So! Less than 12 hours left... That's if the plane leaves as planned. It's been an amazing nine months that somehow simultaneously feels like years and just a few weeks. Everyone's already started asking what the highlights were so here's a run down:
1st= Hiking from yurt to yurt in Kyrgyzstan. Drinking kumis (fermented horse milk) and hot tea as the sun set over the meadows and then cosying into a wonderful warm bed.
1st= Japan (the whole damn country for its great design, sushi, lovely people and wonderful baths but particularly Kyoto)
2nd Evenings full of ridiculously long and elaborate toasts in Georgian restaurants followed by restorative hikes to tiny remote churches.
3rd Endless lovely food and the joys of the open road in Oz.
4th Eating like kings in China and Hong kong, and watching the Olympics.
5th Following tigers on elephant back through the forest in India.
The other common question seems to be whether we wanted to kill each other. Answer: only occasionally... On the whole we ambled along pretty well. Tom would say that I still don't know how to cross the road and I maintain that he gets too enthusiastic about his bartering. Luckily they have price tags and traffic lights back home.
If I start lavishing you with more details than this over one too many gin and tonics tell me I'm turning into an old travelling bore and I promise I'll stop!
Before I go for good (although there might be some more photos if I can be bothered) here are a few more number ones:
- Most embarrassing moment: Not releasing we didn't have double entry visas for Uzbekistan until we'd left its neighbour...
- Worst toilets: India generally and the overflowing one on the ferry across the Caspian, shared between twenty of us for 3 days, some with stomach bugs.
- Best toilets: Japan's automated warming, washing, noise producing marvels.
- Country where we were most photographed by random strangers: Uzbekistan followed by India. What strange albums they must have.
- Most hippies: Pushkar in India and Byron Bay in Australia.
- Most irritating fellow tourist: The guy living in a Japanese hostel who claimed to have pulled his tonsils out with a toothbrush as they were annoying him, to have teeth that fell out and regrew every couple of years, to be making a Kung Fu film and to play in a Japanese jazz band.
- Longest train journey: 36 hours through the deserts of Kazakhstan.
- Most surreal bedroom: An open air bed in the yard of a lady in Aralsk, now miles from the Aral Sea, and a government hotel in the semi ruined palace at Orchha in India with a bath the size of a small car.
- Weirdest food: kumis (see above), barbecued sheep gullet, pig ear and knuckle. We turned down the deep fried baby birds.
- Most ex-KGB moment: when policemen in Kyrgyzstan repeatedly came up to Tom and warned him journalists weren't allowed to cross into Uzbekistan. It happened too many times to be a coincidence.
- Best meals: People 7 in Shanghai, the tasting menu at Circa in Melbourne and fresh sushi 6am from the fish market in Tokyo
- Most persistent song of the trip: Fat bottomed girls and something annoying in Russian.
- Winner of the most scrabble games: Me (but only just which is pretty shameful when playing a dyslexic).
- Winner of the most connect 4 games: Tom
- Winner of the most card games: Hard to be sure as we were well into the hundreds....
Monday, 22 December 2008
Friday, 12 December 2008
Mumbai lows and tiger hunting highs
It's been a strange couple of weeks. Suddenly nine months of loafing has become a two week holiday and every moment seems precious. We've posed for photos with guns and small children, seen the teeth of a tiger and almost missed the Taj Mahal.
The shootings in Mumbai were a horrible shock, even more so as we were oblivious in the mountains for the first day of the crisis. We'd been to several of the places attacked and stayed just round the corner from the Taj Hotel.
Luckily the closest we got to it all was a couple of days later in the northern town of Chandigarh. We were admiring old bracelets assembled into chickens and men with brocken tea pots for hands when a bunch of jubilant off-duty marines turned up and insisted on posing for photos with us and some of their guns. Very surreal but they were nice guys with guns so we agreed.
Chandigarh was planned by Le Corbusier, a great lover of straight lines ("the curve is ruinous, difficult, dangerous" apparently), but it has evolved into a very Indian version of modernism with al fresco barbers set up among the leafy arcades and chapati makers crouching among the stark facades. I'm not sure what the great man would have made of the junk yard art either.
