Travel Blogs: Joe Bloomfield

We arrived in NY yesterday at midday NY time on the start of our round the world tour. On the transfer journey from JFK to our hostel in Chelsea we witnessed the things you'd expect to see in the projects of NY, ie burnt out cars, kids shooting hoops, taxis honking impatiently at each other and a full scale game of cricket, with them all dressed in full cricket whites, pads and all. What's that about? Only in America...

In the last day and a half we've walked about ten miles round Manhattan, seen all the touristy things like the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, Madison Square Gardens, Ground Zero etc, etc. We've eaten "The Finest Spaghetti and Meatballs in Manhattan" followed by a pot of English Breakfast tea, which for some reason they thought was best served out of a cafetiere. Apparently it's an 'aromatic toasty blend which is well suited to milk'. The Americans just don't seem able to get it quite right do they?

Anyway we're off up the Empire State Building tonight, which I can see from my bedroom window.

The hostel is a bit dodgy, the keys we're given fit every lock of every buliding and door in the block, and the lockers will come open even when padlocked. Worst of all, we turned up at 4 in the afternoon to find someone asleep in Lewis's bed who wasn't actually supposed to be staying in our dorm. Nice location though.

Over and out.

Joe

All the leaves are brown...

Not strictly true, in fact all the leaves are green, but I thought I'd continue with the song lyric titles. Anyone who knows any songs about Fiji let me know, we fly there tonight.

Right, California.

First stop was LA. Our transfer dropped us at about midnight at the Holiday Inn in Santa Monica only to be told that the chap from STA had somewhat misguided us. 'HI' didn't stand for Holiday Inn, it in fact stood for Hostelling International. Luckily, the hostel was only a short walk down the road. Off we set, only to walk straight through a film set - stage lighting, directors chairs, boom mikes, the works. All kind of weird and a bit cliched. Was this really what LA was like?

Got to the hostel to find that they had no knowledge of our booking either, and that we had to sleep in the movie room for the night. Thankfully the desk assistant Cortez (who looked and spoke like the tranny out of Baz Luhrmanns Romeo and Juliet) organised a room for us while we were asleep.

Got up the next morning, wandered around Santa Monica, down onto the beach where Baywatch is set. Hired these chopper pedal trikes and ragged them up and down the promenade. I lived up to my nickname of 'Blunders' by trying to turn and running some californian woman off the path and into the sand where she came to an abrupt halt. She wasn't happy.

Next day we went to Hollywood. Took the obligatory photo of the sign and walked up and down Hollywood Boulevard looking at the stars named. Only recognised about 1 in 5 names, but took the time to jump up and down, stamping on Phil Collins. Made me feel quite good. I'd recommend it to anyone.

I also had my photo taken with a Jimi Hendrix lookalike. Hollywood kind of sucks to tell the truth. It's all a bit tacky. You'd call it a tourist trap but theres not enough there to trap you. Ended up leaving after about two hours.

Onto San Francisco. We have been staying in another Hostelling International site, this one on Fort Mason, an old Army Barracks.

It backs out onto the bay and has awesome views of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. There are parrots in the trees. Parrots!!

Went to Alcatraz the day before yesterday. We paid about 20 dollars to go and got the ferry trip and a guided tour thrown in. Its quite cool and worth doing, all slightly eerie and they give you a bit of history of the island. For example, I wasn't aware that the Native Americans reclaimed it after the prison closed, and molotov cocktailed the coastguard when he tried to get on. Interesting tour.

Yesterday we got the bus to the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge and walked across it. A worthwhile activity and free to boot. Stupidly windy though, but you get great views of the city and the bay from the other side.

When we got across we realised the only way back was to walk double the distance to the ferry terminal, or turn round and walk back. It's a mile and a half long that bridge. We turned round. My feet hurt now.

Whilst walking to a bar last night we saw a skunk. I didn't even know they had them here. Funny thing was it was right next to a black and white cat. I half expected to see a road marking van drive over the cat and leave a white streak across it's back. C'est L'Amour ne'c'est pas?

Anyway, our time is up in California and the States as a whole. Next stop is Fiji. To be honest I'm quite looking forward to being able to put my feet up and relax for a bit, because we've jammed a whole lot of stuff into not much time and it's been good, but tiring. Will update from there anyway.

Ciaou!

Joe

Every little thing, is gonna be alright

Bula everybody from Fiji!

Its great here. Instead of the airport security we experienced in the states, where if you even look at them funny they snap on the rubber gloves, we were welcomed through the gates by three Fijian men playing a reggae tune on the guitar and singing 'Bula!' to us. This literally translates as 'Life' but means 'Have a good life' and its a word you hear a lot here. People will say it to you in the street whether or not they know you, and its not a tourism thing, you see them saying it to each other too. Everywhere we drivew kids run out waving and adults stand in their gardens waving with broad grins. It makes a vast and pleasant change to the fake friendliness of half the states, or England, where people will pretty much cross the road to avoid even eye contact.

Anyway, we booked ourselves onto the Feejee experience bus, and I have to say its been absolutely brilliant. Ten out of ten. In the last few days we've been to two amazing islands (Nananu Ira and Beachcomber. I recommend an image search on google!), have sandboarded down dunes, trekked through mountainous rainforests, been to a local orphanage to meet the kids, floated down rapids on rubber rings, been on bamboo rafts down the same river, jumped in the plunge pool of a waterfall, been welcomed into a local village by the chief with a cava ceremony which is a way of accepting us as honorary villagers with a locally made drink which numbs your tongue and makes you sleepy...

I'm writing this from beachcomber island and they're charging me a small fortune so I'd better get going. All thats left to say is that the amount you hear him here, you'd think Bob Marley was a Fijian. Can't complain though.

More about Fiji before we leave.

We're coming to the end of our time in Fiji now and I'm going to miss the place quite a lot. Since day 1 everybody has been friendly and kind (except the staff on Beachcomber island, but considering they have to put up with about 200 18-30s wannabes all day and night on an island it takes ten minutes to walk round where you couldn't even hide on your lunch break, I don't blame them). One strange Fijian phenomenon we have noted is when you get in taxis:

Taxi Driver: 'Bula! Where you want to go?'

You: 'Hotel please'

Taxi Driver: 'Where you from?'

You: 'England'

Taxi Driver: How long you got left?'

You: 'About a week'

Taxi Driver: 'You wanna buy some weeds? You like smoke?'

About 3/4 of the taxis we have got in we've had exactly the same questions. It seems that the Taxi Drivers Union of Fiji is also the Drug Dealers Union of Fiji. Bit strange. You wouldn't expect to see it in Ipswich.

Get on a green bus, 'single to town please mate.'

'That'll be one pewnd twenny bouey. Dya waarnt any crack?'

Anyway, went for a wander round Nadi town yesterday, and ended up getting accosted by a man named Moses, who followed us up and down the street telling us to come to his shop. According to him, Indigenous (I don't think he used that word) Fijian shops they let you chill ('Fiji time, man') whereas in the Fijian shops owned by people of Indian heritage they chase you round the shop and hassle you to buy something.

So, we walked down the road with him telling us all this and found ourselves in Moses The Indigenous Fijians shop. He then proceeded to completely contadict himself by chasing us round hassling us to buy something, offering us Cava and 'weeds' ('I'm a farmer, I grow it myself!') to try to keep us in the shop. I ended up for some reason buying a shark tooth on a necklace. At home I would never wear a necklace. Against my better judgement I'm falling into all the travelling cliches. All I need now is a pair of thai firshermans trousers and a boomerang.

For those of you reading this who may be greenpeace activists or the sort that blow up animal testing laboratories, please try to relax in the knowledge that no shark was hurt in the making of this necklace, and if it was, it was probably quite a small, crappy and pointless one anyway, so theres no need to hunt me down and kill me or throw paint over me or anything. In fact, Moses probably made it out of plastic when he was high on weeds anyway, so there.

Look out Kiwis, here comes Joe

I'm six foot six, I'm English, the British Lions are currently touring NZ. Therefore, Kiwis assume I'm a rugby boy.

I'm not sure I like this. I don't light my own farts, or drink other peoples vomit after all.

I watched us scrape past the Bay of Plenty in a bar called 'Globe' last night, and a couple of hours afterwards in a different bar some Kiwi overheard my accent, and started giving me abuse at how bad we were and how the All Blacks are going to wipe the floor with us.

Although I know the basics of Rugby and will watch the England games, I'm no massive fan. Thankfully a pamphlet I picked up at Auckland airport helped me out, and I recited some phrases I'd learnt on the transfer to our hostel (ACB). Namely 'Aren't England champions of the world?' (lead balloon) Haven't you failed to win the world cup since 1987? (lead beach ball) Doesn't one of your key players wear eyeshadow? (lead zeppelin). All I got in response was "Yeah bit..bit...err...Junny Wilkinsins a bit uf a piff'.

Not as much of a 'piff' as a player who wears eyeshadow mate, shh.

Other than that I have been to see Star Wars twice, thanks to Andy and Lewis the star wars geeks for that one, and just wandered round Auckland a bit.

We start the Kiwi experience at twenty past eight tomorrow, so I should have a bit more to write about in the next few days.

Missing fingers, fights and freefalls

What is it about rugby and beer that inspires young men to turn into absolute t1ts?

Last night we stayed in a place called River Valley Lodge.

Quite imaginatively named I noticed, considering it's a lodge, next to a river, in a valley.

Getting swiftly away from the sarcasm and cynicism that runs in the Bloomfield family, the lodge to give it it's due credit is absolutely beautiful. It's about 45 minutes drive from the nearest town, and is sat on the bank of a river. The atmosphere when we arrived was totally relaxed, and there was smoke rising gently from the chimney from the log fire they'd lit inside in anticipation of our arrival. 'Nice touch' I thought, as I was greeted by a lazy jack russell. I could like it here.

Little did I know that later that night it would all go crazy. The owners of the hostel had brought in a projector screen and Sky especially for the Lions tour, and a teams of Kiwis on rugby camp were staying in the valley at the same time as us.

We were outplayed and from the final whistle onwards got ruthlessly mocked by the Kiwi staff and rugby boys for our performance. Booze was flowing heavily, and in a dispute over the captaincy, the captain of the rugby team had punched his teammate in the nose and broken it. Later on another Kiwi who'd been trying to use the 'Flying Fox' (a pulley type cart thing that slides you out on a cable strung up over the river) had managed to take off half his thumb (to the bone) by getting it caught in the pulley.

One of the guys off our bus, Rob, had been bothering to put up an argument against all the jibes from the Kiwis and had soon got himself nicknamed 'Jonny Wilkinson' by them. They drank him under the table.

The dorm we were staying in was like one giant bunk bed, the top bunk being about 7 or 8 feet off the ground. You all chuck your mattresses down and rough it for the night.

However, in the middle of the night, Rob was so drunk he decided to wet the bed. Nice. Probably realising through the fog of booze and sleep that peeing where he lay might not be the best idea, he got up and walked towards the door. Unfortunately for him, he was on the top bunk. One of the guys witnessed it, and apparently he just walked off the end of the bunk and dropped like a stone.

I awoke to an almighty thump and loud groaning. Everyone woke up and put the lights on, and we checked he was ok. Somehow he'd managed to fall seven feet onto his face and survive with hardly a bruise.

Anyway, after a heavily disturbed but ultimately amusing nights sleep (thankfully the top bunk although enormous was divided into 4 by wooden partitions, so the mattresses on our side were nice and dry) I got up and went whitewater rafting on grade 5 rapids in the river. This was top class, but not as scary as I imagined it. I think if there had been more rain recently it might have been a bit more severe, but it was still really good fun. I didn't fall out once.

I am now writing this from Base backpackers in Wellington.

I have met Claire ('Merry', who works here and posted earlier) and, true to her word, she gave me a load of drinks and internet vouchers. I have only nice things to say about her. (mainly because she crept up on me when I was typing and made me jump by shouting 'You better be saying nice things about me!).

Fingers crossed for the tickets to the Wellington game, we're waiting on a text from a couple of girls who are waiting on an email from a couple of boys, so it's looking a bit of a long shot.

Will let youse all know.

Joe

Lions v Lions

Kia Ora everybody (its too orangey for crows)

Last night Lewis and I went to watch Wellington Lions vs the British and Irish Lions (playing Rugby Union for the uninitiated amongst you) at the Westpac Stadium in, you've guessed it, Wellington.

We bought the tickets the day before on the internet after word got round that a website still had a few left. We paid 90 bucks for them, which is the equivalent of about 35 quid.

The town was totally decked out in the blacks and yellows of the home team, and the reds of the Brits and there was a buzz about the city on the day of the game. We went to the pub early and there were already thousands of people wandering round in British Lions shirts. Nobody was in black and yellow, but I think this was probably because they were still at work. It was a wednesday after all.

Anyway, with the game approaching the two of us joined the crowds swarming towards the ground but were surprised to find it pretty empty when we got in. They don't have the home and away segregation that they do in football games back home, so we found ourselves sat with Kiwis on either side of us, but Brits were dotted about all over the place. The ground is a big oval shape, seating, from various reports we've been given, anywhere between 30 thousand and 58 thousand people. I think it's about 40,000, but because of the architecture of it, anywhere you sit you get a great view of the action.

The place stayed empty until about five minutes before kickoff, but even the latecomers were early enough to witness some awful entertainment.

The organisers had decided to represent the different nations competing by having a national dance performance for each one. The Kiwis had Maori, Tongan and Fijian dancers all doing their traditional dances, which were pretty good, and even the Irish and Scottish national dances were quite impressive. I hung my head in shame when I saw that we had four fat bespectacled gentlemen representing my homeland dressed up in white waving handkerchiefs at each other and prancing around like creatures my Dad might call 'Jessies'.

Thankfully, my blushes were spared and a tiny amount of patriotism was restored (in the 'at least we weren't that bad' sense) when the Welsh representative stepped up.

