I have read about the infamous fog of London. Fog on the Thames. Fog on London Bridge. Fog that covers a whole city until midday. Horrendous for motorists. Dire for Heathrow. Days of chaos.

I had begun to think this something of a myth. 11 months in London and still no fog. Not that this was causing me to lose any sleep, mind. It’s just one of those things you dismiss.

Sure, there has been the occasional fog cloud, a couple of hundred metres of white mist that is a little colder than the air around it. But you walk on through it and voilà! You come out the other side. Amazing.

Mph. Fog. Whatever. Been there, done that. Silly whinging poms. Fog. Ha.

Until 23 December 2007.

I wake up. Actually, I wake up a few times, because it is so dark I keep thinking it is still night. Eventually I realise it is 845 so I get up for a cup of tea, thinking this shortening of the days thing is getting bloody ridiculous.

At the window, things are all white. Not like snow. Not like textured white where you can see depth. Just all white. I can see that there is ground about two feet in front of the window, but that’s about it.

This is wondrous. I stare for a good half an hour. No-one is up yet. At least, no one who is up has walked within two feet of my window, cause then I would have seen them.

After this half an hour of wondrous staring into the white I get bored so decide to go for a run. I go through the usual ritual of getting ready for a run in winter in England, which involves three long sleeved shirts and a jacket, long leggings, thermal socks, gloves, tissues and a plastic bag, which I take to put my MP3 player in when the rain starts.

So I’m off.

The first thing I notice is that it is nearly impossible to run at any pace, as you can’t see anything. Strangely, it doesn’t get easier to see when you are outside the window. Fog won’t move around you, nor will it make a path like the Red Sea did for Moses. It’s just thick, stubborn fog. That’s okay. I’ll jog slowly.

About half way to Wandsworth Common I experience respiratory difficulties, similar to the feeling you get when you are in the shower with too much steam and you try to breathe. Second strange but true fact about fog. It is wet. So I proceed with running slower and coughing every ten metres or so to expel the water building up in my lungs.

As I get to the top of the hill, I start to have distinct traction trouble. I blame the lac of grip on my old shoes for about 20 metres. After that I start to smell a rat. Closer inspection of the ground reveals ice. Yes. Ice. Fog is cold. Damn cold actually. The 23rd Dec was minus two. Top. So, wet and cold. I commence running on the grass. Mud is always a better option than ice.

I get to the common (phew) and it is like what you would expect a nuclear holocaust to look like. Everything is white. I can’t see the trees at the edge of the oval or the pub at the end of the street. No sky. What I can see is grass and fog. The thick grass is deep green and as textured as a baroque period painting. The three or so metres of it that you can see slowly gets lighter and hazier as the fog stretches white fingers around it, giving the illusion of extreme distance.

What makes it more like a holocaust is that it’s the middle of winter and all the trees are deciduous. When I run towards a tree, all I can see is dead black stick tendrils reaching out through the fog toward me.

The peace actually is deafening. I hear absolutely nothing. No birds. No people. No kids, dogs, cats. No cars. No trains. NOTHING. I hear nothing. This has not happened to me since… probably since I stood in the soundless studio in the Queensland Conservatorium of Music. But this is the silence of true silence. If you have ever heard silence, you will know that you can feel noise. Noise comes with a vibration. You only know that it is gone when you can’t feel it any more. It’s like that in fog. No noise for the hearing, or for the feeling. It feels thick.

I run past the duck pond and do a double take. Is that ducks walking on water? The double take agrees. It appears the ducks are walking where the water used to be and I do a lap of the duck pond to work out how all the water could have evaporated in conditions such as these.

Then I see a duck sliding on the water. Ice. The lake has frozen over. But not all over – there are places still where ducks are swimming and places where they are walking. Two of the ducks actually fall off the edge of the ice and they spend about two minutes trying in vain to get back up. I am smiling now. I have never seen a frozen lake like this before. Not with ice skating, uncoordinated ducks.

When I get to Clapham I nearly step on the squirrels. They hang at a little corner in my running track. I think there is a good tree for nut collecting there. Anyway, today they can’t see me and I can’t see them. They dash about in front of me left and right. It’s like Frogger (that’s an 80′s video game if you are too old or too young to know). But the funny thing about the squirrels it that they are all fatter today. For a while I think it is because they all got fat for winter. Then I realise that they have all puffed up their fur a bit more as it’s so cold. All their tails are in tight s shapes pressed up against their backs instead of straight out and jerky like normal. So cute. God I love the squirrels.

I am half way home when I realise that my eyelids are heavy. Weird. I try to look at my eyelashes to see what is wrong with my eyes. I can see my eyelashes. Could I always see my eyelashes? I touch my eyelashes. They come off in my finger and rest there like a little skeleton. I get such a heart attack I nearly stop running. Then they disolve in my finger to nothing. Ice. My eyelashes are collecting the water from the fog and freezing.

When I get home I decide I need to get a photo of the ducks on the pond. I also have some errands to run at Clapham AND I have just purchased my first bicycle in London (deep breaths dad) and so what a great chance to use it.

I stack it straight away. 

I try to do a gutter jump to avoid some annoying stopped traffic and as my front tyre hits the sidewalk it slides on the ice and I do a slow motion ice-skater style skid up the curve. No-one cares. No-one comes to my rescue.

Now I feel quite stupid and, confidence bruised, I proceed with the rest of my ride quite slowly. Needless to say, riding in fog is really not fun and I abandon the mission quite quickly.

The next day the fog is gone. I get back on the bike for some photos of the ducks. They are still waddling on water.

Although not snow, this is as close to a white Christmas that I could hope for. Brilliant.

I’ve resigned from my current job. For about a week I’m basking in the liberated joy of relief and the anticipation of a new chapter in my career. Oh the possibilities!

Unsurprisingly, the cruel thump of reality kicks in after a relatively short honeymoon period, and realisation that unemployment is looming falls on the shoulders rather heavily and thick.

But I am smug. I’ll find work. Jobs will fly in at me.

Uh huh. A few weaker moments, where complete disregard for my own propaganda, have subsequently sparked a frenzied spate of firing off CV to every recommended recruitment agency, with a couple more web based engines just to top it off.

The result is a pile of relatively uninteresting job offers and a few more tedious registration interviews, followed by weeks of phone calls from random people poachers from the internet looking to make a fast buck through commission.

I’m still not sure if it was through complete dissatisfaction with every offer that came my way, or just that desolated, anxious feeling that perhaps I won’t find anything, but I eventually agreed to go to an interview.

This was one of those “Random People Poachers” who call themselves recruitment agencies and take your CV and try to match it to any other advertised job they can find, hoping to score the commission. The website of said agency resembled an advert for a forthcoming Andy Warhole exhibition and oozed shadyness as the single contact listed was the “Director.”

Anyway, I agreed to the interview. The Director assured me it was just a simple meet and greet with the marketing team, where they would assess whether the person could first fit in with the team prior to a formal performance-based interview. Sweet.

But first I have to log onto their website and do a Myer-Briggs type personality indicator exam. During this simple, twenty six question, multiple choice exam, my internet server proceeds to boot me off after each question. The result is an eight minute exam taking about five hours. They are going to think I am the dumbest person in the world.

The interview is in Westminster, central London. A place I rarely visit on the top side of the tube, but one I am sure I can navigate.

The morning of the day I leave two times earlier than I would need to, just in case I get lost. As it is not quite cold enough to wear two coats yet, but cold enough to need something more heavy than my suit jacket, I have my suit jacket in a plastic bag and am wearing my overcoat. I do not want to take a backpack to the interview, for fear of the perception of un-corporate. (In conjunction with the Aussie accent, one is certain to be labelled a backpacker, just passing through. A situation I do want to avoid, given my holiday visa and lack of time left on it.)

In addition, the train station is about 15 minutes from my house, so heels are not an option. I usually wear runners and change into heels at work, however again, the bulky sneaker would be unsightly at my interview, so I have worn pumps (a thin, but closed in shoe, with little but a sliver of material covering the foot and a half-centimetre sole) so that I can push them into my handbag when I want to put on my heels, which are also in the plastic bag with my suit jacket.

I also carry a bottle of water (one does get quite dehydrated with the walking, hot tube etc and can be prone to fainting) a full London street directory (one often gets off at the wrong stop and has no idea where one is) a note book with directions and names for the interview (and in case I do need to take notes in the interview) make-up (touch ups are always necessary after a sweaty trip on the tube) an umbrella (its London, need I say more) two mobile phones (work and personal) my wallet, my bus/train passes, my diary with all relevant information for proving who I am (this is regularly required in London) MP3 player, book, deodorant, breath mints, keys and numerous other items of extreme importance that usually reside at the bottom of the somewhat oversized handbag.

So I trundle off down the street to my interview, looking like the Michigan man on a hiking trip with supplies for a week for all his Michigan mates.

As soon as I step out of the tube the rain begins. I struggle with a million bags to find the one that has the umbrella buried at the bottom of it. As I am doing this I scan the bus stops for the number 67 or 68 eastbound. There are only twenty bus stops at Vauxhall with probably only 100 bus routes coming in and out at any given moment. I’ve spotted the bus but have no idea where it is going to stop. So with one eye on the bus and the other looking for my umbrella I am a rustling, zig-zagging girl as I multi-task my way through the 500 other people all doing the same thing. As I find the umbrella and put it up the bus stops and I join the crush, holding the umbrella with my teeth and start fishing my other handbag for my bus pass.

Finally I am on. An hour of carefully styled hair has gone down the drain and my shut umbrella is dripping on my business coat.

I stuff the umbrella into the handbag and rustle around for the street directory so that I can follow the path of the bus on the street and know when to get off. Somewhere around the houses of parliament I lose my place and street names become unfamiliar so I get off. It must be somewhere close anyway. I can see Westminster Abbey.

So. Swap bus pass for umbrella again. Swap street directory for the paper directions I have scribbled down, which are now wet from the umbrella and the ink is running all over my hands.

Wind has been added to the rain, and big puddles blanket the cold pavement. My thin pumps have now filled up with water, as have my stockings and socks. The hairspray I used this morning has baked in the hot bus and has re-moulded my hair into something like a helmet of wavy, exquisitely straw-like knots.

The directions look nothing like the place I am currently walking along. After about ten minutes I realise its because I am walking the wrong way up the street and should turn around. Actually I should have got off the bus two stops earlier. I commence walking faster in the other direction. I am working up a fine sweat – the odour of which will match my hairstyle I think.

Then one of the phones ring. I swap directions for mobile, holding umbrella in teeth again, and try to pose a professional sounding hello, Jacqueline speaking, into the phone without sounding like I have an umbrella in my mouth.

Hello? Jacqueline? This is Claire. Are you okay?

Great. Its the Director from the bloody brilliant recruitment bonanza who sent me here.

“I am fine Claire, how are you?”

Are you sure you’re fine? You sound a little flustered.

Hmmm. Oh the many responses I could have made to that little beauty. I exercise extreme restraint whilst I listen to her tell me not to worry at all about my interview, and that it will be a series of psycho-semantic exams, followed by a little chat with the Directors of Marketing and HR. Nothing to worry about. Really simple. Don’t Worry. Bye.

