Tag Archives: travelogue

Asia, Travelogue, Vietnam

Travelogue SEA 4: Ho Chi Minh City

2 Comments

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!

Croatia, Eastern Europe, Europe, Travelogue

Travelogue EE 4: Zagreb

ZAGREB

14 August 2010

Having done one helluva music festival and all our sight-seeing in Budapest (including some things we didn’t want to see, like the punk assuming the number 2 position on the pavement right outside Sziget on a road full of people making their way to the station), we were very ready to move on to Croatia. And very ready meant up and out in a 05h45 taxi to catch the 06h30 train!

We nonetheless managed to pass pleasantries with the driver, who was very well-spoken in English (very uncommon in Budapest based on our experiences) and apparently a few other languages, which he learnt on course in winter when it was quiet season for him. He told us that the lack of English was because kids had to learn Russian in school as a mandatory second language during the communist regime so English was optional. Makes sense.

The train trip from Budapest to Zagreb was 7 hours, made easier because we’d left so early (and been out so late the night before) and slept the first 3 away. A few games of Spite & Malice and a happy picnic pack (our now usual smokey bacon chips, bananas, drinking yoghurt, chocolate milk and choc chip cookies) helped pass the rest of the journey relatively painlessly.

Got to Zagreb and were immediately enchanted. It was a city that neither of us had any burning desire to go to, but had included primarily compelled because it’s the capital and seconded because Budapest to Dubrovnik direct would have been a hell of a journey to tackle in one go. There was no direct flight – we would have had to go via Paris if you can believe it! And no online train routes because too many stops, and car and bus simply too long to want to do.

Zagreb is a lovely city and very easy to move around. Trams and buses right outside the train station, with simple and logical routes covering all sides of the city – a welcome change from Budapest’s complicated mesh (made more irritating by how unbelievably close together the stops are – no more than a couple of hundred metres each, making for a very stopstart journey!)

A short tram ride and we were at Ban Jelacic Square, which is the hub of the city, with parks and museums between the station and the square, restaurants, shops and hotels around the square and presumably residential and suburbs up the hill and beyond.

We found our hotel with little trouble. Hotel might be a strong word though. We made our way to reception, which was housed in a third storey apartment and were met there by 2 stoner types who look like they don’t leave the apartment much (and are happy with that). One had a glass eye – an odd running theme with the guy on the Gautrain sitting in front of us who had an eye-patch (and moved because the sun was in his eye!), a fellow patron at the table next to us later that day with a noticeably lazy eye and a chap called Istvan Kiss we’d spotted on a Budapest House Of Terror monument that had the squintest squint eyes we’ve ever seen.

Anyway, turns out we’re in the 3rd storey apartment – but they count from reception up, so we had to put the lug into luggage and haul them up SIX flights of stairs. The stoners had warned us that we might happen upon an old lady who cleans the apartment. Also turns out that the ‘cleaner’ is actually the primary inhabitant of the flat and ‘our apartment’ really is a sleeper couch in her front room! This was hardest on Christian with his aversion to shared bathrooms, but softened with the building’s prime positioning on the main happening street in town.

Said street’s name was something wildly unpronounceable – like a lot of things here. Between the lack of vowels and a whole bunch of accents, kappies, inverted kappies and double dots, we don’t have a hope of phoneticising anything so have taken to renaming almost everywhere and everything to suit our tongue better. Our ‘cleaner’ had also provided FIVE ply toilet paper. We joked about it being so absorbant that it just about cut out needing the toilet as the middleman! *grin*

Grabbing a quick pizza slice (despite ourselves, being fascinated then horrified how traditional food has been quite hard to come by while there is a pizza bar or spaghettaria on every corner) we hit the sight-seeing. The tourist bureau at the station had given us a lovely glossy book, with routes mapped and pictures, descriptions and historical significance of everything we needed to see. A very manageable walk and we saw almost everything – lots of parks, museums, fountains, statues, old buildings and churcheschurcheschurches.

