Category: Asia (Page 3 of 6)

Malacca and Kuala Lumpur

September 26, 2013 / terry

Sunday 22 September 2013

It has been quite a while since the last blog and people have started to remark that we seem to have been staying put for an unusually long time. A most enjoyable stint back at work cetainly contributed to the lack of travel but we are back on the trail once again, headed to Thailand for a three week jaunt.

With an early morning flight scheduled , we got up at 2:30 to find Perth once again being battered by a fierce front. A quick check of the radar showed that an intense band of storms would cross Kingsley just around 3:15, to coincide with our taxi booking. It was pretty wild lugging backpacks and making our way to the front gate. Even the taxi driver was a bit shaken by the weather, having avoided downed trees and flying rubbish en-route to pick us up.

Thankfully, the drive to the airport was without incident and we completed check-in smoothly. Flying with Air Asia to KL, we’d applied for upgrade options to Premium Seats or Empty seats. Unfortunately, we missed out on Premium but did bag four empty seats, giving us the luxury of a run of three seats each, easily enough room to stretch out. This set us back 100 Malaysian Ringhit, or about $33 all up and on an otherwise nearly full plane, was absolute luxury.

Lion has come with us, much to amusement of the Grandchildren

With room to stretch out, we enjoyed a comfortable 5 hour flight to KL, dozing, watching movies, reading and listening to music. For future reference, we noted that the row of exit seats immediately over the wing on an Air Asia A300 is really spacious and has a wonderful big box arrangement that the window passenger can reach with their legs and stretch out wth feet up. These appear to be the best seats on the plane outside of Premium.

Once on the ground in KL, we bought tickets for a bus to Malacca and only had 10 minutes to wait. The trip seemed longer than we have experienced previously at around 90 minutes but perhaps that was because we were straight off an air flight. Even so, the bus was comfortable enough and the driver occasionally put his phone down and his hands on the wheel so all was good. Arriving at Malacca Central Bus Station, we pre-purchased a ticket to KL for two days time and taxied to the Halmark Leisure Hotel, a budget job that is reasonably comfortable but very well located.

The Jonker Walk at night

Once settled in (after rejecting one room), we unpacked a few basics and set out to the nearby Jonker Walk, the famous old Chinese Quarter. On Sunday nights it comes alive with street stalls and markets. Wandering up and down sampling the incredible variety of street foods is a great way to go and the sort of thing we come to Malacca for. We had gorgeous little dumplings in a variety of flavours, some chicken samosa style things, a wonderful curly potato deep fried on a stick and delicious platefuls of oyster omlette and fried kweay teow. To get a plate of kweay teow with squid and oysters cooked in front of your eyes and served up for $1 is amazing. Another delicacy was called a Taiwanese Burger which consisted of an egg fired in a deep egg-ring, with other ingriedients embedded and fried to a point where it could be consumed as a hand-held snack. Even more interesting, was a stall selling quail eggs, each one cracked into a shallow semi-cicular depression on a hotplate. Other things were added then a bamboo skewer laid across a run of six eggs, flipped and fried until crisp on the outside. A whole stick cost $1. Apparently, there is not a lot of money to be made from quail farming.

The Chinese-Malays love their karaoke and perform in style at the outdoor setting on the Jonker Walk.

Despite the wonderful street life, the stamina just wasn’t there and by 8pm we were back in the hotel ready to collapse. Age must be catching up with us.

Monday 23 September

Breakfast at the Hallmark Leisure Hotel (with Lion of course)

Despite an early night, we slept late, a sure sign of needing it. After breakfast we lazed around and read until around 11am then headed out to walk to the main shopping area. The Jonker Walk at this hour was empty and quiet, a far cry from last night’s market bustle. It was a real pleasure to be able to saunter slowly on empty sidewalks and cross streets with ease.

In the central part of old Malacca, things have changed little since our last visit, with the exception of the old Dutch administration building, which was encased in tarpaulins as part of some renovations. In the Civic Square, the cyclos, brightly adorned with flowers and fluffy animals, still worked hard to carry us around on a tour but, as usual, we resisted. The general tourist population is on the low side at present and many businesses seem to be taking the down time to take a break. Malaysia has only recently celebrated its Independence Day, with flags still hanging from every vantage point. Perhaps the big period of celebration was a signal for many to ease off a bit.

We sought some relief from the heat (not used to it coming from Perth) in a big modern shopping centre and browsed the stores in a very relaxed fashion. A small cafe attracted us with the lure of lime juice and ice crush mango, both local favourites and ridiculously cheap.

For lunch we headed next door to a favourite haunt from previous trips and stuffed oursleves with local food. We each had a piece of tumeric coated chicken to accompany a plate of Kampong Rojak. Rojak is a Straits variation of an Indian salad, consisting of various cubed pieces of cucumber, pineapple, yam, bean curd etc and covered in a sweet sticky sauce with a tamarind base. It is delicious but very filling. A Tiger Beer always helps food go down in this part of the World.

On the walk back home along the Jonker Walk, we passed one of the many Durian Ball stalls. These small cream puff type creations look absolutely delicious and usually attract a big crowd of buyers but with the crowds absent, we had no trouble buying a bag.

“Put the whole thing in your mouth”, advised the girl, “Eat in one bite.”

We followed instructions, the ball making a definite mouth full. Great texture! Bite down. Wonderful cool liquid spills out of the soft outer coating and floods the mouth. Sweet, smooth and DISGUSTING. We both wandered away with mouths full of awful durian fruit. Even worse, we had five more of the horrid things.

Fortunately, we managed to off-load the bag of durian puffs at the hotel front desk but the taste of the one each we had consumed remained with us for the afternoon. We can strike that experience off the bucket list.

After wasting the afternoon watching a movie and dozing, we headed out again to seek out an Indian-Malay local restaurant called the Persatuan Pengunaha Restoran. The only one who we can understand in Momma so we always just put oursleves in her hands. She manages to supply us with local foods served up on a banana leaf. All other patrons eat with their hands, and we have been shown how by Momma, but the strain of only using the right hand (the left is a no no) proves too much and we resort to forks and spoons. We had a delicious Murtabak and a not so delicious Indian Pancake with coconut sauce. Two big bottles of Carlseburg blew the budget out to around $10. Ouch!

The way food is served at the Indian Restaurant

Tuesday 24 September

Today was a bus travel day. We needed to get back to the KL Airport but decided to spend a night in KL itself before flying to Krabi, in Thailand. The bus trip from Malacca to KL took an hour and a half, all along motorways. For some reason, we always seem to travel Transnational but there are plenty of buses to choose from and everything looks to be the same high standard. However, we did get a bit of a shock when the bus stopped at the new bus station called Terminal Bersepadu Seletan (TBS)instead of the old Pudu Sentral near the end of Bukit Bintang. This is a beautiful, well organised and clean facility that bears no resemblence to the hot, dirty and chaotic place that we last used when bussing out of KL.

The main hall of the new TBS bus terminal

However, being at the TBS did mean that we had no idea where abouts in KL we were and so had to grab a cab. Catching taxis in KL is something to be avoided at all costs. The motorways consist of numerous twisting and turning overpasses, resembling a giant rollercoaster, and the drivers seem to delight in negotiating these in the minimum amount of time. Ours was no exception and his motto was “Give no quarter!” Still, we arrived in the Jalan Bukit Bintang unscathed. The main tourist drag of KL is in a state of confusion, having been dug up while a new underground MRT is constructed. Some of our old familiar haunts have disappeared but the stretch that houses our hotel is still untouched so all was good.

The taxi race tracks of KL

The Malaysia Hotel looks like a house of ill repute from the outside, is grubby and dirty in the lobby, yet is staffed with friendly helpful people and has spacious clean rooms with good facilities. Best of all, it is cheap, something that one has to search for in Kuala Lumpur.

Our main reason for coming to KL was to go to Restoran Venny, a wonderful street-side establishment that sells a wonderful array of Straits food and Chinese-Malay dishes. We always get a great reception and never cease to be amazed at the quality and low price of the food here. Christine is so predictable I think they have her duck ready as we round the corner.

We explored the delights of Restoran Venny and wandered around the local shops. We watched movies on HBO and slept. We now feel revitalised and ready to explore new fields. Tomorrow we head to Krabi in Thailand.

Kep – Rabbit Island March 2013

April 1, 2013 / terry

29^th– 31^st March 2013

With most of the PVI team leaving Phnom Penh and having a few days before our flight out, we decided to duck down to Kep, on the South Coast, about 160km from Phnom Penh. The boys at the hotel organised us a trip in a Transit Van with a company called Kampot Express. The name proved correct because much of the time was spent on the wrong side of the road at extremely high speeds. At one point, it seemed that collision with a large white cow was inevitable but somehow we avoided it. In Kampot, some 30km short of Kep, the Transit came to a stop and disgorged its passengers. We were told we’d have to take a tuk-tuk to Kep. There was little interest in discussing the point and we were left with no option but to part with $12 for a ride along a largely unsealed gravel road in an open tuk-tuk.

Kep itself is a small seaside hamlet, once a haven for the wealthy and their sea-side villas. Most of the more luxurious abodes were foreign owned. When the Khmer Rouge arrived, things changed and the foreigners fled. Many of the locals also fled to the offshore islands. Stories differ, and some say that the mansions were not destroyed by the Khmer Rouge, but the locals who were glad to see the back of the rich foreigners. Even the grand Royal Residence did not escape and remains today pock-marked with bullet holes.

Kep is famed for its seafood, with blue swimmer crabs being top dog. The seaside restaurants are numerous, cheap and of a high standard. We enjoyed big plates of squid for around $6, washed it down with beer at $1 a bottle and good French wine at $2.50 a glass. Paradise. Our guesthouse was brand new, so new that not everything was finished. We had a TV but no aerial connection. We did have the essentials like beds, air con and bathroom so at $15 a night we couldn’t complain.

