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I tried out Copenhagen's new metro today, although one of the coolest things about it is its web address, simply www.m.dk. It actually opened on Saturday, and Nina and I bought tickets and went along, but it just turned out to be a farce. It was badly organised, too many tickets had been sold, and crowds of people were pushing to get in while event security managers (i.e. fat bouncers) held them back. In the end we left the crazed crowd and walked away, giving up on the promise of free coffee and croissants inside.
So today, I returned, determined to see a train. The new underground stations have been designed to be bright and open, and rather than entering from the usual rabbit style hole, the entrance is down escalators through a wide vertical shaft. The stations themselves are very small (60mx20m), with little space to walk around, and with escalators cluttering the platform it can get quite cramped with people waiting. As is often the case in Denmark, it looks good, and more thought seems to have gone into attractive design rather than efficiency. On the platform they had someone shouting at people and organising them into rows like schoolchildren so that passengers were able to get off the incoming trains, and a big bouncer was there to deal with you if you didn't listen. The trip through the clean, new concrete tunnels is terrific though, as the trains are driverless with large windows fore and aft, and it feels more like you're travelling through the Death Star than Copenhagen. It's a shame though, that the chance to put in a smooth, efficient system has been missed, especially compared to metro and monorail systems in Asia, where lines are painted on the floor where you have to queue, and to seperate people entering and exiting, and the stations are long open spaces without obstacles. Most people in Denmark don't understand the 'please stand on the right rule' on escalators, and there are no stairs to run up if you're really in a hurry to get out of the station, so the only way is to take the lift or stand behind people sleeping on slow escalators (1min 5sec to climb 18m). Unfortunately, as is so often the case with these things, no-one asked me for my opinion when they were designing it.
It wouldn't have been right to spend time on the boat without going swimming and so today we had a refreshing dip here in Titusville. We dropped a lock over the side while we were lifting the dinghy out of the water and after lots of fishing for it with a very large magnet, we heard it clunk onto something and thought we'd found it. Unfortunately, it's been getting down to freezing at nights here lately, so the swim to retrieve it turned out to be more stimulating than I'd expected. With my fins and snorkel on, I went over the side into the water, and felt instantly like the people you see on Russian documentaries who have just cut a hole in the ice and jumped in. Swimming in marinas is not the most pleasant thing to do at the best of times due to lots of boats pumping their waste out regularly, so as you can imagine the water was fairly murky. Nevertheless, I swam down and pulled what I thought was the lock out of the mud, rose to the surface with it, and found myself holding an empty brandy bottle!
This evening, while we were cycling back from Taco Bell, we were lucky enough to see a rocket take-off from Kennedy Space Centre (or Center as they insist on spelling it). The sky was dark and completely clear so it was quite stunning to see it light everything up like daylight as it climbed out of the atmosphere. We didn't have much time to watch it though as our tacos were getting cold.
At the moment I'm reading 'Notes from a Big Country' by Bill Bryson, which, as well as being one of his best books, is essential reading for anyone who's interested in what living in America today is really like. It's nice to see that I'm not the only one banging my head against beaurocracy, inefficiency and the world's worst payphones, but, I don't care, for tomorrow we're off to the airport and leaving the US behind for a month or two (if they let me back in then). We fly to Reykjavik for a breakfast of raw fish and then catch a connection onto London where I shall head to the nearest pub while Nina rushes across London to Stansted to try to catch a flight to Copenhagen.
Happy New Year!
... now that I've finally recovered enough to write
We spent New Year on the boat and had a lovely time, though the temperature has dropped rapidly since then. It was 0c here on Thursday night and the people of Florida have been walking around looking a bit shocked by the icy conditions - though some of them are still wearing shorts. We passed a guy walking down the main street with a chainsaw and a crazed look on his face the other day, so I guess the cold weather affects people in different ways.
We're still anchored in Titusville as we're due to fly back to Europe in another week or two, but things have been fairly interesting in the anchorage this week. Everything was quite calm on Wednesday afternoon when we were suddenly hit by a squall with winds up to 50 knots (100km/h) and torrential rain pounding down. We were confident that our anchor was dug in well enough so that we wouldn't move, but the danger is always that you'll get hit by another boat as it drags across the anchorage. Several boats appeared to be on the move, but one in particular caught our attention. There was a red sailing boat with apparently no-one on board that looked like it was coming straight for us. Nina and I grabbed our waterproofs and got out onto deck, ready to fend it off, but it slid by with some space to spare. The wind had dropped to about 35 knots now, but the red boat continued dragging and was on course to run into Titusville swing bridge, which is about 500m away from us. I called the bridge operator on the radio to warn them that there was a boat adrift heading towards them, then Nina and I grabbed lifejackets and climbed into the dinghy to go over and try to board it. As the rain was falling so heavily, it was flattening the worst of the waves down, but the dinghy was still full of water and the rain was just running down our faces and into our mouths. We made it over to the red boat as it was half-way over to the bridge, Nina stayed alongside in the dinghy with the engine running in case we had to get away fast, and I got on board. There was a wind generator hoisted above the foredeck which was going crazy in the storm, and I had to duck down low so that I wouldn't get hit by the spinning blades. There was definitely no-one on board, so I let out all of the anchor chain to slow the boat down, then put out another anchor. Slowly, her bows swung around into the wind as the anchors began to dig in, and she stopped drifting. When we were sure that she was safe, I crawled back under the wind generator, got back into the dinghy, and we returned to Zamindar, very, very wet. In the evening, however, we noticed a puzzled couple returning to their relocated boat after looking all over the anchorage for it!
We saw dolphins around the boat this morning within about 5 mins of getting up, and then again when we were having dinner in the cockpit, which was really lovely. Our Christmas presents also arrived today from Chris and Nina's parents - thanks. Apart from that I spent 5 hours rebuilding the fridge on board and now finally it's working again so we can look forward to cold beer for Christmas. It looks like we're going to spend Christmas in Titusville, as although we could go somewhere else, we're actually beginning to quite like it here!
Yesterday we motored out of the marina and anchored outside Titusville. It feels great to have escaped from the dock though we have to get used to the boat moving all the time, but it was lovely to waken up this morning and look out at the sun rising over the water - we did go back to bed after that though! The shuttle landed here a couple of days ago. We were sitting having lunch in the Coffee Shoppe when the twin sonic booms as it re-entered blew the doors open. A couple of people clapped, then everyone carried on eating - it's a fairly normal occurrence for the locals.
We've been kept pretty busy for the last week or so hunting down parts, working on the boat, and drinking in the evenings. There's something about being on boats that gives you the irresistable urge to drink, and on the evenings that you don't, you invariably get invited over to someone else's boat for cocktails. There's just no way to fight it. Or maybe we're not trying.
Zamindar is now looking fairly good again, and this week an engine mount and regulator turned up, I fitted them, and the engine is now running again. We're probably going to leave the marina and head out to anchor in the next few days, but we haven't decided whether to stay around in Titusville for Christmas or move on.
Sometimes Nina talks in her sleep. Last night she suddenly shouted out, "No Bron, you can't become a Nazi!" Maybe this says something about what she thinks of me.
As I said previously, we now have Zamindar in the water and we're sitting in the marina in Titusville. We're still waiting for a couple of parts to turn up, but we're in no real hurry to leave as we haven't decided where we're going to take the boat next. One of the parts was supposed to turn up today, but when I called about it this morning I was told that it wouldn't be here until 'around the end of the year'. So, I spent all day on the phone trying to find someone who had it in stock until finally I found a place in New York with one. This is normally how you spend your time with boats.
We did have some entertainment tonight in the form of the space shuttle taking off from the other side of the river. Titusville is the closest town to Kennedy Space Centre and the launch pad is about 5 miles away, so we walked down to the bridge and had a great view of lift off. The Americans really enjoy things like this, and they all became very excited and jumped up and down screaming. Nina declared it very retro, like something from the 70's, which I suppose it is.
Neither of us feel too good today after last night's celebrations. Nina has a theory that they must add something bad to the beer in the US to put people off drinking it and from now on she's promised herself that she'll only drink Carlsberg.
Today we had the boat launched back into the water and it feels really good to be afloat again. Within a couple of hours we had a manatee and then an alligator swimming next to it. Then we drank lots of beer to celebrate so excuse any spelling mistakes...
We now have mobility. Today we found a solution to our personal transport needs and we are now able to cruise Titusville in style. After a late breakfast in the Coffee Shoppe, we passed the local thrift store and spotted two yellow 1970's bicycles for sale in the doorway. They appeared to be in fairly good condition apart from the steering, gears and brakes not working, and the fact that they had flat tyres, but we soon negotiated the price down to $15 for the pair. Delighted, we carried our new transport back to the marina and set about re-building them. Many of the other yacht owners appeared to be confused as to why we were choosing to fix two bikes instead of BUYING A CAR as they walked past looking puzzled, and we sense that we are getting a reputation as 'the two mad Europeans'. Nevertheless, by this evening, both bikes were rideable and we enjoyed the satisfaction of a sunset ride around the local swamp where we were both eaten alive by mosquitoes.
Unfortunately, we made no further progress with the boat today, but a whole new realm of fast food options is now open to us.
Our hopes of getting the boat into the water quickly disappeared with last week's storm which treated us to four days of sub-hurricane, but still intense (gale force I think they call it on boats), wind and tropical, but cold, rain. This had the effect of stopping our painting activities mid-stroke and sending us inside to catch up on other, less challenging pursuits, such as email, as everyone I wrote to last week will testify. Our hope is to complete the anti-fouling, boot-striping, and polishing, and get Zamindar afloat again in the next week, and unfortunately there are not even any bars in the vicinity to tempt us away from this work.
Here in Titusville it's difficult to detect any panic about anthrax outbreaks or biological terrorism. In fact walking down the street it feels like any other day in 1950's America, which appears to be the last time that anything, especially the music, was changed here. It's a thinly-spread out road town with little reason to attract visitors other than the marina, which is the first reasonably priced place to haul-out a boat on the way north from the Caribbean. Most of the inhabitants either drive pick-up trucks and spend their weekends hunting, killing and fishing, or ride electric wheelchairs, weigh 200kg, and appear to be about 110 years old. The town is especially proud of its lack of any public transport system, which ensures that everyone needs their own pick-up truck and helps the country use 80% of the world's oil consumption every year. As the town was designed to be driven around, however, there are few places within walking distance for us and most days we get no further than 'The Coffee Shoppe', the local diner which we frequent, and I'm sure, have a reputation for under-tipping, there. If we're feeling especially energetic we may walk the 40 minutes to Subway, Taco Bell, or McDonalds to ensure that our diet remains properly balanced, but normally we reserve that for special occasions.
I've just posted the above, and as I'm sitting here at the dock, the waves are coming right into the marina, throwing all the boats around and splashing up to where I'm sitting with the pc. The wind has carried on rising and is now gusting at over 50knots (67+ is a hurricane). I've just been around the boat tightening up all the supports that we're resting on so we should be ok, but there are people here standing on the dock because it's too rough to get out to their boats or it's just too uncomfortable on board. This is some of the worst weather I've seen here in Titusville.
Everyone looked surprised as our plane flew over Iceland and we saw the snow-covered ground below. Although it was the beginning of November, no-one's thoughts had turned to snow yet and most of the clothes that Nina and I had with us were more apt for a Florida winter than an Icelandic one. It was exciting to walk out of the airport into the snow, as we caught the coach into Reykjavik.
We were only in Iceland for 3 days as a stop-over with Icelandair on our way to Orlando to go to the boat. The coach dropped us off at the modern youth hostel where we'd booked a double room. Interestingly, the window had a stop built in so that it couldn't be completely closed, and we later found out that Icelanders like to keep their windows open all year round! We hadn't eaten and so we caught a bus into town and asked the driver to tell us when we got there. Strangely, everyone else got off and the bus carried on into the countryside until finally it came to a stop at a bus station in the middle of nowhere. The bus driver got up, looked at us as if to ask what we were still doing on the bus, and then realised that he'd forgotten to tell us where to get off. And so it was that we spent Friday night in Reykjavik sitting on a bus waiting for it to make it's next trip into town.
The following day, we walked to the supermarket to get some breakfast and were shocked by the fact that it was still -5c. The sun was just rising even though it was 10:00, but the ground was covered in ice as we slid our way down the road. That afternoon we braced ourselves, took our swimming things, and paid a trip to the Blue Lagoon which is about 40 mins from Reykjavik. It's a pool of mineral-rich, geothermal water with an eerie blue colour and clouds of steam that pour off its surface. From the changing rooms, you climb down into a pool of water that leads outside into the lagoon which is surrounded by snow and ice. It's a really incredible experience as you swim through the hot water and steam then climb out and walk through the snow to the sauna. Some parts of the lagoon are hotter than others, and occasionally you hear screams of pain as someone wanders into a particularly hot patch.
