Get Down, Get Out

Ger and I crossed the border from Argentina into Bolivia the day before my birthday. The twin towns of La Quiaca (Arg) and Villazon (Bol) exist at their present size largely because the border between two coutries is stuck in the middle. Crossing over I immediately noticed a difference. Not the same as crossing from France , where everyone rides around on bikes wearing stripy t-shirts with onions around their necks, into Germany, where everyone jumps about in lederhosen getting plastered from 5 litre metal mugs of beer. The main difference here was the dust and dirt. It was everywhere. It seemed as if the buildings and cars were made of it, like the town was suspended in a cloud of dust. The mangy dogs too, seeming to be the product of some folk incantation over a small pile of chewed up meat, looked as if they’d just sprung up from the dust in the street. Don’t get me wrong – I’m no Howard Hughes with tissue boxes for shoes, but this place made me want to wash my hands just looking at it. I would not be spending my birthday here. A few minutes poking around at the bus station and we found a bus to take us to Tarija, a much nicer town to the north in the wine region. The only catch was that we would have to wait 9 hours. This would mean a meal or two and somewhere nice to sit and read and talk to kill the time. Although of reasonable size, Villazon seemed to be rather short of decent places in which to do this. First and foremost we needed cash and found an ATM after a couple of minutes. At first I had a little trouble getting my card in the slot and after struggling with it a man appeared in the vestibule and offered to help. With his slightly thinner card he was able to wedge open the slot enough for mine to get in. While thanking him I noticed that he was wearing a revolver on his belt and had a shotgun slung over his shoulder – by far the most well armed bank employee I’ve yet encountered. Walking around the town I noticed one of Bolivia’s more obvious differences – the women. Many of them were sat at stalls or walking around with large mysterious loads tied to their backs with a blanket. Sometimes the load was a baby, sometimes merchandise for a stall and a baby. Their garb of many skirts and many cardigans along with their heavily tanned skin made their age and body weight almost impossible to calculate. Without exception every woman I saw who was dressed this way also wore a bowler hat and had her hair plaited in pigtails, making them look old and young at the same time.
I turned 26 on the bus. It is probably the bumpiest ride I’ve had so far. Logic dictates that the worst roads get the worst buses and this thought was never far from my mind. For seven hours we made our way through mountains on switch back roads. Bolivia is very mountainous and excluding lake Titicaca, has no coastline. It is the fifth largest country in South America but was once much larger. It has suffered war and downright cruelty from it’s neighbours over the years. Like the one with Chile, where a large stretch of Bolivian land was annexed for mineral deposits. This, sadly, was also Bolivia’s only coastline and the country suffered trade problems and has remained landlocked ever since. There were similar problems with Paraguay and Bolivia is left today with the parts of the continent that no one else seems to want. The view from my window was fantastic, I imagined – it was the middle of the night and visibility was all of a few feet. Once again Ger and I were the only non-nationals aboard. Not that this mattered much. The others seemed to have an easier time sleeping, though, and I wondered what their secret was. Maybe they were just pretending to sleep, like I had been. I vowed to keep my spirits up for as long as possible least of all for the day that was in it, but mostly because this last year of travelling has taught me the power of negative thinking. Inch by bump we climbed and then descended and after one of many micro-naps I awoke to see the golden wafered tapestry of Tarija spread out before me in the darkness. This must have been how ruddy, weather-beaten pilots felt in the olden days. Struggling through fumes, darkness and the violence of their conveyance to eventually be offered salvation on a golden platter. It was definitely the case for me. I’d been holding it for ages and the relief I experienced in the bus station toilet can only have equalled that of Lindberg as he stretched his long legs on terra firma once more.
Tarija was just waking up when we got off the bus. The immediate area around the bus station was already buzzing frenetically with the comings and goings of passengers and guys trying valiantly to load ridiculously large objects, like beds, on top of buses. Several bowler-hat-granny-girls with heavy loads negotiated their way through pockets of loading activity while men, presumably their husbands, followed close behind, carrying nothing. Ger and I watched all this as we sipped coffee and ate pastels (deep fried pastry filled with cheese – not crayons). The coffee was surprisingly fresh and tasty and along with the pastels made a great birthday breakfast. The night’s sleeplessness was beginnig to assert itself, however and I went next door to phone a hotel somewhere in town. I consulted the guide book and after deciding on a nice sounding place, dialled the number. When the person on the other end answered with the usual pleasantries I launched into my prepared script which politely asked if a double room was available. By sentence two I was interrupted. The man on the other end repeated something several times in an angry voice and then hung up. Hotels are different in Bolivia, I thought. At this point my brain translated what he’d been saying, “This is not a hotel”. I realised I’d dialled the wrong number. It was 6.30 am on a Saturday and I’d just got some ordinary bloke out of bed. I carefully dialled a second time and arranged for a room. Ger and I flopped for a couple of hours and woke up a little after noon very rested and very hungry. A birthday lunch with no expense spared was the order of the day. Tarija, it seemed, had other ideas. We later read that the townspeople “take siesta very seriously” and walking around the empty parched streets, it was easy to imagine them all sleeping aggressively, face down, scowling into their pillows. Since the town has something of an affluent set, who fancy themselves as more Buenos Aires than Bolivia, we eventually found a couple of nice places willing to cater to such wankers…and us.
A couple of days later and we were on a plane to La Paz. One of Bolivia’s many superlatives, La Paz is the world’s highest capital city. At a whopping 366o metres the city packs a punch – altitude sickness. This is a condition brought on by the thin atmosphere at altitudes above 2700 metres. I was well above the cut off point and since I had flown in, rather than ascending gradually by bus, the full whack came upon me suddenly. Shortly after checking into a place in the city I felt nausea and weakness wrap themselves around me like an icy hand. Soon I was vomiting, from both ends, and wondering why I had left safe, level Ireland in the first place. Flying to La Paz had been necessary, though. A planned meeting with Ger’s friend in Peru meant that time was short. Bussing it to La Paz would have taken too long and may have crippled me. I didn’t have long to suffer, luckily, as the next day we were flying to Rurrenabaque, set at a delightful 400 metres. With Ger’s help packing and walking (she remained unaffected) we got to the airport. In what seemed like a cosmic joke on my condition, our plane was tiny. I’ve heard engineers describe basic plane design as a cigar tube with wings. This twin prop relic was very close to that description. We ascended shakily through thick cloud. With me crammed into one of the tiny seats the plane looked and felt like it had been made for children.