Another PVI member, Janet, was also in Kep for the night. She took us over to Anna’s Travel Café and the remarkable Anna organised our lives, getting us cheaper and better bus travel back to Phnom Penh, organising a day trip to the nearby Rabbit Island and organising Janet a bus to Kampot. Anna speaks excellent English and can organise anything. “Yes, Yes,” she would exclaim, “I can do this.” Later, we joined Janet in a superb seafood meal at the run of seaside eateries near the crab markets. Our squid was amazing and Janet’s crab looked just as good.

The next day, we were picked up as promised and taken to the little port, about 3kms away, to board an open long-tail boat for the trip to Rabbit Island. The sea was calm and the trip only around 20 minutes. The island proved a real gem. A white sand beach lined with shady trees and coconut palms supports a number of small outdoor eateries and a long line of grass huts. A night’s stay seemed to be around $5 a head. Food and drink was even cheaper than Kep. We spend from 10am to 4pm just lazing on beach beds, sleeping in hammocks, swimming in the warm clear water, drinking far too much and eating more amazing grilled squid and tempura prawns. We just kept consuming and at the end of the day paid up our bill of $20. Boats seemed to breeze in and out all day and we watched the passing parade of sun worshipers. There were the usual careless types that turned into lobsters with third degree burns. There were the ever-present groups of young female backpackers that seem to dominate the scenery in most places we visit and, of course, there were the large groups of Chinese posing for photo after photo. What a place. Not the easiest spot to get to but worth the effort.

video link Rabbit Island –> http://youtu.be/5xyEhax17LA

The idyllic beach on Rabbit Island

Back in Kep for the evening, we ate even more squid and prawns. This area (Kampot) is famous for its pepper production and Kampot Pepper is considered the best. I always thought that black pepper and white pepper were different trees, but it all comes from the one tree, the black pepper being the dried mature seed while the white pepper being the peeled seed of the just ripe pepper corn. Our squid was cooked with 6cm lengths of fresh green pepper corn sprigs, giving an amazing subtle pepper flavour to the squid but not overpowering it. Mind you, attempting to eat one of the green sprigs itself is a painful experience.

We hired Polo, a tuk-tuk driver who Janet had hired, to give us a tour of the area. He took us along to where the old wealthy quarter, now dotted with decaying abandoned mansions. Most are still owned by an assortment of French and Americans, the Cambodian Government still honouring the titles. Other land stood vacant, although often fenced with ornate walls. The law says that unoccupied land must be fenced or revert to the people. Parts of Kep show the signs of things to come, with wide new roads being built and many new Government offices in evidence. It is clear that the Government is placing a lot of faith in the tourist potential of Kep so we are pleased that we have experienced this delightful little town in its pristine state. I’m sure it will be different in ten years time.

The former Royal Residence, now derelict.

Polo took us up into the hills to a pepper plantation to see first hand how pepper is produced. Besides pepper, the plantation grew mangos, cashews and durian, all for the export market. We bought a bag of red pepper corns, certified organic and, hopefully, acceptable to Australian quarantine.

Christine inspects young pepper trees with Polo.

Back in Kep, we packed and deposited our bags at Anna’s Tours for the mini-bus trip back to Phnom Penh and wandered the village to find a nice spot to have lunch and wait. Being a Sunday (Easter Sunday in fact but no sign of chocolate eggs here), the beach was packed with locals having picnics in the many little shelters available for hire. It is a lively but far from hectic scene and one that might draw us back before the inevitable tourist development takes over. At present, Kep is an absolute joy, but the indicators are that things are about to change.

Our guest house, the Lotus Villa

The mini-bus ride back to Phnom Penh was so bad it became a joke, shared by the ten passengers crammed into the small van. We followed a rode that was under repair for about 60km, easing around every bridge construction over every river the road crossed. When the road did improve, it was a signal for the driver to open up and drive at a frightening speed on the wrong side of the road. Amazingly, the van was powered with LPG and when the driver stopped at a small village to fill up, one passenger decided to take the opportunity to have a smoke. We pointed out to his family that he was standing next to the gas tank smoking so his son also got out and took his cigarette, only to smoke it himself. Luckily, we didn’t explode in a fireball. We arrived in Phnom Penh after dark, very tired, hungry and badly in need of a cold lager. Fortunately, help was close at hand.

Siem Reap – Angkor March 2013

March 31, 2013 / terry

We took a bus on the six and a half hour journey North to Siem Reap, a small city of around 120,000 people mainly established to access the nearby wonders of ancient Angkor. The bus was very comfortable, being one of a new fleet operated by Giant Ibis, with full air-con and a series of movies.

The route followed Highway 6, through country that becomes drier as we travelled North. With the wet season still a month away, the country is starting to gasp for rain and many of the trees looked stressed. The fields were parched areas of rice stubble with scrawny Cambodian cattle scratching out a poor existence. In places, the landscape reminded me of Australia’s Top End at the end of the dry, with the occasional river red gum tree adding to the effect. The weather was similar too, with 38-39 degrees and 50% humidity.

Once in Siem Reap, we booked into the Ta Som Guesthouse to a warm welcome by the friendly staff but a disappointing room, with lots of things not working too well. We drew the line at no hot water system and moved rooms, to find a different set of things that didn’t work too well. Settled in as best we could, we headed out to find “Pub Street”. The name says it all and the fierce competition keeps beer down to 50c a glass. The hundreds of eateries sport everything from Western, through fast food, Indian and traditional Khmer cuisine. We probably tried all at some point.

The name says it all!

The next morning, we hired a tuk-tuk to tour the Angkor ruins. Most places offer one to three day tours with either just a driver or with an actual guide. We opted for just a driver, Sal, who proved very friendly and helpful. He quickly understood our need to make quick cursory visits to temples or gain an overall feel for the scenery rather than spend hours inspecting intricate stone carvings or comparing 10^th Century entrance portals with those of the 12^th Century. We saw some people who had opted for the full guided tour and invariably, their eyes were glazed over as the guide prattled on about some Angkorian dynasty.

Angkor video link –> http://youtu.be/v44-zxPis24

The ruins were spectacular. Every ruined temple is an absolute wonder and each is different enough to make a series of visits well worthwhile. Most impressive of all is the sheer scope of the collected sites. Stretching over some 400 square kilometres, including forested area, Angkor Archaeological Park contains the remains of several capitals of the Khmer Empire of the 9th to the 15th centuries. The most famous are the Temple of Angkor Wat and, at Angkor Thom, the Bayon Temple with its countless sculptural decorations. Angkor Thom is the city itself that supported Angkor Wat and, at its hieight, had a population in excess of 1 million people. Little can be seen of the life of the people because the only stone building allowed was for temples. All housing and other buildings were wooden and have long since ceased to exist. We learned later that the water storage and irrigation methods this civilization employed were the most advanced in the World at that time.

We climbed countless steps, passed through numerous portals and explored endless corridors and causeways. Some protected stone crypts were wonderfully cool and we would stop for a breather or to watch the passing parade of tourists. As the day wore on, the crowds became unmanageable, and this is the low season. The heat too became unbearable and by 11:30 it was time to call it quits. Our $12 tuk-tuk fee gave us access for the whole day but Sal seemed happy to take us back to Siem Reap for lunch and even happier when we gave him $15.

Day Two in Siem Reap was a much needed rest day but on Day Three we hired Sal again and headed off early to explore some of the more far flung sites before the heat got too much. Many of these temples were quite isolated, some only re-discovered during the 20^th Century. Restoration or preservation work is underway on many, but most are open to the public to walk all over. Much of the damage to the structures has been caused by the encroaching jungle. Huge strangler figs are capable of splitting whole stone blocks in half and prising otherwise solid spires from the top of a temple. The power of the jungle as it reclaims what it once owned adds to the appeal of the sites.

The river in Siem Reap

Siem Reap itself offers little for the tourist beyond access to Angkor. Its collection if markets and restaurants is good but easily found in Phnom Penh. Unfortunately, Siem Reap does sport a profusion of Foreign Aide Organisations and Orphanages. Indeed, some sources claim that visits to compassion based organisations form one of the major tourism activities in Cambodia. Given that 75% of the children in Cambodian orphanages have one or more living parent, there is a strong move afoot to try to stop tourists visiting these places and encouraging the exploitation of children. In the past, Siem Reap served as a focal point for refugees coming through the numerous camps along the Thai and Lao borders and many organisations set up aid facilities to help with orphans, land mine victims and people suffering through the hard ships of the Khmer Rouge years. There is a need to move on now, and organisations such as UNESCO and Ausaid promote assistance measures which encourage sustainable growth rather than foster dependency.

In our own travels, we have adopted a policy of never giving or buying from children. As hard as this is, logic says that the right thing is to buy from an adult who is working to support children. Often, it is the other way around. Our observations in Cambodia have made us examine our thinking in terms of travelling and helping. As part of our reflection, we came across a wonderful article that helped crystallise our thinking.

http://www.goinganyway.net/2012/05/24/on-not-visiting-an-orphanage-in-cambodia/

From it, we distilled the following;

1. We will seek out agencies working ethically with families and communities and support them with donations but not visits. This will not result in lovely photos. Our work with PVI will continue to be through building and renovation programs.
2. We will spend as much of our travel budget on local business, and direct to the producer, rather than on foreign owned goods and middle men. This is pretty tricky, but we’ll try. We also particularly like to buy things from people with disabilities wherever possible.
3. We will not buy from or give to children. Instead, we will try to support adults who are earning money to support their children.

