DAY 266 - Salta, Argentina

Groan. The bus I'm on to Salta is a cross between a youth hostel and a soft rock karaoke bar. The drivers insist on playing old hair rock very loudly and singing along to it. We've been stopped four times for drug searches and we've still got another 19 hours "together".

It wasn't always so. The bus from Baraloche to Buenos Aires was very nice, with loads of room and meals served regularly. The hostel we stayed at in BA was staffed by, and occupied by, a bunch of kids and could have been a Channel 4 social documentary (let's put children in charge of children and see how they get on).

This part of the trip I'd done before, but Dan hadn't. We trekked around the usual BA sights over the next three days; Evita's tomb, the Pink Palace, etc, but also found some new things I'd missed first time out, such as the small San Telmo street market with its tango dancers, antiques and art, and the Japanese garden.

Evening outs were a lot more expensive this time with an unfortunate lack of economic collapse to drive prices down (well, unfortunate for me). The beer is great. The food, although still dominated by pizza and beef, is (relatively) more varied (we found somewhere doing curry! Hurrah! Shame it was an English-run pub). We even went back to my favorite eating hole from last time, La Estancia, for a slap-up meal. The people are ok although still attempting to air con the world (by leaving all their doors wide open).

After BA we had a one night visit to Iguazu to see the falls. They're certainly spectacular, especially standing above the "Devil's Throat" where lots of water funnels into a small horse-shoe shaped bend, but once you've seen 'em, you've seen 'em. Second time round they were just as impressive, but a single night was enough, however much the town wants you to stay longer. Besides, our room backed onto the bar with its live music, and one night definitely was enough of that. At least they didn't play Bob Marley on endless loop like most hostels around the world. Having them run by kids does have one advantage - reggae had been and gone before they were born.

 

Rich.

DAY 258 - Baraloche, Argentina

We're in Baraloche at the moment. It's the centre of the Argentine Lake District, but Windermere it ain't. It peddles hiking, ski-ing (not much of that at the moment) and chocolate. This is our last stop in Patagonia before heading to Buenos Aires for some cosmopolitan modernity.

 

We arrived in El Chalten last Friday. It's a new "town" that wasn't there 20 years ago. In yet another Argentine border dispute, this time with Chile, they created the place from nothing to claim the lump of land it's on. You really have to see the maps produced here. They're a wish list of future land grabs and include chunks of other countries marked as Argentine. They claim a large chunk of Antarctica (international territory), the Falklands and South Georgia (ours) and land along the borders with Uruguay and Chile. Their theory appears to be if you include the land on your maps and TV weather forecasts, the people currently live there will give up protesting and join the happy family that is Argentina (along with the rickety economy and unstable politics). Anyway. I digress. El Chalten may not have mobile telecommunications, a bus station or bank, but it does have some of the best countryside and hiking in South America. We did two day-walks amongst the lakes and mountains returning each night to our comfy hostel room, microbrew and ridiculously soft mattresses that gave the both of us sore backs.

 

After El Chalten we took a two day trip up Route 40, a mainly unsealed road that runs the spine of the Andes, to Esquel. The middle night we stayed at Perito Moreno in a hotel that definitely hadn't been decorated since the 1970s - orange and brown were the only shades in the decor's colour scheme and the plastic sofas were just embarrassing.

 

Esquel is a pretty average, if soulless, town but it does have a steam train. It leaves the town station, goes around in a loop without stopping and ends up back where it started. We skipped the ride but saw it set off, watching excited Argentines go all doe-eyed in nostalgia.

 

There weren't main foreigners around the town. The main reason we went there was so I could go to Trevelin, a small village up the road. At the end of the 19th century a load of welsh immigrants landed on the Patagonian coast to settle the rather dry and barren pampas. They kept moving inland, settling towns as they went until they got to where Trevelin is now. Being of welsh stock myself, I was interested to see just how welsh it was, and the answer was not a lot. The odd street was named after a Dylan Edwards John Thomas Jones Davies, but the welsh character was mainly restricted to the museum (where the lady behind the counter started talking welsh to me as soon as I said "yaky da", and there was a good selection of welsh memorabilia) and the tea shops. Now I always associated cream teas with Cornwall, but they're considered a very welsh thing here and they are very, very large. Five types of cake, scones, sandwiches and a bottomless pot of tea. I was feeling decidedly sick, but happy, at the end.

 

The next day we paid 40 quid to see a 2,600 year old tree. The trip to the Alerce National Park took a coach, a walk, a boat trip and six hours. The guides wouldn't stop talking the entire way there, barely coming up for air and unfortunately they were only speaking Spanish. When we got there the guide showed us the really old Alerce trees and spoke about them in Spanish for a few hours before continuing to describe all the other really interesting trees (in Spanish) too. Tall ones, short ones, wide ones, broken ones. I know trees do a really useful job with the oxygen and carbon dioxide and stuff, but I feel I've had my fill of trees for now, 2,600 years old or not.

 

Baraloche is a very quaint town and a lot busier than the other places we've been to in Argentina. Yesterday we had a look around town and bought some of the famous chocolate from the place the guide book says sells the best. I reckon if you're going to make yourself sick, you might as well do it with the best.

 

Today we made some sandwiches and had a hike around Llao Llao National Park. Sounds welsh, but isn't. Great mountainous scenery and plenty of lakes. And more trees. Ah, the trees...

 

Dan's put his trainers on the window sill to air, but they're still to close.

 

Rich.

DAY 250 - El Calafate, Argentina

The two days sailing through the Drake Strait were calm and sea-sick free. Not a lot happened on board as everyone was starting to prepare for our disembarkation back at Ushuaia. We had one moment of excitement though as we rounded Cape Horn. Cameras flashed pointlessly as we tried to get a half decent photo of a small lump of rock, shrouded in mist about 3km in the distance. The captain's dinner on the last night was pretty much like all the other dinners, except the Russian in charge of the boat turned up, made a few naff jokes in broken English, and we had cloth napkins instead of paper ones. Pushing the boat out indeed (no pun intended).

 

Having been without the Internet for almost three weeks, the first thing i did on returning to dry land was to check my emails (that's why you got three in one go), check how much more of my pension had disappeared up the crunch (lots!) and tried to stop wobbling (my body seemed to refuse to believe it was now on terra firma).

 

We had two nights booked in Ushuaia before we had to move on. On the second day we walked up to the much hyped Glacier Martial. Global warming had clearly taken it's toll - either that or after seeing the glaciers in Antarctica my expectations had been raised just a little bit too high. Either way, it was in a sorry state. It looked no better than Orpington Park, three days after the February snow this year when the snow had been trodden to a mucky black by hundred's of people's feet and had sufficiently melted in parts to show the ground beneath. Part of the way up we could have been taken by chair lift, but it was AR$65 (£13) and it only took you about 500 meters - you had to walk the rest. Major rip-off.

 

Monday we flew to El Calafate. It's a town named after a berry. It's sort of like calling somewhere in Britain "The Strawberry". Still, it works for them. After a quiet day on Tuesday, we took a day trip into Chile on Wednesday to see the Torres del Paine National Park. It's very like the lake district, only the mountains are in a different league (this is the Andes, after all). The "Towers of Pain" themselves are a set of spires that rise vertically upwards over the landscape. They're surrounded by some very strange mountains with black rock on top and light grey rock beneath. Have a look at the pics (www.energiser.net) to see what i mean, but they reminded me of those little two-toned Toblerone chunks you get in tins at Christmas. It was a very long day, most of which was spent in the various coaches we were shuffled between at different points of the trip and at the inevitable border crossing points. Still, worth it for the scenery.

 

Today we went to see the Perito Moreno glacier, about 80km west of El Calafate. It's famous mostly because you can drive to it rather than having to take a long boat trip (as you do with the numerous other glaciers around here) and because it moves at a whopping 200 metres a year. Apparently that's really fast for a glacier, but the most it would do for us today is drop a few lumps of ice off it's edge into the lake. It's still pretty spectacular, even after seeing hundreds of the things in Antarctica. It comes off the mountain and bisects a lake causing it to dam up every couple of years. When the weight of water becomes too much, it breaks open again in a "calamitous explosion". It didn't do this today.

 

The hostel we're staying at has a kitchen, so we bought a couple of slices of cow today and had them for tea. The beef comes in huge chunks and is dirt cheap. Tastes good as well.

 

Next, El Chalten... 

