Homeward Bound

Well another trip is over. I'm sitting here at Changi Airport about to head back to Darwin. Will get in at 4:35am and back at work at 8:00am. Why do I do it to myself?

I'm sitting in Qantas Club again. There's not much need for it at Changi, considering there's more to do outside of the lounge (as well as free Internet) but I came in for a drink and to scope out the joint. Would be the place to be if you were delayed for a few hours, but... I'm gonna head out in a bit and have a look around.

If you've read along, I hope you've enjoyed the stories. Will be back online for the next trip, in early July for my bro's wedding in the US.

Hope all is good where ever you are. Have a good night's sleep for me!!

More photos from the beach!

Here are a few from Krabi. I've tried to resize them for faster uploads, but they may be a bit too compressed.




Railay Beach




Another Railay View. You can see that the backdrop is nicer than the beach.




My view on the drive to Khao Lak




A Khao Lak sunset



On the beach in Ko Similan National Park. (That's my hat, that is now at one with the ocean...)

Separate ways

After spending a few days in Khao Lak and an overnight camp in Ko Similan national park (Yes, Gab, I camped!!) Jen and I have gone our separate ways. She's heading off to Chiang Mai, then over to Vietnam and Cambodia. She still has a few months of travel left. I only have a few days. My new job in the NT won't start until the 4th. I'll go back to my old one next week, but there's no rush to get back. So I've changed my flights and will stay the weekend here. Better at a beach I can actually swim at without getting killed by stingers or crocodiles. Plus the weather is better.

I get back to Darwin at 4:30am on Tuesday, and start work at 8:00. Luckily, I have a cold so I should be able to legitimately leave work early for a sleep...

I lost my hat.

My mum will be pleased that it's not my passport, but I have lost my faithful hat. It was one I bought in St John's when I was in Canada. I went into a store that was selling Free Newfoundland merchandise - a lighthearted movement aimed at separating that province from the rest of Canada. I liked the hat. It was comfortable and meant I could tell stories about joining the Free NFLD movement and fighting for independence from the oppressive Canadian confederacy.

Anyway, it's somewhere in the Indian Ocean now no doubt. I left it on the beach in Ko Similan National Park. I was distracted after rolling over and breaking my new sunglasses and left in on the beach as I scrambled for some sticky tape to fix them.

I have new sunglasses now. A brand new pair of designer sunnies that cost me $10... they'll last longer than the sticky tape at least.

So it looks like I'll have to go back to St John's to get a new hat. Or find a new independence movement to join.

I love soft openings

Am staying at a resort in Khao Lak that has just re-opened after the tsunami repairs (there's still heaps of damage around here). They haven't finished everything yet, so the place is having a 'soft opening' which means that you can stay and enjoy the rooms, the service, the pool and the beach and have to put up with a bit of construction during the day.

For $70 a night, I'm prepared to splurge to feel like a king for a couple of nights!

And now for something a little more lighthearted

A lot of the toilets in Asia have a water hose next to them with a spray nozzle. Considering some places don't have paper, I presume that this hose is used to clean your rear end. But for the life of me I can't work out how to use it without making a massive mess. The water pressure out of this hose is so intense that if you didn't clench you'd have a full digestive tract irrigation.

Anyway, I haven't been game to try it. One place I stayed said that no toilet paper could be flushed... but I used one square each time, flushing in between. Bangkok has no water restrictions, so I figured what the heck?

The Laughing Gecko and Railay Bay

After a two hour bus trip, hour taxi ride, a few hours in the airport and another ride in a packed bus we arrived at the Laughing Gecko Guesthouse in Noppharat Thara, which isn the next beach on from Ao Nang, near Krabi. The beach was so-so there, but the water was warm and it was great to jump in for a swim.

The Laughing Gecko is a very 'rustic' place - I think the bugalows wouldn't survive a stiff breeze. A French Canadian couple had the floor of there's fall in this morning as they were lying in bed. They took it in good humour. Only squat dunnies and cold showers, but that was bearable. Less bearable was the bloke in the bungalow diagonally across from me who decided to bed down his latest purchase at 2 in the morning - the whole thing sounded totally freaky, and sadly a complete absence of soundproofing meant it was pretty hard to avoid the early evenings 'entertainment'. The couple in the next bungalow (a nice Welsh/Aussie couple who were moving to NZ to work as Vets were far from impressed - they are closer to his bungalow that me and apparently that's not the first time they've had to put up with late night shenanigans.

