To tell you the truth I’d been feeling rotten for about 10 days before I left, but with so much going on (that’s another story) I’d not had time to stop and sort it out. With my flight leaving at 1100 I’d planned to get up around 7am so as not to rush, but at 5am I was wide awake, running a fever and generally feeling like shit. Great, I’ve waited almost a year for this holiday and had to cancel it once (you know that story…) so this I didn’t need. Knowing I’d not get back to sleep I decided to get up, get myself some breakfast, take drugs and then make my way slowly to the airport. Good job I left early too, as about 3 metro stops from home everything went wobbly and it was ‘hello breakfast’ all over Belleville station (at least I managed to get off the train before emptying my stomach). Things were going from bad to worse and it took me about 45mins to feel well enough to stand up and shoulder my backpack. What do I do; go home or call the whole thing off and spend the next 4 weeks in bed? Despite the fact that I was beginning to think this whole trip was jinxed I got myself on to the RER and continued on to Charles de Gaulle, arriving just in time to miss check in. I begged the Air France lady to let me on the flight, and I guess the state I was in, and the fact my rucksack could pass as hand baggage persuaded her to make the right decision. This left me with zero time in which to get my self together and I arrived at the gate just as they started to make the call for final boarding. There was no turning back now.
Once on the plane things started to look up. It was a brand spanking new plane and not at all crowded so I had 2 seats to myself, and I was starting to feel slightly human again. Take off was fine, they served us a snack and with 8hrs of flying time in front of us I tucked myself into my blanket and was asleep in no time. I slept like a baby but woke up feeling worse than ever. My head was spinning, it hurt to open my eyes and yep, there was no doubt about it, I was going to be very ill all over Air France’s nice new airplane. I managed to make it to the back of the plane only to find that the toilets were occupied. I think the airhostess must have seen me sprinting down the aisle and thrust a sick bag at me, just in the knick of time.
Hats off at this point to the crew. They were fantastic. They picked me up from where I’d crumpled in a heap on the floor, provided me with a first class flight kit containing face wipes, tooth brush etc and 10 minutes later had made vacant the back row of the plane, padded out the seats with pillows and blankets and put me to bed. What angels.
I’m happy to report that the rest of the journey was totally uneventful and once we arrived I was feeling steady on my feet again. The taxi ride into the city was easy and around 2am I fell into my bed in Bombay’s Southern district of Colaba.
Four years back I spent 3 weeks in Northern India, traveling through Rajasthan and spent a couple of days in Delhi. I’d seen the poverty and filth that one associates with India and so new exactly what I was getting myself in for. What I wasn’t prepared for was the difference between Northern and Southern India. Bombay felt 100 times busier than Delhi, more multi-cultured, with more people, more disparity between the rich and the poor and certainly more pollution. However through the smog you could clearly see that it was a city worth exploring.
Make shift shacks stood at the feet of high rise office buildings, huge trees stood in the grounds of old colonial houses with huge 70’s style concrete housing blocks opposite them and of course, there was a cinema every couple of hundred metres. This is after all Bollywood!
Whilst India has become the outsource capital for the West in recent years it’s also grown the world’s largest film industry, producing multimillion dollar movies, each with the trademark singing and dance routines that frankly put Britany and most boy bands to shame. After 24hrs in the city I knew the names and faces of the 4 or 5 great Bollywood actors, but couldn’t tell you the names of any of the heads of states or significant party leaders, such is the exposure these stars get.
It wasn’t just film stars that were attracting attention. With the Australian cricket team playing the city was full of Ozzies, raucously rejoicing at having won that day’s test match, and celebrating (begrudgingly) with a Kingfisher rather than a Fosters. This didn’t seem to slow them down though. Not wanting to get caught up in the wave of gold and green I headed to the train station only to find that all the trains and busses to Hampi and Goa for the next day had been booked up aforementioned bloody Australians! Nothing for it but to book myself on the sleeper for the following night and spend another day in town. This at least would give me a chance to find some drugs for the illness (that had now turned itself into a chest infection) and to explore.
Next morning I hopped an auto rickshaw to the very North of the city and started South. I truly believe the best way to discover a city is to walk it, and the 5 or 6 Kilometres across town certainly helped me get a rounder view of Bombay. I saw the dobi ghats (where the city’s washing is done), Chowpatty beach, Ghandi’s house, various beautiful old colonial buildings and countless more of the city slums. The pollution combined with the heat and humidity wasn’t helping my health but a couple of days in the Goan sun would sort that out.
Trains in India are fantastic. They’re cheap, they run on time (most of the time), they’re clean, safe and the network is extensive. The 14hr sleeper down the coast was a dream. I was traveling in 2nd class, which provided me with a sleeper bunk (in a cabin of 6), fresh linen and pillows, and air-con, all for about Eu15. After a full day’s walking sleep came easily and all I remember is the rhythmic rocking of the train and the chanting of the chai boys as they made their way up and down the carriages.
Goa’s built up quite a reputation over the last 10 years. Hippies and dropouts made way for drug crazed full-moon parties and charter flights from Europe combined with resort development have scarred both its beauty and reputation. I was careful to avoid the North of the coast (the area closest to the airport and therefore with the most resorts) and so took a bus a couple of hours South to Palolem. Here was the picture postcard beach, a clear mile of sand fringed with palms, and busy, but not too busy, with chilled out backpackers and the odd day-tripper tourist from the Northern resorts. Backpacker beach accommodation is basically the same throughout Asia: a straw hut on stilts, with a mattress, light bulb and mozzie net. What more do you need? I quickly found a quiet place at the end of the beach and installed myself for 150 rupees a night. That’s about Eu3.
Walking up and down the beach it was clear that Palolem’s capacity was much greater than was currently being used with probably 40 places offering accommodation and food. There were a couple of unusual beach occupants though; cows (sacred here of course) and dogs, far too many of them. They kept themselves to themselves in the shade though and I soon forgot about them after a dip in the warm Indian Ocean and a couple of hours lazing in the sun.
Dinner was fantastic Goan curry (although I could have chosen from Chinese, Thai, Italian or Continental such is the culinary range here in backpacker land) and with a cold Kingfisher I watched the sun slip into the sea and headed to bed.
It was then I remembered the dogs. About 30 minutes after sunset the dogs came out in packs to wreak havoc: fighting, rummaging through the bins and anything that had been left at ground level and generally making so much noise that sleep was difficult. The performance was repeated just after sunrise, accompanied by the birds, pigs, and every other animal within a 20km radius.
I met a Kiwi at breakfast who confirmed my worst fear. The night’s noise wasn't just a one-off, every night was the same. Damn, but I was awake now and the sun was shining so it didn’t bother me too much. What was bothering me though was my health. The drugs weren’t working on the chest infection and I was now having trouble breathing at night. After 3 days of beautiful sun filled days and tormented nights I decided to make a move. After all India is a huge country and there’s more to see and do than sleep all day on beach.
Getting away from Goa is pretty easy with a whole network of buses set up to ferry travelers every which way possible. From here I had the choice to head inland and North to Hampi or inland and South to Mysore. Knowing that Hampi risked being overrun with those damn Ozzies I bought a ticket on the luxury sleeper coach to Bangalore.
There’s a first time for everything and within about 5 minutes of boarding the bus I was swearing this would be the last time I’d submit myself to the experience. The ‘luxury’ sleeper was a large minibus, the seats of which had been ripped out and a series of 4ft wide bunk beds installed. Not bad, 4ft you think, that’s a good amount of space to store me and my rucksack in for the next 10 hours… Oh no, you’ve got to share this space with another, in my case a middle-aged, Indian guy.
The roads in India are treacherous at the best of times, andoften not more than a single lane wide The driver’s priority is not only to get the bus from A to B, but to do it in the shortest amount of time, and usually to avoid the all to frequent holy cow sized potholes. This bus driver’s job description obviously didn’t include avoiding the potholes and when you’re flat on your back (sorry, side) with nothing to hold on to it makes for a pretty rough ride. If this didn’t make sleep difficult enough at a certain speed in a certain gear the entire bus resonated making a deafening noise. Trying not to make any physical contact with the guy next to me and not to fall out of bed I managed to rummage around in my pack until I found that first class Air France kit I’d been handed and dig out the ear plugs. Jammed into each ear, and with my fleece wrapped around my head in an attempt to further block the noise and protect my head from the metal bar inches to the right of my forehead I settled back to ride out the journey. I think at some point sheer exhaustion must have overridden the noise and discomfort and I awoke just before 6am as we pulled into a tea stop. The sun was just coming up, the air was still cool and the tea stop was one of the better ones I’d seen. After a couple of cups of chai, and fist of sweet bananas and a bag of masala-flavored popcorn I was beginning to feel human and somewhat reluctantly got back on the bus to watch the last couple of hours' journey into Bangalore.
Bangalore is the silicon city of the North with many of the call-centres and IT services used by the US and Europe being based here. Other than that it’s another large commercial centre with the standard high rises, slums and pollution. Given this I wasn’t keen to spend more time than necessary here and so once liberated from the sleeper coach I hopped into an auto rickshaw to the city’s bus station.
There are various ways of traveling by bus in India. You can use the tourist busses, which are touted as luxury and often fall short of the mark, or you can use the local buses that make no concessions to space, or comfort, being solely focused on capacity and speed. From Bangalore I’d decided to head South West to Mysore, which according to the schedules would take 3-4 hours. The cost for a tourist bus was 70Rs and the local bus was 17Rs so the choice wasn’t difficult.
Now 70Rs is not expensive for a 3-4 hour bus ride. That’s just over 1Eu, or just short of GBP1, which in Europe wont get you very far at all, so the tourist coach would not have been an extravagant option. However all too often if you take the tourist choice you end up with either other western tourists, or Indian tourists, both of which are pleasant travel companions, but not always the most interesting. A tight budget being the mother of all adventure I paid my 17Rs and got me and my backpack on the local bus, which as usual was carrying probably 60% more passengers than it was designed or built to handle. We set off at breakneck speed, dodging cows, carts and people and in no time were out of the city limits and hurtling through the hot dry countryside. I was sat about 5 seats from the front on the opposite side of the bus to the driver so had a reasonable view of the road ahead and could brace myself for the potholes, some of which were pretty considerable. The driver wasn’t stopping for anything though until as we plunged into another foot deep hole the force of the impact was enough to bring the gear lever off in his hand. As we careered on he waved the gear stick above his head shouting what I can only image was ‘SHIITTTTTTTTT’ in Hindi, although it could just well have been ‘Not again, that’s the 3rd time this week!’. We coasted to a stop at which point the driver hopped out, flagged down a motorbike and within 30 seconds was off, still clutching the gear stick in his hand. At this point, all I could do was laugh. We were stuck on a bus and the driver, along with an essential part of the bus had just shot off, God knows to where. As the only Westerner on the bus, me not being able to suppress my laughter was very amusing to the women and children on the bus, all of who were staring at me. Meanwhile all the men on the bus were now huddled around where the gear stick and driver should be, contemplating loudly the situation. About 5 minutes later the motor cycle driver, our driver and gear stick reappeared on the motorbike along with a guy carrying a bottle of gas and a welding torch (this is all on the same motorbike) and a couple of minutes later were busy welding the thing back together. I would have loved to have got photos of this but I was squished into my seat making movement impossible, and even if I was able to get out there was now a thick circle of men (each of whom thought he personally knew the best way of welding the thing back on, and was very loudly offering instructions) overseeing the operation. With the bus fixed and the men back in their seats we continued on our journey, arriving in Mysore only 10 mins later than scheduled. I cant help but ask myself if this had happened in Europe how long it would have taken to get fixed and back on the road again.
Once the summer retreat of India’s elite and still the residence of the current maharaja, Mysore is a beautiful city that prides itself on its heritage and is keen to see that it’s preserved. Finding a place to stay here was difficult as we were now just days away from Diwali (Hindu New Year) for which Mysore is a popular destination for holidaying Indian families. Having hunted around and finally found a room at a reasonable rate I set off to look after priority number 2, food.
Although the Diwali period is a peak Indian tourist season mid-November is a little early for the Westerner tourist season so after the backpacker communities of Goa I was now very much in a minority. It was with pleasure then that another Western girl entered the restaurant and asked if she could join me. Kim, from New Zealand but now living in London, had also just arrived in Mysore where she would be staying for a month in order to study Yoga with one of the local masters. Having traveled in India and Asia before she was used to the constant attention that you get being a single female here, however we both knew that if we were to walk around town together the hassle factor would be significantly reduced, and any attention we would attract would be much more easily ignored.
After lunch we set off to explore the city and I was stuck by the care and attention that was paid, not only to the palace and its grounds but also to the other significant buildings; Government house which is a large and very stately building not far from the palace, a 1920 statue of the Maharaja stood resplendent in gold in the centre of one of the traffic circles and just a short walk on the 1927 Silver Jubilee clock tower looked in very good condition, and appeared to be keeping time perfectly. None of these things may sound overly impressive but when you consider that in other cities and states buildings and surroundings are often in a very bad state of repair Mysore's monuments stood out from the crowd.
Keen to escape the massing throngs of Indian tourists Kim and I jumped on to a local bus for the 20-minute journey up to the Chamundi Hills. Towering more than 1,000m above Mysore Chamundi Hill (one of the eight sacred hills in Southern India) is the site of the Sri Chamundeswari temple, topped off with a stunning seven-storey, 40m high gopuram (staggered pyramid-like roof heavily adorned with deities and beasts). Following the example of the other visitors we slipped off our shoes and slowly proceed inside, being careful to enter not to take a wrong turn and end up entering on the left (a heinous crime given that you must always proceed through and around a temple in a clockwise direction).
The inside was suitably adorned in gold leaf with incense weighing heavily in the air and gifts and offerings to the gods stacked before the various effigies. The group of Indians we'd tagged on to were now approaching a pair of temple guardians who were accepting offerings in return for a small flower. As we got to the guardians we noticed it was money they were collecting, and neither Kim nor I had our wallets out ready… Bowing politely we ducked past guardian and swung through the door out into the sticky afternoon air, into what can only be described as a cage. Yes we were now caged in, or more accurately out, from the rooms to the side of the temple, where a mafia-like scene was taking place. Literally piled on the tables in each of these 3 rooms we passed were mountains of banknotes with 6 to 8 guys huddled around collecting up bundles and running them though counting machines. On the floor beneath and around them sat gangs of men and young boys stacking piles of coins, then bagging them up in cloth moneybags. And who says religion’s not a cash cow? Somewhat shocked Kim and I left the building wondering just what the thousand of devout Hindus who’d made long pilgrimages in order to make an offering to a god and pray for a cause made of this scene, however no one seemed to take the slightest bit of notice.