DAY 243 - Drake's Passage, Southern Ocean

Drake's Passage between Antarctica and South America has a reputation as one of the roughest seaways in the world. We're there now, heading back to port and it's pretty rocky, but so far not so bad. It's exemplary of the luck we've had with the weather in the last week, with almost universally clear skies, still seas and chilly, but wind-free conditions. The scenery has been incredibly beautiful, and unlike anything I've ever seen before. Life on the boat has been very busy and tiring, but even when I haven't really felt like going outside into the cold for a landing, I've dragged myself up to do it and have been glad I did. The Zodiac cruises have been very cold, particularly when zipping across the semi-frozen sea between the icebergs, pancake ice and "bergy bits". At times the cold was quite painful on the toes, fingers and face. And of course, I've bagged the seventh continent, landing twice on the Antarctic Peninsula at isolated beaches populated only by seals, penguins and tourists. After a great couple of weeks, I'm hoping the only unwelcome experience to come on the way back to Ushuaia is paying the bar bill.

 

The two days sailing from South Georgia to the South Shetland Islands were uneventful. The four-a-day lectures were starting to be attended by fewer people (particularly Axel's "here's another picture of a penguin" talks) although most people were still making the early breakfasts.

 

On Saturday we arrived off Elephant Island. This proved a taster of the landscape we would see for the next week. The island had a rocky base with an ice sheet hundreds of metres thick resting on top. Sharp shards of stone broke through in places, but otherwise it was utterly uninhabitable and inhospitable. Jutting out into the rough sea was a small peninsula, only a few metres across in places and constantly being washed over by breaking waves. This was Cape Wild were 22 men survived for over a hundred days under small overturned boats. It's now occupied by a statue of the Chilean captain who rescued them and several hundred Gentoo penguins. The seas were still quite rough at this point so we didn't land (not that anyone wanted to), just sailed around in the Zodiacs. It was the most nervous of all the Zodiac rides and my camera battery packed up halfway around which was a bit of a blessing in disguise as it meant I could use both hands to hold on.

 

On Sunday we started with a landing at Half Moon Island, a much calmer affair. As well as being home to loads of penguins there was a good walk up to a high vantage point where we could take in the view. The sky was clear and we could see for miles. Great stuff. In the afternoon we pulled into Deception Island, a collapsed caldera ring of land with an entrance a couple of hundred metres across. It's like a cold Santorini, only virtually no vegetation and certainly no tavernas. We had a wander around a deserted whaling station (most of which had been destroyed in the volcano's last eruption in 1970), said hi to the penguins and climbed up to Neptune's Window to look out to sea. Some people took up the suggestion to go for a swim under the premise that the active volcano heats the sea water in the caldera. If it did, they couldn't tell and were out as quick as they entered.

 

Monday we took a Zodiac cruise around Charlotte Bay, mainly to look at the ice. It can be incredibly beautiful stuff, carved by the glaciers, sea and penguin poo into some fantastic sculptures. Where the ice is cut clean and exposed, its true colour of deep blue can be seen to stunning effect. Orne Harbour in the afternoon was more of the same thing, but the beach there was going to be our first opportunity to land on the Antarctic Peninsula. Unfortunately, the staff felt it was too icy (really? In Antarctica?) to walk on and there were too many fur seals (complete with bad tempers and sharp teeth) around the landing site. We were a bit disappointed but the Zodiac cruise was pretty good and almost made up for not getting a landing.

 

Tuesday morning we landed at Port Lockroy, a former British base now run by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust. What's amazing about the place is it's built on a tiny outcrop of rocks, no more than 100 metres wide surrounded by ice cliffs across the bay hundreds of metres high. Four people live here during the summer months to tend to the buildings and sell stuff to tourists. It's the most visited tourist location in Antarctica. The middle-aged man is slightly mad and the other three are all young girls in their twenties – it felt a bit like one of those dodgy American religious cults, but we're assured it's all strictly above board. I bought a t-shirt and posted a card to me mum who should receive it by November, I'm reliably informed. There's a middle-sized Gentoo penguin colony across the bay where we saw a Leopard seal catching and munching away on penguins. It will apparently try to eat anything, including Zodiacs and people. We saw it sneak up on penguins on the rocks, grab them, then slash them around to turn them inside out. This way it could get to the meat inside. The alternative would be the eat the bird from the outside in – equivalent to chewing on a feathery duvet. Gruesome but spectacular.

 

After sailing up the spectacular Neumayer channel we arrived at Cuverville Island for another beach landing and penguin colony. These penguins weren't as curious as some of the others we'd met and didn't want to come over and play. That said, there were the usual groups of juveniles who would throw the most entertaining tizzies, running around like maniacs flapping their flippers and squarking for no apparent reason. That night we had a barbecue on the aft deck, which was a bizarre experience. It was pretty cold but the grills and salads were out and the scenery was considerably better than the average back garden in London.

 

Wednesday was our final day on the Peninsula, and the best day of the lot. It started at Neko Harbour and our first landing on the continent itself. There were penguins, one of whom tried very hard to eat my waterproofs, spending several minutes trying to get its beak around my legs and Wellies. After climbing a snow covered hillside there was a great view of the bay and the glacier which fed it. Unfortunately, the glacier wouldn't drop any ice into the sea while we were there which was a bit inconsiderate of it. There was also the remains of a hut which had been in tact on the crew's previous visit but had been completely destroyed in a storm last week. The penguins were making good use of the remains for shelter. We finished off with a very cold Zodiac excursion around the bay.

 

In the afternoon, the ship moved to Paradise Harbour. There were more penguins and another hill to climb for a view, but the best moments came in the Zodiac. A Minke Whale came up under our boat and blew it's nose on us. We got a great close up look of the 10 metre long animal as it circled the Zodiac a few time before disappearing. After that a crab-eater Seal followed us around the bay and then tried to get into the boat. According to the guide this was not something we would want to happen as then we'd have to get the thing out again, teeth and all.

 

See you back in Ushuaia.

 

Rich.

DAY 236 - Southern Ocean, nr South Georgia

I'm bunking off school to write this. There's a lecture on "Penguin Identification and Biology" but I can't be arsed. The guy who's taking it, Axel, is a bit monotonic and very dull.

 

The two days between the Falklands and South Georgia were taken up by more of these lectures – four a day. They're actually – usually – quite interesting, but the daily agenda is so full that between them and the eating, you don't really get much time to yourself. Here's the meal pattern of a typical day; pre-breakfast pastries and tea, breakfast, lunch, mid-afternoon cakes and tea, happy hour bar snacks, lunch. It's a lot of food and there are few ways to expend any energy on the days in the open sea.

 

We had three days at South Georgia. What we could do each day was very much up to the weather which was even more changeable and extreme than in the Falklands. Most of the expedition staff seem obsessed with Earnest Shackleton, an early twentieth century British explorer who did heroic things down here. Although dedicated to his men and the do-er of many brave deeds, from what I can tell he seemed a bit of a git, punching people who disagreed with him, bearing life-long grudges, having his how's-your-father with other people's wives, and all because he wanted to be remembered as a "great man".

 

We followed the island's east coast, starting on Monday with an attempt to get into a place called Possession Bay for some penguin watching, but the weather was too bad. That afternoon we had better luck, and managed to get ashore at Salisbury Plain to see a huge colony of King Penguins. They're really wonderful birds with very entertaining and curious personalities. As soon as I got off the Zodiac and sat on the beach one waddled up and had a peck at my Welly. On discovering it wasn't a new kind of fish, he wandered off again. You only had to stand still for a few minutes and small groups would nervously approach to check you over. Others would be pecking at each other, squawking or strutting their stuff with members of the opposite sex. There were thousands of individuals on the beach, mixed in with a handful of baby fur seals being insanely cute and staring at you with huge saucer eyes. The adults were quite aggressive and have a reputation for biting unwary tourists, so we kept our distance.

 

On Tuesday we sailed further around the coast and had a very early morning in Fortuna bay, the sight of another King Penguin colony. The newly risen sun cast a yellowy glow over everything and the sky stayed clear making the visit more peaceful and serene than on the previous day. There are a lot of introduced species on the island, including the reindeer at this site. The government are trying to decide which species to remove and which to leave, but haven't really decided about the reindeer yet. In the afternoon we were back on the main ship and sailed around Stromness harbour where you could see the remains of at least three whaling stations. The industry was huge here in the first half of the twentieth century and the mainly Norwegian whalers culled almost 90% of the stock in the surrounding waters – it's thought numbers will never return to their previous levels. It was considered a very noble occupation back then when attitudes were very different. Now the abandoned stations sit decaying on the coast waiting for the government to make them safe and remove all the toxic materials and asbestos from them.

