David & Monica Do the World

End of (American) Days

2010-03-02T00:19:00.000+08:00

21 January 2010

My birthday helpfully falls just when most people are out of money/energy/the urge to give a crap. Early January is not party time...but this year I got a real party for the first time in a few years, which was lovely (above). Brian John organized for cousins and aunts and uncles to meet up for dinner in one of my favourite places to eat, the restaurant Fork in Philly. Then a slightly-longer-than-anticipated walk back to Bob & Liz's amazing city house for drinks and Pandora and more uncles.

The two of us took the giant white Toyota down to DC next day, as David was due to start back to work in Reston. We managed to meet up with old friends for dinner at Anna & Craig's on the Sunday, then with another group at a Malaysian place called Penang (roti canai!) a few nights later.

Holed myself up in the Hyatt while he got back to the business of not being a lazy backpacker. Spent a day with Deirdre at Pentagon City buying ourselves matching trousers at the Gap. There really are things I miss about America. Lunch with the lovely Brett at a BBQ place, then I took David to Dulles and his trip home to London. Two more weeks to kill in NJ while he looks for a new flat and all.

Killing time in NJ with my cousin Cat, which mainly means making fruitcake and taking arty pictures of the Rancocas Creek and drinking at the White Eagle bar. Thrillingly, there was almooooost a fight between Steve and some guy who introduced himself initially as a fifth-generation Riverside man, and only secondly as Joe (see right!). Did manage to cut off the long blonde straw-like hair resulting from much too much fun this year. I know it was my idea, but I still don't like it. Cat dyed it for me so it wasn't two-tone any longer...instead, it is now 'Tweed'. Because your hair should really evoke damp, itchy wool, I always say. There will be no photographs of this.

Finally, on the 20th, my brother and mother drove me the distance up to Newark airport and sent me on my way home to London. I'm torn about this, as it really does mean it's all over. But it's also nice to be home to ale and pie. What a conundrum. New flat is gorgeous, right on the water, and I am happily sorting out our stuff for the forseeable future. Oh, must look for work. Yes, of course. And I suppose that's just about it. World Done.

The End.

(sigh)

Meanwhile...

2010-03-01T23:57:00.000+08:00

4 January 2010

Whilst killing time in Jersey, my mom and I went up to New York City for a day. My youngest cousins are about 8 and 12, and it's damn sure time they got to experience the greatest city on earth. Which is also just an excuse to go. Delran is about an hour and a half from NY, though south Jersey looks toward Philadelphia for most things as we're only 20 minutes from it. So I haven't spent all that much time in NY myself. My youngest auntie (their mother) came along as well.

A bit convoluted--the local River Line train to Trenton, then the ever-glamorous NJ Transit commuter train up through Princeton and Newark to the City. To be fair, the girls were as excited about the train as they were about the city. We walked purposefully through Manhattan having a lesson on how to not be a victim in the big bad city, from Penn Station up to Times Square, lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe, some souvenir-hat buying for Shannon, the world's largest toy store, Rockefeller Center with the Christmas tree, some queuing up for the American Girl Place store--three stories of doll heaven or hell, depending on if you're a 10 year old girl or her 40 year old father, I suspect.

Tea and cakes at a little restaurant, where the owner opened the second floor for us to sit at the windows and watch the Orthodox Jews go by (and the resultant conversation explaining that they are not, in fact, Abraham Lincoln impersonaters). Cupcakes from the Magnolia Bakery, first ride on a subway train, auntie Ingrid is exhausted and back we go to Delran.

Suburban Christmas vs. 17th Century German Fundamentalism

2010-03-01T23:42:00.000+08:00

3 January 2010

Christmas Day was somewhat more relaxed and involved somewhat fewer lightsticks in anyone's nostrils. Brian and Carly and my parents and us. And the cats, who obviously have their own Christmas stockings. Not that I took much part. Aviators. Ugh. The above is the home tree--we've really been cutting back on the gifts the last few years. Seriously.

Over to Langhorne, PA, to visit the other extended family. The very hip Grandpop Bowden and lovely Grandmom Peggy, various aunties and uncles and cousins and their various boyfriends. Which is very old-making, as these are kids who weren't born until I was in high school.

We did manage to recover for New Years, and drove out to Reading to the palatial home of one of my best friends from high school, Jen Gulli-As-Was. If you're going to live the suburban dream, this is the way to go. They have an amazing view and extra rooms and a posh kitchen with American-sized appliances and a fireplace and it almost makes a girl want to be a domestic goddess if you could do it on a grand scale like this. She and her David and their lovely friends and the two of us had a grown-ups drinks do to bring in 2010. Rather unlike the rest of our year, but really quite good. Also they have inflatable penguins outside.

They're out west of Philadelphia, so we took the long way back and visited Ephrata, PA, home to a German religious community of the 18th and 19th centuries, and a lovely set of old buildings. One of the central tenets of this group was celibacy--and here's news, celibacy means your group dies out. So now it's a historical site. Along the smaller roads are loads of gorgeous old barns and fields and farmhouses, and horse buggies...

On down the rural roads to Lancaster, home to the Amish. Europeans seem to find them fascinating...I grew up not far from here, and was regularly carted on class trips to go look at them. Even as a rather self-involved child, this struck me as odd. A catholic school who took Kodak-Disk-toting children out to stare at a religious community who would, understandably, prefer not to be stared at and who believe that having their picture taken will do something to their souls. Anyway, we stopped at the unpromising-looking Bird-in-Hand Smorgasbord, seemingly designed to lure in hungry busloads of the sort of people who buy their clothes with elasticated waistbands, just-in-case.

In fact, it was brilliant. Not only were there loads of real, old-order Amish in there (because although I know it is grotesque to stare, how can you not be fascinated by people who believe that buttons are evil?), as well as gentler variations like Mennonites and whatnot; but they also had a huge buffet full of things like shoo-fly pie and scrapple and whoopie pie and pretzel bread. And right down the road? The world's largest selection of knives. Awesome. You don't get that in Laos.

The Situation in Jersey

2010-03-01T23:28:00.000+08:00

25 December 2009

And here we are at the second to last stop. Sigh. Pity me. New Jersey, Delran to be exact. Where I grew up. Surprised the parents a bit, flopped ourselves down for a few weeks in one place, ate comfort foods like Dietz & Watson hotdogs which really are unmatched on the entire planet. And I should know. David bonded with the cats, particularly Sassy, who actually was more than willing to walk straight across my head to get to him.

We wrapped presents and spent some time with my brother--starting at Arneiri's Pizza, which is also unmatched globally. Mmm. Arnieri's. What do they do to the cheese? It's like a pizza party in your mouth. I once had to agree with a border guard in Kyrgyzstan that I was in fact from Italy when he spied my Arnieri's t-shirt with the map of Italy on the back and proudly insisted that he knew where it was. You can't really argue in Kyrgyz unless you can, you know, speak it.

We also managed to move our Stuff in Storage Part I from one U-Haul place to a another. Which had the overwhelming advantage of being inside and climate controlled. Why we are paying to store this stuff is one of life's imponderables. We just do.

Christmas at Kate & Larry's, time to catch up with the extended family and to never, never drink an Aviator again. Evil stuff. I don't actually remember the end of the evening. So that's that Christmas tradition kept up another year.

Carry Me Back to Old Virginny

2010-03-01T22:50:00.000+08:00

21 December 2009

Staying on 17, we found ourselves in Hampton Roads--which is actually the name of a waterway as well as the area surrounding it. The mouth of the James and Elizabeth Rivers are part of it, and the harbour itself empties into the Chesapeake Bay and thence the Atlantic. This is almost home ground for us, as my family spent a lot of time down here when we were kids, and Washington itself is almost on the Chesapeake Bay. Crossing the water into Tidewater took us onto the peninsula that's home to Colonial Williamsburg--and our destination for the evening. And somewhat longer.

The aforementioned snowstorm that had been promising fun for the last few days finally kicked into gear just as we hit Newport News, with icy rain, sleet and even snow. Virginians being southerners have little to no idea how to drive in the snow. So they generally opt for the 'go faster and beat it home' approach. Insane rednecks driving 90 miles an hour on slick roads is not conducive to relaxing travel. We had been hoping to get to DC that night, but as the weather got worse by the minute, we decided to stop a bit early and plonked ourselves into the America's Best Value Inn in Colonial Williamsburg for the duration. The reasoning here was that we could either get stuck in god knows where on I-95, or in a place we know a bit and has Hooters.

The America's Best Value Inn is convenient to Hooters, yes. Should you ever find yourself snowed in at Colonial Williamsburg, keep this in mind. I know it's just what I was thinking as we dodged traffic (on foot) across a four-lane highway in a blizzard to get to waitresses in slouch socks and orange hotpants. I do wonder about the slouch socks--does Hooters have their own factory for them? Or a warehouse where they stocked up in 1991? Because I genuinely don't think I've seen them in a shop for at least 15 years. Anyway, proving that the universe does have a sense of humour, our waitress proved to be about 8 months pregnant. Her sassy little fanny pack (which is funny if you're from the UK, but means nothing naughty to Americans), was draped around her shoulder as she was too huge to wear it. I like to think I'm not a rude person, but I know I was staring at this poor girl. I suppose they can fire your for not being hot, but pregnant is allowed.

The storm was much worse the farther north one went, although it was mostly slushy snow where we were. We opted to book ourselves in for another night, and spent the grey damp day at Colonial. Lunch at an 18th century English tavern, eating German stew served by a Polish waitress in colonial American costume. As you do.

If anyone hasn't been, I can only say that you really must spend some time in CW at some point. That is only partly because I've had to spend so much of my own life there and I like to share the pain. Actually, it's an astounding place, an entire 18th century town recreated using original and reconstructed buildings, with shopping and restaurants and entertainment and craftsmen and fantastic museums of decorative arts and animals and many hotels. The surrounding area is full of cheaper hotels and outlet malls and one of the best amusement parks on earth. Also the first English settlement in the US that survived at Jamestown, and the battlefield where the English finally lost America at Yorktown. My mother is slightly obsessed and practically raised us in mob caps and tricorns here. My father is not obsessed but patiently allowed this.

After watching the poor boys do their fife-and-drum routine and viewing the excellent Quilting exhibit at the Dewitt-Wallace Decorative Arts Museum (which David especially enjoyed), we went to Target (because what else is there to do in the snow?), ate at a themed sandwich chain called the Firehouse, and went to see the rugby movie 'Invictus.' Personally, I think Morgan Freeman just came across like Morgan Freeman, but the consensus seems to be that he makes a better Mandela than Mandela. The rugby was alright, though.

Finally, on our way up and out of the south. As the local roads were all pretty clear by this point, we attempted I-95, the main road from Florida to Maine. One might think this would be fine, that the one road someone would plow would be this road, four days before Christmas and all. But no. The trip to Fredericksburg, which ought to take like an hour, took four. The road was an absolute disgrace, frozen piles of slush and backups to rival those of Lhasa at rush hour. Argh. I hate winter.

We pretty much drove straight through DC, Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania. After weeks in Texas it seemed odd to be getting through four or five states in a day, but these are all pretty small and the roads actually got better the farther north we travelled.

American-Sized

2010-03-01T22:08:00.002+08:00

20 December 2009

Granted this is a long time in coming...I've been avoiding writing up the final legs of our trip because somehow it would seem over. And although we're currently settled and all boring, I still don't quite want to let go and admit it. However, I have nothing else to do that's urgent, and therefore I'm going to suck it up and complete the Doing of the World. Sigh.

Drayton Hall was our last stop in South Carolina; we left when they closed and made us leave. No shagging in Myrtle Beach, just pizza and central heat. And admiring the vernacular beach architecture, which appears to consist mainly of giant emporiums devoted to the sartorial splendours of American-flag beach towels and bikinis. Printed with American flags. And the occasional shark-mouth.

Long drive up, staying as close to the coast as we could. North Myrtle Beach is practically on the border with North Carolina, and the road meanders through places with names like Supply, Monogram, Bolivia, and Malmo. I really don't have anything witty to add to that; I just enjoy the utter surreal-ness of them. You can't make America up. Went through Wilmington, with it's pretty Victorian streets, but didn't stop. By this point, the promise of a monumental snowstorm had begun to work it's magic on the east coast, threatening chaos and poor driving and shortages of multi-grain bread in every middle-class grocery store.

This far south, it was just early rain and drizzle. Passed the gates to the massive Camp Lejeune, home to a centre for amphibious assault training and 14 miles of beaches. The chain-link fence was strung with soggy sheets painted with messages welcoming home a unit from Iraq. By lunchtime we were at New Bern, the colonial capital and birthplace of Pepsi. In a Colonial-Williamsburg-esque feat, the ladies of New Bern got together in the 1950s and completely rebuilt Tryon Palace and its gardens. The Palace is enormous and brick and lovely, but strangely out of place in the modern town.

Lunch in a local place outside New Bern, which featured a burger with 50oz. of meat in six patties, free to those who can actually finish it. David seriously contemplated this option, but we went with human-sized food instead. Onwards and upwards to the lovely little town of Edenton, another colonial capital beautifully situated on Albemarle Sound. Loads of 18th century clapboard houses, gardens and comuments. Could happily have stayed here a day or two, but the Storm of the month was progressing as fast as we were. Up along route 17, through the Great Dismal Swamp, which has to win a prize in the evocative names category, and into Virginia.

Southern Belle

2009-12-19T12:13:00.001+08:00

17 December 2009

Savannah and Charleston are like Buffy and Dawn: they're both real pretty girls, but one's just got a bit more going for her than the other. It's two hours from Savannah to Charleston, and sadly I was not feeling very well on arrival. And I'm sure that had nothing to do with the Sonic Peppermint Blast tub-o'-ice cream I'd recently devoured. David went off to see the city on his own while I holed up in the Days Inn, directly beneath the flight path of the largest assembly of Air Force C17 transport planes to hit the east coast for military training exercises in some time. Three hours of prime-time TV later (good god American tv is crap), he returned with tales of a city even more beautiful than Savannah, if that's possible.

Feeling better this morning, we went into the city together on yet another gorgeous, sunny day. We're close to the end now, and planning to be in DC on Saturday. Apparently snow is expected there shortly (hard to comprehend for people in flipflops), so we've really only got the one day here, and hence have booked ourselves on a city tour. Turns out we've got the entire bus to ourselves, along with the world's most enthusiastic tour guide, who is wearing a shell suit colour-matched to his sneakers and hat. He spent an hour and a half passionately telling us about his home town, chanting College of Charleston fight slogans, and generally being vastly entertaining. David is right, Charleston is a real beauty. Sort of Savannah times four...about 100,000 people live here on this little peninsula, in hundreds of long narrow houses oriented so that the porches are strung down the long side (taxes were assessed by frontage, but you just can't not have a porch in Charleston summers). Mainly wood with clapboards, painted every pastel under the sun, graced with lacy ironwork by the master blacksmith Philip Simmons, and with grander versions in stucco and brick studded throughout.

The Battery at the end of the peninsula has a lovely embankment overlooking the vast harbour, home to Fort Sumter. This of course is where cadets from the Citadel military college fired on Union supply ships in 1861, thus beginning the Civil War—and that turned out so well for them. Boys. We've found a lovely and decrepit big ol' white house on the Battery, crumbling and enormous and full of porches and calling our names. If not for that pesky unemployment, we'd move in tomorrow.

Went up and through the Citadel itself, which looks like some sort of imagined Spanish fortress and contains a decorative ballistic missile aimed at the North (just in case). The mascot is an English bulldog called Spike, who has his own statue at the football stadium. Saw the CSS Hunley, the first submarine, home and grave to eight tiny Confederate men who did however manage to sink the USS Housatonic. Uh-huh.

Off to the City Market, which lives beneath the saffron-coloured Confederate museum. Lots of t-shirts and Chinese fans scattered among local baskets. These are twisted-grass and pine works of art, which were first made by African slaves for use on plantations and now are made for tourists, incorporating bulrushes, sweetgrass, and pine needles, and made with s-shaped handles and loops and twisty bits. So lovely. So expensive. All are priced, all the makers tell you right away that the prices can definitely be discounted. The ones I loved seemed to all start around $100—except for Jennifaye's, and so her lovely fruit basket is coming home with me. Wherever home is or will be.

The afternoon we spent at a place I've wanted to see for about 10 years, the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Drayton Hall. Uniquely, this palladian house dates to 1738 and is almost completely unaltered—no one ever installed electricity or plumbing, the paint is original, and the place is empty of furniture or decoration. It's atmospheric, nothing to distract from the purity of the house itself. The yard is bare except for a serpentine pool and live oaks, the previous formal gardens were lost to phosphate mining in the late 19th century, and only the Ashley River frontage remains. So stark and so perfect.

Tonight we're in the summer heaven of Myrtle Beach, birthplace of the shag (not the naughty kind, the American kind!). Because it's not the high season, we're currently holed up in an ocean view room for all of $40, overlooking the palmettos and crashing surf in a rapidly cooling evening, while we're warm and cozy and had pizza delivered to us. Can't really complain.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

2009-12-19T09:38:00.000+08:00

16 December 2009

Savannah itself is an absolute gem of a city. I've been to a fair number of cities and I think I know from attractive. Built around 24 green squares, the historic district is unbelievably wealthy in amazing 18th and 19th century buildings. Took the trolley tour around, because again, how often can you ride around in an open-air vehicle in flipflops and t-shirts in December?

Juliette Gordon Lowe was born and raised here, and founded the girl scouts here in 1912. There's statues of Oglethorpe; a Vietnam War memorial shaped like...Vietnam; references to 'the book' everywhere (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, duh); a smallish river home to a serious container port; unemployed men making roses from palmetto leaves; and everywhere, live oaks dripping Spanish Moss. This may well be the most haunted city in America, but it's certainly the most beautiful.

Georgia on My Mind...

2009-12-19T09:28:00.001+08:00

15 December 2009

Almost to the sea...we're crossing from Tennessee into Georgia, the first state with an Atlantic Coast, and back into the Eastern Time Zone. Down to Atlanta via the old Dixie Highway. This road was set up between circa 1915-1925 to make the most of newly mobile tourists looking to get from the midwest to the tropical semi-paradise of Florida, and runs roughly parallel to I-75. Thanks to the welcome center, we had a little brochure explaining the various attractions of towns along the way. Such as Dalton, Carpet Capital of the World. Did you know the chenille industry of the 1930s had it's start on the Dixie Highway? Now you do. We saw the first ever painted outdoor Coca-Cola sign on a pharmacy in Cartersville. Lunch at the Echota Smoke House, a very unreconstructed remnant of the Dixie's heyday, complete with melamine dishes, mustard yellow formica booths, and decent homemade soup and pulled pork.

