Category Archives: Travelogue

A collection of travelogues from my trips around the world, peppered with reviews and recommendations of accommodation, walking tours, restaurants and pubs.

Asia, Thailand, Travelogue

Travelogue SEA 8: Koh Samui – Home

KOH SAMUI

31 December 2011 – 04 January 2012

It was a pleasure to have an uneventful transfer from Phuket to Koh Samui.

We’d managed to make pre-arrangements over BBM with Mike and Michelle that we would meet them at their hotel, from where we would all transfer together to the port to leave for Koh Phangan for the Full Moon New Year Party. M&M had been touring the Thai islands and arrived at Koh Samui a few days before us, so they had a good idea of the lay of the land and the local options. Michelle – a talented and experienced haggler – had managed to strike a good deal and had our tickets (which included minibus taxi transfers between hotel and port as well as speedboat transfers from Samui to Phangan) for 700 baht apiece.

After stealing a strategic sneaky nap, we headed off to find Seascape Resort. It turns out we were at the very north of Chaweng Beach and they at the very south, so we had a longer sunset walk along the beach than planned! … But there was a Happy Hour 50 baht Singha at the end of it and we’d arrived with a half hour to spare before the taxi was due, so all’s well that ended well.

Was great to see M&M and catch up on all the travel tales (and stories from home seeing as we’ve not seen them in a while) while we went through the motions of waiting for taxi, taxiing, queuing at the pier and then the speedboat journey to the party island. Mike, who suffers badly from motion sickness, did really well on the boat, so all the boxes were ticked and we were headed for the Countdown.

The entrance fed all boat arrivals up one of the island’s narrow streets so, predictably, that section of town was teeming with people at the roadside food stalls, restaurants and most of all street bar stalls and convenience stores (cheap beer and mixers!)

We stopped at an early food stall and picked up some really divine deep-fried chicken drumsticks and wandered around exploring the winding streets criss-crossing the island on our way to inspect the mayhem at the beach.

Which, we found when we got there, really truly was mayhem! Lots and lots and lots of sweaty people dancing and belting along to hideous dance music, bodies painted with fluorescent paint and drinks sloshing all over the show!

We headed right along the beachfront, zig-zagging between the people toward a club on the end of that stretch that had “The Rock” emblazoned in bright neon letters, ever hopeful that it would be a rock venue, where we could have some beers and eats listening to something with actual guitar, drums and lyrics. No such luck.

We decided that next natural step would then be to hunt for dinner in ‘town’, so we trawled the market stalls for something of interest. Pizza seemed to be the common consensus, but all the stalls had the same very-bready-but-not-cheesy-enough style. We shifted strategy and headed for the Lazy House restaurant, which we’d stopped at for a toilet break en route and which had a varied and reasonably priced menu. We found it again with relative ease, seeming to have found our bearings on Phangan quite quickly despite the same same (but different) roads.

Good pizza (bacon, mushroom and garlic) and poor service (a common combination in South East Asia we’ve found; no qualms saying wait a minute and then leaving you hanging for ages) later and we headed to find Mellow Mountain, which someone had told Michelle was a must. It turned out to be a bar nestled in the rocks overlooking the bottom end of the main beachfront we’d been on earlier.

We settled in the loft area (the bar is spread over multi-levelled decks). It was too loud and hot, so we didn’t last long. Moving back down the shore we found a beachside hostel that was serving from its bar and had a little raised area with mats and cushions and low tables. It was open with fans, so far better suited to our chill vibe.

We stayed there until just before midnight, then went down to the beach again to join the official countdown, which was being displayed on a big digital watch under a countdown sign with a fiery countdown sign that had just been lit. We counted in the New Year (twice) and saw in 2012 with the waves lapping at our feet as a group of 4 friends among a sea of strangers!

We then made it our mission to hunt down the elusive rock club, since a friend had told us there was one and it made sense that there must be at least one place that bucked the senseless dance music everywhere else was blasting. We got mixed response from the several people we asked along the way, but settled for the only reggae bar in town when we stumbled upon it. Very chillaxed, mats and cushions with sarong drapery and obviously only reggae music.

The return speedboats were scheduled at every hour on the hour so we left the reggae bar at 1.30 figuring we’d just hop on the 2am one. No such luck! There were long queues and the 2am boats filled all too quickly. The wait for the next batch wouldn’t have been so bad except the natives were very restless and there was pushing and crunching as every person tried to ensure that they’d secure their spot on the next boat. We managed to get on the boat just before 3 and were very lucky to catch the last 2 spaces in the minivan going to North Chaweng as we landed, which would take us right to our door. M&M weren’t quite so lucky and had to wait and then catch a  series of inter-connections and it took them ages to get home!

SUNDAY

The 1st, as is common, was a bit of a write-off, worsened by the fact that it was raining – and as a result cooler and dark – so we didn’t even stir until midday. Heading out down the road toward town to find breakfast, we ended up getting caught in a torrential downpour, initially seeking shelter in the doorway of a market stall but eventually accepting that we’d make no notable progress toward town so we might as well dart across the road and eat at the very Anglo place we’d rejected on first sight.

A Full English behind us, we dashed back to the hotel for an afternoon of indulgent nothingness, reading and napping and half-watching telly.

At 5-ish we hailed a taxi and headed to M&M’s resort as we’d planned to go to the night market at Lamai, which was supposed to be the best on a Sunday. Since 1 Jan is also Mike’s bday, it would make a great place to celebrate and dinner overlooking the ocean from one of the most beautiful parts of the island. But… Rain stopped play and the market was closed, so we sourced a few tinnies from the local 7Eleven to enjoy on M&M’s stoep while we regrouped and revised plans.

We decided to stick close to home and start with a pub they’d tried (and liked) a few times, called The Wave Samui. It’s owned by 2 English chaps who were travelling the world and happened to be in Samui when their plans to go to Hong Kong were thwarted by the bird flu outbreak, so they stayed in Samui and opened a guesthouse and pub/restaurant. The place has loads of atmosphere and is known for its wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling book cases, complete with inset door to the bathroom with books wallpaper!

We liked the pub immensely and it got us jolly and ready for the chosen fare of the night – a set menu at the local Indian with 2 potato samoosas, a chicken tikka masala and a chicken makhani with saffron rice, an onion naan, a garlic naan and 2 beers for 600 baht (ZAR 150). Very yum!

Moving from there we found an awesome bar called The Loft. Built across 2 buildings with a little pedestrian bridge connecting them, the bar was a collection of rooms and decks of varying sizes at 2nd and 3rd floor levels, front and back of the building, with some smaller mezzanines. All covered by roof but open air, not a window frame or pane of glass in sight. Very cool. And we were very happy there with their 60 baht G&T and vodka & red bulls, while the rain belted down.

We took a gap in the rain to dash home. It’s always good to have a brisk walk home after time in the pub, something that’s sorely missing in SA lifestyle. It was still drizzling though so we were soaked by the time we got back to the hotel.

MONDAY

Had another long sleep-in after discovering that our last full day was also destined to be rainy. We’d heard reports that parts of the island were flooding and the whole of Southern Thailand is super-flooded (destructive, but not yet life-threatening).

We’d discovered that the rain belts down, but provides periodic eyes in the storm where it gets down to virtually nothing before it starts up again so used an eye to make a dash for brunch run. We hunted down a (pork) Masamang and (chicken) Penang curry, both which Michelle had recommended and both on good advisement.

We dotted window-shopping (eyes) with actual shopping (storms) and ended up with (another) 4 bags of gifts and goods, so thought it wise to busy ourselves rather with a Thai massage (since we were in the hood after all). We spent the next hour being prodded and pressed and were most pleased with our decision.

By this time we had walked as far as The Wave so we thought it rude not to pop in. And spent the next 5 hours there! The best potato skins ever! And finally we found flexible people – easily convincing them to make us nachos with their beef and mushroom bolognaise mince (which we’d had on the skins) when there was panic because they were out of the chilli con carne mince advertised on the menu!

Again, using the eye of a storm to make a dash for home, we poked our heads in at a few of the pubs and bars with live entertainment, but nothing held our attention so we called it a night.

TUESDAY

Fortunately, our last morning was quite painless as we’d had the good sense to book a private taxi to get us to the pier for our speedboat-bus-plane to Bangkok. We had a fair enough breakfast of cheese omelette and fried bread (they couldn’t toast because of yet another power failure – they have more than we do when we’re load-shedding!) and were soon off to start the long journey home.

Got to the harbour without incident, but the stupid speedboat was an hour late, which worried us with the tight timing of all the connections. A short 45 min ferry and the bus was waiting for us for the 30 ride to the airport, where we arrived at 16h20 for our 16h50 flight. Fearing the worst, Christian took charge of getting our bags and I scurried into the airport to find the Nok Air desk.

Shouldn’t have worried – this is Nok Air! Nobody seemed concerned at all by my urgent tone and, although there was some discussion between the *four* people clustered behind the counter, no info was forthcoming and the faces were poker-worthy. People were starting to cluster around me, with connection concerns far more time-sensitive than ours (but of course my only mission was to get us airborne).

Eventually we were issued boarding passes for what we were told was the 19h45 flight, but which said were boarding 17h55… And were both in my name!!! They reissued Christian’s. By now he was seething and there was no way they’d mess with his “don’t dare ask me to pay for overweight luggage” comment as he hoisted our 20kg (mine) and 22kg (his) suitcases onto the scale for our 15kg (each) weigh-in.

We also made them give all the delayed passengers food vouchers, since we’d spent all our baht, planning on dinnering at Bangkok airport where credit cards are readily accepted and had no intention of going through the hassle and expense of drawing money to entertain ourselves in the canteen of a restaurant in this one-horse (still quicker means of transport than a Nok flight it seems) airport. They obliged (am sure they’re used to it by now) and we ordered bacon, cheese and tomato double-decker sandwiches. They were OK, but all the bacon in Thailand was bland.

We had a last scare when all the people around us seemed to have Thai Air boarding cards when we were sitting with Nok Air slips… That said boarding at 17h55 for a 19h45 flight, with nothing filled in next to boarding gate (although there are only 2).

Fearing that the team of nimrods at the desk had managed another mess, we checked with the departure gate security. And then, not taking our chances on non-airline staff, Chris went back out and double-triple checked with Information and the Nok Air desk… And, yes, we were on the 19h45 flight despite what our ticket said and what all appearances seemed to indicate.

We boarded as we were told we would, given a sausage roll (disappointing soggy pastry thing compared to home) and no sooner were we up than we were down. All that palaver for such a short flight!

Bangkok Airport (Suvarnabhumi or somesuch) was a pleasure. Big and clean with lots of shops, dry toilets with toilet paper and toilets that can flush toilet paper, and several foodcourts. We did a quick Subway Melt (chicken, ham, bacon, cheese, onion, jalapenos, tomato, toasted) and waited the hour or so to board to go to Addis Ababa, with a short(ish) stop and then onward home.

And just like that; the end of the South East Asia travelogue series.

See you soon!

Asia, Thailand, Travelogue

Travelogue SEA 7: Phuket

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PHUKET

28-31 December 2011

Phuket airport is very jacked for tourists so we not only easily managed to arrange transfers to Patong Beach, but also managed to get them chucked in as a freebie by booking an island tour (full day with speedboat to 3 islands, including lunch and snorkelling at Phi Phi etc) same time. As always, cast out the ratecard and haggled a 55% discount – and a money-back guarantee for if we can get it cheaper elsewhere (can’t hurt).