 

In the afternoon we carried on around, past Thatcher Peninsula (yes, she liberated South Georgia from the Argies too) to the main settlement. The term is relative of course, as the "settlement" comprises of the museum at the abandoned whaling station at Grytviken (population about 3) and the British Antarctic Survey station next door at King Edward Point (population in the teens, but varies). After raising a toast to "the Shack" (Shackleton) – who's buried in the cemetery here – at the tour leader's behest (and watching his eye's glaze over in admiration) we split up into groups for different activities. I chose to climb Brown Hill, as did about eight others. We were led by Yvonne, the Gladys Pew (remember the Welsh announcer on Hi-De-Hi?) of the tour. Permanently happy and with a silver smooth voice, she set off up the hill with boundless enthusiasm and at a pace that would put the Royal Marines to shame. We trundled up after her as the rain started pouring down. By the time we approached the shale-covered summit, the weather was hailing and howling, but we still had some amazing views over the harbour and the island's interior. Once down again, I had a quick wander around the whaling station (asbestos removed) and museum. A long but excellent day.

 

We had another early start on Wednesday as we came ashore in Gold Harbour, but the weather was already closing in. We weren't able to get many pictures because of the rain but we able to see some of the Elephant Seals that live on the sands. These are the four tonne, three metre behemoths that guard their harems and then drop dead a few years later from exhaustion. At this time of year most of the really big beasts are out to sea, but there were some juveniles around and they were already damn large animals. And they really stank. In the afternoon we had to make do with a ship tour around Drygalski Fjord as the weather was too poor to go out in the Zodiacs. The whole island is a crinkly network of black mountains with snowy tops and glaciated valleys, and it all looks stunning, but the stormy weather and filtered sunlight made this last view of South Georgia one of the highlights of the trip. To top it off we saw our first icebergs cluttering up the entrance to the fjord.

 

Last night the storm got a lot worse and gave us our roughest night on board to date. A lot people didn't make it to the evening meal or breakfast this morning. It's one way of avoiding weight gain, I suppose.

 

Rich.

 

DAY 230 - Port Stanley, Falkland Islands

According to the staff, the sea we're bobbing about on is unusually calm for this part of the world. Could have fooled me. We're heading to South Georgia, two days away – assuming we don't sink under the extra weight from the six or seven meals a day we're being pummelled with. No chance of starving on this boat.

 

It was a long flight from London to Ushuaia via Buenos Aires, but largely uneventful. The town is at the same latitude south of the equator as London is north, only noticeably cooler (no Gulf Stream). The first thing you notice is the fantastic setting; buildings clinging to the hillside as the land rises up to meet the mountains, and the many channels and islands surrounding Tierra del Fuego. The second thing you notice is how flipping expensive everything is. Argentina was dirt cheap the last time I was here, but in a country notorious for extreme booms and busts, they seem to be at the overheating economy stage again.

 

We had a couple of days before getting on the boat for our Antarctic cruise, so we took a trip to the Tierra del Fuego National Park (entry £10, up from £4 last year) and had a walk through the very picturesque and crinkly, if muddy, coastal forest. On Tuesday we just took a walk around the town, stocking up on cheap wine for the boat. We finally boarded late afternoon.

 

It's quite a luxurious boat compared to our normal travelling accommodation. The cabin is small, and we have to share facilities with next door, but it's got a window, fridge and desk, and is generally quite comfortable. Except when sleeping, we haven't spent much time in here yet. The ship is run a bit like a holiday camp, with a full programme of entertainment and education running when we're not on land. We've had wildlife films, talks on geology, wars and birds, lifeboat drills and lots of food.

 

We reached the Falklands Islands on Thursday and had two landings on Carcass Island and Saunders Island, off the west coast. The method of getting ashore is via a small flat-bottomed boat called a Zodiac, apparently invented by Jacque Cousteau. Because the landings are usually 'wet' everyone has to don wellies and waterproofs before getting on board. They're quite powerful with the bow rising up well into the air as you zoom ashore. Both islands were desolate places with stubby vegetation and few trees. Carcass island had many thousands of penguins, all huddled together in rookeries, and plenty of ground burrows to break your legs in. After the penguins, we walked around the bay to the settlement (population 10) for a bit of Falklands hospitality – a cup of tea and a table crammed with hundreds of small cakes like your mother used to bake (before she discovered Mr Kipling). Apparently when they hear a cruise ship is coming to the island, all the locals on the surrounding islands (rule of thumb – one family per island) crank up the oven and start baking. They then jump in their Zodiacs with their trays of goodies to fill up this table in someone's front room for the tourists.

 

Saunders Island was similar to Carcass Island with plenty of penguins, but also Albatrosses. The weather is a bit weird. One minute it's sunny the next it's gales and torrential rain. It can, and frequently does, change within a few minutes. The clouded skies can get very dramatic which makes for some good pics.

 

Yesterday we arrived in Port Stanley on the eastern side of the islands. It's an interesting place and somewhere I was really looking forward to seeing given all the history. It has a population of about two thousand people and six pubs, which seems like a good ratio to me. Everyone drives Land Rover Discoveries and the houses are mainly wood with corrugated iron roofs. Apart from the official museum (which has more excellent exhibits crammed into three small rooms than you would imagine possible), there are a few unofficial exhibitions including the anti-whaling garden (harpoons, whale skeletons, gruesome pictures and messages such as "20,000 whales killed by this harpoon" written on car number plates) and the gnome garden (about a hundred garden gnomes in gnomey poses, staring towards the sea). We also took an excursion to Gypsy Cove, but there wasn't much there except for a few dolphins and yet more penguins.

 

On the way to South Georgia now.  They've just announced there are some whales off the starboard bow, causing near hysteria in the passengers (especially the older ones who move so slowly the whales are usually gone by the time they get to the viewing deck). I'd better go and take a look…

 

Rich.

DAY 208 - Orpington, England

Well, It's good to be home. In general...

 

We had a few nervous hours at Delhi airport. We knew there might be travel problems on the drive from the hotel as the fog was so thick we couldn't see more than ten metres ahead of us. True enough, planes were being delayed and cancelled while we sat waiting to hear about our own flight. Fortunately, BA seemed not to be suffering and our flight touched down in London only an hour or so late. The Air France passengers weren't so lucky and spent the night in a hotel. The Jet Airways passengers got the budget treatment of a cup of coffee and the departure lounge floor. 

 

If that wasn't exciting enough, a couple of hours after arriving home a pipe burst in the attic creating a rather surreal waterfall through the landing and hallway. I'll spare you the details of the hassle i've had so far with the insurers, the drying specialists, the builders and the loss adjusters (who i can only assume don't like each other given their unwillingness to talk to each other). Suffice to say, the woodwork's cracking, the ceilings are staining and that lot can't make up their mind who's doing what, when.

 

Rather than sit around the house doing nothing, i've been catching up with friends and family for the last three weeks. An unfortunate side effect has been a big increase in calories, just when i was congratulating myself on the 6kg (1st) i'd lost while away (if you want to lose weight, spent a week in Tibet). All the cravings i had whilst away, namely cheese, bitter and (rice-free) lasagna, have now, i can confidently say, been sated.

 

We had a short break in St Ives, Cornwall last week which was very pleasant. Yes, it rained and wasn't very warm, but there's something rather fantastic about wandering around the muddy British coast in such conditions. The beer down there is the best in Britain but the food was shockingly overpriced. We stopped off at Cheddar on the way home and bought six months worth of cheese having eaten one months worth in the tasting room.

 

We've got a couple of weeks now before we head off on possibly the best bit of the trip - Antarctica. If anyone fancies a pint before then, let me know. I need to get three months worth of bitter down in two weeks...

 

Rich.

DAY 184 - Delhi, India

I'm in the hotel room waiting to get a taxi to the airport for the 0330 flight to Heathrow. I'm soooo ready for home.

 

We only had two nights in Amritsar, so as soon as our train arrived (six hours late, sharing a compartment with some gentlemen with the worst and most unsubtle flatulence), we headed to the Pakistan border. We went to witness the elaborate and jingoistic closing the border ceremony. A bunch of overstressed soldiers from either side waggle and strut around like they're from Monty Python's Ministry of Funny Walks. A bloke with a microphone whips up the audience into a nationalistic fervor ("Hindooostan! Hindooooostan!") as the border gates are slammed shut with such determination they immediately bounce back open.