Iceland is an expensive destination compared to just about anywhere so we were glad to only be staying a few days. Trips out of Reykjavik are one of the big expenses and even travelling by bus is not a cheap way to travel. The following day we rented a car which came with full Icelandic insurance that covered everything apart from damage to the car itself or any other car, and so we set off into the snow covered interior very, very carefully. After about 10 mins of driving, the major roads ended and we found ourselves in the only Nissan Micra heading out of town on a snowy country road as huge four-wheel drive beasts flew past us. The snow was getting deeper and we wondered if this was a sensible trip to be making. We stopped to look at some Icelandic ponies standing in a field in the snow, and tried to take in the incredible snow scene that we were in. Our plan was to drive to Thingvellir, a valley where part of the Atlantic fault breaks through the surface, and then onto Geysir, where all geysirs in the world take the name from. After that we would carry on to Gulfoss to see the spectacular waterfalls there, and then return to Reykjavik. And we planned to do all of this in lots of snow without damaging the rental car!
It was a busy day, and an interesting refresher course on winter driving for me, but the Icelandic landscape was just incredible. The weather was clear and sunny, and we marvelled at the snow and ice formations, the volcanic geography, and the power of the geysirs. Although it took us all day to make the trip, when we got back to our room, we looked at a map and saw that we'd hardly covered any of the country at all. In fact most of the interior of Iceland is uninhabitable and can only be reached by four-wheel drive vehicles in the summer months. It got me thinking that the way to really see Iceland would be to go there in a 4x4 packed with supplies for a summer...
The following evening we flew out of Reykjavik, but en route we flew over Greenland, the skies were clear, and we had an amazing view. We looked down on icebergs floating near the coast, glaciers, and snow clad mountains and decided that we had to go there one day too.
We'd had a very enjoyable flight but came down to earth with a jolt as we arrived at US Immigration. Nina and I both have multi-entry US visas, which we had to sit through interviews to get, so you would think that getting into the States would not be a problem. Not so. We'd been up all night, and now they insisted on grilling us about what we were doing in the US, why we had been there four times in the last three years, etc, etc. I told them that I had a boat there, but they weren't even listening to my answers and told me that it was "suspicious" that I was spending "so much time" in the States. In the end they stamped my passport for six months, told me verbally that I had to leave in three months, and virtually told me not to come back to the US. I looked over to see an elderly woman from our flight, who was obviously on holiday, getting similar treatment and I wondered how the US expects to get ANY tourists if that's how they treat people. In all the travelling that I've done, I've never been treated like that by any country's immigration, and I have no desire to spend any more time in the US than I have to. America is not the golden land that everyone wants to live in... but I'd better stop before the men in the black van pay me a visit!
After customs, we had to go through another security check, which seemed somewhat pointless as we'd just got off a plane and anyone could have walked into the airport through the front door without going through security. We then rented a car and drove the 40 mins or so to where the boat is in Titusville. I'm always nervous coming back to the boat after I've been away from her for a while, and this time was no exception. A hurricane and numerous tropical storms had passed over her while I'd been away and I was anxious to see if everything on board was still ok. We drove into the marina, and I parked behind Zamindar - she looked fine. We then spent almost an hour looking around the boatyard for a ladder as she was out of the water and stands about three metres above ground. Finally, I climbed on board, opened the hatch, and breathed a sigh of relief to see that everything was ok.
Since we arrived, we've been cleaning and getting the boat ready to go back into the water. Taking care of a boat is a never ending job, and we've been held up for the last couple of days by a storm that's been crossing us. Right now there's a force 8 (30-40 knots) blowing outside and we've had tropical downpours all day - not perfect weather for painting. The boatyard is flooded and the boats anchored outside the marina are really getting thrown around in the waves. We're actually sitting here with the central heating up full inside the boat so it's not what you think of as sunny Florida right now!
Although it happened a month ago, here is the posting of the remainder of my journal from China.
We caught a minibus out of Beijing towards the Great Wall, but as so often happens in China, we later discovered that we'd been ripped off, and they had demanded five times the normal fare from us. The bus stank of exhaust fumes, but we soon realised that it wasn't coming from the other traffic but seeping up through the floor. Part of the exhaust pipe was obviously cracked and leaking directly into the bus - we looked around to see all the other passengers asleep! Nina and I tried to get some air through the window and opened it as wide as we could so that we could breathe through it. After what seemed like an eternity, we were relieved to get to the mountains where the Great Wall was, and we set off to hike up to it. We'd chosen to go to the section at Simatei, which, although harder to get to, is less touristed, and stretches across steep-sided mountains. It was truly impressive, and we spent several hours walking a section of the wall as it climbed up the mountainside, sometimes at a 70 degree incline. We caught a minibus returning to Beijing in the evening, and were given a truly frightening display of Chinese driving. Perhaps because there are so many of them, the Chinese hate to be behind anyone else, and so will fight to push onto a train first and run to an available seat before you. This also means that they are unable to sit behind another vehicle on the road and will immediately pull out to overtake even if there's another car coming or they are going around a bend. We had several near misses on our way back to Beijing, and on some occasions the oncoming traffic was forced to stop to avoid hitting us. Very few bicycles in China have lights fitted, but they still cycle them across the dual carriageway in front of cars in complete darkness. We passed a total of five accidents, which included a flattened cyclist and a bus which had driven into a crane that had been parked on the road.
When we got back to the hotel we opened our room to find it full of gas. Of course, we went downstairs and told reception (eventually, as we had trouble with the sign language for 'gas' and our guidebook didn't list the Mandarin for, "Our room is about to explode"). They came up immediately, failed to find the leak, and so opened the window, turned the extractor fan on, and told us that would sort it out. They initially thought that we were being unreasonable when we asked for another room, but eventually they did agree.
Many of the children in China wear trousers with an open slit in them, traditionally so that they could relieve themselves while their parents worked in the fields. Unfortunately, this isn't such an ingenious solution in a busy city such as Beijing where children suddenly stop to shit on a busy pavement, but it seems to be generally accepted. On the train to X'ian, Nina walked into another carriage to find a father supporting his child on the sink while it shitted into the waste bin on the floor.
We were lucky enough to be staying in a hotel called Redhouse with satellite tv (as well as the gas) in Beijing, and watched the US/UK strikes against Afghanistan on BBC World. Militant groups in Indonesia had been searching hotels for Americans, and British nationals were being advised to leave the country. With the hostility that we had experienced while we had been in Indonesia, I could imagine it and I was glad that we weren't still there. Seeing that many Islamic countries had started to demonstrate, and we were about to travel to a predominately Islamic area of China, we thought it a good idea to contact the British embassy in Beijing to find out if the travel advisories for British citizens in China had changed since the attacks. Unfortunately, however, they only seem to be employing Chinese to answer the embassy phones, and their grasp of English is not too good. I asked about travel in China since the attacks, but they replied, "Tax?", and put me through to an answering machine that I could leave a tax question on. I tried again, and this time they put me through to recorded information on how to get a visa to visit Britain. Finally, I gave up, thankful that I didn't need their help for something like a lost passport.
We're now at the boat in Titusville, Florida and she seems to fine after being left alone here for so long.
We're finally on the plane now & about 50% of the passengers are buddhists with shaved heads. Not many muslims though. As it's Icelandair, everyone has skiis under their seats instead of lifejackets. Now what's this they're saying about turning off electrical appliances..?
We've been here in Heathrow airport for hours as we were told that due to increased security procedures we had to check in 3 hours before. Well, there was no extra security that we could see but the airport is packed as everyone sits around for hours waiting for their flights. On top of that we've just seen that our flight is delayed so who knows how long we might be here.
As usual I had great plans to get to bed early tonight as I have to get up at 04:45. As usual I ended up spending most of the night packing and watching tv. Maybe I should just go out to a club instead of bed...
Iceland tomorrow.
Today we booked our onward flight tickets. We fly out of Heathrow on Saturday to Reykjavik and spend a few days in Iceland before flying onto Florida to go to the boat. We're still in Bristol, and after being re-united with my pc after four months I've been completely lost as to where to begin catching up with the website. Hence, apologies for the lack of updates, but I'll get into sorting through the 1000+ pictures and videos I took in Asia and get things up on the site as well as details on what I've been doing.
Our flight arrived this morning, and I'm now staying with Chris in Bristol.
We're in the airport now (lots of fast, free internet access around Hong Kong) and I'm pissed off because McDonalds wouldn't take all the coupons I'd saved up here in Hong Kong. So I got revenge by hiding my empty cartons around the store.
We're just about to leave here and head over to Hong Kong airport. Our flight (BA 28) leaves at 2345 local time and arrives at 0545 UK time, so that means it takes... way too long!
Got back to Hong Kong yesterday, and it really feels good to be back in civilisation! We've confirmed our flights and we fly back to London tomorrow evening. As I didn't have a chance to update this while I was travelling in China, here's Part I of our China trip.
Part I
We caught the train from Kowloon Station and watched as Hong Kong's skyscrapers slipped past the windows until the Chinese border. There, things instantly changed. The station was no longer polished and shiny, but old and rusting, and we passed a building site with virtually no machinery, just manual workers. As the train continued into the Chinese countryside, we were shocked to see dozens of people working in each of the fields by hand raking the soil, or groups of men pulling a plough. There was very little machinery - only the luckiest communities seemed to own one old tractor. We went through villages where they were seperating the wheat from the chaff by hand at the side of the road as donkeys pulled carts past. Apart from the incredible poverty, the most striking thing was how many people were around - you rarely saw fields with no-one in them. Most of the rivers and streams that the train crossed looked horribly polluted, with foam and green algae covering the surface.
We arrived in Beijing the following evening and got off the train to find ourselves firmly in the mid-latitudes. It was definitely Autumn, and we'd long left the tropics behind somewhere along the 28 hour train trip. The train had deposited us in Beijing's West railway station, a huge Stallinesque building, full of enormous waiting rooms, long dark corridors, and, apparently 1.3 billion Chinese, most of whom were busy spitting on the floor. We set off to find an ATM, but of course most of the signs were only in Chinese, and no-one spoke any English. Finally, we found a closed bank and tried their ATM, but of course it only accepted Chinese cards. We had Hong Kong dollars, and so I stopped a girl who appeared to be of less Mongolian descent than the others, showed her the money, and tried to ask where I could get it changed. As you can imagine, she totally misunderstood, stared at the money, and looked at me wondering what I wanted her to do for it. In China it only takes one person looking at something to create a crowd, and soon lots of passers-by had gathered around to stare. I now realised that I was standing in the middle of a mass of Chinese as I held out a HK$500 note - an average week's wages, and several of them propositioned me in Mandarin. Obviously, they were not directing me to the bank, so I got out of there as fast as I could. After an hour or so of searching, it soon became apparent that there was nowhere to withdraw or change money in or around the station, so our next idea was to get a taxi to an ATM machine. We took our bags down to the taxi rank, and tried to find one that spoke English. We were lucky. Two large guys who appeared to belong to the Russian mafia had a suspiciously well dressed girl with them who spoke English. They ordered us to, "Get into the car. Let's go!" Nina and I looked at each other, decided that this was not your normal taxi company, and told them we'd leave their kind offer. We found our way to the bus station, figured out which bus went to the centre of town, and got on board. Luckily, two educated looking girls sat down in front of us, they spoke English, and one of them kindly exchanged one of my Hong Kong notes into Yuan. They also told us where to get off to find a bank, and basically, saved us. The bus stopped at Tiananmen Square, and we were awed by its size and the mass of people in it, even at this time. Then we looked into the bus on our other side to see a boy throwing up all over it. We knew then that China was going to be different. We got off at a Bank of China, withdrew some crisp, new currency, and feasted on Big Macs.
Finally I've found internet access in China! The situation in China has been stable since the US attacks on neighbouring Afghanistan and there don't seem to have been any protests (even in Muslim areas). We're back in Beijing now after spending some days down in X'ian at the Terracotta Army and the nearby mountains, but I'll fill in the details when we get back to Hong Kong in a couple of days.
We're just about to leave to catch our 28 hour long train to Beijing. I don't know how available internet access will be in China but I'll try to update this when I can.
We spent last weekend on the neighbouring island of Macau, which was lovely apart from the fact that everyone there had at least six children. Up until a couple of years ago it was administered by Portugal and obviously their Catholic values were administered there as well. On Saturday evening we watched the International Fireworks Contest between the UK and Japan - Japan won by a long way! Macau was very different from Hong Kong - a bit like Lisbon compared to New York.
When we returned to Hong Kong, we applied for our Chinese visas, and a couple of days later, collected our passports complete with a page of glorious Chinese characters which I think say that we are allowed in. We are, however, restricted from taking part in any religious activities so I shall have to conduct my strict regime of prayer undercover! We were planning to book a train to Beijing for the following day, but we soon found out that there's a big holiday in China right now and the first train with space was five days later. This coupled with the fact that we had problems finding seats for our return flights to Europe in October means that we won't have as much time as we hoped for in mainland China.
So, on Monday we leave for Beijing, and our return flights to London are booked for the evening of the 17th October. Nina then flies back to Copenhagen on a connecting flight and I plan to stay with Chris in the UK for a week or so (is that ok, Chris?). After that, Nina and I hope to fly over to Florida to spend a few months on the boat and move her out of the US.
