Autumn in Melbourne

Federation square

Melbourne is one of the prettiest cities I've visited. The central area is small enough to be walked easily, the streets are easy to navigate, it's clean and has lots of greenery. The city is very friendly to tourists with a free hop-on/hop-off sightseeing bus, lots of information and brochures and last but not least, the local language is English, making it super easy to get around.

Shopping center, built around a historical tower

It's autumn now in the Southern Hemisphere so the weather is getting cooler, the leaves are falling and it was raining. Nevertheless, I managed to visit the major sights. It's obvious that Melbourne is full of immigrants. There are Chinese, Italian and Greek neighborhoods. The markets and shopping centers offer food from all over the world. I was surprised to discover that you can buy Slovenian sausages at the market where they call them European Kransky. There was also Radenska mineral water and Gea pumpkin seed oil.

After four months of traveling through Asia, I was really tired of eating rice and stir fried food most of the time. In Melbourne, I can walk over to the Italian neighborhood and have all the delicious salad and focaccia I want and still adhere to my belief that I should eat local food when I travel.

Melbourne Cricket Ground

Another aspect of Melbourne is sports related facilities. They host the Australian Open tennis grand slam tournament as well as the Australian Grand Prix Formula 1 race. This year, the Formula 1 season debuts in Melbourne on March 17th and the area around Albert Park is already roped off.

They have the Melbourne Cricket Ground, home of probably the oldest sports team in the world, the Melbourne Cricket Club. In addition to cricket, the stadium also hosts Australian Football League matches.

Rowing on the Yarra river

Among other sports, I noticed rowing activity on the river, there are bicycle paths with bicycles for hire, there are numerous swimming pools, joggers on the sidewalks and probably much more.

Great ocean road

The Twelve Apostles

The Great Ocean Road is truly a great sight to visit and experience. It's hundreds of kilometers of road along a scenic coast in southeastern Australia. The road winds near frequent landmarks where visitors can stop, walk around and admire.

Footpath near the Great Ocean Road

A helicopter may be hired to ride above the sights.

Sightseeing helicopter

One of the most famous sights is the Twelve Apostles, a collection of massive rocks sticking out of the ocean. There aren't actually twelve of them because due to the ongoing erosion, the coast is constantly changing and some of the rocks have eroded away. In addition to the Twelve Apostles, there are many other interesting rock formations. One of them is the London bridge, which unfortunately has fallen down. It used to resemble a bridge but it is no more.

London bridge has fallen down

So many ships have shipwrecked through the years that a section of the coast is named the Shipwreck Coast.

Shipwreck coast

There are hidden beaches such as the one in Loch Ard Gorge.

Beach inside Loch Ard Gorge

And the coast is perfect for surfing.

Surfers

Down under

Koala

It doesn't happen often that I enter not just a new country, but a new continent. Here I am, down under in Australia. This time, I'm not just a backpacker. I'm visiting a friend and she is showing me around. For starters, she drove me on the Great Ocean Road and I can't help but to compare it to South Africa. It reminds me so much of the Cape of Good Hope with the ocean, the flora and fauna. The vegetation and the wild animals are completely different of course, it's the experience of driving by the ocean along vast stretches of land inhabited by wild animals that is similar. I was amazed by what nature has to offer.

I saw scores of koalas on branches of eucalyptus trees. I even witnessed two koalas fighting high up on a branch without falling down.

Koalas fighting on a tree branch

I never realized that cockatoo birds can fly around in the wild. Until now I have only seen them in zoos. The birds boldly approach tables where tourists are having lunch, hoping to get a snack.

Wild cockatoos

My friend owns a pet cockatoo. I think he approves of me.

Pet cockatoo

There are kangaroos, of course, but what we saw along the road was actually a wallaby. It looked like a kangaroo to me, but was too fast and I didn't catch it with my camera.

Echidna

And there was the hedgehog impersonator that ran into the bushes. There are no hedgehogs in Australia, it was an echidna.

The amazing temples and palaces of Bangkok

Three elephants statue in front of the Grand Palace

I finally got around to checking out the famous temples and palaces in Bangkok. Previously, I associated Bangkok with doing errands, making travel arrangements and shopping so that visiting tourist attractions was never a priority.

Reclining buddha

I'm really glad I went. The temples and palaces are so beautiful! First I visited Wat Pho, home of the giant reclining buddha. It's so huge I couldn't get all of it on one photograph.

