Albino & Gypsy

18 December 2011...

2012-01-24T00:15:00.002Z

One year on and it was time for a wedding anniversary celebration somewhere cold, snowy and preferably with a Christmas market (which could provide commemorative boot-shaped mugs for the occasion). So, Luxembourg for the weekend!

We stayed in a cute little hotel near the centre of the old town in Luxembourg (city) which was built across a steep river valley with some fierce-looking ramparts to wander.

As Saturday night drew in we were treated to our first snowfall of the winter - big fat flakes tumbling out of the sky. The next morning we woke up for a day of exploring castles in our rental car to a winter wonderland scene immediately north of the city which was fantastic. Luxembourg - tiny country but a lovely couple of days.

Oh What A Summer!

2011-09-21T21:16:00.032+01:00

Our summer holiday this year was the Walkers Haute Route that runs from Chamonix in France to Zermatt in Switzerland across the Alps. We started at Champex Lac and hiked for 11 days up and over 10 mountain passes covering 170 odd kilometres. We had brilliant weather, albeit surprising when we awoke to the mountains covered in snow one morning.

At times the trail was pasture complete with cows (their bells really do reverberate through the Swiss valleys) and at other times thin mountain paths with perilous drops and the danger of falling rocks.

One of the real pleasures of the Walkers Haute Route is that at the end of each day, whether we were in a village staying in a small hostel or in a mountain hut, we were met with fantastic hospitality and great cheese. And sometimes a stunning view like the one below from the dining room of the Cabane de Moiry which overlooks Moiry icefall.

Finally after 11 days we arrived above Zermatt with the Matterhorn standing proud to welcome us.

All in all it was a fantastic trip into the mountains that has whet the appetite for further high altitude wandering.

M & S

Training while its Raining...

2011-08-15T00:04:00.000+01:00

Desk jobs don't exactly prime you for a lengthy hike in the Alps. So, it was time to dedicate three of our summer weekends to the pursuit of fitness and firmer thighs walking up and down some hills in Wales. We tracked a trail along a medieval dyke, wandered the high paths in the Brecon Beacons and scrambled up Mt Snowdon and its neighbour. And in the moments when we weren't taking the photos below, it rained...and rained...and rained...

Alps here we come!!

Temple Tourists

2011-05-06T01:05:00.000+01:00

Leaving Jordan behind we boarded the ferry with Angus and Jamie across the sparkling Red Sea to Nuweiba in Egypt. We had a leisurely crossing which left 3 hours late! but the sea was so clear and the day so sunny we had a relaxing day of it.

There was more relaxation to come as we arrived and made our way to Dahab, and then to Sharm el Sheikh in pursuit of some beach time. After the snorkelling and relaxed backpacker life in Dahab it was difficult to head south to Sharm but we compensated with some more rigorous paperback reading and swimming.

However before long we were back on the early morning routine, starting with a walk up Mt Sinai. The thing everyone does if you're a tourist (or a pilgrim) is to leave the base at midnight, walking up and waiting for the sunrise. We decided to leave at 5am primarily to catch some more sleep, which meant we would catch sunrise enroute and get up there an hour or two after dawn. It turned out to be a great move - not only did we miss sitting around freezing up top for an hour or so, but as hundreds of walkers passed us on their way back down, we arrived at the top completely alone and spent half an hour at the summit taking photos and reflecting on the early morning views.

Leaving Sharm we intended to fly direct to Luxor to start our temple spotting. However Egypt Air had other plans - requiring a detour to Cairo for 4 hours which was just in time to watch the entire Royal Wedding celebrations from start to finish in the airport cafe. Perfect timing, and we all got to see the dress. Finally arriving in Luxor we headed up to our guest house's rooftop restaurant only to see Luxor Temple in the near distance which was exciting - and even better later that evening when we were able to visit up close with it all lit up.

Luxor is temple central so each day we were up bright and early (again!) to see the incredible tombs in the Valley of the Kings (no photos allowed), as well as more temples including Deir-el Bahri, Ramesses III, Karnak and Edfu. The scale of the temples was amazing and as we trooped around in the blazing sun we were pinching ourselves at their size, the intricacy of the carvings and the feeling of being in an open air museum.

Leaving Luxor we headed south via the crocodile temple to Aswan, a sleepier town where we spent our final few days in a guest house on the quiet side of the Nile. We spent some enjoyable afternoons on a felucca (and even doing a spot of fishing!) as well as a quick trip south to see Abu Simbel which was awesome. It was a great way to wind down a fantastic trip from Amman in Jordan to Aswan and very difficult to head back to work!

Halycon Days of Hummus

2011-04-13T00:30:00.000+01:00

For Easter and the Royal Wedding weekend we attempted a double-header; an overland trip from Jordan into Egypt with Angus and Jamie. We started in Amman and headed first to undertake some serious relaxation and detox in the Dead Sea. Shaun wasted no time starting the floatation experience early, whereas I was keener to try out some of the local detoxing mud first,which is served up in big buckets on the seashore...

The Dead Sea is on the Israeli/Jordanian border, with Israel tantalisingly close. Just nearby are a number of important Biblical sites, one of which was Bethany-on-the-Jordan where Jesus is said to have been baptised by John the Baptist. On site there are a number of small shrines built over the top of prior ruins and it is a very quiet and reflective place.

I was expecting Petra to feel very touristy and crowded but having got up very early in the morning we were able to enjoy the walk through the siq towards the Treasury - the first main 'sight' of Petra - completely by ourselves. It was an eerie feeling and Petra itself was amazing.

Leaving Petra we headed further south for an overnight stop in the desert at Wadi Rum where Shaun very quickly got into the local flavour of things with the help of our local guide and driver. I think this was possibly the largest head that had tried to wear the tea towel look successfully but with a bit of customisation an Arabian warrior was born.

M&S

Booking some down time in Prague

2011-04-12T23:22:00.026+01:00

After a relatively slow start to the year trip-wise but a big start work-wise we headed off for a weekend break to Prague, home of a castle, a famous bridge and some famous beer. Happily, March is still off season in Prague so hotel prices were well down and we managed to strike it lucky with some spring weather to enjoy the city.

First stop was the famous Charles Bridge. We went back about 4 different times at different times of day - all beautiful.

We also made sure we visited Prague Castle and the famous Alfons Mucha stained glass window in St Vitus cathedral. The cathedral is beautiful (nice clean lined Gothic cathedral compared with my less favoured over the top (usually Catholic) Baroque versions) and also houses the remains of St Wenceslas (after the Christmas carol) who was bludgeoned to death by his brother. It seems it was not just the frost that was cru-el. I'll never sing it the same way again!

Some of Mucha's famous illustrations below (I have always loved these) ... and then his stained glass window - which weirdly reminded me a lot of hobbits and.. whatever Viggo Mortenson was.

Shaun was very keen to try some Czech food at a local beer hall and the plate that emerged was so huge it even prompted one (fairly large) passerby to comment "Now that's a big meal". All in a day's work for a Kirby.

Ramping up the tourist angle on our last afternoon we joined a tour which took us on a tram ride out to a former Cold war bunker - parts of which seem to be used as an alternative club in the evenings but other parts of which are preserved as a museum complete with a wall of gas masks and other military stuff. Dressing up was positively encouraged and we took full advantage.

Peeking around the Peak District

2011-01-30T14:42:00.008Z

Having arrived back in London after the excitement of the wedding and honeymoon we expected to feel a bit flat. And true to form, the weather was cold, grey and January was starting to feel like a very long month. So, armed with the very generous gift Shaun's parents had given us for the wedding we decided to head north to Stoke on Trent to buy a dinner set and while we were at it, do a tiny bit of exploring in the Peak District.

Home for the weekend was a tiny little stone cottage inside the Peak District National Park, with the lowest ceilings I've ever seen (challenging) but with a nice log burner and a separate gas fire which made things toasty - in stark contrast to the chill air outside. Shaun found the kitchen ceilings the most challenging of all - even I had to duck which makes you wonder how those growth hormones have affected the human race over the last few centuries...

There was just enough time to go for a little explore into the hills - nice and muddy and a little bit of clambering involved but good to get outside into the brisk air and make a (token) start on some training for a bigger walk we're hoping to get done later this summer.

Kicking back in the sun...

2011-01-13T23:36:00.000Z

Following the arduous! week on safari it was time to kick back and relax. First on the beautiful Pongwe beach on Zanzibar for a few days...

and then back off to the Tanzanian mainland via a flight on the tiniest plane imaginable to spend our last 4 days at idllyic Ras Kutani.

Ras Kutani is a bit more rustic than Zanzibar but our hilltop suite was beautiful, with monkeys playing in the trees every evening and with enough active water activities to do to keep us occupied during the day in between lazing around with a series of books and the odd cocktail or two.

M&S

Super Safari

2011-01-11T13:18:00.000Z

For the first week of our honeymoon we spent an amazing few days on safari in Tanzania. After a marathon flight in from New Zealand, and a day or two recovering in Arusha we were rested, revived and keen to hit the bush. Our first adventure was with our guide Freddy, to the Ngorogoro Crater via Lake Manyara National Park.

(Freddy and Michaela testing out the roof canopy on the Landcruiser.)

Lake Manyara was great - full of elephants, baboons and birds and with a hippo pool in its centre featuring a great host of different animals resting in the mud and the summer breeze.

Next stop it was on to the crater - a vast expanse stretching out towards the horizon on all sides, with an incredible variety and concentration of animals on the crater floor.

The next morning we were up bright and early to investigate what the crater had in store. We weren't disappointed - zebras, lions and a rare black rhino were all on hand together with more baboons and numerous gazelle.

Leaving the crater we woke on Christmas morning for an unforgettable Christmas Day - a drive out to our remote mobile tented camp (which moves to follow the wildebeest migration), featuring a strange mix of luxury and roughing it on the edge of the Serengeti Plains. Our tent was wonderful - even with a flushing toilet!, hot water brought for showers on demand and a daybed at the front of the tent with an uninterrupted view of the plains stretching out as far as the eye could see.

That evening Alex, the owner, surprised everyone with a special Christmas Day feast with dancing by warriors from the local village and a whole roasted calf killed earlier that afternoon.

The next morning we woke up to find the wildebeest had come in on the plains and we could see herds of them stretching for miles into the distance.

In total we spent 3 days at the camp, going on game drives to see the wildebeest and stalking the prey that were stalking them.

What a fantastic place and a great way to start married life.

M & S

18 December 2010

2011-01-04T23:10:00.000Z

Sun-seeking in Seville

2010-11-30T11:35:00.000Z

We had been looking around vainly for a place to visit in November that was close, relatively cheap and would give Shaun some chance of a suntan ahead of some wedding pictures in December. Seville was the place!

Leaving London's grey skies and cold weather behind us we made the most of a beautiful sunny Saturday in Seville - wandering the old squares and swanning about at La Maestranza bull ring - one of the oldest bull rings in the world (no fights in winter, but you can go and sit in the stands and conjure up some atmosphere of your own).

The bull ring is a major focal point of the city (view from the bell tower on Seville Cathedral):

We spent a few happy hours getting lost wandering through Barrio de Santa Cruz, the old Jewish quarter, on our way to find Seville Cathedral, built in the 1400s and and housing what (may) be Christopher Columbus' tomb - although there is a good deal of scepticism about who may actually be buried there. Nevertheless the cathedral is incredible. While the cathedral was built on the site of Seville's former grand mosque, in other parts of the city its earlier Moorish heritage is still very much on display. The Alcazar, used as a royal palace over the centuries, was originally built as a Muslim fortress in 913. Its gardens in particular are beautiful, as is the intricate stonework in Islamic designs.

Finally after all our hard work wandering around it was only fitting that we tucked into some of the tapas that Seville is famous for. Not entirely sure how authentic this one was but after wide sampling it was declared our favourite - a 'meatball chupa chup' with bacon, strong cheese and mashed potato drowned in a strong mustard sauce. It was so good the cheese stuck to the plate. We had lots.

Cooling down in Bruges

2010-10-30T10:42:00.000+01:00

We decided to hop on the Eurostar to Bruges for the weekend in late October - avoiding the mad rush out to the airport for once. We'd booked a 'cool down' hotel which we found a little mystifying - it turned out to be a little hotel in a 17th century building on the canals which was a bit hipper than the places we usually stay, but with no shower. I've never had so many baths as my weekend in the cool down hotel! (especially as it was so cold in Bruges- I had to have 'warm up' baths in the late afternoon).

Wandering around the city it really is beautiful - with very friendly locals and LOTS of chocolate - and canals of course! Although the tourists had died down from what are apparently thronging hordes all summer, there were still plenty around and the canal boat cruises were in full swing - albeit with us all rugged up against the cold.

Having not had any big Kiwi mussels for 9 months or so I had also been very keen to test some moules frites in their homeland. Not quite as big as green lipped mussels but certainly a lot better than the tiny little tiddlers that pass for mussels in the U.K...