The next day we headed to the Golden Temple and a definite highlight of the trip. Up to this point India had struggled to provide the goods, but this place was somewhere special. The atmosphere when we walked through the gates was noticeably calmer and more pleasant that in the chaos outside. No-one wanted to sell you anything, no-one wanted to rip you off in a rickshaw, no-one wanted your money, people were friendly without overdoing it and I smiled for the first time since arriving in India. Nice chanting too. I was happy to take my shoes and socks off here, unlike at some of the other places we visited where the floor was less well tended, the water dirty and the local stray dogs had moved in to do a bit of redecorating, if you know what i mean.

Wednesday we got the "express" train to Delhi (two hours late); our last stop on Leg 3. We checked into an ok hotel in Paraganj, the local backpacker district. The last time I was here I stayed in squalor, and I certainly wasn't going to repeat that. This place has hot water and a window. Exciting, eh? There's plenty to do here which is just as well, as we had five and a half days to fill. It was New Year's Eve, but beer was hard to get hold of at a reasonable price, and we didn't really feel like a night on the town anyway, so we had an early night.

New Year's Day we did the old city with the Gandhi museum and Red Fort. Friday we had a wander around 'new' Delhi; the bit the British built (OK, designed - I suspect the Indians actually built it). A lot of roads were closed for security reasons which made finding our way around difficult and frustrating.

Saturday we hired a car to take us to Agra. Given how unreliable the trains had been, we dared not use them although it would have been a lot cheaper. The Taj Mahal was as beautiful as ever but the fog made taking pictures pretty difficult and the swarms of people kept getting in the way. We were made to pay 38 times what the locals paid to get in. For that price we should have had the place to ourselves instead of a poxy free bottle of water. After that we visited Agra Fort. Our driver spent the day chewing betel nut, spitting it out the window and sleeping. He didn't say much until we were almost back in Delhi when he started the most transparent sob story I've ever heard. He might have borrowed it from Bohemian Rhapsody ("I'm just a poor boy from a poor family", etc). When that didn't work he tried to charge us 1,000Rs (£14) for the aircon, which had been switched off all day because it was so cold. He didn't get a tip.

For the last two days we've wandered the streets of Delhi looking at tombs. Dan bought a brass Ganesh.

I'm over India. The infrastructure is decrepit and unreliable. The hotels are overpriced and squalid. Trains are late, smelly and overcrowded (and that's just first class) and the driving is downright suicidal. You get hassled all day, every day by people who only speak to you because they want your cash. People appear, to me at least, to only be interested in themselves and what's in it for them. This is not a holiday, it's an endurance test.

 

Ok, it's not as bad as all that. The food is generally great although a bit frustrating for a carnivore like me, and it's a very interesting place to visit, but I'll be glad to be home.

See you soon.

DAY 176 - Lucknow, India

Thanks to everyone who sent a text on Christmas day. Sorry for not replying, but for some reason we could receive messages but not send them. As the tourist board jingle goes, "Incredible India". Quite.

We've had a string of worsts in the last week or so; Kathmandu airport was the worst I've ever had the misfortune to use (a disorganised shed with no staff and no information) and the worst hotel (in the Black Hole of Calcutta). This was getting us down a bit so, like the government, we thought we'd spend our way out of adversity.

We did our sight-seeing in Varanasi in the first two days. A Ghat is a set of stone steps and platforms which lead into the River Ganges. There are lots of them in Varanasi where the locals do everything from washing, swimming, preparing food, taking Hector the cow for a wash and cremating relatives. According to last week's Economist, it's one the most bacterially polluted rivers in the world, and single handedly responsible for most of the childhood diseases in the area. We went for a boat ride, half expecting the wood beneath us to dissolve away as we went. It didn't, but we decided against the swim.

Apart from the Ghats, Varanasi is a very claustrophobic town, with very narrow streets and a definite seedy side. A couple of dodgy blokes tried a scam on me and were quite aggressive when I refused to hand over some cash.

The first hotel in Varanasi was quite nice with hot water and stuff, but for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day we booked ourselves into the most expensive place in the city, The Taj Ganges Hotel. It was very palatial, set in large gardens and had soft mattresses (a first for India). The downside was that it seemed like everything was an opportunity for the hotel and staff to take money off us. Everyone wanted a tip. This wasn't a surprise, but was a bit annoying, as was the constant fussing that surrounded everything we tried to do. Still, we decorated the room as best we could, played tacky Christmas records and attended the "gala" Christmas Eve dinner. This was a fantastic buffet at which I tried a bit of everything and narrowly avoided a repeat of the Beppu incident. There appeared to be general embarrassment and confusion at the party hats from some of the locals, but I don't get embarrassed so led the way in making myself look silly.

On Boxing day we had to drag ourselves away (and pay the bill, which I didn't look at) and get a train to Lucknow. I could almost hear the hotel porter say, "using Indian Railways? I'd better wish you luck now..". Train was two hours late. The hotel we found was drab, overpriced, functional and was run by a zombie who was always at the front desk, day or night, and looked like he'd been stuffed thirty years ago.

The town was more pleasant than Varanasi and had a few crumbling ruins to look at. There's a pattern emerging when it comes to Indian tourist sites. They charge westerners about twenty times what the locals pay, when you get in there the staff are invariably too lazy to open most
of the attractions, they are always poorly maintained (where did our five quid entrance fee go again?) and when they are open there are always bizarre rules to make the visit tiresome ("couples must be shoeless and accompanied by a paid guide").

Today we went to the zoo. It took a while to find the animals. When we did, they all looked miserable and bored, although one pelican that had escaped found the outside world even worse and was trying to break back in. We then got completely lost (thanks for the useless map Lonely Planet) before heading to the train station for our next train to Amritsar.

DAY 169 - Calcutta, India

Ah, India. What is it about India that initially makes me want to run screaming to the airport and get on the next flight home? We've booked our flight back to London now for 6th January, so i'll have to grit my teeth and get on with it.

 

Kathmandu wasn't that bad in the end. Yes the power cuts were a pain, and the restaurants were very expensive, but the hotel had a generator, we ate from the supermarket most of the time and there was lots to see. It was definitely more chaotic than China and the roads were terrible. We walked everywhere as usual although there was rarely a footpath to walk on. The sights were mainly temples and stupas and the like, with one pleasant riverside temple where they burned corpses into the river. Most of the city itself was made up of narrow, busy alley ways lined with shops and small roadside shrines (usually to the Hindu god Ganesh). Great just to wander around and get hopelessly lost in.

 

We flew to Calcutta (or Kolkata as the local ruling communists have renamed it) on Thursday. It was a short flight but we arrived after dark so had booked a hotel in advance. It was a horrid place and the metal grill around the door made it feel more like a prison, so we found another hotel. This one was a bit more expensive (at 25 quid one of the most expensive on this leg to the trip), but it looked ok. How wrong could we be. The noise was terrible. First there was the nightclub on the ground floor pumping loud music throughout the building until midnight. We complained so they moved us to a different room. Above this room they were doing building work from 8 in the morning until 1 the next morning. It was maddening. I'm so glad we've checked out of there, but we'll have to be move careful in future. Problem is, this is the first time on the holiday when we're travelling at the local peak season, so everything is expensive and availability is low. We're sort of hoping that the recession and recent unfortunate events in Mumbai will make things quieter.

 

Calcutta isn't a bad city, but there's not a lot to do here. It's a typical Indian city; grubby, rubbish everywhere, overcrowded, but the food is great and there are some fantastic open spaces to loose yourself in. The Indian Museum isn't up to much though. It's not been dusted since 1950, the labels in the anthropological section still refer to the 1961 census and the fossil and natural history sections are just endless cases of rocks and piles of bones respectively (a picture of the animal the bones came from wouldn't cost much but would enhance the experience no end). That said, the full-term human embryo (pickled) and baby cat with one head and two bodies (pickled) more than made up for it. There's also the Victoria Monument, a fantastic building left over from the Raj that looks like the Taj Mahal crossed with St Paul's.

 

We've booked most of our Indian train tickets now. These will get us to Delhi on New Year's Eve, stopping at Varanasi, Lucknow and Amritsar on the way. The first train journey is tonight which means Christmas in Varanasi. Should be interesting...

 

Merry Christmas to everyone out there. When you're stuffing turkey down on Christmas Day and watching Doctor Who, think of us...