On Thursday we took the ferry over to another island called Lantau, which is about 30 mins from the centre of Hong Kong, but feels like a completely different world. We planned to spend a couple of days hiking around the island and make some use of the one-man tent we've carried around Asia for the last 4 months! It was a sunny day and the temperature was about 32c, so we were looking forward to reaching a youth hostel where we were going to camp for the night and have a shower. The path we were on ran along a cliff and we were glad to look down and see the hostel about 100m below us, however, as we continued it occurred to us that our path had no intention of joining up with the lower path which led into the village where the hostel was. By this time the sun had set and we continued walking nervously along for several kilometres into the impending darkness until finally we met up with a route going down. When we finally arrived, it was fairly dark, and we found the youth hostel deserted, surrounded by a high fence, and the gates locked. There were few other places to camp unless you were prepared to cut down some jungle with a machete so we were not too happy. We did manage to gain entry, however, and proceeded to pitch the tent whilst being eaten by mosquitos. We lay down and fell asleep at 20:30!
The following day we awoke early when the rising sun made staying inside the tent unbearable, packed up, and walked down to the beach for a swim in the South China Sea and a nutritious breakfast of McVities Ginger Nuts. Then we hiked over to the village of Pui O, passing a large snake and some water buffalo on the way. It was a lovely couple of days and we were amazed to find that Hong Kong still has so much wilderness.
Yesterday was Ocean's birthday and we went out for Dim Sum for breakfast which was the best I've ever eaten, although we weren't too keen when we got around to nibbling on chicken feet! The bones have lots of knuckles along them so it's a strange feeling as you try to bite off the skin. Later we went shopping; clothes are very cheap here and so I bought myself a new pair of trousers, but unfortunately the zip broke on them the first time I used it.
We arrived in Hong Kong yesterday after a terrific flight on Sri Lanka Airways. It turned out to be a lovely Airbus A330 with airphones and video screens at every seat and forward and downward facing video cameras so you could watch the take-off and landing. Very cool. Ocean met us at Hong Kong's new airport (the world's biggest ever civil engineering project) and we've been staying with him.
Today is our last day in Bangkok as we catch a flight to Hong Kong tomorrow where hopefully we'll meet up with my chum, Ocean, who I met when I was cycling in France. Although we're a bit sad to be leaving Thailand, we're very excited about going to Hong Kong as you can imagine.
Over the last week or so I've been trying to get rid of a rash on my leg so we haven't been travelling around much as walking is a bit uncomfortable. As we were going down the street yesterday, however, we did pass a food stall which stopped us in our tracks. To our shock they were selling an assortment of deep-fried insects including crickets, locusts, maggots, and cockroaches. Although we were on our way to lunch, we managed to resist the temptation of sampling them, but we did take some photographs as proof. We've also uploaded some photos we took this week at the Royal Palace, and around the streets of Bangkok. New pictures from Bangkok
Today we collected our tickets for Sri Lanka Airways flights to Hong Kong. It's a three hour flight from Bangkok so either it's further than we thought, or Sri Lanka Airways has very old planes. The tickets were cheap but hopefully we won't be sitting on the floor surrounded by chickens.
This is, of course, a change from our original plans to travel overland to Hong Kong, and it's because we now plan to fly back to Europe in late October and go over to the boat for two or three months. This still depends on us managing to change our return flights, but assuming that isn't a problem we'll probably spend a week in Britain and Denmark before heading off to the US.
I've just added some pics to the following folder, and plan to upload more over the next few days, so check it out.
pictures from singapore, malaysia & thailand
We boarded the ferry for Ko Samui & descended into the crowds of tourists again for the first time since Bangkok. It was a short crossing and the sea was flat. I began to wish that I was sailing again - but not in Asia, where there are more pirate attacks than in the rest of the world put together.
The ferry docked and disgorged a stream of backpackers - blonde girls whose arms were black with tattoos, following rasta boyfriends with bongos. We carried our bags under the hot sun and started our search to find somewhere to stay. Most of the accomodation on the island consisted of A-frame huts, but in comparison to the rest of Thailand they were quite overpriced. We looked at one place with a fantastic beach but the owner was an old, rude German who was too busy smoking and watching his Thai maids to really be bothered letting us see the rooms. After about 5 hours of looking around we settled on a hut just off the main street in town, dropped our bags off in the room, and sat by the beachside restaurant eating ice-cream.
Later we returned from Starbucks and were about to go to bed, tired from our day of room hunting, when we noticed the first cockroaches in the room. If there's one thing that I don't like then it's the thought of wakening up in the middle of the night with huge cockroaches crawling over me. If there's anything around, they'll eat it - right down to the dead skin off your feet, and when they run out of food, they'll eat each other. No, I don't like cockroaches.
We tried to ignore them and get some sleep, but soon I could hear them rustling through our plastic bags and crawling around the room. They were so big I could lie and listen to their feet tapping on the wood as they ran across the walls. Thankfully, there was a mosquito net over the bed, and we tucked it in and hoped that they wouldn't find the holes and come in to feast on our feet. At this point the nightclub, which sounded as if it was directly behind our hut, started up. The room shook with the bass and cockroaches fell from the ceiling. It was quite a night and needless to say I didn't sleep too much, but Nina snored obliviously through much of it. In the morning, when the music had stopped and the cockroaches slept, she woke me, excited about going snorkelling on the beach. A large gecko started screaming inside the hut, so I gave up any ideas of trying to sleep, took a shower and pulled my snorkelling gear out of my bag. Inside my fins I found three large cockroaches.
We marched into reception and complained about our cockroach infested hut, but they just looked at us as if to say, "So?" Eventually, they offered us another room, and we spent the morning emptying our backpacks of the remaining cockroaches. Then we cable-tied a mosquito net around our bags to stop them getting back in.
Later, we walked the 100m or so to the beach and did some snorkelling. The Lonely Planet guide to Thailand describes the beach as having 'crystal clear blue water with an interesting coral reef'. This proves that their writers use too many hallucinogenic substances. During our extensive exploration of the area we found the beach to consist of an entirely sand bottom with chicken soup coloured water. Although we didn't see any fish, we did manage to discover some tiny jellyfish, and finally we retreated to the shore to recover from their stings.
The beach itself was beautiful, and was fairly peaceful during the day as most of the backpackers slept off their hangovers. Many of the locals, however, were quite rude and unfriendly, but with an island invaded by tourists I don't suppose it's easy for them. That weekend, a couple of kilometres from the beach we were staying on, two British girls were raped and sexually assaulted by two Thai men and ended their holiday in hospital.
On Tuesday we caught the overnight train back to Bangkok. Glad to be away from the cockroaches, I slept soundly until 0615 when a mentally deranged steward began marching up and down the carriage screaming, "Wake up! Wake up!" I turned over and put my earplugs in, but nothing could block his rasping voice out. Suddenly, his head came through the curtain into my bed and he screamed, "Get up! We in Bangkok!" I looked out of my window as the sun rose over paddie fields - Bangkok had certainly changed! We weren't due to arrive for another two hours and it was unusual for Thai trains to arrive early. I told him I would get up when we were closer to Bangkok, but again he screamed, "Get up now!!" in true Gestapo fashion and threatened to return with the train's armed police. I dragged myself up, not wishing to spend time in a Bangkok prison under charges of refusing to get out of bed. I looked across the carriage at Nina who seemed equally confused by our apparent enrolement in the Thai army. She told him that she was closing her curtains so that she could change, but he yelled, "No, you get up now!!" as his face reddened even more. Two and a half hours later the train lazily rolled into Bangkok station and everyone staggered out suffering from sleep deprivation.
come to Asia
get a bag full of cockroaches
get ordered out of bed by armed police
When we arrived in Malaysia, we met some people who'd just left the Perhentian Islands and they told us that some places did have rooms available there, so we jumped on a boat and were dropped off on a tropical beach where one of the 'resorts' were. It looked terrific from a distance but when we looked around the chalets we saw that most of them were built from sticks and had big holes in the walls and floors. One of them was full of bats hanging from the roof and the kitchen was 'open plan' with squirells and other animals raiding the food! There was no shower, just a well with a bucket. We walked through the forest to look at some of the other places but they were all full, so we carried on until we finally found one with some available rooms. The rooms weren't great, but they were an improvement. Just before we went to bed we found a huge insect that looked just like a leaf, and a scorpion just above the bed and we were woken several times during the night by bats screeching and trying to get in through gaps in the roof. The next day they offered us a better room and we happily took it. It had several large lizards (maybe 30cm long) that lived on the walls but at least they ate most of the insects. The worst thing was that the food they served in the restaurant was very dull and so we walked over to a neighbouring restaurant and had dinner there the next day. When we were returning through the forest it was dark, but thankfully we'd taken torches with us. Suddenly we stopped as we heard a loud rustling noise and we looked at the ground to see what it was. Then we felt it biting. Millions and millions of huge ants were covering the forest floor and attacking us, biting our feet and legs! We tried to run away from them, but just ran into another load, and then another. Finally by the time we got back to our chalet, we'd ran half-way through the forest and were sweating, nervous wrecks.
One of the things that surprised us about the places we stayed in Malaysia was the lack of cleanliness with so many things. Whenever we ordered a drink it would always come with a dirty glass as if people just didn't know how to clean dishes. Needless to say, this hardly gave us confidence when it came to eating the food. On Wednesday, we took the ferry back to the mainland and caught a train at the Thai border. We sat in the buffet carriage and enjoyed some spicy Thai food and marvelled at the clean glasses they gave us.
We've been in a town called Hat Yai for the last couple of days, and we're about to catch a train in an hour to Surat Thani with the intention of getting a ferry from there to an Island called Ko Samui. It's supposed to be very beautiful, but also one of the really big tourist attractions in the country, so we fully expect it to be packed with hippy backpackers. On the other hand, I've been told there's a Starbucks there...
Tonight we catch the 2010 train out of Singapore and through Malaysia on the 'jungle track'. We arrive in Wakah Bahru at 0915 tomorrow morning and although we were planning to go to the Perhentian Islands in Northern Malaysia, we've since discovered that it's the middle of high season there and accomodation is very scarce, so we'll probably continue onto Thailand instead.
Last night we saw 'Rush Hour 2' at the cinema, and really enjoyed it, but we have recently been watching a lot of Jackie Chan films on tv as part of our 'Asian cultural research', so maybe that had something to do with it. Later we sat by the river under the skyscrapers at Boat Quay, drinking Singapore Slings and enjoying what will probably be our last evening in civilisation for a while.
From this evening our mobile number will revert from the Singaporean number we've been using back to our usual number. Hopefully our roaming service will be working again in Thailand.
We've just uploaded some of our recent photos to here.
Last week Nina & I set off for some Indonesian islands that are quite close to Singapore. We bought our tickets in the ferry terminal then grabbed a couple of lattes in Starbucks before we boarded the boat and stood on deck watching Singapore slip away. We knew that Indonesia would be a big change, but we couldn't really guess what we were about to arrive into. Recently there had been a lot of political tension and violence throughout the country, but with the appointment of a new prime minister the previous week, things now looked as if they were more stable. We were the only foreigners on the ferry, everyone else was either Indonesian or men from Singapore over to drink in the cheap bars. I spoke to some Singaporeans as we approached the island of Batam and they advised me only to get a taxi inside the ferry terminal. Some of the taxi drivers outside had been known to drive people out to the jungle, rob them and leave them there. We made our way through immigration and found a taxi office, however, they wanted 6 times what we'd been told was the normal fare. I tried to haggle with them, but instead they looked at us with derision and ordered us to, "Get out!" We stepped outside into the heat, and although there were only 20 or 30 passengers on the ferry, there was a crowd of about a hundred taxi drivers outside. They pushed and shouted, but when we tried to negotiate a price with them they just laughed between themselves and screamed at us in Indonesian. One of the port officers told us we may have better luck out on the main road, and so we pushed through the crowd with our rucsacks and made our way out of the port. Several of the taxi drivers pursued us, determined not to lose the opportunity of making a week's wages, and more approached us at the main road. The island had no bus services, the port was in the middle of nowhere, and we had to cross the island to get another ferry to Bintan. As we stood by the road, we realised that we were just attracting more attention, and so we agreed to pay only four times the going rate and got into one of the ancient, wrecked taxis. The car was really falling apart & we had to put our bags on the seat as he couldn't manage to get the boot open. As we drove down the road we passed a shanty town of wooden houses, but it just seemed to stretch on and on. Soon we realised that it was normal for people here to live in houses built from garbage as we made our way across the island.. I felt a knot in my stomach as I realised the poverty that people were living in - now I realised why it was the cheapest place in the world to buy a McDonalds! Nina & I looked at each other in shock - even though we'd been travelling around Asia, this was by far the poorest and dirtiest place we'd ever been. The Starbucks we'd been sitting in an hour ago in Singapore now seemed like another planet.
We reached the ferry terminal, bought tickets, and boarded the boat, continuing to be the centre of attention. It was an old, small, high-speed ferry, and we were forced to watch Indonesian karaoke music videos at full volume until the player broke down because of the buffeting of the waves. I dozed off and awoke as we were berthing in Bintan.
