Laura and Greg's World Adventure

Shanghai Skyline

2010-04-28T02:56:00.000-05:00

more pictures of Shanghai

2010-04-28T02:53:00.001-05:00

sitting on the glass floor of the Pearl TV Tower!

Governor Yu's garden

Shanghai 23.04.10 - 26.04.10

2010-04-28T02:47:00.002-05:00

Governor Yu's garden

Shanghai skyline

Shanghai, the final stop on our tour of China and the last port of call on our round the world adventure! What a trip it's been! We've been to some fantastic places and seen some amazing things. It's been a trip of a lifetime and Shanghai is our final taste of a different culture, as we prepare ourselves for going home to Britain and all that that entails. We're looking forward to some good British food, like a roast dinner or even a good ham sandwich, on proper bread! And a good cup of British tea. I know China is the land of tea and they do do a mean cup of green or jasmine tea but they kill their black tea by stewing it for ages, making it too bitter. We'll miss the excitement of not knowing what our next destination will be like and the buzz we get when we find we're able to navigate the local public transport system, or we're able to have a successful conversation with someone! We'll definitely miss the variety of scenery we've encountered and the journeys themselves, mostly by bus and car, where we've watched the countryside of different nations fly past us. It's been a great life experience and has taught us a lot about the world and the ways in which different people live. It's also made us very grateful for the lives we lead in the UK and the privileges that living there brings us. I'm sure we'll appreciate Britain more than we did before we started travelling. There are many lovely places to visit in Britain and a whole lot of history which, I'm ashamed to say, I'm yet to have a full grasp of. It's my aim though, to learn more about the country I'm from, just as I've given my enthusiasm to learning about the countries we've visited.
Shanghai is a fitting place to end our tour because it's the most cosmopolitan Chinese city and has a rich history of foreign trade with Europe, resulting in many examples of British and French building styles. The Bund, as it's known, is the street which runs alongside the river in Shanghai and boasts magnificent European buildings from the 1930s and 40s, including a Big Ben clock tower. Shanghai was a buzzing treaty port city with incoming foreigners setting up businesses and trading with the Chinese. Much investment occurred in the 1930s and led to a booming economy playing host to all the fun and frivolity of the age of jazz, dancehall and a new freedom of style and expression. The city now is the most contemporary and forward thinking we've come across. Most of the skycrapers and defining architecture has sprung up in the last ten years only. They're very adept at tearing down old neighbourhoods to build flashy apartments for high class living! We've arrived just before Shanghai Expo 2010 opens in a few days time and the final preparations are underway for the six month long international fair to showcase new design and technology from countries around the world as well as China. The city is being cleaned up to perfection, there are garden displays and expo adverts everywhere. It should bring a lot of attention to Shanghai and boost its power as a leading international city. The city still does have some older treasures too, in amongst the ultra modern tower blocks. Apart from the famous Bund, there is the exquisite garden of Governor Yu, which exemplifies the beauty of Chinese horticulture. The garden is designed in a series of sections including an enormous rock fountain, pavilion gardens, lake and small river all divided up by ornate curving walls with giant stone dragons flying across the top. It's not on the scale of the parklands of the Summer Palace in Beijing. This is a private garden in the middle of the city and covers an area of about 500 square metres. We especially enjoy it because, from every angle, there is the perfect photo opportunity for a snapshot of a traditional Chinese scene.
Shanghai is the most busy city we've been to on the whole of our travels. There's a street that's been pedestrianised and when we walk it on a Saturday afternoon it's like how busy it would be at New Year in London or if a huge festival was taking place. It's hoaching with people. And there are a huge number of Chinese tourists in tour parties, all wearing the same colour of baseball cap, being led by a guide with a microphone and speaker hooked on to their back. I hold on to Greg for dear life as he leads me through the throng! But it's very safe here. There are police and traffic wardens on every corner helping pedestrians cross the road and making sure no one causes any major disturbances. The only major disturbances are the Chinese themselves! They do have a way of talking very loudly and the very nature of the language makes it sound like they're having an argument, even if they're not!
So, this is the end. Tomorrow we go home and soon our memories will fade. At least we'll have our pictures and this blog. Thank you for reading.

Interesting Facts about Chinese Living Today

2010-04-28T02:45:00.000-05:00

- If you are resident in a city, you are entitled to a level of social security. However, if you're a farmer or live in the countryside, even though you also pay taxes, you are not entitled to any social security. This is why many rural dwellers strive very hard to get permanent jobs in the cities in order to become 'city members'. A mass movement is taking place into the cities,

- All land is owned by the government and therefore the people. Farmers rent the land from them. More than half the produce that comes from the land is collected from the farms, tea plantations etc. by gorvernment workers. The government sets the price they'll sell these goods at and it's ten times what they pay the farmers. However, if there is a crisis in one part of the country, for example a lack of rice production because of drought, the government will support that area with goods from the other areas, at a much reduced rate.

- Facebook, blogs and any other websites which could potentially have people grouping together and becoming vocal against the government are banned. It just comes up, Internet Explorer cannot find this page. If you write an email, there's a noticeable delay in sending as it's censored by central government.

- Lack of freedom of speech is a definite issue for the younger people especially and it's a frightening thought to think that if you speak against the government you'll receive death threats and, if you persist, you'll 'disappear' as they say.

- On the flip side, respect for authority, especially police, is much higher here, as punishments are a lot more severe. For the crime of peddling drugs in China the punishment is death. As long as the trials are fair and just, some people would go along with the idea that the punishments do sometimes fit the crime. The death penalty is a pretty adequate detterent to stop someone ruining hundreds of thousands of peoples' lives by supplying them drugs.

- Having said all this, we've heard that there is corruption on every level here, from the police right up to the government. As it becomes more open to the world things may change, but it remains a pretty dark place in certain respects.

Reed Flute Cave- Guilin

2010-04-28T02:44:00.000-05:00

More pictures of Jiantsu Village

2010-04-28T02:40:00.000-05:00

Guilin, Li River and Yangshuo 17.04.10 - 20.04.10

2010-04-28T02:32:00.002-05:00

Jiantsu Ancient Village

Jiantsu Temple

Guilin is the third poorest city in the whole of China and is much smaller than the likes of Chongqing and Wuhan, two of China's new megacities. Guilin is a tourist mecca because of it's starting off point for the Li river cruise through the amazing karst scenery. The sight of white people in our hotel suggests to us that this is a stop on most peoples' travel itineraries.It rains heavily while we're here and we're lucky we sailed up the Li on the day we did, because the day after, the cruiseboats cancelled because there was too much water in the river! It had flooded the banks of the city and was flowing too fast to sail on. We enjoyed our half day cruise up the Li, even though it was drizzling. The mists provided an atmosphere of traditional Chinese landscape paintings which are always executed in greys and blacks with daubs of grey mist cloud hanging over the peaks. The karst scenery was really spectacular and if we'd known how amazing this was going to be and how poor in comparison the Yangtze turned out to be, we'd have stayed here longer. The highlight of our time in this part of the world was the two hours we spent cycling in the countryside around Yangshuo. Yangshuo is where the boats dock on the Li and has been transformed from a sleepy country town in the middle of some very impressive karst scenery to become a foreign tourists' souvenier town selling all kinds of Chinese tat. The countryside around Yangshuo is, as yet, unspoilt and remains a rural haven of water-filled rice paddies with farmers in straw hats working in their fields, sometimes ploughing up the mud using a traditional hand plough and water buffalo (the fields are too small for any kind of mechanised plough). It's a dreamy scene when the soaring cliffs and odd shaped rock mountains are reflected in the waters below. It's nice how our guide, Tracy (her English name) is in her element too, as we cycle through the countryside. She comes from a rural village near Guilin where her parents still live in a traditional Chinese farmhouse and now she lives in a simple room in the city of Guilin. But you can tell she's a country girl at heart as she speeds off on her bike and nimbly hops off and on (she used to ride everyday to school and back). While in Guilin we're driven to an ancient Chinese village called Jiantsu where people still live very simply in old fashioned courtyard style brick houses with pantiled roofs and cobbled streets. We walk round the picturesque alleys and peer into the houses, spotting an elderly group of mah jong players and a few clucking chickens. The village's temple was unfortunately severely damaged by the Red Guards in the Cultural Revolution although they did leave one building standing. In this building there is a portrait of the village's forefather, the first of the Zhou family. In China, each child, boy or girl, takes the father's surname even through marriage, so now every family living in Jiantsu has the surname Zhou.

Note

2010-04-28T02:29:00.000-05:00

We have discovered, in our brief time here, that although, in general, the Chinese people believe that us Brits have a lot more money than they do and a better standard of living we've seen evidence that China is booming and it won't be very long before the Chinese standard of living is equivalent to the UK. There is so much more development of better infrastructure and buildings here than in Britain. In all the major cities here they have an underground mass transit system and an elevated railway. In Britain these types of development are virtually non-existent. We have one underground system in London and no monorails. These systems tend to be better designed, cheap to travel on and reliable. Still, our tour guides we speak to complain their wages are lower and they cannot afford the expensive clothes in the shops. Perhaps this is a ploy to incur a decent tip! but we reason that, a inflation increases in China, peoples' wages will realign also and in the not too distant future there should be more fairness in the employment sector. Of course they are jealous of us being able to afford to travel and we feel ourselves to be really lucky. When the yuan increases and sits alongside or even overtakes the dollar, they will become a nation of travellers, holidaying in countries outside their own. There is still today a huge gap in the wealth status of the rich and poor in China however. The rice farmers of the countryside still live in rundown, inadequate accommodations and there isn't a system of social care to look after people when they lose their income, become sick or grow too old to work. Children are expected to look after their parents when they reach old age and this can often prove a big ask. Because of the one child policy introduced by the Chinese government to curb the country's population growth resulted in so many only children, this puts a great burden on them as they are required to look after both theirs and their wife's or husband's parents.

Yangtze Cruise 13.04.10 - 16.04.10

2010-04-28T02:21:00.002-05:00

The Yangtze is one of the longest rivers in China, originating in Tibet it flows into the China Sea on the east coast. We join our cruise boat, President 1, at Chonqing, the largest city in China (and the world), at 39 million, and finish up in Yichang, the nearest city to the Three Gorges Dam. On our cruise we cover over 600km and travel through three impressive gorges. These gorges would've been much more impressive before the area was flooded in 2003 as part of the Three Gorges Dam project. The water level upstream of the dam was increased by 120m, which meant that whole cities built on the banks of the river were flooded and a great portion of the cliff scenery was lost. Over one million people living on the banks of the Yangtze had to be relocated to higher levels, because their homes were lost. The dam is one of the largest in the world and the electricity produced in the 36 hydro electric plants generates 1,400 megawatts per day, 3% of China's power consumption and it can be distributed across 50% of the country. We are disappointed however to have missed the spectacular karst scenery which must've been amazing only a few years ago. The dam project was started 17 years ago and was designed as a method for flood control, power generation and a navigational aid. Prior to the dam all along the length of the Yangtze suffered severe floods but now the water level is regulated to stop this from happening again. The relocation program for the many displaced residents consists of rebuilding cities and towns and rehousing the population along with re-establishing infrastructure and amenities. This is a huge undertaking, but as we're beginning to realise, nothing is too big for the Chinese to conquer. There is continual building and development of the new cities all along the stretch of the river and we see many hundreds of new apartment blocks being constructed. We're informed that the compensation payments to individuals stood at 300 RMB per square metre (which is around £30) and they were entitled to a favourable rate on their newly built apartment but this stood at 500 RMB per square metre. In effect they would have to settle for a smaller home, but, in many cases, this new home would be of better construction with better living facilities for a better lifestyle. The government were obliged to provide new employment for those who had lost their jobs as a direct result of the flooding and they provided landowners with new plots free of charge higher up the valleys. The difficulties arise when people, especially of the older generation, find their new living arrangements too different from their old ways and attempt to return to as close to their original hometown as possible. To have such a big upheaval in their lives, can be quite a scary and unnatural experience. However the Chinese government seems to want to simply plough onwards and upwards, literally. There are so many new skyscrapers and apartment blocks I can't keep count. They have taken into account the cultural relics which were in the zone to be flooded and have rebuilt a temple, brick by brick in an area further up the hill and have constructed a high sided dam wall around an ancient pagoda to preserve it. A prehistoric rock, 200m long by 50m wide which has lain on the river bed with it's paleolithic engraved images visible above the water level for centuries has now had a glass dome constructed over it to preserve it as an underwater museum. You can take an underwater elevator down to the museum level. Only in China! On the site of the dam itself there is a natural island in the river which proved an ideal location as it could be used as a harnassing foundation between the bulk of the main dam and the ship locks, located on the other side of the island. From the excavation of the site for the dam foundations, archaeologists found bronze age bowls and tools, pottery and ceramics from all the dynasties.

Interesting Facts about Tibet

2010-04-28T02:18:00.000-05:00

- The common people don't bury or cremate their dead. They leave them out for the birds, the vultures.

- A custom when someone dies is to paint a white ladder on a mountainside for their spirit to rise to the heavens.

- The Guylipa (sp?) sect of the Buddhist religion is popular and monks can be identified by their yellow hats.

- Tibetan people are most often named after a famous buddha or high lama.

- In the monasteries the monks hold debate sessions where they discuss their ideas on the various teachings of buddha. If a monk slaps his other hand in a violent motion using his whole body this means he disagrees and has his own idea to say.

- When young children under ten or non Buddhists visit the temples, because they are not knowledgable, they receive a special blessing of a mark of black ghee across their noses.

- We recieved a silk scarf as a welcome gift when we arrived at the airport. This is a customary greeting for everyone.

- Tutuchanay (sp?)= Thank you

- On traditional Tibetan houses and buildings the windows are framed by a thick black paint which is said to help retain the heat for the house.

- The women wear these lovely stripy woven aprons over their long black skirts and braid coloured threads into their hair plaits.

- The traditional offering fruit is the peach.

- Symbols include the 'infinity' geometric design to represent a joining together of peace and harmony. The wheel of life with its six human phases, heaven gods to hell. The yinyang for protection and the reversed swastika as a sign of the Buddhist religion.

Lhasa People

2010-04-28T02:15:00.000-05:00

more pictures from Lhasa

2010-04-28T02:02:00.002-05:00

people of Lhasa making their pilgrimage

monks 'discussing' their religious ideas/ Potala Palace

more pictures from Lhasa

2010-04-28T01:55:00.002-05:00

prayer wheels at Sera Monastery/ Potala Palace

painted ladders for the spirits of the dead

traditional temple doors, outside and inside

Lhasa, Tibet 11.04.10 - 12.04.10

2010-04-28T01:44:00.002-05:00

Tibetan prayer flags/ Norbulingka garden

entrance to Jokhang Temple/ Norbulingka garden

traditional Tibetan door with silk scarves decoration

Potala Palace, Jokhang Temple, Norbulingka, Sera Monastery
Tibet Autonomous Region, in the southwest of China, has a population of only 2.8 million with it's largest town being Lhasa, at a few hundred thousand. Two hours south of Lhasa lies the border with Nepal and the Himalayas. Tibet has eleven peaks over 7000m and five over 8000m, the most famous being Mount Everest, at 8848m. The plains around Lhasa are vastly unpopulated and very dry at the present time. All over China there have been droughts and water shortages this month. There are oasis' of greenery in the plains however, with willow trees and green marshland. Our guide Gyatsuo explains the need for the marshland to produce some humidity in the otherwise dry mountain air. Most of the winter snow has gone and the sun is very strong now, warming up the afternoons to 22 degrees. In winter, the temperature can drop to -17 degrees Gyatsuo tells us. He introduces himself as a practising Buddhist who is very willing to inform us of all the Tibetan culture, religion and customs but will not discuss the Tibetan political situation. He claims to be no politician and doesn't want to attempt this subject. He does prove himself extremely knowledgable on all things Buddhist and takes us through each and every deity, buddha image and symbol meaning in the temples we visit. There is a lot for us to take in but by the end of our Lhasa tour we've got the jist. In Tibetan Buddhism, which is different to Thai Mahayana and other types, the three buddhas, one from the past, present and future are worshipped. The current buddha, Shakyamuni, was born in 500BC and before him there had already been six more buddhas but he was the one to found the Buddhism religion. Many buddhist influences came originally from India, which borders Tibet and we observe that the design of the sculptures and the use of very bright colours are similar to those of Hinduism. In Tibet, Buddhism was rejected by the people for 300 years from the 11th century onwards and a king overtook the ruling power. The Kingdom of Tibet lasted until the 14th century when the 5th Dalai Lama replaced him and built the famous Potala Palace in Lhasa. To explain about the existence of the Dalai Lama- he is the chosen one who is the highest lama (master), the reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama. To be chosen by the high lamas, the boy (they were often very young) should demonstrate high levels of wisdom and represent the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. He can be chosen from anywhere, any background. The 5th Dalai Lama built the Potala Palace on the site of an ancient Buddhist temple from the 7th century and it was for the Dalai Lama to spend the months of winter- the Winter Palace. It sits atop a sacred hill called the Red Hill in Lhasa and dominates over the town with its red and white buildings. Inside the palace there are chapels to the buddha, a seating room for the Dalai Lama to receive guests, a teaching room for him to pass on his knowledge and many funerary stupa tombs for the previous Dalai Lamas, of which at present there are eleven. The current Dalai Lama, who is presently in exile in Nepal, is the 13th. All the inner rooms of the palace are small and cosy. Cosy is a strange word to use for a palace but this is because there are many silk textiles in the form of garments on the statues, patchwork lanterns and coverings for the poles and furniture. The walls are all heavily decorated with rich painted colours and murals. Each doorframe and ceiling edge is richly painted with flower motifs and simple gold designs. The thing that hits you the most is the colours. Tibetans believe the colours of red, yellow, green and blue symbolise the natural elements, the earth, the sky, the water, the vegetation. That's why they use them everywhere on the inside walls, decorations and the prayer flags, like bunting, which they hang on every available pole or tree. Gyatsuo takes us through the three most important manifestations of buddha, the compassion buddha (with its thousand arms and thousand hands to reach out and touch people), the protector buddha (who has a fierce, puppet face to symbolise strength) and the longevity buddha (because a long life is the ultimate goal for buddhists- apart from enlightenment of course!) There are many other deities in the distinct Tibetan form of Buddhism, some which represent the giving of good advice, healing for the soul (the ten medicine buddhas) and some of the statues represent the scholars who wrote the scriptures and the 108 commandments. Each and every one is gold painted and lavishly clothed and has their own chapel for worship.
Although Gyatsuo tells us a lot about the buddhas and the deities, he explains that everyday practising buddists will never reach the status of nirvana and do not have the wisdom to practise meditation. Chanting occurs throughout the temples we visit and there is the possibility to practise yoga meditation but normal buddhists cannot achieve the proper meditation technique. They do not have the correct teachings. It takes 45 years to study to become an elite scholar to be able to meditate. This is because the studies comprise the five elements of Buddhism practise including the rejection of desire from one's life and the ability to live without anger and be at peace. The essence of the Buddhist teachings is about learning to be at peace and pray for peace to be throughout the world and give compassion to all living things. It teaches to always be calm and patient, giving forgiveness and understanding to people who oppose you. Never to get angry, as this anger only breeds bad thoughts and leads to bad karma. If you choose to do good things and think about other people more than yourself you will receive good karma in return and good things will happen to you in this life or the next.
There are many interesting features in a Tibetan buddhist temple, like the agregate stone floors which are beaten down and compacted using hammers, then polished by the monks using butter ghee as a treatment and 'skating' around with cloths under their feet. The butter ghee is also used as an offering and pilgrims bring it in large flasks from which they pour the liquid into metal bowls to make candle wax. Butter ghee comes from yak's milk, Tibet's answer to the lama, from which they take the meat and the fur also to use. Aswell as ghee, people donate money by placing it in the hands of the buddha statues or stuffing it into door crevasses or anywhere they can find a suitable place. We get to taste the traditional Tibetan drink of sweet butter tea when we visit a local family's house just outside Lhasa. It's like drinking milky caramel and is very fatty, but very tasty. Traditionally they take this every morning. Tibetan people look similar to the Peruvian people of the Andes mountains. They share the same weather beaten faces and darker skins that come from living at high altitude (Lhasa sits at 3600m). The lady of the house welcomes us through the main door which is heavily decorated, as is the custom, with large brass door knockers and silk scarves tied round them. Inside the whitewashed walls is a courtyard, then the main building leads off from there. The front sitting room is impressive with its large painted dresser showing off all the important offerings of food, sweets and fruit which were laid out for the celebration of Tibetan New Year last month. An adjoining room houses the family chapel with places for local monks to sit. The interior decoration is ornate and colourful, similar to the richness of primary colours in the temples.
Tibetans have their own language originally derived from Sanskrit and its characters look very similar to Indian writing. Not at all like Chinese kangi. When Gyatsuo speaks he sounds Mongolian or even Turkish. It's a very different sounding language to the tonal ups and downs of Chinese. These people are in no way shape or form Chinese. There is a small Han population in the town, meaning the main ethnic group from China, their skins tend to be paler. I can notice in Gyatsuo's speech pattern when he talks about them though that he perhaps doesn't give them the same respect as he does ethnic Tibetans.
We are fascinated by the Tibetan people in traditional clothes spinning prayer wheels as they circumbulate clockwise round the Potala Palace and the Jokhang Temple. Some of the little old ladies and men have such characterful faces. They make the pilgrimages from the countryside villages once a week and in particular on a Monday. Outside the main door of the Jokhang Temple in the main square, we see the extraordinary act of prostration performed as a sign of prayer to buddha. The people bend and lie face down, slap their hands, in which they hold wooden blocks to slide along the ground with, then push themselves back up to standing, repeating this I don't know how many times. As we make the clockwise walk round Barkhor Street which encircles the Jokhang Temple, Greg nearly falls over a man prostrating, as he collapses down just behind where Greg is walking!

