The Wobble

For a few days I plotted my escape from bariloche. It didn’t make me happy to leave the place but time itself was running out before I was to meet Marilyn in Santiago. When I left I figured I had 7 days before she was to arrive into Santiago.The route which piqued the most interest was to grab a bus to the mountain village of san martin de los andes and then grab a boat to the Chilean border, walk 12 kilometres to the border and then a further 2 to a ferry which traverses a lake called pernipucho which by some accounts is one of the most pleasing to the eye border crossings in this part of the world. It sounded perfect, too perfect. On getting to SMDLA I discovered that the boat was not running for the 1 month low season that this town experiences. Well balls anyways!! I decided to try and traverse the border by other means. I packed up my mochilla and headed on out to road that heads to the Hui Hin border crossing. I figured that surely there would be plenty of traffic on this road, but alas not. I stood for a couple of hours before someone willing to pick up this gringo came by. It was a bit of a rust bucket but it did thtrick, I jumped into the back of the pickup truck and held onto all that was firm and fastened. The road was not sealed so it made for a seriously dusty ride, dusty and bumpy. I was thrown all over the place for the 35 or so kilometres.I dismounted at hui hinn as far as this farmer was going, I was still 12 km short of my target and the sun was in the sky. I had only 1 hour to make the border and beyond to the ferry. It the only option of transport I wasn’t willing to take the risk that there would be no accommodation on the Chilean side so I had to accept defeat and headed back to San Martin. Luckily enough there was a tourist bus visiting a local waterfall that picked me up, I must have been a rather amusing sight for the SLR totting argentinian tourists, I ignored the giggles and sat back in for the journey to San Martin.

After Mendoza I travelled south to bariloche. A 20 hour bus ride punctured only by a rather amusing game of bingo – the numbers called out by a rather camp bus attendant. Not sure if there was a prize, I was sure that I was absolutely determined not to win it. I hate winning stuff, or at least the act of getting up infront of people and proclaiming my betterness than them at something as inane as bingo.

The Bus pulled into bariloche in the early afternoon. I was relatively well rested as the bus was pretty comfortable but my back was still a little sore from a rather misguided exercise regime I subjected myself to in Mendoza so the prospect of carting my bag around the town was a little short of enticing but fecked if I was to take on one of the towns crowded buses with the backpack n all the gear so I nabbed what leaflets punting accommodation there was to be had and took off towards the town of bariloche on foot.

The first place didn’t seem to exist so I headed for a second place which was on the other end of town, the leaflet looked good and after a bit of searching the place itself seemed fantastic but full. The nearest place by my calculations from looking at a map lay at the top of a rather sizeable hill which would have you panting without the large load. I got there with a thick film of sweat on my back, despite the close to zero temperatures. Lara answered the door with a lovely smile and absolutely ziltch Spanish. I managed to blurt how Tienes un carto par uno por favour? She replied blabble blabble blabble with the hint of a si in there, postive outcome. I checked into Justinas Hostel.

I soon met the other semi permenant residents of the household. Chris from texas, Camilo from Bogota and Tomer the dog. After a couple of days Juan Pablo from Cordoba in northern argentina checked in and I guess you could say that we were the hostel for the next 15 days or so. Without describing any specific instance or events I just really felt at home in Bariloche. Its setting is amazing, the cleanest looking water reflecting these behemoths of snowclad mountains and every day I was there with little exception had the clearest of blue skies.

There weren’t many early mornings in Bariloche it has to be said, each night we cooked for each other and saw the bottoms of a few too many bottles of rum and chatted away about anything that sprung to mind really. More than anything else I guess that my time in BL taught me the lesson that to truely get to know a place better and to see what it ticks you need to spend some time there even if that time is spent in bed or a little less than sober talking about the virtues of Manchester music in the early 80s – I feel like I have gotten to know a bit of bariloche.