With best intentions of pausing for sundowners and a bite before seeing the last quadrant of the city, we settled into the brauhaus we’d earlier pinpointed as watering hole of choice. We’d narrowed the search from a leaflet at the train station and that serendipitously happened to not only be across the road from our lodgings, but was also recommended unprompted by Glass Eye Guy. The pub was called Pivnica Mali Medo (mountain of the bears). We were lucky enough to get an outside table on this stiflingly hot (mid 30 degrees!) and humid day. All the restaurants have pavement tables, but the roads are narrow so tables are limited and there were loads of people out and about being Saturday evening in downtown Zagreb.

We shared 2 excellent local specialities: goulash pasta and mixed grill of Medin Brlog pub sausage, chicken fillet, minced meat fingers, braised potatoes, overdone beans, and mustard. Christian’s beer was a darker red ale called Mrki Medvjed and mine a light lager called Zlatni Medvjed. We had several. We also had a few Jagermeisters, which they serve in a tumbler with ice and lemon – we got some funny looks when we threw it back so surmise that it was considered a sipping drink in Croatia.

We ended up rolling out of there the better part of midnight, having had a most excellent time (and having only spent about R220 for the whole bangshoot! Bargain!)

SUNDAY

Word to the wise planning a stay in Zagreb. If you’re only spending one night (as we did) and think you may end up overdoing it on bar street (as we did), do it on a Friday night, not a Saturday night (as we did). Church bells start chiming at a ridiculously early hour. Every few minutes another church starts its sequence. We’re guessing it’s because there are so many churches in such a small town that they all need to get a go and – rather than a deafening cacophony on the hour – they’ve dished out random times, so you’ll for example get a church that relishes it’s turn and goes hammer and tongs celebrating the 23rd minute of each hour or somesuch. Not easy the morning after the night before… When it’s already sweltering outside! … and your ‘apartment’ only has net curtains!

We did manage to pull ourselves toward ourselves and do a flash half hour trot around the last quadrant ticking the last few must-see checkboxes. We were very sorry to say goodbye to Zagreb – it was an amazing little city and well worth including in your itinerary if you’re ever in the neighbourhood.

But super-excited to see what was going on in Dubrovnik.

Eastern Europe, Europe, Hungary, Travelogue

Travelogue EE 3: Budapest / Sziget

BUDAPEST / SZIGET

11 -13 August 2010

Got up and breakfeasted Kyjev-style and then in a taxi and off to Hlavni Stanica (train station – the very ‘humble’ one mentioned in Travelogue 2) to board for the train to Budapest. Fortunately only a 2.5 hour ride as people fall over themselves to get the seats with a table (the ones where the seats face each other with a table in between), which wouldn’t be so bad if they actually used the table… but most just go to sleep or read a book, which leaves us card-playing-surfaceless for nothing 🙁

Fortunately had emailed beforehand and gotten very clear and literal directions from station to hotel because Budapest is far bigger and more confusing than the previous cities. There’s very little English signage (or spoken) and far more public transport options. Of course, by following the directions so literally when we arrived – in our excitement to get to the festival – ended up at Sziget without having taken down our address, so in essence not knowing where we live!

Where we live…

We were staying at Hotel Lucky. A nice enough place, where we were lucky enough to get the round turret room which makes for easy identification and good story 🙂 The day concierge was a bit of a challenge. We’ve taken to calling him Basil (Fawlty)… and not calling him at all. He’s got an annoying habit of echoing questions, eg:

Christian: if we take the blue metro line…

Basil: the blue Metro line?

Christian: yes, the one that connects to the red Metro line…

Basil: the red Metro line?

Christian: the one that runs this way *points to map of underground system*

Basil: runs this way? *adjusts specs*

Christian: how do we get to Obudai Sziget?

Basil: Oboduai Sziget?

Christian: never mind.

Hence, we left ‘home’ without thinking to ask for an address.

With some effort, we did manage to suss the trams, trolleybusses, busses and trains to get to Sziget Festival. Incidentally, ‘Sziget’ means ‘island’ in Hungarian, and the festival is held on an island in the Danube in Budapest.

The festival was amazing! People streeeaming in all afternoon and evening, but no queues. Very well organised. Sadly, the beer sponsor was Dreher, which wasn’t one of our favourites, but the blow was softened when we got to do the free ‘Dreher in the Sky’, which was like the Dinner in the Sky concept they had at Monte Casino a while back (which cost R1000 or more) and we were strapped into a seat and suspended at a table 50m in the air to enjoy(ish) a cold (and free) pint of Dreher – and the views of the festival below, the city beyond and the countryside for miles around. Very cool. And free (foreign concept for SA, where am sure they’d have charged a fortune).