 

 

DAY 163 - Kathmandu, Nepal

After four days on the road in Tibet, getting over the border into Nepal was much easier than feared although not without it's interesting moments.

On the first day out of Lhasa we drove through some spectacular landscape. To be honest, it's for this sort of thing that I travel. Most cities are either identikit blobs and/or cesspits of human squalor.


Lake Yamdrok was a shimmering turquoise pool, shaped like a scorpion (apparently) surrounded by bare light brown mountains (pics at www.energiser.net). Naturally, the Chinese are draining it for hydro-electricity and as no rivers feed it, it'll probably be gone in a few years. That night we stayed in Gyantse, a poor town we'd seen on the BBC's A Year In Tibet. It's main monastery had a fantastic stupa with seventy chapels and a fantastic view from the top. Around the town were several dead dogs who had clearly frozen solid in the sub-zero temperatures at night. We had a heated hotel room. On this occasion.

On the second day we took a short drive to Shigatse, a very poor town further along The Friendship Highway.  We climbed a hill, went "ooh!", then visited another monastery and went "ah!" then ordered some random food at a local restaurant and got stared at lot.

Day three was a long, long drive. The scenery was still fantastic as we drove higher and higher, reaching 5200m and Everest Base Camp. The views of the Himalaya and Mt Everest itself were simply gob-smacking (yes, I've run out of suitable original adjectives and I left my thesaurus at home). The road was a bit hairy getting there but the trip back was in a different league. Our guide decided to take a different route back. The guide book described it as a trekking path. Twice the guide and driver got out, babbling in Tibetan, to check we didn't have a puncture. There were no buildings or people for about 50km, the sun was going down and it was freezing cold. Any incidents and we would have been stuffed. At one point we drove along what I can only describe as a shelf, about 3m wide, sloping down towards a 50m drop-off. We finally got to Tigri, a very, very poor town in the middle of nowhere. The hotel was, well, basic. No shower, no hot water and for all intent and purpose no toilet (this is not an issue for locals who just go anywhere - number twos included - and I'm not exaggerating). There was no heating in the room, so we slept in our clothes and were still cold. Couldn't get out of there quicker in the morning.

On the fourth day we were to drive to the border town of Zhangmu and in the process come down off the Tibetan plateau. We got to within 30km only to find the road closed. They were tarmacking it until 8pm. Dan and I got out and walked. It took five and a half hours and we dropped about a kilometer in the process, but the canyon we walked down was very pretty, changing from scrub-clad rock at the top to lush green Alpine-like forest at the bottom. By the time we got there it was dark and we were knackered. The hotel was rubbish again with no shower or hot water, but it did have a squat loo. It was warmer but we still had to sleep in our clothes.

On Sunday we crossed the border into Nepal and said goodbye to our guide and driver. It was good to be masters of our own destiny again and we immediately went about proving how useless we were at it. After a bit of haggling we got in a taxi to take us to Kathmandu. The tyres looked a bit bald but it was cheap. The road was almost all down hill, there were no seat belts and the driver seemed to have to push the brake petal a few times before the car slowed down. After about half an hour the driver stopped to have his spare tyre fixed which was an annoying delay. Another hour later we got a puncture. We finally made it here and had a shower. Was bliss.

The hotel is quite nice but Kathmandu is expensive, particularly the food. The power goes off for 6 hours a day but the hotel has a generator, so we're only without electricity for a few hours. We've done nothing today except plan the next and last country on this leg - India.

 

DAY 157 - Lhasa, Tibet

For our last day in Chengdu we had a wander around some sights (including a very peaceful if slightly run down monastery) then finished off at a local restaurant with a Sichuan delicacy - the hot pot. This isn't like Betty's hot pot from Coronation Street, it's more like a meat and veg fondue in a very spicy oil. It was very nice but I'd soon had enough. Bit greasy.

We caught the train that evening to Lhasa. It took two days to get there following a horse shoe-shaped route around the mountains, and climbing 3.5km up onto the Tibetan plateau. There was even an oxygen supply in case we felt light-headed. The only symptoms i had though was having to take unusually deep breaths every few minutes or so and an exploding deodourant bottle.

It's only taken a few days here to realise what a complex place Lhasa is. By day the sky is clear, it's warm and the sun's light makes colours more vivid and contrasts more striking. By night it's dark, very cold and a bit oppressive. This is not China, and yet it is. There are troops stationed on every street corner; 16 year old conscripts, balancing a baton round launcher on one arm while attempting to fiddle with their mobile phones in the other. All the streets have been renamed with Chinese names, the writing is mainly Mandarin, and there are the obligatory monuments to The Workers' Struggle sat amidst horrible concrete plazas.

But there is also the real Tibet. The Patala Palace, the one recognisable Tibetan landmark, is set on top of a large rock and looks box-shaped from the outside. Inside however, it's a labyrinth of rooms and corridors with wonky floors, wooden connecting ladders and Buddhist chapels. The colours are magnificent and the smell of incense and burning yak's butter is just the right side of nauseating. Most of the previous Dali Lamas are buried on the top floor, which has to be a first.

We've visited a few monasteries with our guide, most of which have been packed with pilgrims. They take their religion very seriously here. No photos allowed, alas, but one enterprising chapel would allow you to film for 85 quid. I declined.

The timezones around here are all a bit stupid and caught up in politics. Lhasa is on Beijing time (the 'people's time' as the communist mantra goes) so it gets dark (and light) 3 hours later than it should. India is 2.5 hours behind (why the half?). Nepal is 2.25 hours behind, just to make sure you don't confuse it as being part of India (apparently).

DAY 152 - Chengdu, Sichuan, China

By the time we left Dali I was coming down with some sort of flu, but it didn't really hit me until we got to Lijiang. For the next few days I could barely do anything - even standing up sent waves of dizziness through my head. By Sunday though it had worked it's way through my system (from top to bottom) and I was starting to feel better, but Lijiang will be remembered as the town I had to drag myself around.

Lijiang was probably the closest you could come to how old China looked before the modernising started. And how pretty it was. A network of narrow cobbled alleys, each with its own stream and little stone bridges to link them together. Dotted through the town are old wooden water wheels.

Naturally, it hasn't escaped the impact of tourism. Each street is lined mainly with trinket shops, each selling identical over-priced junk, or restaurants, half full at the best of times and with bored-faced locals dressed in local costumes doing a half hearted traditional Naxi jig.

For most of the first day I only noticed the cobbles, as when we did venture out, I barely had the energy to raise my head. Fortunately, by Sunday I was on the mend so we took a tour up to Tiger Leaping Gorge. Apparently at one point it's 4km deep, although from where we were it couldn't have been more than 1 to 1.5. Those nice Chinese people had dug out a cliff-side walkway allowing us (paying) tourists to walk down to the rapids about 3km in. And very impressive it was too, although we didn't see any (real) tigers. On the opposite side of the gorge to where we walked a road had been blasted through, dumping hundreds, nay, thousands of tonnes of rock into the river below. A bit messy really.

On Monday we took a flight to Chengdu in Sichuan. The flight was short but not fun due to a small minority of our fellow travellers misbehaving on the flight (being irritating rather than dangerous), and others using the sick bag as a depository for their flem.

Chengdu is an ugly, grey, concrete, smog-ridden blob. But it does have Pandas. Big cuddly adult Pandas who do nothing but eat and sleep (related to Koalas maybe?), small furry baby Pandas who squeak and roll around like the staff at a PwC Christmas party, and slug-like newly born Pandas who are to ugly to bother with. At the Giant Panda Research Centre we saw all these except the slugs, and learned far too much about the Giant Panda reproductive cycle to be safe just after a large breakfast. The smog was so bad that morning that even though we were outside, we couldn't take a picture without the flash going off, so the results were pretty poor (see the China pictures link at www.energiser.net).

Today we went to see the Grand Buddha of Leshan. It's the biggest Buddha in the world (or summit). It's carved into the cliff by a river about 130km south of here. No-one did a tour down there surprisingly, so we had to make our own way by public bus. I'm proud to say we make it there and back without incident and the Buddha was very... big.

 

The main reason for going to Chengdu was to arrange our trip to Tibet. It's always been expensive and difficult to do, but since the riots there earlier this year it's got a whole lot harder. We've had to arrange and fix our itinerary in advance, we have to have a guide to chaperon us around for the entire visit and we have to pay through the nose for it. That said, it promises to be one of the highlights of the year so hey ho... I'll let you know...

