Moose Migrations

2009-06-08 Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm, Angkor Thom

2009-06-12T02:06:00.000-07:00

It’s early. Too early. We’re up and out of bed at 4.30am to get a tuk tuk out to Angkor Wat for sunrise. Dragging our corpses down in the lift, we shuffle across the lobby to the front doors and out into the driveway. Mr Sam is waiting for us. “Hello!” he says, cheerfully. We try to make small talk. It doesn’t go well. Not through lack of trying. Never mind. Into the tuk tuk and out onto the road to the Angkor temples, Mr Sam is being overtaken by other tuk tuks as the sky grows gradually lighter. We pull into the ticketing area and buy our one day passes (entry comes at three price points: one day for $20, three days for $40 or a week for goshknowshowmuch – we’re only here for two days and don’t have $80USD on us for the three day pass so figure that financially, it doesn’t matter if we buy the three day or just buy another single entry tomorrow).

Back in the tuk tuk, we begin a slow crawl towards Angkor Wat. Then slower. Then slower. Then slower. Then... oh, you know what happens now, don’t you? The tuk tuk breaks down. Fer serious. The sky is lightening more quickly now. Mr Sam hails another tuk tuk driver who allows us to clamber in with his passengers, two lovely ladies from Hong Kong. Scott tries to tell Mr Sam not to worry about picking us up. Mr Sam doesn’t speak enough English to know what the hell Scott is on about and just says “OK, see you seven hours!” We’re cranky but on a mission so jump out of the second tuk tuk, thank the ladies and the driver profusely, beat off (no, not literally) a bunch of yoofs trying to sell us water and trinkets, and leg it along the bridge across the moat to Angkor Wat.

From 2009-06-08 Siem Reap

Amongst all this kerfuffle, our first impressions of Angkor Wat are slightly tainted. It is spectacular to come around the corner and view the first silhouette against the early morning sky.

From 2009-06-08 Siem Reap

Heading along the bridge, there’s a quiet calm about the place, despite the hoardes of tourists doing the same thing as us (hopefully sans tuk tuk incidents). Entering the outer wall and walking through into the “front yard” of the place is amazing, the sunrise isn’t as vibrant as others we’ve seen, but hey, we’re at Angkor Wat!

From 2009-06-08 Siem Reap

We wander around the suggested path oohing and aahing over the bas reliefs, stair cases and sheer size of the place. We reject a guy in a uniform’s suggestion that he can take us up to a blocked off renovated area for a price.

From 2009-06-08 Siem Reap

We laugh at the various domestic animals trotting around like they own the place. We come across the first of many still-utilised Buddhist shrines. We take a lot of photos. A LOT. They won’t do justification to the place, of course.

From 2009-06-08 Siem Reap

And then we get hot. It’s only 6am and the sweat is literally pouring out of us. We decide to stick to an adapted version of our original plan of seeing sunrise, seeing Angkor Wat, going back into town for a nap, then having lunch at the temples and seeing Ta Promh, the jungle-covered ruins, most recently seen in Cambodia’s favourite western actress Angelina Jolie’s film “Tomb Raider”. Well, that’s according to the tourist guides, anyway. We curse Mr Dorn for sending us a b-grade tuk tuk as we walk back along the moat. Exiting the site, we’re accosted by the same mass of children as earlier. As we clamber into another tuk tuk, one little hindu girl jumps on and tells us she's coming with us. Argh, our hearts!

From 2009-06-08 Siem Reap

We down an excellent bacony brekky and hit the sack for a while, realising that we've managed to dehydrate quite thoroughly in a very short space of time. Once we're rested up, we head next door to a restaurant which we figure, seeing as it's next to a 4 star hotel, has to be OK. Some scummy barely washed glasses make us think we're heading for some severe sickness, but in the end it's all OKish. Some average faux chinese fare for bugger all dollars, and a fine lesson in how much Cambodians like it when you make a poor attempt to learn their language: a request for ice for our drinks and a thank you in Khmer improves everyone's outlook dramatically, and all of a sudden the waitress is testing out her english on Meils.

We negotiate a cheap price to get us back out to the temples with one of the half dozen tuk tuk drivers who hang out next to the hotel, Mr Lika. We're on our way to Ta Prohm. Passing the hospital, where possibly a hundred people are waiting outside in front of Haemorrhagic fever sign is a wake up call: firstly, the juxtaposition of this borderline third world scene against the 4 star hotel just back over our shoulder reminds us just how frontier Siem Reap really is, and secondly it reminds us to get the mozzie repellant out of the bag and start applying liberally.

From 2009-06-08 Siem Reap

After a very pleasant, breezy ride through farm land we reach Ta Prohm. Blessing of blessings, it's the one which has been left to look like it's still under attack from the jungle, and that means shade, and 32 degrees celsius instead of the 38 or so out in the sun. Ta Prohm is super awesome. While Angkor Wat is impressive in size and endless sculpture, Ta Prohm makes you feel like you're in Temple of Doom or King Kong.

From 2009-06-08 Siem Reap

It's falling down, the trees are attacking and holding up the walls simultaneously. Mosses and lichens create wonderful colours and the combination of stone and jungle help you understand the time that's passed since construction.

From 2009-06-08 Siem Reap

In reality, this site is just as cared for as any of the others, and it is a great example of the hand wringing that goes on in relation to these archaeological treasures: what's the appropriate ratio of restoration to preservation to tourist access?

Angkor Thom is the next stop. It's the biggest complex out of the lot, a collection of temples inside a massive total area which originally housed tens of thousands of people. On the way there we pass through gates where hundreds of games of vehicular chicken happen every day.

From 2009-06-08 Siem Reap

Heading in through the stone elephant guarded inner walls, we head north hunting one of the minor temples when we happen upon a small settlement. Chanting is coming out of what we later find out is a buddhist nunnery, and people on the steps are being drenched in water thrown upon them from above while they hold a praying posture. Nearby, a couple wash in well water while we bashfully make our way past. The line between people making their livings at a tourist site, and living at a tourist site is thin here.

From 2009-06-08 Siem Reap

There are two major temples inside Angkor Thom: the Baphuon and the Bayon. The Baphuon is worth a look, but pales in comparison to its neighbour.

From 2009-06-08 Siem Reap

The Bayon is one of the most recognisable spots in the Angkor temples. Covered in "enigmatic faces" which depict it's "god-king" sponsor, it's a badly packed pile of rocks from a distance which up close becomes an amazingly complex collection of towers and murals and sculptures. It's a 1.2km walk around its walls, well worthwhile for the massive murals which cover that entire distance, telling the story of Cham invasion and sacking of the city, followed by the Khmer's victory and reclamation of the city.

From 2009-06-08 Siem Reap

We planned to take in sunset at the Bayon, but it's taking too long to arrive so we decide to head back to Angkor Wat to take see it in a different light. By this time, Meils has decided that ancient cultures suck for having not invented travelators.

From 2009-06-08 Siem Reap

We notice something we recognise from Sarajevo: a mortar shell/grenade impact crater on the bridge across to the city. Other tourists wonder what the hell we're looking at. It's noteworthy that so much of the history around here is quite unrecorded; we've spent all day reading about the events of 700 years ago, and here's a story from 20 years ago. The Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese fought around and occupied these temples up until around 1983.

From 2009-06-08 Siem Reap

Sadly, the temples close at 5:30PM. You have to drag your heels and pretend to be walking out slowly in order to photograph them at sunset.

From 2009-06-08 Siem Reap

Phnom Penh to Siem Reap - The Overland Way

2009-06-07T21:23:00.000-07:00

The early morning Mekong Express bus was booked out, so with midday checkout from the Blue Lime, we find ourselves with a leisurely morning ahead when we wake up. Customary breakfasting on tropical fruits, eggs and coffee as well as the passionfruit juice which has replaced VN Iced Coffee as our lifeblood whiles away a a bit of time.

From 2009-06-07 Phnom Penh to Siem Reap

At 11.45 we drag our bags down the Angkor-ish staircase and bump into a couple of Canadians and their daughters in the lobby. Stanley and Pat are from Vancouver and are on the same bus as us up to Siem Reap. We all check out, they get into a ME minibus, we jump in a tuk tuk, and we all arrive at the bus office at the same time.

A quick scan of the block fails to produce a mini mart to buy some drinks and snacks for the bus trip, so we head back into Amazon Cafe across from the bus office and order a couple of juices and a big bottle of water to take away for our journey. The juices are freshly squeezed, presumably using some sort of ancient alchemist-charged stone device as they take about fifteen minutes to arrive from the kitchen, at which point we start sticking our heads out the cafe door to make sure that the bus doesn't take off without us. A world-champion effort at sculling sees them disposed of in a hundredth of the time they took to make, and we scuttle across the road onto the bus, which leaves only two minutes after its scheduled departure time of 12.30pm. Not a bad effort!

From 2009-06-07 Phnom Penh to Siem Reap

Our "bus hostess" is doing the run for the first time and nervously apologises for her English announcements. This is met by a round of applause and cheering from the half of the nearly-full bus that are English-speakers, for her efforts. From her giggles we're not sure if such things are customary in Cambodia or if we've embarrassed her, poor thing!

Ooo, snack time! This time instead of floss and bean paste filled rolls, it's a savoury chicken pastizzi and a sultana pastry scroll. Much more palatable.

The bus does what buses do, alternating between coming to a complete stop resplendent with horn on sections of the road blocked by broken down minivans, tractors and motos pulling agricultural carts; and trundling along at about 70km/h. Halfway through the journey we stop for a fifteen minute break. Unfortunately this bus stop restaurant is street stalls without any menu, Khmer or otherwise. The only thing on display is some "fresh" pork rice paper rolls, but the fact that the glass cabinet they're sitting in isn't refrigerated and we have another two hours of bussing to go shies us away from them. There's fresh fruit which we don't feel like consuming, cool drinks which we do feel like consuming, and Malaysian-made Pringles that we buy because they're in a packet. Food fail! Oh, nearly forgot - there's bugs. Deep fried bugs. Crickets and roach-like critters. Travel equilibrium reached, we don't even bat an eyelid, which is more than can be said for the other tourists on the bus who crowd over the pan with cameras ahoy. Sorry readers, no bug photos for you from these bloggers.

From 2009-06-07 Phnom Penh to Siem Reap

We arrive in Siem Reap at 5.30pm or thereabouts - a comfortable, five hour trip all up. The tuk tuk drivers at the bus station are organised with badges and numbered vests, a far cry from the rabble of Phnom Penh. The prices are seemingly fixed, too. $3USD to hotels. "Mr Dorn" appoints himself our tuk tuk driver and takes us to the Tara Angkor. Then he presents us with his card. It all looks pretty legitimate, he's even got a website. He tells us he's studied Angkor Wat and can take us on guided tours of the site for $15USD for the whole day, which sounds reasonable. He shows us maps, guidebooks, and speaks excellent English. We agree to go on a tour with him starting for sunrise the next day.

And then things go a little pear shaped. After agreeing to take us, Mr Dorn tells us that he has a Philipino tour group to take out the next morning, but that his "cousin" "Mr Sam" will take us to the temples in the morning and maybe after lunch Mr Dorn will come and pick us up and drive us around then. What to do? Dude seems OK, and seems to provide a good service for a decent price, what could possibly go wrong, even if he won't be taking us for the AM part of our tour? Alright, we'll give this a go.

We check into the hotel properly and are shown to our room. Meils, social policy nerd, and Katy, lawyer, have discussed the ethics of telling big international hotels you're on your honeymoon when you're not, in the hope of getting room upgrades or free booze. Both concluded that it's worth a shot. Unfortunately, it backfires big time when, instead of a suite or a bottle of cheap bubbly, we're presented with a "Happy Honeymoon" rose petal bed display and a cake. Bugger.

From 2009-06-07 Phnom Penh to Siem Reap

We take our sorry butts to the pool for a beer and a dip. There's a guy there who was eating in the Amazon Cafe in PP while we were waiting for our juices, and was on our ME bus. He tells us he started the day in Sihanoukville! Crazy.
Cooled down somewhat, we get a tuk tuk into town for some dinner. We end up at the Khmer Kitchen, where Mick Jagger ate this-one-time-at-band-camp; after a quick beer at the Red Piano, where Angelina Jolie drank this-one-time-she-was-Rainbow-Babbying-her-house. Sigh. But although Siem Reap is tourist-central, it's nowhere near the hell of Nha Trang. Our dinner, of fresh spring rolls, banana flower salad, Khmer chicken curry and fish amok, is good. So is the cheap Angkor beer.

From 2009-06-07 Phnom Penh to Siem Reap

Afterwards, we head to the Night Markets, where Scott buys some of the art-form of rubbings for our walls at home. Calls for the other sort of rubbings ("massage, sir!?") are coming thick and fast. Meils wants to know where her offers are, but is distracted from the thought by a shiny thing which she thinks is silk yarn, but turns out to be a hammock. Pfft. Lame.

Back in a tuk tuk and we head back to the hotel, pay our driver $4USD for the return journey, and are asleep by 10.30pm. Big day tomorrow!

Phnom Penh Happy Times

2009-06-06T21:15:00.000-07:00

After yesterday's tour of Phnom Penh's misery, we're in the mood for something a little lighter today. We begin our morning with breakfast by the pool at the Blue Lime - a plate of tropical fruit, some walnut bread, pineapple jam, passionfruit juice, coffee and eggs. Good fuel for the day to come!

We decide to walk down Sisowath Quay to the Mekong Express bus office. It's nearing midday, and it's a hot, dusty, dirty walk along the Tonle Sap river. We cross the road to avoid the motos and tuk tuks parked on the sidewalk, but decide to brave the traffic again when we approach a woman talking to herself and smashing bottles on the paving next to the billboards and mud that designates the riverbank from the road. Sadly, that sort of behaviour isn't uncommon in Sydney but with limited medical care we don't really want to spend the rest of the day having shards dug out of our legs in a local hospital, and in the absence of a pizza cutter, the surgical skills that Meils has been brushing up on with her “A. Surgeon” iPhone game are rendered useless.

Up another few blocks and we finally arrive at the "proper" Mekong Express office - we say "proper" because along with a lot of agencies claiming to book the bus, there's several companies who have identical branding just with different text or slightly different colours. This office has an actual bus parked out the front of it so we figure we're pretty safe. We've used ME for our trip between HCMC and PP, so know what to expect, and are prepared to pay an extra $2USD each over the other companies for the familiarity on the four to six hour trip. But when we get into the office, the lady womanning the counter claims that we can't book the bus until 3pm. Huh? Even if we pay now, like we did four days in advance in HCMC? Apparently not. Cambodia, eh.

Sighing, we trot across the road to the Amazon Cafe and have a cool drink and look at their photos. We flick through the LP for suggestions of other stuff to do at this end of town - heading back south to the Palace was our plan, but now we're not so sure. A quick discussion and we come to a half ethical half tight-arse decision that we don't really want to pay about $7USD each to go into Sihanouk's palace and see his shiny Silver Pagoda. Instead, we decide to go and see Wat Phnom (a shrine on the only hill in town) then walk up to the French Embassy, where around 1500 expats and Cambodians took refuge as the Khmer Rouge descended upon PP on April 17 1975. Powerful stuff.

From 2009-06-06 Phnom Penh

After another long, hot, dusty, dirty walk seeing a more "real" side of PP than the riverside areas, we arrive at the towering white-washed walls of the Embassy. Even though it's guarded more tightly than Fort Knox, it's pretty powerful seeing the location of one of the major events of the beginning of encompassing KR power. After taking a few snaps we hire a tuk tuk to take us back down to the National Museum, for $3USD - much more than the going rate according to the NGO workers at the FFC, but in some twisted fate of PP, he was the only tuk tuk in sight. We actually end up outside Friends Restaurant, where we are planning on having lunch, after our driver has no change for a five dollar note. Note to travellers - you go through $1USD notes quicker than toilet paper here.

From 2009-06-06 Phnom Penh

The restaurant, run by the Mith Samlanh Foundation, trains former street children in hospitality-related fields: everything from cooking to hairdressing to tailoring. They run off a peer-to-peer model, hence, our wait staff are comprised of two young people wearing “student” tee-shirts supervised by another young person wearing a “teacher” tee-shirt. We order some of their ice-cold drinks – a passionfruit and watermelon slushy for Scott and a raspberry and vanilla smoothie for Meils. Just the thing to cool us down after trekking halfway across the city. The food hits our table in a tapas format – bok choy and black mushroom stir fry, leek and mushroom spring rolls, Tonle Sap fish and tomato stir fry with mint, Khmer chicken curry and some shrimp dumplings a little like a closed in version of Nyonya “top hats”. All the food is delicious, and we eat and eat and eat... until disaster strikes. Meils tries to pass some tomato across the table to Scott’s plate and bumps over her raspberry smoothie, resulting in a glowing pink sludge drowning the bok choy and half the table accoutrements. It’s quickly mopped up by our waiter, but unfortunately the diversion in eating (or perhaps Buddhist deities angry at Meils’ clumsy waste) has resulted in our Khmer chicken curry, the last thing to hit the table, being exposed to a breeze from the street. Not usually a problem, you say? Try it on a dry afternoon in Phnom Penh. Our curry and rice is covered with gritty black and brown particles of... well, Maude knows what. We try to battle through but sense gets the better of us. The bill comes to $17USD. Not bad for what, extenuating circumstances aside, would’ve been a schmancy meal in Sydney-town.

From 2009-06-06 Phnom Penh

After lunch we make attempt number two at buying bus tickets, via tuk tuk this time. We’re more successful this time, and celebrate by going back to the hotel, having a shower and lazing around in the air conditioning for a couple of hours.

Before we know it, it’s time to eat again. What, were you surprised? We pop around the corner to what looked like a Tiger Beer garden from our balcony but is more of a barbecue restaurant on street level, but we decide not to go in and instead get a tuk tuk to the Goldfish River Restaurant on stilts above the less foul end of the Tonle Sap. We enter the restaurant to a blast of Khmer pop music – they have a band here on Saturday nights, and we suspect that Cambodian amplification systems must START at eleven, because we’re wondering how our hearing is going to survive the experience. Luckily there’s a table available to the side of stage – we still have to shout to hear each other, but at least we’re not in the direct line of fire. We order a couple of Angkor Beers (“It’s My Country: It’s My Beer”) and then peruse the vast menu, fighting off the waiters who appear every ten seconds, obviously expecting us to have some sort of post-human reading speed for the 300+ items in front of us. Eventually we pick a chicken and banana leaf salad, shrimp in curry spices with baby eggplants, barbecue beef with lemon and pepper and the pis de resistance, a plate of black pepper crab. The soundtrack helps us digest, as does a bit of seat dancing in response to a large circle of Khmers and NGO workers shimmying in a circle around a centre table.

After our meal, we wander across the road to the night markets. The most interesting thing there is a young Cambodian woman on a stage singing Britney Spears covers. Back in a tuk tuk, we call it a night.

From 2009-06-06 Phnom Penh

Nom Nom Nom Penh.

2009-06-06T21:07:00.000-07:00

After yesterday's tour of Phnom Penh's misery, we're in the mood for something a little lighter today. We begin our morning with breakfast by the pool at the Blue Lime - a plate of tropical fruit, some walnut bread, pineapple jam, passionfruit juice, coffee and eggs. Good fuel for the day to come!

We decide to walk down Sisowath Quay to the Mekong Express bus office. It's nearing midday, and it's a hot, dusty, dirty walk along the Tonle Sap river. We cross the road to avoid the motos and tuk tuks parked on the sidewalk, but decide to brave the traffic again when we approach a woman talking to herself and smashing bottles on the paving next to the billboards and mud that designates the riverbank from the road. Sadly, that sort of behaviour isn't uncommon in Sydney but with limited medical care we don't really want to spend the rest of the day having shards dug out of our legs in a local hospital.

Up another few blocks and we finally arrive at the"proper" Mekong Express office - we say "proper" because along with a lot of agencies claiming to book the bus, there's several companies who have identical branding just with different text or slightly different colours. This office has an actual bus parked out the front of it so we figure we're pretty safe. We've used ME for our trip between HCMC and PP, so know what to expect, and are prepared to pay an extra $2USD each over the other companies for the familiarity on the four to six hour trip. But when we get into the office, the lady womanning the counter claims that we can't book the bus until 3pm. Huh? Even if we pay now, like we did four days in advance in HCMC? Apparently not. Cambodia, eh.

Sighing, we trot across the road to the Amazon Cafe and have a cool drink and look at their photos. We flick through the LP for suggestions of other stuff to do at this end of town - heading back south to the Palace was our plan, but now we're not so sure. A quick discussion and we come to a half ethical half tightarse decision that we don't really want to pay about $7USD each to go into Sihanouk's palace and see his shiny Silver Pagoda. Instead, we decide to go and see Wat Phnom (a shrine on the only hill in town) then walk up to the French Embassy, where around 1500 expats and Cambodians took refuge as the Khmer Rouge descended upon PP on April 17 1975. Powerful stuff.

