Day 143 - Dali, China.

Our train safely made it to Guilin and the first thing we did when we got there was to find a bus out. It's not that we took an instant dislike to it, it's just that we'd planned on heading out of town to Yangshuo which is more rural and a much nicer place to stay than Guilin which is pretty much a big old concrete and white tiled monster. Outside Guilin station we were shuffled onto a bus straight away by two very efficient old girls who took our money and issued tickets before we could draw breath and an hour and a half later we were there in Yangshuo.

We're getting really quite good at negotiating the room prices now. The first hotel we tried started off with the rack rate of over 800 Yuan. By the time we'd finished, checked the room over, found there was no hot water and were walking to the next hotel on the list, the bloke was offering the room for 130 Yuan a night (about £13). The fact that the next hotel had in-room internet swung it for us and it was only 20 Yuan more; hot water too!

We did quite a lot of stuff while in Yangshuo. We hired bikes from the hotel and cycled to Moon Hill which is a big old arch naturally formed out of rock. It's a knackering climb up some very steep steps but worth it for the view. It's made more enjoyable by the army of little ladies that follow you all the way up trying to sell you bottles of water or Coca-cola. Their little hearts sank when we got to the top and pulled out a large bottle of cold water from my backpack. "Oh, big water." they said then one of them changed tactics and tried selling us some postcards while another started to explain to me that she likes to collect foreign money. I bet she does! We took a different route on the way back through some farmland and over unmade roads. Luckily the bikes had suspension.

In the old days cormorants were used by the fishermen to catch fish and we were taken out on a little bamboo boat one evening to see this spectacle. The fisherman takes a group of the birds out on his boat and ties a thread around the bird's necks just tight enough to stop it from swallowing anything bigger than a minnow. They are then set free to swim around and catch as many fish as they can before coming back to the boat to regurgitate them into a basket. I'm pretty sure this is all for the tourists' benefit nowadays but I still steered clear of any fish whilst eating out. Incidentally, while looking through the breakfast menu one morning, I couldn't help noticing stir-fried dog with vegetables, horse with noodles and sauteed frogs. I just had yoghurt and muesli that particular morning as my taste buds were feeling a little too timid.

Another day we spent taking a boat trip up the Li river as some of the scenery is just amazing. We were put on a bus at Yangshuo by the girl that we booked the tour with and told to stay on it until we are met by someone else. This was a normal, public bus that was full of locals and their numerous bags and boxes of luggage so we asked how will she know who we are. "You're the only two foreigners on the bus!" was her sarcastic reply. She had a good point. We arrived at Xingping to be greeted by an excitable little woman who rushed us down to the river bank to catch our boat. She was supposed to wait for us during our two hour excursion along the river and then take us back to the bus stop to return to Yangshuo. She clearly couldn't be bothered and gave us a bundle of money to do it ourselves. We didn't need her anyway.

The highlight of our stay was seeing the light show which the locals call "Impressions". It's an evening performance with over 600 people taking part and is set on the Li river with the mountains lit up as the backdrop. Boats float in and out of view with soothing Chinese music and singing while vast ribbons of red silk are moved around in the water to create blood red waves. It's impossible to describe and even harder to photograph but very beautiful to watch.

The worst part of our stay was the day we went to the Dragon's Backbone rice terraces. It's supposed to be a real genius piece of engineering that has taken place over generations to sculpt and terrace the sides of hills and mountains into layer upon layer of rice fields. Shortly after getting on the bus we were introduced to Oscar, our tour guide. A nice enough chap who, in turn, told us that we were in the safe hands of Mr Liao who was an excellent driver. He wasn't an excellent driver at all, he was a cocky little creature who had hair like he'd just got up and who's idea of driving was to use both the accelerator and horn with equal, generous measure. It was a white knuckle ride from the moment we left Yangshuo to the moment he misjudged a bend and crashed our coach into the barrier protecting us from the cliff edge. If we had been 1 metre to the left I wouldn't be writing this now, I'd be practising my harp scales and trying to persuade St. Peter to let me in. We got off very luckily and there were only three casualties; the driver's bravado, the coach which must've been a write-off and the poor woman in the front seat who smacked her forehead on the handrail at the time of impact. What was shocking were the two police cars that drove past and didn't even bother to stop, despite rubber-necking and the fact that it took over an hour for an ambulance to arrive which had no supplies on but thankfully whisked the woman off to hospital along with our tour guide.

Eventually another bus turned up with another guide that couldn't speak a word of English. She did start singing to us though, presumably to calm us down, but it was so shrill that it just put us even more on edge.

Sadly, by the time we got to the rice terraces it was so foggy that we could barely see over the railings at the top of the lookout point. All in all a complete and utter scary waste of time. To add insult to injury, when I complained in the office from which we booked it, the girl behind the counter just smiled and said sorry. I showed her the pictures of the wrecked bus I'd taken and that persuaded her to give us a generous refund of 10 Yuan each (about £1). Big deal. She then had the nerve to ask if I'd like to book anything for the next day.

We returned to Guilin on Sunday afternoon and booked ourselves into The City Garden hotel using our honed bargaining skills. We whittled her down to 180 Yuan for the night and the room was pretty comfy. There was something slightly dodgy about it though because as well as the usual complimentary shower caps and bubble bath, there were also vibrating condoms and hand towels in a neat little rack on top of the writing desk. Not seen that before!