While we all had traditional dances dating back centuries, the Welsh had what looked like a drag queen, or at least a particularly unattractive lady, dressed up like Shirley Bassey, miming to 'Hey Big Spender' in front of tens of thousands of people. That took guts but she

really needs to choose a different career path. Hats off to her agent for booking her the gig though, he must have really oversold her.

Although I'm not going to give a blow-by-blow account of the game, I will say that it was a great experience as my first rugby match, and it's a lot different to watching it on the telly. Thankfully they had a big screen at the ground which gave you instant replays, followed by the reasons the ref gives for decisions made, because half the time it was a bit difficult to tell.

One guy sat about 20 rows round from us, with a particularly loud voice, managed to get a mexican wave going on his own, which went round the whole ground twice. I was pretty impressed, so I guess it's something he'll remember for quite a while.

We're now on the South Island after making the 3hr ferry crossing at 9.30 this morning.

Joe

Ferries and hangovers aren't good bedfellows might I add...

Sorry Mum, I know you asked me to tell you afterwards but...

...much against my better judgement I'm going to throw myself off a 47 metre drop in the pitch dark tonight. I have been telling myself I wasn't going to do a bungy but to my surprise I've managed to summon the balls to do it from somewhere.

Count yourself lucky the 'Nevis' was fully booked, its 139 metres high, the second highest bungy in the world with the longest freefall duration.

 

 

I'll tell you all about it when (or if) I've survived. If not, I bequeath all my worldly goods to The Cats Protection League.

Wish me luck.

Joe

Whale tales and show-off dolphins

Yes, I might as well get it out of the way, I'm having a 'whale' of a time here in Kaikoura.

I feel unclean for even saying that, but it was necessary. It was about as unavoidable, in fact, as the important protocol to use when asking the cost of a venison burger here. ('5 bucks? That's a bit deer isn't it?')

Where was I? Oh yes, whale watching. Myself and the boy Lewis went on a boat trip today in the hope of spotting a few whales. Apparently the average sightings per trip is one or two. We saw five Sperm Whales up close. I was assuming you'd see them in the distance, but we sidled the boat right up to them and watched as they regulated the air pressure and went for another dive.

The sight I wanted to see was the familiar tail rising in the air as they dived (or is it dove?) into the depths. Each time they went under we got a perfect view of it. The highlight was when we saw two at the same time, right next to each other, simultaneously dive. Really impressive.

Dolphins are a different story. B*stards! They were doing all sorts of acrobatic flips and jumps while my fat fingers clumsily fumbled for the camera, but as soon as I was ready they seemed to realise that the big one was looking for a photo opportunity and turned the cold shoulder (don't pick me up on my wildlife anatomy please, I know they don't have shoulders any more than cats have eyebrows. I'm using it in the metaphorical sense). Anyway, after I got my camera out ready for the National Geographic Photograph Of The Year they went back to just cresting the water around us.

In all honesty they were great, really. There were hundreds of them swimming round the boat, being really inquisitive and friendly, and doing tricks for the cameras of all but the clumsiest oafs on board.

They just have a tendency to make you feel jealous, that's all. They have a kind of look about them which says 'Look what I can do you stupid humans, who needs the opposable thumb anyway? See how much fun I'm having swimming around and jumping about while you worry about your bank balance and the cold weather? I can jump ten feet out of the water and somersault with just the strength in my tail! I have sonar capabilities actually inside my head, whereas you suckers didn't even work out how to use it til about 65 years ago! I have intercourse an average of six times a day with different partners and never suffer repercussive feelings of remorse, guilt or even soreness or itching and you think YOU'RE the most intelligent creatures on the planet? Ha!'

Ahem.....er, anyway, we had a lovely time today and I was very impressed with the whole affair. Joe's stamp of recommendation is firmly on this activity for those of you planning a trip to NZ who are stuck for things to fill your time with (although I don't see how anybody could be).

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Joe

P.S. Did you know a Blue Whales tongue weighs the same as a fully grown African Elephant? No? Nor did I.

A new dinosaur has been discovered in Queenstown

It's to be named 'Joesgotasoreass'.

I know, I know, I need to stay away from puns, they're not big or clever, (which coincidentally is also the reason you shouldn't mock retarded dwarves). I'm really ever so funny, I assure you all, but I've promised someone I'd make a few really bad jokes on here and am sticking to my word.

Yes, anyway. My backside is sore to a ridiculous extent, due to me landing on it very hard whilst snowboarding on a number of occasions over the past few days. The worst of these was where I landed on one cheek and the rest of me wanted to keep on going down the mountain. Don't try to imagine the effects too hard, for your own sake.

I'm still walking though, so I'm happy with my performance so far. We've been to two resorts, namely The Remarkables and Coronet Peak. Yesterday Coronet Peak hosted the Big Air competition, where a number of snowboarders far more proficient than any of us leapt off a forty foot drop and did all sorts of spins and somersaults. Very impressive.

Changing the subject entirely for the final part of this post, it's my birthday today, so show me some love.

Joe

Kia Ora - I'll be your dawg.

Hello all,

In case you were wondering, there's a reason I'm carrying on with the references to fruit squash adverts. You'll find out what that is if you have the energy to keep reading.

Right, we're still in Queenstown, but have now moved to a different hostel, called The Last Resort.

It's set back a little bit from the road, but is still situated slap bang in the centre of Queenstown. You have to cross a little humpbacked bridge over a stream in the front garden to get to the entrance.

After climbing stairs hidden round the back of the building, which makes it feel like you're breaking into someones house, you are greeted at the top of the stairs by the warm glow of a log fire. The other guests when we arrived were dotted about either sat round the dinner table, on the sofas watching the huge telly or pottering about in the kitchen, and all made us feel right at home straight away.

The hostel only sleeps about 16 people, which is a far and welcome cry from some of the skyscraper places we've stayed in recently. One of the guests is also the receptionist and many of the others are renting a bed for the entire winter, so it has more the feel of a shared house than a hostel. It's all very cosy and homely.

In fact, the name 'The Last Resort' is the ultimate misnomer if you ask me, because in my view it's one of the best hostels, if not the best we've stayed at in New Zealand, and I'd recommend it to anybody looking for a place to stay in Queenstown.

'But why the repeated reference to a 20 year old advert for cordial Joe?' I hear you all scream with thinly veiled frustration '...WHYYYYY?'.

Calm down people, I'm almost there.

The extra benefits of staying here other than the friendly welcome, the big tv and the log fire, are free tea and coffee, free internet and a great big husky called Cocco. (Yes, I'm afraid that's the link - I'll be your dawg. See what I did?)

Queenstown has a voluntary fire service, there not being enough fires here to warrant a full time brigade, and every time a fire is reported, the officer on duty will sound off an air raid siren which echos round the valley and alerts all the off-duty firemen of their need to report to the station.

Last night and tonight the siren has gone off, and Cocco, animal instincts taking over, has joined in both times, howling at full volume.

The strangest thing about it is that she actually manages to match the trademark change in pitch of the air raid siren.

Now, the noise of an air raid siren has always given me the willys, so much so that the final credits of 'Dad's Army' used to send a shiver down my spine. Listening to what's basically a wolf, but clothed for a colder climate, howling along to it karaoke style, has done little to change my view on the subject.

That's all for now. I'll stick a picture of her on here tomorrow.

Joe

Flying lows

Me again!

We finally left New Zealand yesterday after two happy, if a little chilly months there.

Our flight took us from Christchurch to Brisbane, where we had an hour to go through Customs and Immigration, Baggage Reclaim, then jump on a train to take us to the domestic departure terminal where we would catch our connecting flight to Cairns.

Myself and Andy breezed through Customs in no time at all, thanks mainly to an unfriendly official who's skills in small talk were non-existent ('Take ya hat off mate....ok, go.') whereas Lewis managed to get himself embroiled in a conversation with the guy behind the desk he went through, who seemed to be interested in all the important events in the last 27 years of his life.

After he'd got past this guy another customs official stopped him at random for further questioning. I suppose he must have an untrustworthy face to your average Australian.

While all this was going on me and Andy were waiting for the bags. Mine turned up in no time at all, and Lewis's arrived a minute later. One by one we saw the bags disappear and people move off towards the x-ray machines until eventually we found ourselves stood alone watching an empty carousel rotating at an excruciating pace. Andy's bag was yet to appear.

Things did not look good, so while I checked the other carousels Andy and Lewis went to the Baggage Reclaim desk and asked the vacant looking chap behind the counter if they had any bags round the back that hadn't come on yet. As I joined them after my fruitless search the guy was explaining that all the bags were up, and it was probably there but we'd missed it. He then took the little barcoded baggage receipt and went to check the number against the tags on the few remaining bags to see if we'd had a sudden atttack of thick, forgotten what Andy's luggage looked like and had been watching it repeatedly pass us on the conveyor belt without realising it was his.

While this tie-wearing shaved monkey was off wasting precious minutes busying himself with his little errand we asked his supervisor (who seemed to have a bit more brains and sense of urgency) what to do. He told us that we should get on our connection, fill out a report at Cairns and get it sorted from there.

Andy at this point had a face like thunder. We have a nickname for him when he gets in a mood, namely 'Mummra', due to his similar personality traits to those of the baddy in Thundercats. This was a definite Mummra moment. 'Croikey!' I thought in my best Steve Irwin accent 'take it easy little fella! He's gitting a bit little bit loively!' but sensibly kept my mouth shut and hence avoided getting my ass Jujitsu'd into 2006. He stayed in Mummra phase for the rest of the journey, so me and Lewis treated him with kid gloves.

Having said that, to be fair to Andy he took it very well considering the situation, and seemed remarkably unconcerned this morning to find out that his backpack had turned up in Sydney. (I think the thought of buying a new outfit and getting Quantas to pay for it may have helped towards keeping his temper in check) Apparently they're flying it here tonight and it will get delivered to the hostel, although we've seen no sign of it yet.

So anyway, we had a wander round Cairns today and it seems very nice and chilled out. Unfortunately, the most dangerous creatures I've seen so far were a flock of birds flying along the pedestrianised part of the town centre at eye level. I could hardly 'cloimb a tree, poke um with a stick, and see how they reict!' though, so I'm rather disappointed.

If you want to see a photo of Andy at Brisbane airport yesterday, click here.

Joe

Cape Tribulation

Since getting to Australia I've resisted the temptation to start any emails or diary posts so far with 'G'day' because I think it's far too obvious so instead I'll say the following:

Hello everyone. (Much more original, see?)

After staying in Cairns for a few days we ('we' now being me, Lewis, Andy and Michelle, who is Andy's girlfriend who came out to meet us) decided to hire a car and drive up to Cape Tribulation for a couple of days.

Cape Tribulation is pretty much the north eastern peninsular of Australia, and one of the only places in the world, if not the only place, with two different World Heritage sites adjacent to each other, namely the rainforest (earths's oldest one apparently) and the Great Barrier reef (earth's largest living organism). This makes it a fairly impressive place to stay.

We were booked to stay the first night in a place called PK's, which turned out to be quite 18-30's considering we were in the middle of a jungle, so much so that myself and Lewis were kept awake by a couple who'd just met getting more than a little friendly in the bunk bed opposite. This was pretty annoying at the time (For instance, when they came in, he turned the light on and said in a loud German accent 'Zee? Everybody is azleep' thus making sure that anyone who actually had been asleep wasn't any more), although it's now amusing in retrospect.

I ought to keep the tale as clean as possible, what with parents reading and everything. All I'll say is that (a) I'm glad I wasn't on the bunk below them, and (b) she was so drunk that after they'd finished 'enjoying themselves' she left the dorm naked from the waist down to go to the toilet, and forgot the number of the hut of the guy she'd been 'visiting' and wandered round in the pouring rain for a half hour or so, until someone took pity on her and came in looking for her jeans.

Anyway, after a rough nights sleep me and Lewis checked into a place over the road the next morning which was far better. For the same price we got a twin room, which was basically a hut with a wooden frame and canvas roof and walls. It was thankfully a lot more quiet than the previous night, and instead of laying there trying to get to sleep amid the sounds of creaking springs and DJ Otzi's 'Hey Baby' we had the sounds of chirping Cicadas and rustling leaves from the trees in the forest around us. Much more pleasant.

During the two days we were there we visited a bat sanctuary where we met a couple of fruitbats who'd been rescued and nurtured back to health, and also went on a couple of walks through the forest and along the beach, which were really good, although I was again disappointed that we hadn't seen any snakes, sharks, spiders or any other dangerous creatures yet. Lewis is quite glad of the lack of spiders so far I think, due to a nasty case of arachnophobia, so I don't know what he's going to be like when we encounter a huntsman. Although they're totally harmless we're told by people who've met them face to face that they're about the size of a mans hand and have a disturbing ability to leap off the ground.

Brown trouser time perhaps Lewis?

So, on the way back to Cairns we stopped off on the South bank of the Daintree river and went on the 'Nice 'n' Easy Cruise' down the river, which cost us the Aussie equivalent of about twelve quid. On this cruise we saw two Ulysses butterflies, which are about the size of the palm of your hand, shine metallic blue in the sun and look like this

We also saw a couple of kingfishers, who looked like this (although the ones we saw weren't mid-dump like this chap seems to be)

And lastly, but by no means least, a few crocs, including this bad boy here:

He's the dominant male in that patch of water, and goes by the name of Gummy, thanks to the fact that he's lost all 48 sets of teeth (approx 3,000 in total) in his illustrious career of biting and eating anything he considers food, which, let's face it, is pretty much everything with or without a pulse. The reason he hasn't died from not having any teeth left is he has enough strength in his jaws to snap bone, and can swallow most of his prey whole. 'Croikey!' I thought in my Steve Irwin accent again (Yes, I know. I've been thinking in the accent of Stevo a lot recently, but I'm something of a fan, OK?) 'Toime to beck off little fella! You're alroight mate, you're alroight!'

