After tumbling off the train we were squashed into a minivan to Sapa and instructed to stay in a hotel of the drivers “recommendation” (aside: Vietnamese people come across as rather hard and unpleasant: lots of snorting, shoving, pushing, shouting, poking. There are exceptions, but few and far between).

It was pouring with rain, but the weather forecast wasn’t looking good for the next few days (Typhoon Ketsana was losing momentum, but still doing its thing), so we bought what looked (and felt) like boiler suits with wellies, hired the coolest (cheapest) bikes in town, and hit the road. First on the itinerary was Cat Cat, a tourist trap cultural village. Amazing views of the mountains and rice paddies, but you get the feeling that no one actually lives there and its all for show. So after puffing up and down a few hills in the world’s most insulated waterproof clothes, we spurned the cultural trap and followed our noses, finding locals with their umbrellas who needed lifts on the back of our bikes down windy and muddy roads.

We found a little cave entrance just outside another cultural trap which I thought looked quite fun to explore. Just as we were going in, a man came running up behind us asking if we wanted the electricity turned on. Initially we said no (cheapskates that we are), then changed our minds when we realized the cave was longer than we had thought. On came the lights and he told us there was a big chamber at the end with a beautiful lake. Gillian turned back, thinking scrambling around in muddy, skinny passages wasn’t really her thing, but I decided to carry on. About 2 minutes later Gillian called: “Apparently the electricity only lasts ½ an hour!” “Cool, I won’t be too long, just want to see the big chamber!”. A minute later: “Apparently it takes 2 hours to get there!”. The mind boggles. I turned back.

That evening we found some cheap wine, hot chocolate and phó (noodle soup. Initially unsure of the pronunciation: poo? foo? poe? foe? Turns out its “fer”), and watched/translated Vietnamese soap operas.

The next morning we went on the hunt for some carved boulders and a rattan bridge. While searching we went up a very bumppppy road clearly not made for motorized vehicles, ditched our bikes and met a little lady who invited us to her house. We were so off the beaten track (any kind of track actually), that she seemed over the moon to have us and so invited a few friends to come over and gape. She did try the hard sell to which we submitted; and we must have given her too much dong because beamed and threw in extra bracelets and invited us to stay for lunch, thankfully nothing more adventurous than phó and com tãm (rice) with heaps of chilly sauce. After much nodding and “mmmm”ing we look our leave to find the elusive boulders and/or bridge.

We landed in another cultural trap, Ban Ho, which has a “spectacular waterfall” (hmmm). Getting off our bikes we were accosted by 10 women who grabbed our arms and dragged us there, shouting “Careful! Careful!” every 10 seconds, and pulled us over slippery rocks, achieving nothing more than almost pushing me into the river a few times and putting me in a bad mood. Back in the village, after having the women thrust bags and cushion cases in our faces, squealing “buysomethingfrommeeeee!” we gave 2 of them a lift to their homes in the near dark.

Our last day in Sapa actually saw the sun, so we took the bikes up to Tram Ton pass to see another “spectacular waterfall”. We carried on into the next province for a bit of a bike ride and had to stop a few times to wait for trucks to clear mud and rubble from recent landslides, and saw a truck that had overturned on the road, its bizarre mix of content being raided. Soon after I was almost squashed by a large truck we turned back and headed back to town for some lunch in the market, to the little lady next to the cow legs and chicken feet. Gillian made the vital mistake of expressing an interest in a beautiful blanket and was tackled by 15 women all trying to get her to buy theirs. As we walked through town, Gillian was the Pied Piper: women following, shouting “ok-ok, 150! / ok-ok, 160!” (The price would sometimes mysteriously rise). Gillian bought one in the end, but that didn’t stop the others from advertising: because Gillian had one, it meant she liked them and so must want more…?

That evening we caught the sleeper back to Ha Noi, sharing a cabin with a Vietnamese couple who were on honeymoon.