As soon as we stepped out onto the jetty, a hotel tout locked onto us and refused to go. Then he waved over two of his friends and they all proceeded to follow us, trying to harrass us into agreeing to go to the hotel they were working for. Once again we were the only non-Asians to get off the ferry and now we began to see why. The town consisted of mainly ramshackle wooden huts with some concrete buildings in the centre of town. Rubbish was piled up in the streets and rats ran across the pavement in front of us. Our self-appointed guides refused to leave us and continued to hassle and follow us all the way through town. Finally, with no other choice, I took one of them aside, told him to read my lips, and instructed him to leave in no uncertain terms. They weren't quite sure how to deal with this, but after shouting at us aggresively, they finally left. We started to check out some of the hotels, but they were either full, or horrifically disgusting. As we walked around the streets everyone stared and shouted at us, and none of it seemed to be friendly. Then another 'guide' found us and decided that we would have a much richer experience if he followed us around and checked the rooms out with us. After being in and out of every hotel in town, we settled for an overpriced, run-down establishment with rubbish piled beneath its stilt supports. But at least it had a bar downstairs.Our 'guide', who had followed us up to the room when we were being shown it, now sat down, and blurted out, "Now I like tip, please." I handed him 1000 rupiah (about an hour's wages for the average Indonesian), and manuevered him out of the door. As I was doing this he began to get aggressive, and act insulted, but there was little he could do by now as he was on the other side of the door, so he angrily stuffed the note into my shirt pocket and stormed off. We closed the door, glad to be inside, and turned the old air-con unit on. Nothing happened. There had been no power in the town all day. Maybe it would work tonight we were told.
In the evening we walked down to the bar. They only had warm beer, but they did give us some ice to put into it. We looked around the bar, and most of the other customers were skinny Indonesian hookers. We drank quite a lot that night, we needed to after the day we'd had, and the alcohol helped me sleep oblivious to the horrors of the room. Nina wasn't too well that night, however, probably due to the ice from the beer, and shared the bathroom with the cockroaches while I was unconscious in bed.
Needless to say, we woke up feeling a bit rough in the morning but dragged ourselves down to the 'breakfast buffet'. It was, unsurprisingly, very disappointing, and consisted of two pieces of toast with a thick yellow oil coating and an egg which I presumed to be boiled but discovered to be raw upon breaking it open. We asked for some more toast and were told, "You give me money, I give you toast." We left breakfast, and saw a large, fat rat run across the floor. Obviously it was getting better fed than us.
Nina suggested we travel around the island in case it improved, but I suggested we travel over to the ferry terminal, get the ferry back to Singapore, and escape from this place as it was the epitome of hell. She agreed, we packed our bags, and left.
Singapore has been a big change in our travels. We feel thousands of miles away from the dirty streets and chaos we'd become used to in the rest of SE Asia, and instead we've been soaking in the contemptible luxury of spending time in one of the world's richest countries. The other day we played with an Aibo, Sony's robot dog in one of the shopping malls, and Nina has been enjoying the novelty of having sushi for supper every evening and coming to bed with fish breath.
Singapore is about half the size of Greater London, and has a population of 4 million. It's one of the most efficient and advanced places I've ever been and possesses an unbelievable number of shopping malls, one of which stretches underground across the centre of the city. It tends to grab headlines for its strict laws and high fines for things like littering. Chewing gum is illegal, drug dealers are executed, and Penthouse and Playboy are banned. All of which sounds crazy to anyone from Western society, and I fully expected to be shocked by the level of governmental control when we arrived here, but the surprising thing is that the longer we spend in the city, the more relaxed it feels. When you think about how many people live on this tiny island, you realise that things really do work, crime is very low, and maybe some of the laws are actually doing some good. Thankfully I gave up my gum habit years ago, and I'll just have to wait until we get to another country for my fix of Penthouse.
We're still sitting in cafes in Singapore drinking coffee. I just realised that it's 5 years ago this week that I stopped working. Time really does fly! If that isn't enough news for you then check out this website about L'Hydroptere, a 60ft hydrofoil equipped catamaran (time to upgrade Zamindar I think!).
Finally the rain cleared yesterday and we set off with great intentions of finding the aforementioned campsite. After several hours, many buses, and a great deal of walking, however, we instead found ourselves lost in Singapore's suburbia as darkness fell. Rested and refreshed we set off again this morning, and after riding to the centre of the island on the metro, we sweated and dragged ourselves through 34 degrees of heat for half an hour until we reached the beach. One of the great things about the country is that English is the primary language (before Malay, Mandarin and Tamil, or so I'm told), but unfortunately no-one outside the centre of the city seems to understand it. We asked for directions but only received confused looks until finally we resorted to making boy scout signs and playing out the erection of a tent in mime to confused locals in our attempts to be understood. In the end we found a place that rented out bikes and we decided that this may be our only chance of finding if the campsite really existed. On Nina's suggestion, I must point out, we rented a tandem and set off. Now, contrary to popular opinion I can now tell you that there is nothing romantic about sharing a tandem with anyone. It's a bit like two people trying to drive a car at the seem time. Once we'd managed to balance ourselves at the same time in order to set off, we proceeded to wobble and swerve our way down the cycle path narrowly avoiding small children and dogs while we each blamed the suicidal progress on the other. We'd been told that there were almost endless paths in Singapore on which to cycle, but, obviously used to being in bigger countries, we pedalled until we quickly found ourselves on a main road and soon after at the international airport. But still no campsite. We turned around and took the bike back to the guy we rented it from, who will have to get it surgically removed should he wish to rent it out to anyone else, and vowed never to get on a tandem again.
Here's an interesting link for anyone with some spare time on their hands who fancies building a jet powered beer cooler in their shed.
We were planning to try to find a campsite to stay in today but right now Singapore is in the grip of a tropical downpour so we may just leave it. For anyone who has been trying to contact us by phone, we're unable to roam here for the moment so email is once again the only way to contact us. Yesterday I gave into temptation and replaced the digital camera I had stolen in Bangkok as it was frustrating me too much to be unable to take photographs. Electronics are pretty cheap here - it cost about 65% of what I'd paid originally in Britain.
Well, after spending the last month in the developing world, we crossed over the border into Singapore and I now find myself sitting in a lovely cafe with free internet access over a 3.5mbps connection. It feels good to be back in civilisation even though a coffee here costs more than a good meal did in Thailand. We haven't really had a chance to get online in the last couple of weeks so I'll fill you in on what we've been up to since I left off...
After hanging around bars for most of the night in Chumphon, we made our way to the railway station, which, though dead during the day, had burst into life now. Our train appeared at 0230, and we pushed our way through people asleep on the floor to find our beds. Sometimes my eyes are a bit too sharp - I wished I hadn't seen ants and fleas in the sheets I was about to sleep in, but I did. The train pulled out of the station and I fell fast asleep until Nina woke me up as we arrived in Trang and I began to count my bites. We spent a couple of days there, then took a minibus out to the island of Ko Lanta. We'd been told that it was low season and accomodation prices were cheap, and sure enough we soon found a nice hut on the beach for $US2 a night and we went for a swim. We did, however, spend much of the night awake watching a fist sized cockroach hanging happily from the ceiling above our bed.
The next day we rented a motorbike to see the island and took a trip to Kao Mai Cave. Unfortunately, the guide couldn't find any batteries for his torch and so we sat and waited for half an hour until he got his torch working. It was well worth the wait though as we would never have found the caves without him. We climbed a waterfall and descended through a small hole in the rock into a huge maze of caves beneath the hillside. It really felt like being Indiana Jones and we spent over an hour crawling through small passages and walking through enormous caverns, some of which were full of bats.
Our visas for Thailand were about to expire by now so we took a train south and crossed over the border into Malaysia. We arrived in Georgetown on the west coast, but unable to find a room that looked like it had been cleaned in the last five years we booked into one of the most expensive hotels in town and spent a couple of days relaxing by the pool. We then continued down to Kuala Lumpur, but really we weren't enjoying Malaysia to nearly the same extent as we had liked Thailand. The people didn't seem as friendly, many of the cheaper hotels were filthy and many things were on a par with European prices so we jumped onto another night train and ran for the border.
Singarpore has to be one of the most advanced places I've ever been. The GDP here is higher than in any European country and the city of 4 million people seems unbelievably efficient. It's a huge change from what we've been used to lately.
The train journey down here seemed a bit rough; it was a bit like the trains you see in Indian films, with open windows, lots of noise, and clouds of dust blowing in every so often. When we arrived at night, we were glad to be approached by someone from an agency who could give us a lift to a beach out of town. We checked into a bungalow there, and the next morning woke up to a view of a white, sandy beach. So we took a swim, then went off hunting for somewhere that we could get breakfast. It was good to get away from the throngs of backpackers who had been around everywhere, and we seemed to have the beach to ourselves. The only problem was that because we were away from the tourist areas, we had a bit of a job finding somewhere to eat.
In the afternoon we caught a songthaew (a pick-up converted to carry people) into town and sorted out our onward rail tickets. Then we climbed into the back of another songthaew to go home and waited for it to leave. More people climbed in, and we all waited. Finally the driver appeared after 90mins and we drove off. By this time it was dark, and I thought that we were almost back at the bungalow, so we got out to walk the last few hundred metres. But... Yes, I'd made a mistake and we were still 3km from it! After being chased by lots of dogs, we followed the road through the jungle, and finally made it back. Occasionally we did stop to look at fireflies and the stars, but generally it was a night that deserved to be Friday the 13th.
Right now we're sitting at an internet place / restaurant and I've just enjoyed the delights of their horrific toilet. Many of the toilets here in Thailand are 'squat toilets' that you have to pour a bucket of water down to flush. This one adds to the interest by having a live turtle in the water tank, as well as the other wildlife you generally find around Thai toilets. I half expected Greenpeace to burst in and stop me from using it.
Thailand seems to take pride in scheduling their trains at times that no-one could possibly wish to travel. Tonight we're booked onto a train down to Trang in the south of the country and it leaves at 0236. That gives us another seven hours to kill in a town where everyone goes to bed at nine o'clock. At least the good news is that I finally had a reply to the email I sent to Orange a week ago about my phone not working. It seems that they've realised that all of their customers who are currently in Thailand are having the same problem. Very observant. They say that now they just have to figure out why it's not working.
Tomorrow, Nina and I are leaving Bangkok and getting the train to a town called Chumphan, about 500km south of here. The trip takes almost 9 hours, so we'll probably just check into a nearby hotel when we get there and figure out what to do the next day. I'm getting my last hit of this internet connection tonight, especially as I've loaded up my Palm software onto this pc and can download webpages and stuff to it.
As I said yesterday, my phone is currently not working, so the only way to communicate with me is by email. I'll post details here if that situation does change.
Today, Nina and I went shopping for snorkelling gear. Our plan is to head south to some beaches and look at the fish later this week.
It's Sunday evening and there's a tropical rainstorm going on outside. On Wednesday we had our digital camera stolen. We don't know how because, as usual, we've been very careful, but somehow it was taken. Needless to say, we're not very happy about it, and I'm seriously missing it. We spent the next day looking around some of the street markets in Chinatown here, hoping to come across it, but there was little chance of seeing it again. Theft happens at a whole new level here; old shoes are stolen from outside temples as you have to remove your shoes before you go in! We may return from this trip with considerably less luggage than we took with us! To make matters worse, my cellphone has decided to stop working in the last couple of days, which means that I've had a 100% failure rate amongst the electronics that I brought with me on the trip... in the first 2 weeks!
Well, I guess these things happen when you're travelling, and we're still enjoying our time here, although we are looking at things through slightly different eyes.
We're still here in Bangkok - the reason I haven't written much lately is that (1) I've been lazy and (2) I bought myself a new Palm replacement the other day a 505, and have been very busy re-installing software and documents onto it. Finally I can think again.
We've been having a lovely time here. The weather has been great, things are very cheap; our room costs about five pounds, a meal for two costs around one pound fifty. So gradually we've just been settling into Asia, getting used to the climate, food, and crazy taxi drivers. We're thinking about heading south next to spend some time on the beaches, but we still have some things to see and do here in Bangkok first.
Just a quick note as the internet place is about to close. We've just been spending the last few days wandering around Bangkok, looking at a combination of temples and shopping malls and enjoying it all.
We arrived in Bangkok yesterday and the trip went smoothly. We had to catch a connecting flight in Helsinki, and so with a few hours to spare, we took the bus into town to try out the local McDonalds (and to see some of the city). We had a quick walk around the centre and as it was midsummer's day it was daylight until vey late. Then we grabbed the bus back to the airport and caught the nine and a half hour flight over to Bangkok.
On arrival, it was about 32c outside, and we headed into town on the airport shuttle and booked into the first hotel we stepped into. It was so nice to put our bags down and have a shower. Then I found a problem. I tried to switch my Palm on and it refused to work. It had been trying to die for the last few months, probably due to the fact that it gets carried everywhere and thrown around a lot. It had basically everything I needed in it - telephone numbers, addresses, notes; none of which I wanted to lose. Finally I managed to reboot it, but lost all of the data! It is of course backed up on my pcs in Denmark, but I won't be able to get to them for a long time. To put it into context, today I feel a bit like I've lost half the information in my brain.