Money well spent if you ask me.

We're now in Airlie Beach. Next up we're going to do a cruise round the Whitsunday Islands, and I've also seen a sign for bubble helicopter rides for as little as 39 bucks, which is about 16 quid. I might go for the 20 minute ride, which is about 30 quid, but either way, it seems dead cheap for a ride in a helicopter, looking down on the Pacific Ocean, Whitsunday Islands and East Coast of Australia.

We've also ditched the Oz Experience buses, as word on the street is there's a huge queue for buses and you end up getting stuck places much longer than you want to be there while you wait for a free spot on a bus.

 

 

Instead we are getting Greyhound buses down to Sydney, as it only costs the equivalent of 100 quid, and you're travelling about five times the length of Britain. Beats National Express I reckon.

Joe

Four by fouring Fraser Island

True or False: People called Keith are always weasely, irritating gits?

Now your instinct may well have been to blurt out 'TRUE!', citing either Keith Chegwin, Keith out of Keith and Orville, Keith Allen, Keith out of Boyzone (sometimes pronounced 'Keet'), Keith Floyd or even all of the above as your evidence, and up until yesterday I would probably have agreed with you.

You'd have been wrong. In Rainbow Beach lives a man called Keith who is a 24 carat legend.

But let me start from the beginning.

A few days ago we started a 4wd trip round Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world. The vehicles were enormous ten seater brutes which probably weighed about fifty tons, and me and the crew got into a group with six others, most of whom had difficult names to pronounce, due to three of them being Dutch and the other 3 Irish.

On the morning of our departure the drivers, namely Lewis, Sunny and Eanna were given the lowdown on how to tame our beast, with attention to tyre pressure on sand, which gears to use when in different types of sand, how to get it started and other things of that nature.

Our first day on the island we tried to get as far north as we could, and spent most of the day driving along the beach. We passed the Maheno wreck, which was washed ashore in a storm in the early 1900s and set up camp at a site about two thirds of the way up the island.

The next morning we got up at about 6am, just in time to see the sunrise over the Pacific. We'd been told by the guy hiring the vans out that there was a great place called Indian Head where you could see all sorts of sea life if you got there early enough.

We arrived there at about half past six, and climbed up the cliff to get a good view over the ocean. Within seconds of getting there we saw the puff of spray from a whales blowhole, and a minute or two later they were everywhere. They were mostly a couple of hundred metres away doing the familiar raising of tails and cresting of the water, but then Eanna and Sorcha (see, I said they had difficult names) spotted a pair of them much closer, literally 50 metres or so offshore. We all focused our attention on these two and one of them disappeared for a bit. I was just about to look away to see if I could spot anything else and she came flying out of the water and crashed onto her side, causing a huge splash. Wow. And here I was saying it was the dolphins that were the show-offs.

Later on we saw a turtle swimming round ponderously, seemingly in no rush to go anywhere, and a few dolphins swimming around feeding in a school of fish.

By the time anyone else turned up, we'd seen everything and it had all gone quiet for a while. We were the first ones up there and had the place to ourselves for at least half an hour. I recommend if you're doing it to get there at first light. It's well worth it.

Next up we went back to camp and met Andy and Michelle, who'd stayed behind as Michelle had sliced up her foot a treat whilst having a drunken swim in the Whitsundays. After a quick breakfast we headed over to a place called Lake McKenzie, which we'd heard was beautiful. We were not to be disappointed. The lake itself is crystal clear and in the middle of a forest. Due to the fact that Fraser Island is made of sand, this lake was freshwater, but had a beach. In fact, I can't describe it well enough, so here's to the photo.

After a slightly hairy drive back to camp, where we were racing against the setting sun and rising tide, we settled down for dinner and had a few VBs to celebrate having such a good day.

The next morning we were up early again as we had to catch the 2pm barge, and we wanted to visit a place we'd heard of called the Champagne Pools first. These were bubbling pools apparently a half hour walk away from where you park the car, so we left Andy at the car tending to Michelles foot and started walking. It soon became evident that the pools were about two hours walk away, so we turned back to find out Michelles foot had become all manky and infected under the dressing, and would need cleaning out and redressing properly before we could head off. This was just our first delay of the day. We were now at the very northern point of the island and had to get to the very southern point to catch the barge. We still had plenty of time, but wanted to visit a creek on the way back down, and stop somewhere else for lunch so there was no real time for any more delays.

After stopping at the creek for a half hour or so, we headed south. We wanted to get as much distance as possible behind us before we stopped for lunch, so we decided it was best to get to Eurong first, where we had seen a campsite with barbecues. This would mean we wouldn't have to fire up the gas stove and get all the equipment down from the roofrack, as by now we were a bit pushed for time. We turned off at the right signpost and headed off down the little track. We soon realised this was a one-way road, and from our visit to the lake yesterday, knew that the junction to the adjacent road back to Eurong was 9km along some very tough terrain. Not good.

Off we head, bouncing about all over the place, until eventually we get to the turnoff. A small, ragged cheer comes from the guys in the back. This is soon stifled when a few hundred metres down this track Lewis says 'What's going on? I've lost power'.

Really not good.

We were stopped in the middle of a one-way track in a forest 9km from the beach, with the clock ticking against us to get the boat off the island and the car wouldn't start. Apparently it felt as if it had run out of petrol, but the gauge was still showing we had some left. We decided the best course of action was to walk back up to the junction, as there were a couple of other turnoffs there, and flag someone down.

Me, Sunny, Lewis and Rose walked up to the junction and flagged down the first car we saw, ten or fifteen minutes later. Inside were an American tourist family who didn't have any petrol, nor, as it turned out, any idea how to work a manual gearbox. The guy stalled it about 6 times in a row as they were trying to pull away.

The next vehicle we stopped was a Ranger Guide driving a tour bus full of people, who were heading down the road we were blocking. This was in no way embarrassing, I promise you.

We explained the situation to him and over the microphone he offered his passengers an alternative route. They were meant to be heading to Lake McKenzie and instead they were offered a walk in the woods. Thankfully they obliged, and he told us that he'd drop them off then come round and tow us out of the way.

We arrived back at the car to find everyone sat down on the bank having a nice little picnic. Hmm. We got them to pack up all the stuff in the quickest time possible and soon the ranger turned up with his tow rope, for which we were most grateful. He towed us about 500 metres down the track, to a junction where cars could pass us safely. We thanked him and waved him off, but were now stuck about 8.5 km from Eurong with a boat to catch about 50km away. (he told us the last one went at 4), so little had improved.

Myself, Sunny and Lewis decided we'd walk to Central Station (the very centre of Fraser Island), about a mile away from the car, to phone the mechanical support number in the handbook we'd been given. It now being 2pm, Rose hitched a lift back to Eurong to try to scrounge some fuel and hopefully a lift back to our car.

After paying about 10 bucks in the phone, explaining the problem and getting the guy to come out, we turned round and made the long walk back to the vehicle. He said he wouldn't be with us until about an hour's time, which would make it half past three. We realised we would never make the 4pm barge in time, and thought we were going to have to spend another night stranded on Fraser Island.

We trudged back and then spent a bit of time waiting around, kicking a football about and dodging passing cars, who slowed down to do a spot of rubbernecking at us.

Rose then pulled up in a car and out crawled three nasty looking guys with cans of VB and rollies stuck to their bottom lips. They wanted to fix the car for us and were going to give it a going over. We said no, we were getting someone qualified to come out and we wanted to prove that the dial still showed there was some fuel left in it. They demanded fifty bucks off us for wasting their time when they could have been out fixing other peoples cars. After a mild protest we paid up, just to get rid of them, seeing as how it was only five bucks each.

About five minutes after they left, an exact hour, to the minute, after the mechanic said he was going to be there, up pulled another car.

Out stepped Keith.

'What's wrong with 'er then?' he cried, striding purposefully over to the business end of the vehicle.

He put the key in the ignition, turned the key and the engine roared into life. Unbelievable. After all that, he just starts it first time, how thoroughly embarrassing. Thankfully, the engine spluttered out, so our blushes were spared somewhat. That is, until he gave his diagnosis:

'She's outta fuel guys. You've run her dry. Now lets get this tow rope on her and get out or we'll miss the boat'

'Miss the boat? We're miles away, and the last one's at four.'

'Nah mate, it's at five'

So off we went, me and a few others sitting in the broken vehicle (with Sunny doing a fine job of steering), a few sitting in the van with Keith as he hared off down the bumpy track in front of us.

We got to Eurong, and Keith told us to only put thirty bucks of diesel in, as it's more expensive there than on the mainland.

He then fiddled about under the bonnet, apparently bleeding air out of the engine. The clock was still ticking down and our chances of getting the last boat off the island were diminishing.

We got back in, Sunny driving Keiths car and me riding shotgun in our Van with Keith. On the journey I had a bit of a chat with him and he turns out to be a really friendly guy, with loads of advice on what to do and see in Australia.

Our conversation is cut short when his phone rings...

'Ben?' he says (it's his boss) 'Nah mate, they still had plenty of fuel, it was an electrical problem......Nah, nah, not their fault at all.....Them? Yeah, they're ok mate.....Nah, they're not too upset with us....It happens.....OK mate, cheers.....OH! One other thing, can you ring the barge and get them to wait for us please?' Then he hangs up.

'Guys, I've just told him that it wasn't your fault, and you didn't run out of petrol, otherwise you'd be paying somewhere in the region of 400 dollars for the callout and refuelling my car and yours....Also...' (at this point he leans forward on the dashboard and fiddles with it) '...I've just put your mileometer back by 100k, cos you were told that it runs out at 380. You had done 390, now you've only done 290. Also, the barge is going to wait there til 5.30 for us, so we won't miss it'

Now it may have just been my imagination, or the lack of sleep, or perhaps a few grains of sand in my eyes, but I swear I saw a faint circle of light over his head.

We got to the barge at 5.25pm. Against all odds we'd made it. We filled up the tank to the brim when we got back to Rainbow beach and handed back the car. Later on that evening we went and found Keith and had a drink with him. As I said at the start of this little story, he's a 24 carat legend.

Sufferer's Parasite

If you'd heard of Surfer's Paradise, and made your decision to go there purely due to the images the name conjures up, do not be deceived.

In retrospect I personally become a little overexcited by the name and was therefore expecting to find a small town filled with cool bars and independent little shops, and a community of bronzed people with sunbleached hair, who use words like 'gnarly' without the faintest hint of irony. Considering Englands most exciting town name is probably 'Westward Ho!', which is only really exciting due to the slightly desperate exclamation mark at the end, I don't think you can blame me.

According to Down Under by Bill Bryson (a must-read), Surfers Paradise was renamed in the mid-fifties after a popular hotel of the same name. It was originally named Elston, which personally I think is far more fitting for the soulless hi-rise monstrosity of tack which I encountered upon my arrival.

The female population seem to be badly-dyed blondes to the last woman, dress in a uniform of skimpy clothes and strut round like they're on a catwalk in Milan, despite the fact very few of them would ever even be looked at by a modelling agent, without a sarcastic grin appearing across his chops.

The male population seems to consist almost entirely of beered up losers who insist on either driving round in their souped-up cars and leaning out of windows to leer at people, or when on foot, picking fights.

It felt like somebody up there had uprooted the vibe and architecture of a Spanish resort (Surfer's 'proudly boasts' the tallest residential building in the world) and the clientele of every Liquids and Brannighans bar in England, and unceremoniously dumped them on the East Coast of Australia. It was quite bizarre to experience it after all the nice little communities we've stopped in on the way down. It felt depressingly like Ipswich would if it held any attraction to tourists.

All complaining aside, there were good points to our stay there.

We met Michelle's sister Nichola and her Aussie boyfriend, PJ (in case you were wondering, yes, I resisted the urge to ask him about Jeffman, Duncan or The Grove), who live in the next door town, Labrador, which was a far more relaxed and nicer place.

Nichola has a four-year visa and is living over here to work as a doctor in the local hospital.

It turns out she was born within about an hour of me, so using astrology as my excuse for the fact I'm a lazy, underachieving toerag who will never amount to anything probably won't wash any more, considering she's got a degree in medicine and is living and working in one of the nicest parts of the world.

I think I'll have to start blaming the parents, although Dad regularly tells me I'm adopted, so if you can think of any other excuses I can use, let me know.

We're now in Byron Bay, which ironically enough is exactly as I expected Surfers Paradise to be, albeit with a few hippies and appallingly talentless buskers thrown in for good measure.

Tomorrow we're going to go on 'Jims alternative tour' to Nimbin, whatever that is.

Joe

P.S. Despite what I said, we didn't hire scooters in the end. It was a combination of my inability to avoid hitting a parked bus from four yards, the fact that most of the roads were dual carriageways and that the other road users drove like lunatics and that eventually kind of put us off.

4-2=2

Ola chumps.

Since my last update quite a lot has happened.

After a day trip in Nimbin (a small hippy commune type town) which involved being lectured about Chaos Theory and the Renaissance by one of the strangest men I've ever met, we headed back to Byron Bay and got on the 6pm night bus out of town.

An unusually sound nights sleep later, we rolled into Sydney and unloaded our bags off the bus.

Andy decided to go off and try to get a cab to take us to our hostel. Whilst me, Lewis and Michelle were mooching around waiting with the bags, we hear 'Oh my GOOOD!' screeched out in a high-pitched Essex accent. Within two minutes of being in a city of 4 million people, we bumped into Ally, a girl we'd met on our first day in New Zealand, subsequently bumped into about 20 times in seperate towns all over the North and South Island, and who we'd even briefly met in Fiji over three months previously. The phrase 'it's a small world' really does apply, even given the fact that we're treading in each others footsteps on a well-travelled backpacker path.

The next day (saturday) was Michelle's last day travelling. She had a 22 hour flight ahead of her, and was due to start work on the monday, so I think the poor girl must have suffered from jetlag a bit on her first day back.