Detail on Wat Pho

Inside Wat Pho

Around Wat Pho

Next to Wat Pho is the huge complex of the Grand Palace along with Wat Phra Kaew, home of the famous Emerald Buddha. The buildings are beautifully decorated and there are so many of them, it's breathtaking.

Detail on Wat Phra Kaew

No photography was allowed inside so I couldn't get a photo of the Emerald Buddha. Actually, it's very small and not very impressive compared to all the other statues and adornments all over the palace complex.

Grand palace

Grand palace complex

Detail in the Grand Palace complex

Detail in the Grand Palace complex

Worshipers attaching gold stickers on a statue

First casualty: my Kindle

My family drinking Starbucks coffee in a Bangkok mall

I've been lucky on my travels so far that nothing has been stolen and I haven't lost anything (except items of clothing that didn't come back from the laundry in Cambodia, where it's known that nice clothes often mysteriously become lost). My only real mishap so far was that my Kindle fell off the upper bunk bed in a hostel. Kindle screens are known to be very fragile and of course mine cracked.

Now that my family has returned home after their two week vacation with me, I'm traveling by myself again. When I travel alone, my Kindle is my best friend. I usually read it in restaurants while I'm waiting for my order, I often read it for a while after breakfast when I'm not in a hurry to be somewhere, I read it whenever I'm waiting for something and I read it on long rides or flights.

In addition to books I also use my Kindle to store Lonely Planet guides which are all in digital format so I don't have to lug heavy guidebooks around. And I've discovered that I can copy reservation confirmations in pdf format on the Kindle. It's very easy to just show the Kindle rather than booting up my computer when I'm checking in at a guesthouse or when I want to show an address to a taxi driver.

I can't imagine traveling without my Kindle. I was devastated when it broke.

The good news is that my Kindle broke in Bangkok and not in some godforsaken jungle or undeveloped country. I went to one of the many mega shopping malls in Bangkok and simply bought a new one. Problem solved.

Journey from hell: Luang Prabang to Bangkok in 50 hours Part II

In Bangkok at last!

It was 10:00 PM, we were tired from 27 hours that we had already endured on the road and we were stranded in front of the Lao-Thai border crossing. There was only one thing we could do: hire a tuk-tuk to take us to a guesthouse in Vientiane to spend the night.

We got up early the next morning and took another tuk-tuk to the bus station where we boarded the international bus that should take us all the way across the border to Nong Khai. We would try to exchange our pre-purchased sleeper train tickets that we weren't able to use the previous night for seats on the day train. The train tickets were non-refundable, but we thought we would at least ask if they might honor them.

The international bus took us to the border where we were now proudly able to get stamped out of Laos since we had transport for across the bridge to the Thai side. We had to descend the bus to go through Thai immigration and customs along with all our luggage that had to be inspected.

After completing the formalities we waited patiently for our bus on the Thai side of the border. Tuk-tuk drivers were annoyingly offering their services but we brushed them off since we had our bus for the short trip to Nong Khai. They insisted that there would be no bus but we are seasoned travelers and have heard such tales before so we just ignored them.

Time passed and after a while we started looking for our bus that was nowhere in sight. We didn't see any of the other passengers from our bus either. Where was everyone? Another bus pulled over and we inquired the driver for the whereabouts of our bus. He told us that our bus had already gone. What? How did we miss it?

Almost on cue the tuk-tuk drivers approached again because it was obvious that they knew that we now knew that there really would be no bus. We also noticed some local vendors gossiping and pointing at us falang and laughing which confirmed our suspicion that we were scammed and everyone except us was in on it. What probably happened was that the bus waited around the corner and all the local passengers who knew that boarded it but we didn't and the bus just pulled away without us. We were really pissed because buses typically don't leave passengers behind, not even in southeast Asia. This was obviously a deliberate scam, forcing us to hire a tuk-tuk instead of going on the bus. Yes, we fell for the scam. It happens. We were still pissed.

We lost so much time again that it was already 9:25 AM when we got on the tuk-tuk, too late to catch the morning train to Bangkok. We had to go to the bus station where we bought tickets for the 11:00 AM bus.

We hadn't had breakfast yet and there was plenty of time until the bus left so we strolled the nearby market and bought food that we were going to eat at the bus station. Matej and I returned to the bus station quickly while Marko and Martina went off to look for fruit.

