Someone misspelt pigeon

April 16, 2007

Worst Storm in Years Batters New York City

We certainly picked the best time to be in New York. The record rain batters New York City in the past 2 days. On Sunday a record 5.5 inches rain fell on Central Park, beating the previous record set in 1902 (!).

I was totally drenched yesterday and did not have my backpack with me, it was not fun. After over 10 phone calls with incompetent Virgin Atlantic baggage claim department, my bag arrived.

It was a really painful and excruciating experience. I suspect the call centre is located in India and often the phone connection is pretty bad. Twice I called and they said the system is down arghh .. Anyway I won't go more on the litany of problems with Virgin's baggage handling department or their delivery contractors (which Virgin didn't even have their phone number the first time I called them), my backpack is here now. I'm so going to claim all my essential purchase in the past 3 days to Virgin.

On another news, the worst US shooting rampage just happened. It's terrible, mood is not good here in the hostel.

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April 15, 2007

To Prague and now New York City

I have done several travelling in the past few weeks. Last Easter Weekend I went to Prague. A very beautiful but terribly touristy city. More to be said about Prague when I have the will and time to do it.

I'm currently in New York City, arrived yesterday afternoon without my backpack. Apparently it's still in London. Virgin Atlantic promised to send the baggage ASAP, and since they have 4 flights on that day I should have received my baggage last night. As it was, no baggage arrived last night and I had to buy emergency clothing etc. Called them last night and they told me that it was still in London. Seething, I blasted them last night and told them how incompetent they were. They knew hours before that my baggage was in London and it was still there? They promised to put it on the 9:30am flight from London this morning, should be here in New York this arvo ... hopefully.

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March 19, 2007

St. Paddy's Day @ Dublin

Carnage! If you ever go to Dublin for St. Paddy's day be prepared to face a hoard of drunk Irish and tourists :)

It was a bit of reunion with a few people from the past Cambodia & Vietnam trip, as expected it was a superb reunion. Everyone was quite well behaved, considering the event and location. I think because we started drinking at 1:30pm and didn't stop until 3am in the next day, everyone sort of paced themselves quite repectably - who would have thought. Yeah there were a few of us who got blind drunk, but none had to be carried home.

We tried to catch the parade, but can't see anything, the entire city was a choker and we got stuck on people traffic jam. After seeing some flags, top of people's head, some big dinosours and a drag queen we decided to give up on the parade and head straight to the pubs.

Here we caught up with the rest of the crew. It was such a weird scene getting together again with the people you met on your travel halfway around the world, it was a bit unreal to be honest. We watched the final matches of the Six Nations where Ireland had a good chance to win it, France won it in the end by the point difference (of just 4) but the atmosphere was crazy regardless. It was so much fun, the Irish soon forgot the result of the Six Nations and partied away through the night.

We almost didn't make it back home on that day. Either Opodo or Air France stuffed up our booking and put us on the 18th May flight instead. It was the day after St. Patricks day, flight was fully booked. They put us on stand-by, but 30 minutes before scheduled take off, Air France couldn't check us in because the plane was overloaded. Time was ticking and we are still hanging around the check-in desk. The check-in chick told us if we want to go to that flight we can't check-in our luggages which means throwing away our shampoo, hair gel etc and the my Swiss army knife (arghh). My only consolation was that I was supposed to lose that knife ages ago in Hanoi. Anyway no one knows wether the plane can take off and the pilot was still talking with ground control & the engineers to resolve the issue.

The clock was ticking and our chances are becoming really slim. Flurry of phone calls and finally about 15 minutes before scheduled departure they give us a green light (God knows how, maybe they had to dump half the fuel or something like that) and had to refuse 2 guys below us although they had full tickets, but they did show up later than us. Naturally the departure gate was on the other side of the aiport, we had to race through the Dublin Aiport. We were the last persons to be admitted to the plane only to be told by the pilot that they couldn't take off yet because the plane needed to be de-iced and the contractors that supposed to do that were totally unprepared despite the weather forecast, and I bet they were hung over from the night before as well! So after all that, the plane was 1 hour delayed.

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February 25, 2007

The Killers at Wembley Arena and off to Morocco

Just got back from The Killers gig at Wembley Arena. It was really good, The Killers certainly know how to put on a good show. Expensively staged, a fitting treatment for the full capacity 20,000 crowd at Wembley Arena, The Killers captivated the (mostly) young crowd for over 1 half hour. They played all their big hits and ended (as I guessed) with All These Things That I've Done.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club opened, never heard them before, not bad but not my favourite and from the reaction of the crowd most of them haven't heard about them either.

I'm off to Morocco later on today for a week of surfing (yay!) finally another surfing session, the last one was at San Sebastian months ago. I'm flying direct from Gatwick to Agadir and will stay there for the whole week with a surf camp run by English (fun).

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October 04, 2006

In London

After four months of travel, I've finally reached London. This time for a while. London, as expected, is super expensive, especially in Australian dollars. I haven't been doing that much of touristy stuff since I got here last Sunday, I have been catching up with friends over the past few nights and job hunting in the morning.

Currently staying at one of my best mates in Chiswick, which is a really nice area in west London. I'm really fortunate to be able to stay here for now, complete with internet access for job hunting. He has a nice setup here.

I'm planning to put a closing post of the travel within the next few weeks - that's if I can get my lazy self to do it! For now my faithful readers thanks for following my adventure for the past four months :) From now this will change into 'Living in London' blog.

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October 01, 2006

Vitoria-Gasteiz

My last port of call. Because of time constraint (and yesterday's hangover) I didn't have much time to see Vitoria. But I did manage to see the Artium, Vitoria new's museum of contemporary art, which has some interesting collection. It isn't big, but it's a good sized museum. I made an effort of waking up a bit earlier than usual this morning so I can walk around Vitoria for a bit, saw a lot of Basque nationalist posters.

I'll be flying off to London in the next few hours, there is only one airport bus at 1:15pm catered for the one and only Ryanair flight to London. That's funny, didn't need to tell the tourist office about my flight, she knew I'm flying Ryanair at 3:45pm. London here I come (again ...)

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September 30, 2006

San Sebastian (Donostia)

Had an absolute blast for the whole week in San Sebastian, it's such a party town. In the beginning I hesitated to book more than 3 nights because I didn't know what to expect. I was thinking perhaps going to Biarritz then back to Vitoria to catch the plane if San Sebastian turn out to be a hole. I just want to surf since I don't think I'll be surfing anytime soon.

As it turned out there weren't much of a surf in San Sebastian, the waves were small but at least they were clean and some were makeable. There were much talk about the incoming swell on Wednesday, but it never arrived. Become friends with the friendly people on the surf school where you can rent boards, one time they give me free board rent because the waves were so small.

I was also lucky that the San Sebastian International Film Festival was on. This apparently (a girl in my dorm told me, she works for Sofia Film Festival and she was there for the film festival) either the second or third biggest film festival in Europe after Cannes and Venice. So I've also been watching some really good movies in the past week. Oh and I did a bit of celebrity spotting as well on the red carpet.

Also San Sebastian's old town boasted perhaps the highest concentration of bars per square metre in entire Spain (LP told me), maybe even Europe. Plus we had some really awesome group going in the hostel.

All these are deadly combination. So my typical day for the week look like this: wake up felling groggy from the night before, surf, lie on the beach for a while, more surf sometime, watch an awesome movie, bar hopping. Repeat for 4 days in a row ...

This morning I had the biggest headache in my life, and my 1.5 hour bus ride to Vitoria was excruciating. My head pounding and stomach feeling funny. I went all out last night since I knew I wasn't going to hit the surf and that will be my closing party for this travel. This saturday night in Vitoria will be a quite one I think.

And that's it. Tomorrow I will fly to London and that will be the end of the past 4 months of travel.

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September 24, 2006

Guernica

Eversince learning about the Spanish civil war and seeing Picasso's famed Guernica I've always wanted to visit Guernica.

The train journey from Bilbao to Guernica was very pleasing as it goes through lush rolling hills of the Basque Country. No wonder that this area (along with Austurias, Cantabria and Galica) is called the Green Spain. Many have told me that the Basque Country is very beautiful, they weren't wrong. Even the biggest city, Bilbao, is very green. Guernica is no exception.

Almost the entire city was destroyed by the 1937 bombing, the few buildings that survived are clearly identified in the tourist map. The main sight is not the cathedral or a church for a change, but the thought evoking Guernica Peace Museum. Although the centrepiece focus of the museum is the Guernica Bombing, peace and reconciliation are the major issues in this museum. Visitors follow a linear path which ends with Mohandas Gandhi quote inscribed on a huge (fake) marble: "There is no way to peace, peace is the way" (in Basque and Spanish. Reading the Spanish I guessed the translation and was pleased to find out that I was right! yay ... :)

Spent the rest of the day wandering around the small town of Guernica, visited the Vizcaya historic parlement building, the oak tree and the seemingly famous mural on Picasso's Guernica.

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September 23, 2006

Bilbao

A Rich City
My first impression of Bilbao is that this is a rich, modern and expensive city. The wealth of Bilbao can be seen from its well maintained roads, boulevard, public parks, brand new public transport sytems and other public facilities. It feels similar to Aix-en-Provence. I love wandering around the city yesterday, especially the area around Bilbao Fine Arts museum. The weather was perfect and there were lots of people on the road (it was Friday night), the city is green and the people are friendly. I love this city, it's not too big but not too small (population around 350,000), compact, economically active, and has superb public facilities.

Bilbao is also home for the excellent Fine Arts Museum and of course the renown Bilbao Guggenheim. The Guggenheim is marvel too look at, but alas 2 out of 3 floors are currently closed for the new exhibition. That sucks. Only the first floor is currently open for public viewing. I believe that the building itself is more of an attraction than the collection. Indeed the audioguide goes on to explain a lot about the building. The building is a modern architecture masterpiece, it's amazing to see the lines and the curve in the building. No surface line of the building is straight, the audioguide says.

Bilbao Fine Arts Museum has suprisingly superb collection. Usually preferring modern arts than classic arts, I was a bit surprised when I enjoyed walking through the excellently organised galleries. The galleries are sorted chronologically so visitors can see how art had evolved from the 12th centuries to today. Also maybe after being bombarded by a lot of museums in the past 3 months, I'm beginning to appreciate more of classical arts. Basque's artists are well represented here.

The Hostel
Like Burgos, Bilbao is in a sore need for an independent hostel, although an independent hostel will be up against the mammoth Bilbao Aterpetxea. People said that Bilbao's sole hostel looks like a hospital, smells like a hospital, feels like a hospital. It's true. However it is clean and functional and the bed sheets are very clean and comfy. The staffs are not overly friendly (except the kitchen staff), but I guess that's expected when you have to deal with hundreds of guests everyday. You are just a customer to them. Another characteristic usually associated with this kind of establishment is that it is not very social. A bit of an issue if you are an independent traveller. There are common rooms, but if someone told me that those room are waiting room for relatives in a hospital I'd tend to believe it.

Planet Ticket to London Booked
Booked my ticket from Vitoria (the capital of the Basque Country) to Stanstead next Sunday 1st October. This give a finality about the end date of this travel. I have been toying with the idea of travelling for another month or two, but in the end decided to stick with the original plan to be in London by October so I won't be too close to year end for the job hunting reasons.

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September 22, 2006

Burgos

The Accomodation
There could be a market for a nice hostel in Burgos. The one "hostel" in Burgos is actually a student accomodation that doubles as a hostel during summer. This place unfortunately ceased to be a public hostel by the 10th September. I called the pilgrim hostel and they said unless I'm a pilgrim I can't stay there. Fortunately the tourist office is incredible helpful about accomodation related stuff. They have the best city map that I've seen so far (Lisbon is the worst) making the bed hunting somewhat bearable. Nothing worse that hunting for a bed using Lonely Planet's map.

My hunting ended in Hostal Hidalgo. I was on the way to another pensión when I saw the sign "Hostal Hidalgo". The building looks like it barely survived the Spanish civil war ... unrenovated. I braced myself and walked inside. The first couple of landing of the stairs don't have any light, climbing the stairs felt like I'm heading toward some unknown doom. As I climbed to the second floor on the rickety stairs I wondered if the stairs would hold. It did ... phew.

Rang the door bell, an old lady opened it. There was a strong smell of hospital grade floor cleaner (at least I know the place is cleaned regularly). She didn't speak any English, my Spanish was tested to the limit here. "I want room ... 2 nights ... can I see ... how much ...". She told me €15 per night. Great ... the cheapest so far. I want to see the room, I told her. Now this is the catch, the room is probably slightly better than a prison cell. It's small ... really small. At 2m x 3m it can barely fit the single bed plus and the wash basin. There is no window, only a small ventilation near the ceiling. I'm convinced that it was put there as an afterthought after a guest suffocated to death some years ago. I reckon prison cell wins on the huge ventilation and size while this room wins on real bed and the ability to come and go as I pleased.

However the room is clean, the bathroom is also clean. Fine I'll take it, 1 night for now and if I don't get molested by bed bugs I'll stay another night.

In the end I did pay to stay another night in Burgos. Stayed in Burgos for 2 nights then moved to Bilbao. I somewhat miss the social environment of a hostel in the past few days. The hostel in León is not really social while this hostal definitely ain't. I'm sure you have more social activities going in a prison.

Monasterio de las Huelgas
The 30 minutes or so walk to the monastery from central Burgos is very nice and goes through a leafy and rich suburb. Here the mansions look more more American than European. At the monastery I took the compulsary guided tour in Spanish. It was funny to take tour in a language that you don't understand. Everyone was looking at the same direction except me and a few Germans and French. This was my second tour in Spanish, the first was in the Isidoro Basilica in León. This tour guide speak very good English and French, so if they want they can organise a tour in French or English. I like this monastery, especially the church which double as a royal pantheon. I like visiting crypts, tombs and grave of important people, I always try to fit in the time to visit pantheons/crypts etc.

Catedral de Burgos
Another magnificent Spanish cathedral. This is the best so far of all the cathedrals, churches and basilicas that I've seen on this trip. A fitting end for the religious circuit on this trip. Everything in this cathedral is amazing. From the outside, the towers, painting, altars, dome, reliefs, chapels and even the subdued sala capitular (chapter house). The audioguide is a rudimentary mp3 player that you can't stop or rewind so you have to follow it very carefully. The woman spoke like the devil himself was on her tail, the audioguide rushes you through the cathedral in an hour. After the completion of the audioguide I went back the front and explored the cathedral on my own pace.

Have I said how amazing this cathedral is? Yes I have. Well I say it again, this cathedral is amazing. The tomb of El Cid is located right under the central dome. The central dome is the most ornate central dome that I've seen so far. Half the apse is closed for restoration but I still can access the most beautiful chapel of all, Chapel of the Constables (Capilla de los Condestables). I can rant for ages about this cathedral, but I'll stop now. Suffice to say that no words do any justice to this cathedral, it simply must be seen, period.

Bad weather affected my last day in Burgos. As I linger inside restaurants and cafe I made plan for the last few days of this trip. The end is nigh now, it still hasn't sunk in yet that in the next few weeks I have to join the work force again ... scary tought.

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September 20, 2006

Astorga

The sleepy little town of Astorga is an easy 45 minutes bus ride from León. This is yet another major stop point for the pilgrim doing the Camino de Santiago. Almost all tourists were pilgrims except the odd few (me included). An interesting thing to write, my bus from León to Astorga picked several pilgrims (at least 3) on the way who had thrown the white flag trying to reach Astorga by foot :) Having said that, I saw a lot (yes I mean a lot) of pilgrims heading west toward Santiago.

The main sight here is, surprise surprise, the cathedral with its museum. After seeing so many cathedrals, churches and its treasury/sacristy little items in the museum interest me apart from the book recording the baptisms and marriages of the see from 1601.

Next to the cathedral is Gaudi's designed ex-episcopal palace now turned into a museum. The combined ticket with the cathedral museum is pretty cheap at €4 plus I got to see the inside of a Gaudi designed building.

Another interesting museum is the chocolate museum paying homage to Astorga's history as a major chocolate producer in Spain. This was a bit of a dissapointment. I had hoped this was going to be as quirky as the toy museum but it didn't come close. On the way back to León I saw a lone pilgrim walking toward the sunset, some people determination are amazing.

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September 18, 2006

León Walking Tour

Although feeling a bit under the weather this morning I decided to push on with my self guided León walking tour. While the modern part of León seems a bit bland and boring, the centre historic part is charming. León is large enough city to warrant the amount of business in the tourist oriented old town. The cathedral of course dominates all the sights in the city.

When Lonely Planet said that the cathedral is the pinnacle of Castillian's church, they weren't exagerating. Oh it's big alright, but the most amazing feature is the truly fantastic stained glass windows. I think you need at least 2 viewings of the cathedral to justify its beauty, try to visit the cathedral when the sun is in different location.

The rest of the sights are pretty standard European churhces and building. They're good alright, but after being blown away by the stained glass windows of the cathedral, none seems to match the cathedral beauty. One building worth mentioning is Casa Botines, one of Gaudi's work.

