ME, ME, and more MEEEEEEE!

My new (humble) abode... complete with pets!

2009-09-15T20:19:00.001Z

Welcome to my humble abode. Apartment 2002, room G. Since I arrived a week before the rest of the plebs, I made them give me a choice of rooms. In other words, I kicked up a fuss as soon as I saw room G and my - eeeeek - shared bathroom. This caused Joyce to call Amy over from the school building to show me the other available rooms. Room C was basically a coffin with an en-suite, no window = no natural light. Room E had just been vacated, had dirty towels and bedding strewn over the floor, a flooded (by overly hairy male) bathroom, and ciggy smell and left-over butts presumably thrown in gratis. Under the circumstances, G was looking better by the second! It's light, very large by comparison, has a window instead of a balcony, and no cigarette smell. I figure it's going to be freezing in about 6 weeks at most and I may be quite glad not to have a massive expanse of glass along one side of my room. There's no heating, just an air-conditioner that doubles as a heater... Yup, loving G more every minute. G is Grrrreat!

Unfortunately, G comes with a shared bathroom with F. The inhabitant of F is a lovely German girl called Eva. She too apparently has reservations about our bathroom and informed me that "the cleaning lady used it the other day and left something you shouldn't have to see... big business if you know my meaning". Niiiice. I found no presents this morning, but that's not saying much. I did, however, kill 2 of the inhabitants (not human) and had the quickest shower ever. I was trying to psych myself up to take a picture... Since then, the cleaners have been in and it looks...the same really. I'd also forgotten the requirement for Chinese plumbing to toss the loo-paper (used, naturellement) into the uncovered bin...in a bathroom with no window... Oh well, when in Rome.

The rest of the apartment consists of a large room that's sitting/kitchen/entry-hall in one. No windows, fab fluo lighting, a tv & DVD player, a washing machine, about 15 umbrellas and miscellaneous orphaned slippers, a microwave, a massive extractor fan above a single electrical hob unit, and just the one pot. I've found 5 pairs of scissors and not a single kitchen knife, which leads one to wonder... Good thing I don't enjoy cooking and I have restaurants all around. Now I just need to learn to read characters so I don't mistakenly order fried dog's bits and I'm sorted!!!

On the road again... CHINA!

2009-09-14T17:54:00.001Z

After almost a year of pretty much focusing on allergies and nothing, nada, niente, noppes, niks, nil...you get the drift... else, I decided Something's Gotta Give! That didn't include me getting a yappy little dog, a foul temper, and a load of neuroses (allergic to first, have the others already).

So I'm off to China, Shanghai to be exact, to study Mandarin. "Again???" I hear you ask? Yes, again, but this time I aim to become passably advanced as opposed to just being able to command a taxi to go left or right, ordering a bottle of water and "no MSG please" and knowing names of various fruits. OK, so I knew a lot more than that, my brain seems to not have held onto this acquired knowledge in 2 years of non-practice, fancy that?! So off to Shanghai I go for 6 months of cramming!!!

All my things are now in storage. In my enthusiasm, even my iPod was briefly "misfiled" in storage and had to be rescued at the 11th hour (about 20 minutes before my last train to the airport). Bob & Bertha were temporarily lovingly adopted by Olivier and his family, my Bella (car) and plants are with Vanessa and Tim, Pauline is overseeing FedEx shipment of necessaries (including porridge, winter cardigans, and...errr....tea), and my brother will hopefully help sort out forwarding mail since the nice man at the post office surprisingly lied and I cannot do that online. It's lovely to have so many people keeping my hiney out of the bad stuff :)

So, missing iPod saga notwithstanding, I made it to Shanghai in one piece! I was loving the Emirates Airlines flights - they have little lights in the ceiling to simulate a starry nigth when they dim the lights...awwww - until I hit Dubai and went on the flight to Shanghai. I had some particularly obnoxious Iranian arab male chauvinist "pigdog" neighbours! 5 men apparently all travelling for same company, all scattered separately over 11 rows, 2 HAD to sit next to each other and decided that I should swap my first row aisle (major legroom) for a middle in the 3rd row. Methinks not. I came, I booked, I reserved one month ago, you-out-of-luck! They singled me out, didn't bother asking any of the other 4 people they could have moved. After asking three times with the same negative response, they even tried to make the stewardess move me. Luckily she kindly explained that it was my CHOICE not their RIGHT to demand a change. Hah! I was going to SUPERGLUE myself to the seat if need be! Well, joke was on me because PigDog #1 promptly fell asleep and decided to use my shoulder as his pillow...not matter HOW many times I pushed him off. I strongly suspect he wasn't so much asleep as trying to get an eyeful of cleavage! That isa, UNTIL I used my spiky hairclip to pin my scarf accross - thereby neatly closing off view from any cleavage AND creating a particularly uncomfortable landing place for his head! Double Hah! Don't mess with a (natural) blonde.

I made it through immigration despite having a visa that runs out 4 months before my return flight...by leaving return flight empty on the form. I got through customs with the many, many, many copied DVDs a certain person kindly hooked me up with. Although I'm sure I'll be able to buy versions here, my experience in the past has been less than confidence-inspiring... the English version of "Over The Hedge" turned out to be in Russian only with Chinglish subtitles :P Hilarious thought it may be, not exactly as ordered.

The school sent a driver to pick me up, it took only 35 minutes to get from the airport to their main office in central Shanghai. I've forgotten (read: mentally blocked my memories) of a lot of things about China, but not the hectic chaos that is highway driving. The driver was a pro and did not so much as flinch when buses and trucks tried to swipe us off the road - he expertly maneuvered us accross 4 lanes of traffic to hit the off-ramp with about 3 metres to spare. The new school offices are huge compared to what the school had 2 years ago, business must be good! I was met by Fiona, Joyce and Amy - all incredibly nice people who went out of their way to make sure I had everything I needed (water, keys, map of Shanghai, choice of rooms...).

I am actually now in the same apartment - different room - as 2 years ago. The main reason I elected to come back to the same school was the location of the apartments - just one block from the main shopping street, two main subway lines, with a mall on the corner and the Meridien hotel opposite (for when I just NEED to have a bath...). The school has moved to a building around the corner. I could quite literally crawl there if I needed to! My room is quite large, relatively clean, and my suitcase has already exploded to make it look lived in :) Being an alumnus of the area, I immediately found the bank, corner store and fresh juice shop - in order of importance! On my brief 2-block reconnaissance mission I also scoped a few new places including 2 Starbucks, 1 Costa Coffee, a subway, a McDonald's, A pizzahut and a Juice Boost. It's like I didn't even leave the UK. I also found my namesake shop so I feel right at home.

Ushuaia - Really The End of the World.

2008-03-18T15:38:00.012Z

After an evening of Bingo (I lost), Trivia Reveal (we lost... though the answers were wrong and the quizmaster told me in a weak moment that we had the same amount of points as the winners, not that I'm competitive...), and just general revelry to celebrate a great trip - we moored overnight in Ushuaia port. Kind of a let-down after all the rocky eventful nights at sea! In the morning everyone disembarked and we headed for the town.

Ushuaia itself is a quaint small little village with the requisite tourist eateries, postcard shops and tour operators...and a marathon? Yep - the day we arrived they were having a marathon smack through the middle of town (well...on the ONE main road through).

Since we couldn't check in immediately when we arrived, we decided to throw on our walking gear and head for the chairlift to take us up to the local glacier. After 4 days of ice, we were simply gagging for more! The hotel receptionist kindly informed us that it was a 20 minute walk up the road, so we decided not to bother with a taxi. 45 minutes later, we finally made it to the chairlift after a long slog uphill in increasingly cold weather.

Having spent 10 minutes at the top realising it was another 2hr hike up to the where the glacier ice-cap would begin...and that we'd all seen plenty of ice recently and are inherently lazy... we made use of our chairlift tickets for the return trip and headed to the quaint little tea shop for a (well-deserved) hot chocolate and piece of cake. All that fresh air...

On the way down we decided to take the "hiking route" back to the hotel and must have missed a turn-off or other sign on the path as we promptly got lost in the middle of nowhere on a field. Lots of hilarity ensued as we all tried to navigate the muddy track with varying degrees of accomplishment (film clips available upon request and payment). It wasn't until we realised that our ENTIRE FAMILY was lost, no one knew where we were, and mobile phones didn't work that the laughter stopped...temporarily. :Luckily we backtracked and finally found the inconspicuous trail... (see picture below right with BRIGHT YELLOW MARKINGS).

After all that fresh air it was finally time to check in to our wonderful hotel in Ushuaia, the Las Hayas Spa & Resort hotel. I have to say up front that the name is a little misleading, but then Ushauaia IS AT THE END OF THE WORLD! They are a little too fond of their floral patterns, though the curtains in front of the bath are a nice touch... The Spa had a swimmingpool, hairdresser, mini gym and Squash Courts. My brother even convinced me to try out the latter. I am not a fan. Mainly because the stupid ball doesn't bounce, he's a great player, and I had to run into walls to try to hit the ball in time. Niiice.

Cape Horn!

2008-03-15T15:29:00.012Z

We finally made it! We’re at Cape Horn. After another eventful night on rocky seas (why is it always between 3 and 4 am that the boat goes a-rocking?), we anchored just off Cape Horn Island at 6am. Mummified and without breakfast, we all scrambled towards the Zodiacs for the expedition to Cape Horn Island. This time, we finally managed to be at the head of the queue, even in front of the Spanish Armada and the German Battalion. All three Peeks made it onto the first boat out to the landing site, the first group up to the island walkways, the first group to the seagull memorial, the first group... you get my drift. Did make for some rather nice pictures sans other pesky tourists! There is only 1 dwelling on the island, that of the man and his family running the lighthouse. Apparently they have cable TV and Internet, their two daughters are home schooled, and they get frequent visits from the tourists that come to clamber all over the island. On top of that, they sell postcards for USD $4 each, which the lighthouse man will stamp with the Cape Horne symbol if you part with your cash. Hmmm, yep, I still wouldn’t trade with them!

Since we boarded the ship a few days ago, we’ve had a trivia competition delivered to our lunchtime table every day with random questions. Some questions are about the trip itself, some geography and some culture. Of course my brother is reining King Supreme of all answers...but when he’s in a bit of a quandary, it helps that I packed a world map showing all countries (and more importantly that Belize is clearly larger than El Salvador), and a 3kg South America Lonely Planet. Since we were joined with another table, and we know that the Peeks (Roger) had all questions right in the first round, I made it my mission to go inform Mathias that he had to count our answers if we had more correct than the table we ended up joining. Me competitive? No, never, totally not my bag... aherm. Just count the points OK. :)

This afternoon we moored in Wulaia Bay for a nice long uphill hike. After a 7am start and freezing weather at the cape, of course we were all psyched to be “tree climbers” and climb a hill above the bay for an amazing lookout. The bay is essentially owned by Cruceros Australis - they bought the only house and the land around it for conservation purposes and...what else... to turn it into a lodge for future passengers. The house is large and the surroundings are truly beautiful. Not sure I'd want to stay there for days on end, but then I'm not a bird fanatic or a professional photographer! Fun was had by all - but mostly my brother, who had this great idea to have me crouching in the tall grass / grain for a truly unique photo... unfortunately also meant that I spent the following 4 hours (until I could take a shower) itching all over with creepy crawlies and bits of hay and other imagined things... Turns out the hike to the top of the hill wasn't all that bad - quite a nice path (if a little slippery in the mud) and an amazing view of the bay, ship, and afternoon sun from the top. We even managed to get just over 40 passengers to shut up completely for more than 5 minutes of absolute reflective silence.... ooooohhhhhhhmmmmmmm!

Glaciares, Glaciers, Ice Everywhere!

2008-03-14T22:35:00.004Z

After an eventful day at Pia Glacier, and once again de-layered (it's getting easier and easier to just sling the 5 layers on and off at the drop of a fleece hat), we were all in the main deck lounge for the cruise down Glacier Alley. And they weren't kidding when they said we'd see a lot of glaciers. Funny though, even though it's all ice, they all have their own distinctive shape, colour or just "vibe". I guess a lot of that was created by the crew who played Mozart as we passed the German glacier and served little snacks typical to each country as we passed!!!

Won't bore you with all the many many details, mainly because I don't remember them. Thickness, width, length, advancing, receding, blue ice, black ice, etc etc etc. Instead, I will just shut up and let the pictures do the talking... then again, you probably had to be there for the full effect (nah nah nana naaaah!). we passed the Romanche Glacier, German Glacier, French Glacier, Italy Glacier, and last - but not least - Holland Glacier.

I don't remember which pics belong to which... but here are some of them!

Pia Glacier - up close and personal

2008-03-14T18:12:00.002Z

OK, I officially love, LOVE, LOOOOOOOOVVVEEEE this trip!

Due to the continued rocking and rolling during the night - so much so that my glass of water slid off the night table, but I woke up at the sliding sound and caught it just before it toppled - we got up somewhat refreshed if a little sleep-deprived. Since we had a long way to go to the disembarkation point for the day at Pia Glacier, we first played our one (and as it turns out ONLY) game of UNO. Roger dragged the cards with him all the way from London. I quickly ended up with my fair share (80% of the total?) of cards, which had my mother and brother chortling. However, fate is fickle, and they both soon felt the cruelty of "no green card because Marisa's holding them all in her hands" and had to draw, and draw, and draw... Who's laughing now?! After an hour, "we" decided to give up and pack up to be ready for the main attraction of the morning - a tour of the Engine Room! Yeah! yeah. Apparently their disenfranchisement did not go unnoticed as two other passengers commented on how "easily your mother and brother gave up. Boy, that game really got to them, huh?" End quote. Har har har.

I got to the tour meeting point in time to snag some of the scarce headphones - my mum close behind. Seeing as they were going fast, I asked for another for Roger. Patrizio (he of the "catwalk show with many models") promptly asked "where is your husband?" Husband? Ewwwwww. Yes, BINGO, the lack of resemblance strikes again. Unfortunately, I patiently explained that he is not my husband, neither of us are married, and - believe it or not - Roger is my brother. This had its repercussions later that day... But anyhoo. On with the tour.

Not much to tell, or maybe just not much that stuck :) 3 engines, 2 main ones, one back-up for inside the harbour area. 850 horse power each. They recycle and treat all the water before chucking it overboard and have a massive tank to store much and waste. Lots of important looking switches and signs and a bit LOUD. I took some pics and then made a hasty retreat to the bridge where I soon made myself comfortable in the Captain's chair. Much more my area of expertise, non?

In the afternoon we finally arrive at our destination. Pia Glacier. Pia Glacier. Yes, Pia Glacier! Pia Glacier makes everything better. It makes sleep uneccessary, cold showers fun, and breakfast buffet scrums an activity to enjoy and delight in. Seriously - NOTHING compares to laying anchor in front of a huge wall of ice, then hopping in a Zodiac to go WALKING on rocks just 20 metres away from said wall of ice... hearing it crackle and pop. Nothing! Well, maybe driving a tank, swimming with whale sharks, walking the wall of China, and sitting on an elephant. But Pia Glacier definitely ROCKS...also. :)

Oh yes, and Roger showed me how to use the Panoramic picture setting on my camera, so you will see that newfound knowledge being abused from here on!

Once again, they were a person short on an earlier Zodiac and I quickly volunteered to get that space. I ended up in a boat almost filled with a German group who were all very friendly and concerned that I was without family! For about 10 minutes. :) The "landing" was onto an outcropping of rock about 30 metres in front of the main wall of the glacier. Being in an earlier boat also meant I could get a prime shot of my mother making a rather dignified descent from the boat with my brother gallantly helping her (ehmmm, or is he taking a picture or me taking a picture...shame on you!) The pictures speak for themselves, so I'm just going to plaster the post with pics rather than words! Enjoy!

(Picture below on the left is by my brother - Roger Peek - newly contributing photographer to the blog!)

After some gawking at the ice wall, we then clambered up onto the nearby hill to a look-out point. Not even Patrizio-the-expedition-leader-and-entertainment-director's chatter could ruin it. I suffered an exhausting 2 hours of "Holland, are you single?", "Holland, why don't you come work on the ship for a year?", "Holland! Happy Single!", "Holland, I was once in finance and a stock trader, I wasn't always a guide" (accompanied by much chest-puffing), and "Holland, you left without me!" after I walked back down off the hill-top viewpoint back to see the glacier up close and personal. It appears that I have been renamed “Holland”. Great. Due to the frequent and loud use of that monicker by Patricio both on board and off, now even other guests are starting to call me “Holland”. As in, "Did you take any more pictures of seals, Holland?". AAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH.

Pia glacier was awesome, but the pictures cannot do it justice. The crew brought whisky and hot chocolate onto the shore for us to enjoy - whisky on the rocks, courtesy of Ice by Pia! (That's the Brazilian bartender pouring Scotch into my mother's hot chocolate by the way!) After a cup of delicious hot chocolate (without additives), the sugar shot to my head and I spent the next 10 minutes jumping in the air while my brother tried to capture it on Megabytes. My wild escapades got me noticed by someone else though... There was a professional photographer on board the cruise, as a guest, and after seeing my blonde hair flapping up and down in front of the glacier, he asked me to pose in front of the glacier, though thankfully standing still! I was Chosen...because I was the only one with blonde hair, and he needed something in perspective that wasn't dark. Yeay, whatever! I might end up gracing the cover of the BBC nature magazine!

Now you see it, Now you don't!

2008-03-13T21:42:00.009Z

After a refreshing afternoon getting used to hopping in and out of the dinghies...ermmmm... Zodiacs (respect, please) we were treated to lunch and then promptly got mummied up EVEN MORE for a trip around Tucker Island.

Tucker Island is a wildlife preserve housing penguins, cormorants and possibly lots of other cute and nasty wildlife, but we don't know, because we can only circle it in the Zodiacs. Having taken the warning "you will freeze, wear lots" to heart, we all waddled aboard for our 40 minute exploration. I got a prime seat, NOT, right at the end - or start - of the boat next to the "Chauffeur". He's not a captain, so what do I call him? driver??? My position meant that, as everyone turned around to face the front of the boat and oohed and aaaahed over the cutesy little Penguins hobbling about on shore...then pushed even more to get in prime picture-taking position, I was persistently being edged backwards and thus off the boat. I managed to partly cling onto the very nice british woman in front of me, who seemed to sense my frantic struggles to hold on, and turned round to say "are you alright there, I am a bit worried about you". Worried or not, the rest of the passengers weren't going to give up even a millimeter of space and I spent most of this memorable excursion claw-like, hoping I'd make it back to the ship while still INside the Zodiac.

But fret not, mission accomplished and I managed to take some pictures while clinging on for dear life. After all, I know you all care ZIP for my safety, all you're interested in is results. And cute they are...

Back on dry deck, we lost all the padding (I WISH! Just the layers we added) and headed for the bar. Yes, even me. Since there's only 4 Zodiacs and 100 passengers, we were watching as the Spanish speakers went for their turn in the Zodiacs. So while they were getting wet - the waves had picked up a bit since our little excursion earlier - we spent the time in the bar watching seals frolic in the water beside the ship. When I say sealS, I mean I saw a seal on more than one occassion and cannot be certain if it was the same seal multiple times, or multiple seals separate times. Suffice it to say, I was SO excited to have spotted it, I spent a good hour with my nose plastered against the window and my camera at the ready. As luck would have it, every time my camera did "click!" it caught the slight disturbance of the water's surface left by the seal's quick dive. I ended up with over 30 pictures of water, sans seal. So I decided to just try to film it - and Eureka! In 30 odd seconds of filming, I caught its appearance twice (total visible duration approx 0.0002secs on film). the other passengers and barman really sympathised - mainly because I was so loud when I finally caught him on film and showed anyone that was interested! I guess the seal felt sorry for me, and as I was about to give up, it jumped out of the water just as the Zodiacs with Spanish Speakers returned. A spectacular leap which I finally caught on memory card!!!

We set off as everyone went for a nap / shower / triple whisky straight-up before dinner. Just as we're getting used to being just the 3 of us at a table for 8 - and having fun playing musical chairs and confusing Ramon the waiter, the table next to us take pity and decide that they will adopt us from the next meal forward. After lots of discussing between waiters, head waiters, more uniforms and guests - AND an explanation to those that were unaware, that the tables are indeed bolted to the floor and cannot be moved, so 11 must squeeze onto a round table meant for 8 - it is decided that we will forgo cutlery by the side of the plate so we can fit in 11 plates. Sensible solution...

It is at this point that I claim a momentary lapse in sanity. Whether due to Ramon's swarthy good looks, the impending table-crush at breakfast, or just plain exhaustion from so much wildlife excitement in one day... whatever it was, it affected my judgment. The 2 entertainment reps / expedition leaders trap us at the table just as we are about to leave after dinner, asking for models for the International Catwalk to show Australis garb. I quickly volunteer Roger, and his name is promptly noted on an EMPTY piece of paper. Hmmm. I then inquire how many other models they have lined up. I don't think I ever got an answer, but somehow I agree to join in the farce and be a model. As we say in Dutch "samen uit, samen thuis" (out together, at home together? Sort of - stick together, wherever). I get to model the itchiest, most horrible scarf known to man. Apparently that's just my opinion, because on my way upstairs to the main deck and the awaiting audience, a woman comments "what a lovely scarf, is that one they sell here?" My brother, on the other hand, doesn't get off so easily. He gets to model a sweater, a Captain's hat, and a coat. He pulls it off with aplomb and is the star of the show. Out of the 3 models (including my brother and me), he was without a doubt the SUPERmodel. No great piccies, because my mum had obviously been at the wine and Pisco Sour!