All the bands we saw were brilliant as well.

First on our roster was The Toy Dolls. THIRTY years they’ve been doing their thing! They were amazing. Never had been on my ‘must see’ list, but super-glad we saw them. Nelly The Elephant seems to be as much a classic here as it is at home and all sorts were jumping around singing along about Nelly’s absconding from the circus. And by all sorts, we mean all sorts – punks, trendy sorts, preppy lots, princesses, mohawks of all descriptions, you name it, they were out to play! Funfunfun.

Caught the tail end of Ska-P, who are a Spanish ska band. Have noted to look them up as their performance was excellent and they seem to be really well known by lots of people (here). Don’t necessarily agree with all their politics (inevitable in this genre), but we can overlook that (especially the bits sung in Espanol hehe).

Then off to grab a slice of pizza (seemingly the staple fast food source of Eastern Europe) and hit Ill Nino. Can’t believe I only heard them for the first time a few weeks ago – very sad that i have wasted so much time!! They were madly excellent. They played in the MTV Headbangers Stage, so was a trifle warm (Mick’s phone weather app would have called it an ‘flan-flopping high 30-somethings and sweaty’… and been right for a change) but still, was totally worth losing the moisture. Definitely going to spend more time on them when I get home.

Managed to work our way back to main stage to catch the last few songs of The Hives. Good performance, lead singer is a bit up his own though.

Beers and Jagers later plus a whirl past the merch stand to see what was on offer (and narrowing down to about 10 tees we simply couldn’t live without) and a flit through the market. Lots of food and drink options … and a Vans stall with prices so heinously low that I was credit card ready… but Christian seems to hate shoes and not want me to have any more ever… and something about impractical to carry around a festival or something.. and I left empty-handed. And -souled. (And -soled).

Madness was incredible. Also a 30 year commemoration tour, with all the favourites and some more fan-pleaser oldies. Awesome stage presence, album-perfect delivery, a TON of fans pogo-ing and walk-dancing about the place. Lots of fun.

Last but not least, Christian’s favourite band of all time – Bad Religion. Also a 30 year tour for them! Am so glad I did the research I did (had been warned) as REALLY enjoyed their show… alongside Christian who was so in his element that there are no words to describe 🙂 They delivered an hour and a half of literally back-to-back songs (not a word or a breath between tracks, just straight from one into the next!) and sounded like I’m sure they did 30 years ago – only giveaway of aging was the bald and balding band and the lead singers ensemble of jeans and red plain golf shirt (which I’m sure that no new punk band would dare, opting rather for some long shorts / angry-message tee shirt and certainly dreads / mohawk / unnatural coloured hairdo). Still, books and covers, they were as energetic and spritely as any of the young bands we’ve seen or saw there). Good on them.

NEEDING merch to commemorate the experience, headed to the tee tent only to be told they’d closed for the night (despite us having checked twice earlier in the day to ensure we didn’t miss out and being told both times that it was open until 3). This was about 1.30 so we weren’t having any of that. After extensive debate we managed a Bad Religion shirt (shh, don’t tell Christian cos it’s a bday present), a The Hives tee for me and a festival tee each.

Then headed for home. Bustling train station, packed train and we ended up at a station we didn’t know (having followed to advice that C got from the Van’s attendant while i was shopping), so ended up looking up the hotel’s address on the internet (what did we do before it?!) and getting a cab. Only got home about 3 in the end, can’t imagine what time it would have been if we’d persevered with public transport!

All in all, an awesome festival. Highly recommend to anyone considering it! (and so civilised to be able to festival and then commute to a warm bed and running water etc).

THURSDAY

Thursday we did some sight-seeing. Hadn’t intended to do much with the day having gotten in so early (late), but it’s a city that sucks you in because everything is so close together. Started with the Buda side, checking out the Citadel and Gellert Hill, then on for a walk around the Buda Castle (a whole mountain top complex), through the Palace (which is the opening of the Castle), onto the Church of St Michael and the Fisherman’s Bastion – a look-out point with spectacular views over Pest.

