Category: Asia (Page 2 of 6)

Xi’An

August 10, 2016 / terry

Our 16 carriage bullet train.

6 to 10 August – We caught the train from Beijing to Xi’An today, a roughly 1200km trip taking around 6 hours. The 200km/hr average was achieved despite 7 stops by the train rattling along at speeds reaching 306km/hr. At that speed, passing another bullet train at a combined speed of 600km/hr is a real blast. We passed through a number of cities along the way, including Shijiazhuang and Zhengzhou but in reality, most of the journey was through towering housing estates. It seems as though for every 30 storey housing block, there are three being constructed. Several car manufacturing plants spread across areas greater than the average Perth suburb and enormous freeway complexes crisscrossed the land. Amongst all this concrete, the Chinese still find room to grow crops, and a great many trees. Corn dominated, along with green vegetables. The train was very comfortable, despite the fact that we had booked second class seats in error. Past experience has made us shy away from second class seats but in this case it was more than enough.

Along the way, we got an email message from Booking.com to say the hotel we were heading to was no longer available. We hastily research another, thankful that we at least received a couple of hours’ warning.

The train terminated at Xi’An North Station, leaving us a half hour subway trip into Central Xi’An. With backpacks on, we negotiated our way out of the station and onto the Metro. The entire journey was below ground so we really had no idea of what things were like until we emerged from the subway at Xi’An’s famous Bell Tower, right in the centre of the ancient walled city. We found our hotel easily enough and booked in. It wasn’t long before Christine had the maintenance man in to fix all the things that were wrong with the room. One thing she couldn’t fix was the breakfast, included with the booking. It turned out to be a plastic bag for each guest, containing four slices of dry bread, a paper cup, instant coffee with whitener, a brown boiled egg in a sealed plastic bag and some pickled salt vegetables. Excellent for weight loss.

Our wonderful breakfast!

Fortunately, the hotel is in a brilliant location, right in the hub of things and there is no shortage of eats and interesting sights. After settling in, we roamed the streets for a while, got a beer or two and picked up a few interesting pieces of street food to take back to the room.

Xi’An is the capital of Shaanxi in China’s North West. It has been China’s capital city through the Zhou, Qin, Han, Sui, and Tang Dynasties was the starting point of the Silk Road trade route to the West. Because of this, there is a significant Muslim influence. The city itself has a population of 8.5 million with 13.5 million in the immediate area.

The city walls. Why would you try to invade?

The Central part of the city is walled, the ancient fortifications being in excellent condition. Many old buildings are in evidence around and the shopping and nightlife districts center around the famous Bell Tower and Drum Tower, both of which served as warning towers and time-telling towers. The main streets are very wide, with underpasses provided at regular intervals to facilitate crossing and wide open spaces are much in evidence. The traffic seems heavier than Beijing with a greater proportion of cars. With fewer electric vehicles, the traffic noise is greater too. Fortunately, the pedestrian is well protected from having to interact with vehicles, except for the rogue motorbike riders who make a run down the expansive walkways.

We spent a very pleasant three hours wandering around the central area, taking in the sights. One beautiful area was Shuncheng Lane, full of antique and calligraphy shops, all set along beautifully shaded walks and the air full of interesting aromas of incense and strange spices.

Shuncheng Lane

We wandered around the Drum Tower, an amazing structure from the 14th Century with enormous skinned drums lining its sides. The interior is filled with incredible furniture displays, much of it dating back many centuries. There must have been a fortune’s worth on display. As with all ancient Chinese buildings, the roof is the feature, an amazing web of highly decorated solid timber beams supporting a bamboo and clay-tile covering. It is a great spot to take in the expanses of the city and appreciate the simple yet effective planning and use of open space.

Part of the Drum Tower

Next to the tower, the Muslim Quarter beckons, a highly touristy yet wonderful experience. Everywhere one looks, there is food being prepared over open coals or little frying pots. We sampled a number of things on sticks, the highlight being a large whole cuttlefish coated with spicy stuff and grilled. It was absolutely the best squid/cuttlefish we had ever had, and we have had a lot. Another option would have been a skewer containing three crabs (in shell), dusted with a coating and grilled. There were pieces of meat being stuffed into unusual flatbread creations, long toffee-like creations being pulled and twisted into metre long hanks and all manner of meats roasted on bamboo skewers. The street is around 500m long, employs thousands of people (literally) and was packed with customers. Every other street food experience from now on has this to live up to.

Cuttlefish on the left and crabs on the right – both spicy and delicious

Just to prove I do eat street food.

The XiAn City Walls enclose 36 km² of the city with a 14km long fortification, with regular towers and gates spread along its length. Initially built in 1370 by the first Ming Emperor as a defence for establishing Xian as his capital, the walls are 12m high and 12-14 metres wide. We entered the wall at the South Gate and hired a couple of bikes to complete the ride around. It was interesting enough and thankfully flat, although the same can’t be said for the road surface, it being composed of paving and cobbles in various states of repair. Repairs to the structure are an ongoing work and the balance between original ancient works and modern reconstruction seems to have been well met. However, riding a bike for 14km across the cobbles takes its toll, producing a nagging headache and a growing pain in other more tender regions. The wall is a great place to take in XiAn, but the view was not all that exciting, being composed mostly of towering concrete accommodation blocks and blankets of smog. After 10km, we left the bikes at the West Gate and descended from the wall, not because we were unable to continue, but more because it was the best access point to walk to the Muslim Food Street for more street food delights.

The Terracotta Army is probably the most famous of Xi’An’s attraction. Discovered buried under farming land in 1974, the army consists of 8000 life sized warriors, each one unique, along with all the support an army needs such as cavalry, supply trains, transport wagons and the like. It was created to protect the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China around 200BC. It is reported that more than 700,000 workers were involved in the creation of the army. The figures have lain protected by dry earth for centuries, and once exposed to the air, the paint and lacquer covering immediately deteriorates, peeling within seconds and falling off after only 4 minutes.

We set off to visit the site out in Lintong, about 40km out of XiAn. Having done some research, we figured the best way was to catch the number 306 public bus from the XiAn Railway Station. Setting out early to avoid the crowds, a trip on the subway took us to the station. The buses were reported to be out the front to the right but there was no sign of any buses at all. Then it dawned, the instructions we had researched were for XiAn Central and we were at XiAn North. Damn! Back on the subway, alight at the the nearest stop and walk around 2km to XiAn Central Railway Station, fight our way through a collection of parked taxis and trucks to find a long line, a very long line indeed. It snaked back on itself three times before reaching the place where the number 306 arrived. After 45 minutes of slowly moving forward and yelling at people attempting to push in, we finally got on the bus and paid our 6RMB ($1.10) fare, better than the 250RMB for a taxi and set off for the hour’s trip to Lintong.

The bus dropped us off and we followed the crowds through to the ticket office, another long walk past numerous small souvenir stalls and dodgey eateries, to find the entrance ticket was 150RMB ($30) each. Ouch! As soon as we had our ticket, the “hire a guide” people were on to us and followed aggressively, insisting they were official English guides. “GO AWAY!!” got the message across and we entered the viewing area. Actually, we got access to another half kilometre walk through parklands to a security check and bag scan. Once through that, we followed a crowd to another gate and very nearly went through it until we realised, just in the nick of time, that it was the EXIT. It was nearly a very expensive walk. We located the correct building and joined the 3000 or so other people inside. Fortunately, the building, a huge aircraft hangar suspended over the excavations, is so huge that it easily accommodated the enormous crowd.

After all the effort, it was good to finally see the army, or one part of it. There are four pits, but only three seem to contain warriors. It is thought that only three pits were completed by the time the Emperor died and that work ceased soon after. Pit One is certainly impressive but the true wonder lies with the history and endeavour behind the creation of the army. The sight itself is a bit of a disappointment really. The scope is almost beyond imagination and the workmanship superb but this is one of those times when we probably didn’t need to see the actual thing to appreciate it. A good research session (which we had done before hand) is probably enough and some of the virtualizations and films on the Internet are excellent. Still, it is another thing ticked off the list.

The walk back to find the number 306 bus was no shorter and the heat had climbed into the mid thirties. We grabbed a bite to eat from some street vendors along the way and took the ride back to XiAn. By the time we had walked another 2km to catch the subway again, we were bushed.

XiAn is a wonderful city to visit. It has all the pollution problems of Beijing and its population is well out of control but it is well organised and easy to move around. For the history buffs, there are a great many places to visit. We only touched on a tiny percentage of the many historic sites dotted around the city. For the foodies like us, it is pure heaven. I’m not sure that we will be back because there are so many other places to explore but it is a place I can only recommend.

China – Beijing

August 7, 2016 / terry

1 August – It was an early start, leaving Kinglsey at 4:30am in 3 degree temperatures. The Air Asia flight to KL was very good indeed. We had organised a third empty seat through their “OptionTown” arrangement that bags us an extra seat for $28. However, it proved unnecessary as the plane was only about 60% full so there were loads of spare seats anyway. They did move us to their special “Quiet Zone”, with subdued lighting, no catering carts and no kids at no extra cost. Christine moved to the empty row of three seats in front and stretched out for a while.

Unfortunately, we had bought our tickets from KL to Beijing at another time so through carriage of luggage was not possible. We had to enter Malaysia, pick up and luggage and check it in again when the baggage check for our flight opened. Given that we had a 7 hour wait, it gave us something to do. It is amazing how quickly one tires of looking at shops, especially when every shop seems to be selling things at a heavy mark-up. We wandered into a computer shop that seemed to be selling 80% Apple products. I found myself wondering just what kind of person would by a new MacBook while strolling between Immigration and the Boarding Lounge. It’s not as though they were cheap or anything, they seemed to be the standard Apple price, which is way more than the cost of a couple of air tickets. I can picture the arrival at home with the small son rushing up and asking if Dad had bought him a present from his business trip to Malaysia. Dad throws him a MacBook and sends him to his room to play. Perhaps it is money well spent afterall.

You can probably tell from the way I am writing that I am utterly bored sitting waiting for our 6pm boarding to come around. We have splashed out on the next leg with Premium Flatbed seats.

The flight was bumpy but it worried us not, because most of it was spent in a pleasant sleep. Flat-bed flying is THE way to go, so much so we may have to start buying Lotto tickets again. The process of going through the formalities at the airport was painless enough and we were soon through customs and into the main area, scanning for some form of information on how to get into the central city area. It is usually best to try to avoid going outside and looking lost because you are setting yourself up to fall prey to touts.We were approached by one guy but we fobbed him off. Next was a woman in a smart uniform who tried to take us in tow. We protested and she showed us her airport badge and announced that she was airport information. OK. That sounded fair and looked kosher enough. She took our luggage trolley and led us outside, smack into the official taxi area (with rather long queues in evidence).