Fortunately, we were only in Guilin for one night because there's really not a lot to do. We are now on another train heading towards Kunming where we'll try and find our way to Dàlî one way or another.

Beer index:
£1.81 per litre (Avg)

Day 136 - Hanoi, Vietnam

It seems that I'm always writing these things on the move lately as I'm now sitting on a train at Hanoi station waiting to leave for China. It's a good way to pass the time though.

The taxi driver that brought us to the station was a right rogue, he played that old trick of putting his newspaper over the meter so we couldn't see the price and tried charging us almost double for the journey. We cottoned on though and made sure we saw the price before paying.

He didn't get a tip.

That's pretty much the thing in this country though, everyone is trying to screw the tourists for money. In real terms, we're only talking tens of pence but it's the principal more than anything, nobody likes getting ripped off. When we got to the station, the guy checking our tickets very kindly showed us to the train, which was helpful, but then sat on the seat with us and wouldn't leave until we tipped him. Not content with his pay-off, he then screwed his nose up, held up his palm rubbing his forefinger and thumb the way a dodgy market dealer would do and demanded more. He wouldn't leave until I showed him my [now] empty wallet.

Hanoi is a nice little city, though it would never win any beauty contests it does have a level of charm that Ho Cho Minh didn't have. Maybe it's because there are a lot of older buildings left over from the days of the French occupation, maybe it's because it is so compact and easy to walk around or perhaps it's the warren of little streets that host hundreds of Bia Hoi and Phõ joints. It probably all of those things and it's a shame that we were there so briefly..

We managed to do two of the main trips out of Hanoi. On the first full day we took an excursion to Ha Long Bay which involved a six hour round trip on a bus and four hours cruising round the bay on a junk. The bay, although very picturesque, wasn't the most interesting thing for me. I found the floating village nestling among the huge rocks fascinating. Little wooden houses were built upon planks of wood that were just lashed to big blocks of polystyrene. Most of the dwellers are fishermen and their families that are too poor to buy land in the city and who sell their catch to passing tourists and the restaurants back on land. Our boat moored up against one of the 'plots', dwarfing it but causing a flurry of excitement by the people living there. In his little wooden garden he had plots laid out like a vegetable patch but instead of growing cabbages and carrots, he was keeping crabs, clams and fish. He then gave us a demonstration of how to net and kill one of his captives with a large lump of wood and the fluttering fish fluttered no more. The fisherman's dog looked on with a 'more bloody tourists' look in its sleepy eyes.

Some of the other people in the group were cajoled into parting with around $30 for the flaccid fish as well as some other huge sea mollusc after the guide told them that the cook on the boat would prepare it for them for lunch. What she didn't mention was that another little oik would come round demanding more money for cooking it after they polished the whole lot off.

The next day we took a trip to The Perfume Pagoda which in some ways was much nicer; involving a long bus ride through some little villages and countryside scattered with paddy fields. We then had to get on a little boat where a young lady rowed us for an hour to the pagoda. Our tour guide, Kinai, was possibly the worst I've ever come across and was constantly disappearing whenever we needed him most. The first time, at the pagoda, he was nowhere to be seen while some ticket inspector was demanding that we buy tickets despite them being included in our tour price. Kinai came shuffling down the hill, singing, without any cares other than how his carefully coiffured hair or fake D&G shirt looked. He was only 24 and told us that he's in a boy band and will one day be famous. When asked what instruments his band played he looked confused and said that they just sing and dance. Funny sort of 'band' if you ask me.

The pagoda itself was interesting but that was more to do with all the Buddhist monks performing some sort of ceremony. I've no idea what it was about as Kinai was useless and couldn't explain it, but the singing and incense burning was very atmospheric. A cable car took us to the top of the mountain to see the cave that's used for prayers and Kinai warned us not to take photos inside as it would offend the people praying. Once inside he asked us if we wanted him to take photos of us.

The next time he did his disappearing act was on the return trip back in the row-boats. The girls rowing, despite having been paid by Kinai, were demanding tip money. I gave them what I thought was a generous tip of 40% of the boat trip price and she insisted on five times as much! I couldn't believe it, we told her where to go and marched off to find Kinai. When talking to the others, some were saying that their rower wouldn't even take them ashore unless they got a good tip. I think we got away lightly.

On the bus back, Kinai wanted some feedback about our feelings for the way the trip went and what we thought of him as a tour guide. There was just silence from everyone while we all squirmed in our seats and looked out of the window or stared at our feet. One French woman eventually piped up and told him that he should stick to singing. Very embarrassing but highly amusing. Like a worn out puppy after an exciting day Kinai slept on the front seat of the bus for the rest of the journey.

Hanoi, due to the number of tourists and abundance of watering holes, is a great place to go out drinking. We spent some time on all three evenings mixing with the locals and other foreigners at the so called Bia Hoi Junction which is a crossroads surrounded by half a dozen or so little drinking joints. Miniature plastic furniture lines the curbside and pavement and a stout, often very hairy woman mans the beer pumps. It's great fun until a police van turns up and the whole party is cleared away in seconds while the officials look on with accusatory eyes. Apparently the authorities are trying to keep the place from becoming the debauched and hedonistic Gomorrah that Ho Chi Minh has seemingly become. It just added to the excitement.

