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We arrived at the impressive Suvarnabhumi airport and started to taxi to our arrival gate. We passed the main terminal, past the cargo terminal, kept going onwards past the maintenance depot, all very interesting, and finally arrived at the quadrant where all the planes that are past repair are kept. We finally stopped there. It must have been a busy period. There was no chance of an air bridge, so we walked down the stairs, waving like President Obama, to our waiting coaches. The heat was fierce, in contrast to the refrigerated metal canister of our plane. My pants began to heat up and were a serious fire risk by the time I made it to the ground. Fortunately, the bus was on maximum aircon, and the danger was averted.

We were in Bangkok, again, breaking our trip home to blighty. There’s been a military coup since we were there in March, but the only noticeable difference was that the trip from the airport to town took less time than usual, and the hotel was empty. We just spent a day sleeping and then headed back to the airport waved off by the entire hotel staff. We’d been upgraded to first class and that was quite an experience. There’s a special entrance at the airport. A porter took our bags and a hostess took our passports and showed us to a comfy seating area. Next, she came back with our boarding passes and walked us through passport control and security. It took about a minute. It had started to rain in that way it only does in the tropics, like someone had turned the ocean upside down on us. Mags asked if there would be an air bridge so we wouldn’t have to walk and get soaked, I think they may have misunderstood and assumed that we didn’t want to walk anywhere, so a buggy came and whisked us off to the lounge. We were ushered into our private suite for a glass of bubbles and a Thai massage. I can’t remember much about the flight after the caviar and vodka.

We’re now back home where the weather is 23 and sunny, just like Sydney. I achieved a lifetime ambition earlier today due to the jet lag, I arrived at Borough market early, and had a pint in the Market Porter before early closing at 9a.m.

Sydney City

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I wasn’t going to write another blog in Australia and then I heard this conversation in a tapas bar in Sydney’s business district.

“What’s Jamon mate?”

“Don’t know mate, I think it might be pronounced Hamon, so it could be Spanish for ham.”

“What mate, Hamon, like ham on the bone?”

“That must be it, mate.”

“Sweet, we’ll have some of that then.”

We’re having a few days in the city to reacquaint ourselves with the hustle and bustle before returning to London. We started in Manly; we took the ferry across and stayed a couple of nights in a hotel on the ocean side. There was a minor problem when we showed up at the Novotel where we discovered that Mags had booked us into the Novotel in the city centre and not Manly. All I could think of is “At least it wasn’t me.” While Mags was wondering “How can I make this Gary’s fault?” Anyway, no problem. The wonderful woman on reception cancelled the other booking at no charge and gave us a room with a free upgrade. We walked along the beach and over the point at Queenscliff to Freshwater beach where we met Alan and Karen for a leisurely lunch at the Harbord Hotel.  Many beers, wines, and spirits later we had to cab it back to Manly. This was the weekend that just kept giving; next day, after a morning stroll, we lunched at a small Italian restaurant near the wharf. It looked unpromising to start with, just one table occupied during the busy Sunday lunch period. We just had a good feel about the place so wandered in. The old guy in the kitchen was from Sicily and, once he found out that we’d spent some time in his home town of Cefalu, couldn’t do enough for us. Despite having run out of most things last night, what he prepared for us was superb; Garlic prawns, snapper fish cakes, Sicilian pasta and spatchcock chicken. He topped up our wine glasses with vino on the casa and sent us off thoroughly replete and feeling warm and fuzzy. Later, we partied in the four pines brewery with some live music and stumbled into a small bar on the way back to the hotel and caught the end of a very fine set by a young guitarist.

We ferried across the harbor to circular quay and hung out in the city centre for a few nights, centering ourselves in Kings cross. / Potts Point. Lots of walking around the city including a trek to Woolamalloo, into the botanic gardens and across to the Opera House. Disappointed to discover that we couldn’t roam around the inside of the iconic Opera House without forking out 37$ for the guided tour, so went to Watson’s bay for lunch at Doyle’s instead.

I spent a morning at the maritime museum in Darling harbor while Mags was catching up on some sleep. Really great museum including in interesting exhibition of aboriginal art reinterpreting Cook’s landing and legacy; but the highlight was clambering around the replica of the Endeavor that is docked there.

In between, we had time for dinner with Fliss and Mon in Surrey Hills / Lebanon after their evening at the theatre. BYO and lots of falafel – What’s not to like?

We rounded things off with a martini in the very now Tank Stream bar and Spanish in Tapa Vino where, to our fellow diners’ disappointment, the ham didn’t come on the bone.

