i`r Favelas, doeddwn i dal ddim yn teimlo allan o le. Wrth gwrs, mae dal porblem cyffuriau yno, ond ar ol bod yno a gweld mae pobl `normal` yn mynd wrth ei busnes yw 99% or bobl, dwi`n edrych ar y lle o dan olau newydd.

Fuon ni hefyd i weld gem pel droed mewn Stadiwm gwych. Reodd y gem ei hun yn iawn (dal ddim yn deall beth sy`n mynd ymlaen) ond pan roedd Flamengo yn scorio (neu bron a sgorio) roedd y lle yn mynd yn wyllt – roedd y naws yn anhygoel ac unwaith eto, yn gyfeillgar. Wnaethon nhw ddim stopio canu a dawnsio drwy gydol y gem! Wn i ddim pe bai pethau wedi bod yn wahanol pe bai nhw wedi colli?

Felly ar ol 4 dydd a 4 noson fawr yn Rio (a twll mwy yn ein poced) dyma ni´n anelu am dawelwch y traeth mewn pentref bach or enw Paraty, lle hyryd a hamddenol a henafol ar lan y mor. Fuon ni´n aros mewn Posada gwych a deodden ni ddim moyn gadael, ond dyma ni wedi ein llusgo ein hun oddi yno ac yng nghanol ein taith 3 dydd yn ol i Arianyn er mwyn mynd i Salta yn y gogledd. O fan yno, y gobaith ydy mynd i anialwch yr Atacama yng ngogledd Chile ac yna i mewn i Bolivia.

Mae´n Ddydd Gwyl Dewi heddiw, ond does dim cenyn pedr na het hen fenwy fach Cidwli mewn golwg (dim Steddfod chwaith, diolch byth) ond gobeithio eich bod chi gyd yn mwynhau nol yng Nghymru fach.

Hwyl am y tro

John a Ffionxx

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Travel Location: Brighton,United-Kingdom

Travel About: food-&-wine,beach,resort

Brighton is really cute! It’s on a pebble beach and it’s got a population of about half a million apparently. It feels quite happening. Lots of little alleys and the seafront is full of shops and bars right on the seafront. Definitely worth another visit. Next time I’d like to go and camp overnight…

It was a short trip on Saturday evening to Brighton for Sophie’s birthday. It felt so good to get out of London! Sometimes it feels so insular in this city, and it’s only once you realise how close things are it feels so silly that it’s such a big thing to leave!

Joe, my houemate and I went down about 6ish. The train trip was cool. Should have really left a lot earlier but oh well, still completely worth it. We saw sheep and lots of nice green meadows and all that. Brighton is really nice and got there just in time to see the sun go down. We met Sophie and her boyfriend, Bill, who were down on the beach having a picnic when we arrived. Then we went for a walk up the beach and along the pier where there are lots of rides. God, it’s so tacky! Apparently it’s one of the more posh seaside resorts in England. It really has a completely different feel in the UK to any other seaside locations I’ve been to.

Had a lovely vegetarian all you can eat buffet. Oh, and how can I forget? Went on a really old school carousel. That was cool.

It was a quick dash to the train to get back in time to catch the last train. Oh, and the bus trip home was a nightmare – that’s London and traffic for you though I guess. Ended up getting off the train in Picadilly for a bit, and couldn’t find anywhere to have a nice quiet drink. Fancy that, in the middle of London!

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Travel Location: South-Lake-Tahoe,United-States

Travel About: food-&-wine,ski,romantic

December 23rd – Driving Day

Well we are here. Snow boarding for Christmas. Last year a warm Christmas in Guatemala – this year a cold Christmas in the snow.

2 feet of fresh powder!

Took about 5 hours to get up here from SF. Relatively straight forward drive with good road conditions all the way up. Didn’t even have to break out the new snow chains

Daph had made the hotel arrangements before hand. Great room, good price and walking distance from the Heavenly lift. Way to go Daph!

Once we got settled into our room we headed out for a beer. Went to Mc P’s right across from the Heavenly lift. Very cool little chalet style pub that I had been to a couple of years ago with Mike and Lad. The beer tasted great – or should I say beers

From there we walked down to Harrahs (the closest casino on the Nevada side of the boarder) Very different experience than Vegas. Somehow seems smokier and a little less upscale. We blew our $20 gambling budget and then moved onto the shopping and hot chocalate at the Nestle shop. Called it an early night so we would be rested for tomorrow.