After another long, hot, dusty, dirty walk seeing a more "real" side of PP than the riverside areas, we arrive at the towering white-washed walls of the Embassy. Even though it's guarded more tightly than Fort Knox, it's pretty powerful seeing the location of one of the major events of the beginning of KR power.

2009-06-05 The Dark Side of Phnom Penh

2009-06-05T02:30:00.000-07:00

What shall we do today, the "nice stuff" or the "depressing stuff"?

We choose.... Depressing. Off to S-21 and Choeng Ek (the Killing Fields) for some, let's be frank, genocide tourism.

From 2009-06-05 Phnom Penh

All the facts that you might need to know are pretty well summed up in Wikipedia. Standing in a cramped, hurriedly constructed single person cell in what used to be a class room and looking out onto the wooden beams from which people hung until they passed out, only to be woken up in a barrel of water, repeat, it's shocking and depressing.

From 2009-06-05 Phnom Penh

Thousands of photos of victims. Instruments of torture. Paintings by survivor Vann Nath showing the methods of confession/fiction extraction. Skulls. A souvenir shop.

From 2009-06-05 Phnom Penh

Several amputee beggars await out the front. There's a man with a molten face.

We move on the Choeng Ek, one example of "the Killing Fields". It's about 15km out of town, so on the way we get to see some of the outer burbs of Phnom Penh. Amazing juxtaposition of structures: rice paddy, garage, convenience store in a corrugated iron shed, huge fenced off mansion, slum. Some horrifying rotting and sewage smells. A party headquarters with cattle grazing at the front step.

From 2009-06-05 Phnom Penh

Choeng Ek has two parts. Firstly, the gigantic Buddhist stupa containing 8,000 or so skulls.

From 2009-06-05 Phnom Penh

Then there's the fields of mass graves, some left unexcavated, surrounded by various signposts showing where a chemical shed used to stand, or a tree against which children would be smashed.

From 2009-06-05 Phnom Penh

Most horrifying of all is that the graves are no longer clearly demarkated; the paths worn by thousands of tourists are gradually revealing more bones.

From 2009-06-05 Phnom Penh

People are living in the grounds of the site. Caretakers? While there are signs asking for quiet, rock music blasts from a third world camp site. Children beg at the fences.

From 2009-06-05 Phnom Penh

More amputees at the gates. Later we find out that the site is licensed to a Japanese corporation.

Back in town he head to a restaurant called Frizz for a late lunch. The Cambodian food gives us a feeling of a precise cross between Thai and Vietnamese. Complex and rich and spicy, but fresh and zesty as well. The food's so good we enquire about taking cooking classes, but it's all booked up. Apparently there's some good classes in Siem Reap, so fingers crossed for later in the week.

From 2009-06-05 Phnom Penh

We head down to the Foreign Correspondents Club for some refreshments, and quickly realise we're both emotionally drained and burned to the proverbial, so we don't linger.

From 2009-06-05 Phnom Penh

Even though it's a great place to people watch.

From 2009-06-05 Phnom Penh

Back at the hotel we've been moved to a "better" room. Better means that now it's up 15m of stairs, and has no water pressure. Some sooking later, we head next door to a mexican place where people are smoking pot, watching Shrek, and preparing quite passable tex mex burritos. The huge biker looking guy behind the counter may well be wanted in several US states and is hiding out in a dark alley in Phnom Penh. Which we are as well, in a vastly different way.

2009-06-04 Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh

2009-06-04T08:48:00.000-07:00

Exit hotel, drop bags off at the bus company, and duck into Pho Quyhn for breakfast. No menus needed this morning, 2 Pho Tai and ice coffee please.

From 2009-06-04 Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh

Hmmm, what's that dark mass in in the glass reflection in front of me? Why is everyone pointing at the sky? Oh it's just ARMAGEDDON approaching at speed.

From 2009-06-04 Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh

What was a fine hot blue skyed morning turned in the space of about 5 minutes into the monsoon. Rain fell like it was machine gun fire from heaven. We knew it was extreme due to the odd giggly noises the phoprietor was making.

Thankfully it let off a bit long enough for us to crowd under an umbrella and get our belongings on the bus. Behind us, a dude who smelled like he'd been on the Mekong Whiskey for a few weeks, beside us a lovely Vietnamese lady from Canley Vale, Sydney back to visit family and see Ankor Wat.

From 2009-06-04 Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh

Bread-like buns filled with sweet and savoury stuffs are supplied. Amazing Cambodian karaoke DVDs relieve us of the need for entertainment. The scenery changes quickly to rural, and subsistence level agriculture. Oddly though, even the stilt houses made from what looks to be scrap wood often have big ol' TV attennae.

From 2009-06-04 Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh

When we reach the border it's a $20US visa on arrival (thankfully we came prepared with US cash and passport photos for the Kingdom's files), and a health declaration where we claimed (perhaps to be taken with a grain of salt) not to have coughed, sneezed, had a headache or diarrhoea recently.

The first things you see in Cambodia is casinos. There's one in the border control grounds. There's dozens. Then, back to farm land and snoozeville.

We awaken and find ourselves at Neak Leung, a ferry crossing town which looks pretty third world, especially when the monsoon starts up again, whipping garbage around the streets and drenching a dozen or so fruit/veggie sellers and child beggars who swamp the bus. People around us purchase some lotus seeds, others donate their uneaten bread products to the kids. Later I find that this town is the one that you see bombed at the beginning of "The Killing Fields", where a B52 accidentally dropped a 20 ton payload killing hundreds.

From 2009-06-04 Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh

The bus boards the ferry with a clunk, and we begin to rediscover religion as this thing heads off across choppy brown waters. No probs though, we're off again, having had a worrying glimpse of what life in Phnom Penh may turn out to be like.

From 2009-06-04 Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh

When we pull in to the bus station after a 7 hour trip, we're absolutely swamped by tuk tuk drivers, who start reaching for our bags and demanding that we use their services, all while we're trying to find the receipt for our bags amongst our backpacks, with the bus drivers thinking that we're stupid and can't work out the system or that we've lost our tickets. The whole thing was like being a stock traded on the NYSE floor. Really we're just mentally and physically overloaded, and trying not to show everyone present the expensive camera and laptop in our backpacks where our bag receipts are stashed. Eventually we push free from the throng, grab the first tuk tuk guy that spotted us while we were still driving, and negotiate a truly cheap fare to our hotel.

Somehow the divide between rich and poor seems even wider in Phnom Penh than Ho Chi Minh City: the poor are poorer and the rich are doing it in style in far more beautiful architecture. The hotel is a 4 star fortress oasis down an alley that you wouldn't go near in Sydney. Much as we're here for culinary adventures, we decide to regroup with some very passable club sandwiches and a relax by the pool with Ankor beer.

From 2009-06-04 Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh

We read a lot of cautionary tales about bag snatching, robbery and all kinds of tomfoolery going on here, so our first venture out is without the backpack, camera etc. Every corner is covered with dudes lying around in the heat, occasionally calling out "Sir, you want tuk tuk?". Unlike HCMC, a polite "no thank you!" is usually sufficient in letting them get back to their business. Oh, but wait, what's this? A whitey in his late thirties / early forties approaches us. He asks us where we're from in a BRITISH accent. When we tell him, he switches to a more natural AUSTRALIAN accent and asks us how long we've been in Phnom Penh. When we tell him we've only just arrived, he tells us he's from Canberra, has just arrived from Siem Reap, left his wallet and camera in his bag in the hold of the bus, and they've been stolen. He claims that he's been to the Embassy but they won't help him because it's the end of the day, but that he needs some money to call his family to get them to wire him money through Western Union. Dude has a cloud of dodginess you could cut about him, but we give him 5000R (slightly more than a dollar) to go away. We're shocked that our first experience with the "Wildes of Phnom Penh" is a whitey exploiting tourists for ... what? A cheap holiday? Shits and giggles? A subsidised lifestyle choice? A little further down the block we come across amputees in ancient wheelchairs asking for money. Disgusted doesn't begin to cover it.

Shaking our heads in disbelief, we head for the Foreign Correspondent's Club, lauded as a must see in the various tourist guides. After getting fairly lost due to the fact that a lot of the street signs went illegibly rusty sometime in the 50s, we find ourselves outside the DV8 bar, with tasteful silhouettes of ladies on the sign reminding us of the Lonely Planet's simultaneous warnings and how-tos of girly bars/brothels. MMMnnnnaaahh let's find that FCC club.

From 2009-06-04 Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh

The FCC is a multi level classic building with its first surprise being an awesome merch desk, from which we pick up some T shirts and stubby coolers (the best souvenirs don't come from souvenir shops). Somehow, they also boast the ability to get you copies (literally) of something like 70 foreign newspapers. I check the Aussie contingent, yes there's the Cairns Post, Meils checks, no the NT isn't represented, sad.

Next surprise is a proper wood fired pizza oven. The food all looks good, we order jugs of Tiger beer, a trio of tasty entres, and watch as the light fades over the river. Cambodian youngsters in pairs hang out by the river on their scooters, next to a bewilderingly massive pile of mud. Journalists and NGO workers discuss their days around us. We have a chat to a French bloke about the comparisons between the countries we've all been to and the differences in their peoples. The Cambodians seem more mellow than the Vietnamese, a generalisation that holds up if only when comparing the tenacity of touts and the very much appreciated lack of constant car horns in Phnom Penh.

From 2009-06-04 Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh

The pool at our hotel doesn't have a closing hour. This is civilisation. Floating in salt water, looking up at the northern hemisphere stars is a nice way to end a hectic day.

Au Revoir Tourist Hell! Bonjour Saigon!

2009-06-03T18:01:00.000-07:00

We wake up to the squeals of kids playing in the pool five floors below us. The acoustics of this hotel would be amazing if Bjork was playing on the ground level and NIN were playing on the top, but unfortunately the caucophany of minors isn’t nearly as interesting. We attempt to pack only to be slowed by Meils’ Chinese Laundry attempt at thwarting the Novotel’s ridiculous cleaning charges resulting in clothes failing to dry properly in the sub-Arctic air-conditioning. We shove the wet stuff into plastic and Meils checks out while Scott does a dong-run down the street to an ATM. We said DONG.

Into a cab that has an overpowering smell of petrol throughout it, and we brave the half hour drive to the airport, only questioning whether Vietnamese petrol still contains lead once. Or maybe twice. Who can be sure? A speedy check in at the slightly-less-barn-like counters and we duck into the airport restaurant for a 70K dong breakfast of pho and iced coffee. The pho has noodles reminiscent of Korean japchae, made from yam flour rather than rice, and lacks the usual accompaniments of bean sprouts and herbs, though does come with some tiny birds eye chillies and lime. On our way out of the restaurant we notice a Vietnamese woman has been given a plate of basil, mint and sprouts, and sliced red chilli. NOOO! DON’T BE STEALIN’ OUR ACCOMPANIMENTS! We wonder whether the restaurant staff meant for us to eat the napalm chillies we were given and forget about the missing ingredients amidst pain of death.

Scott looks up the lyrics to "Most Glorious Uncle Ho, Leader of Them All"

Back into the airport proper and, defying conventional wisdom, we discover that Nha Trang airport has prettied up their DEPARTURE area over the arrivals conveyor-barn. Our upstairs “lounge” even has an entire wall devoted to Uncle Ho! The HCMC-bound flight before ours is delayed due to a late arrival of aircraft, so we sit in front of the air-conditioner and hope that the cool air isn’t privy to Legionnaire’s Disease.

We wait. And we wait. Flight 355 to HCMC is called for boarding forty minutes late. We wait some more. Our flight is moved to 1.20pm. We wait again. A VNA flight to HCMC, scheduled to leave after ours, has a line of 50 people waiting at our gate after it is called but no staff come to let them on the plane. We wait. They board and leave. We look at the bare tarmac forlornly. Scott throws defenceless stick people over a wall in a game on his iPhone. Meils goes to the toilet a lot. We wait some more. It has now been two hours since our inferior pho and we are getting hungry. We spot some 30-something Brits with two young Vietnamese girls who were all on our dive boat yesterday. One of the girls says a cheery hello to us. The Brits don’t. We wait. We notice the Jetstar plane on the runway and consider calling in a favour given that we have practically been financially responsible for the successful launch of each and every one of their overseas routes. NO GAMMON. Meils wonders whether Uncle Ho would think the failure of plane scheduling proof of the evils of capitalism. Scott thinks about growing a long goatee and attaining people’s prosperity through pig farming.

Our flight is finally called at 1.15pm. Meils risks divorce and hyperemesis by using the bathroom one last time before getting on the plane – her beloved toilet stall is covered in vomit, and the lack of air-conditioning in the public areas results in her and two British ladies gagging as they line up to use the one unsullied lavatory. Scott, and the partners of the Brits, are not amused. All are reduced to nervous laughter when we see the plane we’ve been transferred to in lieu of our booked aircraft arriving. It’s a prop plane, last internally refurbished in 1991, with the smell of cigarette smoke defying the “no smoking” signs on entry. The plane taxis out on the sole runway, the cracks and foliage growing upon the surface suggesting that maintenance has fallen the way of the Americans who used to call this an air base. Defying all odds, the plane takes off, and we’re treated to an almost-turbulence free flight over some stunning coastal scenery.

The landing has us choking back spew with laughter, the prop plane hitting the runway once, bouncing, hitting it again SIDEWAYS and finally swerving to an almost-stop at the end of the tarmac. The smell of cigarette smoke increases. We suspect that the pilots are having a 555 (local cigarette) and Mekong whiskey session up the pointy end of the plane.

Kamikaze ahoy!

We collect our bags in a darkened terminal, suss out where the International Transfer path is for our flights out at the end of our trip, and get in a cab back to the Saigon Mini Hotel 1, who are as pleased to see us as we are them. They’ve upgraded us to a deluxe room for our second stay, which has a bathtub and a window covered with flexi-plastic instead of glass. They also return our washing which wasn’t finished when we checked out last week. We love you Saigon Mini Hotel!

Hungered by our near-death experience on Vietnam Airways, we go searching for a late lunch. We’ve walked past a street restaurant next to the hotel a bunch of times so decide to give it a go because they have a typed menu in Vietnamese which we figure we can decipher with our Lonely Planet. The owner brings us menus in English, and we order – chicken and noodles for Meils, and shrimp and rice for Scott. Or we think we order. The BaBaBa beers turn up, then Meils’ food, but 45 minutes later Scott’s tiny piece of table is still empty. We try to ask where it is but one of the ladies from the store just waves 50K dong in front of our faces and demands that we pay up. The owner did say something to us in Vietnamese (“our rice isn’t ready yet? / “do you want to choose something else?” / “are you sure you don’t want to go to McDonalds, 'coz, like, SUCKED IN, THERE ISN'T ONE!?”) but we thought he was just correcting our pronunciation of the dishes. Obviously, we were wrong.

Meils contemplating Pasteur's germ theory and electron transfer on low gauge wiring

We walk around the corner and pull into one of the stock standard cafes along the tourist strip where Scott has a plate of Singapore noodles and a couple of Tiger beers are consumed. A “street physio” comes in while we’re waiting and gives Scott an unrequested but good back and shoulder massage which calms him down, until the guy asks for 200K dong for it. We laugh. The guy laughs and says 100K. We give him fifty (about $4 / two bowls of pho / a taxi ride across the city / way too much) and he is pleased.

Here, a "happy ending" means not walking away bankrupt

Back at the Saigon Mini we have a quick shower and get changed then with a bit of hassle, manage to book Le Bourdeux, a French restaurant, for dinner. We originally planned to visit Madame Dai’s Bibiliotheque tonight, but all internet searches are fruitless until we come across several pages saying that the restaurant closed after her death in 2007. Double whammy, we’ve both enjoyed reading about the ex-South Vietnamese senator and lawyer in Bourdain’s Cooks Tour. Le Bourdeux is on the other side of town to the airport so after another crazy cab ride later we find ourselves outside. It’s a stark contrast to the com ga and pho stalls on either side of it, but we figure if you’re going to eat French in a former French colony, why not do it properly? The service is amazing, the food is stunning – we both have a roast duck breast with raspberry vinigerette for mains,

From 2009-06-03 Nha Trang to HCMC

and a sublime hot chocolate mint soufflé for dessert, along with a bottle of Bourdeux red.

From 2009-06-03 Nha Trang to HCMC

Chauffered into another taxi at the Le Bordeaux street exit, we note that its frontage resembles Hell's Kitchen. It's a quick trip home before popping our first doses of doxycycline, doing an improvised jig around our hotel room to stop them eating away at our oesophagii, then sleep in preparation for our early start tomorrow.

2009-06-02 Nha Trang

2009-06-02T09:09:00.001-07:00

Up and atom early this morning, a 5:45 rise after a night of poor sleep. We stagger down to the dive shop and get a fine 2 egg, 2 slice, 2 rasher breakfast each. A travel-sickness pill for a chaser.

From 2009-06-02 Nha Trang

7:15 we're on a bus down to the port, and a 45 minute boat trip out to our first dive spot. Suited up, leap of faith into the water, down the rope to about 6m, and visibility's fine, the water's warm, and even though the fish are seeming a bit shy, there's giant sea cucumbers, big blue starfish, multi coloured corals, the odd jellyfish, big flourescent urchins. A couple of mystery sudden bouyancy problems freak us out a little hoping that that little headache behind the eye isn't the bends, but all is well. We swim for about 40 minutes, and head up to the boat for lunch.

From 2009-06-02 Nha Trang

The second dive spot is a deeper dive, heading down to 12m but averaging about 8m for another 40 minutes or so. Huge coral formations many meters wide and high but the fish are still a bit disappointingly shy. More of an invertebrate tour, which has its own rewards. Overall it was an awesome couple of dives, and lacking some of the ear pressurisation & sinus problems which plagued our Great Barrier Reef dives. The instructors were great as well, very helpful that it was two of us and two of them.

Back on the boat it's satisfied nap time back to port.

Pho Tai at Pho Cali for lunch hits the spot, and then it's relaxville for a few hours before we head down to the beach and the Louisiane Brewhouse for some more microbrew and a competant sushi dinner. We were considering getting some of the BBQ seafood which is getting done on the pavement, but then spot a child urinating on the pavement about 5 meters past a BBQ. Think we'll stick to the restaurants, at least there's an illusion of safety there.

From 2009-06-02 Nha Trang

Bit exhausted, bit over being hassled by touts every 2 minutes, happy to be moving on tomorrow.

Nha Trang Deux

2009-06-02T03:02:00.000-07:00

We sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep, but when we wake up it's still only 9.30am. Despite this we manage to fluff around the hotel for a couple more hours, before heading down to a place called the Cyclo Cafe for brunch. We devour a tamarind seafood hotpot and amazing grilled beef wrapped in betelnut leaves, as well as some of our lifeblood-coffees.

From 2009-06-01 Nha Trang

The whole meal costs us about $7. Afterwards, we walk to Rainbow Divers and have a couple of fresh juices while we wait for a dive group to finish their lunch so that we can go off to the training facility for our pool dives. We meet our instructors - Jane, a Brit who usually lives in Bondi but has taken six months off her business life to spend her redundancy package on travel and learning to teach people to teach people to dive (geddit?), and Matti, an affable Scotsman. Both are, as seems to be the case with diving folk, easy going and a lot of fun, which makes the tech session enjoyable, even if it is hampered by a dive pool coated in algae with 0.5m visibility due to the pool being depth adjusted to below filter line so that the little Vietnamese kids don't drown in it!

From 2009-06-01 Nha Trang

After our tech session we're driven back into town and drop into the Louisiane Brewhouse for a late lunch and a couple of their site-brewed pilsners and red ales. Both beers are surprisingly good, as is the beer fried shrimp and pork ribs with chilli and lemongrass that we have as accompaniments.

From 2009-06-01 Nha Trang

We try to have a swim in the Brewhouse's sparkling pool but it closes at 6pm, so instead we walk down the beachfront path to the Sailing Club and have a couple of Bia Saigon on a beach table. We experience some degree of conflict at both places - at the Brewhouse, a couple of young Vietnamese boys were playing at putting their toes over the line that marcates the restaurant from the beach area; and at the Sailing Club, the mobile shop ladies are able to walk along the path, but even if you ask them to sell you something (a strange reversal given the usual chorus of "postcard, cigarette!" that usually follows their appearance) you have to step out of the frontage of the Club to make the transaction.

From 2009-06-01 Nha Trang

The irony of a foreign-owned,western-style restaurant and bar built on cheap Vietnamese labour subsequently prevented from accessing the place doesn't escape us for an instant, but it's one of the few places where there's more young people (not just Anglo - there's well-to-do Vietnamese holidaying here) than old white guys with young local women. Perhaps a little out-of-sight, out-of-mind, but there's only so much you can do to crusade for equality when you're on holidays.