Off for a lie down before heading back to the Shire.

Hamilton Island

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We’ve been camped out at our friends Kev and Jane’s place in Caringbah. Kev’s even gone off on a six week bush tour leaving Jane to look after us – lucky Jane! It’s like he planned his walkabout while we are here - Hmm. Anyway, all this travelling is exhausting so we’ve jetted off on a well deserved holiday to the Whitsundays in Queensland; Hamilton Island to be precise.

 The island is the holiday destination in the Whitsundays as its been extensively developed for tourists leaving the other islands largely uninhabited. It’s approximately 900 km north of Brisbane and a 2 hour flight from Sydney.

We were picked up by a surly chap called Vince who, if he ever had any cheek muscles with which to smile, they have long since withered away. He is the only grumpy person on the island as everyone else is smiling all the time and happy, and why wouldn’t you be in this beautiful part of the world. Everyone you meet stops to have a chat and ask you what you’ve been doing today, and what your plans are. This might be a tad annoying if you were in a rush, but hey, this is paradise and everyone is uber relaxed – all there is to do is have fun and chill out.

We chose Hamilton to meet up with our friends Lyn and Rudy who unbelievably live in this paradise. They moved into their new apartment while we were there overlooking the marina, which is the hub of the island, and the yacht club, an extraordinary building that manages to look like a fish, a manta ray and a helicopter depending on where you view it from and the time of day. Despite its name it stubbornly refuses to host any yacht club, but contains an empty gymnasium and a very fine restaurant.

Happy go lucky Vince showed us into a golf buggy that was our transport during our stay. These are everywhere on Hamilton. Everyone zips around in these between beeches, resorts, the marina and the hill top views. The speed limit for the island is 20km which I don’t think is threatened by the buggies, but they are great fun and a god send as it is extremely hilly.

We were soon joined by Mags’ sister Kazza and our friends Helen and Barn who flew in from Melbourne. Next day we booked a tour and headed off on a fast catamaran to the outer barrier reef. The trip out was a little choppy and some of our group arrived a little shaken if not stirred.

All was soon forgotten as we transferred to the permanent platoon anchored there and donned fins, stinger suits and masks and snorkeled away. There were thousands of fish in all colours, coral, clams large and small, and even a turtle spotted checking out the pontoon. There was an option to scuba dive but not necessary as the reef was only in a few feet of water so we saw everything snorkeling.

Lyn and Rudy took us out sailing to Cid harbor at the nearby, larger Whitsunday Island that is now a national park. (Yes, they have a boat too). Another perfect day. We whiled away a few blissful hours with a short walk on the island through Hoop pine that is now recovering from previous logging activity, and a quick swim in the calm turquoise waters before lunch on board. Doing it tough again.

I couldn’t resist the opportunity to play the Hamilton Island Golf course that is actually situated on nearby Dent Island. So I found myself on the short ferry trip over there at 8am one glorious sunny morning (another one) and was soon installed in another buggy heading off to the 10^th tee. Well, I think the best we can say about the experience is that the views are magnificent. Let’s just say that the pro shop sells a lot of golf balls and I contributed my fair share. The rough is three feet high and as thick as a cabinet minister. It borders all the fairways and greens, so you either hit it on the fairway or it’s a lost ball; no chance of finding it even if the snakes didn’t deter you from looking.

A popular evening activity is to head to the local out point near us at the Pinnacle apartments to watch the sunset. There’s even a pop up bar that opens for business at 4:30 pm. We all headed up there and were treated to a very spectacular and rare sight, an iridescent sunset, where water droplets of uniform size diffract sunlight to produce opalescent hues. Notice the science there. Yes, I had to look it up. It really was amazing with all the colours of the rainbow painted across the clouds in a slightly metallic, wavy caress. 

On another night, as we approached the Bommie restaurant in the Yacht club for dinner with Lyn and Rudy, the moon was surrounded by a thin white sphere of light, a halo. This is another rare phenomenon caused by ice crystals deflecting moonlight. The dinner lived up to the spectacular intro as we had great dishes of slowly poached hen’s egg with asparagus and reef fish with sag aloo, interspersed with an amuse bouche of cerviche with tomato consume served in a test tube and a mouth cleanser of textures of melon. Sounds a bit pretentious but really superb.

We were wisely guided by Lyn and Rudy to pre-order a Coles supermarket delivery from the mainland for our stay, as the food choices on the island are limited by what is stocked in the one general store. The delivery was there when we arrived, hurrah, or at least someone’s delivery was. I think they just give you assorted stuff so what you actually order is somewhat irrelevant – but still, a lot cheaper than buying locally.