As soon as Matej and I showed up at the bus station, the conductor motioned to us frantically to get on the bus because "the bus is leaving in 10 minutes" and "where are your friends"? I was confused because my watch showed 10:00 AM, an hour until departure time. I didn't think there was a one hour time difference when we crossed the border. I went to the information booth to ask what was going on and they gave me some crap about the roads being closed and the bus must leave immediately.

Matej went off to search for "our friends" while I tried telephoning them. In the meantime, other passengers on the bus were frantic as well. I saw another woman running off with a roll of toilet paper. I hoped she would make it back before the bus left. When Marko and Martina finally returned, we were all rushed onto the bus.

The conductor checked everyone's tickets but the bus still hadn't pulled away. Wasn't there some kind of emergency that we had to leave immediately? Whatever, the conductor leisurely started distributing plastic stools along the isle and local people continued boarding the bus with all their stuff and commotion until the bus was packed. It was 10:45 when we finally left the station. There was no sign of closed roads or any other reason why we had to leave in such a hurry. Ah well, at least we managed to buy our breakfast that we then ate on the bus.

Thai buses are more reliable than Lao buses and Thai roads are much better than Lao roads so we pulled into the Bangkok Mo Chit bus station, our final destination, at 21:00 PM as planned and without any breakdowns. We piled onto a tuk-tuk to take us to the Sky train station and rode the Sky train to our guesthouse.

Our journey of 50 hours was finally over. We were tired and fed up. I never would have believed all that happened if I hadn't experienced it. But why travel if not for such travel adventure stories?

***

In summary, we switched between 12 different means of transport:

1. Tuk-tuk from our guesthouse in Luang Prabang to the bus station 
2. VIP bus from Luang Prabang to the middle of nowhere 
3. Pick-up truck from the middle of nowhere to Vang Vieng 
4. Songthaew from Vang Vieng to Vientiane 
5. Tuk-tuk from Vientiane to the Lao-Thai border 
6. Tuk-tuk back from the Lao-Thai border to Vientiane (because we weren't allowed to cross the border on foot)
7. Tuk-tuk from our guesthouse in Vientiane to the bus station 
8. International bus from the Vientiane bus station to Nong Khai 
9. Tuk-tuk from the Thai border to the bus station in Nong Khai  (because our bus scammed us)
10. VIP bus from Nong Khai to the Bangkok Mo Chit bus station 
11. Tuk-tuk from the Bangkok Mo Chit bus station to the BTS Sky train station 
12. BTS Sky train to our guesthouse in Bangkok

Journey from hell: Luang Prabang to Bangkok in 50 hours Part I

Repairing the bus (again)

The other day I was thinking that I haven't filed anything under "travel adventures" on this blog in a long time. Nothing exciting has been happening. In fact, I suspected that my family didn't quite believe my previous travel adventure stories about the chickens on local transport, old ladies who wanted to vomit on me, guides being arrested, flat tires and roadblocks. But we made up for all the missing action with my family on our expedition from Luang Prabang to Bangkok. They not only believe my stories now, they also have plenty of their own stories to tell.

I planned it so that we would make the trip in about 36 hours. First, we would take the night bus (the sitting bus, not the sleeping bus which I hated because it's good for anything but sleeping) from Luang Prabang to Vientiane where we would arrive in the early morning. Then we would have all day to make the two hour trip across the border into the Thai town of Nong Khai, giving us an extra 10 hours to kill. We would then take the very comfortable sleeper train to Bangkok, arriving well rested the next morning. We bought the sleeper train tickets in advance to make sure we had bed reservations.

With my recent experience traveling through southeast Asia I truly believed that the 10 extra hours should be more than enough to cover all the flat tires, roadblocks and any other delays that would happen on the road. I even researched sights that we might go see during all that extra time.

It turned out that 10 hours wasn't enough for bus delays on Lao roads. So here is the story of our 50 hour exodus.

Starting in Luang Prabang, the bus left the bus station only 15 minutes late which in these parts of the world counts as exceptionally on time. For the first three hours, the drive was uneventful.

Then we had our first breakdown. I awoke from sleep, acknowledging that it's probably a flat tire. It should take about an hour to fix. After two hours the bus crew was still working on repairs and all the passengers were asked to get out of the bus.

Bus crew working on repairs

It wasn't a flat tire. The front of the bus sagged almost to the ground. It seemed like the hydraulic system was broken. The bus crew were working on the repairs with hand tools and I watched them, wondering how would they ever repair a hydraulic system on a monster bus at the side of the road with a couple of wrenches?