Talk about lack of tact. The first rule of making someone calm is not to use negative words like “worry” as it indicates there is something to worry about and you should try not to worry. That and the surprise tests and big-wig interview was really making me feel excellent about the whole thing.

So I find the place, and speed around the corner (in case they can see me from the inside) to put on my suit jacket, cover that with my overcoat which is saturated and change my pumps and socks for dainty but professional heels. Shoving all the extra plastic bags into my handbag and hoping you cant smell the wet flavour of my pumps, I try to click professionally around the corner into the dry, stone building.

The entrance is Grand. Stone pillars frame the antique, three metre high wooden doors and the red carpet is laid out for wiping of wet feet. Brilliant bouquets of flowers pose around deep black-leather couches that face a square glass coffee table with the company’s annual reports and other flagship paraphernalia neatly displayed. Twisting marble staircases climb majestically up to a pitched, cathedral like rooftop.

The doorman approaches me as I stand with mouth open, head flat back inspecting the roof with sodden coat and dripping umbrella. His face asks if I am in the right building but he just says Can I help you? I tell him I am here for Nicola Smith, and he tells me to take a seat.

I dash to the velvet walled dunny. I finger brush my helmet, apply copious quantities of deodorant, rid myself of sodden overcoat, wash the rain soaked ink from my hands, touch up the make-up, have some water and pop a breath mint into my mouth. Re-pack the handbag, turn off the mobiles and wander back out into the foyer like I am always coming here.

Nicola arrives. She is younger than I and from the HR department. She has dead straight, perfectly soft combed blond hair and a posh Northern London accent. Her delicate features are public-service slow as she looks me up and down and remarks that it must be raining outside. When she arrived earlier it wasn’t raining. No.

We make polite and insignificant conversation in the elevator (which is about one by one metre square) as she explains that the elevator is indeed very small.

We enter another tiny room, where Nicola explains that the testing will take place. Testing for what? I am thinking as I survey the re-education camp style room. It is white and oblong shaped with a computer and desk facing a white wall at one end and a chair facing the same wall, positioned directly behind the first chair. The pens are arranged meticulously on the table.

Nicola explains we will be here for a while, so would I like a glass of water? I agree, mostly to get rid of her for a minute whilst I look for bugs or other surgical instruments in the room.

There are six tests. All used on the army, Nicola explains. Great. I am sure they are highly useful for identifying excellent Marketing Managers.

These tests are designed so that you cannot finish them, and require absolute concentration. This is an easy state to achieve when the tester sits directly behind you and watches what you do, as well as reading all the questions to you, in case you have trouble reading for yourself. (Surely the art of literacy should be part of the test? Are they really going to employ you if you couldn’t read the damn thing?)

I do the tests. Maths, alphabet, lateral thinking, confusing word plays, pictures that mess with your eyes, reasoning and decision making whilst under pressure. Jesus. This may as well be a re-education camp.

Following an hour of this, I am feeling so deflated that I actually want to run from the building crying. Stuff the interview. I am sure I did so miserably on those tests that I wouldn’t even be hired on the damn switchboard.

Luckily, one of the Directors that they “want me to meet” in the interview is stranded on the tube somewhere and running a little late. Brilliant.

Nicola suggests we go down to the coffee shop. Hallelujah, now you are speaking my language.

We cram back into the cubicle-lift with another few fat poms and I am worried now about the calibre of small conversation I am going to be able to extract from this boring person I am now charged with enjoying coffee over.

Luckily, she leaves after she orders me a coffee and explains that she doesn’t drink anything but green tea as it gives her a head spin. You party animal.

I wait for another hour and a half, reading my book, in the dungeon cafeteria where all the staff stare at me like the red party shoe in the cupboard of corporate work boots. Lucky I took the full day off work.

Finally someone arrives to get me. She is an absolute double of Nicola. Great. They are cloning them in the HR department. Actually, she is not an exact double, just a few clone-years younger. Probably freshly plucked from the clinic next to the room where my examinations took place.

The interview room is a nice, big office where we crowd around a tiny round table about the size of a tea-biscuit that obviously is dwarfed to increase the negative space around it. The HR Director is a hard, approaching 60 year old woman with fluffy white hair. My arrival sparks some kind of attempted warmness in her. But fails dismally. I turn to the Marketing Director, who is more the type of person I am accustomed to, and has real care and interest in her deep blue eyes. She seems to plead under the radar that I ignore the HR department as she shakes my hand and reads my thoughts.

The interview is smooth. I talk. A lot. It appears they are trying to restructure their pricing matrix and there are an uneven amount of questions related to price and how to deal with it. The Marketing Guru makes notes, copious quantities of them, as I explain past and current pricing strategy and other permutations of SWOT analysis. Every time I work a useful piece of especially technical and new-strategy jargon into my answers they scribble it down and so I rely on my never-ending supply of big-marketing-words-to-impress.

They ask me if what I have experienced today makes me desire to work at their institution. Absolutely, I say, probably with a little too much extra emphasis.

At the end it is all smiles and I only have to put up with the dinosaur-relic HR lady for another ten minutes as she escorts me out of the building. It was nine when I arrived. It is now one-thirty.

As I scoot around the corner to change into my wet socks, pumps and overcoat I am absolutely sure this is SO not the place I want to work at.

Naturally, I am overjoyed to learn that I have interviewed well and have been invited back for another interview, this one the competency based variety.

Politely, I decline.

Sea approach: Croatian coastline 

I’d seen plenty of pics. Boat cruises in Croatia. This one was on the list before I ever considered anything else. Even London. EVEN Vietnam.

What I didn’t count on was leaving with 30 new friends and such a varied cultural tour of such a beautiful country.

I’m thinking swimming, sunning and sailing. Perhaps dinner in port. Sometimes it is nice not to do too much research on a place before you arrive. That way you get the maximum awe possible.

Enter Sail Croatia. These guys make it possible for sun-starved Britt dwellers and crispy-baked travellers alike to board ship and pretty much do nothing else but relax and sight-see for five days.

This has to be the package tour of all time. Bfast, Lunch and swimming in multiple destinations as you island hop every half day are all supplied. You have just enough time in one place to see the beauty but not enough time to become close to familiar. Leaves enough space for future trip possibilities and dreaming.

Our ship Penelopa departed Split for Makarska, Trstenik, Dubrovnik, Mljet, Korcula, Hvar before sailing back to Split.

Sail Croatia 

Penelopa (pronounced peneLOpa) included crew of five. All charismatic Croatians, Captain Donci commanded a Skipper (with a coffee making enterprise operating out of the bridge), one ethnic genius of a Chef, a couple of spare hands for anything and Denny, the everything else man, who somehow managed to get drinks from the bar, serve a three course meal for 34, DJ, climate control and create a truly unique atmosphere all at the same time, and mostly without English.

These men had the power to make or break our trip, as anyone who has been on a package tour knows, and let me say they provided such a high that this has gone to the top of my recommendation list. Conversations with other boaties on our journey revealed there were less than favourable crews. We were lucky.

Couple that with the most hilarious group of kiwi’s, aussies and saffas that I have ever seen. And only one day of crap weather.

On top deck, Penelopa

The Cave at Makarska

WE leave split after a three course sampling of the chef’s best and jump up to above deck – lazing in the deck chairs is the cover to check out everyone else on the ship. This is where the wine began. Then the vodka. I can’t remember what else. But there was laughing, relaxing, sunning and an overall electric feeling and that mild anticipation equipped with adrenalin and butterflies for the week ahead. It was obvious we had a good bunch of people. Let the games begin.

We arrive in Makarska with just enough time for a swim before dinner. A bottle of wine over lunch with the girls has cast a bit of a scene missing over this little town. What I do remember is those familiar steep rising cliffs squeezing the little town into a tiny sliver of land before the deep blue Adriatic licks the round, white pebbles of the shore.

Like ants we stream off the boat as soon as she docks – heading for the first rocky outcrop visible for a dip.

Despite the afternoon chill of the wind and the mean shadow cast by the mountain, we all jump in. And then straight back out. What a cold shock for the alcohol and endorphin packed blood.

On the up side, there was more drinking to be done, and so we did dinner (somewhere – was that a stake house? In Croatia?) and then a couple more scenes missing until we hit The Cave.

I am sure The Cave had a name, however I had slept way to little, drunk way too much and eaten way too little to remember. When I get excited I just don’t seem to eat but omygod can I down a glass of wine – or ten.

The Cave was a nightclub that was actually a natural cave that opened a big blue neon mouth onto horizontally jagged rocks and then ocean. The floor was made flat by evening it out with clear hard resin, at the same time being lit from beneath. This gave the illusion that you were actually walking on air. And to the one with the many drinks within, a constant feeling that you are about to fall down into a hole. Only when you don’t, the result is a hard stamp of the foot on higher ground than was expected.

All this got a little too much for me and I went to “rest my eyes” outside just for a little bit. Found later by friends, I managed to score the first sleeping-at-nightclub-on-rock of the trip. But of course I was not the last.

Trstenik and Karaoke

Too small to appear in our guidebook, this little town was absolutely tiny. We had been swimming and recovering from The Cave all day, pulling in just on dusk. Again, snuggled in amongst giant mountains, the little bay boasted a beautiful crescent of white pebbled beach where the Adriatic gently licked the shoreline.

As Rhys and I dipped our toes into the icy waters, we watched our ship dwarf the jetty and nearby kiosk-selling-everything and as it proceeded to pump out Rage Against The Machine’s “Killing in the Name of” at top volume. We couldn’t help but fear that our package tour was taking a turn for the worst. As the delightful lyrics echoed and resonated around the bay, the phrase coming to mind was simply “oh, the serenity”.

Back at the boat we were further enchanted to learn that the evening ahead held a night of drinking and karaoke. I am sure the locals loved us.

However, that said, it was actually a brilliant evening, with the Chef turning on a traditional meal and Denny supplying vodka’s with a shot of orange, as long as you weren’t one of the locals one could have been pleasantly surprised.

I managed to belt out Bette Mitler’s “The Rose”, being the last song of the evening at around ten I think. What a pretty little lullaby.

The Great Wall of Dubrovnik

THIS was the day when the true beauty of Croatia really hit me.

By this time we are a ship full of pretty familiar pals. Every time the boat slows we all quiver at the side rails, ready for the skipper to yell the all clear for a jump over the side. Like a pack of dogs ready to jump into the pool, we all then nervously lean over as far as we can, stealing sideways glances to see who goes first.

As soon as one goes (was that the cannon-ball or the horse, or even the tin soldier?) the rest follow – its like that thing baby animals do when they cling to their mother for a ride, then all get off in all directions when she stops. We are a massive octopus – the ship our head, with crazy tentacles spreading out in all directions. Everything goes over the side – lilos, water pistols, kayaks, snorkels, flippers. The resulting eruption is almost frenzied excitement – every direction you look, people are capsizing, laughing, heading to the shore, getting stung by urchins, doing the pebble hop along the beaches, yelling about the cold water.