The main goal here is, of course, Atlanta and thus the Coca-Cola Experience. Bliss! An entire tourist attraction dedicated to the pleasures of the world's greatest drink and best known brand. Spent almost 3 hours here, and I could have stayed another 5. If it's related to Coke, it's here. There's a polar bear mascot thing, so nearly appealing that I managed to overcome my innate revulsion for people in oversized animal outfits (did you know that the first polar bear used to sell Coke appeared in a French advert in 1922? Now you do.); there's a movie called 'Inside the Happiness Factory: A Documentary,' vintage ads starring Clark Gable and the 1960s Cleveland Browns (not together, sadly); quizzes; dioramas; a 4-D movie (in which David stayed in the non-moving row of seats because he a weak tummy, poor darling); old commercials; a mini-bottling plant; and Best.Of. All.—a tasting room!

You can taste 60 different Coke products from all around the world. There's five stations set up by region, each with loads of drinks in it. They have things like Tab and Mr Pibb, neither of which I've seen in about 20 years. I do not advise drinking the Italian 'Beverly'. But the 'Cherry Fresca'? Yum. And when you're leaving? They give you a free glass bottle of coke. Just in case you're still thirsty. I love coke. You may have noted this previously.

Next morning, post-caffeine induced crash, we went down to Lane Packing, home to a massive store selling pecans and peaches and everything one can produce from either. It is also home to a genuine Georgia Snowman amidst the orchards. Lunch supplied by the Piggly Wiggly, mainly because it makes me giggle to hear David say the name and I've wanted to go to one since I saw Driving Miss Daisy. We drove through the massive Fort Stewart with it's tank crossings and shooting ranges, and finally to Savannah.

And here we are, back at the Atlantic Ocean! We've come from London all the way back round to this bit of coast, in just about 8 months. We took ourselves to Tybee Island, a coastal strip separated from Savannah proper by acres of salt marsh and tidal rivers. Stuck my feet into the sea just because I could, and also because it was almost 80 degrees Fahrenheit and how often do you get to hang on the beach in flipflops a week before Christmas? Dinner at the Crab Shack, where they keep a pond full of alligators, two of whom appeared to be holding hands. Again, almost cute. Who doesn't love a cuddly reptile? Besides me. Lowcountry boil for supper—this is the local thing: shrimp, corn, potatoes and sausage all boiled and seasoned with some sort of rub or spice. This is the kind of place with big holes cut into the middle of the table, so one can toss one's peels as one goes. Cl-assy.

Love at the Loveless Cafe

2009-12-19T08:58:00.001+08:00

14 December 2009

Having left Illinois and that icy chill behind us, we're back into Tennessee, this time cutting diagonally across the state in a southeasterly fashion via. Goal? Why, Nashville, of course! We're both favorably inclined toward country music, purely of the non-Jesus-taking-the-wheel sort. Bring on Hank, Johnny and Loretta—and keep your Faith, Taylor and Keith. I'm having a bit of a love affair with Waylon Jennings currently, having downloaded his greatest hits in some sort of feverish state while shacked up in a hotel room in Shangri La with Louise. Anyway, this is our chance to soak up this truly American cultural art form in an environment where no one can make fun of us, because we at least didn't show up in fringe.

So off we go to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Even Lonely Planet says this is acceptable when in Nashville, so it must be. Special exhibits on Brenda Lee (personally, I didn't know she sang anything except Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree, but there you go. Education.) Apparently she's huge in Japan. The other is on the Williams family, as in Hank, Hank Junior, and Hank the Third, and their shared penchant for anger and dangerous substances and being called Hank even though they weren't (Hiram, Randall, and Shelton respectively). And who doesn't love an angry drunk guy who can sing? I truly believe country music in general would be infinitely better if there was more unrepentant alcoholism in evidence.

The museum itself is gorgeous and very well done, with such gems as a Webb Pierce's Caddy customized with pistols for door handles and gen-u-wine longhorns for a hood ornament. Also Elvis' gold piano, Minnie Pearl's hat, and the cornfield set from Hee-Haw. Having spent a goodly amount of my childhood watching Hee-Haw with my dad, I was very excited about this.

Outside, we strolled Broadway, home to bars and boots. The football stadium is at the end of the street, and as the Titans were playing that afternoon, there were plenty of men about, all manned up...in powder blue. Everyone else was a middle aged tourist wincing along in new cowboy boots. One shop had a series of posters starring rodeo heroes—including a five-year old 'Mutton Buster'. Did you know that your very own 4-9 year old could be out there winning belt buckles on the sheep-riding circuit? Because I didn't. But now I do.

For lunch we drove a bit out of town to the Loveless Cafe. Now, I've had a lot of Southern food in the last few weeks (and fyi, if anyone is buying me clothes for Christmas, I will need a larger size). But this place was the best meal I've had anywhere. Mostly because I love biscuits, and they make absolutely lush ones here from a secret recipe, and they give you bowls of them with your food. Blissful sigh...and there's real pan-fried chicken, and greens and creamed corn and beans cooked with bacon and pork tenderloin bbq'd with peach preserves. Soooo good. If you ever find yourself 17 miles from Nashville and very hungry, go there.

Down a stretch of the Natchez Trace parkway, with hickory trees and green grass and hills and dells. And plenty of opportunity to pee on the side of the road—because we both find ourselves scouting for sites these days. You never know when you'll need to go. Drove through Lynchburg, home to Jack Daniels himself. It was evening, so we didn't stop for much, but it looks like a very pretty town. The irony, of course, being that this is a dry county, and you cannot therefore actually buy JD anywhere nearby. We slid right on through Chattanooga, home to the choo-choo of song, though sadly not in evidence today because the GPS woman is being bitchy. Cow.

Sweet Home Carbondale

2009-12-15T14:02:00.001+08:00

12 December 2009

As said, David went to eighth grade and high school in a town in Southern Illinois called Carbondale. We're here for the first time in about 7 years, to see what's what and catch up with old friends. Troy was best man in our wedding, and Andrea decorated our toasting glasses, David was in their wedding, and last time we were here they'd just built themselves a new house on a road called the Ava Blacktop. The house is now a family home, with two little boys to complete the picture, and we stayed with all these Demings for the weekend.

Having watched the Browns win on the TV in Troy's lush Man Cave, and having wrestled a bit with some energetic little boys, and eaten one of their cows (post-crock pot, obviously) and Andrea's chocolate mint brownies, and slept very well indeed, we spent Friday catching up with David's brother. Steven lives in Carbondale too, and since we haven't seen him in ages either, we hung out doing what you do in Carbondale...Walmart, Buffalo Wild Wings, etc.

When David's dad retired as school superintendent, he got a gymnasium named for him. This is funny, because his name is Jim. See? Jim's Gym? We finally got to see the famous building, and there it is, in big shiny letters, with loads of middle schoolers playing basketball inside. Drove round to the old house, now home to some people called Bobo and a newly paved driveway to the pole barn, but otherwise the same.

For dinner, with Andrea & Troy we went to the culinary gem that is Walt's, in the nearby town of Marion. This is home to a double-decker thin-crust pizza that is just gorgeous. Followed this with a marathon session at Target, as Andrea is a teacher who's "adopted" five kids for Christmas through her school, and had a wad of cash to spend on an assortment of Nerf, pyjamas, Hot Wheels, underwear, and Easy Bake refills. And that girl can shop. While the boys wandered through the mall to ogle tigers and monkeys, Andrea flew through Target like the spirit of Christmas Quickly. Impressive.

Next day being Saturday, we wrapped gifts and hung out with the little boys, Lex and Tucker, discussing the merits of security blankets (Tucker has an impressive array) and Lex taking pictures with my camera. The big boys suited up in manly outdoorsy gear and went out in the cold to ride four-wheelers on the acres of land they have. Troy and David went into Carbondale to watch Southern Illinois University's basketball team beat Alabama State, while Andrea and I took the boys to see Santa. All very maternal. Tucker demurred in a rather high-pitched tone, while Lex manned up and wore the shark's tooth we'd brought him from Fiji while chatting with Santa about a pogo stick. A very enjoyable day, all in all. Somewhat different to the last time we were so chilly, which as I recall was in Tibet and involved yak butter.

Alas, all good things must end. Now we're back on the road, down through Tennessee again, this time to Nashville. Yee haw.

Delta Blues

2009-12-15T13:08:00.001+08:00

10 November 2009

In Vicksburg, we also managed to arrive at the same time as the Kansas City Southern's Santa train, a once-a-year charity trip organized by the smallest and second oldest Class I railroad still in existence in the States. Wikipedia tells me this means it ships freight, in the middle south and through Mexico; but the train we saw coming across the bridge over the Mississippi was beautiful, black and gold and sleek. It looked like something out of a movie, albeit with a red and white striped locomotive and Santa's sleigh at the front.

We got to the top of Mississippi around sunset, and stopped for the night just out of Memphis, Tennessee. This makes seven states so far...and a bunch of kinds of American music. Honky tonk, alt-country, jazz, and now we're on the blues. Memphis is of course home to Stax and Sun Records, and thus Johnny Cash, Elvis, and about a million other icons, etc etc. However, it is extremely cold in Memphis, and we got about as far as Beale Street for dinner. Fortunately, we stopped at a place called Rum Boogie, which is a stupid name for a decent place, and which had live music, comprising about six middle-aged guys getting their Muddy Waters on. But they were great fun, and tossed out beads to all the girls, and only one looked like a middle-school music teacher on his night out.

Next morning, we were up bright and rather late for the drive. David's from a town called Carbondale, in deep south Illinois's redneck country, which is where we're headed. Okay, technically not the south. But it is about 6 hours from Chicago. First we had to negotiate the rest of Tennessee, via Ihop and their magical eggnog-flavour pancakes. Mmmm. Apparently these also come in pumpkin, apple cinnamon, and something else terribly festive. And are accompanied by massive amounts of sausage, eggs, hash browns and as much syrup as you like. I love America and her unhealthy obsessions with ever-larger quantities of food.

Then a cut-through in the western bit of Kentucky. Kentucky looks much like Tennessee, rural and Christian and lots of pickups. We stopped at a massive hill, overlooking the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers (non-Americans: these are important rivers and probably close to as big as all your country's rivers put together). The overlook is marked by a singularly enormous cross, erected for some mysterious reason by someone with a little too much money. Surely there are starving babies somewhere who could have benefited from the giant cross cash? Whatever. The rivers are grand and wide and unfortunately meet at Cairo, Illinois. This is said kay-ro,not like Egypt. Although this part of Illinois is called Little Egypt, to the point that there are other towns with middle eastern and Greek names--Thebes, Dongola, Palestine, Lebanon, Sparta and Karnak. The local university mascot is the Saluki--which, as you know, is an Egyptian racing dog. Seriously.

Back to Cairo, which is a crap town par excellence. It makes Camden, NJ, look like a nice place for a picnic. There are a total of two very nice 19th century houses, and that's about it. We've been almost completely around the world and no where else has David suggested locking the car doors. The abandoned buildings are rather desperately beautiful, in a remarkably depressing sort of way. In a local history book, we've read that in the 19th century, there were people who truly believed that Cairo would one day be the greatest city in America, because of it's location at the aforementioned confluence and the importance of shipping and god, were they wrong.

In case you were wondering? Egypt is because there was a famine in northern Illinois in the 1830s, and the hungry folks wandered on down through the wilderness to this land of milk and honey--a sort of 40 years in the desert in reverse.

Next stop: Makanda. This is the little town outside Carbondale that is technically where David lived while in high school. There's a shop called The Smelly Hippy, a post office where you can buy stamps from a postlady who isn't quite sure where Singapore is, and a big smiley face water tower, as well as 419 people. It's pretty, though.

And to cap off a fairly interesting day, the Cleveland Browns finally won a game that we got to watch. Bliss.

Laissez le Bon Temps Roulez

2009-12-12T05:30:00.001+08:00

9 December 2009

We've symbolically hit the halfway mark in America at the Mississippi River just north of New Orleans. Old Man River, Father of Waters, Big River, whatever you call it, we're over it and into New Orleans, which is a fabulous city and not just because it's almost 80 degrees here. Humid, overcast, and blessedly warm. We were here for our first anniversary, seven years ago. That trip we drove straight down from DC and then up to David's hometown in Illinois. This is ever so much better, taking time to see what's worth seeing, and no 10-hour driving sessions. That time, we stayed at the Hilton (thanks to the in-laws) and ate at Emeril Lagasse's restaurant (thanks to my folks). This time we're in the nicest place we've been on this trip...the Clarion, which is a beautiful room, albeit on the floor that's being renovated and has wet paint and decorators playing mariachi music on a radio in the hall at 8am. But for $50, you shouldn't be too picky. Even though next door is a wig shop featuring a sale on gold teeth. Classy.

No Commander's Palace for dinner this time, but we did revisit another place we remembered—The Gumbo Shop on St Peter's Street. Unsurprisingly, they feature gumbo, but also other delicious things like jambalaya and boudin and shrimp creole, etc. Boudin being some sort of sausage made with 'pork and pork products' so probably something I don't actually want to know too much about, but yummy with Creole mustard nonetheless.

Wandered the French Quarter all evening, and found oruselves at the Cafe du Monde, home to beignets and cafe au lait. Beignets being a sort of rectangular doughnut that come piled on a plate with a mountain of powdered sugar and make you pleasntly sick to your stomach after eating french bread and gumbo all night. And then you go to a bar on Bourbon Street and drink Abita, the local beer, and watch football with all the other tourists. And star to feel unpleasantly sick, but how often are you in New Orleans? So just go with it.

Despite Katrina, Bourbon Street remains full of tourists and bead shops and some actual jazz--both from the bars and street musicians. In fact, the whole French Quarter seems pretty much unchanged from the hurricane, barring the addition of t-shirts that say 'Katrina Gave Me a Blow Job I'll Never Forget.' Uh-huh.

We did a lot of wandering between old buildings and slightly younger tourists, managed to pick up Jimmy Buffett's newest album on the release date at Margaritaville (sigh), ate extremely well again for lunch, window shopped, and finally, sadly, drove oursleves north across Lake Pontchartrain and up toward Mississippi.

Mississippi is not as nice as New Orleans, but still warm and southern and that's good enough. We stayed off the main interstate, and instead opted to drive up Route 61. This is the famed Mississippi Delta region, much sung about in blues by old black men with funny names (see: Muddy Waters, Blind Lemon Jefferson, T-Bone Walker, Howlin' Wolf, etc.) It's flat and there is actually quite a bit of cotton growing and shabby little towns and big silos...it's all very evocative of something. But I'm not sure quite what.

Stayed in Vicksburg, site of a major turning point campaign in the Civil War; the city was beseiged by Sherman and Grant for six weeks until Confederate General Pemberton (of the Philadelphia Pembertons) surrendered, and thereby gave control of the Mississippi River to the Union. It's a big park now, in which Illinois veterans have built themselves a Parthenon-shaped temple to their victory, and which contains the ruins of the USS Cairo, an iron-clad naval ship that sank in the river in 1862. Which now lives under a big tent.

Smack Dab in the Middle of North America's Largest Swamp

2009-12-12T04:46:00.000+08:00

8 December 2009

Our introduction to the great and only slightly odd state of Louisiana begins with the Creole Nature Trail, or 'Louisiana's Outback.' Nature here means swamps and alligators and possums and other undesirable things, but also humidity and warmth and summery-loveliness. It's a reasonable tradeoff. I'm happy to risk my ankles with the gators in exchange for flip-flops and t-shirts. We've stuck to the lesser roads, which are nicely signed with 'America's Byways' pretty much everywhere, in a half-hearted attempt to get us off of motorways. It's so nice to have the time to take the back roads; we've driven through a bit of Louisiana before, but on the interstate and on a tight schedule. It's a completely different place when you can wander the bayous. We took some random little ferry over a bayou canal in the middle of nowhere, watched the sun set over those funny swamp boats they ride in on the opening credits to CSI: Miami, bought very sweet sodas from a little old Cajun lady.

Stopped off in Lafayette, in the middle of the sort of French Cajun country you see in movies, and ate some place called Prejean's, with a band consisting of three grandperes in John Deere hats and button-down shirts playing zydeco. Etoufee and blackened catfish and crawfish bisque. Louisiana is delicious. Have, of course, made a playlist for the iPod of themed music—we are listening to George Strait's Adalida, Creedence Clearwater Revival's Proud Mary and Born on the Bayou, Jace Everett's Bad Things, Mel McDaniel's Louisiana Saturday Night, and Hank Williams' Jambalaya, among several others. AND we parked next to Miss Louisiana herself's red dodge with a big magnetic sticker on the side proclaiming her dedication to fighting illiteracy or world peace or something.

Up Route 10 through the middle of Henderson Swamp, part of the Atchafalaya swamp area—the biggest river swamp area thing in the States, according to the very charming ladies at the tourist welcome center (who were greatly puzzled as to what to list us as on their guest book, and finally settled on listing David as from DC and me as from London, but mostly seemed to think that we must be unbelievably thrilled to be back in America after all that traveling in very strange places.)

Detour down to Plaquemine, and a walk along the levees (these may or may not be the same ones that failed somewhat spectacularly a few years ago...you might recall) on the Mississippi. This is sugar cane country, with loads of lorries carting cut cane around to massive plants for processing—reminiscent of the wheat road trains in Coonamble. Lunch in Thibodaux, which David wanted to see especially, as it gets a mention in Jimmy Buffett's I Will Play for Gumbo, also on the playlist. Had some very good Po Boys at Bubba's II in Thibodaux, seated next to one of those miniature porcelain Christmas villages that grandmas the world over are so fond of. PoBoys (or poor boys) are sandwiches you only get in Louisiana, French bread filled with lightly fried oysters, shrimp, or catfish, and dressed with lettuce and pickles (gherkins) and mayo and are good enough to trade your children for.

Plantation afternoon—the River Road running up the Mississippi from New Orleans was once full of dozens of sugar plantations (and cotton above a certain line), and several remain. The two I'm most interested in are Laura and Oak Alley, convenient to one another and to Thibodaux. Oak Alley is the one you've probably seen in movies or books, with a massive row of 300-year old live oaks marching out from the house to the river. The house itself is beautiful, but the best bit was the tour guides, no doubt. They are gracious and often stout middle aged Cajun ladies, complete with housewife hair and/or mama mullets, and every one of them was trapped in an enormous and bright red hoop skirt. I literally couldn't take my eyes off the sway of the skirts, except when our mullet lady announced that all people in the “eighteen-hundreds times” were much shorter, the men none above 5 feet 4 inches, and the women averaging 4 feet 10 inches. And thus the chairs in the dining room are lower than ours might be. I know I am a bit of a pedant when it comes to anachronisms and history in general, but oh my gosh, people speaking with a voice of authority and repeating heinous lies like that? Drives. Me. Insane.