Taking the Chain Bridge (famous as the first bridge to connect Buda and Pest across the Danube) to St Stephen’s Basillica, the largest church in Budapest (and there are many!). Then potentially the most exciting stop of the day – Burger King! Christian had the special – California Whopper, beef burger with guacamole and salsa – and I had the cheese and bacon whopper (obviously). The special also has kettle-fried style chips (but hot like fries), really excellent and we intend to try and microwave Flannigan’s at home to see if we can get the same effect.

All fuelled, we took a quick walk to Parliament Square. What a breath-taking building!! HUGE (691 rooms – largest building in Budapest) and all neo-gothic ‘n stuff…

Had a bit of a hitch there. Decided to go to Acquincum, which is a Roman ruins town just past the Island we’d been on the day before. We had little trouble finding out where it is, nor mapping our route, but couldn’t find the Metro station! Barely perceptible nestled in among the office buildings alongside all the splendour and wonderment of Parliament and Kossuth Park. Eventually found it – and enjoyed the downtime, letting the train do the work for a change. Quite interesting, but the (local) staff didn’t do it justice with their lacklustre attitudes and seeming indifference to us as patrons and interested tourists. Those Romans were a clever bunch, they had underfloor heating and running sewerage systems even back then in 100 AD.

Had a marvellous sundowners session on Margit Island – the one before Sziget Island – named after the poor princess whose dad promised to confine her to a nunnery on the island if some political thing or another was ceded to him. It was and he did. She was only 9, poor thing. Place was a bit more upbeat for us and it was great to kick off shoes and sip daiquiris watching the sun set over the Danube.

Stayed a bit too long and ended up on a fruitless mission to try and find a late dinner. But it’s holiday, so still fun to make way back to hotel and have a dinner of plain salted chips over pints of (our least favourite so far) Dreher and playing some cards. 🙂

FRIDAY

Friday was chill day. Headed out of town a bit to Memento Park, which is an outdoor exhibition of communist statues and plaques, with memorabilia (that’s what they call it, really just some t-shirts, caps and postcards) and there’s a phone booth where you can listen to communist dictators’ speeches. Was cool to see Stalin’s Boots, which is the remains of a Stalin statue that was toppled during the 1956 revolution and never rebuilt because Stalin was already dead, so they just left the boots. Wouldn’t rush to recommend the park to anyone (except Neal).

Headed back to town – more trains, trams and busses – and another Burger King. Got a ‘Party Pack’ of 2 double cheese and bacon burgers, 2 XL fires, 5 chicken pieces (mini), 6 burritos (more like little deep fried Mexican spring rolls) and onion rings. That ruined our plans of traditional Hungarian dinner; who has space after all that?!

Walked the length of the picturesque, but underwhelming, Andrassy Avenue to see Heroes Square and Varosliget Park and stumbled across a mini German beer fest. Good laugh. And left us on the right side of the park to head to Mexico Street station and catch a tram back to the hotel. We had finally got the hang of this transport system – it can get you from anywhere to anywhere, but every journey is complicated with multiple changes and multiple modes of transport.

Found a gem of a spot called Randevu (there are lots of cute anglicisations, like ‘csendvic’ which is totally phonetic for sandwich) – where we had a quick beer while waiting for our tram… at R14 for a 500ml AND a 300ml Arany Aszok! We were so marvelling at our bargain that we missed the tram – and had another round while we waited for the next one *grin*

Overall, Budapest was a bit of a surprise after Prague and Bratislava. It is much bigger and more bustling. The people are very unhelpful (we’re inconclusive as to whether they don’t speak English or don’t want to). The transport systems are very complicated, not helped by all signage being in Hungarian only and the language is VERY foreign with long words and all sorts of punctuation we don’t have. The Communists clearly let the place go to rack and ruin and it was such a shame that beautiful old buildings were in such a state – grotty and dirty and unkempt – and there was graffiti everywhere. The funniest of which we saw on Gellert Hill’s look out point where people have tagged the pillars with their favourite bands, reading from left to right: Megadeth, Kiss, Satan, Slayer, Warrant, Metallica, Def Leppard, early Bon Jovi. Got a pic of that teeheehee.