After an hour, through clearer skies, I saw the gap in the jungle that would be our landing spot – quite literally an airfield. The tour company through which I had booked a jungle excursion were nowhere to be found at the airport/shed. Ger and I made our way into town and found the situation was very much in our favour. Rurrenabaque sits on the river Beni surrounded by rainforest and is on the edge of Bolivia’s most popular national park. Dozens of tour companies line it’s streets offering trips upriver to stay in the national park, hike around forest, look for wildlife and find out about the plants and animals there. We signed up with Anaconda Adventure for a reasonable $30 per day, about half what the no-shows had wanted, for a 3 day excursion. The next day we boarded a motorized canoe that carried about 15 of us up the Beni to our camping spot. Upon arriving, our guide unpacked a bunch of mosquitoe nets and we busied ourselves attaching these to our bedposts with 75% of the required amount of string. Meanwhile our cook began preparing a delicious lunch. After eating, our guide brought us on a walk of several hours through the jungle. His name, although I can’t remember it, was very similar to Ronaldo and he had grown up in this environment, some miles to the north. I found over the next few days that he really knew the place like the back of his hand and every plant and animal we saw was a story waiting to be told. It made a welcome difference from the guides we’d had on a similar trek in Thailand, who, although competent and helpful told us very little. Ronaldo, by comparison was a National Geographic. On one of the days he brought us to a tree which he claimed contained poisonous sap – a defence mechanism not disimilar to the aliens in Aliens. Up to this point I thought the only way a tree could kill was by falling on you. As a boy Ronaldo’s moron of an older brother had taken some of this sap and tipped his arrows with it in order to hunt…turtles. As well as being ninjas, turtles have their own in-built defense mechanism. Being covered with what National Geographic would call a shell, they are virtually arrow proof. Not easily discouraged the brother took aim, fired and by ricochet, shot young Ronaldo in the leg. Thankfully he was saved by his quick thinking father and the sap of a more benevolent tree. He still has the scar and he showed it to us later.
Ronaldo showed us more delights of the jungle like edible, sweet tasting grubs, tree vines that dispense fresh drinking water and tarantulas. Like most animals in the ‘evil’ category I assumed tarantulas would be waiting to pounce every way we turned. Not so. They are a little harder to find. Ronaldo eventually found one of their burrows. With much coaxing using a thin stick and alot of cigarette smoke, a large hairy and very stoned tarantula emerged. In this state of inebriation, according to Ronaldo, it was safe to hold the spider. He demonstrated this by nonchalantly placing it on his face. The photo I took of this was a near replica of one I’d seen in an encyclopedia as a child and had believed up to this point to be photo-trickery. One of Ronaldo’s jungle jokes was to stop the party in mid walk and hunker down giving us the shush signal. After a few seconds of total silence he would turn to us and, pointing in the direction of some rustling, whisper “Jaguar”. Knowing he didn’t mean the car, I was naturally frightened and then relieved to see a few seconds later that the approaching animal was another guide. Ronaldo found this very funny and tried it on everyone, several times. Jaguars are very solitary and nocturnal and avoid humans like the plague we are. Seeing one in the wild is about as common as seeing David Attenburrough on your bus to work.
Our bus back to La Paz was a longer, bumpier but far far cheaper affair than the plane to Rurre. Gav, a fellow jaguar hunter, Ger and I squeezed into the springy seats and for good measure a few too many people squeezed aboard the bus too and the ride began. I was a little more excited than at the start of most journeys. This bus ride would take in The World’s Most Dangerous Road – a narrow, switch back path all the way up to La Paz with a menacing sheer drop on one side. Ger was a little scared and my philosophy that we had no way of preventing an accident and that we’d more than likely be killed straight away didn’t seem to comfort her, no matter how many times I pointed it out. Gav had already mountain biked down said death road and had no shortage of detailed descriptions of just how scary and dangerous it was. I’m glad he did since I ended up missing out on the whole thing. The road itself was 14 hours from our starting point in Rurre and by the time we reached it it was dark and I was asleep. I awoke from time to time as the driver beeped over and over. There are many blind corners along the road so drivers need to use their horns to alert anyone coming the other way. As I crankily tried to get back to sleep I reflected that they should call it The World’s Horniest Road.

Chile and Argentina are seperated by The Andes Mountains. They are a stark, imposing but ruggedly beautiful feature to look at. On a southbound bus Ger and I had conquered jet-lag, Mount Villarica and the taste of UHT milk with some gusto to spare. Our destination today would be the city of Bariloche, Argentina. Our carrier was the imaginitively named Buses Jac and although we were comfortable we could not relax fully. This was not a direct service. As our bus pulled into the terminal in Osorno I instantly recalled my conversation with John, a fellow amateur mountaineer, the previous night. “Osorno´s a dive”, he said, “There´s nothing to do and the hostels are rotten. Don´t stay if you can help it.” And help it I would. The place, by the looks of it, had all the personality of a ham sandwich. The bus station was a calm enough place. I had been expecting hordes of accommodation touts and shine-box tommies. No such crowd greeted us and I was free to explore the 20 or so bus companies unmolested. After two or three fruitless inquiries I found a desk with daily departures to Bariloche – conveniently timed to leave one hour before the earliest bus from Pucon arrived. After some grilling the lady attested from behind her glass screen that the next possible bus was hers, the following day. It seemed Ger and I would be spending the night after all. On the upside, I had discovered a passtime for tourists – asking about bus schedules – but take it from me, this is a very boring thing to do. It was while contemplating the next dismal installment in my life that I noticed something. Some girls from our Pucon bus were grouped excitedly around a different counter. The lady I was dealing with was now asking a little impatiently if I´d be buying a ticket. She noticed that I had noticed something and I did not fail to notice her change of expression as I stepped away and said I would return in a minute. 5 minutes later Ger and I were kicking back as our new bus sped us to the Argentine border. Competition among the bus companies is cut throat and you can´t always trust what they say. That lying bitch would have to try harder next time.
The city of Bariloche sits lakeside surrounded by snowy purple mountains. The architecture is quite distinctive and you could think you´ve stepped off the bus in Switzerland if it wasn´t for all the Spanish writing and cigarette adds everywhere. We made our way to Hostal 1004. It´s a warm, comfortable place to kick off your boots. The laid back staff blend in commando-style with the travellers – natural smiles and no stuffy ‘I work here’ bullshit. By ´commando-style´ I´m not suggesting they wore no underpants. I´m pretty sure they did. From 1004´s tenth floor perch we had an unparallelled view of the lake and the reflected Andean peaks – the perfect add for a business I was thinking about starting, Andy´s Mountains. Bariloche is famous for two things: ski slopes and high quality chocolate. Since these were all but non-existent in New Zealand, Ger and I were more than eager to dig in. Finding chocolate and snowboard rentals proved easy and tasty. A short bus ride the next morning and we were at Catedral slopes for a day of snowboarding. This was not our first attempt.
A month earlier in New Zealand Ger and I joined our old flatmates, Tyron and Fiona, in the town of Methven near Christchurch. They now worked on a ski slope at Mount Hutt. To the other people I know who have learned to ski or snowboard, it’s been a pricey exercise. Not when your friends are Ty and Fi. From the minute we arrived at their cabin they set us up in their camper van, saving us checking into a costly hostel. Fiona took us up the mountain for our first day, showing us along the way the best hitchhiking spots. There was the option of taking the world´s slowest bus. It climbs the two thousand metres on unsealed road at the pace of a chess match. If you ever got stuck behind the funeral procession of a 200 kilo man you may understand the velocity I´m talking about. Oh and it was $20 per day for the privilege. Now where did I put my thumb? After getting us signed up and helping us fit our various gear Fi gave us a good intro to the basics. Our instructor arrived soon after and we began the lessons. The snow was pretty good that first day and all our falling as we negotiated the novice slope was well padded. Alot of the mishaps were due to an inability to change direction and the profusion of tiny skiing children. One of the rules of snowboarding is that your board will go straight for the thing you´re looking at, though you mean to avoid it. People always talk about how they envy skiing five year-olds as they seem to have the whole thing sussed. I had no time for such sentiments, just hoping not to cut any of them in half. I didn´t manage to end any short lives that day but I earned the hatred a few parents. Day 2 is normally when the previous day’s tomfoolery starts to take shape and you feel like you´re getting somewhere. Unfortunately for Ger and I 2005 has been one of the region´s worst years for snow and all we found on successive days at the slope were hard icy runs and hard icy falls. It was too much stick and not enough carrot for me and I left Mount Hutt with a fairly thorough knowledge of putting on boots and boards but sadly not much else. Anyway I still felt cooler than the skiiers. Their one piece jumpsuits reminded me of Moonraker and watching them walk around like the John Wayne Robocop in their plastic boots took my mind off the bumps and knocks. The baggy clothes and super padded boots that snow boarders wear at least resemble actual clothes and it´s kind of like dipping into a giants wardrobe for a day.
