From our own corespondent...
Chris's 1998 World Travels
From our own corespondent...
|
|
The following writing is built up from email messages I've sent back during my travels round the world in 1998. I started on February 13th and got back on 11th December, all limbs intact! The rough route was India, Nepal, Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, Borneo, Thailand, Laos and finally China.
|
Currently in Bangalore, central south India, and it's baking hot - Sai's packing hints have been good so far, although my micro towel achieves its incredibly small size by losing the ability to dry things. Started in Bombay which was huge, sprawly, and smelt terrible (sanitation has not been invented there yet) - was really crowded and intense, but then on Sunday everyone stopped to play cricket in all the streets - there's cricket in Madras next week so am thinking of going.
Goa was like Glastonbury without the mud, but with some wrinkled hippies whose watches must have stopped in the sixties - lots of people pegging round on motorbikes with dreadlocks, but quite relaxing, and amazing palm beaches. Sat at an estuary watching sea eagles and red kites dive-bombing the water only yards away. Drinks are smashing - fresh green coconuts you drink through a straw for about a pint of sweet coconut milk, and fruit juices all the while.
After a week relaxing in Goa went eastwards to Hampi, an old ruined city, which was amazing - something between "The lost world" and "Tombraider"! Loads of abandoned temples to explore by flashlight, waking up the bats, with rooms buried deep within other rooms, and 10th century carvings still largely intact. Slightly marred by the intense heat of over 40 degrees though, which pinned me to the bed during the day - regular power cuts meant I would be lying on the bed as the fan slowed and stopped, filling with dread waiting for the heat to starting leaching in!
Now in Bangalore and contrast could not be greater - lots of 21st century high-tech, with cyber cafes (hooray!!) and a British library so I can catch up on news, although what I read about Mandy's dome all sounds a bit silly and depressing! Met up with a courier, driving instructor and graphic designer so far, next stop down to Mysore then running north away from the heat for tea at Darjeeling. Generally India is great, although you have to be careful that the good high points aren't swamped by day to day annoyances of dirt, dust, heat, and worries about infected food and drink. Good part of trip to look back on I guess.
Quick update
Have finally made it east to Madras, despite the baking heat - I sometimes feel like a cartoon character, drinking a bottle of water it promptly squirts out all the pores.. Kerala and the south west is gorgeous, very green and affluent. It has a stretch called the 'backwaters', sort of like the norfolk broads with added palm trees. Food also smashing, lots of Raitha (curds with salt and vinegar and vegetables), and Masala Dosa which everyone eats for breakfast, like pancake with spicy sauce. Funny english in places - one restaurant had its speciality as 'Chicken Vanish', presumably good for those on diets! Am heading north after this to cooler climes, apparently the south has been uncommonly hot this year, if you thought I have a red neck normally.. :)
From Nepal..
Fair few things have happened - went to Hyderabad to visit the ancient and famed fort of Golconda, name maybe familiar to vampire fans! Very impressive but better was the Qitar Sahab tombs, Muslim mausoleums, ancient but well preserved, and so very quiet. I was exploring one, deep into the centre of a network of passages so it was very dark. I was stood next to the coffin in the centre when there was a 'whack' from round the corner, and shortly after an indian guy appeared with a big stick, said 'good afternoon', and walked off. So later I walked round the way he came, and came across a big black snake laid out across the passageway. As I was in my sandals and not good with snakes at the best of times I decided it was time for a sharp exit, so headed for the nearest door, and when I got into more light I could see loads of snake trails in the sand - I think it was where they slept, and he was hired to kill them - needless to say I didn't go back in!