Felt good to be arriving in one place for 3 nights – it had been a real go!go!go tour so far! (But wouldn’t have changed a thing!)

After about an hour in a minivan transferring from the airport (north Phuket) to Patong Beach (south west Phuket), we finally arrived at our hotel – a bright yellow building called Moonlight House. Hearts sank (and octaves rose) when the reception told us that they hadn’t received our online booking.

Fortunately we had copies of all booking confirmations with us so we could easily prove that we’d booked and paid. The clerk obliged with a complicated plan of rooms we’d have to swap to day by day. We weren’t having any of that after all our (unnecessarily stressful airline experience and the general stressfulness of all the necessary) planestrainsandautomobiling from Siem Reap! Fearing the crazy eyes, the clerk quickly made a plan and we were ushered to Room 304. For 3 glorious nights in a row.

The room was lovely – clean and bright and modern, with instantly effective air con, TV with lots of English channels and a shower that had good pressure AND made hot water (a rare combo in our experience). Nirvana.

By this point it was around 8pm so we went straight out again to explore and forage.

Leaving the hotel, we (on the advice of the concierge) took a left and did a complicated circuit of main roads and alleyways to find our way to the main stretch of Patong Beach. The hotel hadn’t seemed so far from the beach on the maps on the online booking site 🙁

Nonetheless, we delighted in the busy neon bustle of infamous Bangla Road and the festival of stalls along the beachfront selling (mostly) foods of all descriptions. Perfect instant gratification for our restlessness post Day of Great Migration! We picked up some (awesome) pork ribs and tempura prawns with sweet chilli sauce – ready to eat so we could just pick, pay and eat straight away at one of the many sidewalk table areas. With only bottled water to drink. It had been *that* kind of day.

We quickly whipped around the beach area, surrounding roads and the markets nestled in between – getting a lay of the land and a feel for the local options – and soon admitted defeat from a tiring day and the very humid coastal heat. It was bliss to get back to our hotel, get showered and clean and have a lie down staring at the telly!

We had returned to our hotel via the same route we’d taken down to the beach, again disappointed by the winding route and unanticipated distance from the action (worsened enormously by every tourist city map only displaying a selection of roads and only labelling a limited portion of those depicted).

THURSDAY

So, the next day we decided to rent a scooter to do the trek to the beachfront for brunch and then perhaps do some exploring on the island.

Luckily there was a place across the road from Moonlight House offering scooters for 200 baht a day (50 baht cheaper than the beachfront rentals), so we got a nifty red and black number (concluding the deal in the office which had an adjoining bedroom where the manager appears to share his bed with an inflatable Spider-Man!) and headed seaward. Heading right this time, we found that if we followed the road straightstraightstraight it was less than 2km to the beach. An easy walk – and so much easier and quicker than the route from the night before on foot!

We got to the beachfront, parked the scooter and started trawling the food stalls for something that appealed for (late) brunch. We ended up sharing a very excellent chicken and egg Pad Thai with roast pork with sweet chilli sauce on the side. Discussing options over our meal, we both agreed that it would be good to just sit and chill all day instead of zooting around in the baking sun seeing samey-samey beaches and markets. Easily done, we secured loungers and umbrellas and set up camp.

It’s not easy being South African on a beach holiday. We had left most of our valuables in the hotel, locked in the suitcase, and made sure to only take one of everything (wallet, credit card etc) with us should ‘the inevitable’ happen and our stuff get stolen. Great debate about whether or not to take the camera as we’d want pics of the day, but was it worth risking losing the pics of the rest of the holiday? We decided to take it (and I resolved that on return home I will put a note into the case with an ‘if found, please return for reward’ message).

When we swam, we packed everything into the bag, carefully tucking it between the 2 loungers so as to hamper any potential hit and run thief sweeps and eyed our neighbours suspiciously to assess the risk they might hold.

None at all from the ones on my side – a Dutch couple that seemed determined not to touch the sand, with Her putting all her efforts into smoking up a Peter Stuyvesant ad sequined-dress-on-a-yacht lifestyle and Him buying stuff from every passing peddler and constantly clicking fingers for delivery of a seemingly endless stream of drinks and snacks.

Christian’s neighbours were a Russian couple with Him fiddling and faffing (digging in his bag, adjusting the umbrella, shifting the lounger into the sun, shifting his lounger out of the sun, looking for his cigarettes, looking for his wallet etc etc etc) in an shimmery silver Speedo that was constantly bobbing in Christian’s peripheral vision and adding a queasy side-story around the edges of the book he was reading. Russian Her was oblivious to her husband’s fidgeting as she was tanning her leather while happily chatting away to more (of the many) Russians on the other side of her.

It was a great day. Very relaxing. In and out of the water, not even attempting the sun, opting rather to nap and read under the trees and umbrellas (which the lounger owners did a great job of constantly turning and shifting so that we had uninterrupted shade – much to the chagrin of Silver Speedo Ivan Guy).

We managed to get hold of Clive and Vanessa who we knew were also holidaying in Patong and made arrangements to meet them for dinner. They’d already been in Patong a few weeks so were experienced in the ‘where to and not to’ and we had an excellent dinner at a local side street restaurant. Chris and I shared wok fried beef with garlic and black pepper, and calamari in oyster sauce, with a side of broccoli with oyster sauce for the table. Amazing for under 600 baht (ZAR 150), including drinks. Then we hit Pit Stop on Bangla Road, which Clive and Vanessa had made their local thanks to 50 baht Chang beers (another happy-hour-all-night wonder).

The vantage point was superlative for people watching (and spotting our NZ friends who’d just arrived after their foray with transport of all types! … That we would have had to do if Nok Air hadn’t caught the wake-up that they did!) and there’s quite a societal cross-section making their way up and down the road all night. Not so unexpected to see ladies (and lady boys) of the night, ping-pong show pushers, and bingefuls of lager louts. Weird to see so many families with babies and small children in such a smutty environment so late at night. Each unto their own I suppose (re all of the above!)

Clive’s an epic hawker shopper and by now had a bag of bits and pieces he’d bought along our trawl, including a Singha beer cooler for Christian, so it was hardly surprising that we all ended up with green and yellow ‘WWED’ (What Would Eric Do) wristbands made-to-order in minutes by a passing sales person to remind us of the reason we had all ended up in Patong. Eric been singing the praises for years of his awesome annual family vacations in Patong, with details on the where and whats of his jaunts and adventures. He had booked months ago for his family to come this December starting the impetus with the 4 of us, only to cancel at the last minute, leaving us obliged to retrace the footsteps and keep the holiday cheer alive!

The night went on longer than it should have bearing in mind our early morning start for the island tour, but a good time was had by all and after all we had been sleeping all day…

FRIDAY

The island hopping tour was really good value, taking us to 3 islands off the coastline on the Eastern side of the island (closer to Phuket Town), providing all transfers, speed boat travel, snorkel gear, drinks and buffet lunch for ZAR500 for both of us. We first visited Monkey Island with a beautiful white sand and azure ocean beach where we could laze and paddle and ease into the day. Then we cruised around over lunch and docked in Maya Bay (where The Beach was filmed) where we snorkelled and frolicked – and the Aussie yoots got fined for jumping off the top deck… So they did it again in rebellion.

Last stop was Phi Phi Don where we docked and were given time to explore the town and its beaches. It wasn’t what we expected. It’s a motorless town, with no cars or scooters (which is a blessing) but the cyclists and their confounded bells are just as bad. Possibly even worse since the pathways through the town are so narrow. It’s searingly hot and humid on the island and it teems with sweaty people and travellers that have gotten stuck. Am very glad to have been there and seen it, but pleased that we didn’t overnight there as we’d originally considered doing.

Another dinner and drinks out with Clive and Vanessa, Rob and Aaron, meeting at Bangla Road, dabbling with an Irish pub and settling rather at the sidewalk stalls for dinner (ribs, prawns, baked potato and chicken pad thai) and moving back to the Old Faithful, Pit Stop, for drinks.

We’d had fun in Patong, but it’s not for the faint-hearted with the hot hot heat and hectic humidity, the wall-to-wall people and the nightlife and seediness that comes along with it.

Grateful for a sleep-in, we had an easy transfer to the airport, plenty of time for a leisurely brunch (Burger King Chicken Club with bacon, BBQ sauce and mayo – 5 out of 5, but pricey at ZAR75 for the meal) and a plane that was… On Time!

Another day, another island and so we arrived at Koh Samui for our New Year’s Eve celebrations. But that’s another story for another time.

Asia, Cambodia, Travelogue

Travelogue SEA 6: Siem Reap

SIEM REAP

27-28 December 2011

The last few days in Phnom Penh had been marred a bit by some hitches in the travel plans.

When we first arrived at the beginning of our trip, we received an email from Nok Air saying that our flight from Bangkok to Phuket (28 Dec) had been cancelled due to maintenance and that we had the option to move to the 11h30 or 13h30 flight or get a refund. We knew that, even with the private taxi we had booked, we would never get to Bangkok in time for the 11h30 flight so accepted the 13h30 flight and contacted our Siem Reap driver to move our departure to a searing 05h00 in order to get to the airport on time. The Siem Reap driver was accommodating, but the airline didn’t reply, despite several follow-up emails from us.

They eventually replied on Christmas Eve saying that they were sorry, the earlier flights were full and we could expect a refund in about 45 days (and if not, to follow up with them in writing!) Great Christmas gift that was! We sent a strongly worded reply saying this was unacceptable seeing as we’d replied to their email (sent 15 Dec) as soon as we’d received it (16 Dec) and it was their delay that had led to the capacity issues. Again, no reply.

We started doing research into options… Which were few and unappealing. Being the busiest time of year, there were no flights available out of Bangkok at all. Next option was the sleeper train. Fully booked. Then the sleeper bus. Nobody could tell us. We even looked at cancelling the taxi and taking the bus from Siem Reap through Bangkok to Phuket. A gruelling 20 hours on a bus, with only a reclining seat 🙁

We resolved on retaining the early departure from Siem Reap (although at a more civilised 7am) and get dropped in Khaosan Road in Bangkok to assess overnight bus options from there. Not ideal, but at least we had a plan. At the very eleventh hour – mid-afternoon the day before we were due to leave for Bangkok – we got word from the airline that they could now accommodate us on the 14h10 flight. Hallelujah!

Lousy for our NZ friends as there were no seats on the flight available for them (we did ask Nok Air), but there was hope in sight for us.

To take the sublime to the ridiculous, we received a second email from Nok Air later that afternoon saying that the flight had been delayed to 15h00 – exactly the time of our original flight!! All that stress and a cloud over us while we were seeing and doing such amazing things… to end up in the exact place we started!

But, back to Siem Reap… It’s a charming little town that exists because of and thrives on the tourists that come to see the famous Angkor Archeological Park temple complex, with its 400 square kilometres of over 200 monuments and temples built between the 7th and 13th centuries by Khmer kings when the civilisation was at its height and dominating most of South East Asia.