On Sunday morning we got up and hired some bikes to have a bit of a wider explore - to the Netherlands. Bruges is only about 15km from Sluis - a random little Dutch town on the border - along the canals, with a pancake-flat towpath running the whole way.

Having reached Sluis we only had a window of about half an hour in which to buy a hunk of token Dutch cheese and get back on the bikes for a rendezvous with the train back to London. However, trains, boats and bikes all in all it was a very civilised weekend - we will definitely be investigating the Eurostar's other destinations for more ideas (although I might try and make sure there is a shower on offer at the other end).

A view from the skies

2010-09-12T20:09:00.000+01:00

Taking advantage of a sunny London Sunday we decided to use the vouchers Regan and Scott had bought Shaun for his birthday almost a whole year ago.. and take a trip on the London Eye. The city turned on some clear skies and we spent a relaxing 40 minutes or so doing a cruise in mid-air.

Probably one of the most relaxing ways to see the sights of the city!

Sun, Sea and Sicily

2010-09-02T20:06:00.022+01:00

For our end of summer trip this year we decided to choose sunshine (rather than the wilds of Iceland like last year) and so we followed the crowds to the sun and beaches of Sicily for 10 days. We were not disappointed! First stop was Palermo, former Mafia town and Sicily's cultural and economic capital, full of beautiful architecture and amazing food.

Visiting the Vuccina, Palermo's rowdy central fruit, vegetable and fish market (where we had boiled squid with lemon juice straight off the boat):

Shaun getting a trim from a friendly local barber:

All too soon we were leaving Palermo in our trusty tiny rental car on a road trip around the Sicilian coast. First stop Cefalu - a tiny but beautiful little medieval town tucked into the cliffs with winding streets and LOTS of locals and tourists enjoying the sandy beach. Not exactly a typical New Zealand summer beach scene but we squared our shoulders and adjusted our concepts of personal space and had a splash in the warm Mediterranean waters.
From Cefalu we turned inland for a couple of nights exploring Sicily's interior. As we drove south (and uphill) we drove through a number of hilltop towns full of beautifully coloured stone and amazing ceramic work. We stayed two nights near Piazza Armerina, in an agriturismo run by a local couple who fed us huge amounts of food and where I got a chance to beat Shaun at some archery practice...
Nearby was the amazing Villa Romana del Casale - a huge Roman villa built in the first quarter of the 4th century AD, housing what is apparently the richest, largest and most complex collection of Roman mosaics in the world. Part of the villa was closed for ongoing restoration work but even the sections we saw were incredible in their scale, detail and level of preservation.
Leaving Piazza Armerina we headed again for the coast, but this time to the south, stopping by Agrigento and the Valley of the Temples. Like the Villa this is a World Heritage Site but in relation to a much earlier period - it contains the ruins of seven Greek temples constructed during the 5th and 6th centuries BC, which is fairly mind-blowing. Below is the Temple of Concordia on what was a completely scorching midsummer afternoon:
Next stop was the mighty mountain - Etna. No visit to Sicily would be complete without a trip to the top as it dominates the skyline in the eastern part of the island. Given the extreme heat (and the availability of a very cool gondola) we played tourists and caught a lift to the top to view the crater. The landscape was incredibly dry and barren:

Making our way northwards again we made a beeline for the glitzy hillside town of Taormina - which is apparently a favourite with the international jet set. We weren't looking too jet-setty ourselves after Etna but we window-shopped along some very winding little hillside lanes before heading down by cable car to a glistening cove-style beach... a must given the heat of the day! The main drawcard, however, was the Teatro Greco (Greek Theatre), built in a beautiful hillside position with the sea beyond it and used for many pop and classical concerts during the year.
Leaving Taormina it was almost the end of our trip - a last 2 days on Lipari, one of the Aeolian islands off the north-eastern coast of Sicily. Lipari was a beautiful volcanic island with great food, friendly locals and a nice (albeit stony) beach where we kicked back and enjoyed some snorkelling and some lazing around in the sunshine. On our final evening before heading home we headed out on a cruise to the other islands in the Aeolian chain - finishing up with a spectacular viewing of Stromboli, the furthest and most active of the islands. Stromboli is in a state of almost constant eruption but despite this, to our amazement, it has a fully-functioning village at its base (where we nervously had our dinner). Cruising around the other side of the island on our way back to Lipari we were treated to a spectacular burst of lava from the crater (watching safely from the boat) and wondered how quickly the locals have learned to run to their safety boats...

All in all Sicily was a magical holiday full of an incredible range of experiences for such a relatively small island. And the food was amazing!!

Soaking our cares away in Budapest

2010-09-02T20:05:00.018+01:00

In the middle of July we joined Angus and Jamie (and Jamie's sister Zoe and her boyfriend Mike) on a weekend trip to Budapest for some Hungarian goulash, spa soaking and exploring in what is reputedly one of Europe's most beautiful cities. Straddling the Danube is Buda to the west and Pest - where most of the modern city area lies - to the east.

On our first morning we ventured across to Buda and climbed the Buda Castle ramparts for a beautiful view back across the river, before venturing down into the (slightly freaky) Buda Castle labyrinth - part of the Castle Hill cave system.

The caves were apparently used as a bomb shelter during WWII but have now been transformed into a slightly odd experiential place where you wander through caves filled with back-lit sculptures of horses, pagan symbols and in one room, an ivy-covered well spouting real red wine. (Shawn tasted it against all advice not to and can confirm that it is red wine, although it has possibly been circulating for about the last 20 years).

Later that afternoon it was time for a soak in one of Budapest's famous spas. While photography is actively frowned upon (I got in trouble for taking these) I can confirm they are havens of relaxation, including the option of having a vigorous rub-down from the resident masseuse before soaking your cares away in the big subterranean pool...

The next morning it was time for an interesting wander around Budapest's old Jewish quarter and markets

before heading out to the place where communist statues go to die - the Memento Park - featuring huge monumental statues from Hungary's Communist period (1949-1989). The park features statues of Lenin, Marx and Engels as well as local Hungarian communist leaders and propaganda statues. It also had an exhibition room with a really interesting video on the methods used by the secret police. If ever required to make a dead drop I am now much more informed...

While it was a brief visit Budapest was a great mix of history and relaxation. Hopefully we'll get to visit more of Hungary again soon.

M

What ho bro

2010-09-02T20:04:00.017+01:00

In July, fresh from having scrubbed up for Wimbledon and Henley, we decided to hit one of the other society events of the British sporting calendar - the Cartier International Polo day at the Guards Polo Club in Windsor Great Park - with about 20,000 other people and (apparently) various celebrities (as featured in OK magazine the following week). The warm-up match (photos above) was a tight game between Hurlingham Polo Club and the Prince of Wales' team - sadly neither William nor Harry made an appearance although Charles was watching from the royal box (top centre - cream jacket).

At half time we ventured out into the field together with the crowds to stomp the divots - and Regan practised her royal wave in case it was needed.

Then it was time for the match of the day - England v New Zealand - preceded by one of the oddest sights seen on a polo field for some time. The Daily Telegraph called it "a collision of diverse cultures" and noted that one of the most expressive performers was a "pale, wiry ginger-haired man".

The New Zealand team, horses included, were kitted out in the Silver Fern and put up a brave fight - coming back from 7-1 down to draw level at 7-7 - before ultimately falling to a tough English team.

A great day out and I left as a fan - polo is surprisingly fast and exciting to watch.

A Spot of Jousting

2010-08-02T20:07:00.015+01:00

Come a foggy weekend in July we decided it was time to find a car and get out and about. First stop was Blenheim Palace near Oxford where the enterprising owners had decided to maximise their investment by staging some family-friendly jousting (complete with ooohs and aaahs, good guys and bad guys and some longbow archery practice). I didn't quite have my Maid Marian style down but I made a passable attempt to hit the target a couple of times.

On our way out we decided to visit the tombstone of the great man born at Blenheim Palace, Sir Winston Churchill, at his family plot in the small churchyard of St Martin's Church in Bladon - a little village right outside the gates of the palace. It is quite an unassuming place and made me like Churchill all the more.

Taking advantage of the car we headed off on the tourist trail towards Lacock - a village in Wiltshire which is owned almost entirely by the National Trust and as a result of which has been almost entirely preserved from the 18th century - with no power lines, permanent shop signs or aerials or anything signifying modern life. It features as the local village in Pride and Prejudice (Colin Firth version) as well as many other period films and is a strange step back in time. The local abbey has also been used in a number of Harry Potter films (particularly as the Potions classroom for any very keen fans)...

Finally we had a bit of a dalliance with one of Wiltshire's white horses - the Uffington white horse - by far the oldest of the white horses carved into hills in the area and thought to date back to around 1200-800BC.

All in all a very pleasant weekend away and with a satisfying dollop of history thrown in!

A Very English Sporting Weekend

2010-07-20T22:07:00.014+01:00

We managed to get tickets to No. 1 Court at Wimbledon through the public ballot for the final Friday, to see the ladies' doubles and mixed doubles semifinals. It was a lovely day to be at the tennis and to enjoy everything Wimbledon had to offer, including the alert ball kids, beautifully manicured lawns and a stint out on Murray Mount to watch Andy Murray (lose) to Rafael Nadal in the semifinal. The Mount was packed solid - hardly room to breathe!

We backed up our sporting weekend the next day with a train ride out to Henley for the Henley Royal Regatta. I'd been to the members' enclosure about 9 years ago but this time Amber had arranged for a double picnic plot for about 25 of us, adjoining the course at about the 1000m mark - complete with a huge spread and deck chairs for lounging in the sun...

the frenzied pace of the day proving too much for some...

Spasiba Russia

2010-07-07T00:03:00.016+01:00

At the end of May we boarded a plane to Moscow for a 9-day trip to Russia. Moscow was fantastic, starting with the Bolshoi ballet the evening we arrived, followed by a late-night wander around Red Square with a view of St Basil's Cathedral. Even though it was after midnight the sky was an amazing deep twilight blue. We were joining our first organised tour together - with Intrepid - which was hopefully going to cut through various red tape, visa and language difficulties we were expecting. However before we became tour bunnies we had a weekend to ourselves to explore the city, the markets, the food and the amazing, palatial Moscow metro system. It also took me only 6 hours after landing to get my first taste of (very cheap) caviar - I am a fan!

Exploring Moscow was fascinating - there was some very conspicuous consumption (in particular the GUM department store - see below) as well as many glimpses into its recent past. The Sculpture Park in the city is a cemetery for unwanted communist-era sculptures - some still standing, others forming part of a big pile of lopped-off heads - nature being left to slowly reclaim them.

After fun on our own we met up with our tour group for a walking tour of Red Square and the Kremlin - including Lenin's mausoleum. Staring at a recently preserved corpse on public display has to be one of the oddest tourist experiences I've had in a while. The mausoleum is the low dark red building in the left of the picture below, with the Kremlin behind.

From Moscow we travelled north-east to Suzdal, a small town of 12,000 people which is home to numerous old monasteries and churches, set amongst rolling hills and meadows. After the urban grit of Moscow it was lovely to spend a night in a relaxing small town, and to experience the home cooking of local lady Lena - who not only taught Shaun to make Russian dumplings (hard at work below) but also encouraged him to make short work of a large amount of Russian moonshine (I still have no idea what that stuff was and not sure I want to). A highlight of the trip for me were the amazing Russian Orthodox churches, which featured throughout the tour. From beautiful fresco-style painting to incredible gold-leaf iconostasis (icon walls) the churches were in an amazing state of repair, and were some of the most beautiful I've seen. In Suzdal we were also treated to four monks singing a capella in the church - spine tingling.

Leaving Suzdal we headed back to Moscow for the overnight train to Novgorod - an historic merchant trading town on the Volkhov River which is today a city of around 200,000. Along the way we took advantage of the train's Soviet chic dining car to sample some more vodka and - sparingly - some railway caviar (I think the guys had expected to be able to share the bite-sized serving below between 4).

In Novgorod Shaun and I busted out from the group and went exploring for an afternoon, first to an old monastery strategically built at the entrance to the Volkhov River, which had been standing since around 1000, and then to a wooded grove containing a number of old Russian wooden churches - built in log-cabin style but incredibly ornate. All this was preliminary however, as a gentle cruise on the river was soon to take us back into town for our local banya experience...

Unfortunately there are no photos of banya time! but suffice it to say that I have now experienced standing naked while being roughly beaten with birch twigs by a similarly naked large peroxide blonde Russian lady in sauna temperatures. Shaun, meanwhile, in the mens' section, was befriended - along with Craig who was also on the tour - by a stern local man who took them through the banya steps (rinse, loofah, rinse, sauna, run outside in your underwear and jump in the river (see others doing the same thing below), sauna, repeat) with some hilarity. Priceless and definitely not something we would have been brave enough to venture into without our tour guide's urging!
Leaving Novgorod we arrived in St Petersburg - our last stop. St Petersburg felt more European than Moscow - and with very different geography, being clustered across and around the Neva river, with many city canals. We had booked tickets to the Hermitage Museum for our first afternoon - which was stunning and did not disappoint - the palace rooms in particular were beautiful and with amazing views out onto the harbour from most of the windows.