December 24th – Not so heavenly for beginner snow boarder

The next morning it took us a little while to get going so when we showed up for breakfast all the tables were gone. No complaints though it was free After breakfast we walked down to the heavenly gondala. Since we were running a little behind schedule we decided to wait for 45 minutes and go for the half day lift ticket. I had skied at Heavenly before and it seemed like a very nice hill. However, it was a very different deal for my first day snowboarding of the year and only third time ever. On the gondola side most of the hills are blue or above and even the greens are narrow and challenging. Daph was very patient with me as I tried to sort things out. Overall not the best day on the hill ever but still good to be out

Daph had made reservations at Niephel’s. Very romantic little spot where you can make reservations for a hot tub in an adjoining spa. All of the buildings are chalet style cabins that have a very warm feeling to them. We didn’t use the spa but had a great dinner. One of the highlights was when a young college girl, who was there for dinner with her parents, stood up and sang a christmas song. I know sounds kind of lame but she was studying opera at university and had a beautiful voice. Women at the other tables were literally crying while she sang.

That night we found out that we could catch a free bus from the hotel to Sierra. We decided to try Sierra the next morning.

December 25-27th – Sierra our favorite place to board

Christmas morning and we were off early – beautiful sunny warm day. Had breakfast at 7 and caught the 8:19 Sierra bus at the front door of the hotel. Really great free bus service that makes several stops on route to Sierra which is about 40 minutes away. Once we arrived at Sierra we checked out the various lift ticket options and decided to get a three day pass for around $40 a day. Far and away the best deal we found anywhere. (We had bought Heavenly passes at Albertson’s for $60 and we thought that was good) We spent most of the day on the beginner hill so that I could get my toe turns (right hand turns sorted out) After a couple of hours I was able to control the turns and things were starting to come together. Daph was boarding really well and making great controled turns all the way down the hill. Had a great day boarding. We were both tired around 2pm and decided to catch the bus home. That night we used the hot tub (our muscles were sore after spending the entire day boarding) We then headed out to Mc P’s for a beer and some warm stew. Got up early and headed out to Sierra on the 8:19 bus. Standing room only on the way there but since we were one of the first stops we had seats. Fantastic day of boarding. Both of our boarding improved and we had a lot of fun on the Rock Garden runs. Rock Garden is a lift that takes you to the top of three different green runs. Perfect place for us to continue to learn. We had planned on driving home but when we woke up there was a foot and a half of fresh snow on the ground and it was still coming down! Spoke to the front desk was able to get our stay extended. Then we were off. Had a great day of boarding. We were both turning well and knew exactly where to go. Spent most of the day on the Garden Run where there were far fewer people. Boarding in fresh powder is a lot of fun. Turns feel like you are surfing and falls are nice and soft In the deeper powder we had to be careful to maintain our speed and keep our tips up so that our boards didn’t stall and bring us to a complete stop in the deep snow. Overall a great day that was well worth extending our stay for. The next day it was nice and sunny and although we were sad to be leaving it was a perfect day to drive home — no chains required

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Travel Location: La-Serena,Chile

Travel About: architecture,food-&-wine,art-&-museum,market,off-the-beaten-path

Wow a lot to say as a lot has been done.

Firstly, let me mention that photos will be coming as soon as we find a place that actually has DSL or Cable, as it´s basically impossible to upload our (fantastic) photos on a 56K modem, which is all that is available where we are.

Anyway back to last week…

Monday: We arrived in La Serena after a 7-hour bus trip which was, put simply, boring. We got into La Serena without any hostel bookings, as we´d found there were heaps of people waiting around at Valpo bus terminal for tourists to recruit to their hostels. Sure enough we arrived to about 5 people all crowding around us, insisting we stay at their hostel. In the end there were 2 competitors, a guy who spoke English in an LA cap, and a woman who had prepared a ´portfolio´ of her hostel, with photos and a list of facilities (including HOT WATER). I should add that the guy in the LA cap when he found out we were from Australia, ran off (very rapidly) a list of all the major Australian cities… kinda freaky, needless to say.

Overwhelmed by their advances, we sat down to eat, and Jason noticed that the woman was still hovering around outside the café entrance. In the end we decided that if she´d take 1000 pesos (AU$2.50) less each per night, then we´d go to hers. Sure enough, the moment I said (in Spanish, of course) : “My boyfriend wants to pay 4000 pesos per night” she almost shouted “Sí!” straight away. Obviously she was desperate for people, and I started thinking we should have started with a lower price.

She drove us to her hostel, Hostel Gladys (her name… it was one of the things that put me off actually). We get there and it had turned out we´d made the right choice. In the middle of (or very close to) everything, clean, internet facilities, hot showers, and a really nice room painted in my favourite colour (purple!) and with cupboards, a table and Cable TV. The small plaza and park outside the hostel was, as are most parks in Chile, filled to the brim with teenage couples making out.

That being said, La Serena is one of my favourite towns thus far. Quiet but not isolated, Safe but not a tourist trap, and clean but not sterile, the town is a lovely getaway where you don´t have to worry about looking like a tourist but also don´t need to worry about being stuck in a town ONLY with other tourists (like the next city you´ll read about).