Ty and Fi´s help was not wasted on us. I could see that they got fairly good in a short time and that with the right conditions so could I. Stepping off the bus at Catedral I was immediately impressed with the size and complexity of the operation: an array of clockwork wheel houses propelling chair lifts and gondolas of every size to snowy, forested heights. At the feet of all this perpetual motion stood pretty Swiss pavillions, each one a purveyor of something tasty or stylish or fun. Snowboards, chocolate, huge jackets. The only smudge in the portrait, albeit a necessary one, was the ATM on wheels – guarded, as is common in these parts, by a man with an uzi. Not here for the snow, are you mate? The most interesting structure in my country is a gigantic metal spike that, given it´s muti-million euro price tag and completion several years after the millenium it commemorates, has managed to get stuck firmly in the paw of all who gaze upon it. It also has no secondary purpose – observation deck, museum, suicide point. It´s just a fucking spike. What joy to stand there and appreciate the difference. The map of the various lifts Ger and I would have to take was no less impressive. With all it´s interconnected transports snaking through favourably rendered alpine terrain it looked more like something from my childhood: An adventure map of Colonel Valiant´s Mountaintop Ultra Defense Command (figures sold seperately). We made our way to the top of what proved to be a wide, forgiving and thankfully childfree slope. What a difference: to fall and feel nothing; to see a slope clear of kids and lawsuits; to finally get from top to bottom and feel like we belonged on the slope. Despite a couple of setbacks I spent that day and the next honing the fundamentals. Run by run I built on what I´d learned. Tackling halfpipes and 100 foot ramps would probably be a bit premature. Poor Ger took a wrong turn on day two and ended up on 2 hour trip down the mountain. Alot of flat ground and mucky patches. Great if you have poles to push you along but if you´re snowboarding it´s the equivalent of running in soup.
We spent nearly a week in Bariloche. The atmosphere at our hostel meant alot of new friends. I´ve come to despise the solitary travelling one does when staying in hotels. In some countries they´re as cheap as hostels and this may seem great if you’re a couple and want privacy. You lose out, though. In hostels you get to trade stories and advice about places on the backpacker trail and the opportunity to cook your own meals can be a welcome break from constant cafe and restaurant eating (and you’ll get a gold star from your cardiologist). The staff at hostels are often travellers themselves and can give great insider advice about the country. One of the staff at 1004, an eager guitarist, included me in a three-way guitar session. Apart from the band I was in at home, I´ve never been much for multiple partners but this threesome went well. With the other guests looking on excitedly we played with each other for nearly two hours. At some points feverishly, at others calm and unhurried, like we had all night to finish. With encouragement and sometimes applause from our audience we continued. Some of them filmed us in action and seemed quite pleased watching it days later. What I´m trying to say is that you just don´t get to do that kind of thing in a normal hotel. Someone could be doing it in the next room and you probably wouldn´t know. Privacy is over-rated. Argentina was probably the easiest country to travel in. The best buses, the nicest food, the livliest hostels hands down. I know travelling isn´t supposed to be about comfort and convenience all the time but it´s important to enjoy them while you can. There´s no way of knowing when you’re going to be stuck with another hellish road, stone age toilet, 10 hour wait with no book or whatever. The easy times make the hard seem like a distant memory and the hard times, for all their roughness make the easy so much more enjoyable.
(ie – It’s about to get rough)

Our nine months in New Zealand were and will be the most spent in any one country on this trip. We came face to face with urban life in NZ´s two biggest cities, walked for miles through beautiful national parks and brought joy and laundry to countless towns and cities around the country. But all things good and otherwise come to an end and all that we mortals can do is enjoy what time we have and take as many photos as possible. Our flight from Auckland to Santiago was a good one. Comfy and well serviced as we crossed the international date-line. Despite the name it´s not actually a dating service for guys who want to meet foreign ladies. It´s an imaginary line that seperates, for legal reasons, one day from the other. Crossing it in a Westerly direction -ie LA to Tokyo- means you technically lose a day and are legally entitled to call people at home and wake them up in the middle of the night for no reason. Going East one is forced to re-live the same day in a different city. If your plane is fast enough you can theoretically call yourself at your point of origin and remind yourself to pack more shirts and to turn the gas off.
Ger and I left Auckland at 5pm and arrived in Santiago at 1.30pm the same day. Our customs and immigraton checks were easy peasy and for once we were ahead of the game. I´d booked a hotel the prevous day over the internet and had a nice printout with the address of the hotel and a little map to show the shuttle driver. The drive from the airport was a little uninspiring. Santiago has a bad smog problem and the day was rather overcast. This and the rampant profusion of graffiti on every structure gave the city a decrepit appearance. Our guide book doesn´t exactly sing it´s praises either, describing it as a travel hub for the continent and little more than a necessary evil. Our hotel was much the same, though it had less graffiti and smog but the same tatty-ness. The staff however, were very friendly and quick about the formalities. In accomodation you get what you pay for and Ger and I were happy just to have somewhere quiet to flop – and flop we did. Later on our bodies regained enough verticality to have a blear-eyed dinner at a really cool neighbourhood pub. Great steak and inexpensive beer may not be the cure for jet-lag but they definitely tranquilize the symptoms. The place had a relaxed, friendly atmosphere. So what if the streets and the hotel were a little unkempt – this city is more about results than appearances. Over all, not a bad first night.
The next morning was, despite our improved opinion of the city, all about getting the fuck out of Dodge, as they say in Chile. Getting a bus south was easily arranged and we killed the rest of the day at a museum of pre-Columbian art. That´s basically the period before Europeans arrived and frantically tore the place apart searching for gold and victims. The work was wide ranging and impressive in quality especially when we found out that some of it goes back over 7000 years. Was my country even inhabited then? After some lunch and another bout of unconciousness we made for the bus station. Unlike most of Asia where the vehicles are 7000 years old, South America has a highly competitive, and therefore high-quality, range of buses. Ger and I had opted for semi-cama which sort of translates as ´half-bed´. What you get are well spaced seats that recline most of the way and a padded rest that folds out and bridges the gap between your feet and your seat. Alot of services throw in food and drinks along the way but I´ve since found this to vary greatly in quantity and quality and should be viewed as a bonus. There´s nearly always a film shown and I highly recommend Starsky Y Hutch in the original Spanish version.