But the positives of the place outway the bad. The owners were a Thai Canadian couple who were very welcoming and engaged with their guests. The food was awesome and they had guitars, so I was able to strum away my guitar withdrawal symptoms.

We headed out to Railay Bay for a day to stay and play in the bay and while away the... that's it. No more 'ays' seem to fit. The backdrop there is spectacular, with massive limestone cliffs rising up out of the water. A shame the beach was pretty ordinary. Still worth a look though, and would be nice to stay out there.

I'm really surprised how not-busy Krabi was considering it's the peak season. We're in Khao Lak now, and it's really quiet here too. Everyone must still be in Laos!

A few photos

A view of the bridge over the River Kwai. This isn't the bridge from the novel and film, which was a smaller wooden bridge about 200 metres downstream. This one was still built with POW labour.



Jen and I at the bridge







A few more heartfelt grave stones. (Of course I left a flower for the third one.)

And now for some from Luang Prabang, Laos...



A streetscape in LP



Some of the buddhas at Pak Ou cave



Me by the river (not the Mekong - the other one... which clearly isn't famous...)



My 3 dollar hair cut - he didn't speak a word of English, but it turned out okay!





Waterfalls - very chilly, but worth a dip

A beer with my dad's uncle

Yesterday I found the gravestone of my dad's uncle Ian (who my dad was named after). He died - apparently of dysentry - at the age of 26 while a Prisoner of War on the Burma railway. Or perhaps murdered would be a more apt way of putting it, after wandering through a few museums, which all too graphically display various forms of punishment and torture used against the prisoners.



I had SMSd my dad to find out if his uncle and father had been at Changi or the Burma railroad, and he told me that his uncle had died at the Burma railway, so I thought I'd see if I could find his grave, which I was able to do despite the 6000 odd graves.

I figured I should leave something and wandered back to the place we're staying hoping to come across a place that sold something apt - maybe a flag or a token of remembrance. But I couldn't find anything. But I had another idea and went into a Seven Eleven and bought a couple of beers. There weren't any Aussie beers available, so I grabbed some Heineken instead. Considering the number of Dutch graves (more than any other Allied group) he was probably mates with more than one.

So I went back to the cemetery and put a beer on his grave and drank the other one. A good place to reflect on the tremendous loss that must have bee felt by his own family, and the families of all the others killed needlessly.

I left him a note with his beer and headed off. No doubt one of the Thai gardeners will enjoy a Heineken tonight, which is fitting considering how well they look after the cemetery.

'Some day "Tom" I will understand'

Hello from Kanchanaburi, Thailand. Arrived here today after hopping on a bus from Bangkok. Kanchanaburi is best known as the site of the Bridge Over the River Kwai, and there is a lot to see here relating to the experiences of POWs, which suits a history teacher like me (and anybody with any sense of the importance of the past.)

It's hard not to get emotional as you wander among the graves here in the war cemetery, where over 6000 Allies are buried - most of them Dutch, which was something that I didn't know. Allied deaths also pale against the number of locals who died at the hands of the Japanese army, with over 100,000 killed. It's hard to read the messaged inscribed on the grave stones by loved ones, particularly as many of the dead were younger than I am now. It's also awful to think about how terribly they died. There are many messages about dying nobly in service to one's country, but it's hard to imagine there was nobility in dying of starvation, dysentry or cholera. To think that these men needlessly died because of the cruelty of the Japanese army is awful to think about. It's easy to see why so much bitterness remains.

There were many poignant messages, including the one in the photo below, which I think captures the whole thing best. I hope Tom's parents were able to understand, but since I struggle to do so, I don't know if it was possible for them. There was also a message from a mother who said that since her son was buried in a foreign land, would visitors put a flower on her son's grave for her, so of course I did.

More on the cemetery tomorrow, and also on the Hellfire Pass museum, where we're headed tomorrow.

Luang Prabang in depth

I'm currently in stinky, smoggy Bangkok enjoying the concrete after four days in Luang Prabang in Laos. It's only a quick stopover on the way up to Kanchanaburi for two nights to see the Bridge over the River Kwai and Hellfire Pass. We decided to cut short our trip to Laos by three nights to fit this in. I think it will be well worth seeing - the Changi memorial has whet my appetite for more history, particularly an aspect of Australian history that should not be forgotten.