For healths sake I had to get out of Buenos Aires. Between leaving Melbourne and arriving in the place voted ‘worst place ever to plan a detox’ by AA and then sticking it for 10 days with the odd root canal thrown in here or there I was wrecked and needed some recouperation. I borrowed a guide book of one of my room mates and started reading up on what the country had to offer. Over to the west of the country right beside the andes is a town called mendoza, reputedly the wine producing centre of argentina and also the best base to tackle the worlds ultimate summit outside of the himalayas, sounded like just the deal.So after the game in La Boca I made my way back to the hostel, weary out, I grabbed my bags and walked down to the metro. After a few stops you get out close enough to the main bus terminus in BA. Now I had no schedule at all and had next to no idea how to ask for a bus let alone find the right one and get on it. The bus station itself is a behemoth of a place, massively massive it resembled more a shopping centre than a bus station. It took a little while to find the platform for mendoza and much to my pleasure it worked out that there was a bus leaving 10 minutes.Now the bus journey takes about 15 hours, normally thats just long enough to take a couple of days out of you. The option of flying all of a sudden looks more appealing, in argentina it is different. The buses here are awesome!! So comfortable. You are first given a glass of champagne, invited to put your feet up in the lazyboy esque chair and then politely asked to enjoy ones journey. No problems at all senor!! Having slept a matter of minutes the night before I was out for the count, all wrapped up in every blanket I could find I woke up with the sun rising out in the east and mendoza peering its head right in front of us.So this is my first sight/encounter with the mighty Andes, to be honest the first impression is a little underwhelming. I automatically compare them to my first encounter with the himalayas and lets be honest thats a rather silly if natural comparison to make. When you approach the himalayas they really take you by surprise, this, I reckon is because the polution in india is such that its impossible to see for more than 20 to 30 miles in one direction so by the time everything becomes clear you have these massive snow laden monsters towering over you. Mendoza, being situated in the middle of the desert has no such problems with polution so you can clearly see the andes approach from way off. Anyways thats but a small issue really. So off the bus I get with a dopey out head on me, bed head to beat the band I was easy prey for any hostel dude punting his wares and low and behold before I knew it I had the back pack in the back of a pick up truck and was making my way to the a hostel near the centre of town. He peddled the usual extras at me which I met with a firm bat straight away, prefering to size up my options, well I did until he mentioned a wine tasting tour! I signed up immediately.Given its reputation for wine its a must do thing to do while you are here and at 40 pesos its a bit of a bargain aswell. In the afternoon a mini bus came along to collect me and off out on a spanish only tour of the local vineyards. We dropped into a few and luckily enough the guides in the vineyards themselves were able to speak english so I could understand all that was there to be understood. After the wine we dropped into this quirkly little shop where a strange little swiss man had settled in and set up his very own little chocolate and liquer producing factory. He took us through the various products, a disproportionate amount of them he turned to me and said now you should know this one! One of which was Absynthe which is a ridiculously strong spirit legal in only a few countries. When it came to free shots time there was only one option really, 2 other brave men joined me at the front line. One a 50 something year old from Brazil, the other a 70 something from the local city of Rosario. Absythe is tough stuff, the two lads nearly collapsed. The elder of them jumping from his seat to go to the bathroom muttering the words – Mui Fuego, MUI FUEGO!!After the first day I took it easy for a while, avoided anything resembling a bar and stayed away from the steaks as much as I could. I took time to purchase the raw materials to make my own mate…   Mate (Mataay) is the national drink of argentina, everywhere you will see people gathering around a small cup filled up to 3/4 level with a green weed like substance with a pipe sticking out of it called a Bobillo (Bombeeja), the cup is them topped up with hot water and passed around a group until the tea stops floating at the top. It takes a little while to get used to the taste of it but at this stage I am addicted to the stuff. It gives you a fair kick is has to be said :)So with some Mate in the system I plucked up the courage to book myself onto a day trip up to see aconagagua which is the tallest mountain outside of the himalayas. I was quite excited at this prospect, I have grown quite attached to mountains on my trip away so the prospect of seeing such a famous one was indeed enticing. The bus up to there was due to leave at 7 in the morning so it required an earlier than early start, something I am certainly not a fan off. The bus was small but comfy enough to stick my legs out and get a good look out the window between snoozes. The scenery reminded me alot of the kullu valley in india with the exception that there is no agriculture going on here at all, the landscape is very barren, desert like and dusty as hell. We stopped in a few places that were semi interesting but it was the overall feel of the scenery and the cleaner than clean air that made the place stand out. Towards the very end of our trip we approached the national park that contained the massive mountain which itself is perched right on the border of chile. Eventually we pulled up and the driver started rattling on in spanish about something which I couldn’t make out at all. He pointed up to the right and everyoen started to take pictures, perched between two, it seemed, bigger peaks was a snow peak shrouded in a mystical mist… aconagagua!! Now I am sure further adventures into the national park i.e. off the road and into the fields would give you a much better look at the mountain but certainly from the road itself I have to say that it was a fairly underwhelming experience. I thought the scenery in every other direction was much prettier but then again I guess its down to a matter of taste…I stayed in mendoza for about 5 days, its a great town, so green, so full of wine and things to do. From here I headed down south to bariloche and the region known as Patagonia 

Buenos AiresMendozaBariloche 

And so to Buenos Aires. I arrived at about 11 am on the 6th of may, you may remember that I left sydney at 10.45 am on the 6th of may so in effect the journey lasted all of 15 minutes – it could well have happened that I got an upgrade to fly on the starship enterprise. Silly sci-fi aside what it actually mean   t was that the 6th of may 2009 for me was the longest day of my life. I took the 40 minute bus into the city from the airport – its a good way to get a feel for the place. First impressions were pretty good, I must have passed about a dozen pristine soccer pitches, at last I’m in a country famous for a proper sport cause as much as I loved melbourne, AFL is a bit naff. Other than sporting pitches you do see alot of built up and run down areas. There are countless ballymun style highrise apartments dotted everywhere, you begin to comprehend how 16 million people can call Buenos Aires their home.  

 I got off the bus in what I assumed was the city centre or el centro as the locals do call it, I am making assumptions at this point as I have neither a map, a guidebook nor the spanish lingo that would improve my predicament of having 2 hours to make the check in of the hostel which I booked (without taking down the address) quite frantically the night before I left melbourne. To one side of me was the dock so it was logical to cross the road and wade into the masses in the hope of finding an internet cafe so I could check the booking and get the address. I walked up what turned out to be Avenue de Florida which is one of the main shopping thoroughfares in the central district. The place was thronged, funnily enough there were 4 irish bars on the first two blocks alone, I might aswell have been walking down grafton street. 

Eventually I got my bearings and found my way to the clan hostel. Thankfully the staff all had excellent english so it wasn’t long before I had the bags down on the bed.  The hostel itself is a cool building, very close to the centre of the city it is on the corner of two streets and stretches up 3 stories. The middle of the building is open abit like a courtyard giving the place interesting acoustics. In australian time it was well past 3 in the morning so I was pretty knackered, I knew I had to fight off jetlag for as long as possible. I stayed awake, just about, to watch barcelona sicken chelsea in the champions league before finally succombing to sleep.   