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September 15, 2006

Santiago de Compostela

Leaving Portugal

I love Portugal. True Portugal doesn't have majestic cathedrals, churches or buildings nor does she has great museums like those of France and Spain. However I could not help loving the easy-going, unpretentious and unassuming Portugal. There is something charming about Portugal and it is one of those countries that is very easy to have fun. I didn't expect to spend as long as I did in Portugal and I have to tell myself to get moving as I am running out of time.

Santiago de Compostela

The first thing that I noticed as I arrived here was the number of people doing the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage. They can easily be identified by their gears, chiefly the walking sticks :) I met a girl back in Portugal who is going to do it, I have to admit that talking to her about it sparks a bit of interest in me to do it. I have been doing some further reading about it and it seems to be one of those once in a life time journey.

I visited Museu Granell, a small museum but worth the visit for a few of excellent Granell's painting. This continues my crash course in art arch of this travel. I've discovered yet another of my favourite painters.

Caught up with the two Kiwis from Porto, and with two Germans and a South African we ventured to sample the nightlife in Santiago. First thing that shocked me was the alcohol price. I think the bartender was a bit offended when I was shocked at the price of the whisky & coke. I was still in Portugal price zone.

Day II
Day II began with me missing yet another breakfast. I then paid a visit to the excellent Pilgrim Museum and learned a lot about the Camino de Santiago. The most amazing thing is the guidebook written in the 12th Century by a Pope (forget his name) for the pilgrim. The book details the Camino Frances, which most pilgrims still follows until this modern days, where to get water and detailed information about Santiago de Compostela itself. This visit really inspire me to do the Camino myself, although realistically I probably won't.

After last night disastrous cheese purchase, I decided this time to ask which cheese is good for eating. The lady gave me the cone shape local cheese (which is expensive), as expected this one turn good (so it's worth id). I will certainly not write "Free .. rather tasteless" sign on it.

The cathedral museum is a bit expensive at €5 but it is well worth it. It's a good sized museum and has some fascinating items on display, including the tombs of the kings, the treasury, the big cloister and the partly reconstructed stone choir. The museum here is certainly the best cathedral museum that I've visited so far.

I'll be here another night then I have to decide where to go next. Current plan is to go to either Leon or Oviedo

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September 13, 2006

Amarante to Braga and back

We went Amarante about 60km east of Porto. Main attraction in Amarante is the São Gonçalo Monastery where apparently if you kiss the tomb of São Gonçalo you'll find your soul mate within the year. A friend and I went on to kiss the tomb ... we've promised to keep in touch to see whether this is working or not, if not we're going to send abusive letters to the guide book publisher :)

Since we still had plenty of time we went ion to the pretty town of Braga. With this I completed the four cities mentioned in the old saying: "Coimbra studies, Braga prays, Lisbon shows off and Porto works". This city certainly has a lot of churches the most impressive being the Sé.

From Braga we caught the train back to Porto. This had been a full sight-seeing day, the most things I've done in a day for a while, probably since Paris.

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September 10, 2006

Porto

I've only been here yesterday, haven't had any chance of sight seeing (maybe later this afternoon ... if I feel like it), but I'm sure that the highlight of my visit in Porto is the karaoke night!

Last night four of us went out searching for a drink (rather pointless since beer is cheap in the hostel) and to find out about the night life in Porto. Once we hit the Riberia (on the riverside), I picked a place just because it has a Foster ads on it. Of course they turned out not to have any beer except the one Sagres beer, not because they just run out, but most likely it's more a karaoke joint rather than a bar. We were the only non locals there!

It was so fun listening to all this amazingly good singers. I bet that the locals were betting whether we were going to take the mike or not. So we did, after a few beers of course. Half drunk all of us decided to sing U2's With or Without You. That was gold ... We sang badly (as expected) but ... it must have been the only English song sang that night, and probably will be the last English song sang for quite some time in this particular bar. So it was well worth the effort.

We left when the bar closed and we kinda half sing random songs on the way back to the hostel. This reminded me of that karaoke night that I had in Sihanoukville early on this trip. Karaoke continues to provide endless entertainment to locals and tourist alike :)

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Coimbra

Went to Coimbra 2 days ago as a day trip from Figueira. It's only about an hour and €1.78 one way. The HI Hostel in Coimbra is very cheap at only €9, but I really love Paintshop in Figueira and thought it's not worth the effort to move hostel.

The university in Coimbra is said to be the Oxford of Portugal, it was one of the oldest university in Europe. Love the campus building especially the ornate ancient baroque library. I couldn't help feeling like in one of those Harry Potter movie as I walked through the library. Behind the library was the private prison (not currently used anymore), used to be under the control of the chancellor. This certainly put a different perspective to "detention" in school.

Visited the cathedral and a monastery, they are good but can't be compared to the churches and monasteries in Spain and France.

I did really need that rest days in Figueira. I feel really rejuvenated and ready to do some more travelling. I also realise that I'm running out of time. I'm still aiming to be in London by the end of the month, that's three weeks away and it's still a long way to London, at least with the way I travel. I may have to do a long train/bus travel at the end of the month or fly to London from somewhere in France.

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September 07, 2006

Resting in Figueira da Foz

I've been in Figueira da Foz in the past few nights staying in the brand new Paintshop Hostel. To be honest the only reason for me to be here is to chill out, I wouldn't even make it here had I not seen the flyer of this hostel in Oasis Sevilla. Figueira is too small to be mentioned in my big Europe on a shoestring guidebook (the LP Portugal does have an entry about Figueira!). This is the place to recharge my battery after a few months on the road. I love this hostel, Ben and Kerry are a very good host.

Might stay here for a while, definitely tonight and probably tomorrow night before going off to Coimbra. Coimbra looks interesting but the only hostel is the HI hostel and at this stage of the trip I'm trying to avoid the HI hostel chain. We'll see, I might do something a bit unusual by doing a day trip to Coimbra from Figueira rather than the other way around.

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September 04, 2006

Sintra

After lingering for a week in Lisbon, I've finally decided to move on to Sintra, less than 40 minutes away from Lisbon. Yeah ...

Most people go to Sintra as a day trip from Lisbon, it's only EUR3 return from Lisbon. Full of palaces and castles, Sintra is undoubtly pretty. The palaces are really good although not that impressive compared to the palaces of France, Spain and Morocco. Only a few palaces are within reach of public transport, there is a 'tourist circuit' bus that will take you from the town centre to Pena palace. This bus is super expensive at 3.85€, but it's worth it because it's a damn long hill climb to Pena. On this heat it could be unbearable. My bus driver was kind enough to pick up several (!!) tourists who gave up their hill climb.

Update:
On my last morning in Sintra , I succumbed to my curiosity about the Toy Museum. LP says that it contains more than 20,000 toys from all around the world. I decided to give it a go and I was glad that I went. It was definitely a delight to watch rows after rows of toys, especially the model trains, cars, thousands of toy soldiers from all countries, the very first Barbie toys, the very first Lego toys, battleships, dolls etc.

When I was browsing the toy soldier section (never seen that many toy soldiers in my live before), an old man on a wheelchair asked me if I speak English. Yes, I said. He then introduced himself as the president of the museum and went on to say that the museum is his personal collection. Old as he is, he still has a vivid recollection about this collection. He mentioned playing with the current king of Spain as a child when he was exiled in Estoril, his oldest collection, his first toy etc. I had no reason to doubt him, beside he gave me his business card, told me to call him if I have any problem and I saw him being wheeled into the staff only door by the staff.

This museum is definitely worth a visit.

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September 02, 2006

Still in Lisbon

Yep still in Lisbon, tonight will be my 6th night in Lisboa. Haven't done much really here, I really enjoy chilling out in Lisbon and definitely spent one too many nights in Barrio Alto.

And after hanging out in Easy Hostel for 5 nights in a row, tonight I will finally have a bed here. It's hillarious, everyone here think that I stay in Easy. The staff are the best in all the hostels that I've stayed so far. Very friendly, welcoming and definitely easy going by letting me hanging out here for a while.

Lisbon Poets is a nice, chill out and quiet hostel. The common room is small but cosy and they burn incense at night plus the super funky chill out music from the speakers. Can't change the music unfortunately, but in a way it's good that only the staff can control the ambience of the night.

I sounds like doing a hostel tour around Europe :)

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August 29, 2006

Lisboa

Chaos in Easy Hostel
Hostel World system stuffed up last weekend and Easy Hostel was overbooked by 8 people. I was one of the eight. Arrived in the late afternoon after a long 7 hours bus ride from Sevilla, and whilst having my dinner I was interrupted by a distressed looking staff asking my name. He showed me the email he received from Hostel World saying that they screw up, overbooked by 8 people and arranged all of us to stay in another place. It was around 7pm and I really hate picking up my bag to go to this place, fortunately Andre was really helpful and he genuinely want to solve rather than giving up and says that it was Hostel World fault who sold beds that didn't exist.

There was a pensao just across the road and Andre managed to negotiate several beds for all of us the overbooked people for slightly cheaper than what we paid originally. While staying there we can still use the facilities in Easy Hostel such as the lounge, kitchen, DVD room and others, so that's all work out quite well.

Barrio Alto
Despite the kicking out incidents, all of us are still in high spirit and we went out that night to see a Fado performance in Barrio Alto, the bar districts. I think it was good and I love it, but a few didn't enjoy it. After the Fado we went out exploring Barrio Alto's hundreds of small bars. This area is really awesome, I couldn't believe how small some of the bars are, this is the perfect area for a pub (or bar) crawl.

I've decided to stay a bit longer here in Lisboa, I love this city and this city seems like a really cool place to chill out especially with several good hostels around. Easy is full until the 1st September, there is vacancy at Lisbon Poets but not for tomorrow (30th August). Found a small Pensao nearby Lisbon Poets so I think I'm going to check in there for tomorrow night and move to Poets the next day. Poets seems like a nice chill out hostel rather than the easy going Easy. It'll be a good change after heaving night out several days in a row, we're going out again tonight.

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August 28, 2006

Sevilla: Volume Dos

Sevilla once again. I have to admit that I like this city and I don't really mind coming back to Sevilla. Especially when we are currently staying in a superb hostel, Triana Backpackers.

Went to Plaza Espagña, one of the site for Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones and then went my separate way to the park since I've been to Cathedral and the Alcazar where everyone went.

Later that night a dozen of us from the hostel went to the bullfight. I have to say it's a bit hard to watch initially, and then it gets a bit boring because it's pretty much the same thing repeated. I'm aware that this is contributed due to our lack of understanding about the bullfight. A Columbian guy in our group told us that that wasn't a good bullfight session. This to me is something that I would see one and I can't picture myself going to another bullfight session.

We now have 17 litres of Sangria for our group. We have to finish the lot before most of us going to separate direction tomorrow :)

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August 27, 2006

Gibraltar

We arrived in Gibraltar by land, not by the ferry as originally planned. Well at least we were in Gibraltar. I gave up the idea of climbing the rock. The cable car at GPB7 is out of my budget, so I decided to pass the time strolling through the shops of Gibraltar and just chill out.

We said goodbye to Jane as she departed to London while Mark and I jumped on the bus to Sevilla. We've decided that this is the most logical stop for us before Portugal.

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August 26, 2006

Tangier

One Lonely Planet reader wrote that Tangier is the worst possible introduction to any country in the world, including Kabul. We had some interesting time in Tangier and more interesting journey out.

Scumbag group #1
At Tangier bus station we were looking for Petit Taxis to take us down town. A Grand Taxi pulled over. Unlike the metered Petit Taxi, with the Grand Taxi you need to negotiate the fare. The driver asked for 4 dirham, a bit shocked since we expect something around 10 - 15 dirham, I double check with him if it's 4 dirham. Yes he said.

He drove us down town and when I paid him he looks surprised and now with perfect English asked for 40 dirham. Some guy claimed to be a police officer came to try to resolve the issue. He produced his badge, I doubt it's real, Mark think it's real but not his. I have no doubt that these two people are working together. We were arguing for several minutes making ourselves a small crowd. We were about to walk away after paying 12 dirham, which is the fair fare for the trip, but got caught again the drama. We finally gave another 20 dirham and left. In all we probably paid 20 dirham more than we should have, that is less than 2 EURO, definitely not worth the 20 minutes on the road arguing with a bunch of Tangier locals creating a little drama on the main road of Tangier.

So lesson number 1, never catch a grand taxi where you're supposed to catch a petit taxi. Limit grand taxi for intercity travel.

Scumbag #2
Leaving the drama scene we were talking about accomodation strategy when a friendly guy approached us to find us accomodation. This is quite common in Morocco, we in fact had use several of these touts and always had good experience. People usually give between 5 to 10 dirham.

He lead me to 2 different hotels, one was a good one and within our price range. So to his credit he did give us good direction but we had to categorise him as scumbag because he asked for 50 (yes 50) dirham. That's rubbish. I was going to give him 10 dirham, but we only had 20 dirham note with us at that time. We told him 20 is enough, we argued for several minutes in the hotel lobby. The receptionist, which is a very nice old man, tried to tell him that 20 is enough but he didn't want to listen. Finally I left the 20 dirham note on the reception desk and told him that if he didn't want it then the receptionist can have it. He took it.

Tangier
After the eventful afternoon with the scumbags, we had a good time in Tangier. It is a cosmopolitan and modern city, without the scumbags it could even be called a nice city. It is unfortunate that Tangier attracts these characters. After a nice dinner at the restaurant we bought a bottle of Moroccon wine. Suffice to say that this wine was probably the worst wine that I ever had. I suspect that since they export almost all their wine, whatever left in Morocco is the rubbish.

The next morning we visited the Medina. On the way I could confirm that most locals are very nice, just like normal Moroccon. With little Arabic and French that I've learned on my travel, I asked several people for direction and they all eager to help me without asking money. I wish all people in Tangier are like this.

Went to the American Legacy Museum. Do you know that Morocco is the first country in the world to recognise USA? And the friendship charter between US and Morocco is US' longest running unbroken friendship treaty. It is a fascinating museum. The original letter written by George Washington was on display, as well as the reply from Morocco acknowledging the treaty.

Leaving Tangier
Another drama! We booked our ticket in advance. At the port Jane went inside the FRS' ticket office to collect our ticket. I went back to FRS ticket office to ask them which terminal to go to. At first the girl told me there was no ferry to Morocco today, it was cancelled ....

WHAT? I have the ticket here .... some commotion in Arabic ... finally a guy told me yes there was a ferry going to Morocco today, go to terminal 3. Outside the ticket office Mark started to worry, this sounds really bad. It sounds that they didn't want to do anything with us and they tried to get rid of us from the ticket office. We walked to the terminal, looked at the information screen, and there's no ferry to Morocco. I walked back to the ticket office and this time he told me that the ferry leaves at 1pm instead of 2:30, hurry run to terminal 3 he said.

We raced to terminal 3, during this time jumped several queue, had to apologise to a few people for jumping the queue. Finally managed to get to terminal 3 only to be told that the ferry was going to Tarifa. I asked the guy if there was a ferry to Gibraltar today, don't know he said. And then he said maybe, just wait. Fark .... not the answer that I wanted to hear.

I told him that ticket office told me to board this 1pm ferry to go to Gibraltar. Wait a second he said while radioing someone. Not a minute later a guy holding 2 mobile phone appeared and asked me what the problem. I explained my case ... and finally we found someone who was willing to take responsibility with us. Not like those fuckwits in the ticket office who just want to get rid of us from their office. He blasted (in Arabic .. I wished I knew what he said) those people in the ticket office and pulled another guy to ask him to accompany me back to the ticket office while Mark and Jane wait with our packs at the fery terminal.

This guy was very friendly and composed. Don't worry he said, we'll get you to Europe. He said what probably will happen is that we go to Tarifa, catch the company bus to Algeciras and we had to catch public transport to Gibraltar. That's no problem he said, should be easy. At the ticket office, this guy blasted everyone and tried to sort out my problem. After a few minutes we walked back to the ferry and he explained to me that everything will go as planned. Catch a ferry to Tarifa, catch a company bus to Algeciras and we had to take public transport to Gibraltar. This is quite a common service by the company, FRS, to get people to Algeciras.

At the terminal our group was joined by the captain of the ferry, the guy with two mobile phone said that the captain is going to Gibraltar, he might be able to take us there, but not sure if he can do it because the regulation does not permit it. The captain said he will find us in Tarifa to tell us if he can do it or not.

After all those commotion we board the 1pm ferry to Tarifa. As I expected it was 30 minutes late.

At Tarifa the captain was waiting outside and he told us that unfortunately he couldn't do anything because the regulation does not permit him to take us to Gibraltar on his boat. Well thanks for trying we told him and once we pass the passport control we took the bus to Algeciras and from Algeciras to La Linea just across the border from Gibraltar.

I've had more interesting days than my 2 days in Tangier, but this certainly rank in one of the most memorable days of this travel.

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August 23, 2006

Chefchaouen

Last day in Fez
We didn't do much, just chilling out. Fez is a good place to just "chill out", in fact the entire Morocco is a damn good place to just chill out. Well we did achieve something useful, we planned Mark's exit from mainland Europe to London, and that's about it. We had dinner late that night with James, an American we met earlier in Meknes who's just chilling out in Morocco while learning Arabic. We had lunch at one of the stalls on the side of the road, this food we suspected what caused another stomach issue with my two friends the following morning. Fortunately I escaped unhurt.

