Archive for March, 2008

Moving it Manila Style

Mar 29

Posted by Dean Roskell in Dean's Jolly Solo Jaunt, Philippines | No Comments

We boarded a late night flight over the seas to the Philippines, landing in Manila at 5:30am. Without too much hassle we managed to get a taxi over to a hostel near the airport. It was a short journey of only around ten minutes, but it was a good early lesson in the Filipino people and their strong love of God and Catholicism. I’d read that the Philippines was a fairly strong Catholic country, a big change from all the Buddhism I’d gotten so used to. The effects of this were clear in the taxi ride. A simple act such as a few religious figures on the dashboard have the power to make someone invincible, and with that, enables them to drive wildly through traffic knowing that their god will see them to safety. It was pretty much like one of those Thai roller-coasters but with more honking.

We safely checked in to the hostel, and after happily crashed out after the long night of journeying. Not to waste the full day though, we woke early afternoon and decided to walk out and see what type of city Manila was. A big one is a pretty good explanation. We walked north from the hotel hoping to reach the city centre park. It was a great deal further than we’d expected it to be, but along the way we got to see some great sights of the Filipino people, and they certainly enjoyed seeing us.

As I mentioned earlier, much of the Philippines is off the main travelling route round South East Asia, so being here, even in this big city, is quite the novelty for the locals. We were approached by lots and lots of people, some just wanting to say hello, some wanting to sell us a fake DVD or hat; we even had two guys that were so interested that they ended up in some argument with each other over whether I was English or American, and something to do with three hundred Pesos. They actually forgot we were there, giving us the opportunity to just slip away in to the crowd.

We also got our first chance to sample Filipino food that day, first we sampled a simple pork filled steamed bun with some thick soya sauce which was nice enough, then at night we followed it up with a few local dishes. It was pretty clear that veg isn’t a big thing in the Philippines, most food contains a base of meat followed by some complimentary fried noodles or rice, or just mixed with egg. Over the first few days we really struggled to get anything that looked like a semi-healthy dish.

After finally reaching the park just after sun down we decided that it was probably best that we see it the following day during daylight hours. So we walked back to the hostel via the scenic Roxas Road, which follows the shoreline. Along the way we came across a small park complete with sleeping homeless people (there are many round the city) and some amazing trees with naturally formed vine swings (Naturally formed with a little human help I think).

We finished the night off with a walk around the packed out night market that sold all sorts of brick-a-brack and gubbins. It was amazing how busy and lively the place could feel at around 2am.

The next day we decided to skip the lengthy walk to the park and jump in a local taxi, which cut our previous day’s journey of around three plus hours down to about twenty minutes.

The park is a fantastically popular place for the locals to hang out, as well as a local performing troupe and a group of break-dancers that happily put on a day long show for anyone that cared to watch.

Within the park also was a Japanese garden. Not the best kept garden in the world, but it contained the necessary elements, i.e. The fancy little
bridge and archway. It was fun, but maybe not enough to bother writing home about (which is exactly what I’ve just gone and done).


After a long walk around the park we went to the local mall where I treated myself to a new pair of shorts (I no longer look like I’m wearing a fat mans pair mum!). We also tried some more Filipino food. I went all out and ordered this red coloured soup dish that looked a little like Thai red curry; it really wasn’t though, in fact I’ve since been told that the chunky meaty stuff inside was probably some sort of Ox intestines. I didn’t manage more than a nibble though, the soup tasted of concentrated peanut and was far to rich to handle. Amanda opted for a safer shrimp and rice offering which went down much easier than my purchase.

Our final day in Manila was spent planning the trip forward through the many islands. It’s a complex task, with so many possible routes and options to take, but Amanda’s fine skills at creating flow charts (well boxes and arrows) gave us a good idea of what to do.

We ended our stay in Manila with a stroll around the China Town district. It’s a big area, apparently the biggest China Town in the world. We stopped outside a church for some food from one of the many snack stalls, where the local kids, and adults too, took great interest in us and our camera, especially my big Canon DSLR. So we spent a good while taking snaps of them, which they really enjoyed.

Ponder Box
Who’s job is it to choose which sound of horn goes in each type of vehicle?

Back in Bangkok

Mar 29

Posted by Dean Roskell in Dean's Jolly Solo Jaunt, Thailand | 1 Comment

If you’re wondering where Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand Part 1 went, well they’re still in the works. I’m going to try to add some historic entries to this as I go along, as well as keep a more up to date version following what’s going on now. It’s going to throw the ordering out of place, but eventually I hope that I’ll get all the journeys accounted for, as well as get Tom to add his adventures downunder in this all new two-pronged approach to blog, three if you count the historic entries as well. Hope it doesn’t get too confusing.

After a not so comfortable flight, both from Manchester to Frankfurt, and from there on, I finally arrived back in Bangkok. So nice to feel the heat and jump in to the hustle and bustle of Thai life again.
As promised, Amanda met me at Centre Bar on Khoasan Road; She’s not someone you’ve met in the blog yet, although she’s already featured in some of the photos from our time in Vietnam.
As luck would have it we both arrived in Bangkok at a similar time, both lacking travel buddies and any sort of concrete plan forward. So we decided to pair up and see what else South East Asia had to offer.