Luang Prabang was pretty neat, and well worth a visit - though try to time your trip outside of the peak season. There were tourists absolutely everywhere, which detracted from the atmosphere as a cultural destination - not enough to spoil it, but enough to be somewhat of a distraction. The air was really hazy as well, which took a bit away from the spectacular mountain scenery - probably the main reason I was keen to move on. Will save the mountains up north for another time. It'll be worth another look in the wet season when the crowds are fewer and the air clearer.

There were a tonne of Aussies in LP, and most of the them really young. I think it was te biggest concentration of young Australians I've seen in one foreign place since Banff. It's good that a stack of young people are putting a cultural destination like LP on their itinerary, though I dare say the trekking and the fact that LP is a transit point between Thailand and Vietnam plays a role. As well as the fact that Vang Viang is only 5 hours away and that place seems like a magnet for backpackers. Am kind of disappointed I missed it - not for the crowds of stoned youngsters watching re-runs of friends, but just to be able to say first hand what the place was like. Certainly the scenery sounds fantastic.

LP was pretty well set up for backpackers, with a lot of open air markets cooking fresh local food (which no doubt explains my present case of Bali Belly, or perhaps more accurately "loose Laos" bowels. Too much information I know - not so bad, just a digestive adjustment... But the food was really good and it was a great way to meet up with other travellers. We met up with this guy from Germany last night, and as part of a discussion on travel mishaps he outlined his misadventure in Australia while hitch-hiking, when he was offered a lift by a gay nudist. Certainly one of the best travel tales I've ever heard!

We had a couple of trips in the general area - one to Pak Ou caves, which is a collection of buddha statues that have been placed into caves next to the Mekong River. The boat trip up the Mekong was probably better than the caves themselves, but it was a good trip. Though cold - I regretted not packing something warm. Amazing how bloody cold it was in the morning, and how hot it was in the late afternoon. Bit like the Aussie outback.

Also had a trip to some local waterfalls where we jumped in for a swim. The waterfalls were beautiful (a bit like Buley Rockholes in the NT for those who have been) though with turquoise water. The water was more than a tad cold, but it was still worth jumping in.

That's about it for now. Will attempt to upload some photos now I'm back in BKK where the net speed should be better.

Hope all is good where-ever you are!

Southern Laos Photos

Sorry... It's still way too slow to upload too many photos.




Sorry... you'll need to look at this one sideways... A buddha at Wat Phu.



Looking down over the ruins at Wat Phu.

For my mum

I am kidding about the opium. I'll get amphetamines instead....

This young Aussie lad I was chatting with last night showed me a photos of a 'happy' menu that you can get in Viang Vieng - milkshakes, pizzas etc. with every drug imaginable available. He also showed us some photos of travellers totally stoned off their faces.

There was a reason I skipped Viang Vieng! (It was the long bus ride...)

Luang Prabang

Well I was glad I opted for the 35 minute flight versus the 10 hour bus ride from Vientiane to Luang Prabang! I'd say I was getting soft in my old age, but I think I was born soft... Long bus trips are out in my book.

Luang Prabang is well hyped, and it's a pretty good spot to check out. Lots of narrow alleyways with local markets containing delicacies such as live frogs, bugs and rats. It's really touristy (as you'd expect) but it manages the tourism hype pretty well. There are stacks of people here, including heaps and heaps of young people (as in straight out of school age) which is a bit surprising considering this is more of a cultural destination. I guess it's a good spot between Thailand and Vietnam, and there are plenty of kayaking and trekking options about the place.

I'm ready to chill out for a bit. I'm in a bit of a mid-trip slump at the moment. I need to turn off my brain for awhile. Might see if I can find myself some local opium...

Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaooooooooooo Aiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrlllllllliiiiiiinnnnneeeeesss

Just thought I would try to represent the speed of their check in procedures.

Actually quicker than this wi-fi connection so that's all for now!

A quiick Vientiane update

There is a connection between Pat and sleaze. Patpong, Patong and Pattaya are all full of old men and young Thai girls. It looks like you can add Vientiane to this list as well, with far too many older men and young Lao girls roaming about the place.