Some of the other local attractions were slightly less highbrow - while the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood (built on the site where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated in 1883) was beautiful, we also made an important stop to Russia's first Museum of Erotica, situated in the waiting room of a local prostate clinic where you could see what was supposedly Rasputin's most famous attribute in a large preserving jar near the door.

On our last day in Russia we jumped on the hydrofoil and headed out to Peterhof - the former palace complex of Peter the Great on the Gulf of Finland. It's known for its fountains and surprise water features - both large and small (as Shaun discovered to his detriment when he tried to leave the Magic Mushroom):

Finally on our last evening it was time to enjoy the almost White Nights of St Petersburg (a week or two away) and go on a midnight cruise on the harbour to watch the bridges open. On a local boat with Russian dance music playing and sipping vodka wrapped in rugs, it was a fitting way to end the trip!

Wilkommen in Berlin

2010-06-04T00:03:00.000+01:00

The first May bank holiday we set off for Berlin - always a fascinating mix of old and new. It was Shaun's first visit to Berlin so we hit all the main sites, starting out with a really good walking tour focussing on the war, the wall and Berlin's pre-war history. Shaun came determined to leave with a piece of the wall and after doing the obligatory out-front pose, now has a small multicoloured chunk to prop up a small book one day.
As well as the obvious wall sites, we trekked around to a couple of others ourselves, including a deserted wall watchtower which has been left in situ down a Berlin side street - quite eerie and shocking to realise this was in use only just over 20 years ago.
I wanted to return to Kaiser-Wilhem-Gedachtniskirche, the church left as a hollowed-out shell by Allied bombs during the war which now houses amongst its ruins a new modern concrete octagonal church - very inauspicious from the outside but so beautiful on the inside with hundreds of small bright blue stained glass panels all around. Second visit just as amazing as the first. Since my last visit the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe has been erected - a really interesting and sobering walk through a deliberately disorientating landscape.

On a lighter note I had been keen to get Shaun into one of Berlin's freikorperkultur parks (clothing optional) to experience some real German atmosphere! however we were slightly foiled by the weather. On the day we tried, due to adverse nudie conditions there was only one older man with a ponytail reading the newspaper partly clothed and Shaun didn't feel too empowered to join him. Coffee and cake seemed a slightly more approachable option (and the cake was very good).

Finally on our last night in Berlin we went on a guided 'alternative pub crawl' - there are no photos unfortunately but the highlights were definitely the ping pong bar - a welcoming bar in an abandoned building where all the patrons circle a ping pong table having a shot each across the table - sudden death means you end up running around the table before long - the shagpile wallpaper tranny bar and finally the reggae bar on a houseboat in a Berlin lake.

All good fun but some very sore heads for the plane ride back the next day...

In pursuit of bluebells...

2010-04-23T22:43:00.000+01:00

Spring was in the air so we decided to go and chase bluebells via a trip on the Bluebell Railway - a 9 mile heritage steam railway in Sussex and the first preserved standard gauge steam-operated railway in the world. It's celebrating its 50th anniversary this year since reopening.

Alighting at the station on a sunny day we ventured for a country walk and after some keen exploring we had the proof - spring has officially arrived!!

Cruising in the Easter sunshine

2010-04-18T20:59:00.000+01:00

For Easter we joined Eleanor and James for 7 days' cruising down the Canal du Midi in the south of France courtesy of "Le Boat" - a company obviously aimed at English tourists! As it was just the beginning of the spring/summer season we had quite a clear run on our one-way trip from Trebes, a small French village on the canal, to Port-la-nouvelle (on the Mediterreanean coast some 112 lazy kilometres downstream). Getting a head start on our trip we flew into Carcassonne a day early to explore the amazing castle... and taste some of the famous local cuisine (Eleanor fishing an entire sausage out of her cassoulet):

Appropriately fed and watered for our journey we made the short trip to Trebes and boarded our boat to head off on our odyssey of wine, food and navigating the 45 locks on our trip to the sea...
With a top speed of just 6km per hour we were never going to be breaking speed records but even so, steering and getting through the locks proved a challenge to start with on our first day (an aborted entry to the first lock resulted in our entering sideways - much to the lock-keeper's disgust). After a while though, we were lock veterans and had cracked the secret (smiling confidently is definitely part of the mental preparation).

While most hands on deck were required when a lock beckoned, there were plenty of opportunities for other pursuits. In true French style the manned locks all shut down for lunch (strictly between 12.30 and 1.30pm each day) leading us to ponder how we might pass the time... needless to say the driving was slightly less steady in the afternoons..

Being wine country, there were also plenty of opportunities to literally pull the boat up beside local wine merchants - including a small canalside chateau in which wine tasting was free and consisted of liberal servings of at least 13 glasses of different styles and vintages. They also sold take away table wine dispensed with a handy wine gun - Shaun was pretty excited at the prospect of taking a fill-your-own wine flagon on board...at the price of €1.50 per litre it was hard to resist and featured in several subsequent evening meals on board.

En route we stocked up on food from local markets as well as from some enterprising lock-keepers, who often had local eggs, bread and cheese for sale as we passed through the locks. With bikes on board we also jumped off from time to time and took the chance to do some exploring and practice some bad French.
As we slowly moved towards the sea the landscape was changing around us. We moved from fields of gnarled vines, to sleepy agricultural villages, to the city - as we passed right through (and under) parts of Narbonne, giving the locals something to laugh at on our way through.

Finally on our last leg down to Port-la-nouvelle the scenery around us turned to estuaries and sand - and we were amazed to see flamingoes in the distance. We had reached the Mediterranean - in early April it was not exactly the sunniest of days but definitely a sense of satisfaction at having completed the journey (and a very tasty seafood dinner to celebrate).

A great trip with great company and some new skills to add to the CV!

Best In Show

2010-03-15T20:58:00.000Z

Keen to repeat the theme from last year (a spring animal-themed weekend - last year = Badminton) we headed up to Birmingham to experience Crufts - the world's biggest annual dog show. The place is a mecca for all dog enthusiasts (not that we are) but at this scale (28,000 dogs) you can't fail to be impressed.

On display were amazing feats of agility, slightly odd (but very impressive) dancing dogs, complete show ponies as well as every type of dog-related product you could possibly think of, spread across 5 football fields worth of indoor stadium.

The real reason everyone was there though, was the coveted Best in Show prize. From judging on the outer courts where dogs were put through their paces to our grandstand seats at the final judging this was serious business.

The eventual winner was Yogi, a Hungarian Vizla. He wouldn't sit still long enough for us to snap his photo so we've had to use some creative licence to get his mug for this entry...

Souks, sand and sunshine

2010-02-15T22:17:00.019Z

Escaping the snow in London on Boxing Day we headed via Gibraltar to Morocco, taking the ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar into Tangier and 10 days of tagines and tangerines (apologies but the alliteration was too tempting).
We expected souks and ancient sites but I hadn't quite expected to be jumped on by two monkeys while walking through Marrakesh (and nor was I expecting that one of them would steal the my spare camera battery out of my camera case).

At least Michaela was looking for better value for money ...

... when she wasn't making friends with our butcher.

A Bit of Christmas Sausage

2010-01-24T09:16:00.015Z

With the cold weather upon us in December we decided to pay a flying visit to a city of Christmas markets, gluhwein and sausage - Basel. The first excitement was arriving at Euroairport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg, one of the few airports in the world operated by three countries: Switzerland, France and Germany. Upon arrival there was a door with a sign on it "France". We left via the Swiss exit but the option to pop through the French door was very tempting.

Basel itself is known for being a big conference venue but we enjoyed some wanders through the old town and in particular the Spalentor (above) - the town gate dating from the 1370s which marks the edge of the old town. The real reason we were in Basel though was to get some Christmas spirit - both in the form of the Christmas markets and in the mulled wine (which we sampled plentifully given we were on foot and it was very cold!)

We also managed to visit what is apparently the biggest Christmas decoration store in the world - I'm sure that some American store probably beats this one but it was very beautiful and my tree will be benefiting from some of the purchases from this place in years to come!

The next morning we grabbed a hire car for the day and set off to do a flying trip through some of the little towns in Alsace to the north, just over the border with France. On our way we visited the fantastic Haut-Koenigsburg castle - perched on an 800m outcrop overlooking the Alsatian plains, which was looking spectacular in the snow.

Heading further north we stopped for lunch in the Alsace wine making region, sampling some quiche lorraine and tarte flambee (fluffy local pizza) and entertaining the patient locals with some bad French. Even though it was a cold day and off-season, the towns were so picturesque it made me definitely keen to try and get back here in the summer.

On our loop back south to Basel we came across another Christmas market - but this time a medieval themed market, with men on stilts, jugglers and men dressed like Friar Tuck stirring up a whole lot of trouble in giant cauldrons in the middle of the street. It was great to experience Christmas in true winter style - a cold couple of days but definitely worth it!

On Tour in Marseille

2010-01-24T08:54:00.011Z

We jumped on a plane to Marseille to cheer on the All Blacks on the French leg of their Northern end of season tour - excited by the prospect of a potentially tight game as well as exploring this colourful French port city (and trying the local food). We had a fantastic hotel with a view right out onto the old port (this is the view from the hotel room window as the sun set over the city):

Saturday morning we were up early to explore the sights and smells of Marseille - including the fish market which sets itself up across the road from the hotel and where you can get your fish gutted and filleted in the open air from this man or someone like him:

Shortly afterwards we were on a boat and heading out to explore the Ile d'If - home of an impressive former prison which was the inspiration for Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo. Sadly I haven't read it yet so I can't offer any insights into how the reality compares to the novel! but it was fun clambering around the island as the sun rose high on another stunning day.

That evening we tried the local bouillabaisse before cheering the All Blacks to a fantastic win - one of the best live games I've seen in a few years. Unfortunately there wasn't room for too much debauchery in celebration as we were due to be up at the crack of dawn the next day to explore Avignon - a beautiful medieval city an hour's train ride from Marseille. The crowning sight in Avignon (apart from the old bridge which is apparently the subject of a very famous French song - again my knowledge was lacking!) was the Palais des Papes (Popes' Palace) - a beautiful medieval palace which was the home of the popes in the fourteenth century.

Autumn Afternoon in Hyde Park

2010-01-24T08:04:00.023Z

As the leaves had been turning beautifully it was just the day for a late autumn Sunday stroll in Hyde Park .. complete with squirrels (the bad ones apparently - the invading American grey squirrels rather than the native brown squirrels (but to squirrel novices like me a squirrel is a squirrel - still exciting))

Shaun's sister Louise and Willy joined us for some stomping through the leaves... before heading home for some hearty late autumn fare.

A Spot of Venetian Sunshine

2010-01-24T08:04:00.021Z

Shaun's sister Louise and her fiance Willy were over from New Zealand for a month seeing London and parts of Europe so we decided to join them for a sunny weekend in Venice in late October. The city turned on a couple of stunning days and we took to the streets to see the sights and for Shaun to test out his brand new camera.

We weren't the only ones in town. Tourists were thronging in the streets and St Mark's Square was heaving with cameras (and floodwaters). Never fear - some hastily erected boardwalks and some good sturdy shoes and no problem.

It had been 12 years since I'd last been to Venice - the tourists were the same but this time I got the chance to take the boat out to Murano - on another stunning day - and see the glassmakers ply their craft. A lazy fish lunch by the water and a slow boat ride back - not a bad life really.

A Day on the Pier

2009-09-30T22:23:00.007+01:00

We headed down to Brighton for the day to visit the Brighton Art Fair and to have a wander around the sights - the Royal Pavilion, The Lanes shopping district and the famous pier. Being pier veterans after Blackpool a year or two ago, we tested our luck on a few of the games (Shaun was particularly taken with a game involving racing metal dolphins) and tried a Haunted House ride before the required fish and chips stop. Soon the sun was setting and it was time to jump back on the train to the big city... albeit with plans to return on another sunny day.

Land of Waterfalls and Vikings

2009-08-18T17:26:00.058+01:00

Iceland (and more particularly Reykjavik) has been, since I was about 8 years old, one of the places I have always wanted to go. It was exactly on the opposite end of the world from New Zealand and I used to sit and look at this little (pink-coloured) island on my globe in my room thinking how exotic it would be to go there. So, I was super excited to be getting on the plane to Iceland. Iceland did not let me down!!

In Reykjavik for our first couple of days we were hoping to meet some of the late season puffins - so first morning bright and early we jumped on a boat and headed off to track some down. There were only a few stragglers left - but we found this guy below who was happy to pose for some photos.