We went one night to the beautiful 1950s cinema to watch Yuvraj the film we were extras in. Sitting in isolation among just a handful of bored children we made it through two and half hours of hindi with the odd english phrase ("la la la anti-family man la la") and several power cuts. Just as we were coming to our appearance in the dances at the end, the screen suddenly flicked off, the house lights went on and the last stray dog filed out. Maybe we'll have more luck with a DVD!
Our next stop was the Corbett national park where we ended up chasing a tiger on elephant-back, all very colonial. The elephant wasn't terribly pleased and kept trumpeting as the tiger turned and growled. We asked later what kind of defences we had on board and the handler pointed to a small pointed stick. We spent the rest of the day on a smug post-tiger potting high infuritating everyone else we met and then somehow managed to get another peek from a jeep in the evening.
Our other stops were Varanasi, very spiritual and beautiful in the misty morning light but far too full of excrement for my liking, and Agra where we marched towards the Taj Mahal wondering why we were visiting when we already had a picture postcard view wedged in our minds. In the end, we went through the gate and burst into laughter. The winter fog had come down and just the faintest outline was visible.
We're now admiring erotic temple sculptures (gravity defying bestiality, lovely) and posing in photos of school outings (at their request).
The shootings in Mumbai were a horrible shock, even more so as we were oblivious in the mountains for the first day of the crisis. We'd been to several of the places attacked and stayed just round the corner from the Taj Hotel.
Luckily the closest we got to it all was a couple of days later in the northern town of Chandigarh. We were admiring old bracelets assembled into chickens and men with brocken tea pots for hands when a bunch of jubilant off-duty marines turned up and insisted on posing for photos with us and some of their guns. Very surreal but they were nice guys with guns so we agreed.
Chandigarh was planned by Le Corbusier, a great lover of straight lines ("the curve is ruinous, difficult, dangerous" apparently), but it has evolved into a very Indian version of modernism with al fresco barbers set up among the leafy arcades and chapati makers crouching among the stark facades. I'm not sure what the great man would have made of the junk yard art either.
We went one night to the beautiful 1950s cinema to watch Yuvraj the film we were extras in. Sitting in isolation among just a handful of bored children we made it through two and half hours of hindi with the odd english phrase ("la la la anti-family man la la") and several power cuts. Just as we were coming to our appearance in the dances at the end, the screen suddenly flicked off, the house lights went on and the last stray dog filed out. Maybe we'll have more luck with a DVD!
Our next stop was the Corbett national park where we ended up chasing a tiger on elephant-back, all very colonial. The elephant wasn't terribly pleased and kept trumpeting as the tiger turned and growled. We asked later what kind of defences we had on board and the handler pointed to a small pointed stick. We spent the rest of the day on a smug post-tiger potting high infuritating everyone else we met and then somehow managed to get another peek from a jeep in the evening.
Our other stops were Varanasi, very spiritual and beautiful in the misty morning light but far too full of excrement for my liking, and Agra where we marched towards the Taj Mahal wondering why we were visiting when we already had a picture postcard view wedged in our minds. In the end, we went through the gate and burst into laughter. The winter fog had come down and just the faintest outline was visible.
We're now admiring erotic temple sculptures (gravity defying bestiality, lovely) and posing in photos of school outings (at their request).
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
Saturday, 15 November 2008
Teetotal vegetarians and Bollywood superstars
Mumbai predictably was a huge shock after Sydney: a mad whirl of coloured saris, crazed rickshaw drivers and stray dogs. Looming Neogothic train stations to match London, crumbling Art Deco apartments, red buses and cricket but with palm trees, dust and Bollywood. Luckily there are mighty fine cake shops to help newcomers adjust, particularly those staying in the bed-bug luxuries of the Salvation Army hostel.
We spent a day as badly dressed ball goers in the back of the next big blockbuster, an instant introduction to the celebrity gossip and a chance to wear someone else’s ill-fitting shoes, then wandered the backstreets past temples strewn with drying laundry and small boys flying kites.
The town itself was choked with pilgrims, men in day-glo yellow turbans, women in firey hewed saris with huge noserings covering half their faces. They'd come to bathe in the lake and were out on the terraces surrounding it from five in the morning.