Back at the hotel and destined for bed, we were prepped and ready for our super-early start for Zagreb in the morning *yawn*

Austria, Eastern Europe, Europe, Slovakia, Travelogue

Travelogue EE 2: Bratislava – Vienna

BRATISLAVA & VIENNA

08 – 10 August 2010

It made practical and economical sense to do Bratislava and Vienna from one or the other as a homebase since the two cities are only 47km apart.

So there we were, on the train from Prague, when Christian went “oh shit, we’re here!”. ‘Here’ being Bratislava of course.

What a non-event of a station. Looked as desolate and ramshackle as the last few very rural ones had – and we’d expected something a little more urban and impressive. Nonetheless, new places and excitement. Jumped into a taxi (a 1980-ish Opel Astra) with an aging rocker-style driver, blaring Iron Maiden while pointing at things ‘n stuff along the way and repeatedly telling us everything was “Short walk. Centrum”, with Yellow Pages finger walking motions for full effect.

Bratislava seemed very grimy, dirty and ‘modern’ compared to Prague (ie not the pretty old facades and bridges, rather grey, grimy glassed buildings you’d expect in Pretoria or any other place that had a building spurt in the ’70s and little interest paid since). We had a bit of a sinking feeling that maybe we’d started on too high a note, to the detriment of the more modest Central European countries, and that we’d made the wrong choice opting for the extra night in Bratislava over one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Vienna.

But all was not lost… we loved our hotel from first moment.

Described as “70s retro” by their own website (www.hotelkyjev.com), the place is a gem, with a little yellow Police Trabbant in the foyer, amazingly helpful staff (who speak good English), a pocket-buster of a metal art nouveau room keyring… and pints for 1 Euro in the lobby bar (emblazoned everywhere as ‘the best price in Bratislava’ – we subsequently checked and it sure is!).

The room was spartan in a 70’s porn way, with an all-in-one built-in carpeted headboard, side-table cum ledgey thing coupling with a mid-shin coffee table and a burgundy velvet(een) chair to make a very comfortable seating amenity, next to the double-paned windows with blinds between the panes (boy did that keep us entertained for the first few minutes) and the brightest, happiest, least hotel-ish yellow, orange and brown floral curtains you have ever seen!

We tested the in-house bar. The pints were indeed 1 Euro each (and very lovely cold Staropramens – new favourite so far – at that) and the staff amazingly accommodating and friendly (seeing as we got there at 22h50 and they close at 23h00 after actually working an entire day). They forgot to mention on the flyers that the bar also has the highest barstools in Bratislava (and potentially the world, I bet). Which was ironic since the locals all seem quite stocky, men topping out at about 5ft8.

MONDAY

They did a cracker of a buffet breakfast too. Always hate a continental breakfast, feeling like – being the morning person I am (not) – the effort to be grateful for the breakfast inclusion isn’t worth the croissant and fruit offering. This one was a pleasant surprise!

– cereals x 3 with chilled milk (didn’t touch)
– Danishes and breakfast pastries platters (didn’t touch)
– fruit (nabbed an apple and orange for later)
– yoghurt (had a strawberry one at breakfast, Christian took a raspberry take-away)
– bread baskets with white and brown rolls and slices of health bread (nabbed rolls for breakfast AND lunch take-aways)
– cold meats platter (nabbed 2 types of ham and salami for lunch rolls)
– cheese slices in 2 light cheese varieties and a basket of cream cheese triangles (liberal handful grabbed)
– fried and scrambled eggs (me scrambled, Christian fried)
– bacon: strange little 5cm x 3cm mini-slices, half fat, half meat (grabbed a heap of that mmmm)
– viennas (nabbed)
– chourico (nabbed)

Too many goodies so we did cooked breakfast subs at the table and made ham and cheese rolls for take away and hit the streets of Bratislava.

We had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to see as we’d spent some time studying the map in the bar the night before. We had no idea how close everything was though. Turns out that everything’s a couple of roads this way or that and it’s a really manageable city to navigate around – fortunately with enough to see and do for us to keep ourselves out of trouble for the better part of the day. We walked ourselves flat, touring the Castle, seeing countless churches (including one called The Blue Church, very obviously from it’s garish brrrright blue paint job worthy of no less than Lenasia! Not sure if this is a sign or a warning seeing as things have finally started moving on The Blue House), the Old Square, the Old Town etc etc.