Chefchaouen
More Spanish than French, but Moroccon nonetheless, Chefchaouen is one of the prettiest place that I've ever been. The Spanish Andalucian's influence is very strong here that street signs are written in Spanish rather than French. Most people are trilingual, Arabic, Spanish and French. The old people can only speak Arabic and Spanish.

Of all Moroccon cities that we visited in the past two weeks, this is the best place to chill out, period. This city is so laid back, and although no longer the exclusive domain of backpackers, it still retain its charm as the backpacker chill out place in Morocco. There's not much "sights" to be seen, just being here is enough to visit Chaouen. I could imagine myself sitting here for a week sipping my mint tea while finishing my book or doing some other private project, this is that kind of place to do that. Unfortunately we have a schedule to keep and this is our last night in Chaouen.

Tomorrow we're going to take the afternoon local bus (not CTM, this is going to be an interesting journey) to Tangier, spend one night there before taking the ferry to Gibraltar.

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August 20, 2006

Fez

Onward to Fez
While waiting in Meknes train station for our train to Fez, a friendly local approached us. He claimed that he was working for the tourist office in Meknes. Whether he did or did not work for the tourist office, it didn't really matter. He was very friendly and offered to find us hotel within our range. After telling our budget he made several phone calls and made a reservation for us in Hotel du Maghreb, which incidentally one of the better one listed by Lonely Planet. He couldn't read a map though as his dot in the map was way off the real location of the hotel.

He offered to get us a guide for the Medina. When even Lonely Planet recommends to get a guide for Fez we decided to take his offer. We arrived in Fez a bit late at night and didn't do much but touring the Ville Nouvelle. The new town is very cosmopolitan, and while sitting down in the footpath having our dinner I thought that this setting could be anywhere in the world. People dress a lot less conservative around the new town (the same can't be said with the Medina).

The Medina
Our guide arrived in the morning and he said if it was OK for us if he take an American couple with the tour. Well no worries we said. The couple was very nice people from New Orleans. With all 6 of us crammed in two Petit Taxi we drove to the Medina.

I said Marrakech was bloody amazing, but Fez is totally unreal :) Yeah really corny there.

I do think that Fez is unreal, the Medina is one of the biggest in the world, if not the biggest in the world. Boasting over 9400 confusing little alleys, this Medina is a literal tourist trap. I was glad to get a guide to take us around the Medina, my only gripe with the guide was that he took us to far too many shops that I'd like.

First stop was the tanneries, which has operated in pretty much the same way since the 14th century. It was a great eye opener to see these people do their back-breaking work from one of the balconies of the leather shop around the tanneries. It didn't smell as bad as Lonely Plant says. The tanneries is the main thing to see in Fez.

He then took us through the maze that was Fez medina to several sites mentioned in Lonely Planet. One long stop was the carpet shop, where everyone bought a carpet except mine. When I told the guy that my budget for a week is EUR300 he decided that it wasn't going to worth his time to try to sell me his carpet. That's how my credit card escaped unshathed from the carpet shop.

It was, I had to say, a really nice carpet shop, collection and the building was beautiful in one of those restored Riads. Although they said that their price was "fixed by the government" everyone managed to get 50% discount or more. We went to see the ornate Moulay Idriss II monument from the outside (non-Muslim are not allowed in), went through several souqs, shops and near the end Mark helped our guide to get his reading glass.

The souq in Fez was nothing like the main souq in Marrakech. It is waay less touristy. I think because it so spread out, there are lots of "normal" souqs between the tourist blocks. I can't describe it better than this single word: awesome :p Fez is a shopping Mecca. If you can, wait until Fez to do your shopping.

We like this city too much that we decided to stay another night to chill out, regroup and recharge.

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August 19, 2006

Meknes

The People of Meknes ...
are super nice. We arrived quite late in Meknes and the HI Hostel is not the easiest to find. Located a bit out of the way, and the map in Lonely Planet is shit, we stumbled through many junctions and roundabout. If not because of the numerous people, official looking security guard, kids and passer by we wouldn't have reached the hostel.

I couldn't believe the amount of assistance that we received. While they don't speak English and my French is only slightly better than my Latin, they never stopped talking, in different languages (Arabic, French, Sign and English) to direct us to the hostel. I was really impressed by this.

The hostel unfortunately does not live to HI standard. The beds, rooms, staff, other travellers and the courtyard are nice, but the toilet obviously failed weeks ago, while I could tolerate the state of the toilet my two other travel companion couldn't.

Meknes
Overcast and a bit cool, this what Meknes gave us on our first day. This was a welcome change from the 40+ Marrakech. This city is much smaller than Marrakech and we pretty much did all the sights that we wanted to see in a single day. We could not visit the royal palace, which I can only assume the one that Mulay Ismail built by plundering Marrakech's royal palace.

We went to the busy Mulay Ismail's Mausoleum, the fine art museum and the crypt where Mulay Ismail used to keep his christian slaves for his mega construction work. The museum's building, like the one in Marrakech, is more interesting than its collection.

Lunch was really nice but expensive at Restaurant Riad. This restaurant is set in a beautiful riad with an amazing patio, swimming pool and decoration. It was very expensive, but worth every cent if not only for the toilet. Dinner was a lot more cheaper affair at Restaurant Gambrino, friendly little restaurant with a strange fresco depicting scenes no where to be found in Morocco.

Volubilis
The next morning we rented a grand taxi from Meknes to take us all the way to Volubilis (Roman Ruin) and back. Originally we only asked the taxi driver to take us to Volubilis, this cost us 100 Dirham. At the petrol station he tried to sell his taxi for half day outing for 300 Dirham. This means go to Volubilis, wait for us for 2 hours, then go to Moulay Idris then back to Meknes. Lonely Planet says that this should be around 300 Dirham, great we didn't even need to haggle.

This is the biggest Roman Ruin that I've ever seen. Mark enjoys this kind of stuff immensly, as for myself I don't get it. I'm looking at foundations of building, it doesn't interest me. It was good that I had Mark there to explain all kind of stuff to me, otherwise I would have finished the entire city in half and hour. So this outing is not totally wasted.

We drove back to Moulay Idris for lunch. We were lucky as this is the souq day for Moulay Idris and the city totally in chaos. Our taxi driver had an argument with a stupid driver who blocked an entire road. He almost threw a tea glass at him. Later we saw that the stupid driver was being pulled over by a police officer. The last thing we saw of him was he trying to get to our taxi and being restrained by a police officer. That was a bit exiting I thought.

Didn't bother to Moulay Idris' tomb since we as non-Muslim won't be permitted to enter, in fact we are not allowed to spend the night here. That's pretty much it for Meknes. Although we like the city, we were glad to get out from the hostel :)

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August 18, 2006

Marrakech

The Journey
As expected, it was long but fortunately pleasant journey. I had to catch the 9AM bus from Sevilla, that meant waking up at 7:30 for breakfast, left the hostel at 8:15 to walk the the bus station. At this time, Sevilla is at her best. The streets are deserted and the temperature is very nice.

The bus to Algeciras took 3.5 hours, on the way we passed Tarifa and her seemingly endless wind turbines. Of course I've seen a wind turbine photo before, but never before a wind farms like the one in Tarifa. It's pretty amazing watching all this wind turbines spin their wheels.

There are plenty of ferry from Algeciras to Tangier, during high summer almost every half an hour. I was lucky to get the fast ferry at only EUR1 extra. The fast ferry is considerably quicker, I wonder why it's only EUR1 extra. The ferry arrived half an hour late, but once it got there they were very efficient getting the cars into the ferry.

You won't be charmed by Tangier's port. Like most working port it's not pretty, but the worse is the smell. Not sure what the hell was that smell. At the port I tried to withdraw money out from the ATM, there were three ATM near the money changers none works. Fortunately I had some cash with me and change it. I really hate doing this since I got double hit on the conversion rate.

I forgot to write down the instruction to go to Gare de Tanger Ville and my copy of "Lonely Planet Europe on a Shoestring" (which strangely include Morocco) is too generic and does not have this information. I was in a hurry to get to the train station as Lonely Planet advises me to book 2 days ahead for the couchette on the overnight train down to Marrakech. Jumped into the expensive "grand taxi" and I got myself into Tanger Ville, the new, modern and clean train station.

I got the couchette for 350 Dirham, which is a bit expensive but totally worth it. The Moroccan sure know how to run their train system. It was certainly much better experience than the inapropriately named "Reunification Express" of Vietnam (there's nothing express about it).

The couchette was super comfy, the air-con was at the right level, the toilet was reasonably clean and the service was good. Marrakech was the last stop so I quickly jumped into my bunk and went to sleep. The other three occupants on my room were an Italian/English couple and a local. Lost of tourists in the couchette carriage.

The Rendevous
Train arrived one hour late than scheduled. Fortunately this time my LP says which bus goes from the train station to the main square, Djemma al-Fna. Found Hotel Ali, the rendevous point for me, Jane (who should have been there for the past 2 nights) and Mark.

I was surprised when I enquire at the reception that no such Jane stays there. It was very strange, as if they don't want to talk to me. I tried to convey to them that we had reservation for a tripple room, none exist they said. It was a very weird conversation. No Jane and no Mark. I decided to store my backpack in their store room and went to an Internet cafe to find out what's happening and there was nothing.

As I walked back into the hotel I bumped into Jane, that was pure luck, otherwise we didn't have any other means to communicate with each other. She said the hotel screw up our reservation and decided to change hotel. At night we hang around in the cafe next to the hotel waiting for Mark, fortunately despite the security debacle in Heathrow he arrived around the time as planned and finally at 9pm we had everyone at the same place.

Marrakech!
This city is bloody amazing! I love it. It's so vibrant, crazy, hectic but somehow order is maintained. The souqs are similar to the market in Asia but of course they sell different stuff. Hassling, like in Asia, is a bit of a problem here, but after Asia I got used it. I could wander around in the souqs for ages looking at the trinkets, this is a shopping Mecca. I was told that the souqs in Fez are bigger and crazier. I couldn't wait.

Djemaa el-Fna
Mark's first comment when he first saw Djemma el-Fna at night was "Is everyone in Morocco here?". While the answer was "no" it certainly felt like it was. There was little to do in the main square of Marrakech during the day apart from the cheap (but excellent) orange juice and to watch the snake charmers, by night falls becomes the heart and soul of Marrakech, some says it is the heart of Morocco. I've never seen anything like Djemaa el-Fna at night, and people say there is nothing like Djemma el-Fna anywhere else in north Africa. It's the last of the great life squares in Morocco, all the other squares have died out or changed into car parks.

We had dinner at one of the numerous food stalls in the square. Unlike everywhere else in Marrakech, the food was served mere minutes after we ordered. I initially thought that this is a tourist trap, nay most people in Djemaa el-Fna at night are locals.

The Sights
More of the similar architectures I saw earlier in Andalucia are repeated here. One can really see the similarity or link between the two area. We went to see the former madrasa, the museum and the old qoubat. They all are in the same location. The museum's building was a lot more interesting than the content. It is located in one of the most beautiful house that I've ever been. The sparse art collection about Morocco really needs an upgrade.

Same beauty is repeated in the madrasa, we were here for a while taking photos for almost everything that can be photographs. It is an amazing building. The students' rooms are unbelieably small.

The next day Mark and Jane went for the Atlas Mountain tour, since my budget didn't allow me to go I went to pay a visit to the "Incomparable Palace". Stripped bare by Mulay Ismail to build his own palace, this still in an impressive construction judging by the size of the courtyard.

Next to the palace is the tomb of the Saadien, another example of the mesmerizing beauty of Moroccon Islamic art. Next is Palais Bahai, the palace of the Grand Vizier. Most section of this palace is still used as the royal residence in Marrakech, so tourist can only visit a fraction of the palace opened for public. I love this place, I sat at one of the room for 20 minutes admiring the roof and the plaster work.

Marrakech by Night
Everynight we wandered around Djemaa el-Fna. Somehow, I could never have enough of this place. One night we bumped into an Italian couple that met in the ferry from Algeciras to Tangier, then at Tanger Ville train station waiting for the same overnight train to Marrakech. We had a nice dinner at one of the terrace of the restaurants around the square watching the activities at a comfortable distance.

There are some bars in Marrakech but they all out in the new town around 1.5km walk from the Medina. A bit out of the way and tired from the day sight seeing we never ended up going to the bars.

Moving On
I wanted to stay in Marrakech for much longer than 3 nights, unfortunately we had a schedule to meet. Jane needed to be back in Gibraltar by 25th August. Otherwise I would like to do a 3 days desert tour or going east to the gorges. So Thursday morning we caught the 11am train to Meknes. This is a 7 hour long journey, fortunately the trains in Morocco are excellent. Clean and comfortable, even the second class is pleasant enough for the 7 hour journey.

As we travelled to Meknes, through the desert and out from the crazyness that was Marrakech, it finally dawn on me that I'm in another continent, a new continent. And for the past 2.5 months I've brushed my teeth in 4 different continents, Australia, Asia, Europe and now Africa. Strange thought, no wonder a new friend that I met in Valencia think that I'm crazy.

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August 13, 2006

Sevilla

After being roasted alive in Sevilla for the past 2 days, this morning overcast brought a pleasant temperature cool down in Sevilla. The hostel is dead around this time, there was only a guy sleeping in his couch, the receptionist and me writing my post. This is a good time to blog, no one is waiting to use the internet.

Arrived in Sevilla a day early than planned, luckly as I called the hostel in the morning they had a space for me. Good, I don't have to sleep in the couch. Sevilla is hot, just as hot if not even hotter than Cordoba, and since they are madly building the metro here there are constructions pretty much everywhere in the city centre.

Not feeling like doing anything in the heat I just hang around in the fantastic Oasis Sevilla and joined the organised Tapas Tour at night. This Tapas Tour aparently a lot more sedate than the one they organise in Oasis Granada so I thought. Unlike Granada, you don't get free tapas when you order the drink.

At the end of the tapas tour we went to a largish restaurant/bar for a free Flamenco show. Didn't like it. The two singers and the guitarist are wearing semi-casual costume, the crowd is very loud and that pretty much ruin the experience to me. I went out to the courtyard to escape the bar/sauna. Left early since I was tired and stupidly let a young, stubborn but obviously distressed since she couldn't find the way back home Quebeqois to let us back to the hostel. Should have taken control on the direction of the group but I was beyond arguing and thought the stroll around the city at night was quiet nice.

The next day started semi-late and I went to the Alcazar to begin my day. It's similar to Alhambra but smaller and not as ornate. The history of this Alcazar interest me the most. Constructed by a catholic king who love muslim art and aided by his ally the emir of Granada. Muhammad V of Granada sent his best artisan to help pedro construct the faboulous palace in Alcazar.

The upper palace which serve as the resident of the king and queen of Spain when they're here can only be accessed on a certain interval and accompanied by guard at all time. I screw up my audio guide and gave up trying to fiddle with it half way through.

Next stop was the museum of fine art, another crash course on Spanish classical art. Learned about local boys Murillo and Zubaran. I particularly like Zubaran gloomy painting of Jesus on the cross. A few Goya, Velazques and few other good painting. This is a well sized museum for my liking, since I'm not a big fans of classical art, 2 hours if probably my enjoyment theshold.

At night there was another dinner party organised by the hostel. Really good food for a mere EUR5, managed to get a lot more than I paid after the friendly cook let me have a second serving. Later that night he fell down the stair while carrying a bunch of dishes causing a rain of broken glass down the common room. Fortunately he escaped injuries.

I had been feeling really tired for the past few days, I took a full advantage of Oasis superb bed (although I met two Australian girl who was demolished by what we suspect as bed bugs the night before), air conditioning and had a long sleep. Didn't wake up until past 10am taking good advantage on Oasis long breakfast hour (until 11am).

Went straight to the cathedral which, according to the audioguide, is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world and the third largest cathedral at any period losing only to St. Peter in Rome and St. Paul in London. Bumped into a guy who stayed in the same hostel who turned out to be an architect, he explained some of the amazing fact about gothic cathedrals construction.

And now back in the hostel I finally caught up with my blog posting. Need to have an early night tonight to make sure I don't miss my 9am bus to Algeciras. I absolutely have to catch this bus if I want to be in Marrakech by the 14 August. I need to get that bus down to Algeciras, hope to get a ferry crossing to Tangier early afternoon to get the overnight train down to Marrakech.

Tomorrow should be interesting, a long journey to Marrakech, new country, new continent.

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August 12, 2006

Cordoba

From Granada I took the bus to Cordoba, this was on 8th August 2006. I had booked for 3 nights in Cordoba, however I found out that it will take me 2 full days to get from Sevilla to Marakesh where I have to meet up with 2 friends on 14 August. Thus I had to cut down 1 night either in Cordoba or Sevilla. After a few inputs from several other travellers I decided to stay for only 2 nights instead of 3 in Cordoba so I can have 3 nights in Sevilla. There are more things to see in Sevilla people said.

As the bus pulled over to the Estacion de Autobuses, the termometer read out 42 degree celcius. Cordoba is hot people say, and they are not exagerating. The weather for the next 2 days can be summed up as hell on earth.