But this part of South Dalmatia is so beautiful. The otherwise steep green, fir encrusted mountains have taken on a unique barren, white topped uniform. The shrubbery can’t deal with the wind any higher up than half way, and the striations in the rock almost suggest an ancient and violent past. They peer down like Titans on the shenanigans in the water at their enormous feet. They sigh. I have that feeling you get when you see something so grand, so old, so great, that you realise you are but a dot on a grain of sand.

I down another vodka and orange, get over my spellbound hermit-like desire to nestle in the mountain and jump in the water, yelling like only a girl in the Adriatic can.

Arriving in Dubrovnik again took my heart out and gave it a good shaking. We pull into a now familiar looking port, with all the regular Croatian style houses. Oblong white or creme rendered cottages, with flat tops and square windows, complete with British racing green, Euro-style shutters. Old and decrepit, I am getting a rather nonchalant opinion of Croatian towns.

We trek over another mountain to search for Old Town where we will walk The Wall. As we pile into a bus, I am reminded of London tube at rush hour. But with a truly brilliant whack of B.O. and sticky men breathing. On me. I am so not encaptured by Dubrovnik. Yet.

We push off the bus into a sea of tourists. Like emperor penguins, all facing one direction. Waiting for something. And every second pair has an enormous waffle cone with a slab of gelato in a range of pastels. I gotta have one.

Entering old town, when done via bus amongst 100 other bodies, is nothing special. However, once inside, everything changes. One wide, white marble street lays the ground for regal limestone walls. A monumental inverted chandelier water fountain smiles tranquilly up at steep cliffs on either side of the street that are the base for hundreds of limestone cottages. Tiny quaint marble alleyways meander up in an endless labyrinth between the ancient village houses. This is breathtaking.

With gellato in hand, we cruise down the main street toward the gold trimmed church, where a large, ominous statue of a pope blesses all from the steeple with his stone and unwavering gaze. The grandeur of the church is enough to move even the most avid atheist into a spiritual sense of modesty.

Toddling around the base of the wall, we come to the harbour where the rough limestone rocks are pounded by the heaving deep blue swell of the ocean. The rocks give rise to the 50 metre tall wall that rises above. With that dizzy feeling in my chest, I scale the wall with my eyes. We are going up.

The walk along the wall gives a bird’s eye to what would have been medieval live in this great city. With sentinel posts sheltered with limestone igloo domes it is easy to picture the soldiers firing arrows at aggressive vessels out to sea.

As the waves crash below, the hour long hike around the top of the town has brought about a well earned beer-o-clock. And from our walk we know just where to take it.

A neatly cut door way through the thick outer wall gives way to a terraced bar, where you sit on a rock, outside the wall with nothing between you and the ocean but a steep rocky cliff and a rough bar negotiated around the various levels. We meet our boatie friends there and watch the sunset. I am captivated. I have discovered Croatia here.

Wall bar at Dubrovnik

Mljet, rain, wind, trees and The Gimp

On a high we leave Dubrovnik for another hard day of sunbathing and swimming. Little did we know, we were about to experience the brilliance of nasty weather when sailing.

Yes, rain. Wind. Big seas.

When we commenced our cruise, the captain informed us that we should at all times be careful to close the porthole in our cabins, as when the ship is moving, it will be like flooding in your rooms, yes? I am smug. I know boats. As if i would ever do that. The captain assures us there is always one…

Of all the days, this is the one where I do it. When the rain started, I went to the room for a jumper. As I opened the door, an especially lovely big wave pushed though the open porthole. It landed with a splosh in my open backpack, sitting naturally directly under the window. As I ladled out the water I realised it would be a long day with no dry clothes on a wet ship. You little ripper.

I was like a skulking dog, dragging my wet backpack upstairs to try to find a dry patch of boat where it might dry. On the upside, the ferocious wind was such that I had to tie my backpack to something to prevent a man overboard. A spin dry, complete with a cake of salt. Fantastic, I am in luck today. As I entered the main cabin, I found my boat mates throwing down whisky and playing cards in the especially raucous way that only cabin fever can induce. There was thunderous laughter at my wet luggage. Then it slowly died off as the eyes of realisation set in. I was not the only one to forget the open porthole that day.

But whisky and vodka soon cure everything and as we pulled into Mljet spirits were high (haha).

Mljet is mostly national park. It is a tiny village, even smaller on the National Park entry than Trstenick. We set off for a walk under ever threatening skies and a wind that could blow the face off Big Ben.

We walk to the centre where we find a pristine lake. It’s peaceful, and the total lack of wild life is eerie. We get the giggles somewhat hysterically and our laughter rattles around the mountains that frame the lake.

For a boat full of half-tanked 20-somethings, there is only so much interest one can hold in trees. Soon we are back on the boat drinking. I believe this is the evening where the Gimp made his appearance…

God knows who brings a Gimp mask on a boat. That in itself is funny. But the super-shiny black leather with white lace up at the back was something of an attraction with the boys. Word goes, someone actually got Gimp-rash from wearing it. There were photos. And there were tongues.

Korcula; BMX bandits in the fortified nightclub

The new day brought the sun and after a very relaxing meander through the national park, we cruised off on the sun deck again, headed for Korcula.

This is my favourite. The sea approach is nothing short of magnificent. Korcula, like Dubrovnik, spills out around an Old Town, which is an ancient sea-front fortress. The familiar limestone rising walls and cylinder sentinels frame the rocky peninsula, with the stone village rising above on the steep cliff behind the wall.

Old town here is an especially ingenious design, much like a fishbone, where the streets are either straight or slightly curved to catch or shelter the winds. It has a uniform feel, whilst at the same time the familiar meandering thin marble streets and limestone brick walls bring that ancient fortress feel of Dubrovnik. It is equally as stunning, but what makes it so endearing is little bars and restaurants that spill out from the uninviting buildings and make you feel on top of the world whilst indulging in their quite affordable cuisines and beverages.

As our ship could not dock until 6pm, we pulled into the beautiful little town of Vela Luka, which is very French Provincial in style and substance. Resisting the immense urge to find a red wine and sit for the rest of the afternoon, the promise of scooter rental and our excitement gets the better of us and we pile into a white-van taxi.

Vela Luka; sea approach adjacent to Korcula

On arrival at Korcula the octopus takes over again as all go in different directions looking for scooters. Luckily, we have arrived during siesta. We park our butts on the pavement and wait for something to open.

Eventually a sleepy head heaves open a door and we rush on in, getting stuck in the doorway. On discovery that all scooters are already out, the only thing lifting the crushed mood was the promise of bicycles. So we spend the rest of the afternoon peddling around the coast as far as we can go.

Some of us had a swim at a secluded bay where a floating concrete jetty provided the promise of easy access to the cold waters. Refreshed, the promise of sitting on the edge of old town in an open air bar with cocktail in hand as the sun went down made us the fastest bunch of BMX bandits in our efforts to ride back.

That evening, we walked the dead, cold and dark streets of old town looking for signs of life. It was a ghost town. After 45 minutes of searching, we were close to abandoning the mission when we heard a muffled sound coming from the direction of a multi-level castle. Such is the thickness of the walls of the Old Town, unless you were keen you would have walked right past none the wiser. This most amazing night spot was inside a foreboding and unwelcoming fort – a thin crescent like building with thick brick walls, complete with fortified roof top.

Inside the three levels were connected only by manhole and ladder. All our ship buddies were relaxed in the black plush couches. The crescent wall was met at the straight edge by a thick glass wall – so that you look out over old town by night. Why not have a cocktail?

The top floor was roofless – surrounded by the fort topped rise and fall of the thick stone wall, cocktails are brought up here by a tray suspended on a pulley system on the exterior wall. It was here we spend much of the evening, laughing with other boaties and learning how to suck down flaming shots in thick straws. What an evening.

It’s amazing how the town is able to support the impact of tourism without compromising its beauty. By day, there is the usual hustle of restaurants and bars, however within the old town, you would be forgiven for not noticing anything was actually there.

Hvar, the castle in the sky and the wild of the night

We have awesome tans. We sit on deck and compare them. We are competing for the best thong tan – the foot variety of course. Chris is winning. He has tonsillitis and has been a caterpillar in a blanket on deck all week with little thonged feet protruding. His thong tan is second only to his raccoon eyes. I have been his interpreter as no sound is coming when he opens his mouth. Just quietly, I am sure he is not too keen to recover, as the lovely nurse Lucy is checking his throat for him at regular intervals.

I have been reminded that my wardrobe is suited to tanned skin. London is proving very bad for my sense of street style I think.

However, tanned and beautiful we all are again, and fast approaching Hvar – Croatia night life central. The atmosphere is excited anticipation and a sense of one-ness that we are all going for a massive night on the town. Swimming today is especially frantic, however the tequila sunrises have been given a swerve at lunch, as we are saving ourselves for tonight. Just a vodka today please Denny!

Approaching Hvar, it is evident that there is clearly much more here than just night life. For a start, we can see a castle in the sky. Casting knowing eyes down on the bay is the Fortress of Hvar, god knows how many ks up. It is so intriguing though that we convince ourselves we must earn our beer tonight – by going Up There.

Naturally I decide to do it in thongs. I am always strong with decisions of attire.

For some reason my feet refuse to stick to bandades so I have the blisters of a true warrior by the time we get to the castle at the top. But such a magnificent view of the town down below and the deep blue of the bay makes it all worth the pain; to celebrate we have a vodka and orange.

Hvar’s night life reputation has overshadows it day light splendour. The large, white polished marble town square is framed on the harbour side by a swarm of tenders. These have a small square harbour of their own, which seems to be a magnet for the most artistic set of small boats in the world. Barefoot Croatian fishermen skip from dinghy to dinghy without leaving so much as a ripple between the hulls.

The square is scattered with open air dining places, complete with sun umbrellas and gelato, and a large town clock casts its solemn gaze over the whole affair. To each side of the square, the ancient village wanders up the steep cliffs, allowing another afternoon of aimless meandering within its walls.

Along the polished marble boardwalk are the super yachts and private charters, complete with uniformed staff and polo shirts and Dior sunglasses. Scents of lavender mix with garlic as the night begins to fall, to produce a kind of Mediterranean richness that brings a majestic step to even the humble backpacker whilst strolling past.

Meanwhile, back at the boat, the atmosphere is one of combined excitement for the night ahead. It never ceases to amaze me that a bunch of people are totally fine with getting about in bed heads and bikinis all day, but the hint of evening brings on a frenzy of hair dryers, make-up and cocktail dresses. Needless to say, we all looked pretty schmick for our night on the town.

And Hvar did not disappoint. The famous night clubs pumped out the best in tech meets DJ smash ups that Croatia has to offer. With cocktails and lights, the base was still pumping in our steps as we made it home around 4pm, still smiling.

Split; new and old converge

I wake at 11am. No-one is on the boat. As I peer port-side, I spy a paradise island raising it’s head above the water just high enough to support a few dozen baking bodies. Before I can even think about it, I am over the edge and pumping my best stroke toward the island.

My fellow boaties are on the island paradise to meet me. There is frisbee, football and stories of last night in the air. I went from sleeping to island paradise schmoozing in 15 minutes. This is gold.

 The afternoon sees us in Split, our final night. In an interesting progression of industrialisation, Split has around 3000 people living within the walls of its ancient palace.