After recovering from this shock, we took a tuk-tuk into the centre of Bangkok. These are like motorbikes converted to carry passengers in the back, and the drivers tear around the roads between all the traffic. We walked into a huge shopping centre that seemed bigger and more advanced than anything we'd been to in the Western hemisphere. It had 8 or 9 levels with a huge central atrium criss-crossed by escalators and walls with video screens. We were starving, so we headed to the restaurant section, which was filled with lots of Asian delicacies we'd never seen before. We were just deciding what to eat when we looked closer and saw cockroaches crawling over the food. We didn't feel quite so hungry after that.
The streets are filled with endless things to look at. We're surprised that much of the city is so advanced. Many of the walkways are built in the air, suspended above the streets and traffic, and above that is the skytrain, a (mono?) rail system that crosses the central area. There are shops everywhere, and it seems that you can find just about anything here.
We're just taking care of a few last things before we go to the airport in a couple of hours. I've been trying to call and email people before leaving, but if I haven't managed to get in touch with you, then you will of course still be able to contact me by email or (hopefully) sms while I'm away. If you can avoid sending any pictures or large files to my email address while I'm travelling it would be appreciated as bandwidth could be very limited in many places, but please do keep in touch and I shall reply when I can get a connection. Due to the fact that we're not taking pc's with us, we do not expect to be able to upload pictures while we're away - they'll have to wait until our return to civilisaton! I will be updating this page, of course, to keep everyone in touch with where we are and what we're doing. Now where's my passport...?
This morning we paid another visit to the doctor for yet more immunisations. After Hep A, Hep B and Japanese Encephalitis, I was feeling suitably punctured. It should be interesting going through Thai customs covered in needle marks! We also picked up malaria tablets which cost a whopping sixty-five pounds each (for three weeks cover!).
This evening we had a lovely meal with Nina's family (lots of meat and wine!), then we came back here and did most of our packing (hence the time). I'm taking very little with me, especially considering that it's for such a long time, as I want to be able to travel light, so we shall see how it works out. We still have a few last things to sort out, but we don't have to be at the airport until the afternoon so it shouldn't be too rushed. It feels very strange to be going off for so long with so little, and it's hard to believe that it's suddenly time to go but I guess I'd better get some sleep now...
Yesterday we confirmed the flights to Bangkok and bought the tickets. This in itself was not too easy. The travel agents, like most shops in Denmark, don't take Visa, and the ATMs don't allow me to take out enough money to cover the tickets, so I went off to a bank to make a Visa withdrawal. Usually the banks simply make out a Visa slip, call for authorization, and give you the cash. This has worked for me in banks all over the world, including third world countries, but did it work in Denmark? No. I was sent from bank to bank across Copenhagen as they each refused to do it until finally, three hours later, I managed to withdraw the money from a branch in the airport.
Suddenly now, I've lots of things to do and no time to do them in. Today I got hold of the Lonely Planet guide to China and did some other shopping in town, and tomorrow we have to get more immunisations, pack, find a dozen things that don't exist in Denmark, then go to Nina's parents for dinner. Now back to that list...
Nina finished her university course today and is now officially a bachelor. We now have seven months free before she plans to start her next two year long course. After she finished her exam today we headed to the travel agents to try to finally sort up some tickets. After throwing what must have been about twenty different possible flight routes at them, we seem to have finally decided on flying out to Bangkok. The flight, with Finnair, leaves on Saturday and we plan to return around January from Hong Kong after hopefully travelling overland between them. I spent the weekend trolling through websites for information on possible overland routes, visas, innoculations and so on, and today I bought the Lonely Planet guide to SE Asia to take with us.
This evening we dropped by Nina's parents and told them that we were leaving in a few days. We felt quite guilty doing this, and I feel bad for taking Nina away again for so long, but she has been in Denmark for 10 months now and she needs a break. Tomorrow we hope to get the tickets finalised as well as getting more jabs from the doctor.
Today I paid a visit to the doctor to get one of my jabs for going to Asia and so my ass now hurts. The doctor wasn't too happy to touch my mould covered vaccination book when I handed it over. I blamed it on the Amazon but I think she blamed it on a personal hygiene problem.
The best thing about Scandinavia is that they glue the pages of the newspapers so they don't fall out when you're reading them. Why did no-one else in the world think of that? Danish people do seem to be significantly happier now that it's summer. The streets are full of people drinking beer in the morning sun, and the parks are strewn with semi-naked girls sunbathing. In fact Danes like the sun so much that nearly every flight to Asia is fully booked for the next month, even Aeroflot!
Well, I haven't been updating this much over the last week as nothing very exciting has been happening, so there was no point in boring you. The weekend was pretty good as Chris took the train up from Hamburg and I gave him a tour of Copenhagen. No, that's not true, we just went out drinking but he did get to see the famous statue of the mermaid.
It's amazing to think that I've been back in Copenhagen for three weeks, but already I feel the lust of new places pulling me away again. I've spent much of the last week looking into flights and reading travel books as Nina and I plan how to spend her time away from university. We haven't made any concrete decisions yet, but when we do you'll be the first to know.
When we were in South Africa in January we passed a serious looking motorboat on the quay in Cape Town. It had www.ms-starship.com on the superstructure so I wrote it down with the intention of finding out just what it was up to. Tonight I finally got around to their website, and it is very impressive with daily updates of their position and photographs from the day online. One day I want a satellite uplink for Zamindar! Check it out.
Why is it that June always arrives so suddenly? After winter dragging on for so long, June just appears and it's summer. Nina finishes university in a couple of weeks and she's taking a break until February so we're thinking about going off to Asia. June, of course, also means the start of hurricane season in the Carribean so it's not a good idea to go off sailing on the boat, hence, the thoughts of Asia. I've discovered that Aeroflot flights out there are really cheap, but Nina doesn't want to take one as supposedly their planes aren't in such a good state! I think it could be an exciting flight.
I just had a text message from Chris; apparently he's in Hamburg later this week and he's talking about coming up to Copenhagen for the weekend, so we may have guests again.
I'm sitting in a cafe in Copenhagen writing this on my Palm as I seem to have worked out how to upload it via my mobile phone. Hopefully this should make it easier to keep things up to date when I'm travelling as I had major problems finding internet access last time. I've been working on the website quite a lot lately. I've uploaded the photos I took in Guernsey but most of the pictures from Scotland were taken on my previous digital camera (an Intel) which gradually lost quality after six months or so (or maybe it's full of beer?) and weren't good enough. I've also migrated the site over to another server so if anyone experiences any problems then email me. There's a brand new video page and due to requests I've started to add links on the left of this page to pics and info on people who may get mentioned. If I haven't got around to adding you yet or you've got a better picture or any other suggestions then email them to me.
Summer seems to have arrived in Copenhagen while I was away. When I left it was grey and cold, but now everyone is wearing shorts and sitting around in the sun drinking Carlsberg. Nina is away for a few days working on her degree project, but I meanwhile have guests. Two guys who I met in the youth hostel in Paris, one of whom lives in Hong Kong, the other in Canada are staying in the apartment over the weekend. The other news this week is that Andrew and Cathy in Glasgow have just had a baby girl, so best wishes to them (photo 1,2).
Copenhagen, Denmark
Total dist. cycled 1656km (1029miles)
Well, after two more day's riding, I made it into Paris where after spending the weekend I caught a flight over to London and then to Denmark. Sorry for the lack of info over the last days, but my ass has been recovering from all the cycling!
One day in Paris I decided to take the metro over to the Eiffel Tower instead of cycling. So, as I was sitting on the train, it stopped in one of the stations and there was a mumbled announcement in French outside as people were getting off. The train then carried on, but I seemed to be the only one left on it. Then it entered a tunnel and all the lights went off and I started to think that maybe this wasn't normal. The train continued to speed through several stations without stopping and in darkness until finally it came to rest in the middle of the tracks at a station close to the Eiffel Tower and the engine was turned off. I tried the doors, but of course with the power gone, they wouldn't open so I banged on the window to some people in the station. They waved back and nudged the people next to them, but no-one went off to tell anyone. Pretty soon, the train engine started up again so I opened the door and stepped out onto a maintenance platform that ran along the middle of the tracks as I couldn't get over to the platform without crossing 3 sets of rails. I started to walk down towards the front of the train to talk to the driver, but as I did the train started moving again and sped off leaving me standing in the middle of all the rails! By this time everyone on the platform was watching me, but I was trying to figure out if they electrified the rails or an overhead cable on the Paris system. The station curved, making it difficult to see if there was a train coming, so I listened for a few seconds before making a run for the platform and jumping over the rails to avoid electrocution. On my way out of the station I decided not to try public transport anymore and go back to cycling.
And that brought the trip to an end. It was a terrific experience to cover northern Europe purely by cycling and one thatI would certainly reccomend. One of the best things was travelling through so many small towns and villages at a pace that enabled me to really take things in and visit places that I would never have gone to had I been travelling by car or train.
Epernay, France
Dist. cycled 1488km (930miles)
I crossed over into France on Sunday afternoon, and cycled into the Ardennes to be faced with mountain after mountain. It was very hard going, and covering much less distance than I expected to, I soon fell behind schedule. It started to get dark, and I cycled on, waiting for a campsite or hotel to appear, but none did. At dusk I found myself on top of a steep hill looking out into the face of an oncoming thunderstorm. The wind was almost knocking me off the bike, and people were outside in the village trying to tie things down. I stopped to ask if there was anywhere I could get a room or somewhere I could pitch my tent, but the nearest place was about 15km away. I started pedalling towards that town, but without warning the road merged into a motorway and I found myself cycling down it in the dark and the rain. I pulled off into a village and took shelter under a tree for 45mins while the rain got heavier and the lightning flashed around and I felt thoroughly exhausted. In all my years of travelling (and often pushing my luck) it was the first time I'd got stuck late at night without somewhere to stay. Finally the storm eased and I eventually made it into the town, only to find that the camping site was being redeveloped into a housing estate! It was midnight by this time and everything was closed, including the hotels, but after lots of banging on a door I eventually managed to get an old woman out of her bed and I checked into a room.
I cycled onto Epernay yesterday, and stopped for some champagne tasting on my way. It was definitely the way to cycle; lots of champagne houses scattered around the hillside for thirsty cyclists! This morning I went on a tour of Moet & Chandon, who are based in town, and saw a little of their 14km of wine cellars prior to doing some tasting. In fact, it was too much champagne to be drinking early in the morning, but I've recovered from it now.
From here I plan to cycle on to Paris to finish this trip, and fly back to Denmark for Nina`s birthday next week. Then I quite fancy cycling up to Finland, but that's another story...
Dist. cycled 1151km (719miles)
Liege, Belgium
I've been pulled into what seems to be some kind of all day bar / club in search of internet access here today. Of course I'm having a beer as well just to fit in, and it's the trendy type of place where they don't give you change but keep it as a tip. Wouldn't happen in Scotland.
Yesterday I was going to stop in Maastricht, but although it seemed to be a pleasant, old town, when I smelt the border coming up I just couldn't stop. Actually I skipped the real border & took the bike through some barriers and down a blocked off road into Belgium. Liege is in the south of the country which means that they speak French, have better food, but most of all that the computers use French keyboards! This means real frustration when you're trying to type; half of the keyboard is like a qwerty, then someone has mixed up the other half of the keys. Can someone please tell me why?
It's turned into a bit of a pit-stop here actually. I've dropped the bike off to have it's freewheel replaced (it started to grind after 1000km) and I've spent the rest of the day hunting around (as usual) for maps and trying to plan my route from here into France. It looks like I'll follow the rivers and canals down there, and then I hope to pass through the champagne region for some tasting. The weather has been hot and sunny (about 27°c) which is good, but hard to cycle in.
Dist. cycled 940km (587miles)
I'm writing this from an internet cafe in Amsterdam after deciding to take a break from cycling and have a day trip up here by train. I'm just about to head back to Arnhem where the bike is, and I'm staying again. I was hoping to find some cycling maps today to cover my trip from Holland southwards, but didn't have much luck. After spending over 2 hours searching for the map shop, the staff were unable to help me due to them being stoned!
Wow. Well, this is the first time I've got near to an internet connection since I was in Lubeck. I've just arrived in Arnhem in Holland, and I haven't worked it out today, but I guess I've done more than 900km (600miles) so far. I managed to get across Germany, and I crossed into Holland last night. Now, they're about to kick me out of the library, so that's all I've got time for right now!
Dist so far: 319km (199miles)
Lübeck, Germany
After saying goodbye to Nina at Vordingborg station on Sunday, I decided to push on to Germany instead of spending another night in Denmark. It was a lovely day, the land was flat, and I was happy to arrive in Germany just after 8pm. I carried on into Burg, and spent the night in the youth hostel there. Yesterday I covered 98km before finishing up in a town called Travemunde, close to where the old border with East Germany was. It was an old trading port, and I took my last look at the Baltic Sea before I cycled onto Lübeck today. It would normally have been quite exciting to arrive in a big city such as this after cycling through the countryside for days, but as today is May Day, everything is closed here.