The town itself has the same combination of markets, restaurants and pubs that everywhere else has, but is far more relaxed. With considerably less traffic and roads closed off, the Pub Streets are tables spilling over the pavements and people milling around creating a buzz, rather than the roar we’ve been seeing throughout our journey.

We’d arrived mid-afternoon, so dropped our stuff at the hotel (very lush Riverside Hotel, with lovely pool area, US$25 per room per night), grabbed a tuk-tuk into town and explored the markets.

There was lots more of the same stuff we’d seen in all the previous markets, but even cheaper! Lower starting prices and even more amenable to a haggle! We bought a few bits and pieces and then headed off to meet for dinner. The food was also much cheaper than anywhere else we’d been before and we chose a really nice Khmer restaurant at an upstairs table overlooking the market and Pub Streets. Everything on the menu was under $2! Main courses, curries, seafood, BBQ, everything!

We were tussling between options so decided to just get all 3 things we wanted – chicken lok lak, beef in spicy basil and beef & broccoli. Good thing too because they were all delicious and I’d hate to have missed out on any of them! We settled for Cambodia beer because 3 quarts earned a free t-shirt, which ironically ended up going to Aaron (who was the only one not drinking beer) because it was his size.

We had a sunrise start the next morning, so just walked around the night markets and around some of the town and then called it an early night.

WEDNESDAY

5am came all too soon and we were up and out with our driver, Kriss. We got to Angkor Wat by about 5.30 and watched the sunrise behind the main temple buildings and then explored the buildings until about 8. The buildings are in surprisingly good shape for their age and there is free access everywhere with no demarcated routes or cordoned off areas as is commonplace in most sites we’ve visited elsewhere. You really can create your own value for the US$20 per person (per day) that they charge and it’s refreshing that one tickets cover all the temples in the area.

We spent the morning exploring the main temples – Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom (‘Big City’, walled ancient city with Palace, Bayon temple and 12 towers), Preah Khan (another temple), Ta Prohm (the jungle temple with trees growing through the buildings) and ending off with Banteay Srei (a pink sandstone temple with very intricate carvings). By lunchtime we were all templed out and returned to our hotel to spend an afternoon by the pool relaxing.

Refreshed, we returned to town (by tuk-tuk) to grab a sunset appetiser – the enormous prawns we’d seen the night before. Individually selecting our prey, we delighted as they turned from grey to pink and the shell crisped from the searing BBQ fire. They were served up with a simple sweet chilli sauce… And were worth every penny of the $2! 🙂

Next up was a foot massage. I’d had a sore throat and burning sinus for a few days (undoubtedly from all the polution and scooter fumes; no wonder the locals all wear face masks) and wanted a reflexology treatment to see if it’d help at all. We ended up having a fish treatment (where you put your feet in the fishtank and they eat the dead skin off you – very weird, but very cool) and a foot massage. Not the reflexology I was after, but US$6 for both of us for half an hour including a free beer each, so couldn’t complain.

Popped into the pharmacy and got some Cold caps (conventional, US$1) and White Siang Pure Menthol Balm (traditional, 3000 Cambodian Rials or US$0.75) so seemed to have all the bases covered.

Met up with the others and had a selection of local fare from the market restaurant for dinner – again, all good curries, noodles, rice and stir fries – and hit the town for a bit of a pub crawl. We were spoilt for choice with lots of activity and drafts for US$0.50 a pop! What a pity I was feeling lousy so we had to cut our evening short(ish). Still, a good time had while we were having a good time.

SATURDAY

Great Trek to Phuket day started a bit better than expected with us managing to get the hotel to feed us. We were getting collected at 7 and the restaurant only opens at 7 and the Cambodges are reeeally inflexible. Both drivers bat-out-of-helling for us (comparatively speaking, nothing like home of course) and the border crossing and taxi-changing going quite smoothly.

We got deposited at the airport at 13h30, well in time for our 14h00 check in… And allowing a leisurely lunch at McD’s, where I had the Samurai Pork burger, which would definitely be a regular order for me at home if we had them. Pork patty (which tastes like pork sausage) grilled in BBQ relish, served simply with creamy mayo and crunchy lettuce. What’s not to love?! 🙂

Grateful for the refuelling, especially since there was another hour delay before take off which would have been hellish if we hadn’t eaten since breakfast! Even more inconvenient though since I’d bought anti-histamines at the airport pharmacy and taken some with lunch so was dozing off at the departure gate – but great because I slept like a baby from the moment I sat down in my seat on the plane until when we touched down.

Asia, Cambodia, Travelogue

Travelogue SEA 5: Phnom Penh

PHNOM PENH

24-26 December 2011

Up and out at way-too-early o’clock, our shuttle got us to the bus stop in Ho Chi Minh City in time to catch our 7am bus to Cambodia.

The bus hostess handed out Cambodia visa application forms and Viet Nam departure forms and collected all the forms with our passports and US$25 visa fees to take care of the rest of the process for us. What a pleasure.

She then handed out fresh white bread chicken, ham and pate sandwiches (am sensing this is a local speciality combination after the last few street vendor baguettes) and water, which was a far sight more appealing than the take-away breakfast the hotel had sent with us (toast, jam and milk sachets).

We were treated to a little surprise when some time into the journey the bus speakers switched from the warbling local music to Christmas carols and who should appear from the bus WC cubicle but Father Christmas himself! Bearing gifts nogal! He had a big red sack filled with gifts and gave everyone on the bus a little woven reed parcel, which turned out to have a cloth scarf inside.

We had marvelled at how into Christmas South East Asia seems to be. There are street decorations up, carols on loop in the hotel lobbies and blaring from street vendors, loads of bell-ringers in Santa suits around the town and loads of shops and stalls selling not only the usual Christmas decor paraphernalia, but also little kiddie dress-up suits (made of red felt with furry collars and cuffs. In this weather?!)

Anyway, we got through the border crossing quickly and painlessly and could see the difference between the 2 neighbouring countries right from the border post signage. Cambodia uses the Khmer alphabet so the writing is all curly whirly like the Thai writing, where Vietnamese writing is the same alphabet as ours but with loads of added accents, cedilla and kappies. The people do seem to speak more English though and we had no trouble asking questions and ordering food at the truckstop (the food looks very different to Vietnamese, with lots of fish and atchar looking gravies, so we played it safe and had a fried rice with chicken and veg and a pork and noodle stirfry. Both delicious.)

The countryside is beautiful, with wooden houses on stilts where the area is marshy or the water levels erratic alongside the riverbank. The inhabitants seem to use the area under the house for dining, socialising and parking (their scooters). Have seen some quite impressive brick temple complexes in drier places, with big golden gates and long statue-lined driveways leading to big pagoda buildings with golden decorations on the roof eaves and guttering.

Heading into Phnom Penh, the first impression is that it’s busy and bustling but not as chaotic as the Vietnamese cities we had visited (bearing in mind that it is Cambodia’s capital, but the country only has 14 million people, 2 million of whom live in the capital). The road system seems from our map to be more of a grid than the winding alleyways we’ve become used to – and the roads are numbered rather than named so, for example, our hotel was 26-28 Street 130, Phnom Penh. It did seem that the roads didn’t follow strictly in sequence, so the seemingly simple system had potential to be fraught with danger.

Our hotel was nice enough. Very well placed being just off the main riverfront, so again close to the action but not affected by it. The Central Market was also on our road, heading away from the riverfront, which is where we made our way to in search of a Khmer curry as an afternoon snack while we waited for the NZ’ers to arrive.

The market was big and under roof in a 5 pointed star shape and – as usual – divided into sections of like industry or wares. It was easy to find the food section just by following the nose because of the wide selections of fresh fish and roadfront cooked food vendors. Despite the BBQs tempting us with fresh crabs and enormous prawns and the woks ready to make-to-order, we stuck to our guns and held out for the (chicken) curry. The curry is thinner and soupier than we’re used to, but deliciously creamy with lots of coconut milk base laced with khmer spices, which only have flavour but no burn at all. You’re given whole, diced and dried chillies to add your own zing.

Leaving the market, we accidentally took the wrong feeder road and ended up taking an unintended walking tour of Phnom Penh, which wasn’t altogether unpleasant as there are wide pavements and manageable chaos as compared to where we’ve already seen on this trip. We also got to stop and peruse menus to see some of the weird and wonderful delicacies that they serve (fortunately none as icky as the horse on the spit that I saw in HCMC), giggle at the Engrish (am sure that “crapsticks” were meant to be crab) and gauge beer options and prices.

We were well-versed to spot a bargain by the time we met up for dinner – at the restaurant at the riverfront end of our road that served Angkor draught at happy hour (which never seems to be a single hour and often stretches to as much as 5 or 6!) for US$ 0.60. Perfectly paired with a Beef Lok Lak (wok fried seared beef cubes in Khmer spices, traditionally served on rice in a banana leaf cup).

The riverfront is perfect for pub trawling and crawling and our Street 130 was neatly between Pub Street 136 and Pub Street 104. Although we ended up spending most of the night at a second level bar overlooking the river, picking up 2 Kiwi girls and (unintentionally) an Aussie couple, who we took with us when we moved on to an Irish pub (Paddy Rice’s, cute name) we’d spotted that offered live music.

Turned out to be a good move with free Christmas vodka jelly shots, buckets of Angkor on special and the opportunity for a breather from the Aussie bloke, who Aaron convinced to do a rockeoke debut, resulting in a complete butchering a Chilli Peppers song. Irish pubs are always good for festivities and merry-making so it was the perfect place to herald in a very unconventional Christmas.

As always, a good time was had by all… And it became too late all too soon.

SUNDAY

We felt the late night and short sleep when we had to meet our driver at 09h00 for our sight-seeing tour! First up was the Killing Fields. The tour (US$5) includes an audio guide that talks you through a path around Choeung Ek, a real working human abattoir during the Cambodian genocide implemented by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Although a lot of the landmarks have been removed (the buildings were stripped by poor farmers for the raw materials) there are monuments and displays… And fresh clothing, bone and teeth artefacts that the eco system and weather continue to dredge up from the mass graves, which makes the experience very tangible.

It’s horrific what that regime did, killing not only perceived threats but their wives and children too so as to leave no survivors that might want to later seek revenge. It sounds like these camps were brutal, bussing in victims under the cover of darkness and killing most in very hands-on ways, like using knives, sharp jagged palm fronds and beating babies to death on tree trunks. It’s very difficult to reconcile how ordinary people can be brainwashed into performing these atrocities, or how they can live with themselves with the burden of retrospect.

The S-21 prison (entrance fee US$3) was no better. Having once been a school, the classrooms were transformed into cells and torture chambers, some of which still have the metal beds and torture implements on display. In the quad was a large wooden frame that was used to hang prisoners, mostly by their ankles until they lost consciousness and then dunk them into buckets of rank water to revive them, only to repeat the process. Some classrooms were used as-is for groups or divided into individual cells a metre wide with either bricks or wood. You can freely access all the areas and there are still specks of blood on some of the floors.

The Khmer Rouge kept detailed and meticulous records so there are many rooms with display boards of prisoner registration photographs and induction transcripts. It’s very scary to see how many thousands of people were shunted through this prison and sent off to killing fields – and how young the victims were. Since most of the trafficking was done under subterfuge and the people often didn’t know they were being taken to prison, let alone where, families were split up and separated with no concept of where their relatives were. Stories told post-fact also describe how family members intentionally didn’t acknowledge each other in the prisons because the policy was to remove all possible future vengeance (“to kill the grass you must remove the roots”) so, by implication, if one family member was killed, all would have to be killed as well.