The enormous walls that circumnavigate the palace are practically invisible if you are not specifically looking for them, but once you are inside you are hit with an amazing kaleidoscope of ancient walls and buildings and modern life.

Wandering around, I can’t help being surprised to see a Le Coste store screaming out of an old cottage or a Subway hiding in a narrow alleyway.

This rare mix of heritage has the effect of a snapshot of a long time line collided and layer packed on top of itself, as if looking at an old photo with new brands and ways of life superimposed on top. The awe of it all is that it truly fits. Life goes on as it always has and the old palace does not complain. It has wrapped its arms around its younger child and held it up to the light. It’s beautiful.

More obscure attractions in Split include the towering statue of Gregorious of Nin, a bronze, wizard like giant with a hideously massive and shiny big toe. Legend goes that it is good luck to touch the toe, hence the shine. I touch it. It is smooth.

Unless you want McDonald’s, Subway or a slice of takeaway pizza there is nothing to eat here. One solid hour of wandering did not shed light on a single restaurant. Bizarre, but where it lacks in dining, Split more than doubles in drinking. Bars with comfy lounges and neon blue under-table lighting were more prevalent than ants at a BBQ. So I guess they like to drink in Split.

Croatia; sail away

This style of trip is a must do. Not at all like a package tour, there is the perfect combination of pre-organised travel, relaxing and swimming in the sun and freedom to suck up the culture at every port. Some of the most incredible and humbling views are available by sea approach, and the relative captivity of the boat ensures an animated atmosphere that grabs all on board and makes them laugh out loud.

I come away with 34 new friends and a good enough knowledge of Croatian culture to be sure I want to return, but not so little that I feel I have missed out on any part of it.

The moment of descending into the bowels of London Underground, it is evident that this is no place like home.

Tube Shock.

One learns Tube Etiquette fast.

On reflection, I have no idea what vile power is operating to force even the most obnoxious of homo-sapiens to conform, but it is strong and thick.

Once in the Tube, the mind screams and pushes against the cultural norms, however the body can all but comply.

My Brittish friends are astounded to learn of any surprise we foreigners experience during Tube Shock. They simply can’t imagine life any other way, dear chap.

Rules for Tube Etiquette

Rule 1. Do not talk

Neither on the Tube, nor on the platform. One can step onto the platform along with a few hundred others during rush hour and hear a pin drop. Equal silence must prevail during the journey. Only once daylight is again visible, may speaking resume.

Rule 2. Join the Stare

If anyone breaks any of The Rules, all witnesses must participate in The Stare until the rogue behaviour stops. If The Stare is not sufficient to curb behaviour in the offender, it may be enhanced with Rolling Of Eyes and Sighs. The most persistent behaviour will also be punished with Shaking Of Heads.

Rule 3. Mobile phones are OK

Although speaking is strictly forbidden, if you can get a signal on your cell, you are obliged to demonstrate how excellent your service is by making and maintaining a phone call for as long as possible. You are also required to speak as loudly as possible, to ensure the whole carriage is able to awe over your service.

Rule 4. Blackberrys are a status symbol

Even if your blackberry will not get a signal in the tube, you must take it out of your bag and flip through your emails. This rule only applies during rush hours where other high powered executives will recognise your importance. You do this at other times at your peril. Hoodies like to take blackberrys. They don’t care how good you are.

Rule 5. Never sit next to Hoodies

They are dangerous. They are allowed to demonstrate this by breaking all tube etiquette rules. They are also allowed to break Rule Six and no-one will participate in Rule Two to stop them.

Rule 6. Do not spread out

You must only use your allocated space. Do not put your arms or spread legs or feet over other seats. The scope of your luggage is irrelevant. Anything that is larger than your seat space is to be scooped up close on your lap or under your feet against the wall. If it is rush hour, it is highly rude to bring more than one bag.

Rule 7. Do not imitate the recording

It is not funny to reminisce or mime the pre-recorded message that plays during your journey. Everyone knows it off by heart. You do not need to let them know that you can announce “mind the gap,” “stand clear of the doors please” and “this…is Waterloo” in the same breathy polite and patient tone of the voice over.

Rule 8. Do not make eye contact

This rule is second only to rule one. Never, ever look at anyone else. Of course, everyone does check everyone else out, however it appears that it is permissible if one is not caught by the watched.

Rule 9. Do not push in

You must queue. How late you are and the reason for your urgency is absolutely irrelevant. Find the end of the queue and stay there, even if it means that three trains have come and gone before you get on.

Rule 10. Say sorry

You can break any of the Tube Etiquette rules, or any other polite or common decency pseudoism, as long as you say Sorry. This includes barging through crowds, elbowing, standing on feet and generally being obnoxious.

At first nothing springs to mind.

Innovators like us, after 24 hours of pondering the question, realise that the Tour de France is on. Moment of enlightenment.

Hyde Park it is then. We decide to meet at Marble Arch, being an easy spot to find and get to. (By now, I have earned the reputation of one of the special few who achieve continuous lost status in London. Landmarks are important.)

Luckily, a few days earlier, someone has made an attempt to blow up Piccadilly Circus with a car bomb. London responds by going on ludicrous-level-high-alert. This is excellent, as it ensures that wherever you go, it is likely to be full of confusion, chaos and above all, inconvenience. Never a dull moment in London.

There are 100 people in my carriage on the tube. About 99 of them have pink blow up tubes that make a pong sound when hit together or on other objects. The noise is especially relaxing when coupled with the tremendous heat the Bakerloo line has managed to incubate over the day. Sweat hangs in the air.

The kids are all banging the pink balloon tubes on each other and I am thinking that some McDonalds parties just take things to the extreme. Even the adults get in on it here.

When we get to Marble Arch and 99 people all start the human crush in the direction of the door I realise that these are all spectators going to the same event that I am going to. When am I going to accept that in a small city of a cool 20 mill, I am never going to have a quiet, peaceful afternoon. At least McDonalds gets its cred back.

So I am breathing other peoples sweat now as we do the penguin shuffle toward the exit. Up, up and out. Like blind earthworms we all head in the same direction, maggots.

There is no space between us. We nudge, push, elbow each other. But somehow the English make it seem polite. One of the first rules I learned about tube etiquette is that you can do anything, anything, to a person and it is alright if you turn around and say you are sorry.

We are maggots for ten minutes trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel and I get a whiff of fresh air. The crowd get it too. A type of frenzy starts to occur and everyone wants to get out first. But it is a polite, quiet frenzy. No talking, and certainly no space for banging the pink balloons on stuff.

Finally we are out.

The crowd on the pavement is worse than inside. I inch worm my way to the side of the road, where there is a traffic jam taking place. But I have the Marble Arch in my site. Nothing will stop me now.

Right now, a big red double-decker bus crashes into a Mini Cooper. Right in front of me. The Mini sustains little visible damage, but dies like a girl and packs in the whole deal in an instant. The two men inside are now outside waving their arms about like windmills. The bus driver is yelling back.

I am marvelling and daydreaming at the symbolism of it all – the biggest lump of metal on London streets stopping the smallest, most inefficient and carbon heavy bug which carries the least people – when the mets (police) spring from everywhere.

Seriously, these guys are like the teenage mutant ninja turtles. There are mets on bikes, mets in cars, mets on horses, mets on foot. I recon I saw one come out of a man hole in the middle of the street.

The place swarms. Blue and white checked police tape goes up everywhere. How did they get so much? Someone must have a pack full of the stuff. Around the bus and Mini and in ever increasing diameters until the whole corner of the park, the tube station and halfway down the street are taped up. It is even around the legs of Marble Arch.

If we didn’t have mayhem before, we have it now.

The crowd is packed inside and outside the blue tape cage. We are like the ever-expanding universe and millions push out from the underground station. Everywhere is yelling now. Police are pointing in all directions, telling people to go everywhere.

But it is useless as the crowd is itself an animal and it just wants to get to the park and to the Tour de France.

In a moment of frustration, an officer has a lapse of concentration and tells someone that they suspect a bomb is in the car that ran into the bus at this busy intersection.

This has the effect of that thing ants do if you disturb them at a blob of food – running in all directions. People stream off the bus.

The running away actually causes other people to run back towards the point of action just to see what is going on.

I am doing large circles of the area. I am meeting Tim here and I will not be deterred. Part of me is of the opinion that if I tell the mets that I am meeting someone here, they will understand and let me stay. It’s a little while before I realise that they actually wont care about this at all.

At this stage, as fast as it started, it finished. Cops shouting ALL CLEAR into the crowd and the blue and white tape vanishes as if it has been wiped away with one of those really effective cleaning products you see on TV that can clean a whole house with one wipe of a gloved hand.

The other miraculous thing is that the pink tube balloons came back at this instant and the frenzied crowd transformed into a bunch of excited spectators again.

Such is London on ludicrous level high alert.

Vicki, me, John and Jason 

It was a last minute thing. £220 odd buys five nights in five star resort on the Red Sea in Egypt. All expenses covered – air fares. Transfers. All meals. All drinks – yep ALL drinks.

So what’s the catch (I am thinking). At the same time the flashing email is telling me unequivocally that if I don’t book NOW I will definitely miss out. It does the whole ticket countdown thing where you can see the bookings “walking out the door” virtually of course.

In a stable, consistent, nicely planned and organised environment where I have plenty of time to research and evaluate all options, I am great at being spontaneous. However, when I have to be spontaneous QUICKLY I am not so good.

Peer pressure had me. I accepted the deal. When else am I going to get to go to Egypt for five nights all expenses paid for less than what I earn in a week?

My first package deal.

I travel with three friends. We are one Pom, one Kiwi, one Saffa, one Aussie. We are United Nations. I arrive at Gatwick Airport three hours before I am meant to be there. My friends are all three hours away at least – and running late on top of that. Great.

The next three hours I spend watching the queue at customs get longer. Then it divides into two queues. Then four. Then it starts to do all these u-turns and snakes it’s slow progression around the whole northern end of the terminal. Then the airport staff start to erect more barriers to enable more queues.

Now I conveniently remember all those articles I read about how London’s airports are buckling and are nearly crippled under the weight of the new security procedures. See. That’s why I am three hours early.

The people traffic police arrive to deal with the four snakes. Gosh they are a happy bunch of individuals. They hand out multiples of clear plastic baggies that you are to put anything that oozes into. Toothpaste, makeup, water, sun cream, lighters. The snakes twist around huge clear plastic bins where people discard any container that holds anything that can ooze which is larger than 250 mls. I study these with interest. Its nearly as good as people watching at the beach. (Just quietly – some people take some pretty weird stuff on holidays. I mean, seriously, what do you need kitchen bleach for on an international flight??)

Naturally, I am prepared and have no contraband items. I am smug and pleased with myself as I commence to dismantle my luggage just to make absolutely double sure I have no contraband. As I thought, clear.

As the queues get longer I send increasingly more panicky texts to my friends. They reply calmly and I wonder if I am ever going to be a seasoned enough traveller not to always get nervous about missing the plane/train/bus/cab/moto/scooter/bike. I check us all in and get some seats in a row and ASSURE the clerk that my friends ARE DEFINITELY on their way.

They arrive.

All good.