She waved the line away saying “Taxi lines too long. I get you better taxi,” and shot off towards the other side of the carpark. A man appeared soon after and took over. We protested but were reassured that it was “OK”. Realising that the woman did not actually have an ID badge on her uniform, I raced up and got agro and in her face. A shout actually got our luggage back and we departed for the taxi line, farewell by a string of abusive comments from our lady.

The official (wearing an ID badge) managed to get us to skip the queue and go straight to a private car. We paid around $10 more than we should have but by this time it was 2am and we just wanted to get to our hotel. The drive in is around 30km but was easy at that hour with very little traffic. Our hotel, The Prime Hotel in Wangfujing Avenue proved wonderful, as it should have been because we did a very unusual thing and booked a 5 Star. The bed was comfortable, the room spacious and the staff very friendly and attentive. Our adventure begins.

View from our hotel room on a clear day

August 2 – 5th Beijing

Beijing was a real surprise. We expected a horribly overcrowded, heavily polluted and chaotic city. Instead, we awoke to relatively clear skies and clean air, a very reasonable traffic flow by Perth standards and a beautifully organised city. Beijing is nothing like the Vietnamese cities we are used to. Here the sidewalks are used for walking and the motorbike relatively rare. E-bikes reign supreme, along with ordinary pushbikes and all manner of tiny electric powered vehicles. Most buses are electric-diesel hybrids and the sight of trolley buses created a touch of nostalgia for us. The network of underground rail is beyond belief, covering an area around 100 km in diameter and consisting of twelve intersecting lines. We only used the subway once and found it highly efficient, although we did manage to get lost in a station.

A not so clear day in Beijing

Negotiating a road crossing is also different to Vietnam, where the incredible jumble of motorbikes and cars means you ignore all signals and just cross at a steady pace. Not so in Beijing. We used the lights at intersections to cross. In the main, the intersections are huge and the walk across anywhere from 30 to 80 metres. The green walk signal seems to mean you have less chance of being run over than the red but safety is not guaranteed. There always seemed to be a few rogue riders or drivers that would ignore the signals and run a red light. Despite this, we saw a lot of people crossing the street while texting or playing a game on their mobile.

On our first walk, we headed down the street towards the Wangfujing shopping area, once a famous mix of everything but nowadays a sanitized strip of glass malls and fashion shops. Very little in the way of English is displayed anywhere, even in eateries. Our saviour in the language stakes was Google Translate. If we wanted something, we would type in the words in English, translate to Chinese, rotate the phone sideways and the Chinese characters would fill the screen. The locals loved it and it always got results. The other way it worked was to go into camera mode and put the phone over the Chinese text. It would translate it into English. One time when we were buying bread, we tried this on a packet of strange looking bread to see if we could gain insights into the ingredients and found that the bread was described as “Woman’s Fluids”. The amazing thing is that we still bought it (tasted great).Once a waitress tried the same thing and looked up some words to use but came up with “pimp or “procurer”. When she realised what she had done she had the good grace to laugh with us.

We found food outlets scarce on the main street that our hotel was on but once into the side streets wonderful eateries were in abundance. Sticking to the tried and tested method of following a crowd proved successful on every occasion and we never had a bad meal nor paid very much. I had read that Beijing food is bland by Chinese standards. Not so. The sauces used were always rich and flavoursome (Manu would have been happy) and the use of vegetables so clever that I could easily convert to vegetarian. Servings were always huge. One time, at a food hall in an electronics mall in Zhongduhng, we shared one plate of food costing 17RMB ($3.50) and barely managed to finish it. Generally, we chose dishes by picture, which proved fairly safe, although checking with Google Translate did save us once from a big plate of pig’s liver (it looked good in the picture).

We decided to take in three of the “must see” sights in one hit by going on a tour. A little travel agent stall next to the hotel sold us a whole day tour of The Forbidden City, Heavenly Temple and Summer Palace, along with the obligatory side trips to the silk factory and Chinese medicine place. It was a small tour, with a Spanish family of three and a young British woman escorting a pair of very young Chinese twin girls. The tour guide (Nancy) spoke very good English indeed and was very efficient at getting us through crowded checkpoints and ticketing areas.

The Forbidden City is everything that one imagines. The architecture and scale of the complex of palaces and walls is staggering. However, it must have been a very lonely existence for the Emperor and his many concubines, locked away in within the walls. The crowds of tourists were large but things moved smoothly enough. Entrance is limited to a mere 18,000 at any one time so things don’t get out of hand. Our tour guide lead us through the South Entrance, a process that only took around 20 minutes but later, we saw the crowds headed through from Tianamen Square and the line stretched nearly a kilometre. This is a time where a tour group is the way to go. What I found sad is that most of the structure, although built in the 1400s by the Ming, was rebuilt in the 1880s after the joint English/French forces burnt it down in the 1860s because the naughty Chinese refused to buy enough opium. Later, we found the same was true of parts of the Summer Palace, the Emperor’s summer retreat outside of Beijing. The most outstanding feature of the Forbidden City is the roof structure, an incredible piece of architecture. Unfortunately, the underlying wooden structure also proved to be its undoing as the invaders had little trouble in setting fire to the whole thing.

The crowds were manageable

The Temple of Heaven is a beautiful round structure sitting on top of a low hill and is another Ming structure dating from 1420. The Emperors used it to pray for good harvests and other desirable outcomes. Again, the scale of the building would be impressive even in today’s terms, and the intricately carved white marble walls and balustrades that surround it feature as a wonder in any city in the World. By the time we had toured the site, we were developing a real admiration for the Chinese ability to climb stairs. Everywhere required the mounting of elaborate sweeping stairways and if no suitable hill was present, the ancient simple made a mountain by digging a huge hole and depositing the earth, thereby gaining a man-made lake alongside.

The Temple of Heaven

The Summer Palace was built by the Quianlong Emperor in 1749 as a birthday present for his mother. He expanded on some earlier man-made lakes to dig a huge expanse of water to cool the breeze in the heat of summer and create the 60 metre high Longevity Hill from the spoil. The very impressive palace sits atop this huge mound, surrounded by lesser buildings such as a library, reception halls and a restaurant/opera house. We crossed the lake in a ferry and took the 2km walk back around to the entrance, revelling in the wonderful maze of buildings surrounding the library. It was like working through an early computer 3D maze game, with every courtyard looking similar and access to the next through a simple doorway with raised step. I half expected ninjas to pop up as we progressed through the intricate maze.

A ferry crosses the lake to the palace

The Summer Palace on top of Longevity Hill

A visit to a silk factory was fascinating and educational. An old machine unwound the continuous threads from several cocoons at once spinning it into skeins of beautiful soft silk. We watched four women stretching hanks of spun silk outwards into rectangles and layering them to create incredibly light but warm doonas. Surprisingly, these were quite affordable, although still coming in at around $150 for a medium weight queen size. Unfortunately, most shirts were the same sort of cost and a full suit was well into the thousands. We looked around for a bit and when it was clear that none of our group wanted to purchase anything, we made to leave. Our guide stopped us and said we had to stay for another 20 minutes so we all sat down and read things on our smartphones for another 20 minutes.

Making a doona the hard way

The Chinese Medicine thing was really funny. Our tour group of 5 adults sat in comfy chairs and received a presentation of the wonders of Chinese medicine and diagnosis while soaking our feet in tea. Then, while the feet were massaged, a “doctor” came along, asked our age, and looked at our hands to diagnose our inner secrets. Amazingly, he suggested that Christine had joint issues and that her weight would make these worse. I had prostate issues (unusual for a 63 year old male) and would cease being able to urinate unless I agreed to further treatment. He offered to treat our terrible problems with secret herbs and spices (at a cost of course).

A whole day of touring left us leg sore and weary so we opted for a day off before tackling more tours. After a late rising and some work on the Internet with future bookings, we decided to track down an electronics mall to see if getting a cracked screen on my Asus phone was a possibility. An Internet search revealed a large complex of IT business in a suburb way to the north on near the 4th Ring Road so we decided to use this as a learning experience for tackling the subway. Our closest station was Dongsi, which is a transfer point for Line 2 and Line 5. We had to go through a luggage scanning checkpoint where even our water bottles were checked by a machine to make sure they were OK then descended into the depths of the Earth on two enormous escalators. At some point, we took a wrong turn and none of the maps we consulted bore the few words that we were seeking. Eventually, a very lovely young lady offered her assistance. It turned out she was going the same way as us so we tagged along with her. Her name was Gloria and she told us, in perfect English, that she was studying in Verona, Italy, something she was happy about because her boyfriend is Italian. Gloria guided us through the next change onto Line 4 before leaving us, a few stops before ours. We have found that where the language difference is not such a barrier, people are genuinely friendly and helpful.

Unfortunately, Beijing proved not to be the place to get my screen repaired (probably because Asus is a Taiwanese company) but the whole experience was fun. We even made our way back on the subway without assistance, except for buying a ticket which took a team of four. We knew we wanted to go to Dongsi and showed the assistant the name but she couldn’t read the English word. After much discussion with other officials, she eventually pressed the button marked “English” on the ticket machine and the rest was easy. It is what I wanted to do in the first place but then three people wouldn’t have had jobs.

The Great Wall of China – No trip to Beijing would be complete without a visit to the Wall. There are many different parts of the Wall to visit, each offering a different experience. Some parts, such as Betaling, are relatively close to Beijing and the wall has been fully restored. Some areas have almost no restoration and are in near wilderness areas. We chose to go to Mutianyu, a bit of a compromise in that it is mostly restored but in a heavily forested part of the mountains around 70km out of Beijing. What was supposed to be a half day trip turned into a long day in a tour bus of around 20 people, many of whom were Chinese nationals, with long hours spent trapped in very heavy traffic. It didn’t help that a number of guests were late, probably also caught in traffic.

Once at the site, the uphill climbs commenced. Even the walk to the ticketing office was bad, not up steps but just up a long steep road.