PVI Cambodia 2013 – Phnom Penh

March 28, 2013 / terry

We waved off our fellow PVI workers on Saturday morning and settled down to wait for a 10 o’clock taxi to Hanoi. Three others were joining us on the trip, leaving the team but safe with the knowledge that there were plenty of hands available to finish the job. We had ordered one big taxi, but with no chance of fitting our luggage in, we opted to pay more and buy another taxi. The trip was comfortable and uneventful, and saw us booked into our favourite Hanoi Hotel, the Hanoi Style (formerly Nam Hai 1). We were welcomed back and soon settled in to eating, shopping and getting a haircut.

Our flight to Cambodia was a milk-run with Vietnam Airlines, flying a route to Ho Chi Minh City via Vientianne (Laos) and Phnom Penh (Cambodia). This gave us a 20 minute stop in Laos, in a transit lounge. Once at Phnom Penh, we were given the choice of a taxi transfer to the City for $US9 or a Tuk-Tuk transfer at $US7. Here, the tuk-tuks are motor bikes hauling four seater carts and the open air experience is somewhat spoiled by terrible traffic exhaust pollution. We opted for the taxi.

Our destination was a hotel with the wonderful name of “1 Up Banana”. It is a very new establishment and very clean and modern, despite being situated at the end of a very dodgy looking alley. The facilities are good and we soon made contact with lots of fellow PVI members who were assembling for the Cambodian side of the experience. The 1 Up Banana is well situated on Street 51 on the edge of the “BKK” district, giving ready access to loads of good cheap restaurants and bars, many of them catering for ex-pats. We found a half dozen of our crew occupying stools at the “Aussie XL” Restaurant across the road. From the way they teased the staff, they were already well known. We consumed the required amount of draft beer (stronger than Vietnam’s fresh beer) and joined the crew in a meal at another of the local restaurants before crashing.

Video Link –> Riding a tuk-tuk in Phnom Penh

Tuk-tuks are everywhere.

After a breakfast at a nearby restaurant, it was off to work at the Khmer-Soviet Friendship Hospital. The job here was to renovate three wards in the HVI patients area. They had fallen into a state of disrepair and needed a make-over with painting, plumbing repairs and a damn good clean. Nearby was the neo-natal ward so there were plenty of heart-grabbing sights close to hand. We had a team of anywhere between 10 and 15, depending on who was around and some excellent additional assistance from Ouk Sinath and his son, Khmers who do a lot of good working with under privileged kids in Phnom Penh. Sinath sprung to fame when he was featured in the film Jack Thompson made in 1991 telling the story of the rescue of a group of children from a border camp. They also made a terrific painting team, cheerfully getting into some of the hardest of the painting tasks.

The Khmer-Soviet Friendship Hospital

Preparing to scrub the beds

In short time, the beds were out and being scrubbed, the light fittings and overhead fans down and the gurney deployed to blast years of grime from the walls. The rooms are ventilated via open grills on two sides, providing a good measure of air flow and keeping things quite cool, but this approach also allows the air-borne grime of the city to penetrate and cover everything in black soot. Each small ward has a bathroom/toilet attached, but these were in very poor condition. Many of the hand basins either leaked badly or did not have water running while the walls were streaked with grime and rust stains or mould. I would not be happy about washing here or using the toilets.

A “before” shot of a ward bathroom.

The progress after only one day was amazing, with sealing paint going on, walls scrubbed clean and a lot of patching of the old and broken plaster. With the temperature in the mid 30s, the work was hot and water levels needed to be maintained. A welcome break for lunch saw us tuck into some excellent chicken rice washed down with some tall glasses of iced strong black coffee. The local coffee is excellent, very strong and aromatic. A lot of travellers will not use ice, for fear of contamination, but we usually indulge in the big cities. It makes for a very refreshing drink.

Making up 120 bags as “care” packages.

When we’d finally had enough of painting and cleaning for the day, it was back into a tuk-tuk to find our way home. The afternoon traffic was horrendous and the fumes in the little open cart were vile. It is hard to figure out which way each tuk-tuk driver is heading, as they all seem to have a different way to navigate to the same location. Even so, care has to be taken because they will always say they know where you want to go, even if they don’t. On one trip, we checked Google maps and found we were way out on the other side of Phnom Penh. Amazingly, the tuk-tuk driver looked at the iPhone and immediately turned 90 degrees and headed off in the right direction. Another interesting trick is to drive down the wrong side of the road, into oncoming-traffic and then suddenly throw a U-turn to end up on the correct side. It seems to work.

Outside of work, the busy social life of the PVI group keeps us very busy. One night, we went out for a dinner to celebrate one member’s birthday. We started with a drink at the famous Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC), which is beautifully situated on the promenade overlooking the Mekong River. The walls are adorned with photographs of a past era, many showing scenes from the Vietnam War. It has that special piece of atmosphere, and drink prices to match. Then it was off over the road to a wonderful venue with much more sensible prices. The food was amazing. A few more drinks and several rounds of “Happy Birthday” gave notice to the other diners that we were in for a good time. We got some old Beatles favourites going, moved the tables back and started out own little dance floor. Next to us, was a large contingent from a tour group but they only sat and stared, ignoring all advances for them to join us. Only the local tour guide showed any enthusiasm, until eventually a Russian girl succumbed, followed by an American. One at a time, the younger members of the tour joined in our revelry. Once a group of Khmer girls got into it, the music changed to local and we were all taught to dance in the Cambodian style. Only the drinks kept me going. Eventually, we rolled out and into a tuk-tuk for the ride home.

The Foreign Corresponents’ Club (FCC)

With plenty of helpers on hand, I spent a couple of days staying in to work on the PVI Web Site, while Christine went off to work at the hospital. After work we’d go shopping or sight-seeing. A visit to the Central Markets saw us relieved of some dollars for clothing. The girls were very skilled and worked as teams to make sure that no sale got away. I’d love to see an out and out battle between the girls in Ben Than Markets in Saigon and the Central Markets in Phnom Penh. I think the Cambodians might just have the edge. We frequented the Lucky Supermarket, an amazing store where it is possible to buy almost any food stuff except Vegemite. Aussie and Cambodian brands sit side by side and shopping for muesli was just like home. It is actually quite hard to find true grain based cereals in Asia, but the Lucky has them all. Another time, we got a tuk-tuk to drop us at one end of the Promenade and wait for us at the other, while we strolled along the banks of the Mekong admiring the splendour of the Royal Palace and watching the many varies activities along the grassed foreshore. At first approach, the Royal Palace does not compare with the wonders of Bangkok, but as the vistas change, the true glory of the Palace area emerges. It is a spectacular sight.

Part of the Royal Palace

By the end of the week, the work at the hospital was nearly done. I spent a day working on the plumbing, an exercise in frustration because the system seemed to be made up of two totally different standards. Where they met, the answer seemed to be to bog it up with silicon and put up with the leaks. A couple of visits to the local hardware stores failed to find any logical method of joining the S traps to the rest of the out-going plumbing so in the end, we did the traditional silicon thing. We left the team to complete the work while we headed off to Siem Reap to explore the wonders of Angkor for four days.

On our return, we joined the rest of the crew on a trip out to Takmao to the Kousar Thmey Centre for Child Protection. Here, children at risk are given shelter and care, attending the local school. PVI has given support to the centre over the years, building a computer/library facility some years ago. The centre is beautiful, clean, comfortable and obviously being run with a very strong vision. This year, a few of the guys went out and extended a shelter over a paved area, creating a wonderful weather proof area. After inspecting the facilities, we played frisbee and volleyball with the kids, losing many litres of sweat in the steamy conditions. The kids were happy and got on well together, signs that the centre is succeeding in its work.

The library at Krousar Thmey

The extended patio roof

In the evening, we went a few doors down to a party put on by Sinath and his family. There was food in abundance, ice cold beer and thumping loud dance music with a strong team of young people urging on the oldies. Even when the power went out across the area, the spirits weren’t dampened and the generator was started to fill the gap. It was a terrific night but some of real oldies gratefully crawled into a tuk tuk for the safety of bed and escaped yet another really late night. It all catches up in the end.

Party at Sinath’s

PVI 2013 – Phu Ly Week 1

March 18, 2013 / terry

See Video of Week 1 here

This year’s main project consisted of the rebuilding of a tiny two room kindergarten situated in Binh Luc, about a half hour drive South of Phu Ly. Another smaller project was being undertaken another 120km on down the road at Thanh Hoa and six of the team headed on to complete this job over the first week. The main job would see the single room facility be turned into a four room kindergarten with kitchen and toilets. As usual, electricity, ceilings and overhead fans round off the project. We’d dropped in to the job last year to look it over and the sight of 20 or so tiny children huddled together in a simple room with no electricity tugged at everyone’s heartstrings.

The kindergarten in 2012

Kindergarten 2012

We had the use of a covered area in the pagoda opposite the kindergarten to use as a base and a meals area. Once again, the local community undertook to provide lunches. We also shared the pagoda facilities with the children, who continued their classes while we renovated their kindy. Sadly, the children spend a lot of the day just sitting around on tiny chairs waiting for something to happen. They are incredibly patient but snap to attention when the teacher’s stick descends onto the desktop to signal the start of a learning activity. This usually seems to consist of chanting things. To brighten their day, two of our group led a rousing rendition of “Waltzing Matilda”. Despite the apparent boredom of the day, all the children seem very happy and are certainly very well behaved. Perhaps we have something to learn from them after all.

See Murray and Fran perform for the kids

Our meals area in the pagoda

Next to the building site is a wonderful old wooden pagoda dating back to around 1200AD. The roof is an incredibly complex construction made of huge solid beams of timber, the like of which would almost certainly not exist today. The priests (monks???) inside are happy for us to enter and inspect the building, even inviting us to sit down and share some form of brewed tea. This an activity to be avoided at all costs.