Amanda’s Thai visa was running low on free days, so we looked at options beyond the country. Randomly, she brought up the Philippines, it’s not too far away, and it’s also just off the beaten track due to the South China sea splitting it away from the rest of the huddle of countries.

So we arranged a flight to Manila, leaving a few days after, giving us a final few nights to enjoy in Bangkok. Yes, when I say nights, I do mean getting drunk on bucket cocktails, making friends with a group of Thai girls that made and sold said buckets, as well as dancing like loonies.

We also met up with a couple from Amanda’s home town (That’s Winnipeg, Manitoba in Canada). Jed and Trisha had arrived from the Philippines after holidaying and visiting Jed’s family over there. As a group, we all went on a cultured trip out to a Bangkok Theme/Water Park, to see how the Thai’s enjoy themselves when it comes to loop-the-loop roller-coasters, wave pools and twisting water slides.


We had a great laugh there, the park had some amazing roller coasters, truly stomach churning twists and speedy turns that put most of Alton Tower’s rides to shame. The only part I wasn’t convinced of though was the amount of friction I found on the water slides, often resulting in me ending the ride with a group of puzzled and frustrated Thai kids in a slow train behind me. And just because it didn’t happen to anyone else apart from me doesn’t stop the ride from being at fault… right?

Other highlights of our few days in Bangkok were: going to the post office to send stuff back to Amanda’s, riveting. Buying a copy of the children’s classic Treasure Island (not got round to reading it yet though). Watching some live bands play. Wasting an entire afternoon in Starbucks surfing the net and picking at a Blueberry muffin.

It’s fun to be back on the road again after the short trip home, not that I don’t miss everyone back there. For some reason I’ve grown to feel comfortable moving from place day-to-day. I think my mind has got used to expecting a constant change of scenery. It’s certainly not the same travelling without Tom, although Amanda and I have already been called geeks by her friends; so it’s good to know I’m in good company there… I should have brought my Warcraft Cards out with me.

Ponder Box

Are there any types of food that don’t taste nice with honey?

Happy New Year – What? a.k.a Cat Ba Island

Mar 5

Posted by Dean Roskell in Tom & Dean's Excellent Adventure, Vietnam | No Comments

Ok, so let’s get the title clear, I know it’s March and not even the Chinese celebrate New Year this late on, but we’re behind. I know I made that big old promise to keep this thing up to date, to keep those blog wheels turning, but hey stuff happens and things start to fall behind; before you know it the imaginary inbox of travel notes looks more like a certain mountain we visited a few months back- too daunting to tackle, best leave it be for now. We know what happens when you apply that attitude, so this is my attempt at a spring clean, to dust out the old notes and make room for the new. I’d promise again that I won’t let it get this far behind, but we all know that can and probably will be broken again, best just leave it to chance and opportunity, pretty much like the organisation of this trip.

Tom briefly mentioned New Year in his Hanoi post, but I thought I’d add more to it as the few days we spent going to and from Cat Ba Island were great fun; maybe a little cold for travelling round exotic islands in South Asia, but I’m sure it was colder in other parts of the world.

At first we planned to stay in Hanoi for New Year, it’s a wonderful city as Tom has mentioned, but as the days went on we realised that the opportunity for celebration there was pretty much down to one bar, one Irish bar (Yep, even as far as Vietnam). A few people we met were talking about going out to Cat Ba Island, and from the photos we saw it looked really good. One night spent sleeping (and drinking) on a boat, one night in a hotel, then a day trip back to Hanoi. We’d done our time on a ferry, but not a Chinese style junk boat, this was a great chance to add another vehicle to the list. So Tom, Nick, Debs, Jo, James and little old me booked the trip, we actually got to add a few new names to the list too, Donna (She’ll no doubt appear many times in the future of this blog), Alyson and Naj.

We set off on the trip the day before New Year’s Eve, taking a bus ride with the rest of the boats crew (well not actual crew, but you know). Our host for the journey was the charismatic, pint-sized guide called Tom (Which is Vietnamese for Shrimp, I kid you not).

You can see our miniature leader in the centre of the photo issuing orders to the workers. What a guy.

So we boarded the boat and ate lunch, got our rooms and enjoyed the cruise out in to Halong Bay past the first of the 1,969 islands that are in the area.

Our first stop was to visit an island with a huge cave system inside, featuring many huge stalactites and stalagmites, as well and tourist grade walk ways and adequate lighting; we were no longer in the out and out remote spots of adventure any more, we’d finally joined the suite case crew.

Oops.

Quickly moving on here, after a walk round the cave, which was impressive, just a little to unnaturally lit and slightly too crowded, we went Kayaking!