We avoided the 800 step climb to the base of the Wall by buying cable car tickets, a really smart move because once at the top, we were presented with many more steps. Actually walking on The Great Wall of China is one of those moments in life, along with seeing Uluru for the first time or the Eiffel Tower. For a large part of my life, I did not think I would ever do it, with China being closed to us. The crowds on the Wall were heavy but manageable, although there were lots of crazies who insisted on stopping half way down a steep set of 500 year old stone steps for a selfie while everyone else behind tried not to think about plunging headlong down. The Wall crossed a particularly rugged area and snaked up and down. It didn’t matter whether it was up or down, the walking was strenuous, made worse by the hot and humid weather. We had entered the Wall via Watchtower 14 and had intended to walk to Watchtower 22, before returning, but the poor visibility made it pointless to push on to the end. The promised views would not eventuate. We were devastated that we had to cut the gruelling walk short but there you have it. Those who did make it to Tower 22 were rewarded with a beautiful plastic gold medal on a large yellow and gold ribbon. Who needs the Olympics?

The Ming had long legs?

By the time we got back down via the many steps and the cable car, we had little left in us but to find a place to have a beer and wait for the rest of the tour. When they had arrived over the next hour, some having made it and some not, we all enjoyed a Chinese meal together before facing the long bus trip back to Beijing.

We ended up loving Beijing. It is a bit expensive to live in as a tourist unless you head away from the central tourist areas. However, the rewards are great, with the sheer scale of the city blowing away any possible preconceptions. This is a city with a population close to the entire population of Australia. The figure stood at 21.4 million by the end of 2014. The building program makes anything else I have seen look ridiculous and the efficiency of the place is staggering. However, Beijing also represents what the rest of the World will become if we don’t start to do something about the population growth. Beijing’s growth has at least slowed in recent years. The pollution that the whole of China’s North East is famous for has reduced significantly since 2010. We experienced some clear days and some terrible days. I have seen lots of evidence to suggest that the Chinese are making more of an effort to reduce the impact of humans on our fragile Earth than we are. In Australia, we still seem to think that growth is desirable.

Hue, Hanoi and Kuala Lumpur

March 26, 2016 / terry

Hue, Hanoi and Kuala Lumpur 14-24 March 2016

The second week of the PVI project in Hue provided more work than the first. Enough progress had been made at the Hope Centre to allow a painting team to get started. It proved to be hard work. Many of the walls were newly rendered and the cement was still wet. The builder supplied some very cheap, thin white paint but no sealer so the paint simply soaked into the walls as fast as it was applied. Three and even four coats were still not enough to give a good finish. Still, we did the best we could and worked hard to try to complete as much as possible. Past projects have always been completed on time, or at worst, a few bits of painting remained for a skeleton crew to finish off after hand-over. This time, the time-line has been set by the local builder and the job will not be complete. Our contribution has been considerable but the main responsibility lies with the Vietnamese team, who would not be as concerned as us if the work is finished a few days late.

Work on the Hope Centre

Members of the team came and went, some took a trip over the mountains to Hoi An to scope out some possible work for 2017 and others took overnight trips to various locations. The dreaded illness also seemed to strike some down, not the usual tummy wog experienced in these parts but more of a cold/virus thing. We seem to have avoided it so far.

It seems as though we have been in Hue for months rather than a bit more than a week. Negotiating the hustle and bustle of the city streets is second nature to us now. Food wise, we have explored most of the tastes and places on offer around our area and have even given in and had pizza and a few chips. It is amazing how good mundane western food tastes after a diet of noodles and rice. One thing we will miss when we get home is the coffee. Vietnamese coffee does not suit everyone’s taste but we love it, either cold or hot, along with a good dose of sweet condensed milk. It is strong with a heavy mocha flavour. Our attempts to replicate the taste back in Australia, using the same equipment and imported Vietnamese beans, never seem to work for some reason.

It will be a wrench tearing ourselves away from the amazing breakfasts every morning. We have had daily access to all kinds of yummy pastries and tiny sweets, as well as pancakes. The egg chef has been kept busy and the home made yoghurt is the best ever. Despite all the walking and hard work, there seems to be a kilo or so added to the frame so it will be cold porridge and thin gruel for the next few weeks.

Friday was the deadline day and when it finally arrived, it was surprising just how well everything had gone. The Hope Centre was ready for occupation, with the painting not finished to our standards but certainly good enough. The Lotus Centre looked terrific and the changes that have been made, with increased sheltered areas, are certainly appreciated by the group of disabled folk who rely on the centre for support.

Handover Ceremony

The handover ceremony consisted of an inspection of the completed work and the usual speeches, along with a spread of food and drinks at the Lotus Centre. It was quite a large crowd by the time the clients of the centre, the local workers and the remaining PVI members all joined together. With a few beers down, it occurred to us that the whole job may have gone better if we had started out with a party to get to know each other. It was one of the better after work parties we have been to in Vietnam and it was satisfying to see just how pleased the users of the facility were with their new buildings.

We said our farewells to all the other PVI workers, most of who would have departed Hue by Sunday, and made our way back to the hotel to pack ready to move on.

We caught the Friday night train out of Hue at 9pm with a 15 hour trip to Hanoi ahead of us. Our four berth compartment was already occupied by a young British guy travelling on his own. By coincidence, he had just come from WA for a friend’s wedding in Yallingup. We chatted for a while and learnt that he was a vegetarian, which is definitely not a problem in Vietnam, but also allergic to nuts. I’m not sure how one would cope backpacking with a nut intolerance, especially in a country where people will answer “yes” to any question they don’t understand. Around 11:30pm, the train stopped in Dong Hoi and a local girl joined us to complete the set.

Dawn saw an overcast sky with a lot of mist and light drizzle, typical for this time of year. We have done quite a few train trips through the northern parts of Vietnam and enjoy them. The never ending rice paddies are broken up now and then with small villages and the occasional provincial town. Having worked in similar surroundings, the scenery is familiar. We relaxed, read and dozed until the train neared Hanoi. We had a moment of nostalgia when we stopped at Phu Ly station. Everything looked so familiar, even though it has been a couple of years since we were last there. The town looked much the same, with a few new buildings going up, although we heard from our friend Van later that the big market had burnt down, causing quite a few problems for those who relied on it for business.

As we left the station in Hanoi, the usual taxi tout rushed over and bullied us about taking a cab. Looking around, there did not seem to be a well organised rank like in Danang and Hue. He assured us that he had a metered taxi, and led us to an unmarked four wheel drive. We refused that and insisted on a meter so he took us to marked cab, which did sport a meter on the dash. There was no sign of the driver but the tout bundled our bags into the passenger seat, covering the meter up and shouted over the crowd for the driver. The driver eventually turned up, grabbed the offending bag and put it in the boot, but then moved another bag to cover up the meter again and we took off. When we got to the hotel, the final bill was 376,000dong, about $22 for what should have been a $4 trip. I was quick to get the bags out of the car before we refused to pay. He opted for 200,000d but we stood firm and gave him 100,000d, still generous but enough to shut him up without a brawl in the street. Gotta love Hanoi!

An easy re-wiring job

The Old Quarter of Hanoi has undergone a few changes in the last few years but mostly for the better. On weekends, the Ma May area and surrounding streets are now closed to traffic from 7pm onwards. In practice, this means the traffic eases between 7 and 8pm before the streets become totally clear. Lights have been strung above all the streets and the atmosphere is fabulous, buoyed up by the presence of a few market stalls and some street performers. Fortunately, the el cheapo fresh beer (Bia Hoi) and the street food vendors remain. There were a few other PVI people in Hanoi so we enjoyed a wonderful BBQ together, cooking little strips of chicken and vegetables over hot plates with a beautifully spiced marinade. The weather warmed, we ate, we drank, we walked, all as one should do when in Hanoi.

With Van in Hanoi

Our main reason for coming north to Hanoi was to catch up with Van, the lovely young girl from the Rice Restaurant in Phu Ly. Although we had not seen her for nearly three years, we had kept in touch via email and Facebook. We brought her a wedding present of an Australia themed table cloth, about two years late, but better late than never, and spent a fabulous morning with her wandering the Old Quarter. Van did not know this part of Hanoi well so together we worked out where we were with a map and found our way to the markets. Having a local with you in the markets cuts out all the hard work of settling on a good price of being forced to buy things you don’t want. We had loads of fun wandering the markets and buying bits and pieces for the grandkids. Then we went to a restaurant and shared lunch before saying our farewells, with Van facing an hour’s drive home to Phu Ly. She is still studying and commutes to Hanoi on weekends for study. On weekdays, she teaches accounting at the University in Phu Ly. It was wonderful to catch up with her and see how she has grown into a very sophisticated young woman.

Our friend Quyng

On our final night in Hanoi, we headed down to Bia Hoi corner to have a drink with Quyng (the shoeshine man). He is a very likeable guy who always greets us warmly and asks after other members of the PVI team. He lives in a village about 100km out of Hanoi and returns home for a few days every couple of weeks. The rest of the time is spent finding ways of earning a living on the streets of the Old Quarter. He could be so much more, with his obvious intelligence and good levels of English. We always enjoy catching up.

We have noticed that the various small eateries have really expanded around the Bia Hoi corner. Where once there was two or three kerbside beer kegs going, now most places run a Bia Hoi, selling draught fresh beer at prices as low as 16 cents a glass. It must be having an impact on the larger restaurants and bars because the security patrols now turn up at regular intervals and throw everyone off the streets. Quyng told us that they were not police but security, employed by the Government. They will stand around and do little for a while then suddenly order all stools and tables removed from the roadside areas. Sometimes, they will confiscate the stools and tables, later selling them back or selling to the larger establishments. While we were having a meal later on, they came through and we had to scamper for cover as the eateries rearranged the furniture, meals and all. The whole process is mystifying but fun to watch. I guess I can see the larger restaurant owners’ point of view but one feels for the little guys too.

Bia Hoi

An early morning flight out of Hanoi bound for Kuala Lumpur brought our Vietnam trip to an end, a welcome return after missing a few years. We will be back.

Yummies in KL

Kuala Lumpur was unchanged, not surprising considering we were here only two weeks ago. We made our way back to the Hotel 99 and checked in. This time, we had given ourselves an extra day in KL and needed an activity to fill in the time. Despite the fact that we have been to KL many times, we have never fully explored the city, tending to just wander the markets and eat wonderful food. We stopped in at the travel desk in the hotel lobby and booked a half day tour of the main sights of the city, then went out to wander the markets and eat wonderful food. After a plate of Bee Hoon, some excellent crispy squid and six pairs of sox, it was back to the hotel to watch a Jackie Chan movie (appalling).