The next morning after a quick coffee and bread roll our bus arrived in the town of Pucon where something startling happened. As Ger and I gathered our belongings, we wondered where to look for accommodation. The website I´d used for Santiago failed me the previous day and phoning the places listed in the guide book had proved impossible. A small woman politely approached us on the platform and asked if we needed anywhere to stay. Her name was Alicia and she had a guest house nearby with double rooms, kitchen and hot water for a good price. We agreed to go take a look, were very pleased with what we found and decided to stay for a few days and fight off the jet-lag. What surprised me about the whole exchange was that it took place purely in Spanish. Alicia understood me and I her. Apart from a year studying it when I was 13 and films like Starsky Y Hutch, I don´t have much of a background in Spanish. As a language, though, its really user friendly and so far people here are helpful and encouraging when we speak it. It still pays to have a phrase book handy for on the spot translations. Pucon is located in Chile´s lake district and most of the tourists that can afford to go there are either backpackers or stuffy yuppies from Santiago. One of the main attractions to the area is Mount Villarica, an active volcanoe. So as not to waste the afternoon, Ger and I went for a stroll about town and before we knew it had signed up to climb the volcano the next day.
As it was still Winter in Chile, Mount Villarica was sporting a snowy top and smoking away like a Cuban tobacconist. Volcanoes are at best rather unpredictable and a few feet of snow won´t make much difference if a river of molten lava decides to roll your way. Our guide for the day, Claudio, had proudly shown us a photo of him from 6 months earlier. From a considerable distance, it shows him and a female member of his party being chased by just such a river of lava. They got away ok so our group of six thrill seekers was told not to worry. Claudio´s main concern was that we fitted our spiky crampons properly to our boots and walked in the correct way. When an incline is at it´s steepest it helps to climb the ice as if it were a set of steps – a kind of half sideways walk like Fred Astaire with a top hat and cain. Claudio also showed us how to stop if we stumbled and slid down the mountain and generally warned us about not walking over cliffs. Each warning was accompanied by a jovial ´Hasta La Vista Baby´ which was meant to mean ´Should this happen, you will die´. Nice to know that a joke that has to be over 10 years old is still getting some mileage.
The climb was tough. Mount Villarica is around 2800 metres high and although we covered the first 1000 by bus and chair lift, the portion that remained was the steepest and coldest. Nonetheless Claudio spurred us on and we found ourselves within reach of our goal. In hindsight, he seemed a little surprised at our collective perseverence. He told us later that some groups give up half-way as they are usually yuppies who had no idea what they were getting themselves into. European backpackers, of which our group was comprised in it´s entirety, want always to get their money´s worth and will, through sheer scabbiness, drive their bodies to extremes. To me this would be good preparation for the Inka Trail. That is a hike of several days through Peruvian jungle and mountains that finishes up in Macchu Picchu, The Lost City of the Inkas. Along the way I wondered what sort of structures archaeologists would find in mountan ranges in a thousand years. Definitely not anything as historically rich as Macchu Picchu – more likely The Lost Ski-Lodge of the Yuppies. All joking aside, the climb pushed me to my limits psychologically. At several points I would have accepted any offer to go back but since no one else was voicing defeatist sentiments I was determined not to be the first. We hung in and reached the summit. Our celebration was short. We needed to get back before sunset and bad weather caught up, but we savoured those 15 satisfying minutes. On one side was a gaping, steaming hole that would belch hot liquid rock at you as soon as shake your hand. On the other was an unequalled view of Lake Villarica, the town of Pucon and the Andes Mountains. Beyond was Argentina and more adventures in food, terrain, bus-seating and God knows what else. Over all, not a bad introduction to a continent.

For many people for many years, the history of New Zealand officially began in 1642 with Dutch explorer Abel Tasman. He crossed the Indian Ocean, sighted and named Van Diemen’s Land (later Tasmania), completely failed to notice the world’s largest island (later Australia), and came upon the west coast of New Zealand´s South Island. Again his powers of observation and those of his crew – assuming he had one – come into question. He attempted a landing but was chased away by a group of angry Maori, it being their tradition to challenge all newcomers. Moving north and charting the coast line – the map of which looks alot like a piece of unfinished homework – Tasman failed to notice that he was looking at two islands not one and failing to find another safe point to land, headed for home and presumably logged his findings with a crazy old witch that no one listened to – which was the tradition at the time. All criticism aside, Tasman got some credit and had an island named after him. He is further immortalised by the Tasman Sea, Tasman Bay and a sad looking hotel in downtown Wellington. Although Moari inhabited New Zealand for centuries before Abel’s shenanigans, their history was passed down orally and can’t serve as a reliable record of events. There was one documented event that preceded both Moari and European arrival to New Zealand. In or around the year 185 AD, two seperate Roman historians write about a day when the heavens turned red and stars appeared to tear across the sky. A Chinese historian notes similar phenomena around the same time. Brainy scientists with no girlfriends to distract them claim a massive volcanic explosion on the North Island was the cause. The resulting hole in the ground became one of NZ’s largest lakes, Taupo. I remember being impressed once when I heard a U2 concert from 4 miles away. This thing was heard in Rome and in China – and they saw it! The guys down at the lab say it was the largest event of it’s kind in the last 5000 years – 10 times as powerful as Mount Krakatoa´s hissy fit in the 19th century and at least a billion times as powerful as the flame-throwers in Quake and Doom. Oddly, despite the overlapping historical accounts and all the know-how modern volcanology can throw at the question, no one can agree on the exact year. They do know the month – March – because of the berries fossilised on the day.
The Earth had farted.
What we have today are two lake -side towns, Taupo and Rotorua where large doses of adrenalin and sulphur are part of everyday life. Lake Rotorua and the town of the same name harbor vivid reminders of the Earth´s big fart. It is an area of intense geothermal activity and so the air is thick with the smell sulphur and other delights. Getting off the bus one is instantly reminded of the years spent sharing a bedroom with an older brother or the minutes sharing a car, which can seem like years. The instinctive reaction to the pong is to duck, weave or jump a few feet away to avoid the smell. This is a waste of time as the relentless pong is all around you and like it or not, if you plan on spending time in Rotorua, you have to breath deeply and get used to it. The term ´suck it up´ seems very apt. Our perseverence was amply rewarded with the huge selection of things to do. The obvious and unmissable hot spas are a great option for the super lazy. I´m not sure what the physical benefits are of sitting around and heating up your body to near unconciousness but we enjoyed it all the same. I couldn´t help thinking that it was as harmless and as beneficial as those shaky belt machines that they had in gyms 50 years ago. For the more active Rotorua has plenty of adventurous and downright insane activities to take your mind off the smell. Ger and I had a few goes at louging – that´s pronounced like “losing” if you´re Sean Connery. It´s sort of like tobogganing with a wider track and instead of a big cigar tube you get to ride in a 6 year-old´s go kart. The Noddy effect of having such a tiny vehicle and flying down steep hills makes it feel alot more dangerous than it probably is. Well I didn´t break anything. Zorbing is another ´sport´ that could only have become popular in a country with far too many hills. Basically you get inside a rubber ball and get pushed down a big hill. You have the option of being joined by another person, buckets of water or of being tethered or untethered to the inside of your Zorb. The inventors of the Zorb are currently being sued for copyright infringement by General Zorb of the Galactic Overlord Alliance.