We had originally planned to walk down the hill and back into town however the temperature was now up in the high 30s and neither of us felt quite up to the task, so we hopped back on a local bus and in no time at all were back having a quiet drink at a roadside juice stall. Only it wasn’t really that quiet. Diwali is supposed to be the festival of light with often hundreds of thousands of small oil lamps being floated down rivers and in lakes and strings of lights being draped around houses and businesses, however it seems that fireworks have taken over from the small lamps with the emphasis being on the sound of the explosion rather than the light produced. And no one was waiting for Diwali to start to see just how much noise their firecrackers could produce. Literally hundreds of metres of stalls and roadside stands had popped up over the last 24hrs selling all manner of explosives and each child was now the proud owner of a cap gun, ensuring that as foreigners we now not only got the usual grilling: ‘Hi, What’s your name? Where are you from? 10 Rupees? You give me 10 Rupees?’ but we were now gunned down in the process.
In an attempt to escape both the heat on the streets (in every sense) Kim and I ducked into a nearby cinema just in time for the afternoon showing of another Bollywood release; Ultimate Force.
I’ve seen a handful of Bollywood films recently, the storyline of each is pretty much the same (only the songs and costumes change). However Ultimate Force (we should have guessed by the title) was a pretty violent movie, taking the usual pitch of good verses evil and spicing it up with a few Kung-Fu fight scenes and lots of Matrix style special effects and lots of fake blood. Perhaps not the best way to kill a couple of hours but at least the violence drowned out the noise outside.
Leaving the cinema was what I imagine it would be like to step out onto the streets of Falluja. Rockets shot overhead, explosions ricocheted off buildings and strings of firecrackers set up across the streets were regularly ignited to ambush a passing rickshaw or holy cow. We managed to find solace in the shape of a rooftop restaurant and sat back with a couple of coconut juices to watch the mayhem below.
Sleep wasn’t easy that night. The explosions continued and just as things started to quiet down the mosque next door cranked up the call to prayer at 5am and the whole thing started over again. I wasn’t overly concerned though as I was leaving town early to catch a bus up to the hill station of Ooty, about 5 hours away in the Western Ghats.
I’d decided to pay for a tourist bus given that there were no direct local busses and the volume of Indian tourists now traveling for Diwali was insane (8 women were killed yesterday at Delhi railway station in a stampede to get on a train reported the Times of India). After a tour of the hotels in town we stopped at a rather expensive looking place and picked up a couple of Australians who were somewhat reluctant to get on our rickety minibus. ‘No’ the guy kept saying, ‘We are booked on the luxury coach to Ooty, this is not a luxury bus!’. I stuck my head out the window to tell him this was the ‘luxury’ bus and could he and his wife get on please so we could all leave. We were already 1.5hrs late.
Mr and Mrs Oz and their bags loaded on to the bus, we set off at breakneck speed, with the co-pilot stood shouting what appeared to be an itinerary for the day. ‘Hang on a minute,’ I said, ‘I was told this was a direct bus to Ooty.’ I asked, ‘Yes, direct bus’ he confirmed, ‘but they (pointing to the Australians) have paid extra money to tour Bandipar National park so now we all go to Bandipar’ he announced.
Bandipar, once the private hunting ground of the maharaja, is now an 875sq km park that along with Mudumali park straddles the boarder between Southern Karnaraka and Tamil Nadu. I’d read about the beauty of the park and its evergreen forests and woodlands but also the rarity of seeing any of the resident wildlife; tigers, panthers, deer and elephants. I was stupidly excited then when the bus careered off to the left and parked up just 50m from a herd of elephants, busy pulling branches down and scratching up against trees. Once again I was in the wrong place and so only managed top get photos of elephant bums, however the sight was spectacular and one that I’m very grateful to Mr & Mrs Oz for the opportunity.
Leaving the elephants to trundle off through their jungle we continued on to see deer and monkeys, some of which were bold enough to hop in through bus windows and doors causing quite a stir in our packed little bus. From here we started to climb up into the Western Ghats, surrounded by lush green hills and getting ever closer to the clouds that obscured the mountains from sight.
Sometime later we emerged through the tops of the clouds into brilliant sunshine and Ooty, the small town surrounded by terraced fields and situated alongside quite a substantial lake. After the heat, dirt and noise of your average Indian city Ooty had a refreshing clean and calmness about it which appealed immediately. Feeling good about the next couple of days I sat myself down in a small café to get some lunch and pour over my Lonely Planet to see about organizing treks and a guide. I’d had my head in my book for probably the best part of an hour when I looked up and out to a very different Ooty. The clouds had come down and rain was thundering down. The streets were rivers of boiling mud and it didn’t look like it was going to stop anytime soon. I ordered another chai and went back to my book.
Two hours later and the rain hadn’t stopped. It was dark now, I’d drunk enough chai to last a lifetime and the café looked like it was shutting up shop. No option but to put my head down, my collar up and run. Within seconds I was soaked and my faithful Coq Sportif sneakers were no match for the rivers of rain. It took me a good 10 minutes to walk back and I arrived very cold, very wet and pretty miserable. I like to travel light so for this trip I’d brought 2 pairs of trousers, 2 T-shirts, 1 long skirt, 1 fleece jumper, a waterproof jacket, a bikini, my sneakers and my hiking boots. As the temperature was now about 5°C and I had no sleeping bag I put on my one remaining set of dry clothes and went to bed. It was 7pm.
The night was very long and very cold and the next morning the weather was no better so I put back on my cold wet clothes, cold wet shoes and stepped out into the rain to look for hot food and drink. A couple of hours later the weather had improved a little, I’d warmed up slightly and so headed off to climb the hills behind the town, passing thorough the well-manicured botanical gardens en route. The going was incredibly difficult though as the ground was slick red mud and I had no desire to fall or risk hurting myself. Instead I headed back to town to see about finding a guide in the hope of arranging trekking for the next day. I found a guide no problems, however it seemed I was the only tourist in town and he wasn’t keen to put something up together just for me, especially as the weather forecast for the next 24hrs was continuous rain. Just my luck to head up to the mountains when a cyclone hits. Disheartened I decided I didn’t want to spend any more time in Ooty and headed for the railway station to see about getting across to Kodaikanal, another hill station in Tamil Nadu, in the hope that the weather would be better.
The station master was obviously very proud of his station. After giving me the full guided tour (he’d latched on to me as the only tourist in town) he politely informed me that no, there weren’t any trains going anywhere. After the heavy rainfall countless landslides had washed the tracks up the steep slopes away and it would probably be months before the next departure or arrival. With my morale dropping further I headed down to the bus station knowing that with the 6hrs train ride no longer an option I’d be facing a 9hr bus ride. At this point I decided to sod the expense and book a tourist coach rather than take the local bus.
300Rs later (bear in mind I’ve been paying 100-150Rs for a nights accommodation and 25Rs for a meal) I had a ticket for the next morning. I crawled back to my room, changed back into my remaining dry set of clothes and got back into bed, where it was slightly warmer than outside. It wasn’t all doom and gloom though. On my way back to my room just after I’d passed the row of firework stalls one of them quite literally exploded in a crazy impromptu display that lasted a good 10 minutes. Needless to say the children loved this, the stall holders around about though freaked and tens of men ran backwards and forwards between their stock and safety in order to avoid the whole street going up in smoke.
Next morning I made the decision to travel in my dry set of clothes and we set off down the mountain. The rains had reeked havoc with rocks, trees and landslides blocking the roads every 50 metres and the already treacherous switchbacks now became a dodgem course with busses and cars weaving their way around them.
My 300Rs had bought me the very last seat in the bus, which also happened to be the very first seat. I was sat on the opposite side from the driver, just inches from the windscreen, which meant that when he swung the bus round those tight bends for 2 or 3 seconds there was nothing between me and the sheer drop beneath me.
Jesus bus-driving H. Christ, we’re all gonna die! If I’d had something to hold on to I would have had white knuckles. Instead I just tried not to look down, or at the cowering passengers in the seats behind me. I concentrated on the driver who seemed to be taking everything in his stride.
The state of the roads meant that we were now well behind schedule and it wasn't until after 9hr of route that we started the climb up to Kodaikanal.
At just over 2,500m there are 38miles of twisty switchback roads up to the only hill station that the Americans established in India. Averaging 10 miles an hour it was a grueling 4hrs in the dark and we finally arrived in the pouring rain just after 11pm. I’d not booked a room for the night but the driver was kind enough to drop me at a budget guesthouse the guidebook recommended, however by the time I’d dashed the 10m to the door my second set of clothes and shoes were soaked. Thoroughly miserable I took their cheapest room (an outrageous 300Rs) and it wasn't until after I'd undressed and was about to fall into bed that I noticed there was no glass in the window. I jammed my backpack into the window frame in an attempt to block the wind and rain and buried myself under the bedsheets.
Another morning of wet clothes, wet shoes and wet weather. Desperately in need of food I set out to try and find a good breakfast to lift my spirits. The clouds hadn’t lifted at all and at times visibility wasn’t more than 5m which meant navigating my way around the unmarked roads very difficult, however slowly though the mist in front of me formed a familiar logo. Kodaikanal had a Baskin Robbins! Not letting the excitement get the better of me, I wandered in expecting a Indian ice-cream shop, only to be presented with an array of fresh pastries, sweets, coffees and milkshakes. I ordered a mountain of food and set about rebuilding my strength and morale. Whilst I was eating a guy walked in selling that day’s paper and I picked up a copy of the Times of India and Indian Express to pass the time.
Often while traveling it’s difficult to find out what’s going on locally due to the language barrier but with India having 3 or 4 excellent English language papers with national, international and regional news, picking up a paper in the morning had become part of my day’s routine. Whereas Arafat’s death had dominated the front pages for the last couple of days floods were now making headline news. With the torrential rainfall over the last couple of days and more forecast in the next 48hrs, Tamil Nadu, which for the past 3 years had not had its usual rainfall, was now faced with flash floods destroying homes, crops and lives, and the state’s principle dam was fit to burst. Damn, this cyclone was really getting on my nerves; I had no warm or dry clothes and no intention of continuing to pay 300Rs for another night’s frozen accommodation. More miserable than ever, I resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t going to get to see or enjoy the Western Ghats in their full glory and went back to the guesthouse to squash everything back into my soggy backpack, and plan my next steps.
Knowing that the temperature would rise as I dropped in altitude I’d set my sights on Madurai which is one of India’s seven holy cities in Southern Tamil Nadu. Having no intention of spending another 300Rs on a tourist bus I pulled my pack on to the government bus (48Rs) and we set off at the usual break neck speed down those treacherous mountain roads. This time I was sat near the back of the bus and was pleased to be blissfully unaware of the gaping chasms and voids that awaited us at every bend. After a couple of changes of bus I arrived safely in Madurai, and with the temperature now closer to 25° than 5° my feet were slowly starting to dry out. The journey to Madurai had taken quite a while and it was late by the time I found a hotel. Despite being hungry and tired I had only one goal: to wash every item of clothing in my backpack so that tomorrow morning I could for the first time in 3 days put on dry, clean clothes.
Having already experienced a handful of India cities I was expecting Madurai to be pretty much the same; huge amounts of hustle, hassle, squalor and filth. Sure there was an element of that in Madurai, however the city seemed to move at a slower more relaxed pace, and although the roads and paths were broken there weren’t the usual pools of fetid water or rotting waste, which meant that after just a couple of hours in the city I was feeling pretty relaxed. A far cry for the cold, damp misery of Kodaikanal. One of the great things about traveling in India is that there is no shortage of English language local press. There are a number of national papers; The Times of India, the Indian Express, The Hindu, all of which publish local sections as well as national and international news. Over the past weeks I’d made a point of trying to find a paper each day and along with the book I’d been given to read, India in slow motion, by Mark Tully, I was able to build up a good picture of the current events and how they affected life around me. For example I learnt of the threat to increase fuel prices which resulted in there being a transport strike, that the rains I’d experienced in the Western Ghats had caused flooding and huge amounts of crop damage in Tamil Nadu, and I learnt all about the elephant retreat.
Each year after Diwali all the temple elephants in Southern India are sent away for a break to an elephant holiday/health farm where they can roam free, get medical attention and do whatever else elephants do to relax. On my first morning in Madurai the paper announced the elephant from the temple would be loaded that evening and of course there would be the usual celebrations, prayers and offering to the gods to ensure the elephant (they refer to them in the papers as dumbos) would have a safe trip, an opportunity not to be missed.
Just as with all Indian celebrations this one included a parade through the streets of the statue of a god, offerings of flowers, food and cash and huge amounts of noise and firecrackers. The crowd that had gathered was enormous and pretty soon we were so crushed that I couldn’t get my backpack off my back to get my camera out. Needless to say the elephant was scared out of its wits by all this, and the very last thing it wanted to do was get into the truck that they were backing up towards it.
Up until now I’d been trying to push my way to the front, now as the elephant roared and stamped I was pleased there were 4 or 5 people forming a human shield in front of me. After much cajoling and what seemed endless beatings with sticks the dumbo finally relented and thundered up the ramp. The tailgate was slammed shut behind it and the last I saw was a glimpse of its trunk reaching out of the truck for a branch as, with its horn blaring, the truck sped off round a corner. Poor elephant, I hope his holiday was more relaxing than his send off.
Given that I’d gotten into the swing of Madurai I’d decided to base myself there for a couple of days in order to stay in the same place for a couple of nights and plan properly where I was going next. The days therefore fell into a regular routine. Up early (call to prayer at 5am in the mosque next to the hotel…), breakfast of idly and vadai with plenty of chai stretched out with a read of the papers, wander round town trying to get lost and exploring the markets and stalls (a bit of shopping), long lunch in order to escape the midday sun then each afternoon I would head over to the temple in order to discover another part of the huge compound and people-watch as the sun set.
It was these final hours that I really looked forward to as there would invariably be a ceremony going on somewhere that would make for fascinating viewing and there were usually a couple of inquisitive Indians nearby who were ready to explain what was going on and make general conversation. It was with some reluctance then that after 3 days I dragged my rucksack off to the railway retiring rooms in order to sleep for a couple of hours and catch the 4am train to Trivandrum.
Originally from Madurai I’d planned to head South East to Rameswaren, a temple town on the most Eastern tip of India, which is commonly refered to as the Varanasi of the South. The cyclone that had destroyed my trekking plans in the Ghats had played havoc on the Tamil plains and with the rail services suspended due to floods I decided against risking the 10hr bus journey and to save Rameswaren for my next Indian adventure. This had meant I could chill out in Madurai for the 3 days and now continue with my journey up the Keralan coast back towards Mumbai.
Trivandrum is almost at the very tip of India, but apart from being a transport and business hub there’s not much to see or do. I therefore hopped straight from the train on to a bus about 40Km North to a small temple town called Varkala, on the cliffs above the coast.
Varkala is only a small place but it’s known for 2 things: its Ayervedic medical centres and its temple explosions. I should have remembered this before I took a room just a couple of hundred metres from the temple crossroads.