Pictures form the Temple of Heaven

2010-04-28T01:30:00.001-05:00

inside and outside the Temple of Heaven

men enjoying card games in the temple's grounds

Tour: Day 3 09.04.10 Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, Kung Fu Show

2010-04-28T01:26:00.002-05:00

ceiling decoration in the Painted Corridor at the Summer Palace

Summer Palace pagoda

Summer Palace garden from the lake

The Summer Palace was where the reigning emperor would spend the warmer months from April to August to enjoy the rest and relaxation of the beautiful landscaped surroundings of the parkland and lakes constructed by the Ming emperor Zhu Di when he moved the country's capital to Beijing. It has been made most famous by its occupance of the Qing Empress, otherwise known as the Dragon Lady. She ruled from 'behind the curtain'. Her son ascended the throne when he was very young so she controlled his doings by dictating to him from behind the curtain of the imperial throne. We were lucky enough to view this yellow silk swathed throne with accompanying yellow silk curtain on display in the Forbidden City. She is known as the Dragon Lady because she was a very harsh character and viewed herself as the most powerful in the state. Everyday she would be pampered with pearl cream to keep her looking younger and for her meals, 126 dishes were prepared separately for the health of the mind and body. She would pick only a few to indulge in. She had complete control over her son and when he died young she claimed the throne for her nephew and pushed him into marrying her niece for his empress. The ceremony of choosing a wife and a chief concubine involved the emperor being presented with a vast selection of girls picked from upper class families. Once he'd chosen he would give the jade sceptor to the one he desired as his empress and the corazon sceptor to his chosen concubine. The Dragon Lady forced him into choosing her niece who was fiercely ugly (in Chinese eyes, she had a long 'horse face') for his wife and he was able to elect his preferred lady, Lily as his concubine. The Dragon Lady then proceeded to imprison the Emperor and his wife in the Summer Palace and reigned as an Empress in her own right. She would take walks down the 'painted corridor' by the lake's edge (the longest corridor of its kind in the world) to contemplate her actions as ruler and for general exercise in the pursuit of longevity of life. In Chinese culture, a long and healthy life is the main goal for one's existence. Herbal teas such as ginseng and jasmine are drunk on a daily basis because of their health restoring qualities and regular exercise in the form of Tai Chi is a favourite among the older generation for suppleness and general fitness. The pharmacies in China supply Chinese herbal medicine as opposed to Western style, with an array of goods, including dried mushrooms and fish as well as traditional tablets and liquids. When we visit the Temple of Heaven to the south of the Forbidden City we encounter Chinese people from all walks of life participating in communal pastimes such as card playing, dancing and hackysack. In the covered walkway leading up to the entrance gate of the temple people fill the place with their laughter and music. Cobing informs us that Chinese people tend to prefer loudness and communal activity than seeking solitude. When many of the low rise village style houses in the city were demolished and the residents rehoused in apartment blocks their sense of community and neighbourliness was lost so this is why they come here now. The Temple of Heaven houses sacred slabs on which the accomplishments of the emperor are inscribed and it has a circular mound with a prayer stone in the centre, used by the emperor to pray to the heavens and to his ancestors.

The Great Wall

2010-04-28T01:24:00.000-05:00

Tour: Day 2 08.04.10 13 Ming Tombs, Great Wall at Mutianyu

2010-04-28T01:19:00.005-05:00

statue of Emperor Zhu Di and his tomb gate

the Sacred Way leading to the tomb site flanked by stone guardians

Emperor Zhu Di's tomb complex is the biggest at the Ming dynasty tomb site northwest of Beijing. The site was initially chosen for its location south of the Tiansu mountain range, guarded on each side by the Tiger and Dragon hills which sit at the foot of the Sacred Way, a long promenade, which the Emperor would have to walk on his on steam to pay his respects, lined with significant guardian statues leading from the entrance gate to the tombs. Emperor Zhu Di was the third emperor of the Ming dynasty (1368 - 1644) and is one of the most well known for his construction of the Forbidden City and Summer Palace in Beijing. He was an impressive ruler but was also a ruthless man. It is a recurring desire of every emperor, as they are believed to be a mortal god having received the Mandate of Heaven, that they be immortalised in the magnificent buildings and monuments they leave behind. Sacrifices of animals and women were ritually performed to bring better fortune to the productivity of the country and the prevention of natural disasters, seen as the acts of the gods. The emperors would attend the temples at times of harvest making, rice planting and significant changes of season to pay their respects to their ancestors and pray for good rainfall and good fortune and happiness. The emperors, although having ascended the throne through lineage customs, could be usurped by a farmer bent on reform and a desire for power. This happened at the end of the Ming era when the weak emperor was overthrown by one of his lowly subjects. His success as ruler did not last however, because, as history reveals, the Manchurian warriors from the north invaded, and the emperor took his own life. The Manchus managed to break through the Great Wall that bordered the north of China and moved southwards fighting their way into power of the great country and forming the Qing dynasty. They followed the age old ruling customs of the Chinese imperial system and reigned up until 1911, as one of the most important dynasties in Chinese history. The Great Wall was built at three different time periods under different rulers. The first was during the Han (206 BC - 220) when the building period lasted for the entirety of the dynasty. The majority of these earliest undertakings are now lost to the sands of the desert. The later parts remain virtually intact and the 6km stretch at Mutianyu, 2.5 hours drive north of Beijing is maintained and repaired for visiting. We're immediately impressed by the engineering required to traverse the steep sided mountains and valleys. The route of the wall descends in one direction and backs on itself to ascend in another. Arms break off at right angles with watchtowers and a line of beacon towers can just be made out in the distance on the mountain tops to warn the soldiers ready at the wall about any potential invaders. Each section of the wall is, on average, 100m long with a watchtower on each end which doubled as sleeping quarters for the thirty or more soldiers who manned that section. The wall formed a successful line of defence for many years but was scaled and broken through by the Manchus in the 17th century. As we walk along the stone path flanked by low walls we contemplate that even though the wall is, on average, 10-12 m high and manned by thirty guards on each section, if a battalion of mounted Manchu warriors with spears and determination wanted to defeat the wall they could probably kill the soldiers on top quite easily and scale the height using ropes, breaking through with battering rams and dismantle it.

'Loyal to the Communist Party, loyal to myself!'

2010-04-28T01:19:00.001-05:00

Our guide, Cobing, tells us his father and grandfather both are Communist Party members and they've had to prove their worth to achieve this status. They view his profession of tour guide as unworthy to become a member also. It's not a terrible problem for Cobing but it's a shame he doesn't get the approval of his family because he is very intelligent. He has a degree and speaks English very well. Although Cobing laughs jokingly about some of the things the Communist Party under Chairman Mao got up to during the Cultural Revolution, like destroying some of the Ming emperors' tombs because they symbolised Feudalism, he does speak highly of the developments in the country during the time of the founding of New China. The general standard of living for the Chinese population increased and the continuing legacy is one of looking after the people. Services tend to run better here than in many countries we've visited. For instance, when using legitimate taxis in Beijing (indicated by a B at the front of their numberplates) if you are charged too much and retain a receipt to this effect you may contact the taxi company and receive ten times the cost of the journey in compensation. This culture of retaining standards of service runs through to the upkeep of parks and cultural monuments throughout the city. There are numerous signs outlining ways of making a complaint to the staff and a substantial complaints office situated at the end of your visit. Beijing is proud of its ancient culture and Mao even, wanted in on this enthusiasm and so had his portrait hung on the city's south gate and a wide, nine lane street constructed perpendicular to the sacred north to south axis of the Forbidden City, at the bottom of Tiananmen Square as a statement of his allegiance to China. As a follower of Buddhism he consulted his monk for suggestions on how to retain a powerful presence even after death and forever into the future. The monk told him if you build a great road at the gate of the ancient city and have your image always displayed there you will remain ever popular. But, he warned it is not your destiny to enter any of the ancient monuments and so, Mao never stepped foot into Beijing's Forbidden City, Ming tombs, Summer Palace or Temple of Heaven. He is photographed as having visited the tombs but remained on the outside of the threshold smoking and reading as his red guards went in to attempt to uncover the secret of the Dingling tomb location. This tomb was sought by Mao for destruction because the emperor whose body lay there represented a feudal state during his reign and all the riches and sacrifices he was buried with were to be destroyed as an act against such wasteful imperialism.

Hutong and Tiananmen Square

2010-04-28T01:15:00.002-05:00

Views of Beijing's Hutong district

Tiananmen Square

more pictures of Beijing

2010-04-28T01:09:00.001-05:00

South Gate of Tiananmen Square at night

Ethnic Cultures of China Museum

Ethnic Cultures of China Museum

07.04.10 Bank Notes Tour: Day One

2010-04-28T01:03:00.002-05:00

The Forbidden City

dragon with pearl in the ceiling of one of the throne rooms in the Forbidden City

The Forbidden City

Peoples Congress Hall, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, Hutong tour
Cathy, our guide, is very pro Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution he instigated. She speaks proudly of the Chairman as being a saviour to the Chinese people, increasing their standard of living very highly since before him it was very low. Although dead and having been replaced by Mr Hu, today's President, Mao is still revered in a god like status, his portrait renewed every year on the gate of Tiananmen Square to prevent any deterioration. We visit the Peoples Congress Hall where the government sit and where representatives from each of the 23 Chinese provinces each have a specially designed and interior decorated meeting room. Our next stop is the Forbidden City which sits directly behind Tiananmen Square, which incidentally is the largest public square in the world. The Forbidden City was the palace of the emperors of China from 1404 onwards, at the beginning of the Ming dynasty when the capital was moved to Beijing. It continued to be used by the Qing which superseded the Ming, up until the abolishment of imperialism in 1912. The red painted halls with yellow coloured roofs run six in direct line with one another, the three at the front used for state business and the three at the back for family matters. The halls still house the original 600 year old thrones covered in yellow silk, an auspicious colour meaning longevity in life, which was used in abundance throughout the palace. Above them hang, in each hall, a sculpted dragon holding a giant pearl, another symbol of long life and good fortune. The dragon, as a motif, appears on all the doors in moulded metal and on the stone carved steps leading from the halls into the vast open air squares. Numbers are also important in ancient Chinese culture as there are five stone bridges which cross the palace's inner moat, representing the five elements of earth, fire, water, wood and metal. The emperor would be swathed in pure silk surrounded by his concubines and eunuchs being fanned if he was too hot or heated by underfloor coals if he was too cold. The ceremonies would've been vast affairs and even up until the beginning of the 20th century they still carried on. The sixth and last building was reserved for weddings and the Empress' birthday celebrations. It's full of red silk hangings carrying the symbol of double happiness and the colour red, we learn, also has the meaning of happiness in life. Surrounding the palace's high walls and moat, in a perfect square of at least 2.5 kms on each side, there are Hutongs, which are the ancient dwellings of the imperial servants and militiamen. These close knit community dwellings have been preserved by the government as a national treasure along with the palace and the families that now live in them are many generations under the same roof. Closed off grey walls with the occasional entrance door give way to tight alleyways on to which four different houses open out. We're unable to enter the private forecourts but we do have the privilege of dining in a renovated Hutong which has been turned into a restaurant and guesthouse. It has an inner yard with small doors leading off on either side. We think it very admirable the government is preserving these unique buildings by repairing and modernising them when they could so easily have deemed them unnecessary and bulldozed them to make way for another faceless apartment block.

Beijing 03.04.10 - 06.04.10

2010-04-28T00:49:00.002-05:00

Walking Street south of Tiananmen Square

Soong Chingling's garden (She was the wife of Sun Yatsen, the first revolutionary leader in post-imperialist China)

Bell Tower/ roof of Drum Tower

Beijing could not be more different to the places we've just been visiting. First of all, in terms of climate, we've gone right down to the bottom end of the scale. It feels like winter here, a cold wind blows and the sun is the only warmth at the highest point during the day. The city itself seems very wintery in its cold coloured apartment blocks, which are very non-descript and the spindly trees which are only just starting to grow leaves. It's all very much like a Lowry painting- people in winter clothes silhouetted against vast white and grey built up landscapes. We take a shuttle bus to downtown from the airport. We tried the underground but were refused entry on their security check because Greg's carrying two knives in his luggage and they showed up on the xray. At the entrance to every subway station, Tiananmen Square and every government building there are security checks. Our hostel is an old traditional Hutong building which used to be a restaurant. It's built round an inner courtyard that's open to the elements, as necessitated by Feng Shui and the room doors lead off this. It's odd to us that we need central heating now as we're so used to bumping up the air conditioning in every place we stay. One of the first things we do is purchase a puffer ski jacket each to keep cosy. There's a walking street (it's pedestrianised) nearby which leads up to the South Gate of Tiananmen Square. The Square, Mao's mausoleum and the sacred Forbidden City all line up exactly on a north to south axis in the centre of the city. The walking street was designed and built for the Olympic Games in 2008 to present a pleasant place to sightsee and shop surrounded by traditional style specially designed buildings. It feels like Christmas to us wandering up and down as Christmas in the UK is the only time to see many people out and about on the streets in the evening buying last minute presents- and it's freezing cold. Beijing has many places to visit. The Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, the Summer Palace, the Great Wall, the Olympic stadium not to mention all the special emperor's gardens and museums in the centre of downtown. We spend our first full day on a self guided walking tour and we soon realise the distances on the map are a lot further than we think. The city is very easy to navigate though with its wide streets and all the street signs are translated into English also. We grow to really like the airiness and prettiness of the place with it's well tended gardens and long tree lined boulevards. The pavements are well looked after and there is very little litter. If someone does drop something there'll be soon enough a street sweeper along to pick it up. We find the population to be not as controlled as we expected however. It's not like Hong Kong where there are signs warning you not to do sit, stand, litter, spit, lie down etc. In Beijing we witness men fishing out of the city's manmade lakes where people are out promenading or paddling round in tourist boats. There are many police and security guards present but they turn a blind eye to such things. And, with our sensitive British constitutions, we're a bit taken aback by the gutteral noises of everyone clearing their throats and then spitting on the ground anywhere and everywhere. And the unusual design of toddlers' pants and trousers where the crotch has been cut out in order that their mums can hoist their legs up wherever they are to do their business on the ground. I guess it's more environmentally friendly by not using nappies but most probably it's just cheaper and it lets the babys' bums breathe (no nappy rash!).

We find the younger generation a lot more contemporary in their styles and attitudes than in previous East Asian countries we've visited and more open to holding hands and showing affection in public. A lot of the young guys have adopted big hair with long fringes and sharp angles, teamed with shiny coloured bomber jackets, skinny jeans and white sneakers. The girls can be very feminine with their trends towards doll like accessories, little bow clips in their hair and lacy froo froo dresses with button details. Some young people act like they've never seen a white person with blond hair before and insist on taking pictures of us and posing with us. This is a compliment to begin with but after we've been followed around an art gallery while we're trying to look at paintings, it gets a bit much. To defend myself I take out my big SLR camera and point straight back at them hoping that it'll give them the message. It often doesn't!