The evening was capped off with a forgettable round of Bingo (I won nothing,

even in the "last person standing without a number called" round... I lost THAT one by suddenly going on a winning streak. The Brazilians cleaned up - they won ALL the prizes! Although, given that Mathias and Patrizio (the entertainment / expedition guides) made constant jokes about being completely open to bribes, I personally suspect foul play. That penguin keychain should have been MINE!

Ainsworth Bay - DisemBARK! Hoppen zee in ze dinghy, ja!

2008-03-13T16:11:00.018Z

Cruise nr. 71 got off to a fabulous start. There are two ships on the Australis line cruising from Punta Arenas to Ushuaia and back – but one is old and the other (ours! Yeay!) is still very new. They’ve "only" completed 71 trips so far, BUT more importantly... the captain was serving on the Mare Australis (the older vessel) for years before he jumped ship! We had a few waves at around 4am, but so far nothing stomach-churning. It’s actually a surprisingly smooth ride and our cabins are outfitted with a big picture window, duvets to keep us toasty at night, and a hot shower to make you think all is normal in the morning. We certainly went down to breakfast feeling energetic and refreshed!

This morning we moored in Ainsworth Bay opposite the Marinelli Glacier. It’s quite disconcerting to see that the glacier used to stretch beyond where we are at anchor, and now it is a white mass in the distance. Makes the talk about receding glaciers all too real.

We had a safety talk last night about life vests, best way to get in and out of the Zodiac and safety precautions we need to take on each “expedition”. So we waddled to the Yamana lounge for pre-disembarkation instructions. I say waddled because I was wearing layers as per instructions, including: underwear (duh), tights, hiking socks, hiking boots, cargo trousers, waterproof over-trousers, undershirt, t-shirt, sweater, outdoor windproof jacket, life vest, scarf, gloves, fleece hat... by the time I had to get my rucksack on with my sunscreen and water bottle... I was feeling just a tad constricted. When we got to the Yamana lounge, we were told to “fasten our tails”. Basically a strap that comes down the back of the life-vest, in between your legs, and then clips onto the front of the vest. Make it too tight, and it can be quite uncomfortable... wear too many layers and it may be virtually impossible to bend over to grasp the tail! I found a method that really worked for me – standing with your feet about a metre apart, start swinging back and forth until the “tail” swings up far enough in front for you to catch it. Since there were lots of people crowing around, armed with cameras, I might make it onto America’s Funniest Home Videos yet...

We're ordered into the dinghies in military (but always friendly!) fashion by the Expedition leaders - Mauricio, Patrizio, Rodrigo and Mathias. Naturally, there's always a few people that HAVE to push. It's not like they're going to leave you behind unless you make it to the front of the queue by brute force... but maybe the German survival /beach chair monopolisation instinct is so well-ingrained that even when the ship is NOT sinking and there's no sunning at the other end, they need to make it to the little boats first. I bet they could even give the average Chinese tourist a run/shove for their money!

There was suddenly one spot left in a boat and everyone was waiting for someone to fill it - but no one wanted to leave their other half or group. So I volunteered to be *gasp* separated from my nearest and dearest (and family) and hopped in to the boat. Means I caught some cool pictures of my brother and mother arriving and scrambling off the boat.

Ainsworth Bay, for all its beauty, doesn't have a lot of exciting things going for it EXCEPT for amazing scenery and an Elephant Seal colony that is purported to be there more often than not in the main season. To be fair, we did see a few of the animals - one dead (the main Man, poor thing), one comatose (his first "wife", sleeping with the occassional yawn that elicited excited "aaahhh!"s from the assorted tourists), and the escapee on the island just off the coast that had presumably seen our ship arrive and legged (finned?) it to the other side to escape camcorders. Sometimes I wish I had a camcorder rather than a normal digital camera - seeing the big mass of the Escapee hump and bump its way out of the water onto the dry was definitely worth standing in the freezing wind!

The expedition leaders are excellently informed and proceeded to give us an overload of information - About the Notofagus Lenga (or dissiduous tall birch? beech? not sure) and its shorter version the Coihue. About beavers and their destructive impact on the forests. About berries that tasted like apples - which we all bravely tried - and the Devils' Strawberries that apparently didn't taste like much of anything, but would create a bad stomach problem - which we all wisely avoided. Too bad, could've been interesting... and just the ticket to counteract all that white bread that they seem to love dishing up here!

Is it windy, or is it just me?

2008-03-12T21:40:00.012Z

Hah! On the road, the way I like it. We left Santiago early this morning – 9:30am pick-up at the hotel for transfer to the airport... practically the crack of dawn in Professional Traveller time! Although we’d warned my mum almost as much about the baggage allowance on internal flights as we had about pickpockets in Santiago, she still managed to pack 6kg over the limit and smuggle in a carry on suitcase and handbag. The check-in staff were very strict though and she had to cough up cash for the excess weight in her suitcase.

We landed in Punta Arenas and luckily our luggage landed with us. So far, so good. However, when we met our transfer guide at the exit gate, it turns out they were expecting 2 – not 3 – people. There are 3 people going to the airport, 3 people on the plane, 3 people going on the cruise... but they figure that only 2 are going from the plane to the cruise? Presumably the third got dropped at the cruise office mid-flight? Go figure. They told us we’d have to wait 30 minutes for a larger car - but being Dutch we said we’d manage. That was until we saw the car – about the size of a Ford Focus. The chauffeur did a Bang Up job (literally) of fitting our suitcases in the trunk, but that left my brother in the front passenger seat with his rucksack and my mother’s small carry-on suitcase on his lap, and the guide, my mother, and myself in the backseat. A cosy 30 minutes later, we arrived in Punta Arenas.

Punta Arenas is apparently rather windy. In the summer, winds get up to 120km/hr, but when we landed it was a balmy 30km/hr only. It has one main street, where all the tourists (frantically trying to buy horribly overpriced outdoor gear) and children (cruising the main street after school) congregate. We rushed around buying a fleece for my mum and waterproof trousers and a jacket for my brother (who’d come armed with jeans and a suede coat...). Being me, I’d come uber-prepared – I bought all the gear and then some in London. Ironically, this appears to have been the cheaper option!

We did a whirl-wind shopping tour and then headed for... the cemetary? Apparently one of the prettiest in south America. It is full os mausoleums - huge marble structures with angel statues and ornate decoration. The grounds are immaculate, with manicured tress all over. If you have to be dead, there are worse places to rest.

We grabbed a taxi and headed for the look-out over Punta Arenas to get one last important picture for the blog! Punta Arenas is quite small - but like most towns we've seen here so far, also very colourful. Green, red, yellow, blue, purple, orange - you can paint your house or businessany colour it seems. I sometimes wonder if London would be a more cheerful place on Monday mornings in the rain if Buckingham Palace was pink, the tower was yellow, Canary wharf towers were blue and red, and St. Paul's was orange? Hmmmm. Would definitely make me smile!

We got to the pier - couldn't find the yellow container we were supposed to go to in order to wait for the bus. So we asked a guard to let us through the gates and simply walked down the loading dock to the ship. We're on the Via Australis for the next 4 days. It holds about 130 passengers at max capacity, has 40+ crew and looks sleek and like it could deal with a couple of ice cubes in the water. We were going to be disembarking onto glaciers and island with Zodiac boats - little rubber dinghies (centre photo). Since we had an hour to kill before dinner, we decided to spend it playing tag on the top deck! Sometimes I wish I could add videos without taking up too much blog space - I have a hilarious one of my mum chasing my brother round and round a bench. The premier of "The one that got away" will be in September in London!

Dinner was yummy. Unfortunately, since we were the last passengers to arrive, there were no seats left at any other tables and we ended up sitting on our own. However, meant we didn't have to make useless small-talk and we got some extra attention from our very nice waiter named Roman... After dinner we went to ask if there were any cabins free - as 3 people in one cabin was a bit cramped and I was supposed to sleep on a fold-out shelf above my mum (see white bed folded up against the wall on the left!). the Gods are smiling on us - because not only was the cabin opposite empty - but they let us have it at no extra charge! (we must have already paid too much). So we moved mum into 319 and went to the bar to celebrate! I have a feeling this is going to be a memorable trip, one way or another!

Something different - NOT! Yet more walking...

2008-03-11T21:58:00.001Z

Today we did something different – we walked! Ahem. Santiago has a great metro system, a gazillion buses everywhere, taxi’s by the...erm...truck load, but there’s nothing like a 5 hour walk to really get you lost in a foreign city. We walked from our central hotel over to the Pablo Neruda museum, then over to Sanhattan to meet Juan for lunch at one of the older restaurants in Santiago, where we tried some typical Chilean meals. I forget what they’re called (getting older, I’m slowly losing the ability to retain information), but they were GOOD.

After lunch we WALKED around Sanhattan passing a weird spirally thing just randomly placed inbetween buildings. If it weren't so darn huge, I might get one for my back garden (when I figure out where I want to live, get a house, with a garden...). At last, we figured out a way to cross the river and headed for the Parque des Esculturas – a park with random sculptures dotted throughout. Some of the prettier ones deserve to be exhibited on the blog...

Last afternoon in a foreign city, what do you do? You go shopping! A woman in the shop we visited in patio Bellavista told us about a large craft shop enclave in the Eastern side of the city, about 25 minutes by taxi from the city center. Los Domenicos is basically a tourist destination, but interesting and charming nonetheless. It has jewelry, pottery, sculpting, painting, little cafes, pet shops, clothing made from alpaca wool, leather goods, etc etc etc. We taxid out there and headed for the sister-shop where the husband of the Patio Bellavista woman gave us a tour of their small jewelry workshop.

We’re a bit sad to be leaving Santiago, but my feet are grateful and looking forward to my butt taking over on the 4 day cruise from Punta Arenas!

Scalp that thief!

2008-03-10T22:23:00.007Z

Ever since arriving in Santiago – and even before – people have been warning me about the petty crime. The pickpockets are legendary. On our first day in Santiago – doing the Zombie Walk for 6 hours – Roger and I passed by the Plaza de Armas and a middle-aged man came up to me and asked “Where are you from?”. I replied, “from Holland” (he didn’t look like he was fishing for the 30 minute SHORT version of my life’s story). He then advised “watch your bag, this is a very dangerous area for pickpockets”. Juan and Maria had reiterated it on our first evening, and last night Nadege’s parents warned us again – especially about the Plaza de Armas. Can you feel it coming?

So, we moved to the Fundador this morning. We bid our B&B goodbye and piled everything into a cab for the move Chez Maman. Truth be told, I preferred the B&B, but what can I do? We then arranged to have the pre-booked tour in the afternoon so we’d have the next day free. The tour wasn’t available until 3pm, so we decided to head to the shops for some last minute shopping for the cruise to the Glaciers. I don’t like being a nag, but sometimes it’s necessary. My brother had the same idea, and together we must have warned my mother over 30 times within 2 hours to keep a watch over her bag, to hold it tight, to keep it by her side, to watch out for pickpockets etc etc etc. But, they’re slick if you're not paying attention.

We arrived at the...da-da-da-dummmm... Plaza de Armas and went into the Cathedral to have a look at this wonderful building (and in my case, escape the sizzling heat). Roger had already exited and I was taking one last picture when my mother tells me she’s taking the side door. My back was turned and as she tried to exit, she was crowded by 4 or 5 women who suddenly appeared out of nowhere. One shoved a mobile phone in my mother’s face and kept saying “photo, photo”. My mother reached up to push it away and... that’s when they must have been opening her bag and taking her wallet.

My brother was 5 metres away taking a picture of the front of the building and saw the crowd suddenly disperse, and my mum’s bag open. My mum quickly concluded that they’d taken her wallet and my brother took off after the group that looked like the people that had crowded her. It can’t have taken more than 30 seconds. I stayed to take ONE picture of the inside of the church, then turned to go outside, to see my mother running to the side of the building. I knew something was terribly wrong as soon as I saw that – my mother RUNNING. Not jogging, not walking slightly faster than her usual pace, but actually running. I took off after them to see my brother on the other side of the road, still running. I ran straight through the traffic on the road and caught up just as he’d caught the sleeve of a woman. My mother was not far behind and screaming something. The woman was pulling away so I got behind her and kneed her in the back (as you do) and then got her arm behind her in a half-headlock (self-defence has paid off Big Time). My mother got a death grip on the thief’s hair and finally got the words out that she stole her wallet. She found her wallet on the floor under the thief’s feet – she’s apparently dropped it when my brother got a hold of her.

The three of us were doing a good job of both keeping her immobile and scalping her at the same time – a true Peek Team effort. We then started looking for police as the crowd around us got involved. I guess they don’t see 3 obvious tourists having a knock-down fight with one of their own in broad daylight by the side of the cathedral every day... One particularly pugnacious guy screamed in my face “just let her go, you don’t have to treat her like that”. To which I replied, pugnaciously, “she robbed my mother, she deserves even more than what we’re doing”. Finally a guy in a suit told us that there was police in the square in front of the cathedral and got a grip on the thief to drag her there. I let go and got in front of her to snap some classic photos (what if she got away... we’d need a Mug Shot, right?!). It turns out that the man was not an undercover police officer as I thought, but a lawyer on his lunch break. Same difference? Used to dealing with slime in any case...

We finally got her to the police, who seemed unimpressed. My mother went through her wallet and found none of the cash was gone (over a hundred dollars), but ALL her credit cards were missing. I went into damage-limitation overdrive and we got her banker’s phone number and immediately called to have ALL cards cancelled. We also called the hotel to reschedule the tour – priorities people! We then had an escort to the nearest police station and put in a report of the incident. Since I had the pictures, we could describe her quite well. The police, however, were not interested in the pictures and even told us the woman would just be let go as there was no real evidence and, well, she didn’t take any cash and the credit cards were already cancelled. Like everywhere in the world, they have more important criminals to chase – even though they no longer needed to chase since we served her up on a newly follicly-challenged platter.

We got back to the hotel at 3:45pm to find the tour guide waiting for us. Since his suggestion of a historical tour of Santiago and the Plaza de Armas was not met with enthusiasm we decided to do a tour of New Santiago and the San Cristobal mountain look-out (gondola!). We drove up to the top of San Cristobal – a hill-top look out on the outskirts of Santiago that offers unequalled views of the city (and has a Gondola!). Roger enjoyed a local drink of...erm... some juice, wheat-type-stuff-and whole syrupy peaches. Delicious if a little on the complex side for a libation. We also bought a mega-something to share, turned out to be a filo-cookie covered in sugar that I just had to show my appreciation for on film! (BTW, this was just for the photo, I shared with the family and the pigeons... that promptly started following me around hoping for more of the same).

We’re just taking pictures of the monument at the top when my mother comes over and says “hey guys, I need to tell you something”. Odd. Alright... “Look what I found”. In her hand – yep, her credit cards. She’d misplaced them in her bag and had not put them back into her wallet the night before. Instead, they had been buried in the bottom of her bag. So, the thief got absolutely nothing for tangling with my mother, except a future follicle issue. The credit cards were still cancelled, but it seems my mother’s banker knows her better than we do. He’d put a temporary block on them rather than cancelling the lot and they were reinstated for 30 days.

On a high, we continued our tour by descending in a mini gondola and taking a tour of Sanhattan and the Millionaire’s Row type houses in the suburbs of Santiago. In the evening we headed over to an area called Patio Bellavista – an internal courtyard with artisan shops and several restaurants, and by far the best ice cream ever! So it was a good ending to a bad start! Peek Family 1: Santiago Pickpockets -100 (it’ll take a lot of future “earnings” to pay for treatment of that sudden bald spot...)

Last Peek in Santiago

2008-03-09T21:45:00.008Z

The day we’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived. Throw on your gladrags, do a little dance in the street, scream with happiness... because MAMA has arrived! Yes indeed, Santiago is now terminally unsafe as the trio is reunited and ready to roll. Of course Mama is not staying in the hostel, mama is staying at a 4 star hotel downtown. Natch. But, it’s within walking distance so we had a lie-in and headed off (after missing breakfast) to meet her in the hopes of having brunch...

Mama was raring to go despite the 14 hour flight, so we headed to “the hill near Santa Lucia”. I still don’t know what its called, but it’s a park built around a hill with a pseudo castle ruin on top. Its absolutely beautiful with fountains and long sweeping staircases... until you get to the very top and the sweeping staircases suddenly morph into poky little mountain steps that have been worn slippery with age. Going up was easy if a bit tiring in the noon sun, but what goes up....must come down. Unfortunately. My choice of footwear for the day had been heavily influenced by the heat and thus I found myself teetering precariously on flip-flops with a small heel. I ended up pretty much lowering myself down step by step by the handrail – and even then I nearly went flying on one particularly steep and slippery slope. It was not a pretty and definitely not a graceful descent. Let’s just say that my 66 year old mother following a 14 hour flight was a damn sight more sprightly than me!

As usual when following my brother and a map – we ended up on what seemed like the never ending quest for the holy grail. The hostel had recommended the perfect breakfast place – i.e. one that was likely to be open on a Sunday mid-morning in catholic Santiago – but we never quite made it. We finally settled into a cafe next to the Bellas Artes museum and watched the people parade going by (2 girls begging for money – either as students or as hookers promising services, a goth pair with a pram, a woman with a see-through top having Chinese take-out on a bench, a heavily armoured police bus, backpackers, the homeless man trying to steal my brother’s drink over the fence of the cafe terrace...).

We dropped mama off a block from her hotel to have a Siesta. Oh, and did I mention that our room at the hostel has a TV? I took a picture with my watch in the foreground...to show the scale. It's about 5 metres from the beds, didn't know they could MAKE them that small! We met up with mum again for a dinner in the evening with the parents of Nadege - another of my brother’s friends/ex-colleagues. He’s got them EVERYWHERE.

Remember that impromptu tour of El golf that Juan and Maria treated us to on our first evening? Well, they pointed out Coco Loco – Santiago’s most expensive fish restaurant. Three guesses where we ended up having dinner tonight? Was it worth it? Definitely! It was the best piece of that-meal-just-cost-the-same-as-3-nights-in-a-B&B-for-3-people-with-private-bathroom-and-breakfast I’ve had since Bokhara in Delhi. Ka-ching!!!!

Valparaiso!

2008-03-08T21:53:00.001Z

It’s amazing what 9 hours of solid sleep will do – feeling refreshed and positively PERKY we were up and ready to explore. Heartened by the hostel’s breakfast of white bread, cheese, and coffee, we set off with a map and some money for the bus terminal. Roger’s Spanish is dead handy as I just have to stand by looking gormless while he explains what we want. After procuring 2 return tickets (volver – must remember that one) we boarded our bus and sat in the wrong seat. We were ousted by a little old lady who explained that the numbers on the tickets actually mean something. It seems my brother’s Spanish doesn’t quite stretch that far...

An easy 1.5hours drive and we’ve arrived in Valparaiso. As soon as we get off the bus, a nice man in a fluorescent yellow jacket is waiting for us to show us to the tourist information center. Not. It is a tour agency and we quickly tire of the “this tour only, 2 places left, 10 minutes to decide” spiel and head out to take a walk around the area and look for the real tourist information center. Valparaiso is very hilly – it is built across 45 hills and it is completely impossible to see everything on foot. After taking a short walk through the market, seeing people buy watermelons literrally off the back of a truck, we end up back at the bus station and head to what we think is the real tourist bureau. We agree to take a slightly more expensive private tour (us, a driver and a guide) which will take us to 4 different towns. 20 minutes later we’re on our way and are told that we’re meeting another car and guide somewhere else since they didn’t realise we needed an English guide... a hint may have been my first question “Do you speak English – Hables Ingles?”.

OK, so we were had. We didn’t get a private tour, and instead of 4 places, we saw 3 – of which one was only to try to get us to eat in a specific restaurant where I am sure they receive a commission... We complained – and then got on with it and it was a great day nonetheless. Sunny, some funny people on the tour, and lots of hopping in and out of the minivan. Top sights of the day include the Renaca beach, Vina Del Mar flower clock (a must-see!), Rapa Nui head (from Easter Island - transplanted ot Vina del Mar), Valparaiso Pablo Neruda house and Funicular.

The Funicular is a mini train like they have in Switserland to take skiers up the side of the mountain – these only have one “car” though and the longest is approx 150 metres in length. The Funicular car is basically a wooden shack on rails – you can even see the ground through the wooden slats that make up the floor. Apparently most tourists are not excited by the prospect of a ride in a funicular – but since I insisted that this was part of the Valparaiso experience and we HAD to give it a try, they made a stop. We managed to get all but one of the other 6 tourists to come with us and we were soon bumping and shaking down the hill in the oldest of the old Funiculars. We made it down in one piece – a definite highlight in terms of adrenaline factor!

We nearly missed the bus on the way back to Santiago (long line in the women’s restroom is a worldwide phenomenon). Luckily my brother came up with the brilliant tactic of simply standing in front of the bus as it was waiting to depart, thereby delaying it enough for me to run up and still climb in - courtesy also of the laughing, good-humoured bus driver.

Arriving at the other end in Santiago – we were again met by a conniving Chilean who obviously saw an easy mark in us. He kept looking at me with sad eyes, pleading with me... the final straw was when he jumped up at me and then sat back down wagging his tail expectantly. I wanted to buy him a hot-dog, but my brother thought I was nuts. So he gave him a cookie, which the dog wisely ignored and followed up with a baleful stare instead. The street dogs here are plentiful and all too sad. It’s an eye-opener because I’m simply not used to seeing so many dogs alone, hurt, hungry and completely at the mercy of strangers – in Europe we have dog pounds, and in China I guess they get eaten. I’m not sure which is worse...

When it rains, it pours...

