CanElectric Hits The Web

Brighton's Premier Electrician hits the web with the launch of my new website www.canelectric..co.uk


If you need any electrical work doing around and about brighton, hop on over there and drop me a line...

Hurricane Dodging in Central America

Hopefully that got your attention.
I'm sure you'll all be terribly pleased to hear that we are both fine and dandy, mostly due to the fact that the only storm damage we have actually seen has been on CNN. We have, as is proper for grumbling gringos, still been moaning about how we`ve been inconvenienced by it. Buses have been full or missing (depending on their direction of travel) as hoards of tourists slosh backwards and forwards across the country, simultaneously fleeing Dean on the East coast and Felix on the West, and then being pincered by Henrietta sneaking up from the South. The worst we fared directly though was being trapped for a week in Creel, Mexico, (pretty much equidistant between the three) because of a landslide on the railway ( a.k.a the only transport out of there that took less than 20 hours and cost less than 7000 pesos).
But lets rewind a bit to Antigua Guatemala - our port of entry to this impoverished sub-continent.
Yeah, impoverished my aunt, they're supping 5 dollar coffees all day long on delightful pavement terraces (let them eat cake, eh? they already are..). Of course this is rudely unfair to the vast majority of the indigenous population living in boxes outside of Antigua, but it sure blew away our preconceptions about the area.
Antigua town is beautiful. Colonial architecture, cobbled streets and cathedral ruins abound, and all set against the backdrop of a cloud tipped volcano. This one's inactive, but we did climb it's lava dribbling brother (to the despair of any European health and safety officers that may have been vacationing in the vicinity) to poke sticks into it.
Anyway, we spent a week here enrolled in a Spanish school, as we rightly figured that, unlike Spain itself, communication in English (but louder) probably wouldn't suffice for 5 weeks. I think we'd both forgotten what a brain melting experience school is. Respec' to the kids. 7 hours a day of verbos irregulares, verbos passado and memorizing colours, opposites, vegetables, parts of the body and vocations (clearly the most important to two unemployed dossers) was enough to make us want to speak English. Loudly.
Our only respite from the lessons was 30 minutes in the morning at the local cafe for teeth-chatteringly strong coffee and the time spent with our live-in family being served frijoles (mushed up beans) for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Every day. Come the end of the course the first thing we did was to head for the best recommended restaurant in town and splashed the cash. Only to be served frijoles. Spiced up in Jim's case with some well stewed, but happily unnamed, animal body parts (still smelling more of animal than food, too).
All in all, the food in Guatemala was rather poo(r), which was really the minimum of excuses we needed in order to head off pretty sharpish towards Mexico.
By taking a circuitous (in the extreme) route via Flores in North Guatemala we managed to drop in on Tikal, one of the pre-Hispanic Mayan capitals, which certainly lived up to the mystique we'd expected from watching Cities of Gold as kids (plenty of theme tune singing as we clambered around the mighty temples in search of treasure). And we also got to do our first river border crossing which also perfectly matched our imagined impressions of pan American drug running - rickety long-boats and corrupt officials in out-of-the-way border posts (the unpublicised 'fee' to leave Guatemala is 10 dollars per person, even without a haul of narcotics).

So Mexico - and another similar surprise. It may not be wealthy as such, but it´s certainly cultivated an air of prosperity that we would never have expected - whilst the poor are still poor, the rich are apparently, even richer. The food however, and regardless of class, was just as bad (ok, it's got a bit better as we've headed north, but at the time we were way disappointed). On the plus side (as far as living up to the stereotype goes) every man has a moustache and wears a big hat. Classic.
We started in Palenque with more ruins, and another indication of Mexicos financial superiority over its neighbours. Where Tikal was very much jungle covered and ruinous, Palenque is very tidy and papmered with Anthonio Robinsonis`s "Equipo del Tiempo" very much in evidence...
The next stop was an overnight bus ride to San Cristobal. The Mexican bus system is magnificent, nay world class although, as we found out too late, it`s also (unbelievably) more expensive than flying. Gone are all the old fume belching US school buses (sold to Guatemala third-hand along with a few past-their-best Greyhounds, we'd guess) to be replaced by LED-lit, flat screen-TV-wielding, horizontally-reclining-seated super buses - complimentary drinks and headphones inclusive. Never has overnight road transport been so desirable. I'll inject a quick shot of realism to say this does really just cover intercity travel - there are still 7 peso local buses chugging around the suburbs - but even so they`re mostly new and clean so Mexico still scores top marks for public transport.
San Cristobal is another beautiful Spanish colonial town and the surrounds offered us the chance to do ourselves plenty of skeleto-muscular damage with a 3 hour horse ride to the outlying villages. It`s also the home of the innovative two-for-one drinks offer, which you are only invited to indulge in by paying twice the menu price for the first drink. Dishonest but clever.
Next up Oaxaca (pronounced wahhaker; an undoubted attempt by the indigenous tribes to upset the Spanish invaders by refusing to adopt phonetic spelling). I think, of all the towns we visited, Oaxaca best embodies Mexico. More colonial architecture for sure, but also mariachi bands and couples samba-ing in the street to dueling marimbas as the sun sets over the Zocalo. The little village of El Tule down the road also provided us with our first real Fiesta - it`s only purpose that we could identify being for the kids to let off a bit of steam by playing trumpets, while their dads dressed up as papier mache giants and went to watch the bull fighting. Or cow rodeo as it turned out. The first guy got duly catapulted from the back of his mount, but the next poor animal was a bit more cunning (or more likely knackered from a day stood in the sun) and refused to play 'bad cow', promptly sitting down and thereby foiling the whole man-clings-desperately-to-bucking-bronco competition. The third cow cottoned on and played dead (although the cow may rightly argue with me over the use of the word `play`). Being from England, with our sense of fair play and national love for all the beasts, we took this as our cue to leave.