We broke into teams; the roofing team, the ceiling team, the carpentry team, painting team and electrical team. Of course, when there was heavy lifting or shifting to be done, everyone pitched in and did their bit. I started out as part of the roofing team, but after a day of incompetence, moved to the ceiling team, which proved even more disastrous. Our team of three became known as the three stooges, reflecting the number of total stuff-ups that we achieved. Eventually, we got our act together and by the end of the week, three classrooms were blessed with flat ceilings.

Roofing in action

Like last year, Christine took over the role of morning smoko organiser, roping in a couple of helpers so others could take over the task when we head off to Cambodia in Week 2. This is actually quite a demanding task, catering for 25 hungry workers. Most afternoons saw us headed to the markets or local shops, where Christine became quite a well known figure, causing much merriment with her searches for items no normally found in Phu Ly. It is safe to say that Vegemite is an unknown item in this part of the World but even things like cracker biscuits without sugar in them, or milk without vanilla flavouring can be a bit of a challenge at times. The locals in the village surrounding the job would cackle with laughter at the sight of Christine riding her push bike down the road through the rice paddies to buy bottled water to keep the workers happy. After morning smoko, Christine could leave things in Eleanor’s capable hands and become a member of the painting team.

There are so many hilarious moments during the day’s work. At one point, the ceiling team was at the height of frustration; nothing was going right and things were literally falling down around our ears. Suddenly, an expert in the art of hanging ceilings arrived in the form of a local People’s Committee Official who gave us all kinds of advice (at least we assume he did). Our collective tempers were at a low ebb by that point so the little guy was actually quite lucky to survive. It was only the humour of the whole thing that kept us from doing him in. Brendan, our Vice President, gave a daily briefing on the bus ride out and a daily summary on the way home. He is now famous for his iconic statement, “Keep safe! If it’s too dangerous, get someone else to do it.”

The relationship with the local workers is happy and cheerful on the surface, but gets strained when the tool or ladder you are using suddenly relocates to another part of the job. One time, we were cutting clean white sheets of coated gyprock for the ceiling when a local renderer appeared right in front of us and proceeded to splash large globs of grey render all over the place. As always, we retreated gracefully and spoke in hushed tones about his ancestors.

We’d get home each day tired, filthy and drained, but a shower, a session at the Bia Hoi consuming a few jugs of Phu Ly’s finest and a walk to a local eatery usually saw us revitalised and ready for more. It is hard to fully describe the experience of working on a PVI Project. The work is hard. The conditions can be trying and at times the cultural/language differences can be extremely frustrating. But the experience is a complete one, made special by the uniqueness of the experience itself and enhanced by the wonderful collegiate spirit of the group.

The new classroom on the front, another alongside.

On our final evening in Phu Ly, we took our lovely young friend Van out for a coffee. She talked of her aspirations to study finance at La Trobe University, which has a sister relationship with her University in Hanoi. For her, this is a huge ambition, having to overcome both the financial difficulties entailed and the reluctance of her parents to let her travel. However, she is a very determined young lady so I am confident that we will see her in Australia one day.

We left our friends after a week, with the job well progressed towards completion, to start a new adventure with more PVI friends in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We are sure the experience will prove just as rewarding.

Shopping for morning teas in Phu Ly markets.

Project Vietnam 2013 – A Return to Hanoi

March 13, 2013 / terry

To be honest, we thought twice about returning to Hanoi this year because we have been here so many times over the last seven years and there are new adventures awaiting elsewhere. What has brought us back is the camaraderie of the whole experience with Project Vietnam (PVI) and a real pull at the heartstrings coming from the good friends we have made down South in the small town of Phu Ly. We just felt we had to return and see everyone again. Within an hour of landing, we knew we’d made the right choice.

Hanoi is its usual chaotic, bustling and frenetic self. We booked into the Hanoi Style Hotel (previously called Nam Hai 1) and delighted in being remembered from previous visits. The room was a wonder, an amazing long bowling alley style room utilising the unique narrow architecture so prevalent in Vietnam. A walk down Ma May St was an exercise in greeting old friends, with local street vendors and hawkers greeting us as old friends. Talk about how to feel welcome. It was a wonderful return. How could we ever have thought of missing this.

We did all the usual things;

visited a mobile phone stall to buy a local Mobiphone SIM card for the iPhone;
went for coffee and a snack at 69 Ma May St;
dropped into the Dong Xuan markets to buy a watch for Christine because she’d left hers home;
bought a cask of red wine from a local wine merchant;
ate some amazing deep fried thing made of sweet potato and batter from an old lady on a corner.
consumed copious amounts of weak, cheap fresh beer from a street-side Bia Hoi.
swapped yarns with a group of three young Brits who have spent the last couple of years teaching adult English classes in Bali and Hanoi whilst consuming even more beer at a roadside beer stall.
Our three young Brits in Hanoi

Increasingly, we came across fellow PVI members, most sporting their emerald-green shirts or Aussie colour caps. We all got together for a briefing in the Ghia Tinh Hotel and with both the building team and the medical team all together in one spot, the group was huge, around 50 in number. The group consisted of old hands, “middies” like us, and quite a number of “newbies”, courtesy of the free promotion the organisation received via the “Sunrise” segment last year. The meeting over, we split up into smaller groups to hit the streets at the various beer corners, then reassembled into different groups for meals in the various eateries and street food stall dotted around Ma May St. One particular delight was catching up with our dear friend Moon, who had worked with us last year on the Project helping out as an interpreter. She is now living and working in Hanoi.

The PVI mob assembling.

The next morning, everyone reassembled and most of us boarded a bus to head South to Phu Ly, leaving the medical team behind to ready themselves for a trip North into the mountains and some work near the Chinese border. A few of the committee members also stayed behind to commence the work of liaising with the government to source some future projects.

The bus trip South to Phu Ly and the process of settling into the hotel was routine stuff for us, but a fresh experience for the “newbies”. After a quick unpack, we gathered a group of new friends and crossed the main road and rail line into Phu Ly itself, showing people the ropes, introducing them to the basics of shopping in the small stores and crammed markets, or taking the chance to change a few Aussie Dollars into Dong. Christine had undertaken to organise the food and supplies for “smoko” out on the work site so we had quite a bit of shopping to do and patronised some old favourite merchants as well as the flashy “Russian Supermarket” down the road. The variety of goods available in all shops is increasing every year we visit but shopping in Phu Ly is still very much a matter of compromise.

Shopping for morning teas in Phu Ly markets.

Then it was off to the Bia Hoi for a serious introduction to the centre of our social life. Tony Boxmeer produced some rather high quality rice wine to use for drinking numerous toasts with a visiting Government official and some of the team learnt the hard way about getting too involved with the ceremony. There were some slow movers the next morning as we headed out to the first day of the building project. We led a contingent of 15 or so down to Anna’s Restaurant for a wonderful meal. They were expecting us and went to a lot of trouble to ensure a terrific evening. Our good friend Van is now working in Phu Ly teaching accounting and proudly presented three of her students to us. It was a touching reunion with a lovely family.

Dinner at Anna’s

Van and some of her students.

Bali – A Quick Trip Feb 2013

February 6, 2013 / terry

We came to Bali on a whim, trying to locate some suitable accommodation in Ubud for a planned family trip next Christmas. We had picked out a good spot on an earlier trip in 2011 but had somehow lost the details and even the trusty Internet had failed to reveal the place. Still, it is a hell of an excuse to get away. A quick two nights in Ubud was largely to seek accommodation. This was followed by three nights in Kuta, a return to the famed location after at least twenty years and a couple of nights in Sanur, another beachfront location that we had never visited before.

Having a Driver

We had organised with Dewar Putra, a driver from Ubud, to pick us up from the airport. We had used Dewar before and had his email address. Having someone who can speak reasonable English and is a really careful driver is an absolute bonus. While things can be done much cheaper by negotiating with hotels or haggling over taxis, the luxury of having someone roll up on schedule, wait when required and feed us lots of interesting insights into life in Bali is well worth the bit of extra. Four or five days of driving over the week adds up to around the same as a taxi to and from Perth Airport so it all needs to be put into perspective. The sad thing is, that living off tourism in Bali can be a tough life. Once the short Christmas rush is over, Ubud goes very quiet. Kuta will rock on for a while but a lot of the work dries up. We were Dewar’s only work for two weeks and he had the bank on his back for payments on the car. Since we saw him last, he has bought a new car in the hope of attracting better and more jobs but if there are no tourists, there is no work. It is a matter of surviving until the June-August busy time.

Finding a Hotel

Going from hotel to hotel and inspecting rooms etc is actually a lot of fun, especially during a down-time, when everyone is very keen to get business. We saw some really lovely spots on the outskirts of Ubud, quiet hideaways set in gardens that would grace any lifestyle magazine. In the end, we opted for the Cendana Resort and Spa in Monkey Forest Road to give access to lots of good cheap eats and markets as well as great grounds and nice rooms. They have four rooms in a row that will suit our needs very well.

Relaxing in Monkey Forest Rd, Ubud

The Y Resort, Ubud

Kuta

We were last in Kuta back in the early 90s. The bombings did put us off somewhat but then we had already decided that there were nicer places to go than Kuta anyway so we haven’t been back for ages. Just to catch up, we stayed at the White Rose, right behind the Bombing Memorial opposite Poppies Lane. The Memorial is quite moving and it seems as though there are a few ghosts in the area. Unfortunately, its main use seems to be as a prop for Japanese tourists to stand and do funny poses but then you get that.

The streets, the traffic, the bars, the touts, the loud music, the rubbish, the smells, the drunks; all is Kuta.

“Massage Madam???”

“You look now, Boss?”

“G’Day Mate. You Aussie?”

The sign on the gate at our hotel says “No BB Guns. No Fireworks”.

The Bombing Memorial, Jalan Legian, Kuta.

I hate being called Boss in Bali. Having spent some time in Aboriginal communities once run as Missions by the Catholic Church, the term has some overtones that smack of sub-servience and racism. I hate to think that I am “Boss” when having the privilege of visiting someone else’s country, but I am probably stating a minority opinion here.