HK's fabulous parks

2010-04-02T07:07:00.000-05:00

more photos from HK

2010-04-02T07:05:00.000-05:00

Hong Kong 31.03.10 - 02.04.10

2010-04-02T07:00:00.003-05:00

Hong Kong is a major culture shock to us arriving from Hanoi. It's so much more affluent. It's so clean and ordered. We're picked up at the airport by a limo Greg's sister Alex has put on for us. She's organised for us to stay in an aparthotel designed by Philippe Stark as a birthday gift to us. The drive into town is smooth and there are no random moto drivers parked up by the sides of the carriageway or ladies selling fruit by the side of the road. Everything's clean and the legacy of British influence is evident; you drive on the left here and the roadsigns are of the same design as the UK. We have views across the harbour to the lines of apartment blocks in the distance and we notice even the cranes that lift the crates are lined up perfectly. Our hotel is in the Causeway Bay area to the east of central district. Our room is full of luxuries including a 180 degree revolving flat screen TV so we can watch our DVDs on the couch or from the bedroom! Very cool, thanks Alex. The skyline is the most impressive sight in Hong Kong and it's best appreciated from across the water in Kowloon Bay. We take the very efficient MTR metro and find ourselves in yet another mall as we try to find the exit to get out. It's similar to Singapore here in the obsession for shopping. There must be as many shops as people!- well, maybe not quite that many, but there are a lot. We enjoy the nightly illumination display that the main skycrapers put on for the tourists every night at 8pm.

They are synched with a music soundtrack which is pumped through speakers on the waterfront where we're standing and across the radio. My favourite building is the Bank of China with it's friendly facets in triangular form which are lit on each edge by bright white lights.

We're impressed by the cleverness of architectural design here and town planning. It's a difficult terrain to build on being made up of steep hills and rocky mountains.

They've put in the longest outdoor escalator in the world to aid the people in their hike up the levels of the city. In the morning it only runs downhill, to cope with the commuter traffic and thereafter it runs upwards. It's quite a nice sensation, to be floating above the level of the street.

There are many walkways running separately to the road flyovers which accommodate pedestrians getting from A to B easily. As a pedestrian it's nice to be adequately catered for, rather than having to hug precariously to the side of carriageways while lorries woosh past. We notice however that we have to be careful crossing the roads because, if there's a marked crossing you must use it only when there's a green man. We find it odd that people wait at the crossing even if they can see that there's nothing coming. And we put it down to, there must be a fine system if you cross when it's red. There's a sense of decorum here, of being self diligent and not doing anything stupid or that would cause offence to others. There are little notices in the park to not lie on the benches, not to feed the birds in case of dirtying the surroundings, and certainly not to litter, which incurs a large fine. When we innocently park ourselves on a ledge in a shopping mall while I tuck into a danish I've just bought, we're told by the guard there's to be no sitting here in this mall. It's good that they want to keep everywhere clean and ordered, but you feel a little controlled by it. It's also interesting that plastic bags are a big no no here. They don't give them out at any shop. You have to buy them wherever you go if you want one. This is so different to Vietnam and the other South East Asian countries. They'll give you a bag, then another bag, then straws if you've bought drinks and napkins too. They believe they're giving good service by doing this and are not aware of the repercussions of using too much plastic. It's just another reminder of the differences in levels of development and education in the different countries.
You definitely get the sense that Hong Kong is trying hard to be the financial and commercial capital of the world. It's doing everything right. Although it's one of the most densely populated areas in the world and there are high levels of pollution, they are attempting to combat this by increasing their green areas in the city and promoting their fabulous parks and gardens.

Halong Bay 29.03.10 - 30.03.10

2010-04-02T05:07:00.002-05:00

Halong Bay is a vast landscape of limestone crags popping up out of the sea in all shapes and sizes. It's similar to Phang Nga Bay in Thailand we visited, but it's on a much larger scale. The rows of misty mountains go far into the distance getting fainter and fainter in colour, as the still fog hangs over them. We stay on a traditional wooden junk boat in a pretty little cabin and have our dinner and breakfast served in the boat's dining room. It's very restful to sit in our cabin and watch the mountains go by as we sail along. There's almost always a fog which obscures the sun here and today's no exception. With no wind it makes the water very calm and we silently drift through smaller bays surrounded by cliffs where small floating villages are to be found. The men do the fishing and the women try their hand at selling drinks and food to the many tourist boats that pass by.

Ninh Binh 26.03.10 - 27.03.10

2010-04-02T03:31:00.003-05:00

Greg's in his element again because we hire another motorbike here in Ninh Binh to tour the surrounding countryside which is extra special because of it's impressive array of limestone crags that protrude out of the landscape of water fed rice paddies. It's known as 'Halong Bay on the paddies' and it doesn't disappoint. Although the sun refuses to come out to play we still very much enjoy riding off the main road and following our noses down some side routes through the green paddies to come across pretty vistas and very amiable people. The area is being heavily developed with the emergence of many new hotels and access roads. We find it ironic that the very cliff scenery the tourists are coming to see is being quarried into non existance to construct the hotels they'll stay in. There are still pockets of traditional life to be seen, ladies tending their rice crops knee deep in water that must be pretty cold, judging by the air temperature and hidden valleys where all the tourist buses on the main road cannot be heard anymore and people are living in a tranquil green paradise as they've always done. It's a very idyllic place, soothing to the soul you might say.

a small temple in the valley is a popular place for wedding banquets

Hanoi 24.03.10 - 25.03.10

2010-04-02T03:30:00.000-05:00

Hanoi's Old Quarter, as it's officially known, is a warren of streets manic with traffic and shop sellers, craftsmen and street chefs cooking up breakfast noodles, lunch and dinner and many meals in between for their customers who sit comfortably on tiny childrens' size plastic stools, chopsticks at the ready. They seem to be blissfully unaware of the pedestrians, albeit mostly tourists (nobody else walks here apart from the peasant women with their shoulder baskets full of fruit or wares) who are trying to weave in and out of them along the pavement. Pavements are virtually nonusable for walkers here. They are the domain of endless parked up scooters, shops who've extended their selling space by laying out their wares on cloths, families and friends squatting or sitting on those tiny stools having a gold old natter, or craftsmen who work with hammers, chisels, welding tools directly on the street making metal containers and cooker hoods, furniture, wooden shrines and buddhist prayer slabs. This means you have to take your life in your hands and gingerly walk down the road, hugging the edge as close as you can because scooters, bicycles and cars are hot on your tail beeping you out the way constantly. Sometimes it's necessary to cross the road by simply stepping out into the traffic. This may seem crazy, but when the line is relentless and they tend to only be travelling at around 10km an hour there's little chance that someone will be silly enough to hit you. They'd probably end up just falling off their bike anyway. We find it all quite tiring, and we've only been out and about for one day. The residents here have it day in day out. There's a distinct increase in smog levels in this part of town especially. We've noticed a visible dust hanging over the streets. It's actually a lot cooler here than it was even in Hue. The average day temperature is around 18 degrees, which is a damn sight less than the 34 we've been used to. We're positively chilly and have to get out the winter woolies again. It's welcome to not be sweltering midday onwards, but we're missing the intense sunshine that coloured everything up so nicely further south. It's cloudy here with a low fog masking the sun's attempts to break through.

photos from the parade rehearsal- Hue Citadel

2010-04-02T03:26:00.001-05:00

a schoolboy plays with the Vietnamese flag to pass the time before it's their turn to practise

Hue Forbidden City photos

2010-04-02T03:24:00.000-05:00

Hue- Nguyen Lords' Tombs and Forbidden City 23.03.10

2010-04-02T03:03:00.002-05:00

the gardens of the pagoda we visited outside Hue

the temple of the last emperor of Vietnam

can you spot the 'Vietnamese' girl through the temple door?

one of the elaborate tombs we visited

A century ago the last in a long line of emperors ruled in part under the watchful eye of the French owners of Vietnam. He had virtually no political power but the French government allowed him to be a figurehead for the people if nothing else. The catholic missionaries of the day tried to infiltrate the communities and they have had a lasting effect with a significant portion now attending church, but they were rebuffed by many- the Vietnamese had been invaded and conquered by the Chinese who they had fought off and were not about to relinquish to some Europeans. Buddhism along with Confucianism and Daoism constitutes a Vietnamese spirituality which has strong links with ancestor worship and Chinese animism. The average Vietnamese may have difficulty explaining which faith they belong to but generally they will attend a temple at least once a week and burn incense sticks on a daily basis. The Vietnamese emperors represent a lost age of wealth and ritual, many having hundreds of wives and concubines. In the cultural heritage city of Hue the old citadel sits behind high brick walls and was where Gia Long, emperor in 1802 built his forbidden city and palace buildings, the inner courts of which only eunuchs and his concubines were allowed to enter. Outside the city limits he chose a significant site in the countryside to construct an elaborate tomb complex for his son Minh Mang. The area is dotted with royal tombs and temples in amongst small farming settlements and half jungle half forest covered hills. Unfortunately with the advent of communism with Ho Chi Minh liberating the country from the French colonists in 1945, the ancient monuments were left to ruin with the belief that the age of emperors and lavish lifestyles was over. Ho Chi Minh's portrait adorns many billboards across the country along with colourful painted posters showing workers in all different uniforms, from peasants' conical hats to army greens, standing to attention alongside each other, striving for a better future. We're impressed by the scale of a procession practise we encounter outside the main gates to the forbidden city. It was in practise for the Independence Day parade on the 26th. Regiments of young armed soldiers stand in formation alongside ethnic hill tribe ladies with guns, 'Daz white' battalions of chief commanders, flag bearers and a school marching band. There isn't really a feeling of a communist state here though. The young men giggle at us as we walk up and down the lines taking pictures and the kids in the marching band are having a good laugh chasing each other with flagpoles. We meet a Vietnamese girl from Saigon who doesn't really admit the country follows communism in its truest sense. She sees it more that the government tries to help the people- it's a government for the people. We see much wealth being accumulated here in Vietnam with development in the tourist industry especially, but still the average person has to work very hard just to make ends meet. This girl we meet, she's studying for a degree but can only spend 1 1/2 hours per day learning as she has to work in a call centre to get by. She has very good english as she speaks to foreigners on the phone but still asks us many questions about the language because she finds it difficult communicating with people who have strong accents. The english language is a hard one to grasp, even for so-called english speaking people, let alone foreign workers trying desperately to understand the different ways of saying the same thing. The forbidden city and the tomb complexes have the same general architectural design in terms of layout. A symmetrical gate leads on to large courtyards with statues, or stone obelisks through to a sacred temple building housing relics and lavishly decorated with broken pottery ceramic designs or gold guildng. There is more often than not a body of water in the form of moats and lotus flower square ponds, surrounded by traditionally Chinese flowering trees and sculpted greenery. At the tombs the parkland is very tranquil, being out of the city and surrounded by forest, and the abundance of fluttering butterflies makes it fairytale like.

more photos from Vietnamese countryside

2010-04-02T02:58:00.001-05:00

there are posters and billboards everywhere showing the different types of worker that make up a successful communist society

more photos from the Vietnamese countryside

2010-04-02T02:48:00.002-05:00

Vietnam's such a low lying country, the water table is very high. Most houses in the countryside have waterfilled ponds on their lands, which they use for cultivation.

tobacco plantation in front of a countryside cemetery. There's a tendency for people to bury their dead in the middle of fields or plantations, if the deceased worked on the land. The shrines in the fields, perhaps bring a sense of the spirits watching over the success of the crops and the family left behind. They are Catholic in majority in some areas here, a legacy from the French missionaries.

photos from the bike- countryside

2010-04-02T02:45:00.001-05:00

snapped from the bike driving back from My Son

My Son Moto Excursion 21.03.10

2010-04-02T02:37:00.001-05:00

On a foggy mist-laden morning we drive out of town on our hired scooter, through the lush green countryside to visit the ancient Cham ruins of My Son, 40km west of Hoi An. At 6am the roads are starting to get busy with commuters on their way to work by scooter and bicycle and Greg has to adapt to the somewhat bizarre rules of the road, most notably crossing into the oncoming stream of traffic to turn left, rather than waiting turn. Somehow, the majority of the time, people just weave in and out of each other's way with frequent beeps to warn oncomers of their intentions. The Cham dynasty of the region of Champa, which covered most of modern day Vietnam and stretched into Laos and Cambodia was akin to the Angkor civilizations at Siem Reap.

It's architecture of temples and prasats is in many ways the same as the temples of Angkor, with definitve Hindu influence in the form of statues and carvings of Lord Visnu and Ganesa.

A lot of the complex is hidden under metres of earth and even the most restored one has been overgrown with vegetation. It makes for quite an atmospheric experience however, in the dim morning light through the light rain which is descending on us. We are unused to this coolness in the jungle and it's a very pleasant walk around the temple walls and surrounding forest. Sure enough however, by late morning, the sun breaks through and the heat of the day sets in again. We have a lot of fun on our drive back through the countryside, stopping en route to take some typical Vietnamese rice paddy photos and doing the odd detour down a side road, leading through some quiet farmhouses and fields. Greg loves his bike and insists on doing a circuit round Hoi An and out to the nearby beach, where there's immense development going on, building hotel spas and complexes.

more photos of Hoi An

2010-04-02T02:31:00.001-05:00

there are rice paddies in between the rows of houses

we went to a traditional Vietnamese music and dance performance

every town and village has it's market

more photos from Hoi An

2010-03-30T07:18:00.001-05:00

colourful lanterns on sale

giant lanterns on the river

the Japanese covered bridge at night

a shrine in one of the sacred meeting halls

Hoi An 20.03.10 - 21.03.10

2010-03-30T07:13:00.002-05:00

Hoi An displays architecture from Chinese and Japanese influences as well as traditonal Vietnamese. It was an important sea trading town with it's position on the river beckoning ships from many ports in the South China Sea. It's low rise traditional buildings with their distinctive pan tiled roofs and curved shaped gables have been preserved to retain their original character, especially since the town was named by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1994. It's my favourite small town we've come across because I love the colours of the buildings and the worn paintwork and general rustic-ness, if that's a word! There's a covered Japanese bridge across one of the small streams running through the town which has its own mini temple attached, guarded by monkey statues on one side and dog statues on the other.

The place reminds me a little of Melaca in Malaysia- the buildings are similar in design and decoration, from the same era. Melaca was of course a very important trading town as well. Some of the houses are open to the public and the house of Tan Ky is still privately owned by the seventh generation family and we are welcomed with a cup of hot tea and shown round the ground floor where there are beautiful examples of Japanese style dark wood carved beams and inlaid mother of pearl furniture. The temples and religious meeting houses in the town show us a form of Chinese inspired deity which we have not come across til now, focussing on ancestor worship with shrines devoted to key members of the community and prayers written out in Chinese kanji gold lettering or strung from the ceiling to cone shaped incense coils. The gates to these buildings are traditional Chinese monoliths with several roof formations decorated on the edges with ceramic tiled dragons and Chinese guardians. Spirit shrines are still as big a deal here in Vietnam as they have been throughout South East Asia and everywhere you look people have burnt three incense sticks before a spirit shrine and placed them before it along with fruit and other offerings. The town takes on a real authentic atmosphere after sundown with the thousands of coloured lanterns strung across the streets and river bridges bathing the old buildings in soft coloured light.

Vietnam Today

2010-03-18T03:17:00.002-05:00

Vietnam today is a very prosperous place and seems to have propelled itself right into the 21st century despite the setbacks of the 60s. There's building development taking place all the time in Saigon with new buildings, highways and bridges under construction and the city appears commercially strong with many businesses doing very well. It's worlds apart from Phnom Penh and Cambodia. The 3 million bicycles in Saigon have been replaced by scooters and the streets are buzzing day and night with them.

Agent Orange and Other Atrocities

2010-03-18T03:10:00.003-05:00

We visit a handicapped handicrafts centre just outside Saigon where victims of Agent Orange, the dioxin chemical that was sprayed across the countryside in Vietnam by the Americans during the war, work to create laquerwear paintings on to plates, bowls, jewellery boxes and screens to sell to the public. These are the children of the Vietnamese civilians who were exposed to the chemical and have subsequently suffered birth defects such as loss of limbs or poorly functioning limbs and deafness. The work they produce is incredibly skillful, using tiny fragments of eggshell and mother of pearl to inlay intricate designs into their paintings. The long term effects of Agent Orange are still being felt by the Vietnamese people. The U.S. administration compensates the Vietnamese people through aid packages but they have still have not been brought to justice over using the chemical and others like it over such vast areas of the country, not only causing such inhumane suffering as mutations of the body but also complete deforestation and destruction of wildlife in the area affected.

photo of an American soldier with a tank of Agent Purple, another chemical poison used.

These areas still lie to waste. Nothing grows there. There were many atrocities during the Vietnam war, some admitted to like the massacre of innocent women, children and elderly men committed by the soldiers under the command of now Senator Bob Kerrey, but although he has brought forth his involvement, there still has been no prosecution.

He claims that things done in the past should be forgotten. He believes the Vietnamese people want to forget as he does. This does not appear to be the case when we visit the War Museum in Saigon. The displays here are all anti American and call for prosecution of war crimes committed during the war. It's very obvious the Vietnamese, as a country, still feel very strongly about the atrocities that were committed by the US army and want to see some kind of justice. It's ultimately so difficult to prove such things however. What actually happened in the field can be told differently by so many factions. Previous to coming here, we'd always been under the impression that the US army went in to Vietnam to help defeat the Viet Cong who represented a communist threat to the country. However, from the information we've gleaned here, it seems they were here long before the actual war started and actually engineered the entire conflict for their own gains, trying out weapons and using some that had already been officially banned by the UN international council. The war was shown to the American public as successful combat against the ruthless communist guerillas, with propaganda illustrating their 'boys' proudly fighting for the cause. In fact those same soldiers were committing awful deeds, we saw a horrifying photo of an American soldier carrying the blown up remains of a Vietnamese soldier but there was only half a head and some entrails left. There were other photos of American soldiers setting alight villagers houses, torturing civilians for information and scenes of the aftermath of dead bodies from massacres conducted by the US army in their attempts to capture the Viet Cong.

a strange one- a photo of a poster showing American soldiers holding the heads of Vietnamese they've just decapitated.

Cu Chi Tunnels

2010-03-18T03:04:00.002-05:00

Greg pulling himself out of one of the secret entrances to the tunnel system- I didn't think he'd fit- but he did!