One thing we didn´t get to check out in Rotorua was the intriguingly named Agro-Dome. My expectations of a post-apocolyptic melting pot of violence and agression were a little misguided. The prominent picture of a sheep on their website made me realize that by “Agro” they mean Agriculture. To people who are that way inclined, Agro-Dome has New Zealand´s best sheep shows. Here burly roughnecks shear and generally rough up sheep in rapid succession. It´s a great stag weekend alternative to peep shows and if you like ém shaved, this is the place for you. I thoroughly suggest a look at this portion of their website; http://www.agrodome.co.nz/SheepShow.htm . The photos are open to interpretation. Keeping with the theme of agriculture you can spend your time at Agro-Dome jet boating, bungy jumping, zorbing or at Freefall Xtreme. That´s where you hover over a massive fan for a while to simulate falling from the sky – but beware, I hear it´s Xtreme. These and many other wacky pass times that were once the exclusive province of the farming community are open to you at Agro-Dome.
Another attraction with which Rotorua is synonomous is the Hangi. This is a great way to experience Maori culture up close. For a reasonable price a local tribe, in our case the highly recommended Mitai, welcomes you onto their land and puts on a show that encompasses traditional dance, music, singing and best of all weapons. The hosts go into incredible detail about their philosophy and mythology and you can´t help being impressed by what you learn. I for one was impressed to find out that their distinctive facial tatoos are done using special chisels. You´ve got to respect that level of hardness. After all of this you are invited to partake in the hangi proper. The word, I´m told, translates as “feed” but must mean “way too much food” since our group of 50 or 60 barely made a dent. The whole thing with the exception of the beer and deserts gets cooked by hot embers in a hole in the ground. Don´t be discouraged by this. Liberal use of tin-foil keeps the whole lot clean and tasty. We walked away full of respect and potatoes.
The town of Taupo is home to New Zealands cheapest – and therefore best – sky diving. Ads for tandem jumps crowd every notice board and window ledge as well as ones for hiking up mountains, jet boating and being fired out of a cannon by monkies or your ex-girlfriend. Okay, so they don´t fire you out of a cannon but someone´s probably developing the idea right now. Probably an angry girlfriend or someone with a background in agriculture or monkies. Ger and I arrived the day before Taupo´s annual mini-marathon so accommodation was a little scarce. We found some dorm beds after a short search. As you would expect the hostel lounge was full of middle-aged women chatting over bottles of gin. I assumed this was to prepare for the next day when they would run then jog then walk then quit the marathon. Quitting, unfortunately, was not confined to marathons that day. Our hike along the Tongariro Crossing, dubbed the best one day hike in New Zealand, had to be abandoned after only an hour. Our guide could see a nasty weather front descending – guide code for I´m hungover – and didn´t want to risk it. Despite this let down I had a great time visiting Taupo and Rotorua and would recommend it to anyone with an open mind and good insurance. It´s definitely worth braving the fart smell and imposing sheep billboards and it´s nothing if not distinctive.

Hi Everybody,
We made it. Finally Ger and I are on the South Island of New Zealand. From our vantage point in Wellington we stared longingly across the Cook Strait – two or so months spent imagining the colour and the shape of our next playground. If you meet Kiwis anywhere and tell them you’ve been to Australia they ask why you didn’t go to New Zealand. When you’re in Auckland or Wellington they wonder why you haven’t been to the South. Certain economic realities, airline schedules and a massive TV/couch postponed the journey a little. There was also the threat of a sudden painful death at the hands of Hummingbird’s maitre’d if I didn’t stay for the Lions Tour weekend. Having tied up loose ends, said our goodbyes to our flat mate, Grant, our mates, workmates, mates of mates and flat mates of mates and workmates respectively, we were on the ferry south as quick as Grant’s car could carry us.
Our boat was called Aratere. That translates as The Quick Path – a fanciful name for a lumbering block that would probably have to move over if a sea turtle or the old swimming man from the Guinness ad wanted to overtake. Not to pooh-pooh the Aratere. I forked out for the $15 upgrade on our tickets, largely out of curiosity, and was impressed with what we got: a private lounge with our own window, TV/couch, endless tea and biccies and best of all no children whatsoever. Don’t get me wrong. I love children as much as the next pompous bastard. On long journeys, though, children seem compelled to test the boundaries of that love with maximum volume and few parents are able or willing to contain them. In my defense, the lack of children was not a matter of luck or the ‘Fuck Off With Your Kids’ sign I hung on the door but actually the rules of the upgrade lounge. Should I be blamed for enjoying the hell out of it? I took a stroll outside to get a feel for the boat. With the exception of the humiliating wind and slippery deck, I made the crossing in style. Ger got to watch an impromptu silent film through our cabin window as I Chaplined about trying to take photos of a receding, mist-shrouded Wellington. Sadly, the photos and the rust stains would never come out. The exercise was repeated with far more success at the other end of our journey. Photos from guide books, cinematography in Lord of the Rings and loose descriptions from my co-workers pointed to the fact that South kicks North’s ass for scenery. My expectations were not just exceeded but politely drugged and packed into a retirement home. Our ferry went into hyper-slow as we cruised through the Queen Charlotte Sound with its breathtaking scenery. When I get the tech-know-how I’ll include the photos I took. The Righteous Brotherhood of Geography Teachers would probably give me 100 lines and a sudden painful death if I attempted to describe it. Check out http://www.qctrack.co.nz/ for a few photos and info that I’m too lazy to plagiarize.
After some time soaking up the views we docked in the town of Picton and were driven to our hostel by Rob, possibly the nicest hostel manager I’ve ever met. If you’re in Picton and don’t have a gold card, stay at The Villa. Our rooms (we stayed there twice) were warm and comfy, free apple crumble and ice cream, free breakfast, spa and did I mention free apple crumble and ice cream? Rob hooked us up with a hiking trip on the Queen Charlotte Track and all the info and transfers we needed. By dawn the next day we were in a water taxi, booted up with a bag full of sandwiches, speeding through the sound. There were some mail stops to make. One hotel got its daily papers and a trio of man-sized gas bottles. The next lakeside resident received delivery of a chainsaw – not in its box or wrapped up but ready to go. It had the guy’s name and address attached. I wondered if it was just for his firewood or some kind of Backwoods Mafia threat. On we pressed to our hike’s starting point but not before a pod of dolphins decided to race the boat. Almost on cue the playful little buggers took turns jumping from the water for successive photographs. Perhaps dashing around in the wake of a small boat is the dolphin equivalent of sitting on a washing machine in the rinse cycle or going over a hump-back bridge in a car. The boat slowed down as we entered the cove that would be kilometer zero on our hike. The dolphins seemed to lose interest at this point and broke off their pursuit but not before saying so long and thanking us for all the fish.