Here in Cordoba was my first experience back in the "official" HI hostel. As expected, it was big, bland and overrun by French school children. Cordoba doesn't seem to be a premier individual traveller stop. Having said that I met this ultra friendly French backpacker on the bus station that I ended up hang out with for dinner where we discussed everything from travel, world politics, European culinary to a debate whether Turkey is in Europe or Asia. There are a few other backpackers, but I found that in a hostel overrun by school group people don't tend to socialise much and keep to themselves. This is not always true, when there are enough backpackers like in French hostels (almost all of them are "official" HI hostels) then the atmosphere won't be so dead. In fact I had a good time in every single hostel in France except the weird Toulouse hostel.

I've been using this thing that I thought was a laundry powder. I bought them in France and of course there was no English on it. There was a picture that suggest it is a laundry powder. Well this French guy that I met want to do his laundry and asked me if I have "soap". I gave him my laundry powder and he told me it wasn't soap, but instead it was something that you add to protect the washing machine and your clothes from the hard water. Great, I've been protecting all the washing machine that I've used. I'm such a good customer. On top of that I haven't been washing my clothes with soap! Well I did in some occasions because most hostels in Spain have laundry service so I do get my clothes cleaned. Although I had been using this "soap" a few times.

The main thing to see in Cordoba is the Mezquita, a former mosque turned into Cathedral, and Cordoba itself. The Mezquita is impressive, but since I saw Alhambra just a couple of days before it sort of took the magic away from the Mezquita. The audioguide is a bit confusing to follow and not very well done, but it does have some really good historical information and it points out some interesting architecture in the Mezquita.

The choir of cathedral built in the middle of the Mezquita is amazing, I've never seen wooden carving so ornate as this one. Each panel has different decoration, each is equally ornate and detailed.

Apart from the Mezquita, walking around Cordoba is very rewarding. You can peek through some of the main doors see the beautiful patios hidden inside the house.

My plan to save money was thwarthed by going out to restaurants two nights in a row. This was okay since I got to taste more Spanish food, but I do need to keep an eye of my spending, which has been good in the past couple of weeks. I've been spending a lot less now than the beginning of my trip. I sort of get the hang of spending the best value of my money now.

Most travellers that I met bypassed Cordoba, that's such a shame. The next morning I walked all the way to the bus station because I didn't realise that the bus stop that I got off didn't have the other direction. Reading the bus map I realised that it would take me just as long to go to the bus stop than to the bus station, that sucks but it wasn't that far of a distance and I got a chance to burn the massive amaount of sugar that I took the night before from the Sangria.

Next stop was Sevilla, the capital of Andalucia.

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August 11, 2006

Granada

Lag
I'm lagging behind again. I haven't found a good time to blog in the past few days.

On the Way to Granada
After surviving Valencia's bus station, I think I got the hang of travelling by bus in Spain. It's very easy and there are frequent bus service between the major lines. The only problem is that there are many bus companies each servicing different area of Spain. It was a 5 hours bus trip from Madrid to Granada. At EUR14 it was one of the cheapest travel cost so far. I met a few Americans exchange students here in Granada who were training it from Madrid. It sucks, bus is cheaper and quicker. Unlike France where train is the way to go, in Spain make sure to compare both options.

In Granada
I like Spain, but not until I arrive in Granada I fell in love with Spain. While Barcelona, Valencia and Madrid are nice, they don't really have the charm of Granada (and the rest of Andalucia I'm hoping). A friend said that she hasn't really felt that she was in Spain until she was here in Granada.

There are more in Granada than just Alhambra. The narrow alleys of Albayzin quarter, the royal chappel to house the crypt of Fernando and Isabel, the muslim bath house, the flea market, the tapas bar, the vibrant nightlife, and of course cool hostels :) I love Granada, it feels like the heart of Spain but fun for tourist too.

The First Day
The temperature reading on the road showed 42 celcius. Granada is hot, especially during July and August where many residetns sensibly leave Granada for the coast. Funky Backpacker Hostel is centrally located near Plaza Nueva where the buses to Alhambra call their passangers.

I met a three friendly American exchange students from Valladolid on their weekend trip to see Alhambra. That night the hostel offered Paella on the Roof (seems to be quiet common in Spain) for a mere EUR6. It was a bloody good paella but not enough for my liking.

After the paella night the three American students told me that they are going to see a free Flamenco show and asked me if I want to come a long. Although a bit wary of the "free" element I went along since the Flamenco night offered at the hostel cost EUR18 (a single drink included).

The restaurant was very nice, smoky, friendly and had this really authentic atmosphere. Too add the Spanish authenticity, the show didn't start until over 1 hour later than the advertised time. It was a simple Flamenco show with a single guitarist, singer and a dancer. The stage was small and some of us sit dangerously closed to the dancer. Although I didn't think much of the singing the dancing was quiet good, but it was the guitar that got me.

The Next Day
It was still hot. In the morning I paid Fernando and Isable a visit in the Capilla Real but refused to pay the equivalent amount (EUR3) for the cathedral.

Later on the day I did my walking tour in charming Albayzin (the old muslim quarter). Although the muslim rule ended centuries ago, this quarter retains its muslim characteristics. Situated in a hill the Albayzin can be quiet tiring to explore, especially in the searing 40 degree plus. Unfortunately this was Sunday. Many sights are closed for the day.

Went back to the hostel to cook lunch and to escape the heat.

Gatecrashing another Hostel
Not that Funky is not a good hostel, it is in fact very nice. It's cleaned, has air-con, but it isn't a very social hostel. It has a common room, but like the common room in my previous hostel in Madrid it doesn't encourage social interaction. I haven't figured out yet exaclty what make one common room more sociable than others, but I have a feeling it's the location of the common room and the furniture.

An aussie girl I met earlier in Valencia told me she will be in Granada staying at Oasis. We've been emailing to organise a catch up. So I went down to Oasis, ring the the bell, walked straight into the nicely decorated lounge room and there she was. Good timing and she just literally arrived in the hostel.

Unlike Funky, the common room in Oasis is brightly decorated, next to the kichen, bar and simply nice. I rate this hostel just as good as Home Youth Hostel in Valencia. Another aussie girl joined us and an english girl who has been studying Spanish for over a month in Granada became our guide for the best restaurant and tapas bar for the night.

La Alhambra
In the past two months I've seen many amazing things, Angkor Wat still top my WOW list. I visited Angkor Wat in the beginning of the trip and nothing has even remotely close on that until La Alhambra. I'm convinced that if you only have 1 day in Spain, this is where you have to go.

I reserved my ticket over the Internet as suggested by Lonely Planet and my hostel. I still had to come early to pick it up as they have queue for the reservation line, albeit moving a lot quicker than the on the day ticket sales queue. With 9:30 Palacio Nazaries entrance timeI still managed to grab a quick breakfast in the hostel at 8 in the morning, catch the bus to Alhambra (stuff walking) queue and get into Alhambra by 9 in the morning. This gave me half an hour time to walk around before entering Palacio Nazaries.

Palacio Nazaries, the jewel of Alhambra, is nothing like I've ever seen before. Although it's not in a very good state it is still breathtaking. I could only imagine how it looked on its height. No amount of photos of the palace from the postcards can prepare me of what is truly the gem of Spain architecture. I'm rambling again here, anyway in short I'm impressed.

The Teteria
I gatecrashed Oasis hostel again. This night there were 9 people, all from Sydney, in the lounge room. Typical Sydneysiders, we could not escape the real estate discussion. I joined the fairly cheap vegetarian dinner party at the hostel and we went out to the teteria to sample the Moroccon tea and their sweet tobacco on that really ornate bong (can't spell it and don't have time to look up for it. People are queueing for the free internet here).

So that was Granada, it was a superb experience. I love Granada and from talking to a lots of people they all seem to love Granada. It's one of kind city.

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August 06, 2006

Madrid

The Bearded Guy Incident
No it wasn't a Frenchman, but an Italian. This was guy who didn't want the air-con because 24 celcius was 'winter in Italy'. I had never seen him not in our dorm room and everytime I saw him he was either reading the metro map, the guidebook or just sitting in the bunk bed. He kept a losing argument where it was 35 outside and 25 inside and it made people sick. None of us bought it. At night I left the argument to the 2 dutchmen and go to bed. They tried to shield his bunk bed with blanket so he stopped complaining about how cold it was. Giving up, he stood up for a good 30 minutes looking at the air-con before declaring that he was going to change room.

The Hostel
The hostel (International Hostel Posada de Huerta) is not too shabby. My dorm room was rather big and the bunk beds are good, personal lockers are provided and they have air-con. The kitchen is larger than most kitchen that I've seen. However the showers and toilet are atrociously small. The breakfast is OK but I hate it when they don't top up the food, meaning you have to come early otherwise they only thing that you get is coffee.

The Crew
I met two really nice and fun Dutch guys on their mid-term college break. We pretty much hang out together and had a good time. On the second day we recruited an Australian girl, from Sydney, St. George to be exact. The world is getting smaller.

Cooked bolognaise and salad for two nights in a row. The second night the food was infinitely better as we learned more about the ingredients and we had a girl to properly make the salad. These crew made the Madrid stay much better than I expected. One of my best experience of hostelling my way around Europe is to meet these people.

Reina Sofia
On the first full day in Madrid we went to Reina Sofia in the Morning. They had a big Picasso exhibition celebrating 25 years the return of Guernica to Spain. The two Dutchmen apparently big fans of Picasso. I love this museum, and I like this kind type of arts better than the classical arts they have in El Prado. It was not too dissimilar with Paris' Louvre and Musee d'Orsay. While Louvre was impressive, I prefer the paintings in Musee d'Orsay.

Palacio Real
After a quick lunch we wandered through the Madrid to make our way to Palacio Real, Spanish monarchs old residence. It was impressive, but then I always like to visit palaces. While we were in one of the room, a tour in English was currently running. We then walked at the same pace with the tour. The Royal Armory is not to be missed, they have an impressive collection of ornately designed swords, armour and shields that don't like they've ever used in battles before.

Across the palace is Madrid's cathedral.Unlike the other cathedral that I've seen in France and Spain it's fairly new and it shows. Didn't do it for me and I wasn't impressed at all.

Toledo
We started a bit late the next day and after a few discussion we decided to go to Toledo. Toledo is an bus ride away from Madrid at a mere EUR4.25. Lonely Planet makes Toledo a must visit place in Spain. Description and photos in the books are very impressive. Yeah ... I don't think so. Toledo is definitely overrated.

It's medieval town alright, with little alleys and it is quiet pretty, but definitely not live up to expectations. Not to mention that it's very touristy. The Alcazar is still closed for renovation, you have to pay EUR6 to go to cathedral, EUR2 for some unknown church, and almost every other place of interest you have to pay a fee, albeit quiet small.

Fortunately for Toledo they do have a good free museum, I think it's called Museo de Santa Cruz. It's a bit funny where they insist of giving us tickets although the museum is free. Actually we went to another church-turned-into-museum where they give us ticket for the free entry. A bit inefficient if their main purpose is to do head count.

Museo del Prado
You can't visit Madrid without paying a visit to del Prado, Supposedly Madrid's answer to The Louvre, this museum do have a very good collection of mostly Spanish classical paintings. As I went through the thousands painting, I learned a lot about a few big names in arts.

Going through Europe and visiting the art galleries, as another traveller pointed out, is like having a crash course in arts.

We were still a bit tired from last night wines and decided to have a quick siesta inside a quiet corner in the museum. I think it's funny.

Last Words on Madrid
It is surprisingly a nice city. I wasn't going to go to Madrid because a lot of people said it's not much, and so maybe I don't have a big expectation in it. However when I got there I was pleasantly surprised at how down to earth the city is. In fact I think it's cleaner and friendlier than Barcelona. Perhaps the fact that the city is fairly new helps.

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August 02, 2006

Valencia

Apart from the wallet incident, I was having heaps of fun in Valencia. The next day after the incident I finally had some time to explore the old city. I went to see pretty much all the sights in Lonely Planet in the morning. You have to pay EUR3 to go inside the cathedral. I decided not to go, if hadn't got robbed the day before I might have gone in. Still feeling a bit angry and really really stupid from the whole incident.

The old city of Valencia is very beatiful, it's Spain third largest city, but it doesn't feel like it. To me it's like going to Lyon after Paris. This pretty much the same experience. There's a lot less tourist and the city is very enjoyable to explore on foot.

The Hostel
I stayed at Home Youth Hostel, the best hostel so far in my trip. This hostel is very cosy, funky and have such a good atmosphere. Everyone is very friendly and the staff are incredibly nice.

It's a chain of three hostel in Valencia, from the cheapest to the most expensive: Home Backpackers, Home Youth Hostel and Home Deluxe. I visited Home Backpackers on my last night in Valencia and found it to be a bit too comercial. It's very big and it feels like HI Hostel in a way, but with no families or children. The only problem that it can be unbearably hot and stuffy at night. Some of the rooms are not very well ventilated. People ended up just throwing the door wide open at night.

The Beach
On the afternoon we went to the beach. It's not much of a beach compared to the Australian beaches, I went only because it's too damn hot to do anything else and to say that I've finally had a dip in the mediteranean sea. As we sat down in the beach, two Australian guys that we met earlier in the hostel came and laid the towel right next to us. They didn't see us initially and I had to call them out. So here we are in Valencia, Spain, 4 strangers by chance sat next to each other on the beach. All of us were from Australia and we all came from Sydney northern suburbs. Cammeray, Roseville, West Pymble and St. Ives. It's a small world indeed.

To go to the beach take bus number 19 from Plaza Ayuntamiento until the terminus, this will get you as far as possible from the ugly working port of Valencia. On the way from the Ciutat Vella (old city), you get to see the modern Valencia. The funky new modern architecture of Valencia's City of Art complex and numerous apartment buildings.

Radio City
This place is worth a mention because if you stay at Home Youth Hostel you get a card to get a free sangria for the night. The place often went off, even if it's Monday night. A bit of warning, you won't find any local here and English is spoken everywhere. It's a traveller night club. In fact, since Barcelona I haven't been clubbing in a proper "Spanish" club. All have been travellers club, that shows how many tourists are here in Spain, and most of them are looking for the party.

We went for a bit of dancing at Radio City. I left a bit early because I'm feeling not well. Have been a bit sick since I left Barcelona and it's getting worse.

Toward Madrid
I initially want to take the 9AM bus from Valencia to Madrid. But I love the hostel so much I hang around for breakfast. I went to the internet cafe to write my long post about the incident in Valencia. It's good to be able to vent off like that. Back to the hostel to cook my lunch and hang around for a bit. They are such a nice hostel, they let people hang around well until they check-out. It's big enough to have enough variety of people but still small for the staff to get to know everyone and have the good atmosphere. I think this is the most ideal hostel size.

When I finally get to the bust station at 3:30pm, I bumped into the three Italian girls who were in the same hostel room with me in Barcelona. It's such a small world.

No Habla Español
No one speak English in Valencia´s bus station, but somehow I managed to get my ticket. Getting to the right platform is even more troublesome. There's no information whatsoever like the train station does. There's something about Coche 2, Plaza 15 in my ticket. I thought that's platform number 15. God know what Coche 2 means. Fortunately I thought that my luck has not been very good in the past few days I tried to find information from the information desk. Naturally he doesn't speak a single word of English. I gave him my ticket and he wrote 22. Right ....

Down in platform 22 there were a few people waiting. I peeked to one of the lady's e-ticket and it says Valencia - Madrid. Yep I think I'm in the right platform and when the bus arrived with a big sign Valencia - Madrid I'm very sure that I won't end up in Granada. It was a pleasant 4 hours drive to Madrid with 20 minutes toilet break halfway through.

I'm in Madrid now, currently on my second night here (only a day behind on my blog post now), my cold is definitely getting worse, I need to rest it in the next few days to recover. The hostel has air-con for a change, there's a weird bearded French guy, who doesn't seem to ever leave the hostel, snores very loudly and wants to sleep without air-con. He was out-voted by the seven of us who are still sane.

Posted by vhadiant at 11:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 01, 2006

Robbed!

Disclaimer
Pardon my grammar, spelling and the multitude of swear words used in this post. This post is about one of the most frustating days of my life. No spelling and grammar check applied.

The Incident
I would never know how it happened. The day didn't start very good to start with. I was a bit sick and feeling under the weather, but I decided to get out from the comfortable hostel and explore Valencia. I was walking around and I visited a market where I think my wallet is stolen. Not much later after the market I looked over a window of a shop and from the reflection I could see that my backpack was wide opened. I thought that was strange and reached for it to fix it. I knew something was wrong when even the compartment where I put my wallet was opened and of course there's no wallet. I quickly walked back to the hostel hoping that I left my wallet in the hostel.

We searched the hostel for a while and I decided it´s time to finally accept that I am, just like it happened in Bondi Beach almost 9 years ago, another victim of crime. The receptionist showed me how to get to the police station and she said that she's really sorry that she can´t accompany me there to translate because there´s no one else in the hostel. No worries, I thought I´ll just go and see how it goes.

I really should cancel my credit card. But after searching the internet for the contact number of Wizard I didn´t find any international number to contact. All are 1300 or 1800 numbers, which I know is almost impossible to contact while you´re overseas. This is the beginning of my litany of woes with the worst financial insitution on planet earth, the company called Wizard Home Loan.

The Police Report
The lone officer at the local police station was very friendly and helpful despite his limited English. I managed to get myself understood and he immediately called Madrid. There is an international police service helpline in Madrid to help you filling in the police report in Spanish. So you speak to the operator in English (he was another English working in Spain) and he will write the police report for you. These kind of petty theft must have happened quite often if they actually have a special police division just to handle police report translation.