The UN have put together programmes that have helped more than 6,000 Cambodians to travel from around the country to come to these prisons and killing fields to trace what happened to their relatives. It’s hollow comfort, I’m sure.

It’s unsettling to know how recent this barbaric slice of history is, with the Khmer Rouge still recognised as the reigning government until 1989 (even though the Vietnamese had deposed them 10 years earlier) and only disbanded in 1999. So many people lost their lives (3 million people of a population of 8 million over 4 years!) that it’s uncomfortable to see a 50 year old Cambodian now and wonder exactly what they had to do to still be here today, since it was literally a ‘kill or be killed’ time.

It’s atrocious that Pol Pot died a free man in 1998, at the ripe old age of 82, and that his 3 top leaders were only detained in 2007 and are only now standing trial, with fancy lawyers from all over the world defending them (how do they sleep at night?!). The only charge so far is a chap called Duch who headed the S-21 prison and has received a measly charge of 35 years imprisonment for the more 15,000 deaths he was responsible for! Shameful.

After a morning of quite sombre sight-seeing (there are even official signs at the prison with a smiling face with a line through it), it was good to head back to town where we ditched the planned museum visit in favour of lunch. I finally got the duck I’d been hankering for, served in a delicious noodle stirfry. Things were looking up!

We were a bit culture and historied out so opted to just take a few snaps of the Palace and pagoda and a stroll along the waterfront… To prepare for a long and much-needed pre-dinner nap.

Very solid thinking on the nap and we were good to go for a refuel at 7. Found an excellent curry house that lured us in with a mega meat platter (steak, chicken, pork chop, sausage and sides for US$8.50), which kept us happy alongside my very tasty butter chicken and garlic naan. Aaron had the all day breakfast, which had us convinced that we’d be back in the morning!

We did a walk along the promenade to work off some dinner and popped in at our regular spots to have a beer here and there. My mission was too get a snap of (at least) 5 people on a scooter, which is quite commonplace and a sight to be believed. It’s normally Dad driving, with toddler standing in front of him on the foot platform, a kid wedged behind him, then mom with a baby on one thigh being held in place with an arm across the chest. I kept missing the opportunities with my camera being away or the flash taking too long. Oh well.

We opted for an early night, based on the long drive with the morning’s transfer to Siem Reap (which we’d already moved from 9am to 10, just in case). Was a good call and the extra hour’s sleep was well enjoyed this morning.

MONDAY

We did go back to the Indian restaurant for our breakfast and I bucked convention by having my second choice from the night before rather than any traditional form of breakfast. It was amazing – a chicken breast cooked in a tomato relish and served with mozzarella melted on top and then drowned in creamy mushroom sauce, accompanied by fried potatoes mixed with sliced onions and fleshy bacon. All my favourite things!

Then on the road to Siem Reap. A seemingly manageable 300km journey, hampered by the 30km speed limits in the towns, hay-smothered tractors and threshers in the countryside and hooting and wild lane-changing throughout! 3 hours in and we were only halfway…

Asia, Travelogue, Vietnam

Travelogue SEA 4: Ho Chi Minh City

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HO CHI MINH CITY

22-23 December 2011

Having walked the whole length of the promenade left of the hotel on Wednesday night in Da Nang, we walked the length right of the hotel when we got up on Thursday morning. Sadly, it was still drizzling on and off, but we still found a beautiful beachfront restaurant with carved wooden pagoda decks to enjoy breakfast overlooking China Beach.

The only thing notable about Da Nang airport is that it had (at that time) the only Burger King in Viet Nam, which we didn’t even try since we’d already eaten! I would have had the bacon and onion burger, I think…

A lovely nap on the 1hr20 flight and we were met with a wall of heat on disembarking in Ho Chi Minh City. It was 31 degrees and (at least) 80% humidity. Stinking stinking hot!

HCMC has even worse traffic than we’ve seen so far! Every road and side-street is a bustle of scooters, with cars and buses dotted intermittently. There even more cars here than in Hanoi – which incidentally is home to 5 million people and 3 million scooters! But it’s a far more modern city with wider roads, distinct islands and more traffic lights, so it’s better equipped to deal with the 4-wheelers. Riders and pedestrians alike wear cloth surgical masks, presumably to protect against the fumes, and these are readily available in all sorts of colours and patterns, seemingly adopted to be a standard apparel accessory. Some roads are simply impossible to cross in one lights change, with vehicles coming at you from all directions (and not always stopping at red lights) – and I’m sure that pedestrian injuries must be rife!

Despite the immensity of activity, HCMC isn’t a huge city centre and we spent the next few hours taking in all the local sights. Starting with KFC, where we mix-and-matched to make our own Fully Loaded Box combo. The staff were very confused that we wanted to swap coleslaw for mash and gravy when the combo already had chips and they checked several times and then exchanged words in Vietnamese that clearly had something to do with thinking us “crazy Westerners” (we’ve seen the look often).

They serve their eat-in meals on a moulded tray with sections for the various elements, dished straight onto the tray rather than in packaging. The mash is a little moulded mound with a gelatinous but tasty gravy, the chips are skinny like McD’s and the chicken pieces come standard with the spicy cornflaky batter. The burger meat is pink, which looked weird but tasted delicious, and the Zinger is spiced in the batter with ordinary mayo not peri-naise style like at home. Was odd to get a real glass with metal knives and forks, but all in all, a great meal.

And just the fuel we needed for another mega sight-seeing walk, at pace (we’ve been averaging about 20,000 steps a day on the pedometer, except Bangkok which was about 30,000 and HCMC on 28,420).

We whipped around the Pagoda and then headed for the War Remnants Museum. I didn’t like it – lots of pictures of soldiers threatening and torturing; women, children and old people crying and begging for mercy; dismemberment and disfigurement from Agent Orange fall-out. Not nice. Clearly, skewed to represent the Americans as the bad guys, not a single picture of the Viet Cong throughout the museum. It’s heart-breaking to see the pictures of the towns post-war and how complete the devastation was from the ‘clear and burn’ policy, but a little brighter seeing the aerial photos of those towns today, restored and growing.

The outside display of a host of tanks and choppers is cool though. Christian seemed to recognise them by their alpha-numerics and was stoked to see the real-live battlecraft up close and in person.

We were very lucky to catch both the Presidential Independence Palace and the Notre Dame Cathedral as they were closing, to catch a quick look-see and some snaps and move on. We took the Kong Dohi strip, which was the main fancy drag in the 20s and 30s under French rule, which shows by the tree-lined avenues, draped flowers overhead and very symmetrical and structured jardins.

We had made plans to meet the NZ’ers at 6 at the Crazy Buffalo – a shrewd landmark for its enormous neon Buffalo signage at the entrance – so only had time for a quick whip through the famous Ben Thanh market… But managed an armload of shopping bags nonetheless! 🙂

Met up with our mates and began a supermarket pub crawl. No 7Elevens here, but Circle K and Stop & Go seemed to work just as well… And the air-conditioned pitstops were welcome relief from the asphyxiating heat outside!

Our market crawl was interrupted by an Italian Mexican Vietnamese restaurant whose host offered us a free beer to eat there. Who could resist?

It turned out to be a great choice and we shared a chilli con carne and ‘Special’ pizza (shrimp, chicken, bacon, onion, garlic, mushrooms) – both really good! – and ended up just dumping the con carne on the pizza, which was amazing!

Enjoying being a bit more settled, we started a more conventional pub crawl. Lured and repelled by combinations of drinks specials, cooling fans and music, we eventually settled at Lily 2 (across the road from Lily, we’ve seen a few chains that use the same name and just add numbers), where they stream their music from You Tube and we managed to gain control to VJ music that suited us and sampling each other’s favourites and guilty pleasures over many Tigers.

Had to be up early for our Cu Chi Tunnels tour, so called it a night at a (relatively) respectable hour and wheedled our way through the streets and alleys like seasoned residents.

FRIDAY

Surprisingly good breakfast (included) consisting of a light and fluffy omelette, a piece of bacon, an exploding sausage (like you get at cocktail parties), slices of tomato and cucumber, and 2 slices of toast with butter and jam. I got freshly squeezed OJ (from actual oranges) and Christian got a cup of coffee with a rich cocoa aroma.

The tour fetched us from the hotel (Saigon Mini Hotel 2, US$29 per room per night including breakfast) and we headed into the traffic to make our way to the countryside.

The 2 hour bus trip included a half hour stop at a workshop where Agent Orange victims work at making furniture, art and curios with mother of pearl inlays and egg shell mosaics. Really pain-staking work – especially for the bargain prices of the end product (even converting from ZAR!)

The Cu Chi Tunnel tour was fascinating. Started off with a video and tutorial using a map and tunnel model, showing the multi-layered interlinking tunnel community that the VC had built over 20 years. A very impressive infrastructure with some simple but effective tricks to keep the inhabitants undetected, like a series of smoke chambers to filter out cooking smoke before releasing it above ground in barely perceptible whiffs.

We got to see the entry tunnels and try out the trapdoors, which the US soldiers might easily have missed seeing as they’re so small they don’t look like they’re big enough to fit a human. I managed to slide in (arms in the air above my head), but Christian’s shoulders were too broad for him to get in. We did both get to crawl through the demo section of tunnel though. It’s horrible. Dank and dark, with moisture on the walls and only high enough to walk through monkey-style. Every time you turn a corner it goes completely black.

The crafty VC built them with constant changes in direction and up and downs so that they could easily move through the familiar territory, but Tunnel Rats would get disoriented and/or give away their position when they used their torches to light their way. It’s a hell of a thing that those people lived down there (on and off) for such an extended period. We were in one of the enlarged tunnels (built for Western tourists; only Vietnamese tourists are allowed to go in the standard tunnels) and it was claustrophobic and difficult to breathe. Very glad we’ve done it, but happy to keep it a one-hit wonder!

On return to town we picked up a baguette from a street vendor (pork, chicken, pate, fried egg and accoutrements) and concluded our shopping (Christmas, souvenir and otherwise) at the Ben Tranh Market. It’s very choatic with narrow aisles, way too many people and way too little ventilation, but the prices are the best we’ve seen in Viet Nam so far and the vendors easier to haggle with seeing as there are so many stalls in such a close proximity that sell exactly the same wares so you can play them off against one another.

Our suitcases were by now almost full. Was once again very grateful that I was ruthless when I packed what felt like half a suitcase on the outset (and wishing I hadn’t brought half of that stuff!)

Met our NZ mates at the Old Faithful meeting spot, The Crazy Buffalo, and grabbed a quick beer while strat planning our last night in Viet Nam. Settled on hitting a curry house, followed by the usual haunts and a few new ones on the bar street near our hotel.

The curry was amazing – we had Lamb Karahi (with pepper) and Chicken Maglai (with egg) with pilau rice and garlic naan stuffed with cottage cheese. It was an enormous dinner and took away all the enthusiasm to drink!

We wandered around and ended up back at Lily’s since it has the biggest fan on the street. And were quite happy there until they took our VJ rights away from us to resume awful dance music… so we resolved to be done with the place.