One of the great things about hiking in New Zealand (or tramping as it is called here) is that a huge number of tracks are maintained and improved by the Department of Conservation. You don’t need a guide or much experience provided you can read signs and don’t collapse and die every time you climb the stairs. Our first day’s walk went quite well. The initial uphill slog made us feel like a couple of Elvises but once we hit the ridge line the scenery opened out in every direction and Lord of the Rings music began to play in our heads. The view from the ferry the previous day had been a pleasant introduction. When you get up to 400 odd metres with clear skies, the water mirrors the trees perfectly and you’ll think you’ve stepped into a brochure of some kind (one for hikes probably). A couple of lunch stops and several instances of taking away of the breath later and we were descending to sea level and our bed for the night. The DOC provides huts and campgrounds along the track and you can stay there for slightly more than $0.00. You need to bring water purification shit, a stove and a whole lot of other stuff that needs to be lugged by its owner up and down hills. Given that its low season, we found the traditional bed and four walls both available and affordable (and a nice alternative to dented shoulders). A heavenly fish dinner interrupted our diet of sandwiches in the lodge’s restaurant. Only a few other people were staying the night and our tiny group surrounded by empty tables and the total silence outside gave the evening a Shining-esque feel, though pleasant.
Another dawn found us back on the track. The uphill slog back to the ridgeline felt easier, possibly tranquilized by buckets of early morning gusto – the kind you see in Brylcreem ads from the ‘30s. Are my lies that transparent? OK. We trudged cursing up the feckin hill and planned to forgive God and the world later on. The weather treated us well for the rest of the day and we finished up with enough time for a beer in one of the lodges before our water taxi arrived. It was an experience I’d recommend to anyone. All the wholesomeness and exertion of the two days tramping ensured a sound night’s sleep before our onward journey to Nelson. The next morning would mean a packed bus (actually a van with ‘bus’ written on the side), a bumpy road and some very sad and disturbing news from London.
Fred.

Hi everybody.
Ger, girlfriend of my dreams, illustrious partner in crime, irrepressible traveling companion left me. Well for a week and a half. She went to Melbourne and Adelaide with her friend Yvonne. Thankfully she returned. I smothered her with kisses and piles of my laundry. It was so hard without her. Living on pizza and action movies may be the single man’s dream but it has its disadvantages. Scurvy being one. Children ran with terror when they saw my swollen gums and bloodshot eyes. Conditions got steadily worse at home. I was forced to eat over the sink. The dishes ran out very quickly. One day, too weak to reach the shops or the yellow pages, I managed to get a tin of corn open but had to eat it cold. I began re-wearing the same dirty clothes. My boss sent me home from work because of all the food stains on my shirts. I tried to explain to him that I had no bibs left. He said I’d need to get a mistress to look after me for the time being. As if I was in any condition for that. No one thinks of poor me in any of this. I hate my life and I want to go home. If I had any teeth left I’d be on the phone to Qantas and have myself booked on the next flight.
In reality, though I had a great time in Wellington. Don’t get me wrong, I missed Ger but I survived. It’s a much smaller city than Auckland, but no less vibrant and a little more manageable on foot. It has a young character with lots of cheap flats and second hand clothing and book shops. I’m on a budget so it got my thumbs up. There’s the National Museum, Te Papa (Our Place- Maori), which is free to enter. It’s full of art, Maori cultural exhibits, historical stuff about the first Pakeha (Europeans) settlers and bits that I didn’t bother checking out about wildlife. I’ve been to a lot of museums this past year and Te Papa ranks pretty highly. I’d advise shelling out the $5 for an audio guide. No celebrity voices, but worth it. Wellington, so everyone says, has more restaurants per capita than New York City. This can’t be hard. After all, New York’s population is 2 or 3 times that of New Zealand. Wouldn’t this dilute the ratio a little? New places to eat open all the time. I was constantly reminded of this plethora of eateries by proud Wellingtonians and by the little Malaysian man who tried to set up a café in my wardrobe.
The recent test of the city’s limits was The Lions Rugby Tour. Soccer fans seem content with their weekly fix of league matches. The world cup comes along every four years and there’s the Copa America, African Nations Cup and European Cup etc to fill in the gaps. Rugby fills in it’s gaps with strange quasi-national combinations like the British and Irish Lions Tour. That’s when a team of guys from Ireland and Britain combine and travel from town to town in New Zealand playing as many matches as possible. As soon as a few of the small local teams wear the Lions down a bit, the All-Blacks move in and bulldoze their way to an easy victory, declaring themselves the greatest team of any kind in the universe. The 3 Test Matches (testing for what?) played to sell-out crowds in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland respectively. Bad news for the Lions who took 3 straight pummelings from the team that has come to personify international rugby and hardness. Good news for Wellington when the circus came to town a few weeks ago. 80,000 people may not sound like a lot when you’re from a city of a million or several million. 80,000 is over half the resident population here. But Wellington coped. For any of you who watched news footage of the Lord of the Rings premiere, I worked on the street that all the fans crowded onto. There’s a panoramic photo in work of them lining Courtenay Place holding up plastic weapons, dressed as magicians with babies dressed as Gollum. The Lions weekend was similar. A few of the main streets were closed and huge screens erected for watching the match. The only difference in the crowd was that the costume had changed to either red or black jerseys and the weapons were now full of beer. The pubs were allowed to open up all-night bullpens for the extra people. Punters were still queuing up at 3am and paying $20 to get in. Nice if you own one of the places.
The bar I worked at was quite cool. It’s called Hummingbird. Great cocktails. Some of the longer serving staff will tell you about LOTR notables they’ve served. Wellington was pretty much the cradle of the production. Peter Jackson’s Weta Workshop is nearby and many of the cast had apartments around town. The papers refer to Peter Jackson as the most powerful man in Hollywood. I always thought it was Arnie (at least in a physical sense) but times have changed.
Working at Hummingbird meant late hours but there was always a bar open later. I did a couple of all-nighters with the work mates. To say they’re a lively bunch is an understatement. It’s a weird and slightly exhilarating feeling drinking beer at 5am and not being drunk yet. A pathetic sort of feeling replaces this as you stumble home with equal portions of tiredness and inebriation at 8am past people with real jobs (or at least jobs with real hours). I remind you all that the opinions and self-loathing expressed here are entirely those of the author and are not intended to reflect the feelings of other people in the hospitality industry. It’s not all bad. I get free food and the odd free drink (well, they tend to come in odd numbers). The boss is a bit of a party animal but he wears it well. He’s the self appointed lord and master of the CD player too – with mixed results. (Geddit? DJ… mixing…all of you who just sighed at that attempt at a joke have no comprehension of the pressure I am under). David Bowie, Rolling Stones and Louie Prima get plenty of air-time. Unfortunately so does a lot of loud loud children’s music with cockney singers and some ferociously happy monstrosity about the sinking of the Bismarck. Imagine Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren doing Oh Goodness Gracious Me and then exchange the subject matter for a naval battle with hundreds of men drowning and being burned alive. Odd, no? The Stones balance it out though, thank God. So to sum up, I liked the Hummingbird. I’ve had a lot of different bosses over the years and for sheer unpredictability this guy is near the top of the list. It’s time for me to leave town unfortunately. One thing that makes leaving easy is the realization that I’m not going to have a boss of any kind for ages.
Hurray.
Fred.

Hi everyone.
This piece contains events that took place at the very start of mine and Ger’s journey around the world, and although I didn’t write it in the last week of August 2004, it can be viewed as the first installment. Kind of like George Lucas re-writing cinematic history only without the inclusion of jive-talkin, floppy-eared giraffe men. Enjoy…
***
Hi Everyone.