Now, our plan from here was to get the train or a greyhound up to Alice Springs/Uluru etc, and see a bit of the outback. What we didn't realise was that from Sydney you have to either travel for about a day in the wrong direction down to Adelaide or up to Brisbane just to get on a track or road which will take you back in the right direction. It also costs a small fortune, which by now we couldn't really afford, so we looked into the price of flying.

Lewis by this point had decided that his time away had run it's course, and found that he could rearrange his RTW tickets so he could get a flight to go from Sydney, via Hong Kong to London for as little as eighty quid. Thursday saw the 3 of us getting the train to the International airport and only 2 of us coming back. Within the space of a few days our numbers were halved from four to two.

We spent about a week and a half in Sydney in total, where we had arranged to meet up with Erika from the Kiwi Experience bus again. Not quite as chance a meeting as with Ally - Erika and her friend Laura were staying at the same hostel as us while we were snowboarding in NZ, and were working at the Queenstown winter festival and we'd arranged to meet up at the time.

Personally I really like Sydney. Apart from the obvious architectural aspects, namely the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, which are very impressive, it just had a kind of buzz about it. The only other city I've been to since we've been away which had a similar kind of vibrance is New York, but then I was expecting it from the Big Apple, whereas I assumed Sydney would be laid back and nowhere near as cosmopolitan.

While we were in Sydney we took a ferry across to Manly, went in the Aquarium in Darling Harbour, took a walk down by the Harbour at night time (well worth it for the illuminated landmarks), and went to the Museum of Contemporary Art. I may be a philistine, but I don't see how water being pumped between four flower pots on a set of shelves from B and Q can be considered art. It struck me instead as pretentious poppycock (sorry, I don't often get the chance to use the word 'poppycock', so when the opportunity arises I have to grab it with both hands)

Me and Andy are now in Darwin, which is about twice as hot as Sydney, being at the opposite end of the nation. We spent four hours in the air today, and still landed in the same country. It really is vast. We're going to see about bringing our flights to Singapore forward by a few weeks, so we can spend more time seeing different cultures. It's been painfully and embarrassingly obvious so far, having spoken to people of indigenous Fijian, Maori and Aboriginal descent, that every single country we've visited so far has been invaded and colonised by the British in the last couple of hundred years. Hardly something to be proud of when travelling abroad.

Bring on the culture shock of Asia!

Joe

PS. Here's a photo of the Opera House, just to prove I've been there, and one of me and my buddies from back home dressed as Steve Irwin five years ago, just to prove I am the true fan I said I was.

Darwin to Singapore

Yo, yo yo! It's Joe the ho from Singapo'

We've now been in Singapore for about a day, after a week in Darwin.

Upon arrival in Darwin, the most immediately noticeable difference from our time in Sydney was the heat. It was like walking into a wall as soon as you left the air conditioned false sense of security that the airport had provided.

I think the heat had an effect on the way of life in Darwin too.

Much unlike Sydney, everyone was strolling about in no rush to go anywhere. Even the rude boys only drove at about 20kph in their souped up Toyotas and Subarus. At one point me and Andy had to stop to let a bird walk across our path, probably because it was too lazy to fly out of the way when we approached.

We spent 6 days taking advantage of the weather and laid back attitude it promoted to lounge about and slightly desperately attempt to tan. Chilli's Backpackers, the hostel we were staying in, had two rooftop Jacuzzi's, and their guests were allowed access to the swimming pools and spas of a snazzy little 4 star number up the road called the Mirambeena.

On my first day in the pool I tried out the swimming shorts I'd bought to replace the ones I'd lost to the Pacific when cruising the whitsundays ( don't get excited, the wind took them off the side, I wasn't left naked from the waist down).

It soon became noticeable that when wet they were more than a little seethrough, particularly when clinging to me. I had recently confided this to Andy, and was just climbing out of the pool when Andy says, in an unneccessarily loud voice, 'YOU'RE RIGHT JOE, THEY ARE SEETHROUGH, AREN"T THEY?', ensuring anyone that hadn't noticed was now taking a good look.

I look round whilst clawing my shorts away from my cheeks, trying in vain to salvage the negligible amounts of both dignity and modesty I had left, to see that right next to Andy in the pool, unbeknownst to him, barely 3 metres from me, was a girl watching my progress with a poorly suppressed smile on her face. Nearby on the sun loungers an old couple frowned disapprovingly. Thanks Andy.

The next few days we spent swimming, lounging and reading. It was almost like being on holiday! It got to our penultimate day in Australia and we'd literally done nothing eventful in Darwin at all. I'd slept in until quite late that day, as I've developed a cold which makes me sound like Frank Butcher (sympathy would be appreciated).

Whilst I was still lazing about in bed feeling sorry for myself Andy had struck up a conversation with a girl in the kitchen of our hostel, who'd been living in Darwin a while. She suggested to him that we meet up with her at 5.30 and go to Mindil Sunset Market. She'd apparently been before and said it was a really good craft market, with music, firedancing, exotic foods, and you could sit on the beach and watch the sunset.

Andy relayed this information to me after I'd dragged myself out of bed, and I thought it sounded like a good idea. He said 'She already knows who you are by the way' This confused me a bit, so I enquired as to how. Apparently she'd said to Andy when he was talking about me 'Oh, is he the one with the seethrough shorts?' It was only the same girl who'd been swimming next to him in the pool a few days earlier.

I swallowed my pride and agreed to go to the market. It turned out to be a really interesting affair, with the highlights being the firedancing, but in particular the band.

The band, emDee, (www.rawdidge.com) consisted of three men, four didgeridoos, a drum kit and a bass guitar. They played a sort of fast, dancey bunch of tunes that I can't really describe. Although it was probably sacriligeous to the sacred instrument, the local aborigines didn't seem to mind. In fact, they were all crowded round, dancing like Beyonce in her 'Crazy in Love' video except about 3 times as fast. It was awesome to watch. There were women of about 75 dancing around just the same. Me and Andy bought a CD between us.

The next day we flew to Singapore. The flight was one of the best I've been on, with braised beef for dinner, a mile and a half or so of leg room, and the quality film Sin City on our little personal video screens. The only problem was on the descent, where my left ear canal decided to swell up with the air pressure, and hasn't gone back to normal yet. I've been wandering around for the last day, shaking my head like an epileptic under strobe lights in an attempt to sort it out, but to no avail.

The hostel we're staying at is called the Inncrowd. Recommended to me by my dear brother, passing on recommendations he's been given in the past. It's a really nice little place. They give you free breakfasts (tea, coffee, cereal, toast, eggs), free guided tours, half an hour of free internet a day and they've got Family Guy and Eddie Murphy Raw on DVD (two of my personal favourites).

It's situated in a place called Little India (so named because of the almost entirely Indian community/shops/restaurants etc), and after we'd checked in we went out for a wander to get a feel for the city and maybe a bite to eat. We spent about two hours walking round in the sweltering heat, and didn't get out of Little India. We ended up stopping at a strange little Indian Fast food place for some food, very much like the Indian version of Wimpy, and ordered a meal combo. We didn't have a clue what it was, but ended up munching it down with both hands. After I'd finished I read the advert sheet you get on the tray (just like in Maccy D's) and realised I'd eaten my dessert by dipping it in curry sauce, and done so with my left hand. Anyone more familiar with the culture than I was will realise that eating with your left hand is a tremendous faux pas. You're supposed to reserve your left hand entirely for Andrex duties, hence using it to put food in your mouth is considered a little dirty. My bad.

This afternoon we went for a guided tour round a Buddhist temple in the middle of Singapore. Today is an important day on the Buddhist calender, when everyone traditionally exchanges moon cakes, and there is a lantern festival in Singapore over the next two days too. The tour was really interesting and informative. Some of the statues were incredibly ornate as well. It was a little odd to find a temple hidden in the middle of this Urban Metropolis though, but at the same time quite refreshing.

Later on we got a cab down to Chinatown and had a wander. Andy bought himself a drink called 'Grass Power', and we sat down at a little restaurant that only served Chicken breast, noodles and Wanton soup. We got it all for about a quid though, so I'm enjoying the prices of Asia so far, particularly as Singapore is supposed to be the most expensive!

We're probably going to stay in Singapore until Tuesday, maybe going on a night safari tonight, and then getting the train or bus up to Malaysia.

It's quite strange to realise that most of the time we've spent in Singapore so far has been experiencing either Chinese or Indian culture. I don't know what to expect from Singapore culture, other than they're strict. You get fined $1000 for importing (or 'smuggling' as they call it) chewing gum, $500 for spitting and $50 for jaywalking, if you cross the road within 500 metres of an official crossing point, whether or not there are any cars in the way. Crazy stuff!

That's all so far. apart from a couple of pictures to keep you entertained.

Joe

A Giant on the Causeway

Selamat Datang to my diary. That means welcome by the way, two of the only words I know in the Malaysian language. The others are Keluar (exit) and Restoran (restaurant). I still don't know the word for toilet, which is probably unwise, considering I will probably need to know it quite urgently soon, judging by what they sell in some of the food stalls.

We've now been in Malaysia for a couple of days after leaving Singapore on tuesday. In case you're wondering, no, I haven't been holding it in for two days due to not knowing the word for toilet, I have in fact been looking at the pictures and following the one of the chap in the trousers.

On the evening before we checked out of the Inncrowd in Singapore, we realised that we had no real idea where we were going to go in Malaysia, so I dug out the Rough Guide and had a flick through. Listed in the highlights at the front, was a town called Melaka, about halfway between the border with Singapore and the capital city of Kuala Lumpur (KL). According to the book it was quite a historic town, full of a mish-mash of buildings indicating the colonial reigns of the Portugese, Dutch and British at different points in history, as well as the architecture of the Chinese population. Seemed like as good a place as any, so we started planning how to get there.

The cheapest way we found was to get a bus over the causeway (big bridge linking an island to mainland) between Singapore and Malaysia, and get a connecting bus to Melaka at the Malaysian border town of Johor Bahru (JB). There were buses directly from Singapore to Melaka, but these were apparently much more expensive.

We lugged our bags to Queen Street Bus Station in the oppressive humidity of Singapore and paid the necessary S$2.60 (about 75p) to get to JB. All was going well so far. We were given visa slips to fill out and after a 45 minute bus journey we stopped at Woodlands checkpoint on the Singapore side of the causeway. Off the bus we get, and carry our bags through to Customs to get our passports processed. After that, we had to get back on the bus and get taken across the causeway. Being the only two westerners in the checkpoint, and therefore the only two with heavy bags and odd passports, everyone else with either Malaysian or Singaporean passports soon left us for dust.

Having no crowd to follow and no idea where to get back on the bus, we followed the signs saying 'To Johor Bahru' with a picture of a bus beside it, until there were no more signs. The only ones similar said 'To Johor Bahru' and had a picture of a pedestrian beside it. Thinking we'd made a wrong turn, we approached a guard and asked where we could get back on the bus.

He got up, not unintentionally displaying the large gun on his belt, and the truncheon next to it, and said with a scowl 'Where you come from?'

'Singapore' was our obvious response.

'Where you go to?'

After telling him we had a bus ticket to JB, he pointed down the steps

'You must walk!'

We tried to explain that we had a bus ticket, but to no avail, so we turned round and walked down the steps.

The heat and the humidity were sweltering when we got outside the checkpoint, and there were about 12 lanes of slow moving traffic on the causeway, all kicking out fumes and beeping their horns at each other. So we trudged about a mile to the other side of the causeway, being heavily weighed down by our backpacks.

When we reached the Malaysian side, we were gestured at by another official. It was an ambiguous sort of wave that I've seen quite a lot since arriving in Malaysia. It's halfway between a dismissive 'go away' gesture and a beckoning 'come here' gesture. The closest thing I can describe it to is the Royal Wave the Queen does when visiting.

Me and the boy Dowell tossed a metaphorical coin and decided he must mean 'come here', so we walked over to him.

'You are walking on wrong side of causway. Passport check over there' He pointed past the twelve lanes of traffic passing through Customs. 'You must go there for stamp'

Mildly frustrated, fairly achey from the bags, and very sweaty from the heat, we negotiate our way through cars, bikes, trucks and scooters and successfully get our passports stamped.

After finally getting into Malaysia we are immediately swarmed round by taxi touts. 'Taxi boys! Taxi' they shout, each one in turn as we muscle our way past them. After saying 'no thanks' to the first fifty of them you'd think they'd get the message.

We finally get a bit of time to think. Where is the bus station? Why did we have to walk across? How come the bus we got on and several like it have been going past laden with passengers? We come to no conclusions.

A taxi driver walks up to us 'Guys, where you go today?' We tell him that we need to get the bus to Melaka, and that we don't know where the bus stop is.

He offers us ten Ringgits to get to the bus station. This seems like a pretty fair deal, being about one pound fifty. That is, until we reach the bus terminal, and find we can get a four hour journey for less than fifteen Ringitts.

The bus terminal was a chaotic place, sweaty, smelly, and crowded. Full of bus boys shouting the odds and trying to get you to choose their company above anyone elses. It was the kind of place I really didn't want to be in at the time, but looking back am glad I was just for the experience.

We stayed two days in Melaka (at the Kancil guesthouse, after getting simultaneously dropped and ripped off by another taxi driver charging us about 2 quid), and visited a couple of museums, namely the Maritime Museum, and the Museum of Enduring Beauty. The Maritime Museum was a big boat full of Memorabilia from the 13th Century when the town was a major port in the trading of spices, silks and fabrics, and the Museum of Enduring Beauty was full of photos of cultural ideas of beauty, such as African Women wearing rings round their necks to stretch them, the lip plates, stretched earlobes and sharpened teeth. Oddly enough, the second floor of this Museum was full of Kites and miniature town planning models of Melaka, so it would really have been more aptly named 'The Museum Of Enduring Kites, Town Planning and Beauty'

In between visiting museums, yesterday was spent quite shamefully eating comfort food. We fed the respective global beasts of Pizza Hut, KFC and McDonalds in one day. I know. It's wrong. I'm sorry, but when you've scoured the stalls looking for something to eat other than Chicken Feet, Fried Curry Fish Heads or Intestine Soup (with accompanying glossy photos) and seen a deep fried duck, with beak still attached, hanging in front of you, you tend to crave the plasticky, western option occasionally. Better the devil you know and all that.