But I did get to lounge about on the terrace feeling faint and being dramatic, even though David wouldn't buy me a mint julep to sip while I fainted. Dramatically. So there's that.

Laura was much more to my liking; it belonged to a Creole family, run unusually by four generations of women, and the last of the family left a detailed history of life on the place. The house was simple and elegant and barring the lack of bathrooms and a kitchen, you could move right in now. Loads of old brick and atmosphere.

There are intact slave cabins that were used by farm workers until 1977, which is just crazy, but kind of cool. It's less structured and no one was wearing angst-inducing costumes, and the guide had a Creole accent (ie. dis and dat) and we liked it so much better. I never wanted to be French before, but it all seemed so much more appealing.

Female owner number two prudently married a Bordeaux-born nobleman and set herself up as the wine empresaria for all of the Mississippi as well as growing cane, and ultimately was a miserable old woman whose family left her in the house when the Union started shelling during the war. Number Three was known for branding her slaves on the forehead with her initials if they got uppity, and made her children pay for a pension for 30 years when she decided to retire. Number four had had it, married a protestant and moved to St Louis.

Our Lady of Pecans

2009-12-07T22:48:00.002+08:00

6 December 2009

From the Gently Rolling Hill Country, next stop Austin. Have heard much about the hipness of said city, and it does seem like a very liveable place, with cafes and markets and people jogging and even some Democrats. Ate at the Salt Lick in Driftwood, 20 miles out of Austin proper, something of an institution in barbecue and which we had been strenuously instructed to try. It's home to an enormous pit (not a grill in Texas, you fool). The ribs were gorgeous, the potato salad remarkable, but the beans were better at Rudy's. The place is more like a park, sprawling buildings and banquet halls and huge tables. Personally, I liked the chain as much and for half the price, but the Salt Lick was pretty good. I think maybe the lesson here is that it's hard to go wrong with BBQ in Texas. BTW—as per the concpet that everything is bigger in Texas? The loo roll holders certainly are.

Spent a morning in the Texas history museum—subtitled 'The Story of Texas,' because even museums don't trust the public to conclude fairly basic concepts on their own. The dumbing down of America is causing me pain—was there a sale on apostrophes? Is that why they are in 8 out of 10 plural words in this country? Lord, it is not that difficult to grasp! Plural words just have an S or possibly an ES, possessive words have an apostrophe and then an S. That's it.
Right, back to the Story of Texas, which is in a giant building with a giant lone star out front. Everything really is bigger here. The carpet is woven with little Texases (see? No apostrophe!). There are reconstructed dog-trot houses, horse armour, interactive panels that reek of sulfur and teach children how to find oil in the ground (1. look for dome-shaped low hills, 2. smell for sulfur, 3. swamps are a good place to start), and life size Texas longhorn cattle figures. It's a very good museum and only a little OTT.

Outside is the pink state capitol. Which is 15 feet taller than the national one. Almost like they're making a statement there. We did go down to the hip bit of town, drove past the extensive queues of men in skinny jeans and derbys and women in uggs (it was Saturday) and took ourselves to a taco place off the beaten path. Having seen live music both previous days, we opted to continue on out of Austin and leave the legendary music scene to those cooler than ourselves. I know, I know, Austin is amazing. And it's certainly the place I could see myself living most easily in Texas, but organic markets and coffee shops I can have in London or DC...I want evangelicals and beef that's practically still mooing. On this particular trip at least.

Heading south, then, through the BBQ capital of Lockhart (there may be a culinary theme emerging) to stop at Smitty's, which has a 1960s exterior, a dark smoky entrance and a counter with a man chopping chunks of meat by the pound. Bought ourselves dinner to take away, with potato salad and beans and whatnot; wandered the little Christmas street fair (featuring fried snack food in several permutations), and left.

Having been so recently educated, when we sniffed sulfur in the air shortly thereafter and knew we were in oil country. Lo and behold, steel grasshopper-like things scattered about everywhere. These are called nodding-donkeys, sucker-rod pumps, and thirsty birds, and several other less amusing things. Having seen the oil cattle, cowboys, music, Mexicans, and desert, we're feeling pretty well done with Texas. But stopped in Gonzales anyway, home to the first resistance to Mexican rule, when some white guys dared Mexico to reclaim a cannon from their town in the 1830s by making a banner with the motto: Come and Get It. Because how could you not go there?

On the way out, we passed what may be my favourite thing in Texas yet...a roadside shrine to the Virgen Mary. Uh-huh. Seems a farmer got his tractor stuck in the mud, and prayed to her, and it came out. As this is clearly a miracle and not physics or, I don't know, the gas peddle, he's built a shrine and a sign and it's home to our lady of the pecan grove. Again I say, Texas is awesome.

We stayed outside Alvin last night, near Houston, and next to the Nolan Ryan Center, housed in the local college. I don't know what one might do at the Center, but we did take pictures. Then to the Gulf Coast. It's warmer now, and a bit grey, but the Gulf was wild and choppy and beautiful. Huge stretches are completely undeveloped, which is lovely and so unlike other American coastlines. We had miles of it to ourselves. In Galveston (home to the biggest natural disaster in American history when 6000-8000 people drowned in a hurricane in 1900), we hopped the free ferry to Point Bolivar—this is about 20 minutes across the bay, with frolicking pods of porpoises all around the boat, pelicans and plain old gulls everywhere, and such a nice break to a journey. Did I mention free? Or that the boat was called the Dedman?

I think maybe dedman isn't what you want people thinking when they board a ship. Yes?

Headed along the Gulf a bit more, lots of oil refineries and pipes and ships and industrial metal things scattered, and suitable gloomy and grey and a very good drive, all in all. On to Louisiana next...

Seriously. Don't Mess With It. It's Pretty Good.

2009-12-06T14:01:00.003+08:00

5 December 2009

Del Rio to San Antonio. That's right, the hallowed shrine to those celebrated martyrs to the notion of Texas' independence...Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, et al. The roofless abandoned Catholic mission church was the last stand in the siege of San Antonio by General Santa Anna. It was preserved by devoted single middle-aged women at the turn of the century, and is open to all free of charge. There's even a box to leave cash in, and old guys with matching blazers prodding you to donate generously. Relics of the holy ones are cased in glass, with tearful Texans gasping in awe. The whole thing is reminiscent of, well, church.

The building itself is pretty, and striking in San Antonio which is really very modern other than this little bit of the 18th century plopped in the centre. Smaller than I expected...but I suspect that perhaps I am a bit cynical by this stage of our little trip. The other big attraction in SA is the Riverwalk, which I first read about in a very trashy Diana Palmer romance novel written circa 1983 (I didn't get to it until a few years later, people, I was only 7) called 'Rawhide Man', and have since seen featured in the cinematic classic Miss Congeniality. It's big and lovely and on warm afternoons, I bet it's great. Loads of restaurants (mainly Mexican chain-style) and pubs, trees and a mall and bridges and beige 1980s brick. But it is unbelievably cold in San Antonio this week, and no one is sitting outside drinking right now. They're all super excited about snow here, newscasters talking it up, every clerk mentions it gleefully. One can imagine thousands of children thinking they're finally going to get their first ever snowday, and being doomed to disappointment yesterday when about 3 flakes fell. And then laughing at them.

Despite my wanting to huddle up in the warmth of Travelodge, David decided we were off to New Braunfels for Texas dancehall music. New Braunfels is just north of SA, in the heart of German country. Dinner at Oma's Haus, us and about seven 60-year olds scarfing down gorgeous potato pancakes and applesauce and saurkraut and schnitzel in what looked like a 1970s idea of what stylish German restaurants in Texas would be. Kostlich Speisen!

Anyway, after a little carb loading, we're off to Gruene, a little historically preserved village full of the kind of shops that bus tour people descend on in ravening hordes to buy cowboy hats and Christmas ornaments. The heart of this lovely and frightening place is Gruene Hall, the oldest working dance hall in Texas. It's wood floored and wood benches and a big ol' bar and freezing but quite good fun. A band called Reckles Kelly who are established enough to be in iTunes were playing, and an opening act called Buster Jiggs, unfortunately. The girl singer was good, but the only song I could understand the lyrics to was called Pretty White Wings about dead grandmas who become angels and really, it was just a bit more than I could take. In America you don't have to put your own lime in your beer anymore, there are at least 3 brands of lager that come with lime flavour already in them, and enough of these make cold alt-rock-country a brilliant night out.

Yesterday, we drove on up into Hill Country (more like Gentle Slope Country, but after West Texas, I'll allow it). This is the German area previously mentioned--and they're serious about being Teutonic in Fredericksburg. It was founded by off-the-boat krauts in the 1840s, with churches where they spoke the Lingua Germanica until after WWII. They built in stone, are still named things like Schmidt and Werlenger, and founded towns like Bresnau, Vienna, Bergheim, and Luckenbach. This being Saint Nicklaus weekend, yesterday was the Kristkindle markt and parade. The parade (which David very nicely agreed to attend on a frigid cold night) featured the Farm Queens and their courts from at least three counties, an actual Texas Longhorn (wearing a santa hat), several tractor shops' contingents, the high school marching band, and santa's sleigh pulled by firefighters in turnout gear and reindeer hats. Oh, and the Knights of Columbus gave me free hot chocolate. And there's a gigantic glockenspiel (the wooden cone things that spin when you burn candles under them for Christmas, see image of David with it for comparison). I love Texas, even though it is a foreign country.

We ate the freebies at Rustlin' Robs--this is one of the most extensive public tasting rooms in America, I'm told, dedicated to all dips Texan. And jams, sauces, butters, spreads, etc. This is why in America we are all obese.

We saw the museum in the little round church and had an amazing private lecture on the history of the local Germans from the 87-year old Mr Clinton Stork, whose people came on the first boats. As he spoke both English and German, he spent WWII as a translator in the Navy on the USS Tennessee...in the Pacific. Not so much with the German POWs, but he's a great story teller. And only seemed a little shocked that we knew where Mechlenburg is--apparently his audiences generally don't.

Also made it out to Luckenbach Texas, as made famous by Waylon Jennings and WIllie Nelson in the 1978 song. The town has a population of 3, and is home to a dance hall / post office. We fully expected tourist tat and not much else, but chanced upon the free Friday country music picking session...anyone who likes can join in, I think, but the guys playing yesterdays included Bo Porter (also in iTunes), Dale Mayfield (who covered at least two Buffett songs without being asked), a drummer, a harmonica player, and another guy with a great voice who was chewing tobacco the whole time he sang. They played non-stop for hours, stuff like Hank Williams and Alan Jackson and Willie Nelson, in a little room behind the post office that serves as bar, and has a wood-fired stove heating it and loads of locals wearing denim jackets and cowboy hats clustered around. It was fabulous. Chewing tobacco while he sang! Really! Have I mentioned that I love Texas?

Don't Mess with Texas

2009-12-04T03:42:00.002+08:00

2 December 2009

On the penultimate leg of this journey now, heading ever east from Arizona to New Jersey. We've acquired a car from David's parents, which is very luxurious and I imagine stylish if one is 60...it's a Toyota Avalon, kept pretty much mint by Jim & Sandy, and certainly as posh as we've been in the last year. If you see Arizona tags on a 2002 Avalon, and a blonde who looks to be contemplating how best to apply a skull to the hood of said car, somewhere on the road between Tucson and Philadelphia, that'll be us.

Left Green Valley and the in-laws behind on Tuesday morning, allowing about three weeks for our cross-country ride. Obviously I'd like to do this for real and spend a good month or so, but even we will eventually run out of time. Also, the German mother patiently waiting in NJ takes Christmas seriously. Very seriously. It's not optional.

Green Valley isn't actually remotely green, but they do grow pecans in massive and geometrically precise orchards. Then through the desert down to Tombstone, of Gunfight at the OK Corral fame. Tombstone seems to exist solely by exploiting this 3-second battle between Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, et al in the 1880s—there are myriad ye olde saloons, ye olde time photo studios, and western wear shops. Also, it appears to function as a magnet for middle-aged men who sport long hair and full-length coats as they vent their inner Marlboro Man. Still, wooden sidewalks sound really cool when you stride along them purposefully, even in new ballet flats.

Bisbee, the next town along, is home to the Queen Mine, an enormous strip copper mine ripped into the earth just outside town. The town itself is all boutiques and boutique hotels and hippie artists selling crystals and is extremely pretty. Thence to Douglas, border town and home to a lovely orange fence to keep the Mexicans out. Clearly this is working slightly less than brilliantly, as evidenced by the hordes of Border Patrol trucks scattered absolutely everywhere down here. They pull you over and ask if you're American, and off you go. You have to wonder just how many illegals they round up this way. Do only the stupid Mexicans cross the border?

There's some immense desert here, lots of driving along roads with no other cars in sight for ages and ages. Similar to Australia. The road in Cochise County offers a monument to the spot where Geronimo surrendered to some white soldiers who braved the Apache stronghold in 1888, thus ending the last 19th century Native American armed rebellion in US history. Said monument is mainly about the courageous white guys--but in a landscape so empty of human impact, still interesting.

New Mexico, Land of Enchantment, is next on the itinerary. We're just cutting across a bit of it, through Hidalgo, Grant, Luna, and Dona Ana counties. Again, prettttttttttttttttttttttyyyyyy empty. Dramatic and beautiful in a stark sort of way. But vacant.

At the border with Texas, we left New Mexico and entered the Lone Star State at El Paso. There's a military base, a university, and a good sized city here, fenced in by the snowy Franklin Mountains. The welcome sign used to read 'Proud Home to President George W Bush,' but they've stuck green tape over that bit now. Take that as you like. Across the Rio Grande (it isn't grand) is Juarez, Mexico. You can cross via bridges (don't drive, your car will be stolen) into this city of 2 million. This mix makes for a culinary city—El Paso is well known for the best Tex-Mex food in the world, and we likes our Tex-Mex.

L&J's Cafe is a little place next to the city cemetery, locally known as 'The Place Near the Cemetery.' Texans do call it like it is. Super friendly service of a sort not known in the rest of the world, and amazing enchiladas with some sort of red chili sauce El Paso is known for. The world over. Universally. If you ever find yourself in the arse-end of Texas, find this place.

Today we stopped at about 70 historical markers. My favourite features a blurb about the San Antonio-San Diego mail pony express, also known as...wait for it...the Jackass Mail. Seriously. I love Texas.

It snowed in El Paso yesterday, and the countryside around it was gorgeous today with the right kind of snow—the kind that's only on the grass and you don't have to walk through it or drive through it or touch it or anything. We motored on the secondary road, route 90, which runs roughly parallel to the border, through crappy little towns with nothing in them except closed bars and 1950s motels. Liz Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean filmed Giant in Marfa in 1955; the hotel they stayed in is a 1930s gem. Went to the post office to get stamps—was greeted with 'Howdy,' no irony involved. Awesome.

Through about a million miles of striking and empty country, we stopped at the Pecos River high bridge. This is, believe it or not, the highest road bridge in all of Texas. We were impressed, but that may have been partly because we hadn't actually seen anything else all day. David climbed up on the cliff edge over the Pecos gorge, which of course freaked me out. Boys are dumb.

Pulled into the thriving metropolis of Del Rio (pop. 35,000) this evening, home to a man-made lake, Applebee's, Chili's, several hotels, and our Motel 6. Having gorged ourselves on Mexican to the point that we are approaching even our limits, we opted for Rudy's Bar-B-Q and gas station. So delicious...the plates are waxed-paper, the décor tends toward football-chic, but the brisket is tender and beautiful. Plus Wednesday is $1 beer night. Brilliant. Not so the quinceaneros gowns in the local
mall...shudder.

Beer in Mexico

2009-12-01T13:07:00.001+08:00

30 November 2009

After overindulging in the traditionally excessive American Thanksgiving feast, we're off for Old Mexico, South of the Border and whatnot. In-laws have a timeshare and have generously offered to share it with us for the long weekend, and so the Mayan Palace beckons.

Most of Green Valley, where we are, is an age-restricted gated community in the Sonoran desert, not far from the border. However, lots of the border towns are currently pretty well shut down because of a spate of pesky drug gang warfare that's claimed 4000 people this year alone. Fortunately, we're going to the non-death-inducing bit, at the border town of Sonoyta. It's a 3 hour drive through the classic American desert you see in movies, full of dramatic cacti and other prickly things. Stopped to pee on the side of the road (I did, at least--have lost all inhibitions in the course of the last seven months) and then at a Native American casino/hot dog stand on the Tohono O'odham reservation and staffed by very large people who look disappointingly unlike Jacob Black. Through the little towns of Sells and Why. I feel like there's a joke there that's just not coming to me.

Then Sonoyta and the 'No-Hassle Zone', where you can buy Viagra and Premarin (they know their audience here--I believe Green Valley translates as Land of Retirees and their Untamed Golf Carts) and get your teeth fixed for cheap. After Sonoyta, it's more desert and then...the Sea of Cortes / Gulf of California. Whichever you prefer.

This is the bit of Mexico that faces the Baja peninsula, so it's fairly sheltered. The sea is beautiful, though, crashing waves and white sand. The Mayan resort is lush and posh and has good food, and what else do you need on your vacation from your vacation? They shape the sand in the ashtrays to look like temples, they make the towels into a wide variety of animal shapes. I didn't even know I was missing these things in my life. I am now fulfilled.

Into the little town of Puerto Penasco, which was a fishing village and now sells tourist tat of the brightly coloured sort, silver jewelry and luchadore's masks and even a poncho emblazoned with the Cleveland Browns logo. It's like they knew we were coming! Also home to shrimp boats and a classic statue immortalizing the eternal battle between man and prawn.

Sandy and I spent yesterday in the spa getting even more gorgeous, my toes now sport Peru-B-Ruby (OPI is endlessly entertaining to me, all out of proportion to the wit employed in naming the colours) and the boys played two rounds of golf on the Nicklaus course. David has bought me the world's most beautifully dressed figurine (made for the Day of the Dead in early November) as an early birthday gift. Anyone who has a decent plan for shipping a pink-ballgown-clad skeleton made from papier-mache and sized at approximately 18 x 18 inches to London is welcome to share it. We've named her Conchita. These also come in the shape of Michael Jackson, obviously.

Another Town, Another Train

2009-11-27T13:38:00.000+08:00

26 November 2009

One last stop in LA, at Olvera Street. This is sort of Little Mexico, established in the 1920s for white people to come eat tacos and buy embroidered shawls in the comfort of home, but is also one of the oldest Spanish-settled parts of the city. We ogled fun t-shirts and handbags, ate an enormous meal (god, have I mentioned how much I love a country that gives you free chips and salsa just for sitting down?), and wandered a bit. Apparently there was an adjacent themed Chinatown for a while, but now there is a freeway instead. Also, Odyssey people who may be reading this: those stupid Romanian 'gypsy' hats? You can buy them in Los Angeles too, where they are 'Mexican' hats. Truly, a global icon.