Little did we know that extreme food adventurer Shaun would soon have one of them on his plate - amongst other extreme food - although there was one that got away (the sheep's head diner in Reykjavik - Shaun meant to go but somehow I forgot to drive us back that way).

One thing I WAS pretty excited by was the prospect of Reykjavik's "geothermal beach". Yee-haa. I was dreaming of waves of hot steamy water crashing onto the sand... however we soon discovered that the geothermal effect was to raise the water temperature on that beach from 4C to 14C. The helpful local girl at the changing sheds told us "the first minute in the water is hell, but then every part of your body freezes and you don't notice the cold anymore". She was right. Afterwards, feeling like uber-hardcore tourists, we posed like hardmen for the camera (just beginning to thaw out).

To ease the thawing out we had been helped by some Icelandic hotdogs and a warm hot pool on the shoreline.

Seemingly not content with having frozen all our bodily organs one day, the next day we had another go - this time, snorkelling over a fault line in the (inland) historic Thingvellir National Park - the meeting point of the European and American tectonic plates. The water here was a genuine 4C - but, helped by layers of drysuit + superthick wetsuit, we had a fun half an hour or so snorkelling over the cavernous depths below.

Busy doing justice to the other Reykjavik area sights, we visited the famous Golden Circle (Geysir/Gulfoss (waterfall) combo) before heading out onto the Ring Road with our tent ...

...when it felt like the real Icelandic holiday started. Outside Reykjavik, the Ring Road (and certain detours off it) brings miles and miles of open space, big sky, quirky little towns, vast stretches of moss-covered lava fields and every now and again, incredible waterfalls, both large and small. To me the land also felt undeniably old, this place where Vikings lived over a millenium ago still has a real sense of their occupation - an unusual feeling in a country where there are still only just over 300,000 inhabitants.

In the north and east we spent some time winding our way around little fjords and some almost unpronounceable small towns - like Siglufjordur, former 'herring capital of the world' - where I tried to recreate being a herring-salting woman working on the pier ..

and Husavik, where apart from going whale-watching in creaking old wooden fishing boats, you can visit the world's only Phallological (Penis) Museum - with actual preserved examples from every mammal on earth. I guess the winters can be slow months in Iceland without a hobby ... (that's me posing next to the tasteful statue outside).

Iceland has some (other) really interesting museums. One of these is the Turf Museum at Glambauer, which has a number of preserved 19th century turf houses (think rectangular hobbit houses with mud floors) which illustrated pretty starkly what life must have been like during the cold Icelandic winters.

And then, just when it was all getting a bit atmospheric and cultural, we decided to tear it up for a morning on a very touristy but squealing-with-fun snowmobile trip across Vatnajokull, Europe's biggest glacier (which takes up about 20% of Iceland's inland landmass). It was super fun - even more so when I got to drive...

Driving further south the massive glacier sticks various tongues out all along the coast - including at Jokulsarlon, where it discharges floating ice into a large bay. As luck would have it, the afternoon we were there the sun was shining as never before (apparently) and seals were out to play in the lagoon. It was completely stunning (and even more unbelievable as this photo - below - is essentially taken straight from the carpark). I wasn't the only one who liked it though, this lagoon has featured in at least 2 Bond films so far (including being completely frozen over for a car chase scene in Die Another Day).

Making our way back towards Reykjavik for our flight home, we stopped off at the most famous of the hot pools Iceland is famous for (and we did sample a lot of these) - the Blue Lagoon. Super expensive but it would be wrong not to really ...

Banksy v Bristol Museum

2009-08-17T22:40:00.009+01:00

The celebrated British graffiti artist Banksy put on a solo show at the Bristol museum in late summer this year - which was so popular that the queues to get in on weekends during the 3 month exhibition were over 3 hours long. We decided to head down and join the queues to get in and see how he'd taken over the place.

(Note - for anyone from NZ who hasn't heard of Banksy here's a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy. Shaun also took a photo of one of his wall stencils which is down the road from us, in an earlier blog entry - October 2008).

I especially liked the Michael Jackson 'Hansel & Gretel' style one (above) and the installation with the hen and the little Chicken McNuggets.

While a dedicated section of the museum featured his paintings, graffiti and art installations, in other parts of the museum things had been subtly altered (temporarily- I'm pretty sure this was a print!) ...

All in all, thought provoking and well worth the wait - and a chance to have a quick wander around Bristol for the morning as well.

M

Day Tripping in Dover

2009-08-17T22:24:00.014+01:00

We decided to take the train down to Dover on a Saturday morning at the end of July to explore the ubiquitous white cliffs and the local castle. As luck would have it we happened on Dover on a very good day - not only was it super sunny but it was also the 100 year anniversary of the first flight across the Channel (by a Frenchman - Louis Bleriot). So, there was a full programme of vintage planes zipping across the Channel all day paying homage - with the white cliffs being a pretty good vantage point.

Dover Castle itself was a surprise for me (girl) - it acted as the base for Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsey in organising the evacuation of Dunkirk 21 miles away across the English Channel - the whole operation being co-ordinated from his headquarters in the cliff tunnels underneath the castle. Miles of tunnels were dug into the (white) cliffs, which housed military barracks, a command centre and a military hospital during WW2. The tunnels - now marketed by English Heritage as the "Secret Wartime Tunnels" have been fitted out the way they would have been at the time and are great to explore. Below, if you look closely, you can see windows to the tunnels cut into the cliff face (to the right of the dormer windows on the houses below).

And below is the balcony - again cut into the cliff face under the castle - on which Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsey stood and surveyed the straits of Dover during the military campaign. Standing on this it's incredible how close France is and how amazing it must have been during the evacuation.

Finally, what better way to finish off the day than a flyover by some dashing airmen? - La Patrouille de France.

As You Like It

2009-08-17T20:39:00.004+01:00

With apologies for the slightly poor quality photos (taken on my work-issue Blackberry) Shaun and I went along to the Globe Theatre on the Southbank to see As You Like It on a recent balmy evening. The theatre is built along Elizabethan lines to replicate how audiences back in Shakespeare's day would have experienced his plays. It is a slightly uncomfortable 3 hours or so - more so for the people who paid £5 to stand in front of the stage.

Having said that though, the play was fantastic and the weather was warm shining down on us from above - all in all a really great night.

M

PS: Apologies that we haven't been updating the blog all that frequently lately - a computer glitch has prevented either of us from uploading photos from home. Hopefully it will soon be sorted one way or the other!

Cruising down to the Barrier

2009-08-10T08:32:00.005+01:00

On a sunny recent Sunday we thought we'd hop on one of the cruiser boats on the Thames and make our way downriver to Greenwich and the Thames Flood Barrier. It was a stunning day and London was looking its best - nice to see it from the perspective of the river.

Three Peaks and a Van

2009-07-21T21:40:00.033+01:00

The Three Peaks Challenge - Three peaks, three countries, one very long (but rewarding) 24 hours for Hamish, Gabrielle, Dean, Helen, Shaun and me (on support crew duty).

God Save the Queen

2009-07-21T21:40:00.025+01:00

Having successfully applied on the New Zealand House website between 8.59am and 9.03am on the appointed day approximately 4 months ago, we received in the mail (to the incredulity of various English co-workers) a highly sought after ticket to the third of of this year's three Royal Garden Parties at Buckingham Palace [credit for shamelessly copying the idea of using a photo of the invitation goes to geandhw.blogspot.com].

While I had harboured ideas of swanning about the Palace lawns in the sunshine, the weather had other ideas. However, after standing in a half-hour queue in the rain with other guests in their finery to make it through the Palace front gates, we eventually made it out onto the lawn to enjoy brass bands, tea and cucumber sandwiches as well as Sandringham apple juice, Dundee cake and many other delights, despite the ever-present drizzle.

The Queen, Prince Charles, Camilla and Princess Anne were all doing their duty meeting the honoured guests (not us) and we duly filed into the roped off areas to watch them pass by. Unfortunately amateur paparazzi shots were not encouraged and so we had to disappear into the Palace gardens to get a shot of us in our finery - keeping an eye out for security and the odd roaming Yeoman warder.

All in all a most delightful afternoon!

Afternoon Jaunt to the Home of Cricket

2009-07-21T21:39:00.005+01:00

Having booked tickets for this a full 12 months in advance, we headed along to Lords to watch the Black Caps play South Africa in pool play at the ICC 20/20 World Cup, a double header fixture following a heated Netherlands v Pakistan match. While the Black Caps came close, sadly South Africa took the game in the final over. Lords, however, was smashing.

In search of the Corrs, to be sure to be sure

2009-06-23T23:14:00.013+01:00

Last Friday evening we dashed away from work and within an hour or two we were in Dublin, trying to get a taste of the city in 2 days. Yes, a "city break" - that great OE institution where you try and see a city in a weekend and end up seeing the church, the unusual statue in the square, the museum and the "quaint local restaurant" before getting back on the plane.

What to do that was, well, Irish? Well it was Dublin, so one of our early stops was Ireland's #1 tourist destination - the Guinness Storehouse, now an impressive conceptual space dedicated to the art of brewing the black stuff. Indoor waterfalls and huge vats of barley featured (together with a complimentary pint of Guinness from the bar on the 7th floor). I've decided that it does actually taste slightly better than liquid Marmite - my previous firmly held impression.

Also a required stop was Kilmainham Gaol - which housed the leaders of the Irish Republican movement in 1916 (and in which they were ultimately executed) - very sobering and quite a contrast to the Guinness visit.

OK so we did visit a church - the Christ Church Cathedral. However, as well as the usual cathedral offerings, Christ Church displays a mummified cat and mouse which were found in an organ pipe in the 1850s - bet that cat rued the day he chased that mouse in there.

Following our tourist trail around the city we headed to Temple Bar later for some Irish music and the bar scene, via an Irish storyteller over dinner and some good old Irish stew. I suspect Shaun was secretly hoping he might see one of the Corr sisters wandering around Dublin by night but if they were there, they were hiding.

The next morning we were up early and out of the city on a mini tour south of Dublin through the mountains and lakes of Ireland's prime film-making district - County Wicklow - as well as being the source of all that pure Guinness water and (apparently) the home of Daniel Day-Lewis. He must have been spending his weekend wherever the Corrs were.

We spent some time wandering through Glendalough - a beautiful 10th century monastery complex in a secluded valley, in surprisingly good repair. Lovely to be outside in the sunshine and the trees!

Bavaria Baby!

2009-06-13T16:40:00.021+01:00

The Second May Bank Holiday Weekend was a chance for an adventure in za German countryside with some friends, Angus and Jamie.

The only way to do it was in style - Bavarian Motor Works style (thanks to a complimentary upgrade from Hertz) ...

With the Beamer we were able to dominate the Autobahns and even slip across the border into Austria and back again.

In amongst the mountains there are some impressive man made sites as well as natural ones, including the Eagle's Nest built as a birthday present for Hitler. Entry is via a tunnel built into the mountainside and then up in an elevator through the inside of the mountain, opening inside the evil lair on the ridge line.

We finished our trip in Munich, sampling the local brew and bratwurst but also being reminded of some of Hitler's horrors at Dachau.
After packing all of this in there was just enough time for a spot of local delicacy shopping before leaving.

Horse & Hound

2009-05-12T08:01:00.008+01:00

For the weekend of my birthday I decided to go and see something very British (for me at least) - the Badminton Horse Trials. Held on the estates of the Duke of Beaufort in the village of Badminton, it is frequently called the greatest 3-day equestrian event in the world.

We took the tent and headed down from London on Friday night, missing the dressage but ahead of the cross-country on Day 2. An entire tent village is set up in neighbouring fields each year and, although a bit chilly, it was a very short walk along the road to the event, together with hundreds of family dogs, thousands of girls in horse riding boots and a very large tweed contingent. Although Shaun tried on a tweed walking cap at one of the outlets on the course, sadly I couldn't convince him it would beat the trusty fishing hat which accompanies him on most outdoor adventures.

Out on the course we saw Zara Phillips competing as well as several Kiwis, with some very inventive fences and a number of spills occurring around the course - some directly in front of us.

In the end only half the 110 horses originally entered made it through to Day 3 - showjumping. On the Sunday we had prime seats in the sun to watch the survivors and saw 2 Kiwis complete clean rounds before Oliver Townend - a 26 year old English rider - took the title. It was great to get out of London for the weekend and spend some time in the country - maybe we'll be back next year.

Bulls eye

2009-05-11T21:30:00.029+01:00

In Madrid for the weekend we went to the Las Ventas bullring to make our own minds up about bullfighting, called cruel by some and lauded by others as a majestic traditional display of man against beast.

There's no doubt that the matadors need considerable skill to avoid the bull but it's hardly a fair fight with the bull taking various hits with spears and swords before finally receiving a sword to the neck. Then again I don't think it's supposed to be.

At least the bull's carcass gets a swift exit ...

I can't yet say which camp I fall into, but I'm not ready to deride an old tradition without understanding further the history behind it.