Anyway, we're now sat in Melaka bus terminal, having missed a bus to Mersing by ten minutes, the next one didn't go for six hours, hence the reason I've rambled on for such a time-killing duration.

We're going to stay the night in Mersing, from where we're catching a boat across to Pulau Tioman, a supposedly beautiful island off the East Coast. After that, we're off to KL.

Joe

Now I can tick the Malaysia box.

First of all I'd better apologise to the fanclub for being away for so long. I know you must have struggled to fill the daily void in your lives which the absence of a new diary entry from Joe must have created, and I'm sorry for that. I still love you.

Right, cracking on.

Since arriving in Malaysia myself and Andy have finally been doing a spot of 'proper travelling', as my brother calls it. Since my last post we've been to Pulau Tioman, an island off the East Coast, Kuala Lumpur, the capital, the Cameron Highlands and the Perhentian Islands. I know, I know, it's an awful lot to get through in just one post, so I'll nip the dull preamble in the bud right here and get on with it.

We spent three nights on Tioman, in the west coast resort of Air Batang (a.k.a. 'ABC').

On the recommendation of a certain Malaysian who I will mention in greater depth later we turned left after coming off the jetty due to the apparently superior beach and started lugging our bags down the concrete path towards the chalets.

About 15 paces in I heard a rustling in the bush to our right hand side and had a look to see what was causing all the kerfuffle. To my complete astonishment out stepped a 3 metre long lizard and languidly strolled across the path in front of us. I wasn't expecting there to be any reptiles bigger than Geckos out here, so I dropped my bag and fumbled around for my camera. Just as I was ready to take a photo, a local guy on a moped putt-putted his way up behind us and cried out 'Toot toot! Ah! Iguana!' like it was an everyday occurence and he was just irritated at the traffic on the roads. Me, Andy and the Iguana all got the hint and jumped off the path, leaving me rather disgruntled at missing the photo opportunity.

After about another ten paces, a slightly smaller lizard walked across our path. 'Ah...' I thought '...so this is what we're in for'. It turned out I wasn't wrong. The amount of wildlife we all but tripped over on Tioman over our three days there made us decide to nickname it 'Monster Island'. In just three trees in Tekek (the main settlement) there were somewhere in the region of three hundred Fruitbats all hanging and squawking amicably at each other, we saw butterflies that were so big they would scare small birds and countless other iguanas of equal size to the first. While we were trekking through the jungle on our way to Monkey Bay, we literally walked straight into a troop of monkeys, if that's the right collective noun. OK, given the name of our destination you may well be thinking we should have perhaps foreseen the possibility of encountering some primates along the way, but it seems we both missed the maths lesson where they taught us how to add two and two together.

We spent most of our stay on Tioman having the odd beer, lounging around by the beach and chilling out. We stayed three nights in a twin bed beachside hut, with a ceiling fan and a bathroom and shower, for which we paid the Ringgit equivalent of a whopping quid fifty each per night.

By far the most energy we expended on the island was on the aforementioned trek through the jungle to get to Monkey Bay. Having seen signs on the beach that pointed into the rainforest saying Monkey Beach we thought we'd check it out. Next to these were reassuring signs displaying rates for the water taxis to take you there, so we thought we'd walk there and get the boat back. After a strenuous hour and a half in the jungle, where I must have sweated out at least a couple of chins and probably one of my guts, we emerged on Monkey Beach. It was deserted.

Awesome.

I took off my bag and sandals and walked towards the water to cool off. Now, there's a lot of distance for messages to travel between my feet and my brain, and I think this must be a contributing factor as to why I managed four paces towards the water before a red light started flashing and sirens started going off in my head. 'HOT! HOT! HOT!' said my brain in blind panic.'Shiiiiiiiit!' said my feet, finally cottoning on to the problem. I started doing a grandad-playing-football-with-the-kids style half run half hobble towards the sea in a desperate attempt to cool them off. I reached the water with a surge of relief, only to discover that it was about a degree cooler than the air temperature. Nevertheless, I had a dip and did my best to cool off.

On emerging from the water we decided to take a stroll up the beach. After a minute or so of said stroll, it transpired that we were not quite as alone as we thought. In a nightmarish version of the scene from Dr No where Ursula Andress is introduced, a woman emerged from the water right next to us. She was in her fifties, German (sometimes you can just tell you know?), and was wearing nothing but a pair of bikini briefs and a sopping wet and therefore seethrough white t-shirt.

'Hello' me and Andy greet her in unison, making heroic attempts to disguise our grimaces. 'Hallo' she responded in a German accent. I kept my eyes rigidly focused on the middle distance while silently congratulating myself for guessing her nationality. Up the beach her husband was sat in the shade wearing a pair of tiny speedos. We mumbled our excuses and quickened our step somewhat.

We got to the other end of the beach and sat on the rocks for a while. There were more monkeys playing in the trees above us. After a while we became suspicious that the water taxis would only take people back from Monkey Beach if they had taken people there in the first place. There was nothing left for it but to go and ask the Germans. We strolled back and asked them. The woman, who by now had dispensed with the seethrough tshirt completely, explained that sometimes people shouted and waved at the boat and got a lift back. As she told us this she did the associated hand gesture, and uncovered a couple of square foot patches of untanned whiteness as her boobs flopped from side to side. All of a sudden the stuff caught underneath my thumbnails became fascinating, and I studied it for the remainder of our encounter. We ended up walking back and getting 2 cans of sugary drink and a litre and a half of water each to rehydrate us, and perhaps also to wash the memories away.

While on Tioman, we had decided our next port of call would be the capital city of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur. For those of you who have been following my diary from the start, first of all, thankyou very much. Secondly, you may remember that a girl called Paulynn (who regulars on the site will probably know quite well) was one of the first to respond to my original post, offering to show me the sights around KL. In Singapore I decided to drop her a line to see if the offer was still open, and we met up after being there a couple of days. As a matter of chance, the person who responded to my post just before Paulynn, and who started up the whole 'Who is the better looking brother?' fight, namely Grace, was coming to KL at the same time and had already agreed to meet young PL as well. One big happy gapyear family eh? How lovely, wouldn't you agree?

PL and Grace turned out to be cool, and me, them, Andy, as well as a guy Stuart who myself and Andy had met in Singapore and bumped into by chance again in KL, spent the next few days hanging around together. We went to the Batu Caves, which is a temple in a cave where dumb tourists feed monkeys still-wrapped chocolate bars. While Paulynn was at college, us English types also visited an orchid garden and a butterfly park (I was exploring my feminine side ok?), where there were ridiculously colourful plants, and mutant butterflies bigger than your average chicken.

The day after that, after a night out at a club called Zouk, Paulynn got us up early enough and we managed to get tickets to take a walk across the skybridge in the middle of the twin towers in KL. I'd recommend doing this purely because the buildings are amazing, but you have to get there early enough (9ish) as the tickets are free and therefore quite sought after.

After a nice meal and a not-quite-but-nearly tearful farewell we waved PL off and went back to the hostel.

Next stop for Me, Stuart, Grace and Andy was the Cameron Highlands. This is, as it's name suggests, a mountainous area and hence a good deal cooler than the rest of Malaysia. It's also the place where, when looking through the indoor exhibits in the butterfly park we had noticed, a whole lot of inconceivably large and dangerous insects live. Not creatures I wanted to see in particular. Nor for that matter did I want to not see them, but instead feel them, possibly while in bed or on the toilet. That would be equally bad, perhaps even a good deal worse.

To put this photo in perspective, never in my adult life have I met anyone with hands as big as mine, so imagine the hand being smaller, or perhaps the insect being bigger, and you'll have a rough ballpark size.

Despite our fears, we braved the creepy crawlies and stayed two nights at an old converted Army barracks on the edge of the Cameron Highlands' main town of Tanah Rata, called Father's Place. It was a really good hostel, apart from perhaps the least hygienic toilets we've encountered at a place we've stayed since we've been away.

The first morning we were there we wandered down into town and enquired from the local taxi drivers if one of them could take us up to a picturesque tea plantation we'd passed on the bus 13km outside of Tanah Rata. We struck up a deal with one nice chap who said he'd take us up there, stop at a couple of places where we could get photos, take us for a tour of the 'Boh' factory and even wait while we got a cup of tea from the on-site tea shop, all for forty Ringgits. This came to about one pound fifty each. Bargain!

The tea plantations were really beautiful, although there weren't the women in stereotypical cone hats with baskets on their backs that I may have been expecting. Instead they have been replaced with machines and the company now have a smaller workforce in the factory maintaining the machines and suchlike. All the same, the scenery was breathtaking, and finally, in 5 months of being away I at last managed to get a decent brew, although it could still perhaps have done with a dash of milk.

After Tanah Rata, Stuart decided to go to Penang, which left Grace, Andy and Me to continue up to the Perhentian islands, in the hope that we'd get there before the fast approaching monsoon season. All was good when we arrived, getting off at the resort of Coral Beach on Perhentian Kecil (translated as 'Small Island') in blazing sunshine. After a couple of minutes it became evident that there were only about two of the guesthouses open, and that all the others had closed down for the season. We booked ourselves in a double room each, with ensuite shower and toilet, all for the princely sum of 20 Ringgit (3 quid).

After a brief jaunt over to Long Beach, where myself and Grace got a bite to eat and Andy (foolishly, it later transpired) abstained, we settled in for the afternoon. Come seven o'clock we decided that sunset must be approaching, so we walked the 20 paces down to the beach to have a look. On the horizon some enormous black clouds were streaking over the sea towards us looking like the fingers of an enormous hand.

Lightening started flashing across the clouds and after about an hour of this the rain came lashing across the sea and confined us to the porches of our rooms. Andy, who you will remember, hadn't eaten earlier, was starting to get hungry. He had to wait until about 10pm for the rain to die off so that he could stumble across the path in the dark to Long Beach to get some dinner. Thankfully we were spared a display of Andy transforming into Mummra, because luckily enough there were a couple of places still open when he got there, so he came back in a good mood.

Grace left the next morning to seek medical attention for a certain India-influenced stomach complaint she hadn't been able to shake. Me and Andy spent the day on the beach, but were better prepared for the sunset thunderstorms this time around, and made sure we ate early. We even got a couple of photos before the rain came over.

The next morning we left, having paid up for three night accomodation. You may remember that I said at the start of this post that me and the boy Andy had missed the class where they taught us to add two and two together? Well it turned out we must have missed the class where they taught us to add one and one together as well, because it wasn't until we bumped into Grace again in Kota Bahru that she pointed out that we'd only stayed there two nights, but paid for three.

As a wiser man than me has been know to say once or twice in the past - 'D'oh!'.

We're off to cross the Thai Border tomorrow, which should be quite an adventure in itself. We're going to head straight for Ko Phi Phi which was devastated by the Tsunami last Christmas, and see if we can either lend a hand in the cleanup operation, or at best, lend a financial hand by spending a bit of tourist cash there.

All that remains is to say that Kota Bahru doesn't seem to have anything to be said for it other than it's sunsets, although that might be because it's a muslim town and the festival Ramadhan has just started, so it's possibly just a lot quieter than usual.

I told you I had a lot to get through.

Joe

Bored of Borders?

When the most threatened you've felt, in over five months travelling, is either when a little homeless New Yorker, wearing big seventies style headphones squeaks 'Move yo' asses outta my mothaf**kin' way!' at you as you're crossing the road, or when a five year old Fijian boy leans out of the window of the school bus and screams 'Giaaaaant!' at you, it is very easy to settle yourself into a nice, warm, fuzzy false sense of security and ignore all the daily dangers that pass you by. Until we crossed the Malaysia/Thai border that was exactly how I felt.

In our hostel in Byron Bay, Australia, about a month before we were due to cross the Malaysia/Thai border, we shared a room with a guy called Rusyan. During the course of the standard backpacker's getting to know you chat (' Where are you from?' 'How long are you staying here?' 'What route are you travelling?') we found out he was the son of the Malaysian Ambassador in New Zealand. We told him in return that we were planning to fly from Darwin to Singapore and travel overland through Malaysia and over the Thai border

At this point he warned us of a large amount of civil unrest in the predominantly Muslim regions of Southern Thailand, and suggested that if possible we should seek alternative means of crossing it, even look into the cost of flying over the border to avoid it.

After saying our goodbyes we continued our journey south to Sydney before flying to Darwin. Being the complacent and lazy toerag that my dear Mother has rightly always told me I am, I put his warnings to the back of my mind and did no further research into it.

Over the following month or so, we happily worked our way up through Malaysia and eventually found ourselves having a meal in a restaurant on the North-Eastern Malaysian island of Perhentian Kecil, planning our journey North from there. The guy who owned the restaurant, who had noticed us perusing the Rough Guide, had obviously advised a lot of travellers in his line of work and joined in the conversation by asking us what we were planning. We told him we were going to go North to Kota Bahru, a large town 45km south of the border and staying the night there. The next morning we were planning to get a bus from KB to the border, cross into Thailand and get a bus or train out of Sungai Kolok (the Thai border town) with our final destination of the day being Krabi.

'Oh.' he said, with raised eyebrows. 'Not many travellers go that journey. I think don't hang around in Sungai Kolok'. At this point he burst out laughing.

Laughing along, I enquired as to why not.

'Very dangerous' he said, still smiling. 'Over one thousand people killed in last year'

I stopped laughing. All of a sudden the warnings from Rusyan came flooding back. I hadn't honestly thought it was as bad as we were now being told, but with the crossing so imminent, the danger suddenly hit home.

