When I went shopping in the US & A I was repeatedly struck by the fact that all the fruit and vegetables came from Mexico. Once I even began to wonder what do the Mexicans get to eat.
Visiting the supermarket here the other day I realised that the answer to that question is, all the stuff that can't be sold to the US. The produce is all of the lowest quality - there is none of that shiny, untarnished fruit and veggies available north of the border. In fact most of it is so bad, its not really that tempting to buy.
Thus we learn, in this globalised world, the people who actually plant the seeds, grow up the fruit and vegetables never get to eat what they make. (Instead they are stuck eating tripa and deep fried tacos)
A travel blog for the thinking clown who has drunk a little too much of the local tap water
Salvacion - Mexican perfection
Pascuales filth, and no one out......yetAs I copped another set on the head after being caught in another barrel, all I could think was why did I ever leave the waves.
So, apologies Huey, how could I have ever doubted you.
The street and the smell - Viva Mexico
Mexico, mi querido Mexico.
Somehow making it through to the next day, through a haze of beer and tequila, I am struck by the power of the sun - it reminds me how the light in Guadalajara was always so bright. However after two months away from the sun, its warmth on my skin is incredibly invigorating. I stand in the street with my arms spread, trying to soak up as much of it as possible, secretly hoping that it will provide a cathartic defrosting of my frozen insides.
The other thing I notice in the street is la suiciedad - the filth. The streets are covered in crap, there is a thick, black dust covering everything - it never rains here - and the most potent of all - the smell. Somehow in the two months in the US & A I forgot what it was like to smell public smells - I guess the absolute cold and the lack of gathering spaces kills any public smells. Wandering through the streets here it is impossible to avoid -every block has it's odour. From small back alleyways which reek of sun dried urine, to stretches dominated by the smell wafting from the taco stand frying some part of some animal, all competing against the background of general third world city odour - a mix of sewerage, cooking and decomposing food, car exhaust and the sweat of four million people eking out a living in a generally unforgiving city.
For the first time in a while I feel alive, and connected to the throbbing mass that is humanity.
On a wing and a prayer (II)
I finally got around to leaving the US & A, after a brief visit with Sarah in Fort Worth, Texas. As I step on to the plane I think to myself, maybe silver was a good colour for American Airlines to paint their planes back in the 50's, but with all those rivets, and with the fact that nobody has been using that Nufinish magic silver polishing stuff they used to advertise on TV, the planes look like they are from the 1950's. Stepping on to the plane I am not exactly overwhelmed with confidence - a common occurrence it seems for us folk who travel on budget airlines.
About an hour in to the flight I get up to go to the toilet I what do I see the air hostess reading as I walk past - yep you guessed it the Holy Bible. On a closer inspection it turns out to be the book of Samuel - only the old testament in these parts. (The book of Samuel is aboout Saul trying to get in God's good books but failing because he was disobedient - if you wanted to know)
Sitting back in my seat I think to myself, so what does an air hostess reading the bible during a flight tell you ?
a) the plane is about to crash and we are all damned
a) the plane is about to crash and we are all damned
b) we are all damend and thus the plane will crash
c) whether the plane crashes or not we are all damned (so vote for Bush)
d) all of the above
Anybody got any suggestions ?
Yeahhhaaw.....(with a Texan accent)
Giddy up !!!
To the world Texas is famous for it's oil, the monkey they sent to the White House and its cowboys. (Funnily enough each pretty much has the same IQ) And in Texas, Fort Worth is cowboy capital. There are still stockyards in the town, filled with trailers (what we know as caravans) lived in by real modern day cowboys.
Whilst I didn't quite make it to the stock yards or see a rodeo (my fault Sarah, but it will draw me back) I did manage to get this photo out the front of the Cowboy Musuem. All I need now is a cowboy hat, a hubristic sense of imperialism and a curious inability to finish my sentences and I could become an honorary Texan. Yeahhhaaw
Whilst I didn't quite make it to the stock yards or see a rodeo (my fault Sarah, but it will draw me back) I did manage to get this photo out the front of the Cowboy Musuem. All I need now is a cowboy hat, a hubristic sense of imperialism and a curious inability to finish my sentences and I could become an honorary Texan. Yeahhhaaw
10 years younger with absolutely no effort.... Guaranteed
The first thing that struck me about TV in the US is the number of ads for cosmetics - it seems there is a cream, shake, exercise regime, new wonder home gym or television makeover program to get you looking younger than you ever were. I however discovered a far easier, cheaper and more ego-boosting method than all of those.... Simply go to a bar in the US & A
The first time I went out to a bar in Colorado, a dusty dive at that, I got carded - that is the barman asked me for ID. The leagl drinking age in most US states is 21, and the more that I think about it the more I come to realise that the US is probably the only place in the world where I would be asked for ID to drink. Now that I am the ripe old age of 31, and I clearly look my age, it is a rare occurence to be asked to show ID.
Of course in my usual style, carrying ID is a little problematic - whilst I do have a driver's licence it is expired so I prefer not to carry that in case the police stop me and notice - so all I had to show that night was my International Driver's Licence. If you have ever seen an IDL you understand why the barman immediately had some doubts. (again I keep thinking to myself, but I am 31, I look 31, I have a beard - do you really think I would go to all this trouble of producing an IDL to be able to get a drink in this divvy bar?) The barman couldn't find the date of birth on the IDL, so I indicated where it was written. "But that is just written in pen" he said.... (Again the thoughts about the effort required for the fraud) Unconvinced the barman goes off to see the manager.
Meanwhile my drinking companion is laughing at me, whilst I am engaged by some drunks at the bar who try the old - what is your star sign ? trick. (Little do they know that when I was 16 or 17 I learnt all the star signs to match my real age) Finally the managed comes out, introduces himself, shakes my hand, turns to the barman and says, "That's fine".
So everytime I went to a bar after that I always looked forward to that moment when the person serving me or working at the door would look at me and ask for identification. In Colorado it never happened again, but on my last night out in the US & A in Texas I went to a martini bar and I was not dissapointed.
After ensconsing ourselves on a comfy leather couch, perusing the seemingly endless list of martini possibilities and finally deciding what we wanted, the waitress looked us all over and asked for identification. Having already had a few drinks (and secure in the knowledge that I had my passport if need be) I asked the waitress if she really thought I was under 21. Her reply was, "Oh no...but we have to ask everybody who looks under thirty". This was red rag to a bull stuff - so you think I am under 30 ? I asked. "Yes", she replied, "exactly how old are you ?"
It may have been the alcohol, the dim lighting or the side effects of the giardia consuming the fish tacos in my stomach, but all of a sudden I felt younger than I had for a long time....(and the martinis were delicious)
The first time I went out to a bar in Colorado, a dusty dive at that, I got carded - that is the barman asked me for ID. The leagl drinking age in most US states is 21, and the more that I think about it the more I come to realise that the US is probably the only place in the world where I would be asked for ID to drink. Now that I am the ripe old age of 31, and I clearly look my age, it is a rare occurence to be asked to show ID.