2008-03-07T23:40:00.011Z

When I first suggested to my brother that we stay in a hostel in Santiago, my idea was met with a horrified and uncomprehending stare. Hostel? Me? Si! So we went online and ended up picking B&B Rio Amazonas – one block from the Plaza Italia and about 100 metres from a Metro station. No, it doesn’t have a pool or gym. No, it doesn’t have a host of toiletries or an elevator. No, you can’t collect frequent flyer miles or order room service. BUT, it’s definitely a personal service and value for money. Case in point - since there were no doubles left, we booked a triple (3rd bed for my humongous bag). When we arrived we were given a room with 5 beds, easily as big as my brother’s living room. Besides, the gym comes built-in: no elevator means a 22kg bag to haul up 4 flights of stairs!

Since we’d been sitting for the past 17+ hours, and slept approximately 2, we decided to put on some walking shoes for a self-styled city walking tour. Armed with maps and some good information from the people at the hostel, we set off for a 5 hour Epic Journey. First stop: lunch! Having read some of my Lonely Planet before arrival ( I have learned the error of my ways as a result of the unfortunate hostel choice in Hong Kong...), I knew that the thing to eat in Chile would be a Completo. Basically a hot dog with sauerkraut, ketchup and mayo piled high. We happened to find the cutest diner just around the corner from our hostel. A long square bar with a barbeque plate in the center, which was manned by about 6 older ladies – each in charge of cooking to order for their section of the bar. I ended up swapping my sauerkraut for some Palta (Avocado mush) and ended up with the mother-of-all-hotdogs!!! Yum... just what you need after 17 hours sitting in a plance and no sleep... SIESTA anyone?

We made up for it though with 6 hours of walking. We went to the Universidad de Chile, Universidad Catholica, pedestrian shopping areas, Plaza de Armas, parks, the “River”, Museo de Bellas Artes ( I actually stepped foot inside, then immediately left again), Plaza Italia and finally the hostel again. Perfect timing – just as we returned to the hostel - my feet would move no more – it started to rain... and rain...and thunder... apparently Santiago’s first rain and worst storm in months!

That evening we met up Roger’s ex-colleague / friend and his wife, Juan and Maria, who had just moved back to Santiago from London the previous week. They took us on an excellent impromptu tour of the newer parts of Santiago – Sanhattan (Santiago + Manhattan...), El Golf etc and then onto dinner at the Lammu Lounge. It was 10pm by then (3am London time) and we were both ready to drop – not eat dinner. But when in Santiago... The food was excellent, as were the drinks. We tried Empanadas – little filo pastries filled with corn or meat or both. Delicious! And Roger had a Pisco Sour, the typical Chilean drink. Intermittent power cuts due to the still-raging storm made for an interesting atmosphere. After that everything was a blur, but I woke up in my bed at the hostel... so can’t have been too wild!

In the Air again! Santiago here we come!

2008-03-06T22:30:00.006Z

Having completed my hop-scotch tour of the Eastern Hemisphere and worked three months to generate more spending money, I’m now onto the Western Hemisphere. Starting with 2 month through Chile, Argentina, Bolivia and Peru - with an incidental visit to Brazil because I have to.... It’s so hard to be me. :P

To set the scene: My brother, the responsible sibling, has taken a 4 month leave of absence from his high-flying city banking job so he can join my mother and I on the trip through Chile and Argentina. Now, my mother can brag to her friends that she has not one, but TWO unemployed kids! Hah! Me, a bad influence??? Personally, this works out great for me because:

1) I have a co-traveller on the 17 hour journey from London via Madrid to Santiago (in Economy, on Iberia)
2) My mother has another unemployed offspring to focus on
3) Roger speaks Spanish (or maybe that should be point 1?)

24 hours before and Roger can check-in online. For some reason I am unable to do the same because *drum roll please* I booked with Expedia. So I call Expedia who tell me I have to talk to the airline that I made the booking with – British Airways. After navigating the BA call-centre options, I am informed politely, but firmly, that they cannot help me because the flight is actually a LAN Chile portion. So I call Expedia again to get the LAN confirmation code as the BA code I have does not work on their website. Finally, accessing the LAN site, they then inform me that they cannot help either because, although it is a LAN code, the flight is actually operated by Iberia. On the phone to Iberia - Iberia cheerfully tell me that they are unable to help assign a seat next to my brother because... they don’t have access as it has been booked with Expedia as a travel agent and not directly with Iberia.

To cut a long story short – on my last day in the UK, pre-departure, I spent 4 hours of valuable time chasing back and forth between airlines etc, to finally get Expedia to help me... only to be told at check-in that Expedia never requested any seat and I was now in the middle of a row of 4 some 10 rows away from my brother. BUT, after all that I finally lucked out and got a really nice lady at check-in who appreciated my tale of woe and made sure that we were at least sitting in the same row for the 13 hour flight from Madrid to Santiago, WITH a possible option of asking the Aisle Seat Holder next to my brother to swap with my Aisle Seat. Yeay! And when she said “I know how you feel, when I travel with my husband I also want to sit close to him”... I didn’t dare disabuse her of her romantic notion and tell her he’s my brother. Moral of the story: avoid Expedia like the plague and just book direct with the airline online, sometimes its worth the 40 quid extra AND make sure you and your brother look nothing alike. :P

So, this whole crisis is the reason why I didn’t have time buy a new fish-feeding machine for Bob & Bertha prior to flying halfway round the world. (OK, bad excuse...I am a baaaaad parent). The feeder I have apparently decided to die at some point without proper notification. Luckily my brother arranged to have one of his friends as a sort of tenant and I had a nice stash of feeding blocks that only need to be chucked into the aquarium ever 14 days. I’m thinking this is the IDEAL example to use for my mum when she next starts on about how all her friends have grandchildren already... if I can’t even manage to care for 2 goldfish, I guess that I am nowhere near ready for *gasp* kids. Besides, Roger’s 2+ years older so he’s first in line to reproduce... First In, First Out so to speak!

Anyway, back to the Travelling With Brother. Definitely more interesting than FLYING SOLO.
First, he’s great for comic relief! As we’re moseying down to security and I’m digging through my bag for my passport he states (rather too loudly) that “my banana has gone AWOL”. He’d packed a banana in his rucksack before we left (i.e. just chucked it on top in true Man-style, and it had since gone for a walkabout round his bag). Some casual digging did not appear to locate the missing fruit as he then exclaimed “I can smell the banana smell, but I can’t see it”. Maybe you had to be there...

Second, there’s the free entry into the Business lounge at Madrid airport courtesy of his Diner’s Club card (which he hasn’t used in 2 years) – free sandwiches, drinks and all the ice cubes we can handle at midnight in Madrid.

And last, but not least, there’s the “instant husband” effect. It helped at check-in, and it again facilitated the Aisle-for-an-Aisle swap on the long flight to Santiago. I managed to swap with a nice Belgian gentleman on the Madrid-Santiago flight (one of a group of 5 guys on a two week Salmon fishing trip...) and landed myself next to my brother, AND right in front of a mum with a small child AND a baby. I am sure I mentioned to the Belgian group Roger is my brother, but perhaps they didn’t compute because when we exited the plane, one mentioned that we must be glad to get to Santiago so we could go to the hotel to “cuddle”. Ewwwwwwwwww! I told him “That’s my BROTHER!” and he looked suitably horrified and apologetic. Apparently they thought we were on our honeymoon???

The flight wasn’t so bad, the baby mostly quiet if not odor-free, we got through customs with very little effort, didn’t get caught out by the Fruit & Veg sniffer dogs at the luggage collection (unlike my mother, who would try to smuggle in 2 Swiss apples a day later), and got a cab to our hostel in the centre of the city. Let the games begin!

The £1100 haircut (Upper Class to India baby!)

2008-02-05T22:07:00.004Z

So after nearly a year of procrastination, it's finally time to take on India with my mum. I'm not sure which scares me more - India and its infamous Delhi Belly or 3 weeks 24/7 with my mother! She's an absolute treasure, I'd flay anyone alive who dared to treat her like less than the Queen she, and when I'm feeling ill there's no medicine like a hug and some sympathy from my mum... BUT she also has the MOST uncanny ability to get under my skin with the littlest of things... That, and she always calls me just as I'm in the loo??? What's up with that?

Right, so after postponing India 3 times (April 2007 - too hot, June 2007 - I'm in China, October 2007 - My mum is planning major construction on her apartment) we finally settled on a now-or-never date of February 2008. As I am merely a chaperone on her trip (she's visiting friends and I'm along for the ride) I have no other option than to follow her route and travel arrangements. Upper Class flight to Delhi it is. Well, if I must...

In case you didn't know, Upper Class travel from Heathrow grants you access to the Virgin Clubhouse at Terminal 3... so after a 5 second check-in, an elevator ride straight to a separate security channel with 0 people queueing ahead of us, and some retail therapy in Duty Free, we finally head for the Clubhouse... except... we can't find it. No signs. No map. Nada, Niente, Nothing, Niks. So I ask at the Bulgari store (as you do) and they quickly point us in the right direction.

A 15 minute walk later, we arrive at the elevator to the clubhouse. I get that this is for pampered people who would prefer to expend as little effort as possible... but what exactly is the point of a sofa in an elevator that goes between 2 floors? Hmmmm. Let me rephrase that. What exactly is the point of a sofa in a PUBLIC elevator that goes between 2 floors? Exactemundo.

The clubhouse is suitably impressive - groovy moodlighting, lots of rounded shapes and funky chairs, hair salon, spa section, long bar, sushi / cold snack area, and an a-la-carte restaurant. After booking my appointment for the free haircut (yeay!), we sit down to a nice dinner. Following risotto and fish, I head to check out the restrooms before reporting back for my haircut. They've got me down as a wash and blowdry only... apparently the word CUT and my pantomime of snipping my hair with finger-scissors wasn't clear enough at time of booking. My mum starts her award-winning-scene-creating performance and they quickly fit me in after all. Sometimes mums are really handy!

My stylist is formerly of the Harvey Nicholls department store and the time flies by as we chat and he cuts. Conditioned beyond all frizz, I am done just as our flight is called out and we sashay to the gate.

Once ensconced on board, we get to grips with being Upper Class. First there's the pyjamas (I opted for extra comfy and asked for 2 sizes bigger than normal and ended up with Shaq's pants and Roseanne's top). Then there's food to order on-board, but we miss out as we're still stuffed from the Clubhouse dinner. My mum books a hand massage from the onboard beauty therapist for pre-landing. I figure out how to construct my perfectly flat bed, roll up in my duvet with my pillow and... still can't sleep. I end up trying to watch movies all night from my perfectly flat position. The massage never comes to pass (beauty therapist is MIA), the breakfast is uninspiring, and I haven't slept a wink... was it worth it? Of course, I just had the most expensive haircut of my life!

My celeb lookalikes... apparently

2008-02-04T21:29:00.001Z

the blog is being updated, really!

2008-01-15T01:01:00.003Z

OK, so I've been a lazy bum AND I had a good excuse while I was in China (blog was censored, ergo no access), but now I'm slowly managing to update the missing tales of wonder and woe. Starting beginning of August, all the way through to start of October. I have a few... ok, 14... more additions to go, but Watch This Space!

Soon to come in addition to reminiscing about China and Tibet:
Feb - India
March - Argentina and Chile
April - Peru and Bolivia
May, June - some of US (including Alaska) and Canada!

Plenty more places in the world where I can get into trouble, amusing one and all :)

Kunming: Gripe first, pretty pictures later!

2007-09-15T10:43:00.001Z

I'm in Kunming. Flight was excellent - I went by Sichuan Airlines this time. Amazing amount of legroom, AND a cute flight attendant (guy!). That's got to be the - 9th? handsome guy I've seen in the last 3+ months. Ouch. Sorry mum, I'm still single! Anyway, I'm trying to go on every domestic airline this country has to offer, and it's quite a bunch. So far I have knocked off China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, Xiamen Airlines, Sichuan Airlines...now there's Lucky Air to Dali, but I'm not sure if I want to jinx myself like that!

Onto the gripe at last - skip the entire post if you don't want to read another story of how-I-was-nearly-ripped-off-in-China. Then again, knowing how schadenfroh you all are...keep reading! Hey - I'm making progress, thanks in no small part to knowing basic Mandarin. At least now its more and more "nearly" stories, and no longer the "argh, ba$tards, thieving shites, dishonest, nasty, ..." Rrrrright, moving swiftly on to the story-du-jour!

I'm so sick of arriving in places and being deemed a target for being ripped off as soon as my feet hit the pavement outside the luggage claim. They try, they always try. This morning I had some guy following me out to the taxis, asking where I was going. Told him "I'm going in a taxi, and you?". He kept bugging me as people around me stared. Kept pointing at some stupid "cert" patch hanging around his neck. I wasn't sure what he was "cert" for, but since he didn't speak to everyone in the taxi line (just the dumb-easy-target-foreigner) I figured he was up to no good. Then I finally got to the head of the line after shoving another would-be queue-jumper out of the way. As I got into the cab, the cabdriver mumbles to him then tells me he doesn't know the address of my hostel. So I tell him - its ok, I have a map and I know it wil cost 20 RMB to get there. The annoying guy (let's call him MR. A$$hole) tells me the taxidriver doesn't know, but conveniently he does and he can take me for 80 RMB. So I tell him in Chinese "you drive me crazy, I pay only 20RMB". The first part of that sentence being the only condescending / halfway insulting thing I know other than "lazy pig", which, let's face it, wasn't any more suitable in this situation. I tell the taxi driver "do you know or not? I go with other taxi if you don't know". Wish I knew what 'don't waste my time' is, might figure that out today and learn to recite it by heart. So the taxi driver finally admits he does know and we get back in the cab as Mr. A$$hole is shouting "60RMB" at my uncaring back. I KNOW I should have gone to a different cab... In hindsight it's like watching that horror movie when the victim doesn't look behind the door as she enters the room even though you can see the shadow lurking...

He starts driving, then stops after 5 minutes and asks me where it is again. I get angry and ask him "do you know or not? Its near Zhuan Tang park" and I give him the little map with x-marks-the-spot. He continues, does another u-turn, continues.... looks about a bit, driving 20km/h. I call the hostel and tell them to talk to the cabdriver and to tell him to stop going in a circle and that I am not paying more than 20RMB. FINALLY he gives up trying to cheat me and I get here with the meter at 20.6 RMB. B@stards. Didn't get me! AND NOW the hostel tell me they don't have my room... right. Told them I'll wait until official check-out at 12:00 and then they'd better have my room because I have a printed confirmation and I will put in a complaint to both the site that booked it and LonelyPlanet. If they don't have my room, they can pay for a taxi to the next hostel plus give me back the deposit. She tells me I can use Internet until then... so here I am, sitting at a PC with a big sign over the top saying: "If you like our hostel, would send an email to <>. We need your help. thank you so much! email: talk2us@lonelyplanet.com.au". Oh, I'll send an e-mail all right. I don't even have to go through the bother of looking up the e-mail address! Let's see what happens at 12:00. Grrrr. :P

Every little thing here is a fight for justice and fair treatment. It's such a blessing when people are nice, honest and helpful...which is kind of what you'd expect if they want people to come back and give good word-of-mouth advertising to others along the way. I am ready to finish my travels here, leaving the squat-toilets and cockroaches behind for less polluted pastures! it's like a race against time - if I don't see the things I want to see now, I may never (willingly) come back. Sad, but true.

Aren't you all glad you're at home, have a normal clean toilet, a bed without bugs, a shower that isn't suspended over the toilet, food isn't always covered in a mystery sauce to hide the mystery meat, and the Tube/train/bus/taxi isn't going to try charging you 4 times the standard price?

Ah, but then I've also seen the Temple of Heaven and the Terracotta Warriors, climbed the Great Wall in two places, been in the world's highest hotel-lobby and floated down a river along scenery featured on a banknote, climbed around the world's largest Buddha AND seen REAL Giant Pandas!!! That's gotta be worth a bit of hassle, right? Right? Who's with me?!

Travel in China - you just have to smile!

2007-09-10T21:35:00.000Z

So I’ve been looking online and trying to figure out where to go next, what to do, who to go with and what to see... there are so many choices...if you’re Chinese. Unfortunately, my Mandarin is not yet sufficient for me to be able to follow a guided tour in just Mandarin, nor have I surrendered my preference for:
- a toilet instead of a mucky hole in the floor
- a bed instead of a mat on a bench
- a shower that is private and not suspended over a toilet
- identifiable food ingredients instead of mystery meat with miscellaneous bones and gristle
- a sense of personal space instead of practically being SAT ON by the other people that would be on the tour.

I like my creature comforts, and personal space and basic hygiene are key components.

I really had to laugh when I came across the following description for the first day of an “English Guided Tour” to Tibet:

No tour guide service today but the Tibetan guide will pick up you at Lhasa airport, please do not have violent physical activity.

Just makes you wonder sometimes... what must have happened for this plea to be added to the itinerary? I’ve heard of altitude sickness, but this is a completely different kettle of fish!

Beijing without pictures :(

2007-09-02T07:24:00.000Z

It had to happen sometime in the 8-9 months that I am travelling. I deleted a folder of pictures for which I don't have a back-up. Not just delete-save-them-from-the-recycle-bin... nope, hard delete, Shift+delete, bypass the recycle bin, do not pass Go, do not collect memorable snapshots from Tiananmen square and the Forbidden City, do not publish cool pics in your blog, remain photo-less and alone for the remainder of your life! Weeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhh!

OK, actually, it's not that bad. Not just because we really should learn to live without so many material possessions (laptop, camera, ipod, so many things - so much to be stolen!), but also because in my infinite wisdom, I made great friends that thought my photos were cool and who wanted a DVD of all my pics. So I burned DVDs the day before I deleted the photos from my PC and a copy now exists in the mountains of the south of France. Hopefully a duplicate is being made as I type and I will receive my pictures in due course. In the meantime, my blog will have to be updated NAKED!

Last days in Shanghai

2007-08-17T18:23:00.007Z

Another week has passed in a blur with cramming Mandarin and all sorts of Tourist madness. Time is flying by and it seems as though there's never enough time to see and do everything!

2 nights ago we went to see an Acrobat Show. Winfried, Sandra and I (the Summer Study Tour students) had front row tickets to see China's Best Acrobatic Show (aren't they all?). This one WAS amazing though - maybe not as good overall as China's Best Acrobatic Show in Guangzhou :) One act in particular was amazing - featuring a 10 meter high wire mesh globe, and 6 motorcyclists racing around inside! I found myself with my hands in front of my face peeking through my fingers - excellent! Guangzhou had hippos and monkeys though... that's hard to beat.

Yesterday we visited the Jingan Temple in the city centre of Shanghai. Its and old facade surrounded by super-modern malls and bling-bling skyscrapers. Blink and you'll miss it! After floundering a little in finding the actual entrance, we all paid our 10 RMB and entered into one of the oldest sights in Shanghai. Apparently the first temple was built here in 247 AD. Unfortunately, Renovation Fever has hit and its looking more like a pre-Disney attraction. Lots of scaffolding and shiny new "bits"... with a monk or two thrown in for good measure. Mathias tried to enter a room with lots of photos on the wall, but was refused. Turns out its a remembrance room for all the monks that have served the temple in the past. I can see why they would want to barr pesky tourists...

So we spent some quality time taking lots of pictures of each other... spot the Marisa in the photo on the left.

Last night Sandra and I met up with Charlotte - French Girl with Dutch Boyfriend who I met through Simon in Guangzhou - she is moving to Shanghai soon... after I leave :/ She's in Shanghai scouting for places to live, I don't envy her the task. Shangai is EXPENSIVE and Chinese construction is great, but the finishing touches (working taps, non-flooding bathroom, windows that open) usually leave a lot to be desired.

Around the corner from our apartment is the cutest little Italian restaurant ever... on a side street of Nanjing Lu, there's a renovated tram car which has been converted into a restaurant. Multo Cute! Best thing of all, they cook REAL italian food (or as close as possible with Chinese ingredients) and a Spaghetti Carbonara will set you back 21 RMB - that's a WHOPPING £1.5 or US $3. How will I ever survive London again???

Sugar High in Pudong!

2007-08-16T21:45:00.000Z

After “slumming” it for *gasp* nearly 2 weeks in our smelly student apartment next to the Le Meridien hotel... Sandra and I decided it was time for a little infusion of class. So, we headed for the most luxurious hotel in Shanghai – the Grand Hyatt located in the tallest building in Shanghai – The Jinmao Tower.

OK, ok, ok, so I had an ulterior motive other than wanting to get away from the smelly student apartment! I went there because it’s the tallest hotel in the world as it is located on the top 20+ floors of the Jinmao Tower (one of the tallest buildings in the world and thus in my all-important “101 things to do before you die” list) . With the lobby on floor 68 and an observation deck somewhere on the 89th or 90th floor... I was game for some exploring.

Sandra and I headed to Pudong – the area of Shanghai that boasts humongous towers with ridiculous shapes – my personal favourite is of course the Pink Pearl Tower!!! After schlepping around in temperatures of 40C, we finally made it to the underground entrance for the observation deck. The views from the top were amazing – especially the view of the new tower being built “next door” to the Jinmao Tower. It is soon to be the tallest building for no doubt at least 10 seconds before another one somewhere else in the world tops it. Interestingly, it had gone up in flames 2 days before and tens of floors had been completely gutted by the fire. Now there’s a sobering thought as you’re 90-some floors high in the air watching the smoke damage “next door”.

Being a complete and utter tourist, I took the opportunity to buy stamps and post my postcards from the highest post office in the world - or rather the one located highest above ground level. Totally cheesy, but hey, when in Jinmao... So keep a watch out for "lofty" mail!!!