From 2009-06-01 Nha Trang

We start to get hungry again, so we go to a Vietnamese seafood grill where a huge selection of fresh piscetary life awaits selection for nomming on a basket filled with ice. The meal is fantastic, the drunken Brits across from us who refuse to pay for their meals because "me mates here didn't get their dinner until twenny minutes after we finished eatin'" are embarrassing. We mutter four letter adjectives about them, their sense of entitlement and their appendages under our breaths until they leave. Then we have a conversation about football with the lovely waiter, who seems to embody the Vietnamese idea of "keeping face." The Brits were tarred as complete dickheads in our culture by choice vocabulary, and in Vietnamese by the fact that they chucked a whammy in public.

From 2009-06-01 Nha Trang

There are no grilling frogs on the pavement tonight, so after a quick duck into a convenience store for some water (defying the Novotel's stipulation that no food or drink be brought into the hotel from outside the premises - at $4USD for a 300mL Evian in the minibar, we give the policy the fist!) and head to bed trying to slumber away the pain that tomorrow's early morning dive start will cause us.

Saigon to Nha Trang

2009-05-31T20:32:00.000-07:00

We wake up early to the muted sounds of the city's natural alarm clock of beeping horns and roaring engines. An undergraduate packing session follows, shoving everything that is scattered around the rooms into our bags. We then leave the hotel for the rapidly formed morning tradition of pho - we'd walked past a hybrid street stall / restaurant the previous day and were keen to try it out, so after an accidental detour through the fresh food market, we're sitting on some metal stools, chowing down on bowls accompanied by large handfuls of basil, mint, chilli and beansprouts, and a couple of Vietnamese iced coffees to make us strong and give us many sons.

From 2009-05-31 Ho Chi Minh to Nha Trang

Our trek back to the hotel seems to be less impinged upon by touts and we only get asked if we want our sneakers shone twice in the two hundred metre walk. Once there, we grab our bags, have a confusing conversation about laundry versus luggage, decide it's easier to just leave the clothes that were washed the previous day but aren't ready behind, jump into a cab and drive to the airport. The domestic airport is pretty shed-like downstairs, but after a long wait in a line we head up to the gates and find a fine selection of birds eggs, tropical fruit, dubiously legal whiskey, cigarettes and souveniers (most noteably a wooden carving with a Merlion and "Singapore" written on it) for sale. The flight to Nha Trang is unremarkable, unlike the airport which seems to perturb some of the tourists heading to various eco-resorts, but just makes us laugh with it's outdoor makeshift baggage carousel and throng of taxi drivers outside. The new airport is about 35km south of Nha Trang proper, so after a pretty half hour punctuated by overpowering fish sauce odours at a corner drop off (perhaps, as our inflight magazine pointed out, there was a spill of a few buckets of the 200 million litres of fish sauce produced in Vietnam each year) we're dropped off in front of our dastardly white-person hotel where we admire the sea views and king size bed before realising that our tummies are digesting themselves and heading out to find some food.

From 2009-05-31 Ho Chi Minh to Nha Trang

The Saigon hustlers have nothing on those in Nha Trang. On one block we're offered everything from cigarettes to books to "Easy Rider" bike tours to the omnipresent postcard packs. Our avoidance of such offers is made more difficult by Lonely Planet failing us again with the restaurant we were heading for now being a vacant block. We sit down at another place near the beach but their menu has more vague selections than a Liberal party ballot (and shark fin on the menu) so we up and leave, eventually finding a place called Pho Cali where we stuff ourselves with beef and prawn bún (the noodle sort, not the bread sort) and "Imperial Rolls" consisting of pork and prawn mince surrounded by rice paper then deep-fried. Delicious. Not so delicious is the conversation we overhear coming from a loud European man on a mobile phone at the table behind us. "She doesn't even speak English, all she can say is my name! You said she spoke English!" Quite.

From 2009-05-31 Ho Chi Minh to Nha Trang

Sanity returning after lunch, we walk down the road and come across the much lauded Rainbow Divers operation. We've heard good things outside of the Lonely Planet and they're Vietnam's only National Geographic dive centre so we go in and have a chat about what we can do as uncertified divers. The dive dude takes us through a bunch of options and doesn't try to upsell when we decide against doing a full open water course. We finish our beers (oh yes, Rainbow also have a bar and restaurant), walk across the road to the other company we've read recommendations for, the Sailing Club / Octopus Divers. Their intro diving program only goes for half a day and requires participants to have a diving instructor hanging onto them at all times. Having dived in an instructor lead group before we think this is a little basic, so we go back to Rainbow and book in for an option that allows us to do a theory session in a pool the day before our trip, therefore enabling us to dive in a small group guided by an instructor to make sure we don't get into any trouble. For about a hundred bucks each it's on the expensive side, but frankly we'd rather spend the cash and do it safely than scrimp off the top and risk injury - especially given the fact that pressure injuries make air evacuation difficult and we're 600km from HCMC.

From 2009-05-31 Ho Chi Minh to Nha Trang

We walk back to the hotel to cool off in the third floor swimming pool, which currently has beach glimpses but overlooks a demolished highrise site, probably fenced off for another hotel to pop up before you could say "dude, where's my view?" The swim cools us down enough to contemplate leaving the hotel again, which we do - to have a drink at the Sailing Club and then go to Mai Ahn, which is paraphrased as "French Grand Cuisine" in the Lonely Planet. We're still trying to work out the quantity versus quality thing here - for about $40 we had nine courses "to be shared with darling from a single plate" and a passable bottle of Argentinian cabernet sauvignon, but despite the happy shots of the lady chef being awarded "Best Young Chef 2004" by an old French guy, the best thing that comes out is the meatloaf-ish "country style pate" for the first course. It undulates in a vaguely downward direction from there - a "seafood volouvent" consists of tasty spicy prawns in a basket made from potato fries; a cognac and pepper sauce drowned steak is cooked medium rare but still requires brute force to cut through; a "surprise course" between the seafood and the steak obviously influenced by palate-cleansing sorbet instead consists of a scoop of vanilla ice cream on caramelised raisins and pineapple and a handful of vanilla wafer sticks; and the "crepes Suzette" could be mistaken for motorbike-seat vinyl. Nothing tastes BAD, it's just that the entire meal is a hilarious journey a'la "When Good Cuisines Breed Bad Babies."

From 2009-05-31 Ho Chi Minh to Nha Trang

We walk back to the hotel and are both a little sad to discover sidewalk grills have sprung up all over the place. Alas, our tummies are too full of substandard Frenchnamese to contemplate anything from barbecued corn to grilled lobsters to blazing whole frogs! We rest our weary heads in our skyward whitey ghetto and thank technophiles for inventing double glazing before hitting the sack for nine hours sleep.

From 2009-05-31 Ho Chi Minh to Nha Trang

Ho Chi Minh City Part II

2009-05-30T08:57:00.000-07:00

Out and about again in HCMC. Pho at a bar that does everything. A menu that is like a novel, we figure that if you order it, they'll look up the recipe and work out how to make it. The pho was exemplary, the iced coffee makes you strong, bear many sons. Snake wine canisters, tattoos available.

From 2009-05-30 Ho Chi Minh City

We wander aimlessly, the Lonely Planet only really has one day worth of itinerary. Markets with live fish, meat attracting a few flies but it still looks fresher than the Sydney supermarkets. Tickets to Phnomh Penh on a bus booked after deciding that the office looks fairly kosher.

From 2009-05-30 Ho Chi Minh City

A juice shop saves our lives for a little longer. A dollar or so for a passionfruit juice that's about the best thing that's ever passed anyone's lips.

From 2009-05-30 Ho Chi Minh City

We walk and walk and walk in the baking heat hunting a BBQ restaurant that's recommended in the LP. Dehydrated and faint we find where it was.. an empty, demolished block. Back to yesterday's lunch spot for Blood Cockle salad, Crab in Tamarind and Shrimps on skewers with chilli salt.

From 2009-05-30 Ho Chi Minh City

Touts are everywhere. "Where you from? Oh I have a sister/brother/son in Sydney, look here's a letter/photo collection from someone from Australia". The stories are sounding familiar.

From 2009-05-30 Ho Chi Minh City

The Ho Chi Minh Museum which we avoided yesterday looks more appealing now that we're running out of things to do in a city of 6.5 million people. Propaganda from 40 years of war set out in a completely random fashion with a bit of amazingly kitch taxidermy for good measure.

From 2009-05-30 Ho Chi Minh City

We head for the river, hunting cool air, and happen upon the most challenging road crossing of all time. Thousands of motorcyles are actually surprisingly easy to dodge.

From 2009-05-30 Ho Chi Minh City

The river is industrially filthy, but cools the air quite effectively, and is traversed by many an interesting craft.

From 2009-05-30 Ho Chi Minh City

Still hunting refreshments, we find another Lonely Planet listed wasteland, and find that we're not the only Australians in the same predicament. In fact there's a whole street worth of restaurants and bars missing, replaced by rubble and bulldozers.

From 2009-05-30 Ho Chi Minh City

Around the corner a little thought there's a strip of bars and restaurants. Trying to make a choice we unwittingly cross over the hazy line between expat bars and... whore bars. They look at us, we giggle and head back to expat land for a few beers.

From 2009-05-30 Ho Chi Minh City

Xu for dinner. Top shelf dining, what would cost several hundred dollars in Sydney for.. well still a fair bit in HCMC but remarkably good value nonetheless. A martini with olives stuffed with blue cheese is way better than it sounds. Fluffy scallops, lime cured wagyu, coconut pork belly, incredible food.

From 2009-05-30 Ho Chi Minh City

A cab found within 2 minutes of leaving the restaurant that costs about $3 to get back to the hotel: not sure if it's priceless, but it's certainly welcome.

More photos here

Ho Chi Minh City

2009-05-29T09:20:00.000-07:00

The quintessential experience in HCMC/Saigon is crossing the road. At any time there will be dozens of motorcyclists driving past, paying no heed to the international conventions of traffic lights or pedestrian crossings. The correct method to getting across any road at a zebra crossing involves drinking copious amounts of cheap booze and forgetting about the fact that the nearest modern hospital is in a different country.

From 2009-05-29 Ho Chi Minh City

We started the day with pho and condensed milk iced coffee. Fending off a billion touts for motorcyles, shoe shines (even when wearing sneakers), bananas, post cards, coconuts, puppies in tiny metal cages, cyclos and mystery fried objects is a constant given throughout the day, and we got ripped off (read supported the local economy) more than once.

From 2009-05-29 Ho Chi Minh City

Following the Lonely Planet 5k walking tour was a challenge. The problem being, we're white. Standing out like a sore thumb, being obviously vastly rich compared to most of the populace we're passing. It's hard to say no to people even when they're offering you a service which may range from not want right now to vastly ridiculous (i.e. the guy who followed us for an entire block insisting that black soccer style sketcher sneakers really do deserve some kiwi shoe shine).

From 2009-05-29 Ho Chi Minh City

The up side of the economic divide (for us) is that many things are cheap. We ate at an amazing, huge barbecue restaurant for $15. Prawn hash roll your own rice paper rolls, pigs' ear and papaya salad and bbq squid with chilli salt (...well I think the "salt" was MSG) with beer.

From 2009-05-29 Ho Chi Minh City

The imperial/independence/Reunification palace was a testimony to mid 70s style/extravagance. Presidential lodgings and vintage technical equipment. The stairs up which the VC ran being filmed and shown to an international audience marking the end of the 10,000 day war and victory for the late Uncle Ho.

From 2009-05-29 Ho Chi Minh City

The war relics museum was history written by the victors from the losers' perspective. The war of aggression by the US, pictures of massacres and torn bodies nested in a museum surround by US bombs, planes, tanks and a chopper was sickening and horrifying, while while still glorifying the victory of the North. Mourn the massive tragedy and buy some dog tags and zippos for good measure.

From 2009-05-29 Ho Chi Minh City

The morning is hot hot hot. The afternoon: monsoon. Withing 2 minutes of the storm breaking, a woman on a moped was selling us umbrellas. No longer are we sure that capitalism was driven away.

From 2009-05-29 Ho Chi Minh City

Drinks at the Sheraton to hide away from the storm. A quick drink and a nervous laugh at an expat bar. Dinner at the "Temple Club" was quite Surry Hills.

From 2009-05-29 Ho Chi Minh City

It's very much like Darlinghurst here, but with 10 times the people packed in. On the same block as a 5 star hotel is people washing their dishes in the same gutter someone's urinating in. It's all of humanity laid bare from the needy to the excess.

We're lucky. We ate very, very well and came home (somehow dodging the traffic) to a hotel with beer and water in the mini bar at $1US.

From 2009-05-29 Ho Chi Minh City

More photos here

Frankfurt to Home

2008-11-23T00:18:00.001-08:00

Last day of the trip! The hotel has a rather civilised midday checkout, so we dawdle and infinitely plan our battle attack for the airport, chucking our laundered laundry into one bag and a stack of clean "plane" clothes into the other. There's not much that's really pressing us into sightseeing in Frankfurt, so we walk down to the Irish pub near the train station and refuel ourselves with an "Irish breakfast" - it doesn't involve potatoes, but it does take the edge off our pilsner hangovers. It doesn't, however, do much to motivate us.

We walk towards the centre of town and it starts drizzling. We come across the enormous Euro and shake our fists at it. We try to find the Archeological Museum, fail, try again, succeed, then reject it when we find out that it's going to cost us six of the damned Euros to enter and that there's no English signage. We look at the river. Cold, bleak. We need windscreen wipers for our faces. We give up. We collect our bags from the hotel at 2.30pm and escond ourselves back at the Irish pub with its free (FREE! IN GERMANY!) wifi and Kilkenny pints and neverending Cranberries soundtrack. Then we wait. And wait. And wait some more.

Eventually it's time enough to get on a train to the airport, so we cross the road to the train station and do just that. From the moment the doors of the train close, we are hermetically sealed in airconditioning for what will be the next 36 hours. Yuck. Upon arrival at the airport we realise we're in the wrong terminal, so haul a cart with our bags on it up and down a bunch of escalators before finding the Korean Air check in desks and dumping the bastardly backpacks with glee. We assume there will be similar facilities airside as there was in the previous terminal, so go through immigration... only to discover a mass of construction, a smattering of fast food and a woeful collection of duty free. Our noses are both hurting by this stage, and we rue the pitiful newsagent which, unlike the all-in-one shops at Sydney Airport, only sell paper products - not the painkillers and antihistamines we need.

Cursing, we pass through security screening, but once we're through we discover that it's a bubble gate - separated from the rest of the airside facilities by sheets of glass and more construction, and free of any commerce centre for purchasing water. Meils, who is the Queen of Hydration, is told by airport staff that she can go back to the other side of the security screening and bring emptied water bottles through with her then refill them from the bathroom. She feeds the equivalent of $15AUD into a vending machine to get three bottles of water but it turns out to be a wise purchase, as the flight lacks the constant supply of beverages that we experienced on our way over and without them we would have shrivelled up in the overheated recirculating aircon.

We arrive in Korea at 1.35pm and quickly shoot down any ideas we may have previously held about doing a city tour. Instead, we stay in transit, go through more security and find the airside hotel, where we happily fork out cash to get a room for six hours. A hot, high pressure shower washes off the planefilth, and partake of a strange lunch buffet in the hotel restaurant before passing out for a couple of hours sleep. With waterbottles refilled, we head back down through the gate towards the plane, but much to our horror, we're confronted with another liquid screen before we're allowed on the plane. We skull the water and politely ask the Korean girl checking our backpacks to empty one of the bottles for us so we can refill it on the plane. Unfortunately, when we get onboard the on-tap water is cloudy, so we're at the mercy of the hostesses for liquids during the rest of the flight. Although we're lacking moveable head rests and personal entertainment units, we both find the second flight comparatively easy to deal with. Perhaps we've finally hardened up to long haul? We're home from the airport by 8.30am, pick up Dumpii our dog later in the morning, then stay awake for the rest of the day in an attempt to stave off jetlag. Y'argh!

Another Old Church and Frankfurter

2008-11-19T19:58:00.000-08:00

We treat the hostel room, with its superfluous bunk beds and precariously positioned television, as an Escher-like exercise in patience. Seeing as we've paid for a 1pm checkout, we stuff around uploading some photos (Scott) and getting progressively addicted to Final Fantasy on the DS (Meils). We then shoulder our packs and walk down to the awesomest kebabery in Koln for some more lahmacun before climbing about the tram to get back to the train station and Dom.

The Dom is large. So large that God cannot see our heads through our beanies, apparently. It's filthy, looming, gothic exterior is countered by a mass of stained glass and mosaic flooring inside.

Pretty rad, for another church. We waste half an hour marvelling at its splendour before attempting to circle its base, only to be amazed and astounded by a post-war publication in the gift shop entitled "Hooray! We Survived!" and assume it was previously printed under the title "What Jews?".

We set up camp on the train platform for a couple of minutes before our train turns up. It's the last long distance venture of our trip, and although it's only going to take an hour and a bit to get to Frankfurt, it's nice that we're on a DB ICE rather than one of the rather less plush Eastern European trains for our last transit. Upon arrival in Frankfurt it's still surprisingly light, and we make the executive decision to walk to the hotel rather than get the tram, which turns out to be a fortunate event, as Google Maps was leading us up the garden path with regards to the hotel's location, and it is, as its website description states, only 200m from the train station - rather than the 1.2km and two tram stops that the internet suggested at us. Every step we don't have to take with our bags is a win, so we pump our fists and Meils does a dance of joy when we realise that we're right across the road from the Miele wash house laundromat. Clean clothes! Party time! Excellent!

We waste no time in checking in, and the staff at the Ambassador Hotel are as lovely as their rooms. We fear that we may have been irrepairably damaged from the Serbian experience, as every time we approach a hotel door we now grimace with apprehension about what might be waiting for us on the other side, so coming into a clean, spacious room with a tasteful mass-produced floral wall prints and pristine white sheets is a nice surprise. We grab the laundry bags, trot across the road and dump the offending items in a machine, then walk down the street to an Irish pub for a Kilkenny (we didn't visit Ireland this trip, so feel it our duty to partake in a wee tipple so that the Green Isle doesn't feel left out). After 41 minutes we return to the waschomat and chuck our clothes in the drier, then go to the pub two doors down for a draught Pils. The pub smells like old men, urinals and Welsh football players armpits, ferreal. A middle aged lady starts crying when "The Twist" is played over the jukebox. The bartender periodically breaks service to chuck some coins in one of the gambling machines on the wall.

After one drink we go back to the laundromat, where our clothes are almost, but not quite dry, so we feed the money slot a stray cat (or some more Euros, whatever) and go across the road to yet another pub for a couple of pilsners while the cycle finishes. It's a much more civilised place, run by a couple who speak as much English as we speak Deutsch, so we have an hilarious conversation which results in them feeding us Turkish ouzo for free after only two drinks. Oh, Deutchland, we see how you work now. This gesture of radness results in us staying there for another three pilsners, and dinner. Scott eats a delicious wurst. Yes, yes he does. Meils orders a beautiful lentil soup and spinat with fried eggs, which is no where near as good as Oma's (but still hits the spot).

Somewhere in proceedings we collect the clothes and then go "home" to the hotel next door where we foolishly consume more beer from the vending machine in the lobby and then crawl up the stairs to bed.

It Is How It Is - Cologne

2008-11-18T22:43:00.000-08:00

Hangovers are the product of sitting in a smoky bar the night before. We're awoken by a woman opening our door and asking us if we're checking out. "No, tomorrow". We pull the covers back over our heads and try and get back to sleep, but about half an hour the phone rings and a female voice on the other end tells us we need to move rooms. We look around at the piles of backpack guts all over the floor, rub our heads and sigh.

Long story short, we're forcibly checking you out of this room, and into a crappier one upstairs, sorry we forgot to mention this to you last night, no it doesn't matter that you booked your room two months ago, "it is how it is" as they say in Cologne. Bizarre.

Less fond of Cologne and with hangover remaining we wander out in search of food. We find an awesome Iraqi place and order some kebabs/gyros (or Lahmacuns as they're bizarrely called here, according to Wikipedia a Lahmacun is a middle eastern pizza) which turn out to be just about the best we've ever had, even taking into consideration our food-homesickness. This place has an open coal fire oven which they're roasting skewers on, it's like the Saray of Cologne.

By this stage we're basically touristed out. The thought of returning home seems more novel than exploring a new city. Eventually we decide to head to the EL-DE house, a Gestapo prison which has been set up as a museum. Cheery! But important, and in the spirit of education which has taken up a fair chunk of our holiday.

In the 10 cellar prison cells you can still read the charcoal/screw/fingernail imprinted messages left by many prisoners detailing their lives, those they miss, the execution count from the day before. Up to around 30 prisoners could be staying in a 4 x 1.5m cell.

Upstairs is a museum outlining Cologne's Nazi history, from the early 20th century to even the histories of high ranking officials who continued in public life unscathed after the war. For example, "Racial Hygeine" principles were still being lectured on by a former Nazi in universities in the 50s. Also upstairs is the secret to why the cells downstairs are so well preserved; these things were hidden away after the war, and it took research and then protests in the 70s to open this up to the public in the 80s. It takes a society decades to start healing after such shame.