Now when I say that this hostel is lively, I mean that it is pure feckin mental. I woke up to some thumping bass at about 11 pm, I broke out the earphones and went back to sleep. In my whole time in asia and australia I never needed them before but they more than paid for their weight in gold while I stayed at the clan. It took a few days to get over the jetlag after the jetlag wore off a toothache kicked in. It got bad enough that I had to enter the words ‘english speaking dentist in buenos aires’ into the google search engine. Before I knew it I was wide jawed in a dentists chair getting a root canal done on my birthday of all days, sounds mareish and to be honest it was. Bloody well hate dentists.    

I am trying to learn as much spanish as I can while I am here, I do like the idea of spending a year in barcelona watching games at camp nou every week so where better than buenos aires to pick it up. There have already been some rather unfortunate lost in translation moments though, the first of which occured on my second day when I left the hostel to go search for a pad lock for my bedside locker. I used it as an opportunity to look around the city and get a feel for the place, so off I went going from shop to shop looking at all their wares in the hope of finding a simple padlock. I eventually found one close to independence square, it was a rotten old shop full of dust, looked like something that dropped right out of the 19th century. I pointed to the locks he had behind the counter (which were tiny) and gestured if he had any bigger ones, my gestured involved me starting out with my hands together and then moving them apart – now he he just looked at me as if I was a proper idiot and to be fair its hard to blame him as it looked as if I was holding an invisible grand piano… I departed the shop with the smallest lock that he had.  

So with this and a few other mis steps behind me I took to getting myself educated in espanyol. I started the lessons the day after I was finished with the dentist so I got to learn how to say I was at the dentist, I was in unbelievable pain etc etc at which point I slipped in that I had turned 28 the day before. Now spanish like france use the verb ‘to have’ when they say what age they are, its simple, really really easy, but of course I had to find someway to mess it up. I managed to convey the message that I had 28 arses!!! anos being the spanish for anus while años is the spanish for years. 

Buenos Aires is famous the world over for alot of things – Steaks, Tango, Cafes, Ridiculous Night Life and probably most of all Diego Maradona. It was my goal to imbibe in all off the above over the course of my 10 days here. The steaks are ridiculous, they are huge and almost always pure quality. You leave places declaring that you have just had the best of your life only to better that record the next day. One place in particular even though the made us wait 40 minutes outside on a chilly autumns night (they did serve us lots of champagne to soften the pain) served up a steak that was no messing 2 inches thick and about half a foot long, you really retreat back to you primal self at the sight of such a mouth watering prospect. 

My favourite part of Buenos Aires (so far) has to be the ramshackle neighbourhood of San Telmo. Some of its streets are under repair and others are swades of neck breaking cobblestone, each corner seems to have a cafe plucked right out of a movie that only gets shown on the digital channel they give you for free that only shows you old time movies from the 40s and 50s. All in all the place oozes class, I must have spent every spare afternoon in the city sitting in one of those cafes flying through books at a furious rate, speaking of which I have already finished all the books I brought with me which has left me picking up every english book I see… 100 years of solitude anyone??  On some afternoons, more likely weekends, especially in San Telmo you will see Tango. Tango for the uninitiated is the national dance of the argentines and to my mind it is a bloody marvel, it is such a wonderful sensual expression – without a shadow of a doubt the sexiest dance I have ever seen. To see it done properly is just wonderful, there are street performances all the time, you can buy tickets to see shows on stages – these guys are probably the best at it but the best one I saw was just an ordinary couple dancing in the street to a nearby street performer. Walking back to the hostel I couldn’t help but think that we irish need to ditch the whole jigs and reels and get something sexier in its place!    

Argentines and I am guessing south americans in general are not daylight people, over the course of the first few days when jetlag had me up and wandering the streets at obscenely early hours like 9 or 10 am twas only tourists like myself with their digital cameras stalking the streets with the odd exception of a suit rushing off somewhere for a business meeting. It takes a while to adjust for the fact that most restaurants don’t get busy until after 12 am and that bars and niteclubs are not worth going to before 3 am in the morning, some will even stay closed and locked up such a time. The locals must spend their times at house parties or at the aformentioned meals before heading into the night to get their boogie on. It does take adjusting to and god knows I tried, many times i just had to quit at 5 in the morning while the party was still going strong.  

The 5th reason for me to visit this wonderful city is summed up in one word – Football. I am a soccer nut, I love soccer. More specifically I love soccer when it is played with intelligence and appreciation that a 5 yard pass can mean as much if not more than a 60 yard thump. Juan Roman Riquelme is the player that when I play, in my tiny mind, I imagine to be. He has alot of similar characteristics to me, he’s a little chubby, he’s lazy, likes to moan alot and has a mean eye for a pass – each characteristics which I see in myself with the exception of the last one. Well put it this way he is my footballing hero, I love the way he makes things work for him despite all his shortcomings…

Anyways he plays for Boca Juniors, who play in the Bombonero – that world famous stadium which has terraces a little less steep than your average wall, the bombonero is of course in the neighbourhood of la boca in the grand city of Buenos Aires. Having been injured for the last month (The injury in case you are interested was caused by a burning hot lump of charcoal that landed on his foot while attending to his home parilla (Argentinian Barbeque)) he was due to make his comeback in a local derby against Arsenal the sunday after I was meant to leave the city.  Phil postponed his bus trip across the country for this once in a lifetime opportunity, such was his determination to make this game that he despite having only gotten to bed at 7 in the am of the very same day he rose at 11 to pack his meagre collection of belongings into his ruck sack to leave in storage before heading down to the roughhouse neighbourhood of La Boca to watch the game.