One the report is done, I have to go to National Police station. Apparently in Spain they have difference level of police. The one that I went to is the Polica Local, to be able to get my print out I need to go to Comisaria Policia Nacional office.

The officers in the national police office are very nice, friendly and helpful. Unfortunately there were only 2 older guys there and they hardly can speak English. They printed out my police report and I signed it. By this time 2 younger police officer went in and naturally they can speak a bit of English. They asked me do I need to cancel my credit card. I explained that I can´t call Australia yet. No problem they give me Mastercard International number. Fantastic I thought.

The Debacle with Wizard Home Loan
I knew I couldn' contact Wizard 1300 number from overseas. I tried it from Vietnam and it's only staffed from 8:30am AEST. So I had high hopes with Mastercard International number. I punched in the number and followed the friendly american accent automated machine. It asked me to enter my card number. "One moment please .... we will now redirect you to your financial institution .... please call after 8:30 AEST .. beep beep beep beep beep..." FUCK ....

I could not comprehend that a credit card provider does not provide 24 hours customer service! I asked the police station if I can make international phone call. They said no sorry, their telephone is blocked from making International phone call. Fine enough. I half ran back to the hostel to ask where can I make international phone call. Since this was Sunday, Valencia is dead. The receptionist showed me the closest.

I managed to get through to my brother and asked him to try to call the 1300 number and if he can ask them the international number that I can call from overseas. He managed to get through to one and operator and he gave us a Sydney number. Fantastic. I called this number, punched in through some sequence of menu and again it gives me exactly the same message as before, call again 8:30am AEST ...

By this time my blood pressure went off the roof.

I called my brother again to try to speak to the customer service again. This time I want to listed what he said and I had to call his mobile phone. Very expensive to call from overseas. In over 20 minutes he couldn't reach any operator, this is about 10pm on Sunday night in Australia.

Argghhh .... I just want to cancel my credit card, and because I had some hostel booking and Alhambra ticket transactions the previous night I want to make sure that they went through and nothing else.

My day has just gone from bad to worse to a fucking debacle. I started praying ...

Suddenly I had an idea, I asked my brother to try to call the Australian Mastercard International number. See if that works. I still find it hard to believe that they don't have 24 hour cancellation service. He did as asked, and they have the same system. Enter the card number and it will be forwarded to the financial institution. This time it worked!! Yes fantastic.

So my brother reported my credit card was stolen and asked to stop it. They did as requested but they want to speak to me to send a replacement card and I do want to speak to them personally. Unfrotunately the stupid idiot on the other side does not understand our simple request "What is the local number, not the 1800 number that I can call from overseas". He didn't know and did not want to find out. I can hear my brother on the other side on the phone getting really frustated on this guy stupidity.

He told him than 10 times give me the non 1800 number. The stupid idiot on the other side just doesn't understand. He requested for a supervisor and none was available.

At this stage, my blood pressure is probably high enough to cause instant death. I asked my brother to confirm that the card was blocked. Yes the operator said. My brother specifically told him "Please don't hang up, I need to speak to my brother in Spain" several times, and yet he did.

I'm not good enough a writer to be able to explain my feeling in words. Suffice to say, I'm angry. Very very very angry. There's nothing else I could do. The entire saga cost me almost EUR20 worth of phone calls, and almost 3 hours of my life in total.

That's not much, but considering it could have finished in the police station with a free phone call to Mastercard International, it's unacceptable. Unfuckingacceptable.

I should have known not to dabble with a credit card company provided by a home loan company. The main reason I get Wizard Mastercard was their no international transaction fee charge. I stupid I was to trust them, how stupid I was to think that they are a respectable, professional financial institution.

Later that day
I refused to let this incident stopped me from enjoying my travel. I went back to the hostel, everyone was very nice and sympathetic. Cooked my super late lunch at 4pm and left to the fine arts museum. It was free and it has some fine collection. I would have enjoyed it more if I wasn't still raging with anger with Wizard. Funny that I wasn't angry about my stolen wallet, the Wizard debacle definitely overshadowed it.

I went to the park and read a bit and then back to the hostel. At the hostel there are 2 new guys in the room and the four of us went to have dinner. It doesn't make sense really. After losing 100EUR I should really save, but like I said I won't let this incident stop me from having fun. We had a good time with the paella, tapas and beer.

I had to go back to the hostel to wait until 12:30 in the fucking morning so I can get in touch with Wizard call centre to close my account. That's it, I don't want to deal with these idiots anymore. Just close my account.

While waiting I was thinking of what creative words I could say to the customer service about their stupid company. However through the night, my anger slowly dissapear and I thought that blasting the customer service reps won't do any good. It's not their fault that their company is shit, and I'm sure that they've faced enough angry customers already. I thought a much better complaint should be directed to Mastercard International and Wizard complaint departments to say that I am very dissapointed with their service.

Exactly at 12:38 in the morning, Spain time, I called Mastercard International again. This is a free phone call and I knew this will be redirected to Wizard. Of course this time I got through. So I did my transaction check and closed my account, I have credit so I asked them to send a check. They asked me what's the reasons for closing my account, I told them that you don't have 24 hours call service centre which I found totally unacceptable. Do you know what time is this in Spain, yep it's 1 o clock in the morning. I have a million of better things to do than waiting until 1 in the morning to call my bank.

And with that, it's done. Actually ... even if they don't send me my AUD130 credit I don't care. I just don't want to deal with these fuckwits. If it cost me AUD130 so be it.

Posted by vhadiant at 01:11 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 31, 2006

Montserrat

Located an hour train ride away from Barcelona, Montserrat is a mountain with a truly weird rock formations. It has an amazing view once you climbed up to the top of the mountain.

The Journey
It´s very eays. Just go to Plaza Espanya´s RENFE station (not the Metro) and they have a special booth, manned by an English guy, that sells combined ticket to Montserrat. There are a few options, some combining with museum entries etc.

I bought the only ticket that I can buy at that time because one of the furniculair was not working and he was authorised to sell that only combo ticket.

On the way to Montserrat, make sure you know which stop you´re supposed to got off. With my combo ticket I was supposed get off at Monistrol. In the train I sat around a group of very friendly and nice French people and feeling save and still tired from the night before I fell asleep. The nice French people woke me up at Montserrat Aeri stop. Without thinking just woke up I jumped off the train. Well yeah it was the wrong stop. It´s the right stop if you want to take the cable car to Montserrat but not if you have bought the cremallera ticket. The French group had the same problem with me :) I can´t really blame them to wake me up at the wrong station, they´ve decided to walk up the mountain while I did the sensible thing and paid the 1 way ticket by cable car to the monastery.

The Monastery
The main sight is the basilica where the "Black Virgin" is housed. Venerated by many, expect to queue to pay a visit to the "Black Virgin". The monastery and basilica are beautiful, but neither can match the view from the many lookout points provided. However the best view await a few hundred meters about at the peak of Sant Jeroni.

The Mountain
The mountain is criss-crossed by 5 bushwalking tracks. The most popular is track number 3, to the peak of Sant Jeroni. The highest peak in Montserrat. To go there you can take the furniculair or walked through the return path. I thought rather than taking the furniculair I'd rather take the return trip path and walk all the way up. Basically doing it in reverse than the tourist office reccomend. It wasn't that hard if you are reasonably fit. The climbed up took me about an hour.

The view from Sant Jeroni is "out of this world" according to the brochure. It doesn´t exagerate, it is breathtaking. You can see almost all of Catalonia all they way up to the Pyrenees.

Once I completed track number 3 in reverse I ended up in the furniculair station where most people start the bushwalk. Feeling energised I decided to do track number 4 to visit the cave where the Black Virgin was found. This track is obviously much less travelled than the other track. Ot one junction about 1km from the start the track narrowed considerably. Not sure that it was the right track I asked a local runner. He said yep that was the right one.

So I went down on the route and braced myself. This track can be unnerving to walk alone. For the next 2 hours I didn´t see a single soul while walking on a cliff edge of Montserrat mountain. Although unnerving it's not a hard trail and it gives you another breathaking view of the valley next to the mountain. I thouroughly enjoyed the walk. I had to push a bit harder than recommended pace because I need to catch the last train back to Barcelona. Near the end of the track was the Black Virgin cave, as my luck want it, it was closed. That´s fine the view from the mountain was well worth the walk. From the cave back to the monastery the path widen and paved. Obviously this is a well travelled path. Statues depicting the live of Christ lined the broad path (or should I say road) back to the monastery.

On the way back in Barcelona
My last night and we went out again. We a very friendly American couple in the hostel and we drank most of the night on a plaza just outside the hostel as we got kicked out from the hostel because we were making too much noise. It´s very quiet hostel, located in the middle of private apartment. I can understand the no noise rule. Despite the no noise rule, I really enjoy staying there, it gives me feeling like staying in a local apartment. The apartment is very old it´s definitely cool just hanging out in the courtyard hallway (early evening, before the no noise rule kicked in) having dinner.

Toward Valencia
I thought I'm pretty experienced train traveller in Europe after catching a few of them in France. But nothing prepare me for the chaos that is Barcelona train station. I wanted to buy the 9:33 ticket to Valencia because at EUR20 it's a bargain. It's even cheaper than the bus.

At the train station, the queue was 30 meter long. Maybe it´s just me or I feel that the train station in Barcelona (Estacio Sants) is just full of angry people. After queuing for over 40 minutes I was told that I queued at the wrong ticket booth, that ticket is availabe on the Rodalise ticket booth. What the hell, it´s just train ticket! Why do I have to queue at the other ticket office. Now I understand my I think Estacio Sants is full of angry people.

Of course I've wasted previous 40 minutes that I don´t have. By this time I only have less than 30 minutes to get my ticket and get my arse on that train. The train leaves at 9:33, I got my ticket at 9:31. I raced to platform 5 and right infront of the gate 2 young girls were arguing whether they should go to platform 5 or to wait until the tv display says that platform 5 was the train to Valencia. One of her friend is the one that has a brain as she told her to look at the big display that says the train to Valencia is on platform 5 (the tv display is showing the current and about to leave train). God how stupid can you be. Exasperated, I walked past them to the gate and sighed a big relief when I arrived at platform 5. Of course the train is 5 minutes late so all those running and puffing was a bit useless.

It's a 5 hour long trip to Valencia on this slow train. I was feeling really good about this trip having such a good time in Barcelona. Little does I know that in the next day this all will change when I my wallet was stolen.

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Barcelona Report

Lag
There has been some lag on my blog posting with my current location. Sometime it´s hard to find time to blog when you´re travelling. Time is precious and when you have time often you want to visit the local park to read or just chill out rather than stuck in an internet cafe writing your blog post. I don´t want to leave it to far behind otherwise I would forget some stuff that I should have written it down.

The Party Town
It's hard to balance the going out and the sight seeing time in Barcelona. Barcelona is such a party town. In last blog post I wrote that the it might be a quiet stay for me in Barcelona because there's no common room in the hostel. Fortunately I met a few people in the room which is quiet cool and we went out three nights in a row. The hard work is that during the day we always did another big day walking around the town.

Most people are in party mode while in Barcelona. One night we met a bunch of Italian and Belgium and we party until the wee hours in the morning. Another night we met a super nice American couple and I almost go over my alcohol limit for the whole night.

In Barcelona you don't have to look for party, it will come to you.

La Sagrada Familia
It's strange that for a city as old as Barcelona the top sight is an unfinished church. Built in 1882, La Sagrada Familia is only half-built. The Nativity Facade done by Gaudi is truly weird. Maybe it's just not my style. I prefer the Passion Facade by Joseph Subirach. The entry is a bit expensive, for EUR8 you can enter the church while paying EUR1 more you can get into Gaudi's home in Parc Guel, another Gaudi creation which is listed in UNESCO world heritage list. A bit of warning, Parc Guel is a bit far from La Sagrada Familia. If you go in the late afternoon you may not make it to Parc Guel. From the metro station you still have to walk about 1.2km (sign posted) to Parc Guel.

Montjuic
The next day started very late, however I did manage to visit Montjuic. The main reason was to visit Joan Miro musem. I saw some of his works earlier and liked it. There is another musem in Montjuic that worth visiting according to LP and it is housed in one of the finest building in Barcelona, the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. But having reached my museum budget for the day I didn´t go inside and just chilling out in the steps in fron to of the museum savouring the view of Barcelona.

Not far from MNAC, there´s a free museum (Ciaxa Forum) sponsored by Ciaxa, one of the big banks here in Spain. It´s pretty small museum but worth visiting since it´s free and when I was there they have a temporary exhibition about the history of animation. Spent a few hours there before heading back to the hostel.

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July 30, 2006

Wallet stolen in Valencia .. Wizard Home Loan is the worst company ever!

Right, long story cut short. I had my wallet stolen this morning. I lost my driver´s licence, HSBC debit card, Wizard Master Card and my HI Hostel card. But the worst 3 hours of my life was trying to cancel my Wizard Master Card.

This company is fucked! I just could not believe how bad Wizard is. Avoid avoid avoid. Once I get through them I´ll tell them that they are the worst company ever, just close my account and that´s it I don´t want to deal with them ever again. Anyway full report to follow. I´m behind on my blog posting. Barcelona was really good, Valencia is beautiful, wrecked with my stolen wallet. Which won´t be as bad if I don´t have to deal with Wizard. Grhhh I still couldn´t believe it.

Update: Read the full story here.

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July 25, 2006

Barcelona - The Beginning

Arrived in Barcelona last evening and checked-in to the hostel. You wouldn´t believe it, but it´s one of those quiet hostel. Not like Toulouse but there´s no common room in the hostel for socialising. The hostel itself (Pension Mari Luz) is very nice, clean and located inside a private apartment (level 3 no less). There is a kitchen but because of the lack of common room, God knows where we´re supposed to eat. And I booked here for 5 nights.

Ah well, lucky it has a good location close to Ramblas. There are plenty of things to do at night. I just walked around the whole night absorbing the atmosphere. There are plenty of remarkably talented buskers in the southern end of La Ramblas. These people certainly changed my view on buskings.

Explored Barri Gothic, mainly the Cathedral and the truly fascinating Museu d´Historia de la Ciutat, this morning and finally caught up with my blog posting during the siesta, where almost all sights are closed in Barcelona. The only thing open that I want to see is the Musee Picasso, but there were hundreds of people in the lineup just to get into the museum. That can wait until a bit later tonight. For now my Internet credit is almost run out.

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Toulouse

The friendly, funny, vibrant, multicultural, super tolerant and bustling metropolitanToulouse is a welcome change after Nimes and Carcassonne, both very typical France smal towns. Toulouse is one of those city that I wished I had stayed a day or two longer even after being here for 3 nights. Being a student town and a migrant centre, Toulouse is more tolerant to bad French than most other French towns. Like all other towns that I've visited it's just as if not even more friendly to foreigners.

The Pink City
Toulouse has a penchant of building with bricks, it's called the "Pink City" for this very same reason. Even all th eglise, cathedral and basilica are built using this bricks unlike other churches that I've seen so far. The Church of the Jacobins is definitely a must see and the Saint-Sernin basilica is no less impressive.

The weird hostel
Lonely Planet says that there's no hostel in Toulouse. Incorrect, actually there is ... sort of. There is a hostel, but it doubles as a residence for young people who work around Toulouse. So yeah not exactly your backpacker accomodation. It´s not listed in HIHostels.com website but it´s in the FUAJ guidebook. It´s a bit weird, the rooms have 2 beds only and have its own shower and toilet. I have my own room for the whole three nights I stayed there. My room was very clean and the hostel has an excellent breakfast. The best free breakfast so far.

But it does have one massive drawback. There's hardly any backpacker there. A lone backpacker from Quebec (again!) helped me found the hostel when I was looking for it in the suburb and he told me that there's no "gang" here, I will be doing it solo, and the French kids there don't like to talk to outsiders. Well if he who can speak French doesn't socialise what chance do I have to strike any conversation? Well no matter, I was dead tired from a string of long nights at Nimes and Carcassonne and welcome the change of pace a bit. The first day in Toulouse came and gone a bit uneventful and I was fast asleep by 10pm.

Airbus Factory Visit
I did need to early night because I need to catch the 8:30am bus from the city to visit the Airbus factory. I've been expecting for this. It's one of the main reason why I went to Toulouse. The visit was alright not as good as I expected, but that's because I went on Saturday I think. Since it's weekend the factory was quiet and we can't really see how these people work. It was still impressive, I really recommend it to anyone, but go during the weekdays. During weekdays with EUR4 extra you can also visit the Concorde. Again not during the weekend.

On the way home I met an Australian couple and a lone Austrian girl who was having a short break in Toulouse after her conference. They are all nice people and we ended up in a creperie for lunch. This is actually my very first proper French food. For the past 3 weeks I've been eating bad food or simply supermarket food :) I was lucky that the two girls both can speak French.

Lost in Translation
After lunch the Australians went their separate way, me and the Austrian decided to go watch a movie since we pretty much got nothing to do at night. It took a while to find the movie since there was nothing on, and almost all were dubbed in French! Even Superman Returns! So we asked the chick on the counter what movies are in English. There were only three. Vol 93, a movie about September 11, a horror movie that none of us were interested and Tsotsi a South African movie which won an Oscar for best foreign film. I was a bit sus with Tsotsi, I double check again and the chick assured me that it's in English. We tossed a coin and Tsotsi came ahead.