We wander and find a "every-man" style pub, a few 40 somethings having an after work beer. It's Kolsch they drink here, lots of small breweries doing their own. We order a couple, they come in 200ml glasses filled from the keg on the bar. Beautiful. When you finish, like the night before, the bar-woman brings a couple more over to you. We begin to see their game, responsible service of alcohol - i.e. we drink, they take responsibility for bringing us those drinks seriously. It took us about 15 minutes to try to decipher the Deutsch only menu but we soldiered on and ended up with some schnitzel and roast pork.

We settle down for an early night back at the hotel, time to take it easy. It doesn't really happen, our new room is next door to the incredibly noisy lift mechanism, and Scott's newly found sinus infection is keeping both awake in between snores. Instead of counting sheep, we count the hours until we'll be home.

Canals to Cologne

2008-11-17T20:02:00.000-08:00

Up and off the boat before 10. Lug the blasted backpacks up to the station and into lockers. Now what? The day when you're sort of homeless hanging around for a train in the afternoon can be a bit difficult; there's nowhere to collapse after a good meal, and you can't wander too far as you're fairly transportless. We hit the library, which turns out to be quite amazing.

From 2008-11-17 Amsterdam to Cologne

Overlooking the harbour, and 7 stories tall, Amsterdam's Bibliotheek should be compulsory viewing for anyone involved in planning such things back in Australia. Not only does it have books (duh) but PC games, films, PCs and Macs everywhere for free usage, etc etc, but it has a buffet restaurant on the top level! Pizzas, stirfries, cakes, beer, juices, and it keeps going, with a choose-your-own-ingredients-and-we'll-cook-it-for-you philosophy. We pick up a couple of Thai stir fries and banana smoothies and have a look over Amsterdam from a fine 7th story vantage point.

From 2008-11-17 Amsterdam to Cologne

We wander, get some coffee and write some postcards, take some shots of the canals and it's onto another train to Cologne.

From 2008-11-17 Amsterdam to Cologne

Cologne looks like a very modern city, it has a bit of a Brisbane -like feel. As in there's little that's going to grab your attention (apart from the massive cathedral called the "Dom" which looms like a behemoth as you exit the central train station), but it's a nice place with cool bars, a live music scene and all.

After checking in to the hostel where we notice plenty of Reg Mombassa like mass produced artwork, we head out for food. Failing to find the place we were looking for, we settle on some cheapo schnitzels which are a step back into euro food but only in taste, the price is much more reasonable here than other central spots.

There's not too much in the Lonely Planet about Cologne, so we wander aimlessly until we find a hellishly smoky but effortlessly cool pub. Band stickers everywhere, hardcore German punk on the PA, and they don't wait for us to ask for another beer before bringing us two more. And two more. And two more. And, quite possibly, two more, who can remember?

At some point we notice an Airbourne sticker on the wall just behind us. We plotz. We eventually go to leave; the staff think we're getting a bit excited so bring us some Jaeger on the house.

Back in the hostel, the 24 hour bar is manned by the boss and two staff. We share a last beer down there and discover that the bloke who checked us in has actually been to Blacktown. Small world, innit? After demonstrating our appalling Deutsch, much to the amusement of all and sundry we head upstairs to bed.

Fantastic Flem and Dangerous Dutch

2008-11-15T03:06:00.000-08:00

We wake up in our comparatively plush hotel room in Brussels well rested, and collect our threads from the dryer down the hallway. The luxury of clean clothes will not be taken for granted when we get home, nor will be the ease of machinated laundry facilities - attempting to hand wash a winter coat in limited hot water in Dubrovnik saw to that. The garden outside the hotel is more apparent in daylight, as are the backs of the quaint terrace houses interspaced with modern office buildings in the EU district. We pack our stuff, saddle our packs and check out, Metro-ing it to Gare de Centrale (Brussels' central train station) where we have noticed that the train we want to catch to Amsterdam calls at.

Our tickets have no departure time listed on them, and the departures boards at the train station only deal with trains stopping at main train stations in Belgium, so although we know our train is supposed to stop at Antwerp, we can't discern local trains from those continuing on internationally. Nowhere is the insignificance of "English" more apparent than here, where signage is tri or quad lingual (Flemish/Dutch, French, German and occasionally Italian), We wait in an information line for about a quarter of an hour, but we are graced with an English speaking ticketing dude (lucky, as Meils, who was allocated the task of figuring out what was going on with the e-tickets she'd bought online, only speaks enough French and Flemish to say "Good day. Do you speak English?". He informs us that our tickets are "open" and that international trains to Amsterdam leave at nineteen minutes past every hour, so we dump our bags in the luggage storage facility and go for a bit of a wander around the centre of Brussels for a couple of hours.

Our first stop is governed by our tummies, and is thus a restaurant with a giant waffle on the top of it. Waffles are apparently a traditionally Belg-y, and although we would not normally consume them as a breakfast food, it's lunchtime by the clock and we only have a limited amount of time here. The time limit also justifies our choices of Framboise and Kriek (raspberry and cherry beers) as accompaniments - though it is one minute after midday when they hit the table, so we don't feel in excessive need of an AA meeting. The waffles are drenched in a DIY pot of melted Belgian chocolate, but disappear from our plates in less than two minutes, so after negotiating the rather terse waiter, we get a cornet of pommes frites from the stand next door and drown them in mayonnaise before going for a walk around the centre part of Brussels.

We sidestep into a rather grandiouse old shopping arcade, packed full of touristy chocolate and lace shops. When we exit we find ourselves in a narrow laneway stacked with seafood restaurants, many of whom have their unshelled molluscs on display with vegetable produce on stands next to their al fresco dining areas. People not armed with fries are jumped on by waiters, some clad in humours tuxedos, trying to hustle them in for lunch. As the newfound Swiss of the tourist world, we are slightly pacified to find that most of the moules (mussels) around here are also priced at over 20Eu a serve - and the ones that aren't appear to hold the same culinary ilk as "discount sushi"). We escape unscathed, and turn a corner to find a shoe shop proudly flying a rainbow flag, a swingers club, and then the Belgium Scientology headquarters all in the space of a thirty metre block. We suspect that Adam might have done Belgium wrong. Where else could you buy your marbles back after losing them two doors down?

We step out of the laneway into one of the pedestrian streets leading into the Grand Place - a series of majestic structures built during the 1600s and pimped out in gilt for the pleasure of the masses. Despite the propegation of restaurants and curious fenced off area cordoning some young people doing what appears to be a bastardised version of tai chi, it's far less touristy than some of the other old squares we've visited on this trip, so we sit down and fill in our remaining time with a couple of Kwak and Chimay beers. A mad dash to the train station at 2pm sees us sitting on a platform waiting with our bags with five minutes to spare, and after realising that we're at the "wrong" (i.e. first class) end of the train, we stagger down the corridor and find a couple of seats for the journey up to Amsterdam. The trip is made rather more pleasant by a regular refreshment service, and the trilingual language announcements, putting us and our pitiful memories to shame (Meils, in a country confusion moment, asked for "un Chimay per favor" in the bar we were at earlier). It's also broken up by pretty scenery in the south of the Netherlands, with triangular houses and cows straight out of a delft pottery scene, and stops at Rotterdam and The Hague.

We arrive in Amsterdam at around half past five and it's miserable. Cold and with more of the omnipresent rain we experienced in London a couple of days ago. We can't find an ATM in the train station, and have about twenty minutes to get to the boat we're staying on, which has limited check in hours. We walk down the main street as per the instructions on the owner's website, getting progressively damper and spotting a grand total of zero cashpoints, which is unfortunate as when we finally arrive at the correct dock, soggy and aching, we find out that they only accept the cold hard stuff. We scrounge together 45 Euros, all we have on us, and the woman tut tuts at us for thinking that we could possibly use Visa in a tourist city. She also laughs at the fact that we walked about ten minutes more than we needed to... by using the aforementioned instructions. Is this some sort of Dutch humour that we're not getting? Perhaps. Anyway, our double cabin is quite cosy even if Scott has a hard time lying down without bending his knees, and we get an education in boating with the three second electronic delays on everything including the toilet flush. We de-moist as best we can and head off for a wander around the city.

We're not sure why the guidebooks have listed the red light district as a place that you "may end up as curiosity gets the better of you" - it seems almost impossible to avoid, although after seeing the fourth or fifth bored lady of the night standing in a window lighting a cigarette / brushing her hair / filing her nails / eating Mentos / looking for nits, the shock value disappears and we regard the whole thing with a rather disjointed "meh". The coffee shops spark our interest, but then we realise that everyone's smoking pot on the streets anyway. Our attention is all of a sudden wrenched away from the sinful scenes before us, when we realise that Amsterdam has a Chinatown district. Oh lordy, we can has rice? CAN HAS! After being deprived of any decent Asian food for the last four weeks, we ransack a restaurant and devour roast duck, soy chicken, vegetables with tofu, and some mighty fine Shanghai and BBQ pork buns, and a bowl full of steamed rice, washed down with jasmine tea. We could've cried, but we didn't, 'coz we're tough. We are full, but not so full that we can't move visiting our favourite Chinese place "Meat Filled Buns" to the top of our to-do list when we get home.

Back on the boat, we realise that although novel, it's not the most private of accommodation. Some middle aged Italian ladies ignore us when we greet them, even though we hear them speaking English to the boat owner the next day. It's probably part of their sense of humour, just like staying awake in their adjoining cabin thumping their suitcases (or perhaps each other) around the floor and resonating each bang through to our room. It's slightly off-putting being able to hear every bodily function from our strange neighbours, but we eventually get to sleep.

Blimey, Blighty and Brussels

2008-11-14T03:04:00.001-08:00

Another morning in the UK, and we farewell Ben and Nat in dawnlight - although as we decided last night, it's only temporary as we'll be seeing them again when they visit in March. We muck around with Vern for awhile before shouldering our packs and saying good bye to Kyoko, before trekking up the road to the bus which will take us all the way through the city and up to Kings Cross / St Pancras for our train to Belgium.

We dump our bags in the non-blown-up-by-security way, and after going through the wringer over what the electrical contents of them are (a forgotten mobile phone and Nintendo DS prompted the wrong sort of interest from the check in man) we negotiate a massive line in the underground station and get the tube a couple of stops away to Camden Town. The trip over is made more amusing by an error in signalling, resulting in the train in front of us being shunted into the wrong platform. The driver in front of us not only apologises for the fact that anyone continuing past Camden will have to disembark to the train across the platform, but also gives a cheery "it's not just you, it's me too - so if you're lost, just follow me and we'll all be ready to go after a short walk" - which seems to take the edge off and reminds us on the comparative infuriations of CityRail back in Sydney.

We wander around the market area which is interesting at first but quickly gets old when we realise they're selling the same crap sold at markets the world over ("hand crafted" wood products made en masse in Bali, quirky local t-shirts stating "I'm an English Teacher, innit" and multiple head shop stands staffed by white boys playing reggae at volume), so we stop at the Oxford Arms and have a pub lunch (beef and Guiness pie and cod and chips). A bit more sightseeing over the Lock and Meils waves her fist at the Dr Martens store (as her six week old boot zipper broke last night and is now not only coming apart from the leather, but is also requiring some sort of podiatric braces for its teeth), before we get back on the tube

Back at the station we are accommodated by a French guy who is smart enough to recognise that a photographic passport is a better form of fraud protection than the credit card that we paid for our tickets with, and thus saves us from having to dig through both packs to try and find Meils' wallet, which has a couple of different Mastercards contained within it. He warns us that "next time, you must ave ze credit card" - we just nod and smile, as his patronism is not as bad as the alternative. The idea of opening the packs for anything other than life's essentials is starting to provoke feverish chills on our collective brows. We collect a few more passport stamps and go through check in where the guy manning the baggage X-Ray machine asks us if we're brother and sister based on the fact that our backpacks are identical. No, just suckers for a Kathmandu sale. We have an hour and a half to kill, so we drink most of our remaining pounds at the bar before getting on the rather boring train to Brussels (boring because the sun has now disappeared so the space between tunnel and outside is difficult to discern). A quick stop in Lille (France, our third visit to the country this trip) and we arrive in Brussels at 7.45.

The metro is surprisingly easy to negotiate, or perhaps we're just getting less suspicious of the whole "effect public transport" caper. For the princely sum of E1.70 we only have to change once and come out of the Schubert train station right under the EU building! Things come up mooses once again when instead of requiring extensive following of map instructions hurridly gathered from Ben's internet connection some hours beforehand, we can spot the sign for our hotel (the Euroflat) from the metro exit. WIN! We dump our bags again and are pleasantly surprised by the spacious hotel room which even comes with a balcony and hilarious overdubbed American MTV. More importantly, there's a laundry right down the hall. We swear that when we get home we're just going to go nekkid for a couple of weeks, such is our newfound hatred of running out of clothes. We ignore the laundry for the timebeing, and head out into the multicultural climes of the EU district to find some dinner, eventually settling on what will probably (hopefully!) be the most expensive mussels we ever eat - 25Eu each. As a small concession, they are delicious, and the service is great too. The credit card is starting to bleed. We probably should've bought some bandaids from the street sellers in Sarajevo, where the AUD actually worked in our favour, as we can't afford them here.

We head up the road to a convenience store to get some non-alcoholic drinks to stave off the 9% Belgian beers we washed our dinner down with, and then back to the hotel where we get some priceless laundry tokens and Miele the living crap out of our dirty washing, then try and sleep with what auditorily resembles a frat party going on in the room next door to us. They do pipe down about ten minutes after we hit the sack, and sleep is upon us.

Hare Roma, Roma Fiorenze

2008-11-08T22:50:00.000-08:00

We awake to rain falling in the strange ceiling window, and figure it's a sign that we should get out of bed and get moving, despite the complaints of our various aches and pains. Breakfast at the hotel consists of a bunch of pastries and coffee from an automatic machine - a tres European diabetic's nightmare. We check out and walk up to Termini to catch a train to Fiumicino Airport, where the car we have hired awaits our pickup (we were supposed to get it yesterday, but a quick call to Alamo did what the Australian branch of AutoEurope couldn't manage and delayed the transaction for 24 hours). It's a quick albeit expensive journey, but saves us time which is important on an express schedule.

The car pickup goes surprisingly seamlessly, and once Scott has attempted to adjust the seat height, figured out how to turn on the headlights and get the VW Golf into reverse, we're on our way. The lady at the Alamo desk has given us a map of the Rome motorways and a driving guide to Italy, so our trip up to Florence is only thwarted by the crazy Italian motorists who flash and beep when we drive at the 110km/h speed limit. When in Rome, but even hastening our velocity we are regularly passed by drivers doing about 170km/h.

From 2008-11-08 Rome to Florence

We have a quick stop for a truckers lunch of fettucine and salad, and although it is the most costly service station lunch we've ever eaten at 33EU, it's tasty and gives us the strength to face the Italian automobilists once again. Probably more useful would be the servo's fine selection of booze, but we manage to resist, even though a bottle of wine is less expensive than the greenery we bought to accompany our pasta.

From 2008-11-08 Rome to Florence

Driving up through the rolling green hills of Tuscany is a holiday in itself, even if we're seeing them at 140km/h. Meils has a nanna nap, and wakes once we're in the thick of it. We stop for a stretch at a roadside park and crunch around in some pine needles before getting back in the car for the final half hour to Florence.

The Pope must've been looking out for us after our Vatican failures yesterday, probably praying that we don't come back - as we somehow manage to find the street which the hotel is supposed to be on using only the Lonely Planet and the motorways map. It all goes a bit pear shaped from here - half the street is closed off for the construction of a tramway, and we end up stuck in a car park entry which requires a million point turn between an Audi and a Mercedes before Scott can manouvre us out of there using the traditional Italian "I'm coming through, move" method of giving way. We then try and find the hotel address, but it appears to be a men's department store. A call to the reception prompts no help other than "you should be able to see a red flag with Hotel Alamanni written on it." Well, der, should and can are two different things. The receptionist then figures out that we're not from Florence and therefore don't know about the dual numbering system they have - red numbers and black numbers, which aren't actually red or black at all, rather they result in multiple building numbers on the same street, but not in any way that seems to resemble rhyme or reason.

Eventually we get the car around the hotel, and after a long and involved check in, we're told our rooms are actually further down the street again. Thankfully the room is Renaissance chic, and there are no stairs, so we're quite happy with our "jolly" room as the hotel describes it. Not so happy when we realise that the long and involved check in has resulted in us arriving too late to see anything, and even less jolly when the only thing that's open according to the guidebook is *technically* open until 6.50pm, but the last admission is at 6.20pm - and no, they don't take credit cards, and no, they won't allow us five minutes to go and get some money even though all we want to see is the nekkid statue of the manwhore David. We have a grumble, then decide to bugger off doing our laundry and spend the evening walking around Florence instead.

From 2008-11-08 Rome to Florence

This turns out to be a good idea, as we see some pretty magnificent old buildings, come across a group of students selling sangria from pots, witness a priest singing mass in Latin, and best of all, get caught up in a bunch of Hare Krishnas singing and dancing their way through the piazzas. They're about the most tuneful HKs we've ever come across, probably owing in part to their accordian. Pretty mad juxtapositioning when they Hare Rama their way past a Catholic cathedral, but there you go.

From 2008-11-08 Rome to Florence

We head back towards the hotel and stop off at a supermarket to get supplies for tomorrow's car trip. We are simultaneously heartened by the grocery prices, and angered by the restaurant mark ups we've been experiencing. Such is the joy of staying in hotel rooms. We figure it's our last night in Italy and therefor one more overpriced meal won't kill us, so we go to a cosy looking trattoria just down the street. We get all Fiorentine on our tummies and order Tuscan vegetable soup, spinach and ricotta ravioli with ragu, a whole baked sea bream and an evil southern pizza to keep things neutral. We also order a side of wonderful grilled vegetables, and some cannelini beans with tomato, garlic and sage. All is promptly nommed before we move onto dessert - tiramisu and almond biscotti with orange liquor. Suitably rotund, we roll down the road to our jolly room and sleep off the chianti and noms.

From 2008-11-08 Rome to Florence

And we're now two of many, many tourists in Rome

2008-11-07T00:16:00.000-08:00

The Colusseum is probably our first universally recognisable tourist sight of our trip. The kind of thing you feel a little self conscious going to see. But such self-deprecation is a little silly; a gigantic building of antiquity with such a coloured past is not a thing to be missed. And, as we spot it walking down the street, it's immediately apparent that it's not going to disappoint.
When you look at a structure this large, and imagine the lack of earth moving machines and computer aided design programs it's all the more impressive.

From 2008-11-07 Rome

We didn't intend to actually go inside, but the fabled crowds of tourists seems to be quite managable today, so we line up. You can join a guided tour, or buy the audio guide to get into a smaller line, which is still a 20 minute wait or so, but you can see how the lines here would just be insanely slow in the "on" season.

The audio guide turns out to be a good investment, fairly detailed info for a good few vantage points inside, with the option to listen to or ignore the more esoteric aspects of the site, such as brick constitution and architectural insights. It seems that the legends of christians being thrown to the lions should be taken with a grain of salt, but the more flamboyant romans made up for this during the animal displays, with one amazing show reputedly involving fifty bears emerging from the mouth of a huge fake whale!

From 2008-11-07 Rome

It's lucky for us the Colluseum's still there, after the fall of the Roman empire it was looted for materials, and used for a myriad of other purposes.

On handing back our audio guides we note an Italian sign which states that for every hour late you hand back the little devices you will be charged four euro. More interestingly, the english translation states that the charge is 4 euro a minute! Racist, or just a poor translation? Bloody Americans stealing our audio guides!

We get thirsty, and buy the world's most expensive sprites: 4 euro each. It seems 4 euro is a pretty universal price here. Want a match? 4 euro.

We wander the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill, the site of the original inhabitants of Rome, and then later the sites of the more affluent residences, temples and down the hill, the Senate. It's huge, amazing that such an area exists in the middle of such a major city. Archaeological work is constantly going on here, and it will probably never end as new discovery gives way to the efforts to preserve and protect the ruins against the ravages of weather and tourism.

From 2008-11-07 Rome

As the ruins give way to modern civilsation, we happen upon a store which sells products grown in land reclaimed from the mafia; a government sponsored effort to fight back against the organisation which reportedly makes up about 10% of Italy's economy.

The Trevi fountain is more huge intricately carved wall than fountain from where we stand in a densely packed tourist scrum. It's the kind of amazing baroque thing that has inspired a billion tacky imitations in the homes of the overly monetarily endowed.

From 2008-11-07 Rome

So far on our trip we've done a lot of stairs, from the new pope's home church tower, to the Prague bridge tower, to the descent into the salt mines, so the Spanish steps at the Piazza di Spagna get a quick glance and a trip up about four steps from us. Seen it, next!