After my early start I spent a great relaxing afternoon on the beach, soaking up the sunshine, playing in the surf and catching up on the day’s newspapers so I was pretty tired when I fell into bed around 10pm. When I travel I tend to get into the rhythm of getting up early and getting to bed early, but 4am when the music and huge explosions started was a little too early for me. I’d just get back to sleep when ‘BOOOOM’ and the window glass would rattle and shake in its frame. I dug out the Air France travel kit, rammed the ear plugs in and buried my head under the pillow until 6ish when I decided I could take it no more. I wandered up to the temple where hundreds of worshippers crowded around waiting to enter and get their blessing, whilst outside in the town’s tank what looked like baptisms were taking place. I wanted to take photos of this but a couple of stern looks when I got my camera out persuaded me otherwise. A nearby Indian woman took time out from her pilgrimage to the temple to explain that the explosions were to wake up the gods and draw their attention to the prayers and offerings that were being made. After an hour or so of watching and learning I set off towards the beach and breakfast, which Varkala being a bit of a backpacker spot was the backpacker standard, banana porridge and fresh fruit salad. Fantastic!
After a couple of days in Varkala taking some great walks along the coastal cliffs and hours watching the local fishermen bring in their catch I hopped on another early morning train up to Kollam, the gateway to the Kerelan backwaters.
Much of the coastline over the next 100Km is a network of seawater channels and islands, hidden amongst which are countless villages, supporting themselves from fishing and farming. I wanted to rent a small boat and organize a day exploring these villages, however in my 2 days in Varkala I’d found no one wanting to share the expense with me. I found no one in Kollam either, so I bought a ticket for the standard tourist cruise up the coast to Appeley. I was a little nervous about this as one of the guys I’d spoken with had told me the boat he took was noisy and belched out black smoke, however the boat we clambered onto (about 6 Westerns and 15 Indian tourists) was in pretty good shape and chugged away quietly as we started up the channels. Traveling by water is usually pretty relaxing and after 2.5 weeks of adrenalin-charged road transport and longwinded train journeys, being able to watch the beautiful scenery slip by without dust, pollution or continuous horns was blissful.
Around lunchtime we pulled alongside a floating restaurant and had a quick thalis with fantastic fresh pineapple and coconuts for desert. Over lunch I got talking to a guy from New Zealand and over the remaining 5 hours of our trip we hung out in the shade of the lower deck and swapped travel stories and India view and experiences. We’d been to quite a few similar places and were both headed in the same direction so when we got ashore as the sunset at Appeley we decided to split our expenses and share a rickshaw to the train station. One of the joys of traveling independently is that you can be totally spontaneous, and selfish, deciding to go where you want when you want. However solo travel is hard work. You can’t leave your pack for 5 seconds to go and explore (or go pee) and as a woman the hassle factor can be exhausting so I was more than happy to have Jon’s company for a while. We arrived in Ernakulm, the capital of Kerela, just before 11pm and deciding to continue splitting our costs we found a guest house with a twin room and crashed for the night.
As I’ve explained I’ve been used to waking, or being woken, up early, so I was pretty surprised when I looked at my watch to see it was almost 9am. On the other side of the room Jon was fast asleep and outside it was eerily quiet. Either something was very wrong or we’d just found the quietest guest house in India! Knowing that we could both get night trains out to our next destinations the night after we decided to book ourselves in for a 2nd good night’s sleep and set off by ferry across Ernakulum’s harbour to explore Fort Cochin.
Ernakulum used to be the major trading port for spices with the Middle East, Far East, Africa and Europe and the influences of these cultures as left its mark with colonial architecture and various churches and communities. India is criss-crossed with religions and divisions of religions, however Fort Cochin is pretty unique in that it’s home to a small Jewish community along with their own synagogue. The area, known as Jew Town, is surrounded by spice markets and traders along with the usual tourist stores and hawkers. After a quick look around the synagogue and a couple of fantastic samosas from a roadside food stall we headed to the outskirts of Jew Town to the Dutch Palace, so called as the building was renovated by the Dutch in 1663. The building, which was originally constructed by the Portuguese in 1555 and presented to the raja of Kochin (in exchange for securing trading privileges) is more of a large house than palace, however the murals that adorn the many rooms and chambers are exquisite, depicting in incredibly fine detail scenes from the Ramayana, Mahabharata and Puranic legends. From the outside the palace hadn't looked like it'd take more than an hour to explore but the murals had us transfixed and I'm sure that if the palace hadn't kicked us out for lunchtime closing we would have spent the whole day admiring the walls.
I've never been very good at handling large amounts of sunshine and with John being ginger-haired and fair-skinned we were both suffering within minutes of finding ourselves in the searing midday sun. We jumped into a rickshaw back towards central Kochin and having picked up the day's papers and another snack from a food stall we hid ourselves in the shade of the waterfront buildings and watched the water traffic coming and going between Kochin and Ernakulum.
Fort Kochin turned out to be much smaller than we imagined and despite our best attempts at getting lost in its small network of streets and lanes we found we'd quickly covered the majority of the area and set off back across the harbour to our quiet hotel neighbourhood. Although the Palace was amazing, Kochin didn't seem to warrant more than a day or two’s visiting and so we stopped off at the railway station on the way back to book the next legs of our journey.
With John heading to Mysore he was able to get a midday train out the next day, however as I was headed North back to Goa I had to wait until 7pm for the next direct train. Not that this proved a problem though, I was engulfed in an excellent book and I relished the thought of a couple of hours to myself in which to crack on and maybe finish it. Having seen John off at the station I strolled outside only to be bowled over by the throngs of rickshaw drivers and taxi men trying to persuade me to choose their vehicle over one of the hundred others. Of course having been traveling with a guy for the last 48hrs (and especially a 6ft tall crazy red-headed one) as a women I'd become invisible, or untouchable. In the last 2 days of calm I'd let my guard slip, and instead of walking briskly out of the station intent on my direction I'd ambled out slowly and was now surrounded. Damn. With my head down and elbows up I cleared a path through the mass of males and beat a hasty retreat to my book and hotel room.
Why was I headed back to Goa when there was so much more of Southern India yet to explore? Simple, this was supposed to be a holiday and although solo travel opens up an amazing world of experiences and adventures, it’s anything but relaxing. With now 3.5 weeks of travel under my belt and only a few days before I was due to fly back to Paris I wanted to plant my backpack in a place for more than 48hrs and take time to kick back and reflect on everything I'd experienced.
Not wanting to return to Palolem this time I opted for Benalium, just 20km or so North, but a lot more relaxed and less packed, so under-populated in fact that I could walk for a good hour on the beach in either direction and not see another soul. This was my idea of a perfect Indian Ocean getaway. I spent the last 3 days of my vacation getting up early, walking as far down the beach as possible, larking about in the sea and lounging about in the sun. I finally got to catch up on the month’s worth of reading I'd been carrying with me and a chance to put together my thoughts and plans for my return to Paris and the coming months. Not wanting to have to lose 24hrs vacation travelling and to avoid another night in Bombay, one of the first decisions I made was to book a flight direct from Goa to Bombay. The remaining 3 days blur into a lazy haze of sun and great seafood.
The flight back to Bombay was easy and as we came in low over the city the enormous sun slipped below the horizon giving me the best sunset of my vacation, and a natural end to my journey. The travelling was only just starting though. The flight back to Paris was smooth this time and I had the good fortune to wake up as we were flying over the Arabian states and on a beautiful bright moonless night look down upon the deserts, which were dotted with the occasional settlement. We landed in Paris as the sun rose on a clear winter’s morning and just an hour or so later I was sat on my terrace in the warm sunshine with a much needed and much missed cup of real coffee and croissant. I was glad to be home, no doubt about it, but the chance to relax was brief. Four hours later I was back in the Air France lounge and back in European business women work mode waiting for a flight to the UK. In just 48hrs I'd moved from backpacker digs in Goa to high-class hotels in London. My body was in culture shock; my brain was already planning my return to India.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Asian Journal - Chapter 7 - Indian Summer (April 2000)
Asian Journal - Chapter 7 - Indian Summer (April 2000)As I’d never really wanted to go to India I’d not planned to spend any longer in Delhi than it takes to transfer from one flight to another, but over the past couple of months I’d spoken to countless travellers who’d persuaded me to make the effort to see some more of the country.Having no information on travelling in India I found myself sweltering in the mid-summer heat, with daily temperatures easily reaching 40c. This heat, combined with the pollution, stench and general squalor of the city streets gives Delhi its own atmosphere. A feeling that can only be described awesome. An over-powering sensual attack that’s uniquely India.I spent Two days exploring both Old and New Delhi. Stunned by the architecture, choked by the rancid smell of stale urine and constantly surprised by scenes of daily street life. In some other cities I’ve felt like I’ve only scratched the surface but in Delhi I felt instantly immersed, and whilst being swept along I came closer to Indian life and culture, simply through osmosis.After 48-hrs I was ready for a break, and caught an early train SouthWest to the ancient city of Jaipur.As the capital of Rajasthan, Jaipur has a totally different feel from that of Delhi. Walking along its streets was like stepping back in time with camels pulling laden carts, women veiled from head to toe and holy cows aimlessly wandering to and fro. I was woken early by the wild peacocks high in the hotel garden trees and set out to find a driver to help me explore the city.After hours of argueing, first about the agenda, then the price, and finally the number of commission paying shops I could be dragged round I struck a deal with the rickshaw-wallah and we set of towards the ancient city of Amber. High in the desert hills 20 Kms from Jaipur stands the beautiful Amber Palace, overlooked and protected from historic troubles by Amber Fort. Although this was the off-season for tourists there were still a few Indian holiday makers exploring the grounds and buildings of the palace and seeking shade in the walled garden below, but as climbed past the Palace and on up to the Fort the crowds began to thin out. Shortly I found myself alone on the dusty path an unsure whether I should be watching the desert plains spill out before me or the bushes for ill intent Indians.On a couple of occasions whilst I’ve been travelling I’ve had some trouble being a single female and these times have always been preceded by an unnerving feeling of fear, not unlike the one I was experiencing now. My instincts didn’t betray me and around the corner came a group of 5 adolescent Indian boys. Loud, bulshy and focused on me. It’s a times like this that I wished I had one of the following: a very convincing replica gun, in-depth knowledge of at least 3 martial arts, one of those clouds Monkey has which whisks him away from various situation. The sky being crystal clear I reached for my only weapon, 1-litre of India’s finest bottled water. Held cap end and swung meaningfully it offered my first and only line of defence. As our paths crossed one of the boys suddenly darted straight for me in what I believe was more of an attempt to scare me than harm me, but I wasn’t taking any chances and the bottle let out a satisfying smack as it made contact with his arm. My next worry was if they reciprocated the attack, but they strode on, no doubt chuffed at having scared the pants of me. I climbed on and hastily explored the fort very conscious of being totally isolated and also somewhat at siege as both the boys and I knew there was only one route in and out of the site.I climbed to the highest part of the old wall and through the ramparts confirmed my worst fear. Up the path were coming the same 5 guys. Option 1 – Hide somewhere near the entrance gate and slip out once they’d come inOption 2 – Arm myself with a couple of decent rocks and head straight for themI knew that I was better off outside the ruins in the open so grabbed a couple of chunks of the local sandstone and set of towards them, as confidently as possible.I’m not sure why I did it but I started banging the stones together, just in a nonchalant manner but it had the effect of letting these shits know I wasn’t going to scared again. As our paths crossed for the second time and the distance between us grew I turned back and the anxiety and fear escaped me in a string of abusive insults, aimed directly at India’s over-attentive males.With all my senses set to sensitive my driver and I spent the rest of the day exploring Jaipur and its countless markets and museums. The temperature was at 48c for most of the day, I was tired, filthy and still somewhat nervous following the Fort fiasco but I’d fallen in love with the place and was sad to have to leave so soon for Agra.Home of the Taj Mahal and just 3 hours from Delhi by train Agra is possibly one of the most visited cities in India, and the rickshaw drivers know it! The Lonely Planet and guest house visitors books are peppered with tales of dodgy drivers who refuse to take you anyway useful and instead drag you round various craft shops, of which they’re all on commission from. Having already been through Bangkok I was more than prepared for this kind of behaviour and made damn sure I wasn’t going to fall victim to their foul play. One thing I wasn’t prepared for was the water scam. Indians are a resourceful race, but not totally ethical and me being naive to their ways thought I’d be safe if I stuck to bottled water. Having walked across a bridge earlier in the day and seen the bloated body of a child in the river below I certainly wasn’t going to be touching the local H2O, but gulped merrily on the WHO certified aqua in the bottle before me. The heat in Agra was appauling. Close to 50c, and with the air-con in the room it didn’t get much below 45c but I was oblivious to this as I rang to reception for extra blankets and more towels. I was sick. I was learning the hard way that most bottled water is filled from the tap in the street then sealed in a dodgy workshop just 100m away.Having spent almost 3 months travelling without more than a cold I couldn’t believe that just 3 days before I flew home I was now prisoner in my own hotel room, not able to move further than 2 feet from either the bathroom or the bed. Days and nights merged as I discovered why there was a bucket next to the toilet and none of the coloured pills in my first-aid kit worked. After 48hrs of hell, broken only by visits from the receptionist to ensure I was still breathing I felt strong enough to leave the room and venture up to the roof to catch the magnificent Taj Mahal as the sun set.Having not eaten for 3 days and with the temperature still rising I spent the next day sitting quietly in the grounds of the Taj watching as the sun changed the colour of the marble and Indian life play out before me. Old women in beautiful saris hobbled through the beautiful gardens, young Indian girls in western dress posed Diana style for photos and groups of overweight European package tourists waddled about sweating profusely and video-ing everything. I admit I spent more time people watching than I did admiring the vista before me but it sure made for interesting viewing.3-hours later I was back in the YWCA Delhi desperately trying to cram clothes into my rucksac and contemplating food for the first time in a while. 6 hours on and courtesy of Lufthansa I’m 30,000ft above the city on my way to Europe. My Asian explorations were over, for the time being.