We then went our separate way while waiting for the movie. I hit the old Toulouse's churches, checked my emails then went back to the movies. The cinema is quite nice and modern, seats are very comfortable. After watching the obligatory advertisments Tsotsi came. And yes my doubt was confirmed. What they are speaking there definitely not English. It was "Version Originale" alright, but just not in English. What follow was my attempt to understand a movie in a foreign language with a subtitle which I didn't understand. Well after in France for 3 weeks I do know some French words, but it's probably one in 3 sentences.

Fortunately it is a very good movie and I do get the message quite clear. Over dinner my new friend filled in the of the bits and pieces that I missed out.

Cite de l'Espace
Cite de l'Espace is a science museum dedicated for space exploration. The rather high entry fee (EUR21 + EUR4 for the audioguide) give you a full day access to the exhibition, IMAX theatre and the planetarium. The audioguide is definitely worth getting, it gives automatic comentary depending your current location. It is the best audioguide that I´ve used so far. Started a bit late, I was here until the closing time of 7pm.

Later on that night I strolled along the beautiful Gerona river and I explored Toulouse´s deserted back roads and alleys. It was Sunday night and the city is almost empty.

Onward to Barcelona
The next day (24-07-2006 afternoon) I said goodbye to France (for now) and moved to Spain. Hola Barcelona!

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July 24, 2006

Carcassonne

At Carcassonne
The walled city of Carcassonne is one of the city highlights on my Tour de France. I've never seen a walled city before and Carcassonne is a remarkably preserved (no doubt for the tourist benefit, there are loads of them in Carcassonne) and on the UNESCO world heritage list. The city is most impressive from the outside on the way into Carcassonne, I pity all those people who arrive by bus/car right in front of the old city. The best view of the city is from the old bridge, you won't miss this bridge if you walk from the main Gare SNCF to the old city.

However once I got into the city at about 2pm, there was a massive tourist jam in the small roads of the walled city. I could not believe the amount of people inside the city, I should have guessed this by the number of tourist buses parked outside the walled city. I was mortified at the amount of souvenir shops, restaurants, cafes, bars, private museums and ... people. That was unbelievable, you couldn't possibly enjoy the old city at around this time.

After checking-in at the hostel I was informed that I can't check-in until 3:30pm. I left my bag in the hostel and went to explore Carcassonne old city with a million other tourists, this was not a pleasant experience. I was back at the hostel at 3:30pm exhausted by the tourists.

Back at the hostel I hang out with a bunch of other travellers at around my age for a change :) I am usually one of the oldest backpackers in the hostel, when there are a few of us at around late 20 - early 30 we tend to gravitate toward each other ha! Anyway that was a good evening, I left the group for a while around dusk to explore the city. At around this time I was finally able to enjoy the Carcassonne, less the tourists and when the souvenir shops are closed.

Back at the hostelm the group and I continued on drinking and talking about life in general. Another late night :)

The Accidental Travel Companion
The next day I went down to main town (Ville Basse) outside the walled city. It was a much better option rather than rubbing shoulders with ten of thousands tourists inside the walled city. One of the churches that attract my attention the most is located in the main shopping drag. It's so old and unlike the rest of churches in Europe it has wooden floor board. It creaks everytime you step on it adding the ancient feeling of the church. Not spectacular or no where near as ornate as other churches in Europe, this is definitely not to be missed in Carcassonne.

Arriving in the hostel I was greeted with my accidental travel companion. I first met her in the hostel in Paris, we were in the same room together. She left Paris for Orleans and I told her I want to go to Strasbourg. Of course my plan changed and I went to Lyon instead. Coincidentally she decided to go Lyon after Orleans. After Lyon I went to Marseille then Nimes while she went to Nimes, Sete and back to Nimes. This is where we once again stayed in the same hostel. I left Nimes a day earlier to Carcassonne although we kinda knew that we might bump into each other again in Carcassonne because this is apparently a common route. I met a Quebecois and and English dude at Nimes and again at Carcassone. While in Carcassonne I met yet another Quebecois on its way from Toulouse to Carcassonne then Nimes.

The Three Musketeers
I shared a room with four young Parisians (one is currently living in Sao Paulo) who couldn't get the hostel in Biarritz and ended up in Carcassonne. Bored to death (obviously not interested in Carcassonne many churches) they went out on day trips everyday. They are super friendly and very willing to speak English to me, once again dispelled the myth about French people's aloofness.

That night in the hostel, the Parisians invited me, the English dude that I met at Nimes and now in Carcassonne and an Irish chick to go to this "lake" about 10km outside Carcassonne to drink and to create some fire. Of course they only have a very small car, a Renault which is smaller than a Peugeot 206. I'm not exagerating here, but we did manage to put the six of us there. The security people around the parking area didn't seem to care about it.

At the like, it didn't matter how hard they tried, we couldn't get the fire started. Make sense since it was raining pretty heavily just a few hours before. I tried to tell them so many times that it's just not going to work but they kept trying. Ahh .. youth :)

Then come the incident that may well award this night as the most bizarre night ever in this travel. Actually no, that last night in Vietnam takes the cake, this night come close but. For reasons that I didn't know fully, three of them started fighting and walked to the hostel. This is a good 10km walk at 4 in the morning. The driver, which was the youngest of them all, and us three outsider managed to convince one of them to go back to the car but the the two who initially started fighting wouldn't budge. We did manage to talk to the guy at the front but he decided to wait to the second dude to make up and walk together to the hostel.

I never knew what time they got back to the hostel as when I woke up at about 10:30 they were already in their respective bunks.

Finishing Da Vinci Code
On my last day in Carcassonne I hang around in the hostel, walked down to the city to have lunch, went to a park along the river Aude to have my siesta and finished Da Vinci Code. I have to say I'm a bit dissapointed with the ending.

That night passed a lot less bizzare than the night before. A few of us talked about life until the wee hour in the morning. The next day I walked to the train stations with my accidental travel companion and the Quebecois chick that I met earlier at Nimes. Here I said goodbye to my accidental travel companion knowing that this probably it. She's on the way to Biarritz for a week before going back to London while I was on my way to Toulouse and then most likely (well I know now by the time I wrote this post) to Barcelona.

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July 22, 2006

Pont du Gard

Pont du Gard is a 40m bus ride from Nimes. To get there go the the main train station (Gare SNCF) and go to the back of the train station, not the boulevard where the suburban bus stops are. If you exit from the train station, hang right and find bus #3. To get the timetable ask the information for regional bus information desk. To find this information desk ask the main Accueil (Information) desk. Phew ... that should get you to Pont du Gard from Nimes. It took me a while to find the right bus with my broken French, the smaller the city the the less likely people can speak English. The return trip should cost you EUR10.50 (ask for Aller Retour ticket rather than Aller Simple).

I went to Pont du Gard on my second day at Nimes. I'm truly amazed on how did the Romans build this thing in 19BC without cranes. I've seen the photos on my LP guide, but not until seeing it with my own eyes I realise how big this structure is.

LP says that the best view is from upstream. This needs correction, the best view of Pont du Gard is from the river Gard (or Gardon) itself. I brought my cozzie as suggested by LP. The water is not that flash, but if I can survive the Mekong River I should be able to survive this river in France. I jumped into the river upstream, and only from that angle swimming toward the Pont du Gard downstream you have the best view of Pont du Gard. I swam underneath the arch and back, typical tourist thing to do I guess.

I took the 2pm bus back to Nimes and spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the old city. Back in the hostel I once again met my accidental travel companion. We have stayed in in the same hostels at Paris, Lyon and now Nimes, none of this is planned. She and I will once again meet in Carcassonne.

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July 21, 2006

Nimes

Stayed for 2 nights in Nimes, which I think a bit rushed. This is the first time I stayed for 2 nights in a city instead of 3. It's doable but if you're doing it slow and easy like me, 3 should be minimum at any place. Three nights give you enough time to rest, recharge and enjoy the stay.

Nimes is a pretty little town and has some remarkably well preserved Roman ruins. Arrived at Nimes at about 1PM on Sunday afternoon, as expected the city in a shutdown mode. Everything is closed and the next bus to the hostel won't arrive until 2:45PM. Luckly while looking for the correct bus I saw 2 other backpackers, a Mexican and a Qubecquois. Since there is only 1 hostel in Nimes we knew that we all were going to the same hostel, we chatted and exchanged travel stories and it made the wait somewhat bearable.

Once we arrived at the hostel the Mexican dude and I went down to the city, him to have a look since he was leaving the next day and me to find a boulangerie so I can buy bread for my dinner. I've spent waay too much money in Paris and Lyon and expensive accomodation in Marseille, so it's time to put a stop on my spending. I've been eating a combination of bread, Nutella and canned fish for the past few days. Although it sounds horrible, I've been in a worse eating period than this, it's fine.

I found out that eating bread and Nutella somehow a good catalyst for other people to give food to you. French people are a lot nicer than their reputation and certainly fellow backpackers are the nicest people on earth. I've been given food at least 3 times if I remember correctly. In Marseille a bunch of local teenagers (16 - 19yo maybe) gave me their Mc Donalds cheesburger and chicken to me. Other backpackers have given me their spare bread, alcohol and even fruits!

Luckly there was one boulangerie that was open, I bet that shop made a killing on that day. Bought my baguette and walked to the beautiful Jardins de la Fointaine to have my late lunch and just enjoyed the garden. I paid the EUR2.70 fee to climb up to the Tour Magne. Up here there's an amazing view of Nimes and its surounding countryside.

The next day I went to Pont du Gard, a a UNESCO world heritage site 42 minutes bus ride from Nimes.

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July 19, 2006

Nimes then Carcassonne

Quick update on my whereabout. Spent 2 nights in Nimes and now I'm in Carcassonne. Internet is, as expected, super expensive in the hostel (and in Nimes) at EUR1/20 minutes. Once I get to a bigger city will write more about Nimes and Carcassonne.

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July 15, 2006

Marseille, Bastille Day, Aix-en-Provence and Belsunce Quarter

Marseille
Marseille is different, that's what everyone said. Some love it some hate it. Skip Marseille, or 1 day is enough some said while some vouch on Marseille's vibrant atmosphere. Marseille is indeed different, like Lonely Planet said it hasn't been prettified for the benefit of tourist.

I arrived in Marseille on the 13/7 afternoon, having been in France for over a week I no longer overwhelmed by the mass of people at the train station or trying to locate my hotel. I quickly read the metro map and navigate myself to the hotel. Yes because the hostel was fully booked in Marseille I had no choice but to stay in a budget hotel in the centre of Marseille. This is probably a better option since I met a few people who had stated in Marseille HI Hostel and they said that it's a bit far from the centre. I spent the day exploring the city, or actually the Vieux Port region. Feeling tired I went back to the hostel and the comfort of the air-con.

The next day of course is Bastille Day, which I unceremoniously overslept and missed the parade at Vieux Port. All the shops and museums were closed, which turned out to be a blessing since I really need to save money. I did the killer climb to the Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde basilica which provides a superb view over the city. This probably the best city lookout that I've visited so far. I continued to explore the Viex Port area and while Chateu d'IF is open today the cost (EUR10 ferry + EUR5) entry fee seems to be a bit excessive. I've been in a few chateu and this one at least I've seen it from the distance. Needing to put a brake on my spending I decided to pass the chateu.

Bastille Day Firework
Later that night I went out to see the firework at Vieux Port. Although there were a lot of people there, it certainly not as packed as I expected. Maybe I'm used to the number of crowd in Sydney. Greater Marseille is the third largest metropolitan in France (after Paris and Lyon) with 1.5 million people (a tad smaller than Brisbane with 1.8 million) while Marseille city itself only has around 850,000 people.

The main firework went for almost 30 minutes, it was certainly impressive and I was reminded how much I used to love firework and playing with those little firework. Since firework was banned in Australia, I haven't played with firework for ages. Last night I was reminded all the variety of fireworks that I used to play when I was a kid.

Aix-en-Provence
This morning I had a few options, keep exploring Marseille and hit the museum, visit the Calanques, visit Marseille swimming beaches or do a day trip to Aix-en-ProvenceM. I chose Aix-en-Provence and I'm glad I did it. Aix-en-Provence is a pretty and a very pedestrian friendly university town. I was lucky that since today is Saturday all the markets in Aix-en-Provence are open, from the fresh produce, spice, flower and even the flea market. According to Lonely Planet, Aix-en-Provence has the best market in Provence. With the markets open, Aix become one of the best city to just wander around, which I did for a long time. I wished I had stayed here for a couple of days.

A good way to explore Aix is to get a copy of Cezanne Steps and follow the guide to see the important building related to Aix most celebrated son. Although following the guide was a bit confusing, and the trail marker dissapear every now and then, I managed to see most of the important houses in the trail including the house where Cezanne was born, where he died, his art school etc.

There are two superb English language bookshops in Aix, not a surprise because of her high overseas student population. I sold my second hand copy of The Firm for EUR1.50 (arggh) and bought a new copy of The Da Vinci Code.

Belsunce Quarter
Back in Marseille by the train, I went to explore the Belsunce Quarter which is just next the train station. This is the area where Lonely Planet says to avoid walking alone at night. Belsunce is really interesting and certainly not dangerous. I never felt threatened and just conveniently strolled amongs its crazy markets. Coming from beautiful, clean and spotless Aix, I felt like I've been transported to a different dimension, a different France. Goods are overflowing to the streets, people are walking shoulder to shoulder and French is a minority language in this quarter. It was amazing and I love it.

Tomorrow I will say goodbye to Provence to visit Nimes in Languedoc-Roussillon.

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July 12, 2006

In Lyon

Leaving Paris

Zizou lost it, France lost the world cup and the party didn't happen. Because of my dodgy ankle, I opted to stay in the hostel and watched the game with a few people who for some reasons of their own avoided the crowd in Champs Elysees. After the game, Paris was eerily quiet, pubs were quickly abandoned and since there's no party to go to a few of us decided to climb the long steps to Sacre Cour. My ankle was feeling OK by this time, and since this is my last chance to climb up there I went with the crowd. Although closed, the view from the hill of Sacre Cour is breathtaking, and as we arrived up there they did the sparkling lights at the Eiffel Tower, perfect timing.

The next day I caught the first class TGV to Lyon.

Lyon
I love Lyon, more than Paris to be exact the "Old Lyon". While Paris is impressive and I do admit that I'm a bit overwhelmed by her, I won't live in Paris. Lyon on the other hand is a place that I could totally live here. Lyon, according to Lonely Planet, is the second largest conurbanation in France. So it's big enough to warrant a superb metro, tram and bus system, but doesn't lose old town charm. I certainly would love to live inside the old Lyon and catch the metro in the morning to work in the Lyon CBD.

The best way to enjoy Lyon is to buy the walking guides from the tourist office in Place Bellacour. Normally at EUR1.50 each, they are at sale now for only EUR0.50. At this price I snapped both the "Secret Street of Lyon" and the "Croix Rousse" guides. Both are equally as good and shows you all the good lookout point of Lyon and more importantly the best of the traboules, the secret passages of Lyon.

Apart from the two walking guides that I followed, I visited the beautiful Basilique Notre dame de Fourviere on top of the Fourviere hill, the cathedral, a rather good Musee de la Civilisation Gallo-Romaine, the Roman amphitheatre and the somewhat dissapointing Musee Lumiere. The local history museum, Musee Gadagne is unfortunately closed for renovation. I saw a big stage is being prepared in the amphitheatre, word on the grapevine says that there will be Franz Ferdinand concert tonight.

Internet Cafe in Lyon
The hostel internet service and a few places mentioned in the Lonely Planet are super expensive. For cheap and good internet service, take the metro to Guillotiere station and walk south of Rue de Marseille. The one across McDonalds has a very good rate of EUR1.50/hour, widescreen monitors, and most importantly, good keyboards.

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July 09, 2006

Paris - Day 5

A semi-full day since I had a late start this morning. A few people that I hang out with were leaving the hostel yesterday and this morning, some goodbyes were said and and pushed my start to late morning. I still managed to fit in two major sights today, first is the Panthéon then Musee d'Orsay. I love the Panthéon, the building is very beautiful and more importantly the crypt contains a few worthy men/women. I visited the crypt of Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Alexander Dumas, Louis Braille and several others. However the most popular of them all is Marie Curie. People left flowers, metro tickets, notes, personal items to thank Marie Curie as the source of their inspiration. I saw notes from all over the worlds, Japan, Korea, China, I was going to leave an Indonesian note only to realise that I had left my notebook in the hostel.

Musee d'Orsay is famous for the its impressionists and post-impressionists collection. I spent my afternoon admiring the works of Monet, Renoir, Manet, Cézanne, Van Gogh and several other really famous artists that I've never heard about. Lacking art knowledge, I didn't bother to rent the audioguide which would have set my back EUR5.

I visited two English bookshops today to find travel guidebook for Spain with no luck, hopefully there will be some in Lyon or cities closer to Spain. The bookshop that apparently have LP guidebook does not open on Sunday argggh, in fact half of Paris doesn't open on Sunday!