On our last day we spent the afternoon ambling around the city to kill a couple of hours before leaving for the train. I love doing that as we had no real plan other than just wandering and looking. It's great to be in a city where chickens wander the streets like tourists, some of them so scrawny they've hardly a feather to their name. Their fates are pretty much sealed to the chicken soup restaurants around which they roam but at least you know it's fresh.

We are now in Nanning in China and have been ushered off the train for a couple of hours. The reason? Who knows, this is China. We were lead to a big hall full of huge, bright yellow armchairs and told to wait. We nipped out to find some breakfast and had a sort of steamed patty stuffed with Chinese cabbage and spices then fried. Sounds vile but was delicious. A family of grossly overweight Chinese people are travelling on our train and one of the kids has just been beaten on the back by his mother for dropping something. The poor kid is inconsolable while his mother spits abuse at him from her fat, swollen lips and his aunts look on laughing. You don't need to be Freud to imagine what that kid is thinking right now.

Day 132 - Hûé, Vietnam

I'm on an overnight bus again now and about to leave Hûé for Hanoi. We're travelling with a different bus company now and it's a world away from the haphazardness of the previous one. The buses are exactly the same but this time we got strictly allocated seats, computer printed tickets that we could actually read and advice about where the longest beds are on the bus. Brilliant. I'm now lying down fully stretched out and looking forward to a good kip. My confidence is being only mildly shattered as I've just noticed the driver fiddling around under the dash board and checking the fuses with his torch...

25 minutes later...

I had to stop writing for a while there because when the driver started the engine there was a strong burning smell and smoke started pouring out of my overhead light. I yelled to the driver to stop and he 'fixed' it by yanking all the wires out, snipping them with wire cutters, taping them up, untaping them again then shoving all the wires back in. I've now got a disco light show to entertain me for the evening where they keep shorting. I'm currently hoping for no flames but the stench of burnt plastic is bearable as long as that's all that happens.

Hoi An, as I mentioned before, was a lovely little place. Very easy to walk round with loads of little cafés and restaurants along the river. We visited one of the old houses in the town that was over 200 years old with French and Chinese architecture. The woman told us that about seven generations of her family had lived there and showed us around. It backs onto the river and for the last twenty years or so has flooded every October. Apparently it's due to deforestation in the valley which causes the river to silt up. I guess it's only going to get worse as their population grows and demand for wood increases. Shame really as I can imagine a few more years of that will destroy those houses forever.

We took a day trip to My Son (pronounced Me Sonn) which is Vietnam's most important centre of the ancient kingdom of Champa. Unfortunately, the Vietnamese were using the area as a strategic vantage point during the war so the Americans bombed most of it. Shame really as it was quite lovely.

We left Hoi An and took the bus to Hûé which is more city like. We arrived in the afternoon having left at 08:00 and were immediately swamped by touts trying to get us to book ourselves into their hotels. They even boarded the bus stopping us from getting off while they stuffed business cards, maps and leaflets up our noses. Determined not to be overwhelmed, I uncharacteristically shouted at them and pushed them off the bus so I could retrieve the luggage and get away from them. We thought we'd go a bit off-piste this time and not use a hotel from our trusted Lonely Planet guide. It worked to our advantage too as we ended up paying only £6 a night for a good room with air-con, hot showers, free Internet and a TV.

The guide book says that a typical scene in Hûé is of a tourist walking down the street being followed by at least a couple of cyclos and a moped all offering to whizz you around the city with the tourist shouting back "No, thank you, no". It couldn't be more true. No sooner had we finished our lunch today, a rather intimidating bowl of bubbling, boiling water with onions in it and a plate of raw beef and rice paper, than we were being cat-called by five cyclo drivers all offering their services. Due to the lashing down rain it might have been tempting if our hotel had been any more than 50m away.

Yesterday we did a bus tour of some of the old royal tombs around Hûé. Many of them are less than 150 years old and the last one was completed in 1931; a monument of concrete and ceramic tiles. In some ways it was the most elaborate one that we saw as concrete can be pretty much shaped into anything. The tour guide was next to useless though and was making things up as well as conveniently forgetting to say how many Vietnamese slaves were used to build them. One of the tombs doesn't actually contain the expired emperor; he was buried along with lots of his gold a riches in a secret location. Nobody knows where though as the 200 slaves that performed the service for him were beheaded so they could never reveal the secret. There's gratitude.

This morning we took a walk over the bridge to the North side of The Perfume River. How it got that name eludes me because I can imagine it being far from perfumed in the summer. We strolled around the old citadel, the highlight of which was feeding the greedy carp in the lake and then found our way to The Forbidden Purple City. It may well have been purple once, but now it's barely rubble as most of it has been turned into a vegetable plot following its destruction during the Tet Offensive of 1968.

We're due to arrive in Hanoi at about 06:00 tomorrow morning and will be there for about four days. It should be interesting, and of course the excitement is that if we don't get out of Vietnam before our visas expire we could be in a whole heap of trouble.

Wish us luck trying to book train tickets to Guilin in China.