Alas, after a superb week, smiley Vince helped us transport our bags to the airport. It suddenly became clear to me what Vince’s purpose is – to gently acclimatise us back into the real world where we mortals live.

Sydney

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What’s happened to Australian beer? Two hundred of years of dedication has created the perfect Aussie beer, completely tasteless. But now, someone has discovered hops and all these boutique beers are appearing, pale ales, red beers and stouts. Great stuff, all we need now is to persuade them to serve it a little warmer and we’ll be sorted.

We set off in search of Australian culture, meaning football of course, but not the beautiful game that this great country has only just started playing, and can’t yet be considered a serious endeavor. I’m talking about the game played with the elongated ball with pointy ends, and in particular NRL and AFL. Now the immediate observation I made is that both ‘codes’ have three initials but two of them differ. Also, one has two more goal posts than the other. Other than that, it’s basically a bunch of blokes knocking the hell out of each other on a large field watched by a passionate crowd trying to get drunk on mid strength beer. I absolutely loved it. We went to the NRL game between South Sydney and the Bulldogs at the Olympic stadium with the next generation of Mags’ family, having worn out her contemporaries. A very fine scrap was settled when someone drop kicked a decisive goal while no one was looking. We retired to the nearby Novotel bar for a real drink and then back to the centre of town for some more revelry. Leaving the stadium I spotted this informative sign for the away fans.

Trots kindly took us to an AFL game between Sydney Swans and Fremantle where I caused much mirth by shouting “It’s a one” every time a behind was scored. The Swans’ mascot is a Cygnet called Cyggy who completed laps of the oval on a motorized scooter which is not something you see every day. Mags observing that it’s a surprise that they’re allowed to call him that; I expect the anti smoking lobby will be on to it soon.

Tasmania

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“What would you like to do tomorrow?”

“How about a hike?” I suggest.

This is how I came to be traipsing round Salamanca market on Saturday looking at clothes and jewelry with Mags and Karen, Malcolm having wisely dropped us off and headed back home. We’re moving at snail’s pace and I’m walking as slowly as I can, but after a few minutes I glance around they’re stuck in another stall. Eventually, I pace up and down doing laps of the market; at least I get a walk of sorts. Eventually, we head off to a bar on the square behind the market to celebrate Mags’ two cute new tops.

We’ve arrived coincidentally for the start of the Sexpo exhibition in Hobart town centre. While sipping our drinks we watch as a man in a pink top hat and matching codpiece, and not much else, walks into a local café and comes out with several Devonshire cream teas. We later see him sharing these at the side if the exhibition with some men in leathers and beards.

Next day, the other three take pity on me and we head to Mt. Field national park.

We have a really enjoyable walk through a beautiful emerald forest full of never ending trees and giant ferns, the stream’s promise always nearby. We see a couple of Pademelon. No, not an exotic Irish fruit, but a small marsupial.

 

 

 


















Next we head on up further where the temperature drops 8C but we’re still bathed in warming sunshine. A magical short walk around a small lake with gum trees with trunks of swirling reds and grays, and alpine bushes all fruiting with small berries in red, pink, black, white and tangerine.

One of the great things about Tasmania, and there are many, is that it is one of the few places left in the world where you can really get away from everyone else. The great South Western wilderness is one such area, and the part we chose to explore was Hartz national park. An alpine region above the tree line leading to magnificent views along the Huon valley.  

The walk is on a well maintained boardwalk that protects the delicate flora underfoot. There’s a myriad of plants here interspersed with crystal clear tarns and small lakes where crayfish burrows are glimpsed in the banks, all fringed by stony hills and peaks. A fragile moss here grows slowly in the cold climate, made up of thousands of tiny intricate plants meshed together for survival.

 

On the way back, we stopped at an apple museum (It wasn’t a long stop), and sampled some cider.

We drove out to the Tasman peninsula, south east of Hobart. Another scenic drive through country peppered with blow holes, worn sandstone cliffs and tessellated pavements. Our destination Port Arthur, a convict settlement and Tasmania’s most popular tourist destination. This is a large site built up during the nineteenth century with several buildings still standing and carefully restored such as the commandant’s cottage. The most prominent building is the penitentiary used for lodging convicts, the ones deemed the worst offenders in cells at the bottom. The settlement started modestly as a logging operation to replenish the timber stocks in the UK depleted from the Napoleonic wars, but soon expanded. The penitentiary started life as a mill, build over the creek. Unfortunately, the water flow was insufficient to drive the mill and convicts were used, like hamsters, to tread the wheels. This was dangerous work and resulted in several casualties.