Mexico City, described even by the mollycoddling Lonely Planet as filthy, is very clean with no evidence of it`s infamous lung busting atmospheric pollution (sorry Los Angeles, that`s still your crown) anywhere. Mexicans are thinking very green these days. The metro is fast, quite, well run and massively cheap. The parks are safe, clean and green. The museums are world class; interesting and informative. And the markets go on for ever. Nice place really.
The most memorable bit, as is usually the case with these things, is not instantly the most obvious. It`s the Taxis. The LP says they're all murderous robbers, but this might just be the ones (oddly the majority) insisting on using two door Beetles. Clearly the profitable cabbies (and therefore the safest, with least need to supplement their income) are the 4 door drivers. They know no theoretical maximum number of passengers - We had five in the back and two in the front, and I reckon they would have taken more at the drop of shock absorber. The other anecdotal aspect is that the time taken to cover 4 miles can range between an amusing 45 minutes and a PlayStation-esque 1 minute 45 seconds. The latter accompanied by pounding tecno, and clearly life threatening.

Further north along the spine of the country lies San Luis Potosi. Yet more (but genuinely no less attractive) colonial architecture - this town though harbours a more sinister secret. They`ve built their own NEC on the outskirts. Yup, I`m not sure how or why we found it, but 30 minutes on the wrong bus brings you to the most obscure of show grounds. In one day we went to a tat market, saw local crafts (it gets odder here) went to the worst zoo-thing we`ve ever seen, saw goat shearing championships (now it gets weirder), watched a crooner giving it his all to a crowd of hundreds accompanied solely by his Casio keyboard, went to see Mexican Wrestling (recommended; think WWF but a lot funnier), went to the fair, saw `Broadway on Ice' (make it up, you`ll be close), heard Mexico's top rock-reggae act play live`, and (as advertised) much, much more. All for 10 pesos (50p) too. Best value day out yet.
We also stayed in the grubbiest hotel since India, but we`ll let that slide.

Further north than that is Saltillo and Chihuahua - both pretty dull tho. The first has a museum about deserts, and the second doesn`t have any small dogs.

So then we thought we`d have ago at a long train ride (it had been a while). The Copper Canyon has got to be Mexico's best kept secret. Firstly it`s at altitude, so its cool and covered in pine forest. Secondly it offers an ever changing panorama of rock faces, mountains and (or course) canyons. Creel (the afore mentioned town in which we got stranded) splits the journey neatly in two and also offers some good opportunity to walk, bike, and scooter around the countryside.
Meanwhile back in Chihuahua, and despite what we (and most likely they) knew about the storm damaged line, the Mexican railway officials kept piling unsuspecting travellers aboard the train to join us, trapped, in Creel. Even with the fortunate and continual influx of new card-playing friends, a week is enough in a one street town (especially with a broken, or maybe plain exhausted, cash machine), so we were pretty happy to be moving on when word finally came through that the land slip was cleared and we could continue our journey to the West Coast.

So the last part of our trip, partly by accident (because of the unintended time lost in Creel) and partly by design (cos we like doing nothing on beaches) has been spent in La Paz, Baja California (that's the sticky down peninsula bit). It`s basically extremely hot, and humid and covered in cacti (pretty much how we`d expected Mexico to look 4 weeks ago, when it didn`t) . But we`ve found a nice beach with dolphins and not too many US tourists (sorry Emily :) ) so we`re just gonna hang out here for a couple more days and then fly up to Tijuana for a quick drink before walking into the States for our flight home.

And that`ll be it. Back to the UK - we`ve already started griping about the weather forecasts - but definitely up for some tea, beer and a Sunday lunch.

Fiji and the US of A

Fiji was really a bit of a cheat in the travelling stakes because we got a last minute cut-price deal for two nights in a posh hotel on a private resort (private resort=no poor/indigenous locals unless they`re serving cocktails) so I have to say that we didn´t really experience the full monty. In fact it was undeniably similar to our last summer hols in Turkey. Or Greece. Or Majorca. Or anywhere offering sun, sea and sand in approximately equal measures. Anyways you get the picture. The Ozzys and Kiwis have the excuse that distance-wise it effectively is their Majorca, but for anyone else (including us bizzarley) we´re not actually sure why anyone would choose to fly half way-and-a-bit around the world to be served pizza and chips. Our best highlight, and our only nod to real travelling, was making supernoodles in the champagne cooler - the insulating properties of which appear to have been perfectly designed for the task.
So we left, with apologies to the local islanders; our foreheads smeared to the inside of the taxi window as we returned to the airport looking at all the colourful things that we could have got up to if only we`d really tried.....