The next morning, we had a rare sleep-in, followed by a lazy morning, before setting off in the afternoon for our city tour. There were only ten on the tour, yet they still took us around in a large tour coach, quite a feat of driving in the congested roads of Kuala Lumpur. The driver new all the short-cuts and work-arounds to avoid the many traffic jams. The tour was excellent and we certainly saw a lot of sights that we otherwise would never see. The National Museum was very well presented and we would have liked to have more time there, exploring the excellent exhibits portraying Malaysia’s colourful past. The chocolate factory was the usual selling stop but at least they gave plenty of tasting samples and we did end up buying some for family anyway. Batik is a craft form we both admire. The Batik Centre had some fine examples and we could watch people at work on some amazing creations. There were photo stops at the famous twin towers, a war memorial, the King’s Palace and other points of interest. It was after 7pm by the time we got back to the hotel, somehow managing to be the last drop-off.

Petronas Towers

The King’s Palace – KL

The Batik Centre

Our last night in KL was spent having a beer (surprise) and searching out some Murtabak, our favourite straits food. We have sampled this delight in Singapore, Melacca, Langkawi and Penang and always try to experience it when in Malaysia. Unfortunately, the Murtabak we found in Jalan Pudu was acceptable but not up to our exacting standards. Christine can do better. The pancake was thin and the filling too thick. Oh well, we’ll just have to try again another time.

The 7am Star Shuttle Bus had us heading back to the airport the next morning on our way home again. It was great to catch up with old friends, make some new ones and touch base again with our beloved Vietnam.

Phong Nha Caves

March 15, 2016 / terry

Phong Nha Caves 12-13 March 2016

The weather in Hue turned bad at the end of the first week of our PVI project and prevented our work team from completing the outside work. A small crew could still work on the electrics and ceilings at the Hope Centre but with so many of us looking for work, we decided to head off on a sight seeing trip for the weekend. One group headed off on Friday afternoon to Phong Nha, a bus trip of around 200kms. We were too tired to face a four hour mini-bus trip so we elected to go on our own on Saturday morning.

We had an early breakfast to be ready for the mini-bus, which arrived half an hour late anyway. We squeezed ourselves into the back seat, where the bumps are magnified but the leg space is better. I hate mini-bus trips. It wouldn’t be so bad if one couldn’t see ahead. I favour painting over the windscreen. It wouldn’t make any difference to the driver because they don’t seem to worry about other vehicles anyway. They are incredibly skilful but still terrifying. We shared the back seat with a Belgian couple who were only travelling as far as Dong Hoi. They were good company and I managed to understand 80% of the conversation.

Our cosy little mini-bus

The bus followed Highway 1 as far as Dong Hoi then turned inland to the mountains. The countryside south of Dong Hoi is very different to other parts of Vietnam being largely sand dune country with low-lying sparse scrub. Except for the difference in plant species, one could mistake the scenery for parts of Australia. Once in the mountain foothills, the rice fields returned, and later, fields of corn and peanuts dominated. The bus we were on was actually part of a tour which would normally depart Hue and return in the same day. That makes for 400km of travel in a mini-bus, a very unexciting lunch at Phong Nha and a one hour tour of Paradise Cave. One hour of touring one cave hardly seems worth the effort and risk to life and limb but plenty of people do it. The guide did convince us to join their tour of the cave for a small fee and it made sense to agree. Following that, they would drop us off at our hotel in Phong Nha.

Along the way to Paradise Cave, a group of four back backers were dropped off at the Dark Cave, where they could engage in a series of adventure activities, including sailing a flying fox across a gorge, cavorting in a mud pile and falling into rivers. We thought we had fared much better when we got out of the bus at the Paradise Cave to be transported in electric buggies the 1km to the entrance. Then the truth came out. It was a further 520 steps up a mountain to the cave entrance. It was a hard slog.

The Paradise Cave

The cave itself was staggeringly beautiful. The Paradise Cave is the final 1km of a 31km long cave system through the mountains, the longest cave system in the World and discovered as recently as 2005. In places, the cave ceiling is more than 80metres above the floor and yet stalactites seem to nearly reach the floor from the top. These are caves that put the others we’ve visited to shame.

The walk down the 520 steps from the cave was probably harder than the climb up, certainly for Christine who’s knees appreciate stepping up far more than a downward motion. Once back in the bus, we stopped again at the Dark Cave to pick up the backpackers. A young German couple joined us on the back seat and immediately became entwined like a couple of snakes. The girl must have assumed I liked her because she had no issues about spreading herself evenly between her friend and me. She just had ways of taking over space with her body. Fortunately, it was only twenty minutes or so back to Phong Nha and we surrendered the whole back seat to the Germans.

Our hotel, the Mountain View, was a small family run business and very good value at $14 a night. The room was basic but spacious and clean. A highlight was the way the network cable ran in through the bathroom window, disappeared into the wall for a metre or so then emerged again to cut through into the bedroom. The view from the windows was wonderful, with a single row of buildings across the road backed by the sheer rise of a line of limestone mountains. In the morning, the mist pouring down the mountains created a picture postcard view. We wandered down through the small town and found some food, washed down with a glass each of Vietnamese Dalat wine. Either the Dalat Wine has improved or our tastes have deteriorated because we have not been able to drink it before. Now it is passable without being great.

The wonderful morning view from our hotel window

In the morning, we endured the hotel breakfast of flat omelette and baguette. Once we had figured out that the butter was rancid and scraped it all off the baguette, we at least managed to eat something. A banana was the highlight.

A short walk took us down to the dragon boat area where we could purchase tickets to tour the Phong Nha Cave and Tien Son Cave. The price of the cave entrance was cheap enough but to get to them meant hiring a dragon boat at 400,000 dong ($23). The boat took up to 14 people so it meant forming our own group. A few more people came along and Christine went into tour guide mode, gathering money from four young Spanish guys and a father and son French pair. Sharing costs between eight brought things back to a good price and together we made a cheerful group, especially since the others had a standard of English far surpassing our French or Spanish.

Entrance to Phong Nhu Cave

The boat trip was a noisy half hour affair down a river full of life and activity. Many small boats were engaged in raking the river boat for weed, which was piled up on the boats. The final purpose of this venture is to provide food for fish farming and fertilizer. Eventually, our boat turned into a smaller stream and deposited us on the bank near the point that the stream disappeared into the cliff face. We followed the signs to Tien Son Cave. Mostly, the signs pointed upward and we followed a tortuous set of steps worse than the climb up to Paradise Cave. Reaching the top was an achievement in itself. The cave was glorious, far smaller in scale than the Paradise Cave but even more spectacular for its amazing formations.

The Tien Son Cave

We explored the interior of the Tien Son Cave for a while then made our way down the steps. The Spanish guys stopped halfway for a beer but we didn’t trust ourselves to make the bottom in one piece so resisted and opted for an icecream at the bottom instead.

When the whole group was at the bottom, we got on board the boat again and entered the Phong Nhu Cave with the engine off and the two crew paddling using long flat oars with rope rowlocks. The girl at the bow weighed about the same as one of my legs but still managed to labour on the oar for the next hour or so as we glided through the beautiful cave. It was so restful that at one stage the soft creaking of the oar and gentle surging of the wooden craft lulled me off to sleep.

Rowing the boat into Phong Nhu Cave

Eventually, we were dropped off on a sandy shore within the cave and we followed the well-made walkways back to the entrance and daylight. By Vietnamese standards, entrance fees to the caves are quite high but they reflect the effort and money that has gone into providing safe and secure infrastructure. The walkways are superb and can cater for the large crowds they get. The lighting in the cave is excellent and is aimed at providing a natural looking enhancement of the features rather than a gaudy light show. Work is underway to open up more of the 31km of the Paradise Cave system and the people of the area can only benefit from the increased employment opportunities that such a wonderful natural feature provides.

The morning cave tour had taken up four hours and we didn’t have a lot of time to spare getting back to the hotel to pack, check out, have lunch and catch the mini-bus for the return to Hue. The drive back was a little worse than the outward trip because the last hour or so was in rain and darkness, which made it appear certain that many motor bike riders would die because of us. Somehow, the driver managed to avoid them all and we arrived back in Hue around 8pm, tired and stiff in the legs from all the climbing but well satisfied with our trip.

Hue, Vietnam for PVI Project

March 10, 2016 / terry

3^rd March to 5^th March 2016 – After a couple of years of missing the PVI Project in Vietnam, the stars have aligned for us again and we are off to complete another two week job. This time, the project has relocated to Hue, on the Central Coast. The job is a continuation of the one started last year, working with the Office of Genetic Counselling and Disabled Children, to upgrade and convert some old buildings into working facilities.

We left Perth for Kuala Lumpur, faced with two days of planes, busses, trains and seemingly endless hours of airport waiting. As every year progresses, the airports get classier, bigger and sometimes more efficient but somehow, the experience remains largely unchanged. In a way I suppose it has changed because when we were poor and untravelled, it was exciting and wonderful to walk around the duty free shops and have a poorly made and overly expensive coffee while filling out immigration forms. Now it is just a bloody awful time to endure.

Our previous entries into Malaysia have been quick and efficient. Things have changed. The areas between disembarkation and immigration are now heavily populated with people of Middle Eastern origins. There are masses of people just sitting in large groups, watched over by officials. I guess that a lot of immigration workers are tied up with refugees because the lines for tourist entry were very long. Getting through took an hour. Back in Australia, we think we have a boat people problem but we sometimes forget that we are relatively shielded compared to Indonesia and Malaysia, who are currently being swamped with refugees. Europe too gets a lot of publicity but perhaps we need to help our neighbours out a bit more and take the pressure off us that way.

We bussed from KL Airport to the Pudu Bus Station which left only a short walk to Hotel 99 in Jalan Pudu. We were thown for a bit until we realised that the bus station had relocated down the road a short distance since our last visit and we soon found our lodgings, not flash but good enough for a one night stand and cheap enough for us. After settling in and having a coffee, we headed off to wander around China Town and brave the cramped markets of Petaling Street. Asian markets are another thing that has lost their appeal, not only because we have been in so many but also because they seem to have popped up everywhere in Australia as well. The difference with the markets in Asia is now mostly down to clothes sizes. I just hate the thought of fitting into XXXL underpants.

The busy intersection near our hotel in KL

We settled down in a grotty looking food area that sold cheap beer and excellent street food, knocking off some of the best crispy squid (Fried Squit on the menu) and some equally delicious Thai Fish Cakes. Later, we stopped for another snack at a much more glamorous looking place and the food wasn’t a patch on the first. It is so often the way in Asia. If you can overcome the aversion to somewhat less than clean conditions, the food outlets that cater to locals will beat the tourist haunts every time.

With full bellies and another early start ahead of us, we headed home to bed,.