Dist so far: 117km (73miles)
On day1 we cycled to Køge, and spent the night at the campsite there after having a lovely meal in a 15th Century inn. The following day started after a late breakfast and Nina and I cycled 74km to our second stop here in Vordingborg. We had a day of rest yesterday, and today Nina is returning to Copenhagen while I hope to continue down to my last stop before Germany in Maribo.
Well, after packing all morning I´m finally just about ready to leave. I´ve cut down the luggage as much as I can, but it still looks like a huge amount piled up on the bike!
So today is the last day that I'll be twenty-something. Tomorrow is my 30th birthday (gasp) and it's also the day that I'm leaving on my European cycle ride. I plan to cycle south from here to Germany, then head over towards France and see how far I can go without taking any other form of overland transport. I hope to keep this page updated as I travel and publish the pictures on the site when I return.
As has become customary on the eve of a big trip, I spent today running around trying to find the last elusive items and bike parts that I needed. I got back to the flat all ready to start working on my bike and packing, when Nina insisted on taking me to a surprise birthday dinner with her sisters. It was a lovely meal, although all the candles on the cake nearly set off the smoke alarms when I blew them out! So now, I'm stuffed full of food and it's time to start getting the bike ready, so I better go...
Just got back to Nina's flat a couple of hours ago after spending a lovely weekend cycling to her summerhouse and back. The weather was lovely and I did about 108 miles of cycling over the two days. Last night I did my best to make up for all the exercise by getting pissed to celebrate the distance I'd covered. I woke up to regret it this morning, however, especially with the prospect of the return trip, but after a couple of hours I felt much better.
Just about to leave here to cycle up to Nina's summerhouse assuming that the ferries across there are running. If they aren't I've got a tent with me. It's about 50 miles up there, so I'll come back tomorrow or Monday.
Due to the poor geography of many of my chums who check this webpage out, I've decided to implement a new feature called, "Where is Bron?" As I travel I'll update the map on the left with my current position and for more information you can click on it to zoom in or out.
After a long walk in the rain yesterday, I collected my bike from the cycle shop and rode it home, arriving with a big skunk line down my back from the spray. I spent most of last night fitting the panniers and things that I'd bought in Britain last week and transforming it into something huge that I'm not sure I can ride up a hill fully loaded. We shall see.
I'm hoping to leave here shortly after my birthday and cycle south into Germany and towards Belgium and France. I haven't worked out the details yet, and I'm not sure how far I can comfortably cover in a day, but I've found a cycling organisation here that has a lot of information on routes and stocks foreign cycle maps, which should be a big help.
Just about everything was closed today as it was Easter Monday. I spent the afternoon servicing Nina's bike then went for a ride out to the forest. I'm trying to go cycling every day to get myself back into shape after my long winter of drinking and doing little exercise. This evening I finally completed the Bahamian webpages on the site with our photos from last year's sailing there and uploaded them. I'm quickly running out of available space on the site I'm using though I've got lots of pictures from my recent trip to Guernsey & the UK that I want to put up.
I did, however, get an email from Mark to say that there's a picture of me on the Guernsey Mountaineering Club website under "Drinking Beer". It was taken on my last night on the island after a heavy drinking session in Mark's house. If you're sure you want to see it click here.
Well amazingly enough after getting up early to go off hunting for a cycle shop, I found one that thinks they can fix my bike for Wednesday. Hopefully they will, but I do see a big bill coming my way from them. Then we drove into town for a coffee and I had an argument with a waitress who tried to take my coffee away before I'd finished it and then insisted to me that it was cold. It was a nice welcome back to service in Danish cafés, so if you enjoy rude staff you must go to Cafe Ketchup. Unfortunately, it's still really cold here in Denmark, with frost tonight and the temperature barely climbing to about 5c during the day.
Copenhagen, Denmark
Since writing last, I've made the decision to do some extended cycle touring in Europe as soon as possible. It feels good to be planning a whole new type of adventure as I've never done anything like this before. So, on Wednesday, after hiking into Bristol centre with my 21kg pack and catching the coach, I spent 4 hours rushing around all the cycle shops I could find in London to get the parts I need for my bike. Then it was off to Heathrow on the tube to catch a flight to Brussels and my connection to Copenhagen. Nina picked me up at the airport there, and it was great to see her again after being away for a month. After dropping my bags off at the flat we collected my bike from her parents garage so that I could sort it up.
Yesterday, however, when I started to clean it up, I discovered that my rear derailleur hanger was bent and the derailleur had somehow got broken. I was not very happy, especially as everything in Denmark is closed for about 5 days over Easter! Apparently shops are going to be open tomorrow for about 3 hours, so I'm going to try to find a cycle shop that can straighten it out, but nothing really happens fast here, so I don't expect it to be easy.
Chris's parents were here over the weekend and so Chris and I shared the living room sofas while they took his bed. This meant that we ended up talking and laughing until 0400 about 'times we almost died' and other noteworthy events during our travels together. One day I'll get around to putting them up onto the website, but until I do you'll just have to make do with this...
I think Chris woke me up at 0630 this morning to say goodbye, but I'm not sure. He left for Toulouse on his company's executive jet, where he's going to be working for the next 3 months. Later he sent me a text message to say he'd arrived, and so I thought it was about time I got up.
Today I sat down on a park bench to eat my sandwich. It was a club sandwich from Pret a Manger so I was particularly looking forward to it. However, just as I was about to take my first bite a voice next to me said, "Do you know Jesus?". Now, as I've probably said before, freaks and screaming children gravitate towards me, so I shouldn't have been surprised to look over and see a crazed hippie sitting on the bench next to me. He stared at me, at my club sandwich, and he repeated the question. I asked if the person he was looking for lived in Bristol (remembering seeing some strange Portugese guy at the pub at the weekend). At this, he decided to withdraw his offer of salvation to me, and scrawled indecipherably into his notepad. I wanted to ask him if he knew what a bath was, but obviously he didn't so I ate my sandwich and left.
Tomorrow is my last day here in Bristol as I fly back to Denmark on Wednesday from Heathrow. While I've been here in Britain, a couple of friends have mentioned that I seem to be leading a much more 'normal' kind of life compared to the days when I was sailing. I guess they're right, for although I've taken about 24 flights in the last 9 months, I have been travelling in a more orthodox manner and staying in hotels, hostels and houses. So I'm going to make a determined effort to change this now, ok?
Bristol, England
Arrived here at Chris's flat yesterday after getting the overnight ferry from Guernsey. The forecast was for 45knot winds, but the most we saw was 25knots before it dropped off and turned into a very pleasant Channel crossing. Being far too happy to be back at sea, I didn't go to sleep until about 0300, and we docked at 0630, so I was fairly exhausted by the time I made it up to Bristol, but still we had to go out to the pub!
Oh, dear. Had far too many vegetarian drinks with Mark last night and got quite drunk. In fact I am still quite drunk so I am going back to bed. Stayed here, which was probably a good idea as I would have fallen into the marina had I gone back to the boat!
Haven't been updating this much as I've not been online often in the last few days. I'm writing this from Mark's pc, and enjoying the satisfaction of his adsl connection. It's been fairly good weather since I got here and some people are even going around in shorts. I've been staying between Paul's boat in the marina and Vicky and Dan's flat and much drinking and revelry has been involved. It looks like I'm getting the slow ferry back to the UK tomorrow evening, and this is nothing to look forward to as it takes about 16 hours to do the trip that the normal ferry does in 2-3, as it rolls it's way across to England.
It's been really good to get back to Guernsey, it's just a shame that I have to leave already. It's one place that I really feel happy to get back to, and as you wander around, people seem happy to be living here too. Everyone has been laughing at me for locking the car door after me; it's normal just to leave the keys in the ignition when you park as there is so little crime here. Yesterday a policeman smiled at me - this has never happened before, and customs let me onto the island without the usual strip-search! I really do have to get back here more often.
St Peter Port, Guernsey
Just been out on the cliffs all day climbing with the lads, and managed to get sunburnt! I'm staying on Paul's boat in the QE2 marina in the centre of town.
Bristol, England
After spending the last couple of days here in Bristol, Chris and I are off to Guernsey tomorrow. Which means that I have to get up at 04:30 - is it worth going to bed? According to Mark, who I spoke to today, everyone on the island has been warned about my impending arrival and been advised to make other plans. Quite looking forward to getting over there again, apart from the imminent lack of sleep for tonight.
Apart from that I'm starting to feel not quite so permanently injured from my skiing fall this week; most of the internal bruising seems to be disappearing, and I can walk without being in pain again. I've just got an email from one of the companies that were working on the boat in Florida, saying that they've got some parts in for me and can I come over in the next couple of weeks. Right now it's the last place I want to go though...
Just arrived in London and I'm writing this from one of the new touchscreen payphones in Victoria Station. Heading into central London for some lunch now and I've just heard there's a tube strike starting in a few hours!
I've just got back to Glasgow after spending the day skiing with Colin in Glenshee. The snow was fantastic, but we did have snowstorms almost all day long. It was a few years since we'd both been skiing, but after two runs on the nursery slopes, we decided to head up to the top of one of the highest runs at 1000m. As we got to the summit a blizzard hit and took visibility down to almost nothing, blowing ice into our faces. It was probably one of the coldest times I can remember, and we had difficulty seeing the run, but we made it down and went to the cafe to recover. There we discovered that the run had been closed just after we had got up.
Later in the day I did a spectacular fall on a very steep, icy patch on a red run. I somersaulted down the slope with skis and poles flying everywhere, and landed on my head. I lay there for a second checking if I was dead / paralysed / injured, but soon came to the conclusion that I was reasonably well, and gave Colin, who was looking concerned from further down the slope, the thumbs up. Things carried on like this for much of the day, and I even managed to get a (very) little bit of snowboarding done before they kicked us off the slopes and told us to go home.
Later, we paid a visit to my cottage in Balmerino, which Colin has kindly offered to provide professional services for, and then went onto Dundee. It's always fun to visit Dundee. Usually because it reminds me of how much better everywhere else in the world is, but today was especially good as Colin's sister made us dinner and saved us from ending up in McDonalds. Unfortunately for Colin it was chilli as he had to endure the full wrath of my digestive system in the car back to Glasgow.
I've just packed, and tomorrow morning I have to drag my aching body to catch a flight down to London, then onto Bristol to stay with Chris.
Glasgow, Scotland
I'm in town right now, and just about to meet Andrew and Colin in the Bierhalle. Tomorrow I'm planning to go off skiing in either Glencoe or Glenshee as there's perfect skiing conditions there right now and Cathy is letting me borrow her car for the day. Then on Wednesday, I'm catching the morning flight down to London where I have to take care of a couple of things before heading up to Bristol to see Chris and probably get dragged out partying for the rest of the week. He already seems to be getting quite a reputation at work; as one of his colleagues shared with me the last time I was there, "It's not that Chris is an alcoholic. He just REALLY likes a drink!" Anyway, I better go to the pub now...
Friday night of course turned into a mammoth drinking session with Ged, who then persuaded me to eat my own body weight in McDonalds. I stayed at his house, but woke up after about 2 hours half expecting some form of chicken nugget creature to burst out of my stomach. In the morning I nursed my hangover in an Edinburgh cafe before catching the train back to Glasgow. Scotland were playing Belgium there and so the train was packed with singing, drunken football supporters. Just what you need with a hangover.
On my previous trip through, the ticket inspector had refused to sell me a day return ticket; the same ticket that I'd bought twice that week already on the train. After a long argument, however, he'd relented, but this time I went to the ticket office to buy it. Upon enquiring about this strange event, I was told 'in confidence' that the inspectors are now on commission, and hence, don't want to sell you the cheap tickets when they can sell you an expensive one! Just what we need, mafiosi ticket inspectors.
I met up with Colin on arrival back in Glasgow, and once more he dragged me off to the pub. Feeling a bit fragile from the previous night, I managed to resist his suggestions of going on to a club, and I had a reasonably early night.
Chris and I are hoping to get over to Guernsey this coming weekend after I get down to Bristol where he lives. It would be good to see everyone over there again as I haven't been there for over two years.
I've just arrived in Edinburgh to meet up with Ged, and it's a horrible, cold, grey day outside. I'm writing this from a huge Easyeverything internet cafe that has 500 online pc's. Last night started off respectably enough, but went downhill fast. I went over to see Colin with some wine, then we went out for 'one' beer. Several bars later we found ourselves in an underground club where ironically the dj insisted on playing Tiffany. Finally I got back to the flat at 0300.
So far I've spent much of last night and most of today trying to install Linux onto my pc in the hope of making it more stable, but have had little success. So I am by now desperate for some caffeine, and am off to Starbucks to be revived. I've also booked a flight down to England for next week to visit Chris before he moves to France for three months to practice his French accent. Whenever he's drinking in foreign bars, he automatically shifts into the local accent. Often though, the natives are not impressed and I have to drag him out before they start beating him up.