I hope none of you are offended at getting a group e-mail, but time is
money and this is the shape of things to come and so on. Let me take
this opportunity to apologize to each and every one of you at the same
time.
Sorry.
The trip has been going well. Our first port of call was Heathrow – the world’s busiest airport. It is also enormous. How nice it was being reacquainted with this enormity on the ten mile walk through its scenic glass tubes and walkways. I suppose it helps if you think of the distance in football pitches. I don’t find that helpful. Owing to my thorough crapness at all sports, I have been to more airports than football pitches. I’ll be in the mile-high club long before I own a club jersey. Sadly the rushed meal in the little restaurant under the Tap and Spile pub would be my last taste of Europe. There was time for a look in the Duty Free shop. Ger and I both resisted the temptation to stock up on mags, Toblerones, Chanel, Vodka and all the other things one simply must have on a long haul flight (That’s a lie. No one can resist a Toblerone). I still think it borders on the ridiculous what they sell in airports. I mean, when have you needed an X-box or a Gucci suit on a two week sun holiday in Playa del Santa Booz? Needless to say, Ger and I found our gate after a mere hour’s journey through the citadel of dutiful spending. Strapped in. Forms filled in. Books and inflatable pillows at the ready and off we set into the friendly skies. Next stop – Hong Kong.
Upon arriving we passed through the usual rubber stamp entry formalities with a relative ease that would become a distant memory. A quick update on the political situation. As punishment for defending their territory from drug trafficking Europeans, China agreed to hand over Hong Kong to the British government for 100 years. It may have sounded harsh at the time but really it was quite beneficial. The combination of the Chinese work ethic with a bit of old fashioned colonial culture mixing turned the city into the international trade and travel hub. The Peoples Republic of China happily took possession in 1997 of a veritable money factory (I know these are actually called mints but I’m trying to be flamboyant so just go with it). Kind of like inheriting a Ferrari made out of diamonds with a gold robot chauffeur. Many in Hong Kong feared that their vast assets and prosperity would be rapidly siphoned off as soon as the deeds changed hands. Thankfully the new owners have had the sense to heed the gold robot chauffeur and haven’t wrapped Hong Kong around any telephone poles or sold the engine to slick talking con men. Yet. The region forms one of China’s Special Economic Zones. The SEZ is one of the clever ways China’s government gets capitalism on its own terms – patiently and without the rapid changes and corruption that hit poor Russia like a hurricane. No one could say that life or the economy is exactly the same as before in Hong Kong but development and trade have continued. The airport I arrived in is an excellent example of this.
In recent decades, the guys running things (Hong Kong has a Managing Director, not a mayor. How’s that for corporate?) could see that their main airport was too damn small and rather badly located. I think it was in between two blocks of flats, tucked away at the back of a noisy café. Pilots were having a hard time landing and the vast numbers of passengers were getting tired of spending two weeks queuing to get out the front door. They could agree on the food at the café – it was top notch. But where does one put a major international airport? Large open spaces were not all that abundant. So – and this really typifies their can-do / we-have-loads-of-cash attitude – Hong Kong made space. And I don’t mean making space, the way one does on a couch when Predator starts. They made their own island. This was no half-assed Thunderbirds job, like sticking a few hinges on a mountain. They demolished a mountain on one island, scooped it into the sea and joined it up with the neighboring island. Thus creating (no giggling) Chek Lap Kok Airport. It is situated 24 miles from downtown but fear not. Planners included a high speed train and new motorway, inadvertently building the world’s longest bridge in the process. The train ticket cost us $100 each. My heart began beating again when I noted the 1:9 exchange rate of Euro to HKD.
We were at our hotel before we knew it and sipping cold beer not too long after that. The lady we sat next to on the plane recommended we hit Wan Chai. One of Hong Kong’s many British ex-pats, she’d had fun in the bars and restaurants there. The only problem was that it was Monday night and everywhere we went was rather empty. Not easily discouraged, this was still our first night traveling after all, we soldiered on and finally found a bar with atmosphere. I can’t tell you the name of the place because I don’t think it had one. The front door was a curtain. Inside was a small collection of regulars (more ex-pats), a large selection of booze and a delightful bartender/DJ.
Firsts, especially when they coincide, are always memorable. Such was my first Chinese hangover coupled with my first real experience of humidity. Like most fools my age, my attitude was that I’d seen it in films and wondered what all the fuss was about. It’s about the worst surprise I could have had. Strolling calmly from the hotel, we exited the lobby and on passing through the curtain of air conditioning, collapsed. Well our plans of exploring the city did. Constant pit stops for cold drinks and dry clothes were required. We became rather indiscriminate. I think our first meal in China was in an Aussie theme pub. I’ve nothing against the blokes and their kangaroo milkshakes but we found ourselves thinking “Are we in China yet?”.
The answer was yes…and no. Hong Kong is host to peoples from all over the world. You can get just about any kind of food or clothing you want there. What might appear on the surface like an identity crisis is really just a city that’s embraced all of the cultures that made it, even if they do eat kangaroos. The more time you spend there you start to see things that are distinctly Hong Kong. Like the MTR. The city’s train system is spotless, air conditioned (thank God) and even lets you pay with a wrist watch (you can recharge the credit in your watch’s Octopus chip online – well smart). It will take you any where you need to go – even across the harbour to Kowloon. This journey is better done on the Star Ferry. The super-cheap, super-reliable, super-slow ferry service has been plying these waters since the Stone Age. To be honest a tourist like me would rather have it as slow as possible – more time to enjoy the sky line as the sun sets and the lights in a sea of skyscrapers flicker to life. On reaching the Kowloon side, Ger and I were rewarded with the most singular light show we’ve ever seen. A series of lasers and coloured spotlights began to light up and turn off again in perfect time to a piece of music being played over out door speakers to the spellbound crowd. It’s really something to watch razor sharp beams of light slice the night sky half a mile away and office towers appear and disappear in different colours as if by magic and all in time to the music. Breathtaking – another first. Are we in China yet? Yes, thank God, we are.
Fred.

On the Star Ferry

Hi everybody,
This one was written and sent on January 10th 2005 and read by a small group of my friends as a favour to me. None of them have talked to me since, so I have added a few adjustments and ‘funnied-up’ some of the descriptions. Please read on and leave a comment if you like. Although I have the internet equivalent of a bin with a tiny basket ball hoop over it, I promise to read and consider all your comments.
***
Hi everybody.
It turns out that Christmas and New Years were just what I needed to settle me into life in Auckland. One or two celebratory pub crawls have taught me which places serve the lager that gives you liver damage (that’s why it’s so deliciously cheap). Bargain hunting for presents has acquainted me with much of the city’s retail district. Handy because that’s where I now work. No I don’t sell perfume or over sized jeans or toasters that play DVD’s. I work in a Belgian Beer Cafe (BBC) called The Occidental. Those of you who ate in Temple Bar’s ill-fated Belgo restaurant can use that as a reference. The Occi doesn’t have a hundred beers though. The 20 odd beers we have are the real thing – as Belgian as Van Damme – and as tasty. Hoegaarden White is my favourite, though Jean Claude prefers something with more of a kick (yellow card for that one). The food I serve is pretty authentic too – or so the Belgian customers tell me. I have reason to believe them as they will often arrive drooling and wide-eyed chanting “Moule et Frites” or “Whitloef Gratin”. It’s as close to the real thing as you’re likely to get here at the end of the world (without using shrink wrap and a Concorde) and may even taste better.