To end the day with a bang, we decided to go have cake and coffee in the Hyatt as a treat after seeing the inside atrium above the lobby from the observation deck (40-some floors of open space with a window at the top to look down on people haing coffee!!! - see left - Wicked). So we raced back down in the observation deck express elevator and then journeyed back up to the 68th floor lobby in the Hyatt hotel elevator where we were met with one uniformed person after another. No doubt they were casing us to see if we would be running off with the silver! Admittedly, we didn’t look nearly as “dressed down” as some other guests – in flip flops, ratty shorts, and carrying backpacks! I mean, really, at least Sling On the Bling, Dahling!

Anyway, we made it through all the security to find that the doormen, receptionist, bellboys, and waiters were all incredibly polite and friendly... not a condescending look to be seen! We came, we sat, we ordered 2 cappucinos, 2 pieces of miniscule cake, a bottle of water and an orange juice and paid 660 RMB... 44 quid! Service not included... naturellement!

YuYuan Gardens, take 2

2007-08-14T22:35:00.000Z

After kicking up a fuss Marisa-Style at the school about their ignorant and completely unprofessional program, Sandra, Winfried and I were told we could go to YuYuan gardens in our own time, buy a ticket, give them the proof we actually went there and then they would refund us the money... all 30 RMB (2 pounds)... but its the PRINCIPLE that counts! :)

So off to YuYuan gardens we went – it was a magnificent little piece of tranquillity in the midst of the Shanghai madness. Leafy trees, old pagodas and big orange fish (koi?) in ponds...

Actually, pictures speak louder than works... so here goes!

Best 30 RMB + cab fare I've spent so far!

Of course not outing is complete without a little shopping, so we stopped in the many galleries and museum shops contained within the gardens and bought (in order of MADNESS)

Marisa: pendant made out of bit of an old Chinese ceramic vase, small signed Cherry blossom water-colour painting

Winfried: painted enamel spoons, small signed water-colour paintings

Sandra: 2 pairs of earrings, small signed water-colour painting, BIG ASS HUMONGOUS HANGING water-colour painting.

Jealous, moi? Perhaps... Sandra's 6ft fish were quite unequivocally DA BOMB. I'd show you a picture, but then I'd be jailed. Not a good idea in China... or anywhere really.

Qiandaohu - 10.000 islands lake (day 2)

2007-08-13T22:50:00.000Z

I’ve led a sheltered life, yes I have. I’ve travelled a bit, seen a few things, stayed in some interesting places. But this morning I awoke bright and early to another first... the REAL Chinese Hotel Breakfast. I’m usually adaptable and quite game to do a “When in Rome...” wherever I end up.

But this morning, faced with grilled sweet potato, Bao, dumplings, Congee, Noodles, some kind of jelly-egg-thing, and a myriad of unappetising-at-8am I finally realised I was in China. I wondered how I’d managed to avoid the full-on China experience in the morning. I’d had my fair share in the evening (Guilin chicken being a prime example). Then I realised, I hadn’t been in a truly Chinese Hotel before now – where no one speaks a word of anything other than Chinese, the beds are just long enough that your head touches the wall and your toes teeter on the edge, the shower (though not suspended over the toilet) is just slightly uncomfortably too low.... and instead of a soap and a toothbrush in the bathroom – you get hygienic “lotion” for him and her...they’re excellent contraceptives and “cure the ill”. Apparently. Interesting. Despite it being an excellent opportunity for another FIRST, my thoughts are that perhaps I won’t be testing these...

Interestingly, we found that our “minibar” basket in the room included not only green tea and crackers but also Men’s underwear, more hygienic wipes, and miscellaneous other products I imagine would be found in rooms rented by the hour.... The picture to the right is of my roommate Sandra showing off her "The Price Is Right" product-display talents holding all the many goodies in our room!

Moving swiftly on, it was back on the bus for a leisurely ride through the countryside towards our next destination – River Rafting!

We arrived to find a big gravelled parking lot, wooden hut, lots of inflatable dinghies, a mini-lake, and a dam.... from which came what appeared to be a trickle of water that was supposed to be our “river”. I’ve seen more voluminous flows coming from hostel-showers and was understandably sceptical about its ability to transport an empty dinghy, let alone one with several passengers. But then two locals started tearing down the dam - literally. And the water started gushing down over the rocky riverbed, turning into a small churning river. Wehey, there was hope after all!

All the girls ran to get in one last potty-break before the raft... until they saw the toilet. 50% turned back, hardened-China-Traveller-that-I-am, I was in the other half and persevered. The word toilet is doing toilets everywhere a major disservice. A bamboo shack (picture stalks of bent bamboo, not too tightly bound together, creating a charming "now you see my butt, now you don’t" effect, with an even more "uncensored" view inside through the dividing wall between the Gents (hole in the ground) and the Ladies (smelly hole in the ground with non-working flush and a giant turd rotting in the sun... loverly). It was at this precise moment in time that I truly appreciated the wonder that is my pair of platform flip-flops... 5cm between me and the putrid mucky ground is better than nothing.

So we all got suited up (a life-vest), prepared our equipment (put my camera in a sandwich baggie in my pocket), slapped on some more sunscreen and a hat, and prepared to board our rafts. Small river = small boat. But when we were told to pair up - one guy and one girl in each boat - I finally realised it was a 2-person raft. The "raft" looked like a kiddie-dinghy as used in a pool by 5 year olds... but we gamely boarded our vessels for a practice paddle around the slowly diminishing mini-lake. I lucked out and got Hector as my rafting buddy. Strong-ish, funny, man with ZERO rafting experience, we were definitely in for a laugh.

Because the dinghies were so small, we had to sit facing each other, which meant that one of us was always blind to what was coming, not to mention had to try to paddle backward down a rapid! So we had a bit of a discussion over who would be facing backwards when we went over the dam and hit the first rapid going down the river... given my superior rafting experience (and willingness not to see what was coming) I agreed to be the blind one.

Apart from our group, all the people there were Chinese tourists. About 40 boats or so paddling around the lake. Some even had umbrellas - to protect from the sun, but also came in handy protecting from the water as it turned out... I'm not quite sure who started splashing first, but it wasn't me. I. did. not. start. the. water. fight. really, truly, I am innocent. :)

As far as I could tell, the Chinese tourists were attacking each other, one of them missed, got Hector and me instead, and messed up Big Time. Everyone went silent - as if they were expecting us to cause a big fuss and get upset over a little water. Well, they soon found out that I don't get upset. No sirrreeee, I get EVEN. *evil grin* While Hector was trying to mediate and calm the situation, I went into a splashing frenzy with my paddle. Having had plenty of water-baby experience in New Zealand and Australia (sledging, river kayaking, ocean kayaking, rafting...) I had great aim and great volume.

From then it was war and for the next 3 hours we all raced each other down the river while making sure no one came out dry. Luckily my camera managed to survive against all odds because I hid it away after the first volley was launched. Even Hector got into the swing of things and gamely entered the fray. We all got absolutely SOAKED, but it was awesome fun to laugh and go to war without being able to communicate at all in each other's language. I guess splashing is universal :)

Following a quick but rather public change, we all boarded the bus to head for lunch... on a pontoon. Sandra took some pictures of the kitchen, luckily none of us saw these before tucking in. Thank G*d for small favours and iron stomachs :)

Qiandaohu Karaoke - Going Local!

2007-08-12T23:49:00.000Z

Maybe it should be Going Loco rather than Going Local - this was quite possibly the funniest night in China so far... well, apart from racing around the Xi'an Sofitel in my bathrobe at 1am... natch.

Take a group of tourist/students, plonk them into a very basic hotel in the middle of nowhere China, suggest they "stay in and sing Karaoke in the hotel bar" and watch them make a run for it! Not happy with going to bed at 8pm following another wonderfully authentic Chinese dinner, we elected to drag our chaperones out with us to explore downtown Qiandaohu. From street opera to all-night-dried-fish-shops... Qiandaohu has it all! Including the best thing since sliced bread - a big square where the entire city's population seemed to convene for a Chinese version of line dancing. Physical exercise and flirting in one - the ladies dance in the middle and the gentleman watch them avidly. Even at 10pm at night, kids were still playing and hundreds of women were out dancing the routines.

Being a total coward in public situations, I chickened out and followed the moves from the sideline while Sandra, Alessandra and Ham Fong actually joined in with varying degrees of success. Funnily enough - none of us spoke enough Chinese to understand the directions being called out or to ask what was going on, but dance transcends even language barriers and one of the leading matriarch types came over to dance alongside Sandra and exclaim in Chinese how good she was at picking it up? Or so I assume from the smile... she didn't spell out the Pin Yin :) Sorry Pak - absolute BLINDING opportunity for a first and I just let it slip right through my fingers...

Of course there were pictures, but since I was taking part (admittedly on the sidelines) I didn't take any myself and the owners of said cameras absconded with the evidence...maybe its all for the best. :)

Following the 11pm mini-workout we finally made it to Karaoke. Some of the more "advanced" students attempted to sing in Chinese with admirable effects... being a HUGE fan of S.H.E. (Taiwanese 3-girl popgroup) I knew the lyrics (chorus) to "I.O.I.O." and did a duet with Wendy-school-coordinator-extraordinaire on "Superstar"... with Wendy doing the Chinese vocals aided with my chorus of "you are my superstarrrrrrrr". Funny for me, but torture for the rest! Though they were all considerably sloshed so probably didn't notice additional atonal screeching from yours truly...

Luckily our departure time the next morning was only at 8am... so we were assured of at least 5 hours sleep before rafting the next day. Oops. :/

Qiandaohu - 10.000 islands lake

2007-08-12T18:22:00.000Z

Woo-hoo Road Trip! Ehm, Boat-Trip. Whatever.

After studying like MAD for a whole WEEK (seriously, I’m about to Pin Yin someone) we’re off on a school-organised trip. That means the lucky three Summer Tour students get to go on the trip for free, but everyone else had to pay a WHOPPING 850 RMB all inclusive – that’s 56 pounds for a 4 hour bus journey each way, guide (aherm), night in a hotel (AHERM), river cruise (it’s getting old), river rafting (really), and fun with fellow students (now THAT was a highlight). Karaoke and water / drinks / dignity sold separately.

After a bright and early start in Shanghai, we clambered aboard our super-deluxe touring coach and settled in for a 4 hour journey to QianDaoHu (literally 10-thousand Island Lake). We had two chaperones from the school – Wendy: coordinator extraordinaire and quite possibly the kindest, most cheerful and most helpful Chinese person I have met so far in my 6 weeks in the country, And Never-Introduced-Herself-but-we-found-out-her-name-is-Echo: she of the Nanjing Lu “Tour”. Oh and our “Guide” for the weekend. Now, you’d think with a bunch of beginners on board they’d stump for an English-speaking guide as per advertising. Noooot. OK, I lie – he knew at least 3 words of English and was convinced he was the next Usher. Unfortunately his attempts to loudly and atonally convince us of this fact at 8:30am in the morning on a tour bus (=moving prison) failed abominably. Perhaps it was his Michael-Jackson-esque dance moves that just put me over the edge. Or maybe I'm just jealous of his X-factor :)

*****

On a side note – why is it that I always attract the freaks? Mr I’m-The-Next-Usher-If-Only-I-Could-Pronounce-Any-of-The-Words-Oh-Wait-YEAH-Is-Only-One-Word... decided that because I was listening to my iPod and was playing R&B on it, this made us soul-mates.He kept insisting he listen to what I was listening to and giving me his (ICK!) headphones for his mobile phone to listen to his faves. I cunningly thwarted his attempts to sit next to me by ceremoniously dumping my bag on the seat next to me, sitting by the window, putting my headphones on and looking out the window as if I’d never seen a car, road, or blade of grass. It worked marvellously. The nasty side-effect was that Sandra (sitting across the aisle and not having defended her aisle seat) was the next victim. I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun observing body language and furious/exasperated glares! Sorry, but in this war its every Woman for herself - Survival of the Rudest and all that. :P

*****

But I digress... so moving swiftly on!

We arrived in Qiandaohu ready to board the boat, which would take us to another boat, where we would have lunch and then go explore some of the islands. After a quick stop at the "Pubuc Toilet" before we embarked on our voyage... spelling checker anyone???... we boarded the boats like acrobats accross the 30cm wide and 5 metre long gangplank at an angle of 45+ degrees. This was when I realised that platform flip-flop sandals might not have been the choicest footwear for the expedition!

The lunch was interesting as usual - lots of unidentifiable ingredients and slithery dishes! Like true locals, no one even attempted to identify the meat or origins of the dishes. With everyone taking turns at being the guinea pig we soon came to a consensus along the lines of "this one isn't too bad" and "that tastes like seaweed marinated in the toilet". Shared pain is halved pain :)

Our first stop was Snake Island, which is leterally an island where they've dumped a lot of snakes into pits for tourists to look at. You can even hold a large one around your neck for a price. Like most chinese tourist attractions, it all seemed a bit surreal and very fake. Mass tourism - ship hundreds of people around a few island on the lake, give them 20 minutes to traverse the "walk" around the island and snap a picture and then move on to the next island (Dragon Island - no one was sure why it was called that, no pits with Dragons to be found).

...Admittedly I may be a bit down-in-the-dumps because I am suffering from a truly vicious maladay - the flu. My ears are clogged, my nose is running, my throat is killing me and no amount of snake-pit-fun or mystery meat will cheer me up. But I can still pose for photos :) Priorities there must be!

YuYuan Gardens - Take 1

2007-08-10T23:57:00.000Z

So I opted for the super-deluxe version of the studying Mandarin with Mandarin house... and part of being a Summer Study Tour student at Mandarin House means you get afternoon tours of Shanghai landmarks included in the price for the course. Each afternoon the school organises some sort of activity, from a Nanjing Lu tour to a KungFu lesson! One of the nicest places to visit in Shanghai is YuYuan Gardens – an oasis of calm and greenery in and otherwise hectic and severely polluted city. The tour was very popular among students with over 12 signing up for the jaunt.

We all got into cabs and agreed to meet the “tour guide” from the school (you guessed it, another teacher) at the entrance of the tourist street at 4pm. We all made it there with no mishaps, spoke to a Chinese policeman (its illegal to take their picture, apparently...) to make sure we had the right place, and then proceeded to be ogled and photographed by Chinese tourists as we perused the stalls and shops in the touristy area.

With our local guide leading the way, we happily roamed about and finally made it to the garden entrance at 5:02pm...

Only to find closed doors and a sign that said that there was no admittance after 5pm.

You’d THINK they would check that. Maybe read a lonely planet. Ask previous guides who’d been there. I don’t know...ASK someone who’s actually been there and knows? Maybe do a little research before taking 12+ students on a fruitless “tour” to see a set of closed doors. Admittedly, the doors were ornate and the sign was quite pretty, BUT SERIOUSLY. If the “guide” hadn’t looked so shell-shocked, I would have thought it was a joke and laughed. As it was, I merely geared up for an almighty row the next day at school to demand money back so we could visit the place again... when it was open.
See? Proof that stupidity is definitely not regional – it is multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-ignorami. *sigh*

Wo zai Shanghai xuexi Hanyu!

2007-08-06T21:19:00.000Z

This week I’ve been studying Mandarin in Shanghai! I moved into a shared apartment with 6 others – Dutch, Belgian, German, Italian, French, America/French and moi! I lucked out because my room is easily twice the size of any of the others. The apartment is on the 20th floor of a building one block away from Nanjing Lu (main shopping street – much like Oxford Street, but only for pedestrians) and right next to the Meridien Hotel. Swank-y !

I’m on the Summer Study Tour which is supposed to be 2 weeks study in Shanghai, 2 weeks in Beijing, plus all sorts of extra activities and guided tours around both cities. When I booked, I was told “you have to hurry, there’s only one space left”... I didn’t believe it at the time, and it turns out there are only 2 others on the same program. Winfried – Dutch, ALMOST 21, wants to move to Shanghai and has been studying Chinese at college, and Sandra – American/French, mum of three, age withheld because no one will believe me when they see her pictures anyway...she looks about 35! There are lots of other students, but they’re only doing the classes, so it’s just the three of us who bought into the whole “we’ll take care of everything” routine!

Since I didn’t follow many of my lessons in England (I think 5 out of the 11 held while I was still in the country!) and of that, not much stuck around to be useful now... I enrolled in the “total beginners” class. The first 4 days were ONLY pronunciation... ad nauseam. Repetitive to the extreme, and sleep-inducing by nature, it is only because of the sheer will-power of our amazing teacher (Ren Fu Li) that I came out halfway sane at the other end. I may not yet know any useful phrases... but put some PinYin in front of me and I can read it like a pro. Unfortunately, PinYin isn’t really used anywhere... hmmmm...

Part of this whole Summer Study tour is that we have a lot of activities thrown in “for free”. Riiiight. I know, I know, I’m usually more sceptical and my instincts were clanging loud and clear, but I ignored them. The “free activities” include such exciting things as having a teacher walk with us down Nanjing Lu (yep – you read it before, Oxford street located just outside our apartment building). We went into a Chinese pharmacy to contemplate the purchase of all manner of beatles, dried bits of animal (don't look too closely), and even silk worms in coccoon... they're excellent for curing something - unfortunately explanations weren't included in the tour! At the end of Nanjing we finally came to the Bund. And opposite the Bund? The Pearl tower - standing proud and pink in all its glory... bless. :)

We also had a King Fu lesson – admittedly the teacher was good, even though it was a teeny-looking female language teacher who was essentially showing us her hobby... unfortunately the location left a little to be desired. Picture 4 tourists, one teacher, a classroom about 3 x 3 metres big, August in Shanghai (41C) and no aircon. Combine this with lots of running, kicking, punching... the sweat stains notwithstanding the sheer WHIFF of the classroom at the end attested to our 2 hours of hard work!

Last activity for the first week was a Chinese calligraphy lesson. Following 1.5 hours of painstaking painting of dots and slight horixontal lines with a pointy edge on the right... mind the start on the left is a boxy shape and the line is even throughout.... Nope, I didn’t get it either. Every line looked the same, loads of dots on lots of paper, gigantic mess of black in and she finally gave up and let us loose on big sheets of rice paper. I managed to learn to write my “Chinese” name – Ma Rui Sha. Depending on who translates it anywhere from horse, mum, divine, snow, pure, intelligent, mountain...or just sounds like Marisa. I prefer to think of it as a pure female divine being :P I think that’s what’s called Artistic Interpretation!

Suicidal AND Social in Shanghai

2007-08-04T04:32:00.000Z

Today was an eye-opener. I finally figured out where my school is located thanks to the help of a kindly concierge, a knowledgeable taxi driver, and a new map. I am now the proud owner of 4 maps of Shanghai...and NONE of them are the same. They say Shanghai changes too fast for the maps to keep up – something that was there a month ago, might not be in the same place today. Also, it helps to have an English version map, as opposed to a Chinese one!

Feeling über-confident after my foray into deepest, darkest Shanghai... I decided to walk the few blocks to the subway for my first ride on this reputed symbol of efficiency. Hah! I was armed with 3 of 4 maps, but construction, confusing signage and just the usual snarl of traffic everywhere served to confuse my otherwise excellent sense of direction. I was expiring in 39C heat, lost and disoriented, getting rapidly fed up with the futility of waiting at the zebra-crossing as cars were ignoring red traffic lights and green pedestrian signals to clog the crossing with bumper-to-bumper traffic with the occasional squealing brakes (pedestrians rank somewhere below pond scum in China)... when suddenly I had an epiphany... a flashback to Amsterdam. I threw myself in front of the cars. Rage is a powerful motivator! Looking the opposite way to the oncoming traffic - I figured, if they can see I’m not looking and my blond hair is in their face, maybe they’ll think twice before they flatten me – I actually crossed the road. I had an moment of Dutch Courage...and a Chinese following as people practically stuck to me and followed in my wake. Marisa 1: Shanghai traffic 9.896.341, but it’s a start to claiming back my right of way! I am foreigner, hear me roar!

In the evening I met up with Wara – whom I met at the Lindsays in Shenzhen – and went to dinner with some of her MBA classmates. I have to admit, I was intrigued when the e-mail arrived with the address and the following instructions:

You need a code to get inside. Tomorrow night the code will be 27. When you arrive at 805 Julu Road, you walk up the stairs. You will see 9 orange holes in the wall. To open the door place one hand in the 2nd hole and the other hand in the 7th hole (27). There is no sign or anything of the restaurant.

True to the description – it WAS hard to find. I did feel excruciatingly stupid sticking my hands in holes number 2 and 7, but it was worth it when we entered. A very sleek and stylish establishment, with prerequisite dim lighting, and great food. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’d be able to find it again...so this will just have to remain a first AND a last!

The next party location was Glamour Bar, which was enticingly sold to me as “an expat bar where people go to see and be seen and the drinks are really expensive”. Naturally, sophisticated schmoozer that I am (ahem), I couldn’t WAIT to go. So there we were, 18 people standing on the side of a smallish road in semi-darkness fending off the extremely persistent and touchy-feely beggars that were lying in wait outside the restaurant entrance (they didn’t believe my newly memorised sentence: I have no money)... with no hope in hell of flagging down the required 5-6 taxis. This is where the company chauffeur and minivan come in. As a side-line in the evenings, apparently company chauffeurs trawl the streets looking for tourists to ferry about in the company car at a special price. I got lobbed into a miniVAN with 9 others, the driver, and his son. There’s nothing quite like trying to fit 12 bodies into a van made for 7 to get everyone acquainted quickly.