We hopped aboard a ferry to ‘dead man’s island’ or ‘Ilse de mort’. This is where all the dead from the settlement were buried. The fist reverend of the town declared that convicts should not have headstones, so around 900 to 1500 bodies are here in unmarked graves. It was also used for free settlers, soldiers and their families, and later cnvicts who did erect gravestones. Our tour was conducted by a very entertaining Canadian chap of Scots descent who brought the place alive (no pun intended) with stories of a selection of the departed; how they come to be in the settlement, their ‘crimes’ life and eventual death. Needless to say, there were a few characters who ended up there. Back at the main settlement, we mooched around for a few hours wandering around the buildings including the ruined hospital and a cottage that housed some Irish nationalists and English Chartists; interesting to see that most of the Chartists’ demands have since been passed into law.

There was a feature in the local news about underwater hockey while we were here. People are actually trying to move a puck around a swimming pool floor while holding their breath. Apparently, Tasmania is a world leader.

Lunch in Melbourne

“Tony Abbott celebrates 100 days with no asylum seekers.” I haven’t made that up – a real headline in the papers. Welcome to Australia (if you can get in). Now we’re here I’m tempted to apply for asylum, but from what, warm beer? That might actually work.

We’ve rocked up in Melbourne for lunch with our friends Barney and Spitfire, although lunch

appears to have lasted a week. We’re in Werribee, a South Western suburb with insects constantly fretting about the price of honey. We started at the excellent local winery of Shadowfax where numerous bottles of rose were consumed, and we were actually thrown out to make way for the evening wedding party. We moved onto superb Spanish tapas in town, and rounded off with the colonial tram, where excellent food and wine is served in a restored tram that gently clanks its way around the city, taking us to St. Kilda along the coast past the Palais Theatre, and back again. In between courses, Barney and I found time for a round of golf and an Aussie rules football game at the state of the art, modern, impressive Etihad stadium. Did someone pass a law that all new stadia have to be named after middle eastern airlines?

Tasmania next, so jumpers packed and ready to go.

Cambodia

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English is spoken widely in the region, although there are some interesting translations. The other day I was requested by a sign to “Please put some things in the rubbish bin” I was mortified that I didn’t have anything to throw away. The weather forecast on our arrival in Siem Reap said 36 C, realfeel 38 C. I asked Mags for a realfeel later but she wasn’t amused.

Yes, we’re in Cambodia and, like all the other visitors, we’re here to explore Angkor, the centre of the Cambodian empire that ruled most of Indochina from the ninth to thirteenth century. Early starts every day here for the dual purpose of avoiding the hottest part of the day and the coach loads of tourists that set out a little later. First stop Ta Prohm Temple. This is famed for being overgrown with trees with roots growing out of, and over the walls. Angelina Jolie was filmed here in her role as Laura Croft.

Next up, Angkor Tom, or Great city, a focal point in Angkor and home to the royal palace. This is a massive site established in the twelfth century by King Jayavarman VII covering nine square kilometres. We visited the Bayon temple on the site, a mind boggling sandstone structure with thirty nine out of fifty four towers still standing, each representing one of the Cambodian regions at the time. Each tower is adorned with giant faces on each side. It’s a giant site and mobbed with tourists but large enough to cope without it feeling overcrowded.

 

We left the old city and headed to Tonle Sap Lake, the largest in Indochina. We drove to a diminished river feeding the lake where we transferred to a small boat, cruising through the fishing village of Kampong Phluk before reaching the lake. The Tonle Sap river drains the lake during the dry season meandering towards Phnom Penh where it merges with the Mekong. The Mekong swells during the wet season with melt water and monsoon rains and it actually pushes the Tonle Sap river back upwards causing the lake to swell to five times its dry season size. So the river runs in both directions depending on the time of year. It really is a large lake, even in the dry season, covering 2,500 square kilometers. It supports a population of two million people nearly all of whom live from fishing. The Cambodians told us that around seventy percent of these are Vietnamese who remained after the war (technically illegally).

 

It floods every year here, and the locals have devised a brilliant idea – they build their houses on stilts. Radical I know, but perhaps we can learn from this and apply it in the Thames valley. There’s a twelve metre difference between the dry season and the flood in the village. This makes the houses look like giant cranes in the dry season.