We did a last loop of the bar streets, stopping in for one or two here and there and then headed back to the hotel to prepare for our early departure, the bus fetching us at 6.30 for the 6 hour journey to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Was looking really forward to seeing what the next country has in store for us. We had a private taxi for the duration, so was confident that the sight-seeing would be complete, epic and painless. And had been warned of even more bargain shopping!

Asia, Travelogue, Vietnam

Travelogue SEA 3: Hue – Hoi An – Da Nang

HUE, HOI AN & DA NANG

19-21 December 2011

So, the story was half right. The bus was a single storey, but with 3 rows of full length (for a local, snug for the fuller-figured Westerner) bunk beds running the length of the bus. Still not bad for US$30 a piece (compared to the train at $56 each).

After some confusion over the haphazard numbering (Chris and I were next to each other and #39 and #15 respectively), we settled into our bunks for the first leg of the journey, taking us from Hanoi to Ninh Binh (from 18h45 to 20h30).

We passed the time chatting (amongst ourselves, with the Kiwis and with our new European travel companions), trying to fathom the unfathomable plot of the Vietnamese soapie being flighted on the small screens suspended from the roof throughout the bus and awkwardly trying to play Cribbage using a duvet in the aisles to prevent it turning to slippage.

Ninh Binh turned out to be a sleazy truck-stop where we could buy food and/or use the bathrooms. The staff were terse and only allowed us to choose from the 5 meal options with picture/number options like in McD’s, despite our protests that we were fine with the rest of the menu being in Vietnamese. The bathrooms were even worse. Nonetheless we ordered beef with noodles, which was served with chilli soy sauce and was very tasty.

Back on the bus and bunked up for the night. The bunks are arranged in rows sort of sled-style, with inclined shoulder section and enclosed section from the knee down which fits under the incline of the person in front of you. The beds worked for me. Being just marginally too short, if I lay on my side I only had to bend my knees to fit comfortably. Christian wasn’t quite as lucky and had to sleep with left knee pointed to the bunk above and right leg in the aisle. The little Vietnamese girl on the other side of me was stretched full length AND had her togbag at her feet! They’re very compact people!

TUESDAY – HUE TO HOI AN

Mercifully, got in a 6 hour solid sleep and still managed to doze for another 2 until we pulled into Hue (pronounced ‘Hway‘) at 8h30. To our surprise, our bus company had altered the timetable such that we now had a 4+ hour stop before continuing on to Da Nang (and our friends on to Hoi An).

It turned out for the best as we grabbed a driver for 150,000 Vietnamese Dong (ZAR60) between 4 of us and took in the sights of this Ancient town, which was where the Nyugen Dynasty sat until 1947.

The main point of interest is the Citadel, which had housed the whole city and within it the Forbidden Purple City where the Emperor and important people went about their thing. While you can still visit the Thai Hoa Palace (Palace of Supreme Harmony) and its pavilions, pagodas and garden gazebos, it’s very sad that the Forbidden Purple Palace was ravaged in the Second World War and then finally destroyed completely by a fire in 1947 such that it just stands as a mossy open patch today.

We exited the Citadel at the back in search of sustenance and were very lucky to stumble upon a local bakery that fed us delicious fresh baguettes (stuffed with sliced chicken, pate, mayo, cucumber, fresh herbs sprigs and a hot freshly fried egg) for a measly VND 10,000 apiece (ZAR 4).

Unfortunately, it started to drizzle so we decided to traverse the outside of the Citadel and head back to where our driver was only supposed to meet us half an hour later at the flagtower opposite the Citadel’s rain entrance. As luck would have it, the driver was not only early, but also headed in our direction and spotted us so we headed back to the Hotel where we’d be meeting the bus in an hour… And busied ourselves with trying out Hue’s local beers (Huda – excellent; Festival – OK).

The bus arrived in Vietnamese time (similar to Africa time, “5 minutes” is never ever that) and, as usual, the guide ushered us aboard with an insistence that implied that HE had been waiting for US all along!

We had a slightly better layout on this journey seeing as it was unreserved seating and we were first on. We nabbed for ourselves the first 4 bottom bunks on the left, which were backed by the WC so made for a private enclave for us and the NZ’ers. Christian had snuck off to get cold beers (Huda) for the bus trip, but was met by the guide with rapid fire Vietnamese, shaking head and wagging finger. Clearly, not a fan of roadies.

Heated negotiation ensued, resulting in the compromise of being allowed 3 on the bus, but having to put 3 in the togbag in the hold. Short-lived moral victory on the guide’s part when he then wanted to ticket check (again) and we fished the togbag from the hold under the guise of getting tickets. The Huda was successfully smuggled in and good time was had by all.

We again stopped at a dodgy truckstop for a meal break (crab soup and pork baguette) and ablution opportunity. The toilet on the bus was broken… Which had nearly led to fisticuffs between the guide and a particularly aggro Manc passenger whose wife wanted to pee about 5 minutes into the journey. The guide was braver than I’d have been and stood his ground with the biff with scars on his face and tattoos on his neck!

Christian again stocked up with roadies, much to the guide’s chagrin.

In the last stretch of the journey we changed our minds about our destination and bypassed Da Nang and went through to Hoi An. We’d intended to be based in Da Nang and daytrip to Hue and/or Hoi An on one or both of our days, but seeing as we were later than intended, had seen and done Hue and were the only ones stopping in Da Nang, Hoi An seemed the better choice all round.

What a great decision. Hoi An is charming and quaint and, although it was more or less constantly drizzling, we had a great time.

We were met at the bus station by some hotel touts and bargained them down from $15 to $10 for a room. They taxied us to the hotel, which was a few blocks further out of town than we would have preferred, but the room was so spacious and clean that we couldn’t resist. The others opted to stay in the town so we parted ways, but made arrangements to meet up later for dinner etc.

It was great to have a shower and get into clean clothes – and be able to stretch out on a real (big) bed, The TV also had several English channels which was a new experience and we found out that Jon Bon Jovi has died, which we knew would be a gem of a conversation piece for later!

Met for dinner at 7 at a spot that Rob (one of the NZ’ers) had been to on his last trip to Hoi An and enjoyed immensely. The beers were trickling after a day of roadies, but the food was amazing. Christian had a humongous burger with cheese and bacon and I had a tower of a Club sandwich welling with chicken, bacon, cheese and sauces. Not bad for a meal of ZAR100 all in.

Christian had decided to get the tailored silk shirts that Hoi An is famous for, so we headed to the esteemed Kimmy Tailor to pick fabrics and get him measured up (maybe not so smart after the enormous dinner, but still…) then headed out to check out the old town shops and find a watering hole.

We found a colourful spot called Before N Now and it wasn’t long before another table of travellers had pulled our table to theirs and we were swapping stories with Canadians, Norwegians and an Iranian American. We of course hadn’t intended the merge, but all career-travellers seem keen to repeat the ‘where are you from? where have you been? where are you going?’ routine, so we humoured. And the world seems to love South African travellers, with very few having visited our country so the stream of opinions and questions flow endlessly.

Was lovely to be able to walk back to the hotel – a good breath of fresh air and getting the blood flowing always makes sleep that much sweeter, longer and deeper…

WEDNESDAY – HOI AN  TO DA NANG

… So deep, in fact, that we completely overslept and missed Christian’s 11h00 fitting, only rousing at 11h20! No harm done, we got there at 12h00 – and the shirts were fab, needing only minor tweaks.

Met up with the NZ’ers for lunch on the riverfront. Found an excellent little spot that served all the local specialities and were delighted with a selection consisting of steamed white rose dumplings (pork), deep fried wanton (pork) and cao lau (a thick white noodle with pork strips and crisp veg in a salt and pepper stock). All delicious!

The afternoon was spent wandering through the Ancient town (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), the markets, the temples, the alleyways. Really good afternoon, just a pity about the intermittent drizzle, although it was light enough that we were never really wet or cold.

Collected Christian’s shirts at 4pm (all really excellent), had a last ‘fresh beer’ (VND 3,000 each) with the NZ’ers and headed back to the hotel to get our private car ride back to Da Nang (US$ 12 for the car). Turned out to be a shorter ride than expected, about 20 minutes and we got deposited at our hotel, Sun Sea which is right on the famous China Beach (My Khe).

We took a mega walk along the beachfront promenade, which was a pleasure with its wide paved sidewalks and palm tree-lined seafront. Hadn’t intended for it to be such a long walk, but we were trying to get a better look at a statue that we couldn’t work out if it was around the corner or over the harbour, Eventually found out that we couldn’t get there on foot, but our walk was still rewarded with a very local pub at the end, where we thought we would have dinner… until we realised that we were way out of our depth in figuring out what the menu board was offering… and there was some very scary looking sea food still swimming around in tubs and fishtanks!

We had our beers (served by Tiger promo girls in very fancy wool 2 piece branded Tiger suits) and some of the peanuts (in shells) and tiny speckled eggs (also served in shells, clearly from the birds in cages hanging overhead), paid our bill and headed back toward the hotel.

Found a nice restaurant for dinner and were very lucky to have an English speaking Maitre’ D who was very patient in explaining the options and some of the more complicated dishes and accompaniments. We settled on a shrimp with crispy noodles and a chicken hotpot that is served at the table with a little cooker and a pot of stock that has a halo around it laden with meat and veg which you add to the pot and cook as you go along. Both very yum. Total meal cost, including beers, VND300,000 (ZAR 120).

We returned to the the hotel intending to hit the beach first thing in the morning to get a swim in China Beach’s famous and infamous waters.

Then it would be off to Ho Chi Minh City.

Asia, Travelogue, Vietnam

Travelogue SEA 2: Halong Bay

HA LONG BAY

18 – 19 December 2011

We were greeted bang on time at the hotel in Hanoi by our guide, Thine, although the bus ended up only arriving some 20 minutes later. It was a chilly wait and we were worried that the damp cold was a sign of impending rain.

The bus to Ha Long Bay was a group of Japanese tourists (with their own guide) and us, so we had Thine to ourselves and he interspersed stories and tour guide info along the 4-hour journey, broken only by the usual obligatory stop at a souvenir store (where I bought rubies and Christian bought silk ties). The journey should never take as long – being only 160km, but the speed limits were 40 through the towns and 80 in between, with very few stretches where the foot can go flat.

Eventually reaching Ha Long Bay, we were merged with another tour of English speakers and ushered to our boat. We had booked a specific cruise on www.agoda.com based on its 2 day itinerary but were allocated to another boat, which we’d also seen on Agoda and which had the same itinerary but at considerably higher price. Bonus.

From comparing notes with the other travellers it seems that we’d stumbled on a gem with our booking site, paying similar value rates for our hotels to the backpacker types who booked as they went, but with the benefit of having a pre-planned itinerary to springboard from in these new and foreign places. We’d saved big $$$ by booking our Ha Long Bay cruise online!

Our cabin was lovely and spacious with a double and a single bed with fresh white linen and soft duvets, an en suite bathroom and neat decor with wooden panelling and silk curtains. Our tour guide (Dung, which he was quick to tell us is pronounced ‘Dzung’ not ‘dung’) kept reinforcing that this was a luxury cruise, although more in the context of not smuggling booze on board or buying from the endless stream of row boat hawkers that floated past yelling “you want buy somting?”, with ‘somting’ usually meaning an impressive selection of beers, wine, hard tack, cigarettes, chocolates, biscuits and Pringles (which seemed to also be the standard unit of currency in lieu of cash change).