We did give one place down Poppies Lane a bit of repeat business, having a hair cut, a massage each and Christine had two lots of nails done. They were a fun crew and never stopped trying to find ways for us to spend more. “Pedicure Mama?” or “Shave your beard Boss?”

Kuta Beach

The White Rose is a wonderful hotel/resort beautifully located right in the heart of Kuta. Being a block back from the beach, the rates are affordable. The grounds are expansive and beautiful and we spent a lot of time just lounging by the pool. The only real down-side was the fact that we could hear every cough, fart and loo flush from the neighbours but then, I guess they could hear ours. The three young girls across the way kept us awake one night with their festivities, which got louder as the alcohol levels rose. Another group produced some worrying female screaming noises at around 2am. Kept to a reasonable level, such goings on a usually an entertainment.

That’s it! We’ve been back to Kuta and don’t have to go again.

Sanur

I don’t know why we’ve never been to Sanur. I had heard it described as quieter, more up=market and more expensive than Kuta. True, but not ridiculously so.

We loved Sanur. Any place where it is safe to ride around all day on a bike is good (except Rottnest). The 5km beachfront cycleway is fantastic. A leisurely ride down Jalan Danau Tamblingan is relaxing and interesting. Want nightlife and shopping? Go elsewhere. Want lots of good eateries and relaxation? Go to Sanur. We found budget accommodation and food in abundance without the continual harassment that one endures in Kuta. People are friendly and helpful. The beaches were mostly clean and well shaded. We will be back.

Sanur Beach

More Sanur Beach

Checking a big menu.

Summary

Flew Perth – Denpasar with Air Asia. Very tight seating with no services included.

Flew Denpasar – Perth with Virgin. Better seats but no services included.

Ubud – stayed at Y Resort. Cheap at $50/night but on the outskirts. Used a shuttle to get to Central Ubud. Pool too dirty to swim in and restaurant too dear. Not recommended.

Kuta – stayed at the White Rose at approx $50/night for upstairs room. A lovely hotel, although showing signs of needing maintenance. Great pool area and a wonderful breakfast. Top location.

Sanur – stayed at Puri Sading at $50/night for an upstairs roomz. This is a wonderful small hotel with gorgeous gardens and a lovely pool. The rooms were very comfortable. The breakfast was very basic, as was the restaurant but pool-side snacks and beer was as cheap as anywhere on the street. We’d go back.

Lombok Dec 2012

December 21, 2012 / terry

On Route from Perth to Denpasar

We have all seen those wonderful nature film footages of a mother protecting her offspring against all odds, the lone lioness battling it out against a pack of hungry hyenas attempting to carry away a tiny and helpless cub. It is an experience few will forget if witnessed first hand.

I had just such an experience on a Jetstar flight headed from Perth to Bali en-route to our beloved Lombok. Jetstar is a very comfortable low cost carrier, with generous leg room when compared to some of the other budget airlines, and seats that are at least comfortable rather than luxurious. However, some quirk of design has left them paper-thin at the rear, with passengers almost suspended in a sling of upholstery material. Somehow it works, except when the passenger behind decides to push various parts of his anatomy into the rear of my seat.

Behind us were a couple of young lads who seemed nice enough, being too young to spend the flight consuming copious amounts of alcohol and too inexperienced to be able to carry on an endless conversation about the finer points of holidaying in Bali without being ripped off by “locals”. At one point, early in the flight, the lad behind me started fussing with something involving the parting of velcro tabs and a fair bit of prodding and pushing at the rear of the seat. It was harmless enough really and I ignored it, figuring that it would cease in time but my patience came to an abrupt halt as a sharp object was pressed through the seat and activated my auto-response system somewhere in the vicinity of my left kidney. I let out a yelp and shot bolt upright.

“Sorry mate!” the other lad offered, proving he was at least old enough to remember Pat Rafter. I subsided back into the seat and reasoned that the experience was not all bad because now they were aware that they could hurt me and would be a lot more caring for the rest of the flight.

Once levelled out, the seat belt light was extinguished, the electronic gear came on and the cabin crew commenced the parade of carts and trolleys up and down the aisle to ensure that no one could get to the toilet. The boy behind me made the decision to spend the whole flight asleep and set about using every last cubic centimetre of space to accommodate his 190cm frame. By slouching in his seat and pressing his knees up against the seat in front (mine) he found Nirvana and collapsed into a deep and meaningful slumber. This gave me some unwanted lumbar support in the form of a kneecap-like lump. Every now and then, possibly due to a dream, the knee twitched, slid sideways or rotated. The flight wore on.

Slowly, a sense of pride in my own levels of tolerance emerged. “I am a very reasonable human being,” I thought to myself. “I could lean back and call the young man a stupid @#%$# or stand up and accidentally spill a can of VB in his lap but I am beyond all that.”

Once again, the end came in the form of a painful and forceful jab to the lower back that had me unclipping my seat belt and jumping to my feet. I glared down at the young man but, alas, he was dead to the World. I rolled my eyes and returned to my seat, little knowing that I had unleashed a monster.

“Do you have a problem?” demanded a voice next to me. A woman had materialised and showed all the characteristics of those mothers on the travel films. She looked like she had reluctantly abandoned the power-dressing suit for a trip to Bali but retained all the body language of a corporate power-broker.

“Only being continually kicked in the back,” I replied, trying my best not to launch into a stream of abuse.

“Well he is 6’2”. What do you expect? He’s sound asleep. He can’t help it.” This obviously made everything OK so she sat down, but maintained a state of readiness with claws bared.

In the face of such determination, all I could do was lean across the aisle and suggest very politely that she was actually being a tad unreasonable but, in truth, I knew I was already beaten and resigned myself to spending the rest of the flight gently simmering with righteous indignation. Like the hyenas, I could have made futile attempts to make her cower under a barrage of insults or even spill a can of VB in her lap but I knew that the mother instinct would prevail. Besides, she had a husband.

Beach Club Sengiggi

A return visit to Lombok was motivated by the fabulous experience we had last year when we came with our friends, Lesley and Mick. Despite the low season and lack of people (or perhaps because of it), the Beach Club at Sengiggi captured our hearts and cried out for a second visit.

Last year, circumstance saw us flying to Denpasar via Singapore then on to Lombok, a long trip with much waiting around and standing in queues. This time around, a three and bit hour flight to Denpasar followed by a Lion Air half hour flight to Lombok was a lot easier to handle, although the wait at Denpasar Domestic was incredibly boring. For some reason, the place is always packed and finding a seat is difficult. One would imagine that a steady turnover of flights would free up seats but the somehow it doesn’t happen.

We were dreading the hour and half drive from Lombok’s International terminal to Sengiggi but were pleasantly surprised to find that the road has been improved and the trip is now a lot smoother, taking just over an hour, despite continual rain and the gathering darkness. We arrived at the Beach Club without the adrenaline rush that so often accompanies a taxi ride in Asia.

At the Beach Club, we were greeted by Nanna and Eddie and booked in to Bungalow 1, right overlooking the beach. Then it was back to the bar for the required refreshments and a bite to eat before collapsing in bed.

Bungalow 1, The Beach Club, Sengiggi

Life at the Beach Club is extremely relaxing. We sleep, swim in the pool, swim in the ocean, watch movies, eat, drink beer, drink strong Lombok coffee and watch the small but steady trickle of guests come and go. The first day, we didn’t even step foot outside the grounds, a rare thing for us who usually like to be on the go when travelling.

On day two, we walked down into the village to find a hair-cut and a pedicure for Christine. However, the village holds few attractions with the low season resulting in most establishments either closing or going into slow mode. When a trader is found, it is hard to get away because we represent some of the very few potential customers they are likely to see that day. Last year, the poor state of the road and footpath made walking difficult in places. This year, a major reconstruction of the road through Sengiggi has been undertaken and new footpaths are being constructed. Whether they are ever finished remains to be seen but at present, deep holes in the ground and mounds of rock and rubble compete to trap the unwary pedestrian. Pity the poor struggling cafe that now has a huge pile of building materials blocking access. I guess it takes the right payment to the right person to get it removed.

The girl in the background is very excited

Just as last year, we were totally spoilt by the wonderful staff at the Beach Club. Cheerful smiles, prompt and attentive service with lots of helpful advice is the norm here. Atok checked with us every day to ensure that we were happy and no request was too much for Nanna, Leah, Joe, Eddie or any of the crew. It is great to see they have won awards through Trip Advisor in 2012 because they deserve it. The owners, Glenn and Dee were away in Melbourne during our visit but they could be very proud of their staff.

Gili Air

The Gilis is a group of three small islands off the North West Coast of Lombok. In fact, the word Gili simply means island so the region has a great many Gilis, with another group in the South West gaining increasing attention through tourism.

We reached Gili Air, the closest of the three, via a twenty minute taxi ride and a transfer to the island in the Beach Club’s comfortable power boat. This is not the cheapest option around, costing us 60,000 RHP ($6) for the taxi and another 240,000 RHP ($24) for the boat but it so much easier than mucking around with haggling over fees at the wharf or struggling with the crowds on the very slow public boat. As an added bonus, we were landed right on the beach at the Beach Club Gili Air and within minutes happily lodged in our beautiful bungalow.

Fast boat to Gili Air

The scenery from the bar and beach is absolutely spectacular, looking across to Lombok’s Mt Rinjani, Indonesia’s second largest, towering 3,700m above sea level. It has an enormous lake filled crater so its rim is dotted with numerous peaks. The changing light and shifting misty clouds produced a vista that constantly recreated itself. Tropical rain squalls and spectacular lightning displays across its face added to the show. Looking the other way, the perfect cone of Bali’s Mt Agung protruded through a low line of clouds. Fortunately, both volcanoes are quiet at present.