From there went to Delhi and the north, which was generally much more touristy, with much 'sharper' Indians more tuned into how to part tourists from their cash. Got 400 Rupees stolen by a man who wove an intricate story about taking a photo of his family for him - I have a picture of him outside the 'Gate of India' for my collection, but the police weren't interested, and actually made me drive them round town in an auto-rickshaw and then pay for it afterwards! Delhi was better than expected (some wide tree lined streets), and took advantage of their pizza hut, before Agra - Taj Mahal was if anything better than expected - so elegant, marvelously symmetric proportions, and not gaudy or tacky like many of them are. Sat on a rooftop restaurant watching the sunlight on the Taj as the sun set - great stuff! Windy streets there were also 'stereotypical India', smoky, lots of cows, etc. Next stop Khajuraho, 1000 year old temples covered in very explicit erotic carvings, photos available for a fee, and last stop in India was Varanasi (very close to where GP comes from). Gorgeous place - travelled overnight with little sleep, so a very creaky me saw the sunrise over the Ganges as the people washed themselves and prayed, water buffalo waded in and wallowed, and bodies were cremated and ashes and stuff all tipped in - I then had a good massage on the steps of a Ghat there and breakfast, all before 8am. Definitely one of those things I'll remember, with the mist gradually rising and boats sliding past. Varanasi is a maze of twisty turny passages all looking alike, and to confuse you even more they paint signs on each corner pointing to guesthouses - I started using these to navigate but then found out that there are sometimes several guesthouses with the same name, as they copy the name of the popular ones! Only found this out after putting a good few miles on the clock though. Generally India was fantastic fun, and not really what I expected - I liked the food but didn't eat many curries (preferred the yoghurt dishes), much preferred the south where I generally found the people more friendly, and loved things like the train journeys, where you'd pull into a station at 2 in the morning and throngs of crazy Indians all push through the carriages shouting 'chai chai chai' and trying to sell you tea, or samosas, or ball point pens, or anything they can - not the comfort you get on British Rail but much more character! Religion here is also more fun - little temples sit happily alongside tea stalls and latrines and people just get on with using them, not as stuffy as some of the western stuff. However am not converted to Bollywood music, and apologies to GP but the Bollywood film I saw did not impress me too much! Have to come back some time for Rajistan and the camel rides through the desert, and might try to get to Darjeeling from here for my cup of tea, but for now Nepal with its surfeit of contours is fine! So total route in India was Bombay - Goa - Hampi - Bangalore - Mysore - Kochi/Backwaters/Kerala - Varkala - Madras (Malliaporum,?) - Hyderabad - Delhi - Agra - Khajuraho - Varanasi - Nepal. Highlight was probably Hampi for the temples and sheer 'Indiana Jones' feel of the place, and Varkala for the incredible palm fronded beaches and great sea food.
Finally caught a bus to Kathmandu - for those of you fond of 'Chris late' stories, I was checking out of my hotel at 8am and asked when the late buses were to Kathmandu - they said there were none, and the only bus was 8:30, with no buses the next day. So I sprinted through the backstreets for ages (getting less lost luckily) and sprang onto a cycle rickshaw and told him to peddle like crazy for the other side of town. As we passed the train station the bus to Kathmandu swung across the road and round onto our side and almost hit us - I waved madly at the driver (it was 8:40, luckily Indians run on Chris time too), and he slowed down - I leapt off the moving cycle rickshaw and stuffed money into his hand, threw my rucksack through the bus door and leapt on, making quite an impression I think on the other backpackers on the bus already! After all this action though we reached the border and Nepal was on general strike the next day, so we spent a day in a one-horse border town playing cards.
Nepal so far is just fantastic - there's great trekking, white water rafting, elephant safaris, wildlife reserves with rhinos, you name it - and it's COOL! I was even rained on this morning, bliss! Am looking forward to feeling goosebumps again.. Am currently hoping to do a 3 week trek that goes out to the base camp of Everest but have to check on the weather reports for the trails, as there may be too much snow that way, and will have to hire a lot of kit for that. As a result am delaying my flights and post to Kathmandu I should still get if it leaves in the next few days - the 'last post' date for Thailand is a bit silly and should be active for another three weeks or so.
Plans changed as we got together a bit group of Brits and decided to do several things together. Started with white water rafting, five days travelling down the Kali Gandaki river. This is going to be dammed at the end of the year so we're one of the last groups to do this, and it definitely had some exciting moments! Felt very sorry for Tom who went down with a high fever and had to spend the slow day lying in the centre of the raft covered in T-shirts to keep off the sun. It was like rowing a viking funeral boat or something, but he recovered after a sweaty night.
From Pokhara we headed up to the Anna Purna base camp, around half the height of Everest and a shorter eight day trek. There are two main treks in the Anna Purna region, we went for the more direct one that takes you right into the centre of the horse shoe shaped hoop of mountains. We started off with 8 walkers, but what with variable walking speeds and the odd pulled muscle it ended up with just myself, Tom and Dom struggling up the final glacier through the mist, puffing from the altitude until the base camp loomed up out of the mirk. Once the mist cleared we were treated to incredibly spectacular views of the banked snow creeping up to the mountain peaks all around us. It's towards the end of the season so there are more avalanches, and while at the base camp we saw several of them (from a safe distance!); the noise and furious motion is really frightening, it's definitely not a way I'd like to go.
Spent a day at the top bag sliding down the slopes and playing around before walking back via the hot springs for a big slap up steak meal in Pokhara and a parting of the ways for most of the group.
Time to mention Rhino hunting in Nepal. That was really fantastic, creeping through the bush on foot like 'Jurassic Park', watching the tall grass sway, hiding in the trees, and then seeing large horned rhino bursting through the brush near to us - later on were following the guide when he suddenly turned and ran at us, we turned and ran and found out he'd almost walked into a large adult male rhino - we hid and watched it from beneath a bush. Rhinos are almost my favourite animals, beaten only by bears (naturally) and water buffalo, who are cows with attitude.
Don't know where I last mailed from so will mention Sikkim briefly. This is the region of India between Nepal and Bhutan next to Darjeeling, where the tea was truly magnificent, and is now flying home in large bundles. Got stuck in a tiny town (Kalimpong) and ended up spending the night in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery. This was really fun with all the children monks chanting away in the evening, except that 5 of the monks had TB, so we steered clear of them. Then we were up at 5am to sit cross legged on cushions in the temple listening to the chanting and drinking sweet Tibetan tea.
Then mad rush back to Kathmandu and flew out to Bangkok - major culture shock! It's very western compared to India and Nepal - air conditioning, neon signs, MacDonalds, all the usual trappings. Went to Koh San Road where the backpackers collect. Bangkok certainly lives up to its reputation.. We went to Patpong road with two other English guys (well, it has to be done...), and went into a bar at random, was shocked when Thai girl in swimsuit plonked herself on my lap and started 'steering' my hands - my British prude gland started working overtime then and in a fit of embarassment I finished my beer and got out sharpish! But it's amazing what those women could do with some internal muscles, shooting darts at balloons and other things you wouldn't want to do unless under strict adult supervision.
Also saw the bridge over the River Kwai which was very sobering reading stories from the POWs who built it (when leg ulcers went rotten and gangrenous, the doctors had no medical supplies so told the POWs to stick their limbs in the river so the fish could nibble off the dead flesh - and there were other worse stories than that). Particularly timely, as on the bus there I was reading the newspaper about British war veterans turning their backs on the Japanese emperor.
Then went to Krabi for my beach session and found that Thailand has shut for monsoon season - the palm trees bend like straws and the rain merged seamlessly with the sea, so I ran away inland for a meditation course near Suri Thani.
Ten days, no talking, living a monastic life learning to meditate - sounded great! But no, by day two I was out of there! It was in the middle of the jungle, and some of the delights included dangerous scorpions and centipedes, and pit vipers, one of the most dangerous snakes. They had buckets that you had to put scorpions and centipedes in the morning so they could go and put them out in the forest (no killing things either). I thought this was just them being paranoid, until first morning I woke up, turned my head, and saw a scorpion hanging off the inside of my mosquito net. This did not do much for my 'inner mental coolness'. Bed was concrete slab with bamboo mat on and was around 35 degrees at night. I think I could've just about stuck all this if I liked the course, but it was all 'suppress your feelings' stuff which I don't really agree with, so I found I was fighting against it. We had to do walking meditation around the grounds, shuffling along at 0.01 mph staring at the ground 2 metres in front of you concentrating on breathing - found it hard to take it seriously as everyone looked like a scene from 'Night of the living dead'. Still, an interesting experience!
Now heading south into Malaysia which is so western it's only the occasional chinese sign which stops me thinking I'm in America, although the food is just smashing - bags of ice with fresh lychee juice in, chopped fresh pineapple, jackfruit, or weird things like large kiwi fruit with red spongey spikes on - peel them and they look like fist sized eyeballs but taste lovely (Rambutans I found out later).
Thai food is also to my taste - lots of chilli, peanuts, and nice chicken (chickens have about twice the volume of Indian ones and actually look a little healthy). Next stop Singapore briefly, then flying down to Australia for my years supply of lager in a month or two.
Quick news update, as I'm now scooting up the east coast of Malaysia to try and get to Koh Tao in time to learn to dive before I go to Australia. Malaysia is concrete heaven; whereas in England we build new housing estates they've got the building bug here and there seems to be several new cities popping up. After the Cameron Highlands which were a little corner of Devon (even had a cream tea!), Kuala Lumpar was awe inspiring, some of the top floor office workers must have to use oxygen masks.
Met a nice crowd there of English which was good, as I had some drinking companions for the football (we get it at 10pm, 11:30pm or 3 in the morning for the evening games); my beer consumption has gone back up once again and the missing calories that India stripped off are growing back at an alarming rate!
From KL went down to Melaka where we went on a brilliant river cruise - there were giant lizards swimming around, and we had an insane Indian tour guide who halfway through started telling us about the anti-cancer properties of soya milk and how we should all smile at the flowers! After this it was down to Singapore to stay with Jeff (friend of Paul Wrights) and his three house mates. This was quite a hardship, I was expecting luxury but the guys only had an outdoor swimming pool, play station and well stocked fridge - in addition I fear their washing machine may never recover. But it was a great break from the travels (Paul, please pass on a thankyou for me if you speak to Skippy!), and revised my idea of hard mountain biking after I found out that the one guy biked from Kuala Lumpar to Singapore in a day (300-350km?).
I liked Singapore much more than I thought I would, it's very clean as expected and there seems to be a ratio of 1:2 of shopping centres to people, but it's a really easy place to live - everything works, the food is good and hygenic, etc. Went to the zoo and was slightly disappointed as their Komodo dragons were only tiny, but it was very funny at the primate show when the performing chimps clapped at the audience and the audience in reponse clapped back - definitely relatives!
After Singapore I've been working up the east coast of Malaysia and spent the last week or so on Tioman island, a real paradise island with loads of coral. There's a hilly ridge down the island centre, and when I walked up that I met so much wildlife - hip swinging lizards about 1.5 metres long (they look great as they scoop around in the leaves with their front feet, unfortunately they're really timid so I couldn't get very close), and lots of battling monkeys. I took a tape recorder and was halfway through recording a David Attenborough report on everything I was seeing when I realised the cheap Nepalese batteries had given up the ghost, so all I've got is a few squeeky words and then silence! The rainforest hasn't been chopped there either so it's still virgin, and the tree trunks are vast, with roots like fins on a spaceship. And the palm trees were full of fruit bats that all launched out over the sea at evening time with loads of noise.
Snorkelling is amazing and really freaked me out to start with - something like swimming in a fish tank, and with it all going on a few centimetres below my chest it took a while to get used to the lack of glass between me and the weird things (still a bit nervous about touching anything!) Also had a lot of trouble wedging my glasses into the mask, and end result meant I could see the fish but got a headache. Other people saw turtles and rays (even reef sharks and a barracuda) but I just saw sea slugs, lots of coral and some amazingly coloured fish - armies of spiky anenomes so it looked like an aerial view of troop movements in a battle or something, and even lots of hermit crabs scuttling around as the tide went out in their borrowed shells. All the normal ideas about what you would expect from life are thrown away there - I would see bright purple corals and think "But living things just aren't bright purple!" - these guys have a lot to learn about camouflage.
So nothing too dramatic or life threatening in the last few weeks, now whizzing up to Bangkok to get a flight to Australia, where it's time to visit the real skippy!
Last stop was Malaysia? Was a psychological wreck after staying up all night to see England knocked out of the World Cup, and after that I wandered dazed and confused up through Thailand - went to Ko Samui (coastal party island) when we hired motorbikes. Big mistake, having never driven one before we thought we'd stick to the small inner island roads, but these are also the near vertical ones made from crumbly sand - end result was inevitably stunt slide and nice exhaust pipe burn on my leg (serve me right, biking in shorts, T-shirt and sandals!). Still, healed up now, and I was getting behind on my collection of travel scars.
Bangkok was also exciting where I ended up in fisticuffs with a conman travel agent - travelling with Aidan, an Irish guy who was being ripped off by this travel agent. After we'd been in a few times to receive different stories I decided to go in with my recording walkman, Robin Cook style, and later after Aidan had left I went in again and really wound the guy up. Not sure what I was trying to achieve but it worked as he leapt out from behind his desk to punch me, and after one shot I decided it was time to leave and report it all to the police. Ah, Bangkok! Can't say it's my favourite place on the planet.
G'day - Quick update from Adelaide, cobbers!
After a night of hiding very paranoid in my hotel flew to Darwin in northern Australia and things have looked up since. We got to Ayers rock (Ulluru) which is much larger than I expected, and had a crisis of conscience - to climb or not to climb? There are 5 Aborigine tribes in the area, one say it's fine to climb, one say it's against their beliefs, one are unsure, and the other two are waiting for the unsure decision. Apparently much of their worry comes from a sense of responsibility for any climbers, so if people get blown off or keel over then they have a bad time of it. I was travelling with a fashion writer from London (Sarah), who was determined to climb, and Dylan from Ireland who was determined not to (his friend into Aborigine rights would've broken his arms) - I was sat on the fence. In the end I decided to leave the decision until the morning we were planning to head out. Woke in the morning to the sound of pouring rain - they get an average of 250mm a year and most of it fell on the 23rd July. Rain is about the only thing that closes the path up the rock, so my decision can now remain forever a mystery, since nobody climbed in the end. Still, and now the proud owner of rare photos of waterfalls pouring off Ayers Rock!
Deserts are marvelous - red, and stretching as far as the eye can see, although this rain has brought out yellow catkins, turquoise trees with black trunks, and lots of scrub, so there were lots of colours. Seen a few kangaroos although they're mainly nocturnal - next target is koalas (Kangaroo tastes a bit bland and is pretty chewy, am now taking donations to stop me trying koala bear!)
Next stop was Coober Pedy, where much of Mad Max3 and Priscilla was filmed. Weirdest place I've ever been. Hardly any trees and so most houses are built underground through tunnelling down, plus weather is so extreme there it's the only way to beat the heat. It's a town built around Opal mining and is still totally genuine - hardened guys come in and buy up mining kit from some loser, spend a few years digging, either make it rich and get out, or lose everything and sell their kit on to the next guys. There's only around 1,200 people there and they're all crazy - went round some of the dugout homes and there's stuff all over the walls and a complete lack of perspective on life. One bloke has been collecting rubbish for the last few years and is building a maze - I found it and couldn't work out what on earth it was, all hard hats on twisted metal poles, signs saying 'traditional bushmans toilet', and fly nets stretched between barbed wire sculptures. But the guy fits right in at Coober Pedy! Accommodation was deep underground and was like sleeping in a nuclear shelter, consequence I slept in 12 hours as there was no sunlight to wake me up. Finally took a trip across the plains where they're now filming 'Pitch Black' and it was a bus ride across the moon, albeit in the pouring rain, so turned into more of a slalom where we were only on the road for a bit of the time. (A road in Coober Pedy is defined as any stretch with more than two sets of tyre tracks - tarmac is an unnecessary luxury). Weird place, which I loved for three days but after about two weeks I think I'd be taking up axe murdering there.
Now in Adelaide and it's wet, so am going to take solace in the nearby vineyards tomorrow, home of 'Jacobs Creek' and other Australian specialities.. Generally Oz is streets ahead of Thailand and Malaysia though - friendly slightly crazed people, large open spaces and bizarre wildlife - I'm in my element! Next step is going walkabout in the bush..
The Oz Experience
Lots happened since I last mailed - the motto for my australian experience is now 'veni vidi munchie' as I've travelled this continent eating all the delights it has to offer. Crocodile is chewy but quite tasty, a bit fishy, kangaroo is very red and tough if cooked wrongly, and camel tasted a bit of liver, but very nutritious! Nobody will serve me Koala or Possum.
After Adelaide and its wine valleys I headed to Melbourne where I stayed with Martin (a friend I met in Malaysia) for 8 days, the delights of normal home living - it was marvelous to just wake up, make a cup of coffee, turn on the TV, etc, etc, - all the things you take for granted at home. Actually did a days work as I met Brendan, a guy who works at the university there, and ended up visiting their department and chatting to the theoretical physicists - amazingly they're doing defect modelling, or about to start, so there may even be a potential collaboration in the pipeline. Small world! There's lots to see round Melbourne, from the wild craggy shoreline of the Great Ocean road, to the tiny penguins that waddle up the beach at Philip Island, and even went walking on Hanging Rock (of 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' fame), where I was able to tempt a kangaroo over with toffees and get a great snap of her with her Joey poking out curiously from her pouch.
Melbourne's great, very relaxed and European with wide open streets and lots of trees, regular trams running round, and loads to see and do - got taken to a pretty strange party where people were dressed up as devils or combat monsters, and I hid in a room playing drums with a big bunch of people, but an experience.
Next went into a hell Australians can only imagine, as I got stuck in Canberra for a week waiting for my passport back from the Chinese embassy - the capital city looks and feels like a lego architects model, with a few token people dotted around to make it look realistic. Great if you love museums but strangely devoid of anything else. Still, got lots of books read there, and it was a good chance to recharge my batteries.
Next stop was Sydney and the blue mountains, which are really blue due to the Eucalyptus oil from the gum trees. Scenery was spectacular with some great walking beneath waterfalls and through rainforest; I could've spent a lot longer there. Then Sydney itself - the opera house, as I guess everyone says, was much smaller than I'd imagined, but nonetheless very graceful, and by posing as a student I was able to get a prime circle seat for 'Faust' - felt like Inspector Morse sat at the opera, but performance was brilliant, particularly the Devil who hopped around like a fiend.
There's loads of tourist things in Sydney and I did a good deal of them, gawping at the 3D effects in the IMAX cinema, wandering through underwater tunnels surrounded by sharks, and pottering around on ferries to see the port. It's a beautiful city but pretty busy and for my money Melbourne was better. There's a running battle between the two and Australians are like kids when you get them onto that subject.
Armed now with several stuffed koalas and calendars of 'the beautiful australian outback', I decided to tackle the east coast. This is the tourist mecca, notably the English tourist mecca - there are a constrant stream of post-university british tourists here drinking themselves silly, getting skin cancer, and spending 8 months picking pineapples, and it's the first place I've run into where the British have quite a bad reputation - similar to the Israelis in India, i.e. heavy drinking, sticking together, loutish and ignorant of the local culture - I've avoided much of this by travelling alone.
There's a tourist road to follow through Byron Bay, Harvey Bay, Ayrlie Beach, Magnetic Island and finally to Cairns with your tan now well ingrained, but I skipped many of these. Instead I had an old black and white photo from Mum of some of our relatives who moved out to Australia years back, and we knew nothing about them. So I did a bout of detective work from Nambour, to Noosa Heads, and finally up to Rockhampton, talking to local historians in the backrooms of libraries. Amazing stuff, each stage another layer of the photo peeled away and the people and place became more alive - now know it was taken in about 1880, they were probably cattle farmers from near to Rockhampton, and the last I saw of it, the nice people at Queensland University have taken it to see what they can dig up. Was a great way to see the area though, as it gave me an excuse to talk to local people, and got me much more involved than would otherwise have been the case.
Meanwhile stopped at Harvey bay for a day on Fraser Island (great clear lakes - the water rises from the water table so is perfectly clear - fish look like they're flying down creeks as you can't see the water) and some great whale watching. We had humpback whales swim right round the boat so you could just about touch them, swimming away so they could breach out of the water to take a closer look at us; an amazing experience when the wildlife you're looking at is looking just as hard back at you. The resultant camera frenzy will take up a big chunk of my album I think!
Carried on, stopping briefly at Ayrlie, before reaching Cairns, where the real fun started. A cablecar trip over the rainforest to Karunda started me off on rainforests, and I now know much more about them. The plants are incredible - lawyer vines send out long spiked tendrils, and walk into those and they'll trap you with the strength of steel cables - so called since like lawyers, once you get tangled up with them it's hard to get yourself untangled again! It's only once you start walking through them and spending time there you realise how it all fits together - we had a night guide describe primary growth (the rapid clumpy stuff that grows when a tree falls down so there's a break in the rainforest canopy) as scar tissue - the canopy breach lets in lots of sun that dries the forest floor, and winds that dry out the humid air, so the growth quickly plugs the gap before the slow growing canopy trees work to slowly fill the hole.
Headed north to Cape Tribulation but not before I'd read 'Bush Tucker Man's book on survival stories, so was now properly equipped to live off the bush for several days if need be eating ants. Stayed in Crocadylus, a group of canvas huts, I stepped out from my door with a tree in front with a diameter nearly twice my height, we were right in the middle of the forest. At night I wandered out along a rope trail into the forest and stood with my torch off listening to the noises - this plan was cut short when I started to spot huge wolf spiders everywhere, and suddenly the webs I'd been breaking with my face took on a more sinister note. On the way back something huge and snarly crashed through the forest towards me - I absolutely bricked myself, thinking that all the crocs were much further away, but once it reached a patch of moonlight I saw it was just a large pig - phewwy!
Also went horse riding for the first time in years and tried my hand at a canter, that had more to do with clutching on for grim death than flying freely over the open plains with the wind in my hair.
The experience of the rainforest is hard to describe but it was more amazing than I could've imagined, the sheer number of species and variety of life made me realise how little I know about life on the planet. Anyway, enough of that!
After a crazy drive back I had one l nights sleep before starting a 5 day diving course, that had me in a classroom and swimming pool for the first two days doing multiple choice questions and playing bathtime games like filling up my mask with water and blowing bubbles through my nose to fill it with air again - great fun! Then it was off for three days and two nights on the reef. What I wasn't expecting is that diving is more like flying - you stand on the bottom resting on your fin tips, think 'rightoh, I'll go flying now', one kick and you drift away from the bottom - sort of thing I used to have dreams about years ago! The wildlife out there is amazing, I saw small reef sharks, rays, little eels bobbing out of the sandy floor, loads of fish and coral, even 'wallys', great big wrasse fish about 1.5m long that follow you around like puppy dogs and let you stroke them. It's a weird world, particularly when we went down on a night dive into the blackness with torches, but by the end of it the panic wasn't quite so overwhelming and I was beginning to really enjoy it all. Now waiting for my ears to unpop once again and just kicking back in Cairns for a few days to recover from all this activity!
And now Nigel's animal report... I have to say that Australian animals are definitely cute, no matter how black your mood, when confronted with a koala with little baby sleeping on its back everyone is invariably reduced to jelly and 'oohs' and 'aahs' - and this despite the fact that they smell and can give you a nasty scratch if you get too close. My favourites are the possums, who wander round the city parks at night pinching food off you and eating it like squirrels - with their huge black eyes and fur they remind me of fluffy gremlins, I haven't tried feeding them after midnight yet... They even have camels here that have gone native on the wide plains, and the pragmatic ozzies now round them up and eat them - this is Australia, and nothing is sacred! If you want the simulated Ozzie experience I recommend 'Welcome to Woop woop' out at cinemas pretty soon, it's by the makers of Priscilla, is very strange, but could only have come from Australia.
Anyway, a few more days here and then it's off to Borneo....
Quick mass mailing update to bring you up to date on the last two weeks I spent in the wilds of Borneo... We flew into Brunei, a strange little country sandwiched at the top of the island, split into two pieces. It's like no other country, incredibly rich from oil reserves and run in a bizarre way. The sultan is very Muslim and builds mosques everywhere, while his brother is a philandering playboy, and when given money to buy five battleships for their navy instead bought a luxury yacht and two accompanying ships and named them 'tits' and 'breast1' and 'breast2'. He was then made finance minister for some reason, and has just run off with one hundred billion dollars, making Brunei one of the poorer countries in the area now. Meanwhile the sultans son had been awarded an honorary PhD by Oxford University, 'valid in Brunei only'....