From 2008-11-07 Rome

Saint Peter's square and Basillica come next as we trip over to the Vatican. It's security screening yet again on entry to the inner square, God's omniscience is aided by the odd metal detector and x-ray machine it seems. The square is huge, probably a good spot to host a metal gig. Have to look into that. We notice one of the statues looks oddly like it's observing its own i-gadget in disgust:

From 2008-11-07 Rome

"Ratzinger, why didn't you pay the internet bill?!?! There's no wifi!"

The Basillica itself is huge, marbly, domey, so intricate that you could spend months in there discovering new bits of detail. It's an odd experience, not being religious ourselves but coming from catholic backgrounds it's a tug of war between being impressed and awed versus thinking about the intensely concentrated display of wealth shown here by a religion of the poor and downtrodden.

From 2008-11-07 Rome

We've walked a long way today, so, we're equally glad just to sit down and relax for a while as we are disappointed when we discover that we're about 15 minutes too late to get into the Sistine Chapel. Oh well, there's only so many chapels and cathedrals and great things of antiquity one can digest.

Neigh Pulls, Pompeii and Roma

2008-11-06T00:10:00.000-08:00

We wake up in Naples sans horseheads in bed, and alive despite Meils tempting fate with the "Mob Musicians" print on her Threadless t-shirt yesterday. We plan to visit to Pompeii so happily leave the hotel early and walk down to Corso Umberto to catch a bus back up to the Central train station. No way are we carrying our bags along it again, especially seeing as in daylight hours, the area is crammed shoulder to shoulder with university students and street sellers hawking counterfeit goods. Not the sort of madness you want to be tiptoeing through laden with fifteen kilos of backpacks and sore feet.

Post-boarding, we discover that the bus doesn't accept cash. We try and make the driver take our Euros anyway. Hey, at least if the transit police turn up we can claim innocence through stupidity. The driver doesn't care if we pay or not, he's too busy talking to one of his mates, so we stay on. Oops. Sorry Mum and Dad, we know you raised us better than that, but we're almost crippled by now. As it turns out, tourists dodging bus fares are the least of Napoli's problems. When we get off the bus we step straight into another gaggle of counterfeiters, this time punctuated by dodgy looking Italians (not the Roma that they try and blame all their crime on) trying to fence stolen iPhones, which are apparently as flavour as the month here as they are everywhere else. The lonely stolen Nokia in another seller's left hand comes with a far less overblown sales pitch. Scott watches his bag, as his iPhone is his second wife, and if it goes missing Meils won't give him any money to buy it back.

After dropping off our bags at the left luggage inside Napoli Centrale and having an Obama party with the baggage guy, we eat an hideously expensive breakfast at McDonalds inside the train station, mostly because we can't be bothered braving the hoardes outside again. This whole city of darkness thing gets old really quickly. Anyway, after paying the equivalent of $25AUD for trash, we are forced to pay $2AUD each to use the in-restaurant toilets, which is a practice we've gotten used to in "public" toilets in Eastern Europe where for a few convertible marks, zloty or crowns the WCs are meticulously maintained by apron-clad ladies and often decorated with pots of fake flowers and wall hangings. However, it does seem rather out of place in a major food chain - especially when the toilets are filthy like these are, and the charge is collected in a box labelled "donations." There should be a money back guarantee.

On our way back through the Central station we run a gauntlet of guys offering Pompeii tours, but push our way through to the Circumventi station where the Sorrento trains leave from. We have no trouble buying tickets, but massive trouble reading the timetable, which looks like they've used the trajectory paths of the traffic outside as inspiration for its layout. Thankfully, some helpful guards point us in the right direction using a combination of Italian, English and sign language. We offer them grazies, they offer us a cheerful "watch out for pickpockets!". We already were, but thanks for the reminder. As it turns out, it's not just the guards programmed to warn tourists - the overhead platform announcements also make reference to holding onto ones bags and the locations of the in-station police boxes every couple of minutes.

We get on our train without having any of our belongings removed from our presence, and its a quick forty minute trip down to Pompeii. Once off, it's only about a hundred metres to the entrance to the ruins, but the omnipresent crowd of people trying to sell us things (this time guidebooks) complicates the path slightly. We go through the gates of the main site, pay our 11EU each and chuck our tickets in the machines without a thought to maps or audio guides - it's a major site, there should be signs, right?

Errr, wrong. The astounding archeological discovery and preservation is only matched in amazement by the lack of information around the lost city. Worse still, there are no spots within the site to purchase previously mentioned maps and audio guides from - and once you leave, you have to pay another 11EU to get back in. After about two hours of wondering aimlessly (it's a huge place) being followed by a pack of stray dogs, we end up on the highly touristed side where there are displays of broken pots, urns and statues. After about another hour walking around we decide we've had enough and after asking a few fellow tourists about the location of the petrified bodies (excavated in the poses they were holding when the city was buried and then cast from plaster) and consulting with their maps, we're about ready to give up when we overhear a conversation about 'number 56' being the place to find the goods. We head down to the main entry and consult with another useless map (the streets and site numbers are listed on it but no information about what the site numbers correspond to) and then undertake a mad dash back across to the side we had visited earlier in the day. A bunch more searching uncovered several '56s' and it wasn't until we'd had an absolute gutfull that we decided to try one more area, labelled as 'experimental winery' on the gate to it... and came across a poorly maintained display of the bodies. O GRATE. HAPPY DAI.

OK, so the place was amazing, but if you visit, either get an audio guide or wait around for a guided tour to leave. Your visit will suck more balls than a Pompeii prossie if you don't.

Back on another train, and we arrive back in Naples in just enough time to catch an express service to Rome. We try to buy a ticket, and all is going well, until the ticketing counter guy informs us that he can't put through our transaction with a credit card, as he's already printed the tickets to say that we paid in cash. What? You have an EFTPOS machine sitting right there in front of you! Why didn't you ask us how we were planning on paying beforehand if the wrong choice was going to be the seemingly life or death situation that you are making it out to be? Failing to find a bankomat, we pick up our bags from the luggage storage where the friendly guy who gave Obama the thumbs up over his paper that morning gives us a lesson in counterfeit money, of which we thankfully have none tucked away in one of our backpacks. Back to the ticketing desk, this time with a different window dude, who quickly sells us some tickets and lets us know that it will be 38EU for both of us... not each as the previous counter guy had said. Given that we had 50EU on us during the previous transaction, and it was only the "per person" comment that complicated matters, we sigh, chalk it up to language difficulties, and run to catch the 6.24pm service to Rome.

The train trip is uneventful, we're in a comfortable carriage with two other guys who get on at one of the early stops. When we arrive in Rome we're pleasantly surprised by the Termini station, which lacks the chaos and confusion of Napoli and is all polished chrome and shiny glass windows. We shoulder our bags and walk down to the hotel, which once again seems like a long way even though it's probably only a kilometre or so. We begin to wish that pickpockets would target some of our belongings, if only so we wouldn't have to carry them. When we get to the hotel, it takes ten minutes of confusion before the receptionist figures out that we're staying in their sister hotel next door, even though the address Expedia has given us is the '1' part of 'Hotel 1,2,3'. Thankfully the faux Renaissance stylings and schmaltz of 1's reception is carried through to the adjoining property, and we end up cocooned in a roof-level room with exposed beams and a window in the ceiling.

It's about 10pm by this stage, and we're hungry. We walk to find "Tram Tram" - a highly recommended restaurant which is, of course, made more difficult to find by Lonely Planet's map. The place is packed, the service is terse, but the food is amazing. And expensive. Damn you Italy. But still, the spaghetti with anchovies, breadcrumbs and pecorino is a revalation, and the plate of calamari and prawns which Meils orders is perfectly cooked (and cleaned, unlike a previous meal in Dubrovnik). Scott orders a veal casserole which was obviously prepared by some sort of ethereal being rather than the Indian chef who keeps poking his head around the kitchen curtain to see how the diners are enjoying the food (or checking if he can shut up shop yet, either or). A carafe of house red completes the meal, and it's obvious that there is no Kaiser Stuhl in this country. The shine is only slightly dulled by omnipresent street sellers coming into the dining room and loading our table up with crap like wooden carved jewellery boxes, beads, cartoon laser pointers and roses. We long for Leichhardt, where that sort of crap would probably prompt a murderous maitre d' rage on the offending party's arses.

On our way back to the hotel, we almost pass an Italian reggae bar. Meils hates reggae, but can't toss up the opportunity to check out a fake-tanned Italian chick with dreads spinning vinyl like Ja is in her hands. Just kidding, the music and DJing was pretty crap, but we sample some Italian beer and Scott buys a laser pointer, torch and pen in one from a seller for a couple of Euro. We wonder if it will still be working tomorrow. We depart the reggae bar and mean to pick up some water from a little corner store, but then we discover that it sells beer as well, so we consider it our civic duties to partake of their tap and drink standing in the street whilst trying to decipher the Italian newspaper's excited headlines about Obama's victory. Just sharin' the love. We eventually get our water and head back to our attic abode for a bit of shut eye and recouperating before the Roman express hits our station tomorrow.

This is What it Sounds Like When Mooses Crai - Bari to Naples

2008-11-05T00:04:00.000-08:00

We wake up on the ferry with our sea legs firmly attached to our sea tummies which are firmly attached to our sea brains. This makes normal functioning difficult, if not impossible. Although we did get a bit of sleep in our single bench beds, the lack of fresh air due to the recirculated hot air throughout the ship has left us dopey. A quick wash in the rather industrial bathroom and then pulling up a pew on the rear deck as we approach the Italian coastline helps only marginally.

We arrive into port at around 9am, and follow the masses as there's been no announcement as to correct disembarkation protocol. We lug our backpacks down into the belly of the ship and through the garage, coming out of what would be its rear end should it be a mammal rather than a hunk of high tensile carbon. Arrival on solid ground prompts the immediate problem of staying upright, but this is overtaken by the presence of a single 8 person minibus to shuttle a hundred people from the dock across to immigration. We set off on foot instead, arriving at the terminal before the second shuttle load have organised themselves.

More mysteries await us at passport control, the guy coordinating arrivals sends us down to an EU line, which would have been great if we were EU residents as there was no one ahead of us. We correct the mistake and wait a couple of minutes before being given the most disinterested of glances by the customs people and ushered through with another stamp in our books. What passes for a quarantine station is supervised by a lady in intense discussion with someone in the glass box behind her. She doesn't seem to care about the X-Ray screening of the bags going through the conveyor belt in front of her.

Out of the front of the terminal and we are immediately rushed by "taxi" drivers, wanting 20EU to drive us to the train station. It begins to look like a good idea when the public buses fail to materialise and the mysterious Jadrolinja Ferries bus is (a) full; (b) has no destination signage and (c) contains a driver that prefers to waggle his finger at us than answer any questions. We come across another Australian couple who say that the number 20 bus goes to the station, and after running around the terminal and immediate surrounds with our backpacks (much to the frustration of Scott who was in the process of checking a timetable sheet when we ran after it the first time, only to be thwarted by a lack of Euro change) it does a loop back to our original destination, where the driver slams the doors on us while we're standing in them because the people in front of us won't move to the back of the quarter-full vehicle. Ahhh, Italia.

Eventually we get to the train station and buy tickets for Naples before storing our bags and setting off to find something to eat. We end up back at the train station cafe, eating some cold pizza slices. From what we've seen on our drive in, the train station is a fair distance from the commercial centre of town, and Bari is just another city. We look at the fountain at the front of the train station, then groan when we realise that we have another three hours to kill before our train leaves. Attempts to spend time in the great outdoors are thwarted by strange shouty men in a park, which we're used to, but not willing to entertain in our sleep deprived, wobbly state.

We arrive on the platform ten minutes before departure. The flicking sign above platform three states that the next train to leave from it is heading to Torino at 12.58pm. It now being 1.30pm, we take note and with the niggling words of Andrea, Meils' cousin's wife, in our minds ("Italian trains never leave on time if they're not cancelled") go against our better judgement and listen to the old Kiwi guy who is with the Australians (heading to Rome on the same train as us) when he says "nah, they just haven't changed the sign yet." The train leaves early. We're happy for all of a minute, until the announcement comes over the loudspeaker system that the train we're on is going to .... Torino. Massive FAIL results, and when the drifting Kiwi comes up to us with a cream bun in one hand and a goofy grin on his face Meils only restrains herself from giving him a serving because she's busy blaming herself for not trusting her instincts. We spend a tense few minutes musing over the situation, the possiblity that there are two train lines going east to Rome and north to Torino throws a spanner in the works as it's possible we might not reach a station that we can attempt to backtrack from for an hour or so. Thankfully, there's an older Italian guy in the same predicament as us, and with the help of an European railways map and a Trenitalia conductor, we get off the train at the next stop and wait five minutes before our correct train comes chugging along and we breathe a collective sigh of relief. Crisis diverted.

Somehow, presumably as the result of a continental time warp, our new train manages to run an hour and twenty minutes late into Caserta. Thankfully, there are trains leaving Caserta for Napoli every ten minutes, and we get on an "express" service, arriving at the Central station around 7pm. Only an hour and a half after what the Trenitalia website predicted for our journey... Naples is an easy city to find your way around though, mostly thanks to the piles of rubbish everywhere serving as landmarks, so we shoulder our bags and walk a gruelling couple of kilometres to our hotel, which is scarily located in a beaten up apartment block, up eight flights of stairs, lacking any signage (resulting in us buzzing guest rooms trying to find the reception) and with a strange man working the reception. The interior is ... cosy. But at least it's not a brothel. Hey, it was only $75 a night! It could be worse.

Scott's feet are giving him gyp by now, but the prospect of pizza at a traditional pizzeria founded in 1870 and colloquially known as the Temple for its production of deliciousness peps him up - until we miss the street it's on thanks to Lonely Planet's useless maps and walk an extra click trying to find it. But find it we do, and after taking a pink ticket and waiting ten minutes, we're sharing a table with an Italian couple, and ordering three of the six items on the menu - Pizza Margherita, Pizza Marinara, and two Italian beers. The other menu items, if you're interested, are Fanta, Coke and water. Not a chunk of tinned pineapple to be seen! We follow suit with the other diners, getting in, eating, and getting out. We've ticked the only thing that interested us in Naples itself off our list, and make our way home through the darkened streets to our hotel before collapsing into bed. Tomorrow, Pompeii!

The Buza Boozer

2008-11-03T02:23:00.000-08:00

The streets of the old town are a different beast in the daytime. Shops are open, juxtaposing latest fashion and brands and bookstores along with your tacky souvenirs and money changers with the smooth old stonework. That very same stonework is nice and cool on our tired feet, as we've decided to go barefoot, at least until we find that Haviainas shop and get some new thongs. Too bloomin' 'ot, you see.

From 2008-11-03 Dubrovnik

In the old town about half the businesses are restaurants, and the more affordable ones are selling pizza. This close to Italy they've gotta be alright right? Well, if they are to be judged by their bases, yes. But the "Frutti di Mare" pizza we order has seafood extender as its main ingredient. Gah!

More searching the old laneways, climbing here and there, looking for something new in the daylight. Our mate George has told us of a hole in the wall boozer he found, it's gotta be around here somewhere.

From 2008-11-03 Dubrovnik

And then, we find it. It's called Buza, it's on the outside of the city walls, and it's about the most beautiful place to sink a AU$10 beer you could imagine.

From 2008-11-03 Dubrovnik

Having sunk a beer in pure relaxation watching boats (with dogs on) go past and listening to the sun-leathered Germans near us happily laugh at their mate down in the water, we wander about 20m down the stair cut into the cliff face to the water. There's a concrete area here making it slightly safer to lower yourself across the the sharp rocks into the water. We both jump in, although Meils get the wind up fairly quickly as gulls are circling around fish nearby, and where there's fish there's the 0.00000001% chance that there's sharks! Well, the point is probably more that we didn't know what the probability was, and the unknown is always a bit scary. Scott figures it's a pretty sweet place to die and stays in the water a lot longer.

From 2008-11-03 Dubrovnik

We head off in search of cheaper boozers, and the wharves of the old town make a fine place to sink a "Favorit" or two and snack. So, as the sun goes down, we order a few seafood dishes, and our education in more "traditional" dalmation seafood begins when we're served grilled calamari that still has its beak, mantle and guts intact. The waiter says "yes, they're whole" when questioned. OK, either that's the traditional way, or this is a new gag to play on tourists as that's the first and last time we ever encounter that method of serving squids.

From 2008-11-03 Dubrovnik

Back up to our now nightly haunt at the gate to the old town for a brandy or two amongst the forts and it's back up that hill to the hotel yet again.

From 2008-11-03 Dubrovnik

Adriatic Antics

2008-11-02T01:37:00.000-07:00

Hunting for food,we wander north along the coastline in the direction of where the Lonely Planet says the best food lies.

From 2008-11-02 Dubrovnik

And wander, tramp, walk, and whinge as our bellies get angrier and food seems not to be appearing. It turns out that it's about three times as far as we thought it would be, so we settle on an Italian restaurant that's just opening for lunch. So just opening that the waiter's running up and down the street getting ingredients and bread. Some OK pasta later and we're refuelled, picking up some bread on the way back towards the old town.

From 2008-11-02 Dubrovnik

After a couple of weeks in the cooler north a few km tramp in 20+ degree sun has us a tad sleepy so a short nap is in order. About an hour later we decide to get a bit closer to the water, to see what it's like. Scott accidentally drops his swimming shorts in his bag, which is lucky as the water's not as icy as some would have us believe. Seeing another pasty white dude swimming gives us the courage to climb down a kindly supplied metal ladder into the Adriatic.

From 2008-11-02 Dubrovnik

The water is cool, not cold, probably around 19 or 20 degrees. The lack of sandy beaches and surf means that the water is extremely clear, and it's very bouyant, very relaxing to float around in. Behind us is an island, in front of us the rocks and sandstone walls of the old town. Very different to the Aussie beach experience. We hang around until the sun begins to disappear.

The streets of the old town are such a unique thing that a second night wandering them is no hard ask. The narrow laneways and sheer walls and omnipresent cats.

From 2008-11-02 Dubrovnik

The 21st of October was our first wedding anniversary, and we ended up having a fairly simple cheap diner in Prague due to our sheer exhaustion, so we decide to splurge a bit in the old town on one of its finest Dalmatian restaurants. Scott goes for the most expensive thing on the menu to prove some mysterious point; it's lobster medallions in extremely sweet blood orange sauce. Like a seafood dessert.

From 2008-11-02 Dubrovnik

We finish of the night with some small quantities of concentrated Croa-booze: brandies of the plum, walnut and grape varieties, and the focussing of our eyes and photos gets worse until we trudge up the evil hill to the hotel.

From 2008-11-02 Dubrovnik

Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire, and Then Cool Relief

2008-11-01T11:13:00.000-07:00

An early, early start. Sami drives us to the train station at 6am. No time for breakfast, we grab espressos to congratulate ourselves on mastering the purchase of hand-written tickets for Balkan regional train travel. Two platforms, check. Ever present old dudes congregating on cafe benches, check. The reappearance of spinal-injury inducing metal ladders leading up to the carriages, check.

The train is headed to Mostar, one place that copped a serious hammering in the war, and is known for its historic bridge ("Most" means bridge) which was destroyed by Croatian fire (or if you're retarded, blown up by the Bosnians in order to make the Croatians look bad). It's quite a crowded train, we're sharing knee space with a couple of older Bosnians, and it turns out there's an Australian girl seated right behind us. The Bosnian man offers us lollies, and pretzels, and more pretzels, and no matter how many times we say "Ne, ne", he just keeps piling more pretzels on. Very sweet funny guy, but the urge to throw up a combination of iron strong caffienated beverage and processed salty snack gets more and more serious as the trip progresses. The Australian girl is a bit weird as well, a total motormouth and doing the bizarre "oh you're only spending two days there? Tsk tsk tsk you're not going to be there long enough" thing. Sister, life ain't long enough. The train is of course way-overheated and stuffy, perhaps attempting to compensate for the years where inner-city parks were stripped bare for firewood. The scenery is beautiful - pine forests, sheer mountain faces and amazing old arched bridges spanning the valleys but it's raining and misty, so it's a huge relief when we reach Mostar three hours later.

From 2008-11-01 Sarajevo to Mostar to Dubrovnik

We've got a 2.5 hour wait for the bus to Dubrovnik, and Mostar's only about a kilometer long, so we take it slow. Some burek comes out super fresh from the kitchen and puts a happy end to the hours of nothing but coffee and lollies and pretzels.

From 2008-11-01 Sarajevo to Mostar to Dubrovnik

Once we get walking, it starts getting pretty harsh. Buildings everywhere collapsed, full of holes. Down the former front line, apartment blocks with 80% of the units destroyed and left broken, and the others fixed and inhabited. Coca-Cola advertising cafes underneath burned out shells.

From 2008-11-01 Sarajevo to Mostar to Dubrovnik

Short story of the way here: the Serbs invaded, the Bosnians and Croatians threw them out, and then the Croatians tried to take over by occupying the west side of the river. All of the bad things you hear about war happened here.