April Sun in Cuba

2009-04-25T11:40:00.055+01:00

We flew into Havana on the eve of Easter for 11 days cruising around Cuba with Sarah and Victoria from NZ. I was primed for all the stereotypes - faded buildings, vintage American cars, mojitos and old men playing son music on the streets (admittedly for me at least, all the research I had done was to watch a cigar-making DVD and rent out Buena Vista Social Club again).

However beyond the faded buildings and colonial Spanish architecture lurks an uneasy double economy - the Cuban convertible peso (official tourist currency) v moneta nationale (national currency) - at a ratio of 25:1. Federico, the host of our casa particulare (guesthouse) in Havana used to be a lawyer - the reason he now rents out rooms in his house is that he earns more from us for one night's board than he earned in one month as a lawyer. While this issue was to dog us all the way around the island, we did manage to obtain some local currency and tried to use it where we could. Shaun also decided to practice acting like a local whenever possible.

After 3 days in Havana we hired one of the smallest cars available and set out for a long road trip around the western half of Cuba. Almost every 5km on the roads are amazing graphic art billboards extolling the virtues of the revolution. We all took photos of so many - these are some of the more successful examples of the 'hang out the window on a driveby' photo series.

One of the highlights of the week on the road was Vinales, tobacco growing central and home of Esther and Domingo - the hosts of our casa, mean chefs and the makers of the best mojitos in Cuba (the secret is apparently a drop or two of Angostura bitters). I have now developed a taste for bean soup - and creole sauce added liberally to either pork, chicken or lobster as a main course. Quite happy, however, never to see another guava again.

I was sure there would be some fantastic propaganda waiting for us at the Bay of Pigs. While there was only one museum and not much else on the invasion, there was, however, amazing snorkelling with beautiful tropical fish in only 1 foot of water just off the beach.

Another surprise was the Zapata nature reserve nearby - where we did a walk with a local guide spotting native and migratory birds, watched crabs scuttle across the road in the morning on their way back to the beach and stalked the season's last remaining flamingoes from the safety of our car... Having worked up an appetite, we also visited the government-run crocodile farm - surprisingly, having held the farm's pet crocodile for photos I was still able to stomach the prospect of crocodile for dinner that night (with the obligatory creole sauce - see below).

Our turnaround point was Trinidad - a UNESCO preserved Spanish colonial city dating back to the days of the sugar plantations in the late 1700s. After the pot-hole studded drive in over the mountains, the city appears out of nowhere. The houses are right on the street and from that level there appear to be hardly any trees, just houses, cobblestones and sky. We stayed in a beautiful old colonial casa with huge high studs and an airy courtyard and got some lessons in Cuban rhythm from a very patient local salsa teacher ...

Diverting off the airport runway-like autopista (motorway) on the long drive back to Havana, we made an overnight pilgrimage to Che Guevara's tomb in Santa Clara -which features the obligatory communist parade square-style architecture. There was also time for a quick diversion to check whether the beaches at Varadero - home of package tourism - were better than the ones we'd been stopping at along the way. Conclusion: there are beaches which are just as nice in other parts of Cuba (see first photo below) - but Varadero is a nice spot to play dominoes in the sun.

Back in Havana for one final afternoon we decided to spend the last of our convertible pesos on a cruise in a 1956 Chevy along the Malecon, with some cheesy poses at the Hotel Nacionale before getting on the plane. Hasta luego Cuba!

And spring has sprung ...

2009-04-04T17:55:00.003+01:00

Suddenly there are daffodils all through the parks and sun in the sky. Just the day for a picnic in St James' Park with Angus and Jamie, with cheese and biscuits courtesy of Fortnum and Masons (and the rest of the picnic courtesy of Marks and Spencers - having been scared off the rest of the prices at Fortnum & Masons).

Testing the elements

2009-03-15T22:02:00.031Z

Time to put our hard pants back on for some serious weather. We decided to head to Finland to check out some Scandinavian delights; snow, er .. snow, and World Cup ski jumping.

First up was 2 days' skiing in a small resort called Messila near the ski-jumping venue at Lahti - 100km north of Helsinki. Given the generally low-lying hills in Finland this suited me fine as a bit of a beginner - with pretensions of intermediate on a good day. Shaun managed to find some boots to fit him (and some reindeer with mashed potatoes for dinner) and we were good to go.
On the Saturday night we bundled up and headed across to the ski-jumping international teams event. After a close battle between some of the world's best, the Finnish team narrowly lost out to some high-flying Austrians. Fantastic.

Apart from the jumping, crowd highlights were the ready availability of hot sausages wrapped in paper with mustard for snacks and - the cheerleaders (?) I am also happy to report on the faithful observance of a time-honoured sporting ritual - yes, even a World Cup ski-jumping event in sub-zero temperatures attracts streakers .. (see below).

Overall a great event and highly recommended. On Monday morning we headed to Helsinki to be met by unrelenting snow. The city seems like a good place to explore but, given the weather, we decided to go on a relaxing cruise out on the harbour.

Our destination was Suomenlinna - a sprawling military fortress built on six linked islands in the Helsinki harbour and (now that we have been to the audiovisual display on the island (nice and warm)) we can report that the fortress - built by Sweden in 1748 to contain the Russian expansion - was essentially the reason the city of Helsinki was born. Its an interesting place full of history - and a lot of snow.

Knights, schoolboys and Jane Austen ...

2009-03-15T20:33:00.020Z

...all in a day's work at Winchester.

Getting tired of the city we decided to do one of the day trips that SouthWest Trains advertises so alluringly on its website - no car required. So, off to Winchester - home of a very large cathedral (or possibly 'minster' - there is some English distinction which still escapes me), the oldest boys' school in the country and a dubious Round Table.

The cathedral itself is impressive - featuring the longest nave in Europe, some very angelic choristers and the resting place of Jane Austen. Presumably they did know she was a writer, although there's no mention of it on her memorial stone. A very short walk away is the house where she very conveniently died - requiring all of a 200m walk to the cathedral where she's buried.

Just around the corner is Winchester College - the oldest boys school in England with some very impressive playing fields and buildings. As the scheduled tour guide didn't show up we got a tour from the head of security who gave us some official and unoffcial stories that the college's publicity people may or may not have been keen on. Oddly they don't play rugby at all, but a hybrid historical game called "winkies" - dating from the 1400s. As no-one else in the world plays winkies the college is forced to play only internal winkies tournaments.

Across town is what is reputedly The Round Table (of King Arthur and the .. fame). Historians are suspicious, however, as although it is undeniably round, wooden and apparently old enough, with the names of the knights painted on it, there are odd features like a Tudor Rose and a painting of King Arthur who looks suspiciously like Henry VIII. Still, worth a look and we now have a further kitschy fridge magnet to add to our growing collection.

On the outskirts of Winchester is a bit of a highlight - a National Trust old water-powered mill, rebuilt in the mid-1700s, recently restored to full working order and grinding its own stoneground flour for sale. Staffed by some universally pensionable and very friendly volunteers, they started the mill up and gave us a full tour.

Time for an arty shot of the millrace and waterwheel ... and the local wildlife outside.

Finally after an exhausting day we ended up at the Wykeham Arms for cider and - in a stroke of luck - in time for the pub's daily "sausages for 50p" deal - a sausage on a plate with mustard to go with your beer. All in all an excellent Sunday antidote to the rigours of London. Thanks SouthWest Trains.

Shimmy like da Sphinx ...

2009-02-15T20:56:00.019Z

Having had a work trip to Cairo extended by a few days Michaela decided on a whim to fly over and join me.

There was time to explore the city and surrounds, including taking in some local flavours such as apple tobacco and pigeon soup. I'm not sure what was more detrimental to my health, the shisha pipe or breathing in the Cairo smog.

The city itself is clustered around the Nile on the edge of the desert, with the pyramids at Giza able to be seen from the centre of the city. Of course once you get to the pyramids you have the touts to deal with (and elsewhere the Tourism Police to give baksheesh to for helping out).

This was the first trip to Africa for both of us, but after this taster it will certainly not be the last.

Snow!

2009-02-02T17:07:00.011Z

About a whole month late, but it's here. All of it, and all at once. This is definitely the first time I've trudged through powder wearing a suit. The news websites are not quite sure whether this is the biggest single snowfall in 6 years or 18 (to be confirmed at some point I expect, probably once it stops snowing). Either way it is lots of fun. Yippeee

My favourite is the guy on the right (daffodil eyes, turnip nose and string beans for hair, on closer inspection)

Sweet moves on the ice

2009-02-02T17:06:00.012Z

After we each made blink-and-you-miss-it visits home for 2 weddings and freely available beaches, mussels and sunshine - there was going to have to be a fairly good next adventure waiting back in the UK.

I'm not sure how well it matched up against the beach but ice skating on the outdoor rink at Somerset House definitely offered more scenic surroundings than my one and only other ice skating attempt - at 'Paradice' in Auckland aged 14. I'm not sure my technique has improved any but the good old mulled wine afterwards was a definite improvement. Paradice, if you're listening, this could be a go.

Christmas in London

2008-12-27T10:08:00.015Z

Finally a chance to see what everyone's been talking about - the Oxford St Christmas lights and shop displays ... (depressingly, the above photos were taken at 4.45 on a Sunday afternoon).

Despite the number of people telling me that Christmas "just makes sense in the Northern Hemisphere" it's strange how long it's taken to get into the Christmas spirit here. The lack of sunshine has made me realise that all my Christmas reference points involve long summer evenings and warm weather. However - better late than never - Christmas sprit belatedly arrived at about 7pm on Christmas Eve at Christmas carols at the Royal Albert Hall with the Mozart Festival Orchestra (and a fantastically heavy-handed organist), followed by a midnight service at St Pauls. We sleepily trudged off to bed via some mulled wine and Christmas mince pies. Mulled wine definitely makes more sense over here.

Then on Christmas Day came the inaugural British Christmas dinner taste test. After enduring what has felt like weeks of jibes from UK workmates about what "Antipodeans" eat at Christmas time (apparently we stand around a BBQ in shorts and jandals pushing burnt sausages around the hotplate) I was ready to test the "true Christmas" fare of brussel sprouts, turkey and pigs in blankets. Despite very much wanting to find fault with these most British of Christmas institutions, Regan cooked up a storm and so now I will have to resort to teasing my workmates using that other fail-safe option - the weather.

Merry Christmas everyone

M (S is currently in NZ sampling lamb and sunshine)

Taniwha v Dragon

2008-11-26T21:34:00.014Z

We took the opportunity of the All Blacks taking on Wales in Cardiff to head to Wales for the first time.

The city pulled out all the stops for the test match and the influx of New Zealand fans. We were made to feel welcome wherever we went by knowledgeable local rugby fans.

And what a ground - the Millenium Stadium was filled to capacity with Welsh hymns reverberating around around the stadium as the crowd tried to rouse their boyos to victory (although to no avail).

On the Sunday we took a train up into the Welsh valleys and went wandering around the base of the Brecon Beacons at Abergavenny.

Although (typically - we were told by modest locals) the weather was a bit dour, that didn't stop us engaging in some intrepid canal wandering.

Wales - a great place to visit with fantastic food (roast takeaway) and welcoming locals - we will be back.

Papists and pasta in Rome

2008-11-11T16:26:00.041Z

Buon giorno Rome ! We spent a great 4 days in Rome. Already better than London simply by being warmer, after this trip, Rome for me beats Paris and even Berlin as a cool city to spend a few days in. And finally, after all those photos and postcards I finally got to see what the Colosseum looks like on the inside!

One of our first efforts was to try and beat the crowds at the Vatican early on a Friday. As someone more used to the relative austerity of Presbyterianism, the Vatican seemed hopelessly luxurious. Gold leaf everywhere and outrageously famous paintings appearing on every second wall. It was weird to realise that paintings I've seen in books are not only here on the wall - but are actually painted straight onto it. Still oddly like a palace though ..

Outside the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel, it was time to visit the enormous St Peters Basilica. After trips to some impressive temples last year, and a couple of pretty decent mosques, I'd been thinking that members of other religions might not be all that impressed by what Christianity had been building. But St Peters is the motherlode - over a football field long (and almost as wide in parts) with enormous marble columns, and Michelangelo's Pieta tucked into the top corner. That was the weirdest thing about churches in Rome - an embarrassing display of incredible statues almost jostling for position.

Shaun has urged me not to be misleading so I will clarify that the above 2 pictures are of other churches in Rome, not St Peters. Breaking out of the churches, there were other things going on in Rome. In particular, our first day coincided with a massive street march and protest for something in Italian which we think had something to do with schools. It was certainly the first street protest I'd ever seen with happy balloons. There was also time to terrorise some pedestrians on a segway - and to perfect donuts and slaloms around streetlights.