It was dark and it was cold so a bunch of people found firewood and built a fire where we kept warm. The repair work went on for hours. We asked about a replacement bus, but in the middle of the night, in Laos, there's no such thing as a replacement bus.

Keeping warm by the fire

So we waited. At about 5:00 AM, after six hours of repairs, the bus was finally ready to go. We rode on – for a few hundred meters. Apparently the bus wasn't repaired well enough and more work was required. A few girls were nervous because they had a flight out of Vientiane that afternoon. I also started to watch the clock since we had train tickets that evening. Out of the 10 hours of extra time that we had planned into our schedule, most of them were already gone! We were beginning to be tight on time.

The girls who had flights decided to hitchhike and they managed to stop a truck who gave them a ride. Another group then successfully hitched a ride from another truck. Our family decided to give hitchhiking a go as well but in the next hour there were no more trucks coming our way and we were out of luck. During that time, the bus was again repaired and we continued our ride.

Hitchhiking

In about two hours we reached a larger town. The people who hitched the second ride were there, waiting for us. Apparently the truck who gave them a ride brought them to that town where they were left to wait for a bus. And the next bus that came along was ours! How depressing, they were back where they started from.

The bus kept going but since it was now daytime, it stopped frequently to pick up local people or let people off. These stops took precious time, because all maneuvers were accompanied by moving luggage, boxes, sacks and bags, whatever it was the local people were transporting. Our reserve time of 10 hours dwindled down to zero and I was now really becoming worried whether we would catch our evening train.

Just before noon, the bus broke down again. We had been traveling all night and half the day without food and the place where we stopped had no restaurants and a meager shop with not much useful stuff in terms of food. Some of the local passengers on the bus procured a pot of sticky rice from a local woman. We dipped balls of the rice into a couple cans of sardines. It wasn't much, but a few bites of food was better than nothing.

Eating sticky rice while waiting for another repair

We realized by then that it was time to say good bye to our overnight sleeper train and start making alternate plans. I was so sorry to have to let go of the idea of sleeping on a clean, comfortable sleeper train but there was nothing we could do.

Eventually the bus was repaired and we moved on, finally stopping for lunch at a rest stop at about 2:00 PM. We were finally able to eat, use the toilet and stretch out. When it was time to leave, the bus had to be repaired again. Time was passing and by now we started worrying whether we would make it across the border into Thailand at all since the border crossing closes at 10:00 PM. But we were still hopeful, planning to spend the night near the train station in Nong Khai and catching the first morning train.

Once again, the bus was repaired and we moved on. Once again, the bus stopped for local people getting on and off. But what really pissed us off was that the bus stopped at a stall where a bunch of women were selling dead furry animals by the side of the road. One of the crew members went out to inspect the animals and haggle over the price, wasting even more time. I couldn't see what the animals were because the window on the bus was so dirty. They might have been rats or weasels or something like that.

Selling dead furry animals by the side of the road

By the way, the windows of the bus wouldn't open because the bus was supposed to be air conditioned. Did I mention the air conditioning wasn't working? But on a bus whose hydraulic system is broken you don't really care too much about air conditioning.

Another breakdown later, we had had enough. All the passengers now hitchhiked and we managed to get rides into Vang Vieng in small groups. Two Spanish girls were picked up by a truck full of lettuce and another group were lucky to get on a local bus that came by. The rest of us all piled on a pickup truck that was willing to take us as far as Vang Vieng.

On the pickup truck

One of the passengers knew someone in Vang Vieng who owned a songthaew and he called ahead so that when we arrived, our onwards transport to Vientiane was already waiting for us.

Although the ride went smoothly, the songthaew is not the fastest vehicle in the world and we nervously watched the minutes pass by quickly while the kilometer countdown to Vientiane didn't progress as quickly as we would have liked. Would we make it in time to cross the border by 10:00 PM?

We made it to the bus station in Vientiane at 8:45 PM. It took time to find a tuk-tuk driver who would take us to the border, negotiate the price and wait for two other passengers to be dropped off. We arrived at the border crossing at 9:45 PM, with 15 minutes to go before closing time. We had high hopes of making it across.

But when we showed up with our passports to be stamped out of Laos, they wanted to know where our transport was. We didn't have any, explaining that we would walk across to the Thai side. They said no way, it's not allowed to walk. The minibus that shuttles pedestrians across the bridge during the day was finished. Without transport, we couldn't go.