Now La Boca is rough, it is rough out. It makes ballymun look like Malibu but like the rest of the city it oozes character. The stadium itself is a run down mess, with 3 tiers on three very steep sides its makes an amazing sound even though it was a good bit less than full for the game I was at. Behind the opposite goals is where the Ultras (hardcore of hardcore fans) congregate. From the first minute till 20 minutes after the game the danced, sang, shouted, waved flags and generally made the most impressively enduring racous that this human being has ever seen. The game ended 2-1 to Boca with Riquelme providing enough moments of genius to leave this blogger off home happy.  

So off back to the hostel for the last time on this visit, I took the 7 o’clock bus to mendoza – a city in the west of the country at the foothill of the andes and centre to the countries growing wine production. Until then, adios!!! 

I really love Melbourne – Its a great city which I am very sad to have left, I would love to think that I would return one day and stay for just as long if not longer, the place has such a wonderful spirit and drive to be cool that you can´t help but fall for its clumsy charm. I spent 10 months there and have met some quality people, drank some quality coffee and devoured some quality nosh. The city has changed me for the better, but now I am gone, I am in the capital of Argentina.

I left my friends apartment in melbourne at 5 in the morning, ronaldo had just clipped in the second goal in 10 minutes against arsenal in the second league of the champions league – game over. I bid farewell to ian and cate and walked down fitzroy road down past st vincents hospital and on down thru the city centre. Public transport was going at this stage but I decide to walk it, backpack or no. Its not terribly far but far enough to know that you have walked some distance. A couple of weeks previously while showing my friend Debbie around melbourne we called into relations of hers who had been living in melbourne since the 60s, the woman of the house in her 70s sounded exactly like my own mammy, she cooked us a savage easter roast dinner before supplying us with a seemingly endless parade of beer. She asked me if I noticed how different the light is in Melbourne compare to at home, how twilight barely exists… I kinda understood what she meant, the evenings don´t seem to linger while dawn occurs quite abruptly, anyways this sprung to mind as I walked down collins street. At the top end of the street the place was dark, by the time I had made it to spencer street station it was almost fully bright. I guess its a weird quirk of australia that maybe doesn´t get reported so much and so I have probably deprived you of 5 minutes of your life just reading this – good luck trying to get that back!!

Anyways I took the bus to the airport and checked the bags in. If the plane left on time I had just over an hour and a half to negotiate customs, immigration etc etc in sydney, plenty of time. IF… The plane left melbourne 40 minutes late, panic set in. When we arrived I made a burst to get off the plane, ran down the ramps, across to the terminal transfer and onto the bus to the international terminal. I had 30 mins left till departure. Immigration was next, just infront of me a 40 strong troop of chinese tourists were in queue. I shuffled, skipped a couple of them and eventually made it to the desk. I handed in my brand new spanking passport, no stamps, brand spanking new. The girl stamped it out then asked – sorry mr gill, where is your entry stamp?

Thats on my other passport, here´, I handed over my old crappy photocopy jobbie which had big red ink cancelled scrawled all over the shop, I must have looked so dodgy, I get called into a room.. Feck Feck Feck, I tell them my plane is leaving in 20 mins, they didn´t seem to notice. Typing away on a computer, avoiding all eye contact she could well have been playing tetris. Palms were sweating something serious!! Eventually with a smile she hands me back my passports and asked if I  enjoyed my trip to OZ, she got a smile and then a vision of my ass disappearing into the distance. In true hollywood style i made it completely out of breath to the disapproving flight attendent and got my ass on the 13 hour flight to Buenos Aires.

Due to the quirks of planetary shape and rotation I arrived into Buenos Aires 10 minutes after I left sydney, May 6th 2009 was officially the longest day of Phil Gills life. Flights are boring and don´t require much explainin though on this one the pilot seem determined to land the plane on its roof! I got through immigration quite quickly. I did have to bluff the name of the hostel as I had nothing at all booked, came up with a name that sounded vaguely spanish and it did the trick. Once you are past that part the rest is easy, usually. They had managed to lose my bag in melbourne… Idiots, they said it would take two days for it to arrive to me.

Oh well, no need to pick a fight, not when there is much more pressing issue of accomodation. I jumped on a bus into the city without a guidebook or a map I should probably have gotten one or both. I spent 1 hour walking around the bustling city, up florida street in search for an internet cafe that would tell me where somewhere okay was to stay, it was warm and very very bright. Telling ya I was glad I didn´t have a backpack on me! QUantas should include such an arrangement as an option, twould be handy to bring enough clothes for 2 nights if you knew you would get all of your stuff within 48 hours of arriving.

I have only been here little over a day, first impressions are ´How very european everything is´which is probably the most obvious thing you can say about the place, it reminds me of bilbao in so much that everything is spanish and it is highly industrialised, but that is but an initial judgement, more judgment to come 😉

I signed off my last post as I found myself on the aussie shore for the first time at last, I made the decision then not to blog as prolifically on my time here in australia as I did previously. The reason for this is simple, for the most part while I am here I will be catching up with old friends, new friends and relations. Its just not the kind of thing that would make interesting reading I am afraid. If and when I did strap on the backpack again and took off into the australian wilderness then of course I would get the itch to start rabbiting on about what trouble I contrived to get myself into.

