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fat

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

by a ranting member of the lunatic fringe
Lindisfarne, England

According to newly-released statistics, New Zealand is almost leading the world in obesity statistics (apparently currently coming in third). I wonder if we would have noticed England’s obesity if we had flown here directly from home. But we didn’t and the problem here struck us strongly.
I’m not going to get scientific about it….just a little anecdotal…..in terms of the places *we* have been, we’d say Laos is the most non-obese nation. We did not see one overweight person in our month there. Not one. We expected Cambodia to be the same, but we saw an occasional chubby young person there – we were staying just up the road from a private school and quite a few of the children (obviously from wealthy families or they would not have been attending the school) were starting to show the signs of adopting a Western diet. Now I do not know for certain that they eat lots of Western food, but we did see them with bottles of Coke and chocolate bars. None of the people living on the rubbish dump, on the other hand, were overweight. None of the people we met in Thailand or Vietnam, who lived their traditional subsistence lives were fat. None of the rural Chinese were tubby. No-one in Mongolia was carrying extra kilos (and all they eat is mutton and full-cream dairy with loads of fat piled on – so maybe the NZ food nazis should sit up and take notice of the fact that low-fat diets are not the answer – our bodies need fat and while the beauracracy tries to prevent us from consuming it, they are not going to solve the obesity epidemic.)
It’s not even a Western issue (I don’t think)…..in Holland and Germany there were precious few tubbies – yes, there were a lot of men carrying beer pots on their skinny legs, but not general obesity. In those countries you have everyone riding bicycles everywhere – even old dottery grannies (no offence intended – I’m describing the ladies we saw on bikes – so dottery that when they got off their bikes, they sometimes nearly toppled over – but they were still out there cycling well into their nineties!) And there was next to no low-fat food. Just plenty of full cream milk and quark and yoghurt and butter.
Then you get to England and everything is low fat. And a good portion of the population is overweight. My theory stands up to the scrutiny of circumstantial evidence! If our health board is going to ban anything, let them ban sugar. Did you know that in the fourteenth century we used a teaspoon a year of this “luxury spice”. Now Britain’s annual consumption is 35kg per person. Hello! Could we make a link between that and obesity, diabetes and poor teeth, do you think? And how different is New Zealand? (Answer:not very)

Now, if you’ll give me just a moment, I’ll hop down off my soapbox (and to think I thought they had all been packed away in the attic for a year!)….

There, back on solid ground.

Are you still with me? How about something less controversial – a nice wee morning game of hide-n-seek in Warkworth Castle (before the rain came….again). Or if you prefer, the game where you have to run under the drawbridge (which doesn’t draw any more) and try to avoid the missiles being sent from above….that one was fun!

The day ended in pouring rain, we’re perched at the edge of the sea (in fact, according to the GPS we are IN the sea!) in a little carpark just off the causeway that goes across to Holy Island. The island is only accessible at certain times of the day, dependent on tides, as the causeway totally floods at high tide (a most impressive sight to see – and exciting to watch people to-ing and fro-ing trying to make up their minds whether to take the risk once the water has come up a bit! The pictures of almost submerged cars on the tide timetable signposts did nothing to deter some!) We zipped across this afternoon to visit Lindisfarne Castle and Priory, but as the rain took our arrival as its debut time, and we saw the number of motorhomes in the carpark, we came straight back and nabbed spots in aforementioned carpark for the night (no overnighting allowed on the island), not that we needed to hurry as none of the flash motorhomes came into our freebie spot!

Time on the road: need to check Jboy13’s record!
Distance covered: 68km

South East Asia Summary

Wednesday, February 11th, 2009

TRANSPORT DETAILS

Hours spent on long-haul trips: 212
Longest bus trip: 11 hours (with two twenty second stops and one 15 minute one)
Longest boat trip: 2 days down the Mekong
Longest train trip: 43 hours (Saigon to Hanoi)
Favourite transport: elephant
Types of transport:

  • Aeroplane x2
  • Bicycle (2 tandems, 8 solos, 3 tandems with extra seat)
  • Boats
    ~bumboat x3
    ~ferry x4
    ~glorified canoe x1
    ~hydrofoil x1
    ~junk x1
    ~paddle boat x4
    ~slow boat x3
  • Bus x26 (both local and express)
  • Cyclo (high-seated Phnom Penh variety) x4
  • Elephant x4
  • LRT x3
  • Motorbike x4
  • Private car x5
  • Taxis x24 (need three at a time in “civilised” places!), Taxivan x1, Taxitruck x3
  • Tow truck x2!!!!
  • Train: daytime x1, overnight x3, Skytrain x1, Underground train – but multiple trips x2(Singapore, Bangkok)
  • Trishaw (low-seated Penang sort) x3
  • Tuktuk x25
  • Vans x15

ACCOMMODATION

Number of places slept in: 31
Worst guesthouse: Phonsavanh (too many rats for us to sleep a wink)
Favourite: couchsurfing in Hanoi (thanks S&T!!!)