Day 128 - Hoi An, Vietnam

Arriving in Jakarta turned out to be nightmare because of the problems we had getting a taxi from the bus station to the city centre. The bus station is about 20Km from the city centre and the local buses are just too daunting after an already long journey so a taxi was the best option. However, trying to get a reliable taxi that would use their meter proved arduous to put it mildly, simply because the whole outfit is run by one bully controller that tries to get you to agree a price upfront and pay in advance. We were having none of that and after about thirty minutes or arguing, shouting and hand gestures we managed to install ourselves into a taxi that looked at least half roadworthy.

Fifty minutes and numerous toll booths later we were in the hotel and ready for a quick snack before exploring the city. I opted for a pancake with bolognese sauce and a cappuccino as it had been a good couple weeks since having a decent cup of coffee after all the 'sludge' that is usually served. The pancake was actually quite pleasant and the coffee had enough cream on top to line my arteries for a good few years to come. Lovely.

On our first full day in Jakarta we took the train to Bogor which again was a chore. First off, the train was cancelled without any announcement or notice so we had to wait over an hour for the next one. Once on this so-called Ekspress we crawled towards our destination, stopping at every station and it took three times longer than the scheduled time. We arrived in an absolute downpour and both marched towards The Botanical Gardens with our umbrellas held aloft looking very much the undeterred Brit abroad. Great orchid collection but not much else. Getting the train back to Jakarta was twice as bad as the journey out and only made bearable by a young woman that took pity on our utter confusion and explained which train we should take.

We both needed a drink after that and headed straight to a little restaurant that did British food. We indulged in Shepherd's Pie and Fish & Chips. Just what the doctor ordered after all that rice and noodles!

The next day we took a little auto-rickshaw to the other end of the town and walked back via couple of museums, the old Dutch quarter and the enormous monument that dominates the central part of the city. On the top of the monument I was approached by another tourist with that "Would you mind?" look in his eyes while waggling his camera at me. I assumed that he and his wife wanted their picture taken against the Jakarta city backdrop but no, after I'd agreed to do it he came marching over to me, put his arm around me and ordered his wife to take a picture of the two of us. This is friendly, I thought to myself. I stood there a little bemused and the bloke took the camera from his wife and started to take a picture of me again. This time I was joined by his wife and another miniature woman that could barely reach my armpit. "This is my grandmother" said the man while she looked up at me, smiled toothily and blinked through a huge pair of specs. This is what it must be like to be famous. The wife looked as bemused as I felt.


The alarm woke us at 2.30am the next morning as we had flight to catch shortly after 6am to Ho Chi Minh city. The hotel arranged a pick up for us and it was nice to get into a decent car with working seatbelts. The driver found it amusing as soon as we 'clunk-clicked' though and told us they weren't necessary. We were going to be the judges of that though and they proved essential as I've never seen such heavy traffic and chaotic driving as this place. It's just staggering. Trying to cross the roads in the city was like watching one of those nature programs where a grasshopper (us) is trying to cross past a swarm of army ants (mopeds). The best policy was to do it slowly, deliberately and with lots of eye contact with the moped riders.

I've mentioned before about people trying to sell us stuff all the time but it reached new heights in Ho Chi Minh. We'd be just sitting there, eating our noodles or chicken porridge for breakfast
(seriously!) and they would shuffle up to us and try selling books, sunglasses, fake Zippo lighters, cannabis or hashish! At one point I got really angry at being offered drugs while tucking into my brekkie and I whispered back to him "Shall I call the police? Isn't selling drugs illegal?". He just replied, in a not so subtle voice, "No man, heroin illegal, hashish OK". I beg to differ...

We took a day trip out to the Viet Cong tunnels which were extremely claustrophobic despite them being made twice as big for the tourists. As part of the same trip we were taken to the Cao Dai temple which is a sort of church thing, painted in the most excruciating colours and used for ceremonies where the religion believes just about everything and includes elements of Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and Confucism and anything else that a very doubtful agnostic might need to try to protect themselves when they finally shuffle off their mortal coil. Talk about hedge your bets!

We left HCMC yesterday morning at 8am and arrived here in Hoi An this morning at just after 7am. That's nearly 24 hours on buses. It was made worse by the fact that the office where we booked our ticket screwed up and didn't reserve a sleeper bus for the second half of the journey, i.e. the overnight part! We shouted, pleaded and screamed blue-murder at the bus station to the manager but the best he could do was to offer us two seats each on the seated bus. We thought that would be OK, but they were sticky, vinyl covered seats on a packed bus with most of the padding worn down as thin as a sheet of toilet paper so we hardly got any sleep at all. Hoi An is really nice though and a real contrast to HCMC. It's much quieter, the buildings are lovely old low-rise jobs and feels a lot more laid back and relaxed. It's a shame we're only here for two nights really.

There are two entries in the beer index this time round. The first one is the average price we were paying in HCMC and the second is for the fresh beer or 'Bia Hoi' which is a local brew and non-branded that we found in Hoi An:

HCMC = £1.58 per litre.
Hoi An = £0.49 per litre (bargain!!)

Day 121 - Jakarta, Java

It occurred to me that in both my previous entries that I'd not really mentioned much about the things I'd seen since coming here. Kuta, I can quite happily skip over because I mostly sat by the pool, swam in the pool or read by the pool. To be honest, unless you're into surfing, buying flip-flops or getting tattooed the only thing to do is watch the sunset from the [overcrowded] beach.