Brief sojourn in SoCal is at it's end, and we're on the move again. This time, we're off to Arizona, home to David's folks and Thanksgiving dinner with the family. Continuing the overland theme (devoted readers may have noted that we are only flying over the wet bits), we've opted for Amtrak. Amtrak is America's answer to rail travel, and is resoundingly unsuccessful as a commercial enterprise. But it's a romantic idea of ourselves that keeps it alive (and well subsidized)--19th century railroads shrunk the country and enabled the population of the west and cheap transport of goods and many country songs, thus making us The Greatest Nation on Earth.

Also, it costs $38 for a 9 hour journey. So here we are.

We started off well enough, in Los Angeles' gorgeous Art Deco / Spanish style Union Station, last of the great American stations, built in 1939. It's got lovely courtyards and tiles and fab deco chairs in the waiting room. And crappy customer service, because that's how they roll at Amtrak. They made us take everything off our bags--this means a securely strapped blanket that has made it through four flights and six months on a truck with no problems, because it had suddenly become and Health & Safety risk. Also a towel nicely stowed in an external pocket of my rucksack. God knows what mayhem could occur there--wouldn't want loose towels running around attacking people. When I pointed out that airlines were cool with my rebel towel, the woman checking the bags told me "We don't do things like the airlines.' And proceeded to make us queue up once to print tickets; twice to check the bags; thrice to get a seat; and fource (is that a word? it should be) to actually get on the train. The train was also two hours late leaving, with no notice given and no announcement. No, Amtrak does not do things like airlines--this is why Americans do not take the train.

Anyway, despite all of this, the train itself--poetically called the Sunset Limited--was super comfy. Huge seats, power point, and a real restaurant with white tablecloth and silverware. We sat with two kids from Santa Monica College coming home for Thanksgiving; the boy is in an acting class with Taylor Lautner, so I reckon we're now practically best friends with Twilight stars. Ah, LA.

Wrote my Christmas cards out (I expect to get some back people, as you can mail them to my parents this year and forget the crap excuse that you don't know how to buy stamps for a foreign country), slept, and arrived in Tucson at 2:30am. The baggage cart at Tucson station is in fact a wooden-wheeled wagon, circa 1907. Charmingly quaint, or more evidence that Amtrak is genuinely 100 years behind the times? You decide. Kindly father in law came to collect us, and we were in bed by 4am. Awoke to roasting turkey and pumpkin pie courtesy of Sandy, and all is well on Thanksgiving Day in Green Valley, Arizona, where you can eat outside in late November.

David's sister Jennifer and brother-in-law Steve brought us the best bit of the day, though--our niece Nora. She is 3 and gorgeous and brilliant and clearly takes after me. She took to David after some initial hesitation and spent the whole day tying him up, ordering him around, and sort-of doing puzzles with him and taking pictures with our camera.

Going Back to Cali

2009-11-27T12:53:00.001+08:00

25 November 2009

California, here we come...ten hours flight from Fiji on Air Pacific and we're in Los Angeles, and grateful to cousin Patti Murphy-Pattinson who graciously came to collect us (after the 40 minute wait for our bags and some increasing panic about bags making it just fine through Kazakhstan and then getting lost in my own country). Patti took us to In-n-Out Burger for luscious American cheeseburgers and fries and then on to her canyon-perched home in Tujunga, north of LA.

Dinner at a Chinese restaurant (and really, Chinese food is ever so much nicer when you're not in China) with my cousins Christie and Sean, children to another cousin, Ike, and who are evidence of the strength of Irish genes--Sean looks more like my brother than I do.

Monday morning, and we collected a little rental car and took ourselves off to Santa Monica. Personally, am very excited about the idea of a town called Monica, and not just because I am self-absorbed. Okay, because I am self-absorbed. I have a t-shirt that says Monica in pink. And many photos of things saying Monica on the pier. It was all terribly exciting. For those of us called Monica, at least. Played on the swings and ogled the thong-clad butts of random denizens of the beach. As you do.

A spot of shopping at the 3rd Street Promenade and we are proud owners of skinny jeans and ballet flats and jumpers and other things that make us look like normal people again. I looked in a mirror and saw me instead of a hippie, which was nice for a change. Mexican food for lunch...sigh. Life is good.

Driving tour through LA: Wilshire, Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, Hollywood, La Brea, etc. Dinner of leftover Chinese food in front of the big screen tv, perhaps one of the best evenings we've had in ages. Tuesday and perhaps the best day ever--both Taco Bell AND Target! Mmmm...meximelts.

Then the requisite touristy thing and we went up to Griffith Park. The Observatory is iconic LA (as seen in modern classics such as Rebel Without a Cause and TV's Angel), overlooking the Hollywood sign and the Los Angeles Basin. This is the view you still see in movies, all the grid spread out below you to the Pacific, with the ocean glowing in the late afternoon light.

The Observatory is home to free displays on astronomy and telescopes and infrared cameras, as well as a Planetarium, and since neither of us had been to one since we were about 10, we spent our 8th anniversary afternoon pondering the wonders of the universe. Yes, eight years, and no, we don't look a day over 25. I will thank you all for agreeing.

Old Pasadena for dinner at an excellent Peruvian restaurant, including David's appetizer of marinated heart. Very romantic. But tasty. And then to see New Moon! Twilight, yay. David was very good and only checked his watch twice. Good to be home in a place where we are not a novelty and everyone speaks like us and you can buy anything you want for practically nothing. America is good.

Survivor: Fiji

2009-11-23T13:49:00.001+08:00

20 November 2009

Twenty-four nations and counting, plus Tibet which technically isn't it's own country these days (thanks, China). Arrived in Fiji last night after a surprisingly non-miserable 4-hour flight from Sydney. Air Pacific is the Air Tran of international carriers, cheaper and without such great reviews. But cheaper. And we like cheaper. Anyway, expecting Aeroflot or equivalent, instead we got a nice clean 747, decent food, full-size cans of beer and coke (I think more things in this world ought to be held to the coke standard), and a choice of movies. Said movies may have been out for 7 months for all I know, but they're all new to us. The Time Traveller's Wife I found much easier to get through in movie form— the book was self-consciously whiny, but Eric Bana does make it go down easier.

Sydney airport is crap, as it is being renovated, and the only reasonable places to eat are pre-security, though there is nothing to tell you this until it's too late. At which point you can watch other people eating through the giant glass wall from post-security. There is sushi for $16 a California roll, but that is not reasonable. At least to people who until recently lived in a van. Otherwise it's shiny and nice. There is a whole Lonely Planet shop which we killed some time in.

We're only in Fiji for a few days, so we're staying on the main island, Viti Levu. Really what you should do is go off to one of the many stunning smaller islands, but we're trying to not be picky, as we are cognizant that we have been on vacation for 7 months. We're down on the Coral Coast, a place called the Beachhouse, near Navola village. Shared bathrooms, but our own spacious and decently-decorated bungalow, free breakfast and afternoon tea for $55 a night. Can hear the sea crashing from our hut, have eaten gorgeous fish poached in coconut, and beer is like $4. Spent the entire day lounging in hammocks abut 5 feet from the water, reading, and having yet another vacation from the vacation.

We did rouse ourselves one day for a jungle trek, which I was told took half and hour and in harsh reality takes three hours. That was two days ago, and I am still sore. Stupid lack of sedan chairs. With a Fijian named Jiuta and a French/Turkish girl called Melissa, we walked down through the local college, provided by the Korean Methodist Church to Navola village in 1995, and into the jungle. Over several raging rivers and up dangerously steep inclines and treacherous canyons, braving the giant centipedes and baby pineapples. Arriving at the promised waterfall we stripped down and swam around for a while, before being urged up the rock face by the guide to be photographed.

On the arduous trek back, we were ordered to hold hands to cross the last stream. David, being David, let go of me, and I slipped and tripped on a huge log and now am bruised and cut and probably dying.

So we came back and have spent the last two days lying about. Jiuta invited us to his church today, being Sunday, but we have opted for some more intensive lying about instead. He was very enthusiastic about the luck of his village in being selected by white Methodist missionaries in the 1840s to be converted to Christianity from the satan worship and cannibalism previously practiced here. I didn't think anyone actually talked like this anymore.

Have had an hour-long coconut oil massage for $10 US, which is nice. I smell delicious. And I have frangipani flowers in my hair.

Anyway, the food is good, the wifi is good, it's only rained once. There is a new herd of British kids who are returning from 2 months building wells or houses for the poor or some such hippie thing and who clearly think they're hardcore travellers. Pshaw. If I was willing to speak to any of them, the stories I could tell...what I really need is some of our Odyssey mates for backup. Gang fight in Fiji-- Backgammon versus humanitarianism!

We leave tonight from Nadi airport, en route to Los Angeles and the land of the free and the home of the brave. Flight is at 11pm Sunday, 22 November...and we arrive at 1pm Sunday, 22 November. That's the magic of the international date line. While you're all working, we'll be traveling back in time. Travel has been good for us, look at all the new skills we've acquired.

Slimy Jewfish in Sydney

2009-11-17T12:31:00.000+08:00

16 November 2009

Sydney, at last! Last stop on the Oz Express. Camped two nights at Lane Cove River National Park, which is Eco friendly and zero carbon and all that hippie junk. Also home to insanely unafraid animals who clearly spend too much time quality with people. Bandicoots chased us away out of our own chairs and away from the beer—little buggers with their freaky glowing eyes. Ugh. Isis birds (the big nasty ones with long, curving black beaks), magpies dive bombing brush turkeys. Crikey! I don't trust any animal that isn't afraid of people. It's just not natural.

Took Sydney's very nice trains into and out of town on Saturday and Sunday, in between sorting out the campervan—actually cleaning it for once, what to keep (pink sheets), what to drink lots of (wine), etc. Gave unopened stuff to some nice Germans, ten minutes later offered a similar pile of food and wine by other Germans also leaving their campervan behind. Maybe it's a Teutonic instinct. Ja. Sorry to leave Charlotte, actually, she's been brilliant and good fun. We would definitely campervan ourselves around Australia again—I can't imagine a better way to see this country.

We seem a bit travel fatigued—not in a huge rush to see Sydney itself, instead we're taking out time and stretching some leisurely sight-seeing over the four days. Saturday we got to see the iconic Sydney Opera House, which is beautiful. But strangely disappointing—I think maybe it's more impressive in pictures. In real life it's sort of beige and mounted on brown granite, so it's a little reminiscent of a 1970s school cafeteria. It always looks so white and stunning in photos. Still, cool. Have booked ourselves into an all-female production of 'The Taming of the Shrew' there tomorrow night.

Took the ferry to Manly, across the harbour, and one of the lovely beach-side suburbs surrounding Sydney proper. The ferries are included on the travel day pass, and run constantly all over the little coves and harbours on Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour to you people who aren't, you know, here). Spent some time in The Rocks, the gentrified and lovely historic district, home to a craft market that the Lonely Planet is scathing about and which I therefore loved, had a pint with all the other tourists in the Oldest Pub in Sydney, saw the Sydney Museum. Last camp meal, pork steaks in a mustard and balsamic sauce with baby spinach and a bottle of shiraz. We are spoiled.

Today we took Charlotte home to her Depot, argued with the toll people who won't let you pay cash for tolls and then charge you twice as much to pay them online or by phone than if you have an e-tag thing—this amounts to just punishing tourists as far as I can see, and finally checked ourselves into the first real hotel in 5 weeks. I do not consider the roach motel in Moree a hotel, and prefer not to think about it at all, actually. Currently we live in the Metro Hotel Sydney Central, which is clean and has a TV (unfortunately showing American football) and a bathroom and is making the loss of Charlotte much more bearable. She did about 9,500 kilometers with us here, making 37,700K or so, so far.

Walked across Darling Harbour this afternoon to the Sydney Fish Market, where we gorged on a massive plate of beautiful seafood. The market also still sells fish, including lots of kinds we're not familiar with. I think my favourites are the 'Jewfish' and 'Slimy Mackerel.' These have recently been renamed 'Mulloway' and 'Blue Mackerel.' Again with the naming--the local delight? Balmain Bugs, sort of prawn-lobster things.

The Maritime Museum is free and very good. They've got loads of boats moored outside, including the HMAS Vampire, which is such a good name for a boat. None of your 'Missouri' or 'New Jersey' boats here. Also a lovely 18th-century style tall ship called the Endeavour; a destroyer, a sub, a Vietnamese boat-people fishing boat, a Japanese fishing boat used to lay mines in sneak attacks in Japan in WWII, etc. The best part of the Australian Maritime Museum, however, is that the first thing you see when entering is the United States of America Gallery, given by guess-who for the Aussie bicentennial in 1988, and celebrating our traditional close links, forged over happy events like whale killing and the illicit resupplying of Confederate ships. It covers the entire bottom of the museum. Ship-shape.

The Secret River

2009-11-17T12:12:00.001+08:00

13 November 2009

Last stop out of Sydney, and we've opted to come a bit north of the city and stay in the Hawkesbury River area for two days. Both of us have read Kate Grenville's really excellent novel 'The Secret River,' set in this area circa 1806-1826, about a convict family from London. It's brilliant and you should all go read it. The bloke is a Thames boatman transported for a bit of honest theft, and ultimately must make his way on the Hawkesbury. The two rivers are so much a part of the book and as we know the Thames pretty well, we felt like we needed to see this place. It's not disappointing. This is definitely more England than anywhere else we've been—the towns were laid out by Georgians and it shows, lots of brick and narrow streets and names like Windsor, Richmond, Wilberforce, and Pitt Town.

It's lushly green and full of winding little country roads and calm water—albeit populated by waterskiers. I sort of thought people stopped waterskiing in about 1983. Apparently I was wrong. It's huge here. The Hawkesbury itself is twisty and full of coves and inlets and creeks, amber coloured water, and old stone houses called things like Primrose Hill perched on hills overlooking their verdant fields.

We drove up from Windsor today to St Albans, a tiny village housing what is without a doubt the nicest pub in Australia—the Settler's Arms, circa 1836, of blonde sandstone and with chunky wood tables and wonky doors and stone fireplaces and room-temperature real ale. Even a bog shaggy dog called Jamie who laid about the place waitng on leftover pate. Makes me more than a bit homesick for Blighty.

To get there, we had to take a ferry across the river, because we are obviously in the 19th century. It's an actual chain ferry, with the cables pulling it along visible next to you as it goes, and free to boot. Back across the other free ferry in this town of about 500 (on the other side), and here we are at a little campground on the water again. A convict could do worse.

On the way out of St Albans, we stopped for a few minutes at the tiny cemetery tucked in a curve on the unpaved road. These are the graves of convicts and their families, mostly, as well as a few free settlers. As Australia has recently decided not to be ashamed of the whole convict thing, they've cleaned up places like this and put new labels up to tell the stories of their ancestors. So pretty and such a good story.

The Ballad of Botany Bay

2009-11-17T12:02:00.000+08:00

12 November 2009

To the Royal National Park, second oldest in the world (after the American one, because as cool as Australia is, America is cooler, yes?). We skated through because although there are signs saying you have to pay $11 to enter, there appears to be nowhere to actually pay this. And you wouldn't want to piss off a park ranger. They could write you up. Or sic wild kangaroos on you.

The goal here is Botany Bay, ground zero for the genocide of Aboriginals and all that. Definitely wanted to get here, having heard Irish folk songs (my parents have random taste in music—you should have heard my 4-year old brother singing republican anthems about killing the British in nursery school) since childhood, many of which focus on the hell that was a transportation sentence to Botany Bay. It's actually fairly impressive, in that while this is essentially their Jamestown, rather than a shrine they've got a park surrounded by an oil refinery, a garbage dump, a power station, and an airport.

The park itself has the requisite Aboriginal name appended to it (every place seems to have had one added to whatever the white name was, obviously this completely makes up for slaughter and rape and other icky things) and which I have already forgotten—Botany Bay is just more alliterative, you know? Sadly overrun with schoolchildren—god, why can't kids ever be quiet? Blue water, a museum with cannon salvaged from a reef, chunks of wood from the hull of another ship Captain Cook sailed and which is sunk in Newport, in the States, interestingly.

Captain James Cook, of Whitby, Yorkshire, got here in 1788 on a voyage of discovery in a converted coal transport. He brought scientists and artists and also the first white guy to be buried here, Forby something, who is buried and got an obelisk for this achievement. Celebrated and revered, Cook was killed by Pacific islanders on his third trip out. Tragic. We have now stood on the very same rocks that he landed on—there is a very nice beach about 3 feet away, and no explanation why they chose to land on rocks instead, as it must have been more awkward. Two aboriginal men met them on the beach and told them to get lost, for which they were shot in the legs. Nice!

As I say, every national park and museum here makes a concerted effort to start with Aboriginal stories and ownership claims and interviews with old people and mention of catastrophic effects and all that. It's sort of beating you over the head with it, and its admirable in that clearly they're making an effort to be sorry and that's worth something. But I just can't see that anyone ought to think putting up new signs can seriously address what was ultimately one conquest in a long line of them—of course we should learn all we can and acknowledge other cultures and their losses, because knowledge is never wasted. But in the end, someone wins and someone loses and that's the way it is. This feels more like competitive political correctness.

But then I got bored of being philosophical and spent my time playing with Picasa to make my artsy pictures black and white instead.

The Pelicans. Briefly.

2009-11-17T11:34:00.001+08:00

11 November 2009

Last night in Victoria, and we've hit another gem. The tiny town of Mallacoota, 15K from the border with New South Wales, is charming and lovely, and for $18 we camped on a little promontory overlooking the serene waters of Mallacoota Inlet, home to some impressive and ginormous pelicans. Sunshine and green grass and an uninterrupted water view. A few drinks at the local, where the barboy showered us with brochures on hearing that we didn't know where we wanted to go next, and suggested beaches and parks. How quaint.

Next morning, along about 3K to spend a few
hours on a beach that in any other country would be crawling with tourists on such a hot day, but here is no novelty. Instead, we had the entire thing to ourselves, a mile of white sand and turquoise water and rocks so perfectly situated that you'd think there was a set dresser.

Aaaaaaannnnddd....back we come into New South Wales. Narooma for the night, yet another blissfully beautiful campsite, perched on a bit of headland over the crashing waves of yet another deserted, pristine beach. Rainbow lorikeets posing in the trees, sunset providing mist on the rocky outcrops, steak fajitas on the portable gas stove (which I have now finally learned to light all by myself, after 7 months of cooking on them. My parents went a little overboard on the fire safety when I was young and impressionable; thanks, Dad!).