If you ever come to Laos, then a quick stop in Vientiane to experience some good, cheap French food will make it worth the trip, but other than that, this place is a waste of time (unless you really, really, really love Wats). There are too many riverside eateries, too many restaurants, too many tuk tuks, too many Wats and not enough tourists. The whole place seems empty.

Will be good to get up to Luang Prabang today. The whole town has been heritage listed, and I've heard good things about it. Hope it lives up to the hype!

Venting in Vientiane

I actually don't need to vent. I just wanted to include alliteration in my title. Although my feet are sore after walking from Wat to Wat during the day. What Wat? you may be asking? Well, Wats are Buddhist temples and there are a lot of Wats in Vientiane.

The flight up from Pakse was uneventful. At least I didn't have to pay for food - my jam sandwich and mandarin were free, which was good. Get with the program, Jetstar! And Lao Airlines doesn't give a shit about the 100ml shampoo bottle in my carry on either.

Bit to early to give feedback on Vientiane, but the food has been good. We grabbed some noodles from a street seller, which upon closer inspection appeared to have bits of kidney in it. But I fished the brown bits out and the noodles were really good. We had french food tonight (Laos was once part of French Indochina) and the food was fantastic. I couldn't finish my souffle. The whole thing cost $14. Bargain. Lonely Planet says that Vientiane has some of the best quality-to-value food on earth, and it certainly looks that way!

Still no photos. Am on dial up speed here.

As we speak...

Three monks are surfing the internet right behind me. I sneakily took a picture - wasn't game to ask. Only in Pakse, eh?

This computer is slow. The space bar doesn't work, and I have to press ALT 64 to get an @ sign... So this will be brief.

Went down to Wat Phu today, which is about 45 km south of Pakse. After visiting the temples at Angkor in Cambodia, I was interested to see how they would compare. Despite not being as impressive as Angkor, the absence of the 'you want cold drink!!?!' women was a plus. This Wat was also spread up a mountainside and the view at the top down over the temple and out towards the Mekong River was well worth it. The trip across the Mekong on the wooden ferry was also an experience!

Am enjoying Pakse. The monks are sitting next to me now! How bout that?

Am sick of this keyboard. Will write more in Vientiane - will get there tomorrow.

Muk nut in Laos!

Muk nut is Lao for pineapple. Don't quote me on the spelling...

Pakse's first impression wasn't too good. Wasn't particularly bustling, and there were a lot more tourists around the place than in Ubon. But it didn't take me long to warm up - particularly after a wander along the Mekong, and witnessing a local game of petanque - which, unlike for my travel buddy Jen - did not involve any unwanted sexual harrasment.

The trip across the border wasn't too eventful. I was sitting next to a Canadian guy who had been living in Ubon for a few months to learn Thai boxing. He was doing his visa run (crossing the border, just to head back in for another 60 days). It sounded like he'd been having a good time and experiencing some Thai food not seen on the menu - raw meat fermented in blood or intestine soup. He was instructed to buy a live lizard in Laos (where apparently they are purchased quite easily) which he was to take back to Ubon zipped up in his backpack. I think he was relieved when he couldn't find one for sale. Apparently you can buy all sorts of exotic creatures, such as sloths and monkeys, that you can keep as pets until you get sick of them, and which time you can eat them. Perhaps we could let the RSPCA know this a good way to deal with those abandoned Christmas puppies!

I enjoyed a BeerLao watching the sunset over the Mekong, which was very nice. Food has been ho-hum so far, so will need to scope out the options and see if Ubon food can be beat!

Off to Wat Phu tomorrow. One of the 1000 Places to See Before you Die, apparently. Always nice to be reminded of your own mortality whilst travelling. Particularly with the traffic around here...

Ubon Ratchathani

I'm writing this from Pakse in Laos, after spending most of the morning travelling from Ubon Ratchathani across the border into Laos.

Ubon was a pleasant surprise. The guidebooks don't say all that much about it, and I can see why since there's not much by way of tourist attractions, but it was still an excellent opportunity to experience a bit more of Thailand away from the farang. We crossed the road from our hotel and ventured into the local market. For about $4 we ended up with pad thai, spring rolls and about 20 satay sticks (I only asked for five - lost in translation) plus salads and two cokes. Throwing caution to the wind, I tucked into street food hoping for the best and luckily the food was as good as it tasted as it all went through okay! Definitely a highlight of the trip so far because nobody there spoke any English, and all the signs were in Thai, so it was a good opportunity to mingle with the locals. I think they were pretty excited to have us there enjoying their cuisine.