After settling in, we headed to the supermarket to stock up on goods. I should mention here a small fact about Chilean supermarkets. In the vegetable section and the bread section, theres a little stall where staff weigh what you´ve picked up and put a price on it, similar to how to Deli sections work in Australia. If you get to the checkout having not pre-weighed your vegetables, fruit, or bread, you either go back and get it done or leave it behind. We later discovered that we had inadvertedly bought liquor-flavoured (or should I say tainted?) Vienetta, which WAS going to be our splurge item for La Serena but ended up just being a tragedy.

We went to bed annoyed at the lack of delicious icecream, but satisfied by our otherwise-pleasant dinner.

Tuesday: Ok. I´m very excited. Because Tuesday morning something happened which I´d been waiting for ever since arriving in Chile : I got to eat Bacon and eggs. OH! The joy! Having a bacon and egg delicacy on delicious La Serena bread was just.. ah.. indescribably delicious and great, just great.

Anyway.. after breakfast Jason and I decided to see all the typical touristy stuff in the area like the museums and parks, etc. We saw:

- Iglesias (churches) : Catedral (big, catholic building with great architecture), Santo Domingo (a smaller church right next to our hostel), and San Francisco (a church next to a school which had bars all around it so really didn´t look all that inviting).

- Museo Arqueológico : The archaeological museum full of info about the indigenous history in the area. Also with a display of two shrunken heads – COOL!

- A big parkland area which, it turned out, houses animals (with no entrance fee!). Animals such as peacocks, ducks, rabbits, and condors. Yes, condors. With farm animals. What the connection is I just don´t know.

We then headed to the giant supermarket complex, the entrance to which was a big white hallway filled with calming live harp playing. As I said to Jason, it felt like a stereotypical entrance to heaven, which I guess is what the supermarket owners want it to feel like. The Lider (a supermarket chain) inside was HUGE, bigger than any Australian supermarket I´ve ever seen. After perusing it´s aisles to no avail, Jason decided to buy a Churro, and we were smart enough to get a photo of it this time. Deeeeelicious! While he was eating it, we noticed that the radio station they were playing on loudspeaker in the complex was playing.. the Neverending Story themesong? Ayayay.

I should mention that in between seeing churches, we made eye contact with a random dog that decided to start following us. Freaked out, we crossed the street maybe 5 times before losing it. In retrospect, I think it just wanted some company. But nevertheless the number of stray dogs you see does make you a bit suspicious of them.

We also booked a tour that day, to go to Islas Damas. I was determined to go out of the numerous brochures boasting Penguins.. and I luuuuurve penguins. So we booked that (at about AU$60 each, out of my extra spending money) and after tossing off our shoes in the hostel and grabbing our “games bag” we went and sat in the beautiful Plaza de Armas. We started playing the Monopoly card game, but after a while two interesting women approached us. “We Gypsy” they said to us. And they looked it. Long skirts, dark curly hair, straggly appearances, they really were genuine Latin American gypsies. After a while of pretending not to understand Spanish, one of them started grabbing at Jason´s pocket where the bulge of his wallet was showing. When he affronted them, she walked off huffed saying in Spanish “Ah! I hate you!”

Shaken, but not stirred, we returned to the hostel for a good night´s dinner and rest.

Wednesday: We´d discovered the day before that there were a few things in La Serena that we hadn´t had a chance to see but which were apparent “must-sees”.

The first was a Japanese Garden, located right next to the giant park with all the animals. We took a heap of pictures as it really was very beautiful but not, in what I´ve seen of Japanese Gardens, very Japanesey. And, as with every garden, there was a couple making out right in the centre. Nevertheless it was a nice little getaway and was a pleasant stroll.

After getting a lot of wrong directions (or at least my interpretation was wrong), we headed toward the ocean and the apparently infamous Faro (lighthouse) of La Serena. The beach had a huge sign up saying that we couldn´t swim, and we later discovered it´s because the sewerage is pumped straight out into the ocean. Disappointed, Jason spotted horses and asked if I fancied a horse ride. For AU$7.50 each we got a ride along the ocean, accompanied by the owners´ son, who I guessed to be at about 12 years old. When we started off, he kept staring at me, which was a bit strange. But then when he started helping to ´adjust´the straps which were coming loose, he started “brushing” past my breasts and bottom, after which point I decided I would adjust my own straps. His hands got slapped away only once more after that, and I think he got the message.. I should say as revenge though, I only gave in 75c as a tip, which is probably more insulting than pretending I didn´t know he should get a tip. If he wasn´t so young (and I´m guessing he didn´t go to school which probably made him even more young) then I wouldn´t have paid his father anything either. Nevertheless it was a small glitch in an otherwise hilarious experience: though not for Jason, as not only did his stomach hurt when his horse gallopped, but his horse also kept trying to turn around and go back. Naturally, this was side-splitting for me, and side-splitting in a less positive sense for Jason. As Jason said, his horse was completely “retarded”.