The States on the other hand, I feel we almost did in it`s entirety. In one week. This was our first country to be tackled without a copy of the Lonely Planet guide book - which we cleverly and cheaply substituted for a five dollar, small-scale map of the US and some pamphlets from the tourist office - so it only took us four states, three days and two time zones to arrive at our first destination (and I'm not convinced we'd have done better with the LP), whilst coming to the conclusion, despite much thought on the subject, that we'd be unlikely ever to feel the need to return again. (Anyone remember the start to Knight Rider? Lone crusader speeding through endless desert? That was us, that was)
OK , we´re just being mean. American people are genuinely very friendly and hospitable; We loved the "you´re welcome" after every "thank you" (especially when we realised it was just some freak genetic programming and you can trick them into doing it with a quick "thank.....s giving!". Ha ha ha.). Unfairly for the general populace it's just their government that projects itself badly - with quality gems such as the immigration card asking (and I kid you not) "Are you hear to commit crimes or other nefarious acts? (yes/no)" and "Are you carrying any type of explosive device? (yes/no)". And also the nagging feeling that it took Ritz a lot longer to get through any of the finger printing, face scans, swabs and other stupid security procedures than it did me...
But before Í`m drawn into political rant mode, here`s the good bits:
Firstly The Grand Canyon, and the national parks preceding it, are truly, erm, grand. We took a LOT of pictures of rocks. Big rocks, little rocks, red rocks, slanty rocks, crumbly rocks - in fact if you can find any better looking rocks, photo them. Then a few hundred (clearly unmeasured if you compare the roads signs to the car's odometer) miles to the Arizona meteor impact crater. Here we were disappointed (but not surprised) to find that they employed some small minded man to stop us photographing what is essentially more rock, with out dutifully paying some exorbitant entrance fee first.
And then on to the Hoover Dam. Not sure what to say about this really. It`s a dam, albeit a pretty cool one, but I did have a song on my not-Pod conveniently titled "Hoover Dam" so we got out the car and played it.
And then on to Las Vegas. You know that thing they do in the movies, where all of London is represented by a close up of the illuminated TDK sign in Piccadilly Circus? Well I imagine that a Yank visiting London would probably feel the same thing as we did on hitting Vegas. Close up it`s an expensively cheap building site, that kind of resembles Amsterdam at night - if only due to the stumbling hen parties careering down the main strip. All the same we gambled (one dollar) and lost, and went to see a show. "Stomp" who ironically started performing for free in Brighton many years ago but are just as spectacular on a paid stage.
So you think we're being a bit cliched so far? Wait till you see what we did next.
We went to Disney Land. For two days :)
Dare we enthrall you with tales of meeting the real Buzz Lightyear? or the really real Sully from Monsters inc.? (Micky and Donald are metaphorically living in trash cans supping meths these days you know). No I don't think we will. The Twilight zone Tower of Terrors, mind you, is ace!
And that is about it. If anyone can think of anything else in the US that deserves our attention please let us know - but really it is just like it is on the TV (except, like they say, perhaps bigger) so with this trip, Friends, The Simpsons, and The A Team under our belts, we think you'll struggle.

Guatamala is really good though, but you´ll have to wait to find out why.............

Bye Bye NZ

Greetings again! This time you find us just about to leave New Zealand; A wondrous place of snow capped mountains, star strewn night skys and psychedelic sunsets. If I was tasked with the job of finding somewhere to film some great fantasy epics, you know, Lord of the Rings, or maybe Narnia, that kind of thing, then I would definitely choose to do it in NZ.
We've also had the much overlooked pleasure of spending the entire 5 weeks living in the back of a Ford Transit - with home and car rolled into one the journey really has become part of (occasionally predominantly) the adventure. And we've also learned the hard way why this is the low season for camper rentals; Sleeping in a tin box when faced with what the locals call a 'hard frost' ( a.k.a an outside air temperature of -10 degrees) is not for the faint hearted.
So onto the trip itself...
Christchurch, as are most places in the South Island, is surrounded by great mountain peaks. Reacting violently against our generally sloven behaviour in Australia we immediately set about walking over them and, with the sun in the sky, were instantly rewarded with panoramic views of unspoilt (ok, bar a few hundred years of aggravated deforestation) landscape plunging all around us into cobalt coloured waters. We also noted down our the first recorded use of the phrase "the photos really don't do it justice".
At this point, if you're really short of time, you could probably just keep re-reading that earlier sentence and just mentally place us in different locations around NZ. You'll miss out on some of the more exciting (stupid?) things we did, but you'd still have a pretty clear picture of day-to-day travelling life over here.