FAVOURITE PLACES

  • R&R: Luang Prabang
  • Jboy13 & Mboy6: Malaysia (it’s a food thing!) – oh yes, Rob too!!
  • Jgirl 14, Kboy11, Kgirl10 & Lboy8: Malaysia and Thailand for the food,
                                                       Luang Prabang for delightful character (not food!)
  • Tgirl4 & ERgirl2: whatever the last person said

HIGHLIGHTS

MOST UNUSUAL FOODS EATEN

  • * Mekong sludge river weed
  • * crickets (crunchy)
  • * live huhu grub (yes, singular – well done Kboy11)
  • * black chicken (sounds OK, but it’s the only thing we only took one bite of – each)
  • * buffalo stew (not that unusual, though the hairs take a bit of getting used to)
  • *  deep fried baby crabs (just like potato chips)

VEHICLE VERSUS PEDESTRIAN ETIQUETTE ENCOUNTERED

  • Singapore: if you stand anywhere near the curb, traffic will stop to let you cross
  • Malaysia: no-one walks anywhere – everyone drives
  • Thailand: in Bangkok it’s best to wait for a break in the traffic – they don’t stop
  • Laos: pedestrians outnumber motorists and all are polite – hardly any cars, just bikes and tuktuks
  • Cambodia: step out into the stream of traffic and it will swerve behind you – scary, but true – but look all ways as traffic goes in every direction and traffic lights amount to nothing more than pleasant suggestions
  • Vietnam: pedestrians do NOT have right of way – EVER. Not even on the footpaths. Be especially careful in Saigon; traffic anticipates lights will change and takes off even if pedestrians are crossing the road – it is unbelievable – they also regularly drive the wrong way up the road!

MONEY MONEY MONEY

  • Singapore dollar
  • Malaysian ringgit
  • Thai baht
  • Lao kip
  • Cambodia riel (not real!)
  • Vietnamese dong
  • Biggest rip-off: US$120 on Cambodian visas that were actually free

MEDICAL MATTERS

  • Jboy13: motorbike exhaust burn
  • Kgirl10: dehydrated and non-specific Cambodian virus
  • diarrhoea (from Mama’s one instance to Papa’s multiple recurrences)
  • Tgirl4: big black unknown flying something sting
  • Mboy6: walking stick in gut
  • allergic reaction rash and headaches for the girls, which all disappeared once we learnt how to say “No MSG please”
  • unexplainable fevers of 40 degrees for a few days at a time for various ones
  • mosquito bites
  • warts, nits: these things just don’t go away!

RANDOM NUMBERS

Temperature range: from only just above freezing overnight in the mountains of Thailand to something that broke Jboy13’s thermometer in Malaysia
Oldest lady met: 105 years
Number of New Years celebrated: 4 (Lao, Hmong, international, Vietnamese)
Number of birthdays celebrated: 4

refugees

Monday, February 2nd, 2009
by Rachael Hanoi, Vietnam

 

We had been expecting to hear a bit more English in Vietnam. Not sure what gave us that idea, but we had it all the same. And it was wrong. In our ... [Continue reading this entry]

adrenaline postcards

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008

by the adults who experienced it all Bangkok, Thailand to Siem Reap, Cambodia Number One: Priced To Take Your Breath Away Up before five in order to board the third-class-only train to the Cambodia border. We shared it with a few other ... [Continue reading this entry]

We hail from a dairy farming nation.

Monday, December 22nd, 2008
by a satisfied tummy Bangkok, Thailand  Today we ate a block of cheese.

The End.

OK, so that's not particularly satisfactory. For a few weeks we have been really hanging ... [Continue reading this entry]

further away than we thought!

Saturday, December 20th, 2008
sighed into the computer by Rob Bangkok, Thailand Jboy13(as of today) and I settled ourselves in a strategic corner of the airport-designated "Meeting Point" outside Arrival Hall Exit B with a feeling of quiet satisfaction. We had managed to successfully catch ... [Continue reading this entry]

*isolation*

Saturday, December 20th, 2008
thoughts shared by the adults Bangkok, Thailand  I think there are three factors contributing to the fact that on this trip we feel no sense of isolation, unlike when we were living in Poland in the early nineties. Back then we ... [Continue reading this entry]

?Christmas?

Friday, December 19th, 2008
by someone listening to carols on the ipod Vientiane, Laos to Bangkok, Thailand via Nong Khai, Thailand There are signs of Christmas in communist Laos. That is to say, there are Christmas trees and fairy lights and a Santa-at-the-north-pole-scene outside a ... [Continue reading this entry]

reflections

Saturday, December 6th, 2008
Luang Prabang, Laos A simple graphical journey of reflection on our trip so far, two calendar months on (actually, just an excuse to use some of our favourite reflection photos)....

Singapore Quay Area 002[Continue reading this entry]

crafty goodness

Saturday, December 6th, 2008
By the Family's Knitter Luang Prabang, Laos

 

From December 1-6 Luang Prabang is hosting the first ever Handicraft Festival, which has been organised by the lady we stayed with the ... [Continue reading this entry]