Next day we started with a visit to Banteay Srei temple, dedicated to Shiva and the Hindu religion built with high quality pink sandstone. The carvings are wonderfully preserved as a result and the detail is fantastic, even after a thousand years.

We’d booked a hike up a jungle mountain before we flew out, but on the day with the realfeel at 40C we were having second thoughts. Well, we sweated out a few gallons of accumulated toxins, but managed to enjoy ourselves in the beautiful countryside. We saw no animals, due largely to deforestation as most of the forest has been cleared for farming, and, as our guide explained, people were hungry during the Khmer Rouge period and the subsequent civil war. If it moved, it was eaten. There were tigers and elephants in this region but, alas, no more. We did hear but not see a gibbon and heard cicadas a plenty, a particular species sounding like an electric saw. The walk terminated at a sacred royal bathing site where hundreds of lingas have been carved into a river bed. The linga being a Hindu phallic symbol. Water flowing over these lingas is deemed to turn it into holy water.

We finished the day at Beng Mealea temple. This site has not been restored but allowed to collapse slowly with mother nature gradually taking over with trees sprouting up through the ruins. Its main claim to fame is as a forerunner to Angkor Wat, built first with a similar design but on a smaller scale – a kind of baby Angkor Wat.

Our final day and we’ve saved the best till last, the daddy of all the temples, Angkor Wat. We rose at 5a.m. to catch the sunrise over the temple. This early start doesn’t guarantee a jump on the other tourists as everyone is doing the same thing. Walking over the concourse approaching the temple was like London Bridge at rush hour. Most of us gathered at the left inner moat that still had some water after the dry season waiting for the sun to appear, looking like paparazzi at the Oscars. The site itself is incredibly impressive, three of the five large lotus like towers visible as you approach providing the world famous image. There are three levels representing different layers of Hindu heaven, the higher as you ascend. The lower level is adorned with stone carvings on the walls depicting Hindu religious stories covering 800 metres in four galleries.

So it’s the end of our travels in Indochina and I think its fair to say that we are a little templed out, but we’ve enjoyed every minute. Next stop Australia and, at the risk of offending my Aussie friends, perhaps a little less culture but more R&R.

Vietnam: After Hanoi

We drove east for four hours to Halong Bay, home to two thousand limestone islands in the gulf of Tonkin.

We boarded our cruise and made for a fishing village nestled in the shelter of several islands. There are a number of these communities dotted around the gulf that sprung up as places to service the fisherman but gradually ended up as permanent communities. All the dwellings are built on plastic drums lashed together with wooden beams to provide a floating platform. On this is built a usually modest dwelling of wood topped with corrugated iron. The one we visited had about seventy abodes, a meeting place and a school that was built with money donated from Kambala School, Sydney.

Mags’ new policy this trip is to say yes to everything. This is how I came to be standing on deck at 7a.m. for a lesson in Tai Chi. We managed remarkably well with the warm up moves but there was lots of creaking and groaning as the stretching increased, and then we were soon tottering and flailing all over the place as the pace increased. Must have looked hilarious, the instructor barely able to keep a straight face. We warmed down with a climb up one of the tiny limestone islands. Tiny, but still five hundred steps to the top where the view from the observation tower was worth the effort.

Another short flight to Hue in central Vietnam, pronounced Whey with a light Geordie accent.

Another city tour that took in the impressive Citadel, and a three walled fortress and dwelling for the kings of the Nguyen dynasty from 1802 to 1945. A quick stop at a monastery after a short river cruise where a monk who burnt himself to death in Saigon as a protest to the governments restrictions on religious freedom in 1963. They have strangely kept and preserved the Austin car that he used to travel to Saigon. We also stopped at the tomb of Emperor Khai Dinh where ten thousand workers died in constructing it, many from Malaria.

We spent a few bizarre hours in a Zen Buddhist retreat. A home built recently by a wealthy businesswoman from Saigon who retired here. She receives a few visitors now and donates the money to good causes. It was a beautiful, immaculate house built with iron wood, a dark, incredibly durable and beautiful material. It has four buildings forming a square around an ornamental rectangular pond. We had a pleasant vegetarian lunch provided mainly from their own gardens, and joined our host in some quiet meditation slowly doing laps of the quadrant with our hands coated and massaged with a mixture of banana honey, yogurt and herbs. I don’t know what Mags was meditating on, but all I could think of is what a sight we must all look.

