A coffee nation

Did you know that Vietnam is the second largest exporter of coffee? Its EVERYWHERE here in Delat, a mountain town much cooler and calmer than the city. We have been sampling the local delights of course and find coffee to be the winner so far - it is served through little cup-sized filter-cafetiere-type contraptions and STRONG, black or with condensed milk. So very sweet and very black, just like a delicious syrup that'll make your eyes pop open for hours.
They also grow grapes for wine up here, def on the sampling schedule for this evening!

What else - oh yes, the joy of crossing the road. I may have touched on this briefly before but it deserves its own special section.

CROSSING THE ROAD IN VIETNAM, a brief introduction.

Picture this - a never ending relentless stream of motorbikes and mopeds with the occasional bus or car coming through, and the odd old lady carrying her wares on poles and baskets. Tooting, honking and beeping away at each other, in fact the horn is used as a surrogate brake it seems. So a mass of traffic, alive and honking, certainly no plans to stop for a wee Falong girl. And no, there is no other way, crossing the roads is a must if you want to go anywhere.

How on earth do you cross?

• Use the crossings, but don't think for a second you have right of way.
• Wait until there is a slight gap, gather your wits, courage and step calmly out into the fray.
• Walk steadily and deliberately through, walking your path with clarity of vision. You are getting to the other side!
• Do stop moving when a big bus or car is coming.
• Stop if you are beeped at, as that means, "out my way I'm not going round you".
• When you are in the traffic the motos see you and go round you, however if you start nervous jittering and jumping they won't know which way you are going and will probably squash you in the confusion.
• Do accept help from little old ladies. This requires a major turnabout in thinking - no longer is it we, the youth, helping the old across the road - roles are reversed. (Yesterday an old lady, stooped and bent, grabbed my arm and guided me through the traffic. For a moment I thought "yes, a good deed, I am giving assistance to a wee Vietnamese lady, good one!" But no, as we reached the safety of the pavement she patted me on the back and strolled off. I noticed the locals giggling away and realised that it was the other way round.)
• Forget the hedgehog code of road crossing. There is no Stop, Look, Listen in Vietnam.

I am getting better...

Vietnam

Check out the wiring here!!

Banana lady in the middle of the junction!

I'm here! Vietnam let me in, phew. HCMC is so different from Bangkok, as Vietnam from Thailand so far. I had half expected real similarities, and of course there are, but its totally foreign again. All the language and customs I just learnt are now different!

I have met my friend Simon and we are exploring the city, although both of us are keen to get out into the mountains tommorrow. So to De Lat, a mountain haven hopefully, away from the craziest traffic I've ever experienced (in Thailand I could almost decipher the rules, here...nothing). Crossing the road is a mad and scary time - you just have to walk out slowly and deliberately into the stream of motos, and avoid the buses.

Unexpected obstacles

It would seem that airport people don't like you leaving and arriving on one way tickets, in fact they hate it and are a bit mean. They let me on this flight to Vietnam after trying to get me to buy a flight out before I left, then they threatened that I may be deported on arrival! I wonder if all people trying to travel overland have these problems initially. I hope they will let me in Vietnam! The woman on the desk told me off for a while - "its not so easy easy as you think, you can't just travel all the way to UK overland. Impossible." I described my route again and again until someone decided to let me through. I get the impression they are covering their backs as they made me sign something saying I was responsible for my own actions - well duhh!

So I think I may have to talk my way into Vietnam and hope for the best. I suppose I may have to buy a ticket out of Vietnam if they are mean there too, or worst is I get deported and come home sooner and see everyone. It would be a great shame to miss any of my journey and I will try not to let that happen, but at the end of the day what will be will be and I will try not to get upset about the difficulties that happen. I started to feel a bit wobbly after the interrogation by mean Thai lady at check-in, but I decided she was just doing her job and making sure I knew what I was doing. This isn't the easy way for sure.

The uncertainty of how official people react to my journey, whether they obstruct it or challenge it, means I am just thinking one step at a time. The things I most want to do are

a) have a nice holiday in Vietnam and see the country
b) travel on the TransMongolian

The rest is not so important to me. China I see more as an obstacle than something I really want to do as it is so vast and seems overwhelming by myself. Any advice or comments on any part of my planned journey are very appreciated.