Couldn’t defy convention, so settled into a nice avenue cafe for some sundowners in anticipation of the final trawl home. The Hare Krishna squad had set up shop in the park opposite and were dishing out mounds of white, reddish and yellowish stuff. Likely rice and lentil sorts of things. Bratislava’s needy were an orderly, presentable and well-behaved bunch, queuing for their plateful, retiring to the park to eat, rejoining the queue and wash/rinse/repeating until it was all gone. Not sure where they went afterwards though because, despite it’s humble first impressions, the city is spotless and seemingly free of vagrants or underworld of any sort.

Stopped en route back to the hotel to get a ‘Rich Man‘, which Christian had read about online. A chain of sandwich shops (seemingly mostly operating from little portable kiosk akin to the cell phone ones at home) that specialise in a heated sandwich with ham, cheese, mayo and cabbage. 1,60 Euros for a mammoth sandwich that fed the 2 of us. We tried, we like.

Quiet evening in (beer and cards in the hotel bar) to save strength for impending day trip to Vienna (oh, and we were knackered from a day of pushing the pavements. And we love our hotel) and then ended the day with a quick visit to the local KFC. Very disappointing. Mash very good, gravy like coloured water. Skinny chips like McD’s, but cold and chewy. I had the Grander burger, punted as the equivalent of a Chomp to a baby hippo. All that was bigger was the bun, so the poor little chicken fillet looked like Nigel No Mates. On a BROWN bun. I mean, really? Christian’s Tower Zinger was OK.

Still counting ourselves lucky we didn’t hit the McD’s though. Had interest piqued since Prague by their new campaign, which is all blue background, with a feature burger… with a whale tail behind it. Seriously. Closer inspection seems to indicate that the blue / whale theme is supposed to be Mediterranean. The feature menu is:
1) Tzatziki and feta beef burger on a herby focaccia
2) Parmesan beef burger on a parmesan ciabatta
3) Provenciale crinkle cut potato wedges
4) Tempura-style deep fried prawns

Check it out http://www.mcdonalds.sk/sk/novinky/prid_na_chut_stredomoriu.shtml . Very odd.

TUESDAY

Up and out bright and breezy this morning. Same routine with the breakfast / take-away rolls for lunch routine, then out for a brisk walk to the bus station to catch the 09h30 to Vienna. Although only something laughable like 47kms away, the bus takes an hour and a half, slowing to a crawl through some very narrow one-lane country towns along the way. Very pretty countryside though – and still pleased not to have to drive as the right hand side of the road is no more comfortable than when we first got here.

Great day out in Vienna. Beautiful city, with beautiful old buildings and plazas, conveniently tightly locked in a very manageable epicentre so we got to see everything – and some stuff we wouldn’t have bothered with had they been any further out seeing as we were on foot and only had the one day to explore. Got loads of pics of us posed like proper tourists in front of all sorts of buildings and fountains that am sure will be a challenge to caption when the time comes, but still…

Made a stop in at the 1516 Brewing Company and tried out the local recommendations, then hit the other side of the Danube to see what the residential quarters had to offer. Managed to find a cosy little wendy-house type thing to settle in for our sarmies and joked that with property prices what they’re likely to be, this would be our new settling home should we move to Vienna (which incidentally, we think we’d do in a flash).

Caught the Twin City liner down the Danube for a riverboat route home and can’t say there’s much to report on the journey or view. (Probably because we were both napping after another day of marathon mileage on foot).

Boat docked in the new part of Bratislava, which we hadn’t bothered with. Glad it did – awesome marina with loads of riverfront bars and cafes, a live concert set-up, wonderous sunset… and the inevitable sundowners (Christian’s beered out now and onto wine).

Sticking with the mariners theme, fish, calamari and chips for dinner, accompanied by a local special – potato dumplings with bryndza (sheep) cheese. very good.

Up and off to Budapest tomorrow. Might have to have a lasty in the hotel bar tonight to get Christian to sleep any – he’s super-excited about seeing Bad Religion tomorrow! Bring on Sziget!!