Of course in my usual style, carrying ID is a little problematic - whilst I do have a driver's licence it is expired so I prefer not to carry that in case the police stop me and notice - so all I had to show that night was my International Driver's Licence. If you have ever seen an IDL you understand why the barman immediately had some doubts. (again I keep thinking to myself, but I am 31, I look 31, I have a beard - do you really think I would go to all this trouble of producing an IDL to be able to get a drink in this divvy bar?) The barman couldn't find the date of birth on the IDL, so I indicated where it was written. "But that is just written in pen" he said.... (Again the thoughts about the effort required for the fraud) Unconvinced the barman goes off to see the manager.
Meanwhile my drinking companion is laughing at me, whilst I am engaged by some drunks at the bar who try the old - what is your star sign ? trick. (Little do they know that when I was 16 or 17 I learnt all the star signs to match my real age) Finally the managed comes out, introduces himself, shakes my hand, turns to the barman and says, "That's fine".
So everytime I went to a bar after that I always looked forward to that moment when the person serving me or working at the door would look at me and ask for identification. In Colorado it never happened again, but on my last night out in the US & A in Texas I went to a martini bar and I was not dissapointed.
After ensconsing ourselves on a comfy leather couch, perusing the seemingly endless list of martini possibilities and finally deciding what we wanted, the waitress looked us all over and asked for identification. Having already had a few drinks (and secure in the knowledge that I had my passport if need be) I asked the waitress if she really thought I was under 21. Her reply was, "Oh no...but we have to ask everybody who looks under thirty". This was red rag to a bull stuff - so you think I am under 30 ? I asked. "Yes", she replied, "exactly how old are you ?"
It may have been the alcohol, the dim lighting or the side effects of the giardia consuming the fish tacos in my stomach, but all of a sudden I felt younger than I had for a long time....(and the martinis were delicious)
Just like a country song... but worse
Driving across western Colorado, on roads carved through narrow gorges, on to dry, flat planes, with the horizon obscured by snow tipped mountains I grew a little tired of my music selection and decided to do a little radio exploration. Unfortunately my steed, a green Toyota that went by the name Al, appeared to have had a small antenna accident. Thus I was left with the choice of one radio station - and of course it had to be a country music station.
Deciding to immerse myself in the local kultcha I endured a couple of hours of back to back country music - interrupted every once in a while by an announced who gave the latest news on what some country singers were up to, updates on the weather - dry and hot, tending drier and hotter, and some tips about how to completely decimate fragile soil in you all terrain vehicle. (Unfortunately I didn't hang around to hear the shootin' and huntin' tips)
I was on a big interstate highway, and as the landscape was fairly sparse, I was able to give plenty of attention to the lyrics of the songs I heard and started to notice a few patterns or genres which each song seems to fall in.
The first is the, he is a good, old southern man with a heart of gold, living in a small town, like his papa did, with his good woman wife and his kids, tending the land by hand, and sitting on the porch of his hand built cabin. Essentially this genre has no conflict, other than to show how much better things were in the past - especially since there are no pesky natives, blacks, feminists, anti-gun freaks etc etc.
This category has been modernised, with its leading song entitled "Thank god I'm still a guy", a forceful statement by country men against the whole metrosexual movement. Apparently being a guy involves: truck drivin', bull ridin', gun carrying, being proud of the flag (and one might also suggest tight jean wearing, hanging with other guys and spending a lot of tie pooishing those boots and getting the hair to sit just right). Here and there a woman might try and change her guy - but that's like asking a man who drives a Ford to try a Chevrolet.
Obviously this makes country guys extremely attractive, so there is a genre that talks about how well bred woman (yes I heard those very words) are attracted to country boys - much to the disgust of their parents, who spent a lot of coin sending their daughters to expensive schools to learn manners, comportment etc etc
Now I admit I have really been skirting around the edges of country music genres, at the heart of country music lies one key theme - love. Now of course this category has a whole range of subgenres - from the famous Stand By Your Man category to the corny, We Met in High School and Are Still Together category to the Despite the Fact that I am a Big Fat Red Neck I Still Managed to Convince Her That I am Worth It.
My favourite however was what is known as the Anti-Love Song, which can be basically summed up as You Were the Biggest Mistake I Ever Made and You Suck. The interesting thing is that this is a genre open to both men and women - which leads me to the favourite line I heard during my country music marathon - and I quote
At the end of the day, there is a lot of men (probably with facial hair) singing about their feelings towards women and cows, whilst trying to remain manly. I guess they think they are pulling it off.
And to finish on a laugh check out this blog post entitled "Make McCain condemn country music"
in response to some commentators blaming Obama for rap music, the author calls for John McCain to distance himself from country music..... touche
Deciding to immerse myself in the local kultcha I endured a couple of hours of back to back country music - interrupted every once in a while by an announced who gave the latest news on what some country singers were up to, updates on the weather - dry and hot, tending drier and hotter, and some tips about how to completely decimate fragile soil in you all terrain vehicle. (Unfortunately I didn't hang around to hear the shootin' and huntin' tips)
I was on a big interstate highway, and as the landscape was fairly sparse, I was able to give plenty of attention to the lyrics of the songs I heard and started to notice a few patterns or genres which each song seems to fall in.
The first is the, he is a good, old southern man with a heart of gold, living in a small town, like his papa did, with his good woman wife and his kids, tending the land by hand, and sitting on the porch of his hand built cabin. Essentially this genre has no conflict, other than to show how much better things were in the past - especially since there are no pesky natives, blacks, feminists, anti-gun freaks etc etc.
This category has been modernised, with its leading song entitled "Thank god I'm still a guy", a forceful statement by country men against the whole metrosexual movement. Apparently being a guy involves: truck drivin', bull ridin', gun carrying, being proud of the flag (and one might also suggest tight jean wearing, hanging with other guys and spending a lot of tie pooishing those boots and getting the hair to sit just right). Here and there a woman might try and change her guy - but that's like asking a man who drives a Ford to try a Chevrolet.
Obviously this makes country guys extremely attractive, so there is a genre that talks about how well bred woman (yes I heard those very words) are attracted to country boys - much to the disgust of their parents, who spent a lot of coin sending their daughters to expensive schools to learn manners, comportment etc etc
Now I admit I have really been skirting around the edges of country music genres, at the heart of country music lies one key theme - love. Now of course this category has a whole range of subgenres - from the famous Stand By Your Man category to the corny, We Met in High School and Are Still Together category to the Despite the Fact that I am a Big Fat Red Neck I Still Managed to Convince Her That I am Worth It.
My favourite however was what is known as the Anti-Love Song, which can be basically summed up as You Were the Biggest Mistake I Ever Made and You Suck. The interesting thing is that this is a genre open to both men and women - which leads me to the favourite line I heard during my country music marathon - and I quote
You can just feel a Jerry Springer episode coming on !!So go ahead and tell your friends that I’m obsessive, and crazy,
That’s fine I’ll tell mine you’re gay! And by the way-
I hate that stupid old pick up truck you never let me drive,
You’re a redneck heart break who’s really bad at lyin’
Just watch me strike a match on all my wasted time,
As far as I’m concerned, you’re, Just another picture ta burn.
There’s no time for tears, I’m just sitting here, planin my revenge
There’s nothin stoppin me, from goin out with all a your best friend
At the end of the day, there is a lot of men (probably with facial hair) singing about their feelings towards women and cows, whilst trying to remain manly. I guess they think they are pulling it off.