Then up inland a bit, through the scenic Kangaroo Valley, home to yet more mountains that pop out of nowhere and create 30 degree hills that are not so cool. Also to a random castellated bridge someone though was a good idea in the 1890s, and to shops selling stuffed animals and potpourri. Lonely Planet talks it right up as stunning, and it is pretty, but having seen some truly jaw dropping places, I'd have to say Kangaroo Valley isn't up there with the Sunshine Coast, Litchfield Park, Mornington, etc.

Stopped in the Morton National park there for Fitzroy Falls, pretty but mainly memorable for the signage at the toilets. Back we go to the coast, to Bulli and the fringes of Sydney itself. We're going to skirt the city a bit for a few days, though. Camping on the beach...again...though this one was nowhere near as blissful as Mallacoota and Narooma. Still. Mustn't complain. There are starving children in Africa who don't get to camp on the beach ever.

Deathmatch: the Apostles vs. Darwin

2009-11-17T11:13:00.000+08:00

9 November 2009

Driving down through the heartland of Victoria to the Shipwreck Coast (sometimes they do very well with the names, to be fair). This is the southern coast, so we've come completely across the continent, from Darwin to a place called the Twelve Apostles—which just makes me smile a little bit. Apparently it only takes five weeks to progress from reason to religion.

Nothing between me and Antarctica, and as close as I ever plan to get. We're on the Southern Ocean here, which leads all the way to...well, Antarctica, I suppose. But in a land of great and harsh beauty, this place may take the cake. Sheer sandstone and limestone cliffs dropping into a white-capped turquoise sea, with the solitary remnants of ancient cliffs standing sentinel across the water as far as you an see. Some have arches carved from them, some are crumbling almost as you watch, most are gathered into groupings called things like London Bridge (which ironically partly fell down in 1991), the Apostles, and the Grotto. There are approximately 800 places to stop and gaze in awe, most empty until you get to the ones closest to Melbourne which are positively heaving with Chinese day trippers. Even for a person not exactly friends with mother nature, this coast is amazing.

One of the stops on what they call 'The Great Ocean Road' (we have also variously been on 'The Grand Pacific Way,' 'The New England Way,' and 'The Princes Highway,'--they really like naming stuff) is Loch Ard Gorge, named for the eponymous wrecked ship which made it 3 months from England only to smash up 50 feet from the coast while they were having an arrival party onboard, and all but 2 of the 54 crew and passengers drowned. The two who lived were both 18, an Irish girl and a crewman, who, despite the best efforts of maudlin Victorian newspapers, did not fall in love. Although he did ultimately survive four more shipwrecks and lost two sons to wrecks (nothing like just taking a hint, boys).

From here we followed the coastal road along to Queenscliffe, where we crossed Port Phillip Bay on a ferry nowhere near as interesting as the Caspian one, but infinitely less rusty. Up and over the Mornington Peninsula, picturesque home to lots of vineyards and an Arthur's Seat (lined with palm trees, just like in Edinburgh), and into Somerville for the night. We'd arrived when the convenient campgrounds were full up for some event on a local boat or something, and ended up in what amounts to a retirement park. With extremely nice bathrooms (hair dryer! hair dryer!). Down the South Gippsland Highway to...Gippsland.

Saint Kilda's Boomerang

2009-11-17T11:03:00.000+08:00

6 November 2009

Day three in Melbourne, and after a semi-scenic tram trip into town from the Big 4 Campground we're staying at in the not so scenic northern suburbs, we started out at Queen Victoria Market. This is the 19th century city market, now nicely gentrified and full of middle class people paying way too much for some gorgeous cheese, meat, and various deli -type hings from all the places Melbournians are from. Greece, Italy, Scotland, wherever the borek lady is from. Panini, sausages, pies, loads of glorious cheese (including those made by Corrie and her family), beers and wines. All delicious and good fun.

Next the city museum, for a bit of social history interspersed with some random 19th century costume (mostly mislabeled) and the origins of Melbourne. Early Australia isn't something I know much about (I realize it may come as a shock, but yes Virginia, there are things I don't yet know). Really must do some reading when we get home. Would like someone to buy me a new book just out called '1788,' about the first fleet. There is an older one of the same title. I don't want that one.

Out to Saint Kilda for the afternoon; this is a posh little wannabe-hippie enclave on the tram lines, but down on the water of Port Phillip. There's an old fashioned amusement park supposedly modeled on Coney Island and with requisite evil clown entry thing that I have no doubt generations of Melbourne children have been traumatized by. God, people, clowns are at best pathetic and at worst purely evil. Why does society allow them to exist?

Back into town for some quality free wifi in the amazingly and slightly frightening modernist dream that is Federation Square. The buildings are cool but the free and fast internet is what makes it. Drinking beer in a square cafe in the sunset, posting blogs, and all is well in Melbourne.

Post-Melbourne, we're off up to the Grampians. I may have already mentioned the sheer entertainment value to be had just from Australian place names, but I'll do it again anyway. “Ooh, a mountain range/town you say? I know, let's call it the same as the ones at home/after some woman I met once!” Hence the plethora of towns called things like Agnes, Alexandra, Alice, Alma, Anna and Augusta (just the As), and hence also the Grampian mountains.

Victoria's Grampians are strange and beautiful. They rise abruptly from a very flat plain, are dramatic and intense, and then just vanish again. We stayed the night in Hall's Gap. Thriving metropolis of 300 people but home to 6000+ tourist beds (this is a very popular place for activities like walking and hiking and other useless things.) We did drive up to Mackenzie Falls, home to the ballsiest kangaroos ever who don't run away even if you call them mean names from 3 feet away. The campground we opted for turned out to be amazing—next to a huge meadow with a single deer grazing, surrounded by a whole herd of kangaroos who came out to loiter at dusk. There must have been at least 12 or 15. A flock of emus wandering around...AND they gave us a discount for having a Wicked van (I suspect the pity factor) so this eden cost all of $18. If ever you find yourself in Hall's Gap, Victoria, Australia, do call in to the Takaru caravan park.

Next morning and up to Brambuk, a cultural center owned and run by the local Aboriginal people, and presenting their version of that whole genocide thing. Also they give white people boomerang lessons. It was really quite worthwhile and although the building is supposed to represent a cockatoo (spirit ancestor of the local people), I don't see it myself. But a fascinating place. The English justified colonizing the continent based on the legal argument of terra nuliensis (sp?)--meaning no one else lived here, so they could do as they liked. This was obviously completely illegal even by their own rules, as they knew there were aboriginals here. The Grampians in particular had been managed by native people using fire to burn off scrub and create pastures, the better to hunt the 'roos. The English, seeing this, decided that God obviously put picturesque open fields here for white people, and made themselves at home. Colonialism rocked.

SHOCKING!

2009-11-05T15:52:00.002+08:00

4 November 2009

Melbourne, capital of Victoria, and the most 'European' city in Oz. Nearly every person we've spoken to about Melbourne has repeated that verbatim (including a nice Greek couple I bought a necklace from in Athens 4 years ago); I do wonder if it results from an especially pernicious ad campaign, or if none of them have ever been to Europe. Anyway, this reputation is based on the fact that: 1. it actually can and sometimes does rain in Melbourne, and 2. there are cafes with seats on the sidewalk.

And in fact it is vaguely European, if you assume that Paris has places called 'Lord of the Fries' and London has very straight streets. Other than that, it's grey and rainy and has some lovely 19th century buildings and does remind one of the old world just a bit. At least compared to Darwin and Coonamble and basically everywhere else here. There is a thriving cafe culture, lots of students in skinny jeans and ballet flats, and trams all over. There's even a free circle-line tram for tourists, which London can't compete with in any respect.

However, it must be said that the main reason for being here at this particular time is The Race That Stops A Nation, also known as the Melbourne Cup. Always the first Tuesday of the month, it starts off the race season (recall that it is in fact springtime here), and 100,000 people pile into Flemington racetrack to watch the ponies. These are very posh ponies, of the $5,000,000 a race sort. Seven races through the day, all with decent prize money, but the biggie is number 7.

We bought tickets for this in August, general admission, which left us on the grass just next to the track with thousands of other punters, all dressed nicer than us. This is a premier fashion event in Victoria, girls in short dresses and tall hats, gents in suits (Savile Row or gorilla, take your pick). Having no access to suits (or shoes), I went in the $10 dress I got in Brisbane and flipflops, and my new cowboy hat. Personally, I think I was more comfortable and therefore looked better than all the skanks ('bogans' in the local parlance) in their ill-fitting party dresses (People! Do not wear stretch satin if you have body jewellry! No one wants to know!). And though there were upwards of 50,000 fascinators in effect, no one else had a cowboy hat. I win.

The races were good fun, especially the people watching...we won nothing, but lost very little either. And the event of the day, the Emirates Melbourne Cup? Taken by the surprise, come from behind, dark horse called Shocking. Indeed.

Yesterday we spent being run-of-the-mill tourists, complete with raincoats and practical shoes. My raincoat does sport wine stains obtained on the infamous overnight drive from China into Tibet, so I reassure myself that I remain cooler than the other tourists. Right? First stop, The Olde Melbourne Gaol, last home to Ned Kelly and actually very good. Did you know they hung Americans here? Sociopath serial rapist/murderer Americans, but still. And women and the insane and lots of poor people. Very well done for a museum on jail and prisons. The ticket includes a tour of the Watchroom next door, which served as lockup for drunks and the other recently arrested until about 1990. the brilliant sergeant who gave the tour split us into boys and girls, and locked us into cells to get a taste of criminal life. Interestingly, the loos have been covered with plexiglass--I suppose there must have been some confusion among the first tourists...anyway, it's mostly unchanged since closure, and has an actual padded cell, a paedo cell, and some choice graffiti in the girls exercise room.

Ceridwen and The Big Dish

2009-11-05T15:20:00.000+08:00

1 November 2009

Sadly one cannot stay in Betty's spare room forever, so we're heading for Melbourne. Stopped on the way at the iconic radio telescope featured in the movie 'The Dish,' which we haven't seen but understand is worthwhile. It's a gigantic white dish thing that was used to broadcast the moon landings in 1969 and sort of pops up suddenly amid the otherwise consistent landscape of wheat and cows. Bizarre and therefore terribly Australian. It's not actually an Official Big Thing like the Prawn or the Mango, but as it looks like a satellite dish on 'roids, I'm sticking to “The Big Dish” with lots of capital letters.

Lots of driving through country that is very gradually becoming greener and hillier. Camped for the night in Junee, home to the only surviving brick railway roundhouse in New South Wales, as well as a very pretty and disproportionately large train station. Nearly everything is High Victorian in Australia. There must have been a massive rush to assemble a nation between say 1830 and 1900; I'm sure that world supplies of wooden gingerbread and wrought iron must have been depleted by the sheer quantity of hotels and stations and ye olde cottages popping up down here. Junee is also home to the nicest campground people ever, who seemed really excited just to have us there—and they are similarly excited by all their clients, apparently. They even won best campground in interior New South Wales in 2006! Parked on the grass by a lake, with rissoles and pasta for dinner. Farewell NSW...

...hello Victoria. Yesterday down into Milawa, half of the home of the Milawa-Oxley Gourmet Region. We might have missed this gem entirely except that we spent 6 months with the daughter of the Milawa Cheese Company's owners, namely Ceridwen Brown (it's Welsh and sounds just like it looks--she goes by Corrie.) Corrie was coming home from London where she was cheesemonger at Neil's Yard Dairy in Borough Market (and how cool and gentrified and hip is that?) and she's been back to work for the whole time we've been jaunting about. But it happened to be her birthday, fortuitously, and so we went to visit. Ate at her family's fabulous restaurant for lunch, sampled the cheese. Went round to the gourmet olive place, sampled that. Went round to the gourmet mustard place, sampled some more (bought horseradish mustard, mmm). Went round to the Brown Brothers Winery, sampled some vino and bought a few bottles. Went round to the John Gehrig Winery, etc. It was an extremely satisfying day. Australia tastes good.

Back to Corrie's after work, for an afterhours raid on the gourmet cheese shop (have I mentioned I love Corrie?) to produce dinner, and drinking, and sleeping eventually on her sofa bed. We're getting good at making ourselves at home in other people's houses. Feel free to invite us to your house.

This morning, took our leave and Corrie (who is officially my favourite person today) sent us off with some beautiful cheeses for lunch with a bottle of wine and a gorgeous loaf of french sourdough (I recommend the Milawa Gold, which is stinky and gooey and just divine) and a fig salami. This is figgy and luscious and not much like actual salami, but is very good with cheese.

We stopped in Glenrowan on the way, famous as the place where the outlaw and folk hero Ned Kelly faced down the police in 1880 whilst wearing a home-made suit of armor constructed (in a charmingly 1880's manner with buttoned waistcoat-effect) of plowshares. Note to self: nothing in Australia is what you'd expect. Anyway, went to the Kellyland show thing, featuring creepy animatronic figures acting out the siege at Glenrowan and some special effects and the sweetest old guy running it who was also super excited we were there. There is a movie about this too, starring Heath Ledger and Orlando Bloom, which I will have to see once home.

Or, you know, not living in a van.

After All These Years

2009-11-04T13:52:00.000+08:00

30 October 2009

Forgive the lack of speedy updates, the free wifi offered by McDonald's in Australia is simply not of the standard of free wifi in the rest of the world between, say, Calais and Singapore. Mostly it's crap.

We did finally escape Moree and all it's charms, albeit at 5pm and not the promised 11am. Spent the day vagranting around in McDonald's (see above re:crap wifi) and in the park outside the tourist office. The good women of the Moree tourist office were very excited to give us many brochures concerning the pleasures to be found in Moree Shire (see above:re hot springs). Highlight of this soul-deadening wait must have been the crazy-bearded homeless guy who, sipping a 2 litre of store-brand cola, eyed us for a while before approaching to ask if we were Dutch. Told no, he said “Oh well, take one of my brochures anyway.” And walked away. The brochure was the result of what I'm fairly certain is some sort of schizophrenia, referencing Jesus, Mary, and several nutjob friends of our crazy, and advised eating only raw foods to avoid the end of the world. I was struck by how laid back this guy was—being a city girl I fully expected an hour-long harangue about how I'm going straight to H-E-double-toothpicks. I was kind of disappointed to not be Dutch for once. Clearly everyone here is just cooler than we are, even the insane. David was occupied being enthralled by the rocket shaped climbing frame.

A bit late, we started out for Coonamble, where our London friend Ben awaited us. Stupid mobile decided to not work, so we took ourselves to the local campground and used the nice lady's phone. Ben's fabulous mum Betty had made a lasagna for us, and kept it waiting for our 10pm supper. You're really not meant to drive past dusk here because of the myriad animals who are about at night, and we've been religious about it. Leaving Moree so late meant we did have to go a little bit into dusk—and christ, the locusts are enough to convince me it's just not worth it, forgetting the kangaroos and emus and whatnot. It sounded like rain as they committed suicide on our windscreen by the billions, and wedged their little dead bodies into the airvents to get heated and stinky and keep their memories alive with us just a little longer.

Right, Coonamble. We've been hearing the legends of Coonamble for the last 6 years from Ben, and there was no way we were going to miss it. His family owned butcher shops, an abattoir to supply the butcher shops, cows to supply the abattoir, and wheat farms to supply the cows. It's the circle of life. Ben's mum, as noted, is brilliant and let us stay in her house and fed us (very well) for two nights. Her neighbours Bob and Joy are also fantastic and lovely and all the other adjectives which apply to good people. Uncle Lenny brought massive piles of prawns and a whole leg of lamb. Theresa and her kids and partner came round for dinner. Betty's friends (she is very popular) popped round. They let us park the van in their driveways and on lawns...it was like old home week.

Ben and Fiona and David and I went up to Lightening Ridge on Thursday, toured a surreal opal mine (where no one bought me any opals) and watched a movie that smacked of David Lynch about the denizens of this town—famous for being the sort of place you disappear to when you've, you know, killed someone or decided to not pay taxes or just want to be your own boss. In a hole in the ground.

Lunch at the sprawling bowls club (lawn bows, not alley), where we signed up to be temporary members and watched the locals play keno and ate massive quantities of food and drank XXXX beer. All very Twin Peaks.

Friday saw Uncle Lenny come through for us with the loan of his farm truck and an ATV. Ben brought a few guns and the four of us spent the day not killing much and driving around Lenny's farm Warrina, looking for kangaroos and gulars (very pretty birds with silvery white wings and a pink belly, also deeply stupid) and avoiding the snakes and seeing wild emus generally being very badass. Uncle Lenny also brought Fiona and I stylish bags emblazoned 'London, Paris, New York, Coonamble, Milan.' Uncle Lenny rocks.

In the afternoon, we went to the Warrina creek to catch yabbies with Bob. These are sort of like crawfish, caught with bits of meat in baskets and on string. David did very well, and between them the boys got about 10 of the creepy little blue-clawed things. We are all very salt-of-the-earth here in Coonamble, rural and blue collar and all that is wholesome and good.

From Brizzee to Moree

2009-11-04T13:27:00.000+08:00

28 October 2009

Alas, farewell to Brisbane and a real bed and people giving us fresh fruit salad for breakfast. Onwards and southwards we go, sticking to the coast for now. Popped into Coles on the eternal search for cheap ice (a fridge would so not be unwelcome), acquired Coke and tortilla chips and avocados, and down we go through the Gold Coast. This is a strip about 35k along the Pacific, which seems to be a cross between Vegas and Atlantic City, without the classy parts. Loads of high rises along the water, casinos and SUVs, and a motor race on that day. They used to hold an Indy Car race here, but Indy ceased involvement last year, and the organizers arranged for some other slightly-lesser race group to do this year (forgive my lack of specifics, I have almost zero interest in any of this). Anyhow, said group has been placed in administration (Chapter 11 to the Yanks), and the cars are currently living in a warehouse near where Jeremy Clarkson films Top Gear. In desperation, they've brought in the regional Australian version of car racing (pretty much a bloke with a truck), and this is what held us up in a bit of traffic on Saturday. The cars did zip by us as we pootled along, quite exhilarating even if they're not Indy or whatever.

We quickly decided that the Gold Coast isn't really for us, and headed straight on down through Surfer's Paradise to the bottom end of it, and Coolangatta. Coolangatta is a wide white sand beach, beautiful and a bit wild on Saturday, as some wind and rain hit just as we laid out our picnic lunch. Too chilly for swimming, but we wandered on down to Rainbow Bay and the terribly-daringly-named Danger Point to watch the surfers. Rainbow is also beautiful (the whole country is rather tiresome in that just about all of it is beautiful in one extreme way or another), and given the slightly stormy weather, it was a gorgeous afternoon. Crossed the line from Queensland into the state of New South Wales just about here.