From 2008-11-01 Sarajevo to Mostar to Dubrovnik

The Mostar bridge spans the pea-green Neretva River, and was rebuilt as soon as possible to painstaking accuracy after its destruction in 1993. It's truly beautiful, and it's a double crime of war that not only lives are destroyed, but also culture and works of beauty. Dudes dive off the bridge for money in Summer, but they're just hanging around smoking in the diver's club at the side of the bridge today. The river looks particularly dangerous as well, that water may look pretty but it's moving with force.

From 2008-11-01 Sarajevo to Mostar to Dubrovnik

Over the bridge and into the old town, we are surrounded on three sides by a tour group of elderly folk, and masses of trashy souvenier stalls on the other. We aren't sure how the oldies are staying upright, as the pedestrian path through the marketplace is comprised of polished river stones, and not wanting to witness the efficacies of Mostar's emergency geriatric service (or lack thereof) we step out of the marketplace and back onto the street. Across the road from our exit point is a beautifully tended Bosnian cemetary, which we visit only to find about 70% of the gravestones bearing 1993 as the date of death. Once again, the juxtaposition of tourism meeting reality hits home, and just when we think we've recovered, we come across another, smaller, newer graveyard a block further towards the train station. In this one, all of the headstones are from 1993, many on the same days, some with multiple family members buried side by side. Sad doesn't begin to do it justice.

From 2008-11-01 Sarajevo to Mostar to Dubrovnik

To put a further downer on things, it begins to rain again, so we increase pace and head back to the transit centre after a quick stop to pick up some supplies for the bus trip. We pick up our bags, and sit on a cement block in the fairly industrial surrounds next to some more Australians. A review of the map shows that we've seen all of Mostar's attractions and then some. Two days not long enough? Pffft.

From 2008-11-01 Sarajevo to Mostar to Dubrovnik

People are begging at the bus station. A teenage boy, and a woman with a dirty-faced three-ish year old daughter who also holds her hand out in a practised manner. The Australian bloke next to us tells the child "don't be like your mother". Sage advice! Every minute that the bus is absent from the bay it's supposed to be leaving from is uncomfortable.

The bus trip is another two and a half hours, and runs mostly along the river, and then through some hilly wine growing country. The passport checks are amazingly cursory, the guys that get on the bus at either end of the Neum corridor don't seem interested in the contents of our documents, only that we wave them above our heads to show that we are indeed in possession of some sort of identification. We spot mussel farming in the river as it begins to become more sea-like. All of a sudden it's all looking very sea-like, and we're in Dubrovnik. You know it's Dubrovnik, there's a cruise ship with a water slide parked here.

From 2008-11-01 Sarajevo to Mostar to Dubrovnik

Our guesthouse owner picks us up from the bus station, it's only about 5 minutes drive to his place. It's a family house, his wife brings us beers on arrival, and tells us we can eat the oranges off the trees; awesome!

It's a 10 minute walk down to the old town from the guesthouse, and as soon as we've walked 50 meters we can see the ocean. Oh mercy of mercies, the relief is incredible. Landlocked countries, get your act together and move closer to the beach!

From 2008-11-01 Sarajevo to Mostar to Dubrovnik

Sea air and all the smells of healthy vegetation, and it's warm: about 22 degrees. It's supposed to be late autumn, but no-one told Croatia.

From 2008-11-01 Sarajevo to Mostar to Dubrovnik

We wander the old town, nooks and crannies of narrow sandstone lanes, all fairly quiet as tourist season's basically over and it's also All Saints Day, a major public holiday for the tending of cemetaries. But still there's about half the restaurants and bars open, and we crawl a few having a beer here, a fish platter there and a brandy at the next.

From 2008-11-01 Sarajevo to Mostar to Dubrovnik

There are cats everywhere. It's out of control. Meils thinks they all have rabies. Scott will be sorry when the hydrophobia hits him.

From 2008-11-01 Sarajevo to Mostar to Dubrovnik

This is not Madness - this is Sarajevo

2008-10-31T01:07:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, there was a city they called the Jerusalem of Europe. A cosmopolitan melting pot, its residents were variously called Croatian, Catholic, Serbian, Orthodox, Bosnian, Muslim, Jewish and Turkish by those viewing it from the end of the valley. While the residents acknowledged these tags, they lived alongside one another as brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, friends and family. Sometimes they squabbled, as relatives are wont to do. But for the most part, they worked together, played together, lived together, and loved together, as humans - as the people of Sarajevo.

We wake up well rested in this now-quiet city to a beautiful clear day, with the sun shining down on the red and orange foliage interrupting the new cabin-styled houses on the mountains above the old town. We are eager to explore, but it's so peaceful in the guest house that we don't really get moving until 10.30am. After passing the Brewery (a two minute downhill trot from where we're staying), we cross one of the many bridges over the river Miljacka and find ourselves in the old Turkish quarter of town, where craftsmen still churn out copper platings - albeit these days for souveneir purposes rather than practicalities. We make a quick stop for one of many Bosnian coffees and some burek and krompirusa, before setting off to check out the rest of the old town.

But first things first - we find the tourist information centre, and book in for their 2pm "Sarajevo Tunnel" trip, a brochure for which was sitting on the coffee table in our room last night. The tunnel was constructed during the beginning of the war as a means of supplementing the meagre supplies provided by aid organisations, and its beginning has been preserved as a museum. We also get some very handy information from the woman at the TIC, who not only has train times to Mostar in her arsenal, she also lets us know about bus departures from to Dubrovnik from Mostar for our post-sightseeing exit. Excellent!

Back out onto the street and we begin to realise how little the town is compared to our previous destinations. We come across mosques, Catholic cathedrals, old Orthodox churches and the old Synagogue in one direction, before turning around and getting distracted by a spotless wet market selling deli goods, meat and cheese. Our curiosity and occasional exclamations of "woah, check that out" attracts the attention of a dude selling smoked beef cuts. He waves us over before asking where we're from and offering us a taste of the meats. He is brandishing a large knife, so we don't feel it wise to refuse. Nah, gammon, it was awesome. We buy a little bit of beef salami to take on our way and continue on across the road to the fruit and vegetable market, then stop off for another coffee before walking to the other end of town where the stunning Austro-Hungarian old library and town hall stood before the war. The building was targeted by radical Serbs as a centre for Bosnian culture, so they dropped a couple of incendiary shells into it 1992, destroying 1.5 million historical documents, the entire collection of the University of Sarajevo, and BiH's national archives, amongst other things. An hideous, and unfortunately not isolated act of cultural genocide against people who had already suffered more death and destruction in the preceeding twelve months than anyone should see in a lifetime. If there can be a silver lining from such an event - the library building is still not operational, but in part that's because they are reconstructing it painstaking detail, which takes time, and of course, money.

We cross a couple of the foot bridges over the river, weaving our way between the two banks, then wander through the copper district and restrain ourselves from buying a coffee set (the mantra that if we buy it we have to carry it is still strong in our minds). We compensate by having yet another Bosnian coffee, this time served with Turkish delight. We use the bathrooms at the restaurant and Meils attempts to pay the man stationed outside the ladies room in dinara (Serbian money). Massive fail, but he just laughs and pats her on the shoulder. We run down to the tourist information centre and get straight into a minibus (oh no, not another minibus!) and begin our Tunnel Tour.

Our guide speaks excellent English and soon reveals that he was in the Bosnian Army during the war. This is not unusual, conscription was the the only way the BiH could get enough personnel to defend their territory. What is unusual is that he was only fifteen and a half when the war broke out in 1992, and sixteen and a half when he joined the BiH regular forces with permission from his parents, serving in the same platoon as his father. The reasoning he gives for his decision is heartbreaking. "I figured that at the time, with people dying all around me, I could have been killed hanging around at home. Better to be killed trying to defend the city than as a sitting duck." He goes to great pains to ensure that any discussion of Serbian involvement is defined as "Serb radicals" - as someone raised in a city which pre-war had all three parties living alongside one another, non-Orthodox Serbs were targetted just as Bosnian Muslims and Croatian Catholics.

We drive out of town back towards the airport, through Sniper Alley, where the scars are far more obvious in the day time, past the Holiday Inn and back around to the other side close to what is now part of the Republika Sprska. During the early part of the war, this territory was the site of ethnic cleansing by Serb radicals, who also held the airport for several months before it was gained back by the UN. We arrive at the Tunnel Museum, and, befitting the secrecy necessary for such a lifeline, it's in an un-noteworthy street with an orchard on one side and a couple of chooks on the other. The family residence was donated by one of the BiH army - and the family continued to live in one room during the siege whilst the rest of the house became a coordination centre for the lifeline. Sheer luck kept the house intact during its role, there are only a few shell marks in the front and back yards - the Serbs knew it existed but didn't know of its exact location.

It seems little wonder than our guide has less than glowing praise for the international community's involvement in what happened here. The first aid shipments to arrive in Bosnia after the airport re-opened for humanitarian flights only (all of BiH being a no-fly zone otherwise) was a cargo-load full of malaria medication, which Sarajevo had no want or use for. The second to arrive was USAID donations - of ration packs dated from the Vietnam war. Diggings for the tunnel, linking free BiH territory to a house in Sarajevo, began in 1993, and quickly became a 24 hour operation as the city began to feel the effects of water, electricity and food shortages as well as the incessant bombing. It's an amazing effort - about 800m long, it ran under the airport, and provided a link between Sarajevo and the outside world for essential supplies, personnel transport, medical evacuations and we even saw some video footage of a family bringing a goat into the city through it. It was available for everyone, working within the highest priority military and humanitarian uses.

Our guide tells us that the government of BiH was not allowed to purchase weapons as part of the terms of independence from the FYR - so when the radical Serbs, who had the pick of the ex-Yugoslav army weaponry (nothing to scoff at given that the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army was the fith largest in the world at the time of the breakup), began shelling; BiH were forced into buying weapons on the black market. He tells us of one experience he had using such weapons - sent to clear a radical Serb artillery post, he and a friend were armed with an ancient bazooka and a machine gun. They approached the post, and when his friend went to fire, all they heard was a click. The weapon had jammed, and he was shot twice in the stomach whilst retreating, which lead to a four month stay in hospital. After his recovery, he went back to his unit and worked in other parts of BiH for the rest of the war.

About 12 000 people were killed in Sarajevo during the four year siege, the vast majority of them civilians. In the museum there were photographs of football fields being dug up for use as graves. The Serb military commander at the time stated that his soldiers should keep up their campaign of terror until the people of Sarajevo gave in. They didn't, but it took only days of NATO involvement to end the violence after four long years.

After our tour of the museum, we drive through the Republika Sprska, which is now in paper part of the greater BiH. The change between the non-Serb neighbourhood and RS is palpable immediately - the place has a rather scattered feel to it, which I suppose is a result of the fact that some of the territory has only been occupied since the Dayton agreement of 1996. Our guide describes the RS as "founded on genocide", and when you collaborate his obviously involved stories with those heard in the Hague, it's hard not to agree. Conflict by its very nature can result in atrocities on both sides, but the people of Sarajevo, and in particular its Muslim population, weren't on equal footing with their aggressors from the start.

Post-tour, we are dropped off on the other side of the Miljacka and our guide finishes by telling us that after the war, as a boy of only 20, his commander put him forth for officer training in the regular army. It would've required going to Turkey, and he figured he'd seen enough violence to last him a couple of lifelines, so instead, he tells us, he went to medical school then went on to became an anaesthetist. He now works in the same hospital operating rooms where his life was saved after being shot, and the tour is a job he just does to help people understand and remember what happened here.

Minds blown, we head to the City Pub for a couple of drinks. We certainly weren't expecting an experience like we had today, and only beer can calm our nerves. Back over the river to the guesthouse, and we pick up our washing which Sami's mother has kindly done for us for a pittance, then we trot back down the hill to the Sarajevo Brewery for dinner. Crime of crimes, they weren't able to keep brewing during the war, which is a shame as their beer is great and it would've boosted morale - and the decor and food aren't half bad either. We decide on a relatively early night so only consume half our body weights in beer, then drag ourselves back up the stairs to the guesthouse, full of nothing but love for this charming little city.

Sarajevo, My Love

2008-10-30T12:43:00.000-07:00

We arrive at Belgrade International Airport with a couple of hours to kill, so after a couldn't-care-less security screening and passport control, we make a few obligatory gin and perfume calculations in the duty free area, and after not having the sums come up roses, go and sit in the airport bar. Whilst there, we spot a bunch of dudes, most smoking, in red tracksuits. A closer look reveals them to be the Montenegrin soccer team. We muse about the political leanings of sport for awhile, until a gaggle of extremely tall guys in grey tracksuits wander into our sight line - the Serbian basketball team. Does this airport only exist to carry various athletes in and out of the country? Apparently so - once we enter the gate area for our flight to Sarajevo, a smaller group of men in dark blue tracksuits wait with us - the Bosnia Herzegovina handball team. And we're all getting on the same prop aircraft together! Hilarity ensues as soccer players, basketballers and handballers are seated side by side, united in the cramped quarters (and in head injuries, as some of them are so tall that their scalps are practically scraping the overhead lockers).

It's a quick flight down to Sarajevo, only about 40 minutes, which beats the living crap out of another overland transit. Flying into the airport is an experience - after seeing the place on television for so many years, it's quite heartening to see that the UN held city border of conflict is no longer surrounded by rubble with its lettering tainted by artillery fire. Another cursory pass through customs and we wait about 40 minutes for Sami, one of the owners of the guesthouse we're staying at, to pick us up. The airport closes while we wait, and our presence attracts the attention of a security guard who seems more interested in what sort of travel deal his taxi-driving friend could do for us than whether we're a threat or not. Luckily, Sami turns up before we have to attempt to explain our situation for the tenth time.

Driving through the infamous Sniper Alley into the city in the dark brings home how recently war was fought in these parts. While the Holiday Inn has been given a new lick of bright yellow paint, there is scarcely an apartment block along the main road which lacks scarring - be it in the form of obvious re-mortaring, or in many cases, pock marks from bullets, burnt out floors and holes caused by shelling. Many people have returned to their homes where they could (and the population is now back to where it was pre-war) but its obvious from the scattered "Rehabilitation Project sponsored by *insert international agency here*" that there is only so much money to go around to fix the buildings that "only" have cosmetic damage.

We arrive at the guest house at about 11pm, and are overwhelmingly grateful to discover that it is as far from last night's hovel experience as possible. It's only five minutes walk from the centre of town, up a bit of a hill, and thus has amazing views over the old town and up to the steep slopes of the opposite valley. A comfy room with a sitting area, clean but with character, and carpets that aren't harbouring yet to be discovered organic lifeforms. We are so grateful we could cry, but we don't - instead we have a much earned shower to wash the taint of the Belgrade hotel off our skin and collapse into bed. Tomorrow is another day!

Belgrade in Ten Hours

2008-10-30T09:30:00.000-07:00

Like many things in life, with cities, first impressions count.

Our first impressions of Serbia (aside from the minibus and hotel room fiascos) were that its people are polite, its food is plentiful and its capital is... painful.

Oh, don't get me wrong. Belgrade has what head-up-arse travellers like to call a "feel". Its "feel" is boring. It feels like late night shopping at Westfield Parramatta, only with better clothing choices and nicer architecture. It feels like the sort of place you'd be sent for a screw sorting conference.

We breathed a sigh of relief and checked out of the hotel at 10am. We were going to give Belgrade a red hot go at proving itself, so we roughed up an itinerary and set off on another adventure.

Only it wasn't an adventure. Not really.

We start by sitting in the park opposite our hotel and decide to go get our nerd on at the Tesla museum. On our way there, we get lost. Nothing unusual there, and our path brings us to Sveti Marco (St Mark's church, with an emperor dude in a box entombed inside). Cement inside - does the Orthodox church believe in reserving decoration for its saints? We step out and behind it we spot domes (DOMES!) - a Russian church.

The lauded Tesla museum has more than half of its exhibits in storage as the place is being renovated. 200 dinars will get you a detailed look at his fountain pump, and a guide showing you models of some of his other inventions (which were actually pretty cool, but a fifteen minute wait for five minutes of whizzbang was less than fun). If you're actually interested in who he was don't bother going there 'til December, unless you like meditating over the sphere containing his ashes.

We decide to go and check out Sveti Sava, the biggest Orthodox Church in the world, and according to the guidebook (as there's no information there in English, that was all we had to go on), built on the site where the Turkish burnt the relics of some dude called Sava who was some other rich dude's son and the founder of the Serbian strand of orthdoxy. It's big, alright. Big and white. Perhaps the Orthodox church should take that up with the Mormons, 'coz all I think of when I see a big white hall these days is the LDS headquarters. Anyway, it too is cement inside. Perhaps to match the Communist-era apartment blocks overlooking it? And it's being renovated - the squeal of cement sanding echoing off the domes is truly something to behold. As we leave, it's midday and the bells begin to clang. They're quite soothing, although not to one of the dogs in the park, who barks along with every toll.

We walk back into the city centre, and all the way up past Republic Square to the Citadel area, getting a good feel for the inner suburban, "bohemian" areas and university zone. Our map is wrong, so we see a lot. We have lunch at a restaurant called Jevrem, which serves huge portions of traditional Serbian food in a renovated old house. We have the courtyard area to ourselves for most of our meal, which is a welcome respite from the city streets. Scott noms a pork fillet stuffed and wrapped in bacon, and piled high with Serbian cheese and capsicum-based condiment. I go for a plate of chicken, served on the same sort of faux-risotto we were served with our grilled mushrooms last night. We can't finish them, but make room for hot spiced brandy (win!).

Then we backtrack to the Citadel proper and see the intersection of the Sava and Danube Rivers - quite pretty if you block out one eye and ignore the aging high-rises on the opposite bank. The Military Museum in the same area has a bunch of old tanks and guns which amuse us for a little while. We come across an Epsom exhibition of NatGeo style photos from around Serbia, which is nice to look at as the sun sets over to the west. We walk back through the pedestrian mall to the area where our hotel is, and kill time checking our flight details and email.

So what didn't we do? We didn't visit Tito's grave - and why would we? That guy was a dick. We didn't go and see any art either. Would that have helped us "get" Belgrade though? I'm betting no.

Maybe it's that we're a little bit old-building overwhelmed by now. Not Serbia's fault of course, but in Belgrade, we saw most of the good ones last night, and our hotel room looked over a bunch of them too.

Maybe it's that the recent history of this area, which is more interesting to us than another pile of stone and mortar, doesn't seem to be publically documented anywhere? But even if it was, would it be stuff that we'd want to read? There are two sides to every story, but the FYR political and media machines are notorious for disagreeing with what is agreed on by most reputable international agencies, even if political bias is removed from the equation. (And this isn't meant to reflect badly on Serbia's people, who as previously stated, have been nothing but pleasant to us).

It's now 5.30pm, and we're counting down the minutes until we get in a cab to go to the airport and leave. Off to Sarajevo, which should be interesting having just visited the historical "other side". Meh, Belgrade. I just don't LOVE you.

Budapest to Belgrade

2008-10-29T23:21:00.000-07:00

We start the day with an examination of last night's DIY attempts at laundering and are pleasantly surprised by the drying powers of a heated towel rack and a portable fan. The items we left on the balcony, however, have been the victims of an acid rain downpour during the night. OK, maybe not acid rain, but they're wetter than when we hung them out. A quick run in front of the heater with the fan on them sorts them out, and after calling the minibus company we pack up and check out.

We drop into a McDonalds to do a quick location check for the Belgrade hotel, and then make our way back up Andrussy to the Tera Haza. A fantastic museum detailing the hideous time which Hungary had both at the hands of the Nazis and then under communist rule - lots of preserved artefacts combined with high-tech exhibitions, and all housed in what was respectively the headquarters of the National Socialist's "Arrow Cross" division, and then the Communist's secret police. It was quite amazing to walk through the upstairs levels, which are full of whizz-bang displays, and then go down to the basement, where the cells, left in close to original condition, housed those variously declared traitors, spies, or just undesirable by the two regimes.

On the way back to the hotel we stop off at a moneychanger, to de-forint ourselves and get some more useful Euros. We then pick up our bags and wait for the minibus to turn up, which it does, eventually. Things get a lot more hilarious then. We drive around the streets of the inner city picking up a couple more passengers, then just when we think we're home free and will be in Beograd before daylight disappears, we trundle out through the suburbs... and keep going, and going, and going, and going - before the bus driver realises he's missed the hotel he was supposed to stop at. So we turn around and go back. Surely this must be it? We've been on the bus for an hour already! But when we get to a large roundabout with signs pointing south, we drive through it - and back to the airport, which is only 15 minutes out of the city centre. Unbelievable.

We pick up some more passengers at the airport, and hold our breaths - but then some guy who we assume is another employee of the minibus company comes over and painstakingly takes money and details from the eleven people now squished into the back of the van. Him and the driver then stand outside swapping notes and shouting down a mobile phone at some unknown entity. Meils gets pissed off, quite literally, and demands that they let her run into the terminal to use the facilities. She isn't even amused by the second employee joking that they "almost forgot you!" when she gets back to the bus (before they'd finished their serious exchange of durries and nattering, mind you).