First up was lunch, brought to the table in communal serving platters. Seafood soup, mussels, rice, tofu, beef and an apple-like fruit stirfry, Chinese veg and french fries. We were at a table with a Vietnamese couple and their 2 young kids who spoke with an Aussie accent and were only interested in the ‘chippies’, so making a meal of the central self-service platters was easy enough!

Then it was taking to the waters to see what Ha Long Bay is famous for. There are 1969 limestone mounds that form the ‘Descending Dragon‘ and have earned the area a place in the new 7 natural wonders of the world. A wonder within a wonder is Sun Sot (Surprise Cave) which consists of 3 enormous chambers that you can walk through and (supposedly) see all sorts of animals and shapes that time has eroded into the rock face, most notable of which is the finger/penis that points at a perfectly round hole in the ceiling of the second chamber.

It becomes a bit same same (only different) after a while and we were keen when we moved on from there to go to one of the floating villages to grab a kayak. The floating villages were pretty amazing. Individual houses or restaurants on pontoon floats with inflated barrels and polystyrene blocks keeping them out of the water. People going on with their daily lives, cooking, hanging out washing, peddling wares. Houses with TV aerials and satellite dishes and, it would appear, better cell phone reception than I have at home!

We grabbed a kayak and paddled around the Ha Long bay, getting a closer look at some of the rock faces, a little private beach and a lot of other tourists. The bay is very busy with lots of boats, junks and other (inexperienced) kayakers going in every direction and staking claim to right of way on a shared path. Lots of fun though and I’m glad I didn’t bail out on the activity (in both meanings of the word as I had almost passed on the kayaking because of the weather and for fear of getting wet and cold). I must just be a bit dramatic about cold though as the boys had a big laugh jumping off the top of the junk into the sea (maybe 8m below).

We’d gotten friendly with a pair of NZ’ers and an Aussie through the caves tour and we all hooked up on the upper deck for some pre-dinner beers (after a lovely hot shower – in a bathroom far bigger and nicer than the ones in either Bangkok or Hanoi!) with them and a Canadian couple.

The boat staff were quite intuitive and we found on arrival in the restaurant cabin that they’d moved us from the family table to sit with our new mates. Dinner was a buffet with shrimp chips, fresh springrolls (more like a wrap than the usual deep fried ones), rice (obviously), prawns, calamari with lemongrass, sesame seed pork, chicken stir fry and cabbage. Sweet cake for dessert. (Real cake, not Malory).

Back up to the deck and an endless stream of Tigers began. The Canadians brought out their MP3 player and speakers and we proceeded to ADD-DJ and cross-criticise each others’ music like old friends! … Except Roger from Manchester, who was the only one who was quiet and who took some heckling for not being able to contribute a story to the endless eclectic mix of anecdotes and repartee (peppered with a healthy dose of sauce and profanity). Although he did tell us that he’d managed to find a KFC in Hanoi when we’d marvelled over how franchise and fast food free the city was.

We’d brought some beers with us from the market at the harbour, so we implemented our own private Buy One Get One Free promotion. Aaron, one of the NZ’ers, managed to get a floater (hehe) to pull up to their cabin window so that he could buy a bottle of vodka and 2 litre Coke, which he cleverly served for himself in a beer can so as to go undetected. Beers weren’t that expensive at $2 a can, but the subterfuge is all part of the fun – and having our own supply also meant we could bypass the main cabin and bar where we would be subjected to Dzung’s drunken solo karaoke medley (of what sounded like Vietnamese love songs), belted out in a key I’m certain would be alien to what the songwriter intended!

He had the last laugh of course when we finally decided to hit the main cabin and have a stab at karaoke… Only to find that everyone had gone to bed and there were 2 crew members sleeping on the floors. To rub matters in further, there was a Party Boat within yelling distance of us that was still in full swing. We tried to convince the barman to drive us there (an obviously flawed plan in retrospect) but he wasn’t having any of it. Deflated, we called it a night.

MONDAY

Slept like the dead… Only to be woken at 07h30 by incessant knocking on the door and “breakfast! BREAKFAST!”. Clearly not an optional activity… And a lot of excitement over simple fried eggs and lots of bread, jam and cheese.

Well fed, it was back to bed. The greatest nap ever!

Felt a lot better waking up slowly and naturally an hour later and showered, packed and evac’ed to sit on the upper deck and enjoy the view on the long slow journey back to port (with just our NZ mates as the rest had alighted earlier to go on to another day of cruising to other islands and sights in Ha Long Bay). No beers. Although Tigers continue to be very forgiving and there wasn’t a green gill among us.

Lunch on the shore was good: rice, calamari with onions, fried lemon chicken, stuffed crab, fish in a thick sticky (yummy) sauce! French fries and a watery soup (that remained untouched).

A bit of a wait and then on the bus headed back to Hanoi. The bright side about land travel is that there’s a lot of time – like a lot a lot – to look around and take in the detail of daily life. Besides the obvious things like farmers in the fields – still donning traditional conical hats and still using water buffalo ploughs – we’ve spotted that  Vietnamese billboards and ads are strange. Most of the billboards are a long sentence of text in a single colour block letters on a plain background, some are just a logo with or without slogan, but very very few have pictures on them illustrating the product and/or lifestyle message. Store signage is cluttered with what seems like a detailed description of store offerings alongside the name and crude photo depictions. Streetpoles are dotted with vertical propaganda posters that look a bit like McDonald’s ads being yellow on red with a beaming happy face. The language is made up of mostly 2-4 letter words, some 5, very few 6 and no words of 7 letters or more.

It’s also odd that there are the renowned tube houses out here as well. They make sense (sort of) in town where it’s not uncommon to see stores 2m wide (but 30 or 40m deep) since they (used to?) pay taxes based on store frontage, so the stores (and the flats above them) are long and narrow to keep costs down. It also makes a bit more visual sense in town where the tube houses are squashed one against each other. Here in the countryside or when passing through a small town it’s very odd to see what looks like a sliver of a house in the middle of nowhere!

It’s all very interesting and fascinating and Vietnam (which, incidentally should be 2 words ‘Viet Nam’ because it means ‘South People’, as designated by China that lies north of Viet Nam and who believe they are the epicentre) has been a delight so far. Really highly recommend a visit – and we’ve only seen a splash of it!

The plan from Hanoi was for an overnight bus to pick us up from Mike’s Hotel to get us to Da Nang for tomorrow. The bus allegedly is double-storey with the upstairs dedicated to proper horizontal lie-down beds… But I’ll believe that when I see it.

Asia, Travelogue, Vietnam

Travelogue SEA 1: Bangkok & Hanoi

BANGKOK & HANOI

14-17 December 2011

After a mad panic and photo-finish to get everything done before leaving for our South East Asia adventure, we dashed to the airport, went through the obligatories and breathed a sigh of relief to be up, up and away.

An uneventful flight to Ethiopia, marred only by the lack of “…”  in the usual “… or fish” dinner option. So, fish it was. Sadly. Then nap. Gladly.

Addis Ababa airport is largely unremarkable, being a single circuit of duty free shopping (the same old booze and perfumes as everywhere), a few souvenir stores and coffee shops and bars. Really modest and warehousey and still allows smoking everywhere, which is a rarity these days to say the least. Squatted in the biggest of the bars and  tried the local beer, St George’s. OK, but pricey at US$4 each.

THURSDAY – BANGKOK

An overnight flight later and we were (very pleased to be) in Bangkok. A wall of heat as we left the airport in the early Thai afternoon and were greeted by the 31 degree summertime. Changed some currency, hailed a taxi and we were delivered to our hotel (for 800 baht, including a detour past the Vietnamese Embassy to drop off our passports for visas).

Well, delivered near our hotel. Turns out our hotel is one of a chain and we were deposited at the wrong one, but it was Day 1 excitement, so it was still all good schlepping cases around the crescent to the correct hotel.

As always, our room was the furthest possible from reception, but this time wasn’t so bad seeing as our luggage was a record-breaking 12kg (me) and 15kg (Chris)… not like having to lug our anvil cases up the countless flights of stairs in Zagreb the year before!!

Our room was only marginally bigger than the double bed it housed, so we had to strat plan our wardrobe changes to shift one suitcase at a time (onto the bed), grab clothes, rezip and replace and swap turns. All part of the charm though, eh? Hoping the novelty would hold for the shower-in-loo-cubicle combo as well!

Headed out on the town and took a walk around to get our bearings. We did a short loop around the neighbourhood and nestled in at a charming rooftop bar and restaurant to watch the sunset over the river and the boats and people getting on with whatever they were getting on with (with a lovely KFC coincidentally directly over the river from us, completing the perfect picture).

En route back to our hood, we found to our delight that we were one road away from the infamous Khaosan Road – the best of both being so close to the action, but far enough away to be able to escape the madding crowds, neon lights and infinite noise when we wanted to. Torn between wanting to sample local beer and check out the bustling roads, kiosks and shops, we split the difference and grabbed some roadies from 7-Eleven.

One soon turned into a pub crawl as we discovered there was a 7-Eleven every few hundred metres and they all had the same basics (Tiger, Chang, Leo) but there was some variety in the rest of the stock they carried. So we walked, shopped, marvelled, 7-Eleven’ed, drank, giggled and ogled for hours.

Much later we stopped for dinner – lured in by the promise of a Buy 3 Get One Free Tiger offer. Excellent Pad Thai in belly, Night 1 was done.

FRIDAY

Up bright(er than deserved) and early, we were ready to see the sights of Bangkok. Traditional breakfast was a bit disappointing being a starchy rice and water number with ground pork and some green stuff. Not really my scene, but hearty and filling and good fuel for the day ahead.

We started off with an on-foot trip to the Palace and our first temple, Wat Pho, which happened to house the world’s biggest reclining Buddha, which has fancy feet with Chinese pearl inlay. He is accompanied by the 4 Rama pagodas and a whole lot of contorted looking gargoyle type statues and pretty topiaries with little waterfalls, funny little folk and Buddhas.

Next was a boat trip, which started off with us taking the wrong pier and ending up with an accidental ferry river-crossing. We eventually got on the correct express boat and made our way up-river to the Dusit area where we discovered lots of important buildings, the zoo and the president’s residence.

Having a new found confidence in our bearings, we footed it back to Khaosan to find a Burger King for lunch. What an excellent idea! I had the Angus burger with smoky sauce, bacon and onions and Christian had the double cheese and bacon Whopper. Large is standard and quite a meal and all burgers come with an upsize option which is the same burger format with each patty twice the size. Hectic.

Fed and happy, we grabbed a tuktuk from outside the BK and negotiated a tour route for the bargain price of 40 baht. We moseyed deftly to the Golden Mount to see Wat Saket, the highest Buddha, with the temple on the hill offering amazing panoramic views of Bangkok. Then off to the Black Buddha for luck, which proved handy with the next stop being the Thai gemstone factory!  🙂 The tuktuk drivers get incentives for bringing tourists to the shop and we were more than happy to take the little detour so that our driver could get his tank of petrol – and the beautiful orange and naartjie citrines that I bought were an absolute bargain!