And to finish on a laugh check out this blog post entitled "Make McCain condemn country music"
in response to some commentators blaming Obama for rap music, the author calls for John McCain to distance himself from country music..... touche
American Men and Facial Hair
Perhaps it is the Chuck Norris effect or a hang over from the Village People, but there seems to be something about American men and facial hair.
At first I thought it was just the heavy machine operators - plough drivers, bulldozers, truckies and the loggers. But then I noticed that you don't just have to operate a big machine or be a Nascar driver to let it all hang out on your chin. Facial follicles it appears is the new black for American men.
Whilst I can concede, having tried it out for a while myself, that the beard is quite a good insulator against the cold, I am talking about a whole different category of facial fashion than the wild man from Borneo unkempt for winter look.
The most disturbing of all is the cropped tash (moustache for those not in the know) look which seems to be all the rage. (Which I have subsequently spotted being worn by American surfers on the beaches of Mexico)
It all makes me think of the fact that they must be something to hide, or whatever it was that Frued said about men with facial hair.
This might all just stem from the fact that my attempts to join the club simply result in immediate laughter from anyone who sees me, I still think there must be something in the water.
Sometimes when on the road one's sense of self embarrasment is greatly reduced (what more can be said)
At first I thought it was just the heavy machine operators - plough drivers, bulldozers, truckies and the loggers. But then I noticed that you don't just have to operate a big machine or be a Nascar driver to let it all hang out on your chin. Facial follicles it appears is the new black for American men.
Whilst I can concede, having tried it out for a while myself, that the beard is quite a good insulator against the cold, I am talking about a whole different category of facial fashion than the wild man from Borneo unkempt for winter look.
The most disturbing of all is the cropped tash (moustache for those not in the know) look which seems to be all the rage. (Which I have subsequently spotted being worn by American surfers on the beaches of Mexico)
It all makes me think of the fact that they must be something to hide, or whatever it was that Frued said about men with facial hair.
This might all just stem from the fact that my attempts to join the club simply result in immediate laughter from anyone who sees me, I still think there must be something in the water.
Sometimes when on the road one's sense of self embarrasment is greatly reduced (what more can be said)Hulk Hogan - Personification of America
Well I guess its true, old heroes never die, they just show the effects of drug use and have to sell out to anyone who will fork over the cash to keep that limelight deficiency disorder in check… Yep that is Hulk Hogan, the wrestler who dominated the WWF in the late 80’s and early 90’s, pounding the baddies to the canvas over and over.In a way the Hulk is a bit like the US – in the 80’s it was oh so easy – clearly the Russians (represented by Nikolai Volkov) and the Arabs (represented by the Iron Sheik) were the bad guys (maybe that’s why US troops in Iraq still get confused about how the Iraqis are on our side). Despite the fact that they cheated – sometimes with the collusion of the ref, in the end the Hulk would have them down for the count.In a way, Hulk is a great metaphor for today’s world. These days who knows who is the enemy despite massive promotional efforts by Vince McMahon/WWF and the Government alike no one is really sure who it is we are supposed to be fighting - some guy dressed in a sheet in a cave in Pakistan with his network of Internet fanatics – the enemy is everywhere and how can you body slam that. And just like the Hulk the good ol’ USA looks like it has seen better times as well – after all rampant laissez faire capitalism and the buyer takes all elections have had the same effect on the body politic as years of steroid use has on the wrestler’s body – some things you just can’t hide.We live in uncertain times, and an old wrestler has still got to make a buck…maybe to buy a little hair replacement cream !!
PHILLIPINES AIRLINES - BEYOND THE POINT OF NO RETURN
Returning to my roots as a tight arse backpacker to get to the US and A from Bangkok I ended up on a Phillipines airline flight which went via Manila, then Vancouver, by bus to Seattle and then on to Denver. Now I have done some long haul flights in my time, but perhaps I was a little out of practice, or a little anxious about getting out of the Phillipines, but the PA fight from Manila to Vancouver was the worst flight of my life - for a number of reasons.
It all began on the flight from Bangers to Manila, having for once remembered to order a vegetarian meal, I was quite pleased with myself until the meal was delivered, and I removed the foil lid from the main serving. Having started my international globetrotting in the 1990's - I was spared the culinary nightmares airlines delivered in the early days, of which I often heard the old hands talk about. Clearly PA did not participate in this revolution, and I was served some rice, bean and other unidentifiable by sight or taste gunk. (Really I should have been forewarned as on an overnight bus ride in Thailand I had the bad luck to sit net to an Irishwoman just back from the Phillipines who went on for hour after hour about how bad the food in the Phillipines was. At the time I thought she was another winging backpacker but as it turns out I could have avoided a dose of giardia if I had of taken her a little more seriously)
Anyway being unable to resist free food - strictly the fare is only for carrying you from point A to point B so the food is free - I somehow forced it alll down - mistake number 1. Thankfully good old iron guts got me through that night and the next day - but when I got back on the plane for the leg to Vancouver and meal time came around - guess what I was served up - yep the same muck as before. And guess what I did again - yep, unable to resist the free food, I forced it down again - mistake number 2. I spent the next 12 hours stuck in an airplane with some of the most painful stomach cramps I have ever had, my stomach bloated up and despite numerous visits to the toilet I just wasn't able to get any relief. The aches were so painful that I struggled to make the distance to the toilet and was unable to get a wink of shut eye - instead was forced to endure the best Hollywood could dish up - a crappy movie about a high school gym teacher and a crappy movie about a magic emporium - both made me want to go to the toilet - but all to no avail. A day later when I arrived in the US the mysterious yet offensive smell that seemed to be following me everywhere I went, no matter what I ate, clearly indicated I had a bad case of giardia.
So not only did PA give me complimentary food but they also gave me, for free, a stomach borne disease. Stand warned, Phillipine Airlines is likely to give you the shits
It all began on the flight from Bangers to Manila, having for once remembered to order a vegetarian meal, I was quite pleased with myself until the meal was delivered, and I removed the foil lid from the main serving. Having started my international globetrotting in the 1990's - I was spared the culinary nightmares airlines delivered in the early days, of which I often heard the old hands talk about. Clearly PA did not participate in this revolution, and I was served some rice, bean and other unidentifiable by sight or taste gunk. (Really I should have been forewarned as on an overnight bus ride in Thailand I had the bad luck to sit net to an Irishwoman just back from the Phillipines who went on for hour after hour about how bad the food in the Phillipines was. At the time I thought she was another winging backpacker but as it turns out I could have avoided a dose of giardia if I had of taken her a little more seriously)
Anyway being unable to resist free food - strictly the fare is only for carrying you from point A to point B so the food is free - I somehow forced it alll down - mistake number 1. Thankfully good old iron guts got me through that night and the next day - but when I got back on the plane for the leg to Vancouver and meal time came around - guess what I was served up - yep the same muck as before. And guess what I did again - yep, unable to resist the free food, I forced it down again - mistake number 2. I spent the next 12 hours stuck in an airplane with some of the most painful stomach cramps I have ever had, my stomach bloated up and despite numerous visits to the toilet I just wasn't able to get any relief. The aches were so painful that I struggled to make the distance to the toilet and was unable to get a wink of shut eye - instead was forced to endure the best Hollywood could dish up - a crappy movie about a high school gym teacher and a crappy movie about a magic emporium - both made me want to go to the toilet - but all to no avail. A day later when I arrived in the US the mysterious yet offensive smell that seemed to be following me everywhere I went, no matter what I ate, clearly indicated I had a bad case of giardia.