One last note, the final is on tonight a lot of people from the hostel went to Champs Elysee to join the crowd, I'd really want to go but I rolled my right ankle .... again! I just had an accident last month in front of Angkor Wat, I couldn't believe my luck and my inability to walk properly.

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July 08, 2006

Paris - Day 4 - Le château de Fontainebleau

Because my morning was spent on laundry and organing the next destination I only went to 1 place, Le château de Fontainebleau. When I got back to my hostel a friend told me that he's going to Fontainebleau, since that's has always been on the table for me I agreed to go. Fontainebleau in a way is better than Versailles. It's much older and less grand, but I think has a lot more charm in it. There are a lot less tourist in Fontainebleau making the visit much more pleasant and enjoyable.

Well there's only 1 day left for me to explore Paris and there are still loads of thing to see. I can understand now that some people stayed here for 10 days (yes initially I thought they're crazy too).

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Laundry debacle, travel plan and TGV last minute saving

I've never used self service laundry, well until this morning that is. I've decided to do my laundry this morning and I figured that while waiting I can decide where to do after Paris. At the laundry, naturally the instruction is in French and French only. After a few days here my French has slightly improved from none to almost-none, so braving the unknown I read the through the instructions. After choosing my machine I went to the coin machine and enetered the EUR3.50 cost. Suddenly without any warning my chosen machine started itself, while in panic mode I tried to stop, cancel and even tried to open the front door without any success. Fortunately an old local seeing my distress decided to give me a hand. The problem is he doesn't speak any Engiish and I don't speak any French. What follow was a comical discussion, him speaking French and I replied in English while he was explaning how the world of self service laundry work.

Despite the communication issue, I managed to fully understand how this damn thing works. Yeah they're not that complicated! You have to put your clothes into the machine first - learn that lesson quickly - then you have to put the detergent cube in the right location - the good samaritan showed me how to get one out from the dispenser. Next you select machine options (cotton, wool, temperature etc. I've never done this at home, my machine does this automatically. I only need to press start and there she goes). Finally you paid the fee for the washing machine, that will automatically starts the washing cycle. Phew ... I'm sure the next city will have a totally different procedure :)

My original plan to go to Strasbourg after Paris has been thwarted the hostel room availability. Refusing to pay an extra EUR7/night for a budget hotel instead of hostel, I went back to the drawing board. Fine, I'll skip Strasbourg and go to Lyon directly. After doing a bit of research last night, i booked my hostel online this morning but cancel out on the train booking. From SNCF website I can only book Paris - Lyon on the TGV which cost EUR58.50. That's a bit pricey, I decided to go to the train station to find out if I can go to Lyon using normal train rather than TGV.

At the train station I was informed that the only way to go to Lyon by train is by TGV, a bit unfortunate but at least it'll be fast. BTW TGV is not always this expensive, you can book months in advance and SNCF will give you more than 50% discount, but since I only book a few days ahead, the discount is dysmal. Biting the bullet now I need to book the TGV to Lyon, so I was pleasently surprised that when searching on my fare they showed that they have last minute special Paris - Lyon 1st class for EUR5. That's cheaper than this morning's 2nd class quoted ticket. I just hope I can wake up in the morning to catch my train, that'll be the morning after the final world cup, and if France win it no doubt there will be party all night long. Apparently missing ones train is pretty normal for Woodstock Hostel residents, I know there are at least 2 people missed their train in the past 3 days :)

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Paris - Day 3

Another day spent at mostly 1 place. I went to Versailles in the morning. A tip to everyone entering Versailles, to avoid the ultra long ticket queue at Entrace A go to the 'secret' Entrance D (Dauphin Entrance), a helpful British chap in the Information desk gave me this really usefull information. If you can't find Entrance D, just ask the Information desk which hopefully will have a much shorter queue than the ticket queue.

I recommend getting there early in the morning so you can get most value out of the EUR20 ticket price to see both the castle and Marie Antoinette's domain. Many people skip Marie Antoinette's domain and paid EUR13.5, but I think it's well worth the extra EUR6.5 - although it's just recently opened and thus the audioguide mentioned in the brochure is not yet available. A few sections of the castle are undergoing renovation work, but don't make this put your visit to Versailles, the renovation work will only finish in 2019.

At night a few of us went to the Eiffel Tower. This, like everyone said is a much better undertaking than going in the morning. Of course by the time we're about to go back to the hostel the Metro has already stopped and no one wanted to walk back to the hostel. Cabbing it back to the hostel (near Sacre Cour) cost us EUR14 and EUR15 for the other cab (including the extra surcharge EUR2.70 for 4 people in a cab).

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July 06, 2006

Paris - Day 2

Spent most of the day at the Louvre, that museum is massive. Lonely Planet said that if you just glance at every single object at the Louvre collection it will take you 9 months to finish it. Anyway like someone suggested at the hostel, do the Mona Lisa first then wander around. So went to see the Mona Lisa and a few other items that I want to see and then wander around the museum. I spent most of my time at the sculpture section, I'd certainly would love to go back to the Louvre one day.

After the Louvre closed, I went to Arc de Triomph and paid the exorbitant (but definitely worth it) EUR8 ticket to climb all the way up to the roof. The view from the top of Arc de Triomph is breathtaking, but more interesting is watching the Parisian causing total havoc at the roundabout below. This is the biggest traffic roundabout in the world and it has a peculiar rule, traffic already in the roundabout must give way to incoming traffic. I've seen so many near crashes just in a short time watching the traffic. No wonder they need so many police around this area :)

After Arc de Triomph I decided to give La Defense a visit, something a bit unusual. La Defense new high rises and broad modern boulevard is so different with ancient Paris. I suggest to take the Metro all the way to La Defense and walk the mall all the way to Esplanade La Defense metro station. It's about 1km and really nice if you do it in the early evening after the office hour.

I wasn't there but I wish I had gone to Champs Elysees with a few people from the hostel to join the France entry to World Cup final. I was totally knackered from the lack of sleep and the jetlag. Last night the Metro stopped selling tickets to people, not sure why but the rumour is that Paris "is full" :) So unless you already have a ticket you have to walk all the way to Paris if you want to join the party. I think the real reason was that everyone was watching the game. Allez Les Blues!

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July 05, 2006

In Paris, having problems with the keyboard!

Arggs French keyboard sucks! Well at least to us. They keyboard has a different layout and thank God I can touch type otherwise typing this will be impossible. I would imagine the French will have the same problem if they go to English speaking country or Asia.

So yeah as you should be able to guess easily I'm currently in Paris and I have been walking around the whole day I wish I'm back in Bangkok with those cheap Thai massages. The semi-final will be on soon and people expect massive party at Champs Elysees if France goes through the final. I've bit the bullet by buying France guidebook because although the Europe in Shoestring is good I found it woefully inadequate for my usage. The problem is finding a France guidebook in English. I finally found one at Virgin Megastore at inflated price of EUR29.50, I really need it so I blew my budget for the day by buying this guidebook. I've browsed for a while and already convinced I made the right decision. It list an English bookshops for each cities, I never know how usefull this list is until now!

I've whipped through several sites today, Notre Dame, Ste Chappel and Conciergire. Took the Metro to Arc de Triomphe only to find out that it's closed for the day. They seem to have some sort of military service there, tomorrow it will open the police assured me. So I walked along the grand Champs Elysees where I found the Virgin Megastore and finally France specific guidebook.

I'm pretty knackered right now, I only had 2 hours sleep last night (don't know, couldn't sleep) and couldn't sleep on Eurostar, I guess I haven't recovered fully from the jet lag.

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July 03, 2006

Victor in London

Here I am in London, tired and jet-lagged but very excited. I arrived in London this morning at about 8:30am, slightly late although my BA flight from Frankfurt was delayed for over half an hour (aparently BA has a pretty bad reputation keeping flights on-time), the pilot must have caught up in the air.

Sorted out my banking this afternoon and went to Covent Garden, apparently the tourist heart of London. Since it's only 2 stops from HSBC Woburn Place I decided to have a look. It was, as it turned out to be, a very optimistic undertaking. After just 5 minutes walking around the market, the tiredness suddenly hit me and I thought rather than pushing forward and not enjoying the sight-seeing I'd rather go back, rest and leave the sight-seeing tomorrow.

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July 02, 2006

Back in Singapore on the way to London

I'm back in Singapore, arrived pretty late last night since my Air Asia's flight from Bangkok was delayed for almost one half hour. Spent this morning repacking my stuff since I'm grossly overweight with my luggage. I threw out several t-shirt, one long sleeve shirt, almost all my socks, a fair few of stuff that I shouldn't have brought on the first place and the AUD 40 Reject Shop broken suitcase and I packed everything into my rucksack. I actually managed to put almost everything that I have into my rucksack and still under the 20kg limit, I'm pretty impressed with myself. I guess the 4 weeks of travelling taught me to be brutal with my belongings.

Of course I didn't know how much my rucksack actually weigh until I arrived in the check-in counter and weighed my rucksack. Seeing my excitment and my rather large carry-on luggage she told me that I can actually check-in 25kg ... darn ... shouldn't have thrown that many stuff :p Anyway it's all for a good cause, because I managed to put all my carry-on luggage and some stuff from my daypack into the rucksack and still comes under 25kg. That leaves me with only a rather-heavy-but-doesn't-look-stupid daypack.

I spent most of the afternoon visiting my grandma and other relatives. Dinner with Food Girl and Chewy and now back at the free internet counter in Changi Airport. For the first time in my life I will get out from this region (SE Asia & Australia), I'm very excited on the journey ahead :)

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July 01, 2006

All night party in Hanoi!

Well here I am at 8:30 in the morning in Hanoi. Since last night was our last night together for this group we went out partying and didn't come back until 4:30 in the morning. After my night ritual (must shower before going to bed ritual) it was 5:30 in the morning. My body naturally rejects this as normal sleeping time. After tossing around in the bed for a few hours in the bed I've decided that I won't be able to sleep and got up for breakfast and wrote this last two entries in my blog.

We went out last night to Bar Barracuda and met some interesting characters there. Apparently this place is the "pinnacle of night life in Hanoi" for expats. Bold claim but last night certainly was fun. We were back in the Hotel at about 3:30 in the morning but were pursuaded by a local (and creepy) Vietnamese guy for a soup. Totally hungry and not being sensible we went for a Pho a a local joint (well in the street really) and stayed up until 4:30 in the morning because the guy was becoming really creepy :)

All night party, Pho at local joint at 3:30 in the morning and no sleep until morning. That's a good way to end my Indochina tour. This has been very memorably and very enjoyable.

Now I can say good bye to SE Asia and hello Europe!

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Halong Bay Cruise

Our fortune changed for the better. Yesterday morning at 7:30 AM we had the news that the storm has finished and now boats are allowed out to visit the islands. We left the hotel at 8AM and head straight to the islands.

Nothing can describe the beauty of Halong Bay, it was breathtaking even when the sky was overcast. Luckly, during our 4 hour cruise in Halong Bay the sun came out for about an hour giving us a chance to appreciate the beauty of Halong Bay. After cruising for about one half hour we anchor the boat in the middle of islands formation and everyone jumped into the water. That is the highlight of the day, or maybe my entire Indochina's tour. Being there in the middle of Halong Bay Islands, swimming in the sea and surrounded by cool people in our group, definitely experience that I won't forget anytime soon.

After spending about an hour or so of swimming the sky rain on us and leashed one of the heaviest torrential rain that I've ever seen in my life. Our guide says that this is the aftermath of the tropical storm, the entire North Vietnam will be raining for the next few days. We were lucky that we've reached the end of our trip.

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June 29, 2006

Australia's out, moving on to Hanoi and stuck in Halong Bay

Well we were robbed in our last match. I saw it in a bar in Hue called Brown Eyes. The owner/dj is really friendly and I recommend this bar to anyone.

We've moved on to Hanoi 2 nights ago catching the Reunification Express from Hue and arrived in Hanoi yesterday morning. I saw Ho Chi Minh embalmed body in his mausoleum, the underrated but fantastic Temple of Literature and the "Hanoi Hilton".

This morning we're on our way to Halong Bay only to be informed that there's a tropical storm coming to Halong Bay and no boats are allowed out from the harbour. This sucks, the original plan was to arrive here in the afternoon, take the cruise to see the beauty of Halong Bay (another UNESCO World Heritage site) and spend the night in Cat Ba island. Instead we're now stuck in Halong Bay city. If the storm storm pass tomorrow we'll take the cruise but our guide doubt it will clear up tomorrow.

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June 26, 2006

Moving on to Hue

From Hoi An to Hue we took a bus and we stopped at the Cham Museum and the inapropriately named China beach (by the Americans) in Da Nang. Apart from the Cham Museum there's nothing much to see in Da Nang, the third biggest city in Vietnam after Saigon and Hanoi. It's the main hub for central Vietnam and for tourists on route to Hoi An.

Hue is the Nguyen Dynasty's imperial capital. The main attractions are The Citadel - modelled after China's forbidden city, the tomb of the Nguyen Lords, and Thien Mu Pagoda. We took a private boat cruise along the Perfume River to vist the pagoda and Tu Duc tomb and caught a moto back to the hotel. Tonight we'll be having a "royal" dinner where everyone will dress up as old Vietnam's imperial courtiers. This will be interesting :)

On another note, tonight is Australia's second round match against Italy. I'm really exited about this match and really bummed to leave my Australia's paraphernalia back in Singapore, how fun it will be to dress up in full Aussie gears to watch the match in the middle of Vietnam!

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Upset stomach

I've been really careless with food for the past 3 weeks, ice, street vendors dodgy looking food but it was the squid from the beach side "restaurant" that got me. Two days ago I spent the entire day Hoi An's 30 km long beach (cuo dai? - spelling) and foolishly ate my lunch although I had a bad feeling about it.

By dinner time I knew something was not right but I was still feeling OK. At drinks after dinner my stomach started to feel funny and I had to leave early. By this time my stomach was telling me it disagreed with something that I ate and I had a fever. I couldn't sleep and fortunately I finally threw up at about 4 in the morning and soon after the fever dissapeared and I finally managed to get little sleep. What make it worst is that in a few hours we need to check out from the hotel and take a bus ride to Hue.

Thankfully, although feeling really crap for the whole day I didn't throw up in the bus and didn't cause any drama. I skipped dinner with the rest of the group and opted to rest. This turned out to be a good idea since this morning, although not feeling 100% still, I'm feeling much better.

Everyone says that it's inevitable to have a dodgy stomach at one stage on the travel especially if you're travelling for the long period of time. Hopefully for me this is it.

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June 23, 2006

Hoi An

I admit that initially I'm a bit sceptical about Hoi An. After spending a few days here I couldn't help to love this little town. If you ever plan to visit Vietnam, make sure you allocate at least 3 days in Hoi An, more if you can afford it :)

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June 22, 2006

Hoi An, Vietnam

Moving on from Na Thrang, we caught another sleeper train to Hoi An. This trip on this train should have taken 12 hours but in Vietnam trains are frequently delayed and we're pretty lucky we made it in 13 hours.

Hoi An is a pretty little town, this is where you get all your suits, shirts, dress, shoes, bag all custom made for a reasonable price. The town itself is listed in UNESCO world heritage list, it's a wonder that so much of the old town survives the Vietnam war.

We'll be here until Sunday morning where we're going to catch a 4 hours bus trip to Hue, the old Vietnam imperial capital.

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June 21, 2006

Na Thrang, Vietnam

We spent the past 2 days in Na Thrang. To be honest Na Thrang is no where near what I expected. I was expecting something like Sihanouk Ville but instead I got Gold Coast :) A bit dissapointed at the fact that Na Thrang is so well developed, however a fellow traveller pointed out that it was unfair to me to expect something like Sihanouk Ville, it may be good for the tourist but the locals may want something like Na Thrang. In fact there won't be any place in the world like Sihanouk Ville because Cambodia is still largerly not developed and just recently embraced tourism. If you want to visit Cambodia do it soon before it all changes, especially the laid back personally of the country.

Unlike Sihanouk Ville the tourist attractions here are much more developed (none in Sihanouk Ville really, just beach parties everynight there), we did the awesome mud bath and today we spent the whole day visiting the islands, snorkeling and just lazing around the beaches. Na Thrang, I have to say is very picturesque.

In a few hours we're going to catch another sleeper traing to Da Nang then a bus to Hoi An, apparently a shopping mecca. One quick word about sleeper train, on the way from Saigon to Na Thrang was my first sleeper train experience, it was good and I kinda like it.

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June 17, 2006

Food ... oh glorious food

In the beginning of my travel I made a mental note to be really careful with my food. Make sure it's clean, only eat from respectable restaurants/hotels and just be sensible. These all have been totally destroyed as soon as I got to Bangkok. My first eating journey was in a good and cleanish backpacker restaurant, but it's gone downhill pretty damn quick. On that day I was eating soo much food from street vendors ranging from the sensational banana pancake (still the best food so far), waffles, banana-rice, Vietnam's version of pork bun and all sort of stuff that I probably won't even eat in Indonesia because of the cleanliness level ;)

It's good that none of our group had any stomach problem in Cambodia, although there are some different level of what people are willing to risk, but by the end of the trip I think everyone has finally got rid of the western paranoia of eating street food :) It's so amazing to witness even the most carefull of the group just buy some weird looking food on a stick from an old lady in the side of really dusty street. I think we've done everything against what is recommended by the guidebooks. I'm quite happy that after 2 weeks not even once I ate in a western franchise like KFC or Maccas ... not that they exist in Cambodia hahaha :) But they do exist in Vietnam, but I will absolutely avoid those places.