Just down the road is Akaroa. And I'll take a moment for an aside here. Akaroa, like quite a few other towns in the South Island, requires an oddly specific purpose in order to go there, as there's just the one road in. It's a beautifully made road, winding expensively for tens of kilometers over hills and around lakes, but ultimately it goes only to the town and then ends. It doesn't go anywhere else. You can't drive through Akaroa on the way to somewhere else, which is an odd sensation for a Brit used to the endless spaghetti of tarmac covering our island. You just have to turn around and go back the way you came.
Anyways (and I'll assume you found that as interesting as me), the town is billed as being 'French' but despite an exhaustive search we found no moustached men on bicycles with stripy tops and onions around their necks. The best we could do was find a couple of streets going by the name of 'rue'. Pretty, but what a swizz.

We then took the scenic route (note the start of 'photos through the windscreen' as we realised that we wouldn't get anywhere fast if we stopped every time some new angle of the light took our breath away) through the middle of the country to lake Tekapo (not pronounced take-a-poo. New Zealanders, although friendly, are quite pedantic about their place name pronunciations). Another place of quality hill walks, this time in a few foot of snow, cool views and a neat little observatory serving THE best hot chocolate in the universe (and I reckon you could use their telescopes to prove the grandeur of that claim). Mount Cook at the other end of the lake had even more snow, so much in fact that we were forced for the first time to open the bag marked 'snow chains'.

Snow chains are, well, just simple chains really. If you do what the rental company suggest you just whip them out wrap them round the tire with a flick of the wrist, and slip the catch over just like so. Reality check number 1: The chains need to be long enough to go all the way round the tire. A quick call to the rental company confirmed that we would indeed be spending the night exactly where we were with the promise of some new, bigger, chains the next day (if we could move at all...).

Well fortunately (and after obligatory scenic tramp through the snow to see some avalanches and glaciers and stuff) we were able to get the van back on the road and headed off to Queenstown to get said new chains. On the way we did pass through a town called Twizel, my only comment being that they also don't like their town being miss pronounced 'Twizzel', and that the guys who run the skydiving shop would have made some money out of us if they'd bothered showing up to work. Ever.

Queenstown is largely very pretty and didn't seem to deserve the 'over touristy' bashing that the lonely planet gave it. It does rightly deserve the title of adrenalin capital though, and quickly claimed it's next two victims as we signed up to throw ourselves of a) a mountain, b) a bridge and c) a cable car while attached to a bungee cord of twisted knicker elastic (and it really is knicker elastic - no space age tech here for sure) - all drawn out over three heart thumping consecutive days. The feeling really is indescribable; Fear? Joy? Panic? Elation? All of the above and more? Just try it if you get the chance - highly recommended!!!!

Having calmed down with a go on the merry-go-round and a trip to see Thomas the Tank Engine (although I reckon it was James or Percy though, cos Thomas is blue right?) we tootled off across the country to Te Anue (home of the tourist trap) and Milford Sounds (holiday cottage of the tourist trap). Everyone we have met who'd been there assured us that it was truly the jewel in the crown of Fijordland. Rightly so on a sunny day, we'd guess. But 'guess' it was to remain as we were wrapped in a blanket of cloud for the entire day. Never mind. It did turn us into weather snobs though, and now not wanting to go to the next stage of our plan, namely ski-ing, until we had perfect conditions (and because diesel is cheep here) we motored right across the island to Dunedin.

Dunedin is home of the most photographed railway station in Australasia, a surprisingly good museum, the steepest street in the world and the Cadbury's factory (which loses some of it's Willy Wonka magic when you've actually done the minimum wage box-packing job on the other side of the screen...). Next.

Snow chain reality check number 2: Even with correct sized chains, don't wait until midnight, after a long drive, on top of a hill, with the van sliding sideways, in blizzard conditions to find out how to fit them. And we hadn't even reached the ski resort yet. Mind you it was lucky we did get the practice in because when we did arrive at the resort the next day it wasn't quite what we were expecting. Used only to package ski-ing tours where you just need to keep handing over money until you arrive at the bottom of the slope, we were naturally surprised to arrive at the bottom, of a long, frozen, dirt track heading off near vertically up the side of the mountain. 4 wheel drives whizzed around us as we wound our rear wheel drive, automatic, camper van up the slope whilst loose fingers of chain rhythmically shot blasted flecks of paint from around the mud guards.
It was pretty good fun once we'd got to the top though :)

Tired from boarding, but still maintaining our blind belief that winter sports are fun we set off up the west coast to go ice climbing on a glacier. Do we know no bounds we hear you ask? Not yet, no.
Glaciers are pretty amazing in their own right, unimaginably big pieces of ice - all the gin and tonic in the world couldn't float a block of ice considerably bigger than Christchurch - much as we might wish it could. Huge crevices and tiny crawl-through tunnels added to the fun of making our way over it armed with ice axes and crampons. The only improvement at all I would make would be to the stupid plastic shoes we had to wear in order that the crampons had something to attach to - but fashion considerations are really a minor gripe I suppose....