We pass through customs lightning style as my Saffa mate is especially good at queue jumping. The Pom grumbled and argued and said we should wait our turn. The Kiwi got lost and the Aussie followed the Saffa cause he was the one currently leading the pack. Nothing has changed in the UN.

Naturally, our flight is then delayed. No apparent reason and when questioned the staff inform us just that the plane couldn’t find a park at the terminal. Something you would have expected could have been arranged earlier.

Excel Air is a truly quality airline. We have less leg room than a Vietnamese mini-bus and you can feel the undercarriage through the seat. My seat has a sharp protrusion in the middle of my back.

There is one operational toilet for the 300 odd people on the flight. I know how many people are on the flight cause I have time to count them all whilst in the queue for the dunny.

The queue, incidentally, has four ends. The dunny is in the centre of the cabin. The queues stack up each isle, one forward and backward of each side of the cubicle, down both side isles of the plane. The confusion at the centre of the aircraft is added to as the cabin crew bring out four duty free trolleys consecutively from each end of the plane, working up each isle toward the middle, being the centre of dunny hell and confusion.

Having used the only dunny, you now cannot return to your seat as each isle has a trolley blocking it. People start to do laps of the aircraft, trying to dodge the trolleys. As the staff from the drinks trolley do their stuff, more trips to the dunny are required, only now, you can’t get to the only one that works because there is a trolley ahead of you. There are now queues behind the trolleys.

I watch with extreme amusement as the staff on one of the trolleys try to navigate through one of the toilet queues. Cant go back, cant go forward. A third party (me) is required to step in and explain to the cabin crew that the queues are all waiting for the one working dunny and those behind are trying to get back to their seats as they are captured by the trolleys. So now all six cabin crew stop what they are doing and try to fix some of the dunnies. As they do this, they flirt with each other and even joke around about some members being locked into the cubicles together. Ooooo. Rebels.

The movie was good.

Arrive. Sharm el Shiekh, Egypt.

Looking off our balcony at the pool bar 

Sharm el Shiekh is a tourist resort town on the Egyptian coastline that meets the Red Sea. I knew this. However, nothing could have prepared me for the extent to which this region is developed for tourism. In fact, without tourism, I am nearly sure there would be nothing there save a couple of Bedouin tribes and a few camels.

The entire culture, landscape and authority changes for Sharm, to enable tourists to visit in the manner to which they are accustomed. Lest we experience another culture.

1. You don’t need a visa to enter Sharm if you are not travelling out of the Sinai region. Free passage for tourists. Naturally, everyone will try to rip you off and tell you that you need one – the most expensive one I was offered was £180 (or approx AU$350) and the cheapest was £5. On this occasion, I did not get ripped off. Only cause I was still following the Saffa. The kiwi got lost at the airport and was conned into buying a £5 visa, and we all waited outside the terminal for the Pom who got at the end of the queue and was nearly last through.
2. Egypt is a dry country – Alcohol is illegal. But not in Sharm. In Sharm you can get any drink, anywhere, and buy it in the corner stores. Just like England. Even Australia has tougher drinking restrictions than Sharm. But you have to be a tourist. The locals are not permitted to buy or drink.
3. Predominantly Muslim, Egypt requires discreet attire to be worn by women. Local women cannot leave their houses without a male escort. But not in Sharm. In Sharm, tourist women walk around topless and in G-string bikinis, so as to maximise their skin cancer opportunities and get a first class tan in the 40 degree Celsius desert sun. The sun-seeking tourists have absolutely no respect for local culture and are not discreet in any way. One could even excuse topless sunbathing on the beach, but this is by the pool, walking through the resort, walking around to the bars on the beach, and I saw one lady (I use the word with reservation) displaying her wares on the main street. To their credit, the staff were strict about people being properly dressed in the dining areas. I applaud them for this.
4. There are no women living in Sharm. They live outside the district and the men commute to work within. I can understand why, however it really highlights the segregated atmosphere and lack of local culture within the region. The whole place is a tourist resort.

Having said all this, I had the absolute best time of my life in Sharm (well, you know, it’s up there with all the other REALLY FUN STUFF category.)

For five nights and six days, I did not have to think about food, drink, water, entertainment. Everything is taken care of. You roll out of bed and cruise down to the pool for a leisurely morning dip. I did laps of the pool bar.

You take a conveniently provided shower, and flop on a sun lounge with cushy pillow and hotel provided cushy towel to soak up some morning sun. When you start to warm up you move under the conveniently placed umbrella.

At around 1030 its time for a coffee (or cocktail depending on your particular taste that day) from the pool bar. Around the same time the entertainment starts. There is an upbeat pool with a water slide and salsa dancing and pumping music. Or there is a laid back, quietly relaxing pool with “sounds from the Buddha bar” resonating around the lapping edges of the wade pool. There are other pools, but God knows its way too much work investigating them all. We have our two favs.

Around midday and most people are out of bed. We have made friends with the fellow English-speaking travellers (the place is predominantly Russian – or something?) and we start to chat about nothing for a couple of hours. Sometimes we play cards. Lunch is provided in three different restaurants and you can take a plate of food from any and move it to what ever place within the resort takes your liking. I munch by the pool with friends and by now I usually have a tequila sunrise (or long island iced tea – the two options are the only response the staff know how to dish out when you ask for a cocktail – its a lucky dip which one you get. I think it actually says something about the kind of travellers that have been through.)

The afternoon usually brings some kind of motivation to do something. Usually we head to one of the many beaches and pay another £2 for a sun lounger. We then proceed to float around on the surface of the salty Red Sea, perusing some of the best snorkeling sights I have ever seen. Shark Bay is by far the best snorkeling I have ever experienced.

Shark Bay: looking down at the sun lounges and the reef edge 

The beach itself is a pebbly stretch of sun lounges, straw umbrellas and sheisha bars. Met by the crisp blue and aqua of the Red Sea, it is breathtaking, and not at all what you expect to find at the end of the arid desert and dust. The pebbles are round and blunt and soft under-foot, however it is too hot to walk on in bare feet, and everywhere you see tourists performing the “pebble hop” as a hot one gets stuck in their thong/flip flop or flipper (this is especially funny. It’s always the large white man with the blistering red back and the pot beer belly that trundles down the beach in flippers (!) and then proceeds to get the hot rock stuck in one. Watching such an individual try to remove a flipper with a hot rock in it, whilst not allowing any other uncovered skin touch the ground, is like watching an uncoordinated emperor penguin trying to walk over hot coals.)

The hot pebbles of death descend into relatively icy waters that are lapping over roughly 50 metres of knee high water over coral reef. This is clearly not a comfortable situation underfoot, however the thoughtful people of the tourist resort have built a jetty out over the reef so that you can cruise up and jump into the depth beyond. This is where the coral and fish are breathtaking.

Pebbles of death await again when you leave the underwater fish kingdom, and by this time you are so ready for a lazy afternoon in a Shiesha bar. (A Shiesha is a metre tall water pipe with oriental designs all over it. One pops flavoured tobacco at the top and then takes the pipe in mouth and pulls tobacco through the water. It is a very relaxing pass time, and not addictive, I am assured. Hmm.)

Shark Bay shiesha bar 

Soon we ascend the cliff to haggle with the taxis about how much we will pay them to drive us back to the resort. After a bit of Shiesha you really don’t care that you are getting ripped off. We do get ripped off, but it wouldn’t be a holiday if it didn’t happen somewhere.

We shower.

Dinner is a buffet selection of everything. Mostly things are deep fried so I head to the salad bar. This gives me a wicked case of Egyptian belly, which is actually worse than Vietnamese belly. I lost about 3 kilos on this trip.

The evening is a show in the open air amphitheatre of the resort, where some poor guests have been conned into performing a strip-tease competition. It is tame, but quite amusing. The hotel staff (mostly from neighboring countries) work about 15 hours a day and dance around in the background, their beautiful, golden bodies taught and rhythmical, making the guests stand out like beached wales.

The hotel nightclub is interesting. All the latest from Top Of The Pops belting out at 150 decibels. Dark with blue neon flickering around a dance floor full of the socially beautiful. A lovely veranda equipped with seating was open to the night air, this was our hang. Not too loud. Not too smokey. Again, serving the all inclusive and randomly produced cocktails. Beer. Wine. We drink. A lot.

The whole charade starts again after we collapse into bed at around 5am.

Things to do in Sharm el Sheikh if you want to leave the resort.

Being the restless and slightly anti-mainstream backpacker that I have become, I insist that we include at least one excursion per day to a place outside our microcosm (known as Prima Rihana – I think this might mean prime/first/best life).

Mt Sinai

Adamant that we would add a historical element to this trip, I found that one is able to climb Mt Sinai. Great. Sign me up.

£25 will buy you a mini-bus trip to and from, meals, water and guided climb up the mountain. The catch is that you have to leave the hotel at 11pm, travel by night for three hours through the desert, climb up the mountain at 2am in the morning to arrive at the top for sunrise around 530am. It is just too hot to do it any other way.

Not sounding so fun anymore. I perform some quick cognitive dissonance and decide that I wanted to climb Sinai to see the scenery, and that one can see nothing in the desert at night. So I won’t be doing that trip. No.

Bedouin village

Bedouin is the name for the local tribes that reside in the desert. (I think the name means dust or sand people – which makes me wonder if it was more than coincidence that George Lucas filmed Star Wars in this region.)

Another £25 will buy an hour trip through the desert in a mini-bus, a camel ride to a traditional Bedouin village, afternoon tea sipping traditional Bedouin tea and sheisha, a climb up a mountain peak over looking the region for sunset, traditional Bedouin dinner followed by singing and dancing around the campfire with the Bedouin villagers. Back by 830pm to the resort, just in time for the nightclub to open and to take advantage of those free cocktails.

Despite the suspect occurrence of a few too many “traditionals” in the description, I am in.

Overall, it is a thoroughly enjoyable experience and I would recommend all do this when visiting Sharm. It is, however, a complete package deal set up. I fear there is little “traditional” about what one experiences on this outing.

On the upside, we do get to see something other than the inside of a tourist resort. The desert is like no desert I have ever seen. It is a light brown coloured dusty landscape that is arid and vegetation free. Absolutely flat ground is disrupted only by steep, jagged dark brown and black rocky cliffs that rise ad hoc like sentinels marking fallen soldiers in an ancient battlefield.

Camels wonder around. Incidentally, camels come in colours. I had no idea. They are white, brown, black, creme, sandy, blond, orange and speckled. They blend in perfectly in this landscape. They are a fitting addition to the otherwise life-absent atmosphere.

Riding a camel is HARD. Not only do they rock from front to back like a giant armchair, but they also sway from side to side. Although the walking pace my camel sets is slow, it is absolutely impossible for me to remove my grip from the saddle. I have a new respect for the racing camel jockeys.

Also, camels don’t smell nearly as bad as what I expected. I think the only smell apparent was sweat. And I doubt this was the camel.

The small boy leading my camel by a rope was very stubbourn and angry if you did not tip him well enough. He dobbed in anyone too tight to the guide. These outcasts were treated with the cold shoulder for the rest of the day. I am sure they got a worse case of Egyptian Belly as well…

Climbing the mountain for sunset, I really did feel like Luke Skywalker searching for Sandpeople in StarWars. The landscape is exactly the same. Amazing views of an ancient river bed at the top of the mountain – one that dried up many years ago. Our guide explains that not so long ago, there were trees in this area. But there has not been a single drop of rain since 1997.