Between finding a house to stay in melbourne and then finding a job and getting a start date for said job it has taken a while to find the chance to get out there and see the australian countryside. Well a couple of weeks ago I found some work and they had a couple of weeks before they were ready to have me into the office so I took this couple of weeks as a chance to go and do australia, or at least part of it. I did some research and narrowed my choices to these: Byron Bay, Tazmania or Broken Hill. Broken where you say? And you would be right, I was looking at one of them tourist rail passes you can get for the state of New South Wales and the most remote town you could find yourself in was Broken Hill, an old mining town and the site where they chose to film Mad Max 2. That was enough for me, who wants to lie on a beach all day long or swan around some world class national park. I wanted to go somewhere that it would take someone of emense stubborness to survive – the outback.

So the plan was simple, take the train up to sydney, check that place out for a few days – apparently they have some fancy shell shaped disco hall in the middle of it worth checking out. The train trip up through victoria and new south wales was a pleasant trip. From my blogs on india I’m sure you remember how much I enjoyed the train trips there. Now the trains are remarkably different here, cleaner, safer, air conditioned, more comfortable, more personal space but feck all that… A trip on an indian train is such an experience, this was more like a commute, a nice relaxing commute. I just stared out the window, day dreaming sometime concentrating just to count the number of minutes that pass between houses. This country is massive.

I arrived into sydney at 8 and met up with my old housemate from college debbie, she must be 90 at this stage. We went for some food and some pints to catch up on all the years that have slipped by in no time at all. After some much needed kip I got up on a glorious sydney day, I walked from bondi junction to darling point along the coast all the way to the opera house and up onto and beyond the harbour bridge. It is such a beautiful city to look at, to walk around. I had a wonderful day just traisping along not bothered by anything other than the occasional desire more than need to stick something in my belly. I met up with the girls later on for chow and yet more stories about past adventures.

Friday I took a trip out to see manly, the ferry ride out there gives you a great look at the harbour. While manly itself was built for fish and chips, up and down that beach, bit further on up to the cliffs and back and you are fit for some beers. Back to the house before hitting the town, well we did go see a rugby league match which started off great but the team we were meant to root for slowly slipped out of the game and by the end it was a bit of a cakewalk. No matter we didn’t let it dampen our night, more more more stories, travelling is great for the stories… The next day we all died a death but were revived when I cooked up a classic irish breakfast, at least 45000 calories per spoonful!!! 

While I sat on the couch in bondi junction, the most beautiful day outside the girls got at me to get out and pay bondi beach at least one visit while I was in this part of the world. So off we walked down the road, me ranting about all things possible under the sun, topics such as where to swedes get off being so damned beautiful to why the hell does canada even exist I found time to not only think of ringing but actually ringing the hostel in broken hill to make sure they were still open for business. So I rang them and to my absolute astontishment they only had one free bed in the place, this in a hostel with room for 100 people, this in a tiny mining village in the middle of absolutely no where. Sat on the beach in bondi I began to wonder what the hell is ahead of me…

I bade farewell to the girls early on the sunday morning, they will be down to visit me in melbourne at the end of november and I look forward to greatly the chance to return their wonderful hospitality. It was 6 in the morning, I got stuck on the subway with the post party, too tight to fork out for a taxi home brigade. One dude from liverpool insisted on starting up a conversation with me, but on hearing that I was irish changed his tune, litterally. ‘I fooking hate you irish, all naight long I was traiying to baiy drinks for these burds but them was aving none of it, these guys over ere are aayrish’, at which point he broke out into Father and Son in a ronan keating effort, thank christ my stop was next. Adios amigo

I slept most of the train journey to dubbo which is the get off point to get a bus the rest of the way. I shared the bus with one other person to broken hill, the bus driver, 700 km. His name was peter, he was a retired policeman who moved to dubbo to be closer to his siblings after the passing of his wife last year from cancer. He took particular interest in my time from thailand, that friends of his had got themselves a thai wife, very pretty, he shrugged his shoulders and expected me to back him up. I felt sorry for him, I have seen it so many times, not only in asia where you have a man in his later years sitting there with an incredibly pretty partner. They are both staring off in opposite directions just waiting, just passing time. It turns the gut. I told him this and the conversation went dead for oooh about 300 km.

The road is dead straight, the sun setting over the horizon is breathtaking, the colours are phenomenal. The road soon becomes a focal point for the kangaroos, they like to lie on it because it hold heat better than the scrub wasteland, some like it a bit too much, there was road kill all over the place. Pulling into broken hill at 11 in the pm I began to think about what could possibly be drawing so many people to broken hill, so many that it would fill a huge hostel. Now I’ll be honest, I’m an optimistic person, I had visions of a bus load of lost impressionable nubile princess beauties lost in the middle of nowhere looking out for someone with a funny accent to pass the days with them. I figured the odds on this were pretty slim, but what I got, what I got dealt must surely rank in the same order of short odds.

Mildura is 300 km from broken hill, on the very same week that I chose to take 4 days to take in all there is to take in from the not so famous silver city, that very same week, Milduras Mental hospital had booked out the broken hill hostel for its annual excursion for its patients, all bar one room of course. Seriously, you could not make this stuff up. For 4 nights I stayed in an insane assylum. At times I felt the need to protest to to the chaparone on the door that I wasn’t crazy and that I was actually allowed to go outside on my own, I swear I was just waiting for the big red indian to walk through the door with a massive pillow. I even got done for accidentally nicking some of their milk for a cup of tea, one of their mentors lost the plot with me… I felt chastised, felt like slapping her one. A drop of milk fer fecks sake. Luckily enough there is enough to do in broken hill to keep you away from the crazies. I spent my days in the local art galleries or in the local book stores before spending the evenings in the various bars either getting fed or full.