Yesterday, I took the train through to Perth again to revisit my dentist, then enjoyed walking around town randomly drooling due to half of my face being anaestitised. In the evening, Andrew, Cathy and I went down to their local, the Ubiquitous Chip, where we met up with Colin and Kevin for some drinks and after that, went off to buy rubber microwave kebabs, so we were obviously not sober people.
Just got off the last train back to Glasgow after spending the evening with Ged through in Edinburgh, and I'm writing this from an internet cafe. Now I just have to manage to walk back to Andrew and Cathy's flat without getting mugged...
My hosts, Andrew & Cathy, have obviously been doing some work on their internal doors. Not realising this, I managed to lock myself into their lounge earlier this evening before discovering that the internal door handle had been removed. And so I found myself trapped in the room watching a television programme called 'I Love 88', which basically was about 1988. It's was very interesting, but also sad in a way, I realised that when we talk of our formative years, we will only be able to recall classical artists such as Tiffany, Debbie Gibson, and Bill and Ted (who apparently were discovered in McDonalds).
Well, things change all the time... Colin has just called and I'm about to head into town to meet him and go off clubbing, so I have to leave you now...
Thursday night was spent in the west end pubs of Glasgow with Colin and Andrew. So once again, I woke up feeling very hungover yesterday morning. I had to get the train through to Perth for a dentist appointment, but at 0920 I realised that I'd been told the wrong train time and had only 20 minutes to make it to the station. Off I sprinted in my fragile state, only to sit in the station for 15 minutes as the train was late. Finally, it turned up, but only got as far as Stirling before it broke down and we were sent to another train at the other end of the station. Still, I made it to my appointment, which lasted exactly 3 minutes before he told me to come back again on Tuesday! It was strange to walk around Perth, where I hadn't been since the day I left Dundee, so I sat and had a coffee there before getting bored, realising how bad it all is, and jumping on the next train back to Glasgow. Now for some unexplained reason, I attract screaming children. It doesn't matter where I sit on a plane or train, but screaming kids will gravitate towards me. So, on the train, a woman with a screaming child moves, yes moves over to the seat in front of me, where not content to aggrivate my hangover, she proceeds to change the child's nappy!
I'm staying with Andrew right now, and last night we took it easy. I'm hoping to have a nice peaceful time tonight, but Ged is trying to persuade me to come through to Edinburgh for some mammoth drinking session.
Glasgow, Scotland
Yesterday's trip went quite smoothly. It took a while to get through the security check when I left Sweden as the woman in front of me decided it was a good idea to stash a bunch of knives in her carry-on bag. The security people didn't really agree with her and took her off for interrogation. In Stansted I sat down to watch a dvd on the pc, and shocked everyone in the cafe when a big sex scene started on screen. I'd seen the film before on tv and there hadn't been anything dodgy in it, but I guess that's what they mean when they say it includes extra scenes! After making a hasty getaway from the angry mob, it was time to board the flight up to Scotland. The plane had been specially modified for this route, and had Chinese seating configuration (i.e. less legroom) as Scottish people are naturally so short. Upon landing we were guided through disinfectant baths in case our shoes were suffering from the current outbreak of foot and mouth disease, and everyone proceeded to slip around on the wet, tiled floor.
I stayed with Colin last night. In fact we were quite lucky to make it to his flat, as we stopped off in a pub directly across from the station after he met me. Sense prevailed, however, and we took my luggage back to his place before continuing our pub crawl, eating incredibly greasy fish and chips, and finishing the night off in the Bierhalle, my new favourite pub in Glasgow.
Just finishing the last of my packing right now. I have to get up at 0600 to get the train over to Sweden, then the coach to the airport, flight to London, flight to Glasgow, train... After about 12 hours, believe it or not, I get to where I'm going in Scotland! Better get some sleep now...
I've just come back from the supermarket, and because it's Saturday, the Danes are primarily buying beer. As you walk down the street you pass couples carrying crates of beer between them, and because cans are banned here for environmental reasons, you have to buy bottles. Hence the average beer drinker in Denmark gets his exercise on Saturday when he lugs two dozen bottles home. Some have turned to innovation though, and modified their bikes (cars carry 200% tax so many people cycle) into dedicated beer carriers that will take anything from one to six crates. Carlsberg tend to have a monopoly on this market and they advertise that it's "Probably the best beer in town." Indeed, Danes are never happier, and often only happy, when they have a beer.
I've spent a lot of time lately trying to scan in pictures for bronek.org before I leave next week. After working on the Italian section most of yesterday, our service provider here decided to down their servers and cause me major crashes and stress at 0400 in the morning while I was trying to upload it. As I was half asleep and very low on caffeine I failed to realise this for an hour while I tried to fix my pc! Why does downtime always have to be in the middle of the night?
Yesterday, Clarins were doing a demonstration in a shop window in town. A girl, clad in only a towel, was getting a massage, and most of the drunks in Copenhagen had gathered around the window to watch and shout encouragement. She didn't look like she appreciated the attention though. As I continued through town, I was stopped by two hippie bible-bashers who tried to enlist me into their Danish cult. I lied and told them I went to a Catholic church. Must be time for another haircut.
This is a photo of a group of underwater statues in the canal in Copenhagen. People keep running into them in boats, hence the bouy.
Sitting in the library in the centre of Copenhagen down by the canals right now. Think that I have to go and find some caffeine soon, and leave this place. Yesterday I watched Nina's team play basketball; they have to be the shortest basketball team in the world, but they seem to make up for it in anger.
Nina woke me up this morning to tell me everything was white outside. Finally some snow! It’s five years since I last spent the winter somewhere cold, so I enjoyed sliding around and kicking it at people today. Copenhagen looks so much nicer covered in snow too. I was expecting the sea to be frozen and people to be going around in dog sleighs before I spent the winter here, but it’s not like that at all. Well, not yet…
After briefly trying to scan in some new pics for the site today, windows insisted on showing me the blue screen of death and crashing repeatedly, so I was forced to abandon technology and go for a walk. Where we are in Copenhagen is surprisingly close to the countryside (or 'the nature' as Danes and Germans like to call it), and in less than an hour I found myself on top of a hill looking down at the city.
It got me thinking, and so I gave Andrew in Glasgow a call, and after chatting, arranged to go and visit him in a couple of weeks. Andrew mentioned that Colin is talking about having a party for his dreaded three-zero sometime around then and maybe I'll time it well. So expect to see / hear of me in the UK in a couple of weeks, and I do plan to get down to Guernsey this time as well to catch up on the drinking culture there!
It seems that I've got back into that nocturnal thing again. Maybe it's the amount of coffee I'm drinking or the moon, but whatever it is it doesn't really bother me. Since I stopped working, I've got used to living in the strange times my mind decides to be awake in. Once when I was living in Guernsey, my neighbour on the boat next door asked if I'd been hammering at five o'clock in the morning. I had. It's not any form of insomnia, it's just that I often tend to sleep at different times from the rest of the continent.
So instead of sleeping, I've been wandering on the net tonight. Finding other weblogs that make me feel like I should really do something better with mine, like the breast chronicles. I also checked to see if the search engines were listing me, but instead I found sites on Saint Bron, Bron's bedroom, a Chinese film called Bron to be King, and a website claiming that I am in fact 10" tall and made in Hong Kong. Maybe it's time to go to bed.
Copenhagen, Denmark
Suddenly it's got colder here in the last few days and we had some snow yesterday, but nothing that lasted. Meanwhile the boat is basking in about 24c over in Florida where the sun's shining. Still it is nice to have a break from sailing this year, catch up on what's happening in the real world, and think about some new projects.
I was hoping to get over to Sweden in the last week to do some skiing, but then I found out that the bridge toll each way was about 20 pounds, so I reconsidered and spent a bit more time sitting in cafes reading. At the moment I'm reading 'A Boat in our Baggage', which is about travelling around the world with a collapsible kayak. When I can't face the sight of dead trees anymore, I swap over to my Palm where I'm reading my first e-book, Underground. One of my favourite shows recently has been Trigger Happy TV, and tonight I checked out their website, the best of which is their stressbuster - Online meditation if life is getting to you!
Sometimes I think that I'm missing things that are happening. Take today for example; after dropping Nina off for her meeting which appeared to be in a strip club, I walked into town. As I wandered along, a blonde girl with a big fur hat on, who looked like she was straight from the Kremlin, jumped out and stopped me. It's not that I'm a conspiracy theorist or anything, and she spoke perfect English, but once she realised that I wasn't Danish she wouldn't tell me what she wanted, and disappeared off into the crowds. Things like this seems to be happening more and more to me.
We got back to Copenhagen this evening after spending the weekend in Nina's summerhouse about 80km from here. Her parents are off to Turkey this week, so we have their car to use. It was so pleasant to get out of the city and see some of the Danish countryside again, and it's really made me decide that I need to travel more in Scandinavia while I'm here. When we arrived at the summerhouse, we turned on the water to find it spraying out from under the sink. One of the pipes had burst, and the bathroom was now getting flooded. Nina ran back outside and shut the water off, and I went off to look for some tools. After a while I managed to sort it, and it seems fine now. Yesterday we took a walk along the beach then watched some ponies attacking each other in a field video. In the evening we had a lovely meal and a nice bottle of South African wine that we brought back with us.
Copenhagen, Denmark
Well, my plane touched down on Swedish soil around 2120 last night. I grabbed my bags and took the coach into central Malmo, which takes about 40 minutes. From there I caught the train across to Copenhagen and Nina met me at Kastrup. Well, when I say met me, she turned up after about 15 minutes.
It's noticeably colder here in Denmark, but there's no snow at the moment. I always seem to miss the snow. I'm writing this from the new library in the centre of Copenhagen and I think we're planning to go to Nina's summerhouse for the weekend... so that means limited data communication as I have to dial up through my cellphone.
I'm writing this from London, where I'm just waiting for the shuttle out to Stansted. Got up at 0645 this morning and Chris took me to the coach station in Bristol, and I've spent the last few hours here. Went for lunch in Piggy's, my favourite sandwich place in Piccadilly and had a walk in the park.
My flight leaves at1830 and I fly into Sweden then head to Denmark.
Ok, so I just got back from the pub, and now I have to finish packing. Apparently I have to get up in about 6 hours from now to head into London so I'm not looking forward to that at all! Why did I go to the pub tonight??
Well I was wrong to think that Tuesday was my last day in Bristol. I don’t fly out until Thursday morning. Luckily, Nina insisted on me telling her which flight I was on, and so when I checked on my Palm, it told me that I had another day here. What would I do without it? Nina doesn’t seem too happy though as she thought I was flying back on Valentine’s Day. Woops! I was stopped in the street by someone from the Children's Society today and they asked me for money. I had to honestly tell them that I just don't like children.
As you can tell from the time that I’m posting this, I’m getting back into my nocturnal frame of mind. Those periods of time, where I sleep during the day, and my mind wakens up at night and forces me to do lots of things. Having a free-form life at the moment I don’t really mind it, but it won’t be very easy to leave Bristol at 0700 if I’m up all of tomorrow night. Anyway, I refuse to conform and live my life in GMT.
“Sleep is a poor substitute for caffeine”
I’ve spent most of the afternoon packing so far as tomorrow is my last day in Bristol. When we flew out from Copenhagen, we didn’t know where we were going to, so we took clothes to cover just about any climate. Now, unfortunately, I’ve got to somehow fit them into my bag to take back, as well as a Palm for Nina’s dad and a film scanner for me. I’m hoping to scan in some of the pictures we took in the Bahamas when I get back, and get them up on the website.
The weekend was fairly rough, and involved lots of heavy drinking in pubs and clubs in Bristol. On Friday night I cut my hand after climbing up a signpost (obviously I’ve been away from Guernsey Mountaineering Club too long!), and on Saturday night Chris lost his phone. I really didn’t plan to go out on Saturday. Chris was organizing a pub crawl with some people in Airbus where he works, and I planned to skip it, but after he bought me large amounts of caffeine in Starbucks, I couldn’t remember why I wanted to go home. It all went fairly well until Chris took everyone to The Elephant Bar, which we soon realized, was, yes you guessed it again, gay. After this happening in South Africa as well, I was the first one to notice the subtle clues that gave it away; only men in the bar, and lots of them snogging each other. So we avoided using the toilets, and made a sharp exit. Am I the only person that this ever happens to?
I did find an interesting website at the weekend. Hottelephone.com lets you make a free call from your pc to any landline phone in 15 countries. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but it is free.
Chris and I ended up drinking a bit too much in a bar last night. When we finally left we were forced to stop off for the obligatory kebab, which of course didn’t taste of anything, but you never remember this when you’re drunk. At least it wasn’t as bad as the microwave kebabs that Andrew and I were forced to buy one night in Glasgow when all the kebab places were shut, but nothing ever will be. Naturally we were both hungover this morning, but Chris went off to work (how does he do it?), and I’m beginning to recover now.