Glamour bar was indeed very glamorous...although I’m told that some of the more “glamorous” girls were there mainly on business... Do I need to draw a picture? With a view of the pearl tower, a density of 10 expats to 1 square metre, and cocktails at *gasp* 3.75 pounds (roughly the price of a diet coke in London), it was definitely a must-see/ must-do in Shanghai!

Crippled, Coerced, and Censored in Shanghai

2007-08-02T20:52:00.000Z

Just another day in China..

I arrived in Shanghai yesterday evening, and was picked up by a representative for the school, which I will be attending for a month to have Chinese browbeaten into me. He drove me to what is to be my hotel for the next 4 days before I move into student accommodation. I checked into my FAB-U-LOUS hotel, but found looks can be deceiving. I got one of the pre-renovation rooms... which means stained carpets and an air-conditioning unit on its last legs. I’ve got flip-flops to deal with carpet issues (hey, I’ve travelled NZ and Australia in hostels, been pissed on, shagged under... I’ve seen a few things to make me NEVER travel without my trusty sole-mates ever again). HOWEVER, when its 39C+ outside, double glazing is a myth and you’re on the “sunny side” of the hotel... you don’t want a doddering air-conditioning making it worse!

I called reception, they sent a maintenance guy and a bellman with about 5 words of English between them. So I gamely showed them my sweat stains, the supposed in-room air-con control set to 12C, pointed at the air-con grille and shook my head no while pretending to shiver. Maybe you had to be there, but thinking back they might also have interpreted my charades-like acting as “I am delirious with fever and the sound of the groaning machine is causing me to have convulsions”. Nonetheless, maintenance guy climbed into the ceiling, they chatted some more, they laughed some more... THIS is precisely why I want to learn to at least recognise rudimentary Chinese words...in this case the following might have been bandied about while I stood sweatily by: stupid, spoiled, foreigner, con-her-out-of-lots-of-money-for-5-star-hotel-with-crappy-room-in-building-that-looks-nice. The maintenance guy disappeared and came back with a room-thermometer and pointed out that, if he held it right in front of the lisping aircon grille, it was indeed a lovely temperature of 26.4 degrees. So, what exactly was I complaining about?

Never mind. I gave up and thought – I’ll go to bed, drench their duvet, and then ask again to be moved in the morning when I’m most likely to run into some English-speaking personnel at the reception.

This morning, housekeeping arrived in the form of 2 kindly smiling ladies. They looked over the room, decided what they needed to do, and then made me sit down with 2 review forms for service pointing at their nametags and proffering a pen. I pointed out that they hadn’t actually done anything yet, it might look suspicious if I just wrote one sentence with their name in the last section of a 3 page review, moreover if I wrote 2 reviews on the same morning in the same manner... speaking no English beyond “clean now yes”, my argumentation met as-good-as-deaf ears and I figured I would have to write a sentence or two in order to bargain my way to clean towels. My educated guess (duh) would be that they get some kind of bonus for every favourable review with their name on it. Or maybe they just get to keep their jobs. Either way, I succumbed to the coercion cum blackmail and happily traded inane prose to the likes of “Luly Wang* was very efficient and helpful when I asked her to clean my room” for a re-stock of diet coke in my mini bar. After all, I need more icy cans to cuddle up to in my hot room! (*names have been altered to protect the identity of the perpetrators)

And to top it all off? I paid for a full day's Internet access at exhorbitant rates so I could be sure to catch up with all my e-mail, facebook notifications, oh and finally my blog... only to find that all of the aforementioned appears to be blocked / censored. I managed to get into the blog posts while not being able to view the website itself... but don't tell me if anything looks off, I can't read any e-mails! Gotta love it. :)

Or MAYBE that's just the Big Brother's way of ensuring I get off my lazy (non-reducing) arse and actually go see something of Shanghai instead of holing up behind a PC in a too-warm hotelroom. They might actually have a point you know...

To China or not to China - there is no question

2007-07-31T08:03:00.000Z

there are many reasons why I like China and love my travel here, but there are also a few reasons why I could never make it permanent! I don't think I'd survive living and working in Asia (or more specifically China, excluding HK and Guangdong where they speak Cantonese and my Mandarin is useless, oh and Shanghai because they speak Shanghaiese, and almost every other part because they all speak bloody dialects! Hmmph).

I don't think I could live here for more than 6 months without:

a) REAL bread.
Not sweet-stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth-soggy-consistency bread. Bleh. I am CRAVING a grilled cheese sandwich. And no, I am not pregnant.

b) Committing homicide on a regular basis
Flippin' Heck, people here really get on my last nerve. Yes, it's a different culture, and I need to adjust. BUT, when I'm getting on a tram - one foot on the bottom stair, hand on the rail, lifting myself into the door - and someone tries to get on it ahead of me by literally contorting themselves inbetween my foot and raised arm... can you really blame me if I get a little testy? I am learning to truly appreciate what elbows are for. And I've finally figured out that respect for elders is overrated when said elders are trying to scam-push-rip-off-cheat you at every turn. The one-armed shove is becoming my new forte.

c) Feeling like an animal in captivity, an attraction, a freak.
I've lost count of the number of photos I've been in - voluntarily or not! People keep asking me to be in a photo with them, or they take them stealthily while they think I'm not looking. Like I don't notice! Hmmm, maybe I should just charge?!

d) I'd have to be N.A.K.E.D. here for the entire time.
Even I am freakishly tall here and no way does any place sell ANYTHING to fit me without me looking like a spandexed sausage. Lovely.

I aim to spend a month in an intensive Chinese course so I can at least learn to cuss people out and tell taxi drivers to take me where I want to go! THAT particular skill would indeed come in handy! Right now the best insult I am able to offer a taxi driver in Hong Kong that takes me the long (read twice as expensive) way round is "you have no honour". Not exactly biting, is it? :/

Guangzhou: Thanks Simon!

2007-07-30T14:59:00.000Z

I decided I had to dedicate on blog entry just to Simon. He's living the dream (ahem), muddling through daily life as an expat GM in China. Unfortunately I didn't get to meet his family who'd fled the heat to go stay in the Netherlands for a while. Can't say I blame them!

The last time I met him, I was 14 and he was 22 and an intern for my dad in Vienna. How things change! Now managing one of the largest LPG companies in China, it's great to see a compatriate making it work here. I spent 3 days in the lap of absolute luxury being chauffeured about and shown every place of possible interest in Guangzhou. Of course it completely RUINED me for the rest of my trip... I'm sure I can't continue in the standard to which I have now become accustomed!

I extended my stay by 2 days only to be informed halfway through my extension that my rate had been changed to 40% higher as my former promotional rate was no longer available. Perhaps a bit late to be telling me this when its already 5pm the next day? Simon's pitbull of a secretary - Ally - agreed and thanks to her amazing negotiating, and some great strategizing between us, they not only retracted this change, but also send the assistant sales manager to schmooze me with a free drink at their cafe and unruffle my extremely ruffled feathers with some helpful suggestions for sightseeing in Shanghai! To top it off, they threw in a free lunch for 2 in their brand-new Italian restaurant on the 41st floor... as seen in the pictures above. Who else could I invite but Simon! We had a sumptuous lunch of REAL Italian lasagna (even-if-it-was-served-lukewarm-and-we-had-to-ask-them-to-nuke-it-after-which-it-came-back-nuclear-hot-presumably-to-prove-a-point-to-the-rude-foreigners-that-dared-to-question-the-chef's-boundless-wisdom!) followed by the deserts in the picture. I officially adore Guangzhou! Thanks Simon!

Guangzhou: panic attack! Oh, and river cruise...

2007-07-29T22:12:00.000Z

Today I went into a bit of a panic over my visa’s restrictions – according to everyone I’d asked, the web information, AND my previous Visa (typed in English in London) - my type of Visa is only valid for 30 days at a time. It would have made for an interesting route if I had to go out of mainland China every 30 days! Simon asked his secretary, travel coordinator and driver to step in and 2 hours, countless forms and one smart-cookie driver later (he took a copy of my passport Visa directly to the Chinese visa bureau) it turns out I may be the only one to have an unlimited F-type visa? It’s valid for 6 months, multiple entries, with no apparent time-limit per entry. When the driver asked the person at the visa bureau who told him there was no limit to “check again to make sure”, he was rebuffed with a “don’t you believe me?!?!”. I guess it must be true then. With a possible fine of 500RMB per day that you overstay your visa (that’s roughly 32 quid, 50 Euro’s) it’s important to make sure. *phew* crisis averted!

After all that, Simon took me to see Shamian Island – a weird little semi-peninsula in the middle of the river. It was once and English concession – after the opium war, when the English were told to get the h*ll out, they were given Shamian island to live on. Its odd wandering down leafy little streets with English-style mansions and buildings, knowing that I’m in a Chinese haven of industry. The brownish sky takes away some of the magical effect, but its nonetheless really pretty, quaint and peaceful.

As we were walking along, I realised that I was seeing a lot of causasian couples with Chinese babies in strollers. Simon led me to the White Swan hotel, which is apparently where foreigners from all over the world congregate to complete the adoption of Chinese children. I’d read an article on it in a magazine some time ago – so it was weird to actually be there and watch these instant-parents come to grips with their new charges. Although most looked at ease strolling about with the hired pushchairs, some clearly hadn’t mastered the art of “holding a baby” as opposed to “carting a sack of flour”. It makes sense that the Chinese authorities require the new parents to stay at the hotel for a minimum of one month before they allow the children to leave the country. Wonder if they get baby-classes with the room service. It didn’t occur to me until after we left the hotel that everyone looking at us walking about with a guidebook must have thought we were there for the same reason! *cringe*

In the evening I met up with Charlotte (from the earlier introduction) to go on a river cruise on the pearl river. We bought the tickets, we waited for the boat with lots of adoption-families, and then got onto our boat when called... only to find that we had somehow ended up on a Chinese dinner boat as the only foreigners! Quite interesting! It was a nice trip with lots of bright lights everywhere – the Chinese do love to light up “stuff” at night with multi-coloured neon-lights! We gave the dinner a miss though... we had a sniff and a peek (no pun intended) and decided that hunger was preferable. I was quite glad when, half an hour later we resumed our seats indoors and I spotted a mystery ingredient crawling around my dinner box! Yummmm.

Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong, endangered species dishes and adoption of chinese babies by foreigners

2007-07-28T17:26:00.000Z

Hah, bet they sell the city a little differently via tourism bureaus... but its nice to know I'm in a quality town, experiencing the real China. Sort of... Actually... not really. Thanks to Simon – a true hero living in China who used to work with my dad in Vienna etc – I am ensconced in the PLUSHEST Westin hotel I’ve been in so far. Complete with bathroom with sliding walls (so one can watch the TV from the bathtub – tried that, it works) and the prerequisite Westin patented “heavenly” bed (soft and cushiony, makes you never want to leave... possibly part of their marketing spiel). But the absolute BEST thing? It’s only been open 3 weeks, so chances are very few, if any, guests have pre-contaminated my room! The smell and feel of NEW, love it!

Guangzhou appears to be much like all of China's large cities, HUGE. Lots of people, a host of impressive ginormous public spaces like the one seen from my 18th floor hotel room, some shiny attempts to build into the clouds higher than anyone before, and polluted sky coupled with searingly HOT weather. According to the handy thermometer in Simon’s chauffeured car, the temperature is hovering somewhere between 39C and 42C. Its enough to make my flipflops stick to the pavement! I think I’m starting to acclimatise at last though – air conditioning set to 22C feels cold...brrrr.

Today was a really long day – we started with a trip to Kai Ping. Andries (Dutch-guy-who-works-for-Simon-and-has-a-French-GF-Charlotte-who-will-be-moving-to-China-so-they-can-both-live-in-Shanghai, there – introduction over) had read about this World Heritage area close to Guangzhou. (Un)fortunately, nature chose that day to start chucking it down, so we could barely see the road on the way there, let along the supposedly magnificent scenery! Once we arrived, however, it started clearing up and we had a wonderfully cool and clear view of the Merchant Houses. They’re like mini-fortresses, 4-5 stories high, built like towers in the middle of the rice fields. They were built by wealthy-ish Chinese families that had moved to Europe, made some money, and then came back to China to live. Needing to protect their wealth from marauding thieves, they built their houses in the style of these fortresses. Surprisingly large and comfortable on the inside (if you’re shorter than 5’8”, else – mind your head on the stairs!), and ornate on the outside. Some have been restored to become part of a Disney-like park attracting tourists, some are just where they were, left in their original state, while farming continues all around them. Quite unlike anything I’ve seen before!

After a day of traipsing about the countryside without food, the next stop was the international buffet at another plush hotel with White Tigers roaming about outside the restaurant windows. Apparently, Manchester United had been there a few days before on a promotional tour of China and the entire lobby was decorated with posters of the gang.

Despite the amazing cultural blah-di-blah all day (I’m such a barbarian), and the wonderful food in the evening, the absolute highlight of the day was most definitely the acrobatic show we saw in the evening in Guangzhou. It’s hard to describe, but there were so many acts where I must have looked like a complete schmuck if someone had been filming me – mouth hanging open, left hand partially shielding my sight, right hand holding my camera aloft in order to capture every second on film. And they had hippos...my alltime favourite animals (next to Koalas and possibly Panda's...).

Those of you LUCKY enough to be corralled into seeing all my pictures later (+6.500 and counting) will also get to see some of the videos! Yeay! I’m absolutely knackered now, but what a day!

Pak's Posse

2007-07-26T16:38:00.000Z

Yeay! It's always nice to see friends again along the way, especially good friends! Pak travelled to Hong Kong for work this week and since she's not quite as bad a workaholic as I was she actually had some FREE TIME to spend with MOI! (Basically I camped out outside her hotel until she had no choice :P)

I went to meet her on saturday and took the lazy way out - I decided to get a cab from my hotel on Hong Kong Island to her hotel in Kowloon (East Tsim Sha Tsui). It shouldn't have taken more than 15 minutes and HK$60 as it's pretty much four blocks to the cross harbour tunnel and four blocks after. I figured - armed with a map, knowledge of where I need to go, and telling him the route I wanted to take when I got in... what could go wrong???? Right. The cabbie obviously saw me coming and decided to take me for a loooooooong ride. As soon as I realised he was going the long (3 times as long) way round, I started arguing with him. He pretended innocence, then ignorance, and finally that he didn't speak English. And so I ended up LATE (again, as usual when meeting Pak - it just wasn't meant to be) and HK$155 lighter. The worst thing? Since he - pretended - not to speak English, I couldn't even insult him properly. So I said the most hurtful thing I could think of that he might understand and that I happened to know the Mandarin for: You have no honour. Wow - that must have really given him 5 seconds of bad conscience! heheh. I think I need to go study Chinese!!!

Anyway - I met Pak's Posse (extended family) in Hong Kong. They do exist, Pak really does have Chinese roots and they're all extremely nice and kind...so I don't know what went wrong with Pak... Just Kidding. :) We had lunch with her aunt, who is about the nicest, politest, and certainly most graceful ladies ever. She showed us some markets in Kowloon that I hope I'll be able to find again sometime. It's like a giant bustling maze though, and (duh!) everything looks the same from every street corner!

In the evening I met her uncle, his wife and their two kids and the whole clan adopted me for dinner. Obviously both Pak and I seemed totally clueless about the new territories - so much so that her uncle offered to give us a tour the entire Sunday. So after meeting even more relatives for brunch the next day, we set off on our epic adventure... a mall, a computer accessories mall, another computer mall (yep, we can't escape what we love to do!) Aherm.

To be honest - HK is far too hot right now to enjoy anything other than sitting in airconditioning, walking in airconditioning, sleeping in airconditioning... you get my drift. So we first made a stop at a market to all buy umbrellas against the sun (I've taken on some local habits) and then drove to Golden Beach (I think) which is supposed to be one of or THE nicest beach in Hong Kong. When we arrived and got out for a walk it took me all of 5 minutes to rudely state: "Actually, sorry, but I'm not enjoying this. It's too hot, so I'll go park myself in a cafe with aircon and a cool drink. Just pick me up on your way back!" My mother would be so disappointed in me! As a result, I only have a photo of the walkway to the beach (see left), not the beach itself - sorry! I just couldn't hack it even with an umbrella and a fan. Luckily enough, all the others felt exactly the same way, they just weren't Dutch enough to blurt it out en-plein-publique. :) So we did a u-turn, got back into the airconditioned car and drove to an Italian restaurant for dinner. Hey, when in Hong Kong... eat Italian! yum yum.

Do you speak Chinglish?

2007-07-18T15:11:00.000Z

OK, so I don't speak Mandarin and I am, after all, in China. Apart from a few useful phrases - such as: Hello, I Am Fine, Thank You, You're Welcome, Meet My Friend ___, Where Is The Toilet, Too Expensive, No Want, Do You Not Understand No? - I am an illiterate and a virtual mute in this huge country. Anyone who understands me when I try to point/gesture/grunt is my hero, and it's great to have at least some signs and notices in English... but sometimes they're just not that helpful.

Some signs are just funny: Handic Raf Tarts and FOCK DANCES.

Some are a little confusing, but still kind of get the message accross... kind of. No dabbling?

But then there's that last category of literal-translations-by-a-five-year-old-with-and-snoopy-and-charlie-brown-dictionary which are just plain unintelligible. Trying to book a flight online, I got the following message:

"If you can accept the way turn in other airports,The following is the Dali that we recommend for you to fly to the Lijiang of in turn(onward flight) the flight path.Please choose you feel quite the cheese in turn the city, we will search the service for you"

Not knowing if I feel "quite the cheese" or not, I elected to abort the attempt and try again later... perhaps when I feel a little more dairy-ing. :P

Life With The Lindsays - HELP!

2007-07-16T20:16:00.000Z

Meet the Lindsays - the family who took me in and adopted me for 2 weeks, took me on trips to Guilin, Yangshuo, and Xi'an, and helped me to become acclimatised to China in the best possible way... by being totally pampered!

They introduced me to my first ever PEDICURE (results shown in picture may not seem as spectacular as they are in real life), dinner parties and WESTERN style restuarants(with Wara and Olivia - center), Starbucks morning with the ladies of the SWIC (Shenzhen International Women's Club), the complimentary golf cart that transports you up the hill to the house if you've ingested too much Frappuccino to be able to walk under your own steam, and last but not least...trips to Luo-Hu for some serious (fake) retail therapy... not that I condone that sort of thing... it's very wrong...bad Marisa...BAAAAD! But one can always look. :)

Unfortunately, the stay with them also made it absolutely clear that I need to learn a little more Chinese in order to be able to efficiently and safely navigate this awesome country. Olivia and I went to a local theme park called Windows On The World - where iconic landmarks from around the world are recreated in miniature. I wonder if my visits to the mini Taj Mahal, the Pyramids and Mount Rushmore count and if I can therefore cross off Agra, Cairo and ? from my to-do list? Or would this be considered cheating a tiny bit? :P But I digress...

Finished with trudging through the park at 39C heat being the attraction as much as the miniature recreations themselves (some people politely asked to take pictures with us, ruder versions just stealthily took out mobile phones and cameras to take snaps... I should charge!), we TRIED to take a taxi back to a local mall. With false confidence I'd informed Mr. Lindsay before we left that "if I can't manage to get back by taxi in Shenzhen, I have no hope of travelling rural China on my own". We'd had the foresight to ask the family driver to write down our destination in Chinese AND I was also armed with a map. How hard could it be??? Hard. Useless. Impossible.

One after another, the taxi drivers refused to take us either saying they didn't understand (riiiight), didn't want, or just took a look at us FOWAYNERS and shook their heads "no". We had to call a secretary in the company to talk to the drivers in Chinese and explain. After 1hr of failed attempts, we were finally on our way. Unfortunately, the same thing repeated itself on the way from the mall to home - drivers again refused to take us despite the fact that I had marked the location on our map, we had a business card with the address in Chinese, and it was basically a 20 minute walk straight down the same road! Of course, had we actually known it was only that far we would have walked! Instead, we had to go back to the Mall Customer Service desk where they wrote "please take me to" in Chinese on the business card and sent us back to the taxis. Hey presto - suddenly people understood and we were on our way home.

Now I ask anyone - when a person gets in a cab, shows you a map with a big cross, gives you a business card with the address, which (coincidentally!) is the same as the location marked on the map... WHAT DO YOU THINK THEY WANT? Not rocket-science, is it? Eggsactly. Wow, am I screwed or what?!

So when I saw this billboard near the house ("Empty talk endangers the nation, practical work brings prosperity"), I figured I might as well take it to heart and do something PRACTICAL - like taking an intensive Mandarin course for a month. Maybe THEN I can get a taxi to take me where I want to go! Updates to follow.

Xi'an - China's past

2007-07-13T22:25:00.000Z

OK, so it's been about 6 weeks since I was in Xi'an, but one thing is sure - it left an impression of MAHOOSIVENESS. (You read it here first, just remember where it came from once it enters the Oxford Dictionary!)

Slumming it as usual when travelling with Mrs Lindsay, Olivia and Wara, I grudgingly consented to stay at the Sofitel at Renmin Square in Xi'an. It's lobby (picture left) was marginally impressive, the restaurants of a "reasonable" quality, and the staff was sufficiently friend and efficient... ok, cut the blase attitude, it was AWESOME! When we entered our room for the first time, Wara (picture right) and I both decided we'd just move in and never leave... the beds were beyond heavenly. The only tiny-smaller-than-small-itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny-miniscule little issue with the whole LUXURY HOTEL set-up? The lights wouldn't switch off and at 1am we had to call in housekeeping who sent a woman to press the switch. When the lights still didn't switch off - she tried the same switch about 50 more times over a period of 5+ minutes. When we finally convinced her that the switch wasn't going to start working without some divine or engineering intervention, she left and brought back a man and his toolbox. 45 minutes later we finally had a dark room, but precious little time left to appreciate our WONDERRRFUL beds!