Czech Republic, Europe, Germany, Travelogue

Travelogue EE 1: Munich & Prague

MUNICH & PRAGUE

05 – 08 August 2010

Our adventure began with using the Gautrain for the first time. Beating the rush hour in Sandton was the first victory, the short queues and helpful kiosk assistants were the second and the literal 12 minute train journey the coup de gras! Well worth the R100 each!

Victory was hollow however, having arrived at the OR Tambo International Airport pre-5pm for a 20h40 flight and waiting around for the check-in gate numbers to be posted, which just never happened. When we eventually got to check in, we were horrified to find that we had seats pre-booked by our travel agent (the lovely people at eBucks who had almost lost my ticket completely because they spelled my name wrong in the original booking) THIRTY PLUS rows apart. Awesome. We managed to change them, but the only seat left side-by-side were in the middle of the middle of the 4 seat rows.

Turned out OK though as somehow Lufthansa seems to have INCREASED the size of their seats and the amount of legroom… although this loss of income clearly must be subsidised by their savings on the entertainment front – the only ‘new’ movie was Sherlock Holmes (the Robert Downey Junior one), the majority ‘classics’ and the never-tempting Avatar in a category all to itself. Lufthansa must be monitoring my Twitter account as they managed to thwart the ‘chicken AND beef’ strategy by only having lamb left by the time they got to us. Hhhmpf.

Fortunately we had very quiet and reserved neighbours (and half a sleeping tab each) so managed 6 hours of uninterrupted blissful slumber, waking just in time for the ‘quiche’ breakfast. Amazing what those airline chefs can do with (or rather, to) an egg!

We had an 8 hour stop-over in Munich until the flight to Prague, so we darted into town to the Marienplatz for a very early beer, sausage and pretzel breakfast. The Germans are clearly very experienced with their sausaging; marvellous idea to serve them (in this case weisswurst white veal sausages) in a turine of boiling water to keep them juicy and hot. Slicing and dicing them, dipping into sweet mustard and complementing with sections of salty bready pretzels makes for a wunderbar snacky-cake!

Pity the weather was lousy, very drizzly and mizzy, so we didn’t do much walking around… but we did find the Hofbrauhaus! Big Daddies all round! Christian got bust doing the photo ninja to an Oriental group. They took it in good spirits however and asked if we would actually pose in a picture with them. Mom and teenage son piled onto our beer bench and – arms around shoulders and toothy grins later – Dad took the pics. Christian then offered to take a pic of them, which they seemed quite excited about, clambering over each other to let him out, then letting mom in to sit next to me for the next ‘family holiday pic’.

Further family fun was provided due east of our table where a pre-teen was sitting with dad (?) and uncle (?) enjoying his Hot Wheels colouring-in book between swigs on a pint. To be fair though, he was only drinking pints and not 1 litre steins like the rest of us! Ironically, the oldies next to us were giving US the beady eye while we were trying to surreptitiously get a photo of the young ‘un.

Attempted without success to find a pizza bar to get a good pic of “Germans in the Pizza Bar” for the album (See F***ing Fulfords reference) and then it was back to the airport without incident (or excitement) (but maybe a short nap) and we were off to Prague!

Taxi guy waiting when we got there, we were planted at the apartment, with Christian’s cousin Lucy and her hubby Mick all ready and waiting to meet-and-greet with cold beers and Cava sparkling wine (and Mick’s genius refrigerated glasses). Anyone planning to stay at Krakovska 3 when visiting Prague should know that Apartment 19 (Mick & Lucy’s) was the one used for the photos for all the web references. The rest of the building looks nothing like it. They got the looks, but we got the TV and washing machine. Granted only sport and Czech channels and it was our first day so we had no washing, but still…

Straight off into the Prague night, deftly avoiding being too close to one-man-bandness and super-chuffed to be where we were, we slugged back some beers and played catch-up and nice-to-meet-yous.

Prague is excellent, but don’t eat at Mike’s Cafe. We did. Trying to sample Czech cuisine, we’d bypassed firm favourites like the Colonel and Mickey D’s and the one-on-every-corner pizza/pasta spots to find somewhere authentic. Drinks served and ready to order from their Czech Speciality section, we were told they were out of Goulash and Czech Chicken (which was 3 of our 4 orders). Hmmmm.