We're now in Jodphur - the "blue city" and ancient capital of the princely state of Marwar ("the land of death"). A dark fort with cannon-ball scars sits on a vast rock overhanging the cluttered rooftops of the old city, looking out to the desert beyond. Inside are huge spikes to deter elephant charges, the handprints of widows leaving to throw themselves on their husbands' funeral pyres and Christmas baubles bought by the British. Tonight we board the night train to Jaisalmer further in the deserts to the west.
We spent a day as badly dressed ball goers in the back of the next big blockbuster, an instant introduction to the celebrity gossip and a chance to wear someone else’s ill-fitting shoes, then wandered the backstreets past temples strewn with drying laundry and small boys flying kites.
Rajasthan’s deserts further north seem to concentrate the madness. The women dress in deep pink, yellows and oranges, cows loiter chewing plastic bags and monkeys practice James Bond-style leaps between rooftops. Our first stop was the "pink" city of Jaipur, rather more red in reality and full of infuriatingly ingenious touts, but with an amazing observatory full of multi-storey Escer-esque sun and moon dials accurate to the nearest two seconds.
The town itself was choked with pilgrims, men in day-glo yellow turbans, women in firey hewed saris with huge noserings covering half their faces. They'd come to bathe in the lake and were out on the terraces surrounding it from five in the morning.
We're now in Jodphur - the "blue city" and ancient capital of the princely state of Marwar ("the land of death"). A dark fort with cannon-ball scars sits on a vast rock overhanging the cluttered rooftops of the old city, looking out to the desert beyond. Inside are huge spikes to deter elephant charges, the handprints of widows leaving to throw themselves on their husbands' funeral pyres and Christmas baubles bought by the British. Tonight we board the night train to Jaisalmer further in the deserts to the west.
Thursday, 30 October 2008
And so to India
Wow. Just one more country left... We fly into Mumbai tomorrow night and out again on the 23rd December bound finally for home. I'm a little nervous about plunging into the maelstrom but I'm sure it'll be fine once we're there?!
Our guest blogger's done such a good job of charting the last few weeks that there doesn't seem much left to say (thanks Liam). I'd just like to add that he was a great traveling companion, always keen on a strange photo opportunity (what happened to the one of Tom kissing a statue?) and a great civilising influence, helping lure us away from the hippie temptations of Byron Bay.
Australia's been a ball - a deliciously gluttonous one - and hopefully we've now got enough bodyfat to make it through India with a bit left over for the great British winter...
Our guest blogger's done such a good job of charting the last few weeks that there doesn't seem much left to say (thanks Liam). I'd just like to add that he was a great traveling companion, always keen on a strange photo opportunity (what happened to the one of Tom kissing a statue?) and a great civilising influence, helping lure us away from the hippie temptations of Byron Bay.
Australia's been a ball - a deliciously gluttonous one - and hopefully we've now got enough bodyfat to make it through India with a bit left over for the great British winter...
Monday, 13 October 2008
Playing catch-up
So somehow more than a month has slipped by. One reason I was keen to leave London was that time seemed to go so fast there but comfortable developed countries, evenings with old friends and our own small routines are speeding the clock up again.
We spent our last days in Japan trying more onsen (baths) in the strange southern town of Beppu where steam from the many hot springs rises up through manhole covers and men lounge around in the weird mixed mud baths watching women in little towels dash around like frightened penguins then caught the dizzyingly fast bullet train to Tokyo. There we lost ourselves in the crowds of commuters and wandered toy shops with vending machines full of strange cartoon toys and eye-popping manga stores. We also managed a visit to the "lost in translation" bar at the top of the Hyatt and early morning sushi at the huge, otherworldly and rather sad fish market. Tom was rewarded for his dancing skills at a local festival near our hostel with a pink sash and a bag of household cleaning products.
Next was our first plane journey and Hong Kong. Gwen, a friend from Oxford High, took us to drink cocktails at a friend's party on the 43rd floor, looking across at the beleagured banking sector in its glittering towers, and the next night for some delicious and slightly crazy Chinese food. Particularly partial to the spare ribs with strawberry but not a huge fan of stinky durian.
We also tested out the Hong Kong tourist board's free "tea appreciation" class, learning to sniff our tiny cups after finishing them, and its early morning tai chi on the harbour front with uber-enthusiatic Jimmy and the glamorous Pandora.