If a member of the Cu Chi village guerillas, which included young girls, was to kill a number of American soldiers, they were classed as heroes - "American Killer!". The Cu Chi people were from a peaceful rural area outside Saigon where there were many farms. When the American soldiers came in the Vietnam war and tried to infiltrate the region to capture Saigon they never reckoned they'd have such a difficult job with the Cu Chi people. The Cu Chi defended their homeland by tunnelling underground to hide all the villagers when the American army bombed and came with their tanks. They trapped any incoming battalion by setting traps of landmines and more traditional contraptions previously used to catch large animals. The tunnels they created spanned 250km squared and were on three levels, some more than 9 metres below the surface. They had underground rooms where they cooked (only in the morning because the smoke from the cooking coming out through an air hole, could be masked by the morning fog) and treated their sick, and they had special larger rooms for ladies who were pregnant and the elderly. The height of the tunnels is only 80cm on average and 60cm wide and they are formed purely from the compacted soil (it's very clay like here). It was an ingenious idea because it worked. There are remnants of American tanks and bomb shards all over but they were unsuccessful in their attempts to take the area. If they indeed found an entrance to the tunnel system and tried to get down it they would have found it very difficult to manouevure because of the lack of breathing space and any source of light would make navigating the tight corners almost impossible, not to mention that tight corners means guerillas can be hiding round them. At any one time there were approximately 2000 people 'living' underground in hiding. When we're invited to go down into one of the tunnel systems we're immediately aware of how hot it is underground and the tight space means we have to scamper, crouched through the dark and sometimes jump down into another level, then clamber back up to the next.

When there's no light up front (there are electric lights every now and then) it goes pitch black and it's impossible to see which way the tunnel is going, because it does twist and turn. A very claustrophobic experience, even for someone like me who doesn't normally suffer from it. And to think that some of the tunnels were less than half the size in diameter, the guerillas had to pull themselves through on their fronts and even that, for a small Vietnamese, must by tiny.

Vietnam

2010-03-18T03:03:00.000-05:00

Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)

12.03.10 - 15.03.10

The Run up to the Vietnam War (excerpt from the displays at the War Museum in Saigon)

'In the situation where the French army got more and more bogged down (they were attempting to hold on to Vietnam after the second world war) the U.S.administration strove to help the French colonialists. In September 1950, the Military Assistance Advisory Group, was activated in Saigon with the first U.S.army personnel operating in Vietnam. In May 1953 General Henri Navarre, General Chief of Staff of the NATO ground forces, was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the French Expeditionary Corps in Indochina. The "Navarre Plan" was drawn up with the ambition of "taking the initiative to defeat the Viet Minh within 18 months." U.S. vice president Nixon came to Vietnam to inspect the fulfilment of the "Navarre Plan" in Dong Giao in October 1953. After this trip the American administration accepted to provide France with $385 million of military aidsin the fiscal year of 1953 (equal to 60% of the whole war expenditure). In February 1954, while visiting the French troops in Dien Bien Phu, General W. O'Daniel, former U.S. Army Commander in the pacific, chief of U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group - Indochina, declared, "I am very enthusiastic about the prospect of war." From November 1953 onwards, Navarre started to build the group of strongholds of Dien Bien Phu with the intention to attract and wipe out the regular forces of Resistance to gain a decisive victory in the theatre of war in Indochina. After fighting day and night for 55 days, on 7th May 1954, the People's Army of Vietnam completely smashed the Dien Bien Phu group of fortresses and captured alive 16000 French troops among whom were one major- general, 16 colonels, 1749 officers and NCOs. General de Castries together with the headquarters of the Dien Bien Phu campaign surrendered unconditionally to the liberation army. On 20th July 1954 the participating parties to the Geneva Conference signed the agreement on the cessation of hostilities in Indochina, declaring the recognition of the independence, unity and territorial integrity of Vietnam. After the Geneva Agreements, the U.S. administration gradually eliminated the influence of France by the pro American elements. Ngo Dinh Diem was sponsored by U.S. administration to become "President" of the so-called "Republic of Vietnam". In May 1959, the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem, promulgated Law 10/59 authorising the special military courts to sentence to death on the spot those who were branded as "endangering the national security" in essence they were patriotic people, struggling against the savage and cruel repression of Ngo Dinh Diem. Backed up and encouraged by U.S. administration the Ngo Dinh Diem regime tried to sabotage the Geneva Agreements systematically, refused to hold consultations on general elections for unification of the country, made indiscriminate arrests, detentions and killings of patriotic people. Not contenting themselves with the repressive and murderous U.S./Ngo Dinh Diem regime, people from all walks of life in South Vietnam gathered together to form the National Front for Liberation of South Vietnam in order to overthrow the dictatorial regime of Ngo Dinh Diem, putting an end to the American intervention, building a democratic regime and advancing towards peace and reunification of the country. Fearing the collapse of Ngo Dinh Diem regime, the U.S. authorities set out the "special warfare" strategy, increasing their henchman military forces in number together with strengthening modern military equipment and weapons aswell as training and command assisted by the American military advisors. Military equipment and weapons were carried into Vietnam in great quantities by the U.S. administration. In December 1961, 33 (C) H-21 C twin rotor helicopters were brought to Saigon. In February 1962 the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam was formed under the command of General Paul D. Harkins. By the end of 1963 the U.S. administration sent 16300 military advisors to Vietnam. The Staley-Taylor plan anticipated that the "pacification" of South Vietnam would be completed by end of 1962. Besides intensifying the mopping-up operations, the Staley-Taylor "pacification plan" also proposed the "national policy" of setting up 16000 "strategic hamlets", which in fact were huge concentration camps where the U.S. authorities and the Saigon governement hoped they could keep strict control of the people by trampling on their right to freedom of residence, freedom of movement to earn their living in a normal life. The U.S. administration "escalated the war". On 2nd August 1964 the U.S. army fabricated a story about the so-called "Gulf of Tonkin Accident" accusing falsely the Navy of Vietnam Democratic Republic of having attacked the U.S. destroyer Maddox to give the U.S. congress pretext for approving the "Gulf of Tonkin Resolution" authorising the U.S. president to "take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States". The U.S. president Lyndon Johnson gave order to attack the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, a sovereign nation, thus violating flagrantly the United Nations Charter. The number of U.S. military personnel in Vietnam increased from 385300 in 1966, to 485600 in 1967, and peaked at 549500 by the end of 1969.'

Memories of Cambodia

2010-03-14T07:45:00.001-05:00

- The moto drivers and many young men wear sparkly caps that sit high on their heads- very fashionable!

- Crowded scooters and trucks carrying loads with people perched on top.

- Ladies and young girls seem to favour brightly patterned pyjamas as day dress. Go figure!

- Traditional wooden buffalo carts are still the favoured means of transporting farm produce and of course there are many oxen to be seen ploughing and munching their way through peoples' front gardens.

- litter- everywhere

- school children on pushbikes that are far too big for them, peddling their way to and from school in their clean white shirts and dark blue skirts or trousers, often barefoot.

The Killing Fields and S-21

2010-03-14T07:39:00.003-05:00

The following day our tuk tuk driver, whom we've arranged to meet us, takes us out of the city to see the Killing Fields, the infamous mass grave where thousands of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge victims were executed and buried heaped together. We're presented by an impressive stupa dedicated to the memory of those who lost their lives here and,on closer inspection we see that the inner glass casing is full of rows of skulls and a pile of victims' clothes rests underneath. There are 8000 skulls in the stupa.

A whole side of the area has not yet been excavated. Many of the bodies unearthed had been decapitated and many were women and children. It's possible to notice more remnants of clothes poking out through the soil as we walk around the edges of the graves. We're the only ones there at this early time of the morning and the fact that the clothes of the victims remain so intact and some of the buildings in the complex are original and used by the Khmer Rouges brings it home that this mass tragedy took place only a generation ago and many people still living in Cambodia would have lived through it and have many sore memories. It was on April 17th 1975 that the Khmer Rouges soldiers entered Phnom Penh to overthrow Lon Nol's government and instil their new system of extreme Maoist communism. Their plight had begun in the jungles of northern Cambodia when some semi intellectual students and their counterparts were disillusioned by the ways in which the present government were failing to award good employment opportunities for all and there was corruption at every level. Many local hill tribes people joined the movement aimed at making Cambodia a more prosperous place from the ground up. They believed everything had to be washed away, the slate wiped clean and a new country borne out of the hard work of the common people would bloom and become a success. The problems came when, once they'd begun their takeover they no longer trusted the very people they were supposed to rever. They became paranoid and started to think that the people of the country and those around them were turning against them and becoming traitors to the cause. Pol pot, as he was then known, was educated to degree level in Paris and, while in France, fraternised with the Peoples Communist Party learning of the ideals of the movement. He was a teacher in Cambodia and studied Buddhism. He also came from an upper class family who had royal connections through his sister being one of the king's favourite concubines. These facts seem incredulous when you consider that he loathed what he deemed as the 'new people', anyone who'd been at all educated, who had any connections to the aristocracy and he abolished all forms of religion under his regime. His first step was to empty all the country's cities, including Phnom Penh, whose population had swelled with refugees from the endless civil wars, of their inhabitants and force them to move back to their home villages and work on the land. They were to give up their entire lives, there was to be no education or health service and if anyone spoke against this they would be shot. He was suspicious of anyone who had a career other than being a peasant farm work and, terribly, many innocent people were interrogated, tortured and executed at prisons around the country including the biggest, S-21 in a suburb of Phnom Penh.

We visit that next and it's a very harrowing experience. During the four years of the Khmer Rouges regime 20,000 innocent Cambodians were murdered at S-21. It was a former high school converted into a torture camp almost immediately after the Khmer Rouges took power. There were four blocks, A, B, C and D and the classrooms were either divided into brick and wooden cells or left as they were so that they could become rooms of torture. We walk through each and every classroom cum torture chamber in building A which are furnished merely with the steel beds which the victims lay on and the metal bars which were used to fasten their hands to them.

Above fourteen of the beds are harrowing photos of the last victims the Khmer Rouges hadn't quite managed to finish off when they were ousted from power in 1979. The photos show the victims with their heads bashed in, sometimes arms removed and all lying in pools of their own blood. They now rest in peace in specially dug graves in the former playground of the school. An exhibition of the mug shots the Khmer Rouges soldiers took of each and every one of their victims shows hundreds of little girls, with their hair cut in the same bob style as would've been compulsory at the time, small boys and men and women of all ages including the elderly.

Some look scared but most stare blankly at the camera, their souls already lost to the knowledge of their eventual demise. Again it brings it home how recent this all was when you see, in some of the pictures, the girls have modern makeup on, allbeit it's streamed across their face through tears, and men who are trendily dressed in wide collared patterned 70s style shirts. These people were rounded up and brought here because they'd displayed some kind of association with the new people or city life. Even if you wore spectacles you were deemed to be an intellectual. We saw the tiny makeshift cells they were kept in and this building B made me feel nauseous and terrified of what I was seeing.

The spaces were only big enough to lie in and there were dried red pools of blood still visible on the tiled floor. We saw bullet holes in the walls and the numbers above the cells doors, crudely painted, corresponded to the numbers on the tags around the prisoners' necks in the photographs.Driving through the Cambodian countryside, past the stilt houses of farm workers who still don't have running water and perhaps electricity, their kids not attending school and having to work very hard just to feed their family, it's a tremendous tragedy what happened to the Cambodian people and the legacy it's had. People were split from their families, forced to work as slaves and brainwashed into the cult of following the Angkar (Khmer Rouges). The children were used as idolistic examples of the truth of the revolution, having been easily brainwashed because of their innocence and effectively used for seeking out so-called traitors. We wonder how these people are now. Can they live with themselves after they tortured and butchered their kin? In most cases they feared for their own life, knowing that if they didn't commit the atrocities they were ordered to they would suffer the same fate. Over 30% (1.7 million) of Cambodia's population was lost to the Khmer Rouges and in the subsequent years, when the Vietnamese stepped in to fight them off and formed a new socialist government, over 600,000 people dies in the famines that spread across the country in the chaos of families trying to find their way home and crops being lost because of all the bad agricultural practices of the Khmer Rouges. Western countries, in a position to help, criminally left Cambodia on it's own for the next 16 years. They were too involved in the pursuit of bringing down any threat of communist takeover and a Vietnamese government signified just that, so they even provided sanctuary for the Khmer Rouges, siding with them internationally.

more photos from Phnom Penh

2010-03-14T07:37:00.000-05:00

photos of Phnom Penh

2010-03-14T07:34:00.001-05:00

photos taken from our tuk tuk journey through the outskirts of Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh 08.03.10 - 10.03.10

2010-03-14T07:33:00.000-05:00

Although Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia, it's actually quite a small city. This probably comes from the impact of the mass genocide that was inflicted on the country's population by Pol Pot's regime in the late 70s. The city still has a few remnants of old French colonial buildings from the 1940s that have been left to rack and ruin. They were no doubt occupied by aristocrats before the Khmer Rouoges took over the city but were deserted as the armies bombarded the civilians and the destruction of a country and it's population began. The central area sits on the banks of the Tonle Sap River which flows alongside the giant Mekong and the Sisowath Quay is currently being paved and cleaned up as it's a focal point for the city, looking back on the Grand Palace and National Museum. We visit the museum in the 36 degree heat and get to see some of the more accomplished statues that were missing on our tour of the ancient city of Angkor. A lot of the heads of the Hindu gods which were gone at Angkor appear here on pedestals, some most probably looted at some point or other. It was exciting to see an example of the gold and gem 'jewellery' which was embedded into the stone carvings at Angkor. Once upon a time every statue and stone portrait in the place was adorned with a gold headress, earrings and necklaces. It must've been fabulous!

more photos of Vietnamese floating village- Kompong Chhnang

2010-03-14T07:31:00.000-05:00

Kompong Chhnang 06.03.10 - 07.03.10

2010-03-14T07:25:00.002-05:00

Kompong Chhnang, not to be confused with Kompong Cham, Kampong Thom or Kampot(!), is a small town on the southern banks of the Tonle Sap and we stop there on our bus route to Phnom Penh via Battambang. When we arrive in the town we are greeted by some moto drivers who offer to take us to a guesthouse. We think it'll be a bit of a squash on the bikes with our big bags but they manage to fit one on each in front of their seats and we hop on the back. It's the first time I've been on a scooter in ages and I'm a bit apprehensive of falling off. But, since there's no alternative transport option, we have to take them up on their offer. It turns out to be a very fortuitous decision however because, after dropping us off at a decent hotel they offer to pick us up the following morning to take us on a tour of the countryside, which is the reason why we've come here. We hastily accept, knowing it's our best option, there aren't any tourist facilities here in Kompong Chhnang, and arrange for them to pick us up at seven. On first impressions the town is poor and it's made unpleasant by the litter covering every pavement and gutter. People live amongst this mess of plastic bags and general waste. They eat just off the street in their shophouses and their kids, often barefoot, play in the surrounding tip. It's shocking but, looking closer, you realise that people do look after themselves and work very hard to get by. It's very sweet how the babies and children seem to love waving and saying hello to us. They call to us from across the street until we turn around and wave back. And they're all so cute. The next day we're picked up by Sari (my driver) and Chenun (Greg's) and taken to the outskirts of town where the rice paddies begin and, sure enough, people have already arrived to begin a day's work on the fields.

lotus' thriving in the rice paddies

Then we're whisked off to the port in the town where a multitude of wooden boats are weaving their way up and down the river, some overcrowded with passengers perched on every available surface. It's a busy place and we're offered a paddle through the Vietnamese floating village which sits just off the quay by one of the resident girls in a traditional straw hat. We wade through the rubbish piled up on the shoreline and gingerly sit ourselves down on her wooden boat, ready for her to gently paddle us around her village for anhour or so. It's a fascinating watery warren of 'streets' with floating wooden houses and families going about their normal morning business- eating, swinging their babies in hammocks, watching tv, preparing the fish freshly caught to be dried, doing laundry and other chores.

All with the only method of transport to get around being the little wooden rowboats moored up outside their porches. Some houses had more mod cons than others and some were wooden as opposed to palm leaves. Electricity cables dangled off precarious bamboo canes leading from the shoreline. It was a veritable community with families living close to one another and calling out to each other as they passed by on their rowboats. The children attended a floating school which we noticed had a catholic cross on the side. The children and babies again were very excited to see us and included a new sign in their greeting- a blown kiss in our direction! They would run round the side of their house verandah and try to get us to take pictures of them by striking poses.

We had to accept of course. The adults went about their business but some did smile at us, obviously realising that their interesting way of life was what intrigued us to come and visit them. We felt extra privilieged to be able to be so up close and personal because we spied tourist boats which skimmed past the outskirts of the village, not able to come up the narrow waterways. They were probably on cruises heading up towards Siem Reap. We paid our oarslady a nominal fee of $7USD and jumped back on land. Our moto boys took us next to the outlying villages where many families produce pots made from local clay and supply the entire country with them, to be used as stoves, water containers and general storage. We got to see a young girl handmoulding the clay in the first stage of the process and have a look at the firing kilns built in their gardens. It was a very rural existence with pigs in a pen, chickens clucking around and the majority of work done under the stilted house itself. This area is shaded and we've found it's used for most activities because of it's convenience. Some of the locals thought Greg very handsome with his blond hair and cowboy style hat and they had our drivers translate this. People are 99 times out of 100 very courteous and want to smile at you and make you feel welcome. We've seldom experienced any hostility at all. And given that we obviously represent the west with our expensive cameras and obviously our light skins, it's testament to the warmth of the Cambodian people that they treat us so well when they could so easily dismiss us as more farang come to gawk at them and their country. Our moto drivers, Saria and Chenun, are amazed that we're so old and don't have children yet. They're both younger than us and have two children each, their wives at home in the villages caring for them. My driver keeps apologising for his english, saying he's only learning but, all I feel is embarrassed I don't know more Khmer. We've had a lovely time in Kompong Chhnang and it was made all the more enjoyable because of our moto drivers who sorted out onward bus tickets to Phnom Penh for us and organised one of their friends, a tuk tuk driver in the city, to pick us up from the station.

photos from a Cambodian rural life

2010-03-13T10:17:00.002-05:00

Life after a Cambodian Landmine

2010-03-13T10:17:00.001-05:00

This is an excerpt from a leaflet given to me by a street vendor, Tok Vanna, in Siem Reap when I bought a guide book from him. 'Tok Vanna is a 41 year old Cambodian with a wife, two children and a job as a street seller- but like thousands of other Cambodians, he has been badly disabled by one of the many landmines littering the country. He told the BBC's Kate McGeown his story. It happened in 1998. I was a government soldier in command of three or four men near Bauon Village, in the western province of Battambang. It was a mad time. There were three separate resistance groups- the Khmer Rouge, supporters of King Sihanouk and those following (former premier) Son Sann. I didn't actually want to be a soldier. In fact only about half of us wanted to do the job- many people were forced to fight against their will. On the morning of the accident, I'd been training new recruits on jungle warfare techniques and survival skills. I was taking a break from training when it happened. I went to get some food, but there was thick foliage all around us, and I had to clear a path to get through. I bent over to pick something up in the way- how was I to know it would go off? I don't remember much else after that. When I woke up, I looked down and saw that both my hands had gone. I wanted to kill myself- take away my own life. There was no future for me. What could I do? How could I get a job, get married, support my family? How could I even eat? There was a grenade in a bag attached to my waist. It was there from the training exercise earlier. I arched my body round and tried to reach it. I wanted to pull out the pin, but my friend saw me just in time and took the grenade away. I was taken to a government hospital in Phnom Penh, where the authorities paid for my treatment because I was a soldier. I didn't have enough to eat though, and my family had to send me food parcels. Gradually, after the pain subsided, I stopped wanting to kill myself and dared to think about having a future. I was in that hospital for nine months. When I eventually left I was too embarassed to go back to my family and let them feed me and pay for me. So I stayed in Phnom Penh and became a beggar for over a year. I was very unhappy during that time. My mother eventually came to the city to find me and she took me home and looked after me. But I had to go back to Phnom Penh for more treatment on my arms, and I used up all my money on hospital bills and ended up back on the streets. This time an aid worker found me and brought me to Siem Reap. I was given a job working with Rehab Craft Cambodia (run by and for Cambodians with disabilities), selling local crafts and gifts to tourists visiting the temples at Angkor. Life was beginning to get better- I got married and now have two children. But I really wanted my own business, so in 2000 I gave up my job with the charity to set up my own stall selling books on the streets of Siem Reap. I'm very happy now I have this job. Life is worth living again. But there are many others who are still suffering as a result of the landmines, both here in Siem Reap and throughout Cambodia.'