After a quick and cheap taxi ride back to the giant supermarket, we grabbed some extra food, and I discovered an as-yet-untapped cheap food resource: the dehyrated soups. for about 50c a packet, I could get half a meal in soup form. And we´re talking really big packets which make about a litre of soup. I call this my “soup economy” idea.

We got back to town and dropped off our food, deciding to find a vegetarian restaurant listed in my guide book. Unfortunately, after much searching and despairing (on Jason´s behalf), we couldn´t find it, and came to the conclusion that it must have shut down in the two years between the book´s release and our travel to the area. We went toward the supermarket, deciding to find another restaurant instead. On our way, a man in a tuxedo approached us. Thinking he was yet another hostellier trying to convince us to go to his hostel, I was pleased to see he was actually from a restaurant trying to recruit customers.

He started following us and we said we´d think about it. When we got to the restaurant area (after briefly buying Jason some goggles), we went up the escalators and found literally (and I mean literally) 7 people all in tuxedos all harrassing us to come to their restaurants. They were following us around and all trying to shout over the top of each other. Overwhelmed, we ran. We actually ran. We found a restaurant where nobody was trying to recruit us, sat down, and ate. We had a fish dish covered in Shrimp sauce. I preferred the fish, Jason preferred the sauce. Yes, that´s right, Jason´s eating fish now. My guess is more out of necessity than desire, as the options for vegetarians here are slim to none. In the end, for a large delicous fish dish for two, chips, salad, a beer and a soda, we paid AU$25. Not bad really.

Jason and I also realised at that point that we´d never had a sit-down meal at a restaurant together, just the two of us. Never. Strange but true. It was a nice experience, despite the view from the balcony being that of a taxi rank.

We also took Wednesday to visit the Museum Gabriel Gonzalez Videla, an old Chilean President from La Serena who had kicked our famous poet Pablo Neruda out of government. It was one of his old houses and filled with stuff from his time, including the clothes he wore to parliament.

Back at the hostel, Jason taught me the chords D, A, A minor, B, G, and C on guitar, and we decided that after dinner we would have “sit-up games”, whereby the loser of any given game must do more sit-ups than the winner. This is in order to be consistent with our joint aim of improved fitness. I should mention there was a big controversy over a game called Battlemasters, which ahd the most sit-ups at stake, because horses can´t go in the tower because they cant climb the stairs, yet Jason´s ogre (clearly a beast far too large for such a small tower) was allowed in to kill my crossbowmen.

….Errr… anyway… After fulfilling our sit-up requirements we packed everything up, ready to leave at 8am the next day for our Penguin tour.

Thursday: Our last day in La Serena, and also the day of our tour of Islas Damas, or “Penguin Island” : which is not a translation just what I like calling it. We got driven to a small town up the coast, the drive taking about 2-3 hours in itself. After almost foretting the camera, we got on the boat and headed to the island, with Jason getting even more motion sickness (wherever there is a bus, or plane, or train, or boat: his motion sickness will be there). We got to see a whole bunch of Sea-Lions and Penguins (YAY!) as well as Cormorans and lots of other birdies. See the photos (once you can) for an awesome summary of what we saw.

We had snacks on a smaller island nearby, where we had some tea and got a close-up look at some awesome cactii. When the guide found out about Jason´s motion sickness, he insisted Jason stand at the front of the boat holding onto a rope for balance. Sure enough, once this was done, Jason was no longer motion-sick (tada!) and I got to get to know the guide a whole lot better as he discussed his relationship woes.

APPARENTLY, he and his girlfriend of two years live in different cities and when they´re together they always fight, but once they´re apart they fall back in love over the phone and can´t wait to see each other. Combine this with his indecision about whether to buy a cake and then take it to her for her birthday, or whether to get there and THEN buy a cake, and you could tell this relationship was going a little crazy!

We had another fishy lunch at a restaurant covered by the cost of the tour, where the German couple we were with were debating with the guide about how different (or not) other countries of latin america were in comparison to Chile. Also, after lunch, a couple who had ived in Australia asked where we were from and were thrilled to hear we were from Sydney. It was really strange because the town in question has a population of about 300 people, so to find two from Sydney was strange to say the least.

I found out a whole bunch of facts about all that we saw which I wrote down but won´t bore you with on here.