In between visits there was a lot of pasta to be eaten, and weird kitschy Jesus babies to take photos of:

But to sign off , the last word goes to someone slightly better qualified than me (click to play):

Democracy - the next big thing

2008-11-04T23:43:00.005Z

As I type this we're sitting up late watching the live coverage of the US Election results. Hopefully in about 12 hours Obama will be the new president of the US. However for some reason the papers over here have been a little bit less generous in their coverage of the upcoming clash between Helen and John. I did my bit (and so did Shaun - but he wasn't willing to be the poster boy for democracy) last weekend at the great retro New Zealand House.

M

[Go Jeanette!]

Life under the Crunch

2008-10-24T21:21:00.014+01:00

A few people have been sending emails from home mentioning the credit crunch and wondering if we still have jobs. It's been quite a surreal couple of months. Suddenly, drops in share prices of 9% are commonplace, almost every other week some large financial institution announces cuts of up to 10% of its workforce and headlines like the ones below appear almost daily - even on the good old "theLondon paper" (a free daily paper which usually focuses on Amy Winehouse photos):

Despite all this we are both still working and at the moment the stories on the news haven't made their way home to roost for either of us. Fingers crossed.

The weather is steadily getting colder and winter is definitely on its way. Shaun and I decided to venture out into St James Park and enjoy some late autumn sunshine along with half of London on a Sunday afternoon earlier this month - with the leaves turning yellow overhead. Even a couple of weeks later it seems that most of London's leaves can now be found on the ground.

An Alternative National Gallery

2008-10-05T10:31:00.019+01:00

Sometimes it just takes a bit of direction from a dead Chinese fellow.

On the alley ways and streets in the East End around Brick Lane and Old Street some of those ideas have ended up on street walls (along with a few old fart jokes ...).

Of course even on the streets some work is more highly prized than others. This work by the famed "Banksy" has been covered in glass to protect it (maybe from the Tesco PR machine) ...

Oo are ya oo are ya

2008-09-24T22:37:00.004+01:00

On Tuesday night we got some cheap tickets to an Arsenal match at Emirates Stadium just up the road. Arsenal were playing Sheffield United and, from the point where they went 4-0 up just after half-time, chants of "Who are ya" were emanating from our part of the stand towards the hapless Sheffield United supporters.

Being a Carling Cup game Arsenal didn't play their big stars but their B side (with an average age of 19) still managed to finish up with a 6-0 scoreline. Angus and Jamie came along for the game and outside, Shaun got very excited about the prospect of photographing some riot police (the only action they saw was Shaun taking this photo) complete with their riot steeds.

Trepidation in Transylvania

2008-09-09T22:24:00.051+01:00

For our end of summer trip we decided to chase vampires in Transylvania. 10 days isn't long to see the highlights of Romania but with backpacks on once again we determined to give it a decent shot. We found castles (this one is Peles Castle)

... but first there was Bucharest; given some fairly bad press by some tourists apparently but if you like stark contrasts between old and new 'architecture' then its for you. Actually I kind of liked it.

Most of the new buildings are courtesy of a giant demolition job by Ceaucescu, who took out 8 blocks at a time to create one crowning 'achievement', the People's Parliament - still unfinished and the second largest building in the world after the Pentagon - it is a monster.

Leaving Bucharest we headed north to Transylvania for some fairly disappointing looking hiking (but a memorable few cable car rides up the mountain and a sleepless night in a mountain "cabana" with drunk Romanians and loud dance music). No sign of Dracula in these mountains: and not much in the lowlands either. Actually, despite a couple of Dracula-themed hotels, there isn't much vampire-related stuff in Transylvania at all. Instead there are some beautiful old medieval walled towns, complete with fortified churches - the most popular of which is Brasov, where we stayed for a couple of nights and where Shaun got to enjoy beer served with his KFC.

Apart from its old churches and beautiful squares Brasov has another more unusual tourist attraction - bear watching. Apparently half of Europe's bears live in Romania and now we have seen some. Looking forward to some wildlife adventuring we climbed into the front seat of a tour driver's van late one night to be driven through the streets to a series of inner city rubbish skips - parked across the road from a row of apartments - where massive bears lumber down the hill and flip the skips over each night rummaging for food. Having been warned off these things with all sorts of grisly stories in Alaska it was pretty shocking to be sitting in a van 4 metres away from some massive wild animals looking like they were fairly unfazed by the human population. It won't be long til someone loses an arm.

A blog entry on Romania wouldn't be representative without a mention of some famous Romanian cuisine (the one at the far right is tripe soup, which Shaun volunteered for):

We thought that was bad, then we saw this on the menu:Leaving Brasov in our 4WD machine "Murray the Matiz" - (Daewoo Matiz that is, an 800cc South Korean manufactured city car and the only rental car left in Brasov) - we drove north to Maramures, not before encountering some slight motoring difficulties. That, however was nothing compared to the cow-size potholes, manic passing on blind corners (by other drivers) and other hazards ever present on Romanian roads:

Maramures is in the north of Romania bordering the Ukraine and is described as the part of Romania that the last 3 centuries have forgotten about. While there are signs of modernisation, driving along the roads we passed scores of women with headscarves and saw men with sickles, haystacks in the fields, horses and carts around almost every corner, and religious icons by the roadside in almost every town to wish travellers safe passage. The Sapanta Cemetery (definitely a tourist spot) was really lovely - with tombstones carved from wood showing the occupation or hobbies of the person who died. However, most of the time we just drove around staring at people out of the window.

A Summer's Dip in Zurich

2008-08-08T22:13:00.018+01:00

Well we'd spent too long in London cramped in a humid little flat while "summer" was going on in Europe all around us, so when an invitation came to go to a party in the forest in Zurich we jumped at the chance. 10 days later we were on the plane to the city of bankers and chocolate ...

We arrived late on Friday night and tested my rusty German to navigate our way from the airport to our hotel - and the next morning woke up to the hottest day for quite a while .. perfect for a swim in the lake with the locals (once I had been evicted from the mens-only section of the swimming area). Shaun had left his board shorts at the hotel so bravely decided to try the local Speedo rentals. We swam out to the platform in the lake and lazed around in the sun, making sure we were on the mixed-gender platform this time...

After some cheesy shots around town with Shaun's old friend Mathieu, one of the other forest party guests, it was time to head out to the Wurenlingen forest, for photo opportunities with lumberjacks, Bavarian maidens and an evening of imbibing under the forest canopy (and the canopy of the very substantial community 'forest cabin' which can be hired out for such functions).

The next morning those hardy guests who'd spent the night sleeping on the floor of the cabin decided it was time for a hearty breakfast featuring Swiss sausages, to ease the pain before heading back to the airport (not before a second swim in the lake though).

Paris with parentals

2008-06-29T19:44:00.014+01:00

My parents visited us for three weeks at the start of June and high on the list was to get Dad back to his old continental stamping grounds. Unfortunately we couldn't join he and Mum in Austria and Switzerland but we could escort them across the Channel to Paris for a weekend of absorbing the Parisian lifestyle.

The Louvre proved an eye-opener, if only for the crowds surrounding the roped off Mona Lisa.

A fantastic weekend and a taster for Michaela and I of hopefully many more European adventures.

Adventures in the North

2008-05-29T20:49:00.028+01:00

Blackpool .. Las Vegas of the North. Faded amusement arcades, a pier, a promenade, a sweeping beach, some good fish and chips - and off the scale on the tack factor. Shaun decided to test his strong-man status on our way to ride the mighty Blackpool Pier Ferris wheel - on a day where the effect of the wind gusts at the top was no extra charge.
From the excitement of Blackpool we moved on, intent on uncovering more excitement in the mighty cities of the North. In Liverpool we made time to sing 'Ferry .. cross the Mersey' .. on the ferry cross the Mersey .. before going on a self-guided Beatles tribute tour ...

As a lasting touch we thought the locals deserved their own debut of the famous umbrella hat (you saw it first at Arundel), so it made its second appearance on UK soil at Day 2 of the second test between the Black Caps and England at Old Trafford cricket ground in Manchester. It did itself proud, as did our cricketers (on that day at least). We are now the proud owners of some dedicated cricket commentary earpieces.. watch this space for the next piece of embarrassing cricket spectator kit .. M

Battle of Pasty v Clotted Cream

2008-05-06T22:17:00.018+01:00

The First May Bank Holiday and it was time to undertake field research into that great British conundrum - the Cornish Pasty vs the Devonshire Afternoon Tea. Heading down to Cornwall from London via Stonehenge and Bath we got straight to work sampling the best local fare on offer ... There was time to branch out and sample some of the fantastic seafood hauled in at the little fishing villages around the Cornwall coast ...

On our return journey to London it was time to try some authentic Devon clotted cream and scones (coffee replacing one essential ingredient of afternoon tea for Michaela).

The winner ... well that depends on who you ask ... but there's nothing like a 5lb pasty to keep you going all day on a walk out to King Arthur's Castle ...

Anzac weekend in the springtime ..

2008-04-30T23:01:00.009+01:00

Spring has finally (sort of) arrived.

However with it comes some very early dawns for those Kiwis used to having an Anzac dawn service in NZ at 6.30am (or later ..) In London our alarm clock went off at a very keen 3.50am (thanks Shaun) and we bundled on down to the New Zealand memorial in Hyde Park corner for a kick-off of 5am. On a Friday no less. Still, the service was moving and the memorial is stunning in the early morning .. slightly wobbly photo below.
On Sunday we became Black Caps groupies and headed down to their first appearance on UK soil .. at Arundel Castle cricket ground in West Sussex, playing a Marylebone Cricket Club 11 featuring Chris Cairns (he is walking towards the camera on the right of the bowler below).
The rain kept making unwelcome appeareances throughout the match but Shaun was happy to keep pushing the boundaries of spectator fashion demonstrating an inspired synergy of function and form... However the weather was the winner on the day.
M

Easter Lamb

2008-03-25T17:45:00.006Z

Happy Easter! - for anyone in better weather conditions ..

than this. Caught in an Easter snowstorm it was time to batten down the hatches and find sustenance the only way we knew how -

The results were pleasing and the residents survived the storm intact. It is fair to say that in the battle of 2 hungry New Zealanders v the Tesco lamb (despite being for '6 to 10 people'), the lamb did not fare too well.

Buying lamb using pounds is a bit tough so it is good news that we are both finally gainfully employed. As I write this Shaun is selling his services to a US law firm for the week in one of London's new landmarks, 'The Gherkin'.

Despite being up for a bit of Gherkin time, my contract (at a painfully ordinary-looking building across town) starts tomorrow so I will have to live the Gherkin Monologues vicariously. Shaun does have a permanent job offer with a view of London docks and the Tower of London to follow though so I think the office one-upmanship may continue beyond this week.

We are also moving .. finally leaving our very patient squatting hosts for a flat of our own, albeit one that is almost completely unfurnished. So, we will be trading sleeping on the floor to eating off the floor!

Hopefully soon there will be some further overseas adventures to report - once we've bought a chair or two - and possibly a toaster.

M

Passing the days in London...

2008-03-04T11:46:00.013Z

It is now 2 weeks since we arrived from the lush beaches of India to the cold and grey of London.

We are entertaining ourselves (and others it seems) by frequenting 'not very posh' pubs for cheap English food - I have taken to a pensioners' special available between 2pm and 5pm of fish and chips, a piece of bread and butter and a cuppa tea for the princely sum of only 2.99. If it will do for Grandma, it will do for me.

We are, however, extremely lucky to be sleeping on the floor of a super-super central location. This is a picture of the Millenium Bridge (St Pauls is the dome in the background) and we are squatting in the dark brown building on the far right hand edge of this picture, on the Thames. This is our base for surfing the internet for Hollywood gossip, watching CSI re-runs on daytime TV and launching ourselves into the cold to visit free museums and galleries.

Despite some initial trepidation, we have also ventured into London's social milieu a few times.
Megan (former workmate at DLA PF in Wellington) was flying back home to a cushy job - and the end of a New Zealand summer - just as we arrived. My sister Regan also had her Casablanca-themed 30th party before herself jetting off to India for a holiday - so a man in a fez and an attempt at a French 'Resistance' agent (but apparently more of an air hostess) joined in..
All this lounging around must come to an end at some point though .. (we are trying) .. and Shaun and I each have an interview in the next week or so. Hopefully the next post may contain news of some gainful employment .. and an impending loss of freedom!

M

Fish & chips with mushy peas

2008-02-22T07:46:00.011Z

Yes, we have arrived - no member of the royal family to meet us at Heathrow but we were four hours late due to the runway at Mumbai being 'rebuilt' so excuses can be made.

We've now swapped board shorts for business shirts (thank you TM Lewin) and are busy on the job hunt front as well as catching up with friends and family, including Michaela's sister who has not only helped put a roof over our heads - she's also feeding us.

Goa beach days ...

2008-02-11T09:23:00.000Z

With only a few days left before ending our overland journey and flying to the British winter we've managed to find a nice little beach hut in Goa with a great view of Arambol beach to recuperate from the journey and prepare for job hunting.