We learned that there are still approximately three million landmines scattered across the Cambodian countryside. When they were laid there was no map made to show their whereabouts so they could be anywhere from the side of the road to someone's back garden or farmland. This has resulted in countless accidents with the local people being critically injured, having limbs blown off or, worst case, killed. We visit a Landmine Museum set up by Aki Ra, a former Khmer Rouge soldier who now works tirelessly to deactivate the mines and clear the land so that it's safe for people to use. He knows how to disarm the devices by gently clearing the land around it and performing a controlled explosion. He's notified of potential dangerous areas by locals who have suspicions or, have unfortunately had a run in with one. On display at the museum are a multitude of different kinds of devices he's uncovered and disarmed, including, worryingly some huge rockets, five feet long, which have most likely been dropped by the Americans and failed to go off. Some of the landmines are very small, the size of a can of coke, and some have target areas that can reach up to 250m with a 25m radius proving fatal to the victim. In the museum there's information on the Ottawa Agreement which requires countries, when they sign up, to cease all use and manufacture of landmines. Horrifyingly the US, China and Russia are among a few who haven't signed up. The US insist that their offensive strategies in Korea require the continued use of landmines. We come to the conclusion they must be a very effective way of preventing the enemy from sneaking up on you. Aki Ra has been through a lot, soldiering for both sides and himself laying a lot of the landmines he now attempts to clear. He doesn't want to dwell anymore on the horrors of the recent past and instead wants to look to the future of a safer, more prosperous Cambodia. This is a characteristic common to the current population who must've witnessed much tragedy and loss. The country is up and coming now, and although it's still very dangerous to stray off the road in case of landmines, there's a growing wealth surrounding tourism and the majority of people seem to be getting back on their feet. There's still a large deficit in the numbers of children attending school, it's not compulsory, and we see a lot of young ones involved in street selling to tourists mainly. And the social care system is non existent so people with disabilities have no help. There's a lot of evidence of humanitarian projects funded from outside the country, including clean water pumps installed in villagers houses and orphanages being set up and paid for mostly by generous benefactors. It's a completely different country to the one we've just come from- Thailand, it's bigger and better neighbour, as the Thais like to think. Cambodia, as a nation, has been historically bullied for centuries, by the Siamese on one side and the Vietnamese on the other. They fight each other for control of Cambodia's lands and the native people suffered endlessly as the armies of the two countries raped and pillaged their way through the kingdom. It was only really when the Cambodian royalty called on the French empire, who'd previously shown interest in the country, to protect them from being overthrown and losing their lands, that they managed to retain their sovereignty and hold on to the country. However, the fact that the French heavily taxed the population and introduced harsh regimes of punishment for criminals and other human rights abuses cannot be forgotten.

more photos from Angkor

2010-03-13T10:15:00.000-05:00

more photos from Angkor

2010-03-13T10:13:00.000-05:00

more photos from Angkor

2010-03-13T10:11:00.000-05:00

Cambodia

2010-03-13T10:08:00.003-05:00

Ancient City of Angkor, Siem Reap 01.03.10 - 05.03.10

Our two day bus journey to Siem Reap from Chiang Mai, including our tiring border crossing into Cambodia, leaves us pretty exhausted so we book into one of the many choices of hotels in Siem Reap and sleep it off. The next day we're ready to hit the main attraction the ancient Khmer city of Angkor, only a few kms north of town. There's a lot of land to cover as the monuments and temples are spread out over a vast area of 100km so we hire ourselves a tuk tuk driver to take us round for three consecutive days. He knows the place pretty well and takes us on two tours, the inner and outer loop and, on the last day out to the furthermost sites. Our first stop on the first day has to be Angkor Wat (after we buy our three day tickets at $40 USD each). Angkor Wat represents the pinnacle of the ancient Khmer building movement. It's five towers, called prasats, dominate the skyline and are an iconic image as you walk over the stone ramparts through the main entrance. Carved stone friezes around the inner walls illustrate Hindu stories of war and legend. This was a Hindu based society long before it became Buddhist. Prior to the Angkorean era, before 700AD, Cambodia was a kingdom of unified states called Funan and was heavily influenced by Indian religion and culture. The people traded with China and India and Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism were introduced but with some Cambodian adaptations. Jayavarman II was the first Angkorean king and overtook the kingdom at the end of the 8th century, moving it's capital to the province north of the Tonle Sap Lake, it's current location at Angkor. Little is known why he chose to do this because this area is renowned for its droughts in the dry season but many think that it may be because he wanted to emulate the legend of Hinduism of Mount Meru being the source of life (the Dangkrek Mountains are not far to the north) surrounded by oceans (the great lake of the Tonle Sap is only a few kms to the south) and the positioning may have had political merit in subduing the threat from Siam to the west. Whatever the reason Jayavarman II set in motion a building era that was to last for 600 years and produce some of the most intriguing architecture in the world. Angkor Wat was, in fact, constructed some centuries later in the 1200s by Jayavarman VII and throughout the entire complex there are examples of building from every Angkorean kings' reign. The giant projects required masses of human power to construct which came in the form of slaves from surrounding communities who were used to extract the limestone boulders from the nearby quarries of Phnom Kulen by means of fire and roll them on huge wooden wheels across the countryside to their destinations. A second wave of more skilled workers then formed the boulders into workable bricks and fit them to position. There were seldom any straight edged pieces that formed the main walls and floors as each piece had to fit exactly to the last, much like the Inca walls in South America. Bamboo scaffolding with rudimentary cranes were used to hoist the stones into place but the very nature of this type of work must've caused countless injuries and deaths to those that worked there. Finally the master carvers completed the project by creating intricate detailing and sculptural work on virtually every surface of stone which was rendered in a lime and palm sugar plaster mix. Most of this final layer has eroded and chipped away to reveal the variety of brick types and building formations underneath. Although giant bricks of carefully cut limestone were mostly used for main construction areas, laterite bricks which look really porous like some kind of volcanic stone and small, equal sized bricks are also used. Unfortunately the Angkorean engineers were not savvy as to the long term effects of not building on a good foundation and the impact of a sandy base on the movement of buildings. They were instead obsessed by the overall appearance and now it's very obvious that there were many flaws in the building techniques. For example the lack of any keystones to secure the shape of arches means that the heavy stone corbelled roofs are now caving in on themselves because the balance of weight is all wrong. And the impact of poor foundations is wreacking havoc as a majority of the buildings are crumbling into the earth. It's a sad sight to see, what looks like just a pile of boulders strewn on the ground is in actual fact, an ancient temple building and the only giveaway is the corner of original carving which has mostly been eroded. There are a lot of individual restoration projects going on around the ancient city with major backing from foreign countries. The buildings are being re-mortared, stones replaced which have crumbled and carvings cleaned up or even replaced with new ones if it's fitting. Our favourite temples are the ones with many interior corridors and strange little buildings with hidden walls and spaces to hide. It's like being a kid again, running through the tunnels and looking amazedly down each angle, sometimes faced with a pile of rubble, sometimes a stunning view down through decorated doors and on to a hidden courtyard. It's a bit eerie at times, if you happen to be left on your own and can't see where you are in the maze of pillars and windows! There's a multitude of designs of temple, the most iconic being the prasats, or Khmer towers in which images of the king and his family are housed. Many of the towers were designed as tombs and it is common thought that the whole city is a giant mausoleum. The entire population lived in and around the city however which is recorded to have topped one million residents at times. Huge barays, reservoirs, were built to provide irrigation for the surrounding farmlands in order to boost food production for the growing population.

The demise of the Angkorean civilisation is a bit of a mystery but there are several plausible arguments as to why the city was left to ruin. The over foresting in the surrounding areas led to leaching of the soils causing the land to lose it's fertility and become useless, unable to sustain the people living on it. The rise of Theravada Buddhism in Cambodia saw a slowing up in the desire for building such monumental structures as the religion focusses more on good deeds rather than the accumulation of wealth. And in the 15th century the Siamese invaded the city, ransacking it. It continued to be used by Theravada monks and many Buddha shrines were set up in the temples but by then a lot of the buildings had already been lost to the voracious jungle vegetation and it was not until the new age European explorers began to show interest in this lost city that it's popularity grew once more.

more photos from elephant camp

2010-03-13T09:56:00.002-05:00

Dodo having fun/ his mahout checks his tusks whilst feeding him

our ride

Long Neck tribesgirl

Jumbo Camp Elephant Training Centre 27.02.10 - 28.02.10

2010-03-13T09:50:00.002-05:00

Hill trekking tours are the most popular activity in the surrounding areas of Chiang Mai, so we book to go on one combined with an overnight stay at an elephant training camp. The three hour afternoon trek is tough due to the heat but we're lucky to have chosen a tour that doesn't seem to be very popular as we're the only two on it. Our 'private' guide Leung warms to Greg quickly as they exchange language lessons in Thai, English and French.

Leung showing us a field of soya beans

He explains that the local villagers burn a lot of the forest here, we walk through a lot of burning ash, for mushrooms. The mushrooms grow well in the burnt remains, however he's very saddened by the loss of wildlife and perfectly healthy vegetation. Much of the area is burnt but there are still some beautiful bamboo groves with their fresh green leaves swaying in the breeze.

look at the state of Greg's feet after our walk!

We finish our walk at the entrance to the Jumbo Camp Elephant Training Centre and are shown our sleeping quarters for the night, a one sided, straw roofed bamboo house on stilts

with spectacular views over the hill valley, rice paddies and elephants lazily crunching their food below. Idyllic, and especially so because we were the only ones there. It was a real privilege to be there with the elephants and have time to observe each of them, there were five, learning their characters. Dodo was the youngest, at four years, and seemingly the most difficult to train. The biggest one, who took us for a ride, however, seemed pretty naughty too. He always wanted to stop and look around for food. Every two steps he would reach out his trunk for some fresh bamboo but most of the good stuff had already been taken. This was a much used route and virtually every plant, bush or tree within reaching distance of the path had been destroyed. He resorted to stripping off the bark and munching on that instead and soon after we'd start to feel the vibrations in his tummy before it emerged from the other end! His mahout tried desperately to get him to go in the right direction by calling out to endlessly. Eventually we made it round the circuit but not without many snack breaks first. Greg treated him to some watermelon and apple before they removed the seat. The elephants are brought here for a few months to be trained in how to pick up logs, carry things and generally go in the right direction when asked to. We have learned that all Thai elephants are, in fact, the property of the government and are protected from having their tusks removed or from having to carry too much weight. Although they're chained up here, to keep them from wandering off, they're very well cared for by each of their live in mahouts, having three baths a day and plenty of banana trees to eat.

While Leung kindly prepares our dinner we sit and watch them going about their business, eating, being led around the park by their mahout, bathing. They're very enjoyable animals to watch because they can be very funny, scratching their bums on trees, causing the whole tree to shake vigorously or rolling in the dusty mud to cool off. We have to climb the hill to our 'room' early before it gets dark because we've forgotten to bring a torch. It's a full moon tonight though so it's not too dark. Our sleep is a bit restless though because of all the animal noises- frogs, sekadas, dogs and in the early hours of the morning the village's resident cockerels, and it's actually really cold in the early morning which we did not expect.

The next day, as part of our tour, we do a bit of rafting although there's not much water in the river and go to visit the long neck tribe village where the ladies wear metal neck coils, increasing their number each year, traditionally believed to protect them from tigers. If they had the coils removed they would die because their necks would be too weak to support their heads.

Chiang Mai 24.02.10 - 01.03.10

2010-03-13T09:45:00.002-05:00

monks' bowls laid out ready to receive coins

photos from our walking tour of the temples of Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai is the capital of northern Thailand. It's a tourist magnet city but it manages to retain a very laid back and culturally sound atmosphere. It's old city walls surround an area of small back streets and shining temple complexes. It's origins lie in the ancient caravan trading routes between India and China as it was the central point where many routes crossed. Luxury products such as opium and tea were transported. It has a different vibe to Bangkok and the south. Northern Thais view themselves as original Thais and this is where the country really began. There are many hill tribes still thriving here in the mountains and on the border with Burma, the populations of Karen people hold a dominant position within the communities. Our guesthouse, the Chiang Mai Whitehouse, sits on a little lane off the main walking street and has a blissfully quiet front garden and sitting area and there's a cafe two doors down which does excellent food so we go back there several times. The only down side to this place is the sheer number of tourists, mostly backpackers, but this is also a good thing because it means there's an abundance of eating places and activities companies to choose from. I can't over emphasise how laid back it feels here, more akin to Laos perhaps than mainland Thailand. We do a cooking course where we learn five new dishes, including how to make the red and green curry paste (secret ingredient- shrimp paste) soups (hot and sour and coconut) spring rolls and fish cakes. Most dishes are very quick and use very similar ingredients such as kaffir lime leaves, chillis and ginger. We're invited to eat our creations which, at the offset, is a great idea (they're really yummy) but by the end of the evening our stomachs are full and we can't even manage our prize curry dish. There's a really good night market here in Chiang Mai. It's on every night. It's mainly for the tourists but there's lots of good handicrafts and hill tribe textiles, so we partake in a little bit of retail therapy. We also visit a nearby city suburb called Bo Sang which has many traditional parasol manufacturers. We see how they construct the wooden frames, cover them with mulberry paper and glue down and finish with painted decoration.

A tour of the city's most popular temples reveals some interesting buildings, notably the half destroyed chedi which towers above all other buildings in the area. It would've been the biggest one we've seen yet but half has collapsed, which actually makes it more interesting to look at.

more photos from Sukhothai

2010-03-13T09:42:00.001-05:00

Ruen Thai hotel swimming pool and traditional Thai teak accommodation

Sukhothai Historical Park 22.02.10

2010-03-13T09:38:00.002-05:00

In Sukhothai New Town, 15km from the historical park, we find ourselves a little slice of luxury in the form of Ruen Thai Hotel, a traditional teak building with a picture perfect swimming pool. Our room is in the main teak house over a wooden verandah where we have to remove our shoes to cross. It's quite a nice tradition, no footwear in the living areas of the house, because it keeps the floors clean and makes a definite distinction between indoors and outdoors. It's become commonplace in Thailand because meals are normally consumed at floor level. The following day we visit the extensive historic ruins of Sukhothai Park, the site of the ancient capital of the Thai kingdom of Sukhothai in the 14th century. Most of the ruins have lost their original plaster decoration and plain brick structures are all that remain, however, some of the more important areas have been partially restored with new concrete fill-ins. The royal kingdom was built in a square format with surrounding city walls that span 2x2km. The main temple in the centre of the square is Wat Mahathat with it's three giant stone buddhas, all facing east, as is customary for all large examples in Thailand. The remaining pillars would've supported a large wooden roof and it would've been a very impressive building at the time of the first Lanna kings of northern Thailand. The former Sukhothai kingdom stretched as far south as Phuket and covered all areas in between before it was supplanted by Ayutthaya and the city in the north was left to ruin, It's a serene place with many ornamental lakes and moats reflecting the regal remains and landscaped islands with their own religious shrines. It's reminiscent, in a way, of the grandness of the gardens of Versailles with it's tree lined boulevards and use of perfect symmetry.

Khlong Lan National Park (Greg's 30th Birthday) 20.02.10

2010-03-13T09:33:00.002-05:00

Greg, unfortunately had to spend most of his 30th birthday on a rickety government bus from Bangkok to Khlong Lan in the Central Plains. He did manage to squeeze in a quick birthday treat of a box of Dunkin Donuts before we boarded.

After five hours we arrived in a small village in the middle of nowhere and thankfully a group of three students who were planning to go to the National Park aswell organised for us all to get a sawngthaew the last 6km.

The park staff were very accommodating and made sure we were comfortable in our bungalow, even taxiing us to a local store to pick up some food. We think they weren't used to seeing farang (white people) in this neck of the woods. It's normally Thai families who stay in the park for the holiday weekends. They were very nice anyway and were very interested in the photos Greg took of the impressive Khlong Lan waterfall.

They took copies for their brochure!

Damnoen Saduak Floating Market (106km southwest of Bangkok) 19.02.10

2010-03-13T09:29:00.002-05:00

Damnoen Saduak is now one of the major tourist draws in Bangkok and it has been spoiled by the souvenier stalls selling hats, clothes and ornaments which have replaced the food markets which used to buzz with life only on weekends. Now everyday there's a market but there are still some food vendors who sell fruit, spring rolls (freshly made on the boat) dim sum and other interesting looking concoctions directly from their boats to the punters waiting on the banks.

Dusit Palace Park and Monk's Bowl Village 18.02.10

2010-03-13T09:23:00.003-05:00

Bangkok's busy CBD and one or two of infamous tuk tuks

Another hot walk (33 degrees) up to Dusit Palace Park complex brings us to one of the King's current residences, Vimanek Mansion, several state buildings housing exhibitions on the monarchy and a grand European style palace. Vimanek Mansion is entirely constructed from Thai teak and is a resplendent octagonal shaped building with wings on either side.