So on we went with our road trip, abandoned gold mines, more snowy walks, and Hamner Springs. The location of both the famous natural hot water pools (hmm, nice taking a dip in 39 degrees at night, while the air around plunges below freezing) and also snow chain reality check number 3: Snow chains are not built to last. Be very aware of this if thinking about driving off to any remote areas. Especially those marked 'ski area'. Very realistically the sign could be pointing at the road rather than along it. Also be very wary of New Zealander's continual underestimation of the weather. Phrases like 'yeah you should be alright' will usually indicate a minimum 6 inch covering of snow over ice, while things like 'you may need chains towards the end' translates as 'put them on straight away, take a spare set, and possibly three days worth of food and water just in case'. We ended up being towed backwards off the top of a mountain over a bridge barely wider than the van and then lowered back into town at about 15km/h. I bet the kindly sole that rescued us has never needed to buy his own beer during tourist season....

Carrying on we saw some seals living in a car park, drunk some absolutely splendid wine, went to another museum, saw my cousins and got onto the ferry to the North Island.

The North island is where everybody lives, and because of this we think it's the more 'Englandy' bit of NZ, although for their own romantic reasons the citizens of the North think the South island is more 'Englandy' because it looks a bit like the Lake District. It's also where a few of our ex-pat friends from blighty have settled down, so we've been looked after like kings here. Luxuries such as constant hot water and soft beds have become the norm and we're very happy about it too.
Wellington clings to the shore waiting to be washed into nothingness by the next tsunami, or possibly just global warning if it's patient, but didn't really light any fires with us. The national museum is HUGE, and even being guided by our rent-a-locals Sophie, Marie and Matt we couldn't have taken it all in in the time we were there.
Up the east coast Napier may well be art deco dominated, but in all fairness is actually just crap. Gisbourne is a fair bit better, and is actually quite a neat place serving the heart of the logging community with an enormous port full of timber waiting to be shipped to B&Qs around the globe. Then there's the east cost highway which encircles what appears to be one huge traveller camp. Piles of forgotten cars, loud and large mongrel dogs and lots of 'is it a house or is it a caravan?' accommodation. It has a gypsy charm to it all too, and a bit of western ghost town history - a good trip, but hardly a destination...

Rotorua is pretty special though. Built in a volcanically active zone (because it keeps the houses warm for free, never mind about it burying whole towns for free too, once every few hundred years or so) steam and mud boil out of the ground everywhere. It really does look spooky. Despite the everywhere-ness of this steam, enterprising communities have also fenced off various areas where you can also pay $50 to see god's kettle whistling and so springs forth one of NZ's most touristy areas. We were particularly lucky here in that Marie is part of a large Maori family (think Irish, or Indian to gauge what 'large family' means in this context) which effectively owns the whole of Rotorua. Therefore by cleverly exploiting the ongoing disquiet between the Europeans and the Maori, we got to go everywhere for free, Hooray! Thanks guys...

Once we'd had enough of their garden shed being larger and more sumptuous than our Brighton home we nipped over to Lake Taupo (an hour away and steam still comes out of the ground). We had been recommended a good walk here, but we found a little notice in the information centre advising ice axes and alpine clothing. Remembering our hard earned knowledge about underestimating the weather conditions we sacked that off instantly and (finally) managed to throw ourselves out of a plane instead. Yee-Haa!

We're now in Auckland being looked after by more friends, pinching their Internet and the like, and getting ready to depart these hallowed shores for a quick stop over in Fiji. Couple of days rest and then we hit the USA, Guatemala and Mexico. Sorry its been a long one; there's even more in the photo album if work will allow you the time to sit there browsing it all...
Speak to you all again soon.