New South Wales (and please can someone explain this name to me? I have yet to get a reasonable answer from anyone, although I have heard at least 3 explanations) is much like Queensland. At least in Coolangatta. We moseyed along the universally beautiful beaches all afternoon, stopping here and there to wade a bit and walk a bit. And spot nasty Tokyo-eating-sized lizards sunning themselves.

Oh, we did go to The Big Prawn, which was almost as cool as The Big Mango, and definitely cooler than The Big Pineapple. Unlike the dignified solitude of the Pineapple and Mango, which loom alone in their strange existence, the Prawn appears to be eating a crappy souvenir shop, which lends it a bit of an edge.

Finally made it to Byron Bay, home to yet more stunning beaches and a laid back little town full of summer clothes shops and coffee places, and also more of the lithe 20 year olds that Australia specializes in. This is much more my sort of thing (not necessarily the lithe young things, but you might like to speak to David about them). No high rises, just slightly overpriced boutiques full of pretty and useless things, paired with great beaches and a campground for $20. The place we stayed (Beaches of Byron) has a paved path down to what amounts to a private beach called Tallow, miles long with almost no one on it. You get to wander past meadows and lagoons on the way down (or at least the owner called them lagoons, the signs said waste water treatment pools, but lagoons is nicer and they were scenic). One of the pools also noted that it was set aside for aboriginal use. (“Here, you guys take the alcoholism and the syphillis and the waste water, go ahead! No need for thanks!”)

From Byron we turned inland, into the Hinterland of NSW. Our darling friend Ben hails from the mighty metropolis of Coonamble, beating heart of said Hinterland, and happens to be here visiting from London at the moment with his girlfriend Fiona. We're meant to be meeting up with him in the opal-mining town of Lightning Ridge. We took ourselves through Celtic Country (they paint the telephone poles with tartan here, just like in Scotland!) and stayed in a roadside rest area not at all up to Queensland's standards, saw the first ring of Standing Stones erected in more than 3000 years to honour Australia's Celtic pioneers (random...deeply random), and drove through the mountains of the Gibraltar Range. These are actually quite Scottish, in that they're hilly and gorse-y and rainy and quite dramatic...and peppered with palm trees. Sooo...maybe not. Sadly, a brush turkey met its end flying straight into Charlotte and bending the mirror in the effort. RIP, deeply stupid brush turkey.

Sadly, we have had a mishap. Charlotte suddenly decided to stop shifting gears yesterday at lunchtime, and we limped into Moree. Home to 8000 people and a very nice garage, where Charlotte is resting up on a lift, having her gearbox taken apart. She should be done today, and we will hopefully be on our way in a bit...stayed in a hotel last night, so that should have been a bonus. It wasn't. The Victoria Hotel is, in fact, I believe, a rooming house and/or brothel, with cockroaches the size of Manhattan and holes in the towels. But is has wide verandas wrapping around it, and cost $35, and there's just no way David was going to be able to say no to both of those. On the plus, it is across the street from Moree's saving grace. The town is home to loads of hot artesian springs, and there's a complex where one can spend the afternoon lounging in steaming pools of mineral water for $6. Awesome.

And so I found myself surrounded by a pack of 70-year old Slavic women and some Aussie 8-year olds, in a rainstorm, soaking in a steaming hot spring decorated like some sort of 1920s lido. It could be worse.

The Gap!

2009-10-28T06:51:00.000+08:00

26 October 2009

The trees are in fact Briazilian jacarandas, and they bloom their lilac-purple flowers for just a few weeks in October, so we've inadvertently timed it right. This I know because we have been to Brisbane, and stayed with two of the loveliest people ever. Louise's mum and dad, Peter and Fiona Firth, were good enough (and grateful enough for our blog when their own child failed to keep hers up: naughty Louise!) to offer us their hospitality. And we are unemployed enough to accept gratefully. On Friday night, after a little education concerning Australian flora, they fed us and put us to bed in Louise's room. We're generaly really comfy in the van, but I must say, it was so nice to sleep in a real bed. And in a neighbourhood called The Gap!

Brisbane is the third city of Oz, and was long considered a bit of a backward cousin to Sydney and Melbourne. But it's growing quickly (1000 new residents a week), and has a great transport system, and is a thoroughly nice place. On Friday afternoon we moseyed up to Mount Coot-tha, with it's lookout over the whole city. Saturday morning took the bus into town to give David and break on the driving, and spent the day wandering along a bit of a walking tour. Variously encountering Ann, Margaret, Elizabeth, and Catherine Streets...sorry, Fran. Clearly Bris-Vegas was meant for me...both The Gap and a free fashion exhibit at the Brisbane Museum ('Dressing Brisbane') featuring clothes by all the best dressmakers of Brizzie; really, what else could any city offer me? It's a cultural mecca. And you can buy enchiladas made by Chinese people for lunch.

The City Hall was once the most expensive building in Australia (beaten down by the Sydney Opera House in 1971. Bad Opera House!) Went up the clock tower to see the view. There's an Anzac Square with neoclassical tempiettos and bizarre trees with bulbous trunks...all very diverting.

There is also a cathedral, the oldest Catholic one in Australia (or Queensland, can't recall), designed by Augustus Pugin himself and dedicated to Blessed Mary Mackillop, in line to be the very first Australian saint. Very inspiring or something. Next door is the nouveau-riche, OTT cathedral which clearly fails to exhibit Pugin's brilliance and also has no Scottish Outback saints in residence.

Took the very good city cat ferry thing down the river to New Farm Park and Fortitude Valley, home to the sort of hipster boho middle-class kids who like their t-shirts expensive and their tattoos visible. Freebie music festival on, featuring a White Stripes-esque rock country group at the time, doing a decent cover of 'Jolene,' although I suspect they don't know that Dolly did the original and instead were attempting to channel Jack White. Dinner at a place called Breakfast Creek Hotel, which is an institution because they still serve beer from a wooden cask. Whatever. They tried to make us eat in the rain, so they're not that cool. Gorgeous steaks, though.

Purple Trees and Polar Bears

2009-10-27T06:04:00.001+08:00

23 October 2009

Since we last spoke, David and I have been drifting down the east coast of Queensland doing not much. It's a good country for doing not much, hot and sunny and chillaxed and spread out. It's hard to believe there are 20 million people here, as approximately 8 appear to live in the Northern Territory, with maybe 30 more in Queensland...in that sense it reminds me a lot of the Flyover parts of the States. You can drive ages and see nothing but corn (in this case, cane—sugar cane), then happen onto a little old town full of gingerbread-houses and petrol stations. Then nothing again. They do have purple trees, though, which exist as if to remind you that you are in fact in a strange and foreign country on the bottom part of the planet.

The birds and flowers are all suitably foreign, actually. Turkey-like things strutting around campgrounds, sickle-billed big white buggers who appear to fear nothing, smaller black-and-white birds that land on your back while you're hunched over assembling gourmet meals in the back of vans. I can quite see why 18th century naturalists thought Australia was a wet dream of a continent—it's all so very different from what's gone before, with no comfortable segue to make it logical. Every third river or town has a woman's name—I trust all the Ediths and Marys and Graces at home in Suffolk or Kent were suitably impressed with the thought of their own personal dry creekbed/mighty river/clearing in the Queensland hinterland, named by a devoted bloke they hadn't actually seen in a good year or seven.

From Rockhampton down a bit to Bundaberg. I wanted to see it because I once read one of my mother's Harlequin romance novels set in Bundaberg (circa 1988, and it was old then); it took me most of the book to figure out that it was set in Australia, as with my typical Amero-centric education it never occurred to me why these people kept calling each other mate. Anyway. Bundaberg is home to the world-famous (in Australia-World and New Zealand-World) rum, called cunningly, Bundaberg Rum. The black-and-yellow package is iconic here (they do like to drink in this country, that is not a cliché), and has a polar bear as it's mascot. Not a local species, no, but when they wanted a mascot to convey that rum will keep you warm in winter, they first considered the only cold-weather animal native to Australia. This is apparently a “Fairy Penguin”. So, no.

We did the factory tour for the bargain price of $25 each—through the molasses shed (9 feet deep in viscous dark brown goo that smells of licorice and sugar), the curing vats, the bottling plant. Then the free drinks. Trust me, $25 is a deal for two drinks in Australia. First: huge rum and coke. Second: Dark & Stormy, a pre-mixed drink of Bundaberg ginger beer and Bundaberg rum....sooooooo nice. This may be my new favourite thing today. Unfortunately, they are something like $26 for a six-pack at the liquor store, and so I will not be drinking many. One last note on the Bundaberg Rum—the secret that gives the rum it's colour and flavour? American White Oak. Yep, 6 tons per vat at a cost of $75,000 each, grown on Bundaberg's plantation in the “Abalution” mountains of West Virgina, which, according to Stephanie the Queenslander tour guide, are on the border with Canada. Americans are not the only charmingly ignorant people on earth when it comes to geography after all!

Once again we stayed in one of Queensland's freebie side-of-the-road rest areas, this one screened from the road by a stand of lacy trees and really very pretty, with toilets and all. Apparently what in Laos is a long-drop in Bundaberg is an 'Eco Toilet.' To be fair, it does have a seat and one doesn't have to look at what has gone before, so to speak, and it doesn't smell at all. I say Australia should forget sending well-drilling equipment and educational supplies and medicine to the third world, and focus instead on exporting these things.

The Big Mango

2009-10-21T15:58:00.001+08:00

21 October 2009

From Townsville along the coast, stopping in Bowen for a picnic lunch on the gorgeous Horseshoe Bay. This is Australia as I was led to believe...clear blue water, crashing waves, tanned kids toting surfboards around. Also home to the Big Mango. I'm so pleased to have seen it, it wouldn't have been a real trip to Australia without some sort of enormous fruit, you know?

Driving down to Airlie Beach, hub for the Whitsunday Islands. And by hub I mean there are a lot of 20 year olds hanging out in tiny bikinis and tattoos and not much else. It's a nice little town, stacked up on a hill overlooking a picture-perfect harbour, and has loads of bars and restaurants and bikini shops. Also Cold Rock Ice Cream, in which they chop up bits of candy into your ice cream on a heated metal plate so it all gets gooey and mixed up...Bailey's ice cream with chocolate mint cookies is my new favourite thing. Or maybe coconut ice cream with Snickers bars.

Booked ourselves onto a day trip out to the Reef, through the Whitsundays. It's not cheap, but how often are you here? Well, none of you are here at all, so that just proves my point. Anyway, up early yesterday for the 3 hour trip out to Knuckle Reef with a company called Cruise Whitsundays, in a posh double-hulled fast ferry sort of boat, to the floating pontoon thing anchored at the reef. Chatted with a really nice couple from Tasmania called Rob & Vicky, about everything from Tall poppy Syndrome to why beards are a good thing. As we are not sociable people in general, we were surprised to have had such a good time—especially as the sea was a bit rough and there was some vomiting going on.

Out to the pontoon, equipped with a water slide, semi-submersible boat, a glass-bottomed boat, and loads of snorkeling and diving equipment. They also fed us—huge fresh shrimp and guacamole (have I mentioned I love Australia?). David did the requisite Dive the Great Barrier Reef thing (for 4 times the cost of a dive in Malaysia, natch), and we both snorkelled and I went around on the semi-sub thing with some really miserable Germans and a large woman who turned green even though it felt more like a ride at Disney than a boat trip. The snorkeling meant we got to have wetsuits and flippers and look like complete tools; on the plus side, I apparently wear size small flippers, and that's the first time my feet have been classed as small since about 1985. Saw some gigantic prehistoric looking fish and mountains of coral, yadda yadda. David saw a shark. I did not, thank god.

After our blissful and very expensive day, we left Airlie and the hippies to drive down the coast a bit last night. Driving at dusk or night is stupid, of course, as there are mases of animals about and death by kangaroo is always moments away. So we stopped at the first rest stop we came to, and parked ourselves for the evening for free. Ahhh...back to the good old days, peeing in drainage ditches and trying to find the headtorch at 3am. Ooh, al most forgot to mention that we're driving through Sugar Can country, and apparently Australians don't keep packs of Haitians around to cut the cane, unlike in the Dominican Republic. They do have a whole lot of cane railroads, though.

Today we're in Rockhampton, the cattle capital of Australia. Lonely Planet tells me there are like 250 million cows in a 250 mile radius of this place. Whatever. We've got local steaks for dinner from the IGA (pretty much all chains in Australia appear to be American). Spent the afternoon at the free zoo—where I was forced by peer pressure (and the fact that the 4 -year olds had already done it) to touch a koala bear. Photographic evidence and all. Koalas are the only animal whose brain size has devolved, they tell me, and is in fact smaller than their skull. They need more energy to eat and digest the poisonous eucalyptus. Call me crazy, but maybe the fact that they have small brains has something to do with eating poisonous plants? Anyway, have now ticked off the koalas, kangaroos, wallaroos, emus, dingos, and black swans. Australian wildlife—check.

Venomous, Dangerous & Deadly

2009-10-21T15:45:00.000+08:00

18 October 2009

Praise Jesus, we've reached the coast. I can now personally vouch for the existence of water in Australia...and you thought it was just a myth. We did too.

Originally we planned to drive up inland and then over to Cairns, but given that the only road is sealed-but-single-lane, we've come straight across to Townsville. This may sound like it belongs in The Simpsons (east of Shelbyville, left at the dead kangaroo. No, the other dead kangaroo.) ; in fact, it's a nice little city on the coast, strung along the Pacific, with some really beautiful public parks. Said parks are clearly home to most of the other campervan people in this country, all parked up for the night next to the free barbecues, picnic tables, bathrooms, and stinger enclosures. Before appreciating the plethora of free stuff, we'd signed ourselves into Rowse Bay caravan park, which is very nice and has the most impossible site to pull into on earth. But it's on the sea, and the palms and breeze and washing machines made it worth the $30.

Out for drinks (Saturday night and all) at a place called the brewery, really nice ales. Saturday night is sort of like Newcastle, only it's actually warm enough to be wearing those hooker-esque fashions here. Bits of detritus scattered about on Sunday...

Did picnic on the water, though, on clearance chorizo (he is a Ludwick, and therefore unable to pass up meat on sale—it's charming, no?) sandwiches and kebab-flavoured chips. Townsville has a stinger emclosure and rockpool—saltwater lagoon-sized pools on the sea, but strung with safety nets to keep out the slightly-deadly and incredibly painful box jellyfish, or 'stingers', and also the really-deadly and also painful irukandji jellyfish. As I say, Australia is dangerous.

Spent the afternoon at the excellent aquarium here, called Reef HQ, as we're in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef. I'm not a fan of sealife if it means touching it, but through plexiglass? Brilliant. It is home to the skeleton of a fish called Oscar who lived there for like 20 years before dying by choking...on a fish bone. They have some smart fish down here. He was not one of them. Also saw a green turtle who is apparently enormous for her age (no, she's not American.) We watched the shark feeding, wandered the recreated reef and mangrove bits, and had a little talk with a sweet little old lady volunteer in which she categorized the seashells of Australia in three categories. These are (and I quote):

1.Venomous
2.Dangerous
3.Deadly

Seashells, people. Seashells.. I begin to grasp why Britain had no use for this continent until they needed someplace to keep criminals. It is pretty, though.

Anyway, we actually ate out in Townsville, seafood on one of the restaurant streets. It's almost like the real world again. Stocked up with VB beer, caffeine, and free wifi at McDonalds, and off we go down the coast.

Charlotte, Queen of the Desert

2009-10-18T10:40:00.001+08:00

17 October 2009

From the Bush they emerge...two Americans with very uneven tans courtesy of driving with one arm out in a country with no apparent filter between the fiery sun and frail human flesh. Have used up all our suncream and already restocked. You'd think it would be cheaper in a place where one-in-four people gets skin cancer.

Met two Irish people who advised us as:re life in a campervan; they've got a year and have taken two months from Brisbane to Mataranka in a van they bought, and which is fortunately free of skulls dripping blood. It's rather usual to have a campervan here, loads of them up and down the roads; it seems like we're more common than kangaroo roadkill, and that's pretty freaking common, let me tell you. Also, really smelly (the kangaroos, not us.) Caravan parks are everywhere, every town has at least one (and these are towns with like 50 people), and most have kitchens with fridges and microwaves and whatnot. After Mataranka, we stayed at the Roadhouse in Threeways. Threeways has: a German woman who runs the campground, a bar adorned with poetry by Outback truck drivers, and yes, three ways to go. While we were parked there having dinner (Cantonese kangaroo stir-fry), an enormous semi hauling a crane or something pulled through the camping area and took out the overhead electrical lines. It was all very exciting.

The trucks out here are intense—monstrous semis called road trains, each pulling at least three full-sized trailers. When they pass you, it's like being sucked into a tornado: the windows rattle and the whole van shakes. Met a bloke at a rest stop telling stories about how he's seen them just plow through cattle on a road, leaving the animals dead and not even pausing. I feel like there's a horror movie waiting to be made here.

Stopped at a bar in Daly Waters on the Stuart Highway, famous pretty much for just existing in such an isolated place. The Irish girl manning the bar was lovely, the $5 for Gatorade was not. The place is adorned with underwear and shirts and random crap left by happy patrons, and was full of Chinese tourists taking photos. An outfit called Groovy Grape or something equally inane was there as well—they tailed us from Darwin down, clearly a second-rate Odyssey sort of deal. It does make me wonder if we seemed like quite such idiots to the Kyrgysz people we met along the way.

Next stop Queensland, and the little metropolis of Mount Isa. Keep in mind, these places are all 500+ kilometers apart...we're doing a lot of driving. The Isa is a mining town, only founded in 1924, and sits on a massive amount of lead, silver, and two other things I can't remember. Unlike the other mining areas I've been to (West Virginia, Wales), it's not depressed or gloomy or mourning the loss of a way of life. The mine chugs away 24 hours a day, the town is busy and quite proud of itself. Camped at Copper City, on the Leichardt River. Personally, I feel like Australians should use another word than “river” or “creek” if there is no actual water in said landscape feature, Fauxriver perhaps. I'm sure that during the Wet season it's lovely, but 99% of the waterways we've encountered look like they've never seen anyone spit in them, let alone flow with actual real water. The excellent little museum at Outback at Isa has a social history of the 80-year old city, with panels even on the Yanks stationed there during WWII—cheeky and underpaid Aussies who couldn't afford the services of a lady of the night would queue up anyway at the local brothel, and then sell their spot in line to a GI for £5. Awesome.