The King uses it for official guest visits and celebrations and the rest of the time it's a museum displaying the dignified suites and a large collection of royal gifts from notable friends round the globe. I love the highly varnished teak floor under my bare feet and vow to aim for owning a house one day in which I can have such a floor! The painted wooden walls in subtle shades of green, pink and beige are calming in their nature and the lattice work at the tops of the doors and windows is pretty and lets through a much needed breeze of fresh air. The main royal apartment is in the central octagonal building and the sitting room and relaxation area is impressive with it's many windows on every side. Up the beautiful teak staircase that winds in a triangular fashion leads to the bedroom suites and bathroom with, unusually, a large shower (the water, however, had to be brought up the stairs in large vessels every morning). We have a look round one of the King's own photography exhibitions showing some of his personal collection of photos taken of his wife on her royal duties and more relaxed portraits. They reveal how he admires her, and it helps she's really pretty. One of the more interesting snaps is of the members of a crowd of civilians taken as he passes by in his entourage. Normally it would be the crowd taking pictures of him. The King being an avid photographer and his other hobbies of painting and playing the saxophone are well known to the populace and only endears him further to them. His wife is an enthusiastic patron of the arts and textiles heritage of her country and actively encourages the craftsmanship of woodcarving, gilding and stone setting to create elaborate pieces of royal decoration such as thrones. She does this through her founding of a special school and support network for young students to train from old masters of the arts and crafts. When her attention turned to the revitalisation of the handwoven Thai silk traditions she invited tribes members from the rural parts of Northern Thailand specialising in dying forms of textile weaving to come to Bangkok to train young enthusiasts. In the palace building at Dusit, which, incidentally, is unashamedly European in design (like St Pauls with all the painted domes), there are examples of the work of the Queen's support school on display, showing everything from incredibly detailed wooden and inlaid carved thrones, to shimmering silk thread embroideries of lotus ponds spanning the length of the room. Very impressive. Later on we buy our own little piece of Thai history in the form of an original handmade monk's bowl. These bowls are made from a traditional technique of fusing eight pieces of steel together (eight to represent the eight stages of enlightenment) with copper and hammering out the shape for hours on end. This time consuming process is only undertaken by a few families now, in Soi Ban Baht road, tucked away off the main street and the cottage industry is only really kept going by the occasional tourist who manages to find the road and buys one.

the hammering process/ tools of the trade!

Monks today tend to use mass produced bowls for the collecting of alms in the morning and, on Khao San road, we even saw one with a plastic bag collecting fruit.

more photos from the Flower Market

2010-02-22T12:39:00.000-05:00

Bangkok's Chinatown Flower Market

2010-02-22T12:35:00.001-05:00

more photos from Wat Phro

2010-02-22T12:33:00.000-05:00

more photos from Wat Phro

2010-02-22T12:28:00.002-05:00

inner temple at Wat Phro

stunning, primary coloured roof decoration- newly renovated

trying to resemble the farang statue

Amulet Market and Wat Phro

2010-02-22T12:20:00.002-05:00

Just across the road from the Grand Palace the street is lined with stalls and shops specialising in religious amulets and statues to bring you good luck in whatever area of your life you are lacking. We see monks, dressed in their customary yellow robes, scrutinising the tiny models of buddha under magnifying glasses and a whole mixture of goods on sale from tiny metal frames in which to place your sacred photos of King Bhumibol or your family to false teeth, from giant plaster cast statues of monks in cross legged positions

to old fashioned audio tapes and second hand shoes.

We make our way up to Wat Phro, which is incidentally the next wat along. There sure are a lot of wats here, wat wat! This is the location of the largest reclining buddha statue, some 46m long. It's almost bursting out of it's temple walls,

kind of like Alice in Alice in Wonderland when she eats one of the sweets which makes her grow uncontrollably.

jasmine and rose garlands in front of the buddha

A buddha in reclining pose represents the last stage of enlightenment, nirvana. He really is a sight when you first walk through the temple's doors and look up into his golden armpit!

one of the many buddhas on show in Wat Phro

The wat is also the site of the most buddha statues altogether and they do seem to go on for miles, filling the courtyard corridors. I partake in a little Buddhist ritual of placing a coin in every steel monk's bowl lined up along the edge of the temple interior, which creates a continuous bell like pinging noise and fills the hall. Not sure what the significance is but I'm pretty sure I have to make sure I place a coin in each of the hundred or so bowls. Another charming ritual is to pay for a swatch of gold leaf which you then attach to a small buddha, doing your bit to turn him gold!

more photos from the Grand Palace

2010-02-22T12:16:00.002-05:00

an impressive annex building to the throne hall/ Greg in front of one of the manicured trees of the Grand Palace's gardens

example of the ceramic cutwork facade decoration/ a particularly characterful 'guardian'

more photos from Wat Phra Kaew

2010-02-22T12:11:00.002-05:00

Greg in front of the golden walls of the main chedi- notice the very fashionable pants, provided by the front office- you must wear long trousers and sleeves when visiting a royal location.

garuda decoration

Bangkok

2010-02-22T12:04:00.002-05:00

Ko Ratanakosin (the imperial quarter)

17.02.10

Ko Ratanakosin is the area of Bangkok in which the Grand Palace of King Rama I, built in 1782 and it's many Wat (temples) is located. The area was chosen as a new royal capital for the country of Siam in the late 18th century when the era of the Chakri dynasty had begun with the ordainment of King Rama I. The previous royal capitals of Sukhothai and Ayutthaya were superceded by Bangkok and the region beside the Chao Praya river, where thousands of Chinese immigrants resided, was chosen as the site for the most elaborate set of royal buildings in the country's history. The Chinese contingent was relocated further along the bank and the extensive building work begun. We'd been advised to arrive early to gain entry before the tour parties of the day descended and we managed to avoid the rush of the afternoon, but the morning period still proved to be exceptionally busy. It must be the highlight of everyone's visit to Bangkok. The imperial city is enclosed within 2.9 km of tall white washed walls and the impressive tiled roofs and spires of the Wats appear tantilisingly over the top, like a gilded toy city. The main wat houses the most famous buddha statue, the Emerald Buddha (he is green, but is, in fact made of jade) who sits only 66cm tall with a lap span of 48cm. He sits sloft a high throne and multilevel altar which is completely adorned in gold leaf decorations. He is clothed according to the season, and King Bhumibol himself performs the ceremony of the changing of the buddha's attire. We must remove our shoes on entering the temple of the Emerald Buddha (whenever you ascend to the level on which an image of the buddha rests you must remove them) and it's a sacred place. There are buddhists sitting on the carpet, always with the soles of their feet pointing away from the buddha, praying to him with their palms together and their heads bowed. But, in general, the buddhists inside and outside the temples here don't seem too sombre. They purchase single lotus flower stems and, outside the temple doors, dab them in the bowls of holy water and annoint each other on the head with them. But this is all done with laughter and enjoyment and posing to have their picture taken while doing it.

The architecture and facade decoration of the wats and associated buildings also echo this frivolity in the flashy gold painted garudas (mythical creatures, half man, half bird) and colourful mirror mosaics and tiles that cover all available surfaces. The rooftops and gables of the buildings are especially proud with their distinctly Thai shaped finials and sculpted red and gold diarama scenes.

The giant chedi made of gold mosaic tiles is of the Sri Lankan bell-shaped design and houses what is said to be a part of the buddha's breastbone. The chedi's bell shape, leading up to a spire that reaches into the sky is to represent the path to enlightenment associated with buddhism and is a shape which can be seen again and again in Thai culture, especially in the royal crowns and the hats used in traditional Thai theatrical performances. Other buildings in the complex, such as the imperial library, represent a distinctly different type of facade adornment in the form of clay ceramic 3D motifs, the main ones being flowers. Bits of coloured ceramic pots are expertly cut and placed to become petals and scales of dragons and completely encompass the exterior walls and roofs. The colours are much more subdued than the brights of the main wat and there is no use of harsh gold, so popular with the others. It's evident King Rama I was keen to display many kinds of architecture and design here. I also especially like the stone guardians in the shapes of warrior men, Chinese style lions or winged mythical bird men who stand two apiece on every entrance way and the continuous painted mural which extends round the entire length of the inside of the city's walls, depicting scenes from the story of Ramakasin.

The inner temple complex of Wat Phra Kaew gives way to the broader area of the Grand Palace, former residence of the King (he now uses Dusit Palace, a little further north in the city). This area of throne halls, armoury museums and official buildings is not as breathtaking as the temple zone but the gardens of carefully trimmed bonsai trees and statues of the sacred elephant are very impressive also. A white elephant is said to be of extra special good fortune in Thailand and it is customary for the King to be in possession of one (which he is now). The saying 'a white elephant',meaning a dud, comes from the fact that any albino elephants were destined to be cared for rather than worked, and therefore useless.

Memories of Thailand/ Malaysia

2010-02-22T11:56:00.000-05:00

-Greg's too tall here- he hits his poor little head on the shop awnings, door mantels and food cart parasols. He also manages to trip up occassionally on the uneven pavements, steps up and down the sidewalk and jumping over open drains.

-The smell from the open drains is like the smell from the pipe outflow of a washing machine (dirt and chemicals) plus occassionally sewage and cooked food.

-Jasmine and rose garlands are made daily by skilled florists to sell as token gifts to the Buddha. You find them hung on railings in front of Buddhist shrines and they represent te impermanence of life- the flowers withering.

-Spirit shrines adorn every home, shop and office. They are normally red and gold or white and gold and are to house the spirits which belong to that site and protect them so that no evil will come to the site's residents. Food and water is 'given' to the spirits every morning as nourishment and flowers are laid or hung on the corners.

Land of a Thousand Smiles

2010-02-22T11:55:00.000-05:00

You might think it a bit cheesy but Thailand really is the Land of a Thousand Smiles. I can say this with confidence because of the sheer number of times I've been smiled at while being here. And yes, a fair few of them were people tryiing to get me to come into their shop or offering me a tuk tuk ride, but a lot were genuine greetings or passers by in the street. It's a lovely feeling and, of course, it makes you want to do it back. I walk around with a permanent grin on my face. I've been trying to fathom the reason for this perpetual hospitality and kind naturedness. And I think it might have something to do with the way people are brought up with their religion, Buddhism and patriotism to the King, King Bhumibol, whose image is everywhere. It's a very foreign concept to us Brits that everyone dotes on the King and it is a very sinful deed to speak badly of him. Yes, we do have a royal family but it's popularity is hardly anything compared to that of King Bhumibol, at least not in Britain. People hang framed portraits of him in their homes and shop fronts. There are endless statues, ornaments and calendars you can buy with his image. He's like an Asian pope. And his link with Buddhism, he trained as a monk and performs in Buddhist rituals and celebrations frequently, only increases his strength as a figurehead and is seen as a role model for all young Thais. When we grab a couple of hours retreat from the heat of the street and catch a film at one of the cinemas, we are in amazement at how diligently everyone in the auditorium stands quietly as the national anthem is played along to nauseating images of the King helping children in need. He is in fact portrayed as a god who brings the rain for the new season of rice growing. We feel strange standing up too and may have opted out of this ritual in another country but the feeling of love for this King we've experienced here has made us unwilling to rebel. And this brings me back to my reasoning for that open faced smile. Althougb patronage of the King and constitution may not be to everyone's tastes it seems that here in Thailand it brings great joy to a lot of people and they are very proud and honoured to be ruled by him. This and their calm, thoughful ways, most possibly gained from practising the teachings of the Buddha (karma etc.), make them come across as very happy people. Just wait til we get to China. It might not be quite the same there!

more photos from Phang nga Bay

2010-02-22T11:52:00.001-05:00

stunning bay on James Bond Island/ huge stalagmites on adjacent bay

Phang nga Bay (James Bond Island) 15.02.10

2010-02-22T11:46:00.002-05:00

Phang nga Bay is a national park round the coastline from Phuket Province, which comprises many small islands made of karst limestone. It's a very dramatic place because of the striking shapes of the craggy islands dominating the horizon in every direction. It's nice to be out on a boat and looking back to shorelines which aren't covered in development. The area is protected so there is only mangrove and rainforest greenery, no towns or villages. Our tour for the day comprises three trips off the main ferry boat by guided canoe to get closer to the impressive islands and cave scenery.

We are paddled by our guide through a cave tunnel at the bottom of a huge monolith of limestone, which is called Ko Hong, and into a secret sea lagoon in the middle of the island, invisible from the outside. We have to lie flat as we sail through the cave because the stalagmites and barnacle encrusted rocks are very close to our heads. If the tidal level had increased any more we wouldn't have been able to get out. In the middle of the secret lagoon, which was surrounded on all sides by steep, craggy walls, mangrove trees were growing, splaying out their interesting roots into the muddy waters.

It was a magical place- well, it would've been more so, if there hadn't been a traffic jam of kayaks ferrying tourists in and out again. Hey ho, we're getting used to it. It was very impressive to see how the sea water had eaten away at the bases of these giant cliffs and how huge stalagmites had formed in the vacated space, dripping down forming odd rock mutations. The whole area was formed from the remains of ancient sea coral and the calcium carbonate skeletons of mollusca and other sea creatures, similar to the limestone caves of Waitomo (New Zealand). The rock was pressurised under great earth movements and pushed up and pulled down to create a dramatic scene. The highlight of our tour through the bay is a visit to Ko Khao Phing Kan, otherwise known as James Bond Island because it was used as the setting for The Man with the Golden Gun with Roger Moore when he comes to the Orient in search of the villian Scaramanga. The single sheer rock in the island's opposite bay is where the secret weaponwas hidden. It certainly is a stunning location. Overhanging cliff faces with giant stalagmites hanging from them and a gigantic split in the rockface are dramatic examples of extreme geological formations. Love it! On our way back to port we enjoy watching the sun setting over the pretty islands. Hopefully we'll be able to sleep a little on the night bus we've booked to take us to the bright lights of Bangkok.

snorkelling photos from Koh Phi Phi

2010-02-22T11:40:00.003-05:00

clown fish on it's anemone/ large blue clam and a cheeky fish that got in the way

guess who?

butterfly fish/ type of sea coral

Koh Phi Phi 11.02.10 - 13.02.10

2010-02-22T11:32:00.002-05:00

longtails on Koh Phi Phi main beach

Once we arrived in Phuket Town after an eight hour bus ride and one hour speedboat transfer from Lipe we decided to make one last island stop before journeying up to Bangkok. We decided to head for the jewel in the Andaman Sea, Koh Phi Phi. Our expectations were high because we'd read how spectacular it was and we weren't disappointed by the island itself, just the numbers of people. Being Chinese New Year holiday probably had something to do with it but when we arrived on the pier to be greeted by a full on tourist town hoaching with people we were a little put off. Not quite the island paradise we'd hoped for. There are some more isolated beaches on Phi Phi's rugged coastline which can only be reached by boat but the main two, Tonsai and Lau Dalam are crowded with longtail boats, bars, restaurants and hotel complexes. Having just come from Lipe where the development is much less, and the physical size of the island is much less, this is a bit of a shock to the system. Although prices on this island are skyhigh, it's a package holiday haven and the majority of consumers here are tourists on holiday, not backpackers. Having said all this, there is a definite reason this place is popular. It's limestone karst scenery is the most spectacular we've come across so far, with huge cliffs dripping stalagmites and boulders protruding straight out te turquoise sea. Koh Phi Phi Ley, it's sister island, is where they shot 'The Beach' and it's an impressive arrangement of steep crags and hidden bays worthy of anyone's idea of a remote getaway. On our second day we take a day's snorkelling boat trip, stopping at Maya Bay (from The Beach) on Phi Phi Ley, Bamboo Island, Mosquito Island and Shark Point and finishing up watching the sun set off Tonsai Bay.

one of the striking islands on our snorkelling trip

On our 5km journey on longtail across to Phi Phi Ley the island beckons us with it's soaring cliffs and shallow turquoise seas but when we turn into Maya Bay we are greeted with a depressing sight. The tranquil setting portrayed in the film is replaced by an overcrowded beach and a constant drone of boats echoing round the enclosed bay.

It's very difficult to imagine the place without the thousands of daytrippers so we give up and float on our backs in the water, trying to drown out the noise. Our next point of call is not so disappointing. Although we still have to dodge the incoming speedboats while swimming in the next bay there are no beaches here so there aren't the crowds.

It's almost possible to swim towards the cliff faces and pretend you're the only one there. The waters in these secluded bays house expansive coral reefs with great snorkelling and diving and we enjoy especially snorkelling off Mosquito Island, because the shoals of stripey yellow and black fish, little swordfish and tiny white bait are choosing to swim closer to the surface and therefore all round us. The water's also filled with strands of plankton floating up and down, which look like clear worms and several clear jellyfish. We enjoy the experience underwater but the day is marred by the witnessing of several acts of destruction to the coral. Firstly, other snorkellers seem to see no problem with standing on top of the coral, destroying an organism which has taken over 300 years to form. Secondly, the longtail boatmen we are being ferried by, insist on putting down a large metal anchor directly into the reef, damaging it irreparably. We are informed by a boat captain from a neighbouring ship that he's been touring the reef for over twenty years and has laid ropes for the longtails to anchor to but they keep on dropping their anchors nevertheless. Thirdly we witness tourists purposefully removing live coral from off the shore to use as an ornament in their homes. Hopefully they'll get caught as they go through customs, as it's illegal to take it out of the country. As we ponder these issues we come to the conclusion, tourism is a curse here. It causes the destruction. If people didn't want to come out here, the tourist boats wouldn't destroy the reef. With the mediterranean destinations of Greece, Italy and even Spain becoming more expensive with the advent of the euro, people are obviously choosing farther afield holidays where the flight may be expensive but the day to day expenses are a fraction of Europe's.

Thailand

2010-02-22T11:27:00.002-05:00

longtails on Sunrise beach/ on our way back to our chalet

a little puppet livening up one of the laid back restaurants on Walking Street

Koh Lipe (3km long) 04.02.10 - 08.02.10

Koh Lipe is the first Thai island on the way north out of Malaysia and it's our first taste of paradise with clear, turquoise waters and soft white sand. We arrive by speedboat from Langkawi with our passports being taken by one of the crew who has them all stamped and checked for us- very easy. A longtail* boat ferries us from the speedboat platform to the shore where we hop off into the knee deep water and collect our bags to cross the island to our resort. Lipe has one concrete street called 'Walking Street' and it has been constructed purely for tourists as it's lined with eating places, Thai massage parlours, snorkelling and dive shops and souvenier stalls. It's also a means for the large number of scooters to cross the island- there are no cars here, but the locals all drive little mopeds. It takes only ten minutes walkingto cross the island and we find our resort on the opposite beach, Sunrise beach. There are less longtails moored up on this beach so it's quieter than Pattaya beach, where we docked on the speedboat. We waste no time in getting into the sea for a cooling swim and spend most of the rest of the day sitting out under the shade of the trees reading up about Thailand. We do make the decision to train for our PADI open water diving certificate and book into Forra Dive resort to begin our course the next day. It takes us three days to become proficient enough to pass with loads of theory to learn and an exam and four open water dives out in the Andaman Sea to get us accustomed to using the equipment and being confident with all the procedures. Diving can be a daunting activity because of the very nature of breathing underwater. It's a foreign concept to us humans and it takes a bit of getting used to, including the difference in pressure under metres of liquid. The gear itself weighs a tonne out of water but as soon as you descend into the depths it becomes light as a feather and you float weightless, as if in space. Regis, our French dive instructor, was keen for us to practise our ascent procedures, coming up slowly so as not to get decompression sickness or nitrogen narcosis, including an ascent technique where, if you're out of air, you use your buddy's alternate air source to breathe from- scary stuff. It's definitely worth learning though because the underwater coral reefs are stunning environments. On our last dive of the course we'd completed all our skills training and were able to simply follow Regis on a tour of the reef, off the shores of Ko Adang, a neighbouring island to Koh Lipe and part of the Ko Tarutao National Marine Park. The coral was beautiful with banks of bright fuschia pink and purple varieties interspersed with intense blue and pink anemones and orange branch-like formations. We saw a huge bright blue crown of thorns starfish and big clam shells gently opening and closing. The fish weren't half bad either and included a yellow box fish, grey puffer, numerous butterfly, parrot and angel fish, two lion fish (which were beautiful with their long red and white tendrils) a stone fish and several ominous moray eels, their big heads poking out of holes in the rock.