Traditional Bedouin villiage car park with traditional utes 

Dinner and dancing by the fire was also a set up – 50 odd tourists from various places set up in lines eating their buffet of BBQ cooked foods. But it was delicious. And the music for the dancing was produced entirely by the singing of the Bedouin men and one bongo style drum, as the village is devoid of electricity. Had they been selling CD’s I would have been in. The music in Egypt is fantastically rhythmical, up-beat and different to the western alternatives we have.

What an experience.

Old Market

We trundle down to the Old Market in an attempt to see some cultural trading (as opposed to the typical shopping arcade of Naama Bay, build exclusively for tourists and naturally including the brands we all know and love).

We get ripped off by the cab driver on our fare there.

Taxi 

Alas, what we find is a few lines of street stalls full of the regular junk that a tourist would consider Egyptian (paintings on REAL papyrus of Tutankhamen, REAL spices that taste like dust and REAL Egyptian oils that lose their smell after five minutes).

We walk around, are ogled and yelled at to buy stuff, all of us relent and get ripped off buying something, and then leave, not feeling particularly enriched by anything we have seen.

Conclusion

My week in Sharm el Shiekh was one of the most relaxing weeks of my life. A beach/resort holiday, for the first time affordable on a backpacker’s budget.

It is a beautiful part of the world, full of people who only want to make your experience better. They are naturally friendly and are excellent customer service ambassadors.

I have learned what it is like to submit to the mass organisation of the package tour, where everyone forms a line and follows the next person regardless of individual desire.

I have also learned what it is like to knowingly contribute simultaneously to the slow demise of a local culture and the emergence of a new industry bringing wealth to an otherwise poor region.

I feel like a fat capitalist taking advantage of those less fortunate, forced to modify their beliefs and way of life to accommodate my western desires. I feel like this because I enjoyed myself. I am angry that I posted my silent approval by buying in to the whole thing. And I would return.

I am, however, enriched and no longer naive to the impact of globalisation and capitalism.

My fear is that many will leave without this perspective.

HOT DAMN, we are seeing some pretty speccy stuff over here.

We fly from Hanoi straight to Luang Prabang. We are over the bus thing. Air Lao has the worsed safety record in the world. That’s not why we chose it. (Breath out Dad.)

Our flight is delayed for 8 hours just because. How do you argue with that?

Eight hours in Hanoi International is less than stimulating. There are two rows of shops. And we know how the Vietnamese love to duplicate. Its like watching evolution on fast forward. Someone starts selling books. Next door they think it’s a good idea becuase someone bought a book yesterday. So they sell books too. This happens the whole way down the street until someone at the end finds a bar of soap on the road that fell off a passing scooter and so they put it on the shelf, someone buys it and WHAM! Tomorrow someone opens up a soap shop. Next week, everyone in the street is selling soap.

Anyway, Hanoi International. I look at books, beauty products and chocolate. I do it again. And again. I want to wash my face, read a book and eat sweet things. I am skipping the alcohol sections as I’m hung over like a dog from a rowdy exit from Hanoi the night before with our crazy Spaniyard friend Antonio and a date with Bia Hoi.

Aparently, we are the only people in the world who don’t know about the schedule change as we are the only people in the whole airport. Even the chocolate shops are stocktaking. There are two crazy yanks who are with us in misery and they are equally as happy about our plight. I can tell they want to wash their faces, read and eat sweet things too. We have dinner with them – FREE from Air Lao. And make great friends. Funny how fate works.

Our flight lands (!) at Luang Prabang. Pitch black and zero degrees. Nothing is open. Everyone here sleeps at nine and there is a curfew at eleven. Far above the town is a floating castle – white and gold. I am wondering if I am halucinating. It’s actually a pagoda on a mountain lit by flood lights. Looks like a crazy Disney Land fantacy island acid trip. I’m really happy about the situation because the Free Dinner has landed me a stomach issue. Couple that with the cold and the hangover and life is pretty great in Jaq’s world right now.

By a stroke of Buddha we find a guesthouse. I spend the night on the dunny. But I am not alone. In this town of 26000, it is entirely possible that 20000 have a rooster. And they are some mixed up birds. They crow ALL THE TIME. Every time I get up they are crowing. One close by and then every other from there to Hanoi.

In the morning I feel like I have been hit by a bus. Full of roosters.

I refuse to let it get the better of me and we set out to explore this new country. Luang Prabang is a sleepy, quiet laid back town that we love already. It is not as hectic, noisy or hassled as Vietnam or Cambodia and there are not as many hawkers, and they don’t pack hunt you down the street. No-one uses the horn so the streets are quiet and all go to bed around 11pm latest.

Rhys is devastated by the news that foreigners cannot drive moto’s here. Aparently it causes accidents (who knew?) For 10 days we point out every person of caucasian decent that is atop a moto and ask the ever-more-infuriating question “where did he get that?”

We are looking forward to a rest and a lazy Christmas. That is, apart from the roosters. Every one has one. Like a pet. They wonder everywhere. Kitchens, restaurants, streets, shops. Under your chair. AND they are loud bug*ers. Singing or music and each other sets them a-crowing. One rooster gets a whiff of it and you hear them for miles. It’s like a horrible recurring nightmare. Pretty funny though. Relentless Roosters. It gets me thinking. Chickens, I understand. They lay egs, you can eat them. But roosters? They just get randy with chickens. Oh and wake you up all night and crow at dawn. In packs they are even more of a blast. So why so many roosters here? Surely if you want to make more chickens there could be a communal rooster. All the guidebooks say this this a sleepy town and I can understand why. Everyone is awake all the time because of their rooster.

All that aside, the longer we stay in LP the more I love it.

Let me try to describe what it is like here. Poor. Bull dust lines the streets and fills the air. It is very cold in Luang Prabang now, the air is dry. Your skin is always dry and peeling or cracking and you are never warm enough. It is only this cold for a month, so all the buildings are built for the incredible heat – around 40 degrees all the time. Cracks in the walls, no glass in the windows, space under the door. Cold tiles underfoot. Blankets are few and far between. Everything is outside – restaurants, street markets – everything but your bed! The people are always frozen and all anyone talks about is the cold. The hot water is always running out – its cold too – but you are always covered in the bull dust – its like powder – in your nose, ears, coating your skin, under your nails and your clothes are always dusty. So you need lots of cold showers in the cold.

So what to do? You snuggle. Hot chai tea by the big screen in the day beds watching arthouse movies at the local culture vulture coffee shop and library. Laying in the midday sun by the most beautiful waterfalls with a picnic. Beer and coctails around an open fire in the yard of the only night club in town. Cooking your own meat over an open fire in the middle of your table (!) for dinner. Massages in the arvo.

Christmas

SO. Us aussies are doing it tough – to say the least! Rhys and I have met some awesome people on our travels and we have organised for all of us to have chrissy together. Two Americans, a Sweed and two Dutch. All used to the cold. Anyway, Aussie style, we have arranged for all of us to catch a tuk tuk through the bull dust clouds to a little river where we all pile into a little skinny canoue like boat. These are big people for a skinny boat. The boat is very old and leaking. Cold, glacier like water is flowing thorough the cracks in the wood as we cast out. The Laosians must have learned to sail from the Vietnamese, because here too, you cast out no matter what. You certainly dont start the boat first. If you are ready to go, you cast out. We cast out. The engine wont start. The driver is banging on the generator and eventually pulls out a spark plug. Growns from the goup. We are now drifting down the Meekong and the water is starting to come through the floor boards at the bottom of the boat. The sides are one inch above water level. Bits of the engine are being extrated in a most un-calculated manner. I dont like the irrational pulling appart of electrical or mechanical things. It took centuries to perfect thier construction. To take them apart in such an ad hoc, matter-of-fact kind of way does little to instil confidence in the would-be mechanic.

So we are in the waif like boat that is challenging the Milan Fasion Week Zero Size Models for silhouette. Sinking. I take off my shoes and socks. The boat is scraping and bumbing against rocks on the bottom which is causing water to come in over the sides. The bottom is only two feet deep – but its freezing water and when you only have one set of clothing, getting them wet is somewhat of an emergency. Mild panic has set in. It spreads through the group like a silent bout of bird flu. At first no-one says anything, not wanting to spread the panic. But small glances and tense body language is enough for air borne transfer. Soon everyone is squaking – including the Laosians at the front. We are packed in like sardines and if anyone moves the whole canoe is going over. At the last minute (you could literally tell this was going to happen – like a bad comedy) the engine roars to life, amoungst much banging of spark plugs from the driver.

Emergency over (we all knew it was going to be okay) we chug noisily down the pristine river to our destination, where it is imagined we will have an Aussie-style picnic in the sun with swimming and footy and beer. I get ripped off at the entrance for the waterfall fee.

Of all the waterfalls I have seen (being the national park fan I am – there are a few) this has to be one of the most spectacular. It looks like someone crafted it. A work of art. Sandstone coloured rocks are more like an organic flowing platform of combined stalectites that wind their way down the gentle sloap. Willowing graceful trees become one with the rock, their roots entangled with the rock itself. They mark the edge of each terrace of this multi-staged waterfall, like silent balerinas all a-poise and ready to slowly wave their graceful arms back and forth in unison. But all this is just a stage for the water. It is absolutely clear, yet as you gaze father away it appears aqua blue and cloudy. It is a phenomenon.

The boys all jump into it. What is it with boys and water? They always have to go in. I sit with the chicks and our deck of cards, beer and sangas in a patch of sun and we lap it up. What a great orphans chrissy.

We leave Luang Prabang reluctantly. We cannot enjoy the lingering ease we had in Vietnam. There is the omnipresent Flight To The UK looming and we still have to get to southern Thailand. OMG. I now have a stone elephant in my backpack that I gave to Rhys for Chrismas. HAHAHa I think as I buy it from the lady at the market. This will be funny for Rhys to have to carry in his backpack. What a laugh. In fact, so funny I will buy two. They are friends. hahah. Well. Since we are sharing the burden of luggage on this trip, I now have one of the pair in my backpack. Very funny Jaq.

Tubing in Vang Vieng 

We take the bus to Vang Vieng. I love how innocent that sounds. The man with the AK47 over his shoulder was probably thinking the same thing. I think he was there to protect us from the gangs of thugs that hang out in the hills and loot the passing traffic. Needless to say, I was not going to speak out of turn on this trip. The trip had to be the most windy, hilly trip of my entire life. I do not suffer motion sickness, but on this trip anything was possible. Rhys was all shades of green. I did not know there was an option for skin to turn such colours. When the bus broke down it was actually a relief. We watched as they fixed the bus (in the similar irrational manner that one would fix a boat in this country) and we remembered where our stomachs were and what it felt like to have our feet on the ground.

Vang Vieng was the site of our new years eve. On arrival I realised I was sick not just from the bus but from another ill fated meal and needed to spend another night on the dunny. Great.