Upon leaving the island we got a share taxi to Kota Bahru. After checking in, dumping our bags, and getting a quick bite to eat, we headed straight for an internet cafe.

I knew of a useful website for independent and impartial recommendations on travelling safely, namely http;//www.fco.gov.uk. It gives you up-to-the-minute advice on each country, with information on the degrees of danger you will face travelling in all parts of the world, as well as particular crimes to be aware of in certain places, such as pickpocketing and con-artists. Here is what I discovered when searching for Thailand:

'There is a high threat from terrorism throughout Thailand, particularly in the far southern provinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat and Songkhla. We advise against all but essential travel to, or through, these four provinces where, since January 2004, there have been regular attacks including bombings and shootings. On 19 July, the Thai Government announced a serious state of emergency in the provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat.'

Ah.Right.OK then. In light of this new and slightly disturbing information, our choices from here were as follows:

1): Get a bus right across Malaysia to Penang on the west coast and head up from there straight to Krabi, spending less time in the danger area.

2): Fly down to KL from Kota Bahru and then fly up to Krabi

3): Don't tell the parents, take the risk, and follow our original plan.

Each option would have had it's own drawbacks. If we had chosen option one, we would have had to get a 9 hour bus to Penang, probably through the night, and then still have had to travel overland through the dangerous southern regions of Thailand anyway. If we had chosen option two, it would have taken the better part of a day, and would have cost us the equivalent of about sixty pounds. Option three, obviously involved spending a fair bit of time in Southern Thailand, and ran the risk that we would have been blown up or shot, but it was far cheaper and quicker.

We weighed up the pros and cons of the three different routes and decided on option 3, crossing into Sungai Kolok. Our restauranteur friend from Perhentian Kecil had advised us that the safest way to travel was by train, so we decided to follow his advice and get a train from Sungai Kolok to Hat Yai, where we would change for a government-run bus to Krabi.

The next morning we woke up bright and early and got a taxi the half hour journey to the border. On the way there we were waved through 2 police roadblocks who hardly seemed to even look in the car, which made me think that the threat wasn't too large. Also, it was the second day of the holy muslim festival of Ramadhan, so I thought that the violence might be at a low ebb while we were there. It turned out I was wrong on both counts.

The taxi pulled over at the Malaysian side of the border. We got out and walked across to the Malaysian border post. A couple of stamps later we strolled across to the Thai immigration and after a little bit of confusion over what to do next, we filled out an entry form each, got our stamps and got a rickshaw to the train station.

All good so far. There was a little police presence around the border, enough to make you feel safe, but not enough to scare you. To tell the truth, the most unsafe I'd felt was when the rickshaw guy was straining to pull us across in front of oncoming traffic to the other side of the road where the train station was.

At the station, the presence of police and soldiers jumped up a notch. We sat around for a couple of hours waiting for our train, as soldiers armed with semi-automatic weapons and Top Gun issue aviators strutted round and made their presence felt. When we got on the train, our tickets were checked by soldiers, who spent the journey to Hat Yai walking up and down and giving the beady eye to anyone who looked a bit dodgy. The train journey to Hat Yai passed uneventfully, and by then we were out of the danger zone and only had to deal with the relative safety of taxi touts shouting at us and trying to rip us off. After a couple of attempts by touts trying to take us to minibus tour operators, we finally made it to the government bus station, bought our tickets and had a nice relaxing viewing of Wesley Snipes in Blade dubbed over in Thai to pass the journey to Krabi.

It was only after checking my emails a day or two after the crossing, that I realised quite how close we'd come. My brother, who I'd told about our intended crossing, had sent me a link to a BBC news story entitled Thai PM tours violence-hit south' According to the article, about twelve hours before we arrived in southern Thailand, five policeman had been ambushed, shot and killed there. Roughly 7 hours after we left, a bomb was set off in the town we were in, seriously injuring one person.

Maybe it's about time i listened to my mother and stopped being quite as complacent and lazy a toerag as I currently am.

Last Man Standing

When Lewis, Andy and I planned our trip all those months ago, I never thought I'd end up travelling alone by the end of it. If I'm honest, at the start of our travels the idea of going it alone would probably have filled me with dread.

Now I find myself in exactly that position. Nobody to watch my back, nobody to share a room with, nobody to talk to, nobody to travel with.

If at the start I'd have known that I would be faced with this situation, I probably would have planned to cut my trip short and go home at the same time as the other guys. I've never been a particularly independent decision maker you see, so the idea of finding my way through a few thousand miles of foreign territory, with foreign languages that I know barely three sentences of, and alphabets that I can't read would have scared me off. In fact, it would probably have led me to do a Dr Zoidberg style scuttle and yelp to the relative safety of my sofa where I would have switched on Countdown (God rest his soul), hidden under some blankets and waited until all this nonsense about going travelling had blown over.

However, things can change, including my attitude.

'I give you a week' Andy said to me after he'd broken the news that he had to go home.

I chuckled to myself. 'What, before I follow you home?' I said, thinking he doubted I'd be able to hack travelling on my own for any length of time. The thought had never even crossed my mind about going home. I was actually quite looking forward to the challenge of going it alone, as sad as it is that Andy has had to cut it short.

'No' said Andy, beaming smugly, 'I give you a week before you're dead' and then laughed at his joke for about the next ten minutes.

I'm really going to miss him.

Picture Yourself on a Boat on a River

Before I started planning my trip in January I knew next to nothing about Laos. In fact, I'm slightly embarrassed to tell you I didn't even know how to pronounce it.

However, friends of mine have come back from there highly recommending it as a friendly, cultural place which, although welcoming to tourists, has not yet been overrun. One or two mentioned in particular a journey they took on a Slow Boat down the Mekong river through Laos, and recommended it to us as a great way to see untouched parts of the country and experience their traditional method of transport.

On the strength of their recommendations we decided to include Laos in our round the world trip, and take the slowboat down the Mekong River to Luang Prabang.

Unfortunately, since January I've been fairly busy seeing other bits of the world, and planning what I'd be doing from one day to the next, so until very recently, apart from finding out it's pronounced with a silent 's'. I've remained in the dark about Laos.

With only a few days left on my Thai visa and still in Bangkok I decided it was time to head to Chiang Mai, the main town on the way to the Laos border of Chiang Khong.

While I was in Chiang Mai it rained. No, that doesn't do it justice. It rained.

The heavens opened and the clouds emptied relentlessly for 2 days solid, seriously injuring my resolve to take the slow boat. Two days on a boat with no glass in the windows being pelted with tropical rain, in the middle of a huge river notorious for it's strong currents and murky water just didn't sound like the picturesque relaxing journey I'd had described to me. However, I decided to take my chances, travel up to Chiang Khong anyway, and pray for some sunshine.

All the inclement weather left me with some time on my hands. I decided to do a bit of research on the geography, history and culture of my next destination.

To my surprise, finding out much about Laos proved to be something of a struggle. Through flicking through the trusty Rough Guide, I was able to find out why. It is barely ten years ago since the People's Democratic Republic of Laos, to give it it's proper name, opened it's doors to foreigners, so the tourist industry is still very much in it's infancy.

One major thing about Laos that is mentioned in the RG is their involvement in the Vietnam war. With over 2 million tonnes of ordnance dropped on them over the course of the conflict (which equates to about one planeload of bombs every eight minutes day and night for nine years) they became the most bombed country per capita in the history of humanity. I wasn't aware that Laos were even involved in the Vietnam war.

The rain stopped long enough for me to get a highly uncomfortable minibus to take me the 6 hours to Chiang Khong, the Thai side of the Thai/Laos border, and checked into a hostel just before dark.

Out I wandered for some dinner, where I met an English couple and two Australian girls, who had met on the slow boat coming the other way the previous two days. They all raved about Laos, and said the slow boat was a really nice trip, which, coupled with the abating rain, helped to assuage my fears. They also told me that it was a lot cheaper to buy a boat ticket from Houayxai in the morning than for the amount they'd seen it advertised since arriving in Thailand, so that's what I did.

After dinner we wandered into a place called 'Madames Country Pub' for a drink. Fearing that the name indicated it would be a brothel, we were quite surprised when we were encoutered by a live 'rock' band, dressed in a variety of odd clothes, including a leopard skin tunic, singing a variety of Thai hits. After a few tunes, the lead singer gabbled something in Thai, and walked backstage to applause from the Thai section of the crowd who knew what was going on. We looked on, bewildered, as the band started plucking their way through another unfamiliar tune. All of a sudden, a six foot ladyboy comes storming through the curtains wearing a bikini, a 3/4 length leather jacket and stillettos and singing in a falsetto voice, his/her adam's apple yo-yoing at the high notes. As I'm sure you can imagine, we left shortly afterwards.

The morning afterwards, I crossed the border to Houayxai. The Mekong river acts as the border between the two countries here, as it does in other areas further south. After getting my passport stamped by a disinterested looking immigration officer, I wandered down to the bank of the river, paid 20 Baht and climbed into a longtail boat to take me across no-man's-water to Laos.

Having crossed the border too late to catch the slow boat that day, I checked into a hotel for the night, booked a boat ticket for the following morning and changed some Thai Baht into Kip at the local bank. I also stocked up on food for the first day of the journey, as there is no way of getting food on the boat.

At half past eight the next morning, I returned to the travel agent's where I had booked my trip. While waiting there, a boy walked round taking all our passports off us, ostensibly so he could check we had the necessary visa stamps.

This struck me as a little odd considering I'd already had it checked when I bought my ticket, and I'm a little bit loathe to hand my passport over unless totally necessary at the best of times. This meant that when he jumped in the back of a tuk-tuk and hightailed it out of there I panicked a bit. The old woman behind the till quickly reassured me that he was just going to buy our tickets, so I sat back down.

About twenty minutes later, with the boy still not back, a minibus turned up to take everyone down to the jetty and load our bags onto the boat. Thankfully it turned out he wasn't a passport thief as he eventually walked down from the ticket office and dished our passports out, so the worst he could have done was to have photocopied the details and stolen our identities at a later date.

On the boat we hopped, and watched as it gradually filled up to almost overflowing. Thankfully, maybe due to my recently shaved head, maybe due to the sheer size of me, nobody sat down next to me, so I had room to spread myself out a bit.

At quarter past eleven, only 15 minutes behind schedule, the boat chugged away fom Houayxai. The journey had begun.

Barely ten minutes later it nearly came to an abrupt end when the guy at the helm steered into strong currents which made the boat list heavily to one side. People gasped in shock, I let out a high pitched scream and clutched a handkerchief to my breast.

The guy with the bamboo pole on the roof, whose job it was to push us away from boats, rocks and other obstacles stumbled as we swung round and dropped his pole in the river. Luckily a girl in front of me caught it before the currents took it off. Everyone by this point had sat bolt upright and were wearing fearfully alert expressions, like a herd of gazelles when they realise too late that there's a couple of hungry looking cheetah's prowling round them. The boatmen barked aggressively at each other in Lao. The guy at the helm looked sheepish, and took the boat through a full 360 degree turn to get us back on track. For a couple of minutes after it became clear that we weren't going to sink and die, everyone chattered excitedly to each other and the sense of relief was palpable.

After that the journey went back to normal. We chugged down the Mekong, a vast expanse of water which stretches the entire length of Laos, through Cambodia and into Vietnam, at a slow pace, negotiating rocks and currents, and stopping occasionally at little bamboo houses down by the riverside to pick up or drop off locals.

A few hours into the first day we pulled up at a village by the riverside, and a group of little boys ran out with baskets filled with fizzy pop, Beerlao (the national beer), and crisps. 'Chip! Chip! Chip! Chip!' they shouted at us in high pitched voices, 'Beerlao 50 Baht!' (they accept dollars, baht or the national currency Kip in most places). When it became clear they weren't making any deals, and the helmsman started the motor again, they lowered their prices in a last desperate attempt to sell, but to no avail.

Off we ponderously set again. The views from the boat were spectacular, with dense rainforest on either side of the river. Where there were breaks in the forest, stilted farmhouses and huts sat on incredibly steep hills. The small patches of land set aside for agriculture seemed to be at such an angle that if the farmer slipped, he'd not fall over, he'd fall off.

The unwelcoming aspects to the landscape brought home why this river has for centuries been the lifeline through the impoverished country, and SE Asia as a whole. We crawled past a house on the right hand bank having a bonfire, and on seeing and smelling the smoke, it was difficult not to cast my mind back to what I'd read about the Vietnam war and how different life must have been for these people just a generation ago.

As the boat continued down through the currents of the Mekong, we went past whirpools where conflicting currents created a vortex. With the similarity in colour as well, it put me in mind of a cup of tea after you've just stirred the milk in and I started to drift off into a little world of withdrawal symptoms. Tea, tea everywhere, but not a drop to drink. I snapped back out of it at the sight of a water buffalo standing knee high having a drink. You don't want that in your brew. No siree bob.

We eventually pulled into Pakhbeng, the halfway village where you have to stay the night, at about half past five. After almost tripping on ropes attaching all the other boats to the bank, I walked up towards the guesthouses. The first man stopped me to hand me a card and ask me to go to his guesthouse. I thanked him but refused, assuming the first one you go to is generally the worst because it fills up so quickly that they don't have to make any effort to attract the customers with cleanliness or quality. After watching me shake my head he then changed tack. 'You want something to smoke my friend?' he asked me 'All good people smoke Ganja'

'No thanks mate' I said, shrugging off the hand he'd rested on my forearm, and continued on up the hill. The next guy who stopped me to ask me if I wanted a room only had a shared outside toilet, so I refused him too.

'You want something to smoke?' he asked, doing a little puff puff hand gesture to his lips. 'No thanks, not tonight' I said. 'Eh! Come on! It's good Ganja!' he implored. I continued on my way.