Australia

Yes It's us again - thanks for all the caring emails wondering if we've been eaten by giant kangaroos and the like - but no such luck for you guys, it's really only been a matter of economics. Oz is just very expensive. Almost Switzerland expensive; Mars bars are 80p (and not even king size) and crisps nearly a pound. Even by staying off t'interweb, sleeping in huge dorms full of smelly teenagers, living on cheep (cardboard-like) pasta and sauce and certainly no chocy bars, we'd managed to destroy our months budget in not much over two weeks. On the plus side we have spent the cash on doing some pretty cool things, the delectable and, we admit, extended details of which follow... :)
Sydney is a city. We've decided we don't like cities as the main activities are normally shopping or eating. As budget travellers this translates to envious window shopping and drooling over other peoples meals, so other than taking the usual opera house and harbour bridge photos there isn't actually much more to say, although we must give it some credit for the Blue Mountains where we spent a day walking the trails and getting snap happy with the camera at the wonderful scenery.
Anyway, having done that, and armed with our Greyhound bus ticket, we set of for Byron bay. Here we discovered the joy of Goon (4 litres of boxed vinegar, erm, I mean table wine) and got ourselves well and truly stuck into the "backpacker trail". The Arts Factory was actually our favourite hostel featuring such delights as Tee-Pees and Routemasters for lodgings, a cinema playing homemade surfdude films and a long history of alternative goings-on (including, we were reliably informed, past performances by 80's electro idols New Order). It was also the basecamp for the obligatory Nimbin tour. Those of you who know what this entails should be rightly jealous. Those of you who don't should stay off Google in order to protect our ebbing reputations. Suffice to say that hurtling down a narrow country road in a bus with every twist and turn perfectly synchronised to Pink Floyd's 'On The Run' on a mission to meet Magic Paul and his personal self-grown rainforest is an experience we'll never forget. Short term memory permitting......
As a quick aside it was also the location for quote of the month "Some species deserve to become extinct" said our ozzy bus driver as we watched a Koala bear clinging precariously to a cliff top branch hanging over a 150m sheer drop looking for edible eucalyptus leaves. In a fir tree. Doh.
The next three weeks were pretty much non-stop travel, as we hurtled up the East Coast towards Cairns, trying to make the most of every town that we stopped in or passed through (although the the difference between the two was often marginal).
Noosa is a very upmarket town surrounded my mangrove swamps and national park - we spent a day wildlife spotting by kayak and scored 1 ray, 10 jellyfish and 100 bats. Unfortunately we also scored a computer virus so I think the photos have been eaten - but trust us, it was beautiful.
Next up was Rainbow beach - the start of 'everything revolves around sand' country. First the 81 different shades of it (hence the name), then the huge sand blow devouring the forest behind at a rate of 1 meter per year (run away, run away...). It's also the gate way to Fraser Island the biggest sand island in the world and the only place where forest grows on sand (there's about another 100 other sand related facts about the place as well, but thankfully they slip my mind at the moment). Unfortunately we had the miss fortune of booking our travel to Fraser from Hervey Bay which is a big bland sprawling town a couple of hours North.
On the plus side we only had to spend a night in Hervey (at officially the worst hostel in Oz) to tool up with cool boxes, cheep food (quality rather than cost unfortunately), more goon and a 4X4. We engaged all-wheel drive, high ratio, and hit the ferry. Figuratively of course.
Fraser was good fun; 30 people, tents, gas stoves and (with a quick bit of mental arithmetic) 100+ litres of cheap red can hardly be anything else. That aside we saw some spectacular scenery, crystal clear lakes, whales and the back end of a few scavenging dingos. And sand of course. It's still possible to find sizable amounts of it now every time we pull out a pair of socks, or open the camera case.
It's also the first time we've ever had our moneys worth taking out the liability reduction insurance for a car, as the drive shaft started rattling badly then promptly fell off - much to the amusement of the resident island mechanic who informed us we were now stuck with two wheel drive, and then left us to it, departing with a snigger and a huge grin on his face. All was well on the hard packed beach sand, but it took the combined effort of all the occupants of the 12 car traffic jam behind us to get us over the first hill as we made our way off the island the next day....
The town of 1770 (where the roads were only sealed 5 yrs ago, and mobile phones started working a mere 6 months ago) contains the second best hostel in Oz (and by now things like free tea and coffee were really important requirements for us). It's also the home of ScooterRoo (although personally I think Kangarooter would have been a better name). Tall handle bars, a low slung seat, flame and stars'n'stripes paint jobs, and a throbbing (buzzing?) 50cc Chinese moped engine. Yup, this was chopper cruisin' in style. 30 of us touring the back country in search of roos - and we found some - unbelieveably the best fun we had all month!
We reached Airly Beach 14 hours north by overnight bus and found ourselves well and truly in backpackersville. Bars with wet T-shirt comps (which they wouldn't let me [jim] enter), beer in jugs and dorms full of smelly drunken bodies.
We were really there to start our sailing tour of the Whitsundays (although the beer in jugs certainly got a look in even if the wet Ts didn't) and were therefore rewarded (as is becoming our luck with these things) with the biggest storm the East coast had seen in 32 years. Undeterred we set off in our water proofs but under diesel power (the skipper saying that sailing was theoretically possible, but lost travellers raised their insurance premiums too much). We made it to the islands in one piece, but no one felt much like starting the goon that night....
The Whitsundays are also stunningly beautiful; Whitehaven beach on the main island is apparently ranked number two beach in the whole world (if anyone knows how to get a job ranking world beaches, do let me know). Our wildlife count now included turtles, dolphins, and even more fish; the reef snorkeling was amazing.
Next stop was Townsville, a pretty but rough-around-the-edges port town and another self depreciating place advertising itself as the 'gateway to' somewhere else; In this case Magnetic Island. Fearful of bring the first to help construct it's own identity, we caught the first ferry out.
Magnetic is another fantastically beautiful place even though it turns out it's not actually magnetic. Besides the beauties of the island itself, 12 dollars of snorkle hire opens up yet another world of beautiful coral reef and scuppered ships teeming with marine life lying only a few meters off shore. We also hopped on a boat here to go proper wreck diving which was rather expensive, but rather worth it too; The Yongala sunk in a cyclone in 1911 and since then has been slowly collecting probably the largest quantity and variety of marine life in the area. It really was truly spectacular from any perspective; 8 foot rays, nemo fish, sea snakes, turtles and whole shoals of sparkling coloured reef fish. We didn't have a camera this time so you'll just have to imagine or go there yourselves.....
And now on to Mission Beach. A little settlement a couple of hours south of Cairns, and really a bit of a respite from the endless travelling (and goon). We chilled out with a real bottle of wine, watched a few DVDs, saw the sand, saw the rain forest and (here it comes) went white water rafting. Hahahah. Great fun. The photos are in Melbourne at the moment though, so you'll have to wait until we've picked them up in a couple of days. We were also going to go skydiving to but it rained ;(
Finally we got to Cairns. Again not much to say about the place itself other than it's a city, but we did hire a car and go and see Cape Tribulation - the only place where 2 world heritage sites, both fulfilling all 4 heritage criteria, meet each other. Basically it's rain forest meets sand (well reef really), kind of like a forest and sand double bonus in case forest and sand on it's own was starting to get tedious (as if..). We also had a drive around the Atherton table land, which accounts for the bundle of waterfall photos.