So not only did PA give me complimentary food but they also gave me, for free, a stomach borne disease. Stand warned, Phillipine Airlines is likely to give you the shits
FURTHER IMPRESSIONS
After spending a whole 20 hours in Manila I had two extra things to add to my initial impressions. The first is that after visiting Intramuros, literally 'Within the Walls' the colonial part of the city surrounded by 20 foot high, thick, stone walls built in an attempt to protect the continual ransacking of the city by pirates and other colonial powers, I was struck by the overwhelming sense of having arrived a little too late and missed the city in its prime.
Perhaps it is the curse of colonial cities, as I was reminded of the same sort of feeling when I visited a number of old cities in Latin America. (Curiously though Cartagena in Colombia is an exception which stands out, the old city is still full of charm) I started to imagine how the grand buildings must have once been grand, and a city that was full of people rather than drowning under the weight of the noise, pollution and traffic generated by cars.
After thinking about it for a while, I largely the blame lies on the automobile and the refusal of governments to invest in the maintenance of public infrastructure. Cars ruin the charm and cover everything in a black soot which slowly eats away at buildings, which due to lack of investment deteriate more rapidlly than they otherwise would. All in all it generates the feeling of a slow decline and the absence of hope, which is in stark contrast to the cities I had just visited in Malaysia and Thailand. And somehow it seems to rub off on the people as well.
The second was the food, whch in a word was crap, Everywhere I looked there was pig on the spit, and everywhere else was some other form of meat, usually deep fried. The breakfast on offer at the hostel where I stayed was stoggy rice, egg and a choice of 6 different types of meat. After my little incident on the flight with Phillipine Airlines (see below) I might be a little biased, but I don't think you would go for a holiday to the Phillipines for the food.
Perhaps it is the curse of colonial cities, as I was reminded of the same sort of feeling when I visited a number of old cities in Latin America. (Curiously though Cartagena in Colombia is an exception which stands out, the old city is still full of charm) I started to imagine how the grand buildings must have once been grand, and a city that was full of people rather than drowning under the weight of the noise, pollution and traffic generated by cars.
After thinking about it for a while, I largely the blame lies on the automobile and the refusal of governments to invest in the maintenance of public infrastructure. Cars ruin the charm and cover everything in a black soot which slowly eats away at buildings, which due to lack of investment deteriate more rapidlly than they otherwise would. All in all it generates the feeling of a slow decline and the absence of hope, which is in stark contrast to the cities I had just visited in Malaysia and Thailand. And somehow it seems to rub off on the people as well.
The second was the food, whch in a word was crap, Everywhere I looked there was pig on the spit, and everywhere else was some other form of meat, usually deep fried. The breakfast on offer at the hostel where I stayed was stoggy rice, egg and a choice of 6 different types of meat. After my little incident on the flight with Phillipine Airlines (see below) I might be a little biased, but I don't think you would go for a holiday to the Phillipines for the food.
WELCOME TO MANILA - YOU WANT GIRL
First impressions count for a lot, especially when you have less than 24 hours to take in a place as chaotic as Manila. Taking the advice of a fellow traveler I walked out of Manila airport, just as darkness was falling on what was supposed to be a 3 kilometre walk to a nearby hostel. Needless to say, without a map, I took a wrong turn and got a little lost, clearly experience counts for nothing.
The first people I met on my way were a woman and her children pushing a cart which contained their livelihood, concealed
under a piece of plastic. Tourists in the Phillipines are called Joe, presumably after the GI Joe, so I was greeted with the rather confusing, "Hey Joe, what's your name ?" After working her way through the usual questions (age, country, destination) and the introduction of her three children she then asked, "Do you want a women ?" I managed to restrain myself from saying, no thanks I am more a guy kind of bloke, recalling that such an answer usually ends up causing more trouble than it is worth. So instead I conjured up a wife, and was immediately asked where is she, to which I replied, at home working, which thankfully ended that line of discussion, and moved the conversation on to the final topic - "Hey Joe, give me some money". When that didn't work, the children then proceeded down the list, clothes, chocolate, and finally, water - none of which I had, so I was abandoned.
under a piece of plastic. Tourists in the Phillipines are called Joe, presumably after the GI Joe, so I was greeted with the rather confusing, "Hey Joe, what's your name ?" After working her way through the usual questions (age, country, destination) and the introduction of her three children she then asked, "Do you want a women ?" I managed to restrain myself from saying, no thanks I am more a guy kind of bloke, recalling that such an answer usually ends up causing more trouble than it is worth. So instead I conjured up a wife, and was immediately asked where is she, to which I replied, at home working, which thankfully ended that line of discussion, and moved the conversation on to the final topic - "Hey Joe, give me some money". When that didn't work, the children then proceeded down the list, clothes, chocolate, and finally, water - none of which I had, so I was abandoned.So continuing on my way, contemplating the swiftness at which I had been offered a woman (less than 10 minutes in the country) I was struck by how poor a neighbourhood I was in, and how it reminded me of Cuba. In contrast to the meticulous exploitation of footpath space that Thai street vendors engage in, I only encountered randomly and sparsely situated street stalls, with plenty of space to walk in between. What struck me even more was the lack of electrical lighting - most stalls were simply a table with a few odd goods piled on them, with a home made lamp - bottle filled with kerosene, with a rag as a wick, gently illuminating the goods on sale, and casting shadows which danced with the movement of the cars in the background and as the pedestrians passed on the street. The goods for sale, both on the stands and in shops were very limited in both type and quantity, several shops I saw had empty shelves, with one or two things for sale piled together in the middle of the shelf. After the abundance in Thailand it was almost eerily strange, and very Cuba-esque.
The other thing that struck me, almost literally, was the traffic, which due to the American influence was on the right-hand side, and was full of Jeepneys. Apparently Jeepneys are the remnents of the Jeeps the American army used, which the Filipinos talk to heart, and then turned in to a particular art form - both in shape and decoration. Picture a hearse, made of stainless steel polished to reflect as much light as possible and you are almost there - the Jeepney seems to disobey the laws of physics and engineering principles and appears as though the hand of God herself has simply stretched an ordinary car in to a people mover. Then add a supplication to the Lord to protect the driver and vehicle, a name plastered across the windscreen obscuring the view of the said driver, and then cover the rest of the vehicle in coloured paint and neon lights and you have a standard Jeepney.
As I continued on my way (in the wrong direction) I also passed a few stand up urinals, in fact in a stretch of a kilometre I counted five of the beasts . They are bright orange corrugated iron, bent in to two opposing half circles, so you can slip inside and urinate to your hearts content, knowing that only your legs to your knees and above your shoulders can be seen by the world at large. This left me with two questions, why so many and what about the fairer sex (all the urinals were labeled for males)
The last first impression I had was the poverty. Later, after I had been gladly assisted by a very helpful Filipino student who sent me in the right direction, I headed out to dinner. In a stretch of no less than 500 metres I was accosted by about 20 different children, almost all were mostly naked, and were begging for simply a peso - there are about 35 pesos to the Aussie dollar.