Ubud was a different kettle of fish; it is a town famous for its artists and there are literally hundreds of wood carvers, stone carvers and painters. So much so that there are even tours of their villages so you can see their work and, of course, be sold it. Luckily I avoided visiting so won't be lugging home an 8 foot Buddha hewn from lava rock.

We had a good walk round Ubud and its environs and even managed to find ourselves winding through some paddy fields which was all very nice. Hot and sticky, bit nice. While out in the town we were sold a couple of tickets to a typical Balinese dance show by a man dressed in very ornate Balinese costume. It was very entertaining and took place in the grounds of the old palace which had a very tropical feel to it due to all the trees overhanging us, the short bursts of rain and the odd power cut. The dancers were great but I'm sure one of the 'girls' was the bloke that sold us the ticket earlier. I knew there was something odd about him, I just didn't twig at the time.

While there we also hired a car and driver for the day. It sounds extravagant but actually only cost us a little over £20 for nine hours. Bargain! We saw loads of the island and many of the main attractions. The guide book was right, though, in the fact that you're just constantly hassled (sometimes quite aggressively). At one particular temple, Pura Besakih, we walked through the entrance and were sprung upon by "Tourist Information" who insisted that we wear a sarong in the temple and pay him Rp5000 for the opportunity. I suddenly found myself being decked-out in one before I could say "Bukan, terima kasih"*. Rich got quite shirty with them and marched off while I was unceremoniously disrobed of my new [least-favourite] garment. Beckham I ain't! As we walked on he was shouting at us, and being genuinely quite miffed, "On your head be it, it's your responsibility", etc., etc.

We got to the temple and saw that there was no requirement for a sarong at all because tourists are not even allowed in. I'm glad we stood our ground but it was funny seeing all the other tourists suckered into wearing them.

From Yogyakarta we managed a few more temples, namely Borobodur and Puri Prambanan which were both pretty spectacular. Borobodur is a huge, multi-tiered structure built around a hill and is about 118m long on all four sides. It's massive and is made up of millions of blocks of intricately carved black, volcanic stone. Every face is covered with Hindu style reliefs and the whole lot is topped with dozens of Buddhas sitting in what looked like giant carved bell jars. Despite the numerous signs to the contrary, hundreds of kids were clambering all over it. It's taken decades to restore and I can't help thinking that they'll have to start all over again in another 100 years or so. Wherever we go it always seems to be the locals who have the least respect for their heritage.

Currently, as I'm writing this, we've just left Pangandaran which is a sleepy sea-side town on the South of Jakarta. It was hit by three tsunami waves in June 2006 and it's tourist trade has never really recovered. The town was destroyed and the evidence is still very much there in the flattened houses and piles of rubble. The Government tried to help the people living here by giving those affected a handout of Rp15,000,000 (about £950) in order for them to rebuild their homes but many of them decided to buy themselves motorbikes instead. Again, like Kuta, there's little to do but surf, swim or get a tattoo from one of the dozens of grubby little 'scratchers' that line the coastal road. Not a souvenir I fancy coming back with.

We did manage to book a day trip out to The Green Canyon and at the time the woman said to us that it would be in a car rather than motorbikes. It hadn't occurred to either of us that it would be anything else given the shocking state of the roads and drivers here. On the morning of the trip, however, what should turn up but two eager looking moped riders, puffing away on fags and inviting us to join them by patting the back seats of their bikes! We looked at the bikes, looked at each other, shook our heads and said in perfect unison "We booked a car". Off they went again, our two little would-be hell's angels and moments later one of them returned with a brand new Suzuki people carrier. We were whisked off in air-conditioned comfort with a very chatty driver who loved to tell us ALL about Pangandaran. His mood changed very quickly though after he showed us round his mate's place who was a puppet maker and tried to sell us one of his toys. We couldn't be less interested in buying one and that obviously meant our driver would miss out on his little bit of commission.

Tough.

At the green canyon our driver took a ticket, deli-style, and we waited for our boat to arrive while 'enjoying' an over-sweetened coffee. Our number came up and we clambered aboard our little boat. The trip down the river was quite pleasant and after ten minutes or so we arrived at the end of the canyon in all it's green and cascading watery loveliness to join the other hoards of boats crammed with tourists.

Time for a spot of lunch after that at which point the driver perked up a bit. I think it was the idea of having a little kip for an hour or so while I tucked into seafood nasi-goreng and Rich has sausage and chips with cheese. So him!

Now we're hurtling towards Jakarta on a bus, trying to avoid eye-contact with anyone in case they try practicing their English on us. I really don't fancy getting into a conversation here as it inevitably ends up with someone trying to sell me something. It's not easy to walk away when you're wedged in a bus seat.

Bye for now...

* "No, thank you"

Day 115 - Yogyakarta, Java.

It's hard to believe that we've been in Indonesia for a week already. Following Kuta and Ubud in Bali, we're now in Yogyakarta on Java and before you ask, yes, I've had some Java coffee...

We hadn't booked the flight as advice from previous travellers suggested it was best just to turn up and book a flight at the airport so as to avoid the commission of the travel agencies in the towns. This advice proved disastrous because we ended up paying through the nose for our flights here as Garuda were the only airline travelling on Sunday and their flights were full. We had to wait in the airport for over 9 hours for the next available seats. Hhhmmmph!