*Longtails are so called because of their long propellor shaft which connects to a loud, clanging motor on the back. They are the preferred means of transport on Lipe and can be hired like taxis to take you to any beach or other island.

Pulau Langkawi 26km long 03.02.10

2010-02-22T11:19:00.003-05:00

nothing like a beachside sunset

toucans frolick in a tree on the main tourist street/ cheeky monkeys on a local island

one of the stunning surrounding islands/ the most scenic beach rubbish we've found

Langkawi is the final island resort before Thailand. From here to cross into Thailand by boat is the safest border crossing (on the Eastern seaboard there is ongoing unrest due to continued Muslim attacks). Pace of life is noticeably slower as soon as you arrive on small islands. We take a cab out to Pantai Cenang on the opposite side of the island and arrive at our lodge ready to relax and hit the beach. There's a long strip of tourist oriented restaurants and tour companies and most people here seem to be on their two week short break. There are some old time hippy travellers here too who enjoy the laid back Malaysian way of life. We're going to be island hopping for the next week or two as we make our way up through the Andaman Sea so I'm sure we'll become accustomed to this type of existence! The only downside to all this sun, sea and sand is the anonymity of being 'just another whitey'. You miss the traditional ways of life and the culture on te mainland. But we'll be going back to the mainland, possibly for Chinese New Year on the 12th, so we can enjoy this little holiday experience with all the other tourists. We take an island hopping boat tour to see three offshore islands and the giant sea eagles which are only to be found here and another few places round the world.

more photos from Georgetown

2010-02-22T11:12:00.003-05:00

beautiful pink bed in a Baba Nyonya mansion house

entrance hall

rear courtyard with striking colour scheme

Georgetown, Penang 01.02.10 - 02.02.10

2010-02-22T11:06:00.002-05:00

Georgetown is the capital of the Penang Province of north western Malaysia, the majority of which is on an island, Pulau Penang. Georgetown sits on the corner of this island and is connected to the mainland by one of the longest bridges in the world and a ferry service. It's history lies with the era of the Dutch East India Company and subsequently found itself under British rule which made the port town very wealthy. There are many historical buildings realting to this era including and Anglo church, convent and the strategically located Dutch fort which occupies the outermost point of the city's peninsula. It certainly exudes a much wealthier air than the rest of Malaysia with bigger cars, cleaned up and renovated buildings (they're working really hard to maintain it's UNESCO World Heritage status) and the signs saying you'll be fined 500RM if you drop a piece of litter are certainly a new feature of street life. Everyday life in the Chinatown district where we're staying remains pretty much the same as other places we've been however. People work hard, bringing out all their wares on to the street to sell, setting up food stalls to sell cheap food all day. It's a struggle to make ends meet here. It's amazing to me that so many products are still handmade in shops on the street, like hammering out metal trays and vessels, weaving rattan furniture, making wooden blinds and welding ironwork for architectural projects.

The street is a truly creative place. And most shops and stalls have a shrine, or blessing place where candles are lit or even fairy lights are hung to bring good fortune to the owners. People know each other on the street, saying their hellos as they pass and look out for one another, which becomes obvious in the way they help their elders and less able. It's uncouth to raise your voice in this country and I have yet to witness an argument or act of maliciousness.

a family temple in the side wing of their mansion house

We enjoy visiting two of Penang's old mansionhouses which were occupied by wealthy Baba Nyonya professionals.

intense blue of the Cheong Fatt Tze mansion house- gable roof end

The Cheong Fatt Tze mansion has won awards for its careful restoration and presentation to the public. Cheong Fatt Tze was one of the most renowned figures in South East Asian business in the time of the colonists. He left his home in China aged 16 to seek fame and fortune and found it in Indonesia under the Dutch East India Company. Although not academically trained they saw potential in him to become a spearhead in the community and subsequently went on to become official head of several institutions within the country, education being one of them. Not satisfied with these achievments he moved up to Malaysia where the British were in power and set about showing his skills here. Again they granted him high status and it was here in Georgetown where he sought to build his favourite home. The road, now called Jalan Leith by the British, was then named Lotus Lane because of the lotus flower that was known to bloom there, so, with the lotus flower being one of the best signs of good luck to the Chinese he decided to build his mansion here. He built it according to the rules of Feng Shui, a living tradition which has been linked to the folk religions of China. There must be wind and water coming in to the house, therefore an open courtyard in the centre of the house was imperative. The wind symbolised movement and the winds of change, to keep the place healthy and not stagnant. And the water, which fell as rain into the courtyard symbolised wealth, so the more water the more wealth. Chinese are inherently driven by the pursuit of wealth! As he was living outside traditional China he was able to break traditional Chinese rules of architecture and interior design. He chose to impress his colonial buddies by bringing in specially designed English floor tiles and stained glass windows and Scottish wrought ironwork in the form of impressive spiral staircases and window tops. Unfortunately, having bequeathed all his numerous properties and businesses to his sons, they chose to sell them all and the mansion fell to ruins. It was only in 1989 that it was bought back by the Malaysian Tourist board and restored to its former glory.

I love the Chinese embroidered curtain drapes and bridal beds and the intricately carved wood relief with gold leaf. The Chinese fok religions are very much alive here with the significant Chinese community attending their temples and praying to their ancestors by lighting candles, incense and presenting gifts of fruit and flowers. And, with the upcoming Chinese New Year celebrations of the year of the tiger there is an anticipation and excitement in the air, just like the run up to Christmas.

more photos from Cameron Highlands

2010-02-22T10:58:00.002-05:00

our nice tudor style hotel in Cameron Highlands

seed pod seen on our jungle trek

the enchanting mossy forest

tropical blooms in the Crazy Plumber's own garden

The Cameron Highlands 30.01.10 - 31.01.10

2010-02-22T10:49:00.002-05:00

view from the crest of the hill on our trek/ The Crazy Plumber's own garden

We transfer by minibus to the cool tranquility of the Cameron Highlands tea plantations set in the jungle covered hills in western Malaysia. Choosing a tudor-style traditional guesthouse proves instantly rewarding when we spy a chalkboard sign saying 'Homemade tea and scones served!' There's nothing like a good cup of tea, so it's imperative we stock up while we're here. They don't pick by hand here though, like in Sri Lanka. They use a piece of machinery which still needs to be held above the plants by two workers, but it takes off all the top layer of leaves and stalks and this has to be sorted through back at the plant. In Sri Lanka the top grade of tea, the gold tip, comes only from the young leaves, specially hand selected, but this selection process is virtually impossible here, using the mechanisation. We come to the conclusion that Malaysia is a much more developed country than Sri Lanka and the career of a tea picker would not be acceptable as its back-breaking work and the pay would be too low. We opt to go out into the depths of the jungle again to see how different it is to Taman Negara and book a local guide to take us. Now begins a very memorable part of our stay here. Our guide, the 'Crazy Plumber', as he calls himself, does not actually want to be a guide. He gets labelled a botanist because of his discoveries of new orchid species but he just enjoys being out in the forest, observing the plants and looking out for any new varieties he's not come across before. He doesn't like to be called a botanist because he's not formally trained, but, as we learn throughout our enlightening jungle trek, he holds an intense passion for plants and cultivation. He's been internationally acclaimed for discovering new species of orchid and we have the distinct privilege of viewing two of these rare beauties in their natural habitat. He brings us to them, exclaiming that he's not ever seen this particular one grow to such a height.

He's keen for us not to report back to the tour operator on the places he's taken us today because he feels protective of their secrecy and wishes to maintain their beauty by preventing too much foot traffic passing through. He is scathing of other guides who tear down the plants if they should encroach the trail. He shows us a patch of ferns which he was nurturing and they'd recently been cut down, he believes by a local guide who must be unaware that if a fern is cut at the merry stem it will not grow back. The forest is not protected and we're appalled by the news part of it is to be cut down for building development.

The Crazy Plumber tells us he's also a smuggler, removing samples of certain species from the forest to cultivate in his own extensive garden. He knows this is unlawful but believes that if he did not do this, rare species may be lost when the developers come. He occassionally sends pieces to botanical gardens at Kew in London and other parts of Europe for recording and further cultivation. He's very knowledgable on the identification of species and shows us a hoya which is almost indistinguishable from a vine. We learn about how to grow orchids from shoots, the difference between types of liana vines and get to smell the various leaves from the cinnamon to the 'deep heat' plant. The forest is enchanted. It's much more alive with flowers than the Taman Negara rainforest and if we came back in the month of June, the orchids, which are everywhere, would be in bloom and it would be a beautiful setting.

Taman Negara Malaysia's 130 million year old Rainforest

2010-02-03T07:07:00.002-05:00

27.01.10 - 29.01.10

We depart Kuala Lumpur by minibus to Taman Negara National Park, four hours north. We're going on a tour with a local company we booked in Chinatown and they take clients up to Taman Negara every day. It's one of the most popular trips outside K.L. aside from the Cameron Highlands (we're there going next). When we reach Jerantut, the 'entrance' town to Taman Negara we change to a riverboat, or Sampan, to journey two hours upstream to our accommodation at Kuala Tahan. Kuala Tahan is a small settlement on the banks of the Sungei Tembeling comprising mainly of hotels, restaurants and boat tour desks. It's a relatively new set up.

They're still building new places and the cobbled beach with only a few higglety pigglety steps up suggests its in the process of development. It's all here for the tourists visiting the park and we do hear that ten years ago it was in fact a traditional tribal settlement. These bits of information do make you feel a bit guilty to be part of the destruction of a way of life and sanctity of the forest. We're allocated a room in the Teresek View motel and we have our own toilet! This is more luxurious than staying in a city. The walls could do with a paint though! but you can't complain. We head back down to the riverbank for dinner on the Mamachop floating restaurant then we're driven across the river by sampan to enter the National Park for our night jungle trek. Amar, our guide, takes us into the rainforest, forewarning us of leeches and big ants. The leeches come out after rain and are attracted by the vibration of movement on the ground. They're much smaller than the ones you get in rivers but they'll still try to get inside your shoe to have a little suck of your blood. Some of the bigger ants can bite you and leave you feeling quite ill. Amar finds stick insects, spiders, scorpions, a snake and a moss deer for us to view. He tells us there are bigger animals in the rainforest, like leopard, tapir and tiger, but they have moved deeper into the jungle since the daily tours of visitors started. The following day we are taken on a guided hike to Bukit Teresek from where we have a pretty good view across the miles of rainforest. We find the noises from the trees to be very interesting, from what could be the call of a gibbon in the distance to closer exotic bird songs and the intense alarm sounds and clicking of the sekada. The humidity is high in the jungle and all our party are dripping in sweat before long. Before going back to Kuala Tahan for lunch, we try the canopy walkway, a rope swing walk through the tree tops for 450 metres.

It's a little rickety in places and I plan how to grab hold of the rope if the bridge should break in two! After lunch we pile back in the boat to go upstream through the rapids and it's all part of the experience for the driver to rock the boat as we go through the waves to get us all soaking wet! Herman, our guide, finds this hilarious because he's remained dry in the front of the boat. We arrive at our destination upstream, the Batek tribal settlement. As part of the tour we're visiting this aboriginal tribe to see how they live and for them to demonstrate some of their skills to us. Herman assures us that he has already asked the chief this morning if it is acceptable for us to visit and that if, for any reason, he chose not to let us, he would respect the chief's wishes. The Batek tribe are a nomadic tribe who live in the Taman Negara National Park and are the only people allowed to do so. They have been given a special pardon from the government to live and hunt here. They move around every few months when the food supply dries up and they may return to the same place every few years. They are only eight families in this small village but there are other factions of the tribe living in other parts of the forest. Their houses are made of palm leaves and will be left to degrade when they move on, Each time they move they build new houses. They still hunt, using blow darts and fish for food, but they have been introduced to money, which they use to buy clothing and fruit from Kuala Tahan. They didn't used to wear western clothing though and the plastic litter on the village site shows how the modern world conflicts with traditional tribal life. The palm leaves of the houses will biodegrade but the plastic will not. Herman tells us that the Batek people choose this lifestyle. With the introduction of money they could choose to leave behind the traditional ways, but they choose not to. Instead choosing to live in the same way they have for years but with a passion for learning from the outside world. Herman asks us if we feel awkward here. When we're silent in response he reassures us that the chief and his people are proud of their way of life and want to show us how they do things.

It's okay for us to walk around and take photos if we want to. And, sure enough, the chief is full of smiles and jokes for us and encourages us to take a shot at the blow dart

and Greg even has an attempt at making fire. We take a walk around to see the women, babies and children in their houses and they are very accommodating to us taking photos and gawking at them! We make sure we try to communicate, saying 'terima kasih' (thank you) at every available opportunity. On the whole it was a very warm hearted and welcoming experience because we felt they did actually want us there. I'm sure, in many tribes, visitors are not so welcome.

more photos from Kuala Lumpur

2010-02-03T07:03:00.002-05:00

monkeys love raiding through litter at the side of the streets

photos from Chow Kit Chinese Market

Batu Caves (13km north of Kuala Lumpur) 26.01.10

2010-02-03T06:57:00.002-05:00

We're pretty savvy and catch a local bus out to the caves, through the northern outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, where new highrise apartments dominate and the roads get much better. The bus drops us in front of the entrance gates to the caves which house many Hindu temples.

There's a gigantic gold idol which has been erected next to the 227 steps which lead to the entrance to the caves and this is as tall as the limestone cliff face itself. The giant holes in the limestone crags were once used as a prison when the communists were in power in Malaysia, then it was taken by the British who sold it on to the Hindus to build a temple inside. It's a bizarre place. The floor of the cave has been levelled with concrete, obviously having destroyed the stalactites which would've been present, in the process.

Along the sides of the cave there are hindu idols, shrines and even two small temples, where we witness Hindus paying their respects and being 'tagged' on the forehead with white and red paint. We're saddened by the amount of litter present all the way up the steps and in the sacred areas themselves. It's quite a contrast to the immaculate Islamic mosques in the green belt area of town. Many women are beautifully dressed in embroidered saris with makeup and jewellery to match as they make their pilgrimage in bare feet with their husbands and children. On the way back into town we stop at a batik craft studio to have a look at some work being done because it's the national textile style in Malaysia.

The large silk frames are suspended at hip height and the artists are deftly painting out wax outlines of exotic flowers and leaves and filling them in with blended dye fading to the edges. The assistant shows us the fixing process out back where the cloth is dipped in sodium silicate, then washed through, then the wax is removed by boiling with soda ash added to the water. I purchase a couple of chanting tools, take photographs for reference with the intent to get set up for batik at home when I return. It's an effective style which can be easily reproduced at home with a simple pot of melting wax over an electric hot plate. I must find out the type of dye used however. We take the monorail to Chow Kit Chinese food market in the north of town where the walk through the undercover stalls presents a feast for the eyes, from the fresh squid and still moving catfish to the rows of hot chillies and ox legs hanging out to dry. The stall owners particularly like Greg's Aussie hat and call out to him 'cowboy!' and 'crocodile dundee!'. He can take a bit of jovial teasing and smiles back, saying he's definitely not Australian or American and vows to reconsider whether to wear the hat again!

Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia's capital city) 23.01.10 - 25.01.10

2010-02-03T06:48:00.002-05:00

Greg waiting for our bus in Chinatown, KL

Kuala Lumpur is a bustling metropolis with new buildings going up all the time and many different areas in wealth and character, from colourful Chinatown to KLCC, (Kuala Lumpur city centre) where the mighty Petronas Towers dominate a skyline of expensive hotels, malls and banks. We find walking a difficult business sadly, because there's so much traffic and a lot of the roads are too dangerous to cross. We do succeed in finding our way but we've come to the conclusion that some parts of the city are not designed to be navigated on foot. The monorail and train system covers the city's main locations but there are only a few lines and the stations are few and far between so you do end up having to walk a fair bit to where you want to get to. I wouldn't mind walking at all normally but the traffic fumes combined with having to navigate the treacherous pavements (Greg nearly fell down a drain hole whose grate was missing!) makes it quite unpleasant. It's hot here too and the thousands of air conditioning units hanging off the sides of buildings mustn't be helping with their pumping of hot air out into the street. Again, I'm not complaining about the city, I'm just trying to accurately portray it from my viewpoint so I can attempt to remember what it was like in years to come. The driving and parking skills are 'interesting' too with cars parked up on the slip roads of the city's highway it makes it hard for our tourist bus to join into a line of oncoming traffic. As far as parking goes, the pavements are often used as buffers or for pulling right up on to. Malaysia is an Islamic country so the majority of women wear headscarves. It's a cultural mix though so there are women who don't, a large Chinese and Indian population and many other faiths are practised too including Hinduism and Buddhism. We're startled by some peoples' dress- they're wearing vests under their shirts and the women are sometimes layering up with a cardigan. We're sweating buckets in our tshirts and shorts and they're going round in layers! It's amazing how you get used to it though. Today we visited the Islamic Arts Museum in a beautiful, new air-conditioned building at 22 degrees celsius but before long I was feeling chilly and actually wanted to go outside. There's lots to do here in Kuala Lumpur. On the first evening we went up the Menara telecommunications tower

to its viewing deck to watch the sun setting over the city and especially the Petronas Towers,

which, at almost 500m, were the tallest buildings in the world up until 2003.