Sadly we have no photos of this event, it’s a good thing we didn’t try either as there was a fair bit of water involved.
We paired up and boarded our kayaks, paddling off round the local islands. Obviously being in the South Asian seas we had to do our part for piracy; ramming any near by boats and generally causing mischief (Just like the real life pirates, or so I want to believe). By the time we’d reached the far point of the trip out, in a cove, things got very giddy. We decided to dive from the kayaks and do a little swimming and boarding of other poor innocents vessels. After leaving Tom in charge of our fine buoyant buddy, I went for a little tour around. I’d not been away for more than a minute and he’d let the thing get boarded by Black Beard Nick, not just that, Nick’s attack came with so much rage that our boat took on water, it actually began to sink. Tom luckily managed to right it back up and keep it in the water, but it was floating low due to the amount of drink it had took on board. There was no chance that it would carry the both of us now. So I had to climb aboard the good ship Jo and James, and get them to paddle like they’d never paddled before, carrying both me, and towing Tom, back to the Island.

It was a slow and painful process (well not for me, but for Jo and James). Everyone else paddled on by as we crept back bit-by-bit. All was not lost though, Tom (not our Tom, but the pint-sized leader) came to the rescue and saved our boat, towing it back to the island. Just leaving Jo, James and I to work our way back. It wasn’t till the end was in sight that I had the rather amazing idea to hang on to the back and paddling, and what do you know, it didn’t just work, it worked amazingly well. Think Dash in the Incredibles, only cooler. Shame that didn’t come to me sooner.

Jo and James – You can see how paddling me back all that way affected our relationship.

So we arrived back to our boat, a little soggy and tired, but after a shower we were all ready for food, and drink.

Not exactly to my taste, but it certainly came well presented.

So we had the night to spend on the boat, a night with no where to go bar the bar (actually not the bar, it was far too expensive, luckily we’d sneaked our own alcohol on board), the only other option was Karaoke… Oh dear.

I’m sorry.

Moving on to the next day. Probably a good idea. We ventured onward to Cat Ba Island itself. Much bigger than I thought, it’s got quite a population there.
We first went to visit another cave, which was a nice walk through some mangroves. This cave was less ‘touristy’ than the last, and was good for it. There was some story here that we were told, I remember it being interesting at the time, but now I can’t for the life of me remember what was said. It was about some guy and he had a tomb in the cave. [This probably has to be the worst story I've ever retold]Anyway, here’s a photo of said tomb.

There was some local guy too that played the stalagmites and stalactites, yes played them, like they were some sort of vertical xylophone.
There’s not much to see, but you can certainly hear them in this video.

After the caves we stopped for a spot of lunch at a fish farm. Sort of like a paddy field with fish in the water instead of rice. They offered out some rods and bait and let us fish from the banks, which I jumped at the chance of doing- after buying that still unused fishing gear in Russia.I did manage to get a bite too, but with it I got too excited and the fish broke free. Still it was a nice way to relax before the big New Year’s Eve party.Speaking of which, it was indeed New Year’s Eve. We finished our journeying for the day, by arriving at a rather nice hotel, where we could finally drop our bags, grab a shower and fancy ourselves up for a festive meal and night of fun.Oh and a little power nap just to boost energy levels.

Once ready, we went to the roof of the hotel where we were served our food in fine style. We even wore our best hats for the occasion.

Dinner was complimented by great conversation, stuff that really gets the mind going deep intellectual, meaningful banter that really stirs you… Oh and taking funny photos through wine glasses!

After the meal and before leaving to hit the Cat Ba town, we dropped into Donna and Alyson’s room to have a warm up drink.

You’ll notice that on Donna’s bed there’s a lot of clothes and items placed in a chaotic manner. Take note of that, because it’s not the last time she shoes off her tidiness.

It was time for the town to feel our wrath, and wrath it felt!

Tom also took his skills back behind the bar where he knocked up a selection of fine cocktails.

I have no idea, but this guy was happy.

The night went out with a bang. You’ll be thankful that I didn’t get any footage of our Karaoke session that night, I believe there is some out there, but I’ve yet to get it. We did an almost perfect rendition of The eye of the tiger, which I felt in my throat for days afterwards.

The next morning we had to be up early, I think it was about 8ish. Surprisingly we were all looking really good… I think.

All we had to do that day was to just enjoy the boat ride back to the main land, and the bus trip back to Hanoi.

Debs entertained us on the boat by wearing all our clothes.

And I got to try my hand at the boat’s wheel… While it was docked up.

And that is that.

So in 2007 we visited seven countries (I’m counting Switzerland) travelled many thousands of miles, by many varying types of vehicle. We saw many incredible sights, and met many incredible people (and said the words many and incredible a lot).

One of the most crazy things that I’ve realised with all this, is basically how easy it is. Travelling always sounds like the most difficult of things: not speaking the language, not knowing the territory, but it’s amazing how many things don’t change the world round, and it’s those basic things you need to get you through: A bit of patience, a smile and a pen and paper (not to forget some greens) and anything is possible.