The first evening we decided to go to a local Dumpling + Dancing show. Literally - a dinner with approximately 50 different types of dumpling (some more tasty than others... yergh! Olivia is a great actress!) followed by different dancing, music, and acrobatics from various tribes around China. Wonderfully kitsch and touristy, we had magnificent seats by the stage so I could film and photograph everything. Weirdly enough, that's still allowed here. After all, they can't very well copyright their own performances when...anyway. My favourite bit was a guy who "sang" like no whole man should be able to sing.

The next morning (slightly refreshed despite the late-night-light-switch-fiddle) we set out early for the Terracotta Warriors. The museum and the grounds surrounding it are impressive and very representative of Chinese tourist attractions - spotlessly clean and well-maintained, massive and not at all wheelchair friendly, with bathrooms you really don't want to frequent unless you're about to have an embarrassing accident en-plein-publique! We saw EVERYTHING and spent over 4 hours in the various halls and shops. I was trying to take a picture with the warriors, but a Chinese couple kept getting in the shot. As it turned out, they wanted a picture with me. Not only was I at the Terracotta Warriors, but once again I was part of the attraction! I really should start charging (100 for a group picture, 150 for a signed napkin...) :P

The next stop (after an interesting but delicious lunch) was the Xi'An city wall. One of the few remaining completely intact city walls built in the Ming Dynasty, it dates from XXXX and is YYYY long, took ZZZZ years to complete and has a GOLF CART that will transport you from one end of the wall to the other ON TOP OF THE WALL! It's important to always remember the pertinent facts... Absolutely amazing to be standing on top of a wall that is 15 metres high, at least 10 metres wide, and snakes its collossal way through the center of the now sprawling city.

The last stop that day (its exhausting to write about it, let alone to have done it all in 34C heat) was the Great Goose Pagoda - or DayaNn Ta. refreshed from the golf cart ride, I was once again able to take in more facts! One of the largest Buddhist temples around, and the place where the original texts were purportedly first transcribed by a monk from Sanskrit to Chinese. Unfortunately, we were too pooper to even try to climb the pagoda, so I only have a picture of me looking quite knackered at the bottom of the tower!

After a great dinner in the hotel, we did what any group of exhausted tourists would do... we gathered in one room and played cards until 1am! Having been taught the game of Canasta, I've become a real monster. So much so, that I thought nothing of walking from one end of the hotel (our room) to the other end of the hotel (Canasta Central, a.k.a. Mrs Lindsay & Olivia's room) clad in my pajamas and hotel bathrobe...fetchingly accessorised with my handbag! Unfortunately it was only AFTER I posed that we realised there were security cameras at short intervals along the entire length of the corridor. Well, hope someone enjoyed the show. :)

Guilin to Yangshuo, the Li River Cruise

2007-07-07T18:23:00.000Z

Today we took a river cruise down the Li River from Guilin to Yangshuo. The scenery features on the 20 RMB banknote, in movies, and tourism brochures worldwide. It's one of the top 5 things-to-see in China according to my 2.5kg guidebook... and I must admit, it's pretty spectacular. It really IS as pretty as in the pictures, which is good because words cannot truly describe the splendour!

There were about 10 boats and they all took off in a line, although only a few boats carried foreigners. As we floated past craggy cliffs, rolling green hills, water-buffalo, cormorants, fishermen on bamboo rafts and kids playing in the water - I proceeded to get a pretty good sunburn! But it was well worth it - I stayed on the top deck to watch the amazing scenery and have about 200 pictures to show for it (see my facebook albums if you think you're up to the challenge!)

We had a buffet lunch, which was served on board and was cooked in a kitchen located on the lowest deck at the back of the boat. I avoided the mystery meat, but accepted the challenge to eat a local delicacy... fried whole tiny fish... although I didn't eat the head! Instead, I took a picture as proof (AND in case I started feeling queasy later and the doctors had to know what caused it!)

And as a finale, some more of my favourite shots! there are so many...

City Trip to Guilin & Yangshuo - be careful what you wish for...

2007-07-06T21:24:00.000Z

Looking for a city trip with a difference? Got a day or 2 to spare? Why not "hop" over to Guilin for a weekend break... :P It's amazing how you can take one short flight here and be in the middle of another province, which might as well be yet another country, with scenery right out of a movie. One minute you're in the heart of highrises and traffic, the next you're in rolling countryside. EVERY city is huge and impressive here, and Guilin was no exception!

The Lindsays know how to travel in style - so they'd arranged to be met at the airport by our English-speaking guide (Sandy - a man!) and personal driver/minivan transportation who took us to the Bravo Hotel to check in. When I entered the room I was to share with Wara - we found that someone was still in it! So I huffed and I puffed and I nearly blew the reception desk down... getting us an upgrade to a clean room (important) with a nice Lake View (not important, but cool nonetheless!!!).

The first point of interest in Guilin was the Reed Flute Cave. Having been in Limestone caves before (Waitomo, NZ) I was prepared to see lots of dripping rocks and maybe a tourist or two. What I wasn't prepared for was fluorescent lighting, guides with megaphones, and about 1 trillion Chinese people (school's out for summer!). Nothing like a giant crush of fast-talking Chinese people to really make an endless maze of caves seem slightly claustrophobic! The small (man made) lake with the authentic back-lighting in Bright-Blue-Floodlights did make for a nice picture though...

The next stops were all sales stops. Giving us the "opportunity" to acquire high-end "exclusive" products at a very "low price". Riiiiight. First we stopped at a pearl farm - though the farm was nowhere to be seen. We were treated to a fashion show with models sashaying down the catwalk in ill-fitting dresses and showcasing enormous pearl necklaces, rings, bracelets... you get the picture. Next was the silk-making factory where they use silk pods to make duvets. Looks easy, but definitely is not. We tried to stretch one pod to cover the duvet table... only to find that none of us had enough oomph to complete the job! We spent a good 3 hours in the showroom watching Mrs Lindsay painstakingly select just the right design... only for me to talk her out of it! Sorry!

Wish I'd talked us all out of dinner though. Look, I know I'm in China and thus I am going to have to adapt. Crispy Seaweed and Sesame Prawn Toast are not Chinese and are just a myth created by the English to make it all seem quite tame. I truly like the real Chinese food - as long as it doesn't involve chewing on claws/feet of any kind and spitting out knuckles/bones. BUT I really don't like mystery meat - I like to know what I'm eating and what animal it came from. Well, in a true case of be-careful-what-you-wish-for, there really was no mistaking the origin of the "chicken" dish we ordered at the hotel restaurant. Cold, boiled chicken (head included) with its congealed fatty skin-layer attached with super-glue... dee-lish! The chook's tongue hanging out the side of its beak really added a touch of je-ne-sais-quoi. This might just be the best diet ever.

Getting High in Hong Kong ! The Marisa Way...

2007-07-03T21:27:00.000Z

I lurrrrrve skyscrapers, especially shiny, odd-shaped ones. Ergo, I lurrrrve Hong Kong (if not its pushy, rude, obnoxious residents... hmmm). Thanks to my brother's leaving present - 101 Things to Do Before You Die - part of my mission on my travels is to visit the World's tallest buildings. I've went to the observation decks in the World Trade Center in New York, Sears Tower in Chicago, Taipei 101 in Taiwan... and I guess now I need to get to the Burj El Arab or somesuch in Dubai. Even when they're not in the top 10, I like to get high in every city I go to :) Luckily for me, Hong Kong boasts some of the tallest cloud itchers around. Unluckily for me, you can't get to the top.

I went to the observation deck of the Bank of China building (pictured left below), but it was only halfway up on the 43rd floor. I still had an awesome view of the Hong Kong Island skyline looking out towards Kowloon and Tsim Sha Tsui - and a perfect view of one of the World's top 10 tallest : 2IFC (center & right).

I tried to get into 2IFC, but the closest to the top that I could get was the 50th floor where there is an exhibition of sorts about the history of money in Hong Kong. I went through the whole rigmarole of producing my passport, filling out forms, getting a security tag, being escorted to the elevator... making it to the 50th floor to see...view away from the harbour toward the BACK!!! shame. at least I can say I've been IN the building and I can cross it off my list!

One of my favourite sights in Hong Kong is definitely the duo of odd-shaped Lippo Towers (left). I also took the trip up the midtown escalator that scales the hills in central - escalator after escalator taking you past the rabbit-warren of streets and markets.

Yup, I love Hong Kong - its buildings, its different areas, its malls and even SOME of its hotels... It's the PEOPLE I can't stand! Rude, pushy, shoving and sometimes just plain offensive. I've perfected the one-armed shove (helps to be taller and wider than the average shovee), I've become an expect at ignoring the constant barrage of "Missy you want to buy handbag/watch/rolex/massage/camera/DVD, Missy you need tailor?" and NO ONE gets the better of me on the tram anymore...with one foot on the step, my hand on the rail, a woman tried to climb onto me and push herself ahead of me into the tram. She was politely if forcibly shoved aside. Missy is now smart, Missy won't be fooled by "looks like a nice old lady" anymore. No indeed, it's a warzone out there and everyone's a potential enemy...

You have been warned.

Big Buddha On A Hill

2007-07-02T20:47:00.000Z

Today I braved wet and windy weather (Hong Kong style, chucking it down with a helpful gale-force wind blowing the rain sideways...) to go visit the Big Buddha on Lantau Island. the GLAMOUR that is globetrotting. I hope you're all jealous of my sopping shoes and soggy Afro hair! In case anyone's wondering, it wasn't raining when I left the hotel... I'm NOT a glutton for punishment!

Apparently the bad weather kept all sane people away, so I had a private transfer from the end of the MTR Subway up to Po Lin Monastery. One hour on windy, wet and windy roads with just the driver, a 60 seater bus, and moi! All the buses coming back the other way were packed to bursting, people scared away by a little water... Hah!

The setting is amazing - on the top of a hill on Lantau Island. Along the way we passed small villages, beautiful beaches (would've been if not for the weather), and a huge...prison. Oh well. There are 251 steps leading up to the main plateau that the Buddha sits on. I counted them, but I think I may have passed out at some point and not counted the ones I crawled up. Certainly seemed more like 1000! Hey, at least I didn't have to take my travel bag up there... now at 29kg and counting!

I closed off a memorable day by drying off in the cinema watching Die Hard 4.0. Just biding my time until Transformers comes out and I can watch it in Chinese!

Happy Valley, an evening of races and lost moolah!

2007-06-27T22:15:00.000Z

Happy Valley, sounds innocent and quaint - kind of like Adventure Land in Disney-speak. And just like in Disney, everything looks magical when lit just so...

James and his fiancee Nim rescued me from the slum, hooked me up with a new "crib" on Hong Kong Island (away from the commoners on the mainland, hmph) and then kindly joined me for an evening of debauchery. Hang on, this is still me, so not so much debauchery as another attempt at a "First". We started off nice and slow, having a snack and drink in the infamous Lan Kwai Fong. That's not my beer, sorry!

Then we moved onto the races at Happy Valley race track on Hong Kong Island - LOTS of fun! Unfortunately, season at make sure you go. All the expats stand around drinking and "seeing and being seen"... its great to sit back and just watch them network!

As we were stuck in traffic for some time, I had asked the taxidriver if he had any tips. He gave us horse #8 in race #3 (both deemed to be lucky / prosperous numbers in China). We all ended up betting on the horse and it WON! Unfortunately, that was also the only time I won anything. Having been persuaded to bet on every race, I proceeded to lose a bundle (10 quid total). Perhaps my strategy of picking horses by number and/or by name rather than the stats had something to do with that! All my bets seemed promising but petered out in the end. Horse #7 in race #7 - aka Bulldozer - guess that should have given me a clue - was first all the way round the track until the last 25 metres. He just "peaked" too early! Similarly, Big Kahuna, Superdana, etc all seemed hopeful at first (= me screaming by the sideline) but then lost in the end. Alas, I did not win big, but neither did I lose my shirt! With 15 HK$ to the pound, I'm not complaining! Definitely my first trip to the races, and even more definitely not my last. I'm hooked... mama needs a new pair of shoes...

Hong Kong Slumming....

2007-06-27T13:51:00.000Z

I arrived in Hong Kong without a hitch, took the free transit bus from the MTR to the Holiday Inn and then went to find my hostel... The porter at the Holiday Inn had to point it out to me 3 times... on paper "New Garden Hostel, Mirador Mansions" sounds romantic, exotic, comfortable... the pictures on the website and the comments from previous guests all showed a modern, clean, comfortable place to rest my head... oh how NAIEVE!

The hostel actually looked more like a high- rise SLUM in the middle of Hong Kong. With trepidation, I entered and confronted the rabbitwarren within to try to find my way to the elevator. I was accosted 5 times before I even got into the elevator - men asking me if I was looking for a guest house, one even tried to block my way so I elbowed him and dragged my 29kg bag over his foot... Once I got to the reception on the 13th floor (a window in a wall) I realised it wasn't a great stretch to think that they have a separate hourly rate as well as the nightly fee...

They didn't have the room I booked (explanation: we're fixing the aircon, you move tomorrow morning), so they put me in a "twin room", which they explained was much larger and more luxurious than the one I had actually booked... so the new-and-relaxed-Marisa gave them the benefit of the doubt and followed down to the 10th floor to the "Kowloon Hotel"...

I just LAUGHED AND LAUGHED AND LAUGHED when I first entered the room. It's a coffin - no window, 2 bunks, dodgy bedding, a shower CLOSET with the showerhead halfway suspended over the toilet seat... Hey, why waste time if you accomplish 2 for the energy of 1?! The doorknob to the outside door was kept in place with SELLOTAPE,so the chain quickly became my favourite thing in the coffin.

I ventured outside just long enough to get a drink and something to eat, when I saw the sign "elevator hours: 6am - 10pm". As I was on the 10th floor, the prospect of trying to find the stairs, navigating 10 flights, and trying to avoid the many dodgy men in partial darkness just didn't appeal. So I went to bed really early... 8pm early :P Although I was kept entertained during the night as the walls were clearly not much more than paper and sellotape either!

They were supposed to move me the next morning to the single room with window that I booked according to the website. So I got up early (had a 11:30 lunch appointment) and asked to be moved. They didn't have my room (people not checked out yet -- ehm, yesterday you said you're fixing the aircon?) so they told me to bring my luggage and leave it in the hallway and they would move it later. Yeah, funny, I don't think so. I told them they could either move me in the next 30 minutes or I was leaving with my key and keeping my stuff chained to the bed in my current room.

Lo and behold, they suddenly had a room available and told me to get my luggage... Having been born 30 years ago - not yesterday - and dealt with many a dodgy vendor, I asked to see it first. I am grateful for my scepticism! The new room was another twin, but half the size if that. The bed were maybe 50cm wide and 1.30 long, if you could have moved them together they would not one single bed make! I could've slept sideways in the foetal position - or stretched out and hung my feet out the door. The "bathroom" was more like a cupboard (even worse than the one I had) with the shower LITERALLY over the toilet and seemingly running from the same tank. So I declined graciously (thanks, but no thanks) and once more resumed the argument: give me my room or give me my money. As there were at least 8 other people waiting, watching and in some cases having the same issue, I guess they decided to get rid of the loudest protestor (me!) and told me to stay in the room I had to be moved the next day....

Of course, I went back to the room, removed all my valuables to take with me and chained my luggage with 2 steel cables and 4 locks (thank you 29kg bag!!!) to the desk. Ain't no one moving nothin' !

I left to meet James for lunch, taking 3 bags with all my valuables with me! James came to the rescue and had a travel agent look for a respectable but affordable hotel for me and I moved the same day. Needless to say, getting my money back involved 2 more visits, threatening, calls to my creditcard company and a whole lot of agro. At one point I just came at check-out time and blocked the desk for everyone coming and going with lots of shouting of words like fraud, illegal, want money back, call police, speak to my lawyer, not leaving until you do what I agreed yesterday... she tried EVERYTHING, and supplied lie after lie after lie, contradicting herself from one second to the next. I finally left with a supposed fax from the bank saying it's cancelled.... I'll keep a watch on my CC statement like a HAWK! I have a feeling this isn't over...

My new hotel is much nicer - it has a separate shower stall NEXT to the toilet :P Broadband access, mini fridge, and even roomservice (though ordering the steak got me a porkchop... hmmm) :)

Will I be pretty? Will I be rich?

2007-06-26T06:29:00.000Z

All this "try one new thing per day" is really putting the pressure on to perform! With no other creative ideas coming to me, and being essentially lazy... I decided to go pay the Fortune Tellers in the hotel concourse a visit. You never know, they may spout untapped wisdom and have the answers I seek...

So I found out my time of birth (very important) and took myself, my hands with lines, and most importantly of all, my 600 Baht off to the aged and wise soothsayer for predictions galore. After watching her add numbers incorrectly for 20 minutes and scribbling Thai all over a pre-printed piece of paper, here was the verdict:

Year 2007/2008: Watch out for a female who is superior to you in work, she will try to harm you.

Year 2008/2009: will be a good year for money, buy a house/land/car/or something (trip around the world????)

Of course, I should have been warned when I asked her if I was going to receive a printed version summarising her predictions and her answer to this was (getting a piece of paper from her bag and ripping it in half): "Yes! Yes. You write." I had clearly hired a classy professional!

She then proceeded to tell me how my work was going very well. So I thought I'd help her along a little and tell her I was unemployed and intended to stay that way for some time. (Wehey!!!) This took us off on a tangent of "what? how you have money to travel? no work? you work! yes you work? really? no work? but you have money yes!". Following extended and tiring circular argumentation, we finally got down to the nitty-gritty - the predictions for the year to come!

June & Feb 2007, Feb & May 2008
I will get a lot of money from work, I will buy/sell/repair a house/land/car.

hmmm... maybe the whole I DON'T WORK thing didn't quite come accross as clearly as I thought...

July 2007, March 2008
please take care of your words, documents and anything you put in writing to avoid "problems"

So, no blog entries for the coming months then! Sorry - there's a higher power at work here... I don't want to anger the Deity Of The Tourist Baht.

August 2007
Use your knowledge to do things, you will have people agreeing with you

So this is when I will step up my campaign to have everyone in my acquaintance quit and come travelling with me. The forewarning will do you absolutely no good, as it hath been decreed that you must agree!

September 2007
you will have lots of money, do something new - change job, expand your current business

after some reminders of my current jobless state (that I'd had a job behind a desk working with computers for years, but no more) she said it could also mean I start my new company or find a new job... but I don't WANT to! :) I like bumming about!

October 2007
have troubles with old colleagues, have problems seeing same way as colleagues

Glad I sent them Durian toffee then! :) Ooh, maybe its the new colleagues once I start my own business! Yes, that's it. And they won't see my vision for Arm Candy bracelets and inflatable wear...

November / December 2007
you will meet someone, he will be your boyfriend, he will have a good job in a leadership position

Yeah! ....Unfortunately, at the end of the predictions she also said that I already met this person in January 2007. I cannot recall, so if anyone can refresh my memory, that would be great. Answers on a postcard to my mother who will no doubt wish to vet him first. :)

January / April 2008
you will have leader position in work/job, another woman will work with you (this the one you watch out for)

Smackdown! Bring it on! Of course I have no intention of being in gainful employment at said time, so any female that so much as struts arrogantly in my vicinity will be given the evil eye!

So, to summarise she said I would get a job or start my own business in something that looks "smooth" (we were having some communication issues in case this wasn't quite clear yet). Wanting the maximum for my moolah, I diplomatically asked her "that's it? you're not going to read my palm?". Which prompted her to grab my hands and proclaim that I will have a long life, good health, and that I do not like hard work (absence of rough skin on palms and dirt under nails). She backtracked somewhat and said "you not like hard work with the hands, hard work with mind, maybe computer huh?" Wow! If I hadn't told her that earlier, I'd be really impressed!

Apparently this is when you proceed to ask specific questions (to really get your money's worth). But since I didn't know, I came wholly unprepared.
So I asked: what about my goldfish - are they going to be alright?
She looked at my "chart" and said: Yes, they very good.
I finished with: that's good, because Bertha's been floating upside down lately, and normally only Bob does that. I was worried, but now I'm not!

Watch this space for more details of Prince Charming (please pray he's not related to Pinkelboy or Superfreak).

Bangkok shopping: ...please...I beg you... no more!

2007-06-25T21:47:00.000Z

If and when I ever get the urge to go back to work and give up my life of globe-trotting (and let's face it, planning the next year's trips in my mind right now) I am definitely coming back to Bangkok to have my entire working wardrobe made to order at tiny boutiques with completely original designs in 24 hours for less than one outfit would cost in England. But I'd have to be in the mood and focused... because Bangkok is a maze of malls and shopping districts that even the best shop-a-holics in the world - such as Vanessa - could not conquer.

Unfortunately, being on the road, not really needing anything, and having breezed through shopping-mecca Singapore on the way here, I became bored with it all quite quickly. I know... *gasp* ... a female bored with shopping? Yes, ESPECIALLY when my bag already weighs 29kg and I face the prospect of having to lug it around on and off trains in China. So, in a final spurt of acquisitive energy, and to complete the "must-dos" in Bangkok, I enlisted help in the form of my friend Siratas and dragged her to Chatuchak market in 36C heat. A rabbit-warren of covered mini stalls, no airconditioning, baking in the sun... sounds just as inviting as the reality turned out to be! It's a really great place to buy just about anything for very little... just don't go there in height of summer as I did!