Never did find the boulders or the rattan bridge.

scary lady in boiler suit with children

Less than a week has gone by in Vietnam and it feels like years since I arrived. I fell off the plane in Ha Noi early in the morning on Saturday, got my visa and caught the bus like a pro to the hostel. All good, except the hostel had overbooked, but I was not to be rattled by a small thing like having nowhere to sleep, so found another MUCH better one – like a 4* hotel, for $6! Woo-hoo! (it makes a big difference to have a nice place to come back to in the evenings)

Met up with a guy I met on the plane, Graydon, had lunch (snails) and carried on wandering, soaking up Ha Noi . We stopped by on the side of the road for a spot of (in?)famous Vietnamese beer, “Bai Hoi” (broke the bank: it was 11p/pint), and got some of the locals to teach me Vietnamese – lots of “hee hee”, but I think that was them giggling, rather than pronunciation.

That evening back in the hostel I was accosted by 2 English guys on their way to dinner… in Snake Village. The idea is that you choose your serpent, and the restaurant cooks it for you in 10 different ways; all quite nice really, except that before you tuck into the 1st dish everyone is given a shot of the bile and a shot of the blood. YUKYUKYUK. I passed on the beating heart and generously offered it to the guy next to me (it beats for 15 mins after it has been removed).

The next day I met up with Graydon and a couple of his mates for some more Ha Noi wandering through markets (fake money, snails, roast dog, fairy wings, baths, 59″ plasma TVs…). After some more beer (burp) I hit the West End, well a water puppet show depicting typical river-side scenes: children playing, ducks mating, dragons eating children, men being beheaded… the usual. A lot of splashing about and crashing, clanging music.

Next day was Ha Long Bay day. Hooray! Lying on a boat in the sun for 3 days! After the 4.5 hour bus journey there we were told that there might be a small storm on the way, but we could still go out for a couple of hours and then back to Ha Noi in the evening… for $60. Ha! I took the option to postpone and go another day. Back at the hostel (10 hours after I left) I found out that there had been a huge typhoon and 2 tourists had died in HLB the day before, and hundreds of people had died in the Philippines the day before that. (Also awful earthquake in Indonesia and tsunami in Samoa – a bad week for SE Asia)

Also staying in my room was a girl called Gillian and we stomped all over Ha Noi together (found out that Ho Chi Min’s body is in Russia for “maintenance”; got shooed by the Vietnamese police; sold some books; did market things; drank more beer (burp); saw a man squeezing “pigeon juice” – blood – over his noodles).

In the evening I managed to convince Gillian to come along with me to Sapa, a rural town in the north, for a couple of days, and so we hopped on a sleeper train up to Lao Cia…

tasty...

Spent 9.5 hours skulking around 3 different airports on Wednesday, so it was a relief to be picked up from the airport by Ken and his driver, Shan, at 11:30pm. Arrived at the hostel and Ken insisted on checking it out to see what exactly you could get for 3GBP a night… he was incredulous that such a place would exist! After getting approval from Ken we went off for a drink and a bite to eat and a tour around KL. Crawled into bed 23hours after I got out of the last one in Maumere. Zzzz…

The next day I had a wander around town, to Chinatown – bought some real Prada sunglasses for 3GBP, daaahling; to Central Market where I had my feet exfoliated by fish that nibble at your dead skin cells (a little embarrassing: 2 other people had their feet in when I came along, but as soon as I dipped my feet in, almost every fish in the tank raced over to my feet for a munch); Petronas Towers (very cool and shiny) and the Telecoms Tower. In the evening Shan picked me up from the hostel (which caused much mirth – how many people staying in a hostel get picked up and dropped off by a driver?) and we went for sting ray and pork cooked in teaat a food court on Bintang Walk. Yum!

Today’s been lazy – up late out of bed, a stroll to the market in Chinatown (settled on a Swatch for 3GBP… had my eye on a Franck Muller, but it was 20GBP: outrageous!!), the market in Little India for some Indian style fudge and now am off for a quick drink with Ken this evening.

Up at 3am tomorrow morning for a bit of Vietnam action. Groan, why so early?

mmmm, stinky feet... yum...