OK that's your lot for now. Melbourne tomorrow, New Zealand on Thursday and we'll be half way through. Just about time for someone to go down the pub and get us a Guiness and a G'n'T in I reckon....

Thailand

Well hulloo again. Apologies in advance for anyone who's actually enjoyed my healthy smidgens of cynicism so far, because nothing's gone wrong at all in Thailand, even the (persistent) rain is warm. Admittedly that should now be like a red rag to the bull of fate, but we've only got a few more days to go so head down and fingers x'd..........

First a quick welcome to our new travel buddies (well I guess quite a few of you will be back home by now, boooo) - you don't have to read the whole lot, but I know some of you wanted some of our pics, so there's a link to them at the bottom. Also let us know if you've got any of us that we can steal in return...

Anyway, to sum up in as interesting manner as I can; We've had a brief dabble in Bangkok, mostly consisting of Rum (or at least that's what it's called on the bottle), weird food (The Thais have a most annoying habit of making things that look savoury but taste sweet) and cheap T-Shirts - not really enough to keep us there for a long time, but just enough fun that we want to do it again before we fly out :)

First stop was South to Trang (I could at this point make some comments about the train journey - but why spoil the mood?) for a quick tour of the beaches on the Andaman coast, newly recovered from the Tsunami. You can get an idea of how devastating it must have been just because it is really so flat for several miles inland from the coast. But now the only evidence that anything happened are the shiny evacuation route signs that have sprouted up every 100m along the roads (that will probably have rusted to nothing before another 'big one' hits), and that every building is brand spanking new. Certainly there's no fishing boats in trees, which I'd kind of expected even though it's a couple of years ago now. Our plan had been to climb some of the impressive limestone on offer, but due to a chance encounter with a couple in our hotel, we were quickly talked in to heading to the Eastern islands to have a go at diving instead.

More than fortunately this was a top idea by any stretch of the imagination - actually probably the best experience so far! (here I could make some comments about the boat journey - but I'm doing so well with my positive outlook)
I really don't want to harp on about the beautiful sun drenched beaches, the crystal clear waters, the gorgeous food, the late night partying, the great people, the idyllic lifestyle, the alien feeling that you get visiting the underwater world, the diversity and beauty of aquatic life, the psychedelic sunsets or the traditional huts nestling in the jungle overlooking the sea, for fear of making you jealous. Check out the photos if you really want more because by dive number 5 we'd swam with a whale shark (a feat not achieved in 7 years and 700+ dives by our instructor, heh, heh, heh) and had the good fortune of it being the day that we hired the underwater camera. Pictures really do speak a 1000 words, especially underwater where it's very hard to talk anyway......

Now you can all stop being jealous cos on our last day it started tipping it down with rain, and for the most part it hasn't stopped since. Everything I tell you from now on, no matter how good it sounds, has been performed in the wet (like some kind of ironic echo of the diving...).

Ayuthaya was next port of call - basically the ancient capital of Thailand and absolutely rammed full of ruined palaces, temples and other assorted brickwork. Really nice to stroll around especially as the local animal population exceeds anything I've seen in a zoo. Megapedes (like millipedes but about 6inches long), turtles, snakes, chameleons, possibly an otter, and best of all an 8 foot crocodile calmly walking across the path 3 meters in front of us in the city park. Eek.

Next up was Chiang Mai (no horror train stories at all for this one, apart from being talked into paying too much for a beer) - alleged cultural capital of the North. Well it's got a particularly brilliant market and arts/crafts centre (annoying cos we wanted to buy EVERYTHING, but equally didn't want to carry it round the world for the next few months) but otherwise is a bit full of trendy coffeshops. Out of town is a hilltop Buddhist sanctuary of calm - really nice even with Temple fatigue setting in - and Chaing Mai zoo where the torrents of water falling from the sky came to our aid as we had the place all to ourselves. And we fed some hippos who are cute in a big fat wallowy sort of way,but have horrible mouths and bad breath.