The third place that stopped me was good enough for the night, so I dumped my bags and sat down to fill in the check in book. While I was doing this, the manager came up to me and said 'Hey mate!' (I think he saw my English passport) 'You want some weed to smoke mate?' Three offers in ten minutes of being on dry land! I assumed everybody was getting offers, but on speaking to people over dinner that night, nobody else had been approached any more than once. I must have a certain look about me I suppose.

Next morning, after picking up the baguettes I'd ordered the night before, I got back on the boat. It was literally half the size of the boat we'd been on the day before. Even my shaved head and my intimidating size wasn't enough to grant me any room this time, so at half eight in the morning, sardined in, we set off for Luang Prabang.

The scenery was just as spectacular on day two as it had been on the first day. We passed a temple built into a cave in the cliff, and men using elephants to drag logs about. One of these elephants was drinking from the river when we passed it, and picked up some in it's trunk to spray over itself and cool off. The guy riding on it's back got a load of river water full in the face, which was highly amusing to watch.

When I went to find the toilet at the back of the boat later on in the day, I thought I'd walked onto the pages of one of the Alice books. Considering I had to literally bend double just to get in the door of the toilet, the rest of the task at hand proved to be something of a struggle.

The rain that I'd been scared of never materialised. In fact it was so hot and sunny that I've now got a slowboat arm, my right arm being more tanned than my left by some margin. Unfortunately I also got slightly sunburnt, but only on the right hand side of my face. The resulting sunglasses mark makes me look like I fell asleep sunbathing in a pirate outfit.

Eventually we pulled up in Luang Prabang with darkness approaching, tired and happy after a couple of days on the boat.

I would recommend this journey to anyone, but it would be worth bearing in mind that if you value your comfort, are fussy about the kind of toilet you're willing to visit, or don't like people encroaching on your 'personal bubble' it may not be for you. However, they do have a more expensive slowboat with leather reclining chairs, a sundeck and a bar that we saw, but that seemed to miss the point of it.

If however none of my little provisos apply to you and you're interested in doing it, my one piece of advice would be for you to bring a cushion. Believe me, if you don't have one, it can be a right pain in the arse.

It Was The Best Of Times, It Was The Worst Of Times

And I quote:

"The rain stopped long enough for me to get a highly uncomfortable minibus to take me the 6 hours to Chiang Khong"

These very words were typed by my nimble yet manly fingers just ten days ago. 'Highly uncomfortable'? How little did I actually know back then? how naieve could I possibly have been? A couple of days after those fateful words, I had two major events which would change my opinion: My Worst Day Since Starting My Trip and My Worst Ever Journey.

After a few days in Luang Prabang, where I had, amongst other things, stood up a buddhist monk for a date and scraped the skin off every fingertip whilst arsing about in the plunge pools of some limestone waterfalls, I felt it was time to move on.

I went into a travel agent, and booked myself on a V.I.P bus to Vang Viang for the following morning, then went and bought myself a burger to celebrate.

After an early night I got up at seven thirty and got a tuk tuk to the bus station. The driver dropped me off next to a nice modern looking coach, with spacious seating and even a TV at the front.

After the discomfort of the previous 2 journeys I had taken on the minibus to Chiang Khong and the slowboat to Luang Prabang, I was relishing the idea of kicking back in my air-conditioned reclining seat and watching some appallingly subtitled hollywood trash on the screen above the drivers head.

About 5 minutes before departure they loaded everybody's bags on and I asked a guy waiting there if I could get on.

'One minute' he said and gave me a broad grin.

I'd seen that grin somewhere before, and without me knowing why, it put me on edge. Then I worked it out. It was the same smile Asian men seem to have been giving me just before saying such things as 'Sorry, no room!' or 'No sir, I have no change!' or on one occasion 'Very dangerous meester, many people die!'. It meant I was about to hear something I wasn't going to like.

'Is there a problem?' I asked, trying out a raised eyebrow and a jutting bottom jaw. (I have not yet learned the appropriate facial response to the bad-news-grin).

'No problem sir' he said shaking his head and still wearing the same fixed smile as a couple of Lao guys started unloading our bags off the bus again.

'No problem.' he said again grinning 'Not enough people for V.I.P. bus!'

'What? I paid for my ticket! There are 12 of us, surely that's enough?'

'No sir' he said, and thumbed over his shoulder to a minibus, with mudskirts and bumpers hanging off, which was covered in a thick layer of dirt. In this dirt someone had scrawled what I can only assume was the local equivalent of 'Clean Me' or 'Also Available In White' in Lao script. Our bags were already being lifted onto the roofrack.

We started trying to argue our case to go on the V.I.P. bus, but Smiley just continued shaking his head and grinning at us, as he repeated that there were not enough people for the V.I.P, and then just slipped in at the end that we would have to pay an extra thousand kip for the pleasure of going on the minibus.

After a heated exchange of words, where a bunch of Irish guys did most of the arguing for me, we all relented and paid up, just so we could get on the road. I climbed in and literally had to fold myself into the seat, with my knees up under my chin and my back arched forwards, as it was the only way of fitting in the seat.

After about five or ten minutes it soon became apparent that we'd been kidding ourselves by saying that we wanted to get on 'the road', and that getting on 'the potholed track' would have been a more accurate summation.

The heat in the minibus was stifling. I glanced up and a surge of relief swept through me when I saw the aircon vent. I twisted it fully open and waited for the blast of cold air to hit me. 'That's funny' I thought, 'it should have kicked in by now'. I called up to the driver to check it was on. 'Yes! Is on!' he called back over the Thai Pop blaring from his stereo, swerving round a couple of stray cattle and beeping his horn furiously.

I held my hand up to the vent. Nothing. I twisted it fully the other way just to check I hadn't turned it off by mistake. Still nothing. I tried to lean back, failed, so instead sighed, pushed the window open and settled for a face full of hot, dusty air instead.

With every large bump my head was hitting the ceiling of the van and my shins were bumping into a bit of metal through the PVC upholstery on the seat in front. With every swerve from Lao Schumacher my head was hitting the top of the window frame.

I shuffled about in the seat in a vain attempt to get comfortable, put my headphones on, and prayed that the six hours would pass quickly.

It was not to be. After about another half an hour I started to feel nauseous. I cast my mind back to the burger I'd bought the night before to celebrate booking my journey, and remembered being slightly concerned by how juicy it was. 'No Joe.' I told myself hopefully 'You don't have food poisoning. You're just feeling a bit travel sick, that's all. It'll pass.'

I don't get travel sick. It didn't pass. After another half hour the driver pulled up on the side of the road and scampered off to the bushes to relieve himself. We all got out to stretch our legs and I kept telling myself that the nausea would pass. I got back into the minibus when the driver came back, and then had to get straight back out again, run over to the back of the van and spew into the bushes.

I climbed back into the bus. Everyone murmured sympathetically but failed to conceal the expressions of distaste. I took a big swig of water to rinse out the taste, and the driver flicked the Thai Pop back on and jolted his way back onto the road.

Through the haze of illness I noticed that the scenery through the mountains was breathtaking, and if the journey had been more comfortable it would have been a very picturesque way to spend 6 hours. However, all I wanted to do was sleep, but it was a physical impossibility in a van with bad suspension, no leg room and no air con bouncing along on the most, potholed, winding and downright treacherous roads I've ever been on. To top it off, by the stirrings in my stomach, it didn't feel like the burger was content with forcing it's way up out of me, if you get where I'm going with this...

'Great' I thought 'At least it can't get any worse'. I was getting pretty grumpy by then you see.

Once again I was wrong. We rounded a corner and came to a stop. I opened my eyes and craned my neck out of the window.

What could possibly be wrong now? More cows on the road? A flock of chickens to beep out of the way? Peasant children playing in the dust? Wrong on all counts. Just up ahead was a bus, laying on it's side, seemingly completely blocking our path.

It looked like the bus had been there some time, because there was a crane next to it trying to move it out of the way. A queue of vans, buses and trucks on either side sat patientily waiting to see how they were going to get past. Not our Schumacher, he zoomed up on the wrong side of the road, beeping impatiently at the crowd of spectators who'd gathered. He then ordered us all out of the minibus and tried to inch his way onto the verge and round the overturned coach. With a sheer drop of about 50 metres to his left hand side, I was more than happy to walk.

As we walked through the crowd, I was surprised to notice a kid of about thirteen absent mindedly cradling a sub-machine gun and watching the story unfold.

After walking past the bus, and another 30 yards up the hill to catch up with young Schumacher we all climbed back on and got back to the journey. Thankfully the worst of the potholes were over, and the roads became less winding as we climbed down through the mountains. The next place we stopped at even had a squat toilet for me to run to, which was wholly unpleasant, but at least had the benefit of a lockable door. Unfortunately it wasn't soundproofed though, so I did my best to avoid eye contact with anyone on my way out.

Eventually we arrived in Vang Viang, and I checked into the closest possible guesthouse and slept for the next four or five hours.

The next day I felt a whole lot better. I went out for a walk in the morning and bumped into a couple of guys I knew from the slowboat. They were going tubing and asked me if I wanted to come. I'd heard about tubing from a couple of people who've gone before, and jumped at the offer of some company to do it with. That lunchtime we paid our $3.50 each to hire a tractor tyre inner tube and got a tuk tuk the 4km down the river to the starting point.

Tubing basically involves sitting in a tractor tyre, and floating down the river. At regular intervals there are rickety wooden platforms where you can buy a bottle of Beerlao for the equivalent of about 50p and you get a free ropeswing, zipline or plain old jump into the river.

As you float past they shout out 'Beerlao!Beerlao!Beerlao! Jumping!Jumping!Jumping!' and throw a long bamboo pole out to you. If you fancy it you grab hold of the pole and they drag you into the shore, where you can just sit and have a drink, chat with the other people, soak up some sunshine or jump back in the river.

Be warned though, I don't think they have regular health and safety checks on the swings and jumps. While I was there I saw one guy swing from a 30 foot platform, release the trapeze just as he was starting the upswing and catapult about 20 metres through the air straight towards a guy on a tube. Thankfully the guy on the tube had the presence of mind to duck at the last minute, otherwise there would have been an almighty crunch. Another guy let go at the highest possible point of his upswing, and plummeted about 30 feet headfirst onto an empty Beerlao bottle which was floating down the river.

Chris, one of the guys I was with, lost his grip just as he left the platform, and just fell the full thirty feet onto his back to a sympathetic group 'OOOOOOOOOH! from all the spectators on the bank.

Fortunately, the worst injury anybody got was a nastily sprained pride (in Chris's case at least) and I'd probably say it was amongst the most enjoyable days I've had since travelling. Just what the doctor ordered after the previous nightmare of a day.

Vang Viang is a really chilled out town. Once you look past the main drag which is literally just a whole row of Pizzerias which show the s(h)itcom Friends, and go a bit further afield, you can find some really nice laid back bars, like The Smile Bar and The Island Bar, which are down by the riverside.

Any time of day seemed to be a good time to visit these bars. Whether you want a nice meal, to have a cold drink, read a book, go for a swim in the river, sit in the sun, or just take in the view, it was the place to be. The bars all have open sided bamboo huts and platforms right down by the riverside where you can spend the day and watch the sunset at the end of it.

Some people I had met spent most of the time they were in Vang Viang sitting in the Friends bars on the dusty main road watching episode after episode after episode while mopeds and flies buzzed round them.

Personally, I think we made the better choice.

The Sorrow of War

Beggars. We've all experienced them. Nobody enjoys being stopped and asked for money. If you say no you feel a sense of guilt for going about your day in reasonably affluent comfort, knowing you've got a cosy warm home to go to and a family who'll be there to look after you if you're in trouble, whereas daily life for them is a constant struggle. If you do give them money, you still feel bad because you are never quite sure why they are in the situation they're in, or whether your money is helping to fuel an addiction to heroin, gambling or alcohol. The official advice on beggars in Asia is to avoid giving them money, as it will only serve to give them the idea that a profit can be made, and if anything, will aid the growth of begging in the area.

Cambodian beggars are in a league of their own, and when you come face to face with them, it is very hard to feel anything but deep compassion.

Over the last 30 years the Cambodian people have collectively suffered more than any other nation in the world. Never before have I been to a place where the sense of pain and loss has been so tangible.

During the Vietnam/Indochina war, the northern and eastern regions of Cambodia held strategic routes for the Communist Army of Vietnam. Fearing that the Cambodians would join forces with the communists, America 'displaced' the present King and president, and replaced them with a government more sympathetic to Western views. They also heavily bombed the rural areas of the northeast in an unsuccessful attempt to sever the artery of the Ho Chi Minh trail and gain the upper hand against the Vietnamese.

Understandably, the locals in the areas subjected to the bombings became fiercely anti-American and formed a guerrilla group fighting on the side of the Communists. They called themselves the Khmer Rouge.

As the war continued, the Khmer Rouge grew stronger, recruited more members and pushed the front line closer to the capital of Phnom Penh. In mid April 1975, the Americans took down the star spangled banner from the embassy roof and fled Cambodia, effectively conceding defeat.

The seventeenth of April, Cambodian New Year, began with thousands of residents celebrating the end of the war in the streets of Phnom Penh. The Khmer Rouge rounded up every single citizen, and evacuated the city en masse, telling them that the Americans were coming back in their planes to bomb the capital.

They decided to try to rid the country of the 'traitors' from the old regime, whom they called 'City Folk' or 'The Old People' so the 'Villagers' or 'New People' could have a fresh start. The mass executions began. The Khmer Rouge rounded up anyone who seemed to be educated, as this was a sign they were from the old regime. Doctors, Teachers, Lawyers, Journalists and Policemen were executed. People with soft hands were executed. People were executed for wearing spectacles, as it was seen as a sign of education. Wives, Sons, Daughters, Brothers, Sisters and Grandparents were executed for being related to 'traitors'.