Kuala Lumpur is definitely in the wrong time zone. We rose at 6am but there was not even a hint of daylight and the first cracks of dawn did not appear until we were on the 7am bus and headed out towards the airport. An hour of driving through heavy traffic brought us to KLIA2, Kuala Lumpur’s second airport terminal. This huge structure is so enormous you need to factor walking times into your travel plans. Being unsure of how long processing would take, we checked our bags, got through immigration and finally settled down to breakfast at a Toast Box. This is fast food that we love, two barely boiled eggs, soy sauce, kaya toast made with thick sliced butter and honey all washed down with ultra sweet strong kopi (coffee). Bring on Toast Box Oz!

Toast Box at KL Airport. We need one in Perth.

The flight to Danang in Vietnam was only a couple of hours and went without a hitch. Amazingly, we left the airport at Danang and had to actually look for a taxi. There were no touts attacking us or trying to wrestle the luggage from our control. Everything was very orderly. Before we left, we organised a couple of local SIM cards for the phones. $12 bought us a card with unlimited 3G data for a month. I wish I had that in Australia. I could have bought 300Mb of Telstra roaming data for a mere $80.

With a five hour wait ahead of us in Danang, we settled in at a cafe opposite the railway station (Ga Da Nang) and watched the passing parade. It is impossible to tire of watching a busy intersection anywhere in Vietnam, with buses turning front of oncoming traffic, trucks travelling on the wrong side of the road and thousands of scooters acting like a school of bait fish. Unfortunately, you also don’t have to wait long to hear the wail of an ambulance siren as it heads towards the scene of yet another road accident, usually involving a motorbike.

Danang Railway Station

We had a delicious bowl of a local delicacy called Cao Lau, a rich broth filled with thick and thin noodles, slices of roast pork and topped with crispy pork crackling. A couple of Ba Ba Bas (333 Beer) rounded the meal off. Who needs to get on a train?

This was our first train trip in Vietnam in anything other than a sleeper compartment. It will be our last time. The seat in our “soft seat” carriage was comfortable enough but lacked leg room for an average sized westerner. The biggest problem is that every seat was taken and there was little opportunity to get up and move around. Fortunately, the trip was only two and a half hours so we emerged at Hue stiff and sore but not too shaken. The good news is that we had not been so cheap that we had booked the “hard seat” carriage.

Hue is a small city by Asian standards with a population of only 340,000 but it is rather modern and organised, with a bustling tourism industry supporting eateries and even some nightlife. As the Imperial Capital from 1804 to 1945, it boasts a number of UNESCO World Heritage buildings, mostly within the fortified old city (Citadel) or inner Forbidden City. What remains today is what managed to survive the Vietnam War, with heavy destruction resulting from a big battle during the Tet Offensive.

The Cherish Hotel, Hue

Once again, we found things had changed since our last visit. Back in 2011, we got off the train to have our bags whisked away by a taxi tout, before being forced into a dirty little cab that tried very hard to take us to the hotel of their choice, saying ours was no good. This time, a group of uniformed taxi men showed us politely to a waiting metered cab and drove us straight to the Cherish Hotel. The Cherish is certainly a cut above our last PVI lodgings in Phu Ly, with restaurants, bars, a gym and swimming pool. We were soon settled in for the night, safely arrived at last.

Saturday was a lazy day, exploring the immediate surrounds of the hotel and identifying good eateries, a laundry and various other useful spots. Over the course of the day, more and more PVI team members arrived and we had a great time catching up with what looks like a great crew. This year, there are a few new comers, some even new to Vietnam itself. Thinking back to our first visits here, it is easy for us to forget just how much of a cultural shock there can be, although living in the middle of a city like Hue softens the blow somewhat. As always, traffic negotiation is difficult for beginners. The congestion in Hue is nothing like Hanoi or the pace of frenetic Saigon but one still needs to vigilant for the rogue scooter going the wrong way or cutting across footpaths. Wandering around, we did find that we missed the simple experiences of our annual returns to provincial Phu Ly in earlier years, where the sight of a westerner is a rarity and greetings are often shy but warm and genuine.

By Sunday, the crew was assembled and we had all had time to catch up with those we already knew and meet those we didn’t. We helped a few of the newcomers find their way around and work out the tricks behind managing day to day in a foreign environment. We rely a lot on the iPhone. We find that bringing up a picture of what you are looking for helps communication. We have tried phrase books and translator apps but difficulty with the actual pronunciation defeats us every time.

In the evening, we showed a group of newcomers the way to the Hanh Restaurant for a meal. It specialises in “Hue Breads” which seems to refer to a variety of dishes incorporating little packages of a glutinous rice starch with various flavourings. All are delicious and beautifully served in tiny ceramic bowls or wrapped in banana leaf and steamed. Another dish consisted of a crispy pancake creation filled with a paste, mushrooms and other unknown ingredients. We broke off pieces into a bowl, covered with fresh and pickled salad then spooned over a brown peanut sauce. It worked! After trying a lot of different dishes, including crème caramels, and drinking our share of cold beer, the bill came to 60,000 dong a head ($3.80). With full bellies, we headed for home to rest up for the start of work the next day.

Bali (Ubud) – A Family Holiday

July 16, 2014 / terry

6-12 July 2014

This was the trip that was originally planned for Christmas and New Year, leaving Perth on Boxing Day 2014. We postponed it until July, with the little ones’ passports proving a hold up that saw the cost of air fares getting out of hand. In the end, the delay proved beneficial, with the extra six months being good for all four kids, the older two getting more out of their first visit abroad and the younger two being up and about on two feet.

The trip to the airport was complicated by heavy rain, making the juggling of cars and luggage between long term parking and Terminal 2 slightly harder than it should have been. Check-in went without a hitch and we thought we had the whole thing down pat until we hit immigration. Joy’s passport had been chewed in one corner, courtesy one of the little dogs. It had passed scrutiny on a previous trip to Singapore but failed the test this time. After some negotiations with the officials, they agreed not to phone DFAT, who, according to them, would order the passport confiscated, meaning that Joy could not go. We were all rather concerned but having agreed that the risk was Joy’s, they allowed her to take the offending document on the promise of having it replaced on her return. The worry was that Indonesia would also pick up on it and refuse entry.

The wait in departure was short and the kids were kept amused by the many planes and trucks scooting around. We boarded without trouble and scored a bonus spare seat next to Christine, giving us a bit of flexibility with the kids’ seating.

The flight itself was easier than we had thought it would be with no real issues, other than the terrible food. We had pre-ordered to ensure we got something reasonable but the meals were very poor and there appeared to be better fare available on the menu.

Once in Denpasar, we were very glad that we had arranged a VIP service to meet us and process us through immigration. This service gets mixed review on the internet, with many claiming it is a waste of money and unnecessary but with four children and loads of luggage, we found it wonderful and worth the money. We were greeted, our passports collected, along with the Visa on Arrival payment. After a quick check to confirm our pictures matched faces, we walked through immigration and collected baggage before the rest of the crowd arrived. By the time we reached our hired mini bus, the passports were processed and returned. So easy.

It was dark by the time we arrived in Ubud and the kids showing signs of unravelling. We threw everything into our four rooms and hit the restaurant for dinner. This was a signal for the kids to either start crying or behaving like animals, depending on their level of sleep deprivation. Still, we had arrived and there was cold beer in abundance so all was not lost.

We stayed at the Cendana Resort and Spa in Monkey Forest Rd, Ubud. It proved to be an excellent choice for this holiday, with four specially selected ground floor adjoining rooms with good sized balconies and a lovely grassed area out front. Each room had two queen sized beds and cots were supplied for the youngest two. The restaurant was basic but cheap and the two pools, one salt and one fresh, proved a hit with all four kids. There were plenty of places to explore and walk with the children, visiting the birds (hill mynahs with amazing mimicry), the koi carp pool or the “magic steps” down to the spa area.

After a couple of meal times punctuated with crying, screaming or temper tantrums, the children settled into a routine and finding a restaurant for a family meal became a pleasure. Christine had found an excellent baby gear hire service and had two high chairs and a pusher delivered to make life easy. We got a few amused looks from other tourists as we trooped down Monkey Forest Rd carrying the two bright green high chairs in search of a good eatery. We had very few duds, with most places serving up a standard that at least is acceptable.

The Child Whisperer

One place that impressed everyone was the Cafe Wayan and Bakery. It fully deserves its 4.5 Star rating on Trip Advisor, with ambience plus, excellent food and wonderful staff. We organised a “birthday” lunch for Christine, seeing as we will be away from the family on her 60^th at the end of the month. The restaurant turned on the charm in a big way, organising an amazing cake, which was presented by a procession of singing staff. One waiter was a “child whisperer”, proving his skills by picking up both Kelsie and Ashton without causing the usual screaming fit. He really had the knack, creating origami mice out of table napkins and cranes out of brochures. All this and a menu to die for, with the Nasi Campur declared the pick of the dishes, although the crispy duck challenged it for top spot.

Another interesting meal was at a small place opposite the entrance to Cendana. We wandered down a lane to find an outdoor establishment that looked as though it was closed for the night. A lone attendant assured us that they were open so we set up the high chairs and settled in to choose from the menu. Of course, beers were ordered first, then a variety of dishes from the reasonably varied selection. The lone guy hurried away and soon there was a bit of banging and crashing from the kitchen. Then, he was seen scurrying away into the night, to return with some beer, probably from a nearby 7 Eleven. The wait continued and we had to find some ways to amuse the kids, who were showing signs of having a turn. There was more banging and crashing until eventually, nearly an hour after ordering, the lone man emerged to serve up. He was the maitre d’, the barman, the waiter, chef and the cashier all in one. Fortunately, he was good at his jobs and the food was wonderful and cheap. We left a good tip so he was rewarded for his efforts.

A trip to the Monkey Forest was fun. This is a place that is probably best avoided, but with care, can provide a fun excursion. The monkeys, Balinese Long tailed Macaques, are everywhere and always looking for an easy feed. Buying a bunch of bananas at the entrance absolutely ensures that the monkeys will pay you full attention. Apparently, they also love spring water. We watched one young Japanese girl being attacked by two small monkeys, climbing all over her until she surrendered the bottle. Her friends filmed the incident so she could enjoy it later. One friend came undone when a monkey took a liking to his awful woven hat with bright blue trimmings and climbed up to get it, along with his glasses. The girl who had been attacked earlier got her revenge by filming the attack on her friend with the ugly hat. We just kept our hands to ourselves, hid everything of interest and kept a careful watch on the children.

As always happens, by the time came to leave, the kids had settled into routines and life was pretty sweet. Breakfasts ran like clockwork, the day was a regimen of swimming, walking, shopping and dining. We even managed a few night get togethers after the children were bedded down.