I fled broken hill a few days earlier than planned, ironically the quickest way back to melbourne was via a town called mildura. The taxi left broken hill on the 300km spin to mildura, took about 3 hours. We landed there just before ten in the morning, the bus leaving for melbourne was at 11, that night. So 13 hours in mildura. It was an effort, between terrible coffee and even worse hollywood movies I was driven into the arms of the pub nearest the bus station. I sat up at the bar with my pint and my book keeping my own business but sure of course such a blissful existence could only last a couple of minutes. Two lads the far side of the bar noted the foreigner, they came over and sat either side of me.

Now let me describe these two gentlemen. I’ll start with the guy who sat at my right as his right ear was deaf, he wore a cowboy hat, a denim shirt with those brown bits on the collar tips and a pair of jeans that were sown onto him. He also sported a moustache which in classic aussie fashion wrapped around his lip and down this throat in under his shirt, twould surprise me if it went all the way down this chest and down the side of his legs to his ankles. Now he was gone sixty if he was a day. He went by the name of cowboy believe it or not. His friend was an even more beautiful specimen. This lad was missing not only an ear but and eye and all the teeth from the left side of his mouth through a ‘disagreement’ he had some years back.

Over the course of the evening the second fella began to talk about his impending marriage, he already had 3 marriages behind him and so thought nothing of taking the plunge again, he began to talk about his wife to be, a 29 year old girl. I thought jaysus man, you must be some charmer to have a woman so young on your arm. He looked into his drink, shook his head and said simply that she wasn’t the best looking lassie in the world. The lady herself walked into the pub soon afterwards to pick up her fiance. Lets just say he wasn’t lying!! The girl was obviously a junkie but seemed genuinely lovely. She gave me a hug and there on the spot invited me to the wedding in 5 weeks time, they reckoned I would bring a bit of class to proceedings, you know you are fecked when you are relying on me to bring the class.

Anyways they left me there on my own with my book at last and sure it wasn’t a whole lot longer before I was down the road at the bus station and off back to melbourne. The road took us through the town of bendigo which at its height gave the most stunning view of the sun rising over phillip bay and melbourne. First day of work in 10 months the following monday – can’t wait…

adios folks

I predicted a pretty unremarkable couple of days for the malaysian capital, do some shopping, catch up on whats new in the cinemas, sort out the visa and board the plane. Sounds pretty simple! Oh how I wish I could sever this post just there. The shopping and the cinema going went rather well, I filled up the bag to the 15 kg limit with pairs of jeans, socks, underwear, jumpers and shoes – basically all the stuff I was getting by without for the last 5 months. I have travelling through the last bit of india and all of south east asia on 4 t-shirts,  1 pair of normal shorts and 2 board shorts, a blankett and a hammock. That just wasn’t going to cut it in the low temps of south australia. I got to catch the new hulk movie and a rather silly movie called wanted. I also got to gorge myself on lots of magnificent malaysian and indian food for which the Malaysian capital is world famous for, though having chicken tikka masalla for breakfast on the second day was probably pushing it a little.

Trouble reared its ugly head when on the day of my flight I turned up at the aussie high commission to get my visa number switched to my temp passport so I could travel to the land down under. You see I purchased my visa way back when I was but an innocent cub trambling along the streets of dublin, the visa is electronic and is attached to my old passport. At the airport they just scan your airport which accesses the aussie immigration database, ticks all the boxes and hey presto you are free to wreak havoc for 365 days. The computer system they have for completing this task though had just crashed, for the first time in 3 years apparently. Again, my flight was that night…. Shiiiiiiiiit!!!! I didn’t know what to do, I thought bugger I am going to be in south east asia for ever. I gave them my malay number before heading off to the airport in an effort to get the check in crew to ring ahead to the aussie help line to get the details switched there. Much to my relief I got a call from them an hour later to state that the system was back up, someone plugged it back in I guess. My visa was okay so I could head to the airport with a clear mind.

Back to the hostel where I grabbed my bag in storage and off to the airport. The airport is about 70km outside of the city, most of it is motorway as KL is pretty small, well the centre of the city is anyways. About 10 km out the motorway I found myself staring at my watch, something wasn’t right. It wasn’t the time as I had just checked the time of the flight and I still had loads to spare, the bloody date! It was the 8th of july, a tuesday. The flight was the 9th. God I felt like a right numptie, to make matters worse I couldn’t just get off the bus and flag the next one back into KL as it was a bloody motorway all the way in, so I had to go the full way out to the airport and jump straight onto the bus just leaving, I debated whether or not to go back to the same hostel as I didn’t fancy having to explain a story that made me out to be more than a little dim, but in the end I decided what the hell. I walked right up, demanded a room as if I was never there before. The poor clerk thought he was seeing a ghost. A few beers were called for and sunk before my second, last day in KL.

I was hungover and it was hot so I just hung out and ate everything off the menu in the local food market til it was time to head for the airport again, this time for real!! Checked in, got through security and customs all in record time. Even had time to pick up some duty free and a cup of much needed coffee. For some reason they have an additional security check just before you leave the departure lounge at the air asia airport. The guy who checked me was a proper numptie. He kept me there for 10 minutes, looking at my passport picture then looking at me. Sure my hair is longer than back then but fer fecks sake its still pretty obvious that the pretty mug in the photo is yours truly, yet on he went – he even consulted some of the other security guys about the passport, my palms were just about getting sweaty when he offered me a smile and told me to enjoy my trip. Asshole… Anyways, adios Malaysia, adios Asia. It has been 7 and a half months but more importantly it has been a blast…

I’m off to get the dingo that stole my baby now!!