The final day was Tom's 30th birthday eve so we swopped our hostel in Kowloon's decaying and cat-infested Mirador Mansions for a roof-top swimming pool near Soho and went for another roof terrace cocktail among the futuristic walkways of Central. We failed to get an upgrade the next day but did manage to wangle some free champagne from a lady in duty-free...
The last couple of weeks in Australia have brought more reunions. We spent four lovely days with Izzy and Andy in Sydney's southern suburbs eating great sausages and admiring the gorgeous national parks on their doorstep. They even tried not to laugh when I realised that having given my passport to the Indian Embassy I'd have to swap my plane up north to Byron Bay for a 14-hour bus journey...
I made it to Byron eventually and caught up with Tom (he'd had his driving licence so could still fly) and the next day we picked up Liam from the airport. Since then we've been heading south in our big family car, Tom's surfboard strapped to the roof, singing along to our two CDs: 'Rocktober' and Now 368 (or something similar) which Liam is using to bring our musical education up to date. We've laughed at the guitar-strumming digeridoo-worshipping pseudo-hippes of 'the arts factory guesthouse' in Byron, drunk beers on a bright moonlit beach, watched whales breaching offshore and hiked through swampy rainforest with some friendly leeches.
We've still not persuaded Liam to sleep in a tent, but we're working on it. In return he's threatening to take us to kareoke when we reach Sydney...
We spent our last days in Japan trying more onsen (baths) in the strange southern town of Beppu where steam from the many hot springs rises up through manhole covers and men lounge around in the weird mixed mud baths watching women in little towels dash around like frightened penguins then caught the dizzyingly fast bullet train to Tokyo. There we lost ourselves in the crowds of commuters and wandered toy shops with vending machines full of strange cartoon toys and eye-popping manga stores. We also managed a visit to the "lost in translation" bar at the top of the Hyatt and early morning sushi at the huge, otherworldly and rather sad fish market. Tom was rewarded for his dancing skills at a local festival near our hostel with a pink sash and a bag of household cleaning products.
Next was our first plane journey and Hong Kong. Gwen, a friend from Oxford High, took us to drink cocktails at a friend's party on the 43rd floor, looking across at the beleagured banking sector in its glittering towers, and the next night for some delicious and slightly crazy Chinese food. Particularly partial to the spare ribs with strawberry but not a huge fan of stinky durian.
We also tested out the Hong Kong tourist board's free "tea appreciation" class, learning to sniff our tiny cups after finishing them, and its early morning tai chi on the harbour front with uber-enthusiatic Jimmy and the glamorous Pandora.
The final day was Tom's 30th birthday eve so we swopped our hostel in Kowloon's decaying and cat-infested Mirador Mansions for a roof-top swimming pool near Soho and went for another roof terrace cocktail among the futuristic walkways of Central. We failed to get an upgrade the next day but did manage to wangle some free champagne from a lady in duty-free...
The last couple of weeks in Australia have brought more reunions. We spent four lovely days with Izzy and Andy in Sydney's southern suburbs eating great sausages and admiring the gorgeous national parks on their doorstep. They even tried not to laugh when I realised that having given my passport to the Indian Embassy I'd have to swap my plane up north to Byron Bay for a 14-hour bus journey...
I made it to Byron eventually and caught up with Tom (he'd had his driving licence so could still fly) and the next day we picked up Liam from the airport. Since then we've been heading south in our big family car, Tom's surfboard strapped to the roof, singing along to our two CDs: 'Rocktober' and Now 368 (or something similar) which Liam is using to bring our musical education up to date. We've laughed at the guitar-strumming digeridoo-worshipping pseudo-hippes of 'the arts factory guesthouse' in Byron, drunk beers on a bright moonlit beach, watched whales breaching offshore and hiked through swampy rainforest with some friendly leeches.
We've still not persuaded Liam to sleep in a tent, but we're working on it. In return he's threatening to take us to kareoke when we reach Sydney...
Saturday, 20 September 2008
The legend of the "beer fairy"
As presented in glorious technicolour by the Sapporo brewing museum...
... and stream bathing
The section in the foreground was baking. Oddly Tom`s ice cream seems to have vanished from the photograph?!