Rolex seems to me to be an unreliable brand. Not only has the strap started to rust, but it has now given up on life after only 4 months.

The Thai I bought it from in Bangkok didn’t give me a warranty, but I’m sending it back to Geneva anyway. Perhaps they will give me a replacement.

It was with a sense of dread that I got on the plane back to Bali. I seriously considered not getting off the train at Sydney airport and the flight back was so uncomfortable because of my ribs – when I breathed in I could hear a sort of scrunching noise in my chest. But once I got back on the horse it was surprisingly good and I felt so much more comfortable than I had expected.

Crikey, well I jumped straight back in the deep end when I arrived back in Indonesia: Flores is not quite set up for tourists, and a western woman on her own is an oddity and a plaything for the locals, but it didn’t bother me quite so much as before. Started out in Labuan Bajo, the biggest town on Flores… I walked around the whole town in 30 mins (and was kicked in the bum by a horrid little boy for no reason other than for a laugh), so after a visit to the lizards – which are pretty weird animals, like geckos on steroids – I went off to a tiny desert island called Seraya, activities are limited to reading, snorkling, watching the deer on the beach and lying in the sun (ouch, my ribs!).

From there I headed east across th island. The only way to travel to drive; its 160km as the crow flies, but took 21 hours over 5 days on a very twisty, turny road, in cars crammed with people and livestock (typically 12 people and a few chickens in a people carrier). The locals are not used to travelling, so on such a windy road they get car sick as soon as they look at the car; there are shouts for “plasteeek!” every few minutes, and panic ensues when the sick bags run out.

First night was in Ruteng. Not much to do there but I somehow found myself with the Indonesian Special Police Force over dinner. Their opening line was “How old are you and why don’t you pray before you eat and where is your husband?” An unusual conversation starter, but that’s more or less where it stopped making any sense – only one of them spoke stilted English, and there was much confusion when they worked out I was from South Africa (I had to draw a map to show where it was): why am I not black? Good question.

Next day I got back on the twisty road and arrived in Bajawa around midday. I hired a guide to take me to the villages in the area, starting with Bena, a very traditional village with sacred spikey rocks in the middle and children with lots of green snot: my worst nightmare. It had a bit of a hopeless air about it and sadly a few of the women had black eyes; I had a strong sense that the people who lived here know that the world now lives in a different way to them, but they aren’t quite sure how to deal with the changes. Next was Wogo which was quite different: 5 girls in the village were having confirmation parties (inland Flores is predominantly Catholic), and because I was a “tooris”, therefore quite a novelty, I was invited to 2 of the huts to drink arak and eat… dog! (Hooray, I found it! But really not all that great: very chewy and full of bones). I was put in the place of honour next to the headman and sat with the men. Complete language barrier, so the main form of communication was lots of nodding, smiling and “mmm!” on my part; staring and whispering on their part. After a bit of dancing I took my leave which upset the children – 3 grabbed my arms and started crying.

Another rollercoaster journey later and I landed in Moni; a tiny village surrounded by breathtaking scenery. In the afternoon I went for a walk to check out the area; not a clever plan: 2 guys found me on my own and followed me on their motorbike shouting “Sex!” at me. Very, very frightening, so when one of them grabbed my boob I instinctively hit him and tried to push him off the bike, admittedly a stupid thing to do, but it was instinctive. They started to get very angry and suddenly another 2 appeared and followed me, staring at me. Thank god a bemo (minivan) came past, full of women and children and I jumped in immediately, zooming off back to the hotel.

The next morning was a 4am-er to watch the sun rise over Kelimutu. Very cloudy, so no sunrise, but we did see the 3 different coloured crater lakes: black, blue and green. From Moni, I caught the public bus (less puking, more livestock) to Maumere, a horrid port town with more boob-grabbers (but of a less threatening nature).

And so it was with mixed emotions when I got on the plane and said goodbye to Indonesia.

Hello Kuala Lumpur!