Lombok’s Mt Rinjani from Gili Air.

The BC Gili Air is all very new, having opened mid year, and sports eight well appointed accommodation units set amid already well-established gardens. It is situated on the South Eastern tip of the island, a prime location because the beach provides swimming over clean white sand at all tides. Good coral growth to either side of the beach means wonderful snorkelling right off the beach. The bar and restaurant is comfortable and the marvellous array of beanbags right down to the water’s edge proved a real asset. When we wanted some variety from the Beach Club menu, a profusion of establishments down the street gave us lots of choice.

The Beach Club, Gili Air from our bungalow

There are no cars or trucks on the Gilis. Small pony powered carts ply their trade, carrying passengers or hauling supplies. A simple network of paved roads crosses Gilli Air and most of the coastline is serviced by a hard packed sand track. Bicycles are common, and we hired one for $5 each, giving us the mobility to explore the island to its full.

The inland areas of the island are mostly covered with rolling paddocks of small Indonesian cattle, coconut plantations, mango trees, village housing and the like. As we cycled around, we saw a school in operation and watched the parade of routines. In places, it is like a tableau of archipelago life, with little changing over the years.

Horse drawn cidomo, used for transport and goods.

Back on the coast, however, most things revolve around tourism, with an assortment of craft from traditional outrigger sampans to modern fibreglass outboard powered craft plying to and fro with divers, snorkellers and fishing groups. The low season here means lots of bargain accommodation and “special offers”, although everything in general is more expensive than Lombok itself, owing to the high cost of transport.

The island’s biggest problem is fresh water. For the many tourist resorts, all water is shipped from the mainland, with each establishment being responsible for its own. Some have adapted local boats as water carriers, with large plastic containers stowed aboard then emptied by pump across the beach to the resort , while other seem to have an endless array of small water containers that are shipped over and lugged up the beach by hand. The cheaper accommodation only has salt water showers but the more up-market places offer freshwater facilities. It seems amazing that the water shortage can be so acute, when Lombok’s rainfall is so high, yet we saw almost no sign of a rain water tank anywhere. Power on the island is supplemented by a large solar grid in the middle of the island but the output would probably not support any form of desalination plant. While labour remains cheap, and fuel continues to receive a big Government subsidy, the current system will probably prevail.

Last year, we visited the other two islands, Gilli Trewangan and Gilli Meno as part of a one day snorkelling trip. We were left very disappointed with the coral growth, most of which was in a very degraded state. The use of explosives as a fishing technique and inappropriate anchoring techniques had taken its toll. On Gilli Air, the fringing coral is beautiful. Although areas of damage and degradation are obvious, it is not hard to find patches of exquisite gardens, with an unbelievable variety of wonderfully coloured corals the drops away into a bottomless blue called the Air Slope. The fish life abounds, with gorgeous reef fish that show little fear of humans. However, there is a distinct lack of predatory demersal fish suggesting that it is far from a balanced ecosystem. There are few pelagics either, the odd mackerel and longtom but nothing much. Still, the corals and the amazingly clear water gave us a lot of enjoyment during times of slack tide. The tide does need to be watched, because the current is capable of being really quite dangerous and impossible to swim against in places. We had fun treating the beach in front of our bungalow like a lap pool, swimming hard into the current and going absolutely nowhere.

Life on the Gilis is the ultimate in laid back relaxation. Overall, things are a little more expensive than on Lombok, reflecting the cost of transport and service provision but the place still remains ridiculously cheap. Staff at the Beach Club are attentive, friendly and very keen to assist in any way. In fact, locals everywhere were very friendly with many just stopping to meet and talk, without any apparent ulterior motive. The beach sellers plied their trade as usual, but lacked the annoying banter and persistence so often encountered in Bali or Phuket. Nothing really upset the serenity of the place.

Central and Southern Lombok

On our return drive from the boat landing to Sengiggi from Gili Air was by private car organised Atok from the Beach Club. The driver, Amin, was exceedingly careful by most Asian standards and impressed us with his friendly chatter and knowledge of English. We organised for him to take us on a tour of the Central areas and the South on our final day on Lombok, before dropping us at the airport.

The day proved to be really interesting, Amin providing some fascinating insight into local life as we visited a few spots in the old city of Ampenam. This was the old Dutch trading port in past years and the Chinese influence also prevailed, as it did in most Asian trading centres. We stopped at the Chinese cemetery and toured a local fishing village with its scores of outrigger sampans drawn up on the beach.

Christine and Amin at the fishing village, Ampenam

Heading inland from Mataram, we drove into Central Lombok through extensive fields of rice, corn and tobacco, much of it being harvested at present. There is little sign of the mechanisation that is starting to take hold in Bali, with the old single furrow buffalo drawn plough and hand harvesting with sickles still very much in evidence. Despite the abundance of water in the current wet season, much of the region still only plants one crop a year due to a lack of irrigation systems.

We stopped at a weaving centre to watch the incredible skills of the workers. Here we were treated to two kinds of traditional weaving. The women practised the Sasak method, weaving extremely intricate patterns into the material by introducing threads. The patterns come straight from memory, each being the property of a family and handed down from mother to daughter. Christine was invited to have a go and managed two lines of weave under the careful tutelage of a local girl. Using fine cotton threads, they average about 15cm of cloth a day.

The men were producing a different weave called Intak. This has a batik pattern as its basis, the warp lines being carefully collected in bunches and wrapped in plastic binding before being dyed. The warps are then loaded onto the look and weave completes the intricate patterns. This system is faster but involves more people in the many stage process.

The results are quite staggering. A large blanket or bedspread may well be the product of two month’s work with weavers toiling for full twelve hour days. While they might sell for several hundred dollars each, the return to the weaver is probably somewhere in the vicinity of 25c a day. Fortunately, there seemed to be a considerable amount of culture and family support behind much of the work so it may not have been quite as exploitive as it could have been.

We ended up buying a small Sasak piece suitable as a wall hanging for $25. Hopefully, it wasn’t machine made in China and if it was I don’t want to know.

The next stop was a Sasak village, one of only two left on Lombok. These are the traditional people of Lombok, living still as they have done for eons with a religion that is a meld of Islam, Hinduism and Animism.

The village was composed of a very tight collection of grass plaited huts with thatched roofing occupying a small hill. Sellers of small trinkets were in abundance and we managed to ignore all the pleading looks and mournful faces.

Sasak Village

Our guide explained about village life, focussing heavily on the system of marriage, which are not arranged but are usually a love match. The man abducts the girl, without the knowledge of either set of parents and they go off to another village to live together until the parent’s anger has died down. Then they return and set up together. Given that the maiden girls are allocated a small attic loft above the mother’s quarters to sleep in, the actual abduction is a work of art. Apparently, a prelude to the actual grab is to ply the girl’s father with rice wine to make him sleep well. I suspect that the parents are not really that stupid.

We toured the village and inspected a house, all of which is actually being lived in at present. We relented at the weaving store and purchased yet another woven piece, feeling more like we needed to support this attempt at maintaining a traditional lifestyle than we actually needed a woven wall hanging.

With hunger starting to set in, we headed for the famed Kuta Lombok region with its near perfect surf breaks and brilliant white beaches. Although still largely unknown by the West, save for the die-hard surfers, this area is about to explode with development. As soon as the current economic downturn releases investment dollars, the resorts and hotels will spring up in number. For now, the beach is a string of small shanties and palm frond woven restaurants. The few tourists around were heavily outnumbered by the masses of sellers. Ahmin had warned us to ignore all approaches, because any interest at all would attract all the sellers like seagulls to a chip. And so it was. As we ate lunch, we watched the young girls mob around a couple of women who had shown interest in some saris. It looked like hostilities would break out between rivals but the peace ultimately prevailed. We just kept repeating a polite “No thank you!”

With the stomach satisfied, we continued across an appalling piece of broken road 7km to Tanjung A’an, a delightful, deep, teardrop-shaped bay with a marvellous surf break across its mouth. A high headland in the middle of the bay provided excellent views of the surrounding area and we spent a good half hour at the top just taking in the spectacular scenery and imagining the sites of the hotels and resorts that will surely come to this beautiful part of the World.

Tanjung A’an, Kuta Lombok

Here, the persistent beach sellers were mostly children, so we had no regrets at all about saying no. It is part of our policy as we travel that we never buy from children or give to beggars. Each case is the end product of an exploitation and any support is an endorsement.

Amin’s car

Amin dropped us off at the airport, leaving us very well satisfied with our driving tour. We enjoyed his company and admired his work ethic and promised to seek his services the next time we were on Lombok.

We leave Lombok with regret and knowing that we will be back. Of our eight days, I was sick with the gastro for two, yet I still thoroughly enjoyed every relaxing day. We are usually very active when travelling but our trips here have taught us how to truly unwind.

Quick Facts:

Perth to Denpasar – Jetstar 3hr45min $831.30 return for two

Denpasar to Mataram (Lombok) – Lion Air (actual flight with Wing Air) 30 mins $A107 return for two

Airport taxes and visa fees:
Denpasar – $25 visa

– $15 departure

Lombok – $2.50 departure

Accommodation Sengiggi – The Beach Club, www.thebeachclublombok.com $A65/night

Accommodation Gili Air – The Beach Club Gili Air www.thebeachclublombok.com $78/night

Taxi/Transfer Airport to Sengiggi Lombok – $A25 for two.

Private car/speed boat transfer Sengiggi to Gili Air $A36 for two.

Private car for day exploring Southern Lombok and airport drop off $A35 for two.

Malaysia June 2012

June 14, 2012 / terry

Left Perth 7th June

We had an early start, up at 2:15 to get a 3am taxi to the airport. This was probably overkill for a 6:50 departure but the last time we cut it fine and had to skip breakfast so we erred on the side of caution. Of course, this meant that we got every green light, breezed through ticketing, immigration and bomb inspections so quickly that we had hours to sit around in departure.