And now on to Pai. It's impossible not to love Pai (and just as I was doing so well overcoming my addiction to Pie. And Pi for that matter). We're here now. We don't want to leave.
The place is a bit of a contradiction; On the one hand it's clearly a travellers enclave (defined as a collection of pale faces sporting a range of minor injuries obtained most normally via beer or mopeds and in the case of the more serious ones; both) but on the other hand it's far out in the sticks, surrounded by jungle and misty mountains, with fewer tourist traps and run of the mill excursions.
We've made a sterling effort to do both sides. We've done a 3 day walking trek with our village guide Mr Chart (aka Mr Bamboo - able to make any nameable utensil or tool from the multi faceted plant and, just for Steve, houses too), where we survived on a diet of freshly poached frog, rat-on-a-stick and squirrel soup. Mmmmm. We've cycled to (almost) natural hot springs and a canyon where the walls are made of sand (a geological feat that defies understanding - the only thing I can think of that would erode away faster than sand is ice cream, and I don't remember that being one of the main rock types formed in the broiling centre of our planet).
And of course we celebrated Ritz's big three-oh birthday with rum, cake, rum and a motley gang of English, Finnish, Canadian, American and Israeli wanderers.
OK, despite having said that we really do have to go now - bus ticket booked for 1.30 - but on the upside we're off to Oz (yay!!!) and I think we might just be able to find space for something small from the market in Chaing Mai as we pass through.........

An ever growing repository of pics are still here http://fuzzweed.googlepages.com/mylifeinpictures - Goa and Koh Tao friends may have to do a fair bit of searching if you just want to cherry pick the ones that you feature in, sorry :)

India Weeks 3+4

We're currently hanging around in Singapore airport which I have to say is really quite swanky - even to the point of offering free internet. 'free' still being one of my favourite words...
So last time we bored you to tears with our tales we were on our way to Varanasi. The sleeper train had shitty food, but other than that was pretty good fun.
Varanasi Is one very holy place. Everything there, from the Ganges itself down to the lowliest rickshaw driver apparently had some direct hand in creating the universe all those years ago. Keen to soak up a bit of the good Karma we went straight out, hired a boat and parked it on the river right in front of a whole team of priests in mid incantation. We got totally blessed. I can still feel goodness and light leaking out of me now, two weeks later. It was pretty cool stuff.
We also saw some dead people being cremated.
Then back on to Indian railways...
I'd promised myself that I wasn't going to whinge too much this email, but this journey really took the biscuit. The first (air conditioned, reserved seat) train pulled into it's destination 4.5 hours late - actually nowhere near a record for Indian Railways, but certainly long enough for us to miss the connecting train. The helpful conductors happily pointed us towards another train and within 15 minutes we were back on our way. Only this time it was in a searing 35C heat, and our seats were the luggagge racks, clinging precariously to the carriage wall high above the other passengers heads in a crammed local (=slow) train. And that was relative comfort compared to the tribes bickering and screaming below us about whose elbow was on whose flip flop and in whose bit of floorspace.
8 hours (and probably about 5 miles) later we arrived in Pune. Not somewhere we'd planned or wanted to go - but hey....
Being the positive soles that we are we made the most of it and went to visit the local sights which consisted of:
A rock temple - pretty impressive, but reached by the most human poo covered road I'd yet found in India.
A park - closed between the hours of always (weirdly so are a lot of the city parks all throughout India we've discovered as we've gone along..)
The Botanical Gardens - also not too bad in the grander scheme of things. We saw a sausage tree - which was new to us.
The following day, having managed to 'cut a deal' with the station staff, we actually ended up where we were supposed to be in the sunny, laid back beach and party capital of GOA. Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So we laid in the sun on the beach and then went to a party.

OK just a few more details then. We got a moped and got stopped by the police three times, the resulting bribes summing up to more than the entire moped hire. We ate loads of nice food. We saw another fort and a church (complete with holy relics). We drank lime juice with curry powder and salt - an Indian delicacy. Don't try it, it's disgusting. All in all we did very little - enough to save you all having to trawl through a huge email again. Hope you're pleased :)

And then we went to the Big Chill (photos to be censored and uploaded later).
I'm gonna plug the Big Chill to any of you UK festival goers that want something to do in August. You may even have heard of it already, or Google it if you haven't. It's in the Malverns somewhere and I'd imagine, if the Goa version is anything to go by, it'll be rather good (except that you'll proabaly miss out on the delights of the neighbouring late night beach bar and it's happy staff ;> )

So yesterday we dragged ourselves up to Mumbai and just about managed to get ourselves round a few more (very impressive) rock temples before hitting Singapore Airlines (also very impressive) and here.

OK that's enough for now. Planes to catch and stuff.

Ps I forgot to say in the email that I ran over a goat with a moped. I didn't hang around long enough to find out if it was injured, but I was OK. Phew.