We've been to the Bird Park and Orchid Garden today where we saw parrots

(Greg became the 'bird man' by feeding the little parrots milk and seeds) cassowaries (we didn't see any in Australia) millions of peacocks, ostrich and lots of little monkeys. The orchid garden was stunning too but the heat of the day forced us to find shade before we wilted. The orchids didn't seem to mind though. The heat and humidity suits them very well. We've been enjoying good food while we've been here. Even the cheap dishes from the markets' foodcourts have been very tasty. In fact the cheaper the better I've found. I had an excellent Laksa (spicy coconut chicken soup) from a food court vendor and the best sweet and sour chicken I've ever tasted from a Chinese street cafe right outside our hostel on Jalan Sultan in Chinatown. Greg's favourite of the moment is Singapore noodles.

more photos from Melaka

2010-02-03T06:46:00.000-05:00

more photos from Melaka

2010-02-03T06:42:00.001-05:00

an old rusty rickshaw

Malaysia Melaka 22.01.10

2010-02-03T06:36:00.002-05:00

We leave Singapore in VIP air conditioned comfort on one of the many interstate luxury coaches which operate throughout Singapore and Malaysia, although it only costs us $24S to make the trip (approx £4). We don't have any problem carrying the knives through Mayalsian customs and the journey up the west coast to the historical city of Melaka, through fields upon fields of palm groves, takes little more than three hours. These buses are great- so comfortable, because the huge seats fold down into an almost sleeping position and the cool air conditioning makes for a very pleasant ride. They're very similar to the ones we journeyed on in South America. We arrive in Melaka to be confronted by a huge Tesco supermarket (they get everywhere) just outside town and we take a taxi to our guesthouse in Little India, 'Eastern Heritage'. This is an eccentric old place in one of the traditional trading houses complete with original black wood and gold detailing interior. The ceilings are high and the spiral staircase is of a plush dark wood but the place is so rundown it's very sad. There's a particular smell to it (!) and the tiled floors, wooden furniture and tiny age-old kitchen looks like they haven't been cleaned in years. I'm just dying to give it a good once over!, get rid of the silly, tiled plunge pool (intended for guests to use, but I think if I did I'd end up with some kind of waterborne infection!) and this place would be a stunning traditional Melakan mansion.

Our room is equally as eccentric as the entrance hall with a whole wall covered in a pretty well executed mural of a waterfall landscape, no air conditioning (only a small yellow fan which, as we find out later, simply cannot cool the hot air) and access to the 'washroom facilities' (one pretty suspect toilet and a not so inviting shower). I just thank my lucky stars I've not seen any big bugs! I don't mean to complain. I actually found the experience of staying in a rundown establishment very interesting because of its faded glamour and eccentricity and I'm sure there will only be more to come. We walk out to explore Melaka's streets and districts which cover all the periods in it's varied history, from the Dutch colonial influence, when it was once one of the most wealthy cities in the world (the river running through the centre reminds us of the canals in Amsterdam and the small white houses on either side are being carefully renovated) to Chinatown, which is a fascinating warren of rundown streets of old Baba Nyonya * houses and street stalls, to the village Morten, a distinctly different area of town where the stilted Swiss chalet style houses are lovingly cared for and the pot plant gardens are some of the most impressive I've ever seen.

The town now is largely underprivileged and the open drains and litter are a clear indicator of this, however there seems to be a lot of significant renovation going on for the tourists (many Singaporeans make Melaka their weekend getwaway) and, as we're finding with South East Asian cities, big and small, the ubiquitous mall and flashy food court are doing a very good trade in the city's modern quarter. We leave Melaka for Kuala Lumpur having mostly enjoyed taking interesting photos in it's picturesque and characterful Chinatown.

* Baba Nyonya is the name given to the particular ethnic group who resulted from the intermarriage of Chinese immigrant traders to Malay women in the 19th century.

more photos from Singapore

2010-02-03T06:31:00.002-05:00

one of the swish malls on Orchard Road

iconic Esplanade Theatres

bizarre entrance to a Chinese shopping mall

Greg just acquired a friend as he was busy posing!

Singapore 19.01.10 - 21.01.10

2010-02-03T06:21:00.002-05:00

When we arrive in Singapore Changi airport at 8pm local time we have no accommodation booked and therefore nowhere to go. Greg manages to alleviate this situation by replacing it with a more difficult one- the fact that we've failed to declare knives in our luggage. We are questioned and asked to show the knives to customs for inspection, then beckoned to come to the customs office. It's not a situation any rightminded person would want to be in- being asked to accompany an official to the customs office in a country where you can be fined for not flushing a public loo or hanged for drug smuggling. Fortunately the customs officer deems the knives recreational souveniers and meerly provides us with a form declaring their purpose for us to carry through other South East Asian countries. Phew. We then manage to secure a room at a hostel in Little India before leaving the airport. A tropical thunderstorm is in full swing as we head into the city lights, the humidity is high. The place where we're staying is in a lively neighbourhood where the narrow, low rise streets are lined with Indian food shops, restaurants, sari textile emporiums, traditional gold hindu jewellery shops and stalls selling floral garlands of bright orange and pink. The place is lit up by fairy lights traversing the streets and there's Indian music blaring from the Bollywood DVD stores. It's busy in the evening and we head out for a short walk around the block to take it all in, stopping at a small informal cafe for a tasty Indian naan/ hash with onions and garlic plus hot sauce dips for supper. Singapore is a mish mash of cultures- Indian, Chinese, Malay- but English is the national language so, even though on the streets you'll hear people speaking their mother tongue of Mandarin or Urdu, on the whole most will be more than able to converse in English too, which is good news for us. The main central area of downtown Singapore is world's away from Little India. It's full of high rises, beautifully kept pavement arcades with water fountains and coloured lights, malls upon malls and evry so often a historical colonial building heralding back to the British empirical reign. You can get a fine for jaywalking here and there are signs to that effect so most people obey the pedestrian crossing rules and diligently wait for the green man. The streets around this area are kept clean and the buildings are freshly painted which makes it feel like a very clean city. It's obvious they plough a lot of money into keeping the city smart, from the pristine waterfront boulevards to the immaculate MRT underground system. It's a joy to travel on- quite the opposite to London's tube. The stations themselves are cool, marble clad affairs with air conditioning throughout and in the trains too so it's a place I'd actually rather be than out in the humid hot sunshine! The tickets are clever too. You pay a $1 Singapore for a plastic travel card with your journey embedded on it and retrieve your deposit when you finish your journey by surrendering the card back to the ticket machine, thus eliminating the need for endless paper tickets- (it's against the law to drop litter here). We're also pretty impressed by how much building and development is going on here especially at the waterfront. They are striving for an unrivalled marina park with the world's largest casino under construction due to be finished in six months. We wonder why they should need any more skyscrapers for the 4.5 million population they have here but I've a feeling it's more a status thing than anything else. The people here are well dressed, well behaved and well mannered and it seems, as a country they like to express themselves through innovative architecture and providing a stimulating and pleasurable experience when walking through their city's public areas. We've learned it can cost up to $200,000S to own a car here because you have to apply for the provision of a hefty tax which is levied to ensure the numbers of cars on the city's roads stays at a minimum. So the cars on the road tend to be Bentleys, Mercedes, other non-descript 'business' cars and we did see a Lamborghini parked on Orchard Road. It's a city of style and it's obvious it pays to be seen in one of these cars or clutching a Chanel handbag. We feel downright scruffy. However we do manage to get over this and take in some tea and cake at the famous Raffles Hotel.

Sir Stamford Raffles was the first European to land in Singapore in the late 18th century and found a trading station on the banks of the river that runs through the centre of town. He built the hotel in a true colonial style and warmly welcomed a whole host of travelling British aristocracy to the delights of East Asian hospitality. The hotel has been recently refurbished after it was almost in ruins and now boasts a beautiful palm-filled courtyard and rooms with wooden verandahs out on to the inner gardens. We explore the entire city on foot in less than two days covering Chinatown and La Pau Festival Market

(where you can get a mean Wonton soup), Orchard Road, (a street lined with endless shopping malls) the Colonial District, (with it's traditional members-only cricket ground) and the pretty esplanade

(where the best views of Singapore's skyline can be had at night including the spine clad Esplanade theatres). I can say I've tried traditional Singaporean Gee Moreng (fried rice, mutton and fried egg on top) and a Singapore Slinger

at the Swissotel East Asia bar on the 70th floor of Raffles City complex (gin, cointreau, pineapple juice and grenadine).

17.01.10 Coastal Drive up to Cape Tribulation

2010-01-17T21:53:00.003-05:00

Mossman Gorge on the way up to Cape Tribulation
A lot of the land up here has been given back to the indigenous Aboriginal population because of it's sacred importance. It's much less populated up here and once you get past Cape Trib there's only a 4WD track which takes you up to Cooktown. The drive is pretty as it hugs the coastline and goes through ancient tropical rainforest.

view over the top of the rainforest canopy

We take a rainforest canopy walk to learn a bit more about the environment and find out lots of things including the way fig trees grow. They are parasitic vines which attach themselves to mature trees growing round them and eventually taking them over, suffocating the original tree inside until it rots and becomes hollow. The Ideasternum (Idiot Fruit) is the oldest of flowering rainforest plants dating back 135 million years and still grows in this rainforest in Daintree National Park. We chance our luck at spotting a crocodile on the Daintree River on an eco-cruise and we do manage to catch a glimpse of a baby one sitting on the bank.

can you spot the baby croc?

Unfortunately we've come at the wrong time of year to see crocs because the water temperature is at a warm 28 - 29 degrees and the crocs don't need to come up to the surface to regulate their body temperature with the sun. When the water's colder, about 20 degrees, they come out on to land to soak up some of the sun to sync their temperature with that of the water. Our guide explains the species of mangrove plant which dwell on the edges of the river. They're termed mangrove if they are able to root down into saltwater (we're in the river's estuary, to explain the presence of saltwater) and twenty of the thirty international wide species of mangrove plant can be found in Daintree National park. One of the ingenious ways of plant reproduction in mangroves is the use of long pods which dangle from the plant's branches, then drop into the water managing to root themselves into the river bed and soon enough new green shoots start appearing on the surface of the water.

Cape Tribulation beach- it was a cloudy day!

view from Alexandra lookout over the north Queensland coastline

On the way back to Cairns, we spot kangaroos enjoying long green grass pastures next to the highway. It's a bit cooler at this time in the evening and the ginger roos are sitting and sometimes hopping through the grass. Yes! We've seen one!

Aussie Dictionary

G'day - hi!
Fair'd income - I know what you're saying
Tucker - food
Esky - transportable travel fridge which plugs into your yute for cool drinks and picnics. (Mike had one we were very impressed with!)
Mate - friend or complete stranger. The Australians tend to be a very friendly bunch and call everyone their mate.
Yute - pick up, a must for every self-respecting outback fella or farmer.

16.01.10 Quicksilver Cruise to Flynn Reef

2010-01-17T21:48:00.002-05:00

After our disappointment at not getting to snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef because of the stinging jellyfish two days ago we decide to give it another go and book to go out on another cruise to reef sites further out, hoping that there won't be any jellyfish there. The larger cruiser makes easy work of the offshore waves and we power through the water, covering 36km to get to our first of three dive sites of the day on the outer reef. When we ask about whether there's been any occurences of jellyfish on the sites we're told there have been and not just the blue bottles. Kurandji jellyfish have been spotted also and they pack a sting that'll put you in hospital for two days. We're quite worried from this news but we're all given stinger suits to wear in the water which prevent jellyfish from being able to sting you through the stretchy lycra. The suits have got mittens, hoods and come right down under the feet so we're pretty safe. And, much to our relief, today there doesn't seem to be that many jellies on site so our snorkelling experience is 100 times better than it was a couple of days ago. The reef is more pristine out here also and the coral is very impressive. We're able to float above the shallow waters of the reef with fabulous viewing of the sun-illuminated coral formations housing and providing food for thousands of little fishes. Butterfly fish with different stripey patterns of yellow and black swim around in pairs, occasionally turning on their sides to show us their colours. Rainbow parrot fish use their sharp little beaks to bite off the coral and it's possible to hear the cracking sound they make. Many other types of parrot fish can be identified by the way they use their side 'wings' to 'fly' through the water. We both like the little black tiger fish which sit motionless on the coral's edge, their bulging eyes making them distinctly different from the other fish.

underwater pics- the red unfortunately doesn't come out underwater

The coral itself is not as bright in colour as that swim around it, apart from the fuschia pink flower-shaped coral, but it's strange and wonderful formations are very impressive. There's fluorescent blue and white finger coral which looks a bit like deer antlers, big balls of smooth coral, undulating wave-shaped coral with frills on the edge and formations that snake up and down to make up a tight nit pattern on the reef. Polyps, which are micro-organisms that attach themselves to the coral make it look hairy as they all dance in the underwater currents. Some of this coral is extremely slow-growing and just by looking at the sheer size of some of the individual organisms you can tell that they're hundreds if not thousands of years old. We're excited when we spot two clown fish swimming in and out of a pink anemone. They are part of a symbiotic relationship with the underwater plant, giving each other protection. The anemone has a stinging power as a defence system but offers a certain immunity to the clown fish who in turn live in the anemone and will protect their home from predators. It's actually wrong in Finding Nemo though, when all Nemo's brothers and sisters are eaten by the barracuda and only his dad and himself survive. His dad would in fact turn into a female fish and begin sexual relations with him to produce more of their species. Wouldn't really work for a kids film though would it? Maori wrasse are large, fat-lipped fish displaying intricate blue green patterns on their purple skins which are reminiscent of traditional Maori tattooes, hence the name. As in much of the animal world, it's the male fish in the ocean that are the pretty ones, displaying the most colour and pattern. Three snorkelling sessions later and we're psyched by our experience on the reef. It's been a great day and such a serene yet stimulating visual experience.

more images from botanic gardens

2010-01-17T21:47:00.000-05:00

Cairns Botanical Gardens

2010-01-17T21:43:00.001-05:00

No greenhouses needed here- it's so hot all these tropical plants are thriving.

saltwater lagoon

14.01.10 Reef Daytripper Cruise to Upolu Reef

2010-01-17T21:39:00.003-05:00

We start out early to catch our boat out to the Great Barrier Reef. It's warm at this time of the morning but it won't be long til the heat of the day sets in and out on the waves especially you can feel the full force of it.

the reef's the turquoise bit in the distance

It's nice to be on a smaller boat than the huge motor cruisers, which carry up to 300 people, because there's only fifteen of us on board and it's a much more intimate sailing experience. However with a catamaran of this size, it's easier to feel the waves as they pull us up, down and side to side, so we soon begin to regret having forgotten to pick up the travel sickness pills off the side when we left this morning! I just keep my eyes fixed on the static horizon and try not to move my head around too much! It's always the same. Going sailing looks so appealing from dry land but, as I get older, motion sickness seems to take it's hold easier. It's really unfortunate that blue bottle jellyfish have infested the water around the Upolu reef because it means that when we all get in the water to go snorkelling we all get stung and it's not a very nice experience.

blue bottle jelly at the top of the picture

It's like a nettle sting and the pain lasts for around ten minutes before it subsides leaving a small welt. There are so many of them in the water, (they're dark blue and clear 'bubbles' about the size of your little finger with a stinger tail that can be up to two metres long) that it's impossible to avoid swimming past them. It's a very uncomfortable experience and it's not long before everyone is upset by the stings and making their way back to the boat. We do see a few tropical fish but don't make it all the way out to the reef bed. It's a real shame and it's a very unusual event to see so many of them at this time of year. Normally they congregate closer to shore but our captain advises us that due to the unusually warm waters the blue bottle numbers are rising. He's obviously disappointed for us and encourages us to try an introductory dive because going further down would eliminate being stung by the jellies on the surface. We're both very keen to see if we would enjoy the experience but unfortunately due to Greg's asthma, the State of Queensland diving regulations prevent him from trying it even though his condition is very mild. It's an over precautionary regulation and Iris the dive co-ordinator advises us that once he receives a clean bill from a dive doctor he'll be all set to give it a go. I still opt in and get geared up with an oxygen tank strapped to my back, mouthpiece and flippers. Iris gives us a few pointers on how to clear our mask if it fills with water and how to remove our mouthpiece underwater should we need to. Aside from this brief introduction we're simply guided off the back of the boat and beckoned to begin our descent by using a rope dangling from the boat.

me in my diving gear, jumping into the water

Extra weights round our waists help us to sink and Iris fiddles with our equipment to release the pressure. Once we hit the sandy bottom, around ten metres, we begin our underwater tour of the reef. It's very impressive to view the large numbers of colourful fish and coral up close and personal. I have to train myself to get used to breathing in and out, releasing all the bubbles to the surface, and not to panic. It's a very calm and slow paced environment under the violent waves above. Little shoals of yellow fish flurry around the anemones and larger rainbow coloured fish hide under the bigger coral formations. We see stripey flounders and are very excited when we come across little Nemos (clown fish) swimming in and out of the anemones. Iris picks up a black sea cucumber off the sandy floor and passes it round. It's just as I expected it to feel, like a moving water balloon! We spend a good forty minutes round the reef before we ascend and swim back to the boat. This time I'm only stung once as I make my way back.

Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef

2010-01-17T21:36:00.001-05:00

North Queensland Coast
12.01.10 - 19.01.10

When we arrive in Cairns one of the first things we experience is a heavy tropical rainstorm. The town has large open gutters along every roadside to cope with sudden increases in water level. The rain doesn't last for long and hasn't rained again since, although we are here in the region's wet season so it can't be ruled out to not happen again. This is in fact also the low season for tourist activity because of the high levels of humidity and the presence of deadly box jellyfish off the beaches making swimming or going anywhere near the edge of the water a big no no.

There's also the threat of freshwater and saltwater crocodiles who like to build territories along the coast and in the muddy mangroves so that's another reason to steer clear of any water! Fortunately the city of Cairns town council has realised the public's love of swimming in hot weather and built a large saltwater lagoon just off the esplanade with views out to the ocean and round the bay. The town itself has a very tropical feel with an abundance of palm trees and exotic plants lining every street and garden.

It sprawls out from the centre, where the Reef Fleet terminal dominates the front, in long boulevards, with tons of holiday apartments, car rental shops and restaurants on either side. It's unashamedly Queensland's most popular holiday town and some would admit it's become a bit over-commercialised. The main reason tourists flock to Cairns is it's location for touring the Great Barrier Reef and this is exactly why we're here too. We book ourselves on to a snorkelling cruise in a flash sailboat catamaran and look forward to getting underwater to see the exceptional coral and tropical fish.

Newtown and Chinatown (Sydney)

2010-01-17T21:32:00.001-05:00

eccentric shops on Enmore Road, Newtown

pretty shops in Chinatown