 

We indulged ourselves in a three day stop at a beach resort in Hoi An, bordering a long stretch of golden sands looking out over the South China sea. We spent a half day in the town which was a major trading port in the seventeenth century and has a well preserved old quarter where motor vehicles are excluded, so making it a pleasant change to stroll around without being beeped at incessantly by motorbike riders.

I’ve observed that the further south we travel, the country feels less and less communist. And in central Vietnam, the natives are born capitalists. Just pause at a shop front and the proprietor or shop assistant well pounce, maneuver you into a half nelson and not release you until you’ve made a purchase. Consequently, there’s all sorts of tat now being shipped back to our place.

Another short flight to Saigon, now called Ho Chi Minh City, but still referred to by most Vietnamese by its former name. We stopped on route from the Airport at Cu Chi tunnels. This is area famed in Vietnam for resisting the US in what is known here as the American war. The VC built miles and miles of tunnels underground that they used as shelters, living quarters, armories and a means of escape from the Marines and a way of outflanking them. It really was humbling to walk through a battle field where so many people had lost their lives and to see the huge hollowed out craters created from bombs dropped by B52s. We entered a short thirty metre section of one tunnel and had to squat low to proceed along it. It was very small and uncomfortable, my shoulders touching the sides of the walls. To spend hours and days down there would have been tortuous. Only one night in Saigon. Shouldn’t that be Bangkok? Anyway, enough time for a quick photo opportunity at two impressive structures built by the French; the post office and the cathedral, a derivative of the famous Notre Dam in Paris - and for Mags to enter into a lively debate with a local politician in the hotel bar. Lucky to escape imprisonment there.

We continued south to the Mekong delta where the mighty river spreads out into countless waterways, like the back of an old man’s hand, before finally emptying into the South China Sea. Here we visited a brick factory by boat where the clay from the river is shaped, dried and fired in kilns for days. The kilns are heated by burning rice husks and the resulting smoke hangs heavy over the surrounding area. On route to the next stop we changed transport to bicycle. Mags was a little apprehensive about this as it’s many years since we cycled; Mags reckoned it was thirty five years since she was last on to wheels. But anyway, it’s literally like riding a bike, and we were soon wobbling our way along the narrow lanes of the local villages – although most of the locals we passed couldn’t help smiling or laughing. 

After 20 minutes we came to a typical village where we chatted with a veteran from the Cambodian war with the Khmer Rouge. He spent five years at the front and, unlike most of his compatriots, came back alive and in one piece. The war started in ’79 , only four years after the American war, and lasted until 1989. We also visited a coconut factory, the area being famous for this fruit, and known colloquially as the coconut region. Every part of this incredible tree is used. There’s the juice, the flesh that is used to make milk, cream and oil, the outer husk is used to make mats, the inner shell is used as fuel, either directly or it is turned into charcoal. The leaves and trunks are used in building, and there’s even a coconut worm that lives inside the tree that is eaten as a delicacy. It’s very expensive, as you have to kill the tree to harvest it.

Next day, an early morning tour to the local floating market where farmers sell their produce wholesale on the river. Each boat ties a sample of what they are selling at the top of a large pole at the front of the boat. They stay at the market until they sell out, usually two or three days.

We pressed on by road further south to Chau Doc where a respected general who lived in the eighteenth century dreamed that a female deity told him that she was on the mountain and that if he would seek her she would keep the region safe. Well, being a general, he didn’t climb the mountain personally, but sent some soldiers. The boys came back with the intelligence that they had found the lady goddess in the form of a stone but that she was too heavy to lift. (A neat way of avoiding the issue by the men, I thought). The general had another dream where the lady says to him that she can only be brought down off the mountain by nine female virgins. As Mags said “We virgins always get the hard work”. Anyway, said virgins were rounded up and made their way upto the mountain. (No doubt escorted by the soldiers now frantically looking for a rock resembling a women so as not to disappoint the general). The lady was duly found and brought down to the village and installed in a temple. She is there today looking remarkably like a painted sculpture. We arrived on a holy day and, it being a Saturday, there were thousands of Vietnamese people all jostling to enter the temple and pay their respects to the Goddess. This site doesn’t attract many foreign visitors and we found ourselves quite an attraction. There was a real carnival atmosphere with street vendors everywhere and people clearly having a party. Inside the temple there were several signs in Vietnamese. Mags asked our guide to translate. They were the dos and don’ts of the temple, the “not allowed”. One stated “No superstition” Mags observed “But its all superstition, isn’t it?” Possibly not the wisest comment considering we were surrounded by the faithful, but thankfully only our guide spoke English and he misunderstood. “Exactly. The people pray for good luck, fortune, health and happiness but they are supposed to be just giving thanks to the Goddess for peace.”