Asian Journal - Chapter 6 - Messin' about on the river (March - April 2000)
Set deep in the Himalayan hills, just 6Km from the Tibetan border the Borderlands reserve is a wonderfully remote area totally unspoiled and with the feeling of being very much removed from time. Along with the rest of my group we spent most of the morning rehearsing paddling techniques, learning how to read the river and what seemed like far too long on what to do if you fall out of the boat, and various ways of getting back in. I'm all for safety, especially when playing with large volumes of water hurtling down narrow gorges but the lengths to which our safety training went began to scare me, very very much. Was I really ready to partake in something that required this much depth of water rescue knowledge??? Over lunch I was somewhat relieved to find I wasn't the only one feeling slightly nervous, but before we had time to scare each other too much lunch was cleared and we were suited up for our first set of rapids. Our river guide (a former bodybuilding Mr Nepal!) launched us out into clear water and for the first 10 minutes we trundled leisurely downstream whilst he shouted "Left paddle! Back paddle!" and we all admired the view. Mr Nepal wasn't impressed. "This is a very serious river!" he screamed, "if you do not listen and obey me you will get hurt, seriously!" OK, he'd got our attention, from now on we'd paddle. All rapids are classed according to their difficulty, 3 being reasonably taxing, 5 being very difficult and grade 6 being applied to those that were technically impossible. All the rapids we'd be tackling on ourfirst day were 3's and 4's and we were now fast approaching our first white water, appropriately named 'Frog in a blender'. Imagine being stuck in a bouncy castle, wedged inside a washing machine that's chock full of rocks and set on fast spin cycle. Everything happens very very fast and its easy to forget to listen to Mr Nepal because your concentrating on that large bolder that's hurtling towards you. Then suddenly you plunge 5 feet over the edge of the rapid and you pop up in a pool of calm still water, wring out your soaking t-shirt and wondering just what the hell happened back there. We'd survived our first class 3! Fear took a back seat and the adrenaline came out to play. . . With the sun on the water and feeling very much more confident in ourselves we eagerly paddled down stream to our next challenge, a class 4 rapid named 'Ex Lax'! Once we'd watched the safety kayaker go down through we realised why. Still riding on the adrenaline rush of earlier in we went, and 45 seconds later out we popped, battered, bruised and grinning like Cheshire cats. We turned our raft around so as to watch the second team come through, and so they did, one by one without their raft! I'd been waiting with my waterproof camera hoping to get some action shots but now we had to work quickly and pluck these poor people out of the drink. Our hours of training paid off, we'd been suitable drilled and using arms, legs, and any other body part we could gasp we unceremoniously hauled them aboard. More than their confidence was shaken, and suddenly we weren't feeling so gung-ho either. The rest of the day was less dramatic but still incredibly exhilarating and we retired to the campsite that evening exhausted but happy and swapping differing accounts of the same day. Bright and early next morning we paddled out again, the river swollen further from by the rain during the night and snowmelt from further up. A couple of class3's and a 4 in before lunch and we were doing well. Mr Nepal congratulated us in the way we worked as a team but informed us that we were not yet up to tackling what was round the next bend, a class 5. We put the raft ashore and clambered over the rocks towards the awful din that was coming from downstream. 'Hydraulic holes' appear when large volumes of water drop over a ledge directly towards rocks and anything that falls into these black holes gets sucked deep down, and stays down. We unloaded the raft of everything that wasn't necessary and watched in awe as our guide brought the raft over the rapid and to the side of the hole single-handed. This man definitely knew what he was doing. Having seen Mr Nepal in action I'm now better able to understand what happened next. We'd reloaded the raft and changed our seating so as to better spread the weight to get us over the next set of rapids. I was now perched at the very front of the raft, far away from the safety zone where I'd nestled for the first part of the trip but this didn't concern me too much, how much different could it possibly be? "Don’t look at the rock. Don’t look at the rock" I remember saying to myself, repeating the mountain biking logic that if you don’t look at the obstacle you wont hit it, as we hurtled towards the bolder. SMACK, we hit it broadside. The force reverberated through our bouncy-castle-raft and I was quite literally shot out of the boat, hit the rick then fell into the river. I remember having time to think 'wheres the raft gone???' then before my safety training had time to kick in I was back in the boat, dazed and confused. Henning, who was sat opposite me at the front of the raft, informs me it all happened so fast that I was still paddling and smiling as I flew through the air and bounced off the rock. And within seconds of going overboard Mr Nepal had bent down and with one arm quite literally plucked me from the water. He said he didn't even have time to scream "man over board!". I'm pretty sure that if we didn't have such an experienced guide I would have come back with more than just a blue bum and a few cuts and bruises. To the river I now owed much respect, and to him I am eternally grateful. Not wanting to subject my bruising to the 48hrbus/train/bus journey overland to India I grabbed my trusty credit card and booked a flight - well a girls got to have some luxury!!! Stepping gingerly on to the tarmac at Delhi's International airport, I was ready to embark on the last leg of my travels. Hopefully things would a little more relaxed from here on in.
Asian Journal - Chapter 5 - In the kingdom of the Gods (April 2000)
Asian Journal - Chapter 5 - In the kingdom of the Gods (April 2000)
“I salute the God within you” or “Namaste!” as they say in Nepal! Getting on that jet plane from Bangkok to Kathmandu has to have been one of the happiest flights of my life. Not only was I glad to finally be leaving Thailand but I was now almost within reach of one of my lifetime goals – Nepal. With its holy cows wandering the streets and Buddhist carvings in every nook & cranny, Kathmandu was everything I was expecting, and a whole lot more! No more aggressive taxi driver’s, just very friendly faces wishing you “Namaste” every which way you turn. Getting to grips with the city took a bit of time as none of the streets were named, so I spent my first day repeatedly getting lost then finding myself on the steps of another magnificent Stompa or Gumpa decked with colourful Buddist prayer flags. It seems plenty of lost people come to Nepal to ‘find’ themselves, and the place certainly has its fair share of travellers looking for spiritual enlightenment. A hang over from Nepal’s backpacker roots, as getting high (both in the chemical and physical sense of the word) was the original form of tourism. I arrived in Nepal just in time to celebrate Nepalese New Year, the main festival of which takes place in Bakthurpur about an hour out of Kathmandu. I’d met up with a German guy so together we took the bus over and joined in the party, and some party it was! 50,000 Nepalese, mostly men and mostly drunk crowded into the old city for the day and then a good percentage of these took part in the age old Nepalese tradition of street fighting to welcome in the New Year! Things got a little hairy to say the least and I was more than pleased I’d found a tall European guy to hide behind. When things got a little to scary we decided to head back to Kathmandu, only to find all the bus drivers had had their fair share of merriment leaving us stuck in town. Next morning saw the town in ruins and I was surprised to hear only 3 people were killed the night before, but apparently that’s a normal start to New Year in Nepal and otherwise the year 2057 started without a hitch! Having had more than enough of crowds I decided it was time to leave the city and head for the hills so packed the rucksack and took the bus West. Situated at the base of the awesome Annapurna Mountains alongside a beautiful lake, Pokhara is a wonderful place to chill out for a couple of days, which is exactly what I did. Whilst mooching around the town I met up with Giles from Bristol who planned to do roughly the same trek as me, so over a couple of litres of lemon tea a plan was hatched. Neither of us wanted to trek by ourselves due to the recent upsurge in Maoist activity in the area. A couple of the tourist hotels in town had been the victims of armed assaults in the previous week and there were reports of further attacks in the woods so everyone was more than a little nervous. The Maoists had already spoilt my plans once by attacking a rafting group out on the Karnali River and therefore making the area too dangerous to enter so I wasn’t about to let them interfere with my trekking! Having spoken to a local guide we planned a route that would take us from Pokhara at just over 800m, up the Kali Gandaki River route used by Maurice Herzog in1950 and into the Annapurna Mountains. From here we’d continue to climb until we reached Muktinath, our highest possible point at just below 4,000m. After spending a day or too acclimatising ourselves there we would then drop down a way and go up into the Annapurna Sanctuary which is a natural amphitheatre in the mountains with access to the Annapurna Base Camp at just over 4,000m. This route had been closed for the last 2 weeks as avalanches had blocked the pass, but we’d been given the all clear by the mountain guide so off we set. The first part of the journey entailed a gruelling 4-hour taxi ride into the mountains to Beni from where we’d commence trekking. Two hours into the trip I was close to vomiting and bleeding from where my head kept hitting the roof of the car! This was not how things were supposed to happen, but finally we arrived in Beni and the trip began for real. Over the next 5 days we climbed slowly and steadily through stunning forests and terraced farmland with snow-covered peaks towering over us. The weather was with us and most of the 12Kg I was carrying was water to avoid dehydration under the blazing sun. The remaining weight was 90% Snickers bars to supplement the mountain stable diet of Dal Bhat (a rice and curried vegetable dish that manages to be unbelievable bland!) On day 6 the scenery changed dramatically as we climbed above the tree line and out onto the mountain desert. The wind howled about us making standing up difficult even without my pack and when we were least expecting it we were pebbledashed with stones from the dry river bed we trekked along. Giles was now starting to suffer from the altitude and as we reached 2,500m he became lethargic and coughed up blood. After a good night’s rest he was convinced he’d be OK so we walked on. The last part of our route involved a climb of over 1,000m in just 3 hours and at this point Giles had had enough. We found ourselves a place to stay for the night and took some well-needed rest. Although I seemed to be escaping the effects of altitude, effort of any kind at this height was difficult. Next day we awoke at our normal hour of 5.30am to find crystal clear blue skies. The mountains shone as the first light hit them and we both happily spun off roll after roll of film in the hope of being able to capture some of the beauty. One thing photos will never be able to do is give the feeling of being stood at that height watching the world wake before you. Giles now needed to get down a couple of hundred metres to try and clear his head and as we walked it became obvious he would not be able to handle the Sanctuary trek with altitudes of over 4,000m. I was somewhat disappointed at not being able to get up to the Annapurna Base Camp but I’d been lucky so far and if we flew down from Jomsom rather than walking back I realised I’d have time to go white water rafting before I left Nepal. The flights were booked and at 6.30am we descended upon Jomson airport to catch one of the tiny planes back down to Pokhara. As the wind, which hit us on our way up, tends to build during the day there are only 4 flights out of the mountains each morning and these are very much dependant on the weather conditions, but this was another perfect morning so we had no worries as we watched the aircraft come in to land. First priority each morning goes to the rescue helicopters that come up to airlift those with AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness) or other injuries. We boarded as these took off down the mountain and watched them climb over the nearest peak as we taxied down the unsealed runway. I didn’t know whether to be terrified or excited as we banked sharply and another snow covered crag loomed what seemed like metres from the window, but after a serious of stomach churning manoeuvres we were clear of the highest peaks and climbing fast. The flight to Pokhara takes only 15 minutes so both Giles and I began to wonder what was happening when 50 minutes into the flight we were still thousands of feet above the earth. Being only a 12-seater plane we could both see out of the cockpit window and started to grow more and more confused when we saw a large well lit runway spread out before us with huge aircraft at a terminal on the ground below. This wasn’t Pokhara! When the engines stopped and the noise fell away to just the ringing in our ears the pilot turned around and in Nepali embarked on a long explanation of which the only words the could understand were “diesel” and “China”. This was all very strange. Were we in China??? The 6 or so Nepalese people on the plane where obviously un-nerved so to pacify them the co-pilot them produced a piece of paper on which he drew some mountains, some clouds and a little aeroplane above the clouds. At this point I was on the floor in fits of laughter. Giles was doing Rolf Harris style “Do you know where we are yet?” impressions as the co-pilot continued to add detail to his sketch (birds and a smiley sun), and the Nepalese stared at me thinking I was a crazed woman! Surely we couldn't be in China...Eventually another man got on the cramped craft and explained in broken English that as the weather had suddenly closed in at Pokhara and the aircraft had no tracking or radar equipment other than the pilots eyes we’d had to fly on to Kathmandu as we were dangerously low on fuel. We were both somewhat relieved to learn “China” or a similar sounding word is Nepali for empty, so we could relax and forget about having to get ourselves out of an incredibly unwelcoming country. However, I was more than a little annoyed as I’d left a bag of kit in Pokhara, which I wanted to collect before I took the 7-hour bus journey back to Kathmandu. Now I was going to have to wait until we could fly back to Pokhara then turn round and get the bus straight back! Luckily wait didn’t take too long and by 11am we’d touched down safely at our intended destination. Hot showers and plenty of them were top of our priority list and after a good scrub and some clean clothes we were able to sit back and relax in comfort for the first time in 9 days. The 7-hour bus trip back to Kathmandu wasn’t as much fun as the flight but passed quick enough and I’m now preparing myself mentally for the next part of my Nepali adventure, rafting! As I didn’t get to climb to the Base Camp I’m treating myself to a couple of days on some of the best white water the world has to offer. Just 15Km from the Tibetan border the Bhote Kosi is the steepest river in Nepal and is normally graded between a III and a V (VI being dangerously impossible). However when I checked in with the rafting company a couple of hours ago the early monsoon rains had pushed the rating up to V in places so its going to be a very wet and wild time! Now I must push off and by one of those waterproof cameras. Something tells me there are going to be some definite photo opportunities over the next 48 hours!