The drive down the centre of Hungary is otherwise uneventful, except for the comical border crossing which although apparently quick by EU standards, is punctuated by a tacit OK for minibus exits for cigarettes, but not for wandering around no-mans land to try and find food or use the pay-per-piss Hungarian toilets. The sun begins to set as we wait with barely concealed panic for our passports to be returned by the bus driver. Does he have a colour photocopier and a printing press in the front seat? Who knows.

Once we arrive in Serbia we drop several passengers off on the other side of the border, but then make an unnecessary (aside from the mention on the GEA Tours website for the sake of customer pleasure) 50km detour via Novi Sad, down a road which is possibly comprised of nought but painted gravel and punctuated by comical overtakings down the centre line with such rustic joys as a rustic tractor towing a trailer filled with CORMS on one side and a semi-trailer on the other. In other, less drawn-out cirumstances, this delay would be hilarious. Tonight however, having now been on the minibus for nearly seven hours, we are verging on stabby - and no more so when the driver pulls into a service station and announces a random half hour break, rather than re-entering the motorway and flogging it down to Belgrade.

But eventually we arrive, and luck of lucks, we are the second people to be dropped off. The driver grabs our hands somewhat apologetically, and a girl sitting in front of us (Serbian but living in Stockholm) tells us that Belgrade is a beautiful city and we've just been unlucky to cop a dodgy minibus. The front of the hotel looks rather shiny, the entry area looks rustic but cared for, and we are pacified for all of five minutes, until we climb a small set of stairs from the hotel reception and encounter the ancient lift, which comes complete with a view down six levels and non-restored original wooden doors. Eeek. Can it get worse?

Words cannot explain the horrors of the hotel room. We will upload photos when we get a chance. Imagine an inner city squat crossed with a Tzar's dressing room and you'll get the idea. It must've been beautiful once. A long time ago. A very, very long time ago. Oh, except the bathroom. That came straight out a gulag.

When times are tough, the tough get drinking. We ignore the hotel's demands for key-holding upon departure and wander the inner city (which is surprisingly close by) until we find a seafood restaurant, which does traditional (back when Serbia had a coastline...) dishes including fried mushrooms, grilled whole calamari, and walnut "cake". The bill for two mains, three sides, a bottle of wine, two apertifs, the cake and free Serbian language lessons, comes to less than $40. Thank you Serbia. Your capital is beautiful in people, layout and architecture, and Meils takes full responsibility for booking the only hotel we could afford in the thick of it all.

All the little street stalls we came across on our earlier lope are closed, so we drop into our second McDonalds of the day and purchase six bottles of water, much to the hilarity of the girl serving us, who asks if we want a glass as well. Nup, unless you have one that can filter out the heavy metals that are no doubt present in water from the hotel bathroom taps (not from the mainstream water supply, we're sure that's fine). Back at the hotel we contemplate braving the "night club" on the first floor, but the combination of a buzzer, external security camera and man exiting looking like he's just purchased a twenty buck gobby dissuades us, and we return to the hotel room to open the windows in an attempt to air the place out, muse over how to get to the bathroom and back without touching the floor, and tick off a list of things that we could have better spent the $112AUD it is costing us to stay here tonight.

Of Buddhas and Pests

2008-10-27T21:20:00.000-07:00

We arrive at Budapest's Keleti train station at 8.30am, fresh off the overnight train from Krakow. We're both getting used to contorted sleeping arrangements by now, and Scott took the bottom bunk so all he had to put up with was Meils demanding that he go and fetch water from the conductor as she was already sponge-bathed and in her pyjamas as well as her lumbering down the rickety metal ladder and opening the window to check out Slovakia at some unholy hour of the morning. Still not the best sleep one could have, but the perhaps the best one could hope for hurtling along Communist-era lines in the freezing 2am cold.

The architecture of the train station is nothing short of stunning, and we wonder if the guidebooks have misprinted the Krakow Glowny station "lovely" adjective in the wrong chapter. Amazing archworks and a beautiful preserved facade on the front entry helps take the edge off the enormous building site across the road. We can't check into our apartment until 2pm, so we head into the nearest McDonalds and for the third time on this trip, pray to the innernetgodz that they have free wifi. We must've struck the forint together the right way, as it works, and over coffee we set out on an attempt to arrange our next travel leg, from here to Belgrade. It comes up with few possibilities - calling the Serbian office of a shuttle bus company, or taking the train. All the bus companies seem to have erased Belgrade from their international destinations.

After a quick logistics check, we decide that we can manage the km or so walk to the apartment reception to drop off our bags, so with the help of Scott's new wife the iPhone, we manage to navigate our way down the main street. We throw our backpacks in their luggage storage room and after a quick browse of the brochures in the lounge area of the reception, we decide to trot down the road to the Terror Museum. All's good until we arrive and find out that it's closed on Mondays - so back down Andrassy past the Opera House and St Steven's Basilica, a quick stop for some lunch and some snaps of the Parliament, and then we hit the Chain Bridge over the Danube to head across to Buda to see the castle.

The castle hill is quite different to that in Prague - it's relative youth means that Varghegy is an established township within the walls rather than being purely comprised of royal buildings. We get the funicular up to the top (having a combined personal limit of one crazy incline a week) and wander around the Palace grounds and walls, checking out the turrets, medieval buildings and statues scattered around the area. We also finally manage to buy some stamps - postcards from Munich and Krakow coming soon!

It gets dark early here, thanks in part to the daylight saving brought in over the weekend, so we decide to hit the road and walk down the hill and back over the bridge into Pest. We map our way home on the iPhone, but are helped out by a kind local pointing us in the right direction on a real life paper map, much to Meils' joy. We are distracted from the straightforward straight home plan by the glowing Old Synagogue - which we drop into to see the weeping willow memorial to Hungarian holocaust victims.

Back at the hotel we are given the key to our fifth floor apartment, and get a fantastic surprise when we discover it to be rather spiffy indeed, completely self-catered with a full bathroom and even a tiny balcony overlooking the street far below - and best of all - no smokey airconditioning!

To celebrate this find o' finds, we reluctantly pull our boots on again and walk up the street to Menza, a modern European restaurant with fun styling (Broadhurst style wall paper combined with sixties spaceship lighting and plastic lettering on the specials boards) and even better food and service. We sit at the bar and quaff an apertif each (Campari for Meils, Weissbier for Scott) before being shown to our table where we set about nomming cream of pumpkin soup with roasted pepitas and balsalmic vinegar, creamed garlic soup with Hungarian fried bread (a delicious monstrosity of sour cream and pecorino cheese); roast wild duck with figs and apples, and a salmon steak with baby potatoes and hollandaise. We forget about our aching feet over a bottle of quite decent Hungarian red wine and make conversation with an Irish couple sitting next to us, who recommend a visit to the hot spas in the morning, so we add it to our "to do" list before heading home via the rough and ready metro station to pick up some bottles of water.

We wake up at a reasonable hour, well rested despite the Dannii Minogue remixes and construction noise which came blaring up from the street below throughout the night. We did have the window open though, and the fresh-ish air was more of a tonic than the noise was a hindrance.

Picasa Shots

2008-10-25T22:47:00.000-07:00

We finally got the wireless connection in our hotel to work, so we've re-uploaded all the photos (in their right order and sans neck cracking orientations) to Picasa.

GO HERE NOW I SAY.

Head Honchos of Prague

2008-10-23T12:06:00.000-07:00

We intended to visit the Ossary at Kutna Hora today, but by the time we checked out of the hotel at midday the first train connection we could find didn't arrive in the town until 4pm, leaving us with next to no time to look around and get back to Prague in time for our evening train. So with all our talk of cursing the castle the night before, we hopped off the number 17 tram at Charles Bridge, walked it again (this time in the sunshine!) and found ourselves in Praha 1 on the other side of the river.

Having not eaten since the delicious pepper steaks the evening before, we went on somewhat of a wild goose chase for food - a lust for schnitzel combined with our terror at the prices in the castle-district meant we spent a good twenty minutes scanning menus, rejecting them and walking on. We thought we'd almost found a place to eat, with a large beer garden and pretzels hanging from stands in the centre of each table, but when we opened the menu we discovered that the Czech draft beers they were serving were priced at about $12 for half a litre, so up we got and dragged ourselves back up around the corner to a restaurant titled "Bohemian House" or something similar. There was no one in there, which is almost always the knell of culinary death, but given the fact that the prices were about half of what the other eating places were charging we were prepared to give it a go. Plus they had a super-touristy tri-lingual menu, which simplified things for our aching heads.

The Czech waitress was rather confused as to why we'd want to sit outside in the courtyard rather than in the sauna-esque main part of the restaurant. It's quite trying, removing layers of clothing to sit down and putting it all back on again to leave - plus, the extreme temperature differences were starting to leave us feeling giddy. So we ate under the watchful eye of the sightseeing balloon anchored to the river bank further down the hill - and were introduced to the delights of pickled camembert cheese and deliciously hearty goulash soup along with our schnitzels. The beer was also about a tenth of the price of the place next door. LunchWIN!

From 2008-10-23 Prague

After restocking our tummies, we promptly set about burning off our lunch with a brisk ascent up the steep hill to the main castle entrance... or rather, bursts of briskness followed by rest periods. There were groups of female Italian and Japanese tourists precariously trotting back down in high heels - we have no idea how they got up over the cobblestones in the first place. We arrived at the top about ten minutes before 3pm, and took in the views until the rather silly changing of the guard ceremony on the hour (imagine five men pretending to be a cuckoo clock mechanism), then walked up more hill to the St Vitus Cathedral.

From 2008-10-23 Prague

Which was a good move, the cathedral is pretty to look at from a distance, but truly impressive up close. It took them 600 years to finish the bloody thing and now they've had to start restoring it and the surrounds. People were outside digging away in archaeological site style pits, roting around in the ancient pipework for who knows what. From the rudimentary signs and our even more rudimentary grasp on the Czech language, we gathered that they were a volunteer group - perhaps holiday-makers like ourselves doing their bit for the world. Something to think about for future trips, perhaps?

From 2008-10-23 Prague

We spent 15 minutes sitting in the sunny courtyard outsie the cathedral absorbing the behemoth's facade. Much like a fractal pattern, the more you look the more you see. Inside are massive stained glass windows, the sepulchres of various kings and whatnot in amazing stone and silver, a huge organ, and generally everything you'd expect of a church on industrial steroids. More restoration work was going on inside, with dudes painstakingly reapplying gold leaf to ancient wall paintings. Some parts were roped off, like the Royal Crypt, for "technical reasons". That's fine, really. If we can't visit a church MADE from dead dudes, we're happy missing out on one with dead dudes inside it.

From 2008-10-23 Prague

A quick wander around the rest of the castle area yielded more "old buildings" but nothing to rival the cathedral. The view from over the castle walls was however spectacular, an over a coffee and hot chocolate we were excited/disturbed (Scott the former, Meils the latter) to spot the TV tower in the distance covered in giant crawling babies. An optical zoom photo followed by a digital zoom on the screen was required to see it all properly from the castle, but that was enough.

From 2008-10-23 Prague

Back down across the Charles Bridge and into the city, where things were starting to feel really touristy, like a bigger, faster, stronger version of the Rocks in Sydney. One touristy thing stood out for the consumption however; the Medieval Torture Instrument Museum. Just the sort of light entertainment we were after. Three levels of painstakingly(!) reproduced instruments and artifacts with tear inducing descriptions and depictions of their use. Noteworthy was the saw, for, well, sawing an inverted person starting at the groin and so on. Also noteworthy was the guest book, not in itself an instrument of torture but certainly a window into the human psyche with such entries as "Where's WOMAN the greatest instrument of torture?" and the awesome "Brendan Fraser is the best actor since Brando".

We hopped the tramvag back to the hotel (waiting for a tram while looking out at the sun setting over the Vlatava River ranks up there in top public transport experiences). Dinner took about an hour and a half (no one does things in a hurry in Prague it seems). A recurring theme in restaurants seems to be amazing entrees/soups and quite average mains; but one thing that truly impresses is $2 for half a litre of Gambrinus, especially in comparison to the thirty buck charge we were slugged with for a taxi transfer back to the main train station. Ehh, at least we weren't lugging our bags on the tram again, or ending up at the border of Slovakia because of a mistranslation in directions.

Our hip-hop loving driver dropped us off outside what seemed to be some sort of bus terminal entrance with an amazing painted dome ceiling. Our wonderment led to confusion as it was poorly lit (another recurring theme!) and there were no signs telling us where to go. We followed the masses, as one is wont to do in such situations, and were very surprised to find the main station down a short flight of stairs. Another quick stop at the amazing lime green WCs, a quick purchase of bottled water for the trip, and we found our platform and carriage, with some help from the friendly English speaking conductors.

Our double berth compartment was surprisingly comfortable, and although there wasn't room to swing a cat inside it, it did have two bunks, a basin with hot running water, towels, sheets and doonas - pretty much everything you'd expect from a budget hotel room only on wheels and scaled down. The conductor came around and collected our tickets, reminded us to lock our door at all times during the night, and left us to get sponge-bathed (there was a shared full-size shower down the hall but we didn't have thongs with us and thus decided against braving it) and tucked into our little home away from home for the next eight hours. Poirot-esque mission accomplished!

From 2008-10-23 Prague

Pragueski Angleski

2008-10-22T00:00:00.000-07:00

After our transit from hell the evening before, we woke up in the relative calm of the Hotel U Divadla and picked over the remains of the breakfast buffet whilst checking out the other guests and musing over their possible origins (Euro medieval gamer couple, we know about your kind!). Across the road, we managed to buy some tram tickets to town, in a porn filled tobacconist populated by ladies who found our language skills quite hilarious. All good fun. Turns out you only need about 5 words of each others' languages to do commerce.

We jumped the bus, then the tram like as if we'd been commuting to the factories all our lives. Unfortunately, getting off the tram was a different story, as we found ourselves about a 2km walk from the central railway station.

A long trudge through the non-touristy areas (a silver lining perhaps? We can now tell you all about the Greek Embassy) later, we came to a playground where Meils heard the call of nature. But it wasn't to be; the toilet block was guarded by a variously toothed and mental capabilitied lady who insisted that the sign which read "Children under 7 must be accompanied by an adult" actually read "Children Only". In the midst of a mutually incomprehensible argument, a male adult stepped out of the dunny. Why is he allowed in and we aren't? Is this chick possessed by an inability to judge ages, as well as an inability to read? Why wouldn't she accept a bribe? Did she have rabies? Time to cut the losses and continue on the journey.

Wasteels, the train ticket agency sold us not only tickets for the trip to Krakow, but also for our next journey to Budapest, so double win there. The fear of ending up with train tickets to Minsk instead of our intended destination was strong, given the previous night's visit to the depths of the Czech Railways ticketing room.

We headed into a restuarant we'd walked past the night before, lured by promises of garlic soup. The garlic soup was fantastic, the getting ignored while we begged to be seated, and then waiting 45 minutes between courses was pretty frustrating, as was the sudden appearance of the 10% service charge and hilariously a request for a tip. Do we look American? Perhaps.

Finally, with the day wearing on, it was time to attempt some actual tourism. We walked down to Wenceslas Square, had a stare at the National Museum, did some threads shopping at Marks and Spencer, and then to Stare Mesto. Apparently pickpocket and scam artist heaven according to various guide books, we hung onto our goodies tightly while checking out the old town square and the astronomical clock, and having a chuckle at the police wagon which displayed a sign saying "your dog can drink here" and a picture of one of the ever-present Eurocanines. Who said Eastern European cops are only good for bad spy movies and bribe collecting?

Nove Mesto (the New Town) for cobbled streets and grumpy art store clerks who don't like you taking photos from outside the shop (point taken, but a sign and some valium perhaps?). Josefov and the old Jewish Quarter came next, more old buildings, and acutally some "no cameras" sign on shops containing some awesome things like armour and medeival weapons. But every no photos sign is a reminder that you're a tourist, and perhaps somewhat not appreciated. We love your money, now get out!

We walked over Manesuv Most, the bridge one north of the famous 14th century Charles Bridge, into Malostranska, where lies an impressive Czech flag sculpture. We started up the hil toward the castle (the largest of the "ancient" variety in Europe) before realising our time was up, it was 5pm.

Wandering along the Vlatava, off road, we disovered that even the swans get grumpy when you point a camera in their direction, waddling toward you with murder in their eyes. Perhaps they just wanted food scraps, but I bet they'll give you a good pecking if you're empty handed.

The Charles Bridge is ancient, covered in as many hawkers selling photos and paintings and doing creepily slightly-inhuman charcoal portraits as there are blackened religious statues. The Vlatava is bisected by dam-like structures which lie under the water, and a massive drain hole, the mechanics of which completely baffled us, perhaps for flood control (the original bridge there was wiped out by flooding).

Battling fellow tourist hordes through the cobblestoned streets, we came to the Golden Tiger, where Clinton was taken to be shown trad Czech boozing was predictably full and also kinda smelt like old men. Another long battly trudge took us to our second choice from the Lonely Planet, arty, backpackery, and also full. A random spot chosen nearby was a win however, the Gecko. Owned by an Aussie perhaps, with geckos painted on the walls and a poster of Brisbane strangely enough, it housed a rock bar downstairs where Prague's immaculately coiffed emo kids were screaming up a storm, as well as a more civilised street level bar with plenty of Gambrinus and hot-rock pepper steaks (about $20 for two people with a half liter of Moravian wine).

Somehow we managed to catch the last tram back to near the hotel, and wandered brokenly but happily through light rain back to the hotel.

Training for 1972 - Munich to Prague

2008-10-21T23:17:00.000-07:00

We woke up pretty early and nommed leftover pizza, more cake and apples before running the gauntlet downstairs to grab our washing from the dryer and pack our bags before checkout.

We were able to store our bags in the hotel's luggage room so spent an hour and a bit getting coffee, buying Pepi and Maria a little gift to say thank you (some Australian Yellow Tail shiraz found in the supermarket down the street!) and desperately trying to figure out where our hotel was in Prague on the paid internet station in the lobby (half-win, half fail on that one, as you will discover later).

Pepi and Maria arrived to drive us to the train station at about 11.30am, so we grabbed our backpacks and set off for the first part in a full day of travel. We were very impressed by the train station during the day - because of Europe's reliance on public transport both locally and for long distance trips, the station is set out like a rabbit warren of convenience stores, bars, food places selling cheap snacks, newsagents etc. They even have a frequent traveller lounge for DB customers - a far cry from Central Station's Hungry Jacks and Krispy Kreme.

After picking up some bread rolls, cans of beer (EuroWIN number 1143 on that one - you can drink on the trains) and water, we sat down for an espresso at one of the bars and took some final snapshots with Maria and Pepi. It was a little bit sad to be leaving them after they had been so welcoming to us, and next time we'll definitely be spending longer in Germany. Pepi insisted that we try leberkuchen rolls - a sort of processed meatloaf on a bun. We no doubt committed further culinary crimes by using the box that they came in as a mustard storage facility, taking advantage of the pump packs scattered through the eating area to steal us some condiments.

On the platform we discovered that the entire carriage was comprised of compartments rather than the standard aisle alignment of the newer DB trains. We lumbered along the entire train before finding a carriage with one grumpy looking Euro-metal dude sitting in it, perhaps the CSS he was studying was too brutal for him. As the trip progressed, other people got in and out, but by the time we got to Regensburg we had the compartment to ourselves. The train then did a very confusing backtrack and turned north to Schwandorf where we had to change for another service to Prague, which was delayed by abut half an hour.

Once we were on the Prague train, again in a compartment by ourselves, we spent the majority of our time staring out the window at the elvish looking woods... and then staring out the window at the astoundingly obvious change as we reached the border with the Czech Republic. From a rural German landscape to Bloc-esque run down buildings in less than ten kilometres - amazing for us coming from a country where such socioeconomic changes tend to be far more gradual (and far less prevalent). We travelled through Plzen, a town poor in vowels but rich in Pilsner - and from the looks of the train station, we'd probably be drinking a fair bit of it if we lived there too.

Upon arrival in Prague, we were once again struck by the mad jux of our station of alighting when compared to Munich. The harsh flourescent tubes do little to hide the stark concrete jungle of the former communist state, and although capitalism has arrived in the form of retail redevelopment and pay-per-use lime green toilets, it has done little to avail the place of decades of decay. We couldn't get out of there fast enough, which was problematic as we had no idea where to go and the ticketing machines only accepted coins... of which we had none.

A large sign next to the park outside the station pointed us in a vaguely correct direction, and with a few map stops we found ourselves at M station. Unfortunately, the Czech railways website which we'd czeched (*GROAN!*) that morning didn't tell us that the trams we'd carefully noted as taking us a block away from our hotel were now only running to Dvorce, a stop before the one we wanted. Yep, Dvorce. On our wedding anniversary as well. We made an executive decision to get on the tram and see where it took us, as it was nearing 9pm by this stage and the thought of pushing our way through Prague's entertainment district for much longer wasn't one either of us wished to entertain.