Alas, our journey in Vietnam ends – and yes, the spring roles are sensational.

Hanoi

Good morning Vietnam, the land of the spring roll. How exciting is that!

First stop Hanoi, a place that I think can best be described as complete pandemonium. We absolutely love it.

I really must read our itinerary though, as shortly after arriving Mags announced that we were off to see a water puppet show. Yes, I thought I was hearing things too, a water puppet show.

This is a traditional art form that originated in the paddy fields of Northern Vietnam. The farmers would entertain their children with home made puppets operating them from behind a bamboo screen in the water logged fields, Our show was in a theatre in the centre of town. A small rectangular pond was the stage with musicians either side playing traditional instruments.  The performance was very skillfully done with traditional farming scenes interspersed with dancing serpents, phoenix, turtles and ducks. Unfortunately, the target audience is clearly children, and not aging tourists who can’t understand what’s being said.  The fifty minute performance was possible forty minutes too long.

First thing next day, the mandatory city tour. All aboard to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum located in Dinh square. This is a very impressive, very obviously Soviet inspired monument to honor the father of the communist state. Also on site are two residences that Ho Chi Minh lived in surrounded by beautiful parkland, and the presidential palace. The residences are relatively modest as the great leader wanted to set a modest example to the people. The presidential palace is a grand yellow building erected by the French but used in Ho Chi Minh’s time for official functions and is sometimes now used to house VIP international guests.

Two more temples (one Confucian and one Taoist), a short stop for coffee, and we’re off on our street food tour with guide Tu, dodging the traffic down the back lanes of Hanoi, sitting on very low plastic stools along the roadside being cooked improbable meals all along the hustle and bustle of everyday Hanoi life. This really is an assault on all the senses. First, you have to negotiate the traffic. Hanoi used to be known as the city of a million bicycles. Now, it’s more like the city of 10 million motorbikes and scooters. No one stops here for pedestrians (they don’t often stop for traffic lights). You cross the road by slowly walking into the traffic and trusting that the motorbikes will weave around you. Keep a steady pace and trust to luck! 

Tu knows his way around and guided us expertly to the best (and safest) places to eat. We stopped first for a bowl of fish noodles; crispy fish in a broth of rice noodles and a mount of fresh greens all prepared before us, with chili sauce to add as required  - yum. Next an omelette with Vietnamese greens cooked by a girl on the kurb with her portable kitchen. She spent a few minutes looking for trade after she’d served us and then upped sticks to find another patch. Lots of other dishes swilled down with the occasional local beer. I think my favorite was crispy prawn pancakes that were deep fried in front of our boggling eyes and served piping hot with a green salad and dipping sauce. Not forgetting fresh sweetcorn, stir fried with butter, dried shrimp and fresh herbs by a girl who looked twelve years old and, oh, what I think can best be described as a Vietnamese hotdog; a small thin baguette filled with pork paste, cucumber, spring onion and a peanut and chili sauce – wonderful. I’m getting hungry again just writing this. Quick plug for Tu’s blog http://streetfoodtourshanoi.blogspot.com/

Laos

We were startled to discover that our reputation had preceded us on our first night in Laos at our hotel when we ordered a bottle of wine with dinner. “I’m sorry sir but this is the last bottle of this wine that we have. Do you still want to order it?”

Entering Laos was very entertaining. Although we could see Laos from our hotel, we had to drive for an hour south to cross over the river at the new bridge. Exiting Thailand on one side of the river was fairly straightforward, but entering Laos was a lesson in patience. First, you have to queue to hand in your passport and forms filled in in triplicate. There are six immigration officials behind the glass who work on the passports in turn, presumably each performing a different function. Eventually the chap at the end holds up a passport to the waiting throng and calls out a name. This usually takes a few attempts as not all of the nationalities come easily to him. The passport holder then approaches him to pay the appropriate visa fee to reclaim his or her passport with said visa. The fee for the visa depends on where you come from – 30 USD for Eastern Europe, 35$ USD for Western Europe and the United States, and for some unknown reason, 42 USD if you are from Canada. Not sure what the Canadians ever did to upset Laos but there it is. This is not a quick process so you just have to roll with it and wait. All the officials are laughing and smiling the whole time clearly enjoying themselves.