Christian and I ordered the pork steak, which was served looking and tasting a lot like beef steak, but the waiter, having consulted his notepad (rather than the meal itself) was indignant and aggressively insistent that it was pork. No chance. Mick had the ‘tabaco’ chicken, which was described in the menu as ‘chicken (with garlic, spicy)’. When Mick asked the waiter what the chicken was all about he said it was “chicken, with garlic. spicy”. Very helpful. Especially from someone who’d moments earlier told us that they were out of chicken.

Nonetheless, good time had by all… and we headed for home to rest up for the Big Weekend ahead. Sniffles had set in, likely from the plane germs and walking around in the rain, so Mother Cain’s Care Package was welcome solace, with a comforting Lem Sip putting us out like lights. Very street.

SATURDAY

Saturday was sadly also intermittently rainy, but didn’t dampen spirits! Our hotel was amazingly well situated, right at the top of Wenceslas Square by the museum, making for easy landmarking and being a natural starting point to adventure through the centre, past the Astronomical Clock, over King Charles Bridge and into the Old Town (and up the hill trek to the castle etc). Found a most excellent pub to wile away the afternoon in – medieval tavern style – dark and dingy and all by candlelight. A quick beer became several (as we do).

Disillusioned from previous night’s meal debacle, we decided to play it safe and opt Indian. We shared a lamb madras and a butter chicken, with garlic Naan bread (and the inevitable ubiquitous Praha beer) – a rare gem on Stepanska Street and really recommendable (and the Cain / Lawton / Newcombe lines are no beginners to curry, I’m told).

A lick and a promise later, we were out for the night, ditching the planned tour pub crawl because it was too far to mission in the rain and sliding down the stairs to the Majora Zemana pub literally next door to the hotel. Interesting spot. hundreds of open books nailed to the roof to create a lowered layered ceiling, weird wallpaper of pages from what looked like genetic experiments and rare diseases, life-size mannequins in military uniforms, weird Communist looking portraits painted directly onto the walls, arms and ammunition suspended from the rafters and a map showing what Europe would have looked like in 1941. Tried to take some pics, but the waitron rushed over, index finger extended and wagging and told us ‘No photo! No photo! Police bar’. Uh-huh.

The rest of the pub crawl relied more on us and our witty banter and cracking humour to keep ourselves entertained – 2 Irish bars, a rock ‘n roll themed bar and the knock-knock Club (24-hour with slot machines, crusty locals, dodgy Czech music-heavy jukebox and Blade 2 on the TV).

A good night had by all 🙂

SUNDAY

On Sunday we did the last of the city that we hadn’t seen in ‘abundant sunshine’ (Mick’s weather forecaster’s prediction) and succumbed to pizza slices for breakfast – although in our defence we had entered the sandwich shop we got them from in order to buy, you guessed it, sandwiches. They ‘were out’. Same like the Czech dishes the night before, but different.

We had a really good river stroll which showed us most of the city from a whole new perspective – and it was the perfect weather for it – and then wandered through the old town again and headed back up towards our hotel from an unchartered angle.

Found a delightfully local looking spot to have lunch – finally tracking down the goulash we’d been after. Good 3 course meal option. Easy for us, not so much for Lucy. Being a vegetarian, she wasn’t doing the goulash, but inquired about the breaded cauliflower, only to be told they ‘were out’. False alarm this time though and they came back resolved that they indeed had it and she was on the 3-course bandwagon. Only to find that the lentil soup we’d been served for starters had bacon in it! Clearly, I’m not the only person who thinks bacon is garnish and should be an honorary vegetable!

Fed and watered (well, beered), we meandered back to the hotel, got our stuff, said our goodbyes and headed for the train station. Christian is really good at the time-keeping thing (me not so much) so we were (over-)cautiously early, with a good 45 minutes on our side. And then the train was delayed. What a waste of what could have been more Praha-haha time.

No mind though, very comfortable train and fleeting journey, taught Christian Spite & Malice (the very best card game ever) and before we knew it we were in Hotel Kyjev in Bratislava.

But more about that at another time…