And finally, it appears that Danny and
Nicole Kidman would be at home in Manila. Manila is BMX heaven - who would have thought you could adapt the BMX in to a mode of public transport. Enterprising Filipinos have coverted BMXs in to rickshaws, and fang around the smaller streets shuttling passengers here and there with speed , precision and the odd bunny hop.
Nicole Kidman would be at home in Manila. Manila is BMX heaven - who would have thought you could adapt the BMX in to a mode of public transport. Enterprising Filipinos have coverted BMXs in to rickshaws, and fang around the smaller streets shuttling passengers here and there with speed , precision and the odd bunny hop. BANGKOK: CITY OF ANGELS
They say that in New York you are never more than 3 feet away from a rat, in Dublin it's a pub and in Bangkok it surely must be something to eat. (A cynic might also say you are never more than 3 feet from a farang DOSM with a young Thai girl on his arm) Food vendors literally clog the streets, from market stalls, to snack bars, mobile fruit vendors, grills that appear from no where offering delights from pig skin to octopus, to my personal favourite - footpath restaurants, and that is not even including the actual established restaurants and the like. All this proved to be pretty handy for my temporary incapacitation due to a run n with the reef at Nias on my last day. As the picture shows, the rot set in on my foot and it ain't pretty. (The other foot is actually worse !!!)
In any normal city I would have had to haul myself for block after block just for the smell of decent food, whereas here I have counted 21 restaurants within 500 metres of where I am staying. My quest to eat at them all is proceeding at a leisurely place - I have rediscoverd my favourite pad thai restaurant in all Thailand, and the street stall out the front sells a tom yum goong to die for. So despite my suffering - oh the pain, the pain, fear not - I am being well looked after - by my self.
A DAY IN BURMA
On my way back from my travels in the north of Thailand I stopped in at Mae Sot again to nip across the border to Burma to get a new Thai visa.
At the Burmese border control it was very much business as usual - your passport is taken, you pay the 500 baht fee and then they ask whether you will enter Burma. If you say yes, then they keep your passport, which you collect when you return to Thailand later in the day.
I spent less than 30 minutes in Burma, and simply walked about 15 minutes up the road through the town, then turned around and walked back to the border.
From what I saw things looked pretty similar to Thailand, perhaps a litter poorer, but still the same mix of people of Indian, Burmese and tribal descent.
The one thing I did notice was that the Burmese men are very serious about there longhyis (sarongs) which come in a variety of chequered patterns and were worn by almost every man I saw - except those in uniform.
The other thing I noticed was the difference in cars - no fancy brand spankin new four wheel drive utes here - check to photo.
PARTY ISLAND - KO PHAN GAN, ON THE SHEEP TRAIL
Finding myself with two weeks before my flight left Thailand, and faced with warnings about being prepared for the cold of Colorado, I decided to head down to the south of Thailand to a beach to catch a little sun before the ominous cold. Arranging to meet up with some French guys I had met in Indonesia, I boarded a tourist only bus in Khao San Road in Bangkok. Welcome to the Herd the sign on the bus door should have read, please commence behaving like sheep. Before getting on the bus everybody was given a fluorescent sticker to put on their shirt (think ear tag for sheep) which designated which flock you belonged to (and allowed the Thais to more efficiently herd people around).
The bus was filled with an array of tourists, most already sporting a tan, and almost without exception fisherman's pants. (See the RANT page for my opinion on that) Fortunately the bus headed off a little late so I only had to endure one action movie, mind you it was so bad I may not have lasted a second one. We stopped at 11pm for dinner, which involved everybody being herded out of the bus, past the fried rice counter, followed by a smoke, and then back on the bus. At 5.00 am we arrived at what looked like a ferry terminal and were told the boat leaves at eight. We then had to be processed, passing a counter a being given another fluorescent sticker, and a new tribe. The attitude of the Thais reminded me of stockmen in the Kimberley looking at the cows they were mustering with a mix of disdain, pity combining to generate a disinterested and all in another days work approach.
The more enthusiastic European tourists immediately started drinking beer (nothing like a 6am start) whilst Thai hotel touts worked the crowd. started to discover that whilst Ko Phangan was famous for being a party island (original home of the full moon party) everybody was looking for a quiet place to stay. During the three hour wait another five double decker buses filled to the gills with tourists arrived, and they too were processed at the counter and given the appropriate coloured sticker to put on their shirts. After three hours of waiting about in the stalls we were herded back on to the bus for another hour to the actual ferry terminal, and on to the boat. The boat was completely full, and whilst I had noticed the large number of tourists on the streets of Bangkok it still took quite a bit of adjusting to take in the actual number of tourists all together in one place. The chances of finding a quiet beach diminished by the moment.
i finally arrived on Ko Phangan and there was no sign of the Frogs, so I hired a motorbike and set about checking out the more likely quiet beaches. I ended up on the western side of the island at Thong Noi Pan, a 3km stretch of fine white sand, border by limestone hills on either end of the beach. (Check the view from my bungalow window)
Nias to Bangkok - Highway to Hell
As I was reminded by Sparksy when I caught up with him in Thailand last time, when we were young, tireless whipsnappers we put a few good non stop trips under our belts (mainly spurred on by each other's stupidity and oneupmanship) Maybe its just because I am a little older, but my recent trip from Sorake Beach in Nias to Bangkok, involving car, boat, bus, boat, taxi and train over seven days felt like I was a hamster on a exercise wheel - and as Denis Cometi would say - the hamster is dead but the wheel is still turning.
Together with a couple of other surfers I had arranged a car to take us to Gunungsitoli (click on the map page to see where I went) after a morning surf. My last surf was rudely disrupted by my losmen owner, who when I reached the shore told me that the driver had come to see him to say he couldn't take us. So the losmen owner headed of in to town and for almost double the pre-agreed rate managed to secure us another car. On the road with only an hour or so delay everything seems OK, until we get to Gunungsitoli and are told that all the boats that night are full, except the speed boat, which if we rush we can get on now and buy a ticket on board. So we high tail it down to the port and push through the crowd with our backpacks and boards and somehow manage to scramble on to the boat. We then sit for the next two hours in an over crowded non airconditioned boat waiting for Godot. Eventually we get kicked off because we don't have a ticket, and watch the boat literally sail off in to the sunset. We then had to prevail on UNICEF - or more accurately a fellow surfer we had met in Sorake who worked for UNICEF. He helped us find a room, after trying about 10 hotels which were all full, and organise a ticket for the next day. We managed to finally escape Nias the next day at around 2pm in the afternoon in a far more orderly fashion. (seems the moral here is don't travel on 2 January in Indo, because everyone else already is) But the dramas continued - the car we got in to at Sibolga decided we should stop for a couple of hours for dinner, and then the driver decided that the three 6ft plus surfers should all sit in the back with their knees next to their ears so that an Indo family of short arses could have the front seats with leg room. After an hour of heated argument, we eventually gave in and sat in the back. The night dragged on, and we finally arrived at Prapat at 3.30am in the morning, where my travelling companions alighted - to find their hotel full. Leaving them to find another hotel, the driver then decided to pick another fight and made me sit in the front. The car then refused to start, so at 3.30 am I find myself pushing a car on a highway in Indo wondering how I got there and why I was paying for the priveledge. Sitting in the front of a car in Indo is never a good idea, and it was made even worse by a driver who appeared to intersperse his bouts of nodding off with an erratic and overwhelming desire to overtake abosolutely anything (motorbikes, trucks, semis etc) at what appeared to be the most dangerous times (blind corners, rises etc). I tried to forget that 30,000 people die on Indo roads every year and fall asleep. This however only made things worse as I would periodically be jolted awake and momentarily think my life was coming to an end as bright headlights careered towards me from the opposite direction but the same side of the road, before the driver deftly weaved his way back on to the right side of the road. I have never been so relieved to see the rubbish tip that is Indonesia's third biggest city Medan.I got of the car and said my usual never again.