Bollywood baby!

2008-02-01T13:37:00.000Z

Walking the streets of Mumbai aka Bombay aka Bollywood can be treacherous for a pair of odd looking Kiwis (the beard is definitely coming off). Walking back to our guest house after going to see one of the hundreds of films produced in Bollywood each year Michaela and I were spotted by a 'talent' scout and signed up to star as miscellanous restaurant patrons numbers 25 and 26 in the next Bollywood Blockbuster - 'Yuvraaj' (apparently costing 50 million Rupees to shoot).

We were both given costumes: Michaela a fantastic strappy top thing and I was given a biker vest (the only thing that fit me). As you can see in the photo below we both looked stunning, hence Michaela's positioning right beside the action (note the camera on the left side of the photo above) and mine in the background pretending to sip a pretend whisky (flat Fanta) ... ohh the injustice ... All in all a great day being close to some of Bollywood's big names (including Salman Khan who apparently is always in the gossip pages of the papers) and our share of the 50 million rupees enough (400 rupees each (about NZ$14)) to consider doing this full time ...
It's already gone a little to Michaela's head (the boys just wanted to know which country she came from) ...S

Octopussy and other struggles of good and evil

2008-02-01T13:35:00.000Z

After finally walking off the effects of our camels we unleashed ourselves on western Rajasthan - the forts, the palaces and the epic battles of tourist v tout. Determined to come out on the side of good we refused to pay anyone's initial price and stoutly resisted all efforts to steer us to various handcrafts emporiums (emporia?) We were not wholly successful though - the retail urge overtook us at times (although in Shaun's case it was mostly the urge to buy food). We also found something Pepsi might want to take a look at ... The forts at Jodhpur and Jaisalmer were the most impressive I've seen so far (there's a photo of Jaisalmer fort in Shaun's last blog entry)- although they had their more sombre sides. Below are the handprints of the widows of one of the 19th century maharajahs of Jodhpur - pressed on the fort wall as they left it for the last time to burn themselves alive on his funeral pyre.
Leaving Jodhpur we arrived in the land of Octopussy - Udaipur - the setting for the James Bond movie of the same name, which we watched twice in 3 days on the roof of our guesthouse. Watching the crowd scenes it is surprising/terrifying how so little in India changes. Feeling all inspired we hired an 'Ambassador' car (not quite an Aston Martin) to cruise the countryside the following day. No champagne on board unfortunately although we did have our own driver.

Eight camel sore days through the Thar Desert

2008-01-20T06:19:00.000Z

Meet the Team

Mahindra: Owner of rogue camel 'Boss' and one to watch in the future (aka 'Chapati Man')

Gopal: Camel cart driver extraordinaire with possible future role as driver for F1 team

Kisore: Head man of the warrior caste and all round nice guy

Potential Hazards

Scorpions:

Dodgy water:

Female distraction (of the wild camel kind):

Rat infestation:

Nasty spinning wheel accident:

Measure of success

Arrival in Jaisalmer with intact bottoms.

Heading north into the cold

2008-01-07T12:59:00.000Z

Delhi was going through a cold snap during our visit - so New Years Eve was a chilly 2 degrees at midnight. Brrr. We toured the usual tourist sights but have possibly been spoiled by seeing so many amazing forts already - however the Qutb Minar (above) was impressive and the great Muslim chicken and mutton restaurants in the bazaars of Old Delhi saw us cruising there for meat about 3 times in 3 days. The meat was very fresh - check out the pile of goats' heads in the box on the right..

From Delhi we headed north to Chandigarh, a completely planned city designed by Le Corbusier. I had only heard of this guy via a Mitre 10 commercial but apparently he's quite a famous architect. The city was very green with lots of concrete and very straight roads. The best part though was a huge illegally built mosaic garden that was built on govt. land over 18 years by stealth - now accepted by the govt and a tourist attraction in its own right.

Heading further north again (suckers for that cold weather) we came to Amritsar - home of the Sikhs and the beautiful Golden Temple. We accidentally arrived on the birthday of one of the gurus - men in turbans were handing out free food on the streets and the temple itself was lit up with thousands of fairy lights. Not to mention the fireworks and free chocolate ..

The final stop on our northern tour was a jam-packed jeep ride 30km from Amritsar to the India-Pakistan border for the famous nightly border ceremony (so famous they have built grandstands for the tourists on each side). Below are the Indian border guards in full ceremonial costume.

For about half an hour, crowds on either side of the border cheer for their side as each set of border guards huff and puff and high-kick their way up and down no-mans land before throwing the border gates open and lowering their flags. It was surreal to have the crowds so close to each other - below is the view of the Indian border gate from our seat - the crowd and land you can see beyond it are Pakistani.

Big game ...

2008-01-01T14:09:00.000Z

From Agra we headed for New Delhi via the eastern side of Rajasthan, getting a taste for what we hope to explore in more depth on the western side - forts, camels and the desert.Tempted by the desert around Pushkar (home to the world's largest camel fair each November) we did a short sunset camel trek - just enough to wet our appetites for something more extensive in the west.
Surprisingly we also came across a couple of great national parks (Ranthambore and Keoladeo) and went in search of tigers and pythons (respectively). The tiger hunt was unsuccessful although the footprint below was spotted.The python hunt was markedly more succesful, maybe because we were on foot and bikes rather than in a jeep.

Being on foot isn't that threatening when all you spot are parrots in the trees ...but is slightly more heart quickening when it is a jackal or python that is only a few metres away (it's amazing how fast the latter move).

Merry Christmas everyone

2007-12-25T09:24:00.001Z

Following the rivers west across India...

2007-12-14T02:13:00.000Z

From Kolkata we travelled west to Varanasi - the most holy place for Hindus in India, if not the world. Millions of pilgrims come here each year to bathe in the Ganges - some also come to die, believing they will be freed from the cycle of reincarnation. Rituals are performed to honour the river every evening.

We stayed in a room with a great view - a balcony overlooking the river and the riverside ghats that run about 5km along the Ganges' western side. Beggars, pilgrims, cows, holy men, tourists, dogs and goats all intermingle freely along the side of the river.
There are 2 main 'burning ghats' in Varanasi where you can watch cremations before the remains are dumped into the river (anyone for a swim?) Apparently if you are a child under 10, a pregnant woman or a holy man, your body is taken out into the middle of the river instead, weighted down with stones and thrown overboard. The water also reportedly contains the contents of 30 sewage pipes that discharge directly into the water.

Despite this, we saw hundreds of pilgrims bathing and washing their clothes in the water each day. Shaun originally said he was keen to take a dip in the holy waters but in the end we settled for an early morning rowboat trip to check out the water quality at close hand. I've never seen bubbles floating along the top of a river before...

From Varanasi we moved west along the river again to Allahabad, a town that does not see that many foreign tourists - and which does not deserve many. I got groped twice at the train station in the space of half an hour (they were duly punished) and Shaun found himself chanting over some coconuts with a holy man in the middle of a rowboat at the auspicious spot where the Ganges and the Yamuna meet ... (here Shaun is rueing the 100 rupees he paid for his coconut ritual)
It was then on to Agra and that famous building. Despite the fact that foreign tourists are charged 37 times the local price to visit the Taj Mahal, it was still worth it. We got up at a very chilly 5.30am to view the Taj from across the river, and then headed over to explore.
Agra also has some lesser-known (but amazing) buildings from the same era - built by a succession of Mughal emperors during the 16th century. Shaun found the harem quarters of some of the old forts and palaces particularly interesting ...

First stop Calcutta

2007-12-14T02:00:00.000Z

Our first stop across the border was Kolkata (Calcutta). While I was apprehensively expecting massive slums and poverty, what we found was a surprisingly green modern city with less traffic and fewer beggars than Dhaka.
Courtesy of the massive textbook Shaun is lugging around (as a 'reading book') the Kolkata area was the original base of the East India Company in the early 1700s. There are many colonial style buildings in the centre of town, including the Victoria Memorial (above). Our trusty Lonely Planet describes the colonial centre of Kolkata as a 'testament to the vain glory of empire'. Uh-huh.

Kolkata is also one of the last places on earth you can ride a human-powered rickshaw. We agonised over whether to ride one and it was an uneasy experience. Our rickshaw driver didn't seem to be having too much fun either as he had to pull over a few hundred metres before our destination with a possible hernia after dragging both Shaun and I through the streets on his bare feet.

On our last day we hunted out the base of Mother Teresa's original "Missionaries of Charity" which, as well as being a working convent, has a small area set aside containing her small nun's room and her tomb. It was very moving.

Amar desh New Zealand

2007-12-05T06:49:00.000Z

From Darjeeling we had a darkened border crossing into the north of Bangladesh and then made our way by cycle-rickshaw, local bus and rickety train to Dhaka.
The people of Dhaka, all 12 million or so, proved themselves to be incredibly curious about our presence and thought nothing of crowding around us and staring while we ate, shopped (you can never have too many kaftans) or got our beards trimmed (mine at least). The separate curtained booths in some restaurants for women (and their male escorts) did give us a place to eat without forty pairs of eyes on every handful - literally - of rice going into the mouth.

Short term tourists are very rare and the universal question asked, or yelled from passing rickshaws or buses is 'what country?' Followed by (thank you to that beard - mine) 'are you Muslim?'

After the congestion and madness of Dhaka it was a pleasure to cruise (in first class, including a private cabin, stewards and access to the first class deck) southwest towards the border with India for a day on a Bangladeshi institution - one of the 'Rocket' paddle steamers.Being on the river did mean we could engage in some nature spotting, including the Gangetic Dolphin and a rather laid back crocodile (I got my subservient 'wife' to go and poke it to see if it was in a biting mood before approaching).

Tea Town

2007-12-05T06:23:00.000Z

After crossing into India from Nepal we headed for Darjeeling - the quintessential colonial hill station (at least before Indian independence from Britain). Nowadays it is local politicians who want independence from the West Bengal state and to press their demands they called an indefinite strike in the region just before our arrival - no shops open except pharmacies, no restaurants and armed police at all intersections.

Nevertheless we managed to wander through some of the tea plantations as well as visit the 'highest zoo in the world' and the Himalayan Mountain Institute which Sherpa Tenzing helped establish and run and which holds some fantastic artifacts such as three of the four flags raised by Hillary and Tenzing on Everest's summit (the UN flag is elsewhere) and equipment from pioneering Himalayan expeditions (battery heated socks?).

One of the few restaurants that would provide food to us was the restaurant attached to the ever so elegant Elgin Hotel, a colonial era building set in a rose fringed garden overlooking Darjeeling. Given our surroundings High Tea was the order of the day (with the finest Darjeeling Orange Pekoe Tip tea of course).

Follow that poo ...

2007-11-21T12:04:00.001Z

In a change from showing traditional trekking vistas we decided on some alternative highlights of the Annapurna Circuit - a 210 km trail of donkey poo around the Annapurna mountains in Nepal that starts at 800m above sea level, climbs to 5400m and drops most of the way back again over 16 days... please choose your own captions from the selection below ..

A. Shaun's pioneering trekking style .. John McEnroe wants his look back

B. "Chocolate, money, photo, school pen, sweet?"

C. How KFC is delivered in the mountains ...
D. When beards go bad ...

E. It was always SO disappointing to reach the day's destination

F. When my feet got sore some of the wildlife started looking hopeful for a meal

OK OK so I added 2 more traditional photos to finish ..

M

Ignorance and a big stick

2007-11-03T10:36:00.000Z

"If a rhino charges, run as fast as you can away because their eyesight is poor. If a wild elephant charges you should run but make it a zig zag (they're not so good at the side step), and if a sloth bear charges then get in a group and make as much noise as possible." That was the safety talk from our guide Chitra before commencing a day long walk through the jungle and grasslands of Royal Chitwan National Park.

He left out what we should do if we came across a tiger but as he'd given me a bamboo walking stick I didn't feel too vulnerable ... and as it turned out the only dangerous animals I saw were crocodiles from the other side of the river and a rhino from the top of a fallen tree trunk (which apparently made us "100% safe"), not to mention the ubiquitous insect life.

We'd made it to Chitwan after a two day rafting trip from Kathmandu during which both of us managed to maintain our composure inside the raft but Michaela managed to pick up giardia which sidelined her for the walk through the jungle but couldn't stop her from going for a swim with our resort's elephant the next day ...

or heading into the buffer zone around Chitwan on elephant back. While Michaela was fortunate indeed to spot some deer and the mysterious jungle fowl a.k.a. a wild jungle chicken I managed to hit the jackpot with a sighting of a baby rhino and its mother.

Monkey Business and Lasagne

2007-11-03T08:24:00.000Z

Kathmandu - the ancient city of the Malla kings, and formerly The destination for hippies making the overland route to Asia from Europe. We had been hearing all sorts of stories in Tibet about the amazing food in Kathmandu (the mere thought of lasagne when you are sitting in a smoky Tibetan guesthouse looking at your 3rd plate of yak dumplings in as many days is enough to start rabid thoughts of commandeering vehicles and driving over the border in search of this culinary oasis).