I felt like mary and joseph in bethlehem as every guesthouse was full. Eventually we hired a motorbike (Rhys’ mood had improved on learning that they do not care if forigners have accidents here) and atop our faithful stead, we checked every bed-bug ridden hovel in this grimmey ugly little town. I am so less than impressed. Again, it is getting dark. And I need the dunny.

Somehow we found the most beautiful little bungalow across the river and set in for another long night of dunny trips. This town is Ferral. I hate it. I want to go home. There are streets of dirty restaurants that pump out loud music and have massive TV screens showing re-runs of Friends and The Simpsons and backpackers sit in puddles of sweat sipping beer and stuffing pizza in their mouths. This sucks.

As usual, the next day dawns on the most beautiful town in the world. I cant imagine how it got so ferral the day before. You need to stay out of the two main streets and the rest is a dream. We go tunnelling with crazy lights mounted on our heads amid limestone craggy outcrops of mountains and watch the most amazing sunsets.

We give New Years Eve the flick as we are so in love with the way this town comes accross at night. We listen to it from afar from our bungalow of peace. Dont even do the countdown. I dont care becuase NYs day was amazing. We are tubing.

You get a tractor wheel tube, sit in it, and drift down the river. You drift past riverside bars that throw beer at you. You stop and sunbake on the wooden decks that crop out around the corners where the current pushes your tube. They include entertainment – 20 metre high swings scale the mountain side – you climb up and swing out over the river to let go mid air and plunge to your DOOM in the water. Piece of piss, I think. It takes me 20 minutes, having climbed to the top of the rickety ladder leading to the swing, to actually jump off the platform. I do this to the sounds of 100 backpackers below chanting JUMP JUMP. For the rest of the day, whenever I walk or tube past someone, I hear – hay – there is that chick that took so long to jump. At least I jumped. Not many did.

Tubing continued all day and many whiskys later until we watched the big red sun sink behind the huge upright mountains. What a WOW moment. Microsoft would have loved it. Rhys and I share one of those I Cant Believe We Are Here looks. Makes it all worth it.

Next stop is VIETNAM and HCMC or Saigon. We get ripped off on our bus ticket, naturally.

HCMC. We love Vietnam. I am happy we came here after Cambodia because everything seems really well organised, bigger, more developed. There is more commerce here – people are selling electronics, brand name clothing. The hawkers are just as interested in the locals so less hassling. The buildings have solid roofs, rather than leaves. There seems to be a regular garbage disposal system. People clean the dirt off things. We are in a FRENZY! So excited to do new things – explore the city. But it’s getting dark…

First stop, Bia Hoi. Big silver keg full of preservative free, fresh beer, straight from the brewery. Small, plastic chairs, of the playschool kids variety, sit facing the road. The rows of chairs on the sidewalk are separated by silver folding tables on which sit your beer nuts, or your grilled dried squid, whichever takes your fancy. The vast array of nibbles drift by on mobile street stalls illuminated by the omnipresent fluro lighting as you drink your cold beer. Where else in the world do a rack of illuminated, dried and flat squids drift by on the back of a bicycle, which plays happy birthday as if it was Mr Whippy. Rhys is drinking 10 cent beers and chatting with the locals. Luckily, I have brought a supply of Mekong Whisky with me. I am adding it to 7up – the only other thing on sale at Bia Hoi. Our new fav place.

The next day we are still in a frenzy. We go everywhere! Modern Art Museum, Rex Hotel, Peoples Party building, Reunification Palace, Notre Dame, Post office, War Remnants Museum… We are on FIRE. And I cry, again. Many sad truths on display from the wars. But it is really interesting to have a history lesson from the Viet vantage. I am learning.

We are having a ball! We do Pho Bo on the sidewalk for breakfast and eat from the street stalls.

The “Dark Days” erupt next. Actually it is more like an explosion. Rhys gets a parasite or food poisoning or something from a burger. Hand-break is now fully applied to the frenzy. Its pretty severe, all jokes aside, and I have secretly picked out a hospital if my emergency medical kit is not effective. Because it is so severe I am not going to make jokes about it. I am sure we will laugh at him later. He spends five days locked into our guesthouse, and I wonder around district one, two and a little of three. I know them off by heart.

Meanwhile, I have re-discovered coffee. Yes – I had given up in Cambodia, due to the hunder-shichen varieties on offer. You do not know coffee until you drink it in Vietnam. Strong, sweet and with ice. Ca Phe Sua Da. Its served in a tall glass under a drip filter cup-like percolator (yes, I rush out and buy one) with a smack of sweetened condensed milk. This is truly the best coffee in the world. I am on a coffee high for three days after my first cup. I’m like a bee in a bottle. And fully hooked on coffee. Again.

Chu Chi Tunnels 

We have lost a lot of time due to the affair Rhys had with the parasite, but I forgive him. We go to the Chu Chi Tunnels. Yes, I go in. Dark, small, hot, tight. Smells like wet clay. Naturally a larger man is trapped up ahead. Panic and adrenalin is in the air. Yelling in a foreign language. We are next to the firing range and a tourist is hammering out some rounds. Gun fire. Somehow I have ended up down there the first of my tour group. We all back out. Breathe. We are all a bit jittery now. Nervous chatter as we wait for the stuck to squeeze though.

Its our turn. Fast down, fast up, is my plan. It’s 100 metres with 30 metre breaks. I can do the hunj. Piece of cake.

20 metres in and I’m in a mild panic. Fear and adrenalin are working. I can’t see. I cant stand up. We are going down and there are tunnels to the left – should I have turned? What if we go around in circles and can’t get out? My group is following asking how much further? Its rhetorical. Sunlight, ladder, up and out. Breathe.

The tour guide tells me it’s only 30 metres. I’m not going back down. We all decide not to.

Truly, it is absolutely amazing that people lived and were born in these tunnels. I cannot describe this feeling of being underground. They actually enlarged the tunnels by 60% to allow tourists to fit. I know the Viets are small people but omygod. The tunnels are ingenious. There are underground kitchens that disperse smoke via a complex chimney system over many metres. There are trapdoors and tunnels under tunnels and water entrances. They dug them with spades and moved the dirt out in tiny baskets. I am in awe of those that designed, crafted and lived here. I also feel for those made to hunt inside them. I’m crying again.

The Open Tour – Hoi An 

We slowly travel up the coast on our rip-off open tour ticket, which enables us to get on and off the bus circuit as we choose. We hit Hoi An (yes – site of the infamous Hair Cut) after a 12 hour night bus ride. We have found that our arrivals in new places are always eventful – this one was no disappointment.

I step off the bus, sleepy having just woken, to find Rhys sitting in a muddy gutter surrounded by the usual entourage of hotel staff, moto drivers and touts, all trying to convince you of something. He has a green/gray facial tinge accompanying an absent stare. He looks at me then walks around the corner to vomit. Not the reaction one hopes for when meeting one’s boyfriend. Somehow, we check in to a hotel and two hours later he wakes up, with a massive “scene missing” and has no memory of actually arriving. He took three sleeping pills on the bus because “the first one didn’t work.” He explores the room for the second time.

We get stuck in Hoi An for three weeks. We love it. I love that we stay in one place long enough to first notice the little things, and then find the reason for them. There is a highway outside the town that links it to Da Nang. The highway is surrounded by a whole neighbourhood of houses that have only two walls – or three walls and a roof, or a back room and the front room half ripped off – literally backing straight onto the tarmac of the road. You drive down the road and look straight into half a kitchen with stairs up to half a second level and a bedroom. Like a dolls-house.

It turns out that the govt decided to upgrade the road and it needed to be wider. So they just sent a bulldozer and a demolition crew out and cleared a path through the houses for the extra lane. No-one was compensated. So you have these people, still living in what is left of half their house, backing straight onto the highway with trucks and moto’s polluting past. Most of the people have sealed the holes by stealing the Apec 2006 conference banners and using them as tarps. I love it.

Hoi An was also the site of the Fun Run. hmmm.

The Hoi An Fun Run

Our hostel conscripted us into the Annual Hoi An Fun Run or something where we were told we would run against other foreigners. I’m told “It’s easy. Only three hundred million metres! You will win!” I am hoping they mean three kilometres.

I know I like running, but nothing about running in Vietnam is fun. The whole organised event was absolute chaos – but in typical Viet style, everything just seemed to work. We turn up (atop scooters and armed with a cheer squad from reception at the hotel and with the token boy, for me I think, who drives the bus. I have never heard him speak.) And so we are immediately ejected from our scooters into a crowd of screaming school kids dressed in full tracksuits (that’s the other bizarre thing here – it’s 50 degrees and everyone dresses like its winter in Oslo. Okay, so its actually only 30 but its blo*dy hot.) We are ushered to an important looking desk full of people making notes (what the? its like 7am in the morning and it’s a fun run. What are the notes for?) and it’s apparent we are the only foreigners to turn up, apart from one other chick who is so happy we have arrived she nearly wet herself. We decide to run together, which means Rhys has to run in the “Ladies event” which made our cheer squad chatter and giggle and all the organisers madly scribble more notes. We figure it wont really matter on account of there only being three of us competing. They decide to let us run with the school kids – the girls of course.

So they attach numbers to us and stand us behind a sign that we assume means VIP. Then there are opening speeches. It transpires that this is an annual event that is meant to inspire fitness in kids and make tourists have a happy time in Hoi An – and meet the locals. We know this because they have an interpreter speak after every speech so that the three of us (in the sea of about 200 Viets) can understand. It’s in dire need of some promotional help, seeing as there are three international folk and a bunch of school kids, but the whole town has turned out to watch so we feel special.

Then they call the three of us onto stage and give us flowers and water. Thank goodness the hotel staff came – they hold the flowers as they would probably would not look so good after the three kay dash.

Anyway, they start the race. This happens suddenly and with no warning. All of a sudden a whistle blows and three hundred school girls start running. We are in the next event – ladies. The girls finish their 1500 metres and in true marathon style they collapse Ron Clarke fashion at the finish line. Their friends and teachers pick them up in the Olympic coach style and an ambulance hovers around looking official. They go somewhere and all of a sudden it is our turn. We know this because a whistle blows and people line up. We line up and are told to line up somewhere else. It kind of feels like something will happen soon. They are all still upset that Rhys is not a woman. Then a whistle blows and we run. I ran. I ran. We were separated. The locals totally ignore the kids running and cheer for me. I wave like I’m princess Diana. Someone offers me a taxi on the way. Love the Vietnamese – so opportunistic. I then try to enlist a chain of “cyclo’s” which are bicycle taxis to help me. They laugh. But to me, I’m princess Diana so who cares. At some stage the girl next to me starts running faster so I figure we are near the end. The fun run is through the town and I have no idea where we are.

Then its finishes. I am the first foreigner over the line and the crowd is in a frenzy. People run up to me to catch me when I faint. But I can’t faint. They look really uncomfortable, like someone who has offered a handshake but the handshakee won’t do any shaking. So they procure more flowers and give them to me.

When Rhys finishes the girls swoon and cheer and then we are ushered onto the stage (!) and more flowers and speeches and gifts and Chinese lanterns. We have some good photos of this. They are on Rhy’s blog. Then back to the hotel.