Medan gave me a little heart attack when the booking agent told me the boat was full and they didn't have a reservation for me - despite me having called two days previously. Do you remember the name of the person you spoke to ? I was asked. I refrained from explaining that in 6 trips to Indo I could remember about 3 names, and eventually much to my relief my details were found, and I was given a ticket. After another three hour wait in the bus we finally make it to the jetty where we wait another hour before the boat heads off to Penang.
After enduring six hours of the coldest air-conditioning I have ever been in (it felt like being in a fridge) and another Van Damme movie, we finally arrived in Penang, after dark.
The next day I took the train for Bangkok - actually more accurately, I bought a ticket for the train to Bangkok, but the delay of the ferry between Penang island and the mainland meant that I missed. Fortunately I was able to arrange for a taxi to chase the train and take me across the border in to Thailand, where I spent three hours waiting for the train to arrive at Hat Yai.
The train did finally arrive and trundled off towards Bangkok, where I finally arrived at around 11 am the next day - four days on the road, pretty much non stop.
I was exhausted, tired and impressed that I had ever undertaken such journeys routinely in my younger years.
Together with a couple of other surfers I had arranged a car to take us to Gunungsitoli (click on the map page to see where I went) after a morning surf. My last surf was rudely disrupted by my losmen owner, who when I reached the shore told me that the driver had come to see him to say he couldn't take us. So the losmen owner headed of in to town and for almost double the pre-agreed rate managed to secure us another car. On the road with only an hour or so delay everything seems OK, until we get to Gunungsitoli and are told that all the boats that night are full, except the speed boat, which if we rush we can get on now and buy a ticket on board. So we high tail it down to the port and push through the crowd with our backpacks and boards and somehow manage to scramble on to the boat. We then sit for the next two hours in an over crowded non airconditioned boat waiting for Godot. Eventually we get kicked off because we don't have a ticket, and watch the boat literally sail off in to the sunset. We then had to prevail on UNICEF - or more accurately a fellow surfer we had met in Sorake who worked for UNICEF. He helped us find a room, after trying about 10 hotels which were all full, and organise a ticket for the next day. We managed to finally escape Nias the next day at around 2pm in the afternoon in a far more orderly fashion. (seems the moral here is don't travel on 2 January in Indo, because everyone else already is) But the dramas continued - the car we got in to at Sibolga decided we should stop for a couple of hours for dinner, and then the driver decided that the three 6ft plus surfers should all sit in the back with their knees next to their ears so that an Indo family of short arses could have the front seats with leg room. After an hour of heated argument, we eventually gave in and sat in the back. The night dragged on, and we finally arrived at Prapat at 3.30am in the morning, where my travelling companions alighted - to find their hotel full. Leaving them to find another hotel, the driver then decided to pick another fight and made me sit in the front. The car then refused to start, so at 3.30 am I find myself pushing a car on a highway in Indo wondering how I got there and why I was paying for the priveledge. Sitting in the front of a car in Indo is never a good idea, and it was made even worse by a driver who appeared to intersperse his bouts of nodding off with an erratic and overwhelming desire to overtake abosolutely anything (motorbikes, trucks, semis etc) at what appeared to be the most dangerous times (blind corners, rises etc). I tried to forget that 30,000 people die on Indo roads every year and fall asleep. This however only made things worse as I would periodically be jolted awake and momentarily think my life was coming to an end as bright headlights careered towards me from the opposite direction but the same side of the road, before the driver deftly weaved his way back on to the right side of the road. I have never been so relieved to see the rubbish tip that is Indonesia's third biggest city Medan.I got of the car and said my usual never again.
Medan gave me a little heart attack when the booking agent told me the boat was full and they didn't have a reservation for me - despite me having called two days previously. Do you remember the name of the person you spoke to ? I was asked. I refrained from explaining that in 6 trips to Indo I could remember about 3 names, and eventually much to my relief my details were found, and I was given a ticket. After another three hour wait in the bus we finally make it to the jetty where we wait another hour before the boat heads off to Penang.
After enduring six hours of the coldest air-conditioning I have ever been in (it felt like being in a fridge) and another Van Damme movie, we finally arrived in Penang, after dark.
The next day I took the train for Bangkok - actually more accurately, I bought a ticket for the train to Bangkok, but the delay of the ferry between Penang island and the mainland meant that I missed. Fortunately I was able to arrange for a taxi to chase the train and take me across the border in to Thailand, where I spent three hours waiting for the train to arrive at Hat Yai.
The train did finally arrive and trundled off towards Bangkok, where I finally arrived at around 11 am the next day - four days on the road, pretty much non stop.
I was exhausted, tired and impressed that I had ever undertaken such journeys routinely in my younger years.
VAN DAMMNED IN HELL ON A FAST BOAT
Whenever anybody mentions fast boat my stomach always gets a little queasy and my mind travels back almost involuntarily to a ferry ride I once took from Penang in Malaysia to Medan in Sumatara. Now I have never been a fan of boats in general, I prefer to travel serenely across the water, but this fast boat is apptly named. It goes flat chat across the Melacca Strait, in a little under three hours, come wind, hail or shine, or perhaps more importantly gale force winds. It rides low in the water and the sitting area is actually below the water level. Tinted windows, which are always fogged over, make it hard to see anything but the sun reflecting off the water, and air-conditioning combined with all of the men on board smoking makes it hard to breathe. The port in Penang is on the peninsular side of the island so that day when we boarded we had no idea of what were we facing. It didn't take long to find out though. The wind was blowing a gale and the wind chop was probably about 4ft, breaking in all directions. Rather than slowing down the boat this only seemed to encourage the boat to go faster, which meant that the pitch and roll as we hit the chop was even more violent. After about 15 minutes everybody on the boat, from the little tackers to old grannys and all in between had hucked up their guts in to the plastic bags we all received when we boarded. New bags had to be handed out three more times during the trip as they were constantly being filled. The combination of the background sound of wretching, the smell of vomit in the air, and the sight of plastic bags filled with spew rolling around on the floor combined with the movement of the boat pushed me to the edge and I thought I was going to succumb and join my fellow chunderers. Howeve r I was distracted by the slowing of the boat, and the crew scambling around opening the side doors, never a good sign when you are surrounded by ocean with no land in sight. If you think Indonesian aviation is dangerous then let me just say that Indonesian marine transport makes planes in Indo look as safe as houses !! Somehow we finally made it, vomit and all, and I swoar I would never ride on a fast boat again.....until next time.