We absolutely loved our trip. It was a wonderful opportunity to catch up with the family experiences that we miss by being away so much. Ben and Kelsie got so much out of the experience, gaining in confidence and questioning everything. Lucas and Ashton, the two babes, had a ball, with so many people around to give them plenty of attention. Mind you, none of us could compete with Mum. Hopefully, the kids managed a degree of relaxation, something that is so very hard with a couple of small kids. Joy and Trevor both suffered from slow curing flus carried with them from Australia but, amazingly, none of our group of twelve suffered from the dreaded Bali Belly. Christine and I also really enjoyed the opportunity to spend some quality time with John and Alison, the other parents, something we always promise to do but so often miss out on. As parents of this whole brood, we can be truly proud.

The Magic Steps

iPads keep the little ones quiet.

Who is walking who?

Once home, we wasted little time in getting up to Dowerin to ready the house for hosting exhibitors at the Dowerin Field Days (27-28 August). Then its fly back to Sydney to pick up Sandpiper and resume our travels northwards, hopefully to find some warmth.

Kao San Road, Bangkok, where men need to keep their wallets in their pockets and women need to keep their men in sight.

Bangkok and Kanchanaburi

October 14, 2013 / terry

8-13 October

Our flight from Koh Samui to Bangkok was short, at around an hour. The little Koh Samui airport has to be one of the best in the World. It is all outdoors, with lots of little covered rotundas joined by covered walkways. The departure areas are like Business Class lounges elsewhere with comfortable seating, free Wifi and computers, complimentary coffee, fruit juice and snacks. It is all quite amazing and makes getting to the airport early a real pleasure.

Once in Bangkok, we had planned to take the train from the airport but some confusion with our planning made us opt for a taxi in the end. The taxi seemed intent on matching the 140km/hr speed of the airport train except his 10 year old Toyota Corolla was not so keen. It made lots of creaking and groaning noises as we slid around the curves and bends of the motorway. He did demonstrate how good the steering was by changing three or four lanes at a time. Somehow, we arrived safely at the Abloom Serviced Apartments to be blown away by the quality of the hotel for the price. At around $60 a night, there is a lot cheaper in Bangkok but I doubt there is much better value. We had a suite of rooms bigger than our Kingsley place, use of a huge pool, excellent gym and cheap restaurant. The staff were very attentive and organised taxis etc throughout our stay. Best of all, there was a Sky Train station right outside, giving access to the rest of Bangkok.

Our spacious apartment at Abloom Serviced Apartments

We enjoyed wandering around Bangkok, having little real purpose and just going where things took us. We wandered up and down on the river using a tourist day pass. We sat for nearly an hour in cross town traffic while taking a taxi to the Kao San Road. We ate some amazing street food in Kao San Road and bought a couple of T-shirts from one of the many stalls. Bangkok is a noisy, smelly conglomeration of streets, vehicles and people. Given that we do not care much for temples and palaces, Bangkok itself hold few attractions. With every major car manufacturer using Thailand as a cheap source of labour, cars are relatively inexpensive and car ownership has increased amazingly in recent years. The traffic problem now rivals the worst the US has to offer, despite an incredible network of motorways.

Kao San Road, Bangkok, where men need to keep their wallets in their pockets and women need to keep their men in sight.

Bangkok from the river taxi

Bangkok with its typical pollution

On our way to catch a train to Kanchanaburi, we gave ourselves plenty of time to allow for a possible traffic jam. This proved fortuitous because we ended up stuck for over an hour in almost stand-still traffic. More worrying, was the fact that the streets were full of heavily armed police, not just small calibre automatic stuff, but also big heavy duty rifles. There were police and military everywhere and we started to get concerned about just what we were stuck in. Apparently, anti Thaksin protesters were active again and the government was concerned that protests might interfere with a planned visit by the Chinese Premier.We cared little for the political implications but we were very happy when our taxi driver performed an amazing U-turn and managed to get us to the train station with 15 minutes to spare.

The train ride to Kanchanaburi takes about three and a half hours on the regular train, stopping at all stops. There is only one class available and Thai Rail admits that it is Third Class. The wooden slatted seats get hard on the bum after an hour or so but we managed to bag a cushioned carriage, left over from the days when they had second class. Most of the windows wouldn’t close and people kept moving spots according to which way the rain was coming from.

Kanchanaburi Station

Once in Kanchanaburi, we found a tuk-tuk and made our way to the Pong Phen Guesthouse, where we had stayed back in 2008. Little has changed, except for a fresh coat of paint over everything. There were lots of backpackers around, as well as the older men of dubious quality who always seem to have a Thai girl nearby. Life in the guesthouse centres around the pretty little restaurant and bar at the front where cheap food and drink is in good supply. We off loaded our bag of laundry and wandered along the main road to pick up a variety of street food.

Just near the laneway to PongPhen is the B.T. Travel Centre. They had served us well last time so we headed back. The cute girl at the front desk seemed to get happier and happier as we ordered more services, first a private car and driver to go to Hellfire Pass, then a trip to wash elephants in the River Kwai and finally a car to take us back to Bangkok airport. Everything was organised to our satisfaction and in one swoop, our three days were filled in.

View from our terrace at PongPhen Guesthouse

On our last trip five years ago, we explored the war museums and the poignant war cemetery in and around Kanchanaburi. At the time, the weather was very hot and we ended up skipping the actual walk of Hellfire Pass, site of the horrific work camps on the Thai Burma Railroad. The weather at this time of year is very mild and pleasant so we looked forward to trekking along the 4km stretch of rail cuttings that have been prserved as a monument. As it turned out, only 2.5km was available due to some operations by the Thai Military on the far end section.

Hellfire Pass

The Hellfire Pass Museum is a wonderful shrine to the POWs and Asian workers who died or suffered during the construction of the railway. It was built and is maintained by the Australian Government and offers free entry and free use of an audio commentary pack along the way. A feature of the commentary is actual recorded memories from ex-POWs that help put everything into context. It is a moving experience. Tour groups are not allowed to set out on the walk itself, only private groups. We were equipped with a two way radio and were checked on periodically to ensure our safety. The Thai girl who managed the communications did offer some good advice, “If you see a tiger, RUN!”

Australian Memorial, Hellfire Pass

At only 2.5km, the walk was easy, although we were hot and tired at the end due to the number of ravines we had to cross. The various cuttings we passed through were mostly dug by hand, using hammers, chisels and hoes. The removed rock was carted in baskets to create fill for the ravine crossings. It must have been horrendous work. Faced with the inhumanity of the situation, it is easy to overlook the sheer engineering genius of the Japanese to plan and construct such a rail line in such a short time. Hundreds of trestle bridges were constructed using teak cut from the surrounding jungle.

We radioed in that we had completed the walk and our car came and picked us up to deliver us to Nam Tok Station. After a brief lunch, we hopped onto the train to return to Kanchanaburi via the River Kwai valley, the sides of which were studded with amazing tressle bridges. The scenery was amazing, with towering mountians, spectacular rail cuttings and wonderful river views. It was a great train trip, yet neither of us had any trouble nodding off through big parts of it. We were bushed.

Scenery along the Nam Tok Rail journey

One thing we did notice along the way was the huge area of hemp plantings. These crops looked very much like good old “pot” but apparently are used as a bio-diesel crop. Most of the Kwai Valley seemed to be growing hemp so either the locals are continually stoned or there is money in bio fuel. A bit of research revealed that Thailand ranks sixth in the World for the use of bio-fuels through sugar cane, cassava, oil-palms and hemp. However, there is considerable concern over the loss of food crops to the planting of fuel crops.

The highlight of our stay in Kanchanaburi, and the whole trip, was bathing with an elephant in the River Kwai. We did this on our last trip and loved it, but this time the experience was much better. The elephant camp we went to looks after older elephants that are too old to work in logging operations. Most come from Burma or the highland border country. The love between the handler and elephant is obvious and all the elephants appeared to be well looked after with only light loads to carry and plenty of rest time. We were given a 45 year old female and climbed on to ride bare-back down to the river. The walk down the steeply sloping river bank was quite scary and Christine made lots of noises but managed to stay within the bounds of decency.

Negotiating the steep bank. Can you hear Christine screaming?

Once in the water, the handler jumped off and left us to it. He would call some instructions to the big old girl (the elephant that is) and she would sink us, or gently buck us. Often, we managed to hang on but I got thrown several times while Christine stayed on all bar once, having the ears to hold on to. Getting back on to the elephant was fun, especially over the trunk and head. It is one thing to have a 50kg handler clambering up and over but quite another to put up with our lumbering torsos. The old girl showed great patience.

She was a grand old lady

Make your own caption for this one

Finally, it was time to return up the bank. The handler remained on the ground and barked instructions. The elephant took quite a while to move, seeming to decide on a suitable path up the bank. Once on the move though, she negotiated the climb with ease. I kept telling myself (and Christine) that the elephant had done this many times and knew what she was doing. Christine just replied with strangling noises and one profanity. Having reached flat ground, the elephant walked sedately back to the camp and we climbed off, thrilled with the whole experience.

We changed out of our wet gear and dried off. I found a 1000Baht ($33) note in my pocket which was soaked through. It was only later, about 10 minutes away from the camp, that I remembered it, sitting on the top of the toilet cistern. It was the only money we’d brought with us so I told our driver, who immediately turned around and went back. Of course, the money was gone. It seems that one of the employees found it and had already been to the local roadside stall and spent some of it. Through the driver, I made it very clear that it was my fault and didn’t want any trouble, but it seems that the incident brought some shame to the camp and the boss man insisted on giving me 1000baht. I felt bad but the driver assured us that the camp people would feel better. I’m not sure about the fate of the employee though.

On our last night in Kanchanaburi (and Thailand), we walked to the local markets for a few last minute T-shirts and some reading glasses to replace the pair lying somewhere in the River Kwai Gorge. (Never lean out of a train window with glasses hooked into your shirt). We found an interesting restaurant on the dog-leg bend near the war cemetry called Coffee Paul. It was a small place that shared menus with a larger establishment next door. Offerings on the little Coffee Paul menu were mostly starters and snack food but after sampling some dumplings and fish cakes, we worked our way through four dishes. Everything we ordered was unlike any we’d encountered before. The food was absolutely amazing and at $2 a plate, cheap as well. No wonder the two restaurants were packed when all others around were empty. The locals seemed to know.