DAY 145 - Dali, Yunnan, China

One day was all we had in Guilin but that was enough. Most of it is pretty much like any other Chinese city. Horrible white-tiled cubic buildings, soiled with the dirt from industrial development and rusting pipework. It's saving grace is its location right in the middle of the Karst landscape which meant there were pockets of natural beauty buried within the city's grid. With so much rock around, the local tourist board had gone into overdrive to find some animal or vegetable that each stony outcrop resembles in an attempt to pull in the punters. "Elephant Trunk Hill" did sort of resemble its tag, but only from one narrow angle of approach. We didn't see many westerners around which was surprising for such a major tourist destination.

Monday evening we set off for Dali. This involved a train (17 hours), a coach (5 hours), a local bus (the wrong one, 20 minutes) and another local bus (the right one, 30 minutes). The town itself must be one of the few places left in China that hasn't been bulldozed and rebuilt in the name of progress. It's laid out in the original square pattern, bordered on four sides by the original town gates. It's set on a gentle slope: to the east, one of China's largest lakes, to the west the first of the mountains which lead up to the Tibetan plateau.

Driving through the Yunnan countryside, it's was clear that China is developing fast, particularly its infrastructure. It's a shame they can't spend more on their people, most of whom appear dirt poor.

We had a look around town to start with. We were trying to find a supermarket, but most large shops seem to be tourist gift shops dressed up as "local food supermarkets". Dan's been "concerned" that we're running out of deodourant, but they don't seem to sell it here which raises some interesting questions. To be fair, it probably says more about our obsession in the West with excessive personal hygiene than anything else.

On Wednesday we took a cable car up into the mountains behind the town. At the top there was an 11km walk (or "cloudy tourist road" as it was called) around the twists and turns of the valleys. The clever thing was that despite being 2km up, the path was flat for it's entire journey, not rising or falling by more than 100m across it's length. Only in China. We were lucky with the weather too and the views were fantastic. At the other end was another cable car to take us down. Unfortunately at this point a local student latched onto us so he could practice his English. Trapped in a hanging basket, there was no escape. After telling us all about himself and asking about us in return, we luckily reached the bottom of the mountain. We were thus saved from him trying to order a meal (lesson 2) or asking directions to the train station (lesson 3).

On Thursday we were going to have a look at three pagodas (not that we haven't seen enough of them already). They wanted £12! Fortunately, you could see them from the road. They looked like they'd been put up in a couple of hours and were made of plywood. Not a patch on some of the older structures we'd seen earlier on our trip. Bit of a tourist rip-off we think.

 

Tonight's meal was pretty typical of the way restaurants and cafes works here. You order your starters and main courses and they arrive in a random order, one dish at a time, over the next hour. Frequently the starters arrive after the mains and if you have more than one main, you can easily have finished the first before the rest arrives. Tonight I ordered Lasagna. I got a pizza. When I pointed out Lasagna has pasta in it, not bread, I was told that was the way the Naxi (local people) do it. And there was me thinking it was Italian. That said, almost always the food is excellent, if not quite what you thought it would be.

DAY 140 - Yangshuo, Guangxi, China

Did you know that China only spends 1% of it's GDP on healthcare compared to 7% or 8% in Western nations? I only mention it because it was the first thing to go through my mind after the events described in the last paragraph below. Better that through my mind than a tree, I suppose.

 

The bus journey to Hanoi was considerably easier than our previous bus trips. In fact, it went rather well. After checking in at a reasonable hotel we decided to have a day off pagodas and stuff, so went to see Quantum Of Solace instead.

By a stroke of luck, the hotel we'd picked just happened to be very close to the area with the highest concentration of Bai Hoi (fresh beer) shops in the city. We spent each night sat on plastic children's garden furniture, wiling the hours away watching life pass us by (or, this being Vietnam, narrowly missing death by moped / taxi, every 20 seconds).

On Sunday we headed out to Halong Bay for a boat ride around it's deservedly famous water scape. Small mountainous islands rise sharply out of the water to look like giant dragon's teeth, covered with green bushes on all but the steepest slopes (the dragon clearly doesn't brush his teeth).

We stopped on floating platforms for a while where fishermen who live in small huts flog their produce at ridiculous prices to gullible tourists. The seafood is then cooked back on board by equally expensive chefs. Our reputation as cheapskates was not compromised. We had the free rubber squid and rice. Despite this, it was an excellent, if long, day out (three hours on a coach each way).

On Monday we splashed out again for a tour to the Perfume Pagoda. It was a long way. First, a couple of hours on a coach. Then an hour in a boat that was no more than a flattened out baked bean tin that floated precariously a couple of centimeters above the waterline. When a motorboat passed by, the resultant wake almost flooded us (ok, I exaggerate). Finally we took a cable car to the cave where the pagoda was located. On this occasion, the getting there was as much part of the trip as the destination itself. The tour guide was useless. His English was rubbish, he had no control over the group and he had little idea on where we were going. Apparently his full time job was as a member of a boy band. He should have stuck to the singing instead of trying (unconvincingly) to over charge us for cable car tickets.

For our last day in Vietnam we hovered around Hanoi itself. Finding shops to buy the basics is easy as the streets are named after the products they sell. So "clothes street" sells clothes, "shoe street" sells footwear and "counterfeit street" sells photocopied money (Oh yes! Apparently needed for religious purposes).

In the evening we got the train for China.

First stop has been Yangshuo. Whereas nearby Guilin is more famous, Yangshuo is smaller, friendlier and infinitely more prepared for western backpackers. The location is simply fantastic. The Karst scenery looks a lot like Halong Bay in Vietnam, but on land and magnified several times over. The weather is decidedly chilly - but not cold - which is perfect for cycling, so on Thursday we hired bikes and pedalled around the surrounding countryside for some gob-smacking views. There aren't masses of tourists here either which makes it even more pleasurable. The land is a hundred shades of green, only broken by the blue sky, the brown rock and the multicoloured fly-tipped rubbish the Chinese drop anywhere and everywhere.

In the evening we saw some Cormorant fishing. The fisherman ties an elastic band around the birds' throats (so they can't swallow) then takes them out onto the river on a bamboo boat. In the water the birds dive to catch fish and when their necks are bulging, the fisherman hauls the birds back on board and removes the fish with a good whack on the neck. Sounds cruel, but the birds behave like well trained dogs and don't try to escape, and they get a share of the catch at the end.

Generally I like China more than Vietnam. People don't try quite as hard here to rip you off. However, the locals do suffer badly from the Three S's: Shoving, Shouting and Spitting.

 

Friday we took a boat ride to view more of the scenery during the day and went for a lightshow in the evening. The lightshow was great and something only the Chinese could put on. With several hundred  performers, it was set on water with the Karst mountains illuminated behind it. Fantastic. It was a shame the locals had to shout all the way through it.

 

We liked Yangshuo so much, we decided to stay another day... Bad mistake.

 

Mum, you'd better stop reading now.

Our last full day in this part of China was a visit to the Dragon's Backbone rice terraces. The coach took us up into the hills and onto some windy roads, high above the fields. At this point the driver lost control of the coach as we rounded a bend and we crashed to a stop. The front window dropped out and the door (in a strangely comic way) fell off. We climbed out through the hole at the front, hinting to the driver that it may be a good idea to turn the electrics off. From outside we could see where we had landed. As the coach had left the road its front right wing had clipped a half meter high concrete wall. This was the only thing that had stopped us going over the edge and dropping at least 100 metres to the ground. Most of the bend had no protection at all so we were lucky to have hit it. One girl was taken away in an "ambulance" (a shuttle bus with no equipment and a cross painted on the side). Dan and I got away with bruised knees and frayed nerves. It's a bit scary when you realise your life was almost certainly saved by a small lump of concrete. I'll never slag off 60s architecture again. After all that we eventually got to the rice terraces only to find the place smothered in fog, so we couldn't see anything.

Oh well. That's travelling for ya.

DAY 132 - Hue, Vietnam

The bus trip to Hoi An was a right balls-up. We bought an "open tour" ticket designed for tourists (although with a few back handers to the driver, the bus soon filled up with locals). The trip was supposed to consist of two legs, both on a "sleeper" coach. Unfortunately for us the company we booked with hadn't bothered to phone through our booking for the connection, so after 10 hours on the first bus we arrived at the half way point and the connecting bus was full and unable to take us. We finally got a seat on a non-sleeper bus - the last two seats - right at the back. The suspension was suspect, and we bounced along like five year olds on a trampoline.