We had to get back to the Vietnamese Embassy to collect our passports, so the tuktuk driver dropped us at the skytrain, which would save us at least an hour travel time because Bangkok traffic is so crazy. Even with our rudimentary map, it was really easy navigate to the Embassy and move to another skytrain line to get back towards our neck of the woods. We opted to grab the train to the River and Express Boat back to our hotel so that we could see the last side of Bangkok that we hadn’t seen (but that had nothing worth exploring up close).

After a hard day’s sight-seeing we did what was necessary… hit the first 7-Eleven we saw! Beers in hand, we trawled the market streets, eating from stalls as and when things looked enticing. Very yum! After a few ABFs along the way – with progress retarded by the entertainment, the locals, the people-watching, Engrish menus and fun store-window marketing videos that included a tailor who proudly pronounced “happy to make custom dress for fat lady” – we finally got back to our hotel… much later than we should have.

SATURDAY – HANOI

The alarm went off what felt like moments after we had gone to sleep and we were up and out, ready for our 4am transfer to the airport. The driver was late and those 15 minutes dragged on for what seemed liked aeons, saved only by the loot we’d procured en route home the night before (from 7-Eleven of course). Our snackpack included Duck-flavoured Lays and 2 others with 2 flavours combined in one bag (calamari & chilli and pepper steak crinkle cut with BBQ plain cut). Life saver.

Probably a bit naff to complain seeing as the streets were as busy as any other time of the day so clearly Bangkok never sleeps. The driver made up for the delay and drove at breakneck speed to the airport, swerving and near-missing a few times. We ended up actually being early for the flight! … and sleeping through it…

… to wake up in Hanoi, Vietnam.

The tourist desk (and there were several) was very helpful, providing a map and key advice and info and arranging a taxi driver to deliver us to our hotel in the Old Quarter of Hanoi (for US$20).

I have never – and I mean nevereverever – seen traffic like this! Cars, scooters and bicycles moving in all directions. Over-taking, swerving, jumping red lights and doing exactly as they please, all the while hooting at regular intervals. We theorise that they hoot as soon as there is someone in front of them, not really to tell them to move or anything, just to alert that they are approaching. You can imagine the cacophony. And the chaos.

Our hotel (Mikes Hotel, 1 Hang Phen) was superbly placed and we dumped our stuff and rushed off to Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, which we stumbled upon while flipping through a travel guide during the check-in process – and also discovered was only open until 11h30 on a Saturday. And it was 10h30 already!

Grabbed a cab and managed to catch it in the nick of time, arriving at 11h15 and needing to be in and out by 11h30. It’s a very sombre and formal site and they are very strict – no bags or camera equipment allowed in and you can only walk in certain places (not the grass or, oddly, the pavement). Uniformed guards glare instructions and nod disapproval to usher you to where you need to be to get trooped through to where the body of Ho Chi Minh rests. A weirdly (literally) awesome experience to be in such close proximity to such an epic character in some really dramatic history. He died an old man, but his embalmed body looks so peaceful that he appears to be sleeping.

Grabbed some lunch at a cafe in a hotel lobby and sampled Hanoi springrolls (pork, mushrooms, onion, carrots, vermicelli noodles) and then spent the afternoon whipping around the town (well, as much as one can whip around a town that has stores spilling onto the pavements from one side and motorbikes from the other, so that you are left dodging cars, bikes and people in conical hats with wares dangling from rods on their shoulders) checking out the famous buildings, museums, Lake Hoan Kiem and a series of pagodas.

Blissful afternoon nap and then maneuvered our way to the cuisine district to wonder and marvel at the street vendors, operating at knee level with pots and woks and all sorts of raw and cooked meat, veg and noodles being spun and dished. Pavement eating, drinking and socialising is the norm, and a modest affair with the standard being the types of little stools and tables you’d find in a nursery school.

We spent ages figuring out what meant what seeing as everything is posted only in Vietnamese and settled on a chicken, mushroom and onion dish (Ga Xao Nam Huong) and a beef and mushroom with fried noodles (Bo Xao Pho) with 2 large Tigers (beers, not animals).

Had a fab time doing our ‘Hanoi in 1 Day’ Tour, which is really all you need to see the sights (unless you’re the type to painstake over a museum, which we are not).

The next day we’d be off to Ha Long Bay for an overnight cruise to see its rock formations, caves and floating villages (UNESCO winner as one of the new 7 wonders of the world).

Europe, Italy, Travelogue

Travelogue EE 7: Venice

VENICE

20 – 22 August 2010

The bus trip from Split to Venice turned out to be not so bad after all. Would have been better without the waft of the French stinky cheese feet from next to us (worsened by them having the seats after the middle-exit so they had their legs draped over the railing in front of them and their Pieds de Fromage at our nose level), but still not so bad.

Pulled into Trieste around 7am and were delighted to find out trains run to Venice less than an hour apart. Booked seats on the 08h18 one and busied ourselves with polishing off the picnic pack and playing some cards. Would have liked an hour or 2 to explore Trieste as it seems really quaint (and wouldn’t have taken much time to cover the 5 or 6 worthy sites).

Timing worked out perfectly. Alighted at Venice train station just after 10h30, discovered that the bus station was indeed literally across the road (those ‘just around the corner’ descriptions rarely tend to be literal – especially when there’s heavy luggage involved) and were happily reunioning with Faye, Alex and Robbie 20 minutes later.

Being only 11h00 with check-in at 13h00 (which apparently took quite some negotiation to move forward from 14h00 so was not negotiable), we set to finding somewhere to kill the time. Popping heads in here and there, scanning menus and exchanging snippets with the odd host, Faye and I visualised the perfect spot… And it appeared. Well, there was no fountain and the beer wasn’t free, but it was an awesome little spot down a side street, so was shady and away from the madding crowds on the main drag.

We caught (who turned out to be) Julio as he had just opened the door and was turning the first bar stools off their overnight-on-the-table-upside-down positions. His eyes were bright and his smile welcoming. He had no idea what he was getting himself into.

We managed to avoid economy completely and take up most of the pavement section of the cafe/bar (staunchly to be called “Julio’s” by us, despite considerable branding claiming the place to be called Taverna Ciardi  – and apparently on Facebook so we were told repeatedly) with ourselves, our luggage and our animated conversations and lively hand gestures (no mean feat since the Londoners had been up since 4 and we’d onlysortofslept on the bus).

Before we knew it, it was 13h00 and we were off to our apartment to meet Fabio, our landlord. High 5 to Lixi for her – as always – internet research magic, our place was awesome!!

Double-storey and very modern (like VERY modern with electric shutters and stuff) and light and bright (sky lights, a lovely little terrace) and… Air-conditioned! Even the artwork on the walls was too holiday to take seriously – a series of 3D pieces by Marin Claire with random items (like VERY random things like pepper, paint brushes and flower pots) popping from oil-painted canvases.

After opening and closing the shutters several times (small things amuse tired small minds even more), basking in the air-con, leisurely cool showers and clean clothes, we were ready to hit the streets (and canals) of Venice.

First up, feeding the machines. We found a taverna serving a bargain 2 course plus accompaniment set menu for €11.50. Had a great lasagne (very relieved, Italy was under pressure to deliver me this lifelong favorite) for starter and seafood plate with calamari, shrimps and squidheads with chips for main.

Lix had constructed the world’s best map so we were able to (relatively) easily get our bearings to see where to get to for the touristy stuff. Venice is not an easy city for that. Lots of winding and narrow alleyways, piazzas that look the same, too many churches for them to serve as landmarks anymore, buildings that look like an endless Monte Casino and bridgesbridgesbridges.

Still, we managed to find the highlights, get the right pics of the right things (Rialto Bridge, St Mark’s Square, some buildings and monuments and some things that hordes of other people were posing around so must be important surely), including settling in next to Tina Turner’s leather skirt and Madonna’s black sequinned hotpants for sundowners at Hard Rock Cafe.

Had a stab at the local supermarket (Billa) en route home. Very different to home. Even the simplest things take the longest time as their are new and exciting choices to evaluate in almost every category, new procedures to muddle through and all sorts of absolute essentials that ‘these people surely can’t not have?!’

A few nightcaps at our happy home and, all exhausted, we conceded to Friday being an early night.

What a great night’s sleep! The electric rolldown shutters are masterful and the room is dark as night, even when day comes!

SATURDAY

Saturday morning brought all new good humour. A beautiful sunny day in Venice and we were ready to enjoy it!

Lix whipped up some French toast with a tomato/bacon/onion/garlic salsa side (mmmm), which we tucked into at a lovely breakfast on our terrace that was all very civilised… until RoRo got the party started with healthy doses of vodka. Chris and I had been delighted to find a bottle store on Trogir Island the day before and had splashed on 2l of vodka (and a litre of each of our four favorite Croat draughts) in our morning orange juice. This, combined with our obligation to wait for the ice to set so we could empty and refill the trays to make another batch while we were out, led to things heading decidedly in the direction of messy.

We ended up ‘waiting for ice’ until about 3 o’clock, when we headed for the local Irish pub to watch the rugby (SA vs NZ, so I’m told). Several shooters (enough that I had Jager splashes on the back of my t-shirt), a bleated national anthem (us, ours, on the bar counter) and many spurts of photos later, we’d lost Faye and Lix. Completely.

Never ones to fret, me and the boys went next door to McD’s to have a Mighty Bite bacon and cheese burger meal and discuss strategy.

That was the plan. What ended up happening was Robbie engrossing himself in our neighbouring table, while Christian ate his AND all but 2 bites of Robbie’s burger and then replacing the remnants in Robbie’s container – and Robbie not realising that most of his burger was missing!

Somehow we managed to get separated in our exit and I ended up manning the bridge to the right of us while Chris went to see if Robbie had gone left. No sign of him anywhere!

I’m super-glad it wasn’t me. With my sense of direction and that labyrinth (and no map nor any idea of our address) I’d still be looking for home!

However, Christian navigated with ease – and who should we bump into at Julio’s…? Faye and Alex having very civilised drinkies. The details are a bit blurry (to all) but we were home shortly after, safe and sound… For midnight snacks (chips and verysloppysortof spaghetti pomodoro) and nightcaps.

Robbie came tumbling in an hour or so later – very short on details on where he’s been, but safe, sound, in one piece and very merry.

Luckily there was a tres bizarre TV game show to keep us entertained (Italian terrestrial TV only seems to be infomercials dotted with cartoons and weirdy gameshows) and we had a very low brain-power, high-relaxation end to an eventful day of mishaps and misadventures.

Then it was Sunday…

SUNDAY

Bizarrely, our wonder apartment didn’t have a toaster. But we did have the Alex 2011 with us, so were able to regain signs of human life with fried sandwiches of the best cheese, ham, salami and sliced beef Italy (well, Billa and then our fridge) had to offer. Enough butter to clog an artery… Or in this case jumpstart the zombies on the couch (we were now quite into the infomercials and there was quite pacey discussions about the Stanner Stairlift, the Relax and Tone, Water Smile filters).

Fortunately a channel hop during breakfast left us on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (in Italian, which is weirdly fitting with their Italian painter names and penchant for pizza) and was the perfect impetus for discussing plans for the day’s sight-seeing, which centred around a visit to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum and a trip to Giorgio Island to get pananoramic views of the Venice coast- and skyline.