Our private car to the airport proved to be a blessing. The traffic in Bangkok is proving so bad that allowances of several hours over and above normal travel times are necessary. In our case, we made the trip from Kanchanaburi to Suvarnabhani Airport in very good time, a shade over two hours. As you travel up to the main terminal on elevated roads, it is possible to see the parked planes stretched out all around. What I did notice was the complete lack of Air Asia planes. The last time we had flown out of Bangkok with Air Asia it was from Suvarnabhani. It is possible they have moved to the older Don Mueang. A quick check of the documentation showed this was the case, leaving us some 45kms away from our destination. Even worse, the driver said he did not know the way. He could drive from Kanchanaburi to either airport but would not be able to find his way across Bangkok. He drove us down the motorway for a bit and stopped in a layover to flag down a taxi for us. After three cabs, he finally managed to negotiate things for us, saying the drivers wanted 500baht up front and another 500 on arrival. In fact, we found that this meant our driver was going to pocket the 500baht and we pay the taxi 500 at the airport. Things got a little fuzzy. All we wanted was to get across town and find the right airport. In the end, everyone got what they wanted and the two mad Aussies paid handsomely for the privilege. Later, we found that Air Asia runs a free shuttle between the two airports.

We seem to be losing the plot with travel arrangements lately. Time to go home. Ahead of us is a two hour flight to Kuala Lumpur, three hours of stop over and a five hour flight. At least the last leg to Perth is in lovely lie-down Premium seats.

Phuket and Koh Samui

October 9, 2013 / terry

2 -7 October 2013

We spent a couple of days in Karon on Phuket and four on Koh Samui, Thailand’s third largest island. We worked out it was our seventh trip to Phuket in just over ten years so we must like it, although in reality, we have tended to pass through Phuket while sampling the delights of the surrounding Andaman Sea. Phuket itself, Patong in particular, seems to get a bit more crass every year.

We stayed in Karon, at the Front Village Resort. The facilities were excellent, particularly the pool whcih was one of the best I’ve seen. The location was also great, with only a short walk to the main areas of Karon Town and mini-marts etc also close by. It wasn’t well named though, because the only thing it fronted was a shallow lake situated between the hotel and the sea itself. In our case, this wasn’t really an issue because the weather was definitely not beach weather. The rain that had annoyed us on Phi Phi seemed even heavier in Karon. On one occasion, the Thorsbys went off elephant trekking while we stayed in. We ended up really staying in because it poured non stop for over three hours. We felt sorry for Chris and Carol but on their return we found that they hadn’t seen any rain. Go figure.

The famous Bangla Road in Patong

The Thorsbys were much more into night life than us old has-beens. The two kids in particular made good use of the Patong night scene. We tried Patong one night but half an hour in a pole dancing club was more than enough for Christine. In the street, we were invited to Ping Pong Clubs (not the sporting kind), offered photos with snakes, lemurs or iguanas drapped over us and generally pimped every kind of human sin imaginable. The streets were crowded, with Aussie accents prominent. We came, we saw, but didn’t sample.

We all caught a tuk-tuk down to the Karon Beach seafood stretch, one of our old favourites. Here we organised a couple of Karon barbecues, charcoal fuelled devices which are a cross between a steamboat and a barbecue. You cook little bits of seafood on a central cone and eat it with the broth and vegetables from the moat around the outside. Fun and delicious.

A seafood barbecue at Karon Beach

Koh Samui is on the opposite side of the peninsula to Phuket, in the Gulf of Thailand. The climate seems slightly drier with rain restricted to the afternoon by and large. The Bangkok Air plane flight was only about half the airport waiting time and had us in Koh Samui by early afternoon. The island is beaches all the way around but the main tourist area seems to be Chaweng Beach, on the North East coast. Protected from swell and prevailing winds, it is extemely calm and very beautiful.

Beautiful Chaweng Beach, Koh Samui

Our resort, the Impiana, was probably a further from civilization than desirable. It has a gorgeous private beach but we like to be able to walk to some cheap eats and markets. From the Impiana, a taxi or shuttle bus is really needed. Still, the resort grounds and beach are exceptionally good and the costs of drinks etc is not too bad. On our first afternoon, Christine and I walked about a kilometre or so down the beach, checking out the various establishments, having a beer (of course) and sampling a roadside pancake stall.

Making a banana and chocolate pancake

All was wonderful until we decided to follow the inland road back to the hotel. Just after we were committed to this action, the heavens opened. We darted from one shop to another to keep dry, eventually setting out on the climb over the jungle hill when all seemed ok but we got caught in the worst rain so far and had to take shelter amongst the creepers and thickets along the way. At one point, we were stopped by a large black scorpion barring our way on the road. It was very aggressive and seemed keen to stab our toes through our open sandals. We made out way around it and soldiered on, now totally soaked. Chris Thorsby told us later he had seen a dead snake in the same stretch of jungle. Taxis are starting to look better.

A nasty aggressive thing

One day, we hired a car and driver named Jai to do a tour of the island. At 52km around, it doesn’t take all that long but we had selected a range of things to see along the way. A private car and English speaking driver is always great value because the talk along the way is as good as the sights you see. Jai was no exception and possessed a great sense of humour.

We visited an elephant village and tiger zoo, where we were able to get some photographs with a young tiger and a beautiful leopard. Christine produced our little “lion” and requested a photograph be taken with the tiger. The handler thought this was a great joke and proceeded to taunt the sleeping lethagic tiger with poor little stuffed lion. The tiger was very interested and became much more active, fixing his eyes on Lion and taking a few swipes with his paw. The leopard too showed signs of wanting to eat Lion so I was quite happy when the handler returned our little friend unharmed. Later, Christine tried to put Lion on a fence near where a mother elephant and calf were feeding. Both showed great interest and it was a close thing between Christine retrieving Lion and junior’s trunk snatching him from the fence. Lion certainly lived dangerously.

Both Mother and offspring like Lion

Lion shakes paws with a new friend

Nothing like a good scratch under the chin

We all jumped into a 4WD to access a waterfall higher up the mountain. Chris Thorsby and I sat perched on a seat mounted over the cab, a decision we came to regret as the driver decided to thrill us all by gunning the little Highlux down some rather steep gullies. Thankfully, the ride was quite short and on the way down, we climbed into the back with the two girls. The waterfalls themselves were worth seeing, but not really spectacular in the fashion of those in the Kimberley or Darwin area. In fact, given the amount of rain there had been, I was surprised by the relatively small water flow.

Chris and I ride the death seat

Namuang Waterfall

Later, we headed to a Go-kart track. Chris had been go-karting in Phuket and was keen for another try. The girls declined so it was just the two of us. In 10 minutes, I think he lapped me around 7 times. We’d opted for the mid-range karts that will do 75km/hr. I hate to think about the Pro carts that managed 125km/hr. The driving is physically demanding and my arms and shoulders were complaining after 10 minutes of hard driving. Two of the bends were very tight and managing the cart around them was a lot of fun. All in all, a heap of fun and worth doing. The next day, Pippa got revenge on her father by giving him a thrashing on the track, that is up until the time she spun out and he crashed into the side of her.

Lion gets his L plates

Chris and I battle it out on the track

Carol and Christine headed into town for a cooking class, opting for an Indian course with Noori India that included Nann Bread cooking. The chef sounded like a fascinating character, having been a primary school teacher before retraining as a chef then moving to Koh Samui. They returned full of praise for him and with heaps of new ideas and skills that will no doubt add to the already growing kilos. Christine found that there is a huge range of dishes that can be made from the same few ingredients, just prepared differently. She brought home lots of “doggie bags” full of goodies so it was lucky that I hadn’t gone off by myself and eaten. The food certainly was delicious.

For our last night in Koh Samui, we all headed into Chaweng for drinks and a bite to eat, finding a terrific little Indian/Thai place that catered for all our tastes. A bit of shopping for shoes and some suitcases for the Thorsbys and all was done. They return to Oz tomorrow, while we fly on to Bangkok.

Would I recommend Koh Samui? Yes, if one wants a beach resort destination because the beaches here are better than other Asian destinations. If it’s night life and culture that you are chasing, don’t bother. It just seems to miss something that I can’t put my finger on. I think I’d head to Krabi before Koh Samui if in Thailand, otherwise Langkawi in Malaysia.

After two four star resorts in a row, we have both reafirmed that smaller guesthouse type accomodation is far superior. The big places look nice, generally have wonderful grounds and great views, but lack that friendly “one of the family” type feeling that we have experienced in so many smaller cheaper places. One can take just so much piped music and perfumed towels before you start to yearn for some genuine friendly service. Unfortunately, the travel media thrives on glitz and glamour and “great people” don’t sell well in glossy brochures.

Koh Phi Phi

October 3, 2013 / terry

Saturday 28 September-Tuesday 1 October 2013

As we breakfasted at the Aonang Beach Home the heavens opened totally, blotting out all view of the nearby islands and even the neighbouring hotels. Fortunately, the wind was down and the seas fairly glassy so our planned sea crossing to Koh Phi Phi would not be too bad.

The usual ute style tuk-tuk picked us up on time and delivered us to the nearby pier where we boarded one of three ferries, all in seemingly good condition. Most passengers boarding scrambled for vantage points outside, but we headed in doors and found a spot to sit with room to stretch the legs. Our choice proved the best one, as later all the others had to seek any shelter they could find from the driving rain.

It is good to see that there is a life jacket hanging on every seat. It is not so good to see that most have torn webbing or broken clasps. Still, we have flown qantas and survived so we can surely manage a trip in the AndamanSea.

Tonsai Bay

Once at Koh Phi Phi, there was just enough time to drop our bags at the Phi Phi Hotel and head off to find the Aussie Sports Bar to watch the Grand Final. Most of the crowd were Hawthorn supporters but there were a few cheers for the Dockers and these actually increased towards the end when people just started to appreciate the intensity of the game from both sides. Christine was openly a Dockers supporter while I didn’t really care one way or the other. By the time the game finished, we had consumed enough Change beer and French fries to be in need of a lie down.

Phi Phi is busier than Krabi but still on the quiet side, especially after the last ferry leaves at 2:30. Little has changed since out last visit a coupe of years ago except for the removal of the last of the tsunami created rubble on the shores of TonsaiBay, restoring it to a nice sandy beach. The prices are 10 or 20 baht up for most food and drink over Krabi but cheap living can still be found. Even the Phi Phi Hotel, one of the classier establishments in the main settlement, is still cheap at around $50 a night.

For most of our three days on Phi Phi, it rained. The temperature was a steady 28 degrees so it was pleasant enough but it wasn’t really great for lounging on the beach. We did feel sorry for the day trippers who were expecting some sunshine and swimming.

A wet view from out hotel balcony.