“I salute the God within you” or “Namaste!” as they say in Nepal! Getting on that jet plane from Bangkok to Kathmandu has to have been one of the happiest flights of my life. Not only was I glad to finally be leaving Thailand but I was now almost within reach of one of my lifetime goals – Nepal. With its holy cows wandering the streets and Buddhist carvings in every nook & cranny, Kathmandu was everything I was expecting, and a whole lot more! No more aggressive taxi driver’s, just very friendly faces wishing you “Namaste” every which way you turn. Getting to grips with the city took a bit of time as none of the streets were named, so I spent my first day repeatedly getting lost then finding myself on the steps of another magnificent Stompa or Gumpa decked with colourful Buddist prayer flags. It seems plenty of lost people come to Nepal to ‘find’ themselves, and the place certainly has its fair share of travellers looking for spiritual enlightenment. A hang over from Nepal’s backpacker roots, as getting high (both in the chemical and physical sense of the word) was the original form of tourism. I arrived in Nepal just in time to celebrate Nepalese New Year, the main festival of which takes place in Bakthurpur about an hour out of Kathmandu. I’d met up with a German guy so together we took the bus over and joined in the party, and some party it was! 50,000 Nepalese, mostly men and mostly drunk crowded into the old city for the day and then a good percentage of these took part in the age old Nepalese tradition of street fighting to welcome in the New Year! Things got a little hairy to say the least and I was more than pleased I’d found a tall European guy to hide behind. When things got a little to scary we decided to head back to Kathmandu, only to find all the bus drivers had had their fair share of merriment leaving us stuck in town. Next morning saw the town in ruins and I was surprised to hear only 3 people were killed the night before, but apparently that’s a normal start to New Year in Nepal and otherwise the year 2057 started without a hitch! Having had more than enough of crowds I decided it was time to leave the city and head for the hills so packed the rucksack and took the bus West. Situated at the base of the awesome Annapurna Mountains alongside a beautiful lake, Pokhara is a wonderful place to chill out for a couple of days, which is exactly what I did. Whilst mooching around the town I met up with Giles from Bristol who planned to do roughly the same trek as me, so over a couple of litres of lemon tea a plan was hatched. Neither of us wanted to trek by ourselves due to the recent upsurge in Maoist activity in the area. A couple of the tourist hotels in town had been the victims of armed assaults in the previous week and there were reports of further attacks in the woods so everyone was more than a little nervous. The Maoists had already spoilt my plans once by attacking a rafting group out on the Karnali River and therefore making the area too dangerous to enter so I wasn’t about to let them interfere with my trekking! Having spoken to a local guide we planned a route that would take us from Pokhara at just over 800m, up the Kali Gandaki River route used by Maurice Herzog in1950 and into the Annapurna Mountains. From here we’d continue to climb until we reached Muktinath, our highest possible point at just below 4,000m. After spending a day or too acclimatising ourselves there we would then drop down a way and go up into the Annapurna Sanctuary which is a natural amphitheatre in the mountains with access to the Annapurna Base Camp at just over 4,000m. This route had been closed for the last 2 weeks as avalanches had blocked the pass, but we’d been given the all clear by the mountain guide so off we set. The first part of the journey entailed a gruelling 4-hour taxi ride into the mountains to Beni from where we’d commence trekking. Two hours into the trip I was close to vomiting and bleeding from where my head kept hitting the roof of the car! This was not how things were supposed to happen, but finally we arrived in Beni and the trip began for real. Over the next 5 days we climbed slowly and steadily through stunning forests and terraced farmland with snow-covered peaks towering over us. The weather was with us and most of the 12Kg I was carrying was water to avoid dehydration under the blazing sun. The remaining weight was 90% Snickers bars to supplement the mountain stable diet of Dal Bhat (a rice and curried vegetable dish that manages to be unbelievable bland!) On day 6 the scenery changed dramatically as we climbed above the tree line and out onto the mountain desert. The wind howled about us making standing up difficult even without my pack and when we were least expecting it we were pebbledashed with stones from the dry river bed we trekked along. Giles was now starting to suffer from the altitude and as we reached 2,500m he became lethargic and coughed up blood. After a good night’s rest he was convinced he’d be OK so we walked on. The last part of our route involved a climb of over 1,000m in just 3 hours and at this point Giles had had enough. We found ourselves a place to stay for the night and took some well-needed rest. Although I seemed to be escaping the effects of altitude, effort of any kind at this height was difficult. Next day we awoke at our normal hour of 5.30am to find crystal clear blue skies. The mountains shone as the first light hit them and we both happily spun off roll after roll of film in the hope of being able to capture some of the beauty. One thing photos will never be able to do is give the feeling of being stood at that height watching the world wake before you. Giles now needed to get down a couple of hundred metres to try and clear his head and as we walked it became obvious he would not be able to handle the Sanctuary trek with altitudes of over 4,000m. I was somewhat disappointed at not being able to get up to the Annapurna Base Camp but I’d been lucky so far and if we flew down from Jomsom rather than walking back I realised I’d have time to go white water rafting before I left Nepal. The flights were booked and at 6.30am we descended upon Jomson airport to catch one of the tiny planes back down to Pokhara. As the wind, which hit us on our way up, tends to build during the day there are only 4 flights out of the mountains each morning and these are very much dependant on the weather conditions, but this was another perfect morning so we had no worries as we watched the aircraft come in to land. First priority each morning goes to the rescue helicopters that come up to airlift those with AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness) or other injuries. We boarded as these took off down the mountain and watched them climb over the nearest peak as we taxied down the unsealed runway. I didn’t know whether to be terrified or excited as we banked sharply and another snow covered crag loomed what seemed like metres from the window, but after a serious of stomach churning manoeuvres we were clear of the highest peaks and climbing fast. The flight to Pokhara takes only 15 minutes so both Giles and I began to wonder what was happening when 50 minutes into the flight we were still thousands of feet above the earth. Being only a 12-seater plane we could both see out of the cockpit window and started to grow more and more confused when we saw a large well lit runway spread out before us with huge aircraft at a terminal on the ground below. This wasn’t Pokhara! When the engines stopped and the noise fell away to just the ringing in our ears the pilot turned around and in Nepali embarked on a long explanation of which the only words the could understand were “diesel” and “China”. This was all very strange. Were we in China??? The 6 or so Nepalese people on the plane where obviously un-nerved so to pacify them the co-pilot them produced a piece of paper on which he drew some mountains, some clouds and a little aeroplane above the clouds. At this point I was on the floor in fits of laughter. Giles was doing Rolf Harris style “Do you know where we are yet?” impressions as the co-pilot continued to add detail to his sketch (birds and a smiley sun), and the Nepalese stared at me thinking I was a crazed woman! Surely we couldn't be in China...Eventually another man got on the cramped craft and explained in broken English that as the weather had suddenly closed in at Pokhara and the aircraft had no tracking or radar equipment other than the pilots eyes we’d had to fly on to Kathmandu as we were dangerously low on fuel. We were both somewhat relieved to learn “China” or a similar sounding word is Nepali for empty, so we could relax and forget about having to get ourselves out of an incredibly unwelcoming country. However, I was more than a little annoyed as I’d left a bag of kit in Pokhara, which I wanted to collect before I took the 7-hour bus journey back to Kathmandu. Now I was going to have to wait until we could fly back to Pokhara then turn round and get the bus straight back! Luckily wait didn’t take too long and by 11am we’d touched down safely at our intended destination. Hot showers and plenty of them were top of our priority list and after a good scrub and some clean clothes we were able to sit back and relax in comfort for the first time in 9 days. The 7-hour bus trip back to Kathmandu wasn’t as much fun as the flight but passed quick enough and I’m now preparing myself mentally for the next part of my Nepali adventure, rafting! As I didn’t get to climb to the Base Camp I’m treating myself to a couple of days on some of the best white water the world has to offer. Just 15Km from the Tibetan border the Bhote Kosi is the steepest river in Nepal and is normally graded between a III and a V (VI being dangerously impossible). However when I checked in with the rafting company a couple of hours ago the early monsoon rains had pushed the rating up to V in places so its going to be a very wet and wild time! Now I must push off and by one of those waterproof cameras. Something tells me there are going to be some definite photo opportunities over the next 48 hours!
Asian Journal - Chapter 4 - Not such a happy camper (March 2000)
Asian Journal - Chapter 4 - Not such a happy camper (March 2000)
After flying back into Thailand I headed directly East hoping to make my way across the Cambodian border for a couple of days, then chill out for a few days on one of the islands off the coast. I’d heard various good and terrible tales about this land border, but left confident as I boarded the bus to Trat, Thailand’s Eastern border town, known for its gem trade and smuggling of consumer goods. The trip out went smoothly and en-route I met a couple of English and American guys who were on holiday from Japan where they were teaching English. They too planned to travel to one of the islands, Ko Chang, but by the time we arrived in the port town it was getting late so we decided to find a place to stay for the night and get ourselves some rest. Next morning Rob, from Surrey didn't look too good. By 10am he looked worse and come 11.30am he was in the local hospital with a drip in his arm. Things in general weren’t looking healthy! In his best English the doctor explained that Rob had some kind of fever, was severely dehydrated and couldn't be moved for a couple of days. This put me in a bit of an awkward situation as I really didn't have a couple of days to spare but I didn't want to turn my back on these guys when one of their friends was in a bad way. They needed some space to decided what they were going to do and it was whilst I was sitting outside in the shade, pouring over the Lonely Planet, I got talking to another English guy who'd just got off one of the smaller boats. We talked about Ko Chang and the border crossing for a while and he mentioned he'd just come back from a wonderful little island South of Ko Chang, which he promised was the perfect place to chilling out. ‘The Book’ made virtually no mention of Ko Mak so in that spilt second I decided to forget Cambodia, by-pass Ko Chang and head further South to this little tropical oasis. On returning to the hospital Rob had turned from white to green and the Americans had been chosen to stay and mind Rob whilst Rowan, the other English guy was going to be sent ahead to find a good destination for when Rob was well enough to travel. I explained my plan and was surprised when they decided to follow my lead. We sailed that afternoon and after 3 hours on the water arrived at the beautiful island of Ko Mak. I swear that the illustrator for the book 'Where the wild things are!' had spent time here. The sea was jade green, the beaches ice white and the coastline fringed with dense palm forests in which any number of scary monsters could have lived. Monsters or not, this was the stuff island dreams are made of. I soon settled into the swing of things, hung my hammock on my bungalow porch and tucked into a fresh coconut. Whilst sitting back to watch the first of many glorious sunsets I met Phelim from Ireland. We got talking and discovered we had both lived in Newtown in Sydney at the same time, we'd virtually lived next door to each other in Australia, and now we were beach neighbours on this small island in Thailand! Phelim only had a couple of weeks left until he flew back to the Emerald Isle and was determine to top up the tan for the folks back home. After a lazy day on the beach we were surprised when the islands tractor pulled up loaded with Mark and a marginally healthier Rob. His fever had broken the night before and by lunchtime they'd decided he was well enough to travel, so long as he took it easy. Rob really had no choice other than to sit back and relax now. No TV, no radio, in fact no power, except a generator that worked the minimal lighting and the milkshake machine! After 4 days of doing next to nothing and having read every inch of English text on the island I got itchy feet and I decided it was time to move on. Ko Samet lies just off the Thai coast about 3 hours from Bangkok and given that it was on our way back into the capital Phelim and I decided it would be the perfect place to break the return trip to the city. I'd heard about the island from a couple of friends who had sung the praises of the place, and indeed the Lonely Planet itself described it as ‘a quiet haven with amazing beaches and a relaxed atmosphere’. It sounded perfect but I have to admit that I really did have second thoughts about leaving my hut on Ko Mak. Could anything really be any better than this? Is the grass really greener? Nothing could have prepared us for what greeted us as we stepped off the boat on the northern tip of Ko Samet. Countless beach bars, banging techno tunes and the waves were awash with jet-skis. This was definitely not what it said in 'The Book'. Trying to ignore the deafening bass we set off to find a place to stay for the night. In Bangkok the going rate for a good, clean room with a fan is 120B. In Ko Mak the cost of a beachfront bungalow with no lights, no fan and a mossie net is 80B. At Tumtin, the only hotel with a vacancy on the island, the cost for a tiny, dirty room with no window was 350B(non-negotiable). By now i'd crossed from borderline miserable to positively not a happy. It was only Phelim’s quick reactions that saved the blessed Lonely Planet from being flung into the Gulf of Thailand that night and as a lay in my bed listening to 'Hotel California' for the 14th time from the bar below. I convinced myself things would be better tomorrow in the morning, but at 3pm the following day I swung my pack onto the deck of the boat and was more than pleased to see Ko Samet disappear over the horizon behind me. If I wanted to go to Ibiza I would have gone to Ibiza, Ko Samui or any of the other islands the Lonely Planet describes as party places, but Ko Samet was not what I was looking for. ‘The Bible’ lied! I arrived back in Bangkok 4 days early than planned, depressed at the thought of having left the perfect isle of Ko Mak, and driven insane by the city heat and humidity (thank God for air-conditioned shopping malls). Staying in the city however did allow me to meet some genuinely interesting Thai people but also a few more equally disheartened backpackers. Bangkok has become a major international stopover for those travelling East-West, or vise-versa, and is often the first port of call for travellers heading to Australia from the UK. Given this it is not a bad place for your first eastern experience. Upon arrival you instantly know you’re no longer in a fully developed westernise society, yet being a major commercial centre Bangkok has all the trapping and conveniences of a modern metropolis. Its shopping centres are huge. Theres a sky-train to convey you from one plush plaza to another. MacDonalds, Boots and Baskins Robins greet you at every turn and the likes of internet cafes, ATMs and western press are all easy to come by, lulling you into a false sense of familiarity and security. However once outside these conveniences you need your wits about you, and they are best kept taped to your body, along with your money & passport, at all times. Bangkok looks western, but moves to the pulse of an Eastern drum…One complaint I heard over and over from travellers was of the tuk-tuk drivers. By far the quickest, most readily available and suicidal form of transport in the city the tuk-tuk is a 3 wheeled taxi-cab powered by lawnmower engine and licensed to carry a minimum of 12 people, or 16 chickens at any one time. The drivers know all the short cuts and all the silk houses in town so you can be sure to visit at least 3 tailors a day if using them as your preferred mode of tourist transport. It’s a nifty scam the drivers have going. You jump in and randomly name your tourist destination of choice and they automatically name a price that’s 4 times the Thai cost for the same trip. You then haggle, they pull faces and a cost of half the original fee is finally, painfully, arrived at. Feeling smug at having just negotiated a bargain you clamber in the back of the cab and they grin in the rear-view mirror whilst mentally totting up the amount of money they’re going to be able to get out of you today. Then you’re off! Hurtling towards 3 lanes of oncoming traffic, sharp left, sharp right, a U-turn across the central reservation curb. There is no stopping these guys, and no way of following your route should you need to know where you are. At this point you’re tuk-tuk driver fodder. You’re lost, in a strange city, and this man in front of you is the only person looking reasonably friendly. Surprise, surprise you glance around and notice you’ve come to rest outside a silk house! Why, oh why, do tuk-tuk drivers bring you here? The answer is easy. They are paid to. Each time they bring a ‘customer’ to the store they receive a petrol voucher. Fuel is expensive here, without fuel they cannot work, so if they receive free fuel then they can continue to drive whilst pocketing the extortionate fares they’re making from you. When you come out of the silk-house they’re waiting patiently and will, if paid the correct amount of money, continue on to the destination of your choice, or return you to a recognisable part of town, from which you can make you own way home. The end result of this scam? 1 happy tuk-tuk driver, 1 happy silk-house owner and 1 angry tourist who has wasted half a day, been fleeced for a reasonable sum of Thai money and still hasn’t managed to see The Grand Palace/ Floating Market/ or Reclining Buddha.One Japanese girl I met had spent 2 days trying to see the city in this way, each evening returning more tired, frustrated and poorer than the last. For a country that realises so heavily on tourism I was surprised this level of corruption was allowed to exist. Thailand certainly has many faces, that of its quiet, serene tropical islands and that of its tourist-scamming, money-grabbing side and I guess it’s a shame that most travellers will only have contact with 1% of the nation, the dollar-greedy gang. I had fallen in love with my island paradise but Thailand by now was tainted for me, and my only thought was to leave the country and move on. Besides, I was more than keen to replace some of the pollution-heavy air in my lungs with pure, clean Himalayan breeze blowing just a few hours flying time from here