Phil  

Aceh is a name that should be familiar to every person on the planet. Ground zero for the 2004 tsunami, even before that it was notorious for a 30 year civil war that left 30,000 people dead in various clashes between local rebels disgruntled at jakartas exploitation of their natural resources and its total lack of any kind of reciprocal investment. The achenese see themselves as different from the rest of indonesia. Its ironic that it took the tsunami to make both sides see the err of their ways, the state is now at peace.

Given its turbulent history I was a little apprehensive visiting the place, though I was never not going to go given that I was so close. The bus trip from medan was 13 hours, another over nighter but this one wasn’t too bad. The road followed the coast mostly so was flat and straight. After the stop for morning prayers, I sat up and with interest looked out to see the damage that the tsunami wreaked. The wave that struck Bande Aceh was 35 metres in height when it hit land. 35 metres!!! Try and get your head around that, thats bigger than the gpo in dublin, hitting land at high speed. Its no wonder the place got wrecked, there is maybe one or two buildings here and there thats over 4 years old. There are ships abandoned miles in land, carried in by the wave. To give you some idea of the toll this city, roughly the size of cork, took there are 2 mass graves in the city with over 30,000 bodies in each. I spoke to one guy at the bus stop who said 44 members of his family perished that morning, Indonesians tend to exaggerate their family sizes to include friends and neighbours but even that taken into account leaves you with a phenomenal number of people that you know, just gone!! Those numbers are phenomenal, not since the US dropped the atom bomb have so many people died instantaneously. Rightfully it moved the world so much that the fund raising efforts to help these people rebuild their lives was unprecedented. Individual and collective empathy raised more cash that the governments of the world were willing to contribute. I was very interested to see how this money was being spent, I recently read naomi kleins book on disaster economics and she highlighted the corruption of government officials in tsunami hit zones – pocketing alot of the money intended for poor fisher men or orphaned children. I have to say that I was impressed by what I saw, it really is a town getting on its feet. Its lively and the people are as nice as anywhere I’ve been. There are some buildings or institutions (Mcdonalds, burger king, pizza hut) which are unnecessary, surely the money would be better spent building more houses, more schools, cleaning up the mess thats left behind. I only passed through the town twice, not staying over night so my impressions are pretty limited.

My main destination for the week was the island of Pulau Weh, an island famed for its coral gardens and its relaxed lifestyle. Not a bad place to spend my last week in asia I reckoned. The boat over takes a little over an hour, I chose the little fishing village of ibioah to stay, recommended by an indonesian lady on the boat. A taxi to the village is expensive but because there are so few tourists here I had to foot the bill or face being stranded at the port. The island is mountainous and surprisingly big. The trip to ibioah took the guts of an hour over a fairly comical excuse for a road inhabitated by the strangest looking monkeys I have seen yet. I got out of the taxi in the village and stood around looking like a plum when someone asked me if I wanted a place to stay. That someone stood in a small fishing boat, I nodded and before I knew it I was in the boat coasting around the bay trying to keep my bags from getting wet.

The trip was short enough,I was welcomed at the pier by the lady I had met on the boat. Some questions immediately sprung to mind – what the hell was she doing there and how the hell did she get here so quick. Now the first one is easily answered, she owned the place. The second one I am still scratching my head about, answers on a postcard please. She showed me to the rooms. Now when I say rooms, these things are individual wooden bungalows on stilts standing on the sea, the water was pure turquoise. The stuff you see in travel agent brochures. Not a beach to speak off but it will do nonetheless. Up with the hammock and out with the snorkel.

I must have swam 40 miles in the 6 days I spent there. The underwater action was superb, on my last day I happened upon a turtle out for his lunch. Swam with him for an hour, allowing the currents to take us all over the place. The sea is peculiar in these parts, the currents always seem to land you in the same spot, they will take you off for a mile or so and then it turns and land you back where you started.

Now I have a little something I need to get off my chest. I hate divers!! There bam I said it. And not just cristiano ronaldo or pippo inzagi either. I mean the people who dive in the deep sea. They are fascist arseholes, I hate to use the word hate but I hate them. They are so cliquey, ignorant and full of their own self importance. Pulaw Weh is full of them. One guy in particular got up my nose, from the second I stepped into the communal area he made up his mind not to like me, he kept his back turned to me and wouldn’t reply to a single thing I said. It was actually funny to be honest. I was happy enough to have my time to myself, swinging on the hammock over the gorgeous bay or swimming with my new turtle friends. I flew through a couple of books, with my 15kg check in limit date looming it was a necessary exercise!!

One more thing that annoyed me about this place was the locals ignorance for the rarest of jewels they had right on their door step,  the tsunami cleared away absolutely everything on the coast including rubbish – it gave the survivors a clean slate with regards to a new environment. The coral garden underwater for some reason survived the onslaught, others in the province were destroyed, but the locals just throw away their rubbish into the sea, they have no problem sinking concrete wells into the coral garden so that they can build an ugly concrete and steel structure in the beautiful bay. So many times myself or the nice italian guy who was there chastised the workers in our resort after they flicked another cigarette out in the sea or when they threw a plastic bottle out the front window just because it was empty. I think its a lack of education that has them this way but if they keep going the way they are going it will only be a matter of time before the place is abandoned by the fish aswell as the tourists. Its a pity as its picture perfect from afar, with a little planning and some counter refuse system it would stay that way.