Kiddies in Wogo

As I was sharing a room with Elsa the night before leaving for the Snowy Mountains, my morning started with a jolt (Elsa pouncing on my bed), a blinding light (the light switch being turned on and off repeatedly) and a shrieking “ITS TIME TO GO SKIING!!!”

7 or so hours later we arrived at our lodge in Thredbo (“Australia’s premier ski resort”) to settle in and explore our home for the next week. A peculiar atmosphere to the village: apart from the gum trees and odd lorikeet jumping around in the snow you would think that you were in Austr(al)ia.

My memories of past snowboarding holidays are wracked with bruises and much falling over, so I was quite pleased when I took my first lesson and it all came flooding back to me: I am a snowboarding genius! A lucrative career in competitive snowboarding stretched out ahead of me, and after the second day I was regretting having taken lessons, so on day 3 I decided to take it up a notch and learn some freestyling (dude). The trepidation kicked in when my new instructor started speaking a completely different language on the chairlift: “Ok guys, we’re gonna lean on our backside, gear up for an Ollie to bonk on a box or two. The cords are pretty harsh, so lets shred. Steeze!” And before I could ask for a translation the 4 other 14 year old brats young people in my group disappeared down the mountain. I followed meekly which was my first error: my snowboard sensed my apprehension and threw me to the ground repeatedly like an unbroken horse. I did manage a few jumps and boxes, but my pride was sulking and refused to follow me, and so I had to shamefully slink down the up side of a few jumps. My future gilded snowboarding career was looking less likely by the minute…

The next day was a stunning, clear day, so Joe, Roger and I met right at the top of the mountain to ski / board down. Although I did manage to stre-e-e-etch a groin muscle (ouch), my pride and I were reunited and later, Kat and I did a few runs together, but by mid afternoon my board had become petulant again, so it and I agreed to do one more green run and then call it a day. This was one run too much for the board, and so it turned me upside-down while travelling at high speed and whacked me on the icy ground, winding me, bruising my ribs and somehow giving me a Harry Potter style cut on my forehead. This was quite enough for my pride and it slithered down the mountain with a sob and a wail, and I followed in a grump.

Over the next few days I participated in some high-activity groaning and tv watching, while trying to avoid being a human trampoline for Elsa and Thomas. You can just imagine my heart broken in little pieces when we left Thredbo and I couldn’t snowboard anymore. Boo-bloody-hoo.

Sadly though this did mean that my time in Awesome Australia (that alliteration keeps rearing its ugly head), and tonight had a fab – but last – supper with Gia, the Jacksons & Marshalls… but also my last night in Sydney.

And no more red wine or cheese for a while.

No kiddy-winkles/silly sausages too, which will be odd after 6 weeks…

Steeze, dude! (whatever that means...)

After a just over a week with Joe and Kat I bundled myself off to stay with Gia and Gareth, in their flat that has the most breathtaking views over Sydney Harbour (as well as a few resident tame kookaburras and lorikeets). The first evening I stayed with them was Gareth’s birthday which was good fun, if a little messy, and about 20 people tried to convince me (consciously and unconsciously) that Sydney is a VERY GOOD PLACE TO LIVE.  Over the next week Gia and Gareth (and the warm winter weather) put a lot of pressure on me to come up with a valid reason to not move to Sydney: there is cheese and wine in abundance, gorgeous weather, beautiful walks and views everywhere and the people are so friendly…

Anyway, this is not a marketing campaign for Sydney – I digress…

During the week with Gia and Gareth I gorged myself on ripe avos (a treat after so long out of SA); wandered along Bondi to Bronti beach; caught up with celebrity gossip (Nicole Richie is pregnant again! And what’s happening with Brangelina?!); went for a lovely dinner at a fancy-pants restaurant; met Clare Dorrington for coffee in Narrabeen; took long walks into Sydney CBD, the Botanical Gardens and Cremorne Point; and met up with Sue (my “step aunt”, although we have both agreed that’s a horrible term) to visit the art gallery and the aquarium & wildlife centre.