Not the cleverest career move, however – I decided to be a waiter again in a country where tipping is as popular as Christian rock is in Saudi Arabia (or most countries for that matter). With near religious conviction tipping is not only ignored but actively discouraged. I have witnessed one friend reprimand another for leaving extra money with the bill. To be honest, it’s me who isn’t considering the facts. I’m expecting tips from them after they’ve paid anything up to $25 for a bottle of beer. I should have caught on when the customs official said ” no flora or fauna and don’t tip anybody”. So I depend mostly on foreign tourists for my trinkgeld (German for tips –literally “drink money”).
Thankfully a whole ship full of them arrived the other day. It was aboard the Sapphire Princess. She is the world’s 7th largest cruise ship and carries a nice mixture of retired couples and families whose parents thought it a clever idea to pile all their kids into a tiny room for six weeks. At a colossal 18 storeys, she dwarfed the apartments and hotels next to her on the wharf. Even my old bosses at the Hilton had to send a reminder to all their guests to put on clothes before opening the curtains. I wonder how many Life of Brian moments there were before they decided to send the note (this was later the subject of a local ad for the Yellow Pages, the tagline being “Need Curtains?”). Luckily for me a good few of the jolly old coffin dodgers and swash buckling families came to the BBC and my jar was singing all day long. That’s not the only piece of good fortune I had recently. MTV’s Zane Loe paid me a visit and after a few beers with his mates did the old handshake-with-money-in-it-thing. Clearly his time in Europe has affected him very deeply. The next day I served a nice guy from Rathfarnam. A quick glance at his credit card revealed he was none other than Charles Dickens. I debated with myself whether or not to say “Please sir, I want some more” when he paid. Best not to push one’s luck, I decided.

More laughs followed when a few days later a bunch of us went paint balling for Ger’s birthday. Auckland’s buses are so shit that it was strangely easier to take a ferry over to an island and shoot each other there than it would have been to take the two buses out to some other place on the mainland. It turned out well though. Waiheke Island has beautiful landscape and the weather is always slightly better than that of Auckland. It is home to several wineries and for decades artists have found inspiration in its rolling hills and the relative solitude they offer. This is all rather hard to appreciate when you’re pinned down by enemy fire paint-fighting for your paint-life. We decided to make it a battle of the sexes and pit the boys against the girls. I hate getting philosophical about it but paint-war is paint -hell. And just to dispel any
rumors you may have heard about it, getting shot hurts. The only thing that eases the pain is to inflict it on others – and what a release that is. As a birthday present to Ger I let her team win. Yes it takes a real man or group of men to lose to a team of girls. I think that one’s in The Art of War. I’ll have to check it and get back to you.
I hope you all had a good Christmas and New Years wherever you are and I hope you manage to stay off the fags or the chocos or whatever it was that gave your life meaning. You’ll be hearing from me soon. It’s time for me to break into the music scene here and see what’s worth swiping.
Fred.

Hello to all.
This piece on Dalian, although posted on June 20th 2005, was written and e-mailed to a select few with nothing better to read on September 1st 2004. Please read on.
***
Hello to all
You may resume your envy. We’re in Dalian today. That’s in a little peninsula in the northeast of China. We finally get to go to the beach and from what I’ve read, it’s a good one. We’re staying at the Friendly Hotel on Friendship St., off Friendship Square. But do not be deceived by the name- Friendship Square is actually A CIRCLE. Luckily the other part of the name is very true, as Ger and I found out last night.
We got lost trying to find our hotel. Our taxi driver, although polite and helpful couldn’t seem to find it. Using Friendship Square /Circle as a reference point I worked out that he’d got us close enough to finish the journey on foot. It was a cool evening with none of Hong Kong’s stifling humidity and besides, we didn’t come to China to see the place from the back seat of a taxi. Although we could have. They’re as cheap as chips and you only have to indicate you want a taxi and one will pull up beside you. So eager are some drivers to get a tourist’s fare that they interpret the slightest gesture as “I need a Taxi now”. For this reason waving to a friend, stopping to cross the road, stopping at all, slowing down, thinking about slowing down or looking at a taxi while walking through the city will result in a near pile up. To their credit though, drivers are prompt to continue on if you indicate you don’t need a lift. It’s an unobtrusive form of eagerness that characterizes a lot of Chinese people at work. I wish it was compulsory for market traders everywhere.
Having reached the spot marked in the guide book we found only a hairdressers shop. Two separate people offered to stop what they were doing and take us by the hand to the Friendly Hotel (thankfully the name was printed in both languages in our book). Neither of them spoke English, but could understand us via the universal language of “I’m an idiot and this bag is heavy”. the first man took us to within sight of the hotel entrance and pointed at it repeatedly saying the name. But I, convinced the kindly old man was mistaken (and the taxi driver who dropped us at that exact spot earlier), sided with the guide book and, when he went away, snuck down a side street to resume the search. Upon reaching the same hairdressers by an alternate route we decided to get help from somebody else or get a hair cut.
The sound of scissors and blow dryers ringing in our ears, Ger and I donned our heavy heavy bags and once more sought the honest help of the good people of Dalian. The second man we found walked us all the way back to the hotel (embarrassingly, right past the first man we found) – right to the door. It was time to give in. Whatever hotel this was we were tired and not up for a third attempt. We thanked the man profusely and entered. On check in I noted the phone number on the business card. It proved this was the Friendship Hotel. The friendlies had all been right, we were exhausted. It turns out the place had moved a few streets away since our book went to print.
C’est la vie as they say in China.
A shower, a meal and a beer later and we found ourselves in Bob’s Bar. A three-piece cover band came on and jammed out classics such as Hey Joe, Can You Feel the Love Tonight (Lion King Soundtrack) and that annoying one by Knickleback. We were joined by the manager and then by the band who chatted to us about music and our journey up to that point. They all had friends studying or working in Ireland and hoped to make it over some day themselves. Dalian is a seriously friendly place.
Up the road from here is Dandong – it’s right on the border with North Korea. The two countries were once joined by a bridge over the Yalu River. Today half a bridge remains. It serves as a look out point where tourists go to ‘look’ at Korea. In honor of the war of 1950-53 there is the ‘museum to commemorate US aggression’. With these attractions, I’m sure Dandong is a veritable laugh riot, but it’s straight to Shenyang for us tomorrow. No dilly-dallying.
Take care of yourselves, each other and anyone else who happens by (especially if his bag looks heavy).
Tip- don’t get your hair cut without a translator.
Fred.

This is Friendship Square/Circle. Note the Eager Taxi.
***
Those of you who read it originally may notice a few changes. This was done to make it a bit more readable, add in a few details not considered at the time but mainly because I’m the one who wrote it and can do whatever I like. As this blog grows I will add in older post cards from time to time as well as write new ones. The older ones will include notes like this one to explain when they were first written so as not to confuse any first time readers. Anyone who has a problem with this should go 3 sentences back and refer to the last portion. It’ll all come out in the wash as we say on the internet and by the time I’m finished you’ll have the complete picture – hopefully.
Fred.