I had to be out of the country by sunday because my visa was up and they don’t take too kindly to people overstaying their welcome here, so I headed off the island early friday morning. Back to Banda Aceh where I had hoped to grab a direct flight to KL but the bleeding thing was sold out and the next flight was tuesday, I had only heard off the flight during the week otherwise I would have booked it at the start of the month. So I was left with two ways to get back to medan, 1 hour flight or 14 hour bus. Sounds like a no brainer right? Wrong, the airline running the route were called SMAC airlines, now I am not a superstitious guy but I am not stupid either. The bus it was. In medan I spent a thoroughly unremarkable 2 days before I grabbed my flight – there are some beautiful mosques in the town but little else other than loud non moving traffic and pollution to see in the place. Off to KL on the sunday where I had a couple of days to shop for cold weather clothes and oooh sort out the tiny problem that is that my Australian work visa is no longer valid….

ciao ciao

Phil

I’m not sure if many of the people that I know have heard of bukitt lawang, to be honest before I even stepped foot in sumatra I would have not have had a clue about the place. Its an amazing place though and somewhere that is definitely worth a visit if you do find yourself in this part of the world. The main reason why people do come here is to get a glimpse of the Orang Utang, a magnificent creature that is teetering on the brink of extinction. Its natural habitat, the rain forest is being eaten away at year after year by careless logging and it is simply killing these creatures. Fortunately the government have started to set  up more and more national parks to offer them some sort of safe refuge but it could very well be a case of too little too late.

Like alot of other places in sumatra, Bukit Lawang is no stranger to human tragedy either. It is a very small town, 2000 people or there abouts live there. It is situated deep into the sumatran rainforest by the side of a really stunning river valley. Over the years either by artificial or natural means a natural dam built itself up someway upstream from the town. People it seemed weren’t aware of this phenomenon, this ignorance proved terribly fatal a couple of years ago. The wood from the dam rotted, weakened and eventually gave way sending a torrent of water down the valley at a ferocious rate. Some people I spoke to, still deeply traumatised by the event speak of seeing the water come down the valley, they hadn’t enough time to react. 280 people perished in that instant, the town was wiped out. It was a shocking blow. The indonesian government in fairness to them seem to have put their backs to the wheel in helping the locals rebuilt their tragic town. A new village has been build on higher ground away from the river, more money has been pumped into the local tourist trade. There are dozens of guest houses here, the tourist infrastructure is the best I have seen in the entire country, all they are missing is the tourists to come in and fill the rooms.

I arrived as I have said before a tattered mess, I took up residence in Noras Homestay. The two dutch girls I was with in Padang recommended the place very highly, its a 10 muinute walk from the Orang Utang Reserve and situated right on the river bank, so close the sound of the river is deafening. Its a very easy sound to be lazy to. From your hammock you can interrupt your book to stare at the trees high up past the river and watch gibbons fly from tree to tree, you could hear the makawks fight over just about everything – it was like having the national geographic in 3-d in the comfort of your living room. Apart from a couple of trips up to watch the Orang Utangs get their daily feed from the local rangers I did feck all in that town. The food and lodgings itself are lovely so I had a great time just hanging out. If one was inclined you could head into the jungle for a trek and some rafting, there is also the stoner favourite activity of tubing whereby you rent out the blown up inner tube of a tractor and float downstream to the next town where you simply jump on the next bus to Bukitt. All n all it takes about 3 hours, but even that seemed too much like work for me. I did get off my arse one day to check out the local caves – much like ailwee caves in clare they contain some stunning natural rock formations with the addtion of a couple of thousand bats, with the odd look outside to the jungle it really was a spectacular setting. Though I happened to find myself there at the same time as a massive group of school girls, I spent more time posing for photos, signing autographs and giving out my email than looking at the bloody cave. The girls here are so incredibly cheeky and friendly, its impossible to say no to them.

As I have said I did interupt my lying about to go visit the orange haired orang utangs. A five minute walk up past noras homestay along by the river bank takes you to a bend of the river where there is a canoe tied to an over head wire which transports you from yourside to the reservation on the other. My first time there I arrived a little early so I had time to take in the beautiful setting, the land rises sharply and greenly on both sides giving away occasionally to some wonderful waterfalls. Waiting there we got our first glimpse of the apes when the recent mother came down to collect some bananas and milk for her cub. I’m not sure whether the feeding of these animals is the best thing, it makes them dependent on humans and therefore unable to adapt to the wild but people who know more about these matters than I run the place so I bow to their superior knowledge on the matter. Once you cross you pay and entrance fee then make your way up hill for about 20 minutes right into the jungle to the main feeding centre which is just a clearing in the trees. You know you are there as the trail virtually stops dead. You wait there for a while but it is not long before 5 or 6 of the orang utangs arrive for their free feed. One guy in particular is massive, he would tear you apart no bother. It was more interesting though to observed the ones high up in the trees, they sat there looking at you as if they are scoping you out. I was unfortunate enough to be beside this most annoying of tourists, he was a master at stating the obvious. When the ranger handed out a banana he would say ‘He is feeding them a banana mr phil’,No Shit Sherlock – ‘Look it is peeling the banana’, ‘Look it is eating the banana’ and so on.

Unfortunately my time in sumatra is running short, 1 month is a ridiculously short time to give as a visa so I must beat my retreat from Bukitt Lawang, I have 8 days left and Aceh looms to the north of the island. I will go there next to finish off my sumatran adventure..

Adios again,

Phil