After flying back into Thailand I headed directly East hoping to make my way across the Cambodian border for a couple of days, then chill out for a few days on one of the islands off the coast. I’d heard various good and terrible tales about this land border, but left confident as I boarded the bus to Trat, Thailand’s Eastern border town, known for its gem trade and smuggling of consumer goods. The trip out went smoothly and en-route I met a couple of English and American guys who were on holiday from Japan where they were teaching English. They too planned to travel to one of the islands, Ko Chang, but by the time we arrived in the port town it was getting late so we decided to find a place to stay for the night and get ourselves some rest. Next morning Rob, from Surrey didn't look too good. By 10am he looked worse and come 11.30am he was in the local hospital with a drip in his arm. Things in general weren’t looking healthy! In his best English the doctor explained that Rob had some kind of fever, was severely dehydrated and couldn't be moved for a couple of days. This put me in a bit of an awkward situation as I really didn't have a couple of days to spare but I didn't want to turn my back on these guys when one of their friends was in a bad way. They needed some space to decided what they were going to do and it was whilst I was sitting outside in the shade, pouring over the Lonely Planet, I got talking to another English guy who'd just got off one of the smaller boats. We talked about Ko Chang and the border crossing for a while and he mentioned he'd just come back from a wonderful little island South of Ko Chang, which he promised was the perfect place to chilling out. ‘The Book’ made virtually no mention of Ko Mak so in that spilt second I decided to forget Cambodia, by-pass Ko Chang and head further South to this little tropical oasis. On returning to the hospital Rob had turned from white to green and the Americans had been chosen to stay and mind Rob whilst Rowan, the other English guy was going to be sent ahead to find a good destination for when Rob was well enough to travel. I explained my plan and was surprised when they decided to follow my lead. We sailed that afternoon and after 3 hours on the water arrived at the beautiful island of Ko Mak. I swear that the illustrator for the book 'Where the wild things are!' had spent time here. The sea was jade green, the beaches ice white and the coastline fringed with dense palm forests in which any number of scary monsters could have lived. Monsters or not, this was the stuff island dreams are made of. I soon settled into the swing of things, hung my hammock on my bungalow porch and tucked into a fresh coconut. Whilst sitting back to watch the first of many glorious sunsets I met Phelim from Ireland. We got talking and discovered we had both lived in Newtown in Sydney at the same time, we'd virtually lived next door to each other in Australia, and now we were beach neighbours on this small island in Thailand! Phelim only had a couple of weeks left until he flew back to the Emerald Isle and was determine to top up the tan for the folks back home. After a lazy day on the beach we were surprised when the islands tractor pulled up loaded with Mark and a marginally healthier Rob. His fever had broken the night before and by lunchtime they'd decided he was well enough to travel, so long as he took it easy. Rob really had no choice other than to sit back and relax now. No TV, no radio, in fact no power, except a generator that worked the minimal lighting and the milkshake machine! After 4 days of doing next to nothing and having read every inch of English text on the island I got itchy feet and I decided it was time to move on. Ko Samet lies just off the Thai coast about 3 hours from Bangkok and given that it was on our way back into the capital Phelim and I decided it would be the perfect place to break the return trip to the city. I'd heard about the island from a couple of friends who had sung the praises of the place, and indeed the Lonely Planet itself described it as ‘a quiet haven with amazing beaches and a relaxed atmosphere’. It sounded perfect but I have to admit that I really did have second thoughts about leaving my hut on Ko Mak. Could anything really be any better than this? Is the grass really greener? Nothing could have prepared us for what greeted us as we stepped off the boat on the northern tip of Ko Samet. Countless beach bars, banging techno tunes and the waves were awash with jet-skis. This was definitely not what it said in 'The Book'. Trying to ignore the deafening bass we set off to find a place to stay for the night. In Bangkok the going rate for a good, clean room with a fan is 120B. In Ko Mak the cost of a beachfront bungalow with no lights, no fan and a mossie net is 80B. At Tumtin, the only hotel with a vacancy on the island, the cost for a tiny, dirty room with no window was 350B(non-negotiable). By now i'd crossed from borderline miserable to positively not a happy. It was only Phelim’s quick reactions that saved the blessed Lonely Planet from being flung into the Gulf of Thailand that night and as a lay in my bed listening to 'Hotel California' for the 14th time from the bar below. I convinced myself things would be better tomorrow in the morning, but at 3pm the following day I swung my pack onto the deck of the boat and was more than pleased to see Ko Samet disappear over the horizon behind me. If I wanted to go to Ibiza I would have gone to Ibiza, Ko Samui or any of the other islands the Lonely Planet describes as party places, but Ko Samet was not what I was looking for. ‘The Bible’ lied! I arrived back in Bangkok 4 days early than planned, depressed at the thought of having left the perfect isle of Ko Mak, and driven insane by the city heat and humidity (thank God for air-conditioned shopping malls). Staying in the city however did allow me to meet some genuinely interesting Thai people but also a few more equally disheartened backpackers. Bangkok has become a major international stopover for those travelling East-West, or vise-versa, and is often the first port of call for travellers heading to Australia from the UK. Given this it is not a bad place for your first eastern experience. Upon arrival you instantly know you’re no longer in a fully developed westernise society, yet being a major commercial centre Bangkok has all the trapping and conveniences of a modern metropolis. Its shopping centres are huge. Theres a sky-train to convey you from one plush plaza to another. MacDonalds, Boots and Baskins Robins greet you at every turn and the likes of internet cafes, ATMs and western press are all easy to come by, lulling you into a false sense of familiarity and security. However once outside these conveniences you need your wits about you, and they are best kept taped to your body, along with your money & passport, at all times. Bangkok looks western, but moves to the pulse of an Eastern drum…One complaint I heard over and over from travellers was of the tuk-tuk drivers. By far the quickest, most readily available and suicidal form of transport in the city the tuk-tuk is a 3 wheeled taxi-cab powered by lawnmower engine and licensed to carry a minimum of 12 people, or 16 chickens at any one time. The drivers know all the short cuts and all the silk houses in town so you can be sure to visit at least 3 tailors a day if using them as your preferred mode of tourist transport. It’s a nifty scam the drivers have going. You jump in and randomly name your tourist destination of choice and they automatically name a price that’s 4 times the Thai cost for the same trip. You then haggle, they pull faces and a cost of half the original fee is finally, painfully, arrived at. Feeling smug at having just negotiated a bargain you clamber in the back of the cab and they grin in the rear-view mirror whilst mentally totting up the amount of money they’re going to be able to get out of you today. Then you’re off! Hurtling towards 3 lanes of oncoming traffic, sharp left, sharp right, a U-turn across the central reservation curb. There is no stopping these guys, and no way of following your route should you need to know where you are. At this point you’re tuk-tuk driver fodder. You’re lost, in a strange city, and this man in front of you is the only person looking reasonably friendly. Surprise, surprise you glance around and notice you’ve come to rest outside a silk house! Why, oh why, do tuk-tuk drivers bring you here? The answer is easy. They are paid to. Each time they bring a ‘customer’ to the store they receive a petrol voucher. Fuel is expensive here, without fuel they cannot work, so if they receive free fuel then they can continue to drive whilst pocketing the extortionate fares they’re making from you. When you come out of the silk-house they’re waiting patiently and will, if paid the correct amount of money, continue on to the destination of your choice, or return you to a recognisable part of town, from which you can make you own way home. The end result of this scam? 1 happy tuk-tuk driver, 1 happy silk-house owner and 1 angry tourist who has wasted half a day, been fleeced for a reasonable sum of Thai money and still hasn’t managed to see The Grand Palace/ Floating Market/ or Reclining Buddha.One Japanese girl I met had spent 2 days trying to see the city in this way, each evening returning more tired, frustrated and poorer than the last. For a country that realises so heavily on tourism I was surprised this level of corruption was allowed to exist. Thailand certainly has many faces, that of its quiet, serene tropical islands and that of its tourist-scamming, money-grabbing side and I guess it’s a shame that most travellers will only have contact with 1% of the nation, the dollar-greedy gang. I had fallen in love with my island paradise but Thailand by now was tainted for me, and my only thought was to leave the country and move on. Besides, I was more than keen to replace some of the pollution-heavy air in my lungs with pure, clean Himalayan breeze blowing just a few hours flying time from here
Asian Journal - Chapter 3 - This week I have been mostly eating...(March 2000)
Asian Journal - Chapter 3 - This week I have been mostly eating...(March 2000)
FISH! And if I so much as see one more I'll scream!!! Never before would I have thought I'd get sick of eating fantastic seafood but sometimes a girl just has to have steak, chocolate, or Pringles and ice-cream. Unfortunately none of the above was available where I'd spent my last week in Vietnam. Roughly the same size as Singapore, Phu Quoc sits about 15km off the Cambodian coastline and has some of the most spectacular beaches and water I've ever seen. One of the things that makes this place special is that hardly any Westerners get there, simply because its so bloody difficult to get to. Having by now got used to being off the beaten track and away from the mini-bus tours of Saigon, the Danish couple and I left the air-conditioned comfort of the Saigon Tourist bus and boarded the jam-packed, sweaty local bus headed out to the coastal town of Rach Gia. 8 hours later we arrived. Dusty, somewhat bruised and nursing only minor cuts and grazes we discovered the next boat to the island did not leave until the following day so we settled into a grimey hotel to get as much rest as possible before the next leg of our journey. Up at 5am next morning, we made it to the port in an hour and boarded the old wooden boat that was already sitting low in the water. Within minutes we were on our way and quite pleased to see there were only about 50 people on a boat that was designed to happily carry 100. After about 30 minutes of steaming we slowed to a halt and sat looking puzzled as the anchor was thrown over board and the crew put on the kettle. At this point I ventured onto the roof of the cabin to see what was happening and why we’d stopped. Up there in the blazing sunshine I met Bao, an elderly man who explained in reasonable English that because of the low tide we'd left port early and would now ‘tread-water’ for 2 hours whilst smaller boats brought passengers and cargo out to us. As time passed the space we'd reserved for our bums and backpacks got smaller and smaller as more and more people, chickens, boxes and fruit were loaded onto the deck. It seems its compulsory for every piece of Vietnamese public transport to have on board at least 3 chickens and a goat before a journey can begin and only when there was not another spare inch of space onboard did the captain give the order to raise the anchor and start the belching engine once again. At this point I was able to sympathise with the thousands of Vietnamese boat people that fled the country! It took a further 11 hours of sailing across smooth seas before we reached Phu Quoc and in that time I learnt from Bao that he had taught himself English from a book and was now the English teacher at the airport on Phu Quoc. I was the first Emglish person he'd ever met.Because of its close proximity to Cambodia, the Northern half of the island is controlled totally by the Vietnamese Army and Boa now found himself teaching both the civilian and military staff the fundamentals of the English language. By the time we arrived at the port I'd agreed to meet with Bao the following evening so he could practice his English some more. The first morning I awoke and stepped out of my beach hut I couldn't believe the view in front of me, white sand beaches, crystal clear waters and not a sign of another human for miles. 3 minutes later I was in the water, shocked at how warm it was even in the early morning. After hours of lying in a hammock, reading in the shade, I walked the mile into town and met with Bao at the town’s airport. Here I was surprised to find the Director of the airport and also the islands military leader who also wanted to practice their English. Over tea and fresh fruit they explained that although they had good books and plenty of them it was difficult for them to pronounce many of the English words and asked if for a couple of days I could visit the classes and join in their conversations. Curious to see how the education system worked I agreed to join two of the classes the next day. So set the agenda for the rest of my time in Phu Quoc. The mornings I would have to myself on the beach, at 2pm I would take the first two hour class, spend a couple of hours in the town and then take the second class from 7.30 to 9.30pm. Each class consisted of 7 or 8 students, aged between 28 and 60 who did various civilian and military jobs around the airport. Shy at first the students soon got used to me, and me to them, as we read through their textbook conversations stumbling over words they found difficult, like mother, washing and strangely enough, airport. I never realised how different languages use such different sounds and noises. It was totally alien for them to make the SH sound of 'wish', or the strong P in 'airport' so most of the lesson was given over to practising noises to help them with their pronunciation! And to think I was constantly being picked up for dropping my T's and D's at the end of words at home! One of the great advantages about having lots of 'friends' in the military and at the airport is their able to bend a few rules and turn blind eyes to help make life a little easier, so on the 3rd day I hired a motorbike and explored a small section of the North of the island which is usually barred from tourists and residents alike. I then headed South to meet the Danish couple who had discovered a fantastic beach on the gulf of Vietnam where we rode our scooters up and down in the surf and sand. When I went to the lesson that evening I was told the Director had found a way of getting me on one of the ‘fully booked’ flights off the island, saving me the 11 hour boat journey and therefore a full day on my way back to the mainland. When it came to Sunday and my bag was packed I found a huge farewell committee waiting for me at check-in. Once assigned my seat I was taken for more tea and fruit and then up to the control tower. Just the evening before I had been racing the motorbike I hired up and down the dusty strip used as a runway, now I had on a pair of headphones and was listening to Duong (one of the older students) talk in the rickety plane that would take me back to Rach Gia. After more tea with the pilots and goodbyes to my new friends I took my seat and within 20 minutes was back on mainland Vietnam, in a local bus on my way to Saigon. Looking back I really cannot believe I was lucky enough to have had the chance to teach these people. I could easily have spent every day on the island sitting on the beach, swimming or swinging in my hammock but instead I met a great group of people, got closer to Vietnamese life than I have in my earlier 3 weeks and had a totally unique experience to-boot, one that I will not forget in a long time. Back in Ho Chi Minh City I ate my fill of ice-cream and Pringles and integrated back into fast pace of Vietnamese city life. All that was left to do now was move up a gear or two in preparation for tomorrow’s landing in Thailand then say "Tam Biet" to Uncle Ho and all his friendly comrades.
FISH! And if I so much as see one more I'll scream!!! Never before would I have thought I'd get sick of eating fantastic seafood but sometimes a girl just has to have steak, chocolate, or Pringles and ice-cream. Unfortunately none of the above was available where I'd spent my last week in Vietnam. Roughly the same size as Singapore, Phu Quoc sits about 15km off the Cambodian coastline and has some of the most spectacular beaches and water I've ever seen. One of the things that makes this place special is that hardly any Westerners get there, simply because its so bloody difficult to get to. Having by now got used to being off the beaten track and away from the mini-bus tours of Saigon, the Danish couple and I left the air-conditioned comfort of the Saigon Tourist bus and boarded the jam-packed, sweaty local bus headed out to the coastal town of Rach Gia. 8 hours later we arrived. Dusty, somewhat bruised and nursing only minor cuts and grazes we discovered the next boat to the island did not leave until the following day so we settled into a grimey hotel to get as much rest as possible before the next leg of our journey. Up at 5am next morning, we made it to the port in an hour and boarded the old wooden boat that was already sitting low in the water. Within minutes we were on our way and quite pleased to see there were only about 50 people on a boat that was designed to happily carry 100. After about 30 minutes of steaming we slowed to a halt and sat looking puzzled as the anchor was thrown over board and the crew put on the kettle. At this point I ventured onto the roof of the cabin to see what was happening and why we’d stopped. Up there in the blazing sunshine I met Bao, an elderly man who explained in reasonable English that because of the low tide we'd left port early and would now ‘tread-water’ for 2 hours whilst smaller boats brought passengers and cargo out to us. As time passed the space we'd reserved for our bums and backpacks got smaller and smaller as more and more people, chickens, boxes and fruit were loaded onto the deck. It seems its compulsory for every piece of Vietnamese public transport to have on board at least 3 chickens and a goat before a journey can begin and only when there was not another spare inch of space onboard did the captain give the order to raise the anchor and start the belching engine once again. At this point I was able to sympathise with the thousands of Vietnamese boat people that fled the country! It took a further 11 hours of sailing across smooth seas before we reached Phu Quoc and in that time I learnt from Bao that he had taught himself English from a book and was now the English teacher at the airport on Phu Quoc. I was the first Emglish person he'd ever met.Because of its close proximity to Cambodia, the Northern half of the island is controlled totally by the Vietnamese Army and Boa now found himself teaching both the civilian and military staff the fundamentals of the English language. By the time we arrived at the port I'd agreed to meet with Bao the following evening so he could practice his English some more. The first morning I awoke and stepped out of my beach hut I couldn't believe the view in front of me, white sand beaches, crystal clear waters and not a sign of another human for miles. 3 minutes later I was in the water, shocked at how warm it was even in the early morning. After hours of lying in a hammock, reading in the shade, I walked the mile into town and met with Bao at the town’s airport. Here I was surprised to find the Director of the airport and also the islands military leader who also wanted to practice their English. Over tea and fresh fruit they explained that although they had good books and plenty of them it was difficult for them to pronounce many of the English words and asked if for a couple of days I could visit the classes and join in their conversations. Curious to see how the education system worked I agreed to join two of the classes the next day. So set the agenda for the rest of my time in Phu Quoc. The mornings I would have to myself on the beach, at 2pm I would take the first two hour class, spend a couple of hours in the town and then take the second class from 7.30 to 9.30pm. Each class consisted of 7 or 8 students, aged between 28 and 60 who did various civilian and military jobs around the airport. Shy at first the students soon got used to me, and me to them, as we read through their textbook conversations stumbling over words they found difficult, like mother, washing and strangely enough, airport. I never realised how different languages use such different sounds and noises. It was totally alien for them to make the SH sound of 'wish', or the strong P in 'airport' so most of the lesson was given over to practising noises to help them with their pronunciation! And to think I was constantly being picked up for dropping my T's and D's at the end of words at home! One of the great advantages about having lots of 'friends' in the military and at the airport is their able to bend a few rules and turn blind eyes to help make life a little easier, so on the 3rd day I hired a motorbike and explored a small section of the North of the island which is usually barred from tourists and residents alike. I then headed South to meet the Danish couple who had discovered a fantastic beach on the gulf of Vietnam where we rode our scooters up and down in the surf and sand. When I went to the lesson that evening I was told the Director had found a way of getting me on one of the ‘fully booked’ flights off the island, saving me the 11 hour boat journey and therefore a full day on my way back to the mainland. When it came to Sunday and my bag was packed I found a huge farewell committee waiting for me at check-in. Once assigned my seat I was taken for more tea and fruit and then up to the control tower. Just the evening before I had been racing the motorbike I hired up and down the dusty strip used as a runway, now I had on a pair of headphones and was listening to Duong (one of the older students) talk in the rickety plane that would take me back to Rach Gia. After more tea with the pilots and goodbyes to my new friends I took my seat and within 20 minutes was back on mainland Vietnam, in a local bus on my way to Saigon. Looking back I really cannot believe I was lucky enough to have had the chance to teach these people. I could easily have spent every day on the island sitting on the beach, swimming or swinging in my hammock but instead I met a great group of people, got closer to Vietnamese life than I have in my earlier 3 weeks and had a totally unique experience to-boot, one that I will not forget in a long time. Back in Ho Chi Minh City I ate my fill of ice-cream and Pringles and integrated back into fast pace of Vietnamese city life. All that was left to do now was move up a gear or two in preparation for tomorrow’s landing in Thailand then say "Tam Biet" to Uncle Ho and all his friendly comrades.