Monday, 8 September 2008
Going Japanese
Well, we`ve made it to Japan... There`s a nice symmetry to starting our overlanding on an island off Europe and finishing on another off Asia.
We sailed from the end of the Bund in Singapore, watching the skyscrapers disappear as we slid past miles of shipyards to the sea. Apart from the sick bags that appeared a few hours in, the ship was an early introduction to Japan: endless vending machines selling weird energy drinks, spotless bathrooms and a neat little capsule-like cabin with our own tiny seating area and picture window. On the second evening we stood on deck in the rain watching the flashing lights along the coast as we slipped between two of the main islands and the next morning we were in Osaka.
Our first real stop was Kyoto and we found it rather hard to leave. It`s a gorgeous city surrounded by green hills, with streets full of old wooden houses, glimpses of geishas and a myriad of shrines and temples. The basic layout of most of the religious sites is similar, but many of the key ones seem to pick one thing and excel at it. We`ve seen the largest tori (gateway) in Japan and a shrine with so many that they form red tunnels snaking for miles through the hills, the largest indoor buddha, excessive sproutings of stone lanterns and another temple with 1001 1000-armed goddesses of mercy (although they only actually have 42 arms as each can save 25 worlds).
From Kyoto we went south for a few days to some ancient pilgrimage trails through hills dotted with hot springs. In one you dig your own hole out of the pebbles in the river bank, sit there contemplating the hills (or eating an ice cream) until nicely boiled, then wade into the cut-glass green of the river and let yourself get washed away by the current. We also tried the bath in our guesthouse where you sit next door to a large black fish and cooked eggs in another pool while waiting for the bus.
There are plenty of smaller surprises too: freshwater crabs wandering country roads and overfriendly deer that steal and eat your map, lucky dip blessings in the temples and mind-blowing sushi just off the boat, builders wearing cloven-hoof boots and loud speakers announcing midday to fields of rice, toilets that make waterfall noises when you sit down and the fluffy toilet seat covers for sale in ultra-minamalist Muji. Everything is incredibly compact and everyone obeys the rules except cyclists who monopolise the pavement and leave their bikes in huge fleets in front of each of the signs banning bicycle parking.
We sailed from the end of the Bund in Singapore, watching the skyscrapers disappear as we slid past miles of shipyards to the sea. Apart from the sick bags that appeared a few hours in, the ship was an early introduction to Japan: endless vending machines selling weird energy drinks, spotless bathrooms and a neat little capsule-like cabin with our own tiny seating area and picture window. On the second evening we stood on deck in the rain watching the flashing lights along the coast as we slipped between two of the main islands and the next morning we were in Osaka.
Our first real stop was Kyoto and we found it rather hard to leave. It`s a gorgeous city surrounded by green hills, with streets full of old wooden houses, glimpses of geishas and a myriad of shrines and temples. The basic layout of most of the religious sites is similar, but many of the key ones seem to pick one thing and excel at it. We`ve seen the largest tori (gateway) in Japan and a shrine with so many that they form red tunnels snaking for miles through the hills, the largest indoor buddha, excessive sproutings of stone lanterns and another temple with 1001 1000-armed goddesses of mercy (although they only actually have 42 arms as each can save 25 worlds).
From Kyoto we went south for a few days to some ancient pilgrimage trails through hills dotted with hot springs. In one you dig your own hole out of the pebbles in the river bank, sit there contemplating the hills (or eating an ice cream) until nicely boiled, then wade into the cut-glass green of the river and let yourself get washed away by the current. We also tried the bath in our guesthouse where you sit next door to a large black fish and cooked eggs in another pool while waiting for the bus.
There are plenty of smaller surprises too: freshwater crabs wandering country roads and overfriendly deer that steal and eat your map, lucky dip blessings in the temples and mind-blowing sushi just off the boat, builders wearing cloven-hoof boots and loud speakers announcing midday to fields of rice, toilets that make waterfall noises when you sit down and the fluffy toilet seat covers for sale in ultra-minamalist Muji. Everything is incredibly compact and everyone obeys the rules except cyclists who monopolise the pavement and leave their bikes in huge fleets in front of each of the signs banning bicycle parking.
Sunday, 24 August 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)