Anyway, we drove back to La Serena with an hour to kill before our 16-hour trip to San Pedro de Atacama commenced. We´d gotten the last two seats and decided to fork out about AU$50 extra to get the buses with the more bed-like seats. A decision we certainly do not regret, as it allowed us to actually get some rest on this giant trip. By Friday at 11:30am, we were here in San Pedro de Atacama, 2300m above sealevel, yet again being accosted by hostel owners.

Photos now added! Please click on the See More Photos button as there are heaps more, especially of some of the animals we saw and a few other random tidbits

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Travel Location: Ha-Noi,Vietnam

Travel About: food-&-wine,big-city,misadventure

This journal entry actually marks the second time we arrived in Hanoi. The first time, if you remember from our journal entry for Tam Coc, we were abandoned in Hanoi by the open bus we took from Hue, all the time thinking we were going to be dropped off in Ninh Binh. We won’t harp on again about the hassle we experienced, so if you want to know more about it, go back two journal entries and you will get what you need to know.

After finishing our tour to Tam Coc and Cuc Phuong National Park, we were taken back to Hanoi and dropped off at Thuy Lam Hotel in the old quarter area of Vietnam’s capital city. We were itching for a relaxing evening and we decided to find somewhere to eat nearby a cinema, so we could see a film afterwards. The guy at reception at Thuy Lam Hotel mentioned a cinema in Vincom Towers, which we later found out was a new and modern shopping complex in Hanoi. However, he didn’t entirely sell us on Vincom, so we decided to try the Lonely Planet’s suggestion first, to see what English language movies were playing at Fanslands Cinema.

You will see skinned, headless frogs that were still hopping around in the basket they were thrown into

Lonely Planet, as helpful and resourceful as it has been for us on this trip, has been wrong on many occasions. This has been more a result of Southeast Asia’s rapid growth and modernisation than Lonely Planet’s inadequacies, so we can’t entirely blame them. However, when we arrived at Fanslands and the only film on offer was a black and white Audrey Hepburn film from a few decades ago, we thought we might give Vincom Towers a try.

All the trekking in Cuc Phuong during the day had taken its toll and we decided to get a taxi to Fanslands Cinema. Our taxi driver was the second person in Hanoi to scam us; the first person was the tour company guy who abandoned us, on the side of the road in Hanoi two days earlier, when our open bus forgot to drop us off in Ninh Binh. Apparently, we flagged down a “private” taxi that still had a meter but the meter’s price ran up about 10 times faster than a legitimate taxi meter would have done.

In the space of 15 minutes, we owed a taxi fare of 120,000 Vietnamese Dong (around ₤4 or $7), but it should have been only 12,000 Dong (40p or $0.75) at that point in the journey. We thought something was fishy when we noticed the meter was already at 90,000 Dong and by the time we got the driver to stop, it had gone up an extra 30,000 Dong in about 30 seconds!

We argued for a while with the driver and ended up paying him 90,000 Dong to avoid any physical assault – he looked like the type of guy who may have been carrying a knife or some other weapon. Luckily, we were only a block away from Fanslands Cinema, so we walked the rest of the way. After agreeing that we weren’t in the mood to see Audrey Hepburn on screen, we decided to find Vincom Towers to see what the fuss was about. Having known that we were scammed by the taxi driver, we didn’t want to get scammed again, so we went into a really nice hotel that was fortunately nearby, and asked the concierge to help us flag down a proper taxi driver who would not cheat us out of our hard earned and saved money.

The next cinema was ten minutes away and we only paid 15,000 Dong for the taxi journey; our confidence in getting taxis in Hanoi increased tenfold. Vincom Towers surprised us when we arrived; it was even nicer than Saigon’s Diamond Plaza. On the top floor of the shopping mall, we found a nice Italian restaurant and had some good pizza and lasagne. The staff members in the restaurant were really funny when they spoke to us because they clearly had a ball practising their English pronunciation. At the cinema, there were many English language films on offer and we ended up seeing “Primeval” which was a silly, but enjoyable, horror film.

After having breakfast in the hotel the next morning, we decided to work on our travel journal. We spent a few hours writing up one of our stories, and as we tried to post the journal entry online, the internet on the computer we were using locked up. We had saved the story as a document on the computer (this had happened to us before so we thought we normally did this just in case) and we didn’t think anything bad would happen when we rebooted the computer to try posting our story again on the travel website. However, as soon as the computer started up again, we noticed that all of the documents on the desktop had been deleted. Apparently, the computer was set up to clear all files and changes which had been made by a previous user when it was restarted, and we lost everything we had written!

Many things had been planned on that day, but we decided it would be better to spend time rewriting the journal while all of the information was fresh in our heads. However, we also needed to look into travel to China, so Dan decided to search for a trustworthy travel agency that we could use to book our bus journey to Nanning, the first main city in China that you can travel to from Hanoi. Kyle got stuck with re-writing the journal, to his joy.