We got here last night, in the dark, with no accommodation booked and no rooms at the first two hotels we tried. After wandering the streets for a short while and dodging the rats down the alley ways (I swear one was the size of a cat!), we finally checked into Peti Mas; a small hotel in the heart of the city. It sounded so cosmopolitan and with dogged determination we negotiated 20% off the room price fairly easily. In fact rather too easily. We were then lead past the lovely looking outside breakfast area, alongside the invitingly fresh swimming pool, up the stairs to the first floor balconies with pool view and eventually to our room. The promise of a warm shower and an air-conditioned rest seemed so inviting.

Rich went off to check out some day trip options while I layed on my bed trying to cool down emotionally and bodily. It was then I heard it. I thought I was imagining things at first but it got louder and louder. There were rats in the ceiling! I'm guessing they were Dutch rats given the fact that they were obviously wearing heavy-duty clogs. I sat up with a start and followed the sound of the footsteps with my eyes out on stalks as it moved from one side of the room to the other and down the wall. Then it stopped. I sat down again wondering whether the whole city was infested after seeing that huge one in the alley earlier then switched on the telly to drown out any more noises. I started getting engrossed in 101 Dalmatians when Rich returned. I
explained the noise to him and suggested that we ask for a ground floor room instead at which point the shuffling fired up again. His expression was "Bloody hell!" at which point we hot-footed it to reception. The woman behind the counter didn't seem the least bit surprised when we asked for a quieter room without en-suite vermin and she took us round the back via the Japanese style garden to a very tranquil and rodent-free room.

Much better...

Or so we thought until 4am the next morning when two joyful Muslims started their prayers seemingly in the rooms either side of us. I rolled my eyeballs in the resigned style of Ena Sharples and stuck my head under the pillow to try and drown out the noise. No sooner had I done that than I was woken again by a cacophony of tropical birds 'treating' me to a dawn chorus. It turns out that the pretty Japanese garden outside the room is also home to a collection of large caged feathered friends that like nothing better than to announce their awakening to the whole of Yogyakarta! I've given up on the idea of having a peaceful night's sleep for the next few nights until we get to Pangandaran. Apparently, nobody goes there anymore since the last tsunami and the bombings of 2006 scared off the punters. It should be blissfully quiet.

We'll see.

Before I forget, and for the benefit of my mate Jack, I'm going to include the average price of beer that we've been paying in the local dives. The price is per litre and gives a good indication of the general cost of living. Well, for some it does! (Just halve it to get the approximate pint equivalent OK Jack?)

I shall call this the beer index...

Yogyakarta: £1.80 per Litre (Avg.)

Day 109 - Kuta, Bali

The journey over here seemed to go on for ever. It was only the three curries that I had on the plane and the comedy flight attendants with so much makeup on that their eye shadow reached their hairline that made the 17 hour journey seem bearable. Breakfast on the plane was a real treat - chicken curry with rice, a small pot of dried squid with peanuts and a dairylea triangle with a cracker. Oh... and an orange juice so I got at least one of my five a day.

Arriving in Bali and getting to the Suji Bungalows was a bit of a culture shock. The weather was a sweltering 32 degrees but the humidity was almost unbearable. I breathed a big sigh of relief when I caught sight of the pool! It was a different story when I got in because it was like jumping into a luke warm bath. A cold shower afterwards was just the ticket.

We've actually done very little since being here other than sitting by the pool, walking on the over-crowded beach, walking round the town and eating. Breakfast in the hotel yesterday was a little embarrasing; after finishing my fresh lemon drink I told the waitress how much I
had enjoyed it. She looked delighted and being quite a friendly young lady she asked me "You like shower?". I thought I'd misheard her so I asked her what she meant and she replied with the same question. I declined politely and said that I'd showered before breakfast and
thanked her for her kind offer. She then gave me a look that said "You jerk" and replied "No sir, you like the lemon juice SOUR!". I thanked her for the toast and left, hoping she wouldn't be there the next day. I think I had pool water in my ears. Or something.

Walking round town can be a chore as every 30 seconds you're asked if you want to buy something. As soon as they see your sunglasses, they ask you if "you wan buy sunglass". The same when they look at your watch - "you wan buy watch?". More disturbing are the numerous young girls asking "Scuse me mate, you want massage?". That fake cockney accent is just scary!

Last night before dinner we went for a couple of drinks in some of the bars around town. The first one, called Havana, was a little expensive so we just ordered a beer each and a couple of tapas dishes to keep us going until dinner. After we'd paid we sat there finishing our beers
off when one of the waitresses sidled up to Richard and said "What, no tip for me then?". He looked at me in stunned disbelief and we legged it down the road to the next bar. Honestly, the cheek of some people.

In the next bar we were enjoying another deliciously cold beverage when this Aussie bloke started talking to us (don't they always?). It turned out he is a travel writer called Brian something or other and has written quite a few books including "Planes, Trains and
Elephants", "I'm Not Eating Any Of That Foreign Muck" and "Rule #5, No Sex On The Bus". I'll be ordering at least one of those on my return so I can see if he's any good.