So there I was sitting on the fast boat again, fortunately the seas were calm, lost on my own world listening to music on my headphones trying to drown out the combination of engine noise and bad Indonesian karaoke, when a Van Damme movie appears on the TV screens. Now anybody who knows anything about action movies will tell you that Van Damme is in a class of his own. Somehow he has managed to make 20 or 30 movies in which basically the same thing happens, Van Damme gets challenged, then disillusioned, then a work out montage to get him back to peak fitness, and usually ending up with our man Jean kicking some arse, literally, and saving the day. As the noise of the boat was so loud I decided I would watch the movie without any sound to see if it made any difference, and the strange thing is, it didn't. I didn't need to hear any of the dialogue to understand who were the good guys, who were the bad guys and what was going on. The guy is a true genius. The added bonus was that the continuity errors were all the more apparent. (Van Damme went from no beard to full beard about 4 times, in no particular order)
The one thing I didn't quite understand was why if the movie was set in a Russian prison was everybody speaking English, including the fellow prisoners and the guards. Another one of those mysteries of the universe I guess.
Nias - Earthquake and tsunami to cargo cult
Nias had the misfortune of being struck by two massive natural disasters in the space of six months – it was hit by a 3 metre high tsunami wave on Boxing Day 2004, and then wacked again by an earthquake and another tsunami in March, 2005. Enough to make most people pack up there bags and move else where but Indonesians in general are a resiliant (and foolhardy) lot. I first visted Nias in 1995, and suprising not of the physical landscape has changed – which I guess in 12 years is
fairly exceptional. Rebuilding after the disaters seemed to have occured at a fairly brisk pace. It seems the damage was so intense that most buildings were completely destroyed, so there isn't that much evidence of the destruction – other than a few buildings which appear twisted like mirages in the desert or Dr Seuss houses. Almost all of the losmens (small hotels) at Sorake Beach have been built – and no one seems to have learnt anything from building so proximate to the shore. I wonder if the builders ever paused to look at the foundations and ruins as they built the new places only metres away. The one big change I did notice was what appears to be the creation of a cargo cult by the descent of a proliferation of NGOs – the number and stripe were incredible – from UN agencies like UNICEF and UNHCR, to the Red Cross -from Spain, Belgium, Australia, UK etc etc, to private NGOs like HELP, LEAP, Save the Children, Oxfam etc etc. And they all have their own offices, there own shwanky Toyota Land Cruisers (which you can't normally get in Indo) and of course their own agendas. Whilst no doubt a lot of good work has been done, it does seems to have generated a mindset of what have you got for me ? So any foreinger faces a constant barrage of requests for everything, from money, to food to clothes to even surfboards. All in all it makes for a fairly unenjoyable time as there is no escape from the hassle – even in Bali they give you a break. The annoyance is amplified by the apparent unwilligness of any of the locals to actually do anything, most simply sat around waiting for the surf, and my UNICEF friend said they were struggling to find people to volunteer their labour for the community projects that they were funding. All of the tourists I met said they had experienced the same thing to the point that they didn't want to return to Nias.
And the wave... well the reef has lifted up a couple of metres, but it is still pretty much as perfect as a wave can be – even letting me get barreled a couple of times !!
fairly exceptional. Rebuilding after the disaters seemed to have occured at a fairly brisk pace. It seems the damage was so intense that most buildings were completely destroyed, so there isn't that much evidence of the destruction – other than a few buildings which appear twisted like mirages in the desert or Dr Seuss houses. Almost all of the losmens (small hotels) at Sorake Beach have been built – and no one seems to have learnt anything from building so proximate to the shore. I wonder if the builders ever paused to look at the foundations and ruins as they built the new places only metres away. The one big change I did notice was what appears to be the creation of a cargo cult by the descent of a proliferation of NGOs – the number and stripe were incredible – from UN agencies like UNICEF and UNHCR, to the Red Cross -from Spain, Belgium, Australia, UK etc etc, to private NGOs like HELP, LEAP, Save the Children, Oxfam etc etc. And they all have their own offices, there own shwanky Toyota Land Cruisers (which you can't normally get in Indo) and of course their own agendas. Whilst no doubt a lot of good work has been done, it does seems to have generated a mindset of what have you got for me ? So any foreinger faces a constant barrage of requests for everything, from money, to food to clothes to even surfboards. All in all it makes for a fairly unenjoyable time as there is no escape from the hassle – even in Bali they give you a break. The annoyance is amplified by the apparent unwilligness of any of the locals to actually do anything, most simply sat around waiting for the surf, and my UNICEF friend said they were struggling to find people to volunteer their labour for the community projects that they were funding. All of the tourists I met said they had experienced the same thing to the point that they didn't want to return to Nias.And the wave... well the reef has lifted up a couple of metres, but it is still pretty much as perfect as a wave can be – even letting me get barreled a couple of times !!
Goodbye to some old friends
One thing I recently discovered is that going back to a place can sometimes be a big mistake - some things change for the worse, and what doesn't change is usually improved by the mists of time. Returning can also generate a bit of lament for the loss of institutions, and in the last two months I saw the death of two big ones.
Anybody who has been to Penang and not had much coin would have spent a night in the Hotel New China - a former grand old colonial house turned in to a rat warren/guesthouse. The old chinese folks running the place looked as old as the advertising on the walls - apparently from the 19th rather than the 20th century. The dorm was a couple of bits of plywood blown together by the wind and if the bed bugs hadn't got you by the morning the rats should would have. I once left some things in the stored luggage room, and I swear I saw a single fin surfboard that had been there since at least 1985 !! Most suprisingly of all it has been replaced by a boutique chocolate shop - the rats must be in heaven !!!
The second was two great waves in the Hinakos, small islands off Nias. These islands bore the full brunt of the earthquake in March, 2005 (hot on the tails of the tsunami in December, 2004) The earthquake pushed the islands up further out of the ocean, so much so that the tide line at Bawa is now about 20 metres further out than it previously was. This has had a disasterous effect on the waves. Bawa no longer has a wave and Asu breaks only when the swell comes from just the right angle, and it is shallower than it was before.
I returned to Bawa for a week in December, and stayed in the one remaining hut on the beach. Each day I would stare out the window watching the point reminiscing about the good old days, from when it was 15ft and a washingmachine too big to surf, to the last 30 days of perfection that I spent there in 2003.
RIP
The Kimberley Walking Epic (Part 1)
Finally after 15 months in the Kimberley I managed to catch a fish !! After the three week tour of Kimberley with Mum and Dad I headed off to Drysdale River National Park, Western Australia's largest and most northerley national park, for a 6 day hike. Curiously WA is littered with national parks and conservation reserves (and heaps more are being planned) but there is no money allocated to doing anything on them. Thus Drysdale has no management plan, no access road and no staff, but plenty of feral cattle from the neighbouring cattle stations. They were our only companions for the six days - along with a few skittish crocs.