One of the border officials took pity on us and went out of his way to try to hitch a ride from any vehicle that would still cross the border at that hour. He even went to check the Casino in the duty free zone if there was anyone who would give us a ride but unfortunately, no ride was available and sadly, oh so sadly, we were stranded in front of the border. We had been so close.

To be continued...

Adventure Laos

Visiting a temple near Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang is a very touristy town. However, we didn't come here for the happy hour and all night partying and pricey tourist restaurants and cafes. We came because we wanted to do adventure tours through the Lao countryside. We opted for the Lao triathlon: bicycling, kayaking and elephanting.

Bicycling from Luang Prabang

First off, we rode mountain bikes along a stretch of what will probably one day become a motorway and is currently a road construction zone. The ride took us from town into the suburbs and out into remote villages.

Bicycling along a road under construction

Next, it was an elephant ride through a jungle.

Riding an elephant

And finally, kayaking back down to where we started.

Kayaking on the Nam Khan river

After an adventure packed day we took advantage of the happy hour bars in Luang Prabang for some local beer tasting.

Lao beer tasting

Slowboat to Luang Prabang

Dinner with my family on the banks of the Mekong

I'm making another round of Laos with my family. When I was here by myself four months ago I didn't get around to riding the slowboat to Luang Prabang. This is supposed to be an unforgettable experience in Laos so we decided to do it.

Slowboats at the pier

It turned out to be such a disappointment. I imagined the slowboat to be full of local people with their stuff, the boat itself was supposed to have uncomfortable wooden benches and I somehow imagined that it would go slow.

Fancy seats inside the slowboat

It was nothing like it. There were about a dozen local people on the boat while the rest were all tourists. The seats looked like they came from an old bus and they were spaced so closely that the experience was like sitting in economy class in an airplane. The boat had a huge and loud motor that propelled it along the Mekong at a decent speed. There was a bar where we could buy drinks.

Children approach during one of the slowboat's stops

And thus we spent the better part of two days, crammed in those seats with very little legroom. Although the ride was tedious, we enjoyed the scenery along the way and had a nice time spending the night in a village where the boat stopped for the night.

View of the Mekong from the slowboat

I guess doing the slowboat is an experience not to be missed, not because it is so fantastic but simply because if I hadn't done it I would never have known that I didn't really have to do it at all.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Chinese New Year decoration

Happy Chinese New Year! The year of the snake begins today.

It's impossible not to be aware of Chinese New Year while traveling in Asia. It's very much like our Christmas and New Year holiday season with the decorations, holiday music and shopping. In Thailand, they play popular Christmas songs so it feels like Christmas all over again. In one of the markets there was a huge decorated Christmas tree that was probably left there since Christmas and looks like it's recycled for Chinese New Year.

Mandarin oranges as tree decorations

The traditions for Chinese New Year are similar to Christmas traditions. Families come together to share festive meals and exchange gifts. Judging by what I've seen in all the shopping malls in various cities I've visited recently my guess is that the most popular gifts are sweets and among them Ferrero Rocher chocolates. Globalization goes all ways: Asian made clothing and shoes and electronics are available in Europe while European chocolates seem popular in Asia.

We were in Laos on the actual day of the Chinese New Year where the festive season wasn't so obvious. But I spotted some decorations and we definitely heard firecrackers and saw fireworks during the celebrations.

All roads lead to Bangkok

Welcome drink in Bangkok

After four months of traveling, I'm back where I started: in Bangkok. This is where all roads lead in southeast Asia. Bangkok is the travel hub where people come to get visas, make travel arrangements, take flights or trains or buses to their next destinations, and meet their families who come to visit! Yes, my family is here! I'm so happy to see them after four months! They came here on a vacation from the snow back home and we will be traveling together for a while.

Looking at Bangkok four months later, after I have been hardening off in Asia for four months, it's not as daunting as it was the previous time around. I've learned to choose street food and all the animal parts such as intestines or chicken heads that are displayed on many food stalls don't bother me as much any more.

Compared to Phnom Penh, Bangkok's traffic is tame and so easy to navigate. And compared to Kuala Lumpur or Hong Kong, Bangkok quite measures up to the futuristic look and feel with skyscrapers, public transportation in the form of the skytrain and upscale shopping malls, escalators, walkways and pedestrian overpasses. Still, it has all the street stalls and exotic flavors of Asia. Out of all the Asian cities I've visited so far, Bangkok is the one that has it all.