After about an hour we passed the sleeper bus on the side of the road. It had broken down. Oh, how we laughed. I couldn't help indulging in some schadenfreude at that one. We never saw it again. Our coach finally pulled into the back of a hotel in Hoi An where the gates slammed shut behind us. We were supposed to be good obedient tourists and book into that hotel (so the bus company could get it's commission). I don't think so, mate.

Hoi An was a breath of fresh air after Saigon/HCMC. It was a lovely little river side town with old yellow-washed buildings, much less traffic and much less hassle. The only slightly worrying thing was that every night the streets closest to the river flooded as the tide backed up the channel. The locals, never to miss a trick, had marked the high points of each rainy season's flood on the inside walls of their houses and showed them off to tourists.

It was also here that we discovered "fresh beer". Locally brewed, no preservatives, delivered daily and only 4000 Dong (16p) a glass. The quality was far from consistent though and each night was tantamount to spinning the roulette wheel. A good day would be a fantastic tasting drink and a fun evening. A bad day could mean a head in the pan and a stinking hangover. Loved it.

We had a tour on Tuesday to an old ruin called My Son which was nice. None of the ruins in Vietnam seem particularly well looked after, but that doesn't stop them charging you to see them.

The short trip to Hue ran more smoothly than the trip to Hoi An, although still took four hours. The hotel is reasonable and dirt cheap, and there's the usual mix of tombs 'n religious buildings to see. Generally a pleasant place, although the Lasagna I had last night was more like a beef noodle soup than anything of Italian origin.

Today it's been raining all day. We went to have a look at the Citadel where the kings of Vietnam used to live and got wet. My mother would call this sort of rain "wet rain". It rains lightly so you don't where a coat, yet still get soaked because it's actually raining quite hard.

Don't ask.

Tonight we brave the sleeper bus to Hanoi.

Rich.

DAY 126 - Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Hi

The bus from Pangandaran to Jakarta took forever. It didn't even go into the city centre but dropped us off about 18km outside. We had to "negotiate" a taxi to the hotel. As usual, the gaggle of taxi drivers wanted us to do what they wanted rather than what we wanted, i.e. get into the cab they choose, to the hotel they want you to go to (so they can pocket the commission), with the meter off (so they can charge you what they like). It took a good half hour before we got our way.

That wasn't the only fun we had with transport in Jakarta. The next day we wanted to go to the nearby town of Bogor to see their "world famous" botanical gardens. We went by train and it took 8 hours in total with only 2 hours there. We could have walked there in less time than the train took. There was absolutely no departure information provided at all, in any language. The gardens themselves were pretty good, particularly considering the dirty city around them. The Orchid house was especially attractive.

On the Tuesday we sweated our way around Jakarta itself, starting off in the old colonial quarter. It wasn't really worth a visit as all the old Dutch buildings were literally crumbling away before our eyes and the canals had become nothing more than an extension of the sewer and dumping ground for anything people wanted to dispose of (although not, strangely, shopping trolleys).

We also visited the National Monument. A massive phallus in the centre of a park - a sort of Nelson's column with a gold flame on top. You could go up to the top, provided you were prepared to put up with the hundreds of school kids and the national anthem being played on loop at full blast for your entire visit. The views were good.

More rule of budget travel:
(4) Always ask for a discount. Can't do any harm, can it?
(5) Always check if tax / service are included. Those cunning blighters at hotel reception frequently 'forget' to mention it.

We flew to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam on Wednesday. It's a compact sort of place and the hotel is somewhat claustrophobic.

The heat in the middle of the day is pretty bad, particularly when the sun is out. Then it tends to bucket it down in the afternoon and become very humid. The best place to hide from the elements are in the little ATM rooms. They have the best aircon in the city.

The pestering has reached new heights in Vietnam. It's not just the sheer number of hawkers and beggars, but the the lengths they go to to get your attention. I particularly hate the way they grab your arm as you walk by. They even walk into restaurants when your eating and poke you in the side to get your attention. This must be what it's like to be a parent. Maybe I won't get those cats after all.

On Thursday we wandered around the city to various museums and stuff, including the old presidential palace, the museum of American and Chinese War Crimes (which says all you need to know about the exhibits) and a KFC. On Friday we took a tour (for £4!). First on the itinerary (after the obligatory shop, naturally) was the Cao Dai Temple. It's the headquarter of a local religious sect who, literally, believe everything. They've fused Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Spiritualism, Christianity and Islam. They were a very welcoming bunch of people who were quite clearly hedging their bets on the afterlife. The temple was an extremely ornate and very colourful building worth the trip alone.


Next up were the Cu Chi tunnels which turned out to be a tour of the history of the Vietnam war. They let us crawl though one of the tunnels dug to hide the Viet Cong from US bombing. It was horribly claustrophobic (even more so than the hotel room), even though they had doubled the height of it to allow "larger" westerners to fit in. There was a demonstration of all the nasty traps the locals devised to take out the Americans and blokes with an inferiority complex could shoot an AK47 assault riffle (for a dollar a bullet) and restore their self esteem.

We're having a easy day today before getting the bus to Hoi An.

Rich

DAY 119 - Pangandaran, Java, Indonesia

First, thanks to those of you who replied to my pleas for good news. However, learning that "Aston Villa won on Saturday" wasn't really what I had in mind. Anyway, they say no news is good news, so by that reckoning I've had all the good news i need by ignoring the BBC.

Shopping notes:
(1) It costs me up to 80,000 times as much as a local to send a text message!!!!
(2) They ship Evian in and charge 10 times as much for it than the local water (which is owned by Danone). Who buys the stuff at that price??!?!

The hotel in Yogyakarta was a bit like an old tart. Over made up on the outside but scruffy and peeling on the inside. The owner also seemed to have a thing for caged birds which I don't really approve of anyway, but particularly don't like when they shriek their little lungs out at five in the morning. Even over breakfast they were ear-splitting. We also had to change rooms because we could hear rats scurrying around in the ceiling.

We spent the first day in Joyja (as the locals call it) trying to sort out the rest of our time in Java. Just getting out of the city was proving problematic. Since the Bali bombs and Boxing Day tsunami tourist numbers have collapsed. The upside for us is that things are a bit cheaper, but the downside is that availability and choice has reduced as places and transport routes have closed down.

Day two was a tick-list of sights. Borobudur and Pranbanan were both impressive temple complexes which were interesting to wander around, although the sun and heat were stifling. On the last day we took a look around the city itself and the "highlight" of the Kraton (palace). Honestly, it was deeply unimpressive. Most of the rooms were whitewashed and tiled giving the impression you were viewing Indonesia's national treasures in some old school changing room. And they made you pay twice for the privilege.

Up until now, Dan has been the one suffering from mozie bites, but since arriving in Indonesia they've taken a shine to me too. I'm still suffering a lot less that my travel companion, but i've still had some bites that have inflamed up to the size of nipples and itched like hell.

I've decided to resurrect Williams's Rules Of Budget Travel from my last trip. I will add to these as i get sufficiently bored to think them up:

(1) If they want your money, they'll speak your language. (This is a general rule that applies everywhere except Russia where they just snarl and expect you to pay up.)

(2) When visiting a tourist attraction, never assume you have to pay. If you wander around looking like you need to give some cash away, there will always be someone to take it off your hands. Keep walking until either something (e.g. a barrier you can't climb) or someone (e.g. person with a gun or ticket machine) stops you. (You'd be amazed how much money this rule can save.)

(3) If locals speak to you, they want money. There is an argument in some quarters that some of them may just be being friendly, but in my experience any conversation that starts "hello, where do you come from?" inevitably ends "for you, only 10 US dollar".


On Thursday we took a mini bus from Jogja to Pangandaran. The road seemed to only have one lane - for traffic going both ways. They're supposed to drive on the left here but vehicles just go wherever there's a gap, however quick that gap is going to be filled by the very large lorry approaching very fast from the opposite direction.

Pangandaran is a beach resort and is emptier than an investment banker's employment prospects. They were hit by a tsunami in July 2006 which caused major damage and scared off the few remaining tourists who weren't put off by the Bali bombings or Boxing Day Tsunami. It's a shame really because you can immediately see the potential the place has. It's just a narrow strip of land pointing into the sea with a small jungle at the end. The beach is wide and sandy, but alas covered in rubbish, so it isn't ever going to win a blue flag.