Lise and Tarjei, the Norwegians we travelled with to Tam Coc and Cuc Phuong National Park, were quite envious of the cinema experience that we had the night before, and since they wanted a relaxing, comfortable night out, we all decided to see a film together later that evening. We needed to withdraw money from an ATM machine as we were running low on cash; therefore, we headed to Vincom Towers a little early in order to do so. This was the beginning of many problems for us, as none of the machines we tried seemed to work. After trying all of the machines in the area around the mall, we decided to look for an internet cafe to call Barclays Bank and find out what the problem was.

No one around Vincom spoke English, but finally we ran across a guy from South Korea who spoke enough Vietnamese to translate for us. We found out about an internet cafe nearby and we headed there hoping that there would be Skype facilities, so we could call Barclays. “Nearby” was actually a 15-minute walk and, when we arrived, the packed internet cafe had one computer open that did not have Skype. None of the other computers looked like they would have the software, either, and when we tried to download Skype, it would have taken over an hour due to a very slow internet speed. We decided that our best bet, at this time, would be to return to our hotel and try to make the phone call from there.

Since we were running out of time (and money), we had to flag down a motorbike taxi. Riding through Hanoi’s congested traffic at night, on the back of a motorbike whose driver reeked heavily of alcohol, was not a very reassuring experience. Once we were safely inside Thuy Lam Hotel, we ask reception how much a call to England would cost. We had to laugh out loud when they said the call would cost over $4 per minute, and we quickly asked where the nearest internet cafe with Skype facilities was located (the hotel, unfortunately did not have Skype loaded onto their computers).

Luck was with us, as there was an internet cafe a couple of minutes down the street. Also, we bumped into Lise and Tarjei, just as they were heading back to Thuy Lam Hotel in order to clean up and head towards the cinema. Once we explained our ATM problems to them, they were happy to wait at the hotel for us, so we could all share a taxi to the cinema. Skype was ready to use at the internet cafe and in five minutes, Barclays had removed all card blocks, so ATM usage would not be a problem.

One good thing about banks keeping an eye out for card fraud is that all strange activity on an account triggers an alarm that blocks a card. The bad thing is that when you are travelling abroad to so many different countries, some of which are notorious for card fraud, you often find yourselves panicking because your card suddenly stops working, as we often have found the case to be.

With wallets full of cash, we hopped into a taxi with Lise and Tarjei and headed to the cinema, arriving just in time to see “Codename: The Cleaner”, a comedy with Cedric the Entertainer and Lucy Liu. After the film, we headed back into the old quarter to have a late dinner. We ate burgers at a place that Lise and Tarjei ate at the night before – Papa Joe’s. The food was good and the service was great.

Our next day, our final full day in Vietnam, was a day packed full of activities. We had to visit the Mongolian Embassy to obtain visas for our trip there in June. Also, we had to fit in as many sights as possible since we didn’t make it to any the day before. Finally, we had to book our bus to China, to ensure that we would indeed be leaving Vietnam as planned.

We woke up early and hopped on motorbike taxis to be taken to the Mongolian Embassy. The address that we found on the internet was no longer correct; when we arrived at the place, it had been taken over by the Chinese. We were both quite tired when we woke up early that morning, so tired that we had forgotten the most important item for obtaining a visa… our passports. Whilst Kyle tried to find out where the Mongolian Embassy was located, Dan flagged down another motorbike taxi to go back to the hotel and retrieve these vital documents.

When Dan returned with the passports, Kyle had received the new Mongolian Embassy address from the Chinese Embassy employee who was kind enough to help him, and after a 15-minute motorbike taxi ride, we arrived at the correct embassy. There was more panic during the ride as our driver seemed to be a bit lost when searching for the embassy. We finally got there and were faced with even more worries.

The embassy was closed on Mondays and the day we chose to sort out our visas was indeed a Monday. We rang the doorbell to the embassy anyway, and luckily someone answered the door. After begging and pleading for several minutes, the guy agreed to process our visa applications, but he doubled the price; instead of paying $30 each, we ended up paying $60 each.

The man told us to return around 3pm with $120 in cash. We had enough money to pay for the visas in Vietnamese Dong, thinking that this would be okay. However, the Mongolian Embassy in Hanoi only takes US Dollars. Did you know that banks in Vietnam do not change their own currency into US Dollars? They don’t actually exchange their own currency for any other currency. We ended up finding a dodgy gold jewellery shop where we trustfully handed over 2 million Vietnamese Dong to the owner, who left the store to change our money for us. He returned about ten minutes later with our cash and ended up only taking a small commission from us (less than $1); we were happy once we confirmed that the money was not counterfeit.