Anyway, certainly no stress and before too long we were through and had been transferred to our boat for our cruise down the Mekong river to Luang Prabang. There was about thirty of us motoring down river in a Na Va, roughly translated as long narrow boat (or dragon boat) which I think neatly sums it up. We were arranged around tables laterally across the boat, eight people in wicker chairs around a table. All very comfortable. The tourists were split roughly equally into French speakers and English speakers and there was a guide for each group. The Mekong runs from Tibet to Vietnam over four thousand kms. We travelled down a short 300 km stretch entirely inside Laos although we had Thailand on the right bank and Laos on the left for the first hour. 

We stopped at a couple of riverside villages along route. People living very simple lives in self made bamboo huts farming a few crops, rice in the wet season and peanuts and sweet potatoes in the dry. They keep chickens, pigs and ducks that run around the village under the houses that are on stilts – very free range. They also farm water buffalo that are regularly seen on the riverbank.  One of the villages had a thriving hand made scarf cottage industry, all made by the women of the village on hand looms. Mags bought a few dozen.

A couple of our fellow passengers asked the guide if the villagers operated a cooperative for their produce. On hearing that they didn’t asserted loudly “Oh they’re doing it all wrong. They’d get a much better price if they formed a cooperative. We had great success in India with it, didn’t we darling?”  The villagers have been doing this for hundreds of years and they’d taken all of five minutes before telling them how to live.

 

We arrived in Luang Prababg two days later thoroughly relaxed. This ‘city’ was once the capital of Laos and is famous for its temples, monasteries and monks. You really can’t escape Buddha in this part of the world and Luang Prabang is Buddha central, also known as temple city with over fifty temples serving a population of only fifty thousand.

We started very early to catch the ceremony where the townsfolk offer alms to the monks at dawn. Hundreds of monks, resplendent in the orange robes, walk in a single file down a street crammed with temples where mostly old knotted women seated or kneeling on the pavement give each monk a small portion of sticky rice. The monks collect the rice and share this out as their breakfast. Some of the monks are incredibly young, just boys really. We were informed that novices can begin from the age of nine. All male Buddhists are expected to serve some time as monks. Here in Laos, the custom provides a means for poor rural families to provide an education for their older children as the trainee monks are taught English, French, Maths and the sciences as well as Buddhism.

  

Our tour then took us from temple to temple where we marveled at the decorative art work and craftsmanship. I found it really interesting as I’d never been inside a Buddhist temple before and knew very little about the religion. We also visited the ex Royal Palace where the beautiful rooms were filled with presents from around the world. The USA had sent Lincoln cars and rocks brought back from the moon. Australia had sent a boomerang (and yes its still there). The UK appears to have sent nothing. The Japanese had sent some stunning coloured glass that local craftsmen had used to create intricate and beautiful murals on the walls.

We made friends on the cruise with a lovely couple from Henley who share our love of wine and a mutual dislike for condescending tourists. Wandering the streets of Luang Prabang looking for something to eat, we bumped into them at the Tamarind restaurant and joined them for dinner. Well, this ended up being quite messy but I think they were to blame. No, honestly. We did justice to a very fine Laotian meal that included barbequed buffalo and steamed river fish before repairing to a nearby bar to put the world to rights, again!

I’ve never been in a city before where the road users are so polite. The primary mode of transport is by motorbike with whole families sometimes hanging precariously on. Not many people use helmets so, on the face of it, it looks really dangerous but everyone drives so slowly and considerately. Well, a lot of these vehicles probably can’t go over 15 mph. So in the end I think it’s probably very safe. I didn’t hear anyone beep his or her horn the whole time we were there.

A very short hop south by plane to Vientiane, the capital. A much larger city with around seven hundred thousand inhabitants but still relatively small and laid back and with a compact city centre that is easily negotiated on foot. I say easily, in that you don’t have to walk far, but the pavements are used for parking cars and motorbikes so you have to walk on the road. We arrived in the afternoon and went exploring but it was hot and dusty and we soon felt in need of refreshment. We found a wine bar and had a couple of beers while the obese French proprietor fussed over his accounts smoking Gauloises, and an English charlatan ex-pat preached to a gullible American backpacker. Next day we had the obligatory half-day city tour with several more temples and a visit the Putuxai, a strange copy of the arc de triumph in Paris that somehow ended up being adorned with Hindu gods.

 

We’re so relaxed that our brains are definitely in neutral now. While we were at the airport waiting for our flight to Hanoi, Mags said

“I can’t believe I’ve been bitten by a mosquito here.”

“What, in South East Asia?” I replied.

“No, you idiot, here” pointing to her wrist ,and we both burst out laughing. We’re regressing into childhood alarmingly quickly.