After he left, we decided to treat ourselves to a good meal in one of the nicer restaurants in town. We sat there, ordered our food and were having a nice time when I suddenly realised Germaine Greer was sitting at the next table along with four other raucus antipodeans. They'd
obviously been working their way through the cocktail list. I was then shocked to see Germaine tweak a sensitive part of her dining partner's upper body and I thought "Oh hello, I know their sort". After getting a closer look at the group I realised it wasn't Ms. Greer at all, just a very
loud, outspoken Aussie who'd tipped too many daiquiris down her neck.

Just as our meal arrived and the waiters were making room for it (it was big), who should arrive and ask to join us but our new Australian writer friend. What timing. He looked at our food and said "Oh what a shame I didn't come earler, I could have joined you with that". I was
thinking "Yeah, shame for you mate" but of course didn't say it. Rich was thinking the same, I'm sure. Brian ended up ordering "the special" which didn't look very special at all. In fact, four burnt prawns on a sharp stick with a bit of rice looked pretty un-special.

Today has been a really lazy day as well. Apart from typing this and booking our bus to Ubud for tomorrow we're just going to swim in the pool, watch the sunset and eat.

Again.

Bliss...

Day 105 - Orpington, UK

Hello again, it seems ages since I've written anything here and there's a good reason for that. After arriving in Sydney three weeks ago we spent a good couple of days doing all the things that we'd planned to do there and were preparing to leave for Cairns on Tuesday. However, just as we were getting ready to spend a day at the beach on Monday (29th September) I received a call from Jane, my sister letting me know that my Dad had passed away the day before. Of course, it was a total shock and I felt like the world had collapsed around me. I couldn't take it in. What made it worse was that I could hardly have been any further from my family if I'd tried and all I wanted to do at that point was to get home. Rich was brilliant and organised our flight home while I was sitting on the edge of my hotel bed, totally wrecked and trying to make sense of it all. We were home by Tuesday morning (UK time) and feeling totally shattered, I was with my family before midday and it was great to be home.

Well, that was three weeks ago and we're all slowly coming to terms with it and trying to put our lives back together. Rather than cancelling the trip and trying to find work in these financially demanding times, we've booked our flights to carry on with the travelling and we're heading off to Bali tomorrow. We should be there by Monday afternoon in time for Rich to spend his birthday on the beach.

Thanks to everyone for their support and kind words over the last few weeks, please keep in touch (danny@dannyhyett.co.uk) as even just a quick hello makes me feel less far away.

Bali here we come...

Day 81 - Nara, Japan.

We've done loads of walking whilst in Japan and for the most part we've felt really safe and the countryside has been a real treat to see. However, things did get a little sticky a few days back as we were merrily walking along a little pathway into some forest area when a car stopped by us. The woman in the car wound her window down and tried to warn us about something up ahead and was gesturing with her hands that whatever she was talking about was quite big. Iain said that he understood most of what she was saying and that she was just warning us about some big cobwebs and spiders that were in the trees up ahead. We couldn't understand her concern and were all joking about it as we marched merrily on. However, we soon came across a big sign with a picture of a ferocious bear growling at those reading it. It turned out that the word for spider and bear are very similar in Japanese and Iain had misunderstood her - thank heavens for the sign is all I can say; otherwise we may well have had a rather more sinister story to tell!

The Japanese Alps, it has to be said, were a little disappointing. We arrived by bus into a very well constructed car park which gave way to the typical plethora of snack and souvenir shops, pristine toilets with heated seats and various vending machines which seem to adorn every single street corner in Japan. There was a clearly defined path which was mostly concreted over and there seemed to be no way up onto the mountains. This sort of summed up Japan in that anything that can be done is done to make their lives easier. The clearly laid out paths of the so-called Alps, the toilets that automatically squirt jets of warmed water around your bum so you don't have to wipe, the numerous convenient stores that sell everything from knickers to curry donuts and the bento-boxes filled with such goodies as re-formed fish on a stick, lotus roots and stewed bamboo are all there so nobody has to think too hard about what to do or what choices to make. It all seems so... nice. Scratch the surface however and you soon see a darker side - adult comic books feature school girls in situations that would have social services in a spin. In the Onsen (a sort of public shower/bath) there are many rules that you are expected to adhere to, and most of the time everyone does. However, yesterday morning there was only one Japanese person in there and he obviously thought that we Johnny-Foreigners wouldn't know what the rules were so he was breaking all of them from walking around without his towel covering up his modesty, to jumping into the hot bath without showering first. I'm sure that had there been someone else in there that was bound by the same rules as him he would have conformed like he was supposed to. It makes me wonder how much of this is all show and keeping up appearances.

We had a bit of a blow-out a couple of nights ago and yesterday I was feeling the little worse for wear. We went to an all you can eat barbecue in Beppu and decided to take the alcohol option too, so for 2800 Yen each we could stuff our faces stupid on beef, pork, chicken, unidentified other animal parts, sushi, beer and cake and we really went for it. The trouble is, you only have two hours to do it so we came out feeling decidedly brittle and one of the three of us (who'll remain nameless) spent the rest of the night 'regretting' his four slices of gateaux while hunched over the loo. It wasn't pretty. For our two nights in Beppu we were staying in a Ryokan, a sort of Japanese B&B, and although it was interesting two nights was more than enough. Every time we entered the place we had to take our shoes off and since I've been travelling for the last couple of months in the same shoes mine are getting pretty fragrant. I must try and find some industrial strength spray for them somewhere... When we left yesterday morning, I tried to put my shoes on while carrying my huge rucksack. That was a big mistake as I nearly keeled over like a top-heavy turtle and crushed the wildly lacquered hair of the Ryokan's hostess that was hovering behind me. She looked more than relieved as she waved us off the premises.