Love Chiang Mai

After a few days here in Chiang Mai I want to stay in Thailand longer!! The people really are super friendly and don't hassle you as I thought they would. The Saturday walking market was spectacular, with stalls packing in for a mile stretch full of hilltribe crafts, clothes, food, Thai silk, and mobile massage units everywhere. I shopped, ate, then had a glorious foot massage with 30 others all talking and laughing in Thai. Such nice people.

The massage school is incredibly well organised. I'm in a class of 8 and we have already learned how to do head, neck, shoulder, face, side back, lying back, leg and arm thai massage - so much information is crammed in my head right now. Its really interesting, much harder than it looks, and by the end of the week I'll have the knowledge to do it but will need plenty of willing volunteers for practice.

Tonight I'm stepping up my adventurous food eating and will try my first Thai curry. I hope I manage to get a mild one! Hana and curries don't normally mix, but how can I not try eh!!

Temples, massage and dancing girls

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Now the temples are of the religious variety, not the ones found on my head which immediately stopped throbbing as the train rolled into the Northern (and cooler) city of Chiang Mai. Profoundly nicer, calmer and more pleasant than Bangkok, I must say its a welcome relief. On my wanders today I came across many temples but this one in particular had all the action; dancing hilltribe girls, loads drumming, many Thai's all dressed up and banqueting. It was a sight! The temples are so very colourful with ribbons and gold everywhere.

I have now experienced two thai massages, one half hour, one hour. My conclusion so far is this: Thai massage is slightly uncomfortable/verging on painful at times, but with careful consideration assessing one massaged leg verses the as yet unmassaged leg, the former felt much much happier than the latter. And now I do feel very floaty light. Yes, all in all an enjoyable time, the slight pain is worth it!! So I look forward to explaining a bit more of the ins and outs of Thai massage tomorrow when I return from day one of my course.

I am now feeling better about travelling - I travelled on the overnight train here in close quarters with a Thai/Romanian couple with a young daughter. They taught me a little basic Thai and a little about the culture. It made me think about why people do travel and what you should take away from the experience. I had been feeling a little lost at the thought of not having a job or purpose other than getting home. The thought of trying to fill days and days in strange foreign lands left me a bit blank. Now I realise that hopefully I'll be learning lots all the way, about the countries and cultures I'm travelling through, about the different food, customs, languages, transport systems! and about myself too.

A chinatown adventure

Today has been pretty interesting considering I woke up this morning (after 12 hours!!) wondering how to fill the time before i got the night train up to Chaing Mai. I decided no more Buddhas and temples but a day of book reading and sipping drinks. This continued until midday when I thought I'd check out what was around the train station - result= hecticness, and a bag not so much locked up but left trustingly in a corner with a million other bags. I got there, I figured out where I'd go later, I left.
An onslaught of taxi drivers began touting for my business, and after a while I managed to get one guy down from 200 baht to 40 (still high for the short distance). My bartering skills are rather sporadic and probably I am getting ripped off left right and centre but I thought this was pretty good - "Take me to Chinatown" said I, proud of my taxi skills. He leads me over to a MOTORBIKE...well I got on and had the ride of my life, if you consider fearing for your life at all turns that! No helmet, CRAZY wiggly in and out of traffic at breakneck speed. Phew, I was clinging on I tell you. We get there and in my hurry to get off I near fallover as my legs have gone dead pressing down so much to stay seated. Despite the fear factor and the intense city fumes (feel like i smoked 30 cigarettes in 10 minutes) it was fun!

Chinatown....well, I thought Khoa San Road was crazy, but thats just full of tourists. Chinatown is dirty and PACKED, with people, with motorbikes inside buildings, on walkways, everywhere, and food and stalls crammed in so much theres barely room to pass. I found it fascinating but too too hectic, so after a while I left for the sanctuary of a park.

Phew, what a day. Off to train station again.

BANGKOK is sweaty!!!!

Phew, haven't been this hot and muggy since...maybe Hong Kong was like this, Ghana definitely was, and I believe I got used to it somehow. I've had three showers already today!
Anyway, typical Brit to go on about the weather (please note, not moaning but stating a fact) when there's so much else.

Update - turns out Hana got idea of a quick flight over to Thailand a bit wrong. In total it took me 22 hours from Christchurch to Bangkok. Got here though, I'm even surviving the city with much more ease than I thought I would. ITS CRAZY, and I'm not sure I like like it, but it certainly is fascinating and full of everything going on everywhere. I brought a cheaper but still good camera at the airport, have been taking plenty of photos of temples and Buddhas getting up to a section of tricks including; reclining, being emerald, being gold, being HUGE., etc.