Outside, the rain continues to fall. This is excellent news for our farming friends because May was almost completely dry. From here on in, rain is the enemy. Our first stop is Langkawi and we’re looking forward to some sunshine and swimming.

A day of air travel with more than one leg is certainly a frustrating affair. It would certainly help if international air travel authorities got together and agreed on a uniform set of procedures. The problem is that every place seems to be different. Some places confiscate all bottled water while others don’t care less. Some make you remove laptops from bags and others don’t. Some scanners don’t react to belt buckles or watches while others go of at the slightest sound. You see plenty of men removing their belts but never see a woman removing her underwire bra. Why is that?

Our beach front room

Once in Langkawi, we caught a taxi to the AB Motel, where we have stayed before. The crowds on the street seemed well down and traffic was light. We got a terrific room right on the beach front, a bargain at $50 a night. The disappointment was the beach itself. Gone were the beautiful white sands and placid waters of the last two visits. In their place was rubble and rubbish strewn stretch and badly eroded banks. The sea sported a brisk onshore wind and a heavy swell produced a nasty set of breaking dumpers. To seaward, a heavy rain squall looked ominous. The whole beach looked like the aftermath of a cyclone. I guess some nasty weather had been through. The question was, how long would it last?

We found a cheap beer and chicken wings just down the beach then followed it up later with a full meal of duck, cuttlefish, rice and veges before hitting the sack. The all night party right outside, the crashing thunderstorm and the sounds of drunken revelers throwing up didn’t bother us at all.

Langkawi 8 June

We awoke to a sea that had not abated. We are thinking of changing plans and shooting down to our beloved Malacca for a few days. There is no use in a beach resort in poor weather. Not that its unpleasant. The temperature is around 30, there is plenty of cheap food and drink and it’s fun watching jet skis get rolled over in the surf.

The day was spent around Cenang Beach at a leisurely pace. We managed to locate a store that would sell us SIM cards for our iPhones that included data. In the end, we got 1Gb of data for 18Rm ($6) and bought another $10 worth of local and international calls. The phones allowed tethering to our computers so this gave us Internet for our laptops. We also checked out a car hire for Saturday. A day costs around $25 so things look good on that score.

The tide rose to alarming levels in the early afternoon and threatened several structures further down the beach. As it dropped, so did the swell and the beach came alive with swimmers, surfers, para-gliders and jet skis. There is no separation of swimmers and water sports here and I shudder to think of how many people are hurt. We also worried about the number of people without any obvious swimming ability entering surf the size found on Scarborough Beach. What’s more, many are Muslim and so are fully dressed, giving them little chance of survival if they get into trouble.

That night, we went down to “Raffi’s” on the beach front to eat local food, drink beer and watch Geelong hold out against Carlton.

June 9 Langkawi

We picked up our hire car around 10am. It was a tiny little thing called a Viva. Surprisingly, it had four doors, although only the smallest of Asian frames would manage in the back. It was far from luxury motoring but it worked, had air-con, and ran all day on a few litres of fuel.

Our little Viva hire car

We explored the North of the island,only getting lost once. Fortunately, good old Google Maps on the iPhone came to the rescue before we’d gone too far out of our way. Crossing the island is quite spectacular, with some wonderful mountain peaks enshrouded in mists. The roads are excellent, despite their serpentine course around mountain peaks and signage is abundant, warning of approaching bends and drop offs. We wound our way up to the Tengkorak Beach area and the Temurun Falls. Both lie within a large area of National Park that contains wonderful stands of virgin rainforest. This is a real rarity in Malaysia, with so much clearing for palm oil plantations having taken place recently. Some of the trees towering over the lower canopy were quite majestic. The falls were flowing, although they will be much better as the monsoon progresses. We marveled at the gorgeous butterflies, including one with brilliant blue wings, that fluttered effortlessly through the lower forest canopy. Monkeys are everywhere, always with many more lurking on the edge of the jungle ready to surround the unwary tourist. The ones with babies sit out in front, inviting camera shots while the big males circle quietly behind, getting ready to grab bags and cameras. Unfortunately, some creatures don’t seem to be headed for extinction.

Temurun Falls

Tengkorak Beach is favoured by locals and with good reason. It is small but delightful and quite a few families were arriving and setting up all kinds of wonderful looking barbecues. We availed ourselves of a stall selling a variety of things on sticks, all brimming with cholesterol and all delicious. We ate our purchases with care, ever mindful of the circling monkeys.

Along the North coast there is a series of small beaches, villages and jetties. At one spot, there is a large cement works, the only real sign of secondary industry on Langkawi. This sits right on the edge of the limestone horst country, which features large pinnacles of limestone rearing out of the land and sea. These then extend North through the Andaman Sea to Krabi in Thailand. Langkawi then, gets the best of two geologies, with the granite of the interior mountains providing building stone and the limestone of the Northern coast providing cement.

We drove down through the centre of the island across excellent roads and used the car to visit a few spots up and down Pantai Cenang before returning to the AB Motel. Christine had her nails done (as you do), while I put my head down.

We returned the car in the early evening, followed by a swim and dinner at Raffi’s. It was around 10pm when we crashed, but were rudely awakened by lots of Russian singing and table banging from the mob next door. Christine thumped on the interconnecting door around midnight, producing a good 30 seconds of quiet. She tried some quick verbal abuse at 1am, which made them leave their balcony and head for the beach about 25m away. The fun continued until 2am, when someone did something to one of the women that caused screaming and lots of crying and complaining. The party seemed to break up then but we were still kept awake by the men, who seemed to gather outside the girls bungalow and insist that that say nothing about what happened. It was hard to feel sympathetic.

In the morning, the area was a sea of vodka and beer bottles. I turned our TV onto a Malaysian children’s program and put the volume up very high. One Russian girl offered an apology later, justifying everything with “Sorry, we were drunk last night”, but we didn’t really accept the apology.

10 June Langkawi

We spent a lazy day, with a bit of swimming, some reading, walking and even a touch of video watching. The passing parade on the beach certainly soaks up time and a whole day of doing nothing is seductive. On one walk to the far point, we checked out another beach front stay called the Delta Motel that offered slightly cheaper rates than the AB and seemed to be comfortable. We might try it on another visit. We are still keen to come back, although not at this time of year. We were hoping to use Langkawi as a jump off point to Koh Lipe and some other Thai Islands to the North but with the monsoon set in, these have all shut down. October may be better.

We watched an amazing tropical storm form and sweep in around sunset, clearing the beach and dumping a lot of rain in a short burst. It was very reminiscent of a Kimberley “wet”. Once the rain eased, it was of to a local Nasi Kandar stall for some roti canai and murtabak.

As we got home, we rejoiced in the fact that our Russian neighbours had left and a quiet night was in store. Not to be, with another group of Eastern Europeans setting up on the beach almost outside our door and drinking themselves stupid until 2am. Beach front chalets are great during the day but a curse at night.

A YouTube video of our Langkawi adventures can be seen here.

11 June – Langkawi to Malacca

Today we flew from Langkawi to Kuala Lumpur on Air Asia. We were unable to change our already booked flight for next Thursday because we had completed a “web check in” and this meant the flight ticket was closed. It seems it is best to hold off any web activity until the day before flying to avoid this. It didn’t matter too much because the flight was so cheap we were still prepared to pay for another one.

Bus KL to Malacca – comfortable and cheap

From KL, we caught a Transnasional Bus to Malacca, a drive of only 90 minutes along good roads. Our stay in Malacca was at the Hallmark Hotel Leisure, close to both the river and the famed “Jonker Walk” area. The surrounding streets are a heritage area although the hotel itslef is a 70s style box. The room was comfortable enough but tired. We complained about the cigarette smell and were shown an alternative. After finding it no different, the management suggested we get some air freshener. Still, at $30 a night with breakfast it’s hard to be too choosy.

After settling in, we headed off to find some food and drink. The area is really exciting and promises much exciting exploration. On our last visit here, we really didn’t discover the delights of the Jonker Walk area until our last day and promised to explore it fully.

It is easy to write Malacca off as a very touristy place, and it is. But dig only a little beneath the veneer of lights and signs and the old world is still very visible. Walk the back streets (with care) and the hustle and bustle of the old warehouse and trader’s life is still very apparent. The people seem intensely proud of their city, and delight in receiving praise for the restoration works and presentation of the place. At present, the streets are quiet and movement around is much easier than our previous visit (March 2011). It seems that most tourism is restricted to weekends at this time of year due to the monsoon season. Also, the Malaysian school holidays have just finished so things have eased off a little.

For dinner, we dropped in at an Indian/Malay spot we had been to previously. The language barrier prevented us being too specific with our order so we just asked for food. It came in abundance, all laid out on large banana leaves direct on the table. A local diner advised against using cutlery, saying that we would enjoy our food more if eaten with the hands. She showed us how to pinch together little clumps of rice, dahl and spinach before feeding it somehow into our mouths. She instructed us to not be embarrassed, just do it. And we did! The food was amazing. We could hardly move in the end and waddled away, full of praise and poorer by less than $10.

12 June Malacca

After breakfast, we searched out a laundary. This took some doing because the usual Asian abundance of street laundries is strangely absent. Eventually, we tracked down a self-serve within reasonable walking distance of the hotel and decided to make this a venture for tomorrow.

We did some serious walking today, through the Jonker Walk and over the river into old Central Malacca. Once the heat got too much, we sought sanctuary in the huge shopping malls in the more modern areas of the city. We were presented with the usual array of clothing, cheap jewelery and footwear. I bought a pair of light sandals but we otherwise resisted parting with our money. The thought of dragging purchases all around Europe is a definite disincentive.