A week later I wrenched myself away from Gia and Gareth (and Gareth’s fab cooking), back to the Jacksons, who by now had another set of guests: Kat’s parents, Mary and Roger, had come over from SA for a month. After a lovely picnic at Palm Beach one day I went along to Rob (Sue’s husband)’s office for Friday drinks and a talk on 3D printing (he’s an architect with Woodhead). How comforting to be back in an office environment and talk shop! From there we wandered down the road (past some fab design-y shops) to the local curry house where things got very messy indeed (er, phoning Dad at 3:30am was probably not the best idea).

The next day, back at Joe and Kat’s, and in between much groaning and horizontal breaks, I packed for the Snowy Mountains while Elsa quizzed me on what I had eaten to make me so ill.

Perhaps a bad prawn, she suggested.

Guess where...

The overnight flight to Sydney was relatively painless (cramped back and numb limbs aside). Kat picked me up from the airport and was patient with me on the way to their house: “and this looks like Cape Town…”, “and this looks like Jo’burg…”, “and this looks like California…” (never mind that I haven’t actually been to California ). It was really SO lovely to see them after almost 2 years, and also just nice to be in a normal country where the signs are in English and I generally know what food I’m eating…Ohhh, I’ve had the best few meals I’ve had in years over the past week: cheese and red wine for dinner on the first night; 2 braais over the next 2 days and generally Kat’s fab cooking. My digestive system has behaved very well considering I have punished it completely (its probably in shock).

The past week has been surprisingly perfect – to be truthful I hadn’t expected much from Australia (what with it being “so much like SA…”), but the weather has  been glorious; there’s been so much to do and Sydney just has such a cool vibe to it.  First day was Zoo Day: a very cool zoo with gorgeous views over the harbour. (Although Ozzie animals need a bit of zooting up: brown and grey fur just isn’t all that exciting, guys). Over the weekend we whizzed about going from beach to beach with a braai at Bobbinhead with Gia and Gareth (again, so comforting to see people I know after so long of being a homeless hobo), where we got the fishing rods out and caught… some weeds, of course.

For one of the days this week I caught the train into town and wandered around on my own (Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Opera House, someone’s wife’s chair (actually a bit of rock – I was wandering around looking for a chair. Doh.), Botanical Gardens, The Rocks, George Street), and realised that there is just something so comforting about seeing a man in a suit on a mobile – he’s got places to go and people to meet and he’s not the slightest bit interested in saying hello or asking where I’m from. Quite a relief! It really is like being in a jumbled up version of SA or the UK. Prices are very similar to the UK (almost everything is the same price, except pregnancy tests, weirdly); the same films are on (Kat and I went to see the new Harry Potter – pure escapism for 2 hours); and you can even easily find a skinny, decaf, sugar-free hazelnut latte. Phew!

One factor that differs somewhat to the UK is that everyone is so sporty: the day that I went to town was clearly the day that no one went to work: they were all running about all over the show, looking very glamorous and thin and not the slightest bit sweaty. On the weekend at a beach in Narrobene there were a few surfers; one of them must have been financially challenged as his board was an old piece of wood that looks like an ironing board (more sinking than riding the barrels). Kayaking, mountain biking, swimming, quad biking, paragliding… everyone does something sporty. Puts me to shame…

Does knitting count?

The Jackson Clan

Our last day in Lombok was another moocher; dawdling along the beach and reading. The flight to Bali was in the afternoon so we dosed Felie up on as much sleep as he could handle… which came back to bite us in the evening: the Wriggler didn’t like the long boring taxi ride to the hotel, so the wheels on the bus went round and round and round and round, Mary had several lambs and Nix and I were very curious about state of the little twinkly star. But we got there in the end and Felix was probably so horrified with our singing that he pretended to go to sleep immediately, if only to keep us from squawking at him again.

Going back to Bali was like going home: when I walked back in to the homestay there were shouts of “Alexandra! Alexandra!”. Nicky and I spent a couple of days wandering around Ubud, Nix had a foot massage with sticks (of course) and visited the Monkey Forest with Felix, while I caught up on admin and reading.