To recuperate from the heat, crowds and shopping (needing and wanting sometimes conflict in buying decisions...) we went to the Hyatt International Buffet for lunch and got the balloon-artists who were supposed to be entertaining kids to make us inflatable bunches of flowers! Walking along afterwards, I didn't have a spare hand to hold them, so I twisted it around my wrist like a humongous colourfull bracelet and dubbed it "arm candy"... wait a minute... perhaps the fortune teller WAS right after all, maybe this is my new business idea?! Never say never... :P

Heading to the cinema afterward, we happened upon some kind of Idols-type audition in the mall. Many hopefuls, not a lot of talent between them, waiting for their chance to screech for fame. It was hilarious to watch, but then we only "had to" witness an hour of it. Seems like the sound engineers and such had seen more than they could handle and were in various stages of boredom, unconsciousness, maybe even coma! Makes ofr absolutely addicitive viewing though. :)

I've travelled 17% of the world? Already?

2007-06-19T21:51:00.000Z

That's can't be right... I've added a map to my facebook page (www.facebook.com) which calculates how much I've seen. Unfortunately - having only been to Isla Margarita, Caracas and Puerto La Cruz in venezuela, AND Rio de Janeiro, Natal, Buzios, Angra in Brazil - it counts those two countries as entirely complete. Same goes for all of China, when really I've only been to Shenzhen and Guangdong province so far. Talk about hasty generalisations! Of course I plan to visit as much as possible in the next 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18 months... I will not rest until its ALL done (or I get bored and run out of travelmoney).

In any case, it's a funny tracking mechanism and I think everyone should have a go!

Siam: The Pachyderm and I

2007-06-16T21:17:00.000Z

Hmmm, markets. No matter where I am , what type of (perishables) market I visit - the smells usually make me gag! I went on an organised tour (6 tourists herded into a minivan with psychotic driver and "English" speaking guide) to the Khao Yai National Park. Included was a stop at a local fruit and vegetables market... wonder which one the turtles and toads in the blue buckets are classified as? Crowded, authentic Thai, with a wide variety of fruits I'd never seen before like Jack fruit (smells worse than it tastes), Dragon Fruit, Lychees, Rambutans,Mangosteen - got ripped off buying different types of exotic fruits as pricing changes depending on hair colour...naturally. But hey, when you get ripped off to the tune of 4 pence, is it worth losing your hard-earned 5 month "Zen" ? Nope!

I added yet ANOTHER first to my list - I rode in an Ox-cart accross Thai farmland... completely set up for tourists, obviously, but still a fun experience! I jumped in a cart with a couple from Panama - we all commisserated with each other about melting and the bumpy ride. I christened the 2 oxen (? what's the plural ?) Ping and Pong and tried not to grunt every time we hit a particularly bad rutt in the path. Now I know suspension is definitely not a wasted invention... and I have the bruises to prove that I went "local"!

Then we ventured further inland to Khao Yai National Park - it's main attraction is a 60 metre high waterfall. I'm sure its normally very impressive - but in the rainy season after a morning shower... it was thundering down. there were about 400 very steep steps down to the viewing platform, with only a rickety handrail on one side (claimed by the people walking up). So anyone who knows about my phobia of steep stairs will know just how much I trembled and shook as I made my way down (luckily I had raced ahead of the group in the "hike" to the stairs down, so I had a good head start and no one in the group witnesses the debacle! One group of Thais cominmg up the stairs asked to take a picture with/of me! Presumably to add to the slideshow with a commentary such as: "This was the foreign blond girl who nearly fell down the stairs where Grandma had no problem."

Below are some of the beasties I met along the way...

BUT without a doubt the best part of the day and my trip to Thailand so far was the ride on an elephant. I was a bit uncomfortable with the idea - after all, they're consigned to a life of inprisonment, ferrying tourists about day after day after day... should I be part of te reason this is propagated. But I'm weak, and when I saw PomPam running about (he was the youngest elephant in the group, only 15 years old), I decided to go for it anyway. Just getting onto the seat was an adventure, but then we plodded off toward the forest and all seemed nice and relaxed and fun...

Until the guide just sort of slid off the elephant (on purpose it turns out) and told me to sit in her spot and she would take a picture! So I clambered down form the safe tourist seat with seatbelt (why do they have a seat belt? Presumably, if the elephant trips and falls over, the LAST thing you want is to be tied to it while it falls on top of you?!?!)...anyway, I digress... I clambered down from the seat, with my bum on its shoulders and knees by the ears - no harness and way too far above the ground to just fall off and roll away laughing - thinking that the guide was going to take the photo and then clamber back up. Nope, that was not part of the plan!

The elephant continued on his merry way through the forest, through a stream/river, back into the forest and at last over a paved path back to the starting point. Obviously every trip happens this way, but since I didn't know that to start with it was thrilling and AWESOME! So was the build-in Airconditioning... which consisted of the elephant occasionally blowing air through its trunk at me... unfortunately mine appeared to have a mild flu and air was mixed with spit! ewwwwwwwwwwwwww Yet another first - "spat on by the Pachyderm". But hey, once you've been peed on by Pinkelboy, all else seems tame!

At the end, I bought some packs of sugarcane and treated PomPam. Unfortunately, one of the larger elephants became jealous and I had to buy a "diversionary" pack to keep it busy while I gave PomPam more TLC! Suffice it to say that I loved every wobbly, scary, freaky minute and it was the highlight of the tour!

Ayutthaya & Severe Temple Overload Problem (S.T.O.P.)

2007-06-15T22:24:00.000Z

The first time I came to Thailand, I was 14 and visiting with Siratas and her family who kindly showed me around their wonderful city Bangkok. My lasting impression of the country for the next 16 years until my return was one of temples, gold and King everywhere. Now that I'm here again it's funny how the more things change, the more they stay the same. McDonald's is now everywhere and no longer considered "high-end dining" as it was then, there are lots of other tourists / blondes walking about this time, and I can get by with English almost everywhere in the city as people have obviously adapted to the flood of bargainhunters.... BUT, still temples, gold and King everywhere. Which is nice as that is at least something authentically Thailand.

OK, so much for the politically correct - and quite heartfelt - appreciation. Seriously, after ONE DAY on a tour of Ayutthaya, I am suffering Temple-Overload. There's only so much I can take and looking back at my pictures, they all look vaguely the same. Yes, there's different styles - Vietnamese, Chinese, Sri Lankan and Cambodian influences abound. Different states of disrepair - from the shiny and new to the crumbling and bare. It's pretty, it's amazing, but if I have to see one more temple I may FREAK-OUT.... Doesn't bode too well for my upcoming 2 month trip into China then... :)

I booked a tour to go see the old city of Ayutthaya - 3rd capital of Thailand, actually longest serving so far as Bangkok still has a few years to go to take over that record. If any of this is wrong, blame my guide for the day Paisahn. First stop was the main palace in the area. I wish I could do it justice - incredibly beautiful buildings and gardens - and the BEST bit of all??? You can hire a golf cart to drive around the estate! hahahah Of course, I stupidly forgot to take a picture, but I was assigned lucky "number 7" (for those of you not in the know, that's my nickname btw, it was clearly Meant To Be). I tootled around the place happily with Matt - fellow traveller from New Zealand who chipped into the golf-cart-fund. Definitely the better way to travel in the unrelenting heat and sun. Only downside is that the carts are fitted with limiters, and I could skip faster than their top speed!

Next stop on the tour was an old temple site - one that had been all but destroyed in the war with Cambodia (I think...in the constant barrage of information I'm not sure the right bits stuck...)

Above are pictures of me with one of the few Buddha statues that kept its head (most were decapitated), a picture of one of the temples with a shrine mostly intact, and me posing in front of a view with 3 shrines with different influences... the middle one is in the Cambodian style! Despite being slathered in Factor 30, I still got burned just walking around.

Again the sheep boarded the bus en route to the next stop - another Wat (Temple / Shrine) with a large golden Buddha statue, and a smaller building housing the oldest Black Greenstone Buddha in the world (picture below right). Another first for me! Everything is beautifully made, intricate, shiny... :P Unfortunately the thought uppermost in my mind was "when can I get back into airconditioned confines?" I'm such a culture barbarian!

4th stop was the massive lying Buddha on the right - this one NOT made of gold like the one in Bangkok because apparently it just washes off in the rain and its too expensive to have to keep reapplying it... So its covered in yellow/gold/orange fabric instead. Kind of looks like a massive duvet and I was wondering what it looked like underneath...but good little girl that I am I resisted taking a peek (no pun intended). :)

The last point on the itinerary was a 3 HOUR!!!! (lunch) cruise back to Bangkok. I must admit, it was much nicer than sitting in a coach for a change. I met a couple who were on their honeymoon - Tracy and Adam - and it turns out that tracy was in the musical Hairspray in New York (the nerdy best friend) and I would have seen her in the role when I visited with my mum in October 2005! What a small world! She gave up all the fame to move to California and start a new company called http://www.cleangeorge.com. The site's not really up and running yet - but remember you heard about it here first!

I'm melting...MEEEEELTING!

2007-06-14T21:56:00.000Z

I thought Singapore was hot and humid, but that was before I arrived in Bangkok. Sticky doesn't even begin to describe it - why call them clothes when it's really all clingfilm anyway?! (that's Seran Wrap for those of the US persuasion...) I swear I'm sweating in places I never imagined, and I'm sure no one's interested in the details. Just wanted to make absolutely sure I got the point accross of just how HOT it is here (average 36C with 95 percent humidity). I was DEFINITELY made for snow.

Anyway, YEAH! Arrived in Bangkok - woo hoo. I have a nice hotel, got some excellent advice from my brilliant friend Siratas. Decided against hostel life because the hotel was so cheap! Hey, I love my luxury... The hotel is also directly linked on the second floor to the sky train (Bangkok's airconditioned - bless them - monorail system). Incredibly cheap - 15 Baht to go one stop and less for each additional section. With an exchange rate of 1 Pound to 65 Baht, I'm laughing all the way to the airconditioned mall, cineplex and supermarket!

I went to see Ocean's 13 with Siratas - it cost less than 3 pounds to see the movie (we went to the most expensive mall...) and I paid at least 90p for our popcorn... I wonder if I'll have a heart attack when I get back to the UK? Maybe I'll start making my own to sneak into the cinema... OK movie, better than Superman 3 in any case ( I know, I know, why did I pay to see that??? Why???? 2+ hours of my life that I will never get back!)

The unfortunate side-effect of all that wonderful airconditioning is a cold that I somehow picked up (not-pointing-any-fingers-at-best-friends-who-came-to-visit-in-Bali-and-were-suffering-from-severe-flu-like-symptoms-for-4-days). So hardly any pictures yet! My hotel is nice, but no hotel is nice enough to want to spend 2 days in bed coughing, spluttering and ordering room service, while watching Asian MTV and BBC World... I don't even have the option of alternating between CNN and BBC World... who by the way should really look at how often they repeat their programs... :)

I've booked a few tours for the next few days, so should be interesting to see how resilient I am in this climate... stay tuned to this blog for more action-packed adventures! *cough* *cough* :)

Singapore: the best bits!!!!

2007-06-12T22:32:00.000Z

I didn't quite get round to a few things on my list:

1) the Orchid section of the Botanic Garden (54 hectares in 32C heat, I wonder why I didn't make it...)

2) the Butterfly Park (too far, too little time, too lazy)

3) the Jurong Bird Park (I'm saving this for my next visit!)

4) Underwaterworld on Sentosa Island (once you've gone swimming with whale sharks, everything else aquatic just seems too tame)

However, I feel I now need to add a 16th MUST DO in Singapore to my list, one which I most definitely accomplished. Hark! The Floss Bun!

I love trying stuff I’ve never seen before (and likely won't see again) and either being pleasantly surprised or put off for life (pretty much everything made of green dough). I could compose an ode to the "Floss Bun" as sold in Bread Talk bakeries, but I wouldn’t want people to think I’m weird... :P For those of you that have not had the privilege: it’s a sweet doughy, moist flat bun with some sort of creamy, jammy, eggy slop on top, then sprinkled with a satey-ey, cotton candy like pork flavoured “floss”. I know, sounds delish the way I describe, doesn't it? Luckily I only discovered it on my penultimate day here, so the damage I can do to my digestive tract is limited!

I spent my last day in Singapore with the ones I love - my ex colleagues in Singapore! They a really nice group of people, they let me prattle on and on and on and on (you ge tthe drift), and were extremely patient with my less than pretty lunch manners. I obviously need lots more chopstick-practice before I even think of venturing into China. Actually - they had to work, so I only spent their lunchbreak with them, but quality time nonetheless! Unfortunately, Since Kelly is no longer my travel buddy, there's no one to remind me to take pictures of people...

My last afternoon was all about Sentosa Island. After putting it off for an entire week - it's not airconditioned!!! - I finally realised it could be put off no longer. And it's a good thing I did! Its a brautiful island, this one's DEFINITELY Disney inspired. Little trams, a monorail, exhorbitantly expensive retail outlets and queues to get in/on/out of anything and anywhere. Fun, fun, fun! Actually, cool thing is that it has a spot which is the southern most point of continental Asia... so hey! Add that to the list of most western, southern, eastern etc bits of countries and continents so far! Sentosa cannot be described, it must be seen to be believed...so here are some of the best (pink-tinged) pics!

Singapore: 11 out of 15 ain't bad!

2007-06-10T21:26:00.000Z

I love Singapore, as a stop-over. Not sure I could hack it to live here... it's what Disney land would be if it ever grew up and got stuck on fast-forward. :) Its nuts, hot, crowded and a microcosm compared to everywhere else so far - but kept me busy for a week and there was something for every one of my many and varied personalities...

I had a list of 15 things to do, didn't do too badly as I managed 11 + 1 chore:

Esplanade & Concert Buildings

Hippotour (bus sightseeing tour - courthouse on the right...)

Night Safari

Orchard Road Shopping

Little India

Suntec City & fountain of wealth

Bumboat along the Singapore river

Meeting Singapore ex-colleagues!

Funan Digital Mall and Sim Lim Square (where I SPLURGED...)

Drink/Dinner in the Asia Bar (top of the tallest building)

Sentosa Island & Vivocity Mall (DEFINITELY doing this tomorrow, really, truly...)

HAIRCUT (ok, not so much a "sight" as a chore). That's a picture of me at the hairdresser having my hair "blasted with pure oxygen" while it had some kind of moisturising mask on it. Yep - felt absotively and posolutely fabuliscious after they were done (bill was also AMAZING), but Singapore is the same as anywhere else... there's no way you'll ever recreate the feeling, style and look of a haircut after you've washed it yourself! But hey, at least I can say I accomplished another first - had my hair "done" at the Meridien in Singapore... if you're going to get it cut, might as well do it in style!

Everyone told me to go to the night safari, interestingly some of those had never actually been there! It was a long way out (for Singaporean standards), but definitely a fun evening. They basically cart the tourists around on little trams that glide past animals creepily half-lit... you can't take pictures because the flash would startle them, so I have nothing to show for it except a picture of the entrance sign! Highlight was definitely the Creatures of the Night show - very Disney like and funny. Especially since I unwittingly selected a seat right next to where the handler for the snow owl would stand. The bird flew out of nowhere, straight over my head, TWICE! Yay! :)

The other obvious thing to do is to go on a bumboat ride. I thought I'd be smart and combine all my sightseeing needs with one ticket... so I went to the tourist office to get a map of the stops for the Hippotour (hop on hop off bus including the bumboat ride)... next morning I waited patiently for 1 HOUR and 10 MINUTES at the nearest stop to my hotel before giving up and heading to the main office for the tour company. Turns out the map was old and the stop had been cancelled...perhaps someone should tell the tourist office, the many shops that have the OLD map, the bus stop sign with the tour company logo... but as you can tell it didn't bother the New Marisa at all... I was relaxed and COMPLETELY unfased as I hopped onto the bus anyway!

The BumBoat ride is just a small boat that does a loop on the Singapore River for 30 minutes, taking me past the Clarke Quay with its restaurants, Fullerton hotel, "Durian" shaped Concert Building, Merlion and <> the HSBC Building. Oh well, every city has a blight on its landscape... It was really nice to get away from the bustle and just sit back and relax on the water!

Of course, now I realise that I'd adjusted my white balance on my camera the evening before and this is why all my pictures turned out pink-ish. How... romantic? Hey, that's my verdict and I'm sticking with it!

Vega did her best to cram in even more into my days and nights - we went to Little India for lunch (an experience not to be missed, unless one is still suffering the after effects of a dodgy sandwich in Bali...), and to the Asia Bar on top of Singapore's tallest building for frozen margaritas. I got to hang with the cool chicks (aka Vega and her posse) for the evening, perhaps also a FIRST!

Singapore: Rebel Without A Chew

2007-06-08T15:15:00.000Z

Once again, true colours will out - my REAL criminal self surfaces. In trouble with the law again, a fugitive, a criminal, a rebel without a chew! I unwittingly imported chewing gum into the country and proceeded to mash it while walking the Esplanade to Merlion Park with Vega from the Singapore Belkin office, Moreover, I “dealt” in the illegal substance and dragged Vega down into the chewy criminal way of life. I didn’t know! (That's me posing mid-chew by the way) Some people tell me its illegal, others (this is the story I’m going with if I get caught) tell me its ok as long as its for personal consumption only. Of course it is! I can’t help it that the idea of chewing gum made Vega rabid with wanting - to such an extent that she THREATENED me with extreme physical pain unless I handed over my stash! And if that fails, there’s always the Dutch Defence: Ehhhh, mie no speeking dah Ingleesh? :)

Anyway - I arrived without incident (save for the minor stomach bug I appear to have picked up somewhere between lunch at the Westin and arrival in Singapore… I’m not pointing fingers, but… avoid the club Sandwich at the Westin Resort Nusa Dua if you value your digestive system). My “hotel” is centrally located, that’s about it. Of course, coming from 5* luxury all but a palace would disappoint, but the YMCA International House is more a hostel than a hotel. Unlike its counterpart in Hong Kong - its neither clean nor recently refurbished. But, it has a bed (2 actually), a private bathroom, a little fridge and a view of the Singapore Museum! And very thin walls, so for the first 2 nights it was like being back home in Northampton… amorous couples across the world: unite! Yay. :( It also has breakfast included, but after a brief foray into the restaurant to check out the spread and nearly gagging on the spot due to the smell… I decided that was one “freebie” I could happily live without!

Luckily Vega (from Belkin Singapore) gave me lots of tips on what to do and where to go and Vanessa also gave a list of places to see. Who needs a city guide when you’ve got friends in the Know?!

My first day was spent chasing down the elusive HSBC card - with much success at last! Then I spent some quality time getting lost in Suntec City Mall - very spread out and slightly convoluted signage (but with lots of restrooms… a definite plus thanks to the Club Sandwich Experience). I successfully wasted a couple of hours without parting with any cash (despite the Great Singapore Sale now on with up to 70% off ! Come visit Singapore! Ahem) before visiting Vega at the Belkin office and taking a walk along the Esplanade with infamous results.

Speaking of which - we saw the “Merlion”, Singapore’s self-proclaimed ‘symbol for tourists’. Half lion (the top), half mermaid (bottom), hence Mer-lion. I suppose it sounds better than Lionmaid?! Wondering if its therefore actually half Merman (as with Lion / tiger cross breeding where its either a Liger = Lion father, or a Tigon = tiger father). Any ideas, feel free to contribute a comment to my ramblings…

Internet access is good here, but I might just be too busy to sit down and write it all! Right now I have 5 days and 15 things on my “short list” of things to do.

HSBC: The Saga Concludes... for now

2007-06-06T21:47:00.000Z

I came, I saw, I grabbed my card and ran to test it in the next available ATM! It works and som of you owe me money (having bet that they would screw up yet again... how COULD you not have had faith?!?!)

Hahahahah. I tried to use my credit card (as opposed to the newly issued debit card) and it failed. Apparently the magnetic strip is damaged. Lovely. I'm NOT calling HSBC, instead I used a trick someone taught me in Broome - stick a piece of sellotape over the strip... works like a charm and I got a new pair of shoes! Result! Well, I HAD to test it...

Bali: Do as I say, don't do as I do!

2007-06-05T12:42:00.000Z

Marisa does Bali - or rather - Bali does in Marisa. Despite a few mishaps (like being in a wheelchair for the first few days) this was an excellent break from my break! One place for 10 days, clean bathroom that I have sole rights to mess up, free toiletries (that I don’t use, but it’s the principle), and a turndown service for when you just don’t have the power to undo the bed cover’s super-crisp hospital corners on your own…

Of course, having V here for a week to bring back some sanity (regular working doc’s life experiences) into my otherwise insanely lazy and surreal unemployed travel life is a definite highlight!

Bali is heaven - especially if you're ensconced in the Westin Resort Nusa Dua for 10 days! I was picked up in style by a private car from the Westin and rode in airconditioned comfort to the hotel where I was greeted with a cold hand towel, a complimentary drink on the sofa while someone brought the check-in forms to me, and the LONGEST check-in process ever... Luxury cannot be hurried...

Above are some pictures I did manage to take (beach chairs, the bay at low tide, private massage huts by the beach where we had a 1 hour Balinese massage on the second day) - funny how I completely forgot to take pictures as soon as Kelly wasn't there to remind me! AND I have virtually NONE with people in them!!! :(

Now comes the don't do as I do part. Unfortunately, this was all too good to be true, I arrived without mishap and the next day Vanessa also turned up as scheduled to begin a week of girls-only wild and wacky fun... but fate had other plans. After spending an hour getting all dolled up to go out for our first meal (complete with slippery high heels), I decided to use the - possibly wet - marble hallway from our room to the lobby as a slide and went flying, painfully spraining my ankle. :( Luckily Vanessa was there with me and she is a) a doctor, and b) my best friend - so while she knew my condition was indeed painful but essentially not fatal, she still humooured me in my cries of pain and woe. I ended up in a wheelchair for 2 days. Of course I planned all of this just to have an excuse to laze by the pool!!!