Money in hand, we had about four hours to kill before returning to the embassy to collect our passports. We were not far away from the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum Complex and nearby attractions and, along the way, we walked around for about an hour, stopping off to have ice coffees and to take photographs of scary goods at local markets. All of the main attractions at Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum were also closed on Mondays, so we could only view things from a distance.

The photo album for this journal has many photographs from our walk that day, including some gruesome photos of local market delicacies, such as pig’s head, feet, tongues and hearts. You will see skinned, headless frogs that were still hopping around in the basket they were thrown into, and buckets full of snails and other sea creatures as well as some unknown things. We also saw a woman on a motorbike with a cage full of cats, heading towards a market we are glad we did not see.

Between the time we dropped off our passports at the embassy and the time we picked them up, we saw many local flavours of Hanoi, as we walked way off the tourist beaten path. It was actually quite nice that the Mongolian Embassy had been moved to a more remote location as we didn’t see any tourists for several hours.

When we returned to the embassy, our passports had been processed and our visas were attached inside. We were really happy to have sorted that out, as it meant we no longer had to worry about getting to Beijing in time to do it. We headed back to Hanoi’s old quarter and walked around some of the sights there for the next couple of hours. We visited Ho Hoan Kiem, “ho” means “lake” in Vietnamese, where a beautiful red bridge leads out to a temple called Den Ngoc Son on an island in the northern part the lake.

In the old quarter, we also visited an ancient house and a couple of other temples. Most of all, we enjoyed walking along the narrow streets, looking at the various shops and restaurants as we passed them by, and speaking with many of the locals busy at work. For dinner that evening, we asked reception at our hotel to recommend one of the places mentioned in our Lonely Planet. They suggested we try Brothers Cafe, which was our top choice, too. The place was a converted 300 year-old temple and served a gourmet buffet of freshly cooked food; we enjoyed a huge meal before heading back to Thuy Lam Hotel.

Leaving Hanoi the next morning was great. We had booked our bus tickets through Hanoi Blue Sky Hotel, which was a couple of doors down the street from our hotel. We went there to be picked up by a taxi and were taken to the long-distance bus terminal. The bus company used by the hotel was CTS, or China Travel Services, and we were very impressed by the quality and service offered by them. Getting across the Chinese border and to Nanning ended up being a much easier ordeal than we anticipated, and we quickly surmised that the two of us were very happy for a change of scene, to be entering a more developed nation than those we had been visiting for the past few months.

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Travel Location: Brighton,United-Kingdom

Travel About: food-&-wine,big-city,nightlife,tour

After I wrote my last entry, I met up with Carl (from New York City) and we headed to the International Students reception at Falmer Bar in Falmer House. Free drinks and food were served! My kind of night. I hadn’t eaten much all day so the drinks went to my head REALLY fast. Drinking is SUCH a social lubricant! I made some good friends that night–Carl, Greg, and two students from Wesleyan University. All of them live in Holland House except Greg. Supposedly, Holland House is THE place to be. Not to mention the fact that the floor I’m on is THE place to be within Holland House. The kitchen, which is right across from my room is the hang out place too, so I’m sure I’ll be spending many a night listening to laughing, talking, and music till all hours of the night. The English people on my floor are ridiculously nice–somehow, they all knew my name before I met them too. When I walk down the hall to my room, guys keep calling out my name and I’m like “umm…do I know you?” It’s a good time, though. I’ve met a guy named Kirk, who is a drama/film and video concentrator, a guy named Rich studying biochemistry, and a 27 year old first year named Dean. Also, I met someone named Ema last night. All of these people are British and extremely nice. It seems to be that British students are way nicer than many of the international students.

Anyways, after I left the reception, I went back to Holland House thinking that I would just go to bed since I was exhausted. However, everyone else had other plans for me. We ended up going out to the pubs that night. We walked around the lanes, which is a pedestrian cobble street area where a lot of pubs, restaurants, night clubs, shops and bars are located. We had such a huge group of people that me, Juliet (a 29 year old from USC), and Chris decided to break off and make our way around by ourselves. I’m so glad we did this because we found this great dive bar called The Victory where the atmosphere was great. The music was modern, the style of the pub was very English, and the bartenders were very cool. We decided that this was OUR bar. . However, once we hit up that bar we figured we’d go looking for the rest of the group, and we ended up finding them at a pub right around the corner from where we live called The Biscuit Factory. It was more so a bar than a pub in that it played loud, pumping music and it was big on mixed drinks rather than beer. However, it was a great place. On the way to the bars, though, we were stopped by this random, beat up woman asking Chris, “do you have 43 p, please?”. We weren’t sure if she was propositioning him or she just really needed that specific of an amount of money. I’ve noticed that in Brighton the women are rather white trash/slutty looking, and here they call these women “chavs” (sp?). Think Britney Spears, and you’ll see what I mean. I finished the night off at Holland House with some leftover KFC, a wonderful shower, and a few phone calls to home.