Anyway, what I wanted to do last night, prior to the drinking session, was mention that in the last weeks there have been more security breaches in the internet than ever before. The furthest reaching one concerns the discovery that embedding a simple Java script into an email lets the sender see exactly what the recipient said when that e-mail is forwarded and who it is forwarded to. For instance, if one of your friends adds your name to a chain letter that contains this script, the original sender would then have your e-mail address to do whatever he or she would like with. It could certainly be used by spamming and e-mail marketing companies. Fortunately, turning off JavaScript in your e-mail program, will prevent any e-mails that you forward from being interrogated in this way. Instructions on how to do this and the full story are here.
The Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA) which was developed to protect the transfer of information on the internet has also been compromised lately. This affects mainly transactions and banking over the internet, and although there are not expected to be many cracks using this, people are recommended, as always, to keep an eye on bank and credit card balances. Other recommendations for computers connected to the internet include;
Treat e-mail and instant messaging as being as private as a postcard
Do not transmit private information wirelessly
Never keep credit card or confidential information anywhere on that computer
Sacrifice a virgin goat every full moon
(full story)
Bristol, UK
Today I was stopped by eight homeless people in town and asked for some spare change for a cup of coffee. Bristol does seem to have quite a large homeless problem, but it does have very good coffee too. I, myself, spent much of the afternoon in Starbucks with the homeless people drinking coffee and reading the news. Afterwards I walked into scaffolding in the street while sending a text message on my phone. The Sunday Times had an interesting story about many people relying on their computers and PDA’s so much that they are suffering from memory loss themselves. I can really relate to this. (full story)
Chris has been down in Cornwall for most of the weekend, and I’ve been spending it here in Bristol catching up on what’s been happening in the world in the last few weeks. Denmark seems to be putting out a lot of bad publicity about itself in it’s own characteristic, honest way. It seems that Channel 4 here in the UK are making a documentary about Danish attitudes towards smoking in ‘To Die for – Cigarettes’. It explores public opinions in a country where, apparently, life expectancy is amongst the lowest in Europe, partly due to high tobacco consumption. If you’ve ever looked for the non-smoking section in a Danish café then you’re bound to understand, however, as someone who used to sell huge amounts of the stuff, I can’t really comment! (full story)
Another report which I’m sure will shock many of my Danish friends is that the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last week placed Denmark tenth in the international environmental index, just beating the dreaded United States! Neighbours Finland and Norway leapt to the top, but this could be due to the fact that their population density is really, very low. Even still, many Danes seem to feel that their country has leading environmental practices, and they are bound to be saddened by this. (full story)
Apart from returning from Cornwall stressed out from spending the weekend with his family, Chris is in a fairly good mood as he’s just bought himself a new laptop. He’s spent much of the day enjoying Windows new operating system, Me – the main difference between it and previous versions being that it seems to crash more! Is technology really going to save us more time in the future as Bill Gates promises, or are we just going to be unable to do anything else as we wait for our computers to restart after crashing? Stanley Kubrick got it all wrong in 2001.
Well I did manage to survive the bike ride the other day. It’s quite pleasant to be back in Britain right now too, especially as the weather’s mild, and reflect on the time in South Africa.
Although the only thing that ever gets into the news about South Africa is the violence and problems in the country, we were amazed by how beautiful the countryside was. There was such a vast array of different scenery; mountains, desert, beautiful beaches, and landscapes, that it was hard to compare it to anywhere else I’d ever been. Then of course there was the incredible wildlife, much of which we didn’t even have time to see. On another trip I really hope to make it up to Kruger National Park where you can find could have gone everywhere that we wanted to go in two weeks.
The people were amazingly friendly too; at least the people who didn’t want to mug you, that is. The service in shops and restaurants was terrific, and as well as being very cheap compared to European prices, the food was very good too, even if many South Africans do seem to have a deep love of fried food. Food and drink, as well as many other products lions, zebra, elephants, rhinos, and a whole other world, but there was just no way that we are about one half or one third of their equivalent price in other developed countries, but without a car, we often found that we spent that money on taxis, as quite often it isn’t very safe to walk somewhere.
I think that if you look like you’re a tourist in South Africa and you’re not careful, then you can expect to have problems, although the stories we heard seemed to imply that if you were unlucky and were held up, you would probably be fine if you simply handed over your cash. I suppose it’s like many places in the world, and in time you learn where you can go and where you can’t. It sounds as though being mugged in South Africa would be preferable to being mugged in Scotland, as you would be less likely to be beaten up for the sake of it.
The biggest problem is of course that the extreme poverty that most people live in drives the crime. Car jacking is a problem in Johannesburg and we spoke to one taxi driver whose wife had been car jacked at gunpoint. She was ordered out of her BMW at traffic lights. The assailant could expect to make about £20 from this, and the car would be sold for parts. Lives are cheap in Africa.
If you can be on your guard, then South Africa represents terrific value for money, and a wonderful European environment on the African continent. There is simply so much to see, the climate is fantastic, and the country is so big, that the cost of flying down and the 13-hour flight from Europe is more than compensated for. It’s definitely a country that I’m looking forward to going back to.
Hi, I'm writing this from Chris's flat in Bristol. We got back into the UK yesterday, and after a rushed morning in wet, foggy London, Nina flew out to Copenhagen and I came up to Bristol where I'd left my laptop and some luggage. I've just spent this morning uploading some of the photographs from South Africa we took with the digital camera.
I've promised to take Chris's bike into the shop for a service today, though, so I'd better go and do that now. The only problem is that I can't lower his seat due to the suspension getting in the way, and as he keeps reminding me, he is somewhat taller than I am! I've had a practice riding it around in the flat right now though, and I can just reach the pedals, so as long as I don't have to stop, I should be fine! I'll get back to updating this later...
I'm writing this from North South Backpackers in Pretoria after arriving here yesterday from Cape Town. As usual these weblogs are fairly rushed as I'm paying for the internet connection, and it's one thing that isn't cheaper down here! Youth hostels in South Africa aren't quite the same as in Europe though, and this has to be one of the nicest that we've stayed in so far. We had a lovely double room, and right now Nina is sitting relaxing by the pool.
We leave for the airport in half an hour, and then fly back to Heathrow via Vienna. We should arrive around 0800 tomorrow morning.
Today, Nina and I are catching the coach back up to Pretoria at 1700. Although there are train services in South Africa, everyone travels by coach, and they are very pleasant, with videos, and refreshments on board to help alleviate the 20 hour trip across the country. We've been down in Cape Town for a week now, and it's been a great place to use as a base for travelling around the area. It's the middle of summer down here, and it's been fantastic weather.
Yesterday Nina & I took a trip to a diamond cutting factory, and were given a beginner's intoduction to DIY diamond cutting. Jewelafrica.com
It was very interesting, and really one of the things we wanted to see while we were down here. We had brunch in a cafe close to the hostel we're staying in, and it reminded me of the worst things about staying in youth hostels - other backpackers. Maybe it was just that this particular cafe had more than it's fair share of the Bill and Ted stereotype, or maybe I need to start working again and staying in proper hotels.
It's quite interesting sometimes in South Africa. The other day we walked into a restaurant, and as in many of them, you have to undergo a bodysearch with a metal detector. As I stepped in, the security guard politely asked me if I had my gun with me today. Also, when we took a boat trip out to Robben Island, a sign asked passengers to leave their handguns in the company's safe as they were not allowed on board the ferry.
Today we've just come from having lunch in a cafe in town. I had ostrich, but surprisingly it's a dark meat, not like chicken at all! They're farmed here so I don't mind eating it, but I've avoided having shark and crocodile as I think they should be left to roam the wild in peace. We sat inside as we were well aware that street kids might come over and beg from us if we sat at the tables out front, but it isn't too bad as the cafes have security guards to keep any undesirables away from the patrons. Even still, we sat and watched as a drunk repeatedly tried to beg from the tables at a cafe across the street and the guard had to chase him off each time. Of course all of the cafes in Cape Town aren't like this, but obviously the one's where tourists eat get plenty of attention.
Well I was going to tell you how safe and crime free South Africa is today, but we got up this morning to find that someone had broken into our rental car overnight! I'm sure that it was because it was parked right in front of the hostel and it's obviously a rental car. They didn't even bother stealing the stereo, they just smashed the window and looked in the boot to see if we had any luggage worth stealing. It doesn't really matter to us as we were returning it this morning anyway, and we had nothing at all in it.
On Wednesday night, we ended up coming baack to Cape Town with our new found chums, and going to a bar here. I was really beginning to wonder why there were only men in the bar, when I realised that it was a gay bar. Yes, the two guys we had met were a couple! We moved onto a club, and passed a very empty gay bar, which we were told had been bombed the previous month, and hence no-one really wanted to go to it anymore. The club we went to turned out to be very like the 'Blue Oyster Bar', with lots of people who looked like they were in Village People, but sadly the club didn't play any of their songs. I was very glad that Nina was with me!
Yesterday, Nina was quite hungover for most of the day, but she had been seriously partying! We drove along cliffside coastal roads past beautiful white sand beaches with waves crashing onto them to a town called Hermanus. It's main claim to fame is that Southern Right Whales come into it's bay to calve between June and September, so of course none were there now. The town's new claim is that Nina finally managed to find herself a new bikini there after searching for one on three continents! Needless to say, our next stop was the beach, and we went for a swim in the Indian Ocean. It was seriously windy though, and sand was flying as we made our way out into the green, crashing waves.
We continued driving down the coast to make a stop at the lighthouse at Cape Agulhas, the most southern point of Africa. It's quite a windbeaten, barren place; a bit like parts of Scotland, but it also seems to be attracting a new fashionable crowd. The coast road was lined with lots of new, trendily designed houses which seemed to be springing up everywhere.
Today, we're spending the day in Cape Town, and taking in some of the sights as well as hoping to organise our trip back up to Johannesburg this weekend.
We're in an internet cafe in Stellenboch right now after being to two vineyards for extensive winetasting this afternoon, so forgive the spelling mistakes. Boschendal Vineyards Neethlingshof Vineyards We're just waiting for happy hour to begin in the bar upstairs where drinks are 5 Rand (approx 45pence) & we're meeting one of the guys from the vineyard. We spent this morning in Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, which are allegedly the most impressive botanical gardens in Africa. We were impressed. We do like South Africa so far, especially with the price of the drinks! How will we get home to Cape Town tonight though?
On Monday we took the cable car to the top of Table Mountain after having another truly wonderful meal, this time in an Italian restaurant. The cable car was technically the best I'd been on, with a revolving floor so that no-one could hog the best view. The view from the top was incredible, and we walked around some of the trails before retiring to the summit bar and watching the sunset. After our trip back down, the taxis at the bottom tried to rip us off, but Nina expertly got us a lift back into town from a couple from Edinburgh who were on a 6 week round the world trip.
Yesterday we rented a car, and drove out to exclusive Camps Bay for breakfast by the sea. We then continued south until I realised that I had lost my phone. So we rallied along the cliff-side road back to Cape Town, but couldn't find it in our room or anywhere. Expensively, we called the mobile network in Denmark, and closed the account. At least no-one else could use it now. We got back into the car to continue our day trip, and of course I found it wedged under my seat belt fixing!
Once we finally, got back to where we'd been before that episode, and after lots of laughing from Nina, we continued to Boulders Beach, where there is a growing colony of threatened African Penguins. It's a truly fantastic experience to watch them, and a trip there is essential if in the area. Next we moved onto the Cape Peninsula National Park which stretches down to and includes the Cape of Good Hope. It and the penguin reserve are at http://www.cpnp.co.za
After two minutes in the park, we stopped to watch wild baboons by the side of the road. Then as we continued down to the cape, we passed ostriches, bontebok, and made lots of stops for crossing tortoises! The Cape itself was truly impressive, towering up above the sea lanes. Not something you want to try sailing around with the wind against you!
We're down in Cape Town today, and the weather is beautiful. The flight down from London was pretty long at 13 hours, and it left from terminal 2 in Heathrow, which must be a sad sight for anyone arriving in Britain. It was fairly uneventful, but I guess that's how you want flights to be! In the morning we arrived in Johannesburg, and took the shuttle bus straight to Pretoria as we'd been warned that central Jo'burg is a very dangerous place to go into. We spent the first night there, and had a lovely cheap meal with some South African wine in a good restaurant.
The next day we packed up and took the 20 hour coach trip down to Cape Town. Neither of us have really been in Africa before, apart from a day or two I spent in Tunisia once, and we were both hypnotised by what was outside the window. The landscapes are huge and the horizon seems so far away that it's surreal. Exactly how you expect it to look really, with a land that goes on forever. At one point I looked away for a second and Nina quickly nudged me to point out a field full of ostriches. When I woke in the morning, the sun was rising over the Karoo (the South African desert), and then suddenly it changed into lush, green vineyards.
Yesterday we took a trip over to Robbin Island, and saw the prison where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned which lies about 11km south of Cape Town, and today we hope to take a trip up to the top of Table Mountain.
Just a quick note from heathrow airport... we're waiting for the flight after spending a sunny but cold day in London.
Tomorrow morning Nina & I are leaving Bristol to catch a flight to Johannesburg via Vienna. We just booked the flights yesterday, so it's very unplanned and neither of us have been there before. Unfortunately we're off down the pub now instead of packing.
Just arrived back in Denmark, and after being up for 34 hours, I should probably go to bed soon.