Nicky has a friend, Florence, who lives in Bali, so we popped in to visit her, her boyfriend and little daughter for lunch at their gorgeous house close to the beach and ended the day with a visit to the beach to watch the sun go down over the sea and a bite to eat. Back in Ubud that evening Nix and I shared a few beers to mourn the end of her holiday and our time together. Boo… She and Felie caught the plane back to London the next morning and I hopped on a motor bike (not pink, although the owner had stuffed some flowers behind the licence plate which I didn’t like to tamper with as they looked like they had been placed there for sacred, protective purposes. So still not a hard-core biker-chick).

An hour and a half north of Ubud are a cluster of volcano crater lakes where all the pariwisata lokal (local tourists) go on weekends and public holidays. Being Independence Day, the little town on Candi Kuning, where I stayed for 2 days, was chocka full of Balinese jetskiing on the lake (some in their full muslim dress), haggling over mielies for lunch and generally wandering in the roads, causing impressive traffic jams. It was in Candi Kuning that I had my 2 top Balinese experiences: sate kelenci (rabbit satay), babi guling (suckling pig) and deep fried leaves of some variety; and the Bali Botancial Gardens. Ok, so I know the latter sounds rather twee for a notable experience, but it was more a tidy, manicured forest than a botanical garden, and each time I visited I had the place to myself which made it feel quite  magical. Another sublime experience was rowing through the mist over one of the lakes to watch the sun rise over a Hindu-Buddist temple and as it was so insanely early, I had the whole lake and temple to myself, except for a few quiet fishermen.

But after 2 days up north, my time in Bali had come to and end, and it felt appropriate when, on my last day, I was actually able to have a stilted conversation with someone in very broken Indonesian Bahasa for about 3 minutes. With any luck I’ll be able to remember it for when I come back next month.

Morning temples

The week that Nicky and I spent in Senggigi was a proper holiday, which wasn’t exactly as we had planned: the idea was to spend a few days exploring Senggigi and the Gili islands, then pop over to Flores. But even though I exercised some pretty impressive teeth gnashing and growling at slow computers and defenceless travel agents, fate conspired against us, which actually turned out quite well.

We stayed in a gorgeous little bungalow and ate our evening meals communally with a strange assortment of people: the French couple who noisily launched into each other (‘s mouths) at the table; the virtuous German woman who told anyone with ears how many Indonesian children she had adopted and how she loved eating with her hands (she said this while holding a fork); and the woman who had been in a Vietnamese prison for 2 weeks.

We went off to Gili Trawangan twice. The Gili islands are completely free of motorised vehicles – you can walk around each of them in an hour – and so the atmosphere is really laid-back and relaxed: jangly horse-drawn carts and feet are the only way to get around. Trawangan has a reputation of being The Party Island, although it must be schizophrenic as the only evidence of hard-core revelry was the adverts for “Mushroom Shakes Garanteed To Send You 2 Moon (Delivry or Take Away)”. We braved the boat trip with Felie for one of the days, his first proper trip to the beach, and he loved it – a proper Cape Town boy! Nicky met her first mad Indonesian that day too (perhaps he was on his way to the moon?) who asked Nix about 10 times in quick succession what her name was and interrupted her a few times to ask if it was alright if he could go to sleep.

Getting used to the idea of a proper holiday, I treated myself to another massage one evening. The setting was lovely and I settled down in anticipation onto the semi-inflated lilo, but the pretty lady who I thought was going to ease my aching muscles vanished and from behind a tree popped a knarled old woman with creatively arranged teeth and calloused hands, who promptly poured old cooking oil all over me and tried her best to squash me into the sand, with a poke every now and again for authenticity’s sake. When I got back to the bungalow I smelt like a delicious panini or pizza, so it was a good job it was dinner time.

All in all it was a relaxing week, away from deadlines and dodgy transport (apart from the boat to Gili Air: 57 people plus sundries in a 20-seater boat). Flores and the Komodo dragons will have to wait till after I’ve broken both my legs snowboarding in Australia.

Felie's first day at the beach