When I walk down the hall to my room, guys keep calling out my name and I’m like “umm…do I know you?”

Yesterday, I slept in FINALLY. I slept until about 1pm, after having gone to bed at 5am. Delightful! When I woke up, I rung up my Aunt Celia and Uncle Ray to find out if they wanted to get some lunch. We headed to George Street to a tavern where I got fish and chips (of course!). It was nice seeing them since I hadn’t gotten a chance to see them since I’ve arrived. After lunch, I sat around my room reading and putting away some more things. Then, Chris knocked on my door to see what I was up to since there was a scheduled dinner going on around 7pm for the international students. We headed out later on that evening to meet up with everyone and ended up at an AMAZING Thai restaurant. Really expensive, but honestly, the best Thai I’ve ever had. I had this amazing coconut rice and chicken stir fry meal that just blew my mind. Juliet and I shared it, so you’d think it would have been less expensive but for my half of the meal it came out to be TEN DOLLARS. Ridiculous! I won’t be splurging like that again. During dinner, though, I met another student named Ryan who lives in California, and he was a really down to earth, chill guy. It turns out he lives on my floor too like right down the hall from me. We all ended up going out to the bars later that night too. Ryan got sick, though, because he’s not used to this type of food all the time, so he ended up heading home after his first beer at The Biscuit Factory. So, Juliet, Chris, and I headed to the Farm Tavern where it was really packed, so then we decided to go the Victory bar again. It was a good time, and I found out a place to get pierced from the bartender, so that’s a good thing too. He was a cool guy (the bartender), he had his lip pierced too, so we had that in common. Plus, he’s British, so you can’t go wrong there! Ha!

After having a sufficiently amazing time, we headed back to Holland House where I hung out with some of the British students and international students in the kitchen on the third floor for a few minutes. I then realized how exhausted I was, so I went to my room, made myself a PB&J, ate some pretzels, called some people, and crashed around 1am.

I got to sleep in again today, since I had nothing until 2pm. At 1, Chris and I headed to campus to meet up with the Brighton/Hove coach tour that would be taking us around. The tour was GREAT. We were able to see gorgeous views of the South Downs (rolling green hills/countryside) as well as views of the Channel and the cliffs. Also, we travelled through an area known as Rottingdean where there are pubs that are 500 years old, and where Rudyard Kipling lived as well as a charming medieval church and a small, quaint village. I am DEFINITELY heading there very soon. I also plan to walk the South Downs on a nice day with a picnic with Chris and Juliet. The tour was nice because it gave you some great ideas for things to do that we might not have otherwise known. Also, we were shown where all the good night clubs are down by the beach underneath the streets as well was where NOT to go (such as West Street on a Friday or Saturday night). Our last stop on the tour was the Royal Pavilion where Queen Victoria lived for awhile as well as King George III and his family. The Royal Pavilion looks like the Taj Mahal in the middle of Brighton. It’s almost ridiculous looking because it is so ornately decorated and the architecture reflects that of Chinese and Indian inspirations. Fascinating! Because I’m so interested in history, I really enjoyed walking through the rooms and seeing all the beautiful furniture and decorations. The audio commentary really gave me a look into how the place was built, why it was built, and what it was like living there.

After taking the tour of the Royal Pavilion, Chris, Bryann (a girl from Sioux Falls), Jen (a girl from Seattle), Chris, Juliet, Greg, and I headed to the Lanes to see if we could find a good place to eat. We ran into some other people from Holland House as well as Leanne (the girl from Amsterdam) who said that they had found a good place to eat called Font. The place had a really great atmosphere–it had couches to sit on, a football game going on on a big screen TV, a bar, and two levels of seating. The prices were extremely reasonable too, and the food was delicious, but HEAVY. To walk off all the food, we all decided to walk our way to Brighton Pier and take in the carnival atmosphere and the Brighton scene. I have to say that I LOVE living so close to the channel because despite the cold wind, walking around the pier is beautiful and eerie at the same time.

Tonight will be pretty low key. Classes begin tomorrow, so I will not be going out even though Kirk asked me to go bowling. I also am planning on getting my laptop set up sometime tonight if Chris can get it working. I’ll write more soon! Safe travels, everyone!

Tips for nightlife in Brighton: Fridays and Saturdays are BAD for going out; Wednesdays at The HoneyBar/Club are excellent, Mondays are good at The Beach Club by the pier, and Thursdays are good at Font; Avoid West Street because it can get way too crowded and fights break out a lot. These are all tips from the bartender at Font who is originally from Whales but has lived here for years. Oh, and a good place to get pierced around here is called Punctured in the North Lanes.

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