We're now in Nara and last night, after dinner, Iain and I were trying to find a second-hand book shop that he knew of but were getting lost so Iain decided to ask someone for directions in Japanese. The girl was really trying to be helpful by answering us in English but she just couldn't remember how to do it. She was flapping and pointing, umming and aahing and muttering 'Right' while tapping her left hand. This went on for a few minutes so we gave up in the end and left her to it while we carried on down the road. She seemed completely oblivious to the fact that we'd walked off so she was obviously enjoying it in her own little world.

We've only got one more night in Japan now as we leave for Australia tomorrow and I have to say that I'm quite looking forward to going somewhere where things are going to be a lot more familiar. I've really enjoyed our three weeks here, but the lack of communication and the constant rice dishes are beginning to wear me down a little bit. The language difficulties have made us laugh though. Before coming to Japan I thought that it was only a joke that the Japanese mixed up their R's with their L's, but having seen some of the signs around the various towns that we've visited it really is true. Some of the best ones were:

• Rist of Prices - This was spotted in a hair salon that was supposed to be showing the List of Prices.


• Blidal Salon - Pretty obvious, but the funny thing was on one sign they had correctly put Bridal Salon whereas on the other it was misspelt.


• Lrental of bicycl - Seen at a bicycle rental place. Clearly they had no clue whether to use the R or L on Rental so they went with the safe option and used both!


• Hysteric Gramour - Seen pinned to a shirt in a second hand clothes shop. I think it was supposed to be Historic Glamour, as in vintage clothing but it's my favourite and me chuckle. A lot.

We're off to Matsuya tonight which is a sort of Japanese fast-food joint. We've used them quite extensively for the last three weeks and we're now quite fond of them. We pigged out on pizza and pasta last night so our last meals should be a Japanese one; I might even treat myself to a raw egg to stir into my rice. Flipping heck - listen to me!

Day 71 - Matsumoto, Japan

We met up with a friend of mine, Iain, at the airport last Saturday so we've been here for over a week already. It was great to see him and to have another English person to speak to, plus he speaks and reads some Japanese which is proving very useful. After settling into the hotel and seeing a bit of Tokyo, we met up with a couple of Iain's ex-students (he used to teach English here) and the five of us drove up to Nikko. It was nice being driven around and seeing a bit more of the country but Etsuko was addicted to a song called "Carry On" which is by a Japanese boy band and insisted on playing it at least a dozen times there and back. Not content with just the song, she was also playing the DVD of it while driving and singing along to it. Scary.

Japan seems a bit more developed than both China and Korea and feels very much like London in so many ways. The big difference is the politeness of the people though. In London you're lucky to get so much as a smile from the tired looking receptionists in the shabby hotels, whereas here you are greeted with a long string of politeness followed by a pronounced bow at the end of every sentence. The first few days of this were really refreshing, but now it's almost comical. In every single shop, station or convenience store, and there are hundreds of them here, you are greeted by a cacophony of "Irasshaimaseeeeeeee" and for some reason it's said in a high-pitched, sort of school-girl like voice. Even by the men!

Again, like China and Korea, some of the food is really bizarre. I love trying it and I've become hopelessly addicted to curry filled donuts. It's an odd combination, and really shouldn't work, but it does and I love them. Having Iain here has reminded me just how much he eats, his appetite is insatiable and if he doesn't have a bowl of cold noodles or a banana cream pancake at least every couple of hours I'm sure he would implode. Let's see how long he can keep it up. It's odd to see bags of octopus tentacles between the Green-tea flavoured Kit-Kats and the Pringles in a supermarket but the initial shock has worn off now. I might even try some.

We've been making great use of our Japanese Rail passes and have covered hundreds of miles darting around from one place to another. It's a brilliant way to see the country but I guess it must annoy the locals who aren't allowed to buy them as they're only available to tourists. The trains are a real pleasure to use; they are always spot-on with their timing and are spotlessly clean. Even the little trolley-dollies moving up and down trying to sell us burnt barley tea and wasabi coated squid do a little bow on entering or leaving the carriage. I still get a kick out of seeing it but the locals must be immune because they don't even look up from their bento boxes. I was watching a food program on the TV this morning which is a bit like Saturday Kitchen, only there was very little cooking being done and the presenter was snipping bits off of a live squid and eagerly lifting the still twitching cephalopod parts to his mouth with his chopsticks. It was an education.

Matsumoto feels like quite a young town even though we've only just arrived and it's weird the way the young people pick up on particular looks. It's almost like they've chosen which particular type of fashion they're going to follow and have bought the manual on it. They follow it to the letter but in some cases it gets slightly lost in the translation. We saw one group of Rockabillies who had taken the hair thing to an extreme level and another girl that had gone for the sixties look. It's fascinating to watch, but you see all these groups of little clones wandering around dressed in exactly the same thing.

Now we're in Matsumoto, quite near to the Japanese Alps which we've bought some bus tickets for. We're hoping to see them tomorrow, but I doubt there's any rush, they're not going anywhere.