This trip is certainly reinforcing why I love thai food...

Some photos

I finally got the computer figured out...

The markets in Little India. Be grateful you can't smell over the internet... yet

Messages at the Changi memorial. Sorry it's sideways - will post it right way up when I can!

That's all the photos for now. This computer is slow!!

Farewell to Singapore

Hello from Thailand. It's been a couple of days since my last post - it's too easy to get lazy with the computer when you're out and about enjoying the surroundings. I'm currently sitting in Ubon Ratchathani, which is to the east of Bangkok and close to the border with Laos. Tomorrow (hopefully) we'll make it across the border. The level of English understood by the people here at the hotel is pretty low, so it may take a decent attempt with the phrasebook and sign language to make to the bus station to get to Pakse in Laos.

Since the last blog, I've enjoyed the little things about Singapore. Little India. Little Arabia. Chinatown (unusual since most of Singapore is Chinese). We hit Little India on New Years Day, which I assume is a public holiday in Singapore since the place was packed. It had a lot of atmosphere - particularly in comparison to the Arab quarter, which seemed geared towards tourists. We went into one of the local markets, which stank due to the fish and meat on display. So powerful were the fumes that it gave me a blood nose, so I had to fork out 10 cents to get into the bathroom for some toilet paper. There are two improvements that I think the western world has made in comparison to the Asian world. The first one is adding prongs to chopsticks to make forks. The second one is decided that toilet bowls should be lifted from the ground so that people can sit on them, rather than hovering over the top in a squatting fashion. Fortunately, it was my nose that needed wiping and not my arse, so I didn't have to go through with it...

Before heading out, we visited the Changi Memorial for the prisoners of war from World War Two. It was quite a good exhibit, but perhaps the most moving aspect of it is where the descendents of survivors and victims of Changi and the Burma Railway leave messages for their loved ones. It was also interesting because it also highlighted how bad life was for the people of Singapore, and how they suffered at the hands of the Japanese along with the Allied troops.

No photos today. I can't upload anything on this computer, so will add more later.

New Years' Eve Singapore - No place for the phobic...

Well Happy New Year everybody! I've just experienced NYE Singapore style, along with about two million other people, all of whom seemed to follow me around from the subway through the mall and out onto the esplanade.

It was a night of crowds, and crowds with hands, and crowds with hands touching me everywhere as we fought and jostled for a coveted place on the escalator and out into fresh air. It's no place for the claustrophobic or the agoraphobic. You wouldn't want to be aphenphosmphobic or enochlophobic either, although considering the tight space and sweaty bodies, ablutophobics woudn't feel out of place.

My new friends on the staircase

The night began trying to figure out the Singapore public transport system in order to get into the city, which eventually got us on the subway along with most of Singapore. The City Hall subway station was amazingly busy, but we finally made it to a staircase and up out into the fresh air. Or so we thought. NYE sees the Singapore Auxillary Police out in force, and it's clearly their time to shine and exert their power. We were stopped half way up the stairs because it was too busy out on the park. About 20 minutes later we headed back into the bowels of the Singapore light rail system and to an alternate exit.

Eventually we found position and waited for the fireworks. A lack of watch meant that I had to rely on my camera's clock to figure out the time, but it seems like I was out by seven minutes. Fireworks (fairly spectacular) were followed by a Singaporean youth tradition of shooting shaving foam and sticky string at everyone, which if nothing else meant they had to put their PSP and mobile phones down for a few minutes. In fact, it was more entertaining watching the sea of digital cameras and cameraphones aimed at fireworks in the crowd, than watching the fireworks themselves!

Nice view of a building... with the fireworks behind.

Leaving straight after the fireworks probably wasn't the best course of action, since 90% of the crowd had the same idea. Backtracking the way we came didn't work, since the pseudo-police had blocked off that route, but after another hour or so trapped in crowds, fighting for position, we made it back to the subway. It was late and I was tired and we got lost in Geylang. For those who don't know Singapore, if you're cyriphobic you may want to avoid it. Finally made it home by about 2:00am...

Off to Little India then out to the World War Two memorial at Changi today.