From Isa, we're on to the coast. Slept last night at one of the excellent little rest areas set up along the Flinders Highway (remember, we turned left at Threeways). Ours had brand new picnic shelters, and very posh eco-toilets, all clean and shiny, and best of all, free. They don't want people driving at night—the animals come out and a 130K/H it easier to kill or be killed by a kangaroo than you'd think—so every few hundred K's there's a designated stop to camp for free, up to 24 hours, and with basic facilities. They do know how to do the camping in Australia.

The Stuart Highway to Heaven

2009-10-15T16:10:00.000+08:00

14 October 2009

First afternoon we drove down the (only) road from Darwin, the Stuart Highway. I'm sure Stuart himself was deeply honored, but it's pretty much thousands of kilometers of not much. Hour and a half into it, we turned off for Batchelor, population 730, which is the gateway town for Litchfield National Park. Litchfield is Jan to Kakadu's Marcia, but we'd heard good things and it's on the way south. The main sights include Magnetic Termite Hills. Uh-huh. These are giant towers of termite excreta and saliva; the rather ambitiously named Cathedral Termites build theirs with buttresses, which apparently Australians believe resemble mediaeval cathedrals (I'm not making that up, it's on the signs). Dear Australians: they do not. Love, me.

The magnetic ones are sort of flat, and perfectly aligned north and south the regulate temperature inside. A field of them looks like a graveyard, all perfectly lined up and pale grey. Still, excreta.

On to the National Park campground at Wangi Falls. Thirteen dollars for the site, paid on an honour system, and free barbecues. Parked and immediately had a kangaroo or wallaroo or whatever watching us. We were very excited (nb: that was two days ago, and we're over it as have seen about 700 since). Sorted out Charlotte, and wandered down to the falls, which are all of 3 minutes walk away. Australia is beautiful—you drive through dry, barren land with nothing but roo roadkill and burnt trees, and then suddenly you're presented with an enormous pool with a waterfall splashing into it. There in late afternoon, we had it all to ourselves...sunlight casting shadows on the red and black rockface, the water was dark and clear and still. A couple of Aussies came along and obligingly took photos of us.

Mexican for dinner, as you do in the Northern Territory. Beef soft tacos, guacamole, salad. Cheryl should be proud.
Yesterday we drove on down the highway another few hundred kilometers. Stopped in Adelaide River to see the military cemetery established there after the Japanese bombed Darwin in 1942, it's lovely and serene and quite sad. Each stone has a quote chosen by the family of the soldier or civilian who lies there—they ranged from stiff-upper-lip lines about King and Country to 'Darlingest Daddy.' About 400+ are buried here, including one Canadian and some Brits; the Americans who died in the Territory were repatriated after the war. There were loads of Americans here for the War; who knew?

Next along was Pine Creek, which apparently was once a thriving gold town, and now has signs featuring the silhouette of Chinese coolies to mark historical places. And an old train.

On to Edith Falls, another lovely swimming pool with a slightly less dramatic waterfall. On the plus side, it does have crocodiles. Swim at your own risk. Picnicked in the shady park—taco salad (running out of ideas). I just like the name Edith, so I'm going with it. I know all these places have reverted to their aboriginal names (Edith is back to Leliyn, Katherine is now Nitmiluk) but I'm just going to stick to what I think is nicer. Edith sounds like some Edwardian Gibson girl.

Anyway, on to Katherine. The town is still Katherine, only the gorge and park have changed. Katherine is a decent sized place, stocked up on essentials (kangaroo meat, electric fan, soda). Giggled a bit at the various place names. And left to drive down to Mataranka. Popped into the local spring-fed pool at Bitter Spring...having spent two days in the dry bit of Australian, we've done more swimming than one might expect. Could be worse—swim, drive, swim, drive, tacos, drive. It's a hard life.

The Heart of Chuck Norris

2009-10-15T15:37:00.001+08:00

12 October 2009

Bit of a clusterf*ck in collecting the campervan. No amount of planning is ever enough...got to the slightly dodgy depot on the outskirts of Darwin at the same time as 6 other people, add in the not-very-bothered staff, and it was an hour and a half before they gave us the contract to sign and swiped our credit card. This card, being American, is incapable of comprehending foreign travel. Every time we try to use it out of the Lower 48, the bank assumes that no right-minded patriot would willingly be spending cash in a place that's not, you know, America, and shuts it off. Three phone calls to them (on an Australian mobile we're paying for) later, and they finally let the charge go through.

Our little campervan is from Wicked Campers, the cheapest outfit by far. There is a reason. It's sturdy and functional and all, but the company appears to be run by people who pride themselves on being anti-establishment and put quite some effort into making that painfully obvious. All the Mitsubishi vans are spray-painted with different designs (which can in theory be customized). We saw one with a pop-art motif of the Beatles; some are funny, if male chauvinism is the level your sense of humour stopped at; the people who got theirs right before us got roses and pistols. Ours could be worse...we've got a blood-thirsty skull four feet high, and the following across the back: “The Heart of Chuck Norris Beats Once a Year.” We've named her Charlotte (you can't call a car Chuck). And that's all I have to say about that.

Inside is storage under a platform for sleeping, and mattresses that make up into a queen bed. The back end is the kitchen, with a sink, propane cooker, cooler box, and storage for the plates and pots and whatnot. Camping chairs, a little folding table, and a comfy pair of driving seats. In KL we'd got an iTrip to play the iPods over the radio. We took ourselves off to Coles (grocery) and Target immediately, and replaced the slightly manky sheets it came with for very bright pink ones and various bits and bobs. Wicked is fairly unorganized; there was a shelf with random stuff others had left behind, and some utensils. I raided what I could, Target provided the rest. Target is not cheap here though—nothing is cheap here, actually, except meat (fillet steaks were $5 for two.) We got a soft cooler and bottle holders with VB beer's logo on them...we are now practically Australian.

Phase Two: The Australia Weeks

2009-10-11T15:48:00.001+08:00

11 October 2009

Almost six full months in (we left London on 12 April, kids, keep up here), and we've made it to Oz. Darwin, specifically, which is technically where the Odyssey trip was always going. We're the only ones who got here (Corrie and Louise are transiting through the airport, but that's post-us) so I like to tell everyone that we won.

Flying after all this time was a bit of a change. I actually felt like I was going somewhere for the first time in ages...overland is so beautifully gradual, and flying so immediate. Changi is a decent airport, at least, clean and quick and free internet and wifi everywhere. Jet Star is the ghetto branch of Qantas, but surprisingly decent and no clambering over children and the elderly to seize a decent seat, unlike Ryanair or Southwest. Most of our flight was going on to Melbourne; at the inhuman hour of 4:40am, we arrived in Darwin and proceeded to camp out on sofas in the arrivals hall like vagrants, as we knew we couldn't check in at the hostel until 1pm. We did come in to town around 7:30, and they kindly let us leave our rucksacks (mine alone weighs 18.5 kilos), and we wandered off though Darwin.

Darwin is, well, sort of American. Not sure what I expected of Australia, and it's certainly no NJ, but this place is more like the States than anywhere else I've ever been. Super friendly, every shopkeeper wants to talk, people acknowledge you when you pass by; we've had chats with a couple who are on a 4 month cruise around the world (clearly they expected us to be impressed, but I fired right back with my 6 months on a truck--again I say, we win); the mildly racist owner of the place we bought a simcard for the mobile (super nice to us, but in front of two Chinese guys told us how good it is to deal with people who can actually speak English for a change); and a pair of Mormon missionaries who invited us to church tomorrow. We were napping on a concrete pier overlooking the Tamil Sea at the time, I was in no humour to be godded by a pair of 22 year-olds in matching outfits, but to be fair they were very polite boys. And no one else has tried to save my soul in months, so that was refreshing.

Wandered a grocery store, it's just so good to have cheese again. By which I mean more than one kind. And cases of diet coke, and a wide range of Old El Paso products (overwhelming urge to hug the shelf), and produce I recognize. Most everything is pricey, this is not going to be a cheap country; but the fillet steaks were about $3 each, so we'll just have to be carnivores for a while. Mmm...fillet steak with avocado and hollandaise. Mmmm.

We've been killing time this morning waiting to check in and sleep for a bit, so haven't actually done anything touristy yet. The hostel is full of fit young things, who I pretty much hate already: "Are you young! Are you fit! Are you ready!" Signs like this litter Darwin, to which I say: "God, no, and leave me alone!"

But we have our own room and despite the plastic sheets, it's fine. A lizard lives (thankfully in a glass box) in the lobby. There's a pool, and we're in the middle of eveything, and it's only two sleeps until we get our camper van and off we go. Have shopped and replaced toiletries and shoes and other prosaic things. New havaianas! Yay!

Singapore Sling

2009-10-11T15:35:00.003+08:00

9 October 2009

Final stop on the Eurasian express, we're in the just-a-teensy-bit authoritarian city-state of Singapore. Having heard loads of rumors about the nutso immigration and customs rules, we actually had an easy enough trip in. Chewing gum seized, yes, because god knows what a bunch of middle class hippies might accomplish with chewing gum. Everything the Japanese couldn't during the war, probably. Chaos, bubbles, destruction.

Screwed around on the bus with the camera (and the seat covers, see above), killing the 6 hours it took to get from Melaka and through the border.

We shared out the fags (cigarettes! be nice!) because smokers can only bring in one single opened pack each. It was all very orderly, as is all of Singapore. Extremely orderly. Terribly orderly. The streets are pristine, wide, straight and lined with buildings either brand new or tastefully restored. Generic but lovely monuments to tolerance and unity and civil service abound. It's all a bit Aldous Huxley. Or Salt Lake City.

Stayed at the decent South East Asia hotel, one of the few budget places with en suites. Chinese breakfast included fried radish pastry things. Where Singapore comes into it's own is in the food—it really is a mecca of epicurean harmony: sari-draped Indian ladies eating Malaysian mee goreng; Malaysian taxi drivers downing sweet and sour noodles; immaculate Chinese business men noshing on South-Indian style biryani and mutton. All of it gorgeous and cheap-ish, if you stick to the plentiful hawker centres—massive food courts in every shopping centre. These are everywhere, as the national pastimes of Singaporeans appear to be shopping, eating, and talking about shopping or eating while either eating or shopping. In addition, there are loads of western-style restaurants aimed at the wealthier denizens of the skyscrapers and the loads of expats.

We had Aussie steak with Rich, Denis and Louise on the Wednesday, as it was Rich's last full night with us. Then off to drink stupidly expensive beer at a really very decent microbrewery on Clark Quay. I was forced, for Rich's sake, to put aside my personal rule about not patronizing places that spell their own name incorrectly (or who stick a random 'z' into it somewhere) in a sorry, sorry attempt to be sassy.

Brewerkz hit some high notes for appalling English, but also for the very nice cherry ale. In a move I've not seen elsewhere, beer is priced by the time of day on all menus: at noon, a pint will set you back S$3.99; by 9pm, this is S$14.99. Clever, and evil. Fascists.

On a side note, there is a slightly surreal Hooters in Singapore. Staffed entirely by flat chested Chinese girls.

Thursday we did a bit of a city tour, including the durian-fruit shaped symphony hall; the mer-lion statue on the harbour (uh-huh); Little India and Chinatown; the posh-arse shopping malls of Orchard Street (one mall with Prada, D&G, Dior, Gucci and Hermes side by side); and the astounding greenery that graces the city. Popped off to Raffles Hotel, very British and colonial, as this was the last night of the trip and everyone had the ubiquitous Singapore Sling. At S$23 each, they had best be made of virgin's blood or gold or something worthwhile. We actually left the shindig to meet up with our mate Dasnny, who's just moved from London to Singapore. Chili crab on Clarke Quay, and brilliantly good to see someone from real life.

Yesterday we met up with Dan and Heather and the boys in East Coast Park for a pink bike ride (for Jayden) and a stroll for the rest of us along the water. The shipping waiting to get into port is incredible—there were literally more ships than we could count, all the way to the horizon. Back to the South East Asia to collect bags and say last goodbyes, then down to Changi Airport for our 22:30 flight to Australia. And here we are.

Going Dutch...And Portuguese, And Chinese, And Malaysian

2009-10-06T23:59:00.005+08:00

6 October 2009

Melaka's quite a contrast to KL--colonial and laid back and very low-rise. The food is Portuguese and Malaysian and Chinese, though the beer remains stupid expensive. Drinks at the Geographer, trying hard to be an FCC-sort of place with fans and palms...dinner last night at a Portuguese/Malay place, really nice calimari and something called chicken diablo. Lunch at the 1511 Cafe, in an old Chinese house set with beautiful art nouveau tiles, also beautiful mee goreng and laksa.

We're staying in Chinatown, the main street of which is called Jonker Street--the Dutch were here for like 125 years, and left their mark in names and buildings, as well as the odd decorative windmill. The Stadthuys is bright red and creates the (poor) illusion that you're in a 17th century Dutch village...next door is Christ Church, also bright red. Chinatown itself is full of antique shops and tat shops and Chinese tourists...apparently it's a big place for weekend trips. The city is located on the Melaka River--boat tour up and back, highlight of which was the enormous water lizard swimming evilly along next to the boat. Personally, I believe the only good lizard is a handbag.

We've been through the gamut of museums...the rebuilt Flor del Mar for example, a Portuguese galleon that sank trying to get back to Europe with ill-gotten booty aboard...this is the sort of museum that puts it down to the Will of God. And also has animatronic sailors. Awesome. The rebuilt Sultan's Palace (I suspect they got a bulk rate on the mannequins, all of which look like underwear models from Wisconsin) with examples of the many nationalities who traded in the Port of Melaka before the nasty Europeans got here. I'm sure the centuries of ongoing issues between Thailand and Malaysia had nothing to do with the fact that all the nationalities are pretty dignified (in an underwear-model sort of way) except for the Thai ones, who are grinning like lunatics one chopstick short of a set.

Then on to the Museum of Enduring Beauty--the aircon was down, so we sweated our way through six rooms stuffed with images of the bizarre things people do to themselves to be pretty...tattoos, neck rings, lip rings, ear stretching, scarification, teeth (ick) filing. No clue why this place is here, but it was certainly entertaining. David would like to say that he thought it the crappest museum ever.

The Chinese part of town includes the ubiquitous clan temples...David had a little fight with a ceramic tiger at one last night. Lanterns, painted fronts, a beautiful mix of western and eastern.

Tonight off to Capital Satay, which is either an institution or just really good at marketing. There was a queue outside, metal tables inside with boiling pots of peanut sauce to dip your raw meats, your unidentifiable vegetables, your gigantic prawns. Shared a table with two girls teaching English in China who had some great stories about boys who call themselves Rachel and Honey. Apparently all of the Chinese are a bit strange, not just the ones we've met.

Staying at the Hotel Puri, which is boutique and beautiful and has wifi in the rooms. There's a courtyard with flowers and tiled floors and a garden cafe. It was a Chinese family house once upon the 1920s. This afternoon we trekked up Bukit St Paul, where the Portuguese established their church inside the fort they built after crushing the local sultans. It's a ruin now, with fantastic Dutch gravestones propped up inside, and views out over the Straits of Melacca...all very romantic and tragic. The hill is full of ruined bits of wall and gates and fortress-y things. There's a crumbly cemetary, with things like a tomb holding seven members of one British family who died within three weeks of each other in1856. It's a lovely place, so many themes running though such a little city. Death, the Chinese, souvenirs, satay, windmills, religion, rivers, Indians, sultans, spas, colonialism, nationalism, pedicabs playing old dance music. Worth a few days.

It Ain't Over Yet

2009-10-05T15:07:00.000+08:00

5 October 2009

Just in case I wasn't clear--or on the off chance that you haven't read every single entry on this blog and therefore have not memorized our schedule--the truck is going home. We're not.

After a few more days in Malaysia and two nights in Singapore, we're flying to Australia for five weeks of campervanning on our own; then four days in Fiji; then LA and the rest of the States (anyone want to give us a car?) and then probably back to London at some point early in 2010.

I gather some of you read this to follow along with my fellow truck-people who proved to be crap at keeping their own blogs going, and/or are neglectful children who rarely contact their own parents. I expect all of you to love me enough by this point to keep reading when it's just about me...we'll still be blogging our hearts out all that time, so you all have something to do with your spare time. It's probably a huge relief to all of you, I know. You're welcome.

Calypso, Farewell!

2009-10-04T17:24:00.001+08:00

4 October 2009

A final day in KL, which started well with breakfast at Steven's w/ Louise and Denis. The three of us had your typical roti-and-dhal (Malaysia really is delicious). And David? The man who never met a local food he didn't want to make friends with? He had ABC. This is short for Air Batu Campur. It is supposed to be desert. It consists of a head-sized pile of shaved ice topped with a delightful array of deeply random stuff. These include: noodles made with green bean paste, chili beans, peanuts, brightly colored jelly, cream, and palm seed kernels (natch.) Even David couldn't do this one justice.

Anyway, on to the Museum of Islamic Art, in a building style best described architecturally as 'Persian Diner', and with an amazing collection of manuscripts, scale models of the world's great mosques (very pleased with myself as we wandered this hall announcing to awestruck fellow visitors, "Been there, been there, been there." I think I may technically qualify as muslim after this trip.) The textile collection is especially well done, and ranges from Ottoman velvets to Malay songket, by way of Chinese jewellery and Uzbek suzani.

We also made it to the National Museum (entry fee: 57 cents), which had a good few rooms on the trading colonies established here by the Portuguese and Dutch and British. We're in Malaysia during Hari Raya, the celebration of Aidilfitri (Eid), the end of Ramadan, and the museum had a little temporary exhibit on the foods of this festival as well. Malaysians are eaters, that's for damn sure. Just to keep it surreal, there is also a model of Stonehenge.

Today we're out of KL and down the west coast to Melaka, the colonial city on the Straits of Malacca. Here for 3 nights, so more to follow.

Here, however, is where we finally part ways with the loyal blue truck, Calypso. She's brought us so far with no issues at all, and for this we are grateful. Well, there was the engine trouble in Kazakhstan, but that was down to crappy Azeri petrol, so she can't be blamed. And there was the tire that exploded on the dodgiest mountain-iest road in China. Fortunately we were parked for lunch, but it was very loud, really. We've collectively eaten, sheltered, shivered, sweltered, slept, been rained on and pretty much lived in the truck for 27,000+ kilometers. Some of us have tossed our cookies on her, lots of us have gotten fairly drunk on her, many games of backgammon have been staged, we've occasionally cleaned her and regularly stored all our unwanted crap on her, she's come through 19 borders and 22 countries, crossed a sea and several deserts, and been up to Mt Everest (17,090 feet) and down to Turpan (98 feet). She's getting new seat cushions and I imagine a good clean, and a deserved rest on her cruise back to London. Farewell, big blue truck!