Kathmandu did not disappoint. After 48 hours of gorging on steak, chips, beer, wine, pasta, salad and tiramisu!! we surfaced to explore the city. We discovered that monkeys appear to have taken over.

Traffic is fairly chaotic in Kathmandu, and walking is often the best option. Most walking tours end up at Darbur Square, the heart of the old town. The square features a disparate but beautiful collection of old temples where you can sit on the steps and pass the time, and have numerous small children approach you for money.

Around the square the old town is like a giant medieval bazaar, made up of numerous smaller squares and interlocking courtyards which are often hidden behind tiny passageways from the street. On almost every corner is a small shrine to one or more Hindu or Buddhist deities that have been liberally sprinkled with red tika powder and rice.

And just when you think the traffic can't get any worse a bull gets snarled up in it all...

Birthday at Base Camp

2007-10-23T11:06:00.001+01:00

The last stop on our gruelling Landcruiser tour of Tibet was the bugger Sir Ed famously knocked off ... Mt Everest (Mt Qomolangma to Tibetans).

The inn was full so we got to sleep at the monastery with the monks ... and Shaun got his birthday at Base Camp.

Wal Footrot and the Guge Kingdom

2007-10-22T13:01:00.000+01:00

Further into Western Tibet from Mt Kailash (and over another breathtaking pass) lies the ruins of the Guge Kingdom. Rarely visited by foreigners (only 10 visited the day we were there) due to the required permits (the area is especially sensitive given its proximity to the Indian border) and atrocious roads with perilous drops (thankfully only one tyre had to be changed on the 5 hour 150km drive and 3 Chinese checkpoints cleared (despite being lippy Michaela wasn't detained at the one above)) the area is reminiscent of the Grand Canyon with the ruins of Petra tucked away in the cliffs.

Feeling a bit like kiwi versions of Indiana Jones we explored the ruins which are separated into 3 levels and are connected either by exposed pathways or tunnels which could be blocked in the event of attack.

At the top of the complex sits the summer palace where the King and his household lived. The only access up is via a steep tunnel. In winter the royal household would retire to their winter palace - a short climb down into the hillside through another tunnel to 12 rooms/caves that had been hollowed out (clearly the idea of visitor safety is not high on the agenda of the authorities as at the bottom of the steep tunnel into the winter palace there is a large hole with a vertical drop to the valley floor below).

Near death experiences focus the mind (in a spiritual way)

2007-10-22T12:04:00.000+01:00

Mount Kailash is often called the 'most sacred mountain in the world'. Near the source of 4 of Asia's great rivers it soars to more than 7000m and the paths which circle it are constantly filled with Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and Bon pilgrims - not to mention the odd tourist who either has the necessary permits (thanks to the Chinese Frontier and Military Police and a bucket load of Yuan) or has managed to slip into western Tibet illegally.

The kora around Kailash crosses a pass at 5600m so is not for the faint of heart or those suffering from altitude sickness. The trekking season is coming to an end in Tibet as autumn becomes winter so our driver and tour guide (mandatory requirements for those pesky permits) spent the time before our arrival at Kailash emphasising that should the snow reach above the top of our thighs (a height with significant variance between Michaela and I) we should stop and turn around (when they found out a German tourist had died the week before the height dropped and the worry lines grew).

Despite the doomsayers we managed to complete the kora (without porters or yaks carrying our bags or tent) with only the odd departure from the track (once the route was covered in snow we could only navigate by following earlier footsteps), and the occasional tumble ...

We did however give up on tenting after the first night when the contents of the water bottle that was nestled between Michaela's sleeping bag and mine froze during the night. After that it was accommodation in some of the Buddhist monasteries which sit around Kailash for us. The solid dirt walls and our gas cooker keeping the cold at bay.

Getting in a Spiritual frame of mind...

2007-10-14T13:53:00.001+01:00

It is immediately evident upon arriving in Tibet that Tibetans are very spiritual people. On leaving Lhasa and heading west in the Landcruiser, we visited Tashilunpo Monastery in Shigatse and then Sakya Monastery, which is a 10th century Buddhist monastery set high in the hills. Both are in incredibly well preserved condition (despite the ravages of the Cultural Revolution which destroyed many religious places in Tibet and across China). The monks are in residence and the traditions - if not the 'original' Panchen Lama - are still in place.

You're not allowed to take photos inside the temples which means most of the amazing religious art has to stay inside the head of the person viewing it. Not a problem if you're here but for blog purposes, a hint of the art does creep outside the temple walls (a monk did look askance at my pink toenails though):

We are now into the second week of the Landcruiser tour. Facilities are pretty limited out here (this is a random internet cafe literally in the middle of nowhere) so we will update things when we can. Shaun is busy perfecting his Old Man Time beard at the moment so is staying out of photos but I will get a shot of it on here in a week or so.

M

Sorry Vegetarians

2007-10-14T13:31:00.000+01:00

We have met some very nice vegetarians in Tibet so far. Still, in the interests of scientific and culinary study it is important to document the following:
Yak.

Yak steak!

Freezing our Nob/lets Off

2007-10-14T13:11:00.001+01:00

Well camping by the beach in New Zealand is nice so we thought we'd give it a try another 4700m above sea level. Nam-Tso, the highest lake in the world, lies amongst some fairly serious snow-capped peaks and is a holy place for Tibetans. It's strewn with prayer flags and contains some small monasteries nestled into the cliffs (with live-in monks and nuns who must never feel the cold).
It is also bloody freezing at night. Still, you don't know until you try.

A palace in the clouds

2007-10-02T08:37:00.000+01:00

If ever a palace deserved a fairytale it is the Potala Palace in Lhasa, former residence of the Dalai Lamas.

On our mad-cap taxi ride from the train station outside the city it wasn't hard to spot the 400+ year old building, as it dominates the city from its perch atop a hill in Lhasa's mountain valley. And as for a backdrop to an afternoon relaxing in the sun I can't imagine a better one (courtesy of the rooftop tea house of the Yak Hotel) ...

Around the base of the Potala pilgrims from all over Tibet make a 'kora' (a clockwise devotional journey) spinning prayer wheels as they go. Most walk ...
while a few prostrate the entire way (making their way one body length at a time).
The inside of the Potala (no photos allowed) is as fascinating as the exterior with gem encrusted tombs of past Dalai Lamas filling rooms which waft with the aroma of yak butter lamps. (The yak features prominently in Tibetan life - including in Michaela's burger last night and as my steak). The halls of the Potala are of course now filled with tourists and pilgrims rather than the Dalai Lama but no chances are being taken with army personnel and the ubiquitous CCTV cameras keeping a watchful eye over all who enter.
After a week acclimatising to the altitude in Lhasa (including an overnight trip to Nam Tso lake to test our locally purchased camping gear - note to Lhasa outdoor stores: gas cookers should not spit gas out the side) we hope to leave Lhasa tomorrow (6 October) on a 15 day 4WD trip to the border with Nepal via, among other things, the holy mountain of Mount Kailash in Western Tibet (where we intend to join the Hindu, Buddist and Bon pilgrims on a kora around the mountain) and Everest Base Camp.

Areas of Western Tibet we wish to visit are apparently sensitive so our local travel agent has requested additional funds to ensure that the necessary permits from the Military Police and Civil Police are forthcoming - fingers crossed.

The Train Across the Roof of the World ...

2007-09-30T04:29:00.000+01:00

Welcome to the highest railway lines in the world - the train journey to Lhasa, Tibet. The Swiss said it couldn't be done but, unveiled in October last year, the tracks cross a pass of over 5,000m, travel over permafrost and include over 120km of bridges. The carriages also have pressurised cabins and oxygen masks. We saw one of our fellow passengers being hooked up to an oxygen line - weird. The views out the window are of some of the remotest land in the world.. (obligatory Chinese truck in the picture though!)

There are several different ways to ride this train. Being the budget travellers we are (and having been given little choice by the fact that scalpers buy up all of the sleeper tickets for the black market) we travelled hard seat from Chengdu for a nonstop 3360km over 45 bum-numbing hours. The views out the window are the same, however it is probably fair to say that the sleeper ticket holders have a better chance of getting some sleep.

We tried to learn from others travelling in our carriage who seemed to have no trouble:

But in the end I tried some innovation in my efforts to pretend 'hard seat' was a sleeper car. To his disgust Shaun was unable to fit under the seat.

We are now in Lhasa wheezing our way up single flights of stairs ..

China?

2007-09-25T09:02:00.000+01:00

Yes and no.

Our discussions with the Exit - Entry Branch of the Chinese Public Security Bureau (the PSB) in Chengdu led us to Venice, at least Venice as recreated inside the Venetian Casino in Macau (a larger and more impressive copy of the copy of the 'Venice' inside the Venetian Casino in Las Vegas).

According to 'regulations' as interpreted by the Chengdu PSB our Chinese visas could only be extended when they had less that 5 days left to run on them which is fine - except at that stage we expected to be in Tibet where we are informed extensions are universally refused. What to do? Fly with Air China to Hong Kong of course, which although technically part of China (as is Macau) operates under different regualtions allowing visa free entry for New Zealanders and from where our re-entry into 'China' would restart our Chinese visas.

Staying in the cheapest accomodation we could find in Kowloon we managed to live it up on a tour to the Hong Kong Jockey Club's Sha Tin Racecourse where we could view the racing from a box in the Members' Stand and most importantly enjoy the open bar and international buffet - yes that means we were allowed to eat and drink as much as we wanted!

To round off our sinful break from the Chinese mainland we spent a few days in Macau where thanks to the Grand Lisboa and Venetian casinos I left 700 Macao Patacas (about NZD$140) richer than I arrived (Michaela came out 100 Patacas ahead) and with a newly found respect for Chinese gamblers who've pushed Macau ahead of Las Vegas in the money stakes.

I should mention that Macau is a fascinating mix of Eastern and Western cultures with the Portugese influence still felt a decade after Macau was handed back to China (including all official signs being in both Chinese and Portugese, and what seems like dozens of beautiful Catholic churches where I was able to seek forgiveness for my gambling ways).

We've now arrived back in Chengdu and have tickets to Lhasa by train on 26 September in 'hard seat' class, a journey which is expected to take 45 hours and involve tunnels through some of the highest mountains on the planet and oxygen tubes in the cabins to combat altitude sickness ...

Shangri-La

2007-09-25T08:26:00.000+01:00

After exploring the historic towns of Dali and Lijiang it was time to head for Chengdu (capital of Sichuan province and our staging point for the train to Lhasa) via the mountains of Yunnan and Sichuan provinces (formerly part of Tibet).

The only mode of transport available to us was Chinese public bus. For those yet to enjoy the pleasures of Chinese public buses you need to be prepared for:

A. Spitting on the floor (it doesn't matter whether the floor is carpeted, tiled or vinyl);
B. Virtually all Han Chinese males smoking;
C. The occasional breakdown ...

And;
D. Toilet stops to be either beside the roadside or at toilets comprising a concrete trench to be squatted over which may or may not have some flushing mechanism ...

[While Michaela did take a picture of a particular 'cubicle' she came across which had no flushing mechanism and hadn't been cleaned since the Ming Dynasty we do have some limits as to what we'll show on this blog]

The scenery outside of the bus was simply stunning. This hasn't been lost on the Chinese who have renamed one town Shangri-La (formerly Zhongdian) after the mythical location in James Hilton's 'Lost Horizon'. Shangri-La does have the requisite stunning monastery ...

Although for my money the town of Litang (a few more days travel by bus) is a better candidate as it sits on a plateau at around 4,200 metres surrounded by peaks of up to 7,000 metres and has a wonderful peaceful feel to it (when you're not wheezing due to the altitude).

Arrival in Chengdu meant Panda time at the Giant Panda Research Base and negotiations for our entry into the Tibetan province.

Adventures in the old town

2007-09-15T11:17:00.000+01:00

Every day is a culinary adventure in China. Our attempts to order meals like the one above are often limited to having to point out raw ingredients from a doorstep selection such as the one below. We have seen eels, frogs, skewered grasshoppers and all sorts of other raw delicacies available for inclusion in a dinner meal. A little scary when the menu is all in Chinese and the excitement of recognising the character for 'pork' is coloured by the fact that the other 5 characters in front of it may mean 'heart and intestine of'.
Nevertheless we are forging bravely ahead. We have spent about 5 days in two of China's most famous old preserved villages - Dali and Lijiang.
They are both very picturesque and seem to be full of old people doing the work while the beautiful young things sit around and pout prettily for pictures. Parents please take note.

In our continuing search for examples of good English we uncovered the following disappointing restriction when looking to cross Lake Erhai on a bike ride out of Dali:

More to follow from the marathon bus ride through the mountains to Chengdu (Shaun's idea)