We had a tour of the wider area today including demonstrations of how to make brown sugar from coconut oil and how to carve puppets. Naturally they tried to flog us the produce afterwards. We also visited the Green Canyon. It was green.

Tomorrow we head for Jakarta. Apparently they have traffic problems there...

Rich.

DAY 114 - Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia

Ubud is a small town inland on Bali that rather fancies itself as an artist colony. That would be stretching it. But the place is a million times nicer that Kuta, which was a bit of an arm pit. Oh, and the restaurant waitresses kept putting flowers behind our ears which back home would count as assault (except you could hardly claim the weapon was lethal - except maybe to your pride).

We've taken to not booking hotels in advance. This has the advantage of being able to negotiate price, but the disadvantage of risking your place of choice being full. In Ubud we came off well. We got in our first choice hotel with 17% knocked off the price. Here in Yogyakarta we had to try three places before finding a room, at an above budget price.

Bali is terrible for being harassed by taxi drivers and shop owners pedalling their wares. You have to learn to shut them out. If you try to be polite and say "no thank you", they take this as your opening gambit in negotiating a price, so we've taken to staying stum.

There's some very nice countryside around the town with very picturesque paddy fields, tiny villages and rolling hillsides. Everyone seems to own a dog: more acurately, a pregnant dog. I don't know where all the boy dogs are as all the canines you can see look like udders on legs.

Saturday we hired a car and driver for the day and took a tour further afield. There were lot of temples, volcanos and pretty villages (to which you could make a donation). Of particular interest was a cave full of bats which the locals worshiped. Despite my respect for their beliefs, I can't really claim to understand the religious significance of it all, but I was surprised that they didn't clean the very large amount of guano off the furniture occasionally.

One of the ways the locals try to squeeze more money out of you is with the Great Sarong Con. The temples, quite reasonably, expect people to dress respectfully when entering. Anyone with shorts on is asked to cover up. The locals however tell people that they must wear a sarong and that they, fortunately, have one available for a "very cheap price". We fell for this once or twice, which was particularly embarrassing as I for one don't look particularly good in a dress. In
one place they were telling tourists they needed a Sarong even though they weren't allowed in the temple! The cads.

On Sunday we flew to Yogyakarta in Java. We were confidently informed (curse you, Lonely Planet!) that we could just turn up at the airport and we would be fighting people off trying to sell us tickets. Wrong! We had to wait 7 hours for a flight at an inflated last-two-tickets price. Bah!

On a darker note, it's becoming increasingly difficult to ignore what's going on back home with the economy going down the pan. I can't ignore the fact that I'm spending money while the rest of the world is saving it. Robert Peston and his blog have become the fifth horseman of the apocalypse. Mostly it's the being isolated from real events, so I can't judge how bad things are or are going to get. For the first time i'm giving up reading the BBC website and The Economist,
otherwise I have no hope in hell of enjoying the rest of this holiday. Any good news would be welcomed. We may have to economise and stay in hotels without flush loos (I'm not giving up air con!)

Rich

DAY 109 - Kuta, Bali, Indonesia

Hi there

Well, back on the 'orse then, as they say.

We arrived in Bali on Monday after a 24 hours of planes and airports.
It both is and isn't what I expected. It's every bit a tacky as you
would expect from an over-developed holiday resort but in many ways
that's quite reassuring. There will never be a world shortage of
tshirts with profanities written on them. On the other hand, I had the
same feelings on arrival I wrote about 5 years ago when I landed in
India for the first time: isolated, tired and like I'd landed on
another planet. The difference this time of course is that I'm not on
my own and those feeling dispersed quite quickly.

The jet lag is pretty bad. The plan for the first night was to get
wrecked due to it being my birthday. Unfortunately after a couple of
beers I could barely avoid slumping my head on the table. I hit my bed
only to wake up at 2 in the morning. Got a few more hours sleep later
but was still zonked in the morning.

Bali is cheap. I mean if you really want to pay £100 plus for a room
there are some international chains who will gladly take your money
off you're hands. Hotel and living costs are probably £15-20 a day per
person. And that's for a good room. You could do it much cheaper if
you wanted too. This is apparently the off season. It's hot, sunny,
dry and full of people. I shudder to think what high season is like.

Definitely in backpacker territory here. Everyone wants to speak to
you; the street hawkers shout at you relentlessly as you walk past
(no, I don't want a flight to Aceh - it's a war zone); lone tourists
try to start up a conversation with you (yes, you have been to more
countries than me and no, I don't care) and then there are the ladies
of the night who stare at you continuously and without blinking
(because it would just be rude for them to start the conversation and
besides, it's your job to buy the drinks). One waitress even had the
cheek to ask for a tip (the food was overpriced and we're on a budget).

Met a writer called Brian Thacker Tuesday night. Amazon describe his
book as a smutty but amusing travelogue. He gatecrashed our table
apparently looking for material for his new book, so I told him my
story of the poo throwers of Delhi. He seemed reasonably impressed.

Rich

DAY 104 - Orpington, UK

Hello there.

 

It's been quite a few weeks. I suspect you've been wondering where i've been, haven't you? After Japan we few to Sydney and had a few days of sight-seeing, eating, drinking and general normality. Then on the Monday morning we got a call from home that a close relative had passed away. By the middle of the afternoon we were on a plane back to London. We couldn't have been further away if we'd tried.

 

Being stuck at home for the last few weeks hasn't been particularly fun, what with blanket coverage of near-miss financial Armageddon all over the TV and radio, and the histrionics of impending recession in the papers. Even Terry Wogan's been at it. To cap it all off, last week I developed a nasty reaction to the Lariam anti-malarials i've been taking. I'd been joking about all the stories of it sending you mad for months, but i'm not laughing any more. Suffice to say, i'm off it now and the worst seems to be over. (For the record, it didn't make me loopy. No more so than usual, anyway.)

 

On the bright side, Harlequins have had a fantastic start to the season and the new Keane album is quite good...

 

Anyway, looks like we'll be off travelling again on Sunday, so i should be able to spend at least some of my birthday on Monday on the beach in Bali. The rest of Australia has had to be scrapped, but i'm sure I'll do it again some time in the future.

 

Rich

 

PS: Don't forget to write (particularly from work!)

PPS: www.energiser.net

DAY 87 - Orpington, UK

Travel suspended.

Normal service will resume in a few weeks.

DAY 82 - Nara, Japan

Hello there. Last posting from Japan today. I've had a fantastic time here, but I can't wait to get to Sydney. I've had enough of rice, polite smiles, temples and bottom-washing loos to last me a few years. Australia will be familiar, English speaking and rice-free (well, at least there'll be an alternative). I've just discovered though that my two favourite pubs have both closed down, which has put a slight damper on it.

 

On Sunday we arrived in Beppu. It reminded me of Eastbourne in winter (coastal, wet, with a faded seaside glamour - but hot). The draw there were the thermal baths (Onsen) and volcanic springs. Each spring cost Y400 to have a look at, but the quality varied considerably. The places that only really had a small pool of coloured water or spring to look at tried to jazz up their attraction with displays of fish, animals or gardens, which were invariably rubbish. The most disappointing was the geyser, where we waited 20 minutes to see a small column of water strain to raise itself a couple of meters above the ground. Was a bit like watching a sink backing up. The best had fantastic Japanese gardens and lots of hot bubbling pools of varying coloured liquids and mud.

 

We had two main meals in Beppu. On the first night we had sushi on a conveyor belt - only i hate fish. Luckily they'd branched out of just seafood and had little burgers on rice and chicken nuggets on rice too. Very civilised. The second night we had all you can eat and drink for £14 which was a big mistake. Not saying anything else.

 

We also decided that this would be the place where we gave up the hotels and stayed in a Ryokan, a traditional Japanese Inn. The room had paper walls and dividers, and you had to leave your shoes at the main entrance and wear slippers everywhere (provided, but for people with feet considerably smaller than mine). Also, there were no showers in the rooms - we had to use the communal onsen on the ground floor and wander around in a dressing gown the whole time. All very interesting but two nights was enough. One peculiarity was the camera outside the room so they could see when you went out. Twice a day they'd pop in to change the table to a bed and back again, moving all your stuff around in the process. Grrrr....

 

Final destination in Japan is Nara. It took a while to get here and it's a nice enough place, but it's main draws are... you guessed it.... temples. We saw one set today and gave up. The flight goes at 21:50 later tonight and we've another day of temples to get through until then. Groan...

 

Rich.