An Urban Jungle

2009-10-02T16:12:00.001+08:00

Escape from Nature! Whining has once again won the day, and we are off early to Kuala Lumpur. So long, leeches.

A moment's silence, please for the accoutrements of Our Camping Lives, Phase One. Farewell to the blue tent, farewell to the tent pegs, to the hammer bag, to the tent spacers that are exactly the same colour as the dirt I inevitably drop them in no matter where said dirt is, to the fly that never did leak on us although I spent a plentiful amount of time very worried it would, to rolling up a tent in the rain and trying to stay clean. The roll mats and sleeping bags are packed away on the truck, to accompany Calypso on her voyage back to the UK. Roll on Our Camping Lives, Phase Two (The Australia Weeks).

In the meantime, we're in KL, the modern and lovely capital city of Malaysia. The city is full of spectacular skyscrapers, including the iconic twin Petronas Towers, which were for a short while the tallest buildings in the world. They are also home to an extremely posh shopping mall which includes the very first Gap I've been in since April. I know! It was very exciting. David left me alone in there for some reflection time, and also because he was still bored even though he hasn't had any Gap time in six months.

Rode the monorail and subway (there is a station called Titiwangsa!), saw the Veddy English main square, which consists of quasi-Tudor half-timbered buildings around a cricket pitch built by confused Surrey men, clearly; past vaguely Arabic museums, observed the prettiest street lights I've ever seen--see left. Saw Bollywood girls filming something or other. Chinese temples with amazing ceramic people living on the roof. Lovely city.

Wandered Chinatown for lunch, are now owners of very dodgy sunglasses certainly not made by Miu Miu and Oakley. Noodles and chicken for lunch...I will not be sorry to not have noodles for a good long while. But Indian beckons for dinner, which does make me happy. We are shamelessly abusing the free wifi in a place called Steven's Tea Garden, which makes stretched tea--cold tea made with sweetened condensed milk and poured dramatically from one cup to another. We could have abused the the wifi in Gloria Jeans, KFC, Starbucks, or any of about 90 other generic western chains as well. I think we've definitely left the great anonymous wastes behind us and civilization is well at hand.

Another two nights here in KL, then we're down to Malaka for three nights, and finally to Singapore itself for two nights. From Singapore we're flying to Darwin on 9 October, and the Odyssey is over. But the Wicked begins...

Leeches and Beaches

2009-09-30T15:55:00.001+08:00

30 September 2009

As beach holiday #3 ends, we're off from the Perhentians to...a beach. I imagine I've about used up any good feelings you people had toward me, earned in the various tragedies I've suffered recently. In case you've forgotten, these include missing beauty products, altitude sickness, and the complete lack of canned Diet Coke in Uzbekistan. My friend Anna has just let me know that she personally is hoping for a painful re-entry into real life for us...love you too, honey! We know we're lucky kids, and we're enjoying all of this in honor of all of you. I swear. Really.

Anyway, after another speedboat transfer from the Perhentians to the small town of Khota Baru (this time with two crabby and very pale British girls onboard), and leaving Amy and Debbie behind to do some more diving, the 11 remaining occupants of the truck drove down to Kuantan, on the coast, to camp in a real, honest-to-goodness campground, with, like, toilets and stuff. This is the first one we've come to since Turkey, so this is news. Tee and Le, who are from this area, arranged the place, and we parked ourselves for two nights in a grove of tall pine trees on the sea. Tee and Le themselves went off to stay with Tee's mom, who is tiny and adorable. This beach was more to look at, a bit shallow for swimming. But we got some bags sorted and had a fire and chillaxed. A little wind and crazy rain, but nothing we aren't used to after all this time in Southeast Asia.

We said goodbye to the Gin Twins, Elaine and Abby, in the parking lot of the campground. Abby's been under the weather for a while, and they had always planned to leave in Kuala Lumpur anyhow; fevers are worrying things in this part of the world, so she wanted to get back to Oz and her own doctor. Waiting to hear from them, but we miss them already and hope (trust) that she'll be fine. I will never forget their unique way of dealing with the mud in Beynau.

Down to Taman Negara yesterday, where we were pencilled in for 3 nights. This is a rainforest, the oldest in the world according to the signage (and signage is never wrong). Loads of activities, including hiking, and trekking, and walking, and probably jogging and...various other stuff which fall into the category of 'things Monica does not do'. This is never going to be my favourite part. However, I soldier on (see, Anna? see?) because David wanted to come down here.

We appear to be camping in the back yard of Cletus the Slackjawed Malay, there are wasps the size of cats, thousands of tiny black bugs that live on the toilet (good water pressure, though), and chickens who have got their timing slightly off. They screamed from 3am until 6:30. Corrie and I spent some quality time debating how many times we'd have to cut ourselves on the rusty corrugated iron in the yard to get tetanus and be medevacced out. The upside is, we're staying only two nights and off to KL early. Praise Jesus.

That said, today was actually really good. Walked about 2km in the rainforest (there are two pages of text about the sorts of leeches that live here in the guidebook: ankle ones so tiny they can get through the weave in your socks, and waist/neck ones that jump off trees onto your bare flesh), then came to a Canopy Walk. This is not "canopy" as in pink-frilly-bed-canopy, but a rope walk along the tops of the rainforest trees. About 3000 feet in the air, by my estimation. A precarious collection of aluminum ladders with planks laid across and lots of knotted ropes, and away we go. The best bits are that David did not jump on the ropewalk to freak me out more than the bare minimum, and we opted for a boat back to the campsite instead of hiking. Awesome. I am Nature Girl.

Another Day for You, You and Me In Paradise...

2009-09-25T11:54:00.002+08:00

24 September 2009

...so says the great Phil Collins. Though really, it's probably just David and I who are currently in Paradise. I'm guessing that you're at home—hello Washington, London, Illinois, Arizona, New Jersey, Minnesota, and all the other places that are not Malaysia.

We're at the Paradise Watercolours Resort, on Pulau Besir in the Perhentian Islands of Malaysia, to be exact. Yes, this is Beach Holiday number three in the last month. We suffer for the sake of this blog; for all of your entertaiment needs, we are lying on yet another white sand beach drinking fresh lime juice and being fanned by locals. Okay, not really with the locals, but the lime juice is nice.

Actually, after six nights at Railay, this one is a bit of overkill. I'm a beach girl, I do love nothing better than lying around in the sun, but even I'm a teensy bit bored this time, as although it's stunningly beautiful there's not a whole lot to do except diving. David's been twice today, and going again before we leave in three days. About half the group are diving in one form or another—Louise, Amy, Debbie, Robin and Denis have gone for the 3-day Open Water full-on PADI course, Corrie and Alex and David are already qualified and therefore just enjoying themselves. Rich and I are wandering about between the beaches and palm trees, trying to entertain ourselves. Thank goodness for the Sony Reader...have gone through about 3 novels in the last week (Shanghai Girls, Assassin's Quest, The Help). In my ongoing efforts to avoid looking like shoe leather before I'm 40, I'm trying to stay out of the mid-day sun. Shade is boring!

The resort is a backpacker sort of place, worryingly strewn with hippies and chickens and sarongs. Not the luxury we've become accustomed to, but it's okay. I can report that the lizards in Malaysia are not as cute as those of Thailand and Vietnam—sort of bumpy. There's a restaurant on the beach, which is nice, although they appear to be out of pretty much everything. Free wifi, though. Barbecue at Mama's last night, we got two huge calimari, chicken, prawns, rice, veg, salad, and fresh pineapple for 60 ringit—about $17. That's alright, mama.

It does feel like we're winding down as we edge closer to Singapore. Three more nights here, then five nights of camping in jungle and on a beach, Kuala Lumpur (KL for those in the know) Melacca (where we lose the truck to be shipped home) and then a few nights in Singapore itself. David and I are flying to Darwin on 9 October, the only ones of the original 22 to make it there on schedule. Eight of our longtime companions are going to Borneo for three weeks to see the orangutans, we lose the twins in KL, Rich is going straight to Perth, Corrie home to Melbourne, Tee and Le home to Oz.

Off to lounge around some more in the sun...

(photo is not upside down, the lizard is on our ceiling...)

Chinese People Will Eat Anything

2009-09-23T12:37:00.000+08:00

21 September 2009

Into Pulau Penang, the huge island off the west coast of Malaysia that is home to Georgetown, formerly the British settlement established in 1786 and maintained until 1957. The mainland bit is called Butterworth—which just makes me hungry as I envision a land of pancakes and maple syrup. I had roti and dhal for breakfast, people, I can be excused. Though it was very good roti and dhal and cost me 30 cents.

Georgetown is very cool, a Unesco World Heritage city, protected, and yet still a bit rough around the edges. Loads of colonial buildings, mixed in with Chinese temples and Indian restaurants; the push to be “1Malaysia” composed of a harmonious mix of ethnicities and faiths is tangible here, something the government is clearly pushing hard. But it is actually noticeable, there are groups of Indians, Chinese, and Malays all in distinctive clothing—some headscarves, some tank tops, some saris. Little India is loud and busy, music playing from shops, and smells of cumin and cinnamon. Chinatown is all red banners and gold lettering, noodle shops and steamed buns. In between are mosques and churches, and families piling into all of them in new clothes for the holiday. I'm not sure how much mixing there is personally, something it would be interesting to know more about...adverts seem careful to include a comprehensive range of ethnicities, but people on the street seem to stick to their own company.

We had a gorgeous Indian meal last night; no plates, just banana leaves to mix your curry and rice on. Wandered along the sea and past Fort Cornwallis (would also like to know how Cornwallis got a fort named for him in 1786—had he not just lost, you know, America for the British? I need wifi). We're at the Cathay Hotel, which looks colonial and whatnot outside, but is a bit shabby in...I think it's seen better days, and there is a sticky brown stain on the floor that we are avoiding and also quite hoping is coke, not blood. But after Railay, nothing was going to measure up, and the sheets are clean.

Today David went off to see the Leong San Tong Khoo Kongsi, which is apparently a Chinese clan house and the Heritage Jewel of Penang. I went to the mall and read a trashy fantasy novel. And had iced chai tea latte at Starbucks. We went to the cinema for the first time in about 8 months, because we were bored and wanted some air-con...G-Force is about secret agent guinea pigs and not the most intellectual film ever, but had the undeniable advantage of being in English.

For dinner, one of David's beloved treks to find street food...and one of his better efforts. Lovely cab driver who lived in London for 8 years and chatted about Penang for ages, dropped us at the Hokkien Chinese food markets on the sea front at Gurney Street. Hundreds of people out for the holiday, at dozens of food stalls offering every kind of cuttlefish, dried squid, chicken feet, intestines, sour plum juice, and every other nasty things can think of. Seriously, Chinese people will eat anything. Fortunately, they also make very nice other things to balance out the weird bits, like Asam Laksa—some sort of fish with noodles and onions and broth that is very yummy, and Penang Prawn Mee, sort of a noodle soup thing, and watermelon juice and, somewhat randomly, sarsparilla soda. Nothing cost more than $1, which is how we (read: David) like it.

6 White People + 1 Crabby Thai Guy = Independent Travel

2009-09-23T12:14:00.000+08:00

20 September 2009

Kicking and screaming, we left Railay behind to join back up with the truck for the final three weeks of our Epic Journey.One last night of drinks at the house...sigh...Carol and Amy brought round a fresh young coconut as a hostess gift, which was sadly foul and which Denis still agreed to drink for $20. See following Celebrity Handshake Photo.

Because there was some confusion over the Thai visa situation (it's only 14 days if you enter at a land border, not 30 as it would be in an airport), we needed to get ourselves into Malaysia on the 20th, when our visas expired. The original plan was to go back up to Surat Thani, spend a final night there meeting up with the other 8, and driving to Pulau Penang on the 21st. Things change, though, and so we booked ourselves into private minivans from Krabi direct to Penang, for 800 baht each including the boat journey from Railay. Carol was there to see us off at the appalling hour of 6—that's am. Not pm. AM. Despite all my best efforts, I have now seen a sunrise. It was poetry and magic and all that crap. At least there's photographic evidence, see below. There is usually a later boat, but as this is a religious holiday weekend for Muslims (end of Ramadan), only the ungodly early van was running. How's that for irony? Get it? Ungodly?

I would probably have blocked the entire dawn-escapade from my mind if not for Captain Misery, our own personal van driver. He met us at the pier in Ao Nammao, and proceeded to have a tantrum that we were late (our longtail had waited past the 6am departure time for a shipment of Thais who only rocked up at 6:15—and who all got driven across the acres of sticky mangrove mud that the six of us trekked across in flipflops. But I am not bitter.) Anyhoo—this guy screamed at us, threw David's bag on the ground, and went to start the van in a fiery rage. Effect somewhat dampened when the engine failed, and the boys had to push it started. Not that he said thank you, but I think it stole a bit of his drama. He drove us silently to Hat Yai, about 4 hours from Krabi, and left us at a travel shop to catch the 12:30 van to Penang.

David and I ate at a place called the Rugby House in Hat Yai, and if ever you find yourself in this otherwise featureless town, I highly recommend it. The owner played rugby at school (rare enough in Thailand), and had a good chat to us about it. Turns out that the Thai word for 'love' is similar to 'Rug' and his wife's name is Bea...so the restaurant's name is, conveniently, also a tribute to her. She had cool hair. The juicer had no juice (electricity is not 24/7 in Thailand), so this guy hand-squeezed lemons for David's fresh lemon drink. The curry was beautiful, and all of $2.

Roll on Malaysia, Country Number 21.

A Whole Lot of Nothing

2009-09-18T13:18:00.018+08:00

18 September 2009

Doing nothing takes it out of a girl...today is possibly my first quality time alone in months. David, Rich and Denis have gone off to partake in some of the world-class rock climbing that Railay is known for. Fully expecting at least one of them to come back limbless. Louise has taken herself off on a snorkeling trip to Koh Phi Phi, where parts of Alex Garland's 'The Beach' was filmed...just couldn't rouse myself to accompany either jaunt. End result, I am lounging about on beaches, interspersed with some blogging and package-tracking...how can it take 3 months to get from Bangkok to Arizona?

We've all been deeply indolent so far...there is loads to do in Railay (the brochures say so). But mostly we're swimming and sunning and drinking and eating and generally rewarding ourselves for surviving Central Asia. Some occasional dancing to Flo Rida's 'Low', some seaweed crisps, a little competitive Trivial Pursuit (I did not win, but also managed not to have a tantrum, so count it a success).

Avoiding the monkeys is taking some effort...nasty little things. I'm no animal lover, god knows. But surely failure to evolve into creatures that value hygiene and stand upright isn't reason for humans to get all excited about them? Everyone else seems charmed. Apparently the monkeys here are only afraid of men who pretend to shoot them with a slingshot (and I'm assuming this was a hard-learned lesson) so of course Dave and Rich and Denis have been doing this regularly. Personally, I think the monkeys are laughing at all of us.

David and I went round to the isolated beach at the bottom of the peninsula yesterday, wandering along the mangrove-y East Side on the way. It's no beauty, but dramatic and quite cool. The lovely beach at Phra Nang is also home to a grotto-shrine dedicated to the spirit of a drowned princess. The local fisherman (Muslim and Buddhist alike) bring her offerings of carved penises and Fanta. Awesome. I really feel like more religions should be giggle-inducing. The world would be a better place.

West Side Story

2009-09-16T13:36:00.002+08:00

16 September 2009

To the cruddy little transport hub of Surat Thani on Sunday, a trip Tim expected to take 10 hours from Prachuap Khiri Khan. Happily it's actually more like 6...but as there is zero to do in Surat Thani, and the hotel scene leaves room for improvement, I sort of wish we'd just hopped a bus from there across to Railay immediately. Anyway, spent the afternoon and evening killing time at Swenson's American Ice Cream Shop, and up first thing yesterday to get the air-con bus the three hours to Krabi province, on Thailand's west coast.

Tim and Cheryl and about half the group are staying on the east, mostly on Koh Samui and Koh Phangan, and Corrie's going to Koh Tao for a diving course. David and I have already been out there (and it is gorgeous), so have come west to the Andaman Sea with Louise, Richard and Denis, and booked ourselves into the Railei Beach Club. Luxe! Amy and her mom (Hi, Carol!) are also here, having spent a few days on Koh Lanta, and Debbie looks like she may be heading down after her Independent Travels to Hanoi. Tee & Le were on the same bus as us over here, and are roving the west as well, on their own.

We got a bus from Surat Thani for 140 baht each for the 3 hour trip, then after a teensy bit of a clusterfu*k in Krabi itself (how many bus stations can one town really have? I hate independent travel), then hopped a longtail in what I personally think were vicious and dangerous seas (though no one else seems to be of this opinion) with our Tesco shopping for the 10 minute trip to Railay.

RBC is one of the very few places in Thailand where you can rent a real house, and having had quite enough of hotels and camping in the last 5 months, we are all very excited about plural rooms and a kitchen and whatnot. Our house is called Baan Duong Dow, or House of Shooting Stars. It's all dark wood in the Thai style, raised up into the trees on stilts, with fans and mosquito nets and posh bathrooms that have showers open to the sky...it's 100 meters from the beach and backs onto limestone karst mountains, has a hammock and big airy decks, and is quite perfect. The kitchen may be the most exciting bit for us--when you haven't been able to stand in the front of an open fridge and stare blankly at a range of snack options for five months, this activity takes on new resonance. We made spaghetti the first night and were all terribly excited about it. The sheets and towels were arranged like fans and scattered with exotic flowers when we arrived. I miss luxury.

Railay does have plenty of places to eat, and last night we had dinner at the Railay Bay Resort's restaurant (in the middle of a fantastic monsoon) with Amy and her mum...but as everything has to be boated in (Railay is a peninsula, but blocked from the mainland by said limestone karsts), it's really cheaper to eat at home. Plus the fridge is very exciting. Lousie and Richard went off on a boat this morning, braving the sea to provide for the rest of the pack...they are our own Tim & Cheryl.

Being a peninsula, this place has something of a split personality. East Railay is a mangrove beach, shallow and muddy and, I think, quite interesting looking. Most of the longtail boats come up here, and the cheaper accomodation is all over here...which ranges from really stylish places to some cruddy backpack lodges swarming with faux-rastas and places called things like 'Skunk Bar'. However, it's a five minute walk to West Railay, which. Is. Gorgeous. And is where we are.

The beach is a wide swathe of fine white sand nestled between two towering peaks--these are dripping with rock climbers (why, people?). It's lined with swaying palms, and rocked by a pale blue surf that's just high enough to play in. There is wifi in the clubhouse, and cold beer in the cooler, and I think I might just stay forever.