Still, the sultan has done some wonderful things, the main one building a huge theme park at the capital which is totally free. Five of us went there in the afternoon and apart from the staff we were the only people there. The rides are all state of the art and it was like the tellytubbies; we'd find a good ride, go round, smile at the staff and say 'again'!! Next headed into Sarawak, Malaysia, to see the Niah caves. These are incredible, a truly vast cave system populated by half a million swifts and a similar number of bats. We were there at 6pm to see the change over. Everything is permiated with the smell of Guano, which the locals collect and sell as fertiliser. The swift nests they scrape from the ceiling and sell for birds nest soup, and the climbers amongst you would've had kittens. These guys were 50' up in the air balanced in the craziest of positions with absolutely no safety, having just shinnied up a great long bamboo pole - there's lots of fatalities apparently. We waited until the last minute to leave and had to dash along a slippery walkway through the jungle, admiring the fireflies and luminescent fungi. We just caught the ferryman; he was heading off at the other bank and spotted us, and got waved back!
Next I flew north into Sabah, the other Malaysian state in Borneo, where after Kota Kinabalu (nondescript capital) I caught a bus across to Sandakan and 'Uncle Tans', a great guesthouse which cooked amazing food (personal favourite was mashed banana flowers in some sort of tangy sauce). From here I could visit Sepilok, which is the largest of four Orangutan rehabilitation centres in the world. There's a constant need for these places, as jungle gets cleared for palm oil plantations and more and more orphaned Orangutans turn up (the jungle clearance was one of the really depressing sights in Borneo). In the afternoon at the centre I went for a walk with two Newcastle doctors and we came across the 'nursery' - after stopping for about 10 seconds, a herd of about 5 young Orangs came lolloping down the grass, and straight through the 'no admittance' gate as if it wasn't there - before we knew what had happened they were climbing all over us. They're amazing creatures! Little leathery hands, and their feet are more like hands. You'd just manage to peel one limb off you and another would grab hold, like trying to put down chewing gum. Amazingly smart as well, so there should be some good photos! Once we extracted ourselves we pegged it to see the feeding, but a female, Jessica, turned up, who had recently lost a baby and was in a mean mood. She clamped her teeth into the leg of one of the keepers (first time it's happened in 11 years), and we thought it was maybe time to leave (Orangs are 8 times stronger than humans). Just then one of the young ones turned up and started walking up and down on its back legs scratching its stomach to everyone's amusement, as it had followed us up there - a keeper took it away and we made a hasty exit!
Next I headed to Mount Kinabalu, the highest peak in S. E. Asia at 4,100m. This was quite a climb, and we got to 3,300m, slept overnight, and left again at 3am to see sunrise from the top. I was climbing by moonlight and wondered why there were no lights in front, and on reaching the top realised that a Malaysian girl and I were the first there. Very eerie, with the wind blowing in the dark. In the end rain stopped play so there was no sunrise, but it was fun coming down, as for many sections we needed to rappel with ropes as it was quite steep and slippy - my legs are still recovering!
Thought things were all over but there was one more treat in store at Kota Kinabalu the following night. I don't know if you've heard of Dianne Fossey - she was the gorilla woman that they made 'Gorilla's in the Mist' about. But around the same time some other women started work with primates, and one was a French woman called Francine with the Orangutans. She was at Sepilok amongst others, and I really wanted to meet her; by a stroke of luck she was staying in the same guesthouse that night. We were treated to some incredible stories - she designed Singapore zoo and then lived with the Orangutans there for six months to learn about their group behaviour - it's rare when you meet someone still so alive and filled with enthusiasm for their subject. She must've heard most of our questions a thousand times but you could tell she loved answering it, and her impression of waking Orangutans has to be seen to be believed!
So all in all Borneo has been really magic, having played with my ape ancestors, met monkeys, hornbills, and all sorts of creepy crawlies (one thing I never realised is how many butterflies and moths you get in the jungle). I'm now briefly back in Bangkok but I'm heading north into Laos as quickly as possible, as I've only got just over two months left in which to visit both Laos and China. More news soon hopefully!
Spent a great two weeks in Laos, despite having fever for the first few days in Vientienne (being ill is the one time solo travelling is really terrible; when all you want is for someone to bring in cups of hot tea, instead you have to crawl round unfamiliar cities finding palatable food and getting Malaria blood tests - so much for pathos..).