Eating - now I must admit that the idea of the inevitable stomach upset goes not sit well with me, I wish to avoid it entirely. However that hasn't stopped me munching away on streetside stalls. I ate a unidentified soup for lunch, a little spicy and crazy content (might be meat might be octopus) for my liking. Then a coconut delight, then thai pancake, freshly squeezed juice...hmmm. On my wanders through the streets of Bangkok I found food markets selling all sorts of fruits and veges, places where I could spot no other tourists! An achievement I thought.

Where I'm staying is PACKED with backpackers, the whole massive block is just backpackers really. So I met a nice couple this morning who gave me some pointers. Its OK being here though, comforting in a way.

I've just got tomorrow til 6pm here before I board the night train to Chaing Mai in time for my massage course.
Note - Thai massage is the scary full on one, not lovely oily Swedish massage. So will be very very interesting, I shall have to have a Thai massage myself here before i go (in the name of research you see).

Australia...6 hours in Melbourne

Hello!
New Zealand is a mere speck in the distance, map marked in my mind with all the places I visited, the circles I turned. Amazingly I feel like it is a clean closed chapter. Mission accomplished. I had a lovely time, I almost went to all the places I wanted to go (there's always that one or two that you sacrifice isn't there), I learnt a whole heap of things, I met some lovely strangers who became friends and re-met a couple of strange-ones who were already my friends (and who are of course always lovely and always will be). I worked in two of the most incredible places I have ever been - both right wham bam on the sea! Both beautiful places, full of learning and new recipes and new friends.

This week I have been getting more and more nervous about leaving, but still knowing that I am very happy to be leaving as it is my time. It couldn't be any other way I think, as the knowledge that 'its time to journey on' cannot be ignored. And now that I have been suspended plane-bound thousands of feet above planet earth and landed, safe and well, only to do it again in 6 HOURS, I feel much much calmer. I feel good actually despite getting up at 3am and not yet having had breakfast..hmmm coffeee I smell coffee.
Current brain activity involves wondering whether I should buy a basic but nice new camera, one that has a shutter speed faster than 1 minute between photos, one that doesn't get in a grump and refuse to turn on sometimes.

Argument for - current camera and batteries are

• clearly dying
• Really bad quality
• Massive (taking up my precious space)

New modern camera is

• Tiny
• 10 Mega pixels

BUT

• Money I might need to eat in last leg of trip (although after slaving away all summer I have a little extra than planned)
• Can't bear to throw something away that still technically works...sometimes.

Well, at the end of the day I'm going to be travelling half the world, what a shame not to have decent photos of it.

So things seem to have taken a boring turn, sorry about that folks. I do believe I've almost convinced myself to buy a new camera. Dum dum dum.

I will be blogging away like a happy little blogger LOTS in the next three weeks. Goody gum drops.

Moving Moeraki

So finally, the cord is cut. I have left Moeraki, land of sea and seals, fish and fishermen. About time, but hard to leave. Hard to wrench away from somewhere that has been 'home' for the last 5 months.

I have been filling the week before the big departure with novels, novel sightings, sightings of whales, and long-since-we-last-met friends.

Christchurch brought me the best coffee yet, perfect coffee art, deliciously strong and creamy flat white in the most atmospheric gorgeous building in Little Lydllton. Also the old man on the bus for a chat chat about the good old days and the best cafes, the farmers market and sunshine. Centre of Christchurch, eating sushi. Suddenly Boobs on Bikes slowly zoom past in precession, this years Queen of Erotica proudly taking the lead (no photographs no). I turn a corner - Scotsmen everywhere. The annual bagpipe band competition, all seriousness and quilts.

Highly unusual. I'm in Whale Watching Central now with the lovely Pippa Williams. So nice to have a slice of home here for massive chats and wine in the hot tub.

I fly to Bangkok on THURSDAY. Very nervous. Part of me absolutely can't wait and will relish in the challenges ahead, part of me just wants home without all the scary/interesting/amazing in-between travelling part. I am wrestling with my bag, throwing things out left right and centre to achieve the lightest luggage yet. Why oh why is it still like a bag of bricks on my back? Why...