Asian Journal - Chapter 2 - Hangin' with Uncle Ho (Feb-Mar 2000)
Asian Journal - Chapter 2 - Hangin' with Uncle Ho (Feb-Mar 2000)
Nothing had prepared me for the weather! Good old Lonely Planet said 15-20c and dry in the North so it was a bit of a shock stepping from Bangkok’s humidity to an icy February in Hanoi. The cold somehow became insignificant as Communist culture shock took. What I saw before me seemed to play out like a film. A street scene, showing Russia in the 40’s, grey crowds seething as they bustle through markets,desperate to bring food to the table. I could smell these people, hear them, touch them as they shoved past my body but it was as if a screen separated us. I had no idea how, or about what, I would communicate with these people.I was rescued when I made some Western friends and together with the help of waterproofs and brandy we explored the sights and streets of stuffed Ho Chi Minh and old Hanoi.Slowly I adjusted to the pace of life, the driving style and was warmed by the friendliness of these curious people. Sure, they tried to fleece me for dollars, trick me for tips and sell me the shirt off their back but I couldn’t blame them. They knew the importance our tourism and dollars to their economy in the long-term, but short-term they needed better medical facilities, an improved transport network and each of then wanted a new widescreen TV.
2 hours from Hanoi by bumpy minibus, an hour by boat then 3 hours uphill climbing, all in the pouring rain, knee deep mud and surrounded by 10,000 Buddhists on a pilgrimage sat the Perfume Pagoda! Heralded by the Lonely Planet as a cultural highlight of the Hanoi area this was the closest thing to Glastonbury I’d experienced outside the UK. OK, so it was lacking in music but the vibe remained, as did the cold, the damp and the hideously overpriced sparse foodstalls. I guess on a quiet day (ie. When there is not a pilgrimage going on) the voyage up the river and trail up the mountain makes for stunning scenery and a chance to take in the diversity of Vietnam’s landscapes, but on my visit I was treated to a different sight. In front of me, behind me and all around me where everyday Vietnamese who had travelled far and made huge sacrifices to be here at this time. Some had dressed especially for the occasion, wearing suits, high heels and Sunday bests for the climb. Others arrived in probably the only set of clothes they owned, and sandals borrowed from a neighbour. Here I saw for the first time a national of strong, determined people who hold dear their values and morals and continue to embrace their faith and beliefs. Young and old, rich and poor, never had I seen such a huge show of dedication to a religion.
Back in Hanoi and the rain continued to pour. Unable to get warm or dry I realised I was in danger of ruining my time in Vietnam if I did lose the cold i'd caught so buttoned my waterproof and booked a flight to Hué, approximately 700 Kms South. I was disappointed to be leaving the North before I'd explored properly, but knew i'd be back at sometime in the future.Being Vietnam’s main cultural, religious and educational centre there is plenty for the discerning tourist to do in Hué, but my primary priority was to get myself well.After 24hrs R&R and a couple of pints of noodle soup I was feeling healthier, and set off to explore Hué’s chequered past.Lying on the Perfume River Hué is the site of the splendid tombs of the Nguyen Dynasty, dating from the early 1800’s to the mid 1940’s. Scattered along the banks of the river the tombs feel somewhat older with their ornate Chinese-influenced architecture, armies of stone soldiers and gracefully carved elephants. Perhaps it’s the isolation and almost dereliction of these sites that also ages them. Between 1975 and the 1990’s the sites were considered politically incorrect and left to decay but since being made a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1993 the restoration and preservation work has slowly reclaimed them.Hué was also the site of bloody battles in the late 1880’s when the French surrounded the city following the 13-year-old Emperor Ham Nhgi objections to French activities in Tonkin. The Vietnamese launched a counter attack but were outnumbered and crushed when the French respond.In a small museum on the North bank of the town I found the Imperial museum holding the few remaining artefacts from the tombs and palaces. What furniture, clothing and ceramics remain give a glimpse of what life was like in this once regal area, but more fascinating for me was the Military museum, just across the path. With the De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) just a stones throw from the city, Hué also suffered a concentration of violence in the American War, what we in the West know as the Vietnam War. Inside this small building I was introduced to a different side of the story, and I had my first taste of true Communist propaganda. The South Vietnamese soldiers that fought alongside the American’s were named ‘The Puppet Army’, the young North Vietnamese girls who shot jets from the skies and stabbed soldiers in the streets were the nations heros, proudly uniformed and smiling in the photo exhibit. When you’re sold a story with such powerful media images as the West was with Vietnam its easy to forget theres another side, another history and another tale to tell, but here was this other story. OK, so it had been manipulated, edited, spliced and spiced into its present form but it helped explain to me the attitude I’d encountered with the Vietnamese to date. The images told of a nation that refused to lie down, that went underground to avoid its enemy and make daily sacrifices defend itself. It showed the same determination and commitment I saw at the Perfume Pagoda and on every street and in every shop. A desire to succeed, to proceed and generally make the best of every opportunity open to them. A national shaped and structured by Communism but driven by pride and passion for life.
I was beginning to adjust to the daily routine of Vietnam and along with the rest of Hué I crawled under my mosquito net at 10pm, ready for the 5am rise next morning.Headed North on Highway 1 the two hour drive sliced through paddy fields, worked by hand and ploughed by water-buffalo creating the picture postcard images I’d seen in Sydney that drew me to this place, but as we branched off onto highway 9 the landscape changed. We climbed high into the mountains on appauling roads to the heart of the DMZ and what was once the heart of the Vietnamese jungle. During the war the Americans dropped thousands of tonnes of napalm, Agent Orange and explosives in this area, clearing the jungle the Vietcong were so adept at fighting in, and with it clearing the monkeys, tigers and elephants that once inhabited the area. 30 years on from the war and the local communities are still feeling the effects. The chemicals have raped the earth so crops fail and the lack of vegetation has changed the climate, bringing more rain which in turn washes away the bare soil. Since 1975, 5,000 people have been killed by unexplored ordinance and thousands more injured. Landmines, bombs and grenades litter the ground and although teams from the UK, Denmark, Germany and the US working to clear the area current estimates say it'll take US$17Million and another 20yrs before the jobs done. When the locals say “don’t stray from the path” they really mean it. Society may have moved on but the environment has been destroyed. Indeed looking at many towns and villages in the area today its not overly obvious there was ever a war in this area, such is the Vietnamese drive to embrace the future. Closer inspection reveals the truth. The women dream of healthy babies and husbands with 2 arms and 2 legs. The unexploded bombs and landmines cause physical damage to the survivors but unborn children are feeling the effects of the huge levels of chemical contamination from the war. Birth defects are high, stillbirths commonplace and infant mortality is part of everyday life. But being Vietnamese they are making the best of their situation. Daily the ground is combed for pieces of damaged tanks, trucks and helicopters that can be sold for scrap, and every so often a piece will appear that will make rich pickings if offered to the right Western tourist, at the right price.Although I’d flown from Hanoi to Hué I was now behind schedule and needed to move on if I wanted time to explore the Mekong Delta. Leaving town by train I headed South to Da Nang, the war time Vietnam equivalent of Hawaii, where I was hoping the weather would be warmer still.
Da Nang disappointed me. I’d suddenly moved from wide open agricultural spaces to dusty dirty industrial landscape an in no way resembled the Hawaii I’d seen and heard of. Its one saving grace was an all night Internet access, and having dropped my kit in a hostel I popped down to the café to catch up on the only decent surfing in town. Good news was waiting. Baruch, an American I’d met in Hanoi was just 15 miles South in a small coastal town he described as ‘heaven on earth’. I had directions to his hotel a rough verbal map of the town and promise of fantastic seafood. I wasn’t going to hang in Da Nang for long!Half an hour on a local bus next morning and I arrived in 'tailor town', otherwise known as Hoi-An. Baruch was, as promised, having breakfast in his favourite café and almost as soon as I met him he was introducing me to his tailor, and I was being measured for countless suits. One minute I was a traveller, the next I was in a stunning silk evening dress. I was backpacking Barbie! The next week was spent lazy on beaches in the morning, and being measured for suits and dresses in the afternoon. Evenings were saved for exploring the most amazing seafood all with a stunning back drop of the beautiful old Vietnamese town. Suddenly I felt like I was on holiday. Being a small thin country, Vietnam is generally travelled either North to South, or vise-versa and in Hoi-An I was bumping into people I’d met in the North and gathering travel tips from those that were moving North. I soon learnt there was plenty waiting for me further down the country and somewhat begrudgingly packed up the rucksack for another journey South. It turned out a Dutchman, Martin, who I’d also met in Hanoi and a similar plan so we made our way together back up to Da Nang in order to take the train South to Nha Trang. One thing that strikes me about travelling, and travellers is the ease at which friendships are made. Some you know will last no longer than a few days, but every so often you meet a kindred spirit, a like mind who you genuinely feel you can get on with and possibly survive a long journey together. Luckily this was how Martin and I felt as we said goodbye to Baruch and squashed our Western sized bodies into the Vietnamese proportioned train for the 12 hr journey ahead of us.
Tired, hungry and somewhat weary we unfold ourselves from out seats and tumbled from the train into a warm summer night in Nha Trang. The usual hassle ensued as we wrestled with our packs, and the throngs of drivers ready to take us to their brother’s/aunt’s/neighbours’s hotel. With elbows in full working order we muscled through the crowd to a passive looking taxi-owner who after a little persuasion agreed to take us to the hotel of our choice whereupon we collapsed, exhausted from the effort of another Vietnamese voyage.Whilst Martin had travelled in the Halong Bay region of the North he’d become friends with a Danish couple and two solicitors from London, all 4 of which we meet up with in Nha Trang. Now we were six, all with the same desire to escape the tourist bustle of town and adventure out a little into the surrounding hills and countryside. The weather was with us now and as the Lonely Planet promised glorious beaches an hours ride away we hired motobikes, grabbed outr day packs and hit the road. I’m not sure if someone was watching out for us or may-be Lady Luck had come along for the ride but I'll think twice before riding through the busy town market again (Jackie Chan style) on the back of a bike! Out onto the open road we opened the throttles as Highway 1 sped below us and snaked out before us. Being the main North-South route it has a fair amount of traffic, mostly large trucks, lorries and buses, all carrying their load of people, pigs, goats or all of the above simultaneously. Dealing with these obstacles at speed was one thing, but dodging the water-buffalo sized pot holes was another. After what seemed like hours of bumping and jarring we arrived at Doc Let beach, much in need of its cooling waters and quiet sands. The lack of children selling pineapples ensured we were now well off the beaten track and despite the bruises, it felt good.Next day we did Mama Hanh’s Boat Trip, truly the most tourist orientated day-trips Vietnam has to offer, and something I’d heard whispers of, long before I’d even considered coming to town. You have to hand it to Mama Hanh. She has realised the potential for fun in the sun on this stretch of coast, and provided all the necessaries to ensure you have a good time. Boats are laden with obscene amounts of Tiger beer, stunning food and stashed full of Cambodian pot then launched into the South China Sea to cruise around a bit. Needless to say I remember very little of the trip other than the first few beers and well rolled joints. A few of the revellers on board were all set for another day with Mama Hanh next morning but sober once again we decided, 'en mass', to leave Nha Trang and head for somewhere a little quieter. Backpacks were hastily packed and we jumped on the local bus inland to the hill town of Dalat in the Central Vietnamese Mountains. The plan here was to sort out a couple of days trekking to stretch the old legs and get into the heart of the countryside. Upon arrival we hired a couple of guides, bought provisions from the local market and set off into the jungle. And I’m not joking, this really was the jungle! Our guides hacked away at the bamboo and vines whilst we stumbled along in semi-darkness with the mid-day sun blazing far above the tree canopy. After 6 hours of tough going we arrived at a minority peoples village where the guides sorted out food, a fire and showed us the huts we could stay in. After supper of wild boar, deer, porcupine and some fish we caught in the lake we were pretty much exhausted and wasted no time getting to bed. The two solicitors, Martin and I were sharing 2 rooms in a hut on stilts down by the lake where everything seemed hunkey dorey until the lights went out. The first thing that became apparent was that when anyone moved, the hut moved. Soon after this we discovered we weren't the only creatures in residence…In the darkness the walls started to move, then the mossie net started shaking and before long the whole bloody hut was jumping with hundreds of furry monsters. Words cannot describe what was going through my mind as animals (and big ones at that) dropped from the ceiling next to my head and ran across the wall next to my feet. At this point I decided to play the female joker card, turned into a complete girl screaming "kill it, kill it" whilst Martin lashed out at the walls with an empty water bottle. ‘Plan A’ wasn't doing the job so Martin got out his Maglight to shed some light on the scene. Now Martin’s English is good, but his eyesight’s not much better than mine so when he described seeing a rabbit-sized animal with black and white stripes running up the wall I freaked and assumed we were being attacked by bandit badgers. Through-out the night they came in waves, ensuring no more than 10 minutes sleep before they're next assault and this went on until sun-up when we stumbled outside to see the mess they'd made of out kit. The guides later explained that the badgers were probably wild rats - but I’m not convinced… Tired, filthy and hungry we set off at 7am for the 4-hour jungle trek back to the town. 6 hours later the guide admitted we very lost,very lost, and the best thing would be to climb to the highest peak and get our bearings from there. Climb we did, through dense jungle, our legs and arms being continuously shredded by bamboo and creepers. Two hours later we'd found a disused helipad left by the US forces and our guide found his bearings. We set about beating a new track back down the mountain, hopefully before darkness fell. Looking back on it the night of rodent abuse and the hours of trekking it really was hilarious, but on countless occasions I was close to tears; like the time I took my shoe off to remove what I thought was a stone, and found 5 leeches stuck to my foot. Need I say more. Back in the safety of civilisation and a couple of beers later we hired a minibus for the 7 hr journey South to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). We arrived in town at 2am, tired, filthy but very happy and now a fairly tight-knit group following our adventure. In just 7 days I’d laughed, cried, seen sights I’ve never imagined and done things I’ve never dreamt of, all with 5 people I met a couple of days ago in a small town 700Kms from here. And I still could not quite believe I was in Vietnam.