Laos is everything you'd imagine from watching Vietnam war films. The people still live in beautiful wood and bamboo huts on stilts, picking rice with conical hats on. In Luang Prabang we went swimming in beautiful turquoise lakes, reachable only by a bumpy tuk-tuk ride to a tiny village, followed by half an hour up the river on a little boat. Finally went to leave there only to find there were no boats up the Nam Ou for four days, so headed off up the Mekon instead, the Doors playing on the walkman as I watched the jungle creep by on either bank. We never made Pakbeng, our destination, so instead as twilight descended stopped at a sandbank for the night and seven of us slept in a tiny locals hut and ate sticky rice. From Pakbeng it was a 8 hour ride in the back of a tuk-tuk along a road with enough potholes to even make the local council blush. It was incredible, like watching a eight hour discovery channel special, albeit with someone violently shaking the TV around and occasionally spraying clouds of dust in your face.
Typical scene as dusk approached, passed a family of three, the father with his hunting rifle, the wife in traditional costume with a wicker basket of logs on her back, and the son riding up front on the back of their water buffalo. I don't know how much longer Laos will stay like this, they're improving the roads all the while and next year is officially 'visit Laos 1999', but for now it's friendly and unspoilt.
The northern end is also Opium country, forming one corner of the golden triangle with Thailand and Burma. There was lots of grass going round, and opium was fairly visible, although now is apparently planting season so I should have gone in February if I wanted to buy it in kilogram blocks!
Anyhow, crept across the Laos/China border and I'm now working my way north west through Yunnan towards the Tibetan border. I'm constantly amazed how one country can be rebuilding itself in so many places at once - it must be a nightmare writing guidebooks for China, about 50% of the buildings seemed to be either going up or coming down, and at 1 in the morning last night some git with a masonry drill was still doing his patriotic duty to the building next to my hotel. Everything has to be bargained for, even bus tickets and hotel rooms, but once you accept that, China seems OK so far.
Home in T minus 5 weeks and counting!
Marco Polo signing off
Well, it's the last night of the last day of my trip, so thought it was a good time to send a final report from China. I'm currently in Beijing where it's hitting -8 at night, and the bag's now pretty light as I'm wearing everything I own!
After starting in the SW of China I moved further up the Tibetan border to Dali and then Lijang, both very relaxed towns at the foot of the Tibetan plateau. Did some great walking and travelled with a group for a while, notably down 'Tiger Leaping Gorge', which was made considerably more exciting by the irregular dynamite blasting from the new road they're putting through. The monastaries in the area were beautiful and we were given a really friendly welcome by the monks up there. Next stop was Chengdu after a gruelling 18 hours on 'hard seat' (cheapest train seats), which makes us all 'macho' on the China backpacking scale. Chengdu was quite polluted and constantly hazy, but served as a base for some great sights, notably the Pandas at the breeding research centre which were amazing - we caught them for the half hour every day that they're active and it was one of the most rewarding experiences in china so far I think.
Then we headed up to Songpan, a tiny town nestled on the Tibetan foothills, and went horse trekking for three days in the mountains. Spectacular scenery, a good view of Leonid's meteorite storm as it was crystal clear and bitterly cold each night, and camping out on a bed of pine branches wrapped in sheepskin Tibetan coats. The last day we woke up at our campsite nestled between a rocky outcrop and a lake to find everything deep in snow, and so rode back over the mountains through wonderful white scenery.
After this I whizzed down to Hong Kong on a 44 hour train (now rated 'super macho') where I stayed with a friend for a week and inflicted appalling injuries on his washing machine and bathroom, but became slightly civilised once again! Time was short so I pulled another 22 hours up to Xi'an to see the Terracotta army (wasn't so impressed, if you've seen the photos there wasn't much more to the real life version, and Xi'an was a polluted dive), then missed my train thanks to email and so spent the next 21 hours on hard seat to Beijing (now rated 'backpacker-sensai').
Beijing has been really great, extremely cold but clear and sharp, and surprisingly relaxed and spacious for a capital city. Unfortunately Tianeman square is surrounded in scaffolding and inaccessible, but the Forbidden city was imposing, the summer palace and temple of heaven both very dramatic - but the highlight has to be the Great Wall. We travelled out to Simitai and pictures don't do the wall justice - it's incredible seeing it snake out across the most inhospitable terrain, always taking the hardest line along the mountain ridge. It was covered in snow and ice so I scrambled up on my hands and knees until I reached the top of the highest guard tower with a grand view across snow covered crinkle cut landscape, and out into Inner Mongolia. Sorry, Offa's dyke and Hadrian's wall just don't cut the mustard any more!
The rest of my time here has been spent catching up on the christmas shopping, visiting the Beijing Opera (awful singing, great acrobatics), and trying Peking Duck, really scrummy! So tomorrow I fly out, and the ten month trip will finally be at an end; hasn't really sunk in yet. Hopefully I'll be seeing some or all of you in the near future - if I don't see you before Christmas then have a great time, and to those people still travelling, I'm envious, and let me know how things go!
This is Chris, last survivor of the USS backpacker, signing off...
Back.