Upon arrival at Dvorce, Scott figured out that the tram service had been replaced by buses for stations further south. Meils was not convinced, then had to eat pie when another tram of passengers arrived at the stop and made a Lemming-like journey down the road to the bus stop. But our woes were not yet over - we got on the next bus, but failed to take into account the short distance between Dvorce and Pristevice, so missed our stop and ended up hurtling down a motorway at rapid pace, getting further and further away from any potential end to the madness.

The next stop was in an industrial-looking area, and we began to fear that we were going to wake up in bathtubs full of ice with our kidneys missing, or, worse, never lock our lips around a frosty Czech pilsner that evening. Thankfully, another bus running in the opposite direction turned up after a couple of minutes, so we go on it, got off at Pristevice, and crawled up the road through the dark streets to our hotel. Just when we were about to abandon all hope, etc. we spotted a golden light on the top of the next hill, which blessedly turned out to be the pub/restaurant entrance for our hotel!

We checked into the rather nice Hotel U Diavadla, and sat in the restaurant for the next hour or so, musing of our day's adventure over mushroom soup, trout, pork neck and other tasty Czech gastronomies, all washed down by copious amounts of Pilsner Urquell, for less than $40AUD. We had booked a restaurant in the Castle district for our wedding anniversary dinner, but there was next to no chance of us leaving to hotel again after carting ourselves and our bags kilometres around the city - so sorry fancy eating establishment, perhaps we'll visit you again some time when we're not about to fall over with tiredness.

Bayern Alps and Munich Pizza!

2008-10-20T22:37:00.000-07:00

Pepi picked us up from our hotel at around 10am to take us on a trip up to the Alps. Unfortunately Maria was called into the Catholic women's charity where she is a social worker, so it was just the three of us setting off on a yodelling adventure. We were once agin amazed at how efficient the Autobahn makes car travel in Deutschland - although coming from Sydney, we wouldn't trust our city's drivers with it as far as we could throw them. Still, cruising towards the mountains at 200km/h in Pepi's VW Goal was like being in a car advertisement, and it took us less than an hour to reach Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

The Lonely Planet doesn't have a lot to say about the area - although it is undeniably quaint, in winter the main towns are overridden by Germany's rich, who use it as a jump-off point for the snowfields above. There seemed to be a lot of hospitality geared towards foreigners (for example, a tattoo shop with "We Speak English!" in bigger sign letters than its name) and the remnants of an American GI base (BILLY'S TABLE DANCING GIRLS - USA!). Obersalzburg was home to the NSDP's second seat of government during WWII (and some of the disturbing photographs and videos of "Hitler's Playground" taken during the pre-war period), but the tourism industry has attempted to reclaim the natural beauty of the mountains.

After discovering that the cable-car was closed for it's annual maintenance week, we had a short wait at the bottom of the cog-driven railway before packing into a carriage like sardines in a can and rapidly creeping up the mountain past some eerie woodland scenes and glimpses of the stunning Eibsee Lake, then into a long tunnel, construction on which was commenced back in the late thirties. The trip up took about half an hour, but it seemed as though we lost track of time once we hit the darkness of the pass through the peaks. From the ground, we could only see a smattering of snow, which resembled icing sugar on a cake (albeit a craggy, misshapen cake...) - but when we turned a corner in the top train station, we were faced with a massive snow field and piles of ice which are there year round! Snow on holiday = success!

To further add to our cries of "SQUEEEEE!", we carefully tiptoed around on the ice taking happy snaps and visited the church (of course, this is Bavaria) at the beginning of one of the ski fields - the highest church in Germany, and one which was blessed by the Big Kahuna of the Catholics himself back when he was a comparatively lowly Cardinal. We then ignored commonsense and our burning lungs, and trundled another 300m up the mountain to the - 2900m above sea level, and Deutschland's highest peak. But more excitedly, it is also home to Deutschland's highest beer garden - much to the chagrin of the Austrians, who might have higher peaks on their side of the Alp range, but only have a lowly restaurant on their side of the range border. How do we know this? Well, because we crossed that bish. Yep, that's right - another country off the list, thanks to the Schengen Agreement and geography. We may have only spent five minutes at Tyrol, but it was Austria nonetheless.

Once we finished taking photos with the Austrian flag, we bypassed their altitude-ridden restaurant (which, by the way, requires the cooperation of Bavaria in order to run, given that they don't actually have a cable-car of their own at the peak) and went down two flights of stairs to the beer garden. This may be the most picturesque meal we have ever eaten - a deck overlooking the snowfields and baby-sized glacier nearly three clicks above the ocean. Combined with good food and good company, it is a meal we certainly won't forget in a hurry - not least of all because halfway through our beers we both started to feel the rather alarming thin-air effects of that sort of altitude on our kopfs. Perhaps they should provide oxygen tents along with the ski hire and dog transportation?

After lunch we hopped back into the cablecar and onto the railway back down to Eibsee, then drove to Eibsee Lake to get a ground view of the area. Throughout the day we were constantly amazed by how dog-friendly Germany is - people take their animals EVERYWHERE, including up to the Zubspitze on the cable car - and as long as they pay their taxes and clean up after their pooches, no one cares.

A quick auto trip back to Munich, and we visited Pepi's apartment, which is just around the corner from his brother Franz's apartment, and just down the row from his Dad's apartment. It's in a lovely part of Munich and was very spacious inside with a lot of well tended gardens and open space - a far cry from the compact urban dwellings of Sydney, which aside from the few remaining art deco buildings in the inner suburbs, tend to be rudimentary 1950s brick boxes or sterile high rises.

We met Pepi and Maria's meerschwein (much to Meils' delight) and then Josef, Pepi's Dad and Meils' great Uncle, came around and we piled into the car to visit Munich's best pizza restaurant. The proximity to Italy has given the city a love of all things Meditteranean. The wood-fired pizzas were huge and "lecker" (yummy!), and we rounded off our meal with grappa and espresso. We then drove back to our hotel to check the time of our train to Prague, and do some much needed laundry, before collapsing into bed again.

Back to the Motherland

2008-10-19T22:49:00.000-07:00

In a quest for constructive use of jetlag time (curse our 4.30am body clocks kicking us out of bed) we begin our Sunday with a stroll up to McDonalds (the oldest in Germany, established in 1971, in case you were interested) - not to reacquaint ourselves with American trash, but to steal their internets. Sadly, all of McDonalds internets belong to T-Mobile in Germany, and it was going to cost us $70 to join, so we knocked back the last of our coffees and went for another trot around Giesing, coming across about more Schuberts outlets than you could poke a pretzel at, and not much else. Apparently Sundays are for staying home in Bavaria.

Pepi and his beautiful wife Maria picked us up at about 11am, to take us up to Ingolstadt, the birthplace of Meils' mum. Pepi said the trip would take about an hour, but thanks to the non-speed-limited Autobahn the better part of our driving time was actually spent negotiating Munich's warren of one-way streets to get out of the metropolitan area. Flying down the bitumen at 200km/h was quite an experience, as was seeing hops (that stuff they make beer out of) farms just out of the city (the area where Maria's family is from originally). We arrived in the small village where Tante Marianne and Onkel Fritz live, and promptly backtracked down the road to the Landgasthof where they had booked a table for lunch with Andreas (their son, and Meils' cousin-once-removed) and his wife Andrea.

There was some sort of special potato festival menu up for nomming, but we went for what was recommended by Pepi as good Bayern fare - flaedelsuppe (a beef broth with crepe noodles); leberknoedelsuppe (beef broth with small, spaetzle-shaped liver dumplings), and for mains, a half roast duck each, accompanied by blaukraut and a karkoffelknoedel. The lunch was amazing, with the roast duck being a standout dish - perfect crispy skin and lots of tender meat. We washed our mains down with weissbier, then for dessert tried the kartoffelais (potato icecream - totally rad, with vanilla icecream punctuated by chewy little bits of potato) and an hops schnapps each.

After lunch we rolled back into the car with Pepi and Maria and went on a bit of a tour around Ingolstadt and the surrounding villages. We visited the graves of Meils' great grandparents and great Uncle, and noted how different the European attitude to the cemetary is - people take great pride in maintaining the graves of their family, visit often, and also use the old cemetaries as walking paths and leisure areas. A far cry from the colourless, barren graveyards that we are used to in Australia. We also visited the house where Meils' Oma was born in Koeching, a small village to the north-east of the Ingolstadt city area, an amazing bit of history!

After our countryside adventures it was, according to the Deustche tradition, time for cake and coffee, so we returned to Marianne and Fritz's place and ate our body weight in Marianne's delicious homemade cakes. Meils promised to introduced the tradition in Australia (along with promising to speak perfect Deutsche the next time she visits...). We met Andrea and Andreas' twin daughters, Magdalena and Amelie, who were both very cute with big round eyes and cakelust!

After afternoon tea we headed down into the cellar to admire Fritz' music room. Guitars, keys, zither, horns and rad 60's tape echo mixing gizmos and beaut silver mesh speakers. An impromptu jam of "Blueberry Hill" ensued, with Frtiz on sax, Pepe on keys and Scott on acoustic guitar. Good messy fun, with Fritz' talent shining through and Pepe and Scott laughingly trying to keep up.

We then took a tour of Marianne's amazing garden, which is full of nut and fruit trees as well as beautiful shrubs and a veggie patch. We discovered the joys of the apple cellar, a room used for storing fruit during winter. We didn't know such things existed, and could have sat in their all day nomming away at the home-grown radness contained within.

After a hard day eating and touring and eating some more, Scott finished his visit with a beer with his new bandmate Fritz, and Meils started hallucinating from jetlag so decided against prosting with her relatives. We drove back to Munich and back at the hotel visited the restaurant downstairs for a light pasta meal for dinner, which may seem foolhardy given the amount that we had nommed during the day, but was deemed necessary to attempt to fool the jetlag into believing that sunshine at our body clock's collective 2ams was normal. 30 euro starts to seem cheap to us which is a bit of a worry. Shower, sleep, tomorrow is another day.

All Aboard the Munchen City Express!

2008-10-19T14:17:00.000-07:00

Woke up 9am local time after a fairly restless sleep feeling good. Breakfast downstairs may or may not be included in our room rate, hope it is because the restaurant prices look pretty scary. Danish butter is a thing to be lauded, even in little hotel sachets. It's cool here in Munich, cool enough to see your breath but not uncomfortable.

From 2008-10-18 Munich

We went for a wander around the local neighbourhood and got ice cream headaches from the cool wind. You don't need to apply to cross the road as a pedestrian at intersections here. Kicked around some autumn chestnut leaves. Pepe picked us up back at the hotel at 12:30 and took us down to the Englischer Garten. A gigantic park (the biggest in Europe) with huge open spaces and a beer garden that can seat hundreds of people, and a Chinese tower from which a brass band plays all your beer swilling faves.

"And the band played Oompahpah Oompah, as we sailed away from the Quay..."

We decided to eat at the common people's favourite – a cafeteria-style combination of pre-cooked mains and serve-yourself sides. On Pepi's recommendation we both went for the schweinshaxen – enormous roasted pork knuckles with crisp crackling. The fact that they were the size of our heads and required a Masters in Bush Butchery to eat didn't dissuade us from tackling them with heads down and knives out. Unfortunately, we discovered that our skills consuming German food don't necessarily extend to the cultural nuances surrounding meal times. Scott committed some sort of executable offence by eating a weisswurst, not only after midday, not only with the skin on, but also *gasp* with accompaniments other than pretzel and mustard. Meils followed him to the gallows by breaking off a piece of pretzel rather than cutting it in a thin slice. Funny that the mass consumption of bier and general merriments of stein-clanking "prosts" should be governed by such strict culinary protocols!

A walk around the Englischer Garten does wonders to eliminate both post-meal bloat and shame, so set off for the Monopteros with a cone full of candied almonds, up what may be one of the only hills in Munich. The views from the top extended out across the garden and through to the cathedral-laden skyline, and cemented the reasoning for the original construction of the park - to give rich bastards a pretty play pen. Luckily for us and our pitiful exchange rate, the park now belongs to the people and had we been visiting there on a sunny summer's day, our view would have included a field full of unclad Bavarians soaking up rays. Can't argue with that for value.

"Only clothed Bavarians here today..."

We strolled back out of the park over the Eisbach to the car and Pepi drove us under the Mariensaule (a towering arch commemorating the end of the thirty year war against bastard Swedish) and into the city centre for an express walking tour of Munchen's famous sights and sounds. Our first stop was the Asamkirche - a dark, ornate church designed by a pair of brothers, presumably on bad acid trips. Even though it's small by Munich standards, you could probably spend hours in there and still find something new to look at. We strolled down Sendlingerstrasse to Marienplatz and the Neues Rathaus with its famous clock display, then into a courtyard decorated with some fairly dramatic gargoyles. No doubt an incentive to get thee into a church, which we did with gusto, visiting St Peterskirche (and climbing a godless number of stairs to get a fabulous daytime view over Munich) and the onion-domed Frauenkirche.

"Munich loves you!"

We then went on a bit of a lion hunt, visiting monuments paying homage to Munich's various royal leaders over the years, and dropped into the beautiful Hofgarten and visited the Diana temple in the centre of the park, which was quite magical bathed in dusk light and resonating witht he sounds of busking cellists and flautists. We passed through the market and "meat" district on our way to the famous Hofbrauhaus, then picked up some freshly roasted chestnuts on our way back to the car.

"Lions and tigers and bears... what?"

A quick drive out of the city centre saw us at the Olympic Park under the cover of darkness. We took an elevator up to the top of the city's television tower to get another bird's eye view of the city, this time dotted with sparkling lights. The BMW district is next door, including the weird twisted glass architecture of their "museum" where you can pick up and drive away your new beamer for an extra $400+ euro. The Allianz Stadium is quite a sight from up there as well, a glowing white giant doughnut. The TV tower also contains a Rock n Roll Museum including such curios as a mirrored piano played by Elton John, Marc Bolan's ridicuous platforms, Freddie Mercury's tiny sweaty pants and some unpublished lyrics, some signed Rolling Stones and Beatles objects, a shirt signed by Jim Morrison and other various random signed things (including a shirt signed by Britney Spears which reads "oops you got my shirt!" - ah innocent times). Unfortunately the lack of sunlight hit us pretty hard and we reluctantly decided against dinner, so Pepi kindly dropped us back at the hotel where we were in bed asleep by quarter to nine!

20 Hours Plus of Travel: Now With Free Hallucinations!

2008-10-19T00:58:00.000-07:00

We got ferried by bus to the Hyatt Regency Hotel when we arrived in Seoul (Incheon): and tucked into an awesome breakfast including honey glazed ham, omelette, salad, japanese noodle soup. A bit of 5 star luxury in the middle of cattle class travel is like an oasis in the desert. Bath, an hour and a half snooze, and back on the bus feeling somewhat refreshed.

I realised that I hadn't enabled Roaming on my iPhone before we left. A long and expensive call on Meils' mobile to Optus yielded the following facts: you're not allowed to have roaming until you've been an Optus customer for more than 3 months except if you're able to sit through an education session on roaming rates (telecommunication piracy), go through a credit check, and pay a $300 deposit. I was reading out my credit card details as Air Korea staff and Meils were looking at me exasperatedly because everyone else had already boarded the plane. Thanks though to the woman at Optus who cut a few corners in the whole deal while I was telling her that I had 30 seconds and counting left to talk.

The 2nd plane trip was much more interesting, fleeing the sun in a bizarre endless day across China, Mongolia, Russia and Estonia. Having been in almost summer temperatures in Sydney the day before, it was incredible to look out at snow covered plains just shy of the Arctic Circle.

More Bibimbap orders earned the interest of our hostess, I think the whiteys were mostly ordering beef. Seafood soup is a lot more nom-worthy than it sounds. There's seat-back entertainment units on these planes, with movies and games and some Google-earth -like “follow the plane” sattelite maps, it's really cool to be able to track your progress with air speed and altitude and all. When it got really cloudy outside and there was nothing to see we watched a few movies between us. Get Smart, Nim's Island, Baby Mama. Average-core, but saved us running down our iPodded movie choices and books.

Decending into Frankfurt we began to get an idea of how things on this trip are going to be. Autumnal rich forests and rectangle houses with red roofing and the Main river with container shipping trundling along between green fields. All very different to the brown and grey land we'd just flown across for many thousands of miles, as well as our mostly brown home. Shuttle bussed across to Frankfurt railway station where we grabbed some beer and frankfurts (of course). Not knowing much about the different varieties of Bitburger, Meils digs herself a hole and orders the “drive” variety, which turns out to be alcohol-free. Didn't really matter that much though, as we were beginning to hallucinate by then. We also got our first feel for how expensive things are going to be; 7 Euro for 2 thin sausages and a bread roll. One way to lose weight I suppose.

The three hours between getting off the plane and catching the train were fairly brutal, just trying to stay awake and not miss the darn thing. Once we got on the challenge was not annoying the rest of the carriage with deep snoring.

Just past midnight we rolled into Munich. Both our phones ran out of battery and we began to panic in an incredibly lethargic manner about finding Pepi who was meant to be picking us up. About 3 minutes later however, we were introduced and happily bundled into a nice warm car and headed to our hotel. What a relief to be in good hands and back in civilisation. Pepi shouted us some beers and we caught up for about half an hour, and then collapsed into the warm embrace of the hotel room.

There are no Internets on the Sky Road

2008-10-19T00:33:00.000-07:00

"Oh hai. This is your Captains speaking. In emergency, place pillow on your head."

There is also no semblance of time adjustment, with Korean Air serving “breakfast” at what would be 6.30am in Sydney (and 4.30am in Seoul?). Combined with flourescent cabin lighting dimming for all but the briefest of periods (how else would they offer a duty-free shopping service at midnight?) and the late departure time, we are somewhat trepidatious about any possibility of arriving in Germany bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

We do apparently have a hotel room booked as part of our original flight schedule which we still have access to, so I expect that our experience of South Korea on this stopover will be limited to the three esses of touring - ****, shower and sleep. According to the animated plane map, we're currently cruising at 34000 feet above Okinawa in Japan, so we should be enjoying the simple life in an airport hotel soonish.

It's a shame, really. We hadn't really tried Korean food until this year, assuming it all to be smokey, eggy, porky nonsense. We were rather wrong on that front – the joys of japchae (a yam-based glassy noodle), kimchi (a spicey pickled vegetable, usually cabbage), and bibimbap are all distinctively Korean and distinctively rad. Perhaps one day we'll come back to visit properly – Helen (Scott's mum) spent a couple of days in Seoul a few years ago and came back with some great photos; although there are so many places on our “to do” list we might be pushing ourselves around the Imperial Palace in wheelchairs if we return.

Speaking of bibimbap – here's a snap of part of ourdinner on KA. Apparently the “mercury” referred to on the steamed rice (cooked three months ago, according to the side label!) is not a food warning – it's a reference to the award which the airline won for said bibimbap back in 2007. As an “interactive dinner” it makes a nice change from the choice of beef or chicken! Fried rice with “chicken” for breakfast at 4am however? Bleurgh.

The Joy of Airports

2008-10-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

Truly lies in the fact that your new iPhone is thwarted by Blogger, resulting in your wife deciding to take matters into her own hands and let the world know that our flight has been delayed by about 40 minutes so far, and it's only flight one of day one.

At least there's still the good ol' fashioned methode du blog - an Optus free terminal. Beats carrier pigeon.

We arrived at the airport early, mostly to confirm the seat bookings that Meils scammed earlier in the week through Korean Air's call centre. Although it has resulted in us spending about 180 minutes here so far (what, us count?); we have secured on of the very few two to a row seat configurations on the 747 and 777s that we're flying on over the next 24 hours, which will hopefully make the interminable wait worth it.

We filled in about an hour with some terribly mysterious "Asian Cuisine" - the title of the food stand, not what we would title it given a choice. But "eat last Asian meal" was on our "to-do" list today, so the $40AUD price tag on a gluggy greenish curry and frozen dumplings achieved a greater good.

Not so great and more on the errr side of things is the current exchange rate. 45c to the Euro outside the terminal; 44c inside. Ouch. We're extremely glad that (a) we've paid for almost everything in advance; and (b) we have two weeks outside the Euro zone. Our little Aussie battler is apparently still worth more than the petrochemicals it's printed on in Hungary!

According to our last loudspeaker update we should commence boarding in about four minutes. Let's get this show on the.... sky road? Yes!

Europe Plans

2008-08-29T00:58:00.000-07:00

So we're orf to Europe in late October for an insanely tightly packed itinerary of travel. There's a Google Map getting updated as we decide on locations to stay and see, up here.

Oh hai!

2008-08-27T20:30:00.001-07:00

more animals

Yes, we've taken the horrific, post-marital step of starting a blog together. No, this doesn't mean we're taking up feminist studies and fine arts, respectively. This is just a place for us to blog our adventures - both here and away. Come along for the ride with us, and you will be rewarded with... errr, something.