Children were brainwashed at reeducation camps to spy on their families and report anything to the Khmer Rouge which they thought might be disloyal to 'Angka' (the KR government). The 'city folk' who weren't executed worked 12 hour days for seven days a week, with nothing but a small bowl of rice broth for sustenance. Anybody too weak to work was killed.

With appalling living conditions, enforced hard labour, and no doctors left alive to treat the sick or injured, many died of disease, starvation and malnutrition.

The Khmer Rouge were eventually overthrown in 1979 by the Vietnamese, and retreated once more to the countryside, where they continued to terrorise the nation for years to come.

The Cambodian Government recently carried out an extensive census of the survivors, asking for details of friends and relatives murdered, starved or died through lack of medical attention over the 4 year reign of the Khmer Rouge. The results came back that a staggering 3 million people died during this short time, in other words approximately one third of the entire Cambodian population.

So along came Big Joe The Tourist in 2005, only thirty years after this all happened, hoping for some nice photos of Angkor Wat temples, and with only a vague idea that some guy called Pol Pot had been a b@stard here a few years back, but he was dead now so that was ok then.

Boy, was I in for a shock.

I got to Siem Reap at about ten o'clock at night, got to my hotel and put my head down. In the morning, I got up and went out for a look around town. As soon as I set foot outside the hotel, little kids of no more than 5 came up to me asking for money.

I tried to wave them off but they just followed me around. As soon as one gave up, another one tried their luck. I wasn't prepared for it at all. After about twenty minutes wandering around, a guy of about forty with his shirt open stepped out in front of me from behind a rack of clothes and blocked my path.

'Hello mister!' he said in a cheery voice. I looked into his face and greeted him with a smile. Small scars twisted his features in unusual directions. My gaze drifted down to his chest. More scars, bigger this time.

'Lan My!' he said, as I noticed for the first time the stumps where his arms should have been. 'Lan My! BOOM!'

At this point he threw his stumps out to their extremities in an attempt to demonstrate the size of the blast caused by the mine. I recoiled in shock and, I am ashamed to say, disgust. 'Money for food?' he asked me, in a timid voice. I looked back into his face and he could no longer meet my eye. It struck me then that here was a fiercely proud man, reduced to begging tourists for enough money to stop him being hungry. I thought about getting a note out, realised I couldn't give it to him without tucking it in between his teeth, and got embarrassed and flustered. I turned around and fled for the sanctity of my hotel room, where I had the nice western luxuries of cable tv and air conditioning waiting for me, to take my mind off the shock of what had just happened.

I sat in my room and felt guilty as I thought about the appalling way I had just handled the situation. I just hadn't been prepared for anything like that at all, and made a resolve to be friendly and pleasant to the beggars in future. I wondered about how valid the arguments for not giving money to beggars are when you come face to face with someone as wretched as that, whose fate was brought about by a war whose politics he probably never really even knew about, let alone cared. He was the first of many, far, far too many, landmine victims I saw on the streets of Cambodia, and I was a lot more understanding to them from then on.

So I went to Angkor Wat, just outside Siem Reap, and the begging there continued unabated.

However, it was an absolutely amazing place, with immense buildings dotted about in the woods, each covered in intricate carvings dating back the best part of a millenium. I got the photos I was after, like this one, before moving onto Phnom Penh.

If Siem Reap was a starter for harrowing sights, Phnom Penh was the main course, dessert, coffee, mint and complimentary hot towel all rolled into one.

On my first day there I visited the Killing Fields, just outside the city, which was a mass execution site used during the Khmer Rouge reign. At this site, which is duplicated the length and breadth of Cambodia, close to 9,000 bodies had been exhumed from 86 mass graves. Another 43 graves had been left untouched.

A memorial building had been built by the entrance, about four storeys high, which was filled with shelf upon shelf of skulls which still bore evidence of the executioners chosen methods. Bullet holes, machete wounds, caved in skulls. They just went on and on.

Many of the bodies which were unearthed were missing their heads. There was one grave of more than 100 victims, women and children, and the sign beside it informed us they had been buried naked. The suggestion of what horrors may have occurred in the minutes before their execution was left hanging in the air.

I passed a tree that had been used by the Khmer Rouge for killing babies. They apparently held them by the ankles and then just took a swing at the trunk. The tree also has deep scars in it, mostly at either neck height or thigh height, what would be neck height for someone sitting down. You could almost still hear the cries and smell the terror in the air. It wasn't a nice place.

As I walked along, overwhelmed by what had occurred there such a short time ago, I looked down at my feet. Right there, underneath my sandals, half buried in the earth, were the clothes of victims who had never been exhumed. I felt sick. It was time to go.

The next day I went to S21. This was an old school which had been converted by the Khmer Rouge into a prison for 'traitors' and used as an area for torturing them. On display were many items used for torture, including a gallows which was in the playground next to the kid's climbing frames, where people were hoisted up by their hands, which were tied behind their backs, and dunked headfirst into a bucket of filthy water until they passed out or often died. This was one of the more humane methods on display.

The most disturbing of everything I saw at S21 were the photo boards, which were put up in the communal cells. They displayed photos taken by the prison guards of the prisoners for their records. Some had a look of fear in their eyes, many had their hands tied behind their backs, most were staring through the camera with an expression of hopeless resignation which was worse even than the look of fear. One row of boards displayed the photos of some of the youngest traitors held prisoner:

Most if not all of these 'Enemies of Angka' were executed. Most of them had the same dead expression of the adults.

The only photo I saw of any prisoner younger than these ones held my attention for a good few minutes. With an entire wall devoted to it, hung one soliatary picture, displaying the prisoners in about 3 times their life size. It was a photo of a mother holding a newborn baby. The mother had the same lifeless, hopeless expression on her face as in many of the other photos as she stared into the lens of the camera, but the baby just lay there sound asleep, completely unaware of their impending death. I found the stark contrast of the peace of the child and the pain of the mother deeply moving. I just couldn't take my eyes away from it, it was one of the saddest things I've ever seen, and truly brought home the suffering of these people more than any statistics or news reports ever could.

After seeing all the things I've seen in Cambodia, and also more recently in Saigon in Vietnam, I would like to think that the world would learn a lesson from history.

Approximately 2 million landmines lay underneath the soil of Cambodia alone, patiently waiting for the day they will ruin the lives of men, women, children and the families they love, yet on the first of March 2004 the Bush Administration in America reversed policy to eliminate all antipersonnel landmines. Many other countries still produce, export and deploy them every day.

The largest holocaust in the history of mankind took place just a few decades before the one in Cambodia, and the lesson wasn't learnt. A few years after Cambodia it happened in Yugoslavia, and is still going on today in other parts of the world. The worst realisation is that things like this will probably just continue to take place, and as long as we strive so hard to forget the cruelty with which mankind has treated each other, they definitely will.

Having said that, it is worth bearing in mind that in certain circumstances ignorance can still be bliss.

A Fair Crack Of The Whip

A few nights ago I couldn't sleep. Try as I might, I couldn't drift off.

This isn't the first time I've struggled to get my forty winks since I've been away. Sometimes I've stayed awake all night due to inadvertently reversing my sleeping patterns by not getting to bed til daylight of that morning. Once in particular I was kept awake by a particularly noisy couple getting down to business.

This time was different. The only reason I couldn't sleep was because I started thinking all about the fun I've had in the last eight months and for hours I couldn't relax.

Since the first of May I've flown somewhere close to thirty thousand miles round the globe and travelled about another 20 thousand more overland.

I've been to 10 different countries, travelling on buses, trains, monorails, coaches, minibuses, yachts, ferries, riverboats, motorbikes, mopeds, hire cars, taxis, vans, tuk tuks, rickshaws, planes and helicopters.

I've been through electric monsoon storms, snow and blazing sunshine.

I've gone up the Empire State Building, wandered round the Sydney Opera House, the Grand Palace in Bangkok and the Ancient Angkor Ruins in Cambodia, and crossed the skybridge of the Petronas Towers in Malaysia.

I've walked underneath the Sydney Harbour Bridge, crossed The Bridge Over the River Kwai in Kanchanaburi and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

I've cruised round the Whitsunday Islands on a Catamaran, I've been kayaking and bamboo rafting in oceans and rivers. I've floated on inflated tyre tubes down two different rivers in two different hemispheres and travelled for two days on a boat down the mighty Mekong River.

I've relaxed on beaches that tourist boards would not unfairly describe as 'Paradise' in 3 different continents. I've trekked through rainforests in Fiji and Australia and round lakes and over glaciers and volcanoes in New Zealand.

I've swum in the plunge pools of waterfalls in Laos and Fiji and the crystal clear lakes of Fraser Island.

I've learnt a lot more about the countries I've been to than I ever thought I would. I've seen displays of traditional Maori, Lao, Fijian and Aboriginal cultures and eaten the traditional cuisines of every country I've been to, including one ill-advised drunken moment with a fried cricket in Bangkok.

I've crossed a border where, in the same 24 hours, terrorists shot five police dead and set off a bomb. I've been to the prison museums of Alcatraz and S21. I've wandered round the mass execution site of the Killing Fields in Cambodia and been to an island that only months previously was decimated by the Tsunami of Boxing Day 2004.

I've seen Crocodiles, Monkeys, Whales, Dolphins, Turtles, Kangaroos, Iguanas, Elephants, Buffalo, Kookaburras and Koalas in their natural environment.

I've stroked Tigers, fed Kangaroos, chased giant Lizards, ducked giant Butterflies and stamped on giant Cockroaches.

At the Westpac stadium in Wellington I watched The British Lions take on Wellington on their tour of NZ. I went to a Muay Thai (kickboxing) fight in Bangkok, and got my photo taken with the new Champion.

I've met some of the most amazing people, both locals and fellow travellers, and have made some very good friends along the way.

All that, and I've hardly even mentioned the dangerous activities yet. I've been whitewater rafting on grade 5 rapids, spent two weeks snowboarding on the mountains of New Zealand, been luging in Rotorua and thrown myself off cliffs, rickety wooden platforms and waterfalls into rivers with reckless abandon.

I've flown over the Whitsunday Islands in a tiny bubble helicopter and jetboated round the Buller River at breakneck speed. I've crawled over 100 metres down pitch dark tunnels used during the Vietnam war, scarcely wide enough to fit my shoulders in, experiencing a nasty dose of claustrophobia for the first time in my life.

I've skydived out of an aeroplane flying 12,000 feet above the ground, somewhat unwisely putting my life in the hands of a man who wears a Kiss haircut and a golf visor without irony.

Finally, I bungy jumped 47 metres off a platform 400 metres up a mountain, wait for it, in the dark.

What on earth was I thinking?

Eight Months. How did I fit it all in? I experienced all of this, and probably a lot more that I can't even remember off the top of my head, and somehow completely avoided serious injury, illness or disease. I also avoided being robbed, conned, and at one point, shot or blown up. Basically, I lived to tell the tale.

So you can see how, with only a few days left of my journey, I got carried away thinking about my experiences and temporarily forgot how to sleep. The eight months I spent before going away involved 50 hours a week of work, football on a Wednesday night, maybe a couple of beers at the Richmond Arms on a Sunday afternoon and not much else. I've been to places where if not the sense of suffering, then just the sheer poverty alone, made me realise just how lucky I was to have even the monotony of that routine. To have travelled the circumference of the world and seen sights and experienced things that I will remember for the rest of my life has been a dream come true, and I am so grateful to have had the chance to do it.

Unfortunately, now I've come home this is the last you'll all be hearing from Big Joe, which for me is a crying shame. If only one person has enjoyed reading this diary half as much as I've enjoyed writing it, then it's all been worthwhile. If I've inspired people to do some of the things I've done or go to the places I've been, then even better.

So anyway, on the 17th of December, a couple of days after the sleepless night, I was due to fly home. Not that my family knew that of course.

I had originally been booked to fly home on the 7th of December, but since I came away my friends and ex-housemates Mike and Elaine have organised a trip of their own, and were due to fly into Bangkok on the 9th, so I put my flight home back by ten days so that I could stay out to see them. However, I told the folks I'd postponed it for a month, and would be home on the 7th of January. In the meantime I had a suit fitted, and met up with Mike and Elaine. After a couple of days chilling with them on Ko Samet, we got back to Bangkok.

On the 16th of December I picked up my suit, put it on, packed my bag and headed to the airport, with the plan of turning up in Ipswich wearing my suit and surprising the family by coming home for Christmas.

After a long flight home, and a nice easy train journey, I rolled up in the taxi down the hill from my house. I had planned to phone them, tell them I was calling from Bangkok to wish them a happy Christmas, because we were going to be spending it on an island and I didn't know if I'd be able to phone from there, and while I was on the phone to them, I'd let myself in and stroll in through the door.

I tried to phone and nobody picked up. Balls. I strolled up the hill and Dad was talking to the neighbour over the front wall. I called out to him and he turned to look at me with a frown of confusion on his face. The seconds ticked by as I smiled at him. After about ten or fifteen seconds, literally, his eyebrows raised as he worked out who I was. 'Joe!' he called, and after another extended pause 'What the bloody hell are you doing home?'

We went inside and Oz, our pet dog, didn't have the same trouble recognising me. I had to do a few deft sidesteps to stop him ruining my new threads by jumping up at me.

Over a superb cup of tea (one of the main things I've missed) Dad told me the reason it'd taken him so long to work out it was me. He'd apparently seen the suit and the long dark overcoat and immediately thought 'Oh no, it's the bloody mormons come to preach at me'. Charming. He didn't even recognise his own son!

Later on my Mum and Sister came in. They both looked at me with the same confused expression, although they were both a bit quicker on the uptake than the old man.

After eight months away, visiting all the places I've visited and seeing all the things I've seen, I can now fully confirm the old proverb. There is officially No Place Like Home.

However, ask me in a few weeks and I may well have itchy feet again.

All that's left for me to say is so long, and thanks for reading.

Joe Bloomfield: Retired Diarist, Trainee Thumb-Twiddler.