The walk to the Guggenheim was enough to require a refuel, so we stopped in at a little bar/cafe for a quick snack. They have a brilliant snack strategy – a glass counter displaying a wide selection of wraps, tramezzinis, sandwiches rolls, all cheesed, meated and garnished and ready for a quick whirl in the flatbed toaster before a delicious steaming hot and fresh baked item is served to you moments later. Genius!

Having gotten all the culture behind them (we left the others to go to Guggenheim while we window-shopped and got hopelesslessly lost on our way back), we bought vaporetto tickets to see the city from the waterways, get over to Giorgio and take the long way home around the only unexplored side of the island. Bloody marvellous to just sit and let the view come to us for a change 🙂

Made our own Spag Bol for dinner and did a worthy job of it too! A very lovely and cultured dinner at the table and everything – even with champagne for an early celebration of Lix’s impending birthday.

Did the right thing and popped in at Julio’s for a last fond farewell. Having been sane, sober and present at our communal meeting place of choice, he was able to provide some interesting insights into our comings and goings the night before that cleared things up a bit. And opened up all new questions too! All good though and he said we were all fun in our muddle, so no real harm done. :o)

The Londoners headed off at an ungodly hour to catch their flight, while we enjoyed our last lie in with the heavenly electric blinds (would make a great name for a band). Scoffed down a real patchwork breakfast with eggs and cheese scrambled with spaghetti and top with a spoonful of bolognaise mince, and half glasses of this and that to finish them off (thankfully not the vodka or beers, which Alex, Faye and I had had the good sense to finish off the night before).

Headed to Marco Polo Airport via vaporetto without incident despite having not bought a ticket – €13!! And standing next to not one but two conductors most of the way. And an incident where our driver managed to play dodgems with another vaporetto and a private speedboat causing much arm-waving and heated Italian from the shore, causing the vaporetto to reverse to assess the damage, but seemingly only for curiosity’s sake as no details were perceptibly exchanged, bar a few middle fingers which I’m relatively sure weren’t insurance-related.

We found lockers at the airport to store bags (after runaround from the Lufthansa call centre who said we could check in at midday, the check-in desk who said we couldn’t and the luggage check-in guy who had to wait for the security guy to return – newspaper under his arm, clearly having gone off to do his official ‘business’ – to xray our bags). Baggage-free, we caught the local bus for a few stops to get off and amble through the greater Venice countryside, popping in here and there for a drink and to play some cards to soak in the aircon.

Got back to the airport and checked in uneventfully. Grabbed a slice of sausage pizza (big enough to be half a pizza at home) and a Peroni and we were off again.

Croatia, Europe, Travelogue

Travelogue EE 6: Split

SPLIT

18 – 19 August 2010

We started the day with the 230km trip from Dubrovnik.

To our great delight our accommodation in Split turned out to be in the Diocletian Palace, a 1700 year old city built by the Romans for their Emperor, Diocletia.

Not that our digs are *that* swanky, mind… Our landlord is an oddball to say the least. He wasn’t there when we arrived (we were tipped off by the note on the door that said ‘Gone out. Back soon’) but the old lady upstairs heard me knocking. I’d gone up the 2 flights alone, leaving Christian on the ground floor with the luggage (in an attempt to out-karma a repeat of the Zagreb 6 floor mega-haul) and conferring with some English tourists making their way up the stairwell and went into the unlocked ‘reception’ (the entrance hall of an apartment) and called the landlord who said he’d be there in 2 minutes.

He was super-quick, rushing in all flushed and heavy-breathingy, in what looked like a jogging outfit, but surely can’t have been in the searing midday heat..? He’s a strange looking man, tall and reed-thin, with a shock of mousy (greying hair), skinny discoloured teeth and blue eyes that are pale so should be cool and tranquil but that somehow always seem shocked and panicked. Oh yes, and he has purple legs. Apparently circulation problems from falling victim to ‘some shrapnels’ in the war. Hectic.

He started off our first engagement with ‘so, I need you to do me a favour’. Not a great start (well, restart if you count the wait), and we feared the worst, having already discussed our lucking out with palace accommodation as too good to be true.

Turns out all he wanted was time to clean the apartment as he’s been very busy with all 5 of his apartments and tending to a sick girlfriend (who he periodically shouted to through the – presumably – bedroom door from the ‘reception’ we were all crowded into. No response from her didn’t seem to faze him, so we’re assuming she’s either imaginary or been dead a while). We were planning on heading out to explore anyway so we agreed that he’d keep our bags and we’d return at 7pm.

First on the agenda – food. We walked the length of the Riva (promenade) to get our bearings and suss our options, having decided that sea-view trumped the search for local delicacies (which nobody seems really interested in educating us on, leading to the inevitable answer: Fish? Pasta? Pizza? *groan*)

Found an excellent spot right at the end, next to the famous (apparently) St Francis Church and at the base of Marjan Hill, which offers the best views of the Split panorama. We shared a chicken and mushroom penne (as closest possible homage to the pie that should have been) and a shrimp and scampi creamy tomato spaghetti. With Coca-Cola and lots of iced water, nowhere near brave enough to dabble in the world of beer quite yet!

Walked off lunch with a trek up Marjan. Got to the look-out point and ooo’ed and aaah’ed at the views and ditched the idea of climbing to the top – no energy for missioning to see more churches and old buildings (and feet tender from the sharp rocks in the sea at Lokrum the day before).

On our descent, we pinpointed what would become our sundowner spot for the day (constitutions permitting). Teraca Bamba – a modest, spirited outdoor terrace with amazing sea views… And 12 kuna beer (R15 for 500ml draughts).

The mission for the remainder of the afternoon was to scope out the local beaches as we’d dedicated Wednesday to be ‘do nothing’ day (except for marking territory on loungers with our towels, out-licking the sun on ice-cream cones and floundering in the turquoise ocean). Plan seemed a little more challenging when we got to Bacvice Beach and discovered their beaches are concrete with ladders into the water like the ones at public pools. And the concrete is quite narrow, so it’s PACKED!

Snap decision – we’re hitting the islands! Popped into the tourist office for advice. There are loads of info/tourist offices and they are all stocked with helpful A3 double-sided maps of tourist sites and transport options that they doodle and circle to show you where you are and where and how you are going to get to where you want to be. Combined with free info brochures that sometimes are glossy and comprehensive enough to outdo their Lonely Planet type counterparts. Our local office happens to be right on our doorstep (in our Palace) in what looks like a converted (teeny tiny) church on the main square, which was just outside the Emperor’s Apartments and was where all the important stuff went down in its heyday hundreds and thousands of years ago.

Based on their recommendations we decided we were going to try a hop to the nearest island, Brac, the next day to spend it languishing on the ‘most famous beach in all of Croatia’, called Zlatni Rat. With a full ferry-bus-bus-ferry plan for the next day, we retired (satisfied) to our sundowner spot of choice.

It wasn’t to disappoint, nice vibe with all but one table occupied when we got there. Perused the menu and settled on sampling another local brew, Karlovac, to celebrate new town, sea views, returned good humour and the impending beach day.

We marvelled over the new move to measuring everything precisely and metrically, eg the sandwich options of cheese (50g), ham (50g) or ham and cheese (100g). Doesn’t do much to stimulate a clear image in the imagination and is quite off-putting when the going weight of main courses seems to be around 300g (of pasta, curry etc steaks seem to be between 100g and 200g) when we’re used to much bigger servings. Always seems to be enough though so perhaps portion control might be a half-birthday resolution worth considering.

Anyway, the beers were consistently cold and 500ml and we’d probably still be there if it wasn’t for ordering what turned out to be the world’s worst beer – Tomislav. Thick and dark and tastes like treacle with a hint of coffee.

We headed for home and managed the opening credits of an ancient episode of CSI (subtitled) while applauding the inventor of the air-conditioner, then was comacomacoma.

WEDNESDAY

Up in good time for our ferry to Supetar to get to Zlatni Rat, we popped into the supermarket to grab our usual picnic pack to nibble on board.

We were lucky enough to be the last 2 people to fit on the bus to Bol (where the beach is, on the other side of Brac, 33km away) even though we had to stand in the aisle most of the way. Still, the people left behind would have had to entertain themselves at the ferry port while we were already lazing sea-side!

Brac is a really pretty island. Even the middle bits which are all olive groves and stone quarries (the marble mined there is so good it was used for many of the surrounding palaces and was used in the US’s White House).

20 minutes later we were dropped off at bus station, which is at the one end of the Riva (promenade) and walked the length of the coast on the wide white stone paved walkway, mercifully shaded by overhanging, to Zlatni Rat.

Gorgeous coastline, famous for its peninsula, which is like a triangle with its pointy bit in the sea, with pine trees forming a smaller triangle within it (providing shade and a natural calming aroma) and with water that is crystal clear at shoreline and goes through the turquoises and azures to a rich navy blue where there is coral and flora on the sea bed.

Heaven.

Except it’s a pebble beach.

Really not funny on the (office) feet. We placed our towels almost at the water’s edge – which is quite static and predictable since the sea is calm and waveless (to the point that people were lurking around on lilos) – and still struggled with hobbling the metre or so up to the water and the next metre or so into the sea so we could swim.

Still, it was an excellent day of fun in the sun and a good time was had by all (especially when we snuck into the pool area of the swanky hotel to revel in the smoothness of the floor of the pool, languish on the (free) loungers and prepare for the return journey with a lovely warm outdoor shower.

We returned to the same restaurant as the previous day (the promenade was heaving and we didn’t want to queue) for a delighful dinner of (me) veal medallions with mushroom sauce and croquettes (of course called muschroom sauce and crochets – lots of Engrish here, like the ‘salty cocked’ potatoes and ‘ball cheese’ as a pizza topping) and (Christian) salmon, chips and a potato and spinach mix.

THURSDAY

I finally got my Cevapi for breakfast on our last morning. It’s a tough, round ciabatta-like roll, as big as a pita, filled with meat fingers (beef mince chipolata), a red spicy relish and a choice of the usual schwarma-style garnishes and fillings. Very yum. And pleased to have managed a local dish. Disappointed to have not managed to find the other local dish that appealed – pasticada, which is apparently a meat stew to die for. Might have to look it up on the internet for a Slow Cooker Monday.

Had a bit of a drama when we tried to book our connecting train for that night (Zagreb to Venice) only to be told it was full. Panicked investigations resulted in ditching our existing Split to Zagreb plane tickets and booking an overnight coach to Trieste instead, from where we would take the last leg as it came (assured that Trieste to Venice is a regular and frequent route).

Plans in place we were able to enjoy our last day in Croatia in Split’s neighbouring town, Trogir, which has the notable feature of closest island to the coast – a 50 metre bridge joins it to the mainland. The town spans the mainland and the island houses it’s original Old City (the usual castle, churches and old buildings) and is allegedly nicknamed Little Venice (not sure why, maybe can tell you when we get there).

Had a relaxing afternoon at Kaleta Kanoba (tavern). Spaghetti Genovese, pizza with Dalmatian ham (called prsut, more or less proscuitto) and more beers.

Soon enough we were on the bus, headed for Trieste (to get to Venice) and hoping for the half sleeping tablet to make the 10.5 hour trip mercifully fly by!