During the revious three week tour the trusty steed (dubbed Esperanza on her maiden voyage without a hint of irony) had developed a little mechanical trouble, nothing that a quick bit of bush-mechanicesque canvas and wire fashioning couldn't fix. However when consulting professional help in Kununurra, the Italian mechanic told me that Esperanza, she no good , So after frantic last minute ringing around Kununurra I managed to hire a ute to get up to the park. Leaving Kununurra before dark I managed to belt along the Gibb River Road, knowing that its endless corrugations and drift would feel like a runway compared to the Kalumbaru Road. As the ute was a hire car the constant vibrating caused by the corrugations didn't cause quite so much angst and I could put my Corrugated roads are best taken at 100 kilometres per hour theory in to practice. (It was only later when I returned the car and found out that insurance runs out at the Pentecost crossing, only the first 100 kilometres of the 1200 kilometre round trip) The Gibb River Road, as rough as it was did seem likke tarmac as soon as we the Kalumbaru road and its seemingly endless road wide corrugations. Somehow the car made it to the Carson River Station turnoff using rough details I had got off the internet. (Even the Department of Environment couldn't tell me where to go) However arriving at the small camping sign near the old cattle yards I took a right instead of a left and then started following dust from a car. It seemed to be going at great haste, and a small fire with the leftovers of a killa (a deceased cow) explained the apparent hurry. (Carson River is a station owned by an aboriginal corporation/community supposedly run as a business. Sometimes the efficiency of the business is challenged by community members going out on country and surreptitiously helping themselves to a stray killa here and there, though to the perpetrators this makes perfect sense because being members of the community they are the owners of the cattle.) As darkness fell swags were brought out and a dry river bed formed a very comfortable mattress.
The Kimberley Walking Epic (Part 2) Sand Glorius Sand
The next day was when the hard work really began. All our supplies for the next six days were packed in to two backpacks - tent, trangia, food, fishing lines and all. Considering the high quality of our map (a photocopied 1:100,000, with the creases in the crucial places), the prudent decision to follow the river was taken by consensus.The intensely rainy four months of the Wet and the equally intensly hot and dry eight months of Dry means that for a short period every year rivers in the north flow at full tilt, going from trickling streams which you can jump over to raging torrents that
are tens of kilometres wide, and 20 or thirty metres deep. When the waters recede in its wake are huge amounts of flotsam and jetsam - as big as whole trees, and kilometres wide of golden sand. Thus sticking to the river often meant we found ourselves trudging through knee deep sand under the blazing sun far from any cooling breeze coming off the water, for what seemed like forever. Perhaps it was the effect of the blazing sun, I started having flashbacks of the Sahara Episode.Not long in we found ourselves scrambling up rocks on the far bank of west side of the river and the view was awe-inspiring, looking down the valley the river had carved out, imagining it at its full flow - probably four or five kilometres wide, the surrounding hills covered in thick forest as far as the eye could see in all directions. It is at times like that the enornmity and the isolation of the north really sink in. There were probably no people, roads, lights or any other scars of civilisation within 300 kilometres. There aren't many places in the world where you can say that.
The day dragged on with a little drudgery under the hot sun, which seemed to become more intense as it moved toward the horizon in the afternoon. After a few entertaining discussions about where exactly we were on the map, a wholesale ignorance of the needle on the $6.50 compass, a river crossing at shoulder height and a misjudged attempt to cut a corner by hiking over a point and coming down the other side through a couple of hundred metres of thorns as sharp as a chef's knife, defeat that we wouldn't reach the waterfall that day was conceeded. Camp was set up on the bank, with the massive rockwall on the opposite bank echoing the sound of running water and any noise we made.
The next morning we set out fairly early, and not long in came across a loose, thick wire cable running along to river bank. Following it out of curiosity, after 400 metres or so it finally snaked its way up the rock wall to a pully, cemented in to the cliff. On the opposite bank I spotted what looked like some sort of engine surrounded by a housing made from corrugated iron. So maybe we weren't quite as remote as first thought !!!
About 20 minutes from where we had camped we finally heard the roar that we had been attentively craning to hear for the last days, and ten minutes later the falls, in all their glory, came in to view.
The Kimberley Walking Epic (Part 3) The Perfect Campsite
The amount of water tipping over the edge of the horse shoe shaped cliff in to the deep pool below more than matched the thunderous roar that echoed across the plain. After a rest and a few photos we then proceeded to find and make a path to scramble up to the top of the waterfall. When we finally made it, the views both ways, looking bacck down the river as it snaked across the plain, and looking up the river as it wound its way down from the rocky hills covered in the afternoon haze were equally iimpressive.
About a kilometre further on from the falls we found a large rock ledge, with a few small caves offering protection from the sun, plenty of driftwood, a large patch of sand for sleeping and only 20 metres away from the water' edge. This was to become home for the next four days.
The handlines that we had brought along proved very useful, and the fish were soon biting - even for a novice like me ! I didn't catch anything too big, but what I did catch was big enough to eat, and when grilled on the fire, it tasted delicious.
Fortunately no crocodiles showed up to compete against us. A swim in the river was a refreshing escape from the heat of the day, and the caves provided an ideal location for a relaxing read of some books I had meant to read but never had the chance to start. Firewood was abundant, and the wood was so dry that a couple of times the fire almost took on a life of its own.I did find myself pondering from time to time that it was almost the perfect location for a nomadic people to eke out a subsistance living - plenty of water, flora and fauna for people skilled and knowledgeable enough to survive. And plenty of vandtage spots to quickly identify visiting friends or foe.
One day we did try and leave however not farther on from the waterfall the banks became very swampy and the lure to return to paradise was too strong, so we returned to the little bit of paradise for another night.
Eventually, despite my best Rex Hunt impressions, the fish stopped biting and the food was getting a little thin, so we packed up camp and headed off early one morning in the general direction of the car. As usual, the walk back was far easier and shorter than the other way, especially as our packs were now almost empty. With the forced march pace we adopted, we were within a stone's through of the car by the end of the day.
Suprisingly when we arrived back at the car it was still there, so we through our backpacks in the back and fanged it out of there.
The Kimberley Walking Epic (Part 4) Back to the Pentecost
On the way back to Kununurra I experienced my first punctunre on the Gibb River Road, not bad after 6 trips up and back. However when you get a puncture on the Gibb you really know about it, a sharp rock pretty much tore the tyre to shreds, leaving rubber here, there and everywhere. Other than that the return trip was relatively uneventful, even the corrugations seemed bearable. I even had time to stop and snap a few photos !!
At the Pentecost crossing (For those who don't know, in the north we don't have bridges, but instead crossings, where if the water is low enough - that is the tide is out and the Wet far enough in the past, you get to drive your 4WD across the rocky riverbed. The Penteco
st is a huge river, and the crossing is quite close to where it makes its way in to the ocean. It is the last crossing on the Gibb before the relative safety of the Great Northern Highway and Kununurra) we came across an English guy on his motorbike, and a Japanese guy on a fully loaded push bike. (What kind of fool would ride along the Gibb River Road ?) Despite repeated warnings about the number of crocodiles and an offer to carry him across in the back of the ute he pressed on. The Englishman tempted fate by asking, I wonder if Japanese taste like chicken ? He did make it across unscathed, after walking the bike all the way across.Finally, I can't finish this story without a small thanks to a certain car hire company that somehow ended up charging me less than I could believe for the car hire, including no charge for the tyre or the removal of the thick layer of dust which covered both the outside and inside of the car. Nice work fellas.
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