Nothing had prepared me for the weather! Good old Lonely Planet said 15-20c and dry in the North so it was a bit of a shock stepping from Bangkok’s humidity to an icy February in Hanoi. The cold somehow became insignificant as Communist culture shock took. What I saw before me seemed to play out like a film. A street scene, showing Russia in the 40’s, grey crowds seething as they bustle through markets,desperate to bring food to the table. I could smell these people, hear them, touch them as they shoved past my body but it was as if a screen separated us. I had no idea how, or about what, I would communicate with these people.I was rescued when I made some Western friends and together with the help of waterproofs and brandy we explored the sights and streets of stuffed Ho Chi Minh and old Hanoi.Slowly I adjusted to the pace of life, the driving style and was warmed by the friendliness of these curious people. Sure, they tried to fleece me for dollars, trick me for tips and sell me the shirt off their back but I couldn’t blame them. They knew the importance our tourism and dollars to their economy in the long-term, but short-term they needed better medical facilities, an improved transport network and each of then wanted a new widescreen TV.
2 hours from Hanoi by bumpy minibus, an hour by boat then 3 hours uphill climbing, all in the pouring rain, knee deep mud and surrounded by 10,000 Buddhists on a pilgrimage sat the Perfume Pagoda! Heralded by the Lonely Planet as a cultural highlight of the Hanoi area this was the closest thing to Glastonbury I’d experienced outside the UK. OK, so it was lacking in music but the vibe remained, as did the cold, the damp and the hideously overpriced sparse foodstalls. I guess on a quiet day (ie. When there is not a pilgrimage going on) the voyage up the river and trail up the mountain makes for stunning scenery and a chance to take in the diversity of Vietnam’s landscapes, but on my visit I was treated to a different sight. In front of me, behind me and all around me where everyday Vietnamese who had travelled far and made huge sacrifices to be here at this time. Some had dressed especially for the occasion, wearing suits, high heels and Sunday bests for the climb. Others arrived in probably the only set of clothes they owned, and sandals borrowed from a neighbour. Here I saw for the first time a national of strong, determined people who hold dear their values and morals and continue to embrace their faith and beliefs. Young and old, rich and poor, never had I seen such a huge show of dedication to a religion.
Back in Hanoi and the rain continued to pour. Unable to get warm or dry I realised I was in danger of ruining my time in Vietnam if I did lose the cold i'd caught so buttoned my waterproof and booked a flight to Hué, approximately 700 Kms South. I was disappointed to be leaving the North before I'd explored properly, but knew i'd be back at sometime in the future.Being Vietnam’s main cultural, religious and educational centre there is plenty for the discerning tourist to do in Hué, but my primary priority was to get myself well.After 24hrs R&R and a couple of pints of noodle soup I was feeling healthier, and set off to explore Hué’s chequered past.Lying on the Perfume River Hué is the site of the splendid tombs of the Nguyen Dynasty, dating from the early 1800’s to the mid 1940’s. Scattered along the banks of the river the tombs feel somewhat older with their ornate Chinese-influenced architecture, armies of stone soldiers and gracefully carved elephants. Perhaps it’s the isolation and almost dereliction of these sites that also ages them. Between 1975 and the 1990’s the sites were considered politically incorrect and left to decay but since being made a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1993 the restoration and preservation work has slowly reclaimed them.Hué was also the site of bloody battles in the late 1880’s when the French surrounded the city following the 13-year-old Emperor Ham Nhgi objections to French activities in Tonkin. The Vietnamese launched a counter attack but were outnumbered and crushed when the French respond.In a small museum on the North bank of the town I found the Imperial museum holding the few remaining artefacts from the tombs and palaces. What furniture, clothing and ceramics remain give a glimpse of what life was like in this once regal area, but more fascinating for me was the Military museum, just across the path. With the De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) just a stones throw from the city, Hué also suffered a concentration of violence in the American War, what we in the West know as the Vietnam War. Inside this small building I was introduced to a different side of the story, and I had my first taste of true Communist propaganda. The South Vietnamese soldiers that fought alongside the American’s were named ‘The Puppet Army’, the young North Vietnamese girls who shot jets from the skies and stabbed soldiers in the streets were the nations heros, proudly uniformed and smiling in the photo exhibit. When you’re sold a story with such powerful media images as the West was with Vietnam its easy to forget theres another side, another history and another tale to tell, but here was this other story. OK, so it had been manipulated, edited, spliced and spiced into its present form but it helped explain to me the attitude I’d encountered with the Vietnamese to date. The images told of a nation that refused to lie down, that went underground to avoid its enemy and make daily sacrifices defend itself. It showed the same determination and commitment I saw at the Perfume Pagoda and on every street and in every shop. A desire to succeed, to proceed and generally make the best of every opportunity open to them. A national shaped and structured by Communism but driven by pride and passion for life.
I was beginning to adjust to the daily routine of Vietnam and along with the rest of Hué I crawled under my mosquito net at 10pm, ready for the 5am rise next morning.Headed North on Highway 1 the two hour drive sliced through paddy fields, worked by hand and ploughed by water-buffalo creating the picture postcard images I’d seen in Sydney that drew me to this place, but as we branched off onto highway 9 the landscape changed. We climbed high into the mountains on appauling roads to the heart of the DMZ and what was once the heart of the Vietnamese jungle. During the war the Americans dropped thousands of tonnes of napalm, Agent Orange and explosives in this area, clearing the jungle the Vietcong were so adept at fighting in, and with it clearing the monkeys, tigers and elephants that once inhabited the area. 30 years on from the war and the local communities are still feeling the effects. The chemicals have raped the earth so crops fail and the lack of vegetation has changed the climate, bringing more rain which in turn washes away the bare soil. Since 1975, 5,000 people have been killed by unexplored ordinance and thousands more injured. Landmines, bombs and grenades litter the ground and although teams from the UK, Denmark, Germany and the US working to clear the area current estimates say it'll take US$17Million and another 20yrs before the jobs done. When the locals say “don’t stray from the path” they really mean it. Society may have moved on but the environment has been destroyed. Indeed looking at many towns and villages in the area today its not overly obvious there was ever a war in this area, such is the Vietnamese drive to embrace the future. Closer inspection reveals the truth. The women dream of healthy babies and husbands with 2 arms and 2 legs. The unexploded bombs and landmines cause physical damage to the survivors but unborn children are feeling the effects of the huge levels of chemical contamination from the war. Birth defects are high, stillbirths commonplace and infant mortality is part of everyday life. But being Vietnamese they are making the best of their situation. Daily the ground is combed for pieces of damaged tanks, trucks and helicopters that can be sold for scrap, and every so often a piece will appear that will make rich pickings if offered to the right Western tourist, at the right price.Although I’d flown from Hanoi to Hué I was now behind schedule and needed to move on if I wanted time to explore the Mekong Delta. Leaving town by train I headed South to Da Nang, the war time Vietnam equivalent of Hawaii, where I was hoping the weather would be warmer still.
Da Nang disappointed me. I’d suddenly moved from wide open agricultural spaces to dusty dirty industrial landscape an in no way resembled the Hawaii I’d seen and heard of. Its one saving grace was an all night Internet access, and having dropped my kit in a hostel I popped down to the café to catch up on the only decent surfing in town. Good news was waiting. Baruch, an American I’d met in Hanoi was just 15 miles South in a small coastal town he described as ‘heaven on earth’. I had directions to his hotel a rough verbal map of the town and promise of fantastic seafood. I wasn’t going to hang in Da Nang for long!Half an hour on a local bus next morning and I arrived in 'tailor town', otherwise known as Hoi-An. Baruch was, as promised, having breakfast in his favourite café and almost as soon as I met him he was introducing me to his tailor, and I was being measured for countless suits. One minute I was a traveller, the next I was in a stunning silk evening dress. I was backpacking Barbie! The next week was spent lazy on beaches in the morning, and being measured for suits and dresses in the afternoon. Evenings were saved for exploring the most amazing seafood all with a stunning back drop of the beautiful old Vietnamese town. Suddenly I felt like I was on holiday. Being a small thin country, Vietnam is generally travelled either North to South, or vise-versa and in Hoi-An I was bumping into people I’d met in the North and gathering travel tips from those that were moving North. I soon learnt there was plenty waiting for me further down the country and somewhat begrudgingly packed up the rucksack for another journey South. It turned out a Dutchman, Martin, who I’d also met in Hanoi and a similar plan so we made our way together back up to Da Nang in order to take the train South to Nha Trang. One thing that strikes me about travelling, and travellers is the ease at which friendships are made. Some you know will last no longer than a few days, but every so often you meet a kindred spirit, a like mind who you genuinely feel you can get on with and possibly survive a long journey together. Luckily this was how Martin and I felt as we said goodbye to Baruch and squashed our Western sized bodies into the Vietnamese proportioned train for the 12 hr journey ahead of us.
Tired, hungry and somewhat weary we unfold ourselves from out seats and tumbled from the train into a warm summer night in Nha Trang. The usual hassle ensued as we wrestled with our packs, and the throngs of drivers ready to take us to their brother’s/aunt’s/neighbours’s hotel. With elbows in full working order we muscled through the crowd to a passive looking taxi-owner who after a little persuasion agreed to take us to the hotel of our choice whereupon we collapsed, exhausted from the effort of another Vietnamese voyage.Whilst Martin had travelled in the Halong Bay region of the North he’d become friends with a Danish couple and two solicitors from London, all 4 of which we meet up with in Nha Trang. Now we were six, all with the same desire to escape the tourist bustle of town and adventure out a little into the surrounding hills and countryside. The weather was with us now and as the Lonely Planet promised glorious beaches an hours ride away we hired motobikes, grabbed outr day packs and hit the road. I’m not sure if someone was watching out for us or may-be Lady Luck had come along for the ride but I'll think twice before riding through the busy town market again (Jackie Chan style) on the back of a bike! Out onto the open road we opened the throttles as Highway 1 sped below us and snaked out before us. Being the main North-South route it has a fair amount of traffic, mostly large trucks, lorries and buses, all carrying their load of people, pigs, goats or all of the above simultaneously. Dealing with these obstacles at speed was one thing, but dodging the water-buffalo sized pot holes was another. After what seemed like hours of bumping and jarring we arrived at Doc Let beach, much in need of its cooling waters and quiet sands. The lack of children selling pineapples ensured we were now well off the beaten track and despite the bruises, it felt good.Next day we did Mama Hanh’s Boat Trip, truly the most tourist orientated day-trips Vietnam has to offer, and something I’d heard whispers of, long before I’d even considered coming to town. You have to hand it to Mama Hanh. She has realised the potential for fun in the sun on this stretch of coast, and provided all the necessaries to ensure you have a good time. Boats are laden with obscene amounts of Tiger beer, stunning food and stashed full of Cambodian pot then launched into the South China Sea to cruise around a bit. Needless to say I remember very little of the trip other than the first few beers and well rolled joints. A few of the revellers on board were all set for another day with Mama Hanh next morning but sober once again we decided, 'en mass', to leave Nha Trang and head for somewhere a little quieter. Backpacks were hastily packed and we jumped on the local bus inland to the hill town of Dalat in the Central Vietnamese Mountains. The plan here was to sort out a couple of days trekking to stretch the old legs and get into the heart of the countryside. Upon arrival we hired a couple of guides, bought provisions from the local market and set off into the jungle. And I’m not joking, this really was the jungle! Our guides hacked away at the bamboo and vines whilst we stumbled along in semi-darkness with the mid-day sun blazing far above the tree canopy. After 6 hours of tough going we arrived at a minority peoples village where the guides sorted out food, a fire and showed us the huts we could stay in. After supper of wild boar, deer, porcupine and some fish we caught in the lake we were pretty much exhausted and wasted no time getting to bed. The two solicitors, Martin and I were sharing 2 rooms in a hut on stilts down by the lake where everything seemed hunkey dorey until the lights went out. The first thing that became apparent was that when anyone moved, the hut moved. Soon after this we discovered we weren't the only creatures in residence…In the darkness the walls started to move, then the mossie net started shaking and before long the whole bloody hut was jumping with hundreds of furry monsters. Words cannot describe what was going through my mind as animals (and big ones at that) dropped from the ceiling next to my head and ran across the wall next to my feet. At this point I decided to play the female joker card, turned into a complete girl screaming "kill it, kill it" whilst Martin lashed out at the walls with an empty water bottle. ‘Plan A’ wasn't doing the job so Martin got out his Maglight to shed some light on the scene. Now Martin’s English is good, but his eyesight’s not much better than mine so when he described seeing a rabbit-sized animal with black and white stripes running up the wall I freaked and assumed we were being attacked by bandit badgers. Through-out the night they came in waves, ensuring no more than 10 minutes sleep before they're next assault and this went on until sun-up when we stumbled outside to see the mess they'd made of out kit. The guides later explained that the badgers were probably wild rats - but I’m not convinced… Tired, filthy and hungry we set off at 7am for the 4-hour jungle trek back to the town. 6 hours later the guide admitted we very lost,very lost, and the best thing would be to climb to the highest peak and get our bearings from there. Climb we did, through dense jungle, our legs and arms being continuously shredded by bamboo and creepers. Two hours later we'd found a disused helipad left by the US forces and our guide found his bearings. We set about beating a new track back down the mountain, hopefully before darkness fell. Looking back on it the night of rodent abuse and the hours of trekking it really was hilarious, but on countless occasions I was close to tears; like the time I took my shoe off to remove what I thought was a stone, and found 5 leeches stuck to my foot. Need I say more. Back in the safety of civilisation and a couple of beers later we hired a minibus for the 7 hr journey South to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). We arrived in town at 2am, tired, filthy but very happy and now a fairly tight-knit group following our adventure. In just 7 days I’d laughed, cried, seen sights I’ve never imagined and done things I’ve never dreamt of, all with 5 people I met a couple of days ago in a small town 700Kms from here. And I still could not quite believe I was in Vietnam.
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