The Phi Phi Hotel is clean and comfortable and sports a nice pool area. Unfortunately, we had to have regular visits from “Engineering” to fix all the things that wouldn’t work. The air conditioner needed daily re-gassing, although they tended to over-do things somewhat and it was then subject to icing up. When the big thaw set in, we got flooded with cold water and ice particles. The toilet either blocked or wouldn’t stop running but we managed maintain that ourselves. The safe refused to cooperate until they changed the door. Unfortunately, they left the whole safe unscrewed, negating the effectiveness of locking up your valuables. Everything was repaired promptly with a smile.

Despite walking extensively and inspecting many menus, we ended up eating most meals at the Khun Va Thai restaurant on the beachfront. This is a touristy place with a menu selling the usual array of “Thai” dishes and “Italian” fare. At night, it has a fresh seafood display out the front and tanks of live crabs and crayfish. A crayfish goes for around $100 per kilo. We watched one young couple order a whole grilled barramundi, a lobster, several crabs and assorted stir-fries. An expensive honeymoon! We kept to our $3 meals and couple of beers.

Corrupting Lion

When on Phi Phi, we usually hire a longtail boat and go to some nearby spots to snorkel or lie on a beach with fewer people. This time, the weather ruled out such activities but we did managed some kayaking along the cliffs bordering TonsaiBay. We organised a double kayak for 200 baht ($7) and set off with Christine in front. Neither seat was equipped with a backrest like we are used to with our own kayaks and both our backs soon started to protest. Christine’s problem was solved by packing lifejackets behind her with me supporting them with my feet but I was a wreck by the time we reached a small cove with a sand beach. We pulled in for a much needed rest. It was quite interesting because we found the beach and adjacent forest was littered with the remains of wooden boats, testimony to the power of the tsunami.

Out little double kayak

We set off again with Christine behind, supported with the lifejackets and me up front, legs dangling over the edge. This slowed progress but the rest of the trip was much more comfortable. Once back on the beach, we went to a small establishment for lunch. As I went to pay, I found 200 baht in my pocket and realised that we hadn’t paid for the kayak. So off we went back to the kayak man, who was with his mates.

“Sorry,” I said, “We forgot to pay.”

“No,” he replied. “You pay.”

“Yes”, chipped in his mate. “You pay him.”

“No”, returned man one, “You pay him,” pointing to man two.

Slowly the light came on with big smiles all around and much laughter. Man one happily took my 200 baht with much “Thank you Pappa.” It’s the first time we have every had to engaged in a bargaining session just to pay a bill.

On our final day on Phi Phi, the Thorsbys arrived from Phuket for a day trip. We managed to organise a ticket back on the same boat as them and even patched in to their hotel transfer on to KaronBeach. Dean and Pippa had only crawled in at 5am after a night out in Patong so we didn’t get much out of them but it was great to catch up with Chris and Carol and hear all the news about Kalumburu.

For the next three days, it is KaronBeach on Phuket.

3 X 250hp.

Aonang Beach, Krabi, Thailand

September 28, 2013 / terry

25 September 2013

The trip out of KL to Krabi was uneventful, with a taxi from Bukit Bintang to KL Sentral and the Air Asia Sky Bus to the Low Cost Terminal that Air Asia uses. Things actually went too smoothly because we ended up with several hours to kill before we could even get into the departure lounge. The bus trip was very amusing because we ended up on the back seat and the view down the aisle consisted of row after row of heads flopping sideways as people fell asleep. One girl, just in front of us, must have suffered severe whip-lash because her head would collapse sideways at a 90 degree angle every thirty seconds or so. At one point, seven or eight heads seemed to be collapsing sideways in some form of synchronised ballet. We were in hysterics.

Once at the terminal, we delighted in the fact that Air Asia was having a blitz on hand luggage. It always annoys the hell out of us when we take so much trouble to obey the rules about one piece of hand luggage of no more than 7kg and we get pushed aside at the check-in counter by a family with two or three pieces of hand luggage each weighing so much they need to be on wheels. This time, the first thing that happened was the hand luggage was weighed and people were wringing their hands, shouting, pleading and crying, all to no avail. We smiled smugly with our 2 and 3 kg bags and left them to it. We did see one Aussie family with two primary school aged kids who had a neat trick. They put the large backpacks on the kids and made them carry them through. Who is going to stop a little kid and demand that their luggage be measured? Only Aussie could think of that.

Landing in Krabi is a much better experience than many Asian destinations. All transport services have been regulated and controlled so whether you choose to go to your destination by bus, tuk-tuk or taxi, you must buy the ticket from a central place inside the terminal and don’t have to deal with hordes of yelling touts. We never really care what we pay, we just hate being ripped off so this system suits us perfectly. On this occasion, we chose a private car because the various buses do a round trip through Krabi Town and we wanted to get to Aonang Beach ASAP. Our wish was granted, often at over 120km/hr. I’m sure our driver was very skillful and the Honda Civic was near new but if you drive the way he does your number will come up sooner rather than later.

Our reception at the Aonang Beach Home was very entertaining. The first thing we saw was a sign at the front saying “Closed 5 days for Renovation”. Hmmm? Then we met Anoma, a lovely girl who explained that the heavy rain of last week had caused extensive damage and repairs were required. We were the only ones booked at that stage so they were not taking any more bookings but would look after us. That is, all except Friday morning when everyone would be hung over from a staff party on Thursday night. “Sorry! Might be little bit noisy.”

A great view from our hotel bar

All this was explained in such a way that our only wish was to agree and help in any way we could. In short, we were both captivated. The view from the restaurant and bar was to die for, being right on the beach front and facing some wonderful islands that make this region so famous. We settled in and retired to the bar for a refreshing ale. Anoma invited us to jump on the back of some motorbikes and join her and another at the local markets.

In the end, the hotel tuk-tuk bike arrived and we strained the engine of the little bike with 5 up. The markets were excellent. Unlike the tourist markets, most things were priced and having some locals with us to give advice and help negotiate made things easy. We sampled a few pieces of street food, bought a few bits of clothing, a watch and a belt and generally had a ball. The girls laughed at everything and by the time we got back to the hotel we felt part of the family. What friendly people.

Out on the street, we found a laundry for the washing to date, a place to buy a “Happy Tourist” DTac SIM card to give us local calls and Internet and a travel agent to organise an island trip and a ticket to Koh Phi Phi for three days hence. Krabi is certainly quiet, with the high season not starting until November, but the streets have just enough life on them to make them interesting. This place looks like fun.

26-27 September 2013

We relaxed and enjoyed the good life in Aonang Beach. It is a smaller more relaxed version of all that is good about Phuket without the crowds, abundance of trashy bars or over enthusiastic market stall sellers. The occasional tout outside an Indian Tailor’s shop would rush up, try to shake my hand and profess to remember me from my last visit but, in general, walking the streets is a pleasant experience.

We took a day excursion romantically titled “The 4 Islands Tour”. In reality, it is more like the “1 Island, 2 rocks and a Mainland Bay Tour”. The trip centres around Koh Poda, a very beautiful island only a couple of kilometres off Aonang. The scenery here features in many promotional pictures of Thailand and Krabi. Nearby, Tub Island is a landing place to explore the white sand quays that join to two other islets. Our fast speedboat stopped here so we could join the hundreds of others exploring the small stretches of coral sand and standing in front of cameras making victory signs or doing “Toyota Leaps”. It never ceases to amaze me that people can rack-up over 50 “jumping in the water” photos a day and still keep going. I can’t get Christine to jump once.

The sandbar at Tub Island

Despite the crowds, the scenery is all postcard stuff, with towering limestone karsts rising from the sea draped in deep green jungle creepers and surrounded by crystal clear coral waters. Under the water, the coral growth is reasonable by SE Asian standards but us Aussies are spoiled that way. It was also very disappointing to see all the boats throwing anchors down into the coral. We only saw one boat tie up to a mooring buoy. The Government needs to lay some moorings and make their use compulsory to save the coral they do have. Fish life was plentiful enough although there was a definite lack of sizable edible species, despite the waters forming a National Park.

After a snorkeling session, we headed into the beach for a picnic lunch. Normally, the lunch on these day trips is a bit of a highlight but this time it was a serve of dried out steamed rice with a very spicy chicken and onion goo that even a Thai family seemed to pass on. Fortunately, they served up excellent cake and watermelon as afters.

Then it was on to Koh Poda. This is an inhabited island and the locals have fenced off above the high watermark and now insist on 20baht (about 70cents) to land. This move seems to be backfiring as very few people deemed the sight of unkept facilities and run-down picnic areas worth even 20 baht and stayed on the beach. This meant they didn’t have access to the bar and market stalls either.

Koh Poda

Next stop was Railay Bay on the mainland. This gorgeous place is touted as the World’s Most Beautiful Beach (along with a few hundred other spots) but it does have a fair claim. The bay houses a couple of very fancy resorts and is only accessible by boat due to the extremely rugged nature of the surrounding land. We walked along the edge of one huge headland under the stalactite studded overhang and carefully avoided the numerous monkeys awaiting the unwary along the way. The walk took us through to Phra Nang Beach and Phra Nang Cave, a popular pirate lair in times past. Several shrines were set up in the cave entrance, including one that seemed dedicated to phalluses. I guess if one must worship something then this seems a logical choice. In this case, it is an old traditional shrine set up by the fishermen who came to pay homage to the mythical Princess of the Cave and offer her fertility in return for a good catch. Seems like a fair swap to me.

The walk to Phra Nang Cave

The Shrine to the Sea Princess

By the time we headed home, the sea was very choppy and we abandoned our spot up the front and endured the noise and fumes down the back, where at least we didn’t get pounded to pieces. The boat only had two speeds, fast and very fast.

While “The 4 Islands Tour” may not have been the best excursion we’ve ever had, it was a fun day and excellent value. We always find it hard to pass up a boat trip anywhere.

The 4 Islands Tour

We tried some Thai wine, a Red called Three Hills. We could have saved some money by making our own out of rasberry cordial and hand sanitizer. We didn’t try the white on the strength of it. Otherwise, we had very few failures in the food and drink department. There is the usual run of tourist restaurants selling everything from Thai, Indian, Italian and Chinese all in one to the relatively expensive seafood places along the beach. A lot of the beach side places advertise a range of simple Thai dishes for 100baht ($3.30) and, although small servings, seem to be great value when all that is needed is tummy fuel.

We have enjoyed Krabi and Aonang Beach. Not being real nightlife people, we would probably come back here rather than Phuket, mainly because of the genuinely friendly people. Having said that, we leave tomorrow for Phi Phi Island then on to Phuket to meet up with the Thorsbys.