Everyone is so excited. We take the six bunches of flowers we have between us and Rhys gives one to each of the princesses at reception (smooth.) And I give mine to the reception area in general and a frenzy of floral art explodes with giggles and photos and then free breakfast is presented and more giggles.

We escape to the beach.

Hoi An and the Endless Search for Gunner 

My final story for Hoi An is the “Endless Search for Gunner.” I have so many stories that I want to tell, but have to limit them to a novel for this installment.

This story is set in the surfers digs at China Beach called Hoa’s Place. There is a typhoon coming and Rhys is frenzy-like in his desire for the surf. I am happy because it is the longest beach I have ever seen and I can run along it until my feet bleed. And I do. Heaven. God I am a wierdo.

So Hoa’s Place is a cruisy, laid back restaurant surrounded by guesthouses (again, using the term guesthouses loosely here – beds in caves and a hose coming out of the wall. What we do for a surf hey?) And Hoa is a beautiful Viet man who teaches English and produces an atmosphere of a school camp-like mess hall in his open air cafe. Everyone is friends. Everyone chats and lays around the beach and reads and drinks and waits for the surf.

Needless to say, when the surf is coming, it is electric. Talks for hours about what the weather is doing and the style of surfing necessary. So there is a typhoon. Frenzy with a capital F. There are only two surfboards for rent at Hoa’s – both long boards and there are about 10 prospective surfers. Hmmm. We hear of the mythical land called Gunner’s place where there are surfboards a-plenty – short ones and long ones – for rent. The search begins.

We know it exists because others have returned with boards. Gunner is a German man who came here and got stuck and never left. He now teaches English and runs an on-the-side surf board rental business.

He is just up the road apparently. We search. We stop in every street with a scribbled note from Hoa in Vietnamese (I think it says “we search for Gunner”) which is of absolutely no help as no-one has heard of Gunner. To make things more interesting, the note is scrawled on a business card for another, unrelated place. So we can never tell if the people are pointing us toward the unrelated place or to Gunner. No one speaks English. The roads are dirt. It is hot. Everyone here is banging on something. God it’s noisy. Whenever we stop people get all excited we are going to buy something and show us everything they have in their shops. I am getting really good at charades by this stage. And I have absolutely no idea what we will do when we actually find him. We are on a scooter. How do we get a board all the way back to our guesthouse – by now we must be at least 15 mins drive away.

Eventually we end up (on our third attempt out) at what looks like the local drug lord’s palace. Everyone has pointed in this direction. Again no English, or recognition of Gunner. Just pointing. We have narrowed it down to one house. It has a big fence and two SUV’s parked in the front garden. Solid, two story. We stand at the gate whilst the three German Shepherds go ballistic. This in a sea of tin and wood shanties. It has to be it. We stand there for about ten minutes. Even the dogs are getting bored. Finally a lady comes out. I try to talk to her in German because she is not understanding English. It turns out she is Norwegian. Everyone always points all lost foreigners to her house, just because she is also a foreigner. She does not know Gunner. And she has NO surfboards. What are they?

We go home.

Then the typhoon hits. Rain, cold and all the dust turns to mud. It is so enjoyable on the scooter. The rain goes everywhere and in your eyes like little needles. We think the surf will come tomorrow apparently. So Rhys has a map now, from Daniel who actually found Gunners place. He is like a prophet. So if there will actually be waves it is paramount that we get a surfboard. This enlightenment happens at 6pm at night, in the rain, when it is dark in Vietnam. Nice.

So we board the scooter for the forth time. We navigate the mud roads with style. There are no street lights. I hold a torch so that it lights a few meters ahead of us. To put your feet on the ground might result in being ripped from the scooter with the suction effect that is being created by the gloopy mud. But we get the board.

Picture this. Me. Mop head hair cut, dripping with rain. Board shorts and wet weather jacket under a plastic, see-through pink poncho rain bag that we bought for 20 cents. Chicken skin. There is mud in a creative pattern splattered up my back and all over the back of my legs from the rear wheel of our beast of a scooter. The road is quick sand and the scooter careers and slides all over the place. Its tires are half way sunk in the mud. No helmets. Rain. No street lights. I have one arm above my head directing the torch light in front of the scooter so we can see when we are next going to fall off. Oh AND I have a surfboard under my other arm. I have to battle to keep it from becoming a main sail and ripping me off. Rhys puts his foot down to stop us falling over and that was the last time we ever saw one of his thongs. Lost to the suction mud. We are in hysterics.

Picture this – 50 degrees, open air shop front affront a family living room, dusty keyboard, cranky old rusty fan, scooters with no mufflers hooning past, beeping, skin that’s crispy with sun – feels like its cracking. Every so often the fan oscillates a whiff of mozzie repellent past as you slap another one and scratch the last one. My hard drive has no case and endless wires and ports spill from its guts. The brown screen peers out from the jungle of cords the hard drive is projecting like an elaborate water feature. Next to me, the Vietnamese girl is wearing a balaclava, mittens and head to foot in the Cao Dai, silk national outfit, complete with socks that have a hole in the big toe for the thongs, a cone shaped bamboo hat hiding the slit the balaclava has left for her eyes. Not a drop of sweat on her. I wipe my brow, wring out my singlet and notice my board shorts are stuck to the plastic seat. The shop attendant behind me slurps down some white noodles, adds some garlic and chili to his soup, (pho bo – meaning literally rice noodles and cow) mixing nicely with the mozzie repellent aroma, hocks a lougie and spits it out close, but not touching, to the water feature that I sit typing upon. Somewhere I hear a jackhammer and a circular saw. Incessant beeping from the 300 scooters whizzing past the shop front.

I’m in Hoi An – a historical town about 7ks off the coast, famous for, well – historical reasons. Kind of like Paris Hilton – famous for being famous.

Rhys and I are stuck here. We arrived about two and a half weeks ago and cannot leave. Our visa expired. We got a new one. Funny that we are only half way through Vietnam and have spent longer here than we thought the whole country would take.

We are in love with Hoi An. It is beautiful. It has these old confused buildings – french terrace townhouse style but with Chinese frills – beautiful balcony balustrades and window frames – the bars over the windows are often in the shape of the Chinese character for good luck and prosperity – so much nicer than the safety bars we are so used to seeing in Aussie. Every so often you just walk past an old Chinese pagoda or temple. Just like that in the street. Amazing.

Hoi An was untouched by the wars (although it was flattened in a rebellion once) but it has managed to hold onto the history of the architecture – it is rendered in beautiful yellows and at sunset the whole place explodes in colour. I draw. Rhys takes photos.

So its also close to the beach and we scooter up there a couple of times a day for a dip in the aqua blue, perfectly refreshing but not cold South China Sea. White sandy beach with the beach restaurants, bars and sun loungers that we know and love. Oh and there is also surf. So Rhys has lost the manic tick that had started to appear in the cities and is back to normal.

I have come straight from having a hair cut in Hoi An. My mop had gone rather bleach blond in the sun and is quite knotty. It actually looked like a bit of a mullet (!) on account of the layered style I had so eloquently cut back in Aussie. I looked around. I wanted to wait until Ha Noi but since we are stuck here, I decided the mullet had to go. I looked around some more. Most of the “hairdressers” are actually barbers that have acquired old dental chairs and somehow erected them into the sidewalk, attached a mirror and have a comb and old-school razor handy. A sloth like arm will protrude from underneath a towel or sheet atop the chair as the “hairdresser” sleeps the day away, waiting for the next victim.

So. What am I to do. In a country full of black, dead straight hair which is seldom cut let alone styled on the ladies, where was I to find someone capable of dealing with my thick, sun bleached, matted, salty mullet mop. I went to one of the more pricey hotels which was advertising a day spa.

The salon is dead. No lights. No people. A menu sat on a black dental chair. A tumbleweed blew through…

The menu was actually for things the salon will do for you. A haircut was US$5. Free blow dry. Not bad, but I know you get what you pay for in Vietnam. I’m procrastinating when she appears, chewing, from somewhere, points to my head and says “too long?” I agree. I gotta fix the mullet.

I know I’m in trouble when she pulls out the razor blade. At least I’m not on the dental chair. A stool appeared and a smock wrapped around my neck. The razor has already cut some of the hair so I can’t back down. To try to salvage the situation, I quickly flipped through the closest mag and found a picture of Cameron Diaz, who has similar hair to mine – ie dead straight and bleached and luckily in this pic her hair was quite short and styled really nicely so I pointed to that and the response is a blank stare at me, razor hovering. There are many words in my head at this point. None I can reproduce here.

I decide to dive right in. It will be funny. Funny how the mind rationalises these moments of crisis.

She proceeds to hack all my hair off with the razor blade. She stops at some point and says “this really nice cut. Where you get it done. What colour this?” Now I am really worried. Every woman worth her weight knows that your hairdresser should know at least two things without ever having to ask…ever. One is that when you walk in with a mullet that is three months regrown it is no longer a really nice cut. Two is that if you have a colour, she should know what it is. And she absolutely without question should know if it is natural and not a colour. Needless to say, I am now especially worried again. The words in my head are going into hyper drive.

The only other time she stops was to pick up some scissors (thank god I think… there is hope yet) and only to find that after a few attempts at chopping my hair they are blunt as a butter knife. Or chopstick. Either would have had the same effect. She shrugs and goes back to the razor.

The whole thing (including blow dry) took 15 mins. Usually a trip to the hairdresser will take me 60 – 90 mins.

So I have no hair. Its really short. I have not been brave enough to look in a mirror yet. Rhys said it was cute and then laughed. Somehow I am not encouraged.

So now I am off to the market to find a lovely piece of silk that I can tie around my head for the next two months. By the time we get to London it will be minus ten so I will whack a beanie on.

The first time I witnessed a moto driver fit me, my backpack, my daypack AND his daypack on his scooter I was speechless. I held on for my life.

Over time, you get used to the scene of whole families of five and their produce cruising past on two tiny wheels – the various bits and pieces balanced precariously as they bob over the bumps and pot holes.

It is like the scooter has a curious magnetic force attracting it’s load to it. How does it all stay on?

By the time we depart for London, not only am I riding behind Rhys, perched on the back seat with said backpack, daypack AND Rhys’pack, but also I could do it with no hands.

And considering buying one back home.

Never the less, I am still amazed at some of the loads that cruise past on scooters. When reading this list, keep in mind these are scooters.

1. three live pigs (Cambodia)
2. a pyramid of polystyrene plastic containers – five metres high (Cambodia)
3. mum, dad and three kids (Cambodia)
4. 50 chickens, bound by foot (Cambodia)
5. four cubic metre bales of green watercress (Cambodia)
6. regular size integrated fridge/freezer (Vietnam)
7. bar fridge (Vietnam)
8. 16 panel billboard, similar to airport size (Vietnam)
9. queen size bed
10. a metre in diameter bale of barbed wire (!)(Vietnam)
11. surfboard (this was US in Vietnam)
12. 10 metre tall palm tree transplant (Vietnam)
13. panes of glass (Vietnam)
14. glass cabinet of book shelves (Vietnam)
15. eight single bed mattresses (Vietnam)
16. two metre diameter satellite dish (Laos)
17. tractor wheel (Laos)
18. an elephant. (Thailand) (Well. This was on a ute. But still.)