Stuff the guidebooks' food recommendation, if you see something strange just eat it. Chances are you're going to like it ... and survive!

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Pnom Penh -> Ho Chi Minh City

From Sihanouk Ville we were back in Pnom Penh for 1 more night. Here we checked out the Royal Palace and the National Museum. The Royal Palace is incredibly similar to Thai Royal Palace but much less grander. However they did do a good job considering that this palace is new and the country was in war until recent time.

We were back at the Frog & Parrot to watch the England vs Trinidad game. After the game we decided to check out Heart of Darkness once again. The last time we were there there was a power black out and the night ended up the one of the weirdest night in my life! We went to Howie and we listened the music from one of the waitress' mobile phone and they wheeled a motorbike inside the pub for the light! That was one crazy night, the irony is one block away there was power :)

I enjoyed Heart of Darkness and had a good fun although that place is full of weird people. A friend pointed out that it was kinda depressing place, it's really a place for foreigners (read: westerners) to pick up local Cambodian girls. I'm never really bothered with that kind of stuff, those people are risking AIDS themselves trying to pick up random Cambodian girls - the HIV infection rate in Cambodia is one of the highest in the world. Anyway ... full report about HoD when I finally have time to write down all my stories about my travel, which is becoming less and less likely to happen :)

We left Cambodia yesterday to cross the border to Vietnam. Our bus broke down in the middle of Cambodia and that added 2 hours of already 9 hour long bus trip. All up it took us 11 hours from Pnom Penh to finally arrive in our hotel in Ho Chi Minh City. In HCMC we had our one last dinners and drinks with Nak, our tour guide, and we gave him present for his amazing job taking us out through the "Real Cambodia", I couldn't have asked for a more fun tour guide.

Good bye Cambodia and Hello Vietnam.

It's amazing that as soon as we crossed the border to VIetnam the differences between the countries are so obvious. Vietnam is much more developed than Cambodia, still a lot less developed than Thailand/Malaysia/Indonesia's Java island but much much more than Cambodia. We had the chance to explore Vietnam today and we spent sometime in Chinatown and the Reunification Palance. Soon we're going to meet up with the new batch of group, hopefully they'll be as fun as the one that we had in Cambodia.

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June 15, 2006

Homestay @ Takeo -> Sihanouk Ville

Moving on from Pnom Penh we spent 1 night in a farmer's house in Takeo somewhere in the middle of Cambodia. Here we watched the intense Australia vs Japan match. I couldn't imagine a better place to watch the football .. with the host and the cows :)

From Takeo we spent next 2 nights partied really hard in Sihanoukville including 1 full moon party in Utopia bar. The bars in Sihanoukville is so close to the beach make them a perfect partying spots. We're now back in Pnom Penh for 1 more day to visit the Royal Palace and the National Museum. Tomorrow we're going to take a long public bus ride to Ho Chi Minh city (approx 9 hours).

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June 12, 2006

Kratie -> Pnom Penh -> The Killing Fields

Leaving Kompong Cham, our next destination was Kratie. The main attraction here is to see the critically endangered Mekong Irrawady Dolphins, currently only about 100 left in the world. This time our boat pulled over next to one of the many island in the Mekong River and all except 2 people brave the dirty water of the Mekong and spent a few hours swimming in the river.

We stayed in Kratie for 1 day before leaving for Pnom Penh. Pnom Penh reminds me a lot to Surabaya, but a lot less developed. There is not a single high rise building here, although the night live along the Mekong is vibrant and there are loads of tourists to be found.

This morning we visited Cheung Ak Genocide Memorial (the Killing Fields) where the exhumed over 8000 bodies so far. This experience was so powerful and just by being there I could not hold my tears. There's not much in Cheung Ak, just a bunch of holes where the mass graves are and in the middle they erected a stupa to hold all the bones of the victims, but by God that was such an experience. It is estimated that 3.5 - 4 million Cambodian died during the Khmer Rouge regime.

Our Intrepid tour guide father was killed by the Khmer Rouge (he was a teacher) and our guide in Cheung Ak was one of the first people who came to Cheung Ak to exhumed the bodies. He is only 49, considered very old by Cambodian standard. Most of the adult has been wiped out by the Khmer Rouge.

Next stop was the S21 Prison which has been convereted into a museum in Pnom Penh, again just like Cheung Ak this was a very moving experience. You'll see rows and rows of photographs of the prisoners in S21. Here they were tortured to extract confessions and then sent to the Killing Fields to be executed. From the estimated 20,000 people who were intered in S21 prison only 7 survied. We saw the photo of the 7 survivor, one which would be the very first curator of this museum.

I have to be quick here as our transport to Ta Keo is arriving, but once again I have to say if you come to Pnom Penh do not miss both the Killing Fields and S21 prison. They are an absolute must.

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June 09, 2006

Currently in Kampong Cham, Cambodia

Blogging while travelling turned out to be much harder than I thought. I'm having problems trying to find time to do the blogging. It has been a hectic few days with little spare time and even less sleeping time :) I can only do a short update for now, I've jolted down plenty of notes in my notes hoping that sometime in the future I have the time to compose a proper backdated travelog.

For the few of you who follow my blog regularly, I've left Bangkok went to Siem Reap (Angkor Wat) for 3 days now and currently in Kampong Cham, Cambodia. Not much to see here, and I think we are the only tourist in the city. We came here to visit the local school to give gifts (pencils and notebooks) to the kids and play some football. It was really fun.

On the way back a few of us (including me!) tried the dirty and murky water of the Mekong River and spend a few minutes swimming and colling down. We were the only people swimming in the Mekong river as far as my eyes can see. Must be a truly amazing sight for the locals to see a bunch of white people (and 2 asians) swimming the Mekong River :)

Time is short here, but so I can only write a short spiel about Cambodia. This country is very poor, maybe the poorest in the region. For westerners who have never travelled before, Cambodia will give over the scale culture shock. But behind the poverty and the massive gap in the wealth distribution lies a charming and unbelievably nice people. Definitely a place to go and if you want to go, go now before it changes.

There's not enough words and pictures to describe Angkor Wat. When one says that it's one of the 7 wonders of the world, I can certainly amen that. Angkor Wat is not the only temple in the area, there are 4 major temples: Angkor Wat, Bayon, Bantrey Srey and Ta Phrom. We managed to visit all except Bantrey Srey (citadel of women), which ironically is my guesthouse room's namesake. Ta Phrom is probably the best after Angkor Wat, it is left in ruins just like how the early French explorers "discovered" it.

A quick word on the Interpid tour, it is really good. Although indeed a fair more expensive that if I do it myself, it certainly have given much more that I could hope for. They are true to their slogan "See the real Cambodia". Heh I still can't get over swimming in the Mekong River bit. Had I gone by myself I wouldn't have even thought about it. Playing football with the locals kids definitely not in the agenda.

We're going to Kratie tomorrow. I'm planning to have a good 8 hours or more of sleep tonight. Might as well because even though it's Friday night, there's no pub here. Well not for the tourists anyway. Kampong Cham is a busy working port and tourist mostly bypass this place.

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June 04, 2006

Using public Internet cafe

Lesson 1 in using public internet cafe: always log out and make sure that the system somehow clean your cache or something.

I was using the free internet at Changi airport earlier today and was midly surprised that when I quit the Internet application and opened it again it goes straight to my GMail inbox. Yep it doesn't actually close the browser and its session. This is why you should always log-out.

I had to close the internet application (the one that stops you opening anything but IE), doing this wiped the IE cache. This shouldn't be too much of a problem for normal internet cafe. Well currently in Bangkok at the famous Thanon Khao San (Khao San Rd.), Bangkok is everything that I expected and more! Details will be in the next entry when I have the time to write it.

Posted by vhadiant at 07:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Onward to Bangkok

Here I am in Changi International Aiport using the numerous free Internet service kiosk. I guess Singapore's status as a transit port makes these free internet services necessary, I'm pleased that they don't try to milk money out of the passengers by charging exorbitant amount of money like Perth's aiport.

The past 2 days in Singapore has been really nice. I finally recovered from my cold that I caught in Melbourne, the weather was surprisingly really mild, and I managed to cram what little time that I have to catch up with as many relatives and friends here. I missed out - they run out - the (apparently) amazing, and obviously popular, cendol ice cream from an ice cream shop which looks like it has been transported from Sydney, but Foodie promised to get some for me when I get back here in a month time.

Singapore is a very interesting country to say the least. I think it's the only country to provide western standard of living infused with Asian cultures. I believe Singapore is the only city in the SE Asia where you can drink the tap water. You can in KL, but I wouldn't do it. If you put the effort to get past the sterile Changi Airport or the sleek shopping centres in Orchard Rd. and brace yourself for Little India or the Chinatown (actually Singapore is one big Chinatown) you'll see the inner Singapore. If you have a local friend, forget the guidebook and get them to show you around instead. Skip the american franchises and try the hawker's stalls instead - warning: you may get stomach issues!

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June 02, 2006

Destination Singapore ... via Perth

Depending how you look at it my travel either started today or last week when I went to Melbourne. It's today because this is will be day I'm leaving Australia or last week, because since Melbourne I no longer has a 'home' in Sydney. My brothers vacated the premise last weekend and I have been living with my auntie in Chatswood. Funny that until yesterday I didn't realise that she is the same auntie who brought me to Australia on the first place, I have come full circle :)

First stop (or second stop) is Singapore, which will be my base for the South East Asian leg of my trip. Here I will catch up with friends, family and more importantly my grandmother. But not before stopping for 4 hours in Perth (I'm flying using my frquent flyer points, so not much of a choice here) where I am currently writing this entry at an Internet computer kiosk at a typical aiport overpriced rate with a really shitty keyboard.

I have a feeling that I'm going to have a really .. err ... "exiting" time ahead. On our Melbourne trip, we almost didn't make it to the plane back to Sydney because we misread the plane departure time (15:30 instead of 15:10 ... I was the last person to be checked-in .. just made it in time). I've blogged earlier about carrying too much stuff than my measly 20kg economy class allowance. Maybe it's fate but at my last 3 places to stay (my own, my auntie, and my friend's at Brighton) none has a working scale, so I don't know how much my baggage weigh. Although I do know it's going to be over 20kg.

At the check-in desk this morning my guess was confirmed, all up almost 30kg ... crap still carrying too much stuff. On my defence I have a suitcase and a rucksack, those must weigh at least 8 - 9kg. The check-in chick scolded me telling that I should know the 20kg maximum baggage limit. She gave me the fame Qantas supermarket bag and asked me to remove 4kg, that's the best she can do, otherwise she has to charge me. After stuffing full the supermarket bag, we weigh in my luggages again, although still over 25kg this time it seems to be under the acceptable weight.

So here I am in the sleepy Perth International Terminal waiting for my connecting flight to Singapore ... with two heavy bags, I really need to change my packing strategy. There's hardly anyone here, most of the activities are in the domestic terminal. Anyway I almost run out of time and have to end this entry here.

PS: If you are receiving this entry by email it means that my email notification works and you've asked me to be included in my blog notification list. If you wish to stop receiving notification email me.

Update: Well apparently the email notification doesn't work - so much for that - and there are more people in Perth International closer to the flights departure time.

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May 18, 2006

Packing and moving

What never cease to amaze me is my own ability to accumulate crap over the years. I've moved three times over the past 10 years and everytime I move I threw half of my stuff, and yet I always manage to have more stuff.

Since my departure date is looming I am starting to get organise. Although I'm leaving Sydney on the 2nd of June, I will be going to Melbourne for 4 days from the 25th - 28th May, and by the time I come back from Melbourne I will be homeless because my brothers are vacating our premise on that weekend. So I have less than 1 week to get all my stuff packed in boxes and store them at my aunt's basement.

Fortunately for me, I can leave all the big stuff (read: furnitures, TV, white-goods) with my brothers for safe keeping. If they are not here I would have to sell those furnitures, fridge, washing machine etc (arggh I never know I have so much of these stuff). Although having said that, if not because of my brothers I would have gone many years ago :)

So tip for anyone who are even remotely thinking of going overseas for an extended period, do not even think of buying stuff like big fridge, big TV, queen size bed, couches, coffee table, dining table otherwise you're screwed. Just try to live with that bar fridge for a few more months ...

.... now that I think about it, the list is endless ... surfboards (x3), mountain bike, microwave, futton, computer desk, cupboard, book cases .... argghh. I can't wait to arrive in London where all that I have can be packed in a suitcase and a backpack.

Posted by vhadiant at 05:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 08, 2006

AirAsia's "guest support"

I sent an email question to AirAsia's guest support centre on the 29/04/2006. Now over a week later I still haven't received any answer. I hope this isn't a reflection of their maintenance crew.

It's a very simple question about timing and transfer between flights. I'm pretty sure it's OK, but I just need some confirmation. There isn't any point really of putting an email contact line if no one is going to look after it.

Posted by vhadiant at 11:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Google Maps is an invaluable travel tool

I'd like to book my first leg of European travel in advance so I'm not going to get caught with no roof considering I'll be travelling right in the middle of summer (July arggh ... Lonely Planet recommends to stay away from Europe during July).

Checking out the many options of hostels I initially had no idea which one to choose, especially regarding to locations. Having never been out to Paris, the hostel description can say they are in such and such location, good close to the city but yeah what do I know. This is where Google Maps helps a lot. Lonely Planet gives me a good map for the city centre, so I can get my bearing where the Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysees and Google Maps completes it by giving me the exact location where the hostel is. This is really amazing, just like Whereis for Paris with steroids (much better map engine).

I just type the hostel's address in Google Maps search bar and wham it takes me to the exact location of the hostel.

Posted by vhadiant at 07:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 01, 2006

And off we go ...

I've handed in my resignation this morning and now I can talk openly about what's happening. It's a bit sad, resigning from Oakton since I really love what I'm doing and I enjoy working with everyone, both the Oakton guys and our client. I guess I'm lucky that I've landed in a few super fun projects during my year at Oakton. Then again, you gotta do what you have to do.

I'm off heading overseas for a year or two, maybe more I don't know. I will be travelling for about 4 months before trying my luck in London to find a job to fund my next set of travel (sounds like a good plan ha!). I've always wanted to do this, but prior commitment prevented me to do this earlier. But now opportunity has presented itself and I'm taking it. This will be my first travelling/backpacking experience ever, if I don't count coming to Australia on the first place is a "travel" (no it isn't). So naturally I'm very excited about the whole thing.

I'm still a bit disorganised, I've done some of the preparation but I still have a crapload of things to do. I will try to blog as much as I can about my travel and for the time being my tech blog will take a vacation as well.

My plan is to leave Sydney on the 2nd June to Singapore (with 5 hours stop over in Perth - sucks I know but I'm flying Frequent Flyer so not much choice there). I'll probably stay for 2 nights in Singapore at a friend's place (party time!!!) before going to Bangkok on the 4th June to start my Cambodia and Vietnam travel.

I know some of my friend will scoff at this (*cough* Jeff *cough* *cough*), but I will be joining Intrepid Travel rather than doing Cambodia & Vietnam myself. So why on earth I join a <gasp>guided tour</gasp>?

Well I do have several reasons:

1. I don't have much time to see Indochina and I want to see as much as I can during that 1 month. The best way to do this seems to join some sort of guided tour


2. I'm Indonesian. I've travelled the Java island extensively using busses (ranging from good aircon busses, average non-aircon over crowded busses, to oh-my-God-I-don't-think-this-bus-will-make-it-there kind of bus), trains, cars, minivans, motorbikes and even at the back of a ute. Trying to figure out how to travel from one SE Asian city to another is neither exiting nor new experience to me. I want someone to figure everything out and I'll just enjoy myself.


3. Intrepid is not your typical bus tour filled with Taiwanese tourists or Contiki (yuck) style. They cater more to "adventure travel" crowd especially with their Intrepid Basix. I have a few friends who have travelled with Intrepid before and they all said it's superb.


4. Intrepid gives back to the community

Alright before sounding like a shameless plug for the company which I haven't even travelled with (and jinx it!), I'll stop now. But that's the main reasons why I decided to go with Intrepid.

So that should be a good one month relaxing and fun holiday in Cambodia & Vietnam. The travel will finish in Hanoi on the 1st July, I'll be flying back to Bangkok then Singapore to spend another night before boarding the 2nd July flight to London.

In London I will stay at another friend's place for maybe 2/3 days before heading to Paris to officially start my western Europe backpacking trip. From Paris I have no idea where I'm going to go next, I'm just going wing it and somehow end up in Casablanca on the 14th August to meet up with a bunch of friend who want to Morocco, Portugal and west coast of France. So I do have a rough direction where to go from Paris (south then west then back up north) but no real itinerary. Who knows I might not even make it to Morocco if I get a better offer somewhere else - east maybe? Regardless I should be back in London mid to late September to replenish the cash.

Well whatever is going to be I don't really care. The world is my oyster now ... at least for the next 5 months :)

Posted by vhadiant at 09:23 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack