By the way, I am back home in Wellington ! I've been busy unpacking, washing clothes, putting away things from my storage locker - back to where they go in the flat... and working.
It was a delight to be met by two friends at the airport at half past eleven on Tuesday night. Now it's Sunday, and I've done two shifts back at work, with two more to go until my next days off. My compter log-in works, I remember how to navigate my way around the work systems, but my security card doesn't give me access to the office. That will have to be sorted out on Monday.
On my way back I used three airlines. Between arriving in Australia and departing again I went into Sydney and used the public pool on the edge of Hyde Park. The length of the lap pool is 50 metres, and I swam 12 lengths. That's not bad for someone who's done nothing similar in months !
Anyhow... this travel diary will soon wrap up. I'm planning to write again with some reflections on my time away. Give me a few days and I'll get around to it :-)
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
Photo Post : More of Vietnam
Preparing spring rolls. Cooking class with David at the Blue Butterfly restaurant in Hanoi.
Holding a snake during the Mekong Delta trip.
Lunch with Eilidh Macleod, a former colleague from BBC Scotland who is currently teaching English in Hanoi.Thailand
I've been neglecting my online diary for the past few days, during which I've been relaxing in Thailand. Winding down for a few days at a high quality beach resort in north Pattaya, then for a couple more over the weekend at a different hotel closer to the party action in town. At the Pullman resort someone switched on the wave machine, the day I went swimming in the sea. The waves were coming in sideways and the water was warmer than that in the hotel pool. How nice to float in the sunshine, with the salty water helping soothe the skin on my arm which is recovering from some more bedbug bites -- apparently received somewhere in Vietnam.
Everywhere in Pattaya you can see Cyrillic characters and hear people speaking Russian. This is a huge destination for holidaying Russians. In Vietnam I only met one Russian. A 28 year old guy who worked for Ukoil and has two periods of 14 days' holiday a year. He was quite a character, who reinforced the stereotype of Russians taking a tipple as he topped up his coke using a bottle of golden alcohol. Colourful too, he didn't hesitate to join in the Karaoke on board the junkboat in Halong Bay (which sent me to bed early to escape the noise). When the lyrics screen malfunctioned he continued singing "Dragon Boat Cru-iss" when the default logo "Dragon Boad Cruise" came up.
Thailand isn't as cheap as it used to be. I'm sure I used to get 70 Baht for a UK Pound only a couple of years ago. Now I'm lucky if I can get close to 50 Baht. I have, however, bought myself some nice new shoes. A pair of trainers and a smarter pair of New Balance, probably for half the price I'd get them back home.
I'm writing from Singapore Airport, where I'm waiting for a connecting flight to Australia on my way to Wellington and the end of my journey. I arrive into Melbourne, then connect to Sydney. Because there's a time lag before my trans-Tasman hop to Wellington I have the chance to spend a day in Sydney. At least I will go to the central city for lunch, and perhaps a little more shopping.
Meanwhile, I'll add some more photos here from my time in Vietnam.
Everywhere in Pattaya you can see Cyrillic characters and hear people speaking Russian. This is a huge destination for holidaying Russians. In Vietnam I only met one Russian. A 28 year old guy who worked for Ukoil and has two periods of 14 days' holiday a year. He was quite a character, who reinforced the stereotype of Russians taking a tipple as he topped up his coke using a bottle of golden alcohol. Colourful too, he didn't hesitate to join in the Karaoke on board the junkboat in Halong Bay (which sent me to bed early to escape the noise). When the lyrics screen malfunctioned he continued singing "Dragon Boat Cru-iss" when the default logo "Dragon Boad Cruise" came up.
Thailand isn't as cheap as it used to be. I'm sure I used to get 70 Baht for a UK Pound only a couple of years ago. Now I'm lucky if I can get close to 50 Baht. I have, however, bought myself some nice new shoes. A pair of trainers and a smarter pair of New Balance, probably for half the price I'd get them back home.
I'm writing from Singapore Airport, where I'm waiting for a connecting flight to Australia on my way to Wellington and the end of my journey. I arrive into Melbourne, then connect to Sydney. Because there's a time lag before my trans-Tasman hop to Wellington I have the chance to spend a day in Sydney. At least I will go to the central city for lunch, and perhaps a little more shopping.
Meanwhile, I'll add some more photos here from my time in Vietnam.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Video post : Sa Pa trekking
Landscape at Lao Chai village, 13 kilometres by foot from Sa Pa in northern Vietnam.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Photo Post : Sa Pa
H'mong people in the town centre, selling their goods.
Children in one of the villages near Sa Pa.
Lanterns and other goods for sale.
Food preparation facilities inside one of the houses.
Landscape.Sa Pa
Sa Pa is in the far north of Vietnam, very close to the border with China. Tourism has developed here over the past 20 years, so the H'mong people no longer confine themselves to simple village life but make clothing and other souvenirs to sell to the many visitors who come trekking.
It's pretty cold at night, being 1,500 metres high. To reach the town and surrounding villages I've taken an overnight train from Hanoi, followed by a bus, and am now doing two days of walking. It's nice to get away from the big city for a while. The largest mountain here is named Fransipan. The people look very different to other Vietnamese. They're similarly persistent, however, in offering motorbike rides and things for sale.
It's pretty cold at night, being 1,500 metres high. To reach the town and surrounding villages I've taken an overnight train from Hanoi, followed by a bus, and am now doing two days of walking. It's nice to get away from the big city for a while. The largest mountain here is named Fransipan. The people look very different to other Vietnamese. They're similarly persistent, however, in offering motorbike rides and things for sale.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Video Post : Halong Bay
Inside the big cave in Halong Bay.
One of the many junk boats that take tourists around the beautiful bay in the Gulf of Tonkin.
Photo Post : Hanoi
Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum.
Hanoi's Opera House by night.
Street food, just outside the main market.
Wedding couple, posing for photos in the grounds of the Temple of Literature.
Living beside the Red River.To eat, or not to eat (dog)
Vietnamese people seem divided over the question. Many react in the same way as most Westerners would when offered the chance to eat dog meat. Others seem perfectly happy with the concept.
On the bus journey back from the Mekong Delta to Ho Chi Minh City I saw a motorbike with a cage strapped to the back, inside which there were six or seven live dogs crammed together. Perhaps they were on their way to a restaurant !
Apparently, dog meat in Ho Chi Minh City is prepared like cubed beef or other meats would be. Whereas in Hanoi, it's said to be eaten in big chunks. There you might be given a leg to gnaw on.
At Ngon restaurant in Hanoi David and I tried fried sparrow. I can tell you, there's not a lot of meat on those tiny birds !
On the bus journey back from the Mekong Delta to Ho Chi Minh City I saw a motorbike with a cage strapped to the back, inside which there were six or seven live dogs crammed together. Perhaps they were on their way to a restaurant !
Apparently, dog meat in Ho Chi Minh City is prepared like cubed beef or other meats would be. Whereas in Hanoi, it's said to be eaten in big chunks. There you might be given a leg to gnaw on.
At Ngon restaurant in Hanoi David and I tried fried sparrow. I can tell you, there's not a lot of meat on those tiny birds !
Monday, November 8, 2010
Photo Post : Vietnam
Inside the post office in Ho Chi Minh City, under the gaze of Uncle Ho.
Street sweeper and bikes.
War Remnants Museum, HCMC.
Patriotism on display in Ho Chi Minh City.
Mekong Delta trip, with David. Do you like our hats ?
Barbecue meal, preparing to cook beef, pork and deer. Vietnam
Time is running away from me now. I have just two weeks to go before my journey ends. I am aware that I've not been updating this online diary so often, which is partly because I am travelling with my friend David from Wellington and we are doing so much that I don't get the spare time to write.
We crossed into Vietnam by land from Cambodia. The bus driver went at speeds of up to 130 kilometres per hour and was a great fan of sounding his incredibly loud horn. Basically, no other vehicle had the right to be on the road and had to get out of our way.
The border crossing was smooth in leaving Cambodia, then slow in entering Vietnam because just one official was checking the passports of all 30 or 40 people on the bus. I bought a Viettel sim card from a woman at the border. It cost me $4 US and had more than that in credit. A week later I've still used only half of it. After a few days I've got the hang of the money. 20,000 Dong to a US dollar. It's possible to get through a million in one day.
The food in Vietnam is absolutely fantastic. So much variety by comparison to Cambodia. So healthy too. There's coriander and other salad leaves with everything. Noodle soup, called Pho, is available everywhere. You get to fill and roll your own spring rolls. At barbecue restaurants you cook the meat yourself (we had deer). As you may know, some people in the north of Vietnam eat dog meat. We have not tasted that, but we have picked at the tiny breasts of deep fried sparrows.
We crossed into Vietnam by land from Cambodia. The bus driver went at speeds of up to 130 kilometres per hour and was a great fan of sounding his incredibly loud horn. Basically, no other vehicle had the right to be on the road and had to get out of our way.
The border crossing was smooth in leaving Cambodia, then slow in entering Vietnam because just one official was checking the passports of all 30 or 40 people on the bus. I bought a Viettel sim card from a woman at the border. It cost me $4 US and had more than that in credit. A week later I've still used only half of it. After a few days I've got the hang of the money. 20,000 Dong to a US dollar. It's possible to get through a million in one day.
The food in Vietnam is absolutely fantastic. So much variety by comparison to Cambodia. So healthy too. There's coriander and other salad leaves with everything. Noodle soup, called Pho, is available everywhere. You get to fill and roll your own spring rolls. At barbecue restaurants you cook the meat yourself (we had deer). As you may know, some people in the north of Vietnam eat dog meat. We have not tasted that, but we have picked at the tiny breasts of deep fried sparrows.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Cambodia snapshots
Sleeping rikshaw driver.
Buddha and I.
Bikes are everywhere in Cambodia and Vietnam.
Was that a good place to leave a bicycle ?
Happy buffalo ?
New Zealand hair cut, obviously.Khmer Rouge - content warning !!
A tuktuk ride out of Phnom Penh will take you to Choeung Ek, one of thousands of sites where mass graves have been found from the Khmer Rouge era in the mid to late 1970s. Anyone who was educated was eliminated, along with their entire families so there would be no-one left to take revenge at a later date. Cambodians today actually encourage visitors to take photographs at the site of the genocide. They say it is important that the story be told, so it will be less likely that anything similar could happen again.
Above, victims of the Khmer Rouge, who experimented in applying their own brutal form of Communism to Cambodia, after an initial wave of popular support when they overthrew a corrupt regime.
A chilling sign, requesting that people do not walk on the mass grave. Scraps of clothing and pieces of human bone continue to surface after rains. There are mass graves here that remain unexcavated. Nine thousand human skulls are contained in the memorial stupa on this one site alone.
One of the cells at the torture prison, S-21, in Phnom Penh. The site was once a school, and is now a genocide memorial.
Above, victims of the Khmer Rouge, who experimented in applying their own brutal form of Communism to Cambodia, after an initial wave of popular support when they overthrew a corrupt regime.
A chilling sign, requesting that people do not walk on the mass grave. Scraps of clothing and pieces of human bone continue to surface after rains. There are mass graves here that remain unexcavated. Nine thousand human skulls are contained in the memorial stupa on this one site alone.
One of the cells at the torture prison, S-21, in Phnom Penh. The site was once a school, and is now a genocide memorial.Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Photo Post : Angkor Wat and other temples
Daybreak at Angkor Wat.
Bakong.
Ta Som.
A monk viewing sunset at Phnom Bakheng.
Children playing outside Ta Prohm.
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