HOWEVER, I did manage to get in a few FIRSTS in:

1) Used the Westin hallway as a slip 'n slide!

2) Cruised through the lobby in a wheelchair

3) Balinese Massage by the beach

4) Fruit carving (see below Watermelon I contributed to -- the clunky bits are by my hand)

5) Coconut leaf creations (see pics with the 7 different creations I learned!!! A new calling?)

6) Aquasize class (I am becoming my mother...)

7) Had a cocktail delived by the pool without straying one iota from my sunlounger (sorry Sally - no picture! I forgot, but I did toast in your honour!)

8) First-ever wrap, scrub & flower bath (and the last... just not my thanggg)

9) 22 million Rupiah hotel bill... a first, a last, a never again on my credit card? :P

10) I didn't buy any souvenirs (perhaps good considering point 9...)

I decided not to explore Bali too much and thus risk having a boring time on my NEXT trip here... :) Bali is nice & small, very interesting, but there's not THAT much to do. So it is easily explored on a short holiday if & when I'm ever back in a regular job again. Besides, I'm about to head for temple overload in Thailand and China! We did visit a wood carving factory and the main stone-carving street of Bali... because Vanessa needed to confirm previous buys with the manufacturers. :) We also went sea kayaking with the heaviest wooden oars I've ever seen. All interesting, but it's incredibly hot and humid and thus energy sapping during the day. Phwoar! Maybe I should be in sales since I seem to be good at convoluted arguments! Besides, getting a tan was a higher priority and a goal I definitely achieved!

And for those of you waiting for humiliating, painful, embarrassing, hilarious stories:

Funny episode 1:

I went to the concierge to ask for a bathroom scale for the room (it said in the guest services manual that one could request it)...they got one out in the lobby, tested it "en plein publique" and then handed it over. I thought it was hilarious and was quite happy to just march it to my room, crossing the lobby and encountering who-knows-who on the way, but Vanessa was deathly embarrassed and actually made me put it in a plastic bag! :P heheheheh I guess I've become a lot less uptight since the start of my travels!

Funny episode 2:

I had a "marine ritual" at the spa. 2.5 hours of massage, slathering of creams, bodyscrub, flower bath and a wrap with funky smelling seaweed mud before being wrapped in cellophane. Despite telling the masseuse several times not to scrub my shoulder due to sunburn - she still gave it a good go with the sea salt. AARGHHHHHHH. Each time I screamed, she said "sorry", went to another body part, before returning to scrub some more sunburned flesh. So I just grin and bore it after a while - let her get it done so I didn't have to put up with the pain anymore! I am never going through the whole thing again... being made to wear disposable paper panties while someone manhandles you for 2.5hrs is not my idea of fun! On the upside, I am verrrry smooth. :)

Australia - the Marisa Way!

2007-05-26T08:51:00.000Z

I thought I'd do another little summary of all my activities / experiences/ sights in Oz! If I didn't keep track I'd probably forget half the things I've done and seen... and then what would I tell Roger's Grandkids?!?!?! :P

Sydney
Harbour Cruise
Monorail (again, and again, and again!)
Bondi Beach
Rugby Match - Sydney Roosters v Manly Sea Eagles
The Blue Mountains and the World's steepest railway ride
Ballet at Opera House - Don Quixote
Movies: 300, Bra Boys, Razzle Dazzle
Luna Park rides (won a white Monkey)

Melbourne
Neighbours Tour & Neighbours Night
Movie Marathon after 24hrs of no sleep
Penguin Parade
Comedy Festival
Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake
Great Ocean Road & Helicopter flight over the 12 Apostles
AFL game (Melbourne vs Geelong)
The Casino and its bartenders
THAT unfortunate date

Perth
PINK! in concert!!!!
Scientology Stress Test
Freemantle
Nudist in the dorm (yep, left THAT one unwritten... simply boring without pics to illustrate!)
The US army descends on Perth & Freemantle

Kalbarri - Denham - Monkey Mia - Coral Bay - Exmouth - Auski - Pardoo
Washing dried on the line outside (a Marisa First)
Hiked to Z-bend Gorge, Nature's Window
Flies, flies and more FLIES
The Pinnacles, The Stromatolites, The Termite Mounds
Pelicans, Penguins, and strangely friendly tiny fish that followed me as I swam
The World's Largest Shell Beach - 150km long, 10 metres deep, that's a whole bunch of shells
Swam with turtles, stingrays, shovel-nosed sharks, tropical catfish, tomato clownfish...
and snappers that try to kiss your leg (Snappers = Stalker Fish)
Swam with Whale Sharks!
Camped in Karijini
Damaged back... trapped nerve!!!
Caught locusts with my bare hands
Found a AU$15 shell (probably broke in the parcel on the way home)

Broome
Cable Beach, minus the nudists
Playing Poole
Sun Cinemas outdoor viewing
Camel Ride at sunset on Cable Beach
Pirates of the Carribbean and the Diet Coke Shower

Broometime!

2007-05-24T21:40:00.000Z

Ahhh, the last treck up to Broome via 80 Mile Beach. It's almost sad to have to leave the bus and "settle down" again in one place for a few days. I do have to pay due respect to Sara, who is quite possibly madder than me (and thus more annoying in confined spaces).

80 Mile Beach was... 80 miles long (I elected to believe what they say rather than check it myself on foot). Lots of shells! I found one that I later saw in a shop with a price tag of $15. I see a new job...

Funnily enough, I don't have a single photo of Broome itself, or the hostel (Kimberley Club, comes with a pool, but without aircon... urgh!) But I have a GAZILLION of cable beach, sunset, red, blue, daytime, portrait, landscape, with nude guy (nude beach was to the right of the stairs... as we discovered during our camel ride accross it at dush), without nude guy, with parasol...with parasol! I'm please to announce that I managed to avoid getting a sunburn - perhaps another FIRST for me! This is entirely thanks to the wonderful parasol that Sara and I rented one sweltering afternoon...

Amazing pictures of the beach in various guises...

Hands-down the best thing I did while in Broome - and coincidentally another first - was a sunset camel ride accross cable beach. Would have been so much better without the saggy old nude guys sitting about as we were trying to "mount" the camels! Luckily for Sara, I actually paid attention to our guides and followed instructions to lean forward and then back as the camel stood up - being in the front seat I managed to block her from going head-first over the front of the camel as she body-slammed me from behind! Sunglasses went flying and I'm sure I heard Nigu (our camel) sigh. :) To be fair, we HAD been warned that he has a rather "energetic" way of getting up and to hold on for dear life. It wasn't until we were on the way and he kept trying to overtake the camel in front that we were told he was a camel bred for racing... let's not test that, shall we? :P

Broome has an open air cinema, which is a nice nostalgic trip into the past... unfortunately, mosquitoes also take this trip with you and as a consequence our viewing of The Last King of Scotland was accompanied by frequent slapping as we tried in vain to protect our limbs from the bloodthirsty insects! Why do they always go for the toes, fingers and any part of the body that somehow comes into frequent contact with straps??? How do they KNOW???

I have become quite the pool player - I start off abysmally and get progressively better with each game! Unfortunately, this cycle repeats itself each time I try - so I "have" to play at least 3 games to get my mojo going! Unfortunately, Kelly wasn't quite ready for the photo above left... :)

And for all those of you out there just waiting for me to go through another EMBARRASSING episode, WAIT NO MORE...

24th June, Pirates of the Carribbean is out in cinemas worldwide - even Broome! Kelly is flying out at 3pm, but she's just nuts enough to go with me to the 10:30am showing so she can then join Sara in Darwin that evening and go again! We're all happily ensconced in our seats (despite the BO coming from the Unwashed row in front) and I have the ultimate wake-up call: 0.5ltr diet coke in the cup with dodgy lid sitting in a cupholder beside me. The movie has been on for all of 10 minutes (total running time close to 3 hours) when I grab my coke for a drink. The lid pops off, I try to catch it, and up-end the entire cup over myself and Kelly / Rosie besides me. Lovely. Just absolutely fantastic. Wet, sticky, annoyed, cold... what is there to do but to watch the rest of the movie and wait for it all to dry? :) Nothing comes between me and my movie!

The last 3 weeks have been a highlight in the trip so far - here's to making the following 4 months live up to the Easyrider extravvvaganzzza!

The Incompetency Propagation Department strikes again!

2007-05-19T18:13:00.000Z

I'm in Broome after an amazing 3 weeks of travel along the West Coast from Perth. Kalbarri, Denham, Monkey Mia, Exmouth, Auski, Pardoo Station and now finally Broome. I'll likely spend the next WEEK online trying to post all the pictures and stories - swam with sharks, had a flat tire, camped and hiked, slept in my ski jacket because it was so...COLD?!?!

I've finally updated Roadtrip part 6 including the Superpit with a fake post date just to confuse everyone while ensuring Chronological order for moi :) Happy Hunting!

Now for the latest in the HSBC saga - OMG. Truly, OMG! I don't know whether to laugh or cry (already shouted and swore plenty on the phone at midnight last night, so that's covered...)

Here's a run down for anyone who's missed it so far - skip it if you're not into extreme frustration!

14 April, HSBC sent a letter asking me to call them as they believe my card has been used in fraudulent transactions. I spend an hour on the phone from Melbourne with the Fraud Prevention Department (Incompetency Propagation Department = IPD) only to find out that:

a) there have been no fraudulent transactions
b) HSBC made the error and gave out my details, subsequently cancelling my card
c) they suggest I come into a London branch to pick up a new card...

Did I mention I am calling from Melbourne and am travelling for the next 6 months? Oh I did? Several times in fact? After much discussion, I get them to agree to send the card to me in Perth where I will be in 2 weeks' time. Since they cannot figure it out themselves, I go online to find the local branch, call the IPD and give them the address. They tell me the branch doesn't exist (right...), so I ask them to send it to the main post office for Poste Restante receipt.

30 April, 1 May, 2 May - still no card. I call up HSBC (ironically from just outside their branch - as shown - in Perth, which is located on the same street as the post office). I tell them the card has not arrived, I cannot delay my onward travel further, and they need to trace it & send me a new one at my hotel in Bali - basically start doing their job. I end up speaking to 3 different people over the course of the next 6 hours as they have to "reconfirm details", ...have lunch, pick their noses, attend how-to-speak-English-with-a-unintelligible-accent class, and presumably grow a braincell or two thereby doubling their collective intelligence in the space of just a few hours... Can you feel my love?

No one in the department can find "Bali" and I find myself in the middle of the street shouting the spelling into my phone for the fourth time as the Incompetent still didn't get it: "B-A-L-I". She helpfully suggests that they have a branch in Jakarta that I could go to in order to collect my card "while you are in Indonesia". Right... let me book that flight ticket right now, not. They are unable to send my card to the hotel, because after all, this would presumably be MUCH too convenient for me.

My next suggestion is to find a branch in Singapore as this will be my next stop after Bali second week of June. Since the Incompetent I was speaking to could not navigate the HSBC Singapore website to find a branch located close to Orchard Road, they suggested I pick one myself. So I go online once more and at 1 am my time I'm on the phone yet again with the address. The response: "they cannot hold the card for more than 2 weeks, so can you please call us back in 2 weeks to remind us to send you the card. We have made a note of the address and all the details in your file."

Is it just me, or is it really worrying that an international bank, the size of HSBC, does not have technology that equals the agenda/alarm function on my 5-year-old mobile phone? By this time I was beaten into submission and simply agreed to the plan.

Which brings me at long last to last night...zee icing on zee cake...

Marisa: I am in Broome and I am calling as arranged to remind you to send my card to Singapore.
Incompetent: I'm just checking the details for you now, please hold
10 minutes later
Incompetent: Mam, which issue # are you expecting on the card?
Marisa: Well, since you cancelled issue #1, and issue #2 was cancelled after it was lost somewhere en route to Perth beginning of May, I'm assuming this would be #3 - but shouldn't YOU be telling ME this?
Incompetent: I'm just checking the details for you now, please hold
5 minutes later
Incompetent: Mam, it looks like the card was already sent to Perth?
Marisa: Yes, as I said before that card was lost in the mail, I'm assuming you put a tracer on it before cancelling it?
Incompetent: Mam, the card issue #2 is an active card.
Marisa: Oh for God's sake, I want to speak to your Manager.
Incompetent: Miss Peek, I will just go find our supervisor for you, please hold
5 minutes later I am joined on the call by the ASSistant Manager
Incompetent AM: Hello Miss Peek, how can I help you ?
Marisa: (5 minute heated diatribe including info above interspersed with repeated references to incompetent department, idiot employees, and choice swear words)
Marisa: Please confirm you have traced the card you lost over 2 weeks ago, cancelled it, and I will receive my new card no later than 7th of June at the Singaporean branch I have specified
Incompetent AM: Mam, I certainly do not understand why you have been given these instructions, would you please hold while I review the details?
Marisa: Do I have a choice? Go ahead...
5 minutes later
Incompetent AM: Mam, it seems the card has not been cancelled. Can you confirm that you did not receive it and you wish to now cancel the card with issue #2?
Marisa: Yes. Duh. I confirmed this 3 times already on the 2nd of May, you may wish to review the tapes of the conversations I had with your employees? I assume you can trace the card that was sent somehow, HSBC would presumably not just lick a stamp and send it out, fingers crossed?
Incompetent AM: Mam, once the card was cancelled, we would not have put a tracer on it.
Marisa: But you just told me the card was not cancelled and asked me if I wanted to have it cancelled now?
Incompetent AM: That is correct, mam.
Marisa: So in the 2 weeks since I gave your team my instructions, you have neither traced nor cancelled the card?
Incompetent AM: Eh, I am unable to confirm those details for you at this time, mam?
Marisa: But that is what you just said?
Incompetent AM: That is correct, mam.

At this point I was about ready to jump through the phone and commit a massacre. Once again, the Incompetent AM couldn't find the branch that was listed on the HSBC Singapore website, so I told him I would go check on its existence once I actually arrived in Singapore and agreed to have my card sent to the main HSBC office in Singapore instead. He helpfully suggested that I could go to their website IF I wished to lodge a complaint... so I told him to effectively stick it, and that I would first publish the tale on my blog (fait accompli), start a smear campaign amongst anyone I know or have yet to meet (please do forward my tale of woe), send a letter to my personal banker, charge back all costs incurred in my attempt to retrieve the card in Singapore (think door-to-door chauffeur-driven limousine) and THEN I might check out the suggestion he provided to me, and that I hoped I would never have to speak to another member of his department ever again.

Me, vengeful? Noooooooooo.

My card should therefore be waiting for me in Singapore on the 7th of June... I am now accepting bets at odds of 100 to 1.

Camping, Moi??? You've got to be...oh ok.

2007-05-18T23:25:00.000Z

So... when I booked this trip, I was aware that the accommodations would be... somewhat basic. I was prepared for large dorms, snoring, sharing bathroom facilities, a general lack of privacy and comfort, and possibly the odd cockroach or two. However, a rickety tent in the middle of nowhere that looked about to collapse... that was not in my imagination. Cool! Another "first" !

Meet our home for the night in the Karijini National Park (it lies

inland, near the mining town of Tom Price and is run by Aboriginals). It is about the only place to spend the night in the vicinity of the gorges. Cooking in the open was an experience, eating even more so. Think: one bite for me, one bite for the mozzies. The insect repellant only seemed to antagonise them even more! Showers and toilets were a 5 minute walk down pitch-black paths and came with their own little residents. It would have been an excellent adventure if it hadn't been for the cold. After weeks of warm weather and even warmer nights, I was cold despite my:

- 2 blankets

- 2 sheets

- New Zealand ski jacket

- jumper

- t-shirt

- pyjamas

- sports socks

- AND beach towel on top!

We got up early to beat the crowds - 3 tour groups, total 50+ people, 2 showers??? you're having a laugh! Well, I had the last laugh because I asked a "rival" group when they were getting up and then set my alarm 15 minutes earlier. :P My dad would've been so proud!

Unfortunately, above are my best pictures of the "hike" - I made it as far as the look-out before I had to practically crawl back to the bus. Camping beds do not agree with my back and I feel really, really, really OLD! Kelly just didn't want to go and we had another invalid on the bus - so we held down the fort while the rest went exploring.

I was on a roll, so I decided to get in another first that day... a blown tire in the middle of nowhere. OK, so I didn't actually have anything to do with it, but I just wanted to mention it! Our driver for this section was absolutely great and managed to get us back on the road again despite a failing jack and other problems. He basically climbed underneath the bus while the group (minus moi & my back) lifted the bus up!

Last overnight stop after another 8 hour bus trip where everyone proceeded to get completely sloshed (did I mention the stop at Liquorland?) was at Pardoo Cattle station - again in the middle of nowhere - which was a veritable RESORT compared to the campsite after I caught and expelled the largest of the resident beasties!

Swimming with Whale Sharks - the largest Fish in the World!

2007-05-15T21:50:00.000Z

Today was another FIRST, but this one was certainly uber-special. I went swimming with WHALE SHARKS! Wehey!

The whale shark is the largest fish in the world - they can grow to be up to 18mtrs in length and weigh over 20 tonnes, with a mouth over 1mtr wide! Ours was a "baby" at just under 10mtrs long, but no less impressive. There are only 2 places in the world where these creatures show up reliably each year, and only ONE where you can actually go swim with them!!!

We left at 7am to make our way to the boat - I went with Kelly and Sara in the picture on the left (I'm the one squinting into the sun far left...). A little dingy took us to the main boat which then pulled up anchor and took us to a snorkelling spot about 30 minutes away to test equipment (and presumably to check that we could swim adequately!)

Valentina, the photographer on board, had the camera of all cameras - a true monster of a machine. I was snorkelling unsuspectingly when she suddenly appeared before me. What the picture doesn't show is me gasping, grimacing, the water rushing into my mask, forcing me up to the surface to splutter because I still can't breathe under water. I KNEW I should have tried mastering that after sledging in New Zealand...

After this we crossed over the fringing reef into the main ocean, where we waited for the spotter planes to find us a shark! We were all quite happily chatting, having a cool drink, sunning ourselves etc when suddenly the engines revved and we were off chasing through the water. Our boat was the first of 3 dive boats to arrive, so we got to go in first. Now, rationally, I knew all I had been told, the safety warnings, the process of getting in and getting out, when to stop and what to look for... but nothing prepared me for the huge dark shape slowly circling just below the surface of the water about 20 metres from the edge of the boat. My heart was racing, even more than just before my skydive, when I realised I was just about to jump into the ocean with a pair of flippers, a snorkel and mask, and swim ALONGSIDE A 10 METRE SHARK?!?!?!?! Ok, so the shark is a vegetarian, and unless I position myself unluckily right in front of its gaping maw, it won't want to ingest me... but still... having been traumatised at an early age by jaws, my imagination was running amock! However, like a lamb to the slaughter, I dutifully followed the orders to "go go go!!!" and jumped in, spluttered when the mask filled with water, swam after the "spotter" and suddenly caught my first glimpse of the behemoth under water. I'm usually a good snorkeller, but it took me a few moments to realise that I was forgetting to breathe (the whole point of having a snorkel).

The best shots from my crappy underwater instant camera

The Professional's shots...

No contest whatsoever! If you look closely at the middle picture of the professional shots, you can just about see a tiny blip that's someone snorkelling along on the other side of the shark - that's me!!! I was sick of getting flippers in my face from the other divers, so I decided to swim around the shark to the other side... never done anything more freakily scary than trying to navigate around such a huge wild animal out of my element while all the warnings "stay-3-metres-away-from-the-body-and-4-metres-from-tail-one-swipe-of-their-tail-could-seriously-injure-you-don't-antagonise-don't-touch-if-it-changes-direction-try-to-stay-out-of-its-way-if-you-get-into-trouble-surface-and-raise-your-hand-and-the-boat-will-try-to-come-to-you" just rushed through my mind.

In total we got to go in 3 times to swim with the whale shark - its amazing how after the initial FREAK-OUT, it all seems so normal and easy. It was truly amazing, possibly the best thing I have ever done!

But then again, plenty more places to see and things to do...

You thorny devil, you!

2007-05-12T20:54:00.000Z

Hah! Saw my first Thorny Devil today. No, it's not a nickname for an evil Englishman with bad hair (what's with that gel-spiked-hairdo they all have???), it is in fact another example of an Australian Roadkill-Wannabe...

Our busdriver Nathan (that's him on the left...errr...licking Kelly?!) was happily (presumably) tootling along on the highway and we were all laughing and minding our own business, when he suddenly slammed on the brakes and I therefore landed wedged somewhat upside down inbetween my seat and Kelly's in front of me. Nathan, parked on the side of the road, opened the door and stormed out. After picking ourselves off the floor, we all looked at each other in utter confusion. All, except for Michelle that is. The Irish lass had been on Nathan's bus since Perth and knew the drill: grab your camera, Nathan spotted something.

Lo-and-behold, Nathan had run back down the highway a good 150mtrs to collect this little fellow:

Of course he then had to return it to exactly the same spot where he'd found it or it would have died, so cue another sprint by Nathan with cargo while we all admired our photos!

The remainder of the trip to Exmouth was relatively uneventful - a gazillion termite mounds, EVERYWHERE. In the afternoon we spent a few quality hours at Turquoise Bay - a lovely beach in the Cape Range National Park. Followed by a group BBQ at the caravan park... how Aussie!