Jonker Walk

Since we covered most historic displays on our last visit, we were free to just wander and watch the world go by. We did stop in for a Cendol at a famous cendol outlet on the Jonker Walk. Cendol is a uniquely Malaysian creation (although we have encountered it in Singapore and Hanoi). Basically, a mountain of shaved ice is heaped over small green jellies, covered in coconut milk, sweet red bean sauce and a layer of fruit (banana or mango are both popular) mixed in a yellow bean sauce. The use of red and yellow beans puts many people off but the whole thing is both delicious and very refreshing. Whereas stopping for a dairy based dessert on a hot day soon leaves you feeling dis-satisfied, a cendol refreshment is more lasting and doesn’t leave a bloated feeling. What’s even better, is that a cendol typically costs around 3.50Rm (about $1.20).

Later, we headed out for an amazing meal at a Chinese outdoor restaurant just down the road for sweet and sour fish, fried mee and mixed vegetables.

13 June Malacca

After breakfast, it was off to the laundry, only to find two problems. Not only did we lack the correct notes for the change machine, we did not have any washing powder. We set off again to find a grocery to buy some washing powder with a 50Rm note. The poor shopkeeper was not overjoyed to find his first customers of the day wanted all his change but he succumbed to Christine’s charm and gave us the notes we needed. By the time we got back to the laundromat, the owner had arrived and he told us all about his new venture. He was a young man from KL who had just taken a lease on the whole building, converting this lower section into a laundromat while renovating the top two storeys into a guest house. This is quite a task in Malacca as many older areas are under heritage orders and renovations must follow strict guidelines. The young man was well travelled, having been to Europe several times.

While the washing was in the dryer, we ducked around the corner to the Ocean Cafe for a lime juice. One wall was covered with testimonials from travellers from every corner of the globe, most extolling the virtues of the laksa. We determined to return for dinner and try it for ourselves.

Clock Tower – Central Square

After a mid-morning relax, we headed off again to find the fabric shops Christine had spied on our last trip. She spent a happy half hour choosing lots of different children’s materials and various types to have lots of stuff in case our grandchildren ever ran out of clothing. To avoid carting this all around Europe, we tracked down a Post Office to mail the material back to Perth. There we bought a packing box, filled out all the paper work, including a customs declaration, and then discovered that the material purchases had taken all our cash. So it was off to find an ATM before returning to the Post Office. All sealed, signed and stamped, the girl smiled and said that it would be between 2 and 3 months, depending on what ships became available. I think we’ll beat the parcel home.

In the evening, we headed back to the place with the great laksa, only to discover that Wednesday night is almost universal “closed” night in the Malaccan dining world. Every good looking place was shut, so we finally headed back to our Indian spot for a feed of murtabak (a delicious mutton filled roti with curry sauce). A big serve set us back $1.20 each.

Trying on hats – she bought a different one

14 June Malacca

We awoke to the realization that “Today we fly to Paris!” We had nothing planned but then anything would be just a waiting game, a little like Christmas Eve when we were kids.

We spent the day doing very little, with only a little walking around to find a bite to eat. Most establishments still seem to be closed, which is a bit of a mystery because there are plenty of tourists on the streets. We were happy to stay in a lot because the day is clear and the sun has a real bite to it, making walking a little uncomfortable. I’ll post this effort now, happy in the knowledge that the next posting will be from half way around the World.

PVI Project 2012

March 24, 2012 / terry

Project Vietnam Inc – Building Project 11-24 March 2012

The Job

This year’s building team project for Project Vietnam was based in Phu Ly, the same as last year’s. Phu Ly is a small provincial town about an hour’s drive South of Hanoi in Ha Nam Province. The actual site was a small kindergarten in a small commune of Trung Luong, another 30 minutes South East. Originally, we were to upgrade two kindergartens, but by the time the job started, the decision had been taken to put all the resources into one and close the other. When we arrived, work was already well advanced, with Tony, our building supervisor having been on site for a couple of weeks and organised a local building team. They had already done the brickwork for two new classrooms, leaving our team to roof 4 classrooms, fix doors and shutters, install electricity, build some toilets, convert a room into a dining room and build a kitchen. With painting and cleaning, not too much to ask of 30 workers and a team of locals in a shade under two weeks. Shortage of storage space was an issue and we moved our main store several times throughout the job to make way for renovations as we proceeded. Piles of rubble were created, shifted and recycled, the Vietnamese letting nothing go to waste.

Last year, on the job at Ma Nao, the local team tended to come as we left. This year, we all worked side by side, creating some wonderful moments and developing a huge amount of mutual respect. The local women are amazing, often hefting weights that have us working in pairs. The language barrier often made for some puzzled looks, but luckily, we had the support of two excellent interpreters, Miss Hanh and Miss Moon, who worked tirelessly throughout the day. The teachers laboured too, carting bricks and mortar in their high heeled shoes and clean clothes. As the fortnight progressed, more and more workers could be seen wearing Aussie hats and shirts bearing Australian logos. Villagers would stop in to say hello, children would stop by after school to play games or try out their few English phrases and occasionally a University student would come by to practise their English conversation.

Christine took on the role of “organiser of smoko”, making many friends at the local markets and causing much merriment by riding a bike through the village. She weaned the workers off a steady diet of sweet biscuits and “choco pies” with fruit platters and tempting savouries. Lunches were provided in a nearby house by a committee of kindy mums. They tried very hard to please our palates, sometimes producing “oohs and arrhs” and at other times getting a polite excuse of “too full” or “funny tummy” when some of the more unusual local dishes were not so well received. Certainly, the appreciation of our efforts in the village was demonstrated over and over, with everyone making some great friends and feeling highly valued.

I laboured; dug ditches, laid drainage pipe, dug a sewerage tank, scraped walls, painted and moved rubble. I left all the thinking work up to a crew of people much better qualified than me. At the times, the body protested, at other times the work was slow and finding a job was hard while we waited for the next step in a process but all in all we were busy, and came home each evening exhausted.

The usual run of minor illnesses ran through the crew, less than last year but still enough to give a few the odd day off to be close to a toilet. Christine maintained a strict regimen with water supplies on site and I think this definitely lead to a reduction in tummy bugs.

This year, we were fortunate to have quite a few younger members of the team with us and their enthusiasm and energy with the local kids was a pleasure to watch. Impromptu games and singing sessions would break out and create a very happy feeling that spread across the work site. Even though we had a large team working in a small space, the peace was always maintained.

Recreation Time

Working hard means that we had a great excuse for a beer after work and the Bia Hoi right next door got our full attention. I’m sure they have been counting down the days until the return of the Aussies and rely on us to fund their next improvement. One night, we even surprised the other regulars with a St Patricks’ Day celebration, complete with green beers, green tinsel and green leaves adorning the tables and beers mugs. Green balloons festooned the keg and we printed out the words to “Danny Boy” so we could loosen the tonsils. The night was combined with a birthday celebration for Del. The birthday the Vietnamese could handle, and Del was swamped with men coming over to toast her good health but I think the St Pats thing passed over them completely.

The culinary opportunities in Phu Ly are a little limited. A few good street food offerings are to be found, everyone seems to adopt their favourite little Pho or rice restaurant and sometimes we went off to the only Pizza and hamburger joint in town. We made up our own names for places, like “Rice Heaven” or “Aunties”. We had some good meals, some not so good meals and even some inedible fare. Everyone tries so hard to please and most seem motivated by more than profit to earn approval. Unlike last year, when we were the only Westerners around, there seems to have been a regular trickle of Russians, French and even a group of 90 primary students from an International school in Singapore staying in our hotel for 2 days to work nearby in an orphanage. A flash new Russian-backed supermarket has opened up in town, complete with electronic scanning, although we tended to stick to the regular old small shops where we were known and had developed a kind of sign language for getting by. We did find that when we wanted to buy something different, using Google on the iPhone to get a picture up usually solved the problem.

Local Gems

It is really amazing what wonderful sights there are out in the rural countryside. The area we are in is known broadly as the Red River Delta. The Red River flows down from the highlands of China and spreads out over an enormous floodplain, providing the basis for a flourishing civilization of many thousands of years. Water is everywhere, the villages really being built on little more than the narrow dykes and earth lanes that divide the rice paddies. Houses are extremely narrow, often rising 3 or even 4 stories to conserve ground space. Churches are very common, with Catholicism being strong (around 15%). Many of the churches are grand, built in the French style and far bigger and more majestic than buildings rated as cathedrals back in Australia. Buddhist temples and pagodas also abound, and we were privileged to be shown through some wonderful examples near where we were working. One was an incredible all-wooden building which dated back to 1310. The timber was in superb condition. The structure was supported on massive solid posts over a metre in diameter. The roofing timbers were also solid and intricately carved, with joints neatly morticed and held with wooden pegs.

A leisurely walk always produces a few surprises, whether it be a wonderful old pig sty or lean-to, some amazing handcart in use, local ingenuity in the use of a motorbike or bicycle or stopping and exchanging greetings with and ancient old grandmother complete with betel-juice stained gums and peg-like teeth. These are the sights and sounds of a Vietnam that one can never hope to fully encounter on the many “whistle-stop” tours that are on offer in the weekend travel section of the daily papers.

The Team

Our team was big this year, the building team alone exceeding 30 sometimes. A medical team also ran a project, largely out of Hanoi but sometimes joining us in Phu Ly for a day or so. People came and went, some staying for only a week, a few joining in after we had been in Phu Ly for a few days. The camaraderie is wonderful. The Sunshine Coast forms the mainstay of PVI but there is a smattering of others, with the Horsham crew (Vic), us West Aussies (3) and even one from Tassie. Many of the team will go on to join up with another project in Cambodia but events will bring us home. The committee has been hard at work reviewing prospects for jobs in 2013 and wherever they take us, we know that we’ll see lots of the same faces again and a few more new ones. We can’t wait.